THE HOPE THAT MEMORY WILL FULFILL ITSELF

And when He did die it was sad -- such a young man, so full of promise, and His mother wept and His friends could not believe the loss, and the story spread everywhere and the mourning would not be comforted, until He was so sharply lacked and so powerfully remembered that his friends felt Him beside them as they walked along the road, and saw someone cooking fish on the shore and knew it to be Him, and sat down to supper with Him, all wounded as He was.

There is so little to remember of anyone -- an anecdote, a conversation at table. But every memory is turned over and over again, every word, however chance, written in the heart in the hope that memory will fulfill itself, and become flesh, and that the wanderers will find a way home, and the perished, whose lack we always feel, will step through the door finally and stroke our hair with dreaming, habitual fondness, not having meant to keep us waiting long,"
- Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping.


`gathered at Alive On All Channels

VALLEY OF THE DOLLS

"I have to get up at five o'clock in the morning and SPARKLE, Neely, SPARKLE!"

RIP Patty Duke

“The more he saw, the more he doubted. He watched men narrowly, and saw how, beneath the surface, courage was often rashness; and prudence, cowardice; generosity, a clever piece of calculation; justice, a wrong; delicacy, pusillanimity; honesty, a modus vivendi; and by some strange dispensation of fate, he must see that those who at heart were really honest, scrupulous, just, generous, prudent or brave were held cheaply by their fellow-men."

Honore de Balzac

WILSON FLOATS AWAY

There are two kinds of people in this world my friend. 
Those who cried when Wilson floated away, and those who laughed.
Haha.

BROOKS ON TRUMP

“Therefore pride is their necklace; they clothe themselves with violence. … They scoff, and speak with malice; with arrogance they threaten oppression. Their mouths lay claim to heaven, and their tongues take possession of the earth. Therefore their people turn to them and drink up waters in abundance... Surely you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin. How suddenly they are destroyed.”

Psalm 73

From an article by David Brooks.

In the article Brooks suggests that most of the Trump supporters are disenfranchised folks who have lost jobs and had their dreams shattered. Most of the Trump supporters I know do not fit this category. They are doing pretty fine as far as I can tell. They are certainly doing better than me, not that I have anything to complain about..

SPILLED MILK

I had an amazing dream. I was at the grocery store. They had a bargain. You could fill your cart for $ 100 with whatever you wanted.
I filled my cart, and got to the register.

They girl ringing me up slid a head of lettuce over the reader and called out “Canned Goods”.

The next items was Irish spring soap. “Baking Products” she called out.

I thought this was odd.

She grabbed a can of coffee. “Frozen Desserts” she says, and rings it up.

“Wait a minute” I said “That is not Frozen Desserts,  that is coffee.”

“Its just how we do it” she said.

“Its stupid, it makes no sense” I said.

She shrugged her shoulders, and went back to ringing stuff up. None of it made sense.

I found myself getting frustrated.  Aggravated even.
 And it was when she got to the gallon of milk, and called it “Household Goods” that I exploded.

“This is not Household Goods” I screamed, and I picked up the gallon of milk and spiked it like a football, the carton breaking and milk splashing everywhere.
“Oh no” I thought “I’ve really done it now” and I looked up to see that a manager had appeared next to the cashier. He looked at me with no real expression on his face, and said:

 “This episode belongs to you”.

I felt so ashamed.

I said “ I know. I’m so sorry. You guys can ring this stuff up however you want. Its costs me the same either way. Can you bring me a mop, please?”

Just For Today I won’t spill any milk.

AVOIDING DEATH

… when you die, you are grieved by all the atoms of which you were composed. They hung together for years, whether in sheets of skin or communities of spleen. With your death they do not die. Instead, they part ways, moving off in their separate directions, mourning the loss of a special time they shared together, haunted by the feeling that they were once playing parts in something larger than themselves, something that had its own life, something they can hardly put a finger on.
David Eagleman: Sum.


I have been going to see a counselor for two sessions now. I guess she is like a Life Coach, as I understand it.
Last week she gave me a writing assignment. I turned it in. She said "Keep writing" and I'm like, "Oh I do, I write pretty much every day". So after that second session, I got home and realized she had not given me an assignment for the next week. I texted her, and asked what my assignment would be.
"Keep writing" she said.
"Do you have a topic?" I asked.
As I waited for her reply, I thought about maybe I might write about death. I've had a lot of death in my life. She probably needs to know about all that. There is more death still, and some more close than I want it to be. But death comes, and to us all. I cried to think I might write about death, but then her text came back.
"Research, and write a summary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights".
I was relieved.
So here it is:

I can remember as a kid watching the movies Spartacus and  King of Kings.

