How to Not Burn Out

In the rock and roll world, we think it's "better to burn out than fade away." We love geniuses who shine bright and fast; stars who are snuffed in their prime.

We look at the really old with a mixture of dread and pity. We feel sorry for the ones who are just alive but not really living, hoping it won't be us in that chair, staring blankly at an inane TV show with dozens of other drooling, mumbling ex-human beings.

But here in this tiny beach town, we have a little enclave of octogenarians who defy common preconceptions about aging. They are fit, both physically and mentally, some more so than people half their age. And they are fearless.

"When you start to get really old, you worry about anything that will hasten your way to the end," my mother wrote. Not only does this prevent you from doing something new, it also stops you from doing some of the things you really enjoyed. In my mother's case, she stopped driving decades ago. "My eyesight is too bad," she said.

One by one, you give up something that you used to be able to do until there is precious little.

No wonder we think it's better to burn out than fade away, but watching our local octogenarians, I see that you don't have to burn out OR fade away. This is what I have learned:

- Don't use up all your fuel at once.

- Keep a steady fire going, but be sure you keep stoking it constantly with fresh fuel.

I think I've developed very slowly -- I am only now understanding things that every 30 year old seems to knows. I was a complete geek in high school but have slowly become more and more athletic as I grew up. Since leaving Japan in my mid-40's, I am constantly learning new things. I learned to drive, ride horseback, speak another language, farm, do construction work. I keep forgetting a lot, too -- like, I am no longer the Music Trivia Person nor do I know much about films anymore -- but I have gained just as much knowledge about nature, physics, history. I've learned to make my own sourdough bread, tofu and miso. I'm running and climbing trees and digging trenches and…

My fire started slow and weak. Thank god it didn't die. Thank god I learned how to stoke the flames, add more oxygen, and now, every day I am finding new fuel to not only keep that fire going but to make it burn high and bright -- without burning out.

Japan's New Militarism

They passed the new state secrets law in Japan. Now, if you don't agree with the administration, you can be labeled a "terrorist." They are clamping down on what information gets released from Fukushima, when they should be thinking about the radioactivity that is released from the damned place.

There's a new wave of militarism starting to rise in Japan. The Ministry of Education has prevented certain details about Japan before and during World War II from ever being taught so generations have no idea at all about the Rape of Nanking and other atrocities.

Japan became more and more aggressive after the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake. In its aftermath, Japanese anti-Korean and anti-Chinese prejudices exploded and mobs went on a killing spree of ethnic minorities. The military used this civil unrest as a pretext to erase political dissidents. Stunned by the disaster, many felt that Japan had to return to its past values and nationalism grew even stronger. Then, Tokyo won a bid to host the 1940 Summer Olympics.

Fast-forward about 90 years. The biggest quake in recorded history rocks northeastern Japan. The quake and subsequent tsunami destroy a huge portion of Japan. It also starts the Fukushima Daiichi catastrophe. Pissed off citizens begin standing up to the Old Guard. No more nukes. No more dirty politicians. No more collusion between politics and business. The Old Guard freaks out. Sensible Kan is pushed out, ineffectual Noda reigns briefly setting the stage for rightwing Abe to take over. Tokyo wins a bid to host the 2020 Summer Olympics. The state secrets law gets passed. It's on the 72nd anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack.

The similarities between the two different eras are too creepy.

Big Dog doesn't share my fears, however. He thinks Japan's aggressiveness is only a response to saber-rattling by the Chinese and Koreans. He believes the Japanese are mostly sensible, peace-loving people.

I think there is too much "sheep" in the Japanese. They don't like to rock the boat, can't stay mad for long and eventually just want to get back to their uneventful lives. They value harmony above everything else which in normal situations is great but when there are injustices and wrongs that need to be righted, they are useless. Ultimately, people will give in, sighing "Shoganai." (It means "nothing can be done" and is a convenient out for those who don't have the guts to do anything anyway.)

I don't think the Japanese living in Japan see it quite the way I do. They are too immersed in the gradual changes -- like that proverbial frog in a pot who doesn't realize the water is getting hotter and hotter until it's too late. I have a different vantage point, though, and the combination of a multitude of "signs" is making me very anxious.

