American Chicken Shit Corn Smut

Corn Smut...now there is a nuanced and serendipitously generated piece of American reality. The above picture came from a newfangled hybrid corn that happens to be purple, and sold at Lowes, that I grew a foot away from the roost that holds fifteen chicken asses...that's in my permaculture trailer park haven...next to the trailer park hugelmeadow that I hockity pockity wocked into existence...to hear my wife tell it. So the corn smut, that our government apparently spent "time and money trying to eradicate," that the Mexican culture has embraced due to edibility, dubbed huitlacoche,which means something along the lines of "sleeping Raven's excrement" (by my reading of wiki's entry on the topic). How perfect is that for a symbol to attach to the idea that America is a terminal, end stage, cancerous growth on homo sapien culture? The melting pot of culture brewed into a homogenous retardation of all that is good about our species. Corn smut...it's a corn tumor that enters the ovary of the plant and becomes the seed kernel itself, it's a fungus that sends out conjugation tubes to form hypha which parasitize the corn flesh. The corn kernel becomes corn smut.

I know that this corn smut is ripe with symbolism about what has happened to our culture. Our anti-culture as I like to call it. Interestingly enough, today I read about the Roma (gypsy) culture while reading Orlov's latest on the five stages of collapse. They live on the margins of any society, parasitizing the Gadjo (non-gypsy) culture, and they represent the best human cultural adaptation to the future we are rapidly approaching. According to Dmitry Orlov, they stand the best chance of surviving the collapsed end of this cancerous, Golden Rule smut ramification of, industrially consumptive, fossil fuel powered, cultural retardation. That is to say that the gypsy way will most probably survive the end of industrial civilization.

There is much about Roma culture that I find to be extremely fascinating. They are petty thieves who persist on tricking polite society into unwittingly supplying them with what they need to thrive. I guess they are similar to corn smut. They are also similar to the mythical trickster fox whom just takes what he needs from you via his trickery and then disappears. They hide in plain sight by hiding who they are, and they are generally considered a nuisance to those whom control the digibit levers. Sometimes it's easier to simply deal with them by banishment, and some governments have done so. I want to join the Roma culture, but seeing as how the only way to do so is to marry in, and I'm already married, there will be no gypsy made of me. However, my wife's avatar is "Gypsy Mama," (over at the Doomstead Diner) and she is so gypsy like that I'm convinced she is in fact unknowingly gypsy by family lineage.

Let me give you an example of what I mean by employing my favorite medium of literary conveyance called anecdote. Today my wife rounded up a bunch of consumer shit that we've managed to come into possession of. We've come to possess all of this, mostly plastic, Chinese made, stupid shit via the usual American avenues of mindless consumption. That mindless consumption happens without our participation, and ends up being given to us due to socially mandated empty rituals like baby showers, Christmas, birthdays, and whatever other reason us Americans have to go practice consumer therapy in the box store refrigerator habitats that house humans too fat to walk. They ride motorized consumer scooters while shopping for their fat inducing coma ridden soma high petroleum corn sugared treats. So now that I'm done explaining the nature of the stupid plastic shit that my wife rounded up today, let me proceed with the promise of anecdote in the next paragraph.

Today my wife returned consumer items to retail stores for store credit. Things like the safety knobs we've had on our gas oven that keep our toddler from burning the house down. She tried to return a dumb ass talking potty (that my son pinched a loaf in a time or two...and maybe pissed in a few hundred times...we didn't like the song the toilet sang was why we returned it...in perfect Gadjoesqueness)  but the new brainwashed employee refused refund, siting sanitation, (which I can't argue with...but Wendy figures she'll take it back again next time and hopefully the next proletariat dumb ass will acquiesce). I mean, let's forget about the damage that said talking toilet could have potentially done to my son had I not removed the batteries within days of the toilet being brought to defecating digital madness. There it is again...defecation...sleeping Raven excrement...tied to American anti-culture. What type of culture thinks that talking toilets that congratulate your water head toddler on his stinkin' MacDonald's fried shit is a good idea? Ethical even? WTF? We need plastic potties manufactured on the backs of starving third world children? And my wife and I are supposed to feel badly about returning this stupid plastic shit for organic baby formula to feed our exceptional newborn?

