Leaden Hours

On depression

2009-12-12T18:43:00.002-05:00

December 12,2009

I think that depression is a loss of desire. Whenever I feel depressed and/or withdrawn I sit down at the computer and I write,

"He was depressed."

And I wait for a response. I consider this act of writing tantamount to knocking on the door of the mind and shouting,

"Okay, open up in there! I want the info!"

I may sit for a long time thinking about nothing but then a fleeting thought will cross my mind which may have nothing to do with depression. It may be:

"I was just thinking how my father loved to work in his garden!"

An odd, random thought indeed. I write it down. Now I'm taken to thinking about my father's garden and another thought occurs to me at random. I write:

"I always wanted to work with my father in his garden but he would never let me. He thought I was stupid. He always called my mother to come and get me when I was around him. It hurt my feelings. I only wanted to show him how much I loved him-------------"

Now, suddenly, you have a comet by the tail. No more glum, unfeeling staring into space. The mind is creaking open and the pain issues forward. Maybe you can't handle the pain but there it is. It's a game breaker which can knock your depression for a loop.

The mind is eager to tell what it knows if one can find the means to ask. It works every time for me and in the process of discovery the depression is inadvertently forgotten. Once you make that break with your depression it can never hold you fast again. All you need to do is listen to your thoughts and write them down as they emerge. Your story will tell itself.

Troops to Afghanistan

2009-12-03T10:31:00.002-05:00

December 2,2009

Watching and listening to O'Bama's speech on sending additional troops to Afghanistan. Thirty thousand more GIs to do.........what? The object in going to Afghanistan in the first place was to avenge the 9/11 terror attacks by rooting out al Qaeda and killing bin Laden. We didn't get Osama but we did drive the al Qaeda out of the country. Mission accomplished! What else?

We've extended our concerns in Afghanistan. Now we want to secure the cities, kick out the Taliban, train the Afghan army. It is like Vietnam and the reasons for our presence are not that much different. Johnson said that if we didn't defend democracy in Vietnam the dominoes would fall in Southeast Asia. That turned out to be wrong. O'Bama says that if he didn't believe Afghanistan/Pakistan was a threat to America's security he would gladly bring the troops home immediately. Where's the difference? The predicament is the same. O'Bama's morphing into George Bush.

We went into Iraq without invitation to free the Iraqi people from the yoke of Saddam Hussein. His bogus nuclear weapons were our excuse to invade.We dispatched Saddam and no nuclear weapons were found. Okay..... mission accomplished!! Why are we still there?

The impression in Iraq was that there was no long term agenda. American troops were not fighting any actual battles with decisive results but just hanging around dodging car bombs and IEDs. The troop casualties began to mount one IED at a time. The press was watching and counting. Frustrations with the war increased as the price accelerated until it became a political hot potato.

Here we go again in Afghanistan.

Palin Memoir

2009-11-18T14:44:00.001-05:00

November 18,2009

I watched Palin/Oprah. Haven't read the book. She seemed vivacious, confident, candid. But honest? Who can tell? Too many politicians are professional liars and deniers. I believe her. She didn't make up all those colorful stories. Her version sounds too much like real life. McCain picked her to consolidate the conservative vote. They thought she was a Barbie doll. They hated her but they thought they needed her. It didn't work. The issue with Palin now is whether the conservative right will continue to intimidate the Republican party. The monkey's uncle is a viable candidate at this stage. If the conservatives do hold sway in 2012 watch out for Palin. In a party that deifies people like Limbaugh and Beck she's a good bet as the next losing Republican.

Camelot

2009-09-11T11:37:00.002-04:00

September 11, 2009

If you want to know what the Kennedy family was doing while you were at work today I suggest you take one of those tours of Hammersmith farm. Walk the farm's sleepy green lawns that slope down to the sea. Sit on the back porch which overlooks a panoramic view of the ocean and where president Kennedy used to land his helicopter. See those cute bedrooms with the watercolors where the Kennedy children played and slept. Walk the gardens and the groves of Hammersmith farm and tune in to the quiet privacy of Narragansett Bay and you will realize why the Kennedy lifestyle was nicknamed Camelot. Let the moment take you out beyond the madding crowd where the Kennedys vacationed and you'll understand how distant they were from any appreciation of what was happening in the working class. They may have read Dickens from the comfort of their back porch with the family cat cooing in their laps but they were never out there in the smoke and fire of everyday travail. They got their knowledge of working class ideals second hand through the wrong end of the binoculars. But don't take my word for it. Take a walk through Hammersmith, through Camelot, and you'll see what I mean. You won't see any working class values rearing their ugly heads in that environment. Hammersmith is about forgetting your troubles. It's about ruing the thought of returning to the depressing sobriety of middle earth.

