Welp, since there aren't enough of 'em out there, I've done gone and created a new blog to clog the arteries and veins of the internet, strangling it once and for all.

It'll be more well-rounded than my running-only blog, and the title a little more "me" than this here one.

Now all I have to do is write.

Damn.

I am one half Italian and one half Irish. Or Scotts-Irish. My grandfather on my father's side was adopted into a "mick" household, but he was born a "Scott", so there's some confusion about my heritage in that department, but suffice it to say, I have a pasty background on my Dad's side that lived in squalor and got their asses handed to them with clocklike regularity by the English.

This is why, I believe, I love cold, damp weather and detest dry, hot, cloudless skies. It's the miserable climate that brings joy to me heart.

This is not my point. From my Italian side, I inherited a fair amount of - not obscene, mind you - chest hair.

From my father's side, the genes dictated that, once the horrors of puberty descended upon me, a layer of dark, coarse, threadlike strands protrude from my dermis at varying points on my person.

I'm what you, or others like you (and I'm watching you all), would call "moderately hairy": Robin Williams I am not, nor would you mistaken me for an eel, but it's there, and, as I grow older, wiser, and less aware of what the hell people think about me, so doth groweth "the hair".

About 13 years ago, I spent a good chunk of time on the road, touring as a comic. I think it was my longest "tour of duty"; somewhere in the vicinity of 5 weeks, driving from Reno to Seattle to Montana to Colorado, hitting every bar with enough room enough to cram a microphone into for "cOMedY NIgHT" as the adverts outside would boast. My childhood dreams of showing up to a venue and seeing a sign that advertised: "An Evening With Russ and Friends" were demolished quite quickly and replaced by a sign in Rifle, Wyoming that flatly stated:

"Friday Night: Taco Bar!
Saturday Night: Comedy"

Yes, the taco bar got the exclamation mark.

I was out on the road. I was bored. My room had no cable television. For fucks's sake, the name of the town was RIFLE. And for one, brief, shimmering, razor-bladed moment, I decided that shaving my chest was in order.

God help me, I have no idea why.

Maybe I was shunning my ancestral past. It could have been, as a road warrior, a ritualistic stripping of the me that once was. Odds are though, I was motivated a latenight commercial for Bowflex . I mean, that guy - he's JACKED, right?

First off, if you have chest hair and haven't attempted this feat: You have to cut the hair with scissors first. This 10-minute-long shearing process left me tired and disinterested, but hell, I was halfway there, right?

The gel application was next, and luckily for me, shaving technology had advanced in the prior years. I remember slathering the transluscent gel on my chest, thinking, "Really? This is what I've been reduced to for entertainment?", but, again: No turning back. After all, the only other option was a crackly Rocky IV on the tv, which would only leave me face-to-face with 2 smooth-chested adversaries, duking it out in the ring, mocking my layer of black strands with their every, shiny, shimmery left hook.

The razor felt foreign in my grip. I remember that. I was staring at myself in the yellow, bathroom flourescent light, shavecream lathered on my torso, not looking very much at all like the Bowflex guy.

And with the first stroke, I'd begun round one, going toe-to-toe with an excrutiating, boring, and tedious evening.

I imagine men who do this with any regularity can be finished with their entire chest in fewer than 5 minutes, because once I reached beyond that 5 minute window, scraping away aroud my left nipple, I had mentally checked out. But I couldn't have 1/3 of 1 side of my chest hairless. I'd look ridiculous (as opposed to...?). So I begrudgingly kept shaving away, and let me tell you, whoever does the plumbing at the Super 8 Motel in Rifle, Wyoming, I apologize now for the hell that I put you through in the days that followed.

The water in the sink was like hair soup. I couldn't see a single area of clear water to rinse out my razor, so I pressed the plunger to empty it, and, at first, the water began it's predictable slow spiral down towards infinity, or hell, or wherever sink water goes.

Then it slowed. Then it stopped altogether, about 1/3 full.

