...

I wrote the wrong poem, by mistake

The idea broke, and I followed the break

I got further and further, and further, away

From anything I ever meant to say

I got so far I couldn’t get back

I had to stay the night and write the wrong tack

And maybe later get on the right track

...

Except I wrote the wrong poem, by mistake

The idea broke, and I followed the break

I got further and further, and further, away

From anything I ever meant to say

I got so far I couldn’t get back

I had to stay the night and write the wrong tack

And maybe later get on the right track

...

...

So she looked at me

And I looked at her,

And she said,

“Well I had this train of thought,

But it clean went out my head,

It was something to do with,

Something I read,

An untrodden path,

Where the treading now led,

I remember now,

It was something you said…

How did it go?” …

“I know”, I said,

“I said

Well I was on my way from a to b,

But right now I’m at zed”

…

So I looked at her,

And she looked at me,

And she said,

“Well I had this train of thought,

but it clean went out my head,

It was something to do with,

Something I read,

An untrodden path,

Where the treading now led,

I remember now,

It was something you said…

How did it go?” …

“I know”, I said,

“i said...

Well I was on my way from a to b,

But right now I’m at zed”

…

...

Where I wrote the wrong poem, by mistake

The idea broke, and I followed the break

I got further and further, and further, away

From anything I ever meant to say

I got so far I couldn’t get back

I had to stay the night and write the wrong tack

And maybe later get on the right track

...

...

And where were we?

We were just around the corner from the confusion

A few yards from the perplexities

Next door but two from the uncertainty

A bit up the street from the ums and the ahs

Down the hill from the befuddlements and the bewilderments

And you know err…

...

So it’s much better than yesterday

We’ve come a long way since yesterday

Where were we yesterday again?

We were in the big barrel of bloated red herrings

Further and further away from the solid ground

Bloody miles from the high point

And just about to enter the darkest of dark dark windy valleys

With all manner of labyrinthine whichways or whatways

On our way to the most lightless of lightless caves

...

...

Where I wrote the wrong poem, by mistake

The idea broke, and I followed the break

I got further and further, and further, away

From anything I ever meant to say

I got so far I couldn’t get back

I had to stay the night and write the wrong tack

And maybe later get on the right track

...

...

So we looked at each other,

And she said,

“Well I had this train of thought,

But it clean went out my head,

It was something to do with,

Something I read,

An untrodden path,

Where the treading now led,

I remember now,

It was something you said…

How did it go?” …

“I know”, I said,

“I was on my way from a to b,

But right now I’m at zed”

…

...

Except I wrote the wrong poem, by mistake

The idea broke, and I followed the break

I got further and further, and further, away

From anything I ever meant to say

I got so far I couldn’t get back

I had to stay the night and write the wrong tack

And maybe later get on the right track

...

…

[back to top]

…

…

…

…

me Maury and Guvan drinking the exotic tongba

…

…

an exotic and venomous guest at breakfast

a Nepalese Pit Viper

in a small low tree three-feet from the breakfast table

yet only spotted after i’d eaten

…

…

…

main image is composed of six pieces already in The Bucket

while here’s a new one

which goes live on Tuesday the 1st

…

four pieces from the next Pour

into

The Bucket Of Unused Ideas

…

...

can i invent the word “wanderalogue”?

...

and write one from my pouch of a perch of a balcony

above Sedi and the lake at Pokhara

where i am once again

alighting from the thermals of the winds of chance

the accidental randoms of the whims of fate

after some easy plan-changing

and easier hitch-hiking

took me where’er the winds would go

and off the route of my planned amble

from Methlang to the chai-shop’s viewpoint

over terraces and jungle and valley and lake and city

after the super-sweaty uphill traipse

from breakfast with Italian cyclist Maury

who doesn’t drink

yet drank exotic ritual Tongba

a fermented rice millet

last night with me and Guvan from Maharashtra

in the fancy-ish East Nepalese resto in Sedi

and wasn’t drunk

but then spent hours lying staringly awake for no apparent reason

and, from now on, will stick to smoking

like all the staying foreigners here

including the Indians

who are all stoners

except me

while breakfast got disturbed by our cook

spotting a venomous green snake in the bush

three feet behind Maury

[see photo]

a Nepalese Pit Snake, no less

which is apparently only dangerous at night ...

yet ...

so, i ascended in the clammiest clammy morning air

and, by the time i got through Methlang to Kabaudi, i

already

looked like i just did an hour Fringe show in a small hot unventilated sweatbox-theatre somewhere in the Canadian Prairies

even though i repeatedly stopped to enjoy the stunning views

of the lake, the forests, the two wide valleys,

of Pokhara itself

which looks much nicer from a distance

as a mosaic of colour rooftops

rather than a tight hodge-podge of distempered concrete and off-greys

busy, friendly, likeable

and more interesting the more i explore

but not pretty

so the hitched motorbike from Methlang is heading up to Sarangkhot

with the temple and the tower and the five-headed Ganesh

up a beautiful winding road of green forest

and green jungle

and greener rice-paddy terraces

yet, unexpectedly, he doesn’t go up the final slope

so i think

should i stay on?

like i did with a bike-lift three days back

when it and i headed way along the high slopes of the ridge into the total unknown

through village after village

until i reached what turned out to be the main road

at a place with many spellings

Nadonda, Naugdanda, Naudanda, and more

and a big road allowing a neat hitch-hike back into the actual city

or

should i head up the steps?

to see if i can break my own unbroken records for sweating

or

should i take the clambersome stone steps directly down

which i guess i should

if i want to get back before mid-afternoon

and get any writing done

so i climb off the bike

creakily

as my tendons are made of unstretchable wire

and take the path down

amongst the old stone houses and banana trees and terraces

and shiny new tiled houses

and barking dogs

where flipflops on the steep stone steps isn’t perfect

but is manageable

till i reach the vistaed chai shop

my original destination

where i don’t have to order

and the woman will simply bring me my cold water and chai

the cold water being my third litre out of at least ten for the day

it being

did i say?

clammier than clammy ever could be

so i rename myself Mr Soggy

while i attempt to finish the Hemingway

The Sun Also Rises

bought because Pokhara has an unspoiling paucity of booky choices

yet elect to wait to finish this not-bad

this increasingly admirable

book

and pick myself up to head down more of the steep

the stone

while i’m again surprised to hear voices above me

which must be swooping paragliders

or passengers in the cable car

and where the utterly irregular steep steps

here overgrown

there flattening into a cliffside amble

require concentration

attention

so descending takes a while

though i can’t stop

because... mosquitoes

though i do have check for leeches

as i work my way down

passing a few support stanchions of the cable car

thinking of the opening of Herzog’s Aguirre: Wrath Of God

and thoroughly, happily

immersed in the lushly sumptuously verdantly jungly greener-than-green

i mean the lush

the sumptuous

the verdant

and the

greener than green

while dripping sweat from my nose and

half-blind from the salt in my eye

as i swivellingly zag

and ziggingly swivel

until i

now renamed Mr Soggy-McSoggy
because Mrs Soggy and Mr McSoggy

met here

and married

and gave birth to me

Mr Jeremy Soggy-McSoggy

until i am down

onto a flattish concrete lane

which will take me drably into Sedi

for quick shopping

some quicker hydration

and the easy walk back up here to my perch

to have a cold shower

and write this

thinking of the minor

and the major

whimsical winds of

fated chance

...

...

...

…

…

in other news

after six weeks

no plans to move for a fortnight

...

...

...

its one of the biggest things that ever happened

it changed everything forever

it happened over a thousand years ago

yet its direct consequences were felt

on a colossal scale

for many centuries

and its repercussions are still keenly seen and felt today

...

plus

its very very funny

...

it concerns some folks

who went messin’ where you shouldn’t go messin’

some guys

who went on a quest

a spiritual quest, a holy quest

for Immortality

The Secret Of Eternal Life

...

is about these Taoist Chinese scholars

chemists, alchemists

who were better at what they did

purifying and mixing powders

than anyone before in all of Human History

better than the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Babylonians

is about some monks who went off on a very serious experimental journey

for two hundred years

in search of an elixir of eternal life

...

...

i’ve been laughing for almost twenty years

yet am i the only person who’s realised how extremely funny it is?

maybe

...

its in Noah Huvari’s SAPIENS

yet he tells it straight

and can’t have realised just how funny it is

...

...

while the unfunny thing is that

to find out what it is

you might have to go behind the paywall of The Bucket Of Unused Ideas

but hey

its just one of 800 or so ideas stories poems

jokes quotes anecdotes facts verses choruses

and ideas again

it’ll cost you just a fiver for a month

and its a right bargain

...

...

while

to achieve the funniest thing that ever happened

it took an institution of devout Taoist scholars a whole two hundred years

maybe more

mixing powders, liquids, burnt seed-pods

combining lead, solve-stone, mercury, arsenic, sulphur, aristolochia, and more

six seven eight generations of monks

mixing powders

working away, trying, for decades

trying, failing, failing again, failing again...

learning constantly, maybe

improving constantly, maybe

solve-stone, sulphur, aristolochia

following dead ends, maybe, for decades

and trying failing learning

for a century, more

till they scented glimmering success in some smouldering

some smoke

some heat

some light

under their pestle in the mortar

...

and these guys ?

they were profoundly religious

and so

because they were so very holy, spiritual, devout

they spent decades in intense commitment

convincing themselves they were ever closer to their great goal

their spiritual culmination

their holiest achievement

the secret of eternal life

...

and so continued

as avidly as ever

perfecting, improving, intensifying

and purifying, ever ever purifying

until they created something very different to their beautiful goal

something entirely different

something that pretty much could not be any more different

for they created...

human destruction...

on a scale never known

...

could this be described as the greatest failure of all time?

perhaps ...

...

...

so this funniest-thing story-angle-event is very big

very dark and

a supreme irony

because, well, you gotta laugh

at human hubris

that such an exalted goal could turn out so historically cataclysmic

...

for they aimed celestially high

yet they ended in the furthest depths of the human abyss

...

for they went messing where you shouldn’t go messing

and the tale of Frankenstein’s Monster

[Oh My God, what have i created]

or of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice

they have nothing on this story

which actually happened

the biggest invention in all of history

...

...

while another unfunny thing might be that

once you’re behind the paywall

and have access to The Bucket

which is the 800+ pieces in completely random order

well, once you’re there

its just one of the very many

so you’ll have to keep looking

till you find it

and it might take a while

...

yet the journey there,

short or long,

will be brimming with notions

new notions

original notions

ideas, stuff

food for the mind

...

...

and the folk who are already wandering through The Bucket

who have dunked their heads in its never-been-done-before-ness

they seem to be thoroughly enjoying themselves

...

...

while those guys

those Uber-failures

over a millennia ago

when their mixtures started a-smoking and a-smouldering

they must’ve thought they were achieving their great design

were close so close to their holiest of holy goals

perhaps the greatest of all human ambitions

would achieve immortality

but instead

whoops ...

there goes the next twelve hundred years

whoops ...

there goes hundreds of millions of lives

...

could this fantastic failure be considered the greatest of all failures ever?

...

and you know how good they had to be

to do what they did?

they had to be much better than anyone else

you know how difficult it is

to do what they did?

to create those ingredients with such unprecedented purity?

its extremely incredibly mind-blowingly difficult

which is why no-one else had ever done it

...

and only because they were so smart

so good at what they did

so diligent, tireless, brilliant

could they achieve this

...

and only because they had such a very high goal

were they so driven to spend their whole lives striving for that goal

so it was lifespan after lifespan

of a succession of brilliant men

until... the first smoulder

and then a bigger smoulder

and soon...

...

if they hadn’t had such a holy purpose

would it ever have been achieved?

certainly not so early in human history

...

...

i do think you might laugh when you find it

...

you might even agree its the funniest thing that ever happened

...

...

...

...

...

another take on all this might be

that these Monks’ attempt to break the laws of life

and live forever

was a blasphemy

that they had tried to contravene the very laws of nature

and that Nature

in response

cursed them

their world

their species,

us

...

and that we

our species

has been cursed ever since

by this means of Mass Death

for it has certainly been a curse

destruction, death, misery

the redirection of science, of learning

destruction like never before...

