When I was a child there was nothing more magical and enjoyable than the holiday season. At the end of Thanksgiving dinner, I would begin to think about all the beautiful decorations my mother would hang with so much care, the music that would fill the air in every store, and the obscenely lit tree we would soon erect in the corner of our living room. At this time of the year any problem or worry that lived inside my small cranium would disappear and be replaced by thoughts of stockings, snow and the smell of wood burning in the cold New England air. When you are a child these things embody all that is warm, exciting and spectacular. It is almost too much for a small heart to handle without screaming out to the world with joy. Holiday tunnel vision is what I miss the most about being a child at Christmas. Now that I am an adult and have a family of my own, I can finally see and understand the meaning behind the sparkle in a child’s eye on Christmas morning. Most importantly, I can now fully appreciate the exhaustion, stress and anxiety that remains on an adult’s face for weeks to follow long after all the lights have gone out and all the presents have been either broken or ignored.
Tell a child that it will not be celebrating this holiday and you may have a life-threatening situation on your hands. This is why most adults give in to the threats of the lightening, insulate themselves carefully, and run for cover until the danger passes. Humorously, the church, not only will not mention the word Halloween or admit to the blatant similarities in their celebration to the pagan tradition, but they will become the biggest sugar pushers in their zip code joyously contributing to the borderline epileptic seizures most of their guests will experiences within the homes of middle America later in the evening. After this year’s corn syrup extravaganza, I witnessed a whirlwind sugar high take hold of our seven year old in the middle of my living room. Let’s say it was like watching a miniature version of Obiwan Kenobi dance and sing uncontrollably after spending a long weekend with Amy Winehouse and Lindsay Lohan on an Ozz Fest tour bus. It has changed my life forever.
By the eve of Thanksgiving, my wife is functioning on her three food groups; caffeine, nicotine, and oxygen. She has slept a total of 4 hours in three days time, and her primary expression is that of an underpaid 24-hour gas station attendant at 4am on Highway 30 in Omaha, Nebraska. Each year, I question her mental state and if she will ever return to us the same way she left. To make matters worse, over the past few weeks, she offered additional invitations to extended family, friends and acquaintances from all walks of life. She also advises that after speaking to someone in the mall, she considered inviting him or her as well because she felt bad. As most would step in and question why one would inflict such torture on them for a meal, we do not and would never dare to consider the act of suicide. She has decided, she is right, and we should not question. For this reasoning, I am still here to write of these experiences.
Over the past twelve months I have been confronted with several situations that have left me very confused and sometimes a bit angry. The confusion stems from my all-time favorite subject, “Human Relations” and how the consistent trampling of logical communication never ceases to amaze me. From the “know-it-all teenage retail warrior” trying to grasp their own definition of customer service, to the “mid-thirties, cursed to always be single, big mouthed, over-fed troll” flashing their winning personality through the glass window at the local medical center, it has been my pleasure to experience a wide range of social grace over the past year.
If I were Victor Hugo, I may refer to these individuals as Le Imbéciles misérables or “The Miserable Imbeciles” since they are obviously miserable for being tortured in their own existence and just plain dumb for allowing this self made misery to direct their logic, sense, and overall behavior towards all other humans they encounter. Sometimes I feel those people who suffer from this personality disorder enjoy annoying their fellow man because it makes up for their own insecurities. Possibly, my writing about them is a sure sign of my own. Either way, the most important aspect of their existence is that they choose to deal with other human beings on a day-to-day basis. I find this incredibly humorous and disturbing in the same breath.
Even I, as some of you know from my writings, do not like most people, but work my hardest to adapt to the language, the dynamics and their behaviors just to make it through any given day. That is just common sense. These creatures seem to exist primarily to perpetuate ignorance, selfishness, stupidity, and laziness all for no apparent, logical reason. They can be fierce and attack without provocation or be incredibly passive and do most of their damage through simple frustrations, lack of vocabulary and basic non-sense. When in their presence you will repeatedly question their purpose, question your sanity and pray for divine intervention.
