Herdin' Cats

It's Super Bowl time, y'all and so I thought I'd embed my all time favorite greatest TV commercial ever. I'm reading Lonesome Dove right now so it is particularly pertinent. I think even Capt. Woodrow F. Call might let out a chuckle after gazin upon this gem...

Watch CBS Videos Online

Bill Ayers: Unrepentant Terrorist, Union Man, New Waver

Helloooo again! I am a *terrible* blogger. I don't post a damn thing so I don't think of myself as one of the Elite, the Few, the Proud: The Digitalluminati, most of whom write crap (there! see? I think like a blogger writes!). I, of course, do NOT write crap....because I don't write. But, oooh, the times we live in. Perhaps another voice is needed, amid the din. I dunno. But, in many ways, things have been looking up for me and I'm tired of thinking of stuff to say and I am really tired of ignoring this medium as a way to rant out loud instead of grumbling to the polite and busy folks around me everyday. Obviously, if you are a reader and/or writer of blogs you are neither, so you are a natural audience. Howdy, and thanks for reading!

FIRST UP-- my buddy Bill Ayers. What an interesting cat this dude is. The radical 60's personified, if the 60's were about rebellion and sex and Marxism and wildness and youth and never having to apologize and never not having a cause greater than yourself. And fun. Bill, you're all that. I disagree with most of your specific ideas and find the Weather Underground's rhetoric ridiculous and the violence repugnant. Yet I love the spirit. Damn, you're hard to pin down. When he was visiting my UPS route a few years ago for summer break, I got to know Professor Charm a little bit. Bill was getting FedEx packages sent to him nearly every day from his gig at UIC. I mentioned that hey, did ya know FedEx isn't unionized and UPS is? And we'll give you the same great service or better. Within a couple of days his overnights were all UPS Next Day Air and stayed that way for good, university brass be damned. Now that's a rebellion I can get behind! There's a lot more I could say about Bill and his amazing charisma & energy & crazy notions and his equally (if not more) amazing partner Bernadine (the "Poster Girl of The Radical Left") but I gotta go to Nevada on business in a couple of hours (hey, don't ask, I'm a Teamster...) so I'll leave you with this: I don't know the full extent of Bill Ayers' connection/friendship/mind-control over Barack H. Obama but I think I've found out what Bill was doing while underground in the late 1970's. Dig this video of the song :"Video Killed The Radio Star" from 1979; famous for being the first video played on MTV (the oncoming video revolution being what prob drove Bill & Bernie out of hiding once and for all--when the Whole World Is Watching Something Insipid it's probably time to get a real job):
Check out the lead singer.

Then look at this clip of Bill and Bernadine from the early 80's on a recent CBS news program (its about 18 seconds in, past the commercial for some capitalist pigs):

Watch CBS Videos Online

Check out Bill's get-up. Hmmm?! Huh? Ya hear me talkin'? Gotcha you old radical! heh heh, nice hairdo, pal (like mine was any better!). Well, they may have wished they had done more, but at least they ushered in the New Wave. We went from quiet sit-ins to a million people in the street in just a few years, thanks to 2 things: the Draft and Videotape. Now we got no draft and video ever damn place ya look. And a billion people on the couch. Medium Cool, indeed.

Cheer Up!

Out of turmoil comes perspective, enlightenment, growth, and...more turmoil! But it ain't all bad, not at all. It's been a heck of a year so far since my last post, very busy (yeah, yeah, we're ALL "busy"), and I've let my goal of doing a little writing & ranting fall by the wayside. Today I read one of the best columns ever by one of the masters of simplicity. I thought I'd dust of the ole blogging machinery by borrowing Garrison Keillor's current post, which moved me to tears... and a little more smiling. And if you read this, Jin, ole buddy, it's for you. I know why you chose Emerson for the yearbook quote while the rest of us dorks chose rock lyrics.

SEPTEMBER: TIME TO LIGHTEN UP AND GET A GRIP

By Garrison Keillor


That crisp, clean, dry smell of autumn is in the air, so stunning and surprising every year, a smell forever connected to bright colors and fresh apples and cool grass with beads of dew and the eagerness of a boy, pencil box and tablet in hand, wending his way toward Benson School and Mrs. Moehlenbrock's sunny classroom. The pencil box is new. Mr. Truman is president, the neighbor's son Jack is fighting the communists in Korea, and every Saturday we yearn for the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers football team to be triumphant, which sometimes they are.

