MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK SAYING GET IT TOGETHER

I told everyone last Monday, and I don't think anybody listened. It's like we are in one of those monster movies where until we figure out the nature of the beast, it will keep on showing up night after night, killing people, wreaking havoc, causing our social roles to break down, until finally the last bunch of people, holed up in a cabin, suddenly figure it out, and some one say "Oh my God. It's us. Don't you see? The monster is us! It's our hatred and pride and greed and vanity, manifested in Gorgo!" The trope Lisa Simpson used at the end of one of the Treehouse of Terror episodes. The one that was a take off on the classic Twilight Zone "To Serve Man". 

I want to say this as clearly as I can. 

Killing people is bad. 

We need to stop this shit. 

If we want law and order, we need to have the laws be equally enforced. If we want order, we need to be orderly. 

And I am sorry if any Trump supporters read this and get offended, truly I am, but the POTUS is acting like a gigantic POS. I don't see him doing anything to help the current situation. Any of the current situation. Social unrest has grown exponentially under his administration. The pandemic has been handled horribly, in every possible way. The economy is like some bizarre magic trick, where the stock market soars while everyone I know is struggling to pay bills. And the environment? That will require a new paragraph.

When the lockdown happened, we were given a brief glimpse at the world without us actively trying to kill it. And it was spiritual, mystic, glorious, and instructive. Skies were clear. Oceans healthy. Animals seemed to appear from some other dimension and roams the world once more. And what did our countries leader do? Get rid of laws regulating air pollution. Try to start drilling in one of the last great preserves in our country. Try, in every way conceivable, to get us back on our planet killing habits. He's like that friend of the recovering alcoholic who keeps trying to get them to drink again. 

I know this might sound crazy to some, but I prefer a clean, healthy planet with happy people who don't shoot each other in the streets or terrorize people based on how they look over an economy that provides more money than can be spent in several lifetimes to a smaller and smaller group of people. 

If that makes me a hippie/communist/socialist/leftist, so be it. When I die, I don't want a ton of money. I want a world that sings joyously, with clean air and happy people. With law, order, peace, love, and understanding, justice, tolerance and harmony.

Here's a song. It's Laura Nyro singing her song And When I Die. 

SEEING AND FEELING AND SEARCHING FOR GLORY

And the beat goes on, the band begins to play, the world spins round, the tide comes in and out. On and on in this relentless motion. Events of late, of this year of madness, continue to do their thing. Another police shooting of a black man. Protests. A massive hurricane. More protests. A young man, encouraged by the rhetoric of our current President, drives to protest and kills two people, then walks past police as others scream "he just shot someone." And in that same week, ten thousand more people die from Covid here in the USA. And the RNC had a bunch of people rant and rave and tell us the Dems are socialists, the virus, the same one that kills an average of a thousand people a day, is over. WTF? And now, articles and pundits tell us that we better not let the shootings in Wisconsin play into the GOP's hands. 

How can that be? How can the blatant shooting of a man in the back seven times at point blank range be a good thing for Trump's chances? How can another shooting and killing if two protesters by a teen aged militia Trump supporter be bad for the Dems? What new madness is this? I would think that this would energize people even more. Under Trump, racial injustice seems to have exploded. Worse, he has shown absolutely no leadership skills. Yet again. Indeed, he seems to fan the flames, infuriating both sides, raising the level of violence and discord. 

The proof is right before our eyes, caught on video after video. What do we see, over and over? Shootings. People screaming. Fires. Anger and grief are running through the streets of our souls, and the President doesn't seem to care. If anything, he seems to kind of like it in this perverse "see, I told you so" kind of way, which comes off as wildly inaccurate and shockingly nasty. 

What we need, what we always need, is Love, Truth, and Justice.  And with those will come Peace. 

We have so much to do. All of us. We can't wait for heroes. We have to be heroic. We can't wait for a leader. We have to lead. We have to put our families, our country, our world over our selves. We have to stop killing each other. We have to stop killing the planet. We have to stop deadening our souls. 

We have to grow up. Evolve. Change.

We can and we will. 

If it seems like there is no hope, we will be the hope. If it seems like all the love has evaporated in the heat, we have to be the love. If it seems like the world is blind, deaf, and dumb, we have to be the eyes, ears, and voice that sees and hears the truth and speaks it to the powers that be. 

