Writing
Writing can be so frustrating. It’s difficult to produce quality material (I know as I’ve yet to do so), and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find anything worth reading.
Frankly, I believe American writing is more or less in the ditch.
From published novels to poetry, most of what I’m seeing of late is rather mundane. Are there any prominent writers taking the same sort of radical approaches to writing as leading painters and sculptors? Even the “street level” stuff (often better than things published) I hear in local coffee shops or read in literary reviews leaves me feeling unfulfilled.
I have a stack of books on my bed table, mostly lighter reading I enjoy before I go to bed. On the dining room table is the heavy duty stuff, books that really demand careful attention, like David Graeber’s most recent book, Possibilities: Essays on Hierarchy, Rebellion, and Desire . You can’t read a book like that in bed, because you’ll be asleep within minutes. But more often than not, I find myself struggling to finish any of them. Few writers command my attention like Abbey, Twain, Jeffers or Welch. I flirted with Cormac McCarthy and tried desperately to like him, but it wasn’t meant to be. His prose is unique but often strikes me as scattered and hard to follow. Perhaps it’s just me, and I don’t have the intellect to grasp what he’s doing since so many others have elevated him to the highest perch in American writing. Sherman Alexie is good, a unique stylist that will make you laugh with his easy flowing, provocative writing style. Flight is one of his best. But all in all, the representative writing of the membership of the American Academy of Arts and Letters strikes me as bland.
Or, you might end up with the other extreme, a writer that tries so desperately to be unique they end up producing little more than garbled mush and rubbish.
Orion Magazine occasionally publishes some strong pieces, but go to its poetry section. It’s usually about as interesting as the ramblings of the Venerable Bede. Just the same old boring, soft shoe diction languishing for originality. Every time I read one of those poems I feel like I’ve read a hundred just like it.
Say something people! Say something profound with an original score. Don’t be so fucking boring with all your sweetness about bees, apricots, the sacred soil and where thy feet hath trod. Lew Welch said if you want to write good poetry you need to get your ass out into the streets and learn the language. Hear what people say and how they say it in the real world, not some imaginary world you’ve concocted within your own mind. That approach ultimately produces little more than the ornamental spittle I too often read in literary magazines.
Write about what happened at the newsstand. Tell us what you heard on the subway. Use the language you heard at the bus stop. Tell us about the old lady dying without health insurance or the jobless father that’s thinking about blowing his brains out. And tell us the good stories too, just make it interesting. Write about kids hooping it up in North Memphis. Be brutally real and don’t worry so much about rules and syntax. Writing isn’t about grammar; it’s about conveying feeling and creating emotion. It’s about truth and saying something important.
Wilderness and outdoor writing is another big yawner these days. I rarely give it a second thought. Frankly, I can’t see what anyone sees in Craig Childs. Is that the best we’ve got? Terry Tempest Williams? Boring.
I agree with Abbey in that the primary duty of the writer is to tell the plain truth, regardless of how ugly and or how uncomfortable it may be. But I also think we need to move beyond that basic premise and find more interesting ways to tell the truth. Robert Motherwell, when writing about his friend, the famous painter Jackson Pollock, stated what Pollock really showed us is that “there really are no rules and that only when a man really asserts his identity, even if to the point of convulsion, does his medium rise to the character of style.”
Most of my own writing has been pretty bland and ordinary. It’s nothing I’m particularly proud of, although I have been experimenting with some things I post on another site. Much of it is in no man’s land, stuck between poetry and prose, some flash fiction, but at least I’m trying. And it sure as hell beats sitting in front of the television.
So, I’m headed in a new direction. I’m going out there even further on the edge just to see what happens. Sure, it might all be shit, but at least I won’t be producing the same old worn out shit currently filling the shelves. I’m going to devote more of my attention to “the other stuff,” and try to formulate more interesting ways to say what I believe needs to be said.
For at least the past two decades, pen wielding artists have left it up to the fine arts crowd to do our work, and that needs to change.
Back to the drawing board….
The Culture of Speed
Hayduke left a comment about my Arizona post that’s worthy of further discussion:
Why do we want to travel quickly for long distances?