A Clean Flame

I forgot to mention in my last post the one thing that these super youthful octogenarians here have in common -- other than living in a mellow, sunshine-filled environment and never suffering from a cold and miserable winter. It is that they all take responsibility for their own health. They do everything right in that sense!

Exercise and diet. And a good attitude in life. They understand that stress and negativity affect your health as much as processed foods and a couch potato lifestyle.

Herr C., a spry Swiss gentleman we met several years ago when he was camping with his wife is now a widower in his early 80's, but he still spends his winters in Mexico and walks the beach with us every afternoon. Big Dog and I are astounded that he continues to keep up on these 5 or 6 mile walks. We talk about a wide range of subjects during our walks -- he has a very curious mind! A former physician, he doesn't smoke, drinks in moderation, eats in moderation, walks a LOT, kayaks, camps, travels the world and is his own person.

Too often the elderly give up control and let their children dictate what they should and should not do. I think that's the death knell. Keep your independence! At least until you lose your mind and when that happens, maybe you can lose the independence, too.

Mr. G., our landlord who lives with his Mexican wife in the house next to us is an incredibly young 85. When he told us his age, we just about fell over. Last year, we saw him out on the ocean trying to learn to stand-up paddle. He takes his boat out (by himself) to fish. Most people who spend a lifetime in construction seem pretty beat up by the time they start getting Social Security. Not Mr. G.!

"My father owned a candy store when I was really young, so I was always into the candy. And I think that's why I was such a slow learner all during grade school," he told us one evening over wine, tostadas and sunset. Today, he is very conscious about what he eats. "I try to avoid junk food, processed foods. Here in Mexico, I can get raw milk inexpensively so that's what we have. Did you know that homogenized milk is bad for you? The process they use to homogenize milk makes it so that it clogs your arteries more easily."

That was news to me, but he is about the only octogenarian I know who is NOT on blood thinning meds, so maybe he's got something there.

Eating as much raw foods as possible, a nice variety, never using a microwave and not getting too phobic about the "bad stuff" are his keys to health. "You also need to build some immunity to junk, too, you know." Like, the occasional greasy, lard-fried churro!

We talked about the recent gluten-free craze and how people who go gluten-free feel so much better not because they've eliminated gluten, per se, but because they're eliminating almost all processed foods. Factory-made foods have too much crap, whether they are harmful additives, GMOs, or overly processed grains.

"Too many people don't think about how they eat, how they live, and then just take drugs that will cure symptoms but never the cause of the problem."

He was echoing all of my thoughts on the matter! Our body houses our spirit -- it's a holy temple -- and yet many of us treat it like a junkyard or garbage dump with a lifetime of terrible habits and then a bunch of drugs. So, yes, make sure you are getting fresh fuel for your "fire," but also make sure it is burning clean.

Micro-farming

In between my tirades on the state of the world, I managed to write another article on another inspiring local farm  for the Central Coast Grown website.  (Find the article here.)

Staci, the owner, grower and herbalist for Elfin Herb had warned me that her growing operation was small, but I wasn't prepared to find her farming everything (almost) in her home garden. And not a GIANT garden, either. In fact, I think most Californians probably have slightly larger yards.

"It's not size that counts, but how you use it." I've heard that said a lot about…well, other things, but Staci was proof that, even in farming, size does not limit what you can do as long as you do it right, are determined and have persistence and patience.

Here's Staci, showing me her pantry of dried plants. I can't get over the fact that the colors are so pretty!

Everything is handcrafted in small batches in her workshop at the back of her yard. She'll distill essential oils in copper stills that are not only perfect for small batch crafting, but so attractive.

I am always so easily inspired and influenced! After visiting Staci, of course, I had to start picking and drying my own flowers and herbs. And looking up different recipes online. If I am successful, friends and family who must be so tired of my fruit products will be getting a batch of homemade body care products this Christmas. 

(Land)Lord's Prayer

Our Father who art in Heaven, He who decides which tenants we get, let our new ones be clean and helpful, resourceful too. Let them be respectful of our property and treat it not as their own but as a treasured loan, as we treat this beautiful planet you have loaned us. Let them not be into parties and drugs and other shenanigans, but into quiet, healthy living. And may they always pay their rent on time. Amen.

The Other Lesson Learned

I was getting too confident. During all the construction work this summer, I worked like I was a 16 year old speed freak. I felt stronger than ever, healthier than ever, absolutely invincible.