We must be the glory.

Here's a song. It's a two parter, because it's long. This is the finale from Ken Russell's movie of The Who's Tommy, which I first saw in fourth grade. It's awesome, weird, and I think ultimately uplifting. 

MONDAY IS HERE. DON'T BE SELFISH OR A DUMBASS

Monday morning. Got a good night's sleep. Had a weird dream, but it vaporized as the alarm rang. I remember thinking, as I often do when a dream gets interrupted, that I wanted to finish the dream before waking up. But I awoke, and left that plain of existence. It's back to school time here in Colorado. And of course, like everything else, it's completely different. One of the schools I work at has all these outdoor tents, and a plethora of health checks, safety precautions, and so on. As it should be. I am fine with being safe, and having to do things differently while this virus persists. Seems like the thing to do. I am on the side of doing something to be safer isn't an infringement on my rights, but rather common sense. 

Here's something annoying. I don't like to dwell on the negative, but it is Monday, and if there is ever a time to bitch, it's Monday morning. So here it is. I can't stand the joggers who run down the sidewalk with no mask, no inclination to move to the street when they see they are approaching pedestrians, and who clearly aren't carrying masks. WTF? How can you think that is okay? Is everyone of these obnoxious jogging enthusiasts under the impression that the virus is gone? That it's all over and this is all a plot by the baby eating left? It seems counter intuitive that a person who is obviously into their personal health doesn't want to do everything to keep their bodies healthy. I don't think you can do much jogging if you have Covid. If you are one of those folks who run down the sidewalk, maskless and refusing to move to the side when passing your fellow citizens on the same sidewalk, please make a choice: either be a dumbass, or selfish, but not both. To spell it out: if you opt for being a dumbass and insist on not wearing a mask while huffing, puffing, and sweating in public, don't tread the sidewalk. Stick to the road. If you insist on hogging the sidewalk, never swerving to the side as you pass or push through your fellow Americans, wear a damn mask. If you do both, I am going to start carrying bags of my dog's poop and hurl them at you every chance I can. I know, it might seem extreme, but desperate times call for desperate measures. 

Ugh. That was negative. Sorry. I think it's better to let those bad vibes out than to keep them inside, where they fester into bad ideas like taking Flat Earthers seriously. 

So, on to positive things. I've taken to watching David Lynch's daily weather reports on YouTube. They are amazing. Quirky, soothing, and there every day. If you want to check then out, go HERE. 

We are all still alive. We have the chance to do something good today. We can be kind. Strong. We can rise up to the challenges of the day, be it a jogger who got you angry, or a prolonged botched reaction and response to the virus, or the corporations who seem intent of making the planet uninhabitable. We can do things large and small, every day. We don't need permission from anyone. We don't need to be given permission to do the right thing. All we need to do is get up, back on our feet, and do the best we can do. 

Ok. Monday is here. School is back in session. The election is coming. Global warming is real. The world is round. Face masks and social distancing work. Being kind is good. Being selfish is counterproductive. Love is the way. The only way. 

Here is a song. It's Fooling Yourself by Styx. Long ago, I would listen to this when things were rough. It's cheese from the 1970s, but good cheese. 

SEPTEMBER'S COMING SOON, AND PINING FOR THE MOON

It's an R.E.M. kind of day. Take a walk, do some gardening, clean the house, and listen to Automatic for the People or Murmur or whatever floats your boat. I opted for Automatic and as Mister Stipe told me he would try not to breathe, I thought of the future, of what will be after all this is done. The fires and the protests and the election and the virus. Who will we be then? What will we have learned? How will it inform our decisions? I hope we listen to scientists more. Love more. Hug more. Appreciate being in a room with a friend more. I hope realize that if we think the virus is a drag, the coming environmental crisis is going to be like ten times worse. I hope we change. Evolve. Grow. That we don't exhume McCarthy. Rather, we channel the spirits of Roosevelt (Teddy or FDR, either will do) and Susan B. Anthony. We need to get our act together. We need to end our addiction to fossil fuels. We need to rethink our entire economic system. We need to grow the fuck up and take care of this beautiful planet. As far as I know, it's the only one we have. 

