A Tale of Two Shitties
Posted: April 28, 2014 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: essay, Fiction, haves and have nots, income-gap, inequality Leave a commentWe’re heading down to Disney.
We get through security thanks to my special ID that allows us to skirt the cattle-call lines of the masses.
Get to the gate and breeze right through the Elite “line,” if you can even call it that.
“Fuckstains,” I hear someone mutter, low.
Tuck me arse into First Class seat by the window.
“Pull the curtain on Coach, will you? Thanks.”
She does, dutifully. “Bloody Mary, sir?”
“Only if you have a potato vodka. Otherwise, mimosa. Long on bubbles. Short on pulp.”
Get to the hotel. Gently push people aside as I get to the “Diamond Member” check-in.
Give the guy a fiver as he plops the bags in front of bed bigger than most people’s apartments. What’s bigger than King size? Emperor? Czar? Duke?
It’s hot out. The relentless sun buns us all equally. This lack of order, of status or rank, buns me to no end. Without a pecking order, it’s just plain chaos.
I cool considerably strolling by while casting a glance at the rapidly reddening line-lovers before heading to and through the VIP Fastpass. “Tah. Fucking. Tah.”
At dinner I swear the manager is hitting on me he comes by so much.
Him: Your food is to your liking, sir?
Me: Delish.
Him: Thank you, sir. And your family? You are all enjoying your stay in the Kingdom? Neither kid looks up from their phones. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. They haven’t taken their headphones off since they got out of the pool. “The wife” smiles without even a glint of recognition.
That evening, one of the kids wakes up. I’m not sure which. They both look like their mother. Apparently the Coffee-Crusted filet does not play well with either his OCD or “Low T” meds. Side note: if ever there was a kid who needed to grow a pair, it’s this kid.
The hotel car service pulls around to the side of the hospital building. A doctor walks out to greet us. An orderly with a wheelchair walks behind him. Well behind him.
“I’ll see if I can perform some magic of my own.”
I smile the kind of smile that says, ‘This aint a fuckin’ social call, Doc,” and he gets a move on.
Fifteen minutes later I’m shaking his hand.
“I gave him some antacid and a sedative. Make tomorrow a pool day. No rides. Next day, he’ll be right as rain.”
“What about getting some fur on his peaches?”
“He’s eight.”
“But he’s a small eight. He’ll never be D1 anything at this rate.”
“Let me wave my Magic wand,” he says with a wink, placing a bottle of pills in my pocket. In the car service back to the hotel I read the label.
Keep out of the reach of women.
Our plane touches down back home. Our driver hurriedly grabs the luggage, which has multiplied since our departure just twenty-one days ago, and throws them in the back of the biggest, blackest suburban anyone had ever seen.
“HOV lane, Sammy. Step on it.”
Poster Boy
Posted: April 16, 2014 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Boston Bombing, Edson, facebook, google, Helter Skelter, In Cold Blood, Kayvon, Manson, media, media ethics, social media, tsarnaev, twitter Leave a commentAt some point we have to loo
k in the mirror and see how we are “contributing” to a world we’re too often embarrassed to live in. Today is such a day for me.
We are making heroes of the very least among us, and it must stop. I am. You are. We are.
What terrorists and mass-murderers do is widely misunderstood in my view. The ‘sane’ ones, that is to say those who are not intellectually impaired but spiritually and socially fractured, use murder and mayhem as means not ends. It’s simply the surest way to be heard. And seen. They have some agenda, and since Oprah won’t invite them to her couch, Stern won’t grant them airwaves, Anderson Cooper won’t return their call, and so on, they choose the one thing American media can’t resist— the Big Bad. Then every spotlight, every microphone, every camera, every blog, every everything is obsessively focused on them.
It’s entirely wrong to condemn the media for this. It feeds us what we beg for. We devour it. We spread it. We want it. As a boy I read In Cold Blood and Helter Skelter to find out what makes a person do the unthinkable. Some people, however, take an almost prurient interest in blackest souls. Virtually all of us are on this continuum, somewhere between morbidly curious, obsessed and fawning apologists.
