Up on the Right Side of the Morning

This morning I went to the gym at 6 am but by 7 am I was showered, wearing my best worn pair of berks and sitting down at Threadgill's South with a breakfast taco and coffee waiting for Ruby Jane to take the stage.  After Ruby's two song set, two songs from T-Bird and the Breaks, the two songs from Del Castillo.  What a great sample of Austin music.  A 15 yr old fiddler, a bunch of white guys doin' rock-blues fronted by four spectacular women singers, and a family of latin rockers.  My guilt got the best of me at about 9 am and I headed out to work.  Actually I headed over to FedEx to send CDBaby a set of my new CD Larger Than Life, which I began selling to friends about two days ago.  Seeing these guys in the morning got me moving on all the things I needed to do to push it out.

Del Castillo
http://www.delcastillomusic.com/music.htm

TBird and the Breaks

http://tbirdandthebreaks.com/

There is never enough time for music. I always have more things planned than I can do every day.  That is a hold over from my dad. ("Daddy always said 'Plan more than you can do!'" I never really understood that.)  I can easily find a reason to go to work, but it is never easy to find a reason NOT to go to work.    This morning I did.  We all need an excuse not to go to work.  It is just the way things are.  So you should just plan that 2-3 times a year you will just wake up and find an excuse NOT to go to work.  Work will go much better after that.

Tomorrow morning, I might go down to Threadgill's and listen to three other bands, eat a taco and IMMEIDATELY just NOT go to work.   God, I love Austin, Texas.

Have a great weekend!

You Gotta Get Out More

When people vacation they usually head to some airport somewhere or drive toward a specific destination in search of some specific feature of the landscape, urbanscape, seascape, etc.  There is usually a plan - head toward Aunt Edith's house, stop along the way at the largest ball of twine in the world, take pictures as we cross into each new state.  Next time you head off on vacation, try abandoning all sense of direction.  Head out and get lost in some set of mountains.  Drive off the freeway into some beautifully desolate landscape.  Listen to....well, listen to the silence.  Turn the kids out to run and relieve themselves in the world and listen to the nothingness.

I renewed my relationship with the solitude of the landscape last week.  I drove into the Book Cliffs and watched the falcons fly off the red slabs of the Castlegate Sandstone.  I marveled at the quite studio presented to the ancients who painted images of "ghost men" on the rock walls.  I drove into the gray, yellow and white landscape of the Mancos Shale and marveled at the "quiet desolation" to coin a phrase.  I headed up to the top of the San Juan Mountains and listened to the wind blow through the aspen leaves as they shed themselves in a golden carpet on the ground.

Aspen on a gravel road.

Next time you plan where you want to go...don't.  Try losing yourself in the alleys of nature.  Take some pictures, sit beside a stream, let the wind blow through the trees and be reminded of all the things you can find when you don't go looking for anything in particular.  As Thoreau said "Simplify, simplify."

Just tell her to sit down and take a number.....

The concept people and governments have that they can somehow control nature always gives me pause.  I think it is the whole thing about how man is destroying earth.  Let me say this about that.  The concept that man can destroy earth means that man is somehow more powerful than the earth itself.  The audacity of that opinion is caused  by not just a little self inflation by man likely driven by a false sense of importance bouyed most likely by our religion.  Man's dominion over the earth and all its creatures and all that bunk.   The reality is the earth is an amazingly resilient and powerful force.  You will be born, live and die in what, to the earth is the blink of an eye, and the earth and its creatures will still be here.  Man will go extinct.  It is the way of nature.  Species go extinct and they go extinct for so many reasons.  The Earth will always be here.   If you pollute the earth, your water, your air you are poking yourself in the eye.  The Earth could care less.  In the blink of an eye, man will be gone and the Earth will sweep up and go on.  So all this crying for Mother Earth is a bit overdone in my opinion.  Cry for yourselves.  Now that is time much better spent.

I sit tonight about 40 km east of the eye of hurricane Hermine.  Awesome.  Gusting winds.  Sheets of rain.  Thunder.  The power of nature is amazing.  Sounds to me like the Earth can take care of itself tonight.

Who loves ya baby?

Did you know that only three animals in the world actually care what other animals are thinking? Man, apes and pigs.  Apes probably really care what you are thinking because it is important to them that you feel heard, but man and pigs only care what you are thinking so they can figure out how it might benefit them to know it.   I think that is interesting.  So when a man is being killed by another man, the victim might say "Why are you doing this?" When pigs are being held in slop houses and then to slaughter they are actually wondering something similar.   "Why is that person doing what they are doing?  How can I get them to change what they are doing?"  I think I am going to have to stop eating pork, ape and human flesh.  Damn.

Bartley, is a smart little porker.  He tests out your response to his actions and proceeds gradually, assessing along the way your response before he proceeds with each step.  If you look like you might not be taking things so well, then he stops what he is doing and might back off and walk away.  Take the trash can for instance.  It is a thing to be lusted after.  Food, trash, for a pig a euphoria of smells.  He will first nibble the plastic bag, stop, check, assess, then proceed.  He will next nudge it with his nose, stop, check, assess, then proceed.  Finally, it gets the old "overturning" which is usually followed by banging, running and squeeling, mostly by Sue and myself, but it gets the job done.

