There’s a strong whiff of the dumbass coming out of Texas lately. The directions are printed right there on the soles of the damn’ boots, yet nobody in authority can pour the piss out of them.
Maybe it’s frozen.
But not everyone in the Lone Star State is all hat and no cattle. For instance, there’s Steve Earle, and there’s also Steve Earle talking about the literary qualities of Willie Nelson, which is even better.
Save your beads, boys. Ain’t nobody pulling off their tops today.
February almost always looks better somewhere else.
In February 2014 I fled Bibleburg for Albuquerque. In 2016, I traded Albuquerque for Fountain Hills.
And this year?
Well, shit. I appear to be sheltering in place, like everybody else.
Well, maybe not everybody else.
At stupid-thirty I looked outside and noted that our neighbor to the west had laid down some tire tracks in the snow that fell overnight. It kept falling, and after sunrise, the neighbor to the east laid down a matching set on the other side of the cul-de-sac.
They both have jobs and munchkins to manage. Me, not so much. I don’t have to be anywhere, and so I’m not going there.
Some of us want to hit the road; others are compelled to.
I’ve been both over the years, rambling from Maine to Spokane and Bisbee to Bellingham, occasionally by thumb, a time or two by bus, but most often behind the wheel of a Japanese pickup truck with a camper shell and all the fixin’s for a bit of home away from home.
Trucks with beds and friends with couches saw me through my rambling, gambling years, as I rolled the dice with one newspaper after another. I eventually came up winners by leaving the business altogether.
Marrying well didn’t hurt, either.
And while I have kipped in the beds of trucks since, I have done so as a tourist, not an honest-to-Steinbeck nomad like the people in Jessica Bruder’s non-fiction book “Nomadland,” which has been reimagined by Chloé Zhao as a fictionalized film set to debut Feb. 19 on Hulu.
It’s challenging to make a go of it when your house has wheels. Finding a spot to camp, a shower, or an unguarded Internet connection is a lot like that job of work you don’t have anymore. It’s a whole lot easier when you’re only doing it for funsies and can splurge on an occasional visit to Starbucks or Holiday Inn Express.
The people in “Nomadland” are not posers. They swallowed their fears, and their pride, and jumped into that endless asphalt river.
And speaking of jumps, it’s time for another great leap forward … into the latest episode of Radio Free Dogpatch.
Presidents Day, hey? Well, given the events of the weekend, the less said about that, the better, perhaps.
At least he’s an ex. Now all the until-death-do-you-part types know what the other folks are going on about when they talk about “the ex.” Lots of hollering, property damage, relationships shattered, neighbors appalled, cops called, lawyers engaged, and tons of money pounded down the rathole.
Then, if you wind up on the wrong side of the judgment, you try to assemble some sort of new life out of the wreckage as the asshole struts around talking shit.
The sun peeks over the Sandias.
But hey, at least we’re all freezing our asses off, right? It’s still February. Ten degrees when I arose and tottered to the kitchen to make the first of three authoritative Americanos with my old friend Mr. Krups.
I have been blessed over the decades to have an early riser for a wife. She made the coffee, and all I had to do was show up and drink it. Until Mr. Coffee went Maoist on me.
“From each according to his ability to each according to his needs?” sneered this two-bit Chicom barista-bot. “What you need is a cup of lukewarm bilge, comrade.”
I beg your pardon?
Mr. Coffee was informed in no uncertain terms that his services were no longer required, and now Mr. Krups and I spend a few brief, enchanting moments together each day, in the bleak frosty darkness of a Duke City morning.
At some point I’m going to have to go outside and shift a little snow around. But not just yet. Mr. Krups has just had a marvelous idea — another cuppa.
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