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Figbuck Chronicles...


Figbuck

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I try to spend a few minutes every day seeing what's up in the Ratsun world. The "Sight" as Jeff calls it, has grown and taken on a life of it's own. Who knew there were so many people into these things. Canby was a great time this year. I spent the last ten bucks I had to get in and had to throw my last spare gallon of gas into the 620 to get back to Portland. I shoulda camped out... shoulda brought all my Datsun spares to sell instead of driving home Saturday night. I hung out with Mike Klotz and Steve slodat in their vendor spaces anyway, telling stories and BSing... maybe next year. But yeah, It's amazing how much people love Datsuns.

 

I'm still driving my truck every day. Man it just runs and runs. Things are still wearing out or breaking, but It's never left me stranded. I always manage to get it to start or limp it home. A guy in a gas station came up to me and started talking to me about it and said he has had some Datsuns. He ask me how long I have had it. I said 37 years last February. His eyes went blank like he couldn't process what I just said.

 

At the beginning of the year I began to try and play my saxophone every day. I have only missed a few days and play about 20 hours or more a week. I'm learning a lot and starting to feel pretty strong. Some people play golf, some people go to church, some people wrench on cars and bikes... I play the horn. It keeps me sane... relatively. Everything is relative right?

 

Something that is a big part of music is time. I wonder about time all the time. Reet. Chronological time is a big part of everything. It is the metric we use to perceive our experience I think. Many years ago, I felt like the calendar was not really representative of how I felt time. The rotation and orbit of the earth seems like a better measure for me. I stopped celebrating my birthday as a marker and began to observe the solstices, the summer solstice only a couple days later.

 

I intended to add a post here back in June, but the shit just got too deep. I was just hanging on for all I was worth. Words are not things. Words are symbols that we mostly agree mean something. While language is a poor system, it's the best we have to communicate thoughts and experiences. Many times I have gone back to read things I have written and I'm surprised.

 

A lot of good writing is good editing. That is a lot of work. More than I want to do. I ain't trying to wax poetic here, but maybe convey some of my thoughts and emotions. The stories are just the way shit came down. If this is kinda raggedy then it is representative of the way life is... kinda raggedy sometimes. I hope the conclusions drawn from events are what is of interest.

 

Figbuck mythology. Ratsun mythology. We all are creating our own mythology. Maybe that is the mechanism we use as humans to deal with the time. For me the birth thing is inexorably linked to death. Maybe that is why I'm not so into birthdays. Which one is the end and which one is the beginning. The more I think about time, I am led to believe there is no end. The beginning part? Well, I'm working on that, but this is where the word/language thing breaks down.

 

So, I'm talking about this because I just got a call this morning that's one of those that tests your belief system.

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9211 views of this bullshit. You know I never intended to keep a blog or anything. When I started this thread, it was because there were no posts in the Datsun Stories part of the forum. You know I like to tell stories, but it wasn't my idea to make it a sticky post. I would have rather it sunk to the bottom.

 

I was... I don't know... again, words break down for me... I don't have the skill to relate how I feel about things many times. It doesn't stop me from trying, but I know I'm not good at it. I think I said it before, that I mostly write for me, and a couple of my Ratsun friends. This morning I clicked on this for the first time in months and read the replies from the last post. Thanks guys for the good vibe and general support. It meant a lot to me to read that stuff this morning when I really needed it.

 

I have wondered about all the Ratsunistas who have clicked on this. Did they start at the beginning or just click on the last page or post? south of reno here, was the first guy to post a reply in months, while over a thousand views were logged. I was like... sludge? What the fukizhetalkinabout? Do people read a bit and are not interested or read the whole thing, don't have the energy to make a meaningful comment. In the words of Mike Klotz... "Meaningful comments on Ratsun? Give me a break!" I forget too, that many people don't know how to read or have the attention span of a two year old. No disrespect to two years old, without lots of OICS though...

