Green Hell

Morning Mood (Apologies to Grieg)

I rise at six and I feed the chicks
And I’m feelin’ lonesome and blue…

The Rockin' Berries, Harvest of Love

Up before the sun again, and feeling snarky, nostalgic, and a tad pensive, all at once. It’s my usual state in the predawn hours, which are – perversely enough – one of my favorite times of day. I suppose I’m experiencing a “mixed episode” of sorts – insomnia and loss of appetite, combined with racing (but manageable) thoughts and a touch of mild depression. The weather’s been pissy, wet and generally nasty for the past few days. Rain, rain, and more rain, with irritatingly inconsistent temperatures: Too hot one day, too cold the next. In short, it’s a typical Georgia winter. This state of affairs has done little to improve my mood, needless to say. Christ! I hope I don’t have Seasonal Affective Disorder, in addition to the laundry list of other neuroses, psychoses and behavioral eccentricities I’ve accumulated over the years.

Ah well. Might as well take advantage of ‘em…

History produces no shortage of tyrants, most of whom enjoy immense popularity – for a time, at any rate. This rather neatly refutes the neocon assertion that mankind harbors some innate longing for freedom and “democracy.”

******

I can’t stand myths, oversimplifications, or “glittering generalities.” One such generality I find particularly irritating is the notion that public schools are ineffective because they’re government-run enterprises. Granted, private schools are generally more effective and efficient (overall, most private institutions are: with ownership comes responsibility and incentive to improve and expand), but there have been notable exceptions to the general rule.

In this day and age, it’s doubtful that many know the name John Knox, for all that he performed what could very well be seen as an educational miracle. Knox (1514-1572), a disaffected Scottish clergyman, was instrumental in bringing the reformation – and along with it, education – to Scotland. At the time of his birth, Scotland was little more than a savage backwater, but within a century of his death, it had become (with the possible exception of Iceland) the most literate country in northern Europe.

Knox’s dream of free, mandatory, public education for all who qualified, while never fully realized, was, nevertheless, directly responsible for the change, and ultimately, for the “Scottish Renaissance” of the eighteenth century. While the structure of a the Scottish educational system would horrify a modern American (there was no separation of church and state, education was overseen by the Kirk, and general literacy was promoted solely to facilitate Biblical literacy), the it was undeniably effective; perhaps one of the most effective in European history.

So much for reductionist explanations for the “failure” of public schools in America.

The problem with American public schools stems as much from their function as from the fact that they’re government-run. Bluntly put, American public schools don’t serve to educate because they were designed from the beginning as tools of social engineering; toward the end of producing docile, dumbed-down “sheeple.” In other words: They haven’t “failed” at all, but rather succeeded beyond their founders’ wildest dreams.

******

The human mind is infinitely perverse. The “rational animal,” when confronted with a “real world” challenge, will, as often as not: distract himself by fixating upon fantasy problems, to which he concocts fantasy solutions; oversimplify complex matters; and over-complicate simple ones. I suppose that explains the “sitcom mentality”: non-issues are resolved in thirty minutes, usually by a “wise” character spewing some hoary cliché or worn-out platitude.

******

The contemporary notion of patriotism confounds me to no end. Why is it that when one chastises an unruly child, it’s considered a sign of conscientious parenting, but when one attempts to chastise an unruly government, it’s considered near-treason?

Ah, well. Enough of this navel-gazing. I've a busy weekend ahead of me.

Say What You Mean, and Mean What You Say

I don't know the name of the son of a bitch who cooked up the term "bathroom tissue," but he should be taken out and shot at dawn, whoever he is.

"Bathroom tissue."

What the fuck manner of mealy-mouthed, nature-denying term is that?

When one gives the matter some thought, its scatological/biological implications are actually more obscene and disgusting than those of the colloquial "toilet paper," even as the word "penis," in its clinical pseudo-neutrality, is more obscene and disgusting than "pecker", "Johnson," "Dugan," or "dingus."

Those "soft'n'gentle" rolls of dead wood ain't "bathroom tissue," folks. They're toilet paper. Asswipes. Butt-buffers.

The term "bathroom tissue" is bullshit, and should, by rights, be consigned to the same septic-tank level of hell as the expressions "womyn," "people of color," and "liberated."

Now piss off. I'm in a very bad mood.

Potshots

The colonel, in a rage
Drew his pistol and took aim
At the bonniest lad
In a' o' the army-O

He fired a deidly baw'
An' our captain, he did faw'
As we marched through
The bonny streets of Fife-E-O

-- Traditional

You know, Gentle Reader, my dear, departed Da was right:

I really am an asshole.

What’s worse, as I suppose, is the fact that I’ve reconciled myself (“wedded” is probably a more accurate way of phrasing it, actually) to the idea, and, on occasion, even revel in my assholishness. This is one of those occasions.

Sittin’ here in my cozy li’l office/study, with my icy, li’l beer restin’ on my cutesy, li’l Gösser Export coaster; an' my li’l stogie burnin’ away in my li’l ashtray; an' my li’l collection of medieval an’ oriental weapons an’ martial arts equipment hangin’ on my li’l wall; an’ my li’l fiancée an’ my li’l doggie within easy huggin’ distance; an’ havin’ sold two articles in as many months, it occurs to me that life is indeed good at times – and that the best revenge really is living well.

Be that as it may, I think I’ll pat my flat, li’l 32” waist; grin me a li’l, shit-eatin’ grin; play the Smithereens’ “Forever Young” on my li’l stereo (p'raps I'll follow it with Pete Seeger's "Belle Starr," or Helmet's "Unsung"), an’ take a couple o’ mean-spirited potshots at a richly deservin’ target or two, anyway...

The first target pissed me off some years ago (I've a long memory, especially where slights are concerned) while the second made a nuisance of himself more recently.

Cute blog there, Faulkner -- Mags brought it to my attention. Learn a thing or two about grammar and usage -- in short: how to write-- and you might actually attract a few readers.

Now let's talk about balls, shall we?

As you know, fucknozzle, I blog openly and use my full name. This is relevant for the following reason: When I make a controversial or offensive statement in one of my posts, the reader knows who I am, where I am, and what I look like. Granted, I'm not exactly rushing the cotton bales at New Orleans (I trust the reference isn't lost on a man of your self-proclaimed erudition), but I'm putting my ass in the line of fire to a greater extent than ever you'd dare.

This wouldn't be an issue (cowardice, while a moral failing, is hardly a mortal sin) except that a young lady of our mutual acquaintance did me the courtesy of forwarding a few of the remarks you made about me --behind my back, of course -- in which you insinuated (among other things) that somehow, you were a better man than I.

That's an odd claim, especially from a "man" who waited until my father was dying and I was in the middle of an unusually severe depressive episode to attack me; especially from a "man" who made a play for another woman, right under the nose of his live-in girlfriend -- without having the balls (or decency) to inform the latter that the relationship was over; especially from a "man" who painted himself into a corner, even as he painted me as the villain in a situation he engineered -- counting on me not to expose him, all the while.

A very odd claim -- especially from a man who'd co-write (the jarring contrasts in style and competence were a dead giveaway, bozo) a hatchet-piece, in which he excoriated my Mother's ethnic group -- on St. Patrick's Day, no less (By the way, stupid: It's not "when they are threatening to cut themselves with a knife," but rather: "when one of them is threatening to cut himself with a knife," or: "when an Irishman is threatening to cut himself with a knife." Habitual use of such piss-poor English is one of the many reasons you're a third-rate writer, at best.) without signing his full name to the piece.

Exposing you, you loathsome little insect, should've proven an exercise in simplicity, even then. A single flick of a switch, and you'd have gone hell-for-leather under the metaphoric refrigerator, like any other cockroach (or would you have curled up like a sowbug or millipede? I don't know, and probably never will, but it's food for thought, even as are other writers' "crumbs," for you), but I opted to do otherwise.

You're entirely too dense and sociopathic to understand this, but for the sake of mercy, I'll mention that 04:00 is a very strange hour. It's a quiet hour. A dark hour. A grave hour. And one with which I'm intimately familar. Stars twinkle, the moon shines, night's soporific blackness gives way to false dawn -- "false" beacuse "her fingertips of rose" are two or three hours away from clawing the sky -- and I was wide awake for a year's worth of 04:00's

At 04:00, the night birds fall silent, but the robins are still asleep. At 04:00, men -- failing, fading, and sick from the ravages of cancer and chemotherapy -- experience simple, human needs such as hunger. At 04:00, other men -- weak men, to be sure -- take to the road and find succour for them. At 04:00, these failed, fallen men purchase baby food and yogurt -- not for their children, but for their fathers, who can hold nothing else down. At 04:00, one's thoughts race; mortality and human frailty being their object, as often as not.

