An Alternate Reality

            The Green House is where I lived after the Haight-Ashbury experience in the 60’s.  Me and my friends.  And it’s where most of them died after the Haight.  It’s where I had some of the best days of my life, and some of the worst.  It’s where I first found family outside of my birth family.  It’s where I initially found independence.
And escape from an authoritarian rule.

            Jim, and Jon.  They were my best friends.  There were several of us.  We were all close.  But Jim, and Jon, and I were inseparable.  We used to surf together, making the hour-long trek to San Clemente well before sunrise.  Sitting on our boards on the water, hours of ocean time and talking.  Riding waves and trying to describe the sensations, of the surf, and of the LSD rippling through our compliant minds.  It was all mixed together during those times.  It was all a blur of induced consciousness, natural phenomena and laughter.  It was all smiles and good feelings, hallucinations and exaggerated sensations.   Limitless expression.  Sometimes silence.  Total immersion in the flow.  Unqualified co-operation with the experience.  

            We surfed Trestles on the Camp Pendleton Marine Base, and Cottons Point out front of Nixon's Western White House.  The Riviera and T Street a little farther north.  The Secret Service used to patrol the beach at Cottons.  We weren’t supposed to surf there, but the break was pretty far out, and they were not about to come out after us.  This was in the days before leashes.  If you lost your board at Trestles or Cottons Point you had a long swim into shore.  Not always the ideal situation, especially in big surf.  And especially when peaking on acid.  But we were not to be dissuaded in our pursuit of the ultimate wave, the endless ride, the perpetual thrill.  At Trestles the marines would wait on shore in their jeep, and when a board would wash in they’d throw it in the back and drive it about a half mile down the beach, leave it there and have a good laugh while we made the long walk after the long swim in.  It was like something out of a movie.  In our altered state of consciousness it usually felt like an episode of the Twilight Zone, rather than an actual event.  But for us it was really all part of the reality carnival that was our lives at the time.  

At the Green House we had an enormous living room upstairs, surrounded by several bedrooms and a kitchen.  The living room looked out onto a busy boulevard.  It was noisy, but provided a lot of cheap entertainment.  I was in a Life is a movie phase.  Everything reminded me of a script.  Relationships, experiences, feelings, everything.  It got to the point that I really began to believe it.  We had sofas lining the walls around the room, and one afternoon when everybody was gone I lined up all the couches in front of the window, facing out like theater seating facing a big screen.  I made some popcorn, took a seat in the front row and spent the rest of the afternoon watching, what I believed was, a movie.  Throughout the day, as friends began to wander in, they quietly took a seat on one of the sofas and stared out the window along with me.  No one ever really commented on the arrangement.  Everybody knew I’d been dancing somewhat out of sync for awhile.  The room was left that way for a few weeks.  Then it mysteriously returned to its original configuration.  Nothing was ever said.  

In the meantime, I had gradually returned to an acceptable level of insanity.  Life was not as interesting after that, but it was certainly more manageable.   

The Police kept a pretty close eye on the Green House.  Always had someone parked outside, under cover, and often not so under cover.  They’d actually gather outside at night, late at night, parked in their cars in kind of a show of force.  We always referred to it as a show of farce.  We were like the local donut shop.  Cops on duty, and even on their breaks, used to stop by to check in with each other, but while there, they would usually do their best to intimidate and antagonize us.  They would shine their spotlights in our windows, and talk to us through their bullhorns.  Always talking crap, always talking tough, but always with a sarcastic slant.  They seemed to like us in an odd sort of way.  Seemed to envy our freedom, even though they called us queers because of our long hair. 
We’d get tired of being kept awake all night, and placed quite a few calls of complaint to the station.  Obviously to no avail.  I can only guess it probably just fueled their resolve.  The spectacle of all those cops parked outside our house, day in and day out, left me really with only one prevailing conclusion. . . . . . . . . We must have put a lot of the local donut shops out of business.

The cops didn’t know what they were doing back then.  And neither did we.  This was all new to everybody.

Life worked itself out for me eventually, but I’m sad to say that was not the case for my friends, Jim, and Jon, who died before their time.  And I miss them.

Terribly.

