This is what it has come to: Smoke rising from the fires of violence in our cities all across America. Those sincerely hoping to change society for the better in peaceful protests were joined last night by those who wanted to lash out at any symbol of authority within range.
The end result was senseless destruction.
If you're old enough, you've already lived through this at least twice, in the '60s and again 30 years later in the '90s. It's 30 years later once again. Police violence against black people ignited rebellions then, then, and now again.
Nothing has been resolved by a half-century of shouting at each other. The whispers of peace and love cannot be heard; we've become a nation of the hard of hearing.
In 1968, as young journalists, a group of us piled in my old car and drove from Ann Arbor, Michigan to Memphis, Tennessee. We wanted to cover the largely peaceful demonstrations in support of that city's garbagemen, who were black.
The march was led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
We spent some time there, attended the (huge) march, wrote our stories, and returned to campus.
Roughly a week later, I was washing dishes in the pizza joint where I worked nights when an African American woman burst in, screaming and cried out: "They've shot Dr.King!"
The riots that erupted spontaneously across this country were as angry as any that have ever been seen in this land. I did the only thing I could imagine doing -- I went into a church to mourn the loss of perhaps the greatest man of our time.
There was irony, naturally. I didn't even believe in going to churches; at least I was pretty sure I didn't. It was April of that year, and more horrors were yet to come.
This country is often, in its more hopeful moments, called a "melting pot." Perhaps before the melting can occur, the heat has to rise and finally boil over.
It feels like our nation has reached the boiling point once again, so will we finally melt this time?
Sitting outside in the sun yesterday I watched some delicate flowers swaying in the wind. The breeze started to stiffen as it came from the ocean to my west, sucked in from by the oppressive heat in the great valley to the east, where temperatures were reaching 105 degrees.
The coastal fog can reach us at any moment in the San Francisco Bay Area, which is why natives carry layers of shirts and coats with us whenever we venture out.
It is tempting to philosophers and poets to seek an answer, any kind of answer from the fog, but the only answer I've found is that you can no longer see very clearly.
You can't see very far; you can't see anything distinctly. It's no use to stare off in the distance, because there is no visible distance. Often the fog is so thick that it engulfs you like a river.
Bathed in that moving white flow, you shudder and you shiver. It is possible at times like those to feel very, very alone.
The heat retreats in the face of the fog. Anger and certainty are displaced by silence and uncertainty. The fog wins the day.
Holding on to the concept that there may be no answers to any of this is so unsettling that you just wish you had someone to hug.
But hugging has become rare in America. A virus is loose that we pass one to the other by breathing the same air, let alone hugging. Even those who would seek comfort by visiting their place of worship are warned that that may not be a wise thing to do.
If you can't hug anybody, you can't pray with others or don't want to, if you can't even see the way forward in a time like this, what is left for you to do?
The other day my daughter, whose birthday it is today, wanted to serve fondue to us. She had a large order of strawberries we could dip in melted chocolate. She had two types of chocolate-- white chocolate and brown choeolate.
For some reason the white chocolate had trouble melting; it came out lumpy. The brown chocolate by contrast smoothed easily and perfectly.
I took a helping of both and mixed them together before dipping my first strawberry and noticed the two colors blended together to create a new shade with a kind of taste.
It was very, very sweet.
-30-
Saturday, May 30, 2020
Friday, May 29, 2020
Looking, Seeing
"They Predicted ‘The Crisis of 2020’ … in 1991. So How Does This End?" -- NYT
Certain scholars have foreseen events far in the future based on analyzing the past. Neil Howe and Bill Strauss were two such scholars, as the Times reminded us today. They projected an unprecedented crisis would reshape American society and that it would hit circa 2020.
Their prediction rested on a theory that our society remakes itself every 80 years or so. There is a political aspect to their theory, which I shall skip over in order to consider the more profound insight -- that generations lay down a distinct mark on the world as they come and go, and at critical moments like this one, a new generation will take control.
In our case, this crisis marks the death knell for the Baby Boomers, who recognized the social and economic disparities we inherited, tried to right these wrongs, and made a bit of progress here and there. We also foresaw the great calamity of climate change but failed to do enough about that.
So as my generation passes the controls on to the Millennials (a demographic label coined by Howe and Strauss), the best we can say for ourselves is we tried. Now it is time for the 40-somethings to assume the reins of power and influence.
Unfortunately, it does not appear that will happen at the national political level in this election cycle, but the signs of a great transition are on the horizon no matter your vantage point.
Our deep-seated frustrations are spilling over into the streets now. Institutionalized and internalized racism will continue to act as a volcanic trigger for the immediate days, weeks and months to come. Those resisting this undeniable truth say ignorant things like "looting will lead to shooting." This is reminiscent of Ronald Reagan's lowest moment as a public figure when he called for a "bloodbath" to quell campus demonstrations on April 19, 1970.
The murder of Kent State students by National Guardsmen occurred two weeks later on May 4, 1970.
