Not close, but closer

As my first child moved through her terrible-always years, I learned to keep an ear out for some sort of trouble as the ear is the minimum volume (according to ancient Jewish law) required to allow one to answer, later, “yes I was watching him!” If one heard a commotion or saw an incoming herd of wilda-kids, the natural fear of every caregiver lies in which child screams first and what the first word out of his or her mouth is. A parent knows that when, in moments of stress, a child inhales so very deeply, the resultant sound is not a “voice” per se, but more an emanation of the soul, expressing the identity of the one who is most “something” of whatever something the moment is. So that’s the expected blame name.

Deep breath, parents cringe…

“Billy Smith--” (most parents relax but from the back we hear ahhhhh….dammitgodamnkid)

And every other parent then goes back to whatever was being done previous.

 As a more supposed grown-up (and I’m not sure where to place the “more” in that first part), I start to realize that I feel the same way when I watch the TV news, and I cringe. I await that first sensory input – the graphic, the image, the sound of a name whatever it is, as the identity of the primary person/place/thing/idea (heretofore to be referred to as “noun” if I find reason to use this exact same combination of idea again, which seems a mark of lazy writing more than anything so I’m not jumping on that bandwagon, no siree bob. So maybe we could say that “noun” needn’t refer to the specific order and combination of the elements, but even, individually, the elements, themselves. So we can accept that, in our use, a “noun” is a person, place, thing, or idea) which will determine the course of life for the indeterminate future. If I, as a Jew, and Zionist, and Libertarian, and anti-social isolationist (not like them social isolationists who go to all those damned conventions, not a chance. I’m rolling seven the hard way, all the way, baby!) among other identity markers, hears the identifying info which invariably leads off the story it scans through the identity “folder” in its psyche and see if it has been triggered to respond (physically, emotionally, psychologically etc). If it hasn’t then life goes on. Sit with any one who is in an oppressed minority group (by ANY standard…just play along) and watch as the group responds to news casts. Trust me, on any given Tuesday, and even moreso today, when the news starts and the rich Baritone over the wireless delivers, you anticipate with anticipation the newsiest of the news: “Is this about to be about me in any way?” Tension fills as people strain to find out "who was the victim" and more importantly, "did one of us do something that I'm going to have to answer for?"

Then you hear “Our top story (pause for a really long, emotionally taxing split second) “A left-handed Latino gang member was—” OK whatever. I checked and I am none of those now below not above. But had the top story started with “Our top story, Isra-“ (aaaaaahhhhhhhdammit) you would have yelled and known that now you have to pay just that much more attention to the headline news junk and adulting stuff. Which by the way sucks. And maybe the news story is some sort of good news but when was the last time that any media outlet led with good news? You could marry the Korea couple, named “North” and “South”, to the Vietnam couple, also named…um…look at that, ALSO named “North” and…um…yeah and drink a toast in Times Square but John Quincy Public (that’s his real name. Go look it up. John Q. Public, the ubiquitous nickname given to the mass of commoners who populate this great land. I’ll wait…go, check on me I DARE YOU……..did he go? HA! Made Ya Look! God you are soooooo stupid you really went to check on that crackhead story I made up? God, I shoulda made a wiki page onna internet so that if you looked it up, my real page would come up and you’d think that you found corroboration even though all you’d be finding is me agreeing with myself. As I am wont to do. And rightly so. Dork.) wants its pound of fresh so local gets a quick top billing and then the cream puff. No, the first moment is all that matters so cough up the blood, bub.

“Japanese mafioso ran-“ and you breathe again and now if that nice man wants to talk about some big bunch of alcoholics in the streets of Manhattan celebrating the happy nuptials of two sets of siblings in the Far East or something. You’re not involved. Now, yeah, maybe they ran a marathon but I think the lede expects and demands (rightly so) that they ran a mok, and I still don’t care because it ain’t me, babe.

But when I see on the screen over the shoulder of some guy in a suit or some other whatever that word is…uuuu..Gander! Yeah that’s it Yeah, I want to be gander inclusive but I don’t want to take a gander for granted. So well anyway, I go back and say, when I see that whatever wearing that whatever and next to that there’s like a box thing usually in the corner and it has like some sort of indication of the name or, um, topic or maybe like  a picture, you know that corner box thing. Oh shut up…you know. Anyway, if that comes up as just even the colors blue and white I have already lost hope in my immediate future. But maybe, you say, that blue and white was not about Israel and I look at your innocence sweetly and watch it collapse when I explain, “it’s always about Israel”. Seriously, is there another news story which is on the publix radar so much so that those two colors alone could signal anything? Did I not hear of some grand statement by the governments of Honduras, Finland, Greece, Micronesia, Somalia during which their representatives wore pins which are known to be a symbol of opposition to the Russian invasion of Ukraine? (Did you remember that that was a question? No. You. Did. Not.) No way, I say. Blue and white and I’m triggered with fright. Yes not the best slogan but in Yiddish it rhymes. What? In English it rhymes too? Yeah yeah phhooo on your English. No poetry in it. Listen to me – in Yiddish, it rhyyyyyyyyymes. Like a flower it does. What? No THAT does NOT rhyme in yi- just shhhh. So those colors, we all know what they mean and the rest is just computing and compiling damage reports and assigning either escape pods, suicide pills, or the extra special goddam FIREpower that we’d had stolen earlier this chapter! Awesome. But yeah, those colors, some meaning and any attention is worse than none, every time, every day, every chicken. That’s how that saying started. You know the saying “Every time, every day”? Yeah, sure you do, all the kids are doin’ it. It’s the latest thing. Wanna be cooooool, dontcha, daddio? So yeah, that saying originally was “every time, every day, every chicken” until they stopped saying that. That’s the god’s honest truth and I heard it at a panel I was on at the rec center with a guy who had two years’ of college tuition under his belt. So there’s that. Fact.