Their habitat is not like the Grizzly Bear, which you will find primarily in the uplands of Western North America. They lurk and roam everywhere and sometimes pop up where you least expect. They are increasingly appearing in every mall, restaurant, and customer service desk in the United States. They are more like the cockroach or the mosquito. Mostly everyone has seen one and more accurately had to deal with one at some point in their lives. Once confronted with one of them, you are immediately irritated, annoyed and after a short period of time are fantasizing about methods to remove them from your life. If it were only as simple as slapping one into oblivion as it tries to suck out your lifeblood, we would sleep easy. If we could smash them beneath our shoe, wrap them in a tissue and flush them into the sewer we would rejoice. Unfortunately, in the realm of reality, they can push us to consider many forms of verbal abuse, indecent gestures, or even assault to stop the torment, but most sane, educated people would not consider this a reasonable conclusion. Unfortunately, as I examined one of my most recent experiences, I believe I came very close to serving time in the county jail for “slapping down an imbecile”.
To me, walking into an Apple Store can be a strange experience. First, the huge Apple logo glows above the door ominously like a huge, neon cross found on the top of a number of small, Christian, churches along any highway in the heartland of America. It is a subliminal message that says “Come In. Get Saved. Buy a Mac” as an orange shirted member of the congregation with a small white Apple logo in the center of his chest meets you at the door with a robotic “Welcome to the Apple Store”. Once inside, you can’t decide if you have stumbled into an exhibit at the Smithsonian Institute displaying the H.G. Wells vision of futuristic retail shopping, or a “meet n’ greet” for the fans of Harry Potter, Luke Skywalker and the makers of Dungeons and Dragons. There seems to be a lot of unwashed hair, overgrown beards, iPhones on belt clips, bright T-Shirts, guys that look like post-breakdown Brian Wilson and girls that look like Joni Mitchell in 1975. You also see lots of multi-media, flat screen monitors broadcasting constant streams of Apple propaganda, hip terminology, clips of software applications in action, and promises that you can conquer the world with an Apple computer. One day I’m hoping to see a holographic projection of Steve Jobs from the eye of one of the staff hipsters where he dressed as Princes Leia will appear and say “Help me Ob-Wan Kenobi. You are my only hope”. It’s the epitome of high-tech cool in a retail space, but all that technology and elegantly brushed aluminum seems to take the human warmth right out of the equation. The thing you will notice above all is the unbridled, geek lathered ego that seems to be a pre-requisite for all Apple Store employees, but most of the time they can mix the words “dude”, “cool” and “sweet” into there normal techno-banter and deal with anyone on any planet. Soon I was to find out how cool you have to be to be in this congregation.
I arrived at the temple of geekdom at around 4:30pm, knowing that this would give me plenty of time to check in the laptop, do the paperwork and make a quick escape. A tall, unshaven, young man who resembled an unkempt version of Ross from “Friends” greeted me. “Welcome to the Apple Store. Can I help you?” says our young Ross with a less than enthusiastic tone. After informing him that I had a 4:40pm appointment at the Genius Bar, he responds with a solemn, yet strange “Hmm, early” then proceeds to direct me to the rear of the store and wait for my name to be called. Above the bar is a large flat screen display, which lists all those in line for service. At this point, it is 4:35pm and in my mind I am more than prepared. We called the Apple store to arrange the repair over 24 hours before the appointment, so the rest of the procedure should be pretty painless, right? You would think so, but maybe my Jedi skills are not as sharp as the genius I was about to meet.
As my name was called, I noticed the genius behind the bar didn’t fit the geekish Apple stereotype. You would expect a scruffy, skinny, borderline "hip in his mind", artsy type possibly wearing thick black-framed glasses, Vans and a wallet chain protruding from his baggy jeans. You may even imagine an over weight, under bathed, young hobbit with a two week neck beard and a ponytail right out of a sixties documentary of the Haight-Ashbury. Well what I saw was much different. The one I refer to, as “John” was hairless, muscular, and dripped of badass wannabe punk rocker. Tattoos covered his arms and part of his neck. I imagine he loves intense hard-core music, or he claims. He seems to be infatuated with himself and his vast knowledge of everything and his vocabulary is filled with today’s hip phrases. He stood over his laptop like a big city bouncer with the newest Bluetooth earpiece clamped to his head like a secret service agent. He had this look of intensity on his face that rivaled Bruce Willis in Die Hard. His Para-military stance and over confidence suddenly transported me into a Michael Mann daydream where he declares that he will repair our laptop no matter how many people he needs to kill. At that moment, a new Ford Mustang comes crashing through the entrance of the store. He jumps up on the genius bar, empties his chrome Israeli assault rifle into the muscle car’s window and escapes with our laptop through a shower of broken glass and sparkling electricity. He was the Apple Store hero. Cool, calm, and conceited. Now he’ll know how to get the job done and done right.
