I give up. Not on writing but on video blog posts. I’m just not cut out for it, so I hereby will no longer do any more ‘vlogs’. To celebrate, I’ll be doing something I rarely do: I’ll be having a can of Coca-Cola. But this, dear reader, is no ordinary rabbit, err, can of sody-pop. There is a story behind this one.
Last night I asked the wife to go on a walk with me. Since there’s nothing much surrounding our wee cottage in the woods and I crave visual stimulus when I go for a stroll, we decided that we’d go into town and walk amongst the common folk for a bit. I do what I can to stay in touch with the people, you know.
Actually, come to think of it, it was really the wife’s idea to go downtown and, since she drove (I’m still having a small disagreement with the local courts system about how much money I owe them for not wearing my seatbelt, not having my car’s registration up-to-date, and driving on an expired driver’s license.) and decided where we were to park, I don’t believe it is the coincidence that I previously thought it was that our downtown walking route took us right in front of Miller’s Candy Emporium, a place she’d been quite vocal about visiting in the last few weeks, ever since she learned of it’s existence.
Anyway, we stopped in at the candy shop, which was a fun little detour that effectively canceled out any good that we’d done for our bodies by the walking, and then continued on our way. We stopped outside of a little place called “The Uncarved Block”, which is a Taoist term, you know, and since I’ve been dabbling in and out of Taoism, Buddhism, Snake-Handling, Zoroastrianism and several other religions over the years, I thought it would be fun to go in. It could be a cult!
It turns out that the place was a shop that sells crystals and polished stones with little cards next to them that tell about metaphysical gibberish and is owned by a very nice dope-smoking (presumably, based on his glassy eyed demeanor and personal recommendation of a decorative wire-wrapped pipe-cleaner) hippy gentleman apparently suffering from some sort of back ailment, as he was bent slightly but constantly from the middle the entire time we were there and speaking to one another. He was stooped over, in other words.
“Welcome friends! Please let me know if you’d like me to show you anything, but also, like, go ahead and feel free to touch whatever looks interesting to you. You can’t come into a store like this without touching things, you know? Just go ahead and touch whatever you feel like, friends.” he said as we walked in. He was like a walking/talking parody of a hippy. Rather refreshing point of view for a shop owner, though.
As we walked around I noticed that, interspersed between the glass cases full of red agates and moonstones and aquamarine pendants and such, there were quite a number of examples of supposed Grateful Dead/Jerry Garcia memorabilia. Shocking, I know.
There was a guitar and one Jerry’s amplifiers and some signed posters and blotter art and objects created by people who had been high and hallucinating that they were talented, but it was obvious what the prize of the collection was, the pinnacle of Deadheadedness in the immediate vicinity:
Jerry. Garcia’s. Fridge.
Yes, still running, it was a sort of darkened cream color that was obviously a patina (Love that word, ‘patina’. If I ever have a daughter, that’s what I’ll name her.) that had come from years of pot/incense smoke. It loomed there in the corner, a powerful monolith that stood for counter-culturism and sticking it to the man and VW minibuses and not wearing a bra and such.
So naturally I asked if I could take a picture of it.
“Yeah, man, of course. I’ll even, like, take a picture of you IN FRONT of it.” he answered cheerfully.
“I don’t think that’ll be necessary…” I said.
“No, no wait. I’ll even SELL you a can of Coca-Cola from INSIDE of it and then take a picture of you WITH the can of coke, STANDING IN FRONT OF IT!”
“You, sir, just blew my mind,” is what I should have said. Instead I begged off again, and simply took a picture of the fridge myself.
“Would you like to buy a soda from inside the fridge?” he asked.
You’ve got to love this guy. He’s got a rose quartz sphere that’s bigger than my head right over there in the window that’s priced at $1800 and he’s pushing a 75-cent can of soda at me. I couldn’t refuse. Also, I bought a guitar pick made out of glass from him (not used by Jerry Garcia mind you).
And so, I drink to him, to Deadheads in general, and, mostly, for the spirit of quitting. For it is only in quitting something that doesn’t work out for you right away that we may find something even more awesome to take up the hours during which we should be working on your novel.
On that note, I’ll be debuting a little something I’ve been working on for a while within a few days, and here are a few hints about what it is: It’s humorous, educational, slightly offensive, full of sexual innuendo, and it’s an audio podcast series.
Tags: candy, crystals, damned hippies, incense, mumbo-jumbo, pot, quitting, the wife
