"Responsibilities"

The idea the original idea of Knighthood. That is the transforming of mere armed robbers into something honorable, and moral. Which back then is pretty much what it was has always fascinated me.

The transformation of wrong into good.

There is the traditional words of Knighting, and the ones from the movies, and tales. So long ago I decided to make up my own. Okay yeah I pinched some of it from books, or movies though basically the words are mine. I hope it may come in handy for you if you ever have to Knight a worthy person. Be they old or young no matter, one size fits all.

"The Oath of a Knight"

Be without fear in the face of your enemies. Be Brave, be Honest, be Generous, and Kind. Oppose evil in 'all' of it's forms. Have the Wisdom to do not what is easy, but what is right. Respect Women. Safeguard the helpless,

Honor all faiths.

'But beware of "Pride" the source of all error.

Now in the name of G-d the founder of Dreams. She who filled the "Well of Forever" with Souls, and put smiles on the lips of the yet born. In the Name of She who painted the Void with Fire. In Her Name!, and in the names of Saint Michael, and Saint George the slayers of Dragons,...You are Consecrated,...now rise, a Knight, and Assume your Responsibilities.


Stay Tuned.

"Born in the USA!"

I was born a Negro in 1950's America. In that era my family, my community had no real rights that anyone need respect. We awaited the Second Emancipation. We were invisible as Richard Wright said. So were women, homosexuals, and other inconvenient peoples.
Invisible, absolutely, and completely.

Jump ahead half a century, and a bit, and things are slightly different. Granted the ideologically zealous on the left say not enough has changed, on the right they say far too much. Like most I live in the middle of this American conversation.

A "conversation" with a body count.

Sometimes when I stand in the middle of Times Square , and see dark faces on the many video billboards I am moved. Remember I am from the invisible generation. I like to think how white time travelers from 1952 would react to all this.
Everywhere they looked they'd see us. That is they wouldn't see themselves as 99% of the crowd. I imagine they'd be confused perhaps outraged.

Never mind.

Me I'm happy to see it. Happy to see all the hues of humanity on the streets, and media of these times. Negros Asians Hispanics Natives Whites the whole happy crazed lot of Humanity in our varied shades all over the digital landscape. Here we are as far as the eye can see.

Imagine.

Mind you this means nothing to the kids. They were born into it. All colors, and types are part of their everyday world. However to us. To the last of the Jim Crow generations both Black, and White it means much.

It means the country is evolving. Accepting more, and more of the world as it really is. The Republic the Constitution is growing.

It grows, and changes, and now includes more of the people it always said it represented. Despite all of the contradictions, and the quiet body counts. As unjust, uniformed, and violent as this country can be I still believe in it. ...when I calm down.

I believe in this madhouse of Democracy.

Why? Because as I say it can, and has changed.

The ability for slow yet positive change is built into our system. Yes corporate bandits, illiterate social movements, and crooked politicos rule now, but they will fall. I don't know how or when, but they will.

It's inevitable.

Don't think so? Ask the Politburo in the Kremlin,...oops that's right. It's a Pizza Hut now.

I still call myself an American, and I still identify as a Progressive, because progress is still possible, and yes inevitable regardless of how dark, and vicious these times are. They're trying to take food, and medical services away from immigrant children.

Vicious times indeed.

Change for the good happened in this nation within my lifetime. Indeed it took more than half my life for me to be acknowledged as a whole person. That is both sad, and hopeful at the same time.


Addendum.

I was in America once. It was only for a month or so, but I was there.

Just after 9/11 this nation was united. All of the bickering irreconcilable parts of it came together as one nation. The, Great American Tribe awoke for a short time. That underneath all the mayhem is who we really are.

I miss America.

I really liked being there. In my unscientific polling so does everybody I've asked over the years. "We want our country back." Maybe the Tea Party folks speak more truth th...an they realize.

We all want that warmth of being one people. E Pluribus Unum Latin for "Out of many, one", the motto of this Republic. I want to go back to America. I think we all do.


Stay Tuned.

"Gawd"

Here's a snapshot of Gawd or at least one of them....see below. The poor guy is there working in his shabby little office. It's all the other older Gawds would give Him. What a sorry bastard. I feel so bad for him.

There he is above tinkering with us.

He's trying to help us make sense of the brief crappy lives he gave us.
I'm on the table there somewhere. So are you. I think I see Napoleon, and my sixth grade teacher as well. What a mess.

Aw heck He means well, and by the look of him he knows what a total disaster this particular creations is. Well better luck next time.
Hey click, and enlarge the pix maybe ya might see yourself on His table.

Stay tuned.

"Pleeeze!"

"Take us In",..pleeeze! ...from my files.