It seems that there has always been two kinds of people; those with whips beating other people into some kind of submission, and those being beat into submission. Its been that way since the beginning of time, I guess. I sometimes wonder how long Man had been around before he figured out that he could dominate other folks in such a way as to take away their basic human rights.

If men have been around for 10,000 years, it sure took  a long time for them to finally come up with a document like Basic Human Rights, which was written and adopted in 1948. Due largely in response to the Holocaust, the world finally attempts to get its shit together as a whole. Two other documents that established a basis for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are The Magna Carta and the United States Constitution and Declaration of Independence(just a guess).

The Preamble states its reason for existence: that most of the problems in the world start when  one group of humans seek  to control and take advantage of another, resulting in a loss of dignity, freedom and equality. The effect is always a decline in their standard of living leading to violence, suffering and great loss of life.
The preamble states its purpose; to establish a more verdant, just, and compassionate society within and between the nations, insuring peace and dignity for all the people.

The Articles establish certain principles; freedom, dignity, equality, and brotherhood. That these principles are extended to all humans regardless of religion, race, social class, personal or political opinions. It seeks to eliminate discrimination for simply being who you are.

In short, and in the words of the NA program, it seeks to establish a world of  “Principles Before Personalities”.

It abolishes anything that would interfere with the ends of these principles, such as slavery, torture, arbitrarily applied laws, denial of protection under the law, and restriction of the freedom to go anywhere of your own choosing under the law, and to have a safe place to live. It also assigns specifically certain social security’s such as the right to work with minimum standards towards hours and pay, the right to health care, the right of a free elementary education. In exchange for all this we have a responsibility to protect the rights and freedoms of other people.

When I feel myself  losing faith in the world, I turn to Spartacus, and King of Kings. I enjoy Peter Ustinov’s role as a slave buyer who eventually does the right thing, and his relationship with Charles Laughton, the kindly senator. I think I probably developed my attitude towards women from Spartacus’ pure and worshipful relationship with Virinia. Of course, everyone is moved by all of Spartacus friends when they stand up and claim to be Spartacus, even being crucified in his place, lining the Appian Way to Rome with their bodies.

In King of Kings, it is not turning water to wine, or walking on water, or even the resurrection of Christ that touches my soul. It’s when Jesus comes to John the Baptist in prison as a true friend would, and later sends a message that there has been none greater than John the Baptist, but that even the poorest is at least equal to John . Also the  part where Jesus is moving through the crowd and suddenly turns asking “Who touched my robe?” and a woman says “I did, in order that I might be healed.” And Jesus is moved by that.

It’s the Golden Rule, and the world isn’t such a bad place when you give it, and yourself, a chance.  

I CARRY YOUR HEART

"Every person passing through this life will unknowingly leave something and take something away. Most of this "something" cannot be seen or heard or numbered or scientifically detected or counted. It's what we leave in the minds of other people and what they leave in ours."
- Robert Fulghum

"here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)"
ee cummings

THE PSYCHIATRIST

I called him because I felt like I needed to talk to someone about my sister after she died.
He said “I’m not taking patients right now.”
I said “You mean new patients? I came to you two years ago. I wouldn't be a new patient”
And he said “No, I’m not taking ANY PATIENTS AT ALL”.
He didn't sound too good. I think he was having a breakdown.

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY HAS LEFT THE BUILDING

"Unfortunately, Rubio recognized reality and found his voice 254 days after Trump’s scabrous announcement of his candidacy to rescue America from Mexican rapists. And 222 days after Trump disparaged John McCain’s war service (“I like people that weren’t captured”). And 95 days after Trump said that maybe a protestor at his rally “should have been roughed up.” And 95 days after Trump re-tweeted that 81 percent of white murder victims are killed by blacks. (Eighty-two percent are killed by whites.) And 94 days after Trump said he supports torture “even if it doesn’t work.” And 79 days after Trump said he might have approved the internment of Japanese-Americans during World II. And 72 days after Trump proved that he does not know the nuclear triad from the “Nutcracker” ballet. And 70 days after Trump, having been praised by Vladimir Putin, reciprocated by praising the Russian murderer and dictator. And so on."
George Will

More here..."The Albatross"

YELLOW PAPARAZZI DREAMS

Mom was helping me run a bunch of errands. We went all over town. Then we stopped by the hospital to see dad. He had the Alzheimers, and they had him in a new room.
‘It’s the Reading and Writing room” mom told me. “They have found a way to teach the Alzheimer people how to read and write again”.

