I woke up wet with sweat. My body stank and my nose wanted to disown it. I got up to go to the restroom and while in there, looked at the clock. 5:00 a.m. I used to keep the clock on the desk next to my bed, but I'd reach over in my sleep and turn it off. Apparently, my brain really did not like to get up. Once I moved the alarm clock to the restroom, I won. In fact, apparently my brain did not like the aggravating sound of an alarm so much that after moving it, I usually woke up a half hour before it was set to go off at 5:30. That day was no exception. Apparently my brain believed it was better to wake up on its own a half hour before that tortuous noise than to have that awful repetition reach deep down into my sleep, the mechanical fingers slithering through dreams like metallic snakes. So, unlike most people, including myself, my brain was proactive. Once it could no longer simply send my arm over to hit the snooze button at first beep, it made a new plan.
As a result of that new plan, I found myself bleary-eyed, standing taking a pee, looking at the clock on the cluttered bathroom vanity. 5:00 a.m. I thought about making good use of that extra half hour by working on my novel. But the room was still out of focus, my eyes caked over with crud. Besides it was cold now that I was no longer under a heap of blankets. And unlike my brain, I am not proactive. I'm lazy and luxury-seeking to the core. Avoidance is my most prominent quality. It stands high above the rest of me like a black volcanic plug rising high above the surrounding forest, a fire look-out resting precariously atop its rutted basalt cliff walls. I often picture some little man in there who looks out through binoculars scanning for danger. What threatens me most? Action. So when he sees the need to get up and do something on the horizon, he zips across the look-out on a rubberized rolling office chair to the little desk there and immediately takes the receiver off the red telephone. "Hello, Avoidance, this is Look-Out One. We have a situation. I need an excuse immediately."
The little man in the watch tower was provided one. I said to myself, You won't even be able to see the computer screen through all that eye gunk, and then I went back to bed.
I was glad to get back in bed because although I'd woken up wet with sweat, it was actually quite cold. It was December after all, and even though it was an unusually warm year, as most all years were in recent years, it was still plenty cold, especially in the bathroom, where I just was staring at myself in the mirror though a gunky-eyed blur.
I laid in bed and drifted off to sleep. There was a song, a slow rambling-rolling song. It went swoosh back and forth like slow blue jazz. There was a moonlit bay and water slapped against rounded boulders. Nothing big. Not Big Sur or anything--just a gentle slap against the rocks. Maybe it was more like the north shore of Lake Superior.
The water seemed to stretch out forever, glazed in moonlight. A cool breeze bit at my arms as I walked out on a stony jetty towards a light house. The silhouettes cold-weather pines jutted up into sky that circled the shore. If there were hills, they were low, for the pines poked right up into turquoise-black night. A few stars could still be seen even with the intense moonlight.
Crickets chirped. I could see campfires across the bay.
All of the sudden, I heard "Good Gandhi, What is happening here?" I couldn't tell where it was coming from. It seemed to come out of the moon, as if the moon was a big, dangling speaker, and I was in the Truman Show.
"Is the devil actually inhabiting you? Are you capable of that level of evil? Oh, no--No, No, NO! Michael, you idiot!"
At that point, the shell of the moon exploded into tiny fragments of computer-screen substrate that fell to earth like a hard sleet. I ran for the trees to take cover, but I was hit by a sharp shard that penetrated my scalp, sank through my brain, and landed on the roof of a fire lookout I had so often imagined. It hit with a great thud. The little man on a rubberized rolling office chair zipped over to the red phone, picked it up, and screamed, "Get up!" That was not his usual motif..
So I did. I staggered out into the living room and found my son Rio at the desk, shutting down the computer.
"When did you get here?" I asked, trying to sort things out.
"11:00."
"What time is it?"
"6:10."
"Why are you up so early?"
"Never went to bed. Michael and I were playing League of Legends. Dumb butt lost the game."
"Are you out of school for Christmas vacation already?"
"No, I just quit. That's all."
"You quit? That's all?"
"Yea, don't worry Pops. It'll all work out."
