JACK BURNS LIVES!

Thanks James…

I think I’ve posted part of this video before, but it should probably be posted once a week. Enjoy…

Abbey On NBC

Chapter One

Chapter Two

The Mountain

Allison walked outside and found G.L. on the porch.

“Have you read the paper yet, G.L.?”

“No. Just been out here enjoying the morning.”

“Looks like they’re going ahead with the plans for that new plant.”

G.L. glanced upward, noticing contrails of water vapor and carbon dioxide where the jet recently passed. He said nothing, just put his head down and turned and walked through the screen door back into the house. Allison was following him inside when he suddenly turned to face her.

“You know. Something’s got to be done to stop this. It’s already bad enough. This thing is going to absolutely kill the park and make the air around here so bad we won’t be able to breathe. Clean coal my ass.”

“Well, this is it,” Allison responded. “We aren’t moving again.”

“No, we ain’t. We’re staying here. But I’m not sitting back and just watching these assholes ruin the place.”

Five years earlier, G.L. tried to leave it all behind.  There was a brief stint in Southwest Texas, but he soon found life in Texas wasn’t what he expected. It was too dry and too hot and what water was to be had was hard as iron.

His wife missed the lushness of Tennessee, and they were going broke in Texas.

Thirty years prior, he lived a life of unfulfilling corporate drudgery. It paid the bills but offered little else.  It was completely devoid of any intellectual stimulation. Other than caring for his kids, extended family and friends, he saw himself as a “taker,” living a life millions of others could probably only dream of living.

He felt that his success was made possible, at least to some degree, by the suffering of others. In his view, designing networks and telecommunications systems wasn’t benign.

He justified the last ten years with the creation of his own firm. It was a small company that paid its workers well, promoted work place democracy and community, but it still wasn’t enough. It was still a life that required most of your days to be spent in Orwellian office buildings discussing inane subjects with cold, calculating self-absorbed executives.

His networks helped the machine function and expand, but he was sick of the machine. In fact, he hated the machine.

He tried serving on the boards of various non-profits, but quickly came to the conclusion most of his fellow board members weren’t there to solve poverty, racism or advance the arts. They served on boards to inflate their resumes and to network with other executives. It was mostly bullshit. Just a way to inflate your persona and to get your name out there. Such endeavors drove revenue and driving revenue was corporate America’s raison d’être.

He longed to be a cowboy, but cowboyin’ didn’t pay well in 1870, and it still wasn’t payin’ well.  And besides, he didn’t know shit about cowboyin’, and everything was mechanized these days. Electric branding irons. ATV’s used on round ups. The open range was long gone and wasn’t around long to begin with anyway. It was a flash in the pan destroyed ultimately destroyed by greed and more specifically, the railroad.  So, he settled for being a dime store version and decided cowboyin’ was more about how you lived and treated folks, not what you did for a livin’.

Toward the end, it became unbearable. He made excuses to break appointments. He canceled appointments for fake illnesses and would hide in coffee shops for hours at a time, watching people, writing and dreaming of what life could be.  He was dying and had to get out.

He exercised his options in the company and took off for Texas hoping to make it doing odd jobs and writing for living. Had he been willing to put money in the stock market, he and Allison probably could have lived off investments, but he wasn’t very deft with money, and he distrusted the stock market. He loathed all of it, stocks, banks, credit bureaus, mortgage companies and lawyers, and viewed Wall Street as one of the single greatest threats to all life on the planet.

Truth be told, he’d prefer to just take off on a horse and head to the hills, but he had responsibilities and people that loved him and needed him.

He decided they’d live on what they had and make more.  Money was a renewable resource.

Only two years into the Texas experiment, they punted. Sold the place and headed back to Tennessee. They’d been happiest in East Tennessee, and they missed the mountains.

But once they got back, they noticed quite a bit had changed.

The precipitous decline in air quality, one that had already begun when they lived there previously, was now much worse. There were good days here and there, but during the summer months, you might not be able to see ten miles from the ridgeline in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  Fifty years ago, you could see over one hundred miles.

The National Park Service constantly issued health warnings for elderly people or people with upper respiratory conditions to not visit the higher elevations.

