Nothing Compares To You

 I don't know if you've heard the Chris Cornel cover of Nothing Compares To You.

But you should.

During my half-hour drive to take my eldest (now 10) son to swim, the song came on.

Tis a powerful rendition laddy. 

And me being the emotional sensitive guy I am, well you know, I had them feels.

The lyrics and the rendition brought back some pretty powerful memories of a break-up in my oh so sensitive twenties. One hard part was the realization of being rejected.

Now here's the thing, this ten year-old reading in the back is oh so sensitive, like his old man. And my job is to help him along in this world.

How does one teach about rejection? Minimize it by giving it context?: everyone will experience it; take the long view. Explain it away? Rationalize it? Embrace it some sort of Leibnizian best of all possible worlds/what doesn't kill us makes us stronger sort of way?

I cannot save him from rejection, even though I know his sensitivity will make it so damn powerful. I know he will look inside and...take it to heart.

I know this.
I feel this.

But dem feels, so powerful; so alive; so sensitive to the rejection but also the love.

Sensitive through and through.

"I can eat my dinner in a fancy restaurant..."

David Lee Roth - Breaking Down Walls, 4th Walls

 All three, count 'em three, kiddos in the car. Mass hysteria, as usual. I forget where we were going, because, it's mass hysteria with three kids in the car.

Anyhoo, Van Halen's Unchained comes on the Sirius XM Radio and because it's Van Halen, I dig it.

Now I've written about Eddy on this hear blogarooski, but I can't remember if I've written about Diamond Dave.

Till now.

If you don't know Unchained, give it a listen:

Just killer isn't it. 1981 Killer stuff.

Three kids in the car but fourth walls being broken down.

What is the fourth wall?

Per your pals at wiki, it's: 

a performance convention in which an invisible, imagined wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this "wall", the convention assumes the actors act as if they cannot.

My first experience with this was, of course, one of my favorite movies: Airplane.

Ted Striker breaks down that fourth wall, looks at me, yeah me, and says, "What a pisser."

God I love Airplane. Airplane II too. 22.

What's all this got to do with Diamond Dave?

Well, Dave loved his little talky talk during Van Halen tunes: "What the fuck, I'll pay you for it; What do you think the teacher's gonna look like this year; Reach down between my legs and ease the seat back."

You remember.

But on Unchained, Dave ropes in Producer Ted Templeman. 

That's Ted, top left.

"C'mon Dave...gimme a break."

It comes into the music from the outside. From outside the studio, into the mix. 

Ted told me, "What a pisser," and broke down a wall, and per Dave, Ted Templeman told me, after a wall came down, that he wanted Dave to give him a break.

By instinct or creative genius (or a mix), Dave broke down a wall.

You may not think, behind all that flash and 80's schtick and the teased hair and groupies that Dave is an artist, but you'd be wrong.

He is...an artist. The myth is that one can't fun and be an artist. An artist is serious and concentrated and thoughtful and committed.

Maybe, definitely, behind the hair and the "outfits", Dave is all those things...and fun.

It's a forced dichotomy you doofus. I know it's hard to believe. 

But the record(s) speaks for its self. 

Truman Capote, AI, and Comedy

I recently reread Truman Capote's La Côte Basque from my Great Esquire Fiction book and it prompted my research into this story, which prompted this post on Artificial Intelligence and Comedy.

In researching this story and Capote, google kept popping up things about Capote's IQ. After I finished my research of this story (and how it basically ruined Capote's life and resulted in his slow suicide via drugs and alcohol) I went back to the Capote IQ.

Now the internet isn't exactly the place for unequivocal truth, but let's say that Capote's "internet" IQ of 215 is close to the truth. 

Now we know that AI can now write novels and poetry and there is cause to believe it can be "good" or "decent" writing. 

Because AI is a matter of pattern recognition. Recognize enough patterns and you can create, be it skyscrapers or stories. 

This is a crucial point. 

So I thought of comedy. If AI can recognize the parts/patterns of a joke, (set-up, punch line, etc.), it can in theory, create comedy.

So in time we can expect computers to be comedians?

Naw.

Part of what computers and AI can't access or pattern recognize, is feelings. Humans have feelings. And pain. Certainly what drove part of Richard Pryor's comedy was pain. Part of what drove George Carlin's comedy was anger.

Can computers pattern recognize their way to pain or anger?

In my estimation, no.

Pain and anger, (and I say this in my 51st year on the planet, and in therapy), require a biography, a full narrative to draw from.

Computers and AI don't have a past, replete with feelings and memories.

Can computers and AI pattern recognize their way to feelings and memories?

You can see where this is going. An infinite regress, a homonculus with a homonculus with a...

Kurzweil is probably correct about the future and the singularity may be near. And he's probably correct that we shouldn't fear it or the algorithms.

Probably.

I have always been more afraid of humans than anything else, being a student of history.

I certainly do not fear robots and AI creating anything artistic that will rival what humans can do. 

Capote, IQ of 215 and all, was, per Nietzsche, human, all too human, and imperfect and flawed and capable of sadness and regret and shame, in incredible proportions.

Ah feelings, nothing more than feelings.
Trying to forget my feelings...

AI can't feel or forget.

Our (human) art is safe.

Just not from humans.

Get it?

Stupid copywriting, I didn't want to do it anyway

I recently finished Behave: The Biology of Humans At Our Best and Worst by Robert Sapolsky and was taken aback at how he points out what socioeconomic status and early trauma can do to a person. 

Namely, me.

And here I sit, in a nice house, reading a book for a copywriting class I get to take...for free when a certain passage hits me and I realize just how correct Sapolsky is.

The book for the copywriting class is The Well Fed Writer: Financial Self-Sufficiency as a Commercial Freelancer in Six Months or Less, by Peter Bowerman.

The chapter is Nuts and Bolts and the Passage is The Ebb and Flow of Work, where he writes:

"...in most cases, human nature usually prevails: we market a bunch, get work, stop marketing, only to resume after the job's done. The result? Alternating periods of being swamped and dead in the water. C'est la vie..."

