To the Ice Caves via Lake 22!

Because my blog readers (both of you), can't get enough videos of me tromping through the woods...  

I really love the Cascade Mountains! From exploring their early history as a center for mining of dish-washing powder, to finding new, yet familiar places, I can’t imagine mountains offering a better variety of rugged beauty, geological interest, verdant foliage and hospitable hiking.

I went out on Monday on a return visit to the Ice Caves of the northern Cascades. When I was last there four years ago, a massive storm the winter before had covered the trail with so much blowdown, that I was turned back! 

Given that the trail to the caves was merely one mile, not much of a challenge, I decided first to hike to a place with the rather uninspiring name: Lake Twenty-Two.

I saw some surprising things on my hike. First off this sign:

It’s a sentence fragment. I didn’t cut anything out of the photo. What is it trying to say?!

 Then, there was the pika. Remember I used this creature in one of the “name that animal” blogs? It was quite a thrill to see one in real life.
 

This guy is of the American Pika species.

Enjoy!

Chicken, Rice and Terrier

Just a little something from my evening tonight...

Tour d'Joko: King Tut of Seattle Edition

I’ve already written about visiting the King Tut exhibit here in Seattle with my sister and nephews.  I posted a slideshow with that blog because it was posted at the entrance “No Video Recording”.

You don’t think a sign would keep me from recording footage now do you?   Hrrumph.  It’ll take more than a sign to stop me!

As I also noted before, the King Tut exhibit was impressive, but anti-climactic. King Tut didn’t show.

The day with the family, however, had more to it, including me guiding them to Pike’s Market infamous Gum Wall and their treating me a Puget Sound cruise to Blake Island and the somewhat cheezy “Indian” performance at Tillicum Village. 

Enjoy the Tour d’Joko: King Tut of Seattle Edition-

Spontaneously CURED by the Not-King-Tut Exhibit!

My sole sibling, my older sister Deidre, is in town this week with her husband and my nephews, doing the summer vacation thing here in the great Northwest with friends of theirs. 

I had sort of vaguely heard that King Tut was in town, but had family not come to do the tourist thing, I probably wouldn’t have gone. Yeah. At rock concert ticket prices, it’s not something I would have done otherwise.  

Thanks, Sis, for buying my ticket! The King Tut exhibit was awesome!!! Seeing up close and personal gigantic 3000 year old statues from cradle of civilization, and a whole BUNCH of them, THAT was awesome. Once in a lifetime kind of thing since I will probably never in my life get to Egypt or Mesopotamia or Greece.  

That said, there was one thing missing from the King Tut exhibit touring the USA right now, which is being billed as the LAST time EVER King Tut will come to North America, and that is, King Tut himself. See, this tour, unlike the famous one in the 1970’s that created a bit of a frenzy here in the USA and drew millions, does NOT actually include the remains of King Tut. In fact, they didn’t even bring one of the sarcophagi, burial caskets nor the infamous burial mask, seen in the picture here. The exhibit was still awesome. But you see, this awesomeness just built tension that lead to an anti-climactic end. 

Each amazing thing to look at created anticipation for that moment, like Carter back in 1922, when you would arrive in the burial chamber and gaze upon King Tut. Instead, after you see many of the impressive artifacts buried with the Boy King, you end up.. In the gift shop.  

What the heck?

  So, as I’m sure hundreds of asked before, I asked the security guard at the end of the tour, so, what the heck? No King Tut? No funeral mask?  

Oh no. The mask was damaged last time it came to the USA, so its staying in Egypt. 

  Hrrumph. I suppose it wouldn’t help sell the thing, but they should have called it “Awesome Egyptian relics! Many of Which Come From King Tut’s Tomb!”  

Now, before entering the exhibit, we were told “NO VIDEO RECORDING”, so instead of my usual video, I have instead, a SLIDESHOW of pictures I took on the tour… Enjoy!

   

I left a bit of myself behind at this exhibit. Literally. That nasty, huge mole on the side of my head that I blogged about, fearing it was cancer, simply fell off. No blood. No bump left behind. It just fell off. Don't know where it happened, don't know where that mole is now, but it's definitely near all these ancient Egyptian relics. I wonder if it had anything with all the 3000 year old religious artifacts I was surrounded by...

