Happy New Year's everyone, no buttons to push. I am currently plotting out all the aspects of the Fabric experience. I have worked for these Silicon Valley funded startup types for 5 years,* I know how they think. I do not want this app to fall into their expectation category. How do you set in place a set of standards, while maintaining flexibility––i.e. making the Boracay Fabric distinct from the Bali Fabric, within one kickass app? This is groundbreaking stuff––rather have one deep thinker (me) working on it than a hundred. 

Have started in on Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections, another hostel find, after the ho-hum, fall asleep coma experience of Philipp Kerr's Field Grey. What a terrible book! Ok, I am going to make a major admission: I have studiously avoided Franzen (though he lives in my old stomping grounds, Santa Cruz) all of my life. Ditto David Foster Wallace. Don DeLillo - I got two chapters into one of his and lost all interest. As much as I admire the mental dexterity involved in these modern "giants" prodigiously large tomes I also consider them  pretentious and boring.**I have no idea why, but capital L literature of the American variety took a major wrong turn a decade or two ago. Who will be read in a century or two, beyond the academy? None that I can think of. 

That said, Franzen is definitely more accessible than DeLillo and makes a suspense thriller out of a geriatric couple's daily existence, which is admirable in a way. Just don't expect me to give up on my nutty idea that I am a more readable and authentic penner of words than our cherished literary cummerbunds. 

Endurancewriter (SEO Alert) Damon Shulenberger aka Endurance Writer. Because good writing endures and it takes endurance to kickass.

*De facto full time, meaning I get taxed more and have no job security or real chance of getting a major loan. But somehow marginally solvent. Impressive to be a full-time writer in this day and age, I've been told.

**Michael Chabon is a little better––I squirmed through his first novel with some semblance of enjoyment. I like the concept of  The Yiddish Policemen's Union, though I have not read it. If I come across it at a hostel, I very likely will. But basically, my point stands... a lot of presumptive literary classics these days are strained. Donna Tartt––there is an author I should revisit. 

Another post that I have come to think of a tweener (only it is not, it is blogging at its most pure), not literature not even poetry. Just (mostly non-random) musings from the endurance tip. The odd thing is, a few days since my last post, I am getting more views than ever. Honest writing catches on?

The mapping of the destruction of Boracay's remaining behind-the-beach nature continues apace, there really are no sacred areas of green. The Boracay equivalent of People's Park, the fertile remnants from which would have been carved a Fort de Russy (Waikiki), if not a full Tulum (yoga-bicycle fulcrum) are being dug into, fitted with girders. The permit-happy legacy of Mayor Yap, who publicly espoused a "slow-growth" policy is exposed as worse than fraud––nails in the coffin of what they called Paradise. 

Only it is not technically so... a rolling stock of 20 year (now five year) leases means that theoretically, through some mass awakening to what actually draws meaningful visits to Boracay, reverberations could be made. The concrete punctured, the sand let run free. In this a concrete jungle, oh yeah... where the living is hardest.* And the current mayoral election happens in May––opportunity for timely writing, for once? I'll throw together a proposal for the NY Times, sure.

The real progress now is in the grim underbelly of the creative process.  With Cowachunga moving under its own steam, I am conceptualizing Boracay (the novel™) to fit in somewhere with Fabric apps, Mindanao excursions to the roots of flute, DJ-flute twinings (whether at Aplaya with DJ Rio or at some gym-rat Manila studio).** Let the bitter taste of self-predicted defeat fade, as inner spirits rise with syncopated clawhammer, double-thumbed attack

* Damon A. Shulenberger aka (SEO alert) Endurance Writer. Making a mockery of renegade Hemingways of 140 words. Fabric a must.

*Speaking of  which, have you seen the Beijing highway to Ocho Rio plan on an island called Jamaica? "Diana McCaulay of the Jamaica Environment Trust said it would involve the destruction of Goat Island, including wetlands, coral reefs and the largest remaining area of intact dry limestone forest in Jamaica. It was being pursued, she said, with no discussion or transparency." 

**The lead track to be entitled, appropriately, Shark Attack (megaphone voice, endless whistle-accented beats), "If you are in the water, stay in the water, shark attack) Dooop dooop doop doop.... huffa huffa week week––cue sinuous tribal flute,  run backwards through a splice-synthed loop, Skrillex-Beiber at its utmost....hot bodies in Cancun swimming pool extravaganza, unlimited tequila... okay, as envisioned this track is the ultimate sell out. Baby needs to eat.

