The Sounds of Silence

The sound of Canadian geese honking at first light, heading late from their safe slumber on the lake to the local alfalfa fields. A bugling cow elk and the herd of sparing teenage bucks answering her.  A mother moose murmuring cautiously to her twin charges.  The crinkle of colored leaves as they let go reluctantly from their trees. The laughter of children at the bus stop or coming home from school to play. A football punted into the air or the crack of the bat in the World Series. These are the sounds of autumn.

There is a new sound that has taken over the sounds of silence. It is the sound of suburbia, the hum of humanity, the noise of nuisance: the leaf blower. Whether it’s a wimpy handheld, battery-powered one that whispers or the roar of a stinky, two-stroke backpack model worn by professionals in hoodies and sombreros, it is omnipresent and obnoxious. There is the gas-powered personal version or my low-noise, high-torque electric corded model that offers power and peace. They can be heard in the front yard and the backyard, in the garage, and throughout the house. It is the hum of the affluent, efficient, and the lazy.  Get a rake.

Growing up, I lived in New York, and in the summer, you could always hear the hum of the parkways, especially in the morning and late at night. It was the sound of progress and commerce back then, in a drive-everywhere car culture. Winter sounds to me like the silence of gentle snowfall—or snow falling so hard you cannot hear yourself think. Spring is the sound of birds returning and the bells in the belfry above a campus teeming with new life, greenery, and hope.

While sound is subtle, smell is sublime.  Autumn reeks of retiring, middle-aged leaves at their palette’s best, with their ultimate acceptance of a deteriorating landscape. No matter how much we love fall, we welcome the gentle, dry winter smell of smoke by the fire, with bread in the oven and pies cooling on the counter. Summer smells hot and humid, with sunscreen and bug spray, chlorine and sea salt. April, of course, smells like flowers, Chanel No. 5, farmers burning their ditches, and the thawing earth coming back to life.

Although smell is the most nostalgic, sound is the most magical. It is the music of our lives that sets our tempo and mood, rhythm and rhyme. I can’t define noise, but I know it when I hear it. And what is the opposite of smell—stink, odor? Nothing.

When are we going to protect our senses from the constant hum of humanity, as we covet the night sky or crave the smell of coffee in the morning? These things are sacred and impossible to put a price, worth, or value on. Cast a wide economic net over these attributes when considering cost and benefit, risk and reward, supply and demand. For he who bequeaths the sounds and smells of civilized society to the noxious noise of our busy nation, loses an important tie to nature, nostalgia, reality, the past, and the future.

Get a broom.

 

Pop Parental Persona

 

Our generational worship of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones stems from the fact that they were the best at their respective games because they invented, defined, and developed their genres as they evolved. The Beatles took innovative pop-rock records to their zenith by constantly changing, improvising, and focusing on melody, mood and mind expansion. Their experimental sounds, drug influences, harmonies, and the cosmic convergence of Lennon and McCartney have put a hundred songs at the top of our minds. The development of eight-track recording at the time, by them and for them, helped them perfect their sound that influenced culture and the decade. From the fuzzy, proto-grunge guitars of “Revolution” to the ballads “Michelle” and “Yesterday,” or the psychedelic sounds of Revolver and Rubber Soul, they defined music for the next fifty years while imitating Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Chuck Berry, and Little Richard.

The Stones took a harder-rock, bad-boy stance, advancing rhythm-and-blues, riff-centered chaos with catchy lyrics and experimental journeys through country, disco, soul, and hard drug psychedelia. Despite the touchy ‘Mate’ relationship between Jagger and Richards, they have put a hundred songs on the tips of our tongues. From the disco sounds of Some Girls and the funky, sexy saxophone of “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” to the country sounds of “Dead Flowers” and “Far Away Eyes,” they bolstered an offshoot genre while defining it—tongue in cheek, so to speak.

The Beatles lasted about seven years as a recording band and stopped touring after four; the Stones are still going strong after more than sixty years, sustaining their sound and reputation through studio magnum opus and energetic live performance. The Grateful Dead came closest, creating a counterculture and a devoted family of followers around their improvisational jam-band sound. They were not merely the best at what they did; they were the only ones doing it, inspiring countless imitators and spin-off talent. Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan have shown similar longevity and equal bodies-of-work with their rock-poet perspectives on real people and everyday life.  All of them endured by changing, evolving, and improving, as true artists must.