The pollution was damaging plants, trees, high elevation soils and streams and everything was interconnected. Everything was affected. And there were other problems, as well. Too many fucking roads cutting through pristine areas, overdevelopment and hunters.  He had no issues with people hunting for food, taking a deer or elk for the winter freezer, ducks or geese. What he loathed was the senseless killing of animals just for the sake of sport, and especially bears in the Southern Appalachians.  The knowledge of it gnawed at his gut like a cancer.

G.L. sat down at the table, a nine-foot long rustic pine treasure where they’d had countless meals with family and friends. As he glanced over the newspaper, Allison brought him a cup of coffee and placed it on the table.

“Let’s go hiking, G.L.”

“Yeah, while we still can. What you up for, a quiet lower elevation stroll along stream or a climb to the ridgeline?”

“I can do a climb today, if that’s what you want.”

Allison was always a gamer. Even when her arthritis was at its worst, she rarely complained and was tough as nails. Much tougher than G.L. and every bit the fighter he was. Most folks that knew both of them would say she was the more tenacious of the two. The one you’d want in your corner in a pinch.

She’d been his steady companion for thirty years and loved him despite all his faults, not the least of which were a quick, Irish temper, an inability to manage money, and a wandering eye.

But she understood him and had mostly reformed him. Anyone that knew him when he was twenty-two and that still claimed him as a friend would readily tell you he was a much better person today than he was then. And they’d give Allison full credit for the miraculous, perhaps saving transformation.

They met when she was seventeen. She was a freshman in college, and he was a twenty-two year old senior.  Within two weeks of meeting, she was pregnant. He loved her and proposed marriage, although it took some finagling on his part to convince her he was the right choice.

And about every twenty-four months, he had to convince her all over again he was still the right choice.

Together, they raised three children, now all successful adults living their own lives.  The best times were when they all gathered at that pine table, just as they had for so many years. Only now there were additions. There were spouses and grandchildren, and even larger circle of love.

They feasted on well-prepared meals and wine. On Blueberry pies with homemade ice cream.  On piles of pancakes and yummy French toast. Allison baked cookies and fresh breads.  They told stories and laughed, planned hikes together and discussed and debated music, art and politics.

They were blessed beyond belief, and all of these blessings made G.L. feel even more indebted to do something. To do something to defend the earth that had opened its bounty to him.

“Let’s climb today, honey. We need to clear our heads and our lungs and prepare for battle.”

“What battle?”

“The battle to save our home. Who knows how much time we have left. We’ve been so blessed, Allison. We have so much. We have good minds and strong backs. The time has come.”

“Well, I think we need to write Senator Smith again.”

“Fuck him. I’m sick and tired of writing that worthless toad. He’s a whore to industry. It’s the same old thing over and over again. Same old prepared response that’s basically just a bunch of hooey.”

“You’re right. But the people around here don’t even care, G.L. They’re just trying to make it, and a lot of ‘em see these coal plants as providing jobs. I don’t see what can be done.”

“Exactly. All the more reason to seek new strategies.”

“Like what, Mr. Dawson?”

“Get your stuff ready. The mountain will tell us.”

Thanks to fellow Abbeyeista, Kris, for this image….

Chapter One

Nestled in a quiet cove, the house lies just east of Mt. LeConte, an ancient edifice of granite and sandstone towering 6500 feet above sea level. Towering over the valley, the mountain dominates the landscape with magnificent walls brilliantly adorned in a palette of fall color.

The house is quiet and the mountain lies still.

Decorating the countryside with its most lavish design, nature’s fall show signals the arrival of a grand death. Butternut Hickory, Mountain Ash and Red oak shower the soil with their offering, as the splashes of color slowly give way to the subdued hues of winter.

The Appalachian sun rises gently, its sparkling tentacles gradually making their way over the Anakeesta ridge, reaching outward to the valley, illuminating dew that’s settled on the trees and fields surrounding the house.

It’s a fall morning in the Smokies, and he doesn’t believe there’s a prettier place on the planet.

Morning is his favorite time of day. He embraces its peace, its stillness and the subtle sounds developing into a broader, more perfectly orchestrated symphony. The wind stirring the leaves, calls from his avian friends and the primal buzz of the cicada.

Stepping outside, he finds the air is pleasantly cool and moist. Unzipping his fly, he exercises his right as a free featherless biped and participates in the time-honored tradition of peeing off the front porch.

The urine flows freely and spills over the side onto the grass below, causing a beetle to scurry for cover beneath the porch.

