It surely has taken me a long, long time to get to be the man that I am today. It sure did happen quickly.
I don't mean to get all Stephen Fostery on you here. Who knew that all those things they tell you about how quickly it all goes by were true? When you get right down to it I'm scared and I'm sad.
What am I scared of? I don't know. That's what's so scary.
What am I so sad about? Whatta ya got?
There is so much that I can't write about right now. Me, the guy who always boasts about having no secrets; the one who claims he'll tell anybody anything.
Living alone, you forget how to fight. Maybe that's a good thing, huh? I can't say that I recommend it. It's only in the last year that I've learned just how rare an open heart is. No wonder.
If it weren't for fighting with the cable company two or three times a year I would have no active conflict in my life.
In the big picture, war is business. On the home front, couples fight. Unless it's Father Knows Best or Ozzie and Harriet.
A lot of folks never get over a broken heart. Some of us never get over hurt feelings.
Do you feel like you've ever completely loved? Do you feel like you've ever been completely loved? I've been haunted for as long as I can remember with the idea that there's more. Just more. Someone recently posited to me that unrequited love is the best. It's complete. Total. It's not dependent on expectations. Reciprocity. There's no score to keep.
My romantic history started with unrequited love. Maybe I should have stuck with it. All I ever wanted to do in life was to play in a rock'n'roll band. Let's face it- I was born a solo act.
My heart opens and I find it easier to see the beauty and the truth in all people that I come across. Mankind seems desperate to destroy the earth and everything on the earth, mankind included.
I write those two statements and I have a problem matching them up. The darkness in people I don't want to see. Cable news is always there to remind me. So are the great novels from the last two centuries.
If I sit quietly in meditation seeking peace, it doesn't stop any bombs falling in Syria.
The pieces of the puzzle are obvious to me. Love. Greed. Compassion. Ignorance. Empathy. Intolerance.
Technology gives one side the edge. Always has. The one with the rock and the big stick prevails. The army with the nuclear weapons wins. The enemy with the spyware drills into the culture and dominates its politics.
We give the brilliant scientists peace prizes for their achievements. Politicians commandeer the technology and put it to use in order to feel better about their manhood. Captains of industry manufacture a surplus of weaponry and bribe "elected officials" to purchase all that rolls off the assembly line.
I didn't elect any of these officials. They don't represent me.
In my country we find car bombs evil and deplorable. They are. We consider rockets with warheads and bombers longer than football fields defense. Isn't it obvious that they're evil and deplorable, too? When a little megalomaniac rolls his toys out north of the 38th parallel and the crowds cheer, it chills our blood.
Either we speed up the evolutionary process or we watch the doomsday play out.
May I suggest that we stop allowing idiots to make these decisions? Do those folks represent you? I didn't think so.
What if every penny that we've spent on war since the end of the Civil War had gone to infrastructure, healthcare, scientific research and education? Why don't we tax individuals who inherit fortunes on debt to pay for people cheated as the fortunes were built?
Do we have big problems facing our society? You bet.
Do all solutions have to revolve around billions for a military machine and reducing taxes for the wealthy? The answer is yes if you ask the only two political parties allowed to participate in the process.
If we make ourselves vulnerable to evil forces waiting to dominate us without a gargantuan arsenal, then why isn't China raiding Switzerland as I write this?
This is where demigods come from.
Personally, I don't believe that all capitalists are bad, evil, selfish. I do believe that those two Koch brothers are. All politicians aren't slimy, degenerate scumbags. Donald Trump is. So is Vladimir Putin. Ted Cruz, too.
Not all socialists are good guys. The historical Jesus seemed to be a pretty fine fellow, though. Buddha before him, too.
Those clowns in D.C. try to keep us from considerations like these with fear. Dividing us into camps facilitates the ruse.
The questions are complicated. The answers are not.
In the end it's all about the end, isn't it? I would make the decision to be happy but I'm too busy being blue. I don't suppose I was ever really careful what I wished for. It all came to me like magic. It never lasted.
At sixteen I lay in bed at night and worried about my '32 Ford. Rust, to be specific. Let's see here, now: Florida + steel = yeah, you got it.
Not exactly the master of suspense, you know where this is going. Oh, I was asked to leave the game of romance some time back. I have memories, though. We all have memories.
All the gold in the world won't buy your self-respect. Turns out that I squandered the last of my libido on fantasy. That's okay. Sometimes the beauty of humanity blinds me like a left fielder losing a pop fly in the sun.
If you don't believe in ghosts you just don't dream and I feel sorry for you.
My Chicken Little rants about the demise of rock'n'roll was decades late. That horse was out of the barn and over that fence before I piped up. The seeds of fear and loss were planted in 1956 when publishers figured out that "Will Calypso Kill Rock'n'Roll?" and "Pat Replaces Elvis" covers sold magazines. I bought 'em all.
If it seems that I'm rambling here it's just that I'm not connecting these thoughts for you. It's all of a piece. I promise.
She hopes I won't bother her again and fears that maybe I won't.
