The Reluctant Vigilante

Many a man would face his gun

And many a man would fall

The man who shot Liberty Valence…

He was the bravest of them all.

Song by Burt Bacharach and Hal David

In the 1962 film classic, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, the audience is convinced to side with The Duke’s Tom Doniphon version of the lawless American West. It becomes clear that “out in these parts” a man needs to solve problems on his own and that resolution is best enforced with the business end of a six shooter.

In my experience, I would say the vigilante theme, taking the law into your own hands when all else fails, is popular around the world. But in America this theme takes on an almost cult-like following. This theme is not about misguided gangs or groups of ignorant thugs who lynch innocents from a tree to prove some immature or unjust point of view. It is about our citizens yearning for an unexpected hero to stand up and fight against injustice when our courts and our society fail. In our movies, literature, scores of depictions of American life, the lone vigilante fighting injustice is the strongest and bravest hero of them all.

Some may argue that theme is inspired by a complex modern age where the law seems intent on protecting the rights of the guilty criminal instead of the innocent victim. Others may argue that it comes from more simple times in our past when people had no choice but to deal with the Liberty Valences of the world in their own ways.

Whatever the beginnings, there is a basic quality of our Hollywood vigilante hero that we all recognize.

Typically, the vigilante is a perfectly muted masculine actor. Whether the character is Charles Bronson, Stephan Segal or the many vivid portrayals of Clint Eastwood, we also know by our passion plays that the true vigilante hero is a reluctant one. He does not go looking for a fight. Not at first, at least. He spends most of his days suffering the bullies of the world in silence like most of us do.

But then a dramatic injustice happens. Usually his loved ones, family and friends, are threatened directly or even harmed. At that point, frustrated by society’s institutions which are unable to deal effectively with the threat, he realizes he must take matters into his own hands and he unleashes his rage on the criminal instigator.

And the audience applauds. We love it when somebody good “goes all Billy Jack” on the bad guys.

It comes to my mind that we are comforted by this action in different ways. We are happy to believe that we can, if pushed, overcome all the bad intention of men on this earth. We also want to believe that seemingly otherwise good laws of society can be occasionally broken by capable individuals for the benefit of the many.

We know we break the rules all the time. That’s just the way it is; we are all sinners to some degree in that regard. We just like to be told that it’s ok to break those silly rules when it’s really necessary.

And it’s important to say that we want this kind of thing to happen every now and then. If you haven’t seen Liberty Valence in a while, I highly recommend you review it again. At the most riveting junctures, you can sense the tension among the townsfolk of Shinbone every time Liberty Valence enters the scene. They sheepishly look at each other, suspiciously wondering who will be the one to bring an end to his madness.

But, as with many other things in life, it is the timing of it all that is so significant. If Tom Doniphon had just said, screw it, enough is enough, and he’d gone out in the middle of the day, hunted down Lee Marvin’s Liberty Valence and boldly shot him dead in the street, it would have been a different story. But he didn’t do that.

Instead, our courageous Doniphon did it under the cover of night, from the shadow of a darkened alleyway, with the help of his trustworthy slave Pompey. Doniphon didn’t do it because he wanted to do it. He waited until he had to do it. And then he did it quickly and with little apparent remorse.

In the end, we learn, he silently suffered for the rest of his life with a different evil, the secret truth of what he’d done.

As a nation of people, we Americans like to think we do things just like old Tom Doniphon. The good Americans we know don’t go looking for a fight, they wait until it happens and then they deal with it righteously, collectively and efficiently. We enjoy a good cause, the kind of cause that can push us right over the edge of lawlessness. Curiously, we remember those grand causes and honor them and we tell our children about them endlessly.

We remember The Shot Heard ‘Round the World, The Alamo and The Maine. We suffered the historical pain of poor choice, the global humiliation of being caught with our pants down time and time again, and we overcame all of that. Admittedly, we may have a perfectly good cause staring us in the face today, one that hopefully our children will find something good to tell their children about in the years to come.

We are now constantly reminded of the last great cause, the battle against Hitler’s army in World War II. By my reading of the books of the dead, a connection can be made between the reluctant vigilante hero and America’s reluctant engagement in that war. But we may be having a bit of trouble characterizing the scenes of the modern play, who shot first and so on, possibly due to an overindulgence of our European roots. The words “Hitler” and “fascist” and “devil” are being tossed around rather casually these days and those general issue memories may be faded to the point of being unrecognizable.

Instead of grasping for hobgoblins, anxiously eyeing clouded demons like the suspicious citizens of Shinbone searching for their hero in the darkness, I find my vigilante comfort in recalling the troubling cause that pushed us into that war from the Far East, an event trumpeted to a captivated audience as “Remember Pearl Harbor.”

Comforting, perhaps, but still a troubling thought in more ways than one. Many of us today have friends who are Japanese citizens. If I were to stereotype the typical Japanese person, having lived in portions of Japan for a healthy time in my life, I would say he is humble, hard-working, and worthy of our national admiration and respect--hardly the evil doer who forces our reluctant hero to rage against him. Added to those honorable qualities, today we carry the guilt of shoddy treatment to our Japanese-American citizens during a difficult era in our history.

But it was a different story back then, not so many moons ago. Although today amends have been made by old warriors on both sides of the ocean, a thought that is probably more comforting and hopeful to me than any of this other blather you may be painfully reading here today, it’s still an era that we should never forget. And it’s important for me, I think, to say that with regards to the impetus of a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, within the framework of forcing our nation’s vigilante heroes to take matters in their own hands, our collective reaction at the time was just and correct. Given the context of the era, it is difficult for me to imagine any other response. And, given the result of that impetus, that heated response is something the world should give better attention.

