Please Read These Words

Sure.  Go ahead and make me sonny boy.  I bet you can’t shoot an ounce of piss for what it’s all worth.  You’re thinkin you know it all.  You and your college friends.  You and your smarty pants neighbors Bob and Barbara.  I tell ya you’re nothin.  NOTHIN!  Without me and my yelling at all hours of the night and day.  The wearing of the pajamas in the front yard, down the driveway, walking my Shitzu, going down the block for some coffee at the QuikEmart.  Just get out of my way.  I went through three wars, and THEN I married Karen.  Jesus.  Don’t tell me to shut up.  I can hit an empty can of Bud at five hundred yards, skin a camel, build a cabin out of matches, and still make it home for chicken dinner.  Go the hell back to Cleveland Sharky!  I said we don’t want your kind around here.  Those were the days I tell ya.  Climbin’ on the back of the turnip truck just in time for last call.  Go ahead I said.  Just try me.

My mother once told me that spelling Christmas “Xmas” was not appropriate.  I see it everywhere.  We live in an “inappropriate” world.  We are so fucking crass most of the time, how in the hell can Jesus live with us?  Spelling the name of his birthday Xmas is the least of our problems.  First of all, he died simply hoping his teachings of loving one another would live on.  He did not ask for holidays in his name.  And if he did, what most people do to celebrate the importance of  loving family, friends, and neighbors seems to miss the mark.

I hereby declare everyday is Xmas and Easter.  I’m not trying to alienate other faiths, but as a person raised Roman Catholic; these two holidays are like the Super Bowl and World Series of Christianity.  From what I know about Jesus, he was no fair weather good guy.  He was on people’s team sun up to sun down.  If we are to believe that he  suffered even half as much as Mel Gibson wanted him to suffer, let’s make some effort to expand the spirit of these holidays into everyday living. 

Jesus said to forgive.   He was the ultimate hippy in a time of great unrest, violence, and hypocricy among the supposedly pious and powerful.  Sound famaliar?  History just keeps on repeating itself.  We just keep on getting the signals mixed up.  IT IS WRITTEN  that the kingdom is in YOU.  There is a savior for you right where you sit, stand, and resides right in your shoes while you walk.  The biggest trick of modern times is getting people to believe that they are helpless without “Christ” in their heart.  Jesus–as in the man, the philosopher, the hippy, the rebel–passed words down in ways no different than other sages over time.  He was like any other person born with a desire to ask questions and search out the answers.  He would never claim to be the only person born advocating, and strategizing for greater peace among human beings.  The words written about Jesus describe a man who would never exploit another person’s ability to make choices.  Telling people “do this and believe this, or you will not be saved” is absolutely fucked.  If Jesus did talk about “The Father” or “God” he is only expressing what we all yearn for…  comfort, safety, someone to tell us where we came from, and that it will be O.K.  So if this notion can save you, great.  Jesus would never put that on me.  

Jesus knows there is so much more to know, and that the human paradise we are blessed to have is full of mystery.  The greatest mystery is that of choice.  We never fully know what will become of our choices.  We guess, project, consult, chart, experiment, etc.–and the human condition laughs at us in our fumbling attempts to explain trillions of molecules working together with a three letter word:  g-o-d…  What a crock.  I love Xmas, Easter Bunnies, rituals that celebrate goodness and harmony with all things mysterious and alive.  I even love god, or God, or anything that can bring people together without bringing in a planning committee that pits god vs. another god or gods.  I love the rock band King Missile.  I love that they sang a song about Jesus.  They simply wrote:  Jesus was way cool. 

 Merry Xmas.  Happy New Year.

