I was looking for the movie called “On the Edge” this morning….and ran across this.
On the Edge is a running movie that Bruce Dern made a while back. I watched it when it first came out and haven’t seen it since….and thought it would be fun to watch it again sometime.
That’s the kind of stuff I do when I can’t think of anything to write my blog about…..look for old Bruce Dern running movies.
Anyway….the trailer for this movie was on YouTube…..
THUMB TRIPPING!!!!
How about that? That looks like a crazy kind of movie, huh?
Bruce Dern playing a crazy!!! That’s how crazy that old movie is!!
It’s entertaining to watch these bad old movies…..entertaining for me.
To the people around me, I think that it’s probably a cruel torture.
I’m not cruel….just not very discerning when it comes to old Bruce Dern movies.
Listen to the theme song in this one…..”YOU’VE GOT TO GO WHERE THE FEELIN’ TAKES YOU….”!!
This looks pretty bad.
I need to see this movie.
Here’s the movie that I was trying to watch sometime….On the Edge….It’s a little bit better quality story.
But….THUMB TRIPPING!! THAT’S THE MOVIE TO SEE! THE HOLY GRAIL OF BAD BRUCE DERN MOVIES….IT’S THE ONE.
It hit me this morning that, no matter how much we dress them up…. or how “grownupify” we make our homes….what we are really pushing for is a fort.
We need a tree house, a big cardboard box with some holes cut for windows and doors, a tent (!)….we need something that mimics the feeling we got when we made something for ourselves so “way back when”.
Biggest, nicest, most envy worthy….all are great things to shoot for, I suppose….but at the end of the day, it’s just cool to have something warm to lay down in.
Check out this guy’s tents….I haven’t seen anything quite like this before.
I’ve heard that a home is a good investment….an “investment”….and I know that can be true….but the real payoff is something pretty different than something we can put in a bank account.
Here’s another in a long line….a deep pool….a big pile….a…..bunch of videos that I’ve watched about people building something cool to live in and around.
This time, it’s a bunch of French dudes with hammers and saws, a good amount of imagination, and a lot of hard work who’ve crafted a neat place for themselves.
If you don’t end up leaving some good idea “inside your head”….and you’re a hard worker with some skill….you can craft a place that’s more special than something that someone else built by rote…..(“rote”….how do you spell “rote”? I’ve done it a million times….thought I could do it in my sleep….but I can’t remember exactly how to spell “rote”.)
All this stuff is “doable”. (How do you spell “doable”? “do-able”? I’m not sure I can do it correctly….maybe I should pick something that I already know how to do….already…..)
“I can’t do my house without the others” …..that’s a nice quote from our guide on this tour of funky homes.
Here’s another video about people converting something….in this case a schoolbus…. into a home to live in.
I’m obsessed with that…..and when I think about it, I have been for a long time.
There are so many options in this world and this life….
You can go the route of the “completely put together” home….new everything…fresh paint….no oil marks on the new concrete drive…or….
you can get something kind of different….like an old schoolbus….and spend some time and a little money to make something that’s not so traditional….but livable and paid for.
I think that “paid for” is the key.
I don’t like debt.
This isn’t for most….or even for everyone.
But for the few with the creative option to do something like this….it’s a pretty cool alternative.
Here’s another video of a person who made a home out of some old shipping containers.
I’m not sure that shipping containers make good homes, but it’s kind of an interesting option.
Both of these videos….and many of the videos that I’ve used on this blog…are by Kirsten Dirksen. She makes excellent videos of alternative building methods. Check out more of her videos at faircompanies.com.
The only other Norwegian that Jenny apparently knew before me was this angry guy out in Colorado who took all his family’s money….plus some mysterious secret stash of cash that he’d squirreled away somehow….and left for Alaska, leaving them all behind.
That’s her precedent with Norwegians.
I think that sometimes she thinks that I have the “angry” part down pat…..but I’m not going anywhere….so I must be a different sort of Norwegian.
Anyway….that’s kind of irrelevant information…except to point out that maybe there’s a reason for her to worry when I look at videos like this…and I ponder how cool it would be to be able to move my house whenever I wanted to.
It would be cool to wake up to a different sunrise every now and then….even if the sunrise I wake up to now is pretty nice.
That would be good.