A deep voiced bark of my name wakes me from my action flick daydream and prompts me to approach the genius bar area. Without raising his eyes from his laptop keyboard, he begins to engage in his form of communication. “I believe your appointment was scheduled for 4:40 this afternoon, correct? he snaps with an authoritative, yet egotistical tone. “Yes” I answered, “We called this in yesterday so I could stop by and check this in.” Then, as he slowly raises his eyes from the small screen, he replies, “Yup and five minutes too early.” He then punctuates the statement with a condescending sigh. I paused for a second and thought, “Oh, is early wrong, rude, unprofessional?” Well, maybe he was just clarifying the Apple Store appointment rules in his own little way. I tried to let it pass and move on in the process. John then asks “So, what brings you here early today?” keeping his own signature personality in tact. “We called in this laptop for warranty repair yesterday so I’m just dropping it off for service.” I answer with a slight undertone of aggravation in my voice. Again, John raises his eyes slowly and stops typing. Without a smile or expression he replies, “So, what does that mean exactly?”
A part of me wanted to respond, “What do you think that means? I want to buy a cookie. Yeah. That’s it. Do you have any Apple flavored cookies back there under the genius bar? I hear you guys make the best so I called in yesterday to make an appointment to eat one of your cookies.” Instead of responding, I stood silent for a number of seconds to think of an answer he would understand. “We set this appointment up yesterday and I am here to drop the unit off and sign the appropriate paperwork,” I said with full confidence. “Ok, again, what do you need?” he says with a bit of frustration. I then start to feel the needle on my frustration meter rise as I quickly respond. “Listen, we come into this store very often and I drop off workstations for repair all the time. This belongs to one of our staff members, they reported that it no longer works, and, as we always do, called into your store to schedule an appointment for repair. It is under warranty, so we were told to arrive at 4:40pm, come to the genius bar and do a quick drop off. Ok?” His response to this was both memorable and infuriating, “So, I assume that you want this laptop repaired, right? Maybe you could give me an idea of what is wrong with it? Why do you think it needs to be repaired by us?” I felt the top layer of teeth in my mouth dig into my tongue.
At the end of this procedure, John made several references to his genius stature, and checked his look in the mirror-like Apple décor, which surrounded us in the store. He may have said many more things or asked me questions regarding the repair, but at this point I had successfully shut him off. At the conclusion of the transaction, Bruce, our store contact, appears from the back of the store with several technicians in tow. His appearance was obviously noticed by our young John, but neither explained or justified. He acted like his lie about Bruce’s absence did not exist. When Bruce saw me, he immediately asked if I have been helped and need anything further. Without an ounce of conscience, John put the paperwork in Bruce’s hand for him to review. Naturally, Bruce offered to finish the transaction, as any professional support professional should. John slid off stage left without a word, statement of thanks or appreciation for my business. As I observed this, I felt everything from shock, amazement, and disappointment to relief, frustration and a sense of normalcy. I looked around the store and realized that this was just another day in the world of modern retail. The Apple Store, its hippy roots and cool, shiny charm is just another corporate retail money machine infected with the same flaws and backward mentality that saturate the customer service field today. I know that “customer service” sounds horribly close to “customer: serve us” so now I know how certain creatures in the fold can get confused.
A part of me would like to salute my young John. He is an efficient, emotionless machine of corporate retail. He has broken the stereotypical mold, which has been protected and exploited by the technical retail world for decades. The predictable standard of the white, pocket protected, short sleeved, button down, dress shirt wearing, socially handicapped nerds controlling the employment of hundreds of computer specialized retail outlets has been disabled. With the introduction of my new friend John, the Apple Store has given me new hope that a new breed of egotistical, emotionless, apathetic, socially vacant, narcissistic, bullish, hipsters have a place in the already dysfunctional world of human relations. So, if you strive to be visually intimidating, have limited social skills, enjoy tattoos, avoid mature communication, practice selective listening and think you are the best thing since sliced bread, look into a career at the now revamped Apple Store. The place where you can be called a GENIUS, act like an ass and grow up to become a miserable imbecile with little or no effort.
Thanks Apple Store. You’ve finally arrived. You are just like everyone else.
I think as technology progresses, our brain cells begin to wither away and die at an ever increasing rate of speed. Information, convenience, and opinions are shoveled into our dull noggins like coal into a steam ship's engine barreling towards Portugal. It's often too fast to process, examine or contemplate. It is just ingested like a big fat Twinkie. Cream filling but no nutrients. The brain just shuts down for business or just stops trying to work as hard as it did for all those years. Why should it work hard? Who needs or wants to remember any of this stuff?
