Missing and Unbound by the FODMAP

Morphing into my next best version of myself is underway. How I might ever generate enough escape velocity to be released from the engrained habits of character remains an open unanswerable quest.

You ain’t got nothing to complain about—

Probably the best news is we are heading south from our still soaked abode to spend the night at Mercy Hot Springs. Yesterday trees fell in our neighborhood from powerful winds. Fences were felled too. In our backyard we spend countless moments fretting over a nearby eucalyptus tree that reminds of the dozen or so that have destroyed homes here in the Bay Area this week.

Monday night I spent in Amador City in the Sierra foothills. The bone dry creek of last summer is this winters raging waters feature out the backside of my friends place. This was a three man meetup of food, wine, and conversation. This ongoing conversation is more than 50 years long now.

Silicon Valley Bank’s implosion continues rattling the circulatory system of global finance. We are here visiting this error in banking once again because lobbyists infiltrated Washington day in and day out since Dodd-Frank was passed. In an effort to restore danger to our system all the Republicans and some of the Democrats under Republican control reversed key safety measures from Dodd-Frank in 2018. I am not addicted to lobby shop money but that’s more than I can say for too many weak willed politicians in our nations capital.

What to eat? Vegetarians eat vegetables. Vegans avoid eating or using anything that is from animals. I have a number of friends that have to avoid nightshades— potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant etc— . Others I know can’t eat peanut butter— I’m one of those. I have friends that are sensitive to shellfish. I have lactose intolerant friends that can’t tolerate dairy, while others are tipped over by wheat. Then, recently I have discovered the weird world of the FODMAP diet. The idea here is to avoid excessive exposure to fructose, lactose, mannitol, sorbitol, GOS and fructans. The FODMAP diet is a guide to avoiding gastrointestinal distress. Turns out in particular I am having trouble tolerating onions and garlic in particular and a whole host of other foods as well.

Until two weeks ago I had never heard of this FODMAP diet. To help sort out the do’s and don’ts I downloaded Monash University’s FODMAP Diet app. I’ve had good luck using the guide and avoiding the tummy upsetting foods described in this app has made all the difference in my life. We have been following a vegan diet for almost a decade now. It has been a source of adventure and opening to unexplored food opportunities. Adding the complexity of a FODMAP guided diet on top of the vegan thing has been a very complicated challenge. I’ll have more to say about this.

Circumspection we come back to the same old road block— ME!

Morphing into the next best version of myself includes not just sleeping right, not just exercising every day, but also being careful about what I eat. This of course requires the much derided quality of character we all need more of— will power. I have plenty but I also have my foibles, my weaknesses, my unrelenting impulses and deeply engrained desires. In a nutshell I am human and there is so much I want and so little strength in my character to fully control these profound things called cravings— You want a real wakeup call in life, it’s called the FODMAP diet— according to science almost 10% of the population of the world can benefit from eating this way. Another way to think about this is there is a one in ten chance you will encounter someone that has been thrust into this completely complicated form of eating. Show them some mercy, be kind, offer patience and understanding. No diet is a cakewalk, this one is as close to hell as you can get while still here on earth— but there’s an answer to that— you think you are going through hell on this diet try ignoring it— as my doctor explains— for those who benefit from this approach to eating it really isn’t optional— you can go to hell now or you can wait until your done needing to eat altogether and go there then. I think my doctor made herself crystal clear. God I tell you I hate this until death do us part business.

Plans for Hope Eternal

Featured Dana SmithLeave a comment

Considering the life of an expatriate, wondering where you might go, how you can insulate yourself from the winged blunders of the political right, a sizable number of citizens are weighing the options— do I stay or do I go.

Dawn over Searchlight, Nevada— Harry Reid’s hometown

If you are planning to abandon Utah, the legislative session that ended Friday might provide the motivation. By far the single biggest environmental crisis facing Salt Lake City are the toxins and heavy metals contaminating the shore of the now dying Great Salt Lake. Once airborne the pollution threatens to sicken and shorten the lives of most of the state’s population— you got that right my Mormon faithful Joseph Smith fans. In January the Salt Lake Tribune editorial page urged the politicians to finally find the courage to pass new laws to help stave off disaster and warned that it was now or never— eternity as environmental calamity is one hell of a one-way street to oblivion.

Instead, the legislature focused on stripping away protections for LBGTQ community and ending a woman’s access to abortion. Utah’s lawmakers instead of protecting its population spent its legislative time and energy harassing various constituents they deem as unworthy of protection. If everyone is killed by the impending air quality crisis caused by the Great Salt Lake that’s someone else’s problem— wear a mask, get a better whole house air filter, stop blaming me kid, I got a bloodthirsty mob of lobbyists ready to vaporize my career, compared to your shortened life and premature death I’m facing a form of end-times you can’t even imagine. If you haven’t started packing your bags you might want to at least get to Ross for Less and purchase some discount luggage in preparation.

