Rip Snorter's Blog

Morning blogsters:

It's alway good to see the government backing away from sticking its nose into the private lives of the citizenry.  The Texas voters have wisely forced the Texas government to divorce itself from the issue of marriage.

In Texas it used to be illegal even to take a gull across a sedate lion for immortal porpoises, for gosh sakes.  Talk about government scattering itself around to find unlikely events to prohibit.

Wasn't long ago Sammy Davis Jr. used to forever get himself in trouble for having some sort of genital exchange with women of the white gender, which was forbidden a lot of places.

I'm glad to see Texans point out to the Texas government that matters of marriage are private, spiritual and no business of the government.  Same with sex, for the most part.  The voters of Texas have demanded their government cease recognizing the institution of marriage. 

Now people can go back to jumping across a broomstick, whatever, without having to worry about the thorny future issues of divorce, tax breaks for marriage partners, anything but just marriage bliss until death do them part.

In a somewhat fluid gender-environment of the brave new world questions such as who can marry whom achieve an ambiguity probably too complex, anyway.  There's already been a case where two lesbians married one another in Texas because one of the two was born male.

Twenty years ago it was still a misdemeanor to shoot an Indian on a street car in Austin, which no longer had street cars and few enough Indians.  The sanctity of marriage, street cars and Indians in Austin, Texas are all a bit safer today because of the wisdom of Texas voters, the forced migrations of Texas Indians who survived the invention of Colt firearms, to Oklahoma, and the automobile.

Jack

 

Evening blogsters:

I managed to get home without picking up a carton of smokes from the Rez the other day.  Ran through a partial can of Bugler that had been lying around here for just such an emergency, but it spang ran out.

The question is, do I make my decisions, or do smokes make my decisions for me.  Am I going to be ruled by habit and drive ten miles down this mountain just for tobacco? 

Of course not!

Instead, I'm digging around in the garbage cans and ashtrays for snipes with a little left on the end, rolling up tea, coffee grounds testing them for smokability.

I'm not a man gonna be ruled by stupid habits.

Jack

 

 

Hi blogsters:

I hadn't thought about my old running buddy, Phil, for a while.  That last blog entry got me chewing on thoughts of him.  I'll tell you a bit more about him.

Phil went to the Marine Corps as the result of being a 17 year old driving from Temple, Texas, to Austin with a case of beer in the car.  A Williamson County Sheriff Deputy stopped him on a tail light violation, asked for his drivers license and saw the case of beer.  Old Phil, being a clever youth, gave the officer a Texas Drivers License with an altered date of birth, so's to keep from being arrested as a minor in possession of alcoholic beverages.

The deputy wasn't fooled.  He hauled Phil off to the slammer to reflect on his sins.  He was offered the alternatives of going to prison for presenting a phony ID, or going into the US Marine Corps.

In Vietnam, at least, Phil was old enough to drink.  He became Marine Recon and a sniper.  Phil was in the jungle with a squad of other snipers surrounded by a NVA rocket launching unit when the first rockets were fired into Da Nang AFB, though the squad wisely stayed hidden and didn't take any shots, they radioed in the location of the rocket unit and brought an airstrike down on top of themselves.

They'd be dropped into an area where the NVA was expected to set up a battalion or division headquarters, sit there a couple of weeks waiting quietly, and try for a head shot at a senior officer.  Once the shots were fired they'd try to sink back into the bushes until things went quiet, then slink out to some place where they could be lifted out.

Phil did two tours over there.  When he came back he had such a chest full of medals they snatched him up for Nixon's Honor Guard.  Which Phil believed would be easy duty.

Instead, it was riot control.  Wherever Nixon went there were anti war riots, and Phil and his unit busting heads, which he thoroughly hated, since he agreed with the demonstrators.

Phil hated politicians, hated war, hated the men responsible for sending him over there and making him the troubled, rage filled human being he was during the decade and a half I knew him.

But the Vietnamese body counts were a lot higher because of Phil.

