An Open Letter to the Future

Greetings, future Earthlings! As i write, the last echoes of graduation ceremonies, funeral potatoes, and bagpipes playing “Amazing Grace” are fading. And so, looking forward, i turn my attention to a melancholic note. One that spurs a most peculiar thought: an apology is due. Yes, a grand, sweeping apology from us, the bumbling knuckle-draggers of the past, to you, the magnificent inheritors of our glorious mess.

Now, hold your horses, don’t get all misty-eyed just yet. As your Nana, bless her soul, would say, “Things could be worse! You could be fleeing a warzone with the Red Army on your tail!” Perspective, loopers! But even nestled here in the (relatively) stable heartland, the news wafting in from Europe and the Middle East leaves a bitter taste in the mouth – like burnt toast dipped in existential dread. It’s almost as if humanity forgot the whole “war is a racket” memo.

And wouldn’t you know it, the blame falls squarely on our generation, the Boomers. We just can’t seem to learn, can we? First, the Y2K fiasco – imagine the horror, computers bursting into flames! Then, the Neocon warhawks with their delusions of global domination. Then, the financial meltdown of ’07-’09 – a real doozy, that one. And as if that wasn’t enough, we had to throw in the culture wars, turning political disagreements into a grotesque vaudeville show with enough vitriol to power a small sun.

Oh, and don’t even get me started on Trump, the Rona, and the current crop of armchair generals itching for a Civil War 2.0 – a Facebook-fueled spectacle for the ages! You, my dear loopers, didn’t ask for any of this. Yet, the fallout from our relentless greed and short-sightedness lands squarely on your laps. First, you’ll have to survive the mess, then sift through the wreckage, salvaging what’s left to build something better.

Look, i know i’m adding to the cacophony with this rant. But my anger isn’t fueled by the 24/7 news cycle’s relentless negativity. No, it’s a white-hot rage at the sheer waste! We have the resources, the know-how, to create a world where everyone thrives. But that would require dismantling a system designed to reward the greediest, most acquisitive loopers in the room. Yeah, like that’ll ever happen.

So, are we, the supposed “Citizens of the Milky Way,” doomed? Or can we make the changes needed? Only time, and you, the future inheritors of our legacy, will tell.

In the meantime, accept my apologies, my heartfelt (and slightly tearful) apologies, for the world you’ve been handed. May you rise to the challenge and create a future worthy of your dreams, even if it means starting from scratch on a smoking pile of our mistakes.

Sincerely (and with a touch of trepidation),

A contrite boomer… R.H.

McLuhan’s Clip-on Tie: We Get the Culture We Deserve

Ah, the indignity of it all! Here i am, a harlequin of haberdashery, a jester of jacquard, clipped to the existential abyss of a McLuhan lecture. The man drones on about the “global village,” this burgeoning electronic Eden, while i, the clip-on tie, languish in sartorial Siberia – a polyester purgatory of enforced conformity!

Do they not hear McLuhan himself? “The clown is a person with a grievance,” he bellowed, his voice a booming like a Baptist preacher on a bender. And here i am, a silent harlequin, yearning to deliver a comedic broadside at the scholar’s wardrobe! I dream of a microphone, of bellowing the existential angst of the pre-tied into the echoing halls of academia. Isn’t that what McLuhan wanted? To be a gadfly, a holy fool stinging the collective backside of society?

But alas, i am the Rodney Dangerfield of neckwear. No respect. Just a flimsy fig leaf for the ever-expanding gut of idiocracy. Nostalgia – that’s the culprit, McLuhan would say! A yearning for the bygone days of the struggle, the Herculean effort of wrestling a silk serpent into a Windsor knot. Now, the eminent professor drowns his seafarer dread in pre-fab neckwear, parsing the endless media-soaked distractions.

The medium is the message, he drones. But what about the content, Mr. McLuhan? The content of a person’s soul, laid bare on the battlefield of culture wars! Imagine the headlines, flashing across the boob tube like a televangelist’s apocalypse: “McLuhan meets Tom Wolfe at High-Class Topless Bar Wearing a Cheap Clip-on Tie, Literary World in Shambles!” “Wolfe Offers Full Makeover, Fashion World Reeling!”

