Posts
I'm beginning to think of myself as a seagull in the great garbage dump which is internet spam, eagerly looking for tasty tidbits down upon which I may swoop and carry off to feed my blogs.
The following post somehow escaped my usually efficient spam filter and wound up in my "In" box. But it is such an classic example of the art of spamming, aimed at those incapable of or unwilling, in their gullibility or greed, to employ even the most basic logic that I felt obliged to reprint it verbatim here.
"Typers Wanted, Make $12,000 - $30,000/Month. 2 people needed immediately..I guarantee YOU will earn $12,000 every month!!
"YES that's RIGHT.....I guarantee YOU will $12,000 every month if YOU signup 2 personal members. Just think all YOU have too do is simply signup and recruit 2 Distributors. Then train and help these 2 Distributors too purchase $69 of products for personal use each month as YOU and your 2 Distributors continue too signup and recruit 2 Distributors each and so on and so on YOUR commission checks will grow and grow and YOU will earn $12,000 every month GUARANTEED!!"
I give whoever posted this one credit: they didn't exactly lie. They laid it all out, obviously assuming that you are too stupid or too greedy to do the math, or to have ever heard the term "pyramid scheme."
Other classic tidbits from my Spam folder--and my knee-jerk reaction to them--include the following:
"Pay few buck and feel happy. --Get to know how to become more masculine..." (Right! Like I'm eager to learn anything at all from someone who doesn't know how to speak English. ....Do women get crap like this?)
"Received empty mail." (Spooky, huh? It sure as hell wasn't from me. "Yesterday, upon the stair,...etc.")
"You have to read it." (Uh, no, I don't. And no, I won't.)
"I saw you today." (Really? I didn't see you. Let's keep it that way.)
"Click or get ill." (Right...threats always encourage me to open spam.)
"Christian Group: Internet Extreme Wealth Machine!" (Or "how to bilk the unsuspecting by setting up your own on-line ministry.")
"Where are your friends?" (More importantly, as a spammer, where are yours?)
"Good advice--You girl will be amazed. Ten years of history among men...." (Well, first off, don't call me "girl", but if you're going to, put commas around it.)
"earn money typeing from home--Start Making $250-$2500+ per Day! Work At Home only 30 minutes per day...." (Obviously a spin-off of our lead item. Well, anybody who can't recognize the misspelling of "typing" obviously can't be expected to grasp the concepts of logic or math.)
"Code Invalid, New Code" (or "Scam Invalid, New Scam")
"You are the winner of 750,000 euros ****Congratulations****" (Oh thank you! Thank you! I am stunned! Hold on a moment while I alert the media!)
"Can't update page." (How truly sad. I hope you're not thinking I'll wonder what you're talking about, or that I might care even if I did.)
"You are under investigation!" (I am? Oh, dear Lord, what have I done now? I am beside myself with worry, concern, angst, and ennui.)
Ronda: "Hi--crag rase. bipod any annul. bedlam pencil rife rase?" (Guards! Shoot that woman!)
*****
I do wish this would be the last spam-based blog I will ever do. But I doubt it.
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Monday, July 13, 2009
Journal's End
The time following my mom's death in September, 1971, was one of the hardest times of my life, but when I quit my job and bought a Winnebago motor home and took off to try to find myself, I determined to do a journal of my travels. The bulk of the entries in this journal have been chronicled here, in previous blogs.
But while I'd intended my odyssey to be open-ended, it didn't last nearly as long as I'd anticipated. Reality once again reared its ugly head, and I was forced by circumstances to return to Los Angeles shortly after this last journal entry. (The poem that opens the entry was later expanded and can be found in my Chapbook, "The Poems of Dorien Grey" available through GLB Publishers.)
That the journal ends in Pensacola, Florida, where my first journal began many years before is, I think, somehow significant...though I'm not sure exactly how.
12-24-71
64th day. Pensacola, Florida. 1:08 p.m.
I shall sit by the water and think sea thoughts,
and write the mysteries of the stars in the sand
with a bird-feather quill.
And then I shall forget,
For the sea does not choose to remember
Each beach tells a story no man can read, written in characters of sea shells.
I have yet to find an unbroken shell on this stretch of beach, as though it were the preliminary notes, wadded up and thrown aside.
The sand is so white one could become snowblind on a bright day, were not the blue-green water there for contrast. The sand is very much like snow, and here and there are the forms of children making angels in the sand.
A large clump of surfers—about 18 of them—wallowing about in the waves like a herd of seals.
Attempting to read a beach is like reading a particularly complex murder mystery; trying to determine the story from a myriad of clues. The footprints; trying to pick out your own when retracing your steps—observe the tred. Different sneakers have different patterns. It is harder with bare feet. Who was alone, and who in groups? How many in the group? Adults or children? Solitary walkers (more or less a straight line or wanderers, weaving about the sand from one interesting-looking object to another? How long ago were they here? (Compare wave marks to the degree footprints are still visible.) Where did they go? Footprints in sand always lead from somewhere to somewhere, though it would be fascinating to find a set that just ended in mid-beach, far from the water.
