I spend my driving life listening for strange sounds….sniffing the air for strange smells…looking for any of the signs that forecast breakdown and big trouble.
My brakes sound funny.
I stop at least 525 times during the day….come to a full stop and put something in people’s mailboxes…and then drive on to the next mailbox and repeat the process.
Over and over….and over.
So….my brakes get a workout.
Lately, they sound like they’re grabbing in a weird way when they get hot.
Grab….and drag.
The dragging part must really do a number on my fuel consumption.
It can’t be efficient to have something that’s trying to hold you back when you’re raring to go.
“LET GO!!!” I feel like yelling at my brakes “I HEAR YOU TRYING TO DRAG ME DOWN!!! LET GO!!!”
The thing about my brakes is that they aren’t so bad that they really hinder me all that much….I can hear them rubbing against the drums and it bugs me some….that’s all.
Every day I drive this old Jeep Cherokee on the mail route….and everyday, I hear something that sounds…different…than what I’d expect.
But….I’m used to it. I’m used to the quirks and weird slight shudders….to the smells and sights that an old car…pushed too hard to do a job that no vehicle should be made to do….makes.
Maybe “getting used to it” is the problem.
They always stop me….they always slow me down on the big hills.
I thank them for doing that.
It’s important that they do that.
I need to stop.
Maybe you don’t notice the rock in your shoe if you walk on it for a year?
Maybe getting used to anything to the point where you accept it without trying to fix it is a bad thing.
End of the world….and I’ve arrived at the conclusion that among the many responses to the apocalypse (if we even had time to respond to anything…like we’d have a moment to think about what to do) are two that are swirling in my head this morning….
I could hunker down in my “hidey-hole” with my storage food and my water purification supplies, get ready to shoot it out with whoever (or whatever) comes scratching at my door after the thing that destroyed or mutated most of the rest of the population has passed and left the prepared alone with their supplies….I could boil some water and reconstitute another freeze-dried meal….frantically search the shortwave dial for news from Australia with the latest information about the zombie invasion…imagine a world without pain or loneliness. I could do that…
Or…I could do what this song suggests……”love….like the end of the world”.
“End of the World” Mingo Fishtrap
I think that the second option is the one that sounds quite a bit more appealing.
Now, I’m no stranger to the survivalist mentality.
I’ve actually heard a man say, on the shortwave radio, “Death to the New World Order!”.
You haven’t really lived until you hear a man say, over live radio, “Death to the New World Order!”
That’s pretty darn weird.
When it’s survival that people are talking about, they tend to take it pretty seriously.
It’s “us vs. them”….all the time.
24 hours a day, people are able to perceive “the threat”….whether it’s the Ebola that’s creeping or the zombie invasion that could happen (!!!)….and prepare accordingly….with cases of duct tape and a strong supply of Tamiflu.
I guess that in the end, you don’t really prepare for anything.
The real emergencies are going to be “emergencies”….no matter how much preparation you’ve made.
All you’re doing is making the present something less than what it could be.
You can’t forecast the apocalypse every day of your life…and expect “every day of your life” to be anything more than some weird pre-apocalyptic disappointment.
What kind of victory is it to arrive at the “end”….and feel a sorry sense of accomplishment that, after years of preparation for just this moment in the end of time, you’re a little better off for a while than the ones who fiddled their lives away?
Maybe the apocalypse is just a really strong reason to “accessorize”?
We need the “stuff” to survive the “thing”.
We need to feel the pride that comes with hyper-vigilance…that comes with investing ourselves in the potential for the bad to come…and figuring out a way to survive anything that comes along.
I guess that I would feel pretty accomplished if I was the one with the bullets when the zombies charged the hill.
Maybe that would make it all worthwhile?
I loved this song.
I loved the line “run like you did when we were just kids….singing just as loud as you can…”
There are responses to emergency that seem more appropriate to me than hunkering down and shooting anybody who wants to take what’s mine.
I’m figuring out that “love” might be the more fitting response than a thousand pound pile of bullets.
It’s a lot more funky than shooting all the zombies that might come around.
You know, when I “wiki’d” him, I found out that he’s one of the world’s bestselling artists of all time….that he sold in excess of 100 million albums…that he had 20 gold and 10 platinum singles.
WOW.
I did not know that.
And he sang songs like this….
“Can’t Get Enough of Your Love” Barry White
I think that Barry White was a very lonely man.
If only he’d been able to find love.
Nah…..I’M KIDDING!!!
CHICKS DIG BARRY WHITE!!!
What was that like for him….doing something simple like going to the grocery store….asking the checkout lady, “Oh, darling….could you please put my eggs on top? Yeah, baby….that’s the way….don’t you ever stop….”
What was that like for Barry White?
Of course, I never heard his speaking voice.
He might have had a real high-pitched speaking voice….really nasal and whiny.
I don’t know.
That thought completely humanizes him and negates his potency.
That guy was superhuman with that deep, seductive singing voice….and then I have to go and sully his image with the conjecture that maybe he wasn’t as seductive all the time as we’d like to think.
