Don't let them kill the Green River

The Good News: There are several places in Utah that are being considered for designation as Wild and Scenic Space. Sections of the Green River are included in that consideration. This would prohibit any future oil drilling/digging in these wild and remote havens. Desolation and Grays Canyon on the Green possess mass deposits of shale oil in the rock. Because of the difficult process needed to obtain petroleum from the rock (it's not liquid, it's stone) and the remote location of the oil, these canyons have so far been safe from major exploitation. However, knowing our nation's fierce addiction to all things petrol, Deso and Grays will only be safe for so long. That's why achieving this designation is so vital. It will permanently protect the area. For some reason that is beyond me, there is no Wild and Scenic wilderness in the state of Utah.

The Bad News: There is also a proposal to open this same general area of the Green River to increased ATV access, oil companies' prospecting, and unrestricted chaw spittin'. I've ran the Deso/Grays stretch of the Green River about 20 times. It is a place unlike any place. It is in the largest chunk of roadless land in the lower 48 states. It is closer to my heart than most places. I wrote this letter to the Souther Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) to use in their campaign to protect the Green River. I post it here so that you can feel the importance of a place that is important to someone who is important to you.

Please, for the love of beauty, peace, unique surroundings, respect of spirituality, and responsible stewardship, do not open these holy lands to the use of gasoline guzzling, plant and environment destroying over-using machines. I am all for equal usership and fair access. However, I have grown up and lived in Utah for the last 20 years. I have found solace and peace in the perfect Utah desert when I couldn't find it anywhere else. It has offered me (and a huge number of others I personally know) a place to find answers and questions and light and freedom when I most needed those things. It does it in a way that nothing man-made can. I hope you have experienced this even to a slight degree. Please try to understand what I'm talking about, think of times in your own life when you have needed and found. The Utah desert is NOT an empty wasteland, it is full of life, energy and wisdom. My main concern isn't even the ATVs. I can handle seeing an occasional 4-wheeler or snowmobile in the backcountry. I would love to not cross the paths of those machines while trying to escape noise and smog and cement. But I understand and accept the fact that others love the excitement that comes from flying through the mountains at a million miles an hour. My greatest fear is that these sacred places will fall victim to the petroleum-addicted corporations and government that take without replacing, destroy without replenishing, and are willing to do anything in the name of development and prosperity. The Money Without Morals groups have enough power to rape, pillage and burn our homelands without any substantial opposition. It scares me to death. I hope this letter can somehow help counter the destruction of the things I and others love the most.

The 4 Horsemen of the Shopocolypse

This weekend we put on our "Shop Outside the Box" parade downtown. It was great--we had a full police motorcycle escort, the city blocked off the streets and we marched our little selves, along with our floats, bikes, dogs, and not so hellish hellfire and brimstain on down to the City County Building, where we heard brief comments from local business owners. We also heard me reading this on the steps:


I put a lot of work into my garden. It's mine. It's mine. Not because a piece of paper says I own the land. I mean, can a person really own land? Just because I stick a flag in a pile of dirt—dirt that was there for thousands and millions of years before my great-grandparents were born and will still be there for thousands and millions after my great-grand kids are dead and buried in it. Dirt that will eat me like a cowboy eats beef...like a poet eats life...like an empire eats the cowboy and the poet and then eats itself.

Just because I stick a flag in a pile of dirt, does that make it mine? Did I create that dirt? Did I earn the dirt? Was I given the dirt by some all wise dirt-distributing genie that looks over the deeds of everyone great and small, then deems them fit or unfit to have dirt? What? The bank? The bank gave me the dirt? Who gave the bank the dirt?

I can't make dirt. My great-great-grandpa Orville Redenbaucher “Dirt Head” Thatcher, a prominent rancher and corn farmer in the young days of the West, could not make dirt. Chief Wabi Sabi Oatmeal Pie Head who walked these Salt Lake streets 2000 years ago, could not make dirt. Neither Adam, nor Eve, nor Steve could make dirt.

I think, generally speaking, if I make something then I can have it. If I make a sandwich, I can usually eat it. If I make a joke, I can claim it as my own. If I make a bust sculpture of the president's head, I can keep it. Unless that bust is made from a petroleum-based substance, in which case the president will surround me with armed soldiers and confiscate that bust. He will then take it to his Oval Bathtub, melt it down, swim in it, and then drink it down until there isn't a drop left. Not one drop.

But otherwise, generally speaking, if I create something then I can have it.

I can't create dirt. I can't make land. So when I say that this garden is mine, I don't mean that I own it. I mean that it is mine like a friend is mine. Like a song I used to listen to growing up is mine. I mean it is mine in the sense that I have spent hours working in it, with it, inside of it. As I have covered it, it has covered me. Its fruit has entered my mouth, turned in my stomach, spread through my veins, and come out as energy that I have used to till its surface, plant its rows, harvest and eat its fruit. It is mine AND I AM ITS.

