WOMEN OPENING THE WAY

mary cassatt

I had the good fortune to see the women's soccer, futball, game of America and Japan. They had a tremendous tv audience because the Daytona race was put on hold for rain and wet track. I was at Justin's house to see the race. He switched to the women's game. It was a dynamic game from the start. The women on the American team held our attention for their skill and strength. He changed channels back to the race from time to time to see how track drying was progressing. Evidently, almost everyone who wanted to see the race watched the whole football game. The race did not start til the football game was over. It was like a divine plan. Nascar racing has become the most watched sport on tv, so it was a sizeable television audience watching the game. It would be mostly white men watching, people who care nothing for soccer, especially women's soccer. They had a huge audience. That they held the audience is what matters. Going by people I've talked with who usually watch the race, everybody was enthusiastic about the game, came away with an interest in the game. The women showed such skill and control they impressed everyone who saw them. And they won too. 

mary cassatt

Soccer has recently in years entered the American school system without much attention. I feel like this game opened soccer to an American audience in such a way that it will generate more interest in the game. Maybe teenage boys kicking a ball around will be the next thing to annoy adults after skateboards. I felt like the game with the Japanese was the beginning of an American interest in the game. It has been trying to take hold here for a few decades, but never went much past kids playing it. The kids are grown up now, more kids are playing it, the fan base for the game is growing. Had it not rained at Daytona, the futball game would have been one of the great sports moments without so great a number of viewers. People I've talked with, both men and women, were impressed, feeling a degree of excitement over the unexpected all the way around. A good day for woman pride. I felt like it was a breakthrough into the future of respect for women. I felt a rush of quiet pride run through the women I know. Americans have been focused on the particularly American sports of baseball, football and basketball. Through soccer, futball, we have a sport that all the rest of the world plays. 

mary cassatt

Hillary Clinton is front and center again, advocating for women's rights as she pursues her own political ambition. And we have Bernie Sanders challenging the ruling class and Wall Street, an advocate for the people who work for a living and have no access to lobbyists or representatives. Our representatives in NC obey corporate interests. Sanders is so relentlessly making a case for the working people, I can't help but think of him a paid assassin's target, his private plane going down with no indication in the black box what happened. If he does not survive the campaign run, he will make a great martyr, cause for the ones who want him dead to let him live and go to work on destroying his name and credibility. The likelihood of martyrdom kept Bob Marley alive in Jamaica. Peter Tosh did not have the insurance of a threat of martyrdom and failed to make it. To JFKs assassins he was more of a threat alive than a martyr. I'd suspect Bernie would become a pop culture martyr on tshirts that say I AM BERNIE. I'd like to see him make it. The republican opposition would be dead set against him for being a socialist, and especially for challenging their puppeteers. At the same time they'd be enchanted that he's white, albeit a Jew, at last white. 

mary cassatt

I'm with Bernie. He's a sharp stick in the republican eye. I'm with Obama, too, for the same reason. Recalling a time in the coffee shop talking with a woman I've known to speak to for several years. She said, "I'm a con-SER-vative!" I said, "I'm a SO-cialist!" She said, "I bet you voted for o-BA-ma." I said, "Sure did. He's a sharp stick in the republican eye." Hillary will be a sharp stick in the republican eye, as well. Hillary's influence on liberating and inspiring young women will keep republicans writhing in paroxysms for decades to come. If Hillary and Bernie could run together, they'd be sharp sticks in both republican eyes. The people invested in intolerance could flare into a blinding rage. It could set off a right-wing armed rebellion too. The republican right has become the only terrorist threat in America, could possibly trigger a reaction, martial law. It could get complicated real fast. I tell myself, whatever the problem, it has to play itself out. It will play itself out. I tell myself, observe from afar and stay out of the way of stray bullets. For our society to get on to the next step, we'll have to address our racism, educate ourselves out of it. As long as blame is all that's going on, nothing will be solved. 

mary cassatt by mary cassatt

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SUNDAY TV AND VADA'S DANCE

vada and toys

I spent Sunday in front of the television. The race at Martinsville first, then March Madness, Duke wins again. And possibly a thousand commercials, several of them multiple times apiece. It amuses Justin and Melvin that I laugh every time a viagra or cialis commercial flashes on the flatscreen. They miss the humor and I can't explain, it would sound too condescending. A hot middle-aged babe, dressed in the appearance of satin, lounging on a hotel bed, twisting slowly and writhing. The one that slays me is the white-haired cowboy in a big dually pickup pulling a horse trailer with two horses in Utah or someplace similarly rugged. He is stopped by a mud puddle in the dirt road his power vehicle can't mud-sling its way through to completion. He lets the horses out of the trailer and hitches them to his truck. The spare horsepower pulls him on through, manhood intact. I laugh at the brief sex cartoons about old people. A man and a woman, painting a bench together with dry paint brushes, get romantic all of a sudden, like, let's get it on baby, people who just met when they got the roles in the commercial after auditions. They look more like models chosen from an agency. It's Dick Clark and Connie Francis falling in love all over again. Once the old boy is convinced he no longer has to be a sheep, but can be a wolf, the second half of the commercial warns of imminent death. If you use this product, you're on your own, sucker. This shit will kill your ass. The funny part is the list of ways it will kill you is so long it requires as much air time as the seduction to buy the product. 

