Little Bang Theory

This older guy at work has said some angry things in casual conversations in which I was a participant, things with racial overtones, things about immigrants and liberals and fags and “welfare queens,” things which sounded both learned and internalized.

At first I was pretty taken aback, even though those attitudes aren’t at all uncommon on construction sites, where people without a hell of a lot of education bust their asses and never seem to get ahead. Frankly, it’s not hard to see why many become bitter, especially as they get older and begin to appreciate how little they have to look forward to.

Add to that the usual construction site boom-box, providing your typical right-wing “morning show” background banter deriding the poor as the reason for these working people’s struggles, and you get a LOT of bitterness, hopelessness and pent-up resentment.

I feel it too. I feel myself getting older, getting tired, being worn down, with a Grand Total of $12,000 in my retirement account, and it makes me angry and resentful, but not at the poor.

Because I know where the money is really going.

So having had a semi-recent epiphany about building bridges instead of arguing for my very different point of view, I’ve been trying harder to find the commonalities between the lives and struggles of the people around me and my own long, up-hill swim. I’ve talked to this older man about what he’d like to do when he retires, how his (married) children are doing, his wife’s health problems, insurance hassles, the price of prescriptions… you name it. Life. The Commonalities of Life.

And with the Door open, he listened when I talked about the small percentage of our money which goes to help the millions of poor people in our country and compared it to the very large percentage which is being accumulated by the Filthy Fucking Rich, by people who own vacation homes in Paradise and private jets and get the kind of health care his wife needs, health care she’ll never get, health care she and uncounted others will die without. He listened when I talked about the Social Politics of Distraction, about how we’re constantly being pitted against each other.

Today this Loving Husband and Father pulled up along side me in his truck and stopped with the window down, just looking at me. His eyes were unaccustomedly soft and clear, his demeanor resolute. It felt a little awkward, a little strange, until he spoke.

“You know,” he said, “I think you’re right. I think we all better stick together, or we’re gonna get screwed.”

I nodded in agreement. I didn’t smile; it was all I could do to choke back the tears of gratitude.

“Think about voting for Kucinich in the Primaries,” I managed. “He’s on our side.”

He drew back a bit and scowled.

“Who?“

A long, up-hill swim, indeed.

So:

The time finally came to dig up my spuds, planted in the Spring from some semi-gone-by organic units which a local farmer had left on the sidewalk outside a local store, with a “Take Me, I’m Free!” sign. I had never grown “Polish Truffles” before, but the price was right, so I took ‘em and planted ‘em and forgot about ‘em.

And tonight I remembered ‘em and dug ‘em up! This here’s the haul from the single plant I axed tonight:

Easily ten pounds, I swear!

Then I got to thinking, “What have I ever made with ‘taters beside home-fries?”

The answer: Iraqi Stew!

This is a dish I learned to make from a friend of mine who’s originally from Baghdad. (As an aside, this brilliant man, a professor of Linguistics and African Francophone Literature, now hides his origins for fear of persecution in The Land Of The Free.)

Start by browning a bunch of chicken (which would more likely be lamb in Iraq) with lots of garlic and a heavy dose of curry powder (I know, “curry again?? Can’t help it. I like curry!) Add potatoes, onions and carrots and some stewed tomatoes (these were put up this season by my Ex’s boyfriend ) and simmer for, oh, hours. I added the fresh green beans toward the end of the cooking time ’cause I’m a “Health Nazi” and wanted something green tonight.

The result:

Delicious on a chilly Autumn night. Enjoy!

Somewhere around 1967 or ‘68 my older brother and I made the “mistake” of buying the album “Trout Mask Replica” at a Caldor’s Department Store. We were sold by the song title, “Dachau Blues,” we being budding blues fans. We ignored all the obvious warning signs - musicians with names like Zoot Horn Rollo and The Mascara Snake, and of course Captain Beefheart on the cover, sporting a glisteningly fresh giant fish head for a “mask.” We just saw the word “Blues” in one song title, and had to have it.

Little did we know.

We got home, put one of the two LP disks on our parents’ turntable, and sat on the rug with our mouths hanging open and our eyes popping out. It was absolutely the most bizarre sounding stuff either of us had ever heard. In fact, as I recall, we didn’t make it through the two disks on first listening - we just weren’t prepared for that kind of sensory onslaught and intellectual chaos. Or for the horrified looks on our parents’ faces!

