It’s not sad – just the opposite – but there’s definitely something going on in “Callin’ Baton Rouge” (Garth Brooks’ version at least, which is the one I’m familiar with). Every time I hear this song, it overwhelms my brain with pleasure and I can’t keep from smiling. What musical magic makes this song so ecstatic? And why is the accompanying youtube video anime? I don’t know, but this song makes me really, really happy.

Feisty is probably too mild a descriptor for this horse. He’s downright ornery and aggressive, and while my inclination is to look to a horse’s nature for clues and to avoid blaming the horse – unwanted behaviors are the result of perfectly natural traits and inclinations etc., etc. – it’s easy to lose patience with the little guy when he attempts to bite, kick and charge at me full speed.

Like most worthwhile things, training a horse takes patience, consistency and love. Some horses (and dogs, and people) are more difficult to train than others. So instead of throwing up my hands in frustration and declaring that I don’t care if he ends up in a can of dog food (which I’d never do, ahem) I’m going to accept the challenge with as much grace, gratitude and good humor as I can muster. I’m going to take this as a valuable opportunity to improve my horsemanship, increase my patience, and learn to set my ego aside. Most importantly, I’m going to remember what compels me to work with these beautiful, beguiling creatures in the first place.

It’s beyond a cliché to point out the hypocrisy of politicians. But this time, Senator “frothy mix” Santorum has managed to thoroughly and violently blow my mind.

Speaking at CPAC, Santorum said that the provision in Obama’s healthcare law requiring religiously affiliated institutions to provide birth control coverage to their employees is “not about contraception. It’s about economic liberty; it’s about freedom of speech; it’s about freedom of religion. It’s about government control of your lives and it’s got to stop.”

Whaaaaaaa?

This, coming from the man who believes that the government should have absolute control over the minutia of citizens’ sex lives. The man who thinks that the government should be in the business of dictating what couples (including HETEROSEXUAL MARRIED COUPLES) should and should not be doing in the privacy of their bedrooms. The man who is so bizarrely obsessed with other people’s sex lives that he compared gay sex to “man on dog” and thinks that the state should determine what constitutes an acceptable expression of intimacy between consenting adults.

This shit makes my blood boil. I don’t know whether to scream, weep, or projectile vomit. Thankfully, even for most social conservatives, Santorum’s creepy insistence that sex (again, between consenting adults, even if they are straight and married) needs to be under strict legislative control is a bridge too far. I don’t know a single gun toting, buck hunting, beer drinking American patriot who would welcome Santorum’s intrusion into their relationship with their significant other.

Santorum has also blamed the rape of children by Catholic priests on “academic, political and cultural liberalism”. Um, what? All this time I thought the rape of children by priests was happening because, um, priests were raping children. But apparently it wasn’t their fault – they were “affected by culture”. Yeah, that makes sense. If it weren’t for Ellen and Planned Parenthood and leftist college professors and the welfare state, priests wouldn’t be inexorably compelled to commit unspeakable acts of abuse. See the logic there?

There’s no way that Santorum will be our next president, and it’s highly unlikely that he’ll be the Republican nominee. But the fact that he’s even made it this far in the primaries is highly disturbing. “As conservatives and tea party folks, we are not just wings of the Republican Party,” Santorum said. “We are the Republican Party.” If that’s true (and the adherence of all the candidates to a strict ideological orthodoxy that panders to extreme right wing positions bears this out), the American Taliban has thoroughly infiltrated what used to be a respectable political institution. Bummer.

2011 also brought serious loss: the death of a good friend, the end of a relationship that I thought would be forever. A new year brings with it the prospect of renewal and healing; although these events won’t be forgotten, their significance can change and evolve, creating new insights. I just spoke to a friend who suggested that I do something on New Year’s day that I want to do more of in the coming year; something that will set the tone for the year to come. I really like that idea, and will seek to implement it. I’m not sure yet what it will look like, but I do have an idea about my “resolution” for the coming year: it’s not a concrete task I’ve set myself or a promise to start or stop doing something. Rather, it’s an orientation towards life, a desire to bring a heightened awareness to my choices, to approach my actions and my relationships with greater authenticity and integrity.

With that in mind, here’s the Possum:

I wish you all peace, joy and prosperity in the New Year!

“Wait!” My brain protested. “It’s a gorgeous day, you should be outside! You should be writing, looking for work, doing something productive!”

But the aroma of baking bread, the warmth of the sun and the peaceful ease of the afternoon took hold. I napped. Later, on a walk with the dogs, I reflected on the concept of “wasting time”. Because my work schedule is so sporadic, I end up with a lot of unstructured time on my hands. More often than not, I feel compelled to be doing something. I feel guilty that I’m not working, writing, painting, creating value. And yet, there’s magic in lazy afternoons, in stillness, in quiet. The multifaceted pleasure I felt today as I lay in the sun and let my body relax, smelling the bread in the oven and seeing my animals lying peacefully around me was unquestionably worthwhile.

