Vegas

Shout out to my Friends, Chris and Lori Taplett, owners of Zocalos Steel Fabrication and Design, in the Great Mojave Desert, Las Vegas, Nevada.  What they do with STEEL is amazing.  Chances are, if you've dined out, gambled, or slept in Sin City, you've sat in one of their hand-crafted chairs, run your hand on a rail from their shop, or enjoyed about town one of their creations.  Recently, imposing Steel Cut Charm on the Tapletts, I managed to bolt the Pacific Northwest, hang with them for two weeks, and stave off the maudlin "Post-Super Bowl" Blues.  After my STEELers marched to Triumph, you see, I looked upon the rain, sensed mildew's stranglehold on the calendar, and left P-town for Jack-rabbit Country.  February (remember when the Super Bowl was a first-month affair?), mind you, in Vegas isn't warm, though neither is the sky, as it is in northern latitudes, a dungeon-esque gray.  In fact, after breaking through the region-wide storm, and leveling off at 30,000 feet, the plane made visible stratospheric color eminently wondrous for the persistency of its absence.  A sense of joy centered around the possibility of bounding rock unencumbered by cloud filled Steel Cut Oats. Blue, the color, made blue, the emotion, less blue....

Fortunately, after a day of hanging with a three-legged Chihuahua, while learning the wonders of Wi-Fi (the blame for this blog can be placed on their shoulders), Chris and Lori offered to car-pool and loan me their truck.  Vegas - my Vegas - is different from that of Madison Avenue, different from the "what happens there stays there" moral monstrosity that appeals to man's low mental base.  My Vegas is a boulder-splattered tableau.  A quick leap to a space trip of humming red rock.  Of what do I speak?  Of the National Monument west of downtown, a Garden of Stone, where, quite in contrast to the artificial cacophony of greed-driven games, Geology erupts in grandiose patterns and ravens play "pit boss" to gamblers who climb.

Yes, Open Country….  BOULDERS in every size shape and color, a Seussian version of tectonic upheaval, whose active inter-face challenges every muscle---the lats as they pull, the quads as they push, the feet in a thousand protean planes--and here one needn't stick to a trail.  I enjoy trails, but hikers yearn to roam unrestricted.  Trails are akin to lines in a coloring book: they guide, direct but kill spontaneity.  Creativity suffers.  And so it was that I went after stone, rising in spirit above the vast basin

Finish: walk-friendly, no….  Palms,  Red Rock N.M.

A Steel Cut Segue

Steel Cut Oats slept like crap last night and, as a result, found himself feeling almost malleable this afternoon.  Less than steely.  So what he did - what I did - was partake of an old-fashioned jog in the park.  Running is not my forte, but every now and then, the weight-pile, the BOSU, even a brisk walk, doesn't "fire the furnace."  A jog (not a run, but a methodical churn covering a mile in eight minutes) is just what I need.

And so I began.  Not to be confused with Frank Shorter (Munich Marathon Gold), I began tentatively, effortfully, negotiating sidewalks, on my way to a gout of primeval fir. Last time, two (three?) weeks ago, I followed my breath up a wet, muddy trail, and pretended, in exertion, to be Lewis-and-Clark.  But now, Spring had sprung.  The goose-step of clipping cross-country came with tulips.  And where, once, a Bag-eyed Insomniac beat the trail, Pheidippides emerged on a bee-line to Sparta. God, I thought, it must feel good to blaze the back-stretch, crowd in your ear.... "Oats!" "Oats!" "Oats!"

Maybe.   Hayward Field, the University of Oregon's venerable track, is the first place I ever jogged.  Woefully out of shape, I made sure the sun was down, and proceeded to wheeze eight times around the oval on which Steve Prefontaine, adoring crowd yelling "Preeeeeee!", smashed records.  I could feel his Spirit, present and alive.  So, after messing-up the long-jump pit, I drove, spontaneously, to the hills, cranking Steppenwolf - "Get your motor runnin"…. - to a place I hadn't seen.  The hair-pin was flanked by rock, smattered in graffiti where he failed to make the turn (Pre was strong in the turn), and the detritus of mourners - beer and flowers - flanked stone.  A warm night, like many a night when you put the top down and go all out, congealed death, and decades later, the goose-bumps still rise, memory haunts, and I pretend…. I am him.

