Doony
"I didn't think anyone was going to stop!" He says as he piles his strange assortment of items into the car. The words hit me at roughly the same time as the pungent stench of stale campfires. He doesn't look anything like the quick blurry form I spotted as I drove past. Then I notice he has a massive buttefly on his shoulder, 3 to 4 inches of beautiful black and yellow wings. It seems incredibly calm, maybe even tame, maybe it's his pet. All of a sudden he starts putting a coat on over the top. I nearly point it out to him, then wonder if it's actually fake. Too late, the coat's on and he's in the car.
"Drrrrzts my name" he mumbles. Distracted, my attention moves to listening (never again to return to the buttefly. It's never seen again.)
"what was that sorry?"
"Eh?"
"Your name"
"I go by many names"
"I see"
"Doony"
He's evidently very happy that I picked him up. He'd been hiking for 7 or 8 days along the Umpqua trail. Geez, he only has one eye too. After 20 minutes of banter, he appears to be a mathematician who eventually found solving equations rather pointless and left the states to travel the world. He seems to be very well travelled, particularly around Asia, and has a keen interest in Eastern religions.
As we approach civilisation, he offers to buy me a cawfee, then is keen to show me Sherms "The greatest store in the world!" He offers to buy me anything i want.
"Think of yourself as an 8 year old kid with your grandpa" Mentions that it's ok because it's the government's money anyway, then says something about them not giving out food stamps anymore. While we buy a coffee, he asks the lady how to get to Sherms. I figure he's taken all the directions in as I'm not familiar with any of the street names, but not 500m down the road, he appears to be lost again. He winds the window down and beckons every car we go past to find out where Sherms is, getting quite frustrated and banging my car door when they won't wind their window down. We talk about how he has a tendancy to doubt himself too quickly, causing us to turn around when we were actually on the right track.
After the shopping extravaganza, I ask him where he's headed. He mumbles some more, then mentions a ranch down the road that perhaps I'd like to visit? I don't really have any plans for the rest of the day, so decide to drop him all the way back home. I start to wonder what on earth is wrong with his sense of direction when he continues to wind his window down to ask how to get back to his house too!
On the drive back to the ranch, he mentions he caught malaria years back. After a few more wrong turns, we finally make our way down a gravel path. "8 miles of this, take it easy" he says. Lucky I was driving slow as around a corner we meet a massive logging truck careering down the mountain. Can't see anything for all the dust flying behind it! We pass a few people on the way, he waves but there's little response from them. As we get closer I realise this isn't his house at all, it's just some ranch owned by his friend. He mentions he might be able to live down this driveway, except it's owned by BLM? Bureau of Land Management or something. Apparently we're so far away from anything, they never come and check, except that time that two neighbours had a fight over something, so the other rang them department up and told them about their friend that was staying on BLM land. Apparently a lot of the neighbours here don't talk to each other, I can't remember all the reasons, religion was one, the abortion issue another.
We finally pull up, greeted by about 30 big marijuana plants. He's already explained that they grow for the medical marijuana industry here in Oregon. Wander down past a little shack where someone's sawing wood. He doesn't even look up. Doony tells me that he was in the Veitnam war, used to be the guy in the helicopter that manned the machine gun.
"He's a bit strange"
We continue on to another little house, then sit, it turns out his friend isn't home. I pull out my salami and cheese and eat a bit. I'm stunned a bit as I turn around to see sure enough a full view of his rod and tackle. Looks like his pants don't actually go up much over his knees. thankfully he's wearing a long shirt, so I hadn't noticed before.
He sits down and pulls out a chillum. Talks about this golden chillum they used to smoke in India at a Lakshmi temple. Apparently a rich business man from bombay saw someone cry when their clay chillum broke, so he took it away and created a golden case for it. Unfortunately someone stole all the gold from the temple one day, and foreigners were no longer allowed to hang out at the temple. This chillum is one he's got from India (not gold unfortunately). He packs himself a pipe, pulls out a little mat, sits in the lotus position and pulls. Instantly his body starts to go limp, drool drips delicately from his lips. He sits like this for a few minutes. For a moment I think I can actually feel the whole world slow down. Even the machine-gunner has stopped whatever he's doing in his shed. Then it all starts to wind back up again, flies buzz around my head, machine-gunner fires up some machine.
Philosophy is our biggest topic of conversation. He talks a lot about dualism and Advaita, frequently quoting vedic scriptures. I explain that I've never been able to grasp the idea of reincarnation. He beckons me to sit on a festy outdoor couch as he scratches his naked ass. Later he pulls off a tick and shows it to me. As he starts describing the idea of reincarnation, I get a bit lost in my own thoughts and decide that reincarnation is all about ideas and abstract forms carrying on, and perhaps this is what is meant by a soul. I'm not sure how it deals with change though, as my ideas and forms are continually changing. I try to interject, but he insists on being able to finish. I've lost a bit of interest, and my mind turns to one of my favourite philosophical topics, nothing. If there can be nothing, and has been nothing before, there may be nothing again in the future. In which case, what has happened to all these ideas and forms. I guess they lost to the void. I try to interject again to talk about nothing, but he insists just a few more minutes. He then starts quoting vedas again, so I return to thinking about nothing. I wish I had my dictaphone, this would have been the most awesome conversation to record, but unfortunately I have no batteries for it.
