My one true love, V, who is to me like Brooke Magnanti’s “Boy” though circumstances prevented our going beyond the first kiss (in a just and fair world, imbued with the spirit of a compassionate God, we would have), and after trials and tribulations (jealously thought to be exotic), found her way through the occult and pharmacological to Jesus and, while under the influence of divine passion, was eventually led to marry a fellow Jesus devotee, with whom she propagated offspring, none of whom appear to reflect her singular piquant charm, perhaps because their dna was dilluted by more gross dominant paternal genes.  The spell that was cast on me by her voice, eyes, touch of her skin, hair, etc., must have surprised nature as much as it did me—aberrant strands of dna straying from the path, producing a rare beauty, the kind that wounds the archer, as with the youngest daughter of the Sicilian king, Psyche, whose jealous mother, Aphrodite, separated from her love.

In V, an incarnation of Psyche’s mythic grace, the soul again divided from animal lust, the marriage of which results in bliss, has her now wed to a sufficient idea—leaving her true lover to peripatetic dispersion of his seed with little purpose. Nature is a pack rat, nothing is discarded, leastwise, recessive genes and in another time her great great great grand child and one of mine will find each other, unite and foster a universe of bliss.

Now, however, V has become a highly successful writer of spiritual guidance books on the covers of which are promotional phrases like, “AN INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD” and “A SOLID FOUNDATION IN GOD’S TRUTH” and “A COMMITMENT TO OBEDIENCE”, while I, her match made in heaven, follow the mandate of my design by writing plays with titles like, “Fast Cars and Slow Orgasms – Cementing a Relationship”.

Having sex with any and every willing object I could hasn’t lead me to feel V’s blush in that one kiss we shared. Though sex is delicious and I’ve grown attached to and possessive about cohorts even though lacking that charged quality I felt with V and after awhile, I came to believe I’d imagined it for if it was real, then I must blame my naive fear and hesitation, not as did V, her disturbed, frightened mother, that prevented me from taking her when I should have, regardless of consequences, at all costs, when I had the chance to play the masculine role libidinous women can’t resist, who want to be taken, held, caressed, ridden, used and put away wet.

A romantic, only at those times, when I became sufficiently pent up and in the coincidental presence of a similarly tensed female, an übermensch arose in me like the reverse metamorphosis of a butterfly becoming lustful blind worm, the result of which held sufficient promise for a woman, leading to relationships, which should have stayed one-nighters but didn’t because of confused romantic ethics when conscientious copulators try to make the lies they told each other, true, or some more pragmatic purpose. Over time, I came to believe I’d imagined the spark of V’s touch or that it was the coincidence of something chemical, impersonal, even childish and unimportant.

When I learned a few years ago about her love affair with Jesus, I felt I had another good reason to lament a religious tradition, which for 2000 years has been the source rapacious ideologies ranging from the genocide of the native population of this hemisphere led by Catholic friars to the horrors of kristalinacht and Auschwitz. I knew about V’s past but very little about how it had affected her after we parted and in my heart I cry that she suffered so long and that, wherever I was, whatever I was doing, I had been so absorbed in my own needs that I didn’t even think to act on her behalf.

But having learned, finally, one day, by accident, that she had found some kind of peace, I saw her books on the shelf a book store in a town on the Oregon Coast and I refused to read one or to take her seriously. Until one day last February, I was telling a girl friend, J, who is also my lawyer and likes to advise me, about what had happened with V and the mystery of that kiss and J said to, “you have no idea about V’s relationship with Jesus…not a clue, not the first idea!”  Not one to shirk such a challenge, I borrowed one of V’s books from the public library, coincidentally, along with research I was doing for a play about contemporary sexual predicaments, thus unwittingly tweaking the mentality of the play with an unlikely combination of libertine, spiritual and sentimental points of view. My experience with V has taught me that De Sade was right–Jesus would have to agree.

Fuck the DEA and other brands of American imbecility, I can’t stay in a bad mood in PB. Firstly, because it’s hard to keep my mind on it and watch where I’m walking so I’m prone to fall on my face in front of a half naked coed “innocently” sashaying down Cass Street, sucking on a smoothie. Secondly, because, although they can’t be going anyplace for which there could be reason to rush, like drivers in TJ (where by definition rapid response is an oxymoron), they turn their cars in front of you with nonchalance, as if an unconscious self-assertion pitted against the undifferentiated human background of  conformity of which they are a dedicated part, which amuses me no end.

Turning left from Ingraham onto Riviera this afternoon, I saw looming large in the rear view mirror, behind a shiny tinted glass windshield, a middle-aged idiot driving one of those enormous chromed-out Dodge Ram Turbo Diesel Supreme Macho pickup trucks. Reminded me of the caption printed on the frame enclosing the license plate of D’s gold Corolla, “If you’re gonna ride my ass, at least, pull my hair!”. As I made the turn, I saw a silver Prius wanted to reverse out of a driveway and, to spite the tailgating clown driving the Dodge, rather than out of some nobler inspiration, I braked to allow the Prius to enter, stopping traffic and hoping the shmuck in the truck would pay for my next car. His response was to veer the Ram to try to pass me on the right. Give the guy one for reaction time and perseverance but by then the Prius blocked his maneuver—the dude lost the round. I’m sure he’ll be back on the line next time the whistle blows.

