Charley's Electric Bluegrass Acid Trip

Charley's Electric Bluegrass Acid Trip

Kamala and I leave El Paso with the intention of going to northern New Mexico, but at the last minute we hear about Bluegrass Festival in Weed, New Mexico up in the cool Sacramento Mountains. We've enjoyed these all day events before so we detour and head out to Weed, a thriving little community of about 20 houses (maybe), a couple of churches, a store and gas station, and a school. We arrive about 30 minutes early and right away the scene turns a bit surrealistic as the parking attendant, a big gal in a day-glow vest is mounted on a great big horse. She bends down and instructs us to park..."Over yonder on the hill." And so we do and are met almost instantly by a couple of smiling guys, an old man and a teenage boy, wearing maroon Weed Bluegrass Festival T-shirts and driving a golf cart. "Ya want a ride over to the Gym?" they enthusiastically offer. Kamala and I look across the street at a large building which is about 200 yards away and, obviously the only place in the whole town big enough for this kind of shindig. Strange, I mean, it's so close, but, hey the natives are very friendly and, what the hell, we haven't ridden in a golf cart recently so we jump on. "Wheeeee!"

There are only a few people there as we pay and get our wrist bands. We find a good seat about half way back and on the side, I'm beginning to feel this buzz which I attribute to the fresh mountain air, but as I study the people coming in the I'm beginning to sense some sort of "Distorted Reality". Something is off. There are a few young people, but the crowd is definitely older. I remember, at one time, thinking, 'This will be considered a successful festival if no one breaks a hip.' The crowd seems to be a mixture of local families, mostly cowboy, old geezers down from their isolated mountain cabins, and affluent tourists. I'm not sure which category we fit; tourist I guess, but we're sure as hell not affluent.

The music starts and it is good. However, I keep getting drawn back to the crowd as it enters, mills around, greets one another and gossips. The chatter and the mood seems perfectly normal and yet the crowd? Well, it's strange. The acid must be kicking in now because the crowd is full of all these caricatures. Like the short, clean cut, gentleman with a black New York T-shirt that has a nose and ears that would be big on a man 3 times his size, or the crooked lady that had an extreme lean to one side when she walked, or the old gal with dark, penciled in eyebrows, or an older women dressed in a black shirt, black pants and new cowboy boots that seemed to lean and lurch herself forward in stumbling sort of gait that I continually feared she would go head first into the crowd or a wall, or the cowboy dandy that was all dressed up with a long sleeve shirt and a bandana around his neck in the hot weather (even old farts sometimes have to sacrifice comfort for 'cool'). Most people seemed to have some sort of exaggerated quality about their body, hair style or of mode of dress.

'Wow, this acid is some bad shit,' I think, 'I wonder what I look like?' And then I remember...'This ain't the 60's and I don't do that stuff no more. (tired of waking up on the floor).'

So I wonder, 'If I haven't done any drugs, nope, not even alcohol, what's going on with the crowd? Is it just that as we get older our "weirdness" both physical and behavioral become more accented? Oh my God, I wonder what mine are?'

Well the music was good, and the weird people? Well, I just went with it and rather enjoyed the strangeness. We had a real enjoyable time, but I wasn't able to look in a mirror for about 3 days for fear of what I might see.

"Dreams are real while they last, what more can be said of life?"