You, being a better man than I, have surely endured worse, and with far more grace than ever I could hope to muster. Were this not so, you should certainly have launched your attack another time.

But you didn't.

And I survived it.

By rights, I should link to your "magnum opus," and give you all the credit (including your full, Christian name) you deserve -- but I won't.

I'll take the liberty of analyzing your strategy, pointing out its obvious failings, and poking fun at your appalling ignorance, but that's as far as I'll go.

Let not your atrophied heart be troubled, gobshite. Your miserable secret is safe with me. (Besides: one of your current crop of "friends" did me an unforgivable wrong well over a decade ago; and I could inflict no crueler punishment upon him/her than keeping my mouth shut about you, me bucko. That, however, is neither here nor there...)

You, numbnuts, are a prime example of the kind of wanker who purports to abhor "collateral damage" abroad, but cares not a whit for inflicting it upon his neighbor. Let that sink in -- if there's anything into which the notion can sink.

As nearly as I can tell, you're of value only to your Mother.

Your Mother, however, is of value to me, and to my Mother.

For their sakes, I'll spare you the indignities you didn't spare me.

You, sirrah, are a pathetic piece of shite. You're the living, breathing example of everything you claim to loathe. Your father -- his odd outbursts of antisocial behavior notwithstanding -- is a better man than ever you could hope to be.

And your Dear Mother is more a man than ever you will be.

For her sake, I'll spare you. For her sake, I'll extend you a courtesy you never saw fit to extend me. For her sake, you're still breathing.

Study deeply upon this, and never, NEVER dare to present yourself as my superior, in any way.

You aren't even my equal and you fucking well know it, you silly, self-righteous cunt.

GRRRRRRR!

Καλλιστι

“Finally, as a result of all the threats and contradictions in contemporary society, man feels accused, guilty. He cannot feel that he is right and good as long as he is exposed to contradictions, which place him in conflict with one of the group’s imperatives no matter which solution he adopts. But one of man’s greatest inner needs is to feel that he is right. This need takes several forms. First, man needs to be right in his own eyes. He must be able to assert that he is right, that he does what he should, that he is worthy of his own respect. Then, man needs to be right in the eyes of those around him, his family, his milieu, his co-workers, his friends, his country. Finally, he feels the need to belong to a group, which he considers right, and which he can proclaim as just, noble, and good. But that righteousness is not absolute righteousness, true and authentic justice. What matters in to to be just or to act just, or that the group to which one belongs is just – but to seem just, to find reasons for asserting that one his just, and to have these reasons shared by one’s audience.

This corresponds to man’s refusal to see reality – his own reality first of all – as it is, for that would be intolerable; it also corresponds to his refusal to acknowledge that he may be wrong. Before himself and others, man is constantly pleading his own case and working to find reasons for what he does or has done. Of course, the whole process is unconscious.”

Jacques Ellul, Propaganda, (p.155)

ET TV, BRVTE?

“The individual who justifies himself is always scandalized if told that the reasons he gives for his conduct are false, that he has acted for other reasons, and that his explanations are only embroideries to make his conduct acceptable and to win praise for it.”

Ibid, (p.156)

Ain’t Life Just Weird As All Hell? Or: How I Became a Gun-Toting Hippie Jeweler

(Being a rambling discourse in which our unbalanced narrator holdeth forth on the fine art of hanging shiny things on cords.)

If you’d even suggested as much twenty years ago, I’d have kicked you in the rocks. Even ten years ago, I’d have said, “Uh, that’s nice, but it really ain’t me.”

Yours Truly, making jewelry? Hell, I don’t even wear the stuff, for the most part. Sure, I wore my class ring until I outgrew it (it was rather a heavy affair, and lent the odd punch a bit of authority), like any other guy. Admittedly, I also wore a choker with a silver skull pendant through much of high school. On occasion, I wear the Celtic cross pendant my Ma bought for me at a Celtic festival, some years ago.

Other than that, though? Nothing. No rings, no earrings, no nose-rings, no nipple rings, no co-- well, you get the picture. Come to think of it, I don’t even give the stuff as birthday and/or Christmas gifts. Well, I did give my high school girlfriend a heart-shaped locket for Christmas, back in ’84, but that was a long time ago, and I don’t recall having given anyone any jewelry since.

Until now, that is.

Not long ago, Mags and I were poring over my collection of – uh – “unusual” books, when we found one of particular interest. As she and I are compulsive “do-it-yourselfers,” neither of us likes spending money to have someone else do something we could do ourselves. Additionally, we’re always ready to learn new skills and try new hobbies, which is why this particular books was so appealing.

It was an older-than-dirt W. Ben Hunt offering, entitled Indian Crafts and Lore. As, like most normal, eleven-year-old boys, I was very interested in American Indians at the time, an older relative gave me the book at my grandfather’s funeral. I suppose he was trying to cheer me up a tad, or thought it might take my mind off the loss. At any rate, it was a very kind thing for him to do, and being the sentimental bastard I am, I still have it.

It really is a lovely book, and one from a bygone era. Among its 111 pages (illustrated by the author himself) are enough fun and interesting activities to keep a boy (or even a case of arrested development like me) entertained for days. Maggie’s eyes became as wide as saucers when I showed it to her, while her facial expression grew to resemble that of a kid in a candy store a little more closely with each turn of the pages. To say that her enthusiasm for many of the projects detailed therein equaled or exceeded my own would be something o an understatement – much in the same way saying that Pol Pot wasn’t a very nice guy is an understatement.

So dejected did she appear, as a matter of fact, when I informed her that the homeowners’ association might have an objection or two to our erecting a replica of a totem pole on the lawn, that I consoled her by promising we could make clothing and jewelry. As Maggie enjoys sewing and is very good at it, the next day saw us browsing through the local craft shop, in search of shells, beads, feathers, and similar materials.

In order to decorate our handmade duds in a more authentic fashion, we bought several bags of seed beads in the various primary colors, and, as a lark, some wooden beads, a few bone beads, and some 14# test hemp cord.

The wooden beads came in three colors – a very pale tan, a medium brown, and a very dark, umber shade. The bone beads were stark white, with various patterns incised into them, and then painted black. After making a few test pieces, we decided that whereas they were very pretty in an unsophisticated way, they were still missing something. Being the brilliant fucker I am – and having been none to pleased with the sorry state of the cowrie shells upon which we’d pissed away our hard-earned swag, I grabbed a few scallop and miniature conch shells from my own collection (I collect all sorts of weird shit, but that’s neither here nor there), fired up the ol’ Black and Decker drill, and got my otherwise lazy ass to work.

Selecting the very smallest bit I could find, I drilled a single hole at the base of the scallop shells, and two holes in each conch, by drilling through the inner chambers until the bit came out the other side. One of the conch shells, by the way, became stuck on the whirling bit, and the very sight caused me to flashback to a Hawkwind gig I’d caught some years ago. Dontcha just hate it when that happens?

Being satisfied with my work (and pleasantly surprised at not having ruined the shells), I took them suckers inside and commenced to stringin’. By that time, I knew we were onto something – or on something. I’m still not stoned – uh, I mean “sure.” Once again, the pieces were very pretty, in a crude way, but something was still missing. We returned to the craft shops we’d begun to haunt – they probably know us by name now – and bought a few “value packs” of glass beads in various colors, some crimp beads, and some beading wire.

The next two pieces, made entirely of glass beads and seashells, were so pretty that we kept ‘em for ourselves. By this time, I’d actually begun to enjoy making necklaces, as odd as it may sound. There was something altogether relaxing (and very satisfying) about taking hunks of glass and natural materials, arranging them attractively, and transforming the various constituent parts into a harmonious and recognizable whole. A pile of beads one minute: A necklace the next.

Presto, abracadabra, an’ a’ tha’ shite…

For the last few weeks, I’d been suffering from the most god-awful case of writer’s block I can remember. Writing, as I’ve mentioned, isn’t just something I love doing; it’s a valuable way of “venting,” as well. As some of you know, the last year has been rather a rough one for me. Until last week, the pressure was building like that in a steam-canner, and showed no sign of abating in the foreseeable future. With no “safety valve,” as it were, the darker side of my personality was rising with rapidity proportional to the intensity of the stress under which I found myself.

For some reason, though, the idiot-simple act of stringing beads and stones on a length of cord proved very therapeutic. I suppose it was a matter of having a tangible and aesthetically pleasing product to show for my efforts. By now, we had some idea of what we were doing, and the results were really beginning to show it.

And yet I still wasn’t satisfied.