Walked up the stairs past the “wait to be seated” sign and into 976 feeling over-confident if not upbeat. Four coeds surrounded my usual table, kibitzing in deutsch sprache over their laptops. Put my stuff down on the corner table beside them and said, “hello” accompanied by an ordinary southern Cal off-handed smile, which the girls ignored with typically distant teutonic snobbery…I imagined these assholes blowing kisses to their SS husbands and brothers going off to murder Jews and faggots back in the day. Welcome to the USA, babezillas, careful not to open your minds, something real might fall in.

With no definite plan in mind, I sauntered up to the counter to order a “beverage”–table rent. A recording of the Temptations’ My Girl, drifted toward me like Cupid’s golden dart and as I struggled to return from a visit to the past, B’s brown hair tumbling over ivory shoulders and breasts, taught nipples in classic form, I heard the young man behind the counter saying, “Hi, how are you?” With a glance, taking in his enviably slim young body in navy blue “976” T shirt and de rigreur Levi pants, I felt an unspecified pang of envy for the opportunity of his self-assured and my own lost youth and balanced my self esteem as I engineered a response he could appreciate,

“I’m ok,” I said, “high, at least. How ’bout you?” He grinned a 420 grin full of straight white teeth, smiles and sparkly eyes.”

“Great,” he said , “what would you like?”

“I really don’t know…something non-lethal.., definitely something non-caffeinated—something cold and smooth…”

“I can do smooth!”

“You say that to all the guys.” Toying with intimacy like macho guys who don’t go there but aren’t phobic about it.

“Yeah,” he said, “I do, in fact.” Being cool.

We laughed together at the homeo-erotic reference, perhaps, telepathing a shared vision of activities in a prison dorm. He said, “I can make you a smoothie.”

“What kind of smoothies can you make?”

“What are you into?” (Taunting? Cheeky fucker.)

“Women…obsessively, actually. Really.” We laughed some more. “So what do you suggest—about the smoothie, I mean.”

“Well,” he said, “I like mango, strawberry, raspberry.”

“In the direction of pink, that’s good.”

“Yes,” self-satisfied grin about his cuisinal pun.

“Ok, let’s do that. I’ll use my imagination. We can call it Eskimo Pie—no, that’s already taken. How about Mango Raspberry Chick? More direct, Cool, Sweet Pussy.”

I took out my credit card.

“No,” he said, this one’s free.”

“No shit?”

“I like you,” he said, “you’re cool.”

“Thank you. I like me, to,” I said.

After Bear died, I woke up depressed most mornings; for awhile, I went around dazed like a stoner in between hits; bong-hits being his only focused moments. But I wasn’t high, I was so low that outwardly, it looked like high till I opened my mouth and uttered something from the negative pole of my attitudinal structure.

When I got over losing Bear, I’d wake up full of bitches and complaints about whatever, and often, out of a dream related to it. As time went by, I began to keep a journal of stuff my mood exposed to the harsh, clear light of my “I-really-don’t-give-a-fat-rats-ass-about-it-but-let’s-not-bullshit-each-other” view of life, I had no problem seeing the honest-to-god-sheer-beauty of things like lying face up in the grass on top of the ridge above Pt. Sal but I could not shake the notion of nearby human infestation in Lompoc and one day in Bandor, Oregon, I nearly puked when a guy I met there told me about his relationship with Jesus.

This morning, I drove the Tracker 200 yards northeast to the park’s public pool for my morning hydrotherapy and get-in-shape-or-die-mother-fucker laps because I don’t like walking home tired and hungry after swimming. When I got there the place was empty and for the first 12 laps, I had the place to myself. Undisturbed through the night, the pool was cool and clear as the air in the rural southwestern desert east of San Diego. As I stroked and pulled back and forth across the surface, I imagine more like a fat tan rat than a water bug, along with the burble, gargle-blurp created by my attempts at graceful form, I also listened to the morning’s complement of my bitching and complaining thoughts. Weightless buoyancy and repetitious gurgle-blurgle-gurgle-splash began to calm the fires of discontent that fueled my inner conversation and a kind of stillness began such that, when turning my head to breathe, my brain double-took the recognition of bright blueness of the cloudless sky and a passing hawk.

However, as lap 13 began, I heard the clang of the iron gate slamming and saw moving, as if on wheels, a round, sunburned pink white man in a bright yellow bathing suit with a straw hat on his probably bald head, carrying towels and such, trailed by two small boys who I anticipated would now intervene in my finally at last even, measured strokes and  meditation evaporated, replaced by another series of thoughts, ranging from spit-roast toddlers to phrasing the next carefully worded letter to management, suggesting swimming lanes and hours separating the beneficial enterprise of aquatic exercise versus the senseless child free-swim activities, not to mention the endless stream of children and their out-0f-shape fathers and mothers un-showered before entering the pools, the adults preferring to use the hot tub for that purpose, making it a soupy pot of chlorinated dead bacteria and microscopic particles of dead skin cells and other bodily detritus.

At the eastern end of lap 15, a pink urchin the size of a juvenile emperor penguin wearing a brown bathing suit crossed my bow forcing me to stop and I admit to momentarily contemplating the pleasure of drowning the little bastard on the spot, while his white trash parents farted in the hot tub oblivious to their mindless progeny’s inconsiderate activities in what had previously been my swimming pool.