Where do we stop feeding our desires and begin living our ideals? We only live on this poor beat up and much abused earth thing one time. No going back and doing it over. No second chances, no one gets out alive.
Why not do it right the first time?
A good, fair point…..
Americans are enamored with getting places quickly, having things delivered quickly and quick service. As a society, we’re fast paced and don’t like delays. Fast food is popular because it’s fast, not because it’s good or affordable. (It’s not good, and it’s not affordable.) Although we have the interstate system and highways, Americans seem hardly satisfied with driving safe and sane speed limits. We want to get there even faster! FedEx is all about fast. Music downloads, Netflix. It’s all fast. Fast rules the day for most Americans.
Now, when you only have five days of vacation, it’s nice when you only have to spend a few hours of it actually traveling. It’s also nice if you have a debilitating disease (like my wife) and find it difficult to sit for long periods of time. But mostly, it’s because we want our shit fast, and I suppose it’s simply another negative aspect of our consumptive culture.
Fast comes with a price. Fast means exponentially more fuel and more resource use overall. It may create jobs, but we can create better jobs than taking fast food orders. How miserable can that be!
As far as travel is concerned, I think train is the way to go, but I’m not happy with our current system of routes. For example, for me to get from Memphis to New Orleans and then on to west Texas, I have to take a series of buses between major stops, including Lafayette, a city I travel to several times a year. This trip could take several days and is simply not practical. In fact, it’s idiotic.
Let’s look at the Lafayette, Louisiana trip on the Sunset Limited. If I left Memphis on Wednesday, I’d get to Lafayette, only 437 miles by car, on Friday because there’s no service from New Orleans to Lafayette on Wednesday night or Thursday. I’m better off driving the Prius down the pleasantly shaded and mercifully slow Natchez Trace. On a single tank of gas, mind you.
Memphis to New Orleans is a nice, reasonable eight hour ride, but New Orleans to San Antonio is nearly 16 hours or 48 hours when you add the Memphis section. That’s an additional 8 hours for travel and a day lay over. It’s 726 miles by Prius in 11 hours and less than two tanks of gas, and I don’t have to pay for cab fare once I get to my destination. And just to illustrate how pathetic our rail system is in the United States, a comparable trip from Paris, France to Marseille St. Charles (nearly 800 miles) takes slightly over 3 hours on Société Nationale des Chemins de fer français (SNCF).
As I’ve said before, we need vast improvement in this area, a national rail system comparable with those in Europe and Japan, but don’t hold your breath. Looks like we’re only getting a cosmetic, politically motivated, face lift, not the real thing.
Arizona, Part One
I loathe air travel. The whole experience from check in to claiming luggage, assuming you were lucky enough for your luggage to show up. Once you arrive at the airport, every stage of the process seems stressful and demeaning. But if you want to travel quickly for long distances, it’s still the best option.
My fear of flying is largely irrational, since statistics clearly show it’s safer than traveling by auto. But when I get on a jet, my brain shuts down and fear takes over. Every minute is excruciating, from take off to landing. Every bump creates a rise in blood pressure. In fact, I’m feeling one right now, as this essay is being composed during the Phoenix to Denver leg of my homeward journey.
I need a drink.
The most dangerous form of travel, the automobile, is my preferred mode, because I’m in control, or at least to a large degree, of my agenda and of my fate. I can see more of the country and can stop at all the quirky, interesting little places along the way. But too much car travel brings guilt, as I realize I’m yet another American packing the highways and burning fuel like there’s no tomorrow. And of course there’s the time involved. In order for me to drive from the Mississippi Delta to Four Corners, it takes over twenty hours. I have to remain alert and sober at all times. And as I age, I find I’m becoming less alert and less sober. Perhaps the two conditions are related….
Trains? Yes, a wonderful, dignified, greener method of travel, although once again, there’s the time issue. Due to the fact our national passenger rail system is at best, half ass, it can take nearly 20 hours to get from Memphis to San Antonio, and I’m still a long way from Arizona or Utah. The other option goes through Chicago, and I can’t logically see any reason why I’d travel to Chicago to get to Flagstaff.