vada's dance

Half way through the list, I break out laughing. I think it can't go on much longer and it does. It keeps on promising at least a heart-attack if you give yourself over to lust. Just like in church. Ask your doctor if your heart is up to getting off. You already know it's a sin. If fear of God doesn't inhibit you, listen to the long sermon of the thousand agonizing ways you will die. Take a chance on love, indeed. Next, the tubular frame of a race car painted white inside a big empty garage. Engine is inserted, a body and wheels put on it, Dale Jr crawls in the window and burns rubber leaving the pit stop to go back into the race. It was a fun commercial to watch the first hundred times. Yesterday I didn't think to count how many times this commercial played during the race. It must be popular. I have no recollection what it was selling. I see the commercial an art form, each one created by artists who are making their living in advertising. The Budweiser horse and dog commercials make a brief movie full of emotion. They're good the first hundred times, too. Dale Jr has become a favorite among the drivers for commercials. He's the most popular driver, his fans are vehement and he's somewhat photogenic. He has become the Paul Walker replacement on NASCAR. Mr Cool who races at 200 mph. Mountain Dew. I'd venture that a high percentage of the newer houses built in the South have Mountain Dew cans in the walls, left by working men putting up the sheet rock, a disposal place for lunch trash. Nabs wrappers, Vienna sausage cans, empty cigarette packs. It satisfies a graffiti impulse, an anonymous way of saying, "I worked on the construction of this house." A signature. 

vada dances

Vada, three, going on four in two months, kept us entertained in an interactive way. She danced, she played with her toys, showed dolls. She came into the room wearing the blue Elsa dress from the movie Frozen, "Who am I now?" I said, Elsa, and she danced out the door, returned shortly in another dress, "Who am I now?" I said, Anna, pronounced Ah-nah, European style. Vada had instructed me earlier it is Ah-nna, not Anna. She danced out the door again and returned in a red gown of a dress and danced. I was ready for her this time. I kicked myself for not getting pictures in her different outfits. I made several pictures of her dancing. Most of them were terrible because I could not anticipate her next move. She was like a flame, unpredictable, flowing with whatever happens. Daddy and Melvin were locked in on the race. I was open to Vada. She brought in a pink plastic pumpkin full of her little dolls. She put them out on the floor. She showed me this one and that one. Mermaids, mini-Barbies, several different kinds. I stood one on top of a box that held toys, and Vada knocked it off. I put another one there. Vada knocked it off. Crystal walked in the door and said, "What are y'all doing?" I said, "We're playing doll suicide." I picked up the Cinderella doll, about three inches high, stood her on the edge of the box, saying, "Cinderella jumps from hotel window," and sent her to the floor. Crystal said, "You're nuts." Crystal in the room distracted Vada's attention from the dolls and me. Crystal came in for a rest from housecleaning and Vada jumped on her wanting to play as soon as she sat down. 

vada's room

Vada took me to her room to see what was playing on her tv. Jurassic Park. It was a scene with a man in a yellow rain jacket and a big lizard. What I saw of a moment of script and visuals confirmed this really was the children's movie I suspected when it was new. Vada pointed at it saying something was about to happen. Whatever was on the verge of happening scared her. She said, "This is mean. I don't want to watch it," and ran from her room back to the tv room. She has taken to acting. Elsa, in the movie, Frozen, has become Vada's alter-ego. She now acts Elsa scenes as if she were Elsa, herself. And she sings Elsa's song as her own. Elsa's world is a magical world for a three-year-old. From time to time, Vada will point at me like she's casting a spell and say in a threatening tone of voice, "I will freeze your heart." It has significance in Elsa's story, though I have no idea what it could be. I clutch at my heart and act like I've been zapped. It's important to Vada that I act the role she assigns me. If I don't know what it is, she explains. It is so much better for me to have a living child in the room. Vada gives me a break from the tv. Daddy and Melvin are pre-occupied and I am ready to let her show me the dolls, tell about each one, tell about her magic snowflake. She begins a performance, "Wanna see what I can do?" I say, yes, and she does a twirl, or whatever comes to mind. Vada gets me through the 1pm to 8pm tv. We snack on junk food and pizza. The flatscreen flickers, tells me where I can eat the cheapest, buy the cheapest insurance, and get more for less.   

grumpy old bastard by vada

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KESELOWSKI FINDS CLEAN AIR

jr peels out from a pit stop 

The race this Sunday at Chicago satisfied what I like in a race. No wrecks. Two fenders were crunched from a run-in with the wall, both easily repairable on pit row. A motor or two blew. I saw Joey Logana cross the finish line with a blown motor. He was around fifth heading for the line and the cloud of smoke appeared behind him that says engine blew up. He crossed the finish line dragging his smoke behind. No better place to lose your engine. Nobody was close enough behind him to have advantage from  his sudden loss off momentum. Brad Keselowski took the win. I've been watching both these drivers coming on with some solid racing this year. Logano is a good driver with a passionate drive to win. When he has the car to do it with, he can run out front, in clean air, as they call it. The air at a race track during a race is not anything near clean. The pollution is worse than London or Beijing, much worse. The aroma of exhaust rich with raw gas and the molecule clusters leaving all the tires at all times gives the air it's scent particular to a good race. An upside down bowl of intense air pollution hovers above the track, over the seating area. It's part of the thrill of the race. The volume is like at a good rock concert so you cannot be heard screaming into the ear of the one standing next to you. It is, indeed, that loud. The thrill is much the same as a good concert. I saw the Cars in the early 80s and did not need ears to hear it. The surface of my body vibrated like it was all eardrum. Great concert. A band I never had the opportunity to see, Rage Against The Machine, but have all their cds. The audience at a race I felt when I was in one, was ecstatic as a Jane's Addiction concert. I make these comparisons, because it's how I felt at my one live race in Charlotte. The ecstatic part is remarkably similar. 

