Close Encounters

“It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” Somehow a quote from Charles Dickens seems appropriate these days. For almost a week now I’ve been listening to the reports from Wisconsin concerning the battle between the new Wisconsin governor, and the state’s teacher’s union. The governor wants to break the union, and it looks like part of his logic is that they didn’t endorse him in the election. I think they had pretty good instincts.

I am just a political voyeur. The only problem with that is that I never get off on any of it. It just leads me on and never gets me where I want to go. I’m not certain where that is anyway. Wherever I am going, I am getting there at a snail’s pace. That is excluding the final destination, which feels like it is racing up on me at a pretty good clip. Being a baby boomer, I know that I have lots of company. But, I digress. Let’s get back to politics. I have immersed myself in wartime politics for the last several years. It is strange to me that I have reached some level of acceptance of the misery in the world, and my portion of responsibility for it. It disturbs me that most of the people in the United States acknowledge virtually not responsibility for their share of the mayhem taking place all over the globe. I guess that’s judgemental, huh?

A friend turned me on to a 3 hour movie about “destination utopia” last week. The name of the movie is “Zeitgiest, Moving Forward” and if you look around, you can find it on the interweb for free (or so I’ve been told). The movie begins itemizing reasons to believe that we (humans) aren’t really inherently violent. There are several pontificators (psychologists I presume) handing out reason. It did seem reasonable to me. The next part of the movie was on the evils of our current economic system, and the very ghostly nature of the rules that economists lay down. I guess that was essentially an attack on free market capitalism. When it got to the part about what the movie wanted, it was a brand new day, and you’ll have to watch for yourself to understand it. I thought that the smart part of a description of an economic system was that they didn’t use traditional “capitalism”, “socialism”, “free market” language. Eventually the movie comes around to a global system that feeds everyone, and gives them the material comfort needed to sustain life. The system is equitable to everyone on the planet, and we apparently live sustainably, and reasonably happily ever after. We all love happy endings, even if we don’t believe in them. My friend, Terry, says it’s definitely too good to be true. He says that what is portrayed in the movie will never happen. Most likely he’s right.

Well, that’s OK. Kristi and I drove to Bremerton this last week. Not only did we drive there, but we drove there and back . . . three times. We played at the Bremerton Elk’s on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. We had a good crowd all three times (it was one afternoon gig, and two night gigs). It didn’t snow, and traffic was tolerable. Also, people were reasonably nice. We played dance music. They have a pretty big dance floor, and a variety of dancers, some who know how, and some who don’t. Every night around 11 pm the great heart of elkdom swells, and throbs, we played “God Bless America”, and everyone went home afterwards. I’ve been having fun playing my cheapo Stratocaster. It is just a nice sound, and the guitar is well balanced, and has a good action as well. I put the Lace Sensor pickups, and the pickup switch in it. Now I guess all it needs to be a pretty deluxe electric guitar is new tuning machines, and I’ll probably do that, although I’m not certain why I would as it stays in tune just fine as is. After playing three long dance gigs in three days we played a retirement home in Lynnwood on Sunday afternoon. Now there was a drive. We hit big traffic right smack in the middle of Seattle. We gave ourselves an extra half hour to get there, and we needed it. We got there just on time to set up and play. I’ve got to admit, I was a little tired after the previous two nights. I hadn’t necessarily treated myself that well as I was having difficulty with another business that we have gotten ourselves into, namely the apartment rental business. I suppose it’s a good thing to learn a new business. I’m told that keeping the mind active keeps it from rotting away quite so fast. We can all hope that’s true. I woke up after four hours of sleep after hearing from the father of a prospective tenant in a phone message. I had myself wound up pretty good. I was ready for a nap by the time we got home from Lynnwood.

It has been President’s Day weekend. That means that the post office was closed today (Monday). It also means that Sunday was possibly another party night. We went to dinner at the Philbrook’s house. It was fun. It was a relaxing time, as I’m getting to know everyone over there pretty well now. I didn’t talk much politics, just a little. Tomorrow will certainly be another day, and I have work to do. That’s probably a good thing, as I need some motivation at times these days.

Today Kristi and I put the final touches on the big apartment at the new house. We signed a contract with a new tenant, meeting his two youngest children, and his oldest daughter from a previous marriage. I feel like the house is coming along, and that we are approaching the end of the most serious work. I do have a wall that needs repair tomorrow. I think that will be it for awhile. Next weekend we go to Everett and play at Club 170. It is a Naval Reserve club (I think). All of the places that we play seem to be bastions of militarism. It is such a lot of foolishness, based largely on mythology, and propaganda. I have to bite my tongue a lot. People at this club have asked why I don’t say much. If I did say much, they would certainly understand, and I would be even more unemployed than I am keeping my mouth shut. Sometimes you can’t win, and most of the time I’m not interested in trying. It’s supposed to snow later this week too, so maybe I’ll have a more exciting blog after the weekend. In the meantime, if you have the time, energy, and money you might make a trip to Wisconsin. I certainly think that they are fighting a battle worth winning. Steve Nebel