Society

Justice, Equality And Peace

Yeah, Another Blogger131 Comments

It’s late morning on the third of June as I begin to type this essay. It’s not the essay that, up until June 2, I was planning on writing. That one will have to wait till next time. No, even though I’m not a particularly incisive observer of, nor commentator upon, societal and political matters, I feel compelled to lay down some thoughts about what’s been happening in my country (the USA), and in other parts of the globe as a result of George Floyd’s murder by a police officer, Derek Chauvin, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. George Floyd, who was unarmed and handcuffed during the incident, was black. Chauvin, who has been fired from his job and charged with murder, is white.

Did anyone predict or expect that, in the wake of Floyd’s killing, hordes of people would take to the streets to denounce systemic racism and police brutality against blacks? I’m not sure, but I’m guessing not. Once put in motion, though, the protests expanded to locations far from Minneapolis. That includes Philadelphia, where I lived for decades, and which is very near to the town that my wife and I now call home.

I’ve watched television coverage of the marches and demonstrations, and of the violent turns that some of those gatherings took. The looting and property destruction that have taken place sadden and sicken me. Ongoing behavior such as that can deeply damage society, and can make conditions far worse than they already are. Fortunately, for the moment anyway, looting and destruction have lessened greatly, and peaceful protests continue.

Where will the protests lead? What will they result in? Will they result in anything, for that matter, or simply peter out as the energy and indignation that fuel them slowly evaporate? I hope that such will not be the case, because it’s undeniable that racism in the United States is alive and well, that many folks in this country don’t want equality-for-all to become an absolute given. The existence of white supremacy groups, and the continuing efforts by more than a few members of the Republican party to suppress the vote of minorities and of the marginalized, are two examples of this. The USA has a long way to go.

And what of the possibility that the protests explode into mayhem, uncontrollable violence, even civil war? I don’t discount this idea at all. Anything might happen, a frightening thought.

Barack Obama, in a level-headed and insightful essay about the Floyd tragedy, states what he believes should be the responses to it. Click here to read the piece. He urges us to vote out of office those elected officials with stone-age mentalities. And he focuses his exhortations on the young, who he says are the ones that must lead the efforts to make the world a better place. Here are a few of his thoughts: “The point of protest is to raise public awareness, to put a spotlight on injustice, and to make the powers that be uncomfortable; in fact, throughout American history, it’s often only been in response to protests and civil disobedience that the political system has even paid attention to marginalized communities. But eventually, aspirations have to be translated into specific laws and institutional practices — and in a democracy, that only happens when we elect government officials who are responsive to our demands.”

We can only hope that Obama’s way forward will prove to be the chosen path. His commentary, of course, would be lost on Donald Trump, who doesn’t care about the whys behind the reactions to Floyd’s death. That’s only to be expected from he who is callous, narcissistic, vindictive, a pathological liar and a thug. If Trump deploys federal troops, all bets are off.

At about 8:30 PM on June 2, I slipped outside to the deck at the rear of our house. Very unsettled by George Floyd’s death and the violence that partly filled its aftermath, I needed to decompress. That’s what happened as I stared at the dense foliage, listened to the birds and scanned the heavens.

Much of the sky was heavy with clouds, so almost no color emerged from the sunset. Bummer. But I was in luck anyway, because twenty minutes after I took my place on the deck I looked to the east and saw a vivid Moon rising, It seemed to have come from out of nowhere. Possibly it had been hidden by now-dispersed clouds. The Moon, as bright as a powerful LED light, was stunning. It made me feel somewhat hopeful.

As did Peace, a song recorded by the Ornette Coleman quartet in 1959. It played over the radio as I brushed my teeth two hours after Moon-watching. It wasn’t coincidental that WRTI, Temple University’s radio station, played this composition. That evening, the station was attempting to offer comfort to its listeners.

None of us knows with any degree of certainty where we are headed, but may justice and equality for all, and peace (it goes without saying), be intrinsic parts of the destination. And of the journey that takes us there.