This is one of my favorite quotes, I guess because it cuts neatly and simply to the paradox of existence. All systems based on binary or dyadic dichotomies are circular and can make sense in and of themselves. That is, they work well if you've got a little faith. But they are ultimately lacking in any absolute resolution of the nature of existence so those of us among the unfaithful are left with "they are real while they last".
I've always loved dreams. As a young boy I can remember actually liking to go to bed at night and slip into a dream world that I actually had some control over. (Years later this would be called lucid dreaming. Who knew? I sure as hell didn't, but in my slipping into sleep I would build an underground world with miniature cars and colorful plastic buildings, populated with small people and talking animals.
Our wise modern psychologists insist that dreams are just yesterday's trash of the mind being thrown away so you can start afresh in the morning and they really have no meaning. And, you know, it kind'a makes sense, I can buy into that. But tell that to the gal that is dreaming that her mother-in-law is chasing her with a butcher knife.
Of course there is that one dream that sticks with you because it is so,so,so real that you can't get it out of your head and you really want to know what it means, but you just can't figure it out. My scariest nightmare was like that. My mother-in-law chasing me, I could understand, but this scary dream shouldn't have been scary at all. I mean no monsters or anything. It was a stark white room. There was a small high window with white filmy curtains and a little girl all dressed in white (no one I knew) and she was pretty but with a rather passive expression. And it was terrifying. Go figure!
Maybe the dreams have no meaning and it's all in the interpretation. I mean maybe the Pharaoh dreamed of 7 fat calves and 7 lean calves (just waste from the day before) but when he asked Joseph to tell him what it meant (Joseph made it real through interpreting it )And the reality was that Egypt was in for 7 years of good times and then 7 years of bad times came to light. (You know God sure makes it hard for some by talking in parables, or riddles, like the fat and skinny cows, but then he must like others more because he gets real direct, "Noah, build a boat.")
I don't actually remember too many of my dreams like I did while I was younger. I once worked with a lady in a dream workshop that came to the meeting with 3 or 4 dreams that she remembered from the previous night, but then she really, really believed that ALL dreams were messages from God and she was supposed to figure each one out. Actually kind'a neat!
As for the meaning of dreams, I find myself leaning toward the interpretation of dreams as having more meaning than the actual dream because you can pick up someone else's dream, treat it as your own and give it meaning **FOR YOU** But that being said, the realness of the dream belongs to the dreamer.
Actually the quote works just as well backwards. "Life is real while it lasts, what more could be said of dreams."
Have you had any good dreams lately?

Way Cool! The century plant by our carport is off and running this spring. The stalk is shooting to the sky and soon, like fireworks on the 4th of July, it will bust out with it's mating finery. It's always such a display of beauty and strength when one blooms! Alas, of course, it is it's final huurah. Now, I've got to give God a thumbs up on this one. I mean, I'm not always so sure of a lot of his work. You know, like crooked mountain ranges and wiggly shore lines. And where did he come up with that taste for black olives or 99% of all wine? Or how about Chinese opera? But, generally, I'm willing to overlook some of those "less than perfect" works (even pizza with pineapple and anchovies) , I figure everyone's entitled to their little weird tastes, even God. But the idea he came up with on the agave was sheer genius. Just let it grow, and grow, and grow and get more and more beautiful and then with every ounce of energy in it bursts forth with a glorious display that seems to celebrate life and then dies. The question is, if he already had this gimmick in his bag of tricks before humans came on the scene, why didn't he use it on us? Why is the human dying process so damn ugly and nasty and, frankly, a lot of work? I know, I know, the Lord works in mysterious ways. Oh well!

Who knows when it's spring in the desert Southwest?

We're riding down the valley the other day and the Weeping Willows along the road were putting on their spring show of green. These guys always want to be the first ones out. A light shade of almost fluorescent green one day and then, pop! a full outfit of green leaves the next. However, when it comes to predicting Spring, it's not always the smartest flora in the field. Like we've had a very warm March so far, often in the 80s, but Mother Nature is, at heart, a trickster and I've seen a 30-inch snow in April so some of those earlier risers are quite likely to get their buds frozen off. In fact, the Weeping Willows bursting forth with new costumes doesn't indicate Spring, it indicates that we've had a few nights of warm weather.
On the other hand......

Mesquite trees know their shit when it comes predicting Spring. When they finally started sprouting new foliage, you know it's Spring. And, as you can see by this one beside my shop, not a single speck of green.

Weather and Global Warming has kind of been kicked to the back by the Economy now a days, but, at least the big boys are beginning to pay attention. No doubt that things are changing, but just how much is the human family shitting in their nest and how much is just the order of things in nature? (More than likely, a little of both) The last couple of years around here we've had more than normal rainfall which has resulted in the desert sprouting grass (2 to 3 feet high) History books talk about it being belly high on a horse, but I had never seen it before. In, even my short stay here on the planet we've experienced high temps and extreme droughts, before anyone noticed the hole in the ozone layer. I guess it matters very little, at this point, just what's causing it, but the idea that even if we didn't cause it, we should be doing things to alleviate it seems the way to go. (Sorry, Rush Limbaugh) Actually, the Economy crisis just might have a silver lining in it if we really re-examine classic capitalism and materialism.

