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Dr. Jack Kruse, Neurosurgeon, is a Big Fucking Liar

May 16th, 2012 · Heroes & Villains

Now I know

I was admonished over and over. For months. By "People." Many..."People." Now, mind you: everyone lies. Really. But I've always been the sort to dismiss so-called "white lies," and hyperbole. Moreover, I sit as my own judge in determining for myself whether any particular lie rises to my own standard of outrage—because everyone should have their own standard of outrage.

Let's take progress pics, mine included: tan, suck in the gut a bit—not too much—suitable clothing, decent photography, etc.

Like this?

Screen Shot 2012 05 16 at 10 15 21 AM
Dr. Jack Kruse, Nov. 2009?

No, not even close, and anyone with just a small bit of sense would know immediately it's not only not Dr. Kruse, but most likely never will be. But can you prove it? Indeed, you can. So here goes.

I got emailed a link last evening, right here (if you don't click & look, you'll be a bit lost going forward). It's a screen clip of a photo posted at 7:02pm on May 9, 2012, to IPMG (International Paleo Movement Group) by Jack Kruse from his personal FB profile (not the one representing his blog/website). Yes, as my earlier post attests and is totally genuine, that group is awesome. But this is how I found out about it...not getting out, much. So, please don't let this post dissuade you in any way from enjoying the huge value that group is creating day by day.

Like I said, I knew immediately that was not Jack's back. And I could not imagine how someone could be so brash as to try to pass it off as such. Given events recently, the spoof/parody Twitter account, and still extending (expending?) every benefit of doubt I could until my eyes bled out, I noted that Jack's blog/website account is "Dr. Jack Kruse" and this was from "Jack Kruse," and with a different profile pic. Was he being spoofed, again? Well, it didn't take long to discover he has a personal FB as well, and he has a lot of posts on it tagged public, so you know it's him (plus, the who's who of friends he has).

I then joined IPMG, and scrolled for a long time (there are just tons and tons of posts there, every day) to get a single week back to assure myself that yes, Jack did, in fact, post this:

Screen Shot 2012 05 16 at 8 26 47 AM
Screen Shot 2012 05 16 at 8 26 47 AM

...And you know what? I have debated with myself, talked to "People" on the phone, etc. ...Over the last six hours, deciding first to give it a rest and deliberate, and so on. ...And then I look at those comments to that post.

And then I look at those comments to that post

And then, I look at those comments to that fucking post....

Every time I do, I feel more and more ashamed for extending the benefit of the doubt, getting in huge arguments with "People"...even telling some "People" to fuck off, including one of the nearest, dearest and best "People" friends I've ever had.

Go look through the hard ass work some of these people are doing at IPMG and posting it, including women in their panties. Their own hard work; and then, imagine that someone just has to 1-up everybody; and even to the point where, because he's a doc & surgeon—and ought righteously to be above reproach—they innocently submit to him.

Evil? You decide.

Jack Kruse, in the end, asked more than I could ever give and I was willing to give a fuck of a lot. I was willing to put up with his over the top hyperbole as just an ethic: people put up with my over the top blogging in terms of being whatever it is people think of me. I'm paying back.

I've had numerous exchanges with him by text and phone. I always thought he was worth the effort.

But I'm done.

Blogging is being yourself. If you're playing a role, you have a website. I've been being myself and blogging about it—with all the stinky included, since 2003—and it 'aint worth Jack, or anyone else. BTW, giving Jack leeway wasn't unprecedented, even amongst the so-called "Paleo elite." Robb Wolf did, but he became impatient too. I doubt Robb would regret that I mention that he and I had a long email exchange over that, and the real gist is, it's a bummer. Jack is really dynamic and hype be dammed. He could help a lot, but this level of lying is just not something I can abide.

Yes, I did the reverse image search on the photo as well, as my final step of due diligence even though I knew precisely what I would find. If you have any further doubts, click here, courtesy of more good "People."

OK, so now I invite every single People or just people to tell me "I told you so." I guess I deserve it. The one thing is, I no longer have to take anyone's word for it and that's an important thing for me. Yea, I suppose I could have dug, so it's not a huge point.

Onward.

Addendum (5/17/2012): Having looked at at all the comments so far and the other action here and there and around, seeing pretty much what I expected, I figured it was perhaps time to add a bit to the post about the first couple of times Jack made me doubt his sincerity. I brushed those two things off as "strikes 1 & 2," but it's not as though, as some of Jack's defenders attest, that I just went off half-cocked here.

First of all, I talked to Jack by phone—basically a mini-interview—in advance of my first post about him and the controversy involving Leptin Reset and Cold Thermogenesis. I thought both protocols had merit and wanted to spread the word. I'd already seen his Tedx Talk and how he described having had surgery without general anesthesia, went home, had his wife and daughter pack him in ice, etc., etc. As I asked him about all of this over the phone he added that it was that night, January 9th, that I had spoken with him on the phone.

Ever been in a conversation with someone and out of politeness, don't call them on an inconsistency? Perhaps he's mistaken. I didn't actually know which specific evening I'd spoken with him and it's 3 months later. So, maybe he's mistaken about the day. Give it a pass.

Now in retrospect, perhaps it was very important because, you see, for three months I had in mind that when I called, Jack was doing a major CT self experiment. I forget how many hours he said he was going to do, but:

  1. He said not one word about having surgery.
  2. He said not one word about injecting himself with bacteria.

When I asked why he was doing this, he said, "chronic back pain." He also said that his family had no idea he was doing this, that he had taken time off work to do it, had someone watching over him, and that he was eating during the experiment. So, the Tedx talk 3 months later is the first time I hear about the bacteria, surgery, and that his family was involved in the ice packing. Still, I didn't not connect that with my previous conversation with him because there was essentially nothing about the stories that were the same. So when he claimed our conversation was that same night I should probably have not given it a pass, but I did.

Next, during that same phone conversation in advance of my first post, he told me about his "Factor X" and I believe my response was along the lines of 'huh, interesting.' Later, in his podcast interview Abel James, that somehow gets translated into "Richard was totally blown away!" I think he even said it twice. Perhaps it would have been nitpick of me to bring it up then, but not so much now.

Anyway, Jack initially had quite a lot of defenders in this comment thread coming in to complain, then explain how Jack's Facebook account got hacked, etc. They appear to have been silenced, as it has been pointed out that while Jack says he was not on FB at all on May 9th (and was "hacked"), there's 10 other posts from him on his personal FB page that people have screen clips of (in case they've been deleted to cover tracks), and there's posts on his fan page as well, as well as interaction with commenters. In short, there's a whole lot of reasons this simply was not a hack, and essentially no reasons—without trying to explain how the planets orbit the earth—that it was.

And there's a whole lot more.

