I Admit that I'm Weird

My friend Lisa Golem shared this on Facebook. I love it so I posted it on my FB with the following comment:
"I'm not weird. There's a very normal guy inside fighting to get out. But I've developed some very good defensive mechanisms that are working at least for now."

But let's talk seriously about being weird.

I tried being normal and more or less succeeded in High School. My goal was to be accepted by the group and to have a few closer friends and I succeeded in that. I found a few roles that I could fill such as Science Guy, Chess Player, Ping Pong Player, 1st Trumpet in the School Band, Class Clown, Christian Guy, etc. I did OK. It was kind of nerve wracking keeping these roles going but they helped me achieve my goal of acceptance.

In 1968, finishing Grade 13, I was looking for my next set of roles. I joined the Revolution. Smoked some hash, started hanging around with Hippies and Freaks (those are synonyms, sort of what the Straights called us and what we called ourselves). I started learning some new roles such as Intellectual Reader, Long Hair, Blues Listener, Acid Head, Hitchhiker, Cool Dresser, Street Theatre Guy, Small Time Dealer, etc. Again I found the acceptance and friends I was looking for and the roles were more freeing and fun than my former High School roles. We Freaks had a strong value of individualism and self expression. We said, "Do your own thing," and we used the expression of "far out" to express approval of something that wasn't "in."

But a role is a role and if the goal is acceptance by the group, there is tension and nerve wrackingness.To the extent that one is following a role, even a self-chosen one, one tends to be isolated, first from yourself and then from others.

At this point - about 1972 - I began to get more desperate in my search for authenticity. I sought out people on the fringes of society. I read books about madness and mysticism and wondered if I would have to go mad in order to find myself and my place in the world. I saw a play called Pilk's Madhouse. One of the lines in the play asks, "Who is real in this house of mirrors?"

more to come...

My Review of A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe

I can't believe I ate the whole thing! 740 pages of novel. In about 2 weeks. I don't read many novels and I start way more than I finish. But this one grabbed me.



I have wanted to read another Tom Wolfe novel ever since I read The Electric Acid Kool Aid Test in 1970. That novel was about the "Merry Pranksters" who rode a day glo painted bus across America holding  happenings in which they served Kool Aid laced with LSD. Wolfe's book helped explain to me why I was doing acid at the time. And I needed the explaining, believe me. Way back then, that novel, hit me between the eyes! This one doesn't hit me between the eyes, but it definitely grabbed me by the shoulder.

A few years ago, I tried his novel, Bonfire of the Vanities but it didn't grab me.

A reviewer from goodreads summarizes the book:

A Man in Full

by Tom Wolfe

 3.67  ·   rating details  ·  6,203 ratings  ·  463 reviews

The setting is Atlanta, Georgia — a racially mixed, late-century boomtown full of fresh wealth and wily politicians. The protagonist is Charles Croker, once a college football star, now a late-middle-aged Atlanta conglomerate king whose outsize ego has at last hit up against reality. Charlie has a 29,000 acre quail-shooting plantation, a young and demanding second wife, and a half-empty office complex with a staggering load of debt.

Meanwhile, Conrad Hensley, idealistic young father of two, is laid off from his job at the Croker Global Foods warehouse near Oakland and finds himself spiraling into the lower depths of the American legal system.

And back in Atlanta, when star Georgia Tech running back Fareek “the Canon” Fanon, a homegrown product of the city’s slums, is accused of date-raping the daughter of a pillar of the white establishment, upscale black lawyer Roger White II is asked to represent Fanon and help keep the city’s delicate racial balance from blowing sky-high.

Networks of illegal Asian immigrants crisscrossing the continent, daily life behind bars, shady real estate syndicates — Wolfe shows us contemporary America with all the verve, wit, and insight that have made him our most admired novelist. Charlie Croker’s deliverance from his tribulations provides an unforgettable denouement to the most widely awaited, hilarious and telling novel America has seen in ages — Tom Wolfe’s most outstanding achievement to date.

The thing that grabbed me about this novel was his depiction of male egos in scramble, fight and tear each other to pieces in search of money, power, status, sex. The scrambles take place at 3 levels of society: among the rich, the middle class and among the inmates of a prison. It's the same brutal game, no matter what level it's being played at.

The "unforgettable denouement" of the book - I had to look the word up: it means "the final part of a narrative in which matters are explained or resolved" - involves looking to God for the answers. But the God who is looked to is Zeus and the avenue of looking is via the ancient Roman Stoic philosophers. On one level, the ending is kind of silly and unbelievable. But it makes you ask, "If the Stoics don't have the answer for the out of control ego, who does?"

Meeting Laura

 Met Jon's girlfriend, Laura. Took them out for dinner to a Thai place that Jon picked. The food was delicious.
Interestingly, as I was looking over the menu, Jon commented, "My dad is a very adventurous person but not with food." That's true.
Jon asked me to keep the conversation light and noncontroversial. I did. The older child's plea is always, "Please don't embarass me." I'm sure I didn't. We were all very charming, especially Laura. Enjoyed seeing Shams again, too. Jon has wonderful friends.

