12/27/07
“I am a citizen of the world.”
Diogenes the Cynic, 4th century B. C.
Dear Readers:
Did you know that St Brigid could turn her bathwater into beer? Speaking of St Brigitte, her latest blog entry (see link for gonzodiner on this blog) has important Walrus information. Please check it out. I received news that last Friday’s PET scan showed no cancer. My happiness is ineffable, beyond words.
According to the Washington Post, Blackwater Worldwide and other security firms “are operating with little regulation or oversight.” The fact that our government disregarded numerous warnings about this brings to mind Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”(1899). More specifically, it reminds me of Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now”(1979), particularly that scene where the officers are having lunch together and lamenting the reality that Colonel Kurtz, one of America’s best and brightest, is operating completely beyond the pale, commanding an army of mercenaries and Montagnard tribesman that recognize no rule of law. Fact is, the U. S. military, being undermanned going in, required additional boots on the ground, and we’re not talking about Army boots here. According to Michael J. Arrighi, someone who has beeen involved with private security firms in Iraq since 2004, companies like Blackwater sprang up “like mushrooms after a rainstorm.”
“Gasoline could cost an average of 3.75 a gallon nationwide in the next four months, pushing the price in California up and over the $4 dollar mark, energy analysts predicted Wednesday,” (source Ronald White L. A. Times). By George, that settles it, my next car is a hybrid Hummer.
Speaking of movies, this excerpt from the Ann Arbor News reminded me of George A. Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead”(1978): “police are investigating a fight in the center court of Briarwood Mall that closed the mall an hour early on Christmas Eve. According to the police, a group of men attacked another group of men with a hammer and chairs.” These consumer en-raged automatons must have forgotten the true meaning of Christmas.
(From The Associated Press) “It was a stinky holiday for Robert Schoff. The 77-year-old man spent part of Christmas Eve stuck upside down in the opening of his septic tank, with his head inside and his feet kicking in the air above….it was an hour before his wife, Toni, walked by a window and saw his feet in the air.”
December 27, 2007
December 24, 2007
"What is literature compared with cooking? The one is shadow, the other substance."
E. V. Lucas
As some of my U.P. friends (who love the Packers) may know, I am a diehard Bears fan. Yesterday was sweet. Yes Bill, I've had that glimpse out of the corner of my eye. B. Q. and hubby, all my love.
Merry X-mas to all!
E. V. Lucas
As some of my U.P. friends (who love the Packers) may know, I am a diehard Bears fan. Yesterday was sweet. Yes Bill, I've had that glimpse out of the corner of my eye. B. Q. and hubby, all my love.
Merry X-mas to all!
December 20, 2007
Hillary Limbaugh
12/20/07
“Angry men are blind and foolish…”
- Pietro Aretino, 1537
Life can be tenuous. Don’t you love the holidays? They’re so, so, material -- time for friends, relatives, and associates to gather and remind themselves of something, but of what? Different things: love, hate, annoyance, and other stuff. Anonymous said they liked T. S. Eliot. R.J., I hope you dug the Francis Bacon, as you may know, he is a contemporary of Lucien Freud (see right), whom I also like. Bonnie, don’t worry, you’ll see something cool, and knowing your taste in music, that thing we do won’t disappoint. All: have you seen “Flight of the Conchords” (HBO Series)? Way cool. Sophia gave me the first two seasons as a birthday present, of which I’m very appreciative.
Health-wise, I’m feeling better. Tomorrow I go in for a TPET Scan, and then, assuming all is well, I go until February before participating in what I expect will be periodic exams to monitor my remission. As I move out from the chemo (it’s been a month and a week) I can slowly, but ever faster (if that makes sense?) feel my body recovering. I guess it goes without saying that uncertainty will follow the rest of my days. We all live with uncertainty, of course, but in that same abstract sense that we all know we’re going to die, this is a much more concrete concept for those with illness.
While I was out doing some errands, I listened to one of the CDs Les and Diane Bloom sent me for Xmas. One of the recordings was a March 1979 live “Incognito” show at “Mr. Floods Party.” Pretty cool. I assume the lineup is Wendell Bigelow on drums, R.J., Les, and myself. Les, or R.J., a question, who wrote “Encounter”? Writing about music is a bit like writing about drugs or sex, nigh on impossible. Instrumental, rock-jazz-fusion, high octane and I love it. I can’t wait to play it for my son Russ. Love the Relentless drum attack of Bob Sweet (the influence and frienship of Jack Dejohnette is much in evidence here). Thank you Les. The other CD has the 1972 recordings of Walrus in the studio doing “Helen O’Loy” and T.V. Twinkle. Praise God!
I don’t know about you, but I feel blessed that we have men like Rush Limbaugh to guide us through the cultural wasteland that is contemporary Amerika. As the gospel according to Rush would have it, “men aging makes them look more authoritative, accomplished, distinguished. Sadly, it’s not that way for women, and they will tell you.” Rush is, of course, referring to Hillary Clinton here. While I am not a follower of Hillary Clinton, I would appreciate it if all of you withering old bags out there would respond to this blog and confirm Rush’s wisdom. Rush wonders, “ Will this country want to actually watch a woman get older before their eyes on a daily basis?” I guess Rush thinks everyone watches T.V. or listens to the radio. Given the literacy level of his constituency, this makes sense. Some of us actually read, so the depth of intellect or policy positions of a given politician have nothing to do with the way they look. I mean if being handsome and charismatic were the markers of success wouldn’t our fearless leader’s charm and guile make us numero uno on the world stage. Rush says, “there will have to be steps taken to avoid the appearance of aging.” If anyone should no how to do this it would be Limbaugh. How many fat farms, cosmetic surgeries, balding comb-overs and re-hab programs has this homely windbag endured to secure his place on the air waves?
The beauty of being the leader of the most powerful nation in the world these days is that you’ll never have to worry about having to face war crimes tribunals. Heil Cheney!
Happy Holidays All
“Angry men are blind and foolish…”
- Pietro Aretino, 1537
Life can be tenuous. Don’t you love the holidays? They’re so, so, material -- time for friends, relatives, and associates to gather and remind themselves of something, but of what? Different things: love, hate, annoyance, and other stuff. Anonymous said they liked T. S. Eliot. R.J., I hope you dug the Francis Bacon, as you may know, he is a contemporary of Lucien Freud (see right), whom I also like. Bonnie, don’t worry, you’ll see something cool, and knowing your taste in music, that thing we do won’t disappoint. All: have you seen “Flight of the Conchords” (HBO Series)? Way cool. Sophia gave me the first two seasons as a birthday present, of which I’m very appreciative.
Health-wise, I’m feeling better. Tomorrow I go in for a TPET Scan, and then, assuming all is well, I go until February before participating in what I expect will be periodic exams to monitor my remission. As I move out from the chemo (it’s been a month and a week) I can slowly, but ever faster (if that makes sense?) feel my body recovering. I guess it goes without saying that uncertainty will follow the rest of my days. We all live with uncertainty, of course, but in that same abstract sense that we all know we’re going to die, this is a much more concrete concept for those with illness.
While I was out doing some errands, I listened to one of the CDs Les and Diane Bloom sent me for Xmas. One of the recordings was a March 1979 live “Incognito” show at “Mr. Floods Party.” Pretty cool. I assume the lineup is Wendell Bigelow on drums, R.J., Les, and myself. Les, or R.J., a question, who wrote “Encounter”? Writing about music is a bit like writing about drugs or sex, nigh on impossible. Instrumental, rock-jazz-fusion, high octane and I love it. I can’t wait to play it for my son Russ. Love the Relentless drum attack of Bob Sweet (the influence and frienship of Jack Dejohnette is much in evidence here). Thank you Les. The other CD has the 1972 recordings of Walrus in the studio doing “Helen O’Loy” and T.V. Twinkle. Praise God!
I don’t know about you, but I feel blessed that we have men like Rush Limbaugh to guide us through the cultural wasteland that is contemporary Amerika. As the gospel according to Rush would have it, “men aging makes them look more authoritative, accomplished, distinguished. Sadly, it’s not that way for women, and they will tell you.” Rush is, of course, referring to Hillary Clinton here. While I am not a follower of Hillary Clinton, I would appreciate it if all of you withering old bags out there would respond to this blog and confirm Rush’s wisdom. Rush wonders, “ Will this country want to actually watch a woman get older before their eyes on a daily basis?” I guess Rush thinks everyone watches T.V. or listens to the radio. Given the literacy level of his constituency, this makes sense. Some of us actually read, so the depth of intellect or policy positions of a given politician have nothing to do with the way they look. I mean if being handsome and charismatic were the markers of success wouldn’t our fearless leader’s charm and guile make us numero uno on the world stage. Rush says, “there will have to be steps taken to avoid the appearance of aging.” If anyone should no how to do this it would be Limbaugh. How many fat farms, cosmetic surgeries, balding comb-overs and re-hab programs has this homely windbag endured to secure his place on the air waves?
The beauty of being the leader of the most powerful nation in the world these days is that you’ll never have to worry about having to face war crimes tribunals. Heil Cheney!
Happy Holidays All
December 17, 2007
12/16/50
There's no vocabulary
For love within a family, love that's lived in
But not looked at, love within the light of which
All else is seen, the love within which
All other love finds speech.
T. S. Eliot
"The Elder Statesman," 1958
Dear Trainee:
There’s a blizzard today. It’s very beautiful. Shadikan charged out into a whirl and world of white that made her very happy. Muzzling snow banks and leaping through drifts is in her blood. Her thick, luxurious coat allows her to feel right at home. The sublime whiteness of the snow brightens up the world. Since it’s my birthday and I’m slowly feeling better, I too am happy.
We manned the phones, but alas, no call. One of the things we are learning, as you have come to know, is that some things are beyond our control. One person’s misstep, I’m sure, can make it so all of you suffer. Patience is virtue, or so they say. As a person with little patience, it makes more sense the older I get.
In many ways, life is a voyage into uncharted waters where uncertainty is one of the destinations. Some years ago, Alan Watts wrote a book entitled, “The Wisdom of Insecurity.” His point was that we should embrace the idea that obsessively questing after resolution, the idea that the future is a matter of solutions rather, than questions, is the way of folly.
One of the issues I’ve danced around is the idea of you joining the military. I think it’s a good idea. It’s not just that I think it would be a good experience for you, I also think what you’re coming out to makes it worth considering. I love you and this is your home, but, like yourself, I worry about the temptations of the old environment and former associates. Although mom and I are getting along great and she loves you, there is much uncertainty in her life. The more stability we can generate in our physical and psychological lives, the more it will help her. One way to do this would be for you to join up. The time will fly by, and you’ll be coming home to visit on a regular basis. As a springboard to the rest of your life, you’ll have the freedom, money, and opportunity, to become a Vet, astronaut, translator, or even a teacher.
Cancer is a humbling experience. One of the things we have in common is the way our ordeals have made us aware of is why we love others, why judgmental attitudes, anger, and negativity are wasted energies/emotions. A silver lining to the cloud of my cancer has been the kindness I feel toward others. I think those around me see it and return the feelings in kind. Goodness comes to those who are good.
Love - Dad
There's no vocabulary
For love within a family, love that's lived in
But not looked at, love within the light of which
All else is seen, the love within which
All other love finds speech.
T. S. Eliot
"The Elder Statesman," 1958
Dear Trainee:
There’s a blizzard today. It’s very beautiful. Shadikan charged out into a whirl and world of white that made her very happy. Muzzling snow banks and leaping through drifts is in her blood. Her thick, luxurious coat allows her to feel right at home. The sublime whiteness of the snow brightens up the world. Since it’s my birthday and I’m slowly feeling better, I too am happy.
We manned the phones, but alas, no call. One of the things we are learning, as you have come to know, is that some things are beyond our control. One person’s misstep, I’m sure, can make it so all of you suffer. Patience is virtue, or so they say. As a person with little patience, it makes more sense the older I get.
In many ways, life is a voyage into uncharted waters where uncertainty is one of the destinations. Some years ago, Alan Watts wrote a book entitled, “The Wisdom of Insecurity.” His point was that we should embrace the idea that obsessively questing after resolution, the idea that the future is a matter of solutions rather, than questions, is the way of folly.
One of the issues I’ve danced around is the idea of you joining the military. I think it’s a good idea. It’s not just that I think it would be a good experience for you, I also think what you’re coming out to makes it worth considering. I love you and this is your home, but, like yourself, I worry about the temptations of the old environment and former associates. Although mom and I are getting along great and she loves you, there is much uncertainty in her life. The more stability we can generate in our physical and psychological lives, the more it will help her. One way to do this would be for you to join up. The time will fly by, and you’ll be coming home to visit on a regular basis. As a springboard to the rest of your life, you’ll have the freedom, money, and opportunity, to become a Vet, astronaut, translator, or even a teacher.
Cancer is a humbling experience. One of the things we have in common is the way our ordeals have made us aware of is why we love others, why judgmental attitudes, anger, and negativity are wasted energies/emotions. A silver lining to the cloud of my cancer has been the kindness I feel toward others. I think those around me see it and return the feelings in kind. Goodness comes to those who are good.
Love - Dad
December 12, 2007
"I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to."
-- Elvis Presley
This is the story of a band called Pinguino. In their heyday, which was a short period in the late sixties and early seventies, they had a certain local appeal in the frozen north. After some years had passed, perhaps a decade or two, they, along with their now aging audience, thought it might be fun to reunite and celebrate old times. And so they began to play once a year, which turned out to be a nostalgic time that brought together not only the band, but also many of their loyal followers, who would otherwise probably never see each other.
Originally, Pinguino had a lead singer, Morris, a lead guitar player, Herman, a bass and guitar player, Paris and Louis, and a drummer, Buddy. While the group had a changing line up in their early years, the reunions usually had these five members. What had at first been great fun, their annual get together, slowly became tedious, a chore. Rehearsing for this once a year event became a pain in the ass for Morris, whose house they practiced at, and, in part, because of Louis’s overbearing insistence on what they played. They were overcome by a high seriousness that, sadly, didn’t become their style. As a solution they decided to take a year off. No one could say for sure that it would only be a year, but all agreed it was a good idea.
After the summer passed, Morris and Herman (at least according to Herman) decided that any future reunions should put Louis on the bass and exclude Paris completely. And so Herman went to Paris and asked if he didn’t think the group would be better served without him. For some in the group, like Louis, this was a real head-scratcher. To Louis, this would be like going up to a welder, a ballerina, or a prison guard, and saying, “doesn’t it make sense to you, sir or madam, that the community would benefit from your admitting that you are not very good at what you do, and doesn't it make sense that you not be a part of the group.”
For Louis, it was hard to fathom how Herman could expect anyone to agree with this kind of logic. “O. K., you’re right Herman, I’m not good at what I do and I think everyone would benefit if I didn’t participate.” Even if this were true, Louis thought, how could Herman really expect a person to agree that, yes they were inadequate at what they do, and yes it would be a good idea if they accepted his logic. Louis simply could not understand how Herman could expect someone to agree that their being unwanted was a good thing. Louis could certainly understand Herman’s thinking, what escaped him was Herman’s belief that he could convince Paris that his not being a part of the band was really a good thing. Herman even thought that if he wrote this down all would be convinced. Was it a lack of inter-personal skills? Louis wasn’t sure, maybe a consequence of social isolation, who could know? He could easily understand Herman and Morris’s wanting him to move to bass, but the idea of not including Paris seemed rude, cold, and inappropriate, given what these reunions had come to stand for: less an aesthetic attempt to reinvent the wheel than a time for old friends to reunite.
Like any good postmodern tale, the lesson of the Pinguino story is one of cosmic uncertainty: will Paris and Louis survive a fantasy island reality where they believe in follies like global warming and Guantanamo torture? Will they come to their senses and accept Rush Limbaugh's wisdom that those soldiers in Iraq who are critical of American policy are cowards? Will Herman recognize the idea that the audience is an important part of playing music? Will singing fusion versions of "I Can't Help Falling in Love with You" and "Little Red Book" accelerate Morris's career? Can Buddy learn to bite his tongue when his mouth beckons his foot? Time will tell.
-- Elvis Presley
This is the story of a band called Pinguino. In their heyday, which was a short period in the late sixties and early seventies, they had a certain local appeal in the frozen north. After some years had passed, perhaps a decade or two, they, along with their now aging audience, thought it might be fun to reunite and celebrate old times. And so they began to play once a year, which turned out to be a nostalgic time that brought together not only the band, but also many of their loyal followers, who would otherwise probably never see each other.Originally, Pinguino had a lead singer, Morris, a lead guitar player, Herman, a bass and guitar player, Paris and Louis, and a drummer, Buddy. While the group had a changing line up in their early years, the reunions usually had these five members. What had at first been great fun, their annual get together, slowly became tedious, a chore. Rehearsing for this once a year event became a pain in the ass for Morris, whose house they practiced at, and, in part, because of Louis’s overbearing insistence on what they played. They were overcome by a high seriousness that, sadly, didn’t become their style. As a solution they decided to take a year off. No one could say for sure that it would only be a year, but all agreed it was a good idea.
After the summer passed, Morris and Herman (at least according to Herman) decided that any future reunions should put Louis on the bass and exclude Paris completely. And so Herman went to Paris and asked if he didn’t think the group would be better served without him. For some in the group, like Louis, this was a real head-scratcher. To Louis, this would be like going up to a welder, a ballerina, or a prison guard, and saying, “doesn’t it make sense to you, sir or madam, that the community would benefit from your admitting that you are not very good at what you do, and doesn't it make sense that you not be a part of the group.”
For Louis, it was hard to fathom how Herman could expect anyone to agree with this kind of logic. “O. K., you’re right Herman, I’m not good at what I do and I think everyone would benefit if I didn’t participate.” Even if this were true, Louis thought, how could Herman really expect a person to agree that, yes they were inadequate at what they do, and yes it would be a good idea if they accepted his logic. Louis simply could not understand how Herman could expect someone to agree that their being unwanted was a good thing. Louis could certainly understand Herman’s thinking, what escaped him was Herman’s belief that he could convince Paris that his not being a part of the band was really a good thing. Herman even thought that if he wrote this down all would be convinced. Was it a lack of inter-personal skills? Louis wasn’t sure, maybe a consequence of social isolation, who could know? He could easily understand Herman and Morris’s wanting him to move to bass, but the idea of not including Paris seemed rude, cold, and inappropriate, given what these reunions had come to stand for: less an aesthetic attempt to reinvent the wheel than a time for old friends to reunite.
Like any good postmodern tale, the lesson of the Pinguino story is one of cosmic uncertainty: will Paris and Louis survive a fantasy island reality where they believe in follies like global warming and Guantanamo torture? Will they come to their senses and accept Rush Limbaugh's wisdom that those soldiers in Iraq who are critical of American policy are cowards? Will Herman recognize the idea that the audience is an important part of playing music? Will singing fusion versions of "I Can't Help Falling in Love with You" and "Little Red Book" accelerate Morris's career? Can Buddy learn to bite his tongue when his mouth beckons his foot? Time will tell.
December 5, 2007
12/05/07
“Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.”
- Alexander Pope, 1727
Dear Trainee:
It’s a kind of gray day. I sent you a card yesterday with the good news that my latest CT Scan revealed no recurrence of the cancer. Yahoo! I think that’s what I wrote. Also, we’ll be manning the phones on both Thursday and Friday. Friday, I might have an early gig, but I’ll try to make it home in time. Today, I’m thinking about getting ready to teach school in the Winter Semester.
One of the things you are finding out about is the importance of memory. I think most of us take it for granted; but when our freedom is taken away, memory, in some ways, is all we have. Another conclusion you’ve probably come to, is that you have memories, a family, a chance, a future that some of those around you have never had, and never will have. I suppose a part of the wisdom in the statement, “stay in the present” is the idea that you can’t change the past, and the future is unpredictable; but it’s worth reminding ourselves that when the present is simply too much to bear, we can find solace in past memories and future hopes.
I know I’ve briefly mentioned the service before, and I don’t want to preach. However, let me say this. Since you yourself said that the S.A. I. boot camp is longer and more grueling than military boot camp, it’s worth considering shipping out to one of the branches of the service. You can be like Ishmael in “Moby Dick.” You can see the world! The R.O.T.C. programs at various colleges, both near and far, are also a good idea. You’ve already got some credits that would probably transfer wherever you might decide to go. These are just some things to think about.
These are good times for warm dreams. Do you dream much? I suppose dreams are similar to memories, just more jumbled up, non-linear. No, I take that back, dreams are different. I’ll have to think about why. Dream: a series of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations occurring involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep.
I should enclose a photo, but I can’t think of which to send: pet, you, mom, Russell, me, all, new, old? I’m looking at one now where you and I are sitting on the rock cliff by Lake Superior. Here’s one of me holding you when you were only days old. Here’s another of you and mom coloring Easter eggs. This one is from Belize, a shot of you, mom, and Lynn, and finally, one of Sumo peering in the basement in mid-winter. I can’t remember if you can have one or two. I’ll send two.
Love - Dad
“Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.”