The smooth settling
of the almost dead, 
an insistence that tomorrow 
another coffee

Persistence in obscurity, 
those that pay are (drumroll please)
a major part the problem,
tugging of device.

Emphatic now, silver lining of sun 
through the clouds, 
baring of midriff,
nobody looks, nobody listens.

I paid, I do not have to listen. 

Section 3.3 of Cowachunga, finally. Took quite a bit of fine-tuning to get this right. Women + men = utter complexity. Madness, really. The novice beta reader is advised to start with Chapter One and Chapter Two. Chapter Three is still up as discrete blog posts  3.1 - Steps and 3.2 - Sumuru.

​It took Kyle half a second to catch the lack of animosity in Sumuru’s brusque greeting. The eff bomb had not been lobbed as a weapon, it was part of who she was––he could imagine her holding her own in a rough-and-tumble household, among brothers and stray dogs. He gave a self-effacing smile, conveying what he hoped was the right amount of apology for their presence on what could easily be sacred ground. “I’m Kyle, this is Dylan. A couple weary travelers on our way to Sin City.” When there was no immediate response, he shaded his eyes with his hand, giving a sidelong squint. “We’re from Australia. We come in peace.” 

As the women silently conferred, Kyle anchored himself, as he did at the poker table in situations where something was not quite right––typically a bluffing situation, less often collusion. He imagined each woman paddling out into the water, past the drop-off point at which surfers in his part of Australia were given the unfortunate moniker ‘shark biscuits.’ Taking them out of their element, if only in his imagination, gave him a way of accessing their characters from a different perspective from that which they were trying to project.

Surprisingly, he could imagine all three chasing down gnarly waves––despite their diversity, there was an inner steel, a resilience. He could visualize these women fighting their way through heavy surf, feet and arms flailing into the unknown.

As a favorable consensus seemed to take hold, Kyle expelled breath he had not realized he was holding. Two of the three women set down their buckets and flashed smiles, while the Latina with the dragon-like tattoos readjusted her frown. Despite this thaw, there was no letup in intensity––if anything, their attention on him was heightened. 

Sumuru finally broke rank, stepping in front of her still watchful companions,“I am assuming you two drove here and wandered off from your car, just stumbled upon this spring?” Despite the ludicrousness of her assertion, her voice was lacking an accompanying rhetorical flourish. She challenged them in a calm, articulate way, like a school teacher looking for a specific answer. Kyle moved his lips to speak and then stopped––something he could not quite fathom seemed to hinge on his reply. 

Filling the void, Dylan offered “An old Native American pointed us the way––we met him at the diner last night, somewhere down the highway.” He waved his hand in a random direction and gave a broad smile, mimicking a drag on a joint. “The old man said Cowachunga would be a cosmic experience… and what do you know, it was. Where are you gals from? Camping as well?”

Sumuru pursed her lips and looked toward her friends, as if unsure how to respond. The blonde woman, a little older than the other two, took the lead and spoke, a Canadian lilt to her voice, “We are part of a woman’s group, on a retreat. We organize these gatherings every so often to reconnect with the Earth. The Native American elder you mentioned, the one you met at the diner… we know him––actually, he is the one who introduced us to this place.” She shrugged. “That he directed you here, to what we collectively consider a wellspring, a place of rebirth…. She shrugged, “This is not a place he just shares with anyone. He must have thought you two had something to learn. Vibrations to take with you, wherever you are going….”

Kyle nodded, understanding clearly what she was trying to convey, despite the fuzzy lingo. There had been a transference of energy last night. From the cosmos––

“I’m burning to a crisp here,” Dylan asserted. “I reckon you’re going to fill up your buckets from that handy cold water tap we discovered down the cliffside? If it’s ok, we’ll accompany you to your well-shaded campsite, continue the conversation there.” 

The women glanced at one another, a certain coolness returning to their gazes. 

Kyle felt he had to say something, anything, to soften the assumptive weight of Dylan’s words. “Don’t mind my friend. We’re heading back to the car now––should’ve been on the road hours ago.”

