Saturday, July 25, 2015

July 2o15 The Daily (W)Rite WK o4


Saturday, 12:17am
Yesterday got a call from my friend up in Tulsa. She invited me to come up towards the end of August for a going away party. Yeah, she's moving to Washington State to be with her son who's going to music school there. Going to live in a small town on the coast. Sounds lovely. I am going to miss her.

David s getting ready for his big move to the Keys Apartment building here in town. Told him I'd help. Not sure how much I can do for him though. I'm pretty lamed up too. Old age is a bit of a nasty girlfriend.  But he says I don't have to do much but tell the youngsters he's got lined up to move his apartment over. Yeah, I can do that, tell people what to do. I can do that.



6:16pm
Hot today. 93 degrees at 11:30am. David's driving as always. Passing the corner at Boyd & Asp, two beautiful joggers waiting to cross the street . . . mile long legs sticking out of white jogging shorts, their skin white sands pale . . . thick ponytails waving lightly in a Oklahoma summer wind . . . "I want one," David pleads.
I giggle a bit without looking at him cause I know what he means.

The Gray Owl is cold . . . dark, dank, cave cold and I never remember to bring a jacket or hoodie. And, of course I get an iced coffee.

Woodie: David you should watch the Spike Lee movie, Inside Man . . .
David: (automatically reaching for his Kindle) Oh?
Woodie: Yeah, it's really good and unlike most of what Spike Lee . . .
David: Yeah, I got it here . . .

No reason to continue talking. Google is killing our ability to converse with each other. And if we believe in the predictions presented in the movie Ex Machina . . . 

Nathan: One day the AIs are going to look back on us the same way we look at fossil skeletons on the plains of Africa. An upright ape living in dust with crude language and tools, all set for extinction.

Pulling into the little Walmart on Classen Blvd.

David: Damn, I need to get gas. Guess I'll get it here, damn it!
Woodie: What's wrong about getting your gas at Walmart?
David: Because I don't like to support evil corporations.
Woodie: But you're planning to buy food here?
David: Yeah, but . . .
Woodie: Get gas now . . . from Walmart.
David: Why?!
Woodie: Because if you don't, a drunken Walmart is gonna call me up at zero dark thirty whining, 'Why does David treat me like his whore? Sure he doesn't mind coming over when he needs food, yogurt, those canned iced teas . . .  but be seen with me in public  . . .  at the gas pump?'

I don't think David's laughing. I am, though.

Sunday, July 26, 2o15 3:10am
Yes, still up damn it. My vampire soul keeps taking over When the human part desires to sleep. But hey!  to see Vanishing Point (1971) on TMC! Takes me way back . . . 23 years old, just out of the Marine Corps, living back home in L.A., working shitty little jobs in factories, restaurants, any place that would hire a speed freaking Vet. Didn't no anything about PTSD at the time. I just thought I was crazy. Vietnam was never the big deal to me, I guess. Hell, I was a cook, for God's sakes! I did write a monologue about being a cook in the Nam some time during the late 70's or early 80's. No one had ever written a poem or a monologue or a play commemorating those unsung hero of pots and pans, The Marine Corps cook! Semper Fi, stir and fry, Mo-Fo. {smile}

Nam ‘69
 
What you see before you is a United States Marine,
the finest fighting man in the entire world today!
 
For a cost of three hundred,
fifty-two dollars and… thirty-two cents,
my Marine Corps gave to me this fine
M-16 rifle. For an additional cost of
eight hundred and forty-seven dollars,
my Marine Corps taught me to fire this fine M-16 rifle
with such speed and accuracy that I’m capable of knocking
a fly off a shit wagon at one thousand meters.
 
For a total expenditure of three thousand, eight hundred,
ninety-nine dollars and… thirty-two cents
My Marine Corps successfully transformed me
from a puky civilian… like you…
into a lean, mean, fighting machine!
 