Finally, as I've said to others in comments, I understand that everyone arrives at their own conclusions in their own time, and based on differing amounts of information. And that's totally fine. I'm just saying that what I've found and have posted about is now plenty for me.

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A Plug for IPMG (International Paleo Movement Group) on Facebook

May 16th, 2012 · Product & Service Reviews

I don't get out, much. That is, with the blog, other writing projects underway—and dealing with my own comments, Twitter, my own FTA Facebook Page, my Google+ Page—I have little time to pay a lot of attention to what others are doing.

But I got wind yesterday of IPMG on Facebook. It's a "closed" group, which means you have to request membership. Standing currently at 2,430 members, I got my request approved by Karen Pendergrass in a matter of seconds, and I got a welcome too from Tim Swart, one of the other moderators.

I must say, it's a wildly active group. Dozens of posts per day with people like you posting their food pics, their progress pics, and whatnot that's otherwise motivational.

My only complaint is the name of the group. After having a good look around, I think it should be something like:

IPITG: International Paleo Improving Tush Group

Alternatively, IPEG: International Paleo Exhibitionist Group

Or even, International Paleo Improving Tush Exhibitionist Group.

You get the idea. It's pretty amazing, actually with literally hundreds, perhaps thousands showing what Paleo has and is continuing to do for them. And some of the Paleo chicks who absolutely should, have no qualms about posing in their knickers, and that's a good thing. In terms of the "Success Stories" I and others feature on their blogs, this is more credible by nature—as there are folks from all over self reporting.

Good show, folks. All around good show.

Now go take a look.

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Free the Animal Book Trailer – 2nd Try

May 13th, 2012 · Product & Service Reviews

Thanks to all the helpful input I got from the 1st try at this, I put together a new one. Short & sweet at 1:15.

So sometime this week my publisher will be kicking off a special promotion for the book, for which sales are still remarkably going very well—in spite of the odd silly review on amazon.

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Guest Post by Sean Abbott: Stranger in A No Longer Quite So Strange Land

May 11th, 2012 · Travel, Fun & Lifestyle

A couple of weeks ago I had a fucking brilliant idea. That was after I was thinking about commenters who add so much value around here. I wondered to myself, how can I repay them, beyond just engaging as much in comments as time allows? Once I asked the question the answer seemed too obvious: give the best ones center stage now and then.

