Recently in Conversation Category

Well, it started as a discussion about that certain part of the male hierarchy (and no, it wasn't a discussion about Viagra).  And though it started with that certain reference in mind, the thought was expanded somewhat in the retelling:

"Unless you've actually seen your Supreme Being in the flesh, ALL deity-based religions are like single-parent homes:

1.  There's definitely a parent missing.
2.  There's no noticeable sign of support from that missing parent.
3.  Anytime that missing parent does anything at all, it's a miracle."

I just purchased a printing of Rabindranath Tagore's Gitanjali (with an introduction by W.B. Yeats). It includes the following disclaimer on the title page:

"This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today. Parents might wish to discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and interpersonal relations have changed since this book was written before allowing them to read this classic work."

Wow. Quite a caveat for the reader or monitor for the reader.

Just a couple of things:

First, at no place in this printing does it identify WHEN this book was written, except by coincidence in the Yeats' introduction, which is dated "September 1912". The publishing date says (c) 2008 Wilder Publications, and also reads "First Edition". Really! A 2008 first edition is a product of THIS time. But I know that not to be the case, so what "time" is this book really the product of? And come to think of it, have the views promulgated in this writing REALLY changed all that much, for the majority of people? Probably not.

Second, who is this warning for? What uninformed soul is likely to read this prose poem unawares?

Finally, and perhaps most puzzling, why isn't this disclaimer printed in LARGE, BOLD LETTERS on the title page of the BIBLE?

It seems a far more appropriate warning there, doesn't it?

I don't know if ya'll have seen this, but it disturbs me a little (and so I feel it essential sharing ... LOL).

There's a web-based ad (I saw it on MySpace --- I know, I know for shame, for shame) for some kind of online/continuing education that begins with the question "Are you interested in a career in..." and then shows the same fresh scrubbed blonde who has obviously been paid (because she is smiling) to be photo-shopped into various "uniforms" ...

Criminal Justice -- she looks a bit like Heather Locklear from TJ Hooker here
Education -- she looks prim and proper, and is holding an apple
Business - she's wearing a nice blue suit
Health Care - dressed in scrubs with a stethoscope around her neck
Something Else - just an outline of this poor girl, with no specific picture, and
Liberal Arts - she's smiling and holding a MICROPHONE

Sadly, and maybe it's because she's a young, beautiful blonde, there's no options for Science (or maybe nobody looks good with a pocket protector, microscope or calculator). But that's not my biggest beef.

As you may have guessed, my main problem is with the Liberal Arts choice.

Since WHEN did Liberal Arts mean Entertainment? Like American Idol? Or do they mean, in a twisted sort of Amerikka way that Liberal somehow implies fluff, without substance, just some kind of anti-technology, anti-intellectual, anti-real work sort of existence?

Last time I looked, Liberal Arts included History, Archaeology, Language, Art, Music and a myriad of so-called "soft sciences" like Psychology, Anthropology, Philosophy? Isn't everything that isn't Biology, Chemistry or Physics derivative, or somehow lumped under the business of Business a Liberal Art?

Isn't liberal arts really about THINKING in coordination with some kind of doing, and not about bandying about with a microphone and TALKING (or singing)?

If you judge it based on these kinds of advertisements, apparently not.

What is wrong with this picture? What is wrong with people? What is wrong with education?

NarcissusWorks: The Ghost Anthology:

No, it's not a real poetry collection.

No, I didn't write the one line poem attributed to me.

No, I didn't give my permission for, or seek, inclusion in this farcical volume.

But think about it. If you ARE a living poet and you WERE somehow included, it's probably one of the few, if not the ONLY time in your life that you will be included as a "poet" along with the likes of Rainier Maria Rilke, Walt Whitman, Jack Keroauc or even Ron Silliman.

This freak act of iambic penterrorism, or whatever you want to call it, has by the simple fact of random collection given you, me and everyone else on its table of contents a kind of legitimacy -- the same kind of legitimacy that we now share with 98% of historical figures, that we are referenced in print by yet another source.

In this world of screen names, false accounts, spoofed IP addresses, and other ridiculously easy ways to remain anonymous while spouting damn near anything from a virtual soapbox, maybe that's as "REAL" as it's ever going to get.

And as a parting thought ... think of the MILLIONS of folks who post what they call poetry on their websites, on poetry bulletin boards, anywhere they can get access, that their friends and readership laud with attaboys, right ons and "oh how deeps" ... folks who remind of watching American Idol audition outtakes (if they were for poets, instead) who WEREN'T included on this voluminous list. Why us, instead of them? Perhaps because some of us in this anthology actually ARE poets.

As a pagan, I often overhear pagan conversations where the chief topic of concern is the negative affect that evangelical Christianity has on the "free trade" of alternative religions - its nature to limit, deny, persecute and eradicate viewpoints other than its own.

