I fondly remember Soul Train, and Don Cornelius’ sign-off: “Wishing you Love, Peace, and Soul.” For me it wasn’t a “black” tv show, for me it was just a FUN tv show. I don’t recall giving a second thought to its stature as a pioneering production back then, I just remember feeling happy when I saw that super-funky, animated train come across my screen. I recall watching it as a kid after all, and since being reminded of it today by the passing of Don Cornelius I found myself remembering that whenever I got to watch Soul Train it was because for whatever reason I was allowed to stay up late that night. I still love staying up late, Mr. Cornelius, and I can say from the bottom of my heart that your show appears in my earliest memories of having fun staying up late. May God rest your soul.
Please take a moment to watch this amazing parade of artists on Soul Train:
From Karoli at crooksandliars.com:
On Sunday morning, Lidiane woke up in a Florida hospital with broken bones and internal injuries after the van they were traveling in was involved in Sunday’s horrendous highway pileup on I-75 near Gainesville, Florida. Her father, mother, sister, uncle, aunt and cousin were killed. She is the sole survivor in her immediate family.
Lidiane’s parents came to the United States from Brazil 12 years ago, bringing five-year old Letiticia and three-year old Lidiane with them. They had legal visas which have since expired.
Lidiane is now an orphan. She has no health insurance. She has no legal status to remain in this country. And she has no family beyond those remaining members of her father’s church. She is the sole survivor.
If we had a DREAM Act in place, Lidiane could petition for citizenship here since she entered the country legally. But we don’t, and because of Republicans’ insane need to pander to bigots and racists, we’re unlikely to see it without a completely different Congress.
I’m writing about Lidiane because she puts a very human face on what they’re doing when they block the DREAM Act. I wonder if any of these crazy Republican candidates could gaze into her frightened, hurting eyes, and tell her she has to go back to a country she doesn’t even know. I think they could, and that should concern us all.
Full album of Radiohead’s In Rainbows:
Starting this first blog post of 2012 with this musical pick because lately the music of Radiohead has been reaching me more than any other music has.
Hoping for the promise of the new year to buoy us humans a bit these days. Seems all over the world that the plight of an economy based upon mass consumption is being felt by most everyone; the 99%, you might say. For me, my daily observations are surely a reflection of the prism through which I view the world that’s beyond my natural senses. In other words, much of what I follow, story-wise, is outside of my immediate world and I view almost all of it through my computer. Seems as though some disclosure should be made about that since last I checked there is still a difference between the real world and the digital world.
That said, we’re definitely in a unique era where observations can be made by the average person (such as me) regarding real-time events all over the world. I’ve taken to viewing broadcasts on Aljazeera.net/english pretty regularly at midnight my time (PST) to catch a glimpse of the other side of the world, LIVE, before I go to sleep at night. While the reporting and perspective and editorial content are all interesting to me, it still just amazes me that I am coming to know and become familiar with, through nightly repetition, these broadcast journalists on the other side of the world as if they are my local “action news team” or something. I am more than amazed by that.
Aside from them I am checking out France 24 and Current TV online as well. I find the online streaming medium so much more palatable than television anymore. I basically can hardly stand television anymore. I do still try to watch sports on television and bite my lip over what lab rats the networks make of the viewers by subjecting them to such a barrage of ads for what generally falls into the who gives a shit? category. But, that’s the price for watching multi-millionaires play the games I played as a kid these days. The entire remainder of my digital prism of information comes from reading many blogs by some of the best writers I have ever found. Too many to list at the moment, but several are listed in the links section of this blog (which I should be updating more regularly). One in particular that comes to mind is Duncan Black’s eschatonblog.com which is typically short, but astute commentary with a link to something he’s read relating currently to business and politics. His style is virtually never a long-winded commentary (like this post is becoming), but instead just a series of destinations for the reader to follow on his own. I like the style quite a lot and wish to incorporate some of that style in my 2012 blog posts myself.
