800 miles. 7 critters. No white crosses....

The times they are a changin'.

More from America in spring.

Edit check below tomorrow ...thanks!

Hey all you fine teamsters...& non-union boys, too..

Howdy. Miniature convoy here....Unexpected arrival of 3 dogs & all 4 cats while I take the truck to LA.

Hard to fathom the change in a few, but I wouldn't write us off too fast. Just yet.

Please pass this along...Seems I'm going to lose some horses if I don't pony up - oops. That's my sales pitch - put me in coCh(es)

Now then. You can write brettbutler@gmail.com .

If it's real, we'll both be glad.

Reckon I can mention the,recurring - small, y'all - part on Charlie Sheen's new show. Very glad to be there. The writer's a fine one -Actually, maybe it'll be that I could save these horses after all.


Right now - short of Mobile - wave,honk or holler.


Kitties are crying and long way to go. Trying for "man time" but not sure we'll find a manger.

It's all good. Started few days ago.
Missing family & friends already

Hey. Save your money kids...
Sae your pets,too. Not like folks who hate people, though. That's as crazy as -well,theother kind.

Such a short ride. See what maguc,happens en route.
Please use the address I posted here. And keep writing please. Bye for now

Thanks.


="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbid

Mobile Charlotte's web. BE with us. And thank you. More on VOC>

Alaska State Troopers: Qualities of Mercy

Blogger's Caveat:  After eschewing television for a few years, our tube-weaned eyeballs are once again fixed upon that centrally located glowing box - okay, the other one, besides this one, which makes this transmisson possible.  Now and from time to time, I'll post mini-reviews in a kind of web esperanto.  I shall try to give credit where it's due and, failing that, will apologize - today, actually - when I don't recall the network which airs the show in question.. But if your cache history's like mine, there are plenty of searches for things more frivolous than this)

                                                          ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When I was around ten years-old, I asked my mother why anyone would want to live where it is very cold.  She thought for a moment and said, 'Because it's peaceful.  You only hear about revolutions where it's hot.'
It made immediate sense.  (Of course, I still love that it never occurs to her to attach ethnic significance to georgraphical tendencies, if, indeed, they exist.  That's why generalizations are such dangerous things.  In the hands/mouths of the unkind, fights get started.)  

Sense or not, could that be true?  My surname's Anderson - a pretty much a Norse-ish tribe.   Hell, my daddy and his daddy were both named Roland.  As the eldest child, I',m ever thankful  to've been born a split-tail.   I was so happy, too, finding that there were "Swedenavians" in my family tree. All the rest were English, Scottish, Irish and Welsh. It might say 'variety' on the package, but it's still a box of crackers. 

Testing Mother's theory in my genetic hard-drive, I easily imagined  my fuzzy foredaddies pulling pointy things from their translucent fannies -  "Ow! He loves me not!" - while easing on out of the continental fray. 
As if an entire region/clan hollering for the taxi of desperation. 

Did they run to escape the strife, Or was their sudden longevity inadvertent,a  rookie explorer's good news/bad news?  (We were Andersons not Amundson.)  Did everyone take a summer hike to the cool mountain lakes, onlly to be caught in an early frost?  As they perfected the icy caucasian glares, perhaps one of them noticed the utter quet of it all. 

'What's that noise?  What noise?  That one. Ooooh.  I don't knooow

And there they stayed. No need to have a vote.  Simple.  Hos,  igloos and frostbite up.  Pimps, pillaging
and banana republicans down.  Maybe that's why I was curious.  About....

ALASKA  STATE TROOPERS

Alaska State Troopers are adorable.  The show ain't bad, either.  And I am eager to see if any other viewers noticed a paucity of shame when compared to watching another 'real' show about patrolling law enforcement.   (What am I saying??  Next to 'Storage Warns', AST is a downright highbrow.) 

Okay.  I have a NYC Yellow Pages size list of guilty pleasures.   And the second most thumbed through section is - shutuuuup - is Cop show.   Dress it up and call it whatever you want. I have always liked the shows,though, and never was hot for the ,law.  Not in uniform, anyway.  But lately,on other programs which feature new homicide investigations, I've seen some men who make me want to buy a donut shop and new panties. 

Im a middle aged liberal white chick.  WTF.  I am probably not their target audience, either.  The odd effect of ASTis real, nonetheless.  I've just plain foud a new sexy.  Heavily armed men in near arctic realms with
an Andy Griffith  respect that isn't forced, fake or gelatinous.  (A pox on squidgy faux polite ones.  Ahem.)