One such person, evidently at the very extreme end of the spectrum, is Kayvon Edson. Unlike the ’sane’ murderers I mentioned earlier, it seems Kayvon is the other kind. The clearly deranged threat.
How can I know this not twelve hours after the world knew of Kayvon? Well, I read how he was walking around the Boston Marathon memorial in a black veil. I read that in the newspaper. It was a lead story. Kayvon was trending on Twitter too!
Then, without even having to be asked to, I went to Facebook to see if Kayvon might have some words of wisdom to share there. He did.
Kayvon’s cover photo is not of his shining face; it’s of his probable idol— Tsarnaev The Younger! Clever, eh? But wait— there’s more! The picture had a caption. It reads: Had A Blast At the Marathon!!!
That’s right. Three exclamation points. Subtle.
If you’re yelling at your computer right now,”He probably didn’t even do that! Someone put the image up after the news of what he’d done”, you’re right. And you’re entirely missing the point. And you’re making mine.
That I would voluntarily investigate this person is gravely disappointing to the point of shame. That someone else would make light of both Kayvon and Tsarnaev’s crimes (against humanity)and draft off of it is vulgar on its face. And spreading.
Heroin addiction is running wild again in the streets of cities and towns. It’s scary and a blight.
I would argue that our addiction to Big Bads is more pervasive, more destructive, and more treatable. Thank God for small favors.
When drunks or loons run onto the field during a game, broadcasters turn the camera away or go to commercial so as not to encourage more attention seekers. Let’s do that for Big Bads.
Of course we have to report what happened. The public has a right to know and the press has an obligation to cover it. But let’s not mention names of perpetrators. Let’s deny them their fifteen minutes— to say nothing of their book deals, jailhouse marriage proposals, or Facebook ‘likes.’ They want an audience. Forget ‘let’s not give it to them’; let’s not be it. Let’s not spend precious hours or even days trying to unravel the yarn. It’s not that interesting.
If we had done that with (redacted), (redacted) might not have felt the urge to jog in his murderous footsteps in a thinly veiled homage. And if (redacted) didn’t do that, we wouldn’t be googling (“redacted”) to see what he looks like, what his favorite bands are, or what President he’d be according to his Facebook quiz.
I think you get my point.
I feel like there should be some cleansing platitude inserted here. “Be kind to strangers.” “Care for the mentally ill.” “Live every day to the fullest.”
I’ll settle for, “Don’t make fame of infamy.” Hey, it’s a start.
I don’t want media companies to be better than me. I want them to help me be better. I need all the help I can get. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe not.
Hellfire
Posted: March 27, 2014 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: backbay fire, bravery, Fiction, fire, heroism, purposefulness Leave a comment“It’s emasculating in a way. I’m filled with admiration, but there are almost equal parts shame.”
“Some rise so high. Others stoop so low. I’m not putting you in the latter bucket.”
“But you’re not putting me in the former either. Nor should you. There are people that do things that matter. There are those that don’t.”
“Everything matters. Anything can matter. The littlest thing can save a life.”
“We always say that after the biggest things happen. ‘Well, I patted someone on the back the other day who looked really down. Who knows what might have happened… It’s utter bullshit.”
“If you’re conning yourself it is. But it doesn’t have to be.”
“How so.”
“I see a ton of cops in here. I see a ton of firefighters. To a man, they don’t view what they do as heroic.”
“Maybe they make a distinction between glamorous and heroic. There’s virtually zero chance I’ll throw someone over my shoulder today and carry them out of a burning building. Unless one of the girls in Accounting gets pissed, nobody will shoot at me during the course of a day.”
“That’s not your job. Or mine.”
“You’re proving my point.”
“You’re missing mine.”
“‘splain. And shake me a martini so my consciousness is expanded to grasp what you’re saying.”
“Most of their days are just like yours. Completely different, but largely the same. Tedium. Paperwork. Routine. Politics. Bureaucracy. The bullshit the ninety-percent trudges through daily— with the help of Ketel One and the grace of God.”
“I get that, but there’s always the potential for danger and an acceptance of risk. Without much in the way of reward, I might add.”
