It Doesn't Snow Where You're Going part II

When your entire body is covered from head to toe with poison ivy, bug bites and sunburn, you don't really know whether to laugh or cry. Laughing causes you to realize just how itchy the back side of your knee is. Crying causes the same. So does doing pretty much anything else. Hell, doing nothing is even worse.
When I had chicken pox as a child, all my friends and relatives would joke about how you could connect them and make pictures. The connection of all the current dots on my body would change my skin color to African-American, depending on the hue of ink chosen of course. I'm talking bug bites from head to toe, and every crevice, cleavage and cock in between. What I'm trying to say is that I'm really fucking itchy.
Working on a Christmas tree farm in the middle of the summer, you learn to tolerate that which is intolerable. Spiders the size of house pets are a normal appearance. When they start taking down cows in the pasture nearby is when you should finally begin to worry and if you haven't seen your shearing buddy in more then a half hour it is more logical to assume that arachnids got him then any alternative. If by some lapse of sanity you are so inclined as to go it alone in the west field for more then 20 seconds, you're survival without a shotgun is about as possible as survival in the west field without a shotgun for 20 seconds. That may seem a little bit redundant, but there is nothing less survivable on this planet then 20 seconds in the west field without a shotgun. So any other comparison would fall short. Just don't try it. But, if by some divine miracle you haven't succumbed to the creepy crawlies and unmentionables, you still must surpass the poison ivy in the second level of Hell that is Dante's tree farm.
If you haven't seen Little Shop of Horrors, then it would be difficult to visualize what the poison ivy looks like out on the tree farm. But for those who haven't, imagine the eyeless head of a Tyrannosaurus Rex attached to a plant stem and roots, with an infinite amount of poisonous tentacle vine arms protruding that can wrap around your throat with effortless power. Then imagine hundreds of them. Then imagine avoiding these abominations from a) eating you b) strangling you c) dismantling you or at the very least d) making contact with your skin. Option D doesn't sound so bad at first, but after 2 weeks of bubbling, oozing, pussing, and constantly itchy poison ivy rashes, you will eventually realize it is the equivalent of all of the above. Except slower. And itchier. So much itchier.
Hypothetically speaking bugs, spiders and poison ivy are survivable if you keep your head on straight, and adhere to Columbus' survival rules of Zombieland. (Look it up.) But the grand satanic wizard of them all is solar in nature. If your job requires you to work outside, it is your greatest enemy. Great in skill and size alike. It is known to scientists as G2V, the Mayans as a god, and myself as a fucking huge fucking hot fucking ball of fucking shit whose sole intention is to make my life miserable while attempting to destroy me at the same time. Yes, the sun.
Due to the dangerous nature of the aforementioned threats, anything less then a bombproof suit would be recommended for tree farm attire. However when daytime temperatures flirt with NBA score totals, it is unwise to cover yourself with Kevlar from head to foot. The common tree farm attendant can usually be seen wearing a long sleeve shirt, pants and work boots. Which seems harmless at first glance, until you realize that triple digit temperatures aren't even comfortable in your birthday suit, let alone when every square inch of your body is clothed to avoid rabid bugs and poison ivy monsters.
It would be inaccurate to say your clothes are saturated with sweat. It would be more accurate to say your sweat is wearing clothes. If Arizona firefighters were equipped with sweat instead of water they still wouldn't be able to soak a tree farm worker as much as a few minutes shearing does. In fact, I would be willing to argue that one day's worth of tree farm sweat would be enough to put out the worst of wildfires in the Southwestern region of the United States.
In order to best describe how hot it really is outside, one would need to somehow combine a sauna, hot tub, and steam room all into one, put that contraption inside a giant furnace, which is located inside an active volcano in the center of the earth's core. Even then it barely skims the surface of what kind of heat we're talking about here. It's fucking hot.
Needless to say, it takes a certain amount of, for lack of better words, balls, to survive in the wilderness that is Vander Streek Acres. If your dangly parts are not of requisite size, you can forget it. If the bulge in your pants is not noticeable from at least 50 yards, you will not meet the recommended requirements for tree farm sack measurements. One might think it cruel to discriminate based on genitalia size, but it is purely for the safety of civilization that this guideline is heavily enforced. Simply put, if you're not packing at least a .357 in your pants and holster, you do not have what it takes to succeed in this jungle. I mean even Mowgli and Tarzan are prohibited.
So next time you see a tree farm soldier, sweating from head to foot, covered in blood, of his own and of creatures unknown, thank him for making your Christmas tree pretty enough to be displayed for 3 weeks in the safety and comfort of your own home.
War is Hell.

Maybe there is no Eden

To those of you who follow this blog, from any distance, I feel I must always apologize whenever I have a month or longer hiatus, even though it is my own blog, for my own fulfillment/self masturbatory reasons, filled with my own thoughts and musings on life/music/cinema/bullshit/whatever. That being said, for those of you who enjoy this website for my musical tastes, here is a little some' some' from a Swedish duo my boy put me onto a few months ago. (there was supposed to be an embedded link to his blog website in there but apparently it has ninja vanished into thin air for the time being.) Outside of it being my new favorite song, the video is very intriguing/eccentric/beautiful in its own right.

For those of you who stumble into this little nook of the internet universe for my own personal lyrical prowess, stay tuned, for I have recently been so lucky as to stumble upon a muse or two, that have stimulated the flow of creative juices so to speak. Writings are on the way.