I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing. That's not true. I knew exactly what to say, I just didn't believe that I had what it took to deliver it effectively. I also wasn't sure Rio had what it took to take it all in effectively. I pictured the normal father/son drag out argument unfolding and knew how absolutely ineffective those were on me. Although I now agreed with almost everything my father ever told me outside the political realm (where I still disagree), at the time, all it did was put distance between us. I think I would have taken the same road no matter what he said. All it managed to do was further crush my already low self esteem. So, perhaps saying nothing was actually best. Still, I didn't really believe that. Walking back to bed, I wrote the speech in my head that I should have delivered to him:
Fear flattens us. Big skyscraper Resistance with a capital "R" seeks to squelch our dreams with a big, cow-crud covered boot. We scatter before the capital "R," leaving our innate paths to happiness behind and find other ways to busy our time.
As I got back into bed, I realized that here I would take a long pause for effect, and then continue:
Your grandma was a concert pianist who spent her life vacuuming. Your cousin was born to be Bono and blow the mind of millions at stadiums across the globe, and he's filling little pill bottles at the local pharmacy, making good money, yet yearning to be back stage, on a stool, guitar in hand, while the crew cleans up everything. I have spent my life teaching, and I'm an adequate teacher. No, I was born to teach. I'm a good teacher. But out of fear, I chose the wrong venue. I don't know why, but when I write, I have this power that doesn't come from me, that I didn't earn, that I don't necessarily deserve. Yet, I know I have it. It isn't ego. It isn't conceit. It's just there. Something God granted me to make up for all I'm lacking. Books should be my medium. Words sent out on a page like gospel. Not because I have anything special to say, not because I have some unique wisdom, but because the words come--as long as I don't deny them. Resistance knows that. Resistance worked like hell to stop it. I listened. I let Resistance win. Like your grandma, and perhaps like your cousin. Your uncle didn't do that. He paid a big price for it, but he knows he has done what he came to earth to do: paint. He will leave a legacy behind, a record of his successful war against Resistance..
Laying in bed, even while living out this imagined scenario in my head, I paused, not because I wanted to, but because my words wanted to go in another direction--a direction I did not want them to go:
Still, perhaps it is alright to let Resistance win. True, the defeat leaves a great, undeniable hole. But, maybe it doesn't matter. If Grandma became that concert pianist, what would my life have been like? I'm not sure. Your cousin has all those wonderful girls of his. What would their lives be like had he pursued the path of musician? I know that although I wrote well when I was younger, I was also miserable and hated my life and my God. Would that softening, that opening, have happened if I had successfully fought Resistance and pursued what I came here to do? Thwarted dreams create complex, compassionate people. Maybe God has set up a win-win situation for us, and it's pretty difficult to leave this life not a better person than when we got here, no matter what mistakes we make along the way. Of course, there are exceptions. There are miserable old people that just drag everybody down. But not many. Wisdom is attached to age for a reason.
At this point, I stopped my imaginary speech, realizing I didn't have any worthwhile advice to give him. Then, I continued because, well, parents don't know how to shut up when lecturing their children, even when the lecture is only taking place in the mind:
Hell, I don't know; you'll just have to live your life and see what happens. I think it's stupid to drop out of school, but who knows, it may be the best damn stupid thing you ever do. You may end up homeless. But then that homelessness may give you the guts later to accomplish what you really are living for. Maybe you need to face foraging through a dumpster for your next meal to realize what life is all about. I just don't know.
Then, going through this imagined scenario, I realize that there was one thing I do know for sure:
This I can tell you. No man finds complete happiness until he makes peace with his maker. True peace. True connection. It can't be out of blind obedience. It can't be out of fear. It must be out of love. Love for life. Love for being here. Love of living. Gratitude for being born and experiencing life. Not because it is easy, but because it is. Once one truly gets that, nothing else really matters. If you win over Resistance and write that novel you were born to write, play that piano at Carnegie Hall, fill that stadium with adoring fans at the greatest rock show of the decade--fantastic. But you'll still be happy vacuuming, or teaching, or filling out prescriptions at the local drug store. It won't matter. If you don't get that, if you don't come to terms with your maker, learn to speak to him, learn to listen, then there will always be a hole. You will always be looking for something better. There will be an unquenchable thirst always driving you to do more, more and more. You will be attracted to drugs, alcohol, sex, or just being in the spotlight. You may obtain much, but you will never fully obtain a complete sense of self. That hole is built in, a beacon, a yearning to steer you home. Some, however, never do listen. It is they who die miserable, consumed by the self in a house of mirrors.
