The Photograph I Didn't Take.

 It was the last day of our vacation. We had just finished a week of camping our way around Lake Ontario & had spent most of September 10^th driving back to our house in Sullivan County under a cold front. If we had left 90 minutes earlier or later, we could have made the entire trip in sunshine. That storm also pushed another storm traveling up the coast out to sea, leaving behind the beautiful weather that we all remember so well.

Our backyard had three ancient willow trees that always shed branches when it rained, so that’s where I was, cleaning up, when my brother called the next morning.

Jane answered & Dave said, Are you watching television?

No.

Turn it on. Now.

What channel?

It doesn’t matter.

I was on the phone with him when the North Tower fell.

On September 12^th, back in the city, Dave & I rode our bicycles downtown to see what we could see. On my way to meet him, I saw a car parked on West 77^th Street, covered in dust.

The cops had all traffic blocked at Houston Street, but from years of running along the East River, I knew the little downtown streets pretty well. Getting inside was easy.

Dave wanted to go back to his old apartment in the West Village. Walking out of his front door every day, the first thing he would see would be the towers. At Christopher & Washington, he got off his bicycle in the middle of the intersection & let it drop. He stood in the middle of the street, arms at his sides, staring up at the empty sky.

I took so many pictures that day, but I didn’t take that one. I don’t know why.

We got within two or three blocks of The Pile. Everything was covered in dust, sometimes ankledeep. Papers & shoes. Demolished cars & trucks, towed just far enough away.

At some point I realized that we were serving no useful purpose & had no acceptable reason for being there, taking pictures of rescue workers with nobody to rescue. I thought about what was in the dust I was walking on & I felt like a creep.

The fires burned for weeks. You could smell them from 30 miles away, or more.

In 2002, I worked the first Tribeca Film Festival. Every time we stepped outside, day or night, we would see truckloads of debris being loaded onto barges for transport to labs, hoping to find something, for somebody.

Jane & I sold our house upstate a couple years later. Dave died a few months after that. The 9/11 photograph I didn't take is the one that's stuck in my head.

All those people.

Welcome Back.

OK, that was a lot of fun. We all had a good laugh or two at the expense of fools, & that’s the best kind of laugh. ‘If you can’t think of a good Rapture joke, it’s not the end of the world.’ That was my favorite.

Y’know, I can’t help but think that the people who were that sure they were going, at the end of the day, weren’t going anywhere. If the Rapture had happened for real, we would all have been very surprised at who stayed & who left.

But we’re all still here & what sucked about life on Earth last week still sucks. Legitimate problems that gave this joker in Oakland just a little more ammunition to convince people that the world deserves to end, they’re still around. Some of the other stuff, like homophobia & good old-fashioned Christian intolerance, isn’t what I’m talking about. Those are problems, to be sure, just not in the way most apocalyptic Christians imagine.

So how about we dispense with the myths & fantasies & fairytales. Let’s stop waiting for dreams to come true. We could actually try to fix the world that we live in, here & now.

I know. Fat chance.

But we do get to play this End of Days game all over next year, when the Mayan calendar runs out.

Children of the Rapture.

So, should the Rapture NOT come Saturday, what happens to the children?

We’re all giggling up our sleeves at these poor delusionals that have exhausted their life savings to warn the heathen scum among us that it’s not too late to repent & be saved.

(Let’s just think about that for a second & then quickly move on: the End of Days is upon us & people are spending everything they have on advertising. Madison Avenue has won. Maybe it really is over, after all.)

When the End doesn’t come, they’re gonna be broke, because of this snakeoil salesman in California. (Don’t misunderstand me. I have no sympathy for them. None.) Is he gonna reimburse them? Not bloody likely. He’ll just pick another day, like the last time. Maybe he really believes this stuff. More’s the pity.

I could go on at length about how here we are, an allegedly modern society, & this nonsense still has astonishing traction. But, like I said before, what I really want to know is, what about the children? This wasn’t their idea. I doubt that they were seriously consulted. What did they do to deserve whatever comes Sunday, after their parents throw it all away on Saturday? Why are the sins (yeah, I said sins) of the father always visited upon the son? Are the infidels, atheists & other sundry unbelievers who these pious souls were willing to pray for, but happy to leave behind, supposed to step up? On Friday, we weren’t good enough. Will God provide? He’s lied to them already, at least once.

All I’m saying is, if you gotta roll the dice, then roll ‘em, but don’t bet your kids. There’s no such thing as a sure thing.

What about the children?

Metablog.

Blogspot has been down for over 18 hours. Something about maintenance gone bad, with spectacular conspiracy theories floating around. Since I’m trying to avoid thinking about how long it’s been since I last checked my hit count, I thought this might be a good time to muse about how this whole blog thing is going for me. Oh, & for you too. Of course.

Yes, it has come to this: I’m gonna write a blog about my blog, & I can’t promise that this will be the only time. You will see this as either an exercise in ironic self-reference (if you like it) or self-important narcissism (if you don’t). I’m OK with it, either way.