A Recurring Dream

For many years I have had a recurring dream of crawling slowly down a gradual embankment towards a small lake.  Glistening, calm, breathtaking.  Upon reaching the shoreline on hands and knees, I collapse, lifeless, into about two inches of shallow water.  My body, like dead weight, pins my weakened arms beneath it.  My face drops forward into the suddenly dangerous pond.  My neck will not support the weight of my head.  My arms lack sufficient strength to push my torso upwards, or turn my body over to save my life.  I am frozen, and cannot muster the necessary will to live.  It wouldn't take much.  I drown there in that beautiful secluded pool, and it will most certainly be the site of someone's forthcoming holiday outing.  They say that in your dreams you're not supposed to die.  I say ‘Yeah, but what do they know about my dreams?  They've never even been in them before’. 

The Most Important Things In Life

The most important things in life?

I guess everybody has their own list, whether they realize it or not.

But, if truth be told, it usually amounts to what you do with your money,

and what you do with your time.

If you don’t know what’s important to you

make a list of those two things and you’ll get a pretty good idea.

Where your money is, there will your heart be also. 

What you do with your time is what you do with yourself.

And what you do with yourself in many ways defines you.

He Is Not Our Brother

Most of us are doing the best that we know how.

In this topsy-turvy world one finds the blessing wherever one can, the fulfillment, the satisfaction.  But the curse comes along sometimes like an undesirable uncle showing up unannounced at the door.  We knew he would eventually arrive, we just didn’t know from where, and we didn’t know when.  But we’ll have to live with that.  Like the promise of death, or ageing. 

But there is an even more sinister family member who increasingly insinuates himself into our lives.  He masquerades as a big brother.  And big brother has become a tangible curse for most people these days, just like George Orwell said he would.  He finds his way into our life most inappropriately, and at the most inopportune time, bringing with him new laws, taxes, fees, regulations, and requirements of every kind.  Listening in on us, tracking our every keyboard stroke or smart phone transaction.  But it’s for our own good, he says.  It’s for our own wellbeing, and to help with our own security.

Yeah, real nice brother.  Always looking out for us!

The main problem with that kind of brother is that he actually believes his own fiction.  He pretends to be a loyal, moral and ethical member of the family, working hard on our behalf.  And yet he wallows in his own self-importance stroking himself, and his buddies, for gratification, all the while thinking that we see him as the character he so disingenuously masquerades as for the rest of us.  The truth is, we can see him, but for whom he actually is.  The sad part is that for the most part we don’t care.  That is the real tragedy.  It’s how he’s able to continue being a disloyal, immoral, and unethical member of the family, entertaining delusions of grandeur, and working hard on his own behalf.  He is not our savior, by any stretch of the imagination.  And he is not our brother.  He has, in fact, become our master.

Most of us are giving it our best, just trying to get through life, and haven’t got the inclination to supervise the behavior of a government that insinuates itself into, and imposes itself upon, our struggling lives.  Big Brother knows that.  Of that you can be sure.   

And it’s really how he gets away with the charade.

But we, as the recipients of his untoward affection, must be aware of him and his spurious ways, 

and make the time and effort to resist his unscrupulous advances.

That is something we can and must do, and we must do it with vigilance, the best that we know how.

Consciousness

We’d all like to feel like we’re conscious, more so than the next guy, even if we’re not.  Consciousness is a relative term.  The next guy is just as conscious as, or more so, than I am, but in his own way, by his own experience and understanding.  His consciousness is uniquely his own, as is yours and mine.  One mans consciousness is another mans confusion.

Consciousness has always been relative, and that’s why it’s so easy to proclaim yourself to be conscious when those around you might consider you not to be.  By the same token you might consider them not to be.  They measure your consciousness by their own, as you do theirs by yours, whether anyone is aware of it or not.  And furthermore, theirs might be measured by a different standard -even apart from themselves- than you might measure yours by, a different standard of criteria, and by an innate personal bias that they are intrinsically incapable of taking into account in any self-assessment.

So rather than arguing consciousness, degrees of, or ownership of, let me just suggest that beyond any intellectual measure, emotional connection to, or conceptual ideation, a persons life will always be the best indicator of consciousness . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  or lack thereof.