 

I went back and read the first couple pages for the first time. Seems like a thousand years ago and yesterday. I had to stop because I had this moment where I thought... are we gonna look back at this time someday and think... Ah, those were the good old days! Stopped me cold.

 

As my old friend and mentor Howard used to say... "Meanwhile back at the Ranch." (Howard turned 101 last month) I should say, when we last left our heros Jon and Jane, they were waving bye bye as they flushed themselves down the drain. Jon avoided going to jail by getting into a rehab program. He has been going to church because the program is based that way, and he has been working full time for the last couple months. He hasn't talked to me yet but he has been making amends with a bunch of people he let down like his Mom. It's more about me than him. I lived with three junkies when I was in the Army. I have a deep predjudice like... once a junkie always a junkie. I don't trust 'em. He is in a 12 step program and working hard to shake off all the bad crap. I hope we can fix the relationship some day. Only time will tell.

 

Jane stayed in the hospital and jail a lot longer. She had a harder time trying to find a half way house program. She did find a place, got out on work release, and was on medication. But after a month or so, one of the guys at the house raped and beat her. That was when I found out that a bunch of her instability was from an incident years ago when she was rapped, beaten and left for dead. Wow, that explained a lot.

 

After that, she went into a tail spin, she ODed on pills trying to kill herself. That triggered her probation and after she got out of intensive care, she went back to jail. She had been out and into a halfway house again for a couple weeks. So, I get a call from Jon's Mom this morning. Jane called Jon up to talk. She was having problems coping. Jon went to where she was staying to be there for her and help he sort through stuff. Jon said, through the program he as been able to work through his own issues around his parent's divorce, feelings of abandonment and his Dad's recent death leaving him with much unfinished business. (Dad ODed from prescription drugs prescribed by his new wife an MD... man, where does it stop?)

 

They talked for hours until late. He told his Mom, "It's what we do in the program, try to be there for people and help the work through stuff. Lot's of people helped me." He fell asleep on the couch. When he woke up she was unconscious. He called 911 right away. They took her to the hospital and put her on life support. The cops found an empty bottle of some stuff, I can't remember what it's called, but you can buy it legally in head shops. Of course the cops put him through the third degree, but he stayed calm and told them everything they needed to know.

 

He was up at the hospital and got ahold of her father back east. Somehow he gave Jon power of attorney by proxy because they didn't expect her to live. She died a few hours later so he dodged that bullet.

 

if you are some random reader and clicked on this raggedy-assed shit I'm sorry. Maybe try back later. I swear I have some good Datsun stories to tell.

 

Or not. I realized that when the forum software changed a couple years back it fucked up the text and some of the links to pages and OICS are broken. For a second there I had a thought that I should go back and edit the text, fix the links, and maybe post updates to some of the stuff I have talked about. I wish the story of the Cool kids turned out better, but we will see. Maybe this is the way we all need to work our shit out and in time it will look like the good old days.

 

Talk to me guys. I feel like I'm standing here naked. Tell me why I shouldn't take this thread apart and delete it all in two minutes.

 

Or let me throw pebbles in the water and watch the waves decay into universe. It seems like some the waves are resonating with people. I don't know, you tell me.

 

All I do know is that I need to play some 12 bar blues right now. See you on the bridge if you are headed to SE Portland.

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Dont delete anything Fig. I would rather read this than 99 percent of topics in the general section. I despise the general section. To me life is about telling stories to pass down experiences and knowledge from generation to generation which is something I'm poor at doing even within my own family. You aspire me to fix this about myself.

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Figbuck we met for the second time at Canby. I apologized on another thread that I didn't connect the face to a name but knew instinctively that we had met somewhere... sometime... The face was one of those that you just remember like a card in a wallet, forgotten until you pull it out and it all comes back. It was so good talking to you and I've since upgraded your face to long term memory with a notation of your name. :)

 

Deleting is cheating. Let it ride.

