Jim Beam made a comment about 4 bucks a gallon gas this weekend. My belief has been that Suburbia begins to die at 4 bucks a gallon – the commute to work gets less and less cost effective on one hand, and how many beatings can “disposable income” take before consumers don’t have any money for consumption of all pumpkins plastic? The home equity ATM is closed, the credit cards are maxed out (to the point of people actually not charging stuff on them anymore) and now the gas tank is cutting into the family cell phone budget.
“4 bucks a gallon in Santa Barbara this week. For 87 octane.” – Maybe I’m reading an awful lot into those dozen words Jim posted, but I think the collective consciousness is turning about to where it can at least be aware that things are not as they once were. From there, the Great Leap to they ain’t gonna get no better isn’t that far away. I here people mention the price of gas in muted mumbled tones of vague fear – not the righteous indignation I’ve been hearing for a year or so. It’s hitting close to home, right in the wallet, from Pedro driving to the jobsite 30 miles away to Soccer Mom’s commute to her fashionable hairdresser 30 minutes away on the freeway. Maybe Dad says to hell with hanging the new ceiling fan today – don’t have the right screws and sure as hell isn’t going to burn 9 bucks worth of gas to go to the nearest Home Despot… pick them up tomorrow on the way home from work. (of course the new big box home improvement joint killed off the local hardware store down the street last year,,,)
Dunno, folks. The state highway that runs in front of our place doesn’t have a quarter of the traffic it used to on this bright sunshiny Sunday afternoon. Nobody’s moving around – got no money to go shopping is my guess. And the more times people stay home instead of taking a quick trip someplace the more realization sinks in that everything in their insta-cushy world is changing and it doesn’t look pretty. I know that there are tens of millions out there with absolutely unpayable levels of personal debt, upside down on a mortgage, behind on a car payment broke before payday in a job that depends upon continuing economic growth and a half hour commute.
They ain’t gonna make it. And they’re gonna be pissed. And pissed off people tend to use blame as an escape. Rather than allow the people to take up pitchforks against the bankers and politicians and icons of the corporate realm I’d bet TPTB will probably instigate a full scale war that actually fucks up our happy way of life. Those tens of millions will be waving the flag again, oblivious and patriots the lot, blaming the chinese, ruskies, or senegalese for the power being out and paper bags on all the gas pumps. My money is on a war with China. I figure there are high level negotiations going on between us and them about how to choreograph a major conflict and mutually pulverize both our economies back to pre bubble 1971 numbers. Maybe trade cities – Los Angeles for a major Chinese Port city. Nuke, nuke, declare an undeclared war and play the nuclear standoff game. The surplus chinese population goes back to their villages and starve, suburbia plants victory gardens and lines up and whips out their ration cards on Commodities Day. Flour, powdered eggs, milk, cheese and beans. “Honey! Canned Pears today!”
Okay, I’m getting a bit tinfoiled here, but I don’t know what else can roll this bloated nation back to reality. I sold a kid goat at the sale barn yesterday – a 2 1/2 week old billy that somebody’s children made them buy – hehehe drove the bidding up to rediculous levels. So I was talking to them after the sale and they asked what to feed it. I said “goat milk, it’s a baby goat”. They got that stupid look so I said “or milk replacer”. A little hope shown through, and they seemed like a nice couple so I offered to sell them a milking nanny that really isn’t producing enough per milking for me to bother with but would do fine for raising Herman the Kid. The guy said he didn’t have time to milk a goat, the wife said she’d just buy milk and the two girls with Ipods clipped to their head said ew, no way gross. I’d have sold that milking nanny at a loss to get a family started on the free cheese highway of food security but ya just can’t pull folks off of the teat of civilization. Herman will be a great pet until they tire of him, then some Mexican will get him for a song and put him on a spit at the next big wedding. Or perhaps the funeral feast for a son slaughtered while defending the Puddle in Iraq. And I try not to will ill upon the Ipod Girls, but it’s hard. I see corpses every time I go into town, so my best bet is to stay home as much as possible and plant spinach and peas.
Thanks for reading, now go plant something to eat, damnit. Take your power back people, take your power back.
