FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION...

 

Straw Hat

     

     From my window I can spot you, daily. You left your things behind; things you no longer need, things you outgrew, things you carried around and finally today, it became too much for you to carry.

    Your footsteps barely carry your weight; it seems from up here, where I watch you visit this café; an oasis for your kind: their kindness, their non-judgmental service of free ice water, as cold as the Los Angelinos came to be; with their supermodel stares, as they meet and greet each other right next to you ; praising each other dogs, while you sit listening, your presence not sensed. 

     Is there such a thing as hope inside of you? Any expectation for kindness, a "Hello" perhaps, a sense of normalcy, of belonging to this city, of making through the night.

     It's dark outside, as dark as the moment that parted you and yours. How long will your steps last when already burden by days and nights, by dragging yourself and your things across town looking for a place to rest.

     If the life of a homeless person is not a testament of how human beings are coded for survival, even in the most abhorrent of circumstances.

     At some point in your day, you seem to remember how they treat you here, behind the counter, the sense of normalcy and acceptance you must derive from this place to end up here nightly. Even if the reality is that we don't care; we don't acknowledge you, and perhaps it is the reason you come here. 

     There are so many homeless in Santa Monica now that our eyes have become accustomed to it; as irises adjusting to darkness. And if being around us, unnoticed, makes you feel less alone; well,  it is the least we can inadvertently do.

On the Issue of Social Problems - DRINKING

     In Greek mythology, Narcissus looked in the mirror and fell in love with his own reflection, not caring to see the substance of what was reflected to him. His infatuation spawned an array of selfish actions and judgment errors that would eventually destroy him. I love mythology; each culture in the world has its own, and yet sometimes they are so universal that they reflect our own fears and desires.

     Among the universal things we share, excessive drinking is the most common- and directly responsible for numerous social problems. If we asked any chief of police in the world, we would be told a terrifying first hand account of the dangers of alcohol. Because of it, police departments have taken upon themselves the responsibility of creating programs designed to educate our children about the dangers of drugs and alcohol. 

     Unfortunately, while we relentlessly preach abdication, all young people can see is our true reflection in the mirror. We have chosen, like Narcissus, to ignore it, but teenagers in their rebellious years refuse to participate in our charade. They take their cues from our actions. We go around telling them to forgo the use of alcohol, without providing them with a reasonable explanation for the existence of so many profitable liquor stores in every single community in the world.  And we shall not mention bars and clubs for the time being.

     In contrast to that, we struggle as a society to keep afloat one single library in each community, which seems to satisfy all of our thirst for knowledge. The majority of people in the world have no need for ballet or poetry and opera houses are considered a pastime of the affluent. Ironically, the same people who chastise the so called elite for their patronage of certain artistic expressions, tend to relinquish their prejudice when alcohol is concerned. They have no qualms about joining the high society in making the liquor industry one of the most profitable enterprises anywhere in the world-while, at the same time, subscribing to the notion that we are far apart from each other, primarily because of our economic differences. 

     Behavior is the blood vessel that delineates each distinctive social class . Most of us choose to patronize a bar instead of going to an opera, to a ballet, to a poetry recital. Drinking doesn’t require any sort of preparation or special garment. There isn’t but a single creative spark emanating from any building that sells alcohol, and it is precisely because the owners understand the mediocre nature of the addictive product they are selling. As members of any society, we are choosing to overlook the image that we are projecting when we get together to lecture our kids about drugs and alcohol. We are simply asking our sons and daughters to overlook our behavior and do as they are told. They refuse it, of course.                     

     Obviously, I am not implying that young adults engaging in excessive drinking are doing so with any sort of an ideological agenda. It is, I’m afraid, a lot simpler than that; our children are a daily testimony to the old adage: “ monkey see, monkey do”. So it’s perhaps not surprising that we are confronted with the televised images of young adults, out there, drinking to the point of not being able to stand up. It is also commonplace to blame parents for all that kids do, though many parents feel that it’s an unfair portrayal of who they are as human beings. 

