Stack That Cheese, Becoming A Hip-Hop Historian

            “Luke, what does smack that cheese mean?” two of my college-aged co-workers asked me the other day.

            We were closing down the restaurant, and like usual, we were listening to hip-hop. The subject matter of the question: a song by Lupe Fiasco, in which the chorus is, “stack that cheese”. It’s not “smack that cheese” I explained to the ladies, it’s “stack that cheese,” cheese is money, and to stack money means to save it, stash it away.

             Another piece of modern lexicon was added to their brilliant young minds, and we went back to cleaning. Then I wondered, when did I become a hip-hop historian?

             For me hip-hop is a love-hate relationship. If there is one form of music that speaks directly to my heart it is hip-hop. If there is one form of music that disgusts me it is hip-hop. Hip-hop is alive. Hip-hop is dead. Hip-hop is sitting on the mountaintop, singing the praises and joys of being alive. Hip-hop is down in the gutter, sipping hard liquor and syrup, waiting to be resurrected. Hip-hop is a reflection of the human condition.

            I don’t remember where my first hip-hop tape came from, probably a Sam Goody store at the mall, but I remember its manila color, and the energetic vibes that the Beastie Boys created. It was License to Ill, a 1980s classic, with Led Zeppelin sampled guitar riffs and outrageous lyrics. Lyrics that would later shape high school and the excessive partying that led into higher education. Simply put, the Beastie Boys were trouble, and what does the confused youth love more than trouble?

            In high school, when the world moved into CDs, I kept Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre stashed away in my desk, for fear my parent’s would find it. In essence the songs on Doggystyle were similar to License to Ill, partying, misogyny, and standard misbehaving; which is exactly what I wanted to get into as a teenager.

            I now look back to the 1990s with nostalgia. So out of reach. Many say the golden age of hip-hop was in the 1990s. In the nineties, to me, hip-hop was simply rap, music that was made for partying, for escape, firmly removed from reality. In my senior year of hip-hop I decided I was tired of rap, and became a hippie, perhaps just for a change in drugs to do at parties.

            So the golden age of hip-hop, a crescending wave, crashed over before I even realized it was there. Luckily, at my third college, up in Gunnison, Colorado, I realized there was more to live for than partying. There was the outdoors.

            Hip-hop was invented in the concrete streets, in New York in the 1970s. Founded within black culture, there were three essential ingredients in hip-hop: the music, graffiti art, and breakdancing. It didn’t take long for hip-hop to spread across the globe, or to become commercialized. Still, today in 2014, the essence of hip-hop remains alive and vibrant: kids are still rapping, dancing and creating art with the same tools from the inventors (at least in a figurative sense) from America to Zimbabwe.

            So I moved from an urban existence in Illinois to the rural Rocky Mountains of Colorado, and finally discovered the true beauty and genius of hip-hop. I made the transition from being a hippie, to being, well, just me. Doors began to open in my mind. My friends and I would take trips all over the country to climb, and hip-hop was always on the stereo.  

            One buddy in particular, Big Red the Superjock, was a DJ on the local radio station in Crested Butte, and we had intricate discussions about our favorite artists and their work. Hip-hop was more than just music for partying, way more.

            Hip-hop is art; it is about knowledge and self-discovery, and in the words of my second favorite duo, Black Star, “Life without knowledge is death in disguise, that’s why knowledge of self is like life after death. Apply it to your life let destiny manifest.”

            I learned about the drug epidemic, about how many rappers only escaped jail because they got into hip-hop (Former crack dealer Jay-Z being the most famous). The anger and injustice of 400 years of slavery was voiced through many artists. Tough and honest voices against capitalism, though hip-hop has been noted as the only pro-capitalist form of music out there (again the contradictions). Another great duo, Dead Prez, raps about a proper diet, exercise, love, poetry and yoga, “You are what you eat, so I strive to eat healthy, my goal in life is not to be rich or wealthy.”

