Maui dreamin'

My friend Dean and I had a chat last night.

We were talking about the 1995 death of our friend and my cousin Josh Ellis, its existential effects, how life has changed since then, how we have become politically adrift, no longer recognizing the Republican Party and not being able to find a home anywhere else.

I told Dean I'd be happy just to sing my songs, tell my tales, make my music, sit in the sun.

I also told him about something that happened when we were on Maui last September. Jennifer had stopped at a roadside pull-off to buy trinkets from someone who had set up shop there. I stayed in the car, admiring the high-def azure of the ocean and the sky.

And on the radio (KPOA-FM!) came a hauntingly beautiful song by Kendra Fisher, "Haleakala Medley."

"I'm never going home," I said. "I have found paradise."

Paradise found, yes, but back home I went.

But, back to Paradise I would go, if I could.

Oh, I know. Hawaii has humans and with humans come problems. As Matt King says in "The Descendants," people may think Hawaii is paradise, but cancer still kills.

Indeed. But, I think if I saw the sun rise and set over that shoreline every day, I could handle just about anything.

I'm getting tired. Tired of the partisan bickering and blathering. Tired of the self-important jackasses in this crazy town that don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Tired of the sadness and the screams and Fox News and MSNBC and Romney and Obama and the whole darn shooting match.

I want to sit in the sun and sing my songs. I want to read and write and tell my tales. I want to live. I want to love. I want you to be free to do the same.

I want the nonsense to stop. I want common sense to make a comeback.

Otherwise, buffalo chips is all it means to me, or so said Tom T.