Don’t Have To Sleepwalk The Exceptionist Dream

There really is different way but it just took so long for me to see that I could take it

I actually can get through a day without massive doses of factory-extruded sugar, fat and salt

Loud noises need not be a major part of every single goddamn thing I ever do

All those daily tasks I must perform plainly should not require gigajoules of energy

Need not take advantage of far off poverty for some new plastic baubles

Can listen to the flow of natural sound instead of modern carbon-based cacophony

Don’t have a need to go to extremes in coming-of-age displacement recreation

It’s really not necessary that I pack on a few more extra pounds, year after stressed-out year

I can walk as they drive by, pedal in their exhaust stream and meditate in their stalled traffic

Take my cotton bags to be used again and again, much to their sardonic laughter and scorn

Humbly find my clothes among their once-expensive castoffs at the crowded thrift stores

Refurbish, re-use and re-purpose without over-paying those ignorant, so-called, craftsmen

No law states I must spend a fortune to try and cosmetically hide my perpetual aging

There is no reason that I should not save a goodly portion of everything that I earn

Now I really believe that these long daily commutes are simply fool’s errands

Needn’t keep on acting out like I’m as rich and attractive as their media models

I just won’t consume this so-called meat they build with all the care of factory production

I found that there’s a different tour available of this vast and mysterious cosmos

We can cook and bake for ourselves with natural and maybe even organic ingredients

Won’t confuse comfort and efficiency with a lack of their boorishly faux luxury

There is another horse I can ride when I need to head off into the sunset

Staying off to the side, still swept along by their currents, but not completely hypnotized

No fad diets or best-seller of the month can raise my consciousness anymore

Let us instead whisper of those quiet, gentle voices which soothe our mortal wounds

No sense to leave behind a pile of shiny, unused and worthless, yet still unpaid-for toys

No point in over-compensating for my mass-produced and artificial shortcomings

Just seeking things that we’re all really looking for, in doses that I can handle

Simply staying in the shade when it’s hot, seeking out the sun when I’m cold

Worshiping over-inflated media sports heroes will not provide me with a guiding light

This specter of blinding patriotism they so frenetically raise will not sustain me

Their deadly bickering over worn out and irrelevant religions cannot soothe my soul

Happily I begin to see there is nothing in eternity from which we can be saved

There is another way and if you’re quiet they’ll ignore you as they speed on by

You can reduce your earthly footprint and they won’t even notice it at all

Striving peacefully for a sustainable lifestyle will not raise their ire

I can smile inside and be elsewhere, not amidst this foolish noise and choking dust

I signed the checks & credit cards

Went quite a long way but was not moving nearly fast enough to actually notice

Did not make a bazillion on the next financial fad like those Masters Of The Universe

Passing on my accumulated eco-debt thru to whatever dispossessed generations might follow

Did not file any patents or copyrights and no inventions are held in my name

Was unable to attain spiritual enlightenment or even enjoy any lasting peace of mind

Won’t find my name credited on any scientific research papers

Found it difficult to obey every order given by the great generals of the consumer field

Did not uncover any new and beautiful mathematical relations

Lost my senses and grew weak just like all those great ones from every field

Was not a member of the all-star team for many years in a row

But, I no longer remember their names just as well as they never heard of mine

Could not find it in me to produce even a single page of deathless prose

Signed the checks & credit cards and was OK always spending more than I earned

Held the spoonfed opinions of others quite strongly but never learned to think for myself

Walked with a proud independence as I navigated by the bobbing tails of the herd

Did not have a pop hit and then grow fat and doped up out in dusty-neon Las Vegas

Pretty sure I almost won the lotto at least once or twice

Was not ever elected to any office since I never had enough vanity to run

Had a couple surgeries that I would be happy to talk with you about for hours

Got a son who lives up by Portland and a daughter out in Phoenix

Did not save the bug-filled rainforest or protect whatever greasy salmon

Let the quiet lakes and rivers grow filthy, passing by them daily, on my way to work

Could not draw too much sustenance from my predigested holiday experiences

Wound up growing morally thin and drawn out on my half-baked and spoon-fed beliefs

