We All Should Be as Happy as Kings

And the leaves that are green turn to brown. Yes, they do- but on the way, they turn red and orange and yellow and all sorts of mystical Nameless (and thus more mysterious and powerful) colors.

It's a cold, drizzly sort of morning here in Colorado- one of those sloppy mixes of snow and rain that, upon first view from the bedroom window, made me think, "oh, don't tell me I have to go out in that". You know what I'm talking about- temperatures above freezing, but just a smidge, ground covered with wet leaves that will stick to your shoes and not come off until you're standing on the carpet you just vacuumed yesterday. The kind of day where a full winter coat is too much and the sweater you're wearing isn't quite enough to keep you from shivering.

And for a good twenty minutes I let myself succumb to the joys of boo-hoo-ing about it.

But I just can't do that for too long. I don't know why, exactly, but the world always seems to me to be this really beautiful place, full of color and sensation and magic. I look up and down my street and see Fall in all it's glory- crisp and real and alive. I go inside and have a cup of coffee and contemplate what to listen to on the stereo while I do my morning's writing. I go with Copeland's music for Our Town. Copeland rocks.

How could I complain about anything, really? Yes, I could use more money, warmer clothes, cleaner shoes- but holy shit am I lucky. Lucky to have been born where I was born, lucky to be in fairly good health, lucky to have married someone I love very much, lucky to have the friends I have. I mean, I must have somehow gotten that bowl of Lucky Charms that actually gives you good luck. Thanks, Leprechaun dude!

There's this really great DVD called 1Giant Leap, which was basically this project these two guys put together, wherein they wrote a bunch of songs about universal themes- love, death, time, sex, God- and then went all over the world recording interviews with different people from all walks of life talking about those themes. They also layed trackes with musicians from all over- so one song might have percussionists from Thailand playing, along with vocalists from South Africa- really groovy, world music kind of stuff that if you listen to on our ipod in the right frame of mind can make you feel like Mickey Mouse in Fantasia after he puts on the Sorcerers hat- powerful and overwhelmed. Anyway- in the segment on time, one of the many people they talked to was Dennis Hopper- and he goes on this tear about how we are all miracles, when you think about it. Here we are on this little planet, shooting through space at incredible speed as we orbit the sun- and somehow, there's life, and music, and people. It's a miracle. We're all miracles.

I feel like that today. Like a miracle.

Of course, my life is pretty good right now, so it's easy to feel like that. I mean, I have a play running in Prague that keeps selling out; I just found out my one act Hela and Troy is going to be published by Playscripts, inc.; I teach children theatre for a living. I don't want to say that life can't be hard- I know that there are days and weeks and months and years that suck ass. There is intolerance, and misery, and sorrow all over, non-stop. There are children starving right now- millions of them- and at the same time, Rush Limbaugh sits on his fat ass and gets paid enormous amounts of money for spouting hate and the soft bigotry of being an asshole.
But still, in spite of everything- I find this world beautiful.

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote, 'The world is so full of a number of things, That we all should be as happy as kings.' He had it pretty good, too- but I think he was right.

I guess the thing to do is revel in this world, and try and help as many people as we can.
And not complain about something as mundane as a change in the weather.

Shake It Up

Seriously. Shake it up. Not to honor the old song by The Cars, though there's nothing wrong with that notion, but to get the proverbial juices flowing. Get out there and do something different for a moment, an hour, a day. Twist the scenery of your daily pageant and taste something new. Order a different drink at the bar, add cream to your black coffee or salt to your grapefruit.

That's right, salt your damn grapefruit. This has become a blog of daily confirmations, exhortations, and exhilaration. Why not? We let the world say the same old thing, day in and day out, every freaking day- and I have had enough.

More things that we all should do:

Buy the album Vinyl by D'Haene- up and coming band, will rock your soul.
Go to Prague and see my show, Cesta Horiciho Muze- because Prague rocks, and so does my show.
Talk to a total stranger. That's right- even if they have candy.

This isn't a new idea, I know- but it's one of those things we manage to learn and forget over and over, ad infinitum.

Example: this past week, my good friend Jack- resident genius of Jersey City's Art House Productions- came to visit. One of the many great things about company is that it forces us to change our routine, to vary the daily grind- you know, to shake things up.