Sean Abbott at Prague Stepchild was an easy first on the list. Lots of commenters come and go, but Sean somehow finds a way to add value to virtually every post I do, and he's been doing it for a long time. He's a veritable co-blogger in that sense. So here we go. The first in a long series, perhaps every couple of weeks. I already have a couple of others in mind.

~~~

As an American who's going on 17 years living as an expat in Prague, Czech Republic, I suppose one of my biggest self-identifying characteristics is being an expat. One has to be careful self-identifying with things like this, or thinking 'this is what makes me a unique snowflake'. I remember when having long hair was an important part of my identity. And that's frankly pathetic. Still, having spent more of my adult life abroad than in my native land has come to shape a lot of who I am today.

When I first moved to Europe I had a bad case of white liberal American guilt. I only spoke two languages (and my Spanish, even at it's best was never exactly stellar), Bill Clinton was getting impeached for getting a blowjob, OJ Simpson had just been aquitted of a crime everyone knew he was guilty of, etc.

Living abroad cured me of all that. Nowadays, with a lot more perspective, I'm not ashamed to identify myself as an American, or to realize that America has a healthy percentage of the smartest humans on the planet.

Yes, I'm now going to start making some broad sweeping generalizations about Americans and Europeans.

America has more stupid people per capita than Europe. They also have more intelligent, risk-takers and I'd say more interesting, wacky people in general. In other words, American has a flatter bell curve with more people at both ends of the spectrum (or spectrums) than Europe, probably a result of hundreds of years of European emigration. Lots of miscreants emigrated because they were losers, but lots of them didn't fit in because they had higher intelligence, along with the drive to take the risk of looking for greener pastures.

Europeans have it tougher in general, so they tend to be leaner and meaner than Americans. This is mostly my experience living here in Prague, but I think it generalizes to many European countries. Things are frickin' expensive here, thanks to taxes, regulations and tariffs, purchasing power, even with a decent salary, is much less than in America. Buying things in general is much more painful, with less availability, ruder shopkeepers, more crowded stores, etc. As a consequence Europeans are much more careful with their money. People have effectively less money, but they spend it in much better ways. They buy nicer stuff for their usually smaller flats, they take nicer vacations, etc. Americans work harder than Europeans, or at least a lot more hours, but they tend to spend more of their spare time and money buying giant TV sets and watching them. Sort of like the days when buying a CD or even an LP (explained here for you youngins) was a big deal. One was very careful what to buy, and then it was listened to over and over.
Europeans are more provincial than Americans. Sure, there is the cliché of the suave European who speaks seven languages, dresses impeccably, has a flat in Paris, Milan and London, etc. And those people certainly exist. But the average European only speaks one language, travels abroad only on group tours where they stay in their little bubble speaking their own language, and receives their news and entertainment from state-owned TV station(s).

Most Europeans think they are familiar with Americans, they see our movies, TV shows, they see American tourists, they think they know Americans. And this false familiarity breeds provincial contempt, because most of these people have never lived in America, spent much time there beyond a week in New York, or even interacted with an American at all beyond the internet, yet they feel qualified to piss and moan about how we are all ignorant cowboys.

vI also think there's a much stronger undercurrent of independent thought in America. Yes, the United States has it's cathedrals of political correctness, but this disease has a much stronger foothold in Britain and Scandanavia in my experience. Americans tend to be, or at least have more opportunity to be, less conformist than the average European.

The thing is, none of these sweeping generalizations really matter, because while people are different all over the world, they are also mostly the same. Of course, there's only two things I hate in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's cultures and the Dutch. I'm not saying let's all hold hands and sing Kumbaya, because I'm really quite the misanthrope. What I'm saying is that it's easy to talk in platitudes, but actually living in other countries helps one to understand, on a visceral level, that other cultures can be different, and how they are different. I'd say it is similar to people who've never spent any time around animals (kitties and puppies don't count), yet have so much 'respect' for them that they demand the world renounce meat. The reality is that farm animals are dirty, stupid and even dangerous. Still, the ranchers I've known who raise livestock to be slaughtered love and respect their animals, much more than the vegan animal rights activist spouting empty platitudes like 'meat is murder'.

Finally, here is my opinion on travel and language:

Travel Tips

My idea of traveling is to go to one place and soak up the atmosphere. Find a nice pub or cafe to become a regular at, learn or improve your grasp of the local tongue, explore the less-beaten pathways, the local haunts, etc.

I've had to wrangle with the wife about this one. She used to be into the idea of stuffing in as many sights as possible but I've managed to win her around, more or less.

I've seen the Eiffel tower, but I don't remember much about it. However, I do have fond memories of playing a pick-up basketball game under the shadow of the Eiffel tower (there are, or used to be courts at the far end of the park). Me, two Aussies who were staying in the same hostel, and a French guy versus four Italians. Ironically, I was probably the worst of the bunch (although I'm almost 6'4" so that makes up for a lot). It was a hell of a game and we barely won—fist pump.

When I'm on my death bed, I'll probably remember things like that multinational pickup basketball game more than how many famous buildings or works of art I've seen. 

Language

Languages are great. But they also require a huge amount of time and energy, and they are only useful if you are going to actually use them. Okay, languages do have some intrinsic value, they give one insight into one's own language and teach grammar (I never really learned English grammar until I studied Spanish). But if you already speak English, the fact is you can get by with this in most places. Spending four years studying French is great, but if you only use it for two weeks in your life on a dream vacation to France, was it really worth the effort?

There are plenty of skills that might pay off much better depending on one's life choices, learning an instrument, learning a sport, etc.

I don't have a problem with learning a language per se, but as someone whose American Language Guilt has been assuaged by knowing three of them, having encountered many Europeans who could barely speak their own language, and being someone for whom languages do not come naturally, I think they should be put in perspective.

That being said, knowing a language is going to help open doors. An American friend of mine majored in chemistry and Russian in college, and now he's living in Kaliningrad, married to a Russian woman with two kids. Had he not had that language under his belt his life would've definitely taken a different and probably less interesting path.

Another advantage of knowing a language is language groups. Master any Slavic language and it is much easier to learn or even get by in any of their cousins. Ditto for the romance languages and other language groups (so stay away from Hungarian!).

If you do want to learn a language quickly, technology has made things much easier nowadays. I think Gabriel Wyner has some excellent advice along these lines.

...Okay, that's it. I want to thank Richard for allowing me this opportunity to guest post without saying fuck even once.

[I took care of that in the intro - Ed]

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Man Alive! A Survival Manual For the Human Mind.

May 10th, 2012 · Evolutionary Culture, Evolutionary Mind

ManAliveCoverSmall

I read this free 75-page ebook in the space of a few hours Sunday before last and knew immediately that I wanted to feature it here. It's one of the most interesting and unique liberty, individualist, egoist, anti-autharitorian (of all kinds) books I've ever read—and I've read a lot of them.

It's not only about thinking for yourself, but for yourself. ...As in, something the author, Greg Swann, terms Self Adoration, which is the name of his blog that serves as companion to the book.

I think you'll find the writing style clever and unique. Greg has a really delightful method of describing complex philosophical ideas and logical fallacies—and Latin too—in a single phrase, so as to never bog the reader down in minutiae, unbridled deconstruction, or just filling space either to impress you, or to come in where you need to be in the economies of scale for a traditional book.

I'm quickly coming to see and agree with Seth Godin that the future of publishing is in short ebooks, and that if you can't get what needs to be said in under 100 pages, then maybe you ought to write two books—or maybe none at all. Look at it this way: The Communist Manifesto was only about 80 pages, as I recall, and look what influence it had on the entire planet. So here's the introduction from the book and why you want to consider reading this and spreading it around.

Save the world from home – in your spare time!

That headline is my favorite advertising joke, a send-up of all those hokey old matchbook covers. I don’t know if anyone still advertises on matchbook covers. I don’t even know if anyone still makes matchbooks. Presumably, by now, smokers can light their cigarettes with the fire of indignation in other peoples’ eyes.

But I have always believed that ordinary people should be able to save the world from going to hell on a hand-truck. Our problem is not the tyrant-of-the-moment. The only real problem humanity has ever had is thoughtlessness – the mindless acquiescence to the absurd demands of demagogues.

That’s the subject of this little book: The high cost of thoughtlessness – and how to stop paying it. It weighs in at around 75 pages. I’m nobody’s matchbook copywriter, and I would have made it even shorter if I could have. But it covers everything I know about the nature of human life on Earth – what we’ve gotten wrong, until now, and how we can do better going forward.

Why did I bother? Because the world we grew up in is crashing down around our ears. Nothing has collapsed yet, and there is no blood in the streets – so far. But as the economists say, “If something can’t go on forever, it won’t.” My bet is that you have been watching the news and wondering what you will do, if things get ugly.

Doesn’t that seem like a fate worth avoiding? And yet: What can one person do? My answer: Read – and propagate – these ideas. The book itself is offered at no cost – and it always will be. Even so, the price I ask is very high: You have to pay attention.

If you find that you like this book, I encourage you to share it freely, far and wide, in any form, with anyone you choose. Print it, photo-copy it, email it – shout it from the rooftops if you like. You can read it at SelfAdoration.com (back-up), or you can download an easy-to-share PDF version (back-up). If you post to public forums or you have your own web site or weblog, download the propagation kit (back-up).

Why should you bother? Because if anything is going to save civilization from tyranny, it will be ordinary people like us. And there are at least 2.5 billion of us on the internet. Think what a big difference some new ideas could make in that many human lives.

How do you save the world from home in your spare time? One mind at a time...

~~~

So as you may suspect, professional philosophers, journalists, ivory tower professors and the elite in general are pretty much going to hate this book. Actually, they'll just ignore it. The only way they won't be able to ignore it is if everyday regular people don't let them, and for that it needs to spread. But of course, you're in this all alone (which happens to be the title of chapter 1) and for that fact alone, you get to judge, you get to decide.

I got on Skype the other day to chat with Greg about himself and the book, for those interested in digging deeper.

Greg also does a lot of videos on his own site, and he uses a guitar as a prop which I find quite endearing. I liked this one in particular.

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“Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me”

May 9th, 2012 · Evolutionary Mind

Mommy, he called me a name!

Long before we all became a bunch of stupid cunts feigning "hurt," that was the idiomatic wisdom. I'm sure I must've heard it first from my mom; and I remember it, misogynist that I am. But I'll get to that, later.

Because I'm not puerile, I have no problem shooting a link to anyone I'm highlighting, like Evelyn Kocur over at Carb Sane-Asylum.

But Angry Dick Nickoley is on it! Yes, he's all over this case. [...]

Oooh ... Dick, I'm not afraid of you. You do realize using the c-word makes you appear to be a very very small ummm ... man. Right? Eh, probably not. I forgot. Nine years, 3000 posts and a sh!tload more comments than I can ever hope for here and all that. Yeah, Jack went to the right hack.

But I dunno, perhaps she was only reluctant to link to me because she's been all over the comments and has generally been subjected to her own beating, as I am in hers. She's being beaten up (that's a metaphor, BTW—as misogynist can quickly become batterer) for her general approach in attempting to appear more important than Gary Taubes, Jimmy Moore, Jack Kruse, et al, put together, by simply putting in the minimal effort necessary to find faults in them. She "creates" by means of destruction. So I don't expect her to have ever read Bastiat on the essential underlying matter. Or, more poignantly, to have in any way connected those dots to applications to her own methods. Hey, I guess someone needs to fill the role of being the place where all the haters and "hurt" people go. And the indignant. And the self-righteous.