joey logano quik tire change

I love the rush of a race so loud you're deaf to anything else and the intense pollution, the scent in the air we've known since birth. Before oil, it was the scent of horse manure in air. The aroma is the familiar scent we are so accustomed to we don't smell it, intensified ten thousand times. Or more. I'd rather watch the race on tv. None of those ecstatic aspects of the race come across on tv, but I can see the race better on tv. And it's a lot less expensive to watch. I can see the cars working for position, passing somebody difficult to pass. Brad Keselowski started the race fairly far back in the pack. I don't remember what kept him back there. All the while he was laying back, I was thinking I'd like to see him pass everybody and win. I knew he could do it. The crew might have been adjusting the car until they found the key. When it came time, he passed car after car, drove up to the front, passed everybody in the lead and left them behind. Clean air. I've been paying attention to Keselowski this year, simply because his driving demands attention. He does not mess around. With the car that will do it for him, he'll win the race. His team has put together some good cars for him this year. Kurt Busch was tapped by his brother Kyle just enough to lose traction. Kurt started into the sideways slide, caught traction and brought it back. Didn't even lose much momentum. His ability to catch traction has impressed me about Kurt Busch's driving for a few years. I've been watching the race enough for the last three or four years to associate drivers with their numbers in some cases. 

keselowski in clean air

Early on, I was just watching the cars. I figured all the drivers were about the same ability, and they are, but there is so much else involved. The psychology of the driver. The skills of the mechanics who build the engines, the suspension, the wheels, their abilities are also about equal. If any one of the mechanics involved in a race happened to be somebody I knew, like a neighbor, I'd be in awe of his skill, his talent, the same as an artist, Jasper Johns, an example. I'm guessing at least a thousand mechanics are involved in the crews of all the cars in a race, most often 43. Not including the pit crews, which are an entity unto themselves, like ants. I am told they practice all week long and work out flexing and strengthening themselves, keeping in tune. All the crews of mechanics and pit have their lead man whose mind directs the process that brings the whole together. The studio musicians and electrical engineers involved in pop music in Nashville, LA and NY, I see artists in the same way I see the mechanics involved with the race cars. The driver races the machine the mechanics put together, a precision machine made of computer engineering, You can see it when a driver has a car that is running just right. Kevin Harvick had a good car. He was a serious contender until Keselowski's momentum took the lead by outrunning everybody else and the one nobody could catch, until #2 turned up in his rear view mirror. Keselowski made some good passes. The race in the last hundred laps was a visible race. Half a dozen cars were taking turns in the lead. It was looking like Harvick might have it when nobody could catch him, before Brad K put his pedal to the metal. 

kyle larson blew his motor

All the drivers were giving it the best they had. Their cars were as good as they could be that day. So many of the cars were equal that it made a good race of one car dominating for awhile, then something changes and another car dominates in its turn. This race satisfied my idea of a good race. It was a race from the green flag on to checker. So many good drivers and cars, it looked like the win was up for grabs between half a dozen, depending on who was in front on the last lap. Then along came #2 and left the others in his air turbulence. In attendance at the track, I would not have been able to see the subtle strategies the drivers use for passing and for blocking while they're driving as fast as the track and the car allow, holding it there in intense heat and intense noise. I watch artistry in the driving the same as I watch artistry in a dancer. I call it artistry when it is a skill that has reached the place of using intuition, feeling, emotion in the delivery. Melvin switched the tv to football when commercials came on. It was so much better to watch football than ads for artery blockage stuff to eat, beautiful cars I can't afford and erectile dysfunction. Viagra commercials bring an association in my head of Lou Reed in his song Heroin, cause it makes me feel like I'm a man, when I put a spike into my vein. On one of the Viagra commercials I hear John Lee Hooker's guitar to the melody, I like the way you walk, I like the way you talk, I like the way you walk, you my babe, I got my eyes on you. The song is just right for the commercial and at once as racist as The Little Rascals. I laugh every time I hear it, but would rather watch football. Saw some good plays. Saw some good catches, some good drives for touchdowns. Good games today. Peyton Manning, quarterback with Denver, has artistry in his skill. I see him the artist as quarterback. The referee calls were good too.  

pit row

*

MY BANJO PICKIN GIRL

vada by tj

 

vada by cheyanne

 

Last night I saw one of the exciting finishes in television car racing. The cars in front changed and kept on changing. With just a few laps to go Matt Kenseth was in front holding his place, blocking Jeff Gordon and Brad Keselowski quite successfully, not giving either one a chance to pass him. The three of them took the high rail around the curve and Joey Logano, fourth, slipped through the opening below and passed them all. A hesitate-and-you're-lost moment. The slot opened and looked like it pulled Logano through the opening like a vending machine draws a dollar bill to itself. I don't recall seeing a driver so charged during the victory interview. Logano looked like he could jump tall buildings in a single bound. I was thinking, Joey and his babydoll won't get a minute's sleep tonight. Immediately after the win, he made the coolest spin-around smoking tires I recall. He came driving in from the left at a fair speed, his rear end swung around quick as a donkey, tires smoking, kept on swinging around until he disappeared inside the billowing cloud. He picked up the checkered flag and drifted some more. He burned the back tires off the rims and drove to Victory Lane on rims. His excitement billowed from his entire being during the interview. It seemed like he was on the verge of jumping out of his skin. He didn't see the win in sight with about three laps to go, then it happened. Evidently all the drivers were electrified from the intensity toward the end, positions changing aggressively, a little slippin-n-slidin, bumpers and fenders touching, fights after the race. Keselowski lost traction, started to fishtail, car's rear end swung up the hill, the presence of the car beside him stopped the momentum and sent his rear end down the hill into another car that helped steady his balance. The wobble didn't change anybody's momentum. Keselowski is a good driver. The save was done by slick handling. A few thousandths of a second loaded with potential to take out a dozen cars or more, he pulled it together faster than thought. These are among the moments I watch racing for.