(Please don’t be shy about adding your comments or about sharing this essay)

Looking For Signs While Walking Around On A Sunny Morning

Yeah, Another Blogger122 Comments

It will come as no surprise to some of you when I mention that for several years I have been turning out shitloads of written product that revolve around my taking walks in one locale or another. The present opus is yet another example of same. When, moaning and groaning and writhing, I birthed this website five years ago, I wouldn’t have guessed that essays along that line eventually would become my go-to form of expression. But that’s what has occurred, and I’m down with it. I mean, I like walking around while examining my surroundings. Always have. But I didn’t consciously realize it all too much until this publication began finding its comfort level. And so, I tip my hat to the writing process, because it has helped to give me a halfway-decent sense of who I actually am. And who is that, you ask? Don’t ask!

There I was, then, on Thursday the 9th of April, sauntering along the long stretch of blocks that comprises most of Hatboro’s business district. (Hatboro, an old-fashioned-looking town, of which there are way too few in my region, is two miles from Willow Grove, the non-descript burg that I call home. Both Hatboro and Willow Grove are in the suburbs near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.)

I arrived in Hatboro at about 10:30 AM and departed 45 minutes later. The skies were as blue as blue can be, the temperature was mild, and a sweet breeze caressed my cheeks and those of the people that I saw. Due to the coronavirus situation, those people were few in number, and all stores in Hatboro (and throughout much of Pennsylvania) were shuttered, except for those of the sorts deemed essential by Pennsylvania’s governor. Thus, a hardware store, a pharmacy, ten or so food purveyors, and a handful of others were open for business. As for that sweet breeze, even though everyone was keeping plenty of distance between one another, hopefully it wasn’t blowing any coronavirus microbes into anyone’s eyes or mouths. But hey, I’m not here today to dwell upon coronavirus. No further mention of that demon shall I make herein.

On my person was my trusty iPhone. What, like I’d go anywhere without it? (Well, maybe to take a crap, but that’s about it.) For one thing, the phone’s camera is essential to my journalistic endeavors. And what I had in mind to do with the camera was to point it at store, street and traffic signs, and at whatever other signs caught my eye. I enjoy signs, you see. Even though I’d been in Hatboro many dozens of times over the years, I wasn’t sure what the outcome of my plan would be, as I hadn’t paid extensive attention before to the state of affairs of the town’s signage.

I needn’t have worried. From the get-go I found sign after sign that interested me. Some for their colors. Some for their designs. Some for their whimsicality. Some for the jaunty ways in which they interacted with other signs in their vicinity.

In other words, I damn well dug the time that I spent wandering Hatboro’s streets.

Unexpectedly, little was playing in my mind as I kept placing one foot in front of the other, so focused was I on the mission. I wasn’t contemplating the meaning of life. I wasn’t thinking about what other activities I’d fill up the rest of the day with. And I wasn’t analyzing the importance of signs. But, as I realized when I began to gather my thoughts for this essay, signs are important as hell. They provide all sorts of information, and succinctly. We’d be lost without them, would have little clue about what’s going on. Man, signs are essential to human society, don’t you think? Yup, that’s why there are so many signs in Hatboro, just as there are in every town and city. We’re builders, creators, doers. And the oceans of signs in the world prove, reflect and add to that.

Okay, I’m just about signed-out. It’s time for me to have a nice big glass of milk and some warm chocolate chip cookies, and take my afternoon nap. I can hear my sofa calling me. “Lie down, you creaky geezer, lie down,” it’s cooing. “You need your beauty rest. Only problem is, you ain’t got any beauty left. Tough crap. Such is life!”

Thanks for joining me on my passage through Hatboro, girls and boys, and for gazing at a selection of the photos that I took there. By the way, seeing that I usually mention several things at the ends of my stories, I might as well mention them again. Namely, please don’t be shy about adding your comments or about sharing this article. And if you click on any photo, a larger image will open in a separate window. Till next time!

Hippieish Notes From The Information Desk

Yeah, Another Blogger123 Comments

Infamously lazy as I am, it’s a damn good thing that for eight hours a week — four hours each on Mondays and Tuesdays — I man my post at a medical office building a couple of miles from my house. If it weren’t for these assignments, long ago I’d have set a world record for hours spent on a living room sofa, and my bony ass would have bored even deeper into my sofa’s cushions than it already has. And it has bored deeply.