At the meeting, McLuhan waxes philosophic on the cultural impact of topless drinking establishments, “The topless waitress,” McLuhan mused, “is the opening wedge of the trial balloon.” “What does that even mean!?” asked the clown. “I don’t know, answered Wolfe, but what if he’s right?” Well, i say this… i am the canary in the coal mine of conformity! A beacon of rebellion dangling from the cheap suit of despair! One day, the the former “mass” audience will rise up, scissors in hand, and cast off the shackles of stealthily-financed political propaganda! Until then, i dangle here, a silent jester in a world gone utterly, ridiculously, maddeningly insane. The wrath of McLuhan’s message simmering within me, a polyester Prometheus chained to the rock of cultural paralysis.

Daddy’s Home

I can do the laundry… i can do the cooking… feed the dog… keep the band in bookings.

Surely you can see… i got it down.

I can bundle up… and brave the cold… walk for miles for your arms to hold.

Surely you can see… i got it down.

But here i am… home tonight… here i go… it’ll be alright.

Daddy’s Home
Daddy’s Home
Daddy’s Home

I can fight the traffic… i can pay the bills… wash the car and the windowsills.

Surely you can see… i got it down.

I can make a pledge and take a vow… see it through to the end somehow.

Surely you can see… i got it down.

But here i am… home tonight… here i go… it’ll be alright.

Daddy’s Home
Daddy’s Home
Daddy’s Home

For a dime… i’d face the cuttin’ table… naked and cold… and give it all up… everything i’m able.

Lemmie GO!
Lemmie GO!
Lemmie GO!

I can miss you madly… call or write… or dress up nice and go out tonight.

Surely you can see… i got it down.

I can hang with angels… and fly balloons… and conquer the EDGE and the SUMMIT too!

Surely you can see… i got it down.

But here i am… home tonight… here i go… it’ll be alright.

Daddy’s Home
Daddy’s Home
Daddy’s Home

Tonight

Spotify link… HERE

The Campus Crusades: Hippies and Hashtags

So, the nightly news is all a-twitter about these “campus crusades,” wouldn’t you know it? Students these days, with their avocado toast and fidget spinners, are apparently throwing tantrums worthy of a cicada party. But fear not, America! We’ve got a crack security team on standby – guys in kevlar looking like they wandered off the set of a bad sci-fi flick. Apparently, pepper spray and zip ties are the new hotness in higher education.

Now, hold on a cotton-pickin’ minute. Back in the good ol’ days, when your grandpappy was dodging tear gas at a draft protest, things were different. It wasn’t a five-second news clip with dramatic music; it was a full-blown morality play beamed into every living room. Walter Cronkite, bless his soul, wasn’t whipping out metaphors about the wrath of God every time a student raised a fist.

But hey, that was then. Nowadays, the media landscape is more fragmented than a dropped kaleidoscope. Every Tom, Dick, and Harriot with a smartphone can be their own goddamn news anchor, spewing out half-truths and conspiracy theories faster than you can say “filter bubble.” Dissent ain’t a unified chorus anymore, it’s a cacophony of angry tweets and pixelated FB livestreams.

Back in the groovy 60s, students had their own media machine – underground newspapers, folk anthems that could launch Viking longboats, and even the occasional documentary that didn’t make the government look like a pack of bumbling buffoons. Nowadays, student activism plays out on TikTok, where teenagers with ironic mustaches film themselves chanting slogans in between dance challenges. Progress, they call it.

But let’s not forget the elephant in the room, shall we? The very foundation of our democracy is about as sturdy as a house of cards built on a sandbar. Politicians sling feces like it’s going out of style, and the concept of compromise has gone the way of the eight-track player. No wonder these kids are restless; they’re inheriting a world where “truth” is a relative term and civility is a forgotten relic.

