Fighting my way into slumber last night using my FB addiction to narcotize my wounded mind, and what should a find - a new Bob Dylan Album · yes i’m trying to write while listening to “False Prophet” for a 2nd time, but it’s hard to memorize while you’re struggling to be worthy. It is more than useful to remember when the whimpering whinges its way into my behavior that i have lived the better part of my existence listening to the inspiration of one the planet’s most humane poets - that is miraculous by my understanding of miracles. Albert Einstein suggested there are two ways to view the world, one as though nothing is a miracle, the other as though everything is. It is one of the things i love about listening to Mr. Dylan, his words seem to be full with the results of a mighty struggle between himself and world. I admire struggle in ways that are not always helpful - i attribute my wounds to that curiosity, when it is only because i am alive that i am wounded. There is no path any of us can walk wherein there is not pain and affliction. The path is the joy one finds regardless of the demands otherwise. You know you are, forgive the vernacular, in the groove when happiness follows you like a song of Mr. Dylan during times of decision - do i smile or do i weep.
Nor is his wisdom straightforward - it all too often confuses the shit out of me · for example: “the more i take, the more i give.” What the fuck is that supposed to mean¿ On the surface i feel great relief, but that is mostly because i am card-carrying member of the Wasichu tribe of North America, (Wasichu - is Sioux for “he who takes from the meatiest part of the bone”) and because i was raised in da’Nile region of Orange County, Ca; i have spent a good deal of my life living down what my ancestors had accomplished. One of my forbearers had been a Medical Doctor for the Confederacy, while one of my first arrests had been the result of good advice i’d gleaned from Eldridge Cleaver’s “Soul on Ice.” I had been stopped late one spring afternoon in Newport Beach, Ca by an officious cop who wanted to bust my chops for bicycling 50 yards in a pedestrian zone. Mr. Cleaver had advocated in his book to follow the commands of law enforcement to the letter, but do not once look them in the face. You’d be amazed at the effect this had on my arresting officer - ultimately charging me with “public intoxication” though all i’d drank that afternoon was a single beer at Blackies.
The English language description for the officer’s demeanor is that he was “beside himself.” I was finally released after midnight. Whether i signed the waiver declaring the officer had had probable cause escapes me, it is the fact of how little control any of us have over another if we cannot control ourselves that remains. I suspect this truth remains to this day and no matter how shrill the media would like be - the .o1% got shit · 7 billion hard charging, capable people of whom i’ve had the privilege to meet my share in passing, control everything but you. It is hot as hell where i am writing and just barely the witching hour for drinking, yet if i want this effort to seem cogent to the handful who are curious it is wiser for me to put my elixir in the freezer to chill while i pace myself to the 5th paragraph which feels almost possible, despite my self-inflicted frailty and insatiable desire to be cared for, or at least commended for my courageous effort. Laugh if you must, but i can’t be more clear. I have tried any number of devices from self-deprecation to passive-aggression, and the only really satisfying scratch for the itch is to day it straight. Pop was like that; we’d be talking on the phone and he’d just stop and say, “come here i want to look into your eyes,” as though he could read a cyclops skilled at the oblique.
I was to learn later he was not looking in my eyes, he was looking in my heart. When we spoke he wanted to know truly what i felt - it is a privilege i sorely miss. Ma to her credit for all the years we knew each other was able to only commiserate this one point - she would out of nowhere say to me. “you miss your father, don’t you?” She and i were too far along in our struggle to demonstrate compassion to each other for me to give her proper credence for her question; but sitting here now sifting through the detritus of my life, i know she was doing her level best to be sincere. Ma hid her wounds so well, i may be the only child who recognized just how much pain she has suffered. If you think i’m kidding; i have a sister who would only allow ma to visit her in 3 day increments - i don’t say this to shame my sister, but to demonstrate how much we can be our own worst enemies. Another example, ma and her insurance had a skin cancer excised from her 87 year old once lauded beauty, and my eldest brother could only come across with “hey scarface, how are you feeling?” And again neither or these two individuals will read this for themselves because their strategy for pain is to like cancer excise it, so as persona non grata i am comfortable they will only hear my betrayal 2nd hand.
What they won’t hear is my love for them, as ma could never understand that though i never surrendered, i love her to this day. You cannot seize someone through force, just as i could not establish for my family that they could not revoke my membership simply because i am too fucking weird for words. Though this may seem a solipsistic approach to reality there is logic to what i am trying to say. The billionaires cannot win because their’s is a game of exclusion; i cannot be defeated because i refuse to accept their horse shit. This doesn’t mean i’m holding out a warm and fuzzy flag of truce so that they may continue the destruction of a planet anymore than i will accept the conceit of my brethren that the family is theirs to exclude me from. I welcome all and work hardest at welcoming myself. As much as i would like you to join me in having fun to the end of time, i don’t require you to do that. I will find something to turn my hand to because that is what i understand life to be about - if you can’t serve yourself, you damn sure can’t serve others . .. ··· maybe this is what Bob Dylan meant when he said “the more i take, the more i give.” - i don’t know, “i used to care, but things have changed” mo BD
jts 09/05/2020
http://stoanartst.blogspot.com
reprinted with permission - all rights reserved
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