a tease.

i was kidnapped one time by swiss climbers in switzerland.

dusty old cowboy songs got shit in my eyes again.
got a girl over there waiting for me.
not a hope in hell of prying us apart.
no chisel sharp enough to get between us.
not a hope in hell, no wind strong enough
to blow me of course
willy was right, the parties over.
everybody out, i gotta get going

dust n smoke and a poke in the eye may have blurred my sight..
but my aim is true, and she's way too bright a light
for me to ever miss
not a hope in hell of losing my way
never been lost, it just looked that way.
not a hope in hell, my compass on a river bank
three valleys back.
threw it over my shoulder, just to keep things real.

spin me round and pour another shot you wanna put this to the test.
she's got my heart in a safe safe place
not a hope in hell anyone breaks it again.
a pickaxe wouldn't make it through that girl.
not a hope in hell,  i wouldn't wanna be there
to see you try.
if satan was real, and wanted to take a poke
i'd hafta pick him up, dust him off and say i told you so.

like a desperado waiting for the plane.
i know when to pack and what is important
not a hope in hell i'm missing that girl
nothin in the way that i can't clear
not a hope in hell,
she's got my back
i don't get lost and she don't miss
take my ticket and get out of the way.

serenity mako balaam marsh

I love you sweetheart but when Soo-z asked for a story or a piece of advice for a young lady just turning into a teenager I was stumped. I have nothing useful for anyone at that age as i am still figuring it out myself.
All I can give you is a flash back to the moment you helped me grow a little.
I used to surf your couch frequently, you've seen me at my best and worst and loved me through it all.
You made a stuffed bear for me by the name of mister bear and made sure I had mister bear if I was there in the evening or woke me up with mister bear in the morning if you were in bed when I showed up. One day you told me you had done something terrible and before I thought I accused you of losing him. It was thoughtless and cruel and only half true, you had left him at a friends so and burst into tears when I said that. It took a a big hug and many apologies to dry those tears.
The next day you had made me another bear, mister replacement bear and said I could keep him and take him with me wherever I went so I have. Mister replacement bear has been in my pack around the world and on countless climbing trips. You got mister bear back and forgave me.
That little bear reminds me every time I look at him to think before I speak, sometimes in time sometimes not.
Thank you Serenity Mako Balaam Marsh for the unconditional love of a little stuffed bear, your as grown up now as you will ever need to be and I wish you nothing but the best for ever, amen.

ontario

Eastern canada.


September 2010, left quebec in whirlwind of fall colours and chaotic activity ideally suited to a Hunter s. Thompson novel.

scrawled notes in my old scratchpad i found in my tattoo gear in hong kong transport me back to that day in an old dodge minivan with crazy auntie Turtle at the helm, more stories linked to stories than a person can shake a stick at, best not to get into it right now.

The roads here sparkle, it's not broken glass. Couldn't be, not for this many miles.

The crushed stone of the canadian shield that makes up the bulk of the ashphalt is so high in pyrite and micah that the roads almost glow in the sunshine.

We are rolling thru Ojibway country now, left the Iriquois land to the south yesterday. It's rolling country, looks like lizard skin from the air.

Where the rock has been blasted for road grade it shows it's metamorphic nature clean and clear, folds of one rock and another.

Where the natural surface shows through its moss and scant topsoil coverage it's even more spectacular. Granite ripples stands an inch higher than the sand and limestone base material.

It's a damascus effect on the harsh terrain, scabby dead pine amongs the mosses, lowlands filled with cattails, lakes linked by streams.

Plants have been trying to live here since the glaciers retreated but to no great effect, the rock has soft edges since the ice left. But its not dirt nor will it ever be.

Another day, another couple hundred K.

The obvious Canadian shield land is falling behind, enough dirt to support more trees here. Algonquin national park in the rearview mirror and lake Superior to the south.

Still rugged and rocky, no farmlands for a while. Spruce, pine, tamarac and and mixed decidious colour the hills. Natures palette...

spruce, dark green.

pine, bright green.

tam, a vivid yellow in the fall, the only decidious connifer.

Maple, Birch, Willow, all the softwoods. To many to name, same as the colours they paint.

ROY G BIV. Red Orange Yellow Green, Blue is played by the sky, but the leaves on the hills and in the ditches cover all the others. Even indigo and violet.

Burgandy is the furthest reach of red and could play the part of B but really B is for blue and its a big sky so why argue.

Those are the images as i saw them that fall, saved on scraps of paper then hidden in my bag.