It is similar to the way we diefy our parents as much as we worship these artists. From initial belief in their pedestal infallibility, through teenage rejection, to adult acceptance of them as peers and genuine people, we look to our parents as models for the world. For us, they invented it and defined what a parent is, no matter how good or bad that model may be. Our mothers might be the Beatles—lighter and funnier, with the joy of pop music—while our fathers may represent the tough love and hard-driving blues of the Rolling Stones, or vice versa.

Either way, parents define the genre for every family and every child, defining what it entails.  Like the great bands, parents give us an original direction — a foundation we may embrace, reject, reinterpret, or carry forward. Growing up means learning that imitation is flattery.  The finest tribute to those who shaped us is to absorb their lessons, keep evolving, and create a new sound, voice and persona of our own.

SEXIST PIG-DOG

 

My typical cosmic convergence thought this week, of quantum karma coincidence, involved women’s liberation.  I was watching a show on Shania Twain who was a phenomenal country-pop star in the late 90’s because she told It like it was.  Nonetheless, she was hounded for her good looks that compounded her talent in the age of visual music videos and showstopping, bare midriff dance numbers at her concerts.  The question was, could she be taken seriously as a musician with such good looks and how do you separate the two.  That was her advantage and that was her challenge.  

Later that week I joined my wife watching the end of ‘Thelma and Louise’ and I noticed that as the movie went along, the ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ type runaway outlaws became more brazen and got rid of the frilly housewife clothes and bras and chucked their lipstick and cigarettes out the window in favor of natural dirt on heir faces, wind in their hair and guns in their waistbands.  Their liberation was visible, visceral all the way to the end when they refused to go back to the way they were.  The week before we watched “9 o 5” for Dolly and the hyperbolic times of sexist bosses was hammered home in a funny but nostalgic way, even though they resorted to violence towards men in the end to solve it.

I finally came to a realization that the burden of being a woman, even in our modern times, is real and something they have to deal with every day.  Our cultures conscious or unconscious sexist oppression is sometimes quiet but constant and the affects are unrelenting.  I realize it is almost like being black or brown in America or being gay or Trans.   

I was out with a gay friend on the east side of New York one night, to see how the other half lived, and the conversation was all about being gay.  Granted we were in gay bars and gay accessories and appliance stores.  Finally, I told him that I didn’t care who he loved or how he loved them, I didn’t need to talk about it all night.  It was then that he told me that being gay had dominated his life and it was something he had to deal with every day with family, friends, foes and workmates.  It was all consuming.  How could he talk about hockey or holidays when his world was one track.  It’s kind of like people who went to Harvard, who talk about it all the time because it was good, hard, fun and all consuming.  Or being  Christian, Jewish, Muslim, black or brown or a Jet fan; all consuming.  It is who you are.  You have to be something.

At a dinner party the next night I noticed that all the women, when meeting, say something complimentary about each other’s look, outfit, hair or appearance.  They are very supportive.  Guys will only say something if it is derogatory, funny or bluntly true.  We are not very supportive, interesting or funny, for that matter.  That is why I usually speak to the women at parties, they are more interesting and well spoken, they talk about feelings and fantasy’s, desires and direction and they don’t just talk about football, tires or lawn care.  The women also look, smell and listen so much better. 

         I had our all too familiar argument with a family law (divorce attorney) woman friend who insists that everything good is female and everything bad is male.  I stressed that I know hundreds, maybe thousands of men who are good people who try to be kind and take care of their fellow human beings.  The women in my field of engineering are welcomed as a refreshing change in the male dominated occupation and are usually more disciplined and determined and successful.  Perhaps in her line of law, my friend sees the bottom of human emotions and behavior, usually by men.  I insisted that I never feel completive or threatened by women but welcome their engagement and alternative point of view, supplementary skill set and complementary attitudes in our real-world interactions.  

        Well, we went at it and my wife joined in with some across the table finger pointing while the others slunk down in their chairs, smartly refusing to not get involved.  I was on my own.  Once we were finished, we made up, with a hug in the kitchen, like we usually do, and I apologized to the host for ‘ruining your party’ like Forest Gump.  Then there was the ride home in silence with my wife.  I was in the doghouse, I was a sexist pig-dog once again.

I realized I was experiencing reverse sexism where I was being reduced to a negative stereotype that was neither true nor complimentary.  That made me mad.  That made me sad.  That made me defend my sex generally and specifically and resent the person denigrating us.  It made me wonder why she thought that way.  Was it her family, father, friends or culture that she worked in.  How could I change or convince her that it was not accurate, by my words, actions or abilities.  We are all imperfect but that should not be the focus.  We are mostly kind and genuinely care for other people, despite their sex, religion, race, preferences and identity.  I hope.  A least we should try.  I vowed to try a little harder to be a better man, a better person, a better husband, a better friend.  Will you.