Twenty-five minutes - approximately three miles - later, I was back in the driveway.  I hadn't planned on documenting the experience.  However, just as it aids in exercise to now and then "shake it up," it aids, in writing, to "shatter the pattern." Something useful in going from slug- to chug-pace (sorry, I couldn't help it) seemed appropriate.

So, here I am, blogging about jogging…. I fear the day I start blogging while jogging, but until then, I'll keep moving.... Steel Cut.


Makten, S.C.O.

Next blog: Winging it....

Fit Feet For Couch Sloths

Before I begin, I want to make it clear to the Vast Viewing Audience (5 visits and counting!) that my body-image doesn't include clown feet and scrawny legs.  Boat-size metatarsals and miniscule biceps.  Yes, I'm focusing on the foot.  But Forged Steel, mind you, is strong everywhere.  As Steel Cut Oats, I steer toward uniformity the Steel Cut Tribe, conducting a symphonic network of cells, and insist on being thorough prior to "moving up."  Tone feet may not turn heads.  No one's going to sidle up to you at a party and say they admire your abductor hallucis.  But, remember, the bailiwick of Fitness is.... function.  Strengthen your feet now--Now and Forever!--and avoid the non-function many accept.

Think I'm joking?  Consider this nightmare: After graduating in '95, I signed-up to work as a "traveling therapist."  My first job, right out of school, landed me as the ONLY therapist at a War Veterans Home in rural Louisiana.  Whether I was qualified for the job is neither here nor there---I HAD it....  I also had: enthusiastic naivety, optimistic idealism, and a tepid interest in retired share-croppers who once shot flak at flaming kamikazes loyal to the banner of the Rising Sun.  I left on a Friday, drove 2500 miles, from Oregon to Louisiana, in two days, and moved into an apartment (Roach Haven), prior to starting on a sweltering Monday morn.  In school, I'd been exposed to multiple scenarios, both in hospital and out-patient settings, but school is not reality---at least not rural Louisiana Back-Country Reality.  A "case-load" consisting of Medicare re-treads and decrepit old-timer's, wheeled in, one-after-the-other, was mine to manage sans net.  I saw patients from Vietnam and Korea, but the majority were veterans of World War II, bedeviled by age, a questionable diet, and the Sedentary Blues.  In addition to my L.W.V.H. duties, I also made "house calls" on the edge of the swamp.  In this varied exposure to preceding generations, it came to my attention that a correlation existed between foot status (strong/weak) and ambulatory vigor.  I noticed, for example, that elderly patients whose ability to walk separated them from peers, could flex and fan their toes.  Those with impaired mobility, without exception, lacked neuro-muscular pathways (the Quarterback Brain "threw" to Feet deaf and dumb) indicating that "use it or lose it" is sound.  Having observed hale "old-timers," as well as the nursing crowd, I can say, years later, that the observation holds true.  Strong, active feet, with hard-wired connections to the brain's "motion center," preserve our ability to waltz throughout life.

The Exercises: 

1) Flex-Fan: Scrunch (flex) your toes tightly, then, in reverse, spread them apart.  Flex-fan.... Flex-fan...  This exercise strengthens neural connectivity, lubricates joints, and trains muscles beyond their "normal" range.

2) Toe-Scissors: This, too, is a "flex-fan" exercise, but instead of moving your toes together, you move the Big Toe (or hallucis) opposite the others.  Remember, go for the maximum possible range, back and forth, while concentrating on recruitment of compromised neural paths.

3) Scrunches: Begin with your feet on the floor, then, without toe-flexing, arch the mid-foot as high as you can. Arch-flatten....  Arch-flatten....  This trains the intrinsic muscles of the feet, and can be performed almost anywhere (with or without shoes, sitting or standing, in public or private), without breaking a sweat.

4) Massage: Muscles get grumpy.  How'd you like to bear hundreds of pounds of pressure all day only to be ignored? Get in there.  The foot is easy to noodle and probe.  Run your thumb from the base of the heel to the ball of Mr. Big.  Squeeze the base of each toe, maneuver each joint.  The connective tissue, or fascia, that covers the bottom of feet is more pliable (less prone to injury and inflammation), if it knows you care and feels your touch.

That's a wrap.  Do the exercises in bed, while watching TV, or at the dentist....  They're easy, no shower.  Still, every ingredient to a recipe counts, and, in this case, the casserole is called Steel Cut.