83 miles to Delta, Utah— Hydrogen Heaven Just Ahead

Salt cavern hydrogen storage in Delta, Utah has taken a turn from the remarkable to outright astounding. The salt caverns will have a storage capacity 150 times greater than all the lithium batteries presently deployed in the United States. You got that right, your smartphone will never run low of battery power ever again. Excess wind and solar capacity will generate energy that will crack water molecules into one part hydrogen and two parts oxygen. The oxygen goes up into the atmosphere the hydrogen goes into the salt cavern. Powerful turbines will burn the hydrogen when the sun no longer is shining, and the wind has ceased to blow. That is power not just where you need it, but power when you need it, it is a kind of stored power, it is a kind of battery. I wouldn’t stop packing my bags just yet, there remain a number of threats in this jungle called life ready to chase your inner Jack rabbit down and toss your sorry soul in a simmering cauldron of despair.

I saw my first electric BMW i4 in the wild this week. A gentleman arriving for Friday prayers at a nearby mosque pulled up to the curb while I was out and about on a walk. Apprehensive at first, he thought I might be an oddball (how did he know), then my smile and battery electric vehicle banter disarmed him. The driving dynamics, fit and finish that is lacking in a Tesla can be found in this new BMW. Automakers chasing Tesla’s lead remain far behind in charging network deployment, but that is changing fast, and look if you are considering leaving why not drive your electric BMW across the border into your new expatriate life.

Scientists in California just released a new study that has found for every 10 new battery electric vehicles in each square mile there is a 3-5% decrease in asthma attacks. You must stop for a moment take a deep breath and imagine what your life would be like if you could not take that breath. Did you do that, are you holding your breath, feeling a little uncomfortable, ok now you can breathe, now you can appreciate how profound this new piece of data is, how lives are changed and suffering is decreased. Having seen a child during an asthma attack I find the promise of clean air an act of mercy on the asthma afflicted. Every square mile anywhere across the state that was measured found the same decrease. What we can’t know yet is what if that magic number was 20 battery electric vehicles, what if the number was 100, or 1000? Of all the things in this world worthy of zeroing out ending the suffering of childhood asthma attacks is close to the top of the list. My hypothesis of the case is that putting an end to asthma would supercharge support for fixing the climate emergency. That is what real winning looks like.

Whiskey, Women and Card Playing— Great Basin Fun

There are several major proposals to do with moving water in and around the American West. The tunnel proposal that will not die continues to be resurrected, the Krugman Zombie-ideas concept is relevant here. Special agricultural interests and not Southern California residential water users are making this mischief. The short but correct answer to this idea is that it is bad for fish, lousy for taxpayers and would only entrench out of control agricultural special interests hellbent on fomenting motivation for your ex-patriotization. Not to be outdone planners on Glen Canyon Dam at Lake Powell in Arizona are studying the feasibility of drilling water release tunnels below the dam that can both spin hydroelectric turbines and release water further downriver. The hole in the dam piece of this proposal makes sense, the hydroelectric generation piece is a sloppy wet kiss to an entrenched hydroelectric industry. Renewables can do the same job and would be many times less expensive. I say if we are going to dig tunnels first we build one that sneaks us under the wall on our southern border. This is the I hate walls and proper use of tunneling proposal I plan to put before a joint session of dope growers.

California’s Sierra Nevada snowpack is record-breaking. Nervous hydrologists continue to warn that Californians not to set their expectations too high— the water crisis is far from over. The twenty-three-year long drought has drained groundwater aquifers and spring runoff totals remain a concern because of the excessively parched landscape that could soak up runoff before ending up in our reservoirs. Then there is this— meteorologists are anxiously tracking surface water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, there is a very real concern that the forces that created the epic storms of this winter will be met with record breaking heatwaves and ensuing wildfires this summer. This matters to your abandoning America plan, it isn’t just whether you stay or you go, it matters whether you flee to the north or you head to the bikini clad south.

Lithium mining up on Thacker Pass in Northern Nevada after years of litigation broke ground this last week. There is enough lithium on this one chunk of Nevada desert to produce all the batteries US auto manufacturers will use for most of this century— estimates are there is enough lithium to manufacture batteries for 1 billion vehicles. I know you think I’m overstating the potential find up in Humboldt County, Nevada. Better still follow along here while we delve into footprints and spoilage. The Thacker Pass lithium mine will ultimately impact 5 square miles of terrain. By comparison in the USA as of today the oil and gas industry has a footprint of 11,500 square miles— that’s equal to three Yellowstone National Parks, or an astounding let’s say it all together two-thousand-three-hundred-times more besotted precious earth than is contained in the plans for this one Northern Nevada open pit mine. Thacker Pass is near Fort McDermitt where part of the Shoshone-Paiute people has lived for thousands of years. Failure is not an option. The project is complicated, not without environmental risk and if all goes well could prove beneficial to global fight against climate change and importantly the economic fortunes of the lives of the regions first people. If we might summon the talent and determination as a nation to contain the impacts of mining on Thacker Pass, to mitigate the pollution, dust and contamination from runoff, all of these impacts are achievable then we will have taken a huge positive step in our efforts to turn back the threat we all face from carbon pollution.

