Please Pass the Dextrose!

I have tried everything, I think, short of amputation to try and relieve the pain I had been experiencing in both my shoulders over the last couple years. I have tried pain relievers, I have tried acupuncture, I have tried physical therapy, I actually had surgery on my left shoulder in late 2018, all to no avail. Then on my last physical therapy appointment I had a few extra seconds to look at a peer periodical with an article touting PRP, or Platelet Rich Plasma. This is a procedure where they draw some blood from you, spin it in a centrifuge thingy and then inject the plasma into the affected joint. And this made me wonder, since I have been an avid blood donor for a couple decades that blood flow to these extremities might be a concern. It then made me wonder if these injuries might have transpired when I was a pint low, with less blood (and oxygen) reaching the area making them more susceptible to injury. I have been met with mixed reviews from the professionals I have asked about this theory. Some said mostly not, a few said, "Eh, maybe." I did not donate blood at all last year, and I have not suffered any further tendon or ligament injury. But I am a firm believer in donating blood, especially after our wonderful daughter almost died in 2019. Yeah, the morning of our son's wedding I was informed that she had just miscarried.  Planned Parenthood also had called stating that it might be an ectopic pregnancy.

I apologise for the previous run-on paragraph from hell which should have been five. The back-end here at blogger has changed it's format a bit, and this post has been in editing mode for months. So somehow a whole bunch of programming gobbligook gets magically inserted here and there and if you fuck with it, run on paragraphs occur. Or possibly worse. I dunno. We'll see.
An ectopic pregnancy occurs when a fertilized egg implants and grows outside the main cavity of the uterus. Pregnancy begins with a fertilized egg. Normally, the fertilized egg attaches to the lining of the uterus.  But apparently sometimes it likes to go a wandering.

An ectopic pregnancy most often occurs in a Fallopian Tube, which carries eggs from the ovaries to the uterus. This type of ectopic pregnancy is called a tubal pregnancy. Sometimes, an ectopic pregnancy occurs in other areas of the body, such as the ovary, abdominal cavity or the lower part of the uterus (cervix), which connects to the vagina.

An ectopic pregnancy can't proceed normally. The fertilized egg can't survive, and the growing tissue may cause life-threatening bleeding, if left untreated.

She should have gone to the hospital then, but she and me decided we didn't want to put a shroud over the her brother's wedding.  So she was going to stay the course and then go to the hospital first thing in the morning.

The wedding went absolutely fabulously, as did the reception. It was at the after party when she collapsed, her boyfriend and cousin rushing her to the hospital. 

Fate was on her side.  The visiting ER doc at our little country hospital happened to be a crack OB/GYN from San Diego who had experienced ectopic pregnancy fallout before.  Nine units of blood and three units of plasma later my daughter was still alive.  A smaller person would not have survived.

So there's that.  I donate blood to get my BP checked for free.  Plus they're always nice (I think they have to be) and you get free treats.  Who knew the exercise would actually save lives?

As I was still shoulder floundering, my lovely wife turned me on to a local doctor who worked non-surgically with connective tissues.

Great guy, but he does not take insurance, at all.  So after my first $275.00 visit, I decided to talk with my GP about it all.  And he referred me to Mountain View Rehabilitation and Dr. Tracy Hoag 530-477-0893

Can you tell I'm a fan?

On my first visit I was wearing my Gwar t shirt, a group I would hardly go see but whose t shirt I semi-sardonically wear.  (I now request t shirts from our daughter when she goes to a show and we baby-sit.)  Anyway, Dr. Hoag recognized the group/shirt and we cracked up about it all.  If you're not familiar with Gwar, check out the link above.

Anyway, on my first visit (covered entirely by Medicare and the extras part alphabet whatever I now pay extra for) we covered the basics (besides Gwar) and then she did an ultrasound on both shoulders.  From looking at the ultrasound screen and from having me do certain movements she surmized I was having trouble with the supraspinatus tendon in both shoulders.  Since both long head biceps tendons have ruptured, this would mean there's extra pressure on whatever is left.  I guess.

I can semi-understand surmising a diagnosis based on certain movements, but I don't know how anybody can tell anything from an ultrasound screen.  To me it looks like you're searching for a sand dab in the middle of the Sahara Desert, or a frog in a swimming pool full of dill pickles.