 

 

the race: danica patrick #10

 

I have an emotional advantage over my friends I watch the race with, not caring who wins. I'm happy for whoever crosses the finish line first. A few weeks ago it was down to about ten laps, it was looking like Earnhardt Jr had a good chance at a win. Justin was standing up, jumping up and down with anxiety all the way to the checkered flag when he exploded. I sit there never getting excited about anything except moments when a driver shows an impressive level of skill. Actually, that's all I watch in tv sports. During basketball, I'm astonished by a truly slick move, same as in football and golf. I can watch all these kinds of games, while not caring a thing about any of them, getting my enjoyment seeing evidence of a high level of skill. A hole in one is fun to see, but they amount to luck. I like to see somebody hit the ball out of a sand trap so it stops within a foot of the cup, or make a long putt after reading the green perfectly. Justin watches the skill too. This morning, Sunday, he went to a bow tournament in the next county. He goes to tournaments for the practice, for honing his skill, to visit with hunting friends. Justin doesn't care about being number one. He cares about his own ability to shoot an arrow. Hunting, he likes a deer to fall straight down, not feel a thing. That takes hitting a spot the size of a dime. He does it, too. I never let anybody hunt on my land until Justin grew up to hunting age. It wasn't that I was keeping it just for him, but after about twenty-five years or so of being a purist, I turned it over to him for hunting. I appreciate his hunting ethics. And I appreciate the people he feeds hunting. When it comes to organic, it beats eating cow that's infected with growth hormones, chemical for this, chemical for that, adrenalin from trauma. Justin has a fast, brilliant mind that never took an interest in academics. He applies his intelligence to everything he does. He has taken a job at Lowe's hardware in the building materials department. He said it's the best job he's ever had, good people to work with, good management. He's worked in factories and understands hierarchy. I'm glad for him. Lowe's has a reputation for treating its workers well, and pays more or less reasonably.

cheyanne selfie with a sylum e-scapee: cheeeez

 

 

cheyanne selfie

 

 It wasn't long after I arrived that Cheyanne wanted the camera. OK. She had a long spell of taking selfies that kept her giggling. She laughed and laughed, making all the faces she could think of. Sometimes she turned the viewer so she could not see what she was getting, then turned it over fast to see what she got before the image went away. She was playing and I was having a ball seeing her delight using the camera. She took pictures of everybody, of Justin and Vada playing, of me and Vada playing, and a good portrait of Crystal soon after she'd walked in the door from a job photographing a wedding, plumb wore out. For the above picture, Cheyanne said to me, Make a face! Say cheeez! It has been a couple years that I've known Cheyanne, and it is fun to see we have become friends. I consciously give her as much attention as I give Vada. Cheyanne is a delicate little thing. What she's been through has a stack of papers from Social Services in four counties three inches thick. Some of what we've learned has put daddy on the warpath. There is a guy in the next county Justin has a bead on. He's in no hurry, but he knows one day they will come face to face and when they do they guy will be eating through a straw for a year. His head will look like a watermelon dropped off a fifty story building. Myself knowing  a little bit of what he did to her, I want to be there to see the guy's head explode. It will take a four-wheel drive tractor with logging chains to pull Justin off him, and I, not having a tractor, will have to stand back and watch. It took me a little while to develop some affection for Cheyanne, due to her behavioral issues from the first five years of her life. She was raised by a girl Peter Pan who dragged her kids from trailer to trailer, county to county, man to man, unable to keep a job or a man, leaving the kids with the kind of people prison hasn't caught up with yet. Once when she and Justin were horsing around, she slugged Justin a good one with her fist. She was five. Justin said, Where'd you learn how to hit like that? She named her half brother three years older.   

 

justin and vada by cheyanne

 

justin and vada by tj

 

 Vada, a month from 3, is individuating. Baby Vada is in the past. She has command of the language by now; her coordination is coming on fast. She brought me her new 4-string child guitar to show me she has a guitar now. Cheyanne went to her room and came back with a Deering Goodtime banjo with three strings. She held the banjo with authority and a delight in her eyes and her face I'd never seen before. It was wide-open happiness. She showed me how to make four chords. She put her fingers where they went and explained it would be like this if it had all the strings. I told her next time she sees me I'll have a pack of banjo strings and we'll put them on it and tune it. Her music teacher at school showed her the chords on a banjo and she remembered perfectly. Turns out her music teacher lives in the house behind them, the guy they hear playing a banjo from time to time. Crystal wants to hire him to give her lessons. Seeing her eyes, her entire countenance in such light holding the banjo, I wondered if this might be answer to prayer. I told Crystal that in my years with the music store, I saw child after child learning to play an instrument, keeping at it, seeming to get nowhere, then one day the music happened. Once a kid feels the music, he or she wants to feel it again, and then it's on. She has such a competitive nature, it will make her want to play better than the other kids, will make her practice. Crystal said she learns better and pays attention better with men than with women, so it's a good thing she'll be learning banjo from a man. Once she gets going, she will be in command of her life. Guitar picker and singer, Faye Wagoner, is Cheyanne's great great grandma just like she is Vada's. Vada will want to play an instrument when Cheyanne starts. Vada will be some years catching up to Cheyanne, and Cheyanne is a good teacher, too. I have somewhere in the house a cd with Alice Gerrard singing, "I'm goin around the world, I'm a banjo-pickin girl." I may give her my Abigail Washburn cds, gradually, not all at once, and introduce her to Lynn Worth, our county's banjo-pickin woman. Feeling good about my babies today.

