November 02, 2004
#267 :: Survival tool
I must let down the veil a bit here. I don't always post the HLO on precisely the day it's dated. Some days, I'm too busy or whipped or uninspired to do it up right, which is why I'm posting this on the 4th and backdating it. Tuesday the 2nd was one of those days, when events barged into this serenely regular contemplation of physical trivia and kicked the shit out of me and, I'm guessing, more than a few of you. I sweated. My legs jittered. I sought cameraderie and clarity on my other blog. As the evening lengthened, and the other shoe hovered tantalizingly in midair, I panicked. I spaced. I prayed. I surfed madly, and I waited for the time-warp nightmare to quit chewing us up and finally spit us out either into the sunshine or a foul, reeking replay of 2000, fraud, lawsuits, ugly bullshit and all. I feel like I did when Reagan was elected in the height of the hostage crisis and the Cold War - wracked by fear that an unprincipled goon had taken the throne, someone whose world view ended at the horizon, beyond which lay only savages, monsters and a bottomless cliff off of which the ocean poured unchecked. Reagan was merely the messiah to the current herd of sheep willing to follow anyone who greenlit their global bigotry and wrote a blank check for their personal greed. Bush II, and his puppeteers are far more horrifying - people who not only believe their own wilfully ignorant vision of their place as sovereign rulers of the planet, but consider a slim margin of victory a "mandate" and use pathological mass deception to shove that vision down the throats of anyone who disagrees. More on November 3rd tomorrow. But for now, a special talisman, bought upon learning the election results. Its elegance of function appealed to me. The little slab of stainless steel includes a knife, file, bottle-and-can opener, saw, wire stripper, hex wrenches, screwdriver and inch-measure. It's also magnetized to act as a compass: Hang it by a thread, and you can trust that it will always point north.