I loved school, where I excelled for a short time, and now my golden-haired gap-toothed daughter, who is 9, loves it, too. She tolerates weekends pretty well but on Monday she is all eagerness, leaning forward on tiptoes with that heightened sense of possibility that is the basic component of cheerfulness, which is the secret of the good life. She expresses this by clenching her fist in the air and jerking it down and saying, YES. Sometimes twice.

Cheerfulness isn't the same as happiness. You can't always be happy. Or satisfied. But a cheerful outlook is always possible. Ancient people in wheelchairs in nursing homes, their minds in ruins like the Parthenon, nonetheless beam at the stranger out of lifelong habit, putting the best possible face on things, even during great vacancy.

I turned 65 last month, which is about as festive as walking into a brick wall, but I'm okay now. And when I look back on my messy life with all the wrong turns and failures and days I wish I could rewrite, and then I think of the shining child whose picture is on my cellphone, the door to the past closes. You cannot possibly regret anything in a chain of events that led to her existence. So you turn to the future.

The philosopher of cheerful purpose was Emerson, and for some reason my generation preferred the puritanical Thoreau, a sorehead and loner whose clunky line about marching to your own drummer has found its way into a million graduation speeches. Thoreau tried to make a virtue out of lack of rhythm. He said that the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. Okay, but how did he know? He didn't talk to that many people. He wrote elegantly about independence and forgot to thank his mom for doing his laundry.

Emerson was a mover and shaker. He said, "Every great and commanding moment in the annals of the world is the triumph of some enthusiasm ... this is the one remedy for all ills, the panacea of nature. We must be lovers and at once the impossible becomes possible." He said this while he was out on the road plying his trade as a lecturer, peddling his books, earning the money he would use to buy the land for Thoreau to build his little cabin on and pay Thoreau's fine and get him out of jail. Oh well. Never mind.

These autumn days are so golden, if there was a whole month of them, your mailman would feel triumphant enthusiasm and start his own dance company called Deliverance and the woman who cleans your teeth would write haiku -

Into the gorge of

Enamel and spit I thrust

My slim silver pick.

- and you would have to tell them how much you liked their work, even though you didn't, but bravo for them. Nothing is so cheerful as the urge to commit art. The purpose of all great art is to give courage and thereby cheer us, just as the purpose of education is fundamentally cheerful - to draw us out of gloomy solitude and into a conversation with other scholars.

Lighten up. Get a grip. Leave morose silence to teenagers; it's too dramatic for you and me. We have passed the great test of a republic, to survive the most incompetent leadership, and now we can anticipate a new era, one with no Bushes. As Emerson said, "This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it. ... Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."

In other words, cheer up.


(c) 2007 by Garrison Keillor. All rights reserved.

Distributed by Tribune Media Services, INC.

And I also dedicate that to my kids. Yeah, you guys.

Difficult Announcement

With the new year comes some very difficult news. Anna and I are in the process of a divorce. The past year has been a hard one, most especially on her since she it was my idea to part ways. We have struggled in various ways for years. We have both sought and rejected help while striving to stay hopeful for ourselves and the kids, to no avail. Since it is my decision, I can only speak for myself when I say I believe this is the best course for everyone. We will rebuild. I love Andie, Kayleigh, and Logan so very much and I've sworn to them I will do everything I can to make the new life we'll all lead as good as possible. And I have vowed to Anna that I will honor her commitment, past and present, by doing all I can within reason to make the transition fair, respectful, and optimistic. The future now, not the past.

Marriage is an institution I believe in. Many issues that might cause others to run or, more common, give up and allow hope in life to fade, can be worked out in wonderful and liberating ways that can bring two lovers back together and closer than ever. I believe that can happen, with effort. But not here.

We gave it 20 years but I had to accept that this relationship didn't work for me. I have spent years coming to terms with that reality; I have studied, I have been counseled by several professionals, and I have prayed. All the painful reflection, the awareness and answers I have found, all of this has finally given me no reasonable, realistic, and honest choice but this one.

I don't know how many people are actually going to first hear about this here. If you did, thanks for taking the time to read this and consider us. Please pray and send your best hopes our way. We are doing ok but every bit of grace counts now. I wish you and yours continued happiness in the new year and a prayer that your own life path is clear or at least becoming so...

