Skip to main content

Dark Side of the Moon


Be careful out there. It's that time of year. I'm not much for astrology, but I hear the moon is in Scorpio. I've heard all the planets and stars have moved significantly since the astrological science was born, rendering it all meaningless. OK, I can live with that. All I know this is a funny time of year. Be careful out there.
This is the time for political assassinations, for false prophets to unravel. It's when the macabre and the grotesque ambush us. Be mindful out there. Consider each step, make friends with purpose, watch your back.
The economy isn't the stock market. Jobs evaporate daily. I hear the Salvation Army will have many new visitors this year; listen for that little bell, it's going to be important to tolerate the sound, your neighbors could be depending on you.
In our bittersweet bath of hope and fear, let's look alive. It's that time of year. John Kennedy, Harvey Milk and George Moscone, and Jonestown's winter Kool-Aid...all this time of year.
Lay low for a few days. Find a warm, dry spot. Read, write, look at people, really look at them, mind your head.
Watch a leaf fall, there are still a few left; feel the rain, talk to a child, retrace your steps.
Be careful out there; it's that time of year.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

To a Tee

 I'm a sucker for a good t-shirt.  They are the foundational garment of my life.  My day starts with selecting a t-shirt and it ends with sleeping in one.  Once thought of as under garments, t-shirts are now original art and no doubt, a billion dollar business.   You can get a t-shirt with anybody's picture displayed.  You can commemorate an event, a birthday, a death, even a specular play in any sport.  Family reunions usually have a commemorative t-shirt.  Also, any organization that solicits your support in the form of a donation is likely to offer you a t-shirt. Where once I only had the basic white t-shirt, my drawers are filled with all manner of colorful choices.  Some recognize major events in my life, some, spectacular performances or plays I have witnessed, and some unforgettable places I have been.   I say I'm a sucker for a good t-shirt because I have taken the bait on what I perceived as a must-have only to be disappointed. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Body Language

I'm sitting there in a hospital gown, waiting for my doctor to complete my yearly physical.  This is when I look at everything on the walls, read the medical posters, the instructions on any equipment in the room, look in every corner and behind every chair.  I study the paper on the examination table, laugh out loud at the picture of a smiling child holding a bouquet of broccoli, and the note the placement of the computer in the room. Finally, wondering if the gown I'm wearing is on correctly, I focus on myself.  At this point in my life I'm fairly comfortable in a doctor's office.  But it always seems to take so long when waiting for the doc to enter.  So I fidget.  Then I begin a tour of myself.  Scars are tattoos.  I look at the one on my knee and see myself at 12.  Whittling a piece of wood with my Boy Scout jack knife.  The blade slips and I cut a crescent slash through my jeans and into my flesh for life.  50 years later ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sex, Religion, and Politics

Watching TV to keep up with the news is like going to a party.  Sex, religion and politics, in any order.  Those are the topics of choice.  We hear about "twerking," and are confronted with all manner of exhibitionism in local news.  Should women be wearing yoga pants in non-yoga areas.  The office, the workplace, school, church...and that's just the teachers! Religion encroaches in all the right places.  Christian Mingle, the online dating service pops up on the screen during the grisliest of crime shows, the politician's speeches and the sit-coms so full of sexual innuendo that every second of canned laughter barely hides the grins, the gasps, the outcries, or the mindless guffaws. So what's the message?  Are we a society and culture in decline or just rapidly changing?  Probably both.  I recall a student once coming to school with a most offensive tee shirt.  Offensive in that the cartoon image on the front made it impossible for hi...
Post a Comment
Read more