“Look,” I said to him, catching my breath, “I’m going to swim back and forth along this side of the pool,” I indicated with my arms a lane about a meter wide, “ and you have the entire rest of the pool, ok?” As if not hearing me, he said, “I can swim, too, wanna see me?” “Ok,” I said, hoping to see his flailing body sinking to the bottom, “show me.” Taking a deep breath, he pursed his lips and threw his little body forward face down and for about three yards, did something like a desperate Australian crawl performed by a drunk cat. Stopping when he needed air, he stood up and shouted, “see! I can swim, too.” “Very good,” I said, “except for the breathing part.” “No,” he said, “I breathed. I do it under water.” “How does that work?” “Like this,” he dove head first to the bottom of the pool and surfacing, he exhaled, “see?” “I don’t get it,” I said. “Are you breathing water?” He looked at me like I am strange or blind and said, “you can go back to swimming now” and he swims away. Just like that, he tells me I can go back to swimming now.

As I pushed off lap 16, it struck, “you can go back to swimming now” in the authentic authoritative voice of an unaffected child, defining the difference between swimming versus bitching and complaining while pushing water around. The last 16 laps went by too quickly it seemed, I could have stayed and played in the pool all day.

Midnight at the oasis, deep in a dream of D, lowering her supple body onto mine, excitement mounts as roaring approval erupts from the crowd of spectators, like an approaching fleet of jetliners, fire engines–fire engines? WTF? Awakening from imminent ecstacy just out of reach, flickering red light illuminates the ceiling. Segue into another chapter of the dream? But no. Fucking consciousness has, dammit, once again, awakened me from paradise. Now, what the hell’s going on out there?

Lifting my face from the downy softness of D’s pubes, transformed by Quixotian demons into a cotton-covered pillow, I see through the window that a huge space ship, studded with blinking red, yellow and blazing white lights has landed on the other side of the creek, a hundred yards away. Slipping bathing trunks over the fading ardor of my moist dream of D, I slither down three steps below my door into the black shadow cast by the RV. The park lights are off, the only light comes across the creek, where in the sky, a brilliant white glow flickers amidst a tumult of smoke, perforated by gold sparks.

Walking around the back of D’s 5th wheel to the creek, I find my neighbors standing in little clusters, watching the light show. Drift around the scene hoping to see D but no dice. Too bad, I’m so fucking horny. Not in the cards. Why? What has God in store for me? Why not this, oh Lord? Yes, I have sinned but I have also seen the light!

Two guys wearing fireproof suits stand on the roof swing axes through the roof of the restroom building, sending up showers of sparks as clouds of smoke pour around them reflecting beams of light from two fire trucks. The figures of the men are magnified by their reflection on the boiling smoke above them, a scene out of Dante’s Inferno.

“Where’s the keg?” I ask one of my neighbors.

“What?”

“How can you have a fire and not bring a keg? Is this California?”

“We got marshmellows.”

Dammit, Don must have torched that bathroom. He hates cleaning that restroom. Just yesterday, he said to me,  “women here throw their fucking tampons on the floor. There’s a sign, there’s receptacles and they throw them on the floor.” I told him it’s a biological imperative. They’re marking. Don’t even know they do it. You have to respect a force of animal nature.” “Fuck that,” he said, “I don’t need that shit.” Hmmm.

Now I have to go all the way to the clubhouse to shower and D is nowhere in sight. No doubt the little bitch is getting her nympho lobes fucked to oblivion by an Abyssinian. Oh, Lord, why not me, Your humble servant? What is Your great plan for my life? Hast Thou forsaken me? Again? At least, can I die and come back as an Abyssinian?

 

Did my 24 laps of NSA satisfaction this morning, followed by solar irradiation, watching  urchins splash around, while their respective Rubensian MILFS put up their hair and slid into the hot tub—their cushioned butts puffing out around flower print bikinis. Nothing quite like a swimming pool in an RV park. There’s a sequence:  toddlers arrive, bobbing around moms, then the tweens, followed by teen queens, a hierarchy of sexual maturity or experience. The MILFIES flaunting and flirting like chrome, double-spooned fishing lures. Erections are uncool in this setting, their hubbies hang out, pretending interest; store memories for later possibilities. Walking home, I came upon the blond nymph, who stays, sometimes, in the big 5^th wheel opposite my RV, usually I see her when she comes out to smoke a cigarette, standing there, dressed in a pink, cotton mini-dress.

“Hi, D, nice to see you…” (subtext: I’d like to fuck you blind)

Big smile. “Hi, thanks, nice to see you, too.” (I’m ready when you are.)

“I really missed you around here the last few days. Nice to see you back.” (Damn, gotta be soon…)

“Did you really?” (I’m looking forward to it.)

“God yes! I’ve had to go online to find the inspiration for my fantasies.” (I’ve been jerking off thinking about you.)

Laughs. (I like the image.)

“Never as satisfying, you know…” (Throw away line in lieu of proposition.)

“No, I didn’t…” (You gotta ask me for what you want, dude.)

An online survey of livecam male clients asked 150 men in the U.S. that use MyFreeCams.com (MFC) to choose between sending a $2 donation to a presidential campaign; to donate $3 to help starving children in Africa or to tip an MFC webcam model $5.

75 men said they’d tip the model $5 or more; 10 men helped the starving kids, 50 men said they didn’t have that kind of money, 18 guys said they didn’t know what a Romney or Obama is.

