Avoidance Activity

It’s a love profusion. Not from me, but Madonna. It’s the current tune playing in the iTune’s random selection list.

It’s been awhile since I've added to this blog. As I once pointed out, the intent of this blog was to provide exercise for the writing muscle.

The writing muscle. It almost sounds dirty; a dangling piece of flesh usually found in a dusty chamber located someplace between the ears. Mine has atrophied to the point where it has become a collection of disjointed sentences held together by commas. My purpose here today – to once again set it right.

“Isn’t Life Strange?” said the poet. Or was it the Moody Blues? My daughter has stolen my guitar from my hands. She attempts to pick a Link Wray classic tune (actually I think there is only one Link Wray classic. The rest are pretty much the same thing.) The song: The Rumble.

A Line in the Sand

When I say a line in the sand I actually mean sidewalk. And when I say sidewalk I actually mean a buckled piece of concrete poised to kill. In my defense it was dark when this incident occurred.

We were rushing to catch our train home. We had just exited the sold-out Paul McCartney concert. In fact, to beat the crowd we left three songs before the end of the show.

WHAT! Are you crazy? Leave before the end at what was one of the most amazing shows I’ve ever been to? (And I’ve been to at least one other amazing show!) I'd have to be nuts. I'm kidding. Of course we stayed until "The End". 

It’s hard to believe that some of the songs McCartney sang go back 50 years. I remember them like they were Yesterday (pun intended, and yes, he sang that too).So many of his songs  immediately bring to mind specific moments in my life. Hearing them presented in this way, well any context really, carries me back to those moments, with all the sights and smells of the time. In at least one sense McCartney’s music illustrates why a time machine could be a very bad idea. If I can be emotionally whelmed by just revisiting the memory of some long ago event triggered by a familiar song, I’d probably explode if transported back to the original event. (Important note: Grown men are not overwhelmed. It’s dust, not tears.)

Sir Paul is 71 years old and there are those who say that he’s lost some voice. No way, I say. Watch the 1980 film, “Rockshow”. It is a film of the last Wings concert of a very long tour. It was filmed in Seattle in (I think) 1976. Then grab some You Tube clips of his 2013 shows. His voice is at least as good as ever. To hear him sing “Maybe I’m Amazed”, “Hey Jude”, “Live and Let Die”, and especially when ripping into “Long Tall Sally”, and “Helter Skelter” and all within a non-stop three-hour show, all I can say is wow! When I'm 71 I'll be pleased to be able to go to a 2 hour movie and stay awake!

But back to the line in the sand as I originally called it, the line that was actually a break in a buckled sidewalk. We were rushing from the concert to our train when I hooked into a bit of concrete with the front of a my sandal and my big toe. I fell forward like a ballerina who’d been addicted to Big Macs for a long, long time. I like to that I fell with style, but maybe not so much. I landed on a forearm and thumb sliding a bit before coming to a full stop.

The funny thing about latching on to a piece of the sidewalk with your big toe while your propelling yourself forward at significant speed is. . . well there is no funny thing. It hurts like hell. When feet are driven into concrete, even with great force, concrete wins every time. Luckily, I was able to avoid any broken bones.  

Now that I’ve relived these horrible moments it occurs to me that the concrete protrusion was at least 6 inches if it was a 1/4 inch. I should sue the city! At the very least I should recover the cost of my ruined jeans. But I will NOT sue the city. It would mean having to admit that, at times, I don’t always listen to my wife who did say, “   “. (Well, I don’t know what she said, it was a large and noisy – in a joyous way - crowd.  She assures me however that she did try to warn me.)

The Death of Reading Re-Visited

Last time I wrote about reading I said that I was not finding Ray Bradbury very interesting. I was reading, among other things, “The Martian Chronicles.” I wonder if, perhaps, part of my problem with Bradbury is my inability to suspend disbelief about the possibility of life on Mars. It’s no longer the distant red planet with changing seasons, ice caps, canals, and all sorts of possibilities like it was when the Chronicles first appeared. It’s a rock with no more than a wisp of atmosphere. I still hold out hope for a “Total Recall”-like possibility, or, at the very least that some little critter or person will walk up to the Rover, peer into the lens and smile. If he/she/it should then open its mouth and chew the Rover apart with its powerful jaws, well, that would be disheartening but it would be something.