Safely tucked away in a tangled patch of rhododendron not far from the house, a Ruby-crowned kinglet serenades him with continuous celebratory song. Lightly hopping from branch to branch, he thinks it must lead a perfect existence. No mortgage, no taxes and no worries, other than the noble quest for the necessities of life.

Food, shelter and sex.

He imagines the kinglet to say “I’m a kinglet! Look at me! I’m a kinglet, and I’m happy!”

As his imagination wonders, he ponders life in these mountains and valleys hundreds of years earlier, before whites established property lines, capitalism, governments and prisons. He concludes that humans in North America more or less lived much like the kinglet, where the primary tasks of each day were mostly focused on food, shelter, sex, celebration and song.

Oh, there was hardship. There was war and conflict. Life could certainly be brutal and short, but it seemed more honorable.

He feels modern society carries a lingering stench. It’s too frantic, and there are billions of people looking for peace and quiet that never find it. Hardly a place remains where you can’t see the effects of man. There’s no open frontier. Only constant vigilance to protect what remains.

And then, as if on queue, an airplane passes overhead, ripping through the serenity of this hallowed place like a hot knife through butter. Filling the valley, the sound is harsh and dissonant like fingers scraping a blackboard.

He reaches out and forms his hand and fingers into an imaginary pistol. Using his middle finger as trigger, he aims and fires into the endless sky.

“Bastards”

Wolverine Farm Publishing just released Matter Journal 13, which is a special Edward Abbey edition. This is a must have for any Edward Abbey fan, and features not only interviews with folks like Doug Peacock, but new fiction, non-fiction and poetry from several really interesting writers.

Included in the mix is new fiction from my good friend and fellow enviro-meddler Michael Lewis. “The Hunter” is extremely well written and fun, something any true Abbeyeista will enjoy. It’s a tip of cap to the Bard that moves monkeywrenching into the cellular soaked world of today.

Help us
We’re dying

miles away
a couple sits

we’re sorry
sorry?

they’re thinking of buying a house
but the refrigerator is too old
might need to be replaced

the gulf is dying
we’re all dying

a couple walks
through Costco

no we’re not
yes, yes you are

there are deals to be had
a new DVD player
for the room no one uses

kill the gulf
kill everything

at the club
a man slices his drive

who are you?
the oil soaked pelican

his ball is in the rough,
but the greens and the cart girl
look great

gasping

A woman waits patiently
for her hair to dry

who’s there?
I can’t breathe

I look so much younger
with this color
don’t you think so?

There’s nothing now
just
crashing, thick waves
a broiling Southern sun beating down
on lifeless sand

The contrast of what’s happening in the Gulf of Mexico and what’s happening around the rest of the nation is startling to me. While we’re in the midst of full blown ecocide in the Gulf, around the country, most people just blithely go about their daily lives. They read the papers and see the news. They know. Yet, too many seem to care enough or even fully understand breadth of the disaster.

Many only care about the inconvenience this has caused them. Canceled or altered vacation plans. Loss of property value at their vacation home.

Others seem to care and may even be quite vocal in how they feel about the birds, the turtles and the dolphin. Yet, they too, mostly go on with their normal lives. After all, what can they do?

Some just can’t stand the news. They hide from it.

A tiny number are in the Gulf on their own dime. They understand the health risks, but come anyway. They’re helping the helpless.

Others are there because they’re desperate for work. They’re either completely unaware of the risks or ignore the risks because they need money to put food on the table and keep the lights on. I suspect most of them have perhaps less than twenty years remaining to live, thanks to exposure to dispersant’s, methane and oil.

What can we do? Even those hundreds or thousands of miles away. What can be done? We need to drive less. We need to be more vocal in demanding that our cities, our states and our nation be more committed to developing and funding alternative transportation. As for myself, I need to work daily to reduce and conserve in my own daily life.

We need to reel in the war machine and promote peace, both at home and abroad, since the war machine needs oil to produce its bloody results.

As for the Gulf, I’m beginning to doubt that anything can be done. It’s as if we’re trying to plug a hole in a dam with a finger. I believe BP and our government know it can’t be stopped, and the “clean up” effort is mostly a PR stunt.

I believe the Gulf is dying, and we’re accelerating the rate of our collective slide to extinction.