Thacker Pass is a mere four-hour drive from the Great Salt Lake, another two hours to the salt caverns in Delta, Utah. There’s a lot going on out here besides whiskey drinking, pickup driving, and hot spring skinny dipping. Saddle up partners let’s fix the broken bits and enhance what’s right and good, there’s a fuse burning and a whole world to save—

Not buying it, feeling bummed out, got this sinking feeling in the pit of your tummy that it’s time to just get the hell out of here— could be one way to go, or perhaps you rally your inner Ukrainian, you summon the courage to stand up to the bully on the block, you plan to not surrender one inch to the barbarians at the gates, you intend to help fend off disaster and help to heal the self-inflicted environmental wounds that are overheating our one precious world—

I’m thinking my people, your people, all of us people can do this— fitful and as painful as the one-step forward two-steps back nature of our world is— we can do this—

Biography · News!

Taking Your Identity With You

Featured Dana SmithLeave a comment

Disruption is the name of the digital game. But what if you don’t want to be disrupted, what if you want to leave and take you with you when you go?

I have a website, a decade ago I grabbed my name when it became available. Still, most of us have learned that driving traffic to your website entails posting material on social media sites.

I’ve used Twitter to enhance traffic. I’m not too happy with the new owner, so I surfed over to Mastodon, added an account at Post. But what if I my identity and the people that follow me were all able to easily be forwarded to me by my identifier. Instead, all of us have to start all over again and rebuild our followers.

My background is street theater. Street acts don’t dig gatekeepers. We prefer to throw it down on the sidewalk and make it all happen there, right in the moment, we build an audience starting there.

I’m not so sure that social media broadcasting, lucking into a viral moment, something that goes big, blows your thing, whatever your thing is, blows that up, that’s what many hope will happen. Maybe you are one of those lucky ducky’s, more likely your postings fall short of that viral moment, you do get some engagement but you wouldn’t want to quit your day job.

Lot of platforms are eager to get us to enter their domain, to come play in their arena, and you know if you do get some attention you’ll try building on it, maybe even get compulsively addicted to trying. That’s the cheese, you’re the mouse and the trap is the host who is there until they aren’t. Sometimes they become unpredictable, change their algorithms, terms of service are altered, maybe they find you vulgar, you harass someone, there are so many out there playing those games.

It turns out that managing our social media content takes valuable time and since it does maybe we should be getting a better more predictable deal for our efforts.

Guy Kawasaki is a social media professional. He figures you’ll get about 1% of the people that follow you to buy your offering. I have maybe depending how you count about 1500 followers, maybe more, likely less. Even if you have 100,000 followers you are still not going to move many books. Even a million followers are too small a group and come on now how many of you reading this blog have a million followers.

Having the formerly richest man in the world buy then blow up a social media platform like Twitter proves my point. Even if it is all on him the harm is falling on all of us. Taking our identity and moving somewhere else would go a long way toward balancing out their power over our identity. I’d think anyone managing a platform would soon be trying to keep as many users as is possible.

We haven’t managed to pass any meaningful regulations for decades and not because there aren’t good ideas out there, but because a good many people like things just the way they are. Having control over our identity, our privacy, having the power of portability, to move freely across the internet’s social media platforms is the kind of disruption you can believe in.

Books · News!

The Vegan Deli & Butcher Shop

Featured Dana Smith1 Comment

Dashing south in our Tesla we were off to Los Angeles for a weekend sail to Catalina. The better half and her witty wonder had to stop in Highland Park— this was all due to the fierce urgency of vegan chow— we wanted to visit Maciel’s— this is a specialty foods delicatessen; the owners describe their almost one-of-a-kind store as a plant-based butcher shop. Whatever that deli thing is, those row upon row of meats and cheeses, all the variety of salads, all these new-fangled dishes— we were all about it, this is what we wanted, a heaping grocery bag full of new food items that we’ve never tried before.

There were no excuses for our arriving after closing time, to that end we had to plead our case through locked doors while pantomiming through the glass windows our passion for first ever food experiences— like knee pads, parakeets and natural wine who knew that would be a thing— then we tried making our most pitiful dejected faces— the proprietors relented and reopened.

Maciel’s opens another chapter in the quest to replace conventional factory farmed meats, this is what it means to be a vegan butcher shop, they offer alternatives to beef, pork and chicken— vegan meats have a role to play if we’re to work our way out of the corner we’ve walked the world into. These new self-created gourmet products open an entire new front in the uncharted realm of plant-based meals.

Further north in Berkeley I’ve been sampling the offerings from another vegan joint, The Butcher’s Son. The concept is the same. To my taste Maciel recipes are ahead of the game, Maciel’s products appear to be more evolved, their ingredients are dialed in, there is nothing casual or random happening. Competition is a good thing, both vegan joints are on the playing field, the games just gotten underway, there’s much to learn and more to explore.

While moored as guests aboard our friend’s sailboat out on Catalina we tried their plant-based turkey, pastrami and salami. The pastrami was the favorite, turkey next and then the salami. Next visit I’m trying the chorizo and adobo ribs. We used multigrain bread, vegan mayo, mustard, pickles, red onions and lettuce. We sampled their jalapeno cheddar spreading some over a slice of bread as we each built our own sandwiches.

