Wednesday, February 23, 2005

Off To Work...

Okay...Soon it'll be time to be return to work. I just had a LENGTHY vacation. Just over a month, basically. So today I'm in that hazy morning-after state after an evening of alcholol. I have just the right amount of hazy detachment to go and deal with customers and the potential static that comes with customer service. Looking forward to visiting Amsterdam again. Europe is just...less uptight than the United States overall...We're a teenager who thinks we know everything. Unfortunately, a sulky teenager with massive military/industrial/marketing infrastructure. Time to fly the friendly, overcrowded skies... Be safe...

Sunday, February 20, 2005

I'm A Loser, Baby...So Why Don't You Kill Me?

Ah yes, I LOVE this society and I love myself even MORE. The issue of how I was dressed came up with a few of my older friends. Apparently, by wearing an army jacket and checkered vans shoes, that took me out of the respectable-appearing category and made me a prime candidate for police interrogation.(That I wrote told you about). Over the course of my life, I've had some older friends make some disparaging, condescending comments on my jeans and t-shirts look. Apparently, it's not "mature" enough. Especially with some of the t-shirts that I wear. None of them are ever VULGAR...but some are, shall we say, less than sunny and feelgood. But again, it's not a constant thing. Sometimes it's a super-hero t-shirt or whatnot. Thing is, I've always had an intrinsic eye for not trying to actually dress "younger" than I actually am...Aging gracefully with the same casual look that --->I<--- had in high-school(not the teens of today...which WOULD look stupid). This line of thought has come from my roommate of late...I consider the generation gap...but all I get from this speech is that I live in a society that, sadly, judges only on appearance. Everyone does it...but I try not to take it further calls on it. My roommate's contention is that I'm deliberately building walls around myself. He could be right. But I think like a teenager more often than not...I'm comfortable in this role. So what the f--k, am I supposed to DO? Go to London Fog or LL Bean and shop for a new wardrobe? The guy I was sort of, kind of, seeing for awhile also mentioned taking me clothes-shopping one of these days...makeover time, I guess. All this in an age when people when people wear flip-flops and Hawaiian shirts onto an airplane. I believe in dressing UP...but when the occasion calls for it. These are the times I wish I lived alone. But I guess this is what family is like. Take the good with the bad. But fatherly lectures I can do without. If I'm destroying myself with a drug-addiction(the alchohol needs watching by the way...), then fine. Feel free to pull me aside. But Jesus, it's not as if I have fourteen rings through my nose and shaved purple-hair and in need of gainful employment. And god DAMNED a society that makes us feel as if that appearance is wrong in the first place... Maybe this opinion fuelled my self-image when I went down to this party that I'd been invited to. I cobbled together a suit of sorts to go on down there. I walked down and waited outside the door for my lawyer buddy to show up. As I stood there watching the people go in, I began to feel out of place, like a fraud. This line of thought spun out of control. I didn't want to do the meet-and-greet, the "what do you do's?", and the constant polite smiling. I convinced myself that I didn't belong here, that I was a big, giant loser and that I should just get the F--K out of Dodge. After an aimless walk, I ended up at the WILD ROVER where I could be alone in a crowded bar, feeling warm and safe in the alchohol haze. Warm apathy and solitude. When I walked home, I realized just how deeply my self-loathing is buried. I walked home for a mile in the teen temperatures mumbling stuff to myself: "F--king worthless LOSER. What purpose do you actually HAVE, anyway?" Then I passed ------- St. where my dad left my mother and thought: "Thanks, mom and dad. What the hell were you thinking? Oh, wait...Wasn't it my dad who told me he was about to split on my mother until he learned that she was pregnant with ME? Cool! I wasn't even PLANNED! Forgot about THAT." So there you had it. Proof positive(in my own mind) that I wasn't even supposed to be here. When I slid into bed, I half wished that I wouldn't be facing the disappointment of a return to consciousness. So when I DID wake up, I just lay there staring up at the ceiling trying to find reasons to get up. "Feed the cat, Gary. SHE depends on you. SHE loves you even if YOU don't..." So now I'm up and on the computer. I feel better now. But for HOW LONG? I plan on visiting the little guy today. He always gives me a ray of hope. ...

