they shoot horses

i touched souls today.  i'm in northern virginia, driving up through the shenandoah valley, and stopped off at a civil war battlefield, new market, home of the hall of valor.  new market was famous (infamous?) for the use of two hundred and fifty-three young cadets from vmi, the hallowed state military institute, then and now.  teenagers. 

hey, yeah, i know, it was another time another day another age another set of values.  they sent teenagers into battle.  that's what they do in liberia.

i touched souls, and i heard them scream and beg and pray and cajole and laugh and cry.  maybe it was only the traffic on the road running alongside the park.

the sign said they were heroes.  there were monuments for this regiment, and for that regiment.  or, maybe it was brigade.  what the fuck do i know about such things.  i don't know shit about heroes. 

superman was a hero.  i never liked the issues when he was shown as anything less than heroic.  i really hated the bad guys who cheated and tried to hurt him.  superman was a hero.

a sixteen year old in a uniform being shot on the field of battle is not heroic.  a sixteen year old being shot on the street in oakland ain't heroic.  a sixteen year old being shot on the street in bagdhad ain't heroic neither.

pink jelly beans are peace-love-jah.

Transcontinental Viewpoint

Fuck.

My flight was boring.  SFO is very boring at five am.  The fucking connection was boring.  The Phoenix Airport is not only boring, but totally unnecessary and in the wrong fucking direction, who the fuck told America West that Phoenix was "on the fucking way" to Washington, DC.  Un-fucking-believable.  The flight to Dulles was boring.  The fucking people movers or whatevr they call those things are just so fucking bizarre.  I saw one catch on fire one time.  I was sitting at the bar at the main terminal, pre-9/11 days, looking at all the people movers coming and going, and all of a sudden, this fucking flame shoots out of this evil looking smokestack kind of thing, and then the inside starts filling up with smoke, and then these dudes kicked out the window and then the smoke and people came billowing out, these people like jumping ten, fifteen feet down to the tarmac, fucking long jump, and we're just sitting up in the big window of this bar, like we're in a fucking luxury box down at PacBell Park, looking down on the game, only this time the game is this fucking people mover spitting flames, smoke and people, and sirens coming and a fucking firetruck rolling up and spraying water and shit, and we're sitting up there with our fucking jaws agape, wondering if we were tripping or something and I didn't see one person really get hurt, which was the craziest thing.  then, like thirty minutes later, we finished our drinks, walked over and got on our own fucking people mover and puttered on over to the other terminal.  damnedest craziest thing.

but, my flight today was fucking boring.  the guy sitting next to me was tall.  i mean, really tall.  like, i felt bad for him sitting next to me all scrunched up like Alice when she drank the wrong potion.

but, my flight was boring.  dulles was boring.  dulles marriott is boring as i write this.  disappointment haunts my dreams.

wonder what's on pay per view?

Medicate the Medic

I stood in line this morning at the airport, waiting to get my ticket, and saw a man lying on the floor, paramedics hovering about him, an oxygen mask on his face.  A few concerned people stood off to the side, I guess that they were family, but they weren’t hysterical the way my family would be in a similar situation.  They were, well, stoic.

I believe that they spoke English, or at least one or two of them did, as I saw them talking to an officer and nodding their heads as if they understood something, the officer with that friendly but this-is-the-way-it-is kind of look. 

They were big people, maybe Samoan, maybe Hawaiian, or some other Pacific Islander.  The older guy on the floor took up a lot of space, back home we would have called him Bubba, the proverbial fucking beached whale on the shores of SFO.

The family looked on intently, quietly, the men with arms folded across their chest, sometimes reaching up with a hand and letting the thick fingers play with the sparse, coarse stubble on their chin.

Five-fifteen in the morning and I had already conferred with jah and jah’s herb on the way down to the airport, as I truly hate to slide into one of those flying tubes of steel and sweat in any other form other than truly stoned.

Actually, while I’m writing this, sitting in said tubular contraption, little screens of  video  sedative drop down and begin playing some Wyndham Hill vid of some half-naked native playing some fucking half-naked native music that, because it is not domestic, is called world music as it brings us all together in commercial perfection.  I’m sure that the carefully selected shorts are aimed at soothing the savage and nervous beasts that flap their arms along with the jets, just in case, but I find that it only makes me think of those Noe Valley women wearing their Noe Valley women’s wear – oftentimes worn by women MSWs posing as therapists.  You know, that hippie with money look, that generation just ahead of me, that Beatle’s generation, that pumped us up then sold out to Reagan and Bush, Clinton and Gore.

You know.

Geeze, flying.

Anyway, Bubba is lying on the floor, near the ticket counter, a gurney is nearby, and these four paramedics and a police officer on the side have this big fucking plastic ironing board looking thing that they’re trying to work underneath our fallen hero.  No hurry, no panic.

One of them holds his head steady while three others get on one side and roll him toward them like a big ball of pale dough, and the final one wedges the ironing board beneath.  They do this work with a professional tenderness  --  they are thorough and careful, but I can tell that there is a bit of jah flowing through their hands, through their touch.

I tell you, when time comes and there’s a bunch of people gathering around my fat, prone and passed-out ass yelling “stat!”, I hope that it’s these guys.