And if the aliens land, let's make them glad they did. 

I want to sit in a crowded movie theatre.

I want to go to a concert at Red Rocks.

I want to see some theatre in a packed house on opening night, when half the audience are friends and family and everyone goes crazy when the house lights fade.

I want to go to Disneyland. I know, they're corporate jerk offs. I cant' help it. I dig it.

I want this thing to be over. 

And I want everyone to be well. To be healthy and alive. And unafraid.

So I pay attention to what is happening. I walk the neighborhood. I say hello to strangers. I read as many different news sources as I can online. But I really don't need any newspaper or show to tell me things are messed up. The sky is thick with smoke. Everyone looks anxious. And after that brief bit of time during the lockdown when we got to see nature unbridled, I am certain we need to the world to be like that all the time. I have had enough traffic jams, ozone alerts, oil spills, extinctions, ice cap meltings, thank you very much.

I made my way through Automatic, Green, and a bit or Monster. It was sublime. 

Here's a song. It's You Are the Everything by R.E.M., natch. 

GETTING THROUGH THE LONG NIGHT

Remember when the biggest thing everyone on social media was freaking out about was the last season of Game of Thrones? Ah, for those heady days. Seems like another lifetime. And yet, there were hints at things to come in that. A rage against things not turning out the way we envisioned them. A denial of what was happening. A belief that if we just got enough people to jump on board, we could rewrite what had transpired and pretend that the last season didn't happen. Within the story there were foreshadows of things to come as well. An army of darkness marching forth to kill us all. Political intrigue. Betrayals. Indifferent, cruel leaders with extreme lack of sympathy for their people. A world where a few people try to tell the rest that there is trouble brewing, that the Night King was on his way. That we had to prepare. And most people ignoring these unpleasant predictions. Worrying about money and their fair share of it. Worrying about this ephemeral thing called power. 

We watched the scene from episode three this morning on YouTube, the one where Arya takes out the Night King. For me, that was one of the best, most exciting, unexpected moments in the series. And yet it totally fit. Here's this young woman who had been through the worst things imaginable, from watching her father getting his head chopped off to slavery, using all her experiences, to rise up and take out this nasty evil blue dude who seems intent on killing the world. I know some people wanted the classic hero versus hero fight of Jon Snow going one on one with the Night King in an epic sword fight. But not me. I watched Game of Thrones because it didn't follow the tropes, doing the same old thing we've all seen time and time again. I loved having the world saved by a young woman at the last moment. I love hope springing up from unexpected places. I love the forgotten finding strength. I love moments that feel true, not contrived to please what the fans want. Not that there's anything wrong with those kinds of stories. They exists for a reason. They just don't feed my soul. 

Watching that scene again this morning I felt like we are all Arya. We've all seen terrible things these past few months. Months that feel like years. We've seen a strange new threat pop up out of nowhere, in a distant land, grow exponentially. We've seen friends and family laid to waste. As of today, in less than a year, over 175,000 people have died here in America. Worldwide, we are closing in on 800,000. That's more than the population of Denver. On top of that, we live in a country divided, angry, and lost. For months now, protests have raged in city after city over systemic racism. On top of that, the world is on fire. Here in Colorado, the sky is a sickly brown. Everything stinks of smoke and disaster. In California, the size of the fires is greater than the state of Rhode Island.  We are being put to the test in ways we haven't been since World War II. Put bluntly, we have seen some serious shit.

Like Arya, we have to overcome our rage, our woes, and our grief. We have to remember who we are and what's important. We have to let go of the past, find our souls, and in the darkest moment, leap up to strike down hate and ignorance. 

And we will. 

We will speak truth to power. We will not deny what is happening to our world. Covid, global warming, racism, economic inequality- they all have to go. And we are the chosen ones to do this monumental, seemingly insurmountable task. It will take sacrifice. And courage. And hope. And Love. 

But we shall overcome. 

When the Night King grabs us by the throat, and all seems lost, we will find the strength to do what must be done. 

What do we say to the God of Death?

Not today.

Here's the scene I was talking about. 