Anyway, the medical office building is across the street from a suburban Philadelphia hospital and is owned by an enormous health care organization of which the hospital is another component. I’m a volunteer in that organization. My job is to provide information to visitors (I’m the answer man for questions such as “What room do I go to for my colonoscopy?” and “Where’s the men’s room, pal?”) and to help out those who find themselves in one sort of pickle or another. The job takes me here and there within and outside the building, but most of the time I’m positioned behind a sturdy, unassuming black desk. The information desk.

The information desk

Tuesday the 24th of September was a busy morning for the guy standing behind that desk. Questions came at me left and right. More in-a-pickle people than usual appeared. But, despite that, there were a number of lulls in activity during my shift. Usually nothing to write home about goes on in my mind during lulls. But on the 24th, from absolutely out of nowhere, some words of note silently materialized: “I was more comfortable in the hippie era than in any other era,” I thought to myself.

Wow! The succinct, unexpected notion startled me. And immediately I recognized that it was true. I never was a full-fledged hippie, but during the hippie heyday (1965 to 1972, more or less) I felt at ease with hippie philosophies and lifestyles. And I still do.

Copyright Anna Vynohradova

A baby boomer, I came of age during the hippie era. I’m not mentioning anything you don’t already know when I say that war in Vietnam raged during those years. And that political and social turmoil gripped the USA and other parts of the globe. And that, maybe partly in reaction to those realities, an inquisitive, peaceful and kind mindset developed among many millions of youths worldwide.

Who could argue with hippie slogans such as “Make love not war” and “Flower power”? Not me. I didn’t drop acid, move to San Francisco (the hippie epicenter) or put flowers in my hair. But I did grow my hair long and smoked a lot of cannabis. And I felt nothing but admiration for and solidarity with those who were all about camaraderie, harmony with nature, and attempting to bring peace to the world. Still, I was too unsure of myself to take a full plunge. So, I stayed on the hippie movement’s periphery.

Yeah, those were the days. I miss them. And, later that Tuesday morning, I was reminded of them a number of times while standing behind the information desk. Now, a lot of visitors to the medical office building are friendly towards me, but on most of my shifts one or two are unusually friendly, acting as if seeing my drooping eyelids and wrinkled puss is the greatest thing that’s happened to them in ages. I’m amazed by this. I mean, without even trying did I develop a lofty form of personal magnetism in my over-the-hill years? It ain’t likely. Shit, only in my dreams might Emma Stone or Charlize Theron appear at my doorstep, looking me over with lust in her eyes.

On the Tuesday in question, though, not one or two, but six individuals walked past me with their friendliest instincts at the fore. “How are you, man?” one guy said to me, a big smile on his face. “Take care, brother,” said another, unquestionably meaning what he said. In all six instances it felt good to be greeted so warmly. Real good. This kind of thing happened fairly commonly among the population in the hippie era. That’s because hippies’ good will, thankfully, permeated the culture to a decent extent.

The hippie movement, of course, went way beyond friendliness. Concern for the environment and a pretty wide degree of open-mindedness are among its lasting effects. How cool would it be if a neo-hippie movement, a drug-free incarnation, were to germinate and flourish? And if its good vibes and progressive actions were to become major parts of the norms throughout the world? Man, it would be more than cool. It would be miraculous. Our troubled planet is waiting.

(Please don’t be shy about adding your comments or about sharing this essay. Mucho gracias.)

Too Much Stuff? (A Story About The Modern World)

Yeah, Another Blogger120 Comments

A couple of weeks ago, my fingers quivering with excitement, I began to thumb through the January 14, 2019 issue of The New Yorker magazine, a publication I’ve been subscribing to for eons. Great magazine, where lightweight and goofy forms of content happily share space with heady material.

These days I gravitate to short New Yorker pieces, rather than the lengthy articles that the magazine also serves up. That’s because my attention span over the last 20 or thereabouts years has shrunk like a chilled dick. It was with relish, therefore, that I read an easy-to-manage story (click here to read it) about one Martin Kesselman, a “color consultant to home owners and decorators” (to quote the article). Not long ago Martin co-created what he feels is a perfect shade of white paint. Known as Elliyah, it is named after his daughter. Apparently that shade of white has found good success in the marketplace.

Before you ask what I think you might be all set to ask, read this: “Does the world really need another white? Benjamin Moore has a hundred and sixty-four versions of it, all of which Kesselman sells. But he believes that Elliyah is different.” Those are the words of Patricia Marx, the article’s author. See, she anticipated your question.