Friday, February 18, 2005

Have We Learned NOTHING from THE EXORCIST?

Wow. The Vatican is offering an exorcism course to any clergy interested in learning how to drive the demons out. This provided me with a bit of mirth and amusement. I would think that the Catholic Church has bigger problems than the encroaching forces of darkness these days. When I think of Father Karras' fate in the EXORCIST, one has to wonder who really WON there. Besides, Regan(Linda Blair) had all of the best lines and that marvelous theatrical flair. I know this is fiction but it was probably the greatest recruiting tool for filling the getting the pews filled back in the Seventies. And the film still holds up today. I wonder, can ANYONE take this course? Be careful out there...

Thursday, February 17, 2005

Cats...The Perfect Gift For A Friendless Loser

I read that on a t-shirt in a store once...and I had to laugh. I love cats even though I don't own one. But right now, I'm babysitting one for a friend who's out of the country. Chloey is a quietly spastic low maintenance black cat who I fallen for like a ton of bricks. I'm always talking to her in some stupid pet voice, picking her up, cradling her, cuddling her, and of course sleeping near her. I could easily see myself becoming a kind of cat-madam, sharing a house with fourteen cats with that vague whiff of cat-piss wafting through the air...
I spent a couple hours at my lawyer friend's place, running errands for him. One of my functions was to be a witness/signer for a will that was being drawn. Mr. B lent the proceedings a sense of ceremony with his dapper suit and bowtie. A true eccentric gentleman. His clients seemed appreciative that I was on hand for this. Another new experience outside of my field of knowledge...
Keep well...

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

John Law

I got stopped by the cops this morning. WAY early this morning. At about 0430 as I was walking down to the gym. They stopped me past St. George Church(with the weird retro-futuristic-Sixties architecture). Apparently, there'd been a robbery in the area and they were doing a sweep. Of course, my head is filled with visions of martial law and The Patriot Act run amok...Along with my own distrust for authoritarian gunslingers. So the policeman checks my license and has me hold my arms over my head so he can frisk me for weapons. And then the paddy wagon shows up with two more officers. His back-up, the first guy explained. I have to say WERE polite and cordial. Unfortunately, i wasn't in the mood. And since I've seen examples of more than one arrogant authoritarian figure with a gun, I decided it was MY turn to be terse, clipped, and unfriendly as I've seen OTHER Police goons in the past. Every answer they asked, I gave brief, abrupt answers with not a word wasted. I made very little eye-contact and looking at the car's radiator grille... Example: "What are you doing out this time of morning?" "Walking to the gym.""Not using your car?" "Don't have one." "Why not?" "Can't afford one." "That must give you quite a cardio-workout before youget there." "Yep." I didn't indulge in sarcasm but every syllable had avery clear message: "F--k You. Are we through here?" I know they have a job to do but there the ones with the guns and the prison-wagon. My roommate told me that HE would have stopped me ifhe'd seen the way I was dressed. Army coat, jeans, and checkered vans sneakers. This was just a reality of living in a city that wasn't quite so crime-free anymore. Apparently, a cab-driver had the crapped kicked out ofhim by a group of dirtbags down on McBesic and they were canvassing the area. I was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. And there I was, just doing my thing that I do almost every day: Walking to the gym. I guess that's why I was so resentful. THIS is my hometown! I am a law-abiding citizen unlike the dirtbags from over the State line! Such indignance! Makes you wonder about the thin blue line that maintains law and order...and how attitudes can change from person to person. I guess it's just people like me, the polite citizen-on-patrol, the mirror-shaded asshole with the gun, badge, srut, and attitude. They're people too. How is it we haven't blown the planet to radioactive dust with all of these moods, attitudes, and misconceptions...?

