June 30th, 2010
an open letter to the members of the United States Congress
For several years now I have been a proud resident of a certain mill town in New England. Along with many of my fellow residents I think it is a lovely city. Some would disagree. They see it as a rotten city, spoiled by one of the crucial features that makes it so appealing to the rest of us: a substantial population of immigrants. On a warm summer night I like to walk along the lamp lit river esplanade for there I find a parade of people from the four corners of the world, strolling and quietly chatting in their native tongues. Everyone smiles as you pass; we are pleased to share in this conspiracy, this fine privilege known only to a few places, a few precious times in history.
I suppose that you would say that some of these immigrants are here ‘illegally’. What a stupid notion! Who can tell another man where to hang his hat? They show no desire to evict us, to seize our parcels for themselves – you will remember that our forebears were not so courteous when they immigrated here. There is a glut of property available, and in fact we need immigrants, desperately.
Since its inception our nation has ridden on their steam. It takes people with tremendous gumption to transplant their lives to this land of mad outcasts. Thus, in spite of ourselves, we siphon off the most intrepid and resourceful of the other nations. We should be welcoming these exceptional new neighbors with apple pie for it is their will to make a new life that gives our nation its best advantage. Those of us whose families have resided here for more than a few generations mysteriously feel some grand sense of entitlement by contrast, and yet we offer very little. All the adventure has been bred out of us. We have none of the constitution of our immigrant ancestors.
If there is disproportionate crime and poverty among the caste of immigrants, it is most certainly due to their lack of that most essential right, hard won by our own immigrant forebears: representation. Yet before long, much like the wolves that came before, these immigrants will find the way into your peerage, and though some of your colleagues are doing everything they can to drive them off, they will prevail certainly, for they come from better stock. Take heart! Like us, once fed they will domesticate, and together we can bark at wind that stirs in the bushes.
…
June 23rd, 2010
Almost every time I see live rock music, in all its myriad forms, part of me winces, for I see a handful of dutiful musicians, playing a composition that required all of their talent to produce, informed by a lifetime commitment to practice and study (and the proof is in the pudding if the music is stirring) but then, inevitably, some preening, insecure jackass marches out and begins shouting their juvenile poetry over it.
I often hear people criticize pop stars for not writing their own songs; instead we should be criticizing rock stars for having the audacity to try. What expectations should we have of these napoleons, with their throat problems and anxiety attacks, who did poorly in school, and likely have at least one crippling addiction, who often admit that there was ‘nothing else they could have done with their lives’?
If they are insecure its because they’ve had some clarity about who they really are. Sometimes we too can get swept away by their self-delusion, but everyone will get the joke sooner or later. Who can look back ten, twenty years or more and not see a parade of buffoons dressed in flounces, giant clocks, and underwear, tittering on subjects of junior high sophistication, or pretending profundity in rambling nonsense.
There are certainly a few exceptions, though fewer than we would like to think. Some musicians are terrific song writers and aficionados of lyrics sometimes like to hear it from the horse’s mouth, regardless of the horse’s vocal limitations. But, more often than not, it’s some untrained savage, who generally didn’t have the discipline to learn a musical instrument, that now gets to dress up, blurt out his ill-formed thoughts, and bask in the lion’s share of the fame and glory.
…
June 16th, 2010
He hurriedly told us that he had spotted our hated ‘rival crew’ (whose only real offense was that we didn’t like the cut of their jib) out driving around in the aftermath, drinking malt liquor. He caught sight of them just as they inadvertently winged the side mirror off one of our parked cars! Our loyal associate, upon witnessing this unforgivable destruction, immediately ran up and clocked the wheelman in the face before he could drive off.
Most of us had drunk a couple three beers ourselves when we heard the dire news; outrage was quick to take hold. Much as I wanted to go brawl with some corny gang of pampered college kids (I didn’t) it occurred to me that if my girlfriend at the time was somewhere with a broken limb or worse, I’d be acting in bad faith if I wasn’t out looking for her. The brawl wouldn’t wait so we left in opposite directions.
After a brief adventure in the darkness I located her; a huge bough had smashed the roof of her car, but she was otherwise intact (and bore the tree no grudge). I made my way back to headquarters, and on the way ran into the one roommate that had been out celebrating with his newly minted best bud who was a fair three-sheets-to-the-wind; on the way home we had the exciting job of repeatedly untangling him from downed power lines.
Eventually, we got to the house and found the others, a little banged up, and with a tale to tell. They had gone looking for the criminals ‘with the best intentions’ of merely getting their insurance information, but found them in the street instead, brandishing hockey sticks and boards! A fight ensued: wood cracked, faces were punched, I’m quite sure the whole thing was a huge display complete human idiocy. I will always deeply regret that I missed it.
…
June 9th, 2010
In my junior year of college I moved into a two family with five of the best n’er-do-wells you could ever hope to know. Two years prior, the school chancellor had welcomed us as wide-eyed freshmen with a ceremonial convocation. In a moment of calculated levity, he told us not to expect any days off due to inclement weather. They were quite accustomed to inclement weather in upstate New York, he assured us, and the university had only been closed three times so far in the twentieth century.
The gods chose to reward his hubris the same way they always do. It was labor day and we were reveling in our new situation. One of our roommates was from the area, and was out celebrating his best friend’s twenty-first birthday in the typical fashion. The rest of us were on the porch enjoying the balmy evening. I casually remarked, “Why is the sky green?” for the midnight sky had indeed suddenly changed to a bizarre emerald color.
Before we knew what was happening, hurricane velocity winds came crashing up the street like a herd of stampeding yaks. We fled inside and scrambled to close the doors and windows; the last door took everything I had to pull shut. Horizontal rain battered the clapboards; a fusillade of thunder shuddered in the floorboards; every board in the house was straining against the wind.
Thirty minutes later it was over, the night outside was as clear and as tranquil as if nothing had happened at all. The power was out across most of the state. Looking outside we saw the downed power lines everywhere, caught in tangles of fallen trees and debris. People were beginning to come out of their houses, to survey the damage in the starlight. Our closest compadre, who lived only a few blocks away, showed up, out of breath, with dire news.
…
June 2nd, 2010
I am a prisoner; I live in a hollow at the bottom of a deep hole. There are others with me, dressed in rags, saturated with dirt. We have but one amusement, nay one miraculous circumstance that gives us life: once a day, when the hole above fills with morning, a single leaf flutters down, descending like a blessing from God. It spirals through the stifling air till it comes to rest on the dirt floor.
There are words etched on the leaves. We know their author only by what is written on these tiny epistles – each one a carefully considered miracle. He too is confined, but in a lovely walled garden, with trees dressed in white blossoms, the ground blanketed in moss. There are beasts with him: a dry and bitter camel, a regal white elephant, a she-wolf weak and old.
There is also a wild boar, a singular creature that the author of the leaves endeavors to tame. He strikes at the boar and drives it before him, but he cannot break its will for it is a tenacious beast; the other animals fear the boar, even the imperious elephant is wary of it. When we read his words we are up there with him – his is a wondrous, lofty place.
But he has fallen into a delirium, and we must wonder now if it was only madness: perhaps the garden is only yet another dirt hollow, with little to distinguish it from ours save a scattering of leaves. If our misery was a wretched thing before then it is now made unbearable. Another leaf descends: he has written that there is in fact nothing, nothing but a great light. He is leaving. He only writes to say that one of us must climb the hole and live in the garden among the beasts, and send leaves down to the others.
…