Will we soon see a repeat of that tragic moment in our history? My sources say there will be protests in Oakland and elsewhere tonight. Tempers are high, guns are loaded.
Once again, America stands at the precipice.
***
When we really look at each other, what do we see? Is the surface of another human being's face the limit or can we look deeper?
This much is certain: Our collective anguish is not going to be extinguished by violence. It can't be relieved by breaking windows or lobbing Molotov cocktails. It can't be relieved by firing tear gas canisters or bullets. Bombs don't work.
Rhetoric doesn't help. Demonizing each other will not illuminate the path to salvation. Retreating into tribal corners will only intensify the cycle of destruction already swirling around us.
And as information reaches us, all of us, we need to avoid the terrible outcome of Plato's Cave. Perhaps "the truth will set you free," but beware of what you see. Reality may not turn out to be as we supposed it to be...what then?
When a prisoner breaks free, visits the outside world and returns to tell us what she has seen, how do we react?
Think about that the next time you get angry at a reporter for telling you something you don't want to hear.
Is it her fault, the reporter? Is it yours? Or is it something less tangible?
I don't know that any fundamental questions are going to be resolved during this turning point in human history. The cynic in me doubts it. But the optimist in me hopes for it.
Everyone has to choose their own analogy based on experience and preference. Today, mine is management. That's because for almost all of my career, I was thrust into management positions inside the companies where I worked.
You can never trust a manager who can't look you in the eye and hold your gaze. When somebody holds a position of power over another, that is a terrible power to hold. The tyranny of the org chart is one of the great evils of corporate life.
Yet how would we ever function without order? Chaos is not an effective operating system. Negentropy is.
Looking at another person is the first step. Seeing is the goal.
-30-
Their prediction rested on a theory that our society remakes itself every 80 years or so. There is a political aspect to their theory, which I shall skip over in order to consider the more profound insight -- that generations lay down a distinct mark on the world as they come and go, and at critical moments like this one, a new generation will take control.
In our case, this crisis marks the death knell for the Baby Boomers, who recognized the social and economic disparities we inherited, tried to right these wrongs, and made a bit of progress here and there. We also foresaw the great calamity of climate change but failed to do enough about that.
So as my generation passes the controls on to the Millennials (a demographic label coined by Howe and Strauss), the best we can say for ourselves is we tried. Now it is time for the 40-somethings to assume the reins of power and influence.
Unfortunately, it does not appear that will happen at the national political level in this election cycle, but the signs of a great transition are on the horizon no matter your vantage point.
Our deep-seated frustrations are spilling over into the streets now. Institutionalized and internalized racism will continue to act as a volcanic trigger for the immediate days, weeks and months to come. Those resisting this undeniable truth say ignorant things like "looting will lead to shooting." This is reminiscent of Ronald Reagan's lowest moment as a public figure when he called for a "bloodbath" to quell campus demonstrations on April 19, 1970.
The murder of Kent State students by National Guardsmen occurred two weeks later on May 4, 1970.
Will we soon see a repeat of that tragic moment in our history? My sources say there will be protests in Oakland and elsewhere tonight. Tempers are high, guns are loaded.
Once again, America stands at the precipice.
***
When we really look at each other, what do we see? Is the surface of another human being's face the limit or can we look deeper?
This much is certain: Our collective anguish is not going to be extinguished by violence. It can't be relieved by breaking windows or lobbing Molotov cocktails. It can't be relieved by firing tear gas canisters or bullets. Bombs don't work.
Rhetoric doesn't help. Demonizing each other will not illuminate the path to salvation. Retreating into tribal corners will only intensify the cycle of destruction already swirling around us.
And as information reaches us, all of us, we need to avoid the terrible outcome of Plato's Cave. Perhaps "the truth will set you free," but beware of what you see. Reality may not turn out to be as we supposed it to be...what then?
When a prisoner breaks free, visits the outside world and returns to tell us what she has seen, how do we react?
Think about that the next time you get angry at a reporter for telling you something you don't want to hear.
Is it her fault, the reporter? Is it yours? Or is it something less tangible?
I don't know that any fundamental questions are going to be resolved during this turning point in human history. The cynic in me doubts it. But the optimist in me hopes for it.
Everyone has to choose their own analogy based on experience and preference. Today, mine is management. That's because for almost all of my career, I was thrust into management positions inside the companies where I worked.
You can never trust a manager who can't look you in the eye and hold your gaze. When somebody holds a position of power over another, that is a terrible power to hold. The tyranny of the org chart is one of the great evils of corporate life.
Yet how would we ever function without order? Chaos is not an effective operating system. Negentropy is.
Looking at another person is the first step. Seeing is the goal.
-30-
Thursday, May 28, 2020
Friendships and Hope
It doesn't really matter how it starts. Sometimes, you meet somebody and you just know. You're going to be friends.
Other times it's a surprise. That person you fought with over a parking place? That work colleague who initially seemed like a jerk? First impressions are just that -- first -- not last, not lasting.
