Well, I just realized my grinninsinner.com site has expired. An unknown MySpace friend set it up for me, but I had no idea for how long. It had connected to some articles and essays I'd posted on Helium.com. You can still reach them by going to Helium and searching Bob Thatcher. There was also an interview of my thoughts on the generation gap published last week on And Cream dot com Online Magazine from London, England. www.andcream.com. Issue #24. September 2008.
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I'm at: www.myspace.com/cornholewallace. (I hate that name, but it's what they called me in the credits for the adult movie, "Kate and the Indians" back in 1979. The friend who set me up on MySpace back in 2004 thought it was really cool, so he used it for my permanent URL. Grrrr . . . . .)
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I'll be starting back up here in a bit.
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Take care . . . Bob.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
No Dogs Or Personal Checks
www.storyofstuff.com
www.revbilly.com (The Church of Stop Shopping)
Global birth control. Plant hemp for fiber. Free exchange stores.
Good luck to us all.
Easter Week, 1971. A friend and I were hitchhiking up to Big Sur. In a van, cruising up Highway 1 through Malibu, we spotted three young hippie chicks thumbing alongside the road surrounded by a pack of dogs. The driver pulled over and the girls climbed in with just one dog. "All those other dogs are from around here. Whenever a car would pull over and we'd run toward it, the drivers would see all the dogs running with us and take off." Turns out they were part of a large group of folks from Long Beach on their way to a hot springs in the mountains up behind Santa Barbara. They'd loaded two cars with all the sleeping bags and food for everybody, and then the people had hitchhiked instead of taking a bunch more vehicles. Meeting up with about a dozen of their friends at State Street and 101 in Santa Barbara that night--back before the freeway ran all the way through town--I called an L.A. rock 'n' roll radio station about our location and destination, and a half-hour later two vans from a church group pulled up and, after a shot at saving our souls over hot chocolate and cookies at their lair, took us all up to the entrance to the National Forest and a few miles up the dirt road. Using what sleeping bags we had, we all slept in one large fun-filled pile on top of a moon-lit mountain, looking down on the clouds. The next day we started walking in, taking rides as occasional cars drove in. My friend and I ended up spending the week there, and then going to their big house in Long Beach to party with them there. (537 7th Street at Magnolia, by the 710 [back then the "7"] freeway on-ramp.) Several years later, my friend married one of the three girls in the first group we'd met. And I spent over a year with a girlfriend of theirs who came to visit the house from Key West with her mystical black Afghan hound dog, Hair. (I always loved when people laughed at me for hitchhiking.)
Those tomato farmers who recently lost all their crops for naught because of the salmonella scare remind me of the New York gang the Warriors from the movie by the same name. At the end when everybody realizes is wasn't a Warrior who shot Cyrus, after a night bopping their way home to Coney Island with all the other gangs after them, a radio dj says something like, oops, sorry, Warriors, but that's the way it goes sometimes in the Big City. Sorry tomato farmers, but it was hot peppers what did it. Oops.
I keep thinking: "The new [reluctant] hippies." From the bottom up, it's sinking in. Unrestrained consumerism is not turning out to be a workable long-term economic policy. Like when I was on the road having to carry everything I owned, it became glaringly obvious what was really important, and I adapted accordingly. Now with dropping incomes and rising prices, more and more folks are learning the same thing in their lives. Wise, concerned, and poor people have long known, but now the knowledge is quickly rising up the income chain. Reality is striking with a vengeance. Between the financial limitations we're facing and the doubtful continuation of life on Planet Earth, it's becoming obvious we need to start using less as a policy. Yet both major Presidential Candidates promise to "get the economy going again", guaranteed to hurry our doom. It's time to deal with what's really important to a good life, not keep Wall Street happy until we're all dead.
Yesterday the guy on the radio said that aware young people are beginning to sport thrift-store used jeans as a style, not the expensive designer jeans favored by their parents. I know that type thing has been happening in more and more ways, but what amazed me was hearing it admitted on a commercial, corporate-owned radio station. (I did only hear it once.) I'd love to see one of The Candidates show up somewhere in old jeans as a lifestyle statement instead of just always declaring their allegiance to Big Business and the Supreme Power: "The Economy." THAT's what it would take to get MY vote.
Group marriage. Six or eight or ten people living together saves the individuals from the horrors of monogamy, the dangers of STDs from just steppin' out on a partner, and helps save Planet Earth, needing only one vacuum cleaner, one big-screen TV, maybe even only one car, instead of each two people having to buy one of everything. At least it would be fun giving it a try. Saving the planet doesn't have to be boring.
Make love, not credit-card debt.
www.revbilly.com (The Church of Stop Shopping)
Global birth control. Plant hemp for fiber. Free exchange stores.
Good luck to us all.
Easter Week, 1971. A friend and I were hitchhiking up to Big Sur. In a van, cruising up Highway 1 through Malibu, we spotted three young hippie chicks thumbing alongside the road surrounded by a pack of dogs. The driver pulled over and the girls climbed in with just one dog. "All those other dogs are from around here. Whenever a car would pull over and we'd run toward it, the drivers would see all the dogs running with us and take off." Turns out they were part of a large group of folks from Long Beach on their way to a hot springs in the mountains up behind Santa Barbara. They'd loaded two cars with all the sleeping bags and food for everybody, and then the people had hitchhiked instead of taking a bunch more vehicles. Meeting up with about a dozen of their friends at State Street and 101 in Santa Barbara that night--back before the freeway ran all the way through town--I called an L.A. rock 'n' roll radio station about our location and destination, and a half-hour later two vans from a church group pulled up and, after a shot at saving our souls over hot chocolate and cookies at their lair, took us all up to the entrance to the National Forest and a few miles up the dirt road. Using what sleeping bags we had, we all slept in one large fun-filled pile on top of a moon-lit mountain, looking down on the clouds. The next day we started walking in, taking rides as occasional cars drove in. My friend and I ended up spending the week there, and then going to their big house in Long Beach to party with them there. (537 7th Street at Magnolia, by the 710 [back then the "7"] freeway on-ramp.) Several years later, my friend married one of the three girls in the first group we'd met. And I spent over a year with a girlfriend of theirs who came to visit the house from Key West with her mystical black Afghan hound dog, Hair. (I always loved when people laughed at me for hitchhiking.)
Those tomato farmers who recently lost all their crops for naught because of the salmonella scare remind me of the New York gang the Warriors from the movie by the same name. At the end when everybody realizes is wasn't a Warrior who shot Cyrus, after a night bopping their way home to Coney Island with all the other gangs after them, a radio dj says something like, oops, sorry, Warriors, but that's the way it goes sometimes in the Big City. Sorry tomato farmers, but it was hot peppers what did it. Oops.
I keep thinking: "The new [reluctant] hippies." From the bottom up, it's sinking in. Unrestrained consumerism is not turning out to be a workable long-term economic policy. Like when I was on the road having to carry everything I owned, it became glaringly obvious what was really important, and I adapted accordingly. Now with dropping incomes and rising prices, more and more folks are learning the same thing in their lives. Wise, concerned, and poor people have long known, but now the knowledge is quickly rising up the income chain. Reality is striking with a vengeance. Between the financial limitations we're facing and the doubtful continuation of life on Planet Earth, it's becoming obvious we need to start using less as a policy. Yet both major Presidential Candidates promise to "get the economy going again", guaranteed to hurry our doom. It's time to deal with what's really important to a good life, not keep Wall Street happy until we're all dead.
Yesterday the guy on the radio said that aware young people are beginning to sport thrift-store used jeans as a style, not the expensive designer jeans favored by their parents. I know that type thing has been happening in more and more ways, but what amazed me was hearing it admitted on a commercial, corporate-owned radio station. (I did only hear it once.) I'd love to see one of The Candidates show up somewhere in old jeans as a lifestyle statement instead of just always declaring their allegiance to Big Business and the Supreme Power: "The Economy." THAT's what it would take to get MY vote.
Group marriage. Six or eight or ten people living together saves the individuals from the horrors of monogamy, the dangers of STDs from just steppin' out on a partner, and helps save Planet Earth, needing only one vacuum cleaner, one big-screen TV, maybe even only one car, instead of each two people having to buy one of everything. At least it would be fun giving it a try. Saving the planet doesn't have to be boring.
Make love, not credit-card debt.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
The More You Buy, The More You Save
I've been writing this Grasshopper Planet blog pretty much two times a week since I started doing it in February. One woman wrote to me about a week ago on MySpace, telling me she'd taken a whole morning and read it through from the beginning. But anybody just checking it out for the first time, or only occasionally, is reading just the last chapter so far. Seems weird to me. Say I jump on a topic I've talked about earlier, it can give the wrong impression on where I stand or the point I'm trying to make to somebody just reading that latest thought on the subject. Rex Stout included all the basic info on the house and everybody in it each and every Nero Wolfe story he wrote. But that was for novels, or at least long short-stories, and he was making good money for his trouble. But every time I bring up, say, how religious people denying sex education to young people actually helps create the sex offenders they so love to persecute later, I can't go back and repeat everything I ever said on the topic each time. My predicament reminds me of a 1999 book I read by Chuck Palahnick, the author of Fight Club. It's called "Survivor: A Novel", and it's told completely backwards. I mean not only does it start at the end, but he goes all the way. It begins on page 289, and finishes on page 1, at the beginning of the story. Well that's how I feel the way this blog trip is set up. I try to keep that in mind as I write, but sometimes I just gotta live with it. So it goes . . . as they say.
The other day I spotted two bicycle cops parked near a corner by USC. I mean, they weren't waiting to cross the street or taking a break, they were both backed in and watching the street. In Portland or San Francisco I woulda probably made a remark to them as I walked by, but down here they're too quick on the trigger to joke with. I went into University Village to take care of business, then came out the other end, where I spotted two more officers of the law on bicycles doing the same trip. But here as I waited for the bus, I got a chance to see their mission. As of July 1st, California drivers can no longer use hand-held cell phones. (Might bring back the use of turn signals. I'm hoping.) These guys were zooming out on their bikes when they spotted any driver talking on the phone at the red light and giving them a ticket. Like shooting fish in a barrel.
MySpace came out with a book: "OUR PLANET Change Is Possible." About what folks can do to slow global warming. I just saw it today for the first time. Good for MySpace. I'm waiting for the Wall Street, White House, and Pentagon editions. I would sure welcome another New World to head to and explore. A place to hide. But when you're like in a boat--the Good Ship Planet Earth--and people are chipping away at it for fun and profit, and telling you, "It's okay, it's the OTHER end of the boat we're destroying. We'll be okay here," it's kind of hard to ignore. "We'd stop what we're doing, but it would be bad for the economy." And while this is okay to many folks, there's still being coverage on "the news" about a 9/16th of a second flash of a nipple during half time. And of course, that fifteen-year-old bare back hasn't been forgotten. But the ongoing clear-cutting of forests around the world and the dying oceans aren't worthy of (corporate funded) Network Mention. A dreary subject, I know, but, to quote Noah, "How long can you tread water?"
Today the Democratic candidate for President of the United States of America ("God will lead the way! God will lead the way!") gave a rousing speech in Berlin. I heard the Pie in the Sky, but was hoping for a few Nuts and Bolts. "The less you're happy with, the more fun you'll have." "Many of us on Planet Earth have been living at an unsustainable standard of living, and must learn how to be happy other than by consuming." "We need to take DRASTIC action, not just stop using plastic grocery bags." "We cannot maintain a Growth Economy on a Finite Planet." I did like the "It's all US; we gotta think together." But it's like we need to get fifty feet up to reach our goal, and we're getting a choice between a six-foot stepladder and a ten-foot stepladder. Sucking up to the folks who want to live a lifestyle that the planet can no longer support sounds great, but isn't gonna save us. There are folks who know how to live well on way, way less than the ones doing all the crying. Poor babies. But we just can't use resources up at a rate to keep them happy and continue having life on the planet. "The Economy" is the enemy. Preach the sacrilegious concepts of "enough" and "happy". THAT's what I want to hear.
Drink. Dance. Play.
Plant Your Seeds.
The other day I spotted two bicycle cops parked near a corner by USC. I mean, they weren't waiting to cross the street or taking a break, they were both backed in and watching the street. In Portland or San Francisco I woulda probably made a remark to them as I walked by, but down here they're too quick on the trigger to joke with. I went into University Village to take care of business, then came out the other end, where I spotted two more officers of the law on bicycles doing the same trip. But here as I waited for the bus, I got a chance to see their mission. As of July 1st, California drivers can no longer use hand-held cell phones. (Might bring back the use of turn signals. I'm hoping.) These guys were zooming out on their bikes when they spotted any driver talking on the phone at the red light and giving them a ticket. Like shooting fish in a barrel.
MySpace came out with a book: "OUR PLANET Change Is Possible." About what folks can do to slow global warming. I just saw it today for the first time. Good for MySpace. I'm waiting for the Wall Street, White House, and Pentagon editions. I would sure welcome another New World to head to and explore. A place to hide. But when you're like in a boat--the Good Ship Planet Earth--and people are chipping away at it for fun and profit, and telling you, "It's okay, it's the OTHER end of the boat we're destroying. We'll be okay here," it's kind of hard to ignore. "We'd stop what we're doing, but it would be bad for the economy." And while this is okay to many folks, there's still being coverage on "the news" about a 9/16th of a second flash of a nipple during half time. And of course, that fifteen-year-old bare back hasn't been forgotten. But the ongoing clear-cutting of forests around the world and the dying oceans aren't worthy of (corporate funded) Network Mention. A dreary subject, I know, but, to quote Noah, "How long can you tread water?"
Today the Democratic candidate for President of the United States of America ("God will lead the way! God will lead the way!") gave a rousing speech in Berlin. I heard the Pie in the Sky, but was hoping for a few Nuts and Bolts. "The less you're happy with, the more fun you'll have." "Many of us on Planet Earth have been living at an unsustainable standard of living, and must learn how to be happy other than by consuming." "We need to take DRASTIC action, not just stop using plastic grocery bags." "We cannot maintain a Growth Economy on a Finite Planet." I did like the "It's all US; we gotta think together." But it's like we need to get fifty feet up to reach our goal, and we're getting a choice between a six-foot stepladder and a ten-foot stepladder. Sucking up to the folks who want to live a lifestyle that the planet can no longer support sounds great, but isn't gonna save us. There are folks who know how to live well on way, way less than the ones doing all the crying. Poor babies. But we just can't use resources up at a rate to keep them happy and continue having life on the planet. "The Economy" is the enemy. Preach the sacrilegious concepts of "enough" and "happy". THAT's what I want to hear.
Drink. Dance. Play.
Plant Your Seeds.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Highway 101 North
I've been told that my posts here since I started writing this in February are "negative", "depressing", "pessimistic", but, as one person kindly added, "yet at the same time . . . funny." Well, that's kinda how I feel; I look around and I could cry . . . if I could just stop laughin'. I'm sad that so many people make life hard for themselves and each other. I think it's funny that lots of folks with so much--more than anybody ever in the history of the planet--snivel and moan about their condition, and don't seem to have a clue how to enjoy themselves. The happiest years of my life were the twenty-two I spent hitchhiking around with just a sleeping bag and a suitcase--"on the road", not "homeless"--so you can see why I'm bummed; I've learned how little it takes to have a great time, and I think more of my fellow Earthlings should be having a ball with all we've got going. But, alas, The Great Spirit--"The Economy"--rules all, and there's no such thing as "enough" or "happy" in that church. The Holy Trinity--corporations, the news media, and governments, in that order--worship and defend The Great Spirit above all other considerations. The Mindless Bottom Line is devouring all in its path, and the masses are blinded by faith in the gods of commerce. Yes, it's negative, depressing, and pessimistic, but so dumb ya gotta laugh. (They'd sell all Earth's air to Mars if there was a buyer up there.) "It's BUSINESS." Praise Wall Street!
Right now I'm taping 20/20 with the TV off. It's about SEX. I've written on the subject here some. A MySpace anti-porn site sent me a friend request a while back, and the woman and I have gone back and forth a bit with e-mails. She just thinks the world would be a better place if everybody was normal sexually, like her. I figure to watch the show over the weekend to get some facts and figures maybe, but I've long been a student of the issue. (You can read, "Other People's Sex" and "OPS Part 2" if you want at www.grinnninsinner.com, or through Helium.com, Bob Thatcher.) I'm a Veteran of the Sexual Revolution--wounded twice--so I care about the new recruits who are now entering the fray. Support The Troops.
The Democratic Presidential Candidate ("God will lead the way! God will lead the way!") is in Afghanistan as I type this. I remember reading the book Caravans: A Novel of Afghanistan by James Michener. Written in the late 1940s, it told of their concern of being invaded by the Russians, which eventually happened decades later, with the result predicted in the book. Now WE'RE there. (Suggested reading: Ed Deline's Pillow, by Me.) At least the soldiers have that excellent Afghani hash to smoke while they're there.
It's now Saturday afternoon and I just started watching that 20/20 show about sex I taped last night. My profile-page blurb on MySpace for the past few years has been, "The Morally Superior Are Dangerous", and by golly, the show is reinforcing the truth of that statement, and it's really being hard for me to watch. Those smug, self-righteous worms who know what's best for everybody. I think their problem is they think we're all as sexually squirrelly as they are, so feel justified ruining lives in the name of decency. (They give "decency" a bad name.) Normal people certainly don't care what others are doing consensually. And it all stems from that nonsensical religious "sin" crap. ("You're born in sin! Aren't you ashamed! Now you gotta suffer to make it right.") Damn, I don't know if I'll even be able to watch the rest of the show. I've seen enough of those sickos over the years. Like the creeps who take pictures of the license plates in the parking lots of strip clubs and adult book stores, then send them to the owners' homes as a post card with an invitation to attend their church on the back. I don't think there are words in the English language to describe how low I think those people are. "Despicable", not strong enough. "Loathsome", too kind. It's why I've started losing patience with the guilt pushers out there on the street, preaching their perverted superstitious nonsense. (I better change the subject before my blood-pressure pills can't do their job.) I'm just trying to point out with this blog that the less a person is happy with, the more fun they have and the better it is for Planet Earth. But it's hard to avoid the believers, "God will lead the way! God will lead the way!" And they're my greatest fear.
