Then again... maybe not. Who can resist the glamour and excitement of buses?
Photo from The Invisible Edge.

Every job I've ever had has had something to do with transportation. Even when I was working in a steel mill as an apprentice I was working on rail cars. I've had a commercial drivers license since 1973. Before that, I was a teenager driving forklifts on a loading dock and moving trucks around the lot.

I can also say that every job I've ever had I've either been an active union member, or actively trying to organize a union.

I've worked for the Large Orange Bridge District for almost 22 years. I'm getting really tired. I get depressed often. I haven't drawn a clear breath in a long long time. I have diabetes, torn up joints and chronic headaches.

I've also started fucking up. I can't get myself up for work. I'm pissed off when I'm there. I'm about to become a danger to myself and the public. I just can't pay attention. All I really want to do is hang out, play the ukulele and talk to people. I've been working 12 to 16 hours a day for the last 25 years.

I'm thinking it's time for a change.

The pension board keeps coming up with different numbers. I need to read the pension plan contract carefully. I'm starting to think that I could put together a year on disability. By the time the year is up I should have just about enough time to retire.

I won't be walking off with the big money, but I'll have an income and medical care. Cash me the fuck out.

It might be time.

Big City-Merle Haggard (Buy) There is no such thing as too much Merle Haggard.

Some sacred harp singing for Sunday. I can't remember where I first heard Sacred Harp singing. From the first time I heard it I recognized it. It is timeless and it is one of the reasons why I am not about to immigrate to France. Every time I get fed up with America I learn about something uniquely American that I could not leave behind.

It's true that most Americans consume themselves with hideous spectacles, but this is a big country and if only a small minority of us turn away from the spectacle, that's still a lot of people.

Traveling Pilgrim- Henagar Union Sacred Harp Convention (Buy)

I'm really depressed. I woke up this morning and my breathing was so clogged up it was like trying to breath through a cocktail straw. I thought about work and all I could think was "Why fucking bother?" I'm in trouble at work for taking off last week. To his credit, my boss expressed concern and has asked me to come in and explain what's going on before he decides what to do. I will be coming in with union representation and a little bit of hope that I'm doing the right thing.

In clinical terms, I have post traumatic stress disorder. The combination of long term illness, job stress and dealing with my family has set me off. I am not coping with this by myself. I have a support network that includes both friends and professionals. This still sucks. I'll be posting but the posts might get a little bit weird. Then again they might just get pretty dull.

Old People

Now this is how you get old and post punk. I saw the Meat Purveyors at the Forestville Club, Forestville California. It's a town without a stop light. They do have one of those signs that lights up and shows your speed so you slow down when you drive through downtown. Downtown is 2 blocks long, but one side of one block is a field. Pretty nice place really. As you might imagine, the Forestville Club is a foetid dive. It's just the sort of place I used to love. I hate going out to bars these days, but this time it was worth the trip.

Go Out Smokin'- The Meat Purveyors (Buy)

Punk Rock then and now

With apologies to certain friends.

This is pretty much what punk rock was like when I first started going to shows. You might notice that the music sucks. In fact the only thing that sucked worse than early punk rock was EVERY FUCKING THING ELSE. Few people realize what a dark and dismal time the '70's were. Old people like myself tend to gloss over the horrors of the '70's because all we can remember is that we could and did have lots of sex and did not have to worry about wearing rubbers or dying because we got laid. Bands like the Mutants have not stood the test of time but so what? When some perfectly permed and bell bottomed asshole with a mustache would complain that The Mutants didn't measure up to The Eagles or America I would gleefully respond, "Yeah, they're fuckin' awful. That's why we love them so!"

This was before the invention of Hardcore Punk. You'll notice that there are lots of girls in the audience. Lots of fellows who might just be homos too. Early punk rock scared the shit out of some people because it was a scene for creeps and losers and outcasts. There weren't many rules for aspiring punk rockers to follow. You had to show up and make it up as you went along.

Hardcore took care of all of those problems. Punk rules! And regulations! became the order of the day. Hardcore was OK at first. Really it was, but it got pretty boring pretty quick. Pretty soon hardcore bands had to be "tight". Like the Tower of Power horn section. Hardcore was also about angry heterosexual white boys- exclusively. Some heterosexual white boys have reasons to be angry that aren't completely idiotic. There are a lot of people who have way more reason to be angry though. They tend to keep it to themselves or end up in prison.

I'll have to admit that I also disliked Hardcore because it reminded me that I was getting old. I was broke and my teeth were broken and giving me a lot of pain. I had to come up with a grownup type plan. I spent much of the Hardcore era driving sixty or eighty thousand miles a year. When my bus was empty I listened to rap music, Dwight Yoakam and Steve Earle. I didn't worry too much about punk rock. I found a dentist.

So now we're into what, the fifth, sixth wave of punk rock? Once punk rock was safe for heterosexual white men it just kept getting safer. Some years ago, I was chatting with my stepdaughter's baby sitter. She was a nice young woman. I had no misgivings about leaving the kid in her care. She was a devout Mormon. She told me that she was a big fan of music. I asked her what kind of music she liked best. She told me her favorite music was punk rock. "Have you ever heard any punk bands?" she asked me. I asked her the names of her favorite bands. I hadn't heard of any of them, but I checked them out. They were all these sort of boy bands with perfect tattoos and shiny tour buses. They were working a regular circuit of corporate venues playing note for note perfect versions of their big hits.

The SF public library is doing a film series and exhibit about the early, pre HC, punk scene. Some of my friends are looking forward to going and looking for their youthful selves in the crowd.

Meanwhile the kids are carrying on the punk rock tradition in new form. Check the video below. I love when the kids in the mosh pit do the thing where they all wave their pom poms. Rock on



Red Simpson was practically a punk rock motherfucker. He didn't like hippies anyway.

