Stair history, another extrapolatable metaphor for how we are now from inside the Bunker Hill Monument, and a liar is served some humble pie

Friday 8/8/25

I've taken a while in getting to this, but didn't want to leave it any longer so that I can move on with other matters here.

I'm seeing the kids today, which makes this the perfect time in these very early hours of the morning--well, not that early for me--to update the record, as it were.

Last year on their visit, Charlie and Lilah and myself went up the Bunker Hill Monument. They knew that their uncle did this regularly. Charlie, being into sports, wanted to try, and we climbed together while everyone else waited below. Having seen her brother do it, Lilah wanted to now as well, and I went up a second time with her.

They thought the Monument was nuts. Lilah said it was the hardest thing she'd ever done, and couldn't wait to tell her friends at school. It was kind of funny. And I don't know why, exactly--save that they were interested and they had had an experiential frame of reference now--but beginning that day of August 15 when I did the stairs with them, I started counting how many circuits I'd done since we last did them together.

Just Monument circuits, you see. Not how many stairs I was running at City Hall. It was in December, I believe, that the Monument's hours changed, and instead of opening at ten, as it does for summer hours--which is most convenient for me, because by then, I've often been working for eight, nine, ten hours--it opened at 1. A lot of times, rather than wait around, I'd go to City Hall and run my stairs there. I have a lot of different stairs. I've been running stairs now for nine years.

I didn't stop during COVID when the Monument closed. I just found other options. Either at City Hall, inside of subway stations, out on the big hill in Brookline, all the way out in Chestnut Hill at Boston College. I learned so much about stairs. Myself. I always do. No two sets of stairs in the world are the same. You can learn different things on all of them. You can go up and down 294 stairs--as in the Monument--or up and down twelve stairs, which is the shortest set I use. What matters is that you're doing it. You're trying hard.

Occasionally, I'd give the kids updates. I got to May 15, and I hit 600 circuits of stairs in the Monument. (By the by: Going up and down the Monument ten times is about the same as going up and down the Empire State Building twice.) I thought, "Okay, I'll aim to get to 1000 circuits in a year between the times I've seen them," thinking, somehow, that I had four months, rather than three.

I have no idea how I miscomputed that, but it's what I thought for like a month, month and a half. When I realized my error and that I only had three months, rather than four, to do 400 circuits of stairs in the Bunker Hill Monument, I figured that I was in deep enough as it was that I should try and get there regardless, which was pretty ambitious.

Eventually, my sister had dates for when the kids would be coming again, which was about a week earlier this year, and I thought ideally it'd be better to have the 1000 stairs finished by then.

Here's the upshot of all of this: On Sunday, July 27, I completed the 1000 circuits. Stair-running history. Because no one has ever done anything like this--or what I've done over these nine years--and for all of the history on that hill in Charlestown, and for as long as the Monument--which is itself a tribute to the ideals of service and sacrifice--has stood there--since 1843--no one has done this inside of it.

Just me. A unique person in a singular situation trying to keep himself going and do things for the world that have not been done before and are needed more than ever.

This is part of that. If it ever happens. By which I mean, if I ever get to where I'm going, I'll know that I wouldn't have without my stairs. Every last one of them. They'll all have mattered in something much bigger.

That was a hard week of stair running. We've had one of the muggiest summers on record here in Boston, and July was brutal. In that last week, I ran ten circuits of stairs in the Monument four times. One day it closed because of the heat, another day it was closed as per the schedule, and another day I thought it was closed, not realizing that in mid-June the Monument had started being open on Tuesdays, which was new.

On those days "off," I ran stairs in the awful heat at City Hall. We're talking 92 degrees, with a seventy something dew point. 3000 stairs each of those days on the shorter steps--which I take two at a time--and those three days were harder than ten-circuit Monument days. It was brutal.

I went well over two weeks without any days off from stairs. That builds up in the legs. There's an attrition. Get a day or two off, and you go back to a nice place. Then again, I'm in a different kind of shape now when it comes to these things, and days off don't matter that much, if at all, but still...no days off coupled with forty Monument circuits in four days isn't going to feel like feathers tickling you.

I had said in this record during that last week that it would probably be the following week when I'd get to my 1000, but anyone who reads these pages would have thought, "Nah, he's going to go for it now," and that's what I did.

But there's more to it than that. A second bit of history, and the serving of some stair-based humble pie--humble pie from the Bunker Hill Monument kitchen!

Many times here I've talked about how you see where the world is at, where this country is at, where society is at, where people are at--mentally, emotionally, psychologically--how technology is replacing our minds, our souls, from within the walls of the Bunker Hill Monument when you run stairs there. The world--and insight about it--comes to you. If you know how to see and hear and understand what's in front of you or coming up from behind, or whatever the case may be. We can then extrapolate our findings.

A recent example: During this week of which I speak, I was nearing the top on my seventh ascent. Had on my normal garb. The workout clothes, the headband. Sweat flying everywhere. Obviously I look fit. I'm not a tourist from Missouri with a mega-gut making bad jokes all the way up about "Remind me why we're doing this again!"

