Superb Superman

“What we have in mind is breakfast in bed for 400,000 people!” So came the announcement by this character on the stage wearing a floppy old cowboy hat and an American flag inspired shirt. It was another time and, some say, another universe. At the 1969 Woodstock Music and Art Fair there were a group of folks that provided the services to the festival that, in reality, made it work. The Hog Farm, the oldest hippie commune in existence was hired to originally build some fire pits and trails at the site they ultimately took over the “human resource” section of the concert. They set up a free kitchen, coordinated medical care, and saw to the MC duties needed on stage.

The majority of the last duty fell to its leader, Wavy Gravy. An eclectic leader who had participated in the Beat Generation poetry scene in the 1950’s as well as many of the counterculture activities of the last sixty years. He bills himself as a clown and, in fact, has been a professional clown for many years. The original idea behind becoming a prankster was so that the police would not hurt him as he went about his business in the protest of many things, "Clowns are safe." By putting an absurd slant on situations, he has and continues to affect change in the world without the use of violence, aggression, hostility, or savagery.

The muse for this piece was a documentary entitled “Saint Misbehavin': The Wavy Gravy Movie.” Recently viewed when the electronic God in my living room with its three hundred plus channels had nothing on, and I found this gem on a Saturday night when the weather proved too cumbersome to circumnavigate. I am a child of the Woodstock Nation and the nostalgia seemed welcome at the time. Little did I realize that wistfulness would give way to enlightenment, a state of which I am in perpetually pursuit.

His birth name was Hugh Romney and he came to his beliefs as a result of viewing the state of the world around him. The 1950’s and 1960’s were turbulent times and much of the mayhem originated with what many called the “Military Industrial Complex.” To break ranks with society and stand against tyranny was considered, at the time, un-American and possibly criminal, hence, the issues with police and numerous arrests and incarcerations. The truth of this actuality was not that Wavy and his cohorts were un-American, but that they were probably the most American of people. Think back to our founding fathers. Were they not protesters that wore powdered wigs and spoke in absurdities?

An interesting fact about Wavy was that he volunteered for the military draft and was honorably discharged after 22 months in the U.S. Army. Not what one expects from a pinko commie who deserved to be in prison?

The film delineates the life of this Great American and it threw me for a loop. In a world of change and hypocrisy, the Hog Farm and their leader have not changed, or faltered in what they believe is an honorable and generous lifestyle. I thought to make this a feeling piece and speak of wonderful, love filled things. What I really discovered is a research piece as the best method of making a point. What follows is some, and I truly mean some examples of a truly American life:

From various sources on the Web; Wikpedia, Wavy’s homepage, the film, and various other sources forgotten in the face of the real information.

“Arriving at JFK airport they were informed that they had also been assigned the task of providing security at Woodstock. Gravy called his rather unorthodox security force the "Please Force," a reference to their non-intrusive tactics at keeping order ("please don't do that, please do this instead"). When asked by the press what kind of tools he intended to use to maintain order at the event, his response was "Cream pies and seltzer bottles."

“Camp Winnarainbow is a circus and performing arts camp which conducts summer sessions for kids and grown-ups alike.” The adult camp is just like the kid's camp, except "You get to stay up late and don't have to brush your teeth. You can even procreate if you aren't too loud," said Gravy.”

“Seva is an organization that prevents blindness and restores sight in Nepal, Tibet, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Egypt, Tanzania, and Guatemala. Due to the current economic malaise, Seva is "desperately seeking funds" in order to further its works with hospitals to promote wellness in the United States as well as less fortunate countries. The organization is already responsible for helping millions of individuals in regaining their sight as well as tackling other social problems. In an attempt to raise funds, Seva is organizing an acoustic set featuring the Grateful Dead members Phil Lesh and Bob Weir as well as offering signed instruments that will be available on EBay. "It's a great organization, for the price of a movie ticket, you can restore someone's sight," said Gravy.”

“Through his various organizations Seva foundation and Camp Winnarainbow he has offered help in solving global social problems and offering individuals to unite to accomplish common goals. Whether it's curing blindness in less fortunate countries or teaching juggling, Wavy Gravy is considered in some eyes to be a saint in clown shoes.”

These activities are just an example of the work this giant has performed over the years. His commitment and drive has never wavered and part of that is the simple approach to life he champions. When presented with complex issues he continually goes for the uncomplicated. When teaching children at the camp, he takes on the persona of “Smartbo.” With an elephant trunk for a nose he makes reference to the Disney film “Dumbo” and tells the kids not to be a dumbo but to strive to be a “Smartbo” like him.

He looks for the positive and accentuates the compassionate. At Woodstock with its crowded conditions and foul weather he announced to the crowd, “We must be in heaven man! There is always a little bit of heaven in disaster area!”

“It doesn't seem as though the hippie ideals of peace and well-being toward fellow human beings will be allowed to die on Wavy Gravy's watch.” This is a consensus among those who know him and admire him. What’s not to admire? He is seventy five years old and has been in his business for over sixty years with no apparent sign of slowing down. Want to meet a True American Hero? Meet Wavy Gravy. I leave you with a little more of this Saint in Greasepaint.

“Wouldn’t it be neat
If the people that you meet
Had shoes upon their feet
And something to eat?
And wouldn’t it be fine
If all humankind had shelter?”
Wavy Gravy

Peace

I Need a Proper Hug

I was watching a film about a professional football player who had been adopted by a wealthy family and was in the process of telling his adopted mother goodbye as he entered the college, I found myself weeping. Not because it was a sappy scene in some chick flick, but because it reminded me of a real life occurrence in my life.

"I realized when I left the hall on Sunday that I didn't hug ya….. I felt like something was missing all day!” This statement, from a delightfully adorable friend of mine, awaited me in my inbox the other day and it has created an unwavering sense of affection and warmth in me ever since. I have found myself in the best of temperaments, with the calmest disposition in recent memory. There is a lot to be said for a few kind words. Perhaps it is time for me to speak, as the Walrus said, of these things.

As reported in earlier posts, I am of an advanced enough age to retain membership in the American Association of Retired Persons. Along the way to this reality I have walked many paths; the most prevalent of those is what some might describe as curmudgeon like. I endure a number of infirmities which tend to display themselves in what my precious adopted daughter calls “f---ing grouchiness.” I have not attained a level of patience befitting a person of my age, as evidenced by earlier posts where I complain about the socio-politico-economic state of affairs in the world. Why on the world would anyone want to hug a cantankerous old fart such as myself let alone allow the lack of said endearment to create a vacuum in there day?

Because love is the answer!

I tend to stay clear of religious conversations and do not participate in any structured devotional activities. I choose to enjoy the section of the US Constitution that guarantees “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” In that, I am assured that my belief in whatever I choose is sacrosanct, and should not be screwed with. I will tell the reading public that I am a staunch believer and follower of Jesus Christ and have no plans to change that conviction.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:28-31) This is what the God of my understanding has commanded me to do and, as simple as it might sound, I find myself lacking in many ways.

If love was not the answer, then why did the most powerful being in history (In my belief) tell me that it is the ultimate principle and that it should guide my life? Perhaps, for the reason that he knew I would grow up to be a bit dimwitted and required easy instructions. I like that I am important to some people. I bask the practice of my commandments as they come my way. I particularly relish the affection of that delightfully adorable friend of mine. I love you Precious, you know who you are.

Peace

The Thing of the Thing

“The thing of the thing is that you can never know when the thing is going to just be a thing or when it is really a THING.”
Homeless guy with a dog holding a sign on a street corner.

What is there that elicits actions in people that scream out to be judged? Coming out of a local trader of goods that is a part of the Sage from Bentonville’s Empire, I felt it time to express some charity and let the guy holding the sign at the entrance to the highway have some money. I never really care what the story is, or how they are going to present it, I just remember harsher times in my life and give them what they really want which is money. If the sign states that they will work for food, then perhaps I offer to buy them a meal. Mostly the reply is that they really need money for one thing or another, and my day has been delayed a few moments and I get to drive away. I do not do it so much out of charity, but to perhaps replace some of the balance in the world that got set askew by a human being placed in the appalling position to have to beg for a living.

Helen Keller once stated, “There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.” That speaks to the reproaches I sometimes receive from folks that are bound and determined to let me know that the action of being charitable, as I choose to express it, is incorrect, immoral, and inappropriate. I am reminded, quite often by people wearing designer clothes and driving expensive automobiles, that persons who are homeless are unreliable as well as imprudent, immature, impetuous, inattentive, unthinking, impolite, insensitive, inconsiderate, injudicious, indiscreet, indelicate, and that I am ill-advised to even have anything to do with anyone with all the aforementioned character defects.

I rarely enlighten these well-meaning folks that I used to be one of those imprudent, immature, impetuous…

I am on a mission. I never thought that this blog would serve as a metaphorical soapbox, yet it has. I have been at odds with the world for some time, and thought that I was simply trying to catch the eye of some agent, editor, or publisher who would surely see that I was the de facto next Great American Author.

It hasn’t worked out that way. I have found disfavor with much of the world and the method governments and big industry (you know, those that, in all honesty, run things) attempt to address issues of potential catastrophic consequence. These would be calamities having been created by the selfsame governments and big industries. (Again, those that really run things)

Matthew 25:40 states the true crux of what I am attempting to say. I have long been a proponent of allowing others to succeed, or fail, as they may. I take umbrage with the idea that those less fortunate then I have something in them that cries for failure and that no hope ever needs to be assigned to the guy with the sign. “They should pull themselves up by their bootstraps and make something of themselves. What if they are wearing flip flops because it’s all they could afford after a day’s effort at “working for food” or collecting aluminum cans? What if it’s December and the temperature is hovering close to freezing. Oh…and how about the guy with the brand new Silverado who is cruising the highway with his kids picking up cans so that one of them can go to Washington DC or “camp” leaving little or nothing for those who reside at “camp” 365 days a year?

