From the Godfather:

"Our program, basically, was to drive the real estate goons completely out of the valley... No more huge, space-killing apartment buildings to block the view, from any downtown street, of anybody who might want to look up and see the mountains. No more land rapes, no more busts for "flute playing" or "blocking the sidewalk"... f*@k the tourists, dead-end the highway, zone the greedheads out of existence, and in general create a town where people could live like human beings, instead of slaves to some bogus sense of Progress that is driving us all mad."
Hunter S. Thompson on the mayoral campaign for Joe Edwards he was working on in Aspen, 1969, a year before he ran for Sheriff on the legendary Freak Power ticket. From Rolling Stone article, Oct. 1, 1970 "The Battle of Aspen: Freak Power in the Rockies"

Aloha Saints and Princesses

Ahoy old friends,

The gelatinous goo is sharply falling by the wayside, and the calmness of graduate life is gently setting in.  Have I graduated from sobriety? No; just from a masters degree program that was completed by a combination of showing up for class and doing my homework. This is a similar recipe for success in sobriety. Go to secret anonymous meetings, and do your step work. (Call sponsor).  Today I depart for a short stint in Hawaii, in a home full of drug and alcohol consumption (read Grandma's house).  But one day at a time  I will not be partaking in the general inebriation.  Life is good. So much to be grateful for, high on the only drug you don't come down from, sobriety. Real life shot into the main vein of consciousness. Trudging on and sending blessings from the Ghost faced bandit.

Aho,

The Goose Wrangler.

Secrets

Underground secret meeting today with a bunch of men. It was a beautiful thing. Real humans talking about the adventure of life. Talking about families and death and being present. Like an ongoing living journal, some star trek star log for earthlings. April, 21st, 2012, survived 4/20 and all the stoned bay area, chilled sober and a beautiful day. And today is another day. The madness of gonzo calmed through a simple life. Yes indeed, folks, it did get weird enough for me. Just for today, I'm appreciating taking it easy. Anger rises, anger falls, staying below and moving gently in the vast emptyness, the void in which everything exists. Everything in here is temporary, but it's all existent in forever. The emptiness is completely whole. Why not be present for the ride? The next frontier: mainlining life. Pure, unadulturated reality. Yeefuckinhaw!

Airport Update

Gracious me! It's been a long time brothers and sisters. I'm at the Denver Airport, sitting at the Woody Creek Bakery and Cafe, another seemingly Aspen Valley spun business expanding into the exosphere. I'm sweating profusely. Miles, a young Army reservist who was sitting on the plane next to me on the Aspen to Denver flight, was telling me how because he only cares about enjoying life (we only have one after all) he likes to drink and smoke and get crazy, and I was saying, for the same, only one life, reason, I'm sober. He asked me if I drink coffee. I responded in the affirmative. He told me that he had me cold, I'm not sober. My sweat glands don't seem to think i'm sober either. Between my ADD medication and a serious caffein habit, young Miles may have my number. Relativity may be a flawed theory, but in this case, I'm going to plead it. At least i'm relatively sober. Compared to getting stoned from morning till night, and getting nearly drunk every day by sundown, this caffeination may be some sort of dangerous super sobriety. I'm agitatingly aware of my feelings of agitation. This is no drunkenness, but I'm still avoiding my study of the prophets with this blogpost. So ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters both Gonzo and greedhead, I wish you all safe travels. Aloha.

Goose Wrangler

Happy Birthday Bob and your Sober fan Mr. Wrangler

2012 in Socially Constructed Reality.

Well, on 1/11/12 I made it to a year of sobriety. I'm sitting here watching the Denver Broncos get slaughtered in the playoffs by the New England Patriots. It's not looking good. It's a blood bath. But i'm on the bus. No cocktails, no weed, no powdered inhalants up my nose. Not much to report, graduate school, secret meetings, studying, heartless romance, same old, same old. The Sober Gonzo has been preaching about once a month. That's always interesting. Oh, that's a good idea. Maybe I'll post the most recent sermon. Anyways. Doesn't look good for Tim Tebow and the Broncos tonight. Not looking good at all. But I'm going to sleep sober tonight. One day at a time. That's all it takes. One day at a time.

Still Here

Haven't given up yet. Last year about this time, I jumped off the wagon again, after I had a gym bag, a back-pack, and a couple of full journals stolen, car window smashed through in San Francisco. It was an Olympics bag from the 1980's. A few days before it happened I had a dream that there was a crackhead wearing that bag, who had a couple of my journals.  I had the dream written down, on the first page of a journal I was writing in, sitting in a restaurant in downtown SF, while my car was getting broken into a few blocks away. They stole one or two full journals, full of poetry, and the first few pages of The Father of Lies. They also got some gym clothes and an older pair of running shoes, and a bunch of theological books. Probably very little that a crack smoker was looking for. The glove compartment was unlocked. They left the ipod in it. There was also a camera and a hard drive with resale value, sitting under the Olympics bag, that the thief overlooked in the darkness and their hurry. Oops. Maybe they will finish my book for me.

A few days later I started getting drunk again, smoking weed and drinking wine. A month or so later I tried smoking crack. I bought it from a man in downtown San Francisco, but he wasn't wearing my bag. And the high was no good anyhow. I'm glad about that.

If I keep taking it one day at a time I will have 11 months sober on the 11th day of the 12th month of the 11th year of the 21st century; but numbers are just about as over-rated as crack.

Nonetheless, I think I'll just stay on track, play it safe, stay off the crack, and leave the past where it is.