Howdy, loopers, gather ’round the camp fire for a full-tilt rodeo of a tale! This ain’t your typical travel brochure drivel, mind you. No sir, this is a slapstick eulogy wrapped in a fever dream, seasoned with a dash of sand and color. Strap in, because we’re headed straight for the heartland, a place some folks derisively call “flyover country.”
First things first: full disclosure. I was hatched in Goodland, Kansas, a town so small it probably has its own tumbleweed support group. My parents, bless their tragically mismatched hearts, shuffled me between this so-called “good” land and Denver as regular as school seasons. But hey, summers were spent traipsing around the glorious front range with my outdoorsy step-mom and the old man – a nature enthusiast packing enough ordinance to battle a Russian platoon. Point being, Kansas (and Colorado) are in my blood, even if it’s a tad thin on account of all shuffling.
SIDE NOTE: hereafter, we’ll refer to my stomping grounds as “Kanorado” as, in addition to all that Front Range camping, i’ve spent time schooling or gigging in almost every Western Kansas town with a school or Opera House.
Now, some city slickers will tell you Kansas is nothing but a barren wasteland devoid of entertainment. Those sorry souls clearly haven’t bathed in the crystal-clear waters of Wilson Lake. Nestled snug against I-70 in good ol’ Bob Dole country, Wilson boasts the most transparent reservoir this side of the Missouri River, likely due to all that golden limestone chilling at the bottom. Speaking of limestone, the Rocktown trail is a naturalist’s technicolor dream – a geological wonderland teeming with flora, fauna, and rock formations that’d make Moab, Utah smile.
But hold on to your cover, loopers, because there’s more to Kansas than meets the eye. The Flint Hills, once a stomping ground for John Brown and his gorilla raiders, roll on like a never ending emerald wave. Tall tails of outlaw chicanery featuring such familiar names as Buffalo Bill Cody, Wild Bill Hickok, and Calamity Jane to name a few did at least some of their stompin’ right here in the flyover. General Dwight D., “Beware of the Military Industrial Complex,” Eisenhower from Abilene went on to kick some Nazi arse, and hey, music lovers, get this: Joe Walsh, that guitar-slingin’ jester himself, hails from Wichita!
Now, speaking of Kansas loopers, let’s get one thing straight: they’ve heard every “Wizard of Oz” joke you may have in your quiver. They won’t laugh, but they’ll wear those ruby-red kicks like a badge of honor. Now, about sports – Rock Chalk Jayhawks? Sure, they bleed crimson and blue, but they also have a healthy respect for the KCMO pro teams (GO Chiefs!). West of Wichita, however, Jayhawk fandom gets met with raised eyebrows. Many Western Kansas peeps are more partial to the Denver Donkeys. Can you believe the audacity?
Kansas City itself is a tale of two quarreling siblings. The Kansas-Missouri border rivalry stretches all the way back to the Civil War, when things got downright bloody (look up “Bloody Kansas” if you have a strong stomach). Politically, Kansas loopers tend to lean conservative, but mess with their personal liberties and you’ll see a realpolitik “don’t tread on me” spirit rise faster than a prairie dust storm. Remember that ballot initiative to control women’s bodies? Kansas loopers saw through that religious mumbo jumbo faster than a jackrabbit on a hot tin roof.
Here’s the thing about Kansas: everyone wants to claim their little town as Superman’s birthplace (Smallville), but Clark has yet to release the birth certificate so the mystery… persists. There may not be any Clark Kents out there, but there is a cause to pause, vis a vis the particular vein of grit these people exhibit. Kansas loopers are a tough lot. Most of them can drive a stick shift and have probably piloted a tractor at some point in their lives. “Home on the Range” ain’t just a song, it’s a way of life. Before corporate greed gobbled up family farms, everyone either pitched in as hired help or knew a farmer by name. Minnesota nice? Pah! Those loopers are downright chatty compared to the almost painfully polite Kansas loopers. Being the literal “heartland” of the country has its perks – neighbors here look out for each other. Need to borrow a chainsaw? No sweat. Dog gone rogue? The whole town will be on the hunt. Need a cup of sugar, or a smoky coffin nail? If they got it, you got it. Kansas loopers have a fierce sense of loyalty, that is, until karma comes knocking. They believe in what goes around comes around, faster than a tumbleweed in a tornado.