I reached over to where my alarm clock used to be, looking for a piece of paper and a pencil. My fingers couldn't locate paper. So, I grabbed a book, The Wind up Bird Chronicles, by Haruki Murakami, turned on the lamp, and wrote in the front cover, Speak to Rio, turned off the light and went back to sleep for the third time that same morning.
Wednesday, August 29, 2018
Wednesday, August 15, 2018
2017: Another TV
January 30, 2017, 10:00 a.m.
A woman stood on the corner of Wyoming and Las Vegas Boulevard wearing a black and white paisley-print blouse and very roomy white pants, her head and fleshy parts all angled down towards the gum-spotted, exhaust-stained sidewalk. A harsh desert light ignited her every physical flaw, of which there were many, especially the thin patches of white hair on her head, the pink scalp shining profoundly through. Her blouse was low cut, the arms tailored short, both exposing large quantities of flesh that sought the safety of the ground against the onslaught of gravity. Her abundant exposed pink flesh advertised her weight and age.
A kind observer would note that we all wrinkle, sag and drop gobs of hair eventually. An ignorant observer would use her appearance as a window on her interior world and make all kinds of assumptions about her that might be totally false, using labels like "white trash" to simplify her life and categorize her. Perhaps God would see a woman made in his own image, a spiritual child who had given up a glorious immortality and temporarily taken on a body of flesh and blood by choice to experience such grand experiences as divorce, working minimum wage jobs after you're sixty, and standing on an ugly street corner in Las Vegas, Nevada at 10:00 a.m. as a means of slow, soft enlightenment, a wearing down to empathy and understanding. He would know her dreams, see the money she slips into an envelope and mails to her grandchildren on each of their birthdays despite the fact that her children seldom visit, and so she hardly knows her grandchildren, and when her offspring do come, they spend the week asking dehumanizing questions like, Why don't you pay your bills on time?, Why don't you clean up once in a while? and Why do you save all this junk? Then they ask for money and leave.
But a mind-droplet detached from the host mind only sees the way a camcorder sees. It detects only light, form, movement and sound. And so the mind droplet floating above the middle of Las Vegas Boulevard the morning January 31, 2017 at 10:00 a.m. only saw what the Google Earth van would see if it were passing at that moment: the street and its objects, including the woman.
The corner of Wyoming and Las Vegas Boulevard is about as ugly as any corner can get, even by Las Vegas standards, but the mind droplet only saw details removed from aesthetic evaluation. On the corner, a single palm stood in between a wood electrical pole and metal support pole for the traffic lights. The palm tree and the traffic pole stood in a square of smog-stained gravel. A yellow plastic-coated support cable angled up to the electrical pole. There was a button on the traffic-light pole to push to cross the street. Across Wyoming was a parking lot, a nondescript white concrete block building, and a giant three-sided billboard on stilts--one side advertising the law firm of De Casterverde at (702) 222-9999; on it two men in dark gray suits smiled towards the traffic.
However, directly below the sign, literally tucked under its giant four-pillar scaffolding was a tiny bright colored food shack boasting in bold black letters the name Puerto Rico Express. The small structure was bright red at the base, just above the parking lot, above which it hovered slightly, sitting on unseen two-by-four skids. Above the red, the plywood sides were a bright Caribbean blue. Above that, a thin stainless steel counter, about nine inches deep, wrapped around three sides of the structure, creating a bar. On the side facing Las Vegas Boulevard were four bar stools, three of which were the same shape and height, all stainless steel. The left one, the odd one out, was wider, wood, and painted white. The almost unity--but not quite--added to the island feel of the food shack, intended or not.
Above the bar were two large plate-glass windows trimmed by red wavy molding. The one on the left facade had a neon Open sign in it and bright colored posters advertising the various dishes. Through the one facing Las Vegas Boulevard one could see stainless steel napkin holders, a salt and pepper shaker set and a small flat screen TV facing out towards the four empty bar stools.
The mind droplet noticed it was on. A speaker mounted to the plywood wall allowed the sound to come outside.
The mind droplet hovered right outside where nobody sat and observed the TV.
