Trump Bumpin': Uncivil Rest Along the Dirty Sacred River

Stella and the Chairless Ones. She's making notes for her own blog post. 

The air was palpable, thick with anticipation and the muttering of all the mantras that make the rise of a fascist important to notice. Of course people were excited. Many of them were there to listen to a man who they hope will be the next President of the United States. Many of them would never be that close to him again. Those who were there to protest were equally excited. It's rare to see the personification of the New Old American Fascism in person, to bear witness to what may very well be the beginning of the end of the Democratic Spirit in America.

Slogans and signage gives you a clear indication of what to expect. The "Hillary for Prison 2016" swag was enormously popular... and I have to admit I thought it was pretty funny, too since I'm not fan of the DNC's Goldwater Gal.  There were plenty of trucker hats (made in Bangladesh) emblazoned with MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. I saw a few with the slogan "border, culture, language [commas added for grammatical correctness], a mantra often sang by no less than far right wing nut jobs like radio personality Michael Savage and multi-media troglodyte* Glenn Beck when they rant about "taking America back."

3rd set of protesters being led out, the Love Trumps Hate folks.

The police were there, too, of course, to help the Secret Service detail roust out protesters and protect the crowd of Trump supporters from the consequences of free speech and free thought. Stella and I hung back. I wanted to have a clear line to the door after the very presence of their demagogue would give the adrenalized crowd permission to act out all of their pent up aggression... which, unless you're not on social media, happened.**

Me and my shadow. 

In spite of being what I thought was relatively inconspicuous, we still managed to get a buddy of our very own. He was a little too chunky for a Secret Service detail. He spent a lot of time looking over his shoulder and looking down to type on his phone. He wasn't obviously armed, but he did have a radio... probably to call for reinforcements if the fuzzy guy and his daughter got out of hand. He was private security, maybe. Maybe an off duty cop doing a little double-dipping. I felt honored, really. After all, I left my THE BEST FASCIST IS A DEAD FASCIST t-shirt at home.

We took part in a small protest outside before the rally. I wanted to make my opinion known before going inside and trying to get a closer look at the personification of our country's evil underbelly.

One of the forms of non-protest... I wrote about it in my last blog post... was The Empty Seat Coalition's idea of buying tickets and not going. I posted picture on my Facebook page to let those folks know how that strategy worked out. I'll share it here as well:

Seats? What seats?

A Democrat Hears a Who. A Republican Doesn't Hear At All.

After The Don's 7 state sweep on Super Tuesday, all of those people who insisted that America would never, could never actually elect a Reality TV star*** who spouts such venom are now trying to salve themselves with the idea that America would never, could never let The Donald beat Our Ol' Goldwater Gal.

If he pulls off the nomination (likely) and goes up against Hillary Clinton -- who has been re-coronated by the mainstream media as the presumptive Democratic nominee after a decent showing  on Super Tuesday -- he will have a good chance of winning it all.

And if you're sitting there reading this and insisting that America could never, should never, would never elect a fascist, stop trying to compare him to Hitler and think straight. He's not Hitler. Hitler was a failure who ended up dead in a bunker with his girlfriend. Think about Franco, in Spain. His fascist movement unified Spain and he ruled standing atop the bones of nameless martyrs he sent to still undiscovered graves for 40 years. People there still celebrate him.

Trump did not create this wave of fascism. He stood up in front of the tide. He's an opportunist, not a zealot. It doesn't make him less dangerous; it just makes him a different sort of the same amount of dangerous.


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*Dear actual troglodytes. Please accept my apology for using you as a negative metaphor.
** Please note that LMPD, that bastion of lawlessness and inhumanity, did nothing. And they're still insisting on doing nothing even though they were there and witnessed it.
*** Because we've never elected an entertainer to public office before. Right? 

RE: Donald J. Trump in Louisville versus The Empty Seat Coalition

I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.- Genesis 3:15

My body is my ballot. - Utah Phillips quoting Ammon Hennacy  

Mab J. Trump, Queen of the Pixies

In case you missed it or live under a rock, Presidential candidate Donald J. Trump is going to be here in River City tomorrow. The rally at the Kentucky International Convention Center has promised to be jam packed full of people looking for a leader who can deliver the sort of America they say they want.

There's also a protest building that I call The Empty Seat Coalition. The plan is this: people are supposed to go through Trump's website, reserve two free tickets to the event, and then not show up.  This is an apparently popular form of protest, or so my Facebook feed would have me believe.  Many of my lefty/progressive Facebook friends have embraced the idea that Trump will get the idea that Kentucky doesn't like him and his dangerous rhetoric if he shows up to a rally full of empty seats.

 Now, if that actually worked out, the visual impact would be amazing. And given that many of my lefty/progressive friends pretty much only talk to other lefty/progressives, the idea has gained momentum. And naturally, one form of free speech is orchestrated silence, and there's nothing necessarily wrong with that.

There's only one problem.

A lot of people DO want Trump to be President.  A lot of people have bought into the violent and

Hillary J. Trump: the ultimate neoliberal

dangerous rhetoric.

He's built a campaign on anti-immigrant venom, machismo, and a brand of anti-populist anti-establishmentarianism that only a millionaire can pull off.  He refuses to reject to the endorsement of the KKK. He promises to build a wall between us and Mexico and make Mexico pay for it. He promises deep corporate tax cuts. He is not as critical of national health care as the traditional GOP thinks he ought to be, and stumbles over religious questions.  Most recently, he quoted Benito Mussolini -- who was another anti-populist,anti-establishment, self-described successful business man (he published a newspaper.) He's not a conservative in the traditional sense .He is, in short, a neoliberal ... just like the presumptive Democratic Candidate.

The problem with ignoring Donald J. Trump away is that ignoring him only feeds the fever tide he is rising in front of. Let me be clear - Trump did not create the tide of fascism he has made himself leader of. It was here already and, like a smart opportunist (a good businessman) he took advantage of it and has built it up into an irrational fervor.

It's in these kinds of situations that I think of a cheesy Merlin mini-series I watched as kid. It starred Sam Neil as Merlin, the last wizard. Mab, who created him to wield magic against humanity, tempted him perpetually, much in the same way the serpent tempted Eve and the way Satan tempted Jesus in the biblical tales.  Merlin eventually defeated Mab by ignoring her into non-existence.

Such a nice story. Except there's a reason it was made-for-tv fiction.

It doesn't work.

I have a ticket to the rally, and I'm going. There is nothing that could ever compel me to embrace the fascism Trump is preaching. I'm not going because I'm considering voting for him. I'm going because voices like mine need to be there, and because someone needs to be there to give an actual report of the event.  I'm going because if my body is not my ballot, nothing else is. Democracy is not supported by the piece of paper or computer screen in a voting booth. Democracy is  supported by people showing up -- to vote, and sometimes, to protest.

