Unexpected Gifts

The week of Christmas seems like the ideal time to acknowledge a couple of gifts I have received this year which seem somehow related to my work here at lygsbtd. I don’t know whether these gifts came in appreciation of my writing, or just to show me how it’s done.

The first of these gifts mysteriously appeared in my mailbox at KMUD. It was a little book titled Yet Another Beautiful Day in Paradise by Fred Inthehills. I’ve heard Fred’s voice on KMUD, but I’ve not yet met him. I’m not at all sure I would recognize him if I saw him in town. I assume he put the book in my box, but I don’t know for sure.

The book I received had a much nicer cover than this.

What I liked best about Fred’s book was Fred. I like the way he thinks. I enjoyed his story and I encourage you to read it. It’s short. It won’t take you long. Yet Another Beautiful Day in Paradise has all of the elements of a classic Humboldt “back to the land” fairy tale. Every good Humboldt “back to the land” fairy tale has to have these elements:

The Cheap Land Story Every good “back to the land” fable has to have a story about how the person got their land, and how easily it came into their possession. For example, they came up here to attend a party, got shitfaced drunk, and woke up to find half of their money gone, and the deed to a 40 acre parcel in their hand.

The Marijuana Story Every “back to the land” fable recounts the protagonists long relationship with that misunderstood friend, Mary Jane. Every “back to the land” fable portrays marijuana as a positive influence, and as a helpful ally. Marijuana is a beautiful thing. What makes these old “back to the land” fables great is that when the describe all of the great things that marijuana does for them, money has nothing to do with it.

Instead, they talk about how marijuana saved them from alcohol, or fighting, or hard drugs, and that they were able to substitute marijuana for any of these things, and no matter how hard they tried to abuse marijuana, they could not hurt themselves. That’s some special magic there, and that’s a true story if ever I heard one. Marijuana saves lives, especially when you’ve got plenty of it, and finally, we get to the last element that every “back to the land” fairy tale must include…

The Sex Story. Eventually, all “back to the land” stories include a tale of a memorable night of amazing sex, that invariably leads to real offspring. If you live around here, and you read a lot of these stories, there’s a good chance that you know more than you need to know about the origins of some of your friends.

These “back to the land” fables all end there, with the happy, poor, family living in a tiny, hand-built, unpermitted, cabin in the woods, with more marijuana than they could possibly smoke.

I call these stories “fables,” not because they never happened, but because they never happen anymore. If it isn’t true now, then it was never true. Today, it is nearly impossible to find a place to live in Humboldt County, and the prices are ridiculous. The hills are full of dope yuppies, and nobody around here talks about marijuana except as a product, and as a business.

In contrast, the other gift I received this year revealed a more enduring truth about this community. According to the barista at the cafe I frequent, “This weird guy” asked her to give this pamphlet to my partner Amy, who in turn, gave it to me. This pamphlet turned out to be an issue of the Gulch Mulch, an underground zine out of the Whale Gulch area. The issue I received, dated Spring of 2002 includes a lot of historic artifacts that seem timeless for this area. The Anti-Hippie Petition of 1969 could have easily been written last week, in regard to “the homeless.” The names and the faces have changed, but the bigotry and intolerance remain.

The Gulch Mulch dutifully reported the endless petty bickering and behind the scenes drama that engulf every local institution in a murky shroud as thick and impenetrable as the fog in Redway. That sure hasn’t changed, but I wish we had a little gossip zine like the Gulch Mulch today so that we could get all the dirt, without actually getting dirty.

The Gulch Mulch included some funny bits and some autobiographical pieces as well.

I really enjoyed The Gulch Mulch and Yet Another Beautiful Day In Paradise. So, to whoever among you sent them my way, Thank you very much.

On The Money; The Sick Ideas Behind Healthy Humboldt

On The Money,

Economic Advice for the 99%;

The Sick Ideas Behind Healthy Humboldt

 

Listening to Dennis Huber’s Monday Morning Magazine show on KMUD last week, I heard the voice of a representative of Healthy Humboldt talking about the thrilling conclusion of the Humboldt County General Plan Update. While the endless acrimonious bickering on this issue highlights the complete failure of county government and private enterprise to address the county’s housing needs, or provide good stewardship for the resources and lands of Humboldt County, Healthy Humboldt’s cheerful proclamation that they advocate for “sustainability” particularly irked me.

I know they mean well, and I understand their reasoning: If we encourage people to live closer together, and closer to jobs, services, and public transportation, we can lower Humboldt County’s carbon footprint. However, a lower carbon footprint does not equal sustainability, not even close. The county goes to great lengths to prohibit sustainable housing, and even greater lengths to encourage resource exploitation and consumption. Healthy Humboldt wouldn’t dare suggest the county operate in any other way.

So, whether you’re an egghead ecofascist, a greedy fuck-all real-estate developer or a blood-sucking dope yuppie, you’ve got your head up your ass when it comes to sustainability in Humboldt County. The same goes for the bureaucracies in Eureka who issue permits and enforce the reams of pointless and arcane regulations the county has already adopted. These people have already made an unholy mess of Humboldt County, and this GPU won’t change that one bit.

Face it, as a culture, we have no idea how to live on this planet sustainably. Most of our building codes and housing standards were established in the post WWII boom years, the period of the greatest increase in American consumption, and before the concept of a finite planet ever crept into the American psyche. Today, building codes still largely reflect the values and attitudes of that bygone era.

The whole point of building codes was not to make homes “safer” or whatever, but to make them cost more, use more stuff, keep more people busy, and waste more water, energy, space and resources. In other words, building codes were established to spur growth in the economy. The entire regulatory system was designed to make housing less sustainable, and it has been fantastically successful. They gave us suburban sprawl, gridlock, and homelessness. They’ve made homes so expensive that most people can no longer afford one.

As a result, people have become slaves to their homes, if they haven’t already lost everything to their home, through foreclosure. They’ve successfully turned “home”, which should be a place of comfort, security, and sanctuary, into a source of stress, anxiety and endless toil. This is a remarkable achievement, even if it is not exactly something to be proud of.

We should acknowledge the county government, land developers, the construction industry, real-estate agents, appraisers, bankers and mortgage brokers for their role in generating an enormous amount of unnecessary economic activity by making life suck for so many people. They really deserve more than a token of our appreciation.

If you are homeless, facing foreclosure, struggling to make payments on an underwater mortgage or throwing your money away on rent in an overpriced housing market, you should know that it’s not by accident. Some people believe that it is more important for them to make more money, that it is for you to have a place to live, and those are the people bickering over the Humboldt GPU.

No, no one at the table at the GPU wants to see hillsides dotted with cabins, shacks, yurts and teepees. No one involved with the GPU wants to return to the days of out-houses and pit latrines, but that’s what sustainability looks like. That’s what home should look like, simple, tidy, and homemade. That is what the Humboldt County General Plan exists to prohibit; sensible homes built by hand, from local materials by the people who intend to live in them. Instead, the county employs a small army of personnel to insure that everyone in Humboldt County, lives up to their unrealistic expectations born in an era of unrestrained, bewilderingly wasteful consumption.

They all want housing costs to continue to rise because they all want more money for themselves, more money for their land, more money for their existing homes, more expensive new homes, more grants for Healthy Humboldt and more revenue for Humboldt County bureaucrats. They don’t care whether or not you have a home, or what kind of torture you endure to keep it.

Everyone involved in this seemingly endless saga with the GPU deserves your contempt, as does the GPU itself. You deserve a home, and not one that you have to spend half of your waking hours at work to afford. There’s a view of the Humboldt GPU that’s on the money.