- Alexander Pope, 1727
Dear Trainee:
It’s a kind of gray day. I sent you a card yesterday with the good news that my latest CT Scan revealed no recurrence of the cancer. Yahoo! I think that’s what I wrote. Also, we’ll be manning the phones on both Thursday and Friday. Friday, I might have an early gig, but I’ll try to make it home in time. Today, I’m thinking about getting ready to teach school in the Winter Semester.
One of the things you are finding out about is the importance of memory. I think most of us take it for granted; but when our freedom is taken away, memory, in some ways, is all we have. Another conclusion you’ve probably come to, is that you have memories, a family, a chance, a future that some of those around you have never had, and never will have. I suppose a part of the wisdom in the statement, “stay in the present” is the idea that you can’t change the past, and the future is unpredictable; but it’s worth reminding ourselves that when the present is simply too much to bear, we can find solace in past memories and future hopes.
I know I’ve briefly mentioned the service before, and I don’t want to preach. However, let me say this. Since you yourself said that the S.A. I. boot camp is longer and more grueling than military boot camp, it’s worth considering shipping out to one of the branches of the service. You can be like Ishmael in “Moby Dick.” You can see the world! The R.O.T.C. programs at various colleges, both near and far, are also a good idea. You’ve already got some credits that would probably transfer wherever you might decide to go. These are just some things to think about.
These are good times for warm dreams. Do you dream much? I suppose dreams are similar to memories, just more jumbled up, non-linear. No, I take that back, dreams are different. I’ll have to think about why. Dream: a series of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations occurring involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep.
I should enclose a photo, but I can’t think of which to send: pet, you, mom, Russell, me, all, new, old? I’m looking at one now where you and I are sitting on the rock cliff by Lake Superior. Here’s one of me holding you when you were only days old. Here’s another of you and mom coloring Easter eggs. This one is from Belize, a shot of you, mom, and Lynn, and finally, one of Sumo peering in the basement in mid-winter. I can’t remember if you can have one or two. I’ll send two.
Love - Dad
December 2, 2007
Evel Knievel's Dead
12/02/07O
Evel Knievel’s dead, and I’m not feelin' too good myself. Well folks, to quote a George Bedard lyric, “Where have I been all my life?” Speaking of George, last Thursday he called to say the Firefly Club had a cancellation on Saturday, and asked if I was able to do the gig. This was shortly after a nurse had called to inform me my white blood cell counts were alarmingly low. This news, combined with the neuropathy (shot nerves), which is now such that tasks requiring fine motor skills are a challenge, left me little choice but to say no. The tasks I speak of would include operating zippers, tying shoelaces, buttoning shirts and pants, and starting the car. You will recall that when turning the key in the ignition there is a slight resistance. This makes it such that sometimes two hands are required to fire up the sled. Regarding the blood count stuff, one of the medicines they were considering giving me, Neulasta (which I’ve received before), was on a pharmaceutical price list I got. Cost: $5,966.00 per injection.
I also had to turn down tickets for the UM hockey game on Saturday night. Big crowds are to be avoided. If some of this sounds grim or glum, no worries. I happen to feel much better, especially knowing that this Tuesday, for the first time in six months, I won’t have to get the toxic infusion treatment. This means, regardless of cancer, I can continue to recover from the chemo assault. I’m listening to Dylan’s Time Out of Mind (“Tryin' to get to Heaven”). This disc was produced by Daniel Lanois, and happens to be one of my modern Dylan faves, although I have to say Love and Theft, and Modern Times have grown on me. Mentioning Dylan also gives me a chance to send out deep thanks to my dear friend, J. Kent Bourland, who gave me a beautiful hard bound copy of Dylan: 1962/2001 Lyrics. Thank you. Kent is truly a Dylan fanatic. Thank you, Kent. Julia, hi, and thanks for reading the blog. You asked about Brigitte’s helpfulness. She has been indispensable in helping me through this time -- steady, loving, caring. She is “the American Dream.”
A frustrating reality of wanting to describe the low moments is that you/one/I have no energy to record the feelings. Now, here I sit, trying to re-present pain, or, un-well-ness. It sucks. A wise sushi bar waitress once said, "Don’t cry!"
Had a cat scan
Had a cat scan
Had a cat scan, last night….
Last night….
Actually it was last Friday. Here’s how Bill Behnke would describe the taste of the frosty treat they provide, "Bari-yummy!"
So what if you can use the “Yellow Rose of Texas” as a guide to reciting Emily Dickinson? I still like her. He kindly stopped for me, indeed!
It’s a foggy winter’s day, Trainee T.. Just turned on the telly, where Lions are dueling with Vikings. Up. Down. Blah. Blah. Walk, talk, sit, ponder. Okay. Just watched a 104 yard Minny kickoff return. Last Thursday night, it was the gunslinger rather than the game manager who showed up in Dallas. The Pack needed some of that Twilight Zone, Doug McClure duel-at-Diablo juice. So the Pope’s put out a new encyclical. In it he rails against Godlessness. Sounds like Osama. The Pope and Osama need to sit down together and watch Angelina Jolie in “Beowolf.”
Papa’s got a brand new bag.
According to the Pontiff, “To protest against God in the name of injustice is not helpful.” Why? Because “only God can create justice.” The Holy Father goes on to say that, “faith is what gives us the certainty” that God is infallible in dispensing this justice.
The Pope writes, “A world without God is a world without hope.” What are those with no hope, but a belief in God, to do? If I, in my faith in God and justice, can’t reduce their plight to a case of Marxist manna chewing, how do I square my Christian ethic with their humanitarian neglect? In their world of chaos and want, violence and death, they should keep their faith in a belief that God will create justice. Sounds like catch 22.
For the Pope, the evil twin of Marxism, from an ideological perspective, is the Enlightenment. Why? Because the Age of Reason ushered in a world of modern skepticism.
But even the skeptic can be a believer. I mean “trans-substantiation” is a fine example of a euphemism for ritualistic Christian belief; it allows us to see communion as, at once, literal and symbolic. But the Christian sensibility is lacking when it comes to a rhetoric of justice. Matthew’s gospel of the workers in the vineyard, and Christ’s idea of rendering to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's, are woefully inadequate to the problems in the world today. What words can we come up with for not helping the desperate poor?
Dear Trainee:
So you saw an owl, maybe it was I. I do remember one night when I was feeling a bit owlish. You mentioned that time passes, sometimes quickly, and sometimes slowly, but it passes. Boot camps and other times of hardship make this inevitable fact unavoidable. One of the conclusions I’ve reached is that even though we’re hard-wired to think of misfortune as something that always falls on someone else, it’s not really true. That wiring becomes a bit frayed when it’s not someone else, but you. You mention the idea of “living elsewhere,” of “escaping the bad surroundings where bad happened.” One of the tragic stories in the news lately concerns the 24 year-old professional football player, Sean Taylor, who was shot to death in Miami. He had come from a tough background and circumstances, but he had turned his life around. His friends had told him to move north, forget about Miami. Here is an excerpt from Michael Wilbon’s column in today’s The Washington Post:
“The issue of separating yourself from a harmful environment is a recurring theme in the life of black men. It has nothing to do with football, or Sean Taylor or even sports. To frame it as a sports issue, is as insulting as it is naïve. Most of us, perhaps even the great majority of us who grew up in big urban communities, have to make a decision at some point to hang out or get out.
“The kid who becomes a pharmaceutical rep has the same call to make as the lawyer or delivery guy or accountant or sportswriter or football player: Cut off anybody who might do harm, even those who have been friends from the sandbox, or go along to get along.
“Mainstream folks—and, yes, this is a code word for white folks—see high-profile athletes dealing with this dilemma and think it’s specific to them, while black folks know it’s everyday stuff for everybody, for KIDS WITH ASPIRATIONS OF ALL KINDS. Some do, some don’t. Some will, some won’t. Some can, some cannot. Often it’s gut-wrenching. Usually it’s NECESSARY. For some, it takes a little bit too long.”
I thought his article was especially important after reading your thoughts about “fresh starts” and leading a “healthier and better” life. I know this sounds weird, but right now you are really doing great. You are appreciating what, family, freedom, and health really mean.
Evel Knievel’s dead, and I’m not feelin' too good myself. Well folks, to quote a George Bedard lyric, “Where have I been all my life?” Speaking of George, last Thursday he called to say the Firefly Club had a cancellation on Saturday, and asked if I was able to do the gig. This was shortly after a nurse had called to inform me my white blood cell counts were alarmingly low. This news, combined with the neuropathy (shot nerves), which is now such that tasks requiring fine motor skills are a challenge, left me little choice but to say no. The tasks I speak of would include operating zippers, tying shoelaces, buttoning shirts and pants, and starting the car. You will recall that when turning the key in the ignition there is a slight resistance. This makes it such that sometimes two hands are required to fire up the sled. Regarding the blood count stuff, one of the medicines they were considering giving me, Neulasta (which I’ve received before), was on a pharmaceutical price list I got. Cost: $5,966.00 per injection.
I also had to turn down tickets for the UM hockey game on Saturday night. Big crowds are to be avoided. If some of this sounds grim or glum, no worries. I happen to feel much better, especially knowing that this Tuesday, for the first time in six months, I won’t have to get the toxic infusion treatment. This means, regardless of cancer, I can continue to recover from the chemo assault. I’m listening to Dylan’s Time Out of Mind (“Tryin' to get to Heaven”). This disc was produced by Daniel Lanois, and happens to be one of my modern Dylan faves, although I have to say Love and Theft, and Modern Times have grown on me. Mentioning Dylan also gives me a chance to send out deep thanks to my dear friend, J. Kent Bourland, who gave me a beautiful hard bound copy of Dylan: 1962/2001 Lyrics. Thank you. Kent is truly a Dylan fanatic. Thank you, Kent. Julia, hi, and thanks for reading the blog. You asked about Brigitte’s helpfulness. She has been indispensable in helping me through this time -- steady, loving, caring. She is “the American Dream.”
A frustrating reality of wanting to describe the low moments is that you/one/I have no energy to record the feelings. Now, here I sit, trying to re-present pain, or, un-well-ness. It sucks. A wise sushi bar waitress once said, "Don’t cry!"
Had a cat scan
Had a cat scan
Had a cat scan, last night….
Last night….
Actually it was last Friday. Here’s how Bill Behnke would describe the taste of the frosty treat they provide, "Bari-yummy!"
So what if you can use the “Yellow Rose of Texas” as a guide to reciting Emily Dickinson? I still like her. He kindly stopped for me, indeed!
It’s a foggy winter’s day, Trainee T.. Just turned on the telly, where Lions are dueling with Vikings. Up. Down. Blah. Blah. Walk, talk, sit, ponder. Okay. Just watched a 104 yard Minny kickoff return. Last Thursday night, it was the gunslinger rather than the game manager who showed up in Dallas. The Pack needed some of that Twilight Zone, Doug McClure duel-at-Diablo juice. So the Pope’s put out a new encyclical. In it he rails against Godlessness. Sounds like Osama. The Pope and Osama need to sit down together and watch Angelina Jolie in “Beowolf.”
Papa’s got a brand new bag.
According to the Pontiff, “To protest against God in the name of injustice is not helpful.” Why? Because “only God can create justice.” The Holy Father goes on to say that, “faith is what gives us the certainty” that God is infallible in dispensing this justice.
The Pope writes, “A world without God is a world without hope.” What are those with no hope, but a belief in God, to do? If I, in my faith in God and justice, can’t reduce their plight to a case of Marxist manna chewing, how do I square my Christian ethic with their humanitarian neglect? In their world of chaos and want, violence and death, they should keep their faith in a belief that God will create justice. Sounds like catch 22.
For the Pope, the evil twin of Marxism, from an ideological perspective, is the Enlightenment. Why? Because the Age of Reason ushered in a world of modern skepticism.
But even the skeptic can be a believer. I mean “trans-substantiation” is a fine example of a euphemism for ritualistic Christian belief; it allows us to see communion as, at once, literal and symbolic. But the Christian sensibility is lacking when it comes to a rhetoric of justice. Matthew’s gospel of the workers in the vineyard, and Christ’s idea of rendering to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's, are woefully inadequate to the problems in the world today. What words can we come up with for not helping the desperate poor?
Dear Trainee:
So you saw an owl, maybe it was I. I do remember one night when I was feeling a bit owlish. You mentioned that time passes, sometimes quickly, and sometimes slowly, but it passes. Boot camps and other times of hardship make this inevitable fact unavoidable. One of the conclusions I’ve reached is that even though we’re hard-wired to think of misfortune as something that always falls on someone else, it’s not really true. That wiring becomes a bit frayed when it’s not someone else, but you. You mention the idea of “living elsewhere,” of “escaping the bad surroundings where bad happened.” One of the tragic stories in the news lately concerns the 24 year-old professional football player, Sean Taylor, who was shot to death in Miami. He had come from a tough background and circumstances, but he had turned his life around. His friends had told him to move north, forget about Miami. Here is an excerpt from Michael Wilbon’s column in today’s The Washington Post:
“The issue of separating yourself from a harmful environment is a recurring theme in the life of black men. It has nothing to do with football, or Sean Taylor or even sports. To frame it as a sports issue, is as insulting as it is naïve. Most of us, perhaps even the great majority of us who grew up in big urban communities, have to make a decision at some point to hang out or get out.
“The kid who becomes a pharmaceutical rep has the same call to make as the lawyer or delivery guy or accountant or sportswriter or football player: Cut off anybody who might do harm, even those who have been friends from the sandbox, or go along to get along.
“Mainstream folks—and, yes, this is a code word for white folks—see high-profile athletes dealing with this dilemma and think it’s specific to them, while black folks know it’s everyday stuff for everybody, for KIDS WITH ASPIRATIONS OF ALL KINDS. Some do, some don’t. Some will, some won’t. Some can, some cannot. Often it’s gut-wrenching. Usually it’s NECESSARY. For some, it takes a little bit too long.”
I thought his article was especially important after reading your thoughts about “fresh starts” and leading a “healthier and better” life. I know this sounds weird, but right now you are really doing great. You are appreciating what, family, freedom, and health really mean.
November 21, 2007
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving Eve, 2007
Hello. Forgive me for having been out of touch, dear reader. Unsaved documents, Manhattan interludes, and life’s contingencies, all those things that make for good reading, have prevented me from blogging. Cut/paste/undo/do/don’t do/do again. Manhattan is, or, perhaps better, represents another world. The people, the subway, the skyscrapers, are so different to the Midwestern experience. A woman from Illinois oogled a gargoyle and exclaimed about not seeing such things in Chicago. Brigitte, my loving mate, and a student of worldliness, is a great cultural translator in terms of how to facilitate sophistication and negotiate civility. She is my existential guide. Also, thank you dear Bonnie Q. for the wonderful mix disc. R.J., Les, as always, shout outs to you and yours. Happy Thanksgiving.
The Story of an Owl
Once upon a time there was a flock of owls that lived in a forest in a small town. At some point in time a coterie of these doves decided to form an intimate, close-knit group that shared their mutual worries, hopes, and dreams. Within this parliament of owls, which is what they liked to call themselves, a certain owl became sick, his name was Oscar.
Now Oscar was a very proud owl. His greatest asset was also his gravest limitation, he always aimed to please, but he had the impossible idea that he could please everyone. Another one of his flaws was thinking himself impervious to infirmity and above any and all predicaments that might befall him. One day, after many years of preying on mice, and priding himself on his good fortune and impeccable health, he developed a pain in his wing. After ignoring it for some time, thinking it was the result of years of ardent mice catching and overzealous night flying, he resigned himself to the fact that it was time to see a veterinarian. The owl doc, like all good practitioners, began going down the list of possible causes, appealing to blood work, urine samples, and ultrasounds for a possible answer. And when these diagnostics failed to reveal a cause, he went to the next level of tests (which all owl insurance companies dread) the MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging Test). Upon getting the results, the kindly vet called Oscar into his office and informed him of some worrisome results. They had found some enlarged lymph nodes in his breast and needed to send him to an owl oncologist specialist. He was then told he would need an MRI guided biopsy to see just what was going on in theses pesky nodes.
One week later the vet called Oscar, told him there were malignant cells growing within, and that a P.E.T>/CT scan (you’ll have to look up these acronyms yourself, dear reader) would be needed. The news was not good. When Oscar saw the results that highlighted the world beneath his beautiful, shiny feathers, his gizzard and surrounding organs were lit up like a Christmas tree. In explaining why, the vet told him that the cancerous tumors within him were diffuse, meaning everywhere within his abdominal area. The vet dutifully informed the now saddened and fearful owl that that he would need to begin chemotherapy immediately, and although this has been a long preface, what this tale is really about is the progression of the treatment to date. In fact, it’s about what the owl had to tell his group now, the day after his sixth infusion.
As I said, this owl had the most beautiful, shimmering feathers one could imagine. He was a preening, prideful owl, who loved to strut his stuff, perhaps a bit too much, but what can one say, every owl is different, and this owl loved his look. No mirror ever passed him by, and he always loved what he saw. On a sunny day in late July Oscar underwent his first chemo, and all went fine. After his appointment he flew to the shores of Lake Superior, slept by day, hunted by night, and enjoyed the healthful air and balmy/salubrious breezes of the summer air. Chemo number 1, you see, was not that bad. Oscar rode the night breezes, preened his proud feathers, and snoozed in the shade in blissful peace.
Number 2 was much the same, with the exception that his full-throated who-who was not what it once was, and his lustrous plumage was starting to loosen. Although he was told the effects were cumulative, he scoffed at the idea, knowing that he was different and that he would prove the exception to even the owl doctors’ wisdom. I mean, who, make that who-who, could know more. But Oscar was stubborn, prideful, obstinate and oblivious, undoubtedly the result his failure to de-mythologize his existence at an early age. Infusion number 4 served to contradict this disease of reckless romanticism by refusing to conform to Oscar’s expectations. During the second of the three-week treatments, Oscar’s temperature began to rise. His body began to shake, his bones began to ache, and the sweat poured from his feathers, drenching the straw below his perch and mightily worrying his fellow owls. After making it through a feverish night, Oscar reluctantly called his vet (please excuse my intermittent use of doc and vet) at which point he was ordered to the emergency room and given a 3 hour infusion of antibiotics. The throat was sore, the toes were numb, and the bones ached, but he decided if this was as bad as it got, no problem. Now one of his owlish problems from the beginning was his insistence on carrying on as if he wasn’t sick. Where other sick owls had pared down their activities to accommodate their infirmities, Oscar was adamant on living life as usual. Where he had always been the lead hunter as they tracked down mice and snakes, he saw no reason to change that now. If a guard was needed to alert the flock to hunters, Oscar was the Owl for the job. The trouble was, Oscar’s affliction was of a different mind than Oscar. As his beautiful feathers slowly fell out he could no longer escape the inevitable side effects of the medicine, nor could he give up his alpha-owlish qualities. He lost his speed, stamina and, perhaps most important for an owl, his shrewdness and never failing wisdom.
And so came the fourth chemo. With the exception of the numbness spreading from his wings tips to his talons, he had an easier time of it. True, it was painful for him to achieve his daily constitutionals, and the mangier and mangier look he was displaying were a blow to his owlish pride, the actual fact of a brief respite from the accumulating side-effects were a welcome relief. Number five was next. Make no mistake about it, Oscar was still intent on leading the parliament, while the spirit was willing, the flesh was weak. His throat constricted to the point that his mighty call went from an owlish pride to a dovish coo. His garbled sounds became unintelligible to the other birds and he tried to keep his larkish tears to himself. He could no longer hide the fact that he was a different bird, an ailing owl. He tried to avoid making droppings of any kind to avoid the burning and murmured sympathies of the other owls. Did I mention that Oscar lived in an owl town in southern Michigan by the name of Owl Arbor. Being a town of all owls, they would dress as such, wearing owl capes, owl knickers, and owl finery of every shape and size. One night, Oscar, preparing for an owl extravaganza, had a special velvet cape picked out especially for this grand event, but when he went to put it on his numbed talons made it such that he couldn’t button it. Oscar cried, and he knew that, yes, this was real. He was a different bird.
*********
Madness or genius? The most bizarre tests conducted in the name of scientific inquiry. (By Ian Sample, taken from the “Guardian Weekly” 09/11/07)
One Friday in August 1962, Warren Thomas, director of Lincoln Park Zoo in Oklahoma City, raised his rifle and took aim at Tusko the elephant. With a squeeze of the trigger he scored a direct hit on the animal’s rump, firing a cartridge full of the hallucinogenic drug LSD into the animal’s bloodstream. The dose was 3,000 times what a human might take for recreational purposes, and the results were extraordinary. Tusko charged around and trumpeted loudly for a few minutes before keeling over dead.
The case of Tusko the elephant is among 10 of the most bizarre experiments carried out in the quest for knowledge and reported in New Scientist magazine last week. If there is a fine line between madness and genius, many of those involved firmly crossed it.