Standing now, with 2/3 of a shaved chest and nick marks dotting blood up and down my body, I had to face a grim reality: I might have to call the front desk and notify them. I pleaded with the water to go down. Thoughts of toweling off and racing to the supermarket to buy drain cleaner raced through my mind. I swished around the clumps of stubble with my fingers, hopelessly trying to unplug an imaginary clog that existed only at the sink's surface.

And from somewhere, somehow, someone or something living in the sewage system saw my desperation and cut me some slack. The water - ever so slowly - retreated downward.

Okay. I had to finish the job and get this trial over with, but I couldn't use the sink. I was at minute 60 of this debacle and was exhausted. I looked at my reflection and saw - not Sly Stallone - but a pasty, 155 pound, 24 year old kid locked in a cheap motel room in the middle of nowhere, shaving his chest.

Sexy, no?

I flipped on the shower, grabbed my remaining shave gel, and climbed in.

I will now state, for the record, that scalding hot water on a freshly shaven, never-before-shorn chest, feels like someone taking a Garden Weasel across your body. Angrily. Like they've been waiting to rip the hell out of their garden all summer long.

Moans fell from my mouth as I finally completed the last few strokes and rinsed off. I felt I'd gone ten rounds with a Mach 3 and had been rope-a-doped for 9 of them.

I crawled out from behind the molding curtain, toweled off my pink, razor-burned, bleeding pectorals, and got dressed.

It was exactly 30 minutes until showtime.

I live in a pretty amazing building: It was constructed in 1928 or so. It's in a quiet, serene area of Silverlake, surrounded by trees and homes filled with families.

And right now, 4 drunk "dudes" are in the apartment above me, screaming along to the gayest mix of 80's music ever heard since Elton John burned his first mix CD.

The resident who lives above me - probably in his mid 30s - is a cargo-shorts/flip-flop wearing "dude". Or "bro". Or perhaps the high-exhalted "dudebro". He's incredibly nice and mild mannered, and his girlfriend moved in with him about 6 months ago. She's also incredibly nice. Suffice it to say: Nice, normal couple.

Except for at this very moment.

I'm assuming his better half is out of town, or out with her friends, because what I'm hearing are 4 "dudebros" belting their lungs out to hits from the 1980s. Heard in between lyrical punctuations:

"Bro: You got any Crowded House?!"

(During OMD's "If You Leave): "Bro, that movie was BULLSHIT. She totally should have ended up with Duckie!"

(During a hit by the band Yaz, and this guy obviously knew his shit on the subject): "Dude, Yazoo in England was the real thing. Not this watered-down, bullshit YAZ shit!"

They truly are having a great time. They were howling along with hits from Duran Duran's Seven and the Ragged Tiger a few minutes ago, although the above, self-prophesed "expert" on 80's music didn't know most of the lyrics.

This, of course, didn't stop him from bellowing every last lick of the song.

Party on, dudebros!

