Author Topic: Shakesthegrounds Rumblings  (Read 2531529 times)

Offline Shasta542

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Re: Shakesthegrounds Rumblings
« Reply #1080 on: August 02, 2007, 04:21:21 pm »
MMMMMmmmmmm--both of those cakes look so yummy. I hope the birthday boy is sharing!? 

Happy Birthday, and I love reading about your experiences, Truman.
  :)
"Gettin' tired of your dumbass missin'!"

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Offline Penthesilea

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Re: Shakesthegrounds Rumblings
« Reply #1081 on: August 02, 2007, 04:27:03 pm »
Truman, I want to thank you for your writing about the Alberta trip. You describe everything so lively and colorful, I soak up every word. And it feels almost like I had have been there myself. Thank you so much for sharing with us.


Offline Ellemeno

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Re: Shakesthegrounds Rumblings
« Reply #1082 on: August 02, 2007, 06:36:11 pm »
Truie,

I'm going to go on as if you will very soon have sound.  While rambling around YouTube, I found this and thought it might be another nice birthday present for you (since it's the dog's birthday in the video).  The Top 25 Greatest TV Shows of All Times.
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTugCEwRZVg[/youtube]

Offline Shasta542

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Re: Shakesthegrounds Rumblings
« Reply #1083 on: August 02, 2007, 07:34:35 pm »
 :laugh:

He is hilarious, Elle---birthday hump...haha
"Gettin' tired of your dumbass missin'!"

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Offline Shakesthecoffecan

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Re: Shakesthegrounds Rumblings
« Reply #1084 on: August 02, 2007, 10:35:02 pm »
Many thanks. I hope you all have a nice day tomorrow. It is Friday after all.
"It was only you in my life, and it will always be only you, Jack, I swear."

Offline ohiomyown

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Re: Shakesthegrounds Rumblings
« Reply #1085 on: August 03, 2007, 12:13:46 am »
Many thanks. I hope you all have a nice day tomorrow. It is Friday after all.


Truman, it's your birthday  in your time zone, but not yet here in mine.  I've been thinking of you and re-living our Alberta time all day as I traveled back into RL. Hope you get the gift of Fulfillment on this, your day. 

What a Magician you are, you turn Strangers into Friends.
Happy Birthday, darlin'
Judy
I flew all the way from Calgary to San Antonio today, and my arms are tired from all that flapping!

Offline Brokeback_Dev

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Re: Shakesthegrounds Rumblings
« Reply #1086 on: August 03, 2007, 07:59:57 am »
 :-* :D :) ;) :o :P     Happy Birthday

Offline Shakesthecoffecan

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Re: Shakesthegrounds Rumblings
« Reply #1087 on: August 03, 2007, 08:05:50 am »
I busted two pair of jeans in Alberta.

The first was a rather new pair I had bought a couple of months before. The crotch could not take Mt. Inflexible.

Tuesday morning The Yaris headed out 742 again, Rayn beside me, Mouk in the back seat, getting lost in Canmore and then heading past the Goat creek parking area where a Ram grazed on the dust of the road, perhaps craving some mineral, or injesting small stones to aid in its digestion. On down the road a Moose on the road side made its exit into the woods, but the next one, was a good ways away, taking a bath in the lake and unconcerned with who watched her. We sat in the road, stopped in silence with a few other dust generators, still with no clear idea how far to the Provincial Park and the Sawmill parking area where we were to meet up with the findingbrokeback guys. We were doing a hike called "Jack Asscending".

So, dumb old me thought Jack Ascendsing was when Jack rode up to the sheep the first night on the mountain. Wrong, it is that scene, computor generted, in which Ennis, reaming out a coffepot in the stream with his pants leg rolled up, looks up, and sees Jack moving across a high meadow like and insect across a table cloth. The effect is real good on the big screen.

We thought we saw that mountain top three times. Rayn, like a kid in a candy store, sapping each one. So happy.

When we reached the Sawmill parking are we were an hour late. We saw a car with THE "Welcome to Wyoming" sign like in the movie, in the rear window. This was the vehicle of one of our peeps. We looked about, no sign of them. Rayn called out, as loud as he could "HELLO BROKIES!!!!!!" and it was decided we would go on and see if we could find them or the trail, thought I was apprehensive as to the remoteness of it. It seemed like a place one could easily get lost on no trail in the wildness.

I wrote on the side of the Yaris with my finger in the dust: Shakestheground so if they came back they would know we where there. And Rayn called again: "HELLO BROKIES!!!!!" and Mouk tied her shoes and what, did you hear that? And another call was made and yes, there was deffinatly a responce. We consulted the trail maps posted there on the stick and headed out, we did not get far before we met Jim.

Now I will say this about the findingbrokeback bunch. They are a different breed. I feel strange saying that and I say it with only the most honorable intent. While we have been sitting in front of the computor and pursuing our passion in a cerebral manner these folks have been out on the ground, searching, hoaning their detective skills and locating, one by one, the sites where the scenes in the film were made. Documenting them, developing an understanding of how the movie was made, what went into making it, who was involved, they have come to an intimacy with the movie that is unmatched in the phemonina. They have talked with the Basque, the bartender, learned one of the men Jimbo goes to talk to at the pool table is gay. They know where to find the old guy counting the sheep when they come down from the mountain. They are the rangers, the foot soldiers, and they are unstopable. They are for me personally, Giants among us.

