Portland Oregon and M. Gira circa 2003

Journal Entry August 29 2003
So Friday.
On Friday M. Gira, the lead singer/visionary behind the Swans and Angels of Light, was playing an acoustic set at the Blackbird. I have been a big fan and admirer of Giras since 1989, when my friend Danen introduced me to their new album at that time "Children of God". (Thanks Danen) For those familiar with that album you know that there are few albums like that in any time. It truly is horror and beauty mixed. Gira has continued through the years. Up against commercial failure, private failure, financial failure, and critical indifference, he has persevered. {If you are unfamiliar with the Swans I really recommend: Children of God and Soundtracks for the Blind as a started point} The amount of music put out by different entities that Gira has been involved in number around thirty and counting. The appeal of Gira is his unabashed honesty. While so many bands wish to entertain and hope for inspiration, Gira delivers. He is not interested in entertaining in the least. His live shows are mutual purging. Fans come for an event, an exhibit. Following both Swans shows that I was lucky enough to see, I would always walk away somewhat dumbfounded my mind trying to absorb so many feelings and thoughts. I would be posed with the internal question; "What now?" It’s the same kind of feeling I have after reading a book, or seeing a Von Triers film. I am shell -shocked. At both shows of the Swans, clapping was rare. Everyone around me was in the same awe- struck stance. There just aren't many bands that can or want to do this. Gira is not rock and roll. Gira is trying to make art. True, he has a tendency towards dark themes, but there is a searching to it. It isn't all anger either like so many other bands that try for depth, but fall flat. The dark places of the soul are also the places that bring us to the light. A Christian must first admit he is a sinner before he can be saved or redeemed. An alcoholic can only be cured when he first realizes the destruction in his life. Simple anger will drive most of us to drink, fuck, destroy, but will unlikely bring us to any salvation or transcendence. Having said all of this, I'm not entirely sure that Gira has found any salvation in spite of his search. The search has taken on a life of it's own now. It seems that it has become an identity he is fearful of leaving behind. I believe he has come to a dead end and feels weary of turning back at this point. Instead, he pulls up a chair and stares at the wall, singing to it.

The week before the show I had begun reading a book my stepmother had given me. It is called, "The Sacred Romance" by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge. The book talks about a relationship between God (Jehovah, Jesus and the like, not a vague god) and man as a romance; that of two lovers. The book has been profoundly affected me. It seems to fill in a lot of gaps that for me were major obstacles in my soul. I certainly haven’t heard such honest discourse in church very often. For me, I have always believed in God, but there has always been a real crisis about the intentions of God. I have had an intellectual belief, with a major absence of faith. As I got near the end of the book, and closer to the date of the show, it occurred to me that Gira, if receptive, could really benefit from reading this book. The more I thought about it, the more convicted I felt. But how do you walk up to someone like him and give a religious book? I didn't want him to think that I was proselytizing or preaching. I didn't want it to be a symbolic act for me either; I wanted him to read the book. How do you tell someone that you only know through their work that you love them? True, by virtue of his integrity in his work, I did know him pretty well. But he doesn't know me. He doesn't know or trust my intentions. How many whackos approach this guy all the time? It didn't take me very long to talk myself out of it several times. Finally I decided that a failed attempt was better than none at all. Maybe I could be an instrument. Maybe my act would help an artist that had already given me so much. You must understand this isn't the cult of personality, I consider Gira my friend. As some may already know, Steve Martin is a good friend as well.

So I bought the book and wrote a simple inscription inside. Silly but true, I was giddy. Without really trying, I had, by this act, rekindled the adolescent anxiety I used to have before shows. The day dragged on. The clock refused to move. I had to ignore it. Take a bath, read, shave, write, clean house...check the clock..."damn". Finally I got to indifference about the show and was actually running a little later than I had planned. Of course, I was not really late at all. I found a great parking space across the street from the club. For those living in a big city you know what a precious and beautiful thing this is! As I walked up and paid, the first face I see is M. Gira. He is patiently trying to instruct some guy that he just met. He picks up each piece of merchandise and impresses on him the price and why some things are special and should be pushed. "This CD here is a limited pressing, there are only 750 in existence. The cover art is a drawing I made that a friend of mine made from a wood cut. We hand printed the covers and everyone signed it. Do you know what a woodcut is?" The guy nodded in some sort of stupefied trance. Not taking anything for granted Gira proceeds with a brief explanation. "I really need to sell this to fund the new Angels of Light album, so really push it. Tell everyone that I will sign it after the show". He then counted everything and told him the count. "Now count it yourself and make sure it's right, you are responsible for this stuff you know." Once again he got a zombie nod. "Go ahead, count it". The guy starts to count. At this point he turns to me and smiles. Strange that Gira has such a great and unguarded smile. He looks great, much better than when I met him some five or six years ago. I think to myself, "He must've quit drinking, and man, he sure looks happy". I introduce myself and tell him this isn't our first meeting. I know he won't remember me, in fact I'm hoping he won't.

The first time we met was not exactly my ideal meeting scenario. In Tulsa, in 1996 (I think), Danen was there to interview him. Danen was on cloud nine. He had been at the club all day trying to get some of Gira's time, during the marathon six-hour sound check (can anyone say anal?). I wanted Danen to introduce me. Finally I did get to meet him. Now I was proudly wearing a Swans' "Burning World" tour shirt. I hadn't seen that tour, I had found it in a bargain bin at a record store. As it was hard to find any Swans merchandise, I was content to wear a tour shirt of a tour I hadn't seen. Honestly very few people asked about it, as no one knew who they were. Not the case with Gira. As Danen introduced me, Gira's eyes immediately focused on my shirt. I thought he was amazed that someone in Tulsa had such a shirt. He asked me to turn around. I did and he read the dates on the back. At this point I confessed I hadn't seen the tour that the shirt promoted. He didn't seem to hear me. "I never made a shirt like that". He shook my hand and walked off. Danen shrugged his shoulders and I was left standing with my pirated shirt that had been money out of a struggling artist's pockets. I never felt really bad about that. I was innocent. Gira wasn't mad at me he was just frustrated. I was frustrated myself later as I stood with a crowd of only about forty people for one of the most important bands of the eighties. Two years later I would see them again to a larger audience in Lawrence. Once again I talked to Gira. This time it was better, but of no real substance. He was drunk and wishing only to shake hands and say thanks for coming.