I picture a little man sitting at a desk in a huge room filled with file cabinets and well used boxes of books. This man works in the library of my brain. He used to be very busy. He would scurry here and run there, filing thoughts, documenting ideas and reading about interesting subjects to build upon the great vault of information which was my brain. He was fit and ready to take on any challenge but over the past few years, his life has become a bit boring. He doesn't always need to get up and has no motivation to file things for me to remember.
Passages and verses from literature are not that important anymore, so every so often, when he is really bored, he slaps some tape on those boxes of books to seal them up and sit them on a shelf. Ideas briefly come through on the brain's fax machine which he checks daily but most often only throws away since they are barely legible. In the recent years, my brain's little clerk has become fat, complacent and apathetic. He sits at his desk, with feet up, eating doughnuts and drinking coffee. His boss is now asleep, so he is left to goof off and hang out, taking up space and going with the flow. This picture worries me, but whom am I to blame? My brain is a huge muscle that needs exercise and stimulation to survive. Now it is becoming similar to a piece of ground round in your grocer's meat department.
What helps us to do things faster and more efficiently, also takes away our ability to think and reason for ourselves. Instant information, instant money, instant satisfaction has become the norm of everyday life. The kids today don't know what it is like to have to wait for an answer, wait for a movie to be released in the theater or even wait for a web page to appear on their computer screen. It is all there at our fingertips yet we are all more impatient that we've ever been. Some day, a computer will be manufactured with such a fast processor, that it will physically suck the users brain right out of their skull while booting. Not a bad idea. The way things are going, by then, we will not need anything but a specific data cable, a laptop and a bird brain to plug it into. With all that instant information, who will need to examine or contemplate? We have technology in place to do this for us. Now, with all this cutting edge, high tech help we should be drooling idiots by the year 2025.
One day last week I was at my desk, minding my own business when an email pops up on my screen. I proceeded to read the email, of course, because I'm pretty observant and smart. I also know that when the sun comes up it is "morning" and when it goes down, this means "night". Well, I'm not sure everyone gets the "electronic mail" concept. It's like the telephone in a way but I assume most people get that concept. If you work in an office with more than two hundred employees and send an email to someone on the other end of the building, several departments away, the idea is that email would be your friend. This technology was invented to save you a lot of time and help air breathers communicate. When someone who works in a completely different department, a different building, and obviously a different level of reality appears at my desk and asks "Did you get my e-mail?" I begin to worry. Would this person call someone's home and when there is no answer, proceed to drive to their house, knock on the door and say "Did you get my call? I called you, did you know that? I just thought I would check?".Sounds funny and is scary.
I proceeded to look up at this poor slob and say "Yes, right after you sent it to me. Did you think there was something wrong with the network, your computer, my computer? You came all the way over here to ask me if I got your e-mail" With a confused, dead pan look, the techno-wizard answers creatively, "I wanted to explain it to you." Well, isn't that considerate? What needs to be explained? After reading it again I began to understand why Bill Gates may think I didn't retain all of his critical instructions. Let's review. The subject line said "Meeting tomorrow at 11:00am". Could this be Mountain Time? Is the meeting in the Bahamas? Maybe not. After a look at the message content, I realize that it may be something inside the mail that is needing explanation. Was it written in Arabic? Is there a riddle involved? Do the words threaten national security? It doesn't seem to be any of those things but I can still understand why explanation is needed. The main body of the e-mail reads as follows: "Meeting Location: South Conference Room, Time: 11:00am, Subject: Third Quarter Office Moves, Note: Please bring individual plans and share concerns." I'm sure glad that this needed an explanation. All those confusing words and obscure phrases make my brain hurt.
What would I do without people like this? I know, I know - Keep my sanity. - BT
When I was a young boy I used to think it was very strange to hear people say that they were "living inside their own head". It is just not something a seven year old can grasp without some major explanation.
I couldn't imagine what a statement like that could possibly mean. In 1972 I heard a lot of people talking about "tuning in, turning on, and dropping out". Could this be it's meaning? Drugs? Transcendental Meditation? The Maharishi? Gilligan's Island? What are they taking about? Is it a bad or a good thing to be inside your own head? I guess it depended who you spoke to at the time. An explanation coming from both the Reverend Billy Graham and Charles Manson would have totally different meanings.