A stretch of beach perhaps two blocks long is strewn with the stubby plastic corpses of jellyfish; convoluted cones perhaps a foot long and five inches around.
The sun is now out, hazy but hot, and I find walking in soft sand difficult and a little tiring—another sign of old age.
Ideas of fun: make impressions of empty beer can bottoms in the sand; four to a set. Put in 7 “toes” on each circle with your thumb, and call it “Fido.” Place 2 sea shells, similar in color and design, but one much larger than the other, side by side. Call it “Madonna & Child.” (It is Christmas eve.)
And thus closed another chapter in my Book of Life.
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.
But while I'd intended my odyssey to be open-ended, it didn't last nearly as long as I'd anticipated. Reality once again reared its ugly head, and I was forced by circumstances to return to Los Angeles shortly after this last journal entry. (The poem that opens the entry was later expanded and can be found in my Chapbook, "The Poems of Dorien Grey" available through GLB Publishers.)
That the journal ends in Pensacola, Florida, where my first journal began many years before is, I think, somehow significant...though I'm not sure exactly how.
12-24-71
64th day. Pensacola, Florida. 1:08 p.m.
I shall sit by the water and think sea thoughts,
and write the mysteries of the stars in the sand
with a bird-feather quill.
And then I shall forget,
For the sea does not choose to remember
Each beach tells a story no man can read, written in characters of sea shells.
I have yet to find an unbroken shell on this stretch of beach, as though it were the preliminary notes, wadded up and thrown aside.
The sand is so white one could become snowblind on a bright day, were not the blue-green water there for contrast. The sand is very much like snow, and here and there are the forms of children making angels in the sand.
A large clump of surfers—about 18 of them—wallowing about in the waves like a herd of seals.
Attempting to read a beach is like reading a particularly complex murder mystery; trying to determine the story from a myriad of clues. The footprints; trying to pick out your own when retracing your steps—observe the tred. Different sneakers have different patterns. It is harder with bare feet. Who was alone, and who in groups? How many in the group? Adults or children? Solitary walkers (more or less a straight line or wanderers, weaving about the sand from one interesting-looking object to another? How long ago were they here? (Compare wave marks to the degree footprints are still visible.) Where did they go? Footprints in sand always lead from somewhere to somewhere, though it would be fascinating to find a set that just ended in mid-beach, far from the water.
A stretch of beach perhaps two blocks long is strewn with the stubby plastic corpses of jellyfish; convoluted cones perhaps a foot long and five inches around.
The sun is now out, hazy but hot, and I find walking in soft sand difficult and a little tiring—another sign of old age.
Ideas of fun: make impressions of empty beer can bottoms in the sand; four to a set. Put in 7 “toes” on each circle with your thumb, and call it “Fido.” Place 2 sea shells, similar in color and design, but one much larger than the other, side by side. Call it “Madonna & Child.” (It is Christmas eve.)
And thus closed another chapter in my Book of Life.
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Notes from a Long-Ago Journal
I go to the past as many people go to the grocery store, frequently and for the purpose of seeking nourishment. And thus did I today find myself back at the relatively short journal I kept while on a find-myself trip following the death of my mother in 1971.
12-12-71
52nd Day, Houston, TX 10:48 a.m.
Sunday, and it is (surprise, surprise) raining. The ghosts of a thousand mad drummers beat on the roof, apparently having a very good time. And I sit and read words other people have written—not of themselves, either—and grudgingly acknowledge the fact that I really can’t write.
2:30 The rain has stopped, leaving the day languorous and grey without being gloomy. I am currently in Memorial Park, a bit of comparatively unspoiled wilderness not unlike Griffith Park, the similarities extending to its attraction for gay nature lovers—a fact which indeed drew me here in the first place. Even on a wet, rainy Sunday afternoon there is a surprising amount of traffic. I took a walk through the woods, as delightfully refreshing to the soul as a nice long hot shower is to the body. The ground is the moist consistency of newly-made fudge and covered with the mysterious remains of trees & leaves from which the earth is built. The trees do their best to keep out the city noise, which only now & again intrudes in the form of muted auto traffic. I am happy to learn that birds still sing and streams still go about their duties in busy whispers.
Have I aged so fast? Am I suddenly out of the game? My experiences—or lack of them in the past few weeks would certainly indicate as much. Still, ever the optimist, I keep trying.
12-19-71
59th day. Gulfport, Mississippi 3:47 p.m.
Today’s impressions: a roadside sign proclaiming: “Reptile Farm! French Fries, 20 Cents!” A scale model of Tara serving as a bird house in the yard of a neat but tired little farm. Scars of Hurricane Camille still present along the gulf in the form of gutted, windowless houses, empty lots overgrown with weeds, where foundations lay like skeletons & steps lead up to nowhere. Reading the chronicle of another beach—a barnacle covered beer can, a dead German Shepherd, and the jigsaw-puzzle pieces of debris that tell the story of the sea. Two sets of lovers—one a boy-girl set the other two boys, walking together, heads down, and very much in love. Two other boys sitting on the broken end of a stubby little pier, one dangling his feet (shoes on) just above the water, the other sitting cross-legged on the grey boards playing a flute. Beside them, two jars of jam and a loaf of bread.
