love thy neighborhood.

Funny how a neighborhood can change.A turn of a valve and your world is floating.
A little long time ago I lived in Cabbagetown which back then was a run down community on the wrong side of the tracks in Atlanta. On Saturday nights the rowdys on the corner would fight with shovels and picks. No fooling, it was like watching a live performance of "Braveheart".There were blood feuds that went back generations and in the heat of summer nights blood would flow freely on Berean st.
The combatants couldn't have cared less for the new arrivals to the neighborhood. We were like just plain old Palestinians amongst the waring factions of Hamas and Fatah. Stay out of the way and you won't get hurt.
This was the only neighborhood I've ever seen where crack heads would steal 90lb bags of cement (estimated value $5.00)off of someone's porch and lug them off down the street to some deranged fence who specialized in worthless overweight swag.
Over time the old mill families were over run by brave young yuppies that knew a hip new location when they saw one. The shotgun shacks sprouted second stories and burst forth with bright designer colors overwhelming the dingy old white clapboards.
The police and higher rent cleared out the old timers leaving a cute in-town neighborhood.
Then came the C.S.X. rail yard at the north end of the hood. There was always a rail yard at the north end. Hell this was the rail yard that caught fire in "Gone with the Wind" and burnt Atlanta to the ground.But it was a quiet rail yard till C.S.X came in with their grand plan. A transfer yard where thousands of trucks could pick up thousands of trailers that came in on trains.Brilliant!
The new Cabbageheads lost their minds. All the trucks and trains and giant cranes and nonstop 24 hour a day crashing and banging which sounded like the soundtrack to a Godzilla VS. Mothra movie was going to seriously bring down their home values.
Well Duh... you live in a inner city neighborhood next to a century old established transportation line. It might get noisy. What did Sam Kinison say...."Don't live in the fucking desert!" You want quiet move to Snellvile.
Of course there are always surprises to every neighborhood.
In Florida we did a sex offender search of our area and learned that there were 45 predators within a five mile radius of our happy home. Zoiks! lock up the livestock.
And sometimes you find you yourself as the agent of chaos in an otherwise happy block.
In the summer of '88 we, which is to say most of the members of our very loud psychedelic reggae band lived in a quiet corner of Little Five Points in an enormous forest green house on the corner of streets I cannot remember....It was the best of times... We were benign as neighbors I thought at the time. Well ok, we did practice in the house some times and did keep very late hours with an odd assortment of people coming and going at any given moment.
Our neighbor was a business journalist from France named Sophie. There were other neighbors but they never really interacted with us and rarely came out of their homes, at least not during our business hours.
Sophie would acknowledge us, gazing at us like she was witnessing a time warp to a hairier, freer time. We missed much of the Reaganomic revolution she was reporting on.
She finally snapped during our big Little Rascals moment when we found a pile of scaffolding in the basement and thought "Hey these look like amplifier towers. ya know like at Woodstock...Hey kids, lets put on a show." In the vacant sunken lot next to the house we built a subterranean amphitheater complete with 15 foot high towers for the p.a. and all invisible from the street. We put on a day long festival of music, love and happiness, well except for Sophie who was beyond pissed. She called the cops. They told her as long as we stopped the music by 6:00p.m. we could play all day. We had the forethought to hire an off duty cop that put us in square with all the working blues. So for 7 hours we had a grand performance complete with naked dancers and a scandalous amount of fun. During a break in playing we met Sophie up at street level. She crossed the street with her arms flailing. "What the hell is wrong with you people? You don't belong in the city. You need to be in the country where you can be uncivilized all you want."
She was not expecting such madness in such a quaint location.
But there you go, some things you can figure. Living next to Wrigley Field. Living above an Hawaiian drum school.Living in Carteret N.J. Life is going to be loud and sometimes smelly depending on which way the wind is blowing or how bad the Cubs are playing.
Life in a flood plain is a guarantee that sooner or later the creek is going to rise and the river is going to get up out it's banks and just meander all over the place. If it's where you live you gotta love it. No place is perfect (San Diego was burning like Hell last time I was there)so you best make peace with where you are and love it like home.
"Ah Loki, was Wisconsin all that bad?"

The Basic Skill.

