Republeo and Demjuliet (Prologue)

William Sheepsheer hath undertaken a new play,

which will be performed by us from day to day.

Nowadays as we shelter, bumps on a Covid log, 

Cousin Will presents his play’s prologue:

Two polarities, both alike in indignity,

in fierce America, where we destroy our dream,

From political grudge erupteth Covid enmity,

Where pandemic vitriol renders sanitized hands unclean.

From forth the Covided  extremes of these two politicos

A host of vilifying fanatics whip up their rhetorical strife;

Thus do these locked-down, distanced foes

With their hostility destroy our national life.

The fearful spreading of this dread contagion

As the fierce infection of these factions’ rage, 

Which, made more lethal by our polarized ragin’

Is now the two months’ traffic of our national stage. 

And yet, if we with moderation could attend,

What the politicos do screw up—we shall strive to mend.

Our play will be acted by yon citizens in the land of the free;

It appears to be a tragedy, but needeth not to be.

To be or not to be—that is the question:

Whether ’tis nobler in our nation to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous politics,

Or to wear masks against a mist of Covid,

and by cooperating end it.

Glass Chimera

I hear America flinging

I hear America flinging
challenges of COVID dare;



I see America stringing up a net of Covid care.
I feel America wailing, with going-viral fear:
Pleas from nurses, sending out the call for protective gear,
Journalists following every viral report they hear
Doctors attacking the dreaded virus’ lethal spread
Families mourning for—and remembering— their dead
Health Officials call forth our care-giver legions
Media transmit the message to far/near regions
Friends fling phoning nets of loving, living care
Brave RNs march into the battle as they dare
Administrators send out urgent staffing calls
  flinging open clinic doors in crowded hospital halls
Governors rush out urgent calls for public health protection
Reporters fuel the urgency of that damned fast-spread infection
Every citizen who inhabits regions far and near
   gets affected with this dreadful viral fear.
As pleadings sound forth to maintain some social distance,
you could save a life—maybe your own!—in every social instance.
Hey you! Ask not what the world can do for you, in this anti-covid call;
Ask what, together, we can do for protection of us all.

(with appreciation for inspiration from Walt Whitman and John Fitzgerald Kennedy)
Glass half-Full

The Mystery of Mastery

Are you angry? Why? , , , and why is your attitude down?

If you do well, won’t your attitude be lifted?  But if you don’t do well, despair is crouching at your door.

But you must master it.

Choose discouragement, or improvement. Which will it be?

You have freedom to choose, you know.

Learn how to use that freedom. Master it.

Life brings good things to us, but life also throws some bad stuff at us along the way.

When life is a walk in the park . . . well, that’s great. Enjoy it. Make the best of it. From that favorable circumstance, move forward by taking measures to strengthen the stability that comes from that advantage.

But when the bad stuff again plops itself down in your garden path, what then? What you gonna do about it?

Don’t let it get you down. Although failure is lurking in your path, overcome it. Defeat defeat. Take mastery over discouragement.

Understand and accept that Life is going to drum up a certain amount of setbacks. Trouble comes with the territory in this life.

But you must master it.

Choose to master life; it will take awhile, maybe a whole lifetime.

We do have this choice, you know.

The ability to choose our own attitude, and thus set our own course—this is what we call freedom.

Freedom—you must master it.

We are free to choose where we go from here.

You are free to choose which way you will turn when that inevitable obstacle suddenly blocks your road to wherever it is you are going.

When the big one hits and throws you into a tailspin, will you wallow in your own discouragement?

Or will you master it?

Life itself was created for you, with this choice built into it.

But there is a good purpose for that challenge.

Having that choice is called freedom. Make use of the freedom. Master it.

Sometimes freedom is a pain in the ass, but Life would be a drag without it.

While you’re out there discovering life, you will surely run into some counter-productive influences . . . for instance, the idea of determinism.

Determinism is when some person or group wants to convince you that the obstacles in your path will surely defeat you, because the System is stacked against you.

The current strategy of the Determinism crowd says, for instance, Capitalism is against you . . . it cannot work for you.

But hey! . . . not if you master it. Take hold of any good opportunity to move forward.

Capitalism is what you—or perhaps your great great grandparents— entered into when they stepped off the boat, into America. Capitalism, with all its perils and pitfalls, is part of the territory here.

Master it.

You  can put capitalism to work for you, instead of against you.

The Determinism idea says that capitalism is nothing more than all those rich people and corporation manipulators who are perpetually stacking the deck against you.

But hey, that’s only a part of what capitalism is. Along with those unfavorable elements, capitalism includes also your freedom to choose something different, if what you presently are doing is not working for you and yours.

You must master it. That's your end of the deal.

In America, you would do well to master capitalism. Make it work for you. Work?

Work—yes, that’s important. Capitalism doesn’t properly function without it: work.

Can’t find work?

Make your own work. Find something to do. Find something that needs to be done and do it. Present your bill to whomever is benefitted by your work. Even if you’re collecting unemployment or disability benefits or whatever, find something helpful to do. You'll find yourself feeling better.

While the System is, yes Virginia, in some ways stacked against you, do not accept the negative assessment that there is no way around the obstacles.

Obstacles are standing outside your door. You must master them.

Obstructions are just around the bend. Master them.

If you don’t master them, who will?

Big Brother? The Fairy Queen?

Capitalism includes  your freedom to adjust your own attitude, and strategy, to get around, over or under whatever the System throws at you.

Master it. Learn when to work with it and, when to work against it.

It is true that working with the System is not always the best thing to do.

So this is also true: sometimes you will indeed have to work against the System, running against the wind, swimming against the tide.

That does not mean you allow the mob to convince you that the system is hopeless and the only way around it is to stir up trouble and destroy the System. There has, in the history of the world, always been them Powers that Be working against them that need to carve a new way out of the wilderness.

Knowing at any given time whether to work with the system or against it—this is called Wisdom.

You must master it. You must learn to use wisdom; cultivate it.

Wisdom is key to mastery in this life, but it doesn’t come easy.

Wisdom only comes through encountering both adversity and success.

So understand that adversity is part of the program for your obtaining mastery.

When you are at the crossroads of adversity and success, don’t cultivate discouragement; don’t malinger in bad attitude.

And don’t be hoodooed by  that Determinism that's out there and wants to incite the rabble to riot. Don't go there.

Determinism is when some person or group convinces you that the obstacles in your path will surely defeat you, because the System is stacked against you.

Determinism says the outcome of your life has already been determined by an exploitive Capitalist System. 

Determinism wants to convince you that you cannot muster the power to master your own destiny.

Determinism says, for instance,  you’re not making enough money to make a living, and you never will.

It is true, yes,  that  making more money could improve your situation.

But that’s not the whole enchilada.