At a gathering prior to sailing our friends barbecued salmon for dinner, their southbound Highway 101 faux leather clad pair swapped out the salmon for Maciel’s near note perfect crab cakes. If you hadn’t been told you likely would have never known you were sampling vegan crab cakes. There was nothing lacking, the flavor was fetching, they sated our hunger, after we were full and content, that’s not always true, Maciel has quite the wizards touch, the items in the store are creations from her recipes, her research, her years of chasing down the right blend of ingredients, then betting she could stir her customers palette’s and win them over.

Idling Away September Weekend— Two Harbors Santa Catalina Island

The ingredients in their salami include wheat protein, red beets, caraway seeds, mustard seeds, spices, tomato paste, garlic, olive oil, soy sauce, red wine, liquid smoke, rice flower, white pepper, black pepper and salt.

Maciel Bañales Luna has gone all in on the project. Once you venture off into the arena of plant-based foods it is a one-way street, few go back, no longer always stuck planning meat-centric meals, the alternative plant-based dishes you prepare take over, it becomes a way of life, a lighter on the earth and compassionate form of eating.

Tag team partner in this one-two punch new food adventure is husband Joe Egender, the more talkative of the two rang us up at the cash register. Joe’s swift of wit, art brained and droll, bantering back and forth with his plant-based enthusiast, the lanky one-time San Franciscan was quick to get my nut ball style and interest in their new store. I’m all about fixing the-fix the world finds itself in, climate change is no longer some abstraction, it’s not some far off emergency happening to us out there in the faraway future, it is happening to us right now and what we eat impacts the world we live in, these plant-based products use less water and produce a much smaller carbon footprint, and that lesser pressure on our natural resources is part of the climate crisis— we are in a race against time to break the habit of eating the food our good and loving mothers introduced us to.

Puppy Dog— This is Chickpea aboard our sailing trip to Catalina

We tried their Mama’s potato salad and for dessert her Mexican Chocolate Mousse. The dessert is made from silken tofu, bittersweet chocolate, brown sugar, vanilla extract, ground cinnamon and chili powder. Maciel’s mousse was every bit as delicious as any conventional mousse and best of all it is better a better product, better for you, better for earth.

Eating a whole food plant-based diet has opened doors to unexplored corners of a world I had no contact with until I embarked on a journey to take better care of myself. I had no clue what was waiting. The trick to the fun is to get out and try new things. Life is many things including packing a basket and heading out for a picnic, eating deli style foods while sprawled out atop a piece of grass on your favorite blanket, and now with Maciel’s good work, because of the innovative products we can stay on track, remain within bounds of what we want and don’t want to end up on our plate. If meat is a gas-powered car, then the modern vegan deli is an electric automobile.

Maciel’s Refrigerated Display— Right Sized

Maciel’s New out of this World butcher shop is a three-alarm fire wrapped in mustard— the pickle is free— the fascination is grand slam. Like solar panels we not only can make electricity in a whole new way we can make plant-based delicatessen sandwiches that are great tasting and all that much easier on our planet to produce.

There are behind closed-door discussions underway within the government about creating a new executive level department to take on the issue of climate change. Among the many things to do this climate change secretary would be charged with tackling water scarcity, one such fix is replacing hydroelectric power stations with renewable energy systems. Another piece of this puzzle is introducing new food production systems, and one spoke on the hub of that wheel is delicatessen style vegan cheeses and meats. Our food production system will be moved incrementally, it will be unexpected, surprising and these new products will make all the difference.

Circumstances in the American West are growing more difficult by the year. Even if our politics are deadlocked the same is not true of the researchers trying to bring to market food products that use less water and produce less carbon emissions.

Incumbents will try to hold onto their market share, that’s to be expected, they won’t be any happier than any other legacy enterprise that’s finding itself disrupted by the emergence of new technologies. Like solar or wind renewable energy systems they are gaining market share because they make sense, they’re the low coast leaders in the energy sector.

The lack of water in the American West has got a choke hold on the region’s economy. Analysts have long fingered the spike in oil prices for derailing the global economy, the higher the price the slower the economy moves. If I told you, we could produce the same amount of food using 90% less water and 90% less land wouldn’t you think it a good idea to give that new technology a try?

Maciel’s Plant-based Butcher Shop is a key marker— an inflection point— this is part of the answer to eating in a style that is in harmony with this climate stressed world. The good news from Highland Park is that a gifted food creator husband and wife team has set roots down right here in the dynamic food movement culture of Southern California. The vegan butcher shop is an ingenious answer to our future, and it is more than just about food, it is a response to this precarious moment— with new delicious solutions, especially those never-before-seen new foods that bring to the world a flavor all their own.

Books · News!

Loosening the Blithering Grip

Featured Dana Smith5 Comments

Installation of the heat pump in our backyard studio has been completed, signed off on by the inspector from city hall, all there is left to do is put the flooring in, sheetrock, tape, texture and paint. I did the heat pump install, hired craftsmen will do this other work.

There are heat pumps and then there are heat pumps, the last ten years much research and development has gone into improving this technology. Our Pioneer mini-split performs many functions. It can work as a fan, dehumidifier, heater or air conditioner.