Of course, when Alex Honnold demonstrates that there’s barely room for one in the back of his “move mobile”, he’s making the idea of cruising around in a van and sleeping in exotic natural locales kind of a hard sell.
It wouldn’t go over very well to get to where I’m going, turn to my family, and say, “OK….now where are you guys going to sleep?” as I tucked myself in to my luxurious pad in the back.
That wouldn’t go over at all.
Maybe I need a school bus?
Something big with bunks and giant banks of batteries to run all the gizmos we’d drag along?
A facilitation vehicle….something that would handle life on the road with a family of….6? 5? One’s away at college….soon to be two away….the other ones are little still.
The big kids do like fun….maybe they’d want to drop out and live it out on the highway, too?
Hmmmmm.
How big should this ark be?
I don’t have this figured out yet.
I’ll have to call Alaska and cancel the reservation….I’m not ready yet.
Look up “Alex Honnold” on YouTube….he’s a great climber.
I sit here in the morning and write in the glare of the computer screen….drinking my french press’ worth of coffee one cup at a time, and sometimes all I can think of is me.
That’s kind of gross, really….this self absorption….but I’m by myself….I’m in myself….so all I can imagine to write about some mornings is what I’m feeling at the moment..
Sometimes, I write about my family….but that’s kind of hard not to release all the “secret stuff” with my blabbermouth.
I’ve stopped short of listing all the dates of birth and social security numbers, though.
I do have some sense, after all.
I read this article last night….it appeared in the magazine Blue Ridge Outdoors this month….and one of the families that they featured is one that I’ve known for years.
I should re-phrase that.
I’ve known the “momma and poppa” for years.
I don’t know the kids.
Anyway, the family I know is from Birmingham, AL….the Davis family.
It was a great article….and one quote from their daughter jumped out at me.
“Bringing us outside and doing adventures with us was such an escape from an otherwise mundane life,” she says. “It took you out of your box, out of your suburban bubble. [My parents] prepared me to go out into the world and not be so self-focused, so caught up in this small view of the world, and to be more free from it.”
Of course, I don’t have permission to use the quote. I don’t have permission to do anything. I’m sitting here in the dark before “a creature was stirring”….before anyone else gets up….typing away all by my lonesome. Who would I even ask for “permission”?
I am by myself….and in myself.
“My parents prepared me to go out into the world and not be so self-focused….”
I will have to ponder that for a long time….here in my little temporary bubble.
( I’m kidding…..I get it….I don’t need to ponder.)
That’s a great quote.
The quote about the choice to not have a television set was a good one, too.
That’s what it comes down to….and I’ve written about that before…..choices.
That’s the only real power we have….the power of choice.
Of course, I will sit and numb myself with the dumbest stuff on television…..and think about getting outside for a run again sometime….and wondering, while I watch a lady demonstrate a really effective vacuum cleaner, why “sometime” never seems to get here.
Most of the things that I ponder the hardest is the stuff I know I need to change the most.
“Not be so self-focused”
Ah, that’s a great gift to give your kids.
It’s a great gift, too, that your children recognize what you did for them.
Listen for a line in this song about “freedom”….one of my favorite lines from Chris Rice….
“prone to wander” Chris Rice
I know that sometimes, your choices are “made for you”. There’s things that happen that kind of force our hands. Sometimes, things seem to be out of our control.
Sometimes, we’re just responding to events….never making our way towards something good because we’re convinced that maybe we don’t deserve it or something…or never getting a chance to approach good things because we think…or, maybe, KNOW…. that there’s a fire to put out somewhere.
Sometimes that happens….but not all the time.
I guess that “opportunity”…combined with “good choices” can make for a nice life.
Opportunity…..
Hmmmmm…..
I like the part about not being so self-focused a lot.
I am going to really have to work on that.
I can’t stop thinking about how self-focused I am, though.
I need to get my mind on someone else for a while.
I’m cured, now…I don’t go into pawn shops very often, so I’m not tempted…but it was a constant activity a bunch of years ago.
I wasn’t going to mess up our finances to do it….but if I found something that I knew might be “flippable” at some point….something that’s worth some money….something that I could play and decide to never let go of….but that I might be able to turn a tidy profit if I ever decided that I could let go of it and sell it….well, I just might buy the guitar.
That’s the situation in a nutshell.
When I was working at the book store….back when finances were really tight and we didn’t have a lot of extra money….one of these guitars came in and went out on the racks to be sold.