Tear it Down - Build Back Better

 

Back in 1985, my friend Pete bought a house at the top of Main Street on three city blocks for $75k.  That was a lot of money then.  He was so excited with the house that he went to spruce it up directly from the closing.  He cleaned up a bunch of loose finish wood around the house and started a small fire in the fireplace and sat back to enjoy a beer.  Before he knew it, there was smoke billowing from the old, single ply chimney pipe and his upstairs was on fire.  By the time the fire department got there and did their thing, half of he house was burnt or damaged.  Bummers for him. 

Pete luckily got some money from his insurance company but the first contractor he hired took half of it and moved to Mexico on a hand-shake deal gone bad.  Now all he had was enough money for materials and beer so we went up there to help him rebuild.  We spent the summer demolishing the charred portions of the house, and some connected good parts that needed wiring and plumbing, while dreaming and drawing up a new floor plan.  By September we were still tearing things out when the snow started and we realized we needed to stop tearing stuff down and start building stuff up, or it would be a very wet and cold Christmas.  Bumacious for us.

Alternatively at the Holiday Village Cinema they had 3-5 nice conifer trees growing along 248 that had been growing for 30 years and shaded the building from the road and Vice-Versa. Then after one of the restorations of the cinema, they cut the trees down.  When I asked the manager why he did that, he said, “we wanted people to be able to see our sign”.  I went out and looked at the damn sign and it simply said, “see our web page for information”.   Bumaroonie for them. 

Down south in Torrey town, across from our camping property, someone built a gigantic Cowboy Bar that failed twice since Torrey has 200 people and half of them are Mormon.  The owner threatened to build a huge bright gas station out of it to extort the townspeople to buy it to protect the un-paralleled night sky.  The plan was to build a  Community Mercantile out of it for all the Mormons, hippies and farmers to sell their wares, like beads and bongs, quilts and comforters, pies and pears, zucchini and lavender to the tourists going to Capital Reef NP.   Meanwhile they could charge their Tesla's from the proposed windmills and solar panels.  Sweet.

But first the committee went in and tore out all the bar and kitchenware and sold it for pennies that they used to tear down the sign and timber Portico share and paint the place orange.  It sat there empty for 3 years with only a State liquor store to pay a little rent.  I thought we should just get anyone to set up shop in there, for peanuts, to develop a buzz and create some critical mass.  That wouldn’t do since we would lose money, and having bills to pay we were asking market rate rent.  So, it stayed empty and we lost money anyhow.  The Merc went belly up and we are still looking for a buyer.  Probably a gas station.  Bummed my total head.

Finally,  5 - 10 years ago Park City bought the 5-acre Bonanza parcel with a plan to build an arts district with the Kimbal Art Center and the Sundance Film Festival.  That got expensive real quick and Sundance moved to Boulder and Kimbal moved to the Junction of the same name.  But first they tore everything down, including the Mexican Market with the best avocados and the Maverick with the best doughnuts in town.   Now we have a junk yard to look at and no tenable plan.  Bummage.

The moral of the story is to not tear things down before you have a plan, an answer, a solution or a real need.  Our land-fill is full of the remnants of thousands of perfectly good kitchens that had to be torn out and replaced by other perfectly good kitchens.  Perhaps it is human nature to create the need for improvement when no improvement is really necessary.  Perhaps it is blind ambition to better ourselves when the status quo is just fine.  Perhaps it is just getting the cart before the horse when we don’t know where we are going.  Nonetheless, think before you tear down.  Have a drawing and not just a dream, have a destination and not just a demolition, have some funding for a long-term outcome and not just your immediate needs is critical. 

Before we tear down a house, a business, a neighborhood landmark, or a working system, we should pause and ask whether the reasons are honest, whether everyone affected has been considered, whether the change will strengthen the community, and whether the result will truly benefit the people involved. If a demolition cannot pass those tests—or if there is no workable plan for what comes next—the wiser course may be to repair, reuse, recycle or improve what we already have.  Remember that when acting locally or thinking globally, especially at this time of year when so much lies in the balance; tearing things down is easy, building them back-better is hard.

