I Used to Be Smart.

The best days are the ones when you realize that you can’t say anything original, and that everyone else is just as screwed up as you are.

I updated the “and i get my hair cut every two weeks” a couple of times.

Just so you know.

(And you’re still supposed to tell me if it sucks.)

(And to realize that I love Flannery O’Connor and Wendell Berry, so I know the value of place.)

(And that I’m being ironic.)

(My continuing attempts to write something other than angry diatribes. Tell me if it sucks.)

(Updated on, 12-21,22)

People in books always grew up somewhere special. If it wasn’t somewhere special, it wasn’t at least somewhere interesting.

I didn’t grow up anywhere special, and it’s hard to find a way that this place is interesting. It is nothing more than what it is, and that isn’t much.

When I was growing up, I always wanted to be a writer. It was one of the two things I was good at — writing, and spitting out gobs of utterly useless knowledge. Only one of those can lead to any sort of career. The only problem is that writers are alway from somewhere special too. They have to be, otherwise they would never have a source for all of the stories they could tell. It’s only intuitive. So I’m already at an impasse. I didn’t grow up anywhere special. I’ve got no stories. At least none that you want to hear. Sure, I could tell you about the time I was sledding down a hill, and decided to close my eyes, and how that led to rather sudden contact with a tree. Of course I could tell you about the time I got hit in the head so hard with a softball that the impression from the stitches lasted two days. I could relate the horror of teenage orthodontics, or tell you about all of the stupid things I’ve said when I’ve been drunk. Sure. But who couldn’t tell those stories? There isn’t anything I can say in those stories that you haven’t already heard.

—–

I always wanted to have an existential crisis. I always thought that if I didn’t know anyone interesting, I could at least make up for that by have a grand crisis of meaning and being. Of course, an existential crisis, and an interesting birthplace would have been my ticket to stardom. However, what I have come to discover is that I am too well adjusted for my own good, and that even my desire to conjure up some grand existential crisis is insufficient. I can’t even manufacture such a crisis. So it seems as if I have but one recourse. I will be forced to write fantastic science fiction stories, about circumstances and context so extreme that it will be impossible for anyone to question the authenticity of anything that I write. It’s really the only solution.

—–

The purple sun was setting over the mountains of the planet Shazmard. Two men rode down into the valley on their tamarmarios, creatures that can only be described by their dual resemblances to both ducks and horses. They were warriors from an ancient tribe, sent on this rite of passage. They feared the sorts of things they had always heard were hidden in the mountains — creatures that had devoured men with more fortitude than these two. Neither of them were anything special to look at. The first one looked as if he had eaten too much at every meal since his birth, and the customary beard that he tried to grow was patchy and thin. It was hard to take him seriously. The other was even more boring. His plain round face and his dark hair assured that he would always blend into any crowds that he might happen to come across. However, neither of them were currently worried about their lack of good looks. They were only worried about what lay ahead, on the mountains of Shazmard. In an effort to ease the silence brought about by their fears, the big one began to speak.

“Dude. Did I ever tell you that story about the time I was in eight grade and I got a carton of spoiled milk?”

“Aw man! That’s nasty as hell! Did you drink it?”

“How else did I know it was spoiled? Of COURSE I drank it! Then I spit it back out everywhere! I’ve never tasted anything so foul in my life, man!”

“What’d you do?”

“The hell you think I did? I took it back to the lunch lady, and demanded that she and her hair net give me some more milk! I was ready for a fight, too. You know how some luch ladies are.”

“Hell yeah.”

“So she just said, ‘Sure. Get another carton and throw that one away.’ So I did.”

“Oh.”

—–

You see, that’s the problem. I’ve never very far from myself. No matter where I go, I’m still there. No matter what I say, I’m all tied up in it. No matter what I make up, I’m still lurking around all of the corners, and that’s a shame.

—–

When I was about 8, I moved across the street from The First Church of God. I always thought that they were awfully arrogant. However, seeing as how we lived on Bethlehem Road, I thought it all made sense, but I wondered why we didn’t go there. It was, after all, The First Church of God.