Master the money thing: when you get some, make it work for you; don’t fritter it away. Put your money to work. Don’t let the Determinism crowd convince you that it’s all about money. Life is not all about money.

Life is all about what you do with life.

Determinism also  says you cannot improve yourself through discipline and study, and work.

Determinism says the only way you can outwit the system is to yield to the trending decadence and anarchy that perpetually wants to destabilize you and everybody else.

But don’t let it take control of you. Take control of it.

Master it.

Master life, and you will do well.

Don’t raise cain. Instead, make yourself able.

Learn to make some sacrifices.

And thank God.

Glass half-Full

Cornucopia Time!

Well I’m glad those Native Americans taught the Pilgrims how to plant corn, aren’t you?

Back in the day, it was. . . 1620 or so.

Those Pilgrims had found themselves in a tight spot over in Europe. The hyper-institutionalized Church—both the Roman version and the Brit version—had become too high and mighty for its own good. So those Puritans, looking for a purer manifestation of the Old Time Religion, pulled up stakes and lit out for the New World.

When they got here, it was a whole new ball game; they didn’t have all that advanced Euro culture and tech to make life manageable as it had been back in the Old World.

So, thank God for Them Injuns, huh?!

Squanto, or Squatcho or Pocahontas, Sacajawea—or whoever Injun it was—demonstrated for the clueless Pilgrims how to grow corn, as you see in the pic here:

Well by ’n by, as it turned out, those Pilgrims made it through, with a little help from their friends, new friends. They managed to hang on, get through a few winters and all that adversity we hear about at Turkey Day, if we’re not too busy watching football or gearing up for the black friday ritual dance.

Anyway, after those Pilgrims squeaked through, and word got back to the old country, there were other groups of emigrants who headed west for America. And for all kinds of reasons. . . religious, economic, etcetera etcetera, and just to feel free in an undeveloped continent that wasn’t so crowded and constricted with religious and political authoritarian blahblah.

In fact, the buzz about the New World got so widespread that after a century or two it went viral. Next thing you know there’s everybody and their brother piling on ships to go west young man and get the hell out of dodge and make it over here where a man could breathe free and a woman could too.

Long about 1886 or so, those crazy French sent the Statue of Liberty over here, because they were so caught up in the idea of freedom, and they knew we had done a better job of making liberty really happen, see’n as how we didn’t have all that ancient class system and religious institutional inertia to obstruct our westward quest for freedom and liberty.

Gosh, France!   Thanks for that statue, y’all.

Couldn’t a done it without you.

Anyway, long about the time that Lady Liberty showed up in New York harbor—that was pretty much the most intense period for folks get’n fed up with the Old World and strikin’ out for the New.

Crazy! Leavin’ it all behind and coming over here. Unbelievable. That took some balls, y'all! Or some gumption, or chutzpah, or hutzpah or  courage, or just down-right down-n-out desperation.

Anyway, they did.  They came. They forsook the Old in search of the New. So many of those Europeans and other, Africans, Asians, etcetera etcetera caught a whiff of the Liberty that was blowin’ in the wind across the wide world and so many of ‘em just chucked it all—all the the old stuff—and threw it in a rucksack or whatever and headed for the land of the free and home of the brave.

Like I said before, it went viral. And about the time that Lady Liberty got her spot in New York Harbor—that was the most intense time for folks coming this way.

And they just kept coming, and coming, and coming. . .

Brutha Neil wrote a song about it, y’all:

     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRTHdC7k4uY

And they’re still coming! God bless  ‘em! Coming to America!

Nowadays, some Americans who got their britches on too tight are trying to put a stop to all the folks who wanna get in on the greatness of America (Again).

They need to stop and wonder: what if your great great great great grampa and granma had’t gotten in back in the day?

Where would you be now?

Probably bobbin’ along on a rubber dingy somewhere between Lesvos and Athens, or between Belfast and Boston, or between Havana and Miami, or between San Salvador and San Isidro, or between Bangladesh and Bangor, or somewhere between a rock and a hard place.

And if your politics doesn’t allow for the extension of American liberty unto them newbies and immigrants, maybe you should adjust your politics, so you don’t feel so high and mighty about what all you got, but rather—renew the vision for what this America is all about—the land of the free and home of the brave.

Free enough to let that Freedom be extended, and brave enough to not be all paranoid about the new immigrants.

This may seem kinda naive and corny to you. But let’s not forget this is the last Thursday in November, Thanksgiving.

Cornucopia Time! There's plenty enough for everybody!  Spread it around.  As Brutha Paul sang it:            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlfW62c2nIQ

 

King of Soul

Czech out the New World!

Antonin Dvorak was born in the Czech region of Europe in 1841. His life path brought the gifted musician through a trailblazing role as a composer of bold, new symphonic music at the Prague Conservatory,

In 1892, Antonin chose, like many other adventurous Europeans of that age, to travel to  the land of wide open spaces and wide open opportunity—America.

Although his residence here was for only for a few years, that was enough time for the inspired Czech to catch hold of the American Dream; by skillful composition, he enunciated that dream in one of the most American-spirited pieces of music ever performed.

The symphony he composed here—his 9th—became known as the “New World.”

This transplanted Czech’s musical  gifting had propelled him to a podium of international renown, so the National Conservatory of Music of America recruited Dvorak as their Director. When Antonin left Europe in 1892, he was bound for the big apple— New York City, USA. 

During that New World phase of his life’s journey, Antonin extended his westward adventure far beyond our Atlantic coast, into the very heartland of the frontier experience. In an Iowa community of transplanted Czechs, Antonin dwelt comfortably for a season with his countrymen.

That trip from New York out to our heartland and back must certainly have been a life-changing experience for the alert musician; the orchestral  piece he dreamed up— and then committed to musical score in New York in 1893— generates vivid images in my imagination. Whenever I listen to the New World Symphony, my mind fills up with excitement about the urgency and resourcefulness of our vast continent-wide expansion, which began in the farthest regions of an Old World and culminated in a New. 

A recent New York Philharmonic performance of Dvorak’s New World Symphony, under the masterful hand of Alan Gilbert, presents a tender, and yet impetuous, rendering of the piece. An energetic portrayal of what Antonin had in mind when he composed his New World masterpiece.

Hearing this symphony summons adventures of travel in my imagination.

Embarking on a great adventure: this, it seems to me, is the theme of Dvorak’s  musical odyssey. In the early passages, I catch glimpses of a virtuoso voyage across the rolling Atlantic Ocean. . .

with the wind in my face and a sensation of sailing steadily toward some new venue of opportunities and bright horizons.

The bouncy flutes and piccolos set this course for my imagining.

