My pal mentioned, just in passing, that there were figure-8 trailer races.
I said, “No way. Get real. Quit yanking my chain. Doesn’t happen.”
My pal mentioned, just in passing, that there were figure-8 trailer races.
I said, “No way. Get real. Quit yanking my chain. Doesn’t happen.”
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In Memory Of W.B. Yeats
Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.
Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice.
With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress.
In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountains start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.
– – WH Auden
from “1054 AD”
Sometimes it seems I had a dream, and, as a dreamer woke immersed in mineral baths closed within a cool, dark chamber fed by streams flowing in from the center of nowhere.
Hanging from the granite ceiling a kerosene lantern cast shards of light through the pale steam rising from the surface of the pools.
Ripples radiated outwards from the edges of my body and tapping faintly on the rock revealed the edges of the chamber.
Outside I could hear the wind slide across the spine of the mountains, speaking in a language that I remembered but could no longer understand.
Steam filled my nostrils and heat penetrated my bones until, after a time, I had no body, only a sense of silence and distance and calm.
As if I had just woken from all water into dream.
— Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, 1973
Your Say
My Thinking Hat
FSA/8d22000/8d224008d22491a.tif
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The People Yes
The steel mill sky is alive.
The fire breaks white and zigzag
shot on a gun-metal gloaming.
Man is a long time coming.
Man will yet win.
Brother may yet line up with brother:
This old anvil laughs at many broken hammers.
There are men who can’t be bought.
The fireborn are at home in fire.
The stars make no noise,
You can’t hinder the wind from blowing.
Time is a great teacher.
Who can live without hope?
In the darkness with a great bundle of grief
the people march.
In the night, and overhead a shovel of stars for keeps, the people
march:
“Where to? what next?”
— Carl Sandberg
Camouflage
Sourdough Mountain Lookout
Down valley a smoke haze
Three days heat, after five days rain
Pitch glows on the fir-cones
Across rocks and meadows
Swarms of new flies.
I cannot remember things I once read
A few friends, but they are in cities.
Drinking cold snow-water from a tin cup
Looking down for miles
Through high still air.
BY GARY SNYDER
Chimes of Freedom
Starry-eyed an’ laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time an’ we watched with one last look
Spellbound an’ swallowed ’til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an’ worse
An’ for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
The Vault
My Back Pages
Byzantium
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
– – W. B. Yeats, 1865 – 1939
De Breanski
VAN GOGH
Hillegas
To the Stonecutters
Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun
Die blind and blacken to the heart:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained
thoughts found
The honey of peace in old poems.
— Robinson Jeffers
Real World Address for Donations, Mash Notes and Hate Mail
from “1054 AD”
Sometimes it seems I had a dream, and, as a dreamer woke immersed in mineral baths closed within a cool, dark chamber fed by streams flowing in from the center of nowhere.
Hanging from the granite ceiling a kerosene lantern cast shards of light through the pale steam rising from the surface of the pools.
Ripples radiated outwards from the edges of my body and tapping faintly on the rock revealed the edges of the chamber.
Outside I could hear the wind slide across the spine of the mountains, speaking in a language that I remembered but could no longer understand.
Steam filled my nostrils and heat penetrated my bones until, after a time, I had no body, only a sense of silence and distance and calm.
As if I had just woken from all water into dream.
— Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, 1973
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That’s nothing. Lynd, WA – Combine Demolition Derby
https://lindwa.com/Lind%27s%20Weekend.html
https://www.seattlepi.com/seattlenews/slideshow/Combine-Demolition-Derby-in-Eastern-Washington-87906.php
https://www.facebook.com/groups/lindcombinedemolitionderby
A-a-a-a-aaaand . . . in his grave Chris Economaki breaks out in an enormous beatific grin.
I know some Northern Michigan areas where this would draw crowds each and every weekend. My 1968 Fan trailer would be a great tow for such an event. Heck, I’d even donate it to such a good cause. Hilarious!
No wonder I can’t find a reasonably priced old trailer to restore – their all at this place getting tore up.
I went to plenty of crazy 8 races at Ascot in LA and there was none of that stopping at the X stuff cause the guy behind you would push you on through.
That was surprisingly palate cleansing!
“Beavis, was that not the greatest video every in the history of all videos?”
Early Spring 2019 pulling my little 20 footer leaving Laughlin NV too late, got to the Tehachapi Pass headed West at dusk. Snowing, traffic, first one accident, car slid of the road in front of me. Asked the wife if we should pull over for the night. No, it will be worse in the morning. Then an 18 wheeler winds up in the ditch in front of us but with luck didn’t even slow us down. Still climbing. Two more cars sliding around and collided but slid out of the way before we hit them. Doing about 30MPH now. Approaching the top, dreading the other side. Then I noticed the East bound lines were shut down. No traffic but a few police cars driving beside each other clearing traffic. Behind me, way back a mile or more I can see the red and blue lights. Too late we are over the top and headed down, I’m in 4WD high not using my brakes at all but barely going 30. Most of the traffic is in front of us, just a few behind and every now and then the red and blue lights way back there but getting closer. Left turns, right turns, slippery, a little sliding here and there but can’t really slow just keep the wheels barely powered. Every now and then with a little straight away I would use the trailer brakes to slow more while watching the rear view mirror to make sure it stayed straight. More turns still maintaining speed. cars off the road, another truck too, but I can see the lights of Bakersfield (I think). Tighter turns, slowing as much as I can with my trailer brakes on straight aways. The police cars are closer now, not sure if they would make me pull over or just follow me down. Traffic now kinda slowing but the worst is past. The snow turns to rain. The road is still slick but we made it. Found an off ramp in East Bakersfield and a Mexican Restaurant I can’t pronounce or spell but the food was good. Thought I was in a demolition derby for awhile.
F**kin’ Merica.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KnAzpi4avo
I was at Walmart when the apocalypse came … and I became their king!
America. Because we can.
Well that sort of makes up for no Indianapolis 500 this weekend. 😆
A couple of thoughts:
1) I really hope that was the last race of the night. I cringe at the thought of cleaning the debris left behind off the track for the 100 lap main that closed the day’s schedule.
2) I see your trailer racing and raise you, School Bus Racing, at the same track: https://youtu.be/CqtWb67AmWU
That was beautiful.
For those on a budget, Barbie Jeep Racing offers its own unique challenges:
https://youtu.be/Bwn8fxEudyU