11/11: Make a Wish
Happy Birthday Kurt Vonnegut jr.!
If you haven’t already, you should check out American author Kurt Vonnegut. Some books (he writes novels) of his I like better than others, but I think that all of them are worth reading. Funny, insightful, beautiful…I have literally laughed out (funny how you have to now specify if you actually laugh out loud when you say lol ) loud, and cried, and cheered for joy while reading his books over the years. I actually just read his shortest book a couple of weeks ago, “God Bless You Doctor Kevorkian.” A perfect little book! You could read it in a half hour, and take away so much, including Vonnegut’s basic philosophy. If you haven’t read KV before it’s a nice easy place to start. If you have read him before, it’s classic KV, and if it’s been awhile, like it was for me, since you have read him, this book will bring you write back to a warm and beautiful head space. Sweet and beautiful and sorrowful all at once.
At the end of the preface to “G.B.Y.D Kevorkian”, by a different author, is a Vonnegut quote- so it’s technically Vonnegut’s first line of the book. It’s a quote from one of his other books, anyway this is it:
“A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.”
After this very first line I started crying and didn’t stop until after the book was finished.
-i never weep! I wasn’t crying!
Happy Birthday Fyodor Dostoyevsky !! My favorite Russian novelist, and regardless of what Tolstoy and Nabokov think, I consider him one of the best novel writers (Fuck you Nabokov ‘Lolita’ sucked ass you idiot!…Tolstoy you’re cool). Won’t spend too much time here explaining why his books rock, but they are big, and beautiful novels with characters so complex, and real, covering so many issues that come up with living a human existence. Really, really beautiful stuff.
I once asked a Russian woman I worked with if they had giant statues of Dostoyevsky in Russia and she just looked at me with the stink eye and said:
“Dostoyevsky….?
No.
Maybe Tolstoy, but Dostoyevsky……?
No.”
We were never friends again.
I once had a dream, while I was reading “The Brothers Karamazov,” that I WAS Dostoyevsky in a former life and I was terrified, because no matter how much I wrote, how many words, how many books, I was still going to die.
I’m still afraid of death.
November 11th is also Armistice Day or Veteran’s Day.
Now, history didn’t do much for me as a subject in my youth because I didn’t see the point. Unfortunately, most of my young education was nonexistent because I refused to learn anything that was already known. I figured, if this is already as it is, then there is no point in me learning it. I want to discover new things. I want to learn the unknown. So I didn’t learn much from K-12. I didn’t learn spelling, or history or math, because people already knew the answers so I needn’t bother. It was that, and that when people would try and teach me, for some reason I just didn’t understand what they were saying, or how to respond. This second problem has gotten a lot better but sometimes I still really struggle with it, that gulf that exists between people. What are you trying to get from your head to mine? I have only been able to learn things on my own terms, and then, once captured it is almost photographic. But if I don’t learn it the first time, in my own way, it’s like pulling teeth/ I never learn.
I never learn.
He never learned.
I didn’t.
Anyway back to history. History, to me always seemed like ancient history. Like it was too far away to be important. For instance, when we learned about the Civil Rights Movement, Slavery,the Native American genocide,World War 2; they were interpreted by me as ancient history. That is, as things far gone that no one believes in or would ever do again…ut oh… HA! So yeah this was until pretty recently, I was living in this bubble ( what are you talking about no one is still racist! no one is still homophobic! No body wants war! What are you talking about? That’s old hat, we are way beyond that!). Anyway, I couldn’t figure out why we as a species are struggling and lagging and not colonizing space etc. blah, and then I realized, Oh! All THIS SHIT just happened! and is still happening, and racism isn’t a thing of the past for everyone, and violence isn’t a thing of the past for everyone, and GENOCIDE, isn’t a thing of the past etc. So here I found a website, and I don’t know that accuracy, but it lists “All the wars of the past 100 years and the estimated casualties ” here you go:
http://www.war-memorial.net/wars_all.asp
Jesus, happy Veterans Day CHRIST! No wonder we aren’t in space yet, look at all the bullshit we have been up to! What the fuck!? And this is recent history! Last 100 year shit! What the heck man!