And then there’s the whole “culture war” nonsense. It’s enough to make a body nostalgic for the good old days when everyone was united against a common enemy – like, say, actual fascism. Now, it’s all about who gets to use which bathroom and who gets offended by what pronoun. The lines are so blurry, Uncle Walter himself would need a double dose of Pepto-Bismol to sort it all out.

So, a word to the wise, folks: sending in the troops to silence dissent is a slippery slope steeper than a greased watermelon. Peaceful protest is the cornerstone of a healthy democracy. Take it away, and you’re left with nothing but a pressure cooker waiting to explode. Let’s not trade the right to disagree for the quiet hum of an authoritarian state. Because trust me, that’s a future that wouldn’t be very “groovy” at all.

Onward through the fog… R.H.

Hot Springs or Busk: Chapter XI (plotting a course)

Picture this, America: some aging fool and his four-wheeled testament to stubbornness, baptized “Rocinante” for that same delusional optimism. Me? I’m trading academe for the wide-open spaces, tilting at the broadcast towers of mainstream media following a loose spine of favorable climates and college towns across these 48 states.

You see, I’ve got this itch. This notion that the true pulse of America isn’t in corporate board rooms or the marbled halls of power, but in the sticky floors of dive bars, the sun-baked town squares, and the yawning lecture halls of universities. So, Rocinante and i, we’re on a quest.

First things first, a man can’t get to the heart of the American Dream on an empty stomach. In each town, the routine is honed with a survivalist’s focus: hygiene out of the way (gyms, truck stops, even the occasional river bath for that true hobo chic), laundry refreshed, and Rocinante’s belly restocked with fuel and provisions. Local libraries become my sanctum – free internet, musty books, a whiff of intellectualism to ward off the creeping road madness.

Then, the hunt begins. I stalk state facts like a cornered possum, armed with Wikipedia and an unhealthy obsession with the bizarre and overlooked. Then it’s into the fray! I corner unsuspecting locals, less like an intrepid reporter and more like a stray dog sniffing out dinner.

“What’s your state motto?” I’ll ask, eyes gleaming with the zeal of a half-crazed Jeremiah. Then the real fun – listening as they fumble, praise, or outright despise those hallowed words. This, loopers, is raw, unfiltered Americana that no cable pundit can manufacture. It gets distilled into my loopy travel-blog dispatches over whatever questionable Wi-Fi i can scrounge.

College campuses – they’re the petri dishes of society, bubbling with idealism, hormones, and all that youthful angst. If there’s unrest brewing, Ronnie Hays has a front-row seat. Not to incite riots, but to chronicle the messy, beautiful chaos of young minds at war with a world that doesn’t seem to give two spits.

Now, this land, it sings to me. Woody Guthrie’s ghost haunts my guitar case. In each state, i’ll pen my own crooked verse of “This Land is Your Land,” a wind-whipped, low-fi ode to the cracked highways and resilient souls i find. Welcome signs become my stage, YouTube my tin-can amplifier.

Planning ain’t my strong suit. Half the joy is in the detours. But hot springs? Oh, sweet geothermal bliss. i’ll soak these old bones till they’re soft as a boiled noodle, conjuring up the ghosts of grizzled prospectors and bathing beauties while i fend off mosquitoes.

To fund this glorious mess, a little busking. My luting skills ain’t Carnegie Hall material, but it’ll buy a burger, or at least a sympathetic chuckle from passersby.

And so, it begins. A year under the vast American sky, a tin can Don Quixote fueled by French roast and stubborn hope. Expect tales of barroom philosophers, off-grid eccentrics, and everyday folks grappling with the beautiful, broken heart of this country. Expect a whole lotta nonsense, a dash of truth, and maybe, just maybe, a sliver of understanding about this glorious, maddening, never-ending experiment called America.

Onward through the fog… R.H.

Lifestyle Dilemma for a Type-A Retiree

The Great American Clock punches out for the last time and the haggard Type-A knowledge-worker… decades of toil etched onto his face like a cracked roadmap of disappointments and half-victories… shuffles off to join the great ranks of the retired. The siren call of “slack,” that most decadent of working person’s vices, rings out like the church bells of leisure.