Sailing onward through Dvorak’s audible vision, I hear a finely-honed orchestra moving melodically westward, inducing a sense of fair wind favorable terrain . . . past the Statue of Liberty, then disembarking in a bustling 19th-century New York port, negotiating the busy streets, through a dynamo of enterprising business and yankee industry, then rolling farther along, out of the city and into the countryside . . . moments of repose along the way . . . through coastal commerce past planted fields o’er dusty roads,  riding into green Appalachian hills,

over blue mountain ridges, catching a locomotive in Cincinnati, steaming past the fruited plains and barreling along across vast, wind-swept prairies:

The New World!

Along with the rhythmic locomotive journey through verdant landscapes, Dvorak’s bold, loud use of the trombones and trumpets provokes urgency, tension, danger at points along the way—then periodic resolvings through the ministry of exquisitely tender woodwinds—mellow oboes,

resonant clarinets—and the declarative legato of French horns, backed up, sometimes boisterously, sometimes gently, with those ever-present violins and violas.

And low thumping bassos that stand as tall and deep as elms in the great American landscape.

These flights of fancy then deliver us into thankful moments of contemplation, yeah, even reverence for a Providential presence, accompanied by fluted tremelos, and blown deeper into the traveler’s soul by the vibrant contemplation of oboes, with resonant clarinets and mellowing horns. Excitement decrescendoes past repose, into full  contemplation, with the ultimate reward: wonder. 

And by ’n by, sudden stirrings of urgency—yea, even danger and warning—from the bells of the trumpets and trombones, because that is the real world.

Always back to the real world. That’s the American way.

The real world of conclusion. A good thing can’t go on forever; it has to end at some point.

Oh, what a strong, bold brassy conclusion from our trombones and trumpets!

A great piece of Music!

But maybe you’d have to be there to catch my vision of it.

Or, maybe not. Next best thing:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HClX2s8A9IE

 

Glass Chimera

We Wanderers

For a very long time, people have been wandering through our world.

Many choose the rootless lifestyle because wandering makes them feel free. Others crave adventure, or exotic experience. Some launch out in search of new opportunities, greener pastures, richer soil, more money and less trouble, or better jobs. Or maybe just wide open spaces instead of crowded hovels.

Pilgrims wander in search of the sacred; saints strive for holiness; sinners search for sin,  seekers seeking yang or yin.

Immigrants flee political oppression; maybe they’re escaping persecution, evading execution,  or fleeing war-torn areas.

Refugees are all over the globe, frequently concentrated at certain infamous borders. We see pictures of them with trouble in their faces and children on their backs.

In earlier ages of our world development, populations were concentrated in old world cities and settlements. By ’n by, through exploration new world continents were discovered. Immigrants began streaming to the open lands. They spilled across borders, through forests, across streams, over mountains. We congregate along coasts.

Only two centuries ago, the North and South American continents were wide open spaces, as compared to the Old World. While our undeveloped wide open spaces were  being populated, millions of immigrating travelers streamed in through the ports; they trundled through the coastlands, trudged across vast prairies, navigated the swift rivers, slogged over steep mountains.

But eventually those wide open spaces filled up with settlers. From virgin countryside, the New World sprouted millions of farms, foundries, factories, and modernizing facilities fulfilling functions about which our forebears held absolutely no understanding. All along those rising watchtowers and MainStreet thoroughfares  towns sprung up;  cities burgeoned into metropoli, and before you knew it America was as crowded as the old country.

When the Irish and the Italians, and all them other Europeans, Africans, Germans, Asians and Aegeans crowded in, New York and Boston and Philly and all them other cities became crowded, almost like the Old Country had been.

Americans worked hard and prospered. We got rich. Agriculture was flowing; industries were growing, stores and businesses were showing so many services and goods. Everybody’s fat n’ happy, pleasing mom ’n pappy; wages high; expenses low, keepin’ up with them Joneses just for show. And we built ourselves quite a nice little nation which later became, after a couple of world wars, a beacon of liberty in the eyes of the world.

  

Well that was then and this is now.

After 9/11, seems like everything changed, and not for the better. Instead of grace and generosity, we seem to have slid into a descent toward selfishness and paranoia.

And I can understand that.There are, after all, bad people in the world, and terrorists and self-righteous fanatics who are willing to destroy the world in order to save it. And yes, we do have to form a humane strategy for protecting our citizens from war and destruction. Let's not forget, however, that America is the land of the free and the home of the brave. We need not slip further into xenophobia than we already have.

As our British brothers and sisters had earlier discovered, running an empire is no walk in the park.

Now what used to be the great American experiment seems to be slipping into a world gone mad.

Sad.

As I was pickin’ around with some tunes recently, I remembered an old song from back in the day that pertains to these matters, as conditions had existed in the earlier times, when everything was different and the continent we absconded from the natives was still wide open with what we thought was freedom and possibility.

I stumbled across a tune from rhymin’ Simon. The song moved me deeply, so I thought I’d toss it out there for you to hear and ponder. I hope Paul doesn’t mind, especially since he himself borrowed part of the tune from an old Christian hymn.

  Paul’s American Tune

And here’s another old tune from back in the day, which I think Woody or Pete had something to do with.

  Wayfarin’ Stranger

As you listen, I wish you to be warm and well-fed, which is what most folks in this world are searching for, at least until they manage to become fat ’n happy.

King of Soul

If Synthesis is not a fairy tale . . .

In 1971, Don McLean released a great tribute song about the tragic plane-crash death of early rock-n-roller Buddy Holly.

In the musical tapestry-tale that McLean weaves for us, he laments the loss of Buddy Holly’s influence, which had been to musicate an appreciation for the boy-girl melodrama as it was being lived-out and expressed during that early 1950’s phase of rock-n-roll.

Bye, bye Miss American Pie is a long ballad, with many verses.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NygEEH4jkho

An early verse in the song registers a commentary, allegorically, on some later rock influences that seem regrettable, or even destructive and decadent.

Consider the verse:

“And while Lenin read a book on Marx,

a quartet practiced in the park;

and we sang dirges in the dark

the day the music died.”

The “quartet” that practices in the park is, I believe, an indirect reference to the Beatles, and their huge impact on pop music during that time—the late ‘60s. The singing of “dirges” seems to mourn the loss of an earlier, more innocent, emphasis in rock music. A classic budding (Buddy) love-song celebration  between boy and girl was being cast aside by the foursome from Liverpool.  Along with many other rock groups of that time, they were collectively driving pop music toward a psychedelic netherland of chaotic social consciousness.

And so, while my present downloaded Miss American Pie copy of the lyrics contains the line “And while Lenin  read a book on Marx, a quartet practiced in the park,” my aging baby boomer mind notices what seems to be McLean’s play on words here. . . and I hear the line in my mind as:

“And while Lennon read a book on Marx. . .”

meaning that John Lennon’s apparent turn away from teenish romanticism  toward a kind of pop-culture anarchy—this change of direction— seemed to be based at least partly on his reading of Karl Marx’s revolutionary economics.

