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bury me 'neath the willow treeNone of my friends died, that I know of, this week. Can I get a Booyah! But my research about human body composting has led me to a fascinating potential trip to Sweden. This chick there has been working for over 15 years on a technology to freeze-dry, shatter into a million bits, then compost humans. Oh yeah, picture your freeze-dried friend like a pinata at the wake. No, that's not what she has in mind at all, that's strictly from the mixed-up mind of yours truly. Ponder.
Listening to: Standing in the Shadows of Love, Temptations Reading: Grave Matters: A Journey Through the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial Weather: 32, snowing slush Wait, you're not familiar with my current human composting obsession? Quick synopsis, I want to buy a farm in Preston County WV, make it into a natural burial ground, offer to bury (shallowly) humans there for cheap, no embalming, no caskets, no headstones, big pavilion, house band, all night wakes: Cool Cat's Dead Hippie Hole. That's just a working name, but that's the idea for real. Why? 1. I think the funeral industry is largely a scam from start to finish, exploiting mourning loved ones ("here's our cheapest casket package, but if you REALLY loved Nana . . .") and selling bullshit (embalming and steel caskets don't preserve, they anaerobically liquify the contents), 2. it's prohibitively expensive for poor families to bury their dead (ie. it costs $1000 just to "open the grave," I can rent a backhoe and dig 8 holes in a day for $150), 3. we're pushing living humans out of good space to make room for liquifying dead humans in perpetuity at an alarming rate, 5. jesus and his posse have totally cornered the funeral market, and if I hear one more irrelevant bible verse from a robed dude who never even met my dead friend, I'm going to start scaring the children, 4. I came in naturally, I want to go out that way, leaving hardly a trace but just a little good fertilizer for something cool to grow that future generations can enjoy like a flowering shrub or perhaps an apple tree (I know, you're already writing the "eat me" jokes in your head). And a bunch more reasons, those are just the biggies.
So shall I reserve you a nice leafy corner of the Hippie Hole? Seriously, I want to be part of creating a meaningful way for folks to celebrate the lives of their dead loved ones and naturally affordably dispose of their bodies.
Hence my current fascination with human decay. One cool aspect of the freeze-dry and shatter method is it's easy to remove toxic heavy metals like mercury from your fillings and surgical screws and whatnot. This is a particular problem in cremation, mercury vaporizing and going up the stack into the neighborhood air. And cremation, my formerly preferred way to go, also requires a hefty chunk of energy usage and creates substantial air pollution in addition to the mercury. And it's expensive, though less so than casket burial. There are lots of charlatans in that industry, too, btw.
When I die, please let the wild rumpus begin. A few years later come back and enjoy a nice shady woodland walk where I was naturally buried. Have an apple.
permalink posted by cat 8:17 AM
tom rodd
What a most wonderful idea. I hope you take it to fruition.
deathwatch 2010 continuesYesterday's morning news delivered up another one. A client of mine died in a housefire.
Listening to: news Reading: Mike Breiding's roadblog Weather: 25, dark There's plenty to be depressed about in the news, between politics, earthquakes, and death. Think I'll consider morning cartoons tomorrow instead. When I was a kid cartoon Speedracer came on right after non-cartoon Ultraman.
permalink posted by cat 6:44 AM
so much for Ted Kennedy's legacyI'm trying to avoid this becoming Cat's Deathblog. Just saw on the news that one of my clients died in a fire last night. I can't decide if people around me are dropping like flies, or if that's all I blog about. So in case it's the latter, something over which I can exert some control, here's a post about something other than the freshly dead in my world.
Listening to: news Reading: stuff Weather: 30ish I can't believe a frickin Republican won the special election for Ted Kennedy's seat. Oh wait, that's about another dead person. Dangit. But seriously, I woke up strangely early this morning, turned on MSNBC to see that blithering teabag idiot's acceptance speech. In the 5 minutes I could stomach he offered up his daughters to whatever takers, made some snied remark about how he called up the President and offered to drive his truck to the White House so he could see it, and generally babbled on about American Idol. I'm quite serious, rewind and watch it yerself.
Politics is getting depressing. This healthcare bill has some groovy stuff in it but it will superscrew moderately low-income folks in a brand new devastating way. If you can't afford health insurance, which you can't because they built in NO cost controls (that was the real purpose of the public option, you know, not some great commie invention, just forcing premium prices down with a profit-free choice in the mix), you'll get a federal tax penalty. When you owe the IRS that shit haunts you forever, and it's one of the few debts that will come right out of your Social Security, if you're ever lucky enough to collect some. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, no trial, no due process, your check is just instantly smaller. Cha-ching, the insurance companies' record profits will continue into the foreseeable future.