...

...

...

...

...

a collective cultic obsession the world still suffers from?

...

...

...

...

“they were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off”?

...

...

...

...

...

...

instead the ripples grew bigger with the centuries

from this most seismic of discoveries...

...

...

...

...

WELL, WE’RE NOT GONNA LIVE FOREVER

BUT WE CAN BLOW A LOT OF PEOPLE UP

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

g

...

...

u

...

...

...

n

...

...

...

...

p

...

...

...

o

...

...

w

...

d

...

e

r

...

...

BANG

…

its taken me a while

over fifteen years

to realise how Tongba is a very sophisticated form of drinking

and this slowness stems chiefly from the first time i found it

in a very low-rent bar-resto in Kathmandu

which had the specific ambience of a dodgy low-rent boozer in London or Glasgow

where everyone has been drinking all day

…

while the waiter was a very drunk ten year old boy in a dress

...

so its Tongba

peculiar to Nepal and, apparently, parts of North-East India

and, that first Kathmandu time, everyone’s steamingly hammered

yet seems to be drinking what looks like clean soil

from a cylindrical wooden pot

so we point quizzically to a pot

and some tables of Nepali locals say “Tongba, Tongba”

so we order Tongba

and it appears, soil-ish in a pot

where the boy then pours

hot but not-boiling water

from a large plastic jug

into the pot

and there’s a straw

so you suck on it

and it tastes more like Sake than anything else

definitely rice-based

and only later do we find out its fermented rice millet

while, when you’ve soonish sucked it dry,

they pour more hot water in

and then repeat a third

and fourth

and even fifth or sixth time

where the first time is strongish

the second time is stronger

and then it gets progressively weaker

which, if you consider it

is a good way of drinking

that it gets weaker with time

where this whole process might take you three hours

so it takes a certain commitment

and you will likely be a stretch tiddly after the fifth time

though you don’t have to finish of course, but hey, that’s the ritual

…

while its a social thing

because who wants to sit drinking alcohol by themselves for three hours in one spot?

...

so i hunted out Tongba here in Sedi

and me and David from Stroud

studying politics at SOAS in London

we head for the up-market East Nepali resto

to find that there

Tongba comes in a nice lidded wooden pot

with a special straw

[see photo]

and this all has a certain elegance

class

...

while i’ve never heard of it anywhere else

yet, internetting, it seems it is not unknown in London

...

…

three hours later we teeter totter tiddle off

and i ain’t seen David since

...

...

...

in other news

speaking of pouring

the next Pour into The Bucket is imminent

September 1

...

…

Begnas Lake, East of Pokhara

...

...

in other news

i’ve made a new pal

Maury, or Maurizio

from Brescia

with blue eyes and something Germanic in the Italian accent

cyclist, superfit, traveller and one-time military bugler

“the boogie-woogie bugle-boy from company glee”, and all that

...

Maury was in Gokarna during lockdown

yet i only occasionally spoke to him

...

in fact i wrote a poem about him, or a couple of lines

before i ever met him

...

the lines were about him and his then partner

and went

“the couple joined at the lip

one long smile between them”
...

and later i added

“so in love they beam like imbeciles”

...

which lines were even in last year’s show

in the Movies Poem

...

“the couple joined at the lip

one long smile between them

so in love they beam like imbeciles”

...

...

and we are going for lots of excursions

long walks

Sarangkhot and the five-headed Ganesh

Damside then Peace Pagoda then Giant Shiva at Pudimkot then Yellow Bridge then Pame, 20+ k

Methlang

Begnas Lake [see photos]

Pame then Yellow Bridge then Shiva then Pagoda then Damside

...

next venture will be SUBs across the lake

...

…

...

...

in other news

these walks have been extremely hot

shatteringly hot

and it is exceedingly EXCEEDINGLY clammy

so i am still the sweatiest person in the world

...

in fact i’ve done more sweating this August

than i would have in the Fringe Theatres of Canada

where i have often been The Sweatiest Person In The Whole Wide World

...

went to Begnas Lake

with Maury

and Bekah from Bath

newly qualified as a physio

and fresh from volunteering in Eastern Nepal

and so, towards the end of our circuit

Bekah spotted a jetty down below

and demanded a swim

while i think

that you, Dear Reader, might not disbelieve me

when i say that

on immersion in the water

my head steamed

and my skull cracked open

revealing not a brain

but what looked like

boiled-dry

spicy

noodles

none of which surprised me

or my pals

...

...

jetty down below at Majhikuna

...

...

in other news

no plans to leave here

i’ve run out of new walks

yet my perch is a pouch...

...

...

Maury Blue Eyes, Bekah Bath and a distracted me

...

...

in other news

half way up a long steep jungly slope

i met a poet called Parwan

which is pronounced par-one

and i immediately thought

golf!

par one!!

a par one hole...

where i reckon a par one hole is gonna be tough

and leaves no room for error

...

and then i thought of par none

par zero

as a metaphor

in which

you cannot win

or

you have already lost

or

you were born up to your neck in debt

...

so i’ll leave you with the cheery notion of

a Par None Hole

hi world

from a bright sunny today

which is definitely the morning after yesterday

where i’m pleasantly weary-limbed

sat on my balconied perch

above Sedi and Lake Pokhara

and i’m looking at yesterday’s excursion

the high ridge beyond the lake

where the giant Shiva is disappearing into the white clouds

and i’m thinking

Blimey, that was a day

for me and Maurizio

the blue-eyed Brescia cyclist

who was also locked down in Gokarna for years

we finally did a walk, a hike

where Maurizio is superfit and capable

and would in fact be a good man to get marooned on a desert island with

for he’d build some huts sharpish

know what every plant is

and whether it can be eaten

would soon dig a well

and then get a vegetable garden going in no time

yet, fortunately i guess

it didn’t come to that

and none of those admirable skills came into play

while the day began with us sauntering for too long along Damside

the riverside stretch of Pokhara

and very nice parks too

but maybe not at the beginning of a long day into the upland greenery

for it was a good to get to the slope, the forest, the trail

and head up into it

through the sumptuous yet monoculturous forest

with just-one-kind-of-tree

to one ridge-top

then around another

to the Peace Pagoda

for a slow chai

while the whole time i’m kind of chary about how i’ll do with the upping

because

two months ago in Ladakh

the ascents made me feel rather unwell

like blackout unwell

like can’t-go-on, lucky-to-find-an-alternative, unwell

yet i’m pretty sure all that was a product of altitude

and of unwisely flying straight from sea-level Chennai

to 3000+ metre Ladakh

so it was pretty reassuring to sit for chai at the Pagoda and

not feel lousy

before me and my Italian pal struggled on

with me once again staking my claim to be...

The Sweatiest Person On Earth

and panting up the steep steps

as we get to the giant Shiva at Pumdikot

almost the highest point of the day

which is good with me

while Maury, superfit

he likes ascents and doesn’t like descents

because of his knees

while for me?

descents are a cruise

are the gravy, the best bit, the unproblem

so we circuit the enormous, 33 metre Shiva

amongst the gazillion tourists

chiefly Indian

none of whom have walked up

so Maury rings the ritual bell

before we strike out along the ridge

losing the crowds immediately

for tourists only do obvious things

while we follow the stepped path along the height of the ridge

looking North down at the Lake

and across to here, Sedi

where i now sit writing this

and then look South down the steep slope or even cliff

to another green valley

where writing that line makes me think i’m not telling this right

for that’s the first time i’ve used the world green

when the word green should be in every line

twice

for its green, very green, very very green

jungle green, tall grass green, rice paddy green, forest green

green

where, after my first day here

i was already complaining aloud there aren’t enough words in the English language for green

which there aren’t

while that valley to the South does look very nice

and explorable

and green

with occasional lone houses that just might be rooms i could book

while me and Maury discuss plans A and B and C

and decide the best option is plan A

the long descent down to the Yellow Bridge

we can see on the Western end of the lake

away from Pokhara

where plan C was a bus back to Damside

a feeble option only tolerable in the event of serious rain

which again, is a word i have should have used by now

for its the Rainy Season

most nights are deluges

everything is sodden

and we, today, thoroughly exposed to the elements

are being lucky

though there are ominous grey clouds about

one of which slowly envelops us

as we walk into it

yet it only lightly spots us

so down we go

first on the winding road

become a muddy track

then on a gorgeous, if precarious, steep trail of stone steps

down amongst the very green greenery

and terraced paddies

hundreds of them

where we’re descending too fast really

for the scale of the surrounding enveloping immediate beauty

till we come out onto the mud track

carved by Caterpillars

and requiring a different kind of negotiation to the

wet steps on the steep path

as we updown the curves of the road to the chai shop

the one where a week ago

after half the mileage of the walk we’ve just done

i was much more exhausted than i am today

so i say hi again to the guy

and we drink chai before i notice blood on my trouser leg

from a leech

a long-gone leech

now probably burping fatly somewhere back along the trail

while us, we slowly make our way across the waterlogged lowland path

between the swollen river

and the extra-green rice paddies

to the Yellow Bridge

to an even more waterlogged burst-bank riverside path

back to the road where we might get a bus

yet i know from my accidentally epic walk the, errrr, day before

that more buses start in the next village

so round one more hill we go

trudgily

to sit on the dilapidated bus

when Maury never gets buses

but we are happy to sit

leg-weary

sweat-sodden

unkempt

filthy

bleeding trickles

for the five k ride back to Sedi and a late snacky lunch of momos

before we hug our goodbyes

and i spend the rest of the day doing absolutely nothing

chiefly because of weariness after our errr, 20-25 k venture

much of it steep

but also because, fortuitously

only now do the heavens decide to open

to chuck buckets down

to deluge so much

it must have been more of a deluge

than any Monsoon night of my four weeks so far here

for rain had even seeped into my room by morning

a morning bright

with some blue sky

and no grey in the puffy white clouds

a morning i intended to do very very little with

beyond looking up at yesterday’s venture

and writing this missive

...

...

…

and

...

...

hi world

from a rainy Sunday

here above the village of Sedi

and the lake at Pokhara

where the usual pattern of dry brighter mornings

is simply not happening

it rained all yesterday

it rained all night

it rained most of the morning

and, though light grey has appeared in the looming dark

it looks like raining all afternoon into

inevitably

another rainy evening and night

and so...

it lightens it brightens

it darkens it starkens

its a deluge a downpour

a drenching a drizzle

its dismal its damp and then its a

deluge all over again

but then

hey

it is the Rainy Season

so what did i expect?

the Monsoon is very literally doing exactly what it says on the tin

raining

rainily

which provides a whole other set of beauties

lesser, to be sure, than the glories of the dry season

yet there is a beauty in the low puffy white grey clouds

across the lake

drifting out of the more muted greens

of what can only be described as jungle

with the full panoply of colour and shape that is the jungle

for the jungle

this jungle

the Andaman Island Jungle

the Brazilian or Ecuadorian Amazon Jungle

the very different Columbian Amazon Jungle

they have more range of shape than any other nature i’ve found

for the shape and size of leaves

of fronds

of trees

of ferns

of bushes of grasses

of vines of creepers of lianas

of bananas of palms of...

is more varying than anywhere else

while lots of nature is much more mono

is unvarying

is stark and bleak

stretches unchanging

like the mountains and valleys of Ladakh

where i was before here

yet here, slightly urbanised

with roads and tracks

and houses and guest-houses and yoga retreats

with ebullient greeneries

and torrenting ditches

the jungly forest is a very rich immediate environment to be in

to surround oneself with

the huge leaves and long fronds

the curlicuing ferns and thick bushes

the long grass and high tangles of vines and branches

and so

with my not-so-trusty umbrella

a victim of my inadvertently collapsing the mud wall of a rice-paddy

on a high stretching slope of dozens [hundreds?] of terraced paddies

on a failed climb of the green slopes across the lake

yes, with my wonky umbrella

i may just have to go out and embrace the weather

where the rain is never as bad as it looks from your dry balcony

except when it is

worse

much worse

full-blown soaking deluge worse

and then when

quite reasonably for an English person

you think, well it can’t get any harder and wetter than this

it does

beltingly

bucketingly

batteringly

and so

here i go

into the wet arms of fate

it darkens it starkens

it lightens it brightens

...

