Laural's Dish

LAURAL'S DISH

Laural is our dog, my dog. Everyone else heads off to school, "people like me and Laural" stay home. He's a fine companion, but you have to understand. If he's having a really good time he tries to bite you, me, anyone. Not hard, just…similarly, if you're scratching his belly real good, but then shift to his (apparently less preferable) ears, he'll growl at you. The irregular spelling of his name results from the time that Alexandra and I were mulling the possibilities, in a tunnel in Newton Abbot, when we came across the graffiti: Laura L is a dog.

Laural loves to eat more than any living being ever created, and he will eat absolutely anything. We've weaned him from rocks but he once tried to eat an unopened can of Carlsberg Export. surprise! So his dish frequently has unusual things in it, bits of this or that, absolute treasures that others might consider slightly unfit for human consumption, for whatever stupid reasons.

Beneath please find my literary reflection of Laural's Dish:

Laural's Dish comes out on Fridays, before lunch, usually.

29 July 2011

On Amy Winehouse

I remember being really, really drunk once back in the mid '80s (no, the fact of recollection is not itself the revelation) and commenting that "90% of the soundtrack of my life has already been written." Like most people in their mid twenties I expected to live forever, so it was more a comment…on music. Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones…what I didn't realize when I said that was that of that remaining, unseen 10%, most of it had already been written and recorded too, I just hadn't made my way there yet. So I spend a lot more time listening to Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis, Beethoven and Satie, than I do to contemporary music. Not that it's no good, just…how much do you need System of a Down or even The Pretty Reckless when you're already on intimate terms with Thin Lizzy and Nazareth?

But my glorious children range in age from 11-22, so I've heard lots of stuff coming out of their rooms, and their being my kids most of it is pretty good. I pick up on some of it, discard some relatively quickly, and keep some. Amelia was soooo into Amy Winehouse during the Back to Black craze-and Theresa, who listens to the radio, immediately brought her to my attention, and so … I'm no expert in post-1992 (the year the internet opened up the wild and incredible world of Led Zeppelin bootlegs for me) contemporary music, but over the past couple years I've listened to a lot of Amy Winehouse. She is, as Myles would say, "awesome."

My frame of reference being what it is, singers are great for one of two reasons: they're kind of like Robert Plant or Mick Jagger. Plant…man, Plant could have been Pavarotti's rival, his voice is The Gift that turns into whatever he wants it to. In his prime he could hit any note ever hit by a human, and in bizarre order as need be. But he's also great because there's this incredible emotion behind it, that he's able to pump that right at you, through and past any mic or tape or recording standard. Mick? Mick's got decent to good range, and he's got that impressive falsetto…but Mick's at least as great because at the height of his powers he made you feel like he was your best friend whispering in your ear. To paraphrase a great comment Charlie Watts made thirty years ago or so, "I hate touring. I wouldn't consider touring, except to watch Mick. He plays a stadium more intimately than whoever the next best singer in the world could play a corner table in an Italian restaurant."

Now Amy…she was a great singer and she probably had more range than Mick (but I'm readily if not accurately willing to admit probably not as much as Mariah Carey, who might be seen in this paradigm as the anti-Mick, she can hit any note anywhere, but usually sounds like she's reading it). But Amy had that same thing that Mick does, where her voice isn't a note or noise, it's bleeding. It's not her greatest number, but when Amy sings

I cheated myself,
Like I knew I would,
I told you I was trouble,
You know that I'm no good

It just fucking connects like nothing I've heard in any song heard by millions for the past…long time. The sincerity and authenticity are tragically overwhelming. She is for that moment, that girl that most of us (ok, most of us submerged in drug culture) thought we were falling madly in love with before we had any idea….maybe a couple times, if we happened to be particularly loaded, impatient, articulate and good lookin'. But the thing is, it's real . Amy was promoted and presented as a pop diva, due to her mass appeal and the general lack of interest in much else, but in artistic heart she was a jazz chanteuse. Those more knowledgeable about such things may consider it differently, but her CDs live in my stacks, in the "jazz singer" section…I pathologically organize everything…kind of renaissance, ok?, from best on down to whatever I'm willing to keep…Amy's between Nina Simone (who is #1) and Gil Scott-Heron. I'm no jazz critic, no one should pay any attention if I say she was better than Billie Holiday or Ella Fitzgerald, but she spoke more directly to me, she grooves me even more.