Monday night now. I got unexpectedly invited away yesterday and it turned into an all-day scene. (It included a long-winded prayer over the PA system at a pancake breakfast they took me to that included calling upon God to sprinkle the blood of Jesus over our food. Yum.) I've been watching more of the 20/20 "Sex" show. The tone is pretty favorable, kinda being incredulous at the anti-sex folks for their unsupported claims. But the next part just started about a guy having to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life over consensual sex with his high school girlfriend. I had to shut it off for a while again. It's like I do watch the TV show Cops when they're breaking up fights and such, but when they do their drug and prostitution stings, I can't handle that. Taking people's freedom, money, cars, and reputations, often ruining families, for the sin of wanting to feel good, out there doing the Lord's work at taxpayer expense, I just can't handle that. A pox on the suckers.
Plant your seeds.
Right now I'm taping 20/20 with the TV off. It's about SEX. I've written on the subject here some. A MySpace anti-porn site sent me a friend request a while back, and the woman and I have gone back and forth a bit with e-mails. She just thinks the world would be a better place if everybody was normal sexually, like her. I figure to watch the show over the weekend to get some facts and figures maybe, but I've long been a student of the issue. (You can read, "Other People's Sex" and "OPS Part 2" if you want at www.grinnninsinner.com, or through Helium.com, Bob Thatcher.) I'm a Veteran of the Sexual Revolution--wounded twice--so I care about the new recruits who are now entering the fray. Support The Troops.
The Democratic Presidential Candidate ("God will lead the way! God will lead the way!") is in Afghanistan as I type this. I remember reading the book Caravans: A Novel of Afghanistan by James Michener. Written in the late 1940s, it told of their concern of being invaded by the Russians, which eventually happened decades later, with the result predicted in the book. Now WE'RE there. (Suggested reading: Ed Deline's Pillow, by Me.) At least the soldiers have that excellent Afghani hash to smoke while they're there.
It's now Saturday afternoon and I just started watching that 20/20 show about sex I taped last night. My profile-page blurb on MySpace for the past few years has been, "The Morally Superior Are Dangerous", and by golly, the show is reinforcing the truth of that statement, and it's really being hard for me to watch. Those smug, self-righteous worms who know what's best for everybody. I think their problem is they think we're all as sexually squirrelly as they are, so feel justified ruining lives in the name of decency. (They give "decency" a bad name.) Normal people certainly don't care what others are doing consensually. And it all stems from that nonsensical religious "sin" crap. ("You're born in sin! Aren't you ashamed! Now you gotta suffer to make it right.") Damn, I don't know if I'll even be able to watch the rest of the show. I've seen enough of those sickos over the years. Like the creeps who take pictures of the license plates in the parking lots of strip clubs and adult book stores, then send them to the owners' homes as a post card with an invitation to attend their church on the back. I don't think there are words in the English language to describe how low I think those people are. "Despicable", not strong enough. "Loathsome", too kind. It's why I've started losing patience with the guilt pushers out there on the street, preaching their perverted superstitious nonsense. (I better change the subject before my blood-pressure pills can't do their job.) I'm just trying to point out with this blog that the less a person is happy with, the more fun they have and the better it is for Planet Earth. But it's hard to avoid the believers, "God will lead the way! God will lead the way!" And they're my greatest fear.
Monday night now. I got unexpectedly invited away yesterday and it turned into an all-day scene. (It included a long-winded prayer over the PA system at a pancake breakfast they took me to that included calling upon God to sprinkle the blood of Jesus over our food. Yum.) I've been watching more of the 20/20 "Sex" show. The tone is pretty favorable, kinda being incredulous at the anti-sex folks for their unsupported claims. But the next part just started about a guy having to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life over consensual sex with his high school girlfriend. I had to shut it off for a while again. It's like I do watch the TV show Cops when they're breaking up fights and such, but when they do their drug and prostitution stings, I can't handle that. Taking people's freedom, money, cars, and reputations, often ruining families, for the sin of wanting to feel good, out there doing the Lord's work at taxpayer expense, I just can't handle that. A pox on the suckers.
Plant your seeds.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
I Thought I Was Wrong Once, But I Was Mistaken
With damn little I can see to vote for that really matters, my civic duty is to write this blog. Like until there's a "None of the above", or a vote for qualities and topics other than which group of short-sighted rich folks do you want to have putting it to you, I don't much see the point of voting. It wasn't too important who ran the show until lately, but with the fate of life on the planet seriously at stake, I'm giving this a shot. I'm well along in years myself and had a ball pretty much my whole life, but I have nothing to leave my substantial progeny in the way of wealth or property, so I'm hoping something I write may do some good for their future. That's my motivation for doing this. I don't have a whole lot of hope, I feel like the prairie dog on that T-shirt, giving the finger to the eagle that's swooping down and about to snatch it. My hero.
The practice used to be, when lightning struck a house, folks would rush in and protect the neighboring homes, but let the burning house go, believing the lightning had been sent down by God, obviously to punish the inhabitants of that house for their sins. And it was death for anyone who worked on Sunday, (or Saturday, depending,) had sex with someone they weren't married to, gave their parents a hard time, or any one of a long list of other offenses that ignorant, uneducated people decided would make a god unhappy. And both the major Presidential Candidates here in 2008--in 2008!--are still into that same superstitious invisible-guy-in-the-sky crap laid down thousands of years ago.
Rock the Vote. (Yeah, right.)
It's Monday, Bastille Day, as I type this. Gas, oil, and food prices have been going up for a while now, and home foreclosures are all the rage. More evidence is being revealed every day that our life-support (Planet Earth) is dying. The U.S. of A. has the largest percentage of its citizens imprisoned than any other country in the world--even those real bad ones. And now the stock market is not only dropping like a pipe out the window of a car getting pulled over by the police, but banks are starting to go belly up while depositors nervously stand in line hoping to get their money out. Kinda bleak. It reminds me of my thoughts way back in 1992, when I first wrote "Off The Road" when I sadly realized I was getting too old to hitchhike all the time anymore. The second paragraph: "Looking around, I have to go "whew". I feel vindicated for the last twenty-five years I wasted on fun and travel. With every new wave of layoffs and failed pension funds and savings institutions, my knees go weak. I could have worked all those years and then suddenly still been in the same boat I'm in now." (If you want, you can read "Off The Road"--Parts 1 and 2--and several other articles and essays I wrote at: www.grinninsinner.com., or just: Helium.com, Bob Thatcher.)
On the bus the other day, I saw two teenage young men with their pants cuffs pulled forward and tied under their shoe laces. The first time I ever saw that and I have no idea what it means. Back when I was in 7th and 8th grades, pants had buckles across the back above the pockets. If you wore yours buckled, it meant you had a girlfriend. If unbuckled, you were looking. I remember guys saying to me, "Bob, you have a girlfriend, so why is your buckle undone?" That pretty much signaled my future: a girlfriend, but still available. (We'd later be called 'swingers'.) I would really like to learn the significance if any of the pants cuffs under the shoe laces. Just style? A serious meaning? A signal to others? Anybody know?
A well-known church, known for its celebrity members, was set up on the street the other day offering free stress tests. When asked if I'd like to take a stress test, I said that "stress" was trying to get off their mailing list, and they all suddenly just looked away. (My friend tried for over twenty years to get them to stop sending her stuff. Finally, after she retired, when she couldn't empty her small P.O. Box daily and it got filled with their junk, stopping them became a top priority. After years of letters and phone calls to please stop with their mailings, she had to do something. She saved up all that they sent her for a while and put it in a large envelope, addressed it to them with no return address, and placed a single stamp on it so they'd have to pay the remaining postage due. After twenty-three years of pleading, she suddenly stopped hearing from them.)
Ever notice that when the time changes, people are often an hour late to work, forgetting to change their clocks? . . . but nobody is ever an hour early when the change goes the other way? Hmmmmm . . .
Where might we be today if Ronald Reagan hadn't canceled the programs to research alternative energies started by President Carter?
Plant your seeds.
The practice used to be, when lightning struck a house, folks would rush in and protect the neighboring homes, but let the burning house go, believing the lightning had been sent down by God, obviously to punish the inhabitants of that house for their sins. And it was death for anyone who worked on Sunday, (or Saturday, depending,) had sex with someone they weren't married to, gave their parents a hard time, or any one of a long list of other offenses that ignorant, uneducated people decided would make a god unhappy. And both the major Presidential Candidates here in 2008--in 2008!--are still into that same superstitious invisible-guy-in-the-sky crap laid down thousands of years ago.
Rock the Vote. (Yeah, right.)
It's Monday, Bastille Day, as I type this. Gas, oil, and food prices have been going up for a while now, and home foreclosures are all the rage. More evidence is being revealed every day that our life-support (Planet Earth) is dying. The U.S. of A. has the largest percentage of its citizens imprisoned than any other country in the world--even those real bad ones. And now the stock market is not only dropping like a pipe out the window of a car getting pulled over by the police, but banks are starting to go belly up while depositors nervously stand in line hoping to get their money out. Kinda bleak. It reminds me of my thoughts way back in 1992, when I first wrote "Off The Road" when I sadly realized I was getting too old to hitchhike all the time anymore. The second paragraph: "Looking around, I have to go "whew". I feel vindicated for the last twenty-five years I wasted on fun and travel. With every new wave of layoffs and failed pension funds and savings institutions, my knees go weak. I could have worked all those years and then suddenly still been in the same boat I'm in now." (If you want, you can read "Off The Road"--Parts 1 and 2--and several other articles and essays I wrote at: www.grinninsinner.com., or just: Helium.com, Bob Thatcher.)
On the bus the other day, I saw two teenage young men with their pants cuffs pulled forward and tied under their shoe laces. The first time I ever saw that and I have no idea what it means. Back when I was in 7th and 8th grades, pants had buckles across the back above the pockets. If you wore yours buckled, it meant you had a girlfriend. If unbuckled, you were looking. I remember guys saying to me, "Bob, you have a girlfriend, so why is your buckle undone?" That pretty much signaled my future: a girlfriend, but still available. (We'd later be called 'swingers'.) I would really like to learn the significance if any of the pants cuffs under the shoe laces. Just style? A serious meaning? A signal to others? Anybody know?
A well-known church, known for its celebrity members, was set up on the street the other day offering free stress tests. When asked if I'd like to take a stress test, I said that "stress" was trying to get off their mailing list, and they all suddenly just looked away. (My friend tried for over twenty years to get them to stop sending her stuff. Finally, after she retired, when she couldn't empty her small P.O. Box daily and it got filled with their junk, stopping them became a top priority. After years of letters and phone calls to please stop with their mailings, she had to do something. She saved up all that they sent her for a while and put it in a large envelope, addressed it to them with no return address, and placed a single stamp on it so they'd have to pay the remaining postage due. After twenty-three years of pleading, she suddenly stopped hearing from them.)
Ever notice that when the time changes, people are often an hour late to work, forgetting to change their clocks? . . . but nobody is ever an hour early when the change goes the other way? Hmmmmm . . .
Where might we be today if Ronald Reagan hadn't canceled the programs to research alternative energies started by President Carter?
Plant your seeds.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
BARBER SHOP "We Shave Legs"
Yesterday (7/11) was disastrous for many Americans. A real heart breaker. This could actually start a movement and force some meaningful protest. Finally something to unite a large number of people. Many of the new iPhones couldn't be activated. Riding on a dying planet, no biggie. A new toy won't work, people squawk. But there is a glimmer of hope for the future of humankind. Hannah Montana is going 3-D!
Though both being fine musicians, neither Kevin nor Paul are very good straight men or comic partners. Oh, they do try, but therein lies the problem. One would think that Jay and Dave would have recognized this long ago. Either spring for a talented side-kick, or just tell the band leaders to button it, that this is the big time. There are clever sixth graders doing a better job of cracking wise from the back of the room than those two music makers.
This is not the tone I try to strike as I write these posts every few days, but it's early and I'm just on my first cup of coffee. The main theme I'm shooting for is that a better life is easier on both people and the environment than everybody focusing exclusively on accumulating as much wealth as possible their whole lives. Lighten up, have some fun, give Planet Earth a break. But that message doesn't really shine through until after my second cup and a shower.
Okay, I've even got my shoes on now. I'm officially up for the day. Unlike Mr. Tony Snow, successful, popular, rich and famous, and now dead of natural causes at age fifty-three. How would he have lived differently if he had known he'd never live to retire? I know, I know, he had a family and had to provide for them if something should happen to him, but I'm thinking more like what he'd think about when he was alone in the bathtub, how he'd spend his days off, what would have been his priorities if he'd had a clue. A guy I knew in San Francisco used to tell me or anybody else who tried sniveling or being petty around him, "What's it gonna matter in a hundred years?" In other words, "You're wasting your precious time." (That guy died at age 50 by the way.)
Last night I heard about a couple very promising power sources for autos and solar electric. The discoveries had been made back during the energy crisis in the 1970s, but work on the ideas had been dropped when oil became readily available again. Who could have guessed back then that we'd ever have another problem with oil availability? ("Brilliant management, Brother Rabbit.") And right now commercials are running on TV about the drastic water shortage facing California. These spots state that 70% of SoCal's water is used outside, like for lawns and watering flowers, so they ask that people water the yard one less day a week. As hard-hitting a suggestion as the G8's non-binding proposal to cut greenhouse gases by 50% by the year 2050. Like pissin' in the wind.
My problem is I've seen too many different lifestyles in my decades on the road. I know how little it takes to be happy, and how people with so much more than most are often joyless. That would be their problem, except in the futile quest to lay their hands on enough treasure to get happy, they're killing us all. Corny or lame as what I've been writing about here since February may sound, that's the long and the short of it.
Free birth control to the world, fast-growing hemp for fiber instead of cutting down all the trees, go dancing and play volleyball more. It could happen.
Though both being fine musicians, neither Kevin nor Paul are very good straight men or comic partners. Oh, they do try, but therein lies the problem. One would think that Jay and Dave would have recognized this long ago. Either spring for a talented side-kick, or just tell the band leaders to button it, that this is the big time. There are clever sixth graders doing a better job of cracking wise from the back of the room than those two music makers.
This is not the tone I try to strike as I write these posts every few days, but it's early and I'm just on my first cup of coffee. The main theme I'm shooting for is that a better life is easier on both people and the environment than everybody focusing exclusively on accumulating as much wealth as possible their whole lives. Lighten up, have some fun, give Planet Earth a break. But that message doesn't really shine through until after my second cup and a shower.
Okay, I've even got my shoes on now. I'm officially up for the day. Unlike Mr. Tony Snow, successful, popular, rich and famous, and now dead of natural causes at age fifty-three. How would he have lived differently if he had known he'd never live to retire? I know, I know, he had a family and had to provide for them if something should happen to him, but I'm thinking more like what he'd think about when he was alone in the bathtub, how he'd spend his days off, what would have been his priorities if he'd had a clue. A guy I knew in San Francisco used to tell me or anybody else who tried sniveling or being petty around him, "What's it gonna matter in a hundred years?" In other words, "You're wasting your precious time." (That guy died at age 50 by the way.)
Last night I heard about a couple very promising power sources for autos and solar electric. The discoveries had been made back during the energy crisis in the 1970s, but work on the ideas had been dropped when oil became readily available again. Who could have guessed back then that we'd ever have another problem with oil availability? ("Brilliant management, Brother Rabbit.") And right now commercials are running on TV about the drastic water shortage facing California. These spots state that 70% of SoCal's water is used outside, like for lawns and watering flowers, so they ask that people water the yard one less day a week. As hard-hitting a suggestion as the G8's non-binding proposal to cut greenhouse gases by 50% by the year 2050. Like pissin' in the wind.
My problem is I've seen too many different lifestyles in my decades on the road. I know how little it takes to be happy, and how people with so much more than most are often joyless. That would be their problem, except in the futile quest to lay their hands on enough treasure to get happy, they're killing us all. Corny or lame as what I've been writing about here since February may sound, that's the long and the short of it.
Free birth control to the world, fast-growing hemp for fiber instead of cutting down all the trees, go dancing and play volleyball more. It could happen.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
FTW
I just heard a couple days ago that people are not allowed to flag down a passing taxicab for a ride here in Los Angeles.
"It's not IF your pet monkey is going to attack you, but WHEN."
FTW. (Fuck The World.) I got it tattooed on my left forearm during the first half of 1968. I was twenty-two and going nuts. Everything suddenly got good toward the end of the year when a little redhead was given to me for my twenty-third birthday. She turned out to be my psychological savior. She pointed out ways of looking at life that made it not be so overwhelming, no matter what was actually happening. Ever since then, FTW has been a grinnin' attitude, not a snivelin' lament. Thank you, Gerri, wherever you are.
A fast-food executive was being interviewed on TV the other day. He was asked about a boycott of his chain of restaurants being promoted by a conservative group because his company had supported an organization they didn't like. The executive said they weren't concerned, that they would never feel such a boycott. He said if the boycott was about the environment or gay rights, then they'd be worried about it costing them business. The pendulum swings, as they say.
It's gotta be like a sick joke, right? Every night on "the news" they give yet another example of our imminent demise, followed by both candidates promising to get gas prices back down and the economy rolling again like the good old days. Today it was the death of ocean coral. The other day the story was alligators going blind. A week ago it was the disappearing salmon and the stopping of all commercial salmon fishing. Fires, record-shattering storms, rising temperatures, dead spots in the oceans. The melting ice caps and the plight of the polar bears is old news, now the stories are all about the new drilling the oil companies can do in the Arctic Circle with the ice gone. We need bees to pollinate our food, but they can't find their way home anymore, possibly because of cell phones. The Earth was a perfect life-support system for hundreds of millions of years, until the Stock Market hit town. Mindless profits know no limits.
It being summertime, I of course have been thinking a lot about "the road". Hitchhiking up and down the West Coast for twenty-two years, Daylight Savings Time was my High Holiday. Summer was the best. I could just roll out my sleeping bag and sleep anywhere. Swimming in rivers, being a guide for fun tourists, backyard volleyball, giving runaway girls from Back East a friendly California welcome, psychedelic softball in mountain meadows, concerts and gatherings and barbecues. (I found that if you have a drivers license and can cook, people are always glad to see you. And if you don't deal, steal or get rowdy drunk, the cops leave you alone. Staying clean of course helps with all of the above. That can be the hardest thing on the road, finding a shower. Way harder than sex, drugs, or food. But even that can be an adventure out there.) Now I need pills to stay alive and couldn't get up in the morning if I slept on the ground in my trusty sleeping bag. I think of my tiny hotel room as a campsite in the trees of a favorite on-ramp up north, only with a sink and a door. But try as I may, there's just no replacing all the different people I used to get to meet every day, free of knowing anybody they knew or ever expecting to see them again, so there was a real openness that most normal, day-to-day encounters can't risk. High stuff, month after month after month. (Details upon request.)