And in 4 sentences I know I can't be a freelance copywriter.

(Disclosure: I was not planning on being a freelance copywriter or a non-freelance copywriter. I'm taking a class to learn some stuff.)

But the thought of not having a job and not having an income, meager it may be, is too anxiety provoking to give this career a second thought. 

Growing up with 8 people in a 2 bedroom home that could have six inches of water in the basement means I have to keep my world small and routine and perhaps the most important part of that routine is money (again meager) coming in.

I can't ebb and flow with money, I can't C'est la vie. I won't make it.

Why?

Socioeconomic status and trauma.

We are thrown into the world, with no choice of where we land or into which hands and homes. 

I have a choice now but it is limited. Free will is limited at best, an illusion at worst. 

Stupid copywriting, I didn't want to do it anyway.

Luv you dad.

Well here we are faithful Heavy Levity blog follower, September 21, 2021 and yours truly is now fifty and one years of age. As the religious say in america, holy shit. 

First the facts: I'm a mess mentally...and have been for a long time. Angry, bitter, incompetent, lazy, not too bright, unintelligent, redundant, with a touch of pedant at best and a slap across the face at worst. But on the bright side, I completed a half-marathon on Saturday morning with a time of 1:46:53. (My last half was in 2017 and I finished in 1:51:17.)

Tis funny because I think platonic dualism is the cause of much suffering but in a Leibnizian fashion, my mental suffering helps my almost best of all possible worlds running.

I kid.

Second the fun: my coworkers presented me with a card and sang a lively happy birthday. When I told them it was reminiscent of how they used to sing it at Chi Chi's...NONE of them even knew of Chi Chi's.

Funny haha and funny old-as-hell. I didn't think it was like I was talking about a printing press or a phonograph machine but I guess I went and dated myself.

Third the love: The fam didn't have time to celebrate over the weekend with all the activities and I was happy my wife gave me the four plus hours to get out in the morning, run, and not get back until around 10 or so, while she took all the tots to gymnastics and baseball. And today doesn't bode well because I am gone from about 8 to 8 and the mornings being absolute chaos trying to get everything and everyone together and out the door on time.

But get this: I'm walking my daughter from the car to the check-in table at daycare and I ask her, "You gonna do a good job today?" And in just the cutest fashion in the world, as only she can say it she says, "Yes." But she hangs on that s for just a little bit and it comes out with an unmistakable yesss. So cute and endearing. But it gets better.

Then, she says, "Luv you Dad." Oh man, I lit up like an xmas tree. Totally unprompted but totally accepted and completely needed. 

And with four words, I tell you, one of the best birthdays ever.

Behave...and Mirrors

 As I begin the hour commute back to work, at the recommendation of one of my colleagues, I am listening to Behave, by Robert Sapolsky.

The subtitle is: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst.

Sapolsky is digging down as far as possible in regard to certain behaviors. 

Listening yesterday, after yet another episode in life where I shut down and found myself bitter and angry, Sapolsky held up a mirror with the following pages:

I can't get the image out of my head of my father, sulking and bitter on my wedding day. I think about the times over the years, way too many, where I have done the same thing: sulked and shut down, despite having the material things I need to survive.

Anhedonia - the inability to feel, anticipate, or pursue pleasure.

Am I there? At 50? Married with three young children?

Regardless, I think a paradigm shift is in order. I don't know how to practically make the shift and per Sapolsky, I think my biology, shaped by my early poverty/trauma, is getting in the way. It's like trying to avoid seeing yourself by looking in a mirror.

Species

I recently returned from a "vacation" from the outer banks in North Carolina. I put "vacation" in scare quotations because, well, I have three, count em, three young kids, so what I more accurately returned from was, a trip. Anyhoo, on said trip, I visited a putt putt golf, with said kids and...it felt...strange. (The Doors: People are strange, when you're a stranger...) Strange because it was insanely packed with vacationers (and perhaps some native outer banksers) put putting and the course itself was, how shall I say this, awful. The theme was dinosaurs, because who doesn't like to putt putt under a t-rex, but the greens were littered with, well, litter, and the dinos were crumbling and needed paiting and the waterfall had filth and muck and goo and slime and worst to mine eyes, a baby pacifier floating in it. And the, have to say it, people, there just seemed like a different species to me. Now I know I am getting old and am going through this mid-life/whole life crisis thingamagig, but I don't know what that has to do with people's fashion choices and vaping and chewing chaw and drinking coca-cola on a decrepid putt putt course. Some people marvel at the number of species on the planet. What plays a role in our vast, yes vast, number of species, has to do with geographic separation. Birds in South America can't produce viable offspring with birds in Norhtern Europe, let's say. Well, how do birds and other creatures get separated? Well, things like hurricanes and tropical storms and other assorted geographic separaters. So, it is roughly 700ish miles from Rhode Island to the outer banks. Is this enough geopraphic separation to make applicable a new species? Of course not. Through the fashion choices and the vaping and the coca-cola and the chaw and the vast differences, we could still produce viable offspring. Still, the experience was jarring and disorienting, like being thrown and tossed by a Nags Head wave.

Fixer-Upper

It was a fixer-upper, for the upper-middle class Needs met, wants a mere jest From bread and milk, to good head and silk The fixer-upper needs remodeled, the kids are coddled Camps and nannies and enhancement opportunities galore Less is not more Not here, have no fear You’ll see, money M-O-N-E-Y, to the sky The fixer-upper kitchen needs redone, hon. Italian marble here, one-of-a-kind backsplash there, money everywhere Spare no expense, a budget is nonsense Times are good and they’re gonna stay good The future isn’t unsure, to be sure, we have the cure For the fixer-upper

In Pursuit of Pursuit

This hit me so hard the other day. https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2014/07/11/billy-mills-olympics Clearly, Billy Mills' pursuit of Olympic Gold and helping others, saved his life. As I continue to battle through my mid-life crisis, I listened to this and thought: What to pursue? I have pursued things and dreams in life and achieved some things and even met some goals...but now, with life half over (I'm a realist) and children to raise and help provide for, what to pursue? What are you pursuing? As Will Hunting asked in Good Will Huniting, "What winds your watch? Because time is ticking.