We live in a climate now where the incentive is to certainly not be honest. You can even use words in your apology like "dick-stepping," "stupid," "fuck up," or whatever, and it really doesn't matter whether you just self immolate or provide any context behind why you as a human over years of observation may have been led to certain action that at a point you realized was wrong, and why.

Now, apologies get deconstructed. I suppose there's good reason for that because politicians do it all the time and, of course, they don't usually mean it. Those get deconstructed too...that's what we do, now, so the calculus becomes: keep lying; defend, deny. And that's the totally safest course, because you'll have enough fans to defend you. You've been sleeping in a cave if you don't know what I mean.

Onward.

Yesterday's post was about someone fallaciously reporting a potential bio-terrorist attack on a cruise ship ready to sail, on the part of Neurosurgeon Jack Kruse, MD, who got booted off, and where 300 people had signed up and paid in part to see him speak—in spite of having been cleared by authorities. He had his room and luggage ransacked by ship personnel, local authorities, the FBI, Homeland Security and the Coast Guard before they told him what he was suspected of.

Then he gets to walk the gang plank, luggage in hand, in view of all, and nobody knows what's up. It wasn't until about a day later that the 300 attendees to Jimmy Moore's 2012 Low-Carb Cruise knew the story.

"We hate Jack Kruse." Ergo, he deserved it, got what was coming to him.

"Serves him right."

"Richard, you're a DICK for suggesting that Jack go civil and sue whoever ends up being behind it."

...And on and on. Jacks a "bad guy," so anything goes and besides, it's all so funny. But not only that. I guess the implications of my original post weren't clear, because this was the very first comment.

Beth@WeightMaven // May 8, 2012 at 12:27 (Edit)

Re: “They use the word all the time and it’s tantamount to a term of endearment.”

But let’s be honest … that’s not how you use it, is it?

What's important is that I used the W.O.R.D. "cunt" in a derogatory and "hurtful" way. In comments at Evelyn's blog at the afore-linked URL, this same commenter says that I admit to using it because it causes "hurt" (gets panties in a bunch). So, it's "misogynist." Yep, just wait until they find all the mutilated, decaying bodies of prostitutes stacked up in my basement.

Here's an idea. I love to see how some women love to feign being "hurt" by words. It's Oprah Unleashed, I guess. Amazing how someone could earn like $70 million a year over 25 years teaching women to be victims, to fall down and play "hurt."

...If I call a guy a "cocksucker," is that misandry, homophobic? How about ask my friends, including all the gay men and lesbian women I count as friends? No, you'll never find it. It's a smoke screen because the Oprah culture has taught women to feel hurt, be poor helpless babies, school children running to mommy because someone called you a name.

By the Grace of God, some women have brains and self-confidence, aren't afraid of words on blogs, like the grounded Kate Ground (she doesn't like the word, but she's what you call an "adult.")

Kate Ground // May 8, 2012 at 20:20 (Edit)

The very First comment on something pretty important was about your use of “cunt”. Are we all in grade school here? Come on…

And more actual Cunt-Sanity.

Juliebgood (TwinkleDammit) // May 9, 2012 at 07:38 (Edit)

As a female, I would just like to say that I see no reason to be “offended as a woman” and have hurt feelings over c*nt or tw*t (at work, must filter swear words). In fact, I use them casually, all the time, when someone’s being a c*nt. [...]

I just don’t see the big deal, at all. From what I’ve observed, they’re words that sensitive people “choose* to be offended over, and I find that sensitivity over these terms in particular is almost (not always) the provenance of middle-aged and older women. The younger set really doesn’t give a darn.

Uh, oh, is there a word yet to describe people who hate the older set? :)

Alright, let's wrap it up. You'll probably not want to spend 20 minutes, unless you love Frank Zappa, are aware of his intelligence and gusto, or just want to see him make fools of conservatives and liberals alike, in a calm and collected manner. In the Crossfire (CNN), 1986. There were more adults then, especially amongst women.

"We're talking about words."

And the great Larry David, in a two and a half minute bit from Curb Your Enthusiasm always has his hand on the pulse.

And finally, there's this: Cunt: A Declaration of Independence.

An ancient title of respect for women, the word “cunt” long ago veered off this noble path. Inga Muscio traces the road from honor to expletive, giving women the motivation and tools to claim “cunt” as a positive and powerful force in their lives. In this fully revised edition, she explores, with candidness and humor, such traditional feminist issues as birth control, sexuality, jealousy between women, and prostitution with a fresh attitude for a new generation of women. Sending out a call for every woman to be the Cuntlovin’ Ruler of Her Sexual Universe, Muscio stands convention on its head by embracing all things cunt-related. This edition is fully revised with updated resources, a new foreword from sexual pioneer Betty Dodson, and a new afterword by the author. “Bright, sharp, empowering, long-lasting, useful, sexy....”—San Francisco Chronicle “... Cunt provides fertile ground for psychological growth.”—San Francisco Bay Guardian “Cunt does for feminism what smoothies did for high-fiber diets—it reinvents the oft-indigestible into something sweet and delicious.”—Bust Magazine

But, y'know, don't ket it get in the way of your hurt license, or my misogyny. FWIW, someone in comments suggested I be called Cunt Master. I was kinda partial to Angry Dick, but you know, that's very tempting.

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Dr. Jack Kruse Booted from Carnival 2012 Low Carb Cruise

May 8th, 2012 · Self Experimentation

Yesterday afternoon I got wind of the story. Here's one.

A Nashville neurosurgeon was escorted off a Carnival Cruise Line ship Sunday after a post on Twitter led authorities to believe the doctor was planning a bioterrorist attack.

The tweet appeared to come from Dr. Jack Kruse and made it seem as though he was in possession of a vial of harmful bacteria.

Posted on Sunday morning, the tweet read, "Security confiscated dynamite. talk won't be as explosive as one at PaleoFx. still have vial of Legionnaires for epic biohack. #lccruise12."

In addition, Carnival was contacted by a caller named "Lance" who informed them a doctor aboard the Carnival Magic was planning a viral bio-hack.

Jack was interviewed on video by three Nashville news stations last evening. Here's the videos. They're the 2nd, 3rd, & 4th.

Of course, my whole deal with Jack really began a shitstorm when I posted this in early April: Jack Kruse: Neurosurgeon. Leptin Reset and Cold Thermogenesis. Controversy. It stands at 938 comments, a record for the blog. It also strained personal friendships in some cases and apparently ended them in others, but not instigated by me.