Call Things by Their Real Name

 

It occurred to us the other day that climate deniers like to call what we have experienced in the last 20 years as a’ drought’.  It is not a drought.  Droughts end.  This climate won’t end for at least 200 years, even if we address right away.  The massive heat sink of the oceans has taken 100 years to heat up and will take at least that long to cool down.  The last best chance we had to fix this ‘drought’ was with AL Gore, but he turned that election over to Bush/Cheney, Haliburton and the oil companies. 

Call things by their real name, this is Climate Change, Chaos, Calamity, Catastrophe.  Drought is natural weather fluctuations, our climate is changing, accelerating, a rates that have not been seen for 4 billion of years.  It is the rate of change, or delta, that is unique and alarming.  Weather or drought is like velocity or momentum, that we don’t feel when we nap on a fast airplane.  M = (m x v).  Climate Change is like acceleration, like when we take off or land, that we feel and notice statistically and anecdotally.  (F = m x a). 

 

 

So it is with The Great Salt Lake that is drying up because of Climate Change and overallocation to agriculture in the upper Provo, Bear and Weber river basins.  The State could allocate more water to the lake under the Public Welfare clause in Water Rights, but the legislature removed that clause last year to avoid costly lawsuits and build more Data Centers.  They could also limit water use with priority date restrictions but that would be economic and political suicide.  The lake needs a lot of water and It will cost billions to pay the farmers not to flood irrigate a hundred dollars’ worth of hay at 8000 feet. 

So, they pay lip service to it and craft nice conservation adds to get us to take short showers but, in the end, we are hosed.  They don’t want to get too involved with a sinking ship.  They would rather let it sink and then blame Joe Biden.  But the current pedophile President says he wants to save the lake with Federal dollars and our Governor said if he did, he could call the lake anything he wants.  So, we will get The Great Trump Lake and become Trump Lake City.  Airport code TLC.  Oh, the horror.  It will become a benefit - cost comparison between cheap agriculture and toxic dust storms in Temple Square and he city, lowering Church attendance and property values.  In the end it is always about money

Likewise, Lake Powell Regulating Reservoir is draining fast because of Climate Change and too much allocation to low dollar agriculture.    By next spring, given an average winter, the level will be too low to make power and provide the proper allocations to the downstream states.  They will play with water from Flaming Gorge and to Lake Mead, but it will happen sooner or later.   So, it will become a very expensive flood control and sediment storage structure.  At least we will be able to canoe Glen Canyon again and see the surviving Native ruins.  So, what shall we call it then?   Lake Foul?  Lake Mead-2 – the color of Scottish ale.  Gone Canyon.  Wah Weep, there is nothing we can do about it. 

 

Lastly, as temperatures increase, Park City will become the last local cool respite to chill out.  Even with our 5–10-degree temperature increase in the last 50 years and there is no skiing anymore, if it is 120 in AZ and 110 in SLC and only 90 in PC people will come.  It will be worth migrating up the hill in the summertime so this should remain a popular place and continue to grow.  The new billion-dollar developments don’t mention skiing so much anymore, but stress the other recreational opportunities at cooler, higher elevations where you don’t need AC or a swimming pool.  Park City will become more popular and oversaturated with no more namesake mountain meadows or parks, or traffic with no place to park.  It will become No Park City.  Call things by their real name.

We're on the Road to Nowhere

 I hate it when people find a new road, trail, adventure, or camping spot and write a guide book about it and then everyone goes there and ruins it. Then nobody goes there anymore because it is so crowded.

Well I found one today that I have to share. Sorry.

On the back SW side of Strawberry Reservoir is 25 miles of perfectly new paved road that connects over Renegade Ridge to highway 6 before Soldier Summit. The speed limit is 35-45 mph but we were on motos and going 75 because it is empty. The mega flora was going off and the curves were sharp and consistent, - no spirals.

It is a long way up and out there but it was great riding.

This road would make a good fun connector to 6 towards Price or it would be a great road bike 50 mile out and back from the visitor center on 40 near the the spawning salmon.

That's all I am going to say about that right now.

Eat, Play, Love. Do it, Buy it, Go There.

  

We don’t travel as much anymore since it has gotten so crowded and costly, contrived and complicated.  Maybe it is because we find that the best day of our vacations are the days that we are coming home. Luckily, we live in a great place and love our home.  We traveled a great deal when we were younger, when it was new and easy, cheap and simple.  We would take sabbaticals from good jobs every year, during the slow season, with empty promises to come back if they facetiously swore to rehire us.  The consultants thought they were unloading some dead weight during the winter or the State thought they could save on our salaries during the slow season.  

