April 2009 - David Mark Brown

Last Redneck in the Woods

April 28, 2009 by David Mark Brown

You’ve never really been outdoors until you’ve been blessed to hear the gentle and drunken midnight-laughter of a gaggle of rednecks in the woods. pabst

Now I realize that if you have spent much time in the wilderness then you have probably stumbled upon the remains of a redneck circle and might have been disgusted at what you saw. Tell tale signs of a redneck circle may include such items (but not limited to) Pabst Blue Ribbon cans, spent shotgun shells, rifle casings, dried vomit and empty containers of assorted propellants. But let’s not leap to judgment here.

Venus Dreaming

April 27, 2009 by David Mark Brown

venusproject Now this is the stuff of my childhood dreams. When my imagination was still unbounded and unfettered by the burdens of reality and the skepticism of age I dreamed of molding and forming society like play-dough. The Venus Project, the brain child of Jacque Fresco, is doing just that. This is the luxury of genius at its best. Even at first glance I can recognize the science fiction novels I have read that have been influenced by this stuff.

But is all of this just modernist, Jean-Luc Picard type thinking that is already being supplanted by the post modern sense of relativist spirituality?

Redneck Supported Agriculture

April 26, 2009 by David Mark Brown

Homes never smell like vinegar baths anymore. When I was a wee one there was an informal holiday around my house that I guess could have been remembered as “Canning Day.” Much of this holiday’s kitchen rituals remained a mystery to me, but the days leading up to the “great pot” were like Easter and a safari combined. It was my job to roam the hills or the draws harvesting anything from wild plums to mustang grapes. Then, through a vinegar haze, these wild gems somehow became jam.

These efforts at gathering in the wild crops from the creek and bramble are only one branch of the redneck supported agricultural tree (which has now become endangered). The second, and more important, is gleaning. Some today might call this stealing, but come on.