revision99

I have to say something about John Edwards now. Don’t worry — this will be short.

I’m sad. The world we live in is fucked in so many ways. The longer I live (hint: It’s already been way too long) the worse it gets. Global climate change, the collapse of the world financial system, the rise and apparent superiority of authoritarian government (see China), peak oil, the unending appetite for war and more war, the closing of all the libraries, the Minnesota Vikings, the corrupt and inept Bush Administration, the destruction of Labor and the middle class in the U.S., and on and on.

But I still wanted to hope.  I still wanted to believe that we as humans have a better nature, and that with a little leadership and inspiration we can overcome our bad selves and work together to raise us all up to a higher level and create a happy, thriving planet on which we spend our energy and resources making things better, instead of simply stealing the better things from whomever already gots.

I thought that was the John Edwards message, and it appealed to my hopeful instinct.  I thought that if a guy with such a vision could even get close to competitive in our rigid two-party presidential system, maybe things weren’t so bad after all.

But even as he was putting forth his hopeful message he was, it now appears, sabotaging himself, and — if he had won his party’s nomination — wrecking the nation’s chance to escape the criminality and venality of the modern Republican Party. For surely his affair with Rielle Hunter would have been exposed, as it has been, and presto! — President McCain.

I supported Edwards, and when he dropped out I was disappointed, but the reality was that he was not getting the votes he needed.  I couldn’t see why, because Edwards seemed to be the answer to a lot of our wishes.  But you have to be practical.  I switched my support to Obama, and kept hoping that Edwards would either be on the ticket or in an eventual Obama cabinet.

I don’t really care about the infidelity.  I don’t know how it happened or why.  It’s none of my business.  But I do feel conned.  I’m mad at myself more than at John Edwards, because I was all pumped up and ready to buy the snake oil.

I was right.  Things are fucked.  There is no redemption.

I watched the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics last night.

I probably shouldn’t have.  I should have boycotted it, what with the bad human rights record the Chinese have and all, and the way they treat the Dalai Lama.  I mean, it’s a repressive regime, no getting around it.  Our president didn’t mind too much, though.  He was there in the front row, to see and be seen.  But then Bush seems comfortable with doing the bidding of others, as long as there’s profit in it for his family and friends.  The Chinese own so much of the U.S. that Bush might not have had a choice in the matter anyway.  What do I know?

But talk about keeping order!  The new Olympic Stadium, called “the bird’s nest” over and over again by commentator Matt Lauer, was filled with 91,000 spectators, and the government thoughtfully provided 130,000 cops at the venue, probably to give directions and retrieve lost children and stuff.  Oddly, no fights broke out.

I’m already sick of the Olympics, because I watch The Today Show every morning as I’m trying to start my day, and NBC — by virtue of a billion-dollar payoff to the Chinese Olympic Committee — is the exclusive purveyor of all things Olympian to the U.S. television market.  They started months ago with a daily “Countdown to Beijing.”  Daily.

Every morning they interviewed some jock or other, and showed an inspiring video about their struggle to be the best.  Then Ann Curry or Meredith Viera would put on a fencing suit or a pair of shorts and engage in a little swordplay or maybe some beach tennis (yes, it’s just like beach volleyball, only not) out on the street in front of 30 Rock, all in fun, until somebody fell down, and then “…this is Today, on NBC,” and cut to that glorious trumpet fanfare they’ve been using on NBC since the LA games in 1984.  Three months of this.  I don’t care to see the games, since they no longer include team handball.

But that opening ceremony - whoa!  Fifteen thousand performers.  An LED video screen 400 feet long, that you can dance on!  An epic pageant, displaying the history of a culture that is thousands of years old.  Who even knows when they started?  But I can tell you this: the Chinese invented paper and movable type.  They invented the magnetic compass.  They invented gunpowder, and the subsequent stuffing of it into rockets.  So they were able to sail safely to far off lands, shoot the bejeesus out of the natives, find their way back, and write it all up in the Sunday papers.

