Yeah? Well, I love him too, but...

I suppose the death of Michael Jackson demands a big, public funeral such as the one we've witnessed, just by the nature of who he was and what he did, but I can't help but feel that this is so much a production and though necessary, it kind of takes away from the man.

I imagine that last week everybody in Hollywood was running around, A Mighty Wind-style, on their cell phones with their agents and managers trying to figure out how they could "get in on this" event, no doubt causing the delay and growth from the original service at Neverland Ranch to the current one at the Staples Center. Replace the fictional G-list celebrities with A-List real ones. Among the contrivances, Mariah Carey, at the end of her performance, whispered "we miss you" and I don't think I've ever heard emptier words exit her mouth - and I'm talking about Mariah Carey here. I understand she was ultimately just expressing everyone's feelings, but still - maybe if she hadn't whispered it. It felt so contrived.

I know it couldn't be, but in a respectful and compassionate world, it should have been a small private ceremony in Gary, Indiana, where he was born and raised. It should have been private, because Jackson never enjoyed a single, solitary moment of privacy. He was born in a room full of doctors, nurses, and his parents. He came home to a house with six siblings, which later grew to eight. With no privacy at home, he was thrust onto stage and into public life at age ten. From that moment to this one, he has never been able to have the privacy that so many of us take for granted. Yet in the midst of this lack of privacy, it was noted by a very smart person, he clearly suffered tremendous loneliness.

Undoubtedly, this, and a lack of childhood, led to the events that caused him to be accused of inappropriate contact with children along with the eccentricities we have come to witness from him. And for these reasons, and for all he did for us, we should grant him one moment of private interaction with those he loved and who loved him - I refer to his family (excluding his father) and true friends.

This, before he receives eternal privacy.

Et in Arcadia Ego...

What do you do when you see a ghost? What do you do when you become one?

I saw my father this morning. The man who created me 32 years ago and left me (and everyone else) 23 years ago showed himself this morning. I see him often, actually, but normally he looks fuzzy; his features seeming to blend into those of my mother. This morning, he was crystal clear. As I pushed into my cheeks, I saw his respond under the pressure of my finger. I saw the mouth that spit on the inside of the car window when I was a child - the eyes that stared at the television as I jumped on his back - the nose that took its last breath in a hospital bed in Flushing, New York, in September 1986, alone.

He's haunted me for 23 years, and today was no less. I stared at his clear form as I washed my face. Sometimes he's not a ghost. Most times he's a shadow. A father's shadow never fades. Never lessens. It only grows. The more you do, the more you realize that you can't do enough. The more disappointment you find. The more failure becomes every option. And this morning he stared at me. He pleaded with me to live up to his dreams. I now realize, all of my dreams are his.

The plaque that bears his name where he rests, is a sign in my mind; a memento mori. It reminds me that nothing that I can do will suffice. And, no matter how successful I may become in the eyes of this world, his future and present will beckon me.

Non Sequitur(s) on Death... (Or, Death and the Spider)

What is it about death? Is it really that painful? Scary? It certainly is unwelcome by most of us, but can it really be that bad, if all of us have to eventually do it?

Well, what does one have to do with the other? That is, what does the fact that we all have to die, have to do with whether or not it is as bad as many of us believe it will be?

I don't know. But it seems like there is something there to be mined.

Last night, I saw a jumping spider on my stove and I debated whether or not I should kill it. I ultimately decided not to, because I don't generally like killing things just because they scare me, or gross me out, or inconvenience me in some other cosmetic way. I do make an exception to this for house centipedes though. Anyway, only if something is a real threat, will I deem it necessary to kill it - roaches (disease), mice and rats, (bites, disease), large spiders and insects (bites). Flies, small spiders, and anything else I can "catch and release", usually get just that - caught and released.

So, as I mentioned, I decided it wasn't necessary to kill the spider, and since spiders kill other insects, I may even be serving a purpose by letting it live. Besides, how would I like it if I were minding my business and a giant napkin squashed the life out of me and flushed me down the toilet or threw me in a trashcan. Any conscious part of me after that would likely think I had lived a pretty useless and meaningless existence if something else could so casually kill me without a second thought. Then my life meant nothing. So, I tapped the stove, which I knew would startle it and cause it to run off and hide. It did. I was pleased.

Not too long after, I hear my girlfriend pounding on the kitchen counter (I was in bed). "What are you doing?" I asked with all the innocence of a toddler about to enter a crime scene. "Trying to kill this jumping spider" she replied. "I got it!" she celebrated. I wasn't as celebratory, but I didn't tell her that.

For a second, I hated that spider for it's stupidity. I thought "You idiot! I spared your life, only so you could return to the scene of the crime to be killed less than an hour later!! Maybe it was your time, and maybe you deserved it." But my second thought was "What was I trying to spare this spider from?" Spiders live in a life and death struggle everyday. They know the risks of their lives better than anyone else. Everytime they face off with a mantis or have a run-in with a predatory bird, they are reminded soundly of the deadly struggles of life (if they survive these encounters).

(And here's the non sequitur part, because on the surface, what I'm about to say has nothing to do with what I just said, but somehow - for me - they're connected - I haven't found the exact connection though - but I'm looking...)

So why are we any different? Are we any different? Somehow the death of that spider has led me to the conclusion that death is probably not all that bad, or, if it is, life is meaningless anyway, so who cares?