March 18, 2008 at 5:15 am |
..
The 4 bucks a gal is down the road from UCSB. Two miles away its hovering around $3.80 depending on which station. Carpenteria is $3.65 next to the freeway. In town here it’s about $3.60 at the cheapest place. The place I go to is $3.55. The bulk club, not the one near work, is usually a nickel off from the cheapest site along my route but the bulk club is out of my way and there’s something insane about burning gas while waiting in line for gas.
There used to be two gas stations at the 4 buck a gal location. They’ve been the most expensive I’ve seen consistently for about ten years. I believe there was a third but now there is only one at that intersection now. Back in LA there used be gas stations everywhere. Some time back I developed a slow leak in a tire and became aware of how few stations were left let alone stations with a working air pump and then the rare breed that didn’t charge money for it. I’m old enough to remember gas station give-aways. Now they’ll charge you an arm and a leg for corn syrup water in a bottle because they can’t make any money off the gas they sell.
Back when Levitown was cutting edge development, people moved out to the sub burbs to raise a family. Their old world parents would come to visit and would be stupiified to watch their grown children toil doing the yardwork and bend to get their hands dirty. The visiting parents worked their lives so their kids wouldn’t have to break their backs in manual labor like they had to to get where they were. Nowadays no kid sees their dad get dirty.
In 92 I was living in LA and the Rodney King trials were going on. There was a tension in the air that was getting to me but I wasn’t aware of it until one day I went down to the mom and pop appliance parts store to get a new thermostat for the fridge. I had to wait in line but I was glad to get in before closing. At first I was miffed that the guy behind the counter was taking so long talking so jovially with everyone but there was something that made me relax. I remember one guy ahead of me needed a new gasket for his fridge and carried the old one drooping from his hands. The counter guy asked what was the make of the fridge he had and the reply was: a hotpoint I think.’ The counter guy said: ‘No, you got a frigidaire.’ I’d sell you one but without knowing which model I’d probably sell you the wrong one.’ Then the counter guy told the gasket guy exactly where to find the model number and call it in to make sure he had the right part before driving in and wasting all that gas. When I got to the counter I had the old part in my hand the make and model of the fridge written down. The counter guy asked me about why I needed a new thermostat and I explained and then he explained that it wasn’t the thermostat and drew me a diagram on how to jumper a couple of wires in the back to get it working right. It was after closing time by that point. The whole time I was there he was smiling and and having a good time. I walked out of there with the old part in my hand and wealthy with knowledge and I realized that I was then relaxed and in a good mood. It was striking because I hadn’t been so in a long while. It struck me further that I knew why I was so suddenly relaxed and felt like some dark cloud had lifted from my shoulders – I couldn’t remember at that point the last time I had seen someone smile. I hadn’t been out of LA for sometime at that point and my friend’s crazy ass notion of driving my hundred dollar disposable car running 4 and half cylinders out of 6 to Reno suddenly sounded like a necessity. A very strange trip where people were nice to us and gas stations had clean functioning windshield squeegies with soap in the buckets. A security guard from inside a bank parking lot waved to us in Sacramento as we walked by and we laughed at ourselves after we ducked. Nothing much happened on that trip but I remember it fondly. Soon after that trip I decided I needed to get out of LA and began moving the chess pieces that got me out of there 10 years later.
G H Bush’s kindler, gentler nation is gone. I don’t know if we can get it back. Maybe when freeway close becomes a sad joke and our shiny hygienically clean plastic becomes too expensive to be disposable we’ll be happy in cities made hospitable to high density living or way out in the sticks instead of this halfway, sub urban land where the local grocery store is too far to walk to and when you get to it there ain’t much else but fast food joints with no place to sharpen your tools or repair your shoes.
The price of gas will be the death of me yet but that’s the dice roll I went with. I’m moving the chess pieces around but I’ve got fewer pieces to move now. We’re starting to clear debt and I figure I’ll need to hold on to this job for the rest of my career if I don’t get another one soon. Bought some cowpeas to plant just the other day.
I grow old. I grow old. I shall wear the cuffs of my trousers rolled.
jB
..