This time the meeting is less hurried and, by god, he is smiling and really interested in talking. I immediately produce the book and hand it over. He takes it. I tell him I wrote something inside. He thanks me as he tucks it into his bag. "I just wanted to give you something in return for the music you have given me." He smiles again and thanks me. I tell him I will catch him later. He says sure and moves towards the bar. As I walk away I'm pissed off at myself. Why didn't I say more? He was being friendly.

I grab a beer and sit down next to one of the most unsatisfied looking persons I have seen in a long time. He looked about forty or so. His face was pockmarked, his hair, dirty blond. He was wearing a suit like Nick Cave might. He looked like an old worn out German soldier come back from the war. Out on the town with a head full of violence and loss. He just stared forward, trying hard not to look at me right across from him. "My name is Sean, what's yours?" He didn't look at me as he muttered, "Darrel". Unfazed I said, "Nice to meet you Darrel", still staring forward, he nodded absently. I could tell that there was not going to be a replay of the night before between Carlos and me. As I sat and resigned myself to paying an unusual amount of attention to my beer, I decided that I would be mad at myself if I didn't talk to Gira again. After finishing off my beer and saying an ignored goodbye to Darrell, I headed back to the bar, and back to Gira.
"I want you to know that I gave you that book because I thought it might be of some benefit to you"
"Yeah, I was wondering, I mean what is it about?"
I described the book in the same manner as I have earlier in this e-mail.
"Really? Are you a Christian?"
"Yes I am, and I know you have struggled with God too."
"So you must be an enlightened Christian"
"Yeah I would say that"
"I saw a play a few months back in New York about some trailer trash family. I mean it was a comedy based on people in a trailer park. So the main target seemed to make fun of Christians. It made me furious. I wanted to stop the play."
"Well a lot of Christians seem to beg for parody."
"Yeah, but Jesus isn't something that should be made fun of"
"Well I hope that book is something that will help your faith."
"I could use some faith. I don't know what I believe, but there is definitely some things in the Bible I believe."
Once again I wished him well and thanked him for his perseverance in the face of so much apathy. He thanked me for the book and for coming.

I was satisfied. The conversation is the actual conversation as I remember it. The order of things may be different, and I have cut out the small talk. Some of the small talk involved me telling him he looked a lot healthier than the other two times I saw him. I found he had been battling chronic bronchitis (sp?) in Tulsa. He told me he was forty-eight and that he wasn't as resilient as he once had been. I didn't show it at the time, but his age really floored me. How could a chronic alcoholic, touring musician look so young and healthy. He looked like he was maybe 35 at best. Later I started to do a little math and realized that Children of God had come out when he was my age now! Wow! There is still time for me to do this music thing. Shit his most productive years had been in his mid-thirties and early forties. Not only that, it was music that scared me, provoked me, and was always evolving. This may seem trivial to some, but it was a revelation for me. I don't feel old necessarily, but the voices are always trying to get me to give up on my dreams and become a living dead. The voices were pissed on this night.

Feeling invigorated, I sat down next to someone (other than the aforementioned tragic Darrel) and began a conversation. Funny, that out of all the people I could have struck up a conversation with, I happened to find someone from Kansas City! We were both surprised. We started to play that weird game people play when you find out that you are from the same area (this can apply to people from the same time, same jobs, etc). The game involves trying to find an even closer connection. Both people throw out names, places, bands, hoping to find an even tighter proximity. So we blabbed about bands and people and places. It turned out we had been at the same Seven Seconds show in 1987! Our happiness and joy was overflowing. We had a history together and never knew it. Needing more, we continued to talk about bands and such. I mentioned a band from Columbia Mo called East Ash. Sadly he was ignorant of them. On the other hand, a guy sitting behind him turned around. "Did someone say something about East Ash?" "Didn't you used to live in Columbia?" Stunned I said, "Yeah for about a year back in '91" "Yeah I knew it, I'm Jason I used to work at Salt of the Earth!" "Holy shit, I remember you, weren't you in Sex in Taboo Creek?" "Yeah I was, you remember that too?" "Yeah you guys played with my band Guilty Party a few times" "Wow, yeah now I remember how I knew you" Needless to say it continued like this for a while. I hadn't seen this guy in about ten years. We talked about all the people we used to know. He told me what happened to all the people I had lost through the years and I updated him on all the people he had lost touch with. Jason and I had been around each other a lot, but we had never been real close. He had been at all the same parties, and all the same circles as me. He also worked at the coolest record store in town, which has sadly folded, due to the new college kids who see no value in an independent record store. The guy I had distantly bonded with earlier left to find better conversations he could more actively participate in. I felt a little bad. But I was happy to have connected with Jason. It really is a smaller world than we can ever believe. It turns out that Jason has a fancy job at Intel and still plays music. Talking to Jason pretty much consumed the majority of the opening band. I did listen but not intently.

Finally the moment came. Gira sat down with two glasses of Whisky and a beer. He welcomed the audience and then told them to shut up. This was taken as a joke. "I'm really quite serious, shut UP!" The scolded audience quieted down a little. I made my way up and ended up sitting on the side of the stage; a nice intimacy for those brave enough. Throughout the show the back of the club got louder and louder, why anyone would pay $10 to talk is beyond me. Around the middle of the show Gira put his guitar down mid-song, and lit up a cigarette. "I'm not going to compete with the audience. Hell I would give $10 out of my pocket for you to leave. I mean it doesn't matter I get paid either way." The people up towards the front began screaming at the back to "Shut the Fuck UP!!!" Pretty soon it got tolerably quiet and he began again. Announcing that he would play "Goddamn the Sun" the audience enthusiastically clapped. He smiled bitterly, "You're happy about hearing this song huh, it's about a good friend of mine dying."