THE THING WITH FEATHERS WAS ON TV 4 NIGHTS THIS WEEK

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

Emily Dickinson wrote that long ago, before any of us were around to fret and freak and deal with the world as it now is. Of course, she dealt with the Civil War, life before modern medicine, and never heard the Beatles, so she did know a thing or two about despair. And yet she wrote this beautiful poem.  Because it was true. Because that was how she saw things. Because, even though the world is often run by a bunch of selfish, stupid assholes, there is still the possibility for grace, for joy, for love in a weak and weary world. 

And I felt hope last night, watching Joe Biden give his acceptance speech. I felt joy the last four nights, listening to people with great spirit and conviction speak to our aspirations, to our loss, to our determination. I felt pride in humanity. There is still some goodness in us. All of us. Even the Orange One, I suspect, deep down in that damaged, wounded soul, has the faint glimmer of goodness. 

We have been through the wringer of late. Pain, fear, anger, sorrow. We've had the shit kicked out of us over and over. But we keep getting up, like Chumbawamba. We rise. We do whatever it takes. And we will get through this. We will have to deal with those who see things differently. With those who have listened to the crazy for too long. The Kool Aid drinkers, the Luddites, the Cranky Pants who try to convince themselves and whomever reads their FB posts that Hillary eats babies. 

Bring it on. 

I find too much of this world delightful to give up. Ever. There is sorrow and regret, but there is also love and laughter and music and The Beatles. And The Stones. And Nature. And Theatre. And Art. And Family. And Romance. And Dance. And Stars at night that form half remembered constellations. 

And Hope. 

We have two options. Lay down and fade away, or stand up and dance 'til the dawn. 

I have put on my boogie shoes. 

Let's do this. 

And for the love of God, VOTE!!!!!!!!

Here's a song. It's I Get Knocked Down by Chumbawamba.

SURF'S UP

Couldn't sleep much last night. Combination of mind spinning, dog barking, and my back giving me guff. Beyond that, I think there is some crazy energy vibrating across the universe right now. I don't think it is positive or negative in the classic good guy bad guy sense. I think it's just change, movement, worlds turning, dimensions opening, and so forth. Sometimes I think we are like those things in the original Dark 

Crystal movie, where the two different sides of what seems like and epic and very long war merge and become one. Or like when Captain Kirk got teleported and split in two, and then rejoined his two halves at the end of the episode. Or like a butterfly when it's in its chrysalis, morphing in this celestial goo. That's it. We are in some sort of cosmic, transformative goo, and all the unrest, the pandemic, the protests, the fires, are the result. Or maybe the goo is the result of those events. Either way, there is a lot of morphing going on. And lots of the word "or" in this paragraph. 

Had a really weird dream the other night. I was being attacked by owls. I was running up this picturesque hill to this lovely house, like something you'd see in a Lifetime Network movie, when all of a sudden, all these owls attacked. They were shredding with their razor sharp claws, and it did not feel good. So I did what any reasonable person would do. I called Amazon's customer service line. The operator told me the best thing to do would be to stick a needle into my. Cross my heart, hope to die. I didn't think this was a good idea. The owls kept on shredding me. I pulled out a needle, which I just happened to have in my pocket, and weighted my options. Needle in eye, or claws in  body. This was the crux of the dream. 

Like I said. Crazy energy. 

Been watching the DNC. I like it. Some of it is a bit corny. Some of the speakers a bit flat in their delivery. But I don't see any radical ideas. I see a bunch of people who seem to also acknowledge the crazy energy. We are in need of some kind of way to deal with this. Either we harness it, learn how to ride it, or get eaten by it. I like the ride it option. I used to body surf when I was growing up in California. We'd go to Santa Cruz, or Natural Bridges State Park, or Capitola, or some other beach on the Monterey Bay, and swim in those cold waters. And we'd body surf. You swim out, spot a wave, swim in front with just the right timing so that when the wave crests, you are in front of it, and then ride it. It's a wild feeling. Free and insane and joyous. But if you try to go against the wave, it would toss you about like a twig, send you under and over and out of control And you learned just how powerful the ocean is. It feels like a lot of us are trying to work against the Crazy Energy right now. And yes, I have given it capital letters like a proper noun. Why not? We all feel it. This particular time is a being, a thing, a god of old that has risen to perform its function, which seems to be kicking the shit out of all our suppositions. It might have a name, but if it does, I don't think we are allowed to say it. 

