Joke

So a white working class man walks into a bar that happens to be liberal and orders a drink. He says to the bartender who happens to be black, ‘I think that anyone protesting deserves to die’. The black bartender says to his coworker who happens to be homosexual, “did you here what this f***** just said?” Whereupon the homosexual coworker who happens to be a man texts his Uber driver outside who happens to be a woman, “hold on a minute, things just got hairy in here, can you give me five minutes?” Whereupon the woman became suddenly self-conscious of her hairy legs that she was trying to pull off to be more radical and texts back, “no.”

She drives off and gives the potential customer a negative rating.

Meanwhile inside the bar the potential for a squabble is seemingly at it’s zenith and the homosexual asks the black man, “excuse me? Did you call me a f*****?” Whereupon the white workers mouth drops open and is obviously offended for the homosexual. The black bartender responds to his coworker and tells him, “no I called this man a f*****.” 

“Why did you call this man a f*****?”

“Oh, because he is an Atlanta football fan.”

“Where did you get the idea that his brain couldn’t understand the virtues of civil disobedience from the fact that he liked the Atlanta Falcons?”

“Because I am a Saints fan and Falcons are idiots.”

At this point the working class white tipped two dollars and left the bar and got in his truck. The homosexual man clocked out and got in a second Uber he had ordered and the black bartender began swiping right on his Tinder.

The angry want to be feminist landed a random one hundred dollar tip from her next customer who happened to identify as a woman who complimented her on her legs. Whereupon the female Uber driver used the one hundred dollars that night to buy an expensive shaving kit from amazon.

Literature I

Hellbender the dwarf

After what I’ve seen of life I do not want anymore part of it. I have not smiled since she left

I will not let you kill your self. You are full of life.

If you left this world obviously I could replace you. If you stayed I am sure you could be of better use.

The kids are too young, the streams too polluted, the wars too advanced for me to help anymore. I am now only a nuisance.

Fine. I’ll go on through the ages enacting my will as I always have without you. You may regret it old boy. If you leave this world against my desire I may not help your desire on the other side.

I cannot go on any further without her. Even you know that. Why do you fuss me so? I do not want to fight your battles anymore.

Fuss you so? Such maudlin. I have come to think of you as my own child. There are serious spiritual dangers to suicide. There has to be.

Damn it all. I don’t care. I have no heart left. I have no desire.

Who filled your mind with such stories? Life is not about heart or desire once one loses those things indeed they are gone. You must continue with me in this thing called life. It is the only way.

Maybe you are right. If I have given it another try after I have lost everything before, what makes this time of despair any different? Fuck it. Let’s give it another round you and me. What have you got for me dwarf?

To be honest, not much. No ladies. No love. No passion.

Ok. Thank you dwarf. You know how to encourage a chap. So what? Every time I come back from the edge to our little partnership it does seem worse.

You have to do what I tell you everyday. These pansies, snowflakes, and bullies of this generation are all programmed the same and any antics that come out of them is not personality but errors in the coding.

We must go completely underground and stop writing for today’s audience but for the abandoned children of tomorrow. We must write hope for the unborn.

I have written hope. I have written scripts of virtue. I have lived my life with bravery and courage.

Yet you doubt. You doubt your value. You doubt your legacy. How will you write scripts of hope for the unborn if you doubt?

No. I can’t bear it. I will not be the Father of bastard generations. This is not my burden nor my responsibility.

So your choice is suicide? Your legacy is suicide? Your final act of bravery is suicide?

I have never been brave, dwarf. It has always been you. I have never wanted to be brave, only to be obedient.

Lord have mercy child. A lifetime of brave daring and still a spirit of servility. A coward full of battle scars. A pitiable creature with well-merited laurels.

I have been tired my entire life. Now my dear dwarf. Goodbye.

Ernest Hemingway went to his grave feeling fuller than an unrisen sun. I traveled through the woods, rivers, plains, creeks, mountains, and oceans for a writer that would encourage the world in its dealings when I happened upon Charles Bukowski in California and Hunter S Thompson in Kentucky. Ernest Hemingway was the black sheep boy who could wear the Golden Fleece but Bukowski and Hunter were pure freaks of nature. That was a good thing for they were the last of the literary scene anywhere in all the world for all time.

Hunter come on don’t shoot yourself. All I ask of you is to do one more thing.

Enough! I’ve had it with you dwarf.