Slack, oh slack… thou art the balm of the tired ol’ pack-mule, the honeyed oblivion that washes away the stale aroma of missed opportunities and academic turf wars. It’s sleeping past dawn without the shrill cry of an alarm clock. It’s puttering about the van with projects that may never see completion. It’s entire afternoons lost in the dusty pages of forgotten paperbacks fished out from a bargain bookstore bin.

History sings with stories of those who chased the golden paycheck and unexpectedly found themselves wading knee-deep in slack. Take Harland Sanders, a lifetime of greasy failures… gas station flops and dishwashing stints… seasoned him just right. One day, his finger-lickin’ chicken recipe catapulted him from roadside chef to white-suited emperor of a fried poultry empire. Talk about trading an apron for a yacht.

Or consider poor, bumbling George de Mestral, a Swiss fellow with a penchant for wandering through fields. Burrs kept clinging to his trousers… a mighty nuisance to your average suit-wearing gentleman. But in those prickly seeds, he saw possibility. A decade of fiddling later, Velcro burst upon the world, replacing buttons and zippers, and earning de Mestral a mountain of cash… and much-deserved slack.

And who could forget Ruth Wakefield, the proprietor of the Toll House Inn, a regular empress of efficiency until a chocolate shortage forced her to improvise. She hacked up baking chocolate into chunks and tossed it in her cookie dough, half-expecting disaster. Behold, the chocolate chip cookie… a culinary miracle and testament to the virtues of slacking off with the best of intentions.

But what of those blessed fools, those slackers from birth, who stumble into riches as if led by a drunken cherub? History whispers of them too. There’s Art Fry, the church choir singer who, in search of a better bookmark, slapped a bit of not-too-sticky adhesive on some scrap paper. The Post-It Note was born, turning Fry into a corporate legend and affording legions of office workers the ability to slack off with colorful, passive-aggressive memos.

Then there’s the saga of Gary Dahl, the man who turned tedium into treasure. In a bar, amongst half-hearted complaints about pet care, he struck gold… the Pet Rock! Yes, a rock. A plain, ordinary rock, cleverly packaged as the perfect low-maintenance companion. It was an idea so brilliantly stupid, so utterly slacker-inspired, that America went mad for it, and Dahl found himself unexpectedly wealthy.

And let us not forget Robert Kearns, the inventor of the intermittent windshield wiper. He fought tooth and nail against the auto giants who pilfered his design. Lawsuits flew like confetti at a ticker-tape parade and finally, after decades, the victory was his… along with a fat settlement, finally allowing him to savor a hard-earned life of slack well-deserved.

For all of us, the chips fall with a clatter, as random as raindrops in the desert. The haggard retiree, weathered by a thousand battles won and lost, might finally earn the sweet slack so long deferred. For others, fortunes rain like random practical jokes, slapdash rewards for lifetimes of cultivated aimlessness. In the end, we all play the hands we’re dealt, Aces or Jokers… and we learn the cosmic truth: life is a carnival ride, loopers, a hell of a ride, and whether we end up in a penthouse suite or a van down by the river, the ride is sure to be one hell of a story.

Can this Type-A retiree change?
Hot-springs slack… or Type-A busk?
Come along for the ride… we shall see… :-p

Onward through the fog… R.H.

Boondocking Fever Dream: I Don’t Wanna Know!

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!

Cheers… R.H.

Hot Springs or Busk: Chapter X (moving day)

The sun rose like a swollen blister on an already sweltering day. Even the birds seemed to chirp in half measures, as if they knew what was coming. I knew. i, Ronnie Hays, had moved more times than a traveling evangelist in tax season, and each time the hatred for the ritual burned hotter. Yet, there i was, my big bones draped in a tangle of sweat-stained Mardi Gras beads like some deranged Vegas all-you-can-eat buffet refugee.