The First of Church of God Himself has upgraded throughout the years. They’ve added what can only be described as a “Family Life and Recreation Center,” and a thoroughly modern sign board out front. After all, God’s first church has to keep pace with the other churches in town, even if that means mispelling a few words on the sign out front.

I was never very shocked to learn that the road in front of my house didn’t lead to the birthplace of Jesus, and that the church across the street was no religious epicenter. That my disillunsionment passed so quickly is only proof that this place is nothing special.

—–

Sometimes, I feel like the sadness is just too much to bear. Maybe it’s because I’ve been drinking, but on those long rides home, when I never do quite get warm enough, the sadness finds a way to creep around every corner and burrow itself into every thought, and no amount of noise is enough noise to drive it away. No amount of self-medication or bullshit can change a thing. And sometimes I wonder if I have any right to be sad about anything, or if it’s all just the guilty I feel from having it pretty well.

I know that you’ve been waiting with bated breath for this. So here you go. Music of 2005, part 2.

Woody Guthrie, “The Asch Recordings.”
I’m not sure if I can completely describe the way I’ve gravitated to Woody Guthrie over the last few months. To be sure, my obsession is improbable. It’s not often that 24 year olds from Kentucky who really wish to be “sophisticated” get undeniably addicted to music sung by twangy little guys from Oklahoma who wrote music in the ’40’s and ’50’s, but my new fixations persists despite the odds. Woody had a funny way of captivating me. First, he charmed me with his sense of humor. Between his wild fish tales in “Talking Fishing Blues,” and his inexplicable car noises in “Car Song” or his ability for absolutely hilarious hyperbole in “Talking Hard Work,” there is no denying that Woody had a strong sense of humor, and a great ability to capture that sense of humor in songs, and to capture that sense of humor in the way that we’re laughing with Guthrie about the world he inhabits, never laugh at it. And while all of that may have endeared me to Woody Guthrie from the start, you find something deeper when look beneath the veneer of Woody’s sense of humor.

Woody is, at heart, a social commentator, and he does social commentary much better than he does humor. Whether he commenting on social justice issues, exploring the plight of factory workers and unions, explicating the lives of poor dust bowl farmers, Woody is always in touch with the world around him, and he is especially in touch with the way people are being marginalized in the world around him. Woody also has an uncanny ability to serve as a chronicler of the history occuring around him in ways that few songwriters have anymore. Whether he is singing about the Sacco and Vanzetti trial of the 1910’s, or of Charles Lindbergh in the 1930’s and 1940’s, or about World War II and all the ways that it affected his world, listening to Woody Guthrie is like listening to poetic rendering of American history. It is not a rending without bias or dogma it, nonetheless, the poet historian capturing a period of America for posterity, and capturing it well. That is the value of Woody Guthrie. Despite all of the twang and the antequated recordings, more than any other singer I have yet come across, Woody possessed a pair of eyes that saw the world just a bit more clearly than everyone else, and he possessed an uncanny ability to record the ways he saw the world around him. So like Bob Dylan said, “There’s not many men that done the things that you’ve done.” And Bob’s always right.

The Format, “Interventions & Lullabies.”

It’s too bad that the draw fell so that The Format has to follow Woody Guthrie. No matter who had to follow Woody, they got a tough draw. However, though they’re in a different league, I think they can hold their own.

On the surface, The Format are pretty standard. They don’t sound much different than the alternative influenced rock that every other group of guys in their 20’s would make. They’re not particularly cut from any sort of “emo” cloth, and they don’t quite venture as far as a band like The Shins. However, what they have, in their own right, is quite nice. They write very good songs. They have great hooks that stay in my head for days at a time. They have nice guitar parts that are “singable” — as all good guitar riffs should be. (Do not pretend you can’t sing the guitar solo from “Hotel California.”) None of that is what’s particularly engaging about The Format. If it hasn’t become clear by now, the main impact that music has on me is very rarely contained in the instrumentation. It is, I believe, an essential part of the experience. However, I am much more drawn to artists’ lyrical ability. That is where The Format shines. They shine for one overwhelming reason — they realize the impact that relationships have on life. All of their songs are, at heart, relationship songs. And more than being songs about girls, they are songs about friends, and family, and all of the relationships that we encounter in life. Whether lamenting the struggles and fear involved in helping to care for a sick father in “On Your Porch,” or realizing just how much friends can impact your life in “Give it Up.” I am stirred no more by any lyric than the singing of “…and as for Mark, goddamn, I wish him the best…” from that same song. More than anything, The Format understand. They understand how important all of the relationships we have in life are. They understand how much those relationships affect all of us, and they’re fine with singing about all of the ways in which they have been affected by their relationships. When they can combine that with well written songs, nice guitar riffs, and good playing? I’m sold.