Enough of me? I am the dwarf of Hemingway.

Yes. You are Bukowski’s invention of the dwarf of Hemingway. Blah, blah, blah.

I am the inspiration of millions. I am the inventor of masculinity. I am the taking of a woman’s virginity.

Go back to hell. Tricks are for kids.

I left Hunter S Thompson or Hunter S Thompson left me or we eloped into an eternal intimate death napkin, it hardly matters. A little more about me wouldn’t hurt. I am the masculinity of ages. That first time the toddler finds out how to bully another toddler is me. When that bullied toddler learns he can fight back is also me. I am from the oldest school of masculinity. I am an ancient root. I am something always being lost and yet never being replaced.  The men of the ages were all my slaves.

Another case of beer Bukowski. Another woman Bukowski. Another poem Mr Bukowski. Another day at general unskilled labor Bukowski.

Thank you dwarf. You are a gentleman and a scholar.

Another lustful thought about a young girl Bukowski. Another woman not returning your call Bukowski. Another night with no beer, no food and no company Bukowski. Another drunken night in a jail Bukowski.

Ok. Ok. What do you want dwarf?

You seize me whenever I think I have made it, or is it whenever I think I have escaped? Always why can’t I be rid of you? Why must you badger me so?

Why badger you so? Look at that gut Bukowski! Look at your misery Bukowski! Look at your reputation Bukowski! Why you are near complete ruin!

I am a professional. I like my life. I like myself. I do not like you.

You love me. Work harder. Produce more. Fail less. Live fuller.

Oh you are a peach. Give me a hug. I do love you dwarf. For you are mine and I am yours.

For I am you and you are me. Amen.

Now dwarf.

Yes sir.

How are those wives of Norman Mailer and William S Burroughs?

Stabbed and shot sir.

The legacy of Hemingway, Hunter, Mailer and Burroughs?

Annihilated sir.

My legacy dwarf?

You are nothing sir.

Why is that dwarf?

The rise of feminism, illiteracy spreading, inability to think critically, the devaluing of free inquiry and the imminent rise of political correctness.

I think masculinity may have a chance then.

You still believe in me? 

With your last breath?

Yes dwarf.

Poetry I

She said I was wearing a cowboy hat
The first night
She was writing a song about guys
Who wear cowboy hats for shade

Our friend gave me my first cowboy
Hat after he returned the colt
To cowboy Mike
And before he went to Washington

State for graduate school
He got the chicken fried steak
And I got the cottage pie
With free Pendleton whiskey shots

And we paid for each others
Whiskey and waters
Jack Daniel’s not Evan Williams
Sometimes rum and coke

The blonde waitress bends over
The counter for free as well
The Butt sisters turn their backs
To you when you use the restroom

We are told to cling to the bar
If anything gets out of hand
The dancing
Always the dancing

The rose of the rodeo asks me to dance
I refuse her.
She calls me sweet heart
She calls me sweet heart again

She calls me sweet heart a third time
I tell her she doesn’t want a city boy
She says that she might like a soft fuck
I told her I didn’t care

This threw up a red flag
But lit her curiosity
She was a kind of vase
I didn’t want to break

Into my face
She looks
I offer her my chair.
Damn Pendleton!

Her love in my rug
Her love in the other corner of my rug
Her love in my bed
Her love in my face

My love in the toilet
My love in a rag
My love in the sheets
My love in her cheeks

My love in her face
She wanted me to propose
To her with a ring
Proposing didn’t seem sensible

“Touch me.”
She was covered with dirt:
This.
“I am so tired.”

Clouds in front of the sun
I know the sun is there
Although I can’t see it
“Do you have a blanket?”

her number
her guitar and voice
Her serving me that whiskey
Me driving across that country

Presidential IV

George S. Patton 

“Cowardice is a disease and must be checked before it becomes epidemic by the only kind of discipline, perfect discipline.”

“A pint of sweat will save a gallon of blood.” 

“Battles are won by frightening the enemy.”

“To halt under fire is folly and to halt under fire and not fire back is suicide.”

George S. Patton led the charge to liberate Europe in World War II from Nazi occupation. He believed in officers setting the example of moving forward out of fire.Consistently he wanted to move forward faster than his authority of command would enable him to. Although this was extremely frustrating for him he came to admit that these enforced orders that went against his preference of speed were for the best.