This was my first clue that I must be dreaming. Dad's been gone a long time 

Then we went shopping. I bought some shirts, and two pairs of pants. We went  to the grocery store.
We got home, and mom helped me put up groceries and  clean our apartment.
Then it was time to go to work. Mom was going to drive me so that she could use the car while I was at work. It was then I started to sense this was all just a dream. Mom has been gone a long time too. 
This is how my dreams of mom and dad often go. First I realize dad's not really there, then further in, I remember mom isn't either.

I wanted to ask her how it was she could help me so much when she wasn’t even really there. She died 30 years ago. But  you hate to ask a question like that in a dream, for  fear of scaring the dream away.  I didn't want to scare this dream away. I wanted to stretch it out as long as I could. So instead, as we stood there outside my car, I said
“Mom, can I ask you a question?”
“Sure Stevie”
She had on a  lavender top, with a white tennis skirt and these great, shiny patent leather yellow Go-Go boots.
She looked so great, so I said “Let me take your picture first” and she struck a pose next to my car.
I pulled out my phone, clicked on the camera, and raised it to my eye.
And  there she was... gone.

I have a lot of dreams of mom and dad. I've learned two things.

Don't ask any direct questions, and never, ever, try to take a picture.

A KITCHEN WITH A VIEW

I dreamed an old chef I worked with and I were going to cook at a restaurant he had built. His name is Paul, and I just found him on Facebook a few months back. We had only worked together for a few months back in 1977. He was a really cool guy, a few years older than I, and a Vietnam vet. That summer of 1977, I would go over to his place to play chess, and smoke pot. More than that, it was his ping pong table that Chavonne (my blind girlfriend) and I would go play on before she died. I always looked up to Paul, and wondered where he was all these years.

This restaurant was at the top of a mountain. Paul scrambled right up, but me, I’m scared of heights, and not in good enough shape to climb a mountain. Paul kept calling me to come on. He would stop and look back and I would look at how steep and high the mountain was. I kept telling him I couldn’t make it. Then I woke up.

I woke up, but just for a second. I closed my eyes and quickly fell back asleep. The dream restarted and found I’d made it up the mountain. We were standing in the kitchen. The kitchen was full of windows. You could see the valley's below, and a tiny city of lights, and all the other mountains all around, golden, purple and green. 

Paul said “See, you made it!” 

I said “There is only one way for me to make it up here, and that’s to dream it. I must be dreaming.” 

Then we made blackberry cobblers. 

I told Paul about this dream and he said for all that trouble we should have made more than just cobblers.

But like I told Paul, I think the dream was more about the view, and the fact that he lives up in Tahoe, and one day soon I'll be going to see him.

PATCH ADAMS

"All of life is a coming home. Salesmen, secretaries, coal miners, beekeepers, sword swallowers, all of us. All the restless hearts of the world, all trying to find a way home. It's hard to describe what I felt like then. Picture yourself walking for days in the driving snow; you don't even know you're walking in circles. The heaviness of your legs in the drifts, your shouts disappearing into the wind. How small you can feel, and how far away home can be. Home. The dictionary defines it as both a place of origin and a goal or destination. And the storm? The storm was all in my mind. Or as the poet Dante put it: In the middle of the journey of my life, I found myself in a dark wood, for I had lost the right path. Eventually I would find the right path, but in the most unlikely place."
Patch Adams

LITTLE BLACK SAMBO

ON A MORE PERSONAL NOTE CONCERNING BLACK HISTORY MONTH

When I was four years old this was one of my favorite books. It was a controversial book, though at the age of four I didn’t know it.
As I read it, I could look out across my backyard and across the field beyond, and see where they were building Loop 820 in 1961. Loop 820 now circles Fort Worth Texas. 