Not Leading To Better

There was a person, and a situation, that left some extended family members appalled, not only because of the persons blatant attempts to unapologetically exploit other people, but to ascribe an innate holiness to the behavior as well.  Family members talked among themselves about the person, and not in flattering terms.  There had been a running commentary throughout much of the family, but nobody would address the situation with the person; choosing instead to gossip about it amongst themselves, while pretending that nothing was amiss when interacting with that individual.

I addressed the situation, the dishonesty, with some honesty, and some truth.  And some of the family members became afraid of me for having spoken so frankly.  In my opinion, that in itself is cause for concern.

 “In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act.”

- George Orwell

Not to pat myself on the back.  That’s not what this is about.  I take no pleasure in calling someone out for their disingenuousness.  But untruthful people still don’t get it, that honesty is in their own best interest.  Others, who are privy to their untoward behavior are so afraid of being thought of as judgmental, or of being shunned, rejected, or excluded, that they will hide behind silence to protect themselves.  And they will often disassociate themselves from those who dare to be honest.  But they really only protect themselves from their own insecurities, and in the bigger picture they do themselves an enormous injustice, inhibiting their own ability to breathe freely. 

In defense of avoidance, people will say that honesty hurts other people, other people’s feelings.  In truth, sometimes it does.  But in order to accomplish anything in this life we must be willing to risk something.  In order to help someone else we must be willing to sacrifice something of ourselves.  So if a person is unwilling to risk hurting the feelings of someone who is raising disingenuousness to levels we don’t even want to be around, then the unwilling, and everybody else, will have to live with the behaviors of, and the repercussions from, the one choosing to be so mendacious.

What of the drug abuser or alcoholic whose self-centered behavior damages the lives of his entire family?  We wouldn’t want to hurt his feelings?  Or the family member who continually lies to those who love him the most?  Or the religious people who choose to exploit other people for their own gain?  Or the social climbers who want to look good in the eyes of whoever they choose to use to get ahead?  Should we be overly concerned with hurting their feelings?  Or is it that we wouldn’t want to hurt the feelings of somebody we might want, or need, to remain associated with?  Should we just remain silent so as not to disrupt the status quo, so as not to mess with the illusion of bliss while embracing the elephant in the room, and enhancing the level of dishonesty rather than bringing humankind closer to living in the realm of truthfulness.  Maybe the question should be “Why would I not want to deal honestly, straightforward if you will, with someone who is less than genuine with me?”

There is no power to be had over someone who has nothing to hide.  That person can live forthrightly, and in good conscience.  That person is free to be honest.

Some people put no value on honesty.  They put value only on whatever it takes to get by, to get ahead, or to make themselves look good.  I feel very sad, and very sorry, for those people.

Perhaps you’ve heard it said that ‘A person is only as sick as his secrets’. 

Maybe you haven’t.  But you have now.

Silence kills . . . . . . . . . eventually. 

Yourself, and others.

A little bit at a time,

like infection poisons the blood.

How many times have we refused to respond to an issue someone has created for fear of causing drama, trauma, upset, dislike, disdain or rejection?  How many times have people allowed lingering resentments to fester like an ugly wound, only to have the infection take root and become a much greater problem than if it been had addressed properly, honestly, to begin with?  Honesty is not only the avoidance of telling lies.  It is about the manner in which we live, the manner in which we conduct our lives.  It is about the attitudes and innuendos we construct, and the impressions we project for others to define us by.  Honesty is a casserole of self-assessment, attitude, belief, and behavior.  It’s unfortunate that it gets reduced down to lying, or not lying.

I choose not to live with lies, deceit, or dishonesty, with myself, or with others.  And if it hurts somebody’s feelings to address it, or if it isolates or alienates me, so be it. 

I can live with that.  I mean them no harm.  They cannot be hurt by honesty if they embrace honesty as a trusted companion.  And I cannot be hurt by them if I’m not afraid of what they think.  I do not consider myself to be righteous, self-righteous, or even un-righteous.  I am simply doing the best I can with what I know, and with what I have.

And I believe it is better to have one good friend who is honest with me than to have a myriad of friends who are not.

Anything short of honesty is not leading to better. 

It may sometimes seem like it might be for the best, but we must ask ourselves,

‘Better for whom’?

