Killing Our Gods, Loudly

I’m sure you’re wondering where this is headed, right from the start.  I was thinking about this today, and I knew a blog was coming.  Suddenly I realized I had a series of what seem to be disparate themes, which were about to come together to make this one up.

First, a recent update on things:  I am the kind of person that when I like something, I tend to dive into it in an effort to discover more.  When it comes to music I do this especially, but I also do it when it comes to reading material.

About three or four years ago, while writing “The Other Roads Club” trilogy, I decided that a certain character, Minoru had a very dark, eccentric way about him.  I made him an Edgar Allan Poe devotee, right down to the way he dressed.  He quoted Poe, read the writings and sometimes couched things in the way that Poe might well have done.

Later on, I felt Minoru needed to branch out.  He was an acting type, so I had him go out for plays.  But what would work for him?  The answer?  Oscar Wilde; I had him try out for some of that.

It seemed to fit, so I bought a collection of Wilde’s plays; I never acted in any of them, but I would love such an opportunity one day.  His lampooning of British upper class twit society remains among the most clever.

P.G. Wodehouse, yet another; my sister loved his stuff, and it’s funny…I love Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie together, but reading the “Jeeves and Wooster” books is somehow more entertaining.  Don’t know why, but that is how that is.

So my point?  I immerse myself in the material I need to write my own stuff, and develop characters, storylines and all the other things I need.  It also broadens my own, sorry to say narrow bloody horizons.

Next case in point to get us where we need to go:  Sylvia Plath.

Recently the 50^th anniversary of her suicide passed our way.  I had known who Sylvia was, but I am not much of a reader or writer of poetry.  Irony:  not long ago, I stumbled across “The Bell Jar” in a used shop, and having not bought it, dispatched my friend Alice back to the shop to get it for me.

If you have not read this book, beware:  it is dark, scary, hard to read, but enlightening.  You go inside the tortured and yet brilliant mind of this woman.  She was only 30 when she offed herself; her son would also in time do the same.

I’d read this book, and saw horrific parallels to my own mental issues.  Plath even tried to kill herself in a way I envisioned, 20 years ago.  How shocking is that?

Not long ago, I joined Google+, and made friends with a young lady named Trina, who has put up a page there called “Sylvia Plath Lives.”  Only like four members, and Trina is surely into the lady’s writing more so than I.

I needed to research this more; I found something that really stunned me.  The cult of personality that surrounded Plath, her writing, and her death. 

Today I picked up “Ariel,” a restored version of which has been put out by Sylvia’s daughter, Frieda.  Plath bore two children by the British poet Ted Hughes, who we would know as the creator of the brilliant “Iron Man.” 

The relationship was good for both, and bad for Sylvia.  It’s no secret Hughes cheated on her; Sylvia was jealous and suspicious, but in this case had a right to be pissed off.  In the forward, 
Frieda writes of the hopes her father had to make it up to her.

His handling of Plath’s writings after her death, and the US and UK versions of “Ariel” attracted great attention, and great ire.

“Look in my eyes/What do you see/The Cult of Personality…”  -- Living Colour

Now the song is more about dictators and politicians, etc., but Plath attracted a rabid following.  Plath may well have been one of the first truly feminist authors, but Frieda rightly is unhappy with the way her mother has been used.

Used, abused, whatever you like for adjectives and superlatives.  Hughes was harshly criticized for changing “Ariel,” swapping out some poems for others, but it is a clear fact he had to be careful.  The poem “Lesbos” was about two acquaintances who lived in England.  The poem was not about lesbians, but it is a cutting and vicious three pages.  Hughes I think was right to drop that one.

But Plath has been taken up, she was then, and still now by a fan base that believes she is some kind of perfect “Goddess” and that all she ever did was wonderful.

When in fact, she was like you and I, a flawed human being.

I do not criticize her, and I cannot judge her.  I do not judge Hughes.  And here is where I get to my argument:

We kill our Gods…and we do it at the threshold of pain.

I’m reminded of the t-shirt Axl Rose used to wear onstage in the early days of Guns ‘N Roses, the one of Jesus, and I think it said something about killing your idols.  Very telling.

Think about it:  Plath’s followers, many of them are so fanatical.  Frieda writes she was accosted on a street by a man who was furious about a plaque being put up at the home in London where Frieda was born, where Plath lived happily with the family, and did some of her greatest work.