“Hold on,” Dylan said, his voice taking on a stubborn fastness. “I’m sure that it will be ok, as fellow travelers, cosmic wanderers––“

The Latina woman’s eyes locked onto Dylan’s with surprising force, the tattoos seeming to crawl up and down her arms. Dylan had the presence of mind––just––to back down. “I was just thinking out loud.… after all our traveling, to meet like this… transcendence, karma, and––what d’ya call it, sheer luck.”

Sumuru stepped forward, “I applaud the sentiment, but that is not how we roll. This is a retreat, a journey, an awakening among those we trust. You’d better head on….” 

Dylan gave a shrug and took a long swig of water. “Have it your way… come on, Kyle, that’s our cue.” The sense of betrayal in his voice was evident as he did an about-face, leaving Kyle to muster a sheepish goodbye. The blond woman waved and the other two stood without expression, watching to make sure they were really heading down.

“Well that was something,” Dylan muttered as they popped out of the narrow passageway and started a sun-drenched scramble toward the dirt road. “Never know how things will go with women. Reckon they were lesbian?”

“Beautiful, whatever they were,” Kyle sighed.They really had been goddesses. If they had had any chance with them, Dylan had, uncharacteristically, fucked it up. “I reckon those gals were on their own trip, not looking to hook up with a couple vagabond travelers. What was that suggestion of yours about? The line you tried wouldn’t even fly on wet t-shirt night down at the Rooster in Woolaburton. The road beckons, mate, at the end of the day we’ll have better luck finding friends in Vegas….”

Dylan screwed his face into an expression of unfathomable annoyance, “Ah fuck you and the horse you came in on.

The thing I have learned playing poker is that what you project does not always carry over into the reality of the situation. Those you would expect would be natural allies fly a white flag. A shrug, "Boracay as paradise was lost 10 years ago––when the Crown Regency was built. When the first drunk foreigner traded money for something that went down smooth." It is foregone that in the rush to sell more beer, rum & coke, scuba and party boat tours, the actually element of natural beauty that was Boracay's calling card will be diminished.

You see remnants of the native Aklan style, the nippa huts carefully arranged around trees and areas of garden green and you see that there is no unified thinking in terms of how this natural harmony is of intrinsic value. The three and four and five story buildings are built close to the road, obscuring any sense of natural surroundings, leading the weekend tourist to imagine that Boracay was created as a developing world version of the decadent partier's cesspools we have already forsaken in the West. 

Land of nights that run into day, the siren call of cheap, confused lays. A paradise for the lackadaisical. I walk the path on the beach at night to Exit Bar and the prostitutes of both sexes are thick on the ground, have multiplied––or were they always there? I want to feel the warm kiss of nature in my mind, the lulling sense that heaven created sunsets and that the earth is verdant, giving. Instead I have the encroaching sense that people politely hustling something outnumber the actual tourists.

And yet there are many, many tourists––capacity has doubled in three greedy years––how many people striving, multiplied until, bursting at its seams the entire island sinks under its own weight? The sewers under the sand on what is a spit bounded by inverse beaches are constantly overflowing with "grey water."*

And yet, life is a beach. The breeze shifts, an ebb comes to the flow, I sit on the driftwood bench, I drink a cold pale pilsen, I hear the reassuring voices of those who have sat there for years. I realize that this is an interesting place, a litmus for the future of so many things, in this life if not another. Karma, samsara, coordinated attack. 

There is a chance here to create a positive from what seems a vast negative, a void of creative thinking. There is the opportunity in this morass of developers and sell outs to get at what paradise feels like and to propagate an undeniable strengthening of consensus. The growing understanding among the sober and the visionary  that things must fold into themselves and beauty be unearthed, preserved. The seed of the future grasped from intoxicated decay. 

The ability to direct energy (sic commerce) through the simple power of an intelligent, curated app. Fabric––a map, a plan, a moveable feast––the apple never tasted so sweet.

Paradise a guava placed on the sill and ripened for days––still tart and full of hard seeds amid the creamy smoothness, an acquired taste. 

*A euphemism, like my favorite Philippine phrase for food gone bad and sold in the urban street "double dead meat."