The greyness of late afternoon is beginning to flow in from the Gulf, and soon it will be dark. I’m not going to go out tonight, having been up until 5 this morning (and gotten up again about 9:30). Had a most pleasant time, most of it after 2 a.m., talking with two bartenders I’d met earlier.
There are some magnificent homes along the Gulf; graceful old Southern demi-mansions with the confidence of their own beauty. The roads of Mississippi, however, are very bad. Even the good roads are bad.
*****
I'm sure it speaks to the degree of my self-absorption that I do, somehow, find comfort in rereading these words, and in visiting the me I once was.
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.
12-12-71
52nd Day, Houston, TX 10:48 a.m.
Sunday, and it is (surprise, surprise) raining. The ghosts of a thousand mad drummers beat on the roof, apparently having a very good time. And I sit and read words other people have written—not of themselves, either—and grudgingly acknowledge the fact that I really can’t write.
2:30 The rain has stopped, leaving the day languorous and grey without being gloomy. I am currently in Memorial Park, a bit of comparatively unspoiled wilderness not unlike Griffith Park, the similarities extending to its attraction for gay nature lovers—a fact which indeed drew me here in the first place. Even on a wet, rainy Sunday afternoon there is a surprising amount of traffic. I took a walk through the woods, as delightfully refreshing to the soul as a nice long hot shower is to the body. The ground is the moist consistency of newly-made fudge and covered with the mysterious remains of trees & leaves from which the earth is built. The trees do their best to keep out the city noise, which only now & again intrudes in the form of muted auto traffic. I am happy to learn that birds still sing and streams still go about their duties in busy whispers.
Have I aged so fast? Am I suddenly out of the game? My experiences—or lack of them in the past few weeks would certainly indicate as much. Still, ever the optimist, I keep trying.
12-19-71
59th day. Gulfport, Mississippi 3:47 p.m.
Today’s impressions: a roadside sign proclaiming: “Reptile Farm! French Fries, 20 Cents!” A scale model of Tara serving as a bird house in the yard of a neat but tired little farm. Scars of Hurricane Camille still present along the gulf in the form of gutted, windowless houses, empty lots overgrown with weeds, where foundations lay like skeletons & steps lead up to nowhere. Reading the chronicle of another beach—a barnacle covered beer can, a dead German Shepherd, and the jigsaw-puzzle pieces of debris that tell the story of the sea. Two sets of lovers—one a boy-girl set the other two boys, walking together, heads down, and very much in love. Two other boys sitting on the broken end of a stubby little pier, one dangling his feet (shoes on) just above the water, the other sitting cross-legged on the grey boards playing a flute. Beside them, two jars of jam and a loaf of bread.
The greyness of late afternoon is beginning to flow in from the Gulf, and soon it will be dark. I’m not going to go out tonight, having been up until 5 this morning (and gotten up again about 9:30). Had a most pleasant time, most of it after 2 a.m., talking with two bartenders I’d met earlier.
There are some magnificent homes along the Gulf; graceful old Southern demi-mansions with the confidence of their own beauty. The roads of Mississippi, however, are very bad. Even the good roads are bad.
*****
I'm sure it speaks to the degree of my self-absorption that I do, somehow, find comfort in rereading these words, and in visiting the me I once was.
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Slow Dancing
As so often happens, yesterday I heard a song from the late 70's/early 80's which swooped down, picked me up, and all but bodily threw me back in time to my early days in Los Angeles, and in a heartbeat I was in the Canyon Club, dancing with my friend Larry Couch.
It's kind of a convoluted story, so if you'd just as soon skip it, I'll understand, but I feel like telling it, so....
Los Angeles at the time was a very different city for gays and lesbians. We had our own bars and restaurants, but they were subject to frequent, random, and unprovoked harassment under the cold, beady eyes of our rabidly homophobic police chief. As I've reported in another blog, the massive (and often mass) arrest of gays for various trumped up charges--most often "lewd and lascivious conduct" was a lucrative source of income for the city and did not end until a gay man was beaten to death by the police in a bar raid.
One of the things gays were forbidden to do was to touch while dancing. I don't mean "grope" or "fondle"...I mean touch. We were allowed to disco (only in our own bars, of course), but slow dancing would result in arrest. As a result I and several of my friends joined the Canyon Club...a members-only club located 15 or so miles from my home, high up in a remote and rugged canyon, and reached only by a narrow, winding road. That more people were not killed coming down from the club after Last Call was a miracle.
The club was owned by a former L.A. policeman confined to a wheelchair for some reason, who disliked gays but overlooked his prejudice because of the money he made from us. It was a large, sprawling place with a couple of bars, a huge dance floor, and a swimming pool open only during the day on weekends. You entered the club through a small vestibule, where you showed your membership at the desk, and were then buzzed through a locked door into the club itself.
