I’m driving into the future. I can see the Iowa Caucus in my rearview mirror. Soon it’s fallen below the horizon line except for some stray bunting and balloons that waft up on the thermals of resident emotion and soon they are gone too.
I’m driving into the future. It should look different than the landscape I’m passing and which I assume to be the present as I arrive in it but nothing looks different; not the present- in continuous fade in the rear view, not the scenery on either side and nothing about the road ahead signifies anything new either. Now this may just be a result of driving through Iowa where everything always looks the same no matter what direction you are going in but... I don’t think so.
I’m driving toward New Hampshire. It’s up ahead and even though it is distance that separates me from it, it is also time and so that put's New Hampshire in the future; not for the people in NH who may be sharing this present moment with me but only for me who has not arrived in NH yet.
Some things are following me out of Iowa They seem to be fueled by some unknown power source. These things are the self-propelled buzzwords that hummed like bees all around Iowa and being no ordinary kinds of bees also managed to slip into media inlets of radio and television where they buzzed on the screens and through the speakers. I heard ‘hope’ and ‘change’. I heard ‘faith’ and several other things. When seen on the screens of blue-lit televisions shining out of the windows of American living rooms they looked like Lucky Charm candies dancing in air.
I’ve heard other buzzwords over the years, ‘compassionate conservatism’ and ‘no nation building’ and pretty much anything that could buzz because the buzz was the thing. It was the sizzle not the steak. That’s why Obama looks good at the moment because of all the sizzle. People figure there’s got to be some steak nearby.
Over at Hillary’s they seem to be making hamburger. Joe Biden’s people made hash and so did a few others. Hucklebee’s people made a lot of that traditional American dish of Pie-in-the-Sky and they served it up on endless plates to the relentless imaginations of one large crowd of people who believes that life begins after death and that sex should be painful to begin with, not just in the birth process which is the only reason for it to exist and which must be circumscribed by the razor-wire fences of marriage under Big God holding pie.
It looks like things are warming up for another great American tradition called “Same Old Same Old.” This is a dish best served lukewarm and topped with a secret sauce that never tastes the same but always gives you the runs.
The best way to sell Same Old Same Old is to make it ‘New and Improved’. It’s true that if it’s ‘new’ it can’t be the Same Old Same Old and if it’s ‘improved’ it can’t be either. Never fear though, it’s neither new nor improved. They only say that to get you excited about the Same Old Same Old.
The way it works is that there are always new people coming into the process for the first time so that it hasn’t had a chance to look like the Same Old Same Old yet. On the other end are those who have lost their grip on reality and they can’t tell the difference between what used to be and what is. They’re lucky they can find their way back home from Walmart to begin with. They do vote however. They vote the same way they wet themselves, automatically according to some idea about life whose origins and meaning now lie shrouded in the mysteries of the past. In between these two groups lies the group in the middle. They’ve seen the Same Old Same Old Before but if they have to really think about what that means they might not get the chance to make it to the latter group where they don’t have to worry about remembering whether they’ve seen the Same Old Same Old before because they won’t remember.
There is a fourth group that is a source of ongoing annoyance to all of the other groups and these are the people who don’t like the Same Old Same Old and have the tin foil hat idea that they’re going to change it into something else. The good news is that the other groups collectively outnumber these freaks and pretty much feel that they can kiss their Same Old Same Old asses and shut the hell up.
All of these groups can hear the buzzwords with the possible exception of the old Same Old Same Olds who don’t really need to hear anything anyway because they stopped listening with any degree of attention a long time ago.
There’s a curious phenomenon that’s been going around lately and that is the only thing I’ve seen that isn’t the Same Old Same Old as usual. This phenomenon involves speculation on the part of the fourth group; those who don’t like the Same Old Same Old, that any candidate who speaks out against the global elite and corporate world rule is actually in the employ of these people.