It is the initial reluctance of that response which intrigues me and seems to make it the most righteous, the most American. Even now, with 20-20 hindsight on all the clues that led up to the Day Which Will Live in Infamy, a preventative attack by the US on the Imperial army would seem inappropriate. It would violate the basic rule of our Hollywood vigilante, contradict the honorable American spirit of “Don’t Tread on Me” and oddly limit the brutal retaliation. And we may sometimes shake our head at the brutality of that response but we want it just the same while the world around us does its part to help incite our vigilantes to action.

But, see, here’s where people thankfully forget the truth and are forced to live with that forgetfulness for the rest of their lives. Modern people don’t want to suggest that it was a hero who vaporized Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Concerned people don’t want to remember that it was an ominous danger hidden in the unique tactical success of Japanese aggression, misjudging an enemy so greatly that triggered the ultimate strategic failure of their Empire. Thoughtful people don’t want to believe that as Yamamoto may have feared he awakened “a sleeping giant”, at the same time the dumb Liberty Valence characters of our world foolishly united for a solitary, tragic moment in history to force the American vigilante into defending his friends and family and doing something that he didn’t really want to do, when he had no choice but to do it, and with little apparent remorse.

In a recent fit of sobriety, I wondered what we may have learned through these stories and if modern times have changed anything at all. I wondered if the Liberty Valence classic was updated, told again in our modern context, would it have a different ending today?

Suppose that James Stewart’s Ransom Stoddard stood trial for deliberately shooting Liberty Valence in today’s over-exposed and hyped up courtroom. Suppose, through the twists and turns of modern litigation, before the legend could be turned into fact, our Stoddard was a popular public hero in serious danger of serving time for his legal offence against society.

Suppose then that Tom Doniphon, being the crude but conscientious character that he was, stood up in court and revealed his secret.

“I did it,” Doniphon would say unceremoniously. “Liberty Valence was fixing to murder Stoddard so I shot him dead with my Winchester. This pilgrim couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with his pea shooter, so let him go. Pompey can vouch for the truth of my deed.”

Imagine then what would happen in the modern context. Would the Public Prosecutor not charge that Doniphon had acted beyond the rule of law? Would today’s Law and Order not prove that he had suspiciously hid in the shadows, keeping his direct involvement secret? Had Doniphon not spent endless hours in the local saloon drunkenly ranting on about how he would “get” Liberty Valence one of these days? He was not reluctant. He had plenty of motive. This was not an act of self-defense, this was not a way to honor the laws of society, this was an act of deliberate, premeditated murder on the streets of Shinbone.

Would the audience still applaud? And would the intoxicating image of the heroic American vigilante bravely fighting injustice for all not be tarnished forever?

Cheers,
Mb

New Old Shoes

Welcome to my personal holiday season.

The entrance of Autumn has always been the most special time of year for me. There are so many things to celebrate. There’s the harvest, the weather starts to change, a long Baseball season finally ends, a fresh Football team finally kicks off, and I always got a new pair of shoes around this time when I was a little kid.

It’s like my own New Year is beginning. This is typically the time for me to review the past 12 months, sum up my accomplishments and failures, and toss out my oldest pair of sneakers.

This year I have one more addition to the routine. I get to examine the anniversary of The Guilty Head and try to make some sense of it.

What the hell is this, anyway? A journal? An internet diary? Some twisted, unrelated mish-mash of demented commentary? It’s definitely must not be a “blog” since I detest that word and it has no meaning for me. Does that mean I can’t do this anymore?

Looking back, I don’t know why or how the hell I really started this. All I can say is one day about a year ago it just happened, I sat down and I started writing. I’ve always been prone to writing a bunch of silliness but this time was different. Instead of just thrusting bits of it at my unsuspecting friends and then magically deleting all the evidence from my hard drive, this time I decided to catalogue as much silliness as possible all together in one tremendously silly package.

I read that there may be many people doing the same these days, plenty of out of work pensioners and so on, retired managers now surfing on minimum wage while hammering away each week at a potential novel or free-style poetry which was inspired by a life from a long time ago. Maybe I’m just following that odd trend instead of establishing a new one.

I struggled in the early days with the proper title. The package was named something else at first but I quickly found that original name inappropriate. It took a while but one day the true name of this stuff finally dawned on me. I won’t relate the details of that scene but in that way I guess it all chose its own name instead of me trying to fit it all into some curious name that I may have casually once given it. Does that make any sense at all?

I distinctly recall there was a low period where I did not want to continue. In a few pieces, I alluded to the way that was overcome. I think I will leave that as an allusion, the way it should remain. If there’s some good news here, I now find curious things to report on all week long and I was not forced to sell my soul to any devil. I have no idea what I did before that change occurred.

Well, anyway, those few who know the true story about that may keep it to themselves.

For several months I worried about the visual aspects of this non-blog. I wanted it as stark and plain as possible to better fit my personality. At first I thought the standard-issue background was even a bit too gaudy for me, that bland black and white would be far more appropriate. Then, after viewing a few others, I was enchanted with the idea of colorful pictures of this and that to better set any intended mood of the day.

But, now, I couldn’t care less about all that stuff. It’s fine as it is, I suppose.