More long-form, and even prosaic (in a good way), is digbysblog.blogspot.com, also known as Hullabaloo, where the writing of Heather Parton is so thorough, yet so concisely elegant, that I’ve come to admire her writing ability even outside of the actual content (which I admire immensely as well).
Others that are regular stops for me include: Greg Sargent at WaPo; John, Tina, Susie, Heather, Karoli, etc. at Crooks and Liars; David Dayen, Jane Hamsher, Jon Walker, Scarecrow, etc. at FireDogLake.com; Glenn Greenwald, Joan Walsh, Steve Kornacki at Salon.com; Kos, Jed, Laura, Joan, Metor Blades, etc. at DailyKos.com; Matt Yglesias during his time at ThinkProgress.org (now at Slate.com), and now Alex, Igor, Tanya and the many insightful writers at ThinkProgress.org; John, Anne, Tim, etc. at Balloon-Juice.com; the many facets of HuffingtonPost.com and of course the many threads and links that I’m lead to by reading all of these writers.
The truth is that the journalism I find in these sources so far outshines what I read or see in our “mainstream media” (especially the television versions) that I feel that the best hope for journalism itself lies in the hands of these people and the many, many around the world who, like them, uphold an independent viewpoint and aren’t asking the readers whether they should be truth vigilantes calling out politicians on their jack-ass lies to the public. Finding and reporting the truth is what they’re all about and I can guarantee they won’t be asking the readers’ opinion on whether they should or shouldn’t pursue that end with their writing.
And in closing this first post of 2012 I’ll offer this cartoon I found on DailyKos.com which gave me a pretty darn good chuckle and which I think captures a moment in our time quite well:
It was Tuesday, March 16th of 1993 when I arrived at Penn Station having chugged in on Amtrak from Washington DC. I remember that because the next day was St. Patrick’s Day and on the train I chatted the entire way with an Irishman named Martin who was maybe just a few years older than I and was indeed a bloke with a lot of good humor. I ended up missing the famous NYC St. Patrick’s Day parade because the night I arrived in Manhattan to meet up with my buddy Lee we (including Martin) went out on the town and literally partied ALL NIGHT LONG. We rode the 4:30am train out of Grand Central to get back to our hotel which for these first few days was about an hour away. Suffice it to say, I had a GREAT time on that arrival night in New York City and that trip on a whole is one I pray never slips from my memory.
Over the coming weekend we had a hotel in Manhattan and it must have been on Saturday the 20th that we walked from mid-town all the way to the World Trade Center, all the while thinking it “really didn’t look that far away”. The towers were so huge in scale that from literally 50 blocks away they looked like a fairly easy walk away. That’s one funny memory I always have about my approach to the World Trade Center.
It was three weeks and a day since the truck bombing of the World Trade Center. I remember distinctly passing by the cordoned off construction areas inside of the lower floors of the towers as we looked around for how to get to the observation floor. We had little concern over the terrorist attack at that time, for sure. But the view of Manhattan as the sun went down— FROM THE TOP OF THE WORLD TRADE CENTER??? Oh, BABY! We definitely wanted that.
So after standing in line for not too terribly long we rode the elevators up to the top. And yes, it was nearing sunset time and after taking the full panoramic walk around I believe we settled on a couple of Heineken beers and took up our spot to simply hang out and just watch. We were facing northward out of the tower and had a view I cannot ever forget all the way up the island of Manhattan with the Empire State Building and so many others in view, Central Park and beyond, and both the Hudson and East rivers as well.
The weather was clear that day; a beautiful, sunny day in Manhattan with a temperature in the upper 40s or lower 50s probably. And as the sun slowly descended beyond the horizon to our left what stood out to me first was the long, blinking rivers of alternating red and white running up the island. These were the Avenues, and the blinking lights were the headlights and tail lights of the cars going north and south on the one-way Avenues. And then the show was the lights of the hundreds of tall buildings coming on, as far as the eye could see there were lights… with the only exception being the Hudson and the East rivers carving out cool, darkest of blue curves through the twinkling distance. It was the show of a lifetime… the lights of Manhattan were coming on FOR US it seemed. Truly magical and a scene that is etched upon my mind possibly deeper than any other sight I’ve seen in my travels.
