As I mentioned in the last post, I set up my old drum kit. And even though I've lost most of my chops because of a ten year hiatus, it's still fun. In fact, as I sit there and pound away...I notice the old groove coming back a little.
("Chops?" "Groove?" Who IS this person talking?)
I poured a drink - bourbon and 7-Up. Lit a cigarette, and played drums - badly.
Then it hit me. I found myself smiling....and NOT thinking about the imminent demise of the country for an hour or two. I was refreshed, at peace, unstressed for the first time, probably since 9/11/2001.
My biggest problem was doing a tom-tom roll while keeping the beat.
It was GREAT!
My "road to Damascus" moment set me on a path that has mostly excluded everything but politics. Spirituality, fun, music, even family has taken a back seat to my obsession with defeating the bastards who are running our culture — into the ground....into hell.
No. Not a "back seat". They have all but disappeared from my life. And it ain't healthy.
My inner life, my imagination is suffering. I'm getting old and tired from this fight. I know it energizes some people—born politicians. But without respite, it's killing in me what I'm fighting for: my soul.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not stopping the fight. I've just realized that I need to feed the other parts of myself that have been rendered silent and still, that have begun to atrophy.
I'm always so focused on politics, I haven't read a novel in years. I can't remember the last time I read any work of fiction. All the books in the stacks waiting for attention are non-fiction political tomes. I'm not reading those either. I look at them, sigh and turn away.
I'm stuffed, stagnant. I can't recharge. I can't take another book, another outrage, another sentence of doom and ruin. I need to fucking LAUGH.
I wake up depressed, stiff, miserable. I sleep tense.
I'm enervated, yet restless. Nervous but lethargic.
Inner life. Imagination. Fantasy. Fun. Laughter. Spirituality. Music.
Without them, life is just what the fucking Liberals are trying to make it for all of us permanently: grey rows of ugly, dilapidated material sameness forever and ever amen.
I hope you're not doing the same thing.
We are the gypsies. We are the rebels. We are the story-tellers, the magicians, the players. We are the heroes and sometimes the martyrs. We are the risk-takers, the warriors, the empire builders.
We are NOT Courtiers, Bureaucrats, Whores, or Politicians. And while we fight them, we need to retain our joy, our love of the beauty and mystery of life and its possibilities. And you just can't do that if you are forever immersed in their sordid world.
We need to make regular visits to Our World. And leave the Aliens to eat each other for a change.
You may not need this advice. But I surely did. And I'm glad those silly drums provided it.
The Gunslinger
Currently boarding a flight of Fantasy
Joebama American citizens 2024 print
9 months ago
Ha! I really miss my drums also. I hope to change that soon.
ReplyDeleteI could have written this post, so I can say I know right where your coming from. But they win by wearing you down. So many people don't want to deal with politics because of this. The slime live for politics and sin. People like us live for liberty and freedom. Which is always worth fighting for. To the death if they make us.
Never forget to LIVE. It is why we are here.
Once we can do that, we are invincible.
I think I finally figured that out. Too long in the Slime World, and you almost forget to LIVE what you're fighting for!
ReplyDeleteOh...and....DRUMMERS RULE!
The "tom-tom roll"....THAT's the key! My Dad went to Soul Revue shows at Sulphur Dell (what a great name for a race track/concert venue!) here in Nashville in the 1950s,before I was born...He and Grandma's lil bro Ray would be the only "white faces" there,but they saw some GREAT performers there,and tho my Dad was a pall-bearer for 3 Black buddies of his at their funerals,he wasn't shy about using the word "Nigger", if it was appropriate for assholes like Jesse Jackson,et al.Later,when I lived in NYC,it was always funny how I'd get into conversations with fellow Southerners I met who were Black,how we bonded ("Fuck these pretentious Yankee Libs...").Ain't that a kick in the head? "Yankees" never understood The South.Pretentious Yankee Academics love Tennessee Williams' plays,but they don't get that "Streetcar" etc. was bullshit pretense from an upper-class pansy (but we love him,anyway...we accept eccentrics,but do not make it a Goddamn Cause)...It's All about Individual Freedom...Can't we all just get along?