(I originally wrote this piece in my journal back in March of 2004. The characters that once inhabited Hammersmith Farm have left the stage to history. The residence has been sold several times and all the furnishings from the Kennedy era auctioned off. I believe it's currently a private home which no longer admits tours.)

Erin Andrews Naked Video

2009-07-24T10:13:00.002-04:00

July 23,2009

Personally I think it was hypocritical for ESPN to ban the staff of The New York Post from participating in ESPN broadcasts just because the newspaper chose to run the nude photos of ESPN's sideline reporter Erin Andrews which were taken clandestinely in her hotel room. What is this knockout blonde doing on the sidelines anyway if not trying to capture the sexual attentions of the players and coaches and win new fans through the power of the sexual ogle. Every network has cute girls at the sidelines of sporting events now and oft times in the broadcasting booths as well posing for the cameras and showing off their sports erudition (among other things). And don't try to tell me that the networks are only trying to further the cause of liberating women to the possibilities of new careers in business. I'm sure the use of a little sideline sexual titillation maneuvering itself for a sure fire few seconds' interview with Tom Brady is part and parcel of their broadcast strategy.

Do I sound a bit cynical about women insinuating their sexual prowess into the sports' arenas of America? Perhaps I am because I know that relationships between the sexes belong in the bedroom and not in the amphitheatre and even the bedroom is not that safe if you're a star, as Ben Roethlisberger will testify.......... as well as Kobe before him. Women entering the world of male sports is always a dicey proposition. Does anyone remember the Himmelberg Wall? It's still in use today. It's that blue screen in front of which all NFL postgame interviews are held. Michele Himmelberg was a Florida reporter who was assigned to cover the Tampa Bay Buccaneers football team and was denied access to the Bucs locker room back in 1979. The incident spelled the end of the post game locker room whopee for all media and introduced the post-game blue screen interview area background , a variation of which is still in use today. Lisa Olson of the Boston Herald actually made it into the Patriots locker room back in 1990 where she was crudely chastised by the jocks and held up to ridicule via gestures of naked exhibitionism.

It's been suggested that women do not truly understand sports as men do because they lack the testosterone that drives men on the playing fields and in the locker rooms. There's nothing glamorous about women climbing the barricades of men's sports' competition and nosing their way into masculine camaraderie. The ultimate penalty for such an intrusion is the humiliation of the sexual insult with all the macho participants engaged in the rejection. Woman—Know Thy Place!! The locker room is sacred ground. The recent Erin Andrews video debacle is only another chapter in the battle of the sexes.

On Sex

2009-06-29T11:48:00.001-04:00

June 29,2009

It seems to me that we are through with sex before sex is through with us. We are only too glad to be rid of it, to push it out of our lives. But sex is so much more than intercourse. It remains an important hue on the creative palette without which the proper colors cannot be mixed nor can the proper rainbow appear. Without its participation life is always a little grey.

About Feelings

2009-06-29T11:40:00.003-04:00

June 29,2009

A speaker at a session of group therapy confesses candidly: (I paraphrase)

"How can I describe how I feel?

"I feel no desire, no motivation.

"I feel futility: what difference does it make whether I wash my face or take a shower or go to the super market or the laundry? What difference does it make if I wear the same pair of socks day after day?

"I am indifferent to everyday expectations. I know that having no exercise and eating high cholesterol fast food every day is damaging to my health but I just don't care. I just don't have the motivation to do anything about it. I feel like someone who is depressed, because I believe that's what depression is: losing touch with your emotional life........... except:

"People who are depressed sit around all day looking out the window thinking and doing nothing. They remain catatonic. They are out of touch with action. I am not out of touch with action. I get up in the morning, go to the restaurant, flirt with the waitresses, listen to and tell dirty jokes, make clever comments, laugh........how can I say that I'm out of touch with my emotions.

"I live because I forcibly push my life along ahead of me. I force myself to do things which I would just as soon let lie. I force myself to act. But certain emotions are missing which make these actions pleasurable and significant, some attitude, some thought process. I feel as though I'm playing my life on a piano which has a key that sounds no note."

Raw Power

2009-05-25T13:51:00.002-04:00

May25, 2009

I worked in a record store. A customer came in, an older man. He browsed around the aisles. He seemed to be listening to the music playing in the background through the store's speakers. Finally he came to the counter and asked:

"Who is that group playing in the background?"

"It's 'The Stooges'," I answered.

He contemplated my answer for a moment and then he asked:

"Is that 'Iggy and The Stooges'?"

"I believe it is." I rummaged for the CD jacket. It was, indeed, Iggy and the Stooges.

He nodded knowingly.

"A number of years ago," he began, "A friend of mine committed suicide. On his body, instead of a note, they found Iggy Pop lyrics from a song entitled, 'Search and Destroy.' Are you familiar with it?"