I’ve been writing this blog for a couple weeks now. In that time, I’ve tried to explain what I intend to do, told a joke or two, even ranted a little. So far, so good.

The main reason for doing this at all is a desire to find my voice, to see if I really can be the writer that I have imagined myself to be, without ever really doing it, for so many years. The answer so far is, Maybe. Maybe I can. I dunno yet. But I’m averaging about 40 hits a day, so somebody is actually reading this stuff, maybe even people that don’t know me. That blows my mind.

Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you.

A few months ago, I performed my own songs, for the first time ever, at an open mic thing. Yeah, I know, it was planned by friends, produced by friends, & largely peopled by friends. It was quite possibly the friendliest audience I’ll ever see, & it went very, very well. I was scared shitless anyway & didn’t really enjoy it, or rather, I enjoyed it just enough to want to do it again & scare the shit out of myself all over. The most amazing part of the experience was the realization that there may actually be an audience for my bizarre little songs. Who knew.

I kinda feel the same way about this blog business. I would hope that I could provide wry commentary on life as we know it, the eternal search for irony. I plan to be funny soon, preferably when it’s on purpose. Make a contribution. But at the end of the day, I’m afraid that it really is mostly navel-contemplation. Me, expressing my opinion. Me, writing a slow-motion autobiography. Me, me, me. Hopefully, something of substance will come out of this. That's not for me to judge. I’m just as amazed at people reading this stuff, with the distinct possibility that some are coming back to see what nonsense I’ll drum up next, as I am at people liking my songs. It’s fervently desired & thoroughly unexpected. The difference is, with writing a blog, I don’t hafta stand up in front of people. This is a little easier. Just a little.

Oh hey, Blogspot’s back. For me, anyway. Me, me, me. See ya.

Enos Slaughter.

I wish I could take credit for this story, but I can’t. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but, frankly, I don’t care. I can’t even give proper attribution, because Google has let me down, this once. So I will repeat it as best as I can remember, heavily paraphrased.

Many years ago, I was watching a baseball game on television, & the announcer was talking about an interview he had heard, many years before that, with Enos Slaughter, Hall of Fame outfielder who played his best years for the St. Louis Cardinals. The conversation turned to Ty Cobb. The interviewer asked Enos Slaughter what he thought Ty Cobb’s batting average would be if he were playing today (the late 1960’s).

Enos Slaughter said, Probably .310 or .320.

The interviewer said, Is that all? He hit .367 lifetime, over .400 three times.

Enos Slaughter said, You have to remember, he’d be over 80 if he were alive today.

Happy Mother's Day...

The Mothers, Passaic NJ, 1974. Photo ©2011 Don McKennan.

...to all Mothers everywhere, especially my own.

In The Mailroom.

In our building, there’s a bulletin board in the mail room. It usually has fairly innocuous stuff on it – co-op board notices, misdelivered mail, guitar lessons, ‘Anybody got a cleaning lady they can recommend?’, like that. Over the years we’ve lived here I’ve paid it almost no attention.

But we were checking our mail today & my wife says, Look at this. Tacked to the bulletin board was a business card that simply said

WORK SETS YOU FREE.

No name, no address, no phone number, nothing else.

I have to admit, the point was lost on me until Jane repeated it, in German: Arbeit Macht Frei. The words at the entrance to Auschwitz. Somebody went to the trouble (& perhaps the expense) to print up at least one business card, guaranteed to upset people, frighten people, piss people off, & posted it anonymously, with very little possibility of witnessing any reaction. A random act of stupid. At the very least, this coward, who probably lives in my building, thinks this kind of shit is funny. Outside of Mel Brooks, very few people can make Nazis funny. This, in particular, I don’t think is funny. Jane is even less amused than I am, but then, she would be; she has the relatives with the tattoos on their arms.

I really don’t want to ascribe any political motive to this. As far as I’m concerned, it’s just an asshole doing what assholes do.

But I don’t get it.

Skippy.

In the days & weeks after 9/11, President Bush would not refer to Osama bin Laden by name. He called him ‘the evil one,’ & such. I thought that was a mistake, because that sort of non-naming conferred power in him that he didn’t deserve; it gave him mythic status. I thought we should give him a name that would cheapen him, trivialize him. I called him Skippy. It caught on, a little.

So Skippy is dead. Good. That’s good. I only wish there were a hell so he could burn in it.

The Rainbow.

‘It is inconceivable that this campaign to portray Mr. Obama as the insidious “other” would have been conducted against a white president.’ – New York Times editorial, 4/28/2011.
 

I was hoping to start this blog with some sedate, non-confrontational, non-partisan, happyface stuff; there’s a 'popcorn kittens' video going viral that would have been perfect. Yknow, so I could suck in some repeat visits. Build up my hit counts. Become the darling of the advertising world. Convince everybody that I’m a rational, caring human being, a funny guy. Acquire a fan club. Drooling sycophants and fawning acolytes by the thousands. Raw, naked power.

Oh well.

