2009
January $33.07 July $56.16
February $31.04 August $62.80
March $40.13/$39.88 September $60.98
April $42.45/$42.20 October $67.43
May $51.27/$51.02 November $69.43
June $61.71/$61.46 December $66.33
2009 Average $53.56/$53.48
2008
January $84.70 July $126.16
February $86.64 August $108.46
March $96.87 September $96.13
April $104.31 October $68.50
May $117.40 November $49.29
June $126.33 December $32.94
2008 Average $91.48
As recently as 1998 crude oil was $12 a barrel. TOday it's $128 a barrel. What other commodity increased ten times in value in 14 years?
I want to cry foul but there were many years of prosperity in there and many more years to come. I remember the last time oil cost $127 a barrel in Jully 2008 and for the first time in 4 years in Los Angeles I saw busses that were full and people on bicycles and people walking. It was amazing. I moved into my van at that time and delayed my trip to Mexico until the gas prices went down from $4.25 to something like $3.50. Lasting change didn't take place but I think a small step was taken toward change. If we could live forever we could see the changes like when someone took video footage of the memorial bridge in Portsmouth dropping the center span at slack tide. It took hours and hours so if you watch it in real time nothing seems to be happening. But if you speed up the video then the bridge drops the barges move into place and the center span is carried away. I think human history is something like that but for each incremental change a whole family is born and buried so no one person gets to see anything very dramatic happen like Los Angeles going from a city of 60 million cars to a city that has full buses and light rail. There are abandoned light rail tracks that were a curse to my small motorcycle. The tracks were the archaeological evidence of an era when you could take a train from downtown to Venice. Those days are no more but before I left there was some movement toward rebuilding the light rail. Of course the tire companies and car companies were major opponents since they were the ones who monopolized and then dismantled the light rail to begin with, but this time they will lose.
Friday, March 2, 2012
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Oggy Tries Out For The Big Leagues
Job Title:Audiovisual Production Specialist (Videographer)
Agency:National Gallery of Art
Job Announcement Number:NGA-12-14ASALARY RANGE: | $89,033.00 to $115,742.00 / Per Year |
OPEN PERIOD: | Saturday, February 18, 2012 to Friday, March 02, 2012 |
SERIES & GRADE: | GS-1071-13 |
POSITION INFORMATION: | Full-time - Term Appt. NTE 3 years (may extend 1 additional year) |
PROMOTION POTENTIAL:13 | |
DUTY LOCATIONS: | 1 vacancy(s) in the following locations: Washington, DC, US |
WHO MAY BE CONSIDERED: | U.S. Citizens Oggy |
I can hear the laughter echo around the continent like hyena running through a particle accelerator. Oggy working for the national gallery of art would be a sign of the apocalypse. True. The thought of me being turned loose with a $12,000 high definition camera and a platinum credit card in the name of national art is pretty funny. It's not totally insane considering the facts but it's not something I'll be holding my breath for. I want to put the word out there and not be intimidated by N.Y. film school students who made digital films while I was living in a tree hut in Santa Cruz also applying for this job. They probably think $100K salary is entry level and that's why you are reading my blog and they aren't...because if you think big then you don't get dragged down by underachievers like Oggy and his self pitying (a Mexican prostitute called him self-loathing but why split hairs?) ways. You don't afford to live in Washington on $50K a year. No. You get the big money and that's only the official part of the paycheck. The dividends that are never claimed on a tax return run that number up three times over again. The loopholes I've heard about expense accounts and per diems make me wonder how any company stays afloat. That's an unspoken part of this position. Sure you can be a budding Ansel Adams with a video camera but if you deliver your didactic health video propaganda on time and assert your maverick status enough (but not too much) then you will be anointed into royalty. I'm going to watch what I say because I gave them a link to the blog as my writing sample and my video samples. If I had any advice for budding writers or filmmakers it would be to design a project and finish it. Just finish the project and have it available so someone can see it. And then immediately start a new project. Write, film, edit, record...over and over. IF it is what you love to do then you will love to do it for free and starve in the process but that's the sacrifice. And if someone sees some value in it then you might get a slice of bread or $110K a year. Think of it as good or bad timing. But there is no project that isn't finished. It's either in progress or done. I don't have an abundance of finished projects to show the good folks from the national gallery of art and that doesn't help my chances and it also doesn't reflect well on my follow through.
