THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS: Lands For sale!

“The broad mass of a nation…will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one.”
-- Adolph Hitler 1889-1945: “Mein Kampf” (1925)

“In our country the lie has not just become a moral category but a pillar of the state.”
-- Alexander Solzhenitsyn 1918- : 1974 interview, in “The Oak and the Calf” (1975)

“And if, to be sure, sometimes you need to conceal a fact with words, do it in such a way that it does not become known, or, if it does become known, that you have a ready and quick defense.”
-- Niccolo Machiavelli 1496-1527

POLITICS:

Have you noticed that Wall Street bankers have given themselves $20 Billion in bonuses? This as the economy goes down in flames, and the government continues to throw good money after bad in bailing out “zombie” banks. And what has Congress done in the face of massive foreclosures, skyrocketing unemployment, and a tsunami of credit card debt? Let’s take the credit card debt first. Sure, legislation has been passed to provide some oversight and regulation on the credit card industry, but these changes won’t take effect for another year. Not coincidentally, this gives Chase, American Express, Citi Bank, Capital One, and the rest of these gangsters, time to pick us clean before help arrives. The circling buzzards are starting to land. All the lofty rhetoric in the world doesn’t change the fact that the credit card bloodsuckers are simultaneously lowering limits and raising interest rates across the board. So much for the idea that we all have to help each other out in these tough economic times.

Unemployment? Get real folks, it’s all about profit, not jobs. Consider the following quote by Erik Gordon, a professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, from the January 24, 2009, New York Times business section: “Most large companies have cut just everything they can. The only way to come up with new cuts without endangering their future is to merge in a way that creates redundancies that give the companies new job-cutting opportunities.” “New job-cutting opportunities!” Wrong choice of words, pal. ” It’s not the “future” of human beings -- the worker -- that these companies are worried about “endangering,” it’s their profit margin. I know, I know, the argument goes something like this: once the companies survive the economic downturn they will be generating more jobs. Bullshit! Free market capitalism has never cared about the worker. It’s like Mother tells Ripley in Alien, “crew expendable.”

Foreclosures? Just see if your taxes go down in tandem with the plummeting value of your house. Let’s also see how much action arises out of the big talk about restructuring mortgages to relieve the homeowner’s burden.

MCGEE-FEST

Regarding McGee-Fest, Bill De Broux wrote:

From:
Bill De Broux
To:
rlt@umich.edu
Subject:
[You Are Here: Disease as Performance] New comment on Tim McGee Benefit 2009.
Show this HTML in a new window?
Bill De Broux has left a new comment on your post "Tim McGee Benefit 2009": I say that there is no way I'm missing this one. Please email me with support requests, monetary and otherwise. Do we want to go completely mental and start a tax- exempt non profiter? You know, have the government kick in a little tax help to all the donators? By the way, nice ass chewing you delivered to the Up Front honks. Later,Bill.

Bill, is this really possible?

If so, I appeal to all who read this -- Yooper expatriates as well as complete strangers – to contribute tangible (material support) as well as intangible (ideas and advice) help in putting on this Summer’s benefit.

Finally, and this is a somewhat self-serving plea from a man behind on his taxes and feeling the pinch, I have two pieces of land for sale from which I would gladly donate 5% of the proceeds to Tim. One is located between Marquette and Big Bay Michigan in the Upper Peninsula. It covers about 3 acres, with 525 feet of medium cliff frontage on Lake Superior. The other is in Lower Michigan near Manchester. It encompasses 6-7 acres in an association of upscale homes. ANY and ALL offers will be considered! Inquire at rlt@umich.edu

Best – Randy Tessier

PS: McGee, you gotta like this pitch. I learned from you, the master!

Bear Lake Charities Inc.

