There are historic monuments that don’t hold up to personal inspection, that rattle around inside the grandiose imagery built up by cultural myth. The Alamo is one such place. You watch the 1960 movie and the fort is a distinct and memorable character holding its own against the enormity of John Wayne and Richard Widmark. The movie makes you believe the place is large enough to hold thousands.

Go to San Antonio, ask a cop where it is, they don’t know, even though the image is right there on the patch on their arm. After wandering around a bit, turn the corner on a narrow street by a mall, and you’ll stumble over it in the center of a small square, tiny and inconsequential, as if ashamed of its elevated place within the American Mythos.

The Amphitheatrum Flavium, the Flavian Amphitheatre, has no such issues. This place is fucking HUGE. It was built to party, hard. Just you, 50,000 of your closest friends and a pride of lions. Stand next to it in line to get tickets and the stone oozes gravitas, leaning over you like the front line of the high school football team hungry for pig.

Why do I call it the Flavian Amphitheatre? Because it was built by the three emperors of the Flavian Dynasty between 72 and 80 A.D. The name we know it by now, Colosseum, refers to a bronze Colossus of Nero that was placed nearby and eventually torn down for the metal.

It’s easy to just stop and stare at the place and get lost in the fact that all that finished and intricate detail was done two thousand years ago. Think of that for a minute, TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO. Eighty generations of humans have lived and died since the first stone was laid down. Kind of puts all of your petty little worries, grievances and mortal sins into one hell of a perspective, doesn’t it?

Looks just like the singing bust from the Haunted Mansion.

The Via dei Condotti is a street of expensive tastes, hosting a who’s who of high end retailers like Cartier and Burberry. Right after this photo was taken, a thunder cloud rolled in, the skies opened and it poured rain for ten minutes. We ran towards the Spanish Steps and the taxi stand in the piazza, me frantically wrapping my camera under my wet shirt in a feeble attempt to protect it from the water. When I got to the street corner I ducked into the Christian Dior entryway to look back and see where Sally and Ian were. They were 50 feet behind me, frantically haggling with a street vendor for a couple of cheap umbrellas. I don’t think I was in that doorway one minute before the store clerk came out to remind me that I just could not stand there. Luckily, Sally and Ian came along just then and I stepped away without acknowledging the man’s existence. In fact, I think I might have crop dusted a bit, my lunch of pasta fagioli had begun letting its presence be known.

We stayed at a private residence, a vacation home with no internet access. It felt like stepping back in time to the early nineties. I must admit somewhat sheepishly that I did get a bit twitchy not being able to check my email or surf the web when I turned on my computer. If the way I felt was any indication, knowing my disconnectedness was temporary, the world is going to go through some SERIOUS ‘net withdrawal when the Zombie Apocalypse hits.

Here are some of the things we saw:

Cool sunsets. Every. Damned. Night. Seriously, it was getting soooooo boring after a while.

Friday morning (-ish. My son is at that age where getting up before noon is somehow wrong), we drove into Cannon Beach, to get something to eat and hit Jupiter’s, a funky little used book store in a little building behind a bike shop and a curio shop. Alas, we started out too late and the town was infested with tourists. All the day visitors had arrived and no parking was to be had anywhere, so we headed up the 101 to Seaside.

What can I say about Seaside that hasn’t already been said by practically no one? Seaside is the biggest town south of Astoria. Astoria is famous for two reasons, both film related. Goonies and The Ring 2 were both shot in and around Astoria. Astoria bills itself as a funky tourist destination, but I’ve been to Astoria and frankly the place is incredibly boring. The only bright spot in my mind is Amazing Stories, one of the most well-stocked comic shops I’ve seen. Given that Dark Horse Comics is headquartered in Milwaulkie and Things From Another World has no less than three shops around the metro area, not to mention Guapo Comics and scads of other indie shops, there’s no reason to go to Amazing Stories JUST to go there, but if you’re on the Oregon coast jonesing HARD for the latest of whatever it is you’re into, then Amazing Stories is THE place to go.