No one gave money to a political campaign.

They were asked to explain their decisions. If you want to see a copy of the reasons they gave: michael@michaelwinn.org (I will post a summary of the data.)

In 2008, while walking around with my dog on the Mendocino coast, I came upon a school of fine woodworking, an annex of College of the Redwoods, a community college in Fort Bragg. The school originated as a private workshop founded by James Krenov, a Danish immigrant master craftsman, who died during the year I was in Fort Bragg. Every Friday evening, the students and teachers drank beer around a bonfire in which they burned the week’s collection of mistakes, mockups and trims and occasionally, I’d be walking by and drink a beer with them. Students come to this school from many places in the world to master the crafts of shaping and joining fine, wooden furniture. All of their work must meet the highest standards of perfect manufacture and fine finish. To the students and their teachers, I was just an interesting local guy out walking his dog, taking pictures of everything. Looking at my pictures, I saw that the “mistakes” they were burning were often beautifully figured wood from exotic and domestic species. One Friday, I came by earlier in the day to salvage some wood from their scrap bin to make a guitar stand. Everything I’d seen for the purpose seemed uninspired. Within a month, I’d made four exquisite pieces from castaways that I’d saved from the fire: two guitar stands, a footrest and a small piece of display art, not exactly a sculpture. When I showed it to them, my work had an effect on students and teachers…it has been lasting. They became more respectful of the material they are privileged to work and better about wasting it. They also began to see value in nature, things that they had previously taken for granted. They were also emboldened to explore the potential of whimsy in their own designs. Then, one day, Krenov and I were gone.

With medical breakthroughs and healthier lifestyles, health issues of older people are less of a problem, hence we see an increase in life expectancy, but even though many have valuable experience (not only in their field of employment, but also, raising children, community service, etc.), they are not able to compete with younger people. And the discriminatory hiring practices they face are effectively just like racism and chauvinism. Unlike discrimination by race, sexual orientation or ethnicity agism is accepted and legal.

Youth is regarded as more energetic, healthy creative, cooperative and flexible. Would you rather work with attractive, energetic, enthusiastic, optimistic playmates or cynical, moody people, who have no future and have obviously failed or wouldn’t need to still be working? But what is the difference between this attitude and race-based preferences?

Since every old person was once young and since, when they were young, they learned to view aging as a pejorative, as they get older, they view themselves in this way. We’d be amazed to hear Jews apologizing for the Holocaust, yet this kind of thinking is implicit in media images of older people and in ads for retirement plans, drugs, medical care and notably, Internet ads for sexual enhancements and dating. Young people also learn to expect that they may be living one day in that unique form of cohabitation we call, “residential care”; places where people are expected to be useless and dependent

AARP, the organization that proposes to advocate regarding issues of aging, is committed to an agenda that is analogous to improving conditions of child labor or slavery as opposed to ending slavery and exploitation. AARP and associates like Cornell and Stein institutes on aging, etc., are funded and supported by drug companies, health insurers and residential care real estate development firms but there are also tax-supported public agencies that have made a business of the age-related paradigm of dependence.

This dependency syndrome is now stumbling over issues related not only to the general economic malaise, but also, to the way Social Security and Medicare funds are effected by inflation resulting from financing warfare during the last half century and the way public sector employees funded their own exclusive retirement program by neglecting investment in economically sustaining infrastructure and programs. With the failed economy competing in a global labor market, this idea backfired with the result that millions of them are out of work, too, and no one is able to retire. The median age of the workforce is increasing but there fewer employment opportunities for older citizens.

One effect is that older people are returning to school to obtain credentials for new job opportunities but the number of young and foreign-born students in colleges is also increasing. Some opportunities for employment are opening in higher education but 30% of Americans currently hold bachelor degrees and with life expectancy increasing the ratio of educated workers in the workforce to available jobs means things must get worse for people regardless of their level of education. Historically, government projects that create private employment have mitigated high unemployment but the additional burden of failed retirement programs coupled with lower death rates multiplies the burden.

I was browsing the merchandise in a strange little shop—the kind of place you find in small towns on California’s central coast, in the hills where the local industry is limited to oil pumps discretely camouflaged in cul de sac little valleys, vineyards and tourists attracted to their companion tasting rooms. The little store occupied most of the space of the first floor of a small wooden building that, in the early 20^th century was a modest home. The walls, floor and ceiling held the rich, warm color of varnished wood, darker on the walls on which were hung small oil paintings—landscapes that looked like places you are likely to see around this kind of town, hills redolent with fragrant, tall sweet grass, picturesque oaks carved out of blue skies in twisted shapes, crows and ravens. The merchandise was most curious by dint of its modest array—there was very little. A wooden counter at the back wall held a few dark books, there were a few things on book shelves on the walls and wooden fixtures, which with three easy chairs and small tables, a couple bar stools before the counter and a lamp or three, furnished the room.

Two thin young men, dressed in similarly casual gabardine slacks and collegiate shirts, worked quietly—one behind the counter and the other coming in and out periodically with merchandise, sometimes quietly exchanging a few words. The man behind the counter acknowledged me as I entered, glancing briefly at my face, with a small but sincere smile and then politely leaving me to my private investigations. I felt he was being kind, implying a promise to allow me the privacy of an incognito visit. The hills around the towns north of Santa Barbara are laden with celebrity personalities.

