#102 You Are Here.
It is eleven in the morning on a slow, cool, and lazy sunny Sunday morning here in Portland. The sun is shining, but my skin is full of goose bumps because the air here remains very still and cold. It will be several more hours before the wonders of convection energy will fulfill the day’s promise for eighty-degree heat. For now, I’m left shivering in the light, a unique part of existence in Portland.
I’m sitting in a large, breathtakingly beautiful public park, typing on a “Netbook.” I look out to my right, and I see a homeless man sleeping like a baby, snuggling with the trunk of a tree, tightly wrapped up in a see-through plastic bag, like the one that I imagine would line a brand new HD flat screen TV when you pull it out of the manufacturer’s box.
I look back at my “Netbook” and type. But then I notice two figures darting in and out of my peripheral vision, up and to my left. I look up to see just another elderly Portland couple practicing Tai Chi. The man has a ZZ Top beard, several tattoos, and an enormous beer gut that seems to defy the tranquil and Zen-like character traits that I stereotypically attribute to a Tai Chi practitioner. But this man moves fluidly, much like a well practiced ballerina. And even though I don’t have a beer gut, I can’t even come close to touching my toes, so, really, what’s the point in judging him?
Yes, it’s another slow, cool, and lazy sunny Sunday morning here in Portland, full of squashed stereotypes and drizzly day dreams.
My heart jumps as an inner voice removes me from my state of tranquility by insisting:
Enjoy it now, because YOU ARE LEAVING. So say goodbye. Things are going to CHANGE.
Change. I used to hate that word, then I learned to embrace it, and now I feel an abnormally satisfying indifference to the concept of change. Change is a lot like a lazy fly buzzing around my leg. I can leave it alone, or swat at it, but it is only doing its thing.
It’s the summer of 2009. Everything that occurred last summer was last summer. I’m here now. And it’s now this summer. The Summer of 2009. The summer where I am sitting here in a park typing this into my “Netbook.” This is change.
It’s 2009 and a “Netbook” is not a “Laptop.” The “Netbook” differs from a laptop, because it’s not a laptop. That’s why. And it has no CD Rom Drive. But I turn it on just like a laptop. I open applications just like I do on a laptop. I even surf the internet and use the touchpad just like I would on a laptop. But it’s a “Netbook,” they tell me. And the front pages on all the newspapers tell me that it’s 2009. Things keep changing, damn it.
When I first moved to Portland, Oregon, On June 14th, 2005, I had one stop to make, before I could do anything else, and that was to stop at “A-One Mini Self Storage,” which was located on “South East Main Street.”
I endured a full hour of perseverance-meets-futility filled frustration, full of wrong turns, wrong exits, and hectic, unfamiliar traffic patterns, and then one last, (and very reluctant) personal-pride-killing stop to ask directions at a gas station before I was finally able to locate the self storage center on South East Main Street.
Upon finally finding this holy grail of damp, mildewed, but reasonably priced box storage units, I unloaded all my earthly possessions as quickly as I could, and headed east on South East Main Street, in order to meet a potential roommate at her house, to interview for a room to sublet. The year was 2005, and I was marveling at how I’d arranged for this meeting on some weird internet site called “Craigslist.” Craigslist is now a household name.
We adjust to change. I am writing this on a “Netbook.” You are (most likely) reading this “on-line.” Many of the June protests and riots in Iran were apparently organized by Iranians using an online social network called Twitter. Twitter is the new Facebook which was the new Craigslist, which was the new Yahoo, which was a brand new part of a thing called “The World Wide Web,” which is the latest paradigm shift to create a slew of nonsensical buzz words. The Internet; where the spider meets the bee. Web Buzz.
I was a little late to that apartment meeting, the one that I’d set up on Craigslist, thanks to my machismo-driven hour long refusal to ask for directions to the storage unit, but at least I showed up to the interview in an empty, clean looking car, as opposed to the overloaded “Beverly Hillbillies” mobile that had taken me and all my shit from Ithaca, NY all the way to Portland Oh-Rah-Gone, (as I called it back then).
Michael Jackson hasn’t produced anything of relevance to society in more than ten years, but upon hearing about his “untimely demise” on Twitter, Our most trusted talking heads and pundits have reviewed his legacy and decided, in an historical sense, that he is to be one of the most revered people in modern pop-culture history. He had a pet chimpanzee named Bubbles, a massive ranch that he called “Neverland,” in honor of a fictional place in which boys and girls never grow up, and he was accused of child molestation on several occasions.
But we, as social historians, better yet, as humans, we are capable of not only creating, but also of adjusting to change. It is not uncommon for us, as a species, to collectively reconsider the labels and judgments that we made in the past, and to attempt to amend them, whenever an event creates a new juxtaposition that allows for an opportunity for revision. Martin Luther, and Martin Luther King!