 
And then do you know what my Marine Corps,
in its infinite wisdom did? It sent me to Vietnam
as a goddamn cook! This was embarrassing.
 
When I came home from Vietnam and
I would walk down the street in my fine,
Marine green uniform, people would stop me
and ask, “Hey, man, are you a Marine?!”
And I would answer, “Sir, yes, sir!”
And they would say, “Hey, man, were you
in the Nam?’
And I would answer, “Sir, yes, sir!”
And they would say, “Hey, man,
what did you do in the Nam?”
And I would answer, “Sir, I was a cook, sir!”
“A cook?! Why, boy, you ain’t shit!”
 
If you are a cook in the Nam… no one will write to you.
Your mama and daddy will not write to you.
Your mama and your daddy if asked by a neighbor,
“Hey, man, where is your son?” would rather say,
“ Oh, he’s a draft dodger up in Canada…”
Than admit that you’re a cook in the Nam
‘cause they are embarrassed!
 
The only people who will write you
are the ugly girls who advertise
for pen pals in the Stars and Stripes.
Still you do not tell them you are a cook
for they are ugly  and have enough
to be embarrassed about already!
 
There is a brother in the Nam
from San Francisco and of Oriental descent.
For the price of five American dollars
he will dress up in black pajamas and
you can have your picture taken capturing
a genuine Viet Cong  to send
to the ugly girls who advertise
for pen pals in the Stars and Stripes.
Sooner or later they will send you
pictures of themselves…
And if they are too ugly,
there’s another brother  in the Nam
who will write them back and say,
“Dear Suzy Q, Joe Blow will not
be writing you anymore for he has stepped
on a landmine and killed himself.”
 
Now, this may sound cruel to a civilian… like you,
but as all good Marines know, war is… embarrassing!

Tuesday, July 28, 2o15 12:00am
Walking over to David's yesterday to help him move. Four o'clock in the afternoon and it's hot. Well, not as hot as the summer back in 2o11, but everybody I ran into on my little walk complained about the heat and I didn't want to start an argument.

I walked into David's second story apartment at Bishop's Landing and nothing is packed. Nothing. Bookshelves filled with books (I laugh to see a copy of I'm Okay, You're Okay) and one guy started to fill big boxes. So, okay, I join in thinking this is going to be a long night . . . and then thankfully David's daughter and her husband showed up.

Me: Hey, how full do I want to make these boxes of books?
Mabry (David's daughter) Oh, make 'em as heavy as you want Brendan can carry anything . . . he's so strong.
Brendan: (Mabry's husband) Yeah, thanks, honey.

The door opens and two very pretty (and very young I find out later) girls came to help. And then an artist friend that does great black & white photography and his son show up . . . and the night looks like it won't be as long as I thought. I finish one box and start on another when  Brendan asked me to carry some bookshelf leaves down to the truck as he manhandled a huge Walmart bookcase out the door, down the steps and into the U-Haul truck that David rented early in the day. Hmmm, I guess that Brendan IS a superman cause he just gently flung the bookcase into the truck without  breaking a sweat.

Back in apartment, "Hey, Woodie?" David said, "grab one of the girls and start putting my clothes into garbage bags." I start to but another bookcase carrier asks if I would carry the leaves out for him. It appears that once you carry shelf leaves out you are doomed to do it forever! But no worries cause I'm feeling sort of superman-like myself and I bound down the stairs, stack the new shelves with the ones I already placed there, run up the stairs, go get a garbage bag and start piling David's clean laundry into it, fill it up, grab another bag and . . . all of a sudden I get dizzy, I can't breath, I drop the bag and lean against the hallway wall. "Fuck. What the fuck just happened?" I walked outside onto the balcony, grabbed my inhaler, two quick puffs . . . it doesn't help. My knees shake, I leaned against the balcony railing . . .  Few minutes later I walked back into the apartment. "David, I got to go home." And I did. I staggered down Page St. to the alley that leads to my efficiency. Some how I made it  up the stairs into my apartment and crashed onto my couch . . . I still could barely breathe, the same panicking question inside my head, "What the fuck just happened to me?"