cheyanne selfies

 

 

*

 

 

WATCHING THE RACE WITH THE BOYS

 gettin er done

Saw the race yesterday with three friends. It's fun to drive someplace on Sunday afternoon and see a half dozen pickups parked at a house or a trailer, knowing the guys inside are having a good time big-dogging, drinking beer, eating "wings" and pizza, exclaiming, cussing, guys together feeling like the times when they were in high school before full-time job, full-time wife, full-time kids and full-time payments. Watching the race on Sunday after the bow tournaments feels like freedom a little bit, enough to have value, to make it a big moment of the week. It's a big deal for me and I don't even have all those bills and bow tournaments. I like getting with people I like and watching a race. We all four enjoy the race. I like it that I can ask any question about racing subtleties and somebody will know the answer. None of these guys did so hot in school, but when it comes to races they could all get As on tests. They wouldn't even have to cram for the exam. I can't say because I've had more schooling than they had that I'm smarter than them. They're the ones answering my questions, not the other way around.

It has been a narrow line for me to walk, having more education than most of the people I know and spend time with. From my way of seeing, it just means I've taken more tests than they have, and that alone. I can't do just about everything they can do, like shoot a buck with an arrow so it drops the moment it's hit, nor can I cut one open and skin it, nor can I race at night on mountain roads, nor can I build a house or take a motor apart and put it back together. I'm impressed by much that my friends can do. About all I can do they're impressed by is read books. And that's not too impressive. I did kind of blow their minds the other day when two of them came into my house and said, "Whacha doin?" and I said, "Writing about French poetry before WW1." They double-took on that. It's a part of me that none of my friends here can fathom. I miss having friends I can talk about such subjects with, but would not want to live in a world exclusively of people I could talk academically with. For people I know in an everyday life kind of way, I'll take hillbillies. They don't read, but that makes their knowledge first-hand, experiential.

I appreciate experience as it is billed, the best teacher. I too, can drive a tractor, mow hay, make a chainsaw buzz, work all day for years making minimum wage. I did turn myself over to living as the working poor in a place where more people are looking for work than there is work to be had. I did that because I wanted to share the everyday life fate of working class people. I could not aspire to a desk in an office with my name on the door making unconscionable amounts of money literally on the backs of the working poor. I could not feel fulfilled within seeing such a great difference between my privilege and their actual misfortune of living in an economy that does not appreciate the worker, yet amasses fortunes from their labor while they live in poverty. I respect and appreciate the working people, especially because I know what their lives are like from sharing their experience. I know the experience of working all the time, seeing no end to it, questioning the value of it, seeing self in an endless struggle in what turns out to be a long cave, not a tunnel. Employers don't understand this hopelessness in their employees. They just complain because the help doesn't turn up for work most Mondays.

I think of myself politically a socialist, though when I go to socialist websites and read socialist writings, I say, No, I'm not that. I recall a time I walked by an office of Amnesty International that had glass walls. I had been interested in AI, had sent them a little bit of money in the past, especially appreciate what they do, but when I saw some of the people, they had a serious demeanor that made me say to myself, I'm not that. I like the relaxed European forms of socialism, like Sweden and Finland. I must remind myself these are countries with only one major city, maybe two, and sometimes 3. I can't number the American major cities, which I take to mean USA has numberless problems in relation to European countries. I'd be willing to pay more taxes when a whole lot less goes to military. I'm glad to pay when the tax money goes to the well-being of the American people, even the freeloaders enabled by welfare. The real freeloaders are living in the most expensive parts of the city, their drivers driving BMW sedans. They're heading international corporations that are bleeding the American working people of a livelihood, of a life, and golfing at the Cayman Islands Country Club for American tax dodgers with yachts.

Ethically, I'm with the working people. Maybe it comes under the question of whether I'd rather kill or be killed. The Masters recommend being killed is better. Ego says to kill is better, that is, in a case of self-defense. I'd have a hard time not killing somebody in self-defense. I don't know if my ethical ideals could kick in fast enough to give pause to an instinct of self-preservation. Ethically, I say it is better to be killed than to kill. Where karma is concerned, if I kill, then I will have to be killed somewhere along the way, this lifetime or next. Why set that up? Just go ahead and be killed and be done with it. But I'm not so sure about any of that. If somebody were to hurt my baby Vada really bad, give me a machete. I'd want it up close and personal. I'd want to reach out and touch someone, something you could not hear a mile away, blood I'd have to wash off. That kind of came to nothing. What I'm getting at is I could not feel comfortable in myself, as myself, with privileges and looked up to by the working poor, who are poor because of the system that benefited me. I couldn't live like that. I want to live among the working people as one of them. I can't do anything to change their political condition or make minimum wage a livable wage. I'd rather live in the community of the working poor than isolated in a country club with a gated address. Among the working people is where I find what I call the real. Ralph Stanley for one.