I'm an old man today. 41 years old and I'd like to apply to more than far fetched jobs that go to the assimilated film students who graduated with honors. If it meant buying a whole new J crew wardrobe to go with my disco shirt I'd have a hard time making the switch. Fortunately I don't have to make that choice because the uniform crowd knows an outsider when they see him.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
1 Billion Cars
I've been reading Plan B 4.0 by Lester Brown and that's enough to make me lose sleep until the next leap year. Back in 2008 there were an estimated 910 million automobiles in the world. I don't think allowances were made for more fuel efficient cars or gas guzzling pigs like Oggy's 1969 Econoline Van. We probably aren't at 1 billion cars but there's no doubt we are approaching it and that raises the question of how these cars are going to run. Now, most of us are selfish thinkers with the foresight of a snub nosed monkey in heat so I'll relay some information on to you and you can discuss it amongst yourselves while Rush Limbaugh shuffles papers in the background of your blighted consciousness.
The simple answer to fuel problems is alternative fuels. Internal combustion engines, aside from making us absolute slaves to our vehicles, is polluting the ocean and skies. In Churchill Falls Labrador they have one of the biggest hydroelectric power plants in North America supplying much of eastern Canada and New York with energy using 1964 technology. Yet, as I walked around the mosquito swarming streets I didn't notice any electric vehicles. Even the tour guide truck was a fuel powered SUV. Inside the power plant everything was electric but only the houses used the power supplied a mile away by the 12 turbines. Maybe the cold weather had something to do with this since batteries tend to shut down in negative 40 degree temperatures. Who knows...but that's the situation.
Electricity, supplied by hydro electric plants, wind turbines and solar farms is a trend that has been developing for half a century and shows no signs of slowing down. Gas and oil are being used to facilitate the development of cleaner sources of energy. Or I should say that gas and oil are being used to transport useless web cams and anal beads around the world and a small minority are also using gas and oil to develop cleaner sources of energy.
I'm sure back in 1870 train conductors who relied on steam created by burning wood in a double boiler thought it would never be cost effective to refine crude oil into flammable gasoline. The same thoughts now apply to switchgrass fuel, prairie grass and hemp gasoline. Yes, combustible hemp oil fueling cars. If it is possible then it will eventually be cost effective...or it will be cost effective for someone.
The conflict I want to bring up is something that is easily overlooked when the topic of ethanol comes up along with other plant based fuels. Corn takes land and unless we start to cultivate national park lands then that requires a sacrifice of agro land somewhere. And with nearly 1 billion cars out there owned by people making an average of $30,000 a year competing with, say, 3 billion poor people like Oggy who make less than $3,000 a year the market will side with the people who can afford to pay for the corn to be planted so it can be refined into fuel to burn in their cars so they can get to work making pharmaceuticals. 3 Billion poor people vs 1 Billion car owners. That leaves 3 billion people who have money but don't own a car and at least one hippie who owns a huge van but has no money...I don't know who that person will be but he's going to have to choose a side and there's a good chance he'll team up with the car owners.
I think this is where the paper theory of capitalism breaks down because if the market determines that corn should be used to fuel cars and 3 billion people are out of luck then that would be naively ignoring human nature because 3 billion people are not going to placidly watch their dinner be ignited so I don't have to walk to Walmart to get the chicken strip and mashed potato dinner. No, that's not going to happen. You push 3 billion people into a corner and all the camper conversion hippie vans in the world won't protect you from their wrath. Like Jim Morrison said, "They've got the guns but we've got the numbers."
Now, what I predict is exactly that scenario of more rainforest land being plowed under "Sold" by electro-prodded natives and then cultivated to grow corn to fuel distant "smart" vehicles. The natives themselves will be allowed to work in the iPod manufacturing factories and when they start to jump off the buildings they will get no sympathy because Americans aren't supposed to "inflict their morality on others" or whatever catch-phrase the conservative of the week will shill on his mouth breathing, knuckle dragging audience as they switch between Nascar and Kid Rock. No, it would be unforgivable to interfere with the natural holocausts we cause since speed junkie radio hosts must know what they are talking about. Better to sit on our thumbs jacking off while the dirty deeds are perpetrated in our honor on the natives, their land stolen and destroyed and then they are relocated to villages where they have to pay rent and the only means to money is working in the iPod factory. Yeah, that's a trail of blood only a goddamn television psychic could follow. You'd have to be a near genius to put all those pieces together and see the injustice. No, it's better to listen to Rush Limbaugh feed you baby pacifier information and slap another rainforest slab of chicken wings on the barbeque. Let bygones be bygones! Don't cry over spilled milk. Survival of the fittest! Yes, the dirty minds will survive as long as the clean ones allow it. Freedom isn't free but the cost isn't what the newspapers say it is because there was a discount in the price of Amazonian children flesh and a closeout sale on clean rainforest water. Fried Chinese slave girl fingers are buy one get one free with duck sauce! Mention this ad and Save! Buy now and buy in bulk so your fat ass can fit through the mcdonalds drive-thru. And when a future Oggy asks for mercy for the displaced and enslaved Kogi native you can claim ignorance and slap his wrist because it's none of our business and we're mere spectators in the whole affair and our paws never got wet in the fat fish bucket. I wish I could inflict that kind of ignorant arrogance on myself but I must be immune to conservative flim flam talk. Maybe I have my father to that for that but I also wish I could be as stupid as the rest of America so I could fit in better and put my Khazakstani Infant neck on the barbeque and crack another beer. But no, I have to side with Lester Brown, loathed and crucified on a cross made of pizza boxes and CD cases, the persecution of Oggy The Ignorant persists to drain the carbon emission of our morality into the sinkhole of Laissez-faire indifference.