So shake we did, along with some rattling and rolling, and good times were had by all. Amoung the many excellent things I/we experienced this past week was some great art at the Denver Art Museum. An entire room painted red, with grey foxes running wild. A strangely serene painting of a little girl that supposedly haunts the sixth floor of the North Building- at least that's what the security guards tell me. And this installation by Bjorn Melhus that was friggin' amazing. He basically took a bunch of sound bytes, mostly from Star Trek, and created this Beckett like series of vignettes, with three characters standing on a desolate planet pondering life, love, and our eventual deaths. Very funny, unique, and ultimately moving. And, we got to watch the whole thing while sitting on bean bag chairs.

It was one of those little moments in life that I knew, as it was happening, was for some unknown reason, important to my thread of being. I know that, years from now, I'll think of that artwork and smile, perhaps even be inspired in something I am working on, to new levels of brilliance.

All because of a slight variation in schedule.

Shake it up, baby, with all you've got.

And then see where the paint spatters have landed.

Surf's Up

Okay- I think that I, along with many others, have sort of drifted along through this summer of our discontent; of bizarre town hall meetings packed with loud, rude whacko's getting all riled up about socialism and healthcare; of all sorts of things that fill the web pages and tv sets and then float off into the ether. I've been kind of drifting since the election, as far as politics go. I think we all- or a vast majority of us- just thought "well, we elected the good guys, now we can get on with our lives and all shall be well". It's like we all turned into Uatu, the Watcher. Uatu was this bald dude who lived on the Moon and watched the world spin along and do it's thing- but never got involved. He also would narrate the "What If?" comic book- with storylines like "What If Spiderman joined the Fantastic Four?", or "What if Captain America was the President of the United States"- kind of cool conjecture on reality and the butterfly effect and all that.
And that's me of late- a couch potato on the moon watching the world spin, speculating on questions like, "What if we had universal health care? What if I was a commie and didn't know it? What if all those phoney looking angry folks at the town hall meetings really were bunch of fakes, like those dudes in Florida who stormed the recount when Bush stole the election?"

Well, the time has come to shake off that alter-ego, and get busy.

I don't know why, exactly, but of late I am filled with this need to do something more than just sit on my ass. Maybe it's because I watched Obama's speech to school children yesterday- maybe it's a reaction to the insanity of all those on the right who scream so loudly about the End of Days coming in the form of socialized medicine- I don't know. All I know is that break time is over, and it's time for all of us to do more than just watch. It's time for us to re-engage on the level we did during the election- or even more. Time for us to call our senators and representatives and governors and friends and strangers- to stand up and be counted.

To become Norrin Radd, The Silver Surfer.

That's right. I said it. Time for us to wield the power cosmic and go up against impossibly huge foes like Galactus, devourer of worlds, Satan (i.e. the G.O.P.), and the Insurance Industry.

The Silver Surfer sacrificed everything he had to save his world- he gave up his home, his family, the love of his life-he even gave up his hair- all of it, and this was before it became cool for dudes to shave their heads.

Yes, at times it might be lonely, gliding through the galaxy on our cosmic surfboard- but it's the right thing to do.

I called both my senators the other day, and when I did, I felt the power cosmic coursing through my body. It was excellent- and so freakin' easy. I mean, what excuse do any of us have for not contacting our elected officials in this age of the internets?

So come on, my fellow heroes- time to gear up and kick some ass.

I challenge you all to watch the President's speech tonight, and then talk to at least five people about it afterwards- five people whom you haven't spoken to in at least one month.

Surf's up.

Right wing, you suck

Okay- so I've kind of taken it easy on the old blog since the election- seemed liked things were good, we got a bunch of people in office, including the big one on Pennsylvania Ave.- what could possibly go wrong?

Ah, yes. I forgot. As Stephen King once wrote, there are a lot of assholes out there, and they travel in packs.

Let me put it another way:

The Right Wing sucks donkeys.

Seriously. The entire right wing sucks donkey dongs.

I don't know why this upsets me- it's been this way pretty much my entire life. But still, I get angry.

To speak to one facet of my dismay, let's talk about health care, or the lack thereof for most Americans. It's absurd. We have the most expensive health care system in the world, but not the most affective or available. Aren't we supposed to be The USA, the country that people are proud to be from? So, Obama et al try to get something going, get something passed that will help the average citizen- and the right wing goes whacko- I mean like Michael Jackson Whacko Jacko. There is a whole set out there trying to convince our seniors that the plan Obama is pushing will basically encourage euthanasia of the elderly. Isn't that nice? The politics of fear is alive and well and lives in the heart of all those cheating, lying, creepy old white men who are the GOP.

But then, this is not news, is it? We all know that the GOP, and to a lesser extent some in the Democratice party, suck at the teat of the great Corporate Cow who rules over us all, the Great Bovine of the Military Industrial Complex.

