Do not go gentle into that goodnight, a poet once said.
Another said Hope I die before I get old.
Another, It's better to burn out/Than to fade away....
And yet another, dying is what the living do,/...dying is what the loving do....
To (too) many people, those poets are, of course, to only varying degrees worthy of the term: Dylan Thomas, Peter Townshend, Neil Young, Alastair Reid. Some are accepted into the canon, some not (or at least the canon shifts criteria and aim).
I've been watching people and relationships die and dying these last few months--one dead, three others knockin' on heaven's door, as another poet said--and surprisingly, given my basic human obtuseness--that's made an impression on me. Dylan Thomas's well known admonition to "not go gentle..," for instance, with some perspective, strikes me as the bravado/directive of the young: "We're in the world, alive, open to all sensory experience; we should fight "the dying of the light." It's become a rallying cry, a directive, a way to see and fear and avoid death: at least go down fighting.
Dylan Thomas was 39 years old when he died. Of course he should have resisted, of course he should have fought: no one should die at 39; even The Bible, that great work of fiction, hagiography and, for some, inspiration, gives us 70 years ("Three score and ten"). Yet Thomas's end, for all of his exhortations and protestations, was self-induced. He drank himself to death. Why, then, should we listen to his directive to resist death, except as an understanding of his conflict with self-immolation and self-destruction? For most "normal" folk, then, his words are rubbish (to use a UK-ism).
Then there are the self-imagined, self-promoted nihilists who urge us to go for it, to "live fast, die young, stay pretty"; those are lyrics, somewhat bastardized, from Blondie, that 80's band fronted by the eternally youthful former Playboy Bunny Debbie Harry (seen her lately?). That's not far from Pete Townshend's or Neil Young's views expressed above. The great irony, of course, is that those who wished to die before they got old, who wanted to live fast and leave a pretty corpse, are now in their seventies, and far, far from their pretty youth. Praps they should have, instead, resisted aging, died young, and been remembered in the bloom of youth. Hey, it worked for Jim Morrison; remember the Rolling Stone Cover from years ago that featured his photo on the cover with the tag line "He's hot, he's sexy, and he's dead."?
Finally, from my opening, there're Alastair Reid's lines, the best-considered, the ones with the most to offer. They are from his poem called Curiosity, which uses cats and their attributed curiosity--which of course, we say, kills 'em-- and their mythical nine lives as its governing metaphor. Reid says that the "cat price" of their curiosity "is to die/ and die again and again,/each time with no less pain." But for each loss there is a gain, to paraphrase another poet: "And what he has to tell/on each return from hell/is this: that dying is what the living do,/that dying is what the loving do,/ and...that hell is where, to live, they have to go."
Duh, he said, smacking himself in the forehead at an obvious truth he had never stopped to consider (is it a sign of a problem that I write about myself in third person?). Like hello and goodbye, about which I wrote some years ago, they are simply two sides of the same coin: We are dying from the moment we're born, and dying can only be done by the living. It's as natural as same-sex marriage in Ireland, for goodness sake. And that may be why, as I have witnessed, the old and the terminally ill not only don't rage against death, they welcome it. They've seen enough, had enough, have nothing in front of them but empty days and so are ready for the next phase. It is only the young who are ignorant or foolish enough to either rage against death, or to hope to die before they get old. Although it may not make it any easier for the ones left behind (as it's always easier to be the leaver than the left), LifeDeath is simply a process, to be taken on its own terms in its own time. There is much wisdom in acceptance.
Living and dying songs this week, then, which seems appropriate as I write this on Memorial Day.
Among the songs I'll choose from, or from which I'll choose:
Living The Blues Dylan
Change My Way Of Living Allman Bros.
Living In Fame The Clash
Living In The Material World George Harrison
I'm Living Good Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham
Living Without You Manfred Mann's Earth Band
Long As You're Living Karrin Allyson
The Only Living Boy In New York Marc Cohn
Living On The Inside Michael Franks
The Living Natalie Merchant
The Only Living Boy In New York Simon & Garfunkel
Living Is Good Wendy Waldman
Ain't Life For The Living Sonia Dada
Viva La Vida Santana
Living It Up Rickie Lee Jones
I Got A Mind To Give Up Living Butterfield Blues Band
In My Time Of Dying The Be Good Tanyas
...(Dying In The Forest) Dr. John
I Wouldn't Mind Dying The Carter Family
When Love Is Dying Elton John & Leon Russell
Art Of Dying George Harrison
The Golden Day Is Dying Hem
Dying On The Vine The Jayhawks
A Dying Man's Plea Mavis Staples
Prayer For The Dying Seal
The Earth Wants You Mose Allison
In My Hour Of Darkness Gram Parsons
I'll be on the air Tuesday from noon till two at WOOL FM 91.5, and wool.fm streaming worldwide. Hope you can join me.