Looking at the content, I find myself in some sorta strange literary limbo where nothing is really bad but nothing is particularly good, either. Maybe it all just bounces around a bit too much, then again, maybe it doesn’t bounce enough. I once considered adding a little blurb up front to better define what the unaware reader my find hidden in the archives.

My only thought on that was concerning a homeless guy I occasionally saw at a bus stop at Cleaver and Main in Kansas City near the bustling Plaza fountains. This guy would often sit there, ranting loudly and incessantly to the cars and frightened people who wandered by.

That’s my theme, I thought. I can start the blurb with “Consider the endless words of a penniless wino with internet access and very limited editing skills …” Maybe Literary Limbo would be a better title, after all.

One aspect of the GH that I am most interested in is whether or not Art plays its part well. I can be very snobby about art. I have a very specific definition in mind when I speak of it. I have labored for years to express that definition and keep in my pocket a wonderful speech on art that I may one day share with all my lucky readers.

When we were in school, our teachers often stepped away from the chalkboard and suddenly asked us to describe what we had just learned in our own words. Saying it in your own words, rather than regurgitating the monotonous facts, has always seemed to me one of the real honest tests of education. If nothing else, for the time being, I encourage everyone to sit down, think about it and define art for themselves.

With regards to this crap found in the GH, I can say I am not totally displeased with any such subdued relationship with true art (not further defined at this moment and, trust me, not nearly as haughty or conceited as these poor words may reveal).

I know people who would say that most of my writing yearns for facts or at the least a heavy dose of supporting material. Too often, it seems, I tend to toss something out there as a fact and then never really back it up. I’m not big on footnotes, think they detract from the artistic flow and everything, but I understand my weakness on this point. Of course, I also know a few who say I get bogged down in minutiae far too easily. (I think that last problem is hereditary.) Either way, I know that sometimes I am spot on target.

For example, if you would like to read the full text of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on prewar intel assessments on Iraq (which, of course, is like suggesting you may enjoy having your eyelids removed or your bare genitals beaten with a large flat object), then you would enjoy the non-facts included in The Quixote Solution (which was posted before the Committee’s report). In particular, you will find two references that I found interesting in both related stories. Both refer admiringly to Colin Powell’s intel analyst policy and both make reference to the power of a negative report or, in the Select Committee’s often repeated words, “a lack of evidence”.

Curiously I don’t find these clues to be a vindication of the facts so much as I find them to be embarrassingly honest.

Speaking of honesty, I will unveil this one secret to you to help define the times when I miss the target completely, in terms of both facts and artistry.

Many moons ago on an island, far, far away, I once had a teacher, a Mister Heffernan, who singularly impressed upon me the literary value of a well-placed epiphany. I have no idea if Mister Heffernan is alive or dead today but I know his spirit has followed me around whispering in my ear ever since.

If you read the poorly constructed piece titled “Ode to Carlos, Sturgis ‘06”, you will in part read about a character named Carlos and clearly detect my futile search for the proper epiphany to describe him and his kind.

In retrospect, the author didn’t spend enough time with the “Carlos” story. The author felt rushed, forced by a vague deadline of his own making and didn’t give it the care it deserved. In the story, the author knew that Carlos needed to be well defined. A tight, remarkable description of Carlos’ appearance was significant to the story and to follow-on reports as well. But the author had a lot going on. What can the author say? We all make mistakes!

A few weeks after posting “Carlos”, I was in a local watering hole soothing my thirst when the real Carlos joined me at the bar. We had a few drinks, laughed about our good times, ya know, the typical light-hearted nonsense between afternoon drifters.

A lady sitting at one end of the bar, whose name I do not know, was intently looking at the many Kodak moments which cover the ugly walls of this particular establishment.

Suddenly, she called out to us.

“Hey,” she yelled, “Carlos, here’s an old picture of you! Man, you had those Charlie Manson eyes even back then!”

Carlos, flashing his infamous toothy smile, turned to her and murmured, “Yeah, Charlie Manson eyes, I like that.”

I tell you, friends, I choked a full glass of beer out of my nose and nearly fell off my barstool. In three small words, that bitch had painted a picture of Carlos far more vivid than my entire paragraph of worn clichés. How the hell did I miss that?

I’m thinking that whole Carlos episode was just a matter of poor timing. Yes, there is no doubt a curious power in the epiphany but it is like an egg or fruit that just needs a little extra time to cultivate and grow. That is a lesson I won’t soon forget.

As to the editing, or the non-editing as it may be, I am satisfied with most of it. That’s because I prefer longer stories with lots of words in them. I find 2,000 words to be hardly a few hours work for me. I am usually saddened by shorter newspaper articles and the like. I often feel for the poor reporter who has endured a needless reduction of words and heavy editing. I really like any wandering essay that will last me through an entire dinner.

At the same time, I anxiously fret over the abundance of typos and errors, lousy grammar and trite clichés. Any such witness of my amateur education really bugs the hell out of me. I’ve suffered this affliction for years and years throughout my painful letters to various friends. I can’t tell you how many times at night, just as my head hits the pillow, when my body twists and my brain throbs at the sudden realization, “My God! Did I write ‘Illusive’ with an E”? What was I thinking?”

That’s the kind of shit that keeps me up at night, man.