Making yet another foray to the store, we purchased some faux pearl beads and metallic fittings. And that’s when it began to happen. For some reason, our imaginations were suddenly freed of the bonds that – Uh, Ok. So that’s BS. Neither of us suffers overmuch from lack of imagination. If anything, they’re actually overactive, for the most part…

Suddenly, we were coming up with pieces that we thought were so pretty; we began dismantling our older pieces and restringing them. Though we’d only taken up the hobby a few days before, our first efforts looked crude and clumsy in comparison. Said perception wasn’t a product of our overactive imaginations, either. Certainly, there was a certain, childlike charm to our earlier work, but the newer necklaces and earrings were actually nearing the point at which they could honestly be called beautiful.

In addition to being pretty, the work was beginning to show two evolving and very distinct styles – styles as distinct as our individual personalities.

Maggie’s work is characterized by a certain delicate, harmonious regularity. She also tends to use pale, pastel-colored stones, smaller beads, and daintier fittings.

Mine -- predictably enough -- looks like the work of a lunatic on PCP. I prefer to incorporate unusual pendants (seashells, pendant earrings, spent cartridge cases, etc.); larger stones; a feature I’ll call “faux symmetry”; sharper color contrasts; and to mix materials freely.

For a while, we went through a period of “green eyed monster” one-upmanship. It wasn’t an especially fierce rivalry, but it was in evidence all the same. Each of us, as it happened was convinced that the other was making slightly better pieces. I suppose that in our own weird way, then, we set about trying to outdo one another. At this point, something odd happened: We began “rubbing off” on each other, as a result of which our pieces became increasingly attractive.

We took a few to my workplace to show my coworkers, who, to all appearances, agreed. We sold four pieces that very day. Word of mouth led another coworker to ask to see our wares, resulting in two additional sales.

Since then, we’ve completed nearly 90 pieces, most with matching earrings. As it’s been rather easy to get twelve dollars per necklace (fifteen for those with slightly more expensive pendants), five per set of earrings, and fifteen per matching set (the ubiquitous “package deal”), we thought we’d take our merchandise on the road, as it were.

As the Gentle Reader is probably aware, the Good Lord endowed Mags and me with far more guts and sheer audacity than common sense. This being the case, we took out a table at a local flea market, only to discover that flea markets vary from place to place. As I had to work my straight job that day, Maggie had no choice but to attend it alone.

As I’ve mentioned, flea markets vary from locale to locale. This one was a bit off the beaten path, in a part of Georgia in which the ‘burbs meet the boondocks, and in which many of the inhabitants possess all the vices associated with the denizens of both environments, but none of their virtues.

To make a long story short: The owner was kind, decent, honest, upright, and helpful. So honest and conscientious was he, as a matter of fact; that I’d love to do business with him again. His kind of hardworking, salt-of-the-earth American is a national treasure, and deserves our business.

The clientele, though? From what Mags told me, the world wouldn’t exactly be a poorer place, did some concerned, patriotic citizen slap a belt of .308 into a good, old-fashioned “pig,” line up a significant percentage of ‘em along the edge of a ditch, and cut loose.

One longs for the days of the Old South, during which Baptist and Presbyterian alike momentarily set aside their differences, turned their hearts to the task of “regulating” the amusements of such failed specimens of humanity, and “learnt them the Gospel” of our Lord and Savior, whether by penetrating their thick, heathen skulls with the Word, the tomahawk, or the musket-ball.

But enough of this sorry state of affairs. When a Southern man must accompany his betrothed to market, in order to spare her the advances of armpit-scratching (invariably followed by finger-sniffing) riff raff, it’s obvious that the end of days is nigh.

The next step was the Fourth Annual Heritage Park Fall Festival. That particular experience (for various subjective reasons on my part) merits a post in and of itself. All I’ll say of it for the time being, then, is that we had quite a bit of fun -- for all that it wasn’t the most profitable craft show I’ve ever attended.

Jewelry, needless to say, is no less a visual medium than sculpture or painting. For this reason, Maggie and I have set up a separate blog, wherein we intend to display some of our more interesting pieces. Owing to the differences between digital cameras and 35mm (the latter having been my choice of “weapons” from the age of fourteen until last year), we’ve encountered a few lighting and exposure problems -- problems I was only able to resolve by the time-honored practice of screwing around with various camera settings. As I managed to get the entire matter ironed out yesterday afternoon, we should have a few good shots posted by this afternoon (knock on wood…).

So here it is, 04:00, and I’m sitting here at the computer in the basement office, writing this, and listening to Gene Pitney’s “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.” Maggie and the dog are still asleep, for all that we retired at 21:00 or thereabout, so I’ve essentially got the run of the place, and am thinking the kinds of odd thoughts one would be expected to think under such circumstances.

Jesus. Me, making jewelry. Just a few weeks ago, it would have been quite a stretch to imagine myself doing any such thing, let alone writing about it. I’m not sure why I enjoy it as much as I do, either. I’ve heard it said that men are the more visually oriented of the sexes, so perhaps that has something to do with it. It might also be the fact that making jewelry parallels writing in many ways. The ultimate goal of working in either medium, after all, is to arrange pre-existing elements (whether words or beads, stones, shells, etc.) into coherent, expressive and aesthetically pleasing combinations.

Edgar Allan Poe once defined poetry as “the rhythmic creation of beauty.” I’m not in the habit of contradicting the poets of his caliber, but my agreement with his definition, while genuine, is qualified. It would be difficult, after all, to consider the work of the British War Poets – for example -- “beautiful,” unless one is capable of finding beauty in the midst of horror. This can be done, of course, whether in poetry or prose (e.g., Andrew Vachss’s Shella), but the beauty, as often as not, is in the eye of the beholder. Then we come to Eliot, whose work is certainly beautiful, but, while admittedly possessed of a certain “meta-rhythm,” if you will, lacks the rigidly metric quality of the Romantic poets, who preceded the Symbolists from whom he drew much of his inspiration.

Returning to Poe’s definition: As a general principle, it works very well when applied to jewelry. One aspires to make a beautiful necklace, bracelet, etc., and there’s a certain rhythm to the arrangement of the individual components, as often as not. But even in this particular field of endeavor, the Nietzschean “spark of chaos” found in Symbolist poetry pops up now and again. In some of the pieces I’ve made, I’ve attempted (with varying degrees of success) to throw the odd “curve ball,” as it were, and to defy convention in ways not always immediately apparent. Certainly, I’m too much the neophyte to crank out any “dancing stars,” if you will, but hopefully, practice will change this.

As with literature or representational art, it seems that the beauty of a given piece is very much in the eye of the beholder. However idiot-simple this most basic of axioms may seem, it’s easy to forget at times. Saturday’s craft show provided a humorous, if somewhat jarring illustration of the principle’s validity. Mags and I had made several pieces of which we were very proud, and which we found very attractive, by our own standards. The private sales we’ve made up here in Roswell tended to reinforce our preferences, in a Skinner-esque way, leading us to produce similar pieces.

Our experience in Henry County, however, provided us with a “reality check” of sorts. As it happens, aesthetic preferences differ nearly as much from locale to locale as they do from person to person. Up here, for example, the pieces we move are those that incorporate eye-catching, unusual pendants (sea shells, filigree pendants decorated with Swarovski crystals, etc.), or bold contrasts between the primary colors of the beads and the metallic fittings. In McDonough, though, we moved softer colors (rose pink, translucent purples, muted blues), and our customers’ preferences ran towards a more subdued look.

Even though I’d expected the opposite, I’m not terribly surprised, now that I’ve given the matter some thought. I don’t want to read too much into this, but populace of the northernmost part of Fulton County consists largely of the upper and upper middle classes. Based on an information package Mags and I perused when purchasing advertising space for our other business, there are areas up here in which median household income ranges from $200,000.00 to $700,000.00 per annum.

Certainly, there are affluent areas in Henry County. On the whole, though, the people we met there were more often of the working- and middle-middle classes. Suffice to say that ours wasn’t the only pickup truck on the parking lot, by a long shot. Among the wealthier segments of the population, there is a pronounced tendency to try to impress others – “keeping up with the Joneses,” on an epic scale -- whereas the working- and middle-classes, the “just plain folks” are often more modest in both dress and deportment. This is, of course, a generalization to which there are many exceptions, but empirical observation has borne out its validity on more than one occasion.

The experience has left me with a renewed appreciation of the importance of knowing one’s target audience, and of tailoring the selection of goods to meet the demands of the market. As a general rule, the less money an intelligent person has, the less willing he is to part with it. There is also a tendency among the less affluent to do things for themselves, rather than pay someone else for certain goods and services. For these reasons, we found ourselves having to reduce our prices in order to get the product off the table.