When I last saw him half his face was eaten away by Lupus, contracted as a result of Agent Orange in those jungles.  The Veterans Administration was fighting and squirming denying all those guys were ill from Agent Orange, that the problems were Service Connected, so they'd have to offer disability and whatnot.

Phil used to observe that he might have been a lot better off if he'd just let them send him to prison for the beer and phony ID.  Then they couldn't have even drafted him for that place.

I wonder if that old Agent Orange has killed him yet.  Another victim of friendly fire with a delayed action fuse.

Jack

 

Morning blogsters:

That thing with Texas voters banning marriage got me thinking about some Texas marriage observations of the past.

I used to know a guy in Texas named Phil.  Good fellow, old Marine Corps shot up vet with a chest full of decorations.  We used to do a lot of drinking, hunting and running around together during the '70s and 80s.

Phil got himself hitched to a woman named Susan.  Good woman, but perhaps the meanest female human I've ever encountered.  A husband doing anything to violate her perception of justice was to be avoided on pain of the painfully unexpected.

Which didn't keep old Phil from sneaking around occasionally, doing something that would have violated her perception of justice.  Women liked Phil a lot and being one of the highliest decorated Marines ever to come out of the Vietnam War didn't mean Phil had the will power to always refuse.

Nevertheless, Phil and Susan had a happy marriage, more-or-less.  They vented their rages and frustrations, of which both had in plenty, having pingpong ball gun battles, stalking one another around the house, sometimes lasting hours.

Every July 4th Phil and Susan would have a traditional Sex and Violence Marathon Party lasting a couple of days, or until everyone went home. 

A television would play The Sands of Iwo Jima non-stop at one end of the room and another would play porn flics non-stop at the other end.  Lots of interesting stuff in the IWO JIMA flic.  We'd sit there with the squeeze box backing up that film, looking at a particular scene, looking at it again, again again again, studying the camera footage (US gov footage from the Iwo battle) until we quit, but tended to go back and do the same thing again ... two or three scenes in there are serious head scratchers.

One scene a bunch of guys are on a 3/4 ton truck, a wounded one on the front bumper, when they hear a big round coming in.  They all hop off that truck, grab the wounded guy and rush for a foxhole...  But midway between the truck and the hole they realize there's no time.  They drop the wounded guy out in the open.  They all dive headfirst into holes just as the round hits and the camera goes flying along with legs and maybe an arm or two.  Amazing footage. 

Anyway, I've digressed.  I wanted to tell you how Phil and Susan, thanks to his philandering, ended up in a long duration menage a troix situation.  They all thought of it as a marriage for a couple of years.  The third of the three was a woman who looked almost exactly like the woman wossname son of Kirk Douglas played opposite in a movie named Romancing the Stone.   

 Beautiful woman, but a rattlesnake extraordinaire who eventually gave both Phil and Susan a lot of grief.

But I've wandered so far what with pingpong ball gun fights and Sex and Violence parties I suppose I'd better save the menage a troix story for another time.

Jack

Made in Heaven

He yearns silence.
Distraction.
Distance.
Elbow room;
Thought room;
Silent listener;
Lively bed partner.

She yearns acknowledgement,
Soft music.
Candlelight dinners.
Intimate touch
Soft words
Planning

He gives what he yearns for.
She gives what she yearns for.
And both yearn
Through the majesty of years.

From Poems of the New Old West

Copyright 2002, Jack Purcell

Evening blogsters:

I was just sitting here clipping my toenails into the carpet and thinking about the institution of marriage.  Texans passed a Constitutional Amendment a few days ago banning the entire thing, lock, stock and bananna peel.