If you are reading this and you bought tickets in order to leave them empty, let me suggest that you go to the rally. Let's all sit together and sing "This Land is Your Land." Let's all sit together so our voices are represented, not ignored.  Imagine if Martin Luther King decided to address America's racial and economic inequality by not Marching on Washington. Or if Rosa Parks decided to protest racist policies by not riding the bus. Or if Big Bill Heywood and Joe Ettor had decided to speak out against the treatment women in New York City sweatshops by NOT going to New York and instead telling the strikers to go back to work.

It's not enough to wish evil away. Evil must be faced directly, without hesitation, and be banished. Otherwise, you're just making yourself feel better by cooking marshmallows while the world burns. The only people who win then are the arsonists.

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Being a fish along the dirty, sacred river; or piscean mind puzzles

I've been fighting the wallpaper in the dining room. I promised this time last year that we would tackle the project. Neither of us are sure exactly how long the dingy, annoying stuff has been stuck to the walls, but since the house has only had 3 owners and WE didn't do it, it at least narrows the field. Our initial impulse is to blame the most immediate former owners, the Beamus's. Amanda's been living in this house for about 10 years and whenever we run across something that is rigged, rushed, or done incorrectly, it almost always traces back to them. We curse them regularly.

The wallpaper appears to pre-date them, however, so we cannot curse their name. This time.

Removing wallpaper is a frustratingly slow process. Having never done it before, and having only an abstract notion of how to do it, naturally I did research first. What I found quickly was there is no one correct way to strip the awful stuff; there is, in fact, a host of moderately successful DIY methods that no one can make up their minds about. There are manufactured chemicals, of course. Then there's the diluted fabric softener method*, the vinegar water method**, the patch and paint method***, and the dynamite method+. All of those (except the dynamite method, though my impressions are hypothetical) pale in comparison to using a steamer.

The work is still tedious, but it moves faster. Unlike the first day, when I wasn't entirely sure we would ever be able to finish it, I can see a tangible time line -- though a much longer one than I originally thought. ++

I've also been working on the technical aspects of podcasting. The talking part is easy. Finding news is

even easier, although I have to rebuild my credibility as someone news sources need to talk to.+++  I'm not too worried about it, though I am anxious to record. There are some real stories going on that need to be told and told better than they are being told now. The advantage of the podcast is that I can dig as much as I like and tell the story that insists itself instead of being beholden to mediocre editors.

Teaching myself the technical aspects of podcasting and remembering how sound recording equipment works has kept the prospect of actually DOING the podcast in the abstract -- much in the way that spending a year talking about how great the dining room will look once the wallpaper is gone and it's painted kept the project in the abstract.

Abstract is easy for me.  I could spend all day, everyday, lost in the visionary mist of the abstract. I lose track of time. I lose track of myself. I imagine, if there is a Heaven,it feels something like that. Within the realm of abstract thought there are no creative delays. Creation is as simple as letting go of the interior time clock and seeing what happens.

Delving into the abstract is the work of poets, sages, and visionaries. Genius^, however, is the ability to manifest those abstract thoughts into tangible life -- into the now. The wallpaper will come down and the paint will go up. I'm preparing a podcast that will come out soon, as a test to see if the feed will work. In addition, there are poems to write, a chapbook -- Cortez Eating the Sun -- to prepare and publish under the banner of Dirty River Press, next semester's classes to prepare for, and query letters to write.

Push.

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*1 part liquid fabric softener and 4 parts warm water in a spray bottle. In theory, after you shred the paper (scratch a bunch of holes in the surface plastic with this nifty tool.) the fabric softener will loosen the glue. Mostly I find that getting it wet does the same thing, sans the chemical clean smell.
** Vinegar and warm water. See above.
*** This entails covering each seem with Spackle and painting over it. While this seemed less tedious, I had images of newly painted walls peeling. 
+I have threatened to do this. Amanda is not on board with this one. Yet.
++If you have to remove wallpaper, and if dynamite is not an option, skip all the above methods and get a steamer. You will thank yourself.
+++Thanks again, LEO WEEKLY, for being one more job that believed I was good enough to fuck but not good enough to marry.
^ Genius, as it is classically understood, is not a personal adjective. A person is not a genius. The work brought about is an act of Genius.

Dirty River Media: An Argument For Muckraking

You can't buy a bag of peanuts in this town without someone writing a song about you. -- Charles Foster Kane (Citizen Kane, 1941)

There are a lot of ways to practice the art of journalism, and one of them is to use your art like a hammer to destroy the right people — who are almost always your enemies, for one reason or another, and who usually deserve to be crippled, because they are wrong." - Hunter S. Thompson


 

Julius Chambers, maybe the first muckraker

The first reported use of the term "muckraker"* was by no less than President Teddy Roosevelt in 1906. During a speech, he used it in reference to William Randolph Hearst and Hearst's brand of yellow journalism**. Usage of the term grew and came into include Julius Chambers -- maybe the first real muckraker -- Nelly Bly, Upton Sinclair, and Ambrose Bierce, among others.***

Muckraking is part of the grand tradition in journalism that's dying at the hands of corporate owned media. Keep in mind, Dear Friends and Readers, that no less than 6 corporations own most of the large market media in this country... and that's just TV and radio. Newspapers are corporate owned as well, split between Gannett, The McClatchy Co., Hearst, Cox Media, Media News Co., and Village Voice Media (which has eaten up most of what used to be the alternative weeklies.

Part of the problem is people sometimes confuse muckraking -- which sometimes rears its head under the more polite hat of "investigative journalism" -- with yellow journalism^ -- which is alive and well, as well as well funded.

Another problem is people -- including some who claim to be journalists -- buy into the idea, often espoused by anyone who doesn't agree with the particular brand of facts^^ posited by a reporter or talking head^^^, that journalism ought to strive to be "objective."

That, Dear Friends and Readers, is complete rhetorical bollix.

Journalism can't be objective because its first allegiance ought to be to the truth. The role of the 4th Estate is to drag stories out into the light and hold our elected officials' feet to the proverbial fire. It should not ever be Public Relations for any political party or politician, and should look at everything through a critical lens. And regardless of what anyone tells you, being critical means having an agenda. 

My recent split with LEO Weekly (one of the few alt weeklies not owned by Village Voice Media) occurred over a disagreement on how a particular story ought to have been portrayed.  Another aspect -- which I will call coincidental because it's more of a feeling than something I can document -- is that from their perspective, I got greedy. My work was considered exemplary by the managing editor until I had the temerity to ask if I could be more than a freelancer. After that, all of a sudden, I was breaching journalistic standards.