Now of course I have no proof that the great poet and songwriter John Lennon did read Karl Marx’s stuff; but I do think it likely that he did, because that period of time—the latter 1960’s— was indeed a revolutionary time, sociologically at least, if not in a fully political US manifestation.

Nevertheless, I will point out that nowadays, 50 years later, all those wild-eyed Lennonist malcontents who were turning university campuses upside down (while singing All we are saying is Give Peace a Chance) are now, for the most part, running those same (mostly State) universities.

While all the Buddy Holly types and their Peggy Sue wives settled comfortably in the suburbs and enjoyed giving birth to Gen-Xers and Millennials.

I mention all this perhaps only because there seems to be now a regurgitation of Marxist theory—a re-reading, as it were. Here’s what I want to say about that. Karl Marx was a very intelligent man. His analysis of nascent industrial society during the early-mid 19th century was uncannily perceptive and accurate.

Where he went wrong was: thinking he could write a prescription—the necessary and inevitable “dictatorship of the proletariat” that could be worked out among the foibles and disasters of human society and somehow make it all culminate as some ideal  Pax Humana.

What he didn’t understand was: any theoretical, proposed Pax Humana, always works out to be Pox Humana.

In human history, notably even in  the late so-called Christian Europe, we have managed to repeatedly screw society up by generating a few Pox Hamanae of our own—with a pathetic string of infamous wars, pogroms and inquisitions.

 

  

Such a despicable history.  In spite of (or maybe because of) the fact that we Christians identify human nature as being depraved and therefore imperfectible, we cannot collectively overcome that curse, choosing instead to cry out for our individual salvation. Does such personalized deliverance relieve us from our collective responsibility for assuaging the human condition?

Yes. However, we profess that. . . Christians are no better than anybody else.  But we are forgiven, because we acknowledge, before God, our need for judgement, repentance and atonement. And He takes that acknowledgement seriously.

Be that as it may, I know  you didn’t land here to hear a sermon.

So, moving right along, I’ll explain how I happened to land on this track in the midst of a particular Saturday morning. The whole cerebral ball of wax started when I read this passage from page 283 of Teilhard de Chardin’s  (published 1947) The Phenomen of Man:

“To outward appearance, the modern world was born of an anti-religious movement: man becoming self-sufficient, and reason supplanting belief. Our (his mid-20th century) generation and the two that preceded it have heard little but talk of the conflict between science and faith; indeed it seemed . . .  a foregone conclusion that the former (science) was destined to take the place of the latter (faith).

“But, inasmuch as the tension is prolonged, the conflict visibly seems to need to be resolved in terms of an entirely different form of equilibrium—not in elimination, nor duality, but in synthesis.”

 
Now this means, in a present world of 2018, which still presents a notable presence of us Christian believers, we should consider our Christ-blessed role as peacemakers. Maybe this way. . .

~~Those of us who believe that a loving God watches over the earth—we need to listen to the activists who probably have some valid points about the destructive effects of all this stuff we’re throwing into our atmosphere.

~~While those who have figured out that all the bad effects of human behavior and institutions are destroying our earth—you people need to realize that we cannot (it’s probably too late to) fix this mess we’ve gotten ourselves and our planet into. And we need to allow some room for faith to, as a mustard seed, grown and provide some faith shelter from the destructive effects of perpetually erroneous Homo Sapiens .gov

What we need now is a little agreement and cooperation between those who naively believe too much and those who cerebrally think too much, and who think they can correct  Pox Humana by regulating all of our freedoms into bureaucratic socialist mediocrity.

What we need now is what Teilhard called synthesis, a little meeting of the minds, and some peacemaking agreement among the peoples of the earth.

Good luck with that. 

Now getting back to American Pie and Lennon and Marx and all that . . .

The third phase of the Hegelian Dialectic is Synthesis.  In early 19th-century, Georg Hegel, Marx’s theoretical predecessor, identified an historical pattern which he named the Dialectic. What this pattern revealed was, in the typical path of human thought/action, a chronic pattern of conflict between one ideological side (Thesis) and the other (Antithesis). But Hegel also identified a recurrent merging of these opposites that could tend to resolve some disputes. He called this resolution Synthesis.  Hence, the (simplified) Dialectic:   Thesis provokes Antithesis; but ultimately they merge, in human acting out, and become a new worldview, called Synthesis.

As in, for instance, in our mid-20th century Baby Boomer scenario. . . Capitalism v. Communism, or Democracy v. Socialism, morphs into . . . (whatever it is we have now) . . . democratic statism?

Anyway, Marx and Engels used this Dialectic framework as a theoretical  part of their Communist Manifesto, published in 1848.

And then much later, 1971 . . ."while Lennon read a book on Marx, a quartet practiced in the park", and . . . all this other stuff happened while we boomers grew up and became the people in charge instead of the people being charged, but we still find ourselves "all here in one place" (a small globe), a generation, a human race lost in space, and so let's consider the . . .

Bottom line: let’s synthesize a few opposite ideological points and somehow come together to . . . maintain our earth clean, green and peaceful, instead of assaulting each other with vindictive politics,  fake news and a new cold war of polarizing tribalism.

  King of Soul

The New World

The New World

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HClX2s8A9IE


The coming of the New World dawns slowly; soon and soon very soon its urgency is, was, and will be proclaimed with bold horns and wind.

Listen!

Strings vibrate with anticipation, mounting intensity, declaring themes of freedom.

Flute gently flows; bassoon resonates with agreement

while horns flourish, air tubes tremble.

Quiet strings set a tone for oboe’s innocence, double reeds  inhaling human breath, portending meditations of possibility, proclamations of potentiality, yet quelling quietly the revolutionary air we breathe in smooth  strides of tender melody;

Bows sweep up the fervency of this New World and now the golden door swings open, accompanied by bold trombones, to awaken huddled masses yearning to be free!

Strings, undulating in support, inspire a melting pot of symphonic unity, the Union resounding. Harmony ripening establishes a beachhead of audible beauty with well-tempered passion. Strains of melody  wave like amber waves of grain. Themes of freedom abound in the harvesting of human liberty, melding with the promise of a New World; it arrives so fragile, and yet so  bold.

Oboes dance with joy; bass viols celebrate the depth of profundity;

Oboe re-enters with contented notes while swaying strings agree. Conductor Alan Gilbert affirms,

then urges them on with baton uplift, so horns part the ready sea of sound with their bold fanfare. Strings conclude with soft sleepy assent.

Dream on, America!

A pause.

Sudden ascension disrupts slumber with vigorous alarm, restive rhythm overtaking repose. Go West, young man! Flutes flutter in resonating encouragement; bold horns proclaim valor and future victories yet to be seen over perils yet unknown.

Rounded melodies bring forth renewals of resolve, heaps of purposeful harmony, mountains of good will, joy abounding, with triumph of compassion and reigning in of passion, to squeeze compelling music out of skeletal staffed spheres written upon pages of Dvorak's painstaking work.