Okay, I'm calling it a day. I watched my usual Leno monologue, and tonight being Monday, "Headlines". I washed all my bedding today, so I'm looking forward to stretching out for the night. (Cheap Thrills.) They're calling for another heat wave starting tomorrow and the air conditioning is broken here in my hotel--it sure works in January and February, but never in the summer. I haven't figured that one out yet.
Plant Your Seeds.
"It's not IF your pet monkey is going to attack you, but WHEN."
FTW. (Fuck The World.) I got it tattooed on my left forearm during the first half of 1968. I was twenty-two and going nuts. Everything suddenly got good toward the end of the year when a little redhead was given to me for my twenty-third birthday. She turned out to be my psychological savior. She pointed out ways of looking at life that made it not be so overwhelming, no matter what was actually happening. Ever since then, FTW has been a grinnin' attitude, not a snivelin' lament. Thank you, Gerri, wherever you are.
A fast-food executive was being interviewed on TV the other day. He was asked about a boycott of his chain of restaurants being promoted by a conservative group because his company had supported an organization they didn't like. The executive said they weren't concerned, that they would never feel such a boycott. He said if the boycott was about the environment or gay rights, then they'd be worried about it costing them business. The pendulum swings, as they say.
It's gotta be like a sick joke, right? Every night on "the news" they give yet another example of our imminent demise, followed by both candidates promising to get gas prices back down and the economy rolling again like the good old days. Today it was the death of ocean coral. The other day the story was alligators going blind. A week ago it was the disappearing salmon and the stopping of all commercial salmon fishing. Fires, record-shattering storms, rising temperatures, dead spots in the oceans. The melting ice caps and the plight of the polar bears is old news, now the stories are all about the new drilling the oil companies can do in the Arctic Circle with the ice gone. We need bees to pollinate our food, but they can't find their way home anymore, possibly because of cell phones. The Earth was a perfect life-support system for hundreds of millions of years, until the Stock Market hit town. Mindless profits know no limits.
It being summertime, I of course have been thinking a lot about "the road". Hitchhiking up and down the West Coast for twenty-two years, Daylight Savings Time was my High Holiday. Summer was the best. I could just roll out my sleeping bag and sleep anywhere. Swimming in rivers, being a guide for fun tourists, backyard volleyball, giving runaway girls from Back East a friendly California welcome, psychedelic softball in mountain meadows, concerts and gatherings and barbecues. (I found that if you have a drivers license and can cook, people are always glad to see you. And if you don't deal, steal or get rowdy drunk, the cops leave you alone. Staying clean of course helps with all of the above. That can be the hardest thing on the road, finding a shower. Way harder than sex, drugs, or food. But even that can be an adventure out there.) Now I need pills to stay alive and couldn't get up in the morning if I slept on the ground in my trusty sleeping bag. I think of my tiny hotel room as a campsite in the trees of a favorite on-ramp up north, only with a sink and a door. But try as I may, there's just no replacing all the different people I used to get to meet every day, free of knowing anybody they knew or ever expecting to see them again, so there was a real openness that most normal, day-to-day encounters can't risk. High stuff, month after month after month. (Details upon request.)
Okay, I'm calling it a day. I watched my usual Leno monologue, and tonight being Monday, "Headlines". I washed all my bedding today, so I'm looking forward to stretching out for the night. (Cheap Thrills.) They're calling for another heat wave starting tomorrow and the air conditioning is broken here in my hotel--it sure works in January and February, but never in the summer. I haven't figured that one out yet.
Plant Your Seeds.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
"It's A Business Doing Pleasure With You"
"Welcome Home." If you ever go to a Rainbow Family Gathering of the Tribes, that's what The Rainbow People say to everybody as they arrive. "Welcome Home." That's kinda how I feel as I watch more and more folks descend out of the clouds and land back here in the real world. Reality strikes. People have been trying to point out for decades that living beyond a certain level is fun while it lasts, but--one way or another--it can't go on forever. Surprise!
It's summertime. That sure doesn't mean the same as when I was on the road and living outside most of the time, but it still sure has a nice ring to it. Long days, no coats needed, the river. I did a lot of outside work over the years, clearing brush, cutting firewood, planting trees, caring for critters, picking apples, digging various holes in the ground, and I enjoy mowing grass. Besides getting a free work-out as I performed my duties, and making a few bucks of course, I liked up in Mendocino County where I worked sometimes, the sound of the wind through the trees. Always made me think of a 1949 or '50 black and white movie wind-through-the-mountains soundtrack. And whenever I got one of those jobs, it was always fun as I broke the people in to that I'd have one or two tall Budweisers during the day. It's never been a problem, so that is non-negotiable in any agreement to work that looks like it's going to go over a day or two. I never asked about how much the pay was, I'd leave it to the people who needed my help to bring it up. It really didn't matter to me; however much it was, after the job I'd spend it until it was gone. So any money would do. If anybody seemed too cheap, I just wouldn't work for them again. I'd bounce around an area until things to do ran out, then stick out my thumb and move on down the road. Zero overhead. Summertime. (And some winters, but that's another story.)
I heard on the radio today, I think it was Philadelphia, that there are a number of spots around town with vehicles which people can register to use as needed, like for a grocery run or to pick somebody up at the airport. But you don't have to maintain your own personal vehicle 24/7. NOW you're talkin'!
There have been some fine, funny TV commercials over the years, and some I even looked forward to. I like when I recognize actors in multiple commercials and can informally follow their careers. But many commercials have me flying for the mute button every time. I even compare the psychology of some spots to various crimes. That commercial would be a sneak thief, or a hustler, and that one just took a club to people's heads. Ones that really drive me up the wall are those that suggest to varying degrees--in a society that is trying to totally restrict a citizen's sexual options to get married, abstain, or wear an ankle bracelet until you're 90--that if you buy this product you'll get sex. Those I think of as nothing less than forcible rape.
I just got a recorded message from the library. Two items I put on hold are in. One is a DVD showing how to play Texas Hold'um. I love playing poker. Not playing more in my life is one of my few regrets. But every time I've run into a chance to play, I've loved it. One of my favorite poker books was "Poker According To Maverick", written through the eyes of Bret Maverick. "My old Pappy always used to say . . . " But I've never played this new game. I've read how to play it a couple places, but I think actually watching a few hands on DVD would be worth a thousand words. Just in case I should run into a chance to play and that's the game. And the second item is a book written in the late 1940s about Bible questions to ask children. I need some fresh facts to stump Believers who start in on me in public. It never takes long to have a religious person talking in circles, but it's more interesting for me when I find new circles to travel with them. I know I can't win--eternal life vs logic--but I gotta do SOMETHING while I'm waiting for the bus. It's an old book, but unlike science, travel, discovery, medicine, music, communication, and everything else in the world, religion is unchanged from when it was first invented by people who thought the world was flat and were always on the lookout for witches and demons, so an old children's book is just as good for finding new questions to challenge untenable convictions as a book just published last week.
Lots of folks are scrambling to come up with new ways to live on less and help save our life-support system here on Planet Earth. The reluctant new hippies. Welcome Home.
It's summertime. That sure doesn't mean the same as when I was on the road and living outside most of the time, but it still sure has a nice ring to it. Long days, no coats needed, the river. I did a lot of outside work over the years, clearing brush, cutting firewood, planting trees, caring for critters, picking apples, digging various holes in the ground, and I enjoy mowing grass. Besides getting a free work-out as I performed my duties, and making a few bucks of course, I liked up in Mendocino County where I worked sometimes, the sound of the wind through the trees. Always made me think of a 1949 or '50 black and white movie wind-through-the-mountains soundtrack. And whenever I got one of those jobs, it was always fun as I broke the people in to that I'd have one or two tall Budweisers during the day. It's never been a problem, so that is non-negotiable in any agreement to work that looks like it's going to go over a day or two. I never asked about how much the pay was, I'd leave it to the people who needed my help to bring it up. It really didn't matter to me; however much it was, after the job I'd spend it until it was gone. So any money would do. If anybody seemed too cheap, I just wouldn't work for them again. I'd bounce around an area until things to do ran out, then stick out my thumb and move on down the road. Zero overhead. Summertime. (And some winters, but that's another story.)
I heard on the radio today, I think it was Philadelphia, that there are a number of spots around town with vehicles which people can register to use as needed, like for a grocery run or to pick somebody up at the airport. But you don't have to maintain your own personal vehicle 24/7. NOW you're talkin'!
There have been some fine, funny TV commercials over the years, and some I even looked forward to. I like when I recognize actors in multiple commercials and can informally follow their careers. But many commercials have me flying for the mute button every time. I even compare the psychology of some spots to various crimes. That commercial would be a sneak thief, or a hustler, and that one just took a club to people's heads. Ones that really drive me up the wall are those that suggest to varying degrees--in a society that is trying to totally restrict a citizen's sexual options to get married, abstain, or wear an ankle bracelet until you're 90--that if you buy this product you'll get sex. Those I think of as nothing less than forcible rape.
I just got a recorded message from the library. Two items I put on hold are in. One is a DVD showing how to play Texas Hold'um. I love playing poker. Not playing more in my life is one of my few regrets. But every time I've run into a chance to play, I've loved it. One of my favorite poker books was "Poker According To Maverick", written through the eyes of Bret Maverick. "My old Pappy always used to say . . . " But I've never played this new game. I've read how to play it a couple places, but I think actually watching a few hands on DVD would be worth a thousand words. Just in case I should run into a chance to play and that's the game. And the second item is a book written in the late 1940s about Bible questions to ask children. I need some fresh facts to stump Believers who start in on me in public. It never takes long to have a religious person talking in circles, but it's more interesting for me when I find new circles to travel with them. I know I can't win--eternal life vs logic--but I gotta do SOMETHING while I'm waiting for the bus. It's an old book, but unlike science, travel, discovery, medicine, music, communication, and everything else in the world, religion is unchanged from when it was first invented by people who thought the world was flat and were always on the lookout for witches and demons, so an old children's book is just as good for finding new questions to challenge untenable convictions as a book just published last week.
Lots of folks are scrambling to come up with new ways to live on less and help save our life-support system here on Planet Earth. The reluctant new hippies. Welcome Home.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Good Help Is Hard To Find
I saw in an aside in a story about a famous scientist on Yahoo!'s home page yesterday that there are people in England chaining themselves to construction sites to slow the building of new coal-burning plants, the reported #1 cause of global warming. I have not heard anything about this on "the news". I did see a story three times this afternoon about a 90-year-old woman who went skydiving, and twice saw one about "fur shui"--attaching various colored objects--ribbons and such--to pet's collars and cages to add to their psychological well-being.
Last night I heard on TV that the higher fuel prices are bringing a lot of jobs back to the U.S., that it's no longer cheaper for corporations to ship products from Asia and South America. People are carpooling to and from work and doing errands on a route rather than making separate trips. Thousands are changing to higher-mileage cars. And there's a big push for the immediate development of alternative power sources. Both Presidential candidates promise to do all they can to lower gas prices again.
(Everybody who wears clothes is naked underneath.)
It's summertime. When I was on the road hitchhiking--often with no destination--Daylight Savings Time was my High Holiday. Just up and down the West Coast, and for a few years, back and forth across Canada. I have never been happier or able to afford to have a better time any other way. Locals and tourists and truck drivers and cops and delivery drivers and once I even got a ride in a hearse with a body in the back. I could sleep in my sleeping bag just about anywhere. I had no overhead. And once I quit smoking cigarettes, I was totally free of panic situations. Early-on in my 22-years of hitchhiking, I had learned what's really important and carried everything I needed. I never had to think of anything to buy, just replace what I had as it ran/wore out. Seven months of summer vacation every year. Then winters I'd find something different to do to get me through to the next spring. But even if that failed some years, I could always find a house-sitting gig for over the Christmas/New Year's holidays when everybody is busy with family and plans and nothing much is happening. But the rest of the year was always wide open. People have always told me, "It's not like it used to be." I have always answered, "It never was." Hitchhiking is like sifting through people and getting just the best and most interesting. Twenty-two years, and boy do I miss it. (Right now my worn-out body is sitting in a hotel room in downtown L.A. taking blood-pressure pills, but my mind is standing along Highway 199 up in the redwoods after a few days at a spot I know on the Smith River. Traffic is slow, so I'm thumbing both ways, whichever way a car is going. Doesn't really matter.)
Okay, it's Thursday night. I wrote the above last night. After listening to "the news" tonight, I got a flash of The (All-Mighty) Economy as a jilted lover, just can't grasp that it is no longer in the picture. (The stock market went down over 300 points today--whatever that means I have no idea--and now folks are predicting gas hitting $7.oo a gallon, and the floods aren't just receding, they're leaving behind toxic waste, and over a thousand lightning fires in Northern California, and it's all only just begun.) But The Economy, and the holy trinity: big corporations, politicians, and the news media, refuse to realize that it's over, keep waiting for things in the relationship to get back to normal. Have no clue that we've reached some major limits and the affair is over. It's soon gonna be time to get a restraining order to keep those fools away. (End of analogy.) There are limits. You can't have a growth economy on a finite planet. Especially a small one like ours. There is plenty for everybody to live really well, but not if some folks are never satisfied. (There's only two amounts of money some folks can have. Either none at all, or not enough.) Look at these multi-millionaires going bankrupt and losing their homes for god's sake, while much of the world has to walk a couple miles just for water and there ain't no grocery stores in town. Jeesh.
Time to think: survival, long-lasting, sturdy, satisfied, enough, happy. Not: growth, consume, more, next year's model, desire.
Good luck to us all.
Last night I heard on TV that the higher fuel prices are bringing a lot of jobs back to the U.S., that it's no longer cheaper for corporations to ship products from Asia and South America. People are carpooling to and from work and doing errands on a route rather than making separate trips. Thousands are changing to higher-mileage cars. And there's a big push for the immediate development of alternative power sources. Both Presidential candidates promise to do all they can to lower gas prices again.
(Everybody who wears clothes is naked underneath.)
It's summertime. When I was on the road hitchhiking--often with no destination--Daylight Savings Time was my High Holiday. Just up and down the West Coast, and for a few years, back and forth across Canada. I have never been happier or able to afford to have a better time any other way. Locals and tourists and truck drivers and cops and delivery drivers and once I even got a ride in a hearse with a body in the back. I could sleep in my sleeping bag just about anywhere. I had no overhead. And once I quit smoking cigarettes, I was totally free of panic situations. Early-on in my 22-years of hitchhiking, I had learned what's really important and carried everything I needed. I never had to think of anything to buy, just replace what I had as it ran/wore out. Seven months of summer vacation every year. Then winters I'd find something different to do to get me through to the next spring. But even if that failed some years, I could always find a house-sitting gig for over the Christmas/New Year's holidays when everybody is busy with family and plans and nothing much is happening. But the rest of the year was always wide open. People have always told me, "It's not like it used to be." I have always answered, "It never was." Hitchhiking is like sifting through people and getting just the best and most interesting. Twenty-two years, and boy do I miss it. (Right now my worn-out body is sitting in a hotel room in downtown L.A. taking blood-pressure pills, but my mind is standing along Highway 199 up in the redwoods after a few days at a spot I know on the Smith River. Traffic is slow, so I'm thumbing both ways, whichever way a car is going. Doesn't really matter.)
Okay, it's Thursday night. I wrote the above last night. After listening to "the news" tonight, I got a flash of The (All-Mighty) Economy as a jilted lover, just can't grasp that it is no longer in the picture. (The stock market went down over 300 points today--whatever that means I have no idea--and now folks are predicting gas hitting $7.oo a gallon, and the floods aren't just receding, they're leaving behind toxic waste, and over a thousand lightning fires in Northern California, and it's all only just begun.) But The Economy, and the holy trinity: big corporations, politicians, and the news media, refuse to realize that it's over, keep waiting for things in the relationship to get back to normal. Have no clue that we've reached some major limits and the affair is over. It's soon gonna be time to get a restraining order to keep those fools away. (End of analogy.) There are limits. You can't have a growth economy on a finite planet. Especially a small one like ours. There is plenty for everybody to live really well, but not if some folks are never satisfied. (There's only two amounts of money some folks can have. Either none at all, or not enough.) Look at these multi-millionaires going bankrupt and losing their homes for god's sake, while much of the world has to walk a couple miles just for water and there ain't no grocery stores in town. Jeesh.
Time to think: survival, long-lasting, sturdy, satisfied, enough, happy. Not: growth, consume, more, next year's model, desire.
Good luck to us all.
Monday, June 23, 2008
You Can Leave Your Hat On
I'm not a computer person, I know how to type and that's it. I just took a disc to the library with me today and it wouldn't work, it was like totally blank. It had worked just fine yesterday. I'm back in my hotel room now at my old machine and that disc cuts me back to the desktop when I try to open it.. And I just found out yesterday that my old Walkman ear plugs work for sound on computers, after all this time of surfing in silence. I had given it a shot to hear a video on that e-mail I mentioned last post, about the spiritual thing at noon today. (Saturday.) So since I couldn't do what I'd planned with what was on that disc, I watched YouTube for the first time, and enjoyed some music from a few MySpace friends. After all this time. (Duh.)
So anyway, I didn't observe the spiritual trip at noon. Even after all the psychedelics I've done, I like to deal with the real world. I've seen how little it takes to get by and be really happy, myself and others, and I think that's the secret. Until the Internet, I wasn't having any luck getting my 2-cents in on the raging debate. I wrote a story back in 1985-6 called "The Last Resort", about a middle-class couple in their early thirties whose car breaks down in central Washington State as they're taking the scenic route to California. They end up staying at out-of-the-way Twin Peaks, a row of small wooden cabins and a campground, inhabited mostly by various folks in the area for the apple-picking season. The couple is forced to see a different outlook on life, but I soon realized that it was too much of a pre-AIDS story; too much casual sex. So I shelved it and for the next four years worked on a new story in my head as I did various jobs and hitchhiked around. In 1992, I gave up hitchhiking, started tying my hair back every day, and bought a one-way bus ticket to Nashville to get away from all things familiar and write a near-future adventure novel. This story was about a 30-year-old dentist from Southern California who takes off into the wilds of Northern California looking for the granddaughter of a friend. Living without a firm schedule was very hard for the guy, he kept trying to plan ahead the whole trip. He loses his phone for a while, and that isolation/freedom was a first in his life. The whole book, Sinner's Revenge, (147,000 words) was about how dude discovered the difference between success and happiness. Now I'm doing Grasshopper Planet, comparing the hard-working Ant, and the partyin' Grasshopper, and how I think the planet would be better off with less "economy" and more "satisfaction". If I hadn't been a fugitive, I'd probably have just dug in as best I could like so many people--twenty-nine years on the assembly line--but now I've seen there's more to life than just being secure as possible and gathering all you can until you die. (They'll never tell you that on TV.) Like the couple whose car broke down at apple-picking time, and the dentist who was off doing a favor for a friend, I reluctantly realized a more genial outlook towards this here life.