If I am pleased at all with this mess, then I am pleased with the newly discovered appreciation I have for the word “catharsis” and it’s beautifully Greek intention. Gradually, painfully, but almost surely, I have begun to dance a bit more gracefully with my innate fear of criticism and rejection. Rejection is a hurtful partner, occasionally we step on each others toes, but the rhythm is rounding itself out and we may even be rewarding ourselves with an awkward dip every now and then. Fortunately, no interloper has paid attention long enough to break us up, I suppose.

Maybe that’s what it was all about to begin with.

So, what the hell, it all means nothing but I guess I’ll reluctantly keep tapping away at this for another year. My few friends who occasionally read this slop don’t complain too much. And those who are offended don’t respond at all. There’s really no harm in pressing on, is there? I hope not.

Oh, and I must throw out this one old ratty pair of sneakers. Of course, all names on The Guilty Head have been changed to protect the guilty and honor the innocent. Maybe one day we will get over that but it doesn’t really matter, does it? In any case, treat that admission with suspicion since these names may have chose themselves and most likely are just more illusions which I hope to not misspell again.

Happy New Year,
Mb

The Kalathas Lesson

Confronted by a circular open air bar with a rough wooden roof over ice-chilled refreshments and a distance of only 100 meters or so across the steaming sand to the calmly lapping waves of the Mediterranean, many fresh pilgrims to such a spot may be momentarily confused as to which barstool to set up camp and from which angle to best watch the afternoon’s proceedings. Will they choose to survey other flip-flopped newcomers like them, perhaps comparing sunny fashion styles as they walk cautiously down the hill to the beach area, dangerously toting all manner of cumbersome books, blankets and umbrellas? Or will they choose to focus on the ones who are already there, spying on the glistening skin of the scantily clad or the nearly nude who frolic in the soothing water so close yet so far away?

From the experienced pilgrim’s viewpoint, there is no alternative. The stools on the East side of the round bar offer the preferred vantage point. From there, the wise traveler can scan the often perfect form of the bathers and witness the impending death of the sun each day as it shyly drops behind the nose of a dragon, sinking helplessly into a tempest sea, heating up newer trouble for those to the West.

This was decided long ago, when history was not written and the ancient clues to these kinds of choices, the opposing factors quickly weighed and balanced by thoughtful men of leisure, were considered glaringly obvious for all eternity.

One pale white man with dark glasses, presumably aware of these eternal lessons, sat alone at the East curve of the bar on this particularly brilliant afternoon. Hours before the sun’s predicted doom, the precise knowledge of which would regularly confiscate the pocket change of unsuspecting bar hoppers, he sat and drank, read an old book, observed and waited.

He was tended to, with agonizing sluggishness, by an obnoxiously young but devoted bartender named Tatu.

Tatu, while claiming a preposterous mix of Greek and Turkish heritage, was boldly thin, tanned and shirtless. Sporting a small dirty shell necklace around his neck, thin wisps of adolescent beard on his chin, topped with a mangled mess of muddied hair bleached blonde here and there by the wind and sea, he regularly found ways to annoy his impatient patron to no end.

He nervously idled inside the North curve of the bar on top of a stainless steel cabinet, smoked and fidgeted with his necklace as he watched the beauties on the beach, all the while anxiously ignoring his only customer.

“Another drink, sir?” Tatu finally, dryly offered from his perch.

“Hmm-mmm”, the white man mumbled while thinking to himself words not spoken, “Of course, you little shit.”

It was a repeated mistake that the white man could not understand about himself. He regularly asked why, what caused him to sit there patiently waiting to be served? Why didn’t he just jump the bar and serve himself? It would be so much easier, he thought.

After some time, odd questions left unanswered, the old book and the frantic scene of sandy sexual tension wearing heavy on his mind, perhaps a bit groggy from one too many gin and tonics, the white man rose from his barstool and planted himself in a lounge chair away from the bar, inviting the last warm rays of the day’s sun and the grating sounds of people on the beach to lure him into a fitful sleep…

…The Pilot’s delightful staccato voice broke the stillness of the intercom.

“OK, Jerry, we’ve begun our descent to final, go ahead and break out the Before Landing Checklist, if you would.”

Jerry, the Co-Pilot, dutifully opened his bulky checklist on his lap and found the tab for Before Landing. He thumbed the plastic pages apart and as they released their sweaty hold on each other he thought he could hear a lightly audible “smack” above the drone of the engines and the deafening rush of wind outside the cockpit.

Jerry sat there for a moment, silently reviewing the sequence of procedures contained in the checklist then he turned toward John, the Pilot, and switched his microphone to hot.

“John, uh, are you sure we want to do this?” he asked.

John, unconsciously keeping two fingers on the yoke now that the autopilot was disengaged, breathed a short “Huh?” into his mic without looking at Jerry.

“Well, I mean,” Jerry began haltingly, “I’m not too sure why we are here.”

John, now curious, turned to look at Jerry looking back at him. John could see that Jerry had a quizzical look on his face and that he appeared to be sincere. John turned further around to see that the Navigator, Phil, was leaned forward over his station, intently scrutinizing a two-day-old copy of the Wall Street Journal, apparently disinterested in the conversation taking place.

Secretly turning his eyes to the oxygen level indicators for a moment, suddenly alarmed to the prospect of an entire flight crew going hypoxic on him just prior to landing, John replied as slowly and calmly as he could.

“Ah, Jerry, we are here because we need to turn a few touch and goes. You need the practice, I need the practice, and we’ve got to get these things checked off.”

Silence, as Jerry pondered.

