Mr. Careful

The family gathered at Castle St., and soon my Mother was asking me to step aside. Her question was, "are you racing motorcycles?" and my answer was a guarded "Yes." (I have referred to this in an earlier Blog entitled Carelessness/Careful Less). She was concerned, of course, and wondered if it might have something to do with my riding a "street machine" on the freeways and streets, and whether this might be considered a dangerous way to go. "Wouldn't it be better to just stay with the VW Bus?"

My response was that I would be careful, as I was with the Guzzi on the street; but then she reminded me that she had heard a story (probably slipped by my Father) that the Guzzi had sucked a valve at fairly high speed on the Santa Monica Freeway and that only luck and secondarily quick thinking had saved my neck. Again, I repeated that I was a careful person, first born male, stuck with responsibility and obligation, careful ways. She huffed when I said that my middle name was "Careful," to which she replied that it is was, in fact, "Lee," and that the words were not synonymous as far as she knew.

I tried to mollify her to no avail. She repeated her cautionary tales and I tried to convince her that this was a part of my so-called midlife crisis, was no more dangerous that driving a car in L.A.; and that my other midlife hobby, body surfing, although not completely without risks, was, in fact, fairly harmless ... as was motorcycle riding. She was having none of it, and then I told her that it wouldn't be long before both were going to be hung up because of an impending job change (to another state) where there would be neither surf nor motorcycles in the picture. Well, I was saved temporarily by this "paradigm shift," "What, you are going to New York, haven't said a word?." etc., etc. Julia was always one for going last yard with myself and siblings. Bless her Heart, she was great one.

Blog Writing

I've mentioned, in apology, my "policy" of not having a way for people to respond to my BLOG within the Blog. Fortunately many people have found their way around this to give me response one way or another. One of those mailed of a story in "Harper's Magazine" (Oct. 2009 pp. 64 - 66) by Jonathan Lethem called "The Dreaming Jaw, The Salivating Ear," in which the blogger, Jaw, tells of the perils of having The Whom and justiny moving around in the blog world.

The story, both amusing and alarming, takes you into the never never land of the blogesphere, where the pros and cons of blog life are examined. The Whom is menacing, and the Jaw extremely reactive to the menace. justiny wants to praise the Jaw, but seems to drop away when support is sorely needed: "A first appreciation has come. A tentative thing, a shred of sensibility, something that tiptoed in on little cat feet and graced me with praise. A he or she, I can't tell from the byline: justiny. i wuvvv your blog, justiny said, in a note, a seashell-pink crayon scribble on a fragile curl of tissue, the equivalent of a whisper, a thing I found stuck to my boot as I made my proprietary rounds, polishing brass railings and marble doorknobs and such like, and which I might have failed to notice."

Continuing, The Jaw says: "My blog loves you too, justiny, in its way. But I think my blog's love is more cosmic or Buddhist, more impassive and impersonal, than the need always to answer. My blog is for all ears that might listen, and who know how many might be? justiny happens to have piped up. (Barely.)" Dreaming Jaw, Salivating Ear.

Living on borrowed time

Coming North on Highway 25 a few weeks ago the visibility started to get worse, and the road icier. When I saw a car off the road on the far side and a sheriff's vehicle with emergency light on near it I knew it was time to hunker down. Shifting down and holding on I felt a thump under the front left side of the vehicle, and then we started to spin over the double line. I corrected as I could and kept on the gas, we were definitely on the wrong side of the street. As I fought to straightened it out I looked ahead; luckily nothing was coming downhill.

After crossing the double line and trying to get the vehicle back on course it started to spin again. This time I decided it was time to go into the ditch on my side of the road, and luckily was able to steer it into a fairly shallow snow area between the shoulder and the ditch. Then I looked around a little and decided to see if I could drive out of there, luckily we were facing North ... and did, with all-wheel drive, thank you Subaru. It was a harrowing drive and I was exhausted when I parked in the garage.

Sitting in front of the fire with the cat my mind went back to Buffalo, N.Y. where I first learned how to drive on ice (?). That school of hard knocks started on a trip home from the Airport, after some practice on local streets. The expressway had been worked by snow crews, the cloverleaf I had to take down to the trunk road hadn't; and we (my wife and very small children in car seats) went into a half spin down the grade. Luckily this was a great handing Peugeot with excellent tires. I got it almost straightened out with about 50 yards to go before a blinking stop sign, shifted down again and by the time we got to the sign were nearly stopped. I looked in the rear view mirror, luckily nothing coming behind us.

Pulling carefully around the corner on to the shoulder of the trunk road I waited for a break in the traffic. The road had been worked and so the trip home, although arduous, was uneventful. My life expectancy at that time was still on charts, perhaps twenty years to go. By the time I got to the couch after the trip up 25 I had outlived my life expectancy and was thanking "my lucky stars," and whatever small amount of skill I possess. Suggestion: standard transmission, all wheel or 4 wheel drive, good tires and all the coolness and experience behind the wheel you can summon. Adrenaline* rushes are very uncomfortable, and, I think, not very good for you.

* This really is epinephrine and isn't all bad, but keep it to a minimum, please.

Dark and Light

A friend recently reminded me that I have neglected the BLOG; this will be a feeble attempt to get "back on track." A recent trip to a local coffee shop found me looking at the bookshelves and other shelving units created by a local carpenter/log cabin builder, Mike Falls. My question was what are they for, besides backpacks and magazines & books? Are the books borrowable? Yes, and so my eye landed on a volume of stories by the genius of crime fiction, Elmore Leonard. A huge successor to the likes of Raymond Chandler this man takes it to the dark side of life, in the terrain of cops and criminals and where they often intermix.

