The Green Monster makes me cry
Do you ever go the ballpark and spend too much time wondering about all the trash generated during a game? Well, that’s what I do, anywhere I used to have fun, including home.
Why do I do it? Because I live in Asheville, North Carolina — Land of the Sky and home of the dissident — where people are always shouting at me about not doing this and doing too much of that. And that’s why I am a crazy person now. But strangely enough, I like it — especially since it causes little nuts of anxiety and inadequacy to store up in my cheeks, something I’m saving for a beautiful woman and a winter wedding one day.
Asheville is not what I consider to be a “green” city although the tree huggers are making it much harder to be environmental flunkies. There are a lot of initiatives and organizations that promote environmentally-conscious living, and it is actually quite easy to be informed in Ashevegas — if you are so inclined — which is probably why I always feel like I’m not doing enough; which I’m clearly not. And unless you live in an ecovillage like Earthaven, you probably aren’t curbing your carbon, Sasquatch footprint either.
We have an alternative weekly news and entertainment paper here called Mountain Xpress, which makes it pretty easy to keep in touch with what’s going on, not only with the green scene itself, but any other wacky things shaking out, like polar bears — people dressed like polar bears of course — protesting in the park, flanked by police in riot gear. Those things annoy some people. But I’m a pretty twisted individual, and ever since I became a Howard Zinn fan, I guess I like the drama from some good, old-fashioned civil disobedience.
Sometimes there are funny, heated debates about global warming — and just about any other social conundrum — in some of the blogs at the MountainX, which on occasion, end in an overly-pretentious conclusion of “my Logic 101 professor can beat up your Logic 101 professor.” When I’m really bored, I can’t get enough of it. And it always makes me happy to see folks get skewered in the Asheville Disclaimer – the finest real fake news in all the land — a publication I would never think of contributing to — ever.
I’m greatly amused that I hang out with hippies, borderline anarchists, gays, lesbians, Latinos, Nascar fans, old people, and funny talkers like my friend, who still can’t say the word convention without a crazy southern accent.
So I’m wondering if all of these folks can change the world. It’s tough to change our habits, especially when it can be inconvenient to be environmentally friendly. But I’m one of those misguided people who thinks a little bit is better than nothing. I’m generally optimistic, also a cranky, old bastard at times, and as of recently, I’ve been called everything from a hypocrite to a moron to well … perhaps downright stupid. Good thing I don’t take myself too seriously, and neither should you.
I have a friend — we’ll call Arnold to protect his identity — who says most people really aren’t that far apart on most issues. I agree with him to an extent, and I think this is definitely one of those issues. We all just want to get the girl, save the world, walk off into the sunset, and pray that we didn’t screw up too bad in the end.
I try to do my part with the basics of recycling at home, using compact flourescent light bulbs, taking my own bags to the grocery store, trying to buy used stuff, and at least thinking about the effects of what I do, something I would have never thought of 8 years ago before I moved to the Blue Ridge Mountains. Even then, I still drive too much.
Every once in a while, I go to Sustainable Asheville events so I can feel really depressed after watching documentaries like What a Way to Go: Life at End of Empire. (I highly recommend seeing this if you want a thick, heaping helping of reality, but keep the suicide hotline on speed dial because it is much worse than anything Al Gore could drum up to make you feel like a total craphead planet wrecker.) You can also turn on Democracy Now with Amy Goodman, which has its share of global warming propaganda, and usually, very thought-provoking guests — if you’re into that kind of real, menacing, conspiratorial news — like I am sometimes. If you’re a Fox News junkie, I suggest you stay away from this one.
All of these doom-and-gloom documentaries and programs are great for reminding us of our imminent implosion. But if you really want to get your Apocalyptic freak on, I suggest going to the dump two times a year. It was a good summer vacation in ‘07.
Life was a lot simpler in Asheville when I was sitting around a stranger’s house at 2:00 a.m., surrounded by a room full of empty beer bottles and a bluegrass jam, trying to pick up a girl with a nastily-stained white t-shirt.
“Life is complicated
It’s wearin’ my ass out
Seems like I spend half my time
Wondering what the hell somebody’s talking about
They always think I’ll understand ‘em
Better if they shout
Sometimes I just can’t believe
How much there is out there to doubt”
Tags: Al Gore, Amy Goodman, An Inconvenient Truth, Asheville Disclaimer, Asheville NC, Blue Ridge Mountains, civil disobedience, Climate change, Democracy Now, Earthaven, ecovillage, environmental activism, global warming, green living, Howard Zinn, I Want a Cigarette, mass extinction, Mountain Xpress, mountaintop removal, Peak Oil, population overshoot, Sally Erickson, Southeast Convergence for Climate Action, sustainability, Sustainable Asheville, sustainable living, There I Said It!, Tim Bennett, Western North Carolina, What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire
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ConVINTUN!
Damn you to hell you hippy freak!
But I still love you
Comment by Crazy Friend on May 20, 2008
And I love when you talk dirty …
Comment by Den Cotton on May 21, 2008