The Loss Would Be Mitigated

He found seventeen thousand dollars in a bag. Large bills, hundreds. He didn’t want to report it; he wanted the money. This was two thousand more than he owed on his student loan. He knew he couldn’t tell his wife as she would insist on reporting it lost. He decided he couldn’t tell anyone. He would separate sums and hide the money. He knew he couldn’t use the money in a regular way as one just can’t go and deposit seventeen thousand dollars into a checking account, what with tax reporting and all. He would spend the money on small things like dinners and hotel stays over a long period of time. This meant he would have to carry cash. This meant he was vulnerable. In his usual state of affairs, pulling multiple one hundred dollar bills from a wallet was indeed unusual. What would his wife think when he had hundred dollar bills in his wallet; she would ask.

The hardest part was hiding the money. Obviously he would separate the money so that if a person happened to find a stash, the loss would be mitigated. A thousand a piece made sense to him as one stash could cover some fees for a good while without notice. But this meant seventeen hiding places. (more money more problems). Granted, ten, one hundred dollar bills isn’t that conspicuous but still, hiding and remembering seventeen spots was a bit of a problem. Under the mattress kinds of spots was out of the question as the wife cleaned thoroughly. A safe deposit box was too Jason Bourne-ish. He thought of burying the money but then he would have to bury it at night not to be seen and this became more problematic than the original problem. A locker at a train station or bus depot? Maybe he couldn’t separate the money, maybe he would have to just hide the one lump sum and visit as necessary.

Thrice

It’s time.

But I don’t want to.

Come.

Please, no.

Find the story that writes itself. Find the story where the writer is merely the tuned channel. Find it. Be it. Stop seeking and you’ll do.

Something is changing but this shouldn’t be too surprising because everything is changing…always, never not changing –but this never not changing becomes the static from which we can move, think, be, exist, live, lie, love, kill, watch tv, eat Cheetos…and (crying profusely) this isn’t just wordplay, it matters! Only now you understand that consciousness is nothingness! Only now you understand the time you’ve wasted! And yet the time still pours from the hourglass, still slips away like the blood from your body, and the more you realize the more valuable IT becomes. But it took so long to REALIZE, that you end. You denied DENIED and denied in the face of the evidence in the face of yourself in the face of the truth you knew you knew you knew. Are you tempted to deny, again? Are you tempted to live and not brood? Brooding was never the issue. Truth was the issue; the overriding issue. The heavy handed issue. The issue you had to hold in thought to deny, the issue causing the dissonance. Reverberating when little truths reflected the unmoved truth, larger truth, the truth of you for you in you never not you no matter how much you…

Bond Of Brothers

If you’ve never been in a YMCA child watch room on a weekend just imagine being inside a pinball machine inside a Dave & Busters, during an earthquake, with toddlers running around screaming. That about captures it. 

However, said room was an immense source of joy on a recent trip to the Y. 

When I get back from my run the boys are always revved up to see me. They show me their toy du-jour then fly around like banshees. 

On this particular day the boys indeed showed me their toys, today it was two castles – one had a door that could transform into a hawk’s beak and the other had a dragon head that could swallow unsuspecting visitors. After a little playtime with the castles Julian decided to sprint to the bounce-house and sat down first in line. About this time Avery plopped right down on the ground to continue with his castle; I think he was making grunting noises as the dragon head continued to devour unsuspecting figurines, all of this out of sight of Julian sitting in line for the bounce-house. Out of nowhere Julian decides to yell at the top of his lungs: “AVERY! AVERY! COME OVER HERE!” Now remember that this room on a weekend is basically like being inside a tornado of toddler shrieks. I quickly look at Avery as Julian continues to yell for his brother when all of a sudden Avery’s ears turn at funny angles and he pops up like a meercat in the Kalahari and spins his head around like Linda Blair in The Exorcist to find his brother. He darts over there to sit behind his brother and wait for their turn in the bounce-house. They would proceed into the bounce-house and pummel each other with glee.

Me, I just reveled in their growing bond. A bond of brothers. A bond that cannot be broken by neither the din of the YMCA child watch room nor the pleas of their father: “don’t step on your brother’s head!” 

via GIPHY

Little Or No Net Worth

                           GEKKO

               The richest one percent of this

               country owns half the country's

               wealth: 5 trillion dollars. One

               third of that comes from hard work,

               two thirds of it comes from

               inheritance, interest on interest

               accumulation to widows and idiot

               sons and what I do -- stock and

               real estate speculation. It's

               bullshit. Ninety percent of the

               American people have little or no

               net worth. I create nothing; I own.