Ah, Kansas… flatter than a Baptist hymn board and about as exciting as watching paint dry? Newsflash, chuckleheads: Kansas loopers know their state’s a canvas painted in shades of endless prairie. West of Wichita, some would vote to make the telephone pole the state tree. But here’s the thing – pick a quiet spot out in the country at the “golden hour,” and you’ll be met with a spectacle that would make even God herself tip the sun bonnet. Sunsets in Kansas, loopers, are like a knife fight between angels – a Technicolor brawl that leaves the sky bruised with purples, oranges, and a fiery red that would make a MAGA hat look downright pale.
So, on to the point of this screed. To write a verse for Kansas to add to Woody Guthrie’s classic, “This Land.” I decided to dig a little deeper than a prairie pothole and get the lowdown on our state motto, “Ad Astra per Aspera” – that’s Latin for “To the stars through difficulties,” you heathens. I cornered a “student success coach” at the Kansas Wesleyan University library, and a Kansas history whiz at the Hays Public Library. Both of them, bless their unoffensive coffee mugs, talked about the state’s rough-and-tumble beginnings – the dust storms that could choke a billy goat, the grasshopper plagues that made the Bible look like a picnic. But here’s the thing: these scrappers, these pioneers with callouses on their souls, they persevered. They looked up at that endless Kansas sky, saw the Milky Way sprawled out like a cosmic wheat field, and said, “You know what? We’re going to reach for those stars, even if it means clawing our way through a mountain of misery first.”
And that, my friends, is the Kansas spirit. It’s in the way the wheat sways in the wind, a silent symphony of resilience. It’s in the way a small town pulls together after a tornado, stronger than ever. It’s in the way a Kansan, with a twinkle in their eye and a calloused hand extended, welcomes you to their state, even if you are, ahem, flyover challenged.
So, the next time you think about taking a potshot at Kansas, take a long look at a map, friend. Because out here, under skies that put on a nightly light show that would shame the Vegas Sphere, we’re reaching for the stars, one sunset at a time. And that, folks, is a beautiful thing.
And so… without further adieu, combining my personal experience, some light research queries, and my conversations with the above librarians, here’s a Kansas verse for This Land, by Woody Guthrie.
Onward through the fog… R.H.
As i was rolling… Through the Kansas wheat fields… I saw the Milky Way… As a quantum field… And though the way is… Fraught with trouble… peril… These folks… Have made it to the stars!
So, i’m hurtling through this cosmic cul-de-sac, a nomad on a double-nickel pilgrimage with a song on my lips and a brace of French Roast in my belly. All i ask, really, is a slice of peace, a chance to bask in the expanse of the vast cosmos without getting bogged down by the inertia of cultural bigotries. A decent night’s sleep and a well-stocked purse wouldn’t hurt either. You know, the usual human wishlist.
Love? Companionship? Not now! There’s a big difference between loneliness and solitude. At this stage of life, i cherish the latter. All i require is sustenance and the endless ribbon of asphalt disappearing into the distance. A knight-errant of the asphalt jungle, i roam the land, a double-nickel Don Quixote in a gypsy wagon christened Rosinante.
The world rushes by in a blur of faces and forgotten towns, some offering a fleeting thumbs-up, others muttering curses under their breath. But i care not for their fleeting judgments. I am a man without a home, adrift in a sea of asphalt, with all the time in the world to get nowhere. After all, if sticking to a double-nickel speed limit saves on dino-fuel (bless their scaly, prehistoric hides), then 55 it shall be (apologies to the Red Rocker).