Right when the movie The Hustler came out, when I was heavily into shooting pool and in high school, the only place to shoot in Flemington, New Jersey, was on the three ancient full-size tables in the back room of the barroom of the Union Hotel on Main Street. It was so full of players most of the time that I'd wanted to shoot so bad some days I'd go to a nine-ball game in progress and offer, if they'd let me in the game, to pay anybody who made a money ball, but if I made one, they didn't have to pay me for it; I just wanted to shoot pool. One day when it was really packed, people standing around waiting for a chance to get a table, I went through the alcove to the bar to get a soda. Two old guys were sitting at the bar, and one asked the other casually, "Want to shoot some pool?" Like they could just waltz back there and rack 'em up. The other guy thought a second and then said no. Totally no concept of the reality of the situation. Watching the Sunday Morning talk shows today, listening to the pundits discussing the world situation from only various corporate angles, it reminded me of those two old guys deciding whether to go shoot a game of pool. Talk about arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Sitting on a dying planet, surrounded by fires, floods, and fading life-sustaining resources, they talk away about which presidential candidate can lower gas prices and get us consuming more and the economy rolling again like it was 1928 or something. If those two guys at the bar had decided to go back to the pool room they would have learned something about the actual situation, but the business execs, their politicians, and the people paid good money to take them seriously, are so insulated from the real world, I'm afraid "endangered planet" and "poor people" are as curious and foreign hypothetical theories to them as the concept of "having enough".
And, sigh, the Hippie-Dippy Weatherman died last night. "There's a low over the East Coast. A low over the South. A low over the North-West. What this country really needs is a good high!" I loved his Seven Words You Can't Say On Television. " . . . and tits, tits doesn't even belong on the list!" He was getting pretty mean-spirited towards the end; I think the lack of progress after all the years of work by him and others to point things out to the rest of the world finally got to him. "And there are two-way words. You can prick your finger, but don't finger your prick. No-no."
RIP George.
So anyway, I didn't observe the spiritual trip at noon. Even after all the psychedelics I've done, I like to deal with the real world. I've seen how little it takes to get by and be really happy, myself and others, and I think that's the secret. Until the Internet, I wasn't having any luck getting my 2-cents in on the raging debate. I wrote a story back in 1985-6 called "The Last Resort", about a middle-class couple in their early thirties whose car breaks down in central Washington State as they're taking the scenic route to California. They end up staying at out-of-the-way Twin Peaks, a row of small wooden cabins and a campground, inhabited mostly by various folks in the area for the apple-picking season. The couple is forced to see a different outlook on life, but I soon realized that it was too much of a pre-AIDS story; too much casual sex. So I shelved it and for the next four years worked on a new story in my head as I did various jobs and hitchhiked around. In 1992, I gave up hitchhiking, started tying my hair back every day, and bought a one-way bus ticket to Nashville to get away from all things familiar and write a near-future adventure novel. This story was about a 30-year-old dentist from Southern California who takes off into the wilds of Northern California looking for the granddaughter of a friend. Living without a firm schedule was very hard for the guy, he kept trying to plan ahead the whole trip. He loses his phone for a while, and that isolation/freedom was a first in his life. The whole book, Sinner's Revenge, (147,000 words) was about how dude discovered the difference between success and happiness. Now I'm doing Grasshopper Planet, comparing the hard-working Ant, and the partyin' Grasshopper, and how I think the planet would be better off with less "economy" and more "satisfaction". If I hadn't been a fugitive, I'd probably have just dug in as best I could like so many people--twenty-nine years on the assembly line--but now I've seen there's more to life than just being secure as possible and gathering all you can until you die. (They'll never tell you that on TV.) Like the couple whose car broke down at apple-picking time, and the dentist who was off doing a favor for a friend, I reluctantly realized a more genial outlook towards this here life.
Right when the movie The Hustler came out, when I was heavily into shooting pool and in high school, the only place to shoot in Flemington, New Jersey, was on the three ancient full-size tables in the back room of the barroom of the Union Hotel on Main Street. It was so full of players most of the time that I'd wanted to shoot so bad some days I'd go to a nine-ball game in progress and offer, if they'd let me in the game, to pay anybody who made a money ball, but if I made one, they didn't have to pay me for it; I just wanted to shoot pool. One day when it was really packed, people standing around waiting for a chance to get a table, I went through the alcove to the bar to get a soda. Two old guys were sitting at the bar, and one asked the other casually, "Want to shoot some pool?" Like they could just waltz back there and rack 'em up. The other guy thought a second and then said no. Totally no concept of the reality of the situation. Watching the Sunday Morning talk shows today, listening to the pundits discussing the world situation from only various corporate angles, it reminded me of those two old guys deciding whether to go shoot a game of pool. Talk about arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Sitting on a dying planet, surrounded by fires, floods, and fading life-sustaining resources, they talk away about which presidential candidate can lower gas prices and get us consuming more and the economy rolling again like it was 1928 or something. If those two guys at the bar had decided to go back to the pool room they would have learned something about the actual situation, but the business execs, their politicians, and the people paid good money to take them seriously, are so insulated from the real world, I'm afraid "endangered planet" and "poor people" are as curious and foreign hypothetical theories to them as the concept of "having enough".
And, sigh, the Hippie-Dippy Weatherman died last night. "There's a low over the East Coast. A low over the South. A low over the North-West. What this country really needs is a good high!" I loved his Seven Words You Can't Say On Television. " . . . and tits, tits doesn't even belong on the list!" He was getting pretty mean-spirited towards the end; I think the lack of progress after all the years of work by him and others to point things out to the rest of the world finally got to him. "And there are two-way words. You can prick your finger, but don't finger your prick. No-no."
RIP George.
Friday, June 20, 2008
I'd Give My Right Arm To Be Ambidextrous
The following was written on the back of a box of tea bags I bought years ago, so long ago I don't even remember why I was buying tea of all things. But anyway, it was written by a Doctor Stanley Frager. "A lesson in 'heart' is my 10-year-old daughter, Sarah, who was born with a muscle missing in her foot and wears a brace all the time. She came home one beautiful spring day to tell me she had competed in 'field day.' My mind raced as I tried to think of encouragement for my Sarah, things I could say to her about not letting this get her down--but before I could get a word out, she said, 'Daddy, I won two of the races!" I couldn't believe it! And then Sarah said, 'I had an advantage.' Ahh. I knew it. I thought she must have been given a head start . . . But again, before I could say anything, she said, 'Daddy, I didn't get a head start . . . my advantage was I had to try harder!' That's heart. That's my Sarah."
It's Friday, June 20. Summer officially starts today. I'm in "cool" downtown L.A., but over the hills in the Valley they're predicting 113-degrees. (No, that's not DEATH Valley, the San Fernando Valley.) Flooding along the Big Muddy. Wildfires all over the West. Melting ice caps and dead areas growing in the oceans. Food shortages and the prices getting higher. Yet folks still want to see cheaper gas so they can drive more again, and they'd like the economy to pick back up. (Ya gotta love it.) The planet will hit seven billion people in 2012--it took to the 1800s to reach ONE billion--yet religious leaders still forbid birth control, which I think is criminal, especially in those parts of the world where people are starving en masse, and prognosticators ignore all the limits we're reaching and continue growth predictions at the present rate way into the future. "By 2050, there will be twenty-seven billion people living in California . . ." I'd cry---if I could just stop laughing.
(It's now 9:05 p.m.) I heard on the radio news that ten police and teenagers were killed in Mexico City when police raided a nightclub looking for underage drinkers and a stampede broke out. Yikes.
Today I walked by a shoe-shine stand, and I saw dude's glance pass over my canvas footwear and pass on like I didn't exist. It got me thinking about all the different things going on all the time, how people have a choice of what they actually notice. Like if you're hungry walking down the street, a sexy body looking in a store window doesn't even hit your radar. If you're horny, then that smell of fresh bread baking as you walk by the sandwich shop has no effect. I've heard and it makes sense that your happiness is like 10% what actually happens to you, and the other 90% is how you handle the ten. Like there are people in jail or with serious health issues who are having a better time than some rich and famous folks. So even if we all fry for Wall Street, we can know our mood up until the end was our choice. (Does that help any?) (Oh well, I'm trying.)
You've heard about those seventeen teeny-bopper girls in New England making a pact to all get pregnant? Heh, I'll bet their parents wish they'd only been smoking weed. (Yeah, NOW.)
I got an e-mail today from a good friend up in the Bay Area about some kind of happening tomorrow at noon. Some kind of spiritual event like the Harmonica Virgins that was billed as a big deal some years back. Kind of like praying for Whirled Peas. I'm more into the Hundredth Monkey concept. If enough people decide to get along and live a sustainable standard of living that includes most people, we might stand a chance. Like's happening with smoking cigarettes. It's simply falling out of fashion. But if say Ronnie and Nancy had declared war on cigarettes and made them illegal, we'd have another black-market controlled substance creating more gang warfare, corruption, and disrespect for the law. Same with churches; making them illegal would make them stronger. Just give them enough rope and they'll do themselves in with their own inconsistencies. The social-gathering aspect can survive just fine without all the superstition and guilt. And I think the Internet is our shot. At no time in history could folks around the world connect and share their thoughts, let alone instantly and at little or no cost to do so. I know from twenty-two years of hitchhiking that most people have a basic common sense, and that by prevailing over the few greed and power junkies who've always run everything before, they will go the way of cigarette smoking in restaurants. Or we'll all die.
Call me crazy.
It's Friday, June 20. Summer officially starts today. I'm in "cool" downtown L.A., but over the hills in the Valley they're predicting 113-degrees. (No, that's not DEATH Valley, the San Fernando Valley.) Flooding along the Big Muddy. Wildfires all over the West. Melting ice caps and dead areas growing in the oceans. Food shortages and the prices getting higher. Yet folks still want to see cheaper gas so they can drive more again, and they'd like the economy to pick back up. (Ya gotta love it.) The planet will hit seven billion people in 2012--it took to the 1800s to reach ONE billion--yet religious leaders still forbid birth control, which I think is criminal, especially in those parts of the world where people are starving en masse, and prognosticators ignore all the limits we're reaching and continue growth predictions at the present rate way into the future. "By 2050, there will be twenty-seven billion people living in California . . ." I'd cry---if I could just stop laughing.
(It's now 9:05 p.m.) I heard on the radio news that ten police and teenagers were killed in Mexico City when police raided a nightclub looking for underage drinkers and a stampede broke out. Yikes.
Today I walked by a shoe-shine stand, and I saw dude's glance pass over my canvas footwear and pass on like I didn't exist. It got me thinking about all the different things going on all the time, how people have a choice of what they actually notice. Like if you're hungry walking down the street, a sexy body looking in a store window doesn't even hit your radar. If you're horny, then that smell of fresh bread baking as you walk by the sandwich shop has no effect. I've heard and it makes sense that your happiness is like 10% what actually happens to you, and the other 90% is how you handle the ten. Like there are people in jail or with serious health issues who are having a better time than some rich and famous folks. So even if we all fry for Wall Street, we can know our mood up until the end was our choice. (Does that help any?) (Oh well, I'm trying.)
You've heard about those seventeen teeny-bopper girls in New England making a pact to all get pregnant? Heh, I'll bet their parents wish they'd only been smoking weed. (Yeah, NOW.)
I got an e-mail today from a good friend up in the Bay Area about some kind of happening tomorrow at noon. Some kind of spiritual event like the Harmonica Virgins that was billed as a big deal some years back. Kind of like praying for Whirled Peas. I'm more into the Hundredth Monkey concept. If enough people decide to get along and live a sustainable standard of living that includes most people, we might stand a chance. Like's happening with smoking cigarettes. It's simply falling out of fashion. But if say Ronnie and Nancy had declared war on cigarettes and made them illegal, we'd have another black-market controlled substance creating more gang warfare, corruption, and disrespect for the law. Same with churches; making them illegal would make them stronger. Just give them enough rope and they'll do themselves in with their own inconsistencies. The social-gathering aspect can survive just fine without all the superstition and guilt. And I think the Internet is our shot. At no time in history could folks around the world connect and share their thoughts, let alone instantly and at little or no cost to do so. I know from twenty-two years of hitchhiking that most people have a basic common sense, and that by prevailing over the few greed and power junkies who've always run everything before, they will go the way of cigarette smoking in restaurants. Or we'll all die.
Call me crazy.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
"The Warriors, The Warriors Did It!"
When I rode my motorcycle from New Jersey to California in 1966, back then there was no damn pussy helmet required. We didn't huddle in doorways to smoke, we had what we called "ashtrays" right inside. People worked a job and then got a pension for their years of service to the company. "Safe sex" was watching for cops or familiar cars pulling in where you were parked. You could get a ticket for speeding without having your trunk searched and the back seat pulled out. People drank and let their hair down at the office Christmas party. Toxic waste was dumped WAY out of town, all the way down by the river, so nobody worried. The good old days, when men were men, and women . . . thought it was okay.
Back in 1971, I worked for a while at Hobie Cat down in San Juan Capistrano, making catamarans. There was a sign on the wall that said, "We gratefully acknowledge the part marijuana has played in the production of Hobie Cats. Signed: The Management." I worked the second shift, and the foreman would come in every night with a couple cases of beer, his dog, and sometimes his girlfriend. It was such a nasty job with all the fiberglass and resin, the secretary in the office wouldn't even give an application to anybody applying with short hair, afraid all the surfers and hippies working there would think it was an undercover cop and quit, and they'd never get enough straight workers to fill out a crew.
In the early '90s, I worked as a driver in a car wash owned by two biker brothers. One day we did eight cars short of 1200; it was a BIG car wash. The foreman would walk around with a giant soda cup with a plastic lid with a straw running into the 16 oz can of beer inside. A couple times when guys would show up wasted, they'd just be told to go lay on the couch by the time clock until they were up to working. Just back from lunch one day, a guy pulled in driving a Volvo and told me, "You can have what's in the ashtray." (It was FULL of nice roaches!)
Working at a bed and breakfast on my first Saturday morning, the boss was making potato pancakes while his wife welcomed the guests and set up juice. The guy had a cigarette in his mouth with a long ash on it, and darn if the ash didn't fall into the bowl. When I said something about it, he told me, "It's part of the recipe."
Just starting at a resort, I got a knock on my trailer door. It was the owner. "Sorry to bother you on your first day off, but somebody left these behind in their room. Want them?" And he held out four joints.
A girlfriend and I were living in Vancouver, Canada, wanting to move to the country. We ran an ad in the Sunday paper, which came out up there on Saturday, for a semi-isolated cabin or small house we could care take. A guy who owned a hotel in North Vancouver responded and said he had a property with a cabin near a lake he'd like to have someone living in to keep an eye on things, and we stayed in it for free, on two-hundred mountain acres, for fifteen months. (I have picture slides of the whole time. Wood stove, no electricity, carry the water, shotguns. And with no vehicle, we had to hitchhike up with all our supplies so we got to meet a lot of friendly locals, so life was always hoppin'. Or should I say "swingin'"? Yes I should.)
I picked apples for two five-week seasons, five years apart. First time in Oyama, B.C., and then in Wenatchee, Washington. (The second time I'd been hitchhiking around Northern California and Oregon with a blond girlfriend for about two months, but I broke up with her on the Steel Lane on-ramp to 101 in Santa Rosa, knowing the partying that went on in those apple camps at night, I didn't want to be tied down.)
Me and another guy planted Christmas trees for a farmer/pot grower up in Oregon. At the start of each day, and every day after lunch, he'd give us each a nice joint to smoke. (He also had several acres of raspberries he told us paid the bills for the year; the Christmas trees and pot were all profit.) I also planted trees way out in the bush with B.C. Forestry for a while, but with them you had to bring your own smoke.
I was working with a cleaning crew through a day-labor place in East L.A. one time, and we went to a ten-table pool hall to wash the windows and floor. I went back after work, and a couple weeks later I was managing the place.
A good gig is cutting firewood. And house/pet sitting is bearable and you get to hang out in a lot of different neighborhoods. House painting pays well and doesn't last forever. And there's always selling plasma in a pinch. If you can make money at doing something you enjoy and would be doing anyway, more power to ya. But if you go to work and put in your time just to get paid so you can have a place to live so you can work, what's the point? You can live really well on very little when you learn to keep the overhead down. And your time stays your own.
Life is short. Might as well do some living while you're busy surviving.
Or you can make your parents proud and just hang on waiting for those three-day weekends. (Four at Thanksgiving!)
Any questions?
Back in 1971, I worked for a while at Hobie Cat down in San Juan Capistrano, making catamarans. There was a sign on the wall that said, "We gratefully acknowledge the part marijuana has played in the production of Hobie Cats. Signed: The Management." I worked the second shift, and the foreman would come in every night with a couple cases of beer, his dog, and sometimes his girlfriend. It was such a nasty job with all the fiberglass and resin, the secretary in the office wouldn't even give an application to anybody applying with short hair, afraid all the surfers and hippies working there would think it was an undercover cop and quit, and they'd never get enough straight workers to fill out a crew.
In the early '90s, I worked as a driver in a car wash owned by two biker brothers. One day we did eight cars short of 1200; it was a BIG car wash. The foreman would walk around with a giant soda cup with a plastic lid with a straw running into the 16 oz can of beer inside. A couple times when guys would show up wasted, they'd just be told to go lay on the couch by the time clock until they were up to working. Just back from lunch one day, a guy pulled in driving a Volvo and told me, "You can have what's in the ashtray." (It was FULL of nice roaches!)
Working at a bed and breakfast on my first Saturday morning, the boss was making potato pancakes while his wife welcomed the guests and set up juice. The guy had a cigarette in his mouth with a long ash on it, and darn if the ash didn't fall into the bowl. When I said something about it, he told me, "It's part of the recipe."
Just starting at a resort, I got a knock on my trailer door. It was the owner. "Sorry to bother you on your first day off, but somebody left these behind in their room. Want them?" And he held out four joints.