Two addenda: Went to a Japanese restaurant in Ossining, NY a month or so ago and was surprised that they were apparently catering to people on the Paleo diet, as one of their menu items was "Filet Magnon...." Hey, at least it wasn't "Crow Magnon."
Much more seriously: Last week I blithely wrote about public stoning as means of execution in the Tsarnaev case, never stopping to think that that sort of thing still goes on in parts of the world. A good friend of mine, who served tours of duty in both Iraq and Afghanistan wrote to say that it was not that uncommon for soldiers to come upon public stonings, women buried up to their necks and being stoned for the crime of disgracing their families by being raped by a relative. Yes, you read that right. I need to just keep my fucking First-World mouth shut.
Monday, May 25, 2015
Saturday, May 16, 2015
I'm A Dzokhar, I'm A Tzmokhar*.... If I Get The Chair, That Is
Hi. I've been away awhile. It's personal. Today an event happened about which I must write; I figure it'll make the final few people who read this drivel turn away in disgust. I think it's important to say something about it, about us.
Today, Friday, May 15, 2015 in the year of something, a jury in Boston once again asserted that we are not bound by Christian tenets or beliefs in this self-described Christian Nation. It showed that we have not evolved since Old Testament times, that the Christian tenets we think of in calling ourselves that actually predate Christ by a thousand years or so. It showed, once again, that the veneer of "civilization" is paper--certainly not wafer, all you Communionists--thin.
Today a jury in Boston decided that Dzokhar Tsarnaev, 21, should be murdered by the State, by The United States. Tcertainly, Mr. Tsarnaev, led by his brother, Tamerlane, committed a heinous, egregious and, to all of our understandings of the term, morally indefensible act: they killed, wounded, maimed and irreversibly changed the course of hundreds of lives. If there is a hell somewhere other than on earth and in our minds, the Tsarnaev Bros. would go there on The Charon Express. The question in my mind is who should put them there, who should pass judgment on them, who would cast the stones?
We--or at least many of our "leaders," especially among the Christian Right (both terms of which, I maintain, are false in that appellation), call the US a Christian nation. I'm personally mystified by what that might mean. We certainly haven't followed the assertion that we are created in God's image, that we are therefore all equal; we have not hewn to the edict to "turn the other cheek;" we have not shown any adherence--as witness this decision--that "vengeance is Mine, sayeth the Lord." No, we'll cherry-pick those attributes we find most comely and self-servingly assertive to base that appellation on. But where does that put us, in the grand scheme of things?
Humans are brutal beings, there's no getting around that, even after all these years of religiously influenced leadership. We kill, we rape, we torture, we pillage, we degrade, all without, it seems, a second thought. Or if there is a second thought, it's in the service of justification of those behaviors to which we are prone anyway--like splitting the infinitive, which I originally did there, then dutifully went back and changed. But we have, as a culture, as a species, moved not one iota into understanding, into compassion, into forgiveness as a book written, not by a god, but by a variety of human authors over hundreds of years, would purport to have us do.
I've always understood the basis of our penal system to be rehabilitation; we were trying, I thought, to fix the ills that family or society or simply trying to live in this vale of tears has wreaked upon some among us, like us except for the grace of Something. Clearly, that's not very often true. So what are we about, what is our penal system about? Seems pretty clear that it's about revenge, about vengeance, about doing god's job 'cause he ain't doing it well enough.
Martin Richard, that adorable little boy with the mile-wide smile who was killed by the Tsarnaevs' horrible action, for instance; there's an iconic photo showing him holding up a hand-drawn poster saying "No more hurting people," which also features peace symbols ("Tracks of the American chicken," as Vietnam-era posters had it) and the word "peace" written at the bottom. Do you suppose that that poster said, on the flip side, "except for some troubled people who do bad stuff"? Maybe, one could say, had he survived he'd have realized how misguided his idealism was, and that people are basically evil and out to get you. Or maybe he wouldn't. His family, in fact, came out against the death penalty for Tsarnaev. They, and the dozen or so anti-death-penalty protestors (many of them veterans) who stood outside the courthouse holding signs opposing the death penalty, are the true heroes, the truly moral representatives of civilized behavior.
Listen: I have three kids, all of whom went through that same phase of growing up--hell, all phases-- till now. Of course I'd have been devastated if one of them had suffered Martin Richard's fate. I'd like to think, though, that I'd realize that the death of another human being would not bring back my child. I understand that "An eye for an eye" is another well-known phrase from the Bible, and that it's obviously at odds with "vengeance is mine...;" The Bible is, of course, rife with such contradictory statements, largely due to its variety of authors and the changing times in which it was written. Moses got lots of info and direction from god, but then ol' god sent his son here to throw an enormous spanner into the works, contradicting much of what was said, written and believed previously. Guess we're s'posed to figure it out for ourselves, but if one believes in the teachings of Christ, the way to interpret is pretty clear.