H.J.R. No. 6

A JOINT RESOLUTION

proposing a constitutional amendment providing that marriage in
this state consists only of the union of one man and one woman.
BE IT RESOLVED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
SECTION 1. Article I, Texas Constitution, is amended by
adding Section 32 to read as follows:
Sec. 32. (a) Marriage in this state shall consist only of
the union of one man and one woman.
(b) This state or a political subdivision of this state may
not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to
marriage.
SECTION 2. This state recognizes that through the
designation of guardians, the appointment of agents, and the use of
private contracts, persons may adequately and properly appoint
guardians and arrange rights relating to hospital visitation,
property, and the entitlement to proceeds of life insurance
policies without the existence of any legal status identical or
similar to marriage.
SECTION 3. This proposed constitutional amendment shall be
submitted to the voters at an election to be held November 8, 2005.
The ballot shall be printed to permit voting for or against the
proposition:

"The constitutional amendment providing that
marriage in this state consists only of the union of one man and one
woman and prohibiting this state or a political subdivision of this
state from creating or recognizing any legal status identical or
similar to marriage."

______________________________ ______________________________

President of the Senate Speaker of the House

I certify that H.J.R. No. 6 was passed by the House on April
25, 2005, by the following vote: Yeas 101, Nays 29, 8 present, not
voting.

______________________________
Chief Clerk of the House

I certify that H.J.R. No. 6 was passed by the Senate on May
21, 2005, by the following vote: Yeas 21, Nays 8.

______________________________
Secretary of the Senate

 

-------------------------------------------

Evidently Texans are so thoroughly committed to keeping those other kinds of guys from marrying one another they decided to just throw the baby out with the bathwater and end the whole issue.  You got to take your hat off to them for innovation.

I generally have never understood why anyone would care one way or another whether someone else saddled himself with sixteen women for wives, with a wife who happened to have whiskers, or with a whole passel of wives and husbands forming some sort of marital platoon. 

For myself, my view of marriage is roughly similar to the view a three-legged coyote has of leg traps.  But I'm not evangelical about it.  Whatever someone else wants to do in the marriage department is his own business.

Fact is, people are out there doing whatever they want to do with their various genitalia, and they're doing it in whatever residential setting they wish.  If they want to formalize it with a piece of paper and a preacher, what's the difference?

I think the Texans went further than I'd have gone to prevent marriage.  But you have to respect the willingness to go the last mile to keep people from engaging in legal sex.

Jack 

Morning blogsters:

Here's hoping all you blogsters got everything you were wanting for Veterans Day. 

Hope old GI Joe crept in, filled your refrigadaires with frozen pizza pies, steaks, and TV dinners the way you hoped, then took his bag into the living room and left you a 900 inch television, a lot of rubber monster toys, some nice mink stoles and diamond jewelry for the wife, and filled the combat boots you had hanging in front of the fireplace with trick or treat candies, plastic valentines, easter eggs and little santy clauses, along with a turkey, pumpkin pie or two, and some marsh mallow sweet potato mixture that only needs water added to become a big treat.

Hope old GI Joe got you all pumped up for the shopping orgies in your future.

Jack

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi blogsters:

I never cared for Social Security all those years they took it out of my earnings. 

From 1958, for forty-odd years I put money into that pool and never expected to live long enough to see any of it come back.  Or, alternatively, I expected it to be bankrupt by the time I reached the age where there'd be some returns.

In a couple of weeks I'm going to be 62 years old.  I recently filled out all the paperwork online, still figuring it would be a miracle if I ever saw a penny of that money from all those years.  I haven't kept track of what's happening with the system, and it just seemed too unlike most of my perceptions of government for them to actually pay back something the way they claimed they would.

Well, the US Postal Service managed to get a nice, xeroxed letter from them to me saying, hey.... YOU MADE IT!  You gonna get a check from us every month because you made 62 circuits of the sun and we're just naturally going to send you a check, same as if you were someone else.

Won a small jackpot and took the annuity, you might say.

On the other hand, it means I have something of an obligation to live another four years just to get back the bare bones of what I paid in over the years, minus interest.

Which I damned well plan to do, provided I don't die.

Jack

 

Morning blogsters:

There's a growing flap about the border between Mexico and the US.  I mentioned a while back about the Minuteman movement, the group of citizens who, for reasons of their own, have decided to take matters into their own hands and give some uninvited assistance to the US Border Patrol.

