Returning to Mother India

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I’ve traveled all over the world during the past twenty or so years and I’ve been to more than my fair share of places. And some places, most definitely, are easier to travel to than others. Europe is a piece of cake (even Southern Italy with all its disorder and rampant corruption is a snap). Japan, Thailand, Hong Kong, Nepal, and Singapore…no problem at all. I barely struggle at all when I’m traveling through countries like these.

But India is different; India is difficult, maddeningly difficult. It’s crowded, noisy, polluted, and squalid. All of your senses are continually bombarded in India: the sites, the sounds, and especially the smells…they’re almost overwhelming. You can’t be comfortable in India, even for two minutes. You walk two feet and you inevitably step in the putrid shit of some fetid, half dead animal; mischievous monkeys swing insanely from the telephone wires, leaping to the ground to snatch food out of the hands of unsuspecting tourists; crippled beggars and con men attack you at every possible turn; even the simplest food item assaults you, overwhelming your taste buds and convulsing your bowels.

That’s why I’m going back to India so soon. I’m sick of cotton candy living. I need my soul to be roughened up a bit. I want to be thrown off balance, so that I remember once again what it means to be ALIVE.

During my last trip, I distinctly recall walking past the burning ghats in Varansi with their endless stream of corpses being offered up to Shiva or some other deity in the endless Hindu pantheon. Bodies shrouded in gold, glowing in the moonlit sky…ashes scattered by mournful family members in the sacred river where the devout purify themselves…the mad, holy sadhus holding court on the rotting, slimy steps of the temples. You sit and watch the spectacle and you are transported to a different time long before our own antiseptic, cellophane-wrapped age. You are transported, not just to a different time, but a completely alternative plane of existence. The physical world with all its mundane, silly preoccupation simply disappears and you awake in the world of Arjuna, battling the Kauravas under the ever-vigilant watch of Lord Krishna.

I am returning to India, not because I want comfort, or cleanliness, or some degree of order—that’s why I go to Germany. I am going back because every now and then in this pathetic little life our ours you need to be forced out of your comfort zone and bourgeois ways of thinking in order to get to the essence of what human existence is all about.

Last time I was in India, I strolled along the Ganges at dawn and sampled the sacred rites that have endured down through the millennia. This time I will gorge myself upon them. I will sit on the steps of the burning ghats in the company of my brothers, the sublime sadhus, and force myself to come to terms with the essential mystery that is the human predicament. And, even if I fail to arrive at any profound conclusion about the meaning of my tawdry life, I will be infinitely better off for having spent even a few moments squatting on the slimy, shit strewn steps cascading down into the sacred Ganges. Better because India does not allow for halfway measures. It’s enlightenment or destruction, spiritual rebirth or cosmic self-annihilation. In Shiva’s homeland you either loose yourself completely or you are lost completely. No two ways about it. And I for one relish in the prospect of loosing myself (if only for a few hours) as all thoughts of worldly concerns slip away like thousands of arti lights flowing down the river into dark, peaceful oblivion.

And that, in a nutshell, is why I must go back to India.

Death Never Comes

death never comes
when you’re waiting for him.
he comes like a
silent cry
in the still darkness
of night—
while you are in the middle
of some fabulous,
wild dream
or at your moment of
greatest triumph.

you can wait
a lifetime for death
to make his appearance
and he’ll fool you
time and again.
but turn your back
for just one moment
and your fucked—
before you can blink an eye
the worms will be feasting
on your
.....vital organs.

Revelation in the Operating Room

Nurse: Doctor, I’m afraid Sally’s dead.
Doctor: Damn it, I won’t loose her, not now.
Nurse: But doctor, the EKG reading is completely flat. There’s no hope.
Doctor: There’s got to be hope. I won’t give up now. She’s my, my…
Nurse: Your what, doctor?
Doctor: (Crying) She’s my long-lost daughter.
Nurse: But I thought that she was Suzie Schwarz’s sister.
Doctor: (Despondent) She was, damn it. She was.
Nurse: But you dated Suzie at one point, didn’t you?
Doctor: Yes. But what has that got to do with anything?
Nurse: You dated your daughter’s sister?
Doctor: (Confused) I suppose I did. But it’s not like there’s anything wrong with that, right?
Nurse: No, unless Suzie was your daughter too…She wasn’t your daughter, was she?
Doctor: How could she have been my daughter…She was Sally’s mother.
Nurse: Suzie was Sally’s mother as well as her sister? How is that possible?
Doctor: She was only her adopted sister. Suzie was really my younger sister, although we pretended that she was Sally’s sister, because I wanted my daughter to have a playmate her own age.
Nurse: So you lost your daughter as well as your niece. I’m very sorry for you, doctor.
Doctor: It’s impossible for you to image how difficult this is for me. What am I going to tell her mother?
Nurse: By Sally’s mother, who exactly are you referring to: your former girlfriend or your sister?
Doctor: What’s wrong with you nurse. I mean Suzie. She’s experienced so much loss lately. You know her son, Carey, died last year, don’t you? So she’s now lost both her children. Tragic.
Nurse: But wasn’t Carey Sally’s former husband.
Doctor: Exactly. You can image how hard it is going to be on her to have lost a daughter, sister, and step-daughter all on the same day.
Nurse: A triple tragedy for Suzie and a double one for you.
Doctor: It's also a tragedy for you.
Nurse: In what way?
Doctor: What I’ve never told you was that Suzie was your sister as well.
Nurse: So Sally was my…
Doctor: Niece
Nurse: And you are my...
Doctor: Brother
Nurse: But, doctor, why didn’t you inform me of these facts before we started going out?
Doctor: Would it have made a difference?
Nurse: I probably would have liked that bit of information just the same.
Doctor: You can hardly expect me to keep every relationship in this hospital straight all the time. I’m a very busy man. I got confused.
Nurse: I’m sorry for being so difficult at a time like this. Well, on the positive side, I now have a brother.
Doctor: But, sadly, you’ve lost a niece and are going to have a difficult time explaining to your sister why you are sleeping with her former boyfriend.
Nurse: Well perhaps she’ll be happy that her brother has found a nice girl. There’s only one real problem I have.
Doctor: What’s that?
Nurse: A few years ago, before Sally and Carey got married, I had a brief fling with Carey.
Doctor: (Shocked) What! You had intimate relations with Carey. How horrifying!
Nurse: Horrifying because he was my nephew or because he was my niece’s husband?
Doctor: Neither.
Nurse: Then what’s the problem?
Doctor: He’s not Jewish.
Nurse: But you were ok with that when he was married to your niece...I mean daughter.
Doctor: That was different. You were the girl I loved. I thought religion meant something to you. The wedding is off.
Nurse: Do I still get to come to family holidays?
Doctor: (Grasping her hands) Of course. There’s nothing more important than family.

