Re-conquering my kingdom?

Forgive the misplaced z's and y's. I typed fractions of this on a German keyboard while I had a second in Freiburg before traveling to the Black Forest.

The little child who just begun to order its own food at a resaurant. He does not yet know the system and its workings. Unsure of how, he is the outsider in a common world to most, looking in from the window akwardly like a tiny peeping-tom in trainning. He must continue to look in from the window till he can praticipate correctly in this new novel place. I am the tiny child. Participating in a world i am not yet sure of. So I didn't know that Germans dont get things "to go". SO what! Everyone in the restaurant doesnt have to look at me like I just threw saurekraut on the ground and stomped on it. I just wanted the huge schnitzel not to go to waste! They're the outsiders.

 I have never known the feeling of being the "outsider". Not in the normal, I dont have any friends at this party so im going to drink beer in this corner akwardly, sense of the word. But TRUE, outsidernessness. Not even a pastachio in a bag of peanuts, or quail egg in a carton of chicken eggs. I'm talking straight up pidgeon suckling at the tit of a momma orangatang, and all the other baby orangatangs are scowling at the pidgeon because that shit is wierd... Asking for a to go box isnt that wierd..... It is fairlz impossible to find a cheap meal here, even in the towns that arnt based soulz off of tourism. And i am now truely realizing the purpose of our free-market system. To give me, the hungery consumer, a tastey fucking treat for cheap. I just want a tastey treat in europe without feeling like i could have just bought a comfz bed for that price. Ive been taking nutella packets from breakfast buffets to satissfy this craving. Lemme tell zou what, nutella fingers are hella tastez. And the packets are more or less, completely free. I have coined this ingenious hitchhiker delicacy, "Nutella fingers".

When in doubt. Just say, "Germany is awesome!" This will get you far if placed at just the right time. I had to leave a sauna, filled with indigenous old naked Germans trained in the art of basking in hellish temperatures, because this lady who worked at the sauna was doing this insane ritual - which is far to complex to type out on this tiny phone - this ritual made a 90 degree Celsius sauna even hotter. While I tried to endure, and be one with the locals, it was far to much. So I waited till round 3 was over, and politely walked out, trying not to step on any bare body's. the locals seemed confused, so I just said the 3 simple words with a kind of sick clever desperation in my voice , which aroused some type of laughter, "Germany is awesome".

I've gotten lost on purpose, which has proved worthy of a word invented to describe its benefit. And I've gotten lost on accident  which was also liberating my beautiful. Wandering till you get taken somewhere you want to be has been a popular method in my traveling compadre and I's toolbox.

"We Havnt located ourselves yet?"
"Is that a sign?!"
"Get the shaman feathers and meet me ontop of that mountain!"
"The beacon shall be lit!!"

Traveling like this is seldom certain, and often epic. Some part of me set off on this wild adventure in search of becoming the king in my kingdom - and have found everything but that thus far. I fear the time limit on my journey has put a wall around my potential. Nevertheless, flying by the seat of my pants has channeled the great cosmos into my world! With every decision I make there is an incalculable ammount of magical opportunities that await! So far, there have been such ridiculous encounters and experiences that could not be just by luck. The gargantuan multitude of happenstances that had to culminate ontop one another to create the things we have enjoyed... Well. I don't know how to describe it other than using the word magic.

Tomorrow nick and I venture through the country side of Sienna Italy, to various vineyards which we supposedly can taste their wine (seat of our pants) and after that we will train down to some unknown village 2 hours south of here (seat of our pants) and take a ferry (seat of our pants) to a town in Corsica called Porto Vecchio. Then we will hike across the island, traveling through tiny villages and camping in the mountainous southern region of the Mediterranean paradise (seat of our pants).

I'm tired of typing on this phone.

I can't stop thinking about climbing.
Riley. Brace yourself dood. And rack up.

-Jackson

Riley "Richy Rich" West

Still haven't found a job. I found two stressful interviews though, which are coming up on tuesday. My job search has deteriorated into this: a list of ideas to "get rich quick." I live in a dream.

Indoor Mini Golf Course/Bar

Bar at beginning, bar at end. Order drinks to be delivered mid-game. Last hole gives you a free drink instead of a free game. The obstacles wouldn’t need to be directed toward children. It's sort of like the Barcade, but not stupid.