I am this garden, and this person is mine. This person is me. This garden is me. I am this garden and I have spent hours working this man. I have opened up and swallowed his shovel, his water, his seeds. I've covered him in my dirt. I've planted in him my fruit so he would have the energy to plant in me his. I've planted in him peace, when he couldn't find it elsewhere. I've planted in him a sense of pride and accomplishment and work and rest. I have fed him like a baby, and he has fed me. My seeds are in him and his seeds are in me. We are one and we are married—but not legally.

This garden is mine. This neighborhood is mine. I grew up here. I swam in the canal, I crashed my bike on the hill, I made a dirt fort in the field. I played with every kid on ever block. I kissed some of the girls, ate dinner with some of the neighbors, door-bell ditched thousands of houses and played football at every park. This neighborhood has made me, has raised me. It is mine and I am it. THIS NEIGHBORHOOD IS MY GARDEN.

These mountains are mine, and if you have spent enough time in them to know what I am talking about, then they are yours. WE belong to them.

And I don't want Energy Solutions to build a huge sports arena on top of my favorite backcountry ski peak, even if it brings in millions. Millions of what? Who cares? I don't want to put an electric vending machine in my garden. I don't want a shiny, neon-lit with metal stuffed-animal grabbing claw, filled with plastic wrapped waxy chocolate and unnaturally bright and colorful candy pellets, eternally humming box in my garden. I don't want to hear Louis Armstrong play covers of all of Britney Spears' songs BECAUSE THEY GOT NO SOUL. THEY GOT NO SOUL!

They have no soul. They don't have any soul. They have no breath. If they do, then it's bad breath. They don't come from a garden, a neighborhood, a mountain.

I don't care if they will bring in MILLIONS of dollars. They are without SPIRIT. They are shells without turtles. They suck and drain and pretend to give back. They are the turkey dinner from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Remember what happened when Chevy Chase cut into the turkey?

No. This garden is mine and I am its. I will plant only seeds that will bring only beautiful delicious healthy fruit that will make me an my family and my neighborhood and my mountains beautiful and delicious and real and healthy.

Hindy Anchor EEK!

Again to the desert, this time moving up up UP! The cracks in my fingers look like the cracks we climbed at Indian Creek. The weather was unexpected and perfect. The night was so quiet that I couldn't sleep. Nothing moved. I couldn't hear one plant brushing against itself or the ground or another plant. I couldn't hear one mouse or lizard. I heard some no-namer snoring his balls off, and was nervous to scootch too close to his sleeping wife. I have to live with the Midnight Groper. I am Dr. Jekyll knowingly living with the peligrous Mr. Hyde. But the night passed without sound and without incident, and the following birthday-day was doubly birthday to everyone. The Creek turned one billion and one years old, so we all got drunk on cupcakes, climbing routes, and each other. CJ and Holly also had birthdays, which combined didn't add up to half the age of The Creek.

Once again the desert brought us home; then home brought the desert again, once.

M is M

Moab is medicine. My friends are the rocks and water and people. Here we all are in the desert where we are supposed to be. The reason I know that is because the Fremont Indians were here for hundreds of years and they freakin' loved it. Thousands of Fremonts can't be wrong. Just because they left doesn't mean it wasn't really cool while they were here. They probably just ran out of food or got pummelled in a war or something. But it's cool now, there is tons of food: Eddie McStiff's, Mondo's, The Pancake Haus and some greasy hotel diner-style breakfast joint, to name a few. And as for war? Please, the only desert war we are concerned with is in a desert on the other side of the world, so it doesn't affect us at all. Not at all. That reminds me of when Jehovah burnt a Bush in the desert. That might be a good solution to the desert war across the world.

Moab is medicine. If you don't know that, it could be really beneficial to find out what I mean. But do whatever you want.

Bloggy Blogg, Froggy Frogg, I thought winter was here, but it was just Foggy Fogg. Where have all the lazers gone? We've been left to deal with ourselves, by ourselves and for ourselves. Even Ronald McDonald can't save us now. Sam Walton would, but he's dead. Plus he'd be too busy trying to fix his greedy kids, who are all tied for something like the 4th richest person in the world, and the 1st greediest person in the world. At least they haven't taken the mountains yet. We still have those hills for at least a few more years. Hopefully La Nina treats us good until then. The Walton kids would have no idea how to handle themselves in the mountains. They might do alright in the Kennecott copper mines, if anywhere.

Day 1

This is Day 1 on my blog. I just figured out what Blog was. It was also Day 1 skiing this year. Alta was crusty, but beautiful.