So maybe I should be glad the Senate Dems lost their megamajority by losing Massachusetts. Let's just hope the yammering new Senator won't ever be in a position to filibuster, who could take hours of American Idol commentary on CSPAN.
permalink posted by cat 5:59 AM
lost 2 more friendsI went to Jamie Veltri's funeral and wake today. The funeral was just another in a long series of extremely unsatisfying funerals I have been to lately. Copious bible reading, nothing relevant or real or about the man. But the wake was cool, back at Jamie's house, the house he grew up in, still decorated like his mama Sundae left it decades ago. Handpainted florals in pictureframe molding on the plaster walls and even on the ceilings. Very Italian. Kitchen unchanged since the 50's except perhaps for the addition of a microwave and automatic drip coffee pot exchanged for the old percolator.
Listening to: a barking dog out my office window Reading: Stiff Weather: 36, overcast Jamie was my next-door neighbor when we lived at 245 Kingwood Street back when Livi was a toddler. Jamie was 53 when he died last weekend, so back in the mid-90's when we lived there he would have been in his late 30's. He had schizophrenia. He was a very likeable and happy big guy with a huge laugh. He did that rhyming/singsongy thing that is apparently common among schizophrenics. It was delightful, especially to a little toddler. Liv adored Jamie. They would sit on Jamie's porch swing together and hang out.
When Jamie's dad Joe died several years ago I worried about what might become of Jamie. He was a generous man who loved company, and he always had weed, so he would occasionally attract some unsavory vultures around the first week of the month. I moved way out of town and got busy with life, I didn't go around and hang out with him like I should have, especially that first week of the month, so the vultures knew he had good friends. But he had plenty of better friends than me, thank goodness, and people watched out for him.
Sometimes he'd tell me some fairly elaborate stories about how he was really not Joe's child, he was born in NYC, and was brought down to WV in a long black limousine, part of some very secret government project. It involved Interpol.
Jamie played poker with his buddies on Wednesday nights, and he was just fine at last week's game, according to Al. He went into the hospital on Friday and died on Saturday, sounds like a pretty mercifully short decline. I'm glad he didn't have a protracted suffering. He'll be missed by many folks around Morgantown, a place he very rarely ever left. Hell, he rarely left his own house. But he made many connections between people, and was happy to befriend some folks who were not your ordinary people. He was a good guy, I'll miss him.
And also this week another one-of-a-kind groovy dude I knew died. Stuart McGehee, passionate professor and evangelist of coalfield history, connoisseur of craft beer, and frontman for the fine electric psychedelic blues band The Bluestone Wildcats, shot himself. He apparently had a wicked advanced cancer that doomed him to a short miserable future. He chose not to live that future.
The Wildcats provided celebratory music for the culmination of the Bramwell Oktoberfest for the past many years. Stuart and I poured beer last year at Station 4 together. He seemed to be loving life, schmoozing the festers, giving generous pours to the ladies, glibly offering testimony about the huge list of beers at our station, and generally celebrating the fine beer bounty with the crowd. He was in his element. And it's not just sweetened hindsight that the band was just on freakin fire last year. I remember feeling downright tribal around the fire during their pounding rendition of Bob Marley's Exodus.
We come, we go. Let's ride the wheels off.
permalink posted by cat 4:59 PM
I'm sorry about your friend though.
winter wonderland
permalink posted by cat 10:04 AM
spontaneous sparklesWhen it's 5 degrees and sunny the air is littered with random spontaneous sparkles. It's such a trip. And the perfect reward for enduring this wicked winter, thus far.
Listening to: Respect,Aretha Franklin Reading: Stiff and stuff Weather: 5! sunny and snowcovered, wonderland It's been like groundhog day here all year. Every morning I wake up and it's 16 degrees and snowing from a leaden sky and there's 6 new inches of snow on my 125 foot driveway. Today was a welcome departure, 9 degrees when I awoke, now down to 5, but sunny and sparkly. Sweet!
And my sweet and wonderful neighbor just ran his little 4 wheeler with a bucket on the front up my driveway several times, so I suspect I can actually break out of here today! I'm aiming for the monthly Haymond Community Center dinner around noon.
permalink posted by cat 9:51 AM
Castlevania Rebirth for the Wii. Weeeeeeeee!I know vampires are tragically hip these days. But honestly my glee at the release of the new Wii game Castlevania Rebirth has nothing to do with the Twilight franchise.