Maybe things would be better for us if we asked the Queen, and Prime Minister to take us back in.
Under the parliamentary system the the Republican Tea Party, the Brooklyn Maoist League, and all of the other demented U.S. culture war groups would have harmless back bench seats so we could keep an eye on them.

We'd finally have National Health, better TV shows, cooler weather, and no one would hate our guts as much.
So perhaps we should try this out for a few years, and see how it shakes out. A fish'n chips shop, and some Indo/Pak curry joints on the block would be handy.

On the other hand the Brits might not like an additional 30 million Irish descended subjects suddenly hanging around giving them the finger.
On the up side they wouldn't need passports to go to Disneyland or Vegas anymore. Also British food would vastly improve with all The Tex-Mex, Cajun, and Louisiana cook'n added to the mix. ...did I mention the Coney Island Hot Dawgs?


Stay tuned.

"Uncle Sidney of the 9th U.S. Colored Calvary"

"Night"

Night I dreamed of night. People in thier multitudes stood watching the sky. The increasingly strange night sky. The stars were fading out. Some winking abruptly with all the colors of the spectrum.

Others slowly fading dark.

It seemed as if all the heavens were drifting away from us. Going out as they did. Cassiopeia Virgo Orion Gemini Andromeda. Singularly or in groups they left us.

Soon only the Pleiades, and a handful of other points stayed behind. However they too were soon burned away. In the end a world of astonished eyes only beheld the empty Chalice of Eternity.

Void.

"So it was in the beginning, and shall be again."

Amen.

"Hope"

Here's the sermon I would have given if the damned Flu didn't kick my butt so bad in the last 48 hours. This is a first draft so it's too long, and clunky...hey.

I'll edit, and do a proper re-write for 'next' Sunday's Pod-sermon.

(...The image above I took when I wandered the streets Houseless.)

"HOPE"

There's a reason the heartless a-moral are called "Reptiles". We were once that species. We were also once fish, and assorted multi-celled microbes as well. We were mud too if you're into the 7 day creation noise.

To the point.

Our species has been trying to overcome our cold blooded heartless reptilian selves for some time.

Perhaps some tens of thousands of years. We've made a lot of serious progress in that journey since the last ice age.

20k/30k years ago.

Compassion generosity trust these are hard wired into us as much as rage greed stupidity, and all the assorted sins.

In recent times at least in the west we've had a few movements towards putting our reptilian brains on the back burner.

The 16th, and 17th century "Levelers" or "Diggers" had a go at agrarian socialism. They were the direct ideological descendants of the 14th century Peasants Revolt.

Since then there have been many individuals, and movements that have tried to re-organize society along more humane co-operative lines.

The Enlightenment, and it's main achievement  the founding of the United states of America.

...and from that experiment.

The Abolitionists, the movement to end the ancient institution of slavery. that, and all the social reform movements that came from it,...from then into the 20th, and 21st centuries.

Civil Rights Woman's Rights Education reform freedom of sexual identity, and  orientation. Attempts at economic justice, and international co-operation.

The Environmental movements the whole shebang....these are all attempts to put that damned reptile back in it's box.

Mind you from that Peasants Revolt to now have had constant failures...often making things a zillion times worse than before.

Yet people kept trying. ...they keep trying.

They do this all over the world.

Our species is slowly trying to grow the hell up.

To get past the iron tradition of reptilian alpha males hoarding all the coconuts for themselves, and their favorites.

We try, and try.

This is what Hope is.

We can dream a world of compassionate co-operation, but it's so hard to do. Even when we build a small space where this exists it often falls apart.

Partly because it has to co-exist with the reptile culture.

However mostly because we don't know how to use the damned thing.

War we know. Cruelty is a violin that we play like Beethoven.

Peace, and Loving Kindness are short lived because it so much stronger than meanness. We hardly know how to control it,...but we're slowly getting better at it.

It's as complicated as a Haiku, and as simple as falling off a log.

I'm saying don't give up the game ain't over, and them Alpha male are actually worried...this is why their putting the screws to everyone.

These bleeps are smart they think long haul, and they don't like what they see up ahead.

It don't look good for them.

That slow oh so slow movement to a better way is actually making tiny changes here, and there. This again is what Hope is, and why I say cheer up.

Soon the Bleep will turn...again.

When it does it'll be up to us to keep it.

Amen.

"Psalm of the Hungry Child"

The "City Dept. of Old Farts" thinks I'm nuts so sent me to a Shrink. This while deciding which Geriatric Gulag to deport me to. The doc' is a thirty-something with turquoise hair, and 1980's jewelry.

She asks how I feel.

"Swell" sez I.

" I haven't foamed at the mouth or shit my self in weeks now."

"Although I just had a dream where I was being chased down the street by my bed springs."

She takes notes nodding calmly.

Ms. Turquoise wanted to know what sort of meds I'm on, and if they're effective.

"A bunch, and more or less." 