Our journey was fairly smooth, except for one big bump on the initial Denver to Phoenix flight, and in less than five hours from leaving home, Allison and I were in our rental car headed north to posh, overpriced, over-developed Sedona, Arizona.
Driving northward on I-17, we’re both fascinated by the cacti covered desert landscape. The contrast between our home and our destination couldn’t be more extreme. In the Mississippi Delta, everything is lush and moist. Towering trees, dark, rich soil and eighty percent humidity. Here, the land is harsh. It’s arid and the vegetation seems stunted and sparse. It appears uninviting yet it has a beguiling quality that calls to us.
Unfortunately, too many Americans have responded to the call. Millions and millions have poured into the west and the continuing patterns of growth are alarming. On the flight to Phoenix, I decided to do a re-read of Edward Abbey’s The Journey Home, specifically for the chapters dealing with Arizona. Abbey hit the nail squarely on the head back in the 70’s when he wrote about “The BLOB” and the metastasis strangling the life out of place. I can only imagine what he would think if he could see it today, especially the sprawling ugliness of Phoenix. Why anyone else would move here is a complete mystery to me.
I had mixed emotions about going to Sedona, because I knew it was a tourist trap. But the desire to explore in and around the unique rock formations was too much to resist.
Sedona advertises its population as around 4500 people, which sounds pretty good until you realize a couple of things. One, it’s a ritzy, pampered populace, and two, over four million souvenir seeking people visit annually. Its “downtown,” if you can call it that, is crowded and expensive, packed with vendors selling cheap plastic shit made in China and “Pink Jeep Tours.”
The mountainsides are littered with multi-million dollar homes, monstrosities that suck enormous amounts of energy, so much so I imagined that I could hear it, like the sound of a suddenly opening clogged drain.
Allison and I did some research and found a great spot for our “base camp,” a cozy little inn on the edge of the town’s western end, far removed from the hustle and bustle of the tourist district. It was tastefully and modestly decorated and priced well to boot.
We were also fortunate to find a great breakfast joint, The Coffee Pot, a locals joint with a reasonable spattering of tourists. Yes, I’m a tourist, but I don’t want to be with my own kind. I want to do as the locals do which means eating at the local hangouts and finding remote trails only a local may tell you about.
The service was friendly and lightening fast and the food was delicious and hot. Should you have the good fortune or misfortune (depending on your view) to visit Sedona, this should be a part of your food agenda. You won’t regret it.
For our first day of hiking we select the Boynton Canyon trail, a popular, easy six mile walk to an open red rock hill side with views into the canyon. I had originally opted for the more remote Secret Canyon trail, but Allison was nursing a bad back, so we decided to put off the remote, challenging stuff for the next three days.
The trail is easily graded and gives the hiker a good introduction to the immense variety of desert life present in the area. Walking through the 275 million year old cathedral of rock is like taking a trip back in time. The Forest Service literature says “from bottom to top layer, one can observe about 80 million years of sediment deposition.” Most of the layers, from Tertiary to Mississippian, contain hematite or iron oxide, the element that gives the rocks their red color. But the entire trail is a collage of color, greens, reds, yellows and blues thanks to an impressive mix of desert flora.
Within the first two miles, we see Banana Yucca, Pinyon Pine, Cottonwood, Century Plant (Agave parryi), Juniper, Prickly Pear cactus and dozens of wildflower species.
I’m dismayed by the fact I can only identify a few of plants. Botany has never been my strong suit, and it’s one class in college I really struggled with. Too much memorization for my alcohol clouded, girl crazy brain, and besides, what difference does it make if you can’t name the plant?
In the case of Moon lily or Sacred Datura (Datura meteloides), a flowering plant I believe we’ve correctly identified at several points along the way, knowledge of species can make a big difference. Although it was an important medicinal plant to American Indians, all parts of the plant are extremely poisonous. Moon lily derives it’s name from the fact that its flowers open in early evening and close the following day when struck by sunlight.