ReplyDeleteHey Gunslinger,
ReplyDeleteI am happy for you. I enjoy your blog. But, its good to read that you are letting yourself remember that there is so much more to life than the shit of politics.
Go the whole hog and join a drum circle, not only are they super cool, but a bloody good laugh to! Where the weird and wonderful hang out.
Happy New Year to you.
Life is Short but Wide
Blueeyedblonde
Fantastic to read this, good for you!
ReplyDeleteI'll tell you a little story of my own--I had a similar moment back in the Carter era, which I maintain was just as bad as now, economically and psychologically. So in '79 I was 19, digging ditches (literally) to make my bread, the hostages were in Iran and Carter was agonizing and dithering--and I picked up the book Man's Search for Meaning wherein psychiatrist Victor Frankl details his time in a concentration camp and how he handled it. And I realized that things were actually pretty damn good in my life!
As for the country, I thought of moving to Switzerland or Canada or someplace--Harry Browne's How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World was another big influence around that time, with the advice to skip trying to change the world, which is impossible, and take care of yourself. Harry advised that avoiding politics and trying to influence government policy in any way was very relaxing...of course later he ran for President on the Libertarian ticket, but what the hell.
Anyway, I was sitting in my tiny basement apartment cleaning my .45 when it occurred to me that compared to Victor Frankl, at least if everything else went completely to hell, at least I could die with a pistol in my hand, rather than be herded like those poor disarmed Jews onto the death train. And that there were a lot more like me--and like you. And that's why they are more afraid of us than we are of them and why they haven't really tried to take away the guns and why there are real limits to what the Obami or any else can get away with. That's reality, and I've never lost that certainty in the 30 years since.
There are millions of us girl, so from time to time get on those drums! The rest of us will keep watch on the ramparts for the rest of the day...
"I'm always so focused on politics, I haven't read a novel in years. I can't remember the last time I read any work of fiction. All the books in the stacks waiting for attention are non-fiction political tomes. I'm not reading those either. I look at them, sigh and turn away."
ReplyDeleteCareful what fiction you pick up... I tried that when I got laid off, went on vacation... banished all my deep stuff, picked up a western from a walmart shelf... and found myself right back in the meaning of Natural Law.
Laughed till it hurt.
"My inner life, my imagination is suffering. I'm getting old and tired from this fight. I know it energizes some people—born politicians. But without respite, it's killing in me what I'm fighting for: my soul."
Yes... it's important to have a life too and remember that zombies can't save us... best not to become one. The best advice I can give and not follow, is focus on what's right, not what's wrong - take note of the monsters, target them, pull the trigger... but don't focus on them... that's how the zombies became zombies... they think govt and politics can fix their lives.
Well it can't.
It can't fix or save them, or fix and save ours either.
But I hear ya. I'm riding the tail end of a downdraft here too... fight them and you just increase the downward spiral... ride it out and you'll level off soon enough.
Just keep the Guns ready... damn zombies.
"...that's how the zombies became zombies... they think govt and politics can fix their lives...
ReplyDelete...It can't fix or save them, or fix and save ours either."
Good Advice! Lost in the fight, we can get perilously close to their way of thinking.
The problem is while government can't fix or save our lives...it can sure fuck them up...
Damn zombies!
Wahrheit - that was a great comment. You're right.
ReplyDeleteI can't forget politics altogether, because it's a duty the Founders laid on us.
But we have to live...and die...on our own terms if we are to be fully human.
No retreat, no surrender.
And thanks for taking my back on the ramparts.
It's nice to realize I can tune out for a day...and know the world isn't going to go all apocalyptic on me.
Good post and I agree with you and Toaster - as I've been feeling the same. I make an effort now to play music, read non-politics (hard one) or take photos, laugh, paint pictures and enjoy life... because...
