On The Road

 

On the road to Dallas, and that's not a bad thing except they drive like maniacs on I35 and, right at the run-in to 'sprawl central there was a cataclysmic deluge of rain. Adventure, and surely a harbinger of apocalypse to come.

That in mind, a couple of people came up after Mass yesterday and said, "LSP, we went to get money out of the ATM in Whitney and not a single one was working, not one, and we tried all the banks." Huh, imagine that, you go to your bank to withdraw some cash and sorry buddy, you can't. What then.

you shoot an exotic goat with a 30-06

Nothing good and it reminds me of a prepper who said, wisely, "When you see lines around the block for the ATM it's time to get out." Good call and you don't have to be a druidic seer to picture the impossibility of getting out of our doomed cities when the SHTF. Kyrie, they're bad enough as is.

In related news, two violent extremist white supremacists, who identify as Mexican, killed some people in Allen and Brownsville, as all the world knows. But question, what's the issue? Were they Mexican Nazis, Cartel gang people, rando crazies or all of the above.

if you're not scared you should be

Terrifying any witch way, eh?

#2A,

LSP

Go To Town

 

The Anglo-Catholic Society of the Holy Cross (SSC) was founded on February 28, 1855, and to celebrate the anniversary I drove to St. Andrew's, Grand Prairie for Mass, lunch and an excellent talk by a faithful priest.

"Cult, sacred order," he advised, "transliterates into culture." Well said, and the "culture war," in his opinion, is a misnomer. More a matter of those without the sacral and therefore without culture fighting against those who do. 

Better then, thought our speaker, to say we're in a war of anti or no culture versus its opposite. Good call, and it speaks to the nihilist, destructive aspect of our secular orthodoxy.

But I won't preach. It was good to meet with faithful priests and bishops today. A breath of fresh air and Blue enjoyed it too, though he became confused and worried by the unfamiliar expanse of St. Andrew's church garden. So he went back to the truck, where he slept soundly.

In the meanwhile, war drums beat louder.

God Bless You All,

LSP

On The Road

 

On The Road. Did you know that infamous Beat author Jack Kerouac was a Catholic Christian? So was Andy Warhol too, but that's a different story. Studio 54 aside, I climbed in the rig, got on the road and headed West to say Mass.

The church was quiet and beautiful in the evening light while Christ came down to earth to lift us up to heaven, O Salutaris, and time stood strangely still as it always does when we worship God, not least in the Sacrament of the Altar. Then all too soon, "The Mass has ended, go in peace to love and serve the Lord." Ite Missa Est. 

Back in the car park the sun was setting over Texas, no small thing, and I sent the record of it to an old friend who finds himself in LA doing something with pop music. "Look!" I whatsapped, "Sunset. Hope your musicians are behaving themselves." 

Apparently they were, "Big empty production stage. Phase 1 rehearsals. Secret location. All chilled here. Easy. STAY FROSTY." Always. Then back on the road to the Compound with the sun filling the rear-view with its golden radiance. I never tire of the vision and thank God for it, seriously, and therein lies a word to the wise.

Try and make a habit, a discipline of thanking God for the beyond reckoning good that he's given us. Perhaps it's easier to see in the countryside, where creation's comparatively less marred by wickedness than in, say, the DFW metrosprawl. But wherever you are the rule applies, and when followed covers a multitude of sins.

Here Endeth The Lesson,

LSP

On The Road

Whoever said life'd be easy? No one, and with that in mind I left the sylvan groves of old Texas for the concrete metrosprawl of the DFW megacity, not once but twice. Why? Because I had meetings in the 'sprawl and duty called.

The first part of the drive on I35W isn't bad, a fairly empty 4 lane highway through rolling farmland, passing by Itasca and Grandview. Then you get to Alvaredo and the pace picks up as you drop into the Fort Worth lowlands.

Metroplex at Night. Yellow Line = Connecticut

There you are in the Metroplex, on a multilane racetrack dreamed up in bowels of Hell. It goes on for miles, 9,286 square miles to be precise, about two thirds the size of Holland and larger than the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined. It's growing, too, like a monster.