On my second visit. per our treatment plan, we began a little Prolotherapy, which is a bit different than Platelet Rich Plasma therapy.  It is also a heck of a lot cheaper and wahlah, it is also covered by Medicare!  Just what is Prolotherapy?  Let's have a look see:

Prolotherapy is an alternative therapy that can help repair ligaments. It’s also known as regenerative injection therapy or proliferation therapy.

This treatment is meant for injured joints and connective tissue. It’s also used to treat some people who have conditions like arthritis, whiplash, and degenerative disc disease. Prolotherapy can treat a number of areas of your body, including your back, neck, knees, shoulders, hips, pelvic floor, and hands.

Prolotherapy is considered safe for most people. However, only smallTrusted Source studies have been conducted about its overall effectiveness.

Prolotherapy typically costs between $400–$1,000, depending on the clinic and the part of the body that’s treated.

Prolotherapy involves watery injections to relieve pain from affected joints. These injections typically contain natural substances like dextrose, saline, and sarapin, in addition to a numbing agent like lidocaine. This treatment is unlike platelet-rich plasma injections, which require stem cells from the person undergoing treatment. It’s also unlike steroid and cortisone injections.

Your doctor will make the injection to a very specific, targeted area in the injury site which triggers your body’s healing response. This leads to the growth of new, healthy ligaments or tendon fibers. As a result, you may experience reduced pain and stiffness and improved strength, function, and mobility of the joint.

Multiple treatments can be used to continue to stimulate growth of new tissues.

I was pretty excited about starting this therapy, very hopeful that it would work.  But thirty days later my shoulders were the same.  When I went in for the second injection, it was decided I would have an MRI done to find out exactly what was going on.  

I was also informed that Ibuprofen could inhibit the effectiveness of the dextrose.  And since Ibu-800's are one of my go-to's for  old man back, I said, "Oh."

So I stopped eating IBU-8's and then a week or two after the second injection I thought I felt maybe I was getting a little more pain free movement within my shoulders.  By the time I went in for my third injection I could do circular movements with both arms pretty much PAIN FREE.

I might be able to golf again.  Maybe even toss a ball around.  It's. Been.i>YEARS! 

Oh, and by the way, the MRI listed full-thickness tears in both my supraspinatus tendons, among a couple other less painful items in both shoulders.

Dr. Hoag was dead on with her diagnosis without having the aid of an MRI.  She is the real deal.  

Apparently there are not a lot of doctors out there offering this kind of therapy and having insurance pay.  Most of them are cash only, and with each injection running somewhere between $200-$500 that can add up.  I have not paid a dime, except for insurance premiums.

If you are suffering from any kind of joint pain I highly recommend looking into Prolotherapy.  If you are local, I highly recommend Mountain View Rehabilitation. Dr. Hoag has unfortunately left, but I am now seeing one of the main dudes, Dr. Joel Richnak. He's a whiz at non-surgical orthopedics. It took him a visit or two to catch up with me. I went in to see him about a trigger finger, but both shoulders, my right ankle, and left thigh/hamstring also needed attention. We're now on track and hopefully, hopefully I can start swinging a golf club again. And I will also be back here at the keyboard a little more often. The crowd-funding for our invention did not go as planned, so we are back peddling a bit and are now looking at simply marketing the patent(s). And then maybe go golfing. Look for Pura Vida-Resort'n Done Right shortly!

Gum Karma

You know you're Gettin Old when you start getting solicitations from the Trident Society, offering cremation, "the sensible choice", in the mail.  During a pandemic no less. 

I recollected to my lovely wife the other day a week or so ago that I have not stepped in any gum for quite a while, probably ever since I started practicing good gum karma.

What is good gum karma?  Not spitting it out any place where it might easily get stepped on.  Parking lots and sidewalks come to mind.  Theater floors aren't really good either.  Nor is your toilet seat.

The freeway or a highway are good places.  I mean, if someone is out there running around in the middle of the freeway gum will be the least of their concerns.  Hell, if enough people started tossing out their gum on the highways here in California it might help fill some of the potholes in the asphalt.

So just what is that nifty contraption I mentioned in my last post?