Stolen Car by Bruce Springsteen

I met a little girl and I settled down
In a pretty little house in a pretty little town
We got married, and swore we'd never part
Then little by little we drifted from each other's heart

At first I thought it was just restlessness
That would fade as time went by and our love grew deep
In the end it was something more I guess
That tore us apart and made us weep

And I'm driving a stolen car
Down on Eldridge Avenue
Each night I wait to get caught
But I never do

She asked if I remembered the letters I wrote
When our love was young and bold
She said last night she read those letters
And they made her feel one hundred years old

And I'm driving a stolen car
On a pitch black night
And I'm telling myself I'm gonna be alright
But I ride by night and I travel in fear
That in this darkness I will disappear


Copyright © Bruce Springsteen (ASCAP)

Postscript

Long before the towers and the bridges, the subways and the suburbs, New york began to assimilate the first great immigrant wave and in the process struggled to find a way to make the American ideal relevant amid the disorder and disruption of so many varying peoples brought face to face. In the 1840's a frank and honest young poet named Walt Whitman, born in Brooklyn, walked the streets and absorbed the city deep into his soul. Street after street he found not only slums and misery, the babble of strangers, the mutterings of the insecure, and the depravity of indifference; he found a city of courage, hospitality, openness, and friendship. His city. A dream he made real with his words. A city he saw becoming real before his eyes, amid the turmoil. The crowds and noise that grew each day, the bumping up of cultures, did not frighten him, it excited him. On his sliver of land between the sparkling waters no one group represented the city; it was in the mix that the spirit of the place was found. The democratic mix. He saw (as quoted from Ric Burns' magnificent documentary of NY) "an endless river of people, each pursuing his or her own destiny. Where some saw the classes of races, religions, and nationalities he saw a daily sharing..." The city yearned for more than what was; he sensed that longing and loved it. Whitman, gazing at the multitude that crossed the East River ferries each day, sharing the ride that took them to their labors and then home again, felt a kinship with every individual. He saw each one and loved them. He felt his city and his heart merge. He saw the future and found hope.

The poem that follows is a celebration of the moment and an embrace of the future. The immense American experiment was weaving what he believed would be a new reality for the world. Now, with no place too remote to affect us, it is an optimism I hope all of us will share. It is an ancient hope, of course, but along the banks of these New York rivers, the wide ports, welcoming the ships (and planes) that brought so many, it is a hope that found its legs and began to wander, finding a home among the hearts of the citizens of the world. Our people.

Flood tide below me I see you face to face

On the ferry-boats, the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home, are more curious to me than you suppose;

And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence, are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose

It avails not, neither time or place—distance avails not;

I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence

Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt;

Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd;

Just as you are refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was refresh’d;

Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood, yet was hurried;

Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships, and the thick-stem’d pipes of steamboats, I look’d.

These, and all else, were to me the same as they are to you;

I project myself a moment to tell you—also I return.

I loved well those cities;

I loved well the stately and rapid river;

The men and women I saw were all near to me;

Others the same—others who look back on me, because I look’d forward to them;

What is it, then, between us?

What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?

Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and place avails not.

--- "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry",

from Leaves of Grass,

Walt Whitman

Annual Letter: Conclusion

"Imagine there's no countries,
It isn’t hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No religion too,
Imagine all the people living life in peace..."




“You know what my least favorite John Lennon song is? Imagine. At the root of it is some rigorous thinking about the way things could be, but people have stolen the idea and made it an anthem for wishful thinking. I’m against wishful thinking. I hate it.”
--- Bono, 2005







We probably all wish we had the kind of courage displayed in “The Lord of the Rings”, but the deeper question for us is can we find similar strength & inner fortitude to overcome the challenges of every day? To rise above the mundane and live lives not of avoidance and mendacity but of nobility and purpose…to be more selfless and less selfish. “Nobility & Purpose”…is that even possible? Once, long ago yet sometimes not far away, I only wanted my MTV. Now I have so much, yet find myself still wanting more. Are these things among them? Or are they too much to hope for in this shrill and crowded world? I look for it in others and have too long expected failure and weakness, but I'm starting to see that those who find a little faith in themselves can surprise you, given the chance. And giving them a chance can build up that faith in both of you; others around you will start to see hope as well. To live only to serve the petty daily concerns of yourself, or your family, or your tribe or town, is to deny the full potential and expression of the best part of human nature. And to sit only and dream, while others work, is a sin. We need to accomplish, as best we can, what we can, with humility, tenacity, and faith that others will join us.