Eventually I manage to get in and ask him about nothing. He doesn't seem to unerstand what I mean by nothing, then talks a bit about 'void', and we do have a pleasant discussion about nothing. My favourite is his recounting the tale of "In everything there is nothing, and in nothing there is everything". When you have a mighty vision in your mind and a friend asks you to describe it, you focus in on something, then all of a suddent, there is nothing. Therefore, in everything, there is nothing. I loved this explanation as have frequently had the experience of being unable to describe something, and lost everything when trying to focus on it. But unfortunately, I miss the explanation of why in nothing there is everything.
Another thing he talks a lot about is the 4 forces in nature: Earth, Wind, Fire and Water. (Side note, he says buddha takes these back to 2, then to 1. Earth = mass, wind = force, fire = energy, water = flow. You can't have force without mass. That's all I remember, although thinking about it, energy is mass too). He then says that all of these things are quantum. You can only have this amount of mass, or that. He goes through them all and I accept it all until he gets to flow. He says you can only be here or there, not somewhere in between. But I have the idea of a smooth transition of location from one place to the next. I then remember all my quantum physics and tell him that this is incorrect as in actual fact, all we have is a probability cloud of locations. He then says but we can find out exatly where it is, but I correct him with the whole theory that it is never possible to correctly know the location of an electron and its velocity due to the interference caused by measuring it. It seems to shut him up.
I begin to get a little paranoid. The weather's very uneasy, it's cloudy, still and muggy, about 30 degrees. I realise that we're sitting in the middle of nowhere, outside a stranger's house. The machine-gunner starts screaming obscenities at nobody .. or are they directed at me?
"He's always busy, always has to be doing something" says Doony. I try my best to remain upbeat, recounting some of my friends that share that quality. Extremely dark clouds begin to roll in and the mosquitoes start doubling in quantity every 10 minutes. Doony's a bit obsessed with mosquitoes, he says they only exist in decay. He thinks perhaps they're linked with technology somehow. We have a bonding moment laughing about the crazy swarms of mosquitoes up at the Umpqua. He thinks it's because of the big dam they built up there. Although I tell him there were ridiculous numbers near Crater Lake too, and even 20 miles from the lake at the waterfall I stopped.
I finally decide it's time to leave, if the clouds burst open, it's going to be a very scary drive down. And so with a few goodbyes and a quick walk past the crazy machine-gunner, I'm off down the mountain.
"Drrrrzts my name" he mumbles. Distracted, my attention moves to listening (never again to return to the buttefly. It's never seen again.)
"what was that sorry?"
"Eh?"
"Your name"
"I go by many names"
"I see"
"Doony"
He's evidently very happy that I picked him up. He'd been hiking for 7 or 8 days along the Umpqua trail. Geez, he only has one eye too. After 20 minutes of banter, he appears to be a mathematician who eventually found solving equations rather pointless and left the states to travel the world. He seems to be very well travelled, particularly around Asia, and has a keen interest in Eastern religions.
As we approach civilisation, he offers to buy me a cawfee, then is keen to show me Sherms "The greatest store in the world!" He offers to buy me anything i want.
"Think of yourself as an 8 year old kid with your grandpa" Mentions that it's ok because it's the government's money anyway, then says something about them not giving out food stamps anymore. While we buy a coffee, he asks the lady how to get to Sherms. I figure he's taken all the directions in as I'm not familiar with any of the street names, but not 500m down the road, he appears to be lost again. He winds the window down and beckons every car we go past to find out where Sherms is, getting quite frustrated and banging my car door when they won't wind their window down. We talk about how he has a tendancy to doubt himself too quickly, causing us to turn around when we were actually on the right track.
After the shopping extravaganza, I ask him where he's headed. He mumbles some more, then mentions a ranch down the road that perhaps I'd like to visit? I don't really have any plans for the rest of the day, so decide to drop him all the way back home. I start to wonder what on earth is wrong with his sense of direction when he continues to wind his window down to ask how to get back to his house too!
On the drive back to the ranch, he mentions he caught malaria years back. After a few more wrong turns, we finally make our way down a gravel path. "8 miles of this, take it easy" he says. Lucky I was driving slow as around a corner we meet a massive logging truck careering down the mountain. Can't see anything for all the dust flying behind it! We pass a few people on the way, he waves but there's little response from them. As we get closer I realise this isn't his house at all, it's just some ranch owned by his friend. He mentions he might be able to live down this driveway, except it's owned by BLM? Bureau of Land Management or something. Apparently we're so far away from anything, they never come and check, except that time that two neighbours had a fight over something, so the other rang them department up and told them about their friend that was staying on BLM land. Apparently a lot of the neighbours here don't talk to each other, I can't remember all the reasons, religion was one, the abortion issue another.