People just don't get what Gira is about; it's not a concert, it's performance art, it isn't entertainment, it's confession; one man on stage sharing his pain and suffering. This may sound pretentious to some; it may be pretentious. But for those tuning in, it is a rare pretension, one worth experiencing. How refreshing it is when someone takes their music seriously. Not to say there weren't moments of smiling. One fan expressed his love and thanked Gira for coming and apologized for the idiots at the back. Gira responded, "I would do anything for you, come to my house I will wash your feet...of course then I would have to eat you...then I would shit you out." One girl on stage asked how many loved ones he had lost, off microphone he replied to her, "everyone". Boy was I glad I gave this guy that book. For those that are fans he did two songs off of Burning World, the one I mentioned as well as "I Remember Who You Are" (sung by him instead of Jarboe, it really made it better). He also did "New Mind" from Children of God, stamping his foot and cutting his thumb open once again. Bleed for us Michael.

After the show I got all the names and numbers of Carlos and Jason. I decided I didn't really feel like hanging out after such a show. As I got to my car, I saw that the people in front of me were working with a coat hanger on their door. I asked if I could help. They asked if I was any good at getting into cars. I assured them that I had a lot of experience with it. In fact, I have maxed out my limit of car openings with AAA several times. I don’t know what my problem is.

The couple was a girl and a guy. The girl was as drunk as hell. After a few minutes of my trying, she took the hanger back in frustration and tried for about fifteen minutes while the guy and I debated the show. He enjoyed the show but thought Gira to be a little bit pretentious. He made the somewhat obvious comparison to Nick Cave. I gave my arguments and we decided we were close enough to our view on him to quit arguing and get back to getting into the car. He was wearing a Dead Milkmen shirt, so I asked him if he had seen them live. He said he had and left it at that; later he told me he was good friends with them. I guess he didn't want to drop names right away, so as not to seem like a fan-boy. He was actually in a band with Joe before the Milkmen formed. He told me it was funny because Rodney was a big homophobe and Joey was gay. Finding out Joey was gay was no big shock. But hearing that Rodney (who only rivals Jello Biafra on the liberal front) was a homophobe was a shock. Finally I was back in charge with the hanger, assuring all that although it may take some time that I would be victorious. The girl was drunk and miserable only wanting a bed soon. She was trying to think of a place close by to crash at. Eventually the street became her friend and she passed out. In about twenty minutes I was at last able to get in. She arose and praised the persistence of men as she threw up. The guy promised a night of joviality for all in exchange for my help. He gave me his number and they took off, leaving a pile of vomit in their wake.

It always feels good to help someone. I was feeling good all around. On my way home I was navigating around an island in the road, when a girl raced across the street for the island. I had to brake for her pursuer. Standing in my headlights, waving was a naked man, covered only with tattoos. The girl was laughing on the other side. I yelled an approving "woo hoo" and drove on. Wow people get naked in Oregon too. I think I can live here after all.

Consumed

I felt the greatest craving for a specific yet general species of fruit today. It is true that this fruit is especially hard on the human body. In times of it’s greatest ecstasy it is working a dark splinter of future calamity in one’s own being. It is said that some of this certain variety can cause death. What variety causes death is quite unsure. It is only known that the more concentrated varieties bring the greatest satisfaction with the greatest risk. It is strange that the further I go up the strain of varieties that I find them to be of the most beautiful color and the most complex in texture, yet somehow lacking in flavor.

I have seen this as an anomaly.

I have even taken the more sickly looking varieties hoping to discover some correlation between greater apparent disease and better overall flavor. This has not proved to be the case however. Most of them all taste the same. Still it feels good to go against the conventional wisdom. I have a reputation for choosing the most unsightly of the most deadly. This makes me a strange rebel. But there is also the initial cost that comes to mind. If we are all courting possible death, I am getting the better deal. There are some that follow in my footsteps. I have heard rumors that some believe I have found a way to the ecstasy afforded by the deadly fruits without the inherent risk. They have come up with the idea that I have staved off some consequences of the ugliness by embracing ugliness in advance. I must say that I would be tempted to believe them, if it wasn’t for the fact that I have found little evidence to the contrary. I haven’t found any “newness” in ugliness. It is all the same. I have tried both.

Today I am craving it all again. I want to try the hybrid. I will pick the most unsightly again out of habit. The runt of the strain is likely to be the closest to what I have known before. I am confident that it will be a step up, without the higher possibilities for fatality.

There is a market that I know of. You can always find a few varieties there. I know the secret way to the market. Most people don’t go there. They find some variety in the regular market. Those have additives and wax to make them more appealing. I don’t need all the marketing. I’m sold already. I’m not playing any games with myself. I know the risks, but I also believe that the risks are part of the reward. This fruit is deadly, but that is the adventure. I go further; I will be rewarded.

There is always the more cavalier of the marketers. He guarantees nothing. He only guarantees that the fruit will satisfy in some new way. He doesn’t promise paradise, only another view or understanding of it. One has to be somewhat careful of these vendors. They sell fruits that can become instantly addictive. It is in no time you find yourself consuming large amounts of God knows what while slowly starving to death.

Somehow I can’t resist the notion of getting something new before anyone else. Hell, if it really is something amazing I will help the guy market it.

I buy what I can afford. Strangely the more expensive varieties look to be the same as what I’m buying. I know that this must be a false assumption. One day I will have enough to buy the good stuff. It will be better in spite of its apparent sameness. Still I am content in what I have. The more expensive may just be marketing. I know that I have something they will never buy. I might discover something they have missed in all their personal glory.

I grip the bag tightly as I go home. There is that ever persistent feeling in my inner being that this might be the last trip to the market. Inside this bag may be the last fruit I eat. I know that there is the possibility that I might die tonight. That is always a risk that one must take. No one looks at each other in the market place. How foolish one would look buying his own death. We even pretend at times as if this was just a normal farmer’s market. “Well, after all, a man has got to eat after all”. We are all just shopping for fruit. What did you say? Strange fruit? Nonsense. It is only strange in our knowledge of it. We are fortunate to know of this market when others aren’t. The conversation is brief and dishonest. We buy our wares and hurry on our way. We are all confident in our equal conviction. No will squeal you out. You are here, I am here; there is brotherhood in shared guilt.