“You have the potential for risk. Not as much. But it’s very real. A car’s lying on its side on the highway. Everyone files by. ‘Sucks to be them.’ What do you do?”
“I pull over. I jump out. I hop up on it and try to pull him out.”
“And did you act bravely in that situation? In that split-second when you had to act?”
“The car was not on fire. The kid kicked that back window out himself and crawled out. It’s not the same.”
“What if it was on fire?”
“I’ld like to think I’d have still done everything I could.”
“Right. These guys have the training and experience to make that split second decision in a split-split-second. They don’t think. They act. It’s what they’ve been trained to do. What you call ‘braver’ they call muscle memory and reflexes.”
“And…”
“At that moment they’re not thinking, ‘this is my SportsCenter moment. Du nu nu. Du nu nu.’ They’re thinking ‘there are people upstairs and the fire’s coming from the basement. I’ll take the basement you clear the upstairs.’”
“Right. Their instinct is to run in when others are running out. I’m a running out kind of guy. I think.”
“You think. They don’t think. They act. But you acted too at that rollover. You didn’t think. And without any training or skills of any kind you went in when others passed by so they could make a tee time or whatever. If that car was on fire and you did pull the kid out, you’d have been a hero too.”
“If ifs and buts were candy and nuts…”
“Maybe you’re not so different. Not as different as you think, anyway. They’ve just had more at bats. You’ve been on the bench. But when you got your shot, you had a real good at bat.”
“I walked.”
“Others walked away.”
“So I’m not a huge shit stain? I’m just running the course I’m on and may have behaved just like those two facing similar circumstances?”
“Fuck no. You’re a huge pussy. Those are real men. I’m just talking you off the ledge.”
“One more. Make it dry.”
Spring Ahead
Posted: March 11, 2014 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Fiction, malaysia, myopic, Spring Leave a comment“Feels like Spring for the first time this year. It’s like I can breathe again.”
“Breathe deep. Snow tomorrow.”
“Can we just enjoy today?”
“Indeed we should. Tomorrow you could be up in a plane and disappear at thirty-five thousand feet. Poof. Like you were never there.”
“The modern day Icarus— with a stolen Austrian passport.”
“Or Jacob’s ‘ladder to heaven.’ Maybe we strive for too much. Reach too far.”
“I’m just trying to enjoy a Spring day with a summery Jack and Ginger if you’d be so kind.”
“We spend so much energy on what happened to these two-hundred, two-hundred fitty people. Where are they? What went wrong? Who’s to blame? Is it a conspiracy? Over a thousand people die every day of a coronary in the US. Not sexy. Doesn’t make the news. We know why it happens. We just don’t want to know.”
“Not with a bang, but a whimper.”
“Floods, earthquakes, locusts…people throw their money at them. We’re incredibly generous if suitably swayed. The day to day death by paper cuts that awaits us all just fails to capture our attention.”
“Now who’s lost the spring in his step?”
“I haven’t. Honestly. I think it was Ferris Bueller who said ‘there’s a certain freedom in knowing you’re totally screwed.’ Whether it’s a plane, some cancer, or keeling over at my desk, I know it’s coming. I just don’t know when. So, I’ll assume it’s sooner than later and squeeze as much out today as I can.”
“I’ll drink to that.”
“That doesn’t mean skydiving or shark riding or anything dramatic. That’s not living. That’s pretending. That’s playing a game. Living is walking the real streets, doing the real work, just more quickly. Just with more verve.”
“And it’s eliminating the stupid stuff.”
“Exactly. And this isn’t that. Having a drink, having a conversation here about things you don’t really converse about out there is living. Out there it’s very specific. It’s about the numbers. It’s about the kids. It’s solving problems…”
“Or thinking you do.”
“Those are little bubbles. I’m interested in the great big bubble. The stuff that’s not on the agenda.”
“So many asshats out there thinking they’re curing cancer. Even ones working on curing cancer. Somewhere along the line we’ve lost our sense of smallness, our sense of insignificance. We forget we don’t bring meaning to us. It brings meaning to us.”
“I’m not sure I believe that. Or even understand it. But it sounds oddly cool.”
