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.