My kung-fu…. is no good!

(I remember one time seeing a kung fu movie on TV, and there’s a scene where some guy with white hair… It must have been Pai Mei… kicks some other guy’s ass and then says, in a really horrible dubbed voice…

YOUR KUNG-FU!
IS NO GOOD!

(And I think Scott Gilbert must have seen it, too, because he made a comic about it for the back of his collection of work, and it always makes me laugh.)

Anyway.

I gave up on the power steering rack, before really starting. I bled the fluid, but didn’t get to the rack. And I just paid some guy a bunch of money to do it for me. My tiger crane style is no match for the tie rod style!

Now to put the new tires on the thing, re-bleed the coolant system, cross my fingers, and set out.

Driving home today, I felt like the thing was near enough complete. It’s all downhill from here, metaphorically speaking. Literally speaking, it’s all uphill until I get to south-central Wyoming and cross the Divide Basin. And then it’s all downhill. Until I head back.

Every time I look at it, it looks like a giant Hot Wheels toy.

Something someone else ‘blogged about reminded me of a story. It’s not a new story, and it’s one most people have heard, but I’m going to tell it anyway.

So there’s this zen master and a student, and they’re out on a walk, and come to a river crossing. The bridge is washed out, and there is a young woman on the bank.

The woman says, “Could you please help me across the river? I have this load to carry,” she points to her satchel, full of heavy produce to take to the market, “and I fear I’d be swept away if I tried to cross with it.”

Now, back in those days, it was forbidden for monks to even touch a woman, much less carry one across a river. But nevertheless the zen master said, “Of course I’ll help you. Here, climb on my back, and my student will carry your pack.” So the woman climbed on, and the master carried her across the river. The student followed with the pack.

After much careful wading, the master, the woman, and the student are on the far bank. The master puts the woman down and she thanks him and heads off one way. The master and the student head off in another.

The two hike along their path, through the forest on a sunny day, a gentle breeze carrying the scent of sweet decay from the forest floor… They walk for an hour or so, and then…

“Master,” says the student. They both stop. The master turns around. “Yes?”

“Master, it is forbidden for monks such as us to touch a woman. Yet you carried one across the river. How can this be?”

The master replied: “I only carried her across the river. You’ve been carrying her through this forest for the past hour!”

I was wondering about the origin of the name of California, so I looked it up on wikipedia. Result: Less than certain.

In the early 1500s, it turns out, there was a novel published in Spain that talked about a sort of garden of Eden ‘to the west of the Indies.’ This place was called the island of California. This name was in the minds of those Europeans who ‘discovered’ the place.

Prior to exploration north of the Baja peninsula, a European could be forgiven believing that California was an island, separated from the mainland by the Mare Calfornica, or California Sea. Maps of the time depicted the continent as separate from California. But after the exploration, the story of California as an island continued, right up into the mid 1700s.

People like a good story, and maps were expensive to replace back then.

And I have to say, I like the phrase ‘mythical geography.’ Which I’m linking to, because I like it.

‘My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts‘ has been re-mastered will be re-released on April 11th. (Click thru for demo tracks.)

And on top of that, you’ll be able to get ahold of the digital multitracks under a Creative Commons sort of license and re-mix some of it yourself, if you want to. Which, to me, is the most amazing news I’ve heard in quite a while. This album is tremendously important. Being able to remix it would be a little bit like getting a chance to tell Picasso how to paint Guernica.

It’s not hyperbole to say that this album is the precursor to all the sample-based music we take for granted today. They did it with digital delays and 1/4-inch tape and razor blades. If there were no ‘Ghosts,’ the technological developments still would have happened, but the fact is that Eno and Byrne got there first, and that counts for a lot.

Plus it’s fun to listen to.

This is very, very good news. Like, VERY.

I want you to take a moment and follow this link. And when you do, realize that this is not a parody site.

That’s where we are. Those people are the ‘them’ in ‘us versus them.’ I used to care what they think, because maybe there would be a way to find middle ground. But there isn’t, because they don’t want to find middle ground. It’s too politically advantageous for them to play on bigotry, hatred, and projected self-loathing, so we get bullshit like this.

See also here.

Picked up the power steering rack today, which had finally arrived. It’s kinda cool looking. Like a prop from Aliens. Tomorrow is International Take Your Kid To Power Steering Day! Celebrate by installing power steering on a Vanagon! W000!

Other arrivals: Rear hatch struts, which are the easiest thing in the world to install, if you can manage a circlip. New radio antenna; replacement isn’t complicated, once you realize you can just duct tape the antenna wire to the old one and pull it through. The guy I bought the van from had put a piece of thin black plastic dowel into the broken antenna so I wouldn’t notice it. Dickhead. Also some tiny plastic hubcaps, of the kind that go over the hole in the middle of the alloy wheels. And last, but by no means most, a piece of plastic that clips right on to the interior 12v flourescent light fixture so the wires aren’t exposed.

Tomorrow: Bleed the power steering system (and but good… the new rack is not cheap, even though it’s rebuilt), install rack, more bleeding action, drain coolant, fix the hose leak at the rear heat exchanger, and hopefully take delivery of the new tires.

Off to the service bay to put on the new tires and get an alignment, unless I can figure out how to do that tonight.

Sometimes I think I should be a mechanic, but I’d hate it.

Oh, and at the parts store there’s an ad for an ’86 syncro (4WD) Vanagon for $1600. In the middle of the ad are the words: ‘Minor problems.’

This guy has recipes you can cook on your Westfalia’s two-burner stove. Lots of semi-roughing-it camp food wisdom.

Hey, guys… When you’re using the term ‘social network,’ you’re not supposed to take the ‘network’ part literally!

Seriously, though, I think it should be organized as ‘neighbors.’ That way I can be the annoying neighbor who plays classic rock too loud and leaves his car parked in the yard.

I’m still in a GRRRRR frame of mind, since the parts still haven’t arrived, and I’m running out of small jobs to do that don’t involve having power steering and driving to Texas. Hopefully, though, as the day progresses, I’ll be blessed with an embarassment of riches through UPS.

Ok, so before… I felt crappy. Now it’s the simmering aprés-crappy, which is seething resentment and bitter sarcasm.

Lewis Black mode, once I get started, so I’m watching the extended version of ‘Return of the King.’ I finished the first DVD and went to get a burger. Now for part two.

I started watching ‘Kill Bill Vol. 1,’ but I kept finding myself vying to be more cynical than it was. At least the cathartic violence in ‘King’ is supposed to be for a larger good and all kind of moralistic stuff like that.

Sometimes I wish I could turn all this stuff off in my brain, just for an hour or two.

I’m in a crappy mood, dominated by the desire to just scream random shit at people. A crow just flew by the window, and I want to go yell at it for a while. Fukkin’ crow!

Not really. Just I want to. I can’t turn it off, and that’s kindasorta OK, except that it’s frustrating.

Part of being me is prolonged intellectual and emotional states of mind, and I just have to wait and metabolize it, much like a drunk has to just sit around and not do anything stupid before they sober up.

I hate this feeling. I want it to be gone. It usually takes more to start it, but since I’m a little stressed as it is, it didn’t take much this time.

People who know me often say I’m not particularly emotional, but what they’d mean if they knew what they were talking about is that I’m usually careful about what sorts of things I get upset about. Because I’ll be upset over time, even if the need has long since evaporated.

Grr.