YIKES. IT'S THE MURPH!

 

 

When toddler Michael was just two years old he could swim.  When he was eight he hit a game-winning home run and thanked his team mates for being on base.  When in junior high he rescued a disabled student from a pack of bullies. When a high school senior he defended a back-alley picker being harassed by his teenager peers.  When Lieutenant Michael Murphy was just 29 years old he was killed in action in Afghanistan.

Early morning on June 28^th, 2005, a team of four Navy SEALS, which included Michael, was dropped at an altitude of 10,000 feet into the Hindu Kush Mountains for a mission concerned with guerrilla leader Ahmad Shah.  When they were stumbled upon by a group of goat herders, the mission went sideways.  Within a few hours the team was taking fire on three sides by a force of more than 50 anti-coalition militia members.  Under such adverse conditions, and with all four SEALS seriously wounded and pinned against the cliffs, Michael’s last action on earth was to (unhesitatingly) move into an open area and manage the necessary distress call for backup. Michael and two other SEALS were killed that day.  (The story of this mission is depicted in the non-fiction book and made into the movie, LONE SURVIVOR.)

Previous to his death in Afghanistan, June 28^th, 2005, Michael had already been famous -- for his fitness regimen.  While wearing a weighted 20-pound vest, Michael would run one mile, followed by 100 pull-ups and 200 push-ups and 300 squats, then, sequentially, run another mile.  In elite training circles, Michael’s routine became known as “THE MURPH.”

Immediately after reading about Michael and his mission (and The Murph) in Men’s Health, issue May 2021, I called a nearby fitness supplier who happened to have just two weighted vests left in stock, MDBuddy brand, a 10 kg and a 20 kg.  I bought them both. 

I, who am six feet and 165 pounds, donned the 10 kg (22 pounds); while Baron, my favourite busk mate, who is six feet three inches and 240 pounds of solid muscle, donned the 20 kg (44 pounds).  Together, we walked the five kilometre path around Wascana Lake. 

Hard. Walk. Hard. Hard. Walk. (Baron took the picture of me wearing my MDBuddy is posted atop this blog head.)  At the end of this 50-minute walk, my shoulders were sore, my thorax was aching, my legs were like jelly.

That was on Friday.  The next day I donned my MDBuddy and took a 20-minute walk.

This time … Not. So. Bad.  Later that same Saturday, Baron and I donned our vests again and took another walk around Wascana Lake.  Not surprisingly, the weight was becoming tolerable.

And then on Sunday I donned my MDBuddy yet again and took a solo walk around the lake.  This time -- easier.

I’m thinking that within a couple weeks I’ll be able to run the five kilometres around Wascana Lake while wearing my MDBuddy.  Rather than do the original Murph of a one mile run, 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 hundred squats, and run another mile, mine shall be a three mile run (five kilometres), followed by 110 push-ups, and that’s it.  On any given sunny day, I typically run the lake and do 110 push-ups immediately afterwards.  But to make this a legitimate modified Murph, I need to don my MDBuddy vest.

Writing this blog post, I must mention that I wore my MDBuddy on my 10-minute walk to work this morning and again on my recreational noon walk.  So now that is thrice on the weekend and twice so far for the week.  And my reason for such an exercise dedication?  Such an investment in cash and in energy and time is all preparation for my truly becoming the planetary that I have longed to be, as expressed for over a decade in this very blog.  Seriously, if I am to hike about the planet slinging my guitar and/or art pack, I cannot be huffing and puffing and looking flabby (huffing and puffing reflecting my cardio, flabby reflecting my vanity).

Self-reflecting and introspecting, I know that in every action there is always YIN and YANG, and this would include, too, the donning of my MDBuddy.  Admittedly, I’m a bit chary wearing it in public because my MDBuddy exudes a military posture.  Wearing it suggests to some that I am, in the flesh, a military presence.  This is the YIN.