Friends come in all shapes and sizes, colors, ages, religions, orientations. There isn't much predictable about friendship as long as you let it continue to happen all of your life.
The most dangerous moment in life is when you think you don't have a friend. When you feel utterly alone. But there *is* a friend out there, often hiding in plain sight. Maybe it's just your turn to make a move.
Of course, you can't start thinking about your friends without remembering the ones you've lost. Once somebody you love passes away, you lose them in the material world, but not in your dreams. Everybody know what I am saying here.
Sometimes talking about seeing your lost loved ones in your dreams with someone enriches and deepens that friendship. Most of us can empathize; we are ready to listen to your story.
One old friend visited me some months back after his mother had died. I found myself describing to him how it felt to be first with my father, then with my mother, as they died. It was very emotional for me; I don't normally discuss these matters. But it came out that day.
I was just trying to be his friend.
This all came to me in a rush yesterday as the U.S. lost its 100,000th friend to Covid-19.
It should surprise none of us that the compressed anger over the killing of George Floyd in Minnesota is igniting protests and outrage across the country. Covid-19 disproportionately affects black people and other minorities and the poor generally.
We've lived with social inequities all of our lives. Decade after decade we see hopeful signs of progress only to be reminded that much work remains.
Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia and George Floyd in Minnesota. One murder by racist citizens, one by the police.
Do you remain silent or do you say something at times like these?
So many of our artists and actors and singers have tried to intervene, tried to speak out. But their voices get muffled by a cynicism so deep in this culture that sincerity comes with a price tag. "If they are that rich and famous, what do they know about suffering?"
"Everybody hurts sometime," sang R.E.M. It is a song reaching out to you when you feel alone. Money or fame are small comforts in those moments. Everybody hurts.
Last night, I stayed up late watching various celebrity interviews on YouTube, trying to figure these questions out.
Why, when an actor says she or he is a feminist, is the adjective "outspoken" always attached to that label? In one interview the actor Jennifer Lawrence was asked about that issue. She indicated that she was comfortable calling herself a feminist even if that meant she would lose friends.
Of course she didn't mean her real friends, she meant fans, and, as she acknowledged, "box office sales."
I thought that was a brave moment for this young celebrity. After a string of box office successes she is at the top of her game and she'll probably stay there for a while. Meanwhile, she also has emerged as a spokesperson for advocating equal pay for equal work.
As she ages, maybe she'll be one of the ones who survive the transition to older roles with the tenacious grace of a Meryl Streep, one of my favorite actors. Maybe she will continue also to fight for equality.
Almost all artists, you can sense, would prefer to speak out through their art, which by its nature is not as explicit as the politicized words that reverberate through social media in destructive ways.
But we have problems and they include racism and discrimination against women. They are not necessarily getting worse; they may in fact be getting objectively better. What our children and grandchildren need is reinforcement that speaking out is okay, working to raise awareness is a wonderful use of their time.
People *are* listening.
I've written before about Greta Thunberg. What a powerful voice she has!
One quality all of us need to cling to in difficult times is hope. I believe in hope. And listening to courageous voices like those of Lawrence and Thunberg gives me hope.
-30-
Other times it's a surprise. That person you fought with over a parking place? That work colleague who initially seemed like a jerk? First impressions are just that -- first -- not last, not lasting.
Friends come in all shapes and sizes, colors, ages, religions, orientations. There isn't much predictable about friendship as long as you let it continue to happen all of your life.
The most dangerous moment in life is when you think you don't have a friend. When you feel utterly alone. But there *is* a friend out there, often hiding in plain sight. Maybe it's just your turn to make a move.
Of course, you can't start thinking about your friends without remembering the ones you've lost. Once somebody you love passes away, you lose them in the material world, but not in your dreams. Everybody know what I am saying here.
Sometimes talking about seeing your lost loved ones in your dreams with someone enriches and deepens that friendship. Most of us can empathize; we are ready to listen to your story.
One old friend visited me some months back after his mother had died. I found myself describing to him how it felt to be first with my father, then with my mother, as they died. It was very emotional for me; I don't normally discuss these matters. But it came out that day.
I was just trying to be his friend.
This all came to me in a rush yesterday as the U.S. lost its 100,000th friend to Covid-19.
It should surprise none of us that the compressed anger over the killing of George Floyd in Minnesota is igniting protests and outrage across the country. Covid-19 disproportionately affects black people and other minorities and the poor generally.
We've lived with social inequities all of our lives. Decade after decade we see hopeful signs of progress only to be reminded that much work remains.
Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia and George Floyd in Minnesota. One murder by racist citizens, one by the police.
Do you remain silent or do you say something at times like these?
So many of our artists and actors and singers have tried to intervene, tried to speak out. But their voices get muffled by a cynicism so deep in this culture that sincerity comes with a price tag. "If they are that rich and famous, what do they know about suffering?"