“Yeah, but John, why don’t we do this at home base? I mean, geez, why did we fly all the way out here?”

“Well, Jerry, as you know, home base is kinda busy and this place is a bit more inviting at this time of day. Besides, we had some gas to burn. Come on, man, what’s up with you?”

“I’m just thinking, John, we have a perfectly good airfield back home. I like being home, made a lot of effort to get there and all that…I just hate to somehow disrespect it, you know?”

In an attempt to cease the discourse, John forced a smile and used his command voice, “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Jerry, but you damn well better start the checklist, dude.”

Just then the airfield controller passed the current altimeter setting over the radio. Instinctively, the crew followed through.

“Set, Nav.”

“Set, Co.”

“Set, Pilot.”

But Jerry didn’t stop there.

“Seriously, John, I think we should reconsider this. I, for one, think home base is perfect for us and I don’t want them to think we’ve left them for good. I’m sure we could squeeze in there.”

Phil, the Navigator, then chimed in his deep baritone, “Uhh, John, Jerry has a good point there. Plus, I mean, what happens if there’s trouble or something? This place doesn’t have much in the way of support, we might be stranded and they wouldn’t want us here forever.”

From the back of the aircraft, the crew chief’s gravelly voice suddenly crackled into the crew’s headsets, “Hey, guys, count me in, I’m all for going back right now!”

“OK, OK!” John yelled into his mic. “Chief, get the hell off ship’s and Phil, dammit, shut the fuck up! Jerry, go select with me now!”

Once on the selective channel, where no other crew member could hear them, John told Jerry the truth.

“Look, Jer, here’s the situation. We are landing at this base. You’re a pilot, I’m a pilot, this is what we are trained to do. Look out the window here, there it is, they want us to land here. You can see the fucking runway! We don’t have time for any more bullshit. Now, start the goddamn checklist and do it fast or I will do it for you.”

“I, I can’t do this, John.”

“OK,” John quickly answered, “You are relieved. Please go to the rear. We’ll have a talk with the Ops O about this when we get on the ground.”

John quickly switched his interphone to ship’s and confidently declared, “Crew, I have the aircraft and we are preparing to land.”

Jerry, numbed by his own intransigence, unsure of his own feelings and fearful of the end of the hand he’d just played, slowly unbuckled himself and started to pull out of his seat.

“A thousand to go,” said Phil, the Navigator.

Just as Jerry pushed up on his arm rests a metallic splintering noise echoed across the shell of the aircraft, as if hundreds of pellets were being slammed into the hull. A bloody carcass of feathers and bone impaled itself on the bottom of the windshield, viscously crammed into a small gap for the wipers. Warning horns and red lights all went off at once, engine Number 3 glowing solid, Number 4 ominously flickering.

“Bird Strike!” went through the thoughts of every member in the cockpit and they all voiced “Oh, shit!” over the hot interphone at the same precise moment.

The nose of the aircraft momentarily went up then forcefully down and to the right. Instantly, both John and Jerry grabbed firmly on the yoke and intertwined their opposing hands on the throttle linkage, fumbling their fingers and arms and alternately slamming on the rudder with their feet to correct the rapidly violent angle of attack.

As the plane shook and careened itself into an irreversible death spiral, the ceiling of the cockpit flashed bright and dark, bright and dark, bright and dark from the brilliant spinning reflections of a fast approaching and everlasting consequence.

A doomed crew all shrieked and pleaded their personal requests to an unseen savior as Phil, the Navigator, whimpered like a little baby while he struggled to secure his beloved Wall Street Journal in the right leg pocket of his flight suit.

Jerry fought the powerful G forces to turn to his left, facing John to see the last moments of petrified terror in the muted pilot’s huge black eyes and yelled with all the despise he could muster, “See? I told you so!”

And together they screamed and screamed and screamed…

“…Are you alright?” whirred Tatu as he shook the dreaming man awake.

The disheveled man, now sensing the early warmth of a painful sunburn on his legs, grabbed for his old book which had slipped from his large belly to a wet spot on the sand. His blurred eyes noticed the sun was nearly down, the once packed beach was now emptied around him and in his ears he heard the faint bouncing sound of rakish Euro-disco playing rudely in the distance.

Slowly, his focus returned and he slurred a reply to Tatu, “Umm, yes, please, I would like another drink…a double, if it all possible.”

“Of course,” Tatu answered, “I just thought…,” the open words trailing him as he spun back to the bar.

Then Tatu stopped and turned back with a sly grin, twisted his head to the side as he faced the uncomfortably reddened white man, placed his hands on his hips and inquired in his sarcastic half-foreign tongue.

“Just one question, sir … at what point does one lose one’s libido, anyway?”

Cheers,
Mb

Heroes of the Empire

“A hero cannot be a hero, unless in a heroic world.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne

Ya know, thanks to the wonders of an endless and overlapping sequence of time in this universe, every day of the week has some profound historical importance for this world of humans. There are plenty of good things to recall, upgrades in scientific thinking, advances in medicine and so on. But for some reason our society tends to bang the drum most forcefully when commemorating our heroes and historical dates of tragedy.

As far as the week of 9/11 goes, there is an abundance of recent human tragedy to consider.

If you knew me, you would know that I am constantly intrigued by the memorials society builds for its fallen heroes. Because of past experiences, I am one of those crazy people who can’t just drive by a roadside historical marker and I’m easily lured by the ancient stories buried in our old cemeteries.