With all this talk of Bradbury, Mars, and “Total Recall” there is probably a general assumption that I’m some sort of geek and lifelong Star Trek fan. Well, maybe somewhat. When Star Trek first came on I was barely out of diapers – at least mentally, in dog years I guess I had been about 71 years out of diapers. In any event when I was a small boy, “My Favorite Martian” was one of my favorite television shows. This was followed by “Lost in Space” the ever so realistic adventures of the Robinson family and Dr. Smith. However, I can admit to a slight burgeoning-adolescent driven perspective shift that drove me to Star Trek, but not for the science fiction. 

At some point I had begun noticing that the women on Star Trek wore fewer clothes than on any other show on television – except maybe the Dean Martin Hour.  In what turned out to be a strange twist of good fortune we only had a black and white television. I had no idea that most of the women of Star Trek were blue or green.

As to book books, I’m currently reading World War Z.  I haven’t seen the movie but I suspect it is nothing like the book. I want to see it anyway.

And speaking of bad movies I’d like to see. I think I would also like to see Will Smith’s “After Earth”. I’m hedging a little only because it could also be called M.Night Shyamalan’s “After Earth”. M. Night hasn’t had a good track record lately.

I’m somewhat convinced that Shyamalan doesn’t really know what to do with more than two people in any scene. His best films, “The Sixth Sense” and “Unbreakable” have few, if any, scenes with more than two characters. In some films it appears that any third actor in a scene seldom moves, almost as if glued to the spot.

Still, even in the bad films there is a Shyamalan touch that works well. “After Earth”, appears to have only two characters throughout most of the film. This could be a very good Shyamalan movie.

And the last song on the iTunes playlist: (Yes, my guitar has been returned to its proper place) is, appropriately enough “Lullaby (Goodnight My Angel)” by Billy Joel.

Wimp

The first tune from the iTune random selection: “Can’t Put a Price on Love” by The Knack.

When I last made an entry in this blog I very much had cancer on the mind, and maybe in the blood, and the throat, and who else knows where. What a wimp! Turns out it was nothing more horrific than a beauty mark. True it was in an unusual location, in an area that had seen heavy radiation, making it just a little more suspicious than your ordinary coincidence, but still, it was virtually nothing – really.

What this all means is that I’ve gone nearly three years cancer free: from a stage four cancer to zippo. That’s nothing to complain about.

As I was writing, “No Mister Nice Guy” by Alice Cooper was playing in the background. I hope that doesn’t apply here.

The Death of Reading

“Somebody Told Me”, by The Killers opens this segment.

When did I stop reading? The last time was several weeks ago, but the seed was planted almost a year ago when Ray Bradbury died.

It is without any ill will that I say I was not particularly affected my Mr. Bradbury’ s death; saddened as much that anybody must die but not more so. I’d never been a fan. This fact was what bothered me.

I’d never read anything less than glowing reviews of Ray Bradbury’s fiction yet, of all that I could recall having read, I was less than enamored. I read several of his short stories in the now defunct Twilight Zone magazine. I generally found them pointless, sometimes with an overbearing simplistic hint of an implied morality that fell short of addressing any significant issue. Nevertheless they were well written and potential held off my eventual disappointment until the last word had been read.

Upon his death it occurred to me that in the past I’d been a jaded individual, somewhat morose, unrecognizable from my current sunny disposition. I owed it myself, and to Ray Bradbury to give him a second chance.

I grabbed my dog-eared (Does anyone smell a cliché?) of Stephen King’s  Danse Macabre, a non-fiction encyclopedia about all things horror, at least up to 1981. I was a little surprised that in writing about Ray Bradbury King had noted some of the same weaknesses that had bothered me. He, of course, stated them with much better words. In any event he did have a recommendation, Something Wicked This Way Comes.  