Date:
Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:33:15 -0500 [03:33:15 PM EST]
From:
Lee Haynes
To:
'Randall Tessier'
Subject:
RE: Tim McGee Benefit

Randy,

The only chance of a fundraiser here would be using the banquet hall, and wehave no avails on Friday/Saturday until November 2009. My July is alreadycompletely booked in the club anyway.There is no way that we could ever do a benefit on a weekend in the clublike that. In these hard economic times it's just not possible to do that.Like I mentioned earlier the best bet would be to find a date in thebanquet hall and we might be able to donate a portion of the room fees, butthe only weekend dates we have is March, April, November at this point Ibelieve. That is something you would need to speak with our Banquet Managerabout. Her name is Anna Glinn and her email is https://web.mail.umich.edu/blue/imp/.ThanksLee HaynesEntertainment Director/Talent BuyerUpfront & Company102 E. Main St.Marquette, MI 49855(906)228-5200 (ext 110)(906)226-2824 (fax)http://www.upfrontandcompany.com/

Dear All:

Aside from being unfamiliar with the grammatical structure of the English language, I think Mr. Haynes is trying to tell us Upfront is not interested. I find it odd that their bar can’t make money when you pack the joint, pay nothing to the band, and sell oodles of overpriced drinks. I must admit, however, that while perhaps a bit more money might have been made with the double venue, for purely selfish reasons I prefer the two nights in Big Bay option. Besides, I know Mr. Beamer’s (wasn’t he in Great Expectations?) excited about this, and now I don’t have to tell him about any change in plans. “Might be able to donate a PORTION of the room fees?” How kind of these self-important mercenaries. Am I to believe these “hard economic times” have even squeezed some nouveau-riche, dot-com millionaires to the point that they can’t spare a dime for those less fortunate than themselves? Maybe we should hold a benefit for the Upfront’s owners. We might raise enough to re-varnish their western cedar, palatial estate on Bear Lake with Sikkens.

Love - Randy

Dear Skip: Plan C? From Outer Space

“Be ye kind one to another, even as God also in Christ forgave you.”
-- Ephesians 4:32

Date:
Sun, 25 Jan 2009 12:04:58 -0500 [12:04:58 PM EST]
From:
Randall Tessier
To:
Lee Haynes
Subject:
RE: Tim McGee Benefit

Dear Lee:

The tentative proposal is this: We would like to have a benefit concert for Tim McGee on EITHER Fri., July 24, or Sat., the 25th. The proceeds from the night -- door, pitcher, and PERHAPS…repeat…PERHAPS, a percentage of the bar (20% of the bar seems a fair donation) -- would go to McGee. Although I know you guys serve dinner until fairly late, it would be ideal to start as early as possible. One solution to this would be to start with an accoustic set which (I know you’ve heard this song and dance before) I GUARANTEE would be loungy soft enough to complement rather than undermine the dining experience. Who would play? The plan is to have a core band of veteran musicians. But the way it would be coordinated would by no means preclude having entire local bands, or elements of these bands, take the stage. Mike Letts of the Flat Broke Blues Band w/Laurie Hayes, assured me they are ready to heed the call. I haven’t yet contacted Sudzy and the Ski-Doos, Daryll Syria, Tret Fure, Fast Eddie, Bobby Hayes, Jerry Kippola, and other local luminaries, but I’m sure they’re all willing to contribute to this worthy cause. Aside from a mention in the advertising that former members of Walrus would be involved (as a way of maximizing the benefit to the McGees), this would have nothing to do with the Walrus as a musical entity. Three things: 1) I’ve had experience with playing and organizing these events in Ann Arbor; 2) this would be good local PR for the Upfront as a community minded establishment; 3) Since you would pay the band nothing the bar would MAKE MONEY. It is with great pride that I can say the members of FUBAR want to head north for this. Along with Don Kuhli and Kim French, the Fubarians can provide a a knock-out back up band for any and all that want to take the stage, and are more than willing to sit down to accommodate others. The format is perfect for making sure everyone is heard. I’ve talked to George Bedard, and there’s a good chance we can make his presence possible. As I said, these are fairly loose ideas at present, so any and all suggestions are welcomed. If this seems like something the Upfront can’t accommodate, that’s fine. We appreciate your consideration.

Best – Randy Tessier

Quoting Lee Haynes :
[Hide Quoted Text]

Randy,

Please forward any ideas you have. Before we consider anything I'd like to know what you guys have in mind.

Lee Haynes

Entertainment Director/Talent BuyerUpfront & Company102 E. Main St.