"Everybody hurts sometime," sang R.E.M. It is a song reaching out to you when you feel alone. Money or fame are small comforts in those moments. Everybody hurts.
Last night, I stayed up late watching various celebrity interviews on YouTube, trying to figure these questions out.
Why, when an actor says she or he is a feminist, is the adjective "outspoken" always attached to that label? In one interview the actor Jennifer Lawrence was asked about that issue. She indicated that she was comfortable calling herself a feminist even if that meant she would lose friends.
Of course she didn't mean her real friends, she meant fans, and, as she acknowledged, "box office sales."
I thought that was a brave moment for this young celebrity. After a string of box office successes she is at the top of her game and she'll probably stay there for a while. Meanwhile, she also has emerged as a spokesperson for advocating equal pay for equal work.
As she ages, maybe she'll be one of the ones who survive the transition to older roles with the tenacious grace of a Meryl Streep, one of my favorite actors. Maybe she will continue also to fight for equality.
Almost all artists, you can sense, would prefer to speak out through their art, which by its nature is not as explicit as the politicized words that reverberate through social media in destructive ways.
But we have problems and they include racism and discrimination against women. They are not necessarily getting worse; they may in fact be getting objectively better. What our children and grandchildren need is reinforcement that speaking out is okay, working to raise awareness is a wonderful use of their time.
People *are* listening.
I've written before about Greta Thunberg. What a powerful voice she has!
One quality all of us need to cling to in difficult times is hope. I believe in hope. And listening to courageous voices like those of Lawrence and Thunberg gives me hope.
-30-
Wednesday, May 27, 2020
Rolling the Dice
The latest numbers indicate that about 80 percent (4 in 5) of Covid-19 deaths are of people over the age of 65. But that group only accounts for roughly 20 percent (1 in 5) of the total amount of cases.
This is a stark reminder that the pandemic is killing off our elders in disproportionate numbers. To many, this is logical. As people age, they get weaker, develop chronic health problems, and become more susceptible to infections.
Many older people also become calmer, less given to emotional outbreaks, and more or less philosophical about the future. So they are less likely to panic in the face of the pandemic.
These are gross generalizations from my year-long journey through America's health-care system. Most of my fellow patients were elderly. Once they'd improved or stabilized enough to go to a skilled nursing facility, they started physical therapy treatments to regain lost functions.
Next, in the assisted living facilities, you encounter a wide mix of residents. Some live independent lives, dressing themselves, showering, taking their medications, exercising daily, and ordering any food they want for delivery. They can make it to the dining room for meals and to activity rooms for games, lectures and other social activities.
Others are in various states of decline; they need help with one or more of these physical tasks. The worst case, physically, is when a person can no longer do anything on their own.
Mental health is another track. Everyone gets a bit absent-minded with age, except the occasional ones who claim to recall every detail from their youth. There is the possibility that this is true; there is the possibility that this is a delusion. No one is around any longer to contest their claim.
The memory care unit is perhaps the saddest place in any of these facilities. That's where they take the people who can't remember much of anything or anybody any longer.
Nothing I'm saying here should surprise anybody, but it is what I witnessed personally. It can be a surreal period of life to be lost in the elderly care world. The nurses and CNAs and other care-givers are almost universally kind people, generous with their empathy and expressions of support. Little improvements in your performance are greeted by cheers from them -- you know they are on your side.
The reason I am revisiting all of this in my mind today is that I know that isolation makes every stage of this journey worse for the vast majority of elderly people, and isolation kills as surely as the virus. If you have loved ones in your life, remember that and reach out to them as frequently as you can. Remind them that you love them.
The Times today has the most extensive report yet I've seen on addiction during the shelter-in-place phase of the pandemic. The news is grim: It appears people are drinking more heavily than usual and in some cases earlier in the day.
This may be occurring more among younger, working people than the elderly, who often are more accustomed to staying inside and conducting sedentary lifestyles. Some of my 70- and 80ish peers tell me the worst addiction they fear is too much TV watching.
Coming from a hard-drinking work culture, where journalists typically hit the bar night after night, I don't consider TV watching to be among the dangerous categories of addiction.
Then again, why would I? Managing TV shows, writing movie scripts, sitting in control rooms or on film sets was one of my favorite activities during my career. I loved it all -- the drama, the lighting, the sound tracks, the makeup, the camera angles, the actors, the guests, the Green Room talks, the comraderie of the crews.
If that is an addiction, bring it on to me once again.
But the signs that people in their 20s, 30s, 40s or 50s may be drinking more at home worries me. Being out in public, going to an office or other type of work facility -- these normally require sobriety. If you are one of the people tipping a drink more than before, try pouring it out today and drink ice water instead. just as a favor to one who would selfishly like you to stick around in a good state of mind.
Why selfish?
I need readers who react to my words, sentences, paragraphs, and to the stories that hopefully emerge from them. We need each other.
Often here on Facebook I have mentioned my quest to publish a memoir. You could classify that as a fanciful aspiration. The state of the publishing industry is such that a life such as mine is not deemed worthy of a large enough advance to even approach the cost of producing it.