The Earth is no longer flat, the sun doesn’t revolve around us, we don’t bleed patients to cure diseases, and, as it turns out, Michael Jackson is not a weirdo, nor was he a reviled pedophile. No, he is and always was a brilliant artist who died too young, and the death was tragic, and so we forgive him for any crimes, both real and imaginary, that we, the people, may have accused him of, once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away. Amen. Some things never change!
The interview with my potential new roommate went well. I apologized for being late, she apologized for making me drive 3,000 miles in order to be screened in person before committing to my offer to sublet. The place was very nice; it had a tranquil back yard that emulated this picturesque garden I had read about once in a book that someone had left in my hotel drawer (some guy named Gideon wrote it?) The only downside to the place was that I was told that the apartment was non smoking, and I liked to smoke.
Smoking used to be good for you; doctor’s recommended certain brands over others. Margarine is better for you than butter, if it’s the 1960′s. They’re both good for you throughout the 70s 80s and 90s, but recently, margarine became bad for you, because it has too many additives. If you stand by the microwave, you’ll get cancer. Anti-oxidants prevent cancer. Blueberries have anti-oxidants as do pomegranates. Anti-oxidant based food and beverage products saw a 21% upswing in American and European sales from March of 2007 until March of 2009. 4 out of 5 doctors smoke Lucky Strikes. The Japanese live longer than Europeans do. They, as a culture, eat a lot of fish. Fish is good for you. Some fish have mercury. Mercury can kill you. My doctor tells me that I should…
A lot has changed since 2005, now that I think about it. Maybe these changes I perceive are only a product of the way I tend to view change, or maybe they accompany the fact that I am getting older. Science calls this “the aging process,” and as I learn to deal with the slow, deliberate destruction of my body’s cells by my own body, I’m also learning, gradually, that one of the hardest parts about being young, is actually the easiest part of growing old: And this is recognizing and accepting the fact that the only thing in life that seems to be constant, is change.
It seems to me that it is only through a process of retrograde analysis also known as looking through the heavily-subjective-thick-Mr.-Magoo-beer-goggle-esque lenses of nostalgia that we are able to reinvent our narratives, and therein circumscribe meaningfully-meaningless tags of “beginnings, middles, and endings” to our stories. We sometimes even refer to these events as “life changing.”
But really, during any moment, like right now, you are simply here, and you have to deal with the here, because, well, YOU ARE HERE, and you cannot re-create the past, and you can’t be sure of what future you are creating. Everything is always life changing; life is a series of changes that can only be reviewed retro-actively, not pro-actively.
And so it’s tricky stuff, this whole “trying to pretend that life has a course, a course that I have any control over, and a course that I can plan my life around.” It’s hard to pretend that I can predict even a slight minority of the millions of changes that are occurring at all times, all around me!
SAY WHAT?
I said: it’s getting trickier, as I age, to pretend to believe that we as humans can accurately plan for the future, when change is so unpredictable and inevitable.
WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?
I posit, that we, as humans, pretend, again and again and again that we can somehow predict and plot out trends from the past to the present and then into the future to wait for, to follow and to rely on, because if we accepted the fact that this is ludicrous, then we’d also have to give up on our absurd and uniquely human notions of personal-autonomy and authorship (the notion that our Ego screams is true every damn moment of our life) and this crushing blow to the ego, well, it could be the end of everything as your ego knows it. It could be the end of the status quo…the end of things as we know it…why, it could mean tremendous change. And I’m not talking about some “Twitter-NeoCon-WiFi Internet-Obama” Change.
Last summer, in 2008, when a car collided with me on SOUTH EAST MAIN STREET, right here in good old Portland, Oregon, I experienced many crushing and delightful blows to my body and my ego. And I remember thinking that this event was the most deliciously ironic event of my life!
“How perfect,” I thought to myself, “How perfect is it that I can now demarcate my Portland experience with South East Main Street as the location for BOTH the front and back pages to the story of my life in Portland!” What an enjoyable narrative. Hurrah!
MySpace. You Tube. Google. Black Swans. The Earth is really a turtle. A god named Atlas holds the Earth above his head. God Created Earth 6,000 years ago. There was a big bang, just like when your parents created you. You cannot go faster than sound. I meant to say light. I mean, time and space are only connected in our perceptions. There is an electromagnetic spectrum, and certain animals can see parts of it that we cannot. But that change, the one you predict, it’s impossible. Things cannot change that much. There’s simply no way on Earth that that could happen, it’s just not possible.
South East Main Street, as it turns out, is a repetitive page in my Portland story. In less than two weeks, I’ll be showing up to the very same A-One Mini Self Storage, on South East Main Street, here in Portland, Oregon, to pick up a U-Haul truck which will take me, and the same worldly possessions that I showed up with here in 2005, (plus a futon bed, a couch, a TV, and a TV stand) down to Oakland, California, where I will be attending a graduate school program.
For those of you keeping score at home:
I left California for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1999 to become a world famous film maker.
I left Pittsburgh for Ithaca, New York in 2003 to become a nationally famous musician.