Armed with Stephen Kings guidance and some memory of things that occurred to me I headed on down to the nearest second-hand book store to purchase some choice Ray Bradbury reading material. (As someone who’s own books have long disappeared from the discount bins I feel this is decently ethical at least, in part, because Mr. Bradbury is dead and would not be deprived the enjoyment of any royalties.) I purchased Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Martian Chronicles, and I Sing the Body Electric.

I started with I Sing the Body Electric, a collection of short stories. First up was “The Kilimanjaro Device”. Hmm, a little obvious, contrived – not so good, or at least not to my liking. I read a little no but was going nowhere fast. Better to put this one down and start on something else.

I picked up The Martian Chronicles. Disappointed, that’s where I’d start. I expected something, a story, a tall tale, I wasn’t sure. What I had instead were several stories. They were linked, referenced each other, yet stood alone, and that was the problem. Most of them weren’t very good. The Martians weren’t a people, or culture. They weren’t real. I suppose that describing the indescribable is admirable but when the indescribable is not actually described but is instead reduced to a purple prose dump I think that in writers-speak that has to go down as a fail.

What happened next is most unfortunate. The two unfinished books stood before me like the unfinished vegetables that would keep me away from my desert. I not only didn’t finish reading them, I found myself unable to start any other books. What a waste!

Fortunately time heals most wounds. I’ve recently started E.L. Doctorow’s City of God.

The final song in tonight playlist:  an alternate take of “Ob-la-di Ob-la-da” by The Beatles.

D-Day

 

Background music is courtesy of iTunes. iTunes is not bad, yet I’m not convinced that I wouldn’t be better of returning to Media Monkey. Today’s blog begins with “Embryo” by Pink Floyd playing in the background.

 *****

When I first started this blog I had intended to produce all sorts of profound ponderings about religion and politics, two things which, like it or not, I believed touch our lives on a daily basis. Well, that quickly degenerated into a couple of quickie book reviews and – that was it!

 

As I like to brag whenever I have the chance: I am a published author with bunches of book sales in legitimate book outlets. Does anybody remember Borders? However, the truth is more complicated. Those “books” aren’t great works of fiction. For the most part, except for the parts I made up out of whole cloth, they are non-fiction tomes. My skills are, and remain, as a putter-down of lots of words in a short amount of time. I can fill up space, but except for the work of a skilled editor, my wife, my words would amount to little more than aimless dribble, wasting paper that might have otherwise been more productively used in the toiletries department. Not to mention that, left to my own devices, I would probably use up my word processor’s allotment of commas sooner than you can count to 2,000 words.

 

Of course, I’m not a total loss. In order to “prove” myself I did write, for a short period of time, a “humor” column in a Canadian ad-rag. I guess that would technically have made it a “humour” column. But, no matter, it was damn funny (I thought) and I did get paid. It was in Canadian money which after conversion seems a little less impressive. Why in the hell would anybody pay you X-dollars and 72 cents? Couldn’t they just round it up?

 

This brings me back to the subject of the first paragraph: this blog and its true purpose. Writing is like riding a bicycle, sort of. Maybe you never forget how to ride but you sure as heck do get rusty. I needed to work out some of the wobble, get back to where I could stand on the handlebars while coasting downhill at 25 miles per hour, on a gravel surface.

 

When I re-entered the blog world I made a decision to avoid the navel-gazing and attempt to put together a readable and potentially humorous 700 or so words. It’s not as easy as I thought it might be, especially when the approach taken has been sometimes embarrassingly close to a personal journal.

 *****

Current tune on the playlist: “Noah’s Dove” by 10,000 Maniacs. This is perhaps one of the most meaningful songs ever written. Perhaps. It sounds like it might be anyway. The truth is I can’t understand a thing that Natalie Merchant sings. But it sure sounds deep.

 *****

But back to unfunny navel gazing. The name I chose for this entry was D-Day. Tomorrow is D, meaning diagnosis, day. I can’t pretend that I’m unconcerned about a biopsy, which, at best, will say you hurt like hell for no good reason at all. At worst it will identify a type of cancer. Yet, in all truthfulness, I’m not all that concerned at this point. I have a been-there done-that attitude. Whatever happens, will happen. The problem, as I tell my wife, is that, in spite of my agnostic/atheistic leanings God really likes me. The downside to this apparent fondness is that potentially means he’d like to see me sooner than not.