            My favorite was (is) Andre 3000, of the duo Outkast. Such a poetic pure soul, Andre 3000 is still ahead of his time, 20 years into his career. He embraced the cool of hip-hop, while remaining true to himself, “Softly as if I play piano in the dark, found a way to channel my anger, not to embark. The world’s a stage and everybody got to play they part.” When Andre 3000 raps, whether it is about struggle, drugs, violence or love, you feel his soul. When he says, “we the coolest mutherfunkers on the planet” you feel like the coolest mutherfunker on the planet.

            Even the Beastie Boys came around. My path mirrored theirs. After years of partying and debauchery, they started rapping about meaningful topics. They apologized for their misogyny and stopped carrying weapons. They started getting involved in the Free Tibet movement, and featured Buddhist monks on one of their tracks. Before his untimely death Adam Yauch aka MCA, spent a winter dirtbagging it as a snowboarder at the Alta ski resort.

            So there it is, a brief history of how I became a hip-hop historian. I kinda like it that, like myself, hip-hop has a few grey hairs. The art is getting better, and worse, all at the same time. It’s everywhere, from commercials to street corners, but the essence of hip-hop lies within the doers: the graffiti artists, the breakdancers, the up and coming rappers; people trying to make something from nothing.

            And if you’re still confused whether you should be smackin’ or stackin’ your cheese, you can buy me a beer; we’ll talk. 

This article is published in today's Durango Telegraph.

My two books are called: The Great American Dirtbags and Climbing Out of Bed. Click on the titles to view them on Amazon. 

The Golden Hour (and The Golden Thong)

“You always stay at a party ten minutes too long,” my buddy Shaun says.

            So true. With the trifecta of the Outdoor Retailer (OR) show, Snowdown and the Superbowl occurring over the last two weeks I’ve done my share of partying, and now I’m ready to get back in my normal, mellow routine. But first, I’ve got to dive back into that untrustworthy narrator that is memory and recall exactly what happened. 

            The journey up to the bi-annual OR show in Salt Lake City always involves a stop through Moab. My friend, Buddy Bear Benson, as I call him, lovable as a teddy bear, lets me crash at his place when I’m in Moab climbing, or just passing through. OR always involves a lot of networking and partying, and afterwards I always feel burnt out. So this year I committed to getting some exercise in before and after the show.

           

            So Buddy Bear and I meet up around four o’clock, and as a Moab local he’s got the perfect climb picked out for us. A two-pitch moderate crack route, five minutes from town that is still basking in the last rays of the setting sun. The Golden Hour. I always get stressed out preparing for the OR show (I’m not a natural salesmen) and getting on the rock reminds me to breathe and focus on the task at hand. “Enjoy the moment,” Buddy Bear says before I take off from the belay ledge.

            Climb completed in two hours before the sun leaves us, I take stock of the surroundings: massive chunks of ice floating down the Colorado River, the sexy, alluring, yet dangerous maroon sandstone walls, a velvety pink sunset, and a good friend. “What lives we lead,” Buddy Bear waxes poetically. “We live in the richest nation in the world, and after work we get to climb on these beautiful sandstone walls.”

            Buddy Bear and I crack a beer, and he gives me a local’s bonus, showing me some petroglyphs just up on the hillside. The next morning I’m off to Salt Lake. Off Highway 70 at a gas station in Crescent Junction I meet my buddy Shaun, a natural salesmen, who is committed to helping me achieve my dream to become a full time writer and publisher. Our friendship has been molded by the loss of two great friends in the last two years, both who lived in Salt Lake, and when you lose friends you appreciate the dear ones in your life who are still living.

            We drive up to Salt Lake and make fun of each other like we always do, while finding common ground on the iPod. (Jay Z and the Grateful Dead.) Arriving into Salt Lake the noticeable thick layer of toxic smog hovers over the city, and we barely arrive in time for our first meeting.

            In a three day period at OR I can network more than one year of sending out emails and queries. Nearly every single outdoor company is represented there, as well as renowned outdoor writers, editors, photographers, and professional athletes. We lock down a few new sponsors for my publication, The Climbing Zine, and I get to meet my literary hero John Long, who promises to write an endorsement of my next book.  