My bag contains some safe standbys that have long ago gone bland. I continue to eat the safe disapointment of their substance. Though it may seem strange I still expect the sweetness that their first tasting promised even now. Maybe I will stop with this new variety. Somehow I feel I won’t be satisfied. Still it is worth the risk.

The Winter of My Discontent

An update for the record I feel bad that haven't written in a long time. I have thought about all kinds of things to write. I have had entire blogs going through my head and in the end I just keep them to myself. Some were really funny, you should have been there, it was great! So on to the business at hand here.

The fact is my life has been kind of hectic and also emotionally draining for the last two months or so. It pretty much started with the winter ice storm that shut the city of Joplin down quite effectively for about a week. This was the second week of December and Christmas was looming over Wal-Mart shoppers everywhere. But people weren't shopping for loved ones, they were draining all stores of candles, flashlights, and generators. A lot of people that I know were enjoying the adventure of "camping out" in their homes. As for me I was extremely annoyed. I didn't like being without the internet and electricity. I didn't enjoy the adventure of emptying my fridge that I had just stocked up with food. I didn't enjoy being out of work and having nothing to do but shuffle from place to place to move food and bathe etc. I was a grump about the whole thing to be quite honest. It tested my meddle and I failed in a lot of ways. I found that I was a wuss about my creature comforts. I didn't like being inconvenienced. It really could have been a lot worse and it was for a lot of people. I was lucky that my friend Lyn had gas heat, hot water and a gas stove. I stayed with him and we tried to have some fun with it I suppose. We burned tons of candles and played Trivial Pursuit. Unfortunately the Trivial Pursuit was some anniversary edition and the questions were actually quite...well trivial. I mean this is stuff I didn't know and felt no better to learn it. At least a lot of the old versions questions were points of interest that I didn't know. This was pop culture stupidity. We played for three hours before someone won and by then we didn't care. The thing is the sun was setting at like 4:30 pm and then you were in complete darkness save for candles. There was no music, no tv, nothing to do. How did the Waltons manage? I'm such a wuss. When the end comes I won't be much of a survivalist and this knowledge is a shocker to me.

There was also a lot of family tension that came out of the storm that I don't want to get into right now as this forum is inappropiate. Suffice it to say that my family is not really ready for any hard times either. The gray days and emotional burden really took a toll after the third day. There were a few distractions as I helped my boss from Spiva move all of her and her husbands stuff out of their house. Talk about timing! How would you like to move all of your stuff when you have no power and there is ice everywhere and your new home is not ready to move in. I felt for them. There was also the wonders of Lyn's tub. I read "This Present Darkness" during this affair (I know there is irony here, but I was reading it before the storm) in Lyn's huge tub with the hottest water I could stand. I actually ruined a feature on my phone from all the steam in the room. Lyn would read on the couch with a flashlight while I sat in the tub for hours with a little camp lantern. That was nice, but you can only read and soak so long.

There is also the beauty of the devastation that the storm wrought on our little burg. There was two inches of clear ice on every single item that was outside when it came. It looked like a big glass kingdom. Standing outside when the sun was shining provided an amazing menagerie of beauty and impending danger. You could hear every tree creaking and about every minute you could hear the crack of release as another branch broke or tree came asunder, followed by the falling crashing that sounded like all hell was breaking loose. The grass was crunchy and each individual blade was visibly coated. Talk about walking on eggshells. All day long you could hear the creaking, cracking, and crashing, the only other sound; sirens. As I drove around town it looked like Joplin had been under mortar fire. My neighborhood was a complete disaster. If you had a tree you had a problem. Another thing that added to the seeming spanking that we had gotten from Providence was all the blow up lawn ornaments for Christmas. There was deflated and sad Santas and Snowmen everywhere. Some were hanging dead and loose from cables meant to stabilize them.

I will say this about Joplin people. They put their heads down and trudged ahead. It was not a good time for businesses to be closed for a week, just before Christmas. Most people tried to smile and be friendly. Things were tough all over and everyone knew it.

Now then (I know this is really long, but I can't help it), through all of this my sister was extremely pregnant and miserable. She was going between my Dad's house and her house. She didn't feel comfortable in any other bed but her own, but she had only the heat of lighting her gas burners on her stove. She also had no hot water or lights and she had kids about to drive her insane as cabin fever set in. My mom took Lilly full time and I had Gabriel during the days trying to find things to do and keep him from driving me and himself insane. My Dad did not suffer any loss of any services except the internet. He made a lot of this and I had to tell him that most people were a lot more inconvenienced than he. Being the only one in the family with power made his home a constant turnstile of bathers and people watching t.v. I could tell he was getting weary of the constant invasion of his home. He never said anything and was most hospitable in spite of it all of course. I only spent one night there. I felt like Lyn had his fill of me being in his home as well.

Finally I got my power back after a week. I spent the day getting my food back and getting my house back in some order. The cat was overjoyed to have me back and did a dance in my honor. I then called my Mom to tell her the good news. She told me that she was still without power and that as a result of so many cold nights sleeping in front of her fireplace her and Lilly had both got a vicious cold. She asked if I would mind if she came over with Lilly and stay the night. Ok, honesty here. I did mind! I hadn't had a space to myself with power for a week and now I was going to have my Mom and my seven-year-old niece in my house? And they both were sick as dogs! For those of you who don't know me very well, I'm a little weird about avoiding sickness at all costs. I never drink after someone (my niece and nephew don't understand why Uncle Shaun won't share his bottled water). I don't shake hands in the winter if I can avoid it and if I do I make a mental note to not touch my face until I wash that hand. I wash my hands about every thirty minutes in the winter and I have a vitamin regimen meant to ward off all evil. Inviting sickness into my small home was not my idea of a good time to say the least. Now let me tell you how much of a selfish bastard I am. The house I live in is owned by my Mom. She has been very generous about rent being negligible to help me afford going to college (more on that later). So here I am feeling put out! I was not only a wuss, I was also finding out that I'm a prick. Of course I had them over and prayed for God to change my selfish shriveled heart. I gave Mom my bed and slept on the blow up mattress and put Lilly in my computer room on another blow up mattress. We watched a lot of movies that I wouldn't watch on my own. Movies about princesses and horses and all the girly stuff you can imagine. Lilly threw up all night the first night much to my horror. I was sanitizing every surface that she touched. Fortunately i had to help the movers during the day. Poor Mom was couped up in my house all day with a sick kid. I tried to make them both feel better by making food and letting them stay put as much as possible. I introduced Lilly to the joys of "Oliver!" (1960's musical about Oliver Twist) to save my sanity and was surprised that she actually followed the film for the whole 2 1/2 hours. Finally Mom got power after two nights and two days with me.