Wednesday, July 29, 2o15 12:19am

I 've been in bed all day. Yeah, what happened to me on Tuesday was still lingering inside me this morning and most of the day. Friends, it was really strange. Last night and again all day today I felt like the life had just been drained from me . . . natural vampirism . . . the universe taking away all the energy in my body. It was strange! I felt like I was a balloon and someone untied the stem and let all the air out of me . . . It happened so fast . . . like hitting a light switch and all goes dark . . . the fast closing of a book when you finish the very last chapter . . .  the last page. It wasn't painful at all . . . I just seem to lose everything, muscle control thought control . . . I felt as if life had just stopped . . . my life gone . . . no fanfare, no dreary, drawn out scene at the last moments of the movie where the dying gets to say goodbye to everyone he ever knew . . . It was scary. A lot like the Eliot poem, The Hollow Men:
 This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Thursday, July 3o, 2o15
Yes, it is Thursday . . . I'm still alive. I think so. Still breathing the toxic air my frumpy, little apartment produces. The constant buzzing inside my ears . . . still here. Thoughts? Yes, they too are here free roaming through my groggy head. Well, all of this proves that I didn't die from whatever it was that got  ahold of me a few days ago. Yes, whatever it was that went through me has really shaken up my reality . . . at least it sort of jump started my creative desire . . . I'm writing again:

"Again, I deeply regret that my pursuit of an activity I love and practice responsibly and legally resulted in the taking of this lion." -Walter Palmer

Okay. I can't say I don't understand that people "like" hunting. I believe it's okay to hunt if you are using the "meat" to feed yourself, your family or the poor or . . . whatever. But to go out and hunt down an unsuspecting critter, sneak up on it and just kill it? How do you love an action like that? I mean it sounds more like a mass shooting than it does a sport. I don't mind it if people want to hunt, but let your prey have at least a fighting chance to beat you. I'd say it would be okay to hunt a bear or a moose and the "hunter" had a . . . bowie knife. Then things would be fair . . . mano a mano . . . fist and hoof. Let the best beast win.

I don't get into politics too much on the blog. Okay, the truth is I never get into politics on this blog, but this killing of a lion for sport? It disturbs me a lot. Forget that it was a beloved lion named Cecil, whether it was a beloved lion doesn't really matter to me that much. What does matter is his idea that it's "fun and enjoyable" to kill another living creature. I jut don't understand the "thrill of the kill" mentality. It strikes me as being sort of sociopathic. Sort of the same kind of mental illness that drives serial killers and mass murders. Something exciting about taking a life. Not just any life, but a life that can't defend itself.

Friday, July 31, 2o15
10am in the morning and someone is knocking on my door. I open my eyes and hope there's not another one . . .  but of course there are! Slip on my robe, push my hair back out of my eyes and hope it's someone at the door who I don't like because my breath is probably nasty smelling. It's the old guy from apartment #5:
"Man, I got a new TV and I can't get it to work. It's just like yours," he says pointing at my 56 inch Sanyo, "only not as big. Can you help me out?" Sure. I can do that. I put on some clothes on, grab my coffee and head down to his place. But no luck. I can't get the thing to work for him. "Sorry, man," I say picking up my coffee that I never got a sip of.

Back in my apartment I pour the coffee out cause when I was working on the TV I turned my back to the old guy . . . "Need a sip of your coffee?" He had said as I tried to get the damn channel select to work. I don't know, it sort of freaked me out. Why did he ask if I wanted a sip of my coffee? Did he put something in it while my back was turned? Poison, a knock out drug? I know, paranoid. But sometimes it's better to be a little paranoid.