Tour d'Joko Yellowstone Edition: The Final Episodes

In Episode 12 of the Tour d’Joko, Yellowstone Edition, I was preparing to leave the park, but could not due to the snowstorm that enveloped the park… on May 27th. The snowplows eventually cleared the road north, and off I was. 

Planning one final stop at Fort Yellowstone at the town of Mammoth, where I had hoped to see the famous Mammoth Hot Springs. Just as with Yellowstone’s Grand Canyon the day before, I skipped viewing a notable attraction because I could barely see ANYTHING, much less something that undoubted one would need to keep some distance from. Oh well. It will give me something to look forward to should I ever go back to the park.  

 

Then, it was off to Livingston, Montana, where an old high school friend of mine now resides. She was more than happy to drive me all over her little town which was quite enjoyable.

  * * *

 At an amazing little thrift store there, I picked up an antidote for the sparse and frequently infuriating radio in rural Montana and Idaho. I bought The Power of Myth, a six-cassette boxed set of Bill Moyers’ interviews with Joseph Campbell. I think it cost me $4. Nine hours of the sagacious Campbell for that low price? Has to be an all time record for dollars-per-minute-of-wisdom! You’ll hear some of Campbell as I conclude the journey…


   
Now that I’ve cataloged my 4+ hours of footage, it’s time to condense it into that ONE video left to be made, the professional-seeming one I set out to make at journey’s start.  

I hope you all have enjoyed watching this series even half as much as I've enjoyed making it.

Murder? On My Boat?!?

Once again, I’ve enjoyed a bit of a resbit from the Internet. I'll catch up soon.

  Good News! I have once again been cast in a community theatre production! The troupe I’ll be playing with are the Driftwood Players, right here in the town neighboring my own in suburban Seattle. This last Monday, I auditioned for a role in their upcoming production of the stage version of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Nile. It was the third time I had auditioned for this theatre group.

  The first time was a bit more than two years ago, just days before the accident which changed my life. I got cast in one of the three lead roles in that play, but I could not participate due to more pressing, life-threatening issues. Ever since then, I’ve wanted very dearly to get into that theatre group, and although my second audition came to naught, this time, success! I’ve been cast in a rather minor role as Captain Montgomery McNaught, Skipper of the Lotus, the boat on which the play takes place.  

I don’t know the story of Murder on the Nile at all, but I did find this picture of McNaught on Google Images. 

  It’s funny how I almost didn’t get the part due to a really bad sequence of negligence on my part. So Monday was the audition; Monday night, I get a call from the director, inviting me to the callbacks. I remember distinctly telling him I’d be working on the night of the callbacks, but he said they’d go late and I could swing by after work at 9 PM. That meant I thought the callbacks were on Thursday.  

Wednesday night, on my day off, I get a call about 9:30 from the director asking me what my ETA was. Had I re-considered? What? Callbacks were Thursday, this was Wednesday! No, he told me, they were waiting just for me. DAMN! I’ll be there in 15 minutes!

  It was a day off. I had not showered. I threw some shoes on and began looking for my keys. Damn! Where are my keys?!?! Arrrgh!! Time is tickin! The keys should be right HERE where I always put them!! I searched and searched! I looked everywhere! Looked in refrigerator. The Trash. Under the bed. Nowhere to be found! After 20 minutes of this, I called the director and explained.

He said no problem. They has seen enough at my audition and offered me a part. YAY!!!

 Earlier that day, I had sat in the front seat of my truck after running errands and spent some time reading mail. For the first time in 20 years, I locked my keys in the ignition of my vehicle. 

Yannow, the extra $4/mo I pay to my insurance company for roadside assistance really has paid off! 

Rehearsals start next week.

Atlas Invisble Revisited

Five years ago today, I posted the video blog you'll see here. I re-post it today because I want to get back to doing this kind of thing. The day before this was made, I was going through some old papers and I happened across some lyrics to a song I had written some 12 years prior entitled "Atlas"... 