...

...

...

in other news

...

have met a David

Politics student at SOAS in London

and we are off for that ultra exotic form of Nepalese / Tibetan alcohol

tongba

...

which comes in a cylindrical wooden pot

filled with what looks like soil

clean soil

...

i tried the local moonshine

Raksi

which was

a]

just Ok

and

b]

gave my insides a thorough clean out

something people pay proper money for

but which cost me 85 pence twice

...

...

...

in other news

no reason to go anywhere

…

THE LYRICAL ORGASM

…

Ejaculatory spasms

of uncontrollable joy

are shuddering through me

in rhythms and tremors

evoking, enacting

the word curve and gesture

of our delirium

my upheaval

our play

juddered out by

arced out by

fanned out by

my loving tongue

my blurting mouth

my whiplash neck

my spurting heart

my thrownabout

throwaway mind

my body convulsed

from tip to core

from furthermost extremity

to innermost heart

by adrenalin rush

by snatches of word

by shards of thought

by faint fleeting or flooding

pleasure flow

by idea mix

by sensual glow

by my peace-meal past

by an everything-at-once

throbbing through me

reaching surging

welling through me

the body breathering

briefly freewheeling

the mind accelerating

hyperventilating

charging searching

jerking urging

with insatiable desire

lust thirst and thrust

for more and more

for wider larger

subtler sharper

wittier defter

fuller faster

for all and all

on and on

more and more
my catharsis shredded

tinsel shining briefly

in the falling of time

in the light of my mind

the switchbacked rodeo rider

too jampacked in too short a time

holding on

for grim life

for dear life

for all and any life

to skin

to silk

to cream

to cloud

to the motoring discharge

of scraps strands and strains

of word image and sensation

throwing thrilling and shimmying

the merged pleasures

of mind and body

this way and that

that way and this

as the unleashed torrents

of chunks flails and sprays

of jissom and jouissance

gush flooding out

into the world

…

…

poem written in the late Eighties

well before i became a performance poet

...

...

about sex and writing

...

originally called ADRENALINE MUSE

...

influenced by Roland Barthes more than anyone else

...

...

very few people have ever seen this

unfortunate ex-girlfriends mainly

...

...

i did ultimately learn the piece

i was definitely doing it when i lived in Edinburgh in 2002

where it was the piece i’d do at the then new burlesque night, Club Noir

which went on to become quite a thing

though quite what me and my poem were doing at Club Noir is a bit of a mystery to me now

and probably to Tina and Ian who ran it

...

it was also in my first Canadian touring show

...

...

...

...

in other news

i’m still above Sedi

next Pokhara

dodging deluges

ambling the very green greenery

and hardening my leg muscles on the slopes

up to some chai-shops with gorgeous vistas

of the lake, the valleys, the hillsides

...

and i’ve no need or cause to go

anywhere...

so, writing-wise

what you might have been hoping for is

a spanking new jeep-like thing

which runs on little gas

and is good for almost any terrain

but what you get is

emerging slowly from a

rusting corrugated-iron engine-house you

hadn’t even noticed was there

a dilapidated steam engine

groaning and clattering

and bashing against itself

while trundling slowly forward on wonky rails

yet, which

for all its diverse issues

does actually

and this you might celebrate

function

...

...

...

...

in other news

quiet days, maybe many weeks

dodging the spasmodic Monsoon torrents

in the very green grenery

above Sedi, next Pokhara

with lanes, temples, lakeside and more

...

...

...

in other news

after a noisy night of torrential downpour

i was on a hillside of ebullient verdure and no way forward

so, teetering, i had a battle with the terraced mud wall of a paddyfield

and both me and the wall lost

so my wonky umbrella and my browned trousers are each kaput

yet when i looked back the errr sculpted mud bank was errr collapsing

and cascading

in an increasingly kaput kind of way

so, at some length, with some extra misadventure

i retreated way back to my room to watch the Herzog movie Fitzcarraldo again

which is a safer kind of epic activity

...

...

though it was a while before i spotted the bloodstain on the sheets

from the leech i must have acquired

probably whilst walking booted in the stream a path became

...

so i have a curiously symmetrical leech bite on one calf

and a once-big-now-healing spider bite on the other

...

...

...

...

in other news

next step the next steps

round in circles

and back here again

…

…

…

while the fabulous Winnipeg Fringe begins

here are three pieces i wrote about the Canadian Fringes

...

...

THE UNKNOWN FRINGE ARTIST

...

She’s out there now.

He’s out there now.

They’re out there now.

On stage.

In the dressing room.

On the bus.

In the park.

Leaving the theatre.

Running lines, warming up their bodies, their voices, their improv, their minds, their dialogue.

For a show no-one will come to.

Only ten will show up for.

Twelve payers, three volunteers and their billet.

It was the same two days ago.

And it will be the same tomorrow.

Ten. Twenty. Thirty even.

No-one.

Not enough.

Failure again.

And yet they can only do it. Keep doing it.

The show. Their show.

Making it better. Smarter. Funnier. Goofier. Tighter.

And it’s a great show.

They know it. Their mates know it. Lots of audience tell them it.

Yet no-one comes. Word hasn’t spread. The idea hasn’t taken off.

The reviewers hated it. Three-starred it. Avoided it. Nulled it?

And yet these performers? They do it.

Again and again.

In the last city, in the next province, in this town.

Yesterday, tomorrow, now.

They’re losing money. Losing their summer.

And yet they throw themselves into it body and soul. Time and time again.

They have faith in their show, in themselves, in the artform, in providence, in justice.

And they can only keep on.

Sweating, working, thinking, rethinking, playing, outoftheboxing, rehearsing, selling, flyering, talking.

Caring.

About the work, the idea, the language.

Caring. About the comedy, the ideal, the audience.

Can only keep digging the energies, the work, the ideas ,out of themselves.

Can only keep on.

Even though its hopeless.

No-one will come.

Will notice

Will pay attention.

They’re out there now.

About to go in stage.

Revving themselves up.

About to …

...

from August 2011

...

so yes

now that the Prairie Fringes are under way

this post consists of three pieces about the ups and downs of Fringe World

...

the above is a downer

or maybe a human positive from a negative

...

below is an up, from when everything suddenly goes well

from July 2011

...

and at the bottom is a piece from late August 2009

…

Absolute Bingo.

Meltdown.

Melt-Up.

Here i am at the Winnipeg Fringe.

My favourite festival of them all.

and its...

Hundred per cent culmination.

Consummation.

After all that work.

All that keeping the faith.

Sell-out.

Finally.

130 beautiful punters. Crammed in the hot sweaty.

And everything works.

Everything,

Every little nuance of half-gag and semi-demi-wordplay i half wondered...

Would it?

Could it?...

It did.

After all that work.

All that keeping the faith.

Those seven long tough weeks of battling for audience.

For applause.

For laughs.

For anything.

For words.

For clearer,

Funnier.

For integrity.

For functioning ideas.

Words.

Phrases.

After all that work.

All that honing and honing.

All that keeping the faith.

The long hours.

The long days.

The dry weeks.

The parched days.

The airless unbreathable weeks.

Suddenly... double the audience of any other day.

And everything works.

Will work.

Has worked out.

The electric room.

The air ringing with laughter.

The perfect silence for the poetics and iambics.

The rapt and intent.

The shaking shoulders and the widening mouths.

...

And CBC are in so i get the Five Star.

And all is rolling from now on.

All is good.

All is going to work.

To pay off

To be colossal fun.

To not be futile.

O you beauty...

...

...

...

while this is a piece is wrote for CBC in 2009

...

STRAIGHT (FROM THAT SIDE OF TOWN)

...
One thing about the Fringe Tour is, it can be cruel.
...
It’s marvellous, it’s the most fun I’ve ever had in my life and I feel I’ve usually been pretty lucky: with reviews, with venues, with time-slots, with press opportunities, and so on. This also means I’ve had lots of bad luck, but I still reckon the good luck well outweighs the bad.
...
Of course in many ways you make your own luck, and there is nouse in being in the right place at the right time, and fortune certainly favours the brave. But we all know there’s more to it than that.
...
Good luck.
...
And bad luck.
...
And every year on the Fringe Tour there are great shows which get little audience.
...
And there are truly admirable stick-their-neck-out flawed shows which get little audience.
...
And there are usually shows which weren’t much good out East but which, after humungous effort, and bad reviews, and walk-outs, and cutting and chopping and rewrites, and axing scenes and sections and strands, get taken apart and put back together as something which works well … And then they start to succeed somewhere across the Prairies and roll nicely into B.C. for some well-deserved if belated success.
...
But never have I known a show as good as Catherine Montgomery’s Straight (From That Side of Town) to get nowhere.
...
Every act I’ve spoken to loves this show. I love this show. Jonno from The Accident loves this show, Gemma Wilcox from The Honeymoon Period loves this show, Rob Gee from Fruitcake loves this show, my girlfriend Priscilla loves this show, Jayson from Fall Fair loves this show, Keira McDonald from Cherry Cherry Lemon loves this show, Jimmy Hogg from Like A Virgin loves this show, Anders from Uncalled For loves this show … We all love this show.
...
Yet critically, she gets slammed, and audience-wise and cash-wise, she gets very little.
...
It’s not a pretty show and some people are going to walk out. It’s messy, it’s ugly, it depicts grief, it depicts a damaged, drug-addled, booze-ridden young woman failing to get her life together. Yet it shines with … life in the face of darkness, with the love of mother for daughter, and daughter for mother … with the comedy of pain, with teenage hormonal compulsion, with energetic prose, with a face lighting to a glow as it articulates and laughs at the cruelties life throws at her.
...
This is a show written by a young woman with iron guts. The guts to try that. To start a show like that, there. To then take the audience on to that place. To be so aesthetically out there. And it’s performed with a woman with iron guts: to put herself through all that, day after day; to present all that to audiences show after show after show; and to get nothing back for all her heart, her guts, her sweat and her class.
...
The quantity of strength that must be in that performer, any performer, believing in their art and keeping going through all the s**t the days, the shows, the press, the reviews throw at you. To see good shows doing well and yet get nowhere yourself: to see iffy shows doing well and yet get nowhere yourself. Day after day. Show after show. Review after review. City after city.
...
I mean, I’ve had it tough on tours, yet I’m not sure I’ve ever even had it tough in two consecutive cities. I’ve always ridden the updown crashbang rollercoaster but I’ve always had shedloads of ups to shut out the many downs. And Straight (from That Side of Town) is excellently played, it features some great writing and it has the funniest sex-scene I’ve seen in years.
...
And yet she gets no audience. How come?
...
She has so much courage and, aesthetically and acting-wise, she is everything the fringe should be. Unafraid to go for the dark and twisted, unafraid to be go for the poetry in her prose, unafraid to structure a show in seven sections laid out one by one to make what should be a beautifully ugly winning hand.
...
The Fringe is all about risks: Risks in writing, risks in acting, risks in themes. Well, she’s taking every risk going, she’s stuck every neck out and she’s had every neck chopped off.
...
The only sad answer can be that The Fringe milieu is not everything it’s meant to be. Bravery can fail, talent can fail, risk-taking can fail.
...
Who is to blame for this? Catherine for her promotion? Reviewers for not realising the power and quality of the writing and the acting? Audience for ditto? Personally, I hesitate to blame audience for anything, but …
...
Catherine hasn’t failed, her show is a rocking success. The Fringe has failed her.
...
I love this show. It certainly ain’t pretty, but please go see it. Maybe in Victoria or Vancouver she’ll get the response alll of us want her to get. Me, I’m going to read some Corinthians from the Bible. Is it really as great as she makes it sound?
...

August 30, 2009

...

...

...

in other news

quiet life on a wet green hillside

above Sedi

above Phewa Lake

next Pokhara

...