These guys are often calm and/or bemused at times many other very reasonable and experienced officers might be yanking the bolt action from beneath the back seat. Look I am not saying it's Lake Wobegone with lax front gates - but it kind of is.  If you haven't seen this reality show, be advised:  it's not like the other kids.   Thornton Wilder could've been on staff.  As it is, this is a show that gives one hope.  A Norman Rockwellian cop show - panoramic both scope and in intent.

Every cop show has a chase reel.    Half of the cities newscasts probably have them on demand.
In this, our chosen show toes a newl ine.  Our Juneau based trooper races to converge with  peers as they try the usual traps for suspect stoppage.  (My pretend cop term.)  Our suspect, this most unwise citizen, attempts to elude several branches of Alaska's law enforcement officers.  Although our 49th state has plenty of running room - her terrain is fierce and vanquishing.  And, very unlike the mainland, most of the cops there don't have anything else to do but hunt your ass down, son.  (By telling these things, perhaps, maybe I can help curb a potential migration of dangerous shitheads to this fair land, groovy.

Regional accents on the police radio notwithstanding,  most cop chases are the same.  The endings are even desultory-  either way.  A recent,  pesky concern for public safety has almost rendered chases obselete.  Dammit.  I mean, great.  At least the broadcasted variety.   When we do get to see them end, whatever ire I had experienced only moments mostly sputters down to  mumbled wondering, "... made em think, mumble mumble,they could get away with it"..., etc. 

There is a vital ingredient that all the participants share.. Not only on cop s hows,  Watch Jersey Shore or Regis.  Watch tv and pick out the display of Adrenaline.  Iit courses though the veins of the active participants but  then,by proxy okay and maybe ,even empathy, to us.  Really,  We share adrenaline.  We.  The Home Voyeur.  I mean the Home Viewer.   How adrenaline's savored, meted out or contained has a critical funcition in the story.  Let us not minimize its potential.  Unbound, it's as lethal as 100 mph metal vehicles driven by crackheads.   Even as scary as a conversation between sub-automatic weapons.

Once the wheels stop rolling,the scary part's supposed to be over.  But this is where it often begins.
Good days:  handcuffs, a bit of swearing,even  a kicked windshield and a booking.  Bad endings can
be unique.  When fight or flight chemicals overdose the end game can be like that SF vallley bank robbery in the 90s - thousands of fired rounds, several casualties and years to figure out what happened.  and even a good bad ending ends in federal civil rights trials and shattered ear drums.

See we're very American.  We like to watch violence but if it's righteous and permissable, we almost require it.  On Alaska State Troopers, though,  unlike the fake opera of pro wrestling which functions
as an agreement nbetween audience and players:  we need big movement, dark blood and staged rage to sate our personal and collective fantasies for revenge and even for noble urge.  Oh yeah and to avenge some things.  So please do a big show with modern prop.. We crave bold disguises and we give you, in return, our heartiest applause and this...we shall be bad actors, too, and create the impression that we believe you. 

Individually, no matter how one may insist that Bill Moyers is best television and  even if we lament daily availability of Maspterpiece Theatreas, I do believe that some of us doth protesedt too much.. I will confess:
that the'teflective, trenchant refrain m my own soul-searched- to-the point-of-distraction noggin is  What are those cops gonna do to that dumb bastard?? 

As to this particular episode of 'Alaska State Troopers', maybe one day you'l find out./
Unless you are Amish (bad Amish, bad, blog reading bad badI can promise that the ending will defy any expectiation, however benign, you have for this interaction.  Now, with shockingly uncharacteristic restraint, I end both the review and this post, except for one sincere suggestion made mostly  in  earnest....

To Whom it May Concern;

If and when you decide to flee the contiguous 48  for the purpose of evading other jurisdictions for egregious acts necessitating the pursuit of law enforcement, then for the love of God and Oits Campbell, please go to Alaska. 

Luddites & Outrage: Uninstalled or How I Am the Lipozene Woman

When I heard about cutting, I was perplexed and mortified. .  Then, in some alien old woman voice, I actually heard my own voice, way up from the standard basso profundo,  saying, 'You mean they actually hurt themselves?  With knives and  things?'   When not in repose, my facial expressions run a broad gamut, as vast as that wonman on the Lipozene ad ("You just can't do it yourself!  You just caaaan't")   I could feel my forehead rise with my incredulity.  The irony of my dismay hit a moment later.  Oh my.  Cutters.  Surprised and puzzled me.  Me.  Someone who drank and used drugs to oblivion, loss and ignominy actually wanting to cry out, 'Why for God's sake would anyone do such a thing??

