The Tao of Spartacus Jones

Dubya And Me

When I was a kid, I wrote a lot of songs about love and peace and brotherhood and justice, clinging to the naïve hope that, somehow, my little songs would change the world.
I may have splashed around a little, but it was an extremely small pond. When it comes down to it, not very many people ever heard any of my passionately sincere ditties and of those who did, I can't be sure that anyone was ever touched, let alone moved, by anything I ever sang. You know that question about the tree falling in a forest where there's no one to hear it?
I know the answer to that one.
Not that music didn't get me laid with enviable frequency — I don't want to seem ungrateful for the fun parts. But to be pretty good, when you dream of being great, just doesn't cut it.

After making that scene — or trying to — for a lot of years, I found that my creative energy was worn down to the nub. I was tired of playing in bands doomed to the inevitable sameness of sound that everything we did would eventually acquire. I was tired of playing solo gigs, hearing orchestras in my head while I filled in the chords. Imagine being stranded in a snow-bound ski lodge with a full fridge and open bar and the cream of the Romanian women's gymnastics team — and being limited to the missionary position, and with just one of them.
You get the idea.

So I quit.
I still played the guitar, but strictly for my own amusement. Sor. Bach. Flamenco. Not exactly on the Billboard top 40. Who cares?
And I might have gone blissfully on, eventually disappearing up my own ass, had it not come to pass that George W. Bush took office as President of the United States.
I say "took office" because, let's face it, he won that election like Elvis really earned that black belt of his. Faster than you could say "peace dividend," the coke-snorting, cheer-leading frat boy was driving the whole country headlong toward a telephone pole — and you know how it is with that kind of thing: innocent people get killed and the drunk driver survives.
More than that, GWB seemed intent on being known as the man of the century. Unfortunately, it was the 11th century. He was pulling out all the stops to roll back human progress to pre-Renaissance standards, dismantling every advancement made in liberty and justice since the Magna Carta.

Déjà vu hit me so hard I almost got whiplash.
Suddenly, it was 1968 again. And Nixon-on-steroids was in the White House.
Every day brought more bad news about how this arrogant moron and the members of his neo-fascist circle were gang-banging Lady Liberty. Apparently, Boy George had found a copy of Mein Kampf and taken it for one of those "how to" books from the self-improvement section, which must have been somewhat frustrating for whoever read it to him. You know, a little bit each night just before beddie-by.

I caught myself in the sporting goods store buying new sweatpants, but gazing across the aisles, looking longingly at .30 calibre rifles with a good scopes and absently calculating windage adjustments instead of thinking about baseball to last longer during sex.

And then it happened.
One night I awoke from a fitful sleep, padded across the cold floor to my all-purpose keyboard and coffee-maker, snatching up my Jack Daniels from the kitchen counter on the way by like Kevin Costner grabbing that kid's letter in The Postman.
An hour and two broken pencils later, I had a new song. First one in 10 years. And a pretty good one too, even if I do say so myself.

And George Bush, bless his pea-pickin' heart had been my inspiration.

Now, you and I both know that writing these songs is a psychological safety valve. It's a way of letting off steam and keeping my sanity, which means not doing something that on some level I might regret. If I didn't write, I might go back to that sporting goods store, you see.
And I'm all stocked up on sweatpants.
That wouldn't be pleasant for anyone, I'm sure, least of all me.
Well, maybe second to the least.

New songs are coming out pretty regularly now.
Thank you, George.
It doesn't look like you'll become a decent, honest, freedom-loving human being anytime soon, so I'll have plenty of inspiration.
Just hope I don't run out of creativity.