Saved then salvaged, memories from me to you

Feb 23/2011 Hong Kong

goat horns

sliced off tips of chipping hammers
washers welded and quenched
before the fibremetal of my hardhat could react
discontented, disgruntled, unimpressed
welders we are but welding we are not
bone-z says to me
goat you get your horns tonight
as he sits buddha-esque
in the center of an unwelded deck insert
steaming slightly i place my new horns upon my head
not yet! he shouts snatching them away
and smashing the tips against the deck
once, twice, three times they ring out
sparks fly but there is no damage
and satisfied he places the hat with the horns upon my head
boat boy for a decade, its time you grew some horns
scratching paint idly, i listen as norm tells us the nights work
and try not to snicker as he wonders where the tips have gone
off all his chipping hammers.

dear nick

dear nick
i lost your hat in amsterdam
i lost a girl same damm day
we'd been on the road since hong kong
had a lot of smiles on those miles
but our patience was wearing thin


we drank some russian standard
and got to arguing
when we got to camp our stuff was gone
when i woke up the next morning so was she
we lost our cool
and i lost your hat in amsterdam

dear cam
i lost your scarf in mongolia
it had been good
and kept me warm on the steppes
but when i got on the train to russia
your scarf had found a new home

dear dad
i lost your pocketknife in victoria
lost my first girl that very same night
ivory and brass and carved all to hell
i was leaving so we got to drinking
woke up in a cell and your pocketknife was gone

dear mom
i lost my glasses of the watertaxi wharf
you were so mad we went back to look
i dove in the water for an hour and a half
but they were still gone and i was white as a ghost
so they stayed on the bottom that day

dear dion
i gave your dawson creek jersey to chief
the sleeves were gone in thailand
and it really made him smile
we were in norway it had been on enough summits
it reminds him of home and hockey and you

your honor
i lost my cool when i punched that cop
but he was a dick and i can't take it back
i broke his nose and didn't give a damm
so you gave me six months and i learned my lesson
I kept my cool the next time i got mad

dear julia
i lost your heart in amsterdam
it wasn't right the way we were going
but when i think of the miles i can still smile
i know you cried but remember the alps
and the trains and the planes and the miles

dear nick
i lost your hat
and cams scarf
and my cool
ands some hearts
but that's life
and i can still make you smile

"i love my mom" and "it's a pentagram."

It started at the russian border.
Actually it started in mongolia but at the border sounds better. As soon as Julia and i got onto the train and demongolianated in the bathroom sink. We had been hoping for a shower car like the chinese train but it wasn't meant to be.
There we were sitting around minding our own business and figuring out what card games we knew and sucked at when a white fellow stuck his head in our cabin and with gleefull abandon said "White people! You speak english!" half a question mark on the last bit, we were speaking english but it could have been a trap. I do understand how he felt.
His name was Jeff he had been in asia for a fair while and was on the last leg home from his epic overland adventure. Thailand to the u.k. with no airplanes and only a few boats. Well, he taught us to play shithead and we helped keep him fed till he found a bank machine, the funny thing about mongolian Tugriks is that they aren't worth much in mongolia and less than much outside mongolia. Especially in russia...
We had a lot of time on our hands so we got to know each other pretty well, the good stories got exausted and we broke out the bad ones. Then when those ran out we played more shithead!
One thing we didn't have in common was tattoos. He assured me his mom was tougher than a nazi death camp and would kill him, me and everyone involved if he got a tattoo that said anything but "I love my mom" and that there may still be beatings involved if that is what it said.
So we laughed at the mongolian side show on the train platform everytime we stopped, and searched the russian stalls for cash machines, cigarettes, beer and vodka. Plus various foodstuffs to keep us alive, the beer was not very good but did come in 4 litre jugs.
Five days later we were sick of shithead and ready to get of the train, we hadn't seen a bottle of vodka since mongolia and the shakes were getting unbearable. Jeff had decided in order to celebrate properly we should shack up in the same hostel that night. This would make a serious vodka binge in moscow poeticly simple.