Seaside, on the other hand, has personality. Seaside is your funky Aunt Ida with all the cats and a penchant for too much makeup, leopard print tops and skin tight leggings, who smokes and calls you “Honey” before she plants a wet, smelly tobacco kiss on your cheek. Seaside tries too hard and not enough all at the same time. Seaside is awesome.

We drove in and parked in the public parking structure a block off Broadway Street. We hit Funland for an hour before heading up the street to Pig ‘N Pancake for lunch. Pig N’ Pancake serves breakfast all day so I partook of a Taco omelet. As we were eating, Ian looks out and sees a sign for chocolate covered twinkies. This peaks my interest.

After finishing up, we cross Broadway to explore a shop that would be brazen enough to sell such culinary abominations. Broadway is the main drag, if such a thing can be said to exist in Seaside, where all the crappy little tourist traps and overpriced restaurants are situated. Strolling up and down the narrow street window shopping is the thing to do and we’ve been there enough times in the past few years to have some favorite haunts. The Purple Pelican sells nice glass art and funky frog sculptures you can mount on your wall. The Man Shop is, as the name suggests, an ode to all the low brow humor one can fit on a t-shirt, drink coaster or fart machine. Timpton’s is very upscale, smelling of lavender and cinnamon and selling cachets of potpourri and throw rugs.

So, it was pretty obvious this place was new and it drew us to it like moths to a flame. The place was split into two sections. The left side was the candy shop, the right was the ice cream shop. We walked into the ice cream shop first and discovered their second crime against nature, the deep fried Twinkie. We backed away slowly and headed towards the candy shop which, in addition to the aforementioned chocolate covered Twinkie, advertised 50 different kinds of licorice.

The place was, as you might imagine, narrow aisles of bulk candy. What made it great was the variety. Candy shops are a dime a dozen on Broadway, and they all sell the same stuff, a shitload of salt water taffy and candy you can get anywhere on the west coast. Walk into any convenience store in California, Oregon or Washington and you’ll find everything the other stores carry. Not this place. I saw so many unfamiliar names, I was in heaven. At one point, I came around a corner and was able to cross off an item on my bucket list.

I discovered the band The Squirrel Nut Zippers in the mid-nineties when I walked into a Tower Records in Burbank and saw the album Hot! on an end cap. I was intrigued, in the right mood, and bought the CD without listening to it first. I’ve been a fan ever since and when I found out they got their name from a candy popular in the south, I knew that at some point I would have to get some. So when I came around the corner, I found an overflowing bin of these babies:

Yes, I filled a bag. Yes, they’re really good.

Then I bought one of these:

Yes, I ate it. Yes, it was good.

Friday afternoon I took a stroll along the beach. It was an incredibly windy day and I didn’t feel it as I walked north to Haystack Rock. When I turned around and headed back, I felt like Sisyphus pushing against the North wind. Okay, that was a mixed metaphor, but it was a Sisyphean task walking back.

Here are some of the things I saw on the beach:

Primitive forts created by the indigenous wild children of Cannon Beach.

The famous Haystack Rock itself.

On Saturday, before we headed back to Portland, we were able to make Jupiter’s. I found this:

I read Slan last month and liked it well enough to want to read some of Van Vogt’s other stuff. His style is somewhat bombastic, but he writes a good page turner.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This baby is long. Kvothe does more in this one than spend his time chasing Denna, bitching about being poor and dueling with Ambrose. He develops as a person quite well and the rumors of his deeds begin to spread with greater frequency as his reputation grows.

Rothfuss’ excellent writing continues apace, but there were a couple of times the story languished in one spot a bit too long and the ending seemed a bit rushed in spots. Nevertheless, this is an excellent story and a worthy successor to The Name Of The Wind.

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I could not put this one down.