As part of the police department's equal-opportunity discrimination policy, not even the Canyon Club was safe from occasional harassment, but because the owner was an ex-cop, it was more for show than anything else. Whenever the police would arrive, the person at the reception desk would press a button which flashed a red light throughout the interior of the club. Immediately, dancing gay and lesbian couples would switch partners with their opposite-sex counterparts, and by the time the police meandered through the door to look around, all they saw was men dancing with women. I somehow suspect they were not fooled, but they had done their duty in letting the faggots and dykes know who had the power. 'Ya gotta let those queers and perverts know who's boss, 'ya know.
But the Canyon Club, whatever its inconveniences, was a safe place for us to go, and to be able to actually touch one another while dancing. I am a lousy dancer, and always avoid it whenever possible, but I would try it at the Canyon Club, especially with my friend Larry Couch, who always let me lead. I always had a crush on Larry, but because his partner, Arnold, was also my close friend, holding him while dancing was about as close as I could hope to get.
I'm not quite sure whatever happened to the Canyon Club--I believe it closed when the owner died, but I still have fond memories of it and the warm California nights I spent there, and the friends who still hold a special place in my heart. I've sadly lost touch with most of my once-close L.A. friends, though I kept in touch with both Arnold and Larry after they broke up and I moved from Los Angeles, and still hear from Arnold from time to time. Larry died of a heart attack three or four years ago, and I miss him. What I wouldn't give for one more slow dance at the Canyon Club.
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net
It's kind of a convoluted story, so if you'd just as soon skip it, I'll understand, but I feel like telling it, so....
Los Angeles at the time was a very different city for gays and lesbians. We had our own bars and restaurants, but they were subject to frequent, random, and unprovoked harassment under the cold, beady eyes of our rabidly homophobic police chief. As I've reported in another blog, the massive (and often mass) arrest of gays for various trumped up charges--most often "lewd and lascivious conduct" was a lucrative source of income for the city and did not end until a gay man was beaten to death by the police in a bar raid.
One of the things gays were forbidden to do was to touch while dancing. I don't mean "grope" or "fondle"...I mean touch. We were allowed to disco (only in our own bars, of course), but slow dancing would result in arrest. As a result I and several of my friends joined the Canyon Club...a members-only club located 15 or so miles from my home, high up in a remote and rugged canyon, and reached only by a narrow, winding road. That more people were not killed coming down from the club after Last Call was a miracle.
The club was owned by a former L.A. policeman confined to a wheelchair for some reason, who disliked gays but overlooked his prejudice because of the money he made from us. It was a large, sprawling place with a couple of bars, a huge dance floor, and a swimming pool open only during the day on weekends. You entered the club through a small vestibule, where you showed your membership at the desk, and were then buzzed through a locked door into the club itself.
As part of the police department's equal-opportunity discrimination policy, not even the Canyon Club was safe from occasional harassment, but because the owner was an ex-cop, it was more for show than anything else. Whenever the police would arrive, the person at the reception desk would press a button which flashed a red light throughout the interior of the club. Immediately, dancing gay and lesbian couples would switch partners with their opposite-sex counterparts, and by the time the police meandered through the door to look around, all they saw was men dancing with women. I somehow suspect they were not fooled, but they had done their duty in letting the faggots and dykes know who had the power. 'Ya gotta let those queers and perverts know who's boss, 'ya know.
But the Canyon Club, whatever its inconveniences, was a safe place for us to go, and to be able to actually touch one another while dancing. I am a lousy dancer, and always avoid it whenever possible, but I would try it at the Canyon Club, especially with my friend Larry Couch, who always let me lead. I always had a crush on Larry, but because his partner, Arnold, was also my close friend, holding him while dancing was about as close as I could hope to get.
I'm not quite sure whatever happened to the Canyon Club--I believe it closed when the owner died, but I still have fond memories of it and the warm California nights I spent there, and the friends who still hold a special place in my heart. I've sadly lost touch with most of my once-close L.A. friends, though I kept in touch with both Arnold and Larry after they broke up and I moved from Los Angeles, and still hear from Arnold from time to time. Larry died of a heart attack three or four years ago, and I miss him. What I wouldn't give for one more slow dance at the Canyon Club.
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net
Monday, July 06, 2009
That Which I Should Have Done I Did Not Do
My favorite painting in Chicago's Art Institute is Ivan Albright's "That Which I Should Have Done, I Did Not Do," (subtitled "The Door"), and I am sure I've mentioned it somewhere in previous blogs. It is a somewhat-larger-than-life oil painting of a distorted, weathered door with an withered funeral wreath hanging from its center. From the left, an old lady's arm, in a wrist-length, lace-cuffed grey dress, reaches for the knob.
What there is about this particular painting that fascinates me so, I do not know, but fascinate me it does. And for equally unknown reasons, I identify with it. (Ivan Albright also painted the Picture of Dorian Gray featured in the 1945 film of Wilde's book.)
