We Are All a Bit Wacko Jacko So Cut the Late Guy a Break

I was talking to a priest friend about Michael Jackson. Yep, I guess nobody is immune from observation of the celebrity condition. But really, the celebrity condition is everyone's human condition, just one under a kleig light. What did I think, he asked. I said, "It's a tragedy." He said, "No, not a tragedy." Why? Because, he said, Jackson made "choices", it wasn't about external forces, calamity striking him. I didn't argue. My priest friend is a lot smarter than I am. But I did not, and I don't, agree.

Truly one definition of "tragedy" involves things from the outside affecting, impacting us due to no action or disposition of our own. But Greek Tragedy, the tragedy of myths, involves the fatal flaw in a particular human being, such that circumstances begin to be attracted to that soul, that flawed soul, in a way that leaves us shaking heads, "Why?" "Why, when he had all that before him, did he let it slip away, did he let it destroy him?"

Our society looks for simple answers that can be expressed in sound and computer bytes. But human nature overpowers the possibility of the simple.

That young boy in 1960 something, auditioning for Barry Gordy, or appearing, short and energetic in an early Jackson Five appearance. His face is beautiful. But we know, looking from today to then, that he doesn't think so.

I remember. 1979. I am working in downtown New York at the Community Development Agency or some such place around Chambers Street. Every morning, then and now, a cup of coffee. As I am going into the local coffee shop (nothing like Starbuck's which no one could possibly have conceived at that point), I hear a cut from "Off the Wall". I am getting my cream and lots of sugar cup, you know, the little one with the Greek colums, and I am thinking that I have got to have that album. And when I do, every song is entrancing. I had not been that big a fan before that album. And I like the look of the now grown, but young man, on the cover. Good to know, he's okay. He's not going to be one of those former child stars of one genre or another, who goes down the road to destruction.

But after that, it starts. His nose starts to be unduly narrowed and his skin begins to lighten. His handlers lie about the cause. But maybe it'll be ok. 1983. He moon walks for the first time at the Motown 25. I am with some friends and colleagues, now in Los Angeles, at a little "health food" place on Wilshire, right by the then blue building, 5455. The special, which I had missed the night before is being replayed. I have never seen anyone move like that. He seems so comfortable with his body, even if he is not comfortable with the man in that skin.

What happened? Was it that his father beat him into the performer that he became? Was it that his mother did not protect him from that that made relationships with women so transient, and strange? Was it that he had a skewed view of love? Was it that he had no childhood so he was the puer aeternis? Did he molest children? Between you and me, I don't think he did, despite the assumption that being with a child as he was, in the same bed, raises that immediate conclusion. There are people that don't, who can't have sex. If anybody was turned off by intimate human relations, he had all the earmarks.

I think tragedy is really a mix of the external forces that effect and affect the internal ones. The perfect storm, if you will. He had it all. He had nothing. Maybe we all are like him. Some of us know it. Some of us don't. Some of us fall somewhere in the middle, and live longer than he did.

But one thing, for all of our moralizing and joking, we are no better than him. We all have our dark secrets and motivations. But we are not being watched by the world when we live, and even as we are wrapped in a shroud at the end of our days.

My priest friend said, "Pray for him." Pray for ourselves. Pray for each other.

The Holy Spirit (formerly known as "Ghost") Knows What He's Doing

About a month or two ago, I was rummaging around my apartment in search for my original "St. Joseph's Missal" from when I was a kid. It was a pre-Vatican II publication, and I was hoping to follow along using it at my church, which was going to celebrate a Latin, aka Tridentine Mass. I couldn't find it, and I forgot about going the night of the Mass. I hoped that another would occur one day soon. In the meantime, I was at Mr. Anonymous' of the Deluxe Barbara Judith Apartments apartment, and out of what seemed left field, he handed me my 1961 missal. Some time in the dim dark past I had loaned it to him, chock full of the old Latin rite and the little funeral cards of loved ones, for a story he was writing. Another thing I had forgotten. I perused it before going to bed, and read over the order of the Mass as it was done up till I was about 11 years old. And hankered for the good ole days.

About a week ago, another opportunity to attend such a Mass was announced. And tonight, I was there. It was an uncharacteristically packed house, the likes of which I don't see except at Christmas or Easter Sunday. The crowd was overwhelmingly younger and largely members of the entertainment community--a media group being among the sponsors for the "event". Perhaps that was the most enheartening thing about the evening, that althought it may often appear that religion has been cast onto the garbage heap in favor of an overwhelming humanism and positivism, even an anti-sectarian boom, quietly He is working his Divine power on the hearts and minds of the next generation.

Except for maybe ten people, I did not recognize most of the attendees.

There was a kind of program, with the Latin prayers followed by translation in English. I really wanted to follow along with my old missal, hoping that instead of my vague memory of Sundays at Christ the King services, I'd access the past in full mental color. This was the high/solemn Mass celebrated tonight, the Feast of the Sacred Heart, and even as a child I attended few if any of those.