I prefer the company of people who work labor jobs to that of people with management jobs and executive jobs. I want to live as the people I most appreciate live. I most appreciate the people who work hard all the time without hope of things getting better, seeing things only get worse. They're the people with guts. Independence lawyer Lorne Campbell told me the only man he respects is the man who will not rat. He said it is a rare individual, indeed. Campbell, himself, was known as one who did not rat. He even did six months in Wilkes jail around 1930, sentenced for not ratting as the court demanded. As a lawyer, he knows. He liked the old-time mountain people. He respected the old liquor-making men who would go to prison before they would rat on somebody. My bluegrass singing friend Katy Taylor told me her grandpa went to prison for two years because he'd let a friend put a still on his land and wouldn't tell who it was, let it be believed it was his still. That's the kind of man Lorne Campbell respected. Junior Maxwell was such a man. Junior wouldn't rat on somebody if you pulled all his fingernails out. Anybody that knew him would affirm that statement. I like living in a world where this kind of trust is honored. I like living in a world where a man's character is all the business card he needs.


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BABY VADA'S BIRTHDAY PARTY

         cocacola 600 charlotte

Baby Vada's first birthday party Sunday, a party of 20 or so all day. Baby was looking at different people, like whoever might be holding her at the time, who are you? have I ever seen you? She was comfortable when somebody put a camera in her face. That's like home with mommy who takes pictures of her almost every day. When daddy held her and when mommy held her, she relaxed, was in the arms of the familiar. My mind went to the time with friend Jr Maxwell when his mind went away. People would come to the house to see him, he would look at them and try to figure out who it was while they talked to him. When they or I told him who it was he pretended to get it. As soon as they were out the door he'd ask me who it was. I'd explain to his friends before they saw him that he may not, probably will not recognize them, and if he seems to it's because he's pretending. Nonetheless, his subconscious, the whole of who he is, is still there. Though his conscious mind isn't working any more, he recognizes you anyway, and attention felt good to him, it helped his spirit.


I experienced the joy of motherhood again, after my three kittens born on mother's day 1997 and given to me two weeks later, the day their eyes opened, by their mother by running under a car. That was my first experience as mother. I knew they needed mother love to live, so I went within and turned on mother love. It was mother love that helped me taking care of Jr, the diapers, feeding, cleaning, changing clothes, dealing with a baby that has no mind. Learning to communicate with the subconscious mind when the conscious mind was gone was not much different from communicating with a cat or a dog or a horse. They can't talk but they are good at communicating with each other. Learn how they do that and I can communicate with them. I've always lived with dogs and cats, so I'm well versed in communication without language, without the forebrain. I read these opportunities to activate the mother within as gifts from goddess. They tell me she's with me and that gives my spirit comfort.


I've been allowed into Justin and Crystal's hearts as family. I've seen Baby Vada since the very beginning and known of her since conception. Before she was born Crystal knew she liked bluegrass. After she was born she lights up hearing bluegrass. Reggae too. This is somebody with a brilliant mind. Justin was telling me she pays attention and responds. Like if she's crawling toward something she needs to stay away from, he said just the merest command she responds to immediately. I see two people I believe actually need each other and I'm happy for them. I'm happy for them all the time I'm around them and when I'm not around them. I can't help but see their relationship somewhat mystical, because so much love is involved and it grows. The house, itself, has a powerful love spirit in it, which surely complements the love between everyone in the house. Crystal's love energy is radiant. And Justin is the beneficiary. She brings the love energy in him to the surface. I'm happy that Baby Vada is to grow up in the light of parents with a very real love energy going between them. I'm happy for all concerned.


This evening Justin and I watched the CocaCola 600 until around midnight. Toward the end of the race Crystal, who had been sleeping with Baby V, came walking through on the way to the kitchen for something. She said, "You guys are retarded." There really wasn't anything to say to that, so we just heard it. He'd wanted to do some fishing during the time the race was on. His tv is set to record the race every week. I drove over there to watch the race when he was ready. Since the parkway opened, it takes 10 minutes less to get there. The closest to a wreck in this race was Tony Steward pulling in to pit stop, getting bumped and turned around in the pit road. It was a good clean run round and round the freshly painted track that had a beautiful yellow line around it that looked good above the slate gray track and the green of the infield grass below, cars on the track running 195. Sometimes I think I like the visuals at least as much as the race itself.


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HEARING ALTERNATE ROOTS

The race today at Kansas Speedway was another race of the best driver in the best car won. No wrecks to put drivers out of the race who might have had a chance at the top 10. The only times we saw visibly aggressive driving came after the green flag following the yellow when the drivers were positioning themselves for the long run when they're strung out and not so easy to pass. They'd go 3 and 4 wide and the announcers went berserk anticipating some cluster wreck action, but nobody ever lost traction enough to hit another car, and only a few scrapes with the wall. Montoya left a long tire mark on the white wall. Truex in 56 led most of the race until Hamlin in 11 passed him with 30 laps to go and Truex never could catch up with him. With just a few laps to go, Truex made a desperate lunge to swing below Hamlin coming out of a turn and it didn't work. He became the more interesting driver to watch; he was running the tires off his car, giving it everything, but it just couldn't get past Hamlin.