See, I do feel badly about it when I'm with my wife as she runs these legal scams (there are many corporate store policies that include no question asked, no receipt, returns). The reasons I feel badly about the returns are due to unconscious scripts that the anti-culture I've been brought up in have programmed into me. Logically I get why I should not feel guilty about it, but I still do. I especially hate the looks and sounds that are directed at you from the consumer zombies who are stuck in line behind you. My wife on the other hand just feeds her baby while in line, and says things to those behind her like "sometimes you just gotta feed your baby while you return shit." She's unaffected by the social program that says she's being a dishonest citizen of this FSoA (failed states of America). Today, she brought that senseless planned obsolescence back to the corporate monster that's destroyed anything resembling a descent American culture, and she bought about three months of formula with it (don't worry, she's breast feeding, but Tribann requires a LOT of calories to grow his physical form, and if he doesn't get them than stress erupts all over the place via forms like torturous eczema on my wife's hands).

This is one of the ways we use to generate money, or the digibit credits to acquire what our family needs. We subsist on the margins of society, in a gray area, living comfortably by taking advantage of the stupid and mindless cultural taboos embraced by our consumer cult of progress anti-culture. Government grants for college, medicaid for healthcare (except for me that is...Uncle Sam will excise a chunk of my vas deferens so I can't procreate any longer...but if I got a toothache, or a broke arm, I can go fuck myself), and a life paid for by the shadow of American waste. I'm a professional student these days. Learning how to work for the Ministry of Health. Well...learning is probably the wrong word...more like learning how to take tests (which Orlov points out in his latest book). I can take a test like a motherfucker...and on short notice.

Our just in time bull shit is about to be out of time. The writing is all over the god damned wall. Just look around outside. Look at the people you know who are a pussy hair away from economic non-person status, bankruptcy, and Limarita fueled, fermented, piss smelling destitution. I've got kids trying to thrive in this shit! Filled with hundreds of cancer causing chemicals en utero, usurping our women's ovaries to become tumor like growth on the maize that supplies the feedstock for something like 70% of our human bodies on the molecular level...according to a stat I read in one of Michael Pollan's books. We are the corn people. Warning, Big Lebowski Turrets dead ahead.

"I've got some corn, I've got some corn so big I can't even sit down...but you know me...I can't complain."

"Fuckin' A, I've got some corn smut man."

Indeed dude, I've got some corn smut. It grew on a newfangled, probably genetically modified, Ruby Queen corn stalk just next to 15 shittin' chicken asses in my back yard. Apparently corn smut has similar characteristics to ergot, which is associated with LSD. I don't know...I love and cherish Mexican food and Mexican culture. Mexicans eat corn smut, or huitlacoche, and they do that because it's edible, and the world doesn't care about our guts. It's practical, common sense even, and I get it. 

So now that I'm done pitching my two cents into the TEOTWAWKI blogosphere I'm off to eat some huitlacoche...here's to it's LSD like qualities. And here's to a new breed of post-petroleum people's who will most probably be gypsy like, and may be found hiding in a mythical place called the Foxstead...one day. Or maybe I'll take my wife and sons and join my uncles in SoCal, where I was hatched; who have plans to retire from the American hologram and take part in the growing sea gypsy movement. Apparently the apple don't fall far from the genetic tree. I've got a sail boat going uncle, and I may buy a sail boat with my Ministry of Health money, and join him. Polar bears are floating on chunks of ice in the arctic, and sea level is rising. What better way to adapt than a gypsy sea culture subsisting on gorilla grown food? If I end up buying a sail boat...Ima name it the Gypsy Corn Smut.  I think the future is going to be something resembling Waterworld...only it's fruition is maybe 50 to 100 years from now.  