Meanwhile, Barack and Michelle Obama reportedly revived a $65 million advance for their memoirs.
I've got nothing against the Obamas; in fact I admire them both and wish them well. But strictly from a reader's perspective, what can be possibly be left about their lives that we don't already know? Their only real option is to divulge secrets about other powerful people. To violate confidences and encourage voyeurism.
As people, they seem almost too decent to do that. But $65 million can alter a person's sense of ethics.
Wait and see.
Here, playing the odds, rolling the dice, I will continue my daily ritual of writing about my life. I know perfectly well there will be no multi-million-dollar advance or marketing hoopla accompanying me on this quest.
But it is the journey I felt compelled to take and if you need a motive, let's just say it is part of my recovery.
I nearly died but didn't. Instead I decided to tell you a story.
-30-
Tuesday, May 26, 2020
The New Faultline
As the 1960s tipped into the 1970s, I was working as a Peace Corps Volunteer in northeastern Afghanistan. It was a remote post in a rural district, where conservative Islamic norms of dress and behavior prevailed.
That included the chadri or burka, a loose body covering that women wore in public, ostensibly to protect their modesty. To young American men and women of that time, this manner of dress seemed absurd. We hailed from the land of the bikini, where women burned their bras, and the women's lib movement was sweeping through society.
Hiding behind masks translated into invisibility, which Western women were sick of enduring.
So we were shocked when one of our female PCVs married an Afghan man and disappeared behind his compound walls, covered in a chadri, presumably to never be heard from or seen again. Why did she do that?
I do not know the answer to that question.
One key demarcation factor in today's America and beyond is who wears masks in public and who doesn't. A stark reminder of this divide was captured in images of yesterday's solemn Memorial Day ceremonies. They were attended by the presumptive Presidential candidates -- one wore a mask, one didn't.
If Covid-19 causes our societies to change in lasting ways, I wonder if the mask will be a symbol of this new divide. Between the masked who believe they are protecting others from disease and the unmasked who scoff at the notion.
Hundreds of years from now, historians may well identify 2020 as the turning point when mask-wearing became entrenched in roughly half of the global population, with the other half remaining mask-free.
If so, this may be historically as pivotal a moment as the 7th century birth of Islam or 16th century Reformation.
The faultlines of the new social order are emerging just as clearly as the surface breaks in the earth that appear after major earthquakes. If you visit one site in western Marin County, you can see a stretch of field with a fence and a dry creekbed. Halfway through the field the fence suddenly sifts ro the other side of the creekbed.
That is what happened during the Great Earthquake of 1906. The earth cracked, the fence moved aside.
In the film "Passengers" (2016), two of the 5,000 people hibernating in a spaceship bound for a distant colony in space that takes many lightyears to reach wake up prematurely. As they come to comprehend their situation, they realize they will not survive the trip. They fall in love and live out their time the best they can anyway. The woman (Jennifer Lawrence) is a writer and she leaves behind a story that greets the survivors when they finally reach their destination and awake.
She achieves immortality. So what is her message?
This is, of course, but one of many such efforts by story-tellers to seek meaning in our fate as living beings who will not survive the journey.
In producing these daily essays, I am dancing with that theme also -- the meaning of being mortal during this pandemic.
How can you dance with words? Text is inert; it just sits there on a page or a screen. The stories that result, however, are not inert. They are ert.
Of course, there is no word ert and if you try to type it, the "smart" software you are using will probably change it to art.
I've got a serious issue with the current state of spellcheck technology. It employs the vocal reach and grammatical sense of a 7-year-old.
It is not necessary for catching typos; writers can always look up any word in a dictionary. Alerting us that the spelling may be wrong is a service, of course, but making automatic corrections is not.
I just hope the story that survives this imperfect process saves the last dance for me.
-30-
Monday, May 25, 2020
The Empty Pocket
The days the lockdown order came down occurred in slow motion. Those ~72 hours are just a freeze-frame memory now, everything is in place. Reliving it is easy, whether I want to or not.
When my son-in-law came to pick me up, there were two sets of keys in my pocket. One to the place I was gradually moving out of; the other to the place I was gradually moving into. The transition was happening in slow motion.
The keys also symbolized two rents, two piles of utility bills, two mailboxes, two collections of personal possessions. They added up to one bifurcated life.
Home is an emotional concept. I no longer felt at home in one place and not yet at home in the other. I was suspended in space.
Soon I was in the third place, with family, leaving everything elsewhere but a computer bag and two grocery bags of clothes.
At night, trying to stay quiet so as not to wake up the others, I felt my pasts falling away from me.
The days turned familiar over time. New routines, new conversations. Now and then we would return to my old place and empty out more possessions, saving a small number, leaving the rest on the sidewalk for others to claim.
One day my daughter told me we were down to the last trip. What was left there to be saved could fit into the back of the car and she and her husband could handle it.