And what did we learn from the scene where a thousand or so invisible Chinese carried a dance floor the size of a basketball court around on their shoulders while a solitary woman danced evocatively on top of it?  That the glory of any achievement is possible only through the anonymous labors of many, many faceless laborers.  And what lesson from the part where the beautiful children carry the flag around the floor of the stadium (excuse me, the bird’s nest), smiling and waving, only to have it snatched officiously by uniformed soldiers and run up the pole, where artificial breezes unfurled it only at the very top?  That children may be the future, but it is The State that will protect and defend that future.  Out of the way, kids!

I really only watched to see the fireworks, and I have to say they were not disappointing.  At one point early on, the entire city of Beijing was used as a stage, as footprint-shaped explosions took place in the sky, 29 of them, symbolizing the 29 Olympiads of the modern era, each one a half-mile apart, pefrectly synchronized and marching to the bird’s nest.  Holy shit, you’d never get the permits to do that across all the districts and municipalities of Los Angeles.  And once the show started, there haven’t been so many rockets in the air since Bush took Bagdhad.  I mean, it wasn’t launch-boom! launch-boom! launch-boom!  It was more like the sky was on fire.  It’s amazing the kind of fireworks you can buy for a billion dollars.

Anyway, the Chinese wanted to show that they’ve arrived, and they really showed that.  They didn’t want any dissent, and by damn, there wasn’t any, that you could see, anyway.  They wanted to show that they can plan and pull off stuff with precision and on a gigantic scale, and there’s no doubt — they did it, big time.

I surrender.  There is no way to stop the Chinese.  They are alien (like, totally!), they are many, they are ancient, they are modern, they are clearly superior.  Learn the language, folks.  This will be the Chinese Millennium.

It’s a muggy August night in Los Angeles.

Humidity is around 60%, twice the normal level.  It’s been worse here, but not for a while, and I’m feeling it.

I’ve also got nuthin’.  I have lost my energy and my creativity, and I’m overcome by ennui.  Ennui and humidity.

But, to show that I’m still here and was once a real blogger, may I present an old post?  I doubt if any of the current Precious Few who occasionally read here have seen this one.  It was from my third month of blogging, and it received no comments at all, except for a fake one.  It originally appeared here on December 23, 2004, and it was titled “A Christmas Tale.” A Christmas story in August.  Maybe it will cool me off.

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I was the last one out of the office on Christmas Eve, and the holiday was pissing me off.

I don’t really celebrate Christmas anymore, but I have a soft spot for it — the wish for peace, the kindness to each other, the fresh kindled hope for a better future, blah, blah, blah. It’s sweet, you know? But of course we have done our best to ruin it. The buildup is so huge I am always let down by the reality, once it arrives. And I find that I don’t believe anyone’s holiday wishes. I think they’re just platitudes. I was sick of peoples’ hollow Xmas greetings, and feeling grouchy about the whole thing.

So it’s around sunset, it would be totally dark in fifteen minutes and a chilly wind was starting up. I was leaving the office, not smiling, grousing my way out the back door because the front was locked, and I get half way down the outdoor steps when I see her standing in the parking lot. She’s old now, and none of us knows how long she’s been living in and around our parking lot, but she’s been here longer than I have. Her grey and white coat is filthy and her body is impossibly scrawny. As I go down the steps, the heavy security door bangs shut behind me. She hears it and steps warily over to where she can sort of lean on the side of the building, her head cocked my way.

“Hey there, old girl,” I say. She is blind, or nearly so, and she turns toward the sound of my voice. We have seen each other around for years, but she has shown me recognition only in the past month or so, and even now some days she doesn’t. She hesitates, then takes a shaky step toward me. She recognizes me, and even though the office door has closed and I won’t be able to get back in to wash my hands, I know that I will have to pet her, and that her fur will leave a greasy residue that I will have to wear all the way home. I put my briefcase down and sit on the bottom step.

“C’mon, sweetheart,” I coax, and she walks very slowly toward me, until I can just reach out and touch her bony neck. I scratch for a moment, as she tries to make sure that I mean no harm. When she is satisfied that I am safe she comes all the way over to where I am sitting. I scratch her and amazingly, she purrs. She is so decrepit I am surprised that she can purr. My gentle petting rocks her whole body, and I can see that it is only with effort and concentration that she is able to remain standing.