As one who hoisted “bootstrapped” himself I wonder how many of those wise and wealthy bastions of society are aware that one in four homeless people are also mentally ill? How about the 25% of Iraq/Afghanistan veterans being homeless? Which category of character defect (imprudent, immature, impetuous…) makes it a requirement that street people be judged, shunned, and harassed?

Having said that about this, perhaps I need move on. The title of this piece came to me when I read this particular gentleman’s cardboard sign. “The thing of the thing” certainly does not sound, at first read, as if there might be an iota of lucid significance. The quote originally came, believe it or not, from an old drunk I used to drive a taxi alongside in the 1970’s. Seeing it on the sign that day, verbatim, absolutely astonished me to say the least. To have such a distinctive experience with a set of words, three decades apart, is what this student of all that is strange defines as freaking peculiar.

The old drunk used to sit with myself and my cronies after our shift, drink beer, and expound on a number of far reaching topics drawn from his wide repertoire. He had been a Golden Gloves champion in the Bowery section of New York City. He quit the Dead End Kids just a week prior to the group being recruited to act in a Broadway play. Their tenure in plays and films lasted twenty-one years. He was a teamster working the docks in New York when WWII broke out and he returned to the teamsters after the war. As a marine he fought at Guadalcanal, Iwo Jimo, Peleliu, and was sent home after getting drunk and falling overboard from a ship waiting to be called to attack Okinawa. I had dinner at his house one time and his wife showed me his medals. There were forty five different citations ranging from a three oak leaf cluster Purple Heart reaching up to the Navy Cross. He never spoke very much about the war, unless he was drunk.

All of his, what I call, “Truisms” had to do with making it in the world and how you need to protect yourself and those weaker then you. He very often quoted Walt Whitman - "Love the earth and sun and animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others... And your very flesh shall be a great poem."

The "Thing" revelation taught me that much in life can be positive as long as one takes the time to figure just exactly what kind of “Thing” is in front of you.

It was my old drunk friend that taught me how to treat those less fortunate then myself. At the time I could have cared less about my life being a poem. What I really wanted in the 1970’s was another beer, and for my friend Bill Mahoney to tell me another joke and not have to buy him another beer in order to hear it
.
As to my friend with the cardboard sign, well possibly one day he’ll get in my truck and teach me a few lessons. Possibly one of my detractors will see that scene and I can give them the One Fingered Salute as I drive off.
Peace

The Obscurantist’s Opponent

“If it didn’t make sense to you when you wrote it, then how in the world is it going to make sense to me when I read it?” the kid stood in front of me with his hands crossed on his chest glaring at me. There was no ready answer to this snappish query, but then again the rationale for the lesson that day was not to illuminate his young mind, but to simply get his brain to engage in anything but the video game on the screen in front of him. Thinking back, I realized that understanding was a lofty goal at best, and true interpretation in life comes from experience and not from words on a page. I also firmly grasped the ideal that porcine brutes all around the planet would launch themselves skyward before this youthful scholar-of-note would actually read anything past the point he encountered a word he did not understand.

A minor incident, hardly remembered until, that is, I received a phone call the other day and it was from someone wishing for me to clarify how it came to be that I, rather pompously, assumed myself of possessing adequate acumen to write this blog. Admittedly, the reason for this particular diatribe comes not from the realm of explanatory prose, but simply an exploration of the best manner to dish out as suiting response to an insult from an ill-educated and inadequately literate adversary. Yes, anger and desire for achieving the requisite retribution aside, this person is stupid.

The incident with the young man in the first paragraph occurred a few years ago when I first began posting my cerebral meanderings on the World Wide Web. The interrogator was a student of mine who had, in the course of supposedly learning Computer Technology from me, had stumbled upon my musings and wished to engage in an intellectual debate on the merits of my writing. This same young gentleman was well known for typing papers for me that when viewed on a computer screen averaged forty or fifty occurrences of red squiggly underlined words on a double spaced page. Additionally, when this particular conversation began, his assignment was to build a spreadsheet to keep statistics for the basketball team at our school (as per his personal request). Once having fathomed the extent with which he would have to comprehend math and how much work it was going to be to keep up with the numbers from a sports team, he retreated into the aforementioned dispute when I refused to allow him to change his project to the easier softer exercise in the textbook…which he refused to read.

I have since experienced much conversation on the usage of vocabulary in my prose. The aforementioned phone call had found me at a most inopportune time (I need to resist the urge to carry my cell phone to the restroom) and there was little in the way of insightful repartee available as I endeavored to focus on the biological necessities that sent me to El Baño in the first place.

Not receiving any information that appeared to support their standpoint the person interrupting the gastrointestinal process at work, the informed me that I was an “Obscurantist” and dared me to “define that m*%$!@(%$#*&!” Little did they know that a derivation of that word arrived in my e-mail inbox as a Word of the Day the day before and I, being the One True Sage of all that is alliterative had already envisaged a proper title and started a file (the one you’re reading) in order to expound on the subject of obscurantism. Originally, I felt it might the proper platform to dissect the ludicrousness, absurdity, and outright idiocy of the Republican Party. However, I am loathe to single out those who disagree with me in the political arena as I have unearthed the certainty that ludicrousness, absurdity, and outright idiocy are symptoms suffered by all who dwell in the specious sphere that concerns itself with affairs of state. (Ouch! That hurt to write!)

My literary nemesis retreated from me with what in former years would be a slamming of the receiver into the telephone base. The squabble over the correct or incorrect use of vocabulary and the reality that I have a tendency to flaunt the greater and lesser rules of grammar, as well as a total condemnation of the decorum that would seemingly befit the next Great American Author, has yet to be resolved.

As long as there are no green or red squiggly lines on the page, I am content to stumble along in the throes of my ultimate and faithful lover…words. I, being a red blooded American soul who rejoices in the free market system, purchases my grammar along with the software I use to enlighten to huddled masses, and any decorum I display is usually reserved for officers of the law when I find myself at their mercy in a traffic stop.

I do, however, take umbrage with having the tag “Obscurantist” associated with me or my writing. For those reading who find this word cumbersome to comprehend it is not defined in Dictionary.com or several of the other dictionaries this “Obscurantist” uses. Obscurantism is (Dictionary.com):
1. Opposition to the increase and spread of knowledge.
2. Deliberate obscurity or evasion of clarity.

Freedictionary.com has:
1. The principles or practice of obscurants.
2. A policy of withholding information from the public.
3. a. A style in art and literature characterized by deliberate vagueness or obliqueness.
b. An example or instance of this style.

Well, it seems that my most unworthy adversary has not only insulted my command of the written and spoken English language, but he has done so with a word that until he called me one…did not exist.

The proper term, which I hope he was attempting to use, would be to call me an “Obscurant.” This is, to paraphrase researched definitions, a person who strives to prevent the increase and spread of knowledge, or one who opposes intellectual advancement and political reform. A hell of a thing to think or say to a State certified teacher! Especially one who loves words and simply wishes to share his passion for the scripted version of the Queen’s English!

…Now that my breathing has resumed a normal pace, and my heart rate is below ninety five, I will simply state that I presume to publish this blog because I damn well want to, and those who find it tedious do not have to hit the link when appears before them, and those who do not find it wearisome, thank you and please send it to a friend or loved one!

Peace

The Fallaciousness of the Foregone Finale

Thank the Creator above that it is no long October. Well, in actuality, it is are a couple of days after of the official end where the ancient festival of Samhaim, with the modern day version of this harvest extravaganza…where the dispersal of candy to oddly dressed children, horror films, and creepy crawly critters abound.

For me, however, the true end of this dreary month occurred the night the World Series ended. While an anticlimactic occasion for this dyed in the wool FANatic of the Bronx Bombers, I watched out of respect for the time of year. I was but half interested after my team had been eliminated in the previous incarnation of the pursuit for world glory. It was a well-played series, with many exciting moments and tearful disappointments as I cheered on the team from my current state of residence with but a single constellation to its credit.

The next to last game offered much of this excitement as well as a healthy dose of gastrointestinal distress, and, the threat of laryngitis when my earsplitting outbursts of vulgarity in the latter innings made my throat hurt. Yet still, the excitement was less than optimal in the light of the absence of my Yankees.

As to the rest of the month, the culmination came with the dance I attended celebrating All-Hallows Eve. One of the many blessings of the gift of recovery is that I did not lose the ability or opportunity to have fun. There is much to do for folks resisting the use of mind altering, mood changing substances. For the most part there are dances. I am not one to “shake my booty” but I love to go and watch. It is infinitely preferable to the viewing opportunities at one of the local institutions that provide and advertise the glamorous frolicking of young women in their undergarments (or less). This is not to say that I have any issue with scantily clothed (or unclothed) females, however, it has occurred to me that at my advanced age, patronage of such establishments and hopelessly gawking at females young enough to be my granddaughter (ouch!) is somewhat…well…freaking creepy.

The dances in recovery fulfill this absent need and are the safest of pastimes. It is a simple task to ferret out those in the crowd that have experience with dancing poles, and those who used to be patrons of those types of operations. Particularly humorous is the choice folks in recovery make when choosing costumes. Pimps and Prostitutes are quite common, but only with those who have never participated in the world’s oldest profession. Those who have tend to come without costumes. There is always the slasher or serial murderer. Elvira always comes, but most of the time portrayed by someone who possesses insufficient cleavage to truly pull it off. The kids are the best. We fill them with caffeine from soda and sugar from candy and cake to the point that the little angels become devils, and the devils become slashers. Darth Vader is a must, and the Dark Knight Detective rounds out the card. I did miss the young lady with the most perfect legs that always dresses like a naughty nurse or a vampire, or anything that will be best accentuated by a micro-mini skirt and five or six inch platform pole dancing shoes. Hey, I might be a creepy old man, but I am a discreet creepy old man.