“All this ‘look within’ Jedi bullshit has fucked us royally. The answer is definitively not within. It is assuredly without. Our navel gazing has left us incapable of seeing things as they are, remembering how they were, or imagining how they could be. All we see is ourselves in everything and nothing of everything in ourselves.”
“Christ. I’m trying to enjoy Spring.”
“And you should. The earth is renewing itself and, if you let it, that’s happening in you too.”
“I thought my positivity was renewing it.”
“Thankfully it doesn’t work that way.”
“Then, I’ll leave it at one and go for a stroll.”
“Double down tomorrow.”
“I always do.”
Guns and Roses
Posted: March 10, 2014 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Bud Light, Church, Fiction, gun manufacturer, Guns, Obama Leave a comment“Did you hear there’s a church in Kentucky that offered free guns for people to join?”
“Let he who is without sin gat a bitch.”
“Doesn’t that seem a little sacrilegious to you? A bit of missing the point?”
“A gun manufacturer just got sued for an ad showing the Statue of David holding a rifle.”
“Is nothing sacred?”
“Guns.”
“Seemingly.”
“I don’t get it? Who exactly are they afraid is coming to take them from their otherwise cold, dead hands?”
“Blacks.”
“Everything Obama has said about guns in entirely reasonable after Newtown, The Batman thing and all the others. Seriously.”
“Not Obama, although his being black surely doesn’t help. Blacks. Plural. The President, not this one but Lincoln, took their slaves and freed them. Now they know what it is to smell the glove they don’t ever want to do it again. They’ll be ready next time. Armed and ready.”
“But it’s not just the South. It’s everywhere.”
“See any black guys jumping up and down about the Second Amendment?”
“In fact I don’t.”
“This is White America feeling like it’s all slipping away. The country club is allowing blacks, towel heads, women and fags. Next step is the government forcing you to have them over for supper. That’s how they think. Most down own a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of but they’re going to defend their imaginary forty acres to the hilt.”
“Seems pretty consistent with the Zimmerman thing. ‘What the hell is a black guy doing in my neighborhood?’ I better get this glock cocked.”
“Say that three times fast. Speaking of which…”
“One more. It’s cold out.”
“’Tis.”
“How fucked up and sad going through life like that— like you could be attacked at any time.”
“Religion’s become the same. It’s not a force for doing good. It’s an excuse for doing bad. ‘It says right here that Jesus hated them queers.’”
“Book of Hand Job.”
“Know what the biggest beer in Ireland is right now? Fucking Bud Light.”
“No sir.”
“Yes sir. Everybody thinks what they’ve got sucks. ‘Yanks must have figured it out.’”
“If they only knew.”
“Nothing is the now. It was always better then or will be better once x, y, and z happen. If only.”
“But it sure as hell won’t without our guns to make sure it does.”
“Fucking zombies everywhere, man.”
“Guns don’t really work on zombies.”
“Nothing does. But it makes you feel better though, don’t it? Feeling like you could until that moment you can’t.”
Catch My Drift
Posted: March 6, 2014 Filed under: Fiction, Uncategorized | Tags: Fiction Leave a comment“You see Obama yesterday?”
“No. Saw Air Force One sitting on the tarmac. That’s as close as I got. Was he in for a beer and a shot of barkeep wisdom.”
“No. Missed opportunity. For him.”
“Truly. What would you have said?”
“Dunno. I’d have brought him a wine—looks like a wine guy to me. As I slid it over I’d have grabbed his wrist.”
“After the Secret Service snapped your neck like a #2 pencil what would you have done?”
“I just would have wanted to take his pulse. Nothing crass like ‘ask Michele for your balls back’ or anything like that.”
“Implication being he’s some sort of robot? Does this go back to the whole teleprompter thing?”
“Fuck no. Ellen used one at the Academy Awards. The President shouldn’t?”
“Was that an Ellen reference?”
“Take the whole drone thing. It’s too easy. Some asshat just sitting somewhere— in some bunker some place— dropping bombs on things like it’s fucking Nintendo.”