Nonetheless, Trout Mask Replica was soon one of our favorite records, with its surreal allusions to things visceral and its delivery of hypnotic, drug-free acid trips. We didn’t really have to understand it to know that it was, um, special, unique, …art.

We saw Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band in Springfield, Massachusetts sometime around 1970 (I can’t imagine why I don’t remember for certain,) and the Deal was Sealed: we had seen God, with a (Partially) Trained Chimpanzee Act for an opener (they fell off their bicycles a lot and pissed all over the place ) His strange, kaleidoscopic music made sense live in a way which had eluded us on vinyl.

The cut I’ve posted here is “Ice Cream For Crow,” a 1982 song and video which was rejected by MTV as being too weird, ’cause you know, MTV has Good Taste; said video is now in the Permanent Film and Video Collection of the Museum of Modern Art in NYC.

In other words, “FUCK YOU, MTV.”

This one’s for you, fairlane!

BTW, if you want to know if The Captain (A.k.a. Donald Van Vliet) is “for real,” check him out on Letterman.

Morning fog rising at Barton’s Cove on the Connecticut River.

They were out fishin’ from a boat; I was on my way to work.

Prepare to be Raptured.

You know… Raptured. As in “Taken bodily up to heaven.” Zoomed right up, all naked and shit, ’cause you won’t need your clothes up there. It’s not too hot, not too cold, it’s just right!

Well, not all of you, of course. ‘Cause some of you been bad, real bad. And only Good People get Raptured up to heaven. True Believers and all. Says so in The Bible.

Well, not exactly in The Bible… but it’s in a book somewhere, so you know it’s true. In fact it’s in a BUNCH o’ books. At last count, well over sixty-five million of ‘em. “Left Behind,**” they’re called.

(** At this point I should probably put a little “Parental Advisory” in here for those of you who are reading this at work. Especially if you have a Self-Loathing Full-Blown Bitch for a boss. The title of this post ought to give those of you who know me ample warning… scroll slowly, if you dare scroll at all! ‘Nuff Said.)

Now where was I… Oh yeah, 65,000,000 books, each likely purchased for a Good Christian Household, and since you know how those people are, we can safely multiply them books by, oh, about 8.2 kids per household, which brings us to, lemme see… five hundred thirty-three million people. Yup, five hundred thirty-three million people who, if they play their cards right, keep their pants on (’till they’re Raptured) and don’t talk to faggits, stand a pretty reasonable chance of getting Raptured up to Jesus, warts and all, but not with their clothes, because remember, they won’t need ‘em.

Five Hundred Thirty-Five MILLION people, zoomin’ up to Heaven. Bet they’re gonna cast a shadow that’ll make your crops wilt!

And all of the Bad People will be left behind, just like the book title says. And all the Mother Rapers and the Father Stabbers and the Jews and the Faggits and the Lesbos and the Muslamofascists and the Filthy Hippies will be screamin’ and cryin’ and fightin’ over the Armani suits that the preachers in them Mega-Churches slithered out of on their way up to Heaven, and pickin’ up Gucci shoes and Rolex watches, which hopefully fell into the Gucci shoes when they greased off the Rapturin’ Preachers but probably didn’t because nobody who gets Left Behind is gonna be all that lucky, and they’ll be doin’ Gawd Awful things to each other and wishin’ to hell they’d kept their pants on and went to church a whole lot more.

And THAT’S what the stories in the “Left Behind” books are really about, the blood and guts, crash-and-burn part of the equation, ’cause you know, if they were about happy people floating around on clouds wearin’ nothin’ but shit-eatin’ grins, that would get boring real quick, and nobody would read ‘em.

Plus, Good Christians aren’t into that peace crap. Peace is gay.

——————————————————————————————-

OK, so lets all try to turn off our Frontal Lobes for a minute here, suspend our disbelief, and buy into this Rapture scene. If you got Fox News at your house, turning it on kinda low in the background might help.

Now I’m lookin’ around (yeah, that’s right, ME. I’m still here, on accounta I’m a sinner. I’ve lied, I stole shit (once,) I coveted me some fine lookin’ little milfs, and if I stick aroung long enough I’ll probably covet me some gilfs, too! Hell, I even killed shit, if fish and frogs and flies count. And I can’t see how they wouldn’t.)

Hey, don’t look at me like that - you’re still here too!

