Ain't got no Game

Sascha ain't got no game.

Today is a beautiful day. the tree in my backyard is drooping leaves down into my face and the sun pours threw them because they're young yet and let the light through like its natural. when the sun is out like this, the fish kick it near the surface of my pond and just huddle there, bathing, treading light.

the bullfrog tadpoles are getting sluggish and the transformation is nearing completion so they just lie half-lidded near the muddy banks of the pond dully aware of their legs protruding where yesterday skin was smooth.

Little Man is hitting up the milk fiercely because I guess a growth spurt happens at least once a month. its hard to tell really, because each week is different. This week he has been taking cat naps and sucking down milk, using his hands to try and grab stuff but missing and kicking the blankets off and laughing at anything i say or do.

Lao Ba is back in the crib and dropping fist sized dollops of pig fat into the spinach and tofu soup. He loves that pig fat. Just finished lunch and the birds are hovering around my back door, peeping in to see whats happening.

DofuPi the Puppy is comfortable with his surroundings finally and is off in the chicken coop messing with the hens. They pretend to be angry and flustered but i know those hussies love it.

I'm here rooting for the Sabres and the Celtics, reading Robert Jordan's last Wheel of Time book (fuck you, Robert) and trying to see through the illusion.

Today's Smiles

This is becoming a baby only blog now ... i don't really want that ... but for now its all i have to show ya'll ...

Little Man

Today has been a good day. above is a pic of lil man and his brother -- the other boy was born in the same room, Yushi and the mom knew each other and she gave birth a few hours before Yushi did.

From Now On

Dorian turns two weeks in a little less than an hour. The following is an altered message I wrote to a friend and is the post I was trying to write all week but never really had the time or the energy to put it all down. So thanks, Melissa, for getting me to spit it out ...

there is so much to tell. first off, he is doing good. he eats regularly and A LOT and he poos yellowish green. so that's supposedly good. he sleeps pretty decently, maybe 2 hours or so between suckles and at night he gets in a good 3-5 hours. He has these little pimples, little white heads, on his forehead right between his eyes that drive me berserk. i use this salve on them and it works, they are much less than in the beginning, but they aren't gone. i know today is his second week and things go slowly, but it bothers me.

he chokes on the breastmilk sometimes and i have to burp the hell out of him, takes a while, but it usually works well and he ends up passing out on my shoulder.

he has about periods every day, just at dusk or after his bath or maybe when the noonday sun reaches in, when he is super curious and he stares about 2 inches above my head as if there were sprites teasing him there. he looks at everything and has a whole series of expressions.

his arms and legs are (abnormally?) strong, he can bust through most swaddling and i have to hold him down when he gets angry, when he wants out, when he wants to eat and when he otherwise want to kick and squirm his way into/out of something that I haven't really figured out yet.

every time he sneezes I think he has a cold. he sneezes a lot. stresses me out.

Yesterday he tried to kiss me. he leaned in real close and we looked at each other and i could feel his recognition, his appreciation his love and his inability to express it all and i felt his animalness and also the chaos beneath as all of these emotions were washed away suddenly by the flickering of lights on the wall.

my feelings for him are very simple, but hard for me to express or fathom. He is a part of it all, from now on, and that's basically it. It doesn't feel like the lightning flash some people talked about, or the One Consciousness Hippy Love that others gushed over. He just is and therefore I am ... a Father and Guardian.

There were two lil poems I wrote in the past couple of weeks and both of them were mystic and lofty. I wonder if they were the watershed moments of emotion that surround the daily burping, pooing, suckling, half-smiling, blurry-eyed reality of a two week old whose existence depends utterly on my ability to take care of him.

My Rainy Poem

Zhang Yushi -- Yu means rain, Shi mean poem or poetry or poet ... depending.

i met her for the first time back in the days when i was a real rake and rastabout. tenzin my man and i were playing chess in the ole cafe in Fanghua Gai in Yulin. I remember two giggling girls watching us play the fools for them. that was about 7 years ago. a little over one year ago, we bumped into each other again. i didn't remember it, but you know when you get that feeling, like something is about to change forever? well i had that feeling but i didn't really know it, i just thought it was a chance for me to -- for one time -- not seduce a girl and just be her friend and brother and confidante. so for a time, Yushi came to my rundown country house and hung out. she brought her stanky dog around, stole tenzin's steak, frowned at the weird shit i was cooking, listened to me preach, became my Shifu's favorite, impressed my sage homie Zhuang with her quick mind and ability to pierce through the bullshit.