This brings us to the matter of money, in general. As anyone who has perused this site for any amount of time knows, I’m pro-liberty, pro-free enterprise, anti-statist, anti-authoritarian, and very much an individualist. Despite (or perhaps because of) these general tendencies, I’ll cop to certain populist sentiments, as well. Each and every member of the so-called “great unwashed” is, after all, an individual human being. Owing to the sheer number of “interesting” (often in the Chinese sense) situations I’ve encountered over the course of my largely misspent life, and likewise, to the sheer number of people I’ve met, I’ve learned to judge a man by the content of his character rather than by the content of his wallet.

I understand that there are certain correlations between intelligence etc., and income, but as often as not, there are as many exceptions to the general rule as there are examples thereof. Allow me to state, unequivocally, that I’m not a philanthropist or so-called “egalitarian,” by any stretch of the imagination. I do not believe for even a second that all men are equal, neither do I claim to. As, however, wealth – of all the attributes a person may possess – is least indicative of his overall quality as I rate such things, I don’t share the contempt for those in the lower income brackets (I occupy one myself, after all…) I so often note among other ostensible Libertarians and Conservatives.

At the craft show, I was discussing this very matter with Maggie and another vendor we’d met that day. Intertwined with the main thread – that of making a living by one’s own efforts – was another: motivation. In the course of the conversation, the inevitable “Why do you do what you do?” question popped up. In trying to formulate an answer, I found that – as with anything else I undertake – several forces motivated me, simultaneously.

For starters, this is something new and interesting. Like writing, it affords me the luxury of self-expression. It’s a relaxing, enjoyable pastime. It allows me to supplement my income. Moreover, it provides me with a challenge; that of taking inexpensive materials and transforming them into something attractive enough to persuade someone else to buy it from me.

OK, now I'm a little closer to understanding why I enjoy it as much as I do...

As I’ve said, I don’t consider a person’s financial status indicative of his/her worth as a human being; which brings us to the next reason I’ve taken up this particular pastime. Bluntly put, the fact that a girl can’t afford a hundred-dollar necklace – or even a fifty-dollar necklace – doesn’t mean she should be categorically denied the opportunity to purchase and wear a pretty piece of jewelry. If, therefore, I can provide such a girl with a thing of such beauty that she’d wear it in public, and for a mere ten or fifteen dollars, at that, then I’ll gladly do so.

If you’d even suggested as much twenty years ago, I’d have kicked you in the rocks. Even ten years ago, I’d have said, “Uh, that’s nice, but it really ain’t me…”

God bless,

Dave

White Trash Through The Ages, Part 1: The Celtic Diaspora

I rise from my folding chair, no longer just another anonymous face in the crowd. Clearing my throat nervously, I announce to all and sundry: "My name's Dave, and I'm White trash."
"Hi, Dave!" roars the throng, in unison.

Yep. There's no denying it. I'm beer-drinking, gun-toting, White trash. A latter-day savage and dweller beyond the pale.

And I'm proud as hell of the fact, and enjoy it immensely.

For thousands of years, my ancestors have been the eternal outsiders, the fringe-dwellers, the barbarians just beyond the gates of what passes for "civilization" at any given time. Whether ornamenting our lawns with human heads or pink flamingoes, whether clad in plaid, or checks, or snakeskin cowboy boots, whether watching NASCAR or chariot races, we Celts are the original White trash, and haven't changed very much since ancient times, as this brief survey of centuries' worth of name-calling will illustrate. Join me then, gentle reader, as I tuck into this lip-smackin', finger-lickin' feast of abuse and observation -- some admittedly flattering, some anything but, and much of it accurate, however disparaging. (Just don't get BBQ sauce on my black velveteen Elvis posters).

Stereotyping?

Many hillbillies in the mass media are there to make the normative, middle-class urban spectator feel better about the system of money and power that has him or her in its grasp. Someone is always beneath us, lending proof that the twig on which we stand is really the rung of a ladder leading upward to something we must defend with our lives....[T]he urban majority is growing further and further removed from real rural experience, and hence is freer to dissociate the hillbilly as a purely comic cartoon, something to be safely and unambiguously dispensed with rather than something symbolic of the banished rural memory that will not stay banished.

-- J.W. Williamson, Hillbillyland.

One of the chief denunciations of rednecks is an alleged bundle of psychological "fears" that lead them to demean anyone different from them. But flip the pancake over: Isn't this precisely why most people demean rednecks -- for being DIFFERENT from them as measured by most known indexes of social difference?.... Our stereotypical, pop-up, cardboard-cutout, cereal-box redneck figurine is a Social Martian under all the prongs of bigoted stereotyping: biologically (inbred, degenerated, momma-impregnating vermin and scum); geographically (xenophobic, backwoods, rustic, heath-dwelling, trailer-sheathed yahoos); economically (poor, barefoot, toothless, no-account, earth-scratching trash); culturally (gullible, superstitious, bumpkinesque rubes and throwbacks); and morally (cross-burning, baby-molesting swamp creatures and their slatternly wives).

-- Jim Goad, The Redneck Manifesto

It Brings a Tear to My Eye...

Among emigrants from northern Ireland, the proportion of servants was somewhat higher, but even there a majority were free. This was so in part because Irish servants were not much wanted in America. They were thought to be violent, ungovernable, and very apt to assault their masters. Buyers were discouraged by lurid accounts of Irish servants who rioted in Barbados, "straggled" in Bermuda or ran away on the mainland, sometimes with their masters' wives and daughters in tow... The Scots-Irish who came to America in the eighteenth century were not poor in any of these senses. Their pride was a source of irritation to their English neighbors, who could not understand what they had to feel proud about. It was said of one Scots-Irish man that "his looks spoke out that he would not fear the devil, should he meet him face to face...He loved to talk of himself, and spoke as freely and encomiastically as enthusiastic youths do of Alexander and Caesar...Qualities united in him which are never found in one person except an Irishman."

-- David Hackett Fischer, Albion's Seed

Payback is a Medevac Dept.:

Brian [Boru] and his warriors overran Limerick, slaughtering and plundering. 'They carried off the foreigners' jewels and their best property: their saddles beautiful and foreign; their gold and silver; their satins and silken cloth, pleasing and variegated, both scarlet and green. They carried away their soft, youthful girls, their silk-clad women, and their large and well-formed boys. The fortress and the good town they reduced to a haze of smoke and red fire. All the captives were assembled. Everyone fit for war was killed and everyone else enslaved.' It seems that many of the Danish women were then ritually raped. Brian's sack of Limerick, though barbaric, showed him as a man of power. He now consolidated his successes. Local opposing chieftains were slain. His warriors kept fit and fed by numerous cattle raids. He built a fleet upon the Shannon and sailed as far as Loch Ree where he plundered the territory of Connacht and Meath. With his hold over Munster secure, Brian then moved against the men of Leinster.

Tim Newark, Celtic Warriors

Awww, Ain't That Sweet? Dept.:

The kerns sprung thus from this prodigious brood
Are still as lewd as when their city stood.
Fraught with all vice, replete with villainy,
They still rebel and that most treacherously.
Like brutish Indians these wild Irish live;
Their quiet neighbors they delight to grieve.
Cruel and bloody, barbarous and rude,
Dire vengeance at their heels hath them pursued.
They are the savagest of all the nation;
Amongst them out I made my peregrination,
Where many wicked customs I did see
Such as all honest hearts I hope will flee.

--Gervase Markham, c. AD 1600

Lest We Forget Dept.:

They bellowed insult and challenge across the battle-lines. At their great feasts they were quick to laughter, and to ferocity. Their spirits could be moved quickly from deep troughs of melancholy to furious outbursts of uncontrolled energy. Astonishing examples of loyalty unto death went hand in hand with tales of appalling treacheries. Blood-feuds were commonplace; and the cult of head-hunting played a major part in their feelings about war and the supernatural. They were a people capable of fine gold-work of the utmost subtlety; of enamelled brooches, utensils and weapons of nearly unequalled quality --and yet a people whose dark beliefs allowed them to commit unspeakable acts of savagery against helpless captives. They were a contradictory, tumultuous, dynamic and infinitely spectacular people, whose blood is permanently mixed into that of the inhabitants of the British Isles and north-west Europe.

--Peter Wilcox, Rome's Enemies: Gallic and British Celts

It's For Their Own Good Dept.:

...how great are the enormities of vice with which the people of Ireland are infected, and how they have departed from the fear of God and the established practice of the Christian faith, so that souls have been placed in peril. We have further learnt from your letters that Henry, the noble king of the English, our dearest son in Christ, moved by inspiration from God and summoning all his strength, has subjugated this barbarous and uncouth race, which is ignorant of Divine Law; and through his power those forbidden things which used to be practised in your lands now begins to diminish.