Missed opportunities and regrets are part of the fulcrum which gives balance to life, and without which we could not fully appreciate the bright joys of our existence. (Actually, far too few of us appreciate them anyway, but that is another matter entirely.)
For some reason, the highs of remembered joys do not carry us the same distance above the center line of emotion as the memory of our failures take us down. It's just one of those odd facts of life we may not like but have to accept if we are not to be consumed by them.
When I look back on the choices I have made through life, I have to force myself to weigh the "yeah, but if you had" factor. I have always regretted my having been dropped from the Naval Aviation Cadet program. Had I studied harder and paid more attention to the things I should have been paying attention to, I may not have gotten the boot. And yet I knew in my heart of hearts that had I remained in the program I would have been killed, as were so many of my fellow cadets during that particular period.
I have often regretted the fact that, in my really active days in the gay community, I was not more aggressive in approaching people to whom I was attracted, or that perhaps I moved from Los Angeles too soon. Yet this was at a time when AIDS was raging like a brushfire through the gay community, killing everyone it touched. I lost far too many friends and acquaintances not to realize that, had I been more aggressive, or had I stayed in L.A., the next person I went home with may well have been the one round in the chamber of the game of Russian Roulette all gays played at the time.
So even regrets may have their balances.
On a personal, day-to-day level, I regret not being more thoughtful of others than I am. I regret not going out of my way to be kind to my friends and family nearly as often and to the degree that they go out of their way to be kind to me. I regret my too-frequently hair-trigger temper which causes me to do things which immediately cause me shame. I regret my tendency to react in kind: if I say "hello" to someone in my building and they ignore me (for their own reasons, whatever they may be), the next time I see them, I do not speak. Petty. Childish. But me.
I regret not being more generous; not volunteering more of my time or money to causes I know are worthy. I deeply regret passing by a panhandler on the assumption that they could get a job if they wanted to, or would just drink away anything I gave them. I am fully aware that of twenty panhandlers, at least one is sincerely in need. But how do I know which one? And that lack of knowledge engenders anger at the rest. (But, again, against which of the twenty should it be directed?)
Life is full of choices which come at us like raindrops in a thunderstorm. In attempting to catch them, we are bound to miss far more than we catch. There are so many things we should have done that we did not do it is easy to forget that there are a lot of things which we should have done and did do; opportunities taken, acts of kindness unremembered or unnoticed. What we should not do is to be too hard on ourselves. Leave that to me.
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net
What there is about this particular painting that fascinates me so, I do not know, but fascinate me it does. And for equally unknown reasons, I identify with it. (Ivan Albright also painted the Picture of Dorian Gray featured in the 1945 film of Wilde's book.)
Missed opportunities and regrets are part of the fulcrum which gives balance to life, and without which we could not fully appreciate the bright joys of our existence. (Actually, far too few of us appreciate them anyway, but that is another matter entirely.)
For some reason, the highs of remembered joys do not carry us the same distance above the center line of emotion as the memory of our failures take us down. It's just one of those odd facts of life we may not like but have to accept if we are not to be consumed by them.
When I look back on the choices I have made through life, I have to force myself to weigh the "yeah, but if you had" factor. I have always regretted my having been dropped from the Naval Aviation Cadet program. Had I studied harder and paid more attention to the things I should have been paying attention to, I may not have gotten the boot. And yet I knew in my heart of hearts that had I remained in the program I would have been killed, as were so many of my fellow cadets during that particular period.
I have often regretted the fact that, in my really active days in the gay community, I was not more aggressive in approaching people to whom I was attracted, or that perhaps I moved from Los Angeles too soon. Yet this was at a time when AIDS was raging like a brushfire through the gay community, killing everyone it touched. I lost far too many friends and acquaintances not to realize that, had I been more aggressive, or had I stayed in L.A., the next person I went home with may well have been the one round in the chamber of the game of Russian Roulette all gays played at the time.
So even regrets may have their balances.
On a personal, day-to-day level, I regret not being more thoughtful of others than I am. I regret not going out of my way to be kind to my friends and family nearly as often and to the degree that they go out of their way to be kind to me. I regret my too-frequently hair-trigger temper which causes me to do things which immediately cause me shame. I regret my tendency to react in kind: if I say "hello" to someone in my building and they ignore me (for their own reasons, whatever they may be), the next time I see them, I do not speak. Petty. Childish. But me.
I regret not being more generous; not volunteering more of my time or money to causes I know are worthy. I deeply regret passing by a panhandler on the assumption that they could get a job if they wanted to, or would just drink away anything I gave them. I am fully aware that of twenty panhandlers, at least one is sincerely in need. But how do I know which one? And that lack of knowledge engenders anger at the rest. (But, again, against which of the twenty should it be directed?)
Life is full of choices which come at us like raindrops in a thunderstorm. In attempting to catch them, we are bound to miss far more than we catch. There are so many things we should have done that we did not do it is easy to forget that there are a lot of things which we should have done and did do; opportunities taken, acts of kindness unremembered or unnoticed. What we should not do is to be too hard on ourselves. Leave that to me.