she helped take care of my kitties, rolled with me into the earthquake spot, helped me mend fences with my neighbors, took walks with me at night in the last days of the village i lived in. she became friends with Andreas and Julia the photographers and one by one my friends wondered aloud to her and me, what plans did we have? where was this going? I loudly proclaimed that i was her protector and brother and teacher and friend and all that. she just kinda looked at me.

i made her lose her job at the newspaper, when i asked her to help me with a story i am working on and she decided to come with me rather then to her job. i never heard her mother's voice, she died in february, but i spoke to her just minutes before she did and i can feel her. her pops came up with a name for my tea house Ma Bang Cha Yi, which means ... Horse Camp Tea Tent. He feels me. He once told Bean (her nickname, which she got on a ride through the mtns to my Shifu's school) "nide ba de zhongguo wenhua xvyao liangge ren zai bi de shang!" which means ... your pops got game!

She tells me about myself in way that hurts because its all true. its like looking at a painting and seeing a red woman and then tilting your head and seeing the house and hills behind her and maybe the expression on her face if you tilt another way. i can only see red, at best, she points out all the other stuff.

at one point, i rolled to beijing for the olympics and before i did i asked my boy how did he know about his girl and he said, when you roll somewhere, she's the one you think about. i thought about her all the time. Still do.

we gonna write books together, raise a god together and grow shrooms and bud in china and spread the Word together.

I'm done with work and in a week i fly out.

Well well well

What Providence, What Divine Intelligence ...

so i am leaving the Wagon today and headed to a different brighter spot up the road a bit. I am looking forward to it very much and i believe its the best way to get my thing going before i head to China and begin life as a family man. Holy Jesus.

I haven't dropped any of that story on here until now, for whatever reasons i may have had, they remain mine alone and now they have become irrelevant and so it is time to letchaya'll know the deal:

Zhang Yushi is 6 months pregnant with my son and the due date is in February. It came as a surprise and it was definitely unplanned -- in a manner of speaking -- but its something i have wanted for a long time and I am excited to get this thing going.

So, sure it was unplanned. I did not want to put the cart before the horse and I assumed i would be hit by lightning before i settled down with a woman, but at the same time i have been willing this for so long -- the entire time i was in China as a matter of fact. I was given multiple chances to be a father but each one was cast aside by fear and doubt and simple fact that the future held too much suffering for me to contemplate. This time, I can see a beautiful future ahead of me and it seems so damn ordained that for me to run this time would be the end of me as a man and the completion of the devil's plan for me. I would become the demon that I have feared for so long and end up sucking the souls of others for sustenance till my ass got got by a man with morals somewhere sometime.

Thankg God that didn't happen. Instead I made the right choice and in a few short months I'll post pics of my son (or daughter, still ain't 100% yet) and then I guess this blog will be filled with those words and those inspirations ... for some time to come.

mazeltov.

Chirp Out Day

Chirp Out is the day of freedom and joy for my Tribe. Its the day when we hit the road again after a season of trimming and farting and smoking and such. we hold councils on the daily and estimate the exact date of the final chirp chirp. we figure less than 10 days. maybe one week. after all of this, i might walk with around 6k. its not what i was hoping, but its good money in a good spot with good people and eachtime i come here i get stronger (and maybe weaker?) in some way or another.

So i have this homeboy SUPABOY in brzil right now and he is a shaman. we all knew this and to hear it from the horse's mouth is just confirmation of long held beliefs. the questions i ask myslef these days basically revolve around my increasingly tenuous hold on this reality coupled with the fact that i am going to be a father in about four months. so i have a family to take care of and a seed to nurture and at the same time my own individual experience tells me that the time is nigh. i know hippies and such talk about 2012 in whispers and loud proclamations. i believe in some of what they say even as i deride hippies for being the shades that they are. why should i sneer at a hippy goddess when she is just giving voice to what is in my head anywayz? perhaps because i feel that my path is more righteous in some way.

and getting into that, there is a dude at the ranch that judges all paths according to his particular experience and he does a lot of sneering. i find myslef laughing at him too. so i just bide my time and do battle with doubts. in the end, life has taught me that my free will brings me to where i need to be ... the path might be straight, but i needs be wandering off into the underbrush before i am reminded that the way is laid out. its what the universe wants anyway. complexity -- because the universe in the beginning was lonely and continues to be so until every single atom and molecule sings along with the one voice.