I remembered writing the song. I remembered what it was about. I remembered the person whom I had written it about, someone who from my POV, seemed to want to take the entire world upon his shoulders, at his own expense. Hence the title, Atlas. After a dozen years, I had no recollection of the actual chords to this Atlas song, so I needed to re-write them! 

 At the time, I was a loan officer for Countrywide Home Loans, and spent every third weekend being the on-site mortgage consultant for folks looking to buy a condo at a place called Marina Bay in Richmond, CA. When I left Marina Bay, I just wandered and video blogged, with the goal of finding a cool place to sit down and songwrite.

 Imagine my surprise when I found myself, by chance, on a boulevard called "Atlas Road".  

The "Invisible" part comes from the name of the techno background music, "Invisible" by Fischerspooner.

 

IS IT... CANCER?!?

Until today, I had not seen a doctor in over three years. I suppose that’s a good thing; I haven’t had any urgent medical needs in that time. That doesn’t necessarily mean I’m all that well. I’m 50 pounds overweight. I get winded easily. I’m in my 40’s. Most significantly, I have lots of skin problems.

 I have both sobhoerric dermatitis and psoriasis. In fact, my psoriasis, for the last 15 years or so, has been somewhat of a bellweather for me as it pertains to my personal wellbeing. See, although psoriasis is a mysterious disease with no definitive cause and no real cure, it is generally accepted by the medical community that mental conditions like stress can aggrevate the symptoms of the disease. When you’re not right in your head, you’re not right on your skin. 

Multiple examples of this exist in my own personal history. For example, when I left my ex-wife, my psoriasis got a lot better. My legs and arms which had been covered in plaque psoriasis miraculously got a lot better when I divorced myself, literally, from a stressful situation. Ten years ago, I was able to justify a prescription for medical marijuana because it eased my stress, and therefore, my psoriasis. I don’t smoke pot any more, and I don‘t think that makes me any more stressed out. In fact, I think that weed is a temporary fix for anxiety, but as it demotivates and suppresses DOING things in life, I think it ultimately leads to conditions that INCREASE stress. 

In the last year or so, my psoriasis has gotten a lot worse. Here is my skin telling me what my conscious mind tries hard to deny: something ain’t quite right in my life. As for what that is, I’ll deal with in future blogging; this blog is a rant about doctors.  

I HAVE AN ANGRY MOLE (I NEED TO APOLOGIZE FOR THE ALLCAPS. MY “SHIFT” BUTTON IS HAS JUST NOW STUCK ON MY KEYBOARD, AND I CAN’T GET IT UNSTUCK). IT’S A MOLE I’VE HAD MY WHOLE LIFE, AND IT WAS JUST AN ORDINARY MOLE ON MY TEMPLE. ABOUT A YEAR AGO, IT STARTED GROWING. UNFORTUNATELY, IT’S RIGHT IN A SPOT WHERE IT IS PRONE TO GETTING HIT BY MY EYEGLASSES WHEN I PUT THEM ON. IN THE LAST COUPLE MONTHS, THIS MOLE HAS EXPLODED AND BECOME A REAL NASTY PROBLEM. WHAT WAS JUST AN ORDINARY MOLE IS NOW 3/4TH’S OF AN INCH IN DIAMETER AND 3/8TH’S OF AN INCH DEEP. I LOOKED ON WEBMD FOR PICTURES OF SKIN CANCER AND MY ANGRY MOLE LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE THE PICTURES THEY SHOW THERE! OMFG!! I HAVE SKIN CANCER!!! GOTTA GO TO A DOCTOR!!!! 

 SO TODAY I WENT. $45 CO-PAY JUST TO TALK TO A DOCTOR. WTF? FORTY FIVE BUCKS MAY NOT BE A LOT AS COMPARED TO THE VALUE OF MY LIFE, BUT HOW SHITTY INSURANCE IS THESE DAYS AS COMPARED TO WHAT IT WAS IN DECADES PAST IS PARY OF WHY I HAVE NOT SEEN A DOCTOR IN 3 YEARS. THINGS ARE REALLY TIGHT IN JOKOLONDOLAND THESE DAYS, AND $45 IS A WEEK’S WORTH OF GROCERIES. I SPEND THIS MONEY, AND I DON’T EVEN GET A DOCTOR. INSTEAD, I AM SEEN BY A LICENSED NURSE PRACTITIONER. OKAY, I’M SURE LNP’S ARE CAPABLE OF DEALING WITH ALL KINDS OF THINGS, BUT WHEN I’M WORRYING ABOUT THE “BIG C”, THAT’S DIFFERENT. 