 

So how does this relate to all the nonsense leading to this point? Well, as I said, if not for my wife, my writing-creds would consist of unwritten chapters to never published books. If not for the borrowed or co-opted strength of my wife my stoic bravery in facing the dreaded “C” word would more likely take the appearance of a wiggly-kneed mass of jello attempting to a unicycle across Niagara Falls. (And if that last sentence ain't proof that she’s not editing this mess, I don’t know what is.)

 ******

The final song in tonight’s blog set: “Ain’t No Way” by Little Bill.

The Week That Will Become the Week That Was

 

Background music is courtesy of iTunes Shuffle. Today’s blog begins with “Wall of Denial”by Stevie Ray Vaughan playing in the background.

 

This will be the week that was – maybe – at least for a little while longer.

 

Politics;

 

Well I have a friend – I guess, who has absolutely no problem framing liberals in the most vile and stereotypical ways possible. Liberals kill babies, coddle criminals, hate legitimate Americans, lie, steal, cheat, want to steal your guns, and re-distribute your wealth. It’s very much a cold-war mentality having settled on a new red menace.

 

The problem with this approach is that it forces my back against a wall. Am I a liberal? Well, maybe not, but I am now. The truth is that few of us are either all liberal or all conservative. It’s seldom an all one way or the other proposition. Yet many people would prefer that we frame every discussion in that extreme manner.

 

I support Obamacare – I think. It tackled a real problem: healthcare in the United States. But, it’s over 20,000 pages long. I could never knowledgably and truthfully make a statement of full-out support. Yet the ideological grandstanding that is driving all-out efforts to mindlessly defeat it force me to take such a stance. The truth is that in its 20,000-plus pages I’m sure that there are items that my liberal and conservative friends would agree are in need of additional fixing. (Obamacare is hardly some liberal manifesto as it is reasonably similar to a proposal first put forth by Richard Nixon.)

 

Playlist: "My Humps" by Black Eyed Peas. There are some songs where not understanding the lyrics wouldn’t be so bad.

 

A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.

 

It’s all about the guns. But before even beginning to wonder whether or not Obama is attempting a gun grab it might be worth considering what the above words say.

 

They don’t say that you can’t regulate arms – just the opposite. That would seem to indicate that registration, background checks, and all sorts of limitations are fair game. Maybe even more importantly the second amendment places restrictions on the federal government. States would seem to be a little freer to trample on second amendment rights – within the allowances of their own constitutions.

 

In a perfect world there would be no guns. Livestock would simply walk up to your door and die whenever you were hungry. Obviously the world is less than perfect, and things evolved differently. Guns are a part of our reality. But that’s a manly hunting story and not really what is being talked about. Assault weapons, handguns, ammunition cartridges, registration, background checks – that is all the stuff of controversy. Is anything that is being proposed part of some insidious plan to disarm the public? Is it an attack on out second amendment rights?

 

I’m sure there is something somewhere that proposes to trample second amendment rights, but it doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of passing, so I think for now it is sufficient to focus on what is possible.

 

Does requiring registration and background checks infringe upon anybody’s right to own a weapon. We allow similar checks for voting, yet don’t necessarily see that as an infringement upon voting rights. I fail to see a significant problem, unless. . .

 

Unless you believe the government is out to crush us all. If that’s the case why worry about constitutional rights? You’re basically taking the stance that the government as it exists is not legitimate.

 

Is gun registration a slippery slope towards confiscation? As usual – for me – I reject slippery slope arguments. Every utterance or action is a potential slippery slope towards something. We can stop where desired.

 

And the playlist closes the blog with “Leaving Las Vegas”, by Sheryl Crow.

 

It’s Not Steve.

The A-Z has playlist finally run its course. It’s in random mode. Today’s blog begins with “Nikita” by Elton John playing in the background.

 

It’s been an interesting week as far as medical issues go. A well-meaning case of too much information kicked off a minor panic which brought with it all the usual ponderings on the meaning of life, the existence, or not, of an afterlife and all the other obvious ponderous ponderings that come when mortality seems more imminent than usual.