“You’d rather have soldiers deployed everywhere trying to do the same? And when they get shot and killed, as they often will, what will you say— or rather what will your teleprompter have you say?”
“If it’s not worth getting up close. If it’s not worth going toe-to-toe and taking that risk, maybe we shouldn’t do it. Would you like Mexicans doing drone strikes in East LA?”
“He killed Osama Ballwashin up close and personal.”
“And that’s why the wine was on me. But he’s too clinical. He’s smart. Harvard Law. I get it. But give some ‘big stick.’ I’m all set with the ‘walk softly.’”
“I hear you.”
“It’s like a lot people that come in here. Not just kids either— although they’re the worst. They come into a bar and they stare at their phones the whole time. What the fuck’s the point of going to a bar to look at your phone?”
“They’re missing your charm entirely.”
“They’re missing the fact that it’s a place to be social. Not social media. Social. If you come in alone, I’ll chat you up. If you come with friends, then talk to them. It’s not that fucking complicated. Do I need to hand instructions out with the menu?”
“You have a menu?”
“I’ll make one. Drones, wine, suds, hooch— asterisk. ‘Please don’t act like a hermit fucknut. The management.’”
“Imagine the Instagram pickup.”
“I’m serious. Some people want their place to be a hotspot. I want to shield my bar from the web.”
“You’ll lose tons of NSA business.”
“There are so many cool things that technology brings. Access to everything. But while our head’s stuck in it we don’t notice we’ve drifted six inches apart from everyone. It’s like an ice flow breaking apart slowly.”
“I like the birthday notes I get on Facebook.”
“I like them too. Hard to say anything about the birthday notes on Facebook. It’s the other 364 days I could do without.”
“I wish I could ‘like’ that comment.”
Beginning to Pour
Posted: March 5, 2014 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment“What about this teenage kid? Where the parents are fighting with the doctors over treatment. In State custody…”
“I hate it. The State never makes things better.”
“Agreed.”
“But what if your neighbor’s kid is sick and they won’t take her to the hospital? Religious nuts or whatever.”
“The thin line between a right to die and a right to kill.”
“Not a straight line either.”
“No. It’s not the seventies any more.”
“What if the kid breaks his arm in three places. Parents don’t want to get a cast or anything. A fifteen year old kid.”
“Is the lack of treatment the same as abuse?”
“Omission becoming commission.”
“I feel like the State becoming involved is just horrible. But letting the kid suffer or get worse or whatever is also horrible. I wish there was a third way, but I don’t see one.”
“Same with vaccines. Who is the government to force me to inject some ‘acceptable level of disease’ into my kid?”
“But who are you to be able to walk around with fucking polio or plague or whatever.”
“I was thinking more measles, but the point’s the same.”
“It’s the same with all this regulation shit. I don’t think the State knows its ass from a hole in the ground. But I know I’ll get fucked or worse if they’re not keeping businesses in check. Banks. Milk guys. Everybody.”
“Milk guys.”
“I don’t know what they hell they’re feeding cows. Somebody needs to make sure that milk’s safe to drink. I’m not a lab rat.”
“A lot of people think that pasteurization process is complete shit. Lots of action in the underground fresh milk market.”
“Guess they haven’t heard of Mad Cow disease.”
“That meat was inspected. How safe are the dead people?”
“That’s what I mean. My kingdom for a third way.”
“I see your point.”
“It’s Ash Wednesday. I see your face is no dirtier than usual. Upset at the Pope dropping an F-bomb at the Vatican?”
“I’ll go after work. I’m building up to it.”
“What are you giving up?”
“Caring most likely.”
“Have you tried the 18-year old Jameson’s?”
“Not yet. But I’m willing.”
“Feel the burn.”
“Title of my autobiography.”
“Slon.”
“Hot. Another. For the Holy Ghost.”
“What about Murph?”
“I’ll have the 12-year old for him. He was never fancy.”
“Bet he wouldn’t trip on his dick when a pretty girl walked by.”
“Slon. Pour the twelve.”
This is Water (and this is whiskey).
Posted: March 4, 2014 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment“When you see a beautiful young woman, what do you think?”
“I don’t–think.”
