OK John saved me from myself. Again. I hate it when I walk around asleep and unaware and just do dumb shit cuz I’m not paying attention. I know we all do it but it just makes life so much harder than it needs to be. It took a couple of hours to get it fixed and I was never going to lose anything. If I had not been able to recover the account, it would just have been a hassle to get the folks that only know me there back on a different email. I have 3 of them. Lots of boring technical (well they were interesting to me) details about getting it all fixed and I’ll tell you about it later and you can just skip that if you want. Thank you again John. John got me moved to the dark side a few years ago. He is a BIG APPLE guy. And he always has to have the latest and greatest everything they come out with. Well I am the beneficiary in that I get first crack at buying his old devices that he would just sell on eBay anyway. So I have a mostly new MAC, now an 11Pro (up from a 6s) and an Apple waatch which is really a pretty cool deal. I’m full fledged on the dark side now. Apple TV — just got rid of an iPad mini and need to get a real iPad. Especially now. It would be nice to have during the long days at Winship. And I have some of those coming up. John will help me find one on eBay.
I think I use alot of FOUL language in this blog. Just an observation. It also occurs to me that not everyone might like reading what I write here. Just another observation. It’s all good.
I think you’d have to have Apple music to listen to it but it’s beautiful. I love Requiems. I have the Durrefle on right now. We sang that one one year at Collegium. I’m gonna go get some things done and I’ll come back to this later.
Oh …
There’s a link the entire Stabat Mater piece. I don’t know how good it is. Just found it and I don’t have to post individal movements if you’re interested in listening to the whole thing without going out and buying it.
Been kind of a tough day. Got a good shower, did laundry, had a good FaceTime call with some brothers and sisters sitting in the backyard. It was nice day in Atlanta. Got a text from cousin Joe about the Bears game. Decided to take a break and watch it turned it on hour in and watched the end of the first half — fast forwaded through halftime and watched a couple of minutes of the second half and paused it. Got real scared. Called my counselor. Had a good good cry with him, let myself feel, let myself be open.
I went to college at the University of California at Santa Cruz. We are the Fighting Banana Slugs!!! Beautiful campus. I was in one of the first full 4 year classes so the campus was band new when I attended. I got there in Fall of 1968. Great campus — ocean view, set in a redwood forest, alternative, no grades, no tests. I took Liberal Arts and Social Sciences classes as an undeclared major for some 4 years. We read and we wrote. We wrote a paper a week in every class. And to this day, I think of myself as a pretty decent writer and I can attribute that to my college. (I did go back and graduate in 1979 after I quit one year short of graduation -another story) While there I did lots of differnt jobs. With 12 kids, we were on our own from high school on. I washed the breakfast dishes in the student dining hall for a year, I worked in the gym handing out towels and gym clothes, washing them folding them and handing them out again, I worked at the health food restaurant on campus — The Whole Earth — there’s even a cookbook. But one job I had was as a projectionist. There were these 2 guys — kind of savvy for Santa Cruz at the time — they would rent 16 MM prints of films and rent the largest lecture hall on campus at the time on Saturday nights and show the films. Students paid I don’t know $5 or something if they wanted to go to the movies that night. They came collected the money let folks in and left. I ran the 16 MM print on 2 projectors and did the changeovers flawlessly. I actually got pretty good. No real screw ups. When the movie was over, everyone left and I packed up the print and brought it over to their off campus apartment and they paid me in cash something like $12 an hour and gave me a 6 pack of Philippine beer. It was a gig and I did it for a couple of years. They mostly showed art-sy films. Fellini, King of Hearts, La Dolce Vita, Caligula, stuff like that. And they showed all the Bergman films. I was running the projector and couldn’t really WATCH the films — I had to be sure they ran smoothly. Most were on several reels — hence the need for 2 projectors. So I kinda watched them. Most were subtitled and in black and white but truly most of them were great films.
So after my cry today, the title of one of them came to mind. I found it on You Tube and just finished it. It’s a Bergman film called The 7th Seal. You can google it to se what it’s about.
Now I don’t expect anything from anybody looking at this blog. I really really don’t. I’m OK doing my thing. But if you want to walk this journey with me, and I don’t expect anyone to want to do that, then invest the hour and half it will take to watch a Swedish, Black and White film from 1957 with subtitles. Whether you do or don’t doesn’t matter. But If you do I hope you feel what I am feeling right now. Like Jane said It’s all good.