I'm a contrarian. I'll admit that. But having a natural tendency to disagree is not the same thing as a breach of "the basic tenets of journalism"+ On the contrary, it makes me a good muckraker. You have to have a contrary personality and a solid sense of self to be willing to rub academic department chairs, deans, editors, and politicians the wrong way. A good friend of mine once called this my tendency to "poke the bear." 

And that, Dear Friends and Readers, is what I intend to continue doing.

That's why I'm going to be finding my own press credentials and starting my own endeavor, called Dirty River Media. This will include a few projects, including publishing and podcasting, and other enterprises will hopefully add to the already existing push back against monopolized media and milquetoast reporting.  One project, The Kentucky Muck Podcast, will be a weekly show about local, regional, and state issues, as well as arts and culture, that need to see some light. That's what muckraking is, and that's what I do better than most anyone around. 

I promise my reporting will be honest, authentic, and researched; and I hope it will be entertaining. Stay tuned.

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*Defined as - raking through the muck and finding the real story.

**Hearst more or less invented large scale yellow journalism, the tradition of which is carried on by Fox News, HLN, and MSNBC most effectively.

***People like this are my heroes. So are Ida B Wells, Walt Whitman, Utah Phillips, Hunter S. Thompson, and Pete Rose. Not necessarily in that order. Look 'em up.

^ I just felt like using a bold yellow font. That's one kind of editorial decision that even schooled journalists are comfortable making.

^^ Facts are difficult to find and almost always difficult to use in any critical sense... and generally get confused with "opinion" which everyone has according to one smelly metaphor.

^^^ Talking head -- no, not the band. talking heads read you a news script that they may or may not have had any part of putting together. Probably not, more than likely.

 + The same editor who accused me of breaking faith with "the basic tenets of journalism" is the very same one who quoted HST to me by saying "objective journalism is bullshit."  You can't have it both ways. Either you write something honest and authentic and true, or you write shit. 

"The Four-Year War"; or the Whimpering Acquiescence of Organized Trade Labor *

The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor. -- Camus

Signs at every entrance to the UAW Local Hall instructed anyone driving a foreign car to park in the side lot, away from street view. Luckily,The Blue Burrito is a 95 Dodge Ram -- older than any other car in the parking lot and made, I was assured by the previous owner, my uncle, of American steel.**

I found a parking spot, finished my cigarillo, and focused on my purpose to quiet my nerves. I had fought the urge to take a drink all evening in order to quell the frenetic firing of every piston and synapses in my head.

It was a long shot, and I knew it.

My plan was to try and convince the Central Labor Council to work with me and organize a massive state-wide protest against Kentucky Governor-Elect Matt Bevin's campaign promise to push through Right-to-Work legislation, basically removing the one or two teeth labor unions have in the Commonwealth. As I see it, the windmills really are dragons, and need tilting.

Organized Trade Labor in the state had cast its lot with a milquetoast candidate in Jack Conway. Conway lost the election to a guy who campaigned at a cock fight, who threw temper tantrums at the state Democratic Headquarters, and who has consistently used a lot of flag waving and hyperbolic religiosity to avoid criticisms of his murky past. The Democratic Candidate barely ran a campaign, and relied on others -- like members of AFL-CIO, the Teamsters, the SEIU, and ASFCME -- to do the heavy lifting for him.***

I walked into the hall, preparing myself. I'd looked up the Constitution of the CLC, saw how the meetings were ran. I've been in enough meetings to know there's always the busy-ness part of  the meeting.

I wasn't sure what my contact there looked like, and things were about ready to begin, so I found a seat at one of the long tables-- strategically by the door.

The meeting commenced with a prayer and the pledge^, then rolled right into the wound licking. They'd made progress, real progress, in terms of their door knocking and phone calling -- though I don't recall anyone knocking on my door in the South End. People were thanked and comments were made about the Governor-Elect. People hide powerlessness with humor sometimes, and this meeting was no different.

A Democratic candidate who wants the District 46 seat -- the current seat warmer is retiring -- stood up and talked briefly about his pro-labor vita. He's going to fight the good fight and protect the interests of organized labor, by God, if they are kind enough to allow him the honor of being the Democratic candidate without a costly runoff campaign.

There I sat with what I expected to be the backbone of labor. There were Teamsters there, for fuck's sake. The leadership is as corrupt as hell, but still -- TEAMSTERS. They don't do much marching themselves, but they have resources to move literal mountains.

And yet there I sat, listening to the backbone of American labor bend. There were talks of elections. Of gearing up. Of golf scrambles. Of successes in getting TARC bus drivers reinstated through due process -- even as every person in there had to know their due process was on life support and an egg timer.

Then I was introduced and had my turn. My action plan, I decided, would simply scare them off. It required them to step up to the line -- to honestly step up to the goddamn line and put their boots into a direct action. No due process. No mealy-mouthing. No pandering. Direct Action. Instead, I changed my approach and offered something of a structure they could engage. I called it The Louisville Pushback. I said there was a website in the works, and the plan included both a candle light vigil the night of Bevin's closed inauguration and peaceful protests the day of. We need people, I reiterated. Lots of people. I pointed out that when Wisconsin tried to protest Scott Walker's Right-to-Work laws, it failed because there was no threat behind it. I told them protest without the threat and promise of a state-wide strike will not accomplish anything.

The audience was polite, but no one met my eye as I stepped down. The CLC president asked what the website address was, so I repeated what I planned for it to be.

As I was going back to my seat by the door, an older man stood up. He sat near the middle of the room. He pointed out that Andy Beshear had won the Attorney General race. Andy Beshear would was their guy, he said. Andy Beshear was going to stop Matt Bevin from hurting working people. Beshear would do the heavy lifting.

You know... because that sort of third party strategy worked so well for "their guy" Conway.

Subtext: he had no intention of putting his boots anywhere, and didn't think anyone else should either. "This is a four year war," he said. The phrase stuck with me. I wondered if he is thinking about how much damage an ambitious little fascist demagogue like Bevin can do in four years. I wondered then, and I wonder now, if it has occurred to any of those in attendance that simply based on attitude, the war is already lost.

I waited until the meeting adjourned to leave. I walked out alone, lit a cigarillo, and drove The Blue Burrito straight to the bar.