He was frothing about how it should be at the place where she killed herself.  Never mind that 
Plath was only there a few weeks; everyone thought she should die there.

Frieda’s response…she already has a headstone, we don’t need another.

Oh, and the defacement of Plath’s headstone by these rampaging assholes?  Talk about respect for the dead!  Talk about respect for the resting place of the one you supposedly revere!

All because they think Ted fucked things up with “Ariel,” and drove Sylvia to suicide.  That’s simplistic I know…but these people are even more simplistic than that!

So what else am I talking about here?

Next disparate thread:  because I live in Pennsylvania, I’ll shift gears for something a bit closer 
to home.  Yes, I’m going there.

JOE PATERNO AND PENN STATE.

I really hoped I could avoid talking about this again.  I tried to keep my mouth shut about the ongoing drama, one year after his death, and the fact that the Universe According to Joe still acts like he’s alive, walking around, and an omnipotent “God-Head” to the Blue and White.

I am really no longer upset with Paterno himself.  He is gone, a legendary coaching career tarnished by one big mistake.  I’m sure he committed a few others, too, but the one decision he made to shut up about Jerry Sandusky and what he was doing in order to protect the almighty football Program at Penn State.

The bleating continues to this day:  let’s work backwards.  The university itself continues to grudgingly shoulder its self-created cross of martyrdom over those terrible sanctions, that $60 million, piss drop in the bucket fine, and oh, so sad, no bowl games and no bowl game money.

The Nittany Lions did pretty damned well this past season; no one expected them to win eight games.  I covered two of those games at Beaver Stadium.  The fans showed up, smeared in blue and white, the nubile young (and not so young), both male and female bared their bodies and everything else in their passion for the university, the Program, and you know who.

But you know what?  Not many sellouts…sure, 97,000 for example?  That’s one hell of a crowd; but Beaver Stadium after its latest refit can hold 108,000 easily.

What’s that tell you?  Cracks.  They’re there.

Now…we can go a long ways down and fire off any number of people who still believe that Joe-Pa was wronged.  He was a scapegoat, they whine and howl!  It’s a conspiracy, they scream to the heavens!  The NCAA is out to get us, they shrilly proclaim.

The late Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis, he who saw conspiracies against his team by the NFL every place he looked would shake his head in disbelief.

So…let’s go right to the family, because they can’t let it go.

I do not have an issue with Joe’s widow.  Sue Paterno strikes me as a lady of dignity, and she’s only doing what any partner/wife/etc. would do; she’s defending her late husband.  I think she was right out of the loop; it’s clear to me Joe was not gonna tell her anything about Sandusky or what was going down.

Joe’s sons on the other hand, really bug me.  It would seem they spearhead the drive to trash the Freeh Report in an effort to try and prove that Louis Freeh overstepped his bounds, and that the NCAA went all out to destroy their daddy and ruin the program, blah blah blah.

Well…let’s take a look at certain aspects of why they might really be doing this.

When you’ve got a guy like Paterno who is essentially the most powerful man on the state university’s campus, you know what you get?  Perks.  Lots and lots of nice little bonuses, not just for the man, but for the family.

Hell, when Sandusky retired in ’99, he was given loads of them, even though everyone already suspected of just why he suddenly was leaving.  A hall pass to go anywhere he wanted, an office, use of facilities, discounts on tuition for him an all the family.

Transpose to the Paterno family:  now one son, Jay was an assistant coach so he too was an employee.  He was dumped along with the rest of the staff.

The Paternos began to make demands of the university in the wake of Joe’s passing.  They wanted goodies, all the goodies that Joe saw they got, and now…get ready for it…without in so many words…DECIDED THEY WERE ENTITLED TO THEM.

Stuff like…use of a private jet!

WHO THE FUCK NEEDS A PRIVATE JET IF YOU DO NOT WORK FOR THE BIG U. ANYMORE?

And of course they still wanted a luxury box, this that and the other.

I’m sorry…but you know, that really was unseemly.  What made these spoiled brat kids in adult bodies think they were entitled to any fucking thing?

This is an example of how you Kill Your Gods.  Yet another; fun, isn’t it?

I think Joe himself would be appalled that his grown-up family would try and hold up the university for stuff that really does not matter.

What exactly do they have to gain?  Joe made great money for a lot of years; they don’t need it. 

Two adult sons, free of the scandal in terms of having involvement should be able (you’d think) to get on with their lives.  Jay should be able to coach again; it would be unfair to hold the mistake of the father against the son.