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We all live but we experience life differently. We all have a story and sometimes we have to talk to let it air out.

 

 

I love me your stories man. So much wisdom and experience! I have read all of your postings and they are true words of a wise man.

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With all the completely useless banter on here, you must leave this running if only to help counter that shit. I don't follow many threads on here, but I don't know of any other thread that elicits the thought and emotions that this one does. Even the "raggedy-assed shit", as you called it, is worth more to me than any the vast majority of general threads on here. Thank you for the perspective and the education :) You make me think of an oak tree in a field of weeds. The oak looks around and just sees other plants and thinks itself the same. But, all the weeds look up at the oak with wonder and awe, knowing just how amazing it really is.

 

I always smile when I hear you're still playing your horn. I'm also just a bit envious that you know just what it is that you truly love to do and that you're doing it!

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Figbuck, I have been following this since close to the beginning. It is weird to say, but a few times over the past year or so I really felt lost, in that type of way words cannot describe, and I always, somehow, wound up over here at your sticked thread, reading something new, re reading some of my favorites, and the way you write, the things you write about and your perspective have always helped me gain that aha! Moment I needed to get out of my funk and move forward.

 

I really wanted to meet you @ canby, I kept meaning to get back over and bs with Klotzy more than I got to and I know people were mentioning you were there. I have never typed a reply here to tell you not only how much I have enjoyed reading your "chronicles", but how they have helped me in some strange way, and my biggest regret of canby this year was not being able to tell you in person....

 

So as heartfelt as anyone can be on this disconnected electronic device, Thank you, seriously, for this much needed, much revered little slice into the life of a truly interesting person, wether or not it has datsun content means nothing, having you as part of our little ragtag group is what means the most.

 

Bill

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  • 2 weeks later...

dude, i read this whole thread one night. couldn't sleep. and although i could barely keep my eyes open by the end, i read every word you wrote and every reply. i WISH my grandma had written something like this before she passed away. she had a few stories that were great, and of course some that were not so good. sometimes its good to get things out and get other peoples perspectives on them. now i am not one for many words, unless i am face to face, so i most likely wont write something as cool as this thread is. keep it up, tell stories of your past both good and bad. your life seemed full of good things and fond memories. don't let them disappear into oblivion.

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Please dont Delete your thread, its really enjoyable. At first I was taken by the name..it holds a certain mistique!

Ive since read the whole thing,including replys incase i missed something.

I would like to thank you, and my boss for paying me while i read everything above this post

 

hehe

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I started these from the beginning one night and stayed up quite late reading every word. Definately don't delete. The way you write is captivating and I'm sure it is art. These should all be bound in a book and shared with the poor folks who aren't blessed enough to own an old Datsun. Keep it up oh and MORE please

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ive read a few of your stories- the ones at the start of this thread, and i liked them, but im not going to comment on something that was written in 2007. i guess its forum etiquette, im in this section so infrequently that i never even bothered to look to see if this topic was still active. regardless, your contribution is appreciated.

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You know I like to tell stories. I can't even begin to relate the shit that's flyin' at me right now... and it wouldn't be entertaining, unless you enjoy watching someone crash and burn. I appreciate the comments and encouragement. I'll try to remember better times and suck up the energy to write.

 

A couple months back was the anniversary of the the moon landing. Pretty much everybody remembers where they were on 9-11 or when the Space Shuttle blew up. If you are old enough, JFK, RFK, MLK assassinations. I hadn't much thought about that day in the last forty years?!? Damn, that was a long time ago. no wonder I forgot about it.

 

It was the summer between my junior and senior year of high school. My Dad was such a cool guy. I bet most people would say that about their fathers... unless the relationship was like my mother and I. She was just flat crazy. I never could find a way to not hate her. My Dad bought a '67 1300cc pickup. It turquoise color and he bought a camper shell for it.