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net
Friday, July 03, 2009
Visiting the Dead
(Here's another page from the journal kept during my odyssey following the death of my mother some 38 years ago. 38 years? Dear Lord!)
12-20-71
60th day. Mobile, Alabama. 12:40 p.m.
Cemeteries—real cemeteries, not those modern supermarkets of the dead—have always held a special fascination for me. There are few places more peaceful, generally more quiet, and more awe inspiring. I feel something of an obligation, a willing duty, to walk among the graves reading the tombstones and thereby performing the function for which the tombstones were erected: to remember the dead, and to know they once lived.
The Church Street Graveyard was founded originally as a burial place for Mobile’s yellow fever victims. The headstones, grave covers, sarcophagi, monoliths, and markers are marvelously varied. The words carved on them, unfortunately, are fast becoming illegible—many are already gone, with only the barest outline of words, and names, and dates remaining.
But to those, like me, who read cemeteries (a much more solid bit of literature than a beach, which is perhaps more mystical and philosophical) find in them a fascinating chronicle of an era.
The most striking characteristic, other than the visual effect, of the Church Street Graveyard, is how young most of its inhabitants were when they died. (Though there is one old gentleman who was 105 when he died in the mid 1830s). It strikingly illustrates the fact that in the 1800s, life was short. The average age of Church Street’s residents cannot possibly be over 35. (“In Memory of Elizabeth, Wife of Matthew McCartney, who departed this life Dec. the 11th, 1834 in the 17th year of her age.”)
There is the fine print of history: (“In memory of Stephen Hopkins Clarke, son of John H. Clarke of Providence, Rhode Island, who died in Florida in July 1837 in the 22nd year of his age. As a Volunteer, he was engaged in a skirmish with the Indians, and received a wound which shortly proved mortal. Thus at once the high hopes of youth and the expectations of Friends were blasted forever.” ) There is a deep-seated comfort in the fact that had he lived a full, full life, he would still be dead today; and those who mourned so sincerely and deeply at his passing are now themselves long dead. There is, incidentally, more to Stephen Clarke’s story, engraved on four sides of a squat pillar. “Erected in 1845 as a memorial of his love for a dutiful and affectionate son. From the rude sepulcher to which he was consigned by his commander, his remains were transferred to this spot by an affectionate Brother. It is consecrated by the warmest recollections of all who knew the integrity and manliness of his character.”
And so Stephen Hopkiins Clarke still lives.
How much better than two of ten thousand identical brass plates (flush with the ground for easier mowing) saying “Frank G. Margason 1911-1968" and “Odrae L. Margason 1909-1971" How much of them is there?
One can read, too, the history of an entire family, with microcosmic hints of many sorrows and lost causes.
A low brick wall topped by an ornate green iron fence proclaims the square to be occupied by the family of I.D. Spear. In it is a tall stone pylon, & two lesser headstones. To the distant sound of drums, we read on one side of the pylon: “In memory of Frank M. B., son of Isaac D. & Sarah B. Spear. He was born in Louisville, KY on 22nd of September 1843 and was killed in the battle of Shiloh on the 6th of April 1862, aged 18 years, 6 months, and 11 days. An early Christian, he died with the bravest, fighting for his country’s independence.”
Could a more succinct resume of the Civil War and its tragedy be found? Who can read it without wanting young Frank back again, to hold him and console him for all his lost years.
The rest of his family? We know his mother died first, for the other side of the pylon reads: “Sacred to the memory of Sarah B., wife of Isaac D. Spear, who was born in Mobile on the 31st of January 1822 and died on the 14th of February 1860, aged 38 years and 17 days.
Frank was not quite 16 when she died. There were two infant children who died almost without having lived, but their birth dates and deaths are not recorded. Only, on a small stone (in the best condition of the three): “Daisy, Infant daughter of I.D. and S.B. Spear, aged 6 months, and Ikie, aged 7 days.”
And then we have the third stone; the most badly eroded of the three, a rounded slab. Probably the younger brother of I.D. Spear, though no relationship is mentioined.. “In memory of Nicholas M. Spear (Illegible) of New York, who was drowned in Mobile Bay June 7, 1857, aged 25 years, 4 months.'
Of I.D. Spear himself, there is no trace. If Frank were his only surviving son at the time he marched off to Shiloh, then perhaps Isaac had no one left to bury him, or provide a memorial.
Nicholas, too, died very young and one wonders about him. Did he die while out for a swim, or fishing, or on one of the numerous accidents which apparently were so common (two other gravestones in Church Street comment on their occupants’ deaths in two separate steamer explosions. We cannot know, but we can care).
But who will stop at Dad’s grave, or Mother’s, and wonder who they were and what their lives may have been? Who can envision them walking and laughing and talking with friends, or going shopping, or arguing over the gas bill? How inhuman we are becoming, when our dead are allowed to die.