the gunks

Here's a poem inspired by a recent hiking trip to New Paltz that I took with some friends. The goal was to begin to get ready for a 10 day Himalayan trekking expedition that we are planning to do in 2011. What I discovered - much to my chagrin - is that I have a long, long way to go before I am fit enough to tackle the highest mountain ranges in the world!

the rocks hang like giant monoliths,
tumbled wildly one upon the other,
like a child’s oversized playthings
scattered wantonly about his room /
the goal, i have been told, is to get
to the top of this mess of rock
where there will be time
to appreciate the sweeping views
from the lofty mountain peak/
my hand reaches up to grasp the ragged bolder
lodged precariously above my head,
and with all the strength I have left,
i pull myself to the next ledge /
a moment to catch my breath,
to reorient myself, and
massage my aching leg muscles /
then it’s time to move on,
inching my way along this primieval
vertical landscape /

dave is already on top,
urging me on with
with his usual air of wanton glee /
for him, this is just a lark in the countryside
but my forty-four year old body is beginning to feel
every sore muscle, every cut, every scrape
of every branch that has violated the sanctity of my
once pristine, twig-like legs /
i curse him and his idiotic exuberance /
if I had a gun with me I would shoot him—
BLAM, BLAM—
ending his juvenile attempts to rouse me
(“too old to make it up the mountain, man?”) /

if i had the guts, I would retreat
right back down these damned boulders
and make my way along the well-beaten,
gently sloping path that winds its way
to the mountain house /
but i am forty-four—almost forty-five actually—
a time when a man can lose his vital essence
and start to settle for the soft ways of midlife
that inevitably lead to the swift, steady decline /
and i will have none of that…
not just yet anyway /
there will be no turning back for me,
no retreating from the misery of the climb,
no acknowledge of age, or pain, or weakness /
all i have to do is make it to giant boulder
hanging 50 feet above me,
and then i’m home free /
the endless agony will finally be over /

i plant my foot in the nearest crevice
and pull myself up,
a sharp, stabbing pain
shooting up my left arm /
cursing the limitations of my flabby flesh,
i haul myself up over one giant rock,
and then another,
till at last I come to the final torturous obstruction /
almost over now, I moan to myself,
and catapult my body over the top
with a loud grunt and heavy sigh /

i’ve made it,
and my reward—
if you can call it that—
is to be able finally to rest my stiff limbs
on the mountainside ledge
and watch as the soft clouds pass silently overhead /
i stretch out on the hard rock,
more comfortable to me than any feather bed
and welcome the sun beating on my face.
“peace at last!” I shout out to my companions,
proud of myself for being man enough
to endure the unmitigated hell
of a weekend mountain climb with the boys.
“whatdoyamean,” replies dave,
his big, stupid face now blocking out the sun.
“we’re only half way up;
we haven’t even gotten
to the really rough part yet.”

someday, I’m going to kill
that bastard.

London Scenes

Restricted Entry
“What is your reason for coming to England?” the immigrations official asked me in the usual supercilious manner adopted by airport personnel around the world.
.....“I’m on holiday from my studies in Belgium,” I replied courteously.
.....“And what is it, maay I axk, that you study over there in Belgium?” he inquired, his crude cockney origins betrayed in every word he uttered.
.....“Philosophy,” I responded, thinking that would be the end of the conversion, as it usually was.

.....But he was having none of it.
.....“Ohhhh, philosophy,” he bellowed, loud enough for just about everyone in Heathrow Airport to hear. “Look ‘ere, Harold,” he said to his portly colleague in the next booth. “We got us a regular Schopenhauer wid us today.”
.....The other people on line were turning around to stare at me now and I was beginning to become self-conscious.
.....“So tell me, Mr. Philosopher,” the immigration official said with mockery in his voice. “What sort of Phi-los-o-phy are you studying over there in the marvelous kingdom of Belgium.”
.....I decided to teach this stupid little cockney jerk a lesson. “Post-Thomistic, neo-scholastic metaphysical skepticism, focused primarily on the later works of William of Ockham,” I said as arrogantly as I could, waiting for the look of utter bewilderment to appear on his face.
.....“Oh,” he said with bored indifference. “I would have thought that in a place as sophisticated as Belgium they would have been more into the phenomenological epistemology of Heidegger or Husserl. A bit behind the times, ain’t they?”
.....With that he stamped my passport and called for the next person on line.

Ennui
“Maureen, we are going to the most superfabulous bar in all of London. The beer is incredible, the food is supposedly outstanding, and they say the place is filled with fascinating people from all over England. All of us are going. Don’t you want to join us?” I asked.
.....“No,” she replied, and turned around and walked away.

Existential Fish
“I’ll have haddock and chips,” I said to the Pakistani fellow behind the counter at McGill’s Fish and Chips Emporium, located in the Highbridge section of London not far from our hotel.
.....“No haddock,” he replied, barely looking at me from behind the counter.
.....“Ok, then I’ll have cod and chips.”
.....“No cod,” he said, again with barely a glance.
.....“Isn’t this supposed to be a fish and chips place?” I asked, extremely confused now.
.....“Yes, but no fish today.”
.....“Ok,” I said in desperation, my empty stomach now beginning to growl fiercely. “Then just give me some chips.”
.....“No chips.”
.....“Well, what do you have to eat?” I wondered.
.....“Eat?” he said, looking up at me with confusion reigning in his eyes. “Why do you want to eat?”
.....“Because I’m hungry,” I said.
.....“We are all hungry,” he replied and went back to staring blankly out of the window of his shop.

Yorkshire Pudding

A hot date in London, a beautiful companion, a traditional English restaurant in Kensington.
.....My order: Roast beef with Yorkshire pudding. What could be more traditional than that? I think to myself.
.....The meal comes: rare beef and some tiny biscuits floating in gravy.
.....On the side is the creamy white pudding in a stainless steel serving bowl. I scoop out a heaping spoonful of the white stuff and stuff it into my mouth while my date watches.
.....Important lesson learned: What they refer to in England as “pudding” is actually the crappy little biscuits floating in the gravy. The white stuff is most assuredly NOT pudding, but some noxious British concoction that they serve to unsuspecting American tourists to punish us for our economic superiority and military prowess. Mine ended up spewed out of my mouth and onto the expensive new dress my date was wearing.
.....That was our first date. And it was our last.

Kathmandu

There never really was
.............a place called
.............Kathmandu—
jasmine-scented,
snow-peaked
.............paradise
pearched precariously
.............on the jagged teeth
.............of Mother Himalaya.
No mist-covered,
.............mystic wonderland
filled with endless rows
.............of Buddhists monks
.............clanging singing bowls
.........................in garland-filled temples
in praise of sexy, seductive Tara,
goddess of transcendent desire.
No, just sense-clogging pollution,
.............nasty, clamoring cabs
.............threatening to level
.............any careless tourist
.............foolish enough
.............to step out into
.............the mad manic streets,
the incessant hawkers
.............selling spiritual bliss
.............in the form of some god-awful
.............piece of mass-produced
.............Buddha-crap,
and miles of cesspool bi-ways
.............flowing brown-bile down
.............the garbage-strewn
.............mountainsides.