 

Blogs should be fun and interesting, and I’ll try, but this one might be doomed to a place in the muck before it begins. Faith is serious business, especially to believers. To non-believers it may even more serious as alternative possibilities are limited.

 

To begin: it seems strange that some doctor’s proclamation of pending mortality should have any real meaning. If, as an example, a medical professional states that you have two years to live, does that count as a guarantee of no less than 23 months? That’s actually a better guarantee than you had before walking into the office. Should you feel cheated if after only 8 months you’ve accidentally killed yourself in a culinary accident? Concerned about that pain in your chest? Why? You’ve got 15 months remaining.

 

At this point the playlist selection: “Because You’re Young” by David Bowie. No we’re not, read the blog.

 

Praise the Lord. Really? But what is the Lord’s role in all of this? (I’m working this section on the assumption that there is a Lord.) Is it right for one to pray for a cure? To ask for a special blessing? To make a pilgrimage to Lourdes? If there is a Lord isn’t the end desire to return to his or her presence? What is the correct response that one should have for “bad” news: Thank you God? Maybe something along the lines of: “Thank you God, I’m coming home. But to be clear, I was coming home eventually anyway, and I was thinking would a delay of a decade, or two, or three, or more really be so bad? There’s so much that I’ve yet to do. And now, of course, understanding that time is limited – well, a little more time to sort it all out would be grand.”

 

The current playlist selection jumps ahead to “(Just Like)Starting Over” by John Lennon. I sometimes wish, until I realize how lucky I am to be where I am.

 

Now what about non-believers? Well, they’re dealing with what is called, for them, bad luck. As in damn that’s some Bad Luck. (As in the previous section, where I assumed there was a Lord, this section also makes an assumption: There ain’t nothing. As to where I stand on this – I’m being cagey, at least for the moment). In the Lordless-universe-view the big end is basically no more traumatic than a simple lights-out moment. Still, until the lights are actually extinguished we sure as hell like to hold on. Why, hold on to all the pain, and suffering, and sweat if we’re so sure that it’s as painless as lights out. Our memory of the day after we’re gone will be no more significant than our current recollection of the morning of April 14^th 1813 – nothing. The problem may be that while we meander towards that lights-out moment we do have a consciousness that’s at work saying things like, “Damn it, I really do like it here. I like warmth, the sunshine and skin. I think I wanna stay on for a little while longer if you don’t mind.”

 

Arrgg ugly coincidences “but what if there are no coincidences?”. The next song on the random playlist: “In My Time of Dyin’” by Bob Dylan.

 

The tweeners is probably what most of really are: We don’t really believe in a god but we don’t want to say anything that might piss him off. So while the sun shines bright we play, but when the darkness falls we’re suddenly, and sometimes sheepishly, driven to pray. “Save our souls, save our lives, protect us from evil – unless by evil you mean money, whiskey or women – but mostly just save our lives.” The problem with this approach is that if there is a Lord it is just possible that we’ve discovered the only way to really piss him off, luke-warm hypocrisy. On the other hand if there is no Lord to piss off, it’s really just pathetic.

 

The playlist marches on: “The Nazz are Blue” by the Yardbirds. I have no idea what it means but I think it’s an end to the coincidences. It’s the wrong song. The right song for this moment is “The End” by The Beatles. “And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make”.

 

It’s silly to obsess over what is ultimately inevitable. There was never a point where immortality was an earthly option. (Maybe in the time of Hercules, but that’s never really been confirmed.) As to the notion of an afterlife, I doubt there is a person who doesn’t wish it was so. I’m not about to argue all the talking points of various religions. Other websites do that, they’re usually well researched with proper footnotes, but almost universally slightly nasty. Maybe there is something in them that wishes they were wrong.

 

Final song in the totally random playlist: “Give Me Love(Give Me Peace on Earth)” by George Harrison. Does this mean that Steve Jobs is trying to provide a sign through iTunes? I doubt it. More likely it is simply me trying to ascribe meaning to a random series of songs where no meaning exists. In any event, in spite of what has been suggested by some of the articles I’ve read in the last year, and with no dis-respect, I don’t think it is Steve.