On the screen there was a woman in her late 40s or early 50s with short brown hair with a few random streaks of gray. Two men in suits stood behind her. At the bottom of the screen, across the left and center were bright red letters: BREAKING NEWS: TRUMP FIRES ACTING ATTORNEY GENERAL. On the right, it said MSNBC.
The screen changed, making a swooshing sound, and showed pictures of the supreme court as the audio continued... "hours from now Donald Trump will be announcing his selection for the Supreme Court, likely setting off an epic battle with senate democrats. The screen changed again and showed a computer generated museum-like setting showcasing large pictures from the upcoming stories in the broadcast. As the camera zoomed down the gallery hallway it came to rest on an image of a woman in her late forties or early fifties sporting blond hair with silver-frosted tips. She glanced to the right, to a red vertical graphic bar and the name ANDREA MITCHELL REPORTS in large blue letters.
The camera then zoomed in on a live, speaking Andrea Mitchell seated in front of an image of the white house. She appeared older than the still-shot Andrea Mitchell in the previous picture. Her eyes were deeper set, dark shadows angled over them, and the lines on her face and neck more pronounced. She wore a simple green dress and a big gold colored necklace. She said, "Good day everyone, I'm Andrea Mitchell in Washington. We are awaiting John Kelley's first press conference as Secretary of Homeland Security. The cloud of controversy surrounding Trump's travel ban and top cabinet secretaries, including Kelly, being kept out of the loop. Joining me now, NBC National Correspondent Peter Alexander at the White House. NBC Justice Correspondent Pete Williams in our news room".
There was a slight swoosh sound as the image changed to a split screen with Alexander on the left and Williams on the right.
"Peter, first to you. We have a situation where Steve Bannon and Steve Miller, the two top White House aids, along with other top aids, excluding the cabinet secretaries, as well as the state department, which is now without a leader--of course, Rex Tillerson not yet confirmed. What do we know about that, about how they're trying to fix the situation, and their very close connection with Attorney General Senator Sessions, who of course, is up for confirmation, and has been apparently working behind the scenes on all of this?
Peter Williams said, "Yeah, what's notable here is that we can report that house judiciary aids, not the actual bosses, not the members of the congress and house judiciary committee, but their aids, were party to this effort to draft an executive order that was announced, and is now controversial, not only because of the policy itself, but because the way it was communicated. There is reporting today that James Mattis of Defense, John Kelly of Homeland Security, and even Rex Tillerson had no idea this was coming, and certainly didn't know the details, only the wide concept until it was announced".
The screen showed a man with gray, receding hair and wearing a black suit while standing at a podium, next to two flags--one for the U.S. and one for the Department of Defense.
On the bottom of the screen it said, "BREAKING NEWS: HOMELAND SECRETARY SPEAKS ON TRUMP'S IMMIGRATION BAN." On the right bottom of the screen was another box that said, "Trump Supreme Court Pick Today" Next to it there was distinguished picture of the president.
The Homeland Security Secretary began to speak: "I would like to clarify what the most recent executive order does and does not mean. This is not a travel ban; this is a temporary pause that lets us review the refugee and vetting system. Over the next 30 days we will analyze and assess the strengths and weaknesses of our current immigration system, which is the most generous in the world. We will then provide our foreign partners sixty days to cooperate with our national security requirements. This way we can ensure that the system is doing what it is designed to do, which is protect the American people. This analysis is long overdue and strongly supported by the department's career officials".
As the mind-droplet continued to observe the TV, the woman wearing a black and white paisley-print blouse and very roomy white pants crossed Wyoming and headed towards the bright colored Puerto Rico Express. Perhaps she would stop, order, and have a seat under the shade of the scaffolding of the giant billboard advertising the law firm of De Casterverde at (702) 222-9999. More likely, she would pass on by. It was January, only 48 degrees. Shade and drink were not likely high priorities. Unless she came especially for the food at that particular stand, there would be no reason to stop.
Dino's Lounge was a more likely destination, not because of how the woman looked, but simply because it had four cars in front of it; Puerto Rico Express had none. Statistically speaking, more people in Las Vegas need a strong, dry drink at 10:00 a.m. than whatever flavors Puerto Rico Express serves up. A small Mexican man in a worn over-sized black suit with very baggy trouser legs walked up the street as well. One could not tell though if his destination was the bar or some place well beyond.
