How I Became The Guy Who Wants To Cut All The Trees Down

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Past Rantings and Ravings

07-29-15 Cecil the Lion
03-04-15 Thank you, Bibi! One less thing for Mikey and I to argue about!
07-03-14 We're back, but not quite
04-17-13 We're supposed to be dead
02-10-12 The real dirt on Obama
06-24-11 Why does it hurt when I email pictures of my Shmuck?
07-17-10 We WATCH FOX SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO
06-29-10 It's not a gaffe, assholes.
02-12-10 Joe's Nigerian Pen pal
02-11-10 A Prayer For Bill Clinton
01-31-10 Terrible Accident
01-29-10 New Blog
12-08-09 December 8 Blog
10-05-09 You Weren't There--The History of Chicago Punk 1977-1984
09-09-09 The Return of Grand Theft Radio to Live365.com
05-05-09 TEABAGGERS BEWARE: LEFTIST LIBERALS WITH FOUL MOUTHS...
02-11-09 Ice Cream flavors for Dubya
02-05-09 Lux Interior passed away.
02-04-09 Mikey Snot impersonations
12-10-08 Open Letter To The Baseball Hall of Fame
10-16-08 Yet Another Reprint
11-15-07 On Vacation in Little Egypt
10-07-07 Blog for the booing broken-hearted Cubs fans
08-04-07 Basement
08-03-07 washington post political compass
08-02-07 Nero, please...
07-23-07 Return of the Rude Truth
07-15-07 Buzz Fugazi at Lost Cross House, 1987
07-13-07 Buzz Fugazi is on vacation.
07-12-07 The Blog Remains The Same part 2
07-11-07 The Blog Remains The Same
06-15-07 Fred Thompson is running for President?
06-07-07 WGTR Buzz Fugazi You Tube
05-17-07 Mango Sex
04-16-07 Bar Mitzva Boy 30 Years Later
03-23-07 Clash of the photo opportunities
03-10-07 1976
03-08-07 Britney Spears Is A Punk Rocker
01-24-07 An Open Apology To The Groodies
12-18-06 We are on the road.
12-05-06 Dialectic with my readers.
11-29-06 An Open Letter from the President of Iran
10-31-06 Trick or treat? Tangent Man is just saying...
10-30-06 We never were stay the course
10-11-06 Big Streaming Chunks Volume 1
09-13-06 The Unbearable Ambivalence I Feel
07-17-06 Panic In MySpace
06-29-06 The Pentagon Papers
06-15-06 Calling Truce With A Senator
06-14-06 Dear Cyber Pimp...
06-13-06 Professor Chaos Apologizes To The Peace Rallies Before I Bust A Cap Into His Head
05-18-06 Ian Curtis R.I.P.
05-17-06 How I Became The Guy Who Wants To Cut All The Trees Down
05-08-06 Chicago punk on MySpace
04-17-06 Professor Chaos Hates Funeral Protesters From Westboro Baptist Church
04-11-06 Professor Chaos Hates The Peace Rallies
04-05-06 I'm 42, actually
03-25-06 Answer the fucking question, Mr. President
03-06-06 First line is a default title for poems
02-28-06 Just wondering:
02-22-06 Random Ambivalent Thoughts...
01-19-06 The New Test To Find Terrorists
12-31-05 Show 8
12-10-05 Jesus. I was there the day he died.
11-11-05 Left and Right Working Together
10-19-05 Not a messianic Jew
09-29-05 Copping a pose in the MSIG Army
09-23-05 Nightmare In Portage Park
08-09-05 Get Your War On by David Rees
07-27-05 MDC coming in from myspace
07-19-05 Tangent Man, Part 3
07-16-05 Cult of the Dork
07-13-05 Slow Train To Blogtown
07-09-05 Big Shmooze
07-07-05 Putting Words In My Mouth
07-06-05 Too Legit To Quit
07-02-05 Ceasefire With GTR
07-01-05 Iraq Now!
06-30-05 Mid-life Crisis?
06-29-05 Tangent Man, Part 2
06-28-05 Tangent Man...
06-27-05 Underground Music Part 2
06-26-05 Satan?
06-25-05 Underground Music
06-24-05 MSIG BASEMENT BLOG
06-23-05 Glad to be here in the matrix

Wednesday May 17, 2006, Buzz Fugazi

It's all the fault of fellow SIU philosophy department burnout Scott Manthe. When I first met him he was an environmental activist working for the Illinois Public Interest Research Group. Eventually we became drinking buddies and roommates. He could speak intelligently about politics except between the hours of 7am and 9am. If Scott was up at those hours it was the tail end of a blowout and he lost about 100 points of IQ at sunrise until he got some sleep and coffee. Usually at about 9 or 10 am, with a few hours of sleep and a pot of coffee, he was back up to speed. He was also good for tossing the football or playing catch with a baseball, which, to me, was just as important. He was also a contributing editor to BASEMENT.

I happened to be with him on SIU campus when he was handed a leaflet by an Earth First! activist. We took a few steps before Scott double-backed to the woman.

"This leaflet has factual errors that should be corrected. Handing out false information discredits your cause."

The woman denied there were errors. Scott said, yes, there were errors. Not so. Is so. Not so. Is so. I wasn 't taking sides. I just told Scott he was wasting his time talking to the woman. She was hysterical and didn't care about whatever research Scott did on the subject. She was just following orders: hand out copies on campus.

Scott wanted to tell her where she could find out the truth for herself, but she didn't want to listen. I physically pulled Scott away from her.

That night at Booby's Beer Garden the Earth First! woman came up to our table with the handout and started waving it in Scott's face and yelling shit at him. It made quite a scene. I got between them.

"Look," I said, "there is no point in you being here. You are not going to change my friend's opinion and he's not going to change yours. Why don't you just go away and leave us alone?"

She left and came back. "I got my boyfriend," she stupidly announced.

Scott started laughing and spouting something about passive women in backwards hippie culture. Her boyfriend yelled at the top of his lungs: "I am a wobblie!" He showed off his IWW button.

I told the Industrial Workers of the World to leave us alone. That we were hanging out and didn't want to be bothered. Everyone in the place was looking at our table. IWW boy loudly pronounced: "Why are you afraid of a public debate?"

I stood up and started yelling some of what Scott had just said about how lame it was for his girlfriend to keep bothering us, that the whole thing was a misunderstanding because Scott was offering advice about factual errors, that they should take the advice or just leave it.

One of our other roommates, Robert Herzog, still lives and hikes among the trees that EarthFirst! claimed would be clearcut 16 years ago. Last weekend I was with Robert and other old friends visiting Scott and his wife. Scott finally graduated---from William Penn College---and we were celebrating together in the middle of Iowa. Standing around a bonfire laughing and joking like old times.

"You know, it's Scott's fault I became the guy who wants to cut down all the trees," I said. "Remember that, Scott?"

Scott didn't remember so I retold the story about the argument with the EarthFirst! woman.

"It wasn't even me who got into the argument with the woman," I said.

But a week after the incident I dragged Scott over to a couple of hippie-looking young women at a party. Not the kind of look that catches Scott, but we were roommates and there were two of them standing together. "C'mon, Scott, back me up..."

"Hey, how is it going?" I said. Scott probably nodded and said "Hi."

The ladies stared at us in disbelief until one of them spoke: "You're the guys who want to cut all the trees down!"

"You've got it all wrong." I said.

"We saw you at Booby's last week," the other said.

"Yeah," said the first one.

They walked away. That's how it went when I was leading the charge. Scott was always much smarter about women than me and for what I learned from him I could either burn in hell or actually get a marriage right one of these days.

Congrats again on the graduation, bud.