I was not familiar with the title. We played a good many Iggy Pop tunes. The hard rock beat fitted the signature of the store which also sold a lot of music videos and counter culture items, posters and pins, which were popular with the kids. I was intrigued to realize that Iggy Pop went back that far in time.

"When I finally heard the song," he continued unabashedly, "I realized that the lyrics actually did describe his life. There were personal admissions in those lyrics which he would never have made in his life."

There was nothing for me to comment since I knew neither the song nor the victim nor the customer. He was like the famous ancient mariner who stoppeth one of three. He bought a few items and left the store. The story stuck in my mind. I found the song on an anthology of Iggy Pop tunes which included an album entitled "Raw Power.

The lyrics of the song, "Search and Destroy" are the perfect description of someone who's ready to call it quits in life. I began to play the album in the store. Any time I played the track I received questions and comments. The customer's deceased friend is not the only one who identifies with the song. It's a universal plea.

I did not see the customer again.

Fallen Heroes

2008-04-21T13:15:00.002-04:00

April 24,2008

On MSNBC's internet web site there's a bulletin board of photographs of soldiers who have fallen in Iraq and Afghanistan. Clicking through the photos and reading the commentaries of their loved ones it occurs to me that America needs those men and women and others like them so much more than it needs the men who sent them there.

Bush on Iraq

2008-03-21T12:53:00.002-04:00

March 19,2008

Well , it's the fifth anniversary of the Iraqi war which means it's time for George Jr. to dust off the old rhetoric about the virtues of the war...... ho-hum! George donned his rose colored glasses for the occasion and talked as though he were addressing his own image in the mirror. As usual he fantasizes the American troops marching on to victory, with the four thousand dead only an inconsequential drop of blood in the corner of his canvas of grand illusion. It's the blood of Duncan however and, "Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand......." as Lady MacBeth aknowleged.

George has history against him. History will remember him for the pursuit of one, stupid, pointless war. Once bush is out of office a new president will stop the war, bring the troops home, hopefully restore America's reputation in the world and Bush and his cronies will themselves become a footnote in history. Not even the election of McCain can prevent the war from ending. McCain has no power to crank up the war or even to delay its finish. The ruse is up. We're only waiting patiently for Bush to get out of the road.

Bush has already entered the realm of irrelevancy. Between the economic crises in the stock market and the presidential campaign the President hasn't been getting much publicity at all. His ideas have no legitimacy. No one much cares what he thinks. His is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Politics

2008-02-10T10:37:00.001-05:00

February 10,2008

Duplicity in Friendship

Only in politics would a candidate insult another's integrity and then make friends later on as if nothing had happened. Only in politics would the aggrieved candidate accept such a friendship. We know that both men, in spite of their contrived harmony, will be talking about one another behind their backs all during the campaign. If these political opponents simply disagreed on their various approaches to social and political problems then that would be one thing but as soon as one contender slips in the polls then his inclination is to attack his adversary on a personal level in order to regain the advantage or to "level the playing field" as those in the know like to put it. To seek an example of your opponent's stupidity or dishonesty or insincerity and hold it up to public scrutiny is quite enough to shake the foundations of real friendship. In fact politics is the antithesis of friendship.

Politicians are right at home with duplicity. Remember the campaign of George Bush Sr. in the 1980 presidential race with Ronald Reagan? Bush attacked Reagan relentlessly, setting himself a gulf apart from Reagan's " voodoo economics" and then, upon losing the nomination to his opponent and accepting Reagan's vice presidential offer, Bush repudiated every issue he had campaigned on and embraced Reagan's "trickle down economics" as if it had always been dear to his own heart. It was one of the most transparent political sellouts in American history. Who would believe Bush after that display of insincerity?

Giacometti Sculptures

2007-12-30T09:57:00.001-05:00

November 11,2007

Viewing some Giacometti sculptures in the museum. In spite of their tiny size there's something about these figures which give the impression of towering over one. Giacometti asked a question which has always fascinated me: How is it that you can identify a person who is approaching from ten blocks down the street when that person is nothing more than a speck on your vision? If you were questioned you would not be able to distinguish a single identifying feature of that distant individual and yet you remark at once, "Here comes John Smith!!" and you will, in all likelihood, be correct. What mystery of mental perception allows this to happen?

Giacometti somehow dealt with this question in his sculptures. Even as the works tower over you they appear to be viewed from a great distance.

Favorite poem

2007-12-09T13:12:00.003-05:00

December 9, 2007

A favorite poem of mine by Samuel Beckett:

"I would like my love to die

and the rain to be falling on the graveyard

and on me walking the streets

mourning the first and last to love me."

I have always imagined that a great novel could be written around that poem.

Into The Wild (plot revealed)

2007-11-10T13:31:00.001-05:00

October 27,2oo7

Into The Wild

I happened to overhear a conversation between two teachers about a film which one of them had seen and about which she was very excited. The name of the film was "Into The Wild." I only caught the tail end of her description of the plot and I had to ask her to repeat the title.