Forced Education, I don't think so!

I've done two tours as an educator in public schools. An eight-year stint in the '70s and then another from the late '80s, up until last year, and I've got to tell you that both were real enjoyable. Look, it's not like a real job. You get to bullshit a lot and you get to play with other kids all day long. I don't want to give the idea that there was no work involved; but, like anything you really enjoy, just putting a lot of time toward an activity that you feel passionate about is not necessarily work.


Anyway, I throw out this tidbit of my past to justify my right to have an opinion of public education today. I think that most people will recognize that public schools are just an extension of the society that we live in and to look at them as if they were some independent entity would be a mistake. There are a lot of good things happening, from technology, to methods, to enrichment programs; but in general the state of public education today sucks. And nearly all that's bad in public schools has been brought on, not by evil doers, slackers, or lazy teachers, it has been created by WOULD BE SAVIORS, WITH GOOD INTENTIONS.


Let me give you a little example from Obama's stimulus package. One analysis I read points out that they are going to pump over 200 billion into education for things like hiring better teachers, (who can argue with that?), fixing up old buildings (no problem there), but a big sum is going to "create a better test"(Barack has been listening to some well meaning administrative idiots again). Any teacher that is semi-conscious can tell you after 4 or 5 weeks just where his/her students stand academically. So where does this need for a better test come from? It comes from well intentioned people who want to fix something but who have no contact with students in the classroom and all they have to work with is numbers. By the way, here in Texas, we (the taxpayers) have already dumped billions on the task of building a "better test" and, in fact, we have created an whole TESTING industry headed by ex-administrators, most of whom sleep well at night, convinced that their work is that of helping students. It is not, it is a disease, and you and I, as tax payers, are getting screwed along with the kids.

My point is that GOOD INTENTIONS are nice if you're trying to make yourself feel good, but they often miss the mark and they're everywhere. State legislators who read some sociological study that shows people with high school education earn more money over a lifetime (Duh?) so they write a law that a certain percentage of high school students must graduate (in Texas it's 95% and our principals get real creative with numbers to avoid breaking this law). Or one of my favorites, Texas legislators attempted to "help" increase standards by moving the failing grade of 60 up to 70 (guess what happened?). Social workers who push for laws to make sure that kids with exceptional needs get special attention and they do often by putting them in dumbed down classes and creating a really lazy kid because teachers become fearful of pushing too hard or failing the student (As a parent, my special needs child would have to be almost comatose before I would consent to putting him in one of those "well meaning" resource classes). Parents, teachers and administrators who have an elite educational bias and push all students toward college (The high school where I taught mandated students take a pre-SAT test. You and I paid for these pre-SAT tests for all students even though only about 15% would end up going to college). Public school administrators are so driven by test scores (their high paying jobs depend on it) fiddle with the only things that they can, numbers, tests, and teachers. They create so many little cutesy programs for teachers that the average teacher has no real time for planning or coming up with neat, fun-type activities that make teaching to both the students and the teachers a joy. Instead they spend their "planning time" going to in-service meetings, common planning, researching statistics, blah, blah blah........You should be getting the idea by now. It's hard to get upset at people that are really trying to help, but when it's not only costing the taxpayer a lot and it is actually harming students' opportunities to do something with their lives then somebody needs to say something.


Let me propose some radical steps to save public education from our top-heavy educational bureaucracy and social do-gooders. First, free education from prekindergarten to University. Second, get rid of forced education. Third, let teachers teach.

Free Education- Obama has proposed "helping" students with college and trade schools, and I think that's great,but, if education is the driving force for a healthy nation, socially and economically, (AND IT IS) how come we are not encouraging each and everyone of us to pursue the sharpening of our talents by offering all education as FREE education, to all, not just the wealthy. Now this should offered to only those who succeed. If you fail, you need to lay out for a "cooling off" period or you should pay your own way. Obviously anyone should be encouraged to continue their education and many non-traditional avenues should be counted amongst the education track.


