Gator People Live In The River: Shut Down Smackdown, Cave RunStorytelling, Up and downdates

Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it. - Mark Twain

Governments never lead; they follow progress. - Lucy Parsons

Well, they went and did it. The immortal game of chicken has resulted in yet another government shutdown. This will yield infinite public relations pundit points for the right as they scramble to find someone who can run for President in 2016 -- sorry, Ted Cruz, in all his Tex-Mex Tea Party Glory, cannot run because he is... in the parlance of the times... a Canuck.

The GOPers and T-Baggers will blame the White House. The Dems will blame the T-Baggers. Obama will stand resolute -- or not -- and either way his hand is played pretty much the same way. Those of use who question the usefulness of the government will search for signs and smoke signals in the landscape that the world will, indeed, move forward without the Beltway Bozos. 

My mind turns inevitably to a North Illinois agribusiness baron and good Rotarian-in-standing, who I had occasion to skewer in print for his absolute lack of humanity, Mr. Rod Fritz. Among the gems that have fallen from his sly, smiling lips as he rubbed his palms together waiting for a bushel of corn to top $8 so he could unload his hoarded store onto the market and make a killing, Mr. Fritz once pointed out that his life would not change at all except for he would not be required to pay taxes.

Of course, he had already cashed his yearly subsidy check. He had a full growing season plus the winter to ferret out a way to blame Liberals while buying out his less moneyed neighbors and bulldozing their houses. 

Mr. Fritz is unencumbered this morning, as are his fellow robber barons. The gold-hoarders, the multinational corporations who actually run everything and who have been waiting on this shut down for their own nefarious reasons, are not affected. And of course, we are all glad to hear it. There is nothing worse than watching a rich man cry over spilled money. 

The sticking point -- again -- is Obamacare, which I have pointed out numerous times is probably the biggest money grab by the insurance industry since deregulation. Please bear in mind -- they are not against a mandate requiring everyone to have health insurance, any more than car insurance companies are against the law requiring people to have car insurance. They are against regulation, and that is why they're pulling the strings of their bought pets in Congress to fight the ACA. 

But whether the T-Baggers win their pandering attempts to de-fund Obamacare, or whether the law stands, the insurance industry will be rolling in money. Rolling. Like a pig rolls in shit. If that metaphor is overplayed, then please insert this one: the insurance industry will be lapping up ill-gotten gains with all the fervor of a dog licking his own testicles.

You're welcome.

Also do keep in mind that while the insurance industry doesn't suffer, while the robber barons don't suffer, while the multi-national thieves don't suffer, there is a short list of folks who will:

• Active and reserve military and their families;
• Children and the elderly on SNAP (food stamps); 
• People on Social Security;
• People on Medicare and Medicaid;
• People drawing unemployment benefits.

But since that is, after all, such a short list that in no way takes up the same amount of space as the primary campaign contributors for the schleps in Congress. If I'm missing any, please mention them in comments. I'm writing off the top of my head here in the south side bunker where I am waiting for the world to not end.

While the Beltway Bozos were going through the dress rehearsal for their version of West Side Story, The Traveller's Angel and I packed up the truck and headed east for a weekend of camping and storytelling at the Cave Run Storytelling Festival. We had a blast. On Saturday evening, there was a story slam and both of us put our names in. I somehow managed to get on stage, though they ran out of time before Amanda could -- which is a shame, since she would have shamed the three folks who won. I was beat out by a lady preacher who needs a man (her words, not mine), and old guy (who was actually pretty good) and an art student who pulled in a 3rd place victory largely because it's understood that students are charity cases.

A good time was had by all, and I heard some really amazing storytellers. We also had a chance to stop out at Willow Creek for a brief visit with the Eklunds, who are amazing friends and amazing artists and amazing people. We should visit with them more often than we do.

Gator People Live In The River, 2: The Ballad of Judy and Cynthia

Do you know any ... Kentucky songs? - Cynthia

It seems like bluegrass people have more great stories to tell than other musicians. -- Dan Fogelberg 

My Best Angle: Image By Amanda L. Hay

Whenever I roll into down SR 32 and onto Main Street in Morehead, Kentucky, the mountains in the background bring back a wellspring of memory. My daughter was born in the shadow of those hills. Two marriages, two college degrees, an invaluable education*, a host of friends, and a connection to place that I am only recently coming to terms with.