     However we may wish to define ourselves, what influences our children most are the activities we engage in when we aren’t working. After we are done with our labor of the day, what do we adults do with the rest of our time? Do we go see a movie? Do we head to the theater to see a play? Do we read a book, or learn a new language, perhaps? Do we sit in front of our television or computer screens? In most cases, we reach for a beer or another alcoholic beverage to reward us for ending another hard day’s work. These are the lessons our children learn. How many officers of the law, after spending the day talking to children about alcohol, end their day at a bar, sharing a beer with their fellow officers? 

     

     The media outlets in the world step in and profit from this-you and your children-because advertisement dollars, and not communities' well-being, are their bottom line. The liquor store owners will continue selling to us and our kids free of guilt, for we are responsible for our own behavior. These businesses have a door-wide-open policy, ready to receive us every time we decide to intoxicate ourselves. These establishments are shelves upon shelves of useless products aimed at numbing our souls. I cannot think of another product being sold today, except perhaps for guns, that we humans need less. It’s somewhat ironic that we fight for our constitutional rights to keep our guns and consume as much alcohol as we wish, and yet we care so little about our own education. I’m not advocating closing liquor stores and bars, nor do I aim to vilify the owners of such stores: I am advocating that we adults stop drinking altogether before we advise teenagers of how dangerous alcohol is to their developing brains.

     The Narcissus myth is so important because it’s our story. Our struggle to find meaning when everything inside us wants to hide the truth. After all, to become a better person, one has to start by accepting that there is something wrong, and then one needs the courage to strive for change, no matter how painful and unpleasant it may be. Everywhere we look, we are bombarded with images of how precarious our situation is, and how extremely vulnerable we humans are to nature’s wrath and to our own. We are reminded daily of how short and fragile life really is and how we have to work hard for our survival. 

     It’s primordial that we create an outlet, an activity to lighten our burden.  We choose most times to drink with friends, but alcohol should not be treated as entertainment, for it just numbs the soul and prevents us from finding anything of true meaning in our daily lives. Human beings need to connect to one another. We crave spiritual growth precisely because we know that our bodies will perish. So we have our knitting, chess, book clubs, soccer leagues, bird watching, Facebook and Twitter.  All of which are created in an attempt to bring different people together in a common language we all share: our need, after a hard day, to replenish our souls, preferably in communion with something other than ourselves. There lies the lesson of Narcissus.                                          

     We are not going to convince teenagers to stop drinking until we apologize to them for our sins, for our mistakes. For the numerous commercials we produce to convince them of how cool they would look to one another with a drink in their hands. We have to beg their forgiveness to make it all so enticing and benign. We have to accept our share of blame for sprouting open so many liquor stores in their neighborhoods. 

     It is rare to find a prettier and more intoxicating environment made by man than a liquor store, with its neatly organized shelves, with bottles filled with liquid of every color. You walk in there when the sun is just right, and you can see the bottles splitting the sunlight into an array of colors so pretty and majestic that one can almost forget the destruction that lies within. I wonder, watching the beauty of it, who are they displaying that to, and how does it reflect on all of us?                                                                   

Happy New Year!!! | 2023 |

 

Pelé wrote and perfected the grammar of futebol; he is to futebol what Shakespeare is to literature. R.I.P.

Click on photo to watch his plays, decades before anyone else.

Pele ✭ The King Did it Years Ago ● Part 1

Pele ✭ The King did it Years Ago ● Part 2

                                           PELÉ - He did it 50 years ago!! | Reação

MESSI FAN REACTS TO - PELE Best Goals & Skills (HE SURPRISED ME 😱

Sunset Strip Animal

     When I met him, he was furious; not at me, he hadn't noticed my presence yet, busy he was, head down, clothes in need of washing, furiously trying to get food off an empty can of something. He ran his finger inside the can and took it to his mouth and repeated this action, each time getting angrier and angrier with the futility of it. There was nothing inside the can; no nutrients that would sustain a man his size.