Thus and thusly engrained in each of us is a series of (potentially overlapping and potentially mutually exclusive) identity bubbles as it were (or might even be) and our self awareness (or at least perception and self perception, or maybe at most) of each and every (and implications resultant) bubble self in relation to self and each and every other. All the time maybe we call it psyche or mind. It is the essence of that “knowledge” acquired by repeated readings of biblical text about how we acquire that knowledge. That awareness allows the rainbow of emotions of colors and collars and killers and hews all the way to huge which wasn’t even on the same page. So you want happy we got happy. You wants a shade less? We can do that. For you. Today. Are we signing? Do I love the people? Are we signing? Did you sign? Here, use mine – and you know, keep the pen. No reason not to, amirite?

The mind channels the inputs, helps us reconcile the expressions of reaction of each of the identity bits, how far and hard we are driven is at least partly if not totally or more so, um. “ly” a function of how irritated into reacting we are by exposure to some sort of input. The mind can create a new spectrum which might range from

Instantly love ohmigodohmygod this song is now my life I have already seen her in concert twice since yesterday

Learn to love. Spin it again. Now if you start to really listen. No man shut up really NO shut UP I just want to hear the music I put my money in I put my money in. Yeah. I could grow to like this. It’s growing on me which makes sense because I DID predict that this was gonna grow on me and so yeah.

As bland and as neutral as [is there any metaphor anywhere, of any sort that couldn’t possibly offend SOME actually (past present or future) potentially, or cosmically or cosmetically lost in the celestial globe seen from super lunar orbit, the now frozen paddies freshly ancient on the surface

 

Ok let’s hold here. I was trying to get across the idea for a story about the cow who decided to jump over the moon, you know, the historical one, and what motivated him and yeah, maybe I fancied it up a bit, but I think I stayed true to the story. In general. Nut, yeah, this cow he does his one act of defiance by placing his dung, his “flops, his “cow paddies” on the surface of the moon as he passes over it and it is flash but no bang frozen in the vacuum of space so now when later astrodudes come a crawling, and they strart picking a rocka and a rolla it somewhere it can be properly anal yzed even before it is analyzed and yes, I know that that was childish but it was really fun for me so suck it (h/t Psych best show EVER). Or on a different note, maybe it devalues our fascination with the rocks in space. We know nothing of them. Any one of them could be a being, a bomb or a ball of crap, no? But no the public says, give us samples and reports minerals and cinema and cereals and serials and surrealists on top. So why does big NASA (geez what a pompous name NASA. National? Like Duh. What are gonna do? Forever just AVOID flying over ____ because legally that guy could collect if the judge was in a particular mood and you know the judge and I hear he cut back on the drinkee drinkee so this would not be good for if he were to regain memory of the evening in question do you know What I’m explaining here?) keep pushing rockets without letting the flames be used to drive an incinerator which could instantly vaporize tons of refuse in and underground facility. We sneak in, Just us. Yeah, we knew that ultimately it would be just us. Charlie Team. Why do we keep firing off rockets ships and space ships and space rockets and now I think I finally understand the deeper meanings of “spacely sprockets” or even just to accept sublimely that there ARE deeper levels for that, too, is a level.

 

Looking back I see that this tangent’s tangent developed while I was establishing a musical response spectrum. If I wrote that much for that one I’d best stop before I get any where near

 

Play it to death

 

And there are layers upon layers of other truths and memories and experiences in this xanadus of swirling and lingering while being , the beating heart of being. And I’d have to bend over easy to remember what I was getting at outside the parentheses and verse visa. And this is where the truth lies and other wise. If I forgot me from above and have no mem’ry extant or otherwise and I haven’t the faintest of why I sat to write. I could scroll up and reacquaint me with myself though I might not recognize what I see. So maybe I’ll just leave it all as is and walk away because deep down inside is empty.

And I could go for a granola bar or something. Then bed. Def bed.