I get home and the phone rings! What the hell is going on? Some at the door and now a phone call? It's my oldest friend, Moe. He wants to pick me up and take me down to a local casino cause there are VA people in one of the conference rooms making sure that all vets are getting their VA benefits. I go and I fill out a bunch of forms which I need to take to the VA office in OKC.

Moe takes me to lunch at the casino and we talk a while about the old days when we were in the Corps. Only time we can really talk bout those days . . . not good to be talking about it when his wife and/or kids are with him. We did some . . .  strange things back in the day.  And then . . . I get so tired. I have Moe drive me home. I collapse on the couch and sleep. An hour later I'm up and I'm worried about whatever it is that causes me to get so tired so fast. I should see a doctor.








 

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

July 15, 2o15 WK o3


wk o3
Two hours of sleep between yesterday and today . . . Mother Nature's acid trip. David called in a bit of a panic last night, " I gotta get up at 7:30am, be out the door by 8:30 and start looking for a new apartment!" I  can't say I blame him. He must be out of Bishop's Landing by the end of a month because if he's not they'll  change the locks and shut down the utilities! So, I tell him no worries, I'll wake him up and instead of going to sleep I stay up ALL night because, well, I'm now frantic too . . . for him.

I've shouted at the computer all last night and the night before. I'm exhausted, my fingers need retreading. But my mind smiles at me. It hasn't seen this kind of passion in such a long time. And God? I felt Him snicker a bit . . . yeah, He knows what's coming next, a very high fall into a black, black depression. No, there's no doubt of it. It's the way it always turns out.

Friday, July 17, 2o15  12:30 AM


I should clean my apartment . . . tomorrow. I will scour it from its top to the bottom of it all . . . tomorrow. I mean clean it, really clean it, scrub it, dust it, vacuum the dingy beige carpet into godliness. The sink in the kitchen, the bathroom, the windows streaked with dirt from the last rain storm, clean, all of it cleaned to a shinny, unforgiving  righteousness. And then when it's done, start on the rest of the house. Toss out the bags of garbage that have gathered in the hall, remove the unwanted trash swimming across the lawn, a beat up Chevy in the drive, the Ford sacrificed upon a cinder block pyre, its graying, rusted doors spray painted with gang signs, I think they are gang signs, they look like gang signs to me.  The world, the entire world filled to the brim with vandals marching, marching, clubs in hands thumping open palms, posters screaming red letters, "Life Matters!" "The South Will Rise Again!" "Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Chocolate!" Vote for this guy, vote for that woman. The monsters continue shouting their monstrous words at the few remaining sane creatures hobbling along, hanging on, gasping at the images swirling in their TV sets . . . They hope, they pray that God will come some day and wipe up the mess, this bloody mess we've made.

Saturday, July 18, 2o15 12:48 AM
New air conditioner in the apartment. Bigger, stronger . . . my apartment smiles. I don't think about you at all . . . not in the morning before the heat gets to me, sweats me into submission. Oklahoma summers. Even mild ones attack with the breath of an aging dragon. No, I never think of you . . . but I can feel you thinking about me. I hear you rummaging around in there, bumping into the other ghostly memories that never run out of energy, never stop smacking into my mind. Wide awake, asleep, drunk . . . you don't care. You don't care that I don't care about you . . . your warm blue eyes, that hangman smile you always flashed at me when I pissed you off . . . your hair, soft and dirty . . . as usual. Stop thinking about me. Stop calling me up on the psychic hotline  . . . go back into the shadows, deep into the tomb I created for you and the other . . . lovers? Can I call you that? Can I call them that? Love, a generic word, meaningless  . . . like sunrise and sunset . . . we know the sun does neither. The world turns, but the sun standstill, a drunken ball of boiling gases leaning back against a graffiti covered sky in some haunted alleyway that God condemned a million-million years ago.