Woah! That first draft was WAY too big. Anytime Cleveland, Dinosaurs, Cod fish and some asshole on the Dan Ryan expressway make it into the same blog you know you might have to focus a bit tighter on what the hell it is your trying to say....try again.
I'm still upset about Fred. Despite the coordinated efforts of a half dozen vets and hours upon hours of research on the Net and hundreds of people praying, Fred didn't make it. We know so little about what makes us tick and sometimes have no answers when our bodies break down. It is a humbling experience to have no control over the fate of a loved one.We care and love and learn through these times so that we may become more skilled at living a good and graceful life.

The basic skill of of caring and nurturing for what we love is a skill we still struggle with as a species.
War and killing we have down to a science. Hell on a good day we could wipe out almost everyone...at least back in the good old days before nuclear disarmament.
It's funny how hard we struggle to keep people housed and fed and healthy sometimes barely pulling it off and yet we can kill people half way round the world by remote control. I guess it is harder to make a life than it is to take a life.
Nobody said this was going to be easy but I am positive if we put our minds and hearts together we can become as skilled at living as we are at dying.
I've heard it said today that it is a dangerous world we live in. Very true.
I also believe the world is what we make it and I know we have the skills to make it a better place.
Amigos,I'm all for trying.

Gifts from my Mother.

Gifts from my Mother.
I am forever in debt to my mother for my joi de vie and miscellaneous other odd bits that make life worth living. Mom, you are a Jewell.
#1. My given name pretty much ensures that I will never become a terrorist, mad bomber or assassin. News reports of such people always use your full three given names. Lee Harvey Oswald. John Wilkes Boothe. Somehow Kristopher Robin Ludwig doesn't strike fear into the hearts of men. I am always delighted that Mom was such a fan of A.A. Milne that she would name her last born after such a gentle character. Thank God she did not name me Pooh.
Mom let me read anything. When I was a teen my brother had a copy of Jerry Rubin's "Do It" which was a bit of a manifesto on turning on and dropping out maaaannn. In retrospect it was a bit of self indulgent hogwash from an asshole but still at the time my Mom said "sure go ahead and read it". In an age where Huckleberry Finn is being banned I am forever in debt to my Mom for allowing me the freedom to sort through the horseshit and the truth on my own. Really the only way to find the truth. Let your children dig for themselves because it makes them stronger and if truth cannot stand on its own then maybe questions need to be asked.
This was a brave stance to take coming from a depression era housewife. Revolutionary if I may say so myself.
Mom taught me to believe in ghosts and the gentle guidance of spirits. This came in handy when I indulged in mushrooms and therefore was not surprised to find a coursing river of reality that surges around us as we float on only the surface of a miraculous universe. How does a simple girl from Chillicothe Mo. know such things?
She gave me the gifts of a proper tea and champagne, Pogo and Ingmar Bergman.
An appreciation Classical music and N.P.R. I owe to Mom.
My sense of freedom and all the peril and joy that comes with it I owe to Mom.
Her advice to me once was "whatever you do, don't be boring. Life is much too short for boredom".
Amen! Love while we can and embrace the bits that make us think. There is so much going on and it's a shame to miss any of it.

The end of the world and other bits.

2012?
Wrath o' God?
Global warming?
Why oh why are such catastrophes happening?
Hmmm, let's look at the facts. We are easily bruiseable animals hurtling through space at an alarming rate of speed in a universe that isn't always moving in the same direction. Oh yes and we are riding on a molten rock with a thin bit of crust on the outer edge that keeps getting folded back into the molten core AND most of the rock's surface is covered in water which the last time I checked gets rather jiggly and sloshes about when agitated.
What could possibly go wrong?
I can see the marketability of religion on such a planet. Something to make you feel a tad bit less exposed and keep you safe while riding on "Mr. God's wild flaming rock and water flume with special guest appearances by the four horsemen."

You would think being fragile creatures in such a precarious existence would make us love each other and cherish every moment we are not immediately about to be done in. Oddly enough this is not the case. At least not the last time I was in traffic. I think we tend to miss the big picture while attending our appointed rounds.Then the planet burps and squashes thousands of us and we think "hey maybe we should come together to help one another survive." Que no, amigos? Why not indeed.

I've spent the last week at home sleeping in my bed. What luxury!
Millie insists on sleeping right next to me, preferably against my chest.