     I can't never tell someone's age, nor can I recognize faces, which made it so easy to forget undeserving people. In appreciation for, what they perceived to be an act of forgiveness, they would always try their hardest to knock me off my white horse. I would venture a guess that this creature in front of me was in his mid-thirties; I can't be sure. A homeless man is an animal like the ones you see at a forest with scarce food supply: extremely unpredictable, angry, and unlike other animals in nature, aware of his condition: that being how irrelevant his existence is to the rest of us. This one sits at a bus stop on the famous Sunset Boulevard, near The Comedy Store; how funny is that? 

     If you were to sit across the street from this particular animal and watch, you would think he was waiting for Godot, while improvising a funny sketch to kill time. But I. I was two feet away from him now, curious to find out what possibly could he have done to end up alone, a few days shy of Christmas,  in what was once known as the city of angels. But there are no angels here any longer, you learn that quickly just by losing count of the many opulent law offices spreading along the boulevard; lawyers inside so well fed that one has to ask what is the herd up to.

     I watch, waiting for a propitious time to address him. I come to the conclusion that I needed to wait until he accepted that there was no nutrients of any kind to be had from his can. Long ago, I stood between a friend I loved and his bottle; I still bear the psychological scars of that misguided decision.  Love* is, and don't let the romantics convince you otherwise, either a trolley rusting inside a museum, or an out of control wagon filled with homosexuals, gaining speed downhill, in any hill in San Francisco. 

     All of these thoughts run through my head while I watch him feed. Twice now I saw the cars line up behind each other at the red light and drive away. Countless time I asked what have I done to be so alone? Near here, at the same boulevard, lives the Blessed Sacrament Catholic church where the family business of the priests in charge, brothers Mark and Arthur Falvey, was molesting children: five young girls  and five young boys. For symmetry, I suppose. Both men of God were forgiven, reformed, as the catholic church bought back their soul with a sixteen million dollars check. Both siblings died there, at the blessed church, sheltered and well fed.

     I once encountered a family of mountain lions while hiking at an early morning in the Santa Monica beautiful mountains. I was distracted by my own demons when they walked out of the bushes and crossed the path in front of me. A cold feeling ran through my veins, the same I feel now when I realize that this animal in front of me is giving me his full attention. How long has it been? I wonder. Was it enough for him to fully assess me? The only thing one has when encountering a dangerous animal is the brief, ephemeral instant when it is not clear how dangerous you are to him.

     He stares at me now. Compounding the situation is a not so funny inner voice I possess that suggests to me: " See? You should have immediately yelled stardenburdenhardenburt." which made me laugh inappropriately. Curiously, this softened his gaze, as if he had perceived this to mean that I  was comfortable being there, twin souls we were. Having no other option but to stay with the ruse I asked: " what the hell are you eating there, my man?" He smiled at that, looked back at his empty can and stood up, revealing to me his height, which I can't precisely specify with a number, but knew to be far above my 5'11, 145 pounds frame.

     I watched him toss his can in the garbage nearby and move back to his seat with an elegant cat like demeanor. He had the same level of comfort one has when one, having witnessed or suffered violence and ugliness at an early age, becomes immune to fear, and at the same time prudent, aware of the scope of damage a human animal is capable of.

" Trying to survive." he answered my question from long ago. 

"Great" I thought. You and I have something in common after all,  as I stood before him listening to his life story.

* the little kitten on the photo is my cat Shades who passed away in 2019. I loved her. She hated my guts over a misunderstanding in regards to a flying sandal; she scratched me any chance she got and never once took any responsibility for breaking my favorite one of a kind kerosene writer's lamp, which she moved across the table until it splashed on the floor. She too was hungry.

                                          

Me and I and nothing.

 

     I long for myself; for the time when I was without the need to be. Anything. An open horizon, sun and oceans, an ocean away from where I stand: terra firma. Due in part for my inadequacies as a human being, and the voices of others who told me what a man was suppose to be. I long for myself; for the time when I was without the need to be.

     I run outside myself, looking for a chain, a path that leads to me, an ephemeral being that I can't find  in the real world but that I feel intensely within, a being in communion with the world around me and paradoxically, with nothing.

   These searches take me nowhere; except to a sea of men and women who think they are and that know it all. They are exhausting, these men and women. Bending my ear, wanting to be heard, desperately trying to validate what they think they know. 

     All I know is the stress and confusion of being.