1:42 PM
Takes too long to fall asleep. My eyes are always ready but my body always protests with a series of unexplained pains and itchy places on my skin, mostly in the crevasses, those sunken valleys of hidden sweat within a mountain range of fat (caused, no doubt, by poor dietary choices).
But sleep comes when it comes. It is inevitable like death seems to be. And then . . . I wake up, my eyes open, my thoughts begin to slowly rise to the occasion, and the rest of me joins in after three or four cups of very black, very brawny coffee.

But now that I am fully awake . . . what to do? Watch the news for a minute or two . . . make sure the world hasn't blown up while I slept, no rapture transcendence to report, Global Warming still a threat, but still only a threat. Yes, plenty of shootings, Tennessee, even closer to home in OKC. Terrorists or just some guy pissed off because his old lady doesn't love him anymore?

I should do something more with my life. At least do some laundry, clean the house . . . wait! I already discussed that. I hate it when I'm redundant. When I say the same thing over and over again. I must despise myself a lot. But I should do something, you know? I should do something, you know? Something, you know?



Monday, July 2o, 2o15
A small sliver of a moon last night. A thumbnail . . . no . . . a hangnail moon, last night, stuck to the blue, very blue, helplessly blue sky. Venus was there too. Close enough together that I could get a few goods pics of them hanging there, quietly hanging there . . .  deadman like . What do they talk about? God? The universe? The last episode of True Detective?  Hmmm, easier to define God and his ways than to make sense of the TV show True Detective.

David and I had an argument about religion today, or really about the Ten Commandments at the state capital. Not much of an argument. I don't think we argue often. But it was a bit high spirited and in The Diner. Hmmm, I wonder if anyone eating noticed?

A Facebook friend, Francine, said she missed seeing my poetry. She wished for me to write more for her to read. I posted the following on her Facebook page(no, not the pic):
 












Writing has failed me today.
Too much blood in my eyes today.
Demons hate poetry, it sticks to them,
like flies, like the smell of  strawberry pie
cooling on the windowsill.
Besides, there's nothing left to write about.
How many poems based on your face,
stern eyes, the shape of your silhouette
fading just as fast as you walk away from me . . .
how many poems am I obligated to write?
How long do I keep the memory of you alive?
Writing? What good are words anymore?
They lie, scratch at you're thoughts
like cats, like rats, like poison oak.
Words do break bones, cut deep,
invisible slices on the skin appear within
the ever ending struggle between words and poetry,
and poetry and your smile, your stern smile
that never had a word of kindness for me.
Woodie o7-2o-15
 
Tuesday, July 21, 2o15
The last day in this weeks blog and the creative part of my mind is in a desperate war with my vocabulary. There's something here, here inside my head. I can't get it out onto the page. Yes, I can describe it a bit . . . a dull, numbing headache, a twitch, a glitch of thought or, better yet, thoughts. I have moments when it's all as clear as the air I breathe . . . Hmmm, probably not the best analogy. More like a huge, an infinite picture puzzle within a moment, a brief moment when the pieces fall together, form a picture that explains all. And then it's gone. Lost. I know I knew something, yes, something important, something that made existence important, worthwhile . . . but now it's gone. All I can do is weep for it. Drink my coffee, chew on a piece of nicotine gum and mourn with my words . . . its passing.

Finally! Clothes are washed. Not all of them, of course, but all my jeans and cut offs . . . a few t-shirts, a ton of underwear which seem relieved. Too long have they lived stuffed inside a dingy gym bag. And my socks? They mourn more than me for they have lost many friends to the trash barrel, through that black hole that the individual sock is sucked into during the spin cycle.  Life as a sock is a burden I wish on no one.