The initial quarter mile of trail was amongst the best I’ve seen anywhere, except for one major issue. Running along side the trail for the first quarter mile is the Enchantment Resort, a sprawling defilement built for wealthy muckety-mucks. There are a few homes as well, massive, multi-million dollar enclaves for folks that apparently know a lot more about making money than nature. And I think it’s also safe to say they probably love money more than nature.
All the travel mags talk about the place like it’s some Taoist nirvana on earth, touting what Abbey called “zen bullshit.” Special services like yoga, qigong, tai chi, vortex excursions, blah, blah, blah. Want to find nirvana? Go on a long hike in the quiet of the morning. Come back in the late afternoon sunburnt and tired with aching knees and big appetite. Follow that with a hearty meal with a cold beer with friends and family. That’s nirvana enough for me.
Desert Living magazine, one of those worthless publications designed for the sort of folks that stay at the Enchantment Resort, claims the resort “blends into the Canyon.” I beg to differ. It’s a monstrosity, an unnecessary, ugly intrusion into an area that didn’t need “improvement.” As Allison and I walked along this section, we could hear the pounding of construction equipment building a new mega-home along the side of the canyon. The highlight, however, was the warning sign and security camera just before you reach the end of the first mile of trail. “HIKERS NOTICE” is written in large red capital letters and the sign goes on to imply that we’re being watched and taped by armed guards and gizmos and will be prosecuted if we trespass through their beloved ooh la la shithole.
The one thing I do know about Desert Living is this: none of their writers know a goddamned thing about living in the desert. It should be called Desert Raping. It’s all about extravagance and living a self-absorbed, consumptive life at the expense of all other life. As we finally got past the resort gate, I thought to myself how satisfying it would be to ride through their property with some comancheros, rustling the residents out of their comfy beds and hustling them into the parking lot for an announcement.
“Buenos días, amigos. This property is being confiscated and returned to its native inhabitants. You can collect your personal items at the Sedona Land Cooperative some time tomorrow. Have a nice life somewhere else.”
After this major annoyance, the rest of the trail is sublime. Red rocks rise over the flora, taking our eyes upward toward a brilliant blue sky punctuated by a spattering of white clouds. For the first two miles, there are few places to hide from the scorching Arizona sun, but luckily for us, the temperatures are unseasonably mild, so the heat isn’t terribly oppressive. It’s just enough to pleasantly warm our humidity oppressed Southern bones.
Lizards also bask in the sunlight all along the trail including what I believe is a Plateau striped whiptail. Its pointed snout and large eyes are alert to our movements, and it only allows us fleeting glimpse before scurrying for cover beneath a clump of undergrowth and organic matter just beyond the edge of an emerging conifer forest.
We turn north into a narrow gap known as “Boynton Bowling Alley.” Here the trees are taller, especially the Ponderosa pine. Allison and I stop and take a sniff of the bark which gives off a scent of vanilla or even praline pecan.
Standing beneath the mighty Ponderosa, we stop to simply enjoy the quiet of the forest. In the distance, we hear what sounds like a low roar. It’s wind, blowing up perhaps a mile or more beyond our location. We listen intently as it increases, an indication it’s headed our way. Within seconds, a few leaves on a scrubby Gambel oak begin to rustle and before we know it, the wind is upon us. The air cools significantly as the wind roars through the canyon, blessing us with a satisfying breeze. I imagine it’s a gift from the spirits of the ancients, the Sinagua, the Yavapai or the Apache, or perhaps a warning for us to not linger, to move on to another place.
We climb a little over 400 feet in the final 1/3 mile and are rewarded with a splendid view of the canyon and its sandstone cliffs. All sides are imprinted with manganese stains from melting winter snows and monsoon season rains. We rest in an open area with four or so other hikers that made the wise choice to complete the six mile journey. One gentleman came equipped with a guitar, a meditative, new ager type for sure. I resist the temptation to laugh as he poses and asks his wife to film him playing his guitar.
