Welcome to The Pub At the End of the Universe.

[Cerridwen]

Yeah Bob is back!

[songsfortheotherkind]

Posted by Cerridwen (here)
Ummm, no. Those 'women' are way too scary with all of those massive muscles. Even if I could look like that after huge doses of steroids, there's no way I would want too.

If I have to make up my own alter ego, it would probably look something more like these ladies...

See, this is where you are such a vital member of the team: me? I could never pull off that kind of feminine for long- I'd curse the g-string, get p!ssed off with the permanently cold chest, would stop sawing off my horns and filing back my claws, would engage in burping competitions, and would periodically shave the back and sides of my hair into a mohawk to show off the tattoos on the sides of my head. I am voluptuous and lascivious, this is true, *and* I'm going to leave it to others such as your lovely Self to be the poster women for the group- Hellgirl is more me, I'm learning, despite the soft glowing and sparkly centre of me.



Perhaps I'll have to keep my softer side for every other day.



although if you know her background, she's not much better, come to think of it. Hmm.

[PurpleLama]

Posted by another bob (here)

Posted by Zebra (here)
Oh hello Bob!

Good to see your´re around

Much Praise and Thanks to all for their support and kind intentions during this ongoing revelation!

There is currently a brief lull in the adventure, so I am stopping by at the Forum to drop a line and put palms together, bowing.

[Debra]

Oooh, nice choice Songs, I love the idea of a Hellgirl too. I wonder who would be cast as Hellgirl in a film?

Purple Lama, that is the mosts divine photo of you and your beloved. I feel like I am looking at a frame from a Harry Potter film
*Good wizarding stock, we is .. and not of the dark side, thank you very much*

I liked Tintin too, part of my childhood library, Katyani - along with ..

Emil and the Detectives and -

The Fabulous Five

Obviously, I need to find a cinema somewhere that is showing The Avengers!!! Worth seeing on the big screen, eh Borden? Sounds great. I need to get to a city. I´m a bit far out here in the wilderness.

Specs and moustaches .. maybe some blending??

[Borden]

Bob, I wish you would change your avatar back to little Bob. Or at least something less disturbing. I honestly don't mind being out-cuted. Cerridwen and Katyani have both done that to me already, so I've had to toughen up.

I know you know that some pretty energetically powerful Pub Club Avengers lurk this thread. The thing about doing good stuff remotely is that you can't do it aggressively. You can fill a specific avatar with intent, but then you just have to leave it hovering. Then you trust that the person at whom it's aimed will grab it and use it. That's how I think it works anyway.

[Debra]

Considering super hero-ine.

I thinking of expressing some of my Betelguese. Looking for ways to get this one together, bring it in.

[Cerridwen]

Posted by songsfortheotherkind (here)

Posted by Cerridwen (here)
Ummm, no. Those 'women' are way too scary with all of those massive muscles. Even if I could look like that after huge doses of steroids, there's no way I would want too.

If I have to make up my own alter ego, it would probably look something more like these ladies...

See, this is where you are such a vital member of the team: me? I could never pull off that kind of feminine for long- I'd curse the g-string, get p!ssed off with the permanently cold chest, would stop sawing off my horns and filing back my claws, would engage in burping competitions, and would periodically shave the back and sides of my hair into a mohawk to show off the tattoos on the sides of my head. I am voluptuous and lascivious, this is true, *and* I'm going to leave it to others such as your lovely Self to be the poster women for the group- Hellgirl is more me, I'm learning, despite the soft glowing and sparkly centre of me.


Perhaps I'll have to keep my softer side for every other day.

Oh, I'm not wearing that stuff all day long, everyday! I thought superheroes only wore their costumes when fighting the bad guys?

This is what I was thinking about everyday stuff in the Pub Club...

[Borden]

Songsy, I take it that you're Tony and I'm Thor? The Killers thing wasn't aimed at you, you f***ing banana. It was aimed at her. Not that she would go near a forum like this with a ten foot stick. As you know.

By the way though ... do you understand that Thor could have killed Tony with very little effort? That truly is play. Joss knows what he's doing and he knows the mythos.

[another bob]

Posted by PurpleLama (here)

[Borden]

That's better, Bob ... you may not be little Bob, but at least little stripy jumper Borden could sit next to you and you could tell him stories.

[Borden]

Cerridwen ... you are a proper Avenger, fear not! And if the superhero named Borden is mysteriously absent from the Avenger's mansion for a few days every month ... he will at least attempt a plausible explanation.

[another bob]

Posted by Borden (here)
... at least little stripy jumper Borden could sit next to you and you could tell him stories.

Here's one for ya, Little Lad:


Returning south to San Francisco after a 6-month stint as a grateful hermit in the Sierras in 1970, my heart tugged me over to the Pacific coastline, where I eventually found myself leisurely touring along the supernaturally splendid Coastal Highway 1.