Dear Diary

My midlife crisis is, I guess, good for my physical health. I ran a 6:28 mile on Sunday and did a one and a half off the diving board. But still, the malaise of M's radiates and hums: Mid-life Marriage Mental Health Money all under the umbrella of Mortality...and the fact that I'm finite. I end. I am bound. Up in this world, with you people. What would I do without you though?

Change Change Change

 As in a lot of my dreams, I am lost. I am not in a hurry, but I am lost. What should be familiar is suddenly foreign. Time is wasted when lost. Hallways become miles and parking lots vast expanses. I see others and they seem to know where they are going but when I follow, I am still lost. 

And here I am, a half century into a life, lost. And here I am, he who should be awash in wisdom, lost in ignorance and doubt and fear...but not alone. No, I am a husband and a father to three young children. And my parents, perhaps lost souls as well, are not around to help, to guide me from the thickets into the light.

I also dreamt of women. Of the prettiest girls in High School. Thirty plus years removed from High School and the inferiority invades my dreams.

I dreamt of my parents. They were lost. Young and more robust...but lost. Unable to help. In need of help.

I used to believe that dreams are just electrochemical garbage; neural remains of the day that swirl about before their discard. Though many partners have awoken me as I screamed and hollered from the night terrors, I maintained my belief. 

I alone assign importance to things. Subjectivity rules. I deem what matters...to me. Maybe these dreams and these night terrors arise because I have not...mattered to me. Maybe deep down, the
bone-deep inferiority felt from a young age from an inescapable poverty, means that I don't matter to me. Maybe I don't value myself. Intellectually I can tell myself that everyone has worth, and value, and dignity. It is another thing to feel worthy and valuable and dignified. Another thing completely, distinctly. 

How do I matter to me? How do I change? How do I flip the script? How do I turn the tables on life and feel better? 

"I will walk along these hillsides in the summer 'neath the sunshine. I am feathered by the moonlight falling down on me..."

Change Change Change

"It Felt Safe"

So again, theoretically, let us say I am in therapy.

Say it with me, slowly, therapy.

Let us say that money and the lack of it occupies a great deal of the therapeutic conversation. 

Theoretically, I can distinctly remember the therapists saying, "Money matters."

This isn't news. 

You don't have to be a marriage counselor or divorce lawyer to know that money, and the lack of it, plays a huge role in divorce. 

Again, not news.

Theoretically, what therapy recently did for me was point out how unsafe I feel, not having money.

Theoretically of course, I was explaining how during the first Fall semester of the pandemic (hopefully the last Fall semester of the pandemic) I no longer had to commute the three hours each day (saving on gas) but also picked up a whopping three courses to teach at the local community college. I explained that my bank account exploded. Now of course, this is relative, most people making any real money will not think of my checking account as "exploding." But as someone who has lived paycheck to paycheck for most of my life, this was for me, a lot.

The therapist asked me how this felt. 

I thought about this for a second. Then it hit me, the one and only correct answer among many.

"It felt safe."

I felt safe. Safe enough that if some car repair was needed, I wouldn't be ruined. Safe enough to buy some xmas presents for my family without going into the usual funk/depression/anger that xmas causes. Safe enough to buy fruit every week without worrying that I shouldn't be buying fruit because of the cost. Safe enough to buy books to read without hating myself after, knowing some bill would need to be paid.

Safe.

And as I was thinking about all this last night (the therapist told me I might overthink things, to which I told him maybe I just think about things the right) I realized that part of the reason I seemed to enjoyed life in Athens more (read felt safer) was because I knew that if I had to, I could walk to work if I had to. A car and its upkeep would not ruin me in Athens. I could walk to work and get groceries on foot if I had to. 

I explained to my therapist that my wife now realizes that I become a different person when I take my car to get serviced. It feels unsafe. I am in danger. The bill will ruin me. I have no control. I won't be able to pay it. I have no money.

For a little while, teaching three courses, not commuting three hours a day, I felt safe. 

Well, the cushion of money is practically gone but I still don't have to commute. I am back to a state of teetering on financial and ergo, complete ruin.

Being a George Carlin devotee, I know that safety is an illusion. 

So I tell myself that I felt safer, when I had my little bit of money. Safer than not having it. 

So the real question is, can I enjoy life without feeling safe?

Meme Soil

 Like you, perhaps, I just got done with some yard work. 

Spring.

I smelled soil. Rich, thick, penetrating.

Soil.

Sweat building underneath.

Soil bound with the damp.

Do you even lift bro?

Have you even smelled soil?

Have you ever smelled soil?

You should.

Smell.

Soil.

Grass Over Graves

One point gleaned from reading Lewis Hyde's The Gift, is that we need death to grow. 

Hyde focuses a great deal on Walt Whitman and Leaves of Grass and one metaphor in particular: grass over graves. 

Death underneath provides the nutrients for the new blades to bloom. 

We need death to grow. We need finitude for our lives to matter. 

If we are eternal, there can be no value.

Death is the ground to your figure, always there, giving your life and your projects, definition.

Dog Food And Truth

I had a truly terrible dream last night.

I had a dream I was taking a German exam and I was unable to prepare for the exam–my ability to memorize got me through undergrad and a scholarship for graduate school (I once got a 100% on a Spinoza exam mostly by memorizing a shit-ton of Spinoza)–so this was terrible for me. 

But, it got worse, the way some dreams do. While taking this awful exam, with pictures I couldn't make sense of and directions I couldn't make sense of, pages out of order, I tried to go up to the front of the class to ask the prof for clarification. But you know dreams, while trying to make my way to the front of the class, I get lost, end up on a crowded sidewalk in a crowded city and almost get hit by a trash truck, only to reach a prof for a previous Marxism class, plus my exam is all out of order and I can't even ask her questions. So I'm trudging back to my German class, exam in hand, fighting the people on the sidewalk and the occasional car up on the sidewalk when, I wake up.