“When I see a beautiful young girl, I don’t lust after her because she’s young and beautiful. It’s because I’m not.”
“Focus on the curves. Don’t analyze it. Animal instinct.”
“Never could hit the curves.”
“You think too much. Feel more.”
“The mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master.”
“He’s dead, you know. Blew his head off.”
“Who?”
“Wallace.”
“Hung himself, actually.”
“Tomato. Tomahto. Got to the same place differently.”
“You’re quite the literate bartender.”
“Wallace looked like a usually homeless, occasional part-time house painter. A genius (of sorts). Who knew?”
“Are you secret ’skull and crossbones’ and your booze slinging is an elaborate cover up?”
“Maybe. Maybe I just take the train for about an hour and a half total each day— when it fucking shows.”
“Maybe.”
“You’re having some midlife-crisis ajada about getting old?”
“Is that the same thing as grieving not being young?”
“Potato. Potahto. It’s a bit played, isn’t it? A bit of a conceit?”
“It is. Was that supposed to be helpful?”
“One more?”
“One more. Probably.”
It’s All So Black and White
Posted: January 14, 2014 Filed under: Uncategorized 1 CommentI’ve known for about twenty years what the first line of the novel I’d religiously avoid writing would be:
Which is the greater sin: to judge or not to judge?
It’s really been a central theme for me; a preoccupation that’s part philosophical, part moral, part expression of the divided self as our angels and demons wrestle for control, and part inner monolog perhaps unique to the only-child I am. I’m often my own sounding board, much to the chagrin of those who surround me and are better suited to that role than I.
Should I judge people for that which they do, opening myself up to careful inspection in the process? Do I avoid judgment, lessening the glare of the spotlight on me?
Back and forth. Back and forth.
Part of me thinks our lack of “judgment” and failure to hold anyone accountable is the most cynical kind of supposed largesse. “Never judge a man until you’ve walked a mile in his moccasins,” as they say, has led us to allow, perpetuate, and implicitly sanction behavior that is patently unacceptable.
Wrong is wrong. If nothing is safely black and white, fifty shades of grey takes on a decidedly different slant.
On the other hand, I find it incredibly easy to forgive kids that have never had (good) parents, workers who’ve scuttled and scraped while investors use their sweat to fuel their Learjets, and so on and so forth. Everyone’s got an excuse and lots of them are incredibly good ones when we actually take the time to listen before bringing the gavel down in our (closed) minds. Many mobsters are kind to strangers. Many religious are not. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
The eye of the beholder.
The balance never tilts much beyond 51%-49% for me. I feel passionately that both views are right despite their being diametrically opposed.
Schizophrenic or merely human? You judge.
Recently there was an incident in my town where a teenage boy has gotten into some trouble for making homemade explosives in the shed behind his house. I don’t know the particulars, but let’s assume for a minute that this is not a Tsarnaev disciple and large-scale disaster was not narrowly averted*. Let’s assume he’s a boy who heard about something on the bus, looked it up on the internet, and wanted to see if he could make something go boom.
That’s what I’m going to choose to do until presented with facts to the contrary.
Many share this belief. Other folks in town are taking a dimmer view.
He’s a bad kid that must be watched—carefully. He’s a marathon bomber in training, a kook, a danger…
And his parents! The real venom has been reserved for them. They’re complicit. They’re derelict. They’re legally responsible, weirdoes, whackos… and this is just the ‘tip of the iceberg.’
I can’t say any of these views are wrong. I don’t think they’re right, but some of them resonate with me whether I’d like them to or not. In fact, some of those same exact thoughts flashed through my mind as well.
I’ll say this: judging is a lot easier and feels a lot better than not judging.
When I resist judging I initially feel good— my angels have wrestled my demons to the ground.
Then the demons rise off the canvas and wage their methodical two-pronged attack.
“That’s your supposed liberal superiority conning you. You don’t even care about right or wrong. You just want to feel good about yourself— ‘Oh, well. The poor dears just couldn’t help themselves or be expected to do the right thing. Pity.’”
Then the closer is called in.