At the time, all of the outrageously hairy and freakishly mellow were coining phrases that took on the theme of enlightenment, self-realization and soul searching during a very exciting yet explosive time. To most in this circle, it was very cool to be one who could explore the unknown reaches of their own head. To a depressed, manic and possibly suicidal person it meant something totally different and possibly horrific. Harvard professors were teaching and sitting around in loincloths each day promoting it's wonder. Bands with psychedelic names and half baked frontmen were singing it's praises. The center of the mind was explored, exploited, bought and sold as a simple pleasure trip for some. Over time, for the majority of society, through political correctness and conservative influence, the romance behind these journeys would quickly dissolve, but for others, the same journey became something far more serious.
Back then, dropping a hit of acid or partaking at a bong would get you into your own head quickly and happily. You could then stare at a piece of toast and give a full discourse or seminar about "The Meaning of Bread: The Pain Behind the Slice." You could honestly appreciate it's sadness as it was uselessly tortured between the hellish walls of the toaster. "Poor bread. poor oppressed bread" we cry as we take another hit. Insane but true. Self searching was much more fun when you were in control and could choose your vehicle by the drug that fueled it's momentum. As a young child I took in my experiences and tried to make sense of everything based on my level of intelligence and understanding. Unfortunately, our main education and confirmation of logic comes from our parents, whether they be Harvard educated brain surgeons or fruit pickers from San Jose. My first influence came from my folks, especially my father. I often wonder if his ramblings and opinions were far off from truth.
"This whole world is on dope!" he would exclaim as we watched the six o'clock news as it's cameras stared saturated in college violence and protest marches. The early seventies in my house was a constant forum of debate between my pseudo-hippie sister and my "Harry Truman meets Billy Jack" father proclaiming that "the world was going to shit" and "the hippies and freaks are driving." What joyful and annoying memories came out of those days. Looking on I wanted it all to end. I wanted to find the stage door of my life and escape. I wanted to sneak to the back alley and have a smoke like musicians did in the movies. I liked retreating into the peace inside my mind as well. As the years went on I took on my own pile of insecurity, fears, and frustration that slowly caused me to involuntarily retreat into my own head. I really didn't want to visit that place. It kept getting worse each time I would walk in. Changing directions via drugs, drinking and sex stopped being effective. I finally figured out why. My house has been poorly wired. Sometimes the storms come and the lights go out. Sometimes they flicker. Sometimes I'm in the dark for days and I just don't want to come out. As I get closer to fifty and further away from the days of flowers and L.S.D. it's harder not to hide away inside. It's harder not to just give up.
I've been spending a lot of time inside my own head examining where I've been in my life, what I've done, and why I seem to be hurting so much. Contrary to the way I act, the things I say, and the way I look, I do care about my family, my position in life and my personal actions. It's funny what thoughts get stuck in my head on any given day. One day I may feel extremely accomplished and happy. As things go extremely well, and I get inflated another twenty or thirty pounds per square inch, my head is filled with thoughts of money, success, or quitting my job and buying that perfect house overlooking the ocean in Maui. Those days have not been as abundant lately. The shit fairy has been leaving some good size turds under my pillow.
Some days the small apartment in my head, the place for escape, resembles a dark, unkempt room inside a large warehouse. A room void of color and spirit. The fabric on my furniture is torn and some of the windows are broken. A wind blows through as if this spot was abandoned moving the tattered curtains back and forth across gray, tarnished walls. I sit alone not able to move, petrified and paralyzed from worry like my feet are bound to the the legs with chains. I worry when I see myself there. It's the blackest place to be in my mind. I try not to stay there for very long. There have been times in my life when I have curled up on that torn couch, and been too afraid to get up. I stop thinking of living life, caring where my day will take me, scared to smile, talk, or laugh.
This gray room is that place I go to when things are not promising. It's where I think of the benefits of death, how my faith in myself has been broken and how my faith in something higher may no longer exist. I've been there today. I went inside as my family looked on and wondered where I've gone. I drifted away as I do so often in thought, away from them and eventually away from myself. The room is gray and bleak, but I am glad it is not yet black. If I get inside my own head and the room slowly fades from gray to black, I know there is no return for me. The blackness is not where I want my thoughts to live. I've thought long and hard about this struggle and, very unexpectedly, found a road to the answer through a random song.