The film was unfamiliar to me; I had not heard or read anything about it. The teacher was fascinated with the fact that it was directed by the notable actor Sean Penn and the sound track written by rock singer Eddie Vedder who is frontman for the band Pearl Jam. She couldn't explain exactly what the film was about except to say that it revolved around the adventures of a young man who went backpacking in the wilds of Alaska.

The same afternoon I had an appointment with my therapist. Somehow we got on the subject of literature. The doctor asked me if I had ever read anything by Jon Krakauer. I said I had not nor had I ever heard of him as an author. The doctor had read and enjoyed all of Krakauer's books. He named the titles of various volumes which Krakauer had written. I was familiar with none of them. One of the books, however, was titled "Into The Wild."

"Into The Wild?" I asked, peaked by a vague recognition of the title.

"Yes," he answered. "It's been made into a film."

"Is it current?"

" Yes……its playing around the theatres as we speak."

"Hmmmmmm." I described to him the conversation I'd had earlier about the film and how odd it seemed to me to hear mention of the same obscure movie from two such dissimilar sources over such a short period of time. The doctor reminded me that the book had been on the best seller list for a long time.

"I'll have to make a point to see it," I said.

" You really ought to. I'd be interested to hear what you think about it."

The earlier conversation had not particularly spiked my interest in seeing the film but now, having had a second recommendation from none other than my therapist, who clearly thought there was some lesson for me in this film, I decided to see the flick promptly.

I'm not a person who watches television very much and when I do it's usually a documentary in which most of the information is given through the narration rather than the visuals. More often than not the visuals in a documentary have little relationship with what's being narrated. They simply form a picture background which is conducive to the time and place. After all, if you were watching a documentary about the Middle East and the picture background was composed of shoppers on Fifth Avenue it would seriously undermine the credibility of the story. In a movie, when two detectives discuss their case as they walk along the street the information is all narrated. You can turn off the picture and listen to the sound alone and still follow the whole story but if you turn down the sound and simply watch the action you will soon lose track of everything that's going on.

There are not that many good stories in the movies. The object of films is to thrill or shock. With the advent of special effects, cataclysmic action can be brought to the screen in all its explosive details. Since the bulk of moviegoers are in their teens and twenties these action films are the standard.

"Into The Wild" is a good story. It's "based" upon a book by Jon Krakhauer, "based" meaning that it varies widely from the literary. Viewing the film would lead you to believe that the book is a novel with a story line. In fact the book is a documentary with a lot of speculation. It links the hero to the myth of mountain climbing.

Chris McCandless was a college student who abruptly left home to embark on a backpacking expedition across the midwest and who eventually ended up starving to death in the wilds of Alaska.The book is not truly about McCandless but rather about the dark existential demands of the soul in its efforts to achieve an impossible freedom. The movie is a romantic adventure which utilizes and expands on interviews which were conducted by the author in his efforts to map out McCandless' travels step by step.

McCandless did not get along with his parents either in the book or in the film. The film rather demonizes the parents so that the viewer gets an impression of the son's need to escape from the bosom of the family for the good of his sanity. Actually it's the parents who do not get along with one another. There were few violent quarrels between the father and son. The father is a brilliant engineer with the space agency and has invented systems crucial to space flight. The son, respecting his father's genius, is all the more disappointed to find his father mired in the petty unhappiness engendered in the quest for material wealth. The son decides that rather than allowing the best in himself to be compromised by that same material success he will seek a new source of freedom.

The film goes farther to lay blame on the parents for the demise of the son while the book is less accusatory since its ultimate object is to solve the mystery of McCandless' despair. The film is more psychological in its trajectory while the book is more philosophical. The film has an answer while the book has none except in its reference to the myth of mountain climbing.

The film makes much of McCandless' experiences with highway vagabonds who seem to share his restlessness. These experiences are speculation on the part of the filmmaker who has an idea about how he wants the film to end. In the film McCandless touches the lives of these people in a way which changes them and eventually changes him. The book,however, suggests that McCandless shied away from intimacy of any kind and was more or less coddled and saved from starvation by the strangers who befriended him on his journey.

In the book McCandless displays scant talent for taking care of himself. In fact in Alaska, where he camped out in an old abandoned bus and where his body was found several months later, he was not very far into the wild. Assistance was everywhere around him if he had only known what he was doing. Speculation centered on what might have happened to him.........lack of preparation, unfamiliarity with the terrain. He lacks toughness yet he is a member in good standing in the strange cult of climbing in which Krakhauer himself is a participant.

McCandless keeps a journal in which he writes terse, one word revelations. In the film these journals describe his feelings, which are slowly transformed under the influence of the ice cold refrigerator of the Alaskan wilderness.