Forced Education - One of the most discouraging situations that I saw as a high school teacher was that there was a large percentage of students (10 -30 %) that were just treading water until they could legally leave. They were taking up space, taking up my time, robbing time from other students, and, of course, they represented wasted money. Let them leave and, certainly, let them return. If they want to take that all important exit test, let them take it. If they pass it, and remember it is just a minimal skills test that at least half the sophomores in high school can pass, then give them a diploma, a pat on the back and smile as they walk out the door. In a FREE EDUCATION society they might want to pursue some sort of trade, let them. Chronic failures, obviously after remedial courses have been offered, should be shown the door or pay their own way, or return after a "cooling off" period.


Something has to be said about teachers. Most teachers really try. They want to be successful. They want students to learn. Pay them like professionals, treat them like professionals, give them goals and then get out of their way and let each use his or her unique talents to get the job done. Don't think that there is a cookie cutter mold for a good teacher. Now some people are naturals, some need a little help and experience before they come around and some very good people should not be teaching. Give teachers a probation period, say 3 years, to get it together, to master this student/teacher thing. During that probation period give them mentors, skills training, whatever, but after 3 years it should be evident whether they are going to make it or not. If not, let them go (parents, students, coworkers, should have input on this, but the principal should do it) and help them find other work. ***By the way that 3 year probationary period would work well for principles and school superintendents too!


Actually, our economic downturn, could be a blessing for education. The Juggernaut of our bloated, top heavy educational bureaucracy feeds at the trough of easy public money. A little tightening of the money supply might be good, especially if the traditional purse strings were given to those who had contact with students (how long with those stupid, time wasting in-services last when stacked up against real classroom needs?.

Ah well, I can dream, can't I?

Happy Birthday Charlie Darwin

painting by Werner Horvath



Happy Birthday Charlie!



I love this guy. Yeah, I tend to think his ideas about evolution were at least leaning in the right direction, but it's not just that basic agreement that makes me like the guy. Look at all the shit that this guy stirred up. I mean if you want to talk about about a rebel, Charlie's your guy. Just a little book and a few lectures among Britain's intellectual elite and this fellow set people to arguing for decades (Feb 7 =200 years) and the fire is still going strong. Come on! Wouldn't you like to come up with a simple little thought that would create a bubbling pot of shit that would still be causing book burnings and really fun to watch school board meetings long after you've departed from this world?



The Pius vs. the Atheistic Scientist, ahh, now that's a match. Okay, I know it's not that simple to most people, but you've got to admit that a lot of people who have never read anything by Darwin, nor really understand his real position on evolution have very strong opinions on this. Actually, he has caused just the right amount frustration and animosity and chaos which let people on both sides get angry and vent in all kinds of ways, from ugly to comical, yet he hasn't sparked any wars that I know of. We can probably be thankful that he didn't claim any divinity 'cause that might have pushed it over in to the war zone. But, Charlie, I'd like to believe that somehow, somewhere you're smiling about the whole fuss.

Stairway to Heaven

Stairway to Heaven.

Ok, ok, maybe not sitting around all blissed out talking scriptures with JC and Big Daddy. Not even an oasis full of virgins waiting to service my every need, but, hey, it's heaven. These are the stairs at the beginning of a nice little loop trail just as you're approaching Cloud Croft, New Mexico. Stepping up each of these is a step toward heaven. Yeah, I know, I huff and I puff and I can feel my knees begin to burn. But, I'm alive. I'm smelling the pines, and listening to the birds. Zig zagging between tall pines and firs, I find myself walking off the trial to avoid the ice, vistas of White Sands and Cloud Croft present themselves as the trail winds around the mountain. Mountain meadows, covered in last week's snow lay beside stands of, now denuded, aspins as Kamala, Halalujah and I meander along the trail until the ice on the trail tells us to turn back.

It's a cool, crisp Saturday and we are the only ones on the trail. I used to watch a lot of sports on TV, but about 12 years ago I gave it up. I loved it, but I just got tired of watching and made a decision to stop being a spectator and get out in IT. It was a really good decision. Now, I'm not a fanatic about it. If we go over to someone's house and they are watching a game, I watch, I participate, I can still appreciate a good shot, a good play, a nice, bone crunching tackle. but, frankly, none of them can come anywhere near the feeling of a walk in the woods, or a ride on the bike, or a paddle across the lake in a canoe. It's the DOING, that make the difference. I have gone to High School sporting events, not for the thrill or the excitement, but because I knew the students playing in them. I got excited for them; yelled in support, felt great when they won and sad when they lost, but, I've got to tell you watching the most exciting sport doesn't even come close to "climbing that stairway to heaven". Nike had it right in their slogan, "Just do it" . And, here's a little secret, do it with a really good friend and it's like icing on the cake.