When I built my recording studio, I made a pact with myself that I would always use my music and my creativity as my largest healing force. I would use those strengths to help me keep those thoughts away. The ones that suck me into the darkest of places and into the small apartment in my head. My music and art serves as my therapy more than ever before. I needed a color to keep me out of the blackness in my mind and cover me with it's protection and a meaningful reminder. The color red has now become my favorite color. There is no red in the grayness of my thoughts. It seems to burn all the badness away.
One evening, I heard a simple but beautiful song called "Red Cave" by the band Yeasayer.
It's power chanted through my brain as I listened. And somehow, with good warmth and a stream of positive ideas, I felt everything was going to be alright. Just listening to this song seemed to draw a red line through my life and the possibility of darkness. It's chanting began to take some of the pain away and I began to understand how I have the power to redirect my thoughts, my fears, my sorrow, my worry, and my strife towards something much more positive and uplifting. I felt all my truth come out of a simple yet powerful song. I appropriately named my studio and my media company "Red Cave". A place I could go when I felt myself drifting towards the darkness. It's words fit so well and applied to me so closely it was truly spiritual.
The lyrics read:
I went out past the willow and the well
caught my breath upon the hill
at the edge of the domain
and i went down
and further down
and when i got up,
i'm at the red cave
and with that sound
as if i had been put under a spell
she led me to her abode
despite a winter's day
It concludes with a soft, and beautiful affirmation:
Im so blessed to
have spent that time
with my family and the friends
i love with my short life i have met
so many people i deeply care for
You see, I realized that I had a choice. When times get tough and I think I have had enough pain, drama, anger, and fear, I can begin to live in my own head, visit the dark rooms of my mind and eventually give in to the gray and die in the blackness. I could also embrace the brightness of my life, the color red, and retreat to the Red Cave where my hope resides. A place where my freedom lives and creativity rules. We all walk that line between darkness and light. We all have the choice to grasp color and warmth and never let it go. Our hearts will take us to places unknown and to others we know too well but we always have something that keeps our hearts alive and our spirits strong. For me, Red Cave is more than a name, a song or a small studio where I make music. It's a lifeline to something greater than myself. It is a symbol of my spirit and blessings. I am so blessed to have those important things in life and the ability to share my gifts with others.
I now love getting lost in my Cave of Red. It is an inspiration, a truth, and a comfort...
Best of all...the furniture is brand new. - BT
A man told me once that speaking of someone badly after they had died holds the highest amount of disrespect one human can show another.
This has always remained an important belief of mine throughout my life. Whether you believe in heaven, hell, resurrection, karma, ghosts, or the Easter Bunny, there seems to be a small belief hard wired into everyone that the lives and memories of those who have unravelled the mortal coil should and must be held sacred. True, the guy was a real prick when he was alive and he did really bad things to a whole bus full of puppies in Michigan in 1983, so isn't that reason enough to forget he was ever alive? Why would you want to remind yourself of something like that over and over again? Honestly, you wouldn't...
Why would anyone want to speak of a person like that in either a positive or negative way?
As human beings I'm not sure what our motivation really is, but we've all done it once, twice or three times. We've gone bananas when death came knocking. We have figuratively kicked a man while he was "pushing up daisies" or canonized a woman we hardly knew as soon as the grim reaper drives up the avenue. Wouldn't it be easier and more respectful to treat death with silent, truthful, unexaggerated, respect? Is this a hard concept? Should it be a requirement before finishing high school? Should their be an additional standardized test given to all humans before entering adulthood? We could call it the "D.A.Ts", or the Death Aptitude Test. Forget not getting into Stanford because of your low score, how about being held back in life for bombing on your DAT scores? Well, the truth is, most of us would never make the grade.
I remember the time and place like it was yesterday. He stood their at the wake and complained about how Aunt Margaret was such a bitch for embarrassing him at the school play when he was thirteen. "I can't believe she yelled out that my fly was down in front of the whole school. What a witch. I never liked that woman. I'm glad she's dead", he whispered with a growl into the ear of his wife as she filled her gob with the last deviled egg on Margaret's own dining room table. "A nice dining room table" he adds. "What are they going to do with all this antique furniture?" is said without feeling like at a neighborhood garage sale. Demented and sad but very true. We don't say a word when they live, but after they die the bullwhips and the estate lawyers come out of the woodwork. A death, whether it be of someone you know, someone you've once met, or of someone uber-famous, makes many people dress themselves up in a weird, fake, cloak where they can justify any behavior while the "death shroud" temporarily hangs over reality.
