The Lot, Tossed

And so it has come to November in the Northwest, the trees turn hues of amber orange and crimson but burn not with the same spark as the Northeast. However, the environment, terrain, and regular parks to break up the concrete provide for a key environment for that outdoor running; I now get the runner's high in about seven minutes and it maintains for at least forty thereafter; my distance has improved. Concrete in Portland is for the most-part friendly to the wheels of my skateboard, although the needles of pine have ruined my favorite path through Alberta Park, those thoughtless bastards. Beyond this I, as per a successful self-nomination, am now a member of the board of the Concordia Neighborhood Association, hold the chair of economic development, and will be contributing to the Concordia Newspaper as a writer; responsibility, obligation, means to ends. Converging the community, economics, and politics together into a triumvirate of awesomeness is entirely my intention and to waffle upon such matters of import would be not at all sweet like syrup. The new novel has found its name, "Ginataan and the White Balls", or at least for now, chapters falling into place but not so quickly nor orderly as dominoes. Having pitched Drug-Land Security, my script, to Mark, a lawyer at Nike and my cousin, I've re-sold myself on the concept that I'd moved beyond and now machinations are back in gear in this regard. The Glimmer Train Press literary magazine has a competition called "family matters" in which I've entered my short story From Whence We Come; inspired by a picture I'd found of my grandfather and my 5-year-old self playing catch in the Cape, the violet bouncy-ball having left his hands, arcing, frozen in mid-air, towards my open and expectant arms; 31 Dec 09 will be the judge, the final day of the Zeroes. The secret to maintaining optimal condition is to always be in pursuit of impossible perfection; complacency and contentedness being counter-productive in nature; and I am, like silly, as you should too buddy. Rock and Roll

Spiffy Space-Cadets entering the Final Fall of the Zeroes

Rocketing and rocking on with life in Portland Oregon my current writing projects burn with blaring clouds of flame and smoke blasting onto the pad. At the moment I'm working on a press-release for my boy Ansel, for his band, wait for it... Ansel. This kid is a contender I tell ya, living on the waterfront so to speak in West LA at the moment. Check them out at www.bandcamp.com/ansel . Beyond this I've just begun a new novel, "White Balls and Kina'ta'An" the tentative title, a romantic drama of sorts juxtaposing the rise and fall of a relationship with the economy of the Zeroes while expressing the reality of cross-cultural relationships in contemporary American culture, in this instance between a Native Son (American born) and 2nd generation Filipina. The short story "A Sentimental Story about Family" is done, exploring the transitive and at times surrogate-like nature of family set against a decadent back-drop of a Portland OR drug-scene, email me and I will send you a copy, as well as "Panic Switch", a sort of criminal drama, and I'm working on a religious satirical allegory titled "Adam" exploring the origins of Adam, a creature of the visionarium nestled within the seventh belt of the thirteenth planet from the darkness. On the physical front I've breached five miles and am nearing the kick-flip, it's only a matter of my front foot placement man, front foot placement mastery, and I'm golden. The weather in the Northwest is a watered down iteration of the Northeast, although I must admit the kindling leaves and fall foliage is a welcome divergence from the evergreenery of SoCal. As the trees come alight in this final year of the Zeroes savor the burn and prepare for lift-off.

the Bi-Week Networking Endeavor

I've been in this here city of Portland for a period of five weeks, however, have been chilling within the Alberta Arts District for two. This sector of the city is to Portland as the Meat-Packing district is to NYC. And so, having posted on Craigslist in the strictly plutonic section that I was interested in watching "Weeds" with someone, I met Morgan, through whom I met Jason, through whom I met Micquael. This particular lady is a social nexus, having introduced me to Dusty, a southern boy with the charm to match dressed in flannel, Baisa, Caleb, Shyanna, Chrissy and Lex, Jason dos, the Cajun bartender Brandy, Mantas, a gentleman from Lithuania not unlike my paternal Grandmother with nice art skills, and Shah, a stylish hair sylist with panache, the latter two with whom I've become boys through a few hyper-silly nights of adventure, although Mantas has since moved to Seattle. Shah has lifted me out of the virtual world into the realness of friends, and I've crashed with his hospitable self since having signed the lease on my pad, suite-mating with Drew, an aspiring painter and likewise inquisitive mind that no doubt will inspire mutual creativity. The coming end of the final year of the Zeroes is looking up,and I've no problem with getting higher. Rock and Roll
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The Couch Surfing Community