The simple answer to fuel problems is alternative fuels. Internal combustion engines, aside from making us absolute slaves to our vehicles, is polluting the ocean and skies. In Churchill Falls Labrador they have one of the biggest hydroelectric power plants in North America supplying much of eastern Canada and New York with energy using 1964 technology. Yet, as I walked around the mosquito swarming streets I didn't notice any electric vehicles. Even the tour guide truck was a fuel powered SUV. Inside the power plant everything was electric but only the houses used the power supplied a mile away by the 12 turbines. Maybe the cold weather had something to do with this since batteries tend to shut down in negative 40 degree temperatures. Who knows...but that's the situation.
Electricity, supplied by hydro electric plants, wind turbines and solar farms is a trend that has been developing for half a century and shows no signs of slowing down. Gas and oil are being used to facilitate the development of cleaner sources of energy. Or I should say that gas and oil are being used to transport useless web cams and anal beads around the world and a small minority are also using gas and oil to develop cleaner sources of energy.
 |
| The enemies of Ford and Chrysler conspire to attack corporate America |
I'm sure back in 1870 train conductors who relied on steam created by burning wood in a double boiler thought it would never be cost effective to refine crude oil into flammable gasoline. The same thoughts now apply to switchgrass fuel, prairie grass and hemp gasoline. Yes, combustible hemp oil fueling cars. If it is possible then it will eventually be cost effective...or it will be cost effective for someone.
The conflict I want to bring up is something that is easily overlooked when the topic of ethanol comes up along with other plant based fuels. Corn takes land and unless we start to cultivate national park lands then that requires a sacrifice of agro land somewhere. And with nearly 1 billion cars out there owned by people making an average of $30,000 a year competing with, say, 3 billion poor people like Oggy who make less than $3,000 a year the market will side with the people who can afford to pay for the corn to be planted so it can be refined into fuel to burn in their cars so they can get to work making pharmaceuticals. 3 Billion poor people vs 1 Billion car owners. That leaves 3 billion people who have money but don't own a car and at least one hippie who owns a huge van but has no money...I don't know who that person will be but he's going to have to choose a side and there's a good chance he'll team up with the car owners.
I think this is where the paper theory of capitalism breaks down because if the market determines that corn should be used to fuel cars and 3 billion people are out of luck then that would be naively ignoring human nature because 3 billion people are not going to placidly watch their dinner be ignited so I don't have to walk to Walmart to get the chicken strip and mashed potato dinner. No, that's not going to happen. You push 3 billion people into a corner and all the camper conversion hippie vans in the world won't protect you from their wrath. Like Jim Morrison said, "They've got the guns but we've got the numbers."