I have dreams of this ilk and they are awful. The feeling resides upon waking. The feeling of being lost and unprepared. I hate to Heidegger this up (do I though? Don't I love Heidegger?) but this feeling of geworfenheit, of being thrown...into the world is truly awful, almost horror...for me.

And I thought about writing upon awaking. And I thought about perhaps my son, asking me why I have these kinds of dreams.

And I thought about explaining to my nine year old Juju that: I'm not satisfied with quaint little stories. Though quaint and cute they may be. I think I have these dreams because I seek accurate explanations.

"But you're a relativist!" I hear from the interlocutor.

Indeed. You have me pegged. 

But my relativism doesn't quell the questioning. This is the crux.

Consider an example:

You're starving. You haven't had a crumb of food in, let us say three weeks, and the only reason you are alive is you've had access to water. Truly starving is my point here. You'll die unless you find something to eat.

You find something to eat.

A can of wet, dog food.

Yes, dog food. It'll keep you alive and sustain you. Perfectly edible, dog food is. 

My relativism is dog food. Can sustain me but it doesn't taste very good and it doesn't go down easily. Different from the quaint, candy-like stories that go down oh so smooth, but rot your teeth.

Truth is relative, per Lakoff and Metaphors We Live By but I am still thrown into this world and I live and move about in the minutiae and the people who thwart my projects (so much Heidegger this guy!) and offend my delicate sensibilities.

The world gives me dog food when I want to order off menu–the Dirty Steak from Al Forno in Providence, after a grilled pizza appetizer, with a single malt to wash it all down.

Dog food.

And relative truth.

"We do not believe that there is such a thing as objective (absolute and unconditional) truth, though it has been a long-standing theme in Western culture that there is. We do believe that there are truths but think that the idea of truth need not be tied to the objectivist view. We believe that the idea that there is absolute objective truth is not only mistaken but socially and politically dangerous. As we have seen, truth is always relative to a conceptual system that is defined in large part by metaphor. Most of our metaphors have evolved in our culture over a long period, but many are imposed upon us by people in power—political leaders, religious leaders, business leaders, advertisers, the media, etc. In a culture where the myth of objectivism is very much alive and truth is always absolute truth, the people who get to impose their metaphors on the culture get to define what we consider to be true—absolutely and objectively true. It is for this reason that we see it as important to give an account of truth that is free of the myth of objectivism (according to which truth is always absolute truth). Since we see truth as based on understanding and see metaphor as a principal vehicle of understanding, we think that an ac-count of how metaphors can be true will reveal the way in which truth depends upon understanding." 

His Hearing Aid Helped Me Hear

Let us say that, theoretically, I am in therapy.

At the age of fifty.

Let us also say that, theoretically, I am in therapy for, again, theoretically, anger.

Let us say that.

I am 5'9, 160lbs.

An angry 5'9, 160lbs.

I have a sense of the origin of this, ahem, anger. And I told, this theoretical therapist, that this something else, is presenting as anger. 

And I had this thought the other night, in a relaxing tub, while reading Lewis Hyde's The Gift. I remembered sharing, in one of the psychology courses I taught at the community college, this example of myside bias. Basically, myside bias is when you do something, perhaps wrong, you have legitimate reasons and the circumstances justify this behavior. Ah but when someone else does, misbehaves, it speaks to their character, not the circumstances. And I used the example of parking in the fire lane at the local grocery store. I used the example because I can get genuinely angry at people that park in the fire lane at this grocery store, though, wait for it, I have done this myself. You know, with legitimate reasons, like just pulling up for a second to drop off my pregnant wife, because we have two kids in the car and etc etc. Legitimate reasons, justifying my parking there. But other people, oh no, their reasons are not legitimate. Well, you can sense the hypocrisy. And I started rolling this around in the old bean and it started becoming a comedy bit of sorts but with effect and Heideggerian perspective/psychological framing at the end, that shoots, from all things, a hearing aid.

So hear it now:

AS A COMEDY BIT

Oh man, get this. I am in therapy. Yep, fifty years old and in therapy. Haven't figured things out after fifty years on the planet. Oh and get this, I'm in therapy for...anger. Yep, lil ole me has anger issues. Grrrrr.

This one time, I was going to the grocery store, grrrrr, and as I pull in the place is packed and I get all angry about it. Grrrr. Just incredibly bothered and angry about a crowded grocery store. You can see why I need therapy now. Anyway, I'm pulling in to this incredibly jamming parking lot and get blocked by this car parked, you guessed it, in the fire lane. Oh boy, I'm pissed now. I can't get my errands done on my time, I might have to wait for thirty seconds and you all know how important I am and how thirty seconds matters so much to a man of my incredible importance. Why I am a man who needs milk, and eggs, and butter, how dare you park in the fire lane and interrupt my important life. Right? So I'm jammed up by this fire lane parker so I just lay on the horn behind this fire lane parker. Just blarin' my horn, to let 'em know how important I am. Grrrr. 

Well all of a sudden, an old lady gets out of the passenger side door. Must've been close to a hundred years old. She's got the three prong walker with the tennis balls, the whole nine yards, and she's going to get her groceries. Well I feel awful about myself and immediately cut off the horn. You know it all hits me in a matter of seconds, seeing this old lady getting out of the car, and I just feel awful and turn all that anger inward, right. Grrrr. 

But here's the thing. Next thing, I see this old arm, from the driver's window, waving me past. Ok, now I'm ashamed. Just awful. All I wanted to do was go to the grocery story and I'm having all of these feelings. So I start to creep by this guy, with my shameful self in my shameful car, and I know I shouldn't have. Dammit I shouldn't have. But I looked at the guy. And of course, he's about a hundred years old too, just looks like the guy from the movie Up. Yeah. This sweet old man is dropping off his sweet old wife at the grocery store, and because I had to wait a nanosecond for them, I laid on the horn. What an asshole, right?

