My spirit otter

The mentality that Alaskan bush pilots don’t make money because they earn approximately $40,000 a season (four months) is driven by pure sloth and greed. If you’re doing something that gives you pleasure, that makes you happy, that earns you an honest income, who in their right mind wouldn’t be satisfied making $10,000 a month? I could easily live on $10,000 a month. 

I read an online forum regarding Alaskan pilots where they don’t like being called bush pilots. Too bad. They prefer “Air Taxi” but that corporate name can go straight to hell. BUSH PILOT! You heard me! 

Dick Proenneke. He was my spirit otter. 

The more I read on him, the more parallel our lives seem to be. We’re both from the Midwest. I’m from Minnesota. He’s from Iowa. We both grew up primarily outdoors. We both absolutely love nature. We respect it. We know how to live in it. Survive it. At the age of 51 Proenneke reportedly moved to Alaska to be a naturalist, to be in solitude. I turned 50 years old last January. I want to move to Alaska to be in solitude. Peace and quiet. Harmony. He lived alone in his Alaskan cabin for thirty years. I see myself doing the same. It seems Alaska is the last wild frontier. Heaven on earth. My peace. My sanctuary. My little house on the prairie.

Unlike Proenneke, however, I need plumbing and electricity. The cabin he built and lived in for 30 years didn’t have plumbing or electricity. I want both. I’ve gotten use to it. I enjoy it. Must have plumbing and access to WiFi. A few backup generators. Propane and propane accessories. That, and I don’t hunt. I used to fish but there’s grocery stores with plenty of food in them. I don’t need to murder animals for sport or nutrition. I get that Proenneke didn’t work. He had little if any money. He lived entirely off the land. He hunt to feed himself. I get that.

I’m hoping in Alaskan solitude, or remote Bay Area solitude, I’ll be able to memoir how to enjoy a simple life again. Either that or I’ll go completely mad. Madness might be more interesting? The Galapagos Affair! 

Astronomers say I’m a Rooster and Goat, if you believe in such things. Charles Darwin didn’t. Be that, he too found himself in Alaska to test his Darwinian philosophy. Its interesting to me the familiar routes we all take seeking enlightenment. Buddhists. Darwinism. Naturalists. Scholars. Philosophers. First we try meditation, then spiritualism, acupuncture, drugs, isolation, deprivation, etc, all things to force open the other 90%, or whatever large percent, of the brain humans don’t use to better understand the meaning of it all. 

Big bang theory

Aliens! As in from outer space bacteria that evolved into a planet, into water, into life form, into plant life, into animals, into humans, into beauty, into destruction, into filth, into nothingness. Evolution. Was that the plan? 

How are human beings today so uneducated, so unsophisticated, so greedy, that they absolutely cannot process a simple fact like - if you open a door to outside sometimes a fly might fly in, or a bee, a moth, a butterfly, a bird, even a stray cat. 

The number of people who have zero interest of life beyond the front doors to their houses, fast food joints, and work places, is not only weird, it’s horrifying. 

I hope kids today in Minnesota are still being taught how to ice skate in kindergarten. 

Every time I see some poor little kid being dragged around Las Vegas at 1am, I just want to beat the hell out of their parents. Take that kid camping up north. Read books together. Play baseball together. Roast hotdogs and marshmallows over a campfire together. Fucking scumbags dragging their five year olds around Las Vegas Blvd at 1am so mommy and daddy can see the bright neon lights of casinos. Ooooh casinos! Take that kid to an orchard, pick fruit together, or buy a telescope, check out some truly spectacular bright lights, moon and stars, give your kids some real memories of mom and dad to hold on to and cherish for the rest of their lives. But no, you greedy filthy poor excuses for parents will instead drag your toddlers around Las Vegas casinos. Crackerjack parenting. 

I happened upon (movie) KINGSMAN: THE GOLDEN CIRCLE. Great movie. Love the fight scenes. And I especially love the portrayal of Americans from Kentucky. Git ‘er done. All hat no cattle. And if that dog don’t hunt, send ‘er back!