Alsoran’s Blog

Introducing the Alsoran running shoe for turf and dirt tracks:
I especially enjoy the Logo on the back of the shoe that combines the A and Rs into one fast looking logo.

A little bit ago my friend Jacquie flew into town with Bibianna (they are flight attendants–not birds), and we explored the city that none of us are very familiar with. Instead of going to the US Air Guitar finals (which I forgot about and would have won), we went in search of The Great Salt Lake. A gas station attendant told us to ride west and if we miss it he’s going to come get us. We found it. It was fairly blue.

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The only boat on the whole lake is pictured below along with Jac & BiBi :

We saw these weird symbols all over the smelly beach.

And there were hundred of dead dried up bushes everywhere that turned out to be dead birds:

Do you know why all these birds are dying?

Today I looked up where I live on google maps and found an aerial view of where I lay my head. If you look closely in the lower left shaded portion of the picture you can see my pond. My stall is in the shaded area up to the right. The top is covered in ivy. There is a little field off to the side you can’t see. Nice place.

Horse vs. Bear : who would win?

About a week ago, I returned to my quiet farmhouse of solitude late one night and entered my stall to sleep. Laying down to rest, I closed my eyes and my whole room began to shake from a rumbling noise beneath my floor. A huge bear had moved in beneath me while I was gone and he snored well—like a bear.

My quiet solitude was gone. 4 days of sleepless nights. That bear snored and snored—shaking the walls. He even talked in his sleep. I never saw him. But I knew he had to be a big hairy grizzly bear.

I turned on a fan as white noise at night so I wouldn’t hear the snoring. I’d listen to music (mostly the parson red heads). Then I went to Idaho for a few days campaign.

When I returned late at night there was no snoring. No shaking of walls. The bear was gone. The whole time he lived in my farmhouse I never saw him once. He had moved on. He had only stayed here for a week before he decided he didn’t like the quiet and he packed up and moved to the east coast. Once again I am alone in my farmhouse of solitude.

I am triumphant.

Horse 1. Bear nothing.

I had a conversation a few days ago with Andrew Young of Splint Media & Minute Morning
Magazine. We were talking about a really bad unpublished review he gave a CD. I remembered the very first published CD review I ever received. It was for The Lonely Days of Long Board Moose Unit LP (many of the songs can be found reissued on UltraRan 2 disc set).  It mentioned how nice it was for the band to let a mental retard sing vocals in the band. Continued on for five paragraphs and closed with a polite — the band should all cut their wrists and drown themselves in a pool of their own blood.  This sole review is possibly why I am still playing music. It was a great review because nothing could ever be worse.

Often, however, I have thought what if I would have spent more time recording this song, or if I redid the vocals instead of doing the first take on everything, or what if I spent a little money and paid someone to mix it. What if we spent a little time practicing before we went and did a show.  What if we focused less on the attendance and more on the presence.

I forget though — alsoran doesn’t mean champion. It doesn’t mean to be perfect or to win every race. It means to finish out of the money. But nevertheless finish. We don’t have to be perfect. My right is to fail and to fail often trying to accomplish something bigger than myself.

Perhaps the act of watching someone get up, over and over again, trudging through a muddy, six-goggle race, will inspire someone else for more talented than myself.

The fun is running towards the finish. There is joy in crossing the finish. But the fun and growth is in the run.

I will finish this race for you.

I have now stayed several days in a row in what I am calling my Farmhouse of Solitude. I have decided I will not tell anyone how to get here or what city it is in—if you already know what city it is in keep it a secret. It will be a big secret you have to keep. It may be even harder to keep than, say, Superman’s true identity. (Please if you know his true identity don’t tell anyone! and don’t tell anyone where I live for the next few months.)

I have decided I will not bring anyone here. That will defeat its purpose. Everyone who comes here will want to come back again and again. They will want to pet my fake geese. Chase my rabbits. Sit in my luxurious lawn/field/forest chairs. They will want to play in the little near by woods or fish in my fishless pond. And they will try to steal my crystals of knowledge. And my time to write.

I won’t have to be embarrassed about someone coming over and seeing the signs on my wall telling me how awesome I am and how I can run faster than any race horse alive or how I can win the Presidential race or write a song that will express exactly the way you feel about something.

No one will mock me when they see handscribbled note taped to the wall “You are greater than Seabiscuit.”

No one will ask to hear one of the songs that I have the titles for so prominently displayed.

No one will bother to ask me, as i’ve heard countless times over the past month, is there a market for that kind of music.

No one will suggest names for my new wildlife friends roaming around. (Last night an orange cat—and a raccoon were added to the bunch).

The raccoon especially was a suprise. I thought it was a wolf or something at first. Very dark in the night. Around midnight. I was wondering why the creature in the bush hadn’t run away when he heard or saw me. So I stood still…and waited until the raccoon ran out and grabbed some sort of dead rodent that was a few feet from my hooves.