-- Pope Alexander III, in a letter to several Irish bishops, AD 1172

Once Ya Go -- Uh -- Irish, Ya Never Go Back Dept.:

Now many English of the said land, forsaking the English language, fashion, mode of riding, law and usages, live and govern themselves according to the manners, fashion and language of the Irish enemies; and also having made divers marriages and alliances between themselves and the Irish enemies aforesaid...the English language, the allegiance due our Lord the King and the English laws there are put in subjection and decayed, and the Irish exalted and raised up, contrary to right.

Preamble to the Statutes of Kilkenny, AD 1366

Ya Can Dress 'Em Up, But Ya Can't Take 'Em Anywhere Dept.:

Surely there was never a people that lived in more misery than they do, nor as it should seem of worse minds, for matrimony among them is no more regarded in effect than conjunction between unreasonable beasts. Perjury, robbery and murder are counted allowable. Finally, I cannot find that they make any conscience of sin; for neither find I a place where it should be done, nor any person able to instruct them in the rules of a Christian.

-- Sir Henry Sidney, AD 1572

Lazy, Shiftless, No-Good, Thievin', No-Account...

One part of the Wild Scots have a wealth of cattle, sheep and horses, and these with a thought for the possible loss of their possessions yield more willing obedience to the courts of law and the king. The other part of these people delight in the chase and a life of indolence. Their chieftains eagerly follow bad men if only they may not have the need to labour. They are full of mutual dissensions and war rather than peace is their normal condition.

--John Major, History of Greater Britain

A 13th Century Trailer Park?

Their clothes are made after a barbarous fashion. Their custom is to wear small, close-fitting hoods, hanging below the shoulders. Under this they use woolen rugs instead of cloaks, with breeches and hose of one piece, usually dyed. The Irish are a rude people, subsisting on the produce of their cattle only and living like beasts. This people, then, is truly barbarous, being not only barbarous in their dress, but suffering their hair and beards to grow enormously in an uncouth manner.

Giraldus Cambrensis, Topographia Hibernica et Expugnatio Hiberniae

Today, Gaul; Tomorrow, the WWF

Physically the Celts are terrifying in appearance, with deep-sounding and very harsh voices. In conversation, they use few words and speak in riddles, for the most part hinting at things and leaving a great deal to be understood. They frequently exaggerate with the aim of extolling themselves and diminishing the status of others. They are boasters and threateners and given to bombastic self-dramatization, and yet they are quick of mind and with good natural ability for learning.

Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica

And They're a Bunch of Lushes!

And since the qualities of the climate are spoiled by the excess of cold, the land bears neither wine nor oil, and therefore the Gauls, being deprived of these fruits concoct a drink out of barley called zythos, and they wash honeycombs and use the washings as a drink. They are exceedingly fond of wine and sate themselves with the unmixed wine imported by merchants; their desire makes them drink it greedily, and when they become drunk they fall into a stupor or into a maniacal disposition.

Ibid

Thursday Morning, 3 A.M.

Being "a day late and a dollar short" as it were, and an exercise in rambling disquietude.

Furiosi nulla voluntas est.

Evil

Ayn Rand once referred to it as "impotent" and Hannah Ahrendt referred to its banality.
How either could have said so in the aftermath of World War II is completely beyond me.
On the contrary, I'd opine that evil is both powerful and alluring, and that it's the wearying predictability with which human beings are suckered in thereby that is truly banal.

Instability

"Medical writers distinguish two kinds of Madness, and describe them both as a constant disorder of the mind without any considerable fever; but with this difference, that the one is attended with audaciousness and fury, the other with sadness and fear; and that they call mania, this melancholy. But these generally differ in degree only. For melancholy very frequently changes, sooner or later into maniacal madness; and, when the fury is abated, the sadness generally returns heavier than before."

-- RICHARD MEAD, 1751 (describing the symptoms of manic-depression)

Contentment

"He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough."

-- Chinese proverb

"Again I considered all travail and every right work, that for this is a man envied of his neighbor. This is also vanity and vexation of the spirit. The fool foldeth his hands together and eateth his own flesh. Better is an handful with quietness, than both hands full with travail and vexation of the spirit."

-- Ecclesiastes 4:4-6 (KJV)

Why is this aphorism so easily lived by on the material level, and yet realized only with tremendous difficulty on a deeper, inner level?

Determination

"Too eager a determination brings one to self-righteousness. Too weak a determination brings one to sloth."

-- Gautama Buddha

A terse, commonsense observation, and yet, like so many such, very difficult to realize. The devil, as the saying goes, "is in the details": the details of achieving that balance without tipping too far in either direction, and as importantly -- in realizing when one has tipped too far to one side or the other.

Shadows

"Beware, lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow."

-- Aesop

Were I a touch more materialistic, I'd wish I had a dime for every time I've done just this. And what is a shadow? A patch of darkness caused by an object blocking the flow of light. This alone provides much to ponder. Like clouds, shadows are the original Rorschach Blots: They can appear to be whatever the perceiver wants them to be. By virtue (or lack thereof) of this quality, they become extraordinarily alluring, all the more strongly tempting one to grasp at them. This, in turn, leads to disinclination on the part of one thus beguiled to investigate the substance, the essence, the true nature of the object casting the shadow.

And then one is really in a world of shit, as often as not.

Order

"I tell you: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing star!"

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

I'm inclined to agree. The imposition of any form of order --other than the natural order of the universe, which so very few people even attempt to understand -- leads to stagnation and to the stifling of true creativity and the spirit of inquiry. Attempting to imposing such arbitrary "order" is the equivalent of donning a blinder and a muzzle, and then demanding that everyone else follow suit.

Unfortunately, we live in an authoritarian age, which I'll dub "The Age of the Control Freak." The authoritarian mind is unable even to conceive of "form without form" or of the Taoist notion of "non-ado" (wu wei). Authoritarianism is symptomatic of a state of unrelieved terror, of existential cowardice; the authoritarian fears the unknown, the spontaneous, the unpredictable.

Imperfection

"When you have faults, do not fear to abandon them."

-- Confucius.

Another commonsense death trap. Note than Confucius says "when," and not "if." Who doesn't have faults? "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us" (I John 1:8, KJV), after all. I've never met the man (or woman) who didn't, for all that I've met many of both who were convinced of exactly the opposite -- perhaps the greatest fault of all.

One a certain, core level, I think we're all aware of our own imperfect and (as nearly as observation has shown me) imperfectible natures. The brisk trade in self-help books, and attendance levels at "self-empowerment" seminars tend to reinforce this belief on my part.

Confucius admonishes us not to fear to abandon them, and the aforementioned sales of books and tickets indicate that many of us are rather keen to abandon them. Or are we? Given the perversity of human nature, it occurs to me that sometimes our faults serve as a "security blanket" of sorts. It also occurs to me that the desire to rid oneself of faults can become a fault in and of itself, leading to a state comparable to the Buddhist "seeker's paradox" -- the paradox posed by the desire to rid oneself of desire.

Leadership

Rear your people! Feed your people! Rear them without claiming them for your own! Do your work without setting any store by it! Be a leader, not a butcher! This is called hidden virtue.

-- Lao Tzu, Tao Teh Ching, Chapter 10

The highest type of ruler is one of whose existence the people are barely aware. Next comes one whom they love and praise. Next comes one whom they fear. Next comes one whom they despise and defy.

-- Lao Tzu, Tao Teh Ching, Chapter 17

I couldn't have said it better myself.

"Lao Tzu" whatever his name might have been in reality, has been studied for over two thousand years, and with good reason. Modern man, though, in his insufferable arrogance, disdains all things "old" and -- in his unquenchable thirst for novelty and diversion -- severs his ties to the past, thereby sealing his future. To his stunted mind, acknowledging the timeless is an act of "living in the past," ergo he stubbornly refuses to guide the latter by the former. In short, he learns nothing.

Would a single modern politician even entertain notions of this sort? Probably not. But then again, Lao Tzu is remembered well over two thousand years after his death. Which of our own so-called "leaders" will be remembered even a hundred years after his? Very few, I think.

In taking a long, hard look at the cast of characters on today's political stage, I see Ozymandias multiplied a thousandfold.

Conflict

"A military operation involves deception. Even though you are competent, appear to be incompetent. Though effective, appear to be ineffective."

-- Sun Tzu, The Art of War

So much for "shock and awe".

"When you do battle, even if you are winning, if you continue for a long time, you will dull your forces and blunt your edge; if you besiege a citadel, your strength will be exhausted. If you keep your armies out in the field for a long time, your supplies will be insufficient.

-- Ibid

"Therefore, I have heard of military operations that were clumsy but swift, but I have never seen one that was skillful and lasted a long time. It is never beneficial to a nation to have a military operation continue for a long time."