Hubris invites Nemesis. The Greeks knew it.
And now, so do I.

Don't get sick unless you're a multimillionaire

$75,000. Actually $74,917.33. That's my hospital bill and both Big Dog and I are in shock.

It started last Friday, just around midnight. We had had a couple of intensely busy weeks renovating the duplex and now had our house packed with Big Dog's sister, her husband and their father. I was dead tired. My stomach felt strange. It's hard for me to eat much right after making dinner but Big Dog's family were used to eating early, so I was only able to have a few bites. At first I thought I was just hungry. But soon, it felt like indigestion. And a while later, something much worse. It felt like the pain of being kicked in the solar plexus -- except instead of being a brief kick, it was constant and lasting and getting worse all the time.

Pain makes you nauseous and it sure was doing that to me, so I quietly got up and tried to make my way to a bathroom. A sudden surge of pain made me stumble and fall at the top of the stairs. I crawled downstairs and into a bathroom. Nope, there's nothing to throw up. The little I ate was already digested. But the pain keeps making me retch and heave. I lie on the bathroom floor, hoping the pain will go away but it doesn't. It just gets worse. For a few hours, I go back and forth between the bathroom and the living room couch where I lie, curled up in pain, wondering what could be the problem. By 3am, the pain is unbearable. Should I call an ambulance? Should I wake Big Dog and make him take me to the hospital? Or should I just jump off our roof and end it all? When I started thinking that, I knew I had to get myself to a hospital one way or another. I woke up Big Dog.

I lay, curled up in the back seat of the truck, moaning in pain as he drove me to an emergency hospital in San Luis Obispo. The ride seemed like it took forever. Each turn, each bump made the pain that much worse. Then, it was another forever before they actually put me in a bed in the emergency room. During that eternity, I am writhing in pain, unable to remain seated in either the chair or the wheelchair, on the filthy hospital floor. Enough pain obliterates everything else: common sense, decency, inhibitions, etc. In my own delirium, nothing else mattered. So there I was, curled up like a ball on the linoleum floor, eyes closed, panting and moaning and kicking at the wall until they finally got a gurney to take me to the emergency room and, finally, a bed.

"What's your pain level?" they asked me in Admissions. "On a scale of 1 to 10, where would you say it was?"
I would have said "Twelve" if I had much consciousness, but I could barely think and groaned "Ten."

The first 4 ml morphine shot had no effect whatsoever. They had to give me another. And then another, and finally the pain subsided enough to let me breath a little slower, a little deeper. Shots to stop the nausea (and dry heaving) followed, as did an IV drip. I got an EKG, a CT scan and an ultrasound, then was left moaning in that room for 4 more hours before they got me into a hospital room. It was all pretty much a blur until later in the afternoon.

At one point, someone came by and asked what my pain level was now. It was so much better than when I came to the hospital -- I didn't feel like jumping in front of a moving truck to stop the pain -- that I told that person it was probably a 4 on the pain scale. Still bad, but not something I wanted to kill myself over.

Much later, I saw the Pain Scale on the wall. Zero was not simply "no pain" but a smiley face. A smiley face for me indicates more than just pain-free, it means you feel good. I was nowhere near that. I was nowhere near even Level 4. As much as things had improved, I realized that on their Pain Scale, even with the multiple morphine shots, it was perhaps at Level 8.

THEIR pain scale.
MY pain scale.

So, there I was. For days.

After about 3 days, the pain had moved further down my digestive system. It was no longer in my solar plexus but lower, around my belly button. I could now sip a little water. By Day 4, I could handle a little broth. I still needed my morphine shots every 4 hours and just when I thought things were improving, I would have a big setback. My roommates started with the tattooed mother with pneumonia who couldn't stop complaining and elderly lady also with pneumonia (they were on either side of me who insisted on my curtains being open so they could watch the tv which was right in front of my bed -- it was the World Series and Elderly Pneumonia Lady was a St. Louis fan -- and they yakked loudly all night long.) They both left on Day 3 and I had a night by myself (ahhhhh) in the room before they brought in Mrs. Dementia. By then, the pain had shifted all the way down to my lower abdomen, I could handle Very Soft Food (although I couldn't eat the hospital fare for taste reasons) and I knew I had to go home to get any better. None of the doctors could tell me what was wrong anyway, despite all the tests. The first doctor insisted it was food poisoning from the oysters I had eaten 2 days before The Pain. No matter what I said, all he could do was tell me about the time he got sicker than a dog after he ate Morro Bay oysters. It irritated me that a Man of Science was more a Prophet than a Skeptic. The second doctor, more sensibly, speculated that it was probably a virus since nothing showed up in the tests. Either way, neither of them knew, really.