That day we met Jim, from Vegas, Nova, goaboydc and saw again Tamarack, who I had met in Boston, Tamarack, who first turned me on to findingbrokeback.com, whose card I left on Mt. Washington, New Hampshire. Tamarack, the foot soldier in every respect, I see them all as equals in the quest. And there are more who I met later, but these are the folks I met that day.

The story was that they had recently discovered the sight of the road paving that Ennis works on with Timmy. As I understand it it was Tamarack who went looking for work orders with the authorities in the time period when it would have been filmed and got the permit. Genius.

Their creation: findingbrokeback.com, was printed out in its entirity by Paul the night before his departure. It became our Bible.
Once introductions were made we started forward thru the lodgepole pine, up the bike trail and as I expceted all were faster than me, I needed to remind meself to set my own pace and not obsess, but when we turned off the road into the blank wood, off the trail to asscend to where Jack would have had to have been 100 feet high for Ennis to see him, it became an adventure. This was going to be work, and it was going to be hard and I thought about turning back. I'm glad I didn't now, but once I was up in them woods there was no turning back. My heart pounded. I told Mouk: If I have a heart attack, just let me die, it will be alright. She encouraged me and kept and eye on me, as did Jim, who made sure I was not left behind and kept encouraging me. Getting to know one another climbing under limbs and negotiating rocks, grabbing a feeling for who we are based on the location of our formative years. The hill becoming almost verticle, crissed crossed with moose paths and moose droppings, jabbed by dry dead limbs and offering flowers for our crushing heals, the wild columbine, the cinqfoil, the devils club. Scratched skin, screaming lungs and goals made of five feet more. Hands and feet becoming equal partners to propel us onward and upward.

I had wished that I wore a belt to hold my pants up, and then with one certain streatch I hear: rip! The crotch begins to rip diagonally. O-well, Mouk has come prepared and has iron on patches we could try on it, but we never do. 

Three hours. Up a rock strewn drainage we came, Rayn saying he could see a clear spot ahead, the trees growing shorter, surely we were not far from the tree line. The water flasks that had waited in my house in plastic from the factory for a decade soon drained of water. When we would stop I could look out on the mountain across the valley, towering and studded with snow, the quiet, the wind the bird song and buzz of dragonfly. Have to keep going.

I caught up with them on a nearly verticle shale strewn clearing where they elected to eat lunch and announce they had reservations as to continuing. goaboydc is smoking a cigarette. I ask them if they regularly hike up mountains like this. No way, this is very unusual for them. (Maybe I need to start smoking?)

 I found me an indention in the ground at Mouks feet and relaxed and ate my sandwich and looked out over the valley below, way below, I was in a place few if any people ever see. The sun, crept into my gaping shirt and scorched my skin red. Here we pass an hour in conversation with Tamarack above us while the guys continue up ward to the top, to report if it is worth the effort to try to make it.

The verdict: we took a wrong turn some place, we were on the wrong ridge. From the top you can look down on the spot we were aiming for! O-well. Perhaps we were in the wrong place, but with such beauty all around us it was hard to think of it that way. Jim apologized, but no appology was needed. I had a new screne saver to replace the one from Lightning Flat I have had for a year. I wet my bandana in the creek and tied it around my neck for the shakes decending hike.

Down at the bottom there was towellettes to wipe the pine rosin from our hands. Rayn, pumped up on endorphins added his name and Mouks to the dust on the car and we posed for group pictures, one with our target, and one with our destination. We would see these folks later at dinner in Canmore, and until then they were eager to tell us where we could find more filming sights nearby.

Just up the road was the last campsite "Gonna snow tonight for sure" Here was the last place in the movie Jack and Ennis had slept together. Here they had smoked a joint by the fire and passed the bottle and shared their truths and lies. Just right off the parking lot, a hundred feet from the road. A hawk sailed across the water. Had this bird seen our boys, and the entourage?

On down the road, on the left, we saw the fist, and looked after it till it was in the right spot by memory and turned. There was the spot, Ennis and Jack riding horses after the Thanksgiving scenes, Jacks horse jumping a small branch. I was too tired to get out of the car, and watched Mouk and Rayn in the rear view mirror as they chattered about it.

Further down the road we recognized nova and goaboydc's car on the side of the road and shortly saw them, standing at the foot of an embankment. The spot where Ennis was leading the mules up the hill. An embankment on the side of the dusty Rt. 742. They had discovered it moments earlier. We all got out, and a car slowed to see what it was we were looking at, a moose maybe? No, only ghosts.

 
"It was only you in my life, and it will always be only you, Jack, I swear."

Offline Ellemeno

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Re: Shakesthegrounds Rumblings
« Reply #1088 on: August 03, 2007, 01:15:25 pm »
Jesus H I'm glad I'm sitting in a chair living this vicariously.  I understand some of your epiphanies now.

Offline Shakesthecoffecan

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Re: Shakesthegrounds Rumblings
« Reply #1089 on: August 03, 2007, 02:08:11 pm »
Elle, I think your idea about doing something healthy in honor of my birthday is a great idea, and thank you again for the link to Abriginal Voices.
"It was only you in my life, and it will always be only you, Jack, I swear."