Looking through the dusty bedroom window in the late morning sunlight, I saw yellow, lots of yellow…
Dirt and dust from Plains’ states, a plain state of dirt and dust, plane wood, plane wings, stated simply, plainly, mainly.
A hunter’s paradise, a Halloween scene, a setting for a Sorcerer soundtrack, a story tinged with subplots from “Special/RX.”
What about Collins by Samuel Johnson?
While we wait for the launch of the balloon/capsule combo that will take Felix Baumgartner to a 23-mile jumpoff altitude, we pause to reflect on the activities of our species elsewhere:
While the “live in Japan” set of 21st Century Schizoid Band bangs out tunes in the living room, the unsyncopated water beats of rain from the gutter streak across my window view.
Out of synch, out of tune…vie-veh-vuh-v-vroom!
Methinks it’s time for a new stop-action video before neuropathy takes over my toes and I can no longer feel sand squish between the digits of my feet.
While I wait for my new LCD monitor with HDMI connection to arrive, thus turning my smartphone into my desktop/laptop PC at home and Internet phablet on the road, I shall write here once more.
That, and the overwhelming reader response to ending this blog, as usual.
This afternoon, I attended the funeral of a 98-year old man, met his widow, and am friends with two of his children, one who is a girlfriend of a longtime friend of mine from our college days in Knoxville.
I also saw some familiar faces from my time here in this community — 27 years or thereabouts — people like Peggy Sammon and Butch Damson.
Ninety-eight years young…
I cannot imagine living so long.
Meanwhile, a house wren hops up and down the window screen, looking for food, digging through the debris in the old, broken, rusted gutter hanging off the rotting eave.
I did not know the man who was buried today.
I felt like a fifth wheel, a stranger inserting myself into the graveside mourning of others.
So, to hide my face from the crowd, I stood behind a pocket camera snapping pics for the daughter and friends in Germany who could not be there while we who were gathered recited prayers together for the deceased.
I am of the walking dead myself, but my friends say Jesus loves me, this I [should] know…
Sorry, that last bit slipped out, a verse from a children’s song.
I did not know the man who was buried today but I was able to join his family and a group of strangers, sharing a subculture full of familiar songs, poems, prayers and rituals.
It was a window opening up the sounds and sights of my childhood.
It was a window of opportunity, listening to the stories about Rudi Schlidt from his closest friends and relatives.
Of course, I can’t hear so well so I’m not sure what anybody said, using their body language and voice inflection to tell me when I was supposed to smile, laugh, cry or do nothing but listen attentively.
Rudi was nearly twice my age when he died.
He made important contributions to the advances of rocket science. He, like many in this town, could easily say, “As a matter of fact, I am a rocket scientist/engineer.”
His wife was secretary to Wernher von Braun, who may or may not be familiar to you. Today, her face still shines with beauty at 91 years of age.
There is more and less than meets the eye, to be sure, but today I simply let the sights suffice to register my presence on this planet another day, amidst those who registered the absence of a friend, [(great)grand]father, coworker and fellow member of the community.
Am I alive? I don’t know. I explore the universe from atop this tiny planet of ours and wonder. That’s all I care to know. The rest is none of my business. Gott behüte.
Auf wiedersehen, Herr Schlidt. From the crowd at your graveside service today, know that you are/were loved. Gott liebt dich. Gott segne.
I’m not a political candidate but I approve this flashback message that you could be Dodge material, just in time for a female Air Force officer to take charge of basic training.
Hmm…predictive texting…when ifs are won what is fun? Wheat sounds better, though, doesn’t it?
If your country was facing a potential economic crisis and your leadership was in transition, wouldn’t you want to find an external enemy to conjure up for the masses to pay attention to? I would, if I was a Chinese political or business leader or even someone doing business with China.
A cornered rat is a cornered rat, a rodent that is rarely loved, just trying to make its way in the world.
Yeah, that’s the way we can feel sometimes.
Me, I’ve figured out that I never enter a room, especially one with corners.
I find a way to challenge everyone to perform at their best, whatever they imagine their best to be, by holding up a funhouse mirror to them and let them see themselves in an alternate world of strange shapes, sizes and colours.