By the time I had reached the mouth of the Russian River it was late afternoon, and although the shoreline was rather socked in by a coastal fog, I decided to attempt a climb down the steep cliffs leading to the beach.

What moved me to challenge the elemental fates on that day I cannot recall, but the time-tested refrain, “It seemed like a good idea at the time...” could probably be inserted here.

I was about halfway down the side of the cliff wall when I realized I was in a bit of a predicament. I could proceed no further in my descent, since there was no apparent footing. However, I had managed to reach a point that made any ascending retreat equally unviable.

As I grimly pondered the situation, I was suddenly startled: a madly barking, drool-slathered German Shepherd (dog) at the foot of the cliff below was focusing an unaccountable rage in my direction. We were the only two creatures on the foggy beach that day, it was getting dark, and a chill damp wind was now sweeping fiercely up the cliff face.

I was losing my footing on the rock indentation where I had temporarily perched. It was starting to crumble and I had to pee -- real bad. The wind began to amp into a shriek. The insane dog's barking blended with the voice of the wind, becoming even more hostile and incessant. My heart felt like it was going to join my bladder in some volcanic activity. Time seemed frozen, and the experience now seemed to loom as a defining moment for me.

Many have experienced this at some point in life - the psycho-physiological matrix of fear that cannot be casually swept aside by the comforting little lies we tell ourselves. All the little internal chattering narrative that we perpetually indulge runs smack into the unavoidable maw of clear and present breathless reality. First come the impotent curses, then the cold sweat panic, then the hallucinatory spree of mind in overwhelm, and then...

For a brief eternal instant the setting sun on the Pacific horizon peeked out below the cloud cover, and quickly spread its gorgeous illumination along the underbelly of the now transfigured blanket, and what a sight it was - the most riotously effulgent sunset I had ever seen!

Tears poured involuntarily down my cheeks - the imminent danger completely forgotten in the glory of the scene.

Just then a seagull, white, with ribbons of gray tapering down its wingspan, soared in a kind of lazy slow motion directly into my line of sight, and the wonder of its gliding aero-dynamism simply stopped my mind!

It was as if I had never really seen this before or, to be more precise – it was as if I was seeing it for the very first time once again - as I had when I was baby, with no words to limit it, no concepts to bind it to the mind's dusty library of accumulated associations.

I Was this Wonder! All of it was me - free and utterly perfect just as it is - no past or future or any sense of time at all - just This! Here! Now!

My heart fell to peace. In this way, the world came to peace, to rest. And now I noticed my body almost floating down the side of the cliff. There was no calculation involved at all in the descent. I am sure, if you were an observer, you would have seen, in the dusky twilight, a rather remarkable feat of rock climbing!

When I alighted on the beach, the now-transformed dog came and snuggled its body against mine -- we knew -- and together we ambled off along the sand into the darkness, empty and full, two children of the Majesty.

[Borden]

Holy sh1t, Bob ... I knew I was right to sit next to you and hear your stories.

I've stared death in the face quite a few times, which is weird for someone as unwilling to 'join the dance' as me. Death always looks like a bored professor to me. Really? Are we really doing this again? I remember hanging off a corrugated roof by a 'hump', my body well over the edge, in the pissing rain, very drunk. Concrete five stories below. It looked so boring. I knew everything in that moment. I never forgot it. Neither did you, from the sound of it.

[Cerridwen]

Wow! Right now there are 54 users browsing this thread.

[Cerridwen]

Posted by Borden (here)
Cerridwen ... you are a proper Avenger, fear not! And if the superhero named Borden is mysteriously absent from the Avenger's mansion for a few days every month ... he will at least attempt a plausible explanation.

I'm going to have to go and see this movie this weekend. I don't go to the movies often, but since you're giving it such high marks, Borden, it must be a good one.

[another bob]

Posted by Borden (here)
Holy sh1t, Bob ... I knew I was right to sit next to you and hear your stories.

I've stared death in the face quite a few times, which is weird for someone as unwilling to 'join the dance' as me. Death always looks like a bored professor to me. Really? Are we really doing this again? I remember hanging off a corrugated roof by a 'hump', my body well over the edge, in the pissing rain, very drunk. Concrete five stories below. It looked so boring. I knew everything in that moment. I never forgot it. Neither did you, from the sound of it.

“Let’s go surfin’ now!
Everybody’s learnin’ how!
Come on a safari with me!”

~The Beach Boys

Yeah! California! Summertime, early 1960s – and if you lived down by the Pacific Ocean, you may not have known how to surf, but you certainly couldn’t help but be lured out to the beach on warm summer days. Once there, you could see visions of thrilling surf riders daring the onrushing tides, or tossed/washed off their gleaming boards in hungry curls of carnivorous snarl. In either case, the contagious excitement of taking it to the limit was just the kind of adolescent “come-hither, you”, that laced through many of the Top 40 tunes of the day. I was certainly not immune to the siren songs that promised fun and glory in the blue-green waves. “Everybody’s gone surfin’ . . . . surfin’ USA!”

