Coincidences

For those who bother w/ my scratchings here... in the Bodywork thread, mentioned a meeting with someone at the park today (09 Dec), with the same knee bad... but 10 mos ago, they got it replaced.

Also in that entry, mentioned I don't believe encounters, esp with people, are random (have felt this since childhood).

Basically... someone up there placed another in my path, that I needed to see. Let me tell you, rather than ignore or disavow this as would've countless times in my less-than-ideal life... hung it out there, and began a conversation w/ a stranger who at first, didn't even acknowledge I existed -- a typical JA reaction, esp for Maui

But watching their gait... man I don't f***ing want that. But it's as if a gentle voice said, 'now you know a branch of the path, not that far away for you. Don't front like I never warned you... rest is up to you'.

I can intellectualise these encounters away easily enough with other things... but this was too effing specific. They would've reacted to a stranger asking out of the blue about their leg (which may've been self-conscious about)... exactly as I would've.

Pay attention -- if you're of sound mind, often these little signs can lead to growth in a positive direction. When they turn out eerie like this... it's because someone cares enough to get it through your thick-arse skull, because you need it

 

Well that was weird...

One of the dietary changes made specifically for this knee rehab... is cutting out all foods even close to being poor nooch; i.e. 'clean-ifying' intake. One is high amt of chicken breast vs. other types of protein (allowing greens / beans sources, of course)... and for in-between meals, rather than popcorn and once a month, high-quality dark chocolate (Hu Salted 70% Dark current fave, cheap and responsible) or nuts (cinnamon pistachios)... switched to apples, which I'd forgotten 1) how good a Fuji apple is, and 2) how filling whole fruit is (tonnes of fiber).

Have perhaps 2 / day... a new staple. And feel better to boot. Like you never remember how good something is -- can't even recall the tiniest mote of that, after a decade+ away -- until you try it again. Can't imagine not liking them now

But how very strange... me & this apple thing... when a random hair washed over to watch NF, waiting for a client.

'Adolescence', is a big deal -- The Guardian says it's the most perfect TV they've rated in decades. Meh -- saw them mentioned for Emmys, Golden Globes, etc... but nothing convincing enough to actually start watching (btw, took until S8 to watch my first EP of GoT, for your elucidation ). Until enough buzz from the right places cross my sightline, usually get into it way after buzz dissolves -- that's me, the perpetual tardy-to-the-party contrarian... but recovering

Watching the first EP... what's the first thing the first character on screen's doing?

Eating an apple.

Not just one... he's eating several of them a day, for health reasons (his, was to replace cigarettes and quit smoking).

--

Weird

 

Oh, not dissing it for others -- if your knee replacement surger(-y / -ies) worked, good for you -- pls make the most of the new freedom

But man -- watching that stranger kick their leg around like a prosthetic... hope they just need PT to build muscles and nerve 'maps' to get closer to natural movement... because it was too close to marionette-like for my liking. But 10 mos is a long time to still need PT for the sake of building back to natural gait -- so for me if I can avoid it, nope-on-a-rope

 

Guess shouldn't be too surprised YT reccied these back to me after a couple of years... but was neat they referred two of my all-time fave jazz performances and a Bonus-GET, at the same time:

This is the late George Duke and his Trio's performance of 'It's On', at Java Jazz Fest in Jakarta 15y ago:

Thing is, I've not a musician-ship bone in my body. If 6y of clarinet resulted in a middling player, then pretty hopeless. Which is why I boggle at people who not only have the potential but the drive to get to a stage these three were at. And jazz is intrinsically about playing limericks in a language even most musicians never actually master all 12 key centers of. You really have to know the technical part so well, you can't help but play...

---

Speaking of playing in the deep end of the pool:

Cory Henry's obviously the star of this 11-yo video for that incredible keyboard solo (a prodigy rumoured to have perfect pitch)... but the depth of talent in that room's amazing: Larnell Lewis on drums; Shaun Martin on keys next to Cory, and of course Michael League on bass with the rest of Snarky Puppy. They rehearsed this piece several times before cutting this final version... and apparently Cory'd tried some different solo experiments that didn't end up working, as is the time to find out. But all in attendance are highly-disciplined jazz musicians... if I were to pick a video to show what it felt like to be awed by a musician, this'd be top 5 for sure. How about those two guitarists in almost imperceptible sync in the chorus?

--

Last one:

If you watch this actual stage in full... when Jacob 'seeds' his Vienna audience with E B G# C# D# F# A#... he raises their volume to close out the performance with this chord, cut off in this short... and it's magic. His 'audience choir' concerts are all good... but the Vienna and Rome stops in '22 - '23, were exceptional -- not surprising, as those cities have centuries of history celebrating Western music woven and evolved thru at least wealthy & educated society...