Thank you for reading this; I hope it made some sense for you and provided some enjoyment. It means a great deal to know that even one person is sharing in our story. Thanks also to those who encouraged and were patient while I knitted this together in my own slow way. Your support is treasured always.

Let me leave you with a quote from the best biography written in many years about a man you all have heard of may not know well. He confronted, in person, the most powerful man in the world, George III; and he founded, as much as any other man, with sweat and great sacrifice, the nation we still so easily take for granted. He is not on the money, few statues exist of him, and he was unceremoniously voted out of office; an office (the presidency) he helped create, by the common people he so well served over his very long life:

'It was among the children of his children that Adams and his words to the wise would live longest in memory. "The Lord deliver us all from family pride," he had written to John Quincy's son John, for example. "No pride, John, no pride."

"You are not singular in your suspicions that you know but little," he had told Caroline, in response to her quandary over the riddles of life. "The longer I live, the more I read, the more patiently I think, and the more anxiously I inquire, the less I seem to know... Do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly. This is enough... So questions and so answers your affectionate grandfather."

Adams had, however, arrived at certain bedrock conclusions before the end came. He believed, with all his heart, as he had written to Jefferson, that no effort in favor of virtue was lost.
He felt he had lived in the greatest of times, that the eighteenth century, as he also told Jefferson, was for all its errors and vices "the most honorable" to human nature. "Knowledge and virtues were increased and diffused; arts, sciences useful to man, ameliorating their condition, were improved, more than in any period."

His faith in God and the hereafter remained unshaken. His fundamental creed, he had reduced to a single sentence: "He who loves the Workman and his work, and does what he can to preserve and improve it, shall be accepted of Him."
His confidence in the future of the country he had served so long and dutifully was, in the final years of his life, greater than ever.

Human nature had not changed, however, for all the improvements. Nor would it, he was sure. Nor did he love life any the less for its pain and terrible uncertainties. He remained as he had been, clear-eyed about the paradoxes of life and in his own nature. Once, in a letter to [an] old friend he had written, "Griefs upon griefs! Disappointments upon disappointments. What then? This is a gay, merry world notwithstanding."

-- from David McCullough's "John Adams" (2001)


I hope for a better world, one in which we believe in powerful, realistic dreams, ones we are able to discuss with healthy skepticism but without cynicism, fear, and weakness diminishing the possibilities and darkening the hope. A society in which there is more to love than be disappointed with; one with nobility and purpose, not just security and performance. A place where someone can look in the rear view and see not just where they came from, but how far they have come, and be a bit more sure of where they are going… a place with prospects and far less shadows and doubt. So back to the road I go; I’ll be heading out there each day, hands a bit tighter on the wheel, looking ahead and looking for that place. I hope to find you there, my friends. All of us are hoping to find you there.

I will provide for you
And I'll stand by your side
You'll need a good companion
For this part of the ride
Leave behind your sorrows
Let this day be the last
Tomorrow there'll be sunshine
And all this darkness past
Big wheels roll through fields
Where sunlight streams
Meet me in a land of hope and dreams
--- Bruce Springsteen

Ann. Letter, Pt.11: From the Wild Lands

There’s a bumper sticker around my town that says, “Talkeetna: Where the Road Ends and Life Begins”. That’s the jumping off place for the heart of the Alaska Wilderness. 2001 was my Talkeetna, the time when the training ended and the living a life of meaning, purpose, and perspective began. Where I left behind the comfortable, routine wanderings of youth, those roads paved and well-traveled, and tried to really find my own way through the thicket of conflicting ideas, endless challenges, and uncertain peril. There is a place and time when everyone must face the wilderness, to wade into the raging rivers, the arid landscapes, the swampy bogs in order to transform into who your heart calls you to be. If it calls you to sort out the missteps and clarify your purpose; not just yearn to be better, than you have been, but to be it; better in a way that only you can truly judge, out of 6 billion potential critics, then you have to not just face the wild, not just roll past it with the windows open and take some snapshots of it from the comfort of the highway. You have to put boots to dirt and venture in. Some people become crazy or perhaps just ridiculous, but crazy isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be, nor that common, really. For every real crazy there are a thousand who fear it, and so do nothing. And for every sojourner who emerges back onto pavement, surer in step and firmer in purpose, there are many who long to hear what it’s like. You can show them.

