Sometimes People Suck

Wee hours.

I can proudly say that I never voted for Trump…

What a strange day I had yesterday, learning that two of my relatives had been in the hospital this week. Seven years ago I was hospitalized time after time with gastritis and withdrawals from alcohol as well as suicidal thoughts. Also I had arrhythmia as a long term side effect of taking antipsychotic medication. My psychiatrist didn’t have much to say about that; he had withheld information about the side effects from me as long as I’d been on the drug. Less than a year later I said I didn’t want to talk to him again, and in August he terminated services, making it sound like my fault.

Most relationships after a while fall to crap. But everywhere you go, you find how common it is for people to be dishonest and downright unethical. And if you have something unpleasant but true to say, no one wants to hear it.

However—

“The most endangered species

The honest man

Will still survive annihilation

“Forming a world

State of integrity

Sensitive, open, and strong.”

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Little Dreams

Five o’clock evening.

I’m trying not to get involved in a big family fiasco happening right now. Deep breaths. But I feel rather bad for my sister being caught in the middle of everything. It happens to be her birthday as well… The sun has come out partially a few times today, alternated with gray and black skies, yet no rain the whole day. I’ve just had a modest dinner and now want to unwind for a while. The daylight will last until after seven thirty. I’ve observed how everyone seems so apathetic every day except to be greedy and materialistic, and every person for himself. I see no love and we’re not having fun anymore. With a little motivation I’d take down my big book of Goethe and finish Faust. At least I need a shot of passion and seizing the day. I believe we waste so much of our lives making mistakes and controlling the damage afterwards. Perhaps it can’t be helped. Howsoever we live life is a wager and the stakes are very high. Do you go for all the marbles? Often I feel content to just sit quietly at home.

“Never wanted to be the boy next door

Always thought I’d be something more

But it ain’t easy for a small town boy

It ain’t easy at all

“Thinking it right, doing it wrong

Is easier from an armchair…”

The Shy Spirit

Wee hours.

Before eleven thirty tonight, I shaved my beard completely off for a clean and smooth look. I’m still weighing whether or not to go to church this morning. The Lutherans are a great bunch of people. The thing that’s missing is the presence of the Holy Spirit when we meet at the sanctuary. But I should just shut my eyes and do it today. And yet the times now are totally different from 2017, when I first started going. Does everyone feel this, or is it only me? I suppose that the spirit is not something you can force in those times when it hides away. I’d feel like such an alien to show up for worship with no aura about me, no glow, no illumination from the spirit. I wonder where it went to? And what might bring it back?

He’s not the kind you have to wind up on Sundays…

Ten Years Hence

Nine o’clock.

I found a letter in my mailbox from the church that I tucked away before walking off to the store. Finally I opened it at home again: it was a resignation letter from the pastor, effective the end of June. I guess now it doesn’t matter whether I go to church or not. A new pastor will change the complexion of church entirely. The changes keep coming, so the philosophy of Heraclitus has merit. Nothing is permanent in life. And the rock and roll counterculture is mostly dead by now. Ten years ago I drank like a fish and listened to The Beatles every afternoon and night, then in the wee hours I would bat emails with my friend in Scotland. I guess rock music went out with a bang, and today we’re just coasting along, waiting for the next sensation to come.

They’re building a remedy

For Khrushchev and Kennedy

At any time an invitation

You can’t decline

BS&T

Eleven o’clock.

It’s another strange kind of day to me, and I didn’t sleep well during the night because of my financial worries. I just hang on and hope that things get better around the world.

And the strong seem to get more

While the weak ones fade

Empty pockets don’t ever make the grade

Mama may have

And Papa may have

God bless the child that’s got his own

That’s got his own

“Hippo Stomp”

Eight fifty.

I evaded getting rained on with good timing. I wanted to buy Gloria a Snapple for her break this morning and a jerky snack for Aesop. Otherwise I might’ve blown it off and stayed home where it’s dry and warm. Just now it’s raining in full force. I feel pretty good at this moment. A garbage truck for a service not mine just rode by. Whimsically, the sun comes out while the east is charcoal. It will doubtless rain soon again… I saw nothing unusual on my trip to the store; just a guy doing some work around Randy’s old car lot. I wondered if he was the mechanic whose business was supposed to start up by now. I also wonder how he’s going to transform a wrecked old shack into a thriving garage for auto repair. It takes money and work to realize dreams. And it takes the cooperation of other people who believe in you. But first you need belief in yourself, or no one else will believe either.

If you should go astray

And say I lost my way

Nobody will know you

But if you don’t believe you can

And still say, Hear my plan

Somebody will follow just because it’s free

“Face to Face”

Nine o five.