 

He tried to stick up for me and my younger brother, because I think he knew how abusive she was to us. She loved us but it was a tough love that always had strings or conditions to it. She was really strict and he was all about having fun, traveling, relaxing and doing nothing. He and his dad owned bakeries and worked brutally hard. They put my ass to work in the shop when I was seven years old.

 

We had three cars, but he saw the truck sitting on the lot and just thought it was perfect for house remodeling and landscaping projects. He just walked in paid cash and drove it home. I bet his second thought was his boys would dig the shit ought of it. We did too.

 

My brother is two years younger than I am and a really smart cat. He retired at 50 after working in Silicon Valley. As a kid he was a fucking pyromaniac! He was always lighting stuff on fire. We used to ride the busses and streetcars all over the City as kids. No parents today would let their kids do that. It was a different day and time. Not so many people, not terrorism or mass murders or abductions and shit. One of our explorations found us over in Chinatown.

 

San Francisco's Chinatown was like going into another dimension. When I was twelve and he was ten, it was such and exotic place to go. One time we went to the little park there where they had swings and a slide. A couple of Chinese kids start talking to my brother, they are the same age. They go, Hey fucking white boy you wanna buy some flyaclakker? My brother's eyes light up... FLYACLAKKERS? They go, yeah $10 a case.

 

My brother figured out that he could sell packs to his friends for fifty cents, double his money back and have some serious ordinance for 4th of july... I mean he was ten years old, you know? Every year he got hooked up by his friends for cases and M80s. That is where I drew the line, bang, OK... Booom, not so cool for me. It was at that point that I realized, not only did he like lighting stuff on fire, he like explosions too.

 

The summer of '69 we worked our butts off six days a week at the bakery for about two months during the summer. My brother visited his friends this year before 4th of July too. They said, Hey fucking white boy, you wanna buy some hash hash? My brother goes, you mean Hashish? Right, that's what I said, hash hash. Fo you white boy, special price, fi dolla gram.

 

We had planned to go back packing in the Trinity Alps west of Redding. We packed the Datsun for full onl camp mode. When you get off of the interstate and head west, you come to Whisky Town Lake. It is one of those manmade reservoirs that didn't exist before and we stopped to eat lunch and check it out. We looked around and they had these bitchin' canoes to use if you camped. The place was deserted so we decided to stay there and paddle to an island for a picnic. Beautiful place really hot and we could just dive into the lake and cool off. It got to be such a hassle drying our trunks that we paddled around naked.

 

After we ate a bunch of food my brother whiped out this pipe, ball of tin foil and goes wanna smoke some hash hash? I go, you mean hashish? He tells me the story. I crumple the shit up, pack it and take a hit. Hmmm. Tastes funny, not that eau d'ganga you expected. Kind of sweet but pungent too. I blow it out, wait a few seconds and think... nothing happened. I take another big hit and blow it out... well I think some thing happened but I think I'm getting a head ache. We had spread out some blankets in the shade and I started to feel like lying down. I did and in a few minutes feel asleep.

 

I had these really vivid dreams

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Mr. Figbuck,

 

I really enjoy reading what you write; please don't think that any part of your wonderfully insightful and immensely interesting body of work needs to be deleted. To delete even the smallest bit of it might send anti-ripples into the pond of the universe --> that might have a negative effect on some quantum foam strings, so don't chance it. FWIW, I have this thread bookmarked and I am always thrilled to read your updates and insights and stories, which are always a great treat to read. Your contributions have brought light to dark days, illuminating another corner of existence...

 

Robert.

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No shit, vivid dreams. I just finished one of those jobs that got under bid to begin with and things just went wrong from the start. I need work so bad I wanted to get the gig. It would have been OK if everything went right but it didn't. I just gritted my teeth and worked an eighteen hour day, four hours sleep, a 21 hour day, two hours sleep and a ten hour day to meet the delivery date. I hope my client will feed me more work. They say they will, but if I had a nickel for every job or deal or opportunity that I bid, or somebody promised me... I could buy enough Cuervo 'n Corona backs to drown my sorrows. Reet.