However, my MDBuddy is in fitting harmony (pun intended) with my peripatetic nature.  I love to walk and think, and think and walk.  Thinking about busking and fitness and philosophy whilst I walk will no doubt override the tortuous thinking about the ache and pain brought about by my new best MDBuddy.  This coping is the YANG.

As other newly formed exercise habits previous, the ab-wheel and Jacob’s Ladder in particular, I know that THE MURPH will charge and enhance my body. 

MY MDBUDDY VEST IS MY VANITY PROJECT. Wearing my MDBuddy I have artificial steel abs.  Hopefully, soon and without wearing my MDBuddy I’ll have real steel abs. 

Marching in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week are my neighbours, Len, who lives across the hall, and Arrav, who lives two stories below.

ONE THOUSAND GHOSTS: ONE EXISTENTIALIST

 

KARSTEN

Praying on our planet right now are just over two billion Christians and just under two billion Muslims.  The just over two billion Christians believe in one God, and are worshippers of Jesus, the son of God; while, the just under two billion Muslims believe, too, in that same God as the Christians, but believe Jesus to be the messenger of God, rather than the son of God.

To both Christians and Muslims, God is omniscient, knowing all that is past and present and future.  Because God knows what is going to happen, then it follows that it must happen.  In a line, Christians and Muslims are fatalists.  They believe that everything is determined in advance and so, the very devout followers, know they are really unable to do anything about it. 

Neither a follower of Christianity nor Islam, I am so very able to determine my own destiny.  I can do this because I am an existentialist, a follower of Existentialism.

Unlike Christianity and Islam, Existentialism is not a religion.  Rather, it is a philosophical movement that suggests that the existence of life and the universe and of everything actually, has no meaning whatsoever, except for the meanings that we create for ourselves.

Christians believe in the bible; Muslims believe in the Quran; Existentialists believe in whatever literature they want.

Christians and Muslims are servants of God; Existentialists are servants of themselves.

Being an existentialist means I have no God, and therefore, no one entity always knowing where I’ve been or what I am going to do.

Being an Existentialist, I’ve decided to assign BUSKING as meaning for my life. Strumming on the corner with my 12^th string and harp, or with my didgeridoo and clave is my meaningful go-to, my default, when it comes to busking.

But the BUSKING that I’ve really come to enjoy most is my drawing the portraits of passer-by strangers who are willing to fork over ten or more dollars for their doppelganger selves.  (I’ve decided as of late to label these doppelgangers as graphite ghosts.)  Drawing on the street seems my true calling – my opportunity to meet and draw anyone from anywhere, my meaning for life.

Zen and the art of drawing doppelganger graphite ghosts!  It is simple.  It is mindful.  It is calm.

It wasn’t always simple.  Drawing someone’s likeness at lightning speed is a learned skill.  In my memory I have always been able to draw people.  But drawing people on the street for dollars has literally taken me the life of a thousand ghosts to practice.  And the next customer I draw is yet another ghost for practice.

It wasn’t always mindful.  Before, I was always a bit nervous.  Nowadays I still have a slight angst when drawing a new person, and that angst lingers until I can see that the likeness is there.  A thousand ghosts have taught me two important lessons about my craft: People do not know what they look like is lesson number one.  And my pencil never lies (at least not to me) is lesson number two.  I draw exactly who I see, and I see only ghosts, and they don’t even know they’re ghosts. 

It wasn’t always calm.  Whenever I am drawing someone in a public place, lots of people gather tend to gather around and behind me, watching me draw the face of the person posing in front of me.  This used to be quite disconcerting, but now it is comforting.  Drawing draws a crowd (pun intended) and the more bodies it draws means the more bodies I draw and that means more dollars in my pocket.  I love it when people jostle to get next in the queue.  CHA-CHING!

But surely the meaning in life for me is more than cha-ching.  

My meaning of life is not about the money.  My meaning for life is all about the adventure of drawing a new face in a new space.  And I’m always hoping to travel to a new space, a city or country I’ve never been before.