Generally, there's a lot of strong feeling about this in New Mexico.  Almost everyone has an opinion about it, and there seems to be a clear dividing line separating the two viewpoints.  As for the Minutemen, themselves, I have a notion they're just a lot of good old boys looking for a cause they can bluster about and maybe feel important.  Probably the same fellas in spirit who were making the news as 'militia' men during the 1990s.

But the fact is, the security of the US Border has always been a mixed bag.  It's gotten more so as a result of the fact most Americans don't care for certain kinds of low-paying work involving heavy labor or distasteful tasks.  Those kinds of jobs have to get done and illegal aliens are the people who are happiest to do them.

Shutting down the US Border probably won't solve the problem.  So long as there's a need for grunt labor at low pay and a heavily populated nation to the south where people are happy for any sort of job, human ingenuity will find a way through the border for them.  The situation resembles the attempts to interrupt drug traffic.  So long as there's a market the price of illegal drugs and jobs for illegal aliens might go up, but the drugs and the aliens are going to keep coming.

As for the Minutemen, I'd guess they're a mostly harmless lot.  Just good old boys with enough time on their hands and money to toss around to draw some attention to a problem that needs attention of some sort. 

They appear to differ from the '90s militia folks in these parts in the sense that they, at least, aren't blustering with demands that public lands they hold grazing rights to should be handed over to them with a clear title.  The '90s militiamen agenda had a lot more to do with furthering self-interests than these appear to do.

Jack

Afternoon Blogsters:

All the talk about chickens, cabins and Y2K got me thinking about the differences between people in various geographies and residential environments.  It came to me that a lot of blogsters are probably townies and don't know much about people where the bonds of civilization run a bit thin.

A few years ago I wrote a book called Desert Emergency Survival Basics.  One chapter was dedicated to getting along with the locals in backwater areas.  It probably applies a lot of places besides deserts:

Ranchers, rainbow people, desert rats, and outfitters

Although it won’t be obvious to you, most land in the continental United States, both public and private, has someone watching it, trying to scratch out a living on it, and feeling ownership for it. When you turn off the pavement, you are an intruder into a socio-economic system you are probably unfamiliar with. Respect it.

The people you meet who live in remote areas don’t see a lot of strangers. They tend to have strong opinions about most things, and don’t get many opportunities to express them. Listen politely, nod, and smile a lot. These monologues aren’t an invitation for you to share your own opposing views.

You won’t convert a remote desert dweller to your pet opinions, and he won’t sway you to his. Your entire body of experience is unlike that of the person you are talking to. The observations about reality you base your opinions on are different.

Keep your eye on the ball. Your investment in this person involves finding your way somewhere, or finding your way back. You aren’t looking for a new best friend. You don’t care what he thinks about Japanese-made automobiles. Keep it tight.

Talking about religion, sex, and politics used to be a breach of manners. There were solid reasons for this. The potential for someone being offended was too great, and the returns, too small.

In remote areas today, those prohibitions should probably extend to other issues such as environmentalism, abortion, welfare, wolves, and almost everything besides the heat, the dry, and whether that dirt road goes all the way out to the pavement.

If he talks ugly about the government and welfare programs, you won’t win his heart by telling him you think grazing leases on public lands are just another kind of welfare. If he tells you the land you are on is “his”, and you know it’s actually public, he probably means he has the grazing lease.

You can use that as an opportunity to apologize and tell him you thought it was public, and drag out the map to show him where you thought you were. Turn on the GPS and plop it on one corner of the map to keep the wind from blowing it away. And let him show you where you actually are. If the map shows it’s public, you’ll both know without anything more needing to be said. Sometimes technology has advantages.

If a gate is closed when you get to it, close it behind you. Stay on the two-track and don’t drive on grass. Grass you drive over in June is still bent over and brown in August. Respect “No Trespassing” signs.

If you find you’ve driven into someone’s yard and you want to stop and chat, honk the horn and wait a few minutes before you get out of the vehicle. Give the dogs a chance to come out of hiding and stand on their hind legs snarling at you through the window, if they’re going to. Give the resident a chance to slip on a pair of bib overalls and clamp a kitchen match between his teeth before he comes out to greet you.