So that is all I'm going to write as this is going on forever. The thing I was trying to get across is that my idea of myself and who I am was tested by fire or ice if you will. I came out of it humbled and prayerful. I have a long way to go to be the man that I think I am or wish I was.

Paper money, Paper Tigers

A Political Rant

I have been spending a lot of my free time lately trying to wrap my mind around economics and trade policies. This isn’t as easy as economists make it sound. There is no empirical science to the process. In fact, that is the greatest lie that I have found about economics, it isn’t a black and white world. Now I know that most people understand that there are different theories about how an economy should work. The thing that I think eludes many of us is that within each theory is a theoretical framework that is itself based on even more theories.

For example: Many people are freaked out that we have a huge trade deficit with China. Being freaked out about the trade deficit is part of a theory of why that is something to freak out about. The thinking goes that America is losing manufacturing jobs and those are good jobs that we don’t want to lose. No one could argue that the loss of high paying jobs with benefits is a good thing. The reason that we have lost these jobs is because companies are going to places like China to produce goods at a cheaper cost. So those are the facts of the case. There is no disputing these as facts. Now we get to the theories on the matter; as a result of this, America will slowly devolve into a third world country as our dollar diminishes and our job market becomes more and more service and retail based (jobs that pay less with less benefits). Pat Buchanan points out in his book, “Where the Right Went Wrong” that this trade policy is tantamount to economic treason on the part of our government. He believes that America needs to manufacture it’s own goods and keep the jobs here as we did for two hundred years previously. This is all well and fine, but the fact is, Americans can’t afford stuff made by Americans anymore. The reason that companies went overseas is because they had to stay competitive with the stuff that was already coming in to our country from other countries. There is a belief that we can tariff those goods and force American companies to stay here. Ironically Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations) had an idea about what this would accomplish over two hundred years ago, this would simply hurt the poorest of Americans by making the simple commodities of life even more expensive, combined with the taxes we already pay this seems hardly to be in the interest of Americans and more in the interest of our debtors.

There is also a belief that there is only so much money and wealth in the world and that if another country is getting wealthier that that means another country will be getting poorer. Now the thing is, this may or may not be true. There are more factors in the mix of why America may be in some kind of financial trouble than just our trade arrangements with China. In fact, I’m starting to believe that China is a big distraction to the real problem. I don’t think that China is a threat to us, financially or otherwise. We are in debt to China for the goods that they give us. Think about that. Can China make us poor by giving stuff to us? We can refuse to continue in this way, we are not obligated to continue to take things on credit and China could quit thinking that we are good for it as well. The fact is, it is mutually beneficial. Maybe we should look at who raises the most stink about this stuff and look at their motivations. The Federal Reserve makes a lot of stink about it. I wonder why?

But I can’t go on and on and expect anyone to care. I think that what I’m trying to get to is the nature of money. China is not buying gold from us for our debt to them, they are buying money that is capable of becoming merely paper. China holding dollars and securities based on those dollars means that they are in effect buying our debt. This should make us happy because it means that the dollar that everyone is freaking out about is good enough for the Chinese. They must have a lot of confidence in the American dollar. They must think that we are doing something right. And we are. We are doing a lot of things wrong on the flipside and that is what we should be focusing on, not China.

I have been going through PJ O’Rourke’s book “On The Wealth of Nations” which is an overview on Adam Smith’s economic polemic “The Wealth of Nations”. I have been falling in love with the founding fathers and the pioneers of governmental and economic theory as it relates to a free country. We really don’t need to read much of today’s hacks unless they are rooted in these amazingly brilliant men. These old guys were really into freedom. They were really not into government doing much of anything. You see, almost across the board they had this notion that was started by a man named John Locke. Locke believed that people, all people had the sense to know what was beneficial to them. This notion evolved into the idea of “self interest rightly understood”. If left alone, people would do what was good for them, and in turn this would be good for the people around them. Simply put it works like this. If I’m poor and I want to eat, I realize I need to produce something that someone will want and trade with me, or I need to find someone to work for, and that means I need to have something they need in skills or brute strength. Pretty simple isn’t it? And then there is the notion of division of labor. If I want a loaf of bread I can raise the wheat, grind it, make a loaf and there you go. The loaf only took me about four months to make. But if we have some that raise the wheat, some that grind it and some that bake it, I can simply go to the store and have a loaf in about five minutes. We all get something out of it. This is called a free market. But the problem comes when there are those who produce nothing. Of course a merchant and a waitress produce nothing, but they are part of the process of trade. But politicians, bankers, and others of this sort really produce nothing. Their existence is necessary, but it should be limited not dominant. When the merchants and bankers get too much power they become dangerous, they become people who would make the general populace their slaves. Our labor will benefit them and not ourselves. The less a government messes with our freedom to make a living and own our property and do with it what we shall the better off we are. Adam Smith was livid about property rights because he grew up in a feudalist state in Scotland. He was appalled that all the land was kept by the wishes of people who had been dead for hundreds of years. He would be equally livid over someone telling someone that they can’t farm their land because of the future generations that need wet- lands. Either way, it is a tyranny of those that aren’t in possession of life in the here and now.

I was thinking about all of this and I wondered why so many artists are communist or at the least socialist in their thinking. Where is art if there isn’t any disposable income? Where is art if there is no middle class? I think we need to abolish the National Endowment of the Arts so that artists can get more clarity about how economics and art are related.
Yeah, I said it was a rant didn’t I?