Listening to: TWiT Reading: stuff Weather: 13, snowy I generally suck at video games. I've tried a few of the driving/racing type games, I'm laughably bad. I've tried the killing games, the only ones I ever liked were the zombie variety, cuz they are slow enough for even me to kill. And I kinda like zombies generally. But even back in the arcade days I didn't play much or like many of the games out there. I liked Crystal Castles and Tron, that's about it.
But when Liv got a PlayStation2 when she was in middle school my bud Spud suggested we try Castlevania. There were several different ones, we just haphazardly picked up the one called Symphony of the Night. And frickin loved it! Loved the music, loved the easy old-school side-scrolling gameplay, loved the notion of scavenging for magical items and figuring out what cool surprising ways they worked in conjunction with other items. And it's vampirey, bonus.
But the PS2 croaked years ago and there's never been a Castlevania for the Wii until now (excluding a few of the old ones which required the purchase of an old school controller to add to the Wii gear). And as cool as the Wii technology is I'm not huge on the sporty games that came with it, and I'm too cheap to buy/try many other games. I did by a Brain Games for $5, and it's OK.
But how sweet is it that we have a 4 day weekend, it's frigid and snowy, and a new Castlevania for the Wii came out that is downloadable from the Wii store?!!?! Freakin supersweet, that's how sweet. Still oldschool scrolling. Use the nunchuk. You can attack with a flick of the wrist, or a button if you prefer. Familiar style of castle and critters and whatnot.
Not as infinitely groovy as SOTN, however. No map to periodically consult and fully explore. No sack of badass objects to collect and use. No ability to save and come back, you have to actually start at the beginning every time, yowch. But still, I'm having a pretty fun timing playing it this snowy new year.
permalink posted by cat 1:42 PM
Keith Pitzer was a beautiful dudeHe was a serious musician, a serious person, but warm and friendly and quick to smile. Both hard and soft.
Listening to: Warmth of the Sun, Brian Wilson Reading: Stiff Weather: 14, up from 0! I admit I have the tendency to quietly make fun of the serious folk songwriter types. I secretly call them folk nazis. You know the kind, they start picking the song's intro and start talking over it, explaining what it's about or why they wrote it, or tell some anecdote about it peppered with clever wordplay that seems less clever everytime you hear the same canned intro. They disdain all drums that aren't handdrums, with the single exception of the revered bodhran. They write about serious things. They don't like when you talk during the show, because every word and every riff is important.
But I admit that part of why I make fun of them is because I'm jealous of their tenacity and perseverance and dedication to something they know without doubt. I'm a cover musician with a sweet tooth for shiny sweet pop. It's the opposite of serious. Don't worry if you're talking through it, that chorus will come around again. So will that essential riff or that magic chord. I joke about folksters who demand you take them as seriously as they take themselves, but honestly, I'm damn impressed by people who have the courage to lay themselves out there like that. If you encourage your audience to assume that every note is critical you are inviting listeners to listen to your delivery of every note. And every note has a beginning, a middle, and an end, and potentially all kinds of nuance throughout.
So you better deliver. Talk about pressure. And this pressure is totally self-imposed with these cats. The happy pop cover artist can squonk a pretty high percent of notes as she provides musical wallpaper in a noisy bar. The serious folky songwriters don't give themselves that luxury.
Keith was that guy. And he delivered time and time again. His songs really capture places and people and consciousness. He wrote about questions and didn't offer simple answers. His songs aren't just poetry over chords. He actually did take every note seriously, but that's what made his performances so compelling. Not every song is all serious, I'm thinking about Home Ranger, a sweet song of childhood perceptions. But even that song has a kind of weight to it.
His guitarplaying was a delight to watch and hear. He could hold up slow, something many acoustic players can't really get away with, but he could rip out a blazing riff with every note clear and essential. He had a deep understanding of the uniquely delicious qualities of acoustic guitar, and he incorporated those into his tunes in such a way that you couldn't imagine them played on any other instrument. His voice was luscious, controlled but expressive, strong and gentle. And complemented beautifully by his partner Joan.
That's an important piece of this picture, too, this partnership of Keith and Joan. Married for, I don't know, 25 years? 30 years? Kids, grandkids. A country home that they worked together to make and keep. And musically a really beautiful duo. I love the acoustic duo, it's my very favorite ensemble, and this was one of my absolute favorite duos to watch and listen to. Their arrangements are so clean and clear, so well-executed, dynamic, solid, beautiful. Just exactly enough room for each player/singer. The sound of their voices together was so satisfying, like watching a couple dancing together in the graceful steps they've rehearsed together too many times to count. Rare quality.