I said something of the sort on Facebook, and was kind of amazed at the response. They kind of generally ran "yeah, me too" to "talented but dumbass." Which leads me to Amy's greater reality as she perceived it, to our greater reality that we share.

Quite frankly, I respect both views. If you've never dealt with addiction-in person or with a loved one-there's probably little enough reason to wonder about it. Let's face it, we're faced with millions of millions of sensory perceptions per second and our very survival depends-at least to some extent-on dealing with the ones we need to deal with. But if you have ever been dealt the card…look, I'm not saying that I've ever seen anything like what Amy saw, but I'm not delusional enough to say I haven't seen at least a little bit of that corner of hell…where you feel unbearably shitty because you're in an advanced stage of destruction, and you believe, you know , you understand , that the only thing you're sure of is that the only thing that can make you feel better is more of the thing that's destroying you…I think my favorite cousin wrapped it up by suggesting that we not judge anyone "until we walk a mile in their shoes." I doubt that most of us could have got twenty yards in Amy's shoes, and we sure as hell wouldn't have made millions of people happier while we did it.

Mike Zwerin in, I think the only jazz article I've ever quoted (now, many times) broke it all down into "sway" and "funk." He used Keith Richards of all people (maybe because everyone knows his stuff) as the example-that rare example-who bridged the gap.

Listen to Amy. The sound is sway. The soul is the deepest, deepest funk. She's not singing a song, she's living, and dying, every song. A major part of that 10% has been delivered.

More than anything, Amy's death reminds me of David Kennedy. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy's fourth child. In the confusion of Bobby's assassination, David (then twelve) was left alone to watch his father's assassination on tv for twelve hours, over and over and over and over and…

After a year or so it was unusual to see David without a lit Camel in one hand, and an open can of Colt 45 malt liquor in the other. Some say he could write like magic, he dropped out of Harvard, neither of those being the point.

He never came back. He overdosed on cocaine of a purity that showed…the media speculated that he got set up, but the reality is that his dealer and most other people liked him, wanted to do him a favor, wanted to help, gave him the best shit they could find.

At his grave-side his Uncle Ted, no stranger to either eulogies or big moments, said, simply, that he hoped that David had found the peace that he'd been unable to find in this life.

So when people say that Amy-or David-when they say it was "inevitable," I don't quite believe that. They had their shot, it was always a long shot but they couldn't hit the mark. That does not make them less than me, that makes me luckier, Blessed, for not having to walk in their shoes. Can you imagine? NO!!!!!, and I can't either. Sure, I think I could have pulled out of whatever they couldn't pull out of…but you have to believe that, to go on.

As Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. wrote in Bluebeard, "Everyone who is alive is a survivor. Everyone who is dead isn't."

We're survivors. We're kickin' ass. We loved ya, Amy.

Concluding Pathosistic Postscript on Nihilism

Tolpuddle was a lot of fun. Everyone against the corporatist hegemonic internationalist state. Seeing old friends. Caught most of Billy Bragg. I have to admit that I enjoyed his commentaries more than his, some very good, songs. At various times he declared himself "a socialist and a nationalist," and "a middle-aged Clash fan." A couple nights of camping in the worst tent imaginable, it rained a little bit the first night we had ground water at the bottom forever (the site is at least very slanted)

Tolpuddle is what it is, what, I suspect, is not what it was…even fifteen years ago. I imagine then a passionate paramount of socialist/unionist thought and debate and (if you need it, to make sense) depravity. There's not really a lot of politics to it at all these days, I haven't seen anyone take a punch over doctrine and some guys even felt comfortable wearing Labour t-shirts, though this was not the case in the declining Blair/Brown (how did Brown get stuck in that? idiot) years.

So anyway it was time to go home. We loaded up and caught the shuttle to Dorchester. Now, I should explain….British train fees vary wildly and ridiculously from hour to hour, so I always buy the cheap ticket and get on whatever train I want to. I figure I can always play "the dumb American" and they won't fine me or tell me off or whatever their discretion allows…yeah, there have been occasional difficult moments in the past, but only one or two…

But on this occasion, in addition to the usual absurdity, they'd sold me tickets to and from Dorchester West, when in fact the train lands at Dorchester South (a five minute walk, Dorchester not being a metropolis). The train ride including waiting from West to South being, like two hours, by way of some place thirty miles away. So Myles and I lugged our gear to Dorchester South and confidently got on the "wrong" train home.