So yeah, if the way things worked was that by killing the perp all those killed by his actions would come back to life, arms and legs would suddenly reappear on the bodies of those who had lost them, and the psyches of all of those affected would be restored to better health, then I'd say "Hell yeah, fry 'im." There'd be a tangible and fair trade and benefit. Given that that's pretty likely not the way things work then the only rationale for killing Dzokhar Tsarnaev is vengeance. Even though our Holy texts enjoin us from such things, even though we profess to base our societies on their word, on their law. At the very least we should put him to death by public stoning as they used to do in the good old days. It'd be interesting to see all of the non-sinners flocking to City Hall Plaza, pockets laden with rocks, ready to mete out justice, and maybe burn the odd witch at the stake into the bargain.
As with everything, it all comes back to love, of which there is never enough. Love is all we need, but we can't seem to realize that or act on it. Love thy neighbor, love thine enemy, and maybe we wouldn't need incessant incursions and drone strikes which kill millions of innocents and lead to the retaliatory killing and maiming of thousands. If we are to truly lead (there's the split infinitive!) and be respected in the world, we need a new map. Or a very old one.
Here are some songs I'll play, then, if I can get it together to do a show on Tuesday:
Hannibal's Revenge Andy Narell
My Personal Revenge Jackson Browne
Revenge Of Memory Sir Vincent Lone (Jackie Leven)
Revenge Will Come David Lindley
Sweet Revenge John Prine
Yankee's Revenge David Bromberg
Avenging Annie Andy Pratt
Can I Forgive Him Paul Simon
Forgiven Alanis Morissette
Forgiven Ben Harper
Kiss Of Forgiveness Nick Robertson
Moment Of Forgiveness Indigo Girls
Ol' Forgiver Poco
Sweet Forgiveness Bonnie Raitt
Unforgiven Beck
Unforgiven Joe Cocker
The Unforgiven Ones Crash Test Dummies
The Christian Life The Byrds
Every Christian Lion Hearted Man Will Tell You The Bee Gees
The Joker Steve Miller
Jokerman Dylan
Jokers To A Shaky Hand Dirk Hamilton
Jokers Are Wild Gene Clark and Carla Olsen
Judge Not Bob Marley
Murder In My Heart (For The Judge) Lee Michaels
The Judgment Solomon Burke
All You Need Is Love The Fabs
My show, if in fact I do it, will be from noon till two on Tuesday on WOOL FM 91.5 and WOOL.fm on the 'net. Hope we see each other there.
*Apologies to Steve Miller, and I don't mean to be flip; it seemed like a humorous thing, to cut the tension, to me.
Today, Friday, May 15, 2015 in the year of something, a jury in Boston once again asserted that we are not bound by Christian tenets or beliefs in this self-described Christian Nation. It showed that we have not evolved since Old Testament times, that the Christian tenets we think of in calling ourselves that actually predate Christ by a thousand years or so. It showed, once again, that the veneer of "civilization" is paper--certainly not wafer, all you Communionists--thin.
Today a jury in Boston decided that Dzokhar Tsarnaev, 21, should be murdered by the State, by The United States. Tcertainly, Mr. Tsarnaev, led by his brother, Tamerlane, committed a heinous, egregious and, to all of our understandings of the term, morally indefensible act: they killed, wounded, maimed and irreversibly changed the course of hundreds of lives. If there is a hell somewhere other than on earth and in our minds, the Tsarnaev Bros. would go there on The Charon Express. The question in my mind is who should put them there, who should pass judgment on them, who would cast the stones?
We--or at least many of our "leaders," especially among the Christian Right (both terms of which, I maintain, are false in that appellation), call the US a Christian nation. I'm personally mystified by what that might mean. We certainly haven't followed the assertion that we are created in God's image, that we are therefore all equal; we have not hewn to the edict to "turn the other cheek;" we have not shown any adherence--as witness this decision--that "vengeance is Mine, sayeth the Lord." No, we'll cherry-pick those attributes we find most comely and self-servingly assertive to base that appellation on. But where does that put us, in the grand scheme of things?
Humans are brutal beings, there's no getting around that, even after all these years of religiously influenced leadership. We kill, we rape, we torture, we pillage, we degrade, all without, it seems, a second thought. Or if there is a second thought, it's in the service of justification of those behaviors to which we are prone anyway--like splitting the infinitive, which I originally did there, then dutifully went back and changed. But we have, as a culture, as a species, moved not one iota into understanding, into compassion, into forgiveness as a book written, not by a god, but by a variety of human authors over hundreds of years, would purport to have us do.