His writing is excellent and it is tempting to me to deviate from my usual reading preferences and go on the dark side with him. Years ago when one of my sons was beaten and arrested by the Mpls. police for being involved with a political demonstration I got a glimpse of an inner city city hall/police dept. milieu, where police officers and thugs look alike, and where there is a feeling of fear about what is going on. And this in a city where the mayor was supposedly a progressive democrat, and the police chief an intellectual.

How different is a saint like Rabindranath Tagore's interest in the Jiban-debata and the likes of seeming opposites and the fiction of Elmore Leonard? Tagore: "The poet who takes up all the good and bad in me, all my constituent parts, the favourable and the unfavourable alike, to go on creating my life - it is he that in my poetry I call Jiban-debata." I suggest a walk on the wild side with both of these authors.

Xmas Mush

Gratefully we are well beyond the tiresome barrage of Christmas (show) business, and the extreme sentimentalization of Christ's birth. There is a lot of hokus pocus here, especially within the realm of the "historical Jesus." Be that is at may, we desperately need holidays, time to give and unwind, but it seems we are due for an overhaul with this one, not just the continuation of what has developed.

I have a couple of humble suggestions. First of all, seek to recreate this holiday with your own beliefs and needs. Resist those who would program you into a continuation of what has become an outrageous rerun of earlier, unacceptable versions. It may be that the extreme Christianizing of Christ and Santa Klas (and other accoutrement's) can be either dispensed with or minimized.

There is a considerable body of music, literature and lore which can be enjoyed in lieu of the tired old, worn out Rudolphs, hymns, customs and commercial off shoots. For example there are Christmas Concertos (Corelli?) and other beautiful seasonal music (Vivaldi) that could be well employed. The marvelous seasonal tales of Truman Capote and Dylan Thomas give a great uplift as well as mixing in the richness of other cultures.

I do not mean to suggest that we necessarily strip Christmas of Christ, or any of the like. But it would be wise to remember that this poignant time of the year (eg. Solstice and the other historical events which make late December latent with meaning and potential celebration) be respected in a larger sense. After all, it wasn't for no reason that the time of Christ's birth was moved to December (other times elsewhere), yes? Good luck with it this year, you've got some time to put it together.

Year End Review - 2011

1/2/11, a bit late for the review, but here it is anyway, it's been cooking for awhile. First of all, I want to agree with Amy Goodman, "Democracy Now"* and "Time: magazine, that 2011 was the year of the protester. All over the Globe, but especially on Wall Street and in Wisconsin for me/us. Unfortunately the protests are being carried out by less than 1% of the populations, while the power rests solidly within the l% who control the wealth, the military and police, the lobby driven power structure, eg. legislators.

So 2012 and beyond is time to hunker down, build up the number of protesters and activists to turn around what has so long been accumulating at the so-called "top." To be "fed up" is one thing, to act, of course, is another. Especially when actions are seen as possible loss factors for personal jobs, benefits, social services and the like. We have been driven into a defensive position by the forces of the 1%, and this has been reinforced by our conservative natures, our unwillingness to take chances for c h a n g e.

I want to suggest as my candidate for book of the year Sheldon S. Wolin's "Democracy Inc.," a powerfully researched and written work which documents how we have slid into a "Managed Democracy and the Spector of Inverted Totalitarianism" - the subtitle, of course. We need tough documentation and planning rather the reliance 0n well meaning rhetoric about the situation we are in; and we need the requisite tough advice on how to get out of the predicaments we are wallowing around in. It is show and tell time, and Wolin's book is one of those which cuts through the rhetoric and nonsense to let us know how to proceed.

I want to wish everyone a good, strong, activist year ahead. Thinking about the news item this week that 50% of the American population is approaching the poverty levels approximated by our government, and then some sayings I first heard during the depression in the thirties came to mind: "better safe than sorry," "beggars can't be choosers," and "don't kick a gift horse in the mouth" .... * look at Amy Goodman's website for today: Democracy Now.com.

"Electronic Mankind"

At 80 you have to doubt your memory sometimes, and I seem to remember having mentioned a man named John Stiles and his odyssey trip around the U.S. with a team of donkeys and mules recently (?). Forgive me if there is some redundancy here. His classic statement about "electronic mankind" having begun to live in a "global concentration camp," would seem to be the utterance of the ultimate luddite.

His feeling is that "nobody is questioning if we should be doing all this. The only question being asked is can we? And without your bar-code microchip laser beam tattooed implant and your holy trinity of personal computer, cable TV, and telephone, you won't be able to participate in the system at all." (This is from the book "Home Work - Hand Built Shelter" by Lloyd Kahn). The "trinity" is kind of quaint, but instructive.

How do we proceed? Well, as an octogenarian I know that my own options are considerably lessened since I am less and less comfortable with the trinities and the communication assumptions/options. Undoubtedly there are people older than I am who are totally conversant and operational within the electronic grid and hemisphere. I know my younger wife is dealing with an educational system which is making it harder and harder just to function with a MacIntosh computer. Where do we go from here, and how will the built-in obsolescence of electronic devices play out with a population which is sinking quickly into poverty. Upgrades, off the grid, anyone?