Watching people dance sober is infinitely amusing. There is the old hippy guy (in reality and not costume) that just stands there and shakes his arms and legs without regard to rhythm or melody and sports the biggest smile as he laughs and enjoys the simple act of letting go to the spirit of the moment. If I were of a mobility that did not hurt, perhaps I would join him.

Fated, as it seems, that the revelry of the month must come to an end it is not what the eye of the beholder perceives. There are forces at work that can besmirch even the most sincere of feelings for the month of October ending.

Upon the closing of each game in the race for the World Championship I always had the “rest of the story” as they say. Part of my nightly routine is the checking in at my computer for emails and make sure all is right with the world as defined by the state of the posts on Facebook. On each of these occasions there were no less than fifty separate posts detailing for me, play by play, what I had just observed. As little interest as I truly have where it comes to sports, I tend to want someone telling me about it that has some realistic ability to be discerning. Basically if you have not hit a home run, or struck out, or caught a long fly ball deep in center field, I am not interested! I seek not the counsel of some out of work carpenter with too much television and not enough savvy about computer etiquette!

Halloween, while an innocuous holiday has turned into a clutter of images and practices that hold no veracity when stacked against the true meaning of the holiday. Or maybe it does and this cranky old man simply wants to complain. To tell the truth it is I that irks me.

Where I should be grateful to have “friends” on a global social network, I am critical. Where I should applause a formerly last place team even making it to the World Series, I take umbrage at those who revel in the event.

Bottom line, I am really trying to find an end to the page. Momentary ire is easy to remember and complaining on paper or print without just cause, is one of the things that I rail against. Perhaps hypocrisy is a universal malady. I will end in something that just occurred to me. During the process of taking exception to acts or episodes heralding the end of fall I got to hear my Sweet Deifiúr tell me that the tests came back and she no longer has any detectable leukemia cells in her body.

"In the words of a famous losing baseball coach “Wait ‘til next year!

Peace

The Bamboozling of the Fundamentally Flummoxed Fanatic

“Moral indignation is the last refuge of the stupid.” T. Lloyd Reilly

Is there a point where even the densest of people know when they are being stupid? There are questions circling the atmosphere above my instrument of enlightenment manufactured by Hewlett Packard similar to a pair of vultures awaiting the final demise of something not quite conclusively run over on a freeway. Which highway is that you may ask? What the questions are might also interest you.

My love of the written word aside, I am probably the “flummoxed fanatic” referenced in the title of this piece. I have attempted, here of late, to steer clear of impulsive or injurious prose that might be detrimental to the deep belief I hold hope for in the pursuit of peace and unity for all mankind…but the bastards just won’t allow it.

That my peace of mind and desire for good fortune for my fellow man has been compromised has brought us to the aforementioned questions and the thoroughfare in question. The avenue of disenchantment we speak of is the information stupor highway as transmitted through television, or the internet. The questions are of a more simple direction – who, what, where, when, and why, as well as how. The answers are not necessarily plausible in that order, so here we go.

What is this fool talking about might be the place to start. One of the late night pundits, from a cable channel that does not protect the viewer from vulgarity, has, in his infinitely ill-educated perception, decreed that the inhabitants of this planet who adhere to the teachings and preaching’s of the Prophet Mohamed are all gay. This revelation is based on a single incident in a Moslem country. The despotic leader of Libya, after many years of enforcing his morality on the citizens of his country, was recently captured and summarily beaten to death. During the commission of this atrocious yet questionably justified act, the crowd allowed someone to commit, with a wooden stick, sodomy on the dead or soon to be dead body of this tyrant. The conclusion that millions of people are to come to thanks to this broadcast guru of social conscience is that the act is a predictor of the behavior of close to one third of the world’s population.

It is a sad reality that punishments for crimes in the Moslem world are, more often than not, appallingly harsh as compared to most of the civilized world. The issue this writer has with the matter is the glorification of an abhorrent act in order to draw viewers to a show that has strayed far from the truth, and served to possibly enflame the rift between that one third of the world and the other four fifths that are tired of war and death. The same sage of the airways has preached the futility and stupidity of the wars in the Middle East while attempting to propagate the extension of the conflict in order to increase viewership.

We started wanting to know the what, and have gotten through the where. Who is simple to ascertain, and when was last week. The how are the ghastly images circumnavigating the television and YouTube. Why is because the guy probably had it coming. So there are our questions, but where do we go from here?

Now, it is no secret that I am an opponent of capital punishment. Truthfully, I am opposed to any situation where one person or persons find it acceptable to cause the death of another human being, but that is a discussion for another day.

The atrocity of war has precedent in the Moslem world as directed by the holy writings of the religion. Therein lays the problem. We are trying to fight an enemy that believes that God wants them to fight and kill the enemies of Islam. It is an act of utter stupidity to believe that you can fight a war against God. Yet we are engaged in such absurdity. Allowing, well not allowing (we do have freedom of speech, something not offered in most Moslem countries), but listening to inane rhetoric from a television celebrity and believing his ill-conceived misrepresentation of the truth diminishes the religion of those who oppose us (the Koran warns that homosexuality is not permitted). What part of God telling them to be at war is not being understood? What mindless idiocy is it to piss off the people we are fighting? Especially if it is for naught but the possible nomination and awarding of an Emmy, People’s Choice, or Golden Globe award. Winning awards, or increased market share for your program opens the gate to larger salary negotiations and more calls to your agent for concerts and other television opportunities. To hell with the effect as long as the money keeps flowing in. And we wonder why our enemies treat our greedy asses with disdain.

The true difficulty this author suffers with is the fact that I am as unreasonably liberal as this erudite idiot who reports his trash every Friday night on the channel with the most Emmy awards in recent memory. I am a self-proclaimed champion of the oppressed and adherent to the ideals of the propagation and betterment of mankind through the principles of love, acceptance, peace humility, and universal equality. What truly irks me is that reading about the crap this fool reports makes me wish he would be beaten and sodomized so that he would be cognizant of the horror he is trying to glorify. What truly enrages me is that I find myself wishing for another human being to experience the terror that made me sick to my stomach in the first place. Making the punishment befit the crime is a function for medieval societies such as most of the Moslem world, and not acceptable for one raised in the, supposedly, kindest and most compassionate country in the world. My true discomfort is that this boob has succeeded in convincing me to wish brutality on him in the same manner as I found ghastly in the first place.

I take refuge in the belief that my feelings are not facts and that just as my country is the kindest and most compassionate in the world, so too is the God of MY understanding. I must beg his forgiveness for my violent thoughts and rest secure in the faith and belief that he will forgive me. I find comfort in the reality that my God does not wish me to wage war. I am to remember that that same God who I seek clemency from, has instructed me to love and accept my fellow man…even the erudite idiots on the television who I allow to have power in my life.

My last duty today is to ask for my reader’s forgiveness. Intolerance is a sin and forcing my readers to experience it through my writing is also a sin. Please forgive me.
Peace.

Irrefragably Indecorous

Looking back on the whole thing, it had to be my fault. I mean, who did I think I was fooling? I am not all that and a bag of chips. I am lucky if I could even match up to a stale half chewed saltine. In reality and to sum it all up, I’m a zero and not a hero, and a champion is what we desperately needed once we discovered that the club we just walked into definitely lived up to the name on the dark crimson marquee outside…MONSTERS!

It was also her fault. My girl, that is. She wouldn’t leave it alone. Arguing seemed to be what she really wanted to do with her life, and arguing with me seemed to give her a warm feeling all over. Hell, it was the only time she ever smiled at me. It seemed as if the mockery and disdain she threw at me was the point of, and not the substance of any discussion. She kept going on and on about the thing so much that I simply had to issue a challenge for her to come to a club to see that is wasn’t as bad as she would believe. Once agreed, it naturally fell to her to choose the club. She found one in the yellow pages that appealed to her and off we went in search of proof, or disproof, of the social relevance and aesthetic necessity for the existence of Strip Clubs. In the end she, as the rest of us, got what she deserved.

Other than the dark and gloomy motif, the joint turned out to be just another strip club. Several stages peppered the place with naked dancers while scantily clad waitresses sauntered around the place hawking overpriced drinks. As we settled in, the DJ read off a list of the performers and the fact that they worked for tips and tips alone. The names were appropriate for the venue: Christie, Heather, Baby Girl, Angeline, Fantasy, Naughty Nikki, and Cheyenne. There were a few that held a foreign inflection such as Adriana, Tatyana, Basimah, Padma, and the ever popular African American- Shaqueela.

The bouncers were numerous, extremely large, bald-headed or pony-tailed, and abundantly tattooed. The bartenders, all women, worked topless, and at what seemed like the speed of light. Every woman in the place had a tattoo just above her butt crack. If had not been for the female I brought with me, I would have felt right at home.

At first we encountered no trouble. I ordered drinks and found a table. As to be expected several dancers came to sit and attempt to coax us into the back for a “Luxury Dance.” I resisted, but only as long as it took my girl to question what happened in these private suites in the back of the club. After much discussion (albeit one sided – she talked and I listened) I agreed to go to the back with her and a rather pleasing red head called Colleen who claimed to be from County Cavan, Ireland close to the border with Northern Ireland. As it worked out, she came from Schenectady NY, the red hair was a dye job, her name turned out to be Ethel, or Mabel, and her ethnicity was American German with a touch of Greek. Who’d a thunk it?