So anyway, I’m lookin’ around, and besides YOU, I see most of my friends (awl riiiight!) and some hot lookin’ women I don’t know yet but you can bet I’m gonna, and there’s them Armani suits with the preachers still in ‘em, and that Self-Loathing Bitch in the black dress with the front caved in, and she’s cryin’ ’cause she’s up to her flat ass in Birkenstocks and tie-died shirts that smell like B.O. and peasant skirts that smell like pussy and pachouli oil, ’cause all them mellowed-out squinty-eyed Peace-nik Hippies got Raptured and she didn’t, and my friends and me are tearin’ at the pile and findin’ all them cute little floral hippy backpacks and pullin’ out the bags of weed and the teakwood pipes and screamin’ and hootin’ and yellin’

LEFT BEHIND, MY ASS…

IT’S A PAAAARRRRTTTAAAAAAYYYYY!!!!!

The clouded Eyes of Age,

Suddenly lucid;

Green begets gold,

Becomes brown,

And falls,

Returns to earth,

Deconstructed

In the warm light

Of Autumn.

Time for a nice meal, on a relaxing Sunday evening, but with the tribulations of the Work Week approaching. Comfort me.

As the days cool down, I tend to spend more time on dinner. Maybe it’s the need for more calories as the temps drop; maybe it’s the diminution of options for Life After Work, I being predisposed to tromping around in the woods ’till I can’t see the eye-pokers no mo.

Whatever, I spend more time at Teh Stove as the days grow shorter. And that’s a recipe for risottos!

See, if I’m not eating Eastern food, my Rice Of Choice is long grain, wild, and very brown. My favorite is a “blend of black and mahogany long-grain wild rices” from Lundberg Family Farms called “Lundberg Black Japonica.” The package directions recommend cooking it for 50 minutes, but I find it toothsome after more like an hour:ten. So altogether, a good risotto will take me about two hours to prepare.

And this is a guuuuuud risotto!

(OK, the truthomometer says I should come clean about making it last night at about 11pm. WTF people, cut me some slack here, I’m doing this for all of us! )

Ahem, anyway. Dinner begins with a Long Grain Wild Rice Risotto with organic red onions from my garden, dried chanterelle mushrooms from a June foraging up the road from my place, white raisins, dried cranberries, and a hand-full of spicy tamari-roasted sunflower seeds from our excellent local coop, all organic (except, unfortunately, the rice :lol

Oh, and a stick of butter. Yeah, a stick. You know the one.

And here ’tis:

Now between the chanterelles, which have a uniquely apricotty flavor, and the raisins and cranberries, the risotto will be kind of sweet. And as I’m partial to a blend of sweet and hot and a little bit salty (ladies ,) I’m going to do a curried chicken with cashews for the compliment:

…with coconut milk and a handful of fresh basil from out back.

And a side of kale from the garden and carrots with the ubiquitous bulb’s-worth of roasted garlic:

There, a hearty dinner to end a stellar day - Curried Chicken with Cashews and Basil, Wild Mushroom Risotto, and Roasted Garlic Carrots and Kale.

…And a glass of Merlot.

Enjoy!

So today went pretty well for this purportedly lost soul. I slept in a bit (I’m usually up fairly early for work,) then hustled up into the hills in time to see the mist rising off the Deerfield River:

Then, energized by the cool, crisp air, I kept driving all the way to Mount Greylock, highest point in the state (3,491 feet. I know Phy, I’m a flatlander!) Took the Money Brook Trail to just short of its intersection with the summit auto road

It was beautiful, and cool enough to make me want to hustle to keep warm.

Then back home to the valley, where it was… SHIRT-SLEEVE WEATHER!

So off I went to Salmon Falls, ten minutes to the East and a very nice spot on a warm afternoon:

Aahhh, lying in the sun with the sound of the falls sending the troubled world packing. It’s a beautiful place, famous for its glacial plunge-pools (a.k.a. “The Pot-Holes.”)

I noodled around there ’till the air cooled and the sun’s rays slanted perceptibly, then headed for higher ground in time for a memorable sunset:

No camera tricks there folks, just point and shoot.

There are worse places to be alone.

This stuff on some rocks surrounding a rural riverside parking area looks like nondescript chalky off-white splotches as you drive (or even walk) by; but get down!

…and be treated to an unanticipated pastiche, a palette of pastels, a revelation of reproductive genius,

A veritable feast of fractal form and function:

It’s another world down here!

Meow.

Ronin, Friend of a Friend, a Hurtling Meatball of a kitty with absolutely no conception of his size. He moves like a Round Pound on a mission, cutting corners and clipping knees as he zooms by, leaving a heap of stunned and toppled Peoplecats in his wake.

Good Kitteh!