Marquette, MI 49855(906)228-5200 (ext 110)(906)226-2824 (fax)www.upfrontandcompany.com

Dear Skip:

I too favor the LBJ. The idea that I can walk to Squaw beach after a 5th of single malt scotch is certainly a key consideration in staging these kinds of events. And I ‘d be happy to put you up for the night at the Bystrom Lodge on the way to Lake Independence should that last quarter mile seem to incapacitating. But this is, after all, about generating funds for Teaker.

In truth, I didn’t really expect the Upfront to express much interest. But they did, and that’s a good thing. This doesn’t mean we don’t do The Lumberjack (by the way, who is that guy standing in front of the LBJ in the photo?), it simply means (should the Upfront accomodate us) we do one night in Marquette and one night in Big Bay. It’ll be a somewhat of a logistical headache, but that’s ok, this is about more than having fun (can you believe I said that?).

You’ll never take me alive, coppers! – Randy

PS: Skip, can they still prosecute me for the Getz’s and Fisher school capers?

Tim McGee Benefit 2009

“May you grow up to be righteous, may you grow up to be true. May you always know the truth and see the lights surrounding you. May you always be courageous, stand upright and be strong. May you stay forever young.”
-- Bob Dylan

Date:
Sat, 24 Jan 2009 13:14:10 -0500 [01:14:10 PM EST]
From:
Randall Tessier
To:
lee@upfrontandcompany.com
Subject:
Tim McGee Benefit

Dear Lee:I/we, the friends of Tim McGee, are considering a benefit concert to help his family. Would Upfront have any interest in being a part of this. If not, thanks for considering it. If so, I would be happy to make a proposal as to what I had in mind.

Best - Randy Tessier

Dear Readers:

Here’s an update on the planned benefit for McGee. As you can see above, I’ve e-mailed the music-buyer at Upfront, Lee Haynes, in the hope that they might consider being a part of “McGee-Fest.” Should this not be a possibility, which I have every reason to believe will be the case, plan B is in place.

Plan B is this: After speaking with the venerable Mr. Beamer (wasn't he in Great Expectations?), I have reserved The Lumberjack for the evenings of July 24-25, 2009. The proceeds from both nights – door, pitcher, and PERHAPS a percentage of the bar (I plan to ask Beamer about a 20% of the bar donation) -- will go to McGee. These nights also coincide with the 40 year reunion (can you believe it!) of the 1969 class of Marquette High. Charlene Crothers, Marcia Campbell-Tessier, Betty Nord-Brady (why is it I only remember the girls), Lynn Argetsinger, and Bonni Drazkowski-Quinn, to name only a few, will all be in town for this shindig. While I would like to see all members of the 69 cohort in attendance, it matters little, since the local Big Bayers, like Roger Mason, Jerry Beerman, Bill Bystrom, Skip Henderson, and the like, will be sure to show up. Snatch, Jose, and Diddler, we’re looking for you too.

Who is playing? The plan is to have a core band. But this by no means precludes having entire local bands, or elements of these bands, take the stage. Mike Letts of the Flat Broke Blues Band w/Laurie Hayes, assured me that they are ready to heed the call. I haven’t yet contacted Daryll Syria, Tret Fure, Fast Eddie, Bobby Hayes, Jerry Kippola, and other local luminaries, but I’m sure they’re all willing to contribute to this worthy cause. I’m sure that by that date McGee will be ready to provide a full-throated version of “Rosey Palm Blues.” French and Kuhli are also excited about kickin out the jams.

Additionally, while this is all well and good, it is with great pride that I can say the members of FUBAR want to head north for this. Along with Don and Kim, the Fubarians can provide a a knock-out back up band for any and all that want to take the stage, and are more than willing to sit down to accommodate others. The two night format is perfect for making sure everyone is heard. I talked to George Bedard, and there’s a good chance we can make his presence possible.

Weatherwise, this weekend is typically the high-point ot the U.P. summer. Although Marquette is a higher profile location, I think with the right advertising and high caliber of entertainment the Lumberjack will be packed. What say you, Bill DeBroux? While it seems a long way off, time flies. While Upfront is still a possibility, in truth, I prefer the idea of staging this event in Big Bay. It has the kind of local ambience I like, and precludes the black-fly-college-crowd that could care less about Marquette’s local musical history, let alone what’s going on on-stage.