In one experiment in the 1960s, 10 soldiers boarded an aircraft for what the believed was a routine training mission from Fort Hunter Liggett air base in California. After climbing to about 5,000 feet the plane suddenly lurched to one side and began to fall. Over the intercom, the pilot announced: “We have an emergency. An engine has stalled and the landing gear is not functioning. I’m going to attempt to ditch in the ocean.” While the soldiers faced almost certain death, a steward handed out insurance forms and asked the men to complete them, explaining it was necessary for the army to be covered if they died. Little did the soldiers know they were completely safe. It was an experiment to find out how extreme stress affects cognitive ability, the forms serving as the test. Once the final soldier had completed his form the pilot said: “Just kidding about that emergency folks!”
One of the most gruesome experiments to make New Scientist’s list was performed by the Soviet surgeon Vladimir Demikhov. In 1954 he unveiled a two-headed dog, created in the lab by grafting the head, shoulders and front legs of a puppy on to the neck of a German Shepherd dog. Journalists brought in to examine the creature noted how milk dribbled from the stump of the puppy’s head when it attempted to lap milk. Occasionally, the two would fight, with the German Shepherd trying to shake the puppy off, and the puppy retaliating by biting back. The unfortunate creation lived for six days.
Several attempts to unravel the mysteries of human behavior also make the list. Clarence Leuba, a psychologist from Yellow Springs, Ohio, set out to discover whether laughing when tickled was a learned or spontaneous reaction, and commandeered his newborn son and later daughter into the study.
Then there was Lawrence LeShan, a researcher from Virginia who in 1942 stood in a room of sleeping boys repeating “my fingernails taste terribly bitter” to see if it broke their nailbiting habit.
In another experiment, a doctor called Stubbins Firth from Philadelphia drank fresh vomit from yellow fever patients to prove it was not a contagious disease. He claimed to be right when he failed to become ill in 1804, but scientists have since shown yellow fever is extremely contagious, but has to be transmitted directly into the bloodstream.
A similarly flawed experiment by Robert Cornish at the University of California in the 1930s tried to bring dead animals back to life by tilting them up and down on a seesaw. The few that did stir back to life momentarily after death were severely brain damaged.
Predictably, sex also features. When investigating the sexual arousal of male turkeys, researchers at Penn State University were impressed to see that the birds would attempt to mate with lookalike dummies. Piece by piece they removed parts of the dummy and found that the males were still highly aroused when presented with a head on a stick.
Hello. Forgive me for having been out of touch, dear reader. Unsaved documents, Manhattan interludes, and life’s contingencies, all those things that make for good reading, have prevented me from blogging. Cut/paste/undo/do/don’t do/do again. Manhattan is, or, perhaps better, represents another world. The people, the subway, the skyscrapers, are so different to the Midwestern experience. A woman from Illinois oogled a gargoyle and exclaimed about not seeing such things in Chicago. Brigitte, my loving mate, and a student of worldliness, is a great cultural translator in terms of how to facilitate sophistication and negotiate civility. She is my existential guide. Also, thank you dear Bonnie Q. for the wonderful mix disc. R.J., Les, as always, shout outs to you and yours. Happy Thanksgiving.
The Story of an Owl
Once upon a time there was a flock of owls that lived in a forest in a small town. At some point in time a coterie of these doves decided to form an intimate, close-knit group that shared their mutual worries, hopes, and dreams. Within this parliament of owls, which is what they liked to call themselves, a certain owl became sick, his name was Oscar.
Now Oscar was a very proud owl. His greatest asset was also his gravest limitation, he always aimed to please, but he had the impossible idea that he could please everyone. Another one of his flaws was thinking himself impervious to infirmity and above any and all predicaments that might befall him. One day, after many years of preying on mice, and priding himself on his good fortune and impeccable health, he developed a pain in his wing. After ignoring it for some time, thinking it was the result of years of ardent mice catching and overzealous night flying, he resigned himself to the fact that it was time to see a veterinarian. The owl doc, like all good practitioners, began going down the list of possible causes, appealing to blood work, urine samples, and ultrasounds for a possible answer. And when these diagnostics failed to reveal a cause, he went to the next level of tests (which all owl insurance companies dread) the MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging Test). Upon getting the results, the kindly vet called Oscar into his office and informed him of some worrisome results. They had found some enlarged lymph nodes in his breast and needed to send him to an owl oncologist specialist. He was then told he would need an MRI guided biopsy to see just what was going on in theses pesky nodes.
One week later the vet called Oscar, told him there were malignant cells growing within, and that a P.E.T>/CT scan (you’ll have to look up these acronyms yourself, dear reader) would be needed. The news was not good. When Oscar saw the results that highlighted the world beneath his beautiful, shiny feathers, his gizzard and surrounding organs were lit up like a Christmas tree. In explaining why, the vet told him that the cancerous tumors within him were diffuse, meaning everywhere within his abdominal area. The vet dutifully informed the now saddened and fearful owl that that he would need to begin chemotherapy immediately, and although this has been a long preface, what this tale is really about is the progression of the treatment to date. In fact, it’s about what the owl had to tell his group now, the day after his sixth infusion.
As I said, this owl had the most beautiful, shimmering feathers one could imagine. He was a preening, prideful owl, who loved to strut his stuff, perhaps a bit too much, but what can one say, every owl is different, and this owl loved his look. No mirror ever passed him by, and he always loved what he saw. On a sunny day in late July Oscar underwent his first chemo, and all went fine. After his appointment he flew to the shores of Lake Superior, slept by day, hunted by night, and enjoyed the healthful air and balmy/salubrious breezes of the summer air. Chemo number 1, you see, was not that bad. Oscar rode the night breezes, preened his proud feathers, and snoozed in the shade in blissful peace.
Number 2 was much the same, with the exception that his full-throated who-who was not what it once was, and his lustrous plumage was starting to loosen. Although he was told the effects were cumulative, he scoffed at the idea, knowing that he was different and that he would prove the exception to even the owl doctors’ wisdom. I mean, who, make that who-who, could know more. But Oscar was stubborn, prideful, obstinate and oblivious, undoubtedly the result his failure to de-mythologize his existence at an early age. Infusion number 4 served to contradict this disease of reckless romanticism by refusing to conform to Oscar’s expectations. During the second of the three-week treatments, Oscar’s temperature began to rise. His body began to shake, his bones began to ache, and the sweat poured from his feathers, drenching the straw below his perch and mightily worrying his fellow owls. After making it through a feverish night, Oscar reluctantly called his vet (please excuse my intermittent use of doc and vet) at which point he was ordered to the emergency room and given a 3 hour infusion of antibiotics. The throat was sore, the toes were numb, and the bones ached, but he decided if this was as bad as it got, no problem. Now one of his owlish problems from the beginning was his insistence on carrying on as if he wasn’t sick. Where other sick owls had pared down their activities to accommodate their infirmities, Oscar was adamant on living life as usual. Where he had always been the lead hunter as they tracked down mice and snakes, he saw no reason to change that now. If a guard was needed to alert the flock to hunters, Oscar was the Owl for the job. The trouble was, Oscar’s affliction was of a different mind than Oscar. As his beautiful feathers slowly fell out he could no longer escape the inevitable side effects of the medicine, nor could he give up his alpha-owlish qualities. He lost his speed, stamina and, perhaps most important for an owl, his shrewdness and never failing wisdom.
And so came the fourth chemo. With the exception of the numbness spreading from his wings tips to his talons, he had an easier time of it. True, it was painful for him to achieve his daily constitutionals, and the mangier and mangier look he was displaying were a blow to his owlish pride, the actual fact of a brief respite from the accumulating side-effects were a welcome relief. Number five was next. Make no mistake about it, Oscar was still intent on leading the parliament, while the spirit was willing, the flesh was weak. His throat constricted to the point that his mighty call went from an owlish pride to a dovish coo. His garbled sounds became unintelligible to the other birds and he tried to keep his larkish tears to himself. He could no longer hide the fact that he was a different bird, an ailing owl. He tried to avoid making droppings of any kind to avoid the burning and murmured sympathies of the other owls. Did I mention that Oscar lived in an owl town in southern Michigan by the name of Owl Arbor. Being a town of all owls, they would dress as such, wearing owl capes, owl knickers, and owl finery of every shape and size. One night, Oscar, preparing for an owl extravaganza, had a special velvet cape picked out especially for this grand event, but when he went to put it on his numbed talons made it such that he couldn’t button it. Oscar cried, and he knew that, yes, this was real. He was a different bird.
*********
Madness or genius? The most bizarre tests conducted in the name of scientific inquiry. (By Ian Sample, taken from the “Guardian Weekly” 09/11/07)
One Friday in August 1962, Warren Thomas, director of Lincoln Park Zoo in Oklahoma City, raised his rifle and took aim at Tusko the elephant. With a squeeze of the trigger he scored a direct hit on the animal’s rump, firing a cartridge full of the hallucinogenic drug LSD into the animal’s bloodstream. The dose was 3,000 times what a human might take for recreational purposes, and the results were extraordinary. Tusko charged around and trumpeted loudly for a few minutes before keeling over dead.
The case of Tusko the elephant is among 10 of the most bizarre experiments carried out in the quest for knowledge and reported in New Scientist magazine last week. If there is a fine line between madness and genius, many of those involved firmly crossed it.
In one experiment in the 1960s, 10 soldiers boarded an aircraft for what the believed was a routine training mission from Fort Hunter Liggett air base in California. After climbing to about 5,000 feet the plane suddenly lurched to one side and began to fall. Over the intercom, the pilot announced: “We have an emergency. An engine has stalled and the landing gear is not functioning. I’m going to attempt to ditch in the ocean.” While the soldiers faced almost certain death, a steward handed out insurance forms and asked the men to complete them, explaining it was necessary for the army to be covered if they died. Little did the soldiers know they were completely safe. It was an experiment to find out how extreme stress affects cognitive ability, the forms serving as the test. Once the final soldier had completed his form the pilot said: “Just kidding about that emergency folks!”
One of the most gruesome experiments to make New Scientist’s list was performed by the Soviet surgeon Vladimir Demikhov. In 1954 he unveiled a two-headed dog, created in the lab by grafting the head, shoulders and front legs of a puppy on to the neck of a German Shepherd dog. Journalists brought in to examine the creature noted how milk dribbled from the stump of the puppy’s head when it attempted to lap milk. Occasionally, the two would fight, with the German Shepherd trying to shake the puppy off, and the puppy retaliating by biting back. The unfortunate creation lived for six days.
Several attempts to unravel the mysteries of human behavior also make the list. Clarence Leuba, a psychologist from Yellow Springs, Ohio, set out to discover whether laughing when tickled was a learned or spontaneous reaction, and commandeered his newborn son and later daughter into the study.
Then there was Lawrence LeShan, a researcher from Virginia who in 1942 stood in a room of sleeping boys repeating “my fingernails taste terribly bitter” to see if it broke their nailbiting habit.
In another experiment, a doctor called Stubbins Firth from Philadelphia drank fresh vomit from yellow fever patients to prove it was not a contagious disease. He claimed to be right when he failed to become ill in 1804, but scientists have since shown yellow fever is extremely contagious, but has to be transmitted directly into the bloodstream.
A similarly flawed experiment by Robert Cornish at the University of California in the 1930s tried to bring dead animals back to life by tilting them up and down on a seesaw. The few that did stir back to life momentarily after death were severely brain damaged.
Predictably, sex also features. When investigating the sexual arousal of male turkeys, researchers at Penn State University were impressed to see that the birds would attempt to mate with lookalike dummies. Piece by piece they removed parts of the dummy and found that the males were still highly aroused when presented with a head on a stick.
November 7, 2007
Berbalangs
The little island of Cagayan Sulu lies at the southern end of the Philippine group. In the center of the island is a small village inhabited by a people called the Berbalangs. The Cagayans live in great fear of them. The Berbalangs are ghouls, and must eat flesh occasionally or they will die. They have a very distinctive look in that the pupils of their eyes are not round, but rather oval with narrow slits, like those of a cat. They dig up graves and eat the entrails of corpses; but in Cagayan the supply is limited, so when they feel the craving for a feed of human flesh they go away into the grass, and, having carefully hidden their bodies, hold their breath and fall into a trance. Their astral bodies are then liberated. They fly away, and entering a house make their way into the body of one of the occupants and feed on his entrails. The Berbalangs may be heard coming, as they make a moaning noise which is loud at a distance and dies away to a feeble moan as they approach. When they are near you the sound of their wings may be heard and the flashing lights of their eyes can be seen like dancing fire-flies in the dark. Should you be the happy possessor of a cocoa-nut pearl you are safe, but otherwise the only way to beat them off is to cut at them with a kris, the blade of which has been rubbed with the juice of a lime.
If you see the lights and hear the moaning in front of you, wheel suddenly round and make a cut in the opposite direction. Berbalangs always go by contraries and are never where they appear to be. The cocoa-nut pearl, a stone like an opal sometimes found in the cocoa-nut, is the only really efficacious charm against their attacks; and it is only of value to the finder, as its magic powers cease when it is given away. When the finder dies the pearl loses its luster and becomes dead.”
If you see the lights and hear the moaning in front of you, wheel suddenly round and make a cut in the opposite direction. Berbalangs always go by contraries and are never where they appear to be. The cocoa-nut pearl, a stone like an opal sometimes found in the cocoa-nut, is the only really efficacious charm against their attacks; and it is only of value to the finder, as its magic powers cease when it is given away. When the finder dies the pearl loses its luster and becomes dead.”
November 6, 2007
Stories From Camp Kitsch (cont.)
In the summer of 1991, a blistering hot season, Nicole Merryweather and Ward Stakel happened to be flying to Los Angeles on the same plane. They were neither friends, nor had they ever met, and so they had nothing to say to each other. They were, however, seated together, and while the 757 passed over the western prairies, over small heartland towns and bone dry red-dust fields, they sat in leather recliners, where the velvet headrests and temperature controlled seats made them oblivious to the choking drought below them.
It was that intensely un-seasonal heat that caused the downdraft that spilled Ward's martini on Nicole's lap. This spill in turn led to a discussion of who they were and where they had come from. They talked about growing up in Detroit, living in the shadow of monolithic steel and auto factories, experiencing the harsh winters and scorching summers of the upper mid-west: frigid, fierce winters when the world takes on an icy slick glare, when one is heavily swaddled in gortex and fur under iron gray skies, in the damp cold of southeast Michigan, in the brittle starkness of sub-zero sunlit days; stifling summers with occasional rain, when the grasses turn from green to orange and the pollinated particulate poisons the air. They agreed that a person who had not lived in the city could never understand the experience. In short, they felt a kind of geographical solidarity; they found that they lived close to one another. Out of this idle chit-chat Nicole learned that Stakel was a private investigator for Northwest Airlines, and was sometimes away from his office for weeks on end.
But this might never have occurred. Had Stakel's wife been with them, as she usually was on these trips, they would never have talked at length. Nicole would not have liked Stakel's wife. True, she was attractive, ambitious, and self assertive; but she was also gullible and remarkably lacking in enthusiasm--at least when it came to Stakel. Stakel's modest demeanor bothered his wife. Although she jealously tracked him in his work, she also found it worthwhile to entertain certain illusions about her artistic skills, financial status, and cultural sophistication. She played the patroness to questionable "artistes" of unlimited aspiration and mediocre ability. Thanks to a portfolio of stable utilities, Millicent, a name she insisted on in every situation, was financially self sufficient enough to keep her own apartment. It was on paper only that she retained the title of Mrs. Ward Stakel.
Fortunately, Stakel had a knack for remaining oblivious to factors beyond his control; a man who treated disappointment as one would a cold or a rash, as something viral and objective rather than as something experienced personally. His unflagging optimism and belief in moral rectitude suited him well for the role he would play in Nicole's story. Stakel's romantic character, tempered by his shrewd sense of humor made him uncannily successful in most of his endeavors. His abiding passion for justice was a moral compass that seemed to drive, as much as govern, his actions. An ironclad faith in the possibility of "Good" and "Right" shaped his identity in terms of character and action. He was a throwback of sorts. His singular gift was his ability to romanticize the experience of others while refusing to mythologize his own existence.
As the hours passed they opened up to one another in that wistful, blue stratosphere, Nicole turned to a lonely memory of her father’s death; a subject that touched upon issues that concerned Stakel most: matters of moral consequence and retribution, and of what happened to Nicole's father twenty long years before.
For a time, years in fact, Nicole had forgotten how to think about her father as a living breathing person; but in pouring out her story, in reconstructing his image in her memory, she exposed a filial bond, a blood covenant that had always been there. For whatever reasons, her mind was on him that cloudless day, in the air, above the earth. She resurrected her father's sense of care, and in doing so made Stakel see him as she saw him, which only further revived her deep affection for him. "I have kept a journal of what I remember about my father, and what I might attribute to him, things that might have been. The praise and blame I attach to my state in life lies heavy on ghostly shoulders; for better or for worse," she told him. "This diary is my strongest bower in my darkest hours." When Stakel expressed an interest in seeing the log, Nicole agreed that someday he should read it--if it were ever finished.
Upon landing, Stakel found the nearest concourse, ordered a double Glen Livet and decided it was best to leave the past alone. But he couldn't get Nicole's story out of his head. Three months later, after much soul searching, and constant pressure from his wife to forget about it, Stakel left a message on Merryweather's answering machine asking if he could help her discover the truth about what happened, if that was indeed possible.
Straining against the straps, Nicole reached out to her father, trying to pull his head out of the bloody water slowly pooling around his half-submerged face. She could almost touch him. Over and over she tried, even knowing that it was too late, he would never live again. Knowing what she could do no longer mattered. Not anymore. One last, futile surge freed her shoulder. Cradling his bloody face in her soft hands she gently sat him upright, allowing his head to roll back onto the headrest. Its crimson ice-mask cracked like an enormous oozing blister. His eyes went from marble to flame, an orange-yellow pus mist, sickly-sweet and hot, sprayed her face. His mouth, its broken teeth and black gums in death-yawn, produced a grayish brown tongue; which slowly protruded into a position to say something; but instead licked her eyes and nose. Blackish red clots of blood clung to her face in the wash of the obscene tongue. Nicole began to cry hysterically as she struggled with the door handle. "You're next, you cunting mother whore," the face in the car window howled. "Except first I'm going to fuck you, everywhere, and you don't want to fuck with me...ever..."
Nicole sat bolt upright, her face buried in the sanctuary of the soaked pillow. Nightmare tears and sweats were familiar to her. "...Daddy, you're drowning", she repeated, the reality trace of her excess dream trailing off in clumsy words. Shaking convulsively, she turned on her safe side in fetal security.
Nicole could feel the sweat cool to a goose chill as she prayed that this time the dream would be forgotten, knowing too that the next would seem as awful in its brand-new-way as the last one. At least she had not puked. This had happened only twice before, but it was something new, and she feared this awful symptom signaled the psychosomatic possibilities of her nightmare.
She stared at the naked 200 watt bulb as if it were a source of rescue from her lifelong torment: trying once again to understand the dream, and trying to forget it, to make it go away forever.
The scratch of the cat on the screen jolted her out of her meditative paranoia into full blown fright. She crept naked across the Pakistani runner to let the cat in--but nothing was there. She tried to go back to sleep, even knowing the dream always forecast a new bout of insomniac nights.
One week after this dream Nicole returned Stakel's call. "Ward Stakel," she said. Millicent answered.
"Is that Ms. Merryweather?" I've got a message here, from Ward Stakel."
"May I speak to him?"
"He's on another line right now, but he said that he's sorry, but he is no longer interested in your case. He’s very busy and has no time right now to take on any new commitments."
"Tell him I have to speak with him, it's urgent."
"I can't, I'm afraid he left explicit instructions that I not interrupt him. He was quite clear on this."
"Don't interrupt him! He called me."
"I'm sorry but those are his instructions."
"Please. I have to talk to him."
"Goodbye."
"Who was that," Stakel asked from his office as Millicent hung up.
"Oh, just another phone solicitor. They're so persistent. You've got to be firm with them. That's the secret. It's the only way to discourage them. They've got to be taught the perils of invading one's privacy," she said, putting down her fingernail file.
"Do they call often when you're here?"
"No, actually it's a recent thing," she said guardedly. The telephone rang again. Stakel waved her off. "It could be another salesman. I'd better answer it."
"I want to speak with private investigator Ward Stakel."
"Mr. Gray, Yes. I am in the process of having your deposition transcribed. Could we set up a time to go over it?"
"Stakel? Can you talk?"
"Of course. I've got all the relevant information at my Queen City office. Let's meet there. I understand. How about on the 22nd at 10 o'clock? Fine. I'll look forward to seeing you then. Goodbye."
"I'm surprised it wasn't another phone solicitor, Ward."
"I'm glad it wasn't. I've been interested in Gray's case for a while. He's being black-mailed by a former boyfriend who is threatening to expose his exotic sexual dalliances to his obsessively jealous wife. Are you enjoying your tea this afternoon, dear? Earl Gray, again."
