Jack Burns Lives!

Ah, a new year. A clean slate, you say. Time to renew and forge ahead.

To hell with that. I woke up with a frown on my face, feeling quite curmudgeonly and perfectly satisfied with that sentiment. After all, let’s take stock of what’s happening in the world.

Gas prices are dropping. Economists and bankers are talking about opening up credit again. The damned guvment is expanding the war and using “The Christmas Terror Plot” as an excuse to extend the life of a national embarrassment known as Guantanamo Bay.

Affordable healthcare for all is dead. Ed Abbey is still dead.

We have no political leadership and The Democratic party is apparently devoid of anyone with guts, save Dennis Kucinich a paltry dozen or so others.

The majority of the populace is hopelessly propagandized and ignorant.

People are trying to replace books with electronic gizmos.

And if you thought Tiny Tim and Twisted Sister were bad, we now have Lady Gaga.

We can’t even make decent movies these days. I go to the movie theater maybe once a year, because everything is so completely awful. Most indie films are so abstract and depressing they make me want to slice my wrist with a plastic butter knife.

So, I retreat to what’s real. What gives me hope and joy. The woods, mountains, watching birds. Reading Abbey, Jeffers, Snyder, Welch or Thoreau. Watching old movies and enjoying a glass of wine by the fire. I don’t even care to go to parties any longer. I’ve become a social recluse. The Grinch.

Anarchy? Don’t dare mention such ridiculous ideas, especially on a list devoted to Edward Abbey. No one cares. No one talks about it, as it seems most folks have accepted their fate and just don’t care. And I’m frankly dumbfounded by the number of so-called “progressives,” some really intelligent people, that continue to look to War$hington for answers. Simply amazing!

It’s like looking to guns to solve the murder problem.

I think a lot about cowboys these days. Yeah, a lot of it is mythical, but there’s much that’s real. Yeah, the cattle industry is horrible, a direct contributor to the ecocide we now find ourselves in, but it’s not the cow that intrigues me. It’s just the idea of a man and his horse. A Jack Burns type. Hat and boots, riding freely in a world with no fences. No drivers license, no draft card, just a man. A man trying to live freely in an insane world.

I think a lot about a world that doesn’t exist.