Factoid: Almost as much as I love busking I love hiking.  Hiking, too, is about adventure.  A hiking adventure for me means climbing a mountain, swimming a sea, or wandering a forest. To enjoy these adventures, in particular, are one needs to be mentally fit, physically fit, and fiscally fit.

Mental fitness has always been my theme.  I am always alert.  Not-so-strangely, I have to be mentally alert when I draw.  If I were not so, nobody would recognize their graphic ghosts never mind their doppelganger selves.

Physical fitness has been a priority of mine since my university days.  In my salad days of undergraduate studies, I swam a mile every morning in the university pool.  In my thirtysomething years I ran a minimum of five miles a day. And now in my 60’s I have become a fair weather runner, all-season hiker, and year long busking and Muay Thai guy. 

Fiscal fitness has always been a concern.  Did I mention that I have children? 

Anyone having the responsibility of children to nourish, whether it be to nourish their hunger or their thinking or their recreation, knows the money pot can never be empty.  For the most part, middle-class parents seem more than willing to sacrifice their personal time and their personal fun and personal finances to suffer accordingly for the benefits of their kids.     

I have (finally) arrived at a point in my life where I can, without too much guilt, focus my energy and time and budget on the sensations of new sights, new sounds, new tastes, new aromas, and all touches metaphor Midas.  Searching for meaning and joy in the worlds of busking and hiking shall now be my enterprise.  Being in the Autumn of my life, I’ve no years left to squander.

My dream of becoming a planetary busker shall become my reality.  

 

 

 

 

CONSPIRACY THEORISTS: FROM CONTRAILS TO CANNIBALS

 

I drew these graphite ghosts of my neighbours, who happen to own the coffee shop right across the street from my condo in downtown Regina SK Canada.

And this cartoon below, was sent to me yesterday by my favourite National Hockey League scout, Brad.  FUNNY. FUNNY. FUNNY. 

   

Factoid:  This cartoon inspired me to write about conspiracy theorists, the topic for my blog entry today.

And here I go:

• CONTRAILS (THE CHEMTRAILS CONSPIRACY THEORY)

On my daily run around Wascana Lake last summer, I was confronted by long-haired hirsute (male) individual, a reminder of the 60’s hippy look.  Perhaps he really was a hippy who refused to let go, keeping that Jesus image to match his evangelical outrage.  He deliberately blocked my run while pointing at the sky and screaming into my face, “Are you f@#king, blind!  See those f@#king chemicals our government is putting in our sky!”

Ignoring him as best I could under the politest of social conditions I could muster, I slightly (pun intended) acknowledged him and attempted to go wide.  He blocked me again while yelling even more expletives my direction.  And then when a tourist bus stopped to unload a group of seniors into the Legislative flower gardens, he turned away from me and directed his intruding attention toward them.  Being ever the good citizen, I called the police.  The officer, who arrived within minutes, expressed to me that she’d had several calls in the last hour with regard to this ranting fellow and offered, too, that he was “well known” to the city police.

• EXTRATERRESTRIALS AND UFOS (MARTIANS AND THEIR SPACESHIPS)

She was physically beautiful and academically bright, and she was a high school teacher colleague at the time.  I quite adored her lunch conversations right up until the day she claimed she had been abducted by aliens from outer space, and was subsequently rewarded by having been granted powers to completely shut down power grids and other electrical systems when angry.

• ASSASSINATION OF JOHN F. KENNEDY 

(LEE HARVEY OSWALD AND HIS IMPOSSIBLE MAGIC BULLET)

He was your stereotypical 70’s Political Science 100 professor.  Complete with thick lensed horn-rimmed glasses, the good academic doctor had a long ponytail and an even longer mustachio.  It was during our very first out-of-class small seminar when he matter-of-factually explained to us in great depth how the Kennedy assassination was the inside job prompted by Lyndon Johnson, the vice-president at the time.  I think it’s important here to state that during the 70’s, the Political Science Department, along with the Sociology and Psychology departments of the University of Regina, were politically very left of centre.