I think I will have to stop eating pork.  Go for the chickens or the religious right.  Neither could not care less what you are thinking.

An Inconvenient Truth Regarding Marriage

Di d you know that up until the early 1980's married women in Louisiana were still considered property of their husbands.  Similar to a good acre of land, probably some women were good property, high dollar, lots of great extras and had a good re-sale value and some were probably the opposite, but they were all property of their husband.  I can think of no better reason NOT to get married.  That law is no more.  

Hundreds of years ago marriage was simply a design of the wealthy class, the political class to create contracts between families/countries to hopefully reduce conflict between families/countries in matters of property, boundaries, trade, etc.  Apparently the guys would get together talk, smoke and drink, pull each others fingers and come to some rousing agreement, then trade wives on it.   Not unlike what is done today.  

The church assimulated marriage as another way to provide God yet one more thing that he has to ok before the world will recognize it.  I am sure God would be happy to delegate this authority as he seems to have plenty to do.   So there we have it, marriage is a religious ceremony between two people and the church has decided that they will make their marriages more meaningful by getting God to ok it.

There is a tremendous amount of time, money and energy today being spent "in defense of marriage".  I am not sure people even know what they are defending.  Still yet I am not sure why anyone other than someone who cares what the church thinks would want to GET married.  Well the reason is the "state" has provided special privaleges to people who get married.  We have, in effect created a society of Sneetches with stars on their bellys and Sneetches with no stars on their bellys.  In addition, we have apparently created a means to remove stars very easily if necessary.  Apparently Dr. Suess hit the nail right on the head.  

 Divorce rates are soaring and states have created small businesses around easy divorce.  Domestic violence is incredibly high.    Infidelity is rampant.  It would seem to me that all those concerned with "defending marriage" and "focusing on the family"  might want to go after these other items as well as gays desiring marriage.

Society changes their ideas of right and wrong over time.  Interracial marriages, polygamy and underaged marriages have all seen their acceptance change over time and it is likely that the concept of marriage will also evolve (Oops, I should not have brought evolution into this.  That is another topic, for another time.).  The concept that laws defending marriage as between a man and a women are somehow protecting children, preserving the reproductive needs of the earth are tragic.   If every household that wants to protect children would take in just ONE foster child then we would have something.   If we could just STOP reproducing then we would not have the gross strain on our earth resources that will eventually send us to hell.

Five states have approved gay marriage.  Countries all over the world have approved gay marriage.  Gay marriage is eventually going to happen.  The real problem of the intersection and paralleling of church and state that created the desire among the unwashed, same sexes to get married in the first place will probably go unaddressed.  No worries.

The Perils of Travel to and from Suriname

Ok,  so I don't expect too much from some places in the world.  If the people are friendly it can make up for not having a lot of amenities (however, nothing can make up for not having toilet paper in the toilets, but that is another issue).  All that I would really like is that it not take me longer to get to and from someplace than I actually am staying in the place.   Asking that, is apparently asking too much of Suriname.

To get to Suriname you have to change planes unless you live in Port of Spain, Trinidad or maybe Miami as best as I can tell, but who wants to live in Miami.  There are no airlines flying out of Suriname on Wednesdays or Fridays as best as I can tell.  The only way to get home through POS is to make a ridiculously tight connection in POS, including going through Trinidadian customs for what? I can not say.  It is seldom made and as is my situation today, you find yourself staying at the only hotel within like 20 miles of Piarco Airport overnight for $200 to connect in the morning.   Otherwise you pay something like $220 a night, plus $70 in taxi cab fees to drive 45 minutes into POS.  When this works it is great - (although nothing you can do about needing to wake up at 2 a.m. to make it to the Paramaribo Suriname airport for the 6 a.m. desperation flight out of Suriname) you get into Ausitn at 3 p.m., but as we see it can go to hell in a handbasket.  You could connect in POS to American Airlines into Miami I guess on the 1 p.m. getting you into Austin at like 10 p.m. or fly up to LaGuardia  then back to Austin, those connections might be a bit less tight, but the flights are gonna coast you more and you arrive in Austin 8 hours later.  So you take a chance, roll the dice and see what comes up.  Today it was craps.     So in summary, basically the whole "getting to the backwater of Suriname" think sucks.  If I can now get home tomorrow (Sunday) then that will give me a whole one evening with my partner.

She is very patient.

A storm coming toward Piarco from the Northern Ranges of Trinidad. 

Temptation - the Devil's Handmaiden

It is raining in Suriname.  This place is a complete white elephant sale.  There are --- chinese, indonesians, indians, caribs, africans and dutch, and few others thrown in.  The chinese apparently own all the businesses, except for a few really large businesses?  You see everyone involved with everyone.  No problem.  At least not on the surface.

Thanks to the Federal Judge who struck down Prop 8 in California.  He said moral disapproval was not grounds to discriminate against someone.  Good for him.  This country needs to get a grip.  It will never be civil until people stop using religion as a license to tell other people what to do.  There  is too much temptation to run other people's lives.  Don't they realize that the Devil is at the root of temptation?

Suriname River, lookin' out my back door.