A girlfriend and I were living in Vancouver, Canada, wanting to move to the country. We ran an ad in the Sunday paper, which came out up there on Saturday, for a semi-isolated cabin or small house we could care take. A guy who owned a hotel in North Vancouver responded and said he had a property with a cabin near a lake he'd like to have someone living in to keep an eye on things, and we stayed in it for free, on two-hundred mountain acres, for fifteen months. (I have picture slides of the whole time. Wood stove, no electricity, carry the water, shotguns. And with no vehicle, we had to hitchhike up with all our supplies so we got to meet a lot of friendly locals, so life was always hoppin'. Or should I say "swingin'"? Yes I should.)
I picked apples for two five-week seasons, five years apart. First time in Oyama, B.C., and then in Wenatchee, Washington. (The second time I'd been hitchhiking around Northern California and Oregon with a blond girlfriend for about two months, but I broke up with her on the Steel Lane on-ramp to 101 in Santa Rosa, knowing the partying that went on in those apple camps at night, I didn't want to be tied down.)
Me and another guy planted Christmas trees for a farmer/pot grower up in Oregon. At the start of each day, and every day after lunch, he'd give us each a nice joint to smoke. (He also had several acres of raspberries he told us paid the bills for the year; the Christmas trees and pot were all profit.) I also planted trees way out in the bush with B.C. Forestry for a while, but with them you had to bring your own smoke.
I was working with a cleaning crew through a day-labor place in East L.A. one time, and we went to a ten-table pool hall to wash the windows and floor. I went back after work, and a couple weeks later I was managing the place.
A good gig is cutting firewood. And house/pet sitting is bearable and you get to hang out in a lot of different neighborhoods. House painting pays well and doesn't last forever. And there's always selling plasma in a pinch. If you can make money at doing something you enjoy and would be doing anyway, more power to ya. But if you go to work and put in your time just to get paid so you can have a place to live so you can work, what's the point? You can live really well on very little when you learn to keep the overhead down. And your time stays your own.
Life is short. Might as well do some living while you're busy surviving.
Or you can make your parents proud and just hang on waiting for those three-day weekends. (Four at Thanksgiving!)
Any questions?
Saturday, June 14, 2008
You Gotta Suffer If You Wanna Sing The Blues
Did you hear about the aspiring writer who sued his parents for giving him such a normal upbringing that he had nothing to write about? Or is that just another ridiculous urban legend, like that smoking marijuana somehow magically makes you want to do other drugs?
I just got a million-dollar bonus, bought a bigger house with a pool, my parents are proud, I have a shiny black SUV, a red sports car and a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, I've got two girlfriends who get along together, but all life on the planet just suddenly came to an end. NOT FAIR.
That there's a big controversy about this whole same-sex marriage thing here in California is a hoot, don't ya think? It reminds me of restaurants that require men to wear a brightly colored piece of cloth around their neck or they can't eat there. "You gotta be just like US." (In MY restaurant, men and women must have nose rings if they expect to be seated. But hey, we're not snobs. If you don't have a nose ring, we'll lend you one to wear while you eat.) Corporate Rule has driven us to the brink of extinction, the effects of maintaining an unrealistic standard of living so a few folks can get super rich is taking its toll on our world. Record-breaking storms, record-breaking tornadoes, record-breaking floods, record-breaking wildfires, record-breaking drought, record-breaking crop failures, record-breaking climate change, an evaporating ozone, dying oceans, and melting ice caps all conspiring to do us in, yet The Saved Ones still somehow have time to be concerned with making everybody have sex like they (and God of course) think is the only right way. And they get to gather together tax free to come up with their pious nonsense. We're doomed I'm afraid. Though every day we're hearing more and more ways people are coming up with to save gas, use less energy and water, eat better and cover the basics for less, it's a pity we had to wait until we were going over the edge before it became a public issue and made The News, finally no longer just automatically labeling anybody daring to suggest using less as old hippies, eco nuts, or other whacko-types. Yet the Chosen Ones ignore all the mindless corporations and their bought-and-paid-for elected representatives that are doing us all in, and continue to do battle with free-will and pleasure. Wouldn't it be neat if all the Guy In The Sky people all over the planet turned their venom on the ones doing us all harm rather than only attacking anybody trying to have some fun out of life? Damn, I really hate going on about this so much, but if you'll look around, the planet is SERIOUSLY starting to fight back. She's fighting for her life, but why aren't WE? We need Planet Earth more than She needs Us.
Today I rode the bus down to the library on 48th, just the other side of Vermont, to pick up the third and final new Brigitte Bardot DVD, the one that has the fifth movie and the bonus feature. Up in San Francisco at the new library years ago, I asked for a book on Ms Bardot--it was kept in a back room, I couldn't take it out of the building and had to leave my drivers license at the desk until I returned it--that included a display of pictures of all the famous women that followed who copied BB's look. There were thirty or more of them. She was the first point of light that appeared during an exceptionally dreary time in history. She certainly opened my young eyes. And I remember from the Biography video about her, when asked about doing sexy films, if she would rather do more serious acting, she answered, "Oh, I like my kind of movies. I'll do more serious movies when I'm older." Good for her. She changed me from a potential cradle-to-grave paycheck junkie to a happy bed-to-bed rounder. Thank you, thank you, Brigitte Bardot.
Tim Russert died today. Dropped dead at age 58. And he was yet another rich and famous guy who went suddenly from natural causes who was younger and had better health care than me. I'm 62, so besides having partied all my life, by living longer I'm even farther ahead of the game, yet I'm still freaking out about the way our little speck of dust floating through space we like to call Planet Earth is being used up by and for the Lords of Wall Street. I can not for the life of me figure why so many folks with their lives ahead of them don't seem concerned about anything except lower gas prices, which will only make us all fry that much sooner. Just lame, easy shit like cutting out plastic grocery bags by the year 2020 just ain't gonna cut it. What kills me is that fun is cheap and takes so damn little, prosperity consumes all ones time, creates lots of waste and pollution, and doesn't really make anybody happy except corporate CEOs and their accountants. Save the planet, stop being a total consumer and party more. More Grasshoppers, less Ants. Win/win as they say.
Today I've been hearing that Susan Atkins might be released from prison to die. I read her book right when it came out, Child of Satan, Child of God. The part where she first got led onto death row really got to me. Remember in the book, Helter Skelter, before anybody had even heard of Charlie Manson and The Family, some guy in jail somewhere told an account of the murders so vividly that a cell mate had gone to his parole officer and said he thought the murderer might be this guy who'd told the story? I was in that cell, heard the story being told, and knew the guy who went to his PO trying to get out of being sent back to state prison. The guy's wife continued to visit me after he'd been sent back, and after the arrests, she'd told me what her husband had thought and tried. Then several years later, in a mountain cabin up in British Columbia, reading the book, I came to the part where that incident is mentioned. Small world. (Old [at that time "new"] Orange County Jail, H-tank, cell-5. And I remember both guys' names.) They were sure wild and crazy times.
So anyway, again, good luck to us all.
I just got a million-dollar bonus, bought a bigger house with a pool, my parents are proud, I have a shiny black SUV, a red sports car and a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, I've got two girlfriends who get along together, but all life on the planet just suddenly came to an end. NOT FAIR.
That there's a big controversy about this whole same-sex marriage thing here in California is a hoot, don't ya think? It reminds me of restaurants that require men to wear a brightly colored piece of cloth around their neck or they can't eat there. "You gotta be just like US." (In MY restaurant, men and women must have nose rings if they expect to be seated. But hey, we're not snobs. If you don't have a nose ring, we'll lend you one to wear while you eat.) Corporate Rule has driven us to the brink of extinction, the effects of maintaining an unrealistic standard of living so a few folks can get super rich is taking its toll on our world. Record-breaking storms, record-breaking tornadoes, record-breaking floods, record-breaking wildfires, record-breaking drought, record-breaking crop failures, record-breaking climate change, an evaporating ozone, dying oceans, and melting ice caps all conspiring to do us in, yet The Saved Ones still somehow have time to be concerned with making everybody have sex like they (and God of course) think is the only right way. And they get to gather together tax free to come up with their pious nonsense. We're doomed I'm afraid. Though every day we're hearing more and more ways people are coming up with to save gas, use less energy and water, eat better and cover the basics for less, it's a pity we had to wait until we were going over the edge before it became a public issue and made The News, finally no longer just automatically labeling anybody daring to suggest using less as old hippies, eco nuts, or other whacko-types. Yet the Chosen Ones ignore all the mindless corporations and their bought-and-paid-for elected representatives that are doing us all in, and continue to do battle with free-will and pleasure. Wouldn't it be neat if all the Guy In The Sky people all over the planet turned their venom on the ones doing us all harm rather than only attacking anybody trying to have some fun out of life? Damn, I really hate going on about this so much, but if you'll look around, the planet is SERIOUSLY starting to fight back. She's fighting for her life, but why aren't WE? We need Planet Earth more than She needs Us.
Today I rode the bus down to the library on 48th, just the other side of Vermont, to pick up the third and final new Brigitte Bardot DVD, the one that has the fifth movie and the bonus feature. Up in San Francisco at the new library years ago, I asked for a book on Ms Bardot--it was kept in a back room, I couldn't take it out of the building and had to leave my drivers license at the desk until I returned it--that included a display of pictures of all the famous women that followed who copied BB's look. There were thirty or more of them. She was the first point of light that appeared during an exceptionally dreary time in history. She certainly opened my young eyes. And I remember from the Biography video about her, when asked about doing sexy films, if she would rather do more serious acting, she answered, "Oh, I like my kind of movies. I'll do more serious movies when I'm older." Good for her. She changed me from a potential cradle-to-grave paycheck junkie to a happy bed-to-bed rounder. Thank you, thank you, Brigitte Bardot.
Tim Russert died today. Dropped dead at age 58. And he was yet another rich and famous guy who went suddenly from natural causes who was younger and had better health care than me. I'm 62, so besides having partied all my life, by living longer I'm even farther ahead of the game, yet I'm still freaking out about the way our little speck of dust floating through space we like to call Planet Earth is being used up by and for the Lords of Wall Street. I can not for the life of me figure why so many folks with their lives ahead of them don't seem concerned about anything except lower gas prices, which will only make us all fry that much sooner. Just lame, easy shit like cutting out plastic grocery bags by the year 2020 just ain't gonna cut it. What kills me is that fun is cheap and takes so damn little, prosperity consumes all ones time, creates lots of waste and pollution, and doesn't really make anybody happy except corporate CEOs and their accountants. Save the planet, stop being a total consumer and party more. More Grasshoppers, less Ants. Win/win as they say.
Today I've been hearing that Susan Atkins might be released from prison to die. I read her book right when it came out, Child of Satan, Child of God. The part where she first got led onto death row really got to me. Remember in the book, Helter Skelter, before anybody had even heard of Charlie Manson and The Family, some guy in jail somewhere told an account of the murders so vividly that a cell mate had gone to his parole officer and said he thought the murderer might be this guy who'd told the story? I was in that cell, heard the story being told, and knew the guy who went to his PO trying to get out of being sent back to state prison. The guy's wife continued to visit me after he'd been sent back, and after the arrests, she'd told me what her husband had thought and tried. Then several years later, in a mountain cabin up in British Columbia, reading the book, I came to the part where that incident is mentioned. Small world. (Old [at that time "new"] Orange County Jail, H-tank, cell-5. And I remember both guys' names.) They were sure wild and crazy times.
So anyway, again, good luck to us all.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
"I'm Okay . . . "
That's what I just said out my window after knocking over a couple things with a crash. "I'm okay." I live in a hotel and there's a window well. It's 11:00 p.m.
I can't even read like some detective novels where the ex-cop or P.I. just goes around thinking clever put-downs about every person or group he encounters. It's a style but not one I like to read. You can pretty much always come up with something snide to say in most any situation, but so what. However, it's really hard not to think rude thoughts when it comes to how TV reporters are covering the prevailing economic situation. They're "Shocked, shocked I say!" that this sudden evaporation of a standard of living for so many could happen, and with absolutely no warning. And all they interview is whiners. This might be the perfect time to chart a new course, not fight to get back on the old one. (That's called "Change", isn't it?)
There's a big ad on some of the buses here in L.A. It's for two cable shows that I'm amazed and happy to see be on TV, and those large pictures about marijuana and a prostitute are just so cool. It's pretty darned hard to get any type of advertising that's favorable to weed. And with a prostitute next to all those marijuana leaves--on a big bus!--I'm thrilled. Sex and drugs. The Evil Duo. "The wars against . . . " The Righteous Gang fears these two pleasures so much, they go so far as to have police decoys do undercover sting operations to trap and cage anybody seeking them. I know, I know, it's crazy, but though misguided, they are still very rich and powerful, so super kudos to the bus company and the TV station.
I passed a house where a workman and his young helper were just finishing replacing a section of sidewalk, had just stood up from smoothing out the cement. I stopped and picked up an old popsicle stick and asked, "What's today's date?" When the kid told me, the boss slapped him on the back of the head. I grinned as I watched the helper slowly realize my plan with the stick and his near accessory-before-the-fact role, then went on my way. Cheap thrills.
It's now Saturday, and Big Brown didn't do it. Everything I heard before, during, and after the race reminded me of the Tyson/Douglas major-upset heavyweight prizefight. It was so for sure who was going to win--Tyson/Big Brown--it seemed silly to delay the presentation of the trophy with the actual contest. And not that long ago at the Oscars, "And the winner for Best Picture of this year is . . . oh!" Let's hear it for bird dogs, mad dogs, lazy dogs, corn dogs, road dogs, guard dogs, hot dogs, wild dogs, lucky dogs, show dogs and especially . . . underdogs.
When I was on the road, my motto was, "I'd rather be hungry than bored." If life wasn't being a rush, regardless of my "standard of living", I'd just take off, stick out my thumb, and see what the world presented next. I was never able to work and make enough money to have as much fun as even just the WAITING to see what came along. The anticipation standing along the highway was an adventure in itself, before anybody even stopped. It was always good. One time to get away from a work situation that was really seductive, good work and money, but out in the middle of nowhere, I bought a one-way bus ticket from San Francisco to Nashville so I'd be far enough away that I couldn't just hitchhike back to that job I didn't want when I ran out of cash. I had to give running into something new to do time to happen. (I stayed right downtown Nashville for three great years, but couldn't handle the summer weather, so I headed back West.) On the road hitchhiking I carried a sleeping bag and a suitcase and had no place to go but forward for twenty-two years. Then I hung up my thumbs and went to Nashville in 1992. I really miss sleeping under the stars.
On Janet E. Morris's planet Silistra, the surface got so uninhabitable, the people had to live underground for generations before above ground would support life again. During that time the Silistrans devised a whole civilazation that totally rejected computers or any type of machines at all. Right in the middle of a modern universe. Could it come to that here, on Planet Earth? Would there be time to get the tunnels through committee and the digging started? I always figured our End would just be--Zip!--and all the Earth's air just shoots out into space. (There's a story idea for somebody. All life on Earth comes to an instant end. Cut to the folks in the International Space Station.) (A colony on Mars or even the Moon would give a sequel a shot.)
Now tonight on the news I saw that somewhere the alligators are all starting to go blind. Fa-la, fa-la.
I can't even read like some detective novels where the ex-cop or P.I. just goes around thinking clever put-downs about every person or group he encounters. It's a style but not one I like to read. You can pretty much always come up with something snide to say in most any situation, but so what. However, it's really hard not to think rude thoughts when it comes to how TV reporters are covering the prevailing economic situation. They're "Shocked, shocked I say!" that this sudden evaporation of a standard of living for so many could happen, and with absolutely no warning. And all they interview is whiners. This might be the perfect time to chart a new course, not fight to get back on the old one. (That's called "Change", isn't it?)
There's a big ad on some of the buses here in L.A. It's for two cable shows that I'm amazed and happy to see be on TV, and those large pictures about marijuana and a prostitute are just so cool. It's pretty darned hard to get any type of advertising that's favorable to weed. And with a prostitute next to all those marijuana leaves--on a big bus!--I'm thrilled. Sex and drugs. The Evil Duo. "The wars against . . . " The Righteous Gang fears these two pleasures so much, they go so far as to have police decoys do undercover sting operations to trap and cage anybody seeking them. I know, I know, it's crazy, but though misguided, they are still very rich and powerful, so super kudos to the bus company and the TV station.
I passed a house where a workman and his young helper were just finishing replacing a section of sidewalk, had just stood up from smoothing out the cement. I stopped and picked up an old popsicle stick and asked, "What's today's date?" When the kid told me, the boss slapped him on the back of the head. I grinned as I watched the helper slowly realize my plan with the stick and his near accessory-before-the-fact role, then went on my way. Cheap thrills.
It's now Saturday, and Big Brown didn't do it. Everything I heard before, during, and after the race reminded me of the Tyson/Douglas major-upset heavyweight prizefight. It was so for sure who was going to win--Tyson/Big Brown--it seemed silly to delay the presentation of the trophy with the actual contest. And not that long ago at the Oscars, "And the winner for Best Picture of this year is . . . oh!" Let's hear it for bird dogs, mad dogs, lazy dogs, corn dogs, road dogs, guard dogs, hot dogs, wild dogs, lucky dogs, show dogs and especially . . . underdogs.
When I was on the road, my motto was, "I'd rather be hungry than bored." If life wasn't being a rush, regardless of my "standard of living", I'd just take off, stick out my thumb, and see what the world presented next. I was never able to work and make enough money to have as much fun as even just the WAITING to see what came along. The anticipation standing along the highway was an adventure in itself, before anybody even stopped. It was always good. One time to get away from a work situation that was really seductive, good work and money, but out in the middle of nowhere, I bought a one-way bus ticket from San Francisco to Nashville so I'd be far enough away that I couldn't just hitchhike back to that job I didn't want when I ran out of cash. I had to give running into something new to do time to happen. (I stayed right downtown Nashville for three great years, but couldn't handle the summer weather, so I headed back West.) On the road hitchhiking I carried a sleeping bag and a suitcase and had no place to go but forward for twenty-two years. Then I hung up my thumbs and went to Nashville in 1992. I really miss sleeping under the stars.
On Janet E. Morris's planet Silistra, the surface got so uninhabitable, the people had to live underground for generations before above ground would support life again. During that time the Silistrans devised a whole civilazation that totally rejected computers or any type of machines at all. Right in the middle of a modern universe. Could it come to that here, on Planet Earth? Would there be time to get the tunnels through committee and the digging started? I always figured our End would just be--Zip!--and all the Earth's air just shoots out into space. (There's a story idea for somebody. All life on Earth comes to an instant end. Cut to the folks in the International Space Station.) (A colony on Mars or even the Moon would give a sequel a shot.)