“You know and I know that where there’s smoke there’s fire. You turning a blind eye is tantamount to kicking the can down the road. As long as this little miscreant doesn’t blow up your stuff it’s someone else’s problem. Edmund Burke said ‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing’. So, roll down the shade and pretend there’s nothing wrong. That’s working out really well. Someone else will clean up the mess you see but lack the courage to clean up.”
It (which is really me) goes on. “*And what if you’re wrong? What if your cavalier approach that boys will be boys and he’s got a good heart and all that mumbo jumbo culminates in him showing up on the bus on the way to school with very bad intent? What then?”
It’s easy to write that. It’s easy to go there. I could go on and on. Most actors report it’s easier to play villains than heroes. I get that. The worst-case scenario is usually so vividly imaginable.
So does that answer the question? Does the fact I have more effortless support for that road than the other mean it’s the right one?
I don’t think so. I think it’s self-soothing like a baby might when it’s upset and rocks in its cradle to try to settle itself down. It’s convenient and necessary, but it’s not necessarily right.
My more rationale mind will point out— correctly but uninspiringly— that pushing people into two lines, right and wrong, black and white, haves and have nots, Red Sox fans and heathens… is neither uncommon nor paying dividends. If every talk radio caller has the answer, why don’t things get better? If “Just Say No” was so self-evident, how can we have a Colorado economy that’s pulling up the flowers for the weed and Vermont (Vermont!) “leading” the nation in heroin use?
“Dilemma” comes from Greek derivation, meaning “two options.” That’s the false dilemma we’re too often faced with. There are lots of options— they’re seemingly limitless, in fact. That’s why this is so hard. There’s so very much grey that everything starts to look alike. It’s disorienting. I think that’s why people often addle themselves with booze and drugs and other vices. Even a world where everything is black can be preferable to interminable grey if you’re desperate enough.
I don’t suffer from that. I’m black. Then white. Then black….
So I’ll walk along Main Street like Steve Martin in All of Me, talking to myself and listing from side to side like a drunk or loon.
When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
— William Blake, “The Tiger”
Two heads are better than one. But what do I do when I’ve only got one?
Residuals
Posted: December 30, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: apple, Bill Gates, Dreams, Freud, Las Vegas, Microsoft, Rolling Stone, Seattle, Steve Jobs Leave a commentI think I read somewhere that dreams are the ‘residue of consciousness.’ I believe that’s true. Most dreams take all of the “open apps” of the mind and tie them together in somewhat scatological yet occasionally coherent narratives while we sleep. As to why this happens, I’m not sure. I suppose no one is. Many think it’s the brain continuing to work on the same issues the waking brain is challenged with but attempting to solve them with different filters. Sounds a bit Timothy Leary, but I’m directionally buying it.
Take last night for instance.
smashinghub.com
“I have a call. It’s Bill Gates1!” the flummoxed admin all but shrieks with one hand over the receiver (a quaint anachronism.)
“I guess I should take it,” I say meekly. I’m the most senior guy in the room and the one brought (back) to this Seattle2 agency where things had gone so wrong3 so famously years before to handle the Microsoft4 account that never was there. I’m not yet up to speed, but no time like the present.
“Patrick Reynolds. Can I help you?”
It’s Gates.
“Hello Patrick, welcome aboard. Or should I say back? I’m in Vegas5 with _______ (my waking mind can’t reform the name from my dreaming one). You know, the rep from Rolling Stone6. I’m piss drunk.”
Conscious or asleep, it’s a shocking confession either way.
“Here’s what I’m hearing: smart guy7 but you’ll want to come in and consolidate power right away8. You’ll have the right idea but may or may not be able to bring everyone along9.”
“Interesting, but I assure you that I’ll do way more listening than speaking early on10. I have no ‘Grand Plan” to be enacted Day One. I’ll know ‘my song well before I start singing’ as Bob Dylan says.”
“We’ll see,” he says laughing. “Then there’s that famous temper11. Nobody’s forgotten what happened last time.” More laughter.
“Ask around. That was a one-time deal.”
“We’ll see. Look, I want this to work. We need you. Talk to you soon.” Click.