Be safe out there. And have your i. d. with you...

The Romance of Air-Travel

Some thoughts and ruminations on my air-travel stint on Sunday. My first impression was, of course, the TSA Security point at the lower end of Logan's Terminal D. I had a wheelchair bound passenger ahead of me. It took quite a bit of time. Not his fault, but TSA CERTAINLY didn't help things. Because they didn't want him bringing his cane through and since his wheelchair was being reassembled on the other side, the poor guy had to crawl through the metal-detection arch. I just buried my face in my hands. How embarrassing. How humiliating. And the by-the-book feds didn't seem to think this was awkward at all. Dealing with the public can be challenging, but PLEASE GOD, don't let me get this jaded... And SPEAKING of dealing with the public, both ways were considerably full and there was the usual delightfully stimulating air of organized chaos and an effervescently diverse range of temperatments and attitudes. I'm not saying that MOST of them were ill-mannered or ill-tempered goons but it seemed to me that there's a considerable amount of simmering anger out there...and not all of it having to do with the strains of travel. A sign of the times, I guess. The trick is not to get polluted by it. Not always easy... Happy flying...

Monday, February 14, 2005

Cupid Valentino...

Some thoughts on the ultimate four-letter word: L. O. V. E. Having always been shy of relationships and pretty damned inadequate at sex, love has always been a mystery to me. Whenever I see couples(mostly married and straight) I see their wedding rings and then a flash of admiration and envy flushes through me. There. They've found THEIR mate. It CAN'T be that hard. Or sometimes I think: "How can they stay with ONE person year after YEAR? Don't they get TIRED of it?" But as I was working yesterday, I saw little traces of it. Before the plane was about to take off, a husband reached across the aisle to place a caring hand on the cheek of his wife...Or another husband carefully fixing his wife's hood against the cold at the airport curbside. That warmth, that caring...THAT's what love must be. Because let's face it, love can be the disease or it can be the cure. Or it can be BOTH. I'm just wondering where the whole dynamic of being with someone came about. The hormonal urge to perpetuate the species, I understand. But what is that NEED to be with someone else along life's journey? The fear of being alone? I imagine it must be a combination of things: Attractiveness, the urge to procreate, start a family, that need to belong...to somebody. That urge to CONNECT is a very powerful thing. This mystery has driven humanity's greatest creative talents to produce plays, songs, literature, and movies devoted to this very subject. Unfortunately(in my opinion), said subject has more often than not, been treated unrealistically...depicting love as the end-all, be-all, life-affirming experience in all of existnence. And maybe it IS. But I'll tell you THIS. Finding THE ONE, finding that euphoric TRUE LOVE isn't as easy as Hollywood and the popular music industry would have you believe. If it exists at all, it's VERY rare...but like that prime piece of real estate, everyone WANTS it. But everyone just CAN'T have it. That's cold reality. So why kid yourself? Hope, I guess. That's the thing that sells romance novels and soap operas...not to mention chick-flicks by the dozen. That unlikely but PURE love. People WANT to believe in this SO much, rationality doesn't play a part. But since when did love equal sanity? My best wishes to the people who have GENUINELY found this in life. If nothing else, it provides proof that true love between two people is an actual possibility. But for the rest of us...for ME...I will observe and view LOVE as the unpredictable affliction that it is... Happy Valentine's Day...

Sunday, February 13, 2005

The God Factor...and Matrix Obssessions.

