I like the lively debate that's going on here. It's really gratifying to spark comments.

Part of my wide and hazy ambition for the future is to construct an alternative media empire which can potentially turn you and me into 21st-Century folk heroes.

Who's with me?

Death with dignity is in the news again as theres more wrangling in a case in Florida where a woman who's been comatose for 15 years is the object of some struggle between parents who won't let go and an ex-husband (and technically legal guardian) who wants her to be able to die. This as Oregons right-to-die law, which my moms helped pass, is going before the supremes for review.

Legally, the two don't intersect. Oregon's law is for the terminally ill, not the comatose. But they're similarly themed from a moral level. The issue is whether or not death is a natural part of life. People who rely more heavily on fundimentalist religion for their sense of morals tend to have the view that the State should not sanction death in the case of the terminally ill.

I find this a bit fishy because the same folks often support the death penalty, which has a similar philosophica makeup being that it's all about whether or not the State should be in the business of killing citizens. I also think a weird watershed will come when a stem-cell treatment can save a life: killing the potential human -- who would never be realized, mind, as it's a petri-dish thing -- to save the actual human. That's a real pickle of a rhubarb of a jam.

All this as HTS's 44 have sent sales skyrocketing. The 2nd amendment still conatins the way out for anyone with the gall to take it. You don't need a doomsday presecription to end it all, just a trip to your friendly local gun show.

Three days in the week, three runs into the city and back. It's a good regimen; about 50 minutes of biking with a modest hill every time. The temperature leaves something to be desired, and I'm still learning to tao of haivng a road bike in NYC, but the fact that I get back and ab soreness (good "I just worked a muscle soreness," mind you) from biking is proof solid that my overall fitness is being improved.

While I don't really like the reality that my body is likely the weakest it's been in 5 years, I do like the fact that I'm likely getting better. Soon I'll get the city gym membership back. My hope is to be down to my fighting weight ('round 195) and feeling strong before the road trip comes.

Bike arrived in the mail today. It's relatively cold (snow on the ground) here for me, but riding over the Billzburg bridge was like slicing direct through memory. In a good way. Here's something I'll hazard: NYC is vastly superior to San Francisco from the perspective of a bicyclist for a few reasons:

1 ) Street Quality:
The average street in SF is abominable compared to NYC. In spite of the usual suspicions about potholes, the California city with great weather has more ruts, holes, grooves and whatnot that the Northeast metropolis with four seasons. I say this as someone who's suffered at the hands of a pothole.

2) Traffic:
A surprise to many. "You bike in the city? That must be scary!" Not really. NYC has a higher proportion of professional drivers -- taxis, car service, bus, truck, delivery, etc -- who are all told much more well-versed at running the road than you are. It also has by in large slower traffic due to volume and the generall narrowness of the streets. Rarely does a car top 30 mph unless it's very late at night. California, by contrast, is beset with four-lane nightmares where unskilled motorists routinely top 40mph on their way to get some milk. Biking is much better when you can move fast enough to pass, and when the person you're passing is accustomed to the practice.

3) Topography:
No surprise here. The biggest hills I could ever hit here are the bridges, which don't hold a candle to twin peaks, but on the whole that's pretty good on the workaday tip. Level terrain simplifies planning. Unknown hill contours invite the poochscrew.

Anyway, it's good to be back in the saddle. I'm looking forward to making the cycle my primary mode of transport and reaping the physical and psychological benefits for the next couple months.

A post from almost two years ago:

I wrote in my little private paper journal a while back, writhing in a fit of angst and doubt about whether We will turn It around, "...and where's the Hunter S. Thompson of my generation? Probably off somewhere blogging..."

Kos is on my wavelength for this one too -- "Hunter S. Thompson -- the world's first blogger." -- and it's a meme I'd like to popularlize. As I wrote:

More than any of the excesses or eccentricities of his life, Thompson is a widely known and loved public figure because he has got game with words and ideas and the human spirit. If he were less of a Freak, he'd probably still be a best-selling novelist (or perhaps a successful politician). Instead he's what every lefty blogger wishes they were, someone who took the notion of first-person reportage to the limit and emerged with shining gems of quality and insight.

