"...Life"

The life of nations. Change. This Republic is about change...slow change. The Civil Rights Act took 100 years to pass. Even then there was push back. Marginalized peoples have come far in my lifetime. Equal opposite reaction kicks in against near 80 years of social progress. Jim Crow falls arts and sciences progress. Obama elected different orientations accepted Women progressing even gender itself re-examined. An era of primal pushback was inevitable. In particular to unintended consequences. Both sides make mistakes. We don't see history while we're living it. When it sometimes literally knocks on our front door. However, history continues on its asymmetrical course.

Have patience be brave be kind. Life goes on. Days go by.

 

A real life Uncle Sidney Adventure.

Once upon a time it was the early 70′s. I wore bell bottoms but drew the line at platform shoes. During the periods while being of out then back in college I had assorted jobs. Among them a Girl Scout a church technician a grunt in da copy department of a gum company. All this thanks to my being a ‘Holly Girl’. A pal Holly Allison had a temp employment agency specializing in getting gigs for unemployable art types...which was and is me.

‘Girl Scout’...perhaps I should clarify.

I worked at the NYC headquarters for da Girl Scouts USA. I fit right in. I show up sez I’m a ‘Holly Girl’ no one bats an eye. I loved it there. Swell folks. It was all clerical stuff so learning to read write came in handy after all. That and I raised and lowered the flags every day...serious old school. Worked during the holidays...them gals did Yule right.

After my Scouting days I ended up in an office across from da U.N. Building. The job was a blur...just typing and files...yeah, I can do that. My Holly Girl superpower. Btw ask grandma what a typewriter is. Thing is I had a desk with a view of what we thought was the hope of the world. The bleeping U.N. Building. Sue me I’m a romantic. That thing never got old.  

There followed a blizzard of mini gigs. Some lasting days to a few months. With 70′s temp gigs ya never knew where you were going or what your position would be. They could have been companies that made the ‘handle with care’ stickers for Hydrogen bombs. I had no idea. Nice t-shirts though.

Just remembered...that copy department thing was in da mix. My being an artist lay about. Holly thought it would suit me. It did. While on da job I asked and was given permission to print up some of my little projects. Prose poetry chapbooks all that noise. Learned printing and organizational skills. I later used these when I did Indie-comic books in da 80′s. 

Life is learning and opportunities. Remember what I said about my time in show biz? If you’re offered a part in ‘anything’ ...Take it! You got talent and smarts.  “Eh sure I can speak Croation...and ride a horse”. Ace da the details as ya go along. I got shows that way.

Then I went to church.

Specifically Riverside Church on Morningside Heights Manhattan. Good grief. Wadda place. If the 12th century constructed skyscrapers, they would have looked like ‘Riverside’. Stayed there the longest. Was assistant to their engineering department. In da 90′s they’d have used a PalmPilot now a phone or Alexa...same thing. Back then they used me. No experience whatever. My broadcast engineering days were years in the future. 

They taught me much but mostly it was the vibe. 

There was a general calmness of attitude. They were working not for the now but for the ages. So aware of where they came from where they were and where they were going. It’s 100 years ago but despite the chaos and static of my years them times and folks is a remembered eye in the storm.

I was a seriously dumb kid. So I’m grateful to Holly Allison. This for kicking butt into the real world by making me a ‘Holly Girl’. Being in so many places, so many different kinds of people and directions I began to see patterns. All those lives and circumstances interconnected. Active living Zen stuff in everyday work. I’m grateful. A few years later my broadcast life began. That’s another saga for another time

Why can’t life be like in da movies. Maybe I should clarify. Why can't they be like happy movies. Most of what ya gets is stupid Zombie, vampire postal workers or surreal stories about depressed rich people driving around in 1938 Bugatti's. 

Nah, I wanna live in one of them hopeful Frank Capra fantasies. The kind where some yokels go through assorted contrived whooie from central casting villains. But in the end, all's well. I want to be the crusading Teacher, Pastor, or Reporter. Capra always has one of them swell folks. Wearing a cool hat and fighting for the innocent. Like some old guy losing his farm or a bunch of cute depression era kids are about to be dumped into an evil orphanage.

The farmer will get turned into dog food, and the kids end up as slave labor for a Kansas City pinball machine company. Somewhere in all this I gets to make this passionate speech, or sermon or editorial. This always saves everybody in the end. In the final scene gramps is gleefully dancing on his farm knee deep in pig shit, and the kids are back on the block stealing stuff, and breaking windows. 'All happy as junkies that stumbles onto 50 kilos of China White. (...uncut.)

The music swells, and the credits roll. What could be better. That, and no one has to see the messy contradictions of the film's characters getting on with da crappy business of everyday life. The lights come up, and you go out into the dreary hell of your real life. This is why we love movies so much, and why I wants to live in one. The dream world these flickering phantoms live in. Their universe is one that has never, 'ever' had a backed-up toilet. That or a dead guy in face down in a bowl of cold spaghetti. Eh...mostly