Jacob, another prodigy w/ confirmed perfect pitch... has a deep, intrinsic understanding and fascination exploring the bones of music, bordering on sorcery. Even Herbie Hancock respects him, someone who made his name in the 2nd of Mile Davis' fabulous Quintets over 60y ago. That's how transcendent Jacob's talent for hearing tonal relationships is. When you make your name w/ microtonal music, and understand Western classical music theory to his degree of effortlessness... fascinating watching him try to explain these things to me, a comparative tone-deaf knob

 

Was wallowing a bit in a more-flashy past life as a rider, wrench, and brief time racing... looking at some footage of the Everest peak of moto roadracing, MotoGP. Can't drill too far down that rabbit hole... w/o the subject of death coming up.

Been an automotive Grand Prix fan since the mid-'80s crazy-turbo Senna-McLaren era, and motorcycle GP fan since '91, buying my first sportbike. You can't separate the two -- winning at that level, and risk of death -- and though each side of the sport's come a long way to make that '60s / '70s expectation of dying in during a season reality, it still holds today (though much more rare). Unless magical 3025-technology force-field-ing and levitating every racer from the violence around them's mandated into regulation... a front wheel coming at your neck at 60 mph, will kill you thru all your thousands of dollars of airbag countermeasures and D3O-enabled armour. It's safer, but only postpones and softens the inevitable (as someone whose track injuries ended their racing career, can comment with a bit of exp).

Watched Daijiro Kato, Shoya Tomizawa, and Marco Simoncelli's stories -- the first 3 in the modern MotoGP era to succumb to injury during their seasons... and couldn't help but notice something about their racing numbers.

MotoGP racer Kato's number, was 74 -- 7 + 4 = 11. 11's an eerie number I see a lot re: celebrity and death. His ended FIM racing at Suzuka Circuit, and remains to this day. He died in 2003, on lap 3, exiting the newly-modified infamous 130R turn into a modded-closer Casio Triangle -- the same year the change to the track was made.

Moto2 racer Tomizawa's number, was 48 -- 4 + 8 = 12. Tomizawa rode with Kato's number 74 on his leather's shoulder, as tribute. His death occurred at Misano, the 12th race on the calendar in 2010... on lap 12.

MotoGP racer Simoncelli's number, was 58 -- 5 + 8 = 13. We all know about the number 13... but his death occurred in '11, at Sepang's Turn 11. In November 2011 (11-11), Misano World Circuit officially planned to add Marco's name to its own, which it did the following summer.

After Simoncelli, the pattern stops -- Moto2 racer Luis Salom's number was 39, and Moto3 racer Jason Dupasquier's -- the most recent death, in '21 -- was 50. But should be noted these two latter deaths didn't occur during an actual race (Salom died in practice, and Dupasquier during qualifying). The pattern seems to hold only for FIM Grands Prix.

Weird it stops at 3, tho... which is the number of places on the podium. All racing numbers have been rightly retired by the FIM, in remembrance of these deaths.

There are more coincidences from this subject, but these stretch of credulity the least, if having any to begin with.

 

Who's up for some ghost stories?

Granted, two ideal seasons for it have passed (in Far East end of summer is traditional paranormal-story time... and in the US it's Halloween, natch) but for anyone who doesn't mind reading another of my novels (apologies, Mendel ), read on. Anyone else, scroll on / click away -- no bumper stickers here

Lessee -- most of the stories written here elsewhere, are military... so will wayback a bit to some history from where I grew up, and why we raised in HI (at least up to my GenX generation) are quite familiar w/ ghosts and the paranormal...

(continued next post, since this forum likes to log me out if I write too long )

 

Hawai'i, is full of ghosts...

From probably 1st millennium AD to 1745, the Hawaiian Island Archipelago, was a place of open warfare. As w/ many Polynesian societies, the only way to gain the resources of another space station, is to conquer it, by defeating those who were defending it. Whilst the ancient Hawaiians weren't far from idiot enough to leave large corpses to fester in rivers and valleys and cropland... there were limits to what they would do, esp w/ the bodies of enemy. So just enough not to get sick or not properly honour your warriors' dead... but not more.

One example, is to bury them in sand dunes. There aren't many on the younger islands (east in the archipelago) but on older islands like Kauai and in places where a large amt of coral reef existed for a long time -- like the north isthmus of Maui -- they do exist. Sand far enough away from the ocean dries quickly -- which means bodies buried in them, dessicate and pose less a threat of putrefaction and disease, than those buried in volcanic soil. Plus, few of them not royalty, ever had structures or even headstones to mark their graves... so modern travelers of the more secluded parts of the islands -- esp in the valleys -- stumble across them hunting, or hiking.