Did not finish my masterpiece because I thought I kept on starting over

Never saw any great circle or felt some spirit in the sky from outside our modular

Once I took time to roll down the windows and smell the roses as we were driving by

Could not notice how, when I thought I paused, that I was still being swept right along

Appear to be finishing up now but I cannot step back far enough to really tell

That is, think I might be just awfully close to that Happily-Ever-After once again

Going to sum it all up and make my peace here in just a little while

Did not volunteer my time but I still like to think I most likely would have

Got no wisdom for my kids but they come sit by me sometimes, just the same

There’s that ex-wife out in Fresno and a brother in Denver who still hates my guts

They laid me off and defaulted on my pension so then I also pissed away all my 401K

But I’m making my peace and seeking forgiveness and just maybe I’ll get buried green

Wondrous New Opportunities

When the arctic ice cap melts for good within just a couple of decades

the big boys can save tons shipping all that cheap shit they import from china

When oil becomes a bit more expensive there will be shining opportunities

we can coerce the illegales to swarm our filthy landfills for discarded plastics

The dried up, dead rivers will not feed us, clean us or quench our thirsts

but we can find cheap ways to desalinate the now lifeless waters of the sea

Now that the factory meat producers have spread drug-resistant pathogens

Big Pharma can make more billions while still ignoring the 3^rd world’s suffering

Miring ourselves in a war of liberation not only gave terrorists an oil-rich base

But opened Somalia, Palestine, Yemen, Pakistan and Afghanistan to our humorless friends

Having each year be within the top ten warmest ever measured

provides an ever-increasing market for the makers of air-conditioners

With the smoke and dust from asia circulating on the winds worldwide

personal respirators and oxygen bars will become real money makers

Before they rot by the millions in junkyards, far too expensive to be driven

kits to convert giant American SUVS into homes for the working poor could be big sellers

Thanks to the ever-increasing size of the deserts of the world

ATVS and dirt bikes will always have more places to stir up choking local dust

By paying them to recycle your discards and further encouraging litter

we can keep the poor in fast food money cleaning up our streets and parks

As our lands dry out and heat up and can no longer support crops

we can declare them to be game reserves and begin bringing in rich tourists

When the oceans rise, lapping up and over all of our great coastal cities

they can be declared to be international marine sanctuaries

The coming of unsustainably large populations provides rich opportunities

for cooperation between politicians and clergy in marketing resource wars to the faithful

As the deserts increase in size, driving out millions of marginal inhabitants

these vast newly empty areas can be used to produce wind and solar energy

Booming populations and urban sprawl giving rise to food shortages

may force agribusiness to stop fattening cattle on indigestible human grains

Burning up our remaining oil as fast as possible may have a green effect,

for if the cars and trucks and buses no longer run, they can no longer spew CO2

The world’s overdue realization that the credit of the US is not worth a tranche of CDOs

will deflate the huge consumer debt burden, to the benefit of our negative savings rates

If everyone migrates to the clean north to escape the heat and grow their crops

maybe the mid-latitudes can adapt in peace, free at last of our poisonous footprint

Though burning ever more coal for power will kill millions every year

Scientists say its toxic smog blanket will reflect some incoming solar heat

There is a good chance that horrible worldwide pandemics will kill millions

hopefully easing the retirement burden our youth are inheriting from their elders

Conditions in impoverished lands may worsen given their unsustainable birthrates

allowing political and religious leaders to train legions of brainwashed child soldiers

As it becomes far too expensive to pay utilities and upkeep on McMansions

they can be profitably subdivided into tiny hovels for swarming immigrants

When food, shelter and energy are more than most families can afford

at last they will stop lavishing wasted resources upon their foolish lawns

As the economy collapses and we must finally concentrate on the basics

illiterate sports thugs on drugs and steroids will no longer live like royalty

Famine, war and plague may reduce population by a frightening proportion

thus finally lowering our species’ dirty impact upon the face of the earth

Gasoline may well become too precious for 5 mindless trips a day for this and that

helping reduce epidemic rates of obesity, diabetes, hypertension and heart disease