In some respect which I guess I understand, "it's either Jack Kruse or me," can't have it both ways. And as well, I have a longstanding "ethic" in the way I blog about Paleo and even LC which may not be apparent because of my frequent attack dog modality: I don't go after my own (unless they go after me first). It's a target rich environment out there, I have plenty to keep me occupied, and the very last thing I see myself as is some sort of custodian or high priest of Proper Paleo Doctrine (TM). Hell, it's the exact opposite: you're on your own, and the very first thing you need to do is stop asking self-appointed "authorities" what to do—and that in includes this asshole sitting right here typing.

There seems to be an increasing number of blogs and posts on blogs and comment threads on posts on blogs devoted to tearing down the unrighteous on whatever grounds seem convenient. Count me out. Popular targets are Jimmy Moore and Jack Kruse. I was just reading one comment thread on a blog this last Sunday about the "vile, evil, fat, hypocritical, money-whore" Jimmy Moore, and while the post itself made some decent observations and criticisms (we could all use a little humbling touch-up, now and then), the comments were to me just seething with spite, envy, and whatever other unhealthy piling on and emotions you can name...as though dog-pile tearing something down of value—irrespective of the warts and pimples on the person who created it—is somehow more noble, creative, hard-working, and value driven than the creating, itself.

I call that "fake self-esteem," the fooling one's self that in tearing down something of value to others, it's tantamount to, or even greater than the building of that value itself. Some people seem to have the notion that if something is not of particular value to them, then it's a dis-value—not only to them, but by projection and extension, a dis-value to everyone, and a blight on the universe itself.

Count me out, at least in the context of Paleo and LC.

Alright, about Jack. Early on in this thing I listened to a lot of negative commentary about the guy. I agree with some of it, disagree with some of it, and I most certainly don't particularly care for Jack's seeming hyperbole, Savior stuff, Holy Grail approach to what he's raised awareness about, namely: Leptin Reset and Cold Thermogenesis. But one simply has to be blind if they don't see that both have been beneficial to a lot of people—a value. That matters a lot to me, far more so than his approach, which is far from my approach.

People say he lies. I say that everybody lies, and that honesty is a spectrum that begins with one's self. One of the reasons, I believe, that I've escaped some of these sorts of criticisms on others' blogs is because I do my damnedest to be honest, like this:

...I promise you that the 3 cunts behind it will regret it.

That was a follow-up Tweet last evening, after I had learned the news and was angry. I've had time, space, and the council of a couple of prominent Paleo peeps I count as friends, such that I now regret it as a massive, dick-stepping fuck up.

I apologize, particularly to anyone who may have insinuated that I was accusing them. The fact is: I do not know who was behind it, but that Tweet makes it appear as though I do, and that is wrong. I was wrong, plain, simple, and easy. And I always hate to be wrong and stupid...but the only thing to do when you're either, or both, is to stop being wrong and stupid moving forward. So that's what I'm doing.

...As an aside, I get a lot of flak, particularly from women, about using the c-word so much. It got into my regular vocabulary back when, when I lived abroad and always sought out expat communities of Brits (simply locate a British-syle pub and you'll find them): Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Jakarta, Bangkok, Pattaya, Philippines. They use the word all the time and it's tantamount to a term of endearment.

Anyway...

I am cognizant of the possibility or probability that Paleo may soon move into the mainstream, and will most assuredly eclipse Low Carb as a more flexible, sound, integrated approach: simply because it does not and should not restrict and vilify one single macronutrient: carbohydrate.

But I think it should move into that mainstream with many varied voices, being as non-doctrinal/catechism as can be. There ought to be a lot of disagreement. There really ought not be, in my view, a lot of hand-wringing over such disagreements. My friend Mark Sisson is perhaps the poster child for such an ethic. He never trashes anyone. Should he disagree with someone, he'll just create a post about what he thinks is right or wrong. And he has gone out of his way to promote many, many voices of Paleo/Primal.

When it does go into the mainstream, one voice ought to be Jack Kruse, the Lunatic. And another, Jimmy Moore, the Fat Bastard. Richard Nikoley, the Angry Dick. Kurt Harris, the Most Popular Non-Blogger. Michael Eades, the Gentleman Doctor. Anthony Colpo, the Proctologist. Melissa McEwen, the Emotional Anthropologist. Emily Deans, the EvoShrink. That Paleo Guy, that Paleo Guy. Mark Sisson, that Everyone's Friend ...And even Evelyn at Carb Sane, who seems to be able to detect all pimples on all asses. And you, the commenters, lovers and haters alike.

You get to decide.

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Putting it All Together: Moderate Carb Paleo, Resistance Training & Kettlebells, Intermittent Fasting and Cold Thermogenesis

May 6th, 2012 · Exercise & Training, Fat & Weight Loss, Intermittent Fasting, Self Experimentation

This is the post I was planning on drafting for last Monday when disaster struck, and I simply decided immediately to put everything off for a week that I was doing and had planned.

Cold Thermogenesis

I'll start at the end, since it's the newest thing. A month or so ago I first began to blog about Cold Thermogenesis (CT), followed it up with another, and then just shy of a month ago, renewed my own experiments with my own 150-gallon backyard tub.

There's also been a few others I'm aware of who've weighed in on the issue:

And so, from April 9th until now, I've been in the tub most days (perhaps 5-6 days I haven't been in and 3 of those were because of being out of town). I've tried not to make a big deal about it in terms of water temperature or time. At first, I set two 5-gallon buckets of water in the box freezer and then used those to bring the temp down.

IMG 0903
Ice
IMG 0905
Big Cocktail

Thing was, I'd been away for nearly a week (used an unheated pool at one place for 2 days, temp ~60ish) and so had no idea how long it took to freeze 10 gallons of water solid. I used both of them upon my return to get that water down to around 50. I refilled the buckets and more than a day later they were still not solid, which I didn't know until I put them in the tub and when the ice slid out, discovered that the wall thickness of the ice was only about a half inch (though the water pocket inside was very cold).

So, besides just the pain of having to refill those buckets and wait, it's not very feasible anyway—and I'm just not the sort of person who's ever going to go buy bagged ice to dump in the water. Time to rethink.

First step was to get the tub out of the sun, so I drained it and moved it under the patio cover. This worked well. I can refresh to some extent each time with the garden hose that's running about 54 deg right now, or drain entirely and refill, which is good for the lawn anyway. Refreshing it each day is also nice for skimming off the dust floating on the top, as it just runs over the side.

We had some hot weather and it got up to around 60 or more, but with cooler days recently, it was down to 52 yesterday. Today it got to 90 outside, but this evening the tub had only reached 60. So, to sum it up, I'm going to go with whatever the tap temperature is, year round. I figure it'll be under 50 for all of the winter months solid, and at height of summer, somewhere 65-70 at most and maybe even less on a refill.