What say you? Please leave comments on the blog offering support, praise, suggestions and whatever else you might want to say.

Best - Randy

BIID: "Chain saws, shotguns, and railroad tracks..."

“If we are all unique creature of God, as Christians affirm, normality becomes a meaningless concept.”
-- Ted Harrison 1948-- : In “Sunday Times 31 January 1999

As noted before, my posts on BIID (Body Integrity Identity Disorder) have been a source of constant interest since the inception of this blog, and I’ve promised to say more on this issue. One of the readings I’ve assigned my Argumentative Writing class this semester provided the impetus to do just that. Sally Satel’s 2006 New York Times op-ed piece, “Death’s Waiting List,” takes up the organ transplant issue, and in doing so begs the following question: Given that it is legal and widely acceptable to sell blood, sperm, and eggs, is there any significant difference between selling such things and selling a kidney? Between selling a kidney and renting a womb? Satel argues that, as unsavory as it seems, a market solution is a viable answer to the lack of available organs.

How does this relate to BIID? Consider the final quote Satel cites from the International forum for Transplant Ethics: “The well-known shortage of kidneys for transplantation causes much suffering and death. If we are to deny treatment to the suffering and dying, we need better reasons than our own feelings of disgust.”

Now recall an earlier post where Sean, a wannabe from down under wrote the following comment:

“I am someone who has BIID. I need to be paralyzed. I have been feeling like this for over 35 of my 40 years. It is not something I have control of. It is not something sexual (though it is for some people).One thing to correct is in the very opening statement, saying that BIID is only for people who need an amputation. That is inaccurate. Recent research is confirming that the condition may also manifest itself in people needing to be paralyzed, or blind, or deaf, etc.”
Key here is the term “Disgust.” Typically, the idea that someone might see their arms or legs, for example, as alien appendages is unthinkable. That they might long to have this foreign body part amputated almost invariably produces a sense of disgust or revulsion in most of the able-bodied public.

Even after learning of this seemingly bizarre phenomenon, most of us assume it to be a rare disorder shared by few, something relegated to the realm of shock-oriented talk shows and sensationalistic tabloids. Given that the medical literature is equally scant -- most psychiatrists and psychologists are ill-informed on this condition – one might think BIID a freak occurrence, something considered a deviance or perversion.

In a piece published in “Bioethics: An Anthology,” ‘Amputees by Choice’ (Kuhse and Singer 2006), Carl Elliott writes: “On the internet, however, it is an entirely different story. Acrotomophiles are known on the Web as ‘wannabes.’ ‘Pretenders’ are people who are not disabled but use crutches, wheelchairs, or braces, often in public, in order to feel disabled [See blog, ‘About BIID’ 9/9/08]. Various Web sites sell photographs and videos of amputees, display stories and memoirs, recommend books and movies, and provide chat rooms, meeting points, and electronic bulletin boards. Much of this material caters to devotees, who seem to be in far greater number than wannabes. It is unclear just how many people out there actually want to become amputees, but there exist numerous wannabe and devotee list-servs and Web sites”(626).

Now circle back to Satel’s point that “disgust” alone should not preclude organ sales as a valid answer to a critical public health issue. While I don’t know there are BIID sufferers (if that’s the right word) who feel that their very organs serve to make them feel incomplete, if there were, might they not achieve a feeling of satisfaction by donating, or selling, a kidney, adrenal gland, or a part of their liver, as way of feeling whole, while at the same time saving the life of someone else. More to Sean’s point, if a BIID wannabe sought to be blind, deaf, or paralyzed, might they not donate their eyes, or provide a cochlear transplant, or donate their sexual organs below the point of paralysis to a needy recipient? Even crazier, assuming that graft-host disease and immuno-rejection issues can be overcome, why shouldn’t wannabes be considered as hand, foot, arm, and leg donors?

