Return to Aspen

The sober gonzo has returned
To his home
Full of drugs and beauty
Has left the drugs behind
Heading to the Woody Creek tavern
To drink iced tea
Up on the sunny mountainside now
And walking down
Into the future
After taking the ultimate drug
Life
Don't want to disturb it
With any silly substance
That I might have to come down from

The best part about sobriety is that you never come down. The worst part about sobriety is that you never come down.

Riding the Sharp Edge of Insanity

WEEHAA!!

Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, cawbirds, eagles, and squirrals, listen to the madman, who sits atop the dusty nest of twigs. The hardest part of madness is keeping the balance of its beauty; and doing this without the substances that you used for years to balance it all out, but which finally led you to completely flip out. Yes old friends, the Sober Gonzo has not yet lost the game. I'm still on board the ship, still dry up here on the sunny deck, but its foggy here in Berkeley, as I torture myself in the theological world of faith based hermeneutical readings. Take it one day at a time. That's what they say. And it's all I can do. Lighten the old boy up, and chill him out. California, surrounded by crazies. Just like me. Aren't we all reflections of each other when the chips fall, humanoids? As our DNA reproduces itself on down the line, running around the earth skin, cruising on up that freeway out of Africa? Yes, old friends, we're all going somewhere. Where are we going?

Take er easy,

Goose Wrangler

I fought the claw and the claw won.

Oh damn. Team, the dawn is hours away, and there is no cocaine on the table, it's another sober day. What to do? Pray? Ask for help? Both of those are probably good options. Insanity is such a pain in the ass. I have gotten sober so many times over the years, and I have gotten drunk so many times over the years when I started listening to the argument in my brain between the asshole who says "let's get drunk," and the still small voice that says "hang in there, don't pick up." When I listen to this conversation, the problem is that the still small voice gets quieter and quieter, and the drug addict, alcoholic, mind just gets louder and louder.

Eventually, my brain and body is completely hijacked by this beast, and doing lines, taking bong rips, and drinking vigorously, seems like the only answer. Then it's off to the races. I don't really want this to happen again. I'm not sure if it was the premature trip to rehab at the age of 16, having the 12 steps crammed down my throat along with a thorough washing of my brain, but somewhere after the third relapse and the 2nd or third year of my 3rd return to drinking, I began to hear an enthusiastic voice in my head that said "quit getting fucked up all the time!" It was really quite frustrating.

Anyways, I started trying to get sober again in 2008 after a good 4 year run on wine and herbs and other sundry goods. So here I am again, and where did that divine voice of my using go, that told me to sober up? Now that I'm sober again for a while, I hear this voice that tells me to get fucked up! Insanity, my friends.

It's 1:07 AM now, so I made it another day sober, in 9 days it will have been 7 months since my last inebriation. Time to go to sleep. Fuck it. Put the plug in the jug. The road less traveled. Where will it lead? Like I said, sobriety is the hardest drug I've ever done. Searching for the middle way, walking along a very sharp blade, trying not to fall off either side, or at least not snort any of those tempting powders up my nose.

Why does cable TV have to show such rampant drug use all the time? If it's not booze it's one damn show after another of people addicted to drugs, getting high in jail, getting busted with drugs, getting busted trying to smuggle drugs. Is it supposed to be a deterrent? Is this supposed to make people not want to get high? It doesn't have that affect on me. Watching Anthony Bourdain makes me want to get drunk; and the Discovery Channel should be called the discover drugs channel, they have more cocaine than the Sinaloa cartel. Anyways, there is going to be some new reality show called Weed Wars, I doubt that it's going to help with my cravings. Being a junkie is a real pain in the ass. It distracts a wrangler from his mission to save the world, and that can be frustrating, and that in turn leads to more cravings. It's a vicious cycle. Aloha. Good night.

The Old Craw

Well team,
The Goose Wrangler is home. The mother has left the material realm. She left her body. There was life in it, open eyes, then there was nothing. She faded away. There was only flesh. So we're still taking one day at a time. I spent a couple in Denver. At the airport I saw a bumper sticker that said Duck Commander, with a nice little picture of a duck in flight. My friend Chris said he knew of Duck Commander. He's a Christian Pastor who travels and speaks at Churches I gather. He is a relative maybe. Someday will we join forces? Goose Wrangler and Duck Commander take wing! We just don't know team. But drinking and drugs are not the answer to my problems today. Life in the present moment, that is the goal to be attained. Finding the NOW. That space right between two hands clapping. NOW. Right there. If I can just get right in there. The whole darn show is unfolding just so. Aloha to the crabapples, the flowers, the darkness, and the rainbows. AHO! the ghost says from the shadows. The dream continues.

Now did i mention...

I'm on the plane. Getting ready for takeoff. Free drink ticket in pocket, but I'm grateful to be sober, I will give it to a neighbor, and relax with a coffee or club soda. Feeling grateful today, as I prepare to fly to Houston, and since we are going to be open and honest, and this is digitally anonymous, I will tell you that on the 25th we board a merchant airship of the finest kind, my mother, little brother and I, and take off for Zurich, that bastion of assisted suicide, mom is going out in style. She will get a blessing, be saged, and exit the body, to explore the next dimension. This will be a new experience for us all. I was feeling very sober and on solid ground facing this little journey, but a baby just started crying in the row behind me, a desperate, miserable, dribbling, gooey, maddening, sort of cry. It is a chorus of awfulness from one little being. Time to give the drink ticket away. Say a prayer for your lunatic friend. Aloha.

Mental Terrorism

Well the excrement is thick these days kemo sabe, washing up on the mind shore like oil spill scum. These rats of faith, pouring out fear on the masses, amassing billboards of lies. This is nothing less than mental terrorism and we call it freedom of speech. Burying positive potentialities of our consciousness under dark, spirit crushing mud. Tomorrow is the 21st. Judgment day. There is poison in that cool aid. See you all on Sunday. We are all going to die. But very unlikely that we all die at the same, except in cases of wrong place wrong time. But that's just life. More shall be born, and this psychotic way of projecting our fear of death, our self centered attachment to our individual selves which culminates in a theology of a faith in an eternity of me, myself, and I living in eternal award or punishment is just the limited consciousness of the past, of a psychotic, lonely, judgemental god concept without a wife, with a son he sacrificed on the cross. We could really draw a prettier picture of a god that might help us stop lying to ourselves so vigorously. Know nothing. Know Nothing, and you might find yourself closer to God, not that there is ever actually any separation in the first place, outside our minds. Aloha. Now is it. Here it is. How can the world end right now? How bout now?