And so on that Tuesday morning, September 11th, 2oo1, when I saw those towers come down I can only say that while so many lost so much more than I lost, I know that I shared grief with those who did lose so much… and as I saw those buildings still slightly intact at the top coming down into the cloud of smoke part of me felt I was there inside that observation floor having just seen that magic I remembered.
The people I remember on the observation floor that day were from every imaginable part of the world— all different languages were being spoken all around me. And the buzz of excitement translates from every language in that regard. Old and young, all ethnicities, all seemingly as transfixed as I was at this majestic juxtaposition of nature and man on the grandest scale probably most of us had ever seen. I know it was for me.
And to me, that is New York; that bold confidence that all of that diversity of people can make up a civilization and somehow thrive greater and stronger than any homogeneous enclaves could ever imagine. And indeed, I believe I feel blessed to have shared that view with all of those people from all over the world on that Saturday March 20th in 1993 because THAT is how I hope for the world to see that city. That was MY New York and at that moment looking out over it MY NEW YORK was mesmerizing— as it always should be to all people of the world.
So I’ve grieved a bit today on the Saturday before the tenth anniversary of that tragedy. From my own perspective I share that grief with all those who lost from the collapse of the twin towers and from all the other attacks that happened on that day. I pray for their souls again now.
Perhaps we can all raise a drink to the innocents that morning who were working there, or visiting there, or who were simply drawn to the spectacular views from there after walking fifty blocks to get there. And if you’re staying out of town, and you find that you’ve stayed out reveling in Manhattan later than you may have intended, worry not because there will be a train running out of Grand Central Terminus soon to get you where you’re going… even at 4 in the morning. I can testify to that. It’s only a small part of the magic.
UPDATE:
Some awesome pics from my buddy Vincent taken just last month in New York City of the reconstruction of the World Trade Center site:
Protected: Family Love April in Texas!
My, my, my… it has been so long since I have felt like writing, I guess until now. I know that I have been a little bit stifled by a pure lack of inspiration. I know in my earlier posts I found quite a lot of need to write about politics and perhaps a historical perspective on some of my thoughts on that. To a certain extent I believe that was fueled by the huge up-swell I had in anger and disgust as the Bush administration ended and the politics of electing a new president erupted.
But as time has passed, and we are now in the mid-term election season, I find myself at this point completely disgusted with politics all together. I’ve been a pretty avid political blog reader for several years now but I must say that whatever impelled me to soak up the rage and join in with my own has left me to some degree. In short, I feel that life is too short. Life is too short to allow these fuckheads to have any impact upon my day whatsoever.
I see you slither away with your skin and your tail
Your flickering tongue and your rattling scales
Like a real reptile
Of course, real reptiles are far less repulsive.
So tonight I have put in the ear buds and am hearing some jams with a little edge and this one in particular met me somewhere out there in a wave of kindred rhythms, like the wind’s rake over my skin leaving those proverbial goose bumps.
The truth is that tonight I feel like screaming out in rage and disgust, and maybe this sort of music is far from heavy enough to express much of what I feel. I believe to the core of my heart that if our beloved United States does not make a colossal investment in education, healthcare, and green energy then we are witnessing with our own eyes the fall of this great nation. I can hardly express how sad I feel about how poorly educated our general citizenry is. I can hardly express how sad I feel about how many in this grand and wealthy nation go without medical care, dental care, vision care and general health support. And I can hardly express how clear it is to my eyes that we are voluntarily killing ourselves with our primary choices of energy: oil and coal.