In the last analysis the book venerates McCandless' existential yearnings and places him amongst similar heroes of the wilderness challenge. The film has the hero realizing that he is lonely in the frozen landscape and that the real meaning of happiness was in the experiences he shared with likeminded travelers on the road. This realization is a reverse of his expectations. He decides to ditch the bus and rejoin the world, presumably with a new outlook on life. However when he reaches the banks of the river which he was easily able to ford four months previous he finds that it has widened into a raging current and he cannot cross. As a result he is forced to return to his campsite where he considers himself a captive of the environment and where he ultimately succumbs to starvation. Turns out that there was an outpost a few miles downriver where there was food and shelter available as well as a cable hookup for crossing the river.

The film ends with the camera focusing on the hero's last moments, pulling away slowly to show the expansive landscape with the bus at the center.............. The book ends on the touching scene of the parents visiting the site many months later and picking through the rubble which still contains personal items of the deceased.

Book or film? Take your pick of two good stories, different to be sure in their conception and conclusions. Ponder over both.......... there are questions here about the meaning and purpose of life, questions which can never be decided with a single solution. Would that the path through life be straight and narrow but no, it twists and turns through brambles and into dead ends. It meets itself and starts again. As Henry James once wrote, "We work in the dark---we do what we can---we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art."

A Chekov Character

2006-05-14T12:43:00.001-04:00

May 14,2006

A Chekov character:
“…………………everything that was important, interesting, essential, everything about which he was sincere and did not deceive himself, everything that made up the quintessence of his life, went on in secret, while everything that was a lie, everything that was merely the husk in which he hid himself to conceal the truth, like his work at the bank, for instance, his discussions at the club, his ideas of the lower breed, his going to anniversary functions with his wife--all that happened in the sight of all.

Insomniac

2006-05-14T12:39:00.000-04:00

May 14,2006
Insomniac
     A certain individual has a terrifying and unexplainable bout of insomnia in which he is tormented into wakefulness by the most monstrous nightmares. Doctors at the hospital tell him that he must enter a program in order to receive the proper monitoring of medication. He agrees out of desperation.
     The hospital waiting room is like a deserted train station at night: grim lighting, no windows, hardwood benches, no pictures on the walls. A doctor in a white coat comes silently and motions the prospective patient into a narrow room with a single weather- beaten desk. He asks the normal questions of  personal identification without looking up from the forms on which he is writing nonstop. Then, all of a sudden, he asks the patient why he has come there. The question seems out of order in view of the patient’s current frame of mind after five sleepless days and nights and yet the patient is surprised to find that he has a ready answer. He says without a moment’s hesitation: “I hate my life.”
     The doctor looks up at the patient with curiosity. Perhaps he is not used to such direct answers.
     The patient cannot explain why he said that.  He was unaware that he felt that way. Sometimes there are answers that one carries around for a whole lifetime  without knowing it, waiting for someone to ask the required question. When the question is finally put it’s like a password that opens a secret door so that the answer, long imprisoned, is at last free to express itself.  Enlightenment often comes by that route.  So do not think that you don’t know the answers: they’re all there if and when you need to know them. Ask your emotions to speak. Ask them to put words in their mouths so you can understand what they want. They will answer.

I'm Wondering Why

2006-05-13T18:59:00.000-04:00

May13,2006

I’m wondering why the pricing labels on CD music discs are always stuck on over the section which displays the track information. If you thumb through the racks in any store you’ll see that every CD music disc has the pricing labels stuck on in exactly the same spot on each case. Can that be an accident? It’s too dumb even to be termed stupidity. I don’t buy a CD unless I can see the list of tracks that are printed on the back which is usually never.
And what’s the story with the little white square labels with the price prices on them. They’re cut into three sections so that when you try to peel one section back ever so gently the whole section tears off at the perforation. Now you have to begin again, usually with a razor blade, on the next section. Invariably a blob of the price tag remains stuck to the case of the CD. If you try other means to get the sticker off such as rubbing it with an abrasive pad then the plastic of the case is damaged so that every CD in your collection has an unsightly blemish on the case either from nibs of paper which cannot be removed or else from scratches applied in an effort to remove them.
I’m also wondering why the manufacturers of CDs insist on putting that infernal strip of transparent tape over the edge of the CD case so that you can’t get the case open even after you’ve gotten the wrapper off. The tape is impossible to pull off in one piece.
What’s the matter with those guys who package CDs? Why does every product have to be covered with stamps and labels like a vacationer’s trunk? CD packaging is so problematic I’d just as soon pirate my music from the internet.