 

 

 

To Blog or Surrender to the Elements

Today’s blog starts with the A-Z playlist up to Bob Dylan singing “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again”.

 

Some songs rekindle areas of the memory long that have been long dormant. “Stuck Inside of Mobile of with the Memphis Blues Again” is one such song. It’s not the lyrics; I don’t really know them. The chorus repeats the same inane words over and over again, and even though I DO know what those words are, I don’t know what they mean. But there is an exasperation and relentlessness in this song that is somehow infectious. Or maybe it’s that the song functions as a half-ass time machine My feet and, it seems, most of the rest of my body are stuck here in the 21^st century but there’s portion that does travel back in time, to some point in the 20^th century when such songs were our tokens – like that Obama or Romney sticker that forever defaces your car. Didn’t like “Stuck in Mobile…”? You probably voted for Nixon.

 

Appropriately enough the playlist, after running through “Stuck on You” by Elvis Presley and “Stumblin’In” by Suzie Quatro while I wrote the above paragraph progressed to “Subterranean Homesick Blues” by Bob Dylan just as I finish this section.

 

Back to the Beginning: There was point to today’s title. I’ve been – internally –debating this whole blogging thing. Just as when you’re learning to play the piano – or in my case the accordion – there is a time to do scales and there is a time to get of your butt and learn a song. I re-started this blog with the thought that as a writer who hasn’t written much in the last several years, I needed the exercise. I think I still do, but how much pomposity is one capable of?

 

Last week I tried to put down my profound thoughts on gay marriage. That failed so I tried to be analytical and look at the questions before the Supreme Court from a legal perspective. After several hundred words of technical brilliance I realized that I’m not a lawyer, and really not so concerned about what the Supreme Court says that I wanted to research legal precedence. So I deleted all my profundity and filled 500 or so words of blog with blubber. The truth is that I don’t have 500 words of opinion on the matter. For the record, my opinion is that people don’t choose sexual orientation any more than I chose brown eyes; equality for all –simple.

 

Which comes back again to the question of whether to blog or not to blog? What’s the point if not to pontificate? But if I don’t want to read my own pontificating why would anyone else? I considered creating a soap-blog, a continuing story, would that be interesting or draining and thereby unsustainable? This one is still a possibility. . . . as the playlist reaches “Suck on the Jugular” by the Rolling Stones.

 

Morbid thoughts: The correct answer – if ever asked the question, “Have you learned anything from your experience with cancer?” is, “Why of course. I’ve learned how valuable time can be, that it's not something to be taken for granted. I’ve learned to appreciate the here and now, not take things for granted, etc.” The problem is I don’t know how much of that, if any, is true.

 

Of course, any disease worthy of a Hallmark movie treatment will provide a slight slap in the face regarding the finite nature of our time on earth, but I think the greater gift, or curse, of any such ailment might be the sometimes overwhelming feeling of WTF. For instance, I’d like to publish again –something, likely short stories. There may not be any money in it, but it’s enjoyable. But what difference would it make it I did or did not? The end is the same for everybody. No matter what the effort or quality of our output we eventually take a last breath and then re-enter the eco system. This may seem like a ridiculously narcissistic point of view, but it’s how I find myself thinking these days. I try to slap myself out of it by forcing myself to move forward: by writing this blog, by earning a BS in IT, by writing the great American novel, learning to play “Taking Care of Business” because my wife asked. Still, it is difficult to not slip back into the muck of despair. What difference does it all make? Maybe some. There is the chance that I could influence the people I know, who I live with, who I've raised, and, to resurrect a medieval term, whom I’ve sired. I’d like to think that I’ve been a positive influence in their lives. Maybe someday they might say to their children something like, , “If you want to be a great human being like your grandpa then you must. . .” but if the sentence actually begins, “Unless you want to be a loser like your grandpa. . .” – I guess that would be useful also.

 

The playlist has now reached “Sugar Baby” by Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan sure does seem to have a lot of songs that begin with the letter “S”.

 

I cheated. I edited the above section. The playlist is now at “Summer’s Almost Gone” by the Doors. Guess the Doors never informed Paul McCartney the summer was almost gone as the next song on the list was “Summer’s Day Song.”