Great e-mail. I should explain here that I actually DO believe in a grand design(er) of some kind. I've experienced too many amazing things for life and the universe for everything to be merely arbitrary. There IS something UP there/around us. That much I FEEL.(I don't want to be presumptuous and say "know"...) I guess my problem with the Sunday School feelgood optimists out there is the Christian Missionary factor: "Why languish in the darkness of ignorance when WE know what's best for you?" And therein lies the rub. As far as higher knowledge goes, I like to proceed from the standpoint that an individual or a group CAN'T POSSIBLY know The Answers, regardless of what good book it's printed in...The Bible, The Koran, what have you. The answers must be striven for deeper understanding. Or then again, it could be the most brilliant mass delusion that humanity has ever concocted for itself. Who knows for sure? Thanks for helping me to wake up with these ruminations. A good day to you, sir... ------------- Last night, we finally got the glitchy DVD player working properly and we finally go to see RAY, the biopic on Ray Charles. Powerful, inspiring stuff. I wonder why it tanked at the box office? Probably too much post-FARENHEIT 911 backwash? Who knows? I've been taking a page from Natalie Golberg's book WRITING DOWN THE BONES and throwing stuff down into a notebook every day, regardless of how badly written, clumsy, or subject matter. Like exercise, the more you write, the better you become. I'm still reading her book now...You should check it out. Her whole credo is: "Writing yourself sane." Forget about writing for publication. This is just about letting the voices out. I consider this different from a journal which is an account of the events that you experience in life. So far, so good... Saw the MATRIX Trilogy when Danny came over for a spell. I got a LOT more out of it but that third one just seemed to be relatively bankrupt of ideas, a great CHUNK of it was a fanboy's battle-tech wet-dream. Yeah, yeah...Zion gets attacked. What about the nature of reality? What kind of relationship do the Architect and the Oracle REALLY have? It's an amazing fully-realized world. (The ANIMATRIX goes into the background of the whole universe.) The ingenious thing about this whole universe IS, you can watch the movies, the Animatrix, read the comics, play the video games...They all contribute to a greater narrative whole. Plus, you get a cool super-hero battle scene at the end of REVOLUTIONS. Reminiscent of MiracleMan versus Kid MiracleMan in particular. Lots of rain, a fair amount of destruction. But then, the Wachowski Brothers are comics fans amongst other things. The original MATRIX was HEAVILY influenced by Grant Morrison's THE INVISIBLES as well as ANIME(a Japanese animation film-form that has become hugely popular in the States in recent years but does NOTHING for ME...) Except for Star-Blazers and Battle of the Planets, of course. (Amateur...) Anyway...Hope all is well...If this is an A320 trip, maybe I'll even run into you. Unlikely, but you never know... Take care of yourself, my good friend..

Saturday, February 12, 2005

Ray

Just saw the Ray biopic. I knew it was going to be a class act but I was surprised at how engrossed I became. Great script, great direction, DAMN fine acting. Inspirational stuff...Wonder why it tanked at the box office? I had planned to go down to Boston this evening to catch up on paperwork at the in-flight office before heading out on a trip tomorrow. (I'm a flight-attendant.) I've been on vacation for about three weeks so there's going to be a ton of paperwork for me to glance at and throw out. Not to mention some manual updates. I have to be on the 0530 bus tomorrow...so I better hit the sack... All for now...

Friday, February 11, 2005

The Power of the Written Word...

I took one look at the snow that had fallen and decided not hit the gym. I did my hermitage thing with some home exercises and did some housework. I continued with writing practice. For aspiring writers of all levels I highly recommend Natalie Goldberg's WRITING DOWN THE BONES. It frees up your limitations to go ahead and put anything down on paper without pre-judgement. Writing is like anything else...The more you do it, the better you get. (Running, chess-playing, you name it.) I wanted to be all profound with some with some observations about media manipulation, taking sound-bites out of context, and the free-speech debate because of Professor Churchill from the University of Colorado...but that would involve mental calisthenics that I'm really not up for...Not to worry. I'm sure the dander will be raised before too long. I mean, look at our nation's socio-political climate. If you can think then you're gonna have opinions...I'm sure I'll be throwing some down before long... Be well...

Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Another Storm Coming...