Noticing a slight trail continuance to the west, I decide to explore a bit and find a small saddle decorated with dozens of cairns constructed by previous explorers. I decide to make my own, just beyond where the river flows from a small desert garden. I arrange seven small rocks for all family members, including two beloved dogs. Allison does the same, although hers is much more interesting than mine since she’s more creative and generally more intelligent.
We pause a few more minutes to soak it all in before beginning our downward trek back to civilization. I feel great joy and a relaxed satisfaction from the fact that I’ve finally come west again and placed my feet upon yet another dusty, sandy path. I rejoice in how alive I feel and how happy I am to have a loving companion with which to share the adventure. All of my melancholy is swept away by the towering red rock, the gentle wind and the life that makes this place so special. That, and the knowledge that it’s protected, or at least reasonably protected, from the interlopers and opportunists that would destroy it if given the chance.
What The Hell Is Wrong With people?
A right wing gunman, spurred on my blathering right wing talk show hosts shoots and kills people in a Unitarian Church in Knoxville. A Wesleyan University student is gunned down while at work by an obsessed and rejected admirer. An abortion doctor is murdered, shot down in cold blood by a right wing nutjob, and now a security guard is killed at the Holocaust Museum by another nutjob, this time a freaking skinhead. Add in all of the other mindless shootings at schools and other places over the past few years, and you have to start asking yourself, can this ever be solved?
We’re not getting rid of guns, I can tell you that. Won’t happen, especially in the South. Does that mean we all walk around armed to the gills? What kind of society is that? Oh, wait. I forgot. It’s the one we already have, a society of violence, perpetuated by glorified violence in film, tee-vee and so-called sports like “ultimate fighting.” It’s like being back in the Roman Coliseum.
But you know, maybe Little Bill was right. Remember Gene Hackman’s character in Unforgiven, the hard nosed Sheriff that didn’t allow firearms in the town of Big Whiskey? If you brought a gun to Big Whiskey and didn’t check it with the Sheriff, you stood a good chance of getting kicked so hard you’d end up wearin’ your ass for a hat. And there’s a lot of statistics that show that gun control in the Old West clearly worked. Just compare the homicide rates in the famous old cattle drive towns to some of today’s figures in places like Memphis and Detroit.
If you outlaw guns only the outlaws will have them? Perhaps. Ed Abbey was a gun owner and wrote pretty persuasively about gun ownership. I own guns, as well, and I don’t know a single gun owner that would ever commit mindless acts of violence like these. I know I wouldn’t. I’ve been around guns my whole life, and I can’t imagine ever doing such a thing. Living on Mars seems more plausible.
Would these people all be alive today had they been armed? Most likely not, but who knows. I assume the security guard was armed, since another one on the scene returned fire. But if these wackos really wanted to kill their targets, knowing their targets were armed probably wouldn’t stop them. They could just use long range rifles, so it would possibly only slow them down.
They’re sick, mean people and as expected, they’re all men!
One thing I do know is that I’m sick and tired of hearing about this kind of stuff. I’m sick and tired of violence against women and children. I want it stopped, and I don’t want to dally around with the guilty. Let’s get on with a fast trial and string ‘em up. They don’t deserve the dignity of a firing squad.
I break with nearly all of my liberal friends on this point, and no, I’m not feeling real progressive right now. I’m starting to feel like I’m getting drawn into the cycle of violence. My esteemed liberal friends tell me the death penalty perpetuates the cycle of violence. Yes, I agree it does, but only to a point, because once the freak show murderer is put down like a rabid dog, he’s no longer a threat to commit more acts of violence. Prison? He can be violent there, as well, while you and I pay for it. Placing more people in prisons isn’t stopping the rising rate of this type of violence. Education? Well, look at our public educational system today and please tell me how its working. I think this is learned behavior and the result of mental illness, possibly brought on by multiple traumas in the lives of the perpetrators, but can these people be helped? Who’s paying for that? Are their statistics supporting rehabilitation of murderers? If so, I’d like to see those. Until then, sorry, I’m not willing to pay for the treatment, especially if they killed someone in my family.