I had some concerns about how much noise the outside fan and compressor would make. Turns out it is whisper quiet. To celebrate we opened the umbrella, the wife sipped from the Rhône a glass of Tavel while I took a nip of the Irish from the whiskey.

While the law of thermodynamics hasn’t changed it is the microchip, software and circuitry that have. More complicated than conventional natural gas fueled heaters and thus more expensive the payback comes over time and turns out to be one of the most effective tools we have for fighting global warming.

Cabbage, raspberries, strawberries and more

Big shout out to the Says Phoebe that landed on my hat while I was distracted with the installation work. The bird playing around with me was a good sign.

In March 2021 I removed the plastic that covered most of the backyard. I’d used the covering to suppress the weeds that were trying to take over. Two years ago, when I first covered this chunk of dirt there was still much on our plate, we were busy with the installation of our front yard. I needed time more time. Out back could wait.

Blueberries… they will eventually fill this space

On our list of plants for this section of our garden included grapevines, blueberry bushes, raspberries, strawberries, fig, and pomegranate trees. The brilliant Maurizio plumbed in the drip irrigation, then I installed the weed suppression fabric, then turned to planting. Our squirrel problem was solved when we started mixing coffee grounds into and around the soil of the plants we wanted them to leave alone. Turns out a California tree squirrel doesn’t like coffee. To discourage gophers we use Caster oil mixed with soap and dispense with a garden sprayer. So far all our remedies keep the pests away without adding anything toxic to the yard.

Pair of house finches went house hunting and like the looks of a beam on our front porch. I had fun spying on the two as one or the other hopped about then flitted to another unoccupied section until they’d seen enough and began work on their nest. It’s a little close to our coming and going out the front door, but we want them there and even if a cat tried it is unlikely that they could get at this mated pair.

House Finch Airbnb— they’ll stay rent free

Last year a crow tried to come eat the young baby finches. I was in time and warned the predatory bird away from the house finch’s nest. Even in this neck of the civilized woods the law of the jungle still prevails.

I’ve a pair of fine lizards in the backyard. The two can seek refuge beneath a wine barrel we use to grow tomatoes. There is also a slab of cement that provides excellent protection from predators. Our neighbors’ cats stalk and hunt anything that moves, the squirrels they can’t catch but lizards have no such evasive skills and are easy prey. In an effort rebalance the lizards’ odds I’m preparing a slingshot, justice will be felt as a stinging blow on their butt. No animal has done more to harm our songbird populations here in North America. I’m diehard Audubon member, cats should be kept inside, if the animals must be let out responsible owners should have a bell put on their collar. If matters spiral out of control, I’ll begin trapping and returning the offenders to the owners front door. That should make for some fun neighbor conversation.

Young lizard, we know each other, the lizard likes me

Our backyard studio will have shelves dedicated for our books and record albums. When we moved into the small house, we put our books wherever we could find space, some here and some there, it was never thought through, the books are scattered all over taking up space, collecting dust, and the book I may be trying to find can be in any one of five or six different locations.

There is a futon sofa bed where we like to get horizontal. We’re going to put this piece of furniture into the tiny studio where you may sit, lie down or sleep depending upon the circumstances. We’re adding a window covering and a magnetic screen.

Once upon a time I imagined that I held dominion over various physical pieces of my life, that I had some claim to empire, it was a small place that I ruled. Like many a stubborn man I resisted the true natural order of relationship and have recognized that this dominion guise is not a practical point of view. I maybe control the top of my desk, maybe a drawer, otherwise the space is ours to share, it is within the bounds of these commons that my wife and I live together.

Heat pump interior unit visible in studio

No tradeoffs would have been possible as a younger man— none. Had I bent to my other’s will, I would have been laughed out of the pool hall where I played for sport and small change. It is only in the latter half of a man’s life that he come to terms with not having to win every argument, not having to have it and everything his way. The tyranny of testosterone is loosening its blithering grip, like the sky the mind of a man of a certain age does clear. Some days I miss the conflict, not so much the brawling, more of the cooling off and making up after, those hugs and kisses and thinly disguised promises that you won’t do it again are so much a part of a man’s right of passage from eternal adolescence and marks the first steps on the long march to maturity.

A best friend appraising the odds believes there is barely a chance of my every making it, but then he adds it’s not the destination it’s the journey that makes all the difference. Mentioning this to my wife only produces a blank stare. Thank the gods that the eternal game is never-ending—

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The Best there Ever Was

24 Jan 2022 Dana Smith1 Comment

Word on the street is that it was good, my buddy Joey said it was very good, in fact he tells me that it was the greatest, the best of the best, the big fat perfect game of all time. The lay-abouts, you know them, they recite stats, dates, records, teams, talk about this quarter of that game, these are informed fans in possession of seismic sporting events and God only knows how but they can recall the whole mountain that is the Everest of sporting achievements, and it is this cohort of collective wisdom that claims yesterdays Bills-Chiefs playoff game was the Big Kahuna of sport thrills. Cecil B DeMille if he were still alive would order his studio to make the movie and release it as a spinetingling surprise ending epic faceoff between two quarterback titans of the sport.