If you have a portable microphone and an oblique sense of humor you can point the megaphone at the front of the house and announce, “WE KNOW YOU ARE IN THERE! NOW COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!” But I don’t recommend that, or carrying your guitar to the front porch and trying to practice Dueling Banjoes with the rancher’s kid.

One of the unanticipated by-products of the War on Drugs is that people who used to depend on beef prices and drive 20 year old trucks are now driving new $30K 4x4s with extended cabs and are a lot less tolerant of strangers. If you hear the drone of a $5000 4-wheeler in the distance it will probably be a rancher out tending his cows. There are also a lot of bush-vets scattered around, and a few unreconstructed hippies.

For you, this calls for some specific attitude adjustments translated into your behavior. If you see something unusual, something that shouldn’t be where it is, something that indicates there’s been a lot of activity or gardening going on a long way from anywhere, don’t investigate or linger. If you try to do a little harvesting on your own, someone is likely to be offended. While you pat yourself on the back for your good luck, an emergency situation will probably develop.

Last, if you whiff the faint odor of acetone or iodine you are in the wrong place.  Go somewhere else. Whatever trouble you are in can’t compete with the trouble you are in.

Similarly, there are a few hard-core prospectors out there working established mining claims. They usually have a lot of pride of ownership. If you come across one of these, the law allows you to walk across it, because it’s public, multi-use land. However, the person who filed the claim owns the mineral rights. You don’t want to pick anything up or crank up your dry-washer to see how much color he’s getting. Bad form. The boundaries of the claim are marked at the corners. Go outside those boundaries if you want to do any rock collecting.

If you get out much, someday you’ll encounter a guy with an in-your-face, glaring stand-offishness and an air of knowing every possible thing about everything.  He’ll usually be in a cowboy uniform, but sometimes he’ll opt for BDUs. If he spits on the ground and glares when you greet him, there’s a fair-to-middling chance he’s an outfitter.

I don’t know whether the profession just draws men of that sort, or if they sit down and ponder the desired image and deliberately cultivate it. An outfitter depends on affluent flatlanders spending a few grand to be led to a giant bull elk or some other prey, usually. I assume they believe to be successful they have to be the kind of character the flatlanders can go home and shake their heads about to their wealthy friends so they’re dying to spend a few grand to meet this guy, too, and tell their friends.

These fellows don’t suffer fools joyfully, and they project the wisdom that every man, save one, is a fool. They save their purplest scorn for other outfitters, but you can figure on deep maroon for yourself at the very least. In any case, Hollywood discovered the type a few years ago and enshrined it in a movie, but they added an authenticity and charm that’s usually absent in the real item.

I’m telling you this so you are forewarned. Don’t bother asking the guy any questions or conversing with him unless you happen to be on the upswing end of your manic-depressive cycle and need a little something to get you back down a little. If you get any answers from him, they probably won’t be true, and the cost will be that you’ve had to communicate with him. The circumstance will have you replaying the conversation in your mind a week or so later, thinking what you wish you’d said.

Bumper-stickers:

Leave your politics at home. A banner on your car announcing that “Whitey Will Pay”, or your opinion of cows, whales, ranchers, guns, abortion, or the president, invites hostile attention on an anattended vehicle. If you need help you won’t improve the odds by rubbing the nose of your rescuer in your biases. You might find yourself at the mercy of a person who is violently opposed to your viewpoints a long way from the nearest lawyer or cop.

This could go on and on, and it begins to resemble a camp meeting sermon.

