EARTH HOUR 2008

EARTH HOUR 2008 -- I get bombarded everyday with all sorts of e bowel movements and virtual socio-political causes. Bands beg me to cast a vote so they can be the latest corporate peanut butter sponsored "best band" in some forgettable in 72 hours contest. My mail box is cluttered with spam from new aggro you tube producers looking to market their mundane and unfunny CKY / Jackass rip off as some brand new concept. Basically it all boils down to bullshit on the left of me, bullshit on the right of me.
Then today on the news I received word about an internet marketing campaign, who hadn't sent me a friend request. what, what's this? I did not see any bulletins posted on facebook or myspace. So I did some probing to see what all the fuss was.
It's called EARTH HOUR 2008. What's at stake here? Where's the get rich quick scheme? Essentially, I'm being encouraged to dedicate a whole hour to nothing. I don't have to buy anything, order a new compilation cd of artists that I hadn't paid any attention to since they urged me not to play Sun City. No nifty rubber bracelets? I'm baffled.
The concept is simple. You turn off the electric during some shitty sitcom that was probably penned by some douche bags who are upset that they didn't have the DIY insight as the aforementioned CKY jackasses. So now, they are stuck basking in the shadows of sitcommie Norman Lear. Nothing they write is as edgy, challenging, funny or remotely interesting.
First let me express my position that I was not bawling with tears during the writer's strike. I was more infuriated by the scab patriots who crossed picket lines in order to get a little more dough. Whatever happened to suffering to maintain some sort of integrity for your craft?
I know, I know a lot of the Malibu homes that didn't burn in wild fires or fall into the ocean were under the threat of foreclosure. So, sometimes you have to suck it up (n down over and over) in order to get by.
Never mind the fact that this action deals another blow to labor unions and furthers the nation's downward spiral. Everyone who took the dirty route used this opportunity to yuck it up and sweeten the taste of the immediate tragedy. We're a third word labor force of back stabbing, line crossing, pseudo patriotic dirty fucks. (INSERT CANNED LAUGHTER HERE. ) It really is all so adorably cute.
In other work movements, this would have been the basis for a beat down, but you can't expect much from an industry where the toughest guy punch for punch on the studio lot is Geraldo (good boxing skills).
What should I expect? These are also the same yapping traps that champion the latest Billy Blanks clone, they depict this brand of butchered boxing as poetry in motion. Following in the next segment is a nice broad stroke on MMA that often uses the term "barbaric" when summarizing the sport.
Whewf, before I get completely off topic; lets get back to Earth Hour 2008. What is nice to see is that I don't have to buy anything to participate. I don't have to acquire a Red Credit Card or go shopping at some stores. I don't have to spend to encourage corporate structures to do the right thing and contribute to quell some of the problems that one would argue they in part created.
I do have some suspicions that the word got out on EARTH HOUR 2008 because a soft drink company is participating and they're trying to tidy up their image, especially since the landscape seems to be littered with their little tins that didn't quite make it to the trash bin. All the flag waving, ribbon magnets on your SUV may portray the image of a great patriot. Good for you, you champion a cause. So why shit where you eat?
Like most evenings, I won't be watching the latest tv crap during earth hour. I'll be out walking through the town admiring the latest shitty graffiti sprayed up onto the walls by some lousy taggers who don't seem all that enthusiastic about their craft. Three of 4 letters with no style. Unoriginal names biting from the far more prolific 80s and 90s crews/writers . The young locals demonstrate their "style" that possesses no concept of history and strife. Oh well.. that's the basis for another rant.

At the beach

We took a stroll on the beach when the place is considered by the bronzers and hipsters as "out of season". It was a beautiful day and I'm with my soul mate enjoying the sounds of the waves crashing, short bursts of wind against my face and the sun warming our skin. her hand in mine we walk, getting passed up by some of the locals who brave the elements and take their 4x4 to the dirt. They sped past us at 50 miles an hour, "take in" all the view has to offer, make a u-ie then speed off in the opposite direction. They vanish past the horizon and then we again have the sands to ourselves.

It's moments like these that I cherish. Whether it's biking along the Platte "river", crossing the tundra in the Rockies, driving in the white mountains, playing footsie in a ice-y creek along the Appalachian trail, the fact is that I'm doing these things with my MiSo, the most special person in my life. My better half..and as I said already, she's my soul mate. Where would I be without her? Incomplete.