Tibet

March the 10th is Tibet uprising day,50 years of occupation decimation and ,yes genocide by the Chinese government.The worlds response?Well, let the Dalai Lama take some photos, business is important, free trade leads to free societies. How's that working out? Besides businessmen wetting themselves to do business where the labor is cheap or free[read incarcerated} thereby taking jobs away and farming them out for bigger profit[and like anyone who has ever had enough, businesses want more}.So,China has contributed to the ecological destruction of Tibet?You cant make and omelette without breaking some eggs,eh{Stalin knew his omelettes.Or breaking things} Hey I SAW KUNDUN, I almost cried,man. Isn't that enough?...Meanwhile, the Dalai Lama tries, with the faith of a man attempting to hold back the ocean with a broom, to keep Tibetan culture alive and keep his people hopeful.In the long term,who knows?I have faith ,though, not in power of fascist thugs but in love and service. In the end, the universe is just.Sometimes,the train is a little slow arriving in the station...
Listening:Ornette Coleman Beauty is a rare thing,Philip Glass Music in Twelve parts
Reading:A biography of Maimonides ,poems of the late lamented Sohrab Sepheri

back once more,but not so fast...

a wild, tough few months.my beloved brides brother went to the other side in December,and I don't mean Republicans. I pray that the peace which was absent from his life is now found, and that he is dancing somewhere among the cosmos..My dear friend Bob passes in January,after battling cancer to a standstill. His courage and grace was of a Hemingway character, and he was,insistently, the least sentimental person I have ever known. Brave,kind,balls out hilarious, avuncular with my kids,a good great friend whom I miss each and every day...I see the mean spirited flatulent party has , after wrecking the economy and perhaps permanently destroying this countries credibility, after fleecing everyone for 28 years and calling it "patriotic',somehow, these cretins have not woken up to the simple fact that they have been exposed. The President is doing an extraordinary job, especially in light of inheriting the worst financial and diplomatic crisis since 1932...sigh...

100 years more
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The sky was green

Neon

Flashes illuminating

Smoke

Fog

Gas dust

As he fell

He turned his head

Slightly

To the left

Thought

How

The fog looked

Bathed in green

like the lights

of the high school

football field

He didn’t feel the ha rd

Cold ground

Didn’t feel the

Hole

The viscous

liquid

Oozing out

Mixing with sand

Dirt

Dew

He smelled

Something

Familiar

And thought

Is this what I smelled

When I was born

The blood

Earth

Sweat

Fear

Shit

and longed

For his mother

Her smell

Her warmth

any warmth

He was cold

the desert night

seemed eternal

It was borne

Within

A cold that was a vast

without darkness
light

or end

He saw faces

Lips moving

He couldn’t hear them

They became

Enshrouded

In the gauze of fog

As he sighed
one final time

and death shall have no dominion

Dealing with death is difficult ,the painful,literal fear, the wooden tongued,throat-rasping fear that seems to never leave. Here at home, there have been several deaths, and one, though long expected,still lingers by the barest of gossamer threads. Death is like God in this way: we attempt, poorly, to put into words something that, though elemental, we cannot possibly comprehend.We hope, many of us, that there is something that exists beyond this[and I fervently believe this to be}. The words of Aeschylus in Agamemnon come to me
" all those who learn must suffer/and even in our sleep pain that cannot rest/falls drop by drop upon the heart/until/ in our own despair/against our will/comes to us wisdom/by the Awful Grace of God."

The Captains and the Kings

Congratulations, America. You Are...The unreal expectations that rest on the shoulders of the president -elect will wear heavily, I fear. a good, decent man with an interesting mind and creative ideas, Imagine, a president who speaks in complete, intelligible sentences! Who actually understands the rule of law and that this country must abide by them. Who hopefully will close the torture camp of Guantanamo and repeal the vile,disgusting ironically[tragically] titles"patriot ACT" which is little else but an excuse for the government to do what ever the hell it wants whenever it wants to. Appoint some federal judges who might have a casual acquaintance with the constitution and the bill of rights.{The most damaging effect of the last 28 years of conservative right wing influenza is the appointments of poorly qualified,narrow minded conservatives, many evangelicals to boot, in prominent judicial roles.} Good luck, Mr president-elect,the mess you have inherited from the coup masters BUSH_CHENEY-ROVE-Gonzalez_Myers-Rumsfeld-KIssinger[yes, Hank the knife is an honored advisor to this despicable melange`} For the fist time in almost 50 years, the world is looking, excitedly, to America for some hope. It may be our last ,best chance...

Anthony Braxton, Don Byron and not fitting stereotypes

Anthony Braxton is one of the great living composers still working today. In Japan he would be classified as a Living Treasure,though in America we have American Idol and People Magazine to suit such purposes.His Body of work is so vast and breathtaking that Stravinsky comes to mind,[also for its dissonant public reaction] as a peer. His Ghost Trance music is riveting and beautiful, and Im hoping to hear the Mosaic Box very very soon....Don Byron, though not yet in Braxtons compositional league, is on his way there. Byrons' work output is varied and lovely and new, refusing to be cornered by pre-conceptions and the status quo who dig their heels in and squeal"thats not jazz!" or some such bullshit.I would love to hear Don Byron tackle Messiaens seminal Quartet for the End of Time ,his ear is such that it would alight on new variances and nuances that I have not heard Here's to two brilliant men ,unafraid of their contemporaries squawking,who have hewed a path strewn with beauty and edge. I, for one, am most grateful...

Bob Dylan

Well, Dylan has a new album out.Time was, this was huge.For music lovers, it is still. The headline reviews are typical"Dylans Times they are a changin" " a new wind blows",etc, as if this man has not written anything since Blonde on Blonde. If you haven listened, you're missing some of the most beautiful ,vital music of the last 40 years. Love and Theft, Modern Times and now this Tell Tale Signs, which is nothing short of a history of American roots music. Everyone is shocked at Dylans' brilliance on his Theme Time Radio Hour, as though he was a typical airhead rocker. The man is a literal true autodidact genius. It comes forth on this brilliant two cd set[three if you have the $100 bucks for the deluxe version, thanks Columbia/Sony}...Mississippi is worth the price, alone. Nearly a third of the cuts are from Oh mercy, an album with which Dylan has repeatedly expressed disappointment. Included is a cut from the Civil War movie Gods and generals, and some recent live music. Every time this man puts forth a new album, it is invariably posited that "this is his best work since Blood on the Tracks." This time ,they are correct...

What I believe

....I believe in love, as trite as that sounds. I believe that Jesus of Nazareth showed everyone how to live, and serve.I believe that there is no "correct" religion, that in the end, as our friends say"There Is No God But God."I believe in laughter,music,poetry,dancing,in loud happy neon colors to celebrate this passage,that the humble devotion of anyone trumps any "priestly " pronouncements, I believe that we in the West have lost our idea of the sacred,which explains "new age" philosophies. I believe any belief system that does not lead to service and helping anyone anywhere at any time is ultimately and simply fashion.I believe that the four great things America has given the word are:Jazz,Baseball, The constitution and Alcoholics Anonymous.I believe that everyone should be treated absolutely equal, for this is how the Creator made us, and that we should leave people the hell alone. I believe the last politician worth his salt who ran for president was George McGovern,and look what happened to him. I believe that we are all children of God, and that we are all bastards and God loves us anyway. and I believe that Grace Trumps[to quote Will D Campbell}I believe that we are simply stewards of this planet, and we better get our act together, and damned quick.And, I end where I began, Love and Mercy and Compassion conquer all...