There never could have been
.............the Kathmandu
that existed with such perfect clarity
in the far reaches of my
overly fertile imagination,
the kind of place where
.............sublime enlightenment
.............could be had
at the turn of every corner
and the mere sight
of the rugged Annapurnas
enough to send one into
a perpetual state of
............dizzying orgasmic frenzy.

Kathmandu is really just
............a state of mind,
after all,
not a place that exists
............in space and time.
It’s Kat-man-du,
Kat-man-godalmightdy-du,
much more magnificent
in anticipation than in actuality.
In my mind,
it’s the ultimate dreamland
where I could sit on some lone
mountain perch
.............with the saintly sadhu
as the silent snow leopard
.............passes idly by….
perfect bliss totally realized
in that space
where earth and sky
mingle joyfully in
.............cloud-covered,
.............dew-drenched
........................ecstasy.

There never really was
a place like
.............Kathmandu,
But that’s ok:
In this cold-blooded world
warm-flowing fantasies
are always preferable to
.............stainless steel reality
and the silent sadhus of the mind
much more fascinating
than the ones selling themselves
on busy intersections at
............20 rupees a shot.

Caribbean Moments

Dancing Gecko

gecko dancing along
the wooden planks
under my bed /
i can hear him scurrying about
the cabin in the dead of night
while I am trying to sleep /
for a hardcore Nieu Yourka like me
there is some apprehension
in having a living creature—
especially a slimy one with a
long tail and flicking tongue—
ramble about the closed confines
of my tropical shack /
but it is all completely fine /
i give him the space he needs
to do his little moonlight tango
and he gobbles up all the mosquitoes
that would otherwise pick me to pieces
in the dead of night /

.......perfect......symmetry


After the Storm

The Caribbean rain
moves in swiftly from the east
and without any warning.
Only a few minutes ago
I was dousing myself in the
balmy rays of the afternoon sun.
Then, before I could even move
to the safety of shelter,
the sky opened up upon me,
drenching me
.......right down
.............to my spleen.
I suppose I should be peeved
at having my lazy sunfest
so rudely interrupted,
but this is the Caribbean
and even the thunderstorms
have their glorious appeal.

A short wait
beneath the kayak shack
as the heavy drops
splash playfully on the
shimmering blue water.
Before I can even settle in,
the sun returns
brilliant as ever,
then a stunning rainbow
flashes across the sky—
a gift from the gods,
perhaps?

Within minutes I am back
on the sandy beach,
soggy novel in my hand,
as thought nothing
happened at all.
And indeed nothing really did…
just a typical afternoon
Caribbean-style.

The End of the Innocence

July 1977. It has turned really sunny and warm outside. That means its time again for me to be playing outdoors with the kids on the block. “Go out and see what Ricky and John are doing,” my mother advises me. “You spend too much time inside reading. It’s not healthy.” I go down the street to the overgrown bushes of Lexington School for the Deaf, where I know I’ll find Ricky and John. That’s where they always are, doing what they always do: smoking pot out of a huge purple bong. The bong is so big that I can barely see the top of John’s head. He is already high from smoking so much, and is feeling in a more affable mood than usual. “What da fuck do you want, Mike?” he growls. “Don’t think you’re getting any of my shit, cause there’s barely enough for Ricky and me.” He knows that I don’t smoke, but he just wants to make sure I know how unwelcome a turd like me is in his world. He sucks up as much of the smoke from the bong as he can, then passes it to Ricky, who greedily takes his turn. Within a half hour they are so stoned that they barely even know I am there.

I walk back to the house, pick up my well-worn copy of The Lord of the Rings and continue reading from where I had left off.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with you,” my mother says when she sees me on the couch with my book. “Everyone is outside having a good time, and here you are as always reading some idiotic book. Why can’t you be like all the other kids on the block?”

Just Me and Joe

July 5, 1971. My 7th birthday. Today was going to be my day to stick it to the jerks on the block. It was the days of the G.I. Joe craze, when every self-respecting lad of 7 or 8 had at least two or three Joes and a slew of necessary accessories (various weapons, uniforms, jeeps, and the like). Now, there was a definite hierarchy among the Joes, and everyone, no matter how limited they were intellectually, understood this hierarchy intuitively and respected it: The standard regulation Joe with the black beard was either a private or a corporal; the African-American Joe—which, for some reason, none of the Italian or Irish kids in the neighborhood seemed to have—was a sergeant; the non-bearded Joe was a lieutenant or captain; and the gray haired Joe was a colonel. The ranks for each Joe also depended upon your place in the complex hierarchy of the block and varied depending upon how old or how tough you were.
.....Today, for once, was going to be my day. Today was the first day that Hasbro, the maker of the G.I. Joe action figures (Don’t even think about calling them dolls!) was coming out with the white haired Joe, who we had all already determined had to be the general. In an act of uncharacteristic compassion, my mother had agreed that, while she was shopping on Roosevelt Ave., she would stop into Toy City and buy me the white haired Joe for my birthday. I would be the first kid on the block to have him and, therefore, because of the rules of seniority, would always have the highest-ranking G.I. Joe on the block.
.....I tried to be cool about the whole thing, but I know that I probably couldn’t help rubbing my good fortune into the faces of my less than delighted pals. We were playing on the street, when in the distance I could see my mother’s hobbit-like frame waddle down the street pushing a shopping cart. “This is it!” I shouted as loudly as I could to all my friends. “This is the moment when I get to be the one in charge, the guy givin’ the orders!” My friends gritted their teeth and I could hear them cursing under their breaths. But what could they do? The rules were the rules.
.....I ran down the street as fast as I could. My mother had the usual look of apathy on her face, but perhaps because it was my birthday she didn’t greet me with her usual, “Will you just leave me the hell alone until I get inside.” Instead she put her hand into the cart and slowly lifted out the large bag she had inside. It had the famous “Toy City” logo on it, so I knew that my wildest dreams were about to come true.
.....“Here’s your damn toy,” my mother said, dropping the package in my hands. “Now go play with your friends and try not to bother me for a few hours, will you?”
.....I ran as fast as I could with the package to the spot where my friends were playing. They were all looking up at me with incredible envy in their eyes.
.....“Well here he is,” I said proudly pulling Joe out of his brown paper wrapping. “Get ready to start taking commands.”
.....I pulled Joe out of the bag and lifted him up like the sacred object that he was and waited for the oooohs and ahhhhhs of admiration from my friends.
.....“Look at that!” I heard fat Ricky shout out. “Your mother really screwed you over this time.” In seconds, everyone was joining him laughing at me.
.....I turned the box around and gasped in horror. Instead of the white haired Joe, who would be giving commands forever, my mother in her usual state of confusion had accidentally bought the red haired Joe—the one we had determined was the doctor, the one who couldn’t give any commands at all, the one, in short, who no one in his right mind would ever want to have. The poor bastard wasn’t even able to fight. All he could do was wait around in the “hospital,” waiting until someone came in with an injury. And the reality was that no one’s Joe in the entire history of the G.I. Joe Universe ever got injured. They might get their head or limbs ripped off, but they never would waste their time going to see some candy-ass, red haired Joe doctor.
.....“Hey, Mike,” Rudy said. “I got a mole on my ass. Do you think your Dr. Joe could check it out for me? He, he, he…”
.....“What an idiot!” I heard someone say as I walked back home, my head hung in abject shame.
.....“How did the boys like your new doll,” my mother asked as she stirred the sausage and peppers she was making for dinner.
.....“It’s not a doll,” I snapped. “And you got the wrong one. I asked you to get me the doll—I mean action figure—with the white hair. You got me the one with the red hair.”
.....“White, red…What’s the difference,” my mother said, oblivious to my agony. “They’re all the same anyway. Just pretend you have the white haired one.”
.....Just pretend I had the white haired one. If only I could have pretended that my entire existence up until that point was just a cruel nightmare that I would one day wake up from, then I might have some consolation. Right now, though, it was just me and the doc—two sad, pathetic losers who were victims of a chronically unjust, consistently absurd universe.
.....And these were supposed to be the good years.Hero