 

I came home and checked my e-mail, then cruised Ratsun until my wife came home and found me sitting here asleep in my chair... the last thing I typed was; I had these really vivid dreams.

 

So... I finally woke up when the sun came out from behind the trees and we were lying there in the sun naked. I look down and my lilly white dick and balls are turning red. Oh shit, I gotta sunburn on my dick! We go swimming and paddle around until my brother goes, let's go back and BBQ steaks and ribs. That boy is the BBQ king because he know how to light fires man. We liked to go back packing and live off our backs for weeks out up in the wilderness of the Sierra's or the Coast ranges, and we climbed up into the Trinity Alps the next day and spent ten days at the snow line rock climbing. We packed a fucking case of Miller High life up there on top of 50 pound packs in a 12 mile straight up hike. My brother said if we were going to do a back breaker like that, he wanted to be where we could pack the cans in a snow drift so we had cold beers at cocktail time.

 

We were cooking away and drinking some Mickey's Big Mouths. We were wondering why such a beautiful camp ground was deserted. As the sun went down we figured out why. There were mosquitos everywhere. Big bad ones too! And we didn't have any repellant either, because were were headed up in the high country where there aren't any. After we got bit to shit, we climbed into the camper to get away from them. It was still hot as hell but the camper had a little pop up vent on top and screens on the windows. We had a mattress in there and put all our packs and coolers and crap outside so we could sleep in there.

 

We had some candles and a transistor radio. We took our BBQed stakes, ribs, potatoes, corn, a fresh cold Mickeys and got in there to get away from the mosquitos, stretch out and relax. We lit candles and turned on the radio where there is live coverage of Neil Armstrong landing the lunar vehicle. We heard the 'One step for man speech and the whole thing.

 

I hear a Bzzz. Fuck there is a mosquito in here! Were izat mother fucker, git 'em. My brother holds his arm out, the monster lands on him and starts to bite. He grabs a candle and... ZZZZT... evaporated that sucker. A minute later there is another one, then another one. Where the fuck are they coming in? My brother gets out to get another Mickeys and in the couple seconds the door is open we get invaded.

 

So here we are with rolled up newspapers and candles hunting mosquitos in the back of the old Datsun. My brother is going, shit man, my dick is burnt as hell. So was mine and it wasn't cooling off at all... and we were getting big-assed mosquito welts all over too. It's pretty funny now but we were miserable. My brother whips out his pipe and goes, let's try this shit again... I wish we had some reefers.

 

The summer of 1969 went down in history as the first and maybe only "dry" summer. Students of history will remember President Nixon's Operation Intercept at the Mexican border. There wasn't a huge drug trade in those years but the few guys that were smuggling kilos were not really having that hard a time getting it across the border. Operation Intercept caused six and eight hours lines to get back across the border and it effectively stopped the traffic in weed for a couple months until something else got figured out.

 

We take some hits and are wondering what the fuck this stuff is. It kind of tasted like hash and it looked like hash. My brother goes, maybe they cut it with something? Bang, the light bulb goes off. I bet those little chink motherfuckers cut this shit with opium. After a half dozen hits, I'm not stoned like smoking pot but, floating in a purple haze, feeling no pain. The same thing happened. We started to nod off and had these amazing and vivid dreams. It worked much better the second time around.

 

Moon landing... I landed yeah I landed on the moon on my way back from fukin' Mars.

 

So that was one of the first of many epic trips we took in that turquoise truck. Never should have got rid of it. We traded it for a new tan '72 521 with an L16, but it had that smog pump in the California model... that sucked. When I got drafted, my brother got it and I got my 620 a year later. My brother drove that tan truck up into the '90s when it got tired and worn out. He sold it to a roommate that had fallen on hard times for cheap. A month later the guy drove out into the desert east of Reno and shot himself in the head. My brother still held the title and we tried to get it back, but it was too much of a hassle, and the guy we talked to in the impound yard said the interior was not a pretty sight.