Yet, count me among those who also don’t tolerate ceremonies too well, especially modern ones. Unfortunately, when it comes to 9/11 we still have nothing but ceremony. We have no proper roadside marker yet.

Owing to that situation, during this past week we were left to gather together, close our eyes and recall a horrible sight. It is a terrifying recollection that many of us have tried desperately to forget the last few years. It is a vision that many will never really get over.

But emerging from the choking dust of our collective memory, we may learn we have little choice in this life but to carry on, face the reality of our own making and correct any errors or misjudgments we may have blindly made about all of that.

Call me crazy, again, but for some reason during this week, perhaps while my eyes were closed and my mind recalled such tragic events, I was reminded how pure sarcasm can rudely shake us awake and often chase away the bad dreams.

In particular, I was reminded of a sarcastic letter published in a journal named The Public Advertiser on September 11, 1773. This letter was written by a man named Benjamin Franklin and it was titled “Rules By Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One”.

If you go searching for that letter you will find it. Since Mr. Franklin died so long ago, it is now a matter of public domain and many people have read it.

The letter was written on North American soil a few years prior to the official existence of the USA. It was penned by a man who some considered brilliant, cantankerous and even rebellious. For these reasons among others, perhaps in many more ways than one, it is written in a language that now sounds foreign to our ears.

In his letter, Franklin mockingly describes the 20 preferred methods for the King’s bureaucracy to more easily control the colonies and enhance the power of the British Empire.

Because of the way these old words were fashioned, I admit I tend to speed through his first few rules. As I become more accustomed to the cadence, I find myself returning over and over to certain parts, desperately trying to understand what he was saying. In them, I begin to discover a description of a painful history, an uncomfortable present, and an ominously corrupt future.

It is very difficult to excerpt any small slice from this letter but Franklin’s acerbic Rule #10 contains words which shake me to the core:

“ … Then let there be a formal Declaration of both Houses, that Opposition to your Edicts is Treason, and that Persons suspected of Treason in the Provinces may, according to some obsolete Law, be seized and sent to the Metropolis of the Empire for Trial; and pass an Act that those there charged with certain other Offences shall be sent away in Chains from their Friends and Country to be tried in the same Manner for Felony. Then erect a new Court of Inquisition among them, accompanied by an armed Force, with Instructions to transport all such suspected Persons, to be ruined by the Expence if they bring over Evidences to prove their Innocence, or be found guilty and hanged if they can't afford it. And lest the People should think you cannot possibly go any farther, pass another solemn declaratory Act, that `King, Lords, and Commons had, hath, and of Right ought to have, full Power and Authority to make Statutes of sufficient Force and Validity to bind the unrepresented Provinces IN ALL CASES WHATSOEVER.' This will include spiritual with temporal; and taken together, must operate wonderfully to your Purpose, by convincing them, that they are at present under a Power something like that spoken of in the Scriptures, which can not only kill their Bodies, but damn their Souls to all Eternity, by compelling them, if it pleases, to worship the Devil.”

It is often at this point in the reading that I realize, as to Franklin’s gift for endless exaggeration, my own seems rather shallow and inefficient. But I also realize he is elegantly describing an ancient error in judgment which many brave souls eventually gave their lives to correct.

Franklin’s nature was that of a diplomat. He tended, as great diplomats often do, to make his point with great subtlety. But the underlying power and truth hidden in his words is no less significant today than it was over 200 years ago.

Hidden in Franklin’s flowery verbosity is a not so subtle warning. A warning to the King’s bureaucracy that the more it does to heavily control life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness among its citizens, the more it will fail in its mission. The more the King makes claim to “full Power and Authority”, the more likely the cake will begin to crumble along the edges like that of an inept baker who cooks the cake in an oven too hot for its purpose.

Like any good ceremony, this letter is a long-winded, finger-waving oration. But if there is true beauty in Franklin’s style, I find it in his ability to always save the best for last. In his final Rule #20, he gives the following advice:

“Lastly, Invest the General of your Army in the Provinces with great and unconstitutional Powers, and free him from the Controul of even your own Civil Governors. Let him have Troops enow under his Command, with all the Fortresses in his Possession; and who knows but (like some provincial Generals in the Roman Empire, and encouraged by the universal Discontent you have produced) he may take it into his Head to set up for himself. If he should, and you have carefully practised these few excellent Rules of mine, take my Word for it, all the Provinces will immediately join him, and you will that Day (if you have not done it sooner) get rid of the Trouble of governing them, and all the Plagues attending their Commerce and Connection from thenceforth and for ever.”

And there Franklin spells out his ironic warning in words that may sound truer and more appropriate today than the antique circumstances under which they were once written.

They are just words, words that may or may not have any noticeable effect on the modern American. They may be too archaic, too hard to understand, not applicable to the complexities of modern existence. And words, no matter how bold or fearless their author, are not real-live fallen heroes who sacrificed their own blood. They may not be worth memorizing, not worth memorializing and not worthy of ceremony.

But to me Franklin’s old words explain an angered cause and a rebellious fellowship of oppressed people who once chose to resist the shackles of an extended Empire. Under the currently evolving sequence of time and the present production of “universal Discontent”, I believe that Mr. Franklin’s words are both worth remembering and commemorating now more than ever.

Cheers,

Mb

Fear the Pessimist

We are told to always be suspicious of anyone who laughs in the face of danger or scoffs at fear. Fear is a natural response to danger and this emotion has a way of increasing the adrenaline flow, heightening the senses, preparing the body for the worst.