“I have to get out of LA for a few days.”
The idea of my solo trip up to Big Bear, CA was that of my ex-wife of 11 years. Well, my soon-to-be ex-wife. In fact, her suggestion came on the heels of her informing me that she wanted to move on.
This is not whining, by the way. The divorce was a 50/50 decision, and her feelings, or lack thereof, in retrospect, make complete sense. The separation and subsequent divorce came from a peaceful, loving place for the both of us. However, this peaceful, loving place also sent my brain out my eye sockets, across the room, and back again and led me to the statement:
“I have to get out of LA for a few days.”
And that’s when she suggested Big Bear as a destination.
Big Bear is a mountain community, a three hour drive from Los Angeles. It’s main tourist season is winter, when skiers descend on the mountains like flies to shit.
But really, really gorgeous, breathtaking shit. That gets covered in snow, and you can ski down.
So more like mountains than shit, I suppose.
Anyone who lives in Los Angeles, after ranting for a half hour about the horrendous, constantly gridlocked traffic, toxic air quality, and overall sense that to move here involves a painful removal of the soul through the anus with red-hot salad tongs, will then justify the love portion of their love/hate relationship with LA by stating:
“But it’s great: In 2 hours, I can be in the mountains skiing, and a few hours later, in the Pacific, surfing.”
In the 10 years I’ve lived in LA, I’ve heard this declaration at least 100 times, yet, not once have I heard of a person actually attempting this feat. Why not? Because…well, it’s impossible. In fact, to get from my apartment just east of Hollywood to the beaches of Santa Monica, a mere 10 or so miles to the west, would take me the better part of a day. And then the rest of the time I’d spend searching out parking and standing in line to get a Hot Dog on a Stick®.
I booked a cabin one block from Big Bear Lake and headed east to the mountains in my Mini Cooper, which was packed tight with my duffel bag, groceries for my 4 day stay, my ukulele, and a small, plastic baggy.
This baggy was stowed inside a running shoe, buried beneath a pair of socks, and tucked at the bottom of my bag.
You get the idea?
No?
Mushrooms. Magic ones.
I decided to remove myself from reality in more ways than one that weekend.
I arrived at my cabin and was blown away. It was perfect: Mid-century furniture, wood-paneled walls, and cable television in the bedroom.
Hey, I wasn’t planning on chopping wood and rescuing Boy Scouts the entire 4 days. My city-upbringing needs could now be satisfied by hours of late night channel surfing.
Days were spent on trail runs (at 6,000 feet elevation, I could barely get 2 hours at a time in before crawling back to the car and coughing up some alien form), visits to the Big Bear Zoo (all I can say is: Deer. In their zoo. Like the ones I saw wandering down the city streets) and the Big Bear Museum, and walks through the downtown area, stopping for lunch at random bars/restaurants for burgers and beers and chats with the locals.
Oh, and the uncontrollable crying. Lest we forget my motivation for this fantastical trip was my impending divorce.
I’d decided that, since I was heading home Sunday at 11AM, Friday would be the night of the “trip” portion of my trip. So, Friday, around 5:00, I slapped a steak, potato, and cob of corn on the barbeque, fired up the grill, cracked a beer, and took a small piece of “Nature’s Travel Agent”.
I cooked, ate, listened to music, played music, snapped photos, hung out, played more music...
And not a thing was happening.
I did feel a tad more mellow, but over an hour later, I began thinking, “Maybe they’re too old and are weaker than mushrooms should be?”
Clearly, I’m not a psychedelic drug expert, having tripped only a handful of times prior, and also illustrated by the fact that I possessed psychedelics for years without ingesting them. So I leapt towards – and over - the only next, logical step:
I took more.
I figured, I’m just going to go on a walk at sunset, come back, play music, write, so why not do this right?
It’s at this point, during any drug story where someone naively says, “Maybe they’re too old and are weaker than mushrooms should be?” and then takes more, that the takes some unusual twists.
Here they come.
I decided to see if anything would happen on a walk as the sun was setting, you know: streaks of colors, intense feelings of well-being, although I would have settled for a pleasant belch and a headache at that point. I grabbed my camera and headed out down the winding street, which was lined with cabins/homes for rent.
That’s when I heard the hollering.
Ahead of me, about 1 block, I saw a group of young men standing at the end of a driveway. The general vibe was non-threatening, and I noticed that, with each car that passed, they’d scream, wave, and raise the red plastic cups they were drinking from.
As I approached, they yelled for me to come over. When I arrived, I was greeted by the single-most drunken group of Air Force recruits I’d seen…on that particular road. At that time of day.
They were a bachelor party of old friends who decided to forgo the classic, Vegas-hooker route and spend some quiet time together. However, they hadn’t counted on HOW quiet Big Bear was (my exact reason for being there…did I mention my looming divorce and the sobbing and the crying?), so they’d taken to standing at the driveway’s edge and hollering hellos at passing cars for entertainment.
