Thanksgiving In America: Blunt Observations

In America we are giving thanks to:

The pilgrims for being criminals and outcasts, so they could be kicked out and sent to this fine land.

The native Americans who tended and lived with the land here (notice I didn't say "owned"), until it was ripe for our ancestors' pickings.

The Crown for being so foolish and greedy as to create a society where the situation became so unstable that they had to ship the dross to places like America, Australia, and New Zealand (among others.)

God, who gave us the power to plunder this land for all it's worth - and then some, to dominate (through WMDs and economic pressure) the entire world; because, face it, we deserve it.

At least, that's how I see America as an aggregate.

As an individual, I'm giving thanks to everyone who loves life, is willing to reach out and help someone who needs it, and to those good souls who better themselves for the betterment and enlightenment of every living being (including the turkey in my oven.)

Not a Bedtime Story

Once upon a time, the Earth wanted plastic - so it twisted up some RNA, slapped them together and ...

*poof*

I think the Earth has enough plastic now, don't you?

The Kitchen Fire: a true story

It was 20 years ago...

My girlfriend and I got into married housing on campus by lying to the university (I was, as far as they knew, her sister who had suffered a serious nervous breakdown), and we really loved our little cinderblock apartment - it was cheap, it was bigger than 2 dorm rooms, and we could party all night if we wanted without some RatAss showing up to bang on the door and complain.

Shortly after we moved into the 2nd floor unit, we found that we were getting a new neighbor. Pam Berger (say it fast a couple of times), was a graduate student (Psych Ed, I think); seemed quiet, conservative in her manner, liberal in her politics, a Birkenstock girl with a head full of plans and a stiff upper lip to keep her pointed in the right direction.

It took her a day or so to get her stuff into the apartment and get settled. We had seen her go in and out any number of times, and made it a point to introduce ourselves. It was smiley and smarmy, and over pretty quickly. One of the great benefits we obtained by living in married housing was the ability to share our abode with Niki's 80 pound golden retriever (Sandy.) Pam, our new neighbor, hated the dog on sight.

It was a warm mid-September day and we had our windows open, so it was easy to hear the blood-curdling screams that came from the open windows next door. I ran out the screen door, turned left, and almost collided with Pam who was running out of her identical door; waving her hands, and screaming... except she didn't have any breath left, and had forgotten to inhale and properly execute the shriedk - her short curly brown hair, and almost perfectly round face, combined with her lips simultaneously trying to open as wide as they could and grab any nearby molecules of air - and the aspect of her face defined by the utter lack of color in it made her look like nothing other than a great hairy fish who understands that it is about to die of a heart attack.

I grabbed the railing and avoided the collision - she ran past me, turned around and yelled "My kitchen is on FIRE! Please call 911!" Well, I didn't smell any smoke or see any smoke so I went into her apartment and moved back and a bit the the left to enter her kitchen where...

...I turned off the gas stove, called her into the apartment, explained the aparatus to her, and turned it back on (she jumped and let out a little squeal), and talked to her about natural gas, and pipelines, and meters, etc. She was horrified that gas lines were flowing, connected through the cities, towns, and countryside of our nation. She had never seen a gas stove before - she was 27.

She stayed in that apartment for a week, and then moved out; where, I do not know. I think she couldn't stand the flames.

Umquam noli desinere somnantem

I dreamt I was lying in bed watching CNN; there was an ongoing discussion of imperial politics and suddenly the door opened and in walked the woman I love - she stripped, threw herself atop me and drove me like a rented Jeep.

So, as the dream progressed, I became aware that all my friends were appearing in the room; waggling fingers at me, laughing, blowing kisses, shaking up bottles and making faces, and then they would wave or simply vanish - one friend, one of my dearest and bestest friends, sat on the bed talking to me while the thrashing ecstacy consumed my very soul.

The dream ended when my lover kissed me and got out of bed, threw on a black silk robe, and sat down next to my friend and shared a cigarette with her.

Veterans Day

I take my cue from Jimi Hendrix, a veteran.

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace."

I cannot think of a military conflict (call it war, police action, military intervention - whatever), since the end of WWII where the US had good resons to become involved. Those military conflicts, every one, ended badly - actually, they haven't realled ended. Soldiers are sent tot he DMZ, Vietname will never cease to be a thorn in our national side, US military action has protracted and irritated the situation in the middle ease and Africa, and, I would remind anyone who is considering the cold war an exception that the USSR and the Berlin Wall came apart regardless of military impositions. The communists are still communist, the fascists are not becoming any less so, and the US stands military, under the direction of a demonstrated idiot ready to destroy peace, while wasting national resources; most importantly, human beings who could be building up the world.

The American ideal of creating world peace through diplomatic, economic, technological, and military induced pressure is a lie that we start telling our children at a very young age - it's a story that little kids buy, and think about when they, as young men and women, go to their inductions...

While the demons we have hired to rule us laugh and plot tactical maps projecting body counts and profit margins.

I can thank any individual for doing what she or he believes is right. But, the truth, the innards of the machine look pretty ugly.

Bluster

Bluster.mp3

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2003; Second St., downtown Ann Arbor, Michigan:

There was a lonely drunk man living upstairs from me - nothing unusual, most of the renters in that house were separate from society in one way or another.

Crack addiction
Alcoholism
Prostitution
(in my case) Isolation from my "old life."

The guy, I never knew his name, drank himself to death one night in his rear second-floor room while the Guatemalan guys who rented the basement were busy cutting each other up with knives and broken Bacardi bottles.

We didn't know he was dead until 2 days later, while my neighbor and I sat and smoked a doobie as the EMTs, dressed in HazMat suits and tanks went in to remove the body.

I said "Hi" to this guy a few times over the almost three weeks he remained alive while residing in that house - I know there wasn't more I could do for him; in his state, he wanted to be dead and was beyond the reach of anyone - he put himself there.

The vibe I picked up from that man was gray to black; madness, depression compressed to the density of hysterical catatonia, a feral need to escape what he believed to be an endless dark tunnel the walls of which defined, for him, an unalterable and insatiable existence.

It's a sad thing to see the evidence of there being only two types of people in the world - those who choose to care, and those who choose not to. For me, this man's death provided a lesson of intent; one that made me look at my own choices, comparatively inoccuous as they seemed, and reevaluate my purpose in accepting my next breath and the responsibility, and more importantly the opportunity to care that it implies.

Every Junkie's like the setting sun.
-Neil Young