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.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
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.
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