 

Druid Permaculture Gypsy Magic

    

     Wendy and I recently bought a 31 foot, 1969, International, Sovereign, Land Yacht, Airstream.  In it’s day it was the king of kings as far as mobile living is concerned.  In 1969 it sold for nearly 10,000 dollars.  Today, the equivalent Airstream sells for $70,000 dollars.  It took us about two weeks of craiglist searching, and driving all over tarnation looking to finally arrive at the one we purchased.  We set 17 one hundred dollar bills down on a desk, received the title, and hooked up to the behemoth and towed it 140 miles to our home. 

    The only incident was that one of the rather large windows, approximately 3 feet long by 2 feet wide, flew off of the airstream and hit the side of a fedex trailer.  We had no idea until the fedex driver pulled up next to us and blew his horn, passed us, cut us off, and began slowing down while signaling to follow him onto the off ramp.  He informed me that the window had hit is trailer, but not to worry because he didn’t think Fedex would notice the minor damage.  He then told us that he owned an RV dealership two exits down.  He was quite certain that they might have a replacement window.  Thanks but no thanks Captain Coincidence.  I got back on the interstate and continued yankin’ that airliner fuselage down the road with my buddies Ford F-350, 7.3 liter, superduty, diesel truck.  Apparently this is the largest diesel engine one can buy without acquiring a CDL.  From the front of the truck, (which is taller than me and I’m 6'3") to the back of the trailer we were well over 50 feet long.  Ironically this set up was completely legal. 
   
     This isn’t exactly a true story you would expect to read on a dedicated peak oiler/permaculturalist’s blog is it?  Well, it’s not fiction, it’s true.  First off let me say that I am not a hypocrite, and this in no way makes me one.  However I do understand how contradictory and paradoxical this all may seem.  Let me explain.

    The need for this arrangement was a long time in the making.  The largest irony here is that this land yacht weights about 3000 pounds, completely gutted, as it stands now.  How many energy slaves does it take to move a 31' trailer up the side of a mountain?  I live 115 miles down the mountain in the hills.  In order to get to Asheville I have to climb the famed Saluda grade (7% grade).  Not to mention the Green River Gorge.  To get a 31' trailer from the upstate of SC to Ashville NC it takes a lot of fucking raw fossil fuel power.  As my wife said the other day while sitting in the cab behind that 7.3 liter diesel engine, “I think I just grew a dick.”  It’s amazing what that kind of power will do to the psyche. 

    So why would I do something like this?  Our global civilization is chillin’ somewhere in the ghetto of the bumpy plateau that might as well be the gate to the downward side of Hubbert’s peak.  All I can say is that it makes sense to me.  The greatest paradox is that my wife and I are embracing our gypsy natures all while cultivating a homestead.  Homesteads require daily work to be done and don’t stand up well to the homesteaders leaving for months at a time.  Yet they can go fallow, and we have begun designing our homestead to withstand months of our absence.  The bottom line is that people don’t take kindly to permaculture, druid, gypsy, ninjas round these parts.  I think Zombie Whispering may be a bust as a career path.  It’s a great skill to have, but only for short term interatctions with zombies.  You can’t live amongst them and not be them in the long term.  Hence the need for our behemoth airline fuselage.
   
    This is what it looks like to us.  We bought a home for 17 one hundred dollar bills.  The undercarriage, towing hardware, and skin of this vessel are all in great condition.  We bought it road worthy (we’re in the process of replacing all of the windows with plexiglass).  We are also in the process of profiting off of all of the vintage vanity that composed the guts.  When we are done with it we will have acquired a portable aluminum home at no cost.  I’m not trying to justify what we have done.  I’m just trying to tease my way through the illusory conundrum.

    Here are my plans for the Airstream.  I’m going to craft a solar hot water heater onto the top.  It will be placed where the airconditioning unit is now (after we sell it for good money due to it being 1969 original and still blowing cold air).  I’m designing a system of rain water catchment for the top as well.  I plan on connecting one sink to the hot water and placing a 55 gallon drum over the wheel’s for a cistern to collect the water.  It will also double as a heat source for the inside of the trailer, which I plan on superinsulating.  I also plan on one solar panel that will run one deep freezer and keep us able to plug into the matrix.  That will be the only need for electricity.  If you have a freezer you don’t need a refrigerator.  Gallon glass jugs half full of water and frozen, and then placed in coolers, provide an ample refrigerator.  There will also be a pantry built into the trailer that will hold bulk dry food (which is pretty much what we live on now...oats, rice, polenta, beans, eggs, and dairy consists of the majority of our diet). 