In a study, crows performed a complex task that involved hundreds of firing sensory analytical neurons.
Crows can do jobs, share knowledge, and even ritualistically mourn their dead.
What this new study suggests is still being interpreted in the scientific community.
In what now feels like an annual update, crows are even more surprisingly smart than we thought. But do they have true consciousness? Research shows that crows and other corvids “know what they know and can ponder the content of their own minds,” according to STAT. This is considered a cornerstone of self-awareness and shared by just a handful of animal species besides humans.
In research published in Science, German scientists put crows through a series of puzzling tasks. During those tasks, the scientists measured neural activity in different kinds of neurons with the goal of tracking how crows were sensing and reasoning through their work. They sought to study a specific kind of thinking called sensory consciousness, and they chose birds in particular as an evolutionary history pivot.
The task is simple, but involves some high-level brain stuff:
“After the crow initiated a trial, a brief visual stimulus of variable intensity appeared. After a delay period, a rule cue informed the crow how to respond if it had seen or had not seen the stimulus. [A] red cue required a response for stimulus detection (“yes”), whereas a blue cue prohibited a response for stimulus detection.”
“Sensory consciousness, the ability to have subjective experience that can be explicitly accessed and thus reported, arises from brain processes that emerged through evolutionary history,” the researchers write. “Today, the neural correlates of consciousness are primarily associated with the workings of the primate cerebral cortex, a part of the telencephalic pallium that is laminar in organization. Birds, by contrast, have evolved a different pallium since they diverged from the mammalian lineage 320 million years ago.”
The birds performed in a way that affirms their sensory consciousness, which scientists say could mean the “neural correlates of consciousness” date back to at least the last time birds and mammals shared that brain section:
“To reconcile sensory consciousness in birds and mammals, one scenario would postulate that birds and mammals inherited the trait of consciousness from their last-common ancestor. If true, this would date the evolution of consciousness back to at least 320 million years when reptiles and birds on the one hand, and mammals on the other hand, evolved from the last common stem-amniotic ancestor.”
In an analysis in the same issue of Science, another researcher, Suzana Herculano-Houzel of Vanderbilt University, makes a critique of the study’s hypothesis. The structure being studied, she says, could resemble another structure because of physical properties more than a shared evolution or an indication of extremely early consciousness. The size of the structures matter a great deal, too.
“[T]he level of that complexity, and the extent to which new meanings and possibilities arise, should still scale with the number of units in the system,” Herculano-Houzel explains. “This would be analogous to the combined achievements of the human species when it consisted of just a few thousand individuals, versus the considerable achievements of 7 billion today.”
The Kinsey scale, also called the Heterosexual–Homosexual Rating Scale,[1] is used in research to describe a person’s sexual orientation based on one’s experience or response at a given time. The scale typically ranges from 0, meaning exclusively heterosexual, to a 6, meaning exclusively homosexual. In both the male and female volumes of the Kinsey Reports, an additional grade, listed as “X”, indicated “no socio-sexual contacts or reactions”. The reports were first published in Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948)[2] by Alfred Kinsey, Wardell Pomeroy, and others, and were also prominent in the complementary work Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953).[1]
History
Alfred Kinsey, the creator of the Kinsey scale, is known as “the father of the sexual revolution.”[3] The Kinsey scale was created in order to demonstrate that sexuality does not fit into two strict categories: homosexual and heterosexual. Instead, Kinsey believed that sexuality is fluid and subject to change over time.[4]
Instead of using sociocultural labels, Kinsey primarily used assessments of behavior in order to rate individuals on the scale.[4] Kinsey’s first rating scale had thirty categories that represented thirty different case studies, but his final scale has only seven categories.[5] Over 8,000 interviews were coordinated throughout his research.[6]
Introducing the scale, Kinsey wrote:
Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual. The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats. It is a fundamental of taxonomy that nature rarely deals with discrete categories… The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects. While emphasizing the continuity of the gradations between exclusively heterosexual and exclusively homosexual histories, it has seemed desirable to develop some sort of classification which could be based on the relative amounts of heterosexual and homosexual experience or response in each history […] An individual may be assigned a position on this scale, for each period in his life. […] A seven-point scale comes nearer to showing the many gradations that actually exist.