The Angel Gabriel

It had been raining for seven days and seven nights.  I was in Morocco, northern Africa, traveling low budget through the small towns and big cities alike.  I’d been hitchhiking, and was soaked to the bone when I arrived in the town of Tetouan, about 60 miles east of Tangier, and positioned just a few miles south of the Straight of Gibraltar.  I’d been shivering all day, like a wet dog shaking forlornly on the streets of Chicago in the dead of winter.  I was in the throes of hypothermia when I finally found a place to stay.  It was not a typical rain that had enveloped the area, but, rather, a deluge of somewhat biblical proportions.  A rain they had not seen in memory.  A rain that washed the mundane daily concerns from peoples minds and replaced those concerns with anxiety about their own lives.  Would they be O.K? 

I took a room in an ancient hotel, stripped off my frozen clothes, and soaked in a hot bath for what seemed like an eternity, warming my bones, and renewing my resolve.  I ate a meal of crackers and canned sardines, and put myself to bed for some much-needed rest, some much-needed dreams, even. 

Traveling alone in a foreign country with a pack on my back and a guitar slung over my shoulder is not easy, by any means.  It’s romanticized in the recollections and retellings of they who have traveled those roads, however, it is anything but romantic.  It is early mornings and late nights in the middle of nowhere.  It is cold, and it is hot.  It is tiring, and frustrating.  It is lonely and foreboding.  It is dangerous and frightening.  It is certainly uncertain, and it is, in many ways, putting your fortune in unknown hands, tossing your fate to the wind, if you will.  It is, above all else, I think, a continuous examination of your self, a deeper examination than most men are even able to bear.  You are confronted with your own shortcomings, your failures, your frailties, your weakness, your fuck-ups, your missteps, your ethics, your morality, and, ultimately, your own mortality.  It strips you down to your very core, and redresses you in unadulterated truth.  It is like running a gantlet with all the ghosts of your past lining up on either side of you while you try your best to make it unmolested through the fray.  But you will not make it through unmolested.  Not if you’re honest with yourself, which, ultimately, you are forced to be.  The road is not a frivolous place.  It is not designed that way.

In the morning I woke to brilliant sunshine flooding through my window, and the sounds of celebration in the streets.  The rains had stopped, and the people were out in the streets full force, most likely for the first time in those long seven days.  I was situated in an ancient part of the city with narrow cobblestone streets lined with rug shops and open-air vendors selling exotic food and hawking their wares;

the food, admittedly exotic to me, but common fare to the Moroccans.  I just wandered around for the better part of the morning, taking in the sights, sounds, smells, and hustles.  Every rug shop I passed sent a couple twenty-something young men out to follow me and solicit me to come and have tea in their shop, look at the rugs, and, hopefully, make a deal.  After ten minutes or so they’d give up, and the next rug shop I passed would send out their own detail to engage me.

The streets were narrow and maze-like, winding, meandering, with no particular discernable pattern.  But it was such a joy to be roaming around among them. 

When the rug merchants finally gave up on me I was able to relax, slow my pace, and take in the intricacies of the town, the minutiae that gets missed and overlooked when distracted by other concerns.  As I moved along I heard what I thought was a child’s voice.  It was faint, but stuck out somehow among the hustle and bustle of all the other voices in the streets.  I thought I heard the words, ‘Mr. Americano’.  I turned around to look, saw nothing related to the sound, then began to continue on my way.  There was an old 4-story hotel that caught my interest just ahead on the left.  I thought I’d check it out with the idea of possibly moving in there if I liked it.  I liked where it was located, and maybe it was cheaper than where I was.  In any event, I took two or three more steps towards the hotel when I heard the child’s voice again, but more urgent this time.

‘Mr. Americano, Mr. Americano’.  I stopped again, turned around, and saw a six or seven-year-old child -standing about thirty feet from me- calling for my attention.  As I saw him, and connected him with the voice, the ground suddenly shook with a deafening roar as the old rock and mortar hotel crumbled into the street in an enormous cloud of dust, just a few feet from me, leaving me in disbelief, with about 50 people in the street buried beneath an enormous pile of rubble.  Needless to say, I was stunned, as was everybody else.  People ran to help, but it was daunting and dispiriting at best.  I tried to help, but, being an obvious foreigner not speaking the language, was held back from the rubble.  