The ticket guy did not fail to notice this, and commented. I went into my dumb American routine, and while he didn't turn friendly he didn't take offense. But he later showed up, very smug, halfway through the ride to Castle Kerry, moaning about and informing us that our train from there (which we weren't entitled to ride anyway) had been cancelled. I thought he was bullshitting and was kind of impressed; retributional bullshitting being a rare trait in the English.

So we got off at Castle Kerry, beneath a moving neon sign announcing that the next train had been cancelled, and so the next one (the one we were supposed to be on in the first place) wouldn't arrive for three hours. Well, that sucked. And it didn't help when in response to my enquiry (note British spelling) the station master informed me that the nearest pub or off-license (American translation: liquor store) was more than a mile away.

So I figured, "fuck it! I'll go smoke this nice Cuban cigar in the no smoking area, fuck those bastards and…" but the funniest thing is, I didn't even light it. Instead I was kind of responsible and talking to Myles. And the station master comes up and goes "I'm terribly sorry about the train cancellation, I'm thinking perhaps I should arrange a taxi to Taunton…it's about an hours ride, but at least you'll get home sooner."

Naturally, I went with that. It turned out that there was one other put-out passenger, a pock-mocked teenager, who was on her phone babbling all kinds of hysterical crap about not being home soon and work the next morning….the station master did ask to see our tickets. I produced them with absolute confidence, he examined them in a similar measure of the anticipated incompetence. And so soon we were hurtling towards Taunton in a taxi cab-no doubt operated by an elderly lady relative of the station master-work that government, baby, work it! Easily a $120 cab ride.

Now, Myles does not travel well by road. He gets sick. Worse than his mother, worse than his sister. He starts going a little blue after the first few miles of any route that includes all the rural roundabouts, lots of 50 foot high hills with an old lady with her foot to the medal (no time wasted, you see?). I told them about snow on Orcas Island, then they settled into talking about horse riding. "If you ride, you will, eventually, hit the ground" the lady counselled, with an air of expertise.

So we got to Taunton 45 minutes before the next train, anyway. Myles' stomach was so upset that he didn't even want 7-Up or salty chips, so I heroically downed the Doritos alone. Took two minutes, 43 left. A train or two came and left, on the other tracks, going the other way. It fucking took forever.

Finally, we'd moved out of the waiting room, and had been waiting by the side of the track for a good fifteen minutes, the invisible announcer-who'd mainly been doing pre-recorded crap about how dangerous the world is so tell us if you see a bag without someone holding it-….finally, as we sat there at the edge of Track 2, Taunton, that voice said…."The train approaching track 2 is the 8:38 service originating from Edinburgh to Exeter, Plymouth,…." quack, quack, quack, Cornwall.

We looked. We waited. One hundred and eighty seconds, easy. Nothing. We looked as far up that track as we could, almost into infinity. "It doesn't look like the Edinburgh service," I ventured...

"No," Myles agreed, "it looks like the service from Castle Kerry."

15 July 2011

The Dish will not appear this week, though it clearly appears, kind of, due to Myles and I sharing the faith at the Tolpuddle Martyrs Festiva.

http://www.tolpuddlemartyrs.org.uk/index.php?page=2010-festival

I did, however, last week, neglect a most important photo:

Noam Chomsky

Viva la Cauza!

--as Cesar Chavez signed his letter to endorsement to presidential candidate Jerry Brown, opened by ME in 1992

8 July 2011

Warren Beatty Bruce Patti Smith

http://highschool.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1237085

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/recovery-lags-corporations-prosper-lobby-more-162514504.html

It's not that politicians haven't done anything dumb this week, or I haven't found anything to complain about; or that I'm not moved by the kid from Compton who won the free throw contest and decided to give the scholarship money to the other contestants because he figured they needed it more...several important historical events that deserve further commentary have come to my attention...yes I noticed that the neo-fascist/Defendor idiots in Indiana want to put some poor high school kid in jail for eight years on terrorism charges for putting an inflatable doll in the Men's Room...

I've been working on a huge legal paper on a case that's been running eight years now. Yeah, me against the government again. Legal writing dulls one's mind. If the emotion and power aren't half-assed, they ignore it completely. It's like a language they can't understand. Understate everything, pretend no one's lying...