Elliyah is different? Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. But even if it is, how different can it really be from many of the whites available from Benjamin Moore and the world’s other paint manufacturers? Well, maybe that doesn’t matter. After all, we live in expansive times. Hand-in-hand with an exploding human population (it’s pushing eight billion), there have been bigger and bigger demands for products in just about any category you can name. More people equates with more buying, after all. And within each category the number of available items has skyrocketed to the Moon. Hip, hip, hooray! Choice is good, right?

When I was a high school senior, which puts us back in the years 1964 and 1965, I worked part-time at a Bohack supermarket. (Bohack, for you trivia buffs out there, was a chain in the New York City area, where I used to live.) It was an average-size supermarket for its time, maybe 90 feet long on each side. Whatever its dimensions were, they would pale in comparison to the supermarkets of today. I mean, you could probably fit 20 Bohack stores inside the Giant supermarket (a member of an aptly named chain) half a mile from my current home in the Philadelphia suburbs.

The cereal aisle at Giant.

Talk about choice! My local Giant carries so many items, it’s amazing and dizzying. Teas, breads, cereals, cookies, fruit juices, frozen dinners . . . hundreds of feet of shelf space are devoted to pretty much every category. And that’s only to be expected in our Amazonian age of untold options. Do you want to buy a Bulgarian-made desk lamp that doubles as a miner’s cap, or monogrammed bras manufactured in Azerbaijan? After a handful of clicks and other keystrokes, they probably can be yours.

The cookie aisle at Giant.

I sometimes wonder what the avalanche of choices means. Have buyers gone loopy, constantly on the lookout for something new to distract them from our angst-producing world? Are we genetically programmed always to demand more, more, more? Are we just wild and crazy guys and gals, out for a fun time? Whatever the case or cases, manufacturers are more than happy to read our minds, to anticipate our wants and to induce new cravings. Let’s look at cookies — at Oreo cookies specifically — as one of 25,000,000 possible examples. I mean, plain ol’ Oreos weren’t good enough? Now there needs to be white fudge Oreos and chocolate mint Oreos and a half zillion other types of Oreos too? Uh, let me think about that. Okay, I’ve come to a conclusion: Yeah, man, nothin’ wrong with white fudge and chocolate mint Oreos. They’ve got my votes!

The tea aisle at Wegmans.

Let it be said, however, that overall I’m not much of a shopper, at stores or online. But I do like to go food shopping. For one thing, it gets me out of the house, which is a positive. Hell, at home I’m very unproductive, spending 80% of my waking hours scratching my head and my balls. (What, at my advanced age there’s something better for me to do?) At food stores, though, I have a good time and I don’t scratch. Anyway, one day last week I paid visits to my local Giant and to Wegmans, another airplane hanger-sized supermarket. I breezed through their aisles, quickly picking up the items on my shopping list.

Part of the beer section at Wegmans.

But there was one exception to my breezing: At Wegmans I slowed down to smell the roses, alcoholically-speaking, in its beer section. I’m not all that interested in the enormity of choices on our planet for automobiles, smart phones, toothpastes, hot sauces, whatever. Beer, however, is another story. Small, adventurous breweries began popping up left and right in The States and elsewhere around 1990. I got into their products in 1994, on my honeymoon. Ever since then I’ve made it one of my missions to explore the wonderful world of beers, while of course drinking in moderation and while not scratching my head or my balls.

Wegmans’ beer area put a smile on my face the other day, as it always does. It’s colorful, intriguing and worthy of deep investigation. So many choices! What to buy? What to buy? After 20 minutes I opted to go home with a craft-your-own six pack. Before transferring its contents to the frig, I arranged the bottles neatly, asked them to smile for the camera and took their picture. Beer. That’s one category that, for me, never will have too many options.

(As I almost always say, please don’t be shy about adding your comments or about sharing this article. Many thanks.)