I wonder, however, if the "power" of the rough 70% majority (in America, that's about how many claim to be "Christians," whether they act accordingly or not) is not greatly overestimated by my pagan colleagues.

Historically speaking, the number one enemy of Christians is usually other Christians (or in the case of the Crusades, which weren't really about religion anyway, other monotheists). The Pilgrims and Puritans who sallied forth and assailed Plymouth Rock with their austere sense of righteousness were running from persecution in Europe and England, where they were being thumb-screwed, hung, burnt and otherwise imperiled by other Christians. The separation of the church and state was originally a way to prevent a Catholic state from persecuting Protestants, or visa versa. Those brave souls (and if they're yours, they start as visionaries and end up martyrs; those on the other side generally begin as heretics and blasphemers and end as capital criminals) who question the status quo of the Christian power structure from within are usually the most likely victims of Christian persecution; there's so much to harvest there (in terms of dissention, dissembling and disavowing) that I don't think at least in recent centuries there's been enough time for them to focus on or bother with non-believers. Sure, every now and again someone will get a Cotton Mathers bee up their bonnet and worry about the devil lurking in strangers. But typically (and ironically) it's much more effective to clamp down on "your own."

Of course, that depends on who you call "your own." Particularly when you've got more churches than congregants (where I live, there may be 300 churches for 17,000 people - on any given Sunday, there are between five and forty cars in 300 different parking lots). To sing, not to sing; musical instruments vs. voices only; women clergy or no; laity preaching; dancing; drinking; wine vs. grape juice; transmigration real or symbolic; Latin vs. local; tithe vs. time; literal vs. figurative; dip vs. dunk; limbo, purgatory, bottomless pit, endless fire, consuming darkness. About the only thing they agree on is barbeque - and then the sauce is different depending on which side of town you're on. Again, from local experience, there's one denomination that has two separate facilities - one for "locals" and another for "foreigners" (i.e., those who were not born and bred in town).

How could this group of divisive, in-fighting, bickering, nit-picking and otherwise non-collective souls agree on anything - at least, once they pass out of the church's threshold and return to their completely isolated and often hypocritical lives?

Pagans: who cares what they think anyway?

"If you want to sing out, sing out." That's what I say.

I know, I know. There's that social pressure. Those potential cross-burnings. That shunning. The losing of the job, etc.

But why would you want to live in a town with that kind of thinking, anyway? Shouldn't you be looking to live among your own kind, like the Christians do? Or do you have the same level of schism with your fellow "pagans"?

I say again - if you believe in what you are, what you do will follow. If that is worth doing, then it doesn't matter who opposes it. Is living in any other way worth living?

Besides, I think it was Dan Rather who said in an interview perhaps 15 years ago that the most important question you will ever have to ask yourself is "what am I willing to die for?" Once you have that answer, the rest is pretty clear. If you're up against anyone in those sacred areas who hasn't asked themselves that question (and given themselves an honest answer), unless that's what they're fully committed to, you will emerge victorious.

Happy Independence Day.

Having just seen (actually for the second time) the made for VH1 movie "Hysteria: The Def Leppard Story" and recently also having watched "Ray" and "The Five Heartbeats" got me thinking about all the movies I'd seen about real or fictitious musicians or singers.

Musical biopics, I suppose they're called in the trade; biographical pictures that because of their subject matter must include a great deal of music.

So I thought I'd put together a list, and over the next few months I'll be updating to add comments and ratings to these flicks as a guide to the newly needing to be inspired musicians on my reading list. Because I've seen most of these movies, over the years, and found them either inspirational, insipid or in some cases, wildly inaccurate about the way being a musician actually works. No matter, the accuracy, however, it seems that the movie-going public has ALWAYS been fascinated by biographies of musicians, whether they would have them in their homes or not.

So here's the list:

Kris Kristofferson has a song called To Beat the Devil. If you haven't listened to the lyrics lately, they're about a recommendation from the devil on the meaninglessness of trying to change the world with your music, and Kris' response to that challenge. The Devil's argument goes like this:

"If you waste your time a-talkin' to the people who don't listen,
"To the things that you are sayin', who do you think's gonna hear.
"And if you should die explainin' how the things that they complain about,
"Are things they could be changin', who do you think's gonna care?"

There were other lonely singers in a world turned deaf and blind,
Who were crucified for what they tried to show.
And their voices have been scattered by the swirling winds of time.
'Cos the truth remains that no-one wants to know.

Well, to be honest with you, I've felt that way a lot. There are definitely times when it seems like nobody's listening, nobody cares what I'm saying, and it wouldn't really matter much if they did.