Fear, as a defensive mechanism, can and should be manipulated and encouraged. It keeps people from getting too close to burning things and backs them away from slippery slopes. If a subject ignores the warning of fear, all kinds of injury can be expected.

The question is not why to fear or even how to overcome it. The question is what and when to fear. Too often, it seems, we may fear the wrong things at the wrong time.

Laughing in the face of fear isn’t so bad a response in some cases. There are so many things to fear, spiders, snakes, all manner of beasts in the night. We categorize the odd types of fear in many ways and it’s hard not to be amused with different symptoms. It is even considered healthy to laugh at our own panic, whatever cause we may attribute to it, so we find it oddly helpful to laugh at the scariest and most harmful of things.

But laughter is no cure. Perhaps the best medicine, laughter is still just an instinctively tense disguise for what we fear most.

There are people who don’t give fear much of a place in their lives. These people often have a certain sparkle in their eyes, a permanent grin on their faces. They plan for the future with the finest details, fully expecting to meet lofty goals and inevitable success. They rely on a vague faith in immutable truths and expect that victory will eventually come. They uniquely brush off any thought of hazard, speak of dark clouds with silver linings and vow to cross swaying bridges only after they come upon them.

There are others who are constantly aware of imminent disaster. The almost eager look in their eyes tells of a well-worn path through a dark, stormy forest full of predators and despair. They are suspicious of everyone and everything, especially the harmful fate that awaits them around every corner.

It is said that the average Joe’s greatest fear is speaking in public. Well, that is very dangerous behavior, isn’t it? Today, we may regularly witness the painful results of those who refuse to heed the warnings of that fear. In some places it is quite easy to speak out these days. But a casual disregard for the fear of public speaking usually contorts the body, miraculously introducing one’s own foot where it typically needs not go and unveils many souls to excruciating critique.

Some may say it is simple shyness that keeps people from speaking up. Others may say it is a purposeful, thoughtful regard for the risks involved. Before opening one’s mouth, the wise person calculates the costs and benefits. The price for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time can be huge in societal terms. Alternately, the cost of not saying anything at the right time can be equally expensive. It is a difficult decision but the proper action seems to address the timing, the sequence and the relative weight of the topic. And those who are prone to ignorantly misjudging their audience among these matters are those who quickly lose all credibility on the subject.

It may not be odd that fear, like hate, finds its roots in ignorance because the effects of fear and hate are similar. It is easy to hate what we do not know and some may describe fear as an overwhelming anxiety regarding the unknown. Fear of death, perhaps the Greatest Unknown, dwells in that realm. Unpredictable future, even a fate that can be surprisingly well accepted by the general public, still boils at the base of unreasonable fear. Conflicting with the simplest description of ignorance, an eventual state brought forth by the willful hands of a solitary man can make that same man very fearful of the intended result.

Perhaps this last effect symbolizes the most profound fear, a fear that many will not admit owning, the one which hides in the heart of those who wonder or worry about what everyone else knows. This symptom is ironic because, historically, most individuals are no more adept at knowing specific things than anyone else. Yet, if one person learns in some fashion that others know something that the one person did not know, then obvious clues to this knowledge were misread and the result is insulting and calamitous to the personality. The most dreaded fear, repeat, the most dreaded fear is to learn from others something that you did not know about yourself, or more devastatingly, something that you knew about but desperately tried to hide.

One could take a scientific viewpoint and say that all life on this earth is merely a grand experiment in fear. Perhaps the experiment is worth noting only because we repeatedly deal with fear in familiar ways. Tragically, whether through faith in unseen guidance or faith in the wickedness of other men, the result of our dealings seems the same.

Regardless how we view it, all people run headlong into the walls of human peril with equal force and regularity. We cannot deny that fear has its proper place in this cruel world. We are strange people with opposing, contradictory emotions and we are afraid of so many things including the facts about who we really are and what really frightens us.

Unlike public speaking, the self-destructive result of which we may discern some degree of certainty, the unknown hidden in the future regularly defies our prognostication. The future, we are told, is unlimited. While a well mapped-out past may define our present situation, while we may only witness a constant flow of states which have already transpired, the future seems to hold the sum total of all possibility. This possibility may incorporate all conditions of joy and pain, success and failure, life and death. We do not fear possibility, in fact we yearn for its positive outcome, but the cure for fear of it, or the deliberative adjustment to it, may be to take cautious movements in the present tense.

A complex lesson of life, then, seems to be that we will never know which sequence of steps, perhaps first taken moons ago with purpose or with randomness and then quickly forgotten, set in motion the most beneficial and desired result. And, the fact remains that once a step is taken within our cosmos in any particular direction it can never be taken in the same way ever again. That’s enough evidence to make many people not step out at all.

So, some exist frozen in a constant state of not knowing what the hell will happen next. For others among us, the gnawing fear is that they regularly misunderstand what has already occurred in front of us. But fear of these unknowns is misplaced. It’s always too late to worry about cards which have already been dealt. Fear may be a healthy temporary condition, expeditiously warning us and preventing us from taking unnecessary risks, but it is a bit tiresome as an endless concern.

It’s not that we become numb to the eternal warning signs that we and our world will soon end. We realize now that from the moment of our conception, like all things, we are programmed to eventually wither away and die. It’s just that sooner or later, most choose a moderate course for our predicament, between the extremes of insane delight and total gloom. As our short journey presents itself, we tend to suppress the fear of our own ends as best we can and take a calculated risk to dive blindly forward into an unforgiving future, all the while steeling ourselves for a routinely unpleasant outcome.