LISTEN: Today, nature called amidst the springtime symphony of the prairie. With the road blissfully empty in both directions, i pulled over to answer nature’s insistent ache. And what a sight greeted me! A verdant valley unfolded like a freshly-minted postcard, the grass bursting with color after a life-giving rain. A lone, gnarled branch stood sentinel at the meadow’s edge, its weathered form a stark contrast to the vibrant flora around it, the rust on its barbed wire like a sprinkle of celestial pepper. And right there, in that moment, my heart overflowed with a love for this ramshackle, vagabond existence. Yes, sir, this rootless existence fills me with a love so profound it borders on the ecstatic. At least for now. Because let’s face it, there’s a whole damn nation out there waiting to be explored, and a million miles to tick off before i can even consider the possibility of… well, who am i kidding? There is no rest for the wicked, not on this side of the wormhole. So fire up the engine, baby! This road trip through the fibrillating heart of a divided nation continues!
And so… as some made-for-TV mop-tops once sang…
“Hey Hey, we’re the Monkeys… You never know where we’ll be found… So you better get ready… Cos we’re comin’ to your town.”
In that spilled neon netherworld between wakefulness and full-bore dreaming “I Don’t Wanna Know” by Fleetwood Mac faded in from the forgotten jukebox of my skull. At the same time, a mangy alley cat, tail like a rat-whip, slunk across the dreamscape, all twitching muscle and dumpster-fed desperation. On its heels was a German shepherd, a low-slung Panzer tank of teeth and fury. The chase was a ballet of brick and shadow, a whirlwind of guttural barks and desperate hisses. Holy hell, it was all too much like some third-rate vaudeville skit, and i was the sucker in the front row.
Then, the inevitable clash… a screech like rusty nails on a chalkboard. Fur and blood painted the asphalt. Out of the corner of my eye, i saw the culvert, a concrete maw leading to some underworld. And inside? Another dog, swollen belly taut, eyes glowing like those green roadside reflectors that warn of deer.
Cut to an old folks’ home. The air thick with the smell of grits and regret. A robot cat, fir and plastic absurdity, purrs on the lap of a lonesome resident, its twitching ears a parody of life.
My boondocking dreamscape then spun me round like a cyclone… a funeral, the wind whipping at jacketless mourners like crows in the dead of winter. The mourners were teeth chattering in the face of an early spring blast straight outta the Arctic Circle. It was the pure indifference of Mother Nature… the whole damn universe a cosmic joke, a punchline as old as life itself.
And i, the dreamer, was stuck. Should i help the alley cat… all bone and defiance? Or was it the pregnant dog’s turn for a meal? This was some ice-age saber-tooth dilemma, the kind that’d make Jeremiah spit fire and chew nails for breakfast.
I woke up with a jolt, sleeping bag in a tangle, a strangled scream clogged in my throat. And i had the strangest damn notion… somehow, that robot cat in the nursing home, the alley cat, and the song, they were all connected. Many sides of the same warped die, mechanical pity thrown against raw instinct… and the music of heartbreak.
The whole world, it seemed, was like a dreamscape where choices are never clear-cut. Maybe that’s the point, but i honestly don’t know… it was, however, time to fire up the propane stove and make the coffee and grits for another day on the road… Hot Springs or Busk!
Ah, the open road. A struggle with wind on the prairie, the sun a benevolent orb on your windshield, and the liberating absence of… well, plumbing. Yes, loopers, for those of us who’ve traded overstuffed leather thrones for driver’s seats of trusty (read: not so aerodynamic) sprinter vans, the pursuit of personal hygiene takes on a whole new existential character. It’s a daily vaudeville act, a slapstick ballet between man, machine, and the whims of the ever-fickle water pump.
Yesterday evening, for instance, began with the misguided optimism that a proper shower was within reach. Visions of cascading waterfalls danced in my head… a reward for a week of dodging rogue deer and boondocking in rest areas smelling vaguely of despair. With the zeal of a knight errant facing a fire-breathing dragon, i backed up to a wall and opened Rocinante’s cargo doors (strategically chosen to function as a modesty panel, because, let’s face it, ya gotta come up with your own privacy screens on the road). I wrestled the showerhead attachment onto the back hose… a Frankensteinian contraption powered by D-batteries and hope… then tiptoed to the back of the van with the grace of a particularly uncoordinated hippo wrapped in a beach towel.