Table of the scale
The Kinsey scale ranges from 0 for those interviewed who solely had desires for or sexual experiences with the opposite sex to 6 for those who had exclusively same sex desires or experiences, and 1–5 for those who had varying levels of desire or experiences with both sexes, including “incidental” or “occasional” desire for sexual activity with the same sex. It did not reference whether they “identified” as heterosexual, bisexual, or homosexual.[7]
Rating
Description
0
Exclusively heterosexual
1
Predominantly heterosexual, only incidentally homosexual
2
Predominantly heterosexual, but more than incidentally homosexual
3
Equally heterosexual and homosexual
4
Predominantly homosexual, but more than incidentally heterosexual
5
Predominantly homosexual, only incidentally heterosexual
6
Exclusively homosexual
X
No socio-sexual contacts or reactions
Kinsey recognized that the seven categories of the scale could not fully capture every individual’s sexuality. He wrote that “it should be recognized that the reality includes individuals of every intermediate type, lying in a continuum between the two extremes and between each and every category on the scale.”[8] Although sociologists Martin S. Weinberg and Colin J. Williams write that, in principle, people who rank anywhere from 1 to 5 could be considered bisexual,[9] Kinsey disliked the use of the term bisexual to describe individuals who engage in sexual activity with both males and females, preferring to use bisexual in its original, biological sense as hermaphroditic; he stated, “Until it is demonstrated [that] taste in a sexual relation is dependent upon the individual containing within his anatomy both male and female structures, or male and female physiological capacities, it is unfortunate to call such individuals bisexual.”[10] Psychologist Jim McKnight writes that while the idea that bisexuality is a form of sexual orientation intermediate between homosexuality and heterosexuality is implicit in the Kinsey scale, that conception has been “severely challenged” since the publication of Homosexualities (1978), by Weinberg and the psychologist Alan P. Bell.[11]
Furthermore, although the additional X grade used to mean “no socio-sexual contacts or reactions” is today described as asexuality,[10] psychologist Justin J. Lehmiller stated, “the Kinsey X classification emphasized a lack of sexual behavior, whereas the modern definition of asexuality emphasizes a lack of sexual attraction. As such, the Kinsey Scale may not be sufficient for accurate classification of asexuality.”[12]
The Kinsey Reports are two published works, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953). These reports discuss the sexual attractions, behaviors, and development of human males and females.[8][13] The data to scale the participants comes from their “psychosexual responses and/or overt experience” in relation to sexual attraction and activity with the same and opposite sexes.[8] The inclusion of psychosexual responses allows someone with less sexual experience to rank evenly with someone of greater sexual experience.[8]
Men: 11.6% of white males aged 20–35 were given a rating of 3 for this period of their lives.[13] The study also reported that 10% of American males surveyed were “more or less exclusively homosexual for at least three years between the ages of 16 and 55” (in the 5 to 6 range).[13]
Women: 7% of single females aged 20–35 and 4% of previously married females aged 20–35 were given a rating of 3 for this period of their lives.[14] 2% to 6% of females, aged 20–35, were given a rating of 5[15] and 1% to 3% of unmarried females aged 20–35 were rated as 6.[16]
The results found in “Sexual Behavior in the Human Female” show a higher number of men who lean towards homosexuality than recorded for the women.[8] Kinsey addresses that the result is contrary to reports that women have more homosexual leanings than men. He posits that such reports are due to the “wishful thinking on the part of such heterosexual males.”[8]
The Kinsey scale is credited as one of the first attempts to “acknowledge the diversity and fluidity of human sexual behavior” by illustrating that “sexuality does not fall neatly into the dichotomous categories of exclusively heterosexual or exclusively homosexual.”[17] Most studies regarding homosexuality, at the time, were conducted by medical professionals who were sought out by individuals that wanted to change their sexual orientation.[18] Alfred Kinsey’s publications on human sexuality, which encompasses the Kinsey scale, were widely advertised and had a huge impact on society’s modern conceptions of sexuality, post-World War II.[19]
Galupo et al. argued, “Despite the availability of the Kinsey Scale, assessment via sociocultural labels (i.e., heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual) is the predominant modality for determining the sexual orientation of research participants.”[17] Many sexologists see the Kinsey scale as relevant to sexual orientation, but not comprehensive enough to cover all sexual identity aspects. Measures of sexual orientation do not always correlate with individuals’ self-identification labels.[17] As such, sexual identity involves more than one component and may also involve biological sex and gender identity.[20] However, Bullough et al. argued that this “wide-scale public discussion of human sexuality” ultimately led Americans to challenge traditional heteronormative behaviors. His research and findings encouraged gay men and lesbians to come out by debunking much of the stigma revolved around homosexuality.[21]