By sprinkling in some sick and vacation time we were able to stay on our insurance and in their system, while accruing longevity for raises and retirement.  We were gaming the system.  We quickly learned that if you were good at what you do, you got to creatively call your own shots in an ostensibly inflexible system.  We were sticking it to The Man, before we became The Man.

With lots of time, but not much money or planning, we would take the first cheap Freddy Laker charter flight to who-knows-where and wing it from there.  We went to Russia when they said we couldn’t, Türkiye when they said we shouldn’t and Warsaw when they said we wouldn’t.  

I met a guy in Rhodes who needed help sailing his 93-foot Ketch back to France.  No problem, I can sail.  I chased a new friend around Ireland on an old bike because I got tired of riding alone.  I spent the winter skiing with a Swiss Miss who asked me to stay and a month in France with a Brit Babe who couldn’t wait for me to leave. Backcountry and front country, lifts and lodges, lunch spots and après bars, let's face it - we skied it all.  

Off piste, we would travel by bikes and barges, freighters and freight trains, sleep in cheap hotels and hostiles, tents and parking lots, train stations and boat decks.  I fell asleep on the poupe-pdeck of a boat leaving peaceful Dutch Canals one night only to be woken the next morning on the ragging North Sea by I guy with a fire hose, swabbing the decks.  

I have made new friends in split-second choices between bunks or bathrooms and lost partners who mutinied for a warmer tent, a cleaner car or a pretty face.   I rode a bike to a friend’s wedding and then decided to investigate the rest of the continent and the British Isles.  Life was simple then, the world was our canvas, our courage was the paint, and our naiveté was the brush. 

 

Food and drink were secondary back then, a nuisance necessity that got in the way or paved the road to good times.  A nickel baguette with some Brie and a dollar bottle of wine would suffice for a normal day. he next day we were drinking gallons of beer at the Oktoberfest or plucking Mediterranean Mussels of the rocks on south Crete with the Swedish half-bikini team.  

Museums were also places to appreciate fine paintings and the fine-ass art aficionados.  Discos were meant for pounding, repetitive, German-industrial-monster rock, or Boz Skaggs and Boy George.  Other travelers would shed their home town reputations and cut loose, especially Aussies and Kiwis who take a mandatory year baccalaureate abroad to roam, ramble, root and rumble.  

Now we have lots of moments and money, vigor and verve, passion and patience, wonder and wander lust.  There are luxury cruises and First Class Flights, Presidential hotel suites and five-star restaurants, Mercedes limos and turbo rental cars, bus coaches and cruise yachts, with our sleeping gray heads resting against the windows and our mouths open in exclamation or exhaustion.  

We have gone from $30 a day to $3000, and found our sweet spot at $300, but no matter the cost, it takes curiosity, companionship, and patience.  We go to explore, experience, eat, earn, and to give us things to do.  We go to hang out with old friends that we don’t usually get to hang out with because of distance or discrepancies. We travel with our spouse to celebrate or remember, fraternize or forget.  We travel alone for some space, freedom and solitude. 

 

We Uber around like our legs are broken and sit in airport lounges like our asses are anchors.  People call us Sir and Ma’am, while we look over our shoulders for our parents, and fill our coffee and wine with anticipation, from he right, without asking.   We eat six-course, Prix-Fix meals without knowing the price or the fix.  We glamp in the wild next to a guard holding a double-shot 410 and in the third world with a man with a machine guy posted in the driveway.  We total rental cars in British roundabouts when we do not ‘stay left’ or ‘have a look’. No worries. 

Who cares, American Express will take care of it, electronically intangibly, imperceptibly. It’s not even money, it is electronic digits that we never see.  We never change money anymore or know the rate, value or name. The sky is the limit and there is no downside.  Risk-free, no hassle adventure is an oxymoron, but it is a thing.  Being unprepared does not make it an adventure, it makes you a fool, but being totally dialed in does not make it an expedition, it makes it a walk-in-the-park.   

So, I encourage everyone to travel while you can, before jobs and taxes, houses and spouses, kids and dogs.  Go before you can afford it or have the time, or it becomes expensive, exhausting or ennuyé.  We all have less time than we think. so do not put it off to an uncertain future.  You only regret the things you don’t do.  Life is more about what you do than what you have.   You remember the charging Rino longer than the purring Porsche. You are what you do and the sum-total of your experiences, so make something of yourself, sooner than later, today, tomorrow and yesterday.