It feels cold in here though the furnace is running. I fed the dog and I’m gathering myself to spring to the store as usual. I slept pretty badly last night from worrying and caffeine. I’ve got this lunatic music playing in my head by Missing Persons from many years back. I see myself in the garage of Burke’s dad’s house off of Coburg Road, where our band would practice. Is the memory really meaningful or just so much flotsam? Perhaps all psychology is fake and not a true science at all. I can remember the old yellow Datsun truck Burke used to drive. I don’t remember the car he replaced it with later. From lack of self confidence or a shortage of faith, I never led the band anywhere. We just jammed privately, drank beer, and made our nowhere plans for nobody. Alcohol is conducive to dreaming big dreams while real time passes you by. In the meantime, however, I did get an education.

Ten twenty five.

It seems that the world panders to our dreams. Around the bend from me is the little Sin City that sells everything you need to escape. Going the other way on the road, you’ll find a place to seek salvation, the hope of the coming heaven on earth and an end to suffering. Both places have their sights on the horizon. It makes me wonder why the present is undesirable, and why we don’t do more with it.

Like a lot of days

I can see through you and all you say

Even if you try to get away

You’ll find escaping will bring you face to face

An Insight

Quarter of eleven at night.

Saturday’s Child

Through a process of desultory reading and writing I’ve arrived at a few insights about astrology mostly lost to people today. It started with an end note to Verlaine’s Saturnian Poems, saying he chose the title because of the work he had to put into them, as if ordained by Saturn. Then a week or so later, I rifled through Baudelaire and chanced on his poem addressing Sisyphus, whose punishment in hell was the pointless labor of pushing a round boulder up a hill eternally. Baudelaire also prayed for the term of his suffering to be short. I gathered from this the idea that for him, life is pain and suffering. The image of Sisyphus was taken up by Camus in one of his essays. The last thing came to me like an inspiration. Stephen Stills wrote a song, “Everydays,” he gave to Yes to record in 1970. The first verse goes,

Look at the sad goodbyes

Every day’s a killing time

Sun coming up outside

No men are born this time

Saturday’s Child stays home

Nothing to say, so long

In turn, the meaning of Saturday’s Child is revealed by an old nursery rhyme.

Monday’s Child is fair of face,

Tuesday’s Child is full of grace,

Wednesday’s Child is full of woe,

Thursday’s Child has far to go,

Friday’s Child is loving and giving,

Saturday’s Child works hard for his living…

Finally, you only need to make the connection between Saturday and Saturn to make complete sense of the role of hard work in the essence of Saturday’s Child. Saturn in astrological tradition is the tester and taskmaster for those it rules.

The Stand

Eight thirty five.

I fed the dog first this morning and then made my daily run to the market. A few lines from Dylan came to me on the street: “You’re invisible now / You have no secrets to conceal / How does it feel… like a rolling stone?” Nothing new really presented itself before I got to Maxwell Road. Just another cloudy day. In the store it was quite busy. Ahead of me at checkout stood a tall Black man who apparently wasn’t a regular customer. I thought Lisa could’ve treated him better. It reminds me of Bruce Hornsby a long time ago. He was shocked when his tune with jazz licks and lyrics about racism was a hit. Sometimes public opinion really is a surprise. It gives me a little hope for humanity, even in the darkest times… As I marched back home, I gazed east, straight down the road, marking the heavy traffic: a string of red taillights, car upon car. They were heading into the heart of the sunrise, except for the clouds. Near the end of Maxwell Road in that direction stands the Lutheran church. Probably I’ll attend this Sunday, just to belong someplace, and Lutherans are the closest to what I can accept. Though the dawn is tardy, somewhere in obscurity there is sunlight.

I Was Blue and Lonely

Aesop has been pouting all day because I tried to make a phone call this morning. Well anyway, I had to leave a message for Polly and I didn’t hear back from her at all today. Altogether it’s been a frustrating time for me. My book still hasn’t arrived either. It’s one of those days when the dog bites and the bee stings, and everything is going wrong. I was lonely and restless this afternoon, so I ate early and went to bed for two hours, though I didn’t sleep. I really don’t like the days when I feel abandoned by everyone. Sometimes it just works out that way, and I can be deserted for a couple of days consecutively. It sucks.

“It’s so hard to stay together, passing through revolving doors

We need someone to talk to and someone to sweep the floors

Incomplete, incomplete”

“In this desert that I call my soul

I always play the starring role

So lonely…”

“I see you’ve sent my letters back

And my LP records and they’re all scratched

I can’t see the point in another day

When nobody listens to a word I say”

“Eleanor Rigby died in a church and was buried along with her name

Nobody came

Father McKenzie wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave

No one was saved

All the lonely people, where do they all come from

All the lonely people, where do they all belong?”

There’s a billion songs like these ones. I actually had to chuckle at the third one above. It’s from a song called “Can’t Stand Losing You,” written by Sting with The Police for their first album, Outlandos d’ Amour. I think my favorite album they did was Zenyatta Mondatta, in 1980. By then, they had lost all trace of their punk rock beginnings and sounded more refined and sophisticated. This was the sound that became their signature from then on. I love to hear Andy Summers on guitar, either a Telecaster or a Strat, starting when they made Regatta de Blanc. So tastefully done.