Someone put a pin in a calendar, it was 1892 when the first professional football game was played in the United States. One hundred and thirty years later all we are talking about down at the corner of the bar where the well-oiled fans loiter is that there has never been a game like the one played late Sunday afternoon. “Not in my lifetime, yours or your mother’s, there ain’t ever been anything better.” Says this wise Joey, “Not ever. No way.” This was the one, the one and only.

Two preternaturally gifted quarterbacks played the greatest playoff game in the history of the sport, perhaps in the history of all sport. This was Frazier-Ali, this was Tiger Woods, Babe Ruth or Jack Johnson. Nobody is sure what the hell just happened, but whatever that was had to be as close to the best thrill in sport anyone has ever seen.

So, this is what we are talking about. In the last two minutes of the game between the Buffalo Bill’s and the Kansas City Chiefs with 1:54 on the clock the Bills take the lead 29-26. It takes 52 seconds for the Chiefs to answer with a touchdown. There is 1:02 left in the game and Chiefs go ahead 33-29. Forty-five seconds later the Bills roar back hitting Gabriel Davis for 19 yards in the end zone reclaiming the lead, it is now 36-33. There are 13 seconds on the clock, that is all the time the Chiefs would have to receive the kickoff then bring their offense back onto the field to try and score. That’s not nothing, but 13 seconds doesn’t leave much, in fact most figured there was no way any quarterback was going to pull this one off, it’s a damn pity someone has to lose after playing such a good game. With his lucky 13 seconds Mahomes passes left to Hill for 19 yards. The ball is placed on their 44-yard line. Each side uses a timeout. There are 8 seconds left on the clock. Mahomes takes the snap and throws to the middle of the field hitting his tight end Kelce for 31 yards. The ball is now on the 31-yard line within field goal range with 3 seconds on the clock. Kansas City Chief’s Harrison Butker kicks to tie the game 36-36 and sends the game into overtime.

Because of various rules to how the playing clock is started and stopped it took a little more than 6 minutes and 30 seconds to play the last 2 minutes. Buffalo’s quarterback Josh Allen tosses two touchdowns completing 5 of 7 while Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes also tosses two touchdowns hitting 8 passes out of 11. Together they combine for 246 yards and four touchdowns as time runs out and the game is tied.

Buffalo’s Josh Allen stands 6’5” and weighs 237 lbs., where Patrick Mahomes is 6’3” and weighs 230 lbs. Mahomes runs a 4.8 second 40-yard dash to Allen’s 4.6. On the ground in Sunday’s game Allen gained 68 yards in 11 attempts, Mahomes gained 69 yards in 7 runs. It’s one thing to be fast, but to be this big and this fast is rare, bigger men are usually a step slower, that much less agile, not this pair, these two are top notch. Both quarterbacks are big quick allusive players that are hard to tackle and will punish an opponent for trying.

One team had to win and as it turns out the winner in overtime was picked by a coin. Nobody can prove the first team to get the ball would score but that’s what happened, and I don’t think a soul in that stadium had a second of doubt. Josh Allen had called tails and the coin came up heads. Kansas City would receive the ball first. The rest is history, there were two short runs and six passes, the last to Kelce who catches a pass in the endzone and scores the game winning touchdown. This was a game between two of the best that have ever played the game and Sunday afternoon two teams gave football fans perhaps the biggest thrill the sport has ever known.

News! · Performances

Glen Canyon Dam Meets Strangelove

29 Sep 2021 Dana SmithLeave a comment

In New Mexico ancient human footprints have been discovered at White Sands National Park. Scientists have identified adolescent sized prints to 23,000 years before present. Our first people moved along the coastline netting fish for food while drifting south by sea craft. Insight into this migration is likely rendered impenetrable by the expanding ice sheet of 26,000 years ago that scrubbed away evidence of our first ancestors’ migration patterns.

Second route of the ancients was taken by traveling inland. Prior to the last glacial maximum, I’m speculating here, was likely about 30,000 years before present. This was a warmer and wetter American West. Massive lakes some hundreds of miles in length in Nevada, Utah and New Mexico created habitat for safe travel along the shore in floating vessels while hunting and gathering.

The Winnemucca Rock Art near Nevada’s Pyramid Lake dates back to 14,800 years before present. This is the earliest example of human created artistic behavior in North America. Much further north and dating back 23,000 years before present in the Yukon’s Bluefish Caves there is evidence of the first people having settled in this region of North America.

Mexico’s Chiquihuite Cave hints at human activity dating back 30,000 years before present.

Sixty miles southeast of Albuquerque there is dry lake bed and then further south is White Sands National Park. We haven’t any evidence of whether these first people arrived from the north or the south. What we do know is that it was warmer and wetter that the lakes were a source of fresh water and food. The Pueblo People are the descendants of these first immigrants.

Most intriguing is that these first people may have arrived, but it would be tens of thousands of years before they transitioned from hunter-gatherer’s and built permanent settlements.

Early man began to experiment with cultivating plants, corn or maize is the most well-known crop, but there was also potato, squash, beans, and sunflower.

