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Finally saw An Inconvenient Truth.

February 8, 2009 | 5 comments

inconvenienttruth
I finally got around to watching An Inconvenient Truth last night.  I was wondering what took me so long to get around to it, and I think it’s because of my own know-it-all-ism. As much as I fight it, I’ve become very eco-self-righteous.  From the stash of cans stacked in protest in my office because my workplace doesn’t recycle to my lack of car, I walk around like I’m more…consistent than other people.

I know; this is bullshit.  But when I hear someone who flaunts how anal they are about recycling (“I can’t believe UB doesn’t recycle cans!”) and how their $200 totebag is made of recycled cat turds (and fair trade, too!)  and when this person drives a fucking car to and from the suburbs (really the burbs of the burbs), I want to hold them down and lecture them about my own awesomeness. “No one gives a shit what your fucking purse is made of when you transport it in an SUV!”  Etc.

Which is ridiculous, stupid and mean.  I have eco-sins that I know about and live with, from my obsession with imported PVC-covered notebooks and plastic pens to my affection for imported beer and nylon sandals.  I justify them to myself because having no car and eating no meat and living in a small space transcends a lot of people’s efforts.  It makes me feel special and important and powerful and like people who make small efforts where I make huge sacrifices are wasting their time and self-esteem when they should be selling their cars, learning about bike repair and going vegetarian.

This kind of asshatery and assholery is something I really do make an effort to curb.  I really do.  It doesn’t do anyone any good for environmentalists to insult people’s efforts, when the truth is really that every little bit does in fact help.

Nonetheless, we’d all do well to remember that our little efforts are often outdone by the ways we have our heads up our own asses and the larger sacrifices we are unwilling (often referred to as “unable”) to make.  I can’t help but feel like a lot of people would in fact rather live in a hotter world with coastal land underwater and wars raging over scarce natural resources than to live in smaller houses and stop driving cars everywhere.  If that’s not true, then people:

1) Don’t really make the connection between their actions and concerns and a global crisis, in which case this kind of blindness really crosses the border into intentional ignorance, which in turn at this scale becomes a mild form of stupidity.

2) Don’t believe that the climate crisis is real or caused by us, in which case these people should stop drinking clean water, taking medicine and wearing seatbelts.  Because good science obviously is lost on people who don’t want to deal with something that might change their lazy and selfish habits.  Back to the Stone Age with them.

3) Can’t grasp that doing things like going car-free or living in a smaller place or closer to work is something in all of our control.  If one inherits a house that’s 100 miles from his job, this person is not stuck.  You can always move or change jobs.  Move to the city.  Get a job near your house.  Take a folding bike and transit.  Such a person values their own home/job/lifestyle over efforts to save the fucking planet.

That’s the point.  We can’t just buy recycled and hybrid versions of all the shit we already buy. This is going to take imagination and effort.

“I wish I could just ride a bike everywhere like you,” people tell me a lot.  I’m too “nice” in person to ask, “Then why don’t you?”  People who are able to live car-free can do so because they make choices around this lifestyle.  I live close to everywhere I want or need to be.  I don’t generally do things that require me to carry more than I can fit on my bike rack.  It’s not really hard, and it’s often more fun than driving. I’ve said before that I am largely a big kid who likes to have as much fun as possible, which cycling is for me — even in winter and when I’m tired.

Now I am getting self-righteous.  But it’s not me that I think is righteous, just putting one’s efforts and lifestyle where one’s mouth is, which I happen to buy into and try to do as much as I can.  But I know I suck at it.  Hard. I buy all kinds of shit I don’t need, hoard pens and forget my travel mug often. In true Thoreauvian spirit, however, I know that there is no environmental failure as bad as my own.

Please don’t send me hatemail about my choice of notebooks and my insistence that none of us sacrifices enough.  If you were so awesome as to sacrifice that much, I would think you’ve transcended assshole blog comments, too.

Now I sound like Jesus.

The basic truth about SHIT.