-- Ibid

So much for "generational warfare."

Celtic Temper vs. Divine Instruction

"Say not thou, I will recompense evil; but wait on the Lord and he shall save thee."

-- Proverbs 20:22

And the struggle of faith against heredity, culture and experience rages unabated.

Speaking of That...

It's occurred to me of late that the so-called "nature/nurture debate" is symptomatic of the modern tendency to think in terms of false dichotomies. The problem with imposing this kind of "either or" model upon reality is that reality is in no way obligated to conform to it -- the answer might very well be "neither nor," or "a little of both."

Random Thoughts

I'd rather have a single friend than a thousand admirers. Admiration often spawns envy, enmity, and conflict, which in turn, lead to pain. Friendship, on the other hand, serves as a palliative -- I don't believe there is a true "cure," for the record -- for the pains of mortal existence.

I've noticed that those who believe they have the answers to all the world's problems are, in reality, the most likely not to have the answer to a single one of them.

I've noticed that since permanently unplugging the TV a year ago, my thoughts and feelings are more truly my own, and the actual experience of living far deeper and more vivid. I'm now convinced that television, attacking as it does on both the visual and auditory levels is the greatest instrument of propaganda -- propaganda being simply the attempt to influence the thoughts and feelings of another human being (which leads me to wonder if all communication isn't a form of propaganda) -- ever devised.

One can often learn as much about a man's inner nature by observing the character of his enemies as one can by observing that of his friends.

Ideals are infuriatingly paradoxical: Taken to excess, they constitute a denial of reality, but in their absence, one finds little motivation to improve the quality of one's existence.

It occurs to me that the desire for appreciation is natural, while the desire for prestige is a perversion.

Oddball Behavior

quirk: n …2. A peculiarity of behavior that eludes prediction or suppression

We all have ‘em, like it or not, and some of ‘em can be downright annoying. Here are a few of mine.

I like to sleep with my body completely covered, but with my head sticking out and the fan blowing in my face, even in the winter. My dog hates this.

I like to sleep “nekkid” during the warmer months.

I often develop a particular fondness for a certain article of clothing. When this happens, I’ll either buy a half a bazillion just like it, or wear it until it falls apart.

Upon finishing a beverage, I eat the leftover ice cubes. A friend of mine once told me this was a sign of sexual frustration. When I asked her if she’d care to help alleviate said frustration, she flipped me the bird.

I read in bars.

I write in bars.

I often peel the labels from my beer bottles in bars.

I often mutilate my napkins in bars. Some years ago, my best friend and I were putting away a few cold ones at a dive we used to frequent. As if we shared a telepathic bond, we simultaneously began tearing our soaked napkins and twisting the scraps into “sculptures” that resembled tadpoles or spermatozoa. After making a few dozen of these, we wadded another two or three napkins up and rolled them into a sphere, which we placed in the center of the table, surrounded by our earlier efforts. The waitress stood there staring for perhaps ten full seconds before taking our order. She still gave me her phone number, though.

If I take a sudden liking to a particular song, I’ll play it over and over again until everyone else in the room is sick of it. In all probability, I’ve forever ruined “Rocky Top,” “Blue Moon of Kentucky,” “Si Beag, Si Mor,” and “Scots Wha’ Hae” for any number of people. I am reminded of the words of one of my Bros on New Year’s Eve, 2001: “If you play ’Thunderstruck’ one more time, I’m gonna shove one of those Roman candles up your ass.”

Speaking of Roman candles… If I’ve had a few beers, and the following items: 1.) Roman candles; 2.) any of my buddies are present, I’ll light one of the former, and launch the projectiles at the latter. No wonder they avoid me on New Year’s and the Fourth of July.

I give my rifles names.

I chew the corners of my moustache.

I talk to cats and dogs as if they were human.

Most cats and dogs take an immediate liking to me. Most humans do not.

I don’t like to sleep with my closet door open.

I like the sound of air raid sirens. It gives me goosebumps. So does the sound of bagpipes.

I usually consume meals one item at a time, saving the best for last.

I talk to myself.

I’m slightly obsessive/compulsive.

I still “air guitar” if no one else is around, even though I can actually play guitar.

I’m convinced (rightly or wrongly) that men are better cooks than women. This is probably because I’ve only dated one woman who could cook as well as I.

Sometimes movies make me cry. The scene in Gods and Generals, during which the Irish Brigade hooks horns with Cobb is a good example of this.

I sometimes do irritating things, like volunteering unsolicited information about my personal idiosyncrasies.

Cold Morning II

Furiosus solo furore punitur.

One entertains the strangest notions when arising at “zero dark thirty” on a cold, winter day.

Discomfort, thy name is “wind-chill factor.” This would be a perfect morning for a fire, but I’ve been saving my wood for times of actual need. Winter, gentle reader, has truly arrived, however belatedly. As, in some respects, it portends to be the “winter of [my] discontent,” I, like others before me (Boethius being the best example) have opted to seek consolation in philosophy. Be it the “handmaid of religion” or not, the two are certainly related, and inextricably intertwined, to my mind. Both, after all, provide an integrated view of existence, or at least a set of hypotheses regarding man and his “place” in the universe. It's a start, at any rate...

Like great fallacies, great truths stand the test of time, and so to them I turn during these, “the times that try men’s souls.”

Stylin’ an’ Profilin’

At this moment, there is nothing to do but have a good laugh
-- Unidentified Chinese Ch’an Master

Remaining sane (relatively speaking) in the midst of an insane world requires either the patience of a Saint or a truly perverse sense of humor. Not having been blessed with the former, I’ve opted for the latter. As generally inappropriate and profoundly abnormal as it may be to think as I do, I could probably find something at which to laugh at my own execution.

Charles Stuart winking at the headsman, tossing him a coin and saying: “Use the sharp one!” perhaps?

Or perhaps not.

It’s an inspiring image, though, however apocryphal the story may be.

Roddy McCorley (for all that he met his end years and miles away) had grit:

Up the narrow street he stepped
Smiling, proud and young.
About the hemp rope on his neck
The golden ringlets clung.

There is never a tear in his blue eyes
Both glad and bright are they,
As young Roddy McCorley goes to die
On the bridge of Toome today.

But that image of Charles Stuart weds grit with style, by God!

“Greedom”

The “American Dream” interests me far less than the American Ideal, i.e., the philosophical principles upon which this country was founded, however poorly or incompletely they may have been realized. For those of you who insist the country was founded upon “genocide and slavery” and those of you who insist that it was founded upon the “Line my own pockets at all costs!” ethos: Go back to your caves. You bore me. Your mindless adherence to your creeds is imbecilic, and I do not suffer fools gladly.

I don’t care what your teachers told you. The words “freedom” and “affluence” are hardly synonyms. Each of your savage tribes, whether market-haters or market-worshippers (and however much you may affect to hate one another) represents one side of the “dialectical materialist” coin. I'd rather deal in a different currency, thank you.

Aesop once said: “Better a lean wolf than a fat dog.”

“Study deeply upon this,” as Musashi wrote.

Again I considered all travail, and every right work, that for this a man is envied of his neighbor. This is also a vanity and a vexation of the spirit. The fool foldeth his hands together and eateth his own flesh. Better is an handful with quietness, than both the hands full with travail and vexation of the spirit.
--Ecclesiastes 4:4-6 (KJV)

He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.
--Taoist Proverb

There is that maketh himself rich yet hath nothing: there is that maketh himself poor, yet hath great riches.
-- Proverbs 13:7 (KJV)

Solomon, Applied to Certain Features of Modern “Total War”

“If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause: Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit: We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil: Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse: My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path: For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood.

--Proverbs 1:11-16 (KJV)

Never in the last 142 years have I seen a better description of “carpetbaggers” and “scalawags,” whether plying their trades at home or abroad.

The Terrorists Have Already Won

Whatever happened to that particular mantra? Does anyone remember the heady days of 2001, during which the dems and neocons bludgeoned each other (and the American public) over the head with that line?

“If this piece of legislation doesn’t pass, the terrorists have already won!”

Truth be told, I was so sick of hearing it --and yet so amused by its inherent stupidity -- that I modified it one night while out barhopping: “If I don’t ‘score’ tonight, the terrorists have already won!”

Moving right along: As one of the classic goals of terrorists and/or insurgents is to drive the targeted government to crack down upon its own people, thereby sowing the seeds of discontent and rebellion, the signing of the so-called “patriot act” into law was Al Qaeda’s crowning achievement.

Brilliant idea, neocons. Let’s fight tyranny with tyranny.