It was that intensely un-seasonal heat that caused the downdraft that spilled Ward's martini on Nicole's lap. This spill in turn led to a discussion of who they were and where they had come from. They talked about growing up in Detroit, living in the shadow of monolithic steel and auto factories, experiencing the harsh winters and scorching summers of the upper mid-west: frigid, fierce winters when the world takes on an icy slick glare, when one is heavily swaddled in gortex and fur under iron gray skies, in the damp cold of southeast Michigan, in the brittle starkness of sub-zero sunlit days; stifling summers with occasional rain, when the grasses turn from green to orange and the pollinated particulate poisons the air. They agreed that a person who had not lived in the city could never understand the experience. In short, they felt a kind of geographical solidarity; they found that they lived close to one another. Out of this idle chit-chat Nicole learned that Stakel was a private investigator for Northwest Airlines, and was sometimes away from his office for weeks on end.
But this might never have occurred. Had Stakel's wife been with them, as she usually was on these trips, they would never have talked at length. Nicole would not have liked Stakel's wife. True, she was attractive, ambitious, and self assertive; but she was also gullible and remarkably lacking in enthusiasm--at least when it came to Stakel. Stakel's modest demeanor bothered his wife. Although she jealously tracked him in his work, she also found it worthwhile to entertain certain illusions about her artistic skills, financial status, and cultural sophistication. She played the patroness to questionable "artistes" of unlimited aspiration and mediocre ability. Thanks to a portfolio of stable utilities, Millicent, a name she insisted on in every situation, was financially self sufficient enough to keep her own apartment. It was on paper only that she retained the title of Mrs. Ward Stakel.
Fortunately, Stakel had a knack for remaining oblivious to factors beyond his control; a man who treated disappointment as one would a cold or a rash, as something viral and objective rather than as something experienced personally. His unflagging optimism and belief in moral rectitude suited him well for the role he would play in Nicole's story. Stakel's romantic character, tempered by his shrewd sense of humor made him uncannily successful in most of his endeavors. His abiding passion for justice was a moral compass that seemed to drive, as much as govern, his actions. An ironclad faith in the possibility of "Good" and "Right" shaped his identity in terms of character and action. He was a throwback of sorts. His singular gift was his ability to romanticize the experience of others while refusing to mythologize his own existence.
As the hours passed they opened up to one another in that wistful, blue stratosphere, Nicole turned to a lonely memory of her father’s death; a subject that touched upon issues that concerned Stakel most: matters of moral consequence and retribution, and of what happened to Nicole's father twenty long years before.
For a time, years in fact, Nicole had forgotten how to think about her father as a living breathing person; but in pouring out her story, in reconstructing his image in her memory, she exposed a filial bond, a blood covenant that had always been there. For whatever reasons, her mind was on him that cloudless day, in the air, above the earth. She resurrected her father's sense of care, and in doing so made Stakel see him as she saw him, which only further revived her deep affection for him. "I have kept a journal of what I remember about my father, and what I might attribute to him, things that might have been. The praise and blame I attach to my state in life lies heavy on ghostly shoulders; for better or for worse," she told him. "This diary is my strongest bower in my darkest hours." When Stakel expressed an interest in seeing the log, Nicole agreed that someday he should read it--if it were ever finished.
Upon landing, Stakel found the nearest concourse, ordered a double Glen Livet and decided it was best to leave the past alone. But he couldn't get Nicole's story out of his head. Three months later, after much soul searching, and constant pressure from his wife to forget about it, Stakel left a message on Merryweather's answering machine asking if he could help her discover the truth about what happened, if that was indeed possible.
Straining against the straps, Nicole reached out to her father, trying to pull his head out of the bloody water slowly pooling around his half-submerged face. She could almost touch him. Over and over she tried, even knowing that it was too late, he would never live again. Knowing what she could do no longer mattered. Not anymore. One last, futile surge freed her shoulder. Cradling his bloody face in her soft hands she gently sat him upright, allowing his head to roll back onto the headrest. Its crimson ice-mask cracked like an enormous oozing blister. His eyes went from marble to flame, an orange-yellow pus mist, sickly-sweet and hot, sprayed her face. His mouth, its broken teeth and black gums in death-yawn, produced a grayish brown tongue; which slowly protruded into a position to say something; but instead licked her eyes and nose. Blackish red clots of blood clung to her face in the wash of the obscene tongue. Nicole began to cry hysterically as she struggled with the door handle. "You're next, you cunting mother whore," the face in the car window howled. "Except first I'm going to fuck you, everywhere, and you don't want to fuck with me...ever..."
Nicole sat bolt upright, her face buried in the sanctuary of the soaked pillow. Nightmare tears and sweats were familiar to her. "...Daddy, you're drowning", she repeated, the reality trace of her excess dream trailing off in clumsy words. Shaking convulsively, she turned on her safe side in fetal security.
Nicole could feel the sweat cool to a goose chill as she prayed that this time the dream would be forgotten, knowing too that the next would seem as awful in its brand-new-way as the last one. At least she had not puked. This had happened only twice before, but it was something new, and she feared this awful symptom signaled the psychosomatic possibilities of her nightmare.
She stared at the naked 200 watt bulb as if it were a source of rescue from her lifelong torment: trying once again to understand the dream, and trying to forget it, to make it go away forever.
The scratch of the cat on the screen jolted her out of her meditative paranoia into full blown fright. She crept naked across the Pakistani runner to let the cat in--but nothing was there. She tried to go back to sleep, even knowing the dream always forecast a new bout of insomniac nights.
One week after this dream Nicole returned Stakel's call. "Ward Stakel," she said. Millicent answered.
"Is that Ms. Merryweather?" I've got a message here, from Ward Stakel."
"May I speak to him?"
"He's on another line right now, but he said that he's sorry, but he is no longer interested in your case. He’s very busy and has no time right now to take on any new commitments."
"Tell him I have to speak with him, it's urgent."
"I can't, I'm afraid he left explicit instructions that I not interrupt him. He was quite clear on this."
"Don't interrupt him! He called me."
"I'm sorry but those are his instructions."
"Please. I have to talk to him."
"Goodbye."
"Who was that," Stakel asked from his office as Millicent hung up.
"Oh, just another phone solicitor. They're so persistent. You've got to be firm with them. That's the secret. It's the only way to discourage them. They've got to be taught the perils of invading one's privacy," she said, putting down her fingernail file.
"Do they call often when you're here?"
"No, actually it's a recent thing," she said guardedly. The telephone rang again. Stakel waved her off. "It could be another salesman. I'd better answer it."
"I want to speak with private investigator Ward Stakel."
"Mr. Gray, Yes. I am in the process of having your deposition transcribed. Could we set up a time to go over it?"
"Stakel? Can you talk?"
"Of course. I've got all the relevant information at my Queen City office. Let's meet there. I understand. How about on the 22nd at 10 o'clock? Fine. I'll look forward to seeing you then. Goodbye."
"I'm surprised it wasn't another phone solicitor, Ward."
"I'm glad it wasn't. I've been interested in Gray's case for a while. He's being black-mailed by a former boyfriend who is threatening to expose his exotic sexual dalliances to his obsessively jealous wife. Are you enjoying your tea this afternoon, dear? Earl Gray, again."
November 5, 2007
Stories From Camp Kitsch (cont.)
Although it was hardly noticed at the time by reviewers, on July 18, 1990, a two-volume work was published in Milwaukee, the manuscript had been written in prison during the previous year and a half by Zeke Pluto. “Anarchies of Reason” and “Anxiety of Contentment” set out the Plutonic Signifier’s philosophy.
It was evident from a close reading of the work that Pluto had strong pretensions to entrenching a major religious movement, and that he considered the world as a whole to be in danger of forever corrupting itself. There were, he argued in the book, twin perils threatening the fabric of humanity: one was souless, and unchecked technological growth, the other, "rampant utilitarianism." It was his experience in foster care, the military, and the prison system, that had taught him the truth about the goal of the New World Order's conspiracy: to rid the world of "altruistic collectivism" by means of political coercion, ideological domination and spiritual corruption.
The rubric, New World Order," hitherto an umbrella term referring to the economically affluent nations defined as the First World, took on, in Pluto's theory, a new meaning, one that within a decade was to capture the minds of millions worldwide. For Pluto, "altruistic collectivism" was synonymous with "virtue." By contrast, "New World Order Conspiracy" was synonymous with "moral corruption." Pluto's appeal is to individual, Edenic innocence and vulnerability. Considering the "inherent invidiousness" of the New World Orders' ideological project, Pluto wrote, "how can the unfortunate victims be blamed?" The politics of the mass consumer culture conspiracy are such that its proponents are akin to precision automatons, instruments of "dialectical perfidy, their ideological apparatuses distortions of truth.” According to Pluto, “modern life itself is a calculated device, an epistemological and ontological trap. The bourgeois worker and global under-class are the victims, not the beneficiaries, of technological progress.”
In "Anxiety of Contentment" Pluto represented himself as a man who had experienced, and would forever resist, not only the depersonalization of progress but the destruction of the ethic of communal obligation, and, by extension, the integrity of life on earth. The threat, as he perceived it, concerned the degradation of moral self-autonomy, and an attempt to deliberately obliterate that integrity. He told his readers:
"The ideological functionary bides his time,insidiously categorizing, quantifying and appropriating the unsuspecting target's ontological center with his pernicious and pychosocial machinations, indoctrinating through a dogma of false consciousness and thus alienating the subject from the bosom of the natural world. The New world Order ideologue marshals every resource available to undermine the foundations of core selfhood. Systematically, he blurs the distinction between ego and machine, striving to sever the ties between self and language. Technology, misused, is responsible for weapons both inert and organic that present the most dangerous and immediate threat to mankind. Only through an unremitting and thorough rejection of technological meliorism can we avoid the apocalypse."
In “Anarchies of Reason” Pluto outlined his mission: he would expose and then annihilate the looming threat posed by the rise of technology. Pluto not only warned his readers of what he considered the imminent danger to mankind; he also explained his role in combating those dangers. His message was apocalyptic: "Should schizophrenic technology, aided by consumer ideology, triumph over being, Pluto wrote, "its inexorable movement will be the funeral march of mankind, and this planet will follow its orbit through the ether, without any human life on its surface, as it did millions of years ago. And so I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the unnamed and prime mover. In smiting down the technologies of materialism I am defending the Lord's creation."
By 1992, Zeke Pluto's attraction reflected his cult propagandists' political skill in creating a hero out of the common man. A glorification achieved by painting him as the innocent victim of a soulless society. Pluto did not impress all observers.
Theologically, Plato's dogma was predicated on those gaps that comprise the contradiction between faith and disbelief. His ministry was an attempt to reconcile this paradox. According to Pluto, yes, the Bible tells us that "God is our refuge and strength, / a very present help in trouble (Psalms 46:1), but it should also be understood that if you talk to God you are praying; if God talks to you, you have schizophrenia. It was upon this ambiguity, this theosophical schizophrenia that invariably mediated the God/believer paradigm, that Pluto established the core of his doctrine. Schizophrenia, in fact, came to define Pluto's ideas on how one should live. That the "New World Order," a post cold-war euphemism for the “Ancien Regime”, would associate this sensibility with silent minorities and the fanatic fringe is typical of pre-genocidal propaganda historically.
The left colored him as a racist ethnocentric while the right saw him as an immoral Jeremiah born of anarchistic revolutionary forces. So it was easy for conservative talking-heads, like Howie Boekrusch, and liberal byte-spinners, like McCarthy Magwitch, to condemn Pluto's ideas according to their self-tailored political agendas. In one famous tract, Boekrusch (pronounced Buckrush) compared Pluto's cult members to the Hutu minority, who, in Rwanda in 1994, butchered 800,000 of the Tutsi majority. The colonial construction of this bloody rift was never mentioned. In a similar fashion, Magwitch had excoriated Pluto on theoretical grounds, claiming that the totalitarian bent of his group should be less influenced by Stalin and Mao than Marx and Trotsky. The charge was that Pluto had abandoned all things socialistic and even democratic, applying violence as a means of internal allegiance in the same way that dictators resorted to terror as an instrument of domestic policy. Both views held some truth.
It was evident from a close reading of the work that Pluto had strong pretensions to entrenching a major religious movement, and that he considered the world as a whole to be in danger of forever corrupting itself. There were, he argued in the book, twin perils threatening the fabric of humanity: one was souless, and unchecked technological growth, the other, "rampant utilitarianism." It was his experience in foster care, the military, and the prison system, that had taught him the truth about the goal of the New World Order's conspiracy: to rid the world of "altruistic collectivism" by means of political coercion, ideological domination and spiritual corruption.
The rubric, New World Order," hitherto an umbrella term referring to the economically affluent nations defined as the First World, took on, in Pluto's theory, a new meaning, one that within a decade was to capture the minds of millions worldwide. For Pluto, "altruistic collectivism" was synonymous with "virtue." By contrast, "New World Order Conspiracy" was synonymous with "moral corruption." Pluto's appeal is to individual, Edenic innocence and vulnerability. Considering the "inherent invidiousness" of the New World Orders' ideological project, Pluto wrote, "how can the unfortunate victims be blamed?" The politics of the mass consumer culture conspiracy are such that its proponents are akin to precision automatons, instruments of "dialectical perfidy, their ideological apparatuses distortions of truth.” According to Pluto, “modern life itself is a calculated device, an epistemological and ontological trap. The bourgeois worker and global under-class are the victims, not the beneficiaries, of technological progress.”
In "Anxiety of Contentment" Pluto represented himself as a man who had experienced, and would forever resist, not only the depersonalization of progress but the destruction of the ethic of communal obligation, and, by extension, the integrity of life on earth. The threat, as he perceived it, concerned the degradation of moral self-autonomy, and an attempt to deliberately obliterate that integrity. He told his readers:
"The ideological functionary bides his time,insidiously categorizing, quantifying and appropriating the unsuspecting target's ontological center with his pernicious and pychosocial machinations, indoctrinating through a dogma of false consciousness and thus alienating the subject from the bosom of the natural world. The New world Order ideologue marshals every resource available to undermine the foundations of core selfhood. Systematically, he blurs the distinction between ego and machine, striving to sever the ties between self and language. Technology, misused, is responsible for weapons both inert and organic that present the most dangerous and immediate threat to mankind. Only through an unremitting and thorough rejection of technological meliorism can we avoid the apocalypse."
In “Anarchies of Reason” Pluto outlined his mission: he would expose and then annihilate the looming threat posed by the rise of technology. Pluto not only warned his readers of what he considered the imminent danger to mankind; he also explained his role in combating those dangers. His message was apocalyptic: "Should schizophrenic technology, aided by consumer ideology, triumph over being, Pluto wrote, "its inexorable movement will be the funeral march of mankind, and this planet will follow its orbit through the ether, without any human life on its surface, as it did millions of years ago. And so I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the unnamed and prime mover. In smiting down the technologies of materialism I am defending the Lord's creation."
By 1992, Zeke Pluto's attraction reflected his cult propagandists' political skill in creating a hero out of the common man. A glorification achieved by painting him as the innocent victim of a soulless society. Pluto did not impress all observers.
Theologically, Plato's dogma was predicated on those gaps that comprise the contradiction between faith and disbelief. His ministry was an attempt to reconcile this paradox. According to Pluto, yes, the Bible tells us that "God is our refuge and strength, / a very present help in trouble (Psalms 46:1), but it should also be understood that if you talk to God you are praying; if God talks to you, you have schizophrenia. It was upon this ambiguity, this theosophical schizophrenia that invariably mediated the God/believer paradigm, that Pluto established the core of his doctrine. Schizophrenia, in fact, came to define Pluto's ideas on how one should live. That the "New World Order," a post cold-war euphemism for the “Ancien Regime”, would associate this sensibility with silent minorities and the fanatic fringe is typical of pre-genocidal propaganda historically.
The left colored him as a racist ethnocentric while the right saw him as an immoral Jeremiah born of anarchistic revolutionary forces. So it was easy for conservative talking-heads, like Howie Boekrusch, and liberal byte-spinners, like McCarthy Magwitch, to condemn Pluto's ideas according to their self-tailored political agendas. In one famous tract, Boekrusch (pronounced Buckrush) compared Pluto's cult members to the Hutu minority, who, in Rwanda in 1994, butchered 800,000 of the Tutsi majority. The colonial construction of this bloody rift was never mentioned. In a similar fashion, Magwitch had excoriated Pluto on theoretical grounds, claiming that the totalitarian bent of his group should be less influenced by Stalin and Mao than Marx and Trotsky. The charge was that Pluto had abandoned all things socialistic and even democratic, applying violence as a means of internal allegiance in the same way that dictators resorted to terror as an instrument of domestic policy. Both views held some truth.
November 2, 2007
Toasted Snow
11/02/07
“The discontented child cries for toasted snow.”
-- Arab Proverb
It’s Friday. Sometimes you just don’t know what to write. In about 21/2 hours FUBAR plays Happy Hour. I’ve tried to come up with a list where I don’t have to sing.
Speaking of lists:
Ate a banana.
Stepped in dog shit.
Drank Yogi tea.
Listened to Jeff Beck.
Flossed.
Cleaned the kitchen light cover.
Read spreads for college football.
Listened to Ravi Shankar.
Picked college games.
Rinsed and gargled with salt and baking soda.
Talked to Brigitte on cell phone..
Practiced songs.
Put an apple (not a potato) in my pocket.
Pondered photo of Everglades.
Looked at the time.
4 o’clock
MEDICAL
NYT 11/02/07 2 Winning Drug Tests, One Expected and One a Surprise
An experimental drug from Vertex Pharmaceuticals helped cure more than 60 percent of patients with a tough-to-treat form of hepatitis C, according to data to be presented at a medical meeting that starts today. The results represented the highest cure rate yet reported for the condition—and the treatment was accomplished in half the usual time….Both developments will need to be followed up by larger trials. But the progree could be important for patients. At least three million Americans are thought to be infected with the hepatitis C virus, and the number of cases of liver cirrhosis and liver cancer caused by the virus is rising. The existing treatment—a combination of two drugs, alpha interferon and ribavirin—can cause debilitating side effects like flu-like symptoms, anemia and depression. The treatment for type 1 hepatitis C, the hard-to-treat form that accounts for 70% of the cases in the United States, takes nearly a year. Vertex’s pill, called telaprevir or VX-950, interferes with a viral enzyme. (See article for more) THE SURPISE: Romark Pharmaceuticals Alinika, also known as nitaoxanide, had previously been tested as a treatment for parasites. The drug's effectiveness against hepatitis C was discovered almost by accident. When tested as a treatment for parasites, the drug showed signs it was countering liver infection. (See article for more)
BIO-DRAMA
1954 was the year the Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in schools violated the 14th amendment of the Constitution. Roger Bannister would run the first 4 minute mile and Golding and Huxley would give us “Lord of the Flies” and “Doors of Perception.” In Africa, we lived in a house right outside Rabat. There was Mom, Dad, Nancy, myself, a brother Paul, and a new brother Peter. Our house was surrounded by lime orchards and watermelon fields. A Snapdragon garden separated it from the domicile of our Moroccan maid and gardener, Adoush and Abdul. According to the photos, and my mom, I spent most of the time in their company. What I hazily remember is a particular wedding feast I attended. The image is of a sheep being slaughtered. Ahmed, Abdul’s fisherman brother, is squeezing the bile out of its intestines. They would serve later as casings for mutton sausages. Ahmed once brought us an eel that dad cut up in the bathtub. Perhaps this explains my fondness for Unagi. We had a dog, King, that would viciously attack any and all strangers. Once, dad had to dress the wounds of a severely bitten local. I remember the victim’s howls of pain as dad poured rubbing alcohol on King’s fangwork. Although this was probably the most secure time of my life, the political situation was tense. Without checking, I assume we were witnessing the twilight of French colonialism. Technically it was French Morocco, but the de facto ruler was the Sultan, Ben Jousseff. I vividly recall being taken to a nearby railroad tracks to watch the King’s train pass by. Arab horsemen three abreast rode parallel with it and fired their guns into the air. Responding to the cadence of the shots we shouted in unison. “Hail! Ben Jousseff, Hail! Ben Jousseff.” I also see sunny Atlantic beaches, towheaded kid swimmers and flags that signaled shark conditions. I concur with the photos on these events.
“The discontented child cries for toasted snow.”
-- Arab Proverb
It’s Friday. Sometimes you just don’t know what to write. In about 21/2 hours FUBAR plays Happy Hour. I’ve tried to come up with a list where I don’t have to sing.
Speaking of lists:
Ate a banana.
Stepped in dog shit.
Drank Yogi tea.
Listened to Jeff Beck.
Flossed.
Cleaned the kitchen light cover.
Read spreads for college football.
Listened to Ravi Shankar.
Picked college games.
Rinsed and gargled with salt and baking soda.
Talked to Brigitte on cell phone..
Practiced songs.
Put an apple (not a potato) in my pocket.
Pondered photo of Everglades.
Looked at the time.