What about executing innocent people? Yes, that’s a problem. Maybe we only execute people where we have irrefutable evidence, like you’re surrounded by police, gun in hand and still shooting. Of course, in that case, I hope the police just blow the guy to hell right there on the spot. I’d even go for the old ley fuga. “Sorry, amigo. He was trying to escape.”
We might as well face up to the fact that there are some bad eggs in our society that can’t be helped. I hate it, and I’m torn, but I’m also sick of coddling cowardly killers, rapists and child abusers. As Ed Abbey would say “It’s hard, but it’s fair.”
Now, the big question. Does executing these people solve the problem? No, it doesn’t. So, I’m back to square one, not having any idea as to how to curb this insane violence. If I had a good, original idea about how to go about it, I supposed I’d be up for the Nobel. But I’m not that smart. I’m just a redneck with average intelligence, and about all I’ve done with this rant is fuel my own thirst for revenge, which is never a good thing. I’ve come back full circle to a point of despair, realizing this is all so terribly ugly and horribly sad.
There are people planning more attacks right now. They have targets identified in their cowardly, deranged pea sized brains and are probably just waiting for the right moment. Maybe all it will take is a little prod from Bill O’Reilly or their pastor.
Which brings me to another point. I want to personally thank all you jackass right wing blathering fools for egging on these types. Talk show hosts, preachers and their ilk. You’ve all got blood on your hands, and you deserve a kick in the nuts. I hope you’re put out of business and ostracized from polite society. Go find a cave to live in and shut the fuck up, because you’re making life miserable for everyone.
No Worries, Arizona…Help Is On The Way
In preparation for an upcoming trip to Arizona, I checked out one of those location specific magazines. Every state or major destination seems to have one these days. You know, the ones that are supposedly about the state or city but are mostly just ads for bad restaurants and other touristy venues.
They’re glossy collections of lies and half truths about the places they cover, published primarily to sell shit and bring the industrial tourism dollars to their respective neck of the woods. They’re all jumbled together at the magazine stand, Sedona Monthly, Texas Monthly, New Mexico, etc.
There are, however, some pretty girls in them. Sex sells.
My experience suggests the best places probably don’t have ads in those publications, and that you need to consult a trusted local in order to find the real gems. Places off the beaten path, tucked away in alleys and deserted looking side streets, the best trails and local pubs. Ask a trusted local, and another rule of thumb…if there’s a Ripley’s Believe It Or Not or a theme park within two miles of your destination, choose another place.
Anyway, the worthless waste of paper had some adds for homes in the area, just outside of Sedona. Some were over $10 million dollars, and almost all of the ads featured those bizarre glamor shot photos of the agents. I kept thinking how obscene the whole thing looked. The people, the prices, the sprawling estates.
I’ve come to the conclusion that real estate agents are in the same class as used car salesmen and funeral directors. Since the 1950’s, they’ve thrived off the systematic destruction of the natural world, working hand in hand with Chamber of Commerce goons and City Council members. They’re the trumpet section of the “If you ain’t growin’ you’re dyin’” symPhony. Problem is they’re badly out of tune and the music just sounds like shit.
The house pictured below was advertised as a “green home.” I have to ask, however, what’s green about a three car garage? Are you fucking kidding me?
Someone also suggested I take a helicopter ride. Yeah, right. Helicopter operators and real estate swine, watch out. Rumor has it a one-eyed, hawk nosed man on a horse is headed your way, and I hear he’s got some experience with helicopters. And if he don’t set things straight, Mother Earth certainly will.
The Real Epidemic
We have an epidemic of profound and appalling ignorance in this country, one that’s reached levels hard for me to comprehend.
Our so-called liberal President is doling out billions to the crooks at Skank of America and General Motors and has apparently forgotten about a few other issues that badly need attention, like national health care.
This one came barreling through my life like a runaway train yesterday, when Blue Cross Blue Shield (another quasi-criminal organization) informed me that my 24 year old daughter would be kicked off my health insurance on July 1. Some might say, “she’s a college grad, old enough to be on her own,” and yes, to some degree that is true. Except for a few important facts, mitigating circumstances I’m certain are shared by thousands of others.