Then, the heavens… or rather, the water pump… opened. But instead of a cleansing downpour, a pathetic cascade of not quite warm droplets emerged, clinging precariously to the nozzle like tears on a clown’s cheek. It was a scene straight out of a Beckett play… minimalist, absurd, and utterly soul-crushing. The wrath of Poseidon himself couldn’t have been more devastating. Here i was, poised for ablution, and the universe was mocking me with the hydraulics of a thimble.
I tell you, loopers, despair smells a lot like stale marshmallows and last week’s campfire. But as i wallowed in my sudsy misery (yes, i’d optimistically brought travel-sized body wash), a strange sense of zen washed over me. Perhaps Don Quixote wasn’t so delusional after all. Maybe tilting at windmills, or in this case, attempting a shower powered by wishful thinking, is a necessary part of the human condition.
So, here’s to the nomads of the road, the warriors of personal hygiene who wage daily battle with limited water supplies and questionable plumbing. We may not have crystal showers or endless hot water, but we have ingenuity, a good supply of Dude Wipes (because let’s be real, some days call for a strategic retreat), and the unwavering spirit of a hobo at a five-star buffet. After all, a clean conscience is a luxury, but a cleanish body? That, loopers, is achievable, even in the back of a rebellious rolling studio apartment. With a sponge, some shade, and a healthy dose of self-deprecating resignation, even the grimiest nomad can achieve a passable facsimile of civilized cleanliness. Now, if you’ll excuse me, i have a date with a bucket and some very optimistic body wash.
And so, our mongrel of the rueful countenance takes another step closer to his post-retirement vision quest (hot springs or busk). Unlike Don Quixote’s rusty armor, helmet, and spear, he dons camo shorts, Tevas, and Hawaiian shirts blending gloriously with the avocado floor of his newly outfitted camper van. He christened her “Rocinante,” a nod to the famous 17th century novel and a little inside joke to himself. Seemed fitting for a slightly unhinged adventure like this. Luckily he’s traveling with a couple equally bent family members, we’ll call them Dawnareeno and Crazy Carter.
The first stop on Rocinante’s maiden voyage was Colorado Springs, where some savvy outfitters promised to turn Rocinante’s insides into a rolling studio apartment. Ronnie threw caution to the wind and was not disappointed, the outfitters turned the van into a true vagabond sanctuary. While waiting for the workers to finish the job, Ronnie, Dawnareeno, and Crazy Carter took in a few of the local attractions, and while exploring, stumbled upon a vintage motorcycle shop… you know, the one with the cryptic “help wanted” sign in the window. It was practically tailor-made for a gearhead like Crazy Carter, and we all got a chuckle from the words on the sign: “Wanted… mechanic to work on vintage motorcycles. Prefer a retiree with their own tools and plenty of time on their hands.”
Right on time, Ronnie, Dawnareeno, Crazy Carter, and Rocinante tilted towards the plains, bound for their home town where mom still lives (call her Sassy Salgal). Visiting that tiny windswept Western Kansas town made these intrepid travelers feel nostalgic for their flaming youth. But if the wind didn’t shake the vans to pieces that night, well, that would be a minor miracle. It howled like a banshee on a bender, giving their rolling domiciles an unnerving sway that had them contemplating the merits of Dramamine pills.
One more overnight. This time somewhere near the Choctaw Nation, they boondocked in a nearly empty truck stop parking lot, nearly empty because the place had closed for the night in order to upgrade their IT setup. Dinner under the golden arches, then up bright and early for the final stretch to Savannah with its sweet tea, Spanish moss, and symphonies of croaking frogs like drunken choirs of mutant crickets. It was Mother Nature’s lullaby and that night our intrepid travelers slept the sleep of the dead. The frog chorus was as loud as those relentless Kansas winds, which is saying something. Savannah has a ghostly charm, and Ronnie’s travel companions, back in their element, served up a delicious bowl of eggs, grits, and salsa. Just the rib-sticking ticket for the long journey back to Hays America.