And just on the other side of Loop 820, I could see they were building a High School, Richland High School, where I would have attended had I not moved to Detroit in 1963.
Richland High School, where at the height of the Civil Rights movement, and the country still trying to understand Brown vs Board of Education, would choose a Confederate Rebel as its mascot, and the Confederate Battle Flag as its colors.
Was that a political statement, or just some coincidence, an ill-timed expression of southern heritage and pride? Or was it meant as a "STAY OUT" sign for blacks in white suburbia in 1961?

That’s the great thing about history though. It not only repeats itself, it tends to correct its wrongs as well, and in 1993 the students of Richland High School spearheaded a movement to remove the flag as an emblem of the school.
Some students said they felt uncomfortable waving the flags at football games, pep rallies and other sporting events, especially when they were the visiting team. Members of the pep squad approached the principal to make a change.
A school-wide vote was held, and the flag was removed from representing Richland High School.
Its a very interesting issue, one that continues to divide the country.

My own feeling is that I would like to give those pep squad members that went to the principal a big hug.
UPDATE 6/21/2020- Richland High today voted to eliminate the cartoonish Confederate Rebel as its mascot. the new school mascot will be voted on with the students at the start of the school year.

By the way, my copy of Little Black Samco goes for 200 bucks on Ebay.

A BELATED VALENTINE POST

I’d been divorced about a year when I ran into an old girlfriend. We went to a movie and later she asks me:

“So what’s the story with you? You’re divorced, and you spend all your money on child support, and you’ve got all this baggage, and you’ve forgotten how to be single?”

That’s a hell of a question you know?

So I said “Well, I don’t think I have any baggage”

Man, what was I talking about. Just all the dope I was doing was baggage enough. Lets say you meet a nice girl. When are you going to tell her about your little habit? That it takes a hundred bucks a week just to get you going. That she is going to be wondering where all the money is disappearing to. And all this weird unexplained insanity that is your life, where is all that coming from?

Sometimes I go to the grocery store. I see a happy couple, and they are pushing the cart together down the aisle. They are discussing whether to have the Rock Cornish Hens, or salmon for dinner. They are comparing the seven blade roast to the the pork loin, and trying to decide what is the best value. They are amazed at the price of yellow squash—“Can it really be 2.99 a pound?”—but they are laughing, smiling, happy and exchanging romantic looks as they skip on over to the family planning aisle.
It all looks so normal, so sane.

I look on, and watch them from a distance, and I’m horrified.

Could I ever get that normal? Would I want to? It’s some scary shit, man. I might could do that for a week, or a couple times a year. Could I keep that up forever?
I have my doubts.

I mean, I come home in the afternoon, I walk in the door and the first thing I do is take off my pants. I don’t plan to stop either. It’s the best part of my day, and I just don’t know if there is anyone out there that would put up with that. Even if there is, she’s probably going to want something in exchange. God only knows what. It will probably be sane, whatever it is.

And I been thinking lately about what it has looked like to be restored to sanity.

It has looked like, as the program says, not doing that first drug.

It has looked like pleasing the court seven years ago, and staying clean that first year.

It has looked like first getting my driver’s license back, and then being able to buy a truck with the money that used to go up the nose, and a REAL inspection sticker and insurance and registration.

Sanity looks like when I got my first ticket in that truck, going and paying it before it went into warrant. My whole life I’m not sure if I ever done that before.

Sanity has looked like not stealing any gas. Its looked like still being involved with NA, and becoming the treasurer for the group, and picking up a couple of sponsee’s.
Sanity looks like clean socks, empty sinks, regular meals, sleeping nights.

Sanity has looked like improved family relationships, and a couple of kids that have a dad again.

A few years back I got  upset over a girl for a while. I started going to more meetings, and that really didn’t help much , so I decided to seek professional help and went to a psychiatrist. I didn’t want to do like I did after my divorce, and spend a few years trying to figure out how to get over it.

He asked me ‘What is it you want Bulletholes?”

I said  “Doc, I just want what everyone else wants”

He said “And what is that?”

I said “You know doc, a love that lasts forever.”

I remember that one of us laughed, and one of us didn’t, and just now I cant tell you which one of us did what.

I kinda think it was him that laughed. I already told you what the odds of me keeping up a relationship forever would be.

I think back to a post I did a year after getting clean. I said all this spiritual stuff in the program was starting to scare the shit out of me. All this being restored to sanity, and coming to believe that a higher power could restore me to sanity,  and the Third Step; making decisions to include yourself and God in your own life while getting out of your own damn way. I’d have liked to disprove God, to disprove prayer when I came to the program, and the reason it was all starting to scare me was because if it was working so well in my life, practicing open mindedness, and willingness to believe in a power greater than myself, and developing a God of my own understanding, then it could only mean one thing.