But get this, I drive by, and the old time smiles at me. And it wasn't a "how you feel now you prick?' kinda smile either. It was a genuine "how you doing today, isn't it great to be alive, getting groceries, dropping-off my wife" kinda smile. Not even kidding you, this old man laid a smile on me, like "hey young feller, how bout that ball game last night?"

Well, as I'm creeping by in this car, this old timer smiling at me, I see it. A hearing aid, in his left ear. And it dawns on me, that he didn't hear the horn. Yeah that's it, the old timer and his cute old wife, they didn't even hear the horn. I tell myself they couldn't hear an AC/DC concert with front row tickets. 

"They never even heard my horn," I tell myself. Saved. My day was saved.

My day was saved. But that wasn't why. 

He heard the horn, he heard me blaring it because I had to wait a nanosecond. He just didn't get angry about it. He didn't feel insulted and he's not mad at the world and he doesn't trod this planet with a chip on his shoulder, waiting to be offended, and judged. He has perspective, and he shared it with me, with a smile from ear to ear. A smile to say: what is this in the big scheme of things? A smile to say: why does this offend and anger you when the sun in shining and you draw air into your lungs? A smile to say: what are you so pissed off about when you have so much? 

I heard all of this, though he was the one with the hearing aid.

My Precocious Spawn

Well as you can probably surmise, during the pandemic, a LOT of kids these days are having a LOT of movie nights. We are not a tv watching family but come the weekend, when the parents have had it up to here with responsibility and parenting and responsibility and parenting, well, movie nights can be a real responsibility and parenting savior. 

A few weeks ago, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island graced (what is the opposite of "sic?") our screen. Now to no one's shock, Journey 2 didn't win any Oscars. Who cares? It won a couple of (relatively) parenting-free hours and so in my book, Journey 2, is a real winner. Unless of course you are counting Journey 2 as Journey without Steve Perry. It's NOT the same. (Sings softly: Highway run...)

While watching Journey 2, ludicrous plot and all, my six year old kinda shocked me. Granted, I don't think what I'm about to share here indicates he's some sort of nuclear surgeon or anything, but still, I thought it was pretty darn astute.

So let me set the scene for you:

To get off the mysterious island, that is sinking into the ocean by the way, Hank (The Rock) and Sean (Josh Hutcherson) must get to the submarine. Which they found out about by using their wits and, of course, the map. Oh no, they are too late! The submarine, is already in the ocean. Well, right after a "Let's do this!" Hank and Sean make a dive for it. )Who can't hold their breath for three minutes now a days?) But oh no! There's a giant electric eel between them and the sub. I think, if memory serves, as this has been a couple of weeks ago, Hank pile drives the eel after a couple of chest slaps and off-the-ring-ropes forearms, and Hank and Sean make it to the sub. End of story.

But oh no! The battery is dead on the sub. And they can't call triple A for a jump. Whatever will they do?

This is where my six year old comes in. He says, "I know what they are gonna do!" Now mind you he has never seen this movie before. "They're going to use the eel to start the sub!"

And if my name isn't Nikola Tesla, that is exactly what they do. 

So my spawn is precocious on at least two fronts here. One: electricity and how it works. Two: how absolutely ludicrous movie plots can be. 

FFS, the Rock swims out and throws a harpoon, which on one end is attached to an electric cable, and on the other, attached to the Sears battery that starts the submarine.

Having recently seen my retirement numbers, here is to hoping my precocious spawn will support me in my old age with all of the dough from his screenplays. 

JuJu and George

I finished reading Hatchet, along with my nine year old son recently and toward the end of the book he recognized that my voice was “getting different” as I fought off emotion. I was emotional for two reasons: one was just finishing a good book that involves a teenager (not that far away for my nine year old) being rescued after surviving in the Canadian wilderness for close to two months and two, the more powerful reason is that we read it together, as father and son. And the truth is that he is difficult and I am more difficult but reading this book together, we had powerful moments of connection and it became a beautiful, what Heidegger might call, project. A project is powerful in this sense because it posits a future. Over the nights reading I could ask him questions as his excitement showed on his sleeve and I talked about the power of a good story, a good paragraph, a good sentence. We were inside of this book, and it was beautiful and of course, books come to an end, and we would no longer be inside, and I became emotional. The time ended. Which made me think about my radical thanatism: The steadfast belief that I am finite and that I do not transcend this earthly life and how this focuses THIS life and makes seemingly simple moments like finishing a novel with my son, into intense cherishable moments that connect me to meaning and value in the absurdity (absurdism is realism around 18:22). In short my thesis stands, my radical thanatism is healthy, believing individual humans are eternal is, not; it cheapens our individual and collective lives. 

Later that night I also finished George Saunders’ most recent, A Swim In A Pond In The Rain and cannot help but bring relief to the subtitle: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life. The next day I would share Saunders’ thoughts on the power of a good story with my JuJu and I would again become emotional but I prefaced it by telling him why I was emotional the night prior. Because we did that thing together and that time, with you, that time we have, runs out. 

Pardon the imperatives here: Value time, cherish time, it is all you really have. If you don’t believe me, please believe George Saunders (bolding mine):

Hi – I'm reading "A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life" by George Saunders and wanted to share this quote with you.

"We ended the previous section by agreeing to confine our expectations for fiction to this: reading fiction changes the state of our minds for a short time afterward. But that may be a bit on the modest side. After all, as we’ve been seeing, reading fiction changes our minds in particular ways, as we step out of our own (limited) consciousness and into another one (or two, or three). So, we might ask, how are we altered, in that “short time afterward”? (Before I give my answer, let’s just say, again, that there’s no need, really, for me to do that. We know how our minds were changed as we read these Russians, because we were there. And we know, if we’ve been lucky enough to have other beautiful reading experiences in our lives, what those did for/to us.) But I’ll give it a try: 

I am reminded that my mind is not the only mind. 

I feel an increased confidence in my ability to imagine the experiences of other people and accept these as valid.