Anticipation is building. Culmination coming. Tremolos of trials intervene.

Haste and urgency suddenly are the order of the day. Trombones resound with trouble in their snouts— not trouble they have made,

--but prescient tremors of trials yet to be born, paths yet to be traveled, mountains to be climbed, trails to be trod, skies to be bright-lit with sun, then clouded with rain bringing nourishment to rivers swift, streams flowing with exploration, as cello bows stride with expansion, across the wide prairie, through the dark forest, vivacious sonorities ascending into skies of blue, purple mountains majesty and amber waves of sound.

Crescendo coming, but abruptly arrested with woodwind moments of repose. Questions arise of when and where conclusions can occur with so much going on. And how can this orchestra it end? when we have only just begun—we have not yet spun upward in fulfillment of all we had hoped for.

When where and how could this would this, should this New World arrive at such suspension of tension in frantic strains strung out upon  the peaks of human achievement and then laden into craters of creation at tranquility base? and now suddenly resolving to conclude in bold trombone harmonies with brassy bravado faithfully at their side and bountiful background violins striding o'er the airwaves in intense kinesis. Oh say do those star-sparkling trumpets yet arise! to conclude our tumultuous philharmonia with triumphant trumpet harmonia. . . but now fading into silence.

There you have it, y’all. The New World as Antonin Dvorak conceived it in 1893, and New York Philharmonic performed it in 2016.

King of Soul

What about that old battlefield?

In chapter 27 of my 2014 novel, Smoke, we find a young American, Philip, and an old Frenchman, Mel, conversing as they approach a battlefield in Belgium, a place called Flanders Field. The year is 1937;  in the last week of World War I, Philip's father had died on that battlefield in 1918. Here's the scene:

Something about the spring air, the mists at the edges of the fields, the lush, lowland foliage, the shadowy light, lijdt het licht het donk’re licht, something was moving deeply inside of him. “Mel?”

       “Yes?”

       “How could this place have been a battlefield for a world war?”

       The old Frenchman cast his eyes on the passing landscape, and seemed to join Philip in this musing. He answered slowly, “War is a terrible thing, an ugly thing. I did not fight in the war; I had already served my military duty, long before the Archduke was assassinated in Sarajevo and the whole damn world flew apart, like shrapnel. But I had many friends who fought here, and back there, where we just came from in my France, back there at the Somme, the Marne, Amiens. Our soldiers drove the Germans back across their fortified lines, the Hindenberg line they called it. By summer of 1918 the Germans were in full retreat, although it took them a hell of a long time, and rivers of spilt blood, to admit it. And so it all ended here. Those trenches, over there in France, that had been held and occupied for two hellish years by both armies, those muddy hellholes were finally left behind, vacated, and afterward . . . filled up again with the soil of France and Flanders and Belgium, and green grass was planted where warfare had formerly blasted its way out of the dark human soul and the dark humus of lowland dirt and now we see that grass, trimmed, manicured and growing so tidily around those rows of white crosses out there, most of them with some soldier’s name carved on them, many just unknown, anonymous, and how could this have happened? You might as well ask how could. . . a grain of sand get stuck in an oyster? And how could that oyster, in retaliation against that rough, alien irritant, then generate a pearl—such a beautiful thing, lustrous and white—coming forth in response to a small, alien presence that had taken up unwelcomed residence inside the creature’s own domain? The answer, my friend, is floating in the sea, blowing in the wind, growing green and strong from soil that once ran red with men’s blood.”

But today, this Memorial Day, 2018, we honor not only the war dead of that First "Great War" of the 20th century. We honor all those who have given their "last full measure of devotion" to a nation that has always stood, and hopefully always will stand, for freedom and justice. 

Here's another phase of our 242-year national history with brave souls to ponder, Vietnam:

King of Soul

Give me America

Give me America anyday because

I hear America bringing

politics gone mad

into process.

Just give it to me:

America.

Give me America anyday because

I see America clinging

to an old notion

of liberty.

Give me America anyday because

I still feel America flinging

the deadends of malice

into arcs of goodwill.

Give me America anyday because

I know America’s still singing

an old song, just with

a new beat.

You can’t beat

America.

Give me America anyday because

I can sight America winging

its way o’er terrains of pain

and strife.

It’s just life, y’all

to have to put up with

this stuff.

This stuff that’s goin’ down now:

them with their their guns and butter

vs. them with their lgbt muttering—

just give me America, you guys!

Give me America anyday because

I feel America clinging

to hope and justice

and even God

is still with us,

y’all.

King of Soul

The Castle Paradox

Once upon a time, and oh, so far, far away from these here United States, many of our ancestors lived and worked in the Old Country.

It was a feudal society over there. The royal houses would feud among themselves while their servants labored to bring home the bacon.

Back then, the countries had not even assembled themselves into nations yet. The lands of the Old Country were divided into kingdoms and fiefdoms. Vast estates were owned and ruled by kings and queens, princes and princesses, dukes and duchesses. In the domain of each royal arrangement, lords and ladies would call the shots, while their loyal serfs and vassals would toil every day, out in the hinterlands amongst the hedgerows and fields where they produced a bounty of crops and goods. In this manner, everybody—the royals and the peasants— were fed and housed, and even in some cases fat ’n happy.

Or so the story has been told. . . once upon a time, in a land far, far away.

By ’n by, the times they were a-changin’ and all things became different from what they had been before.

Fresh breezes of liberty swept through the hearts and minds of men and women. Notions of liberty and equality arose among the people. These zeitgeist winds of change compelled many a former  vassal to cast off the ancient bonds of indentured servitude. Many a craftsman forsook the security of the royal house, to move into town and set up shop. Striking out on their own, many a blacksmith, many a weaver, butcher, baker and candlestickmaker established paths of industrious productivity of their own, apart and independent from the Old Order. 

And a New Order arose in the Old Country.

Long about this time, folks heard about a new place called America, and . . . well, you know the story. All this  American stuff that you see around us now rose up in about two or three hundred years, whereas the heavily stratified infrastructure of the Old World had taken two or three thousand years to develop.

By ’n by, here in America, we got fed up with King George and his taxing shenanigans. We threw his red-coated soldiers out, sent ‘em packing back to Britain with their tail between their legs.

Our American revolution was no small accomplishment. A lot of our people, having caught a whiff of that Enlightened wind, got inspired toward liberty big time, and so we took up our muskets and fought our way to independence. Many a minute man and backwoodw farmer died while defeating them redcoats at Bunker Hill and Yorktown and Valley Forge. 