That I had been wrong about everything.

That’s scary, being wrong about everything.

So, when I see these nice soft couples at the grocery store, maybe I got that all wrong too. 

The scariest part of all is that maybe someday it wont be so scary anymore.
Maybe someday I will be OK.
Maybe someday I will be OK.
Maybe someday I will be OK.

***Now that I've written this one down instead of just sharing it in an NA meeting, its not as funny as its supposed to sound. Sometimes I guess it just be's that way!

MY AWARD WINNING CHILI

AT THE BIG CHILI COOK OFF LAST WEEK

She asked me if I had put jalapeno’s in my chili.

“Is it too hot?” I asked.

“Its pretty hot” she said, and paused. “It seemed hot at first, but it’s not that hot now. Did you put jalapeno’s in it?”

“No ma’am, no jalapeno’s. But I did put white pepper, black pepper, cayenne pepper, paprika, green chili’s, crushed red chili’s, and soaked some dried ancho chile’s in some water and made a  nice ancho paste, but no, there are no jalapeno’s.”

Pro-Cooking Tip of the Day
The more types of peppers you put in a dish, the deeper and more layered the flavors will be. Not so much of any one pepper to make it hot with that pepper. It’s the cumulative effect you want.

If you don’t have any white pepper in your cabinet, go get some. Use it and the black peper together on anyvegetable. The black pepper is dark and woody…the white pepper is bright and shiny. You’ll appreciate the flavor right away.

On her second bowl, she said “It’s not really hot at all!”

WHAT DO YOU THINK WILL HAPPEN

if you pass your night
and merge it with dawn
for the sake of heart,
what do you think will happen

if the entire world
is covered with the blossoms
you have labored to plant,
what do you think will happen

if the elixir of life
that has been hidden in the dark
fills the desert and towns,
what do you think will happen

if because of
your generosity and love
a few humans find their lives,
what do you think will happen

if you pour an entire jar
filled with joyous wine
on the head of those already drunk,
what do you think will happen

go my friend
bestow your love
even on your enemies
if you touch their hearts,
what do you think will happen

.~Rumi

CROSSING TO SAFETY

"You can plan all you want to. You can lie in your morning bed and fill whole notebooks with schemes and intentions. But within a single afternoon, within hours or minutes, everything you plan and everything you have fought to make yourself can be undone as a slug is undone when salt is poured on him. And right up to the moment when you find yourself dissolving into foam you can still believe you are doing fine."
- Wallace Stegner
Crossing to Safety

A WORD FOR PITY

I am the man who spits wet clay back
into the face of God and yells, “I am weary!”
And I don’t yell it in Greek or Aramaic,
but in the dead language of Adam’s bones
from those days when he was alone, before
God made a word for pity and gave him Eve.
There wasn’t even any way to measure time
before her.
The moon meant nothing to him,
The sun meant nothing. All his senses knew
the missing shape of her. I know it… I know
how he named the taste of her, how he felt
the skin and lips and sway of her body. I know
how he could hear her voice in his mind, how
the missing smell of her was so powerful.
I know… I know he saw her in everything,
in everything… I know it because of you.
I know it and I am, God, the fuck weary.

Peregrine @ Your Eyes Blaze Out

HAVING EDUCATED MY IGNORANT WHITE ASS

 ON SOME BLACK HISTORY MONTH

Two years before the Kent State shootings was the Orangeburg Massacre, February 8, 1968.
28 were injured and 3 killed when state police on the South Carolina State University campus fired into a crowd of protesters.
For three days the protests had escalated over a segregated bowling alley, the All Star Triangle Bowl. Anyone tries to keep me out of a bowling alley is in for a fight.
Nine troopers were acquitted and Cleveland Sellers, a black activist with the SNCC, was convicted for inciting a riot. He served 7 months before being released on good behavior, and was pardoned 25 years later.
South Carolina State University's gymnasium is named in memory of the three men who were killed. A monument was erected on campus in their honor and the site has been marked. All-Star Triangle Bowl became integrated. Cleveland Sellers wrote a book.

The Nivens Laws might never have been abstracted were it not for Kent State, the first of which is:
1) Never throw shit at an armed man.
1a) Never stand next to someone who is throwing shit at an armed man.