Rockport Sunday

"Thanks for the joy that you're given me
I want you to know I believe in your song
Your rythym and rhyme and harmony
You've helped me along
Makin' me strong.
Oh, give me the beat, boys, and free my soul
I want to get lost in your rock and roll
And drift away . . ."
Mentor Williams, Drift Away

Monday AM, liked JR's Facebook page last night so, after scanning the awesome @girlsgoneSTRONG photos and reading CT's wry and gentle post re Stanford loss from a Marina bar, enjoyed a morning commute listening to Tom Rush and scanning JR's work, answering the intermittent email and sketching out the course of the day. Rush going from No Regrets to Rockport Sunday in 1972 from the Lenox lounge. Rush is still touring and sounds great and is funny as hell to boot. Will never forget concert in 1976 with the unbelievably beautiful DD; she'd asked me to go, Rush opened for Kenny Rankin. Sixteen and terrified but relaxed after a couple of Rush tunes, at least enough to steal sideways glances at DD's lovely profile before youth and nerves cost any other opportunities.

Thanks Tom, you did your part:
 
Listen to more Tom Rush at Wolfgang's Vault.


Monday included 30 minutes on elliptical in am,
Then Pradeep, killer. Sweating too much next to model buddy.

Tuesday
Scramble all day. Late meeting with opposing counsel on a dog case. Let's settle the dog so we can really work together. Late to CT, could have rolled north much easier, fuck that let's do this instead:
20 28kg swings to descending 10-1 squat ladder, 24. Sweatfest, voodoo sandwich between swings and squats. Very fond of CT, she just rocks in her completely odd way.

Wednesday. Boatload of work; planned rest, you did it, yay !

Thursday
Another boatload of work day. Bail at 3:15 for haircut and illusory client meeting after. The client was a 28kg bell. I'd feel bad, except practice has stayed fully intact and grown quite nicely since I started this drill after the dog was dumped on me seven years ago. Practice intact, body transformed, nothing wrong with this picture:

10+10 x 3 single arm 16 warm up

15 spider pushups
5+5 28kg squat to press
10 + 10 28kg rows
10 20kg double snatch
20 28kg swings
x5

Pretty good; about 32,000 pounds in all.

Find a recent Rush show on NPR. Sounds great and closes with a sweet version of Drift Away. check it at 18:36. Rush is a really fine guitar player and the harmonics tossed in on the second verse are perfectly pitched
 http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=105517273&m=105374327


60 min mh yoga. Slow is hard; always.

Saturday
Get up, sit down and don't move until 5:30. DOMS at shoulders and triceps posterior chain. Actually feels pretty good. Squat to press and pushups and double snatch lingering.  Rest day, planned only in the back of the mind, but probably the right thing to do . . .

McMurtry Is A Genius

 "Strap them kids in
Give 'em a little bit of vodka in a cherry coke
We're going to Oklahoma to the family reunion for the first time in years
It's up at uncle Slayton's cause he's getting on in years
You know he no longer travels but he's still pretty spry
He's not much on talking and he's just too mean to die
And they'll be comin' down from Kansas
and from west Arkansas
It'll be one great big old party like you never saw."
James McMurtry, Choctaw Bingo

Really; he is. @jasonisbell is touring with him and tweets a lot; recently my favorite line from Hurricane Party: "I don't want another drink I only want the last one again."  We are headed to the holidays.  Need to place family gatherings in proper perspective and James can help with that.




Good sub for Pradeep Friday. 90 minutes of only the second class of the week, it's strong.

Saturday
Long dog walk with two teenagers. Should have done bells but back not good so lay back.

Sunday
B and I head in for Ericka's class. B is totally pumped and rocks it out in his barryness way. It's 90 minutes and a really good class; he loves the one foot stuff and I love the weight of him in assisting, working to get him square; dropping the hip, turning the shoulder. Doing the scrub and shave thing after, Barry strutting about the @equinox locker room in his towel, drying the hair, rockin' the gel.

Monday
I am so fucking busy. Spend the day scrambling to close, to keep up, to catch up.
Bail to gym. Want to try @giryagirl's double workout. Have not eaten well, push:

10+10x3 16kg swing warm up.

30 seconds double kettlebell swings, 30 seconds rest
30 seconds double kettlebell clean and press, 30 seconds rest
30 seconds push ups, 30 seconds rest
30 seconds renegade rows, 30 seconds rest
30 seconds double kettlebell front squats, 30 seconds rest
30 seconds double kettlebell snatches*, 30 seconds rest
30 seconds L-sit (using handles of kettlebells), 30 seconds rest

20's except for clean and press and rows, up to 24's. Want to do 4; front squats drop to 3. Planks. 45 rkc front, same sides x 2.