But really it was a walk in the park compared to the bloody French Revolution, which came a few years later in the Old Country. Those madcap peasants chopped the king’s head off and the queen’s head and a lot of other royal heads, heads of privilege, heads of power, even a bunch of innocent heads, because the rabble crowds, so caught up in their egalitarian frenzy went plum crazy once the blood started to flow in the streets and sewers of Paris. Those furious French shocked their way into the 19th-century, whereas we merely fought our way into it.

You see, those French revolutionaries were dealing with ancient bands of power that went way back in time; there was huge institutional baggage that they felt they had to throw out with all those bloody royal heads.

Whereas, we here in America only had to send the king and his army packin’ back to England. Once we had gotten rid of them, we only had a vast, undeveloped virgin contintent to deal with.

We had four thousand miles of opportunity stretched westward before us, whereas the proletarians of Europe had thousands of years of old habits and old baggage to try to reconstruct in order to usher in a New Order. Those former vassals found themselves with a lot of unpleasant work to do before they could see their way clear to this new thing called democracy and/or republic. (Actually the liberating notions were  very old, but that’s another story, a Greek and Roman one.)

Well, by ’n by, the times were a changin’ . . . but sometimes things have to take a few steps backward before the forward motion cranks up again.

Whereas, in the Olden days Once upon a time, all the peasants were gathered around a castle, now it seems we’ve found, in our modern liberty,  ourselves a new castle to gather around. . .

Now that every man is a king, every woman a queen of her own destiny, now that every son is a prince and every daughter a princess, the New Order has morphed into a revised version of the Old Order. What goes around comes around. Take your place on the great Mandela. Millions of us from all over the world congregate at a New Castle every year, yearning for something special, hoping to find something magical, wishing upon a star . . .

What is it we’re really wishing for?

 

King of Soul

Alt-this and Alt-that

When Alt-Right and Alt-Left clash in furious altercation it’s time for all parties concerned to alter their attitudes.

And I’m tired of all these Alt-whackos vying for attention; aren’t you?

Although I may be operating in an alternative universe to even suggest that all these rampant extremists could ever allow themselves to agree on anything, I nevertheless assert that anything can happen and occasionally does.

I mean, we almost split up about a hundred and fifty year ago, but the advocates of American unity prevailed and we managed to overcome the great divide that almost split us asunder.

So really, to split up now after all we’ve been through would be asinine.

Also, it would be un-American.

So I’m hoping we can assemble any alliance we can assimilate to alleviate this awful divisiveness. I mean, even Alt-Center would be better than what we got now. And a little altruism wouldn’t be a bad idea either.

Can we find some agreement here? I mean, my daddy used to say it’s hard to remember when you’re ass-deep in alligators our objective was to drain the swamp. The Alt-Right politicians said they wanted to drain the swamp. And I know that idea has a  lot of allure for folks who want to stir up the pot, but you gotta remember in a free country some folks would rather smoke the pot than stir it up.

We all just gotta get along here. You hear what I’m sayin’? We gotta find the allowable limits of all this alternating Alt-ism, Alt-this and Alt-that and then we gotta adjust our attitudes so as to  lower the  altitudes of aggression before it’s all over.

I mean, in ancient time when things got this bad God allowed an alluvial disaster to alleviate all the alleged bad stuff that was going down at that time. So lets’s not forget that a rising tide lifts all boats. Yeah, and I say unto thee: all aboard that’s goin’ aboard. And if you believe that I’ve got some alluvial deposits in Arizona I’ll sell ya.

Let's make a deal; it's the American way. We're always dealin'! Dont' let yer deal go down.

Are you trackin’ with me here? The climes they are a-changin’! I’m a-tellin’ ya, And things are gonna heat up real quick if’n we don’t align ourselves with the planetary potentiary powers of of political Alt-centrism. And not only that, let's allocate some good ole fashion common sense, y’all; send it to the Appropriations committee.

Just sayin’.

So let’s adjust these attitudes, what’dya say?

Think about it this way.  If’n you get the alt-extremist notion to call somebody an alt-asshole just check it at the door because them’s fightin’ words, and also because everybody has one so why call it to everybody’s attention!. Instead, you could allay the fears of all parties and both so-called Parties  by just, instead of inciting to riot, advancing toward  some kind of advantageous alliance instead of  a big all-out alt-ercation that degenerates into some freak goin’ bonkers and drivin’ a car into a crowd of Alt-leftists, even if they are Antifa.

Doh ray me fa. Anti-Doh, Anti-ray, Anti-me, Anti-you, Anti-fatherhood, Anti-motherhood, Anti-apple pie, baseball and even Anti-Chevrolet!

I mean I’m from Ford country. On a quiet night you can hear the Chevys a-rustin’. Nevetheless, I love all you Chevy-idiots out there? Come on, now! Group hug. Stop and smell the Anti-roses.

Serially, though, What’s it all coming to? What’s it all about Alfie?

I mean, these days seems like everybody and their brother is anti- something, but I am posing the question here and now—just what are for? What the hell are you for? Are you FOR anything? Motherhood and apple pie?

On the other hand, now that I think about it, I ascertain that even Motherhood is on the choppin’ block now, with all this trans-this and trans-that, trans-he and trans-her, trans-he-she-it.

And if you wonder what I’m alluding to, think again. I appeal to our better angels. But if you can’t attest to all that, just  fuhgeddabowdit. We’re done here. Maybe it’s just me.

I prob’ly need to see my analyst.

I’m just upset because I’m over-reacting because I’m allergic to Altism of any kind, left or right, liberal or conservative,  fascist or communist; and I think if the Chileans could get past the Allende v. Pinochet debacle then we can overcome this whatever-we-got now ascent toward Alt-assininity.

What we the need around here is some dam prayer. But if you can’t allow that, if it’s against your constitutional sensitivities and asininities, just let the cards fall as they may; we’ll play politics awhile till the altercation blows over.

We’ll let the cards fall as they may, if that’s the way it must be. Let the prize go to the highest bidder.

I bid four hearts.

And your bid is what?

Four no-trump, you say?  For no-trump?

Well ok then. We’ll see how this plays out.

But wait! What light through yonder window breaks?, methinks I hear the strains of a faraway refrain:

“Through the Altists’ red glare,

with taunts bursting in air--,

it gave proof through the night

that our freedom was still there!

Oh say! that star-spangled banner does yet wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_lCmBvYMRs





King of Soul

The Lady is at Work

She heard America singing;

through two centuries' labors they came a-ringing--

the song and the opus of bringing

a newborn project in a newfound world

'neath a loud stripey flag 't'was unfurled.



From ship to wagon to cart to railroads,

sending out them precious mother-lode payloads

over seas and lands and bridges and field rows--

he hauled 'em in, she bailed 'em out

through highways and byways they sent forth the shout.



Up with the work! and down with the grit

she dug and he hammered; she welded; he shipped it.

Turn up the earth, mine and weld and wield it 'til it fit--

a new land, a new time, new way of doin'

rolling on wheels where used to be horsehoin'.