Millions--no billions--of people moved around the country and planet on January 31st, 2017, except, of course, those singled out by the travel ban.
The Vegas sun was very intense even in the dead of winter.
A woman stood on the corner of Wyoming and Las Vegas Boulevard wearing a black and white paisley-print blouse and very roomy white pants, her head and fleshy parts all angled down towards the gum-spotted, exhaust-stained sidewalk. A harsh desert light ignited her every physical flaw, of which there were many, especially the thin patches of white hair on her head, the pink scalp shining profoundly through. Her blouse was low cut, the arms tailored short, both exposing large quantities of flesh that sought the safety of the ground against the onslaught of gravity. Her abundant exposed pink flesh advertised her weight and age.
A kind observer would note that we all wrinkle, sag and drop gobs of hair eventually. An ignorant observer would use her appearance as a window on her interior world and make all kinds of assumptions about her that might be totally false, using labels like "white trash" to simplify her life and categorize her. Perhaps God would see a woman made in his own image, a spiritual child who had given up a glorious immortality and temporarily taken on a body of flesh and blood by choice to experience such grand experiences as divorce, working minimum wage jobs after you're sixty, and standing on an ugly street corner in Las Vegas, Nevada at 10:00 a.m. as a means of slow, soft enlightenment, a wearing down to empathy and understanding. He would know her dreams, see the money she slips into an envelope and mails to her grandchildren on each of their birthdays despite the fact that her children seldom visit, and so she hardly knows her grandchildren, and when her offspring do come, they spend the week asking dehumanizing questions like, Why don't you pay your bills on time?, Why don't you clean up once in a while? and Why do you save all this junk? Then they ask for money and leave.
But a mind-droplet detached from the host mind only sees the way a camcorder sees. It detects only light, form, movement and sound. And so the mind droplet floating above the middle of Las Vegas Boulevard the morning January 31, 2017 at 10:00 a.m. only saw what the Google Earth van would see if it were passing at that moment: the street and its objects, including the woman.
The corner of Wyoming and Las Vegas Boulevard is about as ugly as any corner can get, even by Las Vegas standards, but the mind droplet only saw details removed from aesthetic evaluation. On the corner, a single palm stood in between a wood electrical pole and metal support pole for the traffic lights. The palm tree and the traffic pole stood in a square of smog-stained gravel. A yellow plastic-coated support cable angled up to the electrical pole. There was a button on the traffic-light pole to push to cross the street. Across Wyoming was a parking lot, a nondescript white concrete block building, and a giant three-sided billboard on stilts--one side advertising the law firm of De Casterverde at (702) 222-9999; on it two men in dark gray suits smiled towards the traffic.
However, directly below the sign, literally tucked under its giant four-pillar scaffolding was a tiny bright colored food shack boasting in bold black letters the name Puerto Rico Express. The small structure was bright red at the base, just above the parking lot, above which it hovered slightly, sitting on unseen two-by-four skids. Above the red, the plywood sides were a bright Caribbean blue. Above that, a thin stainless steel counter, about nine inches deep, wrapped around three sides of the structure, creating a bar. On the side facing Las Vegas Boulevard were four bar stools, three of which were the same shape and height, all stainless steel. The left one, the odd one out, was wider, wood, and painted white. The almost unity--but not quite--added to the island feel of the food shack, intended or not.
Above the bar were two large plate-glass windows trimmed by red wavy molding. The one on the left facade had a neon Open sign in it and bright colored posters advertising the various dishes. Through the one facing Las Vegas Boulevard one could see stainless steel napkin holders, a salt and pepper shaker set and a small flat screen TV facing out towards the four empty bar stools.
The mind droplet noticed it was on. A speaker mounted to the plywood wall allowed the sound to come outside.
The mind droplet hovered right outside where nobody sat and observed the TV.
On the screen there was a woman in her late 40s or early 50s with short brown hair with a few random streaks of gray. Two men in suits stood behind her. At the bottom of the screen, across the left and center were bright red letters: BREAKING NEWS: TRUMP FIRES ACTING ATTORNEY GENERAL. On the right, it said MSNBC.