Home to dog farts and coconut curry.

Tuesday
Nothing but work

Wednesday
Bad back last two days. Head to mh 5:15 and realize my hamstrings are so tight it's nuts. We do an hour of hamstring work and walk out a new person.

Barry, Robert Plant and I are fan photo of the day on HSB. By end of it we have 100 likes and some nice comments. Robert is fucking awesome; Choctaw Bingo is epic and I roll off the boat while James sings and I fantasize about RuthAnn and Lynn. No one should know anything about the mind of a man wearing earbuds and listening to James McMurtry.

Thursday
Another off day. Hamstring releases helped but back still hinky. Day of rolling disappointments, no EH at noon, want to get to CT for like the first time in two months at 6:45 but no, work and conference calls until 7:00; fucking race to the ferry to listen to Just Us Kids and We Can't Make It Here and home where I go upstairs immediately because I don't want to watch Close Encounters for the 47th time. Rose hops on the bed and I curse fucking Vista cause the sound is dead and I can't stream Freeway View and it really sucks. The @girlsgoneSTRONG crew are together in Baltimore and looking forward to awesomeness on social media; those ladies are seriously bad ass.

Friday
Back much better. Rose looks hopeful as I pull on the jeans but her hopes are dashed as I gotta roll out and be special master starting at at 8:45; fortunately the folks who've hired me won't see me at 8:45 in old turtleneck and ragged levis. Listen to Memorial Day, and then Choctaw Bingo once again . . .
Write off lunch kbells just to give back a little more time and opt for 38 minutes on elliptical. There is no cell service in the dungeon gym and listen to to Europe 72, hitting 180 strides per minute for some time as Jerry streams molten silver on I Know You Rider and the gang flies along like that northbound train in the song.
100 minutes of Pradeep starting at 5:00, which is the best way ever to end the week. He runs us through a plank series, 30 seconds on forearms and then up and hold it. lift one leg, then the other, then one arm, other, and finishes it off with bird dog in plank. CT has helped here and I lock down the lats and delts, draw in the tricep and its rock solid. Yeah I'm old but . . .

Saturday
Long dog walk, back tight. Leave it at that. Take Ian to BATS 25th anniversary and giggle with him.

Sunday
Football and plotting for major clean up next weekend. Go out at half:

10+10 16kg one arm swings x 3

1-5+1-5 press ladder, 24kg
10 24kg goblet squats
5+5 36kg rows to same, 32
5-1+5-1 25kg single arm swing ladder
X 5

Nice circuit, 75 each side, more than 28k in volume in about 40 minutes.

"Bought a SKS rifle and a couple a full cases of that steel core ammo
With the berdan primers from some East bloc nation that no longer needs 'em
And a Desert Eagle that's one great big ol' pistol
I mean .50 caliber made by badass Hebrews
And some surplus tracers for that old BAR of Slayton's
Soon as it gets dark we're gonna have us a time "

I guess that's the way you write when Dad is a Pulitzer prize winner; Ian's pretty good anyway . .  .

Play It As It Lays

"You have to pick the places you don't walk away from."
Joan Didion 

I have not always picked well; need to work on that . . .

Monday
Lunch with Lauren S who is smart and quick and starting out well. Busy busy busy from the minute I sit down at 8:30 and it's brutal. Not feeling it; feeling shitty in fact. Come within a hairs width of bagging it. Heading to gym-actually turned away and headed east, forced the turn around. You are strong, you are beautiful, give it a go.
And so goes like:
10+10 x 5 16kg warm-up
To:
10 alternating 24kg press to 5 doubles
15+15 Bulgarian split squats, body weight
10 reverse pullups off of Smith machine
Suitcase deads with bar, 170lbs
x5

That was a boatload of volume for feeling shitty; back did not feel like ballistics but the deads felt really good.
Was about 35,000 pounds moved in an hour which is quite a bit for an old guy. Felt the split squats for two days.

IST put up his pictures last night. Threw everything up there good or bad. He has far to go with his camera technique but got some awesome shots; technique kinda drops away when an African Elephant is filling the frame.

He has seen much in his 18 years. He has been on boats surrounded by hundreds of dolphins around. He has seen Rissos, northern right whale dolphins and Dahl's porpoises in numbers. He has seen bottle nose from the beach and from a boat. He has seen Orcas, Humpbacks and Blue Whales in large concentrations.

He often said he hated those trips but then chose to go halfway across the globe to count primates, see elephants, wildebeest, cape buffalo, zebra, impala, dik dik, ostrich, lion, baboons and what else I don't want to think about in the streets of Mombasa.