I take in the hills and remember the leaves splashed in fall colors, and the stark beauty of winter -- the kind of beauty you have to know intuitively to understand. The apocalyptic summer when the hills burned, and seemed to burn for the entire season, leaving a scar on the hills that took years to heal. On a clear day, I think I can still see it there, even though the treeline has grown back in. Rolling down 32, I see and feel my own scars, too. Though I am was not born nestled by those hills, I am bound there by failure, by success, by enlightenment, by mistakes, by some good decisions. I am so bound to it that I avoided returning for nearly a decade. It wasn't time, I told myself. It wasn't time, and I wasn't ready.

The Morehead Old Time Music Festival takes place on the Jaycee Farm. $20 for the entire weekend, and that included camping. Considering any nearby campground would cost at least that for one night, Amanda and I thought that was a pretty good deal. The weather was supposed to be cool, with a chance of rain. We found a good spot along the treeline, and set up the tent.  Campfires weren't allowed, but we packed in some simple food and our own booze. Kentuckians For the Commonwealth had a food tent there, selling coffee, tea, hamburgers, hotdogs, and wonderful brown beans and cornbread. We had everything we needed.

We could sit in front of our tent and listen to the music, drink beer, our homemade mead, and bourbon. Friday night I ran to a remnant of an old ghost of myself -- Ryan Perkins, (one of the festival organizers)  who remembered me though I didn't remember him at first. Once upon a time, he had dated Posie, my first ex-wife's sister. That sort of thing happens often when I go back there, running into echoes of an old life. Saturday, I got out my guitar to pick around. I don't have any illusions about my talent; I only picked up the guitar again less than a year ago. But I love music, and I enjoy playing.

Will you play with us?

I looked up to find a banjo and a violin, each attached to a bone skinny, silver-haired Old Timey aficionado.

You may regret that. I'm not very good.

They were desperate, though. I was sympathetic to their plight. There were more than a few musicians around, all of them enormously talented. I didn't feel anywhere near qualified to sit in with any of them. Amanda was, as always, a gracious hostess, and we sat around and tried to find something to play. They introduced themselves. Judy played the violin and Cynthia -- who might be the most androgynous person I've ever come across. They weren't from the area, and weren't even from Kentucky. I knew that quickly because of their accents. They were from Indiana. But since I was born in Ohio, I try not to hold that against them. We don't have any control over where we're born. But we can decide where home is.

I played one of the songs I know fairly well -- a John Prine song called "The Great Compromise." Cynthia and Judy liked it just fine and we managed to get through a 3 piece version of it.

How long have you been playing? I asked.

Oh, Cynthia said, if you put it all together over the years, it probably amounts to about two weeks.

They tried to teach me The Tennessee Waltz, but my recall for music theory hasn't improved even though I can play a bit better than when I started. The sad thing is, I used to understand the circle of fifths; but even when I played guitar before -- back when I wanted to be a rock star -- I never applied music theory to playing guitar. I don't even know why. I studied the piano. I studied the trumpet. I can still sort read note music. But not with guitar.

Judy and Cynthia were used to people with more experience. But they asked me to play another song anyway and I played "Poncho and Lefty." They had apparently never heard of it. And I could tell they weren't all that impressed.

Do you know any... Kentucky songs?

Cynthia asked me that, and it took me back a bit.

You're around a bunch of old people here, she said. You ought to learn some.

I didn't quite know what to say. I know quite a bit of old country and bluegrass, but not to play it. I grew up listening to George Jones. I found Hazel Dickens, Woody Guthrie and Hank Williams, and T. Texas Tyler and Lefty Frizzell, and Doc Watson and Bill Monroe and the Carter Family. But not to play it. Not yet.

After "Poncho and Lefty," I played an Old Crow Medicine Show tune, "Wagon Wheel." I didn't know all the words by memory, though -- which was too bad, because I play that one fairly ok. Cynthia and Judy wandered off, leaving me to wonder what the hell a Kentucky song is. Bluegrass is regional in origin and there are different flavors of it all over Appalachia. The south has taken it up, but still -- the music I identify as Bluegrass was born out of the hills, with that echo of sad Irish songs, the mixture of spirituals, hymns, and traditional English Ballads. I didn't -- and I don't -- understand what Cynthia was talking about.

But when I was there, nestled by the hills, with Amanda, it was the first time in a very long time that I felt like I was home.