What to do?

I think, first off- I'm calling my senators and congress person and telling them to get with the program or I will do as much as I can to make sure they don't keep their office.
Next, I am going to pray to every God I can think of to either curse those bastards, or make the scales fall from their eyes.

Then I'm going to listen to some really good music- maybe Arcade Fire or the Shins or the D'Haene or Robbie Gil.

And then I'll watch the Daily Show and the Colbert Report to keep my sense of humor.

And God bless Conan for having Shatner do Palin. Whoopee.

Open Letter to the Management

Dear Sir or Madam,

Would you read my book?  Sorry, couldn't resist the Beatles reference.  I don't really know quite how to address you- in my own little life, I've called you all sorts of things- God, the Great Master of All Scouts, the Cosmos, Loki, Odin, Zeus, the Goddess, Mother Earth, Crazy Bastard- let's face it, there are lots of names for you- but I think they all point to the same thing- you, the head honcho, Optimus Prime on a galactic scale.  Anyway- here's the thing.  I was driving along on my way to work this morning, listening to talk radio and drifting through my morning thoughts when I came upon a memory of this talk given at one of the many Young Life meetings I went to when I was in high school.  It was an analogy about how you sacrificed your son to save the world.  The analogy went something like this:  a man was in charge of a draw bridge for trains.  He had a son who was a little rambunctious.  One day, a train was coming, and the bridge had just been raised to let a boat pass.  The man got ready to lower the bridge.  At the last moment, he saw that his son was goofing around under the bridge, and he realized that if he lowered the bridge, his son would die.  He also knew that the train was too close to stop in time, and if he didn't lower that damn bridge, everyone on that train was going to die.  The man had to decide what to do- and in heroic and tragic style, he decided to go for the greater good, lowered the bridge- and with tears in his eyes, waved at the people in the train as they passed.  (that part of the story always struck me as a bit much- I mean, the dude just squished his son and now he's stoically waving as tears roll by?  Give me a break)  I thought the analogy off in that I am pretty sure that, if you exist and did indeed sacrifice your son so that people may life, you must have known about the whole resurrection thing- right? Yes, Jesus was not in the loop- but you are the Alpha and Omega, and nothing gets by you.

But I digress- I am writing you with a simple request- can you please lift the Curse of the Dumbino off of the NY Yankees?  You know what I'm talking about- the curse that has been on them even since they let Pres. Dummy throw out a pitch in the 2001 World Series.  Sure, they brought it on themselves by letting such a crass and obvious political ploy occur during the Fall Classic- but enough already.  It's not like they traded a slugger/pitcher by the name of Ruth in order to finance a show.  If you can't lift it outright, what do they have to do?  Let Michael Moore throw out a pitch?  Smear some lambs blood over the entrance to the stadium?  

I am sure you are very busy, but if you could look into this matter, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Thanks in advance,

Kelly

GOP should take a vow of poverty

Guess what? Hoovervilles are back! Thanks, Republicans!

Okay, I think it's pretty clear to most people that I think the GOP is a party full of assholes.

How could I not? Or to put it another way, why should I feel any different? What have they done for me, ever? And before anyone can say "What about Reagan?" let me say this: Old Ronnie sucked.

He came off as kind of a nice old fart, but really, his policies stank: he lied about Iran-Contra (you remember that, when we dealt with a terrorist nation and even sold them arms, all so that we could turn around and illicitly support a bunch of killers in Central America), he drove up the national debt in numbers that were until that time unthinkable; he invaded Grenada; in short, he was a dick. There, I said it.

But I digress. The question now is, how can the party of Drinky McDumbAss (also known as George Bush) make me like them?

Simple: take a vow of poverty.

Seriously, if Boner and all his pals in congress took a vow of poverty to show America how to cut spending in a meaningful way, I'd sit up and take notice. If they then cut all their staffs in half, took public transportation, and gave all their worldly goods to charity in this time of need, I'd think that maybe they weren't all bad. Most of the Republicans seem to court the vote of the religious right- which is to say Christian fundamentalists- and I am fairly certain Jesus would totally approve of this.

Now, I realize there could be some problems. If, for instance, Rush Limbaugh got in on this and decided to try and emulate St. Francis (who was pretty cool) by walking around naked, that would be a bad thing. (I do think that fat bastard should sell his gold microphone and give the proceeds to charity. Yes, he's entitled to it- but there's something sort of Marie Antoinette in it's lavishness that doesn't sit well in these times of need)

Just think of all the money the government would save. It could be millions. Hell, if they only took a cut in pay and benefits equal to what they think the auto union workers should take, that would go a long way in cutting the deficit. It could certainly help keep some of the 8,800 teachers from being fired in LA. Or maybe the saved money could go towards helping New Orleans get back on it's feet.