  Here's a sneak picture:

Anyone that has some experience with processing cannabis will have an idea of what's going on.  Or not.  No one's ever seen this thing.  Yeah howdy holy shit it's a motorized scissor cleaner!

If you've never trimmed or processed cannabis you won't understand, but if you have, hold on.  We hope to be on the market within six months.  Yeah, even in the middle of a pandemic.

We figure a couple things are certain.  Folks are going to want their diversions while being locked down, and cannabis is a pretty good diversion.  To get those pretty manicured flowers it takes a bit of scissor work, and that work typically gums up scissors something awful.  Enter the De-resinator, the very first automatic scissor cleaner.

I'm not going to go into the full sales schpiel here, but there's nothing on the market anywhere near this thing and we're pretty confident the demand will be strong.  Dirty scissors currently involve a messy and time consuming procedure to clean.  Our machine will do it in seconds.

That means the grower and processor can get more weed out to you in a more expeditious manner.  Your welcome. 

Look Out Joe, We're Getting Exotic

I hear tell Joe Exotic has a couple large predatory cats prowling around his property.  Big deal.  So do we.  This here is Frank Frankerson.

Don't let his laid back demeanor fool you.  He's a natural born killer.  Of ants, lizards, mice and things.  When he's not lounging of course, which does happen to be most of the time.

And the killer on the left below, Daisy, while she looks quite innocent in her baby pix, has turned into the ferocious beast you see in the second photo. 

She routinely brings us birds and voles and other, larger vermin than Frank does.  She has also ferociously defended her turf against a couple wanna be visiting cats.  Don't let her cute face fool you,  she really is a bad ass.

And of course we have a rooster and a number of hens, hence the name of the blog.  So we got us a fine little menagerie going on here on our little slice of heaven.

I know, I know.  A lot of folks have domestic and barnyard animals.  A couple cats, a couple dogs, a couple hundred chickens.  Cows.  Pigs.  Goats.  Hamsters..

But we accidentally acquired something here recently that I think will set us apart from being a plain old country menagerie.  Something that just about puts us on par with Joe Exotic.

Meet Liberace, Libby, or Mr. Lovely as he is called from time to time.

This is him on our front deck on the morning he arrived.

I took the picture through the screen door because I didn't know if he was an attack peacock or not.  We have since discovered he is not.

So who's missing a peacock?  What's going on?

My lovely wife got in touch with a neighbor across the street who always has a finger on our neighborhood's pulse.  And she said there's a flock of them that live by the creek way back behind her property.  You know, Yondersville.  But apparently there's been a mountain lion with her cub that have been prowling recently, and that could be why Liberace has migrated our way.

He's been here over two weeks now.  He overnight's up on the roof.  I can't think of a safer place to overnight if you're trying to stay out of a mountain lion's mouth.

We've fed him a bit of cat food and chicken food, but he's mainly foraging and eating bugs, which I'm totally OK with.  And apparently peacocks are really good at killing snakes, so in rattlesnake territory they're probably not a bad idea to have around.  If one doesn't adopt you (like Liberace did us) than you could expect to pay $50 to 75 for an India Blue chick.

He hasn't been hard on any of the plants either, like chickens can be.  He strolls gracefully through the planted areas, selectively hunting and pecking.  Chickens are excavators, they'll scratch and tear up small plants and ground covers to make sure they're getting every last morsel of any given square foot.

Or maybe they just excavate for fun.  Here's what they've done to Fantasia Land over the years.  The actual surface level of the dirt used to be at the top of the gravel in both pictures.  The concrete was poured into an eighteen inch deep trench securing the chicken wire so that no varmints could dig underneath.  The chickens have dropped the surface level by twelve to eighteen inches.

I had to shore up the pier there several years ago. They had completely unearthed the original post and concrete.  Framed a three bag square piling.  It'll hold up the Golden Gate Bridge now.

Liberace does poop on the deck, so I started pretending the house is a boat that has a poop deck. 

Just what is a poop deck on a boat, anyway, you might be thinking?  Cause, you know, it sounds like it as the potential to be really awful.

I'll save you the trouble, a poop deck is: "the after most and highest deck of a ship, especially in a sailing ship where it typically forms the roof of a cabin in the stern."