They rolled up on the far edge of our vast continent,

on the heels of a gold rush at the shore of containment.

Along came the Okies, then Hollywood raiment--

not bein' done yet, we slid into Silicon valley,

so much bigger and brighter than the old yankee alley.



Now what's up with that and where do we go from here--

let bruthas and sistahs step to the music we hear

enduring the pain, dodging the rain, overcoming the fear,

we gotta discover what to do to pick up the slack

so we do not regress, do not turn back.



Maybe we will and maybe we will not--

forge a way past our lethargy, this entitlement and rot

what it is we got to do I know not what,

might have to grab that destiny from some ogre or grinch.

Let's get this ship turnin'--hand me that wrench!



Glass half-Full

Be aware of Greeks bearing debts

Greece is, you see, the opposite of California, and I'll tell you why.

The first thing is: Greece is very old. California is, on the other hand, very new.

The "West"--that is to say, California and all the rest of us New World types-- actually started in Greece about three thousand years ago. Greece was the "West" because it was westward from what was, in ancient times, the Old Country, the region we now call the Middle East, or Levant, or Holy Land, depending on your point of view.

Long ago, after Alexander and his military legacy turned the Persians back at the battle of Marathon, long about 490 b.c.e., the people of the Greek city-states began joining together to form an historical entity that we now call Ancient Greece.

And since that time, the whole thing of Greek culture moved westward and northward over a couple of millennia of time. The great thrust of Western thought, anchored in a mental discipline called philosophy and a political idea called Democracy, inspired empires and nations from those ancient days until the present day.

We still dream about governing ourselves in this thing call a democracy, but it has never quite manifested in a way authentic to the original concept.

Probably never will, but it's a nice thought.

A couple hundred years after the Greek Golden Age, the Romans came along with their Republic and their empire. Much of their marvelously innovative empire-building was rooted in Greek thought and mathematics (Euclid and Pythagoras). A lot of what the Romans did was direct imitation of Greek stuff. A good example of this is their omnipresent use of Columns for holding buildings up.

You've heard of Doric columns, Ionic columns?

That's Greek stuff. Except that--guess what!--the Doric and Ionic names originated across the Aegean sea from Greece, in a region called Asia (Minor), which is now Turkey. Go figure!

A couple hundred years after the Greek Golden Age, along came the Romans. What they ended up doing was much grander and more elaborate than what the Greeks did. They took Greek columns and turned them into a universal architectural art-form. Those two earlier Column designs--the Doric and the Ionian-- were not fancy enough to suit the Roman sense of grandiosity. So the Romans decorated the capitals (tops) of their columns with new, leafy frou-frou carvings and castings which came to be called Corinthian.

The Corinthian name, however, was not Roman, but Greek. Corinth was an important city in Greece. So once again, go figure.

Figuring is important to the whole advance of Western civilization. Everywhere Greeks and their European progeny went, they were figuring stuff out.

Thus did Western Civilization expand over millenia of time. Along came the Germans, French, Spanish, British, all of them making ever grander plans, striving to construct their own versions of civilization.

When the Greco-Roman enterprise got to the big Sea at the end of Europe--aka the End of the Earth--its expansion was delayed for a few hundred years. But then along came Cristoforo Columbo and Presto!, Western civilization took a grand leap across the Atlantic Ocean.

Now we Americans know about Boston, New Yawk, Philly, etc etc etc; and we are intimately familiar with Paul Revere and Grampa George Washington. Why we even know about Charleston and Savannah and all that unreconstructed goings-on down south, but what's important here is California!

Why?

Because Americans are adventurers. Our forefathers and foremothers hit the ground running after we got off the boat in Baltimore or Ellis Island or wherever it was.

Before you knew it, we were all the way over on the far other edge of the continent, in California, baby!

Or bust! That's what the Okies said.

And that was, if you think about it, the very end of the Greek frontier. From Athens to Anaheim, westward ho all along the way. That's all she wrote.

The westward expansion of Greek culture ended at California. It couldn't go any farther. Why, even when they o'erleaped the wide Pacific, what did they find?

China!

It doesn't get any older than that--China. No Westward expansion there, although the Brits made a few dents, and of course there was Marx and all that People's trial and bloody error.

Now We Americans have a saying: as California goes, so goes the nation.

That means that, from the 1849 Gold Rush on, the great exploratory thrust of American ingenuity and creativity originates in place called California.

The land of fruits and nuts.

And broccoli, lettuce, grapes, wine, silicon, integrated circuit chips, beach boys, beach girls, computers, iPhones, movies and pop culture, etc etc etc.

So once all the migrant Europeans got themselves planted on the East Coast back in the 1800s, they built so many cities, and built them so quickly, that before you know it they got overcrowded and pulled up stakes to head West.

Go West, young man, wrote Horace Greeley, about a hundred and fifty years ago.

And very quickly. We developed America from raw earth, from Schenectady to San Francisco in less than a hundred years, blazing a yankee trail all along the way.

And when we hit up against that great Pacific rim, the grand tide of our exuberance struck a sea wall and then it swayled back the other way: Disney in Paris, McDonald's in Athens, Kennedy in Berlin!

But now--and my mind misgives some consequence yet hanging in the stars--our grand millenia-old Restatement of Greco-Roman expansionism strikes, back at its ancient nascence, an Athenian rampart.

So I see the next phase of history this way: As Greece goes, so goes the West. And this is what it looks like, according to a pic I recently snapped in Athens:

Which is to say, a propped up portal. Where can we go from here?

Glass Chimera

Dover Breach

The air is mad tonight
electric with fright
but drugged with fluff and flight:
hear no evil, see no blight.
America in cyber slumber swoons
while England grooms jihad goons
like 1937 fascist blackshirts
deflowering 2014 democratic skirts.
France ( peace be upon her)
seethes with same old same old stir--
that angst witch discontent doth incur
from yonder barricaded former age
now slit with new jihadi rage.

The air of Faith
so thin of late
as most prefer to flirt with fate
now cringes in this new birth of hate;
its melancholy, long withdrawing gasp
retreating fast, like slithering asp
unable now to grasp
with slipping grips unfurled
the naked idols the world.

Ah, good Christian, let us be true
to one another! for the world, which casts its spell
of rebel chaos and decadent hell,
has no power when all's said and done
to set our ancient faith upon the run,
though the infernal note of madness floods every byte
while polar extremists clash by night.

(This poem's form was adapted from Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach.)

Smoke

Chicago

I say

America moved, I say, back in the day.

She just came bustin' out from the East.

She came rolling in on wheels, gliding through ship-tossed spray.

She was blowing past some old dearth, yearning some new feast.

We heard her skimming' o'er Erie, Michigan, and along the deep blue sky,

plucking plunder low, grabbing gusto high.