 We found our hostel, checked in and showered, which was amazing. Then we went on a mission to find a vodka purveror! It was as easy as following to blokes from the hostel on their food mission. As soon as we entered the grocery store we saw a beer section but a scan of the floor did not uncover vodka. What gives? Then we saw the escalator heading down! A whole floor beneath us!
More food, a wine section, various spirits....Around the last corner, THE VODKA SECTION of a russian supermarket!!!! It was amazing. Wall to wall and ceiling to floor, It was breathtaking. It was a problem when fifteen minutes later we hadn't made any decisions....
And then it happened, a young russian man with a very serious face on, 2 bottles of coke and a couple bags of chips in his cart marched up to THE VODKA SECTION, grabbed two bottles from the middle with a grey label named "russian standard." He put them in his cart and reached back to the shelf for two more bottles, Then two more after that, with six bottles of russian standard in his cart he stood looking slightly puzzled. He pushed the bags of chips aside and looked at the 2 bottles of coke next to the 6 bottles of vodka and then reached back to the shelf and took down one more bottle with a satisfied look that was very close to a smile but still more of a scowl.
As he walked away we looked at each other then the prices of the various other brands, russian standard? It wasn't expensive, there were cheaper for sure though. The name and the young russian moments before sealed the deal. 2 bottles of russian standard!
Now we have vodka and a freezer and food and a night to kill, Jeff asks if we want to see something cool. Of course we do! He disappears into his room and returns with a cylindical object just like the scroll we picked up for my dad in bejing...unrolls it and says "guess what it says?" with a shit eating grin.
"No idea." I don't guess well at all and told him so.
"It says.....I LOVE MY MOM! In cantonese!" He bought it in china from an old man selling his paintings on the street who also spoke perfect english.
"You should tattoo it on my forearm!"
"Can i do that in a hostel?" I ask.
"Of course you can! anything goes in these places." is his reply.
So of we go! as soon as we are set up and the design is on him we break into the vodka and almost as soon as the machine starts to buzz the room starts to fill up with people and the questions begin. whatcha doing? and other no brainers and by the time we are done the room is empty except for us. Next room however has a couple east indians in it waiting patiently and drinking beer...I don't recall exactly what was said but i do know the rest of the night involved riding a big stuffed cow and drinking vodka with russians out loose in moscow with jeff and some punk we picked up along the way, after putting a very drunk julia to bed of course. Vodka is her secret weakness.
The next morning i had a funny message on the computator.

Hey, Joe, i will be coming to the hostel, by 7. I am checkin out of the hostel, got invited to another hostel close by. So, tell me , or if possible, call me when u are back, and u are free and ready to make a tattoo. am givin u my no.

so i wrote back.
Joe Quin March 16 at 12:43pm

hello! we are on the 10 train but will be leaving here by 7 i think. if you get this we are at the hostel now come on by

Well he did and so i did. And what i did was a small red circle with a simple geometric design inside it. And inside that design i also did a goats head. all in red. if i had got to do it bigger it could have been really cool but no small was important. At one point i had to go fetch supplies and julia asked him about his choice of subject matter, the answer was deadpan "it's a pentagram." he likes pentagrams she said when i got back to work.
Then we went to the train and left moscow for st. petersburg, which is where things got a little sticky.

Arjun R Prakashey March 17 at 1:20am Report
hey joe, what do you think about the satanist symbol of tattoo?

I wasn't really thinking when i wrote this.
Joe Quin March 17 at 8:21am
yes you have a satanist symbol tattoo.

Arjun R Prakashey March 17 at 5:55pm Report
am a hindu man, does that tattoo apply to me also? cos i dont follow chirstianism, Or satanism. Now this thing really confuses me. I wonder, how i never thought about this before. What do you think? Am i a member to hell now? A really confusing question, and sorry to be disturbin you, but that evenly disturbs me.
I mean, does this tattoo really infect me as written? Am a hindu, i dont promote, much satanism or christianis, its just that i like pentagrams. :)

Arjun R Prakashey March 17 at 5:59pm Report
I just mean, all that i did, because i like pentagrams, not satanics, yes u can laugh, even i smile at this problems. but thats really confusing you know.. you are my tattoo artist, i thought you wud be the best personality to get consulted. i believe you in this case. Take care and have a happy europe tour. :)

Joe Quin March 17 at 6:36pm
dude im sorry to disturb you. it is just a pentagram and you like pentagrams so wear it with pride. do some digging into the origin of swastikas if you want an example of symbols being corrupted. i am an atheist and have a great big upside down cross tattooed on my back just to screw with the god types.
peace man, as your tattooist i say wear what you want with pride and style.
but do realize some people will judge you based on that little tattoo. i personally deal with these judments as a way to weed out people i didn't really want to know anyways.
you take care and travel safe as well
 
.Arjun R Prakashey March 18 at 7:19pm Report

yeah man taking care. i mean, this tattoo which i am really loving now!! no, am surely not removing it. i read about swastikas though just as you told. and its no disturbance man, its my questions which are disturbing though :\ yes, some people will judge me i  am prepared for that too. bujt branding with this tattoo? doesnt mean am breaking any laws yet? for religions, right? i really need you to solve me up. idk why. talking to u about this lightens me up. cos i dont wanna disturb any others religious activities. and neither do i wanna fall. so if you can answer these 2 questions. PLEASE? *am i disturbing any religion? *and even if i do, does this tattoo automatically pulls me in satanity? No i guess? cos .. i dont promote either. but neither do i wanna disturb any. so.. *Do these laws apply to me also? i really dont think so. A nice topic to talk i guess? lol. please answer man. need and advice, from the tattoo artist as experienced as my age.
 
Our next correspondence was through a chat on facebook so i don't have it in the files. I told him that all the power a symbol will ever have is only what you give it. Oh ya, and that it wasn't illegal to have a pentagram or a swastika or an upside down cross tattoo. In the end he ended up with a pentagram and i never sent him to hell.