...

in other news

good luck all ye Fringers

...

...

...

and that person who made a big difference is Brian Paisley

the guy who began Canada’s first Fringe festival

Edmonton

who first conceived the Canadian Fringe tour

and who passed earlier this month

...

so this post i have shared below is from Brian’s friend and mine, Ken Brown

and is about the difference made by this guy, and his coterie of hard-working enthusiasts

Ken’s piece gives this a deep perspective within North American theatre i wouldn’t have been capable of...

...

KEN’S POST

My dear friend Brian is dead. His death signifies the end of a vitally important era in the history of Canadian theatre. It also sounds a heavy knoll on those of us who loved him.

Canadian theatre was an evolving entity in 1981. It had gone through a Colonial period, in which nearly all of our theatre was given over to the production of plays from England and the United States. These plays were performed in theatres founded by, and run by, people who did not speak with our accent. Most spoke some version of English from the British Isles. We Canucks had been very busy surviving, and then in the mid-20th Century, helping European civilization survive. It was only in the course of Brian’s lifetime that we finally began to take control of our theatres, to write our own plays, and direct our home-grown actors. From about 1970 until 1982, Canadian theatre invented itself, led by visionaries across the country, from Paul Thompson in Toronto to Gerry Potter in Edmonton, we founded literally hundreds of theatre organizations devoted to the Canadian experience. Then Brian Paisley came back from the Edinborough Fringe Festival with a Big Idea: We could do the same thing as the Scots had done: we could run a festival in the city of Edmonton consisting of whatever work the theatre artists of this town chose to do. In 1982, Brian (and the energetic visionaries around him) got a chance to snag a $60,000 grant that was going unused, and invited a Edmonton theatricians to produce shows.

A bunch of companies responded to that call, and the first Edmonton Fringe Festival was born. To everyone’s surprise, it attracted thousands, many curious just to see what it might be like to drink a beer on the streets (a practice that was all but unknown in our town in 1982). We all know what happened in the years following. Thousands of writers, actors, and directors flocked to our town to seize the opportunity to show their new work. Edmonton developed a whole new language of theatre, as local artists figured out how to produce plays that could be set up in minutes. Great Edmonton playwrights came out ofd this development. We ended up with the largest theatre festival on the continent, attended by scores of thousands of enthusiasts who wanted to see, to hear, to share these new voices.

Through the first ten years of the Festival strode Brian Paisley, thinking up one unlikely idea after another to attract the audience and create a sense of something special happening in Old Strathcona. The sleepy community in which I was born became a raucous celebration of creativity, a vast social experiment, for two weeks every summer. By encouraging outdoor vendors, performers, and a vital street scene, Brian made people want to come out to the festival. This is the man most people remember. Many of us also remember that Brian was a dedicated artist. In the theatre he founded with his then-wife Ti Hallas, known as Chinook Theatre, Brian wrote directed, and produced new work. He invited unknowns like me to use the space (an invitation that was unique in the city). Like so many other artists, I had the opportunity to be heard at Chinook Theatre, to found a theatre company that could seek an audience at the Fringe, and seek to keep it at other times of the year.

Brian gave himself ten years as the Fringe’s Producer, and then, literally at the height of his fame in Edmonton, he walked away from the prestigious position that he had created to run the Princess Theatre. From there, he could encourage and promote the kind of deep cinema experience that was his first love, and open the doors of the Princess to theatre acts that had outgrown the 100-seat venues at the Fringe.

When Brian and his second wife Julia moved away to Victoria, Edmonton lost one of its great visionaries. But he kept many of the friends he had made in Edmonton. For my part, our friendship only deepened as we both became fathers to growing families. I loved Brian for his dry Irish wit, his unfailing curiosity, and his strong opinions. We kept in constant touch over the years, and when he finally moved, alone, to Puerto Escondido, a small town on the Pacific Coast of Mexico, he enthused about the house he had built there so frequently and so glowingly, that I finally went down to visit. Thus began a wonderful part of my life after retiring from MacEwan. Every winter I would spend weeks, or months in Mexico, and alway part of it at Brian’s delightful house a few streets from the ocean. We spent our days quietly writing, or taking the “collectivo” truck into the town to shop. We hung out on the beach in the moonlight. We discussed life, art, and love. We watched one movie a night, projected onto the white wall of his living room. Brian was always curious, always critical of foolishness, and always creating. He wrote several novels at “La Casa Mango” and several screenplays. He was an active artist/creator at all times.

Brian died this past weekend. He was 79 years old. Tragically, his end was not easy. He did not have medical insurance, and the weeks that he spent in an American-style clinic were massively expensive. It has been an immense struggle for his family to find money to pay the ongoing medical expenses, and many appeals have been made. I hope you will not find it amiss if I repeat that the need is ongoing. The financial situation is still very difficult for those he left behind, and I encourage you to help. Soon, there will be a musical benefit for Brian at La Cité Francophone. Please attend!

Here is the GoFundMe link: https://gofund.me/70b3543de

Brian was an artist, a social visionary, a critic of bad art and bad politics. He was gregarious, friendly, and outgoing. He was also a tremendously shy person in some ways. Those who knew him well knew that he was very happy with his own company, while being entirely capable of engaging a room. Or a city, for that matter. He created a theatre movement that has literally transformed theatre all over the English-speaking world. He enjoyed it all with an ironic smile on his lips that could break out into a nearly childlike joy when something was really working.

Rest In Peace, my dear of friend. We will all miss you tremendously.

Kenneth Brown

...

Brian is a guy who truly did it

who took an idea and ran with it

for years

the Fringe ideal of a free artistic playground

created, every August, in Edmonton, Alberta

...

he was a great guy...

funny dynamic quick super-smart and enduringly passionate

i didn’t know him well

met him less than twenty times total

did not know what he looked like at forty until three days ago

yet he was always a pleasure

and a laugh

and ever a shot in the arm

...

...

i find it amazing how the Edmonton Fringe

Brian’s great legacy

has kept itself on the straight and narrow so long

in a changing city

and a changing world

yet one must ask

how will it endure?

and will it be betrayed?

...

the obvious comparison is with Edinburgh

the Mother of all Fringes

yet, now that the Edinburgh Fringe has long lost its ideals

people forget how long it held onto those ideals

for decades

for over half its life, from the late 40s until the mid-90s

before its Corporate carve-up

when it turned into the rapacious Libertarian marketplace it has now long been

...

the kind where God is most certainly on the side of the big guns

...

yet Brian first visited Edinburgh in the early 80s

when it still had principles

when it was still possible to use the words “principles” and “Edinburgh Fringe” in the same sentence without it being risible

and, as Ken explains, he took their glorious and thriving founding ideas

and ideals

and ran with them

a team, a coterie, a gang, and more, all formed around him

and they all ran with it full-tilt head-long for years

...

creating an ever-growing and wildly diverse festival of theatre in almost all its forms

with huge audiences

a marvellous atmosphere

and a thrilling array of possibilities for the up-for-it audience

...

so that original artistic dream

long gone in Scotland

still lives on in Canada

because of Brian

...

i’ve said and written repeatedly, ever since i discovered the Canadian Fringes

“if the Canadian Fringes are like a Franklin D Roosevelt version of Capitalism

then Edinburgh is like a Genghis Khan version of Capitalism”

and, errr, nobody tends to disagree with that statement

in the slightest

...

while Brian is the chief reason the Canadian Fringes have still

residually at least

kept their ideals

for the first principle of the Canadian Fringes

devised by Brian

is

“THE ARTIST KEEPS ONE HUNDRED PER CENT OF THE DOOR”

...

which, among other things, has created my living for over twenty years

...

and while all the Canadian Fringes might wriggle around this principle

with “service charges” etc

yet it still holds true-ish

and, if Brian’s principle was removed, everything would become very different very quickly

and it would soon become the rapacious marketplace of Edinburgh, Adelaide and more

but this hasn’t happened yet.

and why?

Brian

...

for in Canada a new artist

with a crazy idea

still has a chance

to succeed

thrive

get spurred

to make another, more

go further

and ...

...

while

in Edinburgh

they are simply another blood-red morsel

dropped into the voracious maw

of the venue-sharks

...

one of the great things about the Edmonton Fringe is that it loudly states

It Does Not Have To Be That Way

...

...

while, amazingly

the Fringe Tour was also Brian’s idea

for this unique and glorious thing

festival after festival in city after city across a vast country

for the whole Summer

was his conception

...

for once Edmonton was up and running

well

why not have a similar festival before, somewhere East of Alberta?

and after, somewhere West... Vancouver?

and soon Festivals spread across Canada

and became that unique wonder, the Canadian Fringe Tour

my living

...

and yes, the person who first thought of this was... Brian Paisley

this is real achievement for just one guy

...

...

of course Edinburgh has the Free Fringe

where, in 97, i ran one of the first two shows in what became that Free Fringe

[i did it less for reasons of ideal

even though i liked the ideal

i did it because it seemed the best way to get an audience and not fail]

...

while, as Brian Paisley would understand very well

what counts is to keep going with an idea

year in year out

and the guy who did that

who started the same year as me [i believe]

was Peter Buckley Hill

who just kept going

rode the sneers and jeers and

won out in the end

...

yet i soon jumped from doing Edinburgh

because i found something much better

much more free of bullshit

and elitism

and corporatism

and sharks

the Canadian Fringe Tour

begun by Brian

a free artistic milieu where you could and can stick your artistic neck right out

and make decent money

...

for the Canadian Fringe is cheap mass theatre

and cheap times mass maybe means plenty

...

...

Brian’s legacy is

of course

not so assured

yet its amazing it has lasted this long

though little lasts forever

...

while i believe i have an advantage in seeing what happens to Edmonton next

for i have been to the future

or, at least, a future

for i was in Edinburgh when the all-change happened

the Corporatism

the theft of innocence

the mid-late 90s

when the venues, the comedy agents and the City Council took over

when it was realised they didn’t have to just make money out of the audience

they could also make money out of the performers

and they certainly did

when they astutely transmuted decades of effort and youth and bravery and creativity into hard coin

as Artists began to lose thousands

and, while many artists were loudly protesting

the small-government Scottish Fringe found itself powerless to do anything about it

...

...

while it would be naive to believe money won’t find a way

that the Edmonton Fringe won’t be sold out somehow

so the question is

how will the Edmonton Fringe betray itself?

...

there are and will be fault-lines

which the following questions might probe at

...

...

what proportion of shows are wholly original?

written from scratch?
and is that proportion declining?

?

...

is the cap on price a socialist hold-out amongst the libertarianisms

?

...

is it true to say

“the women make art, the men make money”?

?

...

is there empire building within the Fringe?

and is the Fringe already facilitating it?

?

...

in the future there will be equivalents to the Pleasance, the Assembly, the Gilded Balloon, etc

who and where and what will these be?

?

...

in what ways are the three best Canadian Fringes, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Toronto, different from each other?
and are these divergences widening?

?

...

how many Canadian Fringes do local companies do for the money?

?

...

is it a triumph that there are TV stars in 450 seat venues?

when the size of that number, 450, means wholescale wipe-out for shows by unknowns

who struggle for a decent-sized audience

of course, TV stars were always going to come sooner or later

its a product of success

though the Fringe didn’t have to allow such huge venues

and therefore change the artistic ecosystem

and wipe-out shows by unknowns

?

...

in Edinburgh there came a point when the big venues could dictate to the Fringe

how far away [decades?] is that time for Edmonton?

?

...

how much harder does it get every year for new companies?

?

...

is there as much artistic risk being taken as there was ten years ago...

twenty?

?

...

...

i wonder what questions other Fringers

performers, audience, administrators

deem the most pertinent?

?

…

in other news

...

Kathmandu

curiously quieter on a Saturday

where i just walked down Freak Street

near the wonderful Durbar Square

and i’m told Freak Street is where the freaks would stay in the 60s and 70s

and the name stuck

...

coincidentally

i’m off to Sedi, above Pokhara

to see my old Gokarna mucker, Dave

who was here in 1976

and who was a “freak”

...

says Dave

WE WEREN’T HIPPIES

HIPPIES WAS MADE OF PLASTIC, MAN

WE WAS FREAKS

...