Tomorrow night, the last night of the year, there's a blue moon, kinda rare and little magical. There's always the looking back. Lots has happened this year, like every year. Keith's death is sad for me and so many others, but it's not hard for me to smile thinking about all those great nights with Keith and Joan at the Digital Domain, hot sweaty days at CheatFest, shows at Monroe's. The river is cleaner and the mountains have a chance because of his serious concern for the earth. Once in a blue moon I get to enjoy the company and music of somebody like Keith, and I'm feeling lucky to have had the chance.
permalink posted by cat 10:32 AM
Another friend of mine has died Just when the turning of the wheel is prominent in my thoughts, this day after solstice, I get word that a beautiful friend of mine has died. It's another reminder of what a speck in the abyss each life is. I can't believe the great fortune I have to live in this place in this time, to get to intersect with your place and time. The consciousness of each friend I've had the privilege of being with just keeps on keeping on in some ways. It's nature's way.
permalink posted by cat 11:16 AM
Axial tilt is the reason for the seasonHappy solstice! Happy indeed. The daylight starts getting longer today, thankfully. Though we had a foot snowstorm this weekend we've really had a pretty reasonable season so far. And hell, the drive-in will be open in 4 months. I can handle just about whatever wintry stuff earth wants to throw at me for just 3 or 4 months. There have certainly been years when it started snowing in October and didn't quit til April.
Listening to: Terry Reid Reading: Stiff Weather: 22, foot o'snow on the ground But dangit the snow did hang me up. I was all ready to go to Jim K's solstice shindig and hootenanny last night, but the roads held me back. I even baked a couple of venison pot pies and cleaned a pomegranate for the adventure. But the roads were ridiculously sketchy, some places fine some places just absurd. So I chose instead of pick up livi and come home and watch Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys with her. Sweet solstice celebration anyhoo. But shitloads of venison pot pie to eat, and liv's a veg so it's up to me.
Nonsequitor, I saw some groovy indie, local, and foreign films at the first annual Pare Lorentz Film Festival in Clarksburg the weekend before last. It was at the Waldomore mansion, right next to the public library in downtown. A local filmmaker, Bob Wilkonson, screened his recent work Adopt a Jesus and stayed for Q&A. I dug it. It was really fun, I can't wait til next year. My friend Brice Kennedy screened his feature-length film of clips from his public access comedy TV show that weekend, too. It was delightful, very funny, and a fun premiere to attend, complete with free beer and pizza.
permalink posted by cat 6:51 PM
weather actually matters around here, it's not just small talkA beautiful 4 inch wet snow yesterday. Almost entirely unprognisticated by my usually- frustrating local weather guy Josh Fosbrink. He's the same one who virtually never uses the word "precipitation," preferring instead to inaccurately use the word "moisture"daily. I'll spare you the numerous other examples of his amateurish approach to weather forecasting. Except this one: on Friday morning he said something like (I'm very loosely quoting) "maybe we'll see a little snow on Saturday." No mention at all of accumulation. No mention Of the huge snow/rain event going up the Atlantic coast mere hours later. Larry called while I was still watching Josh's forecast to say we should start making snow-contingent driving plans for the WVU bball game which would tip off at 7p Saturday. He said it looked like we could get something like 6 inches of wet snow. I thought he was being alarmist or at least dramatic until I flipped to the weather channel and saw the big picture of what lay ahead. It took basically no weather eduation or knowledge to see we would obviously be on the western edge of dumping accumulating snow. Of course on the edge it is not easy to predict exactly how much snow, but ridiculously easy to predict that we will get some number of inches and to at least frickin mention that we are on the edge of the east's first significant snowstorm this season. So we timed our driving right, no thanks to Josh, who did little more than read the current temperatures around the state, as usual.
Listening to: TWiT Reading: Stiff Weather: 18! Sunny, snowy, sparkly And such a lovely snow it was and is, sparkly in this morning stark sub-20 degree sunshine. Dazzling.
permalink posted by cat 9:48 AM
home improvement no longer just crack for the middle classDude, you want this. Santa wants you to have this. The perfect xmas gift for the gadget whore.
Listening to: stuff Reading: Stiff Weather: cold
permalink posted by cat 12:44 PM
not a fan of the holidaysIt's no secret. This time of year is not fave. I dig most of the seasonal changes we get to experience on this lil corner of this lil planet. But just after the leaves have fallen a little dread starts to creep into my psyche. The freakin holidays.