Shortly, I found two things of interest to me: one a large folio, the leaves of which were made of stiff cardboard on which had been printed, mainly with a dark mauve and green ink, with black lines, motives reminiscent of 1930 Vienna and each page was inset, in a random pattern with slots holding five inch music disks, printed in the same design. The other item was a finely made, old rosewood humidor—the kind you would find on a desk or a table in the sitting room of a 19^th century parlor. Inside this box, I found some fresh cigars, a couple dozen maduras, wrapped in soft and exquisitely aromatic tobacco. They had no ring but lifting one to my nose, I recognized the Cuban pedigree. I considered buying one with guilt and desire, imagining a suitable rationalization and as I stood by the counter, holding the cigar in my hand, in this internal confliction, a man, dressed in a suit came in the door behind me and greeted the counter clerk, who returned his greeting with the familiarity of regular acquaintance. The suit he wore was obviously expensive, made of light and supple, black Italian wool—no tie, and the collar of the white shirt beneath the stylish lapels was open at the throat. He looked at me and smiled before returning his attention to the young man, who still showed no interest in my activities.

As I continued to sniff and mentally weigh the pros and cons, I was getting no closer to a decision, when the man in the suit, who now sat on one of the barstools, turned to me and said, “would you like to smoke it?” I felt a little ashamed about it but I nodded, “yes”.

“Romeo,” he said. I looked at it and whispered, “and Juliet.” He laughed, gently. “Go ahead, light it up.” Hesitating, I looked into the dark eyes of the counter clerk, who seemed like he was watching a familiar scene in a movie. “Would you like to use a cutter?” the clerk asked.

“How much is it?”

The gentleman on the barstool, who I then noticed looked like Morgan Freeman, leaned toward me to pick up the rosewood box, which he held out for the counter clerk to take from his hands. “Do you mind,” he said to me, “I’ll pay for it.”

“That’s very kind of you but…” I started to protest this generosity from a stranger but there was something so familiar and friendly about his face and voice, I felt more ashamed about refusing him.

“No, really, that’s ok,” he said, “don’t mention it. You can have the box. Enjoy!”

“Shall I wrap it?” The clerk asked him, not me.

“Sure,” he said to the clerk and swiveling on the stool back to me, he said, “Is there anything more? Really. Anything?”

“Anything.”

“Anything,” he said, with the confident, sweet smile and flashing eyes that reminded me so much of Morgan, and Gene Wilder, too, a little.

“My name is…”

“I know who you are,” he cut me off. “No introductions are necessary. Just tell me what you want.”

“Oh. Right. Of course. Thank you. For the cigar—cigars.” I felt stupid saying that. “God, I felt stupid saying that,” I said, “but still, thank you.”

“As my Scandinavian friends say, “not to worry, it was too little. But really, you can always have anything—that I can give you.”

“Anything? OK. How about a new president?”

“Of the United States?” He laughed. “You go right for it, don’t you.” Shaking his head, he looked down at his shiny black dressy loafers. I imagined him wiggling his toes. “Well, I guess that’s appropriate. But, why?”

“I don’t know, I’m tired of all the bullshit.”

“Aren’t we all. But isn’t it the nature of the job? Does it matter who does it?”

“It did. It used to.”

“I understand,” he said, sympathetically, “what you want and why.”

“But you can’t give that to me?”

“Sort of…but you’ll have to clarify or I can’t give you what you want.”

“I’m tired of apologies. Instead of taking care of things, all we get is apologies. Really.”

“I thought that’s the purpose of having a president, to apologize. That’s the job, isn’t it? The fuss about Clinton was because he was unapologetic about his blowjob. He apologized for failing to deliver universal healthcare and that was completely acceptable. Nixon was made president after he apologized in tears for taking a house in Beverly Hills in return for political favors. I understand his apology for Watergate is considered epic. Among world leaders, George Bush was outstandingly stupid but his whining voice was constantly apologizing and he got away with murder and larceny on a scale never seen before. Clearly, apologetic is the most significant quality that distinguishes popular politicians in general but especially those who “fill” the office of president. Apology is to Washington, D.C. as horseshit is to the Aegean stables.”

“Since you put it that way, how about a house in the country?”

“Now, that’s what I’m talking about.”

God: (To a man on the street in front of the UN, holding an “occupy” placard) You live in a banana republic? Who would’a thunk it?

(Later that day, in an elevator inside the UN building.)

God: Nations? Nations? What are nations?

Red Ant King: Nations are organizations. Ours is the most powerfully united in the world. We’re mighty in arms and highly principled!

God: What the fuck?

Blue Ant King: WE are a real republic–those reds are commie bastard idolators.

God: Whoa! Aren’t you taking yourselves a little too seriously?

Red Ant King: He’s full of it. They are fascist motherfuckers, every one. Smite THEM and (sotto voce) let US take care of their oil shale.

Green Ant King: Fracking frackers!

God: You do your own smiting, leave me out of that bullshit. I’ve got enough to think about trying to make sense of the time signature in Beethoven’s Eroica. Unless done well, I am not into organized violence. What’d you think of that big bang? Now that was something to brag about!

Black Ant King: They’re both racist shitheads, Lord, look at what they do to your truly good people, those who worship your holy name in praise and song EVERY Sunday!

God: I do like the music. That boy, Thelonius, now he’s a gas! Miles blows like an angel! Have you noticed how slow this elevator is moving? Jesus! This could take forever! What do you call this place?