This is plenty good enough. Having it outside for the evenings when the temperature dips helps a lot. It also must be noted that I get all the way in, right up to my mouth; but if I was in a bathtub, no way to do that. And I'm not the slightest bit interested in packing myself in bags of ice. So, again, what's better? Colder, but not fully submerged; or a bit warmer, variable temperature but all the way in? I think you know where I see the tradeoffs shaking out.

In terms of time, it's been as little as 15 minutes and as long as 35 with the average probably falling in the 20-25 minute range. I was not aiming for any specific results, yet, but rather to simply get used to doing it nearly every day and making it a habit that I'd enjoy, and that has certainly been the case. Today, for instance, I was over at our swim club and did a 30 minute light, leisurely swim in water that's likely somewhere in the 70-75 range. And just a few minutes ago, after dinner, I did 15 minutes in my own tub.

...I have obtained one very specific result. I'm a bit hypothyroid and have been for years, with elevated TSH, but low normal for both T3 and T4. The only symptom I suffer that I'm aware of is cold hands and feet sometimes. Well, and this was pretty amazing, but from my very first session almost a month ago, 26 minutes at 52 degrees, I have not experienced cold hands or feet a single time. Not once. In fact, I sometimes feel as though I'm radiating heat off the palms of my hands and soles of my feet. Weird.

Other results include phenomenal sleep and a general sense of having a far wider comfort zone for whatever the ambient temperature is. I'm comfortable when it's 60 deg in the house when I get up, and comfortable now, when it's 77 inside the house. And I didn't even know it got up to 90 outside today until I saw the temp while in my car.

The strangest, most counter-intuitive thing I've experienced, however, is this: 60 degree water is colder than 50 degree water. Of course, what I mean by that is it feels colder and I feel colder faster, shiver sooner. At 50 degrees, I have no problem staying in for 30 minutes, feel warm for the first 10 minutes, and don't begin feeling really cold until about the 20-minute mark. At 60 degrees I begin feeling really cold in the 10-15 minute range and at 20 minutes I'm really itching to get out. My speculation is that 50, and perhaps even down to 40 (which I used to do at the gym), is a "sweet spot" where your body mounts a bigger defensive response and thus doesn't feel as cold as quickly as 60. The takeaway for those experimenting with this—dipping their toe in the water as it were—is if you don't get the water down to 50, you may feel as though you can't adapt, and give up.

Moderate Carb Paleo

Calories absolutely count. I can't believe I ever fell for the Low Carb Myth (LCM) that they don't. Don't get me wrong, though. I don't see anything wrong with being LC if that's what you like. In fact, and get this: cold adaptation via CT may just turn out to be the grand unifying theory for how to make LC work for you without having some of the problems people report (such as cold hands and feet). A Paleo LC diet is very satiating—since it replaces empty calories with nutrient dense fat and protein. CT isn't going to do any magic, but it is going to make you burn through a few more hundred calories per day, and if you can manage to not feed your face more, you just may break through that LC plateau so many hit at about 20% body fat (more for women).

But as with CT above, I want things as simple and natural as possible. I don't want to count, I don't want to do nutrient breakdowns. Rather, I want to eat a varried diet and not worry about eating starch or not eating starch. I want to eat Paleo and eat what I want, when I want. And throw in dense nutrition often, like tonight's meal: liver and sautéed kale (with onions, bacon, garlic and sprinkled with vinegar).

P1020646
Beef Liver
P1020647
Sautéed Kale

That's the most nutrient dense animal food meets the most nutrient dense vegetable food.

Resistance Training and Kettlebells

While I've done some form of resistance training all along, and even the Leangains protocol, I'd never done much but some kettlebell swings and presses at the gym I used to go to. A week or so after getting my tub in the backyard, I got these:

IMG 0909
Kettlebell Friends

There's a 26, 35 and a 44 pound bell and I really love them. Mostly, I've just been having fun with them in a totally random fashion almost daily. Could be for a couple of minutes, or 5 or 10. Little to no structure. One of my favorites is simply standing straight up, feet together, hands at sides, and with the 44 pounder, simply begin swinging it around your body, switching hands at the front and the back. Do it clockwise 10 or 20 times, then the reverse. First time I did it, my biceps were more sore than 2 sets of curls at 95 pounds. And, my traps and delts got a workout too.

I'll probably be getting one in the 70 pound range soon.

Intermittent Fasting

I've mostly been doing the Leangains fasting method for quite a while now, most days, and mostly just because I usually don't feel like eating before 11 or noon anyway, and am usually done eating by 8 pm. Martin Berkhan & I never did get to that post on fasting, but of course, I have tons of posts on intermittent fasting going way back, including doing my workouts in a fasted state.

Beginning a few hours ago I began the first full, no-shit 24-hour fast I've done in some time.

Putting It All Together

The last month has been a lot of experimenting, particularly with the CT and the Kettlebells. So now it's time to put all the foregoing theory into integrated practice. I've got around 20, maybe 25 pounds of fat to lose, still, so this will be a 10-week program I'm embarking on, with the aim of dropping about 2 pounds per week. Here's how it's envisioned now, but I may adjust things as I go:

  • Moderate Carb Paleo: Low to moderate carb on rest days; high protein, moderate-to-high carb and low fat on post workout days. No counting, just a general sense. The two post fast/workout/CT meals per week will be huge lean protein and huge starch/fruit.
  • Resistance Training & Kettlebells: One structured 30-minute fasted workout per week with the bells; and a structured, Leangains style 30-40 minute fasted workout per week heavy (dead lifts, leg presses, standing presses, weighted chins, seated cable rows...maybe some light bench presses). I may add some intervals or sprints once per week.
  • Intermittent Fasting: Two 24-30 hour water, unsweetened iced-tea and black coffee-only fasts. These generally go from noon to dinner the next day or, if a shorter fast, late afternoon to dinner the next day. In the late afternoon before breaking the fast, I'll get in the workout and a session in the cold water.
  • Cold Thermogenesis: Every day for at least 30 minutes, post-workout and fasted on my two fasting days. On days when I swim at the club, I may shorten the CT sessions to 15 minutes minimum.

So there it is. Ten weeks beginning today and who knows, maybe pretty much forever beginning today, with fasting being scaled back to once per week.

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What Would Jorge Do?

May 5th, 2012 · Deep Evolution and Ancestry

Thursday afternoon, I finally managed to get myself up off my weeping, pathetic ass and write the post about my cousin I'd been contemplating over whiskey and cigarettes for four days.

I was going to be having dinner that evening with Steve, his brother, a hi-powered LA lawyer (complex business litigation, usually defending companies from lottery-seeking parasites), and his mom—with whom I'd spent a few hours on Monday morning in the aftermath. I just had to get what I had to do behind me. It took four days to start that post, 2 hours to write it, and it came surprisingly easy once I'd begun the task.

