You Are an Archery Geek and You Are Proud

A warm, sunny glorious Sunday in San Francisco is the shiznit (almost as good as the warm Oakland you just came from). Especially when you’ve got a sweet recurve bow in one hand and a quiver full of titanium arrows in the other. Oh yes, life is hella good.

You walk out onto the field with your long fatigues skirt and black high-heeled combat boots, sportin’ your-lots-of-black-Johnny-Cash look, as Irish likes to say, and the breeze is lifting your hair. Everybody is smiling, and Irish himself comes running at ya with a big bear hug. The guy is strange and wonderful. Certifiable. He's an old hippy guy who never stops talking. Crazy hearty passionate about archery and all of the people he encounters. He and his buddy drag a ton of gear out to the field every weekend and just play bows and arrows with friends and strangers all day. Doesn’t get much better than that.

They remind me to shoot Olympic style, so that the string rests against the tip of my nose. I gotta stop smiling cuz it’s lifting my sunglasses and messing up my target sighting. I am a dork. A happy archery dork of the old order who just drove an hour to spend the afternoon archering with my homies. The chick shooting next to me shares my name. We bond. She is good with the bow, and she has pretty, girly nails that are just a tiny bit long. They look good on the big butch bow. She questions each shot afterwards, trying to figure it all out and unravel why she is not an instant pro. No wonder we get along. An hour into archery, the newness of it all gives way to a relaxed joy and she is hooked. The bow has called her name in its quiet, careful voice, and she has said yes. And I got to watch. Oh, sweet mystery of life, at last I’ve found thee!

I guess I can understand why Irish is out there time and time again, lugging out all that equipment for the gazillionth time. Dude now brings out a solar panel to power his mp3 player and speakers. The musical selections of the day are strange and diverse. There are several tracks that would make Michael Flatley happy. I snicker and try not to make too many Lord of the Dance jokes. I fail. There are instrumentals from The Matrix that have a bit more life to them, but they make me feel like I should be driving really fast in a really sporty car. Then we go to some strange hybrid Irish Chinese thing that confuses me. I wanna like it, but it’s still too Lord of the Dance for my industrial goth sensibilities. I wanna do an archery play list and have it going while I am out there. It would be all about Prodigy-esque beats, lots of good spaghetti western songs, plenty of industrial pounding, some of the more riled up Cocteau Twins stuff (from Treasure, methinks), the Libertines here and there, and lots of random shit that kicks ass. That’s what we need out on the field: ass-kickin’ music! Might piss off some of the local populace though. Irish is probably playing to the right level.

I laugh when Eryk the Viking shows up on the field right after I arrive. He is, in fact, not a Viking. But that’s how I think of him, so there ya go. The first time I met Eric, he shot for 5 minutes then managed to split his own arrow, both in the bulls eye, a la Robin Hood. He was pissed, cuz they were new arrows. I was amazed, cuz damn! This guy goes out and actually hunts wild boar and elk with his bow. Holy crap. He is a force to be reckoned with, but he always has this strange calm about him. Very reserved. Makes ya wanna tickle him till he giggles like a school girl. But I'll just let that idea go, cuz if I startle him he might shoot me. You have to be calm around people holding weapons. Learned that the hard way last year when I goosed a guy holding a taser.

In the field next door are the guys who fight in full armor with shields and ball-tipped pipes (aka swords). This one guy keeps getting whacked in the leg, so he has to go down to his knees as he keeps fighting, to simulate his seriously-bad-naw-it’s-only-a-flesh-wound injury. I keep seeing the theoretical blood spurting out onto the grass. But it seems a natural segue: sword-fighting geeks in field ..1, then the archery geeks in field ..2. Next should be the Dungeons and Dragons hard-core crew, drinking, carousing, and throwing their weird-ass dice all over the place as they explore yet another cavern of unknown evilness. Bad asses! Those D&D guys will fuck your shit up, punk ass bitches! I used to be one, so I should know. You talkin’ to me?!