Recently I’ve seen all sorts of articles that attack the few candidates who may not be a part of the Rockefeller CFR/Bilderberger Globo-Octopus world enslavement crime ring as actually being secret members of this ring and it seems to me that no matter what anyone says anymore; no matter what their life history may state, no matter what their record of activity shows, no matter what they have and have not done they are still shills for the crime ring.
It seems to me that if you grabbed someone off of the street in Port Au Prince and ran them as a presidential candidate (providing you could) that it wouldn’t be more than a week or so before certain counter-culture blogs and alternative news sites began to say that they were Neo-Nazi party members and life members of every suspect organization on the planet.
There seems to be more energy being put into this sort of thing right now than all of the other candidates who are identifiably members of one or more of these suspect organizations under whatever name they hide their allegiance to the Same Old Same Old.
If a guy is pro-life he is suddenly anti-woman. If some one is for a Palestinian State he’s actually a front man for the Zionists. If some candidate wants capital gains taxed and the estate taxes put back into order he is sure to be the secret lover of Bill Gates unborn daughter and a Coca Cola heir with ties to the Parker Ranch in Hawaii.
It appears that you can’t win for losing and it sure sounds a lot like the Same Old Same Old to me. I don’t know what to do if it turns out that everybody on the planet, whether they are running for president or running for the toilet, happens to be a representative of some dark cabal of blood-sucking aliens. According to a lot of occasionally truthful blogs and self-proclaimed truth sites this appears to be the case. I’m beginning to feel like I live in David Icke's stash bag. I am beginning to feel like I really don’t know whether to shit or go blind and fearful that both have already happened.
I’m still driving. I’m somewhere near Duluth about now. The buzzwords are still there outside my window... ‘Hope’, ‘Change’, ‘Faith’. What’s that mean? “I hope I can change into a girl named Faith?” That would definitely not be the Same Old Same Old for my mother when she hears about it; which she probably won’t because she’s in that old Same Old Same Old group.
So let me see... I guess it all means that no matter who gets elected we’re mostly screwed, especially if it is someone who actually brings hope and the promise of change and has the faith in himself and what he has accomplished to pull it off, instead of the usual candidates who keep mouthing the words and whom I know to be lying or just incompetent. Yep... it is the Same Old Same Old and it’s new and improved too. I don’t think I’m going to New Hampshire at all. I’m going to make a swing north to Toronto and I’m just going to keep on going until I don’t see or hear any more buzzwords or candidates or anything but trees and snow. I’m going to keep on going until there are no more roads and then I’m going to start walking till I can’t walk no more... until the emptiness around me reaches for ever into the same old same old- but new to me- and I’m going to just disappear into the white reaches of nothing and count myself better off than you.
'Fade Away' is track no. 3 of 10 on Visible's 2006 album 'Songwriter'
Lyrics (pops up)
21 comments:
well done. excellent tune.
AWESOME. strange but awesome.
Love the way it tailed off into wherever it went. ROAD SIGN on this highway, "Genius at work."
Sock it to them bro.
Wow, are you clairvoyant? (Sp?) How did you know I was checking out land in northern Ontario? Or is this just one of those cosmic coincidences? And how does this relate to your earlier post about the importance of staying involved? Seriously, I've been thinking for a while about moving to Canada, because of politics here and cheap land there. The line about walking off into the snow and woods sounds just like one of my daydreams. I'm torn between advancing age and despair, and a feeling of responsibility to my children and grandchildren, not to mention what used to be my country. I'm no geezer - I'm only 51 - but I've always wanted a piece of land to work, and a quiet place to get away from it all.
Sorry, this is rambling to the point of incoherence. I was so struck, though, by the visual and the reference to driving on north of Toronto.
Should I stay or should I go?
It was an allegorical journey. It's not real. I already live in the outback in a remote area of Europe; relatively speaking.
For some reason hardly anyone is getting this wherever it has been reprinted. Maybe I've become typecast. I just thought it would be cool to get a little prosaic; not that I wouldn't live in the wilderness. I like the wilderness a lot- depending on which wilderness that is.