Why do they call it a poop deck?  The name originates from the French word for stern, la poupe.

I'm thinkin it's just a place to park your pooper.. 

Peacocks have a reputation for being loud and obnoxious, but Liberace really isn't a big talker.  The first time I heard him was when he decided he was going to try and get in the chicken coop.  He flapped up to the top of the fence but was immediately shocked by the hot electric wire.  He veered off quickly, and then walked around and squawked a bit.  I imagine he was swearing in peacock tongue.

And then he's been a little vocal from time to time during the night.  He has a couple different squawks, one of them sounds eerily like a large cat.  And the other is a "honk" that sounds like a goose.  But we're used to roosters crowing at all hours of the day and night, we hardly even hear Liberace.

We have done some reading, and there are mixed reviews about him hanging out with our chickens.  There is the potential he could introduce disease, and because of his size he could be a bit of a bully to them.  But he has managed to get in the coop four times now and has always been quite docile and polite.  The chickens are a little freaked out, but there has not been any sort of a scene.

He's a pretty smart bird.  I let him out of the coop twice, and then the other night I happened to see how he is entering. He goes around back, hops up on the hen house roof, hops over the electric wire, then finds a wide enough place between the clothesline hung to keep hawks out and hops right down.  I have no idea how he gets out, but he was out this morning.

I do think our flock is one of the reasons he ended up this way, that and high altitude roof safety.  He goes up around the coop a couple times a day, and so far had ended up inside the coop the last four days. But now that I know he can also get out I'm not as concerned.

He seems like he's been around humans.  We can usually get within a couple feet of him before he gets a little skittish, and he will also seek us out if he hears us outside.  And he's got a couple hang out spots, one on the front poop deck and one on the back poop deck.

We have no idea how long he's going to hang around, but we're certainly not going to chase him away.   It's kinda fun to look out in the yard and see a peacock wandering around, and he doesn't seem to be upsetting the balance and harmony around here.  Who knows, when mating season comes around this fall maybe he'll attract a mate and we'll start a flock of  peacocks. 

Then we'll really be exotic.  And loud, probably.

Skewered Spleen

I don't really have a bucket list to speak of.  I'm pretty much living it.  Family and friends, out in the country, breathing the air.  I would like to travel a bit more with my lovely wife, but who knows how that's gonna go in this new age.  That said, I espied a couple Canadian Geese in flight a month or so ago as I was driving on our lovely two lane country road.  I usually stop whatever I'm doing whenever I see or hear them to savor their wit and charm and allow my heart to sing.

I would have really pissed off the guy behind me though if I had stopped, opened the sun roof and began savoring.  And singing.  Nevertheless I did experience bucket list like bliss for a few scant seconds.

Apologies, apologies and one more apology for not posting sooner, especially in this time where some off the wall humor couldn't hurt.  I haven't posted here since my old buddy the Amazing Martin Q passed away last October. 

I still think of him quite often, sigh.  And so it goes. 

Poo tee weet old friend.

Believe it or not I have been incredibly busy, even in this time of isolation.  A forthcoming post or two will explain a lot.  A big part of my busi-ness has been an invention my son and I have been working on over the last couple years that is related to the cannabis industry.  We will ultimately have three patents on it and are just now doing the final prototype road tests before going public.

What is this wang-dang infernal contraption thingamajigger I'm referring to?  Next post, within a couple weeks.  I promise.

OK, now we're going to venture into territory that will certainly make my style points drop.  Why?  Because this old man did a really, really stupid thing that injured his poor old aging torso.  Again.  That's why.  So lemme cogitate that for a moment while I listen to some Khruangbin, one of my new favorite flavors.

I had a hundred titles for this blog post, and as the events unfolded they flowed almost as effortlessly as playing ping-pong in a canoe.  "Tangerine Spleens and Marmalade Skies" and "Pressed Spleen and Warthog" were a couple of my favorites, besides of course the chosen title. 

We don't throw a lot of food scraps out here in the country.  What doesn't go to the chickens goes to a spot on the other side of the house for vultures and raccoons.

So one evening a couple months back I was going out in the dark to give the scavengers some chicken skin and bones and a fair amount of warm, yummy, liquid, greasy chicken fat.