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net
12-20-71
60th day. Mobile, Alabama. 12:40 p.m.
Cemeteries—real cemeteries, not those modern supermarkets of the dead—have always held a special fascination for me. There are few places more peaceful, generally more quiet, and more awe inspiring. I feel something of an obligation, a willing duty, to walk among the graves reading the tombstones and thereby performing the function for which the tombstones were erected: to remember the dead, and to know they once lived.
The Church Street Graveyard was founded originally as a burial place for Mobile’s yellow fever victims. The headstones, grave covers, sarcophagi, monoliths, and markers are marvelously varied. The words carved on them, unfortunately, are fast becoming illegible—many are already gone, with only the barest outline of words, and names, and dates remaining.
But to those, like me, who read cemeteries (a much more solid bit of literature than a beach, which is perhaps more mystical and philosophical) find in them a fascinating chronicle of an era.
The most striking characteristic, other than the visual effect, of the Church Street Graveyard, is how young most of its inhabitants were when they died. (Though there is one old gentleman who was 105 when he died in the mid 1830s). It strikingly illustrates the fact that in the 1800s, life was short. The average age of Church Street’s residents cannot possibly be over 35. (“In Memory of Elizabeth, Wife of Matthew McCartney, who departed this life Dec. the 11th, 1834 in the 17th year of her age.”)
There is the fine print of history: (“In memory of Stephen Hopkins Clarke, son of John H. Clarke of Providence, Rhode Island, who died in Florida in July 1837 in the 22nd year of his age. As a Volunteer, he was engaged in a skirmish with the Indians, and received a wound which shortly proved mortal. Thus at once the high hopes of youth and the expectations of Friends were blasted forever.” ) There is a deep-seated comfort in the fact that had he lived a full, full life, he would still be dead today; and those who mourned so sincerely and deeply at his passing are now themselves long dead. There is, incidentally, more to Stephen Clarke’s story, engraved on four sides of a squat pillar. “Erected in 1845 as a memorial of his love for a dutiful and affectionate son. From the rude sepulcher to which he was consigned by his commander, his remains were transferred to this spot by an affectionate Brother. It is consecrated by the warmest recollections of all who knew the integrity and manliness of his character.”
And so Stephen Hopkiins Clarke still lives.
How much better than two of ten thousand identical brass plates (flush with the ground for easier mowing) saying “Frank G. Margason 1911-1968" and “Odrae L. Margason 1909-1971" How much of them is there?
One can read, too, the history of an entire family, with microcosmic hints of many sorrows and lost causes.
A low brick wall topped by an ornate green iron fence proclaims the square to be occupied by the family of I.D. Spear. In it is a tall stone pylon, & two lesser headstones. To the distant sound of drums, we read on one side of the pylon: “In memory of Frank M. B., son of Isaac D. & Sarah B. Spear. He was born in Louisville, KY on 22nd of September 1843 and was killed in the battle of Shiloh on the 6th of April 1862, aged 18 years, 6 months, and 11 days. An early Christian, he died with the bravest, fighting for his country’s independence.”
Could a more succinct resume of the Civil War and its tragedy be found? Who can read it without wanting young Frank back again, to hold him and console him for all his lost years.
The rest of his family? We know his mother died first, for the other side of the pylon reads: “Sacred to the memory of Sarah B., wife of Isaac D. Spear, who was born in Mobile on the 31st of January 1822 and died on the 14th of February 1860, aged 38 years and 17 days.
Frank was not quite 16 when she died. There were two infant children who died almost without having lived, but their birth dates and deaths are not recorded. Only, on a small stone (in the best condition of the three): “Daisy, Infant daughter of I.D. and S.B. Spear, aged 6 months, and Ikie, aged 7 days.”
And then we have the third stone; the most badly eroded of the three, a rounded slab. Probably the younger brother of I.D. Spear, though no relationship is mentioined.. “In memory of Nicholas M. Spear (Illegible) of New York, who was drowned in Mobile Bay June 7, 1857, aged 25 years, 4 months.'
Of I.D. Spear himself, there is no trace. If Frank were his only surviving son at the time he marched off to Shiloh, then perhaps Isaac had no one left to bury him, or provide a memorial.
Nicholas, too, died very young and one wonders about him. Did he die while out for a swim, or fishing, or on one of the numerous accidents which apparently were so common (two other gravestones in Church Street comment on their occupants’ deaths in two separate steamer explosions. We cannot know, but we can care).
But who will stop at Dad’s grave, or Mother’s, and wonder who they were and what their lives may have been? Who can envision them walking and laughing and talking with friends, or going shopping, or arguing over the gas bill? How inhuman we are becoming, when our dead are allowed to die.
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Were I God
If the title of this blog entry caused a sharply in-drawn breath and a muttered "Sacrilege!" you probably won't be reading this. Too bad. It is not intended as disrespect to Whomever holds the post now, but merely a few observations on how I might run things had I the opportunity.
