Confessions of a Starving Artist

The use of solar energy has not been opened up because the oil industry does not own the sun.  ~ Ralph Nader

I think that I have remarked before that when your days and nights become full, regardless of whether it is with obligation, adventure, or some combination of the two, that the profound tends to take a backseat to efficiency.  Not to say that it is obscured completely, how could it be?  But when necessity forces us to streamline our hours, prioritize what we have to do in order to accomplish everything that we mean to, those sweet scents of the roses can only be remarked upon for tender seconds as we catch our breathes or in the fading worlds just before sleep.  Regardless, it is in these days, whether we love what we are doing or loathe it, that we remember what it is to be blissful… it is to be unthinking.

That being said, I knew that June would be busy.  And it has been.  Work has been demanding, despite the end state of any given day.  One way to note this, other than philosophical reflections like those above would be a simple examination of one’s checking account.  I would wager that it is the same for most Generation Xers, perhaps all Americans at this point; when we are bored, we spend money, when we are not, we spend less.  There are a number of insightful thoughts that can be expounded upon from that sole observation, but I will refrain from digression and note it only as a presumed fact.  Unfortunately for me, other commitments and projections have kept my bank account lowered over recent days… so it goes.

However, after LL’s departure this weekend past, I found myself with two vehicles whose gas tanks were dangerously low for a man who is inclined to ignore even the most routine maintenance and care for a vehicle during a busy work week.  Observing this, I went to the pump recently and was a bit shocked at how much it cost to fill up both automobiles.  Of course, my eyes turned to the price per gallon sign, and I was even more shocked.  Living in a  past month and a half of going, going, going, I had not realized that gasoline had jumped nearly three quarters of a dollar since Memorial Day. 

I know that it was Memorial Day when all this started because I noted it then with a sort of brooding foreshadowing to any and all who would listen.  Sometimes I hate being right.  Three years ago in 2006, I remember a bit of a price-jump on Memorial Day because I was travelling in the American Southwest at the time.  2006 was the first year that I remember noting any sort of Memorial Day spike, though I’d admit, it may have gone on for much longer and I simply did not note the fact because of either minimal personal effect on my life or a lack of giving a shit… or both.   Then in 2007 I noted it again, and thought it queer, mainly due to the price beginning to have an effect on my bottom line as a single, free-wheeling playboy.  Then last summer in 2008, I noted it with complete appall as the price per gallon had grown to what I and many other Americans considered to be outrageous and condemnable, and yet over the summer it continued to grow into what we all remember as one of the worst and most inflated fuel cost summers ever. 

Which brings us to present.  Fuel costs did eventually settle back to a level more akin to a country that hanging precariously in the balance.  For my neck of the woods, the price was a stable two bucks even to the gallon; a price that held for nearly four months.  Regulations being what they are in our current administration, I had foolishly believed that something more paralleled to President Carter’s gas rationing was more likely than another spike.  It would appear that I was wrong.

If I am remarking upon an issue that has been gorged to unrecoginability by frenzied publized lions like so many stories that fetch headlines in the arena of today’s 24-hour media coliseum, then I apologize.  It is not my intent to beat a dead horse.  To be fair, twenty minutes of NPR News and, if I’m lucky, a chance to see the newest Hollywood blockbuster on the weekend, is about all the exposure to the outside world that I achieve each week.  As I said, the profound takes a backseat to efficiency. 

Still, I would be remiss if I thought that I didn’t offer some sort of perspective.  I am convinced that the American public, as it stands, is one large, oafish, neglectful, animal who is all too happy to forget its own experiences, no matter how near, if it allows itself the opportunity to shrug its shoulders at current national issues that may be hard to handle.  I remember growing up in Western Maine and noting gas prices even then… however it was more alone the lines of, “…Daddy, gas is a whole dollar a gallon now!  That’s a lot!… can we still get ice cream?!”  However, the point is that gas prices would be more or less stable for years at a time, fluctuating a few cents this way or that way each week, but generally holding steady… after all, I remember the value of ice cream well.  The public accepts that gas prices can now bounce whole quarter-dollars in a month because of the economy, nay, the world economy is in crisis.  I may have bought that…

…until Memorial Day.  Prices that spike consistently on a specific weekend each year for four years do not mark inconsistencies in the market.  They mark something far more calculated, far more greedy, for more evil; a feeling that something larger and more ominous is at work going much deeper than we can imagine or hope to affect.  That feeling I will coin here as “the darkness”. 

If I could be indulged a conspiracy theory:  Last year’s oil spike was the match that caused the conflagration that is our global economic meltdown.  I’m not saying that it was the sole factor, as many other dynamics laid significant tinder to this wildfire; I believe it was the unquenchable tanks of last summer’s SUVs and over-sized pick-up trucks that was the mighty wind brought down this house of cardholders.  The fact that fuel prices somewhat balanced could be attributed to our new regulatory-oriented Commander in Chief, but I imagine that is only a clever subterfuge originating from somewhere far deeper inside the darkness.  Somewhere, someone is pulling the strings again, seeing what they can get away with… and after a long winter and a quiet spring, a dormant puppet master picked up those strings again on Memorial Day.

Little man reality says that none of this really matters because at the level of the everyman nothing can be done about this.  If I am right (and I occasional can be…) then even Democracy cannot prevail because this goes far beyond a simple nation.  Capitalism. as principal, cannot because the very idea of control through cost is well within the finest ideals of Capitalism.  Even such extreme methods, out-dated or avant guard, such as Imperialism or International Militarization cannot control this.  What then can we do about this?

The answer, for most of us, is nothing.

This morning, prompted by increasing concerns about terrorism, oil prices reached a record high as the cost of a barrel of crude is a whopping $44.34.  Wow, it seems shocking that a product of finite supply gets more expensive the more we use it.  Now the terror alert means higher oil prices, which oddly enough means higher profits for oil companies giving them more money to give to politicians whose policies may favor the oil companies such as raising the terror alert level.  As Simba once told us: “It’s the circle of life.”   ~ Jon Stewart, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Summer 2008