All discussion of politics and religion is hereby boomtooty!
Hi People Persons,
Few announcements before I get into tales and recollections.
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If anyone knows any potential home show hosts in These Arizona towns: Red Rock, Picacho, Arizola, Maricopa, Mobile, Palo Verde, Wintersburg, Hope, Vicksburg, Utting, Bouse, Blue Water, Vidal or these California towns - Rice, Joshua Tree please let me know at itstruemynameisgideon@gmail.com
Followed this gas line through the mountains for three days avoiding roads between Duncan and Safford. Beautiful route. Signs all along the pipeline full of bullet holes. All the signs on every back road are riddled with bullet holes. I must say shooting up signs along the gas line is its own special kind of dumb dumb.
Ended up getting stuck on this property by accident while exiting a protected wilderness and found this charming sign. I'd like to make a sign in rainbow lettering that says "TRESPASSING!" and thats it, confusing the notion of a welcome or a warning.
Carrying a gun on my hip has been an interesting experience. I carry a Cimarron Special Colt 38. It's a six shooter, the same model Doc Holladay, the famous gunfighter, gambler and dentist carried. It looks old fashiony and therefor less modern day warfareish. I carry this pistol in case anything awful happens to the horses on the trail and I need to put one of them down God forbid. It also feels like not such a bad idea for the possibility of animal attacks in some of the areas we pass through. I do not carry it to protect myself against "All the bad people out there" I am so often warned about. I don't believe in "bad people". I believe in people having a bit of a hard time making poor decisions and if I encounter one I'll run the other way or give them what they want, including my pretty pistol. Not particularly interested in having the weight of ending someones life on my shoulders.
I take the gun off my hip when entering back into civilization even if it's legal to open carry. I don't feel comfortable seeing civilians in life with guns on their hips or slung on their shoulders. I hate it very much. Makes my brain think "Why that person need that gun?" and I start looking around for the thing to be afraid of. Or I think that person might start shooting folks. That's sadly where my mind goes. I tell all my hosts about my pistol and ask what they are comfortable with. Everyone got a different feeling about a gun in the house. Most people out west seem pretty use to it. When kids are present I'll unload it and keep the two separate.
I've been curious to find if there is an American gun or ammunition company that is also pro gun reform. Can't imagine there isn't. I know Dick's Sporting Goods took AR-15s out of there stores and took a lot of flack for it. Is that it? If anyone knows of any please let me know. And to all my gun loving friends I am indeed for reasonable gun reform. No one is trying to take all your guns. That's not what's on the table. It's also an interesting thing the assumptions folks make about you when you have a gun on your hip. I enjoy wearing my bright pink T-shirt as I think its a nice counter to the gun. Just complicates the visuals of it all in a interesting way.
Specialty horse shoes homer made by blacksmith and farrier whose wife hosted the horses in their corral during our stay in Duncan. Each one of these shoes is for a specific quality or issue a horse might be having. Corrective shoeing is one of the more impressive crafts I've encountered.
One of my host Clayton Jarvis's many wild art creations. One of the most well read people I've encountered Clayton would fluidly quote Shakespeare, Aristotle, George Castanza and all the other great minds of the last 20,000 years in conversation. I couldn't keep up but felt smarter letting it wash over me.
My hosts Richard and Jane generously shoring up a fence line to make the field safe for Gus and Troub. More to say bout these two glorious people later.
One off my favorite stores I've seen in a long time was in Safford called Kracked. They sold a bit of everything but specialized in Nintendo video game cartridges, VHS tapes and cell phone screen repair. I was particularly tickled by the pricing of their Phil Donahue VHS at $14.99. Most of the others in the store were $1-3. Either they are big Phil fans or its a collectors item? Was tempted to buy it, but didn't think my pack horse would appreciate the extra weight without a VCR and TV to enjoy it on.
They also had an "Adult Section" in the back within a cabinet. It brought me back to my neighborhoods old video rental store Video To Go where I'd spend hours browsing the titles trying to find a suitable choice. I gravitated towards the Action Adventure section. The Adult section was in the back separated by a curtain. I would stare at anyone going in or out fascinated by these brave sordid characters behind the curtain. A whole other world back there. I remember being so confused by what was behind that curtain and confused I remain.
One of my hosts, conflict averse by nature, put this sign out by the drinks before the show. She had also written "R" or "D" next to each persons name on her guest list just so she could have a sense of the balance in the room.
"Is your show political?"
This is a question I've gotten a few times on tour. What they mean is do you talk about red and blue shit? It's a hard question for me to answer. No. I don't talk about what they are worried about me talking about. I don't bash Trump in rhyme. I don't have folk songs about abortion or immigration or foreign policy or racism or LGBT rights or global warming or the 2nd amendmant or any of the 27 top issues currently in the American Zeitgeist. Many audience members have thanked me profusely for the show not being political saying that the last several entertainment things they experienced were so saturated in politics and they are so sick of it. I get that.