When we can no longer afford to buy because they will no longer lend

the chinese can tear down their factories and start growing food again

Though the greenhouse effect will come down hard on many species

at least the Russians can put their vast and long ice-clogged wastelands to use

Even though I won’t be able to afford the gas for a vacation

I won’t have to watch a fat Okie idling a monster pickup on his cellphone in colorado

Transport expenses for food and other subsistence items must rise dramatically

But happily, costly fuel will garage those stinking OHVs, jet skis and snowmobiles as well

This dog-eating-his-own-tail ethanol fairytale will be exposed as corporate welfare

and at least the poor cattle won’t have to eat corn that they cannot digest anymore

Since all of our children are gifted, special, spoiled and selfish, they might not have the time

to raise another crop of proudly ignorant consumptive whiners, exactly like ourselves

Got My Pickup Truck On

It sits up so high I got me an extry step and a grab bar just so the old lady can make it in

I just toss them groceries up in there on the floor behind the back seat somewheres

It’s got way over 300 horsepower and I paid 1500 bucks for a man’s booming exhaust

Handles like a real fat guy walks and looks about as aerodynamic as an aging bulldog

I get up real close behind them veggie fuckheads and like threaten ‘em in their little greenie cars

I show them what I got out there on the freeway too, and ta hell with savin diesel

I like to drive alone with nothing at all in my shiny pickup bed that’s always clean and empty

Got lots of towing power for my snow machines, power boats, dirt bikes and OHVs

It’s a 4x4 by god, with lotsa off-road clearance - and I use it for my daily 50 mile commute

No, I don’t know how to fix it and I leave the maintenance to the high-priced pros

Got temperature and wind speed readouts so I can always leave the windows up

The image I like to project is one of a deep-voiced faceless strength and an overwhelming force

I have the need to gun it and show that I can keep up despite my portly profile

Goddamn! it gives me true pleasure to sit up there so high looking down from that potent cab

But, the new ones are way better and I wanna trade in again, even before my lease is up

The diesel’s got a manly smell and I like to burp up smoke all over them stupid cyclists

It costs me a hefty premium, but I’m proud to fill ‘er up just like the big rigs do

Makes a damn smooth air-conditioner when the little lady has to run in somewhere fer 10 minutes

I can, by god, keep up with traffic and I will always exceed the speed limit

Never bothered to check the mileage and, you know what, I really don’t give a good gotdamn

Paid a bunch of money to have all that stupid smog shit ripped right out and had her chipped, too

Got a yellow ribbon “Support Our Troops” decal on that muscular back bumper

Tires cost $300 apiece and the off-road tread makes some real noise out on the innerstate

Cat and dogs don’t fuck with me cause they see I’ll never even slow down fer them, at all

It’s got a back seat with lots of room fer the kids and whatever shit like that

I got a big old crash bar in the front in case I gotta just shove some puny SUVs aside

I’m 5’8” but she’s a cool 20 feet in length - and I really got my pickup truck on!

Weighs a svelte 16000 pounds, perfect for hauling groceries and heading in ta work

It’s got more torque than all them others and some day I’ll figure out just what the hell that is

Why, I just aint afraida nothin when I’m jacked all up in there behind the wheel

Got country music on the satellite radio and a DVD player for the kids

Why, the cup holders are even big enough for my 32 oz Mountain Dew

They say the insurance is really high but, hell, I’ve never owned no fuckin little Honda, anyways

I’m part of a bigger team of strong, silent guys like on TV who get dirty pulling stuff around

This is a big part of my freedom and she comes in at about $60 grand, right now

It’s our family battle wagon and we are rough and always ready in case of any trouble at the apts.

Goddamn does it feel good when I lay on the air horn all up into some puny import

I think that women mostly react more favorably to me when I’m up there behind its wheel

I’m part lonely cowboy, dirty soldier, burly football player and this rig suits me just fine

I back with a slow and corpulent dignity into a mere space and a half

Taking off from a light I gleefully dump more emissions than a hybrid does all day

I drive 80,000 miles a year so I need somethin big that don’t hurt my back

I could put on a snowplow or get a winch and pull out stranded mini-vans

Two or three of my snarling, grimy dirtbikes fit right up there in the back

My stainless steel toolbox looks great locked up tight right behind the cab

Got me a lift kit and 37” tires so you can see way up under my chromed suspension parts