Scott…I don’t really know what he does.  He ran for Congress back in like ’02, and I interviewed him a couple of times.  Nice guy, really; but he was a political novice running on the “Who’s My Daddy?” ticket.  Tim Holden ate him for lunch that Election Day.

I think the family doth protest too much.  Their “independent” review of the Freeh Report was a paid-for whitewash that would have made the creative writing team of World Wrestling Entertainment cringe.  ESPN must have been holding its collective nose when they aired a full report of that.

Again my point:  we make “Gods” of people, and we really must not do that.  Look at what happens; we make people, human beings out to be something spectacular.  When they fail, either we feel duped, or we cling to the cult aspects of what we thought they were, and convince ourselves they still are.

An old and dear friend has more than once said:  “I don’t go back.”  Her statement is about returning to the past; past relationships, and other matters that no longer apply to her life.

We live in the past.  We revel in it, and pretend it’s still happening.  I suppose that is why I do not suffer fools for the past well.  I do not have the patience for people who continue to re-live things that happened years and years ago like they were yesterday.

It’s been very difficult for me to get rid of my past, and I acknowledge this.  I have spent a long time trying to rid myself of shame, of guilt, of self-hatred for things I did and did not do.  I write of this in a number of my stories, and I find characters that seek a way out of that past.

We do indeed cling to that past, don’t we?  Look at the ongoing examination of Sylvia Plath.  Her work is indeed timeless, brilliant, cutting, and edgy for her time.  She was a woman out of her time, that’s my feeling.

But was she a “Goddess?”  No.

Joe Paterno…what was he?  A very successful football coach?  A leader of young men, a teacher, a guy who tried to do his best?  Largely, yes.  I do think that.

I also have said that a man’s life such as his should not be remembered for one mistake.  That I believe; yet at the same time, why was there such an act as he put on?  Why did he have to do it?

Why could he not at the end ‘fess up and say, “I screwed up.  I’m sorry.” 

I can’t answer that.

Last part of this:  look at the madness of organized religion.  I’ve blogged about it here before, and I’d refer you back to the “Samhain, and the Death of Anything Meaningful” blog for more on this subject.

I do not disrespect those who believe.  If it works, then good.  But look at how mad we have gone.  Most religions to me are the same thing, only we feel the need to destroy any interpretation but that which is the one we believe.

Everything else must be destroyed.  Isn’t that it?

Today, radical Islamists rape the ancient sites of Mali the same way radical Christians blazed bloody paths through Europe and the Americas.  The entire native population of Cuba, one example, no longer exists.

Is this what Jesus called for?  Did the prophet Mohammed really call for this?  What “God” demands this kind of tribute?

To me it is more human demands to serve a human purpose, not a spiritual one.

The two names are examples…and they were HUMAN.  Look at others, such as Buddha and Lao Tzu; they were HUMAN.  They did not require such things nor demand them.

Just another method of how we Kill Our Gods.

###

I have only read the foreword of “Ariel,” and skimmed “Lesbos” to get an idea of it.  I will read that once I’m finished here.  I think for me, I need to read more of her work, to expand my own horizon, and maybe get a bit more truth about myself.

I don’t know if any of this makes sense; this is all one draft, one stream of thought and consciousness.  I wonder what you will find, as I wonder what I’ll find in “Ariel.”

Peace, Out.

11 Days Out, and Stuff Reconsidered

Well, here I am coming onto the tail end of several days of actual work.  So much to update on and actually think about.


The playlist CD on the Office deck (one of the older Offices, not my favorite now) is pretty bad so it's iTunes time.  "Show Me" by Ronnie Wood is playing; I have two versions of this; another by Johnny Winter.  This one's good; sometimes I wonder about Ron's choice of song material for his solo stuff, but it's alright.


Anyway..."Gonna Try" from Big Audio Dynamite is next...okay...


Well, I am now something like 11 days out from taking my anti-depressants.  It had been suggested (strongly) to me that 12 years of being on Zoloft (even a small dose) is not a good thing, and that it may have compressed more than just my maniacal and self-destructive ways.


Before Zoloft, I can tell you my depression was a fucking rollercoaster ride, and not one that was any fun.  I am not lying when I tell you that I have had four major depressive periods in my life when suicide was a way out that seriously considered, and at one point even planned.


