Sometimes Time May Not Be an ALLY

 I FEAR I MAY BE LOSING ACCESS TO MY BLOG.

Waiting Is the Hardest Part

 I am waiting for a new political movement in the USA. The movement will be lead by a young, charismatic leader who is not connected to either of the archaic political parties that exist today. The movement I am waiting for will not hold itself and the country hostage to an ideology. It will be joined by independent thinking citizens who are focused on sensible, pragmatic solutions to problems we all share. Leaders of this movement will apply a term from my childhood - the art of compromise. I am 75 years old so I hope I won’t have to wait much longer.

I Never Get Any Good Mail

No good mail, no good wishes

No mail box of Cherry Berry’s chocolate kisses

No checks, no refunds brought to me by snail

All I get is an endless supply of useless junk mail 

Why doesn’t the mail carrier just put it in my garbage can?

Why do they need me to do it? I’m just the middle man.

Better yet, how do I automatically send it back to where it’s already been

So somebody else can put it in their recycle bin.

Eating from the Same Plate

I wonder what and I wonder who

Could ever unite the Red and the Blue.

I’ve lived in a sea of Red and I’ve lived in a sea of Blue.

I know people on both sides who

are good and some who are bad, too.

In many ways it doesn’t matter if we are Red or if we are Blue. 

We all love our families and we all love our friends 

We all help our neighbors and

we’ve all worked hard for the money we spend

None of us feel good about the feelings of hate

Cause in reality we are just eating from different sides of the same plate.

Let’s not be duped. Let’s not be conned

By the screens that we watch that profit by leading us on.

There’s lots money made by buying and selling hate

I hope we remember who we are before it’s too late.

An Atheist’s Anathema

I believe in Jesus

I believe in Buddha, too

I believe in Lord Krishna 

I believe in Lao Tzu

I believe in the Bible 

I believe in the Koran

I’d believe in the Upanishads

If I could ever understand 

I believe in Confucius

I believe in Shinto 

I even believe in the preachers who rant on the radio

I believe in Jehovah

But please accept my apology 

Cause I can’t make myself believe in Scientology 

I believe most religions sense the same reality 

That all of us are so much more than any of us can see.

I believe in Jesus 

I believe in Buddha too

I believe in Lord Krishna 

I believe in Lao Tzu

They all seem to know and share a similar intuition.

You gotta look deep inside to resolve the human condition

My Cousin R.I.'s Nose

R.I.* and I were very close friends when we were children. Many decades have passed but, a glimmer of that childhood connection remains. We occasionally see each other on holidays or at other family gatherings. We usually talk about basketball teams. Once or twice over the past forty years we have talked a little about his ongoing struggle with alcohol. Not long along I heard that R.I. had a life-threatening emergency that involved an uncontrollable nose bleed. I called him on the phone to find out what happened. The circumstance was not funny but, his unique way of telling the story was certainly funny to me. After a couple of basketball comments I said, "So. R.I., how's your nose?" He offered the following detailed response which I have attempted to capture verbatim. WARNING: If you are offended by profane language, stop reading this now (and by all means avoid my cousin R.I.).

You won’t believe this shit but my goddam nose started bleedin' like a water faucet so my wife had to drive my ass to the emergency room. When I got to the hospital they stuffed my fuckin’ nose with a bunch of gauze shit. I mean they must a stuffed three yards of that shit up my muther fuckin' nose - both fuckin' nostrils. So I had to lay there with this shit stuffed up my nose for 24 hours before they came back to take it out. But when they took it out, they didn't take it out of my muther fuckin' nose. The bastards pulled it out my muther fuckin' mouth. They stuck some metal thing in my mouth and then they pulled this nasty three yards of shit through my muther fuckin' mouth. I thought I was gonna puke. So at that point, I thought at least the assholes had fixed my muther fuckin' nose bleed and I was gettin' ready to go home. Then what the fuck! My muther fuckin' nose starts bleedin' like a faucet, again. This time the doctors stuff it up with another three yards of that shitty gauze but, then they tell me that they are gonna need to fix my goddam nose surgically. So then I just wait in this boring ass hospital bed for three or four days while these dumb muther fuckers try to figure out what the fuck they're doin’ and how they can make the most money doin’ it. Finally, a doctor comes in and says, "Sir, we're gonna have to cut an incision across your face, around your eye brow, and down the side of your head. It will leave a significant scar." I said, "Fuck! I don't give a shit about a muther fuckin' scar but, I want to know what time are you gonna operate ‘cause I have been lyin’ here for days goin’ crazy. You people have just been makin' me wait around like my time don't make any fuckin' difference. Well, time does matter to me so I wanna know what time are you gonna operate?" So the fuckin’ doctor says, "Sir, we will schedule the surgery for tomorrow." I said, "What fuckin' time tomorrow?" The doctor says, "In the afternoon." I say, "What's 'afternoon' mean to you because to me it's between 12:00 PM and 5:00 PM." The asshole says, "Yes, that sounds about right." I said, "I want you to tell me what fuckin’ HOUR you’re gonna operate and if you don't come within one HOUR of that time I'm gonna walk my ass right out of here." The asshole doctor says, "I'm sorry but, if you leave, Sir, your insurance won't pay for any of this." At that point I just stared at that muther fucker and said, "I sure as hell hope you don't think I'm gonna pay for any of this shit." So finally the muther fucker agrees to show up on time. I went outside to smoke a cigarette and think about whether I was gonna have this fuckin’ surgery or not. I decided I didn't really have any muther fuckin' choice. So they operated. They cut this big ass incision on my face and then moved my muther fuckin' eyeball over to one side so they could stick some big ass prong inside my muther fuckin' head to seal off the vein that was bleedin'. But they could only seal off one end of a vein that was bleedin' and couldn't reach the other end.

So they had to cut a muther fuckin' hole in my groin and stick some wire all the way up into my muther fuckin' head to seal off the other end of the vein. I still can’t believe it but, the goddamn thing worked. I don't know why they had to cut a new hole in my groin right next to my asshole which they could've used. After the whole thing was over I kept wishin’ that the muther fuckin' doctor had to stick the wire up his own fuckin' groin to get it into my head.

To my knowledge, R.I. has not had another nose bleed since the surgery. I may send him three or four yards of gauze just in case. *Lots of people in my family, besides R.I., use initials rather than complete names. We have had A.W, J.O., J.J., J.D., and O.D. (No, O.D. did not die from an Over Dose.)

Time Really Is an Ally

The day before the Presidential election in November I wrote a conciliatory message to my friends and family who support Trump. However, following the riots on January 6, 2021 I no longer felt so magnanimous about Trump supporters so I deleted the message.

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Right now, it appears that most of us have survived the pandemic. All of the people close to me are vaccinated except grandson, Finn who is still too young to be eligible for the vaccine. 

 

The speed with which this vaccination process has occurred is further evidence that time really is an ally. 

 

However, about this time last year I made some grandiose predictions about what we might learn from the pandemic. I thought we might gain a greater awareness of how interconnected all of us are on planet Earth. I thought we might learn how to transcend cultural barriers that impede the kind of collaboration that is necessary to solve global threats to our existence. I thought individuals and governments around the world might be inspired to work together in mutual self-interest. I was wrong about almost all of that. Instead of transcending cultural barriers we have continued to reinforce some of the worst examples. 

 

Yet, time remains an ally and the pandemic has inspired some brilliant glimmers of the upside of human nature. The most significant example is the collaboration of governments and Big Pharma to create, test, approve, and distribute vaccines that give us more time to self-correct before the next challenge to our evolution. 

Time by The Chamber Brothers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsBwBct0_5U