 

 

Rambling Thoughts on Morning TV

Today the A-Z playlist begins with: I’ll Be Waiting – Santana

If a blog is written in the woods, where nobody has internet access and it therefore obviously cannot be read, has it in fact been written? I guess, until or unless I decide to run for public office there is a certain deniability factor, at which time it will arise from the dead to attack. There, in one sentence I’ve managed to mix politics with an Easter Sunday metaphor while simultaneously keeping trendy with the inclusion of a zombie allusion. Now, if anybody – Pamela Anderson – has any ideas about how – Pamela Anderson – I might get this blog read – please feel to let me – Pamela Anderson – know.

Back to pompous blog-errata. . .

As the A-Z playlist advances to: I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight – Bob Dylan

The big noise on TV this morning is gay marriage. The Supreme Court has heard a couple of cases, one involving DOMA and one involving Proposition 8.  For the sake of argument, and today’s blog, let’s assume that the Supreme Court does not take a weasel-route out making a decision.

I had written about 3000 words of pure brilliance (or drivel, depending upon you point of view) but decided that my legal analysis plus $3.50 gets you an Irish-crème sugar-free latte at Kelly’s and no more.

Yet, I fill up space. . .

To me DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act, seems to be a clear case of exclusion by law based on arbitrary and thereby discriminatory criteria. Regardless of opinions on a definition for marriage, I fail to see how SCOTUS cannot give DOMA a slam-dunk good-bye.

Proposition 8 is a little trickier. It’s almost as much about state law and processes as legitimized discrimination. Still, legitimized discrimination seems a fair description. If SCOTUS were to uphold Proposition 8 it could be giving states the ability to create new brackets of discrimination in order to by-pass those not specifically mentioned by congress.

Somewhat related: Several years ago I thought that the ERA amendment – giving equal rights to women – was silly. Not because I was against equal rights for women but because I thought it was unnecessarily redundant; these issues were already covered in the constitution. If Proposition 8 is upheld then it would seem that nothing can be assumed to be protected unless explicitly stated

Slippery Slope.

 “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” – Inigo

There is no such thing as the Slippery Slope. Or, maybe everything is the slippery slope. Or, at least, I don't believe in the common notion of the Slippery Slope. “Darn” is just a wink and a nod away from “Damn”, but neither means I’m automatically on the way to bigger, nastier or harsher language.

Gay marriage is marriage between two consenting adults. It does not imply recognition of unions between seals and penguins, or dogs and senators. The notion that a slight yet reasonable step in one direction automatically opens the floodgates for everything imaginable is nonsense.   

One final word.

If you came here looking for Pamela Anderson, I apologize for the use of this cheap trick to generate traffic. Truthfully, though, I’m surprised that after all this time it still works.

And speaking on the sanctity of marriage. . .

Final play today on the A-Z playlist: I’m Henry the VIII, I Am – Herman’s Hermits

iTunes and the Bible

Background Music: And I Like It – Jefferson Airplane

This blogging is harder work than I ever thought it would be. The problem is not a lack of material; it’s trying to determine what subject falls into the who-gives-a-damn category. It’s a blog so there has to be some navel gazing, but I don’t want to gaze so deep that I can see the light at the other end.

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After years of resistance proved futile I gave up on Media Monkey and switched over to iTunes – all the better to feed my iPod and iPad. Well, iTunes was no Media Monkey but it was decent enough to handle my music collection.

Well don’t you know that once everything is working fine, and I’m getting along well with it, iTunes goes and auto-updates itself to a brand new busted version.

Why do so many software vendors think that we have nothing better to do than marvel at their clever changes? Most of us who use software outside of the workplace actually have something else in mind: Listening to music, watching a movie, reading a book, or even writing a blog. I don’t want to be a Luddite. Change can be good, even necessary, but changing a good process for what seems like nothing more than planned obsolescence – well that just annoys the customer. Will Ubuntu ever come of age?