            We attend after parties, and after-after parties, and after that have to flag down the ever-elusive cab in the quiet late night of Salt Lake. We stay at many parties ten minutes too long and at the end of the show, and after breathing the polluted air for three days I’m ready to head back in the direction of home.

            Time to head back to Moab for another day of climbing, to set the soul right, and breathe fresh air. We revel in the off-season of the red rock desert, climb with no one around, and bask in the sun.

            Back home in Durango I catch up on my sleep just before Snowdown hits. Other than entering a karaoke contest I didn’t have any plans for Snowdown, but I do own a catsuit and some leopard print clothing, so it was too easy to head downtown and partake in the festivities.

            After the parade my roommate and I wander downtown, and notice that Durango Dance is hosting a “Booty Shaking Contest”. We rally some more friends and check it out. All I can say is: Best Snowdown Event. Ever.

            A rowdy crowd inside, with a hundred people outside looking in made for an infectious spirit as both men and women shaked their booties for audience applause. Women are more naturally inclined to the art of booty shaking, while some of the guys resorted to other trickery, like breakdancing to get applause. But one fellow stood out from the rest.

            From the moment he entered he was a crowd favorite. He had a good 40 years on any of the other entrants, and when he entered the floor he owned it. It wasn’t his dancing, it was his swagger. As each round progressed he gained more and more applause and his opponents less and less. Soon he had the crowd chanting, “Old Guy, Old Guy, Old Guy….” And the contest built to a feverish pitch. Destroying the field, and the dance floor, he was a hero, and awarded the prize: The Golden Thong, an item he promptly put on over his pants for display. When he left the studio, a crowd of admirers waited, erupting in applause for this Grandpa that had captured their hearts.

             It all went downhill from there. I did have a blast at the karaoke performing my old standby, “U Can’t Touch This” complete with a well practiced Hammer Dance, but it was a travesty when my friend dressed as a monkey failed to make the top three. His “Welcome to the Jungle” rendition was nearly identical to Axl’s delivery, and garnered more applause than anyone that entire night. Best costume and best delivery, and the judges didn’t even give him the top three. I mean a screaming monkey belting, “Shaaanana, Naana, Neez, Neez….” with an otherwise quiet crowd erupting in applause. If these judges are on the Snowdown payroll I think an investigation is necessary, but I digress.

            After that we witnessed drunkards getting arrested and kicked out of bars, taking the spirit of celebration way too far. We all know what happened on Sunday too, and I won’t bother commenting on that. And, I’m ready to get back into that early to bed, early to rise routine, to follow the rhythm of winter for a few more weeks, and leave parties at just the right time. 

Weed and Typewriters

Something groundbreaking and equally unremarkable happened as of January 1st in Colorado: anyone over the age of 21 can legally buy marijuana. Of course you loyal Telegraph reader already know that. Everyone knows that, it’s plastered over every paper from USA Today to the New York Times.

As someone who voted for the measure I’m proud to be a part of what will hopefully be a trend setting law for our country, and across the world. One of the major reasons I support the legalization and decriminalization of the herb is that people should simply not be going to jail for marijuana use, simple as that. If alcohol is legal, then weed should be too.

I contemplated filling my column on the legalization of marijuana, but I simply don’t have it in me. I’m bored just thinking about a thousand words dedicated to weed. Maybe the Telegraph needs a proper marijuana editor like the Denver Post? I’m sure there wouldn’t be a shortage of applications, or perhaps we could hire within?

No, you won’t find me painting my face green, wearing a weed necklace and waiting in line for an hour to buy some legal marijuana, I’ve got work to do. There are enough champions for this cause. Plus, I’m working on my New Year’s Resolution: to write on a typewriter.

I got the idea from my friend Brian. Each year he makes practical, achievable New Year’s Resolution. Last year his resolution was to wear more blue jeans. He also has a sock addiction and owns nearly 40 pairs. He prefers women’s socks, and says he likes the colors and they fit better. He also doesn’t smoke weed, but loves the smell of it. He sent me a text last week that read, “Finally I can smell in the open without fear of prosecution.” Brian’s full of quirks. Once on a road trip to Yosemite we brought a dictionary and kept ourselves entertained by looking up new words. It was formidable.