And now I am about to give you an insight as to just how my brain works.  It's not going to be pretty.  Or easy.  But just think, you don't have to deal with this all the time.  Like I do.

As I began my journey out of the kitchen, I also began ascertaining.  That's like cogitating, only sounds better here.

The garage door was already closed for the night.  Why initiate power and cause wear and tear on the motor just for a quick trip scrap toss?  Even though the scavenger smorgi is on that side of the house, because of the potential fifteen second wear and tear and wasting two and a half cents worth of power I opted for the utility door.  Which is on the opposite side of the house from where I was heading. 

Anybody got a compass?

Those estimates are for both the open and close operations.  I also realize that's not a lot of anything for just a single journey, but what if I did it more than once?   Like twice.  Or god forbid, more.

Since my brain was all lathered up with notions of  wear and tear and potential monetary loss which had the potential to be endless, like my thought process, I walked right past a very important bank of light switches.

As I approached the utility door, I turned on the outside light on that side of the house.  Then as I opened the door, I momentarily gazed back at the bank of lights I left in the lathered dust so long before.

That bank contained the switch for the front of the house by the garage door, which would have been really handy.  That bank also contained the switch that turns on flood lights on every side of the house, which would have been overkill. 

I was, after all, going to take a leak on the journey.  You know, kill two birds, get stoned.  No need to fire up a spot light for that.  Hell, the folks on the other side of the canyon, if they were star gazing with their telescope in my particular direction at that particular moment might get an obscured view of something I am sure they'd rather not see.

Both those switches were then a lengthy twelve feet away, or nine seconds worth of time (there and back). 

"Too much time," I must have thought, figuring I've traversed the same route I was going a thousand times.  Surely I must know it by now.  Piece of cake.  Can of corn.  Crust of pie.  No problemo.  I ventured forth, chicken scraps in hand, an intrepid adventurer out on a major moon-less mission.

As I turned the corner heading in front of the garage door, I left the light behind.  It was then I discovered it was a lot darker than I might have originally thought.  But I carried on, though I did slow my gait a little bit.

I could see the outline of the rose arbor in the faint starry light, knowing I had to move towards that illusion, keeping just a couple feet to the right.  That would put me on target for the brick walk, then trail, then scavenger smorgi bonanza.

I was moving slowly, feeling certain I was on track, when suddenly my forward momentum stopped, halted by some sort of barricade at my knees.  It tripped me up and I was going down.

Both my hands were involved with the chicken bowl, they were as useless as a feather in a bar room brawl.  I spun in slow motion towards the left as I fell, and the contents of the bowl spewed forth, up, onto my head and torso.  Chicken fat, skin and bones flew everywhere.

Ever have a chicken fat shampoo?

It's not bad, you certainly don't need any conditioner after.  Dogs may have a tendency to chase you  tho, so if you do try it I would stay away from the dog park for a couple days.

And definitely don't go for a walk in the woods.  There's a hundred different species that like poultry.  You could be a target from land, air or sea.  

I slowed the fall a little bit by jabbing the underside of my left rib cage on one of the pickets of the picket fence.  Then I continued downward until I was completely on my ass, which knocked the wind out of me.  As I lay there, staring up at the moonless starry sky, I began to chuckle.

"Thank God no one saw this.  I would have lost a shit ton howdy bunch of style points."

So instead I give up the points just to sell a humorous story.  Self-aggrandizement at its finest.

It took a couple minutes to take stock and regain my composure.   My left thigh hurt as did my left rib cage, which was howling.

I initially thought I had bruised a rib, but as I palpated I discovered the pain was underneath and behind the rib cage.  The picket just jammed up and under and in.  Yeow.

I thought it might be my spleen, and ended up in the ER in Auburn two days later.  We usually go to Sierra Nevada here in Grass Valley, hell, they saved my life a while back when my appendix went south.  You can read all about that right here:"Angels On My Barcalounger."

But I had my shoulder surgery at Auburn Faith a couple years ago and their ER wasn't usually  as packed as Grass Valley.  They did a cat scan, and the spleen was fine.  They figured it was diverticulitis.  And the cat scan showed something amiss with my pancreas and prostate and something else I think.  My entire insides were apparently going south all at once.

