Rest and recharge

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"Leisure rules"Ferris Bueller

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The town was quiet in the cold. I encountered him unexpectedly, as one does with certain truths. He sat there, as though stationed there by some quiet authority in that little municipal compromise they call a park, He sat on the bench with his skis beside him, perched above the sledding hill like some alpine outlaw prophet. Steel edges resting. The scene hit me sideways; some telemark mystic hammering out a subterranean blues line on a guitar tuned like it had a grudge against reality itself. Guy’s sitting there like he owns the damn mountain. What I witnessed was not merely a performance but an act; an existential gesture staged atop a modest incline. The musician, seated yet dynamically engaged, transformed the banal setting into an arena of meaning.

His boots tapped wood in time, pounding out percussion like some DIY rhythm section from hell. The guitar was low and deep, tuned down into this swampy, growling register that made the whole hill feel like it had a pulse. Growling like an animal that refused domestication, sounding like it crawled out of a bar fight. It sounded like something working. He sang like a man who knew the hill. I liked him immediately.

He wasn’t just playing music, he was detonating it. He was broadcasting from the edge of gravity.

He sang about going downhill, but not like surrender, more like acceptance of gravity as the last honest law. Up is work. Down is grace. There was no complaint in it. Only fact. Snow makes it honest, he said. Snow gives you something to do. “My life is going downhill” he says it like a manifesto, like a declaration of allegiance to the slope, to speed, to the reckless covenant between man and mountain. He talked about earning turns. About the climb. He’s singing about life going downhill like it’s the only thing that ever made sense.

He sang of descent. Not as failure, but as inevitability. To climb only to return. To repeat this motion endlessly. It felt less like sport and more like condition. The refrain “my life is going downhill” operates as both metaphor and declaration. The descent is not passive; it is enacted, chosen, repeated. The climb is labor; the descent, expression. And the lyrics; pure dirtbag poetry. “My life is going downhill”—yeah! That’s the hook! That’s the anthem! Ski bums finally get their blues and it rips.

Face shots. Total immersion. Oxygen deprivation as a lifestyle choice. Snow in your face, can’t breathe, need a snorkel. Even joy demanded adaptation. Yeah. That tracks. That’s nature reminding you who’s in charge. Even the imagery, snow immersion, the necessity of a snorkel—suggests the artist submerged within his medium, struggling and thriving simultaneously.  Face shots, snorkels, gravity as religion—this is the kind of stuff that should be blasted out of every broken speaker in every mountain town dive.

And then cougars at the bar. Of course. That’s the reward system. Survive the mountain, get hunted afterward. Predators everywhere. No safe zones. Bars. Strangers. Pursuits that seemed both absurd and required. Hell, that’s just another ecosystem, it’s a lifestyle thesis.

He finishes. Doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t need to. The song already said everything. It was field reporting from the front lines of alpine insanity. I’m telling you, if this had a record, I’d wear it out in a week.

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SKI BUM BLUES

words and music by Brian Howard

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My life is going downhill, I climb on up and slide back down.

Yeah, my life is going downhill, I climb on up and slide back down.

Oh, my life is going downhill, I can't complain 'cause there's snow on the ground.

With the snow it's time to play and I'll be going downhill each and every day.

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Gonna climb back up using my feet,

maybe some lifts 'cause you know I'm beat

My life is going downhill, to make it fun takes some skill.

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Well, my life is going downhill, to make it fun takes some skill.

Yeah, my life is going downhill, to make it fun takes some skill.

I surf gravity 'cause it makes me free,

Set an edge and drop my knee, carve a turn with my skis.

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Gonna climb back up using my feet,

maybe some lifts 'cause you know I'm beat

My life is going downhill, I get face shots when it's deep.

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Yeah, my life is going downhill, I get face shots when it's deep.

Oh, my life is going downhill, I get face shots when it's deep.

Like a porpoise floating by trees,

I need a snorkel to help me breathe, yeah, breathe.

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Gonna climb back up using my feet,

maybe some lifts 'cause you know I'm beat

My life is going downhill, to make it fun takes some skill.

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Well, my life is going downhill, to make it fun takes some skill.

Yeah, my life is going downhill, to make it fun takes some skill.

I skied all day time for apres, end up being cougar prey.

My life is better than your vacay!

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Gonna climb back up using my feet,

maybe some lifts 'cause you know I'm beat

My life is going downhill

Yeah my life is going downhill

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