I grew up in the Richmond District in San Francisco, adjacent to the emerald majesty of Golden Gate Park, about eight blocks up Fulton from Ocean Beach. Stretching south below the post-card Cliff House and the old Sutro Baths (incarnating as a swell skating rink at the time, now in ruins), there’s a spit of sand known as Kelley’s Cove. A short bus ride, and I was there.

First stop was at Playland (the deteriorating amusement park across the street from the beach) for french fries to complement the salty ocean air. From there, I shepherded my two younger brothers and sister over to the shore, down the steps of the concrete sea wall, and out to “our spot” near the pier (also now washed away). Here we sat and conducted cultural anthropological musings about the general tribal gatherings and cliques – the “surfers” and the “greasers” – but mostly just watched in awe as the wet suits rode the waves.

When it got hot enough, we’d swim out a bit, and practice “body surfing”, unconcerned with the posted warning signs about dangerous undertows in the area. The internal chemical rush from catching the right wavelet only whetted my appetite for the real thing.

I eventually acquired my own training board, as well as an ill-fitting rubbery wet suit top. I ignored the odd glances from the other passengers when I boarded the bus on the way to the beach. I had just turned 13 in June, and it was my last summer vacation before entering a Catholic Seminary.

With Beach Boy lyrics romping in my ears, I fearlessly paddled out to the big waves, and hunched up from my prone position to a sitting one, dangling my shark-bait legs in the water and feeling like I had finally arrived.

After studying the methods of the various older guys – how they chose their own individual waves, got a good start, and then climbed their boards to marry with the roll and surge of surf -- I pumped up my courage and away I went!

Within seconds, I found myself buried in the wave I had challenged, minus my board, coughing salty water and being swept swiftly, helplessly -- not towards the shore -- but out towards Hawaii.

After the turbulence had subsided and I had regained the surface, I began a desperate, futile effort to swim against the tide, and it was now quickly dawning on me why the warning signs about the undertow were placed near this beach. I had heard stories, but of course such things only happened to other people. At 13, I was invincible --summer had just started, for chrissake! I had my whole life ahead of me!

Then panic gripped me, and I started to scream for help, but I was too far out by now to be heard, and as I tried to see the shore, I found, to my even greater panic, that the shore was no longer visible. The more I struggled, the wearier I became, and I began to realize that I could die! Yes! I could actually die out here, and, in fact, I probably would!

Then I remembered the previous summer, when I fell off my rubber tire while “tubing” a river in the Sierras. After being tossed wildly in the froth, I had grabbed onto a rock in the middle of the rapids, clinging to it for dear life. Eventually, my arms had grown too tired to hold it any longer in the force of the oncoming river. Finally I just let go, and soon was washed into the still pool at the foot of the white water, breathing such a sigh of relief!

There was a lesson there, and it now raced back to me. I once again had found myself in a powerless condition, and so I stretched into a float and just gave up the struggle.

It all seemed so peaceful now, and timeless. I rested in the unknown of it all. Above me, the blue sky was beginning to blaze into the light of a glorious sunset, and I had become numb to the chilly embrace of the ocean on my skin. “If I could only find words for the beauty of this sky, this wonder . . .” I remember musing. Gradually, an older, deeper remembrance began to flood my consciousness, obliterating all fear, all concern.

I recall nothing after that, except a kind of dreamless slumber, and then the waking up at sea. I realized that I had been carried for miles in a great arc, borne along by a Grace beyond comprehension. I was so very gently and naturally being returned to land in this lovely twilight, far down the beach from where I had embarked, and lifetimes, really, from the child who had drifted and rocked so innocently to sleep in the arms of the ocean mother.

At last I was climbing back onto the shore, and after all that had transpired, I was simply famished for french fries. As it turned out, the concession had closed by then, but it didn’t really matter. Just the hunger pangs alone were enough to make me smile.

[Borden]

It is indeed a good one, Cerridwen ... trust Borden. It's massive fun. I'm pretty sure most people know who Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and the Hulk are, but even if not I think you'll get it pretty quickly. Joss Whedon is only on my radar for doing a movie called 'Serenity', and I have to say, although I really loved that movie, I had my doubts about his ability to pull off a huge movie like this one. My doubts were silly. He has rocked my Marvel world. Go see it.

[Calz]

Posted by songsfortheotherkind (here)

Oooooh ... I like blue ones ... they're so ... smurphy

[Debra]

Inspirational .. the climb, the wall, the impossibility and then the body intelligent - takes over



ahh .. must of been the view for Tom Cruise as well -

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=7s5KFbyBmrQ

[Borden]

Bob ... you paint with words.