April 2007

when you live in the desert, you try to get out whenever you can.

as per our usual weekly arrangement, i accompanied my lovely wife on her ride down to acting practice on tuesday night. (and by “accompanied,” of course i mean i drove the hour-plus ride and she took a lovely nap in the passenger seat.) matt wertz came on, track three of my latest mix, singing “yesterday morning.” great song, yes, but it was the timbre of the tune that teleported me, sent me back to my college days — that familiar nostalgic jangle of acoustic guitar pop/rock that was all the rage some 4-8 years ago. the noises coming from my stereo just
sounded like college, if that makes any sense.

instantly i was 18, a guitar neophyte, learning hammer-ons and new chords, and volunteering to work with the high-schoolers at a local church. i was full of life, full of new knowledge from stimulating university classes, and, to be honest, pretty full of myself (some things just don’t change, i guess). i was living at home with my parents, and friends wth all sorts of people that i no longer talk to… not on purpose; it just, happens.

i was reliving my experiences, but something wasn’t right. something wasn’t the same. something had changed.

the answer came out of nowhere, like an email, from the aether — it was me.

in these years that separate the me of then from the me of now, the sound hasn’t changed, but i have.

i realized then that i’m not much different from the earth upon which i live. all around me, as i drove, were rolling hills, made of dust and silt and compound organic matter-type things, forming layers upon layers as time rolls on. the earth never stays the same, ever. winds blow, storms come, things die, things are born; the earth is stretched in constant tension between death and rebirth, and we’re just the same.

the music — wertz’s song was recorded in early 2001, the end of my sophomore year of college — hasn’t changed. it’s fixed, static, recorded, done.

but i’m not.

layer upon layer of dirt, of silt — blankets of life and death — are constantly laid upon us as we get older. in many ways, we’ll never be free in the sense that we were “back then.” concerns and troubles seem to plague us as we age; more is added to more, and we cannot shed our experiences like a winter coat in springtime. the heaviness of life is battering ram, juggling act, and weightlifting contest, and the intensity of the game never seems to slacken.

i wonder if becoming an adult just means somehow learning to live with the weight of all this… gravity.

is there a point at which the brightness of a human soul can be completely eclipsed by its own darkness? a juncture where the forks in life’s road no longer lead to white or black, but only to black or blacker?

i recently saw “The Guardian” — in the first scenes, the coast guard is attempting to rescue a husband and wife who are stranded in the ocean. the rescuers descend and in the trauma and panic of self-preservation, the husband is literally drowning his own wife trying to stay above the waterline.

can a person be so desperate, so livingly dead, that they will attempt to steal the light of another simply to feel some life? can someone actually live themselves all out of Life to a point where they aren’t really living anymore at all?

i pretty seriously believe that we all exist in the tension between darkness, gravity, and brokenness that pulls us down — actually encourages regression — and the light that lifts us sunward.

but is there a point in the human journey where, by the wretchedness of our own choices, the soul can become so black, so filthy, that it really cannot be good anymore?

i don’t know if i believe this or not. i want to believe that no matter where you are, you can change.

but it certainly would explain the whole “hitler” thing.

i’ve recently been served with papers that could lead to an eventual lawsuit/court-thing of some kind, for things that are, frankly, not true. i want to believe that good, that rightness, will win out. i am hoping. but amidst my hope, i find a great deal of concern for the person (a man i worked with — was friends with, actually — for a whole year of my life) who instigated this trouble.

as you might expect, he’s a rather disagreeable person, with not many friends or even family. not many saw light in him, but i did. i noticed shards of light that would poke through the woefully fucked up exterior. not often, to be sure, but every once in a while.

is it possible you put out the flicker?

my in-laws were in town last weekend.

i know that can mean instant, just-add-water Hell for some, but fortunately, the gods of laws were kind to me, as mine are truly wonderful, fun people.

we all went to a broadcast taping of Real Time with Bill Maher, because my uncle-in-law, or something, is an executive-type producer on the show. before that, i knew about Bill Maher like i know about China, or about Space Travel, like a textbook: “He hates religion.” “He sleeps with lots of women.” “He’s an asshole.”

it’s an angry, opinionated textbook.

a great many things fascinated me about the experience, but what really got my attention is what the whole thing really is.

in my politically naive opinion, what bill & crew have done is, throughout their years on the air, manufactured an insular canopy of liberal self-righteousness. then, once accomplished, they stack their Guest Deck with two like-minded democratic quasi-Theorists and a lone self-flagellating masochistic Republican. once the performers are in place, they then invite a group of general public Left-Wingers to watch the hysterics.

but mostly, we just gather to stone the Republican.

it’s a bit like “civilized” gladiatordom, actually.

i don’t want to be mistaken; i truly enjoyed my time there. it was, dare i say, refreshing to hear some meaningful conversation about global political issues, even if everything that came out of “their” mouths was slanted to an caricatured, nearly comedic level. debate that carries the potential to incite change — for the good — will always have my full support.

but what next, guys? is there good resulting from the interminable debate?