If you're in there with me, chances are high I've passed you a bunch of times. You've seen me go by you--unless you're incredibly unobservant--again and again. If someone doesn't turn their body--which I always do, and it's usually just me--we can even make contact with each other.

People have no concept of space, no consideration of others, and apparently no idea--or concern--about how obese they often are. I make like a flounder typically when I'm on my way up, putting myself against the wall on the right while keeping moving and not losing speed--I've perfected this technique.

Anyway, I'm right at the top for this seventh time, and some man of ample heft, all chummy--but in that loaded up with projection sense--says "You made it!"

You think?

This is how people are and it's typical of how they want you to be in their loser boat with them. They want you to be as dumb, as out of shape, as lazy, as unproductive, as simple, as weak, whatever it is.

We see this in publishing over and over and over again. It's the requirement of publishing. You have to be as bad and as talentless as the people in it are. I don't know how anyone could see all of the data as such, all of the examples, all of the proof, without exception, in this journal and not know that.

People don't want you to be better than they are. If they think you are, they get defensive, and they'll in turn go on the offensive, if you will, but in the manner of the coward, which we see with--and it's a good time to bring them up here--people like the three head honchos in Bloomsbury Object Lessons series who would not allow me to do a book on stairs--and who wouldn't even write me back, knowing that it would be impossible for me not to know what they were up to--because they are bigots.

I'm not even going to use their names in this entry, because we're going to expose them properly soon enough, these gutless, discriminatory, pathetic cowards. We'll start that going up Google for them, like they were climbing a kind of stairs you don't want to get to the top of.

This guy at the top of the stairs in this extrapolatable scenario didn't mean, "Congrats, you've made it yet again, with this super intense workout of yours. No way.

He meant, "We're in the same boat!"

Even if he had to force the fuck out this attempt at wishful thinking, which, as you one ought to know, wears off fast. Then you get animus.

Think of how incapable you have to be of processing information to think like this. How nonexistent your deductive abilities would have to be. How horned up you have to be to want to think someone is like you.

Well, people get disabused of this notion very fast with me. This forced projection of theirs.

If you're Carolyn Kuebler, if you're Emily Nemens, if you're Michael Ray, if you're J. Robert Lennon, if you're Patrick Ryan and Will Allison, if you're Sigrid "What do you mean it's not your right to hide a dead body if you inherited a billion dollars?" Rausing, if you're Wendy "the bag of hag" Lesser, it takes you about three seconds to realize, "Oh, shit, this guy is on a totally different level than I am," and then, with the envy and fear and insecurity that produces in the weakest of people with no ability, outsized, unjustified egos, and what's a crippling self-doubt for starters, for the hate to manifest. They're cowards, so hate is carried out behind the scenes. Telling the people exactly like them to lock this person out. That kind of thing.

What do you think Rebecca Barden and company said at Bloomsbury yesterday? Because I sent that link from here to her, too. You think a gutless, lying, bigot like her was going to say anything? Who wouldn't? Would you let someone say that about you if it wasn't true? Hell no. You only would if you knew it was bang on and you were that guilty.

You know how many visits Bloomsbury people have made to this site since that entry went up? The number would amaze you. They're looking at it right now. But they'll do nothing. What can you do? It's all true. You going to try and make it right? Of course not. These people are lower than snail mucus on the forest floor. They're going to hate someone more who they discriminated against, because he wasn't okay with that. Think of how insane and evil you have to be--and again, pathetic--for this to be true.

This is what the guilty and cowardly do: They hope for the best after their acts of evil. That if they tuck tail and hide in the corner that maybe they'll get away with it.

Publishing people have in effect gamed the "getting away with it" system, by killing off reading, and making it the last thing anyone on earth wants to do, just about, because the system only publishes shit and only produces writers who can't make anything but shit. Thus, no prying eyes, because no one out in the world gives a fuck at all.

While the people are all away, the broken, talentless, petty freaks can play.

Anyway, I hit the top stair, and head back down, while our guy here stayed up top. I get to the bottom, turn around immediately, and am on my way back, close to the top again, when he's finally making his descent. He doesn't make any attempt to get his bulk out of the way. He's taking up three-quarters of the available space. You have a choice--you turn your body some. This isn't any kind of shaming--it's a tight space, and it's tighter at different points. His attitude was one of, "I don't have to do anything for anyone." Despite this, I politely say, "Excuse me," and he starts swearing at me, as if I just asked him to bequeath me his college freshman daughter for a weekend of unrivaled debauches. Muttering style.

In other words, under the breath, like a coward, but so I can make it out, because people also have no concept of how loud they are when they think they're being all sotto voce.

This is happening now because he thinks I'm better than he is. It's not the same boat anymore. Getting to the top, once? Same boat. Or enough for a stupid person to try and jam that round peg into that square opening. Same guy, but different perceptions about me. I'm the same, too, But you see how his attitude completely changed?

This is how people are. Almost without exception. In their boat, you're fine; the less in their boat you are--and I mean in the substantive ways, like how much smarter you are, how much stronger, how much more legit, how much more productive, and how much less achievable for them, in these ways, that you are--the more they envy, fear, and hate you. The key to success, insofar as with other people goes, is in being like them. They have to look at you and think you're achievable.