Mark the Spot

That mark above my right eye—
I think that certain smart-asses
would call it an age spot—
was not there a year ago…
a year ago
all you would see
if you took the time
to look betwixt my baby blue eyes
and kinky latin hairline was a
creamy band of custard skin
flowing smoothly across
my eternally indifferent forehead.

Now that damned thing
has suddenly appeared out of nowhere,
dark and round,
mocking me by its very presence,
a dreary portent of inevitable decay,
a specter of more indignities
yet to endure.

It’s the same fucking spot
my father has on his wrinkled old brow,
but my old man is centuries old
and I am still in my prime
(whatever the hell that means).

Damned spot,
I would rip you off
with a jack-hammer
if I wasn’t afraid of
damaging my gorgeous mind.

Damned spot,
I would scrape you away
with some really harsh sandpaper,
if I knew you would stay away
for good.

Damned spot,
it’s too soon for me
to embrace the inevitable,
so just leave me the fuck alone,
will you?

Damned spot,
you think that I am fooled
by your apparent affability,
but I know you are
the harbinger of my
ultimate doom.

Damned spot,
you are death
staring me right in the face—
.15 inches in circumference
but lethal as a loaded gun
in a demented child’s hands.

Damned spot,
soon you will invite your
little brown friends to join you
for a raucous parade
across my face,
and those still in their prime
will say,
“Gee, how old he looks;
I remember him when…”

Damned spot,
I know that you will
eventually defeat me,
but for now
I’ve got my eye on you
and I’m not letting you
out of my sight.

Beware!

Lush Life

Ok, I was listening to Sinatra today and thinking somewhat refined thoughts (for a change). I wanted to see if I could write a few poems that capture my ideas about the good life. You know: charming romance, fine food, interacting with sophisticated people in interesting places. These are the best I was able to come up with. It's not my usual choice of subject, but I thought I would try something completely new.

Your skin smells like jasmine—
or is it honeysuckle?
I could never tell the difference.
Silky skin,
so incredibly smooth—
smooth like vanilla yogurt
and just as inviting.

A dark brewed cup
of Belgian coffee
(bold but never bitter),
a glass half -filled
with Norman Calvados,
shimmering gold
in the Northern moonlight—
a perfect pair
if ever there was one.
A taste of coffee,
then a sip of calvados
(ahhh, what ecstasy!)
Only later did I realize
it should have been
the other way around.
There are rules for
these sorts of things
in civilized nations.

We once held hands,
walking down along the
left embankments of the Seine
as the tourist boats passed lazily by
and Notre Dame cast
its inviting shadow
across our path.
No better time
to be alive
and certainly
no better place.

You look just like Liza Minelli
and your taste borders on the sublime—
all Bennett, Martin, and
just the right kind of jazz
(soothingly familiar but never predictable).
I really thought that I would
fall hard for you,
but then I realized something—
right taste,
wrong face.

I turn on the radio…
Sinatra singing “The Summer Wind.”
Could anything be cooler than that?
Could anything be
quite as melancholy?

Miro opening at the Gagosian.
Everyone exquisitely attired,
lovely beyond description,
and drenched with that
strange sort of
unnatural refinement
that only true art lovers
from Chelsea possess.
There were some paintings
there too,
but no one seemed
to notice them.

Life Lesson (Wherein a Middle-Aged Academic Learns that All Happiness in Life Springs from a Young Child’s Nose)

......At the park today I saw a child picking his nose.
......Young man, I said to him in an authoritative tone, don’t you know that it is extremely uncouth for a boy your age to be picking his nose in public?
......But the young boy was unimpressed by my admonitions and stuck his finger even deeper into his left nostril.
......Little man, I tried again, your manners leave much to be desired. Stop picking your nose right now!
......Again the young boy ignored me and continued to probe his nasal cavity with focused intensity.
......Now I was getting agitated. My friend, I said, I am going to tell your mother about your rude behavior and I can assure you that she will not be happy about it.
......Still, the boy continued to pick away, not even bothering to glance at me as I scolded him.
......My frustration was reaching the point where I was afraid that I would say something extremely unkind to the boy, but then at once I saw the point of his quest. For out of his left nostril sprang the most exquisite virgin princess, dressed in pink lace, riding a white unicorn. As the unicorn gained its footing, the princess lifted the little boy on its back and the two rode off together. I hear they recently bought a four-bedroom cape in an exclusive subdivision outside of Boston, where they live with their four children and a large humpback turtle named Gary.

A Place to Call My Own

There’s this little tamale place in Corona—down about 97th street—where I go sometimes when I get the hankering for traditional Mexican food. Now I’m not talking about the fancy shit that they serve in pseudo-Mexican dining establishments like Don Jose’s or Senior Pepe’s, which are nothing more than sanitized versions of Mexican cuisine aimed at pleasing the neutered palates of pasty gringos. No, what I’m referring to is the real deal: the kind of grubby, greasy, mouth-blistering Mexican slop that they actually serve in every piss-ass town south of the border. And I can assure you that this is most definitely the real, fucking deal.

I would tell you the name of the place so that you can go there some time, but I don’t think it has one. There was a tacky sign outside the restaurant at one point, but I think it was stolen by vandals in the early 90s. Now all that’s left is a tattered piece of cardboard in the window that simply says “Comida.” In case you failed seventh grade Spanish, comida means “food,” which doesn’t help very much if you’re trying to figure out what they have to eat.