...

in other news

...

its a Kathmandu of moody skies

where the feet want to wander at near random

down the streets and lanes

and alleys

across the squares

past the old and older

the tumbledown and the tidy

the bustling and the heaving

the crammed and the crammeder

through Kathmandu

the dead-end squares and the long curving exitless streets

where the feet want to and can and shall

pace the straights and

random the corners

so its my third time

in one of my very favourite cities on Earth

maybe my favourite, after Montreal

yet this time its rainy season

which does put a damper

and which means

as the mornings are bright and clear and blue-above

and slowly cloud and grey and drizzle through the afternoon

to many an evening of unadulterated downpour

i should be rising well before six to enjoy the splendours

of the streets before they have people

of the markets as they wake up

of the shrinking shadows

of the empty squares

many with fabulous stupas

a little like a giant white toilet plunger

with weird pairs of eyes drawn here and there

with gentle omming music

and incense rising

and overhanging eaves

and post-earthquake girders, still, holding up old walls

all a fascination for the eye and feet drawn here

and there

through one higgledy-housed square

into another piggledy-housed square

into an alleyway

and maybe into a further smaller head-stooping alleyway

maybe leading to a dead-end where the locals stare at the stymied foreigner

maybe leading on to another white stupa in another irregularly housed square

then, suddenly, another busy street

or busier market

with colourful bunting and flags and pennants

with shiny brass sculpting

with yet more gazillions of shops each overflowing into the street

with the higgledy of the different houses

the shape of many of which i can imagine in pre-Dickens London, centuries ago

as the eye zigzags while the feet zagzig

in a random walk through the old and the ancient

the older and the ancienter

past serene Buddhas

and demonic Gods who will make a passing liar vomit blood

past monks and nuns in maroon

past football shirts and trekker gortex

on a mappy scribble of an extended amble through olde worlde fabulous

for i dunno how long

as i thought i’d leave by now

and head West to see a pal

in the heights above Sedi and Pokhara

yet its much to soon to leave this near endless splendour

where i have a hankering to live off quasi-Chinese street-ish food

and where i should really have a beer

for in Ladakh, India, which i just left

i spent much of June a whole 250 km from any beer

while here its on both corners at the end of the street

yet i haven’t got round to beer yet

and might not for a day or three

of more ambly randoming

up the 365 steps to the famous temple a kilometre West

over the bridge to another old royal capital, Patan

and round and round the lanes and alleys of this Old City once again

...
…
…

…
from remote Ladakh, very Northern India
to Nepal, capital city
...
from cool and bright and open and fresh
to warm and sticky and shadowed and muggy
...
from empty streets and paths
to heaving alleys and lanes
to walk-halting traffic jams on thin roads
...
from a Buddhism
to another Buddhism
...
from tiny villages and two largeish towns
to a giant city sprawling for miles of jagged sullied concrete outside the historic fabulous old
...
from stretched out
to everything on top of each other, packed in, one thing after the next
jammed stuffed crowded rammed
...
from slow
to busy
to busier
...
from gaps between
to the next starting before the last has finished
and more already starting before those have properly begun
...
from muted
to garish
...
from low-rise and wide-open sky
to eaves and rooves above thin streets
...
from stretching out in space
to banging head hard on stone beams
after insufficient stooping in ever-shrinking rain-flooded alleyway
...
from loosely curving lanes
to tight zigzaggery
...
from junctions
to crossroads
...
from one choice, maybe two,
to many
...
from long strides
to short inhibited steps
...
from tallest person in the street
to tallest person in the street
...
from chicken chow mein
to buffalo chow mein
...
from Tibetan / Ladhaki or Indian food
to Chinese or Indian or Nepalese
...
from ice-melt rivers in torrential spate
to rainy season deluge
...
from Buddhism and Islam
to Buddhism-merged-Hinduism
...
from 3500-metre altitude issues
to none
...
from, often, no beer for 240 k
to beer-shops on the corner
...
from breakfast of local honey with tandoori roti from alley-side bakery oven
to hotel buffet breakfast
...
from new streets solely of hotels and guest-houses
to ancient old and older

...

from no pizzas no burgers no franchises no coffee-shops full of westerners

to no pizzas burgers franchises or coffee-shops full of...
...
from stark rocky plunging valleys
to intricately ornamental beauty
...
from rock-falling scree-slopes
to post-earthquake precarious walls
...
from no-mirrors and
i-forgot-what-i-look-like
to oh shit, really?
...
from tumbledown grey-stone hovels
and robust square elegant white new houses
to dilapidated, wonky, bowed, sullied, yawing, crumbling
...
from Leh
to Kathmandu

…

…

…

while this is a picture from my next perch
above Sedi, near Pokara

photo dump Ladakh

...

two nights left of my six weeks wandering the region

...

an astounding place

where i quickly ran out of words for ...

dramatic majestic grand

harsh bleak stark

boulder rock stone scree

sumptuous ebullient verdure verdant green

deep steep plunging

etc

...

so i’ll let the photos do the talking

...

and Ladakh is really not like India

at all

much more Tibetan

much more like the Upper Mustang Valley in Nepal

or, Tibet, i guess

...

enjoy the photos

...

...

...

and its two nights left of my six months in India

...

Kathmandu Saturday

one of my very favourite cities upon this Earth

...

...

...

...

in other news

...

hitch-hiking has been great in this region

and the best way to get around

...

super-easy

no waits over thirty minutes

except the biggest day of the Shia Muslim’s Muharram Festival

when there was zero traffic

...

faster than the bus

where there aren’t many buses anyhow

because there aren’t many inhabitants

because this remote area is pretty empty

and it ain’t easy to find out when the bus is

because maybe the folk you ask don’t understand you

or , very possibly, you don’t understand them

... and anyhow i often ain’t been quite sure where i want to end up

and have happily thrown myself upon the winds of chance

...

done in your own time

as you have long enough

and don’t mind being stuck on a roadside

with an utterly fabulous striking view

for maybe two minutes, maybe thirty

...

safe

EVEN YOUNG LOCAL WOMEN HITCH-HIKE IN THIS REGION

which certainly don’t happen in most of India

where many young women are intimidated by the streets

...

cheap

like free

...

the best way to meet local folk

me i used to hitch-hike masses

back in my Twenties

and it was a great and rewarding way to meet folk i would never meet in any other way

and it still is

i’ve been crammed in cars full of chatty nuns and monks

while my lifts’ English has tended to be excellent

so i’ve met two doctors, an engineer, a crypto-whizzkid, two teachers, three IT guys, plus a civil servant in the Education Ministry, and another... and more

who have given me more of a sense of, an education about, this region than any other source

where one thing i’ve learnt is...

THEY DON’T LIKE RULE FROM DELHI

they’re a Union Territory not a State

which means rule from down South

and the folks i’ve met want Ladakh to be a State

yet they don’t expect this to happen while the BJP are in power

and the BJP ain’t losing power any time soon

...

fun

laughs with the lift

gorgeous roadsides

even when there’s been zero traffic its been an all-surrounding pleasure

...

and liberating

it gives a great sense of freedom to throw oneself on the winds of fate

to be governed by a roll of the random dice

...

and you get there anyhow

wherever it is

sooner or later

...

andnuncomplicated

in Lamaruyu, in Mulbekh, in Kargil, in Brakoo, in Rangdum

you walk out your door and you simply start

...

...

...

...

in other news

i’ve introduced that ubiquitous Canadian joke to a few

“here we have two seasons

winter and construction”

and the Ladakhis they like that joke a lot

Cultural appropriation from the Land of Stupid?

Or self-generated blundering?

...

...

One of my very best travelling days ever

Hitching down the Zanskar Valley

Which i would have enjoyed rather more

If i could have been sure at the time that it wasn’t a stupid thing to be doing

And that every slow kilometre wasn’t taking me further into trouble i’d have trouble getting out of

...

…

Because

Lots of locals told me the new Zanskar Gorge Road is now “open”

But

That wouldn’t be my definition of “open”

When that road is so new it doesn’t properly “exist” yet

Though its certainly “there” enough to be utterly astounding
The most awe-inspiring valley road i ever drove down

...

Bouncy-bouncy bang-bang crashy

Jiggety-jaggety crunchety crashy

From

Padum

To

Nimmu

Next the wide, white-splashed, brown ice-melt torrent

...

Down a plunging river valley, V-shaped not U-shaped and glacial

High, deep, jutting, rugged, stark
Old, aeons, tens of million

Tarmac, gravel, stone, sand

Winding, smooth, hairpins

...

Strata bent, twisted, broken, precarious

...

...

video clip is

THE MOVIES

from last year’s show

recorded as part of the Gabriola Island Theatre Festival

late August

...

So there i was

Moving in five ten fifteen k fits and starts

Down the starkly beautiful river gorge road

The Zanskar valley North from Padum

Much of it overhung by vast cliffs

Much of it newly carved from the rock

Sometimes with a rock overhang the width of the two-lane road...

...

Yet it’s not finished

[Though there are already signs of subsidence]

And so, because it’s not finished, there’s no traffic

Making hitch-hiking somewhat tricky

...

...

While all my hitching in Ladakh, so far

Has been a cheery cruise of a chummy doddle

...
And, also, the best way to meet local folk

Friendly, chatty, informative Ladhaki folk

Doctor, teachers, civil servant, crypto whizz-kid

...

Many many folk hitch-hike here

Even young women hitch-hike

Which doesn’t happen in most of India

...

...

Meanwhile, my two devices were not functioning

So i had no map

And had no idea how much or, more importantly, how little, of the 280 k i’d done

Though Google Maps and Maps.Me are both wrong and out of date in much of Ladakh, anyhow

…

...

While its a big shame i couldn’t take my own photos

For none of the online pictures do it justice

None show the enormity

Or what it’s like to be on the finished and unfinished road

At the bottom of the high gorge

With the vast rock

And its twisted or vertical or vanishing rockbeds

...

Elemental

Raw

Brute

...

I’ve hitch-hiked thousands of time

And this was the most amazing day of them all

Where this road, the Zanskar Valley Road,

Is going to be incredible, a global wonder

...

Assuming portions of it don’t slip into the river

...

So me?

My lifts were one truck

One school bus, full of noisy schoolgirls

One teacher

Three construction trucks

One of them army

And one of them twice...?

...

While groups of road workers i passed offered me lunch

And brought me water

...

While the roadside time

Beneath overhangs

Under cliffs

Next a bridge

Was all glorious

Yet worrisome

For what lies ahead?

Does the road continue all the way?
And are there vehicles and therefore lifts on it?

...

Until

After a number of slow hitch-hiking hours i had no means to count

There i was

Beyond the middle of not-really-anywhere

Stood in the dust and sun and splendour

Waiting for non-existent traffic

Which didn’t exist because the road ain’t open yet

And even if it did exist

The safety checkpoint a mile back wouldn’t let it through for four more hours, till 5pm

Though they did let the foot-bound foreign hitch-hiker through

Me...

...

So i walked on until i got to an unbridged ford i didn’t want to hazard

And stood waiting

In the stark wowing high beauty

For forty minutes

Without a single vehicle

Thinking, am i in trouble

Or not?

Is this stupid

Or not?

It’s errr difficult to tell

Because the whole day has been slow

In the rocky grandeur

...

And then my saviours ...

The taxi with two holidaying Hyderabadis

A doctor and an I.T. guy

Who both had an altitude sickness problem further up

And therefore had to abandon their motorcycles

To descend fast

And, being proper types

Had got an official medical exception to the closing of the road

And were allowed through checkpoints

Unlike all other civilian traffic

So their exception was my ticket to security

And i was sorted

Though i found i’d only travelled maybe 100 k

In six amazed hours of bitty hitching ...

...

So then

There i was

Sat in the back seat

Goggling and gawping at the awe-inspiring splendours

Neck-swivelling, neck-lowering

Eye-narrowing, eye-raising

At the yawing rock
The flowing, churning, foaming river

The enormous scree-slopes

The colossal rock-faces

The gob-smacking scale of it

The height of the rock

The twisted mangled strata

The brown grey green red rock

The broken and smashed and pulverised

...