"I mean it stops me from jumping out of windows or slashing my wrists,...again."

She lifts an eyebrow,..."Again?"

"Yeah."

I show junior my scars from various boyhood attempts. What a mess. I never got it right. Sure I learned how later, but won't tell you as a public service. 

It was about this time them floating Naked Angel Boys clutching teddy bears showed up again. They came through the wall above the shrink.

I decided not to mention them.

I'm asked if I've ever had "urges of violence?"

The Angels start jerking off over me.

"Violence..sure. I mostly dream of kicking the bloody crap out'a bullies Tea Party hacks the IRS homophobes, and them butt-holes that make that disgusting sound with their teeth, and tongue."

I warm to the subject by going into medieval detail. Vats of acid piano wire wood chippers heavy objects dropped from great height. That whole "Wile-e-Coyote" routine. 

It starts raining Angel jizz. 

I think I scared her with all this because her eyes began darting to the door which them Angels were departing through.

...if she saw them she didn't let on.

Anyway I asks if she could do me a solid, and slip me some medical dope or a few hits of morphine.

Love's that Morphine!

She changes the subject wanting to know if I was abused as a kid. Gimme a break what kind'a question is that.

"You kidding who wasn't?"

"It was like the worse parts of the Bible. You want details watch "Jerry Springer."

I mentions how I could use a pastrami hero about now. She looks up from her notes, and sez, "...you associate your memories of abuse with food?"

I tell her I was hungry all the time as a kid, and not just for food. It was a childhood Apocalypse. I mean what with getting beat up terrorized robbed, and humiliated everywhere all the time. 

I decided to turn the tables,...I do this to shrinks.

"What's the worse thing that's ever happened to 'you'?"

A pause then she sez,...

"I was raped"


Silence.......


Christ on a blind pony. 

'This' is the worse thing that can happen to a human being. I mean other than waking up an Orthodox Jew in Dachau in the winter of 1943. 

I got "done" too. Gang raped. Three big kids at day camp held me down, and took turns fucking me up my 10 year old ass. 

I screamed. 

They said I could "scream all I liked". "Nobody" would come. Nobody did. Nobody ever came. 

Just like prison.

Like them floating Angels I kept this to myself.

After a bit my doctor tells me I'm not crazy.

She says, "...I can't get you any dope, but I'll up your med dosage, and throw in some Valium."

"Thanks" I say.

She closes her note book.

"I think we're through for today."

We shake hands, and part,...till next week.

Stay Tuned. 


(Like all my stories this is part fantasy part history. The major bits happened though maybe not in the order presented. Like I say think of these as docudrama's.  This format makes these things easier to live with for me.)

"Tales of my Dad"

"Snow Story"

I used to like being with my dad when I was a kid when he drove in snow storms. He had this "fuck it" attitude about danger. Which as a boy I loved as much as I loved him. He'd say "I was in damned battle of the Bulge!" "Snow is not my enemy".

He'd then go into Army life in the segregated service.

How none of his buddies wanted to fight the Japs. However they 'all' wanted to "tear the throats "out of them "Nazi bastards". ...and did. They also wanted to do the same to the cracker non-coms that were always giving them shit. However they had to hold off on those throats.

So with that attitude drive carefully.

This reminds me of another story about my dad.

My father was that rare combination of toughness, and gentleness. He hated cruelty of any kind. For example when we still had our farm down South he saw a man beating a horse that couldn't pull an overloaded wagon.

This back in the late 1930's.

He beat the crap out of the guy then helped him up bought the horse, and took it back to our farm.

That was dad.

Stay Tuned.

"Nested"

In this post I recount from my childhood how one of my model planes got loose in Prospect Park. It flew away. Disappeared. I had supposed that it’s flying still decades later. By now over China or Tibet.

Should have put a message in it.


However I think that my birthday gift from dear aunt Agnes ran out of gas, and eventually crashed into tree top. Where for all these years it has served as a nest for birds.


Wonderful thought that.


I like this idea better than the “Flyin...g Dutchman” model bi-plane. There’s a story or short video in this. A tale that begins where mine ends.

The cord snaps, and we see my 12 year old self receding away as the plane begins it’s new life. The model Royal Flying Corps SE-5 flies above, and past Prospect park. Summer tail winds add lift, and mileage. It soars above the city, over the Brooklyn Bridge, over Chinatown, and Greenwich Village, past Times Square.

The prop sputters, and fails, but the warm updrafts from the city keep her going. She’s gliding on course for Central Park. Prospect’s more famous sister. She Skims 51st street, past Columbus Circle, over the Sheep Meadow she goes. Till at last just past Bethesda Fountain my little plane slips into, and is entangled in the upper branches of an old oak.

Here begins her decades of service as a cozy nest for generations of blue jays, robins, and sparrows.

Stay tuned.