My Mexican dive in Corona has its own unique ambiance that often goes unappreciated by those who covet such pretentious commodities in eating establishments as cleanliness and proper hygiene. But, if you can get beyond tables perpetually covered in the detritus of decaying half-eaten food particles and the thin film of grease coating every inch of the place, you just might come to appreciate its laid-back atmosphere.

I must confess that I have a particular fondness for the women behind the counter who take orders with all the charm of Marine drill sergeants. They have a look of dull apathy as they ring up endless rounds of rice, beans, and plantanos. They take down the orders well enough, I suppose, but the orders never come out quite the way you ask for them. It might have something to do with the language barrier…or the women who work there might just be incredibly stupid. I haven’t figured out which yet.

The place also as its own peculiar smell—something like a cross between rotting garbage and bad body odor. I know where the garbage smell is coming from: it’s not hard to notice the mountains of decaying food overflowing the buckets that serve as waste receptacles in the dining area which are rarely, if ever, emptied. I also know damned well where the b.o. is coming from: it’s the fragrance of choice of the local clientele and the army of homeless men who descend upon the establishment after getting their methadone prescriptions filled at the local rehab center down the street.

As you eat your lunch, you try as much as possible to ignore the fat roaches scurrying along the floors and on the walls. When the roaches attempt to walk away with your food, though, you have little choice but to flick them off the table. When that happens, the little Mexican children sitting on the floor jump up in delight. Fat roaches are like house pets to kids in this part of Queens. They dress them up in costumes according to the season, walk them around on leashes, teach them to do back flips, and give them funny names like Tito and Puta.

There are those individuals of limited cultural appreciation who are horrified at the thought of eating in a place like this. “It’s a fucking death trap, man,” my friends always tell me. “When the bubonic plague strikes again, this is gonna be ground zero,” they joke.

In my heart I know they have a point. I also know that they are right when they say that the food served in my favorite Mexican place in downtown Corona tastes liked “ground up dog shit mixed with cilantro and lime.” Although I myself have no particular gourmet’s fetish for canine waste products, I do have a fondness for cilantro, so I am able to ignore the otherwise repulsive flavor of the food. Besides, I spend so much time flicking roaches off the table that I’m barely even aware of how the food tastes.

“Why do you always have to go to that horrible place in Corona?” my mother asks every time I tell her I need to make a run there. The answer is quite simple: everyone has to have a place they call their own. Woody Allen has the Russian Tea Room, Robert Deniro, Le Cirque, and I have my little “Comida” joint. One day in the future—and I hope to God that day may never come—the Board of Health will probably come and close down my favorite little Mexican dive. Until then, I’ll always have a place to go whenever I get the hankering for small taste of sunny Mexico right on Roosevelt Avenue just east of the 94th street station in beautiful downtown Corona.

Utter Futility

the lawn is dead…yet again – same as last year, same as the year before, and the year before that – it’s an endless cycle of weeding, seeding, watering, waiting…all for the same exact end—brown death – I know that fat Bob down the street will be tisk-tisking my poor lawn care abilities and making snide comments about how these so-called smart guys can’t do shit – I’d like to be able to brush it off with a cool “who gives a flying fuck what the neighbors think, anyway” – but I know that I will never be able to do that – its not in my nature to take criticism constructively, even when it’s well deserved –

I think I know why the crinkled up grass in front of the house gets to me so much: that damn lawn represents ever god-awful failure in my entire life…my inability to hit the ball in little league, the time I left the water on in the garage and flooded the basement (old dad was not very happy about that one), being rejected by the girl with the sad eyes in the 8th grade – seeing that brown fucking lawn year after year reminds me that I am basically an incompetent twit, fit only for the most abstract mental labors, but horribly ill-suited for anything even remotely practical in this life –

If only human beings were created in an incorporeal state – then there’d be no such thing as lawn care (what does a spirit need with a lawn?) – unfortunately, my apparently horrendous karma has positioned me in the ultimate suburban nightmare: a place where the lawns are just small enough that every brown patch and every blade of crabgrass represents a moral failing of cosmic proportions. I have no doubt that the neighbors would think more highly of me if I performed child sacrifices on my front lawn…provided, of course, that the lawn itself was plush, vibrantly green, and free of unsightly weeds.

Start Over

Start over: Fuel the furnace with the burning
embers of hell…The devil is caught in a trap of his own
making. Shit, get over it and move on with life. But life itself
...........is precisely the issue—a cruel paradox admitting no
reasonable solutions. Why have the gods all deserted me?
Gods be damned. It’s all a silly farce anyway.
.........................Is there something more? Could there
possibly be something, anything, more? No, nothing more....
That, at once, is the whole damn problem, and the whole
glori-fucking-fabulous solution. But who the hell wants
a solution like that. “Ask and ye shall receive,” said God,
but his voice was far too dim to be heard.
.......Nothing left but the roaring silence.

Who I Am

if you think you know who i am, you are sadly mistaken, my poor deluded friend / you see only the stuffed-shirt academic in his middle-age geek attire, so you assume that I am as I appear / but my uniform is there to throw off those denizens of this staid and sterile universe who mistakenly believe that it is wardrobe alone that makes the man, and that a man is nothing more than what he appears to be /

if i bore you with my penny loafers, oxford shirts, and close cropped head, it's because that is what i choose to do...but don't assume that it reflects who or what I am / i am much more than my discount j.c. penny's ensemble would ever lead you to imagine / no mere teacher of philosophy or caretaker of troubled freshpersons or concerned molloy colleague or stodgy franklin square family man or reader of dull biographies of old dead dudes am i / that is all smoke and mirrors...a calculated mirage to throw off the "american idol" crowd (sorry "american idol" fans!) /

• i am more than you could know and less than I ever hoped to be / i am the alpha and omega of human experience...


• i was slimed in the River Ganges and baptized in the ashes of rotting corpses...


• i have drunk the nectar of human ecstasy and found it unsettled my stomach...


• i have had my heart ripped out and stomped upon only to find it born anew within me...


• i have watched the northern lights rise and fall in my prime and still desired yet another toast to youthful exhuberence...


• i have eaten dangerous books whole and had their wisdom enter my nervous system tearing it to shreds...


• i am iago and cassius, so tread lightly around me...


• i was there when christ was crucified on the cross but chose instead to lounge on the riverbed with the sleeping buddha.


• i have settled for less than i deserved and deserve much less than i have received from life...


• the art that i have created lies buried deep within me, so none will never see it...

i am a stranger in a cotton candy land who hates cotton candy, and that, my dear friends, is the crux of my problem.

[note: i chose to answer this question in my own way...basically by not telling you anything about myself and making that the point of my blog entry. my goal here is to show you that there is no right or wrong way to capture who you are in writing or art...just try to be yourself and follow your own inner genius!]