Support Ron Paul and make a noise about him. We need someone like this guy now. Watch “Freedom to Fascism”. Read some books about our Constitution and our Founding Fathers. There is good reason to have pride in our heritage. I’m not saying that there weren’t mistakes, but man there has been some really good successes too. If modern political theory, foreign policy, economic foolishness, and Constitutional buggery are getting you down, just go back and find common sense again in the simple institutions that we started with.

On a Hot August Night

For some reason I haven't been in the mood to cook much lately. I think it's because it is hard to get my house cooled down after I cook. It's about 100 degrees all the time here this last two weeks. I almost died at least a dozen times. I walk around shirtless everywhere showing off my sweat slick barrel chest to all. Parents have asked me to put my shirt on as I was frightening their children. I just nod and show the top of my sweaty butt crack and they run away as well. Who needs to conceal a weapon in this heat? I actually almost died picking up a wall the other day. That's right, I said wall. I will put a picture of that up sometime. I have no time.
The other reason I might not be cooking is because I cook at a country club two nights a week. I don't think that is it though. I actually don't get to cook all that often. Usually I just stand around a sweat and watch the official certified and credentialed Chef cook. He talks a lot of B.S. and giggles to himself. But I don't really care. I don't like getting paid for doing nothing, but I am sweating so I figure there is some equity there.
So I'm not cooking at home a lot right now. I think it's the heat. I walk around my house in underwear and sometimes naked, I don't care what the neighbors think, it's hot damnit. Quit looking in my windows. Actually last night I saw a guy looking in my neighbor’s window at 2 am. He saw me sitting there in my undies staring at him and he ran away. I put on some shorts and knocked on my neighbor's door, his lights were still on. I don't really know this guy. In my hood, I keep to myself and ask the same of my neighbors. "Who is it!” He yelled. I could see through the screen that he was in his boxers, he ran to put on pants before answering the door. See it's that hot, no one wants to wear clothes, even the Goth kids are slimming down to black and white striped tights and leaving it at that. It's really disturbing.
So I'm not cooking, and I'm really not eating that much either. It's too hot to eat. It takes to much energy to process the food. I might die if I eat too much. When I do eat it's usually a cracker or a beer. Beer is food.
Last night I had Thai food. Hot food!! And it's true I felt cooler after my lips feel off.
Tonight I had Chinese take-out. Chinese take-out. We never say Bar-B-Que take-out we just get it to go. We never say Pizza Take-out. It's just one of those phrases like, "no little cinnamon gum" that just flows and we say it and that's that. So I'm eating my General chicken with my chopsticks and I've got my Crab Rangoon (there's no crab in this) and I squirt my duck sauce on the plate out of the clear pack with the cute panda on it. I'm looking at my meal and all the cool little boxes that the food comes in...And you know what? The Panda Bear with the Chinese characters coming out of his butt duck sauce and soy, the chopsticks with the red wrapper with the Chinese horoscope on it (I'm a cock, by the way), the cute little boxes that have the funky lettering that looks like someone wrote it with a stick and it says Thank You and Kari Out, all that stuff, get this, all of it, made in America. Not imported by some place in Jersey, nope, made in White Plains, NY. I mean we are importing Apple Juice from China, garlic from China (I think we are good at growing these things aren't we?) We import friggin' little stuffed Santas from China. But we make Chinese packaging and foodstuffs in White Plains? I bet the Chinese make a mean chopstick. I trust them with chopsticks. In fact, I want my chopsticks to come from China. Ok so that's the way I want it. Apple juice from Washington, and chopsticks from China. I guess I should be glad that we are still making something here. Maybe we should ship out chopsticks and little Panda packs to China. Take that! I want to visit White Plains, NY; I bet it is quite pastoral.