    This is my plan for the kitchen.  It will be an indoor/outdoor kitchen.  I plan on one propane tank to run the original gas oven and my two burner camping stove.  This will be the only thing we will need fuel for when stationary.  Yet we will not need this fuel to meet our needs.  Propane will simply be for convenience.  The oven also doubles as a heat source in the winter.  The majority of our cooking will be down with a solar oven and a rocket stove.  However we are also installing a small two burner, antique coal burning stove (the stove is from the early 20th century, and I will use small twigs for heat as the firebox is pretty small). 

    The bathroom will be a composting toilet on the inside as well as a camping style shower.  To shower one will simply take the lid off of the 55 gallon cistern, fill the bag, and then hang the bag in what will be a very small showering area on the inside of the airstream.  The water will just drain overboard and be collected in another container for reuse elsewhere. 

    Another aspect I’ve been playing with is a small scale biodiesel set up.  The idea will be to remain in place seasonally and only move as the seasons dictate.  So we will move no more than three times a year.  I figure three to four months is plenty of time to acquire the feedstock and make 30 gallons of fuel or so.  My permaculture associate has operated a biodiesel business in the past, so navigating the various ins and outs and what-have-you’s won’t be difficult.  The next phase of this plan is to acquire an old diesel truck.  However, it’s not necessary due to the fact that I have a 7.3 liter and a 6.3 liter at my disposal. 

    I’m not delusional about the transient nature of security that this plan provides us.  It requires lots of moving parts, but only to move on occasion.  Once in place, we will not need the grid for my families survival, and we will have the ability to go wherever sanity needs us.  I’m throwing all in on permaculture.  It is already providing me with community, but that community is up the mountain.  This is the only plan that will enable me to move my family there due to the hand I have been dealt. Staying in Zombieville is not an option long term.  However we can’t leave now, so this is the best we can do.  The matter of security is one in which I find the majority of us peak oiler’s don’t want to talk about.  I’ve said it before, Zombies are first and foremost insatiably hungry beings.  Zombie children are ravenous feral little evil fuckers that I want to limit my interaction with.  Don’t be mistaken about my intentions.  I have a healthy and open line of communication with the reality of the future.  The Airstream will have a weapon safe.  Essentially this is the vessel that we intend on surviving the long emergency in. 

    I suppose this is fate.  I’ve always been a nomad...it’s just my style.  So Druid Permaculture Gypsy Magic is the final form it would seem...for me and my family.  We still have a homestead here, in the hills, and we still have an obligation to care for our elder.  However that doesn’t mean that we have an obligation to stay in Zombieville.  I intend on surviving whatever the future throws my way.  As for the plans for the rest of the space in our spacecraft.  The first ten feet of trailer, in the front, is going to be nothing but bean bags, oversize pillows, a full size memory foam mattress, and a nice plush circular couch.  That’s right...an oversize chill room great for taken her easy as much as possible while surviving the downside of Hubbert's Peak. 

     As an interesting aside.  The Apollo 11 crew was quarantined in a 1969 airstream for 21 days after returning to Earth.   I suppose if it was good enough for the American legends that walked on the surface of the moon...it's good enough for my family.  The irony in this symbolism is so sweat that it's uniquely beautiful.  The airstream truly is an American Icon that represents the height of American engineering applied to recreation.  I find this a perfect symbol to make an abode to travel into the long descent with.  It's a very real American vessel ripe with space age overtones.  I think what we are doing is necessary, logical, and unavoidable.  If nothing else, the psychological security blanket that this project is providing my family is worth it.  All of us who are aware of the reality of the long descent want to feel that we can do something constructive to combat the helplessness.  There is great value for my families psychological health in this vessel.  This is a very real spacecraft that we are designing to navigate our way into the long descent. 

Talking to President Nixon while in Quarantine

Mobile Quarantine 

On the side of the USS Hornet