Well you can't blame people for moving here from socialist hellhole states, but I'd argue you can blame the so-called urban planners who decided that city and 20 lane highway were synonyms. You'd think, after several thousand years of Western civic culture, that we could come up with something better than the 'sprawl. Thank God I live in a road, said no one ever.

It Was Going to be This

Great, readers, will be the fall of it. I know, that'll never happen because the way we live now will go on forever and ever, per saecula saeculorum, but imagine the grid went down, which of course it never will because the grid's immortal, but say for example it did. And you're living in the 'spawl with no water, electricity and before long, food. How would you get out?

But Ended up This

Dirt bikes, on foot? Apocalypse aside, the meetings were good, though it seemed strange to be in the city. Back in the country, Mexican music's in the air and with it the delicious aroma of slow cooked carnitas. 

This makes fasting difficult and speaking of roads, Jack Kerouac was a catholic.

Drive safe,

LSP

If You Meet The Buddha On The Road Shoot It

Taking a leaf out of Mr. Kerouac's book, I got on the road with a view to visiting the sick in Fort Worth and escaping the anguished howls of whining fauxtrage emanating from Hollywood celebs and Lena Dunham over Trump's armed forces trans ban. 

Jack Kerouac

I took the Cadet, by way of company, and explained the situation. "You see, old chap, this woman's on a ventilator and might not get better, so I've got to go. Conscience demands it, to say nothing of the Gospel," all very to the point and thank you very much. "But what if we meet the Buddha on the road?" asked the young 'un, suddenly turning all Cassady. "Oh, that's easy. Shoot it, right through the ****ing swede."

Shoot it

We arrived in Fort Worth without incident, thank God, and I left my interlocutor in the hospital cafe while I went upstairs and administered Last Rites. I pray my friend recovers full health. And here's the thing, Pastors.

You've Got A Lot To Answer For, You Two.

If you feel a pang of conscience, an instinct or intuition that you should visit someone in trouble, act on it, don't delay. Notwithstanding the Buddha, of course, which you're at liberty to shoot on the road. And while we're at it, Jack Kerouac was a Mass going Catholic. So was the freakish Andy Warhol.

Not a lot of people know that.

God bless,

LSP

On The Road

I drove to a suburb of Fort Worth this morning. It took one and a half hours to get there, the worst of which was through the metrosprawl. Someone hasn't told the DFW civic planners that highways running through, across and over a town doesn't make for a pleasant urban environment. Visit Venice and see its famous 6 lane highway bisecting St. Mark's Square! said no tourist brochure ever.

Seriously, after a good few thousand years of Western civilization, you'd think we could do better than turn our cities into roads. Like, what's best to live in, a city or a road? Let's think about that; road, city, city, road, hmmmm... road? 

Road trip over, I ended up at the cathedral, which is a good church, and went to a meeting. A bishop who I like very much was there and had a parrot on his shoulder. It's an aggressive beast and attacks people who try to pet it.

At the end of the meeting I drove back home through the 'sprawl to the countryside. Blue Exertion was there, taking it easy in the sun and I don't blame him. 

Later on today I'll drive to another church and, by the end of it all, feel like a travelling salesman. But hey, all in a good cause.

If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill it.

LSP

Heading Home

All too soon my Northern exeat was over and I headed back across the bridge to the U.S., where I was given the third degree at the border by an overzealous border guard. "Why were you in Africa?" he asked. "For the hunting, officer." (I wish) But no matter, one truck search over and I was on my way. 

I want this building in Windsor

I stopped outside of Nashville, again, because I'm a traditionalist and I like El Jardin's Mexican food and frozen maragaritas. The next day I drove through to Dallas, stopping at Texarkana to gas up and get a hamburger. Some guy in a fishing shirt wandered over to a Yukon that was waiting in the drive-through line and started swearing at the driver, who looked understandably scared. I watched this from the comparative safety of the side of my pickup, waiting for the shot, but there wasn't one. A vicious little scene inside the Texarkana goldmine.

A Hippy.

An hour or two later Dallas rose out of the heat haze as the traffic roared into town from Rockwall. One day, I suppose, it'll be a ruin and, or, a very large mound, but for now the city prospers. It has few hippies, unlike Austin, where they're a menace.

Good to be back in Texas and, of course, the South.

LSP