Stalking the Shadows-The method of my madness

[shadowknows69]

Let me unpeel the layers of my life for you. If the Shadow knows what lies in men’s hearts then it’s only fair that you do too.

A simple small chapter in a greater tale that may or may not be finished by me, but a moment in the grand story which we all write in any respect.

I wish to muse on the events that may have carried my mind to its current “interesting” state. I say interesting as in “may you live in interesting times” interesting, and indeed don’t we? I was always baffled as to why this was considered a curse, of oriental origins if my memory serves me, but how could there be anything but entertainment in anything deemed “interesting?” Surely all but the most blind among us know the dreadful answer to that by now.

We’ll keep this part of the autobiography short and in the recent past for the sake of space and reader patience.

I knew we were headed for trouble when the GOP picked the son of a President WE VOTED OUT to be their candidate. To be frank I was not a fan of the Clinton administration. Yes we had more prosperous times at the time, but like in the 80’s that made us lazy and some huge mistakes were allowed as well. Not the least of which was Monicagate which unleashed the once tamed beast called yellow journalism upon the world like never before. The slide has been downhill ever since and with increasing velocity.

At the time of the “selection” I had been on the air for several years as the main fill in for vacationing DJ’s and eventually my own slot from 6p-12a. I had a lot of freedom. Probably more than most smaller market jocks do these days as I had some features in my show where I was able to program a lot of my own music. I’m really surprised I didn’t get into trouble more and I hope it doesn’t mean I had a really low listenership. The bullshit ratings said otherwise as I was consistently in the top three for the night shift. I pushed the envelope as much as I could. I’d point out obscure birthdays and deaths in history. Steven Biko, Che, Jerry Garcia, ok he wasn’t that controversial on our station but you get the point. I used to pretty much openly admit to my pot use through innuendo and openly wished my pagan brothers and sisters bright blessings on the solstices and equinoxes.

I have always voted as my civic duty but by 2000 I was nearly apolitical. I really wasn’t impressed with Gore as our candidate but I was stunned that the GOP had picked Bush over some of the more qualified members of the republic party. Yes friends I almost would have voted for McCain but I put it to you that we still wouldn’t be this bad off. I realize now he’s an insane warmonger like the rest of them. The only attraction McCain ever had for me was that he had experienced combat so he might not be so quick to put our troops into it. I’m quite sure that would have been proven to be a false hope eventually in hindsight.

As I said I spoke out about my politics to my couple thousand listeners or so and got some good feedback, but I was supposed to entertain so most of my ramblings were from my vast vault of useless rock trivia that I can’t even delete from my head now that I’m not being paid to know it.

I called George W Bush though. I knew we were in for bad times. I knew Clinton’s “Bridge to the 21st Century” would somehow collapse under this dolt who acted like “little Reagan” with his cowboy swagger. I said to my listeners that I knew we’d be in a war within his first term and it would probably be some folly to finish his daddy’s war. A Greek tragedy writer couldn’t craft this shit any better could they?

“The Selection.” I think that’s when I finally started losing my mind to what was going on in the world. I admit I’d been comfortable and enjoying fully my quasi-celebrity status at times and was not paying attention to the minutiae of our country’s workings but this was a shadow across our nation and I felt its chill.

“All I want for Christmas is to know who my President is. I don’t even care who it is anymore” I said that on the air near the end of the whole shitty mess. I felt we were already crossing some bizarre boundary into the twilight zone and being an avid fan of the weird I thought I’d be ready for that but I wasn’t. None of us were.

That’s how enough people finally stopped caring that we had a constitutional crisis going on. Pure frustration and I’m sure it was ten times that much hell for Mr. Gore. History tells us he should have fought harder perhaps or maybe we should have had the nearly inevitable Civil War II right then and been done with it. I don’t know about any of you but I sailed past frustrated a few years back. About 2004 when I joined this board was my tipping point really. Now I’m mad, and a little crazy and a lot hopeless. If there are a lot of me out there and these thugs in power keep their shit up things could get even weirder. I’m off to bone up on my Rod Serling. Until next time
S

[hermetic]

1. Well put

And I know there are a lot of "you" out there, I just fear there aren't near enough to make a difference. After seeing what just happened in Burma, I have a vision of what it may soon be like here.
Thousands of you might just "disappear". (Nothing left but shadows, hmmmm.)

I decided to just get as far out of the way as possible, and stock up on dried beans and rice. Because I can't decide which is a worse vision of the future. That things will continue being run by the same kind of people with the same M.O. Of that there must be some huge conflagration. A true miracle would be required for all the ptb to suddenly just decide to play nice and give peace a chance.

Bummer.

[Prophet 451]

2. Always good to hear from you

I have to agree, there is something about the story of Poppy, Cheney and W which is almost reminiscent of the Greek tragedies. Not exactly oedipal but close. Actually, forget the play, it'd make a good opera. All the arrogance and scheming and duplicity, all the weight of expectation, blood, war, and finally (hopefully) the ignoble exit.

Actually, tell you what it reminds me of. Ever watch Babylon 5? Think of President Clark toward the end of season four: Alliance closing in on him, underlings in open rebellion, all the scheming and rumourmongering come to naught, Morden (played here by Dick Cheney) holding his strings, finally electing to end himself and the planet as one but holding on to just enough honour to tip his hand; "we cannot turn to left nor right but bear-like, we must fight the course". If he hadn't been such a stupid cuss, one could almost feel sorry for him. Almost.

Have a rec, Shadow, and watch the skies.

[shadowknows69]

3. Always good to hear from you too Prophet and enufalready

thanks for the kick. oops did I kick it too? silly me. didn't mean to. B-)