Somewhere along the line there is a missing page, or even a missing chapter from our story here. Somewhere along the line we chose the short term. Perhaps we all see that life is too short so we’d better pleasure ourselves like teenagers with our first glimpse of a nudie magazine. We placate our inner miseries with constant, superficial amusements and step over the weakest among us along the sidewalk as we tune out the world around us. Perhaps that sort of “American Exceptionalism” belongs up someone’s ass. That’s all I have to say about that right now.
The real question is how can a message with meaning reach anyone anymore? Not a message that will help you get a new flat screen tv, or a lower rate on your mortgage, or a new Toyota, but one that encourages adults and children alike to follow the outdoor path of human curiosity; one that shuts off the television and picks up a musical instrument instead; one that chooses to give some spare time to elevate the greater good rather than lying supine awaiting grace by osmosis somehow.
Too often I am struck by this contrast of our two Americas. We have on the one hand the America that accepts the profitability of high fructose corn syrup as reasonable (even though it’s possibly the single biggest contributor to our obesity challenge), believes Islam is a source of terrorism (wonder what they thought of Northern Ireland’s pipe bombers?), believes cutting taxes for the wealthiest citizens actually grows jobs and can be effectively achieved by cutting public education, and sees coal and oil as just human habits as inescapable as smoking cigarettes. Ahhh… the world our corporate interests would create if there were no opposition to them. Makes one wistful just thinking of the stench of it.
And on the other hand what do we have? Well, at the risk of sounding too blindly supportive of liberal causes let’s just say the other hand is in opposition to ALL THAT SHIT MENTIONED ABOVE. The other hand demanded some changes such as clean air and clean water, no more children working in factories and mines, social security for the elderly and the infirm, and for health insurance companies to no longer be able to deny applicants because they have pre-existing conditions. The other hand wants to stop killing the planet with our combustion engine exhaust.
Somehow I believe what was in that missing page (or chapter) was the part about caring for the weakest among us— as if we may be judged by how we care for the weakest among us. But in the secular, capitalist world we’ve created for ourselves we see such axioms as antiquated remnants of another age. Our world view has become a collective machine addicted to consumption, and we are enablers of each other indignantly expecting certain waves of consumption based upon social status.
So my question, I guess, at this moment is where are all of you who reject this world view? Where are you who care not about the pressures of social status paraded in front of us on cable news networks? Where are you who reject the demands for “looking successful” with material objects and instead seek to willingly invest your money in healthcare, education, and sustainable energy for our planet? I mean, it’s not just Oprah is it? But oh, yeah… Oprah denies Jesus as the only pathway to God. Yeah, right.
Yes, Jesus taught about caring for the weakest among us, and rightly so. It’s also taught in Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and Communism. Hmmm…. And how is it part of capitalism? See here for one opinion.
The challenge I’m concerned with these days is how we take this wily critter called capitalism and tame it with some dignity. And for me, personally, I’d like to see it permeate our collective consciousness as soon as possible. I think sincerely it is our last best hope.
So, once again, it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything here. It’s not that I haven’t thought about it. It’s just that I’ve been engaged in the process of building websites for several weeks now and just haven’t been feeling the need to post stuff on this after spending all day in the back end of WordPress sites. But, after taking a look today I guess I am feeling some of the compulsion that drives my writing in this forum. And I think it’s because I have some visions for the future of this site that will bring it along quite a ways from its humble beginnings, and I hope that change will be not too far off in the future.
In short, I intend to re-shape this site into a site that features my visual art in addition to all these other things I apparently consider worth posting for whoever visits here to see. Finding the pathways to utilize my talents and follow my interests has been the primary focus of my thoughts for many moons, and without question the medium of visual art has always held a prominent place in that search. So perhaps it’s just coincidence, but the skills I have been gaining by building websites have directly affected my artistic currents. I can often gauge the onset of artistic activity in my mind by some of the wide swings in my sleep patterns. And that’s definitely been happening lately. So… guess we’ll see where it goes. Always an adventure.