If life is meaningless what do I care if I go to work, get paid, have a child, rob a bank, kick a cat, or whatever? Therein, lies a paradox, because I do care (to some degree) about those things. Some, more than others, but I care, nonetheless. But I care within the context of knowing (for me) that these things are all ultimately meaningless, and it is something I've struggled with since I became an atheist (or Adeist - if you've read my earlier article).

It doesn't bother me that everything is pointless. Rather, it bothers me that everything is pointless and that I'm here anyway. Because, why? Why be here at all then? I find some peace in the idea that I'm just one of the many processes in the Universe - a flail - if you will, but ultimately, pointless or not, life is damn enjoyable. Why have it to lose it? I suppose if I had a gambler's outlook on life this idea would suffice, but I don't and it doesn't.

I'm in no hurry to leave life (at least not yet), but I have to wonder what the point is.

There's really no ending to this post and there's not much within it that one could connect (without being in my head). Just some thoughts that are somehow and for some reason conflated within me and had to get them out...

32... more musings...

32.

I can honestly say I never thought I'd see a black president in my lifetime, and projecting, based on my current health and lifestyle, I should live until at least 2060. So, it makes me happy to see it at 32. I don't know that Barack Obama's election will mean anything for me practically, but symbolically, it means a whole hell of a fucking lot.

Hooray for black elitist, terrorist sympathizing, bleeding heart Muslim socialist liberals with western leadership ambition everywhere!!!!!!!

*--------------------------------------------------------*

I stared at myself in the mirror this morning, expressionless, for about 10 minutes. I do this almost every morning, and sometimes for a lot longer. I can see the age. No real wrinkles, no bags under the eyes, but some added weight in the chin and jowl areas. Why aren't there exercises you can do for the face? Actually, I don't look too different from the photo at the top/right of this page - just slightly. But it's enough to tell me that I need to do something now to slow this gain. I already have a big head, I don't need a fat face to accentuate it.

*--------------------------------------------------------*

I've been told that photographers take photographs, but I am determined to defeat this absurd stereotype. Where is is it written that a photographer does anything relating to photography?

I haven't truly done my own photography for several years now. I only pick up my camera now if someone pays me to (Like my upcoming project with the Cleveland Public Theater). True, it's been because of the expense, not the desire. My professional jobs don't yet pay me enough to shoot when I'm not on a professional job, and those jobs are few and far in between - especially these days. My temp job doesn't leave me the time (I'm temp, but full-time). So do I continue referring to myself as a photographer? I haven't done my own personal art project in at LEAST 3 years. You wouldn't go around calling yourself a taxi driver in the present tense if you hadn't driven a taxi in three years, whether by choice or not.

I continue to call myself a photographer, but I'm just clinging to something in my past at this point - it seems. If I had the money to pick up my camera again I would, but until then...

So, now what? Go digital. It's cheaper, they say. Well, not to start. All of that upgrading to professional digital is expensive. A low-end professional quality digital camera is around $1000. That's before printers and software and lights, etc. Don't forget the scans of the majority of my film to high-res digital files. So now I need a scanner too.

Sigh...

*--------------------------------------------------------*

My death has been my primary concern since my father's funeral in 1986. Preoccupied, would you say? Obsessed, even? Many of my sketches up to about age 25 have pages and pages of tombstones in the wilderness. I hope that when I die, it's of natural causes, and I just happen to be sitting on a tree-covered hill overlooking some other tree-covered hills, bisected by a river. Bear Mountain in New York State comes to mind.

I hope no one ever finds me and I can just decay in the open wilderness, nature reclaiming me to her bosom. I don't know how long that would take, but I would hope no one would find that area until I was completely dust. I like to imagine that my spirit would wander the hills and forests of New York and New England for eternity. Even if God exists, I can't imagine he can tell or show me anything more beautiful than that. If he does exist, I hope that he consigns me to that fate which I have just described. The only other thing I would be interested in is knowing the mysteries of the universe, and being able to travel to and experience them. Black holes, wormholes, nebulae, etc., etc., etc.

Maybe we could strike a deal where I get to go anywhere in the universe I want, but when on Earth, I am restricted to New York and New England.

*--------------------------------------------------------*

I talked with my mother by phone today, and, as has become the case lately with her, I feel better about everything. In the past, she's always found someway (even if not purposefully) to make me feel like complete shit after talking to her - even when we started on a good note. I always joke that my relationship with my mother is not unlike a Jewish mother and son (or, even daughter). My fiancee' thought I was insane when she first heard me say that. After spending some time around my mother and myself, she quickly came to see the merits of my position.

My mother, who lives in New York, has (without my prompting) let me off the hook of traveling to North Carolina to see my grandmother on Thanksgiving. I don't say "let me off the hook" in the sense that I didn't want to go. In fact, I would love nothing more. I say that, to mean, I can't at all afford it, and my mother allowed me to not feel guilty for that. She has no idea how much I appreciate that. I may still go to NY now, to see her, but I won't have the added expense of driving to NC.

Little as it may be, the gesture goes a long way in helping me deal with so many of the neuroses she caused in the first place.

Thanks mom.

(I guess this last one was neither a musing nor amusing) :)

*--------------------------------------------------------*

I don't like being 32. I like it less than 31, which I liked less than 30. 29 was OK. 28 was optimal. It wasn't the best time of my life, but I had two years before 30, so it still felt kinda distant. 29 was alright, but it was just a whole year of waiting to be 30.

It's narcissism; not about looks, but about accomplishment. I want to be young forever, because as long as I'm young, it's not too late.

Feets, don't fail me now!