Rescuers arrived quickly and took control of the situation.  They were not uniformed, organized groups, but, nevertheless, men who knew what they were doing.  Organized fire and police came later, but this cadre of volunteers found rescue efforts to be futile for the most part.  So many ended up just standing around with an ever-increasing crowd of mourners. 

After a couple of hours, and still in shock, with tears flowing uncontrolled down my weathered face I began to wander around the town listening for that familiar voice, the voice which had stopped me in my tracks, and spared me such an ignominious fate.  I walked around for the next couple of days, all day, looking for the boy, the angel, that saved my life.    

Today I call him Gabriel.

Baby Doll

For a couple of years, when my youngest son was just two or three years old, I was in the habit of keeping a mannequin in the back seat of my car.  Called her Baby Doll.  Sat her up like she was one of the family.  Strapped her in with a seatbelt for the ride.  Changed her clothes once a week to keep a fresh attitude.  She usually wore a cool hat, tilted just so, and dark glasses during the day.  

Sometimes my son would crawl up into the back seat and snuggle himself up in her arms.  It was pretty cute. Sometimes he’d fall asleep there.  I often wondered what he must have been thinking.  Baby doll was a pretty prominent part of our family at the time.  I realized many years later that the only actual full family portrait we have is one that includes Baby doll.  My wife and I, our two sons, and Baby doll sitting on the sofa, each of us looking straight ahead wearing sunglasses and matching expressions.

I was working for a corporation at the time, driving ten miles to work each day.  Corporate life did not agree too well with me.  The mannequin was a nice distraction from the seriousness of the workday.  Fellow commuters would see the mannequin in the back seat, slow down and wave as they went by, with a knowing smile and a ‘Thanks for the laugh’ look in their eyes.  Coworkers, and others from the office complex would make a point of taking a little break out in the parking lot periodically to see what Baby doll would be wearing during that particular week.  I think they understood that in order for me to maintain my sanity in a suit and tie, I must occasionally welcome a little insanity into my own life.  There must have also been some vicarious indulgence for many of the uninitiated, who were, themselves, bound by parameters they were struggling against. 

Baby doll was not a profound experience for me by any means, but in a corporate, conformist, and stifling world she did serve as a connection to the idea of personal liberation, an important, and necessary, connection for me at that particular time of my life. 

And she did put smiles on the faces of a lot of people who would have otherwise not been smiling.  For this I am grateful to her.  And I remember her fondly.

A Greater Purpose

We toil in the fields, in the factories, in the cubicles, in the corporate offices, and in the restaurants and cafés.  We try to find satisfaction in the work we do, all the while knowing that work provides a greater reward than not working ever could.  We don’t really discover this truth unless we’ve been both employed, and unemployed at some point during our lifetime.

If we work at a job that is not in alignment with our soul, however, with our purpose in life, we find that it wears us down, wears us out, and prompts us to either hunker down and unhappily accept the status quo, or seek a source of satisfaction elsewhere.  The dissatisfaction of such a job, the hopelessness, the futility of going through motions that we find no purpose in is like a hamster on a wheel for many.  It is a passing of time, but not a purposeful use of our time, other than for a paycheck.  That paycheck is important, but the seeking of our higher calling is what can make the difference. 

Now I’m not saying that if you are a server in a cafe, or a laborer, or a factory worker that you are not serving your higher calling.  And I’m not implying that if you are a successful musician, teacher, or doctor that you are serving your higher calling.  It is not about the status of the work, the recognition, or the pay scale.  It is about the place where you fit well with yourself, the place that feeds your soul, the place that enables you to have the greatest peace about what you’re doing, and why you’re doing it.  It is an alignment with something greater than one’s self.  For some, being a servant is the highest calling of all.  And I’m not one who would ever disagree with that.  For some it is reaching for the pinnacle of financial success, gaining a position of influence and advantage.  And for some it might be in entertaining others.  Every person is unique, and every calling unique to the one who answers it.  It is about how we are with what we do, and what we do with our circumstances, acquired influence, and remuneration.     