Fourth of July Themed Restaurant

Astro-turf on the floor. Baseball on the tv. Fireworks every single weekend. Picnic tables with red and white tablecloths. A charcoal grill at every table. Staff dressed in American flag print clothes. Bruce Springsteen cover band on fridays. Menus containing only domestic beer, cole slaw, and raw meat. No need for a kitchen or chefs, just a fridge full of meat and beer. CYOM (cook your own meat).

The Stock Market

Laugh now, dicks. I’m going to be your boss.

Glow in the Dark Beer

Remember how much people loved Four Loko? Remember how people still love cheap beer? Well, think about how much people would love to drink glow in the dark beer. You wouldn’t even need to put hops in. Or anything, really. I would say Glow in the Dark Water is an even better idea, but people don’t really buy water from the store anymore. And I doubt I could get it to run from the tap.

Roller skates grocery store

I heard a story from my boss once. Every second saved during the day due to efficiency is a second someone else doesn’t save by being slow. So, he compiles all the seconds at the end of the year. Then, with all his saved time, he takes a long, hot bath while everyone else is working. Grocery stores are getting bigger and bigger, you might as well have roller skates on. Seconds saved. Hot Bath. Duh.

Sunflower roadside stand

Yes, a far-fetched idea, I admit. It definitely relies heavily on romanticism. But what is life other than relying on the good nature of romantics? And what better thing can you think of than sunflowers?

Sunflower/Pizza roadside stand

Similar to the sunflower stand idea, except this time with pizza too.

“ish” stickers

Think about it: Speed Limit 50ish. Wrongish Way. Left Lane Must Turn Leftish.

If anyone steals one of these ideas, you better give me a job. Preferably an upper-level management job.

Sorry for the music, I think I'm going through a phase. If you don't like it, play the game, "Name That Joke Song", because there is one joke song:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/jc0p6yhz599817k/Boredom.zip

Riley.

P.S. where are you, jackson?

Fingers Crossed

“There’s a guy working in a hotel in Park City, Utah. His only job is to greet guests, take off their ski boots, and wrap their feet with a warm towel”
“Do you think he makes good tips?”
"Yeah, he probably lives a comfortable life."

My friend planted the seed. In one instant, sitting around the kitchen table, sipping ice water and conversing about nothing in particular, perhaps my whole life direction had changed? In my head, I weighed the pros and cons of being a foot wrapper. Could I do that job? Would I be happy? It certainly would be a good job to add to my bucket list, but how long could I keep that up? I envision the party my co-workers would throw for me after my 25^th season as Head Foot Wrapper. I can almost taste the fatty bonus I would get for being such a loyal employee with such a high tolerance for the never-ending stench of my working life.

Riley West

Head Foot Wrapper and Towel Warmer

I decided against pursuing. I would probably laugh at the inappropriate sounds that boots make when they are taken off or the varying smells of people’s feet. I would make jokes about the size of people’s toes, or the color of their retro snow suits. I would simultaneously look up and down at everyone.

Nope, not the job for me.

For the past month, I’ve been looking for employment. I was open to anything; summertime gigs, adultish jobs with salaries, commission-based work. Anything, really. The search started with only the most obvious jobs: rock climbing instructor at generic huge institution, assistant guide at most famous guide service in the states, route setter at biggest climbing gym ever. The totally idealistic and unrealistic jobs that we all apply for with a single grain of salt in our mouths. It was a short-lived idea that I often revisit when time is abundant.

Then there was the idea of getting paid to be Mr. absolutely-unemployed-but-motivated-Riley. More specifically, getting paid to be a Mobile-Rock-Climbing-Riley, writing his experiences down for the world to read. What big corporation would want to pay me to go on a lifelong road trip? Ford? Patagonia? Subaru? Fox News? I could drive an electric car, invite a wonderful friend or future-lover, and travel the world preaching the word of sustainable road trips. I could make mixtapes about the road and pretend the contents of my suitcase were all I cared to own. I would leave the stability behind, because I wouldn’t need it. But alas, it would appear that I had thought of yet another unreachable idea.

Which brings us to present Riley: Jobless and out of ideas. I have resorted to looking through the lists of my friends’ friends on Facebook, hoping that I stumble upon the most wonderful pizza place/indoor mini golf course/climbing gym job. I have 15 tabs open in two different internet browsers. I turned down climbing the other day to “work on job search bullshit.” It would be convenient to say that everyone is having a difficult time finding jobs. But I like to think it’s not a normal everyone problem; it’s just a motivation problem of my own. I don’t think I’ll ever know what I want to do with my time. I always wanted to be this, and I always wanted to be that. My goals have never been simple or constant, which you would probably say is also completely normal. I can only consider so many options before I’m going to start throwing darts at a wall of cover letters. And the thing is, I’d be content with most any occupation, even wrapping rich people’s feet with warm towels.

