What should've been a clear blue sky... but wasn't because Mother Nature decided to bless us with Cirrus Uncinus clouds.

Someone is wrong on the internet. Always. But really, guys? Chemtrails? For reals?

Here's the deal: I'm farting around on Flickr, looking at pretty pictures in an "all Montana" photogroup, when I come across a photo of excellent Montana clouds - the whispy kind that denotes only the most superb of days. It's one of the things I really love about Montana. Don't underestimate the luck of being able to look up and see fluff painted daintily across the heavens. After admiring the photo for a few seconds, I looked down to the description, where the photographer was bitching about how she was "disappointed that they didn't leave the sky alone" and how "the sky was obscured the entire time" she was in Montana. Now don't get me wrong; I like a blue sky as much as the next guy. But when it's Montana whispy cirrus vs. plain ol' blue sky? Exactly. Gimme the clouds.

So I made the mistake of posting a comment saying such. This is how I find out that the photographer is a crazy conspiracy theorist.

Ladies and gents, I consider myself to be a fine connoisseur of conspiracy theories, being that I was exposed to no less than 53 of the craziest (including the "chemtrails are a government conspiracy to kill the American people" one) conspiracy theories known to man, all by the age of 12 (I have a crazy uncle). I've seen the videos, read the tracts, and guess what? It all adds up to 'I'm A Scared Deranged Individual With Too Much Time On My Hands And Too Much Need To Be Somehow Better Or More In-The-Know Than Everybody Else So I Can Warn Them And Save Them From The Big Scary World'.

Then, understandably, she gets upset when I say she's taking the "paranoid approach". Okay, so I lack tact. She's "done research," you understand. She's an expert. I get nice. I forgot that conspiracy theorists don't like to be called paranoid. That they don't see their own crazy. They're always right, you know. I'm just ignorant. I bow out, letting her to her fear and loathing, though I tell her that I "must simply appreciate [her] beautiful cloud photography for what it is to my perception: photography of chemtrails and gorgeous (natural) Montanan cloud formations."

So, this is how gorgeous cirrus uncinus clouds get demoted to the status of vague threats on our lives. This is where you look up and see sparkling scars in our skies. This is where wind-blown ice crystals become reasons to blame every headcold, nosebleed, and cough on "someone's" wish to kill the American people. This is where we, as a society, lose it. It's more than just the lack of scientific knowledge or understanding; it's where there is an enemy around every corner. It's where, when a plane disappears into the rubble of a building, as it has been demonstrated that planes do when hard-crashing into something, it is someone trying to kill us. It's where there is no hope, no trust, no goodness in others, no escape from your own irrational fears. It's where so much goes wrong.

Say uncle.

I track my uncle’s wanderings into the fluorescent neighborhood diners, through the alleys carpeted with that timeless puke-and-brown-glass-shard ambiance, and down the artfully crimped sidewalks of this city, carefully inspecting everything; they all beckon to me, even while they raise the hair on my neck and give me the distinct feeling that I need to wash my hands a few times before I wipe the cold, greasy sweat from my brow.

Along the way, I knock on every speakeasy door. It’s easy to get in. Sometimes all it takes is the proper knock – a Google search with just the right combination of code words, a click on a fuchsia hyperlink, and I’m in. Other times, they’ll open the little sliding door and question me: Email address? Name? Zip code? Word hidden in the image above? If they interrogate me, I slip them what they want, but only just. I never tell them my first name; I always give an email I don’t check. It satisfies them, though, and I duck through their portal into a whole new world wide web.

When my eyes adjust to the harsh black backgrounds, I must nod to the undeniable, vulgar power of these rough havens. I blink, and in a flash of the screen, the safe, tame internet I love, with its sleek webpages, site maps, calm sans serifs, and working search functions, is swept into oblivion by flashing animated GIFs, crawling text, and blinking headlines screaming things about cosmic sperm, solar-powered adventures, and declassified reports.

I stumble, drunk on puce promises and dizzy with swirling conspiracies, from one end-times coven to the next – lost here in discussion threads, gazing now at the doctored photos of tragedies – hoping to find some trace of him. Someday a click will bring me to a little scrap my uncle has left behind. It will be chartreuse, with strangely capitalized phrases – “Honest Eyes,” “No Nudity or Obscenity,” “a Purple Penis” – and I will suddenly see, will abruptly understand some esoteric truth of the Universe that will explain, pardon, condone somehow his drifting soul.

And if you think I'm wasting your time again, I'm wasting your time.

I HEART ANDREW BIRD.

I have been listening to this fantastic artist nearly nonstop for over a week now. Besides incredible lyrics (my favorites are... well, I can't actually pick any because they're all so good), Bird employs his violin skillz to rockzorz anyone within hearing distance, and his fiddlin' style incorporates everything from classical to American and European folk to jazz. Also: he whistles. ¿Qué guay, eh? If you are interested, you should to be can has checking out his wonderful collection of videos. SOME OF WHICH ARE (PAUSE FOR DRAMATIC EFFECT) CHILDREN'S SHOW APPEARENCES.

If you hear me, Andrew, come to Montana.

Tragedy of a Life Much-Chronicled.

The twin oar blades swooped low over the dark water and slid noiselessly through the barrier between sea and sky and disappeared beneath. Endlessly - swoop, dive, swoop, dive, round and round - my eyes caught glimpses of blunt wooden birds of prey, so eventually I assumed they were there. How strange, I thought, that I should see only the hawk but not the mouse: continuously the attack, but never the kill.

My arms, somehow strong beneath their age spots, barely seemed to flex as I pull the boat across the endless sea. I know now that I rowed, not for the purpose of getting to any certain place, but for the prolongation of this planet's dear lady, Life; I am far from anywhere, and that's the way I wished it could continue to be. For as I drove the oar-eagles on through the night, I awoke far too soon from my drowsy slumber in a bed far from the ocean. I plunked myself with a start, like the clicking of a cog, at my desk and began to type. Up, down, up again, I am more mechanical than my Underwood.

I don't feel so strong anymore. And I miss the falcons by side, their hidden prey beneath. But I'll write about them instead.




Inspired by the life and obsession of the late Mr. Robert Shields. Begun September 2007.