The dance she gave was appropriately libidinous notwithstanding the inordinate amount of time she spent grinding on my girl. We sat through three or four dances and ultimately turned down the invitation for a more direct application of her licentious dexterities. Two thousand dollars proved to me a bit steep for services where I would end up simply a spectator. My girl, with each Mai Tai grew increasingly stimulated, and uninhibited. I felt that discretion was the better part of bankruptcy and attempted to leave. That is when the horror showed up.
Ethel/Mabel emitted a loud growl as would come from a wild animal. The bouncer came through the curtain separating the room from the rest of the club and snarled at us, also in a loud bestial manner. The dancer fell back on the floor and began to grunt and scream and…change

The bouncer mimicked the dancer and while they writhed on the floor we made our escape, for all the good it did us. Out in the main room of the club, the dancers and the employees were all in states of metamorphism. Some were showing fangs and translucent eyes. Some were growing hair and snarling. Others were stalking the room as zombies, grabbing customers and attempting to eat them alive. There were people being drained of their blood by vampires. The snarling gave way to roars as those transforming turned into werewolves and attacked those frozen in terror. The guys we came with were all sitting with dancers straddling them as if receiving lap dances, except they were really either being drained of their blood, or having their entrails ripped from them.

A mad dash for the door proved futile as it was locked and guarded by two huge dog-like creatures with glowing red eyes and foam coming from their mouths. Turning, we were confronted by our dancer Ethel/Mabel and several dancers. We simply stood there as they fell on us…

I am now the bar back, and my girl is dancing. Maybe someday I will get to eat fresh customers and not the leftovers. Thinking back, in retrospect, it appeared that my girl was correct; social relevance and aesthetic necessity did not provide proper justification for the existence of Strip Clubs.

Zombification

“The game does not want to be played,” I told them. We sat at spaced intervals on the huge couch in my living room. The girl and the Creep feverishly pounded the game controllers. Each hurled vulgarities at the screen before us. It did not reply, just kept flashing away while my companions desperately tried to stop from getting themselves “Killed” by the shape shifting zombies that made up the evil antagonists of the game.

I have no idea where the girl came from, or, what her name was. The Creep was my best friend, roommate, and arch nemesis in the multiverse that was gaming. Whenever I came home from the club on a Saturday night alone, he would creep (hence the nickname) out of his bedroom and demand the controller to the video game. Upon receiving it, he would launch into a tirade of abuses on the state of my complete incompetence as a Lothario, and absolute cowardice as it applies to video games. I would inevitably snatch the gauntlet he threw down, and we would find ourselves locked in mortal cyber-combat, most of the time until the sun rose the next day.
This night we had a damsel in distress to enliven a game we had, quite frankly, begun to find boring. It brought a new dynamic to our crusade against the dastardly undead adversaries. Neither of us could remember meeting her, or why she showed up at our front door that night. She stood on the porch dressed as if she had come from the club, or some club, in a tight short denim skirt, delightfully low cut strapped blouse, and four inch pumps. Being red blooded American idiots where it came to miniskirts and cleavage, we could not find a good reason to argue when she pushed her way into the house. It seemed as if she knew us and we figured one of us might get lucky. She walked to the couch, slipped off her pumps, folded her legs under her, took up the controller and began shooting zombies.

Under normal circumstances we would have been in heaven, but what happened was anything but the Great Reward. The girl proved to be anything but a damsel in distress. We discovered that she was quite vicious in her method, and deadly in her execution. After a while, the game began to consume us in ways it had never before. Our level of intensity grew with each push of the button and the bloodshed on the screen far surpassed any which the Creep and I had seen. The girl complained that the game moved too slowly, and the Creep started screaming that his controller was faulty. The screen began to distort and we could not distinguish between the game characters and ourselves. The girl shouted at me to fix it and the only thing I could think to say, was the nonsense about the game not wanting to be played.
In self-defense, I rebooted the game. When the screen characters reappeared there seemed to be a luminance that was not, or so I thought, possible from the ten year old television I sat before. The colors were much more distinct, and the sound felt as if it came from the room instead of the speakers in the box. The action resumed and rose to an even more intense level than before. The zombies swarmed at us and died slower. We found ourselves nearly surrounded before retreating. A huge snarl filled the room and the biggest monster on the screen suddenly thrust its head at us and it came right out of the screen and began drooling on the coffee table. We all fired at once. The head exploded before us into pieces of putrid flesh which showered the room with the largest chunk landing on the coffee table in front of us. It lay there throbbing and smelling of spoiled food. We stopped and gawked at the rotten goop, helpless and frozen in our fear.

The girl dropped her controller…reached down…picked the repulsive heap up…and began eating it!

The creep and I instantly turned away and began blowing chunks of our own. We looked back and found her crawling around the room scooping up the other pieces and devouring them as fast as she could. We both backed away over the back of the couch until we were standing. Instead of running we just stared at her while she finished her dreadful meal and turned to us. Her face had taken that look that we were used to seeing on the screen in the game. Her eyes had strange slant to them with pupils as white as snow and what should have been the whites of her eyes were road mapped in deep crimson. Bloody slobber dribbled from her mouth, and large sores began to appear on her face. She stood and came at us with a halting gait. Reaching the couch she flung it out of the way as if it weighed nothing.

I instantly bolted for the door and, as I looked back, she took ahold of the Creep and bit a huge hole in his skull. I left the apartment and never went back. I went to my mother’s house and stayed for a week. There were no reports on the news. The police never came by. It confused me greatly. I ultimately went back to see what happened. I met the Creep, looking normal, at the mail box and he asked me where I had been. He acted as if nothing had happened. He did tell me that the girl had slipped something in our drinks, but that it was just some acid. He said that the two of them had partied until the drug wore off, and had been hanging out ever since.

I told him what I saw, or thought I saw, and he laughed it off as the dope playing games on me. He told me to come upstairs and it would be all right. In the apartment, the girl sat at the kitchen table checking her e-mail on the laptop. She apologized for the thing with the acid in the drink and promised it wouldn’t happen again. I told them that the zombie game had to go and they agreed. We ordered a pizza and sat back to play a more subdued game with warriors and wizards and real damsels in distress.

After a while a knock on the door told us that the pizza had arrived. She got up to go and get it. I delved into the game and paid little attention to the transaction at the door. I called back to ask for a soda and heard a ghastly grunt like reply. I turned to the Creep only to find his eyes were a weird glowing white, and drool was coming down his chin. The girl came around the couch with a meat cleaver in her hand. As it descended into the hand I had laid on the coffee table, she laughed a horrible croaking cackle and said, “Welcome home!”

Demoniacal Druthers

“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
Benjamin Franklin

What I would like to ascertain is how it is not wrong for someone to compare the President of the United States to the worst mass murderer in history. There is a lot of talk in the Domain of Evil (AKA the news media) focusing on the verbiage used by the rich and famous when being interviewed. I am of two opinions on this topic:

1. If you are a person of note, particularly one who has been interviewed before, then you should have enough sense to say something interesting and not leave the minions of the Domain of Evil with the opportunity to ruin your career because you spoke what you thought instead of what was politically correct.

2. If you are too drunk or dimwitted to realize when you are about to hit a metaphorical brick wall where it comes to your career, then you get what you deserve.
Now this piece is driven by a recent statement by a famous country and western singer, one whose music I admire greatly, who managed to stammer himself into the rather precarious position of finding a way to express regret over some words spouted in an interview about our current serving president.

Well the Constitution guarantees us the right to speak in any fashion we elect. It is a most perilous lake in which to swim. Gone are the days when idiosyncratic rhetoric was dismissed as a by-product of pure unabashed rugged individualism. Today that don’t-care-you-can–kiss-my-ass attitude has been replaced with the oh-shit-I-just-put-my-foot-in-my-mouth-again school of celebrity. I’ve always like the rugged individualists that peppered our population of the celebrated. Iggy Pop always spoke to my soul at some level. Woody Guthrie’s was a giant of a hero, and the ultimate rascal where it comes to alternative viewpoints, Frank Zappa, was correct when he admonished us not to eat the Yellow Snow.

I live what some may consider a rather subdued life. I no longer charge up mountains chasing real or imagined social injustices in order to bludgeon them into submission. I restrict myself to launching vulgarity at the television or the computer screen and taking it out on my faithful readers (oh by the way, I haven’t read too many, or any, comments on the blog for a long time?). The closest I have come to the pseudo-radical I once was (I did join the military when everyone else marched on Washington to protest the Vietnam War) is standing on the courthouse square one frigid winter morning a few years ago to protest the War in Iraq. As I recall, my hip began to hurt and I retreated to the comfort of IHOP with a lady carrying a poster that decried the intelligence of the then serving president. We had spent about an hour in the cold, and the ensuing relationship lasted only until I shared about having once voted for a Republican. Love is most assuredly as fickle as its reputation suggests.

What irks me specifically about this situation is the response I have read in the social networking world I participate in. This situation has been everywhere in the Cyber Cosmos. There is some feeling where it comes to these mediums that it is a necessity to spread ignorance and intolerance. I usually defriend those who hold political beliefs I find repugnant, after politely asking them to cease. Well, I had occasion to have to do this with a friend of mine a while back. This gentleman is a good guy who feels it is his duty to spread a political agenda of ignorance and loathing most similar to that held by the Republican Party. I make no apology to anyone for my insolence and regrettable intolerance. They are wrong and I am right (oh! no! say it isn’t so!). This fellow has a cabal of Facebookers who adhere to his dogma and I have also de-friended them, one after I corrected for grammar a post decrying me as an “Ignorant Twit.”

Well this is America, and this “Ignorant Twit” has the right to believe my foes to also be unschooled while I get to stand tall as the erudite idiot I am. That is the beauty of the rights we enjoy.

What give me pause is that those inalienable rights do not seem to hold the same panache as in times gone by. Today our once beloved flamboyance has been imprisoned by clumsiness when we speak. The élan of former days has surrendered to the awkwardness of attempting to second guess the microphone in front of you. What a shame.