Oh, yes: Erudite chaps, the lot of them.
We chatted for a few minutes, I wished them a more exciting evening than one involving inhaling exhaust and getting laryngitis, and headed back towards my cabin.
Upon arriving at my front door, I asked myself, “What the hell am I doing back here?” I’m a rather shy person by nature, but seriously, what greater signal could I get from God, the universe, or the exalted mayor of Big Bear that, if I was truly going to change my reality, these rowdy lunatics were my ticket to a different strata?
I filled a plastic up with scotch and locked the door behind me on the way out.
You’ll notice I haven’t mentioned the mushrooms or their (lack of) effects in awhile. This is by journalistic design, see, as by this point, I’d forgotten I’d taken them and had pretty much written them off as a not-so-tasty, pre-dinner appetizer.
If I could cue the theme from “Jaws” for you, I would.
Not surprisingly, the group of 5 or so was still screaming on their driveway. I greeted them and off-handedly remarked that they seemed a far better option for a weekend night than sitting on my deck, slapping mosquitoes off my body and whimpering, and suddenly, I was enveloped in back-slaps and high fives.
I was in. Part of the tribe.
They led me inside as they were preparing to head into town to “Max’s” bar, where apparently, if anything was going to happen in Big Bear, it was happening at “Max’s”.
I wandered into the house behind Chris: A 6’3” giant with a shaved head and a protective demeanor that made me feel instantly like part of the family. The drunken, bellowing family.
“How many spins do you think we’re up to?!” Chris shouted to the group, dousing themselves from the inside-out with liquor.
“I dunno,” answered the weasely kid with the close-cropped hair. “Russ, can you go in the other room and check? I bet we’re close to 15,000 by now!”
“Not a problem,” I stammered, knowing I was about to see something I wouldn’t normally walk into a different room to see.
Sure enough, on the computer monitor, a man, naked, astride another naked man, his flaccid wang spinning in counter-clockwise revolutions in a short video loop, greeted me. At the bottom of the screen, an incrementally increasing counter announced, “YOU HAVE VIEWED 13,### SPINS!”
Laughter erupted from the living room.
The cab arrived and shuttled us into town, to “Max’s”, where if anything was happening, it was to happen at "Max's". The place was dead-empty, and the band was still setting up, but we each inhaled deeply as we realized that we were about to spend the night in a rough, biker/locals bar: Seven, clean cut, obviously “not from ‘round here” types.
I decided to stick close to Big Chris.
We set ourselves up at one of the 6 pool tables and started to shoot as the crowd grew and the band “rocked”, as it were. I remember a lot of GnR being blasted, but I can’t quite recall as – suddenly - terror overtook my sense of hearing.
The world had tilted 90 degrees.
And this is the part in “Jaws” where the female swimmer feels that first hit from beneath the water hit her.
If you haven’t taken hallucinogenic drugs, there isn’t a direct way to describe the experience, but suffice it to say: Standing in a crowded biker bar, surrounded by drunken servicemen as your only toe in reality, with an insanely loud cover band blasting out sour chords, really “harshes one’s mellow”.
A minute of panic slapped me in the chest. I stepped outside, and a few minutes later, a couple of the guys followed, smoked some cigarettes, and joked with me.
Big Chris (who had now become HUGE, MELTING CHRIS) put his hand on my shoulder. “Ever think you’d find yourself in a situation like this?”
Me (attempting a calm sip of beer and fighting the urge to curl up into a ball and dive into Chris’ shirt pocket): “Can’t say I ever did.”
“Me either…pretty amazing, huh?”
“That’s one word that hadn’t occurred to me.”
And with that, he dragged me back inside.
We shot more pool, laughed at the obliterated bachelor dancing like an electrocuted octopus, downed greasy bar food, screamed along with the band (who’d shifted gears and gotten more serious as they dug deep into BTO’s “Taking Care of Business”) and, all of a sudden, all was right with the world.
More 9-ball was shot (and missed), more hot wings were ingested, and I could tell I was coming down, as the desire to hug and kiss the fat Latino biker who was laughing hysterically was fading. At the mere mention to Now-Not-Melting-Chris that I was thinking of leaving, he was on his phone, calling me a taxi.
I said my farewells to my cohorts, all of who hugged me in that “we’re-dudes-but-we-HUG-SOMETIMES-do-you-have-a-PROBLEM-WITH-THAT?!?!” way.
“Good luck, Russ,” the groom-to-be slurred, wrapping his meaty arms around me.
Big Chris walked me out once the cab arrived into the cool, mountain air and shook my hand.
“You think you’re really getting a divorce?”
“Probably.”
“Good luck, man. You’ll be fine.”
I paused.
“I know.”
During the ride back to my cabin, I realized: Life isn’t about clinging to fear, or desperation, sadness, or even to love for that matter. Life is about opening your eyes to the strange, the unknown, and seeing each moment as unique. Life is about releasing your grip on events both joyous and terrifying, and accepting that pushing life in a carefully constructed direction is what strips it of it’s very wonder.
Sometimes, you just have to down the spoiled mushrooms, take a walk, and see what happens.