He is interested in travels and that he is fortunate to have family that will support him. Nothing about such interest strikes me as remarkable, but others seem to think it is.

Much better by Tuesday am but long day with loan docs and more office bullshit kills any thought of late yoga and it becomes an off day by default. I hate and resent those but I should probably grow up.

Wednesday
Wasted time dealing with client past. Leave late to blow off steam with @giryagirl Monday Mayhem circuit on Wednesday. Great ballistics and fun like this:
10+10 x 3 single arm swing 16kg warmup, then

15 double swings, 20kg's
5 clean and press, twin 24
5+5 renegade rows 24kg to 5 push ups
5 front squats, twin 20
3x

3 tgu, 24

10+10 tactical lunge, 20 kg
10 20kg slingshots
10 24kg figure 8 to hold
20 28 KG swings
x3

The 28 has been the tgu bell for a bit now and the 24 felt like a toy. I can remember when it was shaky. Pretty happy with the double 20 swings, felt good and yeah with the big sport bells the doubles look badass. But lost the grip on the 24 figure 8's last circuit and nearly crushed the phone. Good times, good sweat.

Walk in the door and house exploding with the smell of roast chicken and thyme. Brigid is home and on a mission and in addition to the roast bird and veggies and stuffing it's homemade apple pie (all organic). B sits down to his full plate and smiles; his eyebrows go up: "ok ! Yummy."
Could not love it more.

Thursday
Morning brings email streams starting at 6:50 with Gillian and Dave's Newport set streaming as we skim across the flat bay returning again to concrete, steel and problems. Back ok after last evenings 88lb swings.
Sit down at 8:30 after straight calls since walking off the boat and do not look up until 1:15 when it occurs to me that if I don't eat I'm toast. Grab spider roll and silk swathed korean beauty buddy slips freebees in the to go bag and smiles broadly. Whatever the impulse I'll take it and dash back.
Force it up and head to EH. Chatting beforehand she'd heard about Pradeep's stunning class Friday; her 5:00 is mostly middle aged men like me and it's dialed back appropriately.
Just breathe, can be the hardest part and without it the rest is shit. Oh yeah, whatever it is it's perfect. I forgot.

Friday
Deja Vu breakfast with mf.
In for multiple serial calls with one insane and one crazed client.
Split to 5:00 Pradeep; it's so so great, roll out toasted and drenched down market in vff past occupysf and skim back to suburbs.

Saturday
Walk the dog with Brigid and watch her chase lizards. Brigid, not dog.
I gotta get three and Cal sucks so out back for;
15/15 7 rep pace with 16kg x 60.
Boils down to 30 min of speed snatch work. Been pimping @girlsgoneStrong in cyberspace and the awesome @kathrynbudig replied; seven rep pace too comfortable, time to escalate.

Sunday
On phone by 6:00 with clients on Mumbai. My day is quickly fucked and I am fried by 12:00 pst. Rest day.

Monday
Halloween. Flying from 7:00 am to 4:00. Get up and leave. Hah. Steal into gym for 45 for this 28kg fest:
10+10x3 16 KG warmup

20 and 24 KG warmup press sets, to keep shoulder happy, then

3+3 28 short cycle c&p
10 28 GS
10+10 28 KG rows
5-1 28kg single arm swing ladder
28kg tgu
X5.
Tear two way too high callouses on left hand on first set of swings; get through.

Trick or Treat with b, love it so.

Tuesday. Wake up to 18 emails, fuck me.
MH at 5:00, good.

Wednesday
Spend the day bringing it.  Plan on late pm blowout, the plan is set.  Leave Oakland meeting at 3:45 and head to gym.  Sitting on steps in the sun, productive calls and emails.  But then incoming oh fuck.
My achilles heel is that I give a shit, I do.  When someone deploys the nuclear option, I care about the fallout.  So sitting there on the steps in the sun the oh fuck holds the narrative hostage.  Its chemical, I wish it was not so.  I would like to compartmentalize.  But cortisol kicks in and I'm getting freaked out calls from another time zone.  Bag it, cost of wearing heart on sleeve.  Play it as it lays.

Thursday
Another nutso start.  Break away at lunch:

10+10x 3 16kg single arm swing warm-up

Burpees to  3 push-up to twin 32 suitcase deads x 5
10+10 step back lunge, 24 in rack
10+10 32 kg rows
10 squat to press, 90lb barbell
x3

Smoked after 35 minutes, want to do snatch work

15 + 15 swing to snatch combo, 24kg
set off to do 25+25 with 20, but hit wall at 15.  You're done dude, should have eaten at 10:00.

Sleeve is a good place to wear it.  Wow.
http://jr-art.net/