Now tonight on the news I saw that somewhere the alligators are all starting to go blind. Fa-la, fa-la.
Friday, June 6, 2008
A Friend With Weed Is A Friend Indeed
"Hey, Mister. What time is it?"
"Time for you to buy a watch."
Have you heard (or perhaps noticed first-hand) the price of gas? I was up in San Francisco years ago when gas hit $1.99 a gallon on Van Ness Avenue, and it was such a big deal I went and bought a disposable camera to take a picture of the gas station sign. Ha, huh? I've heard since back in the Sixties that whenever anybody would come up with a vehicle that ran on anything other than gasoline, the oil companies would buy the patent and bury the idea. True or false, it sounds like what any multinational corporation would do. Any unscrupulous, sleazy practice or event is simply justified by saying, "It's BUSINESS." Can't argue with that, by golly. That means there's MONEY involved. Amen.
That new TV show premiered last night. Swingtown I think it's called. I didn't need to watch it, I was there, I lived it. Without commercials. Like That '70s Show, which I've never watched either. I'm glad they're on, but it's like the difference between watching a western movie and riding a horse. And besides, it really brings me down seeing movies and shows from back in the Sixties and Seventies, back when folks in large numbers were standing up for their right to have some fun in their lives. Until Ron and Nancy and "Just Say No" somehow came into fashion. And look where we are now. We're loved around the world, have a thriving, happy citizenry, an educational system that's the envy of the world, and we're standing tall on the front lines when it comes to saving future life on the planet. Okay, I'm being facetious. But the U.S. DOES have the #1 prison population per capita in the world. We're got SOMETHING to brag about.
You've heard that a famous sidekick is facing foreclosure on his gigantic house, and actors, singers, and sports stars are more and more doing hard time or paying huge fines for tax evasion. And then there are folks living happily for a year on what these guys can't get by on A Day. Just maybe big over-the-top living isn't success after all, unAmerican as that thought might be. If a CEO is making $200,000,000.oo a year, but doesn't remember what a vacation is and hasn't had sex in years, and then some other guy with a small business or trade, an apartment, a car and a motorcycle, and there's a nearby bar where he's on the pool team and there's dancing to live music Friday and Saturday nights, which one is the richest? ("The less it takes to make you happy, the more fun you have." Me.) In 1973, when asked about weathering the great depression back in the 1930s, an old fisherman on the coast of British Columbia told my friend, "Hell, we ate fish and potatoes during the '20s, during the '30s, through The War in the '40s. We'd go hunting, had our gardens and chickens, our blackberry wine and whiskey stills, everything we needed."
Talking about all the people we have incarcerated, they just now had a piece on the national news about the U.S. Prison Population. They said it's costing 60-billion dollars a year to keep all those folks locked up. Twenty- to thirty-five-thousand dollars a year for each prisoner. There are 800,000 Americans arrested each year just for marijuana, a plant. Tens of thousands of U.S. citizens are behind bars for consensual sex. Yet make big bucks representing invisible people in the sky to the public and you don't have to pay any taxes. (I'm shaking my head.)
Planet Earth, love it or leave it.
"Time for you to buy a watch."
Have you heard (or perhaps noticed first-hand) the price of gas? I was up in San Francisco years ago when gas hit $1.99 a gallon on Van Ness Avenue, and it was such a big deal I went and bought a disposable camera to take a picture of the gas station sign. Ha, huh? I've heard since back in the Sixties that whenever anybody would come up with a vehicle that ran on anything other than gasoline, the oil companies would buy the patent and bury the idea. True or false, it sounds like what any multinational corporation would do. Any unscrupulous, sleazy practice or event is simply justified by saying, "It's BUSINESS." Can't argue with that, by golly. That means there's MONEY involved. Amen.
That new TV show premiered last night. Swingtown I think it's called. I didn't need to watch it, I was there, I lived it. Without commercials. Like That '70s Show, which I've never watched either. I'm glad they're on, but it's like the difference between watching a western movie and riding a horse. And besides, it really brings me down seeing movies and shows from back in the Sixties and Seventies, back when folks in large numbers were standing up for their right to have some fun in their lives. Until Ron and Nancy and "Just Say No" somehow came into fashion. And look where we are now. We're loved around the world, have a thriving, happy citizenry, an educational system that's the envy of the world, and we're standing tall on the front lines when it comes to saving future life on the planet. Okay, I'm being facetious. But the U.S. DOES have the #1 prison population per capita in the world. We're got SOMETHING to brag about.
You've heard that a famous sidekick is facing foreclosure on his gigantic house, and actors, singers, and sports stars are more and more doing hard time or paying huge fines for tax evasion. And then there are folks living happily for a year on what these guys can't get by on A Day. Just maybe big over-the-top living isn't success after all, unAmerican as that thought might be. If a CEO is making $200,000,000.oo a year, but doesn't remember what a vacation is and hasn't had sex in years, and then some other guy with a small business or trade, an apartment, a car and a motorcycle, and there's a nearby bar where he's on the pool team and there's dancing to live music Friday and Saturday nights, which one is the richest? ("The less it takes to make you happy, the more fun you have." Me.) In 1973, when asked about weathering the great depression back in the 1930s, an old fisherman on the coast of British Columbia told my friend, "Hell, we ate fish and potatoes during the '20s, during the '30s, through The War in the '40s. We'd go hunting, had our gardens and chickens, our blackberry wine and whiskey stills, everything we needed."
Talking about all the people we have incarcerated, they just now had a piece on the national news about the U.S. Prison Population. They said it's costing 60-billion dollars a year to keep all those folks locked up. Twenty- to thirty-five-thousand dollars a year for each prisoner. There are 800,000 Americans arrested each year just for marijuana, a plant. Tens of thousands of U.S. citizens are behind bars for consensual sex. Yet make big bucks representing invisible people in the sky to the public and you don't have to pay any taxes. (I'm shaking my head.)
Planet Earth, love it or leave it.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
The Lord Is Your Shepherd . . . Or Else.
A long-time friend e-mailed me recently that I should keep quiet about religion so I don't make people mad at me. But then now it's being reported that the California Supreme Court ruling that allows same-sex marriages is being challenged by The Saved Ones. ("God hates fags" is how one very vocal Christian group likes to put it. Most religious people are more subtle, but the message is the same.) It's not like you can leave believers alone and they let you be, they're big on making everybody live by their rules. For centuries they have fought science, sex, and pleasure on every front. Freedom of religion, how about freedom FROM religion? It's easier to ignore scabies. I know, I know, the thought of dying is scary, but if you're going to create a Supreme Being that grants eternal life, can't ya make one that likes fun and progress? Why's He always gotta be such a mean-spirited prude? "But God is all about LOVE." Like "Everybody is born in sin"? There's a big self-esteem builder for ya. How about "Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death." (Exodus 31:15.) It's the same for cursing either of your parents. Death. Having sex if you're not married. Death. (gulp.) How many folks were stoned or burned to death for blasphemy, for saying that the earth goes around the sun? God hates that, too? Nowadays it's strip clubs and massage parlors and drugs and teenage sex and skateboarders and birth control and rap music, but it's the same old story. Now tell me, which Presidential candidate doesn't belong to this group that gets its orders from somebody not a single person has ever seen or heard speak but we're told hates our sinful bodies and sinful joy and glee? Oh, the leaders of both parties think this way? All the politicians go for this. Yikes. But don't forget to vote, kids!
"In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth . . . " Okay, page 1, dude doesn't know what the stars are or that the world is round. He has no idea there are Eskimos or a Pacific Ocean. It's God's Word, just God didn't seem to know any more than that peasant in a little village thousands of years ago did. Anybody have a problem with that? I grew up going to Baptist Sunday School every week. I knew Christians sent missionaries around the world to spread The Word, but I was amazed, totally incredulous, when I heard that other religions sent missionaries to us! How silly. All those other phony religions are crazy, just going through the motions. Except now I realize that all religions think of themselves as the only way, and all the others are way wrong and only piss God off. Thus the call to SMITE those not God's true believers. Each and every group is The One, and since God is a soup stone, a symbol open to each religion's and person's imagination, there's a lot of SMITING going on. I'll be honest with you, I couldn't tell the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite and a Kurd if they were standing right in front of me. There's never been a religion that hasn't been persecuted by another religion. Isn't it getting a bit ridiculous in this day and age? Especially with all the problems we're facing as a planet, isn't it time we put a little effort into getting along? "God Bless America." i.e. "God Bless This Part Of The Planet." i.e. "God Bless This End Of The Boat." (Why don't Baptists make love standing up? Because somebody might think they're dancing.)
There's getting to be a lot of folks living like hippies these days. Reluctant hippies, where the real ones were looking ahead at a planet reaching its limits and trying to do something about it. Wearing old clothes, sharing rides, saving water, thinking about what they're using and getting by on less. The real ones were wiped out by corporate misinformation and brutal force, but now there's no choice, the lifestyle is being forced on people. The new hippies would like to see things get back to "normal", limitless growth on a finite planet, but it ain't gonna happen. It can't. And now they just about can't give SUVs away and they're talking about discontinuing Hummers. Ten, fifteen years ago, people were torching SUV dealerships seeing the destruction the manufacture and use of these large gas guzzling (to coin a phrase) vehicles were doing to the planet. NOW it's getting unavoidable. But is it too late? Think how fast we'd come up with better ways to get around if gas hit $30.oo a gallon, and how fast we'll all fry if the price goes down as promised by all the oil company supported politicians. Our dog-eat-dog, every-man-for-himself economy only worked if there was anything left. I'm forced to use a poetry word: things look bleak.
The sad part from a lot of people's point of view is how little it takes to be happy and live really well, but we helplessly watch as a relatively few people destroy our world in their mad quest for . . . for what? Power? Control? Security? Confidence? It's certainly not for any basic needs, they already each personally have more than plenty. As I've said before, the only reason they seem to want to consume everything in site as fast as they can is to see more zeros on their bank statements. It's certainly not for anything tangible. (Like Estri when she was locked in the cubes, just thoughtlessly consuming her limited resources.)
I'm 62, and there are people younger than me dying every day of natural causes. Some rich and famous people even. I'm not real, real old, but I've had a good time over the years and I consider myself way ahead of the game, no matter what happens to me now, and yet I'm still I'm freaking out about how things are going. But I'd really be in a panic if I hadn't lived a life yet. I don't get why there's not a bit more of an uproar--not over the bad economy--but over why they're wanting to fix it. I think it's criminal the way churches can put on their elaborate entertainments while denying birth control around the world as they watch kids starving to death by the thousands, fa-la fa-la. Sex education geared toward a healthy understanding of our sex drive is totally forbidden to young people, as women and children pay the price when guilt and shame instilled over otherwise natural urges result in men growing up squirrelly and unable to relate on a healthy basis when it comes to sex. All the planet's forests are being destroyed when fast-growing hemp could be used for fiber for clothing, paper products, building materials, and as a cash crop anywhere it will grow. Etc. Time for some stone cold logic.
Religions and unchecked greed are no longer up for intellectual debate, we're down to the wire. Should we have ludicrous social restrictions and new models of cars every year, nice green lawns, disposable plastic packaging and such, or continue to have life on Planet Earth? I guess we'll soon see, by golly.
"In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth . . . " Okay, page 1, dude doesn't know what the stars are or that the world is round. He has no idea there are Eskimos or a Pacific Ocean. It's God's Word, just God didn't seem to know any more than that peasant in a little village thousands of years ago did. Anybody have a problem with that? I grew up going to Baptist Sunday School every week. I knew Christians sent missionaries around the world to spread The Word, but I was amazed, totally incredulous, when I heard that other religions sent missionaries to us! How silly. All those other phony religions are crazy, just going through the motions. Except now I realize that all religions think of themselves as the only way, and all the others are way wrong and only piss God off. Thus the call to SMITE those not God's true believers. Each and every group is The One, and since God is a soup stone, a symbol open to each religion's and person's imagination, there's a lot of SMITING going on. I'll be honest with you, I couldn't tell the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite and a Kurd if they were standing right in front of me. There's never been a religion that hasn't been persecuted by another religion. Isn't it getting a bit ridiculous in this day and age? Especially with all the problems we're facing as a planet, isn't it time we put a little effort into getting along? "God Bless America." i.e. "God Bless This Part Of The Planet." i.e. "God Bless This End Of The Boat." (Why don't Baptists make love standing up? Because somebody might think they're dancing.)
There's getting to be a lot of folks living like hippies these days. Reluctant hippies, where the real ones were looking ahead at a planet reaching its limits and trying to do something about it. Wearing old clothes, sharing rides, saving water, thinking about what they're using and getting by on less. The real ones were wiped out by corporate misinformation and brutal force, but now there's no choice, the lifestyle is being forced on people. The new hippies would like to see things get back to "normal", limitless growth on a finite planet, but it ain't gonna happen. It can't. And now they just about can't give SUVs away and they're talking about discontinuing Hummers. Ten, fifteen years ago, people were torching SUV dealerships seeing the destruction the manufacture and use of these large gas guzzling (to coin a phrase) vehicles were doing to the planet. NOW it's getting unavoidable. But is it too late? Think how fast we'd come up with better ways to get around if gas hit $30.oo a gallon, and how fast we'll all fry if the price goes down as promised by all the oil company supported politicians. Our dog-eat-dog, every-man-for-himself economy only worked if there was anything left. I'm forced to use a poetry word: things look bleak.
The sad part from a lot of people's point of view is how little it takes to be happy and live really well, but we helplessly watch as a relatively few people destroy our world in their mad quest for . . . for what? Power? Control? Security? Confidence? It's certainly not for any basic needs, they already each personally have more than plenty. As I've said before, the only reason they seem to want to consume everything in site as fast as they can is to see more zeros on their bank statements. It's certainly not for anything tangible. (Like Estri when she was locked in the cubes, just thoughtlessly consuming her limited resources.)
I'm 62, and there are people younger than me dying every day of natural causes. Some rich and famous people even. I'm not real, real old, but I've had a good time over the years and I consider myself way ahead of the game, no matter what happens to me now, and yet I'm still I'm freaking out about how things are going. But I'd really be in a panic if I hadn't lived a life yet. I don't get why there's not a bit more of an uproar--not over the bad economy--but over why they're wanting to fix it. I think it's criminal the way churches can put on their elaborate entertainments while denying birth control around the world as they watch kids starving to death by the thousands, fa-la fa-la. Sex education geared toward a healthy understanding of our sex drive is totally forbidden to young people, as women and children pay the price when guilt and shame instilled over otherwise natural urges result in men growing up squirrelly and unable to relate on a healthy basis when it comes to sex. All the planet's forests are being destroyed when fast-growing hemp could be used for fiber for clothing, paper products, building materials, and as a cash crop anywhere it will grow. Etc. Time for some stone cold logic.
Religions and unchecked greed are no longer up for intellectual debate, we're down to the wire. Should we have ludicrous social restrictions and new models of cars every year, nice green lawns, disposable plastic packaging and such, or continue to have life on Planet Earth? I guess we'll soon see, by golly.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
The Fire Down Below
This morning there was a filming notice on the front door of the hotel. One or more helicopters will be flying around and landing nearby today between 2 and 10 p.m. I think it was. A while ago they landed a couple on the roof of the hotel here, first having evacuated us all to a portable building a couple blocks away where they fed us the worst pizza I ever had. There's often filming going on around L.A., and on weekends there are different projects going on all over the place. It was much the same up in San Francisco when I was living up there. I don't stop and look for famous people every time I see a film shoot like some tourist, but I've caught sight of a few familiar faces over the years. When I first got back to L.A. to get legal in 2003, I was staying down by USC for a while. Just up the street and around the corner I'd for the longest time see a major production in progress with like-new 1950s cars and fancy clothes from the times. I had no idea what they were doing in there. Then like way later I saw S. Epatha Merkerson win an Emmy for the role she played in an HBO movie called Lackawanna Blues. When I spotted that DVD at the library I decided to check it out. I recognized the old unpainted house they'd been filming in that I'd passed by so many times. Now I look at the house as a kind of shrine, that movie is so special. (I was by there last week and it's still the same.) (On Adams just west of Hoover.)
This morning while I was having my first cup of coffee and checking my e-mails, a story came on the radio news about all the formerly middle-class folks up in Santa Barbara who, because either they or their landlords were foreclosed upon, are now living in their cars. California law says that nobody can sleep in a vehicle parked on the street, so the city has opened special parking lots to overnight sleeping. Then the commercial comes on with a guy saying he loves his big gas guzzler "dripping with chrome" so much that if it had a bathroom, he'd live in it.
Another story was about a climate report the White House has been refusing to release since it was completed in 2004. A court finally ordered it be made public. Though it paints a bleak future, the corporate folks really running the show are putting as many zeros on their bank balances as they can before the general public takes its collective heads out of the sand and finally admits what's happening and decides to seriously do something about it. Many folks figure it's already too late, but at least the multi-billionaires' kids and grandkids are all gonna fry just like the progeny of us regular folks. But men and women who've felt it necessary to accumulate that much wealth don't think past the next quarter, so there's really no stopping them I'm afraid.
Today I also heard a neat phrase. "Consensual crimes." Where people are doing something they want to, not involving or hurting anyone else, but other folks have decided that this whatever-it-is shouldn't be allowed. The arrogance of making such rules for others should be the crime. "No, I don't want anybody doing THAT! Who do they think they are!" Only vicious, despicable, self-righteous folks think like that if you ask me, but there are hundreds of thousands of their victims in prisons, like it or not. (Don't get me started.)
Wow, talk about kicking the hive . . . now they're going to evict gang members AND THEIR FAMILIES out of their houses and apartments here in Los Angeles. THAT should certainly put an end to the violence, kick some heavily-armed criminal's mother and little sister out of their home. (Where do they FIND these mental giants who come up with these ideas?) I look at the gangs out there now just like the ones back in the 1920s. Imagine the chaos if they'd started putting Al Capone's and Dutch Schlutz's men's families out of their homes in an attempt to get them to stop shooting at each other over the illicit profits from the alcohol prohibition. I predict they're biting off more than they can chew in their quest to get the entire population to live like family hour on TV. The only thing that stopped the shooting in the '20s was legalizing beer again. They know that. (Remember the words of Brigham Young I recently quoted? Without his constant watch, his people started PLAYING CHECKERS! and PLAYING CARDS! Ol' Jehovah musta been shittin' his drawers when He saw that! People actually enjoying themselves! Sinners all. No wonder they lock people up for oral sex and making hash brownies!) (Or I guess the other way around.)