 AS IT TURNS OUT, ALL MY $45 COPAY BOUGHT ME TODAY WAS A SLIP OF PAPER TO TALK TO A DERMATOLOGIST. DAMMIT, I COULDA SAID THAT FROM THE BEGINNING! I AM MISTER NASTY SKIN! I DID NOT NEED A REFERRAL TO SEE A SPECIALIST! `

I DID, AT LEAST, GET SOME CONSOLATION. MY LNP WAS VERY FORTHRIGHT IN EXPLAINING THAT ANY MOLE-RELATED PROBLEMS ON THE FACE AUTOMATICALLY GET REFERRED TO A DERMATOLOGIST DUE TO THE RISK OF SCARRING, SHE DID AT LEAST TELL ME THIS AFTER EXAMINING MY ANGRY MOLE: 

 “THERE’S NOTHING THERE THAT SCREAMS OUT MALIGNANT SKIN CANCER” 

WHHHEW… THAT’S SOMETHING AT LEAST. 

 I’LL UPDATE YOU FURTHER NEXT WEEK WHEN I SEE THE DERMATOLOGIST AND FIGURE OUT IF I CAN GET MY KEYBOARD OFF CAPSLOCK.

NAME THOSE TRACKS! Yellowstone 12

Yellowstone Episode 12 takes us into my last day at the park. I was ready to leave, but found myself snowbound early that morning as the road to the north gate of the park had yet to be plowed. Six inches of snow had fallen overnight.
Here I write, on the 4th of July, as the rest of the country is enduring the hottest summer on record (it’s still 55 degrees and cloudy here in Seattle), maybe these snowy images from a mere 5 weeks ago will cool you down.
I appreciate a lot of different kinds of music from lots of different decades, but I think the music that came out during the late 80’s & early 90’s has had the most impact on me. The music that emerges when you’re in the 18 to 21 years of age range is the music of “your time.” It’s strange to think that the Nothing’s Shocking album is now almost 25 years old… The haunting melody of “Summertime Rolls” was perfect for the eerie solitude of my return to the Norris Geyser Basin. There’s also a certain irony to video content versus the lyrics… 

 
So… Can you name that animal? I know it might have been hard to judge scale on the video, so I’ll just add that the tracks were about the same size as those of from a medium sized dog.

The Unbearable Whiteness I'm Seeing - Yellowstone 11

As I sat in my van on the edge of Yellowstone Lake, with white-out conditions blanketing the park with snow, I was kinda bummed out. My ongoing quest to see definitive signs of the caldera was being thwarted. Already that morning, I had to bypass without seeing one of the area’s most famous sites: The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. The road to Canyon’s prime viewing sites had not yet been snow plowed, and even then, visibility was down to dozens of feet. I looked out on the water and could not see the other shore.

 Then… the sun came out. 

Enjoy Part Eleven of the Tour d’Joko - Yellowstone Edition. 
 
Some video notes: Okay, who out there caught the play-on-words of this episode’s title “The UnBEARable Whiteness I’m Seeing”? What am I referencing? 
Fallen timber can be quite slippery when covered with fresh snow. I really fell hard on my hike; I’m lucky nothing broke. 

Looking back, I really had an itchy trigger finger when it came to my borrowed bottle of bear spray. Almost used it on a particularly scary looking squirrel. 

Honey badger don’t care? Bison! Now Bison, he don’t care!

Good Googily Moogily! Yellowstone X

Is the Tour d’Joko- Yellowstone Edition losing some steam? Well, I don’t know, but I am compiling the clips I’ll need for making the official “final production” which we’ll see sometime in July. For now, I bring you part TEN, a jaunt in the snow along the shores of Lake Yellowstone. Not sure why I picked this audio, but it's kinda fun.

In this episode, I find the caldera, AGAIN, contemplate snow & find my next campsite, where I am asked to perform at the aphitheater on opening night!!
 