...there are paradigms within which nothing can be said.

And contemporary Western culture is most of them

--Clayton Trapp, ulrike's weinglas, gudrun's violin

I'm sure that law isn't the worst, but at the moment I'm too tired to think of another one.

Look, too, I just want to say this, this week more than ever: your brain is going to pass away. Even Albert Einstein's did. In fact after like twenty years the German authorities pulled the brain of Ulrike Meinhof-one of the anti-heroes of my novel quoted above-out of the bottle they'd been keeping it in, to study it. But your Soul won't die, or recognize the limitations of a formaldehyde environment.. Feed your soul, spend as little time as possible in paradigms where nothing can be said.

Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. Sen. Bernie Sanders

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-puts-medicare-social-security-cuts-table-031442907.html

Apparently one of the other places where nothing meaningful can be said is in the no doubt wonderful and entertaining meetings of the Obama Administration. Now that he's sold out Social Security and Medicare, along with universal healthcare, peaceful diplomacy, nuclear power (to be fair, he sold that one out as the immensely preferable Candidate Obama)...there's no if about it, he will be challenged from the left. Ralph Nader-like maybe, but that's why this edition of Laural's Dish is adorned with the photos of people who would be way, way, way fucking better presidents than our traitor, Obama. Will one of you please, please PLEASE run for president... I don't think that anyone (other than Ron Paul supporters) has any enthusiasm for the current lot...and God-the hard drive that our souls feed on-knows we need one...

http://news.yahoo.com/quieter-royal-tour-heads-mixed-quebec-reception-203252592.html

...one of my best friends is from Montreal

Gary Hart Gov. Jerry Brown

Yeah ok, another glass of Scotch and twenty minutes Dish-I'm saving the good stuff on the Rosenbergs and Hemingway and Desmond Tutu until I have thoughts with less debris floating around-a film update is clearly necessary to fill things out--how about in the order of how much they made me laugh

Of course, the problem with 2012 being a wide open election is that we could end up with-and it's not unlikely- even worse:

1 July 2011

http://brucespringsteen.net/news/index.html

On Bruce Springsteen, Clarence Clemens, the Gnostics and the Great Forgetting

Among the couple of books that I'm reading right now, is Deepak Chopra's The Third Jesus. I like it a lot, I can't go along with all of it-maybe I just don't get some, but I'm grooving on it because he's hitting some high points that I recognize and had missed, and he lends credibility to himself by hitting some places that I know aren't exactly on the board, but I'd already found 'em too. Very early Deepak quotes from the recently discovered (60 years ago or so, 1945 off the top of my head) Nag Hammadi Texts, from the Gospel of Truth (still apocryphal to all organized faiths, so far as I know). This kind of got me, hit home, because I've been building the third and final part of my novel, Efforts to Cling, around the Gospel of Truth. Because they were so on to something in such a central way to my Faith, and express it with that unique ability to point so far beyond themselves that the laser light vanishes from my own ability to see it.

Here's Deepak's quote of them, and one that I've been working on comprehending and integrating, with a point towards the book but more importantly my own understanding, Faith, future, where that merges

Forgetfulness did not exist with the Father, although it existed because of him. What exists now is knowledge, which was revealed so that forgetfulness might be destroyed and that they might know the Father. Since forgetfulness existed because they did not know the Father, if they then come to know the Father, from that moment on forgetfulness will cease to exist.

and so...BAM!!!!...every problem you got is neutralized...no fear, no worry, no questions....wow, yeah. Power, THE POWER... And SO accessible. But, for me-not always, yet, not every day..

And so, in honky street talk perhaps best expressed sometimes by Brooklyners, "Forgetfulness? Fuhgettaboutit!!" We are here. God, or the spirit, or however you want to put it that works for you (and I don't find that a major issue, just finding it is the one), is here and everyplace else. As Jesus and other sages have made clear to those of us who don't get it right away, the Kingdom of God is Here, Already Upon Us. And There. It's in you already, my friend. So take it here if you want it, but if you don't it's still out there for you wherever and whenever you find it, every brother, every sister, every friend. If you don't it, it will find you.

