Raspberries help those who help themselves

Something to amuse you. Consider the sixties generation's preoccupation with figures of mythic violence. Are you a boxer, a sheriff, or an outlaw? For we all must be something.

The Boxer

I am just a poor boy, though my story's seldom told
I have squandered my resistance
For a pocketful of mumbles, such are promises
All lies and jest
Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest

When I left my home and my family I was no more than a boy
In the company of strangers
In the quiet of a railway station, running scared
Laying low, seeking out the poorer quarters
Where the ragged people go
Looking for the places only they would know

Lie-la-lie ...

Asking only workman's wages I come looking for a job
But I get no offers
Just a come-on from the whores on Seventh Avenue
I do declare there were times when I was so lonesome
I took some comfort there

Lie-la-lie ...

Then I'm laying out my winter clothes and wishing I was gone
Going home, where the New York City winters aren't bleeding me
Leading me, going home

In the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders of every glove that laid him down
Or cut him till he cried out in his anger and his shame
'I am leaving, I am leaving'
But the fighter still remains

Lie-la-lie ...


The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

When Liberty Valance rode to town the womenfolk would hide, they'd hide
When Liberty Valance walked around the men would step aside
'cause the point of a gun was the only law that Liberty understood
When it came to shooting straight and fast
He was mighty good

From out of the East a stranger came, a law book in his hand, a man
The kind of a man the West would need to tame a troubled land
'cause the point of a gun was the only law that Liberty understood
When it came to shooting straight and fast
He was mighty good

Many a man would face his gun and many a man would fall
The man who shot Liberty Valance, he shot Liberty Valance
He was the bravest of them all

The love of a girl can make a man stay on when he should go, stay on
Just trying to build a peaceful life where love is free to grow
But the point of a gun was the only law that Liberty understood
When the final showdown came at last, a law book was no good

Alone and afraid she prayed that he'd return that fateful night, oh that night
When nothing she said could keep her man from going out to fight
From the moment a girl gets to be full grown the very first thing she learns
When two men go out to face each other, only one returns

Everyone heard two shots ring out
A shot made Liberty fall
The man who shot Liberty Valance, he shot Liberty Valance
He was the bravest of them all

I sawed two boards!

With a cut-off saw! And those of you who know my fear of blades will recognize this accomplishment for the true wonder that it is.

Sorry for not writing much lately. Depression is depressing. I expect to get back to my regularly scheduled weirdness soon.

In the meantime, here's a thought about the circulation of power (ironic, I suppose, in the context of my discovery of sawing), taken from a series of articles about reinventing politics.

State communism and the market fundamentalism of today's globalization era share a belief that a single system, universally applied, can deliver all that is required. Seen in this light, industrial monocropping, genetic engineering and contract farming seem to have much in common with the 20th-century socialist disasters of enforced collectivization. Both are top-down solutions that ignore diversity, on-the-ground needs, knowledge and reality, and a democratic requirement that those who are most affected should have a say in implementation. — Katharine Ainger

In other words, because today's political discourse is dominated by paternalistic government and vicious corporatism, we rarely recognize how powerful we as individuals and communities actually are.

So go out and make the world a better place today. Kiss someone you love and keep smiling!

love,
Leslie

"Autonomy is the right to invent one's own future." — Thomas Sankara