Black Ant King: This is the United Nations, Lord…mostly united white nations…

Red Ant King: Hey, we don’t segregate no more, we did that affirmative action thing or tried to an’ look what they did with that! They own the damn post office! It’s re-verse dis-crimin-ation. You’all can use the same shitters as everyone now, so just stay the fuck away from white women! Is that too much to ask?

Black Ant King: We shall overCOME, asshole and I DO mean, overCOME, get it? Or are your ears too far down inside your fat, red neck. Prick, hick, what’s the difference?

Blue Ant King: You see how they talk, Lord? No respect! Isn’t it about time for some swift justice? I know you’ll spare your friends–and you know we never hung a ni-black person ourselves, that is, directly. We never even shot one dumb drunk injun or gassed a single Jew, except the Rosenbergs, which was an unfortunate mistake and look, we even gave ’em Palestine after the war…of course, they can live anywhere they want now, well, there was a problem in La Jolla, of course, and Ford and Rockefeller and the RCA boys payin’ Hitler was admittedly counter-intuitive but it was complicated. The Hamptons? No one wants to live there anymore–the place is full of disgusting pop musicians. But they got ALL of Florida–on the Atlantic side, for a while, of course.

Red Ant King: Save it for the radio, neocorn. Don’t listen to him anyway, Lord. They break every one of your laws every way they can when they think you’re not looking! They PRINT that fraudulent fiat money! In your holy name…put your name on their worthless script! Look here at this! “In God we trust!” Now, what’s that supposed to mean? One nation under god my ass!

Black Ant King: Who are you to talk, hypocrite! You sent guns to Nicaragua, you guys put bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Gaddafy and that Syrian creep in business, you poison young black men with coke, smack and meth and you burned up all those poor souls at Waco! What the hell’s wrong with you?

God: Shut up! All of you!

Black Ant King: But…

God: Stuff it! I don’t give a damn, just shut the fuck up! (peal of thunder rolls.) You give me a headache with your bickering. You people can all marry each other now, so get on with it and have makeup sex afterwards. Just, stop it with all the complaints! Look, I understand you’ve got some issues to work through and I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do…

Black Ant King: Praise the Lord! Tell us, please tell us! Tell us what you want us to do!

All:  Yes, Lord, all we want is to be your faithful servant, etc.

God: All you want? Yeah, I bet.  Well, let’s see how that works out, maybe we are on the same page, that’ll be a first…so, here’s the deal, gentlemen (and I know you ladies are hanging around hiding behind the curtains, pretending it’s none of your doing)…so listen up, here’s the deal: To begin with, I ain’t doing a damn thing. Nothing. That’s right, you heard me, nothing. Not one skinny iota of any kind of involvement in your affairs, not in any way, shape or form, as you say. (God pauses–for a change, there is complete silence.) That’s right, you heard me. Awesome? Tell me are you finally awe struck? Well that’s good. I’ve discussed this with my, my, you know–my beatch…

Red Ant King: You mean there’s a Mrs. God?

Green Ant King: You’re such a sexist little prick…

God: It’s none of your business but haven’t you noticed your God is asexual.

Red Ant King: But–but this seems very important…who…who is your, your…

God: My Beatch? No, that’s not important to you because  you are on your own. God ain’t smiting. God ain’t helping. God ain’t blessing one fat little cherub or damning one scheming bastard criminal. God ain’t caring one fat rat’s ass what you boys and girls are up to or down for. The way I see it, you got a perfectly good planet, which I recall giving you in nifty order. Nice place–took three maybe four billion years to grow all that shit and now you’re fucking it up like it don’t mean squat to you, so bad, so fast, I doubt you’ll even be around next time I come by. Sad, ain’t it? I’d lay odds on it but what’s the point? You dudes won’t be around to pay off. Heh heh. Time’s a bitch, isn’t it?

Red Ant King: What? What do you mean?

Black Ant King: What about Britain?

Green Ant King: What about the rainforests…and Carnivál?

Blue Ant King: Fuck all! What about Paris? What about your chosen people? What about them?

God: What the hell, they got the bomb over there, didn’t they? I’d like to do something about Paris but I don’t see…no, sorry, all bets are off.

Black Ant King: This is not fair. Do you realize how much shit we have taken for how long, all the time, believing in the name of God–in YOUR name!

God: It’s not about names, boy.

Black Ant King: Boy? Boy!

God: Have you not learned anything by observing the Lutherans? God isn’t a brand. Notice, no t-shirt here? I’m not a fucking brand. Now, the old guy in the Vatican, that is branding…did you know the name, Vatican, is Etruscan?

Red Ant King: What’re we gonna tell people?

Black Ant King: Boy!!

Blue Ant King:  Same lies you always told them, idiot. What’s the difference?

God: That’s the spirit. Ride the horse ‘til it’s dead!

Blue Ant King: That’s not really what I meant.

God: Then what the fuck did you mean?

Black Ant King: It’s not fair! We’re not running things! It’s them! They’re fucking stuff up, not us! They’ve always been fucking stuff up! Them and the Chinese.

God: Lookee there in Nigeria, monsieur. Take a look at Colombia, Rio. Whose are those starving children there in Somalia. Isn’t that a black dude poaching those rhinos. About those men buying and selling their neighbors in Darfur… Don’t forget your Hindu cousins either–building 15 new reactors this year. You’re all equally repulsive or is repugnant the right word.