I did not like what my “Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound” friend had to say, but he should not catch trouble for it. You shouldn’t have apologized Hank. You should not have had to. You may be wrong, but you have the right to be wrong. God knows I am much of the time.
Peace

Twelve Hours

As discovered in a prior piece, I have found that first, the art of writing has little to do with the act of writing and second, the ends mostly justify the means. Not wishing to dwell in the realm of cliché, I am working this evening with the reality that I must report on what is there as opposed to what I would prefer. I have found muse and it is of a less then splendid event. As you, my faithful readers know, I am in love with words. I love them, play with them, search meaning in them, manipulate them, and bask in their very glow. I am so enamored of them that I will give up comfort and security to read them and write them. It is, to me, almost (remember that word…almost) as fulfilling as being in love.

I have long held that there are no evil words, only immoral uses for them. If I read something (or write) that is of a negative viewpoint it is purely and simply the result of words that have to be used. I live in a world of acceptance and respond as needed. That is, until this last Friday at 7:54 PM. I received a telephone call from my Sweet Deifiúr, Paula, in which she was put in a place to use three words that I realize are both evil and hateful. For the first time in my life, I have discovered words that I find detestable, despicable, repugnant, and totally vile.

“I have leukemia.”

I have spoken many times about this wonderful woman. She is the boulder which makes up the foundation in my life. Yes, there is God, and there is the miracle of recovery which bolsters me in many ways, but when the rubber hits the road my sister is where I go to when things go wrong. She is responsible for much of what I have become. My name, which I am so proud of, came from her. When I was small she protected me. She has cheered me those few times where I have experienced success in life, and helped me cry when things were not well. She not only reads every word I write, but looks forward to it. The first time she was able to walk into a bookstore and purchase a book with my writing in it she called me at work to let me know. She was so excited to show her friends that book that she made me sign it as if I were Hemingway or Steinbeck. She passed it around the house at a holiday dinner showing my signature and telling everyone “This will be worth a lot of money someday!” If I never make another penny writing, that memory tells me that I am a writer of import. Anything that is important to her, you better damn well believe, is important.

On that dreadful night that she had to call me to inform me that our màthair had went to live with Jesus and His Mother, I was driving home, in the rain, from picking up a pizza. In the aftermath of that event I shared with her the absurdity of attempting to drive while I wept uncontrollably. When she called me the other night, the first question was whether I was home and not in my truck. Even with the news she had been given, she worried more about me then herself.

My first reaction was an emptiness and hollow feeling. I told her that I had to think about it and would call her the next day. I am a delayed reaction type of person. News, bad or good, always takes a while to sink in. This time it took twelve hours. I watched my usual Friday night shows and went to bed only to lay there awake and distraught. My mind did not race as it was likely to do. I just kept repeating, both aloud and in my head, those three appalling words. Perhaps if I repeated them enough they would prove false. This thought came to me without regard to the fact that she doesn’t lie to me.

I will not readily surrender to the idea that I had started the grieving process. I do recall that I told God that he should give that dreaded ailment to me instead of her. I questioned the fairness of it happening. I chose to demand solution from Him instead of asking for grace for myself and my sister. I received the same result as when I’ve used this tactic before…nothing. Absent a viable solution to my predicament, I lay there and cried.

I thought of writing this piece, and realized that I had no muse. I laid in bed all night and well into the next morning. When I called her it seemed surreal. It still seems surreal. She told me to write about it. Not, I think, for any other reason that she understands the calming effect writing gives me. Once more, in the face of a potentially lethal disease, she thought of me before herself.
What I find most distressing is my selfishness. I am fixated on what is going to happen to me. How am I going to go on if I possibly lose her? I look at some of the words I used earlier in this piece and can only attribute them to me. Detestable, despicable, repugnant, and totally vile is how I am feeling. I do not deserve her, and she most definitely deserves better then she has gotten from her kid brother.

I know that there are many treatments and that many people survive the malady. My sister is a strong person who takes care of herself, and I am confident that she can certainly be one of those people. I am not a fatalistic person and have and will pray for the best. I will also pray for the knowledge to cease being such a selfish bastard, and how to be a better brother. This time I believe I will approach God differently. My Sweet Deifiúr would not ever speak to the Almighty like I do when I am upset. She would ask nicely, and with reverence. Please God, keep her safe and let me be the brother she deserves.

Peace

Nearly Notorious

One of the advantages of expressing feelings through the written word is that there is no rhyme or reason that can be assigned to your muse. Watching the electronic God that sits upon a table across the room from the big fluffy chair that cuddles me in my Sanctum Sanctorum, I found the urge to remind the World Wide Web that I am still in existence. It is close to that time when senior citizens such as me are realistically assumed to be preparing to enter the embrace of Morpheus and his minions.

The program on the tube is a representation of life as it existed when this scribe was but a wee lad in his twenties. Well, to tell the truth, I have never fit the description of “Wee” but I certainly lived, endured, and fondly remember the late sixties and most of the seventies. Life was decidedly and definitively different than current calendar dates. The program had been previously viewed several times and I really thought I was simply killing time before bed. Now I am sitting at the keyboard listening to the Fab Four and wanting to write about this girl I once knew from West Babylon, NY. I have mentioned her before and, unfortunately, have not been able to access her name from the rapidly deteriorating hard drive between my ears. I can, fortuitously, rescue a memory of her eyes.

We met while we were gainfully employed as taxi drivers. The money was terrible and the hour’s even worse, but it sufficed to pay a weekly rent and allowed for enough to enable the noble search all young men required in their quest for female companionship and whatever mind altering, mood changing substance essential to the discovery of true love.

The particular advantage to my spirit that this particular lady offered is that there was no need to wander the pubs and beaches in the execution of the marvelous mission. We got off at about 11:00 pm and the world was, literally, before us to unearth. Pub crawling was not necessary, and quite cumbersome to us as we crossed the threshold into the adventure of discerning if either of us might just be, THE ONE AND ONLY.

We would ride across the bridge across the Great South Bay and park out by the beach. We would lie on the hood of her car while watching the sky and the surf. We would talk about grand ideals, and listen to the FM station playing love songs. We would look deep into each other’s eyes before we embraced. We promised to wait for the gift of intimacy until there was no doubt that we had, in fact, uncovered THE ONE AND ONLY.

This pausing in the exercise of release that most young people in that period served as both a blessing, and a decided disadvantage. This was not something my Neanderthal mentality was properly adept at. I have visions of cavemen and the lack of romance required back in those days. I realize this is a racial memory, but in my misspent youth I was not the judicious and perceptive intellect you have all come to love and submit your time to. Today I can listen to “Here comes the Sun” by the Fab Four and reminisce of the women in my life I have loved. Back in the day, it was much more “Paradise by the Dashboard Lights” by Meatloaf. So why agree to this absurd abstinence?

It was her eyes.

I would look in them and feel safe. I would wonder why the only thing I really wanted to do was see the shine in those sky blue near translucent orbs lit by the moonlight bouncing off the water, and hear her soft voice telling me things I had never heard before. I never found an answer to my speculation.

It seemed as if God had sent an angel to me. She would smile and tell me goodnight when she dropped me off and my heart would ache until I got to work the next day. Then, right at about 11:05, Shangri La would once more open its gates and the rest of reality would evaporate in the face of the magnificent creature that God had allowed me to hang with.

The memory is still breathtaking, and it comes to me from time to time to, I believe, remind me that I am alive. There is much in life currently that is ugly, unpleasant, and foul. One thing that is not revolting is the memory of a love lost in time.

The reality of the time proved not as splendid as the memory. Summer turned into fall, and then winter. It became too cold to sit out by the beach unless we were extremely inebriated. An old boyfriend of hers moved back to town and wanted to rekindle old times. I picked up a decidedly exotic girl in my cab one night and discovered that adorable eyes existed in other woman. We drifted apart and marched on our individual ways. We never did discover the wonders of the flesh, but that was fine. Like I said…it was her eyes.

I love my eyes when u look into them;
I love my name when u say it;
I love my heart when u luv it;
I love my life when you are in it.
You know who you are.

Peace

Máthair

It is well past midnight and I am sitting at my instrument of enlightenment with a melancholy circling my head that needs to be addressed. I am thinking about my Dear Sainted Mother. It is four years and six months since she went to live with Jesus and His Mother. I think of her every day and have yet to fill the hole in my heart. I have not been able to put any more words on the page to tell you about her. I could not for Mother’s Day, or her birthday. My Deifiúr and I make sure that we call each other and talk about her. I am going to cry myself to sleep tonight and that is not a bad thing. I am not depressed and I am not trying to be morose. Well maybe a little, after all, I am not using any big words tonight. I am not trying to be verbally clever. I am just telling you that I miss my Mommy. That is what I called her till the day she died. That is the word I use at night when I ask God to watch over her. That is the way I can tell the difference between her and the legend that she was.

What follows is a repost from another web page I have. It truly expresses how I am feeling right now:

I’ve learned

“That I wish I could have told my Mom that I love her one more time before she passed away.” This is a piece of wisdom that I received in an e-mail the other day. It came to me while I was in class. The students were reading and writing (as any good English student should be) and the secretary came in and told me that I had, somehow, not posted all my grades. Well, I had to drag my posterior end over to the computer and enter into combat within the electronic realm. While there I checked my e-mail to see if some editor had received the benefit of my prayers and yielded to the actuality that I AM the next great literary sensation.

What I received for my efforts was a message from a dear friend of mine of a Cajun cultural influence. It was a rather extensive list of the thing that one will learn if pursuing a righteous life. I’ve read the same list many time before, yet, it teaches me something each time it circles through my life. Given who sent it this time I felt it germane to pay it heed. My Cajun friend is wise beyond the century plus years that is between us.

