"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.