The screen changed, making a swooshing sound, and showed pictures of the supreme court as the audio continued... "hours from now Donald Trump will be announcing his selection for the Supreme Court, likely setting off an epic battle with senate democrats. The screen changed again and showed a computer generated museum-like setting showcasing large pictures from the upcoming stories in the broadcast. As the camera zoomed down the gallery hallway it came to rest on an image of a woman in her late forties or early fifties sporting blond hair with silver-frosted tips. She glanced to the right, to a red vertical graphic bar and the name ANDREA MITCHELL REPORTS in large blue letters.
The camera then zoomed in on a live, speaking Andrea Mitchell seated in front of an image of the white house. She appeared older than the still-shot Andrea Mitchell in the previous picture. Her eyes were deeper set, dark shadows angled over them, and the lines on her face and neck more pronounced. She wore a simple green dress and a big gold colored necklace. She said, "Good day everyone, I'm Andrea Mitchell in Washington. We are awaiting John Kelley's first press conference as Secretary of Homeland Security. The cloud of controversy surrounding Trump's travel ban and top cabinet secretaries, including Kelly, being kept out of the loop. Joining me now, NBC National Correspondent Peter Alexander at the White House. NBC Justice Correspondent Pete Williams in our news room".
There was a slight swoosh sound as the image changed to a split screen with Alexander on the left and Williams on the right.
"Peter, first to you. We have a situation where Steve Bannon and Steve Miller, the two top White House aids, along with other top aids, excluding the cabinet secretaries, as well as the state department, which is now without a leader--of course, Rex Tillerson not yet confirmed. What do we know about that, about how they're trying to fix the situation, and their very close connection with Attorney General Senator Sessions, who of course, is up for confirmation, and has been apparently working behind the scenes on all of this?
Peter Williams said, "Yeah, what's notable here is that we can report that house judiciary aids, not the actual bosses, not the members of the congress and house judiciary committee, but their aids, were party to this effort to draft an executive order that was announced, and is now controversial, not only because of the policy itself, but because the way it was communicated. There is reporting today that James Mattis of Defense, John Kelly of Homeland Security, and even Rex Tillerson had no idea this was coming, and certainly didn't know the details, only the wide concept until it was announced".
The screen showed a man with gray, receding hair and wearing a black suit while standing at a podium, next to two flags--one for the U.S. and one for the Department of Defense.
On the bottom of the screen it said, "BREAKING NEWS: HOMELAND SECRETARY SPEAKS ON TRUMP'S IMMIGRATION BAN." On the right bottom of the screen was another box that said, "Trump Supreme Court Pick Today" Next to it there was distinguished picture of the president.
The Homeland Security Secretary began to speak: "I would like to clarify what the most recent executive order does and does not mean. This is not a travel ban; this is a temporary pause that lets us review the refugee and vetting system. Over the next 30 days we will analyze and assess the strengths and weaknesses of our current immigration system, which is the most generous in the world. We will then provide our foreign partners sixty days to cooperate with our national security requirements. This way we can ensure that the system is doing what it is designed to do, which is protect the American people. This analysis is long overdue and strongly supported by the department's career officials".
As the mind-droplet continued to observe the TV, the woman wearing a black and white paisley-print blouse and very roomy white pants crossed Wyoming and headed towards the bright colored Puerto Rico Express. Perhaps she would stop, order, and have a seat under the shade of the scaffolding of the giant billboard advertising the law firm of De Casterverde at (702) 222-9999. More likely, she would pass on by. It was January, only 48 degrees. Shade and drink were not likely high priorities. Unless she came especially for the food at that particular stand, there would be no reason to stop.
Dino's Lounge was a more likely destination, not because of how the woman looked, but simply because it had four cars in front of it; Puerto Rico Express had none. Statistically speaking, more people in Las Vegas need a strong, dry drink at 10:00 a.m. than whatever flavors Puerto Rico Express serves up. A small Mexican man in a worn over-sized black suit with very baggy trouser legs walked up the street as well. One could not tell though if his destination was the bar or some place well beyond.
Millions--no billions--of people moved around the country and planet on January 31st, 2017, except, of course, those singled out by the travel ban.
The Vegas sun was very intense even in the dead of winter.
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