Better get used to the fact...Tomorrow afternoon, we are going to get decked with 12 to 20 inches of snow. Looks like I'll be doing some shoveling tomorrow. My attorney buddy wants me in the A.M. so my snafu couldn't have been that bad. As a matter of fact, I went to the immigration bureau to rectify it and got a taste of the red-tape quagmire. I had to wait for my number to be called for a half-hour and was told that the documents that I wanted a copy of had to be requested through the proper channels with the proper forms. Hey, I tried. Not surprisingly, this detachment of Homeland Security is affiliated with TSA, the government-sponsored security-screeners found at every U.S. airport. The attitude really depends on what airport you depart from. Some are polite...Some are wannabe cops or federal marshalls. I had a friend and colleague visit me for a couple days from Minneapolis. Basically, we bummed around, did some shopping, reminisced, did some drinking, and watched a couple of movies. Danny was in the mood to see some MATRIX so we checked out the first and RELOADED along with some bits of ANIMATRIX. An amazing blend of philosophy, action, special-effects, and a fully-realized world to place it all in. A bit disappointed with REVOLUTIONS. I wanted it to be more of a what-is-reality mindscrew...Matrix within a Matrix within yet another Matrix. Instead we basically got two protracted battle scenes. Stick with the Agent Smith material. You won't go wrong. We also had some deep religious discussions...Got a great e-mail from a friend with the following passage that pretty much encapsulates it all... "During my visit with my mother, I dutifully went to her little small-town church with her for Sunday morning services, and was pleasantly surprised to hear a really good sermon. The guy was talking about being good human beings, but I thought his points applied in many specific ways. Now I'm not overly religious, mind you, but I picked up some ammunition to use against homophobes, Republicans, and other judgmental hypocrites, and can't wait to dish it out to them in their own language. One: We are all God's children. Two: Jesus died for all of us. Three: God is fully capable of judging his children without the help of any of his other children. Four: Judgment is not our job anyway -- our job is to love one another. Next time I hear some homophobe bashing gay marriage, for example, I'm going to say "Are not gay people God's children, too? Did Jesus, according to you, not die for them, too? Does God need your help judging them? Can you not learn to love your brothers and sisters?" Pretty simple when you look at it that way, and damn near irrefutable in terms of what it says in the New Testament, specifically The Sermon On The Mount (blessed are the meek, etc.). Also applies to our government's judgment of Iraq and Iran. Once again, I don't wholly buy into the Christian dogma, but it strikes me that some of these political Bible-thumpers are little more than "Cafeteria Christians" -- they pick out the verses that suit them and ignore the ones that don't. To me, if you're going to profess faith in a religion and its text, you have to practice ALL of it. Yeah, there's a verse in the Old Testament about homosexuality being an "abomination", and the bit about "an eye for an eye" justifying violence towards others, but JC came after all that and blazed a new trail into what became the New Testament, which defines the difference between Christianity and older religions. And Christ never advocated hatred, censure or ostracism. Nor did he EVER advocate killing anybody for any reason. Thou Shalt Not Kill, unless Saddam is a bad guy? Really?" Couldn't have put it better myself...Be well.

Monday, February 07, 2005

To Err Is Human...

Yeowch. I went to do my volunteer work at the Ambassador's office and had a decent track-record. All it took was a single mistake to put a sour taste in everyone's mouth. I forgot to copy some papers before mailing them out(a big D'Oh! in an attorney's office) and once this came to our collective realization, the temperature dropped like a sack full of drowned kittens and the tension ramped RIGHT up. So for now, I'm persona non-grata, it looks like. Unfortunately, I let the non-stop barrage of media affect my mood today...which happens reasonably often. This morning at the gym, I heard this piece on a lady going to trial for killing her children. As my mood began to take the down elevator, I overheard a friend telling someone else that television news will always have us believing that everything out there is BAD. Which is JUST not true. So I'm thinking about how much information...depressing, elating, cerebral, and superfluous fluff is being beamed out to us EVERY day. How to make sense of it? I guess in the satellite-television/internet age, you can choose the outlet that reflects your OWN views the most. All I have to say is Thank God For The BBC. And I'm very grateful for that Mass Media class in high school. It shone the light on Madison Avenue and their Pavlovian selling techniques. No commercial ever looked the same again... I have a good friend and colleague who was supposed to travel from Minneapolis to see me today. He missed THAT flight and is now cutting through Detroit and will arrive four hours later. All in the name of friendship. Hard not to be humbled by that... Genuinely good friends are hard to find... All for now...