Bright Eyes, “I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning.”
Attempting to describe and to make an apologetic for Bright Eyes, whose real name is Conor Oberst, may be the most difficult piece of writing I have ever done. Additionally, to explain why I even have the ability to like Oberst’s music is task unto itself.

Oberst’s songs are nothing if not otherworldly. They come from a world that I do not inhabit. A world of depression, of psychiatric assitance for that depression, a cutthroad world of one-night stands and an entire culture that I do not have the ability to understand. Mostly, I listen to Oberst from the outside looking in. He inhabits a strange world, even if it is a world that he has invented, and that world is nothing like the world in which I live. Nothing like it, that is, until I start to think about it. When I really think about it, when I genuinely take the time to reflect on the songs that Oberst is writing, I realize that we are kindred spirits. The names and the details may change from Oberst to Bobbitt, but at the end of the day, we’re very much tied together. There are to many ways to tell them all. There is the way that Oberst ruthlessly displays the way that the society in which we live is full of utter contradictions and hypocrisies, and the ways in which he pledges that he will expose those hypocrisies, and implores us to join him in his journey to “the bottom of everything” where “we’ll see it, oh we’ll see it, oh we’ll see it, oh we’ll see it!” and the way it comforts him to find out that the truth of everything is that he is nobody. I feel solidarity in Oberst’s feelings that, “We are nowhere, and it’s now.” I feel the way that he seeks so badly, with those around him, to break through the encompassing malaise, “just wishing” that he can find “some kind of truth” in the world around him. I feel the way that he wrecks relationships by his inconsistency and self-doubt. I feel a kind of happiness well up inside me with the acknowledgement of the ways how relationships change our outlook on life. I know all too well about liquid cures for landlocked blues, and I certainly know how to drip with the same political cynicism. And I know what he means when his sun comes up with no conclusion. It would appear that we’re not so different after all.

Oberst is something special. His voice his raw. His music his intense. Listening to his songs is an event. It cannot be done lightly, it cannot be with reflection of perspective. He is one of those rare poets who has the uncanny ability to inspire as much reflection as it appears went into the writing of his songs. He is not an easy sell. His songs are disquieting, even disturbing. However, that is the truth. The truth of the world is disquieting and disturbing. Anyone who is not afraid to take that truth, especially the hones truths of our interior lives and the malaise that resides there, and to air that truth for anyone who will listen to here, is either brave or neurotic (but probably both). This, more than anything, is why Oberst is important. He may be intense, he may be disturbing, but above that (and probably because of that) Oberst is true, and that truth merits listening, no matter how difficult the listening may be.

Damien Rice, “O.”
For most people, they only Damien Rice by association. If they only saw the trailer, Damien Rice is the voice singing while Natalie Portman walks down the street at the beginning of the Closer trailer. Oddly enough, if you have seen the movie, you will realize that it is not an unfair association. If I were forced to choose one word to associate with Rice’s music, “haunting,” would be the word. “Tortured” would be a nice runner up. It would be easy to “O” as a theme record, a folk opera of sorts, about a relationship that has wrecked the character narrating the cd, because it is that what unifies the project. The beauty of Rice’s cd is the way he makes being haunted and tortured such a beautiful affair. Listening to “O” had a strange way of making you happy to be sad. It feels good to be tortured and haunted when you’re listening to Damien Rice (Lisa Hannigan’s amazing voice helps that along). I think that’s why, after listening to “O” so many times that I still love it, and I still feel compelled to listen to it. Honesty compels me to say that there are times when I feel like the man singing those songs, and there are times when it just feels good to indulge those broken, screwed parts that we all like to keep secret.