The objection to allowing this hinges on the ethical question of whether or not BIID is a psychiatric or neuropsychological disorder. Given that those, like myself, sympathetic to the wannabes plight, accept the rhetoric of autonomy, identity, and selfhood, framing this debate, Elliott’s conclusion that BIID “has less to do with desire than with being stuck in the wrong body,” makes sense. The analogy I draw here is that of sexual orientation. We no longer think that homosexuality is a psychiatric disorder, but we do see it as having to do with neuropsychological factors stemming from the hard-wiring of the brain.
This is why the idea that sexual orientation is a choice is absurd. Who would choose to be discriminated against and shunned by mainstream society? One doesn’t choose to over-ride the brain in favor of the mind. Much of the problem stems from long standing false dichotomy associated with the brain/mind dyad. Upholding this distinction has resulted in the wrongheaded conclusion that the manipulation of one’s mental life can alter the nature of what, in fact, the brain dictates.

The same can be said of most body modification impulses. These desires are anchored in being comfortable with one’s identity, rather that psychiatric explanations that attribute such behaviors to causes like narcissism or unresolved psychological complexes. This from Wikipedia: “Neurologists have focussed objectively on organic nervous system pathology, especially of the brain, whereas psychiatrists have laid claim to illnesses of the mind. This antipodal distinction between brain and mind as two different entities has characterized many of the differences between the two specialties. However, it is argued that this division is simply not veridical; a plethora of evidence from the last century of research has shown that our mental life has its roots in the brain.”

I leave you with this from Elliott: “There is a simple, relentless logic to these people’s request for amputation….They realize that life as an amputee will not be easy. They understand the problems they will have with mobility, with work, with their social lives; they realize they will have to make countless adjustments just to get through the day. They are willing to pay their own way. Their bodies belong to them, they tell me. The choice should be theirs. What is worse: to live without a leg or to live with an obsession that controls your life? For at least some of them the choice is clear – which is why they are talking about chain saws and shotguns and railroad tracks”(632).

Best – Randy Tessier

The Illusion of Strength: "One Way Or Another"

“There is a superstition in avoiding superstition.”
-- Francis Bacon 1561-1626: “Essays” 1625 ‘Of Superstition’

“A man’s illness is his private territory and, no matter how much he loves you and how close you are, you stay an outsider. You are healthy.”
-- Lauren Bacall 1924- : “By Myself” 1978

“We are born to die. Not that death is the purpose of our being born, but we are born toward death, and in each of our lives the work of dying is always under way.”
-- Richard John Neuhaus “First Things Magazine”

In an op-ed piece in the New York Times titled, “In Defense of Death,” David Brooks paraphrases the writer and theologian Richard John Neuhaus’s letter of comfort to the gravely ill William D. Eddy, an Episcopal minister: “There are comforting things you and I have learned to say in circumstances such as these, but we don’t need those things between ourselves.” As Brooks notes, Neuhaus, unlike most of us, reversed the traditional paradigm of life and death: “While most people might use the science of life to demystify death, Neuhaus used death to demystify life.”

This got me thinking about correspondences between those of us who have lived or are living on what Susan Sontag describes as the “night-side of life.” I recently sent my close friend T. S. this e-mail: “A common feeling I've experienced, and one that you and my friend, T. M., have echoed, is that we sometimes focus on our illness to the point that it's a burden to others to hear about it. My friend asked forgiveness for 'whining,' and even went so far as to delete some very eloquent posts he perceived as such. This suggests that this feeling also extends to those around us who are healthy. I was thinking that perhaps those who are sick get sick of those who are not sick talking about sickness all the time.”

T. S.‘s response was this: “The sick person is situated in several roles: one is the whiner, and the pressure is constant to react to suffering and disease in the right way, i.e., the hopeful, optimistic response of the fighter. Now it seems that medical research shows that this attitude is very productive, so there is reason to be a fighter; but the pressure to be a fighter also comes from the desire of those around the sick person to see the disease defeated, both because they love the sick person and because they fear for their own life. This is all okay. So the sick person may expect different reactions to talking about suffering; sometimes it is suppressed, sometimes encouraged. The sick person may also tire of the talk about sickness, but it is hard to say whose right it is to regulate this talk. Is it only the sick person's right? Might s/he tell those around her/him to stop talking about 'it'? I'm not too sure. The only thing I know is that sometimes I don't want to talk about it. But I don't know that my feeling has the rule of law within it.”