Raccoons can be scary. Mostly because they make silly noises in the middle of the night. The baby raccoons that used to live under my old place in the city are probably full grown now. They are probably making homes under someone else’s stall. Scaring someone else’s dogs.

Happy Father’s day Jonathan Kent & Jor-El

A month ago i moved into a quiet, secluded stable completely surrounded by forest. It’s not too far from civilization, but when I’m there I feel like I’m  a hundred miles away.

The surroundings are abounding with wildlife. I have my own little pond that doesn’t have fish. But it does have fake geese. And sometimes real ducks. I have a family of quials always running around the place. A month ago the baby quails were new borns and they were only about  half an inch tall. Now they are about 2 inches maybe. I’m going to name them. There are 6 babies always sandwiched between the mom and pop. I’ve only stayed in my stable about 5 nights since I moved in because I’ve had a lot of other business going on with Preakness and Belmont Stakes, the passing of my girlfriend, and some other bloodline issues—both good and bad.

I also have two little wild bunnies running around the place. They are pretty big. One is all white - and I’ll probably call him AlsoRab and make some racing silks for it. The other has blackish brown patches. He looks like a woolly mammoth. I might call him lucky foot.

I wouldn’t feel too bad about calling a rabbit lucky foot because Madaline’s mom called her horse Alpo.

My little stable is wonderfully secluded, but also a bit lonely. There are no other horses here. It’s my own Walden’s pond and will provide me with a lot of time to focus on writing.

So if you think of me, send me a note. Send me inspiration. Tell me what you are up to and remind me about city life.

cupcakes,

alsoran

With my horse sense—if you will—I tend to get a few conversations about who do I like in the Kentucky Derby. So if I were a betting horse (and they don’t allow horses to bet) — my favorite in the race of course will be the filly Eight Belles. I think she’s cute. She’s big and she can run with the boys. I’m also liking Denis of Cork — mostly because Calvin Borel is on board and he won the Derby last year. I tend to play the jockey’s as they know the horses. On that same note Big Brown is being ridden by two time Derby rider Kent Desormeaux — who feels this is the best chance he’s ever had to win the Derby.

Big Brown also happens to be named after UPS — who I’m considering hauling shipping wagons for so….look for Big Brown to win it (despite his 20 post position only takes about 2.3 seconds off of a time.) Followed by Eight Belles and Denis of Cork in 2nd and 3rd.

Of course Eight Belles is still the cutest of the 3 and I hope she beats the pants off of the other contenders.

All the best.

This weekend, I decided to visit the great race track Belmont Park. I googled directions from Alsoranland to Belmont. I printed them off and set off trotting on my journey only looking towards my final destination one turn at a time. When I got to the end of my printed directions, I had somehow ended up in The Belmont District in Portland, Oregon and not at Belmont Park race track in NY.

This mistake was soon forgotten as I wandered past Saint Cupcake’s Belmont store and my little stomach growled. I talked a pedestrian into going inside and purchasing a cupcake for me. I insisted they didn’t allow horses inside their store and after some convincing the pedestrian went inside and purchased one Big Top cupcake to go. My little Big Top cupcake came in its own cute little cupcake carrying case with a cupcake “saddle” which would ensure my cupcake would make it back to my quarters for the night without any box wall smashing. I was quite thrilled with my cupcake box and glad my little cupcake would make it back to my quarters so I could take a picture of it and show the world. This little box is perhaps the greatest box ever invented!

As I journeyed to a local stable, I decided I might as well just take a small bite on the backside and I would still be able to photograph the rest of it later. Unfortunately, later came after I had eaten the backside, frontside and topside and so I have no photo for you to show you my little Big Top cupcake.

The big top cupcake is a white cake topped with blue icing and it tastes like a fun little circus in your mouth. The cupcake has just the perfect amount of cake to topping ratio—so many fancy cupcakes these days are just too overloaded with icing/frosting—but not this one. My favorite surprise when tasting the delightful ring of wonder -was the mini chocolate chips sparsely scattered on the cakes surface beneath the frosting. Those little chocolate chips were like clowns being fired from a canon into the net of taste buds on my tongue.

As I finished my final bite, I decided this year I will give out Cupcake of the Month awards every month — and the very first Cupcake of the Month award would be Saint Cupcake’s Big Top.

So here’s your award O patron Saint of Cupcakes:

If you’re in Portland head over to Saint Cupcake and pick up a cupake. And if you’re not in Portland, head over to Saint Cupcake’s website and read all the fun little blogs and descriptions and pick up a free mp3 of a song I improvised a year ago to honor Saint Cupcake’s awesomeRan cupcakes and their support of my horse racing dreams. Click here. click it.