Brute

Elemental

Colossal

Ancient

Towering

...

With more fallen boulders than anywhere i ever seen

With more twisty switch-backing in the rock layers

The seams and veins and faults

Than anything i ever saw before...

...

While i had to wonder

Am i the first to hitch-hike this astounding road?

...

Until we cruised out the North end of the valley

Where the Zanskar meets the fabled Indus River

And turned right towards Leh

...

Where i am now

And don’t really want to be

Now my laptop is fixed

...

For i’d thought i could cruisily hitch down the Zanskar

Sort my malfunctioning laptop

Then neatly hitch back and resume plans

Yet, after yesterday

[How lucky was i?]

I dunno how wise that would be

Yet any other way back to Padum is right around the houses, maybe 400 k

...

And there’s the big question

How lucky was i?

I suspect i was pretty damn lucky

And therefore shouldn’t try it again

...

So i’m wondering what to do next

On Friday i guess

...

Back to Brakoo is very tempting

And then there’s Tingmosgang ...

...

...

...

Padum before the pass to the mid-right
taken from Karsha across the Tsarep River

...

…

...

in other news

after a month in Ladakh i finally found some good food

for here scran has been no more than ok

the Indian curries are unspecial

ditto the thalis

and momos and noodle soups are only ever not bad

...

while down South i’d springing cheerily from my hotel

three times a day

expectant of good food

yet here?

not so much

…

till this morning i found

fresh bread

from something very like a tandoori

called chapatis but not like chapatis down South

more nan-like

yet doughy and crusty at the same time

while i inherited some honey

from Brody the Utah permaculturist

and the honey is perfect with this bread for an uncharacteristic sweet breakfast

...

while lunch was South Indian poori

nice

with curd, spicy bean- lentil and

a first

some kind of reddish sweet and sour sauce

reminding me China ain’t so far away

...

...

...

WHAT THE UNIVERSE IS FOR

is about to be accomplished

the Grail is close

we are almost there

...

OUR DESTINY

and when this pinnacle of achievement is successfully mounted

when this goal is surpassed

the world, the Cosmos, everything, will have served its ultimate Reason For Being

and shall therefore end

come to pass

and dissolve away into eternal peace and nothingness

...

FROM THE BIG BANG TO HERE, THE CROWNING CULMINATION

it can be read somewhere that the entire purpose of our Universe

has been to come up with the name of God

and that when the name of the One Divine is finally spoken

all shall end

and the very stars go out one by one

yet this theory is not correct

...

rather

ALL OF CREATION HAS BEEN LEADING UP TO THIS COMING FINAL MOMENT

while something has to explain why so many millions

around the world

have been, and are,

doing their very best

to make this literally earth-shattering culmination come to be

where, myself, i have only slowly come to understand it

though millions have clearly realised it before me

which explains why they are so religiously doing their very best

to make it happen

working so hard towards this denouement of denouements

this One Goal

beyond the Twelfth Zero

and when this greatest of all summations is consummated

all shall come to pass

...

FROM THE FIRST ORGANIC MOLECULES TO OUR NOW

and when it does

this universe shall atomise in a blaze of rapturous glory

and the very atoms themselves shall diffuse into micro-particles so tiny as to be infinitesimal

and those infinitesimals shall diffuse again

...

WE ARE ALMOST THERE, REJOICE

many have long wondered

more with every passing year of our Century

why so many are so actively

so selflessly

striving with their all

to surmount this almighty task

why they have accepted such a harsh and brutal human world

why they have voided

have deep-sixed

have nahhed

such notions as

love of our Earth

compassion

empathy

familial concern for their descendents

to instead aid the seemingly unstoppable

the drive for the Great Goal

our crowning climactic crescendo

and, now, the answer is coming clear

that the whole purpose of the Universe has been for someone

something

somewhere

to surpass the Twelfth Zero

...

FOR AFTER FOURTEEN BILLION YEARS THE SUPREME MOMENT COMES

and what is this great culmination

this celestial cataclysm

it is

the creation of the first

the only

Trillionaire

...

THIS IS WHAT IT HAS ALL BEEN FOR

this has been the Grand Design of all Creation

to create a Trillionaire

and it has been the epic journeys of epic journeys

the Greatest Ambition of Our Species

of the Entire Universe

...

AND AS SOON AS IT HAS

all can and will finally end

...

ITS BEEN AEONS FOR THIS

fourteen Billion years of substance, for this

four Billion years of life on Earth, for this

...

and this is why they did it...

...

the apes coming down from the trees

...

the first settled farmers

creating a surplus

...

the first Kings

amassing

...

Feudalism

extorting

filling coffers

...

from a radioactive silver mine in Bohemia

from Joachim’s dollar

to here

...

Capitalism

finessing, ever finessing

the steering of a maximum of resources into fewer and fewer hands

more than anyone could ever need or spend

...

THIS EXPLAINS EVERYTHING
Venice, small

the Netherlands, bigger but small

Britain, biggish

the USA, huge

the Fuggers, the VOC, the East India Company, Morgan Chase, Goldman-Sachs

this is what’s its been for

the commercialisation of time, of space, of life

the monetisation of Everything

it has been so that one day in the far-off future

a future now close

one individual might become

a, The

Trillionaire

the only one

for after this Celestial Moment

the Supreme Destiny

the purpose of our Earth

our Galaxy

nay, our entire Universe

has been fulfilled

and all shall atomise

us with it

and those very atoms shall dissolve away amongst themselves

...

...

^...

^...

^{there is of course a big hole in this joke / plot}

^{which i’m sure you’ve already seen}

^…

^currency

^...

^{why the Dollar?}

^...

^{yet maybe you, the Dear Reader}

^{could let this glaring inconsistency}

^{this void in the narrative}

^pass

^{perhaps like a Hollywood movie}

^{where you forgive the holes in the plot}

^...

^{and you, Dear Reader}

^{do do this when watching movies}

^{don’t you?}

^{give plot-holes a pass}

^?

^...

^{or perhaps}

^{you might concur that}

^{as is abundantly clear to many}

^{America’s supremacy is God-given}

^{and so the Trillion shall be in Dollars}

^{and we are nearly there}

^{less than five years away}

^...

^{one last effort folks}

^{and we’ll be there}

^...

^...

...

...

some think the Purpose of the Universe is

Love

or

for one to speak the name of God

or

to complete the Tower of Hanoi

yet no

the purpose of the Universe is to surpass the Twelfth zero

1

10

100

1,000

10,000

100,000

1,000,000

10,000,000

100,000,000

1000,000,000

10,000,000,000

100,000,000,000

1000,000,000,000

poouuuffff!

The End

...

...

well, something really does have to explain why

so many people are working so incredibly hard

to make the Billionaires richer

...

something has to explain why

so many people with no money

the rednecks, the Faragists

have sought, submitted to, a libertarian free-market

which is chiefly going to make very rich people even richer

and them, their children and their grandchildren poorer

have sought to create, for so many, a life of fifty years

yes, fifty years

of working harder and longer for less

and yes this

this has long been an extremely difficult question to answer

why do they want this?

...

yet my writing here

which you are now reading

can humbly proffer a solution

to this great historical mystery

...

why do they so actively want the Billionaires richer?

because, yay

they want our Cosmos to achieve its one-true purpose

because they seek the Great Climax, the holy Grail

of the first and only Trillionaire

...

...

so let us prepare ourselves for the Divine Moment

when the Prophecy is Fulfilled

...

14 Billion years leading up to this

the great culmination

the final orgasm, the Big Death

...

...

Elon knows this is true

he’s the ultimate nihilist

...

and maybe

once all its over

and there is no anything

the Divine Trillionaire gets to live

in some other realm

some other dimension

where they become as an immortal God

and live with the Trillionaires of previous universes

who somehow, by divine purpose

somewhere, of divine design

reign as Gods in all eternity

...

while everyone and everything else simply dissipates away

to be but a memory in the mind of God

where that God is called Elon

...

Elon knows this is true

he knows he is a God in the making

he know he has what it takes

...

...

and Elon might like some of our world to survive

yet he knows others are trying to get there first

and if he slows they might overtake him

and they might live forever

become God

while he is atomised along with everyone else

and becomes, humiliatingly

a vanishing infinitesimal mote in the vastness of all time

...

...

FYI

there have been

in fact still are

universes where they realised all of this

what happens to everything after the twelfth zero is surmounted

where they have made a multi-galactic mutual agreement

that no-one go beyond the hundred billion mark

the eleventh zero

so that they might persist for eternity

...

...

yet in more than one of these universes

stretching back beyond the reaches of all times

and forward into all times

there was an individual

the ultimate psychopath

who sought to destroy the Universe

...

...

while in others it was pure greed from one individual

the ultimate sociopath

...

or the desire to become God

the ultimate egocentric

who sought to consummate Time

in their own self-deification

...

which led to the End of All

the Last Moment

the ascension of a Trillionaire

...

...

so here we are

and there we shall be

on our knees before the Blinding Light of the Greatest Moment

The End Times

The Rapture

soon, very soon

The All

...

...

the guy with the banner on the stick in the old photos

he knew

The End Of The World Is Nigh

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

in a Hollywood-style possible final plot-twist

...

one way to save the Earth, the All

...

might be

...

if someone were to inform said Elon

and all the other wannabe deities

that the definition of God is a loose one

...

and that one of Creation’s many cruel jokes is that

actually

what a God really is

is a miniscule organism only capable of being conscious of one sensation

pain

and that it is hot

very very hot

in the next world

...

and that one might

in fact

really

REALLY

regret being there for all eternity

...

...

while

for the rest of Time

we, us, all, go somewhere else...

...

where the rains have come

and washed away all we are and were

where all our hurts and pains have been cleared within us

and no-one can hurt anyone any more

where everyone has forgiven everyone their trespasses

and life comes again to sweep all forward once more

where an energy and love begins

from a freshet spring within each of us

and surges out in a sweep of warm happiness

to merge and become one

with all the love in the Universe

...

...

but Elon?

he does not know that

...

or maybe he does

and in one final twist in the plot

it turns out he, Elon Musk

has long been aware of all of all of this

and he, with a divine selflessness

is prepared, for all our sakes

to make the ultimate sacrifice

to suffer eternal agony

in order to pave a heavenly path for us all

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

and as the credits roll

with a thanks to

Arthur C Clarke

we see a picture of the night sky

where already the number of stars has thinned, patchily

and we see two large stars vanish

then more

as the sky visibly darkens

until after the credits have rolled

there is the line

“one by one the stars are going out”

...

...

The Accidents Of The Inevitable

a line which could read as oxymoronic

...

yet i mean the happy accidents

the serendipities

that stem from the inevitable

...

i mean, how one logical step after another

has slowly, jumpily

lead me

in a random walk

way up here into the increasingly remote

to a marvellous thing

the journey up the Suru Valley

...

...

where i had and have a growing sense of...

anticipation

...

...

and here it is

a homestay over the river from Sankoo

after a country lane of pollarded poplars

before the colossal snow-capped rock-falling valley to the North

and just beyond the village sign for Brakoo

on the North-Eastern side of the grey, gushing, ice-melt Suru River

...

all too perfect to pass up

...

...

first photo is Lankarche

where a river gorge winds into the valley

creating a broad sloping space for a village, Lankarchey

...

...

meanwhile

a bus windscreen reads

“subdued thoughts lead to sublime determinations”

...

a line which might read better in Purigi or Arabic

yet my clunky line “the serendipities of inevitability” might

you never know

read very well in some language somewhere

while maybe that line

could that be rephrased as “the chances of fate”?

i’m not sure

yet i don’t think so

that doesn’t quite express it

...

for what i mean is

its pretty accidental and random that i’m here

in the small village of Brakoo

yet every step that brought me here has been

the most obvious thing to do next

from where i then was

...

i got to each place and

after two or three days

i mulled out the best next step

until, after ten days

i’d gone from Leh to this remote river valley

...