Fast, Furious and Fortune Telling

Tonight, I want to talk about the “Fast & Furious” scandal, which has been vehemently brought to our collective attention by the House Oversight Committee and one Daryl Issa here in these last few weeks. 

Make no mistake, of all of the fuck ups, mistakes and things done wrong in this massive apparatus called the US government, either by institutional flaw or simply poor judgment, this failed Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms program is but one of many. To recap for those new to the topic, “Fast & Furious” was an attempt by ATF agents to crack down on multiple levels of the flow of firearms to the Mexican drug cartels by monitoring how the perfectly legal massive sales of assault rifles and other weapons in states like Arizona ended up in the hands of organized paramilitary criminal syndicates in Northern Mexico. 

At this point, it hasn’t yielded any tremendous results, but going after criminals in another country is inherently difficult, particularly when law enforcement officials in THAT country can’t get these guys. That said, the conservative right wing took a whole ’nother tack on this issue, culminating in the AG of the USA likely being indicted for contempt of Congress tomorrow. Without a doubt, Rep. Issa’s assault stems from opinions he publicly endorsed just a few months back, and which derive from nut-case, Tea Bagger, reactionary extremism. Issa thinks that Fast & Furious was enacted without any chance of success for the very results that such a failure would engender. More guns in the hands of these criminals would lead to more gun violence which would lead to more pressure for gun control laws. In the mind of Daryl Issa, Rush Limbaugh and Fox News, Fast & Furious was actually a diabolical attack on the 2nd ammendment  

This tin-foil hat conspiracy theory may get traction amongst the Fox News faithful, but in the larger community, it’s not enough to engender the kind of Watergatish outrage the Republicans are hoping for. Consequently, a second argument has been developed parallel to the NRA bedlam. One of the guns that ended up in Mexico killed a Border Patrol officer. The mainstream alternative to the anti-2nd-Ammendment conspiracy outrage is the simple fact that the Obama administration allowed guns to “walk.” In it‘s fruits, the strategy was a bad idea. 

That may be right. That said, the whole strategy of letting guns “walk” into Mexico in hopes of later tracking them was thought up by the Justice Department of GW Bush and has since been killed by Obama’s Eric Holder. Then comes today’s news in the form of THIS ARTICLE (IMPORTANT!!! HISTORICAL!! read it!) from Fortune Magazine. Not the NY Times, the Huffington Post or some other liberal enclave. It’s from Fortune fucking magazine! 

See, what I find most interesting here is not that we’re talking about a few hundred firearms here while the Mexican government estimates that 2,000 guns make their way into Mexico from the USA every single day, nor that ATF agents could NOT arrest even obvious straw-men gun buyers in the state of Arizona. Instead, it’s that these kinds of lax gun laws exist in one of our border states! From the article:

Customers can legally buy as many weapons as they want in Arizona as long as they're 18 or older and pass a criminal background check. There are no waiting periods and no need for permits, and buyers are allowed to resell the guns. "In Arizona," says Voth, "someone buying three guns is like someone buying a sandwich."

By 2009 the Sinaloa drug cartel had made Phoenix its gun supermarket and recruited young Americans as its designated shoppers or straw purchasers. Voth and his agents began investigating a group of buyers, some not even old enough to buy beer, whose members were plunking down as much as $20,000 in cash to purchase up to 20 semiautomatics at a time, and then delivering the weapons to others.

I’ve heard from other sources that some of these straw purchasers were unemployed and on food stamps but would regularly plop down ten figures to buys guns. Guns they used to do what? Hunt the Arizona Jackalope? Here’s the thing: It is ONLY because of Rep Issa’s attention to this matter that I became aware that is perfectly legal for any Arizonan to buy 100 AK-47’s or other non-hunting assault rifles at a gun store without any restriction other than criminal history, and then step out into the parking lot and sell those guns to whomever they wish. See, the ATF agents might have WANTED to stem the flow of guns to the Mexican drug cartels, but they couldn’t! These guns weren’t “walked” into Mexico by permission of the ATF; the ATF was powerless to stop them! 