Now, what I predict is exactly that scenario of more rainforest land being plowed under "Sold" by electro-prodded natives and then cultivated to grow corn to fuel distant "smart" vehicles. The natives themselves will be allowed to work in the iPod manufacturing factories and when they start to jump off the buildings they will get no sympathy because Americans aren't supposed to "inflict their morality on others" or whatever catch-phrase the conservative of the week will shill on his mouth breathing, knuckle dragging audience as they switch between Nascar and Kid Rock. No, it would be unforgivable to interfere with the natural holocausts we cause since speed junkie radio hosts must know what they are talking about. Better to sit on our thumbs jacking off while the dirty deeds are perpetrated in our honor on the natives, their land stolen and destroyed and then they are relocated to villages where they have to pay rent and the only means to money is working in the iPod factory. Yeah, that's a trail of blood only a goddamn television psychic could follow. You'd have to be a near genius to put all those pieces together and see the injustice. No, it's better to listen to Rush Limbaugh feed you baby pacifier information and slap another rainforest slab of chicken wings on the barbeque. Let bygones be bygones! Don't cry over spilled milk. Survival of the fittest! Yes, the dirty minds will survive as long as the clean ones allow it. Freedom isn't free but the cost isn't what the newspapers say it is because there was a discount in the price of Amazonian children flesh and a closeout sale on clean rainforest water. Fried Chinese slave girl fingers are buy one get one free with duck sauce! Mention this ad and Save! Buy now and buy in bulk so your fat ass can fit through the mcdonalds drive-thru. And when a future Oggy asks for mercy for the displaced and enslaved Kogi native you can claim ignorance and slap his wrist because it's none of our business and we're mere spectators in the whole affair and our paws never got wet in the fat fish bucket. I wish I could inflict that kind of ignorant arrogance on myself but I must be immune to conservative flim flam talk. Maybe I have my father to that for that but I also wish I could be as stupid as the rest of America so I could fit in better and put my Khazakstani Infant neck on the barbeque and crack another beer. But no, I have to side with Lester Brown, loathed and crucified on a cross made of pizza boxes and CD cases, the persecution of Oggy The Ignorant persists to drain the carbon emission of our morality into the sinkhole of Laissez-faire indifference.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
reMEMBer
THE WATER THAT PASSED BENEATH THIS BRIDGE WAS FILLED WITH THE BODIES OF THE ENEMIES WHO FOUGHT FOR THEIR CROOKED BELIEFS. THE VAN CROSSED ON RUSTED RADIUS AXLES AND FLATTENED TIRES AND BEARINGS THAT FELL BENEATH THE WHEELS. THOUGH THE CENTER SPAN OF OUR DEMISE STILL RAISES AND LOWERS WITHIN OUR ABSENTEE PARENTAL CUBBYHOLE THE DISTANT HORIZON SHALL NEVER BE WITHOUT THE SILHOUETTE OF RECOVERY. TWO LANDS CONNECTED FOR THE OGGY COTTAGE TO PASS, DESPISED BY THE LOCALS AND HARASSED BY THE POLICE...NO SAFE HARBOR WITH THE BORDERS OF THIS UNHOLY TERRITORY. A SOLITARY GULL LOOKS TO THE EAST WHERE HIS SALVATION RECEDES. OGGY TAKES FLIGHT AND IMAGINES HIS SAFE LANDING.
Homeless Manifest Destiny
When Bella admitted that she was pregnant and that her hands cradled not only her belly but the future Oggy Jr. that was a small fetus at the time, harbored from motherly instinct, Oggy was flattened to the redwood duff and twigs of their forest homestead.
"I'll deliver your baby here in the woods and we'll eat the placenta with a raging fire of ferns and Quezatlcoatlus bones," said Oggy, sincerely expressing his devotion to the baby growing in Bella's womb.
"No, you're going to get a job," announced Bella. Her eyes focused on some distant object in the forest.
"I don't understand. We're going to build a house in the forest with the crank tweakers and we'll grow corn and beans in buckets that we raise to the sky. And out child will be strong."
Oggy reached out to Bella's snow white neck, the neck he dreamed of in its long sincerity and delicate formation. Bella recoiled and slapped at Oggy's neck.
"Don't touch me. You have to go to work to make money so we can feed the baby."
Oggy stumbled into an ancient Ohlone Indian shit pit and cried out as his ankle turned.
"I love you and I will always protect you and the baby."
"Then you'll work at the supermarket or at a warehouse."
"I don't understand what that means," said Oggy. "The baby needs a father."
Oggy reached again for Bella's neck and she clawed at him.
"Don't want you to touch me. My baby needs food and you should work for money. "
"That makes no sense. Money is a fabrication of the conservative media that is an illusion the republicans chain our mothers to and break our backs with idealistic routine and clock punching in a circular insane cycle to spiritually deplete us. We're free here!"
Oggy waved his hands in the general direction of the redwood trees and Ohlone Indian burial grounds. He grinned through his giant mossy beard and his stained teeth shone like polished river stones in the stream of despair.
"MAKE SOME MONEY YOU FREELOADING SON OF A BITCH!" cried Bella as she held her belly.
"My love, don't despair. I'll always provide for you. I've planted corn seeds and tomatoes. We'll have a garden of eden in the spring. We'll eat off the fat of the land. We'll thrive and grow and our child will understand his connection to nature."