 


 

Saturday, July 11, 2015

July The Daily (W)Rite WK 2

"I just have a hell of a hard time in a crowd of people. There's always some DICK (or DICKette) who thinks it's okay to mess with me. Like I got this big tattoo smack in the middle of my face that says, 'Please MESS with me!' I know, I know, I don't look right, I don't dress right and everyone thinks that makes me fair game . . . but it doesn't. And just because I am an A-hole in real life doesn't mean you have a right to treat me like an A-hole in public. I usually don't say ...anything in the moment that some jerk-weed decides to ridicule me. I wait until I get to the privacy of my apartment and I let loose . . . usually on the Facebook. I don't want to go off on somebody in front of a bunch of other folk because when I do I windup being the bad guy. And that's because when someone goes off on me I go back at them twice as hard. They throw a metaphorical spit wad at me, I toss a verbal hand grenade at them. They snipe at me with a pithy round of insults, I'll come back with an atom bomb bombardment of @&%$+*&^ words! And I always win the insult game when I do that, but I also always lose in the arena of public opinion." -Woodie

Sunday, July 12, 2o15
2:oo AM
Spent a big part of the afternoon yesterday watching the baker at The Gray Owl make strawberry scones. The light frosting of  the pastries was the highlight. A small pot of heated glaze, a whisk keeping it from melting into water, even, crescent shaped lines meticulously placed along the face of each scone. I fell in love with the baker's precision, her loving delicate care she gave each scone.  I fall in love easily, quickly . . . I love the moments of love that old men seem to gravitate towards so very, very easily.

3:48 AM
I'm no longer punishing myself for staying up until four or five in the morning. What's the point? All the yelling that I do inside and outside my head has never worked. I promise to go to bed at a reasonable hour, promise to get to bed before the sun comes up . . .  and I never seem to make it. The worst thing a person can do is lie to himself betray himself by not doing what he says he should do. No one likes a liar, and I'm no exception to that human rule of thumb. Never trust a person who can't tell the truth.

Monday, July 13, 2o15
4:o3AM
My mind can't hold onto a single thought tonight . . . I mean, this morning. Scrambled eggs for brains this early in the AM. Butterflies of thought flutter around and 'bout inside my head . . . bouncing off the curved grey wall, smashing into each other . . . a pile-up near the corner of Id and Unconsciousness . . . a mushy mess of past, present and future. Sometimes I am not quite sure where reality and fantasy separate . . . not sure that they are not the same thing . . . the Siamese twins of existence . . . that which is spiritual and scientific rushing towards each other . . .would either survive a head on collision?

I dream when I'm sitting at the computer, wide awake, typing down some mind-nonsense that I won't remember thinking up after the words I choose to express this electrical shock that living has become hit the blank page  . . . which is no longer blank once I've begun to type. I worry about my process . . . sometimes. I worry about numbers . . . sometimes. Hours of sleep. Number of years I have left to breathe. You can rightfully say that you're old when the days you have left on this planet are less than the number you have already spent. I confuse myself . . . sometimes.

Tuesday, July 14, 2o15
End of a week of writing. I'm looking for myself again. Always it seems towards the end of a week I look for myself, try to remember that I exist in this world and not some other place. I do misplace the self quite often finding a stranger in the reflection on the computer screen. Of course, I'm speaking metaphorically. I always know who I am, that I am most times. It's easy to lose the self. Like house keys or my sunglasses, I sometimes put my being somewhere and can't remember exactly where I left it.

Sometimes I feel sharp, on it, aware. Sometimes though I feel myself dissolving, splintering, fracturing . . . cracking like a mirror . . . I can see me but it doesn't look exactly like me, the nose a bit more crooked, my goatee a bit more gray . . . my eyes a duller blue than I remember. But it's me, it's always me . . . but for a split second I think it's someone else.

However, I don't like being the me that I was the day before. No, not a total change of my character but I hate the thought of being exactly as I was the day before . . . doing and saying the same exact things. Proust said something like, "the worst thing for creativity is habit." I like that idea. I want to wake each morning and see myself in a different way. I want to be, act, think differently throughout the day. It makes me feel more alive. It makes me feel more like me and not a stranger.