But I tell you what: that's defeatist thinking. I used to say that in order to change the way people think, you first have to make sure they're thinking. That's a bit of a downer, too. It's a cynic's approach to life. That everything sucks. That there is inevitably a need for either bitter coating on the sugar pills, or sugar coating on the bitter pills. The cynic lives their life believing that human beings, and this must needs include themselves, are intrinsically no damned good. And what, pray tell, is the point of that? Better, I think, to retain at least a little optimism, or at least perserverance and stubborness of purpose, if you can't muster a bit of a smile, so that like Kristofferson, you can say:

And you still can hear me singin' to the people who don't listen,
To the things that I am sayin', prayin' someone's gonna hear.
And I guess I'll die explaining how the things that they complain about,
Are things they could be changin', hopin' someone's gonna care.

I was born a lonely singer, and I'm bound to die the same,
But I've got to feed the hunger in my soul.
And if I never have a nickle, I won't ever die ashamed.
'Cos I don't believe that no-one wants to know.

If we're not supposed to affect the world at all, if we really are just a moment's ripple in the ocean, then what's the frickin' point?

One of the blogs I read pretty regularly is Dave Pollard's How to Save the World. Occasionally, something he writes strikes a particularly resonant chord with me --- like his February 4th gem A Miniature Truth: Becoming Authentically Yourself.

I'll admit, some of these things I've thought and compiled myself over the years. But to see these 9 ideas strung together, in fact, dependent on each other in such a way that in order to accept one as truth, you really have to accept them all, for better or worse, in order to truly understand the implications of each, is a step I'd never taken until reading Dave's post. In summary, these truths are:

1. We do what we must, then we do what's easy, then we do what's fun.

2. Things are the way they are for a reason; if you have any hope to change something, first understand what the reason is.

3. Life's meaning, and an understanding of what needs to be done, emerges, most often, from conversation in community with people you love.

4. Community is born of necessity.

5. To get people to change, first Let Yourself Change, to become a model that shows people personally, one-to-one, a better way to live.

6. You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.

7. Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

8. To be nobody-but-yourself --- in a world that is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else --- means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

9. Our civilization is in its final century.

For more detail, please refer to Dave's blog :)

OK, so as of January 4, I've quit smoking. Roughly a 25-year, 2 pack a day habit and now it's done. No patch. No gum. No Wellbutrin XL (which my better half who also quit needed to help her over the first week). I did have a doozy of a cold, though, which qualifies somewhat as cheating --- since I tend to not smoke whenever I have a fever-cough-chest congestion condition and I get them for a week once or twice a year. This one happened to coincide with the smoking cessation date. So sue me.

I'm hoping that the non-smoking, in combination with voice strengthening exercises from Jaime Vendera, will help me recover what has for the last 8 or 9 years been a slowly increasing loss of range (about an octave and a half lost in that time).

I wonder, however, whether it in fact is the smoking that has been the primary factor, or the lack of use. I also wonder about polyps. My cousin had them and had to have them removed, and I've known several other singers who have suffered the same situation.

---
1 month 5 hours 32 minutes smoke-free
1,254 cigarettes not smoked
$238.26 saved
4 days 8 hours 30 minutes life saved

I've been blogging since fall of 2001.

In that time, I've reformatted my look and feel, changed platforms from Live Journal to Movable Type (then watched as Six Apart bought and merged the two), and experimented with tags, clusters, groups, lists, ratings and advertising. I've Bloggered and Xanga'd and even dipped my toe into Deadjournal. I also ended up with about seven different websites, because it seemed like all the services I needed or wanted [read: all the ways I wanted to be found] were not available in one place, and were not really compatible with each other (i.e., one site had groups and photos, but you couldn't substitute a different blog or synchronize multiple blogs, another site had great networking but poor editing, another had horrible layout and formatting options, but cool calendars, etc.). Two websites, four blogs, MP3 hosting, musicians classifieds listings, MySpace, Launchcast, Pandora. And more, even. As Bugs Bunny once quipped, "the mind boggleth."

One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things. - Henry Miller, US author (1891-1980)

My house says to me, "do not leave me, for here dwells your past." And the road says to me, "Come and follow me, for I am your future." And I say to both my house and the road, "I have no past, nor have I a future. If I stay here, there is a going in my staying; and if I go there is a staying in my going. Only love and death change all things." - Kahlil Gibran

So rather than slip even further from the ridiculous to the sublime, this year I've decided to undo some of this deliberate schizophrenia. Rather than try to do everything online, I've decided to simplify. Apply the principle of Occam's razor, so to speak, wherein the simplest approach is more than likely the correct one.

It seems too easy. But it also seems like a vacation I need to take; a landmark I need to visit.

Each time you draw a straight line in the sand --- or as Kabir says, "when you put one foot in front of the other" --- you have defined a course of action, a new direction that leads to an unknown realm, a future where there is no map. Krishnamurti said it was a pathless land, this place where truth waits, longing only to be discovered. The safety of a dwelling place, its warm familiarity, can lull to sleep but yet never fully anesthetize the wanderlust of the wild, searching soul, which beckons us to dare beyond the stoop and forge a fresh road into tomorrow. -- from On Journeys and Destinations, John Litzenberg (2003)

So here goes nothing. Again.