these thoughts collide with the very present needs of baby formula, nice house, clothes and the proximity of me to them and them to me (my family here is what i speak of) and the merging of all this into one clear train of action and thought is, i guess, what it all is.

i am with my crew and our energies crackle out loud and i can feel that even as we grow closer and stronger something holds us all back into our own perceptions. it is only me and my and I that will face the truth alone. and it is only with my crew and family and brothers that i can face the truth alone. the dichotomy of it all makes me sit and watch and observe, because any action is fraught with its twin: inaction.

safety and sanity vs. the unknown and the only thing we should know.

i feel ready to shatter and impervious to all weapons at the same time.

a sentence that hit me while i was on break from dry trim smoking one on the wagon's porch:

"sunlight through the scrub oak, a sparrow flies between them on wings of gold."

thats what it looked like to me. and even my homie hans had a halo when he stood before the oak below the nest and chuckled to himself about something as low low low as the deuce he just dropped in an overflowing outhouse. only by writing these things down can i keep the threads of my reality together just long enough to be there for all my family and people when they need me. I used to worry (and sometimes i still do) that all this writing is just for me and myself but every now and then a brother or sister will read it and feel it and laugh with me and say in a low whisper by a rain spattered window above the street that

i was thinking the same thing just now.

I got out of the house

My brother was sworn in yesterday and is now considered by the Supreme Court of Minnesota to be legit. Bonafide. Hey ...

here are some pics from that day (more pending from the actual swearing in):

me and my cat gimpy

Gimpy got his first taste of pussy last week. I can imagine the look on his face, that shocked yet determined screwed up expression. A dash of confusion. Thats Chou Gui on the bed takin it all in ...

Its been an eventful week. I met with a lot of people here involved in international trade and China and it seems, like always, that whatever I wish for tends to just roll into my lap. its not the rolling into my lap part that's hard, its the next step. I have learned over time that that's pretty easy too. When i just cease to be what I think people want me to be, then all goes according to the great plan. its very easy on my mind actually. But like China, meetings tend to be big here. Lotsa of meetings and proposals and "going forwards". Its always amazing when something actually does happen because so many people probably had a hand in it and there were so many stages and processes and cutbacks and shortcuts and long routes around that when the goal is finally met, the whole world sighs in relief. Then we do it all over again.

I have been doing superman exercises and punishing my core with the wheel exercise. Its a good sore. The kind that eases back when you hit it with more pain. I have been getting Nicole thinking abut sex a lot. hahaha. its evil, I know, but I can't help it. I walk up while she's messing with the computer and just whisper something dirty that Mike Villar always used to say, then walk back out. HAHAHAHA. Oh man. She hasn't given in yet, but I expect her to booty call some dude soon enough. No woman can hold out for long. The downside is i ain't got noone to booty call and i don't know how much longer i can hold out neither ....

"I am not that into ..." tattoos short hair and multiple piercings. I know its cool and all, but I am just not that into it. I am also not that into out of shape women. Not that I am in shape. I dont expect in shape women to be like OOOOO sascha has a body. So me and the out of shape girls are in the same boat. We just aint gettin on.

And please don't put any "saaaaaasch, why don't you think about this and that" or "why don't you do this and that."

Stay off my blog if you trying to preach.

I'm into connections and empathy. Telekinesis and dream analysis. Big brown eyes and a knowing laugh. a girl that knows why bacon and biscuits and gravy is the SHIT. A girl down to learn massage with me in our one room apt together. A girl down with sweat pants on sundays with ice cream and a book. Thats a lot of girls, i think.

I am headed to Minnyaaaaapolis to kick it with old friends and my bro for a few days. Man i can't wait. me and my bro talk almost every day and its awesome. We gonna have a good time. I know its cold and shit, but i wouldn't mind a bit of snow and the pleasure of walking into an old haunt and taking a few layers off while old friends holler out and order a fresh round.

me and Mik and Nicole had tea and talked for a few hours tonight. It was really really nice. I served up some aged Puer and a nice smooth buttery Oolong. Felt nice to serve that tea to people and have them forget about me from time to time and just girl chat with each other. I enjoyed it immensely. I smoked outta my pipe and told a few Villar stories.

brother if you reading, mad love out to you. I wish i could jump into your ass and beat down the pain with a Stick of Hard Lovin. You know what I'm talkin about baby.