Nevermind the voice in your head.  Scatterbrain it.  If you find yourself thinking about jumping in front of the oncoming 9:40 Amtrack, nevermind.  “You are not your thoughts,” said the wise woman with the long dark locks.  You are flesh and blood.  Important to no one, and everything to all of us.  Go back to the beginning and untangle the disappointments that were never your fault, but seem to feel that way.  Go back to the start and start over.  Rewrite it because you can.  History happens now.  The history of then does not exist unless you let it sit in your bones for too long–riding that couch with potato chips and too many sleep till 1pm days.  We know how we can do it better.  Everyone has plenty of feedback.  Isn’t it funny that “feedback” is also used to describe the horrible sound of an amplifier not in proper alignment with the instrument hooked to it?  Sure, it’s ironic that these words are yet another voice  echoing in the wilderness, but it’s a voice telling you to let go.  Don’t take yourself too seriously.  Don’t worry about whether or not the government is gonna take away your gun.  People will always sell guns.  Be sovereign.  But be connected too.  Take the risk to trust your neighbors.  They may not steal from you if you bring them some pie.  Join the human race that is only about living as long as you can, and not getting anywhere first.  After all, why would you want to get somewhere first when you really don’t know where we’re all going?

What’s going to happen when Kirk Cameron realizes he’s not actually saved anymore than other humans.  I’m saved.  I know it.  I don’t even have to believe anything, to accept anything else into my heart except the blood that already pumps through it without me even thinking about it.  I don’t even have to be grateful for it.  It just happens.  I wake up, I breathe because of the oxygenation process going on between my lungs, heart and autonomic nervous system controlled by the holy hunk of cheese on my shoulders. Presto…  I get to do all kinds of stuff.  I can use oxygen to ride my bike, eat bowtie pasta, figure skate, and take color pictures of flowers, or black and white pictures of dilapidated barns and rusty metal things.  I can write…  Oh no.  Not again I can write.  I can judge and be a smart ass and feel the freedom of infinity through symbol combinations.  Ahh the possibility.  The simultaneous dread and joy of oxygen.  It’s been coming on again, and for the first time in too long, I invite you to join me.  One thing Kirk Cameron and I agree on, is that riding alone is no fun.  He’s got Christ.  I’ve got this keyboard and every other molecule my eyes ears nose tongue and hands have been blessed to grasp with that wholly unappreciated power of  photosynthesis.

It has been way too long.  Forever it seems.  The worst thing that could ever happen to you would be to stop.  Breathe in the air of creation and stomp on the voice of dogma.  Chew that bone up, buddy!  Get a reason to die and do it.  Get a reason to live and give it.  Go ahead and tell me to stop!  I won’t ever.  No way.  You think I’ll break these lines for anyone?  Not Obama, not Jesus, not the talented Tina Fey, not anyone including that way too famous God Almighty of your understanding.  Put out your fire.  Light your ass up with the sounds of the lines Aerosmith sucked up through dirty straws in a dirty 70s tour bus.  Go ahead and dare me to stop.  Go ahead and ask me about 7-11.  Or Felix’s house.  He just went out for another two-year walk, and his kids are wondering where the bread is.  His lady Maxine just got into another car, and she still can’t remember what time she’s supposed to meet the case worker.  How many ham and cheese sandwiches?  I can’t afford that.  How many watermelons?  Yeah.  Right.  Just get yourself to the picnic and Uncle Frank will take you home after.

Another economic downturn has entered the airwaves.  What are we going to do if the car companies don’t get our taxes?  Of course, I feel bad for the workers who have grown attached to their routines, and the knowledge that a pension can pay for food and vacations and grandkids’ birthday presents…  I just don’t really want to think about whether or not it’s fair for all of us to pay for a company’s lack of ingenuity and foresight.  My wife and I want to start a business; if we make a lot of stuff that people don’t want, do we get free money to keep our business doors open?  With corporations begging left and right for help from our communal pot, I wonder if the CEO’s of these places are even considering the irony that fear of socialism was such a sticking point in the recent election. 