You know at the beginning of “99 Problems” when Jay-Z says, “You’re crazy for this one Rick!”? Yeah.

While running an errand earlier, a young woman held a door open for me, I made a decision.

Chivalry should be gender neutral.

A working definition of chivalry would probably be the best start. I’m not talking about a really specific, historical version of chivalry involving the way mounted knights are supposed to engage in combat. That’s boring as hell. I’m referring to a more contemporary construct of chivalry, an agreed upon code of conduct that says that men should open doors for women, say things like “Yes ma’am,” and “No ma’am,” and generally act as if there is a special reverence that goes with being a woman — as if women deserve to be treated a certain way because they are women. In turn, the heroic men that we are, we expect no reciprocity. Whether we do it because we think that women need the help, or just because it’s how we were raised, it’s this whole system that is convinced that the right way to treat women involves some reverential awe and a view that we must help women and be particularly kind to them because they are women.

I submit this:

A) Women are capable of taking care of themselves. It’s true. They don’t need our help. Even the women who REALLY want the help of men to get along in life don’t NEED that help. I must say, however, that most men are perfectly capable of believing that idea and still acting in a chivalrous manner. I understand that.

B) The way that supposedly chivalrous men act toward women must be extended to all interactions between gender groups — male-male, male-female, female-female. Both genders should react to both genders with some kind of courtesy, oppennes, and willingness to aid that the chivalrous male displays to the woman. As crazy as all of this sounds, that’s all I’m trying to say. Treat everyone like they’re something special, something important, something worth revering and caring about, whether they’re male, female, or something else (seriously). Guys, especially, have a notorious bent for assuming “alpha male” posture with other guys. We should drop that, and treat other guys with respect. I may be a guy, but I’ve seen some catty girl-girl interactions. Girls should drop that, and treat other girls with respect, not jealousy, or whatever else inspires the catty reflex. (And is saying “catty” sexist language? Anyone?)

I know it’s odd, and I’m probably assailing the wrong time-honored institution to make my point, but there you have it.

“Hit me!”

This could be the most pretentious post I’ve ever written. I’m going to assume that my music tastes actually mean something, and that someone actually cares. That’s pretentious defined.

Now, with that disclaimer done, since the end of the yer is approaching, I’ve decided to talk about the music that I’ve found this year. I’ve pretty much decided that I fall in love with songs much more than women, but that’s a different story.

These cd’s are by no means all products of 2005, I’ve just fallen in love with them in 2005.

Sufjan Stevens, “Come on Feel the Illinoise.” I think this cd is epic. That’s my favorite way to say it, and this will be gushing compared to everything else I will write. At heart, it’s just another folksy singer-songwriter record. However, Sufjan has a way of making it something more. Maybe it’s the song titles, like “The Black Hawk War, Or, How To Demolish An Entire Civilization And Still Feel Good About Yourself In The Morning, Or, We Apologize For The Inconvenience But You’re Gonna Have To Leave Now, Or, ‘I Have Fought The Big Knives And Will Continue To Fight…’” or “A Conjunction Of Drones Simulating The Way In Which Sufjan Stevens Has An Existential Crisis In The Great Godfrey Maze.” Perhaps it’s the cover art, paying hommage to the mythic figures of Illinois, and even Superman. Perhaps it’s the way in which Sufjan is unafraid to engage the mythologies of Illinois — John Wayne Gacy Jr., Camir Pulaski, Lincoln, and Douglas. Perhaps it’s the instrumentation which is, no doubt, bold. Banjos and horns have not been standard pop music fare. Perhaps it is just in the way Sufjan writes damn good music. Perhaps it’s the way his faith (he’s a Christian, it’s true) is all around the record without being obtrusive, or absurd. Perhaps it’s his understanding of human nature, and his revelation about Gacy that, “in my best behavior/I am really just like him/Look beneath the floorboard/For the secrets I have hid.” Perhaps it is his ability to enumerate a relationship in “Camir Pulaski Day” and to engage loss in a way that is completely heartbreaking, but never slides into the realm of sappy and overly sentimental. Whatever it is, I can’t stop listening to this cd and all of the amazing, prophetic ways in which Sufjan speaks.