I've never been sick before. Not enough to be hospitalized. Just being in that environment with all the Negative Energy was making it hard to get well. Not to mention the processed foods. But I think what really made me want to go home was knowing what the entire experience was costing.

When they brought the estimate to Big Dog, he howled "What?! Bring me a wheelchair! I think I'm going to pass out!" It was about $50,000 at that time. It was outrageous. Nowhere else in the world would they charge you that much for just a hospital bed and a few tests. Almost every country in the world takes care of the medical needs of its citizens, whether they are poor bankrupt nations or ones ruled by terrible despots. Even without insurance, medical costs are never as high as in the U.S. There is something terribly, terribly wrong with this country, but when you try to explain it to Americans, most of whom don't know how things are in other countries, they can't understand how broken their system is. No wonder there is so much resistance to a national healthcare policy!

Meanwhile, decent working folk are destroyed by medical costs and private insurers who won't pay up when the need arises. The indigent, the prisoners, the illegals, the ones who can't or won't contribute anything to society are the ones who get free medical care. Big Dog kept seeing prisoners from the nearby Men's Colony (a strange word for "prison") walking around the hospital, shackled and attended by 2 guards to each prisoner. And these guards are the highest paid in the nation, making six figure incomes!

So I guess the lesson learned (and a very expensive lesson at that) is: don't get sick in America unless you're a multimillionaire. If not, commit a crime, get incarcerated and get your free dental, medical, transgender hormone shots, whatever. Get it all!

Roots and Grassroots

Here in the U.S., the news is all about 9-11, but for me, today is six months since the massive earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan. Six months since the nuclear power plant at Fukushima Daiichi blew up.

The disasters had affected me far deeper than was apparent on a conscious level. This has been the least productive year for me in terms of anything creative. I've been happy to find comfort in watching things grow, but have done too little writing or drawing or any other kind of creating. I'm happy to just be doing ranch work. Much to Big Dog's delight, he hasn't had to listen to me complain about not having enough time for both ranch work and my own. To his slight annoyance, however, I am becoming more and more involved with our local anti-nuke group.

My little paradise here is an Eden, but just south of it lies the Canyon of the Devil -- the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Facility.

"Why did you decide to live there, so close to the nukes?" friends asked in disbelief.
Because it was the nicest ranch we looked at?
Because we thought it was better to fight the nuclear industry than to ignore it?
Because when you can't see something, you forget about it?
All of the above was true.

Of course, now, we know that whether you are 5 miles away or 50 or 150, you are just as vulnerable. There are hot spots all over Japan, some of them more than 200 miles away from Fukushima.

When I came back to the ranch in the spring, I knew I had to do something, so I contacted Mothers For Peace who was holding an anti-nuke rally in Avila in April. It was a smallish demonstration, but I got to meet and speak to a few of the members. My involvement has been gradual -- there's still a part of me that is uncomfortable being a part of any organization, and I am hesitant to be too conspicuous politically, being a guest of this country. At the same time, I have my connection to Japan as well as other skills that could be of use to MFP. Most of all, I can't bear to think our beautiful area could be destroyed in an instant. I want to wake everyone up from their complacency. I want the local farmers and ranchers, as well as the tourism industry, to join forces -- they are the ones who will be most affected should there be an accident at Diablo Canyon.

I am slowly becoming more and more of an activist and in the process, slowly being sucked back into my former life in media.

But something else is happening. While fighting the power (company) at the grassroots level, I find myself developing real roots in our community. I'm meeting people, getting involved with the community, spreading my wings, venturing out, facing new challenges (even if some of them seem small, like driving on the freeway, or at night, or in the fog.) The 3-11 triple disaster did a lot of shaking up, literally and figuratively. Has it shaken me out of my blissful solitude?

Ready for all of this to be turned into a giant Dead Zone? I'm not!