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Around 150 years ago, shortly after the American Civil War, my great-grandmother, or her mother, or an aunt, purchased a Bible upon the occasion of my great-grandparent’s wedding. The 10” by 15” bible featured carved covers – a crucifix in front and back – and 3” brass plates to provide support for its 3” binding. It appears that my great-grandmother recorded most family events in permanent ink. She recorded marriages, births, and deaths. Sometime around the 1940’s the Bible fell into the hands of my great-aunt. I’m not suggesting anything underhanded. Whether it was by virtue of being the oldest or simply a case of disinterest from any other takers, her acquisition of the Bible was Honest.

My great-aunt continued the practice of recording marriages, births, and deaths. However, she switched from permanent ink to pencil. There seem to be several instances where she tried to erase the history of family members with whom she had been feuding. Luckily, pencil, doesn’t erase well from the glossy pages that had been reserved for recording genealogical information. So, except perhaps by total omission, little appears to have been lost.

Eventually the bible found its way into my mother’s hands. (Perhaps by virtue of my father being the oldest of the next generation.) In any event it was no too old to accept fresh ink, or much handling. The pages were dry and fragile. The width of the Bible had expanded beyond the capabilities of its hinges, which now hung loosely from the top cover, at least an inch too short to clasp shut. The bible now was hidden away in what was perceived to be a protective covering.

Of course, there were occasional, careful examinations of the contents. There were mysteries in there beyond the normal biblical scripture. There was, of course, the genealogy, sometimes altered – or corrected. The deaths of individuals were recorded who were otherwise unknown. Some were apparently infant deaths, or near infant deaths, but others were names without apparent origin. There are fragments of a letter started but likely never finished. It is the anguished apology from a mother to an alienated daughter. I don’t know if an apology was ever sent, or perhaps rejected. I have no idea what the daughter may have done that justified, at least to some, her being shunned.

There’s hair in the Bible. Who’s hair is subject of rumor but – unless somebody wants to spring for some DNA testing and exhumations – un-verifiable.

Today the Bible is in my grubby hands, in what I hope is a more protective container than was used in the past. Where it will end up next is anybody’s guess, but it appears to have had a better idea of where it was heading than any of the previous owners would have imagined, so I guess it will be OK.

And – with the “A” music list having advanced to “Angel of Music” from Phantom of the Opera – it seems like a good time to close this entry.

And not a moment too soon; next up on the “A” music playlist is “Angela” by Yoko Ono.

To the Blog

It appears as though I’ve been blogging since around 2005. For most people that would equate to around 100 blogs or 500,000 words, give or take a few. However, my reality is a little bit different. In all these years I’ve only managed to post a handful of times and seldom more than a dozen words.

Will this entry signal a change? I can’t say for sure. There are so many commitments and issues to deal with; a blog hardly seems like a priority item. But the truth is that at this point blogging may be more like playing scales on the piano – a necessary evil required in order to remain sharp enough to play “What Child is This” on Christmas Eve.

For this first step back into the waters of blog I’d like to offer my opinion – and that is the problem! Who gives a damn? My opinion is just one of approximately 6 billion floating around these days. (20 billion if you’re a regular Facebook user.) I offered my unsolicited opinion recently, on a matter of great importance in some quarters. I was sorry to have done so. Not because I might be wrong, but because coming when it did my opinion was unnecessary.

So why blog? If you’re a righter – or simply a writer if a sword is not your style – it may make sense. You can tell people who to vote for, tell them which party is evil, wrong, etc. I’m sure many a vote was swayed by me hitting a like button on any number of Romney or Obama jokes.

I think my reason for venturing back into the black hole of blogging is as implied above; exercise. Like pushing a car upwards of 53 miles an hour on a quarter-mile strip, we’re talking CorVAIRS here, there is an exhilaration that comes – for some – with crafting words in a manner that drives people to feel (The Cider House Rules), laugh (Sweet Thursday), ponder (Foucault’s Pendulum) or simply throw up (At least one section in every Clive Barker book). Such is the joy of writing.

Music plays in the background as I pound out these ponderings (“Alibi” – Elvis Costello). For me the challenge is to successfully capture the emotion of the two-minute song and repackage it in 50,000 words – more or less. I’m guessing this blog will end at around 400 words. Hopefully, I’ll maintain a regular schedule and with continued practice, eventually, maybe my aim will become true too.