I started chronicling my journey to my 1st 100 miler here:

http://sd100orbust.blogspot.com/.

Enjoy reading my disorganised training methods, my experience running through hangovers, and a whole lot of cursing!

I'd vowed to myself 2 things in the last week:

1. Change my road bike's innertube in less than 10 minutes (done).

2. Successfully fold a fitted sheet into a smooth, creased square or rectangle (not so done)

So yesterday, I spent the better part of 30 minutes trying to fold a fitted sheet. Seriously. I wrestled with my four cornered foe, grabbing the seams at the corners, attempting to create a line straight down the length of the sheet.

No dice.

I reached back in my memory, in an effort to recall dear old Mom's technique. Her fitted sheets were folded so taught that Marine colorguard regularly visited our linen closet. An image struck: I put my hands up inside the corner pockets and tucked one into the other. Success! Unfortunately, when I reached down to do the same with the bottom 2 corners, the top 2 fell like lumps of custard into a toilet.

Fine. I caved and went to the internet and unearthed this s'umbitch . It even included pictures in it's step-by-step explanation, written for 3rd grade level, pot-smoking chimps. Ha ha!

Currently, my fitted sheet is sitting atop his fitted brethren, each of them wadded into large, wrinkled masses.

Maybe I can get my bike's innertube changed in less than 5 minutes?

In the past 24 hours, I've watched over 800 acres of Griffith Park burn. The footage and photos are devastating to LA residents and confusing to others across the country ("What? There's a park in the middle of Los Angeles?"). Throughout the myriad of feelings I feel welling up inside of me, I'm pausing to reflect on a park that, over the last 3 + years, I've run - literally - thousands of miles in.

Once, I encountered a homeless man, beard to his waist, carrying a cardboard suitcase, sloughing up an incredibly steep incline. I remember considering, "Lucky bastard - what a great place to live!"

Another time, I came across a cross-country high school runner who'd strained her Achilles tendon during a group run and was camped out in the shade, wincing in pain. Another runner and I advised her, "No running for 6-8 weeks." She replied, "Bullshit!", and we both understood where she was coming from.

Time and again, I found myself being passed on the Griffith trails by ultra running champion Jorge Pacheco, who nearly broke the 100 mile world record, missing it by less than ONE minute(!). His wife, Maria Lemus - another ultra running machine prone to running Griffith - and I eventually began to recognize one another. At the Avalon 50 miler this past January, while walking past her on my way to the hotel, she smiled and said, "Hey - HI!"

I recall a week prior to Christmas, running my 2nd long run of the weekend (of 3 hours, preceeded by Saturday's 4 hour run), out in the woods as the sun began to set behind the peaks and hills. I clomped along The Old Zoo trail as darkness settled in and heard the caressing voice of Nat King Cole singing "The Christmas Song" as I looked down the ravine at the park's mile-long display of Christmas lights.

My first 2 rattlesnake sightings were at Griffith. Actually, one week ago, for the first time, a rattler shook it's tail at me. You don't forget that shit, let me tells ya.

2 years ago, during my first run over 3 hours, I stopped after a steep ascent and squatted at a trail's edge, completely out of gas and an emotional trainwreck. I said to myself, "What - are you gonna live here?" and hoisted my body back up, continuing another half hour to push through, possibly, the most emotional moment I've had as a runner.

I know the next time I strap my shoes on, grab my water bottle, and hit the trails in Griffith, I will not see what I'm used to seeing. It probably will be shocking, stirring, disturbing, and absolutely amazing.

I also know that from death, something more beautiful can - and will - emerge.