I got to thinking about the prospect when I was looking, once again, with dismay and anger at my Spam inbox and plotting what I would love to do to those who prey upon the gullible. Gullibility, like so many human traits, can be charming in moderation and dangerous in excess. We all want things we do not and probably can never have. We all want to feel that we are, somehow, wise and admired and somehow special. And too often we are tricked by predators into assuming that what we are told is the truth.
There is nothing more loathsome or utterly beneath contempt than those who knowingly, deliberately, and consistently take advantage of others, from Bernie Madhoff on down (if there is in fact anything lower than Bernie Madhoff).
Were I God, I would of course be a beneficent deity and resist the strong temptation to submerge these sub-humans slowly in boiling oil. No, I'd simply have every one of them, after a full and rewarding day of scheming, cheating, lying, and debasing others, simply go peacefully to sleep and never wake up.
I would strictly enforce the Golden Rule. I'm sure the current title holder is as utterly flummoxed as I as to how people simply don't get it. It's the ultimate "What part of 'no' don't you understand?"
Bigots would be forced to spend six months as a member of the group against whom their hatred is directed. If six months is not enough, the sentence would repeated once more and then become permanent.
Everyone in possession of more than $500,000 they did not earn through their own labor would be temporarily stripped of all their possessions and forced to live on the equivalent of the average social security check for the period of one year. Depending on the circumstances, some would be denied even that small financial assistance and be given a cardboard box and pointed to the nearest freeway underpass.
I would rather strongly consider reinstating the "an eye for an eye" principle of criminal justice, except for sadomasochists.
Those who deny common courtesy to others would be assigned a constant robot companion carrying a frying pan. At every transgression of basic courtesy, the robot would tap them on the head with the frying pan. The force of the tap would increase with every violation until the offender either sees the error of his/her ways, or is admitted to the emergency room. (Upon release therefrom, the robot would again appear at their side.)
Those who discriminate against others solely on the basis of looks or physical disability will, after each transgression, be struck blind for a period of ten minutes for the first event, and longer with each succeeding one.
Anyone who presumed to speak for me in my role of God would be stricken mute. Anyone who sought personal financial gain by invoking my name would be forced to return every penny, stripped of all their remaining worldly goods and sent into permanent exile in Somalia, Ethiopia, or Darfur.
And what of those many people who already live by the Golden Rule, who are courteous and considerate of others, and realize the world is far larger than themselves? Don't they deserve some sot of reward? The fact is that they already have it. They are already members of a very small and exclusive club: true human beings, and the current supreme being is proud of them. As am I.
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net
I got to thinking about the prospect when I was looking, once again, with dismay and anger at my Spam inbox and plotting what I would love to do to those who prey upon the gullible. Gullibility, like so many human traits, can be charming in moderation and dangerous in excess. We all want things we do not and probably can never have. We all want to feel that we are, somehow, wise and admired and somehow special. And too often we are tricked by predators into assuming that what we are told is the truth.
There is nothing more loathsome or utterly beneath contempt than those who knowingly, deliberately, and consistently take advantage of others, from Bernie Madhoff on down (if there is in fact anything lower than Bernie Madhoff).
Were I God, I would of course be a beneficent deity and resist the strong temptation to submerge these sub-humans slowly in boiling oil. No, I'd simply have every one of them, after a full and rewarding day of scheming, cheating, lying, and debasing others, simply go peacefully to sleep and never wake up.
I would strictly enforce the Golden Rule. I'm sure the current title holder is as utterly flummoxed as I as to how people simply don't get it. It's the ultimate "What part of 'no' don't you understand?"
Bigots would be forced to spend six months as a member of the group against whom their hatred is directed. If six months is not enough, the sentence would repeated once more and then become permanent.
Everyone in possession of more than $500,000 they did not earn through their own labor would be temporarily stripped of all their possessions and forced to live on the equivalent of the average social security check for the period of one year. Depending on the circumstances, some would be denied even that small financial assistance and be given a cardboard box and pointed to the nearest freeway underpass.
I would rather strongly consider reinstating the "an eye for an eye" principle of criminal justice, except for sadomasochists.
Those who deny common courtesy to others would be assigned a constant robot companion carrying a frying pan. At every transgression of basic courtesy, the robot would tap them on the head with the frying pan. The force of the tap would increase with every violation until the offender either sees the error of his/her ways, or is admitted to the emergency room. (Upon release therefrom, the robot would again appear at their side.)
Those who discriminate against others solely on the basis of looks or physical disability will, after each transgression, be struck blind for a period of ten minutes for the first event, and longer with each succeeding one.
Anyone who presumed to speak for me in my role of God would be stricken mute. Anyone who sought personal financial gain by invoking my name would be forced to return every penny, stripped of all their remaining worldly goods and sent into permanent exile in Somalia, Ethiopia, or Darfur.
And what of those many people who already live by the Golden Rule, who are courteous and considerate of others, and realize the world is far larger than themselves? Don't they deserve some sot of reward? The fact is that they already have it. They are already members of a very small and exclusive club: true human beings, and the current supreme being is proud of them. As am I.
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net
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