To me, shopworn martial metaphors related to “fighting, battling, and beating” the inevitability of illness seem wrongheaded. Brooks writes, “People would tell him [Neuhaus] to fight for life and he would enjoy their attention,” but by Neuhaus’s lights, “the matter wasn’t really in his hands.” My friend T. M.’s attitude provides a wise and honest complement to Neuhaus’s idea that strength, attitude, and willpower, while admirable in their attribution, may have little to do with natural consequences and noble outcomes: “Prior to the surgery I was never that worried, but it was not because I am strong, because I am not mentally strong. I think this is one case where it was good to be naive. If I had any idea of what I was in in for I don't know if I could have done this.”

T. S.’s mention of the “pressure to be a fighter” arising from the intermingling of a love for the afflicted and fear of death by those who love us has more to do with the naivete of immortality inherent to health than the resignation to the inevitable inherent to serious illness. It is within the realm of health that T. M.’s recurring idea of “having no idea of what I was in for” adheres; but the “night-side” of life preceding Neuhaus’s ironic vision of death’s dawn, a place that only the sick can know, must be experienced before arriving at this conclusion: “I had no idea of what I was in for. I just had a clinical perception. Yesterday was as close as I ever want to come to crossing over. My neck was so full of blood it looked like a football, how appropriate. I was in so much pain I just wanted it over, one way or another.”

When I recently voiced my skepticism toward the importance of attitude, visualization techniques, and such, I was asked, “Well, what alternatives would you propose? How did you dispose yourself to dealing with cancer and chemotherapy?” Even as I write this, I am unsure of exactly how to answer this. I guess I would say that if stress, for instance, were crucially important to recovery, I might not be here. The idea of visualizing myself in a fight whereby my goal was to beat cancer flies in the face of how I perceive reality. To me, one can no more beat cancer than they can beat death itself. This doesn’t mean I wasn’t optimistic, hopeful, and upbeat about my prognosis, it simply means I wasn’t ready to delude myself with romantic notions about mind over matter. I was firmly set upon dealing with whatever it took to eradicate the cancer, and I hope it stays away, but I also felt it would do me no good to see myself as an exception to what might possibly happen. While I couldn’t theorize what was happening when I was in the throes of the worst, looking back, I would say I tried to strike a balance between grim visions of the worst and the denial that resides in romantic illusions.

After I had gone through the chemo and was feeling better, a common comment I heard concerned my toughness, and how this toughness got me through. In fact, what this experience showed me was that I wasn't that tough, and that giving up the illusion of toughness was a blessing in disguise.

Granted, these things are specific to the individual, and in retrospect, my situation was less serious than T. M.’s or T. S.’s. I can only attest to what I experienced.

Best – Randy Tessier

Is Barack Obama Interested In Social Justice?

Dear Readers:

Being busy with the start of the new semester and all, I haven’t had a chance to focus on the blog.

So, while I’m thinking about my next topic, which I think will be on the subject of body modification as it relates to BIID, I thought I might post some arresting images, as well as some excerpts from a Paul Krugman op-ed piece in the New York Times.

I include these excerpts as a way of posing the same question Krugman’s opinion asks: are we going to let these gangster thugs who’ve terrorized national and world civil order for the last eight years get away with it?

Peace – Randy

PS: McGee’s back home.

Forgive and Forget?

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Last Sunday President-elect Barack Obama was asked whether he would seek an investigation of possible crimes by the Bush administration. “I don’t believe that anybody is above the law,” he responded, but “we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.”

I’m sorry, but if we don’t have an inquest into what happened during the Bush years — and nearly everyone has taken Mr. Obama’s remarks to mean that we won’t — this means that those who hold power are indeed above the law because they don’t face any consequences if they abuse their power.

…Meanwhile, about Mr. Obama: while it’s probably in his short-term political interests to forgive and forget, next week he’s going to swear to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” That’s not a conditional oath to be honored only when it’s convenient.

And to protect and defend the Constitution, a president must do more than obey the Constitution himself; he must hold those who violate the Constitution accountable. So Mr. Obama should reconsider his apparent decision to let the previous administration get away with crime. Consequences aside, that’s not a decision he has the right to make.