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*Whenever I use a semi-colon and over-explanatory title, I think of my former American Lit professor, Layne Neeper --who appreciated the arcane style of my essay titles if only out irony and a wry sense of humor.
** "Parts made in America ... and assembled in Mexico." - My Uncle. Hence half the reason my truck is named The Blue Burrito. You can guess the other half.
*** Good thing they're used to heavy loads. The loads will probably get heavier very soon.
^ I will not say the Pledge of Allegiance until people decide to actually make it happen. But do take my hat off out of respect for my father and other veterans I have known.

Politics and Preponderant Rumination Along the Dirty, Sacred River

from beechmontky.wordpress.com

The week before last I had the opportunity to go to a community meeting for the neighborhood I live in. The topic of the meeting was crime. There's been a rash lately... though it seems there's always a rash of opportunistic crime that somehow, according to someone, is indicative of the downfall of society.

Never mind, of course, that the economy is down, the heat index is increasing, and there's a serious lack of anything for kids to do in the south end that doesn't require cash. The problem, according to one... "enlightened" neighbor I will call "Bill" is that this roaming band of evil-doers are "Nigerians and Hispanics" and that "they don't care."

This wasn't the only ugly rearing of that "Blame The Other" argument, though. Lucky, too, that there's plenty of blame to go around.

The real purpose of the community meeting, was, of course, for District 21 Metro Council Representative Dan Johnson to try and look like he's actually doing something other than 1) blatantly ignoring his constituents and 2) using taxpayer money -- some of which is money that could be directly benefiting the 21st District --  to employ a bigot whose only claim to anything is that he was elected to the unnecessary post of Jefferson County Judge Executive. 

Division 4 Top Cop

After he failed to redirect the meeting into a sleeper of a political rally, the floor was turned over to one Major Kim Kraeszig, head cop at LMPD's 4th Division. According to her, the key to community involvement is that we lock our doors and stay vigilant. We're supposed to know who our neighbors are. We're supposed to leery of people wandering the neighborhood we don't know.

In other words: we are on our own.

I didn't have to go to a meeting to hear this. I also didn't have to go a meeting to know that bigots live in my neighborhood.

One of the highlights for me was when I pointed out that no one corrected "Bill." I pointed this out by reiterating and summarizing what I'd heard at the meeting thus far: lock your door, watch your shit, and don't trust Nigerians or Hispanics. Apparently the white kids who break windows and tag everything are just "boys being boys."

I was roundly interrupted by the top cop, who was disturbed that I could even draw that from what was said.  I wasn't the only one who heard the blatant bigotry and xenophobia*. I certainly wasn't the only one who was offended by it. But Amanda and I seemed to be the only ones who took any real exception to it... well, us, and in intern from the Americana Community Center. We spoke to her after the meeting and she said she was bothered by the absence of programming available.

A not very recent picture of Dan.

Ol, Dan Johnson... our elected representative... only pointed out that

The "Judge"

these kids need jobs, like one of the many available at the newly reopened Kentucky Kingdom. The word around the water well is that he's using budget money from a line item meant to go for neighborhood improvements to give his errand boy, Judge-Executive (cough) Bryan Matthews an undeserved salary for reminding the councilman to turn off his cell phone ringer during council meetings and for making him stop engaging in flame wars on Facebook like a 12 year old. I guess that's worth $50 grand a year... which is a full  $5 grand more than he paid his previous assistant, who happened to be a woman.**

Later in the meeting, which ended up being an opportunity for people to recount the list of crimes they have either been victim of or have seen or have heard about while shopping at the Pic n Pac, someone asked about what the coppers were going to do about the panhandlers.

This part of the meeting has been sticking in my craw a bit, dear readers.

Never mind that panhandling is listed among the various offenses committed under the watchful eye of Division 4: drug dealing, property tagging, theft, home invasion, and generally not being white. Never mind that there was no distinction drawn between aggressive panhandling... which is a form of assault and intimidation that should NEVER be accepted... and regular panhandling. Never mind that the top cop explained her feelings on panhandlers by describing one encounter she had while not in uniform during which she bought a panhandler a bucket of  KFC. This panhandler in particular was holding a sign that read  WILL WORK FOR FOOD. She drove by, went and bought the chicken, and took it back... only to have the unrepentant bum throw the bucket on the ground.

Her conclusion: clearly he was only interested in money. I do wonder, though, if she'd thought offering to feed him if he did a little yard work.

When people refuse public assistance or unemployment because they are too proud, it's generally lauded as a good thing by those who have no milk of human kindness. When a bum rejects KFC that he didn't have to work for, it's clearly because he was only looking for cash.

I was told I read that conversation wrong. I was told, by one pious soul in the neighborhood, that the top cop was only pointing out that some people panhandle "to make a living."

Well, sure some of them do. Some bums put on a badge that lets them bully people. But for some reason, we don't complain about those bums.

I could pray that we don't feel the need to give a select few power and authority over the rest of us for our own good,  I guess.

But I got tired of  pie in the sky a long time ago.

Free Electronic Press Kits template from ReverbNation.com

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*There is a school of thought that says we ought to forgive folks of a certain age for what is clearly sheer ignorance. This is the Poor Whitey Rule, which also says that as a white man, I ought to mourn for 1952. I do not because 1) I read and 2) I think. So, screw poor whitey in his homophobic, xenophobic, bigoted gloryhole.
** This story is playing out in the local media. Look it up. It's a hoot. It will restore your faith in dictatorships.

Brief Meditation on the Metaphysical Politics of Place and The Good Friday Assault (A Story)

I've often told my friend Jared Salyers that I am jealous of his sense of place.  With very few exceptions, he has never wandered far from the place he knows is his home -- Olive Hill, Kentucky. With very few exceptions, I have more or less avoided my childhood home -- Bethel, Ohio. His reasons for staying are startlingly similar to my reasons for staying away. His sense of connection to the area where he was born and raised -- and where he is now married and raising his son -- runs deep. 

This will seem like an unremarkable statement if you are a native Kentuckian. Since I am an implant from the dirtier side of the dirty, sacred river, I often meditate on it with a sense of wonder. Native Kentuckians fall more or less into two distinct categories:

1. those who love it, identify with it, and feel in their bones (whether they stay or go); and
2. those who leave, and once they leave, rarely feel the need to return.

There is a pull to ground in Kentucky that is unlike any other place I've been. And even though it took me a long time to get here -- and even though I will need to scratch my itchy foot from time to time -- this is the place I call home.  I don't have the same connection with the place that others have -- a connection that in my mind gets wrapped up in my notions of grace, as a gift bestowed by the universe for reasons beyond our reckoning that are probably not worth the energy to try and understand.  And because I do identify that sensation of knowing home in your bones for your entire life as a kind of grace, like any good Protestant Reject I recognize the other path to paradise comes in the form of works.