The people named the Anasazi suddenly vanished from this region about 800 years before present. These first people had developed the pueblo and their abandoning the dwellings was thought to be the result of climate change and drought. New theories speculate that there is evidence of tension between tribes and potential of mass killings, enslavement, and cannibalism. The lack of water may have set in motion a more predatory behavior between the various groups settled in this region.

Perching as they did on the cliffs appears to be designed as a fortress structure. The cliff dwellings were not built to withstand water scarcity. After the end of the last ice age, while the climate shifted from wetter to drier conditions no longer favored a people living in this region. The vast system of freshwater lakes begin evaporating and are gone in just a few thousand years.

A wave of immigrants then swept across the continent introducing Old World technology to a New World. Coal was burned to power the steam engine, then oil was refined to power the piston engine. There were sewers and water wells. By 1895 hydroelectric power stations began making electricity available to the masses.

A straight line connects the carbon based energy system of the Industrial Revolution to the climate emergency.

Traveling across the Navajo Nation in Northern Arizona and New Mexico the evidence of our first people is scattered across a vast landscape. Genetic markers identify the Korean peninsula as the origin of these people. Navajo prefer the name Diné to identify the people of their nation.

The ancestors of the Diné have been in North America for tens of thousands of years. The new human inhabitants evolved with a climate that grew warmer and drier, at this same time period animals such as camel and mastodon vanished into extinction.

These first people began to fabricate cliff dwellings and whole villages, fields were cultivated and farmed diverting water from the adjacent rivers. The Diné describe water as a living spirit, that the rivers, lakes, sun and earth are key to unlocking the miracle of life.

As the Department of the Interior rolls out the non-carbon based renewable energy system for this new century Biden’s Build Back Better plans is to enlist the wisdom of our indigenous people in our effort to reimagine our economy.

The Industrial Revolution was powered by and is still dominated by use of fossil fuels. We’ve altered our climate and it is now clear that mankind has unleashed all manner of trouble upon itself. It is the culture of our first people who have lived here longer than any other people, that it is the Diné who have sought out a means of being here in harmony with the earth. For our world to survive we would be wise to enlist the talents of all our tribes, each part of our many people can contribute to this transformational journey.

Embracing a multicultural path to fixing our energy system is only one of many existential challenges confronting the American West. Wildfire, heatwaves, and drought are the tip of the spear to the changes bearing down upon this region.

Most urgent is the persistent loss of water flowing into the Colorado River. Constructing both the Glen Canyon and Hoover Dam’s occurred during an era that was unusually wetter than at present.

Appointed by Bill Clinton former Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation Daniel P Beard in 2015 concluded that the time had come to remove the Glen Canyon Dam. What prevents this right decision from being taken? A set of interlocking stakeholders that receive subsidized water. The unfettered flow of the Colorado River water to western landholders is about to be shattered.

Beard dubbed this group of lucky water rights holders the water nobility. The senior most water rights holders have been allotted subsidized water worth thousands and thousands of dollars that they would then use to grow hay crops worth hundreds and hundreds of dollars.

Water law is complicated but the problem it has created is not. Too much water is being wasted growing too many crops unsuited to this region’s climate. Members of the Water Nobility have outsized wealth created by receiving an irrationally bestowed entitlement. This is the people’s water, it is for all of us, not just the lucky few. But the current stakeholders will fight to keep what they’ve mistakenly come to believe is their water.

What we’ll see play out over the next years are negotiations between Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California, and our international neighbor to the south Mexico. Every stakeholder is going to demand more, and all will come away with less, some will lose access altogether.

The Bureau of Reclamation and Department of Agriculture will attempt to bring an end to subsidizing crops grown with subsidized water. The firestorm these changes setoff are going to be monumental. But the climate emergency is now upon us and with its arrival the American West finds itself struggling to divide up less and less to the point where there is no more water to divide up.

Knowing full well that they will fight to the last drop, surrendering nothing, arguing over everything, never agreeing to anything, holding out as the American West is brought to the brink. This is the tragedy of the commons playing out before our very eyes. The pending negotiations over how to share what water remains in the Colorado River does not yet dominate the headlines, but this crisis even if it rains this next season is going to pit state against state all too soon.

Postscript… I’m preparing a new plot to a comedy. Some pieces of the water crisis will be folded into this struggle. I see this as Little Big Man and Dr. Strangelove doing battle with the Monkey Wrench Gang. I remind myself while trying to plot this story that Hayduke and Mandrake are both still very much alive!

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A Stitch of Time

11 Jun 201811 Jun 2018 Dana Smith1 Comment

On the Hard in Preparation

Fresh wind bit my neck. I’d turned sizing up the blow. My sailboat is a capable partner to be running with. Going against this howler would tax the durability of the helmsman’s spirit. Not destiny but the downwind harbor made this leg of the journey a more valued lesson.

With the compass I read a course heading South and the least bit of West. I am making my way quick as life will allow. For a lapse of necessary time I anchored secure in stillwaters claiming refuge.

Sacks of fresh potatoes, tins of garbanzo beans, jars of tahini, cubes of sugared ginger, pounds of dark roast coffee to buck up sagging spirits…. provisions meant to stiffen a spine and strengthen resolve.