(continued)

 

I can tell you from experience... hiking the interiors of some of the bigger valleys -- which can branch and dead-end and flood and change elevation thousands of feet in a mile -- are some of the most peaceful yet spookiest effing places I'd ever set foot. Feels as mysterious and darkly-forbiding, as a boreal forest... exact same vibe.

Pop taught me, like all dads did their sons at that time, basic conservation from old Hawaiian practices from when the cane labourers used to have to forage for their medicine in the valleys, guided by fellow Hawaiian workers in the fields. Never pick fruit and eat it, without asking the mountain first. Mark the trail, or you can be trapped past dark. And fella, you do not want to be stuck in these valleys, after dark.

There are rumoured to be the graves of Hawaiian royalty, hidden somewhere in a few of these valleys. I've had the distinct feeling of being watched, or of someone walking the trail behind me, whilst trekking with Pop. Lovely... even CGI-like, how beautiful everything is, esp mid-morning... but Pop always planned for us to be out by 3pm at the latest, piling into our truck fully-out... just because of stories his own dad told, of what goes on up there after dark.

(cointinued)

 

For those of you who read books thick enough and have attention span for some length, good on ya and thanks for sticking with

So at least until my generation, stories like this (esp if you're part- or full-Hawaiian-blood) are a part of growing up truly Local. So when paranormal shite happened elsewhere in my travels, interpreted them thru the lens of this cultural phenomenon.

Still, there are stories that shake me. Not just because they talk about paranormal stuff... but the situations that existed before my generation -- which increased the risk. One of these is Pop's, when he was in HS in the late '50s...

Maui pre-1957, was a pretty primitive place to grow up. The connecting seaside Rt-30 from Lahaina in the far west, to the isthmus and central port of Kahului, wouldn't exist until that year. Once the tunnel and new highway were blasted and cut, Pop w/ newly minted driver licence, could go raise hell with his friends, or go visit gfs on the Other Side, as we used to call it (even my generation).

So one Friday night, Pops is aching for it He wanted to see his gf far north of West Maui (a village around Kahakuloa), but his dad (my granddad) kiboshed it. So he did what any kolohe kid his age did -- pushed the family Plymouth down the road so as not to wake the 'rents... and drove off north from Lahaina, close to midnight.

(continued)

 

Now, we had a highway that wasn't made of stacked rocks to get to the Other Side anymore... but going the other way, was still treacherous -- one-lane dirt road over cliffs >200 ft in places -- in a Plymouth with era-correct candles for headlights, this was hairy even when it wasn't raining (one of my own HS spooky stories of driving at night alone in rain there, is written elsewhere on the forum).

But probably 2 miles from the house... he got a flat. Mind you, it's past midnight on a dirt road in 1959 or '60. All he had were an old alkaline flashlight (+1 candle) and the jack. Pop the trunk -- no spare. He'd forgotten his dad probably forbade him go out, because he hadn't replaced the spare his mom had used. Drat. But remembered his gf's brother owned an identical Plymouth, so could just borrow his spare to get rolling.

So Pop, with his alkaline 1-candlepower flashlight, sets off on foot, total darkness (no streetlights on that road then) for two miles, makes it to the house and meets gf who gets brother to let him use his spare. He then rolls the tire back those same 2 miles, again alone and in total darkness... bolts it on his car and puts the flat in the trunk. Pop and gf and brother proceed to get shitefaced and have a good Boomer time He drops them off, gets the car back in the garage and sneaks into bed.

Granddad kicks him out of bed -- Pop asks what's the matter. Come downstairs NOW. Pop dresses and meets him in the garage.

'What happened last night...?'

'Oh I went out to see [friend] and [gf]'

'How come dat tire is on the car?'

'Oh 'cause I got a flat. [Friend]'s tire, they have the same car.'

Bullsh**, don't lie to me, boy.'

'No, that's what happened Dad, the flat's in the trunk, go look.'

Granddad pops the trunk, and the tire's in there.

32 lbs pressure. So he got a beating

(continued)

 

When Pop told this story in my teens, I remember his usual animated style of telling yarns like this, was absent. He was more sullen about it, which isn't like him. He swore that tire was almost off the rim, flat to the bead... and an inflated bias-ply tire even in bad light, doesn't feel anything like a flat one, putting it in your trunk; hard to mistake one for the other. It's only one of many paranormal things he's exp'd... but this one I think got to him

Have a feeling (and personal exp), that road north of Lahaina -- esp north of Kapalua, going around the northern end of the West Maui Mtns -- is not only haunted, but haunted by very powerful entities who do not want you to traipse thru in the dead of night. Attempt at your peril...