Love and impossible gravity* drew me here. Love and impossible gravity keeps me centered. And it is because of love because of impossible gravity that I am embracing every facet of my life.

Lately, this has meant learning. Learning how to garden. Learning how plumbing works. Learning how to repair things, make things, how to plan for years instead of days and months -- and learning that plans are only good plans if they are fluid and if they are grounded in love and in impossible gravity.

Places, like people, wilt and rot if they fall into neglect. Places, like people, will rise out of the fog someone is willing to put the work in.

And there is beauty in wilting and rotting. And there is beauty in rising out of the fog, washing
everything in sunlight and in water, and in pulling out what arguably should have never been there... like the carpet upstairs. Except for where a very old, very sick, very incontinent cat destroyed the pine floorboards, the floors are sturdy and in good condition. In spite of some the fantastically disastrous "improvements" (people who don't know how to do wiring should not do wiring. People who don't understand gravity should not install plumbing.)  done to this house by the people Amanda bought it from and in spite of some age and wear and tear, the bones of it are good. We're putting a lot of energy and thought into the place. We're going to be planting an expanded garden soon, and we are planning to expand it further next season using terrace gardens.

This clay did not birth me and I will never be able to say that. But I will be able to say I put in the work to justify calling this place "home."






The Good Friday Assault 

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Cast Thy Troubles Upon the Dirty, Sacred River: Moth StorySlam Update, Wading Into This Grand Political Season, and A Story Worth Telling

IMoth StorySLAM Update

I told a story at last week's  Moth Story Slam at Headliners Music Hall that I rarely tell and will probably not tell again. The topic was 'Courage*' -- which is a 3rd person designation, and not one I would attribute to any action on my part.

The story I told was about the last physical fight I ever got into. The reason it was the last fight was that not long after incident I decided, to focus my energy on being a pacifist rather than feeding the angry little monster in my gut who had, by that time, taken on the name Terry.**

When I think of courage, I think of a current student who was among the wave of responders at Ground Zero. I think of my daughter, trying to build her life in spite of unreasonable backlash from her mother and her mother's husband. I think of Stanley Taylor, Cletus the Dog Man, Jimmy the Kid, Fisherman Jim, and The Roving Northern Englander. I think of Mother Jones, Lucy Parsons, and Albert Parsons. I think of my dad.

The Moth is a great venue and I will continue to go out, put my name in the hopper, and hope that I get to go on stage. It's entirely possible that The Moth is not the venue for me to stretch my storytelling legs, since I am far more interested in other people's stories and in the stories of people who generally get ignored than I am in trying to make myself out to be the center of anything.*** I am the least interesting part of every story I want to tell, and I am simply one small part of the All I write about when I write a poem.+

Wading Into the Political Season

I'll admit it. I'm a bit of a political junkie. Not enough to keep noxious news channels on 24 hours a day/7 days a week; but enough of one that, in spite of myself I went to both a candidate meet and greet in the neighborhood and a meeting of the Louisville Metro Council in the same week.

Politics -- especially local politics -- is like what a friend of Amanda's calls SPORTSBALL++. To look at politics as anything other than a kind of sport lends it far more gravity than it deserves. American politics are absurd and politicians are among the most absurd critters on the planet next  lawyers and the duck-billed platypus.

Meet your local representative.

I went to a neighbor's house to meet the opposing candidate for the District 21 seat on the Metro Council. His name is Erich V. Shumake. He's running against 20 year encumbent Dan Johnson.+++ They are both Democrats, which apparently is a relief to some of those who still think partisan politics matter and a real problem to the rest of those who think partisan politics matter.

Shumake is a Methodist minister and retired railroad man; but this is not the most interesting thing about him.

What makes him interesting is that he's so much fun to mess with.

Amanda and I arrived at the neighbor's house at the same time as the candidate and his wife. The neighbors, Tammy and her husband Kevin nice folks. She's from Nebraska originally. He likes microbrew beer. They live in a well-maintained older house a few streets away and are active in the neighborhood association. The meet and greet had the usual kinds eats -- cookies and chips and brownies, along with coffee and homemade lemonade and both kinds of wine. We were standing near the food spread talking with the candidate about politics and philosophical fishing when Tammy came up and asked him if he wanted a glass of wine.

No thank you,  he answered. But I will take a cup of coffee.

I wasn't drinking either -- neither wine agrees with me in mixed settings and I still had to work after the meet and greet -- so I didn't actually hold his temperance against him. Tammy seemed a bit shaken -- she later insisted I eat something so that she could too, so I can only conclude that she was following in that grand tradition of the midwestern hostess -- waiting for a guest to pop the cork before she herself took a polite gulp.

While it's entirely possible that Tammy was nervous -- as hosts of such events are sometimes expected to be when they invite all their neighbors, one of whom was erroneously accused of being convicted of check fraud in New Jersey in 1996^ -- I like to think that on some level, her deep, hearty, and stalwart midwestern soul intervened.

Do you take it like a man? she asked.

She laughed immediately and apologized for the verbal slip, but that opened the bag. The candidate, looked at me and asked how I took my coffee. (I was drinking the homemade lemonade.)

Like a man, Amanda said, laughing. The candidate looked at me and I nodded.

I drink it black. 

I sort of felt sorry for him. Sort of. Faced with burly bearded philosophical fisherman, his nearly hysterically laughing hostess, and Amanda -- all of us potential voters, of course -- he nodded, smiled, and in another grand tradition -- this one being the grand tradition of politicking -- he proclaimed that he would try it like a man. 

Later, before the mini-stump speech in the front room, I was talking to him again, this time trying to get a sense of what he wanted to do on Metro Council. His answers were charged with all the idealism and Democratic buzzwords that I expected, but he was intentionally non-specific. I noticed he was eating a ginger snap with his manly coffee -- which, to be honest, he wasn't drinking that much of.

You know, I said.  You should trying dunking it in the coffee.

Really?

Absolutely. It softens the cookie and... you know... adds a little sugar to the coffee. Try it.

He dunked it almost immediately and seemed moderately surprised that both flavor of both the cookie and the coffee were complimented by the addition of the other. You're welcome.

The Metro Council meeting was interesting to watch^^. A lot of pomp and circumstance, and a great deal of disagreement over who sits on The Monuments Commission (The distribution of vetted volunteers tends to lean heavily towards the east end -- where there is a lot more money floating around, even if it's some abstract number on a computer screen and not an actual bank roll.)  and over a motion to separate the City Employee Retirement System from the Kentucky State Retirement System -- which apparently is a really important issue to Jim King (D) the representative from District 10, who presides over Council meetings since the mayor doesn't have to.

Neither of these issues were decided one way or the other.