"Fox News sucks.... unfair and unbalanced." --Art Bell, on Coast to Coast last night, talking about the exclusion of Ron Paul from the Sunday debate in NH.
The mindset should be 'no excesses' that'll sort 'em out.
Tony
Visible, I got that it was an allegorical journey. I was simply struck by a coincidence of thought, and seeking a way of working out my ambivalence in regards to getting involved (on a more active level than blogging) or checking out. I know (and I know you would tell me) that I have to find my own answer to that. I was just wondering if you'd had a change of heart given your recent post about the necessity of engagement.
BTW, loved the recent post about the "sign of the devil" and where you went with that. You put a few new wrinkles in the old brain pan.
haha, I got it.
No matter where you "go" , you always end up with yourself. I sometimes need to remind myself of this when I dream, or rather fantasize about moving to other places.
anyhow, I did like the ending of this piece the best.
Dream on. Sweet dreams ...hasta luego, annemarie :)
Here's what I think about 'engagement'. Use your oponents force against him. If you have no opponent then use no force.
If you live in a world where something is fucking with the world so that it makes your world uncomfortable by making the people you have to engage in your day act uncomfortable or hostile because something else is impacting on them and then it impacts on you well then... sometimes you have to get the workers to stop working and sometimes you have to call The Monkey Wrench Gang and sometimes you have to make noise.
It's always best when in the pursuit of monsters not to become one as a wise but crazy man once said.
My getaway is probably in the South Pacific sooner or later but it won't be Hawaii any more- probably NZ or some such.
the wheels are off
we're in the ditch
come meet your mother
she's quite the bitch
Visible,
I get the allegory. I also understand what ratchet was saying. I am only 52, but I also have the desire to just get away from it all. My time on the stage of life is not over, but surely must be more than half gone.
The world of human affairs has always been imperfect as humans are imperfect. At this point, what further responsibility do we have to keep trying to solve the world's problems? Is there really anything wrong with living out one's days walking along the beach?
What is everyone "allegorically" trying to run away from?
There is nothing here but YOU.
If you want to take a journey then begin the true adventure - within.
The new frontier for the 21st century is inner space not outer space.
Build your ship now and help launch the New Man & New Woman.
You CAN'T allegorically run away from anything and that may well have been the point.
Meanwhile the New Man and Woman will eventually be the old man and woman- that's just the way it is.
There were new things in the unremembered past that far surpass anything new or coming in this Kali Yuga.
"Meet the new boss....same as the old boss." Somehow in America, repeated listenings of The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" should be mandatory and should become the "muzak" of the era on elevators or as we wait on hold for a service rep to get on the line.
While I understand the allegorical symbolism within Les' current thought-provoking piece, now more than ever in America, one's perception is one's own reality. We disavow the idea of "we" for the idea of "me". How else can one explain 59 million people voting for the current maniac in charge in the last election, the fact that there have been no riots in the streets over the lies which have led to the carnage in Iraq--and I am talking American carnage--and the fact that anyone--anyone--would vote for a McCain or a Giuliani, among others--2 candidates who profess a love for Bush's foreign policy???
No, you can't run away from yourself, I can only share in some of the comments a couple of posters have put forth here. When you are bombarded with propaganda, when your viewpoint is misrepresented, and when you look around and see most around you regarding the election process itself and the erosion of civil rights as things we should all ignore because we ae all TEAM AMERICA, then perhaps living in that little dirt road town in southern Italy is actually a move that allows me to withdraw into myself.
This isn't America anymore, certainly not the America of my father or grandfather. We celebrate the grotesque and honor cowards and liars. Just like life is more than turning that little wheel with fellow hamsters, it's more than being some mentally numb drone whose spirit is suffocated.
You do provoke thought. I think I often like the comments section better than the actual essay. I've never seen a writer more misunderstood and appreciated at the same time. You've given me loads of laughs since I first found you at Truthseeker. Sometimes I think I'm in Fawlty Towers without the slapstick. Much more wry and to my taste.
