Getting Smashed
The Best and the Worst of Times…
Parts of my body always ache and now if I sit in a certain position for more than a few minutes, I get seriously cramped. As I wake up with a new mosquito bite driving me crazy I reach for the cortisone cream I bought 4 miles away in Mexico. I’ve embarked on a bathroom remodel that I can scarcely afford. Not out of cash-flow anyway and I hate depleting resources. Election years are always iffy for my various business activities. I’ve gotten two internet orders over the weekend though, shipping product tomorrow!
I do not know real depression, but I get depressed when I realize how much time I spend aimlessly scrolling on social media. I work hard to mitigate it but then I rely on social media for promoting my goods and services. What’s a guy to do? Sometimes I troll people online who say really dumb stuff but I never do it anonymously, I stand by my positions and I’ve gotten used to people who think I’m a bit crazy. Well, maybe a lot crazy.
“Why is life so hard?” my girlfriend and I say, half joking and three-quarters seriously, as we eat ice cream at a small farm stand watching the cows that produced the milk for our treats, only a few meters away, gently swish the relentless flies away with their tails. After kayaking. After skinny dipping in a cold Massachusetts stream. Relief from the high heat and humidity. Why *is* life so hard?
Over coffee this morning I have a sustained real-time conversation with a friend that is in Dalat, Vietnam. He’s telling me about the craft brewery he visited, Hoa Thông Brewing Co., that had a mediocre IPA but a very decent Pilsner. We chat about the touristy nature of Dalat and he shares that it is mostly Vietnamese tourists, not Tây. (westerners) This makes the touristy part ok by me as I love visiting Mexican towns that have a lot of Mexican tourists but not so many gringos and I assume the vibe translates. I’ve only been to Vietnam once, this is my friends ninth trip. We chat briefly about beers yet to be consumed here in Bisbee, in the gulch, at the Old Bisbee Brewing Company, the local hangout before continuing on with our hard lives.
One of the great things about my relationship with this guy is that while we disagree on some fairly major stuff, we still enjoy each other’s company. We can even talk about our disagreements in some sort of rational way. Amazing. Delightful, really.
I think when it comes down to it, we are the centers of our own universes. But one can still have compassion for others. I’ll elaborate tangentially. I listened to a Rogan podcast with Annie Jacobsen the other day. She wrote “Nuclear War, A Scenario”. It’s damn depressing, and scary as hell to think that it would only take one simple misunderstanding for the whole world to become unlivable in a matter of minutes and how close to it we actually are. And then I watched the opening scene of a new Western last night, “Bone Tomahawk” and was reminded that it has only ever taken one madman, or a small group of madmen, or a saber-toothed tiger, to ruin one’s day. Such as it ever was, right? Get a helmet. And make friends with someone that has different views than yours.
While life is busy being hard, I watch the Curved Billed Thrasher couple build their nest in my grandfather Ocotillo. They are making splendid progress.
I must continue to break a mirror today that my friend glued to the cement block wall when the house I purchased here was undergoing a prior remodel. Maybe I’ll burn a little sage to ward off the bad luck. He did that before we met so I guess I won’t hold it against him. After all, he bought me a carne asada and a Pacifico for dinner last night. He’s also loaned me a concrete grinder for use in my remodel project.
There’s a saying in Mexican Spanish. “Que bonita, la pinche perra la vida!) How beautiful is that fucking bitch life.
We may never know who really killed JFK but it is beyond evident that the media is trying to kill the RFK campaign. And was it a bullet or a piece of Plexiglas from the teleprompter? The bandage looks very showy, maybe a little too showy? I had this written earlier today and before I could get it published, I now note that Biden has stepped down…finally. Not to say I told you so, but I claimed he was not electable months ago. Look into Kennedy. Harris is not electable either and I’d hate to see Trump elected again.
I am completely disgusted with the current national political spectrum. Time for new people/ideas..
My continuing fear is for the control of technology in our lives. The internet has brought a lot of good things to people's lives but is also a tool used every day to defraud people and institutions. When technology gets so complex that no one understands it or knows how to control it, then it becomes a viable threat to our very existence. Artificial Intelligence is spreading rapidly and nobody is sure what that means or how it will affect society. The head of the FBI opening admits that the Chinese/Russians are so embedded now it the national computer infrastructure that they could perform cyber-attacks to disrupt key supply chains need for food, money, security, etc.
Fickle humans! Gringos trying to get away from Gringos. I wonder if Mexicans prefer gringo tourists better than Mexican tourists from different states? And, Vietnamese like Gringo tourists over Vietnamese tourists? Bisbee-beings would much rather have exotic tourists from far away countries rather than those dreaded colorful Californians or Texans! Come to think of it when in Western MA, it is those damn New Yorkers! Or, to Mainers it is the Massholes! Heck! Don't dare mention you are a Yankee to a Southerner, I can assure you that a profane word will most certainly proceed the dreaded "Y" word! I say, "helmet up and run!" Run, run as fast as you can from all those darn versions we recognize in ourselves!