Visions of South Florida

Rehab clinic in West Palm Beach. I'm sitting outdoors with an acquiantance, totally intrigued by the pageant of humanity passing by.

“Who’s that?” I asked

“She’s a heroine addict whose parents are trying to put her in a psychiatric ward because she keeps cutting herself. A real basket case.”

“And who’s that one?”

“She’s a 34 year old woman from Boca who's facing twenty-to-life for stabbing her boyfriend twelve times while they were high on speed.”

“ What about him?”

“That’s Walter. He’s just an old junky who’s been trying to get clean for twenty years. I think his brains are fried because all he does all day is smoke cigarettes and mumble to himself about Jesus.”

“What about her?” I inquired, pointing to a quiet young girl sitting by herself, eating a hamburger and fries. “She seems fairly normal.”

“Are you kidding? She’s totally addicted to crystal meth and crack, and prostitutes herself every night to get money for drugs.”

“I can’t believe it,” I replied, now completely bewildered by the incredible disconnect between appearance and reality that I had observed since I arrived here.

“That’s not all…She’s totally bulimic…Eats food all the time and then pukes her guts out. Just wait until she’s finished with that burger and you’ll see her run to the bathroom.”

Sure enough, as soon as she took her last bite of food, she sprung up from the table and made a hasty retreat to the public restroom.

“Well, at least she has a nice looking body,” my friend commented, barely looking up from the issue of Cosmo she was reading. “In her line of work that’s very important.”

I was beginning to wonder if there was anyone in South Florida who was not an addict, a recovering addict, or a relapsed addict when across the street I saw a totally innocent looking young girl who looked no more than 18 years old. She was walking towards us, her blond ponytails bouncing with each step she took. When she passed us by she flashed a bright, angelic smile and wished us a pleasant day.

“Don’t tell me that there’s anything wrong with her?” I said with some degree of confidence.

“She’s the worst one of all,” my companion replied without skipping a beat.

“What’s her problem?” I asked.

“She thinks there’s nothing wrong with her.”

“And is there?”

“Of course there is,” she replied. “There’s something wrong with all of us. That’s why we’re here.” And with that she took a long drag on her cigarette and went back to reading her magazine.

My Twenty Favorite Dylan Songs

As anyone who knows me realizes, I have become a huge Bob Dylan fan over the past three years. Basically, all I listen to at home, in the car, and while I am working outdoors is Dylan music. Now if that seems a bit dull to you, keep in mind that Dylan has over 45 years worth of music and his style has changed numerous times over the years. There’s no way I’m going to get bored with his music, because there’s just so damned much of it, and it’s all so fabulous.

Like any Dylan fan, however, I do have my favorite songs. This definitely doesn’t mean that they’re his best songs, just the ones that resonate with me at this particular point in my life.

Here they are in order of preference:

#1. It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry (Highway 61 Revisited, 1965) – a fabulous song with great piano work and terrific lyrics. I could listen to this all day long.

#2. Girl From the North Country (with Johnny Cash) (Nashville Skyline, 1969) – This just may be a perfect song. The fact that in this version Dylan and Cash keep messing up just makes it all the more wonderful and spontaneous.

#3. Boots of Spanish Leather (Times They Are A-Changin’, 1964) – Another perfect song. I don’t usually go for love songs, but this one is so damned complex that it’s totally intriguing.

#4. Subterranean Homesick Blues (Bringing It All Back Home, 1965) – The perfect 60s rock song. Too bad no radio stations never played it when I was growing up.

#5 Like A Rolling Stone (Highway 61 Revisited, 1965) – Considered by many to be the greatest rock song of all time. And it probably is.

#6. Baby Let Me Follow You Down (Biograph, 1985) – This early Dylan song didn’t even make it onto one of his albums. Just goes to show you that even a knock-off Dylan is better than most current singers’ top ten trash.

#7. Things Have Changed (Wonder Boy’s Soundtrack, 1999) – I’ve just discovered this weird, evocative song and it blows my mind. Won an Academy Award in 1999.

#8 I Want You (Blond on Blond, 1966) – Sure this is a silly pop song, but it was probably the basis for every Dylan caricature for the next twenty years. “I want youuuu soooo baddddd”…you’ve gotta love singing this blatantly affected!

#9 Someday Baby (Bootleg Series, Vol. 8, 2008) – I prefer this version to the one Dylan used on “Modern Times.” This was the song that single-handedly forced me to reevaluate my unfounded bias against Dylan’s later music.

#10. Mama, You’ve Been on My Mind (with Joan Baez) (Bob Dylan Live, 1964) – I love Joan Baez and I love Bob Dylan…and I especially love it when they sing a great Dylan song together live and screw it up.

#11. Beyond Here Lies Nothing (Together Through Life, 2009) – This song proved that Dylan is still a musical powerhouse even in his sixties. A gritty, evocative little song.

#12. My Back Pages (Another Side of Bob Dylan, 1964) - “I was older then, I’m younger than that now.” What other artist would dare insinuate that his entire fan base is a bunch of twits at the very moment of his greatest popularity?

#13. Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright (The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, 1963) – The Peter, Paul, and Mary version was a bit more melodious, but it lacked the subtle nastiness of the Dylan original. “You just sorta wasted my precious time”…Now that’s a put-down!

#14. Highway 61 Revisited (Highway 61 Revisited, 1965) – One of the greatest psychedelic songs ever written. No one else could write lyrics as wild as these.

#15. Forever Young (Planet Waves, 1974) – One of Dylan’s simplest but most powerful songs. I resisted the charms of this song for a long time, but eventually had to give in.

#16. Just Like a Woman (Blond on Blond, 1966) - Everyone loves this song…and so do I.

#17. You Angel You (Planet Waves, 1974) – A fluffy, throw-a-way tune on “Planet Waves” that I can never get out of my head for some strange reason.

#18. I Feel a Change Coming On (Together Through Life, 2009) – Another masterpiece from Dylan’s latest album.

#19. The Man in Me (New Morning, 1970) – Ok, this is a seriously stupid tune, but if it’s good enough for the Dude (see the “Big Lebowski”), then it definitely has something going for it. Besides, how can anyone resist all those “la la las”?

#20. One Too Many Mornings (The Times They Are A-Changin’, 1963) – A totally charming song with beautiful lyrics and a wonderful melody.

at the mall

what more do I need?
what more can I possibly want?
i have so much already
that there is no more room
even to turn around
in the cramped confines
of my clutter universe.
But there is always
............something more,
always more to desire
and try to possess…
a lifetime of misery and regret…
................................hell
......wrapped
in pretty pink
..........ribbons
...............and
......................bows.

Dylan's Latest Masterpiece

For some time now I have been engaged in an intensive study of the music of Bob Dylan. I did the same thing for the Beatles and my study only took me only a year. With Dylan, I am only up to his albums from the early 1980s and it has already taken me three-and-a half-years just to get that far.