I have read today about credit card companies increasing the interest rate up to 32% for any small infraction such as daring to be one day late or charging something or other to another card. I read where Ron Paul has been excluded by Fox in the upcoming debate because there is only so much room in the location of the debate which is a bus. Less than a month after the U.S. Congress passed an energy bill banning the incandescent light bulb by 2014, the UK Environment Agency issued guidelines calling for evacuation of any room where an energy-saving compact fluorescent light bulb is broken, releasing toxic mercury. Then I read that Musharraf says Bhutto's death was her own fault. US congress members got a pay raise of over $4000.00 for the fine job they are doing representing Joe Six-pack and Ms. Soccer Mom. Now Visible is allegorically splitting the scene and heading for the hills. This is just too much. It reminds me of children misbehaving as soon as the parents leave them out of site. Common sense has left the building with Elvis.
"It's always best when in the pursuit of monsters not to become one as a wise but crazy man once said." Hi Les, Here's a few more lines by that crazy man or someone similar:
"Inside Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche's Mind"
"Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself."
"To make an individual unconfortable, that is my task."
"The better the state established, the fainter is humanity."
"How good bad music and bad reasons sound when we march against an enemy."
"Faith: not wanting to know what is true."
"In heaven all the interesting people are missing."
"Which is it, is man one of god's blunders or is god one of man's?"
"He who fights with MONSTERS might take care lest he thereby become a MONSTER and if you gaze into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."
"The christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad."
"Here the ways of man part: if you wish to strive for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe, if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire."
"Believe me! The secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life is to live dangerously."
All quotes are by: Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche.
Posted By: S.A. Homes
Visible,
"That's just the way it is" because you wanted it that way!
Face it.
Own it.
Transform it!
Raven;
I'm not going anywhere and nothing has changed with me. I'll be in the mix till the mix is done. I was trying to do something new with this one. Seems like every time I do this it seems to cause confusion. Sorry about that.
thanks S.A.
That 'monsters' quote isn't precise, don't know where you got it from. Anyway it was great to see quotes I haven't seen before.
D.M. I have no idea what you're talking about. It might have to do with you not being here in the room with me and only having a projection to guide your commentary by. I'm fine with owning and transforming. I don't know what else it is that I'm doing with my day and that... that's another thing you couldn't be aware of so it's probably why I don't get some portion of what you're talking about or maybe it's just why; not even sure about that.
I just want to thank S.A. for quoting Nietzsche, the great agnostic of his era. As he no doubt spins around in the depths of the abyss, one would have to ponder...is he still the smart ass he once was? Pity S.A. does not relate Nietzsche's greatest quote: "That which does not destroy me only makes me stronger." It would appear that in these times, and for such a vast cross section of people around the globe, no more applicable quote has ever been uttered.
Perhaps an explanation is in order. I'm a devout Catholic. No apologies offered. But just as the political message is distorted these days, so is the message of faith. My priest does not speak for me, nor does the Vatican. These people are flesh and blood, and in my view, mere representations of what relgion is supposed to be all about on this great spinning planet of love. Cough. I have to laugh at those who believe believers are some sort of drones. My guidance comes from my own connotation of The Bible. I don't particularly need an intermediary to tell me what he thinks it means. At the same time...I simply don't feel the Good Lord put me here...or any Catholic here...to preach to you or anyone else.
In essence, I live by my code...and you have to live by yours. Just try not to distort the believer by what you "think" we're all about.
Nietzsche is always good for a laugh, just as those who apply his quotes to believers of the modern day are in trying to make light of the "faith". But while I take some of his philosophies as sobering altruisms, I find his continued rants against organized religion as being misinformed and representative of stereotypes.
Sorry. Had to rant.
Wie die Zeit verfleigt....
Being an Iowa native I have had the fear that the caucus proved once again to me. When you find this place of nothing, make sure you tell us all where it is at Les.
Dismantle. Repair and we can have our own new world filled with peace and justice.
Ronnie D. Traywick Jr.
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