Given the alternatives, that middle of the road behavior seems reasonable. We learn new things about the universe and our world every year. We are feverishly, eternally dissecting every gnat’s ass to discover the clues to our existence. And as our knowledge of all things expands, we may overcome much ignorance to find there is less to be afraid of than originally feared.

But as long as we continue to fear any objective view of our own behavior, to fear knowing our own selves, then how can we claim to ever fearlessly know the real truth about much of anything else?

Cheers,
Mb

Walkin' Round Waitin'

Hey, Fat Mack, how ya doin?

Good, Bamboo, what’s new with you?

Same old, same old, you know. Glad to see you here. I don’t want no fight but I will buy you a beer.

What you wanna be that way for, Bamboo? Yeah, thanks, I’ll take that but don’t worry ‘bout me and don’t believe what you hear. See, before this I never started a fight. I just finished ‘em.

I can tell. Nice shiner, there. Draft?

Yep. No, man, you weren’t around so you don’t know. I was always pushed into that stuff and everything anyway. I even punched out my old man just to show him I wouldn’t take no shit. He deserved it the way he treated me and my brothers and sisters. That’s old news, but you ask around, after that, everybody knew I could finish a fight they started. It don’t take long to earn that kinda respect.

Respect is a good thing to have, ain’t it? Especially from friends.

Well, looking ‘round town now, I got nothin’ but enemies. Most of my so-called friends turned on me at one time or another. Even my brothers, man, my brothers won’t have nothin’ to do with me. Can you believe that? They all blamed me for this and that but I was mostly a victim of my circumstances like they said. I know what it means to be on the wrong side of things and how that shit can just spiral out of control.

Don’t we all, my friend, don’t we all?

Um-hmm … but I knew that, I ain’t stupid. I saw it, I didn’t just ignore it but I for a while I decided enough of that shit and I just started layin’ low all the time, ya know, hidin’ out and all that, just tryin’ to take care of my own.

Hard to imagine doing things differently and hard to figure how we choose our paths.

Well, yeah, son of a bitch, I can tell you exactly how this happened. One day my girl says, Mack, why you waitin’ to get killed? You gotta defend yourself! You can’t be just walkin’ round waitin’! Shit, she sorta convinced me of that, ya know? She said she didn’t know if people’s really out to get me or what but she didn’t want proof of all that to be me in a body bag, that’s what she said, to see me laid up in the hospital and stuff and everything. And then she said, what about her? She told me about her friend, whatever her name was, and how she got all messed up because of what her brothers did. What if me backin’ off put her in danger? Like somebody would threaten her to get at me. She’s like family and what she said really hit home, I guess.

Well, umm, family is like, uh, protecting your family is important, man.

No shit! So, I went out and I found the biggest baddest dude, the one guy nobody had the balls to confront, and I kicked the crap out of him right here in the street over there for no good reason. He saw my eyes and he was scared, man. You shoulda seen ‘em! I wanted to show everybody that I wasn’t to be messed with and that I wasn’t gonna just walk ‘round waitin’ for him to get me first. All I really wanted was for them all to just leave me and my girl alone, ya know?

That was over there in the old Baptist Church parking lot, right?

Yep, right there … how’d they say that, it was like a goddamn backfire, some kinda chain reaction that you didn’t want in the first place? That’s what happened, man. I can’t go nowhere now. The cops, man, everybody blames me and suddenly everybody wants a piece and they even let my girl know about it, the damn bitch! This shit is happenin’ like every night, like twenty-four-seven, ya know?

Uhh, yeah. Another brew?

Sure, thanks, man. Now, listen here Bamboo, can you tell me, can somebody tell me if I had just minded my own business it woulda been different? Like if I’d a just waited for that dude to pick his fight instead of going after him first, the blame woulda went his way instead of mine and I wouldn’t be in the shit I’m in today?

Well, I heard he walked away at first, that you went after him and forced the issue.

Yeah, right, and now it’s like it’s all my fault instead. I can’t believe that. It’s like you don’t care, man, it’s like you’re forgettin’ it was gonna happen either way, no matter what I did or didn’t do. There’s no difference! If I hid out or if I went after him first, it was still gonna go down. But now it’s this fault and blame things that’s all on me, you see? I’m screwed either way if I do or if I don’t. Well, somebody’s screwed, anyway, I guess.

Apparently so.

So, now I’m going out and I’m telling everybody, don’t be like that, don’t do what I did unless you just wanna add to your bag of shit. No way, not me now. There’s gonna be fightin’ and you better be ready to finish it. There’s gonna be pain, ya know? And that damn bitch is gonna be flappin’ her gums to no end about it. But don’t listen to her and just be walkin’ round waitin’ for it, don’t go findin’ it, let somebody else take the fault and the blame for startin’ that crap. Jesus Christ!

Good advice. A lesson for us all, I suppose.

Yeah, but there’s something about the order to it that I can’t for the life of me figure out, man. If you get pushed you gotta push back and that’s ok but it’s like, I don’t know, you just can’t get caught pushing first or something. It’s some grade school bullshit, man. Fault and blame is the like the key to this whole deal and you gotta let somebody else take it. It’s better that way, Bamboo, I’m tellin’ you.

I hear ya, Mack, I hear ya.

Cheers,

Mb