Time itself is thrown into question. How much, how dear, how little, when to go, will we return, is this the moment? Does passagemaking make the kind of expeditionary sense in such a compact and well charted world?

In an event horizon measured by lifespan what piece of this sail– in all its vicissitudes– can be refracted and focused to provide a more accurate glimpse of what has been too self-sure arranged within?

Can a closer brush with the front range of our ambitious questing to the unexplored corners sail us any nearer to the more fully realized self we hear whispering to us in the wind?

Forces scaled to the size of nature’s wit and wisdom have a way of clearing the view from a cluttered mind. A good passage is what we find and feel from start to end— pieces of the experience can provide a sailor with satisfactions found out of reach just beyond the horizon. A good passage is a promise fulfilled.

End of Day

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Crypto Jaw Droppers Here

23 May 2018 Dana Smith2 Comments

I’m Just Reading the Signs Peeps

There’s a Call for You

I didn’t recognize the number. The voice message warned that I was wanted, that there were warrants for my arrest, an all points bulletin had been sent and the police were engaged in an active manhunt. To avoid all of that I was urged to call the number left in the voicemail— now!

I’d received an email that same morning. Someone had tried to change the password to my blog site. Moments later I unexpectedly received a Facebook Messenger notification from an associate. Much the same as the voice message the Messenger message urged me to call this number—now!

I’m racking my brain for my previous crimes. The label I removed from the electrical cord? Marijuana possession- illegal lane change- turn signal deficiencies- bulk bin nibbling- pity party- wishful thinking? What have I done! Why me?

I’m a showman, a juggling act, I had a cute dog then she passed. Lighthearted, breezy style, good natured… Somebody? Anybody? What gives?

Don’t click on that! Our email has been weaponized. My bank routinely “fraud-lock’s” me out of my account.

I’m reading the depressing Cambridge Analytica data driven politically motivated psychological cyber warfare stories from the Guardian. Mercer funding Bannon went offshore where they could then disrupt what are supposed to be free and fair elections.

Zuckerberg is in Europe on Tuesday digging his toe into the linoleum beneath his seat where he is testifying. Wonderkind’s post adolescent prodigy can’t quite invent an app that can defang the duplicitous arrows he has unleashed from his crypto quiver.

Criminality is not just venal— it is mostly brutish, thuggish and smug to the point of not quite so intelligent as the smartest guys in that smoke filled room might have imagined. The brightest bulbs don’t play in those rooms because they read the stories, they know the endings, and it isn’t going to so swell for our digital goon squads.

Monday’s harassment is a testimonial to what? The way it is? The cost of living in a free and open society? What unintended consequences looks like in this psychologically armed for scam and profit social media landscape we now all trudge through?

Be careful not just for what you wish, but for what you click for.

Buy a book, book a show…

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Getting Rid of Stuff

18 May 201818 May 2018 Dana SmithLeave a comment

There is no compromising with your stuff

Immutable Law of Stuff Riddance

The social activity director has been asked to leave the room— Close the door behind you— All those deadlines, all the things you said you’d get around to but you never did, all those— things?

Yeah peeps it is stuff time again. Toxic recycling center here I come. Second hand stores you’re next. Craigslist for items that still have value— picture’s already posted. The rest of the burden will be my burden to bear. Yeah, I got digital media devices. Yes, a terabyte sized solid state hard drive the size of Tinkerbell has done a fair amount of downsizing and cardboard box eliminating. But, there remains—-more stuff.

Then, there is the immutable law of not needing something until the day after you have discarded the very thing you have lugged up and down stairs, across stateliness, at great expense until you fall into that feverish state where relinquishment becomes sacrament. The newborn proud disposer of previously acquired indispensable stuff you’ve never used finally goes only to turn around a come back to haunt you. First, you buy it, then you never use it, then you try to lose it, only to have the thing come back and bite you in the regretful backside of what was once somebodies idea of a good time. This is stuff’s swan song doing dirge and death march, also known as the local-not nearly nearby as you’d like it to be county garbage dump.

I do not think of myself as a materialist. I have basements, garages, storage areas and overstuffed lockers that argue otherwise. Closets, drawers and shelves put a man like me at risk. I’m more able to resist that next shot of Wild Turkey than I am able to discipline myself at the mailbox and just toss away another catalogue of mail order stuff that can be here to clog my life by the day after tomorrow.

The whole idea of not getting a hernia is like hoping I won’t get wet while swimming. A pair of gloves that’s what I need, that and some kind of plan. I’ll need to go through things one more time to be sure. I wish the whole idea of having a spring cleaning wasn’t even a time honored tradition, because as things go I could first off enjoy getting rid of that little nattering nuisance of a phrase. Of course words are cheap and stuff is heavy, not item by item but when you figure how much all this stuff weighs on my soul you get the idea right?

I’m starting tomorrow. Things have to change. There is no avoiding the fact I have to get rid of more stuff and worse still is people seeing you getting rid of stuff ask if you’d be willing to take some of their stuff off their hands—? Sure, put right there, I’ll see you when you get back from Tuscany, have a great time. You know where I’ll be.

Buy a book, book a show… let’s do stuff together….

Hot as Hell, Dark as Death