A crank tweaker's howl punctuated Oggy's declaration and Thunder pissed on the triangular tree brace that held up their shack made of plastic mattress covers.
"There is no time to wait for corn to grow," growled Bella. "We need food now! Don't touch me!"
Oggy pulled his hand back when Bella tried to claw his fingers. He was so hurt by her lack of sympathy. He looked at her beautiful strawberry blond hair that formed a short rug on her shaved head. She was his lover and the mother of her future child. They would be starting a family in the woods by the railroad track near the golf course and he would have to start to plant more food to trade with the tweakers who inhabited the deep realm.
"I love you. That's enough!" shouted Oggy.
"If you love me then you'll get a job in town moving boxes."
Oggy's spirit broke from the tone of Bella's voice. She was immobile and demanding. He would work for one of the warehouses moving wine supplies or artichokes or boutique skateboard clothing. In fact, there was newspaper in their collection of tinder. "NOW HIRING" This was a sign to Oggy. He would work and make money. He would make money and feed his child and that would make Bella happy and that would make Oggy a man.
"Truck Driver School. Affordable Tuition. OTR drivers earn $50,000 avg. pay."
He read this as Bella rocked back and forth in the plastic forest castle they had assembled from trash from the dumpster behind the mattress store. Storm clouds gathered to the west and soon a drenching rain would cascade through the canopy, ignored by squirrels and other animals except Oggy. He could drive. Once upon a time he had owned a car and driven from one place to another before the awful consequences of piston propelled crankshafts compelled him to renounce internal combustion engines. He had planted trees in Kentucky and that required driving back and forth to the coal mines. Yes, white trees and berry bushes to attract seed birds, blue spruce, Colorado Spruce, Locust, Alder...
"Home weekly. Health, dental & vision" promised the ad. What was home? The child would be on the breast and Oggy would be driving through the asphalt acreage of the midwest, the west, the mountains, riding brakes and double shifting clutches and banging orders on the CB. Could he do that when men died in Iraq to secure oil for the opportunity to move freights of paper and baby products form one state. How many gallons of gas would be spent to move diapers? The amount of tire tread that would end up in the pacific ocean manifested itself to Oggy in the form of a great angel with chicken wings flapping its anger in Oggy's face. The punishment that Oggy would inflict on the chicken angel would be so great that the angel would die and Oggy would be responsible. Diapers crossing the country, trespassing on Cherokee land and Kickapoo land and the prairies of the Sioux and Cree. What horses would need hay for this boxes of rattles that Oggy would need to collect his money and feed his baby in the plastic fortress he had built in the state park land? HE couldn't afford the tuition and the impact was too great on the environment.
"My love, I can't drive trucks because..."
"I don't want to hear your excuses, you toad, get a job and get out of my face."
"I love you. I love you so much. I'll do anything."
Oggy reached out for a thread of Bella's worn sweater but she recoiled from him.
"I hate you and don't want you to touch me. Make me money for the baby. That's all you can do for me."
Oggy's head spun from his devotion to this vessel of purity. She was so wise and practical. She understood what was needed from this demanding world while he, Oggy, was adrift in the sea of uncertainty.
"Of course. I'll do anything for the woman I love and the child that is mine."
Oggy looked on. Automotive Technician. Janitorial. Internet Sales Manager.. Service Writer/Advisor. Swiss Screw machine Operator.
"I could operate a swiss screw machine, my love! I think..."
"Shut your mouth!"
The dog shit near a bay tree and pawed at the redwood duff until he had buried the small turds.
Oggy was desperate.
"Can I be a structural engineer? Designing structures with concrete and steel, with integrated process equipment...maybe I can. What do you think?
Oggy waited hopefully while Bella gathered her anger into a balled fist aimed for Oggy's already bruised bicep. She punched him and he yelled so loud the dog yipped in fear and revulsion.
"No, please. Don't hit me anymore!"
Oggy leaned into the walls of the plastic curtain separating them from the storm outside, the droplets of rain collecting on the walls and soaking into the forest where they belong and not in a storm drain like Oggy had protested against in the preceding months.
"Then don't be stupid!" shouted Bella. "Get a real job that you can do. Our baby will die if you don't feed it and it will be all your fault."
She lay down with her belly in cradled in her hands, the hands of womanhood, thought Oggy, the hands of all the mothers of the world, wise and compassionate and practical. Not foolish like the dull Oggy and his idealistic insanity that lead to the broken toaster dead ends of Santa Cruz, the dumpsters and the broken crutches that bend and warp under the weight of expectations.