And I wish I would have known about this sooner, but I spent most of my school time fantasizing about things like:
The classroom is divided into two halves that are water tight. One half of the room is filled 3 feet high with Chicken Lemon Rice Soup from Kerby’s Coney Island. The other half is filled with ice cold Coca Cola and I am just eating and drinking the shit out of both of them.
This was an actually recurring day dream of mine! (i’m so STUPID!)
Here was my young education in a nutshell:
Grade school: Daydreaming, being sad, running around on the playground repeating to myself, “My name is Forrest Gump, people call me Forrest Gump” by myself because my best friend changed schools after second grade, getting bad grades, getting in trouble, being worried about having cold sores (from kindergarden on) getting cold sores, and trying to explain what they were, not combing my hair, tucking in my shirt, wearing a belt, always sweating. ( was also the fastest kid in my grade- all that practice running around doing the Forrest Gump thing, and secretly the strongest – beat up B.Banks(fake name for privacy), the biggest boy on the playground, in self defense…really, really tried to avoid it, but he wouldn’t let it go, so i whipped him good, then I got in trouble! WTF!?))
6-8th grade was more of the above plus, looking at girls legs ( Catholic school they had those skirts on) and trying to loose my erection before class,(while being taught the punishment for sexuality was eternal damnation) ended and I would have to stand up. At this point other kids learned that “cold sores” were a form of herpes. So I had herpes on my mouth, great. More daydreaming, please.
“History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake” -Joyce
But I was trying to awake from it before acknowledging it. Before seeing just how we got here, which is important. When teaching kids history, they should start with last week and go back from there, so you can see just how close it is ( and this is a really good exercise to do with your own life too, to see where you’re at how far you’ve come , what you still need to work on). -Oh shit that was only 5, 10, 50 years ago! This is still affecting us! No wonder we aren’t exploring space, there has been some war, some conflict, somewhere in the world every minute of every day for the last 10,000 years or more!…But I do think( here comes the optimist) we are getting better, and are moving forward slowly. It’s hard to think about space colonies when you are afraid of terrorists or Americans or Europeans or Russians or Asians etc. busting in your home and murdering your family. On that Maslow hierarchy of needs or whatever, most people in the world, most of the time, currently, are still fighting for survival. This bullshit blog, my whole life really, is a luxury. I know where my next meal is coming from. It’s coming from Taco Bell.
11/13 Cold Dead Fish
November (Scorpio) in Kabbalah, is associated with the 13th Tarot Card, ‘Death’ and the letter Nun, which means ‘fish.’
I’m still afraid of death. I want to live forever. I really do. I want to see what happens! I want to stay for the end of the movie! I want to see where we are in 500 years, 1000 years 100,000 years etc. I want to travel the universe. I want to meet aliens! I want to see how humans will get out of all these weird pickles they have created! I want to stay! I want to stay! I want to live on every continent and learn every language. I want to be silent in the forrest. I want to write toaist poems on mountain face. I want to live forever, and I want to do everything! I don’t want to hurt anyone. I don’t want power. I don’t want to play politics, or riches or 1,000 concubines, but I want to live forever. And see how it aaaaaaaall plays out.
When I meditate, or am in nature, or making love I am not afraid of death. I don’t care. It seems peaceful. It seems beautiful and natural and I know I will never die anyway because I am the universe( and more) and there is no death there is just transitions and flow….(in this scientific sense reincarnation is verifiably true that is: The pizza you eat, is the ‘pepperoni’ you release)
but what about all the books I read?! What about my cigarets?! My guitar!? What about the fucking Good Luck Twins?! Can’t I take it with me!? I swear to f-in G if I don’t get my lover back after I die I’m gunna be real, PISSED! I don’t want to turn into cosmic fucking soup if I have to leave behind my habits! My joys! O!