Makten, S.C.O.

Is the President Fit?

I know, I know, in Blog 5, I said my next blog would offer further corroboration of the Fit-Foot Fetish that has thus far dominated this literary canon.  But, frankly, I put my foot in my mouth.  It's come to my attention, you see, that a host of voices blogging across the land espouses the President of the United States, Barack "Don't Call Me Barry" Obama, as the creme de la creme of Fitness, a model to be emulated, admired - perhaps even envied - so lean does he appear in his suit.  One blogger - presumably a Democrat - went so far as to label him "strong," and envision a hypothetical fight pitting Obama against George "I Don't Need a Tele-prompter Because I Don't Read" Bush in a partisan cage-match.  "Obama," he claimed, "would kick Dub-ya about the ring, knocking him senseless, before the latter 'tapped-out.'"  

Mind you, this wasn't the Huffington Post, Keith Olberman's Panty Party, or Rachel Maddow's "You too Can Be a Bull-Dike" web-page.  The person (Marv in Wichita), responding to an "expert's" Obama Workout, was merely adding to several voices appreciative of the president's ability--according to them--to beat the hell out of who, despite Barry's (Steel Cut Oats is unafraid) ridicule, had welcomed him to the White House.  

It got me to thinking---How would Obama, pitted against the Icon of Idiocy, fare?  Clearly, he would stand a puncher's chance.  But upon delving deeper, juxtaposing the Body Politic (Democrats in the blue corner, Republicans in the red), I found the Dems addled with touchy-feely types - Harry Reid, Fritz Schumer…. - throwing into question the party as a whole.  Reid, de facto party "strong man," in particular, represented what many of his generation call a "pip-squeak," who, when physically challenged, "rolls into a ball."  On the other side, in contrast to the Armadillo Strategy, Fred Thompson (R-Tenn) conjured images of a bouncer whose atavistic forehead can deflect small-arms fire at extremely close range.

Hardly evidence to draw conclusions.  Yet the more I considered it, the more I began to question the liberal ethos, its standard bearer, Obama, and the notion that anyone who hides a cigarette habit has the will to "kick butt." Examination of each party's "Eagle"(in the Dems' case, Obama, and, on the G.O.P. side, McCain) solidified, conceptually, that, given the option to repel a foreign army, or issue a French-style mock threat, the Democrats would buy kepis and order fondue. Reviewing further, I recalled (vividly) that Gerald Ford, an All-American lineman for the Michigan Wolverines, had been replaced, on the Dem side, by a peanut farmer whose poetry, though well-conceived, would be considered torture by the Geneva Convention. The farmer, it turns out, was perceived as a panty-waste by extremists, and heavily mocked at the expense of embassy workers who yearned for a New Guy (R-California) to restore Yankee Will.  

The "tough guy" ship canted starboard.  The Administration's announcement that the phrase "War on Terror," because it's mean, scary, and offensive to Muslims, would be changed to "Overseas Contingency Plan," appeared frail.  Just as Iranian extremists had mocked the peanut farmer, taking advantage of a poetic worldview, today's terror-cells seem equally committed to usurping the Closet Smoker.  As for McCain, after extended time at the Hanoi Hilton (six years), more positive X-rays than Evil Knieval, and a skull reconfigured to resemble a boomerang, he'd earned the title: Bad Ass.  Not by any stretch of the imagination could I imagine Barry "taking" torture.  Bush, who lolly-gagged in the Texas National Guard, would never be Roger Ramjet---yet, via party cachet, if not privilege, he seemed capable, in old school vernacular, of "thrashing the goat."

  

Now it is late, the moon is high and, according to the National Weather Service, a shift in the jet-stream will soon expose buds.  Somewhere, in a propitiously languid breeze, a former president lays in the dark, wondering "what might have been," while, his foe, dazzling admirers in foreign capitols, moons grandiloquent....  Far be it for me to judge. All I know is that My Country is fading....  In the end, Obama's being suckered by Big Tobacco, while pretending to be Adonis, leads to the conclusion that, despite their ages, he, not Bush, would 'tap-out'."  Issues - a pencil-neck, skeletal arms, a reed frame - suggest upside.  But if Obama aspires to mollycoddle pissed Muslims, he'll find, in the end, he's not Steel Cut.

Makten, S.C.O.

Next Blog: Fit Feet for Couch Sloths