"Purchase manager. I'll manage optimal inventory quantity, improve inventory purchasing practices, and locate new vendors. I can do that! I can locate new vendors. My love! I love you! I love you and our baby so much that I'll locate new vendors. Where is this located?
"Fashion Beauty Supply" read Oggy in the stained advertisement next to the inside sales and restaurant franchise boxes. Fashion beauty supply? Could he find new vendors for hair nets and fake mustaches and nylons and lip gloss and suspenders made by Chinese slaves in factories along ancient polluted rivers washing the detritus of the centuries to the ocean and all the acid leached gold mining sluice? He might have highly proficient computer skills...did he?...he but the ocean and rivers would call back to his primitive nature and demand explanation for his pollution and disregard.
"What if the beauty supply factory supply is on a river," asked Oggy and for that he received a kick to the tender ribs under his undefended arm, Bella's tender toes, perfect and not crippled by arthritis like Oggy's root-like toes finding his brittle ribs. He cries out but Bella cried louder as her toes caught under one of Oggy's fractured ribs and injured some ligament within her joints.
"Are you alright," asked Oggy with tears in his eyes and the help wanted paper flapping in the breeze that blew through the curtain of plastic they had enveloped themselves in to protect their dog and drowning lives from the climate. The storm clouds thundered in response and rain fell through the redwood canopy onto the mattress covers, the moat around the future goat pen filling with cloudy water, the small area with Oggy's Buddha statue and guitar stand, his Nat King Cole songbook and union organizing broadside singles drowning in the stream of rainfall destined for the crack streets near the hotels on 2nd street and the shelters on Highway 1.
"Don't talk to me. Find a job. Make us money to feed the baby!" Bella answered through untainted lips, rosy like virgin cherries. Oggy held his breath against the throbbing pain in his ribs and admired his lover, the vessel of his future child. He would do it. He would be a materials manager or a medical assistant or even a program analyst/PLC programmer, whatever it took to feed his progeny and the love of his life.
"I love you. I will come through for you," said Oggy as a redwood branch crashed through the plastic curtain that no longer protected them from the rain. His Nat King Cole songbook becoming unrecognizable trash in the forest. The puppy curling up to hide its nose under its tail and Bella's eyes becoming fire red in the thunderous rage of the storm, the squirrels asleep in the tree apartments and the hawks patiently waiting for the mouse to make a fatal mistake. Bella aimed for Oggy's throat with her fist but found his bruised shoulder. Her hateful accusation was drowned out by the desperate moan of Oggy as the rain canopy dumped on their prone bodies. Hours would pass before they could be dry again and light a fire using the last of the help wanted ads and toilet paper and the drenched moss that Oggy insisted would make the fire cleanse all the hate that he felt was poisoning their relationship. He made sure that Bella had all the warm clothing before he plunged into the tumult to repair the plastic apartment. As he worked he chanted, "Sorting and Grading Used Clothing. Understanding South American Styles. I can do that because I'm smart and clever. I can be a textile Recycler because it's good for the environment. I can be a winner."
While Bella seethed in tense rage Oggy resolved that in the morning he would apply to a crew that slapped joint compound to recently installed sheet rock. He would conform and his conformity would facilitate his child's initiation into the world as it stood and not the fantasy that Oggy's tomato trellis predicted. Breathing halitosis and frozen steam, Oggy accidentally stepped on the puppy's tail and the dog's bark woke up the napping hawks in their dry Ponderosa branch crotch nests. Would they eat or would they go hungry? The question was not answered by the wind but died in the purple clouds, sucked into obscurity by the vacuum of the climate machine.
"I'll deliver your baby here in the woods and we'll eat the placenta with a raging fire of ferns and Quezatlcoatlus bones," said Oggy, sincerely expressing his devotion to the baby growing in Bella's womb.
"No, you're going to get a job," announced Bella. Her eyes focused on some distant object in the forest.
"I don't understand. We're going to build a house in the forest with the crank tweakers and we'll grow corn and beans in buckets that we raise to the sky. And out child will be strong."
Oggy reached out to Bella's snow white neck, the neck he dreamed of in its long sincerity and delicate formation. Bella recoiled and slapped at Oggy's neck.
"Don't touch me. You have to go to work to make money so we can feed the baby."
Oggy stumbled into an ancient Ohlone Indian shit pit and cried out as his ankle turned.
"I love you and I will always protect you and the baby."
"Then you'll work at the supermarket or at a warehouse."