A decade or so ago, my Mom told me about this woman - from our hometown, I think - who had begun to impress her with presence intelligence etc.  I trust Mom's tele-pinion  She is right about most things - I am writing about that , even now.  Anyway, she is also wonderful about revising her opinions.  Sometimes she even repents.  Nancy Grace is a case in question,. 

And kids, when there is resentment, there can often be resemblance.  Do not believe for a moment that
that ironys lost oe eether.  The flared nostrils of certainty, the Old Testament sense of revenge, chronic dismay and - that was when I went away to be quiet and helpanimals and live this tiny little life of anonymity as a form of non self forgiveness.  See?  Who says gentiles aren't good at guilt? 

Well, I am not much on one liners, but I've written two about this topic....

I didn't lose any friends, but might've miscounted to start with.

I am glad I didn't die - it would've made the wrong people happy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

More in a bit.
Thanks for popping back in.











. 

Unlikely Sins: The Debaucle of Temporary Poverty

A cautionary tale of Success, Fear, Falling and Finding Lost Temples.

Once, over a decade ago, I told this to my therapist:
"We should write a book. 'The Imposter Syndrome'."
He gave me that look therapists give when you say
something that seems like it might be leading somewhere
or even closing in on a breakthrough. (Hey, they do
happen.) The book was never pursued. Or the
breakthrough, for that matter. I think real breakthroughs
kind of just happen. You can boil the water, get the scissors
and twine - be prepared.

It begins now. Maybe the imposter part is a chapter,
one near the beginning, from the moment that I
left my old life, the real one of merely wishing
and entered the sometimes dangerous realm
of dreams that come true.

It's about the roots of what is funny, right
next to madness, the sheer force of wishes, especially
when they arise from untended deep spaces
in our consciousness, where angels don't fear to
tread but where we are scared shitless to meet
them. Where even the finest traits can
suddenly compromise and braid themselves
around defects thought long gone.

Funny. I never liked Scarlett O'Hara. I thought
her opportunism was too expensive. I judged how
she squandered spiritual paths for those of material
security, a hundred years before Cosmopolitan
encouraged me to do the same thing. Oh, Lordy,
how I judged her...

Ultimately, this will be a sort of writing
I've professed to loathe: The glisteny eyed
celebrity survivor. Who confesses. I'll pony
up the whole fucked up mess - since I managed
to stay sober I remember the whole thing.
Tell you what, I won't do the whole
breast beating mea culpa thing even
though it's clear to me and has been all
along that I co-created every single bit
of it.

No matter how dreadful the consequences,
there will always be a crowd for whom
self-recrimination will never be enough.
In this age of Nancy Graceful attacks on
every errant slip, I may expect full
frontal assaults on every aspect of
the story. Comforted by knowing that
even ancient Rome delivered the daily
castigations of the fallen favorites -
but they didn't have to tweet about their
errant twats.

Welll, go on with your bad selves, I say. Honey,
to quote another celebrity who lost all the stuff,
"Y'all can't touch this".

Once the madness cleared away and the votes
were inm I realized too, that no matter how
someone else may seek to compound the
agony of my mistakes, procrastinations
and even insanity, there's nothing
that anyone could say which could
approach this crushed feeling inside
my chest -

And this is not about lost things or even a
fall from grace, if you'll pardon the pun, but from this
alone - I have been separated by 3000 miles
and four months time from all of my animals.
If I hadn't read Tolle's words about the
power of now, cornily enough, I wouldn't
have known a moment of relief. As it is,
when the torture ebbs, leaves that time
for solutions to appear.

So it is this. No confession f or absolution.
Just a blog about what's going right now -
Sisyphus did it, so can I. Now a blog, journal,
soon even a podcast..

There is nothing new in loss but only
the ways we toss aside comfort and
fine choices for the less certain fields of
beating ourselves up, the brutal familiar.

I am not the only person who's done that
in some form, but I will admit I saw fit
to render a rather dramatic version in my
own case. This is also through the eyes
of someone who knows she'll be fine,
someone gladly departing the
quagmire of unpaid taxes, the fond
memory of my quarter century old
perfect credit rating and, surprise
to be surprised, even the affection of
old friends.

It's not the unsettling insolvency or
even the panic of hunger, it's the
tabula rasa of what fate may demand
for my heart to be intact.

But hey. Something nice happened today.
Someone proposed to me. If nature's timing
is that sublime, imagine what kind of lures
I'd see with my eyes open.

Thank you for returning.
Jokes forthcoming.

And tell that putz to stop using my
name on Twitter. I am after her wretched
ass. See? I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaack.