For Karen

D O N ' T       S T O P  

Sometimes in a dimly realized dream, your face drifts in and out of focus,
One laughing eye peering out at me, between strands of golden hair,
Lips beckoning mine to venture closer, closer, closer, until they meet,
Lingering in a kiss that surpasses the very breath we draw, until we are one.  

Together, hearts beating in unison,  blood rushing to hitherto unknown parts
Of our bodies, in a flaming cold warmth that engulfs mind, body and spirit,
A river of passion threatening to flood our every sense, washing us up
On the shore of an idyllic island, with scents run riot through our senses.  

Fingers entwined, legs entangled, breast to breast, breath to breath,
The beginning of one the ending of the other in a mobius of nerves,
Pounding hearts, and senses trying to absorb each the other, the food of life,
If only for one eternal moment trying to make time stop its inevitable march,
Toward an implacable and inevitable future only vaguely sensed but known
As certainly as the rising and setting of the sun with the passing of each day.  

Clinging to the dreams of the night as they fade into wisps of half-remembered
Visions of a paradise on Earth, in our hearts and in our minds, and most important,
In our memories, embedded deeply in the scrapbooks of the lives we share,
Never to fade or dull, never to lose their luster, or to dim in any way.  

Always fresh as new-cut dandelions, always as real as this moment right now,
Always who we were, who we are, who we will inevitably become, over the passing
Days, as immortal as the solar wind, blown gently out into the wide universe,
Driven across time and space, by the bonding of two hearts beating as one.

The Great Beyond

S T A N D I N G   

Standing on the edge of forever,
Afraid to take a deep breath,
Not knowing which way the wind
Will blow or the pendulum fall,
Waiting for any signal at all.  

Standing at the end of the diving board,
Wondering if the fall will hurt
As much as not know where the limit
Truly lies, what boundary will be
The one not crossed or even approached,
In the hesitance of an eternal moment.  

Standing by the sidelines waiting
To be called into the game, bated
Breath raggedly marking the minutes,
Chattering teeth keeping the rhythm,
Syncopated heartbeat pounding in time,
Drowning out everything else completely.  

Standing alone at the gates of doom,
Listening for any sign to betray
My feelings, to expose my thoughts,
Or strip away the mask of studied
Nonchalance, as if nothing really
Mattered anyway, as if I really cared.

The Road Taken, Not

W h a t   I s   a n d   w h a t   s h o u l d 

n e v e r   b e

A friend sent me the “prayer” by Minister Joe Wright, something I have previously passed along, because it has much to say that I personally agree with. Then I read the Snopes.com background story on it, and learned it was a version of a speech by Bob Russell. My only complaint with his version, aside from the obvious ones of credit and the omission of several key points, was that it did not go FAR ENOUGH!

The prayer says much about what passes for "leadership" these days, even though it was written during the Clinton Administration, and is slanted to remonstrate Democrats! Yet, ten years later, it is remarkably pertinent to the actions of today‘s “Republikans” (I’m spelling it that way to differentiate these people from the likes of Abraham Lincoln, William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, even Dwight Eisenhower, leaders who demonstrated their sagacity and even-handedness in representing ALL the people, while in office.). Tom DeLay claims HE is the victim of a "conspiracy", Karl Rove is known to be the "leak" that outed the CIA agent, which Jr said "would be fired" as soon as it was known who did it...although, as yet, hasn't been!

California’s "governator" wants to silence the unions and do a Texas-style redistricting so the state's 30% Republikans cans be "better represented" (which really means for them to have more seats in the assembly, because, you know, the voters don't realize how important they are!). It seems everywhere you turn, these days, minorities, whether black, brown, "Christian conservatives" (I consider myself Christian and conservative, but I also think Jesus was the ultimate "liberal"), etc, insist they should have more power to determine EVERYONE ELSE'S rights! I fear for our Democracy, from within, because NOT ONE of these various power blocs could create what we have and take for granted!

I'm sick and tired of the political "ads" (really lies, and pandering to fear and personal interests, too often the wrong ones). I want a Constitutional Amendment making it unlawful to lie about anything affecting the government, any legislation or the rights of ALL the people, punishable by banishment from ANY activity associated with the election process, or, in any way, the passage of legislation. I also want there to be term limits that encompass all levels of government, and mandatory "government service" by ALL CAPABLE CITIZENS (non-felons, non-drug-addicts, non-alcoholics, non-televangelists, non-certifiably-insane)! Then I think those who have served should have to go out and make a living under the rules and laws they thought were so cute, while they were in power! NO revolving door, no pension, no guaranteed lobbyist jobs! Just go try to make a living for yourself and your family after having served one term!

We have a MARRIED COUPLE, nearby, and HE is a state senator, SHE is a state assemblywoman--do they REALLY THINK they are the ONLY qualified people in a district of 100,000 people? What arrogance! To add insult to injury, they had the bad taste to send me a trifold flyer, on heavy stock, with exotic color and four-color printing, sent to ALL the homes in the district, AT TAXPAYER expense, telling me what a wonderful job they were doing, EXCEPT for the interference of Democrats and "liberals"!!!! I was understandably furious--in a state teetering on bankruptcy, mostly due to such stupid wastes of public funds. The roads need serious repair, and the state's water system is stretched to its limit, because the money to repair it was wasted by such examples of "good Republikan" stewardship; now, what would have cost $1 billion 20 yrs ago, will now cost 4 to 6 times as much, for LESS!

Wow! Where did all that come from? Now we have John McCain, repeatedly demeaned by the Bush Republikans, appearing on campaign ads (which I, and most of the thinking voting public, are beyond sick of hearing, already, although we finally within DAYS of the election), telling us we NEED to pass all of these inane Propositions, one of which is a blatantly similar redistricting plan to the one DeLay and Co hornswoggled onto Texas. The “governator" insisted on a special election THIS YEAR, at a cost of more than $80 million, instead of waiting for a year for the regular election, when these items could have been voted on without ANY additional cost! Of course, he MAY NOT be "governator" AFTER that election! One can hope--unless it's Warren Beatty!

I'm sorry, I woke up early, after a night of waking up every hour, after months of the same thing, and I hurt and ache everywhere (I'm a human barometer these days--a Low Front is moving in, and I can tell, days before). That aside, I am disgusted by the level of dishonesty and thievery in government, from top to bottom, and the number of dead in Iraq, AND with the blatantly-obvious-to-every-one-EXCEPT-those-who-are-sending-young-people-to-die-there-but-NEVER-served-themselves flag-waving hypocrisy! I see so many at the VA Hospital, missing limbs, with scars and ailments--the cost of this misadventure will linger long after the criminals responsible for it have passed onto Judgement! These “patriots” avoided service during the VietNam "Conflict" (aggggghhhhh---McCain is on the air, again, to tell me, we need to "redistrict"!!!!), to a man, yet they continue send off young people to die in a backwater country NO ONE cares about!

Flag-wavers to the core, beady eyes glinting, they cold-bloodedly scheme exactly the best way to push the public's "buttons", so as to divert attention away from the debacle in Iraq, the indictments of numerous key, top-level members of the administration and Congress, all members of the same party, desperately casting around for something, ANYTHING, to divert attention away from them--Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you: (TA-DA!!) THE BIRD FLU!!!!! The same administration that refused, for five (5) years, to spend $72 Million (with an “M”) to upgrade the levees along the Mississippi River and is now committed to spending $50 Billion (Yes, with a “B”) or MORE to repair the damage caused by that recalcitrance in the form of Hurricane Katrina , suddenly wants to spend $50 Billion (the same “B”) to prepare for a disease that all scientists and doctors seem to think poses little risk to the US population! Methinks it is a great way to crowd bad news off the front pages, and the lead on the evening news, and excellent PR to point at and say, “Look how prescient we were!” Do they know something we don’t? Surely they would not have DONE anything to cause such a possibility to become a reality, would they?

I went back and listened to the original prayer, and several important parts were overlooked by those who have repeated it, including the abandonment of the poor and the pursuit of greed. I agree with Bob Russell's version more than Joe Wright's, and I deplore the distortions that have been attached. Unfortunately, neither goes far enough! As stewards of the Earth, given Dominion over the Earth by a beneficent Lord, we have polluted the streams and rivers, wasted the natural resources, demeaned the working poor with a minimum wage that is a mockery when compared with the wholesale "theft" and looting of companies by CEO's and CFO's (think "Enron", "MCI", "Tyko", the "Junk-Bond" King, Michael Milken, a raft of ever-greedier and misbehaving Athletes and Pop Stars, and so on, a long litany of those who think they are worth THOUSANDS of dollars per hour, and more, all of whom seem to think those not so LUCKY in birth, by race, sex, athletic, artistic talent or family connections--not to mention, unwilling to stoop so low--should be content with a wage that DOES NOT provide a living wage), and, further, beset by the greed and iniquitous behavior of UNIONS and their members (think "Beware of cars made on Fridays", and now “Mondays“, the poor work ethic that resulted in "Lemon Laws" in most states, and has led auto makers to find ways around the once all-powerful UAW), leading to the unnecessarily high price of vehicles. Unions are presently endangering air travel, highway construction and severely impacting local, state, and federal projects by driving the cost up needlessly and relentlessly (via the "prevailing wage" restrictions). Not so surprisingly, the only unions growing in membership are the public employee unions AND the NEA, the teacher’s union.

Even now, the governator is on TV, telling us his “heart is in this”, even while he is running one of the most self-interest-driven administrations ever! He claimed “No one can buy me! I have all the money I need!”, yet he has built a campaign contribution “warchest”, now rumored to be over $50 million. What do you suppose causes the minority party in California to cough up that sort of money? Altruism? Hardly, more like good, “old-fashioned politics“! “I’ll contribute to your campaign in return for…yada-yada-yada!” Where IS “Mr Smith” when we need him? Where ARE “old-fashioned values”, like working hard, being honest and upright, reliable and dependable? Why do we have problems like the Columbine murders, drive-by shootings, gang warfare, rampant drug abuse (despite the hundreds of billions spent to no avail in the so-called “Drug War”), abortion and divorce, alcoholism and child abuse? The list could go on endlessly, cataloguing humankinds sins and shortcomings, with many self-styled “Christians” as guilty as any. The Christian Right, which has numbered among its members such stellar lights as Jimmy Swaggart (consorted with prostitutes), Oral Roberts (“God is going to call me home unless you give $8 million!”), the Catholic Church (covering up child abusers for DECADES), pastors who have engaged in murder, embezzlement, breaking up marriages, and, recently in my own community, passing bad checks. The point is NOT that Christians are BAD, but that we ALL fall short of perfection.

How have so many Christians missed the message that Jesus insisted on, even as he was urged to declare himself as Lord, that we should “Judge not, lest ye be judge”, remember “You are your brother’s keeper”, and “Let those among ye without sin cast the first stone”? Repeatedly, His message was one of forgiveness and acceptance, yet Christians today espouse violence against abortion doctors, pass around hate email accusing the “welfare class” in New Orleans of deserving their fate or of “being witnesses” to abuses by people who had literally lost everything. I remember the fires in Los Angeles, in 1992, after the acquittal of the deputies accused of beating Rodney King, when blacks living in the tenements in the inner city set fire to them. Talking heads on TV asked, “Why would they set fire to their own homes?” When the “home” in question IS an infested fire trap to start with, why wouldn’t you burn it? If nothing else, something BETTER would be built, but so long as the slumlords could continue to collect rent, nothing would ever change. In New Orleans, what little those people had was washed away by a storm that had been warned against for nearly 40 years. The interstate waterways of this country are, BY LAW, the property of, and thereby the responsibility of, the PEOPLE of the United States. The poor of New Orleans were understandably angry, having been ignored and relegated to low-wage jobs, if any at all, so when there meager belongings were destroyed, they looked around for something totake out their rage on, the electronics stores and jewelry shops being the best, most visible targets. It didn’t help that the TV newspeople focused on those carrying TV sets, because that’s good photo journalism, as opposed to someone carrying something hidden in their clothes.

The point is that we all would do equally senseless acts, thrown into the same situation, where chaos reigned, where the agency directly responsible for anticipating and responding was led by someone who could not formulate an original thought (as evidenced by his testimony before a Congressional subcommittee, where he blamed EVERYONE except himself) and who owed his job more to political patronage and cronyism than to any expertise or experience. Such is the principal problem with “partisan politics”, with voting for a “Republikan” candidate because they promise to do what your particular group thinks is important, rather than what is important for the majority. Even now, we are engaged in a further exploitation of this in the appointment of Supreme Court justices, where their stand on ONE issue is paramount, rather than their qualifications to be seated on the ultimate court of the land!

Personally, I do not happen to agree with abortion, but I do not believe it is my place to speak for ANYONE else. Primarily because I believe God gave EVERY ONE of us Free Will, the right to choose to do good or evil, to make the decision ourselves, without His interference, and if THAT was His Will, then it CANNOT be mine to undermine that, or to try to circumvent it. Humankind has a long list of sins, all of which will be disposed of on Judgement Day. It is not up to us to do more than set shining examples as to HOW to behave, by our own behavior. Not that any of us are perfect, or will succeed without the occasional lapse. It saddened me no end to hear religious leaders endorsing the invasion of Iraq, as doing the “Lord’s work”, or as a righteous action.

When I read the much maligned, much beloved by Christian Fundamentalists, Ten Commandments, I see “Thou shalt not kill”. It does NOT have a proviso that excepts Muslims, or any other nationality, ethnicity or political belief. He said, “Thou shalt NOT kill”, and that included Iraqis. The very factthat they had nothing to do with the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center only exacerbates the problem. That Saddam Hussein was a vile and evil dictator didn’t seem to bother Ronald Reagan, when he armed Hussein, in the 80’s, in his fight against Iran, our enemy, too. In fact, the US has supported numerous vile and evil dictators, over the past 50-odd years, a fact that has caused peoples around the world to look at us as less honorable or noble than we think of ourselves as being. We supported the Shah of Iran for the entirety of his “reign”, even though his secret police were among the most cruel and inhuman of any place or time. No wonder the Iranis hate us! We supported the dictator the Sandinistas fought to dethrone, and we supported Bautista, whom the Cubans in Florida seem to forget was far worse than Fidel, on his worst day! We’ve supported dictators all over the Caribbean, Central America and South America, even once working to assist the assassination of a legally elected president in Chile and installing a blood-thirsty madman, Pinochet, in his place!

We have a long way to go to clean up our own house, to set thing straight in this country. The prayer noted at the beginning of this article is a start, but it does not go far enough, so long as a single child goes to bed in substandard housing, or in a homeless shelter. So long as people cannot earn enough by working to pay for shelter, food and basic necessities. So long as athletes think they should be paid millions for PLAYING a game in a stadium or an arena PAID FOR with TAX MONEY (a PRIME EXAMPLE, the Texas Rangers Stadium in Arlington TX, sited on land TAKEN from the family that had lived there for 44 years, through Eminent Domain, at the behest of the man now occupying the White House, and BUILT with a TAX INCREASE!). So long as CEO’s of corporations think they should be paid 400 times the average wage of the workers who produce the products that produces the company revenue! So long as Congress thinks it is entitled to FREE medical care and a guaranteed pay raise every year AND a pension EQUAL to that salary for serving ONE two (2) year term! So long as public employees CANNOT be fired, whether for cause or for lack of ability! So long as the wealthy think they pay too much tax, when the percentage is LESS than that of a middle-class wage earner!

We need to return to those “old-fashioned” values, when people did not immediately think of divorce, when things got rocky in their marriage, when alcohol or drugs were not the recreation of choice for weekends (and weekends weren’t FOUR days long!), when doing a good job was the normal way of working, and when learning was considered the standard by which success was measured. When deals could be closed with a handshake, because both parties had negotiated in good faith and had every intention of fulfilling their end of the deal, regardless of personal gain. When kids could run freely through the neighborhood, without parents worrying about sexual predators or stray bullets. When neighbors minded their own business, for the most part, yet could be counted on to watch out for one another. When the Federal Budget did NOT run a half $Trillion dollars over budget each year, without the important things getting taken care of, like highway maintenance, levees being built to withstand the kinds of storms that are likely, and those unfortunate enough to be in need are not left to their own devices.

For Those Who Fell...

M E M O R I A L

I remember huddling close to the earth, in a damp, green hell, in Rotten VietNam, struggling to get my spine underneath my belly button, thinking thoughts that should have had lethal force directed at the nameless, faceless rear-echelon heroes who thought nothing of volunteering me and my buddies for yet another face-to-face encounter with the Grim Reaper. While they were sipping cold beer back in the comfort and safety of the Division Base Camp, or MAC-V HQ, or the Pentagon, wherever these geniuses were, we were drinking water stinking of Iodine, eating c-rats out of cans while hunkered down along a trail leading nowhere, in a country going nowhere.

Death waited patiently in the underbrush, released in sudden bursts of furious anger, like a nest of hornets knocked down by careless children, minutes of intensity so desperate as to defy description, followed by a quiet so loud you could hear it. In seconds, friends became memories, once close but now achingly distant, never again to laugh, or cry, or share a smoke. The new guys wouldn't understand why there was distance and resentment at their arrival; only after they too had experienced the shock and loss would they, too, assume the thousand-yard stare when fresh meat entered the line. In the end, all anyone wanted was to survive, to get back to "the world", and leave behind the spectre of friends and comrades who would never leave, never grow another minute older.

We left our youth there, in a land of mud and leeches, jungle so thick it would dull a new machete in minutes; a land of rice paddies and water buffaloes, where 58,209 men died trying to "defend" democracy in a country that had no more use for our version than they had for the French. Left behind were another 1,800 men "missing" in that land, never to be found again. The sad end to a saga lasting over 14 years, costing so many lives and so much prestige and honor. The world turned during that time, turning its back on that dirty little war and the soldiers who fought and died there.

We are left today with a black marble monument that fittingly descends into the ground as you proceed along the walkway, the list of names etched into the cold, dark surface growing with each step. The sense of hopelessness and loss grows as well, forcefully brought home by the small, personal monuments left by mourners, and the groups of visitors who gather at points along the way, reaching out to touch the marble where a loved one, a brother, a father, a son, yet live, immortalized in the polished black marble. Some visitors do rubbings, some stand and gaze out across the Mall, at eye level, some gather and reminisce, remembering lives cut short more than 35 years ago.

Here and there, grizzled veterans gather, drawn by memories and loyalties deeper than even they can comprehend. Late into the night, these guardians walk their post, chasing out demons still active after so long a time, gathering at trash-can fires on cold nights, sharing smokes and camaraderie in search of solace and understanding in a world that never cared in the first place . Their conversation is peppered with strange place names that were written in blood and boredom, waystations on the journey that brought them to this memorial to those who were lost in the same strange places, so long ago. Lost, but not forgotten by their comrades, who gather here still.

 

If I

IF I WERE KING FOR A DAY

If I were king for only a day, one fine day,
I  would change all the rules, starting at the top.
Beggars would ride in gleaming black SUVs
and the President, himself, would have to walk
To all his meetings, no matter how near or far.  

The bank loan officers would be required to sit,
Outside in the sun, each with his own little tin cup,
And the congenitally wealthy, those who were born
With the proverbial silver spoons in their mouths
Would all have to report to the local carwash.  

The least would be first, and the first, naturally,
Would learn what the word drudgery really means.
Those whose hands had previously only known
The caress of pens and contracts, would  each get
A close, personal knowledge of shovels and hoes.  

If I were King for only a day, what a fine day, indeed,
I would insist that those who draw pensions would
Actually be retired, or surrender their pension check
While those who have subsisted on the meager pittance
Of Social Security would receive substantial bonuses.  

The idle working class, CEO’s and Executive Vice-Presidents,
Who have received a more-than-fair share of the pie,
With limos, a corner office and the secretary with
Limited typing skills, these would all have to go the way
Of the dinosaur, gone but not forgotten, and never missed.  

In the grand scheme of things, I do not amount to much,
A fly buzzing around the ears of those with too much
Unearned income, merely a pest to be swatted aside
Without a second thought, like the annoying sand fleas
On some self-important nobody’s private beach.  

But, if I were King, for only a day, I’d change this world
As much as I could in as short a time as humanly Possible,
Without regard for the consequences, for the howling
of the dispossessed, the newly poor, treating them
with the very same consideration they have treated us.  

For, if I were King for a single day, it would be a fine
Day indeed, but a very short one, for the rich would find
Their moral compass askew and decide that revolution
Was not such a bad concept after all and spend their
Last dime to ensure I was only King for one single day.

C H A R A C T E R

Character, some people have it, and some just talk about it!   You've probably seen this one before, but it's always good to read it again about the military records (OR LACK thereof!)

DEMOCRATS:

* Richard Gephardt: Air National Guard, 1965-71.

* David Bonior: Staff Sgt., Air Force 1968-72.

* Tom Daschle: 1st Lt., Air Force SAC 1969-72.

* Al Gore: enlisted Aug. 1969; sent to Vietnam Jan. 1971 as an army journalist in 20th Engineer Brigade.

* Bob Kerrey: Lt. j.g. Navy 1966-69; Medal of Honor, Vietnam.  (Wounded-in-Action, WIA, he lost a leg!)

* Daniel Inouye: Army 1943-47; Medal of Honor, WWII. (WIA)

* John Kerry: Lt., Navy 1966-70; Silver Star, Bronze Star with Combat V, Purple Hearts. (WIA)

* Charles Rangel: Staff Sgt., Army 1948-52; Bronze Star, Korea.

* Max Cleland: Captain, Army 1965-68; Silver Star & Bronze Star, Vietnam. Paraplegic from war injuries. Served in Congress. (WIA)

* Ted Kennedy: Army, 1951-53.

* Tom Harkin: Lt., Navy, 1962-67; Naval Reserve, 1968-74.

* Jack Reed: Army Ranger, 1971-1979; Captain, Army Reserve 1979-91.

* Fritz Hollings: Army officer in WWII; Bronze Star and seven campaign ribbons.

* Leonard Boswell: Lt. Col., Army 1956-76; Vietnam, DFCs, Bronze Stars, and Soldier's Medal.

* Pete Peterson: Air Force Captain, POW. Purple Heart, Silver Star and Legion of Merit.

* Mike Thompson: Staff sergeant, 173rd Airborne, Purple Heart.  (If this guy wasn't wia, he is one of the VERY few who served with the 173rd AB Regiment in VietNam who wasn't!  The unit was famous for it's "hard-luck" status, meaning high incidence of action and casualties.)

* Bill McBride: Candidate for Fla. Governor. Marine in Vietnam; Bronze Star with Combat V.  (To get the Combatr V-for Valor--you have to do something nearly worthy of a Silver Star!)

* Gray Davis: Army Captain in Vietnam, Bronze Star.

* Pete Stark: Air Force 1955-57

* Chuck Robb: Vietnam (LBJ's son-in-law, if he couldn't avoid service, who could?)

* Howell Heflin: Silver Star

* George McGovern: Silver Star & DFC during WWII.

* Bill Clinton: Did not serve. Student deferments. Entered draft but received #311.

* Jimmy Carter: Seven years in the Navy.

* Walter Mondale: Army 1951-1953

* John Glenn: WWII and Korea; six DFCs and AirMedal with 18 Clusters.

* Tom Lantos: Served in Hungarian underground in WWII. Saved by Raoul Wallenberg.


REPUBLICANS -- and these are the guys SENDING PEOPLE TO WAR:

* Dick Cheney: did not serve. Several deferments, the last by marriage.

* Dennis Hastert: did not serve.

* Tom Delay: did not serve.  (Got numerous deferments, even after he was kicked out of Baylor University for drunkenness and frivolity--he was known as "Hot Tub Tom")

* Roy Blunt: did not serve.

* Bill Frist: did not serve.

* Mitch McConnell: did not serve.

* Rick Santorum: did not serve.

* Trent Lott: did not serve.

* John Ashcroft: did not serve. Seven deferments to teach business.

* Jeb Bush: did not serve.

* Karl Rove: did not serve. (Bush's Machiavelli)

* Saxby Chambliss: did not serve. "Bad knee." The man who attacked Max Cleland's patriotism.

* Paul Wolfowitz: did not serve. Neocon warhawk

* Vin Weber: did not serve.

* Richard Perle: did not serve. Neocon warhawk

* Douglas Feith: did not serve.

* Eliot Abrams: did not serve.

* Richard Shelby: did not serve.

* Jon Kyl: did not serve.

* Tim Hutchison: did not serve.

* Christopher Cox: did not serve.

* Newt Gingrich: did not serve.

* Don Rumsfeld: served in Navy (1954-57) as flight instructor.

* George W. Bush: failed to complete his six-year National Guard; got assigned to Alabama so he could campaign for family friend running for U.S. Senate; failed to show up for required medical exam, disappeared from duty.

* Ronald Reagan: due to poor eyesight, served in a non-combat role making movies.

* B-1 Bob Dornan: Consciously enlisted after fighting was over in Korea.

* Phil Gramm: did not serve.

* John McCain: Vietnam POW, Silver Star, Bronze Star, Legion of Merit, Purple Heart and Distinguished Flying Cross. Remember how the Bush campaign trashed him in the Republican primaries in 2000?

* Dana Rohrabacher: did not serve.

* John M. McHugh: did not serve.

* JC Watts: did not serve.

* Jack Kemp: did not serve. "Knee problem, " although continued in NFL for 8 years as quarterback.

* Dan Quayle: Journalism unit of the Indiana National Guard.

* Rudy Giuliani: did not serve.

* George Pataki: did not serve.

* Spencer Abraham: did not serve.

* John Engler: did not serve.

* Lindsey Graham: National Guard lawyer.

* Arnold Schwarzenegger: AWOL from Austrian army base.


Pundits & Preachers  These are the flag-wavers and stalwarts of the "American Way"

* Sean Hannity: did not serve.

* Rush Limbaugh: did not serve (4-F with a 'pilonidal cyst.')

* Bill O'Reilly: did not serve.

* Michael Savage: did not serve.

* George Will: did not serve.

* Chris Matthews: did not serve.

* Paul Gigot: did not serve.

* Bill Bennett: did not serve.

* Pat Buchanan: did not serve.

* John Wayne: did not serve. (He was 34 when WW2 began for the US, made movies extolling the American spirit and willingness to make the soldier's ultimate sacrifice)

* Bill Kristol: did not serve.

* Kenneth Starr: did not serve.

* Antonin Scalia: did not serve.

* Clarence Thomas: did not serve.

* Ralph Reed: did not serve.

* Michael Medved: did not serve.

* Charlie Daniels: did not serve.

* Ted Nugent: did not serve. (He only shoots at things that don't shoot back.)

Information compiled by: Illinois State Sen. Howard W. Carroll  (Yes, he is a Democrat, but the information is still accurate!)
So, it seems the Democrats have numerous veterans and medal-winners, veterans of WW2, Korea and VietNam.   Undoubtedly, there were Republican Veterans, in years past, like Bob Dole, for instance, but they seem not to have risen to prominence in today's political arena.   Notice the pattern, those who wave the flag most furiously and claim to be "patriots" also never bothered to put words into action?  Those who have BEEN THERE are labelled "liberals" as a way to minimize them and marginalize their experiences.  Doesn't that remind you of the schoolyard bully, who "acted out", as psychologists say, because he was secretly envious of others, or perhaps might have been in the "closet" about his feelings for others of the same sex, or had been seriously abused at home.  Whatever the reason, the flag-wavers and the self-styled patriots have been careful to avoid military service, but are quick to delegate others to do their dirty work, and make the sacrifices.  Personally, I have come to agree with the well-known Sci-Fi writer, Robert Heinlein, who opined that citizenship, and the attendent right to vote, ought to be conditional on military service.  I think it could be made mandatory, like the Israelis do it, on a much shorter time span than the old draft and with the severe restriction on the military that these forces were NOT to be used to experiment on, or use as world peace-keeping forces, or any other use like VietNam or Iraq.  I think Trent Lott, Tom DeLay and Sean Hannity would ALL have VERY DIFFERENT points of view had they had the opportunity to walk down a few of the trails I, and a great many others, travelled in the late, unlamented Republic of VietNam!   Next time you hear Rush, or Sean, or Ann Coulter bad-mouthing the "liberals", you stop a minute to think JUST WHO it was in the trenches, jungles and deserts, ACTUALLY defending FREEDOM, and WHO stayed home.  We had a name for those who stayed home, it was JODY, as in "Jody's gonna get your girl", or even worse, less-flattering actions.  No one in the military had a very high opinion of those who were labelled Jody, and that goes for all those who today claim to be PATRIOTS, without any evidence of their having DONE ANYTHING patriotic!

In Another Time and Place

G H O S T S

Clouds sail serenely on by, puffs of wispy cotton in a far-off dreamy blue sky.

Sunlight beams down on the muddy brown below, shadows shifting, flitting

Among green strands in every kind of a riot of growth, the jungle primeval.

 

Hold! Quiet! Shhhhhh!

 

A moment stretches out into the vastness of time, lifetimes seem to pass,

Breaths shallow and quietly raspy, in, out, in, tension so thick to even dull

New machetes, nerves so tight a single sound would make them snap in pieces.

 

Eyes! Ears! Check it out!

 

What had been almost a pleasant stroll in a garden gone wild and dangerous,

Is on the brink of brutally savage and impersonal, inhuman violence, waiting

As fingers that are run up, then down, triggers, grips loosen, then tighten.

 

Click! Snap! What was that?

 

A figure stands in the undergrowth, all in black, barely visible in the shadows.

Another rises from a clump of bushes, a cone hat like the bushes themselves.

The sticks in their hands raise, transforming into flames as beautiful blossoms.

 

Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-rat! Rat-rat-a-tat!

 

The all-too familiar death rattle of a Kalishnikov spits out rows of angry bees,

Swarming now from every side, the tinny clatter of M-16 answering as we all

Seek whatever shelter we can, returning fire, amid the karumph of grenades.

 

Drop! Duck! Cover! Return fire!

 

Randy, the BAR man, and his loader, chop the vegetation, searching for hidden

Charlies, the unseen body of the ambushers, who wait for the first break in fire,

To unleash their own furies, rushing the line, as we have learned, too painfully.

 

Phone! Red Ranger 9! Gimme some fire support!

 

Manny takes a bad hit to his leg, a fountain of blood spraying over Danny, both

Friendly rivals at baseball, on our off time. Danny calls “Medic”, pulling his Aid Kit

To slap a field dressing onto Manny’s leg, then popping an ampoule into his thigh.

 

Stay down! Keep low! Direct your Fire!

 

Danny rolls Manny over, his gray-brown face already blank from shock and the

Morphine, as his life seeps into the muddy soil. The medic crawls up, darting from

Tree to bush, taking over care, now, disregarding bullets flying from every angle.

 

Phone! Red Ranger 9! Hot pick-up to go!

 

Georgie, always with a good joke ready, pops smoke, throwing it into the clearing,

He raises just a hair too much and takes a 7.62 mm round to the chest, falling back.

Billy, the medic, tries to get to him, as he whispers “Anna” to that clear blue sky.

 

Medic! Medic! Cries from Two sides!

 

The L.T. is scrambling over to check on his platoon sergeant, these two are who we

Look to for guidance and instructions, just 21 and 30, much too young to be old this

Fast and furiously, but on them all eyes are flicking toward, seeking the way out.

 

Phone! Arty! W.P.! W. P.!

 

I am screaming into the handset, at the F O, to get me some mail, right damn now!

He’s busy telling me my coordinates are wrong, and I’m yelling, “Don’t worry, because

In another five minutes, it won’t matter anyway,” and he says, “It’s your funeral, pal!”

 

Ka-Blam! Blam! Ker-Whomp! The earth vibrates!

 

The mail falls just short of landing right on top of our ragged little line, but Charlies

Got his nerve up, to come in close, to finish us off, and they catch it right in the face,

Disappearing in flashes of fire, bas the arty finishes its 30 mile race to get there first.

 

W. P.! W. P.! Same place, gimme all you got and make it snappy!

 

The jungle erupts in a spasm of evil fire, a fire so hot water just boils when poured on it,

The only way to even slow it down is to pack it with mud, bloody mud, and keep your head

Lower than your belly button, as Hell itself opens the gates and comes spilling out!

 

Quiet! Sudden and deep! Moans, pleas to Mama, Lord!

 

The enemy still alive after the last Arty salvo, has melted back into the jungle

The wounded cry and curse, regardless of language, and the L.T. has blood smeared

Across his face, one arm dangles at his side, a long bloody rip in his fatigue jacket.

 

Whomp-Whomp-Whomp-Whomp-!

 

The medevac bird comes circling in,watching our smoke, the door-gunner hanging off

The skid, his 50-cal swinging back and forth alert to any remaining threat, keeping

His pilot safe as these crazy angels in green swoop down to pick up our wounded.

 

Call out! Who’s in the worst shape?

 

Billy, still moving from patient to patient, closes Manny’s eyes, his baseball shoes

Now hung up forever, then moves on to Georgie, and signals the medics with a rolled

Stretcher, before rushing over to Dick, the Platoon Sergeant, propped against a tree.

 

Report! Who’s still walking?

 

Billy tells him two dead, one probable, two seriously wounded, including the Sergeant

Who took three rounds in a neat pattern across his abdomen, but Dick waves him off,

Worried more FOR the L.T., on his first combat patrol, supposed to be a cakewalk.

 

Load this man!, And these two!

 

The L.T. sits as Billy slaps a sucking wound dressing on Dick, he has suddenly grown

From 21 to age-old in less than 15 minutes in an unholy baptism of fire, watching his

Sergeant loaded on the chopper, now in a rush to leave, a gunship above to keep post.

 

Red Ranger 9! Patchme thru to the aid station!

 

We have two KIA and three serious WIA inbound and bleeding, the rest are walking.

We need a dust-off ASAP, then the L.T. takes the phone and gives an after-action

Report to the C.O., citing the brave and the dead, all the while ignoring his own pain.

 

Digger, take the point! Get a perimeter!

 

We’ve got a ride coming in, a baby Huey, so ugly it’s beautiful, coming to collect

What’s left of 2nd Squad, 1st Platoon, and their borrowed RTO, eight men still

Walking, leaving the green jungle, blood-red muddy ground, rising into the blue.

Something's Going On...

C O R R E S P O N D E N C E

    W IT H   THE   C L O S E - M I N D E D

This is a collection of letters and comments covering correspondence I have received over the last several months. Names have been removed, the guilty and the innocent may well recognize themselves, but I do not want anyone else to be affected by this. I am saddened, shamed and concerned about the trends I see struggling for dominance in our lives. Too many people evidence my cautionary remarks quoting Thomas Jefferson, P T Barnum, and the writer of The Emperor's New Clothes, in which the critical remarks are "Americans will get the government they deserve", "No one ever went broke UNDER-ESTIMATING THE INTELLIGENCE of the American public" and "But, Mama, he's Naked!" These statements all bear upon the acceptance and sometimes furtherance of unAmerican ideals, by otherwise intelligent, decent Americans and their willingness to whistle merrily off down a road previously traveled by other megalomaniacs and evil empires and other similarly non-American poseurs, such as "Freedom Fighters", or like-sounding misnomers for what people like us want, and have come to expect as our birthright as Americans!

So here, in 11,000 words, cut and pasted and assembled in one fevered 10 hour period beginning one night when I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep for the pain, starting around 2:30 a.m., stopping only to make more pots of coffee, until somewhere around noon, when I tried to post it to my journal--a doomed effort that I soon abandoned as pointless, after trying to cut it up, knowing there was no way to edit it.

Enjoy, or not as the case my be, for there are some journalers who come off as their real selves, the curtain pulled away, and I am certain that a significant number will KNOW who said this comment or that.   Several of these "correspondents" have blocked me from writing to them, because of these conversations.  I really do not care, for I believe it to be their loss, not mine.  I'm not interested in such pettiness, and anyone who fails to heed the dictum the First Amendment was based upon, as you will read in one of these corespondences, Voltaire's immortal "I may not care for what you have to say, but I shall defend to the death your right to say it!" is not only not worth the time and effort for me to continue the conversation with, but someone who has no claim to be American or Patriotic.  There was a good reason the First Amendment was chosen to be FIRST, and denying someone their First Amendment Right is the most unAmerican act one can take, in my opinion.

Read on: C O R R E S P O N D E N C E

Sometimes I wonder if the Boys From Brazil was actually fiction, the creationof Ira Levin's feverish imagination, or an apocryphal story, one that got some of the details wrong, but the essential story is dead on, the "boys" having just taken on a new political "identity" of convenience, camouflage for their real intentions, and their actual heritage. Something to chew on, as gas prices rise, liberties dwindle, and we transition from a country with expanding horizons, and limitless possibilities, to one of diminished expectations, in a world bereft of leaders larger than life, replaced instead by small men (and women) with little if anything, to say, and poorly stated at best, even then.

 

Things that go bump in the night (and the day)

The Voyage Through Time and Space

in a fog, dazed and refused, reaching for another brass ring,

whirling on a roller coaster of thrills and disasters, up once,

down again, reeling from the impacts and consequences, doing

what needs to be done, what has to be done, blindly grasping

for a solution that tantalizes in the mist, partly seen, mostly

guessed at, always one step out of reach, slippery and hard

to get a grip on, as the wheels spin merrily around and round

every corner a new danger, a fresh adventure, another chance

to slip on the proverbial banana peel, stumble onto a great idea

fall in or out of love, find the answers or lose your way, each

an option, a choice, a possibility, until time finally runs out

and you ware washed up on a foreign shore, to start all over

again, a new day, a new way and another chance to do it right.

just another guy on the internet....

j u s t    a n o t h e r   

 d u d e   o n    t h e   

i n t e r n e t

I'm "just another dude on the internet", as it turns out, assuming for a moment that were reason enough to be rude and dismissive, yes. Boorish behavior seems to be par for the course, these days. The internet has brought a new dimension of rudeness and distance in the way people treat, and mistreat, each other. Identity theft is the visible problem of the moment on the 'net, faceless strangers stealing information that will allow them to loot your bank accounts, run up charges on your bank cards and generally ruin your life. Equally inhuman are the sexual predators, from the Don Juans and aging Lotharios, to the "Black Widows" who prey on the gullible and weak-minded, as well as the vilely sick sexual predators who prey on unsuspecting children. These are. of course, the highly visible problem "life"-forms on the internet, performing the latest versions of the same-old run-of-the-mill crimes, varying only in the details, that stem from the same aberrant criminal mentality that has plagued mankind since Cain slew Abel.

However, there is another variety of human failing that has blossomed by access to the internet: casual cruelty, rudeness and/or hit-and-run-insults, the internet equivalent of drive-by shooting. Who cares who gets hit, or if the right target was hit, or if the target actually deserved it? This seems most common in chat rooms, where an odd assortment of people gathers, under the best of circumstances, but also happens on "boards", where some one or another poster feels the need to let loose a snipe, for some real or imagined reason. Snipe is the appropriate term, as in "sniper" and "sniping", shooting from a hidden point, because the sniper does just that, striking from the safety of their computer, over the electronic web of the internet, zinging a shot thru the anonymity of the ether, then retreating to safety.

Some have achieved celebrity (dare I say infamy) through such tactics, refining the use of innuendo and miscommunication to an art form to smear the unwary, the innocent, the necessarily exposed, who by virtue of their position must daily submit to the indignities of the paparazzi as well as the proliferation of video cameras and, now, camera phones. Such déclassé niceties as good manners and consideration for the sensibilities for others are subjects for ridicule in the opening days of the 21st Century, when we are all too hip to be polite and concerned with the feelings of others.

Indeed, the defining moment for these days of unparalleled rudeness may well be the recent squirt-gun attack on Tom Cruise. The perpetrator, who appeared to be the proud possessor an IQ in the low single digits, dressed as if his mother had abandoned him at the Salvation Army, thought his action was "funny" and merely a "prank" to be taken in good fun. Yes, squirting a celebrity who actually took the time to greet some fans without bodyguards is my idea of "great fun", and a sign of respect and appreciation, too. I feel sure fate will reward this cretin appropriately with low-paying jobs involving the traditional request if fries will be required with that, but the rest of us have to live in the world left poorer by his under-developed sense of humor.

In the antebellum world, education, erudition and manners were not merely admired, but sought-after attributes. In the electronic age, manners are topics of ridicule, signs of weakness and reasons for attack. In the e-age, spelling is too time-consuming, grammar a tiresome intrusion in "chatting" and daring to rebuke the transgressor who mistakes profanity for wit grounds for a group attack as each malefactor seeks to outdo the others with ever more graphic examples of why birth control should not be a choice but a requirement. As the world grows more violent, in lands faraway and in our own neighborhoods, the violence is creeping into our homes through the internet, bringing not only the easily recognized dangers of criminal activities, but the less easily identified threat of "casual cruelty", when strangers feel free to "snipe" at us in the safety of our homes with impunity and disregard for our feelings, our security, our existence as another life form as deserving of courtesy and respect as any other.