4 o’clock
MEDICAL
NYT 11/02/07 2 Winning Drug Tests, One Expected and One a Surprise
An experimental drug from Vertex Pharmaceuticals helped cure more than 60 percent of patients with a tough-to-treat form of hepatitis C, according to data to be presented at a medical meeting that starts today. The results represented the highest cure rate yet reported for the condition—and the treatment was accomplished in half the usual time….Both developments will need to be followed up by larger trials. But the progree could be important for patients. At least three million Americans are thought to be infected with the hepatitis C virus, and the number of cases of liver cirrhosis and liver cancer caused by the virus is rising. The existing treatment—a combination of two drugs, alpha interferon and ribavirin—can cause debilitating side effects like flu-like symptoms, anemia and depression. The treatment for type 1 hepatitis C, the hard-to-treat form that accounts for 70% of the cases in the United States, takes nearly a year. Vertex’s pill, called telaprevir or VX-950, interferes with a viral enzyme. (See article for more) THE SURPISE: Romark Pharmaceuticals Alinika, also known as nitaoxanide, had previously been tested as a treatment for parasites. The drug's effectiveness against hepatitis C was discovered almost by accident. When tested as a treatment for parasites, the drug showed signs it was countering liver infection. (See article for more)
BIO-DRAMA
1954 was the year the Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in schools violated the 14th amendment of the Constitution. Roger Bannister would run the first 4 minute mile and Golding and Huxley would give us “Lord of the Flies” and “Doors of Perception.” In Africa, we lived in a house right outside Rabat. There was Mom, Dad, Nancy, myself, a brother Paul, and a new brother Peter. Our house was surrounded by lime orchards and watermelon fields. A Snapdragon garden separated it from the domicile of our Moroccan maid and gardener, Adoush and Abdul. According to the photos, and my mom, I spent most of the time in their company. What I hazily remember is a particular wedding feast I attended. The image is of a sheep being slaughtered. Ahmed, Abdul’s fisherman brother, is squeezing the bile out of its intestines. They would serve later as casings for mutton sausages. Ahmed once brought us an eel that dad cut up in the bathtub. Perhaps this explains my fondness for Unagi. We had a dog, King, that would viciously attack any and all strangers. Once, dad had to dress the wounds of a severely bitten local. I remember the victim’s howls of pain as dad poured rubbing alcohol on King’s fangwork. Although this was probably the most secure time of my life, the political situation was tense. Without checking, I assume we were witnessing the twilight of French colonialism. Technically it was French Morocco, but the de facto ruler was the Sultan, Ben Jousseff. I vividly recall being taken to a nearby railroad tracks to watch the King’s train pass by. Arab horsemen three abreast rode parallel with it and fired their guns into the air. Responding to the cadence of the shots we shouted in unison. “Hail! Ben Jousseff, Hail! Ben Jousseff.” I also see sunny Atlantic beaches, towheaded kid swimmers and flags that signaled shark conditions. I concur with the photos on these events.
November 1, 2007
October 26, 2007
Politics
Praise the lord and pass the ammunition. How about the Westboro Baptist Church splinter fundamentalist group (we’re not in Kansas any more Toto) that picket the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq? Carrying signs like “God hates you,” and “Thank God For Dead Soldiers,” they believe God is killing our troops as punishment for America’s tolerance of homosexuality.
It’s Cormac McCarthy, Bonnie, and I’ve read that one. His stuff is heavy.
I found the recent news item about the sale of Che Guevara’s hair and death photos very sad.
Rudy Giuliani couldn’t say whether waterboarding was torture either. What say we strap Rudy to a board, cover his mouth with a cloth, and repeatedly pour water over the cloth until he gags and experiences a drowning sensation--trying to avoid the unfortunate possibility that he might drown or have a heart attack. Well Rudy, is that torture? John McCain had this comment regarding Guiliani’s ignorance on the subject: “All I can is that it was used in the Spanish Inquisition, it was used in Pol Pot’s genocide in Cambodia, and there are reports that it’s being used against Buddhist monks today.”
It’s Cormac McCarthy, Bonnie, and I’ve read that one. His stuff is heavy.
I found the recent news item about the sale of Che Guevara’s hair and death photos very sad.
Rudy Giuliani couldn’t say whether waterboarding was torture either. What say we strap Rudy to a board, cover his mouth with a cloth, and repeatedly pour water over the cloth until he gags and experiences a drowning sensation--trying to avoid the unfortunate possibility that he might drown or have a heart attack. Well Rudy, is that torture? John McCain had this comment regarding Guiliani’s ignorance on the subject: “All I can is that it was used in the Spanish Inquisition, it was used in Pol Pot’s genocide in Cambodia, and there are reports that it’s being used against Buddhist monks today.”
October 25, 2007
Prison Lit.
“All men should strive to learn before they die
What they are running from, and to, and why.”
James Thurber 1956
Bonnie Q., are you okay out there in the land of mudslide, fire and earthquake? You know how we worry.
Hi Maggie, and thanks for reading the blog.
Chemo thoughts on a windswept day:
The dread of death and the overwhelmingness of life, that tragic dichotomy of being we strive to ignore, to neatly compartmentalize, manifests itself most concurrently in that moment when one’s mortality is made concrete, the moment of diagnosis, the close of the real. The collision of mortal dread and life’s absurdity and fragility produces a chain of recognitions that are otherwise impossible, unthinkable, and unimaginable. Why, because abstraction is the balm of denial. It’s not me this is happening to, it’s that gaunt, bald woman crossing the street with her walker. And then it’s you with the swollen lymph glands and night sweats.
Letter to a loved one:
Dear Trainee Tessier:
I hope they’ve let you outside. It’s a beautiful day. Sumo is sitting in the sun on my bed as I write this. I had a couple of specific questions and some literary information I wanted to discuss. Specifically, what’s the food like? Where do they have you bunked and what friends have you made? What are the “trainers” like? When you say chop wood, do you mean with an axe? Is PT (physical training) a part of the regimen? Do you march? Do you sing as you march/run? What will they allow you to read, and do they have a library?
I wanted to tell you a bit about the literary genre of prison literature. Probably the earliest example is Plato’s 5th century B.C. description (The Crito) of Socrates’ last days in jail. His crime against the state was corrupting the city’s youth with his radical moral and political philosophies. His friends pleaded with him to escape, but always a man of his principles, he refused. For Socrates the only opinion that matters is not that of the majority, but rather that of the individual who seeks and knows the truth. The truth should always be the basis of human action. Wise counsel methinks, but sometimes hard to follow. In 524 A.D., Boethius, jailed by the Romans for heresy, wrote The Consolation of Philosophy. Following Socrates/Plato, Boethius believed that wisdom is worth nothing if it does not console. I would say, Sarah, that knowledge is not inherently good, nor does it make you a better person. What it does is foster an independence of mind that can lead to sounder judgments about the world around us. Many of Cervantes ideas for Don Quixote (1605) came from his experience as a galley slave between 1575 and 1580. Sir Walter Raleigh compiled his History of the World while in a prison chamber in the Tower of London. John Bunyan wrote Pilgrim’s Progress (1678) while in jail. Martin Luther translated the New Testament into German while incarcerated at Wartburg Castle.
Of more interest to you, I’m sure, would be some of the prison literature contemporary to the Twentieth Century. I think you would enjoy reading Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962), a short novel based on his own experience while imprisoned in the Soviet Gulags. The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1964), which you’ve probably read, is the story of a man, born Malcolm Little in 1925, the son of a Baptist preacher, who became a hustler, “uneducated, unskilled at anything honorable.” Jailed, where he learned to read and write by starting with the dictionary, he became a Black Muslim. He would later found the Organization of Afro-American Unity. In 1970 the letters of George Jackson, written from a prison cell would be published as Soledad Brother one year before his murder in prison. A good source for these kinds of texts is Angela Y. Davis’ 1971 collection of writings, If They Come in the Morning, by and about prisoners, including herself.
Enough of that. Your dear brother, Russell, is doing well. Did you know your presence on this earth has helped me today? You’ve given me a reason to do some research, take time to write, and provided a welcomed distraction from dwelling on my burning butthole (a side effect of the chemo). Thank you my dear daughter.
Love - Dad
What they are running from, and to, and why.”
James Thurber 1956
Bonnie Q., are you okay out there in the land of mudslide, fire and earthquake? You know how we worry.
Hi Maggie, and thanks for reading the blog.
Chemo thoughts on a windswept day:
The dread of death and the overwhelmingness of life, that tragic dichotomy of being we strive to ignore, to neatly compartmentalize, manifests itself most concurrently in that moment when one’s mortality is made concrete, the moment of diagnosis, the close of the real. The collision of mortal dread and life’s absurdity and fragility produces a chain of recognitions that are otherwise impossible, unthinkable, and unimaginable. Why, because abstraction is the balm of denial. It’s not me this is happening to, it’s that gaunt, bald woman crossing the street with her walker. And then it’s you with the swollen lymph glands and night sweats.
Letter to a loved one:
Dear Trainee Tessier:
I hope they’ve let you outside. It’s a beautiful day. Sumo is sitting in the sun on my bed as I write this. I had a couple of specific questions and some literary information I wanted to discuss. Specifically, what’s the food like? Where do they have you bunked and what friends have you made? What are the “trainers” like? When you say chop wood, do you mean with an axe? Is PT (physical training) a part of the regimen? Do you march? Do you sing as you march/run? What will they allow you to read, and do they have a library?
I wanted to tell you a bit about the literary genre of prison literature. Probably the earliest example is Plato’s 5th century B.C. description (The Crito) of Socrates’ last days in jail. His crime against the state was corrupting the city’s youth with his radical moral and political philosophies. His friends pleaded with him to escape, but always a man of his principles, he refused. For Socrates the only opinion that matters is not that of the majority, but rather that of the individual who seeks and knows the truth. The truth should always be the basis of human action. Wise counsel methinks, but sometimes hard to follow. In 524 A.D., Boethius, jailed by the Romans for heresy, wrote The Consolation of Philosophy. Following Socrates/Plato, Boethius believed that wisdom is worth nothing if it does not console. I would say, Sarah, that knowledge is not inherently good, nor does it make you a better person. What it does is foster an independence of mind that can lead to sounder judgments about the world around us. Many of Cervantes ideas for Don Quixote (1605) came from his experience as a galley slave between 1575 and 1580. Sir Walter Raleigh compiled his History of the World while in a prison chamber in the Tower of London. John Bunyan wrote Pilgrim’s Progress (1678) while in jail. Martin Luther translated the New Testament into German while incarcerated at Wartburg Castle.
Of more interest to you, I’m sure, would be some of the prison literature contemporary to the Twentieth Century. I think you would enjoy reading Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962), a short novel based on his own experience while imprisoned in the Soviet Gulags. The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1964), which you’ve probably read, is the story of a man, born Malcolm Little in 1925, the son of a Baptist preacher, who became a hustler, “uneducated, unskilled at anything honorable.” Jailed, where he learned to read and write by starting with the dictionary, he became a Black Muslim. He would later found the Organization of Afro-American Unity. In 1970 the letters of George Jackson, written from a prison cell would be published as Soledad Brother one year before his murder in prison. A good source for these kinds of texts is Angela Y. Davis’ 1971 collection of writings, If They Come in the Morning, by and about prisoners, including herself.
Enough of that. Your dear brother, Russell, is doing well. Did you know your presence on this earth has helped me today? You’ve given me a reason to do some research, take time to write, and provided a welcomed distraction from dwelling on my burning butthole (a side effect of the chemo). Thank you my dear daughter.
Love - Dad
October 24, 2007
Chemo #5
10/24/07
I had my 5th chemo yesterday, one to go. I’m listening to the Massey Hall 1971 live Neil Young disc. How beautiful. Yes, sometimes it is hard to make arrangements with yourself. His voice is in its prime, and the guitar is miked perfectly. Highly recommended.
I’m on steroids today. I suspect a chemical cartography of sorts might be applied to my blog. One might look back and trace those days upon which my energy was chemically induced, enhanced and inflected. If having cancer elicits heightened sympathies, enticements to rest and take it easy, well-meaning advice, and other such attitudes un-exhibited toward those in otherwise good health, there must also be, inevitably, should one have the good fortune to experience a remission, another chance, another day, another sunset, another enjoyable conversation, a time to put this kindly attention aside. After all, it’s probably important to be the first on your block to think of yourself as a survivor. Did you forget man? I’ve got cancer! I think it’s probably obvious to those of you who follow this as to when and when I’m not chemo geeked. Praise God!
I sent a letter to someone I love today. Here’s an excerpt:
Dear Sarah:
I suppose I should say, Trainee Sarah. The bird in the cage, the horse that never gets out of the barn, the un-walked dog on a short leash in a forgotten back yard, I suppose they could tell us how you feel. You’ve always been so good with animals that if anyone could know what they think, it would be you. Ashes’s pointy gray face seems to approve of Sumo’s new accessory, a hilarious pink collar someone put on him.
No politics today, Randy? First some sports. So tell me, my sporting pals, which Favre is going to show up next Monday, the gunslinger or the game manager? Don’t count out the Bears, you Blatz guzzling Yoopers, come Sunday they’re gonna be on the lions like a bad rash. Oh, are you still smarting from that IMPROBABLE cheese head collapse in the Pack/Bears last match up? Ouch. I won’t rub it in, although that was a very nice pass to Urlacher on your own 5, Brett.
No politics today, Randy? First, some more on music: Bonni Q., I think that Ronnie Hawkins really meant to say Bonni, rather than Suzie, when he wrote the song. I’m diggin the way kickin “Shake Ya Boogie,” a cool synthesis of jump 30’s jazz and hip hop, new age beats. The remake of “Bela Lugosi’s Dead,” (Bauhaus, I think, did the original), lugubriously chic. Really like “Slide Away,” nice voice, 60s pop alt-rock the way it should be. “Koop Island Blues,” is slightly reminiscent of Massive Attack’s stuff. “Kjiribah,” it sounds like Indonesian gamelan music, but I’m sure this is west African stuff, almost like Mbiras (thumb pianos). You’ll have to tell me more. I love the Pietra Brown cut, “Are You Free,” it has a brooding, slidy appeal. “Seven Angels on a Bicycle,” I like. The Cake cut, “Thrills,” is perhaps my favorite on this stellar compilation you’ve made. A, put “New Shoes’” right there with it. How many of you out there know that Tom Jones did a cover of “Black Betty,” how unusual!
Politically, what’s left to say? A lot, of course. Darfur, Iraq, Burma, the United States, lots of bad juju globally. Who cares? Not Americans. Besides what can you do when your representatives have neither the courage nor inclination to force a Democracy turned Plutocracy into upholding the principles that comprise its integrity. It’s really about the rich controlling the poor, not social equality for all versus the rule of the few. The latter would mean reducing the lining of the Democrats' as well as Republicans' pockets. While Bush once again appeals for money to fund the bloody carnage of a senseless cause, we scratch our heads about the cost of universal healthcare.
I had my 5th chemo yesterday, one to go. I’m listening to the Massey Hall 1971 live Neil Young disc. How beautiful. Yes, sometimes it is hard to make arrangements with yourself. His voice is in its prime, and the guitar is miked perfectly. Highly recommended.
I’m on steroids today. I suspect a chemical cartography of sorts might be applied to my blog. One might look back and trace those days upon which my energy was chemically induced, enhanced and inflected. If having cancer elicits heightened sympathies, enticements to rest and take it easy, well-meaning advice, and other such attitudes un-exhibited toward those in otherwise good health, there must also be, inevitably, should one have the good fortune to experience a remission, another chance, another day, another sunset, another enjoyable conversation, a time to put this kindly attention aside. After all, it’s probably important to be the first on your block to think of yourself as a survivor. Did you forget man? I’ve got cancer! I think it’s probably obvious to those of you who follow this as to when and when I’m not chemo geeked. Praise God!
I sent a letter to someone I love today. Here’s an excerpt:
Dear Sarah:
I suppose I should say, Trainee Sarah. The bird in the cage, the horse that never gets out of the barn, the un-walked dog on a short leash in a forgotten back yard, I suppose they could tell us how you feel. You’ve always been so good with animals that if anyone could know what they think, it would be you. Ashes’s pointy gray face seems to approve of Sumo’s new accessory, a hilarious pink collar someone put on him.
No politics today, Randy? First some sports. So tell me, my sporting pals, which Favre is going to show up next Monday, the gunslinger or the game manager? Don’t count out the Bears, you Blatz guzzling Yoopers, come Sunday they’re gonna be on the lions like a bad rash. Oh, are you still smarting from that IMPROBABLE cheese head collapse in the Pack/Bears last match up? Ouch. I won’t rub it in, although that was a very nice pass to Urlacher on your own 5, Brett.
No politics today, Randy? First, some more on music: Bonni Q., I think that Ronnie Hawkins really meant to say Bonni, rather than Suzie, when he wrote the song. I’m diggin the way kickin “Shake Ya Boogie,” a cool synthesis of jump 30’s jazz and hip hop, new age beats. The remake of “Bela Lugosi’s Dead,” (Bauhaus, I think, did the original), lugubriously chic. Really like “Slide Away,” nice voice, 60s pop alt-rock the way it should be. “Koop Island Blues,” is slightly reminiscent of Massive Attack’s stuff. “Kjiribah,” it sounds like Indonesian gamelan music, but I’m sure this is west African stuff, almost like Mbiras (thumb pianos). You’ll have to tell me more. I love the Pietra Brown cut, “Are You Free,” it has a brooding, slidy appeal. “Seven Angels on a Bicycle,” I like. The Cake cut, “Thrills,” is perhaps my favorite on this stellar compilation you’ve made. A, put “New Shoes’” right there with it. How many of you out there know that Tom Jones did a cover of “Black Betty,” how unusual!
Politically, what’s left to say? A lot, of course. Darfur, Iraq, Burma, the United States, lots of bad juju globally. Who cares? Not Americans. Besides what can you do when your representatives have neither the courage nor inclination to force a Democracy turned Plutocracy into upholding the principles that comprise its integrity. It’s really about the rich controlling the poor, not social equality for all versus the rule of the few. The latter would mean reducing the lining of the Democrats' as well as Republicans' pockets. While Bush once again appeals for money to fund the bloody carnage of a senseless cause, we scratch our heads about the cost of universal healthcare.
October 22, 2007
Waterboarding
To the Editor:
Re: “Mukasey displays independence an attorney general needs”
Catherine McClure’s editorial lauds President Bush’s nominee for attorney general as having that ”deciding factor” necessary to a fair and just appointment confirmation: “independence from the Bush administration.” Rhetorically, the reader is asked to agree with her conclusion that Michael Mukasey’s decisions are “thoughtful and ultimately compelling.” Why? Because “generally commentators have described” them this way. Notwithstanding her credentials as a seasoned lawyer (what is described as “ethos” in compositional studies), we also need some concrete evidence here, some “logos.” Some facts. Who are these “commentators?” If I’m to be persuaded, I need to know upon what or whose authority they draw. The only real evidence she cites is idle opinion, in this case, her own. Syntactically, it looks pretty on the page, but it says little. Effective writing, writing that persuades, requires critical thinking. This means having a carefully thought out argument backed by some credible outside sources. If she had named but one of the “political and legal pundits “ that have written “many columns” on Mukasey’s “suitability” we might begin to be convinced. Her conclusion, “All indications are that Michael Mukasey has the independence to provide credible leadership,” rings hollow in that the only “indications” she’s cites are her own general impressions.
McClure’s writing aside, I disagree with her thesis that Mukasey’s ideological stance is an indicator of his independence from the Bush White House. His testimony before the Senate reflects a political philosophy that sees executive power as having the capacity to super-cede the authority of Congressional controls. The implied peril in Mukasey’s on record quote, “I would certainly suggest that we go to Congress whenever we can” is that the unasked question (what about when we can’t?) threatens the system of checks and balances that lie at the very core of the Constitution. As attorney Herbert Shafer points out, “Absolute executive power leads, ineluctably, to tyranny. The notion that the executive can unilaterally ‘trump’ legislative enactments is anathema to the Constitution.”
What is perhaps most troubling about Mukasey’s nomination is his position on torture. Given that the Geneva Convention’s Common article 3 prohibits the humiliating and degrading treatment of prisoners, it is particularly disturbing that a justice familiar with interrogation techniques would be ignorant of waterboarding (a form of torture with a long pedigree). After Senator Sheldon Whitehouse described exactly how waterboarding works, Mukasey couldn’t be certain that Whitehouse’s description constituted torture. Like pornography, it shouldn’t take much of a moral compass to know what torture is! The very idea of framing the issue as a question of semantics is unconscionable. Gabor Rona, international legal director of Human Rights First, is right in suggesting that, “He seems to be leaving room for the argument made in the torture memos that the executive does have room to violate the Geneva Conventions.” Mukasey’s thoughts on the scope of executive power, and his willingness to consider the place of torture in a civilized society, are reasons enough to find another candidate for the next attorney general.
Based on my research in analyzing Ms. McClure’s argument, I would recommend that the Senate reject the Mukasey confirmation with all due haste.