There was chant. The priests, there were several, sang the prayers. I had forgotten, if I ever remembered, how little the people participated, in addition to having the backs of the priests to them, rather than what we have become used to for some 40 plus years. What I have become used to. We were more spectators of the ritual than participants in it. Was that how it had been? I wanted to say the prayers, even in Latin, rather than only to hear them intoned. I did not remember that, as one of the Norbertine priests who did a little preface of what we would see and hear, said, that the consecration was done in near total silence, except for the bells. And with his back still to us, I could not see the Host very well as it was raised becoming Him, really and truly present.

I was truly amazed that not one of the people who went to rail, including me, to receive Communion put out our hands in the modern way. We all received Him on the tongue. I forgot my "Amen" while I worried that having not receive in that way for so long, I would cause the priest to miss. Shades of the old days indeed.

Ninety minutes later, it was over and I was surprised by my mixed feelings. Perhaps it was that even the youngish priests (except for one) were themselves not particularly comfortable with the old rite and their discomfort radiated to us, to me. But mostly I thought, the things that had changed from former days, most of them, had been changes which brought, at least me, closer to what was happening on the altar, and really, closer to God. If I ever were, I would not be among the ones who would say, "Bring back the Latin rite Mass." I do think there is a place for it, not as a relic, but as a progenitor and a reminder of the amazing continuity of our faith that draws all generations. As what went before and merges into what is today and what brings us to that Sacred Heart. And really, except for the Latin and making it more accessible to the people in the pews who are part of the Church Militant, it IS the same now as it ever was. When I went to look for the readings for today in the Missal, they were what was printed on the program. Things really had not changed. Certainly not the Essence. We used to call Him, in the Third Person, "The Holy Ghost", and now we say, "The Holy Spirit". Somehow the Spirit sounds friendlier than the Ghost, and I guess I like that, but whatever we call Him, He is the same always and everywhere, and He knows what He is doing. And the changes He inspired, they were and are and always will be Good.

Dominus vobiscum. The Lord be with you.

Encounters of a Glassy Kind

I had one last thing to do for the condo that was once my father's residence. It is in an old, 50s building, and some of the windows are louvres. The rectangular panes easily crack, and a few had during the clean up of the apartment after dad died. Not a big fix, nor an expensive one, but I had to find a place that made/cut glass. Like everything in renovation or fix up, there are a million tradespeople and not all of them are necessarily equally legitimate. But for something I knew would be so relatively simple, I did not worry. I found a place in Los Angeles, and was on my way to it, when I saw another, closer by. I parked, ran across the wide street without a crosswalk available, and ran in. I gave the young man at the counter a sample pane. He measured it. I wanted threem exactly the same length and width. He said it would be only a few minutes, for this was an easy job. Great! Another tick off the list of things to do. I was exhilarated, if buying a pane of glass could rightly be called that. He came back with the original and the newly cloned panes all wrapped in newspaper. They were heavy, together. I paid a small 26 dollars and ran to the condo to place the original back in its spot and the fresh ones where cracked had been.

But the original was somehow, shorter than what I had brought in. "How can this be" I exclaimed along with a pithy favorite expletive. Although I knew that the others were exactly the same as the somehow three inch shorter original, I tried them anyway. Nothing could stretch the glass other than my hope.

I went home and called the place, and got a gentleman who spoke only Spanish but managed to communicate that he was only the "answering service". I did not believe it for a minute, and I told the "answering service" exactly what I thought in rapid English. Then I reported the business to the Better Business Bureau. It wasn't the mistake that enraged me. It was that the craftsman, using the word loosely, could not have failed to realize that he cut the original short. Instead of simply telling me, which would have resulted only in my disappointment, but not rage, he wrapped them up together hoping, correctly, that I would not immediately notice the change in length. I have thought and thought how I could cut the man a break, but the original was simply longer when it went in than when it came out with all the copies.

That'll teach me to give a small business owner a chance, thought I huffily.

I managed to find another place closer to my neighborhood, and I am slightly ashamed to say, but not entirely, given what happened, in a better one, although for some reason I noticed glass companies are in seedy places. (What's that about?). The place was open early and closed early so I made my way one morning as I headed to work. A sole older lady let me in, as did her two cute dogs. Already, I was feeling better, animal lover that I am, particularly as I made my request, the English Boxer had brought me his pull toy and we were playing tug while he growled with delight. The other, a pedigree I could not identify, barked a request for my attention. I was happy as the proverbial clam. And the next day, when I came back to pick up my now original plus five copies, I was greeted by the lady, the dogs, and the proper size glass, each solidly ensconced now in their slots in the windows at the condo. I wish I had some immediate reason to go back there, if only to visit with the dogs and chat amiably with the mother of the owner who had assisted me. What is the lesson in all of this? No lesson. For a bit I was walking around, like Dr. House, yelling "Everybody lies". But I had a reparative experience with my encounter with the second glass store and so, maybe there is still hope for the human race.