"I don't understand what that means," said Oggy. "The baby needs a father."
Oggy reached again for Bella's neck and she clawed at him.
"Don't want you to touch me. My baby needs food and you should work for money. "
"That makes no sense. Money is a fabrication of the conservative media that is an illusion the republicans chain our mothers to and break our backs with idealistic routine and clock punching in a circular insane cycle to spiritually deplete us. We're free here!"
Oggy waved his hands in the general direction of the redwood trees and Ohlone Indian burial grounds. He grinned through his giant mossy beard and his stained teeth shone like polished river stones in the stream of despair.
"MAKE SOME MONEY YOU FREELOADING SON OF A BITCH!" cried Bella as she held her belly.
"My love, don't despair. I'll always provide for you. I've planted corn seeds and tomatoes. We'll have a garden of eden in the spring. We'll eat off the fat of the land. We'll thrive and grow and our child will understand his connection to nature."
A crank tweaker's howl punctuated Oggy's declaration and Thunder pissed on the triangular tree brace that held up their shack made of plastic mattress covers.
"There is no time to wait for corn to grow," growled Bella. "We need food now! Don't touch me!"
Oggy pulled his hand back when Bella tried to claw his fingers. He was so hurt by her lack of sympathy. He looked at her beautiful strawberry blond hair that formed a short rug on her shaved head. She was his lover and the mother of her future child. They would be starting a family in the woods by the railroad track near the golf course and he would have to start to plant more food to trade with the tweakers who inhabited the deep realm.
"I love you. That's enough!" shouted Oggy.
"If you love me then you'll get a job in town moving boxes."
Oggy's spirit broke from the tone of Bella's voice. She was immobile and demanding. He would work for one of the warehouses moving wine supplies or artichokes or boutique skateboard clothing. In fact, there was newspaper in their collection of tinder. "NOW HIRING" This was a sign to Oggy. He would work and make money. He would make money and feed his child and that would make Bella happy and that would make Oggy a man.
"Truck Driver School. Affordable Tuition. OTR drivers earn $50,000 avg. pay."
He read this as Bella rocked back and forth in the plastic forest castle they had assembled from trash from the dumpster behind the mattress store. Storm clouds gathered to the west and soon a drenching rain would cascade through the canopy, ignored by squirrels and other animals except Oggy. He could drive. Once upon a time he had owned a car and driven from one place to another before the awful consequences of piston propelled crankshafts compelled him to renounce internal combustion engines. He had planted trees in Kentucky and that required driving back and forth to the coal mines. Yes, white trees and berry bushes to attract seed birds, blue spruce, Colorado Spruce, Locust, Alder...
"Home weekly. Health, dental & vision" promised the ad. What was home? The child would be on the breast and Oggy would be driving through the asphalt acreage of the midwest, the west, the mountains, riding brakes and double shifting clutches and banging orders on the CB. Could he do that when men died in Iraq to secure oil for the opportunity to move freights of paper and baby products form one state. How many gallons of gas would be spent to move diapers? The amount of tire tread that would end up in the pacific ocean manifested itself to Oggy in the form of a great angel with chicken wings flapping its anger in Oggy's face. The punishment that Oggy would inflict on the chicken angel would be so great that the angel would die and Oggy would be responsible. Diapers crossing the country, trespassing on Cherokee land and Kickapoo land and the prairies of the Sioux and Cree. What horses would need hay for this boxes of rattles that Oggy would need to collect his money and feed his baby in the plastic fortress he had built in the state park land? HE couldn't afford the tuition and the impact was too great on the environment.
"My love, I can't drive trucks because..."
"I don't want to hear your excuses, you toad, get a job and get out of my face."
"I love you. I love you so much. I'll do anything."
Oggy reached out for a thread of Bella's worn sweater but she recoiled from him.
"I hate you and don't want you to touch me. Make me money for the baby. That's all you can do for me."
Oggy's head spun from his devotion to this vessel of purity. She was so wise and practical. She understood what was needed from this demanding world while he, Oggy, was adrift in the sea of uncertainty.
"Of course. I'll do anything for the woman I love and the child that is mine."
Oggy looked on. Automotive Technician. Janitorial. Internet Sales Manager.. Service Writer/Advisor. Swiss Screw machine Operator.
"I could operate a swiss screw machine, my love! I think..."
"Shut your mouth!"
The dog shit near a bay tree and pawed at the redwood duff until he had buried the small turds.
Oggy was desperate.
"Can I be a structural engineer? Designing structures with concrete and steel, with integrated process equipment...maybe I can. What do you think?