There are those who hear of the death of a family member they had met once at a wedding when they were five. Unfortunately, all they remember is bad breath, greasy hair, and a boozy personality. They barely had a memory of them when they were alive not including the occasional comments like "Oh yeah...him" or "Will he be there?" and "Is he even my cousin?" come over their lips like watered down acid. These are the same people who always turn on their love light when hearing the news of death. They will turn on tears and sobbing so heavily that the producers of the movies "Beaches", "Brian's Song" or even "American Idol" would be envious. The barely known deceased becomes the cherished favorite family member who's passing will surely kill them as well. They will spin stories of their closeness. The times they shared and how they will be missed. It is creepy to witness. I once witnessed this with a co-worker who was the company gossip and back stabber. She left her mark on everyone's back like Zorro. You couldn't escape her fury.
Once, one of her favorite targets in mud-slinging lost her husband in a fire. A week previous to his death, she had been chatting around the water cooler how her husband had been "cheating with someone at our office". "She has it coming" I imagined her whispering under her breath, "she's not good enough for him." As soon as the word was out about his death, guess who was the first to embrace the widow with tear drenched arms? Who was passing the sympathy cards around the office with her version of the Serenity Prayer scrolled across the middle in deep red pen? Who was the first to say "I'm here for you" with that pseudo-sincere, Opra Winfrey-like tone? Our own mud hurling Zorro that's who. It almost would have been refreshing, but obviously sick, for her to blurt out an honest statement like: "Don't worry. I'm here. I will be here to use all my insecurity, and ignorance to push my jagged little knife in your back again and again while you are not looking. I will put you out of your misery too, once and for all. Don't worry." How comforting- but not that far from reality.
In the world of the rich, famous and infamous, it gets much weirder. The mud comes in bigger chunks. The tears and misery are flawlessly broadcast in high definition video and in crystal clear surround sound. The knives are much bigger and come in and out of the sheath at lightning's pace. It's amazing to witness and the players are as dramatic as a latin soap opera. As we all know, there is nothing more boring and drab as a clean living, perfectly normal celebrity. The world loves junk food. Big Whoppers of cheesy meat, divorce, drugs and sex served hot and fast between two warm pieces of gossip. Unfortunately, the scenarios are predictable. As we sit back and watch, the ingredients for this recipe are gathered together slowly. Sometimes we watch as a real person grows up on fame and fortune taking their lives down the same path as many have gone before. We want to yell out to them when we see the path take a sharp turn or head for the edge of a cliff, but it is almost easier just to stare at the train wreck in action. When this person is at the top of their game, there is a brief light of praise and brilliance shown upon them as bright as heavenly light. A star is born. Unfortunately, to those who carry the knives, the light becomes too bright and needs to be dulled or even snuffed.
As I get older I become aware of how the treatment of talented, artistic, sensitive, and truthfully gifted people has grown to the point of inhumane. I've witnessed the rise and fall of so many in my lifetime it feels like I have served as an accomplice to their deaths due to my own apathy. As a society, we have begun to enjoy the misery more than the accomplishments of the world's gifted. I grew up watching the birth, life and death of iconic genius. Artists as diverse as Elvis Presley, John Lennon, and Michael Jackson walked the twisted dangerous path of fame but were tagged with a sign reading "Kick Me" along the way. Elvis came from the dirt and sweat that all poor Americans taste but work hard to overcome. His gifts were extraordinary and so was his heart. At first his innocence was the stuff that the media wanted and it was what we loved. Somewhere along the way, the light began to fade, the knives needed to carve out the innocence and hopefully cash in on the misery. The paper's read "Elvis leaves Pricilla" and the first cut is made. Drugs, sex, violence, unorthodox behavior followed and was broadcast for our entertainment. "Elvis is Dead" was the final thrust and the period on the sentence...or was it? We watched Tupelo's favorite son dragged through the gutter of journalistic sensationalism for the next twenty years. "Elvis is Alive", "Presley died on the toilet", "Elvis on drugs at the White House", "Martians brought Elvis to earth" and "New York homeless man believed to be Elvis Presley" read like disrespectful slaps year after year. I never saw the headlines read "Elvis Presley: Please Rest in Peace". I don't think I ever will.