John F. Kennedy

Jack’s America had been Hyannis Port, Palm Beach, The Stork Club, elite prep schools, and Harvard. His world was summers in Europe and time in the south of France. Initially persecuted as a catholic in his bid for power in the Democratic Party he rose to popularity by the ruthless efforts of his brother Bobby Kennedy and JFK’s own pitiless competitive drive.

His youth, fitness of health and sense of idealism derived from his catholic and patriotic heritage along with his Father’s money, power and influence enabled Kennedy to tirelessly campaign. Although fit, athletic and able Kennedy had preexisting medical conditions that landed him in emergency rooms around the world unconscious. To keep his Superman image his life and death struggles throughout his campaigns and presidency were kept secret.

Matthews, Chris. Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero. Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2011.

Patton, Jr., George S. War As I Knew It. Houghton Mifflin, November 1947.

Presidential III

Summary review notes

Jon Meachham’s 

Thomas Jefferson 

The Art of Power

George Washington believed in America as its own party and John Adams was disappointed in its partisanship, “political war was to be the rule the country is so totally given up to the the spirit of party, that not to follow blindfold the one or the other is an inexplicable offense.” While Jefferson believed in bi-partisanship he built his following off of dissent from Washington and Adams policies. This created the first two party system America was to experience having Alexander Hamilton, George Washington and John Adams termed federalists by their followers and monarchical aristocrats by their dissenters and Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe and James Madison as the leaders of the Republican Party who were generally viewed as divisive trouble makers by their political opponents. The Republicans so despised the Federalists that this kind of language by Thomas Jefferson became commonplace, “a little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve and the people recovering their true sight.”

George Washington was unanimously elected as commander in chief of Revolutionary army in 1775 and president of the constitutional convention and president of the United States in 1789.

George Washington was the only president to lead an army in the field.

Washington’s philosophy and policies hinges on the idea of self-interest. His idea of foreign policy for America was only America’s interests.

George Washington on national unity

“A main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad, of your safety, of your prosperity, of that very liberty which you so highly prize.” He would not allow an insurrection to occur in America after the revolutionary war unlike other revolutionary movements in other places.

Alexander Hamilton differed from Washington’s republican ideal of the pursuit of happiness and Jefferson’s desire to enrich average citizens but was rather making a powerful federal government, “no government could give us tranquility and happiness at home which did not possess sufficient stability and strength to make us respectable abroad.” Alexander Hamilton’s American dream was a powerful military nation state.

“All military geniuses like centralization, which increases their forces and all centralizing geniuses like war, which obliges a nation to concentrate many different powers in the hands of the state.” -Tocqueville 

George Washington saw American landowners as the citizens he wanted to enrich and make happy while Thomas Jefferson also saw the value in poorer whites.

While publicly and privately despising many of George Washington’s policies when dealing with Washington as an individual he always had the utmost respect telling Washington, “the confidence of the whole union is centered in you. North and South will hang together if they have you to hang on.”

Abraham Lincoln gave “all honor to Jefferson” for including in his Declaration of Independence the idea of personal liberty that was the reason for the abolition of slavery.

Thomas Jefferson got rid of internal taxes, went to war with Tripoli, started the military academy at West Point, made naturalization of non-citizens easier and got rid of the judiciary act of 1801.

Jefferson embraced and reformed George Washington and John Adams style of republican government.

Jefferson was constantly on guard against Britain regaining authority in the United States.

Lowering taxes, the security of great wealth, and the Louisiana purchase gave Thomas Jefferson an enduring legacy.

In politics, Jefferson established a culture of personal liberty which enabled free inquiry.

Believed in a government that instilled fear and force to keep the bad citizens in check and believed the good citizen capable of minding his duty without these pressures.

Democracy to Jefferson allowed natural leaders to be elected contrary to monarchical government structure which was led by hereditary hierarchy. 

To Jefferson the constitution was made for a peaceful government rather than a hawkish one.

The federalists believed it essential for America to cooperate with one another while the Republicans embraced the idea of personal liberty. So that there was an early split in thought of the essence of being a good American. Happiness to Washington was the fulfillment of moral responsibility to the nation and others while Jefferson offered voting citizens another definition of happiness by giving them whatever they wanted. The American dream to Washington was about reaping the fruits of being a good citizen while the dream Jefferson offered the people was citizens reaping the fruits of a good nation. Self-gratification and pleasure seeking were intolerable to Washington yet Jefferson’s Republicans bread and butter. If someone asks one if they are happy do they think of accomplishing good deeds or having what they want?