I left Ithaca for Portland, Oregon in 2005 to escape my own ambitions and to learn how to relax.
I am “now” leaving Portland, “here” in 2009, for Oakland, California to go back to school.
Electricity is witchcraft, a product of Satan. Radio waves and TV waves could be lethal. According to Thomas Malthus, the world’s population will forever be curbed and checked by rampant famine (FYI we’re at 6.778 billion and counting, Mr. M). The war in Europe, the Great one, the one that was fought between the years of 1914 to 1918, it was the “war to end all wars.” Glad we stopped doing that! Neil Armstrong actually walked on the moon, but more people associate moon walking with Michael Jackson, and more people know who he is.
Swine Flu is the new Avian Flu which is the new SARS which was the new AIDS which was the new Spanish Flu which was the new Bubonic Plague, which was a curse sent to us humans by god in order to kill off humanity because of its many sins. But from A-Bomb to H-Bomb, we’re still here.
Bank of America, Chase-Manhattan, Wells Fargo; according to the U.S. Government, these banks are “too big to fail.” That system could never work. The current system is broken. I know how to fix it. No, I do. No you don’t. You’re wrong. That’s impossible. Things can’t change that much. Change doesn’t work like that. What if we tried that and it didn’t work? I don’t like the changes you are discussing. I can’t accept those changes in MY plan for OUR future.
The Wright Brothers, Chuck Yeager, The International Space Station, Hula Hoops and Yo-Yo’s. Gandhi. The French Revolution. The Indo-China Revolution. The Cuban Revolution. Atari, Nintendo, and Microsoft. Rosie The Riveter and Rosa Parks. Rock Hudson is the manliest of men. Did you hear that Rock Hudson was gay? Changes like that just don’t happen overnight. 9/11 changed everything.
I used to get angry about current events. I mean truly angry, with a capital RAGE. And I would suffer in my anger, because I was not capable of accepting the fact that I was unable to change my world, and that my world was always changing around me. Dick Cheney, George Bush, and an army of angry, ignorant, misinformed people were constantly trying to shape my world into a design that I did not approve of.
The “I” who existed in 1999-2007, if he were still alive, he would be mad with rage, sick with disgust, heavy hearted, and sulking with his guitar, because “too big to fail” would have sent his head spinning into insanity. It would have been the last straw to break that poor camel’s back.
Instead, “I” am “here” in 2009, and instead of moping or getting angry about things, I’m out on my bicycle, touring around town, reading literature in parks and coffee shops, hanging out with friends, imbibing brew, eating meat from a grill without asking if it’s free-farmed, licking my sauce filled fingers, and basically saying to the universe; I accept you for what you are, for what you are not, for all that you can be, for all that you cannot be; it’s cool with me, thanks for the ability to have feelings. I am choosing the feeling we call good, thanks for offering!
I’m calm. I feel relaxed. I don’t rely on the internet or television in order to be entertained. I oftentimes forget to smoke cigarettes when I’m supposed to be addicted. I’m not full of angst. I’m not mad as hell, and I can totally take it. I mean, it’s funny, actually.
Believe it or not, but from where I sit perched, I see an ineffable beauty amidst the chaos that is a world full of cognizant, conscious humans who believe that they can predict changes in things like “the economy” “weather” and “crop cycles.” Somehow, during all the time I’ve spent watching humans argue about how to best control change, I have learned to find this perpetual struggle very amusing, and it’s given me a dearth of material from which to write about, for the rest of my days.
This is the part of the column where I’m supposed to rant and rave about the demise of the United States, the demise of our way of life, and the demise of our economy. I’m supposed to be witty and poignant as I rewrite jokes about objects that are “too big to fail.” But I’m okay with the fact that in 2009 change became a buzz word.
Bees buzz as they mindlessly weave around a strict course between the nearest plant in need of pollination, and their hive. They do this in response to their Queen, because they’re drones, and drones follow orders. Bees don’t instigate change, but they sure do react to it. They do this, as most animals do, because it’s a necessary strategy for survival. Buzz.
Lately, I’ve been watching the animal that we call the human, and I’ve noticed that instead of reacting to changes, like other animals, humans seem to be scrambling around, quite madly, in an effort to try and implement changes that will supposedly restrict things from changing. They are instigating “necessary” changes in order to prevent things from changing. I find this odd. I also find this amusing. I don’t, however, find it ironic.
I don’t know who my queen is, and I’m not sure if I’m heading away from her or towards her and the hive, but somewhere along this great journey of mine, I’ve happened to notice that sometimes I exist in moments in which I cannot hear the buzzing buzz of humanity (it’s usually when the television is off) and I’m a lot happier during those moments. Buzz.
Buzz words create buzz concepts which allow for buzz laws of reality, all of which are, naturally, part of
a beginning
a middle
and an End.
And you? Why, you are right —> Here. <— Always in the middle…
This entry was posted on Sunday, July 19th, 2009 at 5:32 pm and is filed under The Casual Casuist. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