Others have further defined the scale. In 1980, Michael Storms proposed a two dimensional chart with an X and Y axis.[22] This scale explicitly takes into account the case of asexuality and the simultaneous expression of hetero-eroticism and homo-eroticism.[23] Fritz Klein, in his Klein Sexual Orientation Grid, included factors such as how orientation can change throughout a person’s lifetime, as well as emotional and social orientation.[24] Kinsey, Storm, and Klein are only three of more than 200 scales to measure and describe sexual orientation.[25] For example, there are scales that rate homosexual behaviors from 1 to 14, and measures for gender, masculinity, femininity, and transsexualism.[26][27]
Surveys and other studies
There have been similar studies using a scale from 0 to 10. In such studies, the person would be asked a question such as “If 0 is completely gay and 10 is completely hetero, what is your orientation number?”.[28]
A study published in 2014 aimed to explore “sexual minority individuals’ qualitative responses regarding the ways in which the Kinsey Scale […] captures (or fail to capture) their sexuality.”[17] Participants completed the [Kinsey] scale and then were asked to respond to the following question: “In what ways did this scale capture or fail to capture your sexuality?”[17] “A diverse sample of sexual minority participants, including individuals who (1) identify outside the traditional sexual orientation labels (i.e. pansexual, queer, fluid, asexual) and (2) identify as transgender, were recruited to complete an online questionnaire.”[17] Participants represented a convenience sample of 285 individuals who self-identified as non-heterosexual.[17] “Approximately one third of participants self-identified primarily as monosexual (31.5%), whereas 65.8% identified as nonmonosexual, and 2.8% identified as asexual. Monosexual participants represented those who self-identified as lesbian (18.5%) or gay (12.2%) or homosexual (0.8%). Nonmonosexual participants included bisexual (24.1%), pansexual (16.8%), queer (19.6%), and fluid (1.4%) participants. A small minority of participants identified as ‘other’ (3.8%).”[17] Participants represented all regions of the continental United States.[17] For this study, the use of “X” was intended to describe asexuality or individuals who identify as nonsexual.[17]
Another study published in 2017, questioned how people who do not identify as heterosexual felt about their representation on the Kinsey scale.[29] The study takes a group of minority individuals who sexually identify as something other than heterosexual, and has them rate the Kinsey scale according to how well they feel represented by their value.[29] Each group gave it a rating between 1 and 5. In the results, the group that rated the scale the highest was the group that identified as lesbian or gay with a rating of 4.66.[29] The bisexual group rated it lower at 3.78, and the pansexual/queer group gave it the lowest rating at 2.68.[29] Another trend that the study noted was that cisgender participants on average rated themselves higher on the scale than transgender participants (where the authors use transgender as a category to describe participants of various trans and non-binary identities).[29] Namely, the cisgender participants average rating was 4.09 while the transgender participants was 2.78.[29] The authors also found that trans and non-binary participants rated the Kinsey scale to be a less valid measure of their sexual orientation than the cisgender participants, due to its reliance on binary terminology.[29]
Watching the news can sometimes feel more surreal than watching an episode of The Simpsons. I often find myself repeating the immortal words of news anchor Kent Brockman from season 6, episode 14:
“Democracy simply doesn’t work.”
I’ve been feeling this way for a long time — from George Bush’s war on Iraq to the 2013 American government shutdown to … well, pretty much everything about Donald Trump.
Do you know who else would feel this way? None other than one of the forefathers of Greek philosophy, Socrates, (according to the writings of Plato).
Of course, the logical answer would be the former. But, to Socrates, democracy is a lot like a mob of Simpsons characters throwing up their hands and shouting, “Random bloke! Random bloke!”
Politicians are like sailors shouting over each other to seize control of the ship. The citizens are like an indecisive captain vacillating from one opinion to the next. There may a competent navigator stationed on this vessel. But in a democracy, this navigator may be too indifferent to do anything.
These are the masters of rhetoric. While they may tout the public’s welfare, Socrates believed politicians ultimately looked to enrich themselves. They’re not always suited for office, but they end up wielding the most influence. All anyone has to do to curry favor is to declare themselves “the friend of the people.”
The Rich
This is the smallest group, but they hold the most wealth in a society. They value money over everything else. This group also happens to be the best organized. If the rich become too powerful, society splinters into two, with the rich and the poor conspiring against each other.
