Rifle kicked my sorry trad-climbing butt

Rifle is a strange place. The truth is, it intimidates me. I feel like I'm a decent climber (I can climb the Diamond after all), but then I go there, to the land of the ripped and the free, and I'm reduced to a sniveling weeny. "Oh gawd," I am close to tears as I look up at 50-foot caves covered with chalk and shiny, ultra-polished holds. I cry on 5.10s, and knowing that just down the road 100 yards super-honed people are grunting and screaming their way up the dozens of 5.12s and 5.13s makes my weeniness even worse (at least to me--no one down the road cares).

Last time I climbed there, 10 or so years ago, I swore I'd never go back. I remembered nothing but greasy, super-polished holds, a crowded gym-like scene that, while not unpleasant, is difficult for me to deal with without having anxiety. So, this past weekend, when Madaleine asked me to go with her, I groaned, expecting to have the same experience.

And, oh shit, the climbs were steep and hard. It's the hardest place I've ever climbed. I couldn't actually get of the ground on the first climb I tried to do (it looked easy). The second climb, a polished 10a, reduced me to tears. After a mini emotional breakdown (embarrassment that I could not climb 10a, that my girlfriend had to lead me up everything, that I knew a few dozen people there and they would all know that I cried over a 10a, etc, etc), I holed myself up in Mad's Sprinter Van and moped for an hour about my sad state of affairs. 

"Poor me, poor me, why oh why had I returned to Rifle?" I whined to myself and then swore, "I hate this place ... never coming back!"

But, being the hyperactive person that I am, and having not climbed or exercised in three days, I eventually emerged, humbled and red-eyed, ready to try again. I donned a pair of dark sunglasses and sought out my girlfriend, who had just sent a pumpy 12c and was ready for a break. Sucking it up, I asked her to lead up a 10b for me, and then another route. After those warm ups, I proceeded to actually have a good time, including leading an easy 10 and and one of the canyon's classic warmup 11bs. 

I can't say right now if I'm actually going to go back to Rifle again (I've eaten enough humble pie for a while), but I did experience a change of perspective. I still think Rifle is a chossy, dusty, polished, crowded beta/sausage (male & female) fest, but it's also got mostly really nice people who frequent its cliffs, an overall positive energy, and, some interesting, challenging climbing. 

I also realized that my self-proclaimed sport-climbing weenieness was really just my insecurities manifesting in the face of the excellence surrounding me on the cliffs. Realizing those insecurities helped me to both celebrate that excellence around me and also to have a lot of fun. And. really, that's what climbing is all about. 

Cool woman biking around China to raise awareness for Girls Education International

A woman named Eleanor Moseman contacted me and Heidi earlier this summer asking about whether or not she could raise money and awareness for Girls Ed (our nonprofit) by doing a bike trip around China. We, of course, said YES, go for it! How cool. Check out Eleanor's new Bike For Girls Ed blog.

Lyons Folks Fest

I spent a lot of time at the Song School and Folks Fest at Planet Bluegrass this past week. I took classes with Mary Gauthier, Kathy Moser, and Rebecca Folsom. All the classes were unique and interesting, and I was struck by the incredible positive vibes that permeated the Song School. From Mary I learned about personal truth and saw that really all people need to thrive is a supportive audience. From Rebecca I learned some really neat vocal warmups that were really like full-body tune ups. We did various vocal practices that really reverberated through my body, and I left feeling mildly high and quite wonderful. From Kathy, I learned about music theory. She taught me about chord progressions, about the notes on my mandolin and how to tell A sharp from B flat :) What an awesome teacher! I also got lucky and had a half hour mentoring session with her. I hope to have more lessons with her when she returns to Colorado.

I also got to do a number of video interviews, which will appear on the Planet Bluegrass website, my blog, and YouTube eventually (hopefully here in the next few weeks depending on how much free time I have to edit the interviews). I interviewed Mary Gauthier, who left quite an impact on me both with her teachings and her performance. I love her throaty voice and her sad lyrics. She sings like she's doing the Buddhist Lojong practice, drawing in the pain of the world and emitting love and peace to all those who feel that pain. I also interviewed the sweet, soft-talking Justin Roth (a newly local musician who lives in Loveland and who I hope will come play at Oskar Blues soon), the very funny and charming Vance Gilbert, Rebecca, and Ellis & Terri, two amazing women who teach the business of music classes throughout the week at Song School.