Of note, though. Dan Johnson was present at the meeting, while his opponent was not. The representative from District 21 didn't say much, and seemed focused on something in front of him rather than the proceedings. But his phone went off three times. The first time, he silenced it. The second time, I barely grabbed it in time. The third time, he silenced it good and proper, but his colleagues on either side of him could not contain their laughter. 

A Story Worth Telling:

I'm almost getting this audio portion of this blog together. Here's a story I haven't told in a while, but one that I really like. I hope you like it too. You can also follow me on reverbnation.com, listen from this link, (it's an mp3) for click on play on the Facebook page for Along The Dirty, Sacred River.

__________________________________

*The original topic of the night was supposed to be "Heroes" -- which was stressful enough, since I think I am even less heroic than I am courageous. The topic changed at  the last minute, however, thanks to a special one time sponsorship by AARP.

** Every man is born with a monster in his gut, and every boy learns at an early age how to feed it. I started feeding mine shortly after I lost my first fight, at the age of 10. It's entirely possible, and entirely likely, that women are born with monsters, too. But I've never asked. And to be honest, I'm not entirely sure I want to know what that force of nature monster would look like unleashed.

*** The trend of "storyteller as protagonist" is actually referred to as part of the "American Style" of storytelling by the wider global community of storytellers. 

+ This is as close to an aesthetic statement as I think I've ever made. 

++ A derisive critique of all sports that I understand only because of a lexicographic relative, MUSIKILLS. A Musikill is any theatrical piece (except for Man from La Mancha) in which over-wrought music tells at least half the story. This includes the entire Rogers and Hammerstein and Andrew Lloyd Webber catalogs, and anything where the term "Fossey hands" is applicable. (From The Parsons Dictionary of Oft Used Words and Phrases, high school edition)

+++ The picture of him on the campaign page is old, probably as old as his first run. 

^Me.

Return Of The Big Blue Burrito

The Big Blue Burrito

Truthfully, I'd rather travel when someone else is driving. While being behind the wheel does provide some opportunities to get off the regular roads -- which we did as we took our time down rolling down U.S. Route 17 from Culpeper to Norfolk and learning along the way that sometimes gas station oysters really DO make sense -- I like to avoid the added worry of mechanical issues. Then there's the fact that ability to navigate only seems to work when I'm ON FOOT. (Seriously. Put me in a strange place on foot and I will find my way around in no time. Put me behind the wheel armed with a map ... or even a nominally functional gps... and I will still find a way to get lost. Count on it.)

 But: while this 1,345 mile round trip from River City to Norfolk (pronounced nor'fuk. And yes, I still count it as the most unfriendly town in the country.) was not my first trek out Interstate 64 and up and down Sandstone Mountain, West Virginia, it was the first major flight of The Big Blue Burrito. For an old truck, she did amazingly well, even on the westbound return over Sandstone Mountain. The westbound incline up the mountain is so steep I can only conclude that the Army Corp of Engineers intended to make driving through By Gawd West Virginia as unpleasant and automobile murdering as possible.

I've been criss-crossing West Virginia via Sandstone Mountain and I-64 off and on for as long as The Kid has lived in Norfolk -- since about 2001. She was in 1st grade when her mother dragged her there after an unsuccessful attempt to make it as a Navy wife in the backwater of LaCombe, Louisiana when Sgt. Tailhook was stationed out of the Naval Station at Norfolk. In the previous year, the Kid attended Kindergarten in 4 different schools that I can remember -- one, being in Jefferson Parish (LaCombe) where she had lice more than she had recess and where they taught an entire section on shoe tying. (I taught her in a short afternoon. The Kid has always been ahead of the curve.)

The reason I have, over the years, traveled the I-64 east-west corridor is that when her mother decided to haul her up to the North Atlantic coast, I decided not to follow. I moved from Lexington, Kentucky to New Orleans in order to stay close to The Kid. I did not and do not regret that decision. I have, over the years, deliberated and rejected the notion of moving there myself. Some ignorant folk might interpret this as a lack of interest in my daughter. And while there are moments of her life I have missed -- which is one of a short list of regrets -- I have always fought to stay in her life in spite of the geography. In spite of being derided, derailed, talked down, and insulted. In spite of my own feelings of inadequacy as a parent. In spite of one attempt on the part of her mother to try and talk me into signing my parental rights away to Sgt. Tailhook. (I told her mother in no uncertain terms that The Kid's last name is Parsons and would be until she changed it herself... and even then, I assured her mother,  I would always be The Kid's Dad.)

And here I am, back on the edge of the dirty, sacred river, getting ready to teach, getting back to all the little projects and obligations I have here. The Big Blue Burrito made it back over the mountains, with a stop off at Willow Creek to visit old friends and another in Losantiville to visit my Dear Sweet Ma and to pick up a new to us bed and frame. Here I am, looking home improvements, looking at starting up the garden, and yes, looking at a jaunt west into some square states in The Big Empty.

Life is good here and I am living it.

The Problem of Shrub: The Story of a Failed Tale

I've never been good at expectations. Expectations are those binds other people place on you. They are the price you pay in exchange for them deigning to allow you in their world. Expectations are rules of behavior.

Keep off the Grass. 

No shirt, no shoes, no service. 

No cussing, spitting, or gum chewing. 

No alcohol allowed beyond this point.

Do your homework.

People who know me, or who have known me for a long time, know that if there is an expectation levied on me that chances are good I'll find a way to not live up to it. If there's a silent understanding among members of any community, I will, in some way or another contradict it. I unintentionally and permanently offended little old Lutheran Church Matrons* by going a little too blue at an open mic series in Mount Carroll, Illinois.

But I am finding that there's a difference between the art and craft of storytelling and the art and craft of poetry.

As some of you may know, I've been polishing my storytelling at the monthly Moth StorySlam held at Headliner's Music Hall in Louisville. The format is ideal for culling the non-essential from a story and for working on other tidbits like stage presence and tone. The judging is, shall we say, not precise.  The rules are simple: 

1. The story must be true.** 
2. The story must have the teller as a central character. 
3. The story should not be longer than 5 minutes. (Or 6, if you're feeling really froggy.)

Then there's the topic, which is different every month. January's topic was VICES. Now, this is something I have a little experience with. Vice can mean a lot, though. And so I've made it my habit to go into the monthly slam with two stories in the bag. I find it's a good way to ensure that I don't end up telling a similar story to the entrant before me. And I also try to have two stories that are different tones and timbers. Last month for example, when the topic was LOVE HURTS, I had a story prepared about my first grade unrequited crush, Tonya Tolin -- and I had a story I call The Midas Girl, about a first (and last) date gone horribly awry.

