Psychedelic Chipmunk 2

NSP Meditations

A chipmunk nibbled a magic mushroom while perched on a branch. He watched the sun set purple and orange over the ocean, his evening routine. The chipmunk’s neighbor in the RV park was a writer bereft of a literary voice, probably because he used words like bereft. One day the writer left his typewriter outside on a picnic table, loaded with a roll of parchment paper. While the chipmunk tripped, he jumped off the branch, onto the typewriter, and tapped out a message to the writer:

I’ve broken through. I can help you.

Jimmy

PS: Leave a saucer of Hamm’s, cracklin’ cold.

The next morning the writer discovered the note as he began his novel, well, not really writing it, because he had nothing to say. He typed a note to Jimmy. When a psychedelic chipmunk reaches out, you best respond.

Dear Jimmy:

Help me.

Tom

PS Hamm’s coming!

Psychedelic Chipmunk!

NSP Meditations

I stepped outside to shake the sand out of my shoes when I beheld a chipmunk in a branch over my head. He was eating a mushroom! Holding the stem with his claws and nibbling the cap like a Kesey madman! Tiny chunks flew away as he nibbled. I didn’t know chipmunks ate mushrooms. How delighted I was to observe this. I clapped! I am no mushroom expert, but the mushroom in question looked psychedelic in nature. Yes, it was a magic mushroom!

The chipmunk and I have been buddies for some time. I leave out water and feed him cheerios and crusts. He makes the most wonderful shrilling sound to announce his appearance in the tree near my domicile. I always say hello to him. I have not yet named him. Leroy? Fred? Jimmy?

So what does a chipmunk do after eating a magic mushroom? This question might inspire a fantastic idea for a freaky children’s book, groovy animated film, spacey song, or off Broadway show. I know I certainly want to collaborate with the chipmunk when he’s tripping. I think I might set up the typewriter and let him scat across the keys and write pure gold…or set out some parchment paper, some ink pads, and let the chipmunk make art! Or a battery-powered keyboard and let him rock!

This is the way I entertain myself these days.

Conspiracy Coffee Shop

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I’m drinking drip coffee and writing a tale about a chipmunk that eats magic mushrooms.

Log trucks are ripping by.

It’s a little after 6:30 a.m. I stopped in the 101 coffee shop before my construction job.

Two old men sit across the room from me and engage in conspiracy conversation. There isn’t a shred of doubt in their words.

“The Clintons murdered someone else. The hit list has been updated. They killed his brother, you know. And Foster.”

“The CIA owns Google or Google owns the CIA.”

And so on. They just know it’s all true because it’s right there on the Internet.

Their conversation turns to the upcoming 4th of July celebration and how it’s been ruined by the local liberals. “Too many self righteous liberals! They can’t keep politics out of the 4th of July.”

“You mark my words, they’ll be banning fireworks next, because of pollution.”

They bemoan the changing softening nature of the celebration. They didn’t want hayrides and petting zoos. They want the famous Indian massacre reenacted, like it was years ago. Why not celebrate genocide? It got us where we are.

I decide not to tell them I am going to give a hundred chipmunks magic mushrooms before the big parade and turn them loose on the town. They would find out for themselves and make a conspiracy out of it. Somehow, though, the Clintons and Barak would find their way into the blame.

Senior Pot Discount

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My associate and I walked into The House of Dank, a Reedsport pot shop, the original Reedsport pot shop. She wanted to load up for her Oregon sojourn.

We entered an old building that seemed spent. The streets and sidewalks around it were torn up for some Reedsport beautification project. They might better beautify Reedsport if they removed all the Trump chainsaw sculptures littering the downtown. But leave the one with his tiny penis.

We struck up a conversation with the two pot purveyors. They gave us the lowdown on the building and the pot business in Reedsport. The building was once a bank, whorehouse and Chinese restaurant. A cannabis chain had invaded Reedsport in recent months and was employing the Wal-Mart strategy: slash prices, incur losses, wait, and then put the independent, locally-owned retailer out of business. I asked the purveyors if they thought their regulars would stay loyal. They thought they would.

They won’t.

My associate delighted in the House of Dank’s funky product line and the sheer preposterousness of the shop’s name. She went whole hog and maxed her limit. But there were two of us so I “bought” my max limit, too. I asked if they offered a senior discount. They did—10%. I said I just turned 55. Did I qualify? Yes, I did. It was the first time I’d ever asked for a senior discount and the occasion was buying pot in Reedsport’s House of Dank with a woman who was in love with Oregon and had just seen elk and sheets of rain.

As a crazy, drunk man once told me in an Oregon campground, “Don’t get no more Oregon than that.”

Actually it did, after she got stoned and we saw a river otter run across the highway and dive into a flooded pasture.

On the Contrasts Between My Construction Job and Teaching

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A month ago, I started a part-time construction job. I am helping to build a house and guest house on some rural property. The guest house affords some incredible views of the ocean and a secret river. It would be the perfect place to hide out during the winter and write a novel.

On the job, I perform all manner of grunt work tasks: sanding, painting, hauling lumber and plywood, site clean up, various nailing, shining nails (I’ll explain that in a later piece), a bit of sawing, drilling, etc. Nothing that requires fine carpentry because I have no skills whatsoever.

I will say, I am improving every day on the job, learning something new in reality and metaphor, and experiencing a few tiny silent epiphanies here and there. I’m also writing a lovesick country song in my head (more on that later as it develops…it could evolve into a concept country album much like Willie Nelson’s Red Haired Stranger). One of the country songs references Karl Marx and Smirnoff vodka.

Working a construction job requires learning a new vocabulary, a professional jargon and slang. I’m picking it up, slowly. I like how the word “purchase” is used in construction.