And, I watched various musicians, in between rainstorms and Craig Leubben's memorial, which Madaleine and I attended yesterday. It was such a strange weekend in that regard. Cold versus hot, happy versus sad, and all the feelings carried on a wave of incredible music.

My favorites musical performances included:

Ellis, because she sings clearly and beautifully and her messages are so uplifting. She played in the Wildflower Pavilion to a packed crowd. She is so sparkly and smily, and her eyes seem to capture the audience. When she says she's so happy her smile might leap off her face, it seems like it really might. She clearly loves her audience, singing, life. What a beautiful lady. She is one of my new favorite musicians.

I also loved Gillian Welch and David Rawlins, of course, for their old time songs, wonderful harmonies, awesome guitar playing, and incredible song writing. Wow. Not much else to say. They are two of my favorite musicians.

Brett Dennen was simply marvelous, fun, and so charming on stage. I love his lyrics as well. He is so positive, promoting love, fun, and playfulness. I danced with one of Lyons' own local politicians, Peter Baumgartner. It's fun living in a small town and discovering different layers of the people who live there. Cheers to you Peter for twirling me around!

Of course, Mary Gauthier left a huge impression on me, as I mentioned above. I was a bit star struck while interviewing her. I hope she doesn't think I'm a total dork. :)

Susan Tedeschi and JJ Grey and Mofro rocked the house. Madaleine and I had a kickass dance session to both those musicians.

Finally, on Wednesday evening I had dinner with my two brothers, my cousin, Madaleine, and a gal from New Zealand named Josephine Costain who was renting a room in my house while she attended Song School. Josephine ended up playing music for us, which was quite wonderful. She plays and sings beautiful, and is a really lovely woman to boot. She's considerate, kind, and has a very open heart. She is applying to play at next year's Folks Fest. I hope she gets the chance.

Lovely week

I had a lovely week full of music, work, climbing, and friends. I just finished an article for Mountain Flyer magazine on Davidson Lewis of Green Guru, a neat company that repurposes bike tubes, old billboards, wetsuits, and rock climbing ropes, turning them into outdoor products (such as messenger bags). It's a great company, and Davidson is a vibrant, motivated, and conscious man. It was a pleasure meeting him. The article comes out this fall.

I also spent time working on my Curbside Compost and Recycling business, including doing an interview for an article that appeared on me and the business in the Lyons Recorder and doing my first few pickups. Thanks to my new customers!

I was unable to spend much time on my nonprofit, but I did meet with the marketing committe. We are focusing our efforts on getting a complete marketing plan up and running by October, and we are going to come up with mini-plans for the film that we are showing in September and the Beats for Books tour that Heidi Wirtz and Patrick Megeath are organizing for this fall. More to come!

Health Care Reform

I urge my senator, Mark Udall, to stay the course and support health care reform. I like the idea of a public option as I think it could possibly work to keep the insurance companies in check.

I also want to weigh in on the insurance companies. I have nothing good to say about them at all. I think, in general, insurance companies have no interest in having a happy and healthy population. I know there are many individuals who work in the insurance industry who are kind and wonderful people, but I also believe that employees are trained to do all they can to keep people from getting the care they need. I'm biased, but from my own experience, I think health insurance companies suck.

I've had a few negative experiences. In one case, I had an injury that the insurance company would not pay for for nine months. They came up with every excuse in the book to not process my claims. It wasn't until I actually called a lawyer that they did something about it. In fact, just one week after I threatened legal action, I received notices in the mail that they had paid all the bills. The billing person at the doctor's office told me that often insurance companies will put you off for a long time hoping that you will eventually just give up.

To people who are having problems with insurance companies: I urge you to not give up when your insurance company is stonewalling you. Call them, email them, send them letters, and keep copies of every piece of correspondence. And, make note every time you send them correspondence. Also, call a lawyer. The one I found offered me free advice, suggesting I call the insurance company to threaten a lawsuit. That was enough. Finally, if you have the chance, write your congressman/woman and tell him/her to support health care reform. Universal health care is not a terrible, evil practice. It is the only decent way of offering health care to every American.