A Remembrance

I watch the bicycles. From my front porch I see them zip and glide by. When was the last time I rode a bike? When I was a kid, above all things, I loved to ride my bike. My neighborhood was a big loop. Not a part of a loop or a part of a block; it was just a random loop planted by a river. It expanded at the rate of a house a year, and we were on the 23rd year. Beyond it's barriers, that were my barriers until about nine, lay three regions. The ever so dangerous road to the "Falls". It is called the "Grand Falls" and I lived at "Grand Falls Plaza". The Falls were about a 1/2 mile away (more likely a 1/4 mile, but I was a kid). The road was a favorite speedway for the muscle-car-boys. Teenagers were so scary in the seventies, and early eighties. They seem so comical and unreal now. But then they seemed as alien as anything I had experienced. True I wasn't an adult, but most adults were friendly, and my parents were adults. We existed in two different worlds, but our relationship was friendly and generally peaceful. Teenagers on the hand, were completely unpredictable. At one time you looked up to them and wanted to be accepted by these adults-in-between. At another time you knew that they were a kind of dangerous that we were not ready for yet. I mean I climbed cliff faces that would have turned my parents white if they had seen me. I built boats and ventured onto the river, and later sank. I was a fairly courageous venturer. But there were places that these older kids were going that I didn't want to go to... yet. It seeemed that a lot of their adventures involved an element of menace. Not just physically dangerous; but socially malevolent. I remember all these guys making molotov cocktails and throwing them all over the rocks at the falls. There were flames everywhere. It was quite a sight. They were yelling and hooping and hollerin'. "Whoo-haw, Whoo-Wee." There was also broken glass all over the place. Where people went swimming and sun bathed during the day. Broken glass all over the rocks, and in all of the pools. That was I all I could think. Why would they do that? They even lived here and came here to swim. What kind of insanity is in my future? My God, what kind of monster was I going to become? The other border was the river. There was the "Low Water Bridge". Not that it probably should be capitalized. But when it is your borders as a kid there is always the capital letter landmarks of the area. We had many places that sounded vague to the outsider, but were clear to us as the capital places. Sure there were tons of puddles in our stomping grounds. But everyone knew a certain one to be known as "The Puddle". There was "The Fort", "The Castle", "The Cave", and many others lost to me now. So our low water bridge, was "The Low Water Bridge". The Bridge straddled Shoal Creek. Shoal Creek sometimes swelled enough to make the Bridge uncrossable. There were times in my life that briefly we were either it's captive, or repulsed from our very home and into my Grandparents. This rare variable made living there a little more enjoyable for me. Shoal Creek was the city's sewer. There weren't a lot of fish to be caught in it's brown waters. No one told us that we shouldn't, but we didn't spend any time in the Creek. I probably only actually swam in Shoal Creek about ten times in the five years that I lived but 200 Feet from it's shore. Sure I played near it, and on it (homemade boats, and rafts), but not much in it. It was clearly not pure water. Kid's aren't really all that stupid. Of course at some point I heard it was the waste recepticle of all the area treatment plants. It was just not all that inviting, you might say. Across the bridge was the older river neighborhood. A bunch of cabins and refurbished shacks. And of course beyond that was a hill, that you had to have your energy up for. It wasn't "The Hill" by the way. "The Hill" was what the road beyond "The Falls" was. That was quite a hill!! When it was icy in winter, it was just for sledding. You came around the back or you just climbed it. If you had the stamina to really go all the way to the top, you had a true ten to fifteen minute ride. Almost a whole 1/2 mile of sledding! The last bit was a bit tricky. Many a kid had a tale about biting it in the last turn of "The Hill". Some went through barb wire fences. Some jumped immense ditches and ended face first in the opposite bank. The key was to get the most speed without losing complete controll. By the way, this is only possible in the traditional sled. Tubing and paning resulted in shorter and more stop and start reentries. With the sled, in control, you could ride the whole thing out, on your belly, till the end. Now it is true that you could steer with your feet, but that was really less control than being just inches above the road. The third border was the road that ran parallel to Shoal Creek. This road was almost entirely uphill for a mile or so. And a lot of blind hills at that. It was really too far. Parents were nervous enough about my occasional treks to the Falls. I assured them that I took the dirt paths along the way. Mostly I did take the dirt road. But the road in the other direction was a different story. On one side the shoulder disappeared entirely and the drop off was intense. Up this way lay "Mother Nature's Crack". I don't know who first coined the term, but it is not my term. It is the term of the area. At least two generations know of this location as "Mother Nature's Crack". Despite the vulgar subtleties of this name, it was an accepted term by one and all. "Mother Nature's Crack" was also applied to an area right across the creek as well. I still believe the true "Crack" is on the west side. It certainly is the biggest crack. Basically we are talking about a large bluff of rock with a crack in it that allows you to climb up or down. It is actually quite strange the first time you descend into the crack. As you descend the ground becomes level with your head, until you are simply swallowed up by the crack. It is also a tight squeeze at times, so it feels somewhat intimate. Beyond the Good Mother's Crack lay more uphill riding. There is also the orgasmic final drop off point. But it is so extreme that the trip back is even more difficult. Along this route, one comes to "The Castle". "The Castle" was actually a castle. It was built out of local rock. So it was really pretty ugly. Even so, it was a castle and it had the same omnious legends surrounding it. The story was that a old lady lived there by herself. Her husband had died many years ago and she had since become rather unfond of humanity. It was because of this misanthropy that she kept two large Dobermans on the premises to keep out all tresspassers. That is of course, if you got past the iron gate. I never went beyond the gate. Honestly I was nervous just going to the gate. Such were the adventures that I had on my bike. After living in Grand Falls Plaza for five years, my family moved to a more remote locale. Then it was the mini-bike. Everyday after school I was on that thing. Living out in the country made the bike less credible as a thing of enjoyment. A bike on a crappy farm road made from creek gravel was more like work than play. In fact, even on the mini bike it wasn't all that great either. I always had white knuckles after the tense five minute ride. Gravel is unpleasant all the way around. It is either a grinding dirt wave that makes you feel that you are somehow going against a current, or it is a moving balance beam that must be carefully navigated. Even so, the mini bike could take me quicker and farther. It was still a physical activity to ride a mini-bike. Hell, I walked mine many miles over the years. Compare the notion of walking a bike for a mile that weighs roughly 15 pounds, and lugging a mini bike that weighed about 75 pounds around. Up hills, and thankly, down hills. Man,... you talk about an early course in anger managment. One minute you are buzzing by, feeling like the coolest kid in the world. Peolple wave and you wave and gun the engine. You're off and then the engine floods. But I sometimes didn't zip off as planned. Sometimes, I would just flood it and choke. If there was a hill I could just pop the clutch and almost suavely regain composure. If there wasn't a hill...well it wasn't pretty. End of cool beginning of embarassment. Sometimes pushing a fast as I can to, jump on, and pop the clutch. Many times just walking it down the street, passing past glory; in retreat. After the mini bike years came the car. Of course with the car you could go to a lot more places. You could haul people around. You could haul stuff around. And, well, the car is just so cool. In Joplin you don't see a lot of bikes. Cars are where it's at. You quickly forget about the hidden treasures of biking. The connection you have to the area. The places and people you notice when you are not locked up in metal isolation. You are easily wooed by the power of quick distances. But with quick distances come quicker comings and goings. Life speeds up. It feels so good going at a faster pace that you hardly notice that you don't have time for much of anything. Cars cost money. Money means a job. Job means you need a car, or you waste a lot of time coming and going to work. It becomes a vicious cycle. I'm not down on cars by the way. But cars bring a blessing and a curse. Time starts to become a master in the modern world. I asked my roommate to lend me one of his many bikes. He did. I have been biking around Portland. I have discovered a different city than I had known before. I see houses that I somehow missed before. I can go places that are a hassle in a car. I can ride along the river front. I can say hi to people. I can stop and stare without getting honked at. I think I'm going to buy a bike. Also I would like to say that next Fourth of July I'm on the bike for sure. Screw cars. I can ride from one family or block fireworks display to the next. I can watch the big downtown explosion up close without worrying about parking. So if anyone wants to come here on the fourth, that is the plan. Most of this story was set in the place where I spent most of my childhood. The house behind me was the Tallman's house. the Tallman's were actually quite tall. They had a boy named Randy that was in my grade. Randy wasn't allowed to play as much as some of the other kids. Randy was a little strange as well. For Halloween our Fifth Grade year, Randy dressed as a geisha girl. He was the only boy that I knew that dressed as a girl for Halloween. When we were in third grade Randy and I played together occasionally. One of his favorite games involved us pulling down our pants and making butt impressions in his sandbox. I don't remember what kind of game it was.