It probably wouldn’t have worked, anyway. America in the 21^st Century doesn’t go for bland. Being bland & boring doesn’t work. Being loud works, even if you have nothing to say. Especially if you have nothing to say. 


Bland is not the same as empty, though. Empty works. So does bigotry, which is basically the same thing. Which leads me to…

(One of my rightwing friends has already advised me that I have lost the ability to look at the issues rationally & nothing I’m about to say will change his mind.)

…this birther bullshit. It is bigotry. It is racism. It is intolerance. It is choosing to be stupid because having to adapt to a changing world & drag oneself kicking & screaming out of the 16^th century is too bloody difficult. And it is indistinguishable from, & part & parcel of, The Tea Party, the tail wagging the Republican dog.

It has to stop. Now.

If you don’t think Obama should be President on political grounds or philosophical grounds or moral grounds or, God help us, religious grounds, then whatever, do what you gotta do. Vote him out in 2012. Campaign hard. Be a positive part of The Process. If you don’t like Obama’s policies (assuming you’re having better luck than I am at figuring out what they are), fine. I’m not happy with Obama, either, but probably for very different reasons. Let's discuss it like adults.

But anybody who thought Obama is not an American citizen before he released his birth certificate is a bigot. Anybody who still thinks so since he released his birth certificate is a delusional bigot. If you don’t like the word, too bad. Too Got-damned bad. That’s what you are. You would never have pulled this crap on a white guy.

The Tea Party is nothing but white supremacy with a populist hood over its empty head.

But, like I said, racism sells in America. It works. It gets you where you want to go. A Republican Oklahoma state representative declares that black people don’t work as hard as white people & then apologizes. In Missouri, the Republican Speaker of the House suggests that flooding a predominantly black town is preferable to flooding largely white-owned farmland & then apologizes. A Southern California GOP official emails a picture depicting the President of the United States as an ape, with apes for parents, & then apologizes. Do you see the same pattern I see? Spew racism, rile the base, pocket a few votes for next time, & then apologize to the press, and repeat as necessary.

It pains me greatly to say this, but America is not ready for a nonwhite President. Not yet. Not this one, not any other one. We’re still fighting the Civil War. I was stunned to find out that people still say ‘nigra.’ Silly me.

But whether you like it or not, folks, America is changing color.

The Rainbow is coming. In our lifetimes, non-Hispanic whites will become a minority in America. Sooner or later, our elected officials will start to resemble our population. Of course, this can be delayed indefinitely through slander, intimidation, fear, terror, all the things Donald Trump is doing right now, or other tactics that are much, much worse. But The Rainbow is coming & it's inevitable. If you’d drop the blinders for two minutes, you’d see that it is a good thing. It’s a very good thing. It’s a great thing. We can accept it, embrace it, and live up to the promises we made to the world hundreds of years ago, or we can be South Africa, pre-Mandela.

It’s The Rainbow or apartheid. You choose.

(Yeah, I know. I said that things had to stay civil here. But it’s my blog. Sorry.)

It Starts Here.

Hi. My name is Don McKennan. I’m Dave’s Brother. I’m a stagehand. Dave was, too.

My brother Dave died in an automobile accident several years ago. I miss him today as much as I did the day he died. I still see him walking down the street, almost every day, & I can still hear him calling me from down the block, somewhere behind me. But no. He’s gone. He’s gone & he’s not coming back.

Dave was a stutterer. A stammerer, actually. Watching or listening to him try to unbottle himself was always painful, but I thought that spitting out the word he was stuck on for him, whether out of compassion or impatience, would be worse, for both of us. Not surprisingly, Dave never used a hundred words when ten would do. (I, as you shall see, am the opposite.) Besides, he was usually worth the wait.

Some years before he died, I was very surprised when he told me that he was running for union office. Stagehands can be a very tough audience. As Dave put it, All you have to do is stand up at a union meeting & introduce yourself, & immediately one third of the membership will hate your guts. In our culture, ‘fucking asshole’ is generally a term of endearment.

I asked him what made him do it, because public speaking was clearly not his strong suit. He said, After years of letting other people control the debate & being reluctant or afraid to contribute, the day came when I felt like I needed to be the person standing on the soapbox.

I said, Good for you, then. I’m not there yet.

He said, You’ll get there. You have more to say than I do.

(More words, certainly. More substance, I dunno.)

I said, How will I know when I’m ready.

He said, When the time comes, you’ll know. You can’t predict it, & you can’t force it.  He said, You might not even be aware that it’s your time to get up on the soapbox until, suddenly, you realize that you’ve already been on it for half an hour, railing against the gods. Or tilting at windmills.

He lost that election, and held a victory party anyway.

Well. Perhaps my moment has come. I read so much drivel these days that passes for rational thought & reasoned discourse, tales ‘told by an idiot, all sound & fury, signifying nothing.’ The way I look at it, I can’t possibly do any worse.

So. It starts. Here come a few more idiot’s tales. Just what the world needs.

It’s hard to tell. Maybe I’ve been there half an hour already.