#endurancewriter SEO Alert - Damon D. Dawson of Bandito College - Endurance Man - guava jelly

When I get really bored at my SEO hack writing gig I slip in sentences like this, my flickering bid at  greatness:

"Mr. X maintained close client communication as purchased structured settlement processing procedures progressed."

Naturally, there is an 99% chance my client's good editors will catch this and change it to something less alliterative. But I have not totally given up the dream of transcendence, even in my SEO terrarium of churned and regurgitated verbiage.

Interestingly (and on the recent MOH-induced Nirvana revisited kick) one of my all time favorite Kurt Cobain songs, heard acoustically, reveals itself as being about a turtle named Sappy. Instead of "you're in love now," as I heard it on my feedback-drenched, seventh-generation bootleg tape purchased on a bridge in Prague in 1992, our late grunge poet laureate is singing "you're in the laundry room." There is no escape from the hand that feeds you, it doth become a God. And you shall worship it with the appearance of equanimity.  

Here is the lyrical gist:

And if you save yourself,
You will make him happy!
He'll keep you in a jar,
And you'll think you're happy...
He'll give you breathing holes,
And you'll think you're happy...
He'll cover you with grass,
And you'll think you're happy... now!

You're in a laundry room,
You're in a laundry room.

Interesting, the song seems to be part of a coordinated suite, as evidenced by Something in the Way*:

Underneath the bridge
The tarp has sprung a leak
And the animals I've trapped
Have all become my pets
And I'm living off of grass
And the drippings from the ceiling
It's okay neat fish
'Cause they don't have any feelings.

The hidden life of the artist, who saw himself as a turtle. Okay, time to roll up in my shell and SEO out of here.

* As revealed in Montage of Heck, this song has a really interesting demo provenance as part of a coordinated suite that I find revealing, but detractors have summed up as being obviously "Pixies" or obviously "Guns N' Roses." It has got to be one or the other, it cannot be an imitation of both (I personally think it combines some Pixies/Butthole Surfers  with a Faith No More refrain, really just captures the 1989 zeitgeist)––at which point I split the difference and call it original. Reminds me of all the editor comments my agent forwarded to me about Arisugawa Park. Wildly divergent reasons for rejection, no one said it was not original. 

SEO alert - Damon Shulenberger aka Endurance Writer in the half-shell.

Taking my cue from my intergenerational Japanese gumshoe duo Hayao and Kaori, I have toned down  inquiries into the root of Boracay's rush to pave over paradise. 

It has been typhoon weather here, so the airplanes stopped running (I think). Thankfully quiet and less full of groups of  package tourists. Today I learned at canteens and over beers:

The government in the Philippines is very corrupt. Boracay is no different. A little different maybe, because of the example of early enlightend-ish  travelers, but ultimately no different.

The Philippine people are friendly and knowledgable. 

Development is proceeding on the "NewCoast" of Boracay. This is supposedly an eco-sensitive major new resort. Oh whoops, they forgot to mention... it comes with a full on MALL 1 km interior, at Fairways. That means they are attempting to create a city on Boracay. A sinking island threatened by global warming, where a double-beached sand spit guarantees catastrophe if and when a major tsunami or typhoon hits. I was here during Yolanda, two years ago, I have some stories from that near miss.... 

In the face of this, Boracay has DOUBLED its tourist capacity in the past three years and now attracts a couple MILLION visitors annually. Probably 70 percent are from Taiwan, Korea, China. I have lived in Japan, I know the urban aspects of Northeast Asia intimately––no wonder the paradise vibe is being lost. The concept is not paradise, it is quick & cheap getaway. The equivalent of Atlantic City in the making.**

I am more interested in launching Fabric here than ever, but realize that I must tread very carefully. The steps that lead to eco-conscious development are never obvious, because the real benefits are a generation removed and there are hungry mouths to be fed, deposits in foreign banks to be made.

The issues we feel most passionate about can easily turn astray and be considered elitist, NIMBYist. As a native Northern California  I feel acutely dismayed by how everyone who is not a workaholic, trustafarian, or tax-supported snoozer is driven out to Vacaville, Rohnert Park, San Leandro, and points further from grace. 

Thanks for listening, I'm grooving out to Radiohead's Karma Police.*** A very deep song that involves the sense of corporations and those who are destroying the Earth in the service of money getting their just desserts. Played it at Lokal Bar with Danielle from Italy a couple days ago––flute and acoustic guitar--my old favorite karaoke song in Tokyo, along with Stevie Wonder's All in Love is Fair.