Soon, it’s morning.
###
1 I’ve been thinking a lot about Gates lately and how his personal stature for me grows and grows as his creation seemingly continues to drift in the wrong direction. In many ways, he’s like Jimmy Carter; infinitely better in ‘retirement’ than ‘on-stage.’ I also think about Gates in relation to his rival Jobs. Not even five years ago this seemed like an unfair fight: Jobs so intuitive and creative versus Gates so clinical and square. Today, I see the opposite. I see Gates using his massive intellect and even more massive wealth to solve the still more massive challenges facing the planet and all its inhabitants. Jobs, conversely, spent his time and talent designing a better mousetrap. Harsh, but not untrue.
2 I dream often of Seattle. Lush and lovely, exotic yet domestic, the year I spent there was packed with so much it felt like a decade. I dream of its scenery—a glimpse of Rainier when it’s out, Lake Washington and it’s houseboat tapestry collaring the shores, the Sound, and, of course, the dense and damp forests. I also dream of its neighborhoods and how they fan out in what only a Seattleite would call a grid with straight face. (Chicago, where I lived for nearly a decade in reality, now that’s a grid.) I also dream of its people, the ones I knew anyway. They all had a special glint in their eyes that I found appealing but never fully understood. You could look at that as part of the paranoid narrative that everyone knows a secret you don’t or simply that they were onto something I wanted to learn more of– Buddhas in Birkenstocks.
3, 11 As beautiful and peaceful as Seattle is, my year there was the most challenging of my career and it’s the scene of my biggest professional failure. And regret. I was brought in to get a situation under control and I failed. Full stop. That happens. While a platitude, I do subscribe to the idea that if you don’t fail sometimes you’re not reaching high enough. Even so, particularly as a younger man, I accepted failure with the same equanimity John McEnroe accepted poor line calls. So when the ship there was going down, instead of standing grim-faced and resolute at the wheel like the Shackleton I’ve always tried to be, I raged and railed like a child. Rather than the disappointment fading over time, as most do, the Seattle scar is constant. Keeping that Jack in the box has been a recurring theme round midnight since the day I left the Emerald City.
4 I just heard a very funny bit on NPR about an internal memo from Gates regarding some Microsoft offering he very clearly (and humorously, intentional or not) deemed unworthy.
5 I have a trip to Vegas coming up and I simply don’t want to go. The place holds zero appeal for me, yet I’m there every year despite my best attempts not to be.
6 Rolling Stone is some sort of symbol for me of the changing of the guard. It was a huge part of youth and now seems inexorably fading away–putting Tsarnaev on the cover a desperate last shot at relevance before the final coda. For me, Rolling Stone says a lot about youth, rebelliousness, counter-culture, alternative views of the world and its events… By extension, dreaming of it could be construed to symbolize aging, being part of the establishment, and a general dulling of the senses if not the intellect.
7 As sad as it may be to get intellectual affirmation from yourself via the dreams we script, if Gates did say that I’d drop the mic right there and then.
8 9Patience has never been a signature characteristic for me, and pushing from behind is something I’m cautious about because it’s something I’m inclined to do. I’m now much more subtle but no less committed to pursuing the course I feel is best. That said, today, unlike occasions of the past, I’ll take a different route if that’s the one agreed upon by the group to see who’s right if nothing else.
10 This is very much my modus operandi. I remember my favorite high school English teacher lecturing on Ode on a Grecian Urn by putting a waste paper basket on his desk and having us all stand up and walk around it, viewing it from every possible vantage, as the author would have regarded the urn in question. It’s a good lesson. Things generally end poorly in my experience when the Listen-Think-Speak-Act pattern gets out of that sequence.
SO there you have it. The remains of the day become the plot of the night.
NB
12 After the Gates dream I had a bizarre sequence of flying down something like a runway. No plane. Possibly on a winged dog. We took off just at the edge of a body of water similar to the way planes do at Logan or LaGuardia airports. I flew a hundred yards or so before landing in three feet of guck. I limped back to shore, dazed.
Freud said dreams are the “royal road to the unconscious.” Let him figure this one out.
buffaloreynolds 