This lax law in regards to guns lead to the death of that Border Patrol agent & the loss of thousands of lives south of the border in Mexico. That is an expression of a law that needs to change. Yes, I myself, one of millions who have the potential of actually understanding the facts behind Fast & Furious, am significantly moved towards supporting tougher gun laws due the facts of this case. 

I am the original, “crazy” conspiracy theory become manifest. I wanted stricter laws on guns before, but this case makes the need that much more self-evident. I never would have thought this way without the attention brought to F&F by Daryl Issa. Without the right-wing outrage over trivial minutae, I would have never even known about the bigger picture here, manifested by Fortune’s article today. 

Congratulations, right wing nutcases! Through your attention to F&F, you have created, or are beginning to create, the very anti-gun sentiment you so feared. Not because of violence caused by the guns themselves, but simply by highlighting absurdly lax gun laws that already existed in these border states. 

The ATF didn’t need to “let guns walk”, as the Fortune article pointed out today, instead, the guns were walking all by themselves, and thanks to laws endorsed by the NRA, there was nothing the ATF could do to stop it. 

Be careful what you crazily prognosticate: it may come true.

Calderapalooza!; Blizzards, Bisons and Bears, Oh My!

Try to read this blog as if you were hearing one of those cliché radio commercials for a monster truck rally (compete with cheezy echo effect)…

Spring!!!  

Spring  

Spring

Amateur!!! 

Amateur 

Amateur

Geology!!!

  Geology 

Geology!

Live from the backcountry of north-central Yellowstone National Park, Joko Londo Films brings you the ongoing search for the National Caldera Championship!!
!

CALDERAPALOOZA!!!

Tour d’Joko - Yellowstone Edition: Episode 8

 

Oh, but we’re not done yet! Yup, this blog is a two for one!!!  

In Episode Nine, I encounter bears!!! Lots of different kinds of bears. Yup! Grizzly bears, black bears, Chicago Bears, Discovery Channel Bears, Yogi Bears and gay Bears. Then, I ask myself that eternal question which plagues every human being throughout their life, but only certain circumstances bring it out to be vocalized: “WHAT AM I DOING ?!?!”  

Lastly, at the end of Part Nine, I encounter perhaps the most pernicious, diabolical & scariest creature of the whole tour…

The Most interesting Mud in the World

BACK TO THE TRIP!

One the third day of the trip, when the morning snow turned into hail (which shows up on the camera surprisingly well), I wasn’t sure how much caldera-hunting I was going to be able to do. One thing I heard that I could count on faithfully was… Old Faithful!

Mas Joko

I decided to take a little break today from Tour d’Joko video making to compose a vanity video. Yes, that’s what my “random videos” are.. Me making a video about my favorite thing, me. This one goes even further in that it’s set to song called “Mas Joko”, which is Indonesian for..hmm… “Older brother Joko” would be the direct translation, but “mas” is used like we would use “Mister”, except a little more informally… Perhaps “Dude Joko”…  

That’s the thing about trying to translate a language that is used half way around the world in a culture that is so different from modern Western culture… So much of it doesn’t translate properly due to the cultural context.

 I copied and pasted the lyrics to Mas Joko into the Google translator website and it spat out this:

Ouch ouch .. Mas Joko kissed my cheek
Ouch ouch .. Mas Joko touched my lips
I love you, he said
Rich crab, he says
Goose bumps all over my body would
Imagine eating uncomfortable Mas Joko
I can not imagine sleeping soundly Mas Joko
Mas Joko .. (ta 'u' u ')
Mas Joko .. (ya 'u' u ')
burning love, burning rinduku
The sleek black mustache
I do not lose heart memangdangmu (wuelleh wuelleh ..) Myriad of handsome men
Mas Joko just love my darling (ah uh ..)

So… that didn’t make much sense, now did it? Here’s my translation of the same lyrics:

Oooo… Oooo… I was kissed by Mister Joko
Oooo… Oooo… My lips were touched by Mister Joko
I love you, he says
You’re so rich, he says
I get goose bumps all over
I can’t eat without Mister Joko
I can’t sleep without Mister Joko
Mister Joko…Mister Joko
My love is burning, my longing is burning for you
With his sweet black mustache
I do not lose heart when I’m with you
Of all those handsome men

Mister Joko, I only love you

Back in the mid-80’s when I first lived in Indonesia, they had no laws whatsoever about music copyrights and piracy and such. Consequently, there was a world-wide ban by the musicians of the world against the word’s 5th most populous nation. No one went there because their albums made no money. As a consumer, back in the brief golden age of the cassette tape (after the LP, but before CD’s), it was paradise. Imagine being able to buy any record you wanted, professionally done on cassette for about $1...  