There's no one who sees David Remnick boring people off their tits as the empty suit that he is on a some TV appearance and thinks he's on some other level than they are. It just doesn't happen. There but for a break, the right connections, "That could be me," is what people think.

There's nothing special about him. As just one example. And he knows this, deep down in the part of himself that, ironically, has the strongest voice, and leads to him discriminating like he does, and making sure his entire life is the upkeep of one big safe space for his sad little ego.

But I wanted to talk about that day on which I went from 990 circuits to 1000, capping off those final 400 in two and a half months...

I was early to the Monument that morning, hoping they'd let me in early, as they sometimes do, depending on which rangers are there.

It's a great thing to have the Monument to yourself. I'm not talking about just being free of the annoyances and the bullshit and, well, people who suck as almost all people now do, in a world without standards, intelligence, quality, a modicum of concern for anyone else. Awareness.

I mean it does the soul good to be in there on your own, hearing the sound of your own breath, your echoing footsteps.

Alas, on this day, no dice. Twenty or so people were already there waiting outside. That's fine. I do push-ups on the grass and my stretches. I saw this one guy eyeing me. Weekend warrior type. Probably my age, but could have passed for my uncle. Speaking of. The type of guy I know just can't wait to flap his gums.

That's most people, though. Everyone wants to yap. They don't care if you care, or if they're tied with several billion others as the least interesting person in the world. No one wants to listen to anyone else. People are just waiting for their turn of "Ready, set, go--flap them gums!"

I knew if I got near this guy, he'd be off and running, words-wise. He was sufficiently entitled, too, that despite the Monument not having opened yet, he tried to walk in one of the doors that was only opened so that one of the rangers could carry the stepladder outside to put up the flags, which resulted in the ranger having to tell this genius that he couldn't just go in--or at least not yet.

There I am, waiting by the locked door, so I can be first and not get stuck behind people--becauee this was sort of a big day for me, and I wanted to try and do something special--more on which in a second--and this guy comes over. So that he can flap them gums to this other person--me--he's determined, forced-projection style, is in his boat, because he, too, had on workout clothes.

See how this works?

He starts bragging about himself, how he used to run these stairs all the time, before COVID. Lying his face off. I'd never seen this guy in my life. Like I said, I've been doing this for nine years.

I'm not encouraging him, but he just keeps going and going. He says to me, "When COVID hit, I got off the grid. I sat out all of that Black Lives Matter and Defund the Police shit by going to the Whites and living away from it all. Hiked all of the Whites. Just out there, powering through."

That's the kind of person we're talking here. Who the hell says this? Any of this? Then he starts on about the Monument. "Most I ever did in a day was thirteen times. Yeah, by the end, I was at 800,000 stairs."

I bet you he hadn't done it twice in his life. Just lying and lying and lying. 800,000 stairs? What a number!

Here's the thing: We're about to go in. We're the first two in line. We're right next to each other. It's like we're going to be doing these stairs together. I'm going to see you, brother, for the liar you are. What are you doing? Why can't you stop talking?

But he couldn't.

Now, if you know me, you have some idea of what I'm thinking at this point, even if you never do the rest of the time. I was telling this story to my mom, and she said, "You're the worst person in the world to be saying all of this to."

Because all the while this guy was talking, I was thinking, "I'm going to blow your ass up in a few seconds. You want to do some stairs, Mr. 800,000? We'll do some fucking stairs, champ."

My goal was to get him to quit as early as possible in shame.

We get in there, and boom, like a shot to the top goes the C-Dawg. Meanwhile, Wheezy Wheezerton here, is huffing and puffing behind me, until I couldn't even hear him anymore he was so far back, and let me tell you, those granite walls really carry sound. I've never turned around faster at the top, and that's saying something. I come barreling down, and he's not close still.

You think he had some words for me when I passed him going down as he was still laboring on his way up, or do you think he kept his eyes on the ground and tried not to have a heart attack or vomit or whatever else he was doing and not want to deal with looking in the eyes of the man he said all of his shit to?

I'm getting more and more into this now. More competitive. Hit the bottom, and bang back to the top. And it was on my way up again that was the last I say Mr. 800,000, because that was it for him: He quit after one circuit.

Wanna guess who I haven't seen since?

I owe him a bit of thanks, though. I wasn't sure this could be done--because it's an insane pace over a long period of time, workout-wise--but I finished the ten circuits, after all of those days of stair running, and all of that heat and humidity, in sixty minutes, which was the number I had in mind for this day, and I'm not sure I would have without the extra helping of motivation.

And that's how I came to run 1000 circuits of stairs in the Bunker Hill Monument in less than a year.

The new year, for me, started July 31, and with the ten circuits I did yesterday, I'm up to forty. Maybe me and the kids will be in Charlestown later today. When told by mom about the 1000 circuits, my nephew said, "That's sick," which my mom tells me is his highest form of praise and respect.

It was pretty sick, but that was then and this is now, and you know what they say--or what I say, anyway: You're only as good as your last circuit of stairs.

You can extrapolate that, too.