Amanda and I talk through our stories with one another before The Moth. It's nice to be able to get honest feedback from someone who is both competitive enough to push me but supportive enough to give honest and useful tips. When it comes to VICES we both have plenty of source material to draw from, and it becomes not so much a matter of figuring out a story to tell, but figuring out a story that both meets all the requirements and manages not to simultaneously  and unfairly incriminate us for the mistakes of our youth. (In my case, this may extend to middle age.) 

My first story idea -- the one I told -- is a riff about getting drunk in Aberdeen, Ohio, in the trailer park home of a guy named Treetop and Treetop's Old Lady Katie. (She would only respond to the entire moniker, 'Treetop's Old Lady Katie.' Anyone making the mistake of NOT referring to her, either conversationally or behind her back, by her full title, was subject to a wrath that ensured any man's ego the same fate as Humpty Dumpty. (Women were afforded slightly more mercy and were merely deeply and psychologically wounded with a public airing of all their deficiencies intellectual, physical, and sexual.)

A crucial player in this particular tale is Treetop's Old Lady Katie's son from a previous tangle. I call him Shrub. This was in part because I couldn't remember his name, but also because it seemed to fit in the telling.

I'm not going to pound out the story here, though I am going to be posting audio clips soon*** and Shrub's Story may well be one of them. But since telling that story on stage, it's become sort of a mental puzzle for me to ponder, and transform into what I call The Problem of Shrub. The story ends with me puking my guts out off the front steps after rejecting hangover cure-all advice from Shrub. The Problem begins shortly thereafter, because in the telling I did at the January Moth, I did nothing to ennoble myself or tack on a lesson. 

I've struggled with that aspect of storytelling -- what a much more experienced teller than me, Buck Creasy, calls the "Amen" moment. As a poet, short story scribbler, and novelist (There is one out there, floating in the deep muck of amazon ebooks.) I have furiously avoided tacking on a lesson. I have also avoided making myself -- or the "fiction" voices that I have hidden behind in the past -- anything resembling noble. I have long been the butt of my own literary joke. This has been especially true in short and long fiction. My last ex-wife would beg me to stop. This is not who you are, she'd say. No one cares who I am, I told her. All they care about is the story.

As a storyteller, I've found out though, that people really DO care who I am. Moreover, I've discovered that I care who I am -- a distinction that matters as much or more. Where my first telling of Shrub's Story failed was not so much in making Shrub the sympathetic center. That was my intention from the beginning.  In spite of the Moth "rule" about the teller being a primary character in the story (no Once Upon a Times or This is one I heard from... for the umbilicus pondering NPR crowd that frequents The Moth) I have been trying to focus on something other than myself -- in poetry, and in storytelling. Generally, I'm more interested in other people's stories and in the stories that never seem to get told -- those histories and myths that have been partially or entirely homogenized out of the cultural conscious. 

I made no attempt to paint my 20-something year old self as someone who felt guilty, or who saw the tragedy of a 6 year old who knew more about hangovers than I did because I did not see myself as the point of the story.

But I did forget something fundamental. And while it may not be fundamental to poetry, or short stories, or novels, it is fundamental to the craft of storytelling -- and it goes far beyond the admittedly egocentric nature of personal stories. That is certainly a part of storytelling, and there are plenty of stories worth remembering and sharing if, for no other reason, than that they are personal stories. Sharing personal stories and doing it well means coming to grips with who you are. It also means caring about the person you are and the person you aspire to be. 

Beyond even that, though -- and that's a lot -- there's the larger craft of storytelling at stake in all this. Stories are entertaining, yes. But they are also part of our cultural heritage, part of our human experience. A storytelling is cultural journalism of the highest calibre. Storytellers hear, learn, and tell stories because the stories embody some part of all of us. 

And in the telling, the storyteller becomes part of the story, whether he or she is a participant in it or not. The storyteller provides the context within which the story can unfold and make sense. This can mean brandishing our faults under stage lights. But it also means that sometimes we have to embrace redemption. Not just because people like neat and tidy endings -- but because sometimes people need context that only storytellers can provide so that they then take that story and put it in a context of their own.

____

* Little Old Lutheran Church Matrons are a force to be reckoned with in any northern small town. They hold the keys to potluck / casserole heaven and are the unofficial moral arbiters of all questions ranging from sex outside the confines of marriage (READ: sex with the lights on), to whether a certain pair of shoes are worship service appropriate, to whether or not Good Christian (Lutheran) Men drive Fords or Chevys (Rarely Toyotas and NEVER, EVER a Subaru.)
**The truth in a story is not in the facts. Veracity lies in the telling.
*** I've had some technical difficulties, one of which is that I don't have a working microphone to make a decent recording. that will soon be fixed.

The Spurned Spawn of The Gator Men

J.R. Skelton, Grendel's Mother (1908)

Since I spent most of last week on the northern side of the dirty sacred river, my plan was to write a bit more about Cincinnati.  I had the set up and everything. In case you missed it, or have forgotten -- not that I've lost faith in you, Dear Readers, but Memeworld is a busy place -- but here's the post on this blog's Facebook page* about where Cincinnati got it's name.

Getting back to River City, though, I find myself distracted by the Gator Men. More specifically, the spurned spawn of the Gator Men who, having been rejected and evicted from the murky mud that helped spawn them, inflict their misery and damnation upon whoever crosses their paths.

Sponsored by The One-eyed Jack, The Suicide King, and the numbers 1 and 11.

I have, in the past, referred to these horrible, soulless hell-critters as bean counters**. It occurs to me, however, that in doing so I am insulting both beans -- which are delicious and nutritious when properly prepared -- and to counting -- which I've been doing from an early age thanks to Sesame Street and the game of Blackjack.

While setting up home base here in River City (SOUTH SIDE!!!!) with The Traveller's Angel (Amanda) -- garden planning, home repair practicing, bread baking, canning, fermenting, and brewing all included -- I am also doing a stint of teaching at a community college. This is my second semester back in the institution I once swore I'd never return to -- the institution of higher cost edumacation, that is. The truth is, I enjoy being in the classroom and I get a charge out of teaching, and it's one of the few skills I have that is both useful and can bring in a little scratch. I'm a part-timer, of course. This frees me from the horrible obligation of committee work as well as from such niceties as a retirement and benefits package.

The student population ranges across the spectrum in age from recent high school graduates to retired grandmothers. Two of my current students -- we'll call them Sara and Sammy -- are up against a wall that, while I did not build it, I feel obligated to tilt at in some fashion. Sara is close to what used to be called the "traditional" college student. She's white, maybe in her early 20's. Like most students now who are not star athletes, good test takers, or borne of rich parents, Sara also holds down a job. She attends the college I teach at because it's still cheaper than that Other Kentucky University here in River City. She lives with her grandmother across the dirty sacred river in Indiana.