I bought an old typewriter at a local thrift store this summer, and figured why not put it to use. I once attended a party where people wrote poetry on a typewriter, and I felt like a beatnik. I’ve always wanted to be a beatnik. Other than that I’ve never used a typewriter. I’m part of the very first computer generation, and like the 13 year olds with iPhones these days, I take it all for granted.

But since I’m old school and was born in the seventies, I’m starting to do the whole, “When I was your age” thing. For example, “When I was your age, we couldn’t text girls, we wrote them notes, and they had to circle yes or no if they liked us, and you had to risk getting your note caught, or other people finding out who you liked.” Or, “When I was your age, we didn’t have cell phones, we had beepers, and my Mom found my beeper and took it back to the store because she thought I was going to use it to sell weed.”

I once had an English professor say there’s no way we’ll know how the computer has affected literature until years from now. I mean in some ways I’m envious of the writers who never used a computer. No Facebook and Twitter to distract you, no iPhone buzzing texts while you’re typing out your great masterpiece. No wondering if your personal information has been compromised by Snapchat or Skype or Target. Just you and your thoughts at the typewriter. And, aside from my desire to be a modern day beatnik, that is why I wanted to compose something on my typewriter, that meditation, that lack of distraction, that beauty which comes from a singular, meditative focus.

My typewriter, it sat around for months until one day I got motivated to replace the old ribbon, and put it to use. I took a picture of it and went to the one office supply store that I thought might sell typewriter ribbons. They saw the picture, told me it was super old, and I’d have to order one online. So I did. Five dollars.

People have either laughed at me when I tell them about my typewriter or they say things like, “that’s sexy.” Then they see it and its covered in cat hair and dust, and its like 70 years old, and they just say, “eeeewww.”

To me this typewriter is like my shelf of books. There’s no rational reason to have this shelf of books, I live in a small room, where I could expand my yoga floor by getting rid of my books and simply putting everything on a Kindle. But I hold onto my books because they make me remember when I read them and fell in love with them, and made me want to become a writer, because there’s magic in beautiful stories and the book is a work of art, and its perfect and people will go on writing books forever because we need them to live.

So, when I returned home from the holidays my ribbon arrived and I cleaned off the typewriter. After watching a YouTube video the ribbon was successfully installed. And then I started writing on it. The words are blurry and I had to use a single finger keystroke, and play around with the mechanisms to type. I started getting frustrated. But this thing is 70 years old, and it still works! Looking at my computer and my iPod and my iPhone and they are all going to be in the trash in five years.

Now, back at the computer I appreciate it a little more. I also want to buy a better typewriter. Maybe my old one is just something nostalgic, something to sit around like my bookshelf and make me appreciate this juxtapose in time, where we can have the luxuries of modern technology, and the nostalgia of the past. And we can go to the store and buy weed (no beeper required). 

This piece was originally published in the Durango Telegraph, January 9, 2014.

The Freedom Mobile's Last Stand

I wish I could have afforded to keep "The Freedom Mobile" but nothing lasts forever. Here's a final reflection, originally published in the Durango Telegraph, January 2012

I’ve waited until the last minute to compose these words. Not because I’m slacking off, but because I caught the flu during a trip up in Salt Lake City, Utah for the Winter Outdoor Retailer Show. For the past couple days I’ve been laid up on the couch, unable to write. This morning, as my deadline is staring me right in the face I feel much better, grateful that this nasty bug seems like it’s going to pass.

Even though I do feel better starting to write something feels like I’ve never written before. It feels like this bug has attacked some brain cells, in addition to the other havoc it has wreaked on my body.

So as I was working through this post-sickness writer’s block, I decided to look though last week’s issue of the Telegraph online. Since I was out of town last week, I hadn’t seen the paper yet. The title for Missy Votel’s La Vida Local “Germ Warfare” caught my eye. As I read through her comical take on the flu season I felt grateful that my bug seems like it wasn’t going to stay around for as long as it does for some folks.