I

Comparing Oneself

2006-05-07T11:35:00.000-04:00

May 7, 2006

Comparing Oneself

A certain patient has a visit with his psychiatrist. He’s feeling low, anxious, perhaps a little depressed. An irrational sense of dread is nagging him. He’s listless and paces the office. Finally he goes to the window and looks out.
The doctor’s office is in a hospital complex of historical brick buildings with genuine slate roofs. The walls are covered with ivy up to the rooftops. The complex has new sidewalks, sprawling lawns and an abundance of shade trees. Two one way roads, separated by a grassy island of maple trees, meander down to the hospital entrance which has an imposing assemblage of wrought iron gates. The center island is a favorite of joggers.
Directly below the office window the patient sees a man walking his dog. He has a cup of coffee in his hand and a newspaper tucked under his arm. The dog sniffs at every bush and tree trunk. The man allows the dog free reign and ambles after.
The patient observes the man and dog for awhile and then suddenly says to the doctor, who is inspecting some sort of paperwork, “Now there’s a happy man down there doctor……..out in the morning sunshine walking his dog, cup of coffee in his hand, newspaper under his arm. What a lucky guy.”
The doctor stirs from his concentration
“What’s his name?” the doctor asks absently.
“His name?” The patient looks puzzled.
“Yes……his name.”
“How should I know?” the patient answers with a shrug.
“You don’t know him?”
“Of course not! He’s just a man walking his dog……”
“Precisely the point,” the doctor answers and now he sits back in his chair and speaks to the patient directly. “You don’t know anything about this man. For all you know he may have just been informed by his doctor that he only has a short time left to live. Or maybe his wife just died and he’s walking the dog and feeling his grief. How can you tell who he really is? Can you know by looking down at him from this window? It’s a very small window on the world, believe me.
“I note that you compare yourself to other people all the time. You reckon your acceptability according to how you score in these comparisons. But you’re less than democratic in your choices of people with whom to compare yourself. You never compare yourself, for instance, to the Albanian refugees who have been driven out of their homes with just the clothes on their backs, who have to sleep on the ground without shelter, who have nowhere to go and nothing to feed their children. How come you never compare yourself to people like that? You only compare yourself to fantasies in order to sustain a frame of reference for your own rejection.”
With this the doctor smiles knowingly and splays his hands, palms upward.
The patient stares blankly, nodding his head, noting a point well taken.

Ellen DeGeneres

2005-10-09T09:08:00.001-04:00

October 9,2005

I've been thinking about Ellen DeGeneres since I tuned into this year's Emmys. She was the emcee for the show but she wasn't all that funny. The bit about taking the portable television set to the line outside the ladies' room so that all the ladies in waiting could watch the show was pretty lame. But then, Ellen didn't earn her fame retelling other writers' jokes.
Ellen DeGeneres was funniest in her old standup routine. On stage she was so full of anxiety and uncertainty that you just knew she had a guilty secret. She'd fidget constantly, wringing her hands and shuffling her feet and looking around self consciously. She never failed to dig herself into a hole of double entendres whenever she opened her mouth, haplessly explaining herself into fresh misunderstandings until she became so verbally entangled that you were compelled to identify with her humiliation, it was so much like real life. One could only dispel the uncomfortable reality of her embarrassment with laughter.
Humiliation is the key to all humor. We laugh whenever someone trips and falls down the stairs. Ineptitude is funny. Of course we know now that Ellen did have a secret: she was a lesbian. When she was uneasy about this secret and didn't choose to reveal it, then her vulnerability was material for great comedy. Now that she's out of the closet and doesn't give a damn whether anybody knows it, she's lost the wellspring of her humor and she isn't funny anymore. Newly found self confidence ruined her career.
The show in which Ellen came out of the closet was one of the funniest shows I had seen. The fact that she kissed her female lover on the mouth during the episode was a daring shock which set the stage for a new direction for the show. Suddenly the Ellen DeGeneres Show was about Ellen's lesbian relationships, with all the sexuality spilling out indiscriminately. All the infamous lesbians of the entertainment business guest starred in the show and erotic female kissing became a common occurrence. It was vulgar and heavy handed but mainly it was not funny. The ratings of the show sank like a stone and shortly thereafter it was cancelled.
Ellen went from a headliner to a has-been overnight. Later on she tried to revive her television success in a situation comedy which had to do with her character returning to live in her old home town. There was even an unlikely male love interest. But the humor wasn't about her anymore, it was about contrived, fictional characters who tried to be funny but were not. The show relied upon writers to deliver comic material. That was not Ellen's specialty. The show was cancelled after a brief run.
Someone once said that laughter was recognition of truth. Good humor is a rehash of real life. It's a show about nothing, as George Costanza would say. Finding out that Jerry Seinfeld and his friends are stupid idiots is funny. Such relationships are so fraught with annoyance that the only way to deal with them is thru an old fashion belly laugh of verification, particularly if the idiots are your relatives or co-workers. When they act stupidly you smile and change the subject.
In real life the Seinfeld four could never have remained friends. An important part of the humor consisted of Jerry pointing out the stupidity of the other three by making fun of them all the time. In real life no one would put up with that kind of relentless derision. Thank God George and Kramer never seem to be offended. And anyway why does Jerry want to hang out with such a bunch of idiots. Jerry himself is not without his share of preposterous stupidity, letting himself be taken into schemes which he knows very well are destined to explode in his face. We all know people like the Seinfeld quartet but we don't want to be friends with them.
Ellen has made a comeback in recent months with a successful talk show. She's a pretty good interviewer and she's dropped the lesbian antics. On the Emmys, when she reverted to some of her vintage bumbling and excessive overstatement she was funny. But the old guilt is gone and with it the old Ellen.