I'm A Truck- Red Simpson (Buy)

Roll Truck Roll- Red Simpson (Buy)

I went up Feather River Canyon a few times. It's pretty slow and a little bit hairy in places but prettier than Donner Summit. I-80 is for pussies.

Gosh thanks

Imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever. But it has to be a really cool boot.

A bunch of people said really nice things to me, which I appreciate. I suppose I'm just depressed. It's 11:00 AM, I haven't been to work for a week. I'm still in bed. I'd like to spend another week or two in bed. I'm going back to work tomorrow. I couldn't figure out a way to stay out any longer. It's a beautiful day. I really should go outside.

Thinkin'

I'm giving some serious thought to folding up Poetry Is For Assholes. I never quite figured out what I wanted to write about. I like posting music files, but there's tons of people doing that. I don't feel like being one of the many bloggers who write about their personal lives.

I'll have to admit to feeling burnt out in general. I'm not really sick, but I'm constantly beset by health problems. My crazy family is acting a little crazier and demanding a little more attention. My job has been a real grind. I'm just trying to survive a couple more years there.

I'll also have to confess that I have been sucked in by the evil one, the all seeing eye, Facebook. I've been chatting with various High School friends and old Midwestern scenesters.

I've been reading actual books. I noticed that I was acquiring more and more books that I meant to read and getting around to fewer and fewer of them. I've decided to see if I can't put a dent in the pile of books (hell, piles) of books around the house. I'm finding that I like the way books make me slow down. The internet and it's constant flow of "information" makes me feel a little too speedy and "ADDish". Besides is it really information if it's fucking useless and serves to do nothing but clutter up my thoughts?

I'm going to take a little time and think about what, if anything, I want to do on the internet. If I feel clear in my direction I might start another "serious" blog to discuss union issues.

I'm not giving up the internet. Not hardly. If I've been following and commenting on your blog, I will continue to do so. I've got a couple of regulars who don't have blogs of their own. I'd like to hear from them. Rick in Lorain and Sarah in Mississippi, you're both really interesting people. Same goes for anybody else who comes here regularly and anonymously. You know who you are.

Feel free to email me at Adamdelved, that's all one word, at g mail dot com.

If you're wondering about Adamdelved, it comes from the rhyme, "When Adam delved and Eve span/ Who was then the gentleman?" Those two lines contain the seed of all subsequent radical thought in the English speaking world.

For the moment I leave you with this,

"When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman? From the beginning all men by nature were created alike, and our bondage or servitude came in by the unjust oppression of naughty men. For if God would have had any bondmen from the beginning, he would have appointed who should be bond, and who free. And therefore I exhort you to consider that now the time is come, appointed to us by God, in which ye may (if ye will) cast off the yoke of bondage, and recover liberty."
-John Ball- 1381

Come on back and talk to Teddy Bear!

A question

LIp sync yodeling. Fake ukulele playing and Jesus. Close to perfect.

Did you ever notice, if you question some Christians, that they will tell you that all of the weird shit in The Bible, the stuff that doesn't make much sense on the face of it, must be read and believed absolutely literally?

God absolutely planted a big garden with a magic tree in the middle. He put one sleepy little dude in the middle of the garden and then he created one little dudesse out of dude's rib. If you don't believe this you will go to H-E- Double Toothpicks for ever and ever and ever and Jesus will burn you up until the stuff in your eyeballs boils and then Jesus will make you magical new eyeballs so he can boil them until they pop, POP, and he will do this forever and forever and forever over and over again because that's the truth. Our God is an Awesome God. POP.

But if you ask those same people about the stuff in the Bible where it says don't kill people, or you should love your neighbor or if you deny the least, the most unimportant human, you are denying Jesus himself, they say, "You can't take that stuff literally. You have to understand how to interpret it. It's all very complicated. You need to find the right interpretation because love your neighbor means something different in the original Aramaic and besides God's love is a terrible and fearful thing."?

I'm just saying....

Further thoughts on California

I've driven across this bridge something like 12,000 times. Lots of times my job is boring. Lots of times I just watch traffic and never worry about where I am. Every time I make it to The Bridge I have to pause, mentally, and think, "Holy shit, I'm on The Large Orange Bridge." It is the most beautiful man made object I've ever seen.

Here's something I like about Fall in California. They call it "Autumn". I always though that was a quaint word that no one really used anymore. Around here lots of people call it Autumn. My friend named his daughter Autumn. Autumn.

I don't understand Los Angeles. This is not just NorCal rivalry with SoCal. Most cities came into being because there was a navigable waterway and/or an exploitable resource. L.A. seems to exist because people want to live there. Yes there are industries, but most of them could be located anywhere. There's a big port, but that came after the city started to grow.

L.A. must have been beautiful, so people moved there, because it was "nice". Then more people moved there. And more. And more. And more. Now the place is some kind of futuristic dystopia and people keep moving there. They have to pipe in water from Ohio just to water their lawns. I really don't get it. I don't dislike all of it. I've had some grand times there. I just couldn't figure out what we were all doing there.

Why can't all songs have this much heart?

You Belong To My Heart- Old 97's (Buy)

I'm Just A Prisoner of Love

The capes! God I love the capes!

Not a lot of time or energy this weekend. Further notes on California. We are entering into our late summer, early fall, heatwave. For the rest of the week temperatures close to 100 degrees are expected. Some Californians have this weird disconnect with the weather. They will say things like, "Winter's coming. You can feel a nip in the air," on days when the temperature is in the 90's. I don't really get it.

For Mr. Beer N. Hockey. A great poet. A great American. North American.

I Wanna Be A Girl- King Khan and the Shrines (Buy)
King Khan is a North American too.