So how about it, party of old white dudes, with a few women and people of color? Why not have every local, state, and federal Repub. in office refuse to be paid, and have the money go back into the budgets from whence they came?

Stop following Anus, God of Speaking out of both sides of your Ass, and start following the example set by that carpenter dude.

Lead by example.

ENIK'S CIRCLE

So Sunday, like a lot of people, I watched the Super Bowl and all of it's bonus features- the pre-show, the post-show, Bruce Springsteen- and the commercials. All of it was pretty cool- and I especially like seeing Obama having the guts to actually say he was for Pittsburgh- as opposed to some equivocating "may the best team win" baloney that you would expect from a politician- but what got me the most excited was the trailer for the new movie version of The Land of the Lost starring Will Ferrell. I used to watch that show when it first came out, and I really loved it.
And I have this weird memory of a certain episode that I wasn't sure I had really seen, or only imagined or dreamt I had seen- the storyline seems so strange, so over the top for Saturday morning early 1970's fare. As the years have passed, I've become less and less sure as to whether I ever really saw the episode in question or had made it up due to an overactive imagination coupled with a fascination and fear of death.

Here's what I remember from Land of the Lost in general, and of that existential episode in particular. Marshall, Will, and Holly, on a routine expedition, met the greatest earthquake ever known- and were sucked down this giant toilet bowl in granite of some sort to this place with several moons, lots of odd flora and fauna, and dinosaurs- not to mention monkey people and the dreaded Sleestack- or maybe it's Sleezstack- these bug-like lizard people who hiss a lot and don't take kindly to the Marshall clan. How the Marshall's survive in this strange world is basically the show. But that was just the beginning. Soon after their arrival, they meet Enik (whose name just happens to be the Greek word for cinema spelled backwards)- a tan looking sleeztack who can talk and is groovy and not quite so mean as his cousins- who turn out to be his descendants, as he comes from a distant past, and for some reason (like voting Republican too often) his people have become a bunch of cranky assholes. Among the cool things Enik can do is move these power crystals around in these funky little pyramids called Pylons that are all over the place. Ok- Marshalls, dinosaurs, multiple moons, monkey people, sleeztacks, and funky ass Enik. That's the general stuff about Land O' Lost.

Now the weird episode. Somehow, the Marshalls and Enik end up in this particularly powerful Pylon, and Enik is like "Hey, I have some serious shit to tell you about", and Mr. Marshall says "Oh?" and Enik is like "Yeah. It's pretty heavy. You better sit down." Picking up on the heaviness, Mr. Marshall tells Enik to give it to him straight, so Enik tells him "you don't belong here, amigo- something is all wrong with you being here". At this point, Marshall is getting pretty pissed off, and Enik can tell, so he shows him some stuff- telling him "this is not going to be so nice, but you asked for it, so here goes". Then Enik moves some crystals around, and on the screen in the Pylon they see the accident that brought them to the Land of the Lost in the first place- and Marshall gets all serious and says "there's no way we could have lived through that", and Enik goes "You didn't". Then they see the three dead Marshalls, and talk about some variation on Nietzsche and his theory of eternal recurrence. End of show.
Now that is a weird thing to have on a kiddie show- and you can see why I thought maybe I had dreamt it up.

But after seeing the trailer during the Super Bowl, I was reminded yet again of that strange episode- of how it dawned on me that the Land of the Lost was really the Land of the Dead- and I turned to Google.

Turns out it really was an episode, called Circle, written by Larry Niven and David Gerrold. It was the final episode of the first season, when they thought there wasn't going to be a season two. Oddly, the show got picked up and the whole they're all dead thing went away- but I never forgot that. I was eight when I saw Circle. Weird.

So what has that to do with things today?

Not much- except for this- I think we are kind of in a Land of the Lost right now, a crazy place where the past, the present, and the future are all happening at the same time- there are deadly dinosaurs running around in the form of greedy CEOs and senators against stimulating the economy, preserving the environment, letting gay people marry, etc.- there are Sleaze Stacks like Madoff and Cheney and Bush- who are like devolved, smelly versions of human beings-
and if we don't stop all the madness that has reigned over us for the past eight years, we'll be looking at ourselves sprawled on the side of a riverbank, realizing that we're the walking dead.