Good News & Sad News: Tim McGee, Jesse Luke, and Ron Asheton

“I enjoy convalescance. It is the part that makes illness worthwhile.”
-- George Bernard Shaw 1856-1950: “Back to Methuselah” (1921)

Good news. Time McGee has come through his surgery with a smiling face and no complications.

One of my great joys when relaxing in Big Bay is reading “The Porcupine Press.” It was with some sadness, then, that I noticed Jesse Luke’s (The P.P.s web and print designer) obituary in The Ann Arbor News. My sincere condolences to those of you in Ann Arbor and Marquette who knew him.

There will be a celebration of his life tonight (Jan. 7) at the Cavern Club (1st Street) in Ann Arbor.

A nationally known nice guy from Ann Arbor also passed this week. Ron Asheton (AKA Rock Action), late of the Stooges, is no longer with us.

ATTN: Ski-doo Fans

FROM THE ASSOCIATED PRESS (SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER)

Lead singer Iggy Pop called Asheton "my best friend" in a statement Tuesday, and the band expressed shock at his death.
"For all that knew him behind the facade of Mr. Cool & Quirky, he was a kind-hearted, genuine, warm person who always believed that people meant well even if they did not," the band said in a written statement. "As a musician Ron was The Guitar God, idol to follow and inspire others. That is how he will be remembered by people who had a great pleasure to work with him, learn from him and share good and bad times with him."
Asheton's powerful, distorted guitar on songs like "I Wanna Be Your Dog" and "T.V. Eye" was a hallmark of the group's sound. His "technically adept but also beautifully raw" style was heavily influenced by free jazz and created "beauty out of noise," said Brian Cogan, a punk-music historian at Molloy College on New York's Long Island.
"He invents the template for punk-rock guitar," Cogan said. "He's the one who allows Johnny Ramone and the guys in the Dictators to play the way they do."
When he was named the 29th greatest guitarist of all time in 2003 by Rolling Stone, the magazine described Asheton as "the Detroit punk who made the Stooges' music reek like a puddle of week-old biker sweat."
After recording three albums in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Stooges split and Iggy Pop went on to a successful solo career. Asheton played guitar for bands including the New Order, New Race, Destroy All Monsters and Dark Carnival.
In 2003, Asheston reunited with the rest of the Stooges and a new album, "The Weirdness," was released in 2007.
Russ Gibb, who owned Detroit's legendary Grande Ballroom and gave the Stooges their first major show there in 1968, said Asheton was a gentleman in all of their dealings.
"Wherever he is today, it's a better place because he's there," Gibb said Tuesday. "He was a gentleman musician. The musicland that you and I live in has lost something today and wherever musicians go, they're better today because he's there."
Ronald Asheton was born July 17, 1948, in Washington, D.C.

A New Year's Encyclical and Two Thank You Notes

“People mean well and do not see how distancing insistent cheeriness is, how it denies another’s reality, denies a sick person the space or right to be sick and in pain.”
-- Marilyn French 1929-- : “A Season in Hell” (1998)

One of the comforting abstractions of youth is the illusion that adulthood brings wisdom, security, and resolution; and this is as it should be, lest our children see the truth of existence and head for the exits. That there's no future in imagining Santa Claus packing enough racing fuel to send the party up the chimney seems self-evident. So we hide the foreclosure notice, trumpet the joys of "peace on earth/good will towards men," take a day off from bombing Gazans, and head for High Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

And why shouldn't we gush about Xmas, After all, baby Jesus grew up, died for our sins, and ensured we could all be redeemed and go to Heaven. Prior to the mass redemption precipitated by the Crucifixion (see Mel Gibson's bloody biopic), we were all guilty of that most heinous of sins, the original transgression of eating from the Tree of Knowledge, which in turn required that we be washed clean by the blood of the lamb. No longer could we cavort in that prelapsarian paradise where the pain of acquiring food, shelter, and clothing was non-existent. That Eve, the first in the historical line of grasping, Evil Women, would pluck the forbidden fruit, and thus make childbirth a gendered affliction, provided a convenient justification for paternal hegemony. But are men more violent than women?

Might there be a Mrs. Claus out there ready to incinerate the party? And why is it that Sharon Smith enjoys the comforts of free healthcare, three squares a day, and a warm room for sending her little ones down the boat ramp to the Resurrection? They say if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.