Irvine, CA

I had a very fine Thanksgiving Holiday with my family in SoCal (southern California) and it is about to end in a few hours. I am headed back to Portland this morning with a small band of adventurers and we all can't wait to hit up the hot springs throw bills at the pretty ladies that dance all night and clash whiskey glasses together. cuz thats what we do, we be celebrating all the time, walking paths just looking, looking breathlessly. then celebrating what we saw.

so Irvine CA is where i got my most recent look into suburban life. My man Villar and me stopped in the District, which is a huge mall complex right off the highway into Irvine, and ordered a coffee. The District has a Target, a Chik-Fill-A and an In and Out Burger joint for starters. There is Peets and a copy shop, a couple of video stores and some specialty lamp shops. Its real clean and the people that walk around seem to be alien slugs sliding across a strange landscape half-heartedly looking for their spaceship back home.

My parents say,

Hey, come meet us at the Burger King across from Target in the District.

We're like, shit, no problem

We finish our coffees and head out leisurely to the BK that should be right down the sidewalk/street ... (my family was already in Irvine with my nephew and Villar had driven me down from El Lay to meet them). Long story short cuz I am way behind on whats been going on:

Irvine is a maze of complexes called the District surrounded by neighborhoods with perfect grass and the same old cookie cutter pseudo adobe homes and everyone has an SUV that they keep running while they wait for the wife to come out so junior can watch a DVD ... the Costco gas station is constantly pumping away to feed these peoples' insecurities. They have never even pissed on a tree let alone gone camping, but they have the latest in "off road" technology.

Rolling through SoCal gave me a glimpse of what it will take to really turn the US around. The suburban sprawl is addictive, entrenched, fearful, rich and growing. If anyone has pictures or comments about the suburban empire in the US -- like them highway spring-ups and such -- please send them in so I don't have to tell the whole story here ...

I had a great time with my family. My nephew is brilliant, sweet and super cute ... a few things he said:

First meeting after a few years: "Hey Unca Saschi! its so good to see you, I love you! We haven't hung out in a while, I got all sorts of stuff, i got my lightsabers and spiderman stuff ... we're gonna do all sorts of stuff ... man its gonna be awesome ..."

Dad rolls in while we are playing "piece o' me" which is short for "you wanna piece o me?" (call for a wrestling match) and says:

Hey, you two better quit playin grabass! (grabass is dads version of piece of me) and Jason goes:

Yeah Unca Saschi! Quit grabbin my ass!

************************************

I am already back in Portland after a few days with my tribe in Oakland. Kicked it with Tenz and Aliya, Big Scott, Johnny and janica, Doc and Therin ... so we drank whiskey and hollered at each for a few days then finally drove north to Ptown ... i yapped with my main men about all the things that have changed since I turned 30 and came back to the US after a perfect 8 yrs in China ... we be movin to the next stage of things and it feels good to know I am never really alone ...

We love the Bills

Here are some pics and a video from the last week. We had a Halloween Party and went to watch the Bills get beaten by that pill poppin cracker Brett Favre. I picked my brother up from the hospital and drove straight to Claudia's on Hawthorne to watch the Bills game. You know how we do ...

My brother can get you out the clink

In case you do some shady shit and get caught, holler at my brother, the lawyer Tim Matuszak, he'll take care of you.

In Memory of Aintwortha, the Original Fleabag.

We had a cat when i was five years old that was called Aintwortha Shit. We just called him by his first name. My earliest memories in life are of my dad chasing this cat down, in speedo underwear, throwing couches around, cuz aintwortha reached up and clawed his toe while he was napping.

My cats all have fleas. Big time. its so bad i can't pet them anymore and it happened basically overnight. One day i saw a couple fleas scurrying across their bellies out of the light. The next day ... man it was out of control. Now, where ever there are lounging felines or cat poo, fleas lurk waiting for ankles to bite. I was chillin by my window near a corner where the cats sometimes poo, and all of a sudden i had about a hundred fleas on my feet, biting.

So i wore my black speedo calvin klein underwear all day. I was paranoid that they would crawl up my legs and get into an area where i really don't want them. there are three spots in the house i am not able to kick it: near the lawn chair in the courtyard and the two upstairs corners.

It doesn't matter anyway cuz i am gone for good, to Beijing tomorrow. As for those who are wondering why I am not already on the torch run, holler and i'll fill you in.