Stunday, July 12, 2009

I guess one could say that my uncle M was the gray sheep of the family. He wasn't the Crazy Uncle, or the Uncle In Jail, he just had bigger horizons than Louisville. Growing up, relatives would talk about how I seemed to take after him. How I would probably just up and leave when I grew up, just like M. I had always wanted to meet him, then one day out of the blue, he'd moved back to KY, gotten my number, and called me in SF. We talked for two hours. He told me about touring Europe, playing with Al Green, living the free life of an Artist. He'd returned after 20 some odd years with absolutely nothing to show for what he'd accomplished in life, and wouldn't have changed a thing. He told me not to let anyone tell me how to live, because anyone who isn't driven by the passions we share, won't understand. A couple years later, we finally met. There wasn't much talking this time, we just went into his studio and played for a couple hours. It was rough, sloppy, even cheesy at times, but there was more communication going on than anyone else who was watching would know. I'm glad we got to meet that one time. There won't be another, because my uncle died Saturday night.

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Being the fan that I am of balance, there was a flip side to the loss of a kindred spirit. You, faithful reader, may remember R, the woman with whom I share a bond so strong that we allowed each other to live our passions separately, rather than compromise ourselves to be together. I haven't seen her in 11 years, or spoken to her in 6, and not for want of trying. Well, thanks to the addictive miracle of Facebook, I saw a picture of her, taken less than a week ago. Seeing that picture, and feeling what I felt- I truly understand love. Not the lusty giddiness of romance, not the dizzy, whirling dervish of a crush, not even the Emily Bronte thumping chest of unrequited love, but embracing the simple thought of another as the most important thing in the world. The problem with this, is that someday, somewhere, someone is going to read this, and think that she will have to compare. I have no illusions here; R has been happily married with a daughter for most of this decade. This is the totally selfless love that has nothing to do with attraction or even emotional attachment. It's what Rilke was talking about, the ultimate, perhaps that for which human lives are as yet barely large enough.

The United States in America

I used to live on Dolores Street in a flat that had been rented by the same woman for 50 years. She grew up in Colombia, and came to the States in her 20's. We were talking one day, and she asked me what country I was from. When I told her I was American, she told me that she's American too, America is more than the United States.

I'm not big on holidays in general. For most of my adult life, I've been ambivalent about Independence Day, but after living in the Mission for 3 years, I had come to actively dislike it, and now, it actually scares me a little. The active dislike is because I live far enough from gang territory to not worry about it, but close enough that I hear "fireworks" year round. Nerve wracking.

Now here's the scary thing that I realized this weekend: this is a holiday to celebrate the psychotic, sociopathic, and immature nature of government. The idea that were the government a person, it would be institutionalized for life is lifted part and parcel from The Illuminatus Trilogy. I'm not just referring to the US government, in fact, I'm thinking of North Korea, Iran, The Xinjiang province in China, Honduras, Mexico, Darfur...

Anyway, when we have problems with other people, we're supposed to talk them out (at least that's what my parents taught me). Use logic, philosophy, humor, whatever is best in diffusing the situation. The governmental notion of humor is, "do what we say or we will execute you." (A Chinese official really did threaten execution to anyone who dared to protest). For logic: "We don't think you are right , and if you don't agree, we'll kick you out and not listen to you (see Honduras). You get the idea; the point is, every July 4th, we celebrate the fact that our government has been kicking other governments in the nuts and stealing their lunch money for two-hundred thirty-whatever years. Pretty sad, if you ask me.