Sammy is an older black man. He can' use his legs, so he gets around in a wheel chair. He has admitted to me that he's been to prison -- though he was also particular enough to point out that he never killed anyone. Sammy is going to school because it's something to do and something I suspect he has always wanted to do.

But Sammy doesn't know anything about computers. He was told in the Admissions office that it wasn't important, that he'd pick it up. They told him he would have help. Then they sent him to through Financial Aid, who took his money, and pushed him through. Sara doesn't have internet access and home and limited computer access. They took her money, too, and sent her down the gullet and into the stomach of the beast.

Because larger institutions are less interested in developmental classes, students who lack some basic academic skills end up attending community college because 1) it's cheaper and 2) there's a misconception, sometimes encouraged by burned out faculty, that a community college is nothing more than a glorified high school.

More on point, though, higher cost edumacation is not glorified high school. It is not some cultural or economic right of passage. It is, in fact, a three-headed hydra.

Faculty and academic departmental staff comprise one head. If there is one of the three heads that least desires to eat people's hearts and burn out their souls, it is this head.

The second head is the Admissions Office. College presidents (or the CEO, as he is referred to at the grand institution where I currently teach) and the Admissions counselors have one goal: they want asses in the seats. Their job is to prove they deserve their jobs by filling up as many seats -- in real time seats and online ones -- as they possibly can. The Administrators -- who are, coincidentally, some of those spurned spawn of the Gator People, rejected and cursed to walk dry land knowing full well they are only whole when they are in the river among their own kind -- have the additional task of ensuring that teachers are underpaid and students are overcharged, creating a system designed to suck the life, the patience, and the promise out of every warm-blooded living thing that enters that sinewy, slobbering maw. The Admissions Office is responsible for feeding the beast. And it's appetite is never sated. Ever.

The third head -- and in this case, the head spews hot burning acid rather than potentially cleansing fire -- is the Financial Aid Office. They see students as dollar signs. More students = more dollar signs. And that means more dollars. Financial Aid counselors don't see problems. They see a way to profit from the misconception of potential students.

Once the paperwork is signed, though, there's no clear notion of where to find all the assistance. It's part of the game. We'll take you in, the Financial aid counselors -- also spurned spawn of the Gator Men --  hiss. We'll take you in and you'll figure out. You will never succeed without the piece of paper only WE can provide for you. Your children will go hungry. Your parents will be disappointed in you. You will never achieve anything. 

Another one of my students was surprised when I told her about a few people I've known who, inspite of their college degrees, still ended up working low-paying hourly jobs. There's no guarantee I said. It has never been offered. I told her Your chances improve, that's true. But having a better chance is not the same thing.

But that's not the message they get from television commercials and the grand marketeers of Memeworld. They are told college degree = money and success. They are made to feel like they're less if they don't offer themselves up for sacrifice to the three headed beast and to the spurned spawn of the gator men, who use economic blackmail to take us all down for a death roll.

________

*Cincinnati was originally called Losantiville, which is a MADE UP WORD. Ville, of course, is the French term for town or village. Losanti was a mash up in 1788 by Mathias Denman. Not only is it a mash up, but it's a mash up in two different languages -- Greek, and Latin. It is supposed mean "City opposite the mouth of the Licking River." The "L" is the only hold over from the name of the Licking River. Os is Latin for mouth, and anti is Greek for opposite. This, for me, says a lot about the confused character of the city even to this day.
** From the Parsons Dictionary of Oft Used Words and Phrases, Compendium Edition.

Regarding Gator Men

Jake The Alligator Man, Marsh's Free Museum, WA

I don't know if Gator Men actually exist. From a purely biological and ecological point of view, it's not outside the realm of possibility that alligators can live in the Ohio River. (See this report from the Portsmouth Daily Times about a gator found in the river.)

I've never seen a gator in the wild, and certainly nowhere around where I grew up. And I'm not entirely sure where the idea of Gator Men entered my subconscious. I was reading through a collection of old journals about the early wars between French trappers, British military, and Native American Tribes in the Ohio Valley and there was a short reference to them in an account by the journaler about a conversation with a flatboat operator.

Of course, it' significant to mention that I went looking for that reference to Gator Men.

I was sitting one day in the Part-Time Teacher's Dungeon in the Rhet and Comp Division at the University of Louisville. Office hours are mandatory and occasionally useful when you have a backup of student essays to read... and of course, we're supposed to be accessible to students in spite of the fact that 1) they will rarely stop by and 2) will more than likely shoot off a series of 10 separate emails with 20 different questions at 3 in the morning and then claim you never answered them when you don't respond by 7 when they pass out. In the absence of actual work or actual students, I read, I scribble, I day dream. On this particular day, after once again having to argue with cogs in la machina about whether or not I was really a real person and employee on the campus of That Other Kentucky University, I closed my eyes.

I allowed myself to drift -- not to sleep, but to relax. My colleagues, most of whom were doctoral students who eyed me with certain suspicion because I was not, ignored me (as was their custom) and when on complaining alternately about their students and their professors. And as I was drifting, the phrase echoed from the itchy back of  my brain, where all my better notions are born and where all my odd tendencies take root...

Gator Men live in the river....

I'm still looking for more evidence of them, the Gator Men. It's hard to tell because all accounts I've read thus far are historic and never first hand... always some British interloper writing about what he heard while on his way to murder Injuns.

I did get a poem out of it, though. I'll think of a title eventually.

Higher piles of learning and ennui stifle the city of Atlanta
and the snow is seventeen men deep in Carroll County, Illinois.
We do not mark time in that manner here.
Ohio Valley folk keep track, not by the high tide
or by the count of barges carrying coal westward
from gutted Appalachian hills.
Not anymore. Everyone exists elsewhere –
dreaming of a permanent summer sun,
imagining the right circumstances
under which we will leave this place,


our world view defined by a modern indifference
to locks and docks and the swelling of the tide.
In the absence of all-knowing and immortal river men,


we search the horizon for some fresh landscape, unspoiled by memory
where the Gator Men do not hunker down
in dank and murky dreams
waiting for us to slip beneath and sleep
so they can take us for a sweet death roll
and show us
where all our childhood treasures are buried
never to be rediscovered.


_________

By the way: if you think there's nothing living in the Ohio but 3-eyed muskies and catfish with an extra set of teeth (and there are..) check out this article about an octopus that was fished out of the Dirty, Sacred, River. Sweet Dreams.