Oggy waited hopefully while Bella gathered her anger into a balled fist aimed for Oggy's already bruised bicep. She punched him and he yelled so loud the dog yipped in fear and revulsion.
"No, please. Don't hit me anymore!"
Oggy leaned into the walls of the plastic curtain separating them from the storm outside, the droplets of rain collecting on the walls and soaking into the forest where they belong and not in a storm drain like Oggy had protested against in the preceding months.
"Then don't be stupid!" shouted Bella. "Get a real job that you can do. Our baby will die if you don't feed it and it will be all your fault."
She lay down with her belly in cradled in her hands, the hands of womanhood, thought Oggy, the hands of all the mothers of the world, wise and compassionate and practical. Not foolish like the dull Oggy and his idealistic insanity that lead to the broken toaster dead ends of Santa Cruz, the dumpsters and the broken crutches that bend and warp under the weight of expectations.
"Purchase manager. I'll manage optimal inventory quantity, improve inventory purchasing practices, and locate new vendors. I can do that! I can locate new vendors. My love! I love you! I love you and our baby so much that I'll locate new vendors. Where is this located?
"Fashion Beauty Supply" read Oggy in the stained advertisement next to the inside sales and restaurant franchise boxes. Fashion beauty supply? Could he find new vendors for hair nets and fake mustaches and nylons and lip gloss and suspenders made by Chinese slaves in factories along ancient polluted rivers washing the detritus of the centuries to the ocean and all the acid leached gold mining sluice? He might have highly proficient computer skills...did he?...he but the ocean and rivers would call back to his primitive nature and demand explanation for his pollution and disregard.
"What if the beauty supply factory supply is on a river," asked Oggy and for that he received a kick to the tender ribs under his undefended arm, Bella's tender toes, perfect and not crippled by arthritis like Oggy's root-like toes finding his brittle ribs. He cries out but Bella cried louder as her toes caught under one of Oggy's fractured ribs and injured some ligament within her joints.
"Are you alright," asked Oggy with tears in his eyes and the help wanted paper flapping in the breeze that blew through the curtain of plastic they had enveloped themselves in to protect their dog and drowning lives from the climate. The storm clouds thundered in response and rain fell through the redwood canopy onto the mattress covers, the moat around the future goat pen filling with cloudy water, the small area with Oggy's Buddha statue and guitar stand, his Nat King Cole songbook and union organizing broadside singles drowning in the stream of rainfall destined for the crack streets near the hotels on 2nd street and the shelters on Highway 1.
"Don't talk to me. Find a job. Make us money to feed the baby!" Bella answered through untainted lips, rosy like virgin cherries. Oggy held his breath against the throbbing pain in his ribs and admired his lover, the vessel of his future child. He would do it. He would be a materials manager or a medical assistant or even a program analyst/PLC programmer, whatever it took to feed his progeny and the love of his life.
"I love you. I will come through for you," said Oggy as a redwood branch crashed through the plastic curtain that no longer protected them from the rain. His Nat King Cole songbook becoming unrecognizable trash in the forest. The puppy curling up to hide its nose under its tail and Bella's eyes becoming fire red in the thunderous rage of the storm, the squirrels asleep in the tree apartments and the hawks patiently waiting for the mouse to make a fatal mistake. Bella aimed for Oggy's throat with her fist but found his bruised shoulder. Her hateful accusation was drowned out by the desperate moan of Oggy as the rain canopy dumped on their prone bodies. Hours would pass before they could be dry again and light a fire using the last of the help wanted ads and toilet paper and the drenched moss that Oggy insisted would make the fire cleanse all the hate that he felt was poisoning their relationship. He made sure that Bella had all the warm clothing before he plunged into the tumult to repair the plastic apartment. As he worked he chanted, "Sorting and Grading Used Clothing. Understanding South American Styles. I can do that because I'm smart and clever. I can be a textile Recycler because it's good for the environment. I can be a winner."
While Bella seethed in tense rage Oggy resolved that in the morning he would apply to a crew that slapped joint compound to recently installed sheet rock. He would conform and his conformity would facilitate his child's initiation into the world as it stood and not the fantasy that Oggy's tomato trellis predicted. Breathing halitosis and frozen steam, Oggy accidentally stepped on the puppy's tail and the dog's bark woke up the napping hawks in their dry Ponderosa branch crotch nests. Would they eat or would they go hungry? The question was not answered by the wind but died in the purple clouds, sucked into obscurity by the vacuum of the climate machine.
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