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My doctor is showing me my numbers and I notice that that count was higher than the last time I was tested. I ask him if that’s the highest he’s seen. He says no, he’s seen 10,000 and 12,000. Wow. Did the guy keel over the next day, I ask. “No, ” he says, “The guy didn’t have his heart attack for another five years.”

Okay.

So I’ve been walking around in a funk these last two days, just thinking about what I need to do to get this under control, not keel over from a heart attack any time soon. I got a subscription for some stuff the pharmacy says isn’t made anymore, so I get to wait until Monday. In the meantime, I’m thinking of the lifestyle and diet changes I need to make, radical (for me) changes.

The Western medicine part of all this has been taken care of, with the drug and the need for constant exercise. So I’m wondering what sort of Eastern medicine and teachings I can take advantage of. I figure I can work both sides of the medical coin. I have a high interest in meditation and already mostly practice that, but I had an interesting experience last year while getting a massage. Near the end of the session, during which the conversation drifted into some metaphysical territory, the masseuse asked me if I wanted my chakras balanced.

Now, I’m not a believer in a lot of the New Age canon, if you will, but neither am I a non-believer. Science has only reached so far into the depths of the universe and to suggest that anything science cannot prove doesn’t exist is rank foolishness, even with the danger of trying to prove a negative. It very well could be that, before I die in 40 years or so (longer if some medical genius reads Robert Sawyer or Peter Hamilton and decides body rejuvenation might just work if we just submitted to a month long regimen of acai berry enemas and gene therapy every 50 years or so), we find out that mitochondria communicate telepathically with each other or that unicorns existed but were hunted to extinction by Neanderthal man for the sexual enhancing properties of the poor creature’s horn. I guess what I’m saying is, if it floats your boat, good on yah. As Will Shakespeare once wrote, there’s more to the world than you know.

So, I said, sure why not, can’t hurt. I hear her take a few deep breaths and she proceeded to move her hands, palm down, slowly above my body a few inches, starting at my head. When she gets to my heart, an intense feeling of happiness overwhelms me. I am stunned by this. I’m already in a relaxed state from the massage and, despite what some of the more depraved among you might be thinking, she is no longer physically touching me. There is no external reason I should feel such a strong emotional surge as I did just then.
I left that session determined to find out as much as I could about chakras and the energy pathways of the body and since that experience last spring, I’ve done a bit of study on it, but not nearly enough, and now with this somewhat of a ‘Come to Jesus’ news from my doc, I’m determined to resume it in earnest.

Now, I consider myself a rational person who would rather use logic on a given problem than emotion, but one thing I’ve come to realize about this subject is that chakras aren’t something physical. There is no organ in your body that can be yanked out and pointed to as a sacral chakra, for example. These things are metaphors. They represent the whole of your being, they are the sum that is greater than your parts. They give your mind a place to concentrate on when you meditate, a point of focus.

That in itself is something to consider, these eastern ideas work on the body and the mind as if they are something that is greater than the individual bits of bone, bile, or tissue and as such, they cannot be separated into their constituent parts and worked on in isolation. For many of you, this is a ‘No, duh! Captain Obvious’ moment, but I’m just now turning my full attention to the matter of my mind, body and soul in a way I’ve not had to before, Forgive me for coming late to the party. I have cookies.

So, this is what I’ll be doing from now on. I need to fully understand what it is these pesky triglycerides do and how I can alter my diet in a way that will reduce them sufficiently such that I’m not a walking heart attack. I’ll be digging into the metaphysical and learning how to use those tools I find in that sphere to augment my diet and the drugs my doctor will prescribe. I will become an exercise fiend to reduce my trunk obesity. My body shape will change as a result and I will no longer lead with my stomach. It will be a frustrating and, at times, painful and sore journey. But if it means I can live until I’m 100, still conscious and continent (very important!), and be there for my family and friends, then it’s a journey worth taking.

I’ll write more about this later but for now, here’s a picture of him in his natural state.