So yeah there is this website known to the world as couchsurfing.com, in basic, in that it is global and everyone calls it that (ir?)regardless of what their native language is, as English is basically king considering England once had one that we were all like whatever to then busted out on our own and dominated; so it goes. Couchsurfing is a profile-based interactive community that enables one to solicit or provide for a roof over the dome of a traveller through online networking means. It is not driven by the forces of capitalism but rather those of karma, in that to give is to receive, pay it forward, and so on. I've utilized the site to provide for shelter for the last three sets of seven days here in Portland, as initially I had time to chillax and grow acclimated with the atmosphere, then having begun an apartment hunt in earnest eight days ago, have yet to find an ample abode. The housing market in Portland is inundated with renters; those with a pad hold what are essentially casting calls, interviewing exponentially people compared to the number of rooms they have, stacking humans atop one another as shipping containers spaced out evenly at fifteen minute intervals. This difficulty however is entirely acceptable, as it has forced me out of the renter's bubble for a moment and pushed me into a world of individuals as disparate as the elements man, travellers and drifters and philanthropic locals with surfaces to spare and a wish to care. My first contact to the site came through Mairead, a barista at the Bean Counter in my home town of Worcester MA as I was trying to sub-let her my apartment within which my sword and inventory rest still; check out my review for it on http://mjwesterman.yelp.com/ ; who upon checking out my apartment alongside her friend Eli I believe mentioned they'd heard of the site and known of individuals who'd sillied it up. I told my boy Rye-Guy. He said his ex girl from high school was a member in Portland just as I had given up my attempt to move to Puerto Rico and opened the triangle chart of movement locations: LA, San Francisco, or Portland. The final option came together and in short order I was upon the couch of Tamara and Alice in SE Portland. My forest green 5-speed 1990 BMW 535i was placed upon consignment with a dealer who is at this very moment defrauding me of my money after having sold it; used car dealers - yeah... Two weeks in passing there I shift to the couch of a guy named Guy with a wife named Jen a dog named Grrr and three chickens known as Original, Crispy and Extra Crispy. Five nights pass of kind hosting, a futon in a private study my place of rest. I met a young gentleman by the name of Serafim yesterday through a random call after a CS msg, picking me up on Alberta Street after having had tacos and checkout out a pad at a housing collective known as the Whale, who instructed me to call him "Chinky" although I refuse and through him a connection may be made as he is a nexus of personability. Tonight is unknown, a sort of out in the great wide open situation, under them skies of blue. Rock and Roll

A La Calle - Ahora at least mehn...

Two weeks into the Portland experiment and my hypothesis of awesomeness continues. No longer crashing with my bro Ryan's ex girl, I sit beneath the stars upon a reclined chair of finished oak at Guy and Jen's house, a couple met online through couchsurfing.com, a community of wanderers using karma to keep one another's trips through this world flowing. Their dog's name, a wiry Wishbone-esque doggy dog, is "Grr". Word. To my right rests a garden bristling with staked and vined tomatoes as upright comrades at attention beside other herbs cultivated, to the left my wet, perhaps about dry, clothes hang upon lines similar to the rather retro clothes-line rack curiously in the attic of my Father's childhood house and former Worcester crash pad, as a result of an earlier laundry situation. A few feet farther still three chickens roost, awaiting the dawn, prepared to produce breakfast. In Portland it is legal to have up to three chickens on a private residence without a permit. Conscious of green, I release a breath ignite and inhale; it stimulates. Appreciating the stars I laugh, "I hadn't ever thought to consider that it was space that was moving"; a line I roughly recall from the new Star Trek flick, enjoyable; and recognize that while progressing within, it is at times necessary to sit back, chillax, and let the movement go on without. Rock and Roll MJW

Wednesday

12-2am - 7pg paper on how The Passion of the Christ influences pop-culture's ideology regarding the narratives of the Bible, 2pg's on plea bargaining and the due process implications of Miranda Rights. 2-9am - sending the sheep to slaughter. 9-11am- awakening weirdness and wandering, adding 100wds to the cj paper as per a rewrite request. 12am- sushi, iced latte, lost my keys. 1pm - Resume dropped at Tin House literary magazine, met the managing editor. 1-3pm - wandering from NE Portland to SE Portland. 3pm- Resume drop at Glimmer Train Press, meet Linda and Susan, the owners/editors. 4pm - Interview at Mode Models, offer of representation, given I pay $100 for their photography session or just use my own photog. 5-pm - Wandering, jalapeno pineapple and cheddar pizza slice, drinking a few beers, joined by Alice and Tamara, skiball, maximum force. 9pm- short run. 10pm- witness a live jazz concert sax-ed by Joe, Tamara's boyfriend-type-thing, after which there is a beat-off, which despite its sexual undertones is actually, (unfortunately?) a remixing of the tunage by fourteen dj's; Wolverine is robbed like an elderly woman in pre-Guiliani central park. 12am-meet Yoni, a local musician and likewise creative type; we discuss how in SoCal people get together to get stoned and do nothing, while here they come together and get lifted while creating and collaborating. The Day after the First now begins, the woolly massacre ending at a late 1pm awakening mark.

Iosif Stalin had the night of the black limousines, Hitler had the night of the long daggers; I often wonder which generated more fear, the disappearance entirely of an associated being, or the discovery of their steel-pierced deflated bodies in the morning. Fear and mystique often go hand in hand, and should one rise, does the other one fall or perhaps diminish and dilute? These are important questions people, things those of us in the know simply must.

The Oregon Initiation

I fly, hesitant to take with me only a lighter. Upon landing I meet Alice, after meeting a rather friendly airport employee named Craig who offered to make me Filipino food, then like I said, I meet Alice, don't in any way inference the classic animated film, procure a lighter, and rise up from the airport into the city. At first I see a corporate absurdity, Best Buy Staples etc, but am quickly assured the only lame part is near the home of the airplanes. Coming to the neighborhood, I check out the pad, nice with an interesting flair, seven picture frames mounted upon the wall in an abstract pattern with only two having pictures, the others; empty... Skateboarding out onto Burnside I catch a wafting aroma in the air, one of glory, like napalm in the morning almost but not quite victorious. Tucan Samming it I follow my nose and come upon VooDoo donuts, apparently their satellite location in SE Portland, immediately killing a Butterfinger, chocolate cake donut with buttercream frosting topped in butterfinger chunks, and get a few to go, being sidetracked by a travelled lady by the name of Tricia who I follow to her apartment, from which she'd been locked out of, to observe and learn her skills at picking a lock; she was unable to do so but offered to buy me a beer; kind people here; but I had people to see, places, and so I had to go. Meeting Tamara for the first time the second time around, chilling, plagiarizing a paper on Jesus, and plotting the plan of tomorrow, the literary hunting and munchie opportunities. Blogging. Crashing. Unconsciously Rocking and Rolling.