Solomon once again:

Envy thou not the oppressor, and choose none of his ways.
--Proverbs 3:31 (KJV)

On Being a Sore Loser

For jealousy is the rage of a man: Therefore he will not spare in the day of vengeance. He will not regard any ransom; neither will he rest content, though thou givest many gifts.
--Proverbs 6:34, 35 (KJV)

Indeed it is, and at times, I have not. Even when it was unwarranted. Neither, alas, have I rested content, for all that I hoped to do so. To claim otherwise would be extremely dishonest, and in my old age, I’m wearying of dishonesty -- that of others, and my own.

If it’s true that admitting the existence of a character flaw is the first step towards beating it, when does the victory occur? I suppose it must be incremental, as it certainly isn’t immediate. However closely I scrutinize my own motives, I find that certain elements thereof elude me. As they exist within my mind, and my mind is its own examiner, this implies a degree of unconscious dishonesty on my part. So how to overcome it? I’ve not yet arrived at a satisfactory answer.

On Pilgrimages, Whether Literal or Symbolic

How sad that you go from forest to forest in search of that which is within you.
--Kabir

How sad that even the realization that one is doing exactly thus so seldom translates directly into action…The flipside of this is darting from cave to cave, trying to flee --and hide from -- that which is within us, as well.

A little over thirteen years ago, I realized that changes in physical location never served as an escape, as I was attempting to flee myself. Wherever I went, there I was, ergo escape was impossible. I gradually ceased trying to “reinvent” myself some six years ago, when it occurred to me that this was merely another form of flight.

I also realized that changes in physical location never served to bring me any great measure of happiness, as there was no paradise on earth, no perfect, magical place that would fill any of my internal “gaps.” Unfortunately, it was only at the end of last year that I realized no other human being could fill those gaps, either. I have yet to adjust fully to this understanding.

On Love

An emotion which is overpowering one moment and gone the next cannot be called love.
--Kabir

Agreed. As I concur with this assertion, I find myself wondering how many of our species can be said ever to have truly loved anything. One may call fascination, infatuation, lust, or mere desire “love” should one choose to do so, but it’s nothing but an act of whitewashing. Nomina mutabilia sunt, res autem immobiles.

One word frees up from the weight and pain of life; that word is Love.
--Sophocles

If only it were that simple. In my own case, love and its side-effects have been the weight and pain of life. Hate, interestingly enough, also brings about its share of weight and pain, but I find that of the two, it is the weaker far less enduring emotion. Ironic that an ostensibly positive feeling would -- by virtue of its own depth and power --lead to more sorrow than one universally regarded as negative. I suspect I’m not alone in this regard, though. Does any halfway-sane man, after all, regret the loss, absence or destruction of that which he hates?

Hatred stirreth up strifes: but love covereth all sins
--Proverbs 10: 12 (KJV)

For my own sake, I hope the latter half is true. I’ve committed more sins in its name than for any other cause. Another of the hidden pitfalls of love is the fact that it often serves as the ultimate source of rationalization and self-justification; the end by which all means are justified, and -- like war -- an arena in which “all’s fair," as the saying goes.

But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
--Matthew 5:28 (KJV)

Nolo contendere.

On Sorrow

The greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves.
--Sophocles

All too true. I’m living proof of the truth of this one, as I suspect are many of us.

Waste not fresh tears over old griefs.
--Euripides

Said so easily, and yet done with great difficulty.

A Scots-Irish Windbag Reflects Upon His Death

Apologies to William Butler Yeats.

Who knows but that life be that which men call death, and death what men call life?
--Euripides

With a chuckle, I note that the distinction between the two seems more apparent to some than to others.

I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.
--Bhagavad Gita

Well, not just yet, at any rate. Nothing's made me that angry, to date.

And lastly: A “Beanism”

Let the boundaries of your mind be as elastic as the waistband of your Fruit of the Looms.

"Keeping it Real" vs. Keeping it Clean Or: Pottymouth No More?

Ah, the joys of becoming an old fart.

Lately, I've been thinking long and hard about some of the language I employ on this blog. In my less keyed-up, frothing-at-the-mouth moments, it occurs to me that I might very well overdo the profanity and vulgarity at times. Growing up as a “brat” among other “brats”, and the company I kept and environments to which I exposed myself during my late teens and much of my adult life have definitely roughened my speech a bit, but perhaps even these facts don’t excuse the degree to which I occasionally take them.

Shortly after clicking the “publish” icon following the equivalent of lancing a psychological abscess on my other blog, a very odd thought came to me: What if some kid reads this? The thought actually made me a bit uncomfortable. At thirty-nine, I find my own discomfort rather amusing for the following reason.

Yes, It’s story time.

My brother and I, for all that we were somewhat unruly, were both highly intelligent. I was in a silly, pretentious program for “gifted” children, and my brother should have been, but had the misfortune of being diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder“ (known as “hyperactivity” or “hyperkinesia” in those days.) A kid who had both an above-average IQ and an apparent learning disability (probably a result of his dyslexia) fractured a few too many cherished models, so I was sent off to TAG, while he was sent off to LD. For all that, I never regarded him as being whit less intelligent that I was. I spent a great deal more time talking to him (yes, interacted in ways other than beating each other half to death) than did they, so I’d be in more of a position to know.

Pardon my bitterness.

At any rate, being two bright young men -- and often in need of money -- we devoted much of our time to thinking up ways to reap the highest possible returns on the lowest possible investments, in terms of capital and labor. In other words, to make as much money as we could while spending as little money and doing as little actual work as possible.

We dreamed up one such venture shortly after my eighteenth birthday. I was sitting in my dorm room one night, leafing through my roommate’s stash of porno mags, when the phone rang.

Now I’m going to digress. Don’t you just hate it when I do that?

I’ll admit that my roomie and I didn’t always get along very well, and that we didn’t spend much time together, but he really was an OK guy, all things considered. Hell, he put up with me for two quarters, and I am not an easy person with whom to live. But as I’ve said, he was an OK guy. He went from screaming, “I’m sick of your shit! What is wrong with you?” (and he had every right to do so) at me just before Christmas to giving me a bottle of Jack Daniels as a going-away present when I transferred to Georgia State University at the end of the winter quarter. Like I said, nice guy.

We were both majoring in Journalism (for all that I later switched to German and then to English), both had literary aspirations of sorts, and I suppose we both got a head start on the “writer lifestyle” quite some time before either of us scribbled so much as a single word fit for public consumption.

In keeping with said lifestyle, the décor of our room was -- uh -- unique, to say the least. We’d stacked our beds bunk-style against one wall in order to provide more floor space, and in order to amuse ourselves by throwing knives and darts at the corkwood bulletin board on the other. Other guys had “Dawgs” memorabilia strewn about their rooms. We had overflowing ashtrays, heaps of unwashed laundry, and empty take-out boxes, beer cans and whiskey bottles strewn about ours. Other guys had posters of rock stars or sports heroes on their walls. Ours were covered with Far Side clippings, items I’d photocopied from National Lampoon’s Son of Cartoons Even We Wouldn’t Dare Print, and with centerfolds. I don’t mean Playboy centerfolds, either. I’m talking Hustler, Oui, Cheri; the really raunchy beaver mags.

I was perusing a few such periodicals (Just reading the articles! Honest Injun!) when the phone rang. As it was far too late in the evening for the call to have been yet another attempt on the part of Selective Service to contact me, reminding me for the umpteenth time that I was a bit overdue in registering for the draft, I answered.

My brother was on the other end of the line. We exchanged the obligatory insults at which point the “So whatcha doin’?” bit reared its ugly head.

“Nothin’ much, dude. Smokin’ a ‘doob’ and watchin’ the tube. How ‘bout you?”
‘Lookin’ at porn and buffin’ my ’horn,’” I answered.

We both laughed.

“Kinda late to be callin‘, ain’t it? Ain’t you got school in the mornin‘?”
“Nah, I’m on suspension again.”
“How long this time?”
“Just three days.”
“What did they get you for?”

He sang the chorus to Brownsville Station’s “Smokin’ in the Boys Room.”

“Smokin’ what in the boys’ room?” He didn’t catch the double entendre/implied insult.
“Just a cigarette. Believe me, I’d have gotten more than just three days if it had been a doob.”
“So which pisser were you in?”
“The one on the Social Studies hall.”
“Well you oughtta be in ‘Spaz Hall’, dumbass. The one by the cafeteria has windows. Easier to toss the evidence.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Shit, Chris. How many does this one make?”
“Ah, hell. I don’t know. I lost count.”

I believed him. Neither of us had ever been the model of good citizenship, but as I was adept at covering my tracks for the most part, I had comparatively few run-ins with the school authorities. Chris, on the other hand, specialized in getting his ass in one sling after another. Since I’d gone away to college, his behavior -- as stated, never what one would call exemplary -- had begun to deteriorate even more rapidly. I won’t presume to magnify my own importance in his hierarchy of values, but I think he acted out in part because he missed me.