Beyond the quality of his prose, the thing that I found so consistantly compelling about HST was his committment to the ethos which underlied his existence. The successful outlaw is more moral in his or her own way than the straightest by-the-book player ever could be, for they live by their own code. It is taking on somewhat more responsibility to carve your own path. More dangerous, yes. More descructive, possibly, but finally more brave. Down the path less traveled (or off into the wilderness) lie the greatest treasures in life. May we all live as great explorers and tellers of truth.

Hunter shot himself yesterday. That's too bad. I'd hate to think what kind of mental thrashing led up to that, but the fear and loathing won out, it seems. Selah.

Here's his last-published work from prior to the election in Rollin Stone.

Speculation about motive is inevitable. Thomson already believed that journalism was a decomposing corpse and that America was slipping into fascism some 30 years ago; one can only wonder what his reaction to the advent of propaganda-as-news and an intentional climate of Total Fear was. I don't think it's any coincidence that the only thing he was able to get published post 9-11 was a quasi-biography (Kingdom of Fear) and a book packaged to be about sports (Hey Rube). The man also detested personal weakness, and by all accounts he was beginning to slow down in his autumn years. The worst paranoia come true in spite of his best efforts and trapped in a decomposing body. It's fucking tragic, but I can begin to imagine why he took the gun.

So it's sad sad news. However, in sniffing around online I did enjoy this:

The NYT:

Hunter S. Thompson, the maverick journalist and author whose savage chronicling of the underbelly of American life and politics embodied a new kind of nonfiction writing he called "gonzo journalism," died yesterday in Colorado. Tricia Louthis, of the Pitkin County Sheriff's Office, said Mr. Thompson had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his home in Woody Creek, Colo., yesterday afternoon. He was 65.

The AP:

Thompson was found dead Sunday in his Aspen-area home of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, sheriff's officials said. He was 67. Thompson's wife, Anita, had gone out before the shooting and was not home at the time.

That's the spirit.

I count HST among my literary, philosophical and political influences, and it's a hell of a thing to have your influences kill themselves. I've just finished reading the first volume of Thompson's correspondence (The Proud Highway), which really opens up the man's youth and brought on a sense of kinship. I was drawing some strength from knowing how this other man had lived from 18 to 28. That's a bit undercut at the moment.

As I was getting to sleep on my old thermarest at Frank's last night, I was thinking about the choices I've made and the kind of life that pushes me toward living, and why. Why at the age of 25 am I by choice sleeping on a friend's kitchen floor? I let go a nice apartment, a good-paying job with career advancement opportunities and a real sweet scene with a lady that was rapidly turning steady to essentially be a bum for six months or more. Why?

It brings me back to my days in the Experimental Theater Wing, to the recession of childhood and the dawning realization that the path towards great creativity is divergent from the path a maximal human contentment. I don't think creativity and happiness are diametrically opposed -- far from it -- but comfort is more of a mind-killer than fear in my book. I was always more terrified by Brave New World than 1984.

The point is not that I am leading some kind of intentionally abusive lifestyle. Self-flaggelation lost it's gleam sometime around the age of 20 when I quit dragging my knuckles when walking along brick walls as a protest against the emptyness of being. I'm not on some monastic kick here, though I will admit that has crossed my mind. What I'm attempting to do is follow my nature; always to push, to work the edge, to engineer the system rather than spin away as a contented cog. Regardless of the fact that I believe this machine as currently configured is a doomsday clock, I'm just not ready yet to be a gear in someone else's works.

We're getting pretty far afield here. To bring it all back home, this news troubles me. It was a quiet moment when I heard. The passing of the torch is on for real now.

It's snowing and I'm here.

