It’s easy to be a holy man on a mountain
Somerset Maugham
Fortunately, I know a place. Top O’Mountain.
Friday morning I was up at 3:15 — on the road at 3:45. Such was my desire to get to West Virginia and Black Dog Ridge. Marti was up and in the car straight away. She knows from the packing where we are going.
Today, Saturday, is Marti’s 4th birthday. She’s grown to be a handsome young girl dog.
She’s also independent, a bit impatient, strong-willed, and somewhat aloof. Not sure where she gets all that.
We had a good day. Sunny and beautiful at Black Dog Ridge so we took two long hikes down through the canyon along the creek and then back up. Later, a jeep ride to the local market where the kitchen provided a massive portion of bacon for her for a $1. They are dog people.
Marti’s a good dog and we love her.
Tomorrow is my turn. 63. If you wind the calendar back 63 years from the day I was born, you will arrive at the year 1900.
After dinner now and we are outside. I was watching rugby and Marti is keeping an eye on the property.
I’m amazed at our capacity for duality. How can I be driving down the road, sunshine on my face, dog next to me, singing a happy song and all feels right with the world. Free and easy. And an hour later, in tears just for acknowledging only one of the very sad set of circumstances going on in the world. The suffering and heartbreak that humans push down on other humans. Men, nearly always. And mainly for their own vanity — not for any strategic gain.
What’s our greater responsibility? Our own mental health or try to save the world — even a little bit. Seems we must choose now.
How can these contrasting sentiments exist within us. Bruce Springsteen once said ‘It ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive’. But maybe it is.
Not sure I mentioned this, but we are at war again. If that is what one calls it when a massively over-matched superpower rains bombs down on an ill equipped country. One of our bombs, or Israel’s, (they are still fighting over it) hit a school and killed 160+ young children. This is our kind of war. We kill the people to protect them from their own government.
From standpoint of US history, although probably it applies to history of humankind on the planet, I find little good in our past and less hope for the future. It seems collectively we are simply a destructive species. There’s no other way to see it. Individually, of course we can focus on our own contentment or happiness. And taking care of our families. But collectively, we damage the least among us time and again. Humans and otherwise. We seem to not be able to help ourselves. Democracy and self-rule was supposed to fix all that.
If dogs had opposable thumbs they’d probably be running the world instead of our dumbassess.
6 of the 7 deadly sins — Pride, Greed, Lust, Envy, Gluttony & Wrath seem to be revered in American culture if our twice election of Donald Trump is any indication. For he embodies all of these. I would say sloth as well as he seems to never actually work. Just golfs, tweets, and berates reporters.
I’m reading an interesting book called ‘Against The Machine’. There is a point in the book where the author talks about home culture. Where one was raised and the importance it holds in our memories and consciousness. Many people move around, but most people feel a strong affection for where they were raised. I feel deficient in this sense. I never really felt that sense of longing for familiarity or that sense of home like some people. I have no affection or fondness for the area where I was raised. I knew early on I would leave and was unlikely to return other than to visit family.
Nearly everyone I grew up with has never left. They are all still there. And their worldviews reflect it.
I feel most at home in Idaho, and increasingly West Virginia — in the mountains. And Europe. I was 21 when I first set foot on European soil and I knew immediately this was my place.
But now old friends are acting strange
They shake their heads, they say I’ve changed
Well, something’s lost, but something’s gained
In living every dayI’ve looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It’s life’s illusions, I recall
I really don’t know life at all
Jony Mitchell
I took mom shopping the other day. She had to go to 4 stores for all the things she needed for the two fundraisers she has this weekend. She’s a war horse. She never sits. While we were driving around, she told stories of being a child of the depression. Hobos would get off the train at the bottom of the hill below the house and walk up to beg for food. Grandma would fix them a plate of food and they would sit on the porch steps and eat before walking back down to wait for the next train.
Grandma barely had food for their family of 5 but she found a little something for those worse off. They didn’t have a car until mom was a teenager. They used horses to get around locally and even plow the garden. No running water inside. Outhouse at back etc.
It’s uncanny to me how many people now regularly speak into their phones to Siri or Alexa and give or ask for directions or guidance. I don’t like it. Not one bit. I am not ready to accept machines as our equal — flawed as we are.
It seems to be more older people easily accepting this transition. My neighbor Rich, who I think is around 72 or so, speaks to his phone like a favorite nephew. In a Thai restaurant last week when I was in Akron, an older Malaysian man was trying to change his hotel reservation speaking to the hotel customer service bot. I think he finally got it done, but not until everyone in the restaurant became invested in the progress. Was it his accent? Choice of words? Background noise? His mouth full of food and garbling. It was painful to witness. I damn near took the phone away from him as one might a 4-year old.
The mayhem drew me from my reading and crossword and others from their conversations and soon we were all making eye contact and facial gestures. Some seemed to be cheering him on and others hoping he would give up.
It was endearing in a dystopian, ‘the machines now have us all by the balls’ sort of way.