Driving to Justin's in Ennice, I took a tape to play in the car by Alternate Roots. I say over and over that Alternate Roots is my favorite band, and when I hear them I always remember why. Katy Taylor singing Killing The Blues, Single Girl/Married Girl reminds me why I call Katy my favorite bluegrass singer. I maintain that with a million hours stage experience Katy would be the equal of Allison Krauss and Rhonda Vincent. That she doesn't have a million hours stage experience has a lot to do with why I listen to Katy and not the others. I'm tired of polished pop music. Never took to it. I've always liked music on the fringe, what I call art music. Like Patti Smith Group with Lenny Kaye guitar, an artful rock band. Rage Against The Machine too. In this time of my life I want music in the raw, live music by people of the region I live in, as well as recorded. People playing mountain music in its variety of forms is what satisfies my ears. Field recordings do it best.


I've listened to Scott Freeman's music and Willard Gayheart's for so many years I sing along with their music. It's in my horoscope and it works out that when I find something I like I stay with it. When I discovered Kenyan coffee, that's it. I don't care for any other but Ethiopian, which tastes the same. I can drink others, but my choice is always Kenyan. Columbian is good, Guatemalan is good, but Kenyan satisfies me completely. The others are good, but Kenyan totally satisfies. I like Scott and Willard's music so much that it's about all I care to listen to anymore, besides a good old-time fiddle band, like the Roan Mountain Hilltoppers. Since Alternate Roots disbanded after 4 superb albums, Willard and Scott have revived Skeeter and the Skidmarks, the band I like most to listen to now. Scott and Willard playing together satisfies my musical ear like Kenyan coffee satisfies my palate. The drive up highway 18 from Whitehead to Ennice with Alternate Roots in the sound system I felt joy the entire drive. Every song was my favorite. Every song I wanted to hear again, but it's too complicated with a cassette to do that, so I wait between songs for the next one that will make me want to play it again.


Steve Lewis's bluegrass banjo and lead guitar knock my sox off every time I hear him pick. Steve draws the best picking out of Scott that he has in him on the mandolin. Together, they are dynamic. I remember hearing a piece by Cannonball Adderley on alto sax and his brother Nat on trumpet, them playing with George Shearing on piano. The Adderley brothers played back and forth, in and out of each other so smoothly I thought of Scott and Steve jamming. They will play in and out of each other and get things going. Jazz is what they're playing. Scott understands that bluegrass is the jazz form of old-time, using old-time tunes in the early years the way jazz musicians played show tune standards in the be-bop period. Bill Monroe jazzed old-time initially for his own style. It took a life of its own and became bluegrass. Scott doesn't make bluegrass the same way Monroe or Flatt & Scruggs or Stanley Brothers made bluegrass. They made bluegrass their own way. Scott and Willard make bluegrass their own way. They satisfy my ear for bluegrass totally. So do the Stanley Brothers.


I never dreamed I'd grow into somebody who loves the Carter Family so much they make tears run. Stanley Brothers too. I've reached a point in my life where I can hear them without thinking them old-fashioned, of another time, or generally having no relationship to my life in the 21st century. They have a very direct relationship with my life. I love their music. That's all that matters to me. I think I got a clue to what it is in the music of Alternate Roots and Skeeter & the Skidmarks, Scott and Willard I like so much is that they play their music with soul. I know saying anything about soul in music is reserved for black, but a lot of white people have soul, and not all black people have soul. I noticed when Edwin Lacy was talking in his capacity as a Presbyterian preacher at Willard's wife's funeral, that Edwin had soul in the pulpit. Then I realized he played his banjo with soul. That's what it is that makes his banjo so special. From there, I realized it's the soul in Scott and Willard's music that appeals a great deal to me. That's not all of it, by any means, but it's a good part of it.


All the way home I heard Alternate Roots some more. It's an hour round trip and the music on the tape lasted an hour. Pulling into my parking space the first song was starting again. It was a heavenly drive hearing Randy Pasley's Dobro weaving in and out of the music, Katy's singing, Willard singing Robin D, Steve's banjo and guitar, Scott's mandolin and fiddle, the whole, including Tony Testerman on bass, carried me down the road in a state of good mental health. The clarity of the music, the soul in all the musicians, and especially the music itself. These people all play music, the real deal. Driving down the road hearing Alternate Roots again, those familiar songs I know so well, the banjo, mandolin, Dobro licks, the singing, the songs they chose to play. The tape I made years ago from their cd Branching Out, a beautiful work of art. Nice drive on the highway tonight.


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SUNDAY AFTERNOON WITH FRIENDS 2

caterpillar

This evening after sunset I pulled into my parking space at home, turned off the motor after listening to its smooth idle a minute, opened the door and the air was full of katydid and tree frog trills. I said out loud, "I'm home." Heard myself say it and was conscious for a moment of how happy I am that my home is in the Blue Ridge Mountains of NW North Carolina. Very happy of that. I love the mountains themselves and the culture of the mountain people. I'd just arrived home from an afternoon and evening and Justin and Crystal's and baby Vada in Glade Creek. We watched the race, a good race, no wrecks and only a couple of caution flags on account of debris on the track. It was a well run race all the way through. Justin and I go on pulling for Jr Earnhardt who hasn't won in over a hundred races. Today he came in eleventh or twelfth. Several years ago we got free tickets to the Charlotte 500 and Earnhardt blew his motor half way into the race. I started the race pulling for the M&M car because I liked its colors, and it was the first one out of the race. Shifted my pulling to Earnhardt, then his motor blew. I decided to pull for none of them, not to curse any more of the drivers.