I have not been experiencing any kind of negative symptom from any of those things, I was mildly amused.  And confused, and still in pain.  At least they sent me home with a script for Vicoden.

I finally got in to see my regular doc the following week.  He said it was probably (something I can't remember) which is something about tearing the cartilage on the inside of the rib cage, which I guess is like a bruised rib in reverse.  A painful injury that can last from two to six weeks, he said.

He wasn't really concerned with the rib injury, but he was concerned about the cat scan findings.  He asked a bunch of questions about potential symptoms, all of which were negative.  We figured the radiologist was either looking at someone else's scan or drunk.  Nevertheless, he scheduled a follow-up scan here in Grass Valley a couple months out.

I just completed that scenario and the results are back.  I'm fine.  The first radiologist was drunk.  Or gave me the report of another man.  I do have a copy of the scan now, so next time I see my doc he can view it and try to see how much the radiologist had been drinking.

Breathing was tough for a couple days, but it slowly got better.  I was back in my usual decrepit shape after about three weeks.

What was the culprit that so effectively halted my forward progress, kinda like the front line of the Forty-Niners?  What was the antagonist that prompted this ridiculous episode of my life?  

Why the four foot and a half apparently very stout sticks of the recently pruned "Ketchup and Mustard" rose bush, of course!  I was about a foot off where I should have been, and yes, in the future I will spend the nine seconds and two cents and turn on the freaking lights.

I hope you are all doing OK with the current situation.  Life hasn't changed much for me.  I just go to the grocery store less.  And wear a mask.  Which is fine with me.  The fewer people that know who I am the better.  And now I have a valid reason to wear one and don't look like I'm robbing the place everywhere I go.

Here's one of the thousand piece things I've been up to:

Whatever side of the fence you are on, and there are a couple fence sides, I wish you well.  Keep in mind the economy has been in trouble for quite a while now, Covid has just been a catalyst to really help it go south. 

Here's a link to an article by an economist I've been following for years: 
 Roubini

Even though it looks like we are semi returning to normalcy, the stock market has no reason to be where it is.  It's a dead cat bounce folks.  Don't be fooled. 

Get some gold and silver if you can.  Physical metals and stocks. At least 20% of your assets.

And keep buying an extra can or two of food every time you go to the store. And TP.  And plant some extra tomatoes.

Hug your loved ones, keep them close.  And buckle up.  It's gonna be some kind of ride.

My Left Write Hand Left

I lost my left write hand the other day, he left me.  Actually he left all of us, destined for greater glory in some off-shoot alien dive bar, no doubt.  Hanging out with Cliff and Norm, tossing a few back.

My Left Collaborative Hand was known by a  number of pen names.  Dr. Ruddy Foodmart, Marturo, Rud, the Martiqulous Martin Q, The Amazing Martin Q, Mudnick McFudnick, Augie McDoogle, but mostly, the Amazing Martin Q.

And amazing he was.  I cut my writing teeth with Marty, waaay back in the early 1970's, when we were seniors in high school.  We'd sit around the table at the end of class in Boy's Chef and work on my assignment for the next class, Creative Writing.

By the way, our inspirations at the time were the Firesign Theater, a radio troupe that recorded such gems as "How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You're Not Anywhere At All," "I Think We're All Bozos On This Bus" and "Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers" among many others.  We were also big fans of the National nee Harvard Lampoon.  With those derelicts as our guiding light, how could we not be funny?

We penned a few stupid ditty's back then, but then later became quite legendary and renowned among at least a couple hundred people for our party invitations.  I'm not quite sure how that all came about, but the first one was for a Christmas party circa December, 1974, called, "Joyeux Noel Fantastique" or "Drunken Christmas." 

And then followed the "Let Me Call You Sweetheart Levi Ball" on Valentine's Day, 1975.  Many more invitations chock full of obnoxious and tasteless humor followed, mostly for formal Christmas parties my wife and I threw back when.

Marty always said I was the train of thought in our duo, or more to the point I was the straight man.  I would generally start out somewhere in left field, because I'm a little bent too.  Marty would then chime in, sometimes he'd be on the ball field, but more often than not he'd come in from somewhere in another galaxy, funnier than hell.  And then we'd puddle up in laughter for a few minutes and have a heck of a time recalling what just happened.  We finally started tape recording our sessions so we wouldn't lose valuable tidbits of lunacy.