John Mayer Trio, “Try.” John Mayer is something else, I must admit. I like that he sets the tone of this live cd with “Who Did You Think I Was?” He asks, “Am I the one who plays the quiet songs? Am I the one who turns the ladies on?” Apparently, Mayer tells us, we had him all wrong. Apparently, he was right. Even with two live versions of songs from “Heavier Things,” this record is different than any Mayer cd so far. The trio format lets Mayer’s guitar playing come to the forefront. At times (perhaps to a fault), Mayer’s playing is eerily similar to Stevie Ray Vaughn’s raucous style. At other times, he finds a quieter voice, always tinged with an edge of blues that he couldn’t have gotten from growing up in Connecticut. Mayer is an archetype of the the MTV generation. He finds a way to be all of the things I think I am. Whatever his music is lacking in technical ability and originality, it makes up for in his solidarity. At certain times, I am not sure that the discontented voice at the microphone is not my own voice. That solidarity makes it difficult to see any number of mistakes that may be there. Do not be fooled. Mayer can write a song. Whether he grinding on the blues in “Out of My Mind,” or making every girls in the room exclaim “I LOVE THIS SONG!” with “Daughters,” Mayer has the ability to write well crafted songs perfect for burrowing themselves in your head. However, nothing comes through as clearly as Mayer’s sense that “Something’s Missing,” even amidst all of the fame and success that he’s found. It’s this sense of not yet having arrived, combined with a Stratocaster and overdrive that makes Mayer impossible to resist.

Bruce Springsteen, “The Ghost of Tom Joad.” In 1995, Bruce Springsteen released, “The Ghost of Tom Joad.” In 1995, I was in seventh grade. The only thing I knew of Bruce Springsteen was, “Born in the USA,” which I still thought was a patriotic anthem. I had never heard of Tom Joad, and I am certain that I was still afraid of ghosts. Ten years later, I have graduated college, read Steinbeck, and discovered that Springsteen was far more adept at social critique than patriotic ballads. I am no longer scared of ghosts, but I am startled by, “The Ghost of Tom Joad.” From the first song (the title track), Springsteen is amazing in his ability to be exactly right. The eye through which Springsteen sees the world, and the voice through which he paints its characters are astounding. Even more astounding are the characters that Springsteen choses to create. He has this strange affinity for the marginalized. In a way that few others can, Bruce Springsteen can paint an amazing picture of a completely marginalized individual, and draw the focus to the ways in which those people, who are now startilingly real, have been made marginal. He does all of this without ever become preachy. He turns our eyes to the mistakes of our culture without ever sermonizing. With little more than a harmonica, a sparse guitar, and voice that is too rough around the edge for the radio, Springsteen brings his characters to our conciousness with such a sense of history and irony, and such an intentionally crafted beauty that we cannot help but listen to what he has to say, even if we are ignorant about the contexts of his characters. The title track provides the listener with all they need for the tone of the record. The defeated sounded pleadings of, “Welcome to the new world order,” balanced with Springsteens recapitulation of Steinbeck’s portrait of a Tom Joad who remains alive in the life of every person who has lost the battle of wealth and prestiege, and the hope that comes with that solidarity. Springsteen is The Boss for a reason, and it’s something deeper than fact that he was born in the U.S.A.

(That’s Part 1. Look for Part 2 soon. I know you can’t wait.)

Last week, I was reading A People’s History of the United States. In a chapter about the later 19th century, Howard Zinn said this:

Control in modern times requires more than force, more than law. It requires that a population dangerously concentrated in cities and factories, whose lives are filled with cause for rebellion be taught that all is right as it is. And so, the schools, the churches, the popular literature taught to be rich was a sign of superiority, to be poor a sign of personal failure, and that the only way upward for a poor person was to climb into the ranks of the rich by extraordinary effort and extraordinary luck.

Like the last time I quoted Zinn, I was amazed. What I quoted from a pamphlet in the 19th century was able to imported seamlessly into 21st century America. This quote is the exact same thing. What was true in the 1880’s is just as true in 2000’s. That’s been interesting in a way that I haven’t been able to get out of my head (as is probably evidenced by what I’ve been writing lately). Why is that so startling? Why is it such a big deal that the rich are still so rich and that the poor are still so poor? Why is it an issue that control is still in the hands of the few, and those powerful few manipulate the many in any number of ways to maintain that power? Why is it even shocking that such manipulation happens at the cost of the many? The environment? The future? I’ve seen it played out time and time again. Why do I care?