Another way to answer that question would be YES. Everything we do and don't do is political. My show is inherently anti-Trump and striving to ever be more so. I'm trying to make a sweetly interactive warm tender evening of joy, surprise, introspection, honesty, weirdness, music, fun, play and human connectivity. For me, what I see Trump, and the Republican Party, putting into the world is the opposite of all that. So in some ways I'm doing my best, as an artist and a humanist to counteract the stank wretched goop I believe is being slung into our universe.
Now I hope my Trump supporting friends didn't just unsubscribe. That's right this NYC Jewish Bhuddist Atheist Democratic Socialist has made friends with some on the other side! I've soaked my blue bones in red tubs and dried off with purple towels. That doesn't mean anything I'm just having fun with these stupid colors we made up. I've been grateful for these new connections. Some of the kindest, most hospitable, generous people I've met have also, somehow, owned MAGA hats. These friends are complex people with long stories that brought them to their feelings of this moment. Spending time with them, eating with them, playing with their children and learning about horses from them has confronted all the stereotypes I carry from the limitations of exposure I previously had.
Where I come from it's easy to talk about supporters of Trump as dumb dumb muffin brains bigoted in isolation from the infinite diversity of the world, desperately clinging to nostalgic notions of an imaginary America that never existed, rewriting history through tangled conspiracies fit to fear fueled destructive policy rapidly eroding progress like a school of blind barracudas disappearing a dolphin carcass before they realize they're allergic to dolphin!
And many conservative religious folks I've encountered could easily imagine a privileged New Yorker elite snowflake hell bent on rewriting the natural law of God and man disregarding all traditions and values in the name of everyones feelings. A collective of arrogant nincompoops who can't even do an oil change let alone pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Big government precious hippocrites who don't understand freedom and want to tell everyone else how to live, what to say and do.
What's been nice about these new friends is the challenge and invitation to see them as complex ecosystems of personhood. The connections came about by finding common ground. Talking about horses, the weather, doing physical projects, playing with kids etc. Enough time was spent talking about other things and seeing humanity in each other first that when one of these hugely important issues would come up theres curiosity and respect enough to listen to the others thoughts and stories rather than incredulous stupefaction. This does not mean I don't find certain ideas and feelings they have completely outrageously wrong, misinformed, dangerous, hurtful, dumb even insane. But it's not that idea is not the entirety of who they are. I get to know other ideas and experiences of theirs I feel are beautiful, interesting, full of grace, kindness, empathy and thoughtfulness. I reckon they've had or could have a similar experience with me. I've been grateful for time with them. It would have been so easy to demonize if all I knew was how they voted, but time spent affords those other avenues.
I've had some friends or family ask if I was able to change their minds on any issues. That kind of discussion would require a tremendous time investment. Few if any of us seem to want to make that a big project. We've all got other shit to handle. But I think in many moments the best we can do is ask questions of the other and sincerely be curious how they got to their thoughts. I think that kind of curiosity and deep listening engenders the same in the other. I think curiosity and listening as goals rather than fixing or changing each others minds is a start. A starting place of something resembling hope, perhaps.
Sunset on the Arizona Trail. This was the 4th day we hadn't seen a soul, before that we ran into a couple hikers and a mountain biker as we traveled 100 miles up and down mountains from Superior to Oracle. Took us 6 days. Grateful for this well maintained trail through the endless desolate beauty of Arizona. Hopping back on it towards Tucson in a couple days.
Here's a slightly humorous and mostly horrifying anecdote, not from a friend, but a recent interaction. A camo Trump hat wearing individual was very kindly helping me get my horses sorted in a coral for the night. He'd asked about my pistol and we talked about that for a moment. I asked him if there was any wifi on the premises and he had a pretty intense response to my inquiry. He said "Wifi? I don't fuck with that shit man. I stopped watching fake TV when the homosexuals started killing all the babies." I was a bit shocked. I said "So..... no wifi?" kidding. I was silent for a long moment and then I blurted out, fearful I might miss my chance to object, "I disagree!" though exactly what I was disagreeing with I wasn't sure cause Homosexuals killing babies is not an issue I'm familiar with.... or a thing. What I meant, I suppose, was "I disagree with your sentiment and tone. I am pro homosexual and pro choice!" He explained that when he got back from Vietnam people called him a baby killer so thats why he felt that way. I didn't ask him to elaborate on that line of connection, though I wish I had. Seemed particularly odd to me as I think Homosexuals are perhaps the least likely group to be getting abortions. And "all the babies"??? Come on! Anyway just when I thought I'd heard it all I hear that.
Post show dress up princess party time.