What's the difference, you might ask? The difference is that the Beatles were great pop recording artists for ten years, who during a very specific period in their career (1966-1969) bordered on genius, whereas Dylan has been a revolutionary musical artist for the past 45 years. There simply is no comparison.

I promised myself that I would study all of Dylan's albums systematically and chronically one at a time, even committing myself to struggling through his crappy evangelical albums of the 70s and his miserable albums of the 1980s. Absolutely no jumping ahead, I swore. It wasn't a big problem for me to take it slowly: I had no desire to listen to Dylan's current music in which he sounds like someone who has smoked far too many cigarettes for his own good.

But then something horrible happened. Someone gave me a copy of The Bootleg Albums: Volume 8: Tell Tale Signs as a gift. The Bootleg Albums (1-8) contain alternative versions of some of Dylan's songs and songs that, for one reason or another, never made it onto his albums. Volume 8 is mostly tracks from the 1990s that Dylan never used. As I listened to this album, his voice, which once was so off-putting to me, suddenly sounded perfectly suited to the kind of bluesy, gruff songs he was now recording. This compelled me to jump ahead to listen to Modern Times (2006). I was completely amazed. The music on this album is so powerful that it makes 99% of theschlock being recorded by younger artists seem like absolute shit by comparison.

Now Dylan has done it again. His new album, Together Through Life, is currently Number 1 in the music charts in both the U.S. and U.K. So, of course, I had to listen to this one, and, once again, I was devastated by how powerful the music was. Two songs in particular, "Beyond Here Lies Nothing" and "It's All Good" are destined to become Dylan classics.

And what of that gravelly, grizzly, gin-soaked voice of his that I hated so much in comparison to his magical nasally whine of the 60s. I'm ashamed to say it, but I was totally wrong about the voice. If anything it lends a certain gravity and world-weariness to his songs that makes them all the more compelling.

I had a barbecue a week ago and so did my neighbor, Jim. Together we had about 60 people packed into our two tiny backyards, and half the people there were probably under the age of 25. Jim asked me if I had any music that I would like him to play on his booming audio system. I hesitated, but gave him Together Through Life. I waited for the response...and then it came: everyone, and I mean everyone, was ecstatic about the music.

I asked one of the kids in the backyard, who was about 20, what he thought of the music he was hearing, and he said to me with tremendous enthusiasm, "It's f#%&ing great shit, man."

What higher or more eloquent praise can anyone give a collection of music than this?

Possibly The Greatest Film Ever Made

There are several different lists of the greatest films ever made (the American Film Institute's is the best known), and most of these lists consistently rank films like Citizen Kane, The Godfather, or Casablanca as the best film of all time. While I have absolutely no problem with any of these films, their selection is just a bit too predictable and safe for my liking. If I was asked to pick the great work of celluloid, I would have to go with something a bit more eclectic and interesting. For many years my own list included such questionable films as They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, Lovers and Other Strangers, and The Apartment. Now I found a film that I think rightly deserves to be called THE GREATEST FILM OF ALL TIME.

What is this cinematic masterpiece, you may be wondering? It's actually a film that didn't do very well when it first came out in 1998. In fact, many critics at the time panned it and most movie goers didn't even notice it. The film turned out to be a money loser for a pair of brothers whose previous films were often hailed as cinematic masterpieces. The general consensus was that the film was lightweight - fun, but lacking any sort of real depth.

Turns out that everyone at the time was completely wrong about this film. In fact, the first time I saw this movie, I didn't think very much of it at all. Sure I laughed at a few of the more obvious jokes, but the film left virtually no discernible impression on me. I barely thought about it at all until just recently when I was looking for something mindlessly diverting to watch and decided to rent it on Netflix. I was probably in a more expansive state of mind at the time, because the second time I watched this film I was absolutely enraptured by it. Every line was poetry to me, every performance in the film flawless, the cinematography breath-taking, the direction sublime.

So what is this film, you are probably itching to know by now? It's The Big Lebowski, written and directed by Joel and Ethan Cohen, the creators of such outstanding films as Fargo, O Brother Where Art Thou?, and Raising Arizona. Fargo, released in 1996, was such a quirky, original film that it is hardly surprising that The Big Lebowski, which was made only two years later, would seem almost trivial in comparison. That is indeed unfortunate, because, while Fargo was brilliant in its portrayal of the banality of evil, The Big Lebowski is actually the ultimate existential film.

The premise of the movie is actually quite simple: Jeffrey Lebowski (aka "The Dude") is a total slacker, concerned only with bowling and getting stoned. His life is turned upside down when he is mistaken for another wealthy Lebowski (the "Big Lebowski" of the title), whose wife owes money to a local pornographer, Jackie Treehorn. Treehorn's thugs commit the ultimate act of desecration when they urinate on the Dude's favorite rug - a rug which "really tied the whole room together." Egged on by his moronic friend, Walter Sobchak, the Dude attempts to get the Big Lebowski to make restitution for his soiled rug. The rest of the film involves the Dude getting increasingly intertwined in the mystery concerning the possible kidnapping of Lebowski's trophy wife, Bunny, and the delivery of ransom money to the kidnappers.

The plot in this film is almost irrelevant, because the Cohen brothers' whole point is to capture the fundamental absurdity of the human condition. The Dude just wants to get through life as comfortably as possible, but life keeps throwing stumbling stones in his path. I believe that he represents the ultimate ideal of Buddhist enlightenment: the man who refuses to get caught up in vain, worldly desires and therefore is impervious to the effects of karma. The Dude is the Bodhisattva of ultimate wisdom and compassion.

The Dude can be contrasted with Donny, who is "out of his fucking element" (i.e., unconcerned with the Dharma) and, even more so with Walter, whose experiences in Vietnam cause him to mistakenly believe that he can control reality. The Dude is willing to follow Walter's advice, but every time he does so, he winds up making his own life much more difficult. At the end of the movie, we come to realize that there was no kidnapping of Lebowski's wife (i.e., life is fundamentally absurd), Donny is dead, the carpet is still soiled (the reality of human suffering), but "the Dude abides" anyway (he returns to his normal state of samadhi).

Alright, maybe I'm pushing it just a bit with my labored Buddhist interpretation of the film, but if nothing else, The Big Lebowski is a damn funny film, as the following bits of dialogue clearly demonstrate:

The Dude: Look, let me explain something to you. I'm not Mr. Lebowski. You're Mr. Lebowski. I'm the Dude. So that's what you call me. That or His Dudeness... Duder... or El Duderino, if, you know, you're not into the whole brevity thing.

Maude Lebowski: What do you do for recreation?

The Dude: Oh, the usual. I bowl. Drive around. The occasional acid flashback.

The Big Lebowski: What makes a man, Mr. Lebowski?

The Dude: Dude.

The Big Lebowski: Huh?

The Dude: Uhh... I don't know sir.