I care because all of those issues make a bigger statement: the kingdom of God is not yet here. It is as clear as any graph charting wealth distribution and tax brackets. This time in which we live is not special. This place in which we live is not special. We are, as was everyone before us, still waiting for the kingdom to come. It may well be closer, but it is still a long way off. The problem is, we believe that it is right around the corner. Christians believe that we created something so close to the kingdom of God that only the return of Jesus is left to validate our efforts. However, we have to look just below the surface to see that the kingdom is still a long way off. That peace is far from a reality, that the rich still exploit the poor, that racial prejudice is still a norm. The kingdom of God may be closer, but it is not yet as close as we think it should be.

Our ignorance leads to apathy. As long as we believe that we are so close to creating the coming kingdom, we will continue to miss the ways in which we are falling very short of the coming kingdom. As long as we are satisfied, we will forsake any progress. If there is any devil, I am sure he would like that very much.

We must realize that the kindgom of God does not arrive when every retail outlet and town square is decorated with “Merry Christmas” banners, and each clerk can say, “Happy Baby Jesus Day!” as much as she wants. We must realize that the kingdom of God does not come when prayer returns to public schools. It does not even come when abortion and gay marraige are forever outlawed or all enemies of American hegemony are eliminated.

The kingdom of God is no event of Christian hegemony, majority, plurality, or even unanimity. The kingdom of God is something much different. It is a picture much more diverse, more deeply seated, more important. While it’s not a kingdom that is only socially oriented, it is a kingdom that is essentially socially oriented. While the focus of the coming kingdom MUST be changes of hearts, the essential result of the coming kingdom will be changes of social structures. As long as we are content with hollow battles that have nothing to do with the kindgom of God, the kingdom of God will continue to remain a long way off. Unless we are willing to listen to the voices around us (like Howard Zinn, and others) who are helping us to see the ways in which we much still do the work required to bring the kingdom near, it will continue to remain a long way off.

Why do I always feel like I should be somewhere besides where I am?

(I’m not claiming that these aren’t all thoughts recycled from other sources.)

Advent means waiting. It is often a difficult waiting, because it is a waiting for which we know the end. Such us all waiting for the Church. It is a time of anticipation for the event that we know is coming — the celebration of the incarnation, and the reflection upon all the ways that changes the world around us. The incarnation is no more special or true during this time of year, it is just during this time of year that we choose to narrow our focus on the beginning of this event.

The waiting that is advent manifests itself routinely in our lives. The truth is that we must wait. We must wait through all sorts of circumstances. We must wait through the horrible spectacle of unchecked genocides. We must wait through the tenure of frustrating political administrations. We must wait through the (seemingly) inescapable reign of market forces that drive a deeper wedge between the rich and the poor and thrawt causes of justice. We must wait through all of the circumstances that most frustrate us. We must wait through undesirable jobs. We must wait through hurtful relationships. We must wait through the deserts that encounter. Our lives are lives of waiting. Advent both reminds us the waiting, and reminds us the end of our waiting.

It is not a passive waiting, sitting idly by until the desire result works itself to fruition. Rather, it is an active waiting. Pushing ahead, and creating the ends for which one is waiting. It is not merely a passing of the time, but an eye to the heavens and an ear to the ground, looking for signs, and listening for what is coming. It is not a waiting of heads in the clouds, but a waiting of hands in the dirt, making the things for which we patiently wait realities.

Advent is the waiting that reminds us that our all of our waiting will be validated, and the waiting that reminds us that, if we look far enough down the road, that we can see that change for which we seek, and if we work hard enough through the season of waiting, that all our patience will be rewarded in the grandest of events.

I was having a conversation with Katie a few nights ago, and my blog came up. We were laughing about how the last thing that I need are more angry diatribes about religion and George Bush — and that’s completely true, so I’m trying to write some things that are neither angry, nor diatribes. Nor are they about George Bush. However, I can’t promise religion won’t find it’s way in somehow. So I’ve done 2 posts today in that vein. To do something a little different. This is the second. It’s a poem by Charles Bukowski that I think is awesome.