“Poor old baby. It’s a tough life, isn’t it?” I ask in my gentlest cat-calming voice. She lifts her head and stares into my face with her blank, milky eyes.

Yes, it’s tough, she says, but look at me. I’ve survived. Her voice is a high-pitched croak.

Her frailty is so obvious I don’t want to discuss survival with her. “Well, that’s great,” I say, stroking her cheek. “Uh, where are you sleeping tonight?”

I’ll be here as usual, she says, and a shudder runs through her. Maybe under that pickup truck over there. Delicately, she places one skinny paw on my thigh. Do you mind? she asks.

My pants will have to be cleaned. “No, of course not. Come on up.” She needs my help to get into my lap, and more assistance to get comfortable, but at last she is lying there, more at less at ease. The effort has exhausted her, and she just lies there for a minute.

You know, she says at last, I’ve been such a fool.

“What do you mean?” I ask, surprised.

She sighs. For all these years I feared and hated you people. I hid from you, and I looked upon all of you with distrust and suspicion. She looked sheepish. I bit one of you once, a long time ago.

“Well, that’s not so foolish,” I say. “You’re feral, and we don’t have such a good reputation among your kind. It’s totally understandable.”

No, it was wrong. If I had known all along, that all you wanted to do was pet me and feed me… She trailed off. I mean, where did I think those bowls of food and water were coming from, right outside that back door? I was so blind – she smiled — I mean before I was blind, you know? I shifted a little, and we had to get rearranged. She spoke again.

My heart was closed. I couldn’t see the kindness that was offered to me. I had to do everything for myself. I thought everyone who approached meant to hurt me, or take something from me. I’m ashamed to say that I taught my kids to be the same way. All of them are gone now, bless ‘em, except for my youngest. I hope it’s not too late for her. She’s a pretty little thing, you know. Takes after her father. She coughed. You might not believe it, but I was pretty once, too.

The old gal in my lap — and this turn of conversation — was making me uncomfortable. “Well, I think you’re still pretty…”

She coughed again, and it went on for several seconds this time. Don’t kid me, sonny. I’m a foolish old hag, and I’m almost blind, but a girl knows.

I could think of no comeback for that. She wasn’t allowing any flattery, any platitudes. Overhead, the wind whistled through the wires.

“Look,” I say, “would you like to come over to my place tonight? It’s warm, and I’ve got plenty of food. You could take a warm bath, if you want.”

She stood up in my lap, and crept slowly back onto the asphalt at the base of the steps, stretching her arthritic limbs as she walked. That’s a sweet offer, sonny. A few years ago I would have jumped at it. But now I’m afraid I’m too set in my ways. I couldn’t sleep in a house. I’d be too nervous knowing I couldn’t run if I had to. Besides, I’ve got my Little One to look out for. She’s around here somewhere, and she won’t come out while you’re around. She still needs me, more than she knows. She doesn’t pay much attention to her old mom these days — you know how they get. She still has a chance, though. I hope I can show her that she doesn’t have to make my mistakes. I have to show her… she coughed some more, and I thought there was a catch in her voice. …I have to show her how to open her heart to the beauty and pain and love that is all around, instead of hiding in fear and suspicion. She gazed nowhere in particular and was silent for a moment. Before I go, you know?

I stood and picked up my briefcase. There would be no use inviting both of them — we lived in different worlds, and this parking lot was nothing more than the place those worlds touched. But I was glad we had met, and touched, this night.

Thanks for listening, sonny, and for petting me. It’s really what I’ve always wanted, if only I’d known. Crazy, isn’t it? After running and hiding all those years, now I can’t get enough of it. And thank you all for the food — the Little One and I, we appreciate it.

She turned and started to make her way along the side of the building, toward the alley. “Merry Christmas!” I called, and for the first time that year, I really meant it.

She stopped and turned. Merry Christmas to you, sonny. Now scoot. Go home and be with your wife. She’ll be waiting for you. Then she walked stiffly on, and around the corner of the building.

I could feel the dirt on my hands. I looked at my pants, and they were covered with her dirty fur. A perfect half-moon had risen and floated low over the buildings in the twilight. Traffic rushed by on the boulevard. I turned and walked to my car.