But there wasn't room for me in the van. I sent my keys with them instead.
Sometimes you don't get to say goodbye to a place. Everyone knows that; we're adults. But when I was small that day came every time when we packed up our camp and headed back home.
The leaving day always found me feeling nostalgic. I'd wander around the campground, noticing the sticks, the leaves, the soft dirt, the little scraps of items left behind by previous campers. And everything made me sad.
As we drove away, my parents encouraged this emotion. "Look out the window, say goodbye."
One down, one to go. Extracting my possessions from the second apartment proved to be an ordeal. I sent a final rent check for thousands of dollars while my things waited patiently for me to claim them.
When the day finally came, again there wasn't room for me in the van. My son went down there; the maintenance staff had piled my stuff outside for him. He drove it all to a storage facility.
All that is left for me to do now is to mail in the keys. They are over there, waiting.
Apart from my books, files, journals and old yellowed news clippings, I'm free-falling as a memoir writer. I can't check my memory against the notes jotted down simultaneously as the events unfolded.
It's been a lifetime of leaving, arriving, enduring, losing, trying to remember and trying to forget.
One time I was in a distant corner of Asia. It was a warm morning as I looked out of my hotel window when I saw the rest of my party packing into a bus to go on tour.
I didn't want to go. It was one of those days I was feeling deeply alone, so I stayed behind.That night, when they returned, a few of them came up to me.
"Where were you? We missed you."
The idea that anyone would miss me had never occurred to me. So that was one lost day, among many. What is lost can never return.
But if our mind can carry us backwards, why not let it carry us into the future as well? The future that may or may not include us.
In my vision, I've finally completed this bloody memoir; it's been published and somebody is getting ready to interview me. We are in the Green Room before the event and I have one question for the host: "Which side of me do you want to talk about?"
That is a reasonable question, the kind only an experienced guest would ask when he is on the set.
The host has his notes and his prepared questions. He has an objective, for this encounter.
Meanwhile, I have had a mixed-up jumble of a life that I have tried to squeeze into a book. Luckily, it's easy for me to be entertaining, if that is desired; I can be quite the amusing fellow. If I know what you seek, I'll deliver that particular piece of the puzzle.
My young granddaughters are very good at putting together puzzles. It astonishes me how fast they can do it, and these are complex adult puzzles, not childish toys. They see the patterns and read the visual clues; it's all intuition unattenuated by experience.
When adults encounter the unknown, our ability to fill in the blanks is limited by all the little ways we've censored ourselves over the years. the ways we've curtailed ourselves. Those times we stayed behind rather than gotten on the tour bus.
***
There are no longer have any keys in my pocket; technically I'm a legal resident of nowhere. Someday this will be resolved.
"And I think it's gonna be a long long time
'Till touch down brings me round again to find
I'm not the man they think I am at home
Oh no no no I'm a rocket man
Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone"
-- Sir Elton John
***
It's Memorial Day. Probably every one of us has somebody to remember. Today I am remembering my cousin Daniel Anderson, who died last November. He served in Vietnam.
-30-
When my son-in-law came to pick me up, there were two sets of keys in my pocket. One to the place I was gradually moving out of; the other to the place I was gradually moving into. The transition was happening in slow motion.
The keys also symbolized two rents, two piles of utility bills, two mailboxes, two collections of personal possessions. They added up to one bifurcated life.
Home is an emotional concept. I no longer felt at home in one place and not yet at home in the other. I was suspended in space.
Soon I was in the third place, with family, leaving everything elsewhere but a computer bag and two grocery bags of clothes.
At night, trying to stay quiet so as not to wake up the others, I felt my pasts falling away from me.
The days turned familiar over time. New routines, new conversations. Now and then we would return to my old place and empty out more possessions, saving a small number, leaving the rest on the sidewalk for others to claim.
One day my daughter told me we were down to the last trip. What was left there to be saved could fit into the back of the car and she and her husband could handle it.
But there wasn't room for me in the van. I sent my keys with them instead.
Sometimes you don't get to say goodbye to a place. Everyone knows that; we're adults. But when I was small that day came every time when we packed up our camp and headed back home.
The leaving day always found me feeling nostalgic. I'd wander around the campground, noticing the sticks, the leaves, the soft dirt, the little scraps of items left behind by previous campers. And everything made me sad.
As we drove away, my parents encouraged this emotion. "Look out the window, say goodbye."
One down, one to go. Extracting my possessions from the second apartment proved to be an ordeal. I sent a final rent check for thousands of dollars while my things waited patiently for me to claim them.
When the day finally came, again there wasn't room for me in the van. My son went down there; the maintenance staff had piled my stuff outside for him. He drove it all to a storage facility.
All that is left for me to do now is to mail in the keys. They are over there, waiting.
Apart from my books, files, journals and old yellowed news clippings, I'm free-falling as a memoir writer. I can't check my memory against the notes jotted down simultaneously as the events unfolded.