Words To Live By

2005-10-08T20:36:00.001-04:00

October 8,2005

"The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush! Naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron way!"
HERMAN MELVILLE from MOBY DICK

Moliere on writing

2005-10-08T19:25:00.002-04:00

October 8,2005

"Writing is like prostitution. First, you do it for the love of it,then you do it for a few friends, and finally you do it for the money."
MOLIERE: FRENCH PLAYWRIGHT

Blogging Kafka

2005-09-25T10:26:00.001-04:00

September 25,2005

Blogging on the internet reminds me of Kafka's Imperial Message: the emperor of all the vast kingdoms of the earth is lying on his deathbed. With his dying breath he calls his courier to his side and whispers a message in his ear....a message meant for you......you, the farthest flung of all the empire's millions of anonymous subjects, you, the most insignificant speck on the map of the empire......the Emperor expends his dying breath on a message intended for .....you.

And now the messenger sets out to deliver the message....to you.He pushes his way through the throngs that are gathered in the castle and in the courtyard, he finds his way into the street and then into the village, finally onto a country road and hence on to the next village, pushing through that village and on to the next. In village after village he prods his way through the crowds. And that is only the one province. There are countless other villages in countless other provinces. And if he makes it to the end of the last village in the last province then he must cross the ocean to other countries and into other provinces. Everywhere he goes the masses hold him back, the weather, the threat of highwaymen. Still he plods on with his message. If he had ten lifetimes to pursue his mission he could not find you wherever you might be in the hinterland of millions. It's plain that he can never reach you with the message. And yet, as Kafka says, you sit by your window and wait.

Blogging on the internet is similar to that. You write your message. You think it has a special meaning that people will be interested in reading. You send it out over the airwaves. And you wait for something to happen. But the internet is vast and anonymous. Surfing the blogosphere page after page you find not a single soul mate and if you surfed a lifetime day and night you would only make a tiny scratch on the surface of the internet. Your literary efforts are like those audio sounds that scientists beam into space in search of signs of life. The audio signals disappear into the void and no one can be sure whether they're heard. Yet still you continue to form the words and put the message out no matter what. It's the perfect example of hope springing eternal in the human breast.

Stairways and Little White Dogs

2005-09-18T07:22:00.001-04:00

September 18,2005

Sigmund Freud liked to think that the organic sensation of anxiety occurred when the child's body was squeezed through the birth canal on its way to being born,ever after experiencing moments of anxiety as a reference to that peculiar,breathless sensation.
I cannot say if this is true but I know that emotions--can we call them sensations--which occur for the first time in the most ridiculous of settings remain forever associated with those settings.
When I was a small child our family lived on the second floor of a house which was a kind of four-plex with two apartments up and two down and a stairway in the center from the street. I remember every detail of that stairway,every scratch on the wall but I remember nothing of the apartment. Go figure!
At the back of the house there was another stairway which led down to the yard. This stairway was on the outside of the building but it was covered in the manner of covered bridges that you see in New England towns. In the center of the stairs there was a diamond shaped window which looked out into the yard. All of my life I've dreamt of that stairway; it has always represented something gloomy and foreboding in the catalog of my emotions,the kind of feeling which can never be explained but only .........embodied. Go figure!
In order to reach the street from this back stairway one had to walk along the driveway at the side of the house. At the end of the driveway there was a depression which filled with water whenever it rained, creating an impassable puddle. The only way to get by this puddle was to negotiate a narrow tuft of grass which required one to squeeze along the chain link fence that separated the two yards.
In the yard next door there was a little white dog which charged out at you suddenly whenever you were walking on the driveway. This dog had a nasty temperament and a ferocious manner and never failed to take me by surprise. Whenever I would need to circumvent the puddle he would appear in a rage and try to nip me through the chain links. As a child I lived in terror of this dog.
All of my life I've dreamed about that dog. He has come to represent some nameless, anticipated terror in my life which I have never been able to shake.He comes to me from time to time in my nightmares and is never far removed from my uncertainties. Go figure!

Is It Real?