Is it no wonder some deny the existence of a God to whom theymight have to answer, or insist on one who condones the maltreatment of those who believe differently? Is it any wonder the issues that have plagued mankind, since the mists of time first parted to reveal the earliest humans, are still, and will seemingly always be, with us? These questions do not trouble those of whom I speak, of course; they are far too busy indulging their predilection for inflicting misery on others, for, as I have long insisted, "Misery loves company" and the miserable will do whatever is necessary to ensure they have lots of company. Sadly for the rest of us, it seems to be working quite well for them.

Skewered Celebrity Status

S E V E R A L     S C H E M A T I C    V I E W S

 

I        Memories through a selective prism of kodak charisma,
         of the precarious Icarian flight, from suckling to soaring:
         An indentured adventurer blessed with an eagle-eye-view,
         a disputatious super-computer with piggy memory banks,
         And an overly irrational national dysfunctional compulsion.  

 

II    The seven o'clock newsmovie presents patent pageantry:
         presenting a long hot summer night-time necromance,
         several hot apple pie life slices with stoned jewelled junkies,
         Sugar-cured canned ham condominium comedians,
         token mothersmokers and marshmallow dramatic actors,
         in congruent competition with diametrically symmetrical
         goofy, spoof-outs inevitably involving street corner cowboys,
         slick, hick dicks and lotsacops, fighting the long-lost good fight.
         A puerile surrealistic look at a speculatively furtive future,
         or a peculiar, particular first-person glance at a distant past.
         Indifferent distortion diffused through an influential geriatric lens.  

 

III    The inflation exponential reaps car-payment paychecks
         as festering investor-owned corpulent mega-corporations,
         deviously double-dealing in various Aryan excuses,
         serenely, obliviously, sail by on sealing-wax wing-tips,
         making their ponderous way toward an unforgiving future.

Up Against the Wall

BETWEEN A ROCK

&

A HARD PLACE

     When I was 14, we lived in the area of Phoenix known as Paradise Valley. Now an enclave of the wealthy, or at least the semi-wealthy, then it was a largely unpopulated area outside the greater Phoenix metropolitan area, with homes widely scattered over the desert floor. Our home was a small wood-sided house that sat high on the mesa near where the developed area of Phoenix ended and the vacant desert began. Our nearest neighbor was a half mile away, farther up the dirt road that lead to our house. I remember the desert was cut with a grid of dirt roads like ours, but houses were few and far in between. A few miles to the north, a subdivision of tract homes clustered together, but for the most part Paradise Valley was wide open and sparsely settled. It wouldn't last.

     Our home was only about 10 years old, but we had to haul water. A water tank stood on a 10 ft tower behind the house, holding maybe 200 gallons of water. My dad made weekly trips to haul water with a trailer that was provided with the house. Sometimes we would run out of water in the middle of the week, and he would have to make a trip to get a load of water, after working a long day.

     I also remember watching an afternoon TV program aimed at teens. It featured cartoons, live action shenanigans, the Top 10 list every Friday, dancing and record "reviews" by the dancers, and live music, covers of Top 40 hits and gag songs, by a band called Hubb Kapp and the Wheels. It was sort of a cross between American Bandstand and Where the Action Is, on a local level, typical mid-60's zaniness. Years later, I would recognize, beneath the makeup, the same singer I had previously known as Hubb Kapp, in his new incarnation as Alice Kooper.

     Living where we did, with the houses so far apart, there weren't any kids nearby, so I spent much of my time outside, exploring the desert. The mesa rose behind our house, sloping upward for several hundred yards before shearing off in a cliff face that overlooked the cut where Cave Creek Rd passed through on its route into the Paradise Valley. The cliff just suddenly dropped from the sloping desert floor, falling in a nearly vertical face some 60 ft before it meeting the talus slope to continue down to the banks of the road. A gas station, a Flying A if memory serves, occupied a wide spot in the area south of the talus slope. The cliffs, a reddish-brown escarpment of basaltic rock tailed off on the west end, dying into the desert a few hundred feet away.

     I scrambled down the side and looked up at the cliff face; from the bottom it looked even more impressive, presenting a nearly smooth face, broken here and there with cracks and small protrusions of rock. I began by climbing at the edges, following an obvious and easy path, testing each foothold to know I could trust it, each handhold before committing my weight to it before reaching for the next. I soon reached the top, feeling like Sir Edmund Hillary when I rolled over onto the top and sat, legs dangling into space, contemplating the empire at my feet. I was the king of the world; far below toy cars moved through the cut. I knew I had found one of those secret places where fun and adventure met to create something special.

      Soon, I was climbing everyday after school. I would leave the bus, race to the house and drop my books, then head out the back door toward the scarp, whistling a merry tune. Those were some of the happiest days of my youth, lasting a mere three months, but encompassing a world completely apart from any I had known before. I had a tiny transistor radio, hardly the size of a pack of cigarettes, with an earphone that I plugged in, rocking out to the Spring 1964 Top 40, the Beatles, Peter and Gordon, Billy J Kramer, Chuck Berry's No Particular Place to Go, a musical world exploding across the airwaves. I would tuck the radio into a pocket, the earpiece in my ear, and set off across the rock face, looking for new challenges and rocking to the hits, growing bolder with each successful climb.

     Soon, I was climbing down to begin my climb up, searching for evermore difficult routes across the rock face, for the climb had developed into a challenge of epic proportions for me, as I grew more skilled and confident. Before long, I had traversed every path, up and down, even across the face, looking for ever more difficult paths to climb, never stopping to consider that I was perched on tiny outcropping of rock mere inches wide, clinging to equally small knobs with clenched fingers, high above the busy road below, where at any given moment dozens of cars where speeding by. A misstep, a broken foothold, a handhold suddenly breaking away from the rock face, and I would be plunging straight down, rolling down the steep talus slope and into the path of oncoming traffic before I could stop my fall. Assuming, of course, I was sufficiently conscious to be able to stop.

     Such thoughts really didn't cross my mind, I was certain of my immortality and supremely confident of my ability to climb any route up this cliff. It was this self-delusion that nearly brought me literally crashing down. I followed a twisting, tortuous path up the cliff face one afternoon, selecting the hardest holds, looking for a way I had yet to travel, making choices based on difficulty. I finally ended up on a section I hadn't climbed before, because it was almost smooth. No cracks, nothing sticking out to step onto, the face was a blank. I reached up as far as I could, for a tiny handhold, and left my last solid foothold for a tiny projection that barely allowed enough purchase to keep my foot on. Suddenly, there I was, face pressed up against the rock, hanging on for dear life. There was no way to get back down to where I had been, and nothing presented itself for me to move onto, in the way of a hand- or foothold. I was stuck, some 60 ft up in the air, looking down at the cars as tiny as Hot Wheels rushing through the pass below. I was well and truly stuck, with no place to go, no way to signal anyone, because my position was so tenuous I could not risk taking a hand away to signal my distress.

     Panic began to well up in my chest, I could just imagine my mother's anger and sadness over my broken body (I could easily visualize black tire treads criss-crossing my body!). I knew she would be saddened, but I also knew how righteous her anger would be. I did NOT want to be the object of that ire, so I began an intensive study of the rock face, looking at it from mere inches away, because I couldn't pull my head back very far. There didn't seem to be any options, as I carefully reversed the direction of my head against the wall, turning to look the other way. I desperately sought any hand hold, any crack or cranny, any place I could lodge my hand or rest a foot to give me leverage to move to another. Nothing appeared to be close enough, and my panic grew, my heart beating like a trip hammer, threatening to burst out of my chest from the sheer intensity.

     I swallowed hard, pushing the fear down, and again looked at the rock face for an escape. I had gone over it enough to be able to memorize it, when I noticed a small vertical crack above my head, slightly out of reach. I looked to see if there was any place to put my foot, and saw a tiny outcrop that was too high to step too, and too low to hold on to, and too far away in any case. I studied these possibilities and finally decided if I could get my hand into the crack above, I could swing to the foothold, and there would be other handholds near enough to reach from there. I would have to launch myself from my already tenuous foothold, up to jam my fingers into the crack and then swing onto the foothold, a series of feats worthy of an Olympic gymnast, but I had no other choices.

