The Financier

I have been working on my metamorphosis into The Financier, and in doing so I have been getting to see my contrarian nature shining through. In the land of the freaky side of freedom, my bandannas and slipshod have been sinking - as if being beckoned back underconscious after wandering past their necessary bounds. My mind is bubbling like a wet mogwai and out of the muck is arising the keen and dapper logician. The change in outward attitude of people towards me is affirming of my intents; dressed as this


receives a
very different
reaction than this








where people (keep in mind this is societally and culturally dependent) are more apt to engage on a particular level of manners to you, depending on their perceived class relation to yours. For instance, in the bandanna, etc. the Nascar fan at the mall doesn't look at me twice and expects me to step out of his way, which I must as he is larger and will probably hurt me with impact. But in the professional get-up he doesn't look me in the eye once and is nudging against his girlfriend to leave me the slight room I need to pass.


But I have known this, and tried to use it to my advantage in all circumstances (that I care a whit about). Its been an age old dilemma of mine having to gauge whether going covert and using disguises to accomplish a mission (like getting into a Masters in Finance program with an undergrad degree in Invironment) is the more likely to succeed,











Or if the situation calls for the full-frontal assault.














Either way I can oblige.

As for the recent past, I had no interest in keeping score. I had had enough of the numbers business and the way they often try to define value. But now I am feeling a bit more competitive, ready to jump back into the fray. And what a fray the economy is! I wonder if it isn't that giving me the most interest, to see something from the inside when it is not working, as opposed to bandwagoning to the top of the Dow with the rest of the would be capitoligarchs.

For El Capitan

So I have been working with two main styles, the Headband and the Do-Rag.  They both start here:

The Do-Rag then gets folded anywhere between here

(Shorter tail over neck)

And here

(Longer tail over neck)

From there it is as simple as placing the folded corner to your forehead

And let the tail droop down and away to make it easier to tie without tangling the tail

One knot

Two knot

Cool

The Headband style just takes a couple more folds...

Try and keep it pretty symmetrical at this stage

Then double one side over

And again.  

Its in the above fold and this one where you really determine the width of the Headband, the more folds before getting here, the thinner it will be.

Then take the bottom-left portion and fold it over everything.  It is integral to the process you don't end up with a symmetrical fold on the last one.  The little lip folding over gives you stability and integrity (of shape) throughout a day's wear.

Lift it directly to your forehead so the lip is on the inside.

I generally lean over because I want as much of my hair to stand out in as many weird directions as I can coerce from it; hair gel helps.

One knot

Two knot

Cool!

Manta in the Morning

[Insert gratuitous awesome photo of self El Capitan took in Quito at the International Phenomenon called Shooters.]

El Capitan and I are on the bus to Bahia waiting for it to leave the gate. We've been here for 1/2 hour between buses and i'm strung out from riding the sharkbus all night without even knowing we had gotten on it.

It all started at the Quito station when I was concerned my big bag would not make it into the luggage storage so I kept pestering the employees for to stow my luggage. It was finally time and as retribution for me being a worried gringo making their midnight shift that much more buggy, they had me carry my own bag from where they had set it down earlier and stow it myself. Fine, so long as it is on the same bus as I am.

We all clamored on the bus and organized into assigned seats. El Capitan is saying "this is the nicest bus i've been on in Ecuador, i feel funny," as he is maneuvering his carry-on bag so the juice in one mesh pocket and the vodka in the other side's mesh pocket won't slide out over the 9 hour ride. I got the window this time, and since we are driving all night, its not for the scenery, but to lean up against while sleeping; we try the seats reclining and they lie almost completely flat, so sleeping appears it will be much easier to achieve than i had first feared.
[I am in a place called the Surf Shack, where i can get both coffee & whiskey and internet along with breakfast. There are a couple townies working the place, cooking my sausage and eggs, and smoking and singing with the Beatles; one gringo just walked in with a waterproof ipod and grabbed his surf board that was sitting against the wall behind me. Almost unplugged my laptop with one of the fins. He turned to apologize and saw my face below the bandanna and realized that I was pretty easygoing. His smile turned to a laugh as he saw the half-finished whiskey shot yet to be poured into the coffee. Pretty neat town. Let's get back on the bus...]