Randall L. Tessier
Lecturer II, Comprehensive Studies Program
University of Michigan
Re: “Mukasey displays independence an attorney general needs”
Catherine McClure’s editorial lauds President Bush’s nominee for attorney general as having that ”deciding factor” necessary to a fair and just appointment confirmation: “independence from the Bush administration.” Rhetorically, the reader is asked to agree with her conclusion that Michael Mukasey’s decisions are “thoughtful and ultimately compelling.” Why? Because “generally commentators have described” them this way. Notwithstanding her credentials as a seasoned lawyer (what is described as “ethos” in compositional studies), we also need some concrete evidence here, some “logos.” Some facts. Who are these “commentators?” If I’m to be persuaded, I need to know upon what or whose authority they draw. The only real evidence she cites is idle opinion, in this case, her own. Syntactically, it looks pretty on the page, but it says little. Effective writing, writing that persuades, requires critical thinking. This means having a carefully thought out argument backed by some credible outside sources. If she had named but one of the “political and legal pundits “ that have written “many columns” on Mukasey’s “suitability” we might begin to be convinced. Her conclusion, “All indications are that Michael Mukasey has the independence to provide credible leadership,” rings hollow in that the only “indications” she’s cites are her own general impressions.
McClure’s writing aside, I disagree with her thesis that Mukasey’s ideological stance is an indicator of his independence from the Bush White House. His testimony before the Senate reflects a political philosophy that sees executive power as having the capacity to super-cede the authority of Congressional controls. The implied peril in Mukasey’s on record quote, “I would certainly suggest that we go to Congress whenever we can” is that the unasked question (what about when we can’t?) threatens the system of checks and balances that lie at the very core of the Constitution. As attorney Herbert Shafer points out, “Absolute executive power leads, ineluctably, to tyranny. The notion that the executive can unilaterally ‘trump’ legislative enactments is anathema to the Constitution.”
What is perhaps most troubling about Mukasey’s nomination is his position on torture. Given that the Geneva Convention’s Common article 3 prohibits the humiliating and degrading treatment of prisoners, it is particularly disturbing that a justice familiar with interrogation techniques would be ignorant of waterboarding (a form of torture with a long pedigree). After Senator Sheldon Whitehouse described exactly how waterboarding works, Mukasey couldn’t be certain that Whitehouse’s description constituted torture. Like pornography, it shouldn’t take much of a moral compass to know what torture is! The very idea of framing the issue as a question of semantics is unconscionable. Gabor Rona, international legal director of Human Rights First, is right in suggesting that, “He seems to be leaving room for the argument made in the torture memos that the executive does have room to violate the Geneva Conventions.” Mukasey’s thoughts on the scope of executive power, and his willingness to consider the place of torture in a civilized society, are reasons enough to find another candidate for the next attorney general.
Based on my research in analyzing Ms. McClure’s argument, I would recommend that the Senate reject the Mukasey confirmation with all due haste.
Randall L. Tessier
Lecturer II, Comprehensive Studies Program
University of Michigan
October 19, 2007
Ashes
My cat’s in trouble. She’s old and on her last legs. I’m so sad. Her name is "Ashes."
Les & R.J., please, communicate on my blog. Communication is good, especially when its context involves such old and valued friends.
Bonni, thank you so much for the gift packet. I just read the “Life Extension” piece, but I need more time to respond.
Les & R.J., please, communicate on my blog. Communication is good, especially when its context involves such old and valued friends.
Bonni, thank you so much for the gift packet. I just read the “Life Extension” piece, but I need more time to respond.
October 18, 2007
Dumbo Kickin in My Stall
When you single out Jazz etc. you, in a way, exclude the U.S. from the larger Western culture you seek to champion. I too think the breadth and scope of what western culture has achieved is unparalleled (you might have also mentioned Beethoven, Michaelangelo and Picasso). Ok, we’re great, does that give us the right to bomb the hell out of people. German’s invented Concentration Camps, doesn’t that count as a part of the Western legacy? Can you measure the difference between Yusef Lateef and Duke Ellington? Duke’s mark is greater, but what purpose does it serve to focus on the lesser/greater dichotomy. So Western Culture is superior to Islamic Culture, so what? They are horribly misogynistic, and we are inherently militaristic, whoopee yai yo tai eh! Praise God! That ain’t no mule kickin in your stall, Mitt. Tickle me Elmo.
R.J., your question. Notwithstanding the fact I would have to exit my social network (work/music/friends) yes, I could live in Spain, France, or Italy, and enjoy every minute of it. Much of the time soaking up that good old western culture we’re so proud of. Gimme another Da Vinci burger, and please, get in here and change my Mona Lisa shower curtains. When are these Frogs and Dagos gonna pick up on American hygiene?
R.J., your question. Notwithstanding the fact I would have to exit my social network (work/music/friends) yes, I could live in Spain, France, or Italy, and enjoy every minute of it. Much of the time soaking up that good old western culture we’re so proud of. Gimme another Da Vinci burger, and please, get in here and change my Mona Lisa shower curtains. When are these Frogs and Dagos gonna pick up on American hygiene?
October 17, 2007
CT ABDOMEN WO IV CONTRAST
MEDICAL
Name: Tessier, Randall Louis
Exam: CT Thorax WO IV CONTRAST, CHEST
Exam Date: 10/05/07
There has been marked decrease in the size of multiple enlarged lymph nodes which is quite striking.
Findings: Interval essentially complete resolution of intrathoracic lymph node enlargement that was previously quite extensive.
No lung nodules, and no other significant thoracic abnormality.
Impression: Virtually 100% regression of intrathoracic disease.
POLITICAL
A close friend of mine was curious to know what society (if indeed Western culture is as messed up as many people think), do I think is getting it right, or close to right. Sophisticated and bright as my esteemed colleague is, there’s no hiding his implied point that the western democratic model may not be perfect but it’s the best darned thing we’ve got going. Shane, come back!
Here’s the problem, most Americans assume without question that the Iraqi people want freedom and democracy. Here, I defer to the eloquence of Robin Fox, professor of social theory at Rutgers:
For a start, there are no ‘Iraqi People.’ The phrase is pure rhetoric. Iraq as a nation was devised by the compasses and protractors of Gertrude Bell when the British and French divided up the Middle East after World War 1. We know well enough the ethnic-religious division into Kurd, Sunni, and Shiite. But what is not understood is that Iraq, like other countries of the region, still stands at a level of social evolution where the family, clan, tribe, and sect command major allegiance, and the idea of the individual autonomous voter, necessary and commonplace in our systems, is totally foreign, and would not make sense to the ‘average Ahmed’.
R.J. the analogy that begs itself is the aesthetic comparison. Am I to look at the work of another artist, consider their negatives and positives, and then decide how to best assess your work? Certainly context matters, but, putting insane, cruel theocracies and murderous dictatorships aside, how should we judge our policies, on civil liberties, on torture, on military intervention? I would argue that many of my good friends, like Doc (Fubar Trumpeter), McGee, GB of Kingpins fame, and you, R.J., have been betrayed by someone who has gone against a proud tradition of just and equitable Republican political policies. Would Andrew Sullivan, William Safire, George Will, William F. Buckley and other important conservative thinkers really endorse what is happening in this country? Do you?
Today, Wednesday, October 17, 2007, I listened to Bush’s press conference. He talked about the Dalai Lama, but not a word about Darfur. I too like the Dalai Lama, but pretending to be egalitarian and socially concerned by cozying up to the Dalai Lama, while at the same time encouraging Congress to ignore the Turkish massacres of Armenians is like having your picture taken with Bono while waterboarding Larry Craig. Praise God and tickle me Elmo! Bush said the people were behind the policies he’s built into the bills he’ll consider passing. Excuse me? The people? Has anyone told the great decider that 70% of the public no longer supports him? What people?
Name: Tessier, Randall Louis
Exam: CT Thorax WO IV CONTRAST, CHEST
Exam Date: 10/05/07
There has been marked decrease in the size of multiple enlarged lymph nodes which is quite striking.
Findings: Interval essentially complete resolution of intrathoracic lymph node enlargement that was previously quite extensive.
No lung nodules, and no other significant thoracic abnormality.
Impression: Virtually 100% regression of intrathoracic disease.
POLITICAL
A close friend of mine was curious to know what society (if indeed Western culture is as messed up as many people think), do I think is getting it right, or close to right. Sophisticated and bright as my esteemed colleague is, there’s no hiding his implied point that the western democratic model may not be perfect but it’s the best darned thing we’ve got going. Shane, come back!
Here’s the problem, most Americans assume without question that the Iraqi people want freedom and democracy. Here, I defer to the eloquence of Robin Fox, professor of social theory at Rutgers:
For a start, there are no ‘Iraqi People.’ The phrase is pure rhetoric. Iraq as a nation was devised by the compasses and protractors of Gertrude Bell when the British and French divided up the Middle East after World War 1. We know well enough the ethnic-religious division into Kurd, Sunni, and Shiite. But what is not understood is that Iraq, like other countries of the region, still stands at a level of social evolution where the family, clan, tribe, and sect command major allegiance, and the idea of the individual autonomous voter, necessary and commonplace in our systems, is totally foreign, and would not make sense to the ‘average Ahmed’.
R.J. the analogy that begs itself is the aesthetic comparison. Am I to look at the work of another artist, consider their negatives and positives, and then decide how to best assess your work? Certainly context matters, but, putting insane, cruel theocracies and murderous dictatorships aside, how should we judge our policies, on civil liberties, on torture, on military intervention? I would argue that many of my good friends, like Doc (Fubar Trumpeter), McGee, GB of Kingpins fame, and you, R.J., have been betrayed by someone who has gone against a proud tradition of just and equitable Republican political policies. Would Andrew Sullivan, William Safire, George Will, William F. Buckley and other important conservative thinkers really endorse what is happening in this country? Do you?
Today, Wednesday, October 17, 2007, I listened to Bush’s press conference. He talked about the Dalai Lama, but not a word about Darfur. I too like the Dalai Lama, but pretending to be egalitarian and socially concerned by cozying up to the Dalai Lama, while at the same time encouraging Congress to ignore the Turkish massacres of Armenians is like having your picture taken with Bono while waterboarding Larry Craig. Praise God and tickle me Elmo! Bush said the people were behind the policies he’s built into the bills he’ll consider passing. Excuse me? The people? Has anyone told the great decider that 70% of the public no longer supports him? What people?
October 14, 2007
R.J., I'm feeling better.
10/10/07
I’m feeling much, much better than I have in a long, long time.
Hi everybody. I know I haven’t posted anything of late, but please don’t abandon my blog. Health-wise, things are going well. As many of my lymphoma colleagues know, during the 3 week cycle between treatments, the 2nd week is typically the most uncomfortable. Lo and behold, this time through has been the easiest (knock on wood). It may be that the 25% reduction in the chemicals was just enough to lessen the deleterious effects of the therapy. Who knows?
“In times such as ours there is a great pressure to come up with concepts that help men understand their dilemma; there is an urge toward vital ideas, toward a simplification of needless intellectual complexity. Sometimes this makes for big lies that resolve tensions and make it easy for action to move forward with just the rationalizations that people need.” Ernest Becker
No wonder people have been taking a look at Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death of late. In terms of his psychological thesis that “the idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else,” what better explanation is there for why the public would skip the “needless intellectual complexity” and swallow the “big lie.” “Vital ideas?” What is more vital than the belief that we Promethean, Western Sages were destined to bestow the gift of democratic fire, a precious spark that springs to life in Iraq and spreads through the Middle East, causing those backward cultures to see the error of their ways and embrace peace, justice, and the American Way. We’ve always known what’s best for women, so why shouldn’t we rescue them from their sexist and chauvinistic male oppressors. Shed your Burkas and put on your bikini’s, you too might be the next Brittney Spears. Praise God! Political “rationalizations” were certainly in full sway following 9/11. The evil ones’ have weapons of mass destruction; Sadaam and Osama are same sex deviants who, satanically inspired, conspired to destroy Western Culture, starting with those twin towers of peace, justice, and the American way, the World Trade Center; if we don’t stop terrorism in Baghdad, they’ll blow us up in Kenosha; the Crocodile hunter wasn’t really killed by a Sting Ray, he was the victim of a poisoning perpetrated by “Big Nuts” Ahmadinejad and his “meth-head” Sarazens. Ah, but that “resolution of tension,” doesn’t that make it all worth it? “Simplification” rules! Long live American Idol” We know who the “biggest loser” really is, and it sure makes life easy. And so, “action moves forward.” Kill, pillage, torture, we don’t care, as long as we all keep making money. Foreclosure crisis? Diminishing health care for the middle class? “I mean, people have access to health care in America,” said Mr. Bush in July, “After all, you just go to an emergency room.”
How dare the Saudi 11 stick a fork in an over-cooked myth: that America is an enlightened culture which epitomizes peace and justice; that it occupies a moral high ground on the bluffs of the city of God; and that it is intrinsically superior to
Other societies.
We wanted things “simple” after 9/11. Conceptually, “simplification” provides absolution from having to adopt an alternative perspective. Sympathetic imagination requires “intellectual complexity,” and how much easier it is to do away with this moral anguish when the enemy is demonized and cast as the Other. Heroism was abundant immediately following 9/11. To not wrap oneself in the flag was tantamount to treason. Here’s what Becker has to say on the heroic as an innate human trait: “In the more passive masses of mediocre men it is disguised as they humbly and complainingly follow out the roles that society provides for their heroics and try to earn their promotions within the system: wearing the standard uniforms—but allowing themselves to stick out, but ever so little and so safely, with a little ribbon or red boutonniere, but not with head and shoulders.” The fear of death (a universal in the human condition), which 9/11 rudely thrust into America’s collective consciousness, is what the World Trade Center came to signify an archetypal symbol. Hence the public as a whole donned the mantle of hero. As President Bush told us immediately after 9/11, go out and shop, be a hero. Rather than address the complex issue of why other cultures might hate America, weave a web of illusion: we’re under threat, they envy our freedoms, they hate our freedoms, they’re non-Christian. Little wonder than that a speech given by Robert Fisk in 2002, then Britain’s foremost Middle East correspondent, was ominously titled, “September 11: ask who did it, but for heaven’s sake don’t ask why.” The guiding strategy of the New Regime has been to bring down a “curtain of fantasy,” as Jose Ortega Y Gasset describes it, which obscures the painful truth of what actually happened. Regarding this worldview, Gasset writes, “It does not worry him that his ‘ideas’ are not true, he uses them as trenches for the defense of his existence, as scarecrows to frighten away reality.”
We wrestle with our heroic strivings: “We disguise our struggle by piling up figures in a bank book to reflect privately our sense of heroic worth. Or by having only a little better home in the neighborhood, a bigger car, brighter children.”
Albert Camus was always suspicious of his fellow liberals zeal for ideological driven/justified violence as and abstraction/at a distance: “Mistaken ideas always end in bloodshed, but in every case it is someone else’s blood. That is why some of our thinkers feel free to say just about anything.” (Quoted from NYT 10/07/07)
“But it also makes for the slow disengagement of truths that help men get a grip on what is happening to them, that tell them where the problems really are.” Ernest Becker
“It is one of the meaner aspects of narcissism that we feel that practically everyone is expendable except ourselves….Our organism is ready to fill the world all alone, even if our mind shrinks at the thought. This narcissism is what keeps men marching into point-blank fire in wars: at heart one doesn’t feel that he will die, he only feels sorry for the man next to him.” Ernest Becker
The western myth is central to the American consciousness. Shane, come back.
Blackwater cowboys, ain’t they grand! So…heroic.
Bush, like all film cowboys (that is to say dime-store cowboys), must violently annihilate the evil (given its intractable nature it can only be eradicated). Only through violent redemption can social progress and the advance of civilization be secured. Defender, vindicator, savior, that’s your garden-variety western hero. Screw the Redskin, Gook, or hummos eater that gets in the way. Road-kill like you require nether respect or regret, your evil forfeits the benefit of human worth.
I’m feeling much, much better than I have in a long, long time.
Hi everybody. I know I haven’t posted anything of late, but please don’t abandon my blog. Health-wise, things are going well. As many of my lymphoma colleagues know, during the 3 week cycle between treatments, the 2nd week is typically the most uncomfortable. Lo and behold, this time through has been the easiest (knock on wood). It may be that the 25% reduction in the chemicals was just enough to lessen the deleterious effects of the therapy. Who knows?
“In times such as ours there is a great pressure to come up with concepts that help men understand their dilemma; there is an urge toward vital ideas, toward a simplification of needless intellectual complexity. Sometimes this makes for big lies that resolve tensions and make it easy for action to move forward with just the rationalizations that people need.” Ernest Becker
No wonder people have been taking a look at Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death of late. In terms of his psychological thesis that “the idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else,” what better explanation is there for why the public would skip the “needless intellectual complexity” and swallow the “big lie.” “Vital ideas?” What is more vital than the belief that we Promethean, Western Sages were destined to bestow the gift of democratic fire, a precious spark that springs to life in Iraq and spreads through the Middle East, causing those backward cultures to see the error of their ways and embrace peace, justice, and the American Way. We’ve always known what’s best for women, so why shouldn’t we rescue them from their sexist and chauvinistic male oppressors. Shed your Burkas and put on your bikini’s, you too might be the next Brittney Spears. Praise God! Political “rationalizations” were certainly in full sway following 9/11. The evil ones’ have weapons of mass destruction; Sadaam and Osama are same sex deviants who, satanically inspired, conspired to destroy Western Culture, starting with those twin towers of peace, justice, and the American way, the World Trade Center; if we don’t stop terrorism in Baghdad, they’ll blow us up in Kenosha; the Crocodile hunter wasn’t really killed by a Sting Ray, he was the victim of a poisoning perpetrated by “Big Nuts” Ahmadinejad and his “meth-head” Sarazens. Ah, but that “resolution of tension,” doesn’t that make it all worth it? “Simplification” rules! Long live American Idol” We know who the “biggest loser” really is, and it sure makes life easy. And so, “action moves forward.” Kill, pillage, torture, we don’t care, as long as we all keep making money. Foreclosure crisis? Diminishing health care for the middle class? “I mean, people have access to health care in America,” said Mr. Bush in July, “After all, you just go to an emergency room.”
How dare the Saudi 11 stick a fork in an over-cooked myth: that America is an enlightened culture which epitomizes peace and justice; that it occupies a moral high ground on the bluffs of the city of God; and that it is intrinsically superior to
Other societies.
We wanted things “simple” after 9/11. Conceptually, “simplification” provides absolution from having to adopt an alternative perspective. Sympathetic imagination requires “intellectual complexity,” and how much easier it is to do away with this moral anguish when the enemy is demonized and cast as the Other. Heroism was abundant immediately following 9/11. To not wrap oneself in the flag was tantamount to treason. Here’s what Becker has to say on the heroic as an innate human trait: “In the more passive masses of mediocre men it is disguised as they humbly and complainingly follow out the roles that society provides for their heroics and try to earn their promotions within the system: wearing the standard uniforms—but allowing themselves to stick out, but ever so little and so safely, with a little ribbon or red boutonniere, but not with head and shoulders.” The fear of death (a universal in the human condition), which 9/11 rudely thrust into America’s collective consciousness, is what the World Trade Center came to signify an archetypal symbol. Hence the public as a whole donned the mantle of hero. As President Bush told us immediately after 9/11, go out and shop, be a hero. Rather than address the complex issue of why other cultures might hate America, weave a web of illusion: we’re under threat, they envy our freedoms, they hate our freedoms, they’re non-Christian. Little wonder than that a speech given by Robert Fisk in 2002, then Britain’s foremost Middle East correspondent, was ominously titled, “September 11: ask who did it, but for heaven’s sake don’t ask why.” The guiding strategy of the New Regime has been to bring down a “curtain of fantasy,” as Jose Ortega Y Gasset describes it, which obscures the painful truth of what actually happened. Regarding this worldview, Gasset writes, “It does not worry him that his ‘ideas’ are not true, he uses them as trenches for the defense of his existence, as scarecrows to frighten away reality.”
We wrestle with our heroic strivings: “We disguise our struggle by piling up figures in a bank book to reflect privately our sense of heroic worth. Or by having only a little better home in the neighborhood, a bigger car, brighter children.”
Albert Camus was always suspicious of his fellow liberals zeal for ideological driven/justified violence as and abstraction/at a distance: “Mistaken ideas always end in bloodshed, but in every case it is someone else’s blood. That is why some of our thinkers feel free to say just about anything.” (Quoted from NYT 10/07/07)
“But it also makes for the slow disengagement of truths that help men get a grip on what is happening to them, that tell them where the problems really are.” Ernest Becker
“It is one of the meaner aspects of narcissism that we feel that practically everyone is expendable except ourselves….Our organism is ready to fill the world all alone, even if our mind shrinks at the thought. This narcissism is what keeps men marching into point-blank fire in wars: at heart one doesn’t feel that he will die, he only feels sorry for the man next to him.” Ernest Becker
The western myth is central to the American consciousness. Shane, come back.
Blackwater cowboys, ain’t they grand! So…heroic.