 

My younger brother was always a bad influence on me. He always tried shit before I ever even thought to try it. Smoking cigarettes, drugs, hookers, motorcycles and fast cars, whatever. When he was 14 he knew somebody that lived over in the Haight-Ashbury who was dealing kilos of Mexican weed for $110. Being a math wizard he figured out that selling ounce bags for $8... that was the street price at the time... he could double his money back and have 12 or 14 ounces to smoke. Shit when the price of a lid went to ten bucks, people were going... What is this world coming to! Ten bucks, What a rip off!

 

The guy was ten years older that we were and a Hell's Angel. Not a nice guy, but the connection was, that his mother and our mother were best friends and went to church together. She was our Sunday school teacher for a while too. Our Mom made us go to Sunday school and church every single week of our lives, no excuses, until we got out of the house.

 

He bought an Ohaus Tripple Beam scale to weigh out bags. We would clean all the crap, dead bugs and mice, stick, rocks, seeds and stems out and bag it up. He had five pound coffee cans full of seeds. For some reason, maybe his scientific mind wondered if he could grow the shit and cut out the middle man... In the spring of '69 he went up in the hills behind where we lived and dumped seeds everywhere then forgot about it.

 

Around July there wasn't a joint to be had anywhere for any price in Northern California. We were going to go the Fillmore West to see the Santana band. I said, man who do we know that might have some weed so we can get stoned for Santana? He goes, you know I bet those seeds I planted are growing, we should hike up there and see. Sure enough, we climb up there and there are plants six, seven eight feet tall everywhere. The deer or something had been munching the little ones, but if you don't clip the plants they just grow a single stalk straight up, then have one big bud or cola on top. It was too early for them to start toping out, but some of the leaves were eight to ten inches wide.

 

We picked a big pile of leaves, went home and put them in the oven to force dry them. When my mother came home the house smelled like crazy. Not like burning weed but stanky just the same. I can't remember the excuse he used but my Mom bought it. So here we are at Fillmore sitting about fifteen feet from the stage on the floor watching them tear the opening band's stuff down and set up for Santana. My brother whips out a bomber and fires it off. Everybody's noses are in the air and people are turning around to look and see. He takes a few hits trying to be casual and passes to me. I take a couple hits and the guy next to me begs me for a hit. The guy next to him takes it from him and zoom it's gone. My brother already had a replacement ready. You know it wasn't great, but if you woofed a big spliff you didn't have to ask yourself if you were fucked up or not. He passed it in the other direction.

 

People are standing up looking around and yelling shit like... "Who has that shit, pass that shit down here brother, peace and love man!" "Doood a buck for a joint... then, I'll give you two bucks from somebody else... finally a guy yells, I'll give you five bucks for a joint!" So he is lighting them, hitting them a couple times until he is in a big cloud, and tosses them out into the air. If the band didn't start there would have been a riot. That is how dry it was that summer. Oh yeah, Santana fucking killed!

 

I guess that was the beginning of the war on drugs. Worked out great for America huh? By the end of the year you could get weed again but it was like a commercial product. It wasn't great, it wasn't bad and you could buy all the clean pound bags you wanted for $160, that is how it came. By the summer of '70 there was this stuff called Acapulco Gold for liked $15 an ounce. It was hard to find and you had to be hooked up to even know about it. It only cam in an Oz. Our source said it came from the Greatful Dead Family. My theory is that the war on drugs was really some guys waking up and saying we need to regulate this industry and make money off it. Seems like quite a coincidence that no matter where you went or who you knew, it was plentiful, all the same and the same price. Hmmmm.

 

Forty years. I don't feel old, but sometimes I see my self in the mirror and see my Dad.

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