Urgent!!

Email from Tokyo:

Dear Friends,
I do not normally bombard my friends and family with petitions, but this is critical. We live on a ranch in Central California -- an area that is breathtakingly beautiful -- AND only a few miles from the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant.

I am in Japan right now where the nuclear disaster is an on-going nightmare. It is the beginning of rainy season and damaged facilities at Fukushima Daiichi are now being flooded with rain water -- the new threat of radioactive contamination. We wait anxiously to see what else may happen, as the radioactive materials seep into groundwater.

There's only been a trickle of new news about Fukushima in the US/World media, but here, it is a daily reality. The newspapers are filled with new information, as are the tv shows. Daily regional radiation counts appear in the newspaper like weather forecasts, or sports scores. It is surreal.

The anti-nuclear movement has been put on hyperspeed in Japan. One good thing to come out of the Fukushima disaster. People who have been working hard, despite opposition from pro-nuke neighbors and government, are finally beginning to feel like their decades-long struggle has not been in vain. The other day, there was a news item on tv about a lady who lives 300 meters from a nuclear plant they had just started to construct. She was the only one who refused to sell her land to the power company!! It was a tiny house (a small log house she built herself for her mother!) but equipped with solar panels and wind turbines. In a conformist country, you can imagine the kind of struggles she's had to go through. But she was feeling optimistic, at last. The plant's construction has been put on hold for the moment and she hopes it will be canceled. She was saying how glad she was that things have started to change before they had brought in any radioactive materials.

Another news item was about rural areas trying to do small-scale hydroelectric, using the abundant streams and rivers without damaging the environment. Everyone is thinking of renewable energy. I believe a non-nuclear future IS possible -- if we all work together.

It is raining today, too. Back on the ranch, I can go outside, spread my arms and enjoy a downpour. Here, I will be covered from head to toe. I am reminded of the line from Joni Mitchell's song Big Yellow Taxi. "You don't know what you've got til it's gone." PLEASE click here. PLEASE forward this to as many people as possible.

With gratitude and respect,
Bad-Dog

Not Dead Yet

I had to tell you that I ate the oyster mushroom. It was the topping for my pizza today.

I'm still alive, so I guess it really was an oyster mushroom, but it did not taste very good. Not everything edible is good to eat. In fact, sometimes the chasm between the two is VERY wide.

Karma Hits the Fan

"The plumbing's backed up and flooded my apartment," JD emailed us from the ranch last Wednesday. He had just gotten back from a 10 day business trip to Japan. We were wrapping up our prolonged LA stay, having finished supporting LA's medical profession (nothing serious, thank you) and getting ready to return, too.

JD could hardly wait to give us the whole blow-by-blow, chunk-by-chunk.

"So, I get back from Tokyo 2 days ago and I'm driving back from LAX, but I'm so burnt out from the flight -- you know how it is -- that I get as far as Pismo and I'm too tired to keep driving so I spend the night at K's. I'm jet-lagged so I get up at 5 the next morning and head home and that's when I notice there's water or something on the kitchen floor. That's strange, I think, but get my new mop and mop it up. I'm on the computer for a while before I notice there's a funky smell...where's it coming from? That's when I step into the small bedroom. My feet sink into this gushy mess, it smells like Calcutta on a really bad day, I notice this brown sludge everywhere... It's gotten on everything on the floor and moved up from there...The bathroom! Shit! Literally. Everywhere. I think the sewage had exploded from the shower drain and toilet. I had to throw away the toilet lid and shower curtain..." JD was exploding with the force of the story.

"I can't really spray everything clean, because the plumbing's backed up, so I get all my towels and start mopping it up but I realize then I have no cleaners so I go to the store for some rubber gloves and Lysol or something. When I come back, I find out that while I was in town, R. had taken a shower and there was new shit all over the place!!"
"You mean, you didn't run upstairs and tell J & R about the plumbing as soon as you found out?"
"I told you, I was jet-lagged!"
We nodded, because we knew how that could be.

By the time we got back to the ranch, though, the plumber had already been there to fix the problem and the carpet people had re-carpeted the bedroom, so there was mostly just the mess in the bathroom to have to deal with. Big Dog and I, in our rubber gloves, were armed with bottles of bleach and other cleansers.