The subject title of this post was ever-present in my thoughts those four days, and since. ...Ridiculous, to the point I actually Googled a banner-creation site and printed out 30 pages to tape together, to hang in my study: "Richard...What Would Jorge Do?" Then I thought: a simple URL to a post would be much shorter.

...Or, perhaps I just never forget.

The thing is, Jorge and I were far different and in fact, I'm absolutely a lot more like Steve than Jorge. Steve is impatient, doesn't suffer fools, he's not much of a "small-talker," and he is incapable of playing along or humoring, very well, if someone is being embarrassing or generating discomfort. I just described myself, too. Steve possess a quality I don't, however. He always has a joke up his sleeve for when things get weird. I'm more likely to steer the conversation to religion and politics because that's more fun than jokes, and it has everyone bottom-lining themselves pretty quick.

Let's get to the bottom line. That's what I always say.

Give it your best shot. I say that, too.

In my last post I linked above, the message is pretty clear. Live your life big, have some adventure, some exploration. get yourself uncomfortable.

Please! If you're not doing things that make you uncomfortable now and then, you're really missing out on a lot of what life is about. Can you even imagine to dispute that?

So, let me tell you about how I get myself most uncomfortable; but when it's over, the bong hit, when there is one, is just the cherry on top. Unfortunately, this will require that you spend a few minutes on one of my videos from the past.

That basically explains some of the what and why of it all, how it works and particulars for the site I was flying, near Mt. Lassen, CA, a place I've flown for 13 years straight.

How this relates to Jorge is as such. Back in the earlier 90's I was out of the Navy, building a business, and looking for some sort of action that rose above the mundane, easy bullshit 99.9% of people do. I looked to Jorge, knowing he'd been a rock climber for years. Of course, when I hit him up, he was all smiles—heard it over the phone—and immediately set up an excursion for myself and a couple of others to "school rock," a place at Donner Summit, overlooking the lake. I went, had a great time, and before barefoot was anything anyone thought about, he was doing the climbs barefoot, free climbing (without the safety gear), and I was often just a little too scared.

We'd done a lot and I'd learned a lot, but then there was that last obstacle. He set out, free climbing it barefoot...with a line, cams and biners strapped to him, in order to fashion a safety net for me. It was only about a 20 ft deal, but far harder than what we'd done already. This one was hard at the very top, at the cusp of the thing, where you get up and in getting over...and there's this brief moment in time where you kinda have to let go and go for it. I could not, even though I knew, intellectually that if I fell, scrapes and busies would be the worst I'd fare.

He scaled down as he'd gone up, proposed a new idea, where we traversed the rock at a significant slope, which was far easier physically but which The Teacher was careful to point out: if you fall, you're going to do a big pendulum and you'll get hurt a lot worse than had you given it what you could have, before.

It worked out OK. But in the end, the spark for rock climbing just didn't happen for me. I told him so, and as well, that I was looking into hang gliding. He laughed. As it turned out, when Popular Mechanics published the plans for basic Rogallo Wings back in the 70s, he and his friends built one with bamboo, bailing wire and visqueen, and ground skimmed it in the Almaden hills south of San Jose. He said: "We'd fly until someone got hurt."

So that's what I took up. Hang gliders had come a very long way since the early 70s. At the point I took them up in about 1995 or so, guys had already perfected them to be a poor man's sailplane, able to climb in thermals and go cross country. At that point, guys I was soon to know had taken them to over 20,000 ft and gone over 200 miles cross country. Today, the hand gliding cross country record is about 450 miles.

Me? I jumped in with two feet, got very active and was out and about flying most weekends for a long time. I'd gotten to 10-12,000 feet a few times, enough to get very cold in a t-shirt. And I once went about 15 miles or so XC, launching from Chelan Butte in WA: get up to 10,000, head over the Columbia River gorge, over the massive power lines, and then out over the flats of Eastern WA.

My only real point is that Jorge inspired me to do something. It had to be something that almost everyone else in the world was a total pussy for. It didn't end up being rock climbing, which scares the shit out of me.

...Some years back, Bea, I and a few friends did Half Dome in Yosemite, and if you've done it, you know what climbing the back side of the dome is like. Anyway, I'm at the top, and because it's a dome, as you walk down the granite, it gets steeper and steeper, and at a point, you realize: if I slip and fall, I'm dead. It's a sphere. The further you go, the further you go faster. But I told my friends while we're exploring that: if I had a hang glider strapped onto me, I'd not have the slightest trepidation about just trotting off.

Here's two short  flights from last summer. Both flights are 30-40 minutes long in the glassoff (you have to watch the video up top to know what that means)...but you're spared, it's just the launch and landing, a minute or two each, set to rock music.

In the end, I don't really know whether I'd have undertaken this or not without the inspiration of my cousin. All I know is that when I wanted adventure, he was the first one I called and things just sorted, after that.

And again, now the spotlight is upon you, reader. What have you dreamed to do, but never done? What have you always wanted to try, but never lifted a finger to do it? How many times have you suggested a hint of a try of a remote possibility and got shot down by everyone you dared mention it to, because the last thing total-comfort-at-all-times-bodies want is to contend with your Splendor? Joke's on them, though. They don't really know how bad they already look, and that's in a Free the Animal perspective.

If you have never done what you've always dreamed or even tentatively imagined doing, your life's not getting any shorter, you know.

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Tribute: My Cousin and Surrogate Big Brother, George “Jorge” Knott (1956-2012)

May 3rd, 2012 · No Particular Category

You could always hear his smile

Gorge
Gorge - Squamish (or, Stawamus) Chief,  Canada

That's the photo of himself he used for his Facebook Timeline; I figure it's one of his favorites, and it's one of mine, too.

Here's another.

The Gang
The Gang

That's sometime mid-60s, me to the right, Jorge to the left and his brother Steve—between 3-4 weeks my senior—in the middle. Notice who I was looking at. Jorge was born in February of 1956 and me, just shy of being 5 years junior, January of 1961. Early Jan for Steve, late Jan for me.

I like how that I, at least, dressed up for the event, complete with bow tie and suspenders. What's interesting is that those those three kids up there ultimately, many years later, came to share an intellectual view about human existence that is quite apart from pretty much anyone and everyone else in our entire family.

I also like to think that one of the reasons Jorge and I got along as we did—he never spoke a cross or admonishing word to me in all my life—was that he grew up with one younger brother and that one younger brother was almost identical in age. I'm sure Steve was the one who caught any "bad side" of Jorge, if it even existed, and it was spent by the time he got around to me.

Jorge died last sunday evening, on the eve of a trans-Atlantic cruise from Miami, to be accompanied by a cousin from his dad's side, from Austria. ...It was supposed to be a fun, post-run swim in the ocean. He got caught in a rip current and didn't make it out alive. It was especially devastating to me, because Jorge has long been a rock climber and mountaineer, two things requiring very specific knowledge about what can kill you. And, he was a lifelong and enthusiastic teacher of both.