Maybe when he went to the grocery store, he’d squeal out in a horribly whiny sing-song voice, “MY EGGS!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!! DON’T YOU KNOW THAT THE EGGS NEVER GO ON THE BOTTOM?!! MY EGGS!! MY EGGS!!! MY EGGS!!!!”
Man…that thought is sure a mood buster.
I shouldn’t do that to Barry White.
It’s that Spiderman thing all over….”with great power comes great responsibility” ….you know the one….you know that line from the movie.
I imagine that Barry White only used his power for good.
He was good to the ladies….and the ladies were good to Barry White.
Check out this song….
“I’m Gonna Love You Just a Little More Babe” Barry White
oh.
Oh, Barry White! I am so sorry that I listened to that!
It sounded kind of…private.
That’s the thing about Barry White….he took us right into his world of seduction….and for about 4 or five minutes, let us stay there….until the next time we heard him on the radio.
He’s like a comet that only comes around every so often, though.
I couldn’t pull off that Barry White routine.
Jenny would laugh at me if I came at her with a deep “Ohhhhhhhh, baby….”.
I couldn’t pull it off.
I guess that’s what makes Barry White….”Barry White”.
I wonder how old he was when he figured out what he was going to do?
Did he go to his Momma and say, in his preternaturally deep child’s voice, “Momma….ohhhh, baby….you know, every time I think of this, it makes me think I’m gonna be, someone who loves and loves and loves, what else can I be?”
“Momma? Momma!! Did you hear me? Did you hear what I just moaned?”
It’s a different kind of career choice….to be one of the great seducers.
So….I’ll ask again because I’ll never know the answer:
Unless they figure out a way to do some strange gender DNA thing, and they strap me to a cold steel table somewhere and then a doctor comes in after finishing the experiment and looks at me….then looks at his chart….then looks at me again….then looks at the chart….then puts the chart down….then looks at me….and says….
“Dude….you a lady.”
Unless that happens….and until that weird day….I’m just a dude.
And dudes don’t have a really empowering song that is just for dudes.
Not like this one, at least….
“I am Woman” Helen Reddy
Maybe we have enough sense to know that the ladies would be upset if we went around singing anything that said, “I’m a Dude….I’ve got the power! I HAVE THE POWER!! THE POWER OF ….”
People don’t like swagger, sometimes.
We have all those Bad Company songs that swagger….the “I’M COMIN’ TA GITYA” kind of songs….big power chords and the warning of conquest.
We have those kind of “dude songs”….but we don’t have anything that says anything like, “I’ll cut down a tree all by myself and out earn any ten people in the room….I’M A DUDE, I’M A DUDE, I’M A DUDE!!”
We don’t have any songs like that.
We don’t have a song that I remember that says, “hear me roar.”
All the dude songs are more subdued than that.
Except for the Bad Company songs….and some Jimi Hendrix….some Zeppellin ….Uriah Heep….Kanye…Common….L’il Wayne….Weezy…Weezer…all the rest of them.
Except for those guys.
We don’t have a song like this….
“Roar” Katy Perry
I can’t picture a bunch of dudes on a framing crew singing that to each other….or a bunch of lumberjacks…or even The Village People.
Dudes wouldn’t sing that song to each other.
So….I think that we just don’t have any really empowering gender based songs for dudes.
We brag and we swagger…but deep down, there’s probably something missing.
Deep down….we’re missing that declaration of independence and power.
Nah…dudes don’t even need that….we don’t need no stinkin’ anthem!!
We got it going on….the DUDES!!
It’s funny, though….I’ll sing that “I Am Woman” song in the shower sometimes.
It just makes me feel good.
(I’m kidding. I AM KIDDING….)
I guess that we just need to take empowerment where we can find it.
We’re supported by the mainstream media.
We’re empowered everyday…whether we have a song that says that we are… or not.
Maybe this is our anthem and we never even knew it.
Maybe this is the song….forget “Roar”.
“All Right Now” Free
There’s an anthem out there somewhere for the dudes.
Maybe there’s too many?
Sometimes I can’t even see the forest for all the anthems floating around out there….
We had a plumbing supply store….actually, it was an old style hardware store… that I used to go into when I was really in a jam.
Usually, I’d go to the big store that had rows and rows of everything…piled high to the ceiling…when I bought my home improvement products.
It was cheaper.
Of course, finding anyone to help me with my problems (the ones that were home improvement related) was always a trick in the big store….and it took twice as long because usually I was trying to figure out what I was doing while I was in there.
Every once in a while, I’d have something that I really couldn’t figure out and I’d go to the old store and they’d look at the broken part in my hand and say, “Oh, yeah…I haven’t seen one of those for years. You need a …..(whatever….fill in the blank)”.
I guess now would be a good time for some Keb’ Mo’….
“More For Your Money” Keb’ Mo’
I wonder if I wouldn’t have been better off dealing with the “little guys” more often?
What the heck? They knew what they were talking about.
Why not just buy it someplace where it’s probably going to be right and not worry about the price?
BECAUSE I’M A CHEAP SON OF A….GUN.