It’s a Gibson ES295…..a pretty cool old archtop that is probably worth something.
(The one in the pawn shop was old and had a crazed finish….and no “Scotty Moore” signature. I think the picture here is of one of the reissues that Gibson put out….that sells new for 11,000 dollars. You have to get a reissue to get Scotty Moore’s signature….)
I never researched its value after I did what I did.
What’s the point? It’s just water under the bridge….after I did what I did.
I knew all the guys who worked there….at the pawn shop….and they put a hold on the guitar for me.
300.00 was a steal on this guitar….but 300.00 was a lot of money….so I put a hold on it so I could decide what to do.
300.00 really was a lot of money back then.
I didn’t need to be spending a bunch of money on a guitar that I didn’t need.
Later in the evening, after I’d been working at the bookstore for a couple of hours, this big, bearded guy came in with a bunch of his rocker friends and stopped at the counter.
“Are you Peter?” he said.
“Yeah”
“They told me over at the pawn shop that you worked here. I want to buy that guitar that you put a hold on. If I gave you $100.00, would you tell them that you didn’t want to hold it anymore? Could you call them and tell them that?”
I’d never had a situation like that come up….but I’d never put a hold on a guitar that we really couldn’t afford…but that was probably worth a couple of thousand dollars….probably more.
“Yeah, I could do that….” I said.
So….he gave me the 100.00 so that he could buy a guitar that I didn’t own….and went over and bought this old guitar….and I went home a little richer just for walking into a pawn shop and asking them to hold a guitar that I knew was worth a lot of money.
That was kind of a funny experience.
That was a pretty cool guitar.
I have a bunch of cool guitars that I can’t really play.
I’ve written before about how I think about “away” a lot.
I don’t know how or why that started….the feeling that somewhere else would be more complete or better, a place to really bloom, a springboard….a landing pad for all of my big dreams.
I don’t know how that started.
When you love to travel….but find it (or make it….maybe I just make it…) hard to travel….you imagine that “away” holds something that the place you find yourself right now can’t give you.
But….if I looked at this flower….and didn’t know that it was a picture my daughter took in Idaho….I might imagine that it was taken in our back yard.
Where I am and where I think I need to be aren’t all that far apart.
I listen to books in the car while I’m driving the mail around….and some of them are about what I think the authors called “metaphysics”.
I don’t understand metaphysics….but the thought that we’re all connected at a cellular level is kind of encouraging.
If that’s true….if the idea that we all share some unseen connection….some spiritual connection or molecular affiliation or ….something….then….I can’t imagine a place that I haven’t been on some level….already.
What someone breathes out in China…..I breathe in eventually in North Carolina.
No one sees any connection to anyone else when they’re rioting in the streets….or shooting each other down because we just never can understand each other.
It would probably blow our minds to understand just how connected to each other we really are.
I’ve heard that Hell is separation from God.
Maybe “Hell on Earth” is never knowing that we share a connection to each other?
Maybe Hell is just separation….period?
Maybe it’s just pretty early in the morning here.
Where I find myself in the moment isn’t the only place I am….or will be.
That would be pretty presumptuous of me to think that.
I could probably speak for about 43% of them at best.
Ladies are mysterious.
And anyway….I’m a dude.
What do dudes know about “lady stuff”?
I’m kidding, of course, about knowing any secrets. I really don’t know any secret stuff….lady stuff or otherwise.
I love the way this lady writes.
I don’t know if there are a whole lot of people who write about “real stuff” as well as she does.
None of the things she writes about are “secrets”….but she illuminates something that a lot of people never get a chance to express as eloquently.
Take this song, for example….
“stealing kisses” Lori McKenna
You’d have to have begun your career after you’d been married for a while….and had 3 children….and had done some living…to be able to write a song like that.
“one man” Lori McKenna
There are a lot of good performers in the world.
I’m easily impressed by a little bit of passion and some musical skill.
I can go into most places that have live music and think, “Man! He’s really good” or “She’s really good!” but it’s always the writing that separates the “really good” from the “really good” for me.
I think that Lori McKenna is really good.
Here’s a song from her 2013 album, Massachusetts.
“how romantic is that?” Lori McKenna
We need more music that’s “grown up” music….music that maybe doesn’t chart really high or anything, but is true and says something that means something.
I think that there’s still enough room in this crowded world for something true.