Stay back and give me room, I’m really big and I need my space

This fucker’s the macho way to carry my goddamn holy Harley

It’s so terribly big and bulging I can’t hardly believe it sometimes, myself

I love to pass little cars on rainy days and cut ‘em off with a big old dirty spray

This baby has huge muscles of steel and the hood is so fucking shiny it almost hurts

I speed up when somebody pulls out somewhere up there in front of me

Don’t even let off when they turn left across the lane that I own

I just see how close I can come when I turn on past them at a stoplight

I can swerve lanes to pass on the right just like my favorite NASCAR pickups on TV

You just ought to hear that humma roar when I let it out to pass on the two lane

I back her in real close at night cause she’s our best defense in case of trouble

I always loved them big red fire trucks when I was a little kid

So, this steed pretty much fills the bill in terms of the man I want them to consider me ta be

Nobody knows I’m a produce product manager when I’m out ridin that lonely freeway

There’s no way to tell this baby gets corralled at a rundown apartment complex every night

The little girl at the drive through always smiles up at me real nice

Me and some buddies got a spot in the BLM land where there’s a lot of mud we can drive in

I love to soap her up, rinse her down and dry her off so clean and smooth and bright

I often lay in bed and fantasize about the accessories I’monna to buy her, real soon now

She really does about everything I need and pretty much sums it all up - for my life

OMG, He’s Openly Soft On Defense

Wont vote for another massive spending increase on top of this mind-boggling sum

Damn my yellow spine, I’d sooner spend it on education, environment and health care

Patriotic defense contractors will need to make do with quite a bit less, just like everybody else

If they cant do it more cheaply maybe they need to outsource, just like all the other industries

Cant see wasting half this much on their misty-eyed swindle regarding our sovereign shores

Call me unpatriotic and unwilling to sacrifice for my country, as well as unelectable

I say, Stop these insane increases now AND reduce military outlays by half within the next 5 years

For all it’s pompous flag-waving, that mega-industry is virtually a total sham

Spending more than all other countries together hasn’t made us 10 times safer

It sure has driven us towards bankruptcy and left us with so much else, simply undone

I’ve got a tattoo on my arm that says ‘Soft On Defense’ and I show it off with pride

Yet, our honored politicians fall all over each other for every chance to waste more on new weapons

Can’t be elected if you wont spend a few more billion on some deadly but hypothetical threat

Won’t get a senate seat without supporting funding - supposedly for our brave boys

It’s all a freaking horror marketing hoax by the military-industrial-government partnership
Patriotism ain’t about wasting infinite sums without so much as a single question...or audit

Soft on the sort of defense we’ve wasted so much on, oh yes, indeed, I really am!

But our good sheep representatives in Washington would never dare voice the slightest qualm

Liberals and conservatives of both sexes push and shove to prove their machismo

Something’s wrong with this picture but nobody dares to say a goddamn thing

The slightest question about a politician’s defense posture brings forth a militaristic tirade

It’s a warped and mutated monster that they quietly and relentlessly feed

They don’t call it advertising but they do spread a vast and universal paranoiac propaganda

Well, a pox on those greedy so-called patriots and their images of kids, honor and country

I’m soft on defense but hard up against an entrenched quasi-religious organization

If a market-driven healthcare system is the best, then why not privatize the goddamn army too?

Curse my cowardly, traitorous soul but damn this insane, ever-increasing spending as well

I say cut funding in half and bring on the bogeymen from their lobbyist’s dreams

We’ve all grown soft-headed on defense, never questioning their greedy demands

It’s more of their expensive, go-it-alone, we know what’s best, fool, exceptionist claptrap

Let’s just declare our economic independence and be ready to fight them here

Maybe Jesus, whose god is love, would have had the guts to vote against more defense spending?