Good luck!

Pervertical Sanctuary

Madaleine and I climbed Pervertical Sanctuary yesterday on the Diamond of Longs Peak. It was rather incredible. I had wanted to do that route for seven or eight years specifically because I wanted to lead the 10c splitter hand/finger crack. I felt like crying just before I started it because I was so excited to be up there, half way up a stunning, 1000-foot granite face, climbing in the sunshine, and feeling great. The pitch was stellar, perfect ... I couldn't ask for a better lead. And it felt great to be leading 5.10s again after a long stretch of nine months of not leading anything harder than 5.9! I'm hoping my shoulder holds up for a while. I'm getting back on the Diamond next week, and then hopefully some more Park time and then the Black Canyon at the end of the month. I'm trying to fit in one day of climbing per week, in between working on my new compost and recycling business and finishing up a bunch of writing jobs that I have.

I'm going to slowly work my way out of the writing business, for the most part. Of course, I love writing, and will always write, but I'm going to stop begging for low-paying magazine work and instead just focus on the fun stuff, such as writing website and brochure articles for Planet Bluegrass. Now that is enjoyable. The folks over there are easy to work with, and we work on the barter system, which I like. Next week is Folks Fest, and I plan on interviewing Brett Dennen, Gillian Welch, and Ellis, among others for both video and potentially written articles. I'm really looking forward to doing that. And I'm looking forward to just hanging out for the week at Song School. I'm going to be taking some vocals classes. Fun. I have just discovered a new love of singing. And I will be delving into the history of Song School for an article, which should be fun.

Life is good. I'm off to bed. Good night!

Life is good

The last few weeks have flown by and have been some of the most wonderful of my year. The three day RockyGrass Festival was, as always, a fulfilling and exciting experience. This year I did some video interviews for Planet Bluegrass and lucked out in interviewing the charming Sarah Jarosz, the talkative and knowledgeable Darrel Anger (who played my mando in the river last year), Sandy Munro, who has been teaching at the RockyGrass Academy since its inception, and a couple folks from Bearfoot bluegrass band. I really enjoyed the interviewing process and am looking forward to helping the videographer edit them for publication. 

The festival and evening activities were also wonderful. I spent time with the luthiers again. They amaze me with their kindness and with the family environment they create at the PB campgrounds. I also connected with all sorts of interesting people--Charissa and Archie (with whom I built my mando last year). Charissa and her family own the vineyard Chappellet, and this extraordinary and kind couple do a lot of good for the world through their philanthropic endeavors (and through their wonderful gift to me of two bottles of wine :). I also met and discovered the music of the beautiful and oft-smiling Ellis, a folk musician who plays music and teaches at Folks Fest/Song School and who built a mando at this year's Academy. I look forward to seeing her perform in a few weeks. 

The week after RockyGrass I really pushed hard to further develop my plan for a curbside recycling and compost business in Lyons. Things are going well. I expect to start picking up recycling next week or the following week and compost possibly in September. 

As well, Madaleine and I got to see Osage County at the Denver Center of Performing Arts (after enjoying one of the bottles of Chappellett and a fine dinner of mostly raw food). This moving and very sad drama depicts a wholly dysfunctional family who comes together after the death of its patriarch. Though there are light moments, the mostly depressing story centers around the drug-addicted and nasty matriarch, her attacks on her three daughters, her manipulative behavior toward them, and their eventual but very difficult and different escapes from her reality. It also addresses incestuous relationships, child molestation, suicide, divorce, and pretty much anything and everything unpleasant you can imagine happening to a family. Four-letter words punctuate the story, and by the end the bad taste in your mouth is a mark of the believability of the actors. The play is very well done. I highly recommend it, as long as you are in a good mood.

Finally, my family came to town, and I've been lucky to spend the last few days with both my brothers and my cousin, Maya. And tonight I will be doing a presentation for Girls Education International at the Boulder Adventure Film Fest's First Monday showing of "Sliding Liberia," a film about surfing in Liberia and that country's 14-year war.

ciao!