"I'll bet there are a few women who would say JD had this coming to him," I had to laugh. "Karmic payback time!"
"Yeah, I'm sure [his most recent ex-wife] would definitely be happy to hear he had so much shit in his life."
"The one before her, too, as well as all those on-line dating site women he's already gone through."

JD goes through relationships at a frightening pace. 4 marriages (or 3 depending on whether or not you counted the second "marriage" which was annulled) and god knows how many girlfriends... There's bound to be a bit of sewage back-up.

But why were we cleaning up the crap, too? What did we do to deserve this? (well...Big Dog, maybe. But not me!!)

Envious

There are times I become very envious of Americans.
I remember reading a British writer who was envious of the American ability to be casually friendly with total strangers. That's one of the things I love the most about the US, but what really makes me envious is their political optimism.

Japanese are completely jaded when it comes to politics. We've been driven to the brink of annihilation, to the depth of hell by our politicians, it's a wonder we have any trust left at all. When was the last time any Japanese person had any real hopes for his/her prime minister? Most of the time, we're just holding our breath, hoping he (and I can only use the male gender pronoun here!) won't screw things up big time. (Imagine having a succession of Karl Roves governing your country.) Change the world? Ha. Just don't muck things up for your own people! (And because of our history, we are really leery of any politician who starts meddling in other countries' affairs.)

Don't Quit Your Day Job

During our Tokyo days, we used to say things like "I'm a director/producer now, but what I really want to do is plumb" and "I'm a media personality, but what I really want to do is wait tables." As glamorous as our lives may have seemed to outsiders, it had taken over everything. We were constantly working and production is always both mentally and physically challenging.

First, let me tell you plumbing is a great profession. It's also highly lucrative. Politicians and media producers are about the only people who don't know that.

Second, be careful what you wish for. Big Dog is now doing way too much plumbing.

As for me and waiting tables... when you are multi-lingual, there are too many other ways of making money. Teaching languages, interpreting, translating, dubbing. It's too much trouble for most working people to pick up a new language -- much easier picking up someone who already has the language ability. I never got to flip burgers, babysit or wait tables -- all of my early jobs were language-related.

Friday evening, we got an SOS from the Japanese restaurant on the highway.
"Our waiter's gone off to university and two of the kitchen staff are on sick leave. It was insane today but it'll be impossible tomorrow. Saturday afternoons are hell. Can you help us?"
Several hours in hell? Doing something I am clueless about? Why not!

I recruited Big Dog, too. Between the two of us, we might be able to manage, I thought.

The day started off nice and easy: a few North American couples to ease us into our new jobs. In between, we learned about the different plates for different dishes and all the different sauces and garnishes that go on at the last minute, we learned how to make the drink orders, wrap silverware in napkins...there was so much more to do than just taking and delivering orders!

And then, just as they predicted, it got busier and busier. By 3pm, the place was a battlefield. Orders were flying in, plates were flying out. Seeing that we were running out of glasses, I quickly washed a batch that came in. Calls were coming in for take-away.

We knew this pandemonium well, though it's been a while since we'd been in it. Your brain goes blank and your body switches to automatic.

"Teri pollo! Mesa Seven!"
"No! This one's for Mesa Ocho!
"Two teas, helado, one sin, one con sugar."
"Yakimeshi sencilla, para llevar!"
"Limones, doko?"
"Cambio, onegai shimas!"

We were calling out orders and questions in a strange mix of Japanese, English and Spanish. Customers, too, were ordering in a bizarre mix of languages.

As it turned out, BD was a great host. He was all over the place, taking orders, delivering orders, bussing... Even during the mayhem. Plus, he looked cute in his hachimaki, Japanese headband. I looked hot and disheveled. My hair wouldn't stay slicked in place like the señoras' and my shiny, sweaty face was making me a little self-conscious. Worse, I proved to be as untalented in this field as many others. I am not a natural born host -- more like, natural born hermit. I bounced from cashier to dishwasher to prep staff, filling in the holes, but it's a good thing I have other skills because I made a pretty pitiful waitress.

At the end of the day, we were both exhausted. But, we found out that the Mexicans who dined here were fabulous tippers. Actually, pretty amazing! Here we were, thinking that North Americans were such good customers.

And I learned a thing or two (again) about humility.