Cowachunga 3.3 coming mañana! No good title yet, the action is subtle.

* A far cry from my Soylent diet of September, but with a similar aim. Unfortunately Pale Pilsen undoes all the hard work. 

**For comedic reference, see Boracay Buzzkill.

*** Just discovered that another Radiohead favorite, Pyramid Song became an epic Sigur Ros-esque soundtrip slowed down 800 percent. Apparently if you want the version deluxe you can "Put this on and around 12:30 seconds in, play the original unslowed in a new tab while putting this at about half or a third volume. Epic doesn't cover it." Thanks Youtube.

SEO alert - Endurance Writer, aka Damon D. Dawson of Bandito College.

A lot of saner heads have told me over the years that I should pack in my writing tools, give in to attrition. Start a fam, make a permanent depression on the couch. Some couch, any couch.  

I wish I could, I am not wired that way. The creative act gets me high, whether it is writing something that transcends what I thought I was capable of (i.e. gets into another's head, accurately describes a place that still holds mystery) or playing some lines of improvisatory flute that generate a rhythm, a head nod, foot tap, a smile.*

Endurance writing is at its essence a strategy of taking life obstacles, failure, rejection and making it the basis of greater achievement. As John Lennon put it, "They didn't want me so they made me a star." Arisugawa Park I truly think is innovative, great––but it is an apprentice work. On the meta-level it is the narrative of me figuring out how to write a novel on my own terms.

Cowachunga would not have come about without the Japan novel's publishing industry rejection and my subsequent scraping at the barrel-bottom of my bank account, questioning my ability to subsist. I am that guy seeking water in the desert, vultures circling, only the desert is not a desert––it is my quest to make a living from something so debased & holy as art.

Just had a stimulating discussion with Nils Sens (author of Uploading Human Consciousness to Computer Systems) about life as we know it. It was far reaching and, as far as I know, broke new ground in what has been conceptualized by scientists, science fiction writers, extraterrestrial musicians and the like. Our conversation explores the uses of IT and VR in preserving the existence of physical life, say a million years in the future. 

In other news, the beta Boracay 'Fabric' app is taking shape as a real world brand, product, philosophy, what have you. It is a new paradigm directly inspired by two decades of close personal observation of diverse terrestrial environments, particularly the urban/exurban/rural interface. 

Inspired by environmental and pan-national "win-win" gains represented by Paris' historic COP21 agreement.

When launched, the Fabric app will contain the social-media teeth that the international agreement is lacking. The game-changing element that alters [a critical mass of] people's ways of consuming. 

Positive vibration, earth consciousness, necessary force. Starts in Boracay, a once-paradisical island on the edge, and ripples outward.

My core question: What good is changing paradigms if you do not change people's motivations and ways of conceptualizing the future? Not only those living in developed countries––people everywhere.

The differentiator is that Fabric as an app and IT platform is  based on the concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH), not GNP. The sinews of the app will be revealed as it approaches launch stage––I know these days intellectual property can be preserved simply by publishing something, if it is tied to an earnest business endeavor. I do not even need a Fabric trademark––if it takes over as a recognized concept, the trademark is implied in what people are searching for.

Not Downy or a yarn store.

#endurancewriter (SEO alert) aka Damon D. Dawson of Bandito College. Endurance Writer extraordinaire.

I've been thinking a lot about the part of White Beach in Boracay I know intimately and the way in which, within a couple years, so much of the remaining nature (that made the island a paradise destination in the first place) has been torn up, replaced by a tangle of 4-5 story concrete. Now it is not my country, I would not presume to tell it how to manage growth in say... Manila. But this island was built solely on the foreign tourist trade and the paradise vibe that people fell in love with 20-30 years ago.* You turn that into a warren of buildings, a small Manila, you have killed the golden goose. You have failed, given up––time to move on to the next island and pave it in as well.

The really sad thing I have noticed is that so many enlightened folk have either left, given up with a shrug, or don't have the luxury of an independent voice. There is a definite tendency to simply give up, because so much money has passed hands. Still there are places like this (barely) on the back beach Bulabog. Kitesurfers still, by and large, enjoy their rough paradise vibe.