A stopping point on the return trip, Nashville, very nearly did him in. The traffic was a biblical swarm of 18-wheelers and urban assault vehicles piloted by rage-filled maniacs who seemed personally offended by the very existence of camper vans. Our hero sweated bullets, the beginnings of a stress ulcer gnawing away in his gut as he navigated potholes big enough to swallow Rocinante whole. Between the craters and the belligerent rat race, he was about ready to cash in his chips and take up residence in a roadside ditch.
But like all things, even Nashville’s particular circle of hell came to an end. St. Louis passed in a blur, then a welcomed ice cream break with his two boys and a special friend in Kansas City, and then… the long, lonely expanse of I-70. The wind returned for one last hurrah, a farewell slap to remind him who was really in charge out on the prairie. Ronnie gritted his teeth, visions of sugar-coated mood gummies and his home bed the only thing keeping him sane.
And then, just like that, there was Hays America again. Rocinante, despite the indignities suffered, pulled into the parking lot with a weary sigh. Ronnie, a little grayer, a little more wrinkled, and sporting a newfound respect for the sheer chaotic power of the American highway, stumbled out. He was home, and damn, if it didn’t feel good. He might not be the world’s greatest adventurer yet, but as he patted Rocinante’s battered side, he grinned. “We’ve only just begun,” he said. There are 50 states in the good ol’ USofA, and Ronnie with Rocinante plans to busk them all then relax in their natural hot springs along the way.
America, that grand experiment in democracy and greasy cheeseburgers, has split in two. It’s a nation of Penthouse and Outhouse, caviar dreams and dumpster diving. And in San Francisco, the poster child of this cracked reality, the divide slices cleaner than a Zuckerberg algorithm.
On one side of the looking glass, you have the Tech Titans. Think smooth-faced whiz kids who probably still get carded for rated-R movies, but their bank accounts have more zeroes than the national debt. They cruise around in their self-driving Teslas, sleek as chrome beetles, sipping twenty-dollar green smoothies. Their fortress-like penthouses look out on the city like bored gods on an anthill. At night, they gather at fundraisers you couldn’t buy your way into with a suitcase full of pirate treasure, nibbling on edible gold and discussing the colonization of Mars. It’s enough to make a regular Jane want to scream into her tear-stained pillow.
Then, there’s the other side… the sidewalk crew. These are the folks who exist in the blind spots of the digital aristocracy. Tents sprout like poisonous mushrooms along cracked concrete, faces etched with a lifetime of hard luck, and eyes that mirror the dull sheen of discarded iPhones. They push their worldly belongings in shopping carts, a symphony of rattling wheels and despair that no noise-canceling headphones can drown out. The smell of unwashed bodies and stale urine hangs heavy in the air, a constant reminder that while some worry about stock options, others worry about their next meal.
The great irony, one that would have Kurt Vonnegut cackling into his cornflakes, is that these two Americas need each other. The tech overlords, for all their billions, would be lost without the army of delivery drivers, baristas, and dog walkers that keep their designer lives running like clockwork. And let’s not forget those poor souls who clean up the aftermath of their all-night coding binges fueled by energy drinks that could power a small nation.
Meanwhile, the street folks are an endless source of moral hand-wringing for the penthouse set. They fuel charity galas, anguished blog posts, and the occasional guilt-ridden donation tossed to a panhandler like a bone to a stray dog. It’s a sick kind of symbiosis, the way their high-tech kicks need the muddy puddle to prove just how awesome they are.
H. L. Mencken, the old cynic, would have a field day with this mess. We can practically hear him snorting into his whiskey highball: “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” Ouch.