Blue Ant King: What good ‘s it going to do if you leave?

God:  Is there a competition?

Red Ant King: You can’t bail on us now! Without warning!

God: What would you consider to be a warning, asshole? How about Katrina? Or that tsunami that fucked up Fukushima? Hell’s bells, around the planet, you dumb bells are building fifty new nuclear power plants and half a dozen new dams, your scraping the last fish out of the sea and pumping half the cretaceous era into the atmosphere. Biological life is out of style here and I just don’t groove  with kilobytes. Can you cats not dig that?

Green Ant King: We have tried so hard, God.

Black Ant King: Don’t you even care about us?

Red Ant King: I was taught that God is love.

God: You know, I really do care and that’s why it’s time you figure it out!

Black Ant King: Is there nothing we can do to make you want to stay?

God: Don’t do that, you know I love the blues. Honestly, you wanna know what amuses me most about you suckers? It’s the thing that fucks you up everytime. You are the quintessentially perfect and singularly unique manifestation of arrogance in any imaginable universe. Temptation of fate is  DNA. It’s been the secret of your success. Nowhere in this infinite universe is there another example and it’s so risky that it’s unlikely that it could exist  anywhere for long in any form! It’s an absolutely irresistible invitation to evolution and this is a universe which knows no absolutes so that’s not small change. You’re beautifully, irresistibly arrogant. Arrogance is the very nature of beauty, isn’t it? It amazes me that you survived this long… Well, it appears your technology is about to end that. Too bad. You’ve been a rare source of amusement…I will miss that when you’re gone.

Red Ant King: What did you say?

Black Ant King: God said, “when you’re gone”, motherfucker. Listen up.

Red Ant King: What do you mean? I thought you kinda took Judgment Day off the table.

God: I’m sorry. Did I not make something perfectly clear again? You’re always accusing me of being ambiguous. I’m tired of hearing that.

Red Ant King: What did you mean by, “when you’re gone”. You said you are going to miss us when we’re gone. Gone when? Gone where?

God: I love that song. (sings) “After you’ve gone and left me crying, after you’ve gone and no denying, you’ll feel blue, you’ll feel sad, you’ll miss the best pal you ever had…”

Red Ant King: That’s NOT funny!

God: I’m sorry…Look, isn’t it time you got your shit TOGETHER? And, (to Black Ant King) I DO mean, TOGETHER, homey.

Black Ant King: What am I supposed to do with these morons running things?

God: Takes two to tango and you put up with it because some among you are playin’ the game, selling brothers and sisters out…

Black Ant King: The flesh is weak…

God: So they say. Hey, listen, fellas, you’re a great bunch of guys and I’d like to stay forever, you know, and I love the ladies hiding in the wings, and it’s been great catching up but I really have to go now. (What is it with this slow fucking elevator?) You know, fellas, there’s an infinite universe out there, exponentially expanding even as we speak, so…I wish you lots of luck and I really do mean it, too. I hope it works out for you…to be honest I don’t have much hope for you given your habit of irresponsibility and you’re always blaming someone or something or even me, heaven knows, everytime you fall on your ass or win the lottery but who knows, maybe you’ll wake up. I doubt it but if I’ve learned one thing from you over the years, it’s that you never can tell…

Red Ant King: (stunned) What about Judgment Day…?

God: Don’t you fucking listen? Clue him in, will you, please? Look, for the last time, the answer is, NO! Not on my watch! “Judge not lest ye shall be judged” (or something like that). Works for me. Always has. Everything you think is in my hands, well, it’s not. It’s questionable that it ever was. It’s all in YOUR hands. Period. End of story. Get over it. Bye, now. If you see Marsalis, tell him to keep it up. Tell him I’ve got my eye on him for a thing I’m putting together with Eddie Kantor, Gene Wilder and Ella. No hurry though, this guy, Winn, is still working on the book and it seems to be taking him a lifetime, literally. But, you know how I am. I’m never in a hurry. Can you imagine, God, stuck in an elevator in the UN building with a bunch of politicians? Great idea for a movie, right? Hah! Never say never! Adios, muchachos! See you around…if you believe, heh heh. Hasta la byebye.

Puff of white smoke and he’s gone.

Birth is traumatic stress, a part of which contemporary psychologists have described as the original “break in belonging” and the origin of a thought that “something is wrong”.

If the role of parents in childhood is to treat unwitting survivors of birth, they should be obliged to inform themselves about treating those who suffer from “post traumatic stress disorder” especially since all of us live post the birth trauma.

If the “unwittingness” of the newborn was not exploited by parents, siblings, teachers and every form of social organization, to relieve their own cases of PTSD, from cradle to grave, perhaps they would inform themselves.

Although, there are enclaves and even places within political boundaries and there have been periods of time where customs are more enlightened, but on the whole, the world is populated mostly by people with strategies for survival and stress relief, ranging from religious zealotry and other forms of narcissism to murder as an art form, and of course, there is China.

Most of us live our entire lives in “a world full of faces [in which] so few ever find their places,” which we endure, through occasional reminders and flashbacks of terror and even fewer glimpses of beings who we think we are.

And then we die. But before that happens, we live, after a fashion.

Now, if you are aware of this, you can observe it and in doing this, there is the possibility of being truly alive and truly who you are.