After a couple of weeks, my body finally broke itself in, and now I am gaining strength in body and mind.

My boss is a fascinating person and a master teacher at teaching me the carpentry trade. He also bakes bread and makes his own apple brandy and Gorgonzola cheese. He’s an inveterate reader and knows what the word inveterate means. He plays Cake and Wiemar torch songs on his playlist that we listen to while we work. He does a hilarious James Cagney impression firing a Tommy gun with a palm nailer. Along with other great crew members, we have interesting discussions at break and lunch about current events and the end of the world, which my boss believes is coming no matter how humans try to prevent it.

If you really think about it, we aren’t doing anything.

My nickname on the site is The Shiner Kid. I delighted the crew by bringing homemade octopus fritters I hauled away from a dive bar. We feasted at break and surely were the only construction crew in the world at that time eating octopus fritters on site.

I have lots of time to think on the job while performing repetitive tasks. One of the things I think about is how this construction job contrasts mightily with classroom teaching, something I did for 25 years.

Let me list these contrasts:

I never take the construction job home with me.

I generally arrive a little before my work day begins, as opposed to 3:42 in the morning like I did on some teaching days.

I never have to devise curriculum.

I make more than $4.75 an hour, what I once determined was my my hourly wage for teaching.

I get to use the Leatherman my ex wife gave me 22 years ago for our engagement every day on the job.

I lose a lot of weight.

I get to hurl scrap wood.

I get to work methodically. Teaching for me was never like that.

I don’t have to correct double negatives.

I get to say aloud. “I want a cold cracklin’ Hamm’s.”

I get to wear a Hamm’s t-shirt on the job.

I can take scrap wood home with me for outdoor fires.

I don’t have to piss in a urinal.

No faculty meetings. No grading. No dead weight colleagues. No fire drills. No active shooter drills. No drug dogs. No taking attendance. No rubrics. No standards. No assessments. No filling out professional evaluation goals. No pep assemblies. No parent/teacher conferences. No pledge of allegiance.

I don’t have to direct anything. I follow directions.

I don’t have to monitor anyone’s phone use.

I don’t have to police inappropriate attire.

I never have to hear the word “inappropriate” spoken aloud.

I don’t have a paid day off to sit around a room with other teachers and try to improve workplace practices.

I don’t get blamed for America’s ills by politicians, evangelical Christians and conservative news commentators.

I don’t have to worry about getting shot.

I get to see the instant results of my work.

I don’t have to practice untrained social work every day.

I don’t spend thousands of dollars on classroom supplies and food, treats and field trips for my students every school year.

I get to perform repetitive tasks and that allows me to write in my head.

I don’t have to interest anyone in anything.

No staging open mics and rock festivals.

No Pledge of Allegiance.

No angst at end of day.

No struggling with hundreds of instant daily decisions that affect the future of young people.

No gossip.

No working for a boss who isn’t the best at the trade he is supervising. ( I always longed to work for a principal who could kick my ass at the art teaching. Teach me dammit!)

I get to cuss on the job.

I get to see a bald eagle while working.

No banal announcements every morning.

I get to hear quail and thrushes.

I don’t have to be complicit with participation in a system that largely trains/brainwashes young people to serve capitalism and ruin the planet.

I get to watch clouds.

I get in shape while I work.

Hearing Jumpin’ Jack Flash and Flashdance never sounded better.

I get to sing along to songs.

I sleep much better.

I get to run shims to carpenters like Gunga Din ran water to soldiers.

I don’t dread Sunday nights.

I don’t have to worry about my body odor offending anyone.

No field trips where students sneak away to smoke dope, fornicate or climb trees, or all three at the same time.

I don’t occasionally steal copy paper for personal use.

I don’t have to use a computer on the job!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

101 Coffee Shop (Another Morning)

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An elderly man exits the shop in an old fashioned wheelchair. I interrupt my writing of a kink modern Western to watch him wheel down 101. Another patron says the old man just moved from Portland and is gold mining in the area. Mining gold from a wheelchair? Got to work that in the Western.

On my way to the shop, at approximately 6:45 in the morning, near the turnout off 101 where all the surfers park, in the shoulder of the road, stood a figure with long straight brown hair past the shoulders, wearing a fur coat of some kind, and tight yellow terrycloth shorts with white piping. I didn’t see any baggage around the figure. As I drove past, I saw the face of the figure—it was a man in his 60s or 70s, clean shaven, looking a little spent.

What in the world could he (she?) be doing there at that hour on the Oregon Coast. I could only surmise he was waiting to get picked up by a trucker. I’ve got to work this character in the Western.

After the wheelchair man left, an older man enters the shop with his ukulele. He often bikes in from a nearby campground and plays for his breakfast.

He is just settling in when an older woman wearing pink yoga pants, black leg warmers, some kind of Flashdance cut sweatshirt bolts into the shop. Her hair is white and spiked in Mohawk fashion.

She strikes up a conversation with ukulele man and I learn she is driving her trailer up and down the Oregon and California coasts and serving as a mobile minister to women suffering from sexual abuse. I take a gander at her trailer parked outside and it’s stickered and painted with all manner of healing statements, affirmations and scriptures. Apparently, she pulls over in turnout with a grand view of the ocean or sets up shop in a campground, and, well, starts preaching.

She sees the man’s ukulele and said she has one her in trailer. She rushes out to get it, and a few minutes later after coffee, saying grace, and a breakfast burrito, the two are playing and singing Amazing Grace six feet away from me.

This scene will somehow make it into the Western, but it could go either way—dark or redemptive. I’m thinking the former is better for kink.

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