While giving people what they wanted was a means to an end to get elected for Republicans many still believed personally in the same values as the Federalist founding fathers, “Adore God. Reverence and cherish your parents. Love your neighbor as yourself and your country more than yourself. Be just. Be true. Murmur not at the ways of Providence. So shall life into which you have entered be the portal to one of eternal and ineffable bliss.” Contrasting, Washington simply believed that following virtue would provide bliss to the individual and nation on this side of the eternal curtain.

Journey I

Before I forget.

Going up Sawtooth base saw many wildflowers on the left side were small blue and yellow flowers in the middle predominantly bunches of white clusters and violet drooping small babies. On the right were yellow flowers halfway up. I found some massive droppings and it led me to the caves to the left. I saw two bears and maybe three. The first two actually looked to be black bear and the third a grizzly. I wasn’t doing anything to hide myself from the bears so naturally I figured if I could see them they could see me. Although the wind was blowing from them to me I figured I ought to steer clear and keep moving up. This was a courageous decision that marks me as having a brave character for the decision was before me to turn back but it was about as repulsive of an option as flinging myself off the cliffs of Sawtooth. More on that later.

Walking horizontally across state mountain rather than ascending it’s peak I found some less threatening wildlife. First among the rocks I found a Uinta chipmunk which has the size and features of a common tree squirrel but the colorization of a least chipmunk. It’s defense was to be silent, still, watchful and wary. Since I was between a cluster of pines and a cluster of rocks I found myself in the Uinta chipmunks pristine habitat since they forage in both. Also the only part of Montana they inhabit is the small area I tromp around in: Paradise Valley, Emigrant Gulch, Tom Miner Basin and Yellowstone.

Another chipmunk caught my attention by barking loudly. This would be the yellow-pine chipmunk. Moving on I tromped through a cluster of pines with a couple feet of snow and a cluster of burnt trees after that. Starting my ascent to the ridge that leads from the summit of state mountain to Sawtooth I got the opportunity to use the rope I brought along. The pass was simple enough but with its greenery and directness being caused by it being a waterway it was a little slippery, steep and unstable.

Happy for the opportunity to do a little bouldering I swung my rope onto a stable boulder and began my fifteen feet semi-vertical climb. Cresting the ridge I saw something running along it ahead of me towards Sawtooth. Looking like a brown squirrel I was puzzled because our common brown squirrel does not inhabit these parts although robins do. Turning to my right disappointed I was unable to classify the mammal was a marmot looking me right in the eye, five feet away on my eye level. This was a yellow-bellied marmot that goes by the nickname of rock chuck.

I reached for my phone to snap a picture and he disappeared before I could reach for my holster. I text Jeff. I let him know my location, ambition and return route. He is the only other person to my knowledge to have first hand knowledge of the area besides me in our group. My phone dies after I send him the message.

Cresting the ridge I continued beneath the cliff that made the ridge, or rather the ridge that made the cliff. On the other side of my ridge I find another opportunity for amateur bouldering with rope. In the cliff was a round hole so I swung my rope up and climbed up into the hole. What I found was not surprising since the caves in the rock are common in the area and my friend Jeff already told me the contents found therein is sheep poop.

In my shallow five foot and ten foot caves I find sheep poop as well as petrified wood deposits. These were not a surprise either since I found them last time I was in the area. The discovery of them being in the caves made my mind make an amateur hypothesis. The caves are formed by the eroding petrified wood trunks in the cliff.

Thinking I may have made a bad tactical decision by hiking along the base of the cliff I was relieved to find a rockslide pass back up onto the ridge.

Continuing along the crest I am pleased to find myself ascending Sawtooth. 

Highlights from Sawtooth include the immense feelings of vertigo as a pica makes its echoing warning chirp from the other side of Sawtooth which makes me look in that direction only to the immense bowl of pine trees miles beneath. It’s mass and density is dizzying. Calling out to me to spread my wings and soar down like a bird of prey and find a prize amongst its boughs. The scripture verse of Satan tempting Jesus to put His Lord God to the test comes to mind and I feel the gravity of my situation. The pica’s chirp continues to add to the sharpness of my senses.