I've noticed that every night she has fitful dreams which leave her whimpering and kicking. I can only imagine what terrors go through her doggy brain.
Since she is almost blind she can freeze at the sight of a garbage can or stray box thinking them lions or tigers or bears.
Remodeling the house is torture for her. Nothing is in it's right place and to her the noise of construction sounds like the last day of Pompeii.
This girl can run full speed through a field without fear of hitting a tree, rock, or brier (o.k. she does just smash through bushes) but balk at coming down the hallway if the broom is against the wall.
I can't stop her dreams but can assure her that everything is o.k. right now.
This is one hell of a ride we are on and more enjoyable if we don't paralyze ourselves with fear.
End of the world. Could be but what else do you have to do today.
Love em like there is no tomorrow.

In defense of Boston police.

I swore I would write this the next time I heard some jack ass compare the Wisconsin state employees to the Boston police strikers of 1919.
Over and over again pundits are using the Boston riots as a reason why public employees cannot unionize "lest our country start down the road to Sovietization."-Calvin Coolidge.
The Boston police had a damned good reason to strike. The Boston Policeman's Association had asked the city for better working conditions for years. Since 1904 the city claimed it was broke. Then came W.W.I and the city promised that after the war conditions and wages would improve.
By 1919 all negotiations between the B.P.A. and the city were for naught so in an attempt to strengthen their position the Boston police applied for recognition into the A.F.L. They were granted a membership into the union which the City of Boston and the State of Massachusetts deemed an illegal action. In order to protect public safety policemen could not form a union.

This is the difference between then and now...The Wisconsin public employees are fairly well paid and have benefits. Truth be told most public employees are paid only slightly less than comparable positions in the private sector and given the good benefit packages it comes out about even.
The Wisconsin public employees agreed to all pay cuts proposed by the Governor but they want the right to keep their union. For good reason.

In 1919 the wage for a Boston police officer was the same as it was in 1857. Over 60 years without a pay raise!!!
Officers worked 7 days a week with one day off every other week in which they were still on call. They worked between 73 to 98 hours a week.
Officers had to buy their own uniforms,equipment and guns.
There was no health benefits or benefits for dependents if an officer was killed.
During the Great flu pandemic of 1919 at least a quarter of the force died or was severely ill. One of the duties of the police was to collect the thousands of corpses from the flu in the city. You could make almost three times the wage of a policeman by working as a street car conductor.

State attorney Albert Pilsbury said at the time, "Organized man has taken us by the throat and has us at his mercy."
Seriously? You beat down workers for so long that in an attempt to survive they organize and somehow they are the threat to America.
Calvin Coolidge milked this all the way to the White House.
J. Edgar Hoover used this to become the most dangerous man in America.
And the Market is still using this threat today.
The country ain't broke and workers wanting to watch their backs isn't bad.

BONUS FEATURE: How bout a book plug..."The Given Day" by Dennis Lehane (Mystic River. Shutter Island). A great book about Boston and the wild years of 1918-19.

Angels and Demons.

It's not often I cry for 300 miles.
I've had breakups with girlfriends and deaths of family members that have brought on brief torrential tears but these clouds pass as the natural order of life keeps moving.
War, genocide, famine, these things tend to get me mad rather than cry. You'd think we would get tired of behaving badly and live like descent mammals. I know we can.

This story had me in tears all the way across Virginia and still is bugging me. So in lieu of a therapist here it goes.....

In 1964 a doctor and his wife wanted to experiment on a baby and learn about child development. They found a mother who had just given birth to a baby girl in a hospital and after two days of careful planning the good Doctors stole the baby from the mother.
The doctors raised the baby as their "own" daughter as they observed and documented her development. They conducted experiments on her cognitive understanding of language and the pattern of her social development as a child.
She was cloistered in the Doctors home where she had limited visitors and was always under observation. She lived this way for 12 years.

She grew into a thoughtful child who delighted in the civil ritual of making tea for her parents and teachers and other guest that would visit. She had a happy childhood.
Ah but puberty brought on changes that made the doctors most uncomfortable.
She became extremely strong willed and prone to fits in which she damaged their possessions and made them wonder of their own safety.
Her budding sexuality was overwhelming and uninhibited.
Their sweet little daughter had grown into a hellion.