I want everything to be free.  I don’t want to work.  I want the government to just print money and give me money so I can feel it in my hand.  I know if no one’s working, stores might close and money will be useless, but I still just want to hold fresh bills.  Have suitcases full of rubber-banded stacks of 100′s.  I want to watch the bills come off the press in sheets, and then get cut right into piles, wrapped in cellophane, and placed in an old Addidas gym bag I have at the back of my closet.  I don’t need fresh vegetables anymore, forget clean water and air.  Give me bags of cash and a high limit platinum card with one of those Fox News blondes on my arm.  I’ll find an abandoned Maserati in the Hollywood Hills after the fire.  The keys will be in it somehow, and the house attached to the Maserati will be untouched by the fire.  The blonde newswoman and I will have urgent sex on million thread count sheets.  Apocalyptic sex.  We’ll notice the house belonged to our favorite TV star from the 80′s and we’ll laugh about the good old days.  Then we’ll watch smoke rise from the burning lots scattering the adjacent hillsides.  The valley below darkening, we’ll suddenly realize the lights aren’t coming on.  The angels of the city have all gone to sleep.

            I am very sad about what’s in “the news.”  I almost feel guilty writing about Senator Barack Obama’s current dilemma with his former pastor the Reverend Wright—they’ve been tortured enough.  Anyway, here it is:  The behavior of channels like Fox News has been akin to that of the Ku Klux Klan.  Maybe no one is wearing hoods, but I know some will agree that what is going on is a public lynching. 

            We are holding Senator Obama hostage to a relationship he has with a “radical” preacher.  A preacher baptized in the Civil Rights movement, whose “radical” ideology is just what the doctor ordered in a land where people continue to be condemned due to skin containing more melanin.  Reverend Wright is a preacher whose memories of being treated as a second-class citizen are unfortunately not just memories—he too is right back where he started, defending himself against Whites for speaking too loudly.  We listen to the rants and raves of White Americans repeatedly without a blink, and when a Black man shouts dissention, the media acts like a plantation owner who just discovered his wife has been sneaking around with one of the help. 

            Barack Obama stands behind a podium daily speaking about hope, knowing full well that some will not listen to him because of his skin color.  For twenty years, he went to a church where he could feel comfortable.  Outside the church walls, he no doubt experienced thousands of moments where he had to question the looks he received from White people.  I imagine the foray into public service, putting his ideas—and quite literally—his skin, on display, was often a nerve-racking experience.  I have heard not a few people say, “I really like Barack Obama, but I’m scared that if he gets elected, some idiot will shoot him…”  What a fucking tragedy to have to hear that in “the land of the free.”  That said, it is simultaneously a thrill that we have come this far, witnessing a woman and an African American gaining the long-deserved endorsement of so many. 

            Perhaps the media could acknowledge that yes, history is being made, and then get on with “real” business.  Yes, you have dark skin.  You have a vagina.  Great.  Now, what will you do about the economy, and what do you think of not just Iraq, but also China?  Cuba?  Saudi Arabia?  California’s collapsing education budget?  I have been sickened by the media’s game of appealing to our lowest selves. 

            Senator Obama has had to defend himself repeatedly, when White politicians have associated with, or have been endorsed by spiritual advisors who are just as controversial.  I heard Reverend Wright speak with Bill Moyers, and his message—taken in context—is much different.  What media outlets are doing with sound bytes is not just inciting spirited debate and selling more airtime, they are ruining peoples’ lives.  They are crushing the hopeful ideas about which Obama and Clinton would rather be speaking.              These TV stations that call themselves news outlets, are lying to us.  We need to listen to voices in their entire context.  Furthermore, we need to hear the anger of people like Reverend Wright.  White people have ignored their privilege for too long, thinking all is well just because people like Oprah and Colin Powell exist.  “He speaks so well!”….  God help us…  You may think I’m off base for comparing Fox News to the KKK, but we need to admit that not just White privilege exists, but White supremacy, anti-Semitic, anti-Gay, anti-Muslim, and anti-Immigrant sentiments are alive and well in the USA. 