But here I am, back in the world of responsible workingness. If there is a god I will be back on the range next Sunday. So say a little prayer to the gods of archering and whatnot. Light a stick of incense and put out some oranges for me, will ya?

Mongo Like Pretty Words

Quotes that Mongo like:

You can be up to your boobies in white satin, with no sugar cane for miles, and still be livin' on a plantation. -Billy Holiday

Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple, learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen. -Steinbeck

You're pretty uptight for a naked chick. -Homer to Marge

I wouldn't recommend alcohol and drugs to anyone. But they have always worked for me. -Hunter S. Thompson

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect. -Mark Twain

There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it. -George Bernard Shaw

The difference between the right word and almost the right word is the difference between lightning and lightning bug. -Mark Twain

The beauty of religious mania is that it has the power to explain everything. Once God (or Satan) is accepted as the first cause of everything which happens in the mortal world, nothing is left to chance...logic can be happily tossed out the window. -Stephen King

The metric system did not really catch on in the States, unless you count the increasing popularity of the nine-millimeter bullet. –Dave Barry

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life. -Albert Camus

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. -Mark Twain

He who kisses joy as it flies by, will live in eternity's sunrise. -William Blake

A Saturday night spent in a good crowded bar is like a whole century of history in microcosm. The evening divides itself up into eras and events. -Robert Girardi, from Madeleine's Ghost

After eating, dancing, and making love, a man should use the rest of his time to try to unravel what was behind the appearance of things, since the rambling universe wore a mask. You must know how to read the books of man and the book of the universe. -Grandfathers advice to Atapari, Little Boys Come From The Stars, by Emmanuel Dongala.

This seems crazy. Yes it is. But crazy is all you got. -Shallow Hal

As with many lonely children, his problem was not solitude itself but that he was never left free to enjoy it. -The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon

Bidden or not bidden, God is present. -Carl Jung

If you wish to improve, be content to look foolish and stupid. -Pictus, Greek philosopher.

They no kitty kitty, they no beach, they no car. -overheard on ferry dock

It is only after we accept the absurdity of the world that we can begin to write a manual of happiness. -Albert Camus

Each day befriend a single fear & the miscellaneous terrors of being human will never join together to form a morass of vague anxiety that rules your life from the shadows of the unconscious. We learn to fly not by becoming fearless but by the daily practice of courage. -Author Sam Keen, writing about his experiences learning the trapeze

I had to wonder if men were so blinded by beauty that they would feel privileged to live their lives with an actual demon, so long as it was a beautiful demon. -From Memoirs of a Geisha, by Arthur Golden

Turkish Proverb: Coffee should be strong as hell, black as death, and sweet as love.

I like nonsense - it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living. It's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope... and that enables you to laugh at all of life's realities. -Dr Seuss

Said about Dean Martin: "Menefreghista: Italian for one who simply does not give a fuck."

Keep looking at the bandaged place. That's where the light enters you. -Rumi

As long as you're not afraid nobody can run your life for you. Remember that. Hell is being scared of things. Heaven is refusing to be scared. I mean that literally. . .Now you know my religion. -Boomer from "Skinny Leqs and All," by Tom Robbins

From Fight Club:
-How's that working out for you? What? Being clever? Great. Keep it up then.
-Why do guys like us know what a duvet is? Is this essential in the hunter/gatherer sense of the word? No.
-We are all part of the same compost heap.
-I am Jack's broken heart.
-Two sides? You're Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Jackass!
-Interesting. Where you going with this, Ikea Boy?

From Net of Jewels, by Ellen Gilchrist:
-I was getting deeply tragically bored and there is nothing in the world as dangerous as a bored Celt.

-The higher the intelligence the slower the rate of maturation.

-He was on his way to power and money and all the things fear swears will end fear. Fear lies, fear always breaks its promises. Fear feeds on fear and on the things we think will end it. Nothing can conquer fear but love.