There's Got To Be...A Morning After.

Taking a couple of minutes to tap something before I head to "work". I use the quotes because this is a pro-bono thing I do in the name of friendship and a sort of community service, I suppose. Plus, it keeps the mind stimulated, hopefully staving off the malaise that comes with having too much time on your hands. I' m on a lengthy vacation so I have the time to "donate". More on that in a second. I went down to the gym this morning for it's 0500 opening. Why would I get up at such an insane hour on days off? The people, mostly. The local Y has become sort of a social gathering place for me over the years. You see the same faces over the years, you get to know people, and eventually, they become like...(can I type it without a sacharrine overdose?) family. Through this family, I've been able to network the resources together to purchase my first home, for starters. It's a utopian set-up in the sense that people from all walks of life come together for a common purpose. It's an oasis of stability in a sea of change. SO, it's good for the body...good for the mind, good for the soul. Isn't that the Y motto? Anwyay, as you can imagine, the buzz was crackling regarding last night's game. A good friend asked me if I watched it. No. So he calls me a Communist. He was joking, of course. (I think.) But Mister J. is a proud Republican, so what do you want? Didn't know that watching was mandatory in the Land of The Free. On the other side of that spectrum, I the gent I donate my time to is a rabid, well-connected Democrat. He's an attorney specializing in Immigration Law and actually served as an Ambassador for three years in Central America. Another Y-connection. I got into a conversation with him about language-requirements about such a position, sent him a couple of postcards from my travels, and lo, a friendship was born. He's an eccentric, olde worlde, bow-tied country lawyer who moves in higher circles without the requisite snobbery. This is SO far removed from my own existence, that I learn quite a bit just by helping him with his sundry office work. Feels like an internship, almost. Takes me out of my comfort-zone a bit. Always good for stimulation. As a matter of fact, I'd better make my way over there... Be Well...And Be Careful Out There...

Sunday, February 06, 2005

SuperBowl Sunday

Okay. Were not off to a very good start here. I just typed up something I was really happy with and so while trying to preview it, I just drop-kicked the whole thing into limbo. Nice. Forget about trying to recapture it. I'm on my third listen of the NO ROOTS album from FAITHLESS. That's how long it took me to find the appropriate names and titles for the blog and whatnot. So here we go... Why am I beginning a blog? Well, I found that a lot of my best free-form writing-commentary came to me while I was on the internet...either while composing an e-mail or doing instant-messaging. I figure that blogging is the logical extension of that. And hey, the aspiring-writer-ego wouldn't mind a possible readership for these mental meanderings...Let the adventure begin! So. Superbowl Sunday. We're about 8 minutes shy of it and that's probably when I'll be heading over to do some grocery-shopping. I figure the place will be a ghost-town, making for no lines, no waiting. Tomorrow, I'm sure I'm going to be hearing descriptive commentary from the folks down at the gym regarding the fantastic plays that are likely to take place. Not really my thing, as it happens. And even if it was, I don't have access to cable. Gave it up awhile back when an old roommate transferred it to my name...but then I found myself becoming the archetypal couch-spud. I'd be working on a letter and trying to pay attention to some rerun and found that I was doing neither pursuit justice. And I'd also found myself staring dumbly at a commercial before I realized I should be tuning out, not allowing Madison Avenue unlimited access to my headspace. So I ditched it. Now it's pretty much National Public Radio, Music, Reading, Movie Rentals, and DVD episodes of cherished television shows. WithOUT said commercials, of course. Anyway...Thanks for reading...and enjoy the game....