Peeves of the Day and A "Conversation" with God

The "conversation" probably occurred before the peeves. I suppose, in a way, the emotional impact of those peevish moments means that I did not learn enough from my interaction with Him. Had I better absorbed the lesson, the things which followed would have rolled off my back, as if I had a touch of the saint imprinted upon me.

I'll start with the things that annoyed me, and track back to the Lord's maybe revelation to me in hopes that I will act upon His Touch.

I call in my prescriptions. The idea is that by doing so, you relieve the staff from having you stand in line to submit them, and ultimately get your meds quicker and without fuss and frustration. Now my pharmacy has been taken over by a different corporation from the one with which I had heretofore been familiar, and, of late, the call in system has not meaningfully reduced frustration or increased convenience and expedience. I called in yesterday but did not arrive until evening today. There was a line. Things were not going well for other customers. I requested mine. Having written my name, the pharmacist aide still could not locate it in the alphabetical cubby holes. I tried to tell her she was in the wrong locale, but she was persistent in her reluctance to take the advice of the person who knew her name best. When she finally did retrieve, it was not with all of them. She looked at me and said, "It hasn't been processed." She did not wish or expect further conversation and offered no alternatives. "I don't understand" I said aiming at calm though my irritation was cooking. "When did you submit it?" "Yesterday, by the express telephone line." She still offered no solution. "I thought that if I called it in, there would be no problem." She told me that sometimes the machinery was not accurate. She still offered no solution. I had called it in because that is both the preferable and allegedly the most effective means, but I would end up doing precisely that which the process was created to avoid, wait, and stand in line to pick it up. Again. They'd process it in about 10 or 15 minutes.

All right, cut it out, Djinn, it's not that long. I went to a favorite gourmet supermarket next door to find something for tonight. It was more crowded than I had ever seen it in the nighttime. As I waited on the long line to check out my few items, I saw a little girl pick off a squeeze container of sun block. She flipped the cap and her nose went all too close to the opening for a sniff. Once. Twice. Three times. She closed it and set it back among the multiple other containers. I was suddenly preoccupied by the idea that at some point in my shopping history I had taken one in a line of creamy, dreamy products that had likely not only been handled by another, but graced by the touch of a naturally unsanitary nose to its open tip. Has a study ever been conducted on the frequency of such events? IKKKK.

There was a third thing, but now I cannot remember it. Good. Perhaps it has been superseded by the glorious moment in which I was driving along a surface street from downtown LA. I shut off my radio because I just wanted to talk to God. I have heard that prayer really is a form of talking, although ideally it should include, or be primarily, an opportunity to praise Him and to, well, yes, express one's worship of Him. I was chatting with him about how again I had failed to be kind in one way or another at the workplace and how often I fail in this and so much else. I said something about how likely my prayer was generally more complaint than directed at Him. I was doing all the talking, but it wasn't entirely my fault, because I could not, literally, hear Him, let alone listen. I mean, He isn't the usual conversation partner. Usually I can look into the eyes of the one to whom I speak. I might not. But I can. There was the glimmer of the question that if I cannot hear Him, how do I know He is there? I wasn't really thinking it, but maybe I was sort of thinking that it would be nice if there was something to signal there were two of us in the conversation. The sky had been gray all day. But then I looked at the upper horizon and saw something I have rarely, except in photographs--you know, breaking through a cumbersome, curly overcast multiple long and wide rays of sun, golden strokes. I AM here.

"No license, no problem"

Saw that line on the store front of some mid LA insurance company. Given personal events today, something about that promise really got under my skin as I drove home, somebody tailgating me who has rights, but no responsibility. Because if it were me with no license, there dern well WOULD be a problem. But there are two universes. The one where people who follow rules are held to them, and the one where those who don't follow them, aren't. And it has really gotten worse than that. The ones who don't follow them; they're putting the rest of us in straightjackets with even more rules they won't follow but they don't have to. Think Al Gore's wish that your carbon footprint be limited, while his house is congenially expending many a kilowatt. Think Obama taking a romantic trip to NY with his wife at public expense and wonder what would have happened if W did it during his term.

Who was it that said that the first casualty is truth? Not merely a casualty, but after its demise , cut into bloody little pieces, as a reminder to anyone who might want to utter some defense of it.

It was a nice little experiment, Democracy, but those with endless agendas and power will soon end it. We'll need a modern version of Rick Blaine to get us exit visas, but to where? There will be no where where we won't be enslaved. Imagine. And no religion too, the people sing, hypnotized by well spoken lies. Peace? Is that what you think it will be? I suppose there is a form of peace in slavery. Goodnight, Citizens.