     I set my set ready to go, gathered my courage, such as it was, and focused on the tasks necessary to accomplish what I wanted. Saying a final prayer, I tensed my thigh muscles and leapt up toward the crack. I managed to jam my fingers just barely into the crack, taking the entire weight of my body on them as my feet left any purchase on the rock. I hung there for a moment and then swung over to get my foot on the tiny ledge of rock and pulled my other arm over my head to get a grip in the crack. This allowed me to pull my abused fingers out of the crack, flex them to get the blood back into them and then reach up for another handhold above. By this manner, I crabbed up the smooth face, reaching for each succeeding hold as it became available, until I finally was able to pull myself over the edge and lay on the flat ground at the top once again. As I gasped and gathered my scattered wits about me, I looked down at the face, and at the drop I would have taken, at the traffic rolling by oblivious to my recent peril.

     I knew I had been spared a horrible fate, and I gave thanks to whatever guardian angels had been sitting on my shoulders that day. I sat with my legs dangling over the edge, a stupid grin on my face. I plugged the earpiece back in and twisted the volume up, Dave Clark Five's Bits and Pieces rocking out, as I gazed out over my realm. I knew I couldn't tell anyone about this, lest it get back to my mother, and besides, who would believe it anyway? I didn't half believe it myself. A few years ago, when I finally told my mom about this escapade, she wasn't amused. I knew then I had made the right decision to spare her the worry this might have caused, and myself the punishment it would have generated. It might have been worse than the fall....

Distorted vision

1.  Another Star Turn:  As the star turns, a new world emerges.

2.   Birds of a Feather:  Admiring the plumage.

3.   Happy Feet:  The dance of the happy beagle.

4.   The Rooster Crows:  Just strutting his stuff.

5.   Man the Barricades:  Radical chic in passion's play.

6.   A Star For You:  A starflower grows in the crannied wall.

With A Little Help

A   L i t t l e   H e l p   F r o m  

M y    F r i e n d s . . .

You know me well, oh so well, you think. I was in the corner with L______, the first time you remember seeing me, and you wondered what she was doing with me. Later, after L______ had moved on and left me in the wake of her destruction, just another piece of flotsam left to wash up on the shore, you saw me with K______, and wondered, what does she see in him, he being me, of course. K_______ left like L______, another storm passing, leaving jetsam behind where once you thought was an otherwise unremarkable landscape. Next was M______, whom you believed to be a force of nature in her own right and there she was, lingering over my every word and glance, offering up her flawless cheeks and lips to frequent caresses by my own, to your utter mystification. She, too, like her sisters in spirit, departed in a flurry of sea squalls and blowing winds, leaving a trail of wreckage that dwarfed her predecessors by an impressive factor.

You didn’t see me afterward and, naturally enough, I didn’t cross your mind in the least, not even enough for you to note my absence or remark on who I wasn’t with this time. When next you did take notice, and I was in the company of an attractive someone you did not even know, what occurred to you on that occasion ran more to “how does he get so many otherwise interesting and intelligent women to go out with him?” It must have galled like a tiny pebble in a tight shoe, to see me blissfully unaware of your animosity and ill-will. Of course that wasn't to last, either, if you had anything to say about it, and you always did, unbeknownst to me.

Time has its way with us all, though, dealing the cards we must play, calling a new hand and dealing out jokers with aces, deuces with jacks, in an unending display of possibilities, as we wait patiently for the wheel to make its way around again. Sitting idly by, it occurs to me that some of you have had three or more marriages, none of them happier for longer than it took to wear the new off the wedding presents. Could it be jealousy that so drives you, rather than any concern for the ladies in question? They certainly proved more than equal to the task of trashing my emotions upon their departures, although I shortly picked myself up, dusted myself off, and got on with my life.

When in the dark of night, alone, I think of one, or another, wondering what it would have been like to have a history longer than a TV sitcom. I know it to be a waste of time, for didn't you, my friends, do your best to make sure nothing of the sort would happen? You couldn't see the lady in question wasting her life with so unworthy a match as I might prove to be. This is why you made certain each knew of any indiscretion, in lurid detail, never concerning yourself with such trivial matters as truth or reality. Imagine my surprise to find I had such good friends, who spared no effort to ensure my unhappiness. I only wish there were some way to repay the unkindness, to let you feel what it is like to have such friends as I.

How is it I have been so fortunate at to have such diligent friends, so intent on ensuring my unhappiness and lack of stimulating companionship? People who have gone miles out of their way to assure themselves of my singularity and solitude, without asking any other reward. Is it any wonder I do not trust much or well, and do not care if someone likes or dislikes me? It has often been cited, by those who have infringed on my personal life, as the reason, the fact that I do not seem to care if I am liked or not. I see it as a defense mechanism, they see it as a red flag. Who knows which is right, although I still fail to see the rationale that makes it OK, but then Ihave always been myopic that way, when it comes to my own comfort and happiness. Call me crazy.....

 

Don't ask me where this came from. We were sitting down to dinner one evening, and the waitress mentioned it might be a few minutes before she could get back to us, so I turned over the placemat and started writing. I wrote out almost the entire thing before the food came to distract my attention. Not necessarily autobiographical, but I have had "friends" who have gone out of their way to "protect" various young ladies whom I had romantic feelings for....

Sometimes I Dream

In Dreams We Wait

  One foot firmly in the past, eyes on the future,
I must go ever on because I cannot go back.
The future beckons, a bright and shining lie,
promising pleasures only dreamt of, never seen.
The past lingers, with memories of good times
and those best forgotten, each pushing ahead,
crowding like children, for a share of attention,
while I make my way through each passing day.
When at last a fitful calm finally descends,
creeping in like the night, on tiny cats paws,
stealing into the crannies of my consciousness,
and letting the day's cares slip into oblivion.
I let go of the known, accepting the failure
of another day, falling far short of perfection,
once again, no matter how hard I might have tried.  

Each day brings its own challenges, a new chance
to work on the mysteries of life in the fast lane,
another opportunity to raise the balancing act
to a fine art, fooling some people all of the time
and myself only some of the time, to my chagrin.
The day starts when the dreams end, the alarm
shrills its siren song, calling me to shower and shave,
forcing me out of the cocoon of comfortable bed
and into the cold morning, ill prepared for the day's
coming battles, confrontations and consternations.
The dreams of the night fade in the morning light,
dissipating in the harsh reality of cold, sharp steel,
and after-shave splashed on freshly razored cheeks,
in preparation of another day in paradise found
and lost, in the spaces between awake and asleep.

I may no know much about Art

D A Y S    L I K E    T H E S E

Some have the ability to reason and use it to unravel the mysteries of the universe around us, whether the macro or the micro. Others, lacking creative ability or a three-digit IQ, have merely the ability to articulate profanity. As my sainted grandmother frequently said, "I wouldn't hold in my hand what you just held in your mouth." The quality of life is a result of the respect with which we treat it. Obviously some people would be quite at home in the world depicted by Hieronymous Bosch in his Garden of Earthly Delights. (Click here to see what it's like: Mark Harden's Artchive - "Hieronymous Bosch") Not a lovely place to visit, much less to live.

I realize I aim high when I quote the Bard, "You keep all your smart modern writers, give me William Shakespeare, you keep all your smart modern painters, I'll take Rembrandt, Titian, DaVinci and Gainesborough". (20th Century Man, words & music Ray Davies) Next time you're feeling smug, try singing that to a rock'n'roll beat! The Bard in question here, of course, is Ray Davies, leader and songwriter for the Kinks, a seminal British Invasion band who also delighted us with "A Well-Respected Man" and "Dedicated Follower of Fashion", both jabs at modern British life. His other observations along this line include "Sunny Afternoon" (my girlfriend's run off with my car, gone back to her ma and pa, tellin' tales of drunkenness and cruelty), "Apeman" (I think I'm so educated and I'm so civilized, cuz I'm a strict vegetarian, and with the over-population and inflation and starvation, and the crazy politicians, I don't feel safe in this world no more, I don't wanna die in a nuclear war, I wanna sail away to a distant shore and make like an ape man), "Waterloo Sunset" (but I don't need no friends, as long as I gaze on Waterloo Sunset, I am in paradise, every day I look at the world from my window), and the incomparable "Celluloid Heroes" (everybody's a dreamer, and everybody's a star, and everybody's in movies, doesn't matter who you are....you can see all the stars as you walk down Hollywood Boulevard, some that you recognize and some that you've hardly even heard of, people who worked and struggled for fame, some who succeeded and some who suffered in vain). I could go on quoting the works of rock 'n' roll's most erudite songwriter, but I think I've made the point. To say Ray Davies delights in poking fun at the rest of us, as we take ourselves seriously along life's various paths, is to put it mildly. Someone has to, because we don't seem to be able to do it very well for ourselves.