The interesting thing is that so many of us are already wandering in our wild lands, ready to reemerge. The way out is usually the hardest part, you’re tired, you’re weak, you’re tempted to take shortcuts, you may be asked to turn stones to bread, or bow down to something truly dark in exchange for an earthly dream. Who will you then become? Who will you lead by your example? They say the road is the destination and I don’t dispute that the journey matters and that life is a trip, but it ain’t always Interstate 5, easy and straight…yet isn’t that a boring, crowded road anyway?

I look forward, as always, to what awaits us, both with anticipation and foreboding. I've lived long enough to see that not all change is progress. The old folks may have been disorientated by the gadgets and trends but they usually became savvy about human behavior. They warned me about a lot of things and now that they are passing, I'm seeing more often how right they were. But at the same time, I see that most of them weren't trying to depress me about the future, but to guide me, and all of us, to keep a tight rein on some of those trends. It's easy to admit that granny was right, harder to admit that a parent was right, but now that we understand what they struggled with (us!) we can find some sympathy and confidence when we confront the unbridled desires of our own tiny babies that stand on the edge of this new century. The new stuff is cool but there are a lot of old ideas that are worth hanging on to, even crucial. Remember the Mokan villagers by the Indian Ocean? The younger men wouldn’t listen to the elders who saw the changes in the birds and the sea and knew a tsunami was fast approaching and refused to evacuate at first. Who listens to old men anymore? But someone did, the villagers ran to higher ground, and everyone was saved, unlike so many others…

I spent four decades hearing about “the year 2000” and all the terrible, wonderful things that awaited us, everything from flying cars to the end of the world. The year arrives and civilization holds; 1-1-2000 turns out to be just another day, as are the days after that. There were so many promises made, by family, by friends, by society, by God; how many were delivered? How many ever will be? Lives come to a close and you’re not sure if in them satisfaction was ever found. The excitement of youth, the zeal with which we look forward to independence and freedom is soon beset by the demands of responsibility, a day to day struggle between optimism and obligation. Love can endure and grow, but what was once all promise, even at its best, requires sacrifice and effort. It is also such with the arrival of a baby; the promise and hope of a new life becomes another human, flawed and needy. Life turns into experience, and living becomes a strategy. Along the way joy turns into a guerrilla warrior, elusive and cagey, quietly surrounding you, dangerous if you pursue it too hard, calling out to you if you give up, but apt to strike when you least expect it, because it is always out there. Are we too busy to welcome it? Are we too preoccupied with fear to give joy to others?

SO much of life is spent just enduring the days, weeks, months, and so little is just spent on adventure. In between we take too many little pleasures to keep us occupied & help us get through the days: rich food, daydreaming, bad TV. We console ourselves about the fact that we aren’t rock stars by pointing to the fact that lives of excess lead to their own unique & acute suffering, but there must be a happy medium between rock star and mundane futility. That, I believe, is the most common American Dream, the one that drives us and reigns in our worst impulses. The middle road between too much and too little.

Jackson Brown’s old classic “Running on Empty”is the perfect song for the thirtysomething age.... now I’m starting to notice all the people trying to move past “empty”, trying fill themselves with real fuel for the next leg of the trip. The journey ahead has so much at stake: older kids so complex, and anxious, aging relatives trying to find serenity. All around us are younger co-workers & people in the community, looking for guidance, some subtle leadership, and encouragement that their own long journeys are worth the ride. And I see people our own age trying to get it together and make life count, rather than moan any longer about what they can’t count on. They, we, are ready to try and face the losses we can’t possibly avoid, and accept the rewards we can’t even imagine. Didn’t all of us budding geezers learn so much the hard way? We could be turning our bitterness into resolve, our experience into instruction and comfort for so many that are following. We could be learning to read the sea and give comfort, instruction, joy, and peace.


“I’m ready-
I’m ready for the laughing gas,
I’m ready for what’s next
I’m ready to duck,
I’m ready to dive,
I’m ready to say I’m glad to be alive,
I’m ready,
I’m ready for the push…”
---U2, Zoo Station

...to be continued...