And why all this death talk? November, November, november! Death! fuggin smell it in the ugly november air! Ugh Death! Jesus, I woke up from a nap thinking about my dad dying, and I’ll explain in just a moment, but I come down stairs for a smoke on the back porch, and my dad had put in a new light bulb, LED or whatever, that casts an ugly, sterile light. And I go inside to the room that my dad has never left since I have been alive and he says, ” I changed the bulb.” and I say oh yeah, thank you ( I don’t say it looks ugly, I just say thank you for doing that, because I really don’t give a shit that the light is ugly, it’s just a change and I just awoke from a dream about my dad dying and I don’t want anything funny or out of the ordinary, it’s the change that has affronted my eyes, and he did it out of kindness anyway and I know that) and my dad says, “yeah it’s ugly (reading my mind, or similar taste in light shades in smoking rooms apple doesn’t fall far from) but I might be able to find a better one.” “Is it because it’s one of those special lights …EL EE DEE (I said it like a noob- no practical skills, no practical sense)?” “No, I can find a different shade, but still LED…those LED’s Tom, you know they last for some 22 years? That bulb will be around here long after me!”
WHAT?! Don’t say that!
“What? I don’t want to be around 22 more years, hell, 82 ? Ha ha ah. I don’t want to be an old (now making weird old man voice) ger ger ger (smiling old man impression face) no Tom. Not for me.”
“No! F- that dad don’t say that! I’m never gunna die!”
“aaah-ok-tom (in one playful swoop of breath)”
“I’m not gunna die. I’m going up to my room to practice my spanish.”
“Ok, Tom. There’s hockey on later. You want dinner?”
“NO.”
“you want me ta make tuna casserole? Mom won’t be home till later”
“……(brooding silence)…..’
“you want tuna casserole Tom?”
“yes.”
“Ok boss, come on down if you want to watch the game.”
– storms off muttering I’ll never die i’ll never die ill never die-
But back to the dream feelings, I’m so afraid of my dad dying. More than anyone else? Why? What is it about my dad specifically? It’s that in some way my dad never changes.
I have seen my mom grow so much over the years. She’s always trying new things. She started playing soccer at 40, then she’s into cycling, scrapbooking, silent prayer retreats, going out with her couple of girlfriends, she started working full time again just ten years ago, worked her self up from being so scared to go back to the workforce after being a stay at home mom for so long to being a manager there in her lab. A respected professional. Hell, she’s even got into fantasy football! Probably never watched a full game in her life. She’s always changing and growing.
And my brothers. Seeing my older brother, my childhood hero go from straight A, clean cut, like really the perfect child from head to toe, to wild-man, unabashed, traveling the country Hippie-type, and now a hardworking self-made family man. And one of my younger brothers, growing up with him and watching him grow, and after talking with him just last week, I went home and there was just something about my brother, something so beautiful, there was a shift, and as I was falling asleep it hit me, holy shit, he is a MAN, now. My younger brother has grown into a MAN! And I couldn’t be more proud of him. And he is courageous and he is his own man. And this notice of change is most pronounced in my youngest brother. Because of our age difference, I can remember his whole life, and it is just such a trip to go back in my memory to all the different ways he looked, as a baby and boy and pre teen and teen and now 21. And we have always been just super close, and the other day I was driving and I thought about him when he was a boy, and all these memories of him, and I thought of this email name he had when he was a boy, and it was ” toad in the rain.” And I cried because he is just this little toad in the rain! and what a beautiful, beautiful name to choose! and what a little saint! a little toad! Not hurting anybody. Just a toad in the rain. And how beautiful and sad that he has to grow up, sad because that toad is just the memory of who he was, but beautiful because now too he is becoming a man, and what a beautiful person, what a beautiful and gentle and wise man he is becoming! And it can be heartbreaking to let go of that toad!! But you can,you have to, because he, you know, he evolved from tadpole to toad to teen and now he is turning into a Man and it’s beautiful! And it’s bearable because all these transitions come in increments,not all at once, not tadpole to old man, but the gradual unfurling of a beautiful life…