Old habits are hard to break.
I’ll go into the big store again….soon.
We have a big project going on.
I’ll be buying some stuff to improve.
I have such a broad range of people on my mail route.
Some of them never improve anything.
Some of them are always working at making things around them nicer.
Some of them say, “I’ll have my man get on that. My man will have to fix that….”
I don’t know who these men are or how to get them….but it makes the job easier when you can just call your man to do the job.
There’s not much to think about when you can just pay someone else to do the job.
Maybe the “men” just come with the big fancy house and the nice cars?
I don’t know.
I will still buy the cheapest almost every time.
I guess I should amend that a little. I will buy the best I can afford at the lowest price that I can find.
There’s a difference between the two, I guess.
I wonder if I’d be better off in the long run buying the best I can afford from the people or businesses that I like the most?
It’s a changing world….bar code tattoos just around the corner, I’m sure.
They don’t want you to save seeds.
Everybody wants to control something or somebody else.
And, to top it all off….I still need to decide where to buy my widget when the thing at the end of the thing snaps off in my rust covered hands.
The guys at the little store will probably know what to do.
I guess that if you’re out in the world, you’re going to bump up against a lot of things….and I’m always listening to music, so the chances of keying off something in a song are pretty good.
Sometimes I’ll incorporate some shallow philosophical treacle….(that’s a weird word…”treacle”)….that I pulled from a song…twisted to my needs….in this blog, even.
Poor song…most deserve better than that.
Here’s a song that I guess I could pull some weird little life lesson out of….maybe something about turning the other cheek…or making a relationship work through communication and positive effort…or really investing some quality time and reaping the benefits.
Or…I could just listen to it…smile…and rock out for a while….
Anyway…here’s the song.
“walk away” James Gang
Sometimes a song deserves to be taken at face value.
Enough of the philosophical musings….no matter how shallow.
“Hey!! You!! Leave that song alone!!”
(You know that things aren’t going to end well when the conversation begins with “Hey!! YOU!!!”)
We went out to the property that we just purchased this week and continued the clean up process.
Cleaning up is sometimes the same as “uncovering”.
It’s interesting to see all the new things to notice.
We need to get the road in to the old house scraped and graveled.
It’s big mud at the beginning right now after the rains we’ve had lately.
It’s all flat access, though, so it shouldn’t be a big deal to fix.
Here’s a video I hadn’t seen for a while….something about a road.
Look at these young guys go….
Here’s a thought….I don’t believe that the Beatles….collectively “The Beatles”…those 4 guys….had turned 30 when they officially broke up in… what? 1970?
“Here…I stand on the edge of the ledges I’ve made….looking for a steady hand.”
Ahhhh, that is really nice.
Sometimes I try and dig too deep….and dig in the wrong place.
I wonder and worry about things that don’t do me any good.
I worry about my own situation….and I worry about things that happen to other people….I might even worry about things that happen to other people who I don’t even know.
I should be listening to some Bob Marley….listening to some Bobby McFerrin.
Worry never got me very far.
So…why worry?
Is worry the same as compassion? I kind of doubt it.
“Compassion” sounds action packed.
“Worry” sounds kind of impotent.
Enough talk about worrying.
I worry about saying the wrong thing.
Maybe all this talk about worry was the wrong thing to say?
I worry about the embarrassment of not really knowing what poison ivy looks like after all these years of being out in the woods, and then having someone ask me, “Didn’t you see it? It was all over the place?” as I furiously try not to itch my inflamed arms and face.
That’s embarrassing. I’m old enough to know better by now.
I only have 500 words that I’ve allotted myself for this blog every morning.
I can’t start cataloging my worries.
I’d use up all my words with worry.
That whole “worry” and “compassion” thing….that’s something to think about for a minute.
I worry like it’s a sign that I care.
I worry about what’s happening to the environment…but I don’t do much about it.
What can I do, anyway?
I can’t join a picket line or chain myself to a redwood.
I recycle….I guess that’s something.
It’s the stuff that I worry about that’s already happened that is really crazy.
Move on, doofus.
“Ledges” is a good way to describe the situation.
I will crawl right out to the terrifying edge just so I can know what it feels like to peer over into the abyss.
Nahhhh….I’ll probably just eat some more red licorice (I’m not supposed to eat that anymore…it gives you cancer. Dangit….I love red licorice. I don’t want cancer.)
Worry without any action to back it up is just such a crummy avocation.
It’s a terrible hobby.
It would be so healthy to just be able to take things at face value….and let it be whatever it is.
There’s no boogie man….there’s no hammer waiting to drop….nothing in the universe really wants to destroy me….
I should lighten up.
You know….I’m not like a really humorless Woody Allen.
I don’t spend every minute worrying.
I can be a blithe spirit.
I can move through the world with a pretty optimistic outlook.
Most of this is just talk….racing to my 500 word goal.
That is a great song by a good songwriter.
Check him out….”Noah Gundersen”.
I’m not worried about his talent….good writing.
It’s the “other stuff” that gets me worried sometimes.