“Dostoevsky”

against the wall, the firing squad ready.
then he got a reprieve.
suppose they had shot Dostoevsky?
before he wrote all that?
I suppose it wouldn’t have
mattered
not directly.
there are billions of people who have
never read him and never
will.
but as a young man I know that he
got me through the factories,
past the whores,
lifted me high through the night
and put me down
in a better
place.
even while in the bar
drinking with the other
derelicts,
I was glad they gave Dostoevsky a
reprieve,
it gave me one,
allowed me to look directly at those
rancid faces
in my world,
death pointing its finger,
I held fast,
an immaculate drunk
sharing the stinking dark with
my
brothers.

nice try, edgar cayce. you were right you know, about all those things you said. nice try edgar cayce. you were right about fortunes rising and falling. you were right about the days and everything they held. you were right about blood and bones and things yet to come. nice try, edgar cayce. nice try, edgar cayce, but i think you had no clue about things so beautiful and important that clairvoyance cannot hold them.

edgar cayce what about the times i laughed so hard that laughing wasn’t good enough to express what i felt? and edgar cayce what about the feeling deep in my stomach when that pretty girl smiles like she does? and cayce how about the moment when i realize that the people who are important are just fine with the idiot that you are? and edgar cacyce did you ever know the way it feels to watch a beautiful girl brush the hair from her face? and edgar cayce do you know it’s better because she didn’t know anyone saw her, and that didn’t change a thing?

and edgar cayce, can you tell me what it’s like to drive a long road home with sound or company but the songs you seen? down the darkest road you can imagine?

edgar cayce i’d like to know how it feels to give the perfect gift to a friend, or to know that something you said moved someone so deeply that they cried. and edgar cayce, if you could, i’d like to know if you could tell me how it feels to be vulnerable. to be frustrated. to cry.

nice try, edgar cayce (and i mean that sincerely), but for all that i must defer to minds more well-equipped than yours.

Over the past several months, I’ve been working through Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. I say “working through” because it’s not easy reading. It’s a great book, but it’s dense, and filled with a lot of information, so I have a tendency to read it to get through it (so I can finish it) rather than reading it as well as a should.

But that’s all beside the point.

Today, I was reading and eating luch, trying to finish the chapter called “The Other Civil War.” The whole chapter is outlining the divide between the lower class and the upper class in mid-19th century America, and how that often escalated to violence (which was integral in securing some reforms). While reading, I came across this:

Later that year [1829], George Henry Evans…wrote “The Working Men’s Decleration of Independence.” Among its list of “facts” submitted to “candid and impartial” fellow citizens:

1. The laws for levying taxes are … operating most oppressively on one class of society…
2. The laws for private incorporation are all partial … favoring one class of society to the expense of the other…
6. The laws … have deprived nine tenths of the members of the body politics, who are not wealthy, of the equal means to enjoy “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” … The lien law in favor of the landlords against tenants … is one illustration among innumerable others.

Most of the things in the book, I’ve kind of assimilated and read on. They’ve been informative, enlightening, and shocking for sure, but this one stopped me like none of the others have stopped me. Here, in reading pieces of a document from 1829 (and I’m glad it’s just pieces. I bet the whole is tedious as can be.), I feel like I’m reading something that is being written right now. The arguments that Evans makes about the society of 1829 can be made about society now (and not just America). The exact same things that were a problem in the middle of the 19th centry are still hanging around at the start of the 21st centry.
The battle is still between the have’s and the have-not’s.

That seems like the unescapable cycle of history. The people with power do whatever they can to make sure they keep their power — even if it means crushing those without power. The powerless fight hard to rally against the institutions that are making people rich off their labor, exploiting them, but nothing much ever changes. The powerful make some concessions to placate the mobs, but it always remains the same, the have’s try to keep what they’ve got, and the have-nots try to get something. It hasn’t changed in 180 years, and it won’t change for a 180 more.

Ray Charles was right.

“Them that’s got are them that get…”