...

for

after the altitude sickness fiasc

on my abortive Sham Valley Trek

led me, via a tricky desolate empty river gorge, back to Leh

where i’d already been too long

i had to go somewhere

...

yet i needed to take a route that wouldn’t involve staying on high

and, anyhow, the obvious route was on the main highway

along the Indus River

past Nimmoo

then over the pass

to the Wakha River valley

for the Buddhist monastery villages of

first Lamayuru, 2 nights

and then, after the 4100 metre, Fotu La pass

Mulbekh, 3 nights

each perched on the North side of the vast snow-rimmed valley

...

after which it was only sensible to keep going

down the main road

to the unknown of Kargil

a Shia Muslim town

crammed and stretched

between the valley side and the Suru River

...

and after Kargil, the obvious step

is up the Suru Valley

with Sankoo and Rangdum along the way

towards the remote small towns of Padum and Zanskar

in the decidedly remote Zanskar Valley

where it seems there is a new road down the Zanskar River

back to Nimmoo,

though whether there’s any traffic to hitch-hike is a

errr

bridge i’ll cross when i come to it

...

yet, the further i go, the higher and colder it will get

so, looking at Kargil to Zanskar

it made good sense to find a beauty early, and low, and warm

rather than later, and high, and chilly

and here it is

a homestay in Brakoo

in the Suru Valley

with lush greenery

in an alluvial plain

ground out by glaciers

over the millions

all between the steep and harsh rocky sides

rising to snowy peaks

...

...

however

these might seem logical decisions to me

yet they clearly haven’t to anyone else

for there were no foreigners in Lamayuru or Mulbekh

i saw just one in Kargil

while i get the feeling none come to Sankoo very often

and i’m pretty damn certain no foreigner ever walks up that green lane through Brakoo

with its wide-eyed children and halloos and grinning old men

and women in the green wheat-fields unbending their backs to

watch the oddity go by

...

for this has to be one of the friendliest places ever

and feels very very safe

...

...

so i’m fresh out of Kargil

Ladakh’s second city

where i came down from the Buddhist Mountains

on the good road along the Wadha River

to where the Wadha meets the Suru

at Kargil,

a town squeezed long and thin between river and cliff

some of which is collapsing

so, actually in the town, there’s a stretch of the one main road where

no-one parks

or sets up stalls

in Kargil,

where the Suru, but not the Wadha

is greyly foaming in ice-melt torrent

where i came down

from mountain and Buddhism and Tibetan

into town and Islam and Indian

where it was no longer the bunting and stupas and prayer wheels

and gentle long prayers

it was minarets and green

and the call to prayer

for i came down from the mountains and stark bleak gorges

into something different

into city-town-ness

busyness

noisyness

...

...

and where, in Kargil

i soon guessed the spoken language was different to before

and not Hindi either

and yes, its Purigi

a Tibetic lanuage

spoken by 120,000 at the most

almost all near here, Kargil

yet the language, my hitch-hike rides have told me

is thriving

...

though everything written is in English

the shop signs, the public information posters

even the dull detail on the water bottles

...

while further up the valley, soon

it will be another language

Zanskari

...

...

Kargil

being Shia

has many folk very keen on Iran

and there are lots of posters featuring two Khameneis and a Khomeini

are head-scarved little girls carrying pictures of Khomeini

...

where one of my hitch-hikes rides said

there are a bunch of Khomeini fans in the town

and i got the distinct feeling he found them tedious to say the least

...

while, i guess, here in India

if you are going to show affinity for a Muslim country

you might be safe showing affinity for Iran

while you might not be with demonstrating for Pakistan

for the border is only 11k away [?]

and the Pakistanis did actually invade

stupidly and uselessly

back in 1999

...

...

and i say Brakoo is too perfect to pass up

yet there’s no dhabas or even chai-shops in the village

so i’m not sure where my meals are going to be coming from

...

but something always comes up

and i have a kettle, for Maggi

so maybe i’m gonna eat a lot of noodles

and bags of samosas and pakoda

...

and here i’ll be

in Brakoo

rustic, with large new middle-class houses

where super-smiley children follow me down lanes

Brakoo

lushly green with young wheat

which has to all happen fast, grow quick, with such a short summer

and an eight month winter

Brakoo

avenues of pollarded poplars

...

…

.

looking south down the Suru Valley

...

...

in other news

a shop sign says

“proprietor Ali Aziz Hardass”

...

…

...

…

in other news

no alcohol anywhere for well over 100k

if not 200

...

...

...

...

in other news

many of the lanes here aren’t on the map

maps.me is pretty useless

and, while google maps is similarly bad

the satellite photos do do the job

and show me where there’s a road

and a bridge

...

...

...

...

in other news

an easy 7k downhill saunter

on the thin road from Brakoo

to Thovina

[see photo below]

where as soon as i arrive i

thumb a lift straight back

...

...

an afternoon’s rolling stroll from Brakoo to Thovina

...

...

in other news

the random leap of the obvious steps,

the accidents of inevitability,

the serendipities of the

serially

logical,

take me from

step to

step,

stop to

stop to

next ...

here it is

THE NEW POUR

into The Bucket Of Unused Ideas

...

33 spanking new pieces

added to the 766

so its now 799

ideas poems stories jokes

fragments verses choruses ditties oneliners jingles

online

at pure random

...

...

performance poetry

...

an

artform

where

the

paint

is

always

wet

...

?

…

...

while me?

a performance poet?

for almost thirty years

i never went anywhere near the poetry publishing world

despite offers

i was wholly and utterly PERFORMANCE

lost into the fabulous new possibilities of a medium

where so much seemed undone

and where i saw many many great acts do amazing things

...

...

Embodied Poetics

text voice face

breath body space

...

...

yet i was always writing

generating lines and ideas

most of which could never be used on a stage

and this huge array built and built

and built

for decades

until...

i had to do something with it

...

yet a book was out

ordinary was out

and i’d always been fascinated by the random collision of ideas

chiefly to be found in rock’n’roll’n’rap

the concatenations

plotless, narrative-less, ideas

ideas stripped of everything but themself
pure

...

so

a huge number

of disconnected

digital pieces

coming at the reader

at total random

seemed a doable way

to achieve this

...

and here we are

and here it is

...

...

if artists are outsiders

and poets are the outsiders among artists

and performance poetry the outsider of poetry

then i’m not sure quite how I ended up

on the outside of the outside of the outside

of the outside

...

but i did

...

...

the nature of the bucket

a huge number of pieces

wholly randomised

means that, of course

no-one can be sure they’ve read them all

what was 766

and is now 799

...

so when we add more pieces

the Dear Reader cannot know if a piece is new

or if it has been a possible all along

and they simply have not encountered it

...

yet this, Dear Folks

is a the nature of the Beast

the Thing

the never-done-ever

the Bucket

...

...

and here it is

all my eggs in one bucket

a high high heap of powder my

anti-publishing dogma

has scrupulously

kept dry for decades

my one and only shot

a very loaded cannon

The Bucket

...

...

accessed

behind the paywall

here on Substack

at The Bucket Of Unused Ideas

...

...

...

...

from my window

...

…

…

IN OTHER NEWS

...

here i am, in Mulbekh

west of the Fotu La pass

on the Leh-Kargil highway

...

an extremely friendly place

...

famous for a Buddhist Monastery

on the hill above

...

and a thirty foot rock-cut relief of Buddha

the Maitreya Buddha

8th Century

carved into a huge rock

in the Gompa

just over the road from my simple room

[see photo]

...

the Maitreya Buddha is a Buddha to come

which is an unusual concept

...

a Buddha

a King of Love

who will arrive

when the teachings of the original Gautama Buddha are

forgotten

neglected

...

...

...

while

some of the Buddhist music

playing for hours and hours

sounds VERY like a low and gentle Christian choir

...

then twenty oldish women

in heavy ankle-length skirts

with head-scarves or woolly hats

and braided hair hanging down their back

all crowdedly circle the prayer-wheel

then enter the tiny temple space

as the music turns into a sermon reminiscent of

a very drunk drunk

getting hold of a microphone in a pub

and bravely but failingly

attempting to sing an old Irish or English folk song

...

...

...

...

in other news

...

a novel so full of cunning,

so brimming with sly sneaky,

that as i lay on the settee,

laughing and turning the pages,

my knives sharpened themselves in the draw

…

…

…

a three-pronged muck-up of a yesterday

the second, a fall in the river

the third, a heavy fall in the street

but first

a can’t-go-forward, cant-go-back, scenario

where my only way out is

maybe

a 5-6-7 k river gorge

in some remote mountains

i can’t know i can get safely through

and where there’ll be no people

...

all in all

a proper schtuck to get oneself in

another hairy descent

...

the way South

...

at this point i think i’m obliged to mention

the next Pour

into The Bucket Of Unused Ideas

is very imminent

...

33 new pieces

will be added

for the 1st of June

...

six months after it first went live

it will now be 799 pieces in all

presented at total random

one after the other

at a pull or refresh of your screen

something no-one ever did before

...

ideas stories poems gags one-liners

fragments verses choruses ditties

and more

...

some folk have made it a daily part of their life

to have it up on their screens

for constant or occasional perusal

a permanently available stock of new thoughts

old quotes

comic stories

and left-field ideas

...

the undoable way forward

…

...

back to my predicament in the mountains of Ladakh

which occurred after

one hard-trekked day of leg-aching ascent

in the bleakly beautiful, stark rocky mountains and valleys and gorges

on the winding trails from Likir to Yangthang

on the three night Sham Valley Trek

the easiest available trek up here in Ladakh

...

and so

after a nice night in a Homestay

room, dinner, breakfast and packed lunch

not bad for 1500 rupees

i started the next day with a steep descent

down to the river

with the bigger steeper climb visible ahead of me

yet when i get down there to start the ascent i

can’t do it

go up that is

because ... altitude sickness

in the form of dizziness and a physical uurrgghh in my carriage

and

after three attempts at just twenty metres of climb

each making me feel weak, woozy and terrible

i realise i

errrr

can’t go forward

or back, up

or right, North, which is just a rock face

i can only go left, South

down the gorge of the Tokpo River

while the only real remedy for altitude sickness is to go down

so that’s what i have to do

turn left, go South, down

except its an unknown

barely mapped

...

yet

do i have a choice?

especially when, as long as i’m not going upwards

i feel good

and hey

its an adventure

could be brilliant

an off-piste wander

while i have a litre of water

and the packed lunch

so, why not?

yet

i don’t know if its doable

...

...

while thinking now, next morning, achily safe in Leh

i guess i coulda got someone in Yangthang

to somehow get me a taxi

but that woulda taken hours

and been failure

and no-fun

whereas trying the deep river gorge is not failure

keeps the adventure rolling

...

…

yet i don’t know what’s in the gorge

and there’s no internet anywhere here

and the Maps.me App cannot be trusted

for things that do exist aren’t on the App

while trails that don’t are

so i don’t know if its dangerous

stupid

impossible

perilous

i can’t know and i don’t but

keyly

its down

and down i have to do

and down i can do

is the chief thing i can physically do

except, after i make the decision

and begin

the tarmac road soon disappears into a stony trail

which disappears

so, yes, Maps.me is wrong
…

and so i start making my way along the rocky stony bottom

right next the thin, shallow, gently descending, winding river

the Tokpo river

as i enter into its deep gorge

of colossal high rock-faces yawing way above me

of jutting geological striata

some twisted back on themselves

of huge rocks defying gravity

and its bottom of boulders and river-rounded stones

with a scree of tiny slithers on every side

often a slope of scree hundreds of metres high

while there’s little chance i’m going too see anyone

and there must be 5k of this to do

but its not even eleven

so i got plenty time

to pick my way

then stop to breathe it in

to enjoy the stark splendour

plus i’ve no exhaustion in the legs

and any dizziness has gone with the descent

like its supposed to

...

while this, here

i shoulda said

this is one of the bleakest landscapes i ever saw

while everything seems pulverised

broken into bits

by time and gravity

as i dicily pick my precarious way down

and down

the shallow gorge

stepping on

or on the sand between

these ankle-busting stones

and crossing the river five, ten times

not one of which is easy

on the smooth stones

as i find my slow way

stopping now and again to drink in just how

desolate

bleak

this beauty is

where the Southern horizon is high snow-covered peaks

then, ahhh, falling off a slippy stone into the river

half drenching myself

but rescuing my tablet

then soggily eating my packed lunch

while looking at a pair of tidily-set small trainers on a stone by the river

surrounded by scattered ragged clothes

???

