Get Me Off This Rocket Ride

Elon Musk has offered to buy twitter for the ridiculous sum of forty-three billion dollars. For that amount of money, he could build or buy just over one hundred thousand average-cost homes in the United States, and give them to one out of every five people experiencing homelessness. He could also opt to build smaller, cheaper homes and eliminate homelessness altogether.

Imagine if you held that kind of power in your hand: The ability to, on a whim, completely end homelessness in your county.

You and I don't wield that kind of power, but we do have something to offer. You might not be able to choose ending homelessness instead of buying Twitter, but you might be able to choose ending someone's hunger for the day instead of buying fast food. I can't single-handedly pay off all the water bills for the entire city of Los Angeles, but I can certainly help a struggling family make sure they have enough to keep the lights on for a month. 

I'm not a religious person, but the vast majority of my country purports to be a Christian. In your book, it explains that it's incredibly difficult for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. In the life to come, it says, their gold will testify against them, and burn their flesh like fire.

Now, I don't know if any of that is true, but I do know this.. If it is true, until that day, we can and should look after one another as much as we can. We can also refuse to venerate greedy, selfish celebrities simply because we see some wicked reflection of ourselves in them. 

I'll Never Be Your Beast Of Burden..

 In a world of Beasts, it is not the Beast but the Human inside that howls to be uncaged. 

Woke Up This Morning..

If you don't invite me on your podcast to talk about 1970's baseball, the fall of the Khmer Rouge, early garage psychedelia and/or my unbridled love of beans, you're canceling me and I will sue you. If you don't have a podcast, I'm sorry, but this is also cancel culture and you will be sued.

You have one hour to respond. 

Waiting For Our Arms to Grow.

I was thinking about how saguaro cactus doesn't begin to grow arms until it is about 75 years old. That's not an exaggeration. 

Seven and a half decades of growth, through tumult and joy, a generation of time. with not much to outwardly show for it until one day, when that transformation begins to take shape.

I was thinking that some of us are less like wild bamboo or other invasive species that grow rapidly and haphazardly overnight.. No, some of us are more akin to saguaros - We need time to find our way, to grow into what we're becoming.

Beautiful things take time. Growth happens in longer seasons. So sometimes, maybe we need to change the way we talk to ourselves while waiting for our arms to grow. 

In A World Of Monsters..

My latest version of self-harm includes watching old episodes of "To Catch A Predator," and feeling triggered and re-traumatized witnessing these disgusting cretins attempting to meet up with children for nefarious purposes. Unfortunately, the darkness doesn't end there. While my brain starts to spiral and I start to feel angry and unsafe watching these evil monsters, I then proceed to actually take the time to look up these heinous individuals while giving some consideration in my head to driving to their place of residence and taking some form of brutal vigilante justice into my own hands. 

I guess what I'm saying is: I probably shouldn't be your life coach. 

Swimming in the Darkness, Searching for the Light..

 Scott Durzo is a Free Man.

And here I am, rotting away on the inside, finding moments of incredible happiness and counting my immeasurable blessings, never short on gratitude. And yet, somehow, still trapped in the darkness; swimming upstream to the places where the light can find its way in.

I'll keep swimming. It's the best I can do. The people I love deserve nothing less.

But..

It's like James Baldwin once said:

"..the earth is always shifting,

the light is always changing,

the sea does not cease to grind down rock.

Generations do not cease to be born,

and we are responsible to them

because we are the only witnesses they have.

The sea rises, the light fails,

lovers cling to each other,

and children cling to us.

The moment we cease to hold each other,

the moment we break faith with one another,

the sea engulfs us and the light goes out."

------

Love has to Win. Somehow. And True Love, in the public sense, is the presence of Justice. What else can it be?

Right?

Reflections On A Strange World..

Twenty-two months of this virus. A strange world, reminiscent of some bizarre science fiction b-movie plot made manifest. It still feels a bit like living through a fever dream.

We just marked the passing of a second Covid Christmas and New Years, with new variants promising an inevitably dark winter, stealing away even more of our mental and physical health and well-being, along with our precious ability to escape, to blow off steam, to adventure, to recalibrate, to press re-set.

Eschewing holiday chaos and travel is not a new notion for someone like myself, but for many, the very definition of home has been radically challenged and often completely re-imagined in these daunting times. That safe place to either hunker down in (or mournfully avoid for some) has been altered, and that can prove to be particularly difficult during the holidays. 

Sometimes, I lose track of time. I know many of us have gone through so much during these past two years; some of us still numb to things, others feeling the wounds fresh still. We've passed 850,000 U.S. deaths; a startling and macabre statistic and a grim reminder, and yet that doesn't stop us from feeling that in-the-marrow impulse to celebrate the holidays, with family, friends, on our own, or observing whatever kind of ritual with whatever tribe makes us feel the closest thing to whatever home is supposed to mean. But the revelry for those of us who have a semblance of compassion and care for the vulnerable is tempered, and I, along with everyone and their cousin, continue to ask: For how long? 

Since the answer to that question is as unknowable as the fog was thick during the January marine layer early this morning, I have to simply plug myself in to what it is that gives me comfort and pleasure, and I sincerely hope that you're able to do the same.

I'm struck today by what relatively little insight I have as I reflect on the last year, because it feels as if so little has changed even though we've experienced a year of joys as well as tragedies. The predictable stuff. I guess the only real understanding I have is that all we can really do in the face of a pandemic, aside from smart, thoughtful, preventative measures that far too many are stull reluctant to take, is to count our blessings, assist others when we can, and focus on the pleasures, both large and small, that being alive gives us. It's good coffee and laughter, it's making playlists and listening to records, and holding on to the love of your family and friends, however you can.

I write this in relatively good health, vaccinated and boosted despite likely battling symptoms of long covid, recognizing my incredible privilege and luck. So, while praying ceaselessly for a light at the end of this tunnel, I'll continue to mask up, I'll limit any socializing, I'll mourn for the bands I'm not seeing and the venues I'm not seeing them in and I'll mourn the toll this virus is taking on all of us. But I'll count my blessings. Every song. Every breath. Every laugh. Every moment.

"Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate." - G.K. Chesterton.

These words I'll cling to in the coming months. Here's hoping 2022 works out better, for all of us.

Salut.