As I read through these words of wisdom, I found myself stopping at the word “Mom.” As many of you know, I lost my Dear Sainted Mother almost two years ago. In the intervening time span I have spent a significant amount of time mourning her. I have found myself with (still!) an empty part of my day at three o’clock in the afternoon. This represents the time I would call her…right after school on my way home. I would drive and try to hear what she was saying as she told me the latest news. You know, what the cousins were up to, who pissed her off that day, the state of health of my relatives of her generation who were still alive. I cling to this activity for just cause. At the end of every conversation we had a ritual where I would say “I love you Mommy”, and she would say “I love you too My Timmy.”

I miss that so much it hurts. I sit in my classroom, weeping and hoping that the kids aren’t watching. Not that seeing me cry is necessarily a bad thing, it is just that I have somewhat of an image to maintain here and, as I have said before, these are not necessarily “Going My Way” kids. But wait…one of them is getting up…walking to my desk…he sees before I can turn around…crap! I expect it to become a major issue where he asks me as loud as he can, “Why are you crying Mr. T?” I sit in dread while waiting for the entire class to join in.

He doesn’t say a word. He walks around my desk and gives me a hug and tells me that sometimes he needs to cry when everybody is looking. He tells me it’s hard to stop once it starts, and he doesn’t like the other kids make fun of him. He whispers in my ear that he loves me, and returns to his seat.

All of a sudden it’s 1962. I’m running from the bus stop while sobbing uncontrollably. I run into the house and throw myself into my mother’s arms. She rocks me and tells me “it’s okay my Timmy. Tell me what happened.” That’s who I was all my life to her. “My Timmy.” She rocks me and softly whispers to me… “ ssshhhuusshh, Tell me what happened.”

Senior citizen that I am, I can not remember the incident or action that felicitated this petit mal. I do remember that after my eyes dried we went through the routine…“I love you Mommy”, “I love you too My Timmy.” After that it was ice cream time. “Got a little heartburn…you?” This last comment represented another childhood ritual, but I’ll leave for another page.

The bell rings and it is suddenly my conference period. Let the teardrops begin! Would that it could be. Now I face a file of kids coming in and getting one last taste of me for the day. This one is sorry for his behavior and won’t do it again. The next wants to raid my empty candy drawer. Another wants to know how to graduate early. I accept the apology, give out my last Hershey’s kiss, and tell the last one that domestic farmyard animals will circumnavigate the solar system before he graduates if he doesn’t hand in that one page essay I gave him three days ago.
Somehow I feel better. I get the test I need copying and my grade book and go to the office. Sitting and crying just isn’t the same without someone to hold you while you weep and say “sshhhuusshh, tell me what happened.”

I walk down the hall and suddenly I’m in that room in the hospital. I lean down to kiss her forehead and she jumps. She asks me what I am doing. I tell her and she asks for a kiss. Then comes the last words we ever spoke to each other…“I love you Mommy”, “I love you too My Timmy.”

Oh how I wish I could say it again.
Peace

Caves of the Thousand Butt-heads

Well, I solved the problem of what next to read. I closed my eyes and chose the first thing my hand found. It is real bonafide shoot-em-up CIA let’s chase the terrorist bastards and kill them dead dead dead from a guy that specializes in bonafide shoot-em-up CIA let’s chase the terrorist bastards and kill them dead dead dead books. It reads well and the story flows and it should take about thirteen minutes to finish. This is not to say that the piece is of small value, it is just fodder for the canon that is my reading ability. I haven’t gone very far into this literary regularpiece (sure a made up word, but I could not think of a word to describe a book like this that wasn’t insulting) when it occurred to me that it was at the keyboard I belonged.

I was particularly drawn to a portion of a daily meditation from Fr. Richard Rohr this morning. "The terms “right” and “left” came from the Estates General in France. It’s interesting that now we use them as our basic political terms. On the left sat the ordinary people, on the right sat the nobility and the clergy! (What were the clergy doing over there?!) I think you see the pattern.” For some reason it spoke to me sharply. My first thought was that I am glad, and sad to be universally sitting on the left side of the theater. Not really a democrat, but resoundingly not a republican. The humor in this right and left discussion comes in the reality of the separation of the parties and their perspective agendas. There is a feeling that the left has the common man in mind as they govern and the right is there for the Fortune 500. My speculation goes to the ideal that if you are in government at a representative or higher position then you are definitely sitting on the right. The average American wage is $40,000 per year while the average elected figure in the federal government makes more than four times that much. Money is, after all, what separates us into classes. Sounds like an elite crowd to me.

I would be prone to give these guys (and gals) a break, even my common man folks in the Democratic Party if they were even trying to look out for the common man. Watch C-span some time and see if they don’t look like a bunch of over-educated butt heads trying to impress someone while they eat in fine restaurants and take bribes from PAC’s and Lobbyists that increase their salaries exponentially. Does anyone realize that when a member of congress retires after a certain amount of years they are allowed to keep what is in their campaign funds? With a presidential election going for close to or more than $100,000,000 one can only imagine how much theses buttheads are skimming off the American Bottom Line.

And we are on the verge of a financial crisis every minute of every day.

There is a place in the Gansu Province of China called the Caves of the Thousand of Buddhas. It has been said in local legend, that in AD 366 a Buddhist monk had a vision of a thousand Buddha’s which inspired the excavation of the caves he envisioned. The number of temples eventually grew to more than a thousand. Buddhist monks collected scriptures from the west and pilgrims passing through the area painted murals inside the caves. The cave paintings and architecture served as aids to meditation, as visual representations of the quest for enlightenment, as mnemonic devices, and as teaching tools to inform illiterate Chinese about Buddhist beliefs and stories. (Thank you Wikipedia)

I propose that our right sided population in the Nation’s Capital visit this location and, perhaps, absorb some of the spirit of the place and take it back to Washington. Unfortunately, that is not going to happen. There would be all the folderol associated with a “Congressional Fact Finding Mission” and the banquets and photo ops and the speeches and the junk associated with sitting on the right side. Remember now, my proposition that all member of congress are sitting on the right. Is there a way out? Is there a way to bring this mess we call a reality to some kind of visible ending? Perhaps it would be if Congress, instead of crawling into the Caves of the Thousand Buttheads which is our nation’s capital, were to heed the words of the Buddha:

“As a mother would risk her life
to protect her child, her only child,
even so should one cultivate a limitless heart
with regard to all beings.
With good will for the entire cosmos,
cultivate a limitless heart:
Above, below, & all around,
unobstructed, without hostility or hate.
Whether standing, walking,
sitting, or lying down,
as long as one is alert,
one should be resolved on this mindfulness.
This is called a sublime abiding
here & now.”

Peace

Arcane Adventure

I was sitting on the throne in the water closet of my literary lair when it came to me…I have just read the second best book in my entire life. This is not a circumstance of triviality given the amount of reading I engage in. I have inherited a trait from my Dear Departed Uncle Buddy. He read voraciously and was the most intelligent person in the cosmos. The family used to joke that he would read matchbook covers if nothing else was available. I have followed in his footsteps and read every word I can get my eyes on. Reading originally inspired me to want to write. Reading brought me to the point where I intruded on your day by asking (well maybe demanding, but that’s another page) you to read the musings in front of you. Reading is the method I use to bring myself closer to the world outside my Sanctum. And finally, reading is the avenue I take on my way to a better understanding of the Lord God Almighty as he chooses to be a presence in my life.

The tome I am referring to is a magnificent piece of historical fiction written by Ken Follet entitled “Fall of Giants.” It is the story of a number of families from different backgrounds and their experience in World War I. I call this the second best book I have ever read but that is a misnomer. My favorite is “Pillars of the Earth” by the same author. The sequel to this book “World Without End” is also a must read if you read the first and, as such, is the same book in my mind.

I have a love of history and the general flavor of most history books leaves one dry and thirsty for more. In the case of a historical fiction there is a personalization to the great events in our past that speaks to me. Most of what we here about history is probably fiction in the first place. Realistically, there are no first hand witnesses to much of what happened many years ago, and when we do encounter first-hand accounts, those are usually infused with more personal opinion then actualities. A good historical fiction author takes that part of the story that has endured and gives it a face.

I like talking to a dear friend of mine about Vietnam. He was there twice and considering we were both in the army around the same time, it makes sense to me in the context of my own personal experiences. I loved talking to my Dear Sainted Mother about World War II. I remember being taught about the “Rosey the Riveter” women from that war in history class. My Màthair was one. My favorite story from her was how she was fired from a job at a cigarette factory for throwing cigarettes out the back window to the hobos by the train tracks behind her factory. History became alive for me when I talked to her or my uncles and aunts.

So the issue I am now dealing with is what is next. I am still living in the glow of a better understanding of the “War to end all wars”, and an appreciation of the complexity that went into that famous catastrophe. What is the next book that I chose from the stack on my table? Is it the latest from an author whose main character is a “symbologist”, or a telling of the ancient origins of the leprechaun? The issue is that I do not want to exasperate myself. What is the answer? Do I let this one sit and ruminate? That only denies me the magic that is available in that action of reading. That denies me the stimulation I need to dazzle you with words. What to do? Perhaps I can let go of expectations and just close my eyes and pick one.

Short page today. It looks like I have some questions to answer that cannot be found at the keyboard. It is my eyes that must do the labor. What is a “symbologist” anyway?

Peace

Days of Future Neither Forgotten nor Conceded

Waking this morn I realized that there existed the optimal state of being for a writer. I read my prayers books and settled into my daily meditation with an odd sensing that there was something to be accomplished this day. I must rethink the ideal that something was odd in that the stimulation in me was quite familiar. I knew this mood and I welcomed it with open arms and a smile on my face. I had been, once more, given the gift of muse. Hallelujah!