I feel I exist on a continuum with other people: what is in them is in me and vice versa. 

My capacity for language is reenergized. My internal language (the language in which I think) gets richer, more specific and adroit. 

I find myself liking the world more, taking more loving notice of it (this is related to that reenergization of my language). 

I feel luckier to be here and more aware that someday I won’t be. 

I feel more aware of the things of the world and more interested in them. 

So, that’s all pretty good."

These Mornings

 These mornings. The alarm I pay not enough mind, the keyboard that gets not enough action, and my mind that knows not what it wants. These mornings. The wants should come from me but I will be satisfied if they come at me. I will not duck or flinch. Hit me! Hurt me. Punish me. But do not ignore me. Apathy is the opposite of love. Is there no calling for me? These mornings. Where comparison is the enemy but a necessary one. On a deserted island on takes on all the properties, traits, and characteristics. I am not on an island, these mornings. My world is populated. Hell is other people, per Sartre but Heaven can't be devoid of our brothers and sisters. We...compare. We...must. For we got here together. We...survived. From aboriginal Africa through industrialization, and face to face with our digital selves...we. These mornings, I think about you. And us. Never one from the other. Impossible. There is no I. There is only us. The forsaken and the deserted are just that. Past tense. We are here and now. We have a future. Together. These mornings. All of us.

Monstrosity of a Driveway

 

1. In your notebook or on the computer, write a scene that occurs between no more than four characters in one single location over a unified period of time (a morning, a day, or even a long meal).

Winter storm Gloria had dumped a foot of snow on most parts of Rhode Island. Weather technology being so advanced in 2020, schools were called the day before, which meant the idiot neighbor would be out there with his measly shovel to dig out almost a ton of snow - a driveway thirty yards long and ten yards wide, as his sons “helped.” How can he not possess a snow blower. I watch this idiot toil away for hours with this heavy, great snowball making snow. I have to imagine his back will suffer soreness untold. Of course he takes breaks here and there, to yell at his sons, one wielding a sharp edged shovel, trying his best to help the old man but probably just creating more work, when he isn’t nearly decapitating the old man with reckless swings. The other son has a broken plastic shovel but gave up helping an hour ago to roam the yard and ponder things to break. Two hours of this and I see him head back inside - not even half-done with this monstrosity of a driveway. His neighbors have a service - a huge truck with a plow comes in and wipes the driveway clean in ten minutes. This guy shovels his back to mincemeat for two hours and isn’t close to done. About a half-hour later he trudges back out, yells at his boys about not killing or maiming each other and sets back to murdering his back. This idiot, taking years off his life, because he’s too cheap or too dumb to get a snow blower, is nearing completion as the suns sets, taking breaks only to reign in his sons, when I decide to pour salt in his wounds and take my snow blower over and help out. Ha ha this fucking guy. You should have seen the look in his soul - not on his face, no he was all “Thanks!” on his face but his soul was all, “Could have used you three hours ago.” I love it. I clear the end of the driveway for him, oh and get this, right as I’m turning around to leave, I say, “Merry Christmas,” and this dolt, who can barely stand up by now says, “Thanks.” Merry Christmas indeed.

Timefull

 1/24/21 5:41 AM

I was awake very early but felt that perhaps I had slept though my alarm. I do what I have restrained from doing over many decades now, and check the time. Not yet four. I worry I may not get back to sleep but don’t worry too much because my alarm goes off at four-thirty. I do fall back asleep, and have a sex dream. I was standing in the dream; a near sexual impossibility in real life. I was inside skin and all I could see was skin, moist sweaty skin. I could feel the pressure but all I could see was skin. No face, no faces. Face-less pressure. Then I got out and could not get back in. I tried. I fumbled. I fingered. Skin and folds, no pressure.

Alarm.

Awake.

As I write this, I realize I am inside skin. A body, a passive body in the philosophical sense; in a body that can be split. A body that is in time and can be taken out of time. A body occupying space, what philosophers call, extension.

I go further. I AM my body, not just inside A body. Per the principle of the conservation of matter, I am nothing new but this shape will never exist again. This shape, this logic, this consciousness, composed of the timeless but somehow, timefull but not eternal nor infinite. Fleeting. Not even a geologic wink. In short, I am special. Not because of what I do but because I am. Name one nothing that is special. See, can’t do it.

Inside this skin, I am special. And desperate. Desperate to feel skin against mine, lips on mine, pressure upon me. Forsaken, my body (me) resorts to dreams. Pleading, my body (me) fires up during REM sleep to arouse the appetite without bedding it back down. Exasperated, awake (not woke), I curse my forsakenness and my actions leading to such; I rage against that body (me) and blame it, all day long. Name one nothing you can pin the crime on. See, can’t do it.

I am special; part of the eternal unchanging.

Nothing changes.

Perhaps I should be nothing.

An Iota

 I was reading George Saunders’ new book last night and he is so incredible. The book is about writing and he basically takes the reader through his mind as he teaches a class on Russian short stories. The second of these stories is Singers by Ivan Turgenev. I won’t spoil too much here but Saunders teaches us that an artist, at some point, must choose himself and go with it, warts and all as they say. I’ve no doubt read this in other places but it’s the small anecdote he tells about wanting to be Hemingway and writing all this Hemingway-esque stuff but in so doing not choosing himself as an artist. But then one day while doodling essentially during a phone call, he creates little stories. After the phone call he thought of throwing them away but something caught him. The stories/cartoons wind up on the kitchen table and while off in the other room he hears his wife laughing. The proverbial light bulb goes off above his head and George chooses himself. And of course we are all better off.
Now of course it isn’t this easy. One might choose one’s self but not have the talent of Mr. Saunders. 
So I ask myself: How can I choose myself? 
No clue. 
Write what I like?
Like what I write?
Be who I am? Oof, what if I don’t like myself a whole lot?
Not gonna figure it out by not writing I know that.
Ok, we’ve got something to build on. An iota.