Listening to: CSNY Reading: Stiff Weather: 42, overcast Bah freakin humbug. It's complicated. There are so many expectations, many of which are just unreasonable or unrealistic, and destined to be dashed. I'm generally not a fan of doing the expected, so i'm starting the whole shebang off on the wrong foot. And of course there's all the stress of enforced family interaction. And the annual resurrection of the greeting word-choice battle that simultaneously bores and annoys me.
Plus I'm starting to wonder if the decreasing daylight is fucking with my mind, too. I know that sounds a little too Oprah but I'm feeling uncharacteristically negative these days, and S.A.D. seems like a convenient culprit. This sucks, that sucks, and bla bla bla.
I'm also feeling unusually restless. wtf? I'm sure Livi having moved into the dorm and leaving my nest empty is a big factor, too.
Of course I have tons for which to be thankful, and I'm appropriately grateful and whatnot. But I think I'm grateful most of all for the earth's tilt and revolution around the sun, since that guarantees longer daylight and a post-xmas new year in my near future. frickin sweet.
permalink posted by cat 8:38 AM
I See Dead Frickin Peoplethere's been a rash of dead body discoveries round here lately. one found in a parked truck, one found in the woods by the mall (near Lawless road, heheh), one in someone's yard (turned out to be a bearleg).
Listening to: High Winds, White Sky, Bruce Cockburn Reading: Stiff Weather: 40, some sun? is it a Strange increase in bodies or just an increase in bodies press or my heightened bodies awareness? See, I'm reading Stiff in part as entrepreneurial research. I want to create a natural green burial ground. Big pavillion, house band, all night wakes, no stones, no caskets, no embalming, tiedye shrouds. Cool Cat's Hippie Hole. more on this later. meanwhile, is it cold in here, or is it just me?
permalink posted by cat 7:02 AM
time for a rational national drug policyJaycee Dugard's captor Philip Garrido was on parole as a sex offender, a form of supervised release, for 10 of the 18 years she was living in a fucking tent city in his backyard. It stank so bad in Anthony Sowell's Cleveland neighborhood from decaying murdered bodies that his neighbors avoided hanging out outside. He was a sex offender who had been on supervised release since 2005.
Listening to: Walter Reed, Michael Penn Reading: Stiff Weather: 29, sun coming up How hard is it to figure out that these creeps are seriously dangerous and should be a high priority for monitoring and supervision in the criminal justice system? It's not. The excuse will be given repeatedly, the probation officers are overloaded with too many cases, they don't have the time and resources to do what it takes to keep these obvious recidivists from killing and kidnapping more of us.
State prisons nationwide are full of drug offenders, many of whom committed no crime other than drug violations. Probation officers have huge caseloads full of people whose only crime was drug-related. No violence. No harming other people. Just using or growing or selling drugs to other adults.
You do drugs everyday. You drink caffeine, a drug that even at moderate levels of consumption impairs driving and high levels seriously impairs driving. You endanger me when you drive after your 3rd cup. You take a pill whenever you feel _____________________ (fill in the blank, it's an interactive post today). Those pills are probably damaging your liver, kidneys, perhaps causing a cascading need for you to take yet other drugs, "my heart pill makes me need my blood pressure pill which makes me need my water pill which makes me need my. . ." Yeah, even your habitual acetaminophin use. You drink beer, wine, distilled spirits, all of which are at the heart of lots of family violence, deteriorating health, and deadly impaired driving. Your sugar intake is atrocious, definitely damaging various organ systems and causing your mood swings and periodic depression and hyperactivity.
Did I miss your drug of choice?
Here begins the real rant: You can overdose on WATER but you can't overdose on marijuana. It's a plant. They call it "weed" cuz it's a frickin WEED, it grows virtually anywhere with very few pests other than the DEA and the local overzealous gun-toting town cop. Your tax dollars pay for absurd levels of law enforcement devoted to trying to incarcerate 1/3 of the population, that's how many smoke pot. It's as futile as trying to eradicate the dandelion and just about as sensible.
Probation officers (and cops, judges, prosecutors, jailers, etc.) need to have enough time to smell and investigate the rotting flesh at Anthony Sowell's house. They need to go see Philip Garrido's kidnapping and rape compound right in his backyard. They can't do that because of all the responsible adult potsmokers they have to check on everyday because of this stupid futile dangerous and failed drug war. Let's use reason and eliminate the criminalization of victimless pot smoking. Just say Know.
permalink posted by cat 7:18 AM