Thai restaurant was excellent. Top level. But for my first wine I ordered a mid-range Pinot Grigio and the young man brought me what was clearly a Chardonnay. I know for sure because my hatred of Chardonnay is similar to how fundamentalist Israelis view Palestinians. I would prefer if chardonnay did not exist on the planet — or if I have to accept a compromise, this grape should not ever be harvested, fermented, and bottled. If you will.
I gently complained and got another wine which was a nice Pinot Grigio. I paid for both because it wasn’t worth the debate.
Italy beat England in rugby today for the first time in 35 years of playing. Italy is not a powerhouse rugby nation. They are competent and occasionally good. Improving. Today they found some magic.
Last night I dreamed about you
I dreamed that you were older
You were looking like Picasso
With a scar across your shoulder
You were kneeling by the river
You were digging up the bodies buried long ago
Michelangelo
Last night I dreamed about you
I dreamed you were a pilgrim
On a highway out alone
To find the mother of your children
Who were still unborn and waiting
In the wings of some desire, abandoned long ago
Michelangelo
Were you there at Armageddon
Was Paris really burning?
Could I have been the one to pull you
From the point of no returning?
And did I hear you calling out my name
Or was it forgotten long ago?
Michelangelo
Last night I dreamed about you
I dreamed that you were riding
On a blood red painted pony
Up where the heavens were dividing
And the angels turned to ashes
You came tumbling with them to earth, so far below
Michelangelo
Last night I dreamed about you
I dreamed that you were dying
In a field of thorn and roses
With a hawk about you crying
For the warrior slain in battle
From an arrow driven deep inside you long ago
Michelangelo
Did you suffer at the end
Would there be no one to remember?
Did you banish all the old ghosts
With the terms of your surrender?
And could you hear me calling out your name?
Well, I guess that I will never know
Michelangelo
Last night I dreamed about you
I dreamed that you were weeping
And your tears poured down like diamonds
For a love beyond all keeping
And you caught them one by one
In a million silk bandanas that I gave you long ago
Michelangelo
Headline – ‘Zohran Mamdani is now cracking down on gym memberships that have ‘subscription traps’
About fucking time. Years ago I moved to Cincinnati and joined a planet fitness in Northern KY. I was only there a few months before moving to Columbus. I went in to cancel my membership and they refused. They said I had to write a letter. Of course they were taking the membership fee directly from my checking account.
I wrote the letter and mailed it to them around the same time I moved. I did not get a response but for the next 2 or 3 months they continued to take the money from my account. Interestingly, our own banks will not allow us to cancel these subscriptions, which is another important part of this conversation. When I called, they told me the letter must be hand-delivered and they refused to tell me if they had received my mailed letter. Even getting a manager to get on the phone took several calls because they were always ‘out on the floor helping members’ or some other bullshit.
Finally I sent a letter of complaint to the KY Attorney General’s office and that did it. They quit taking money from my account.
So Mamdani is right to go after these fuckers. The Consumer Protection Agency should have put a stop to this nonsense long ago. And, as noted, we should be able to control who takes money out of our credit card or bank accounts. We are the bank customers, not these service providers.
But this is the brand of capitalism that so many in this country are proud of. Corporate interests and their billionaire owners control the narrative and the laws at the expense of the rest of us.
Trump may turn out to be a blessing of sorts. Both political parties in this country have long enabled and allowed this shameful form of exploitation, but they did it so covertly that most people did not realize they were being fleeced.
Trump has so egregiously exploited the system for personal gain (and that of his billionaire friends) that the cat is out of the bag. Bernie Sanders has been telling us for 40 years, but no one was listening. Bernie’s truth gave rise to AOC and the squad and now Mandami and for the first time there seems to be a burgeoning awareness that our political and economic system is well on fully rigged. Corruption at mafia levels. I have had this feeling since my mid 20’s when I finally got myself out of the pubs long enough to start participating in the world.
I remember once having a brutal argument with my brother and my father. I was probably around 26 or so and had just opened The College Market. I was not making any money of course in a bookstore/coffeeshop, but it was the only thing of significance I had accomplished in my life up to that point. The argument was political in nature — me being a hopeless tree-hugging liberal and both of them red-blooded republican die-hards. They kept insisting that once I started making money, I would become a republican like them because the main objective was to pay as little tax as possible. To shrink government to bare essentials for minimum safety and security and everyone was on their own.
35 years later, I have never once flirted with being a Republican. I am so far left that I’ve never identified as a democrat either. I just took the least bad option like so many others.
But my family has never understood me.
It’s dark now and the wind is howling — coming up off the river and over the ridge and buffeting the back of the house. But the house is sturdy and the fire and the whisky are warm.
Marti is slumbering on the couch, tired from a long day and her belly full of birthday bacon.
No other news of note.
Humbly Submitted
Robert Myres – Portneuf Valley Rugby Football Club, Flanker (ret.)
The Martini Tales 