One, she’s still a student, preparing to enter a PhD program and probably only eligible for part time work with no benefits. Two, the university will provide coverage, but that coverage has a ridiculously low annual drug benefit which won’t cover her for one month.
My daughter was recently diagnosed with Rheumatoid arthritis, a nasty little autoimmune disease that fortunately does have some effective treatment options. Well, that is if you have about $3000 per month lying around or decent health insurance. For those that don’t, they end up in real pain and wheelchairs.
Fortunately for her, I’m in a position to get her coverage elsewhere, so she can focus on becoming a historian and not worry about her health day in and day out. But most people aren’t as lucky and simply suffer, thanks to the insurance company lobby and the powerful few that seemingly run affairs in the United States.
And speaking of trains, I noticed where Obama announced a plan for nationwide high-speed rail. Sounds great, don’t it? Well, not so fast.
I checked with a friend in Colorado that’s a huge train aficionado and he says it’s a bunch of political hooey. According to Bruce, and he’s generally right, there are a host of flaws. There’s no connection from either Buffalo or Pittsburgh to Cleveland, or from St. Louis to Little Rock to connect with the Texas system. There is a route from DFW to Oklahoma City and Tulsa but none to Houston. No connection between Jacksonville and Orlando. There are, however, two routes from LA to San Francisco.
Bruce informs me that it was “cobbled together from local interest groups and stuck on a national map by bureaucrats with no clue, and I’m sorry to see that so far at least this administration is only marginally more interested in doing it right than any of its predecessors.” He went on to state that “Biden may love Amtrak, but I’d really like to know if he’s ever been on a long-distance train, or spent any time in France or Japan on their real high-speed trains.”
But wait, there’s more.
We’re getting ready to spend nearly $100 billion more on Afghanistan and Iraq. The war machine marches onward.
And last but not least, the politicos and the economic intelligentsia are still talking about “getting the growth economy going again,” which means more unsustainable growth and all predicated upon drilling for a substance that’s getting increasingly harder to find and turn into a usual product. Yet, we’re drilling like crazy and trying to jump-start the party.
As I ponder this, I keep seeing an image in my mind of a party gone badly awry. Drunks are scattered all over the floor, some conscious, others out like a light, beer cans and whiskey bottles litter the floor and the smell of vomit punctuates the air. Nonetheless, the host and a few other louts are starting the car and heading back out to get more liquor, figuring the inebriated will wake up about mid-afternoon and want to start all over again. After all, isn’t the best way to cure a hangover another drink?
And of course there’s the usual spattering of ignorance and stupidity, millions of people duped, drunk and addicted to bad television, NASCAR, fast food and religion. As my compadre Hayduke says, how can we ever make any progress toward building a sensible society when 80% of the population believes in something that’s logically analogous to the Easter Bunny, eats Cheetos and watches cars go around in circles for 500 miles?
All of it makes me want to get to the trail and hide. Get away from it all, because it’s apparently pointless to hope for any real change. Oh, I stay slightly encouraged by the occasional “good” story. A small piece of land or species afforded protection. The expansion of gardening, cycling and reuse. But these are little more than little islands of respite, tinajas’ in a vast desert devoid of intelligent life.
Another concerned friend, Eric, and I regularly gather to discuss such things, to throw “solutions” out on the table and try and make sense of the world around us. The conversations are predictable. One of us will say “education is the answer!” The other will answer “yes, but what if the kids are getting no support in a home plagued by poverty and drug abuse?”
This is the stark reality in cities like Memphis, where the population of impoverished, poorly educated, angry adults grows exponentially each year. Teachers won’t stay in the city schools because they’re war zones. Parents increasingly feel a sense of hopelessness in what is quickly becoming a two class society.
The results are easy to see. There’s a palpable tension that permeates cities like Memphis, cities that suffer from inner city blight and poor political and community leadership. I become increasingly despondent as I watch the handful of really bright lights in our community swallowed up by a vast ocean of anger, apathy and just plain old stupidity.
Want an example? How about several?