Creating this site has been a sincere opening for me. It’s been a conduit for discovery of my own hopes for utilizing my talents in their “highest and best use.” All I can say is that sometimes it’s a long journey to find that. But somehow that very journey is what feeds your passion and your understanding and your very ability to express something in an artistic form that maybe has a chance of capturing and, dare I say, addressing the emotions such long journeys can cultivate. Indeed, that’s where the art of the long road has its own unique connection with those who choose to engage.
With that in mind, give this a listen for a few:
Sometimes these songs just come along at the right moments. And as music has its own way of carrying me in particular, even in this seemingly contemplative moment I feel some of the original Fleetwood Mac comin’ on:
About this great British blues player, the great B.B. King was once quoted as saying Peter had “more talent in his little toe than I have in my whole body.”
So, here’s to talent. Finding it within yourself and taking it to its highest levels.
Two great quotes from this excellent article:
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. (English Poet John Donne in 1623.)
And,
“Yet most of all grant us brotherhood, not only for this day but for all our years- a brotherhood not of words but of acts and deeds. We are all of us children of earth—grant us that simple knowledge. If our brothers are oppressed, then we are oppressed. If they hunger, we hunger. If their freedom is taken away, our freedom is not secure. Grant us a common faith that man shall know bread and peace-that he shall know justice and righteousness, freedom and security, an equal opportunity and an equal chance to do his best, not only in our own lands, but throughout the world. And in that faith let us march, toward the clean world our hands can make. Amen.” (Franklin Roosevelt in 1942.)
I saw the film Sunshine Cleaning tonight, and I have to say that was a moving and well-done picture (as they say in the movie biz). I was reminded of how the challenges each of us faces can trace roots to some measure of trauma in our lives. Whoever we are, our quirks and eccentricities can often be deep-seated manifestations of our own caroms off of the bumpers in life— and sometimes it feels as bombastic as a game of pinball. Many scenes in the film illustrated these things to which so many of us can relate. (The “trestling” scene comes to mind at the moment.)
Such intimate topics as death in the immediate family, self-esteem, single-parenthood, the after-life and more were so warmly treated by the actors and were so sincerely framed by director Christine Jeffs that one could not help but root for these characters. There is probably no better character than the flawed-but-lovable character. And somehow as I watched I felt as if there were no doubt that I had known these very characters in one form or another in my own life at some point.
And with gratitude, it is my honor to give a hat-tip to the writer Megan Holley for her subtle creation of characters where not only were their motivations persuasively rendered, but also where the characters’ endurance of circumstances took the audience from its collective brain to its collective heart in such a way that we the audience seemed to share those circumstances as our own.
Was it a film of profound significance, such as how some works of art are categorized as “important” in the museum-milieu? Well… I think that proclamation should always reside in the eye of the beholder. But what I will say… is that it’s among those great works of art where the profoundness of its effect depends completely upon how much we allow a great film to quiet our brains and to open our hearts.
“It’s important for the youth of a generation to feel that they can change the world— because they really can.”
- Barry Melton (guitarist for Country Joe and the Fish) commenting in the PBS special The Sixties: the Years that Shaped a Generation.
I’m sure it’s lost on no one that today is the eighth anniversary of 9-11. I remember where I was that day, and I’m sure most all of you do too. Ever since then I have always given a solemn moment or two to that memory on the anniversary, and today is no exception. May they all rest in peace.
So today’s post is an homage to a feature in Andrew Sullivan’s Blog that I absolutely adore: the Mental Health Break. Please consider this photo taken last weekend in Big Sur as a still-photo-version of the same concept. The videos below are from Andrew’s blog and are some examples of these little tid bits of comedy, or inspiration, or just plain weirdness that he inserts between his many posts that usually tackle pretty serious subjects. I LOVE THE MENTAL HEALTH BREAKS, and I give huge applause to them sometimes as I go through my day sifting through all of my regular sites on the internet. I hope you guys enjoy these, and if Andrew ever reads my site I hope he will hear my thanks for giving us all these sorts of breaks. Kudos!
MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.