All of my students felt she deserved the death penalty. But maybe she sees herself as another kind or redeeming angel, one that spared her children from the myth that growing older offers better days, the wisdom of time, and the security of aging. And what of those around us who lose the glow of youth-- that characteristic which allows us to overlook ignorance and folly as signs of immaturity, rather than innate human traits--and don the mantle of unforgivability (not a word) peculiar to adulthood? The trickerations (soon to be a word) of Father Time move us all from childlike innocence toward the way it is.

Humans starve, kill, rape, and plunder as matters of expediency; just as disease, suffering, and death, are expressions of nature's randomness. Conditions easily explained away with quaint phrases like, "God works in mysterious ways," or, "the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away."

Two close friends, one from my childhood some 50 years ago, the other, my mentor in graduate school, are now undergoing that arbitrariness of existence most of us assign to another day. Yes, people get sick, suffer, and die, but they’re always other people. The resignation of age, a quality of being euphemistically described as wisdom, is such that when it happens to us we internalize it as bad luck, while others around us ascribe it to some life-style flaw or moral imperfection.

On a recent visit to his oncologist, my childhood friend, T., described a recent encounter with a physician's assistant. Knowing my friend was suffering from throat cancer, he asked T. how long he had smoked. Having never smoked, T. was incensed, he was pissed that this sensitivity-trained caregiver (at least one would think so) had crassly assumed T.’s cancer was the result of being a life-long smoker. One wonders how many physicians enter the consultation with preconceived notions poured in their ears by medical attendants--whether they come from well-intentioned ignorance or pre-meditated callousness.

I once had a resident foreign medical student, haltingly, and nonchalantly, describe my cancer as a "stage three...no,…four...large cell lymphoma." This after arriving to receive a diagnosis I fully expected to confirm my complaint of a bothersome kidney stone.Just coincidentally, at the same time T. will undergo a ten-hour operation on his voice box at The University of Wisconsin, my other friend, also T., suffering from renal cell carcinoma, is having his kidney removed at The University of Michigan. Like myself, they are in their 50s, and full of life. Both are accomplished at what they've achieved. One is a consummate craftsmen and skilled artist who can turn Birdseye Maple into elegant pool cues, and then effortlessly run the table when called upon to demonstrate their effectiveness. The other is a highly esteemed author and scholar, prolific in his publishing output, and world-renowned in the area of disability studies.

TWO NEW YEAR’S MESSAGES FOR TIM AND TOBY

Posted 34 minutes ago
by Randy Tessier

Dear Tim:

When you're sick, anticipation takes the form of worry, or more specifically, anxiety. Know that we share your optimism, uncertainty, and impatience. I remember feeling those fiery orbs, (in my case marbles) and experiencing imaginings of every sort. Ms. Garceau was right to remind you of that most spiritual of healing medicines--the love of others. Know too that it's more than your family that loves you. That "flaming orange" post brought tears to my eyes, and I thank you for them. Tears are important: they bring relief and healing, and, perhaps more importantly, for those of us who love you, provide a concrete manifestation of our care and concern. Know too that you are in capable hands. U-W has one of the finest research hospitals in the world, and Dr. Hartig is an innovator in his surgical field. I guess I really want to say that what you took to be "whining" is an expression of the comfort, trust, and faith you place in those of us around you. You are a part of us, as we are a part of you.

Love - Randy

Dear Toby:

Although I haven’t spoken with you in a few days, you’re always in my thoughts. As I’ve briefly told you, another dear friend of mine is struggling with cancer. While I can empathize with you both in many ways, I’ve never known the emotion of awaiting a major surgery; and in this regard, having undergone three major surgeries, you alone have already experienced this. As you so eloquently put it, you know what it means to see us “on the other side.” Without going into the many dialogues we’ve shared, I would say that your wisdom has given me spiritual insight, as well as aided my good counsel to Tim. Thank you, dear Professor, for teaching me the meaning of caring listening, consideration of others, and what it means to exhibit a stoic patience in the face of adversity.

Love – Randy

Happy New Year, and I’ll see you both on the other side.