The thing is, nobody seems to be doing anything about this chasm that grows wider with each passing Uber Eats order. Politicians, as usual, are flapping their mouths like beached fish, some spinning promises about fixing a broken system that’s been cracked since before iPhones were a twinkle in Steve Jobs’ eye, others still blaming the poor for not pulling on their bootstraps hard enough. Both sides, with a few rare exceptions, not even trying to hide the fact that they are bought and paid for in a system of abject corruption. They’re too busy eyeing their campaign donors in those sterile fundraisers to actually do anything that might rock the boat.
So it goes. While the tech wizards dream of space colonies and the sidewalk crew prays for a dry patch of pavement, the rest of us stand somewhere in the middle, bewildered and nauseous from the whiplash. The great American experiment, once a beacon of hope and hotdogs, now resembles something more like a Salvador Dali painting… melting, distorted, and just plain bizarre.
And so… it’s probably good to get some background out of the way. And whether this public-facing journal features opinion, commentary, straight bald facts, mongrel music, or utterly inexplicable gonzo fiction, it’s important readers/listeners have access to the creator’s ethnic, cultural, socio-economic background, political leanings, as well as religious and/or gender identification. These things should be clear so that, rather than walking on rhetorical eggshells as is the custom these days, we can let our freak-flags fly… let these bare-metal stories/songs live and breathe as we see them. Unbounded by the illusion of disinterested objectivity, let’s pursue what Werner Herzog calls… “Ecstatic Truths.”
And since we’re not in cahoots with a genealogist, nor invested in 23andMe, this particular ancestry reaches back only so far as the late 19th century. It’s a shallow oral history scantly passed down by depression-era grand and great-grandparents. That said, it is an amusing clash of melting pot misfits: Jerrys (Deutsch), Harps (Gaelic), and Brits (English) all mashed together in Uncle Sam’s ethnic stew. Picture this, America: pre-WWI, a land teeming with more immigrant groups than a clown car at a rodeo. Among them, three distinct flavors: Stoic Jerrys, Guinness-swilling Harps, and stiff-upper-lip Brits. Now, imagine them crammed into the stew, a bubbling cauldron promising assimilation but spewing out this mongrel of rueful countenance… the alter-ego, Ronnie Hays.
Anyway, in the pre-war surge, a couple German immigrants (bless their lederhosey hearts) arrived in Pittsburg Kansas having never met in their native city, Bremen Germany. With the efficiency of healthy Volkswagen Beetles, this intrepid couple found a way to thrive in the desolate Kansas prairie. They labored, they brewed, they ooom pa’d with metronome precision. Their industriousness and tireless work-ethic hummed with the ineffable rhythm of Mother Nature’s shifting seasons. A stark contrast with the life and times of one of their sons (we’ll call him “Cool” Carl). Cool Carl moved West, to the gold mines of front-range Colorado, and once these wild-west gold-rush oats were sewn he settled in, built a brick house in the North Denver suburbs and raised a no-nonsense industrial beat-cop turned public works supervisor (call him Grumpalumpagus). This is where the Jerry genes crashed into the U.K. genes. Mr. Grumpalumpagus met and married a U.K. girl from Russell Kansas (we’ll call her Sassy SalGal), and the rest is female emancipation, generation gap, moonshots, hippies, rednecks, Indian uprisings, Viet Nam, race riots, billy clubs, police crackdowns, irreconcilable-differences, and divorce… history.
Add to the 1960s baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet culture-crisis, a fundamental communication gap between Grumpalumpagus (a Jerry husband) and Sassy SalGal (a U.K. wife) distracted by waves of female emancipation facilitated by the various social safety nets, contraception, and pop-intellectual peer-pressure and you get a three-ring circus of misinterpretations. The Jerry cop’s guttural proclamations insisting women be house servants sent shivers down Sassy SalGal’s back. She might have mistook his alpha pronouncements for some sort of desperate war-of-the-sexes battle cry. The Brit influence in her uttering lyrical oaths under mumbling breath. The playful, but scrappy Harp in her issuing caustic digs like leprechauns on a whiskey rampage. Of course her U.K. sense of sarcastic wit met with bewildered frowns from the Jerry cop, and also alarmed her British father whose clipped pronouncements, delivered as if they were coming from the Queen herself, failed to persuade SalGal back into her pre-emancipation place.