 Experimenting with the Night Portrait setting on my camera. Must get better control before I go to Israel in October.

Collapse of Society Possible?

I had an interesting conversation with a woman at the checkout in a Thriftstore. We were talking about the chaos in Egypt and she commented that she didn't believe it could happen here. I told her I thought it could. I proposed a couple of scenarios. If the power grid broke down or our food distribution system stopped happening, I said that there would soon be looting and violence in the streets. There is probably about a month's food or maybe six weeks food in stores and homes in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. Once that food ran out, I said there would be violence in the streets. She disagreed, thought our technology for delivering food and power is secure.
I don't know but I think we are living in a technological house of cards. We are vulnerable to economic or technological collapse due to natural disasters, terrorist or military attacks. I may be profoundly wrong but I think something bad is going to happen, sooner or later. It could be just something bad or it could be really bad or it could even be the end of life as we know it.
Whadaya think? Are we vulnerable or secure?

Woodstock August 15 - 18, 1969 - Thinkin' About It

I told my nephew that I was watching the original Woodstock movie this weekend. He asked me was I there. No, I said, I was in the midst of hitchhiking from Woodstock, Ontario to Vancouver. (I'm actually from Woodstock, Ontario.)But I was there in spirit.

What was Woodstock? For me, most of my information comes from the movie which was released a year later. The movie is the event, the myth. Remember the movie (and your TV news) is a story told from a particular perspective. The people who planned the event for 50,000 people and lost money when 400,000 showed up, most without buying tickets, lost money - until Woodstock the movie came out. Then they made money. One of the purposes of the film, perhaps the main purpose says the Cynic in me was to make money. The purpose of the film was to tell an attractive story. The parts of the story that didn't fit the purpose ended up on the cutting room floor.

What was so great about "Woodstock?"

First the music - at least the music that made it into the film - was superb. Ten Years After blues rockin' Goin' Home still thrills my soul 40 years after first seeing it in the film. Hendrix's rendition of Star Spangled Banner still breaks the heart with longing for healing for a world that was coming apart due to the Viet Nam war. Janis never did find her man to love but she sure sang about it in a way that made us all want to find that someone. Top musicians at the top of their form and their best performances selected for the film.

Woodstock the Movie set me on a search for the next couple of years for Woodstock. I went to a few music festivals, rock concerts, parks and city centres but never found Woodstock. I smoked dope and kissed a few girls but I never found Woodstock.

What was Woodstock? It was a movie. A bunch of extra people showed up at a music festival, got high and listened to some great music. More people showed up and it rained. Food, water, toilets and medical attention were in short supply so everyone pitched in and cooperated including the army and local townspeople. Food, blankets and even flowers were brought in by helicopter. No one punched anyone, at least on camera. Some attractive women took off their clothes and some people played in the mud. They kept announcing from the stage that the world was being changed by this event. We all tried to believe it.

Within a few short years I had come to the conclusion that it was easy to have a 3 day festival of peace and love but that was about all we could manage. We didn't change the world for the better.We had a vision of a better world and out of that vision came a few songs and many broken lives. I honour the time and the hope that we had. I can still weep over what I wanted the world to be.

2nd Crack at Blogging: Getting Autobiographical

2nd crack at blogging. Still thrashing around in the menus but obviously making some progress.
I was surprised to see that I had written "the remarkable fellow that I was." I was?!! I still is.If my faith is true, I always will be. So what was that, a Freudian slip? I think it was just a case of how my mind works when I'm thinking autobiography. It is written for those who will be here when I aint.
I'm wondering if this is the place to post autobiographical stuff. Is there a specialty blog for autobiographists? I shall check that out.
Just to put something autobiographical in here, part of what I'm writing on right now: Between the fall of 1969 and the spring of 1974 I hitchhiked:
regularly between Waterloo and Woodstock
up to Kapuskasing, Ontario
between Woodstock Ontario and Vancouver about six times (including taking the train once each way)
St.Thomas, Ontario to New York City
from London, England to Nepal and back (taking the occasional bus or train on the way back). That included Belgium, Holland, Germany, Austria, Greece, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal

First Blog

I feel like a cat thrashing around in a bag. It has taken me 15 minutes to figure out how to post this first blog. Now I've thrashed my way to here and assuming that I can figure out how to actually move this text onto the blog space which doesn't look too difficult it will be possible to make this available for your viewing.
I suspect getting my first viewer here will be more than a 15 minute job but millions have managed to promote their blogs and get a bit of a following so it can be done.
I've kept my NY's resolutions really vague this year but one of them is to develop an online presence. I want to find an audience.
I lead a very interesting life and I'd like to share it with a few peeps. I'd like to be a little bit famous.
I'm writing my autobiography right now, bits and pieces at a time and I can lay it out here and maybe someone will read it and realize what a remarkable fellow I was.