My cup of coffee this morning was weak. You could say the fog never quite lifted from my front step today. I shoved my socked feet into my boots with a thump of familiarity, which made me smirk and think of a future I might have. A friend told me I was going crazy applying for jobs, so instead of write a cover letter to another nameless institution, I wrote this directionless blog post. I bought a bottle of wine with quarters tonight, crossed my fingers, and hoped for a conclusive end to the search. The real-ness of this too-big world has an overwhelming feeling only present when I decide being financially stable is important. Is it? The jury is out.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ysf8oxggg52dxyl/Fingers%20Crossed.zip

Riley.

This is one of the weirdest things I've done in a while.

Here's the reason I haven't been writing:

If anyone wants to take me out to lunch, I would love that.

Cross your fingers that I get a job. I really need a job. Because life is, of course, always more complicated that I expect. All would be much simpler if the sunderland coffee shop was open.

Riley.

The first semi-offical non-field guide to real life.

Am I dreaming?
I must be dreaming.
Is this… real life?

Yes. This is, actually, maybe, real life. You still live in a place. That place still has gravity, hopefully. Call me maybe is still the sweetest jam you’ve ever heard. Pizza is still the best food you’ve ever tasted. I still don’t have any money.

The world is normal. The world is perfect.

But how do you know for sure? Yesterday I had a funny dream. It started off fine: I was riding my newly refurbished fixed gear bicycle around Philadelphia, doing wheelies and skids and generally living it up city-style. It was totally-urban-radical, and it was way fun, as you probably imagined. The sun was out and I was eating a tomato like an apple, which was fun to do while riding my bike because the juice splattered against the pavement instead of my pants. Weird dream already, but getting weirder: After one particularly righteous skid, a faceless dream-bro ran over to tell me, “THAT WAS CRAZY DOOD!” I responded, “I KNOW!! IS THIS REAL LIFE???” At this point in the dream, I began pretending to puke, as if to suggest that the cool skid, or our interaction, or life in general, was nauseatingly unreal. This is when I woke up. I realized that the cool skid I did was unreal. Totally fake. The unreal-ness woke me up.

Think about what you would do if you found out you were dreaming. I don’t mean 15 minutes after you realized you were dreaming, I mean the very instant. Maybe your hands would start shaking. Maybe you would pee your pants or study the wrinkles in the palms of your hands, or both. Maybe, even, you would snot rocket all over the bowl of cheerios you were dreaming about. 

Now pretend that the delicious bowls of cheerios you all eat in the morning are actually arranging themselves, trying to spell your name. The problem is they only have the letter O. Isn’t that just un-worldly?? Totally out of this world.

Now... DO IT. Try to wake yourself up. Puke. Right now. Release the flood gates of reality. Puke all over your wrinkly, outstretched palms.

.............

Oh. You’re not dreaming? Bummer, dude. At least you figured it out, huh?

Here’s a sleep themed mixtape. It’s a good one.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mj2rqpc6kmcdlvd/Sleep.zip

I lost my keys on Monday somewhere in Bryson. I lost the charger to my camera. So, I think it’s safe to say I’m going crazy. I keep losing things. Sometimes I wonder if my keys really do get up and walk away. It would explain SO much. But in other news, I reset the entire climbing wall this week, so come climb some time soon? I spend all my time in Bryson because I lost the keys to my scooter, so you’ll have to visit me wherever I may be. Sorry.

I live in a dream,

Riley.

Eat Your Strawberry

There were a couple of things I wanted to do after graduating high school. One was go to underwater soldering (that word looks nothing like it sounds) school, and roll in the big bucks – the other was to make a difference in the world. I uneducatedly decided to go into the Peace Core. To make a section of a long story shorter, I ended up in Nigeria managing prairie fires – which apparently are a big issue down there.

So.. I’m in Nigeria, and I’ve spent the past couple of weeks in a colossal tower in the middle of the middle of no where east Jesus - looking at grass. Yes… grass. Lots of it. Everywhere. For miles, and miles, and miles. In the middle of that never ending sea of boring - on this particular day, the grass was irregularly boring me, just swaying pretentiously back and forth like it was trying to make a statement,  so I left my little tower to eat my cucumber and mustard sandwich... or whatever. I ventured out into the prairies and found a nice rock surface to eat on top of.

LNT fo’life yo.