January 22, 2009 | No comments

reddoortilt0109
The basic truth: that shit is shit and is prone to being imperfect to start with (my bike was scratched when it was new, and it bugged me for an hour because I am stupid and forget these things) and that it only gets worse. And when you view things/shit/stuff as ends in themselves, you drive yourself crazy because you forget this. I forget all the time. Or I don’t know it in the correct part of my brain.

Frustrating funeral.

April 20, 2008 | 4 comments


What a wacky week! After Grandmom’s accident and her ensuing time at my parents’ house in Hampden and the surprise anniversary party for my parents two weeks ago and one of my brothers leaving for Warrant Officer Candidate school in the Bama, there is too much to tell. I can’t tell some, won’t tell a lot, and, you know, it’s not like blogs are always as…candid as they used to be, huh? Like I never was anyway.

My grandfather was buried Friday morning. Countless people that I care about came to the viewings and the funeral. It sounds stupid to say that you don’t know how lucky you can be until something bad happens and all that. But there you go. My family and myself — we have some very good friends, and we are very lucky in that department.

I didn’t get a chance to say “Goodbye” to my grandfather at the viewings Thursday, so I went up to the open coffin to do that Friday when we got there early. Most of the people there were family from his dead beast-bitch of a wife (sorry, Pop). As I was standing in front of the coffin with my wife, some fried-haired bitch of a woman came up and stood behind me. The room was practically empty. But she needed me to move. Right then. That’s the way things were with that damned family. People who were not a part of it but wanted a place in the will pushing the real family away. I don’t think that hag even knew who I was. She had a cross pendant dangling in her low-slung cleavage, too. I thought that was some kind of symbolic image, but I’m not really all that sure how exactly. I spent the rest of the events trying to catch her eye and give her a dirty look, but she’s not the eye-contact kind of person.

Pig’s family was and is just a bunch of tacky gimmees, nasty people with no tact, no manners, no decency. And, now, churchy types who don’t even know what religion they are even though they supposedly go to church a lot. Seriously.

Worse was the pastor. He was the same idiot who professed a deep understanding of people at Pig’s funeral in 2006 but then said oh-so-many untrue things about her and her life. I saw him at the hospital a few weeks ago. He made a point of telling Pop how busy he was but how he wanted to see him. My grandfather donated a travel-Eucharist set ($900 we were told by someone who really seemed interested in how much money Pop had) for folks who wanted to receive Communion but can’t make it to church, a nice thing to do, really. Did Pastor Dick bring it with him to Pop at the hospital? No. I guess he was too busy. Anyway, there Rev. Asshole was, making us all pray, holding hands. He held mine. Too tightly. For ten minutes. When I saw him leaving the potty Thursday, he didn’t say anything to me. He walked to his car at technically, Catholics.

He was mad that the funeral was at the parlor, rather than his hillbilly church. It was Pop’s wishes to not go to the church. Going from the parlor to the church to the grave for Pig was a circus, and he didn’t want to repeat it. So Fr. Jerkass took it out on us all with a long sermon about bullshit he didn’t understand. Apparently, Pig and Pop were “people magnets” because of their faith. I know better. Pig was a magnet because she put on a pity play and took people captive feeling sorry for her pathetic ass. Pop, well, because he was too nice to people he barely knew. By the end of the ceremony, I had twisted, torn and sweat on my double-programs until they were in two pieces. That this man spoke for any God and any faith made me want to cut the brakes in his land yacht (because you need an SUV with all the options to make housecalls, yes) and watch him fall into some kind of hellfire somewhere and probably get my 72 as a reward.

I took great pleasure in telling these hillbillies that I live in THE CITY. And I am not the only one who enjoyed their discomfort when some black members of my family and friends arrived. Stupid crackers.

I am probably a horrible person for writing all of this. I don’t think they have the internet, though, so I doubt they’ll ever find this. Plus, you know, I cover my tracks pretty well.  And it’s all true anyway.  I didn’t do any of this stuff.

After the ceremony at the grave, the priest was making his “I’m sorry” rounds on his quick escape to his huge SUV. (He was first to leave.) I turned my back to him in the hot sun and in my black suit when he headed in our direction.