From Desert Emergency Survival Basics

Copyright 2003, Jack Purcell

"I Can't Forget"

I stumbled out of bed
I got ready for the struggle
I smoked a cigarette
And I tightened up my gut
I said this can't be me
Must be my double
And I can't forget, I can't forget
I can't forget but I don't remember what
I'm burning up the road
I'm heading down to Phoenix
I got this old address
Of someone that I knew
It was high and fine and free
Ah, you should have seen us
And I can't forget, I can't forget
I can't forget but I don't remember who

I'll be there today
With a big bouquet of cactus
I got this rig that runs on memories
And I promise, cross my heart,
They'll never catch us
But if they do, just tell them it was me

Yeah I loved you all my life
And that's how I want to end it
The summer's almost gone
The winter's tuning up
Yeah, the summer's gone
But a lot goes on forever
And I can't forget, I can't forget
I can't forget but I don't remember what

Lyrics and recording by Leonard Cohen

 

 

Say It Like You Mean It
(Trust me on this)

Send her roses now and then
A box of chocolates might help
She loves to hear,

"I love you."

Even if you don't
Candy lies with chocolates and roses

When things get bad
And the secretary winks
Keep in mind
This won't make it any better

Keep your valentines at home
Secretaries don't come easy
And two women in your life
Ain't a big improvement
Over one

When the embers cease to glow
Don't forget or you'll regret
You forgot the anniversary

There's nothing out there better
Give her candlelight and roses
Candy lies with candlelight and roses

From Poems of the New Old West

Copyright 2002 Jack Purcell

 

 

El Palenque

 

El Palenque doesn.t think;
Knows and loves
His only job
And does it;
Perfection without compromise.
Reality
Where owls, hawks
And sly coyotes salivate
Reduced
To lowest common denominator
When the cackling hen
Rises from a fresh-laid egg.

Gallo del Cielo

Gallo del Cielo
Looks at God
Before he dies
Weeps
For eggs
Unlaid
From Araucana
Hens.

Red Tail Hawk
Raptor eye
Picks the kindred soul
Of silky bantam
From the flock

Rosencrantz

(A buff-crested Polish)
False dawn
Full moon
Morning.
Treetop cries
Of Rosencrantz
And Guildenstern
Deceived by
Counterfeit
Light
And sound
Misty memories
Of owl dreams

From Poems of the New Old West
Copyright 2002, Jack Purcell

Morning blogsters:

Mostly a quiet morning here.  Still thinking about those chickens, which occasionally happens.  Maybe next year I can fill up the chicken house and orchard in back with a new flock.  I love waking to the sounds of a flock of chickens stretching out and discovering they're alive.

That pic at the top is a worked over scan of the grips on a 1911 Army Colt I keep around.  The grips came off another one that was evidently made for the Brazilian Police, carried around and worn completely out, except the grips. 

An acquaintance of mine came by the piece, wanted to renovate it, but hated the grips because he believed they were too hokey.  Which of course, they were.  Made them a perfect match for me and mine.

Jack

 

 

Evening blogsters:

I don't recall being overly fond of chickens when I was a kid.  Used to have to wring their necks, watch them spray blood and flop all over the place, then scald and pluck them.  That didn't encourage me to make pets of them.

But during the Y2K non-event one of the most treasured pieces of the months living in that remote cabin was all the chickens I had for company.  Those above are buff crested polish.  Rosencranz and Guildenstern were of that ilk.  Both had more heart than good sense, looked a bit on the homercestual side, but definitely weren't.  Coyotes got Guildenstern, but old Rosencranz survived.  Ended up with a farmer over near Fort Wingate who wanted some birds when I came back to town.

Lady McBeth was similar to this, though she had leggings.  Good layer, white eggs, a bit prissy for the tastes of the other hens, however.

 

About half my flock was Ameraraucana.  Great layers, blue eggs, good brooders.  Good all 'round hens, though perhaps a bit more dense than a person might wish.

My silkies were irredescent black, but the shape was the same as these.  Absolutely the most intelligent chickens I've ever seen.  The roosters have more heart than they can afford and hawks will pick them out of a flock thinking, I suppose, they're immature birds.... lost all my hens that way, but the roosters survived to the end.

Strange sensation having a silky rooster come up to you, tilt his head and look you in the eye.  You get the distinct feeling the critter has something on his mind besides hens, hawks and other roosters.

Jack