I straddle the rock like a saddle and decide to fall to the right rather than the left if I lose balance or the sediment of the ridge gives way. Then a swallow swoops over my head and begins to circle me twittering all the while. My courage returns to me with this birds hospitality. Adding some levity to my journey rather than the disparate chirps of the lone pica echoing through the bowl. 

I continue and find mountain goat wool and big horn sheep sheds. Big horn sheep have hair like the deer while the mountain goat produces wool. Only at the top of my ascent at a peak made of sharp drop offs and a linear ridge do I find this prize. The goats only inhabit the roughest and most dangerous rock ridges so as to stay out of harms way of aggressive predators.

The Sawtooth ridge is shaped similar to holding up your five fingers together and putting the middle one down into a knuckle with your palm facing away from one’s self. Finding myself atop the pointer finger with no where to go but back the way I came I put myself into a stable sitting position and take in the harvest. The best way to create what I saw up there would be to put our illustrious hand fingers Sawtooth ridge-line between two kitchen bowls of broccoli and imagine your eyes would be on your the crest of your pointer fingernail. 

The swallows number half a dozen to a dozen and come around to visit me as they make the rounds of snatching insects out of the high clean air. These are migratory birds from Mexico. There backs suddenly shimmer in my eye and I realize they are violet-green which makes perfect sense since they are violet-green swallows.

I descend knowing it’s the hardest part of my hike. I take it in stride. Keeping a steady pace I stay wary making sure I do not become over-confident or clumsy after reaching my goal of the summit. There are treacherous rockslides that I traverse that if I walked across like it was a sidewalk I would find myself heading down a laundry shoot that dumps into our precious broccoli kitchen bowl. Twenty feet of rockslide separates me from the edge of the cliff. The drop off would kill me. I choose my steps wisely, slowly and with extreme caution.

The way back was uneventful. On top of state mountain peak I found my beautiful collection of petrified rocks undisturbed and added a couple I had found in the shallow caves. Four elk grazed on a hill on the ridge line below. 

We kept our eyes on each other for the better part of an hour as a bird chimed in to warn the area of my descent. Finally upon the elk they continued to stare at me while one was so comfortable sitting in the grass it took all three of the others to trot away before it decided to get up. I gesticulated wildly with my two walking sticks until they cleared out.

On the path back I saw some dusk strollers from the TREK group that was at B Bar Ranch and pondered my appearance. Untied shoe, large walking stick, mountain weather jacket, skinny jeans, construction worker shoe, no hat, no glasses, sunburnt face, unwashed, fistful of wildflowers and an eagle feather, coat puffed out because of water bottle and rope in inner pockets. No bag. The prophet returns from the mountain. 

A skunk runs up to me as I am down the road from my cabin. I yell at him as though he is my own dog to stay away. He lifts himself up aggressively on his front shoulders looking right at me and I bolt like the true coward I am over a fence and into the neighboring field as he runs off in the opposite direction with his tail lifted showing off his superior stink hole.

Music

Recess from Eternity

Hunter S. Thompson summons the devils of Adolf Hitler, Ayn Rand and Crazy Horse from an American baseball game in hell for a listening party at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. There eating crab cakes are Andrew Jackson and Theodore Roosevelt. The album to be listened to is Eric in Outerspace LP titled ‘Later Days’. Before the party begins GK Chesterton and Winston Churchill come through the door after spending the afternoon playing bridge.

GKC: what a crowd!

AR: you are right on time.

TDR: have a crab cake and a cigar

GKC: thank you 

The room fills with even more smoke as the album begins to play

Hitler: very catchy

CH: never been a better time to have a bad woman

AR: there hasn’t. it’s all the rage

AJ: men have got there kicks from bad women since before 2019

WC: I think I hate someone

Hitler: very noisy 

HST: the sandlot in a song

TDR: ah yes the sandlot

AJ: nothing compares to the live show. This band is for gathering around and remembering the world is still a warm, good place. Like we are now I suppose.

WC: good record for a summer bbq

HST: I could listen to this record alone

AR: it’s not a pop record

HST: it’s not supposed to be

TDR: sounds like pop to me

CH: garage rock is dead. 

AR: so what genre is this Hunter?

HST: friend rock

WC: similar to pet rock?

CH: (guffaws)

TDR: those words

HST: I could do some serious driving alone to this record

AJ: is it third wave rock and roll?

GK: This is the frayed ends of rock and roll.