Artists are the same way around the world. A musician from Trinidad, Nicki Minaj, has shown support for Mitt Romney in her song lyrics. So, too, in a way, Randy Newman and his song, “I’m Dreaming of a White President.” And, finally, Marvel Comics shows us an alternate universe where Captain America is president of the U.S.
What these artists don’t realise is they are endorsing the very opposite of the satire they create.
It is the sole intent of the opposite sketch to get people to think outside their way of thinking, causing many to ask, “What if…”
That’s why I’ve never mentioned certain pop culture figures in my blog, because mentioning their names, even in the most obvious satire possible, endorses their place in my alternate universe as well as promotes them in the universe we share together.
That’s why we in the popular press no longer talk about certain former political candidates or political officeholders.
As for me, my goal is to make everyone richer in the lives we share together in this moment, getting some of you to promote people you’d never mention in normal conversation.
Satire is making fun of all of us, including the satirist.
Why do I not have a problem with Mormonism when I don’t actively practice a set of beliefs outside of the new slogan, “Business. Science. Competition.”?
Because I am my own god of this blog, a god whose power is Comedy, whose strength is Tragedy, who lives outside of space and time, no different than anyone else who feels strongly enough about one’s self to take charge of one’s thought patterns and align them for self-preservation in a neutral universe.
A god inside a blog does not darken the Sun that holds the solar system together in which the blog resides. A god inside a blog is a literary device but any religion, including Mormonism, Islam, and others, is a literary device, isn’t it?
Speaking of gods inside their thoughts, it is fun watching the purveyors of mass media scramble to tell stories that support their points of view when they claim to be insensitive to the needs of viewers/watchers/listeners.
How often do we hear stories sympathetic to the aches and pains of world leaders who’ve been labeled cruel, vicious, dictatorial and destructive? Very rarely. We’d rather hear about sufferers of terrible treatments.
What about those who like to be dominated as along as they’re provided a narrow pathway on which they walk in fear, their plates and bellies full? Rarer still. We’d rather promote people who don’t want to live in fear.
Am I wrong to want people to have true freedom, including the freedom not to hear about lifestyles they deny are real because they take the phrase, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” to mean staying away from those who don’t pursue the same things, no matter how repressive they want for themselves or don’t want for others?
Should cable/satellite/Internet TV companies offer packages geared toward specific lifestyles, rather than a smorgasbord that appeals to some, offends others and is of little interest to the rest? Do people have to even see the names of channels they want blocked or haven’t paid for when they flip open the online guide?
This is all old territory I’m covering, where we get to peek into the lives of those holed up in private communities (e.g., simply escape to their one-room flats; personal privacy is not just for gated communities), preventing their families from seeing practitioners of lifestyles they do not condone.
The United States of America and similar countries are not just physical states, they are states of thought sets, too, a magical place where we can be whomever we wish to be, imagining a populace with leaders sympathetic to our joys, sorrows, plights and accomplishments, or fighting against them, the populace and/or leaders, in perennial cycles.
Today, I overcame my aversion to entering a house of worship for political purposes in order to cast a ballot against a state initiative to once again play funny money game with tax revenues. Knowing the conservative nature of the state of Alabama, I’m assuming the initiative will pass but I’ve been wrong before.
Well, the political satire related blog entries come to a close with this one. I joined major artists in giving the Romney/Paul ticket a backhanded compliment and will let the ball roll on its own from now until the election is over. It was fun. Time to look at places farther along the spacetime continuum, talk about how we’ll get there and what it looks like from an anthropomorphic futurist’s point of view.
= = =
Thanks to George, Joyce and Minnie at the voting booth today; Margaret and coworkers at the Marketplace Cafe (hope the wedding goes well on Friday!); Steak-Out; Google Play.
My wife wanted a chick flick in exchange for attending the UT Men’s Football game with me this past weekend so we sat in a theatre provided by Regal Entertainment and watched “The Words” this afternoon.
Again, I’m at the age where one storyline blends into another, one soundtrack sounds like a previous one and actors’ role are rehashed or recast in one big blur of motion after years of celluloid clicking by and, now, digital imagery indistinct from analogue dialogues.
Too much cellulose, perhaps?
Is DFW a person’s initials or an airport code?
I can’t remember, was it Franzen or Lehrer who was accused of plagiarism? Or was it faking one’s death? Or joining college students by the millions in cheating on exams? Or creating the unethical marketing campaign for the Nokia Lumia 920 that failed the newspaper test miserably?