I've always understood the basis of our penal system to be rehabilitation; we were trying, I thought, to fix the ills that family or society or simply trying to live in this vale of tears has wreaked upon some among us, like us except for the grace of Something. Clearly, that's not very often true. So what are we about, what is our penal system about? Seems pretty clear that it's about revenge, about vengeance, about doing god's job 'cause he ain't doing it well enough.
Martin Richard, that adorable little boy with the mile-wide smile who was killed by the Tsarnaevs' horrible action, for instance; there's an iconic photo showing him holding up a hand-drawn poster saying "No more hurting people," which also features peace symbols ("Tracks of the American chicken," as Vietnam-era posters had it) and the word "peace" written at the bottom. Do you suppose that that poster said, on the flip side, "except for some troubled people who do bad stuff"? Maybe, one could say, had he survived he'd have realized how misguided his idealism was, and that people are basically evil and out to get you. Or maybe he wouldn't. His family, in fact, came out against the death penalty for Tsarnaev. They, and the dozen or so anti-death-penalty protestors (many of them veterans) who stood outside the courthouse holding signs opposing the death penalty, are the true heroes, the truly moral representatives of civilized behavior.
Listen: I have three kids, all of whom went through that same phase of growing up--hell, all phases-- till now. Of course I'd have been devastated if one of them had suffered Martin Richard's fate. I'd like to think, though, that I'd realize that the death of another human being would not bring back my child. I understand that "An eye for an eye" is another well-known phrase from the Bible, and that it's obviously at odds with "vengeance is mine...;" The Bible is, of course, rife with such contradictory statements, largely due to its variety of authors and the changing times in which it was written. Moses got lots of info and direction from god, but then ol' god sent his son here to throw an enormous spanner into the works, contradicting much of what was said, written and believed previously. Guess we're s'posed to figure it out for ourselves, but if one believes in the teachings of Christ, the way to interpret is pretty clear.
So yeah, if the way things worked was that by killing the perp all those killed by his actions would come back to life, arms and legs would suddenly reappear on the bodies of those who had lost them, and the psyches of all of those affected would be restored to better health, then I'd say "Hell yeah, fry 'im." There'd be a tangible and fair trade and benefit. Given that that's pretty likely not the way things work then the only rationale for killing Dzokhar Tsarnaev is vengeance. Even though our Holy texts enjoin us from such things, even though we profess to base our societies on their word, on their law. At the very least we should put him to death by public stoning as they used to do in the good old days. It'd be interesting to see all of the non-sinners flocking to City Hall Plaza, pockets laden with rocks, ready to mete out justice, and maybe burn the odd witch at the stake into the bargain.
As with everything, it all comes back to love, of which there is never enough. Love is all we need, but we can't seem to realize that or act on it. Love thy neighbor, love thine enemy, and maybe we wouldn't need incessant incursions and drone strikes which kill millions of innocents and lead to the retaliatory killing and maiming of thousands. If we are to truly lead (there's the split infinitive!) and be respected in the world, we need a new map. Or a very old one.
Here are some songs I'll play, then, if I can get it together to do a show on Tuesday:
Hannibal's Revenge Andy Narell
My Personal Revenge Jackson Browne
Revenge Of Memory Sir Vincent Lone (Jackie Leven)
Revenge Will Come David Lindley
Sweet Revenge John Prine
Yankee's Revenge David Bromberg
Avenging Annie Andy Pratt
Can I Forgive Him Paul Simon
Forgiven Alanis Morissette
Forgiven Ben Harper
Kiss Of Forgiveness Nick Robertson
Moment Of Forgiveness Indigo Girls
Ol' Forgiver Poco
Sweet Forgiveness Bonnie Raitt
Unforgiven Beck
Unforgiven Joe Cocker
The Unforgiven Ones Crash Test Dummies
The Christian Life The Byrds
Every Christian Lion Hearted Man Will Tell You The Bee Gees
The Joker Steve Miller
Jokerman Dylan
Jokers To A Shaky Hand Dirk Hamilton
Jokers Are Wild Gene Clark and Carla Olsen
Judge Not Bob Marley
Murder In My Heart (For The Judge) Lee Michaels
The Judgment Solomon Burke
All You Need Is Love The Fabs
My show, if in fact I do it, will be from noon till two on Tuesday on WOOL FM 91.5 and WOOL.fm on the 'net. Hope we see each other there.
*Apologies to Steve Miller, and I don't mean to be flip; it seemed like a humorous thing, to cut the tension, to me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)