A few nights ago I watched the end of a film that I have previously watched. There were fifteen minutes to wait before the next installment of the latest season of a vampire/porn show on cable. Vampire shows have always been a fascinating escape for me, and the newer versions are not bashful where it comes to dishabille and sensuality. (The elderly seek excitement where they can find it!) I tuned the film in and caught enough of the film that it stayed with me.

It was the film version of a book about the Woodstock Music & Art Fair. It was more or less a reporting, in fictional terms (you know, “based on a true story”) of how that famous event came into existence. The logistics of the occasion took precedent and it quite realistically also portrayed the feeling of the time. This was an important happening in my life and remains so. I have an old Traffic song ringing in my head that won’t go away, and I am starting to wish I had someone to go skinny dipping with. Nostalgia is, as most know, the last refuge of the elderly.

What is sneaking into my head and soul is the overwhelming loss of the principle of the event. I remember when the movie came out and the soundtrack hit the stores. There were people everywhere that lined up to make money off the event and there were those who just kept doing what they had been doing all along. I recently turned a late night talk show on and watched Wavy Gravy come out dressed like a clown. For those who are unfamiliar with Mr. Gravy, he was the leader, or Head Hippie at Woodstock who gave us the ever famous/infamous “Whole lots freaks!” saying that so described the day(s). He is still doing what he ever did, social and political activism that yearns for the continuance of rugged individualism and unconditional peace and love. Not entirely bad ideals for this tired old man to remember…or anyone else for that matter.

That which I find in me today is memories of the improbability of the event. There is a scene in the movie where the main character tries to walk from his house/motel/event headquarters to the concert and a state trooper tells him that it would be futile. The cop informs him that his original intention was to be able to club a few hippies’ over the head, but that he had probably got a contact high and could really care less. He tells the kid to get on the back of his police motorcycle and they ride off into the psychedelic sunset with a flower dandelion sticking out of the visor on the cop’s helmet. How cool is that?

There were a group of church ladies making sandwiches. How Christian is that? What would Jesus do? Probably grab a spot in the production line and spread mayonnaise or mustard on bread. The kid walked up on a couple in a mini-van and they showed him the futility of trying to get to the stage and invited him to share their van…and the drugs they had. Not a fan of psychedelics, even in my misspent youth, I recognized the emotion and not the debauchery. Drugs are bad (at least for me, that is) but the sentiment is not lost. Community and not the devalued obsession with self the world currently suffers with.

Yes it was a long time ago, and many reading today might think that I seek to immortalize the incident and negate the negative effects of the weekend. I wonder if the blessing of hindsight is but a phantasm or is the ghost of Jimi Hendrix actually channeling words through me right now? I do not participate in many or any of the activities re-counted in the film. I did at one time. I eschew the notion that what is necessarily evil today has always been evil. I know that “three days of peace and love, and nothing but peace and love” as Max Yasgur said is not a bad thing. I think that at the time there was a need for something like the Woodstock Music & Art Fair. I think there is a dire need for it to happen today. At least, that is, the peace and love part.

I will be brief today and end this piece. I spoke of the improbability of the event. I did some research as part of writing today (memory not being what it once was). I wondered if there were any ideas or ideals not included in the planning. Apparently not. The final act was to be, before he declined, Roy Rogers singing “Happy Trails.”
Peace…oh, and love

Gazump

Today’s post is simply just another example of my love for words and the use of them. This word is most certainly an oddity. It is an idiosyncratic word that many would have trouble knowing the definition for, and would probably not give a second glance at in the first place. Its meaning will remain a mystery in that I have a need to write and said scribble has nothing to do with the title’s definition which is not germane to any form of experience I have in my life. It came into the inbox this morning and it made me smile. My smirk felt agreeable in that there has been a recent deficiency of delight in my demeanor (oh I do so love assonance!) and a particular lack of muse for the all hallowed written word.

I will, once more, launch an effort to invigorate the reading trends of the population of the cosmos soon, and have commenced the exercises necessary to awaken muse. Two of my three books have been derived from a writing exercise I practice called Morning Pages taught by the wondrous Julia Cameron, author of, among many other things, a joyous book entitled “The Artist Way.” I give kudos to this mentor in the hopes that, perhaps others will read and enjoy this marvelous lesson in artistry.

It is a simple exercise. Every day, preferably in the morning, one sits down and writes three pages. Not necessarily three pages with a purpose, but a simple filling of three pages with writing. It has always been an incubator for the creative process in me, and I do not for a minute believe that I am alone in that. I call them daily writing and get to them at some point in the day. I am not the most joyous of risers in the AM and need time to get going. Most of the time, I have to push the accelerator on my truck an additional amount just to get to work on time. Being a school teacher there is always the “Good Morning Mr. Reilly, are we watching a movie today?” thing to exist through or the “Can I get a drink/go to the bathroom” gig that is every teachers early morning routine. Then there is the lesson and conversation, and the subsequent tumultuous groan when the day’s first assignment is given. Teaching is a wonderful profession if not monotonously predictable.

Anyhoo, I usually get to my writing later in the day and having just restarted this exercise, I have been writing stream of consciousness as opposed to an actual scripted form. I have a disability where it comes to my handwriting. My father likened it to what chickens’ leaves as they search the yard for food. My eyes usually have an inability to read that which I put on paper and it has created some embarrassment in my life. I do not wish to tear up the wise words I write out of anger or frustration at my debility, so I type them. Not anyone who will win awards for speed or accuracy, I type at a speed that allows the creative juices to be accessed and the words to be appreciated. One full single-spaced typewritten page is approximately equivalent to three handwritten pages (seven hundred and fifty words) and it gets the job done. I like the days when it is a ten or fifteen minute exercise and I find irritation in those days that the technique is absent or withholding itself from me. On those infrequent days when I struggle, I make words that do not follow and get to the end of the page as best I can. I make it a point to tell my daughter that I love her as well as anyone else that I feel amity for on that particular day.

Today, as I have inferred earlier, is a day when the juices are semi-running and I am attempting to make sense. I have to go and get back in bed for a while as I am not feeling well, and I have to return some phone calls, but on the whole, my effort towards seven hundred and fifty words has proven gratifying. I will leave you with a simple thought both apropos of life as well as writing…

“The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending, then having the two as close together as possible.”
George Burns
Peace

Paging Deputy Andy

“Cry Havoc! Or let slip the dogs of war!” The Bard nailed it with that phrase. At least that is how this part time Literary Wonder feels today. I am back, once more, after a protracted period of time which, admittedly, might not be a thoroughly pleasant matter. I am of a mood to, in fat, go to war. An old friend calls this my “Pity blog” which, given the content of much of this cyber-cerebral presence, most closely describes what goes on when I post. Studious as I might be, I find this location a fitting domicile for what irks me and you, faithful follower, are haplessly hostage to your own need to display affection for this sorry excuse for the next “Great American Author” by clicking the link and reading the superbly well written drivel that appears before you.

I have been meandering in the realm of the Noble Practitioners of the Hippocratic Arts for the last two months and have not found it exigent to put finger to keyboard for a number of reasons. First, I had surgery in early June that has sapped my strength as well as a large portion of my muse. I gave up the absurd idea that any kind of diet would work to relieve me of the rotundity that I suffer from and allowed a very nice man and well respected surgeon to perform a gastric bypass. I had a similar procedure in 1994 which proved to be, in the long run, ineffective and somewhat dangerous. I had a band in my stomach which no longer worked which was ultimately causing me damage and needed to be surgically removed. The only avenue to accomplish this was a newer more effective method of restricting what I eat and how much I absorb. It has worked well in that I have lost 59.8 pounds and my diabetes has gone away.

The last time I went through this, many things changed in my life. I lost 206 lbs. experienced a transformation that I was not ready for. I went crazy. Given my current thought process and scrutinizing my life in search of any lengthy period of rationality, lucidity, stability, or reason I would resist calling this sojourn into “crazy” a temporary situation. I am older (dammit!), hopefully wiser, and better prepared this time for what is about to occur. The last time I thought it exigent to fall in love and proclaim said affection to the object of my affection. This failed to render the expected results as well as offer me any respite from a life of loneliness that I felt, at the time, would kill me. This, among other realities at the time, brought me to the gift that is Recovery and the Twelve Step miracle I practice on a daily basis. The mental fabrications I suffered from in 1994 are no longer issues from which I currently suffer, thanks to that daily miracle in my life. Hence it is in other avenues I must find my path to crazy.

I was of an opinion that this latest operation would correct or ease the many ailments that I currently suffer from in my senior citizenship. The last time it worked that way. I reached a level of almost good health in 1994, why not now? Well, the truth is that the number of infirmities have increased to the point of calling them legion. I had this operation as a precursor to being able to have one or more other orthopedic surgeries that my size prevented. I have become unable to walk for more than fifty feet at a time, and have had to seriously restrict my personal life to only those activities where a good sturdy, comfortable (emphasis on the sturdy) chair is accessible. I have lost my balance and fell several times in the last several months requiring the aid (given my size) of several of my friends coming over and physically picking me up from the floor. I fell last night and had to take today off so that the swelling in my knee would subside enough for me to walk on it. Hence the despicable diatribe you are currently reading. Despicable in that I am disgusted at what my life has become.

I had yet another doctor’s appointment yesterday where I was diagnosed with a heart ailment that both my parents suffered from. Atrial Fibrillation. It is going to mean more visits to the doctor (well, some doctor) and further medication that I will have to take for life. I had rejoiced after this last surgery about being able to get rid of the dreaded day-of-the-week pill dispenser due to the ailments that were no longer present after the surgery. I was down to one medication and my life looked wonderful. I am now back up to a handful of pills both morning and night. I am now at a point that I will soon have to give up a piece of my independence and get a roommate, hopefully someone with health care credentials.