Anywho, after that dismal introduction, what I wanted to write about this week was cars, specifically The Freedom Mobile, my graffiti-ed, red, white and blue 1988 Mazda that I recently replaced with my dream ride, a Subaru Outback.

Before it was Freedom, it was just a car I bought for a thousand bucks. I drove that thing all over, from Mexico to California, even before we spray painted it. It was reliable and got great gas mileage. I lived out of it for months at a time, camping, climbing and devising systems to get around that pesky 14 Day Limit rule. One of the most hilarious antidotes happened when my Dad was taking a look at my car, and opened up the flap under the trunk. To our surprise, there was a plant growing out of some dirt that had found its way down there. Further investigation revealed a bag of beans I’d bought in Mexico slipped down there, and so had a patch of dirt. Yes, this car was fertile.

The patriotic, spray-painting was inspired by the 1969 American road movie, Easy Rider, with Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda, where they travelled the country in a red, white and blue motorcycle, donning the clothes of the same color. I’d already put some 40,000 miles on this car, and figured it would last maybe another year or so, why not graffiti it up?

When I painted the car I was living in Gunnison, gainfully employed, and I could have easily afforded a new ride. Instead I decided to spend my money on things that seemed more important at the time: gear for the outdoors. I had two bikes that were both more valuable than the car itself, not unusual for a mountain town resident.

When the economy tanked my job got cut to half-time, and I was ready to move on from Gunnison. I packed up everything I owned into The Freedom Mobile and hit the road. I knew I was moving to Durango, but wanted to take a big road trip first. I’d planned the trip with my buddy Dave from Telluride, and at the last minute his truck blew up. We’d have to take The Freedom Mobile.

We drove into Utah, to Red Rocks in Las Vegas, over to Joshua Tree, California and over to Yosemite. Now well over 200,000 miles the Freedom Mobile just kept rolling. Never mind that every single warning light was lit up, and it made weird clicking noises and smelled like leaking antifreeze. All over the American Road we got positive responses, my favorite, a woman sitting passenger in a truck who passed us in Utah, hooked up to breathing oxygen, she looked at us, and gave us the biggest grin I’d ever seen and two big thumbs up.

At the end of that trip I just prayed it would take us back to Colorado. I scored a house sitting gig in Durango that would start soon, and had to meet the owners of the place. They lived in a plush home in Durango West 2, and upon seeing the car remarked, “it looks like it’s been through a war.”

Every time I thought the Freedom Mobile was going to die, it just kept going. Nothing lasts forever though, and as winter was approaching I considered getting a new ride, something with four-wheel drive to be a little safer in the snow. I started looking around, and really started getting serious when my friend and mechanic, Andrew Kubik took a look under my car and said, “You need to get a new car.”

Andrew helped me find a 2000 Subaru Outback, with a mere 150,000 miles. To me it feels like a new car, and drives like a dream. The first question my parents asked me was, “you’re not going to spray paint it are you?”

I ensured them that I wasn’t going to, much to their relief. I do still love the concept of art cars though, and there’s nothing like someone rolling up next to you at a stoplight and giving a big smile. There are some cool art cars in Durango, more than I’ve seen in any town in Colorado. I even met a lady in Telluride one time who organizes an art car parade in Houston, Texas, apparently the biggest in the world; who would have thunk it?

In the end I quit while I was ahead with Freedom. It could have easily broken down somewhere out in the Utah desert (that became the furthest I would take it after the big trip), but it didn’t. When I got the new Subaru my friend Katie Brown asked me if I was going to miss the Freedom Mobile. I replied, “definitely not.” I’d taken Freedom so far I was just glad it didn’t leave me stranded in the middle of nowhere.

I’m more excited about where the Subaru will take me; it’s a good feeling to have spring around the corner, and to have a new ride. But, for now, I’m headed back to the couch to nurse the rest of this sickness. 

A Peter Pan Complex/Hammertime Love Letter to Durango

In between the time I write this and when it’s published, I’ll turn 35 years old. Also, my driver’s license expires, something I realized just before I was about to get out of town, and back to climbing in the desert.