John Lennon paid dearly for wanting to do what is right and save as many lost souls as possible along the way. He was not as charming as Paul, quiet as George, or as goofy as Ringo. The mark of the rebel could be seen on his hands immediately as he stepped off that plane in New York on February 7, 1964. He said the Beatles were more popular than Jesus, he wrote about Revolution, grew his hair and spent a week in bed for peace with a strange Japanese artist named Yoko Ono. He wasn't normal and the media ate this up with gravy. The FBI spent years trying to run him out of the country because he seemed like a subversive, revolutionary. When all began to calm down for John with wife and their small boy, his story would again change. After he was gunned down in cold blood, the world mourned, the artistic communities remembered him, and the media paid their respect. After the coals cooled and the old Beatle stories lost their luster, the mud began to rise once again with the headlines "Lennon's Affair exposed", "Ex-Beatle was a drunk and violent husband" and "John Lennon's Heroin Addiction". We found out more about John after his death than when he was alive and very famous. In 2000, I went to an exhibit at a well respected music museum featuring John Lennon's work. As expected, I saw the white piano which John had used to compose the song "Imagine" almost twenty years before. I saw notebook pages full of his work and his famous round framed glasses sitting in a solitary glass case. Unfortunately, to my horror and disappointment, the glasses were stained with blood along with several other belongings to remind me, just in case I had forgotten, that he was senselessly murdered one quiet evening on his way home in 1980. A tear came to my eye as I wondered why and wanted nothing more than to strangle who thought this would be the best way to remember him. Blood and death sells more music that pure talent any day.
The death of Michael Jackson was more expected thanks to the wonderful preparations made by society, the media and our own thoughts. By the year 2009, the crazy lives and excentricities of mainstream celebrity is common place. There are web sites dedicated to daily monitoring of the steady decline of the rich, and sickly. Mr. Jackson has been a figure of criticism since he first stepped on stage in the late sixties. After the first year's realization of how talented and cute Michael and the Jackson brothers seemed to appear, the hunt began. The search for the hairline crack began hard and fast. We saw his life become a sad circus. His strange behavior, the physical alterations of his body and face, wild spending, rumors of sexual misconduct with children, and the roller coaster of financial difficulty. Michael had it all. Again, unfortunately, the things that mattered much less that his contributions as an artist were greatly overshadowed. Another life was exposed for the slaughter for the cause of pure entertainment. We all bought it and kept investing. His death was not surprising but for me was almost a relief. The media had chewed him up and spit him out mercilessly for years. They loved him when he enjoyed success or pioneered an artistic effort but flogged him at every turn of a failure. The week of his death was a media frenzy that I will always remember.
How can a journalist say that "Jackson was an artist of the upmost talent and gifted beyond human understanding. He will be dearly missed and forever remember for his great accomplishments and contributions." then spend the next thirty minutes debating if his addiction to drugs, the accusations of child molestation, or potential mental illness finally drove him to his grave? It doesn't make sense to me. Do we feel it is humane to throw your arms around someone with love, praise their efforts and accomplishments, and honor them as a pinnacle of human achievement...then with the same breath, impale them with the failures, shortcomings and wrongs that potentially live in all of us? We say "I have always hated you and I will take great joy in watching you fail. You deserve to suffer and eventually die, but I want you to know that I am always here for you and will be there for you forever. I love you." Is this how we respect our fellow man? From what I've seen, the world is becoming a colder and colder place. Death be not proud.
As the news continues to bombard us with all that is Jackson, I will strive to let the dead rest and refuse to care about the unimportant things that came before. This is not my way of becoming an apathetic, negative human place holder who doesn't care about my fellow man's life. If anything can truthfully clarify my compassion for the human race, the following words should prove to be very successful. When a person dies, expires, passes, or fades away, I will concentrate on the good they have accomplished in life and discard the assumption, rumor and failures that are sometimes exposed to my eyes and ears. If that person was a hero I will remember them for their sacrifice. If a person was infamous in life and had no values to cherish, I will remember them as well, but hope that their actions can be forgotten, forgiven and not exposed to cause any more pain in those who were first so personally effected. It does no good to concentrate on the failures and shortcomings of a person once they have passed away. These things cannot be changed and we have no power to reverse the final steps out of life.
Celebrate the person's legacy but let them go to wherever you believe they belong. I refuse to care what this person did not do or what they may have done to hurt me while on this earth. I will always remember them for their good works, but have no desire to be constantly reminded of the things they should, could or would have done. I think we have forgotten the power in three words concerning death and respect that seem to have faded from our culture. I think we have all been guilty of disrespect. To remind myself of it's importance, I will need to confirm it with my own words:
Elvis Presley, Rest in Peace.
John Lennon Rest in Peace.
Michael Jackson, Rest in Peace.
I hope we can learn to turn off the lights and finally let them all go to sleep. -BT
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