• FLAT EARTH (THIS CONSPIRACY THEORY IS VERY, VERY FAR OUT)

This guy was a familiar stranger kind of friend.  We shared many friends and, therefore, many social gatherings together.  I knew from the start that he was more of a pseudo-intellectual than a bona-fide academic.  However, such types at recreational gatherings where one is prone to imbibing, such a pseudo-intellectual can really be a challenging source to be reckoned with.  Some of his theories could be tolerated, capitalism favouring corporations, white people always having the advantage, and other sorts of understood truths.  But this one time, specifically, came the tipping point.  At that party he was loudly expressing with unwarranted emotion that the earth was flat, and that anyone willing to hike to the edge would be shot on sight by some planetary government guards.

• COVID-19 (CONSPIRACY THEORISTS REFER TO THIS AS SCAMDEMIC OR PLANDEMIC)

One of my band mates changed almost overnight.  He and I had performed several gigs together to the tune of at least a dozen times.  About a month after our last gig had been cancelled due to Covid-19, he texted me, and thus came the harsh reality about his thinking. “It’s time to wake the f@#k up, Neil, about the plandemic!  If you do not realize this is a scamdemic, then you will no longer be welcome at my table!”  Yikes.

All of this, never mind the American fantasies of the fluoridation of drinking water being the government tactic of flushing toxic waste; the flu and other such vaccinations being the medical scheme betwixt doctors and pharmacists to get rich; the global warming being promoted only for the greening of America; the trumpeting of the deep state along with the BIG LIE promoted by the big buffoon; and in my mind one of the most disgusting, the notion that Hillary and her host of Hollywood celebrities all being a Democratic cabal of cannibalistic pedophiles.

No matter the lack of consensus, no matter the lack of any scientific evidence, all of the above happenings, known by the very chosen few, who believe these to be elaborate plots contrived by corrupt and clandestine governments.  And, too, they believe that those of us who are vocally skeptic or seeking simple proofs are just foolish and sheepish followers.  Really. 

My candid thoughts are that all of these conspiracy theorists are rather a picayune set of people who are unwittingly engaging in imaginary political atrocities they think of paramount importance.  Ha!  There is certainly no social ensky here!

Believing such twisted tales somehow must add quality to their lives, in the sense that only they, being the enlightened few, are privy to certain raw truths about what is really going on.  And to add insult to their idiocy, they attempt to voice their delusional concerns through continual demonstrations and proclamations.     

Are these people idiots?  No.  Are they idiosyncratic?  Yes.

Am I an idiot?  No.  Am I idiosyncratic?  Yes.

I AM IDIOSYNCRATIC BECAUSE I AM A BUSKER.  And being a busker is perhaps why I can empathize (somewhat) with their marginalized position on the social norm chart.  I do not have a load of emotional reaction towards any conspiracy theories or theorists, but sometimes the protests pain me intellectually.

Factoid:  I’m not one to even believe in ghosts (save for the graphic ghosts that I draw, or those people who have passed and still always on my mind).  I believe none of the nonsense mentioned above.  And so then really, what is a Zen-existentialist to do!

Referring to myself in the third person, here is what he does.  Not-so-strangely, I welcome most of these theories as being counter-patterns, as academically-researched and isolated occurrences that are quite contrary to the norm of public notion, but academically necessary to instill authority and credibility to those theories that actually do have a scientific base.

Whether it be a social or academic, I can easily and simply and unemotionally tolerate almost anything anyone presents.  It is only when such nonsensical claims affect me directly, as those illustrated above, that I go out of my way to resist them and write about them in Psychology Busking a la Wordswords fashion.  I know that my pen is mightier than my sword.  And I know that my word swords are my recreational and pseudo-academic escape from those conspiracy theorists who are chanting and marching in La La Land.   

And speaking of marching, this week I’ve just one person marching in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE.  Another hockey aficionado, Scott, sent me this the same day my favourite NHL scout sent me the conspiracy cartoon that prompted this blog entry.  

Talking with Scott this morning, this NHL twitter post has over 11,000 hits to date!