As I didn’t have a car of my own at the time, and my Dad had been on TDY, my mother drove me from Roswell to Athens on my first day of college, and he came along for the ride. He helped me carry my luggage (only what we could fit into the trunk and half the backseat of a ’75 Chevy Nova) up to my room, at which point I gave him a handshake and a hug, accompanied him back to the parking lot of my dorm, and said my goodbyes to my mother. I then returned to my room and cried like a friggin’ baby. Mom later told me that he’d done likewise for most of the drive back to Roswell. He also called me very frequently during that period, so to reiterate, I think missing me had something to do with his subsequent misbehavior.

“You know, if you don’t get your shit together, they’re gonna expel your ass.”
“Yeah, right. Dude, I should be so lucky.”
“Reckon you ain’t exactly havin’ a good year, huh?”
“Not hardly. That place is like a fuckin’ prison.”
“They’ve been ridin’ your ass pretty hard, what?”
“Yeah and it’s just they -- I mean -- Fuck my old boots! I don’t know what their trip is. I think they just got a hard-on for me or something. Fuck me if I know why. So anyway, how‘s things between you and the bitch?”
“Come on, dude. Don’t call her that.”
“Ok. So how’s things with you and a certain female specimen of Canis familiaris? Still talking to her?”
“Uh, yeah. After a fashion.”

Drunken, harassing telephone calls did constitute a form of speech, after all…The fact that he’d even asked that question was interesting in and of itself. Chris was always civil -- and sometimes even nice -- to my girlfriend, but I think in some ways he was jealous of her, and resented the amount of attention I paid her. I steered the conversation away from that particular (sore) subject, and asked him what else was shakin’.

“Same old shit, pretty much. Gettin’ any decent weed up there?”
“I wish. Shit’s been really hard to come by lately.”
“Yep, there’s a bit of a ‘dope famine’ down here, too. Still, let me know if you need any. I can set you up with some.”
“Much obliged.”

He wasn’t kidding about "setting me up with some," either. Not long afterwards, while planning for a party, two friends and I had driven back to Roswell at zero-dark-thirty, and hung out with him for a few hours. Although it was certainly on short notice, he’d plied us with a quarter ounce of prima, knock-your-dick-in-the-dirt "red-haired Sinse," gratis. I knew he’d been supplementing his income by dealing small amounts of weed for quite some time, and I’d done so myself a time or two in the past.

The problem with that particular line of work is that it’s difficult to make a profit when one is always keeping his on-hand supply confined to less than an ounce, so as not to be charged with PWI if caught. Moving larger amounts carries the risk of felony charges, and necessitated keeping caches and stashes, any of which could be discovered or compromised at any time. Then there’s the fact that the drug trade is a dangerous one.

Anarcho-Libertarian mythology aside, dope dealers aren’t exactly latter-day Robin Hoods. Most of ‘em are heavy-duty shitbags, and shitbags are seldom shitbags on just one level. The Hollywood-promoted idea that there is some manner of “code of honor” by which these people abide is utterly ludicrous. In reality, they’ll drop dimes on each other (and especially on their competitors) whenever the mood suits them, turn State’s Evidence at the drop of a hat, and -- when offered a juicy plea bargain-- finger anyone up to and including their own clients. As Chris and I could barely maintain our sanity within the confines of “the Sacred Groves of Academe,” the idea of doing hard time was anathema to both of us. Therefore, neither of us opted for a career in the narcotics trade.

And neither of us opted to continue speaking of “better living through chemistry” that night, either. The conversation moved on to other matters.

“So you’re checkin’ out skin mags, huh? Which ones? Playboys?”
“Nah, the good stuff. Hustler, Oui, all that lot.”

A (and please do pardon the expression) “pregnant pause” ensued.

“Are you thinking…”
“What I’m…”

And thus did the ever-enterprising firm of Bean and Bean (GmBH) expand into new territory. With mounting excitement and enthusiasm, we plotted our course over the telephone. As I was eighteen years of age, I could legally purchase "spankhouse" mags ‘til the cows came home. For his part, he’d take them to school and sell them to any and all bespectacled, pimple-faced social retards willing to pay the going rate -- usually twice the cover price of any given mag.

(This, by the way, is only considered a 50% markup, although such a sale renders 100% profit. “Markup” refers specifically to the percentage of the sale price that constitutes profit. If our cost was three bucks for a copy of Udder-ly Amazing, and we unloaded it for six, only three dollars of the “retail” price was profit, ergo our markup was 50%. Ain't "retailthink" neat?)

As I didn’t have a car, our operating costs were negligible. That statement may sound ridiculous at first, but getting back and forth between Athens and Roswell necessitated bumming rides from friends or family members. Doing so didn’t cost me a dime. I needed do no more than stash the smut into a suitcase or into my backpack, and then sit back and enjoy the ride. If I opted to do my purchasing in metro Atlanta, I’d borrow the folks‘ car, and that was that.

We didn’t make a fortune from our little experiment in entrepreneurialism, but we made a good bit of “beer money,” so I suppose it was successful enough, in its own right.

“What has any of this to do with ‘cleaning up’ your mode of expression, Bean?” howls the gentle reader. “You’ve gone and dragged us through yet another of your discursive anecdotes, so what’s your point? Why have you subjected us to this? We find ourselves echoing the sentiments of Sir Patrick Spens: ‘O wha‘ is this has done this deed/This ill deed done tae me…?’ The evidence points to you, Bean! You son of a…”

Fair enough, fair enough. Don’t “weet [yer] cork-heeled shoon” or yer Fruit of the Looms. I’ll explain.

I’m not especially proud of that venture. For all that my brother and I (being sixteen and eighteen years of age, respectively) were only kids ourselves, the fact remains that we were plying kids with pornography. I’ve been an unapologetic advocate of laissez-faire for my entire adult life, but there comes a point at which principle must override profit; a point at which morality must eclipse the demands of the market. I've been muddling through this for the better part of a day now, trying to find some middle ground, some line of demarcation, as it were. I've been doing a good bit of that lately, as a matter of fact.

What my brother and I did was wrong. We didn’t profit from our clients’ virtues, but rather from their vices, their weaknesses. In so doing, we actually encouraged those vices and weaknesses. Bluntly put, all we succeeded in doing (aside from raking in a few bucks) was encouraging weak, vulnerable, sex-starved teenyboppers to become even weaker and more vulnerable.

As for the “sex starved” part? I don’t know, so I’ll neither condemn nor exonerate us. Our customers were fairly intelligent for the most part, so they’re probably pulling down “buckage” sufficient to ply themselves with hookers or purchased wives (“Some of the biggest whores I know wear wedding rings,” as my “Big Sister” once said), nowadays. That possibility doesn’t rinse the bad taste from my mouth, though.

I’m not saying that using profanity on my blog is the equivalent of purveying smut to minors, but in my more responsible moments, I wonder if it might not exert a negative influence on some kid who reads it, and that thought bugs me.

Yeah, da Bean is gettin’ old.

Of Poultry and Prophecy

Ever have a truly creepy thought that simply pops into your head unbidden -- almost certainly as a result of subconscious association -- gentle reader?

For better or for worse, I'm often subject to this very phenomenon.

One such incident I recall with particular clarity occurred while I was "chillin'" in bar on Santa Rosa Island, Florida, on my thirty-fourth birthday. It was exactly eleven days after 9/11/01, and my Bro, J.R., and I were scarfing down chicken wings, tossing French fries to the seagulls -- despite the sign informing us that doing so was verboten -- knocking back a few cold ones and watching TV while waiting for check-in time at our motel to roll around. As could be expected, the events of September 11 dominated the airwaves that week, and it was all but impossible to escape the image of the World Trade Center burning and eventually collapsing.

As I've said before, I'm something of an associative thinker, and as I watched -- yet again -- the twin columns of smoke rising into the sky, I remembered that perhaps twenty-odd miles away from "the Big Apple," on Long Island, was a town called Babylon. Perhaps as a result of having spent so many Sundays listening to "fire and brimstone" sermons in one Southern Baptist church or another, I was eerily reminded of few verses from the eighteenth chapter of the Book of Revelation.

And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird...And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication with her and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her and lament for her when they see the smoke of her burning...And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more...

I shuddered, brusquely elbowed the thought aside, and went back to my Buffalo wings and brew -- and to ogling the too-gorgeous-to-be-real blonde who was waiting tables a few yards away.

Ever have a truly creepy thought that simply pops into your head unbidden -- almost certainly as a result of subconscious association -- gentle reader?