Privately Punctuated Equilibrium

Punctuated equilibrium states that evolution proceeds in relative stability for long periods of time interspersed with much shorter periods during which many species become extinct and new species emerge

My brief and fragile peace is randomly shattered by an empty confusion filled with a brittle noise

The entropy of 1000 ads unwinds the cocoon I have spun to try to take on another form from within

Unbidden, implanted thoughts quickly separate me from meditative contemplation

Staccato power tools and snorting bulldozers thoroughly dissolve my peaceful illusion

This sense of inner calm morphs instantaneously into a raging and blind emotion – Over a parking spot

My clear sphere of equilibrium is punctuated by such random and very sharp sharp exclamation points

Jarred abruptly into pointless marketeers’ daydreams from eternal contemplation

Strong gusts of chaos churn my laminar Wa into choppy waves of turbulent tension

Unbidden facts thrust themselves upon me, piercing my most comforting curtain of self-delusion

Hoarse laughter, bright lights and loud engines trample me awake from peaceful dreams

Slick, dead-end merchandising schemes wrestle away my precious attention

Meaningless corporatized sports events quickly destroy my fragile focus

Bright colors and hypnotizing music morph me once again into a consumerist droid

Politicians smilingly coat my little wisdom with clouds of warm, quickly-evaporating pixie dust

A blind, teat-seeking greed is said to guide our progress, much to my confounded consternation

My inner peace evaporates from the light, heat and noise of our wondrous endeavors

This passive resistance of mine is as some hapless plant is to our progress-bearing earthmovers

Senseless morning cacophony twists a search for meaning into a suicidal longing for the void

In the furor of the sound and light my thoughts are changed as quickly as a chameleon’s colors

I fear the holy cause of our inalienable progress leads us all into this chaotic regression

So the next loud man on the airwaves all too easily punctures the shallowness of my self-deception

Please Save The Rain Forest...For Us

You really must preserve the emerald forests whose rain and oxygen sustain us all

Even though, with our god’s blessing, we clearcut and settled all of our own several centuries ago

You owe it to humanity to leave this vast living system of jungle synergy intact

Though, ours is but a shattered, subdivided and dysfunctional shadow of its original self

Oh, pray, can’t you see the harm all these new roads, plantations and settlements bring

You can just ignore the mess that still expands in the aftermath of our own ordained progress

Oh! The forest tribes will lose the ancient homes where they have always lived in ecological harmony

Forget about how we butchered 30 million in a holocaust that we now celebrate as manifest destiny

Save the rain forest for generations yet unborn in the rest of the already-developed world

Ignore our swinish and brutal lifestyle but take heed of our pious pronouncements

Stop the illegal logging and slash and burn agriculture before it is too late and we must condemn you

Leave those places alone and unprofitable while we continue developing every acre of our own

Let your poor live crammed in unplanned favelas without hope but let the vast sub-continent sit idle

Then watch as we industriously bring progress to every square inch of our own sacred lands

Leave the monkeys and cats, the rivers, birds and the insects in their ancient web of life

Oh, and pay no attention to this vast wasteland from which we piously exhort you to conservation

Won’t you save the ancient rain forest for us all and for all our generations to come?

In any case, our caring firms will buy any and all precious hardwoods you might care to cut and sell

Don’t convert that miraculous living canopy into massive mono-cropped factory agriculture

But if you need help, why, our agribusiness conglomerates will be there to assist you

You must preserve this natural heritage and wellspring of diversity for our planet’s future

Do as we preach and ignore the greedy reality of the wanton destruction we wreak on our own lands

Remember that our god wills that you act as good stewards of his magnificent creations

Notwithstanding, he also bids us to take dominion over our land and rend great profit from his works

You should learn and live the mystical sustainability lessons that we never even tried to take to heart

Save the rain forest because our children like to see it in high-definition on our big screen TVs

You must act quickly because the earth’s special places simply must be preserved

We need your great forests to act as a filter for all the smog and CO₂ our sainted lifestyle creates

Save the rain forest and you can feel morally correct in helping to save all of mankind

We’ll send down some tourists, missionaries, along with corporate mining and agricultural interests

You must halt the spread of rampant development which is destroying the green canopy

Look at all the pretty exotic trees we have planted in our endless rows of suburbs

You must preserve this reservoir of medicines, foods and carbon at all costs

You need to do as we did not and act upon ideals to which we give only lip service

It is our duty as moral exceptionists to the world to lecture you on proper domestic policy

Save your precious rain forest so that we can feel better about continuing upon our merry way