Bush, like all film cowboys (that is to say dime-store cowboys), must violently annihilate the evil (given its intractable nature it can only be eradicated). Only through violent redemption can social progress and the advance of civilization be secured. Defender, vindicator, savior, that’s your garden-variety western hero. Screw the Redskin, Gook, or hummos eater that gets in the way. Road-kill like you require nether respect or regret, your evil forfeits the benefit of human worth.
October 4, 2007
nam prik pao
10/04/07
“Valor lies just half way between rashness and cowheartedness.” Cervantes, Don Quixote, 1605-15
The chemo, the steroids, the coffee, the smoke…
Regarding my dog and cats, it doesn’t say anything about smoking pet hair in my chemo handbook. Did I mention that I no longer have to apply Rogaine to my balls. In biology we learn that the simplest animals, like worms and analids, are fundamentally comprised of a mouth and anus. In humans, these are areas where sensitive mucous membranes are constantly replenished by fast growing cells. Yes, I have a sore throat, tongue and butthole. What I aim to avoid is the kind of nam prik pao, a Thai chili paste, recently served up in a London restaurant: “A Thai restaurant cooking up a big pot of bird’s eye chili brought road closures and evacuations in the Soho area of London after passersby complained that a noxious chemical was burning their throats and the London Fire Brigade sent a chemical response team….Smashing down the door of the suspected source—the restaurant—they emerged carrying a pot containing about nine pounds of chilies that had been left roasting.” Speaking of burning buttholes, when I looked up the spelling for “analid” (of which there was none) I came across the word “anilingus,” you guessed it: n. Oral stimulation of the anus. [Lat. anus, anus + Lat. lingere, to lick.]
While contemplating my black, tarry stool (in the film, The Madness of King George, as you may recall, the royal physicians observed the stool for signs of ill health) I couldn’t help but reflect on the Blackwater USA horror. As Nietzsche famously said, “If you gaze for long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.”
How sad, how tragic, how unconscionable, how utterly outrageous: “’My son was very gentle, very clever,’ Mr Ahmed said, where he had come to provide details after the murder of his wife and son by Blackwater USA forces. ‘He was easy to be around. He planned to be a surgeon.’ ‘She is a beautiful women,” he said of his wife, speaking as if she were still alive (NYT 10/04/07).’” Imagine driving down the Big Bay road and randomly shooting at folks along the way. Wow! We’re talking about armed contractors, hired soldiers, who indiscriminately fire at Iraqi civilians. Aegis, another contractor posted a “trophy video” in 2006 that graphically depicted the murder of innocent civilians. Several employees of yet another contractor, Triple Canopy, have been fired for the “joy-ride shooting” of, you guessed it, unarmed Iraqi citizens. There’s no denying the fact that these are hired mercenaries making big money. Given that Blackwater’s owner is Erik Prince, a Michigan man strongly influenced by Evangelical and Neo-Conservative ideology, there may be some truth to Maureen Dowd’s contention that Ike’s warning of a military-industrial complex might now be considered as the threat of a mercenary-evangelical complex. Speaking of princes, as that most esteemed of political sages, and one that both liberals and conservatives find truth in, Niccolo Machiavelli, warned over 400 years ago, hired mercenaries are “useless and dangerous.” It’s also worth noting that Americans (we who fund these armed contractors) have long been anti-mercenary. It may be that the 30,000 German Hessians the British hired to kill Americans, specifically old greenback George himself, left a bad taste in our mouths.
One of the more disturbing statistics I’ve noticed of late is the rise in age of our soldiers killed in action in Iraq. Age wise, there are more and more upper 30s and lower 40s names showing up in this sad statistic. This undoubtedly has to do with just how thin we are in terms of our armed forces. Given that we’ve increased the age at which one can join the fight against the terrorists, perhaps it’s time that our most courageous patriot, the esteemed Rush Limbaugh, step up and take the place of those “phony soldiers,” (you know, they who have actually fought in Iraq and, having seen what they’ve seen, object to the war). How lucky we are that his wisdom is coming to the fore now that his oxy-adled brain has returned to normal; that his formerly nicotine stained fingers are taking calls from REAL Americans; that he’s renounced his illegally hired dope-peddling servants; that he’s saving us from lezboes, feminazis, and homos trying to sap our body politic of its vital nationalistic juices, that he’s preserving the quality of the traditional family; and that he’s so handsome with his new hair and physique. Praise God! Praise him again! Land o’ Goshen, we need more like him.
“Valor lies just half way between rashness and cowheartedness.” Cervantes, Don Quixote, 1605-15
The chemo, the steroids, the coffee, the smoke…
Regarding my dog and cats, it doesn’t say anything about smoking pet hair in my chemo handbook. Did I mention that I no longer have to apply Rogaine to my balls. In biology we learn that the simplest animals, like worms and analids, are fundamentally comprised of a mouth and anus. In humans, these are areas where sensitive mucous membranes are constantly replenished by fast growing cells. Yes, I have a sore throat, tongue and butthole. What I aim to avoid is the kind of nam prik pao, a Thai chili paste, recently served up in a London restaurant: “A Thai restaurant cooking up a big pot of bird’s eye chili brought road closures and evacuations in the Soho area of London after passersby complained that a noxious chemical was burning their throats and the London Fire Brigade sent a chemical response team….Smashing down the door of the suspected source—the restaurant—they emerged carrying a pot containing about nine pounds of chilies that had been left roasting.” Speaking of burning buttholes, when I looked up the spelling for “analid” (of which there was none) I came across the word “anilingus,” you guessed it: n. Oral stimulation of the anus. [Lat. anus, anus + Lat. lingere, to lick.]
While contemplating my black, tarry stool (in the film, The Madness of King George, as you may recall, the royal physicians observed the stool for signs of ill health) I couldn’t help but reflect on the Blackwater USA horror. As Nietzsche famously said, “If you gaze for long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.”
How sad, how tragic, how unconscionable, how utterly outrageous: “’My son was very gentle, very clever,’ Mr Ahmed said, where he had come to provide details after the murder of his wife and son by Blackwater USA forces. ‘He was easy to be around. He planned to be a surgeon.’ ‘She is a beautiful women,” he said of his wife, speaking as if she were still alive (NYT 10/04/07).’” Imagine driving down the Big Bay road and randomly shooting at folks along the way. Wow! We’re talking about armed contractors, hired soldiers, who indiscriminately fire at Iraqi civilians. Aegis, another contractor posted a “trophy video” in 2006 that graphically depicted the murder of innocent civilians. Several employees of yet another contractor, Triple Canopy, have been fired for the “joy-ride shooting” of, you guessed it, unarmed Iraqi citizens. There’s no denying the fact that these are hired mercenaries making big money. Given that Blackwater’s owner is Erik Prince, a Michigan man strongly influenced by Evangelical and Neo-Conservative ideology, there may be some truth to Maureen Dowd’s contention that Ike’s warning of a military-industrial complex might now be considered as the threat of a mercenary-evangelical complex. Speaking of princes, as that most esteemed of political sages, and one that both liberals and conservatives find truth in, Niccolo Machiavelli, warned over 400 years ago, hired mercenaries are “useless and dangerous.” It’s also worth noting that Americans (we who fund these armed contractors) have long been anti-mercenary. It may be that the 30,000 German Hessians the British hired to kill Americans, specifically old greenback George himself, left a bad taste in our mouths.
One of the more disturbing statistics I’ve noticed of late is the rise in age of our soldiers killed in action in Iraq. Age wise, there are more and more upper 30s and lower 40s names showing up in this sad statistic. This undoubtedly has to do with just how thin we are in terms of our armed forces. Given that we’ve increased the age at which one can join the fight against the terrorists, perhaps it’s time that our most courageous patriot, the esteemed Rush Limbaugh, step up and take the place of those “phony soldiers,” (you know, they who have actually fought in Iraq and, having seen what they’ve seen, object to the war). How lucky we are that his wisdom is coming to the fore now that his oxy-adled brain has returned to normal; that his formerly nicotine stained fingers are taking calls from REAL Americans; that he’s renounced his illegally hired dope-peddling servants; that he’s saving us from lezboes, feminazis, and homos trying to sap our body politic of its vital nationalistic juices, that he’s preserving the quality of the traditional family; and that he’s so handsome with his new hair and physique. Praise God! Praise him again! Land o’ Goshen, we need more like him.
October 3, 2007
Bill DeBroux
10/03/07
I want to send a big shout out to some cool people I know.
Mr. Billy DeBroux, are you cool or what. I had always thought that I was the worst delinquent to ever grace (nice pun) the halls of St. John’s school. I think you’ve topped me lad. Saying fuck you to Sister Ruthless Marie, wow, cool dude. Now that I think back, those looked like man breasts on the old cow. Who could tell with those get ups they wore? Gee, I wonder why I don’t buy Bush’s idea that a Western Christian moral ethic is best for the world. How smart you are, my son. Would that the rest of the Walrus had your intellectual or rhetorical skills we wouldn’t have these no brainer discussions every year. Between Bill and Mike’s gigs at Mt. Shasta and neighborhood barbecues it must be difficult for them to decide whether Up Front & Co. and a packed house of adoring geriatrics is worth it. Bill, you write well, are an astute music critic, and, above all else, a good guy. Love & Peace – Randy
Mr. Steve Desjardins, thank you for being you! The devil…..errr…God, broke the mold after he/she beamed you down. A scholar, a man of the world, and a good father, husband and friend, other than that, you’re about average. Given your excellent elementary education (see above on DeBroux) it’s no wonder that you’re a star at U-M.
Dear R.J.: Talented, super intelligent artist, painter, illustrator, musician, and on and on. I hope that all who see the link to your blog make a visit. In terms of broadening their spiritual and intellectual horizons they owe it to themselves. Love - Randy
Bonnie, I’m so pleased to hear you got the music stuff. FUBAR is currently working on a new disc. Peace to you and yours - Randy
I want to send a big shout out to some cool people I know.
Mr. Billy DeBroux, are you cool or what. I had always thought that I was the worst delinquent to ever grace (nice pun) the halls of St. John’s school. I think you’ve topped me lad. Saying fuck you to Sister Ruthless Marie, wow, cool dude. Now that I think back, those looked like man breasts on the old cow. Who could tell with those get ups they wore? Gee, I wonder why I don’t buy Bush’s idea that a Western Christian moral ethic is best for the world. How smart you are, my son. Would that the rest of the Walrus had your intellectual or rhetorical skills we wouldn’t have these no brainer discussions every year. Between Bill and Mike’s gigs at Mt. Shasta and neighborhood barbecues it must be difficult for them to decide whether Up Front & Co. and a packed house of adoring geriatrics is worth it. Bill, you write well, are an astute music critic, and, above all else, a good guy. Love & Peace – Randy
Mr. Steve Desjardins, thank you for being you! The devil…..errr…God, broke the mold after he/she beamed you down. A scholar, a man of the world, and a good father, husband and friend, other than that, you’re about average. Given your excellent elementary education (see above on DeBroux) it’s no wonder that you’re a star at U-M.
Dear R.J.: Talented, super intelligent artist, painter, illustrator, musician, and on and on. I hope that all who see the link to your blog make a visit. In terms of broadening their spiritual and intellectual horizons they owe it to themselves. Love - Randy
Bonnie, I’m so pleased to hear you got the music stuff. FUBAR is currently working on a new disc. Peace to you and yours - Randy
September 30, 2007
Sports
9/30/07
“Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard for all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting.”
-- George Orwell
-- The Sporting Spirit, 1945
Hello. I’m in my own voice today. I guess you could say it’s me, live. The self, historic, heroic, histrionic, hysteric tales I’ve been telling are 9 year old transcriptions of events from 36 years ago. The chemo is moving along. Tuesday I get #4. Because of liver complications, my doctor has decided to reduce the dosage. While the main dude, Kaminski, feels I can take it, my doc, Ahmed, wants to proceed on the side of caution. I trust her judgment here. Life is in a different mode. Since I’m not working, it’s like a weird vacation. Sure, reading, writing, and guitar playing is fun, but sometimes it just feels weird. Funny, but there are just some things I can’t say here. Remind me to write these thoughts later.
5 minutes from now the Lions and the Bears play. To say I like football is an understatement. I hope this doesn’t disappoint you who have mistaken me for an intellectual sophisticate, as I know so many of you have. I’m torn. Should I exit and watch T.V.? Wait a minute! I’ve got a radio in here. Yahoo. As it turns out, the radio constantly reviews scores around the league, while the telly is all Lions/Bears.
I just stepped in cat puke. Speaking of cat puke, how about the state of American politics these days. What a joke. I’ll tell you one thing beyond the ken of most Americans: the idea of holding our bowls upside down as a form of protest. This is what the monks in Myanmar are doing. We like our bowls heaping, and we don’t care whose is empty.
Halftime.
It’s autumn. I like the Fall save for what it portends. How about winter comes every 2 years and the climactic nature of spring and fall reverses itself every other year. Of course, of late there really hasn’t been much of a winter. My friend, Dave Clark, scholar and snowplow driver, has been hit hard by the lack of snow; as has the Upper Peninsula, which, in places like Big Bay, mightily depends on snowmobiling and other winter sports. We know it can’t be global warming. I mean, let’s not confuse a scientifically documented, physical phenomenon, with a liberal political mirage.
“Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard for all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting.”
-- George Orwell
-- The Sporting Spirit, 1945
Hello. I’m in my own voice today. I guess you could say it’s me, live. The self, historic, heroic, histrionic, hysteric tales I’ve been telling are 9 year old transcriptions of events from 36 years ago. The chemo is moving along. Tuesday I get #4. Because of liver complications, my doctor has decided to reduce the dosage. While the main dude, Kaminski, feels I can take it, my doc, Ahmed, wants to proceed on the side of caution. I trust her judgment here. Life is in a different mode. Since I’m not working, it’s like a weird vacation. Sure, reading, writing, and guitar playing is fun, but sometimes it just feels weird. Funny, but there are just some things I can’t say here. Remind me to write these thoughts later.
5 minutes from now the Lions and the Bears play. To say I like football is an understatement. I hope this doesn’t disappoint you who have mistaken me for an intellectual sophisticate, as I know so many of you have. I’m torn. Should I exit and watch T.V.? Wait a minute! I’ve got a radio in here. Yahoo. As it turns out, the radio constantly reviews scores around the league, while the telly is all Lions/Bears.
I just stepped in cat puke. Speaking of cat puke, how about the state of American politics these days. What a joke. I’ll tell you one thing beyond the ken of most Americans: the idea of holding our bowls upside down as a form of protest. This is what the monks in Myanmar are doing. We like our bowls heaping, and we don’t care whose is empty.
Halftime.
It’s autumn. I like the Fall save for what it portends. How about winter comes every 2 years and the climactic nature of spring and fall reverses itself every other year. Of course, of late there really hasn’t been much of a winter. My friend, Dave Clark, scholar and snowplow driver, has been hit hard by the lack of snow; as has the Upper Peninsula, which, in places like Big Bay, mightily depends on snowmobiling and other winter sports. We know it can’t be global warming. I mean, let’s not confuse a scientifically documented, physical phenomenon, with a liberal political mirage.
September 28, 2007
Marquette County Jail 1971
Say What! : The Limits of Memoir
(Atherapeuticism as Art)
What follows is an act of memory dredging that seeks to retrieve rather than recount my life; in other words, an artfully contrived imaginative recollection. My strategy will be to substitute irony for self-indulgence; although I suspect that this in itself will not ensure literary value. In arbitrarily organizing the chaos of past experience, my intent will be less to sermonize than to engage. My moral aim, if it can be called that, is to achieve a voice that better understands the self-created fictions that guide my behaviors, not in the sense of a rebirth or recovery, but of recognition. My motivation derives from a guiding suspicion that moving beyond a sensibility that understands writing to be a form of self-therapy has less to do with devoutly atoning for one’s sins than unflinchingly accepting the story that unfolds.
“It may be more productive in telling a story to choose a narrator or a narrative point of view of someone who does not know what his own story means.”
-- Charles Baxter
1971
In solitary confinement one becomes preoccupied with marking time, with making calendars out of bars and radiators. That our awareness of time is keenest when we need it least is one of life’s cruel ironies. One day, in a chain of nameless days, the sheriff arrived on the top floor of the jail, of which I was the sole occupant, and asked, “do you know why you’re on the 4th floor, Tessier?” I said, “yea, sheriff, cos there ain’t no 5th floor!”
On those rare occasions when the turnkeys would come upstairs, I’d talk shit. With a fixed, Rasputin-like, glare I would inform the jailer that there was really no difference between us. We were both condemned to a 19th century brownstone hell, As the deputy would turn to descend from his Sisyphian task, I would cruelly remind him that there was, of course, one sad aspect that made our situations quite different: I’d be leaving after serving my sentence, he wouldn’t. As he disappeared from sight, blowing him a kiss, I’d say I loved him and there was nothing he could do about it.
Then deputies and inmates alike thought I was crazy. The thing with solitary is that it matters less who you talk to, or hear, than that you talk to or hear someone. Or so I thought. There’s a difference between participating in a dialogue and being an unseen hearer. Much like Hamlet, who never planned on hearing Polonius’s prayer, I assumed that what I might hear would somehow conform to my expectations. But where Hamlet was undone by his relentless pursuit of revenge, I was the victim of lonely curiosity. When I was allowed to move into the bullpen area, I would sit in the corner closest to the stairwell. In the mid-afternoon, when the inmates below were playing Euchre, I would sometimes hear their conversation. On one occasion, this torturous eavesdropping resulted in my hearing a particular group of perennial jailbirds discuss my future: “He’s a drug addict, he’ll end up in Carp River College (Marquette State Prison) for sure. He’ll be a lifer, I can smell em. He thinks he’s getting out in 60 days, but when the time comes they’ll arraign him on new charges and hold him without bail until sentencing. I figure he’ll get ten to twenty. That’s what drugs’ll do to ya.” I quickly learned that it was better for me to read (after they gave me my books), write (with a hidden pencil stub on the flyleaves of religious pamphlets), and exercise, than to tune into the jailhouse lawyer channel.
I had been caught with a small amount of hashish. My lawyer—someone I retained an bad advice and limited funds—assured me that I would get no more than 30 days. But in light of my radical politics and the prevailing, conservative views of the time, I feared the worst. Steeling myself for what was to come—an impossibility, since there is no way to imagine being incarcerated—I assembled an array of books I thought might prove educational and ease the boredom. Sartre, Artaud, Kesey, and Kazentkais were just some of the authors I selected. When December 27th arrived (Happy New Year!) I took it as an article of despair that my lawyer was nowhere to be seen. I can’t remember Judge Hill’s lecture, but I do recall the sentence--60 days in the Marquette county jail. My friends looked on helplessly as the deputies hustled me away.
My hair was down to my waist at the time. And I, being young and somewhat innocent, naively thought that losing my hair would be one of the major injustices of being incarcerated. Consequently, during the visits I had with my probation officer leading up to my sentence, I donned a cheap, dark wig. My long blond hair, kept in place by old fashioned bobby pins, barely fit under this hellish toupee. I was processed in and lodged on the 3rd floor: two bullpens with five cells adjoining them that housed the general jail population. My cellmate was one Mike Savard (he’s dead now). Saver, then 17 years old, would spend his remaining years in state prison. At the time he was a troubled young man with a history of violent behavior that had followed him through grade school. In the short day and a half I was with Mike I came to like him. I began to understand how materially and spiritually deprived he was. When he asked for help in writing a letter, simple words like, “from”, “The”, or “when”, were a struggle for him. And so it was that Mike and I were cellmates.
I noticed that one of the deputies had eyed me hair suspiciously on arrival. I suspect he had an idea that all was not right with my coiffure. I wasn’t surprised then at the approaching sound of jackboots in the stairwell. It was common knowledge that two guards meant trouble. The notorious Joe Maino himself, the future sheriff, told me I needed a haircut. As this was happening, the inmate grapevine alerted the trustee barber, Billy Mallete, to the situation. As Billy valiantly pretended to clip my wig Maino picked up the clippings and carefully scrutinized them. Even I could see the wisps of fine blond hair amongst the course wig locks. The jig was up.
I was given two choices” either voluntarily submit to removing the wig, or, have it taken off by the guards. At that point I took off the wig and slowly removed the rusty bobby pins. My hippie dreds cascaded to my waist in a permy wave that would have made R. Crumb proud. Fighting back tears, I sat, depressed and broken, as my hir was crudely shorn with dull scissors. Something was lost; but what? I didn’t realize than that what I had mistaken for a sad little moment of tragic insight would pale in comparison to the soul searching my own foolish actions would burden me with in the days to come. How often it is that what we perceive the worst is simply a humorous prologue to real hardship.