As I was walking into the DMV I suddenly remembered what I’d done to my hair two days before: replicated my favorite 90s pop hero MC Hammer’s hairdo. The bottom layer of my hair has three distinct lines shaven into it, and the top is a white boy’s attempt at a flat top. Why did I do this? Well, each year for Thanksgiving my crew of friends unites in the desert to climb, party and feast, and of course as any proud Durangatang would, I show up in costume, and this year, well, let’s just say its going to be Hammertime.

Photo by Mike A Shaw

So, with this decision, I’ve extended my immaturity for the next ten years, sealed in my driver’s license photo, which is fitting because I get carded regularly, and most people when they ask are surprised by my age. And, I must say if I’m going to extend my Peter Pan complex into my mid-forties, there’s not a better place than Durango. Well, at least for someone who loves costumes.

Three years ago I moved to Durango on a whim, a yearning for a change of direction in life. I was becoming too serious, spending too much time in an office, and tired of the politics that accompany such lifestyles. I wanted to be broke again, to write like a broke writer does, to explore once and for all if I had what it took to become an artist, and not simply one who eats by the copy he writes. I’d yet to have a family to support, and been close enough to love to know that such things come into a person’s life along with love. If I was going to try, and really fly with it, it had to be then, or never. A writer must build his house of words over years, decades, a lifetime.

So here I am three years later, and, well, I’m writing. I haven’t written my masterpiece, though at moments its been sketched in a journal at a coffeeshop, or told through whispering sweet nothings to a ladyfriend at a dimly lit bar when both of us had just enough to drink. A dream is only a dream until it is told to a lover, then it has been born. It is up to the dreamer to keep it alive. It is up to the writer to not spend too much time drinking and dreaming, just enough. And the love holds it all together.

As part of my morning routine I always check the website of two newspapers: the Durango Herald, and the New York Times. I get the facts, but what I’m looking for is some soul, someone who has a way with words to tell me a story. Then, in the Times, I came across, “The Long Goodbye” an article documenting fifty years of writers saying so long to New York, usually leaving with dreams unfulfilled. It compared the romantic vision being a writer in the city, with the reality. And then I realized, the town I chose to live out my early thirty something writing dreams has not only fulfilled those dreams, but it has become home.

Home. A writer needs adventure, and just as much he needs a home. And, when did this transition occur? Was it in the early morning light, on the rocks, with my tribe of people, the climbers, all searching together for the same damn thing, that thing that transforms us where the rock and climber weave and dance. Was it through art, where people, faces from the town become names, friends, and we tell our stories to one another; the medium where I went from being “vanilla rooibos tea guy” to my name to the baristas at my favorite coffeeshop. The joy of discovery to learn that nearly every waitress is not merely a waitress, there is often an artist and a dream that lies beneath the apron.

This junction of mountain and desert, as I try to write about it now I’m getting too close, its time to get out in the fresh air, and experience it. Why this is home is beyond me. It was left up to the stars and the moons years ago, and I suppose I’m reuniting, instead of creating. The stars of the night have their answers, don’t they? Human will versus destiny, it has to be a flow and not a fight.

So am I Peter Pan, MC Hammer, or a portrait of an artist as a young man? A piece of each I assume, though I suspect for the next ten years my Colorado identification will scream “Stop…Hammertime”. I can only hope I’ll continue to get carded.  

Naked In The Desert

While I was on the road recently I met an artist whose favorite muse was the naked body. I was intrigued, first, because she was a beautiful thirty-something woman, from Aspen of all places, but on a deeper level it made me ponder why. I’ve later thought about how writers get naked.

I left on this road trip not wanting to leave. I was on a roll. I was in the zone writing, and working a bunch at my night job. Saving my pennies, something I’ve never been too good at. But, I’d planned to do some book readings, and hoped to squeeze in some climbing too. It was too late to bail. So off I went, out of my comfort zone of home, onto the road.

