Mac the Engineer

So Mac is outside my house again.  He pulled up about 9:40 p.m. while I was napping on my bed.  (I always am waiting for the mafia to show up and riddle my house with bullets)  My neighbors get expensive convertible Mercedes for their anniversaries.  I blow my yard.  That is something the Sortopotamus would be good at, blowing my yard.  I need to get in touch with him about that.  Blowing my yard.  (I crack myself up, or rather I am cracking up)  So Mac is sitting off in the near distance.  Evidently no one else knows this except me, but they do.  They will not talk about it.  They will not accept that is it true.  I am learning this is because of Southern pride.  It's a survival instinct.  "We protects what is ours, the South."  I reckon.  I tend to call a turd a turd when I smell it, and this one is a big fat turd.  Mac in most probability has moved on home, and his big pimped-up ride is sitting on the tracks waiting for the next "shift."  Our federal boys do see fit to regulate the amount of hours a driver can steer a prime mover, but it isn't effective.  You can read about these foibles on online forums.  It is a huge weakness in the Rail Industry, another boring institution that no one seems to take interest in, but it controls our lives.  They are savvy.  They are stealth.  They are irresponsible.  They are the epitome of Southern survival.  I had a Norfolk/Southern engineer fire a pistol at me once, when I was photographing his "consist" late at night in Columbus, Ohio.  I have it on tape.  I used the gunshot in a musical work I created.  His pistol shot occurs at the climax of the piece.  Bueller.  "Why would a Norfolk/Southern engineer fire a pistol out of his cab."  Bueller.  "Because he was afraid."  "Bueller, this was before 9/11."  "Yes sir, he was afraid, because Norfolk/Southern like CSX-T like to break the power axle rule."  Bueller.  "What is a power axle rule?"  Bueller.  "A power axles rule dictates how many diesel prime movers can be hooked together to form a "consist."  The consists I observed in Cowtown where doosies.  I chased this one in my Nissan pick up all over town.  The engineer kept pulling forward to escape my scrutiny.  Bueller.  "Why would he do that?"  Bueller.  "Because he was in violation of the power axle rule."  That meant he had too many diesel prime movers hooked together in tandem for the good of humanity, or so says them federal boys.  Too much power.  Norfolk/Southern has "too much power."  Enter Erskine Bowles.   If I remember correctly Mr. Bowles was chief of staff of the Obama administration.  Then he appointed Holden Thorp the country's youngest university chancellor.  Then academic fraud was discovered at UNC, his college.  Mr. Thorp fired the Athletic Director at the beginning of the autumn semester.  Tarheels were not happy.  Mr. Thorp stepped down with a pocket full of kryptonite.  (I mean coin.)  Holden and Patty moved to St. Louis, enrolled their daughter in boarding school, and left their son to his own devices at UNC.  We have heard nary a word from them since.  Holden, like Chris Potter, played in my band.  They were different bands, and Holden's came first.  We won the high school talents show at Terry Sanford my senior year by masquerading as the Blues Brothers.  (Also we played well for high school students)  Holden played lead and rhythm guitar.  I spoke with such a soft southern accent back in l981, I barely recognize myself.  Evidently it was appealing to one particular female student, and we had sex a lot.  (That was in high school mind you)  Not many people were sexually active back then.  I learned early.  Life sucks, so get what you can.  I have not been successful at getting a lot of money, but my net worth is the future of classical music.  Let me clarify.  I don't like to use the term "Classical Music" at all, because it is a misnomer.  Rather I would say Contemporary Classical Music.  It is a more eloquent term and also more descriptive.  In essence what people erroneously call "Classical Music" like the radio station WCPE, should be called European-based chamber and orchestral music.  Slowly at the turn of the century it came to America.  If I had to choose this would be the time I would choose to live.  To keep it short, my net worth (which is not worth much) is the future of Contemporary Classical Music.  That is because I have invented the next style of composition recognized by scholars who study learned music.  We have the Second Viennese School, like AC Traction, electromagnetic waves, or prime movers is a complete obscurity to the mainstream American populace.  Instead they gather at Louie's Sport Pub and Tiki Bar outside on a Sunday and listen to bar music by musicians dressed like the grateful dead.  It is a bit like Halloween.  They get to play dress up, get drunk, and hoot and holler.  This is not the way I choose to spend my Sunday afternoon, because it is a waste of time.  There are no jobs, because the jobs that formed the core of middle class America were in manufacturing.  "Daddy is going to the plant."  They made things at the plant.  Important things happened at the plant.  Where are the plants now?  If I did go to Louie's Sports Bar, nothing would happen.  Maybe I might enjoy the music, but it wouldn't matter.  Things are set in stone in the South, boy.  Things have been the same way forever, and this is the way we like it.  What about the jobs we once had to keep the South alive?  What about the rampant poverty that has gripped rural North and South Carolina?  Ask the folks at Sierra Nevada Corporation what they think about that.  They are too busy building air terminals that float.  Not much helping the impoverished in the Carolinas.  They are helping the MOTSU ball.  It's all about the MOTSU ball that created ISIS.