On The Van Zandt
There are times in life when there is never enough
Townes Van Zandt, nor enough whiskey to wash down even the most inarticulate feelings raining down on a man. At times I think a zeppelin follows me casting perpetual showers over my head, and as poor as my planning has been as of late, I never seem to have an adequate umbrella to keep the rain out of my eyes. It’s times like these a man like myself looks to the horizon with naïve eyes longing for something better to round the next corner. This, however, is something that rarely happens to fellers of my demeanor and stature. I walk amongst a ragged bunch of lonely sinners too poor to feed themselves off anything other than their own dreams – most of which are far too expansive to ever merit chasing. Tales of depression and skulking mark my blighted halls, or at times, outright lies about the stature of my character and my
over(under)whelming resolve.
I know, however,
I’m not the only poor soul walking this seemingly desolate road. We have a whole nation of underdogs, low-rates, rascals, po’ folk, lonely rich folk, crack whores, sex slaves, and a whole god damned raggedy bunch of peoples walking the run down streets of this over zealous nation. We all got the
Cocaine Blues being weaned off cheap credit, cheap gas, cheap oil, and the whatnot. You won’t find a nation in this big of rut west this side of the pond - of course west is relative when you run it around a globe. We’ve been handed
Dead Flowers at each cordial event – a nice thought I suppose, but what’s the point? I suppose it’s only the least of the most disenchanting ideas a person like myself, or anyone else for that matter, can entertain when you think about it. I could have fathered my own mother after falling through some rip in the fabric of space time. Thanks
Dr. Michio. After which, our sun expires and the whole of human existence is lost to lack of energy or our universe expands so rapidly we freeze after spreading to far away from any other star in our galaxy while we were too busy feuding over global warming. Or better yet, we the people validate a carbon tax and we pay the politicians to breathe.
Dark notions for dark times, and even darker considering the condensing
lip service such ideas have garnered as of recent. I can’t seem to remember when I’ve reconciled with another
man’s gut over matters of domestic terrorism, or my next meal for that matter. It is precarious to believe and dangerous to accept there has been no wrong doing - no what-have-you’s or what-will-you’s in decisions made and laws overridden. Maybe it’s time for all of us to give up the game and admit there is some credence yet to ousting the god damned bastards running our
rights over with steam rollers while smoking Cuban stogies. I’m unsure of when this actually happened. I just woke up to it all. Perhaps it was sometime after
Nixon and
Spiro Agnew, but our sense of principle was lost between the sheets of
Sega Genesis,
MTV,
Nirvana, and most likely things that had been brooding well prior to any of these manifestations of wretched complacency. This was a country that was undoubtedly founded on principles worth fighting for. This was something our founding fathers knew, their sons, and their sons, and the sons of men of America until sometime around the early 80’s, when
Steve Martin and
Martin Short were puking in back alleys and beating up old ladies for change out in Old New York.
Yes we have become the
lazy fat - greedy beyond words and constantly craving that which we don’t need. Our gluttony has infected our leaders. They may be in Satan’s company but it takes two to tango, and we are not far from the mouth of cave.
Rousseau once said “The engagements which bind us to the social body are obligatory only because they are mutual.” This, it seems to me, is something that we have all forgotten and in the process of we have thrown our own
liberties away. We are the general will because we are indivisible, but this too was long forgotten in the sugar high from Pixie Stix and Pop Rocks that we can’t all fess up to our own misgivings. This is something, that if we don’t admit to being part of the problem, we will always feed the problem. Also, fuck the 80’s. Everyone had too much fun back then.