Another Day

Another Day

Another day’s gone by
And yet I do not know hunger
I found something to feast upon
In my cabinet or refrigerator
Or chose a restaurant to serve me
What I desire
And though I may be hungry
For something to eat
I do not know hunger
I do not know empty belly longings
My hunger is for love
I have not felt since
I was a very young man
Before I had built a fortress
Around my heart.

Gary at Mickey's Farm 2002 

I don't know why, but this is my favorite picture of me, taken by cousin Rickie at my cousin Mickey's Wisconsin farm during the summer of 2002.

Gary as a Baby 

They say I was a cute baby. I don't remember anything before I was 3 years old. Here's a thought: If I live long enough to be a cute old man, I might be waiting for someone to change my Depends.

Bubbie and Zadie Plotkin 1953

We used to go to Bubbie and Zadie's, my mother's parents' apartment, in Englewood. Things I remember about this include the overstuffed furniture and the quiet, stacking and wrapping the coins from the newsstand, the 63rd Street streetcar and electric sparks flying from the line, and the visit always being the same time on Sundays. When my grandfather died, my Bubbie moved in with us. I was 10 at the time and had to give up my bed to my grandmother, so she and my sister shared the one bedroom. My parents slept in the sun-parlor, and I would be sleeping for the next 3 years on a roll-away bed in the dining room. The light coming off the kitchen and the rattle of my dad's breakfast dishes waking me temporarily every morning about two hours before I needed to wake up for school.

And this from the desk of Wade:

I have no words for this current situation. My only words are to live life and create things that are outside the mainstream pursuits dictated by mass media and corporations who don't care if our brains go to mush or we get fat or die of some premature death. Actually, they want our brains to turn to mush so we'll consume more and more mindlessly.

And eat blood sausage and herring.

Several observations:

You can call it anything you want, give it any name, and it's clear just what you are talking about.

If I were any more lucid I'd have the runs.

My brain is at war with the hour. It is active, wanting more of the day, while the control agent checks itself against the time and demands that I shut down. Damn the regulator.

Sleep can seduce me as well as any coquette can.

"In Vietnam the tipping point came when reporters at White House briefings, students at universities and the American people in general suddenly found the confidence to ask the hard questions. Under intense daily scrutiny, the official, rosy version of the war suddenly dissolved, revealing an ethical and strategic quagmire. We may be reaching a similar kind of tipping point on Iraq, perhaps later this year." (Culture Jammers Network)

John Lennon and Yoko Ono protested the Vietnam War by having a Bed-in during May 1969. They wrote Give Peace A Chance, which was released on July 4, 1969. During the same year John and Yoko put up the billboard message "The War Is Over (If You Want It!)" around New York City. Two years later for Christmas 1971 he released Happy X-mas (War Is Over).

Perhaps war doesn't end, just by willing it to end or by proclamation in a song. But consciousness is lifted by acknowledging not denying. Let's acknowledge for this July 4, 2005 that this war in Iraq is wrong. Next to all the ribbons we have on the back of our cars that say: Support Our Troops, let's add: Bring Them Home Now

The old man's naked buttocks was drooping and wrinkled, appearing like folds of a Shar Pei. I've had a growing old prayer that I say to God: "Don't let me become a pissing on myself old man." But I think I'm adding, "and don't let my tushy look like the body of a shar pei.

Today is Memorial Day in the USA, the day we honor the men and women who have fought for our country. Perhaps, that is why we have made war against Iraq, so we can honor the heroes who die fighting, so we can barbeque hamburgers and hotdogs in parks and backyards across the country today.

Can the truth be carefully worded
So it doesn't hurt anyone,
Least of all myself,
And so it doesn't cost anything?

I don't trust my impulses,
which is why I cook them;
I don't serve them up
Raw.

Mind poisoning
Like food poisoning
Can make you deathly ill.

Two Truths

Truth #1

There are no pictures on my wall
Grey as the November sky
A blank mind given over to childish thoughts
There's mischief in this box of crayons.

Truth #2

Rugged men labor in the factories
To build a new life
But the barons of industry
Help themselves to their entrails.

I told my friend Clive that when I came home Saturday evening around 8:15, sitting in front of my apartment building's door was an opposum. I asked him, if he knew whether this event might have any symbolic meaning that he was aware of? "I know about a black cat crossing my path, but a 'possum?" I wondered.

Clive replied, "Wildlife has been appearing on doorsteps all over America."

Clive has always been wise.

I recently read some scientist's claim that Love is a mental illness. Although I'm not inclined to go that far, I do believe it is an aberration and a wonderful distraction. Most of my married friends admit they are no longer in love with their wives, but I don't think they would admit it to their wives. The type of love we see in Hollywood movies, where during that special moment the two of them realize how much they love each other is a fiction. The movie ends as they come together, and this is a bliss that lasts forever, only because the celluloid is eternally held together by that moment. The people never change, never grow older, never deal with illnesses and frustrations and unfulfilled dreams, and they never have children who cause them to lay awake at night wondering whether it's all worth it, the aggravation and the bills. They don't have divergent interests that push them further and further apart. Nothing of reality infringes on their life and nothing of reality is their life.

Love is so valuable, I shall not squandor it on someone who takes my kindness as a weakness, and who thinks that my heart does not break when it is purposely hurt. I must defer to Alice Walker who says, "Never offer your heart to someone who eats hearts." This is the lesson I learned very well, and that the path to heaven is sometimes paved through hell.

The true measure of a man is not based on the wealth he has accumulated, but on the wealth he has distributed.

Gary and Gandhi in London