A little rest
A little rest

My first true experience with Jorge the teacher was when I was somewhere around 12 or so. He grew up in the Bay Area where I live now, and I, in Reno, NV. He was there for a time during the early 70s and both he and his brother were pretty accomplished skiers. I was still some years away from becoming very good at it, but on this day, we loaded up into the car—he was maybe 16 or 17—and headed up to Mt. Rose, the highest peak in the Tahoe region. We skied the day and then at the end, he says, "let's ski down to Galena Creek and hitch a ride back up." Having had my dad tell stories about how he and his brothers used to do this at the end of the day, I was game. It's quite a long trek, perhaps a few thousand feet vertical, and there's no prepared surfaces. You're just navigating through the trees on powder. But we made it, hitchhiked back up the highway to the car, and that was that. But all along the way, he had his eye on me, encouraging me, reassuring against any fears I expressed.

I had no concept at the time—it would be years until I found myself living in and traveling foreign countries—but Jorge's parents had a foresight of wisdom that had him doing regular trips to Europe on his own as a young teen.

Education
Education

"Hey kid, here's a plane ticket, a backpack and some cash. Make the most of it. Learn a thing or two while you're at it."

Jorge went on to attend UC Berkley under a Navy scholarship and upon graduation, went to flight school in Pensacola, FL.

Eye on the Meatball
Eye on the Meatball

...But just prior to his reporting for that, something happened that was to change the course of my own life. My dad was a Air Force guy, a jet engine mechanic and I had grown up with the stories. As happenstance would have it, there was a period of time between Jorge's graduation and commissioning and his showing up, so he was assigned temporary duty to Fallon Naval Air Station, about an hour or so from Reno. And one day, he showed up in uniform, at my school, sporting the shiny bars of a new Ensign. The very next day I was in my dad's truck, camera in hand to go visit him at Fallon NAS.

One of many views that day
One of many views that day

I spent the whole day, saw every sight I could get my eyeballs on, and was all ears all the time.

About 5 years or so later, I too got my commission as a US Navy Officer. Steve, Jorge's brother and also a graduate of Berkley, took a commission with the Marine Corps. A year prior, while on my Midshipman summer cruise, I got to see Jorge on a refueling stop in Japan, at a P-3 base in Hokkaido.

I think it must have been several years before I saw him again. Some months before I left Japan in '89, I was back home after almost 5 years, on a temporary duty assignment for just a few days. My mom arranged a dinner. Knowing by then I'd be back and going to the language school in Monterey (DLI) in a few months, I went looking for a car and I bought a Corvette to store until my return. So, Jorge shows up. I show him my new car and he looks at me with a wide grin and says, as though it was an unexpected discovery—I said right up front that you can always hear his smile—"Rick, that's your dick!"

If there was an implicit admonishment there, it was only for me to think about.

Within a few months I was at DLI in Monterey, and he was teaching physics at the Naval Postgraduate School, also in Monterey. It seems odd to me now, that in that six months or so I was there, we got together only a few times. We were young. The world is still so enormous. Everyone has places to go, people to see.

Jorge went on to do his regular Navy tours and at some point he got off active duty, became a reservist, moved to Sacramento, got a most wonderful cottage in an awesome neighborhood, and began a second career teaching physics at a local community college. It was only a few years ago that he completed that assignment and focussed his life on friends, family, and every adventure he could get his hands on.

I don't know the details and as much as I've spoken with him over the last few years, refrained from asking. He had developed kidney disease, likely as a cause of one or more important bouts of dehydration on some of his hiking and mountaineering trips. I believe there was one in particular, in South America, but I'm not sure. Like I said, I never asked.

That's because he would not slow down, ever. In the last few years, he's been traveling, exploring, adventuring almost non-stop.

There you go
There you go

Having a blog and even a Facebook relationship made things different. You consider that original B&W photo up top. But we lived in different places, saw each other at holidays and other important events; everyone has their own life to lead and so on. But having this blog changed things between us, profoundly so, and I've exchanged more thoughts with Jorge in the past few years than all the rest of life combined.

It went like this: Hit publish and about 10 minutes later my cell would ring. He loved my blog, and it's not at all because he agreed with everything. Hell, he probably didn't agree with a lot or most of it. I never cared. He only encouraged me to keep writing it. It was only a few weeks back when he rang me up and I spoke of some of the things I was doing in terms of shutting down my company, trying to figure out what to do, etc., and he said to me, in that smile I could always hear, "Richard, you're a writer."

I still don't believe that, but I'm at least taking it more seriously, now.

You got it
You got it

In this end, which so sucks because I have only in these last few days begun to understand the enormity of what his life was attempting to teach, Jorge was the best sort of teacher. He taught what he loved and was passionate about but so lived it, too. "Frugal" would be the wrong word to use, because it implies some ethic employed for its own sake. No, Jorge simply had little use for what wasn't immediately and regularly useful. A small, 2-beroom house that was paid off for years was plenty. He could put up his guests. A car that got him where he wanted to be and back was enough. This modest lifestyle has been a thing of envy for me for a long time, more so now than ever.

Jorge was never, ever the custodian of a bunch of largely useless stuff. He was never flashy. He impressed people by means of his friendly character...never wit, sarcasm, intelligence or how well read he was.

Chill man
Chill, man

Well, as I told his brother in an email exchange yesterday, life will never again be the same without him...and that's life.

I don't know, there's no data I'm aware of, but it seems to me that those who live the biggest lives often get to live them for less time. Which one would you choose?

Just look at the view
Just look at the view!

Jorge is survived by both of his parents, his brother, and a multitude of family, friends and ex-lovers.

Jorge and Beth 2006
Jorge and Beth, 2006

He was 50; she, an absolutely luscious 20, working on her degree in geology. I was visiting them in their Sacramento home and shot this at morning coffee.

He's also survived by his dog, which Beth will be taking back with her.

Yea buddy
Yea buddy (last month, hot springs near Bishop, CA)

I would appreciate comments. However, I already know my loss and it pales in comparison to Jorge's own, and the loss of others, including his surviving mom and dad, and his brother. If I may, can I request that if you post a comment, you tell us what this means to you, beyond just an expression of sorrow for a loss? Jorge was a teacher, and if I have managed to stumble through this and give you something to think about in terms of advancing your own life in terms of getting along or adventure, please do.

Think and Smile
Think and Smile

And if you had the privilege of knowing Jorge, I would love to hear of your favorite anecdotes, stories, lessons. I've assembled some favorite pics of mine, about 75 or so right here, on Facebook. (Update: someone asked for potentially higher resolution for prints, so I created a Set at Flikr.)

I will miss you forever, "big brother."

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