I'm back from Norcal. The good news is that the route is more or less sketched and we picked up a camper for Luke's pickup. The bad news is that the pickup also needs serious engine work. We believe the used-car warranty will come through on this count.

But now, for what you really wanted: the photos. I have two so far. Click for big versions.

Here's the truck (man-size mudder tires! yeah!) and John, the AZ mechanic who did the initial work to get it road-worthy. Unfortunately, after taking Luke back to SF and then he and I up to Westhaven without much incident, the engine had a major breakdown -- horrible death-like knocking sound -- on the way back from the grocery store. It should be all ironed out by May though, hopefully though a warranty.

And here we are with the Siesta, a camper shell which should fit much more nicely on the big truck than on the lil' red one. We got it off a pure humboldt dude, and unfortunately the cranks which you use to raise and lower the camper couldn't get it high enough off the ground enough to back the 4x4 under. Man-size mudder tires...

To load the Siesta up, we will have to fabricate a cranking mechanism with higher clearance. This should be pretty easy, actually, and will be documented in full. But it seemed like a task better suited for the leisure of may rather than the pressure of the moment, so after some deliberation (and hamburgers and a right-wing mom'n'pop joint in Eurika) we decided to see if the smaller red truck would carry the weight of the camper. Proving it's worth once again, it performed like a champion, even on rutted and bumpy Westhaven gravel roads.

At $300 (plus however much it saps our gas mileage), the Siesta seemed a worthy investment in terms of the additional comfort it will offer for three men and a dog on the road for three months. It will sleep two in comfort, has roof racks, a small refrigerator (which can run on electricity or propane) and a stove. We plan on serving fried eggs out of it at Burning Man. Oh yeah.

So Luke and I returned a little later than originally planned, and via the all-night greyhound. Oh man. Thanks to Zia being johnny on the spot with the half-pints of Aincent Age, the bus trip passed quickly. Now the pile of work looms. I fly to New York on Sunday. Much to do between now and then.

Look for future trip updates starting soon on VAGABENDER.COM

Logreport Team -- scroll down and check the photo back from my previous work-life. Those were the good old days:

I went back to the loft party hoping to see my friends, but the guys had already left (off for a nip at Grassroots, which I heard was a total fiasco involving bike malfunction and angry thuggish Jamaicans) and so I went with Melissa and a whole crowd to "the Bulgarian bar." I thought it was a joke, but no: down on Broadway and Canal is a Bulgarian establishment full of pumping dance music, strange and wonderful people, and large eastern-european beers. I think the people from the square party were in and out: too crowded, too stinky, too fucking weird. I stayed and spent my $20 on more beer, tasted a lot better than Bud, I'll tell you that much. Have vague recollections of bike trouble on the way home at around 5am -- plus the wounds to prove that the problem was the chain. The sky was light as I was going to bed.

That used to be my life.

Backed up, like a man. I feel fragile, raw, needy; like one of the people who can't hack it and end up moving back in with their parents.

In spite of this malase, things are looking up. I can pay the rent; I can find meaning in existence; I can get work done and get my theater booked in the world. Somewhere in the dirty and gritty there's a little seed of honest feeling. Needs protection and water, but maybe this softness, this ability to love can grow. Silly meloncholy guy I am, twirling away in this humid little room, feeling like an adolescent, wondering where the wildwoods woman to sooth my soul is right now.

Those used to be my worries.

Things have changed, but those used to be the days.

I'm done going to the office for a while. Last night I came back, locked my bike up in the loin, took a shower in some guys dorm room and then went to a law-school party for most of the evening. It was a good safari, as these things go.

I also dropped my bike off for shipping to NYC care of Frankypants. Luke is having Truck Trouble in Arizona, so I'm pushing back my flight a few days so we can still have a road-trip summit in Westhaven. That gives me more going-away time here in SF. Party tonight at my place.

I'm going to work more on my new website tech, as it's a good testbed for what I'm going to need in order to run MFA 2.0 as well as the road trip site. Maybe a technology preview this weekend!