It's been a lifetime of leaving, arriving, enduring, losing, trying to remember and trying to forget.
One time I was in a distant corner of Asia. It was a warm morning as I looked out of my hotel window when I saw the rest of my party packing into a bus to go on tour.
I didn't want to go. It was one of those days I was feeling deeply alone, so I stayed behind.That night, when they returned, a few of them came up to me.
"Where were you? We missed you."
The idea that anyone would miss me had never occurred to me. So that was one lost day, among many. What is lost can never return.
But if our mind can carry us backwards, why not let it carry us into the future as well? The future that may or may not include us.
In my vision, I've finally completed this bloody memoir; it's been published and somebody is getting ready to interview me. We are in the Green Room before the event and I have one question for the host: "Which side of me do you want to talk about?"
That is a reasonable question, the kind only an experienced guest would ask when he is on the set.
The host has his notes and his prepared questions. He has an objective, for this encounter.
Meanwhile, I have had a mixed-up jumble of a life that I have tried to squeeze into a book. Luckily, it's easy for me to be entertaining, if that is desired; I can be quite the amusing fellow. If I know what you seek, I'll deliver that particular piece of the puzzle.
My young granddaughters are very good at putting together puzzles. It astonishes me how fast they can do it, and these are complex adult puzzles, not childish toys. They see the patterns and read the visual clues; it's all intuition unattenuated by experience.
When adults encounter the unknown, our ability to fill in the blanks is limited by all the little ways we've censored ourselves over the years. the ways we've curtailed ourselves. Those times we stayed behind rather than gotten on the tour bus.
***
There are no longer have any keys in my pocket; technically I'm a legal resident of nowhere. Someday this will be resolved.
"And I think it's gonna be a long long time
'Till touch down brings me round again to find
I'm not the man they think I am at home
Oh no no no I'm a rocket man
Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone"
-- Sir Elton John
***
It's Memorial Day. Probably every one of us has somebody to remember. Today I am remembering my cousin Daniel Anderson, who died last November. He served in Vietnam.
-30-
Sunday, May 24, 2020
End to End
It's Memorial Day weekend, the traditional beginning of summer, and the news from Ocean City, Maryland, was that the crowds there were heavy with most people not wearing masks or maintaining social distance.
Out on the other end of the continent, a large crowd gathered in Sacramento to protest the public health measures to contain the virus, but elsewhere things seem to remain a bit more restrained, with the pandemic dance -- six feet apart and masked -- continuing over most parts of the state, according to various reports.
Whether there are any consequences of any of this that won't be known for some time.
Improbably, there are amusing road signs as you drive into Sacramento or Ocean City noting the distance between the two cities, one of those whimsical experiences that make you wonder whether you're driving along the old Route 66 rather than the modern I-80.
Americans like to have the kind of fun when we travel.
In case you were wondering, Sacto and Ocean City are roughly 3,000 miles apart, depending on highway improvements and the like. Having spent time in both locations, I always get a kick out of seeing the signs.
They tie together two of the four states where I've been a legal resident (Michigan and Florida being the others.)
But what about this breakdown in corona-V protocols? Are the unmasked simply sick and tired of being cooped up? Do they feel invincible? Or is it a political rebellion?
IDK. But unlike the east coast, it's pretty easy to find long wide beaches in California that are not crawling with urbanites. We have crowded beaches around here too but just take Pt. Reyes National Seashore as a case in point of the availability of emptiness.
You can hike miles of sparsely populated beaches out there, holiday or no holiday.
***
Who gets sickest from this scourge seems random; statisticians do not have a fix on this one. In fact, economists don't either. This is a bad season for those who predict the future, Covid-19 is essentially unpredictable at this point.
And what's with that name? Covid-19 is an acronym that stands for coronavirus disease of 2019. The World Health Organization (WHO) named it.
Personally, I like the UN agencies like WHO, FAO and UNEP, even though as a journalist I've sometimes been critical of them and their bureaucracies. In 1987, I was named by UNEP to its Global 500 Roll of Honour for environmental advocacy; that resulted from my "Circle of Poison" writings.
Most awards come with statues or certificates but that one came only with a small gold-colored pin. Very modest. No ceremonies or speeches.
Thinking about climate change on a planetary level requires modesty. No one of us can make much of a difference personally; we're dependent on each of the other billions of people alive today. From the beginning, I've suspected Covid-19 is a symptom and result of the historically rapid warming of the planet.
A few degrees of heat can incubate viruses of this sort, perhaps causing them to mutate, jump hosts, and so forth. I'm not a scientist so I'm speculating, and will wait for a verdict from those in a position to draw such conclusions.
***
Publishing at Facebook is entirely different than publishing in a newspaper or magazine was half a century ago, when I first arrived in San Francisco to help launch an alternative national magazine, SunDance.
Then it was paper, printing press, distribution companies, and display racks. There were lots of delays involved and it cost a ton of money.