Now… what about our intrepid storyteller and his all-singing-dancing crap-of-the-world alter-ego… this “Yuppytown Refugee?” Well… amid the slapstick of the 1960s and 1970s, something remarkable happened. The Jerry work ethic rubbed off on the Harp’s tendency toward mournful poetry, inspiring our hero to trade brawling for bucking deadlines. The Harp’s infectious penchant for music and storytelling livened up the all-work-no-play grindstone, turning out a somewhat disciplined rueful troubadour with British influence, ever pragmatic, looking for economic potential in this mongrel stew.
Of course, it’s not all work-hard-play-hard and beer. Inner-tensions flare, prejudices fester, and the occasional existential brawl serves as a reminder of the differences that still bubble beneath the surface. But slowly, surely, a new identity emerges, a uniquely American blend of Bratwurst, Guinness, and Monty Python Flying Loopcircus.
Of course…. ch ch ch changes… modern inclusive culture has temporarily ushered him to the sidelines in order to make room for the rainbow character of this remarkable nation. The thing is, none of the normal trappings of acquisitive individualism matters to our mongrel of rueful countenance. The temporary disenfranchisement of white male energy doesn’t bother him at all. And if he can enjoy a few more healthy years for writing, playing, and singing his stories, even if no one is listening, he’s in his element… in need of nothing more.
So, the next time you raise a glass to the American Dream, remember the loopy cultural car crashes somehow managing to forge new soul from fragments of European heritage. It’s not always pretty, it’s not always peaceful, but it has been, and hopefully is still… entertaining.
To list MEMEtic influences would be too long for this posting, but here are a few examples: Kurt Vonnegut‘s irrepressible humor in the face of tragedy, Hunter S. Thompson‘s incisive musical prose, Tom Wolfe‘s wiz-popping use of vivid metaphor, or the entire tower of song mentioned by Leonard Cohen. It’s all part of this grand, messy, beautiful American experiment.
Cheers… Rohlfie
PS: That’s some gene/meme-pool stuff… didn’t get around to socio-economic class, politics, religion, or gender identity. Stay tuned… we’ll get to those things in future postings.
In a cathedral of frost… my boots, skiffs displacing virgin snow, crunch the hushed promise of beginnings. In the days between Christmas and the New Year, festive proclamations of peace and goodwill hang heavy in the air, yet this quiet reverie also thrums with the abyss of rancor and bottomless strife. The Prankster’s Acid-Test, once a rainbow promise, now shimmers with a metallic tang, a reminder of Heaven’s sublime dance with chaos.
And so… beneath this ecstatic surface, the dark melody plays. The white expanse becomes a battleground etched with the scars of faraway Abrahamic conflict, a canvas stained with generations of blood and tears. The echoes of Bethlehem and Calvary bleed into the whispers of jihad and herem, a cacophony of holy war that stretches across millennia.
My relatively carefree steps become a pilgrimage through this frozen labyrinth. Each crunch, a requiem for peace, a prayer for a future where faith isn’t a weapon, where love doesn’t wear the armor of hate. The silence of good fortune, once a haven, now amplifies the cries of fallen multitudes, urging a reckoning, a cleansing flood to wash away the bloodstain of ages.
As i walk deeper into the white embrace, the visions fade, leaving behind a stark clarity. The snow, a baptism of truth, washes away the sugarcoated sermons, the justifications for endless war. This bittersweet echo, a reminder of the fragility of peace in a world consumed by selfish animus.
And i, a pilgrim in this realm of white, carry the weight of both faith and fury. My steps, a testament to the long arc of justice, where holy fires stay home, where love’s ecstatic whirl upstages drums of war. In this winter cathedral, i dance with the ghosts of angels and demons, a testament to the omnipresent struggle for a world where peace isn’t just a Christmas platitude, but a lived reality.
Loopcircus 