            Imagine waking up, and finding yourself a member of a minority group.  You realize that just being “different” makes you some kind of threat.  You want a good job, want to feed your family, worship a god of your understanding, and go to the movies occasionally.  However, when you go outside your house, you feel a strange tension in the air because you don’t look like most people in the neighborhood.  Fox News may not be sending their reporters out to hang people from trees, but they are exploiting this tension that many Americans experience as threatening.  They are selling a product that elevates fear.

            As far as what Wright says about “America,” at least give him a fair trial and put his whole speech on the air—and not just PBS.  We need the opportunity to think for ourselves about what’s true and what’s rhetoric.  Preachers are inclined to use drama to fill the pews.  In no way do I doubt the Reverend’s faith, but his position does have an element of showmanship.  We should be focusing more on how many poor families his congregation helped.

            Reverend Wright is a person who dedicated his life to helping others.  His name must be cleared.  Give the guy a break.  After all, I’ve heard plenty of White people talk conspiracy theory about AIDS, 9-11, etc.  You name the social ill, and someone claims the government is responsible.  At least Wright can claim to have lived during a period when our government made him drink out of different water fountains.  Try that on White America, and see if you too don’t grow up with a little paranoia!  To me, this is a man who is brave enough to speak his mind, and the Fox News editing room turned him into a clown. 

            After removing the noose from Reverend Wright, we must do the same for Senator Obama, allowing him a spiritual life outside the realm of his role as a politician.  Of course, his relationship with Wright had an impact on his life, but to allow the media to judge him solely via this relationship is ridiculous.  In my own experience, there were certain priests that said some stupid things on Sunday, and I returned the following week to see what someone else had to say, or perhaps I discovered that last week’s priest had found improved inspiration.  I imagine the association Obama identifies with the most, is the connection he had to the other members of the church, and the work they did together to help their community.  I invite news outlets to focus more on what we are doing to heal our communities from the wounds behind Reverend Writght’s anger.

            Having unique fingerprints or handwriting does not make me special.  What makes me special, makes everyone special—thereby negating all specialness.  The divinity that all religious traditions speak of is much cooler than being special.  We are a perfect human family.  We are unique beings when observed through the carnal lens, but much greater when seen as a web—connected not only to each other, but to every thing from sky scraper to dust mite.  

            Our consciousness indeed gets to “play the game” of being a separate body, with affinities for cats or dogs, chocolate or vanilla, etc.; but the “higher consciousness”—call it God or Gladys—keeps us plugged in to this thing called life.  When we experience this connection, and see the truth that all our actions affect the whole web, we don’t just play a good game, we begin to “play well with others.”  We build bridges, create paintings, celebrate birthdays and anniversaries; we reach out to other beings who may be experiencing the pain of separateness.

If you want a slice of eternity, all you have to do is one thing.  In the morning, take your alarm clock and throw it against the wall. 

 THE STOLEN HORSE

Visions were beginning to blur in the room of smoke and coke and cans and ashes; the curtains rippled over a sliding glass door leading to the balcony.  Overlooking the city, I started dreaming; I leaned over the railing into the wind and the whirling exhaust-ridden humidity, thick into a Friday night. 

We never really meant to kill anybody.  We never really meant to misunderstand the purpose.  Many moments of coincidence had been merging with grace.  There were  lots of shoulds of regret, and coulds of rusty ambition.  All that hair-club fruition among stolen cars, piss-stained bathrooms, and the trash on the stairs.  They were wishing we could be here in St. Croix.  It is beautiful.  It is pristine and clean, but your Uncle Al got sunburned on his bald spot the first day here.

Sometimes we wish we were there in the thick of things.  In the cockpit flying towards more friendly airspace.  Over the glacial gorges and fiords, the oceans and comets, avoiding all the asteroid-scattered space stations with enemy warships landing on moons.  We wanted to circle Jupiter in peace and make love on Venus on a Sunday afternoon.  It just didn’t work out.

