Eine Linie im Universum.

This is (more or less) what my dearly departed German father in law used to facetiously call deMonika’s (also dearly departed) gigantic Maine Coon, Vinnie.

Roughly translated, it means ‘a line in the universe‘.

I think about that phrase fairly often, not only because it’s among the little German I know, but because it sounds good in my head.

These days however, it’s become a more frequent echo, as I myself am currently wasting away to nothing.

Or so it feels.

You see, because the aforementioned wife-person has spent her life plagued with various dietary restrictions, food allergies, and whatnot, by association, I get sucked down the rabbit hole of various diets, cleanses, and so forth. It was in this post when I introduced this audience to the wonders of celery juice. Say about the fad what you will, but I haven’t had a hangover in two and a half years, so to that end, the daily guzzles of the green stuff hasn’t been for nothing.

But this current run of cleanse has me reeling. I’m doing it in part because, why not? I like to test my own will power, and determination from time to time. Secondly, I realize that with the abundance of hi-jinx, burritos, various paints and solvents, canned beer, and auto emissions I’ve ingested over the course of my life, nine days on a strict cleanse is nothing in comparison.

Thirdly, I knew it was going to be rough. She really wanted/needed to do it, and if you’re inside out in cravings for a week and a half, and the person with whom you live is flouncing along eating cheesy bagels, and pizza, and drinking bath beers the whole time, it would make it suck that much more. So being the stand up guy that I am, I’ve committed to the whole, horrible shitshow in solidarity with her.

So the deal is this- There’s this cat named Anthony William who goes by the handle ‘The Medical Medium‘, and he recently released a book called ‘Cleanse To Heal’. It is chock full of fascinating information, a portion of which I can only begin to wrap my mind around. But in those pages I was introduced to a heavy metal liver cleanse called ‘the 3:6:9 cleanse‘. As I understand it, it works like this- Your liver is a smart little being that filters poisons, toxins, pesticides, and so on. With the regular inclusion of any sorts of fats or oils, it can’t process those toxins with regular maximum efficiency. With this cleanse, it both flushes your liver, starves any viruses you might be harboring, and allows it to process the toxins that it’s been holding on to, resulting in a happier, healthier meat sack.

Obviously, it’s far more complex than this brief description, and I don’t claim that it is a miracle cure, but having dealt with shingles back in 2015, and a life time of abuse, I’m game to give it a go, albeit kicking and screaming the entire way.

The foods I’ve been allowed are cold raw greens, tomatoes, asparagus, onions, apples, celery juice, (so. much. celery juice), and smoothies consisting of wild blue berries, bananas, cilantro, an orange, dragon fruit (for lunch) and spirulina, Atlantic Dulse, and barley grass juice powder (for breakfast).

I weighed myself two days ago and hadn’t dropped thirty pounds like I feel I have, (I swear to god, I’m little more than a skeleton) and only had a mild headache on the first day. I feel unmotivated, light headed every time I stand up, generally uninspired, and bored out of my mind. A perfect set of sensations to experience when in the midst of a lock down.

The book says you can engage in whatever level of physical activity you’re used to, (save for the last two days), though the idea of bailing to bang out a 50 mile when fueled by nothing but a smoothie didn’t seem like such a good plan. So besides small jaunts around town, stretching, hiking, doing yard work, or working in my studio, I haven’t felt terribly inspired to do much of anything. Again, after having spent a healthy portion of my life doing pretty much whatever I want, a week and a half of not is fine.

Naturally, during the entire process, all I thought about was food, so it was no wonder I should come across this quintessential ‘Chef Boy Am I Hungry’/ Skarfing Material style recipe video;

That was poorly timed.

The week after the cleanse is a transition stage, when you don’t yet want to flood your system with complex fats, lest you send your poor little liver into shock, so I’m not out of the woods yet, but I can say with honesty, that out there, somewhere on the horizon, there’s a poor, unwitting pizza with no idea of how badly it’s about to get utterly destroyed.

If the idea of doing a bit of physical spring cleaning strikes your fancy, I encourage you to investigate. It’s been a small price to pay to help ensure my machine continues to run as happily, and efficiently as possible.

Having said all of those positively encouraging words, let’s move on to other topics.

At some point in the last two years, someone reached out to me and let me know their kid/nephew/something was making little zines and selling them for a dollar or two a piece, and asked if I might by chance like one of them.

Being a collector of all things that matter to hardly anyone besides myself, naturally I said I would, and before too long, a collection arrived in my PO box;

My favorite being this one in the upper left hand corner;




Who sent me these, I have no recollection, but more importantly, where is Franklin and what is he doing now?

If these happen to hold a position within your memory bank, please drop a line and let me know. They truly are a jewell in my zine collection, and I’d like Franklin to know that his efforts are still appreciated.

Moving on to businessie things- The long awaited Dark Deals shirts are getting picked up TODAY, and should be packed up and headed to the post office tomorrow;

Who knew when I initially opened the order window for these bad dogs, that we were on the verge of social collapse?

Thankfully, my screen printer was able to get a skeleton crew back into the shop, and banged them out in style.

For any of the suckers who didn’t get in on the pre-order, like usual, I included a few additional of each size to have in stock. So, if this particular design strikes your fancy, then get on it, because who knows how long it will be until I can get more made?

And relating to that, It’s been more than a minute since I had any sort of hand made cycling cap in the store, and since Chuey packed up his machines and moved back to Philly, I haven’t felt much in the way of motivating to find a new place to get them made. Then one day, a lightbulb appeared above my head, in the form of an actual cycling cap sitting upon it;

There’s a fellow up in Seattle named Dave who runs a little sew shop called Atomic Cycle Works. Over the years he’s sent me an array of caps, and I’ve loved them all. Being one who is hyper particular about said accessory, I was happy to strike a deal with Dave, and I look forward to presenting the fruits of his labor.

Keep eyes peeled here for imminent updates.

Finally in closing, I’d like to direct you to this piece about friend of the friendless, Joe ‘Has Nice Hair’ Parkin;

Did you know that on top of all of his other admirable skills, he was a sharpshooter as well?

He’s a swell fellow, a hell of a mountain biker, and a good friend, though probably not a very good keyboard player, but of even that we can’t be too sure.

If you ever find yourself in Buena Vista, Colorado, stick your head into Boneshaker. I just spoke with his partner Simon on the phone, and the bar they have attached to the shop is finally complete, though obviously not currently open because of the cootie epidemic.

But once they are, make it point to get to town, pick up a burger across the street, and drink yourself silly, lest you too become eine linie im universum.