This could, of course, remind me or anyone else of anything. But we vary in abilities to reach and, even better, score; at all, or particularly big time. Bruce Springsteen is a man who appears to be immune from the inability to rise to any moment, the bigger the better. And so, his Eulogy for The Big Man: without any question, I think, the greatest saxophone player in the history of rock and roll, so much so that I can't even think of who else might belong in the discussion. There have been many, some amount of great rock and roll bands. The E Street Band (and, God knows, not for lack of other weapons) is the only one that attacked with sax, and Clarence Clemens was that point man.

I'm no mystic, but the undertow, the mystery and power of Clarence and my friendship leads me to believe we must have stood together in other, older times, along other rivers, in other cities, in other fields, doing our modest version of God's work... work that's still unfinished. So I won't say goodbye to my brother, I'll simply say, see you in the next life, further on up the road, where we will once again pick up that work, and get it done...

SO LADIES AND GENTLEMEN... ALWAYS LAST, BUT NEVER LEAST. LET'S HEAR IT FOR THE MASTER OF DISASTER, the BIG KAHUNA, the MAN WITH A PHD IN SAXUAL HEALING, the DUKE OF PADUCAH, the KING OF THE WORLD, LOOK OUT OBAMA! THE NEXT BLACK PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES EVEN THOUGH HE'S DEAD... YOU WISH YOU COULD BE LIKE HIM BUT YOU CAN'T! LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE BIGGEST MAN YOU'VE EVER SEEN!... GIVE ME A C-L-A-R-E-N-C-E. WHAT'S THAT SPELL? CLARENCE! WHAT'S THAT SPELL? CLARENCE! WHAT'S THAT SPELL? CLARENCE! ... amen.

--Bruce Springsteen, Eulogy for Clarence Clemens

Bruce ain't gonna forget, man. And neither am I.

Amen, you got my Amen, Brother. Human Life in its finest forms lives on the Backstreets and...anything beyond that I'm not really qualified to say.

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/6/24/new_expos_reveals_nuclear_regulatory_commission

http://news.yahoo.com/nm-blaze-threatening-nuclear-lab-sparking-fires-094526882.html

It can happen here. And sooner or later it will. The only conceivable reasons for a human being with a brain in his head to continue to support nuclear power are (1) the most common one, you're an idiot, or (2) you've got banker mentality, and making so much cash from it you don't give a fuck about anyone else or the world we share.

Period.

But wait! The mystics, some mystics, say that Gaia takes care of herself, and us since we're here running interference, in mysterious ways. Who knows what disaster was averted?!!

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/nuclear-reactors-shut-down-jellyfish-105709357.html

SOLIDARITY WITH THE JELLYFISH!!!!!

http://www.newsbiscuit.com/2011/06/27/creationist-school-appears-out-of-nowhere/

This is a great piece. I wish I wrote it. In the spirit of full disclosure I must say that I consider Darwinism and Evolution somewhat different things-and agree with whichever Anthroposophist it was who wrote something like "Darwinism is like saying a hurricane hit a junkyard, and threw back a 1934 Model-T Ford." It's a good working theory, though, and I note the cite with nothing but amusement.

"Should I vote for Romney....or Obama...."

http://www.truth-out.org/brainwashing-corporate-way/1308937274

http://www.truth-out.org/32-corporations-spent-more-compensation-top-executives-2010-they-paid-income-taxes/1308748490

The Western World is entirely ready for someone...the Class War of 1980- must be repealed and reversed with a steel spike so strong that whatever it hits never recovers...prophet or demagogue will unfortunately probably be equally effective, in the electoral sense...all they have to say is this:

THE MUTHERFUCKING BANKERS AND BIG BUSINESS CREATED THE PROBLEMS!

Those mutherfuckers now have to pay for their mess. I don't, you don't and WE won't.

Instead, our governments are giving them our tax money to give themselves bonuses for cutting jobs.

Bankers and big business officially have no pensions, healthcare, or application to their courts...until they get their own sad-ass Babylon in order. As of today all assets of any company or individual beyond $10 million are frozen...WE AWAIT YOUR RESPONSE, AND WE BET IT WON'T TAKE FUCKING LONG TO STRAIGHTEN YOURSELVES OUT WHEN YOU SUFFER THE WAY YOU'VE MADE EVERYONE ELSE SUFFER, YOU GREEDY MUTHERFUCKING ASSHOLES!!!!

Prophet or demagogue or snake-oil salesman, whoever comes closest to saying that and making me believe it, has my vote in the next US and UK elections.

Archive

2010