And when the dust had settled,

after Illinois mud had dried,

when ore'd been changed to metal,

while papa sweated and mama cried,

the new was born; the old had died.

Where dreamers come and workers go,

't'was there arose:

Chicago.


Born of rivers and the Lake,

she was cast in iron, forged in steel,

bolted fast as rails n' timbers quake,

careening then on some big steely Wheel

making here a whippersnappin' deal,

and there a factory, a pump, a field,

o'er swamp and stump and prairie

tending farm and flock and dairy

in blood and sweat and rust

through boom and blust and bust.

They carved out block, laid brick and stone;

our groundwork for America Midwest they honed

with blade and trowel and and pick and shovel.

They swung hammers through dust as thick as trouble.

They dug a canal there that changed

the whole dam world; they arranged

to have goods shipped in, and products go.

Reminds me of Sandburg, and Michelangelo.

Many a man put meat on the table;

many a woman toiled, skillful and able.

Thousands of sites got developed, selected,

while many a factory got planned and erected.

Many a Chicagoan had a good run,

caught lots of ball games, had a whole lotta fun,

while working, playing, praying and such

with friends and families, keeping in touch.

In all that we do, the plans we make,

there's forever more going down than we think is at stake.

When people wear out, they sit around and play cards.

When widgets wear out, we pile them in scrap yards.

If we're lucky, or resourceful, or blessed,

we'll end up with a little something at the end of our test,

a hole in the wall, or a piece of the pie,

maybe a nice little place, by n' by.

While Democrats convened in Chicago in '68,

antiwar protesters got stopped at the gate.

Mayor Daley sent his men out to poke 'em in the slammer.

'T'was Chicago style justice: no sickle, just hammer.

Today in downtown, Chicago Mayor Daley's name is all over the place,

though about those radical protesters you'll find not a trace.

So what does that tell ya about Chicago, or America, today?

We're like the Cubs' in the Series; that's all that I'll say.

Glass half-Full

Sing, not fling, nor sling

I hear America flinging:

Fling, fling, fling;

sling, sling, sling,

Fling it high, sling it low.

Sling it muddly just for show.



Mud, mud, sling up some mud.

Fling it with a thud.

Sling it like a scud.

Fling it left, sling it right,

sling it 'til you fight.

It aint right; it's a muddy blight.

Maybe I'll take flight,

but where to go? Mexico?

Don't know.



See Jane go, see Dick go:

Go, Jane, go to your MSNB show;

Go, Dick, go to your Fox hole row.

Toe that party line.

Tote that picket sign.

Tow that barge; tote that bale.

Drag it 'til we fail.

Yell and scream and shout

'til the buzzards come winging out.

Rant 'til buzzwords turn their trend,

their fuzzy butts toward our bitter end.



Wait.



I hear Jesus' people singing.

Sing, sing, sing;

Let our praises ring,

bringing in God's created thing.

Fill us, Lord, while we sing.

We need not fling, need not sling.

We just sing; let our praises ring,

'til your kingdom you do bring.

Selah.

The "class" thing

I am an American, a southerner, college-educated working fellow, married with three grown, and reasonably happy. I love my wife and I love my life. I am a follower of Jesus. Although I do a 40-hour gig as a maintenance guy for 92 apartments, I am not a member of the working "class."

All this talk these days, arising from the Democrats and sociologists and talking media heads, about "class" this and "class" that, the "working class," the "privileged" class, the so-called "disappearing middle class"--I wouldn't give you a nickel for all of it.

As far as I'm concerned, I am an individual, my own man, and beyond classification. God made me just the way I am, thank you, and I thank Him for that. So you can call me middle-class if you want to. You can classify me in the disappearing middle because my working wage is 2/3 of what I was bringing in at my peak, a dozen or so years ago when I was fifty years old. You can call me middle class, working class, dumb-ass, or whatever you wanna call me, you can call me ray, you can call me jay, or ray jay, or you can call me "hey" or "hey you," but ya doesn't have to call me anything at all.

The only identity that matters is what my wife, my grownup young-uns, loved ones and friends call me--Carey. And btw I'll soon be publishing the third novel, which is named Smoke. So put that in your literary pipe and smoke it.

This little class rant came up this morning because I have been hearing more and more about these designated class distinctions lately, ever since, oh, couple years ago when the Occupy thing started and they were out in the streets--I watched them for two days in Vancouver and Seattle--with their signs about the 1% and the 99% and all that redistributionist and income disparity hype.

Maybe I'm in the 99%, maybe I'm way down in the 50% or even below that. I don't care. If I had a chance to join the 1%, I would jump at it. This great country was built on upward mobility.

We used to call it the American Dream. I still do. I'm not subscribing to this neo-marxian class stuff. No thank you. It's just for political manipulation, and I am no political hack's lackey. Therefore am I not pleased to accept some sociologist's semi-permanent societal place assignment. Well, maybe "first class". I would settle for that, but I'm not buying the proletarian, nor the bourgeois label.

Speaking of "not buying". . .

This morning I began reading David Horowitz' excellent autobiography, Radical Son.

Here is a passage from page 39 that got my attention, then became, it seems, the impetus for the little bloggish rumination you are now reading. From Radical Son:

"At the time my parents moved into the (Sunnyside) Gardens in 1940, they could have purchased the house on Bliss Street for $4000--less than its original price. But as radicals, they had scorned the opportunity to own property and moved in as renters. Seven years later, the Gardens were acquired by new owners, who decided to sell of the individual units, including our house. A Sunnyside Tenants' Association was organized to resist the sales."

Why did David's parents not buy their house when they had the chance to do it? Weren't they Americans? Well not yet, apparently.

They were second generation Americans, from Russian immigrants, and they identified themselves as communists. I understand that angst; its where they came from, how they were brought up and so forth. They did not subscribe to the American dream, but to the Russian communist dream that they had brought with them, and then dragged it as excess baggage off the boat at Ellis Island.

Son David later learned, in the school of hard knocks, what it means to be an American, to be an opportunist for yourself and your family, instead of letting yourself be limited by an imposed class identity. If his parents had been willing to learn that lesson in 1940 when they bought their home in Sunnyside Gardens, maybe they would have acceded a little more successfully to the American Dream motivator. But hey, they were immigrants; what can you expect? It takes a generation or two off the boat to acquire a taste for this melting pot porridge. David Horowitz' life is testimony to that, and that is what his book is about.

Now I'm a southerner, and very different from all those immigrants and their Old World forebears who got off the boat at New York Harbor. (My wife, Pat, is however from an Irish family from New Jersey.) And although my life experience is very different from that of Mr. Horowitz, I sure enjoy reading a good book, which is btw, the key (reading and education) to overcoming all this classist entrapment that's going around now.

Try it some time, you'll learn a thing or two from reading a book, even if its on your Kindle.

Smoke