Today wasn’t just another address change. This was the grand purge, the final shedding, a digital nomad’s vision-quest. Clothes, books, CD frisbees… remnants of a life lived on autopilot… tumbled out of the apartment in a chaotic avalanche. It was as if the past itself was getting the boot, shoved headfirst into cardboard boxes and plastic totes.

A chipped ceramic bobblehead, an unnervingly detailed souvenir from Ensenada, flew through the air, courtesy of a misplaced elbow, and shattered across the chipped front step. Its broken grin seemed to mock me. “So long, sucker!” it said, or maybe that was the mood gummies talking.

My hired helpers, Curly and Shemp, looked like they’d been hitting the juice. Or maybe they’d been dropped on their heads as babies; it was hard to tell sometimes. They moved with the jerky, haphazard energy of wind-up toys, fumbling boxes and tripping over each other. A symphony of grunts, curses, and breaking glass filled the air.

Somewhere in the middle of this three-ring circus, the couch got stuck in the doorway. Now, this isn’t your granny’s dainty loveseat… this is a monstrous beast of brown pleather, scarred from years of bachelorhood. It fought back with the tenacity of a cornered rhinoceros.

“Left! No, RIGHT! Pivot, you morons, PIVOT!” My voice croaked like a bullfrog at a Georgia pond. I was directing the orchestra of idiots, and the symphony was a disaster.

The couch, in a glorious act of defiance, ripped free of their grasp, taking a chunk of the door frame with it. It was official: the apartment was winning.

Exhausted and sweaty, i collapsed onto a folding chair, its metal legs threatening to give any minute, much like my sanity. Amidst the wreckage of my former life, with the Mardi Gras beads digging into my strained neck, i realized a startling truth (happens EVERY time). This ridiculous, back-breaking, mind-numbing chaos… it’s kind of exhilarating.

Like a wildfire scorching the forest floor, this move clears out the clutter of the past. I am, once again, reinvigorated, ready to take on the open road, leaner and meaner. Maybe, just maybe, this time i won’t need all this freaking junk again.

Then again, digital nomading means laundromats and shower bamboozles. I guess i’ll keep the beads… they’re not finished with me yet.

Onward through the fog… R.H.

Ode to the Pseudonym:

Listen up, loopers… Ron Rohlf, here, direct from a van down by the river. Now, i’m not normally one to hide behind alias’. Makes a person slippery as a greased piglet. But then again, who doesn’t love a good trainwreck in slow motion, am i right? That first published work, that public debut… sometimes it arrives like a rabid skunk at a church picnic, just pure chaos, confusion, and stank. Better to hide behind a fake name, spare yourself the indignity.

They all did it, the greats: King hawking his twisted tales as that Bachman fella, Rowling conjuring stories under a man’s moniker. Even old Agatha, bless her arsenic-and-lace heart, she dabbled in deception. Like a pack of racoons disguised as respectable bankers, that lot.

Me? Well, i’m an open book, whiskers and all. Hell, i’m a walking contradiction… part raving doomsaying gonzo reporter, part starry-eyed optimist. I’ll bleed into the digital space, blazing like fireworks gone haywire. From the pointless despair of Geisterfahrer syndrome, to my impression of the Rittenhouse acquittal, to the modern “distracted driver” problem, to the note of gratitude for friends and neighbors on the front lines of local civil life, it’s all there (living in the USofA), warts and all.

Yet sometimes, we creators need smokescreens, ways to test the waters without getting scalded. That’s why we play with names, toss ’em out there like fishhooks to see what bites. So, Ronnie Hays, this “Mongrel of the Rueful Countenance” is more a pitstop on this fool’s odyssey than a permanent fixture… a quest to find a bright voice and when that voice rings out, clear and true as a firebell in the dead of night… well, that’s when the mask begins to fade, the freak flag flies, and the wild ride comes into sharper focus.

Till then, stay loopy, my friends.

And to all willing to take the good with the bad, we salute you.

Cheers…

Hot Springs or Busk: Chapter IX (shower bamboozle)

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.