It might be worth mentioning here that the pedagogical upshot of the first Russian short story is this: an artist takes responsibility.

Damn.

Plunging Toward Self-Actualization

Abraham Maslow, in his magnum opus in Psychology, which I can’t remember the name of right now, tells us that self-actualized persons are not embarrassed by bodily activities like defecation and flatulation. Not being self-actualized, or remotely un-crude, I am still going to tell you about a shitty experience I had recently. 

The morning poop came on, even before the coffee, but alas, in the toilet was a log of brown and some heinous colored water. I interrupt my son’s chess game and gently/firmly remind them that every time we use the toilet, we flush the toilet. 

“Capiche?”

“Yeah dad.”

So I flush.

It is clogged.

Lovely.

Right about now the pressure in the bowels is nearing “Houston, we have a problem,” so I head to the upstairs bathroom. Quickly.

And I sit.

On a toilet seat with urine on it.

[Replays in mind how many times I have told them] Sons, listen to me now, every time we urinate, we lift the toilet seat up. Every time. 

“Capiche?”

“Yeah dad.”

Urine for it, kids!

A quick wipe of the seat and my arse, and I, Maslow-inspired here let us not forget, defecate. 

The toilet clogs. 

Shoulders droop so far as to seem out of sockets. Exhale powerful enough to steam towels in hamper. Frustration at Defcon 5. Full, complete domestic defeat.

Two toilets clogged, not yet 7am? Check.

I trudge downstairs to retrieve the plunger and begin with the downstairs toilet.

I plunge.

And plunge.

Complete tricep workout later, the toilet is unclogged.

I trudge upstairs to plunge.

I plunge, upstairs.

You may not remember the old Army commercials: “We do more before 9 A.M. than most people do all day.”

Well, I think Abraham Maslow would be damn proud of me for defecating before 7 A.M., given the tremendous domestic hurdles god hath given me on this day. And let us not forget the incredible parental modeling that went on here. Did I scream to the high heavens or curse or use the lord’s name in vain or rip out a toilet with a crowbar in an early morning rage? Of course not, I hadn’t had my coffee yet. No I showed tremendous calm and poise to defecate the way I did. 

I hope you can take this story and use it to become near-self-actualized. Maybe not as close as me, but somewhere in the general vicinity. The next time life gives you multiple clogged toilets, make lemonade.

Fears (And Stains)

 Margaret Atwood asks, "What are your fears when it comes to writing?"

Fears. I fear not being read...because the writing isn't good. I tell myself I'll write for myself - the joy of it - but I do want to be read. But other eyes and other ears and other minds will judge and criticize. And that is what I fear most, that my bad writing is an indictment of me - the person who is not good at anything, even into old age. So I tell myself I write for myself. I guess if I value writing, I will spend time with writing. Those things we value are the things we spend time with. So I'll tell myself that any icing on the cake - like being read by others - will taste sweet but I fear this is so unlikely and that it will eventually feel like writing on a deserted island. 

I fear me.

And I should. My past is my predictor. My artistic achievements? What are they? My past is my predictor. My past is a minefield: littered with bodies and limbs and bloody failures; steam rising from the guilt and ineptitude as I bleed out over the decades, staining everyone's clothing.

Bradbury 5v model Grostundian Unit

 3.  Experiment with the uncanny. Pick an object or even a person in the room and describe them in a short paragraph. Then describe it again. And again. And again. Describe this same object or person 10 times. How does your last paragraph compare with your first? Do you see a progression in your descriptions? Does the object seem more or less familiar to you now?

 

 

 

It lights a small corner of the kitchen. Very little light. Open, it contains the world. But it is a world of little value to him now. He wishes to be an artist (ha!) and the light emitter is merely a tool. An unimportant tool. Other tools could work. The important tool is he but he is unimportant. 

 

The laptop stares back at him, talks to him. But doesn’t say much. But it beckons, without words it beckons. It is tapped, and tapped, and tapped. Some good comes from this tapping, a salary earned. But art? His art? 

 

It is black. Fitting. It is in the dark, before 5 A.M. most mornings. Then, light, to see with, to look at. Words, tapped out, ideas forming, stories brewing, art creating and created. A black sleek tool of electricity and circuits and processors but no more than a blunt instrument; a hammer and anvil of a different sort. The person matters, not the tool.

 

It has, of all things, a space bar. It is the biggest key. The largest key. The most used? A space bar without a drink. A space bar without aliens. A space bar without some ET on a futuristic instrument. A space bar that can’t get you tipsy or drunk or feelin’ it. A space bar without a staff or a band, even a shitty one doing their shitty original songs. The space bar isn’t even in space. What the fuck. It’s right here, space space space, only showing itself where it isn’t. THAT is cool. Even without a beer or a shot or a mixed drink or a purple Geeelshejune from the Mixtolendian realm, who just came in on a Bradbury 5v model Grostundian Unit from the 3060’s, it’s cool.

Swans and Kant

 