 

Wednesday, July 1, 2015

July The Daily (W)Rite Wk 1 Patriot Edition

 
Wednesday,
Yes, dear reader, I have heard your cry, your mournful cry, "Where is The Daily (W)Rite!" I am so sorry that I've not kept my promise to write something about MEEE! every day! {smiles} But life has gotten in the way of my writing anything here on this blog, on my movie review page and my original poetry blog, Even More Poetry by Robert R. Woods. I will try from now on to keep my promise to you . . . "I pledge my allegiance to the fan, for which he/she reads one blog post now and then, under intoxication for which they cannot stand, and elaboration and black coffee for all, until death do we part (or you just get bored with me),  forever and ever . . . Hallelujah!"{snicker}

Thursday, July o2, 2015
Here's the thing: I am an extremely patriotic American boy. Okay, don't get all Liberal hysterical on me . . . I'm not a Right Winged kind of patriot that follows the precepts of the COTUS as long as they suit my personal beliefs . . .  example: "Guns good, no guns BAD!" No that's not me. Although I do support the idea of the 2nd Amendment, I don't think that everybody should have access to a gun including yours truly.    I am all for religious freedom too, and yes, I am a Christian . . . okay, okay, I can hear your eyes rolling at at me on that one. But like it or not, believe it or not I am a Christian, and granted I'm probably the extreme example of the prodigal son, and I don't know everything there is to know about the whole Bible, and yes I don't go to church . . . although I've been thinking about finding me an African-American church to go to because . . . well, I love the Christian strength exhibited by the folks at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church . . . . or at Anyway, let me get on with my rant, okay?

Lots of controversy these last few days over what the CRC (Christian Ruling Class) of Oklahoma considers to be its religious rights. Everybody's in a fever over the Supreme Court of Oklahoma's ruling about the Ten Commandments:

"Justices ruled 7-2 the monument must go because the state constitution prohibits the use of public property to directly or indirectly benefit a -church denomination or system of religion.'"

Okay, I get it. The separation of church and state, yeah, that's a good idea. Yes, the state shouldn't be involved in state business, AND the church should not have a binding right to interfere with people who are pursuing their rights set down by our beloved COTUS. However, isn't the decision to remove the Ten Commandments from the capital a bit . . . petty? Shouldn't we be spending our time fighting against the bigger concerns like gay and lesbians right to marry?  I know what my liberal brothers and sisters are saying about cutting religious slack  for the feelings of the CRC . . .  that old slippery slope thing: grant the Right Wing Christians anything, even if it is just to have a monument  displaying the Ten Commandments on state land is too much because they'll want this one thing, and then another thing, and another thing . . . Look, the "slippery slope" scenario is used by both the Right and the Left whenever they want to stop the other guy  from getting something. The slippery slope attitude is just another con that stands in the way of the Right and the Left getting along and doing what's in the best interest of this homeland of ours. Slippery slope? Well, hell. Get a good pair of mudding boots and walk on! Let the CRC have their monument. Let us concentrate on the bigger problem: the right of  same-sex couples to legally marry.

My problem with the Right Wing Christians' desire to have the "religious freedom" that is guaranteed to
them under the 1st Amendment, is that they confuse their right to religious freedom with their supposed right to take away ALL rights of those folk who don't think, act and talk like they do. Same-sex marriage doesn't take anything away from those who believe in traditional marriage, i.e., marriage between one woman and one man. Same-sex marriage would not change the definition of marriage but merely expand on it. If you believe that same-sex marriage is wrong under the eye of God, then okay you can believe it all you want. See? The right to marry someone of the same sex doesn't interfere with your freedom of religion at all. If anyone's rights are being violated here it is the rights belonging to the GLBT community. Denying gay/lesbian couples the same rights as the "straight" community is unconstitutional. At least, the SCOTUS thinks so with their 5-4 decision.

Friday, July o3, 2o15
FREDERICK DOUGLASS: Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? And am I, therefore,... called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?
 