In a throw back to Victorian times the doctors made plans to send her away.
They found a nanny to watch after the child while they looked for a suitable exile.After six months they settled on leaving the girl in Gambia, Africa.
At 12 years old the girl and her nanny, Janice Carter were left in what Ms. Carter describes as "a tropical hell".
Janice Carter had instructions to stay with the girl for three weeks to make sure she was accepted into the local society and her new family.
The doctors went back to the States. Janice has never left Gambia.
And for Lucy...(fuck .I'm crying again) The child Lucy was left to face a world in which she did not fit in. Why had her parents left her? Why after being raised as a normal girl had her parents left her to live among chimpanzees?
You see, Lucy was a chimp who was raised as a human girl.

I think this is one of the most monstrously EVIL acts ever done by humans.
Dr. Maurice and Jane Temerlin created a lost soul through their arrogance and lack of foresight in the care for Lucy.
Lucy did not adapt to her new situation. For all she knew she was not a chimp. She became gravely ill from the stress of her abandonment.
Thank God for Janice Carter. She stayed with Lucy at her original sanctuary then took it upon herself to find a better sanctuary and bought a small island in a river in which she moved Lucy and several other chimps to live.
It took a year of insane dedication on Janice's part to socialize Lucy enough that she could survive as a chimp on the island.
Janice Carter has devoted her life to the care and well being of chimpanzees and still runs sanctuaries in Gambia. She is an Angel.

After being away for a year Janice returned to the island to check on Lucy and was approached by the chimps and Lucy. Lucy hugged the tearful Ms Carter and comforted her before joining the other chimps in the bush.
A year later Janice Carter returned to the island and found the mutilated skeletal corpse of Lucy. She had been killed by poachers who she probably approached as fellow "Humans".

I reckon this story tears me up because of the broken covenants that I see every day. We domesticate animals and invite them into our families and then when they become an inconvenience abandon them to a cruel world.
You can get rid of an old sofa but how the hell can you throw out someone you raise as family?
This story aired on the radio programs "This American Life" and "Radio Lab".and can be found on line in their archives. (yet another reason for funding public radio.)

Axis of evil. Bob Ross and Garrison Keillor?

O.K, I'll admit Bob Ross was perhaps the most mesmerizingly mellow painter of "happy trees" in all of human history but I don't think that makes him a pariah. Hell, i suspect his blissful demeanor wasn't even drug induced. Never saw him lick the brushes.
As for Garrison Keillor...well he did have a grudge against George II, and he does wear red socks but i doubt that makes him a Commie. I think people from Minnesota are just a little odd. A cold winter brings out the quirks in folks.

These guys epitomize P.B.S.(Public Broadcasting Corporation) and N.P.R.(National Public Radio).Both could be viewed as boring beyond belief and tone deaf to boot
but by God both have cult followings and are utterly unpitchable to commercial media.
Congress has a very serious vote next week which could have a devastating effect on how we view ourselves as a Nation.
In the course of this last year N.P.R. news has pissed off some very vocal Conservatives to the point that they are rallying Congress to cut the funding for Public Broadcasting. Why should American tax payers pay for liberal bed wetting, tree hugging programing when we are in a fiscal state of emergency.
Why indeed.
Because there are millions of Americans from coast to coast that rely on 4 hours of uninterrupted non commercial news a day to keep up with all the events of the world. 4 hours!! No Network is going to give a news agency that much time to cover news. It's not economically viable. No, but it is priceless.
Add to this many stations broadcast the B.B.C. world news at night and even a truck driver from Podunk Indiana can get a good perspective on how things are going on this Planet.
Information is power and I prefer to get it as unfiltered and unedited as possible. I don't need nattering nitwits commenting on news like it is a football game. Give me the news as in depth as possible and not just the big story of the moment, how bout following up on stories that have slipped from the headlines. N.P.R. has the time to explore the news and follows stories for years if need be.

There needs to be an outlet for 16th century chamber music,short stories read aloud, rare music from Africa, odd stories about odd Americans, Jazz, book reviews,American heritage music,two brothers from Cambridge who laugh more than give car advice, and even a red stockinged giant Lutheran from Minnesota who can't sing and isn't overly funny but like lutefisk has people who adore him.
Thank God we are a nation of diversity and not bound by what is only popular and marketable. Our strength is in our unique and different strands.
N.P.R and P.B.S. give a stage to voices that otherwise would not be heard.
Cut all funding for Public Broadcasting?
I say HELL NO. Crank up the Bach cantata and party like you're Nina Totenberg covering the Supreme Court. We need public access to the airwaves.