Although I sometimes feel anxiety when I “do nothing”, the understanding that my time on earth is fleeting prompts me to reevaluate societal notions of value and productivity. I love it that my days aren’t tightly structured and controlled. And, while I would welcome more paying work, I’ve decided to enjoy my down time, to revel in the blessings of relaxation, solitude and unhurried reflection. This winter, I’m giving myself permission to hibernate, to find joy in idleness. Spring will bring busyness once again; no need to rush.

(IGNORE THE CHEESY VIDEO, JUST LISTEN TO THE SONG)

I didn’t use to like Gary Allan. I found him whiny and insipid, the closest you could get to “emo-country”. A couple of his songs were ok, but it wasn’t until I heard “The Devil’s Candy” that I started to come around. Truth be told, it’s not an amazing song. It follows a well-worn formula (the boozy lament over the self-destructiveness of a good-timing lifestyle) and isn’t all that compelling musically. No, what really grabs me is the lyric “I’ve always had a sweet tooth/For the devil’s candy”. It resonates with me deeply as someone who shares this affliction.

Seemingly simple, the implications of this metaphor, and its poetic possibilities, run deep. First of all, “the devil’s candy” is a nice catch-all term for life’s temptations: booze, drugs, rowdy bars, illicit sex. It’s sweet, it’s seductive, it’s immediately gratifying, but ultimately nutritionally void. As someone with a literal, as well as figurative, sweet tooth, I’ve luxuriated in candy’s sugary delights only to be sickened by excess when one peanut butter cup turned into eleven. The devil’s candy is just the same: the initial rush of sensual pleasure ultimately gives way to highly unpleasant consequences.

The idea of a “sweet tooth” complicates questions of individual agency, instead suggesting addiction and compulsion. In contrast to many great country songs in which the protagonist defiantly clings to their hard-living ways despite the heartbreak they know will ensue, the singer of “The Devil’s Candy” doesn’t know why he does what he does – he just can’t help it. He’s got a sweet tooth.

A sweet tooth isn’t something people choose to have. Sugar isn’t an acquired taste. A love of sweets doesn’t bespeak a cultivated palate – quite the opposite, in fact. Having a sweet tooth is not something to boast of: it’s a sheepish admission, an explanation for the quarts of ice cream in your freezer, the stash of chocolate bars in you glove compartment. It’s unsophisticated, base and animalistic. A craving for sweet tastes is primal, a holdover from the days when the ability to recognize a ready source of carbohydrates was a matter of survival. Now that the food supply is flooded with high fructose corn syrup and other cheap  carbohydrate sources, it behooves us humans to find greater pleasure in fresh vegetables, whole grains and lean protein sources. But for some of us, our lizard brain’s urging to gorge on cake presents an insurmountable temptation, an urging that we would deny, if only we could.

Well I’ve played the cards, and I’ve rolled the dice
Well I gave up heaven for a fool’s paradise
I once lost an angel when a bad girl was handy
I’ve always had a sweet tooth
For the devil’s candy

This acknowledgement of self-defeat speaks deeply to those of us who often choose shallow instant gratification over the genuine article. Who in their right mind, after all, would give up an angel? Or, come to think of it, eternal life in an incorruptible paradise? Adam and Eve had a sweet tooth for the devil’s candy, too. All questions of morality, of sin, of temptation, inevitably lead back to the problem of free will. You don’t choose to have a sweet tooth, but you do decide whether or not to eat the devil’s candy. Only sometimes it seems like you can’t decide not to.

Tractors!

When I was finished, I wandered into the shop, where this was happening:

Plasma cutter at work

Quite a robot

When I asked Kyle if he ever wears protective equipment, he laughed

Pretty

Grinding

Granted, the cultural references in “American Saturday Night” are pretty tame and vanilla: “French kiss”, “Italian ice”, “Spanish moss”, “Amstel Light”, “Canadian Bacon”, “German car”, etc. “Brazilian leather” and “Chinatown” are the only mentions of anything non-European. Still, it gets the job done. Paisley makes the (pretty uncontroversial) argument that diverse cultural influences have contributed to the richness of American life, and that America wouldn’t be America without them.

The virtues of cultural assimilation and tolerance are integral to the message of “Welcome to the Future”. Paisley contrasts a childhood during which he longed to watch TV in the car and his football-team buddy was the victim of vicious racial prejudice to a hopeful present in which international video conferences are the norm, and little brown kids (girls, at that!) can realistically dream of becoming architects, lawyers, even the President of the United States. Instead of decrying the dilution of a fictive, monolithic and unchanging Americanness, Paisley embraces the novel possibilities of a world in which Japanese people perform country music, enjoy line dancing and appropriate the Confederate flag. Instead of a destructive force that compromises traditional values, technology is presented as a harbinger of positive change, breaking down barriers to connectivity and mutual understanding.

As opposed to the crusty-reactionary persona affected by many country music stars, Brad Paisley comes across as a wide-eyed ingenue, delighted rather than exasperated by the irony and contradictions inherent in a rapidly globalizing world. Although I can’t deny the appeal of Toby Keith’s macho bluster, Brad Paisley’s vision strikes me as a lot sweeter, more inclusive, and more hopeful. The video for “Welcome to the Future” makes me, cynical pessimist though I am, tear up every time.