I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak today?
 
What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is a constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes that would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour.
 
At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could reach the nation’s ear, I would, to-day, pour forth a stream, a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and the crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced. -July o5, 1852

This is just a part of the speech Douglass gave back in July o5, 1852. Wonderful words that we as Americans have yet to totally grasp and understand their meaning. For the full speech you can go to:
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/what-to-the-slave-is-the-fourth-of-july/
 
Saturday, July o4, 2o15
 
The 4th of July
Las Vegas, NM 2006
I love a parade!
All this red, white and blue
drifting past my view
upon the sturdy backs of
hay-haulers and pickup trucks.
Oh, how grandly they float about
like patriotic clouds
in slow, majestic motion down
the oak-lined streets of
the procession route...!

L.Z. Stud, Vietnam 1969
We stood stark still in one straight,
military line along the rock strewn
edges of that dirt road
known as Highway 9.





Like children we waited
patiently for our summer
Santa to arrive!
Our teenage spirit high,
our jungle boots at attention,
each pair spit-shinned
to black perfection, and our
starched utilities gleamed
under a Southeast Asian sky...

Here comes the Fiesta Queen
perched precariously
upon the shinny bright, white hood
of a cherry '57 Chevy rag-top
which slows but dares not stop...!
What a dark-skinned beauty she is!
Her perfect right hand
waving relentlessly
at all these cheering families
as her throne glides by,
her dark, black hair matching
her dark, black eyes,
her pure white smile
lovingly kissed with
green shade from rustling
oak tree leaves...
 
The General's jeep
thundered toward us
like an angry sheep...
And there he stood
the man himself
standing in the backseat!
A virtuous stone statue
carved in human flesh and grace,
eye-burning victory
etched into his granite face,
a perpetual salute sewn to his cap
and we with pride
returned his regards
as he sped past...

Here comes the diesel trucks
blowing toxic fumes
from their upset, metallic guts!
Engines growling impatiently
when the parade slows down,
a mournful frown
on their shinny, chrome grills.
Embarrassed they are,
forced to mingle
with inferior, classic cars.
What humiliation they suffer,
being dressed up
as big, fat mechanical clowns
with colored balloons hanging
all around their mirrors,
with audacious posters dangling
from their doors
which implores the good citizens
of Las Vegas to
"Vote Don Martinez
for City Councilman ..!"

And Marine green tanks roared dust
into our ears and mouths
as they pursued our leader
into the graying south.
The gods of these metal beasts
threw piece signs and hollered
Good ol' American obscenities
for all long lost
brothers left behind...
 
"Viva La Raza!"
shout silver vested Conquistadors
atop their prancing ponies,
their historically correct armor
lacking only true soldiering.
"Viva La Raza!"
my anxious crowd cries...
such a frenzy shriek of passion,
a thunderous shout of pride...

And through the mist of dust
we glimpsed the ghostly figures
of the grunts marching
in deadpanned unity toward us.
Their faces... God, their faces...!
the color of road, hard and cruel.
they trudged along that bitter highway
burdened like donkeys,
like mad dog strays
carrying everything they owned
rifles, rations, letters from home.

They walked like zombies,
their necks strained from the weight
of weary heads, like the living dead
they staggered looking, longing
for their graves-
And their eyes... God, their eyes...!
tombstones seeing nothing
but the death they've known
and the death that awaits them
somewhere down that dusty road...

And suddenly we merrymakers are hushed,
most out of respect,
Some (yes, a few) quiet from disgust.
For here comes the Veterans
clad in mismatched uniforms,
proudly transporting a faded flag,
tattered and worn.
My, how they've changed!
Those faces now aged
beyond youth,
their steps still unified
but now, less hurried, less horrified.

Yet one thing remains
from those days long ago.
Their eyes... God, their eyes...!
still carry those same, sad tombstones
I noticed back in Nam.
Woodie July 4, 2oo7