Then again, that’s not so hard to imagine. In the age of file sharing, I haven’t paid one penny for a piece of music in over five years…  

In any case, it's kind of poetic justice that 25 years later, through the internet, I could rip off and pirate the hardwork of some Indonesian videomaker.

  Enjoy the Dangdut music, the pop music of Indonesia. Dangdut may sound a little odd to Western ears, as it is based on ¾ time, not 4/4 time…

Hot, Steamy Holes. Tour d'Joko Yellowstone Edition: Episode Six

My goal for this Tour d’Joko, Yellowstone Edition, was to make it as close as possible to an actual commercial production. You’ve yet to see the ripest fruit of that effort, but I’ve related some details about problems with government permits, bad weather and faulty or missing equipment, challenges which studio made stuff I‘m sure deals with all the time. One other detail I shared with more produced videos was trouble paying for it all. The most pressing and highest expense was rather simple math: about 1500 miles round trip, truck gets 15 miles to the gallon, gas costs $4/gal… After food, park fees…checking account balance is… Oh my. I needed to make a choice. Pay my bills or go to Yellowstone. Well. I couldn’t re-schedule the vacation time. This trip was vital to my mental and creative health! What bills could I push to next month? Hmmm… My cable and internet company sorta brought you these videos by not getting any money from me in May. This is also why I have been offline since last Saturday. 

A week with no television or internet was weird. I listened to a lot of AM radio and polished off two books, one of which I mentioned before, Undaunted Courage, the story of Merriwether Lewis. 

  Did you know that within a few short years of completing his famous journey, Lewis, in the depths of debt, alcoholism, depression and drug addiction, took his own life? Rather poorly too. He tried shooting himself in the head and only grazed the scalp. He finally killed himself with a self-induced gut wound, which has to be the worst way to go. As much as his journey was an inspiration to this very Tour d‘Joko, his death is a reminder for my everyday life. 

One issue I struggle with as I reach the middle point in my time on this planet is regrets over what I have accomplished. What do I have to show for my time here? What will be my legacy? When I think about it, it’s depressingly scant. Lewis accomplished more than but a handful of people in history, but was unable to control his addictions. This cost him his life. 

  I may never own a house. I may never have kids. I may always have to choose between paying my internet bill and going on a trip. That said, one accomplishment I do get to achieve one day at a time is staying sober, and I can be proud of that. That was something Lewis, for all his resolve and undaunted courage, could not accomplish.  
Oh yeah, and Lewis never did what I’m doing right now, edit his journal into something people can enjoy. 

  Here is Part Six of the Tour d’Joko - Yellowstone Edition: Hot Steamy Holes.

An Elk Is Born! Yellowstone Edition - Part Five

So where is the “documentary quality” video I promised I would make at the outset of my Yellowstone jouney? Patience. I am earmarking specific clips that are Discovery-Channel-worthy as I go through this process of combing through some 4+ hours of footage.


This little vignette will forever hold a special place in my heart. I was a mere 15 miles into Yellowstone when I came across this broad plain with lots of bison and solitary elk momma with her newborn calf…

Into Yellowstone! Tour d'Joko: Episode Four

I took the photo at the right whilst at work today. Unfortunately, the Pomeranian turned it’s head at the last minute, but as you might imagine, a little old lady ferrying her little dog AND cat around America’s favorite home improvement store was undeniably cute. Cats and Dogs! Shopping Together!! (as Peter Venkman sorta warned us of in Ghostbusters) 

 Still, people who do things like bringing both the cat and the dog with them in their power chairs are the types who would do things like keep track of their pets’ birthdays. On that note, my cat Bliss turns 6 years old on 6/6. Do the math and you’ll understand why her full name is Iblis.

