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I remember how in junior high school back in Abilene, they’d have John Birch Society members visit class and show us filmstrips about the evil Russian commies taking over America. Those were the days…

My apologies for the lack of posting. Events in the national sphere as well as in our own lives are too intense or changing too rapidly to concentrate on writing decent blog posts. We’re healthy, mostly solvent, and awake. Very much awake, in fact. I’m angry, obviously. Not a rage, more like a steady tension because normal life has been exploded and we’re still descending. At this point it looks like the only thing that will save us is a Cabinet meeting in the White House where everybody cleans their guns.

But posting is bound to resume at any minute. I’ve written three long essays in the past five days and deleted every one. They weren’t half-bad, either, just didn’t move things along, you know. Pay attention to what you tell yourselves, and I will do the same.

Thank you, commenter M.J., for inadvertently reminding me of where I picked up the phrase “metaphysical distress.” It was from Ed Sanders’ introduction to a recording of the Fugs’ “Swinburne Stomp” from their 1965 debut album, to wit:

“In the key of metaphysical distress, the Swinburne Stomp!”

Be sure to listen to the whole performance, which features an amazing ending. (Here, by the way, is Algernon Charles Swinburne’s Wikipedia page. I imagine he experienced a great deal of this condition.)

At any rate, in early 1965 I was burning with desire to have this album. An older beatnik friend urged me to write to the record company (ESP Disk) in New York City and order a copy. That’s what you had to do back then, because such records were never found in Austin record stores! He had a tiny little ad he’d clipped out of the Village Voice—I doubt you have any idea how hard it was to come by that publication in Central Texas at the time—so that’s exactly what I did, of course, and I still have it in the storage unit somewhere. I soon became a huge Fugs fan and collected a number of their LPs. My favorite song was probably “Kill for Peace“—this and many others definitely NSFW—although there are so many gems.

The Fugs figured in my life in other strange ways. When I was a Wharton County Junior College instructor in Texas during the first Nixon administration, I learned that the Fugs’ drummer, Ken Weaver, had attended the place a few years before. How I found out is lost to me, but I even discovered his name carved into a wooden desk in my classroom. What an astounding “coincidence.” I actually wrote to him through the record company and he wrote back, expressing deepest sympathy for my Vietnam War exile in that ghastly place and promising to “smoke a bowl of dope” for me. (Made my year and saved my life, by God—just ask my ex-wife, if you can find her.) Many years later in Maryland, I met a woman who’d gone to school in Vermont and attended a number of Fugs gigs in sleazy college bars in Massachusetts. Oh, man. Driving through the snow on LSD, drunken lunacy, and fight the system. I wasn’t there but might as well have been.

The point of this, believe it or not, is changing the world by living your own truth. By accepting that you are different and it’s all right…

“Oh god…” What a terrible new habit. That’s right, now I mutter “oh god” in the oddest places instead of clubbing the invisible wolf. (It’s just as well, someone might see me.) So yes, another kitchen window photo. Grit and cracks and cobwebs, boyos. Transmute, baby! Hup! Hup! Is it working yet? Oh god. She asked me why, I just went on and told her.

“Metaphysical distress,” I said.

That covers everything except the fear.

More iPhone 6s Plus video. Check the settings and you can watch it at 1080p.

Here’s another river video. This one shows you what it looks like turning downstream. I shot this at the end of October on a beautiful warm day. The water is so clear!