Marty also assisted me with a laundry list of life event spoken word necessities for which I needed less sanity.  A speech for the firefighter's association I was president of, a speech for my daughter's wedding, a speech for a while.  There were a couple of roasts of hapless friends at their bachelor parties as well.

But Marty was not only a writing co-conspirator, we were buddies.  We chummed, we bummed.  We drank more than a few beers together, smoked a bit of weed together and yes, we might have dropped acid together a few times as well.

In one of my last phone conversations with him he asked if I remembered the "Red Mountain Incident."

How could I not?  It is infamous within our own little circle of two.  That I now share with you.

I'm pretty sure this happened during our senior year of high school.  That year my mom ran away from home.  Or more to the point she started her long-awaited relocation to San Diego.  Leaving me, a senior, and my older brother by two years in charge of the house.

She paid all the bills and came home for a weekend a month.  She was a whiz typist and had landed a job for the guy that invented the soft contact lens.  It was her job to type up the multi thousand page submission to the FDA.  In a hurry.

So that left my brother and me the opportunity of hosting probably more than one party.  And we did.  Pretty much all year.  We didn't quite hit an "Animal House" stage of affairs, but without knowing it we gave it a pretty decent shot.

There wasn't a dead horse, but a black cat died.  And a there was a giant chicken lurking around.  Lots and lots and lots of beer.  Plenty of weed.  A little LSD now and then.  The cops came a couple times too.

Actually, looking back, there's a number of pretty hilarious stories that happened that year at 6363 Rainbow Drive, San Jose, California, suburbia USA, and this is one of them.

In preparation for one of the many, Marty and I had just come back from the liquor store after scoring a gallon bottle of Red Mountain Burgundy.  At the ridiculous price of $1.99.  For a gallon.  You can tell not only is this story vintage, but so was not the wine.  But it did the job.  Especially if there were chicks involved.

We were sneaking in the back door, I'm not sure why.  Right next to the screen door was an old toilet, including the tank, that my mother had turned into a planter with dead flowers.  But the porcelain was alive, and stone cold intact.

Marty was the designated wine carrier, I was the designated sneaker inner.  I still have no idea why were sneaking in.  Unless the front door was locked and I didn't have the key.

Which is probably why we used the back door.  At any rate,who cares?  Irrelevant to the story, except as Marty came in behind me the gallon bottle (still in the bag) was accidentally introduced to Mr. Stone Cold Porcelain Toilet Tank.

There was a loud "clang", and both Marty and I immediately looked at each other in apprehensive horror, fearing the worst.  After a couple of seconds (like two) the fear in our face softened to relief and our hearts were filled with unbelievable good luck and fortune.

Which was all dashed at about the fifth second when a resounding "whoosh" erupted from the bottom of the bag and red wine went everywhere.  Fortunately it was a linoleum and not carpeted floor, so we only ruined a couple of old towels.  And then went off immediately to score some more cheap red wine.

Marty and I went to our first rock show together.  We were big fans of Poco, the country rock band of the 1970's.  And they were sandwiched in between the opening act of Focus, an English yodeling group, and Yes, the powerhouse space age thunderously melodious progressively psychedelic rock group.  We had never heard of Yes, but became enraptured, especially with the blond chick behind the keyboards, until we found out later her name was Rick Wakeman. 

I also went to my first and only movie theater matinee on mescaline with Marty, we saw Live and Let Die.  I'm pretty sure we felt it was about the most fantastic movie we'd ever seen.  And with a theme song by Paul McCartney, how could we go wrong?

Besides music, psychedelics and beer, we shared a love for sports, especially our close to hometown team, the San Francisco Giants.  We were at Candlestick Park together when they defeated the Chicago Cubs for the pennant in 1989, right before the Loma Prieta earthquake-fated Bay Bridge World Series.

And before that, back in the 1970's, when my Dear Old Dad had season's tickets along the third base line, three rows up and right behind the opposing teams dugout, we went to a few games.  One very memorable one was against the Dodgers.

