Friday, October 5, 2012

The Poet and The Spider

Oggy trying to express his individuality
 Some parts of the blog are made up and some I wish I made up and some parts I couldn't make up if I tried. I'm not sure which category this past week belongs to but it is worth noting that I am officially registered at this Man Town logistics field hotel and am actively employed by a billion dollar energy company. I feel like an imposter but I could have been lured by sweet fiscal aroma into a web of destruction...

The leaf footed bugs never returned but I almost walked into this spider when I used that trash bag as a pillow. What kind of spider is it?
In the gold rush and oil rush days of 1850 and 1890 the man who went west left his family behind and never spoke to them again. In the gas field boom of 2012 the same man can video record himself having sex with a casual street hooker and post that video to hundreds of amateur porn sites and possibly stream it live to Germany. And so it is with the man in the van's quest, he is still plugged in and has access to skype and cat videos. And part of me understands that this was made possible by the heart breaking loneliness of the first man in 1890. He needed to make that sacrifice so that I can make a similar but not quite as tragic sacrifice. I wonder what my sacrifice will allow someone to do in 2099.

So I'm not the only penitent oil field worker in the world with steel toe Will and Fire Resistant Dreams. Others have gone before and we stand on the shoulders of Giants. But sacrifices are nonetheless in my cards as no piano lounge exists at the hotel and there will be no time to play a tribute concert to Hal David, lyricist to all of Burt Bacharach's tunes. Hal passed away recently and his music has been a constant in my life since my best friends in Arcata bought me a box set of their music in 2001.
What is life but a song with mysterious lyrics? I'm loading up my thoughts because I suspect total chaos to break loose in a few hours. My advice to anyone moaning about work is that if you aren't in a boom town then you don't know what you are missing. And if you plan to come to a boom town in North Dakota or Kansas or Texas then you should get your pipe fitting class out of the way and be prepared to work 80 hours a week in remote locations. Or if you are really ambitious then you should study the supply chain and make a small addition to it that simplifies or streamlines the process. Supply is everything out here and it's no coincidence that everyone I work with is ex-military because they understand the same adverse conditions and supplying the troops with equipment at all costs. We're ever and anon preparing for the next deadly meteor and lives are lost and humanity's existence is at stake. Philosophically, what humanity stands for is not a question that is asked much, because if we lose the war against the night then there will be no humanity to appreciate our own demise.
It's a struggle between night and day that has no rationale. I've sided with the druids and gypsies who believe in the sanctity of the earth and it's real easy for a man who has banked half a million dollars to say he would prefer to live on a ranch and it's real easy for a hippie or gutter punk to use the clean library bathroom and then go protest the means by which is provided....because ignorance makes all things possible...and specialization of process and division of labor has made for an ignorant populace, but the complexity of society has demanded specialization of pf process so that only Hermann Hesse devotees like Oggy actually go out of their way to fill in the blanks in the Earth First paradigm compared to the Halliburton paradigm. I want to understand so I can no longer be ignorant but these two factions are at war with fantasies of each other and I would know that because I've done the rare trifecta of living in trees and working on oil rigs and maintaining a traditional house and life....I've striven for universality and geometry and taste and decency because they won't come naturally in a complicated and button down society. And while this has brought my weight down to 130 pounds and given me bulging hemorrhoids and an irregular reggae heartbeat and a twitch in my right eye, it has also accomplished my life goal of a vibrant worldview based on actual experience. My bad luck was being born in a time when the complexity of semiconductors and hydro fracturing and coffee made from beans digested by rodents has made it nearly impossible to track down all elements of society and impose myself upon them. But it is possible if only I ignore the chirping of the ignorant masses whose chorus of stupidity calls for shackles to be purchased at Walmart on sale and paid for with loan star jewelry sales. Why complicate my life? Philosophy is no consolation to the wicked but my overactive brain feeds not on food but on the delight of finding cable trays for the harness of the universal fiber optic array.

3 comments:

Oggy Bleacher said...

Is it me or has my writing of late been top notch?

And when I comment on my own posts that is a sign of dementia of facebook-itis.

123.5 said...

You got yourself one of the following:

1. LONG LEGGED RUNNING CRAB SPIDER
(Philodromus vulgaris) - not dangerously venomous to people. http://www.whatsthatbug.com/2010/02/18/fishing-spider-22/

2. FISHING SPIDER (Dolomedes tenebrosus) - their bite is like a a severe bee sting....can cause problems for people who are sensitive to spider venom.

Oggy Bleacher said...

my vote is the fishing spider because the legs terminated in needle sharp points.

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Man in the Van by Oggy Bleacher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.