The current atmosphere of chaos in America at the dawn of 2025, is very disturbing. Our new “Fearful Leader” wants to make a splash and fuck up as much shit as he can. He is a master at manipulating peoples’ fears, “Captain Chaos.” The sad reality is that he is the Commander in Chief, and he will make many people miserable for as long as he can. It is a head-scratcher: why he is there. But it’s not for me to figure out. It’s not for me to figure out anything. I just need to navigate the moments I have left in this reality.
And coming to that conclusion, it made me think: damn! This reminds me of running the Clark Fork River in spring runoff back when Western Waters started doing it in the ‘70s. Those years in the mid and late seventies were tremendous runoff years, extreme high water. When a group of guys I grew up with decided to join together and form a little outdoor recreation-entertainment business, floating people down the river to fish or camp or run the rapids just west of Alberton, I was excited about going along for the ride. Those are some big rapids in the Alberton Gorge during high water. They needed bodies in the boats, ballast, weight. Too light a boat and the rapids would flip rafts like flapjacks. So I got to go for free, my two-hundred pounds worth. That and the fact that I love taking photos, so I shot film of boats in the water and donated them to the cause. The cause being the business, and the goal of the business (for most of us) was to have fun.
The economy was on the slide then. We were on the cusp of major changes to the work force. All the natural resource jobs our fathers had were drying up, winding down. And we all had a bit of PTSD that we were medicating with everything we could get our hands on. Post Vietnam, the Civil Rights revolution, Watergate, all that shit had taken a toll. My point (because I’m always trying to make a fucking point) at least to myself, is that those times and that insane May-June river were similar to the chaos we are all feeling at this juncture.
And what the river taught us was to be in the moment, pay attention, look far enough in front of you to choose a path then get down into the moment, what’s in front of you, and deal with that: break on through! So while I’d like to prescribe or solve or offer some kind of advice for surviving the shitstorm I see and feel a-brewin’, I don’t know shit. I do agree with what Jim Morrison so eloquently put in his 26th or 27th year: the future’s uncertain and the end is always near.
All I’ve got is the same formula I’ve had since I was a kid: be kind, don’t tolerate bullies, and live your life right now—do what you need to do—and I can’t help but acknowledge what nature shows us over and over, that everything comes back into balance one way or another: we live, we die; positive-negative; yin-yang. I know I’m capable of being an asshole and a saint (well, for a second or two anyway). So (you’ve probably noticed that I like “so”) ERGO I have posted the poem below of an old tale I’ve told so many different times different ways that I figured I may as well write a version down. Hope you like it. And it’s dedicated to a few of those old friends, some gone and a few still kickin’. Raise you glasses to: Jerry Nichols and Audrey, Jerry Potter, Rex Bowman, Jim Tolman, Aaron Reese, Jay Nichols, and so many more characters, guides, drivers, friends and partiers. I won’t name more for fear of leaving someone out. If you were there, you already know. If you weren’t, I hope this little narrative takes you there or somewhere you’ve been and love. Peace ya’ll.
The portrait is of Jerry Potter, a super-human-being who left us to soon, but he lived the credo of this post, like the final poem here: Drifters. Enjoy the float.
White Water Salvation Ezekiel saw the wheels way up in the middle of the air! —Old Negro Spiritual Socked-in, another rainy-gray, cool-damp day Of this record-breaking spring run-off season On the Clark Fork River, 1977. You prepare To challenge Her once again, check the gear: Load the cooler and ammo cans; tie everything Down from oar-locks to bail-buckets; inflate The tubes to a firm camber; test all ropes; check For life jackets and extra oars. A bit hungover, But no Hair-of-the-Dog is taken till after the Gorge Has been run. You need what wits you can muster To watch the flow, know when to throw your Weight into the wave, push-through, like football, Like rodeo, you ready for the snap to ride the snake Out of the gate and dive down the Flipper's throat, Nose into that water-wall, bust through to stay afloat, Then bail, bail, bail, as Nick back-strokes for Position, lines into the looming side-wave ahead— Boat Eater, the gobbler of so many crews. You Belly-over the tube to meet the wave head-on, plunge Down gripping the reigns on the snake, you drop, Keep dropping, dropping away till at the bottom it Arches its back and rises vertically, lifting you up, Perched on the nose, into air where it hangs, sits, Hesitates, for what seems an eternity—that second Held in the sky. A white-knuckled-tight-hold on the bow Line, you thrust over the tube, out of the boat, hoping You aren't pitched into the hole, the snake's maw Awaiting your risk and mistake. As it breaks under Us, we roll downstream swamped, slowed, turned Askew and flood-heavy, we bail, bail what we can, Then scramble to get set and bust into Fang, the snake's Last chance to claim us—a swell that can form Ten to fifteen-foot waves. Today you rock and roll- Through easy as a folk song. When finally the rapids End and adrenaline begins to subside, you're left With a shiny-wet, eye-burning intensity; a rush Of giddiness, a piss-ready shudder; your screams Echoing off canyon walls. You can hear your heart Pounding in your chest, feel the shivering vibration Of being alive—having survived. We eddy out at Fish Creek to warm by a fire, open a beer, begin Telling the story, the saga, the ballad of here, today, Our successful ride on the river snake, maybe as Big as she's ever been, and we rode her all the way To the end. Everybody pitches in, stitching together The legend you'll tell again and again, and how at That one particular moment on the Eater's tongue, The pinnacle of the ride, when we didn't know if we'd Live or die, Nick described how he held onto the oars Just to stay in the boat and felt certain he was going Into the drink. Falling back, he looked up. All he saw Were the bottoms, the soles, of two Converse tennis Shoes suspended and spinning in the middle of the air, Your pair of Chuck Taylor's, lifting him into the light, Pulling him up and across that knife edge—tipping The scale—Keeping his wheel-less chariot floating On air. No doubt the river gods and angels were there. for Nichols and Potter and Bowman and Tolman for Jaybird and Audrey and Reese and all those who hung or oared for Western Waters Mark Gibbons
Drifters Those who prefer the pastimes of playing and thinking are poets whether or not they write. They know the moment is meant to be lived to the fullest, that every plan or analysis is bland noise to be pleasantly interrupted by wind in the leaves. They see nothing is within their control. All they do is ride the flow, the changing day to day unfoldings, note the patterns, desires, try to stay afloat, maintain their boat, enjoy the beauty, the oars in their hands, eddy out as often as they can. There will be rapids, rocks, debris, and eventually they will succumb to the inevitable falls awaiting all, that turbulent moment of change when they are rearranged into another molecular identity. Mark Gibbons
Thought for a second there that was Tom Waits in the hat. "Son, there's a lot of things in this world
That you're gonna have no use for and when you get blue and you've lost all your dreams
There's nothin' like a campfire and a can of beans."
“the ballad of here, today”
Genius, Mark.