the cheapest entertainment in the caribbean
November 29, 2004
November 3, 2004
what the fuck is wrong?
Last night (election night) i was watching a bit of C-Span, and caught a couple interesting lectures by political science profs. It was only just then, on the night of the election that i actually came to understand what the Electoral College is all about.
i feel left with the feeling that America, the so-called champion of freedom and democracy, is actually the worst example of democracy that i can actually understand first-hand. i voted for the first time this year, out of principle more than anything else. However, i now understand that my voting in a “locked” Democratic state didn’t do fuck all towards dethroning Bush. Maybe if i’d been a voter in Ohio, i might hold onto some belief that my vote wasn’t worthless.
Then there’s the salt in the wound; the popular vote went to the Republicans! If the Electoral College hadn’t been in play, Bush still would have won. What’s with that? i can feel disenfranchised, and point a finger at a failed democratic process, but who do i blame for a popular Republican victory? The politicians? The media? The spin and hype? Nope… there’s only one place to put the blame.
Americans. You sheep. We sheep. What a bunch of fucking losers. All of us.
Americans represent the utter pinnacle of the 3% of the “haves” in this “have-not” world. In a few states, Nader got 1-2% of the popular vote. How does this read to me? 3% of the world has the power to make everything better for the other 97%, but only 3% of those elites are voting their conscience? What does that work out to? Something like less than 0.1% of the global populace is both able and willing to affect positive change in our world through direct democratic action! The rest are essentially just doing as they’re told.
Yeah, okay, Serious and Professica; you told me so. Still, what’s better; be on the losing team, or rant from the sidelines? i’m not so sure myself.
October 22, 2004
The Luck of Johnny H.
i want to take a moment to tell you a bit about my good friend Johnny. Johnny’s a little hard to describe. Maybe if i tell you a story about him, you’ll understand.
Johnny, Djane, Slacks, and i drove over a cliff one day. i figger it wouldn’t have happened if Johnny wasn’t sitting in the passenger seat. See, the shotgun up front in a 4×4 on a dodgy road has a job to do. That job is to be the spotter, the swamper, the extra eyes, ears, and hands of the driver. In this case, the driver was Slacks, and the 4×4 in question was none other than Slack’s big black pantload Trogdor. Of course, Johnny wasn’t watching the road when we drove off the cliff.
Now, i’ve often said that we wouldn’t have driven off that there cliff if i was up front m’self, filling my usual spotter role. Djane counters that we probably wouldn’t have made it out in one piece if Johnny wasn’t up front there to provide his usual luck/unluck effect.
Johnny was filming something on the horizon, the mountain we were driving out west to climb. Johnny usually has some sort of camera glued to him, be it film or video. He just told me today that he’d found some sort of chest-harness to hold his camera so he can take pictures while biking/climbing/rally-racing/cliff-jumping/etc. hands-free. Of course, he filming when we went over the cliff.
We now have some great “impending doom” footage. My favourite shot is of the rocky creek-bottom a couple hundred feet below us, looking out the passenger-side window… framed by Johnny’s feet standing on the inside of the door. Oh yeah, that one’s worth a chuckle.
Then there’s the classic Esler Fall story. Thinking he was on belay (some miscommunication there), Johnny backed off a clifftop after a sportclimb to the top. Only slightly impeded by the drag of the rope, he fell about 50 feet to the ground. He landed on his feet, compressing himself so fully that he bounced his head off his own knee and dented the dirt with it. The spot he landed on is the only patch of actual dirt at the bottom of that climb, smack between a pointy rock and a jagged stump. I couldn’t have happened to anyone else, but then again, nobody else would have survived it. Luck/unluck again.
There’s another story from this summer, one i’m afraid to ask him about; i think the details might turn my stomach. He rapped down a couple pitches of poorly-bolted backcountry limestone with his girlfriend. Then they ran out of anchors. And rope. Johnny pulled it together and got his girlfriend off the rock, then hung in his harness on a sling for something like 66 hours before help came. Just another day in the woods. Frankly, i’m surprised he doesn’t have pictures from his time hanging up there.
Johnny is a hell of a guy, and a hell of a photographer. He’s back to South America this winter to finish his epic Pan-American journey to Cape Horn on his vintage BMW motorcycle.
If you already know Johnny, please feel free to “comment” and post a story of your own.