Now it's a laptop, metadata and virtual friend networks. It's instantaneous, I click a button and it's out there for anyone who wants it. The costs are amortized over years -- the laptop and an Internet connection. That means the individual cost of each article to me is trivial.
When you think about it, what you and I are getting is a relationship and it is fundamentally different from the former paradigm due to the disruption of the economic model. Not to say there aren't similarities.
At SunDance and Rolling Stone in the 70s, or for "Circle of Poison" in the 80s, it was me doing the reporting and writing and thousands of people doing the reading. I had little idea what readers thought until the letters from started trickling in weeks and months later.
Today, thousands of people still do the reading but their comments, "likes", and messages appear seconds or minutes after I publish.
That feedback loop energizes me. I try to read every comment and message and respond if it seems appropriate. I'll admit that I can't entirely figure out Facebook Messenger though. Sometimes there is an actual message, other times it just redirects me to another Facebook page.
Is that the message?
One of our great Canadians, Marshall Mcluhan, author of "The Medium is the Message," would have known the answer.
For journalists and authors of my generation, it is a disconcerting pleasure to have survived this transition from the old way to the new.
Now let's see if we can survive Covid-19.
-30-
Out on the other end of the continent, a large crowd gathered in Sacramento to protest the public health measures to contain the virus, but elsewhere things seem to remain a bit more restrained, with the pandemic dance -- six feet apart and masked -- continuing over most parts of the state, according to various reports.
Whether there are any consequences of any of this that won't be known for some time.
Improbably, there are amusing road signs as you drive into Sacramento or Ocean City noting the distance between the two cities, one of those whimsical experiences that make you wonder whether you're driving along the old Route 66 rather than the modern I-80.
Americans like to have the kind of fun when we travel.
In case you were wondering, Sacto and Ocean City are roughly 3,000 miles apart, depending on highway improvements and the like. Having spent time in both locations, I always get a kick out of seeing the signs.
They tie together two of the four states where I've been a legal resident (Michigan and Florida being the others.)
But what about this breakdown in corona-V protocols? Are the unmasked simply sick and tired of being cooped up? Do they feel invincible? Or is it a political rebellion?
IDK. But unlike the east coast, it's pretty easy to find long wide beaches in California that are not crawling with urbanites. We have crowded beaches around here too but just take Pt. Reyes National Seashore as a case in point of the availability of emptiness.
You can hike miles of sparsely populated beaches out there, holiday or no holiday.
***
Who gets sickest from this scourge seems random; statisticians do not have a fix on this one. In fact, economists don't either. This is a bad season for those who predict the future, Covid-19 is essentially unpredictable at this point.
And what's with that name? Covid-19 is an acronym that stands for coronavirus disease of 2019. The World Health Organization (WHO) named it.
Personally, I like the UN agencies like WHO, FAO and UNEP, even though as a journalist I've sometimes been critical of them and their bureaucracies. In 1987, I was named by UNEP to its Global 500 Roll of Honour for environmental advocacy; that resulted from my "Circle of Poison" writings.
Most awards come with statues or certificates but that one came only with a small gold-colored pin. Very modest. No ceremonies or speeches.
Thinking about climate change on a planetary level requires modesty. No one of us can make much of a difference personally; we're dependent on each of the other billions of people alive today. From the beginning, I've suspected Covid-19 is a symptom and result of the historically rapid warming of the planet.
A few degrees of heat can incubate viruses of this sort, perhaps causing them to mutate, jump hosts, and so forth. I'm not a scientist so I'm speculating, and will wait for a verdict from those in a position to draw such conclusions.
***
Publishing at Facebook is entirely different than publishing in a newspaper or magazine was half a century ago, when I first arrived in San Francisco to help launch an alternative national magazine, SunDance.
Then it was paper, printing press, distribution companies, and display racks. There were lots of delays involved and it cost a ton of money.
Now it's a laptop, metadata and virtual friend networks. It's instantaneous, I click a button and it's out there for anyone who wants it. The costs are amortized over years -- the laptop and an Internet connection. That means the individual cost of each article to me is trivial.
When you think about it, what you and I are getting is a relationship and it is fundamentally different from the former paradigm due to the disruption of the economic model. Not to say there aren't similarities.
At SunDance and Rolling Stone in the 70s, or for "Circle of Poison" in the 80s, it was me doing the reporting and writing and thousands of people doing the reading. I had little idea what readers thought until the letters from started trickling in weeks and months later.
Today, thousands of people still do the reading but their comments, "likes", and messages appear seconds or minutes after I publish.
That feedback loop energizes me. I try to read every comment and message and respond if it seems appropriate. I'll admit that I can't entirely figure out Facebook Messenger though. Sometimes there is an actual message, other times it just redirects me to another Facebook page.
Is that the message?
One of our great Canadians, Marshall Mcluhan, author of "The Medium is the Message," would have known the answer.
For journalists and authors of my generation, it is a disconcerting pleasure to have survived this transition from the old way to the new.
Now let's see if we can survive Covid-19.
-30-
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