The Gregorian chant echoed under the stars while the waterfalls hushed low far from the tenement screams.  They said everything was going to be fine now that the Go Go’s  are on the radio; because the music both comes from, and cures stomach discomfort.  But the blues welled up anyway in our eyes of heartache, just as we returned from the barn where we killed a man for his horse.

The cop car rolled by the silos and stopped.  The man got out. He walked toward Steve who had the horse at the end of the driveway tied to a mailbox.  The gravel crunched under the officer’s boots.  The Captain Crunch echoed under my sneakers on the linoleum.  Steve looked at the officer.  The officer looked at Steve.  You’re not from this town.  You were in the wrong place today. 

Why do you keep saying that?  How much do I get?  You said half, and you heard me say she’s a winner.  Why should I believe you?  James, give the officer the bag.  Put the horse in the trailer.  You know it’s time to leave.  Move along now trooper.  Start thinking about what your next move is.

Wait.  Hold it right there.  Where are you going?  What are you going to do when you get there?  How much money do you have?  Why are you going again?  Do you like Willie Nelson or The Rolling Stones? Are the city lights too bright to see the stars?  Where is your brother and sister and mama and papa?  Are they feeling OK?  Did you have breakfast this morning?  Did you sleep well last night?  Is your head on straight? Are you gonna be a dollar short for a ham and cheese sandwich from 7-11?  Do you wish you were someone else?  Do you wish you could touch someone else?  Do you get scared they won’t touch you back? 

The diesel whined behind the rush of taxis while the earth kept spinning. If it stood still there wouldn’t be enough room for everyone on the side where the sun shines.  They said things could always be very different if it were not for this or that little thing.  It was all a balancing act of balancing and symmetrizing all the unasymmetricalizing random entities which when somehow juxtaposed correctly, produced the sublime.  We were the rose peaches, the plums and frosted flakes squirming under fireworks.  We were about pancakes and fresh bacon.  Breakfast on the beach at sunrise.

It’s where I want to be with you.  And my new horse, of course, before I die.

            Am I to believe that my head is a problem?  My ego?  Well, yes.  There are two me’s.  There’s Pete, and there’s Mr. Alive.  Pete thinks he was born on such and such day, in this or that town, drives a car worth too much or not enough, and a has a job that makes him think he’s all that or not much of anything.  Mr. Alive doesn’t think.  He just is.  He’s been around for like forever, and isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and—believe it or not—he hasn’t been anywhere before, because there are no before’s or future’s with this guy.  He’s the one moving the pen, and Pete is just the one who likes to think that Pete is periodically clever.  Mr. Alive on the other hand, is always clever, and never misses a beat. 

            That said, Pete does get to feel more like Mr. Alive when he listens better, when he creates, moves about, walking, talking, riding a bike or writing without too much thought.  Ahh, those are the moments.  However, here we are with the thoughts—like Beck the musician says, “Comin’ to you 1000 beats per minute…”

            On good days, Pete tries to let Mr. Alive run the show via activities like prayer, meditation, and aerobic exercise.  These activities—though they take longer than beer, but are free of hangovers and more extreme side effects like chronic depression and homelessness—scrub the brain of energy draining thoughts, and let the more easy-going ponderings of Mr. Alive come through.  And yes, writing is another good brain scrubber.  Mr. Alive and Pete work together in the editorial room, and the goal is for the words to reflect Mr. Alive’s sentiments; however, we realize Pete is bound to influence the process, and it can be great fun to work with Mr. Alive on which words get crossed out or set on fire.

            The message coming today is that thoughts are there for the taking or leaving, and Pete’s job is to let Mr. Alive decide which ones are important.  Simultaneously, Pete must not take this occupation too seriously; this is how Mr. Alive gets turned into “reasons” for spilling blood.  Guns don’t kill.  People with names like Pete kill.  Egos kill to protect what was never really there.  Egos protect stories we invent to make us feel more than—when we can never really feel more than Mr. Alive.  The Pete’s in the world are often more worried about making up these stories than appreciating the real spin behind it all.  Holy shit…  I’m alive!  What can I do to spread this news?