I get to situating ipod, in the left pocket, thread the phones under the warming shirt and up to the ear holes, bandanna off-gulp-because the knot presses into the back of my head so i can't lay back, Mindfold onto the forehead, 2.5mg of Melatonin sublingual under the tongue and curl up El Capitan's sweater into a tube to be my neck pillow so the head doesn't roll with every bump and turn, I slip my earplugs into my right pocket, next to the change purse, for ease of access if the ipod doesn't work its minimagic.

Selecting the pre-made Chill playlist of Eno's smoothest, The Habibiyya, Moby's Ambient and the like, I find that the most relaxing of these sounds have no way to drown out the roar of the bus engine which, even though these windows don't open, roars and rumbles into my ears past the phones and garbling the fragile ambient musics of my favorites. So I crank up the volume, which is a paradox to the floaty sounds drifting among my ears.

This is working for the first short while until we pass the city toll booth and exit Quito, where the television comes on and without lifting my fold I determine it is some sort of Knight Riderish action flick that contains untold thrilling car chase scenes judging by the routine tire squeals and minimal dialogue I can't make out, or truly, don't want to pay any attention to; focusing the slivers of my mind that are still awake towards the magic album "If Man but Knew" which I have moved onto infinite looping. The mideastern acoustic has enough waves of sound to pierce thru the surrounding rumbles enough to make it followable thru the night's churning sonic juttings from the beast's engine, brakes and televised inanity. I settle into the slow groove they are digging out of the communal psyche's malleable thoughtstuff; I let my eyes weigh heavier and heavier.

But the action flick is stunning me at intermittent blasts and I am forced to turn the tunes up again. El Capitan is back from trying to take the empty pair of seats behind us when we stop outside of town for the last batch of riders. So we're back to bumping elbows and knees. I can tell we leave the paved road when the bus - heavier than my last mental image of God - is hopping along the riveted road as if we were on the moguled slopes of the Andes, not the muddy roads. Its all downhill from Quito's 9500' to the port city. The momentum behind us makes the curves around the mountain sides full with gravitation. With the switchbacks hidden from us riders by the driver's cabwall, the movements occur as sudden jerks and we are all swaying in our varieties of sleep. I am teetering with a feather's smoothness on the edge of dreamdom so i don't want to tense to fight the convoluted spirals we take around these mountainsides. I suggest to the mind awake that we are on a roller coaster and letting my body go limp around the center of my being is the interest gathered from all the Chi work i've invested into me.

The melatonin is kicking in and my brain thinks my brain is telling my brain its time for my brain's thoughtwaves to settle into sleep sinking synchronization into the spaces of time being taken to arrive each swerve of the bus at its condition of physicality, the feelings become less and thicker, slower. Adjusting the ipod brought a second trickle of sense into curve with the bus' swervature helping to line mind with the body's predicament.

Walking the line between waking and sleep for 7 clock hours means i have been absorbing the Habibiyya's one album something like ten times through. A fleeting connection between this notion and the time mother walked in on her teenage son lying asleepish on his bedroom floor with White Rabbit on repeat, and her illustrating confusion at my preferences and my confusion from being roused by the outside world from my inner respite merged into that oddness where one can't follow another into Life -- swings the line i'm walking like a tightrope into awareness. Sensations come rushing in to fill the higher crest of brainwareness amplitude with swimming, swaying sensations, but overall the total darkness held deeper sway. Changing from The Habibiyya to Songs of Green Pheasant (as introduced to me by the Illuminated Mar-Mar), though it lasted only a single listen through after the sweet sublimation of drone of the lasting night that Man almost Knew settled the curves into the brain's creases. I needed an album that was entrancing enough to drift sleep along this rocky road but sharp enough to cut through the myriad of busship noises as we rolled thru the moon's night. The answer came from the Deep Forest. First of the glorious albums of my musical youth. My original Morpheus.

Awakening in a foreign town after an entire night of off-road bussing up and down the Andes just short of the ocean was one of the least noticeable most extreme experiences i've had.

Antihystemeticos

We have rode the shark into the JW Marriot, where El Capitan and I are posing as guests to try to get him some anti-histematicos for his ankles and elbows are swelling in massive quadrants of bug bites which are itching a great many times more than mine from the same flying ant/fly that literally slices open your skin and latches onto the large drop of blood that swells out of this invasive technique.