I stared at the scene like it was Wednesday night’s Law & Order, and the events just played out.  They got him onto the board, under the nodding approval of the stoic buddhas of the family.  Our professionals conferred on the best method of lifting the masked giant, and decided it best that they first attach him to the board with a web of broad black straps.  They even strapped his head down.  Dude was on tight.

Once they had him all secure, they positioned themselves equidistant around him.  Two of the paramedics were women, not petite women, mind you, but women nonetheless, and the male buddhas made all the body signs of needing to assert maleness and lend a hand to lift, if not do it all themselves.

Then, again, maybe what I saw as peacock positioning was really something else altogether.  Maybe it’s a blood thing – here’s two huge and obviously pretty fucking strong guys, tough guys probably, and here’s the dad, or the uncle, or the brother, whatever, lying helpless, and here they are, standing, also helpless, wanting to help their loved one, their family, their blood, but our system, our culture, has compartmentalized the event. 

The big dude is down, so we need paramedics because the family is too close to get involved.  In earlier days, the two buddhas would have been out in the fields, or out on a hunt, and the old guy would have just died in their loving, caring arms.

I mean, this guy today, he probably lived, I don’t know, but he’ll probably walk out of the hospital and go see his grandchildren, go kiss his wife, and that will be a beautiful thing, but…

Goddess, let me die in my family’s arms out in the field.

Shana Tova, Sugar

shana tova, thana tova, thana tova.

i went to temple today.  tt's all good.  god is good.  god is great.  yeah, yeah, yeah, it's about time we ate.  dig.

i sat next to a marsh at the edge of lake merced before i went to temple, and contemplated jah-love-peace.  it's all good.  the birds are god, the reeds are god, the turtles are god, the vibrating edges of the light of dawn are god, the damp sweaty shirt that i wore is god, the heavy breathing from my run is god, the kind green bud in my pipe is god, the smoke is god, the air is god, my breath is god, god is my breath.

jah-love-peace is a woman.  she is so obvious.

dig your hands into the loam, the warmth of the fertile earth, and rejoice that god is a woman.  feel her around and about your fingers as you dig, as you explore and you let it sift stickily through your open hands.

dive deep into the water of the ocean and rejoice that god is a woman.  taste the saltiness of her cunt, feel her anger and love in the tossing waves.

stand at the edge of the beach and rejoice that god is a woman.  feel her gently lapping at your feet, caring for you, bathing you like the mother she is.

bite deeply into the sweetness of the nectarine and rejoice that god is a woman.  feel her juices slide slowly down your chin, see the whitness of her thighs exposed beneath the thin-ness of her skin, know that the seed is rebirth.

it's all good.

dig.

shana tova baby.

Morning Prayers

Ah, sweet goddess, thank you for taking me into your arms, rocking me gently, and delivering safely back to shore each day.

Radio Floyd

My twenty-seven yearl old nephew, living and breathing in Hollywood, posed the philosophical theory that Radiohead is the Pink Floyd of the new millenium.

Chowchilla Thrilla

If you happen to notice on the news or in the morning paper that a school bus full of lawyers with redlined contracts stapled to their red power ties were mysteriously whisked away and buried somewhere, bus and all, in the California desert...Hey, really, it's not me. I didn't do it. Promise.

Monuments

I'm going to DC next week...basic business trip...bid'ness. I like to visit the monuments when I'm there. Monuments are so nationalistic, too nationalistic, with an apparent goal to drive us all down that road to the nirvana of Patriotism. Ah, Patriotism. What a grand feeling. What a grand reason to blow the hell out of someone.

So, I like to write little ditties to leave behind at the monuments. A little angle here or there that maybe the old monument builders didn't consider. I'll post a couple here, in case you don't find them when you next visit Monument-town. This first one is for those boys and girls that had such a good time at Iwo Jima:

Iwo Jima

I saw
Ira Hayes
raise that flag
over
that bitch,
I saw him plant it
deep;
I just never knew that
Tony Curtis was an
Indian.

He stopped them,
though,
says so,
right here,
in bronze.

Wrapped that flag
'round that bottle,
pinned that medal
on the olive.

Wave that flag,
Ira,
wave it high, baby,
let it fly;
And when you're
dead,
they'll wave it over
your grave,
just another
big, dumb
Indian
been suckered
again.

Who sets HIS/HER watch?

So, who the fuck thought up this earth tilting on its axis sort of thing, making winter and summer, making the days shorter and longer, making it dark when I need light, making the light when I need a little darkness? Who the fuck?

And, "equinox"? "Solstice"? What the fuck kind of name is that?

Did Jesus have time to figue this shit out when was on the cross?  And, what about the legend of the dogwood?  And, then there was this solar eclipse thing when he finally let go...Crazy fucking coincidence?  So, he was, like, Mr. Solar System and Mr. Botanical Vengence along with all his other duties of bringing Lazarus back from the dead, cloning fish and loaves of bread and making wine from the water...Crazy fucking shit.  Hollywood, baby...pure Hollywood.

Can I Get a Witness?

She wore a crisp white oxford shirt over her halter top.  No company name, but an obvious company slogan proudly graced the lovely acreage above the left pocket:  Best Quality, Best Reliability, Best Service.

Jesus, don't tease me that way...