I think the tide of this Crazy Energy has come in and out a few times. I do not know when it will move on. All I know is, we all need to swim out into the cold water, spot our wave, and ride it. 

Here's a song. It's Crazy Rhythms, by the Feelies, in honor of our nameless god.

HOUSE ON FIRE, PUT IT OUT!

Holy shit. So much going on in the world. Fires. Pandemic. Global unrest. Election worries. WTF is going on? Change, Flux, madness. It really is a bizarre time. One of those scenarios from an early 1970's science fiction movie. You know, the ones that usually have a nihilistic ending and star Charlton Heston. Is it Omega Man? Soylent Green? Planet of the Apes? I don't know. But any and all of those plot lines seem seem feasible of late. I am completely used to masks on people. Everywhere. In cars. At the park. On children in the park. Outside here in Denver, the sky is brown with smoke, and it smells like a BBQ gone wild day in and day out. You can't even see the Rockies on some days. This has never happened to me in the fifteen years I've lived here. But this year, I gaze at the ochre haze and think "yeah, that fits". We have fires all over the state. Big ones. I am told, one of them is the largest ever recorded. And what was that storm in Iowa? The one with the name, like some demon from a Stephen King novel? Derecho. I just googled it. Because google of course knows everything. Isn't that odd? How we just accept whatever google tells us as fact. We really do rely too much on technology to do our thinking. To do our everything. I fear we will indeed become like those useless humans in that other film of a dystopic future, Wall-E. As you may recall, Wall-E takes place in the distant future, when Earth has been totally rendered uninhabitable. A little robot traverses the ruins, seeking life. And the human race is off on a space ship, sort of like Yogi's Ark, doing a lot of nothing, with jelly bodies and tapioca brains. They end up ok. I think we will too. But not without a lot of soul searching, hard work, and unpleasant conversations between the masses and the powers that be about how the planet is being managed. 

I think we need to get our collective shit together. To grow up. And to realize that growing up doesn't mean making a lot of money or having a house or a nice car. That it means recognizing your effect on the world, on your fellow human beings, on the animals and plants and air and water. To breathe deep. To acknowledge that we are not the be all end all, and can always improve. Always find better ways to do things. To speak truth to power. Why do we continually, throughout our history, allow those with the most out of sync needs control things? Why did Rome last so long, way past the point of being clearly corrupt, morally bankrupt, and of no use to the world? Complacency? Fear? Were we just not quite evolved enough to say "enough"?  I think on the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Velvet Revolution. That was amazing. Kind. Groovy. We need something like that. A rising. Like Bruce Springsteen sings about. 

I've been watching the DNC these past two nights. It's been nice. Lots of uplifting ideas. People trying to find a way towards hope. Maybe some of their ideas won't work. But I am much more interested in people trying things, than people devoid of hope, telling me to be afraid. A life lived in fear is a life half lived, as the film Strictly Ballroom taught us. 

So, yeah. Things are crazy. And scary. And our problems are huge. So let's get busy. Let's get on it. Let's do something we can be proud of. Let's reach out, reach up, reach in, and find the love. Let's take care and live our too short lives as best we can. What else can we do?

Here's a song. It's The Rising, by The Boss.

MIRROR, MIRROR

If there is a multi-verse, there is an Earth where Trump never won. Where COVID never happened. Where the original Star Trek never got cancelled. All those realities are out there. And yet, here we are, in the version with all this. I take solace in the connection I feel with those other realities. They send me energy, good vibrations, and hope. Thanks, mirror worlds. 

It still feels strange, doesn't it? The death count. The masks. The maps of where it's bad, where it's not quite so bad, and Antartica. Or have you gotten used to this Wonderland? And now, the election lurches towards November. And thus, the ads. For some reason, on Hulu, we keep getting these ads for Cory Gardner, known moron. One of my favorites, which they have wisely taken down, was of him and his family, all with no masks in site, gearing up their car and talking about how it's all great now and time to head out and mix it up with the people. Which doesn't seem like that good an idea anymore. And I read somewhere today that the Prez has put a temporary hold on his ads as they rethink things. Like maybe how to address his epic failure on every level to be a leader. How to make that a plus is going to be tough. But he's just part of this reality. And he seems to fit in, somehow. Like this is all part of some great, huge thing happening, this change. We are in a cocoon of some sort, spun by Mothra over the whole planet. We are in the process of metamorphosis. Maybe we'll sprout wings. Or antennae. Or our third eyes will open, and we will see things beyond belief, and dances of joy that last for five days. Whatever is happening, we can't force it to go any faster. We can't pop out early, even if we want to so badly. We are as bound to this change as we are to the bizarre proposition of our mortality. 