What’s the difference between a person wearing a hidden earpiece and receiving instructions/corrections for/to what that person said and a person wearing an augmented reality/enhanced memory unit?
Will we know when our leaders are not quite human?
When will the first Paralympian or injured soldier have a brain prosthesis and carry enough name recognition to become a publicly-elected leader?
“Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce to you your one and only multiheaded committee-within-a-world-leader, Steve Austin IV!!!!” [Cue sound effects from The Six Million Dollar Man]
But first, a recap of the film, Chariots of the Gods…sorry, I mean, Chariots of Fire.
Now, back to your constantly-interrupted search on the Internet for that elusive thought in the back of your thoughts that you thought you’d remember if you just…
Would you believe that Vladimir Putin is a big fan of the actor, Jeff Daniels?
Yes, it is true. Putin admits privately that his latest stunt, flying with cranes, was inspired by a film starring Jeff Daniels, Fly Away Home.
Men quit jobs due to Internet addiction but deny they’re asexual, claim it’s just a cat infection problem — news at 12, 1, 4, 5, 5:30, 6, 6:30, 8, 9, 9:30, 10, 10:30, 11, 11:30, 12…as soon as Tom Brokaw wakes up from his sleeping pill addiction, that is.
Wake us up after the ECB finishes its latest fruitless fishing expedition — you won’t find many appetising meals in the EU economy.
Having sampled life, I have a taste of, if not for, many lifestyles.
My freshman year at Georgia Tech, I mentioned at least once before I was part of a fundamentalist Christian organisation that insisted young coeds should not mingle except in group situations, in order to prevent immoral thinking or become seduced into devilish acts.
The organisation was run by a nice, married couple, who taught that music could be uplifting and right for the mind as long as it didn’t contain heavy, thumping beats or reached a climax, both of which implied sexual acts which are private matters in the bedroom between two people married to each other to procreate children as a blessing of God.
Otherwise, music should be calming, meditative and glorifying God.
In the same year when I participated in that group, I went to dance clubs, listened to my roommate playing in a jazz trio, marched in the Georgia Tech band, played baritone horn in the Ga. Tech Navy ROTC band (enjoying an enlightening week at Mardi Gras with them) and attended fraternity parties.
Thirty-two years later, I see myself agreeing with the one statement of that nice couple, that if one is going to feel one with the universe (or connect with one’s religious teachings), one should listen to calming, meditative music.
The changing of the guard in religious music, the transition from choirs and organs to rock bands and electric guitars, indicates the church of my youth is not the church of the youth of today.
Of course, I don’t step inside churches very often but that’s a horse of a different colour crossing a creek that it won’t drink water from.
Regardless of one’s belief in or practice of origin stories, one finds a way to affirm one’s self image.
My self image is that of a funhouse mirror, a multisided magnifying glass or crystal ball, which reflects and distorts photons and other particles/states of energy.
Meditating on the self image is, for me, the sounds of nature, a Bach cantata or an E. Power Biggs organ recital.
To go into a church and listen to loud electric guitars and thumping drumbeats is pure entertainment, not meditation.
I still enjoy jazz. I listen to punk rock.
But they are my concentration on the affirmation of others’ expression of their self images.
It is interesting, sitting here putting these words and sentences together, rereading their implications and asking myself why I wrote this blog entry.
Why?
Because the block of time that defined the subculture of my youth is a museum of sounds and images, a museum I can visit only in my thoughts and can share most easily with the peers of my youth who understand oblique, obscure subculture references without explanation or looking up on the Internet.
The next generation decides what the definition of self image affirmation will be, taking into account the previous generation’s input but creating their own mix of sounds and images.
In my museum, quiet meditation is a basic part of who I am at 50 years of age.
Or, to repeat the maxim, “if the music is too loud, I am too old.”
So, I’m watching jimmy Fallon’s hats and gloves when I realized that I spent 6 hours pressu.re washing the driveway because…pregnant pause…I watched the hd version of a martiAn landing and just HAD to clean the crud from the landing strip for our ultra cool transportation devices.
Thanks to popov vodka and Kahlua vodka for ridding me of a headache after an evening of dancing with friends at kinesthetic cue and eating at the city cafe diner, grecian style!,!,!,!,
treetrunkdings 