With hard economic times upon us I think the time is ripe to put this "retro" stove on the market. That's right, the Hobo Stove that you loved and used during the 1930s is poised to return to it's time of greatness. A 2 gallon can of beans or hominy, a drill, a can opener, and a pair of tin snips and we are set for production. I figure we could recruit an army of out of work bankers to go dumpster diving to find the tin cans. Since the tin is even lighter that it was in the 30's, even a dull drill will work. Snip the legs and bend the section between the legs in to make the support for the bottom, which, of course, is the cut out top. Drill a few holes in the bottom and the side; zip, zip and you have a finished product. At a couple of bucks apiece, we'll be millionaires in no time if times are going to be as bad as all the newspeople seem to think. How about it?
You in? I know that is so easy to make that you might think that people would just make their own, but, hey, 70% of the newly poor don't even know how to program the clock on their VCR. Most just resort to taping something over the flashing numbers. I tell you the market is going to be big.

The Ultimate

This James. He's from Australia. He's a cross country cyclist that came by a few days ago. He stayed the night with us before pushing on to Albuquerque. We had an enjoyable encounter and he has gone. You know there was a time when I thought that the Ultimate was some kind of blissed-out state (high) that one got when he or she was able to "give up" this life. (Ahh, my misunderstood Buddhism). I'm sure that most good Christians would call me an atheist. (I'm not) but I sure as hell can't see the Ultimate as sitting around and breaking bread with God and Jesus, talking about pious stuff. I'm sorry, but I can't even make myself believe, and I've certainly tried, in an anthropomorphic god. But what I do believe in is relationships. Whether they are brief encounters like James floating through our lives or like Kamala who profoundly and deeply effects my here and now. That delicious pressing together of two or more spirits, not possessing or capturing. but simply EXPERIENCING the suchness of other sparks of life in the currents of space. Those experiences of relationships, good or bad, (And, frankly, at the risk of being out of touch with my Zen nature, I have greatly preferred the good even though I realize those assholes in my life have added luster to all the others) brief or long, deep or superficial seem to me to have a greater value than any possession, or destination, or even my very soul .(should one actually exist along with Santa and the tooth fairy) I just want to thank all of you out there who have ever shared that touching of spirits with me and, by damn, I think we ought to do it again before it's too late.

Why is Kamala hiding?

Why is Kamala hiding?

She's hiding from work! After 8 months of retirement there is still that gnawing feeling that we are supposed to be at work. Even here, on this mid-week hike in the Franklins, when all of our friends are busy at work, there is that touch of guilt that we are playing hooky or something. The other day we were over in the Northeast, near Irvin High School, where we worked (and played) for many years and we both had the urge to check around and see if anyone had spotted us so we could duck if we had to. Added to that feeling that we are enjoying ourselves while others toil away are these comments by people we know.

"Where are you working now that you have retired?"

"Are you substituting?"

"That's great Kamala, now you can use your CPA background to do taxes at Tax Time."

Just what part of RETIREMENT do they not understand? I feel sure that these "naughty" feelings that we are getting away with something (not working) will eventually fade, but for the moment, we are keeping a low profile and relishing them.

Discovery: Dragon's egg

Hi guys, I thought I'd let you in on this discovery before I go public with it. On Christmas day this year we were exploring a huge, dry arroyo just east of Presidio Texas. And then, there it was, right in front of us, a strange object that looked like a rock inside a rock. We did not realize what it was at first, neither of us having seen anything like it before, but then, bang, an eureka moment, and we realized that we had discovered a dragon's egg. It was obviously shaped like an egg and as hard as it was, what could burst out of an egg like that? Yep, it has to be a dragon. So now we are just waiting for it to hatch and I'm sure that won't be long because the rock like, outer layer is already starting to peel. We've sit up a little area in the workshop with a heat lamp on the egg. I can hardly wait. I've always wanted a pet dragon. I wonder just how long it will take before it's big enough for me to ride and it can take me flying. I'm just not sure whether I should call the National Inquirer now or wait for the hatching. I'll keep you posted.