We came in with the plan of walking past the front desk and him asking "so i'll just see you in the room?" to me and me acknowledging that and heading for the room. But once we got to the door and the doorman was straight out of Cinderella, with the coattails and all, I feared they might require some sort of clearance for the elevators, so I just said "yeah i'll see you up there, but i'm gonna make a call" because I saw the phone sign.

I stood in the booth for what seemed to be 5 minutes talking to myself about a deal gone south and how I was going to have to stay an extra day or two to take the clients out to a meeting and no i'm not seeing anyone on the side how could you even think that? I'm in the hotel right now, and so on. Once I figured he had the time he needed, I ventured out into the vast open air lobby and was hoping he had not gone through with the plan of meeting me on the 6th floor somewhere. He came trotting up and said "they sent me to the gift shop but they didn't have any. The front desk is looking for something now."

We are a few days past laundry day without having properly observed laundry day. I have the patched up pants (mother did a fine job, i'm just saying), my journal sticking out of the back pocket and the bright yellow bandanna dangling long all pirate style over my redneck and the Mindfold strapped on the forehead just because, well two reasons, you never know when you need the Mindfolded and let's be honest, it looks good on the bright colored bandannas on my handsom head (See Dr. Mindlab post for a good illustration of what I mean) and I haven't shaved in a month.


El Capitan is still wearing Frankenpants and his badass leather jacket and even though its 11pm on a Sunday night and all the pharmacies are closed which is why we are trying to swindle the JW Marriot out of allergy medication, he's got his flight shades on his head. So we are chilling with me writing this feet up on the coffee table wishing i had my ipod, and El Capitan is fiddling with his phone which is ringing. In my journal I am writing that he is faking a call that is all business-like so that as we sit in the lobby and he paces Frankenpants up and down the tile floor saying things like "I'll call him at 6am tomorrow, sir," and "oh of course, I know what is wrong its the (made-up sounding computer part name) underheating" I really did think he was just keeping the shark ridden, but upon further clarification it was in fact an actual business call beyond perfecto in its uncanny timing. But that's just how El Capitan rolls.

I am trying to look intent on intently writing all this down as he comes and taps me on the shoulder. I get up and he nods over his shoulder to the concierge who is following us to the door. I see that the VIP treatment is occurring so I adjust the Mindfold straight on my head and slip this book back in my pocket -- its my very first page in this new journal that is a size smaller moleskine than the previous batch which means it fits in my back pocket i never should have left it in the first place bigger is not always better -- and we head to the revolving doors, but the concierge steps in front of us to Cinderella's charioteer who leans his head much too far over for the top hat to stay on without adhesives and is nodding to the man's words to boot. That was when I knew this whole thing was a farce and I needed to keep my guard up. A bit too smooth. El Capitan is both listening to what is being said and translating it to me.
"He will send a car to pick up the goods from an open pharmacy or I can ride there. Then in Spanish "I'm just gonna ride there because I will want to meet my friend out after that."
And before we know it we are being usered towards a car that has been magically appearancized in the roundabout that nobody ever drives their own cars thru, but is only driven in by drivers. I take one look at the SUV and think of my thrilling experiences in Ecuadorian pharmacies and opt for trying to call the folks one more time (mom it was busy the three times I called on Sunday) before getting to that drink that we passed up for hopeful pharmacy journies earlier. I tell El Capitan this in as few as words as possible so as to not hinder his swift ride and I have to admit, a churkle which is a manly giggle, slipped out of my throat so I hurried away from the overcivilization and towards Shooters. But something got a hold of my idea machine and it came back with 'wait and wave to him as he's being driven to the pharmacia to get one last laugh.' So the car came around the circle and out of the hotel to pass me on the corner sidewalk waving with both hands and even kind of hopping like a fool to make sure he sees me. Which made the car stop. Whoops. I'm on my way crossing the street on the hopes that I don't get wrangled back into such a translatable drama, 'cause I sure don't want to get in that car.

So I am yelling over my shoulder "just wanted to get one last laugh in I didn't mean for you to stop."
"No no no," he's yelling back "it was perfect what you did. I was going to get him to stop at some point."
"But why didn't you just let him take you there?"
"Because he'll do it for a lot cheaper" and the taxi he had hailed as we were crossing the street stopped at his feet.