…

progress

…

…

while, all the time

i cannot know if this is doable

if there’s a waterfall?

if the gorge thins, with cliffs both sides

so there’ll be no way through

and i’ll have to go back up

which is the one thing i can’t do

so i battle and pick and struggle

and ascend a little slope to a car-wide trail

flat and easy

with old car-tracks

which is a sign of reachable civilisation

and thus good

yet the track then disappears

has fallen, sloughed, been washed-away

into the river

which is not good

though there are then two thoughtfully placed cairns which

if i pass between them

bring me to the lip of a doable slip-slidey path

back down to the river bottom

where i descend for one river bend of rocks and stones and crossing

and then ascend again to another flat easy trail

which again, after one long bend

disappears, sloughed away once more

while i’m forced by the winding of the vast valley-side

to again cross

and recross the river

with a growing sense that this is doable

this is a great thing to be doing

that this is about as good a Plan C as i am going to get in a hurry

and that soon i’m going to come to...

and i do

with, first, a concrete irrigation channel on the left side

which i walk on

then see an abandoned house

and, up the other slope, a crumbling white stupa

[Buddhist shrine]

then a decent trail on the right side

with motorbike tracks

recent ones

which means i’m safe

i’m good

and then

as i hoped it might

but kinda hoped it might not

for it means the real tricky bit of the adventure is over

then, after say 5k

of the intrepid perilous know-nothing river bottom

there’s a proper road in from a gorge to the West

the one on Maps.me

which i guessed was real

and tarmacked

and is

wending down the valley

so the walk now becomes a sunny stroll

a saunter

as i see some poplar trees

which are the sign of a fertile patch

which is likely the sign of habitation

as i descend into the green

to pass the Rizpong Buddhist Nunnery

where there’s a fleet of government SUVs

?

and head on down to the National Highway

to the village of Uleytokpo

have a chai in a friendly cafe

and another

then get my thumb out for the lift back

from Uleytokpo

and wait for half an hour

my longest roadside wait in Ladakh

where often the very first vehicle has picked me up

yet in the end its one of the fleet of government cars

not an SUV

which takes me the 60k or so

back up the beautiful and starkly majestic valley of the Indus River

yes the Indus

the one i’ve been intrigued by since the age of seven

to Leh

...

where i just have time to get one more crashbangwallop in to the

succession of ballsups

because my stiffening limbs are so unwieldy i

get a sudden cramp in the thigh getting out the car

and fall very heavily on the downslope

in the busy Leh street

and am very fortunate not to bang my head

or get hit by some form of traffic

after which

more than disappointed by the cutting short

the failure

of my first attempt at a trek

the easiest trek available

i

get back to my guest house

where i left this laptop

and lie flat and still on the bed

so that nothing else can fuck-up

fall-over

feel wrong

flatline

or fuck-up again

...

...

…

safety in Uleytopko

…

…

…

by the way

i do have a history of unwise and hairy descents…

…

one week till the next Pour

33 new pieces added to The Bucket

from 766 to 799 total

June 1

...

presented to you

as ever

at glorious random

...

with no piece over 100 words

or more than13 lines

...

with a few ideas and wordings i’ve had for

ooo

ten twenty thirty years

but never used in a show

...

and including

...

a poem i wrote in 1985

which must be one of the first five poems i ever wrote

and which not one person has ever seen

...

one story from ‘97 i never dared release in any kind of print

[quite easy to not do when you don’t publish anything]

...

stand-alone fragments from poems i did in shows

in 2006, 2009, 2012, 2025

...

a quote from Veronica Franco

...

a cheap gag from 2001

...

a piece about a rare monument to the atrocities of the British Empire

which prison i visited twice this April

...

a homily

an aesthetic position

an inkless inkling

...

and more

…

all of which will be accessible

behind the paywall

here at The Bucket

...

…

image has two of the new pieces
two of the original

...

meanwhile

its been a mighty leap from sea-level to 3000m

from Chennai to Leh

from South India to its very North

from stifling-slum humidity to thin air

from jungle to “cold desert”

finding my way between three extreme seasons

swelter, Monsoon and ice

...

where i’m currently brushing the edges of one season

the very last of the Ladakh winter

for its snowbound here nine-ten months of the year

and, though the real icebinding cold has passed

it’ll be notably warmer next week

...

and before this i landed full-square into another extreme

easily the most likeable of the three...

the last of the highest Chennai swelter

and therefore avoided the third

the South-West Monsoon

while another coming Monsoon

way out East on the Andaman Islands

drenched me twice, only twice

before i boarded ship and sailed West

...

experiencing some kind of climactic extreme was inevitable

so this is not bad going

...

and all this has brought me to the

thin air of Leh

a town of 45,000

with a high-mountain culture

more Tibetan than Indian

...

where hundreds and hundreds of empty-ish hotels and homestays are

stirring for the imminent short-summer Tourist Season

...

where its pale blue above

and one form or another of grey below

grey-white stone

grey-trunked thinly green trees,

grey-brown stark valley-sides

grey-black roads

albeit with many white hotels and homestays

and some very white whitewashed stupas and gompas

...

where it’s cold

but not glove-cold or woolly-hat cold

with snow-capped peaks and furrier dogs

where it’s a mix of old and new

crumbling stupas

and just-built guest-houses

with intricately carved wooden awnings and balconies

...

...

so i

two eyes

in a head

on shoulders

above two walking legs

am choosing to stride my rhythmless jig

in this meandering zagzig

to pace the

back ends of the

back alleys, boonies and backroads

on my slow

planless and solo

goalless and just-so

stop-start-go

...

...

so i’m trying to not feel like i

threw myself out of paradise

as its more like i was forced out

by the Rainy Season

...

yet it’s been quite a series of transitions,

from white coral sands and greenest green jungle

on Havelock Island in the Andaman Islands,

to three days on a passenger ship, the Swaraj Dweep

carving through the gentle blue-grey waters of the Bay of Bengal,

to Chennai, Triplicane district

heaving brimming and generally full-on

a swelter in the sweatbox,

to the non-time of an overnight flight,

to here

the northernmost state of India

...

where Chennai to Ladakh is

as much of a change in geography as one could maybe ever manage

without crossing a national border

from as urban as urban gets

to cold-desert mountains

...

...

i knew it was going to be a huge change

yet, as i usually don’t worry about or research my destinations too much, i

simply get there and enjoy dealing with

whatever newnesses it throws at me

yet it was, and is, a way bigger difference than

anything i hazily anticipated

...

so i’m physically feeling the all-change

the cold and, especially, the altitude

...

for any sense of triumph at successfully avoiding the worsts

got tempered by altitude sickness

which has now, after four days, finally lifted

it was not genuine-problem Altitude Sickness

just the ordinary ungood symptoms of acclimatisation

mixed with missing most of a night’s sleep en route

yet still

muggy-headed-ness, terrible sleeping, slowness

...

...

so here we are beneath the sky

looping loops with an easy eye

wandering with softly treading feet

over stone and brick and grass and root

and concrete

for you have to be somewhere

and we were there

or near

before we were

here

where thereabouts

and whereabouts makes

hereabouts

...

...

where, as Leh is only so attractive

i will have to get out of town

and actually do stuff

which means a trek

while i’ve been doing a lot of walking

but not loads

and have only climbed one hill in months

a shattering morning of semi-accidental tropical canyoning

behind Radhnagar Beach on Havelock

so my thighs are not fit

and i’ll start with the easiest

the “Baby Trek”

the Sham Valley Trek

two or three nights in homestays

and 58 k from Leh

which should be great

but does mean i have to acquire some gear

wind-proof jacket, woolly hat, etc

...

...

...

...

in other news

...

my attempt to walk along the fabled Indus River

was a no-fun stroll past commercial buildings and broken rock

with the grey clouds growing over the snowy peaks to the South

though this region is actually a “cold desert”

doesn’t get a lot of rain

and the huge clouds huff and puff but don’t do much

so, when the light but cold rain came in Akling

i took the fortuitous appearance of a direct road for the 5k back to Leh

and thumbed a lift in nought-point-five seconds

with a friendly guy playing Pink Floyd

...

so we’re stop-starting in thick traffic back to town

when the driver-guy points to a sudden double-rainbow

and says

“hey, we’re listening to Pink Floyd and there’s a double rainbow”

...

...

so its

out of that and into this

Chennai to Ladakh

from metropolitan swelter to mountain chill

...

so its

next step the next step

from the shadow of the imminent Monsoon

to the coming blazing sun of the two-month Summer

...

and its

next stop the next stop

from Chennai

at its swelteriest

just before the Rainy Season arrives and

ends the long-building intense city heat

to, now, the morning cold of mountainous Leh

at the very Northern roof of India

...

so that’s an all-change for me

from sweaty streets to “cold desert”

from baking to thawing

from rammed crammed and brimming

to bare stark and stretching

...

from sea-level

to way way on high

...

from bustle and throng and jam

in thin alleys and leafy lanes and stretching flyovers

to the bare rock-walled lanes

and grey-brown valley-sides

with, beyond them, the stark rocky slopes

backed by snow-capped mountains

...

from the verge of heat-stroke

to the risk of altitude sickness

...

from an unknown,

now known

to an unknown

soon to be...

...

from filthy to bare

from cheap to cheaper

from a population between 7 and 13 million

to a population of 45,000

...

from Hindu temples and mosques and churches

to many, many, big and small, Buddhist stupas

...

from the call of the mullahs in the towering white minarets

to the chant of the old black-shawled woman circling the intricately-coloured stupa

turning its single huge prayer wheel

...

from a very Indian colossal mega-city

to somewhere that doesn’t feel like India

feels more like the uplands of Nepal

like Manang or the Mustang Valley

and is, i guess, culturally Tibetan

...

so that’s next step the next step

from the dying coral and the lushest of jungles

to the deck of a passenger ship…

from the cabin bunk

and the water swilling in the oblongs of the ships corridors

to the tight South central neighbourhoods of vast sprawling Chennai

Triplicane and Mylapore…

and then from that utter sweatbox

through the non-time

and successive line-ups of

airports

to this mountain world

with its stone-walled alleyways

its square white houses

its white-dusted horizons

and its gigantic sky

...

so here i go

quite the leap

seven weeks in this mountain world

seven weeks of i’m not quite sure what

yet all will unfold

as i learn more...

...

...

Ladakah is only really accessible two three months of the year

around June-July

so i’ve never been able to travel here before

as i always been mighty mighty busy

in Ontario and Manitoba

come June-July

and one of the reasons i decided to take a year off the Fringe Tour

and be a not-quite-broke poet wandering in South and South-East Asia

was it meant i could head for this total unknown

this long dreamt destination

Ladakh

...

and here i go

swapping shackbox

for cabinbox

swapping cabinbox

for sweatbox

and, now

sweatbox for icebox ...

a melting icebox

...

so here i go

to the high meltwaters

now flowing down the legendary Indus River

...

so here i go

in search of some kind of trek that

ISN’T STUPID to do solo and semi-fit at 63

...

maybe begin with the Sham Valley Trek, aka the Baby Trek

or the Markha Valley Trek, a bit less baby

?

the first i guess

but not for a couple of acclimatising days yet

...

...

...

in other news

the next Pour of The Bucket approaches

June 1

33 new pieces

...

...

...

meanwhile

my thigh-muscles sense these high treks are coming

they know they are not used to climbs

and they know it shall hurt

so

the very sight of Leh Palace

way up and stately on a huge rock above the town

is enough to get my semi-fit thigh muscles twinging

…

…

these photos are by way of

complete contrast to anything down South

…

…