The Big Lebowski: Is it being prepared to do the right thing, whatever the cost? Isn't that what makes a man?
The Dude: Hmmm... Sure, that and a pair of testicles.

The Dude: Walter, what is the point? Look, we all know who is at fault here, what the fuck are you talking about?
Walter Sobchak: Huh? No, what the fuck are you... I'm not... We're talking about unchecked aggression here, dude.
Donny: What the fuck is he talking about?
The Dude: My rug.
Walter Sobchak: Forget it, Donny, you're out of your element!
The Dude: Walter, the chinaman who peed on my rug, I can't go give him a bill, so what the fuck are you talking about?
Walter Sobchak: What the fuck are you talking about? The chinaman is not the issue here, Dude. I'm talking about drawing a line in the sand, Dude. Across this line, you DO NOT... Also, Dude, chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature. Asian-American, please.
The Dude: Walter, this isn't a guy who built the railroads here. This is a guy...
Walter Sobchak: What the fuck are you...?
The Dude: Walter, he peed on my rug!
Donny: He peed on the Dude's rug.
Walter Sobchak: Donny you're out of your element! Dude, the Chinaman is not the issue here!

Who but the Cohen Brothers could possibly come up with dialogue as nutty and absurd as this? Every minute of the film is punctuated by incredible dialogue like this, delivered perfectly by phenomenal actors like Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, and especially, John Turturro, who I believe deserved an Academy Award for his portrayal of The Jesus. Three or four minutes of screen time in total and Turturro creates one of the most memorable characters in film since Scarlett O'Hara. If that kind of performance doesn't merit an Academy Award, then I can't imagine what does!

You can keep Titanic and Slumdog Millionaire, if those are your ideas of great film-making. When I want to watch a damn flawless piece of movie magic, it is going to be The Big Lebowski or nothing. The Dude abides, man.

Underwater Rapture

If you’ve never attempted snorkeling, you are missing out on one of the most sublime outdoor activities imaginable. First of all, if you are in the right location—and the right location usually means somewhere fairly remote—you have a virtual underwater universe of weird, exotic, brilliantly colored coral to explore and examine. If coral doesn’t sound all that fascinating to you, then you are either soul-dead or you haven’t ever really gone snorkeling. Real coral dances and simmers in the light, moving with the tide like an agile ballerina. Nothing on earth is quite so sublime.

Then there’s the virtually unlimited variety of marine life that you are likely to encounter, if you just hang tight for a while and keep your eyes wide open. You can’t help but be impressed by the gracefulness of the regal stingray as it glides through the water or small schools of clownfish so brightly colored that your ocular senses feel bombarded by the spectacle. I could be extremely happy, though, just swimming in the midst of the huge schools of silver minnows that congregate in the shallow waters of just about every beach in the Caribbean. Minnows are underappreciated by many otherwise intelligent snorkelers because they lack the pizzazz that more exotic tropical fish possess. But if you ever had several thousand swimming around you, their silver scales sparkling in the sunlight, you wouldn’t be quite so quick to dismiss the charms of these little fellows.

The thing I love most about snorkeling, though, is the zen-like tranquility I experience whenever I don the masks and fins. It’s just me and the water. Nothing to achieve, nothing to accomplish, no goals at all except gently moving around the surface of some serene Caribbean inlet, being one with everything that I encounter. I could literally spend an entire day just floating, letting the current take me where it will, relinquishing all my preoccupations and anxieties. Forget valium or therapy. When you are stressed out or anxious, a few hours of snorkeling in a place like the Virgin Islands are all that you need to reestablish your sense of purpose in an otherwise chaotic universe.

I have heard some immature people suggest that snorkeling is for boring old fogies (in other words, people just like me). These folks seem to think that scuba diving is where it’s really at. I did try diving once in Mexico, but to be perfectly honest, I found it to be a terribly busy activity. You’re always forced to think about what you are doing when you’re scuba diving. Now, I have nothing at all against cognitive activity, but if I am going to spend several hundred dollars to get away from my job—a job which, by the way, involves having to think ALL the time—the last thing I want to do is have to think some more on my vacation. No, just give me the damned tube and let me drift, far, far away from all annoying thoughts and preoccupations.

On my last snorkeling expedition to the Caribbean, I actually learned an important lesson about life. I kept hearing other snorkelers brag about seeing large stingrays at the tip of Francis Bay on St. John’s. I was determined to see one of the majestic creatures myself and, if possible, photograph it with the $19 disposable underwater camera that I purchased just for that purpose. I spent considerable time swimming the length of the bay, moving from one place to another in the hope of seeing a stingray. By the time I got to end of Francis Bay, though, I hadn’t seen anything more than exactly the same kind of fish I had been looking at for the past three days. In frustration, I decided to swim back and forget all thoughts about stingrays…..After all, I really didn’t want to spend my last few hours of snorkeling on some kind of silly Ahab quest. It was at that moment—when I had jettisoned all thoughts of accomplishing anything other than simply enjoying myself—that a huge, magnificent stingray suddenly appeared right beneath me. For all I knew, he could have been there all the time, but I was so busy looking that I had forgotten to take the time to see.

That’s why activities like snorkeling—and, to a certain extent hiking—are so damned important in this silly, miserable, action-packed world of ours. They force you to slow down and take time to actually begin to NOTICE the world around you. It’s during those quiet moments that you begin to realize that all the big troubles that usually preoccupy your mind are not really much at all and that the truly important things in life can be had with very little effort and minimal cost. A pair of fins, a breathing tube, and an underwater mask…that’s really all you need to make sense of this crazy, chaotic cosmos that we inhabit.

A few cold beers don’t hurt either…

Vague Musings

Baby sparrow fallen from

the chestnut tree.

Perhaps his mother will find him

and return him to his comfy nest.

More likely he’ll just die…

that’s usually the way

life goes.

Fat Ed from
across the street
doesn’t like
the look of
my lawn.
Too much crab grass,
he says.
I nod in perfect agreement,
and wish
violent death
upon him.

Small faces
on the school bus,
so filled with excitement
so eager to learn…
That won’t last very long.

June…
There should be time enough
in June.
I keep waiting,
but June never comes.

Junie Cloonie
loves her loony toonies,
takes a bus trip to the old
cheese moonie.
Sad, sad
Junie Cloonie,
so damn cute,
but such a
silly baffoonie
[I wonder what ever happened to Junie Cloonie? She was such a swell gal…winning personality, excellent penmanship, always wore the most sensible patent leather shoes. There’s talk that she wound up starting an import-export company and sold her spleen to a camel jockey in Saudi Arabia for $42.79; the rest of her is supposedly on exhibit at the Smithsonian. If I could, I would marry Junie Cloonie, even without her spleen. I love you, Juny Cloony!!!]

Whenever I smell
antiseptic ointment
I always think
fondly
of you
and your
rubber gloves.