It has been said that if you’re doing something you love, you won’t work a day in your life.  

Scripture says, “Ask and it shall be given unto you, seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened.”  It is not just a principle of faith.  It is a universal truth of sorts.  I don’t know that it is universal in the purest sense of its promise, but it surely is in the importance of its intent and admonition.  It is an encouragement to reach for what your soul desires, to embrace the gift that has been granted, and to enter into the fullness of that promise.   

It is good fortune for an individual to find his life’s work.  It is an easy thing to find for some people.  Some know their path from a very early age, but some don’t find it until much later in life.  For some it takes the experience of life to stumble upon the work that fulfills them, but when they do they recognize it as their own.

Some people do, and will always, look at work as just a way to make a living, often hopping from job to job.  And that’s O.K.  Work is noble in, and of, itself.  Everybody has to make a living.  Everyone must find a way, and sometimes the esoteric does not need to enter into the equation at all.  People can, and do, find their higher calling outside of work.  And that is equally important.  What matters is that we find our greater purpose, in life, and in our day to day.  For many it is found in their work, and for some it is not.

Chin on the Chopping Block (A boys story)

As a kid I always had a propensity for finding wounded animals.  I found them, and they found me.  It was not as if I went out looking for them, they just seemed to end up in my company.  I was not particularly schooled in the healing arts, did not really know much about animals, or even have much of a clue what to do for a critter in distress.  But I did have a tremendous empathy and compassion for the wounded.  I could always offer comfort, and I could always feel their pain.  As I began to grow older, wounded kids began to find their way to my door as well.

But anyway, when I was five or six years old we used to drive out to the dairy on Saturday mornings to get milk.  My mom and my brothers and sister.  As I recall, the dairy must have been about six or eight miles away from our house.  We’d turn off the main country road onto a dirt road that stretched out for about a half mile before reaching the dairy.  A row of enormous eucalyptus trees paralleled the road, and several hundred crows made their homes high up in the trees.  One morning, as we drove slowly along the dusty road, shadowed by the enormity of the eucalyptus, I noticed a bird lying on the ground at the base of one of the trees.  I yelled for my mom to stop, and as she did I jumped out to see what was wrong with the bird.  To my untrained eyes it appeared as if it had a broken wing.  We were just a stones throw from the dairy, so I told my mom to go ahead and I’d walk over and meet her there in a minute.  She did, and I bent over to pick up the crow.  As I brought it up near my face to have a closer look it stretched its neck out suddenly and bit me on the chin, pretty hard, and it held on pretty tight.  I was kind of shocked, but OK, until realizing I couldn’t pull the bird from my chin.  I pulled with increasing force, I tried prying it’s beak apart, I tried relaxing, and coaxing the bird to let go, and when all else failed, I cried, and pleaded with the crow.  I was not just crying from frustration, I was crying from pain.  This bird was locked on to my face like a pit bull on a vulnerable leg.

I ran up to the dairy.  My mom quickly realized how traumatized I was, but she couldn’t remove the bird either.  She asked the dairy man to help, but even he couldn’t get the creature to release it’s grip.  They were both afraid of tearing my chin to shreds.  Mom piled us all back into the car to race home because my dad would certainly know what to do.  She drove the few miles in a mild panic as I became increasingly traumatized.  People in the other cars were looking, pointing, laughing at the crying kid with the crow stuck on his chin.  It was not fun for me.  Not at all. 

We eventually came screaming into the driveway at home, with mom honking the horn, and dad coming out on the porch to see what was going on.  He took one look at me, quickly assessed the situation, and laughed.  It was like a shot to the heart of a wounded puppy.  He couldn’t pull, or pry, the bird from my chin either, so he took me out in the back yard, got an ax, laid my head down on top of a tree stump, told me to stop crying, close my eyes, hold my breath, and hold myself still.  I was terrified.  Beyond description.  Beyond belief.  My father’s ax sliced cleanly through the neck of the crow, I opened my eyes, saw the body of the bird laying helpless on the ground, saw blood oozing red from its neck, and its head still clinging stubbornly to my chin.  I lost it, thinking, as only a child could, that I would have to spend the rest of my life with the head of a crow clamped tightly, and grotesquely, on my quivering chin.