                               BUD

               Dad, I'm going to jail and you know

               it.

                               CARL

                       (shaking his head, sober)

               Maybe that's the price, Bud, maybe

               so. It's gonna be rough on you but

               maybe in some screwed up way,

               that's the best thing that can

               happen to you...stop trading for

               the quick buck and go produce

               something with your life, create,

                don't live off the buying and

               selling of others...

From the movie Wall Street - 1987.
I was 17.
Around age 21 I would take a Chinese history course in undergrad and come to learn that  owners, those who create nothing, who live off the buying and selling of others, are viewed as vermin by the Maoists.

Loosen Up - A Play In X Number of Axe.

I continue to plod through the power of myth by campbell.
My writing has stalled with advisees and the saturday course in full swing.
Hoping after myth, the semester will be over and leave time for Being There by Kosinski and On Writing by Stephen "you ain't never met no Dr. Martin Luther the" King.
Why reference Eddie Murphy's Coming to America in my existential confession?
Because that is the best I can do.
It's all relative.
It's all a part of the human drama, playing out before our eyes, unfolding the duality back into the unison...
Yeah, the best I can do is part and parcel to/of the human drama.
And the best I can do, right now, is a middle name quip.
I'm tired.
Been up since 4:45am.
Have logged 16 miles in 4 days and the little guy is getting up during the night.
Is this an excuse?
Excuse, recluse, too loose, the noose is too tight with your thinking brah.
Loosen up.

That Without Which A Thing Cannot Exist

Got the feels last night. Big time. Feels I haven’t had for a long, long time. 

But before we get to the feels, let’s talk about a long, long, time – like 30,000 years.

Student came in yesterday and we end up talking about her ec’s (extra curriculars to folks not in higher ed) and she mentions theatre so we start rapping about acting and what-not and somehow I find my way to the importance of art and reference the documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams. (It was about now when her eyes started to roll back in her head and she mumbled something about getting to class and ran out of my office.)

Think about this, some 30,000 years ago, there were people fighting the elements and beasts and expecting to die before a 30^th birthday but astoundingly, found it necessary to put art on cave walls.

Why? 

Simple: art is essential to what it means to be human. Unequivocally essential. Sartre taught us that we are beings such that our being is in question and there is no greater proof of this than art. You and me we are not simply organisms playing out the life-clock with physiological tasks like nutrition intake and homeostasis. No no, we question our existence. We ask why we are here and what it all means, what am I supposed to do and that art on those cave walls from 30,000 years ago is nothing but the mirror of the human predicament, the embodiment of those questions. Nothing but.

Why else would humans from 30,000 years ago take the time to render the materials and put art on those walls when there are so many other seemingly pressing matters like oh I don’t, know, survival?

So art is essential (from the greek ontos – that without which a thing cannot exist).

Now fast forward to October 6, 2016 and we return to the feels.

My wife and I went to see the band Lake Street Dive last night. You probably haven’t heard of Lake Street Dive and for that I am actually thankful because I got to see them at a really small venue – in this case Fete Music Hall in Providence, which holds just over 700 people. For my Athens peeps, think upstairs at the Blue Gator.

Just stepping into the venue, jam packed with bodies, working your way through the mass, to get to the bar with the opening band blasting their horn section, took me back to my live music days in an instant. The rush of not only performing but just being close to performers in a small venue where the bass gets under your skin and the room becomes a collective musical/emotional ear filled me with the aforementioned feels.

And then there was Lake Street Dive. Now I could go on about the talent of Lake Street Drive and I could wax poetic about the harmonies and how they get so very much out of the so very minimal, really I could. But it is better just to show you and let your ears tell you.

With art being essential to our human condition, this means that artists are essential. And we love to be in the presence of artists. We admire talented artists, we smile at their music and we revel in our feels when they rock a side pony 

or when we know what they mean when they sing that they wished they had met you when they were 17. 

So get out there, even if it is a Thursday and you have to pay a sitter an ungodly amount of money; go see some artists. Or better yet, create some of your own art. It’s essential.