ReplyDeleteMy husband recently said "I miss the old you"... meaning the carefree me who felt safe under Bush and gave a rats patoot about politics.
My life and marriage are way more important than worrying about Obumbles.
But (and there is always a butte) we ALL know America is way too important to just hand over the keys to the communist regime driving the bus.
Can't un-know what we now know.
Can't put the shit back in the mule.
Things gonna get dicey in 2010.
Yes all warriors need a bit of R&R to recharge...
but (damn butte again)...
stay alert and keep your power dry...
Re:"Van"s post...yeah!Older Bud of mine (Viet vet,a gunny on the choppers) just got his leg amputated,and I've been getting him Western novels from the PubLib,while I myself have been checking out "non-fiction political tomes",tho I sneak a peek...and wonder why the Western writers STILL do not do a First-Person-Narrative device...artistically,it would seem the best way to go deeper into the gist of the genre....Anyone ever come across a first-person narrative in the Western genre? Seems to me,the Individuality implied in the idiom would've inspired First-Person narrative. Geez...a "Mark Twain"-type approach to...guess I'm just a frustrated novelist...
ReplyDeleteTjones said "Anyone ever come across a first-person narrative in the Western genre? "
ReplyDeleteIt's you and your buddies lucky day, you're both in luck, for one of the oldest and best Western's, Owen Wister's "The Virginian", is available free online!
"...It was now the Virginian's turn to bet, or leave the game, and he did not speak at once.
Therefore Trampas spoke. "Your bet, you son-of-a--."
The Virginian's pistol came out, and his hand lay on the table, holding it unaimed. And with a voice as gentle as ever, the voice that sounded almost like a caress, but drawling a very little more than usual, so that there was almost a space between each word, he issued his orders to the man Trampas:"When you call me that, SMILE." And he looked at Trampas across the table.
Yes, the voice was gentle. But in my ears it seemed as if somewhere the bell of death was ringing; and silence, like a stroke, fell on the large room. All men present, as if by some magnetic current, had become aware of this crisis. In my ignorance, and the total stoppage of my thoughts, I stood stock-still, and noticed various people crouching, or shifting their positions...."
From Wister's intro:
"Sometimes readers inquire, Did I know the Virginian? As well, I hope, as a father should know his son. And sometimes it is asked, Was such and such a thing true? Now to this I have the best answer in the world. Once a cowpuncher listened patiently while I read him a manuscript. It concerned an event upon an Indian reservation. "Was that the Crow reservation?" he inquired at the finish. I told him that it was no real reservation and no real event; and his face expressed displeasure. "Why," he demanded, "do you waste your time writing what never happened, when you know so many things that did happen?"
And I could no more help telling him that this was the highest compliment ever paid me than I have been able to help telling you about it here!
CHARLESTON, S.C., March 31st, 1902"
Ah... better link to "The Virginian" here, single Page format.
ReplyDeleteLouis L'Amour wrote several that were in first person narrative, but The Virginian is the best ever, in my not-so-humble opinion.
ReplyDeleteGeez,guys,I'm talking about a MODERN contemporary First-Person Narrative Western Novel,a work infused by a Modern Overview of...Wister is cool,but that was 100 years ago.Time for over-haul...I think "Gunny" has the literary chops to do a Novel,if she chooses.....
ReplyDelete"I'm talking about a MODERN contemporary First-Person Narrative Western Novel"
ReplyDeleteAh. A... modern... contemporary... western.
Would that be... like... a Shootout(with documented and approved arrest warrants and wearing appropriate flak vests, goggles and hearing safety plugs - being careful to not mistreat the Clantons or mis-mirandize them) at the OK Corral ('Corral' in the technical sense only, being fully PETA approved for the humane treatment of horse & cow, of course)?
Eh... I'll stick with the Western Westerns, but good luck on that.
;-)
Maybe he means a "post-apocalyptic" Western.
ReplyDeleteThat's fixin' to be "contemporary" pretty damn soon.