Today's "artists" confuse anger and profanity with creativity and miss the point entirely. This lack of vision is painfully evident in "performance" artists who demonstrate bodily functions or worse, as if theirs were somehow different from our own. Indeed, the very same problem affects TV and movies, as the same old stories are recycled with new "stars", many of whom won't be remembered when they hit middle age, much less long after they have gone. The rare breath of fresh thinking is copied madly/badly, as NBC did with "Revelations", a blatant cop to the popularity of "The Passion of the Christ". The trend for decades in Hollywood is screenwriting by committee, as additional writers are brought in to "sweeten" the plot, to better adhere to the director's "vision", or to calm jittery studio executives about a particularly shaky film by "newcomers" (outsiders, not used to the "studio" system). Is it any wonder so many movies go straight to video with only a short detour through the local multi-plex?

What happened to cause this? Have all the original ideas been used? I know sometimes I struggle to find an original point of view, a new take on a storyline, some new perspective to make a point more interesting. When George Carlin started his routine about "7 words you don't say on TV", he was breaking new ground, charting new territory, pushing the envelope. Comedians today use vulgar language as punctuation; there is nothing interesting or shocking about it, as it serves only to cover up having nothing amusing or interesting to say. Chris Rock stumbled through the Academy Awards show, obviously hampered by having to watch his language, a far cry from the telecasts hosted by Billy Crystal, a comedian who has never relied on vulgarity to tell a funny story. Are "four-letter" words (and worse) really funny? Does ghetto language give one the cachet of "street credentials"?

Back to Ray, for a few closing words on the subject, who sings in "Better Things" (here's hoping all the days ahead, won't be as bitter as the ones behind you, and be an optimist instead, and somehow happiness will find you, forget what happened yesterday, I know that better things are on their way), a saccharine-sweet sentiment, to be sure, but no less valid, and in "Lola" (well, I'm not the world's most physical guy, but when she squeezed me tight, she nearly broke my spine, well, I'm not dumb, but I can't understand why she walked like a woman and talked like a man) a pithy comment on the so-called "equality" between the sexes. It's a "mixed-up, mumbled-up, shook-up world", for sure, a brave new world that fears originality as much as it fears competition. A friend of mine is wont to say, "Sure, I can do you a favor, so long as it doesn't cost me money, time or personal inconvenience". What more can one ask for? Somewhere, all the "creative" types seemed to have adopted this philosophy, paraphrasing it as, "Yes, I can create, so long as I do not have to think, work or otherwise exert any effort"...what a sad commentary on the arts today. (All lyrics quoted: words & music Ray Davies/The Kinks, protected by appropriate copyright)

On creativity....

A l o n e A g a i n O r

I have spent a considerable amount of time by myself over the years, and as a result, have developed several skills for filling the time. I enjoy reading, often spending hours in rapt concentration as the pages whiz by, whether a techno-thriller or a book detailing events in History, new discoveries in Science, a fascinating Biography or any of the marvels of the Physical World. Reading is a gateway to a universe of wonder, of knowledge, of self-understanding and the realms of Man’s stored knowledge. I feel sorry for those who do not enjoy this simple pleasure.

I also draw, filling page after page with doodles and designs, ideas for room arrangements and architectural details. I began drawing when I was a young teenager, adopting a style reminiscent to what I saw in comic books. I took a drafting class in the 8th grade, thinking I did OK, but not as well as some of the teacher’s favorite students. Little did I suspect I would make my living for the better part of my life doing this. Along the way, I expanded my repertoire of drawing skills, exploring the way design interacted with written words and everyday items.

When I was in freshman English, in high school, the teacher required us to write a poem. I tried my had at it and enjoyed it, then wrote several others. One of my first efforts was titled “Where are the flowers, now”, with a repeating refrain that ran, “where are the flowers, now, where have they gone?” Some four or five months later, I heard a song by Peter, Paul & Mary, called “Where Have All the Flowers Gone”, written by a young Bob Dylan. The only similarities in the two were in the repeated question/title, but I was razzed by my friends for “stealing” from a popular song. I had never heard it before, that I know of, and certainly didn’t consciously copy any part of the song, but who knows? We all take in stimuli from a vast variety of sources and then reissue it as refined by our own views, prejudices and perceptions. At any rate, this early success--did I mention that poem and another, with obvious homage to Poe, were well-received in class?--lead me to pursue an interest in writing that has remained with meto this day. I did quite well, writing in high school; at one school, the creative writing class published a “magazine” filled with students’ work. The first issue of the semester, I had one story and a poem; by the third issue, I had more entries than all the other students combined. Sadly, the next school I attended, a month after that triumph, did not offer Creative Writing as an elective.

Had you asked me in those days what I wanted to be, I would have confidently answered “a writer!” I seriously pursued this goal, although later that same year, at yet another different school, I encountered a less enthusiastic teacher, who told me I should “stick to writing about what I knew”, i.e. “teenage” issues. Her criticism took the wind out of my sails. The following school year, I had my own column in the school newspaper and almost anything I wrote was printed in it. When I submitted a story to a magazine that I had slaved over and felt very positive about, I received a rejection letter--an actual letter, one my friends and teachers at the time said was a good sign, rather than a rejection notice--I began to let that dream slip away from me. I still wrote, to amuse myself, and the friends I corresponded with, until one day I received a letter from a friend who said he was going to “start saving (my) letters, because they are little works of art, so creative”, and I stopped writing for others.

I have always kept journals, filling them with sketches and written snippets, recording my passage through this world, for myself, if no one else. I still do, sometimes “seeing”, in my mind, an entire piece, inspired by something I read or just saw on TV, or as a result of a conversation. I write to soothe that savage beast within that desires to roar, but instead is content to know the talent is still there, the potential still on tap.

I can say I came by it honestly; my maternal grandmother wrote and, with her sister, performed radio plays in the late teens and early twenties of the previous century, in their home town of Brooklyn. They were quite popular, and my great-aunt maintained a life-long interest in performing, appearing in dinner theatre and community theatre productions well into her 70’s. My uncle also took after this side of the family, achieving a modest level of fame in college and in the Los Angeles area for his appearances in community theatre and civic light opera presentations until he decided to forego his theatrical dreams and concentrate on professional pursuits. His is a case of too little ego, because ego is the fuel by which careers are driven; that he has the talent is widely recognized, that he is willing to sit in one office after another and attempt to convince someone who wouldn’t know talent if said talent were to bite him/her on the butt, is another story entirely.

Sadly this is the case with much of the creative arts; the loud, obnoxious and barely-talented rise to the top out of sheer persistence, while those who may well be the better talent wait tables….or move on to a more dependable source of income. Who’s to say whether it is an equitable arrangement? Not me, I’m too busy writing what I want, or reading to gather new ideas, or drawing the blueprints for a better world. I’ll leave that decision to you, gentle reader and wish you luck in your own private spaces.

There but for fortune, go you or I

V a g a b o n d     B r o t h e r

.                                                                                                   .

The times went by with the passing wind,
           days of rage, days of wonder, days on end.
We lived, loved and laughed with no thought given
           the gathering storm, lying low on a distant horizon  
at the far side of our misspent youth. .                                                                                                    .

Vagabond brother, your sea anchor's unstuck,
           and your ship's coming up fast on the reef.
The hourglass is tipped over and the compass deranged,
           spinning madly in vain search of true North,
while the merry madcap laughs up his sleeve. .                                                                                                     .

Defined by a generation, encapsulated in a time
            of consequence and turbulence we climbed
the peaks of despair, swam in the ocean of our discontent,
            searching diligently for the meaningful while
mistaking the ridiculous for the exquisitely sublime. .                                                                                                      .

Vagabond brother, your days are indelibly marked
            by the misery expressed in the lines on your face,
Happiness is a fading memory of those times past
            too quickly, squandered on cheap and tawdry pleasures,
gaily-colored mementos to decorate a dingy gray life. .                                                                                                       .

The times that were and the times to come dissolve
            into the ever-present now, sculpting the future
from wasted words and wasted time, until nothing is left,
            the masquerade is permanent, we stayed too long
at the dance, removing the mask no longer possible. .                                                                                                       .

Vagabond brother, you've cheated life of meaning,
            you pass anonymously by in plain sight,
Cast down and cast away on the shoals
            you once danced in defiance of, in merry
abandonment, now left abandoned on the street corner.