We took the shoreline first, we usually take the shoreline to finish. I didn’t have a dog in the fight, I was just trying to get the boys out of the house as they were at peak riot before seven thirty in the morning. It was MLK day 2021, deep in the throes of the CoronaVirus pandemic. Getting them out of the house, even if for an hour, helps calm them a little, makes bedtime a little easier if they’ve been on their feet for at least a little while. As I said, we took the shoreline first. Goddard park is a great walk. One always has the shore for a good vista but there is also the path that glides and meanders between a forest dense enough to cut out a good deal of the human noise we probably aren’t adapted for yet and unknowingly makes us crazy. There have been days where after a walk at Goddard, the boys, usually riotous at seven thirty in the morning and cacophonous the other waking hours, are dare I say it, calm and serene. It is low tide and I am frigid; I tuck my nose inside my coat and I can feel how cold it is. I breathe inside my coat for as long as I can as the wind drills us on the shoreline. It is so early and our direction means we’re getting no sun. The boys are impervious to the cold. Julian has taken his gloves off for better rock skipping. Julian finds the sole of a shoe. Avery is carrying sticks...for protection. We reach the rocks and ah, sunlight hits me. The bite of the wind is softened. The star a mere ninety-three million miles away warms my Irish nose and reminds me, there can be warmth. The rocks are the informal half-way point. At low tide the rocks jut out to where, traversing them, one can feel in the middle of the bay. Not for me today; looking at the water makes me shiver. I let the boys linger though I am cold and my Raynauds has my hands and feet stinging. I let them be boys and they are gloriously boys. Loud, active, gregarious, with elan to burn...and they burn it and it powers them: on the rocks, off the rocks, karate pose, stick fight!, on the rocks again, off the rocks again. I can’t help myself so I get some pictures; they are too glorious not to take pictures. But the wind drilling me for a half-hour is all I can tolerate so I say it is time to head back. The walk back is through the woods, a reprieve from the wind. We know this path well. The leaves soften the walk and the noise is dampened. Funny how the noise of a forest, isn’t called noise, doesn’t feel like noise. Perception. There is no noumenal realm. Plus Kant died from eating a wheel of cheese. I tell the boys we should try to be quiet as we near the pond. There have been days we spotted a Heron at the back of the pond. The pond sits just about seventy-five yards from the shoreline at low tide. It is surrounded by trees but a nice path has been beaten around most of its near-acre size. We do not see the Heron but I tell the boys there are swans back there. Two, white dollops of feathered mashed potatoes somehow floating on the water. I have never given swans much thought. Near the zoo, there are swan-shaped paddle boats the boys have enjoyed and my calves have not. Who really thinks about swans? Maybe Kant did. We round the corner and I point out to Avery that someone has dropped some seed for birds. He lingers, noticing the birds, and appreciating how close he is to them. Nuthatches mostly. Julian is ahead of me, Julian will always be ahead of me, and he’s talking about something I can’t quite make out because Avery is in my ear about wanting a small, cute bird for a pet. I tell him, “My sister had a cockatiel,” when I am alerted to the sound of a jeep or some vehicle driving through this forest. Impossible. How in the world did someone get a vehicle back here? I think. The birds scatter at the sound of this vehicle rumbling toward us. I try to locate the source and my ears point me to the center of the pond, but...it is not a vehicle. It is the sound of the two swans, pelting the surface of the pond to take flight. I realize these swans are huge; their wings must be seven feet or more from tip to tip and those wings are beating the pond like a drum. Bam bam bam, like an old Dodge motor with perhaps a rod knocking. Huge birds. We are rapt. All attention on them as they finally get off the water and the old Dodge turns into a wind turbine, their long strong wings forcing a loud, dare I say cacophonous whooomph with every flap. Quickly, loudly they flap in order to rise over the surrounding maples and sumacs. They do, the dollops of white, quintessential orange beaks, and jet-black eyes, rise above and are gone. But not forgotten. Julian and I look at each other in amazement. Julian is speechless. “That was cool,” I riotously yell. I am thinking about swans. Swans have been perceived, not in some cold, mathematical, taxonomical, noumenal realm but in a phenomenal realm, where sounds startle you and sights dazzle you, and the smell from a wheel of cheese overtakes you.

It's A Shame

 Joyce Carol Oates Masterclass Writing Assignment

 

4.  Write a story about an unsolved mystery in your life. Use Joyce’s phrase “An unsolved mystery is a thorn in the heart” as your first line. Then, in an entirely new paragraph, begin explaining the mystery while keeping the first line in mind.

An unsolved mystery is a thorn in the heart. 

 

Why I can’t bring myself to like myself is a thorn in my heart. I even tell people, “I’m a decent person,” as if to remind them, but it’s really to remind me. I don’t know how this came to be. Well, other than growing up poor, and internalizing the poverty and equating it with character failure and moral worth. So maybe it’s more of a riddle. Disliking myself (hate is such a strong word) is why the words of an adjunct professor, Andrew Stypinski, have stayed with me all these years (30 yrs): If you don’t love yourself, you can’t love anyone else - there’s no analogy to draw from. This thorn has impacted my relationships (no friends to speak of at the age of 50), a troubled marriage, and parenting that won’t win any awards, or even honorable mention. So there’s a thorn, or maybe it’s a switch-blade, or the Conan Sword in my heart but I guess I’m lying when I tell you there is this big unsolved mystery. There isn’t. My early life (Freud was right about so much shit), my parents, my surroundings, my choices, my zeitgeist, my biology, my culture, my nature, my nurture, my wiring, my education, my lack of education, my intelligence, my lack of intelligence, my experiences, my being a late bloomer (as in weighing 95 lbs in the ninth grade late bloomer), my early sexual experiences, my lack of early sexual experiences (see late bloomer info above), my cramped childhood household (eight people in a two bedroom ONE bathroom home) my potty training, my living thirty yards from an interstate highway, my contracting scabies as a kid, my parents’ and uncles’ and brother’s alcoholism, and my goddamn self are the reason(s) I dislike myself - this shit isn’t a mystery or a riddle or a limerick or an amusing anecdote, to paraphrase George Carlin, it’s a shame.

Among The Conifers

 

Point A to Point B. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. From poor to rich. But unless you suffer from Alzheimer’s, you never forget. Never forget you were poor. You can walk all around your ritzy neighborhood; five-bedroom three car garage homes, with decorative stone paths, scaped lots the size of a football field, nestled in the enormous conifers. You can. But you know they’re dangerous. Those people you knew. You know what their capable of. You know that if you ever cross paths with them, decorative stone or not, they will immediately recognize all you have to lose, and pounce on it. They will threaten you and your family, nestled in among the conifers. They’ll seize on how much you have to lose. They’ll threaten to hurt your wife and kids. You know they will. They’ll abuse your fear and never stop. Which is why you can never go back. You can never see them as human, never respect them as more than animals. On sight you should kill them. On sight. Six hundred miles separates you from them. Six hundred miles and thirty years. But they’ll recognize you. Feel you, and all that money. But you too, you feel you, poor, out of place, among the conifers.