Being young, immature, arrogant, impatient and morally at sea, I hatched a plan, via a note sent through the trustees, to have my confederates smuggle in a quantity of dope. On the night of the haircut, day 2, I passed a long string through a hole in my window screen. My pals on the ground attached a bundle of joints and Seconal, which I quickly reeled in. Poor me! I couldn’t sleep. Ha! Well I slept that night. But every night thereafter I would long to be back in the homey confines of the third floor. The next morning, groggy from my barbituate binge, I awoke to a posse of deputies menacingly looming over me. I was jerked to my feet, removed from the bullpen, and marched downstairs where my clothes were exchanged for denim coveralls. I was then moved to the Federal block on the 4th floor. Since Federal prisoners rarely visited Paquette’s jail, I had the place to myself. I was put in the most isolated corner cell in an already empty block. As if this wasn’t sufficient punishment, for he first week I was locked down without access to the empty bullpen. Given the fact that Mike Savard was now a trustee, and I was in solitary, it wasn’t hard to figure out how they learned of the stash in my mattress.
(Atherapeuticism as Art)
What follows is an act of memory dredging that seeks to retrieve rather than recount my life; in other words, an artfully contrived imaginative recollection. My strategy will be to substitute irony for self-indulgence; although I suspect that this in itself will not ensure literary value. In arbitrarily organizing the chaos of past experience, my intent will be less to sermonize than to engage. My moral aim, if it can be called that, is to achieve a voice that better understands the self-created fictions that guide my behaviors, not in the sense of a rebirth or recovery, but of recognition. My motivation derives from a guiding suspicion that moving beyond a sensibility that understands writing to be a form of self-therapy has less to do with devoutly atoning for one’s sins than unflinchingly accepting the story that unfolds.
“It may be more productive in telling a story to choose a narrator or a narrative point of view of someone who does not know what his own story means.”
-- Charles Baxter
1971
In solitary confinement one becomes preoccupied with marking time, with making calendars out of bars and radiators. That our awareness of time is keenest when we need it least is one of life’s cruel ironies. One day, in a chain of nameless days, the sheriff arrived on the top floor of the jail, of which I was the sole occupant, and asked, “do you know why you’re on the 4th floor, Tessier?” I said, “yea, sheriff, cos there ain’t no 5th floor!”
On those rare occasions when the turnkeys would come upstairs, I’d talk shit. With a fixed, Rasputin-like, glare I would inform the jailer that there was really no difference between us. We were both condemned to a 19th century brownstone hell, As the deputy would turn to descend from his Sisyphian task, I would cruelly remind him that there was, of course, one sad aspect that made our situations quite different: I’d be leaving after serving my sentence, he wouldn’t. As he disappeared from sight, blowing him a kiss, I’d say I loved him and there was nothing he could do about it.
Then deputies and inmates alike thought I was crazy. The thing with solitary is that it matters less who you talk to, or hear, than that you talk to or hear someone. Or so I thought. There’s a difference between participating in a dialogue and being an unseen hearer. Much like Hamlet, who never planned on hearing Polonius’s prayer, I assumed that what I might hear would somehow conform to my expectations. But where Hamlet was undone by his relentless pursuit of revenge, I was the victim of lonely curiosity. When I was allowed to move into the bullpen area, I would sit in the corner closest to the stairwell. In the mid-afternoon, when the inmates below were playing Euchre, I would sometimes hear their conversation. On one occasion, this torturous eavesdropping resulted in my hearing a particular group of perennial jailbirds discuss my future: “He’s a drug addict, he’ll end up in Carp River College (Marquette State Prison) for sure. He’ll be a lifer, I can smell em. He thinks he’s getting out in 60 days, but when the time comes they’ll arraign him on new charges and hold him without bail until sentencing. I figure he’ll get ten to twenty. That’s what drugs’ll do to ya.” I quickly learned that it was better for me to read (after they gave me my books), write (with a hidden pencil stub on the flyleaves of religious pamphlets), and exercise, than to tune into the jailhouse lawyer channel.
I had been caught with a small amount of hashish. My lawyer—someone I retained an bad advice and limited funds—assured me that I would get no more than 30 days. But in light of my radical politics and the prevailing, conservative views of the time, I feared the worst. Steeling myself for what was to come—an impossibility, since there is no way to imagine being incarcerated—I assembled an array of books I thought might prove educational and ease the boredom. Sartre, Artaud, Kesey, and Kazentkais were just some of the authors I selected. When December 27th arrived (Happy New Year!) I took it as an article of despair that my lawyer was nowhere to be seen. I can’t remember Judge Hill’s lecture, but I do recall the sentence--60 days in the Marquette county jail. My friends looked on helplessly as the deputies hustled me away.
My hair was down to my waist at the time. And I, being young and somewhat innocent, naively thought that losing my hair would be one of the major injustices of being incarcerated. Consequently, during the visits I had with my probation officer leading up to my sentence, I donned a cheap, dark wig. My long blond hair, kept in place by old fashioned bobby pins, barely fit under this hellish toupee. I was processed in and lodged on the 3rd floor: two bullpens with five cells adjoining them that housed the general jail population. My cellmate was one Mike Savard (he’s dead now). Saver, then 17 years old, would spend his remaining years in state prison. At the time he was a troubled young man with a history of violent behavior that had followed him through grade school. In the short day and a half I was with Mike I came to like him. I began to understand how materially and spiritually deprived he was. When he asked for help in writing a letter, simple words like, “from”, “The”, or “when”, were a struggle for him. And so it was that Mike and I were cellmates.
I noticed that one of the deputies had eyed me hair suspiciously on arrival. I suspect he had an idea that all was not right with my coiffure. I wasn’t surprised then at the approaching sound of jackboots in the stairwell. It was common knowledge that two guards meant trouble. The notorious Joe Maino himself, the future sheriff, told me I needed a haircut. As this was happening, the inmate grapevine alerted the trustee barber, Billy Mallete, to the situation. As Billy valiantly pretended to clip my wig Maino picked up the clippings and carefully scrutinized them. Even I could see the wisps of fine blond hair amongst the course wig locks. The jig was up.
I was given two choices” either voluntarily submit to removing the wig, or, have it taken off by the guards. At that point I took off the wig and slowly removed the rusty bobby pins. My hippie dreds cascaded to my waist in a permy wave that would have made R. Crumb proud. Fighting back tears, I sat, depressed and broken, as my hir was crudely shorn with dull scissors. Something was lost; but what? I didn’t realize than that what I had mistaken for a sad little moment of tragic insight would pale in comparison to the soul searching my own foolish actions would burden me with in the days to come. How often it is that what we perceive the worst is simply a humorous prologue to real hardship.
Being young, immature, arrogant, impatient and morally at sea, I hatched a plan, via a note sent through the trustees, to have my confederates smuggle in a quantity of dope. On the night of the haircut, day 2, I passed a long string through a hole in my window screen. My pals on the ground attached a bundle of joints and Seconal, which I quickly reeled in. Poor me! I couldn’t sleep. Ha! Well I slept that night. But every night thereafter I would long to be back in the homey confines of the third floor. The next morning, groggy from my barbituate binge, I awoke to a posse of deputies menacingly looming over me. I was jerked to my feet, removed from the bullpen, and marched downstairs where my clothes were exchanged for denim coveralls. I was then moved to the Federal block on the 4th floor. Since Federal prisoners rarely visited Paquette’s jail, I had the place to myself. I was put in the most isolated corner cell in an already empty block. As if this wasn’t sufficient punishment, for he first week I was locked down without access to the empty bullpen. Given the fact that Mike Savard was now a trustee, and I was in solitary, it wasn’t hard to figure out how they learned of the stash in my mattress.
September 25, 2007
The Hostage Crisis
1962
Plato may have been right in saying “the unexamined life is not worth living.” But, notwithstanding Plato’s sage advice, does the unexamined life always bear talking about. How does an author avoid the danger of producing either sophisticated drivel or boring unvarnished truths; especially in the memoir, or pseudo-memoir mode? One of my colleagues at the English Composition Board—a kind of grammar-centric clinic that, while denying all associations with remediation, teaches syntax in the guise of semantics--thought I should include one of my Nun stories. The time is the early 60s.
Sister Ruth Marie had come to our peninsular parish from the Indian Reservations of New Mexico and Arizona. It wasn’t long thereafter that she took to calling me “Chief Big Mouth.” While at the time, much as I do now, I felt this was an apt name for me, I wondered what names she had applied to her Native American charges back on the reservation. In her eyes there wasn’t much difference between a Finnlander and Navajo. Both were equal under God, and both were subject to her abiding belief that a mixture of corporal punishment and solitary confinement were prerequisites to Godliness. She was good with the ruler, pointer, and occasional rosary. Sister Ruthless had a place for those who dared to defy her. Our brownstone, 4 room Sing-Sing had a windowless, enclosed supply closet in each grade, as well as a shared cloakroom, both ominous places to contemplate one’s sins in the darkness. She had her pets. To preserve the ruse of objectivity, however, she posted a demerit chart that listed one’s crimes and sins in plain view. Of course the red squares that followed my name on the graph required that additional paper be added.
I thought I was done with her after 5th and 6th grade; but following the departure of Sister Domingo, Sister Ruth Marie took over the 7th and 8th grade. The fact that she once intercepted a note I passed in 5th grade left little doubt in my mind that my last two years of grade school would be turbulent. Perhaps thankfully, I can only remember the first line: “Hail Mary full of shit, The Lord is with thee.” Lord only knows what she thought when she read it. Her visage took on that fanatical half-sneer, half-smile look that signals someone in the throes of satanic possession. At that moment, I saw mirrored in her eyes an anti-Christ so vile that all of the Freddy Krugers and Michael Myers she could never dream of would pale in comparison. Strangely enough, however, I can’t remember the outcome of this incident.
It was also in the 5th grade that St. Johns adopted uniforms: navy blue corduroy pants and robins egg khaki tops. Report card day would see a room full of blues—at least some of us had the blues—awaiting a Dickensian Catholic priest who would later be committed. Father Garin had a penchant for wanting to know the minute details of every confession. No “Father, I had impure thoughts” escaped him. It was also rumored that he would sometimes ask the penitent’s name, as if this personal knowledge could somehow enhance the legitimacy of his absolutions.
On the days when we received report cards, Garin would dutifully show up to praise or vilify us, In theory, we, the vilified, were to internalize the wisdom he imparted and rectify the ignorance or inattention that had brought us to this sad state of affairs. In practice, this meeting was a twisted ritual dreaded by angels and devils alike. Thick, moist hair protruded from Father Garin’s nose and ears. As he would drone his admonitions, huge, irregular shaped flakes of dandruff would snow down on the torturous detainee. His yellowish, lime teeth and fetid breath were all but unbearable. The card itself was a single booklet that had academic pursuits on the left and character assessments on the right. Much attention was given to this right side, and I, of course, could never seem to do well enough in these areas. The good father would point to the D-‘s and F’s that corresponded to the headings: “Conduct”, “Effort”, “Courtesy”, and “Attendance”. Attendance wasn’t a problem, I was always there; in the other three categories, however, I failed miserably.
1982
THE HOSTAGE CRISIS
“The withdrawing addict is subject to the emotional excesses of a child or an adolescent, regardless of his actual age. And the sex drive returns in full force. Men of sixty experience wet dreams and spontaneous orgasms (an extremely unpleasant experience, agacant as the French say, putting the teeth on edge). Unless the reader keeps this in mind, the metamorphosis of…character will appear as inexplicable or psychotic….[e]xcessive drinking…exacerbates all the worst and most dangerous aspects of the withdrawal sickness: reckless, unseemly, outrageous, maudlin—in a word, appalling—behavior.
William Burroughs xiii
Shortly after flying in we decided to go out and eat. An academic couple from the east coast decided to accompany us to an upscale restaurant. I had read about it in Gourmet magazine. The Coco Locos I had been drinking only partially succeeded in quieting the ants crawling in my veins. It was a family owned restaurant, and we proceeded to eat and drink. After the meal we asked to see the desert menu. I inquired about the strawberry shortcake for my wife and son, asking the waiter to exclude the whipped cream since our son had a dairy allergy. The waiter politely informed me that this was impossible. Being intoxicated, in withdrawal and having seen too many Jack Nicholson movies, I told the waiter to” bring us the strawberries and to stick the whipped cream up his ass.” My wife and our dining companions looked at me in horror and disbelief. The waiter looked at me quizzically as if he hadn’t heard me right. I repeated my asinine request, and in doing so not only burdened myself with one of the many regrets in my lifetime but almost got myself killed. Shooting me a look of disgust and loathing that, at that moment, seemed to reflect the collective Mexican hatred of the Gringo mentality, the waiter said, “you are not in the United States anymore.” I suddenly felt very small, afraid, and embarrassed, but it was too late. While the waiter’s siblings restrained him from attacking me, the family patriarch told me to leave and never come back.
During the winter of 1982 I decided to do a little self-rehab, this was an ongoing project. I had been heavily dependent since 1980, and would finally quit in 1986. At any rate, it dawned on me that the money might be better spent on a trip to Puerto Vallarta than a stint in Hazelden. (This was never a choice I seriously considered; but it sounds good here) Oblivious to world weather patterns, my wife, our newborn son and I boarded a budget flight and flew off to Mexico. The nuns had always told me I had a one track mind, and my planning for this trip confirmed their opinion. Since I felt I needed a long vacation from my nemesis, I opted for the 17 day package. How was I to know that January 1982 would see an El Nino pound the North American Pacific seaboard with a fury unprecedented in that century.
To understand how this could turn a potential paradise into a living hell, one must consider the physical layout of the modern high-rise beach hotel. Typically, one enters the front of the hotel from an access road away from the beach. Proceeding to the rear one encounters an open-air patio bar situated next to the pool. Beyond this are stairs that descend to the beach. The water was so high and the waves so ferocious that the sea completely swamped the bar and pool area. The impenetrable murkiness of the muddy brine made it impossible to tell where the patio ended and the pool began. The previous week a vacationing spinster had drowned when her motorized wheelchair hit the drop-off. Her gurgling cries went unheeded as the obligatory Tourist Trap steel drum band emitted its high-pitched drone in the suffocating tropical heat. My wife, of course, having a sick infant son and a drunken husband; and being trapped in a sweltering room in the tropical heat; beset by a crowd that, deprived of the beach, now swelled the inside of the hotel to the point that leaving the room would be insane; and with the sewers backing up into the room, just loved the sound of the steel drums from hell. Did I mention that all of her jewelry—two small but sentimental rings—was stolen while we were there.
Plato may have been right in saying “the unexamined life is not worth living.” But, notwithstanding Plato’s sage advice, does the unexamined life always bear talking about. How does an author avoid the danger of producing either sophisticated drivel or boring unvarnished truths; especially in the memoir, or pseudo-memoir mode? One of my colleagues at the English Composition Board—a kind of grammar-centric clinic that, while denying all associations with remediation, teaches syntax in the guise of semantics--thought I should include one of my Nun stories. The time is the early 60s.
Sister Ruth Marie had come to our peninsular parish from the Indian Reservations of New Mexico and Arizona. It wasn’t long thereafter that she took to calling me “Chief Big Mouth.” While at the time, much as I do now, I felt this was an apt name for me, I wondered what names she had applied to her Native American charges back on the reservation. In her eyes there wasn’t much difference between a Finnlander and Navajo. Both were equal under God, and both were subject to her abiding belief that a mixture of corporal punishment and solitary confinement were prerequisites to Godliness. She was good with the ruler, pointer, and occasional rosary. Sister Ruthless had a place for those who dared to defy her. Our brownstone, 4 room Sing-Sing had a windowless, enclosed supply closet in each grade, as well as a shared cloakroom, both ominous places to contemplate one’s sins in the darkness. She had her pets. To preserve the ruse of objectivity, however, she posted a demerit chart that listed one’s crimes and sins in plain view. Of course the red squares that followed my name on the graph required that additional paper be added.
I thought I was done with her after 5th and 6th grade; but following the departure of Sister Domingo, Sister Ruth Marie took over the 7th and 8th grade. The fact that she once intercepted a note I passed in 5th grade left little doubt in my mind that my last two years of grade school would be turbulent. Perhaps thankfully, I can only remember the first line: “Hail Mary full of shit, The Lord is with thee.” Lord only knows what she thought when she read it. Her visage took on that fanatical half-sneer, half-smile look that signals someone in the throes of satanic possession. At that moment, I saw mirrored in her eyes an anti-Christ so vile that all of the Freddy Krugers and Michael Myers she could never dream of would pale in comparison. Strangely enough, however, I can’t remember the outcome of this incident.
It was also in the 5th grade that St. Johns adopted uniforms: navy blue corduroy pants and robins egg khaki tops. Report card day would see a room full of blues—at least some of us had the blues—awaiting a Dickensian Catholic priest who would later be committed. Father Garin had a penchant for wanting to know the minute details of every confession. No “Father, I had impure thoughts” escaped him. It was also rumored that he would sometimes ask the penitent’s name, as if this personal knowledge could somehow enhance the legitimacy of his absolutions.
On the days when we received report cards, Garin would dutifully show up to praise or vilify us, In theory, we, the vilified, were to internalize the wisdom he imparted and rectify the ignorance or inattention that had brought us to this sad state of affairs. In practice, this meeting was a twisted ritual dreaded by angels and devils alike. Thick, moist hair protruded from Father Garin’s nose and ears. As he would drone his admonitions, huge, irregular shaped flakes of dandruff would snow down on the torturous detainee. His yellowish, lime teeth and fetid breath were all but unbearable. The card itself was a single booklet that had academic pursuits on the left and character assessments on the right. Much attention was given to this right side, and I, of course, could never seem to do well enough in these areas. The good father would point to the D-‘s and F’s that corresponded to the headings: “Conduct”, “Effort”, “Courtesy”, and “Attendance”. Attendance wasn’t a problem, I was always there; in the other three categories, however, I failed miserably.
1982
THE HOSTAGE CRISIS
“The withdrawing addict is subject to the emotional excesses of a child or an adolescent, regardless of his actual age. And the sex drive returns in full force. Men of sixty experience wet dreams and spontaneous orgasms (an extremely unpleasant experience, agacant as the French say, putting the teeth on edge). Unless the reader keeps this in mind, the metamorphosis of…character will appear as inexplicable or psychotic….[e]xcessive drinking…exacerbates all the worst and most dangerous aspects of the withdrawal sickness: reckless, unseemly, outrageous, maudlin—in a word, appalling—behavior.
William Burroughs xiii
Shortly after flying in we decided to go out and eat. An academic couple from the east coast decided to accompany us to an upscale restaurant. I had read about it in Gourmet magazine. The Coco Locos I had been drinking only partially succeeded in quieting the ants crawling in my veins. It was a family owned restaurant, and we proceeded to eat and drink. After the meal we asked to see the desert menu. I inquired about the strawberry shortcake for my wife and son, asking the waiter to exclude the whipped cream since our son had a dairy allergy. The waiter politely informed me that this was impossible. Being intoxicated, in withdrawal and having seen too many Jack Nicholson movies, I told the waiter to” bring us the strawberries and to stick the whipped cream up his ass.” My wife and our dining companions looked at me in horror and disbelief. The waiter looked at me quizzically as if he hadn’t heard me right. I repeated my asinine request, and in doing so not only burdened myself with one of the many regrets in my lifetime but almost got myself killed. Shooting me a look of disgust and loathing that, at that moment, seemed to reflect the collective Mexican hatred of the Gringo mentality, the waiter said, “you are not in the United States anymore.” I suddenly felt very small, afraid, and embarrassed, but it was too late. While the waiter’s siblings restrained him from attacking me, the family patriarch told me to leave and never come back.
During the winter of 1982 I decided to do a little self-rehab, this was an ongoing project. I had been heavily dependent since 1980, and would finally quit in 1986. At any rate, it dawned on me that the money might be better spent on a trip to Puerto Vallarta than a stint in Hazelden. (This was never a choice I seriously considered; but it sounds good here) Oblivious to world weather patterns, my wife, our newborn son and I boarded a budget flight and flew off to Mexico. The nuns had always told me I had a one track mind, and my planning for this trip confirmed their opinion. Since I felt I needed a long vacation from my nemesis, I opted for the 17 day package. How was I to know that January 1982 would see an El Nino pound the North American Pacific seaboard with a fury unprecedented in that century.
To understand how this could turn a potential paradise into a living hell, one must consider the physical layout of the modern high-rise beach hotel. Typically, one enters the front of the hotel from an access road away from the beach. Proceeding to the rear one encounters an open-air patio bar situated next to the pool. Beyond this are stairs that descend to the beach. The water was so high and the waves so ferocious that the sea completely swamped the bar and pool area. The impenetrable murkiness of the muddy brine made it impossible to tell where the patio ended and the pool began. The previous week a vacationing spinster had drowned when her motorized wheelchair hit the drop-off. Her gurgling cries went unheeded as the obligatory Tourist Trap steel drum band emitted its high-pitched drone in the suffocating tropical heat. My wife, of course, having a sick infant son and a drunken husband; and being trapped in a sweltering room in the tropical heat; beset by a crowd that, deprived of the beach, now swelled the inside of the hotel to the point that leaving the room would be insane; and with the sewers backing up into the room, just loved the sound of the steel drums from hell. Did I mention that all of her jewelry—two small but sentimental rings—was stolen while we were there.
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