There's no way I believe I was psychically instrumental in those two cars getting put out of the race. At the same time, it looks mighty suspicious. In case there is something to it, which I don't believe there is, I don't pull for a given driver any more. That felt too spooky to me. And like I say, there's no way I had anything to do with it psychically. The place was a human bowl of a whole lot of thousands of people, a lot of psychic energy concentrated in that circle. Whatever psychic energy I was projecting was neutralized by probably the ten nearest people to my seat, the whole place radiating psychic energy like the upside down bowl of intense air pollution above the bowl of the spectators and the race track. The pollution is so incredible at one of those races that if somebody from Sierra Club or Greenpeace could lower themselves far enough to go to one of those races, they'd press charges and make a big news spread of putting an end to this intense pollution. The smell of burnt rubber, burnt high octane fuel, the exhaust noise of 43 cars without mufflers, big motors that burn large amounts of fuel, rubber molecules flying off the tires continually. When somebody hits the brakes and spins around a few times, the smoke of tires, brakes locked down, billows up around the car until it's lost in the cloud.



The smell of burnt fuel and rubber so intense in the air made London's air seem clear as on an atoll in the South Pacific. But nobody is complaining. The smell was as highly charged as the sound that was like 10 rock concerts in volume, the music the pure raw music of near-perfect machines trying to outrun each other. Car racing is a Suthun thang like bluegrass that gradually became mainstream all over the country. Today's race was in Michigan. They race all over the country now. And the racing now is not like it was when it was only going on inside the South. The early tracks were half mile and plenty good for cars that might top-end at 100 or so in the straightaway. The newer tracks are bigger, like 2 miles, 2.5 miles, wider, better constructed. The cars are running in the 190s in the straightaway. A half mile track doesn't give them a chance to wind it all the way out, but it's in the short tracks that you see the real racing, drivers slugging it out for position.



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DAYTONA 400

 

David Ragan won the race, made a good run all the way through to the finish line. Only three cars lost control through the course of the race and none of them caused any problem to other cars. Then with 3 laps to go somebody lost it, and, again, no problem for other cars. This put a yellow flag into motion. Before, the cars had been spread out all the way around the track so the leaders were beginning to lap the slower cars. During the caution, nearly all the cars that started the race were in pack formation looking like an interstate around Raleigh at "rush" hour. When it came time to go, the race was on. Cars 3-wide, bumper to bumper, 190mph, everybody wanting to get out in front, somebody tapped somebody's back bumper in the wrong place, the car lost traction and went sideways with brakes on in front of the pack. It made a mess.

Another caution, and the very same thing happened again. Coming out of the 4th turn in the first of 3 laps to go, up in front of the pack a car went sideways and cars scattered every which way. I'm always awed at how far a car can slide on pavement the same as on ice with brakes locked down at 190mph. The 3rd startup after the caution wasn't so messy. The surviving cars finished without another incident. The race was characterized by teammates running double, front bumper of back car touching back bumper of car in front. All of them did that throughout the race, switching from time to time, taking turns leading. Until almost the end, it was a smooth race of cars and drivers going all out, running as fast as they could make the cars go. 198 and 199 in the stretch between curves, and 184 and 185 in the curves. An environmentaist's nightmare.  

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POCONO RACE: 12 JUNE 2011

Watched the race at Pocono today, one of the best races I've seen. No wrecks. One time somebody lost traction in a curve and smoked the tires sliding across the track in front of a herd of cars not hitting one, sliding like on ice, sliding, sliding, plumes of white smoke billowing from the tires and he came to a stop in the road to pit row, where he needed to be. One lost a valve that fell into the piston space. He left the race and came back in, a lot of laps down, but he finished the race. It was an all-out race from start to finish. The part I liked best about it was it was a complete race without pile-ups that put several good contenders out of the race. I think only seven that started the race didn't finish. I felt like it was a legitimate race with no obstructions to the running of the race. Jeff Gordon won it simply by out-driving everybody else. At the end of the race, his car disappeared in the cloud of smoke he made drifting the car in a circle.



I liked the track and liked the race. It seems like the nature of the wrecks characterizes the race, and when there are no wrecks it's like there are no points of reference through the course of the race. Just one continuing circuit of cars attempting to outrun each other and end up number one. Yet, that's what I like best. I don't like to see a dozen or so cars taken out of the race because somebody tapped somebody else and set his traction adrift. Like when Dale Sr was tapped, his car took at immediate 90 degree right turn in front of another car, getting himself t-boned a split second after hitting the wall head-on at well over 100mph, snapping his neck and releasing his life. I remember who did that to him, thus winning the race. The next week the same driver had a good lead coming out of the last turn heading for the finish line and blew a tire. I do like to see somebody win the race who did it by his own skill. and the car, the pit crew, everybody involved. 

To drive a car at 180 and 190 mph is awesome to me. To race a car at that speed all the more awesome. I can't help but be impressed by the skill of the young guys driving they cars. To drive as fast as they drive when your thinking has to be lightning fast, it takes young minds to keep up. The earlier race drivers were up in years compared to the ones racing now. Like Jr Johnson said of the new drivers, 'They're just boys.' Back when he raced, they were men, mostly guys who spent their teens running liquor, Fireball Roberts, Curtis Turner, wide-open characters that drove with just a seat belt often in 50s convertibles. Quite a lot of deaths and major injuries in that time. Also, serious fights erupted between the drivers. I've heard of a time Curtis Turner ran Fireball off the track, which he was known for doing. Fireball Roberts went at him with a tire iron when he finished the race. Not many of them are hillbillies any more. 

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