 

 

 

 

A striking comparison between Departures, another Japanese masterpiece, and Rabbit Hole, a didactic manifesto of Scientology, released by Lionsgate, is nonetheless fair since they both deal with the emotional as well as cultural and philosophic views of death, not as personified as a character, in the style of Bjergman’s Seventh Veil or as a principle of denouement, as in Hamlet, Romeo and Juliett or Julius Ceasar, but death, as we know it.

If academics can legitimately deconstruct a symphony into a set of representative, constituent repeated and transformed harmonic progressions, it is not unreasonable to examine and compare two films by looking at their representative, constituent elements. This practice will reflect badly on academic exercises if readers get the idea that the formulae extracted from such analyses can be employed in making films rather than understanding that they are only a way of refining their ability to perceive subtle distinctions. Distinctions about relationships of complex sounds in music are experiential, not conceptual, so this analogy between deconstruction of complex musical forms and even more complex visual and aural imagery is limited. The latter involves some clearly conceptual elements that are not present in music, except in anthems.

Deconstructing Departures and Rabbit Hole, beginning with their respective first frames, we encounter musical forms that define both films and the differences between their music parallels most differences between the two examples of narrative cinema. In both cases, the opening music tells us these stories will be emotionally stressful and in the end, all will be resolved, more or less. In Rabbit Hole, music tells us this with a short sequence of chords on plucked strings–in a chord progression that is traditional in popular music, something like I-IV-V⁷-I; tonic, subdominant (mild dissonance), dominant seventh (leading tone dissonance), resolving tonic. In Departures, to the contrary, although the music informs us that things will be alright in the end, we get that, just as in life, this may mean coming to terms with loss. So the music in Rabbit Hole telegraphs the emotional conclusion in the opening frames while, in Departures, the protagonist’s voice, as the narrator, introduces the narrative in a personal, idiomatic statement that, with music as an overture, forecasts a journey, the conclusion of which may be, like the music, open to variations, modulations and suspense: we can expect the unexpected.

Philosophically, Rabbit Hole deals with the subject of death in terms of resolving grief and the story illustrates a conceptual resolution according to the principles of Scientology (which makes a religion of science), while offering no resolution for the emotional sorrow of loss. We are offered only brief glimpses of the departed in strident sequences fraught with painful emotion. Departures, to the contrary, includes the experience and expression of grief for the departed through a broad array of relationships and offers a philosophical resolution that includes death within life without conceptual religious ideology, thereby weakening the effect of the distinction between the living and the dead that is exaggerated by our feelings of loss, which shows up as lost opportunity to share life (the past is beyond loss). Both films offer solace that the departed may exist in a different state but Departures presents emotional redemption through a social ritual, whereas, in Rabbit Hole, the protagonist is pointedly alone, with no recourse but to accept grief or deny her own existence.

The ritual in Departures allows an expression of love for the departed in a profound, sensitive acknowledgment, literally, through art, whereas, in Rabbit Hole, although there is the conceptual solace of scientific superstition, there is no celebration of the departed, and no employment of art in the resolution. Departures is therefore, a paen to art, an extraordinary idea and one that the music, by Joe Hisiashi supports. Music, as well as the imagery and script in Departures is more complex and demanding of actors, artists and craftspeople, it’s a generally more challenging production that succeeds, after all, it won an Academy Award in 2008, however, I sometimes wanted to hear someone like Yoyo Ma performing, perhaps, on variations of baroque or romantic pieces, and sometimes, something distinctly Japanese.

 

 

 

 

 

If God exists, what difference would it make to God, whether or not some members of a species that tends toward narcissism on one of the trillion billion planets in this particular universe believes, imagines or thinks it exists, or for that matter, they exist.

The dichotomous terms atheism/theism miss the point. Religionism, however, isn’t dichotomous since there is no opposite per se. Instead, there are those who don’t think about the matter, some who do and don’t care either way and those for whom any belief is simply another expression of self-identification or narcissism.

The primary fallacy of religionists is their self-contradictory assertions about eternal life, which is an extension of beliefs related to time. Since the eternal by definition has neither beginning nor end, time as we imagine it, does not exist. You can’t get to eternity. Anything eternal has always been so and by definition, will always be just as it is.

Hinduism, alone among “major” belief systems, acknowledges this fallacy and attempts to resolve it with a panoply of reincarnations but they eventually hit the wall of ultimate incarnation: a fully transcended being that escapes time and becomes eternal.

At this very moment a religionist on the planet earth is probably killing someone because of an opinion about the nature and and/or existence of God. Someone else is teaching children that they will achieve eternal life if they obey the authority of a pope, imam or the precepts of a secular order. Others are calming their reasonable misgivings with prayers while employing environmentally destructive activities and/or using poorly designed, under-engineered or carelessly constructed technologies. “If God wills it.”

Unlike the idea it represents, a word is weightless.

Do you want a pain pill?

Is the saddest refrain I’ve ever heard

And the nurses here sing constantly.

Alone and unregarded
Each in our solitary
Cubicle of time…
 

A trillion billion souls,
We rock and nod
On invisible waves…
 

Cacophonous memories
Surge in fetid minds
Surcease, shut up! Quiet!
 

What use the harmony
Of natures’ plan
When all around us whines…
 

Wails, whimpers, shouts and cries…
In whispered breath,
A prayer for silence.