Teach people how to relax and enjoy, smoke a little weed and make love, go swimming, everybody work three days a week and share vehicles and appliances. We might stand a chance if nobody now running gets to be President and "gets the economy rolling again", which will only fry us all that much faster. Jeesh.
Well, it's now Saturday morning--where does the time go? I'm almost afraid to turn on the radio again.
Good luck to us all.
This morning while I was having my first cup of coffee and checking my e-mails, a story came on the radio news about all the formerly middle-class folks up in Santa Barbara who, because either they or their landlords were foreclosed upon, are now living in their cars. California law says that nobody can sleep in a vehicle parked on the street, so the city has opened special parking lots to overnight sleeping. Then the commercial comes on with a guy saying he loves his big gas guzzler "dripping with chrome" so much that if it had a bathroom, he'd live in it.
Another story was about a climate report the White House has been refusing to release since it was completed in 2004. A court finally ordered it be made public. Though it paints a bleak future, the corporate folks really running the show are putting as many zeros on their bank balances as they can before the general public takes its collective heads out of the sand and finally admits what's happening and decides to seriously do something about it. Many folks figure it's already too late, but at least the multi-billionaires' kids and grandkids are all gonna fry just like the progeny of us regular folks. But men and women who've felt it necessary to accumulate that much wealth don't think past the next quarter, so there's really no stopping them I'm afraid.
Today I also heard a neat phrase. "Consensual crimes." Where people are doing something they want to, not involving or hurting anyone else, but other folks have decided that this whatever-it-is shouldn't be allowed. The arrogance of making such rules for others should be the crime. "No, I don't want anybody doing THAT! Who do they think they are!" Only vicious, despicable, self-righteous folks think like that if you ask me, but there are hundreds of thousands of their victims in prisons, like it or not. (Don't get me started.)
Wow, talk about kicking the hive . . . now they're going to evict gang members AND THEIR FAMILIES out of their houses and apartments here in Los Angeles. THAT should certainly put an end to the violence, kick some heavily-armed criminal's mother and little sister out of their home. (Where do they FIND these mental giants who come up with these ideas?) I look at the gangs out there now just like the ones back in the 1920s. Imagine the chaos if they'd started putting Al Capone's and Dutch Schlutz's men's families out of their homes in an attempt to get them to stop shooting at each other over the illicit profits from the alcohol prohibition. I predict they're biting off more than they can chew in their quest to get the entire population to live like family hour on TV. The only thing that stopped the shooting in the '20s was legalizing beer again. They know that. (Remember the words of Brigham Young I recently quoted? Without his constant watch, his people started PLAYING CHECKERS! and PLAYING CARDS! Ol' Jehovah musta been shittin' his drawers when He saw that! People actually enjoying themselves! Sinners all. No wonder they lock people up for oral sex and making hash brownies!) (Or I guess the other way around.)
Teach people how to relax and enjoy, smoke a little weed and make love, go swimming, everybody work three days a week and share vehicles and appliances. We might stand a chance if nobody now running gets to be President and "gets the economy rolling again", which will only fry us all that much faster. Jeesh.
Well, it's now Saturday morning--where does the time go? I'm almost afraid to turn on the radio again.
Good luck to us all.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Nostalgia Isn't What It Used To Be
This young guy was telling us a story as we kicked back by the river. One time he'd been hitchhiking in Santa Barbara before the freeway passed through town, back when 101 hit the city streets for about ten blocks or so, traffic lights and all. He, a couple heading up to San Luis Obispo, an old hitchhiker, and a Navy guy going back to San Francisco, all got picked up in a big American car by a guy in his forties. Soon as he had the car full and they were on their way north, the driver asked for gas money. Up the road a ways when they were away from civilization, the guy pulled a pistol from under the seat and started waving it around, not pointing it at anybody and making no threats, but it freaked everybody out. I asked what the old road dog did then, and the storyteller said that oh, he'd asked to get out right when the guy asked for gas money. In my over twenty years on the road, whenever anybody asked for money for gas, if I had any cash I'd give it to them, but then I'd get out of the car. Or if I couldn't spare any cash, I'd still get out. I had lots of jobs on the road, but paying for the gas wasn't one of them. Drivers didn't get gas money AND my company. They hadn't stopped for me because they wanted to be alone. I've several times had drivers tell me of times they had to sit by an on-ramp until a hitchhiker with money for gas showed up because they were out and broke. That I can understand, I know it takes a lot of money to drag a car around with you every place you go. But unless it's prearranged that a passenger share the expenses--which I have done a time or two, and I'm sure there's a lot of that going on these days especially--the idea is the drivers were going where they're going anyway, and they have their own reasons for stopping for somebody standing along the way. And right now I'm thinking the higher gas prices go, the better. It'll mean less exhaust being released into the air, and the sooner alternatives to gasoline and diesel fuel will be found. Necessity is the mother(s) of invention. (Who said that? Somebody said that, right?)
It's not easy being a rebel anymore when grandmothers sport tattoos and ten-year-old boys have long hair and a pierced ear or two. And really, there's not much new to do to test yourself. I heard on the radio yesterday that there were 75 people on the top of Mount Everest at that time; might as well be at Wally World. You can hack your way up the Amazon for a week, then get a cell phone call from your mother or a helicopter can drop in with pizza and beer. But they did just land on Mars, now THAT's something nobody's gonna do again anytime soon. (I remember seeing President Nixon talking on the phone to the first men on the moon--Imagine, on the MOON!--and there he was reading a prepared statement to them. How pathetic was that?) For laughs, there's still the presidential campaign. Multi-millionaires running around acting like they're one of us is amusing enough--just folks--but now their preachers are talking in public. How embarrassing for the candidates. It's a fine line to walk: "My preacher makes his living representing invisible people in the sky, but I always thought he was totally sane. Honest. I don't know how I could have been fooled all these years. Honest. And yes, I myself talk to invisible people in the sky every night, but only in the most rational and sensible way, not all crazy like him. Nothing for you to be concerned about when you go to vote. We all do it." (Hey, I could be a preacher. "All the tornadoes and the high gas prices are because God is punishing this country for its war on drugs. Repent!") (Eat your heart out, Jerry.)
I really like those new TV commercials that have strong, confident women walking along talking following a moving camera. Good stuff. The phone one is the hottest. Then the one telling us how her oil company is the solution to global warming. And I do like the car one, too, but we only get a couple flashes of her. I sure hope they do more.
Talking about the war on drugs, have you been hearing about all the shooting going on--yeah, right here in L.A., too--but down on the Mexican border? Just like the Twenties with beer and whiskey! Hot times. Innocent folks get blown away in the crossfire, just like then, and the heavily-armed gangs, and all the justifiable reasons for the police to go around kicking in doors. It's great. And people die from bad drugs, just like they did from bathtub gin and abortions when they were illegal. And just like there's less opposition having a war without the draft, not near as many people squawk about drugs as they did alcohol, so it's way better. Cigarettes would have been great to outlaw if the drugs slowed down, but folks are just stopping that with public opinion so they're out now as a potential controlled product, but hey, how about coffee--no, too much like alcohol, everybody does it--but how about . . . skateboards!! By golly, talk about job security for the criminal justice system! And nobody likes them punks anyway, and they'll keep it up no matter what the penalty is. I'm a genius.
Today as I type is Memorial Day. Many have died to keep us free to openly write blogs like this, and I don't take that lightly; I hear about all the places in the world where it's not allowed. We're free to move and travel and read and pretty much say what we want. But we're not so free if you like to smoke a little weed, or are gay and want a legal relationship, or would rather simply pay for sex than get married, or want a President who doesn't answer to invisible people in the sky.
It's not easy being a rebel anymore when grandmothers sport tattoos and ten-year-old boys have long hair and a pierced ear or two. And really, there's not much new to do to test yourself. I heard on the radio yesterday that there were 75 people on the top of Mount Everest at that time; might as well be at Wally World. You can hack your way up the Amazon for a week, then get a cell phone call from your mother or a helicopter can drop in with pizza and beer. But they did just land on Mars, now THAT's something nobody's gonna do again anytime soon. (I remember seeing President Nixon talking on the phone to the first men on the moon--Imagine, on the MOON!--and there he was reading a prepared statement to them. How pathetic was that?) For laughs, there's still the presidential campaign. Multi-millionaires running around acting like they're one of us is amusing enough--just folks--but now their preachers are talking in public. How embarrassing for the candidates. It's a fine line to walk: "My preacher makes his living representing invisible people in the sky, but I always thought he was totally sane. Honest. I don't know how I could have been fooled all these years. Honest. And yes, I myself talk to invisible people in the sky every night, but only in the most rational and sensible way, not all crazy like him. Nothing for you to be concerned about when you go to vote. We all do it." (Hey, I could be a preacher. "All the tornadoes and the high gas prices are because God is punishing this country for its war on drugs. Repent!") (Eat your heart out, Jerry.)
I really like those new TV commercials that have strong, confident women walking along talking following a moving camera. Good stuff. The phone one is the hottest. Then the one telling us how her oil company is the solution to global warming. And I do like the car one, too, but we only get a couple flashes of her. I sure hope they do more.
Talking about the war on drugs, have you been hearing about all the shooting going on--yeah, right here in L.A., too--but down on the Mexican border? Just like the Twenties with beer and whiskey! Hot times. Innocent folks get blown away in the crossfire, just like then, and the heavily-armed gangs, and all the justifiable reasons for the police to go around kicking in doors. It's great. And people die from bad drugs, just like they did from bathtub gin and abortions when they were illegal. And just like there's less opposition having a war without the draft, not near as many people squawk about drugs as they did alcohol, so it's way better. Cigarettes would have been great to outlaw if the drugs slowed down, but folks are just stopping that with public opinion so they're out now as a potential controlled product, but hey, how about coffee--no, too much like alcohol, everybody does it--but how about . . . skateboards!! By golly, talk about job security for the criminal justice system! And nobody likes them punks anyway, and they'll keep it up no matter what the penalty is. I'm a genius.
Today as I type is Memorial Day. Many have died to keep us free to openly write blogs like this, and I don't take that lightly; I hear about all the places in the world where it's not allowed. We're free to move and travel and read and pretty much say what we want. But we're not so free if you like to smoke a little weed, or are gay and want a legal relationship, or would rather simply pay for sex than get married, or want a President who doesn't answer to invisible people in the sky.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
If You Get Stung By A Bee, You Don't Go Kick The Hive
Well, he did it again today. The oldest judge on TV has a big problem with people of different ages being friends. Especially women with a guy a couple years younger. "Robbing the cradle" he always accuses, sex involved or not. Today she was 33 and the guy 29, only neighbors and friends, yet he went on and on about them hanging out. One time I remember the woman was really irate, saying how she's only three years older than her boyfriend, but his honor just ignored her, giving a sermon against their relationship right over her incredulous reactions to his tirade. This from an old man who every day has his court packed with young could-be Victoria's Secret models. I've never seen a woman in his court even close to half his age. I think it's maybe like those politicians and preachers who lead campaigns against homosexuals, then get caught themselves having sex with other men. Why else would it be such a big deal to him? I sure don't give a darn how old two other people together are; it's their business. People used to freak about couples from different races, different religions, different countries, even different heights. Yet you still hear, "Wow, he's old enough to be her father!" and, "Look, she's got a boy toy." (I even saw it happen with two women once at a resort. Showing up at the dining area, one of the staff asked, "Oh, is this your daughter?" One look at their reactions and it was obvious that wasn't the case.) Hmmm . . . which would be easier, get everybody in the world to think totally alike about what's a proper couple, or encourage folks to cut each other some slack?
Last night Leno said that Prince Charles gives us Earthlings eighteen months to change our ways if we're going to stop global warming in time to save life on the planet. Of course The Powers That Be would totally agree, if darn it, it wouldn't be so bad for the economy. Death before lower profits. Our "Last Day Of Life On The Planet" Sale. Doors open at 7. Ya gotta love it. (Unless, of course, you have your whole life ahead of you. Then it might be a bit of a drag.)
I don't know how it is everywhere else, but here in California, there's "registered sex offenders" hysteria. Every newscast has a story or two, often followed by reports of some prostitution sting. We could use the same brilliant logic for teenage drivers. Let's make driving lessons illegal for anybody too young to drive. Anybody under the driving age can't even legally watch somebody else drive a car or truck, not even a video or pictures of somebody driving. There's a driver in a movie, it gets an "R" rating. Anybody caught showing minors how to drive would be subject to arrest for contributing. Then when each young person turns fourteen, they're automatically given a drivers license and a car. Any one of them that has an accident or hits something will be ruled totally at fault and be labeled a "registered driving offender" forced to wear an ankle bracelet for the rest of their lives, and they can never again live within a thousand yards of a freeway on-ramp or four-way stop. Yeah, that makes about as much sense. Pity the poor women and children who have to pay the price for the religious lobby and their propaganda that prevents any and all sex education, and sex itself for anyone of any age not meeting their personal requirements. (A license, just like for driving.) God's will, they say. Jeesh, I say. (Sex education and prostitution should be legalized until God Himself says "no" to it OUT LOUD, not just inside some zealot's head.) Meanwhile, women get raped and kids get molested by guys who'd been forbidden any training or understanding about the powerful natural feelings that they experienced at a young age but were taught to feel only guilt and shame about. THAT's what's sick.
If I had my druthers, I'd rather be writing about livelier things, like the joys of skinny-dipping and the health benefits of chocolate chip cookies and beer. But forgive me, with the end of all life on Earth looming, and all we hear from the presidential candidates, congress, and on "the news" is about lowering gas prices and getting the economy going--the very causes of our peril--I'm kinda terrified. Silly me. People working to get along better, wind and solar energy, electric cars, stopping the clear-cutting of forests, having more fun while using less, was all a big thrust of the continually-discredited hippie movement. The planet was doing okay for millions of years, until the industrial revolution. Forty years wasted in reversing the damage could have done the trick. Now, well, I'm afraid we'll just have to see. But I'm sure glad I'm old and my body is worn out and I just partied my life away. All those pretty girls and dancing to live music and psychedelic softball and swimming in rivers and one-way travel and drunk volleyball and sleeping outside and shooting pool and concerts big and small and just working jobs I could see the end of, all with no student loans to repay. Shame on me.
But heck, there's lots of other planets . . . we got to THIS one, didn't we?
50% Off everything. Go shop.
Amen.
Last night Leno said that Prince Charles gives us Earthlings eighteen months to change our ways if we're going to stop global warming in time to save life on the planet. Of course The Powers That Be would totally agree, if darn it, it wouldn't be so bad for the economy. Death before lower profits. Our "Last Day Of Life On The Planet" Sale. Doors open at 7. Ya gotta love it. (Unless, of course, you have your whole life ahead of you. Then it might be a bit of a drag.)
I don't know how it is everywhere else, but here in California, there's "registered sex offenders" hysteria. Every newscast has a story or two, often followed by reports of some prostitution sting. We could use the same brilliant logic for teenage drivers. Let's make driving lessons illegal for anybody too young to drive. Anybody under the driving age can't even legally watch somebody else drive a car or truck, not even a video or pictures of somebody driving. There's a driver in a movie, it gets an "R" rating. Anybody caught showing minors how to drive would be subject to arrest for contributing. Then when each young person turns fourteen, they're automatically given a drivers license and a car. Any one of them that has an accident or hits something will be ruled totally at fault and be labeled a "registered driving offender" forced to wear an ankle bracelet for the rest of their lives, and they can never again live within a thousand yards of a freeway on-ramp or four-way stop. Yeah, that makes about as much sense. Pity the poor women and children who have to pay the price for the religious lobby and their propaganda that prevents any and all sex education, and sex itself for anyone of any age not meeting their personal requirements. (A license, just like for driving.) God's will, they say. Jeesh, I say. (Sex education and prostitution should be legalized until God Himself says "no" to it OUT LOUD, not just inside some zealot's head.) Meanwhile, women get raped and kids get molested by guys who'd been forbidden any training or understanding about the powerful natural feelings that they experienced at a young age but were taught to feel only guilt and shame about. THAT's what's sick.
If I had my druthers, I'd rather be writing about livelier things, like the joys of skinny-dipping and the health benefits of chocolate chip cookies and beer. But forgive me, with the end of all life on Earth looming, and all we hear from the presidential candidates, congress, and on "the news" is about lowering gas prices and getting the economy going--the very causes of our peril--I'm kinda terrified. Silly me. People working to get along better, wind and solar energy, electric cars, stopping the clear-cutting of forests, having more fun while using less, was all a big thrust of the continually-discredited hippie movement. The planet was doing okay for millions of years, until the industrial revolution. Forty years wasted in reversing the damage could have done the trick. Now, well, I'm afraid we'll just have to see. But I'm sure glad I'm old and my body is worn out and I just partied my life away. All those pretty girls and dancing to live music and psychedelic softball and swimming in rivers and one-way travel and drunk volleyball and sleeping outside and shooting pool and concerts big and small and just working jobs I could see the end of, all with no student loans to repay. Shame on me.
But heck, there's lots of other planets . . . we got to THIS one, didn't we?
50% Off everything. Go shop.
Amen.
Monday, May 19, 2008
"When Ya Ain't Got Nothin', Ya Got Nothin' To Lose"
The Academy of Country Music Awards were on CBS last night from Las Vegas. I like awards shows, showcasing folks who ignored all that good advice from well-meaning family and friends back home and just went for it anyway. Besides 18-year-old Taylor Swift's breathtaking wet and wild number, after which, when they cut to Brooks and Dunn to go on with the show, poor Ronnie Dunn was so dazed that he looked like he probably couldn't recall his own name there for a bit, fourth-time Entertainer of the Year winner Kenny Chesney immediately criticized the new system of Internet voting for his award, saying it devalues the prize and was like a sweepstakes gimmick. Good for him. I was living in downtown Nashville in the early 1990s during the transition from a real town with character to an extension of Disneyland, a squeaky-clean tourist trap, as I've seen happen to so many other formerly-interesting places. (Big Sur, the Haight Ashbury, downtown Portland, Oregon, Santa Cruz, etc.) (Hollywood it's okay.) Corporate Rule has its price. It's refreshing to see somebody at that big-time of a level speak out against the sanitizing and watered-down bottom-line-above-all-else marketing of our world.