2005-09-17T20:53:00.002-04:00

September 17,2005

When my father had been dead for several years my sister said to me one day, " You know, when I think of dad now it's as if he had never existed at all but had only been a character in a movie or a dream sequence. It's as if he had never been real, as if our lives with him had not been real."

I know what she was talking about.The present drifts away from us into the past in little dribbles. Everything about my father was gone, his old chair, his radio over which he fumed and fussed about the Red Sox, his old wrought iron lamp which had been painted gold,the desk drawers full of trinkets that it was his habit to pick up in the street on his way home from work. The house in which we lived together--gone. There are fewer and fewer touchstones to his existence. The real father belongs to a long gone world, a world before cell phones and computers,a wordl before technology, a world in which you had to wait for the operater to come on the line and ask, "number please", a world that no one living can go back to.

The past becomes smaller and smaller. When I returned to my high school after many years I was amazed at how small it was. I felt like a giant inside it. Did I really walk through these hallways, open these doors? My locker number still exists except that someone else now owns the number. Note how we get pushed out of our historic places, out of our lockers, out of the cradle,out of school, out of the corner where we used to like to hang around, out of everywhere. Others are goading our steps, anxious to occupy our place; we have to keep moving on like fugitives on the run. Finally we become the historians,the know-it-alls, the ones who say," You see that school over there kid!? Well,I remember when we used to skate on a pond over there! It was a dirt road then.....you had to park your car and walk through the woods."

And the kid would say, "W-O-W!" and not be able to know how things had been in that place. He would create his own past and save it in his own way.

Lighted Windows

2005-09-17T20:21:00.001-04:00

September 17,2005

Years ago I had a friend who was a Bulgarian artist. He operated a small gallery in the city but he lived with his mother in a small Bulgarian community in the suburbs. At night we would drink together and afterward I would drive him home.
On the way to his house we passed a hospital. There were invariably lights on in a handful of windows. He said, "Those are the rooms where people are dying." When my own father lay dying I remembered that. I looked out the window at the passing traffic and saw myself looking up at me waiting for my father to die.Whenever thereafter I went by hospitals at night I'd say a little prayer for the people waiting behind those lighted windows.

Intuition Conquers

2005-09-15T20:03:00.001-04:00

September 15,2005

Outside my apartment window there's a bee hive in a hollow section of the roof. All day long the bees flash back and forth in the sunlight doing their work. Every morning when I rise I go to this window in the hope of seeing an owl whom I suspect is living in the barn out back. Every morning I notice a knot of bees scrunched together in a small space on the window screen.

At the back of the house there's a generous yard with a stone wall and an enormous rotting stump of a weeping willow tree which came down with a dull thud in the middle of the night during a windy storm several years ago---luckily to no one's disadvantage. Beyond the yard a dilapitated barn on a high brick foundation. Next to the barn a tree growing on a tilt which has benefitted mightily from the demise of the willow and its gift of new sunlight.Beyond barn and tree, a sliver of land-locked woods perhaps three hundred feet wide and, beyond that, the rear of a house which fronts on the next street.

You would think that all these obstacles would prevent the low,rising sun from reaching my window...but they do not. There it is, at first light, a pencil thin line of brilliant yellow sunlight reflected from the narrow brass barrel of a floor lamp onto the pale eggshell wallpaper of the room and entering at the window in precisely the spot where the knot of bees are gathered on the screen. For ten or fifteen minutes this line of brilliant light windens and gradually pales but it's enough to warm the bodies of the bees so that they can fly away. How the sunlight finds it's way through and around so many obstacles and how the bees know that it will arrive is a mystery but there it is nonetheless. Intuition conquers.

Borne again

2005-09-15T18:50:00.002-04:00

September 15,2005

I'm always suspicious of people who are "born again". They have a curious certainty which is not quite convincing. They're always playing religious pop music up loud (I'm thinking of someone in particular) which hardly anyone else listens to and acting as if they don't have a trouble in the world. They remind me of certain people that you see jogging on the street. There are some who just run and then there are others who do a whole theatrical routine with sweat bands and weights and heavy breathing, swinging their arms and shoulders in ridiculous gesture. They want us to know that they're not just walking and running, they're "exercising". They want credit for political correctness.I always have the impression that people who exercise like this hate every minute of it and would be much better off changing their lifestyles.

People who are "born again" are a lot like that. They don't just experience quiet joy in the knowlege of their religious fervor. No,they want the rest of us to know that they have Jesus on their side while we continue to struggle with our demons. They even presume to give us advice as to how we can be like them.

All the while I have the impression that they're whistling in the dark. Being "born again", after all, means that you were born once and it didn't work out so well and now your back for another try, this time with Jesus as a crutch.I doubt that invoking Jesus is gonna be enough to get over life's bumps. All this "born again" stuff takes it for granted that Jesus loves us. Unfortunately Jesus hasn't weighed yet in with his opinion.