You can now carry a loaded, concealed pistol into bars in Tennessee as long as you don’t drink. Wink, wink. But you can’t buy wine at a grocery store (thanks to the Christian lobby) or beer before noon on Sunday’s. And in neighboring Mississippi, it’s illegal to own a dildo. Truncheons are fine, of course.
Which brings me to a solution that Abbey often discussed. The need for wilderness. The need for a place where, as Ed said, a man “can go crazy in peace.” Ed believed that “for every pair of feet and legs” we need “about ten leagues of naked nature, crags to leap from, mountains to measure by, deserts to finally die in when the heart fails.”
The cities, our hapless government and Wall Street can’t be saved, so the best advice I can give is to save yourself. Get out of the cities and “run to the sanctuary of the hills.” Find a forest to get lost in and stay lost.
Gun Violence and The Christian Solution
Over the weekend, a lunatic went into a church and executed a doctor that performed abortions. I’m sure as the details unfold we’ll find that he was a Bill O’Reilly regular listener and a self-proclaimed soldier for god.
Interestingly, the god squad also has a ready answer for why there’s so much violence in today’s society. For why everything has gone “to hell in a handbasket.”
It’s here if you’re interested.
Actually, I think the first step toward creating a more peaceful society is a closer examination of the role of religion in society. We’ve always had out of control violence in this country. Against American Indians, blacks, women and non-humans. And “god” was always there, always a part of our society. In fact, the single theme that I find running throughout our entire violent history is a belief in god. Hell, at one point, we even burned women we suspected might be witches. In the name of god, of course.
If you want to believe in god, that’s ok by me. I don’t care. But don’t think for a minute that the establishment of what’s essentially a monoculture combined with a theocracy is a solution the rest of us will stand by and allow to happen.
After all, that’s exactly how the Taliban operates.
East Meets West
So what happens when filthy east coast population centers run out of acceptable places to dump their toxic shit? They haul it to the west. And who or what do would you think would be behind the whole scam?
Bingo! We have a winner….
A money hungry politician and a big old corporation.
From The New York Times
Heading to Texas, Hudson’s Toxic Mud Stirs Town
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
EUNICE, N.M. — There are not many towns in America that would welcome the 2.5 million cubic yards of toxic sludge being dredged from the bottom of the Hudson River in New York, but to hear Mayor Matt White tell it, Eunice is one of them.
Storing waste nobody else wants means more jobs, Mr. White said, and the oil workers here are used to living with hazards. After all, there are several oil wells in the town itself. One of them is a block from City Hall.
“We have deadly gases in the oil fields,” he said. “It’s more deadly than any of the stuff they are going to put in the ground out here.”
From the edge of town, one can see huge berms at the landfill where General Electric plans to bury the dried sludge that is tainted with 1.3 million pounds of PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls. They flowed into the upper Hudson from two G. E. factories for three decades before they were banned, in 1977. In high doses, the chemicals have been shown to cause cancer in animals and are considered a probable carcinogen in people.
The full story is here.
peak oil chemotherapy
the sahara club bent over and said
“stick it in here”
over here in Abbey’s west
he’s dead so go ahead
“what about foreman?”
“oh, he’s gone too,
the fbi got him, and he said
toodle-oo”
and so the he-men businessmen said
“okay, we’ll drill her,
we’ll drill her dry,
we’ll rape her 117,339 times”
the cancer spread
the profits rose
the critters and the trees,
they got the hose
but Mother Earth said
“hey, not so fast,
how long did you think the party would last!”
the flow slowed to a trickle
the investors got fickle
when the scientists said
“sorry boys, but the age of oil is dead.”
————
According to High Country News, “Oil and gas companies, despite the efforts of ‘obstructionist’ environmentalists, managed to drill at least 117,339 new wells in 12 western states in the last eight years. That drilling rush often skirted regulations and caused significant air and water pollution.”
And while The Sierra Club, EarthFirst! and other groups have failed to effectively protect the environment, help is on the way. Looks like old mother earth is going to do it herself.
“Move over boys! I got this one under control!”
Memorial Day
“Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than about peace, more about killing than we know about living.”-General of the Army, Omar Bradley