The grasshopper and the ant. (Come winter, they both froze to death.) On top of failed savings institutions, embezzled pension funds, huge credit card debt, a catastrophic disease that wipes out savings, fire or natural disaster, or simply an early death, now prospective retirees are additionally facing a floundering economy (a growth-based economy on a finite planet, who could have foreseen it ever reaching limits?) with energy prices shooting up, diminished investment returns, and sinking real estate values. I'm 62, and if I'd worked my whole life up until now, I'd be pissed. Many of those no-good bums (grasshoppers) may be just as broke and unprepared for retirement and living on the same over-exploited planet as the good folks who worked for the man their whole lives, but they've got no debts, and have traveled and partied and had lots of great guilt-free sex. (Undercover hippies. They managed to quietly stay out of debt and have a great time on way less income without incurring the punishing wrath of Corporate America like happened when people tried to share the secret with the world back in the Sixties.) And lots of folks did make a satisfactory living by doing things they enjoy, while still managing to keep their time mostly their own. Imagine.
Our only hope is to get in the head space that we're all Earthlings. Period. Everybody. Nothing else matters. We've got a shot at bypassing official channels and getting the word out over the Internet, and what THINKING person could argue with the concept? Of course there'll always be politicians and religious leaders standing in the way of everybody getting along--heck, we wouldn't need THEM anymore--but when folks start looking at our precarious situation and then look at their kids . . . I don't know, anybody got any better ideas?
Illegal immigration. Like so many other issues of the day, I pretty much agree 100%, with both sides. The only real problem I have with illegals is I've wasted a lot of extremely witty remarks on people who don't understand English. I'd like to see folks in poorer countries be helped, but then again, if people come here to pick lettuce and strawberries and not take good-paying jobs away by working for lower wages, why do they wait to get hired outside paint stores? I'd hate to see the U.S. become as prosperous and well run as a third-world country from all the illegals flooding public services, but I sure don't like the idea of building a wall. I was an illegal immigrant in Canada for over three years, so I can't squawk. It's like abortion, gun control, the death penalty, just a lot of angles and points of view to consider. I think there's plenty enough of the basics to go around, if only it was allowed to go around. ("Let them eat cake!")
Hey, what if Mexican, Central American, and even U.S. farmers were allowed to plant fast-growing hemp for fiber for clothing, building materials, paper, and such. We could stop cutting down all the slow-growing trees, help filter the lousy air much faster, and give employment. It's not like our standard of living is sustainable for much longer as it's going anyway, much less being spread to "developing countries", too. Maybe if the Earth was the size of Jupiter, but our little planet is like a small pony carrying a 400-pound man. Either the guy has got to get off RIGHT NOW, or the pony will collapse any minute. We need drastic. And smart. And unbiased. And immediate. Cheaper gas will kill us that much faster. We need some new way to get around. (No driving allowed. Everybody should have to hitchhike.) Don't like it? Then come up with a better idea.
People learning how to have a good time while using less can save us. A strong economy will finish us off. All the presidential candidates seemed hell bent on doing us in, and proud of it. Crazy.
The grasshopper and the ant. (Come winter, they both froze to death.) On top of failed savings institutions, embezzled pension funds, huge credit card debt, a catastrophic disease that wipes out savings, fire or natural disaster, or simply an early death, now prospective retirees are additionally facing a floundering economy (a growth-based economy on a finite planet, who could have foreseen it ever reaching limits?) with energy prices shooting up, diminished investment returns, and sinking real estate values. I'm 62, and if I'd worked my whole life up until now, I'd be pissed. Many of those no-good bums (grasshoppers) may be just as broke and unprepared for retirement and living on the same over-exploited planet as the good folks who worked for the man their whole lives, but they've got no debts, and have traveled and partied and had lots of great guilt-free sex. (Undercover hippies. They managed to quietly stay out of debt and have a great time on way less income without incurring the punishing wrath of Corporate America like happened when people tried to share the secret with the world back in the Sixties.) And lots of folks did make a satisfactory living by doing things they enjoy, while still managing to keep their time mostly their own. Imagine.
Our only hope is to get in the head space that we're all Earthlings. Period. Everybody. Nothing else matters. We've got a shot at bypassing official channels and getting the word out over the Internet, and what THINKING person could argue with the concept? Of course there'll always be politicians and religious leaders standing in the way of everybody getting along--heck, we wouldn't need THEM anymore--but when folks start looking at our precarious situation and then look at their kids . . . I don't know, anybody got any better ideas?
Illegal immigration. Like so many other issues of the day, I pretty much agree 100%, with both sides. The only real problem I have with illegals is I've wasted a lot of extremely witty remarks on people who don't understand English. I'd like to see folks in poorer countries be helped, but then again, if people come here to pick lettuce and strawberries and not take good-paying jobs away by working for lower wages, why do they wait to get hired outside paint stores? I'd hate to see the U.S. become as prosperous and well run as a third-world country from all the illegals flooding public services, but I sure don't like the idea of building a wall. I was an illegal immigrant in Canada for over three years, so I can't squawk. It's like abortion, gun control, the death penalty, just a lot of angles and points of view to consider. I think there's plenty enough of the basics to go around, if only it was allowed to go around. ("Let them eat cake!")
Hey, what if Mexican, Central American, and even U.S. farmers were allowed to plant fast-growing hemp for fiber for clothing, building materials, paper, and such. We could stop cutting down all the slow-growing trees, help filter the lousy air much faster, and give employment. It's not like our standard of living is sustainable for much longer as it's going anyway, much less being spread to "developing countries", too. Maybe if the Earth was the size of Jupiter, but our little planet is like a small pony carrying a 400-pound man. Either the guy has got to get off RIGHT NOW, or the pony will collapse any minute. We need drastic. And smart. And unbiased. And immediate. Cheaper gas will kill us that much faster. We need some new way to get around. (No driving allowed. Everybody should have to hitchhike.) Don't like it? Then come up with a better idea.
People learning how to have a good time while using less can save us. A strong economy will finish us off. All the presidential candidates seemed hell bent on doing us in, and proud of it. Crazy.
Friday, May 16, 2008
"It's Okay, I'm Not Like The Others"
Poor Nick and Phyllis, started a business (a fashion magazine) with partners, Jack and Sharon. The thought makes me shudder. I started a business (indoor archery lanes) when I was nineteen, with two partners, both in their thirties. It was hell being the kid in the deal. The couples' trip is just daytime TV, but it still brings back the horrors of my experiences. For peace of mind, I suggest sink or swim on your own.
Finally, I got my hot little hands on the new Brigitte Bardot 5-movie boxed set. Last night I watched the first one, "Naughty Girl" (1956). It was hokey and low budget, but the big fight scene at the end had me roaring. Can't wait to watch the rest of them. (Back in those dreary days of the 1950s, Ike and Dick and all that dull energy, I fully credit Brigitte Bardot and [the early] Elvis Presley with awakening my young soul. They'd both be pretty tame these days, but it was a whole different world back then, until they started shaking things up.)
Wow, it just came on the news as I type here on May 15th, the California Supreme Court has ruled in favor of same-sex marriage. I think the former ban will soon look as silly as not allowing interracial marriages, oral sex being totally illegal, and the entire war on sex that's been raging since the first insecure control freak looked up at the night sky, invented God, and then needed the concept of sin to justify his new career. Some folks are still vowing to fight today's ruling and make everybody live just like them by law, because they know how God wants us all to live. Holy folks love to torture other people to death for doing sex wrong, thereby gaining brownie points with the Lord. "Stone them sinners! Hallelujah!"
There's been a big uproar since yesterday when Mr. President made a statement in Israel about talking to the enemy. I made a comment about it last night on a MySpace bulletin, but it's gotten way bigger today than I thought it would. I wrote a piece on the subject over a year ago called "Ed Deline's Pillow" and posted it on my MySpace blog on February 23, 2007. It's also with my Helium.com articles and essays. Being a marijuana fugitive for over thirty years, I had to learn to settle squabbles and challenges without the law getting called. Violence, win or lose, just wasn't an option. I'd sure like to see some of that philosophy used in international politics instead of the little-kids-in-a-sandbox policies we've had up to now. "It all started when he hit me back."
The less you're happy with, the more fun you have.
Drink. Play. Dance.
Finally, I got my hot little hands on the new Brigitte Bardot 5-movie boxed set. Last night I watched the first one, "Naughty Girl" (1956). It was hokey and low budget, but the big fight scene at the end had me roaring. Can't wait to watch the rest of them. (Back in those dreary days of the 1950s, Ike and Dick and all that dull energy, I fully credit Brigitte Bardot and [the early] Elvis Presley with awakening my young soul. They'd both be pretty tame these days, but it was a whole different world back then, until they started shaking things up.)
Wow, it just came on the news as I type here on May 15th, the California Supreme Court has ruled in favor of same-sex marriage. I think the former ban will soon look as silly as not allowing interracial marriages, oral sex being totally illegal, and the entire war on sex that's been raging since the first insecure control freak looked up at the night sky, invented God, and then needed the concept of sin to justify his new career. Some folks are still vowing to fight today's ruling and make everybody live just like them by law, because they know how God wants us all to live. Holy folks love to torture other people to death for doing sex wrong, thereby gaining brownie points with the Lord. "Stone them sinners! Hallelujah!"
There's been a big uproar since yesterday when Mr. President made a statement in Israel about talking to the enemy. I made a comment about it last night on a MySpace bulletin, but it's gotten way bigger today than I thought it would. I wrote a piece on the subject over a year ago called "Ed Deline's Pillow" and posted it on my MySpace blog on February 23, 2007. It's also with my Helium.com articles and essays. Being a marijuana fugitive for over thirty years, I had to learn to settle squabbles and challenges without the law getting called. Violence, win or lose, just wasn't an option. I'd sure like to see some of that philosophy used in international politics instead of the little-kids-in-a-sandbox policies we've had up to now. "It all started when he hit me back."
The less you're happy with, the more fun you have.
Drink. Play. Dance.
Monday, May 12, 2008
"The Truth Isn't Always Kind"
Background checks for ice-cream-truck drivers now. Driving a yellow and white striped ice cream van was the first job I did after I gave up twenty-two years of hitchhiking and bought a one-way bus ticket from San Francisco to Nashville in 1992. Best job I ever had: women and children running at me all day, waving money. You'd think it would drive a body nuts, but I swear, I grew to love that jingle playing out over the speakers all day. I decided if I ever won the lottery, I'd buy an ice cream truck and drive it around summers. I'd also used the van to explore, get to know my new area some, so my route was always totally random. It felt good when I'd turn down a street and see some little kid standing at the curb start bouncing with joy as I came into sight, but knowing I'd just picked the turn at the last second, I wondered what if I'd turned the other way at the intersection. I remember when Fonzi tried doing an ice cream gig supposed to be back in the 1950s on Happy Days. He told how he'd just get the rig rolling good, and then there'd be some kid holding up a lousy dime and he'd have to stop. I remember one house I stopped at four times. Out would come six or eight kids, the oldest one a girl about 11, holding an infant. The next youngest was another girl about 9, also carrying a baby, and then three or four more really little kids with them. The first two times the oldest one took charge and made sure everybody got what they wanted, all top of the line selections, and then, juggling the baby in her arms, she'd count out my money from a wad of bills. I was never sure how I got to that house and a few other spots on my rounds, just suddenly there I'd be again. So after a couple days of missing it, as if by magic I found myself there again, turned down the cul-de-sac and coming back out the kids were there waiting for me on the corner in front of their house like before. Except this time the oldest girl wasn't with the group, and the eight or nine year old was in charge. Also taking care of everybody and herself, she held out a bowl full of quarters, ones and fives. "Is this enough?" I took what I had coming and went on my way, feeling really good about dealing with such confident, polite, happy kids. The next time I was there was on a Saturday and a man came out of the house with them. Barking orders at the kids, watching me like a hawk, double-checking the money the girl gave me and the change I gave her back. What a different experience. (A guy like that would never in a million years pull over to give me a ride hitchhiking, so by being out there on the road the previous decades, my life had been spared having to deal with clowns like him.) Another time I was out in the country exploring, didn't have the music playing, there were no houses around. I was driving up a dirt road when I came to an abrupt dead end. Half-way through a back and forth 18-point turn to get back around, being like the top of a T in the middle of the narrow road, I looked up just as a scruffy guy in his thirties with a full beard stepped out of the trees carrying a shotgun. I'm thinking, "Tennessee". I can't go front or back more than a couple inches at that point, when he comes up and asks for an ice cream. As I'm counting out his change, he says, "Looks like somebody needs a drink this morning." I looked down. My hands were shaking like crazy. I grinned like that was it. Another time I was pulled over by three police cars for being by the lake at some National Park. "Can I see your federal vendor's permit?" "Say what?" "I warn you guys every year about slipping in here." I was still selling ice cream out the side window as they were running their check on me. Back at the place I asked the boss why he hadn't warned me about going by the lake. He said, "Well, you just played dumb, didn't you?" But for the most part, I only dealt with smiling people all day long. So anyway, now they want all the ice cream sellers to get checked out and probably pee in a bottle on a regular basis. The frenzy continues to build.
Tom ("We'll leave the light on for you.") Bodett has a video series out, "America's Historic Trails". On the one, "The Mormon Trail", he reads a quote Brigham Young gave his followers on their way to their promised land in Utah. "I have let the brethren dance and fiddle night after night to see what they will do. Well, they will play cards. They will play checkers. And if they could get whiskey they'd be drunk half the time. Do you suppose that we're going to look for a home for the saints, a place of peace where they can build up the kingdom with a low, mean wicked spirit dwelling in our bosoms?" And I say, "So what's your point?" Can't be having folks enjoying themselves and feeling good. Then they wouldn't need YOU, Mr. Young. You're just another one of those Guilt Pushers, selling your poison. All that born-in-sin crap. I say, "Let my people play."
Estri Hadrath diet Estrazi. The Silistra Series by Janet E. Morris. The High Couch of Silistra. The Golden Sword. Wind From The Abyss. The Carnelian Throne. (Then she rewrote the first one and called it Returning Creation.) Check 'em out. Brutal but really cool.
Summer is here again and I do miss rolling up my sleeping bag and sticking my thumb out over fabled Highway 101. April through October, just bouncing up and down the West Coast, partying. 1970-1992. Then every winter I'd do something different. Some winters I failed to run into anything to do and just continued to bounce. But during daylight savings was the best. Go anywhere, find a bush to sleep behind at night, people on vacation and locals and truck drivers keeping me amused and moving. April until October. For twenty-two years. (All one needs is a sleeping bag . . . you're going to get tired, and a flashlight . . . it's going to get dark. Most everything else just appears as needed.) "It's not like it used to be." Actually, it never was.
I wrote the above last night. Today, Monday, I woke up and the first thing I hear on the radio is a new plan for getting rid of prostitution on a popular street corner here in L.A. The joys of life have been brutally punished by religious people for thousands of years. Who first decided that God doesn't like a good time? They stone people to death and burn them at the stake for having sex. Many religions claim music, dancing, card playing, even laughter are all sins. It's okay to lock yourself up in a bare room for life for God, beat yourself bloody, or slowly torture others to death for not living like you and God think is right . . . but just don't have any fun. Where's the sense? Now the big evil is "registered sex offenders". Today we have thousands of little Joe McCarthys running around chasing commies again. Deny any sex education, pile on the guilt and shame for natural sexual urges, then vilify porn and strip clubs, outlaw massage parlors and prostitution, then come down with the wrath of the Lord of Lords on anybody who seeks a way to have sex. Now even teens are getting ankle bracelets and being registered for life for consensual sex because they're under the age the law has decreed is the age when the young people themselves have any control over their own bodies. Who are the sickos here? Tax money is being spent to fight the pleasure of sex and drugs for the Lord. Where's the separation? Who is this guy God anyway? Has He ever spoken to anyone who is sane? I think He was just created by guys who couldn't get it up and needed a good excuse for not having to try anymore. "Oh, sex is a SIN! I'm just being holy."
Give me a break.
Tom ("We'll leave the light on for you.") Bodett has a video series out, "America's Historic Trails". On the one, "The Mormon Trail", he reads a quote Brigham Young gave his followers on their way to their promised land in Utah. "I have let the brethren dance and fiddle night after night to see what they will do. Well, they will play cards. They will play checkers. And if they could get whiskey they'd be drunk half the time. Do you suppose that we're going to look for a home for the saints, a place of peace where they can build up the kingdom with a low, mean wicked spirit dwelling in our bosoms?" And I say, "So what's your point?" Can't be having folks enjoying themselves and feeling good. Then they wouldn't need YOU, Mr. Young. You're just another one of those Guilt Pushers, selling your poison. All that born-in-sin crap. I say, "Let my people play."
Estri Hadrath diet Estrazi. The Silistra Series by Janet E. Morris. The High Couch of Silistra. The Golden Sword. Wind From The Abyss. The Carnelian Throne. (Then she rewrote the first one and called it Returning Creation.) Check 'em out. Brutal but really cool.
Summer is here again and I do miss rolling up my sleeping bag and sticking my thumb out over fabled Highway 101. April through October, just bouncing up and down the West Coast, partying. 1970-1992. Then every winter I'd do something different. Some winters I failed to run into anything to do and just continued to bounce. But during daylight savings was the best. Go anywhere, find a bush to sleep behind at night, people on vacation and locals and truck drivers keeping me amused and moving. April until October. For twenty-two years. (All one needs is a sleeping bag . . . you're going to get tired, and a flashlight . . . it's going to get dark. Most everything else just appears as needed.) "It's not like it used to be." Actually, it never was.
I wrote the above last night. Today, Monday, I woke up and the first thing I hear on the radio is a new plan for getting rid of prostitution on a popular street corner here in L.A. The joys of life have been brutally punished by religious people for thousands of years. Who first decided that God doesn't like a good time? They stone people to death and burn them at the stake for having sex. Many religions claim music, dancing, card playing, even laughter are all sins. It's okay to lock yourself up in a bare room for life for God, beat yourself bloody, or slowly torture others to death for not living like you and God think is right . . . but just don't have any fun. Where's the sense? Now the big evil is "registered sex offenders". Today we have thousands of little Joe McCarthys running around chasing commies again. Deny any sex education, pile on the guilt and shame for natural sexual urges, then vilify porn and strip clubs, outlaw massage parlors and prostitution, then come down with the wrath of the Lord of Lords on anybody who seeks a way to have sex. Now even teens are getting ankle bracelets and being registered for life for consensual sex because they're under the age the law has decreed is the age when the young people themselves have any control over their own bodies. Who are the sickos here? Tax money is being spent to fight the pleasure of sex and drugs for the Lord. Where's the separation? Who is this guy God anyway? Has He ever spoken to anyone who is sane? I think He was just created by guys who couldn't get it up and needed a good excuse for not having to try anymore. "Oh, sex is a SIN! I'm just being holy."
Give me a break.
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