It's that fucking bad.  Anyway...the stuff has been good for me, and I'm not saying that because the drug companies are giving me money, though I think they should.  It acted as a compressor; my highs and lows were cut out, and I lived within the space remaining.


It worked well; for the better part of those 12 years, I was stable, much more calm, and more effective at a lot of things.  My anxiety issues last year just led my doctor to double my dose.


I trusted her judgement.


"Pick Up the Peace," the Who...Now I'm in deeper...hmmm...


Well, that worked in the short-term, because it cooled things down, but then I felt a terrible loss of energy.  Too much.  Not fucking good.


So I finally just decided to go off it; cold turkey is the only way I quit smoking, so I had little choice I felt.


"Spade," the BPA w/Martha Wainwright...weird song.


The comedown has not been too bad...some peaks and valleys to it, some moments of mild panic, but nothing I could not recognize and figure out.  My friend Dawn has tipped to a supplement, which I don't have with me, so I can't tell you all that's in it.  But I think it might be better than that other stuff.


If ever you get a chance, watch Stephen Fry's documentary, "The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive."  It will blow your mind.  I am not bipolar or manic, but I have some of the traits.  I saw myself in a lot of that, and also I'm quite glad I did not have the terrible flight off the cliff that some have (like one mentioned in there)...it ain't fun.


Will this change my being?  Probably; but I just can't say whether it will be good or not.  I would, as Richard Dreyfus said in the doc. about Lithium, that he's just about "not taking it."


I need to be that way with the Big Z.  I'd like to just about not be using the stuff...if ever again.  It's like bumming a smoke every now and again from my bass player Dan, but not buying and sucking 'em down every couple hours or whatever.


"Warm Regards," Steve Vai...from Fire Garden.  


Musicwise, it's been considered that I might be a better player if I'm off the stuff.  Don't know about that, yet.  I do feel a little more creative on the fretboard than I have been at writing lyrics.  


The Dharma Fools musical direction is changing a little; Dan and I still write on occasion and work on ideas, but we need a full band again.  Finding people interested has been surprisingly hard.


Well...in terms of other related things, I have to wonder if my deeper plunges into my psyche are going to bear any fruit.  At least in the short-term.  The long-term is more my interest right now.


My mind issues also are again traveling back in time to my earlier life; I have specific thoughts about when my life took a turn.  I often say this, with no joke; the last time I felt happy, was when I was about eleven.


"Snowblind," Black Sabbath.  No I've never been that, but I would not have been surprised if I went that way.


My life changed radically before that, several years before only I didn't know that.  Then at the appointed age, I went out of being a kid and into adolescence with no clue of much of anything.  I had no idea what was going on, and why my life became episodes of bad choices, ill-advised mistakes and an inability to recognize what was before me.


Gets better as you get older; you slow down more, and you become more circumspect (is that the right word?); with that comes more things.


With the brain, comes the body, but usually that goes first.  The body they say, is something you first repair, and the mind will follow that.  Well, I'm in better physical shape than I have been in many years.  I really do feel great; but my knees continue to trouble me.  Pain from the left one especially; not enough to consider meds or anything, but I wonder what else is happening there.


And considering my health insurance sucks balls, well...can't do much but wear my brace and keep it stretched.


Here's a question for you:  when do you think your childhood ended?  Or...did you ever have one?


**Think about that**


I know I did, and some of it was good.  Then I lost my youth, but there were occasional spots where the fog lifted and I could be a kid again.  Not many, though.


A lot of people I know well, I don't think, ever really were kids.  We were under adverse circumstances, many of us; I wonder if we sometimes act as we do as adults because we didn't have a childhood.


"Jubilee Train," the Blasters.  Not a bad song, but I don't particularly care for this one.  Do admit Dave Alvin's guitar licks are slippery good.


Anyway...it's really interesting to see some people still behaving like they're 16, or 18 or 21...for life.  No matter how old they get, they still act like they're forever young and never will die.


There also is the emotional aspect of those who never grow up.  Look at the public figures of people who act like they're stuck in junior high school; they never change, never grow up, and still act like insufferable brats.


Something stopped their growth.  Heavy stuff; abuse, drug use, alcoholism, fuck know what else.  I wonder when I stopped.


Axl Rose is quoted as saying that he stopped developing at the age of two, because of what he believes was sexual abuse at the hands of his father.  Paraphrasing, he said, "When people say Axl is a screaming two-year-old, they're right."