The Small Moments that define eternity Part 2

Today I had one of those moments that made me stop for a moment and enjoy the world in which I live. I said at one point that I was going to write about these kinds of events on a daily basis. I made a promise of a sort and broke it. Well my friend Robbie aka Rowboat called me on this so I’ve tried to make a mental note of things on a daily basis.
The fact is if you don’t write it down, these little things will simply disappear from your mind and your experience. I was once an ardent journal keeper and my journal was filled with this stuff. But laziness is a powerful foe in these matters. So I’m writing these little events to remember and hopefully to spark an interest in others doing so as well.

Which brings me to a little pet peeve I have been having lately. There is a lot of laziness out there. I know that people are reading and looking and so on and so forth. The question I have is why aren’t more people commenting? If we were sitting in a room together I think people would have a comment or two. It lends a lot to the “online community” building. It lends itself to discussion and people getting to know each other. Does it take a lot of time and effort to comment on a blog? Come on people; think how much time it takes me to write this dribble. It is also nice to know who is reading and what they think. Call it a writer’s need to hear from his audience. Ok, I’ve sounded off on that.

My friend Jerimy called and asked for some help moving a pool table that he had just got some great deal on. I will be honest; I didn’t want to help move a pool table. Pool tables are the heaviest thing in the world next to pianos and gold. I know I’m a big burly guy, but on the inside I’m really small. What I seem to be I’m not. I’m tough, I’m strong, but really I’m small. I will get in the grit with the best of men, but really I’m small. I also have developed this
obnoxious pulled shoulder that has been persistently painful for about four months now. Sometimes I just want to scream, I’m so tired of it. But men don’t talk about their aches and pains, men just “man up” and do the job.

I showed up a Jerimy’s house to find that the other help that had been enlisted was a guy in a back brace (he fell off of a roof drunk three months ago, being encased in plastic all summer long he had lost 35 pounds), a 14-year-old boy, some other guy and Jerimy. On the way to the house that had the pool table the other guy asked me how heavy I thought the thing might be. I said that I thought it depended on whether it was an antique or not. “Well if it is solid oak and really big I don’t know what we’re going to do” He nodded and seemed to care little about the details. “But you know I’ve seen pool tables that are pretty new being moved with professional equipment and a lot of effort at that”. He turned and looked at me with an expression of genuine dismay. “Pool table? He said it was an entertainment device, I thought he meant entertainment center or some shit”. “Man, he is going to owe me big time”. He turned up the country music and lit a cigarette. Turns out that this guy was Jerimy’s tenant. He was not happy at all. We get the house and some old guy lets us in and we go down to the basement. This guy’s basement is the coolest party pad ever. There is a bar, and a grill with an exhaust vent. We comment on how he must have had a lot of parties there. “No I never had a single party, not one time did I have friends over for a beer, in fact I’ve only played pool on that table a few times with my son”. There was sadness in his voice. “I was always too busy”.

We put the table on its side to take the legs off. Jerimy didn’t
bring a wrench or a ratchet. So we have to ask the old guy if he has one, fortunately he did. After we got the legs off we slid this monstrous thing to the door and then just stared at each other. The pissed off country guy says, “Fellas, I don’t think we have enough nuts here to do this thing”. I was in complete agreement. We were definitely undermanned and this thing was scary-heavy. The old guy stood and watched us and realized that our mutual resolve was fading; he suggested that we lay down some rugs on the threshold and slid the pool table as far as we could. I agreed with that and we did it. There was a lot of discussion going on about how to this and how to that. I finally decided that committee was not going to work and started telling people how it was going to be. Before I insisted otherwise, the consensus was to lift the table on its side, onto the tailgate and then lay it down. I saw true and pain and suffering in this option. It turned out that the pool table was exactly as wide as the bed, so I suggested we turn it back flat and have a guy on each corner and slide it in. Up to this point the old man just looked at us and shook his head. He was relieved, I think, that someone was willing to take charge and do something that wouldn’t kill us. I’m not trying to brag, that isn’t the point. The point is that after the votes are in, someone has to bang the gavel and pronounce judgment. I pronounced it and justice was served.

“What’s your name?” the old guy asked. I told him and he smiled and shook his head. “Spittin’ image of your dad”. I felt a sense of pride in that remark and hoped it ran deeper than my tell tale eyebrows. That is one cool thing about living back in Joplin I guess, you have some history. I asked him how he knew my Dad. He told me that he had gone to school with him and had actually been a year younger than my dad. What? This guy was an old man with white hair and everything. I mean he was spry but damn he was old. How can he be younger than my dad? My dad isn’t old, not that old. My mortality doesn’t really bother me as much as my parents. Being a single guy I think that I feel I need them more than most. They are my rock and anchor. But I will stop there.

So we had to turn the pool behemoth back to a flat position, which meant that two guys had to lift it from the ground while the other two just held it. The fourteen year old was full of beans and trying to prove his nuts so I let him and country guy do the lifting. I’m old enough to know that my nuts want to stay as intact as possible without a rupture. There was a lot of grunting and bursts of breath like in the Olympics when those guys almost blow out their innards picking up tons of weight. This thing was trying to kill us I swear. We got on the truck finally.

Back at Jerimy’s house there was more logistics in getting it off of the truck then I had foreseen, again lots of stupid lifting and grunting. We finally got it into Jerimy’s sunroom and set the damn thing up. Jerimy was grinning a lot and you could see that it was more than a pool table; it was the completion of the house. It is a major thing to have your own pool table! I would only mention in passing that you have to stick the end of your cue through the window if your shooting from the side, but hey that makes it more of a challenge right?