Relaxing on my durable surface, I slipped into a day dream, you know when you kind of forget that you're in real life? That happened. And I tuned out for a short while– most likely swimming past the occipital lobe, breast stroking through black marmalade towards the cerebellum. The thing that brought me back to reality was the sound. The sound I will never forget. The sound… was a bowel shattering roar.

A ROAR. I cannot say that with enough annunciation on the word. This was no ordinary roar. This roar had weight. The most weighty roar I’ve ever heard. Say it again in your mind, “A ROAR.”

This sound express delivered reverberations of terror into my eardrum.

In the middle of Nigeria, in the middle of a prairie, with no one around for miles.When you hear a roar in this setting, you literally shit your pants. I tightened up and resisted this innate feeling. My senses heightened, pupils dilated, muscle fibers oxygenated, adrenaline and cortisol coursing through my veins – I stood and scanned the horizon. Through the eye height grass, I saw movement… and the grass shaking. Before my mind could even process, the head of a lion emerged.

At this moment, when our eyes met, no words were exchanged, no thoughts ran through our minds, we both knew.. exactly what was to happen.

I flew, the natural flight or fight response was of course inevitable - like a California condor on crack I flew so hard. Flames followed my feet as I ran faster than the Back To The Future car. I realized as my mind and body were racing, that my triumphant safety watch tower dingy was much farther away than would be optimal in a situation like this, because optimally.. it would be right next to me... so I ran towards a cliff edge that I knew I could climb down. As I approached the cliff, I swiftly turned my head to check up on my lion friend, and I could see it, not running, not walking. Stalking me, with an ominous intent. I got to the cliff and down climbed fiercefully. When I got about halfway down I looked up, and saw the terrocious lion (terror and ferocious)… pacing, back and forth along the cliffs edge. Salivating with hunger.

I figured, what’evs. This lion is a dumb dumb. I’ll just down climb this cliff and get back to my kick ass watch tower. So I started to follow that course of action, and when I looked down, there was ANOTHER lion at the foot of the cliff. ANOTHER! They had cornered me! Communicated like fucking Velociraptors.

So, I decided I would wait them out. Yeah. Wait out a pair of starving lions. After 4 hours and the sun starting to set, the lions were still there. I came to the conclusion that I was probably completely screwed. And then it hit me. It hit me that I would be dieing in the middle of Nigeria, via lion. Something happens to you, when you realize your going to die. And right as I approached a literally once in a life time epiphany, I caught the glimpse of something red in the corner of my eye.

I said to myself, “might as well check it out. before I get eaten, by most likely, pure bred lions.”

So I climbed over, grabbed the side of this cliff, pulled myself up, and discovered this beautiful thing, laying in a little crevasse, a little nook, a tiny trench, a wee cranny crack.

A strawberry, just precariously growing.  Large, luscious, succulent, strikingly stunning, beading with dew and glistening in the setting sun. I had never seen anything so beautiful in my life and I realized right then, that there was only one thing left for me to do in my life. So.

I reached out my hand
grasped the strawberry with my fingertips,
plucked it,
and delivered it into my mouth.

And I ate it. It was the best thing, I have ever tasted.

If you’re by any chance asking yourself what happened next? What happened to the lions!? Did you die!? Well, the moment I enjoyed that monumental strawberry, the lions went away. I then realized that those lions were not just any lions, and that strawberry was not just any strawberry. The lion above me, pacing back and forth, was an archetypical symbol for my future. All the things in the future that were mere stressors in my life. Everything that was awaiting me. All things distracting me from one thing. The lion below me was everything in my past that bothered me and harassed me from one thing.

That one thing, was thestrawberry.

The strawberry. That moment. The one moment that is incomparable to any other. The strawberry was a symbol for this moment. YOUR moment. The one that is beautiful, surreal, and once in a life time. Literally! Once in a life time! The eternal joybliss mountaintop of your existence. You mustn’t be taken off track, or disrupted by the lions in your life, because they are fierce and hugely distracting, and their roars are so easily heard in a sea of dry grass waiting to catch on fire. These lions live to distract you, they were designed to lurk in the prairies, pounce on you and let out booming roars that are only subtracting you from the magnificence that lives in every infinitesimal instant - every tiny cranny nook, that are sometimes hard to find. The only moment that counts. Right now.

Live each moment with certainty that it is your moment. Live each one and live it with YOUR style. Always know that around every corner, however unsuspecting it may be, a strawberry awaits.

At least thats what i've been thinking lately, and I haven't been able to get this strawberry taste out of my mouth every since. 

-Jackson