The Scooter Store has decided to find a way to get me a motorized wheelchair. I very much do not want this contraption in my house. I very much don’t get to have what I want.

I loved the life I have lived and have no regrets. There are things that in retrospect would have been handled differently, but that is looking back at it with the eyes and mentality of the present. I did not know in 1981 what I know now, or I would not have instigated the bar fight that is the reason my hip needs replacing. I would not have done many things if I knew what I know now. But then I would not have learned the things I needed to know to get to this place. Pity blog? Screw that! This is what my life is about. It does not sound wonderful, but wonderful is just a word.

I have been many places and have learned many things. This is just another lesson in life. Perhaps it is a seemingly harsh lesson to learn, but who ever said that things will be easy, or wonderful?

Perhaps the most perplexing matter in this is the possibility of a roommate. I savor my privacy. There are not a handful of people who know where I live and I like it that way. My house is my Fortress of Solitude. Not the icy abomination that Hollywood made it, but the huge door in the wall of an ice mountain that you had to open with a giant key that seemed to be invisible to satellite and radar. The way it was in the Superman comics that I read which started my love of words and brought me to the place where I get to delight in, and bitch about my full and sometimes irritating life.

To give up the solitude of my current reality and invite someone in will be hard, and it might take a few tries before I get it right, but life dictates things without regards to my personal likes or dislikes. It is what makes the world a wonderful place. This time it is not just a word it is, as the dictionary affirms, excellent, great, and marvelous.

I will admit that I have a certain unrealizable desire where it comes to a roommate. There is a television program that I watch about a town of geniuses that work for a large corporation that research outrageous and outlandish science fiction type of things. They have a robot deputy sheriff that would be just perfect. He smiles all the time, and can do a million and one things. His name is Deputy Andy. If my truck needed a jump, I could hook him up and get started. He can cook and clean. He speaks every language on earth. He can probably type a thousand words a minute which means the two books I’ve written and do not have electronic copies of could be digitized in about two hours so that I could submit them. (These books not being ready to submit is surely the main impediment to my winning of the Nobel and Pulitzer) He probably has a multitude of abilities that are too numerous to count which would make my life easier, but the thing he has that would be the most use…an off switch.
Peace

Shillyshallying

In need of getting some things out of my head today I discovered a lack of ability where it comes to the cerebral muck and mire that is my normal state of affairs. I had nothing to say. I absolutely could not find a direction to go or, for that matter, one single matter of importance to bore you with this evening. Help!

I had occasion to speak with my Sweet Deifiúr yesterday having to admit a reality to her. While everyone else was celebrating the miracle of birth as exhibited through their affection for the gynic member of their individual procreative committee, I had emptiness in me that felt, and still feels disquieting. One should celebrate their parentage. I have, if properly accessed, hours upon hours of tales to regale the populace with about my adventures with this most remarkable woman. Her passing still leaves me with an enormous void right where my heart is. Yet, words are not coming. To someone whose main occupation is words, this serves as a major irritant. Not going to fight it anymore and I am just going to put it away where it wants to be…

Disquieting demeanor aside, I am back from the Land With No Words. It is a few weeks after that phone call and I am of a mind to complete this piece. I can hear my Dear Sainted Mother’s words in almost everything I do. I do not hear her when I am afflicting the world with the alternative vocabulary I am a master at. You know the one where I use multi-syllabled words to convey messages about situations that irk me. Okay…okay…when I curse. She never liked most curse words, and used the ones she found acceptable sparingly. I have, of late, attempted to temper the vulgarity I display when vexed. I also avoid such language when I am pleased. Well, most of the time. I believe that my desire to “clean-up” my verbally communicated ideals, expressions, rants, and philological pursuits comes from lessons learned at my màthair’s knee.

Morphologically speaking, it is tedious to me when I see the syntactical difficulties that swearing offers in the face of the confusion over whether this guy is in the least bit literate. I remember being admonished by Sister Mary Robertine from the parochial school I attended, “Cursing is just the desperate attempt of a weak mind trying to express itself!” Cursing has not me served well, and the realization of this is a lesson I damned well should have listened to when my mother told me so. She would also tell me that I need to stop using big words that folks have to keep a dictionary nearby in order to read what I have to say in this blog. I have a new venture at http://tlloydreilly.wordpress.com/ where I will attempt to deliver enlightenment to the world on the necessity to increase one’s vocabulary. In the meantime, I can and will cease and desist from the over usage incommodious of language that is exasperating, irritating, tedious, or downright incommodious. Well, maybe cease and desist is too strong a statement. Perhaps the best I will do is to try. That is what my mother would have told me to do. Try. And keep trying until you succeed.

Well enough of all this shillyshallying about. It is time to do battle with the World Wide Web in order to post this. While I am at it, perhaps I will look up the meaning of the word shillyshallying.
Peace

Bushwhacked Bastard

Thinking today that I really do not want to know anything more about a dead terrorist I came upon a realization. Yesterday was the anniversary of the day I raised my right hand and made myself subservient to the United States of America by way of membership in its armed forces. It was also the day I heard about the death of the fanatic responsible for the incursion in my life of fear and dread from without our borders. I rarely watch the news, and only discovered it because when I exit from my e-mail program, Yahoo News comes on the screen. They were more than happy to give over a majority of their reporting energy over to a dead criminal and monster.

I went on about my business and tried to be satisfied that the danger from that man might be minimized or, hopefully expunged from my psyche. But nooooooo….

I found it everywhere, on the radio on the way to work, on Facebook where I try to enjoy communicating with members of the human race who I have much affection for. It was on every television channel I surfed through on the television. My next door neighbor came over and offered me a beer to celebrate. I went to Wal-Mart and a man told me that it was a good day to be an American. I viewed five cars with the same bumper stickers that denounced the disposition of the body and marveled at the entrepreneurial acumen of whoever delivered that unctuous product in such quantities that five cars out of a city of some 100,000 people could find and purchase them in so short a time.

Thankfully, I heard nothing at work, and enjoyed the lesson and the kids. Thanked God for my job, and the kids I teach.

During my tenure in the Armed Forces of this great and noble country it was not necessary for me to take another human beings life. I am grateful for that. I am opposed to killing in any fashion except for defense of your, or your loved ones life. I came to this opposition as a direct result of the action taken at the behest of the recently deceased lunatic. I began to wonder after watching the buildings crumble to the ground, just when it became okay to kill. This quandary gave muse to one of the unpublished manuscripts collecting electronic dust on my hard drive. I took much soul searching to come to a place where I feel comfortable keeping God’s Sixth Commandment. I am also comfortable with the reality that my belief in this matter is not subject for discussion. I will not engage in a debate on this subject…with anyone.

I take exception to the ideas, given my belief about killing, that we should rejoice the death of this man. I have watched the videos, read the words, and truly believe that if his minions had ever kicked the door down in my house and shot me in the head that he would rejoice. Why in the bloody hell we call a world would I want to be just like him?!

As to whether he deserved it or not is a truly moot point. I might not believe that anyone should be killed, but I comprehend a reality about this situation. Any country that found themselves with the task of exacting justice on this person most certainly have found him guilty, probably based on his own unrepentant confession, and executed him. Not, however, without the obligatory media circus which would probably be much more penetrating and garish then what is currently being offered. With the inevitability of his death, it might as well happened right away, and conducted by someone who knew what he was doing.

As reported earlier, I did not have to personally cause the demise of any human being while in the Army, or since discharge. I did, however get to witness it in a most personal manner. One night, in 1973, while on guard duty, my supervising sergeant ordered me to give him the keys to the room we were keeping our firearms. We were on alert at the time due to threats from terrorists (Terrorism has been around for a while, it did not just show up on 911) in the area I was stationed and were keeping our weapons in a room in the barracks so as to offer us easy access in case of trouble.

I watched him walk to the room and enter. I started to go to the restroom and just as I turned to enter the latrine, I heard three gunshots. I went to the room and was told by the guys standing around the door that it was my duty to go in and see what had happened. I retrieved my weapon from the holster at my side(there had been shots fired) and opened the door. Lying on the floor was the Sargent with an M-16 lying on his chest pointing to what had been his face. Except…there was no face. Neither were there ears, or hair, or anything that resembled the top portion of a human body.

I shut the door, locked it, and called headquarters. I was relieved from my post after a while and I went to my room to go to sleep. Except…I did not sleep. I have remembered that sight every day for the last thirty eight years.

I think about the guy that pulled the trigger in that house in Pakistan and pray that he is alright. I pray that the image of what he saw combined with what he had to do does not stay with him as hard as what I saw has stayed with me. I am not anywhere close to being in the same place as that brave man, in fact, I am light years from knowing what that Navy Seal has to deal with as a result of having to take a madman’s life. I just found someone. He had to kill someone. He has to remember that he killed someone.

Okay, here’s where the armchair heroes and generals will stand up, righteously indignant and scream that I am unpatriotic or even, a traitor. I do not care. I care about that young man who had to kill someone to protect me and the yapping little dogs sitting on the laps of those who wave a flag around as if they had the first clue about what it takes to eradicate another human being in the service of their country. Those who live in a world where death comes at them through an electronic medium and wish to rejoice the death of another human being can kiss my ass!

We need to honor the commitment to justice that those guys jumping out of helicopters in Pakistan have and maintain in their hearts. We do not need to give that murdering son of a bitch one more second of time in the media. We do not need to allow him to have any more power in our lives because THAT IS WHAT HE WOULD HAVE WANTED!!!!!

I will close with a quote:

People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.
George Orwell

God Bless those rough men that are out there trying to see that we have some…

Peace