I was rolling solo but there’s this buddy of mine that always comes with, my ego. This jabbering monkey is always whispering sweet nothings of how great I am, or breaking down and telling me I’ll never make it. Both are voices of delusion.

My first presentation in Fort Collins was a bust. Four people showed up. I read from my book anyways, trying to hide my disappointment. I’d driven eight hours that day and only ended up selling one book.

The next day was windy and cold and I drove down to Golden to meet my friend Alexis for breakfast. A brilliant and talented artist who recently relocated to the Front Range from Durango, Alexis moved there just before the big flood hit. The flood caused all sorts of complications for her living situation, and now just a couple months after moving into a new place, she already had to relocate. She told her story as a metaphor; she had a positive attitude, the struggle being the blessing.

I was frustrated and flustered, cities always make me flustered. Already I wanted to be back home. In that diner there was a part of home, a true friend, willing to bend her ear, and tell me the words I needed to hear to continue living the dream. “Someday you’ll look back and miss these days,” she said.

With a cup of warm tea my heart and spirit warmed up and I hustled the streets of Golden and Boulder, going into gearshops and selling a few books and zines. The dream alive for another day, then it was back on the road.

The road ultimately led to the red rock desert, where my dreams are always reborn. When success eludes me, love fails, or I’m searching for answers the desert provides. I’ve been on a six-month hiatus without much difficult climbing, a result of an injured finger. During this time there’s been more questions than answers, accidents in our climbing community resulting in some serious injuries, I watched a dead body get plucked off El Capitan in Yosemite, and had another friend die in a climbing accident. Wondering, will I continue on this path?

Castle Valley answers. Perfect towers up to four hundred feet tall, castles made of sand, some divine force that sculpted something so perfect I can’t help but be drawn towards them. I join my climbing partner there and we lay out camp. Home.

My mood changes, and I think differently. I’m no longer concerned with money, progress or success; I am in the desert to reconcile with climbing. My energy to climb builds until I can’t contain it, then every fiber of my being is engaged in the fight. I dress my body for the battle. Pants, a long sleeve shirt, taped hands and hardware to protect the crack. My climbing partner smokes cigarettes. I hate cigarettes. It’s like the old west, something raw, exposed in the elements of the desert, seeing what surfaces.

I can’t back down from the battle. I squeeze my body into the crack, inching upwards for progress. Then it swallows me, I sink down in fear. What the fuck am I doing? If I fall here its all over… I get it together and continue to inch up. Finally, I reach the top of the pitch. I look down to my knot and the rope is nearly sliced in half. Despair. My partner joins me on the ledge. We bail, the rest of the climb will wait for another day, month or year. Then the ropes get stuck after we rappel. We must return the following day.

We return, against our own will, but for the better good of our souls. One point in the climb involves a true leap of faith. Chimney-ing between two walls of the rock, it widens. There must be a commitment to step across the void to some half-inch edges. Complete and utter focus and surrender. We succeed, on the top, the summit, the red rock towers lead into snow capped mountains, into the blue sky.

That feeling is back. Mastery over the doubt that is always creeping up. Adrenaline. Feeling I’ve fought another day and emerged victorious.

We go into Moab. The land of warm beer. Perhaps Colorado should liberate Utah from its Mormon Stronghold and absurd laws. I love the desert, but the Mormon culture that surrounds it freaks me out. Time to drive back towards that “Welcome to Colorful Colorado” sign, and be home again.

First I return to the Front Range again for another presentation. It’s in Longmont, I traverse the interstate back to where my travels began. Not a single person shows up for the presentation. I manage to sell one book to a guy who climbed once. He tells me his story, and describes a glorious peanut butter and jelly sandwich, with legs dangling above the void. Sounds about right.

“There’s no success like failure, and failures no success at all,” Dylan said it best. The things that made me feel good are not measurable in the context of society. Thinking that pouring my heart and soul into words to become successful is simply delusional. Success and money won’t make me happy. Give me more struggle, aching muscles, and glorious, meaningless victories. Let me stand naked with my words, knowing I’m crafting my art because I love it, and for no other reason. And, when it’s time, take me back to the desert.