That's scary.


"Open Your Eyes," Bottle Rockets.


There's nothing that says you can't grow yourself; most of us don't.


I know that things are changing in my life, but I'm damned if I do know where they will go.  


Now, here's a thing...as a Buddhist and a Wiccan, Joy is an important matter.  Now, what is that?


What is Joy?  To you; you know the things that give you real joy, not just fleeting happiness.


I remember reading somewhere about letting oneself enjoy oneself.  Life does not have to be work; you can do some stuff, small stuff that gives you joy in the moment, and if you keep it, you can carry on with any fucking thing you want.


The important matter is:  YOU must decide what these things are, YOURSELF.


Do not let a spouse, a parent, a girlfriend, a preacher or whomever do it.  They might be able to suggest something, but you must make the decision on that.


"Wolf Dance," Ronnie Earl & the Broadcasters.  Now we're talking...deep blues...nice stuff.


So yeah...we all have stuff in our closets that need to come out, and I hope to do that on Mem. Day.


That day does not always resonate for me the way it does most others.  I have personal reasons why that's not a good day, but that is something I'm putting in the past and saying, fuck it.


Now, how about the work thing...I will have had ten or eleven straight days of work, which is the first I've had in a long, long time.  My sleep patterns were fucked, getting up at 1:30 in the am for a lot of it, but I could do that shift without much difficulty.  I did overnights for many years, and the night owl thing does have its value.


Still job hunting, and to be honest not liking the look of the market.  It has still got some opportunities out there, but I don't like where many of them are.  If I have to move, that might be a new experience, one I've studiously avoided.


Now...the writing thing.  "Time the Healer" got a week off, and I returned to editing yesterday.  More ideas and additions; this is going to be a long process and a long job to get it right but I can live with that.


I need to keep pushing the others to get stuff done, because we need to go forward.


Move forward, that's all there is to it, really.  I recently discussed with a friend about how she felt she never was a kid.  A lot of us at our age feel our live is half over, or just plain over.  


I don't believe that.  I'm 46 years old, pushing 47.  Now that I've made some physical changes, I don't feel like an old man any more.  I'm not a kid, sure; I don't act like a 19-year-old college partier, those days are long gone.  I'm still alive, and I feel about like I should at this age.  Not going soft, neither am I becoming conservative or boring or stupid in my "old age."  


My development is a work in progress; none of us are perfect, though to hear preachers and politicians say it, you'd think they were.  And we're supposed to hew to that?  I think not.


We all have to keep learning, keep growing; if we don't we die and we're a shell.  I see so many people like that, and I hate seeing it.  I hate seeing people give up, and act like it's over, or that they're fine the way they are and don't have to change a thing, because that's scary.


"The Valley of Unrest."  Lou Reed's The Raven...I do not remember the name of the woman who does the reading, but it's pretty cool.


So I have more to do...I will write on, and I'll play music, and I'll stay in this crazy radio business, because these are the things I want to do, and am meant to.


I made this last night...it's pretty funny.

"I HEAR THE BELLS, I HAVE KEPT MY VIGILANCE, RAIN DANCING IN THE RHYTHM OF THE SHOWER, OVER WHAT GUILTY SPIRIT DO NOT HEAR THE BEATING, DO NOT HEAR THE BEATING HEART..."


I know, that's bloody pretentious, and I don't think Poe actually wrote it like that...or did he?


"Texas," Mike Stern is next...so, yeah, look at that little graphic up there.  I made this last night, mostly as a joke, but now if you really look at it, that's my life.  At least one part of it.


I didn't realize what I had made until I took a close look at it.  The world is open to me...as it is to every fucking one of us.


WE Rule OUR World; fuck, yes we do.


I am aware that some people will never approve of me.  Some will never understand why I do the things I do, and why I don't do this, why I won't do that, why, why, why, fucking why.  Or why not.


Speaking of living in boxes:  I strongly deny that I live in one, though I've been accused of it.  I just do things the way I do them; sure, I do need to change it up now and again, but one must be reasonably practical about a bunch of this.


We do what we have to; but sometimes we don't even do what we want, because we think we can't.  


Look at all the crazy shit I've written and done over the years; it's waiting to be read and heard, and it will happen.  I just would like to be alive long enough to enjoy some of the reactions people will have.  That would be my joy, more than anything else.


OK...I have shit to do...enjoy your weekend, and find some joy in it.