Somewhere along the line there was a questionable call concerning the Dodgers right fielder, Lee Lacy, that went his way.  And that got a couple beer fueled Giants fans more than a little riled up and verbally hostile.  My dear pal Marty was relentless (and hilarious) in his hammering of Lacy, so much so he (Lacy) had to be restrained by team mates.  He was ready to jump into the stands to take us on.

Which only got my dear pal more riled up.

Marty was quick, very smart, very funny.  He probably would have made a good debater, but I think he might have ended up off point and his version of winning would have been to see everyone on the floor dying of laughter.

Besides all that, Marty was also a gifted singer-songwriter and musician.  He put out a few CD's, one that has been featured on a radio station in Maui for years.  He worked with a number of higher profile Bay Area musicians, and also collaborated with a number of other music people internationally.

I'm a music appreciator, so his exploits into that particular world were without me. Here is a link to a much more concise recollection of his music years: Time Machine Radio Blog.

Not only did we laugh a lot and do a number of things together, we also just hung out.  OMG, I just remembered another great story!

Back in our day, when a really huge artist came to town we had to wait in lines in front of a ticket store (like Ticketmaster or ?).  Sometimes, if the artist was really big, like, say, George Harrison for instance, one might have to wait in line overnight, kinda like some folks do now for a big screen TV at Walmart on Black Friday.

So when George Harrison at the Cow Palace was announced, it was a no brainer.  We brought our sleeping bags and a cooler of beer.   I think we were both twenty at the time.  We got to the ticket place about 7:00 PM and ended up somewhere in the teens in line.  There were at least a hundred people in line by the end of the night.

And somewhere before the end of the night, like about two, when all the bars close and you're not supposed to sell alcohol, we decided we needed more beer.  Especially if we were to stay awake the rest of the night.

So off we went (in his car), finding a convenience store not too far from the ticket place.  We went in, bought a couple three six-packs from the guy behind the counter and sashayed back to the car.  Happy with our good fortune at not being carded, we were putting on our seat belts when there came a "rap rap rap" at both our side windows.

It was the POlice.

"Would you please step out of the car?"

Marty and I looked at each other, "Uh-oh."

So we get out of the car,with our ill-gotten gain and the cops take us back into the store.  There they started in on the poor checker guy, who had sold us the alcohol after 2:00 AM.  And they started in on the license to sell, called the store owner etc.

They never looked at our ID's.  We had to sit in there, talking with the checker guy while the two beat cops conducted their investigation.  We learned the checker had just moved to California from New York, where you can sell booze 24 hours a day.  He didn't really know about the booze curfew law in California.

"You guys are 21, right?" he nervously asked on the sly.

"Oh yeah, of course," we lied.

In the meantime, the cops did their thing.  We kept waiting for the other boot to kick, but it never did.  They never asked for our ID's.

Even with Marty constantly tossing out gems like, "Can I wear your hat?" and "Are those bullets real?"

After about twenty minutes they sent us on our way.  We asked if we could take the beer.  They said no.  We were OK with that, we weren't going to jail.  We're calling that a win.  They must've figured we were of age just because of all the joking and lack of concern we had about the whole affair.

George Harrison was great by the way.

You know, besides all the funny, fun and light-hearted stuff we lived, Marty was a true friend.  A couple decades ago, when my life had taken an odd turn to the south, Marty was instrumental in guiding me back in the right direction.  He is featured in my recollection of those dark years "Late Night Letters to the Moon", and since all the names have been changed to protect virtually everyone, and since Marty has left this plane, I can safely tell you his name in the book is Miguel.  Not that he was Hispanic by any means, he was Lutheran.  But we did go to Mexico together with another friend, which you can read about right here, "Baja or Bust."

My final good-bye to my dear Pal, the Amazing Martin Q:

A cavalcade
       of endless escapades
             cascades across my brow,

The mighty ship Hallucitania has set sail,
              with you upon her prow,

No time left for merriment
        or share tales of our jovial past

For you are off on another quest

       Aaah, fifty years went by so fast.

I thank you for the time we spent,
       the adventures far and wide,

The crazy antics that accompanied us,

        It was indeed a hallowed ride.

Rest assured old chum the fabled stories will live

       long into the star studded night,

When we together rode the range

        and laughed so hard we peed.

Amen.