In this phase of the journey, I am reading again. For the first chunk, I wasn't all that much. Now I read daily. Short stories, novels, poetry. It feeds my soul. Didn't appeal to me in May, now I can't get enough. And no doubt, in another month, I might only listen to the Stones, eat nothing but pizza, and speak exclusively en Francais. C'est la querre. I go where I go. It is what led me to write my latest screenplay at the beginning of this thing. And took Lisa and me to the mountains every week. And inspires me to cook more. It's like being stoned all the time. I find meaning in things that are usually quite mundane. I listen to songs and block out everything else. I have long, rambling conversations, and they fill me with joy. See, when I say it's like being stoned, I mean it in a good way. 

Well, in a bit I will jump of this, jump up and down, jump to the song Jump by Van Halen, Jump Jump Jump. 

Oh. Also. Working on this version of Muse of Fire with some young folks up in Superior. It was the second full length play I ever wrote. And it still doesn't suck. In closing, I would like to quote Carlos from the end of the play: 

Forever and never and life and death are just illusions we make up to help us understand things. We all fade into the ocean of the universe, and we all remain true to our essence. 

Here's a song. It's Feel Flows by the Beach Boys. Enjoy.

COLLECTIVE PUBERTY

So I took a month or so off. I don't like doing things when they become rote. Common. The same old thing. An obligation. Not that I don't appreciate a tight schedule, continuity, and sticking to it. I write in my journal at least five days a week, excepting vacations. I breathe every minute. Eat each day. There are things I do on a set basis. But writing in this blog is not one of them. Also, I felt that I needed to stop for a bit. And I listen to my spirit guides. And it felt right. Strange, but right. 

So here I am. Back in it. And the world is still a bit of a madhouse. A 24/7 jukejoint of insanity. Somehow, there are still people who think wearing a mask is bad. Including that weird congressman who is always cranky who got COVID and then opined that he might of gotten it from his mask somehow. Which sounds sort of okay, on a very basic, stupid level, until you think for two seconds. How could a mask be the deciding factor in getting the virus? If you are exposed, and it's on your hands let's say, and then you touch your face, wearing a mask is the only thing between your face and the virus. If you are not wearing a mask, are exposed, and touch your face, you are more likely to get the virus. I am bored reading what I just wrote, but it's still true. We are nothing if not masters of denial here in America. And clearly, we still have a ton of racism. Which makes some of us angry. And sad. And take to the streets. 

It's a time of flux. Of change. Like national, global puberty. Our voice is changing. We feel differently about our fellow human beings, authority figures, and ourselves. Things we thought made sense no longer compute. And our smart phones don't do it for us anymore. We are into long conversations with friends. Staring at the sky in deep thought. Our moods are all over the place. We fight more, laugh more, cry more. We are more. Of everything. We are in collective puberty. Which means sometimes we can be assholes. We will make absurd declarations of love, hate, joy, and sorrow. We will make bizarre fashion choices. And we will not be sure when we are done with it and now "grown up".  

Perfect time for an election. A nation full of hormones and anxiety and bottled up emotions, with not enough voting booths, a seriously underfunded postal service, and a would-be strong man in the White House floating the idea of delaying the election for the clear reason that he knows he is going to lose. Bigly. 

I sometimes wonder what will happen when he doesn't acknowledge his loss. When whatever bullshit they give us for why the election doesn't count is handed to us, what will happen? Which states will leave the union first. For I am certain, were Trump to deny his defeat, which is coming, there will be a second Civil War, fought by a nation dealing with emotional acne and an intense desire to get laid. 

Should be fun. 

In honor of our planetary pubescence, I read Dune for the first time. Fucking awesome. I highly recommend it. 

Here's a song. It's Oh I Wept, by Free, which was featured on a recent episode of DEVS, which I also recommend. Enjoy.