Patrick Dodd: The Word of Dodd

Writing is work.  Moreover, the better you write the harder the work.  I worry as an artist when people try to convince young artist that writing is easy.  If it was the people who say things like that would be making their living selling songs, and almost universally when you examine the person who is saying that writing is easy, you will note that they do not make their living doing it.  Almost all art forms look easy when someone who has spent their life in the honest pursuit of something performs them.  All it takes to find out how truly difficult any art form truly is, is to attempt it.  There is one other way, though I am probably going to piss off people who don’t take it seriously but for the sake of the young lets take off the gloves and step into the ring.   (I was just told by someone who understands public debate much better than I shall ever understand it that I will put my friends on the spot if I write what I am about to write, [...]

   The fascist corporate intervention of Big Pharma, Hospitals, A.M.A., and insurance industry in the health care reform effort has made it emphatically clear that recovering our Democracy must precede any other efforts at progressive reform.  The American public has made it clear that they want affordable, accessible, quality health care.  The politicians are giving us unaffordable, inaccessible, poor quality health care.  We the people will be paying more, be able to afford less, and can expect no improvement in quality of health care given the current health care reform proposal.  With current reforms, politicians receiving big bucks from medical industry corporations will force Americans to give big dollars to insurance companies for inferior coverage.   Current reform will not guarantee these insurance companies will keep premiums, deductibles, or co-pay rates at affordable levels.  Our health insurance premiums may well exceed our mortgage [...]

Fear and Transgression at the Hobson Horn The Byzantine madness that passes for forest management in these the final troubled days of our short-lived empire is enough to drive a man to cynicism and strong drink. Those were the thoughts racing through my fevered brain as I barreled headlong down a dark gut tightening mountain road after having survived one more supply run to the hearty souls maintaining the line in defense of mother earth at the place the powers that be have named Hobson’s Horn. It had been another night jitterbugs and jangles, you know, hugs and hellos tinged with fear and loathing. That kind of happy to be where you are, but unable to stop looking over your shoulder in the dark for the steps you’re only hearing in your mind sort of night; that kind of night that seems to happen way to often when good Americans dare to raise their voices against the powerful and mad. Rumored threat and actual threat flowed like thick wine around the meeting place, mixing and [...]

Ups and Downs On the Yellow Brick Road Here’s how it starts: I’m carrying a load of supplies and one passenger up the mountain; its late, almost sunset. It’s been a good run; the kind of run you can almost convince yourself is simply a nice refreshing drive in the hills. So why are my hands shaking? Why is the wheel slick in my sweaty palms? Suddenly, on the spookiest part of the trip, a one lane road with mountain on one side and Oh-My-God-how-far-down-does-that-go on the other; a road so twisted you get cotton mouth around every other hair pin, there, maybe fifty yards down the road, I see it. It’s stopped, lying almost hidden in its own dust, like the steel skeleton of some science fiction whale carcass. The sight makes my bladder squeeze down so hard I have to bite my lip to keep from messin’ my upholstery. My passenger begins to mutter something that sounded like a Wicca rosary, but I’m way too preoccupied to make it out. She falls quickly silent [...]

Vertical Range Wars Part III: Or: When did the revolution sober up? To glean a deeper understanding of the blathering that follows truth seekers, you would do well to understand a little bit about two American subsets: smugglers and hobos. Both are global groups, but have in this case delightful all American traits that make them extra special. Our smuggling lesson, like all advanced classes on the subject, begins at one of the tombs to the Unknown Smuggler. There are several such shrines hidden around this great land; caves, safe houses, hidden and seldom-occupied back rooms that are only accessible via an uninviting back alley. This particular shrine lies half way up, and, oh say, 200 yards into the heart of a mountain side somewhere in the deeps of the forest in Oregon. So trim your wicks, duck your heads, and keep your eyes peeled for bats, the tomb, the shrine and your education await. You see truth seeker, hidden deep within this dusty catacomb, safe from the prying eyes of a non-believing [...]