                                          * * *  

The 4th Episode of the Tour d’Joko: Yellowstone Edition ends with me entering the park. The lead up to that… well… I’ll say this, I was very judicious in my editing. The original version of this video was 9 minutes long and was composed almost entirely of me sharing rather uninteresting minutia into the camera. Worse yet, it was delivered rather blandly. 

See, I understand now why professional video productions have so many participants. You need a sound guy who can concentrate solely on the audio quality. You need a grip who will focus on the stability of the camera shot. Me, I needed a director who could tell the talent (again, me), “Joko, you’re not being as dynamic and exciting enough in your narration, let’s do it again.” In any case, Joko, the editor, was able to cut Joko, the narrator, down from 9 to 6 minutes. 

Please enjoy the Tour d’Joko, Yellowstone Edition, Part Four.
 

MONTANA! Tour d'Joko Yellowstone: Episode Three

Day two took me into Montana, a place I had never been, and one of our more unusual states.  

Physically, as you’ll see, the place is gorgeous (okay, most places are gorgeous in the month of May).  

Politically, although a “red“ state, they aren’t the invasive, up-in-your-business kind of conservatives. I was able to find NPR on the radio. Their Supreme Court recently upheld their own ban on corporate spending in political races, despite what the Citizens’ United ruling said. They have a Democrat as a governor, and he enjoys a 60% approval rating. Gambling is legal; it seemed like every other gas station had a casino attached. A Montanan transplant I spent an afternoon with later in the trip described the attitude of the state thusly: “As long as what you’re doing isn’t hurting anyone else, Montanans are okay with it.” 

That’s the kind of libertarianism I like.

When I’m out on a Tour d’Joko, I always record dogs when I see them in other people’s car windows. 

I was doing that when the guy pictured wandered into the frame. Like the Magpies I end the video with, this guy just seems to epitomize the state. He’s “Mister Montana”. I wonder if his first name is “Joe”.

Into Idaho on the Lewis & Clark Trail! Tour d'Joko: Yellowstone Edition - Episode Two

On the day before my vacation began last week, I was speaking with my manager at work about traveling and adventure and the like. He asked if I had ever read “Undaunted Courage” by Stephen E. Ambrose. It’s a history of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, beginning with the politics of it, Merriwether Lewis’s relationship with Jefferson, and continuing with the expedition itself. My boss highly recommended the book. I picked it up on my lunch break to be my vacation read. Now, I am starting on the opposite coast that Lewis and Clark began, but a good part of my journey followed the Lewis & Clark trail. Specifically, the part that occurred in Northern Idaho. 

Given that I was allowing myself 2 days to go 800 miles, I had time to take the scenic route, US Highway 12, from Lewiston, ID to Missoula, MT. As I drove down US 12, I passed several famous sites from the Lewis & Clark journey: The Long Camp, where they stayed for 3 months; Canoe Camp, where they built the canoes that would take them down the Clearawater River, the Snake R., and finally onto the Columbia (which we saw last episode). I didn’t stop at these sites, and I regret that now that I’m done and continuing to read about their journey. I needed to get to my first campsite! It was first-come-first-serve at the place, and I was worried I may not get a site! Turns out, the place was mostly deserted.
   
See, this part of Idaho is a sparsely populated part of a sparsely populated state. I drove Highway 12 and saw 3 or 4 cars an hour in either direction. 

As you heard in the video, I was lamenting about the lack of my radio choices out there in the foothills of the Bitterroot Mountains. Christian Country or Fox News radio were pretty much it. This theme continued as I traveled eastward. I listened to more right-wing Fox newstalk radio this last week than I had in my whole life. Now, this may upset some of my liberal friends, but I came to a conclusion after listening to hour after hour of this right-wing babble. It’s pretty much the same style and verbiage as left-wing babble. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Rush Limbaugh sounds just like Ed Schultz, but coming from the opposite side. Ann Coulter and Randy Rhodes say the same things. Bleep out the words Obama, Romney, liberal, conservative, Republican and Democrat, and you’d not know which political agenda the speaker was coming from.  

After the listening to this stuff, I needed to re-connect with my Progressive soul… so with nothing to do in my van in the middle of nowhere, I made this song, Romney the Bain Man.