We finally pull up, greeted by about 30 big marijuana plants. He's already explained that they grow for the medical marijuana industry here in Oregon. Wander down past a little shack where someone's sawing wood. He doesn't even look up. Doony tells me that he was in the Veitnam war, used to be the guy in the helicopter that manned the machine gun.
"He's a bit strange"
We continue on to another little house, then sit, it turns out his friend isn't home. I pull out my salami and cheese and eat a bit. I'm stunned a bit as I turn around to see sure enough a full view of his rod and tackle. Looks like his pants don't actually go up much over his knees. thankfully he's wearing a long shirt, so I hadn't noticed before.
He sits down and pulls out a chillum. Talks about this golden chillum they used to smoke in India at a Lakshmi temple. Apparently a rich business man from bombay saw someone cry when their clay chillum broke, so he took it away and created a golden case for it. Unfortunately someone stole all the gold from the temple one day, and foreigners were no longer allowed to hang out at the temple. This chillum is one he's got from India (not gold unfortunately). He packs himself a pipe, pulls out a little mat, sits in the lotus position and pulls. Instantly his body starts to go limp, drool drips delicately from his lips. He sits like this for a few minutes. For a moment I think I can actually feel the whole world slow down. Even the machine-gunner has stopped whatever he's doing in his shed. Then it all starts to wind back up again, flies buzz around my head, machine-gunner fires up some machine.
Philosophy is our biggest topic of conversation. He talks a lot about dualism and Advaita, frequently quoting vedic scriptures. I explain that I've never been able to grasp the idea of reincarnation. He beckons me to sit on a festy outdoor couch as he scratches his naked ass. Later he pulls off a tick and shows it to me. As he starts describing the idea of reincarnation, I get a bit lost in my own thoughts and decide that reincarnation is all about ideas and abstract forms carrying on, and perhaps this is what is meant by a soul. I'm not sure how it deals with change though, as my ideas and forms are continually changing. I try to interject, but he insists on being able to finish. I've lost a bit of interest, and my mind turns to one of my favourite philosophical topics, nothing. If there can be nothing, and has been nothing before, there may be nothing again in the future. In which case, what has happened to all these ideas and forms. I guess they lost to the void. I try to interject again to talk about nothing, but he insists just a few more minutes. He then starts quoting vedas again, so I return to thinking about nothing. I wish I had my dictaphone, this would have been the most awesome conversation to record, but unfortunately I have no batteries for it.
Eventually I manage to get in and ask him about nothing. He doesn't seem to unerstand what I mean by nothing, then talks a bit about 'void', and we do have a pleasant discussion about nothing. My favourite is his recounting the tale of "In everything there is nothing, and in nothing there is everything". When you have a mighty vision in your mind and a friend asks you to describe it, you focus in on something, then all of a suddent, there is nothing. Therefore, in everything, there is nothing. I loved this explanation as have frequently had the experience of being unable to describe something, and lost everything when trying to focus on it. But unfortunately, I miss the explanation of why in nothing there is everything.
Another thing he talks a lot about is the 4 forces in nature: Earth, Wind, Fire and Water. (Side note, he says buddha takes these back to 2, then to 1. Earth = mass, wind = force, fire = energy, water = flow. You can't have force without mass. That's all I remember, although thinking about it, energy is mass too). He then says that all of these things are quantum. You can only have this amount of mass, or that. He goes through them all and I accept it all until he gets to flow. He says you can only be here or there, not somewhere in between. But I have the idea of a smooth transition of location from one place to the next. I then remember all my quantum physics and tell him that this is incorrect as in actual fact, all we have is a probability cloud of locations. He then says but we can find out exatly where it is, but I correct him with the whole theory that it is never possible to correctly know the location of an electron and its velocity due to the interference caused by measuring it. It seems to shut him up.
I begin to get a little paranoid. The weather's very uneasy, it's cloudy, still and muggy, about 30 degrees. I realise that we're sitting in the middle of nowhere, outside a stranger's house. The machine-gunner starts screaming obscenities at nobody .. or are they directed at me?
"He's always busy, always has to be doing something" says Doony. I try my best to remain upbeat, recounting some of my friends that share that quality. Extremely dark clouds begin to roll in and the mosquitoes start doubling in quantity every 10 minutes. Doony's a bit obsessed with mosquitoes, he says they only exist in decay. He thinks perhaps they're linked with technology somehow. We have a bonding moment laughing about the crazy swarms of mosquitoes up at the Umpqua. He thinks it's because of the big dam they built up there. Although I tell him there were ridiculous numbers near Crater Lake too, and even 20 miles from the lake at the waterfall I stopped.
I finally decide it's time to leave, if the clouds burst open, it's going to be a very scary drive down. And so with a few goodbyes and a quick walk past the crazy machine-gunner, I'm off down the mountain.
posted by Flex at 2:51 pm
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