but my DAD! He has never changed. I only know he has aged (he doesn’t actually age) because of pictures, because he must, because the earth turns and revolves, because time is fluid and flowing. But he is always there, in this one room of the house we have always lived in. He is the foundation of the house. So long as he lives the house lives. The house rests on his shoulders in that chair in that room, cigaret and all! The smoke holds up the house! And I have never seen him loose his cool. Never start a fight, never curse a waitress, never cut in line, never sick, never takes a day off, never needs to sleep unless he wants, never needs to move, never needs to pee, Never cry. So gentle, so kind, unmoving. My model for an all loving, but distant or aloof god. A god that just sits there peacefully smoking, says I love you but lets you go about your business completely unencumbered, the unmoved mover, the provider, the giant, the pillar, the statue, the totem, the whale, the calm center of our family, of our lives- everything’s going to be alright Tom, always with the everything going to be alright Tom, with every goddamn breakdown and break up and low downs and high ups, it’s ok Tom -so somehow my notion of a stable reality is tied up in this man, this unchangeable man. Everyone changes, but dad doesn’t change and death is a BIG change, THE BIG CHANGE as far as we know and how can my dad do that? How can he? What will happen to this house? What will happen to my reality? To me? Who will fill that role? What happens when the sky falls down? roof caves in? Indiana Jones. Chicago. Michael Jordan.Dad. Friends and lovers change and grow and leave you and come back and you take jobs and leave em and loose them and get a new hair doo and I- Chicago chicago chucagga
Death is scary, in some ways, because it’s a big change. The big unknown. But all change can be scary. all change -but that tadpole, it’s gotta grow or it can never be a toad, and if it’s not a toad it can’t be a toad in the rain, and so you gotta go, you have to keep going, even if the only other place to go, the very end of the road, even if death is the last place to go and it’s too dark to see the road you gotta go. you gotta go… and hope for the best.
What’s Next?: Snake? Scorpion? Eagle?…Pizza?
Well I keep telling you I ain’t dying….but –
I don’t believe in Hell. Period.
If there is purgatory, we might already be there, and if we aren’t yet, it shouldn’t be too different than this. Little bit of heaven, little bit of hell. Lot of neutral time. Plenty of dick jokes, and butt jokes, and fart jokes and hopefully they got wifi….i guess if they didn’t have wifi it would be hell.
Heaven? Being with your loved ones in complete happiness forever. Lots of cute animals running around. The oceans and mountains and forests all in one landscape. The Good Luck Twins playing a sold out show with the Beatles as their backing band, and Ringo isn’t allowed to play drums, but has to watch from the forrest. fucking Danny Carey is on drums.
Reincarnation? Sure why not. Like I said, I want to know how things are going to unfold here on earth! Sigh…gunna have to read all those fucking books again…and the thought of surving another childhood/ adolesense….maybe I can come back as an adult. Or A breeze. Or a mountain.
Posthumous: Don’t want to live for fame or a cheap legacy. Just want to do the best I can while I’m here. Don’t have any hopes that in 100 years someone will read this blog, or find my songs…I do these things for the process. For the beauty of just doing them.
Maybe what your ex girlfriends say about you will be how you will be remembered in general…i mean after they have had time to cool off a bit, Or if not in general, maybe they will be the most honest things said about you (after the cool off).
“He slept alot.”
“He’s sooo weeeeeiiird”
“He was good at two things: talking about big, pretty ideas, and fucking.”
“He was crazy.”
“Nice bod, I don’t know about the brain though.”
“He was incapable of opening himself up, emotionally, to anyone. He hurt people for years, and he is unable to love. I’m only warning you.”
“His Mind!”
“He was fucking. crazy.”
“He jerked off waaaaaay too much. Nice guy though.”
“Dick.”
“He was smart enough to know that he wasn’t smarter than anyone else, he was just maladjusted.”
“I just love you so much.”
I hope it’s about love. He tried his best. He was often wrong as fuk!, and when he was he was truly sorry. Really. Overall, he tried to be a loving, and kind person. He loved other people, in the best way that he could.
and since its Vonnegut’s birthday( or was at the start of this) we’ll end with this:
-I’m still never gunna die!-
! las reglas no son para nosotros!