Not Your Average Family: A Review Of Captain Fantastic

Yeah, Another Blogger14 Comments

IMG_0844A few weeks ago my wife Sandy and I ventured out to see Captain Fantastic. It’s an oddly named movie and quite a good one. Captain Fantastic is a tale about a family, the Cashes, that for many years has been living in semi-seclusion deep in Washington State mountain wilderness. Why? Because Ben and Leslie Cash, early in their adult lives, walked out mainstream American society’s exit door. They were turned off by, and wanted no part of, the USA’s big business and big government, and the wasteful and extravagant lifestyles of many of their fellow citizens. Self-sufficient and resourceful in their wooded paradise, they have grown their own food, hunted animals and fruitfully made their way. And, via unorthodox and vigorous home schooling, they have passed on their beliefs, skills and knowledge to their progeny, all six of them, the oldest of whom, a son, is about 17. Part hippies, part isolationists, part radical thinkers, Ben and Leslie have helmed what ain’t your average family, to say the least. Average, no. Smart, book-loving and full of spunk, yes. In other words, very likeable.

Give Me The Simple Life is on this album.
Give Me The Simple Life is on this album.

I wanted to write a story about Captain Fantastic shortly after seeing it. The story definitely was inside me, pawing to get out, but it just wouldn’t congeal. Still, I kept thinking about Captain Fantastic a little bit now and then while hoping for the arrival of a special something that would set a zippy analysis of CF in motion. Such occurred recently when I heard a song on the radio, vocalist Annie Ross’ 1959 version of Give Me The Simple Life, an All-American standard recorded by many over the years (click here to listen). Harry Ruby and Rube Bloom wrote this number around 1945, meaning it to be a paean to modesty in one’s approach to living, to being happy with a small abode, basic possessions and the ones you love. As such, it would make a fairly decent though incomplete theme song for the Cashes. But Annie Ross took big liberties with the Ruby-Bloom creation. Someone, maybe she, penned some additional lyrics that turned the original song on its head. Turns out that Annie had been playing with us. “Here’s what I really want,” she in effect sang in the tune’s closing verses. “Plenty of dough, a Cadillac, caviar and really nice clothes.”

Ben and Leslie Cash, had they ever heard Annie Ross’ take on Give Me The Simple Life, would have shaken their heads knowingly. “That’s the American way.” they’d have said. “F*ck that. This mountain is where we belong.”

Ah, if only things were that clear. If they were, life would be a breeze (and there’d be little for moviemakers to make movies about). But, duh, circumstances change and situations develop. And people, if they are wise and with it, choose to or are forced to adapt. Or at least contemplate the possibility of adapting.

At the start of Captain Fantastc, we see seven of the eight Cashes in action. All but Leslie, who has been away from the household for several months, a hospitalized victim of mental and emotional disturbances. In her absence Ben is fully in charge, leading his troops through the same rigorous activities as when Leslie was present: killing deer, climbing rock walls, reading and discussing books, to name a few. The Cashes, if anything, are, with exceptions, very well-rounded. One day, though, bad news reaches Ben. Leslie, his soul mate, took her life. Apparently troubled for a long time, she had soldiered on till the pain grew too intense.

Leslie, in her will, left specific instructions as to how her death is to be observed and how her body is to be disposed. The Cashes’ quest to honor her wishes takes them off-mountain, where they ram hard into modern American life. For the Cash offspring, supermarkets and video games and big houses, all of which they encounter, are disorienting. And for Ben, the temporary immersion in society makes him look at his kids anew. He and they love their mountain home, but is it ultimately a prison for the children? To truly blossom might they need to live among their countrymen, at least in some modified manner?

Plot-wise, I’ll say no more. Now it’s gripe time, which I’ll keep very short by mentioning only one of several quibbles: Maybe I missed something, which is likely, but I didn’t come away with a good understanding of when or why Leslie’s mental problems developed and grew. I thought that the presentation of this subject was more than a little confused and hard to follow. Like me.

Which awkwardly leads me to note that for eons I’ve been amazed by how many good movies are written and/or directed by persons whom I’ve never heard of before. That’s a reflection of the amount of talent out there, and also shows that I’ve got miles to travel if I ever hope to get back in the loop. All of which is a delayed way of saying that Matt Ross wrote and directed the good Captain. As for actors who do a great job, well, everyone shines in Captain Fantastic. Viggo Mortensen, whom I do know about, gets far more screen time than anyone else. He has no trouble revealing the many moods and facets of Ben Cash. And George McKay too is wonderful. Previously an unknown to me, he plays Ben and Leslie’s sweet and low-in-certain-life-experiences oldest child.

Movie fans, that’s a wrap.

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