The Citizenry
Basically, everyone else. They have the fewest possessions. But when assembled, they are the largest and most powerful group in a democracy. Unfortunately, Socrates doesn’t think highly of this group either. He describes the general population as whimsical (Plato, Republic. 561c, d), something akin to a wild beast ruled by appetite and passion.
The Road to Demagoguery
Socrates believed the combination of these classes creates the perfect breeding ground for a tyrannical demagogue.
First, the whimsical nature of the citizenry leads to a craving for excessive freedom. The people would turn hostile towards any form of authority. Students would reject their teachers; teachers would fear their students. Society ultimately succumbs to lawlessness. (Plato, Republic. 563d)
The drive towards excessive freedom also propels society towards an artificial egalitarianism. The people lash out against anything they perceive to be inequality. The rich become particularly loathed. The wealthy class, in turn, becomes increasingly oligarchical, further entrenching the class divides.
In this phase, politicians often fan these flames of tension, turning the two classes against one another for political gains.
The Populist Despot
Even more crucially, a populist leader would rise amidst the chaos. He brands the greedy rich and the scheming politicians as “enemies of the people.” He wins the support of the populace. He starts ousting his political enemies. His acts may even turn violent. But his supporters would back him regardless of his actions. Democracy succumbs to tyranny, not from a violent revolt but a willing citizenry seeking artificial stability over political chaos.
The rise of 20th-century dictators like Hitler and Stalin seem to support Socrates’ indictment against democracy. Socrates’ own life could be seen as a case of democracy gone wrong. After all, the philosopher had been unjustly sentenced to death by a vote of 500 of his fellow Athenians.
Socrates wasn’t right about everything, though. He believed society should be divided into three classes — producers, soldiers, and rulers. He also believed that this division should be enforced with a “noble lie,” that the human soul is made up of gold, silver, and brass/iron compounds. (Plato, Republic. 414e–15c)
Indeed, Socrates has neglected many of the benefits of a democratic society. Democracy remains the only form of government that protects free speech. It empowers the free market of ideas amongst the widest group of people. And it protects an individual’s dignity, regardless of his/her ability or contributions to society.
Education
During the 2013 American government shutdown, I discussed Socrates’ views of democracy with my father. I was convinced that if the government keeps going down this road, the American people would grow weary and turn to a tyrant for faster results. My father assured me I was wrong; today’s individuals are too educated to succumb to a tyrannical government.
My father is now a Trump supporter.
Despite this, I remain convinced the only way to safeguard democracy is to become better educated about our politics.
We need to educate ourselves about our government and our issues as much as we need to learn about basic finance or basic car maintenance. Socrates believed the people could achieve their highest potential only when they are properly educated. We need to pay attention to the issues, study arguments from both sides of the political spectrum, and routinely question our information sources.
Frankly, we don’t have a choice. Fake news isn’t going away any time soon. The deep-fake phenomenon is only going to make things harder. As long as there are would-be demagogues, there would always be those who’d look to undermine our democracy.
Logicians don’t rule the world or get the most done. Could it be that a consistent world view is neither desirable nor achievable? If we abandon the straightjacket of rationality might this lead to a more powerful and exciting future, or is it a heresy that leads to madness?
The Panel
Shahidha Bari asks Cambridge philosopher and author of Think Simon Blackburn, psychiatrist and author of The Master and His Emissary Iain McGilchrist, and radical journalist Beatrix Campbell whether we should embrace the irrational.
In association with:
This video was recorded at the Institute of Art and Ideas’ annual philosophy and music festival HowTheLightGetsIn. For more information and tickets, visit https://howthelightgetsin.org
IAI TV videos are for personal use only. For commercial or educational licensing please contact the IAI.
I’m trying to figure out all this shit out. I am going to treat each day I write as a new story with a new post. I’m not gonna take the time to number them but I edited some to try to get them in order but ….Probably just post one time a day. It looks like that’s the best way to use this site. I wish they have an autocorrect feature. (it’s starting to show up as I slow down — who knew) When I get cranking and pounding away like crazy I make ALOT of typos. I figure someday I’ll go back and fix them but it isn’t a priority right now.
Was just talking with my brother Dave. I told him I was in a SPRINT. I got a Brain MRI this morning (had a little hassle wit the Emory Communication system but I think hope we worked that out.) I went to the wrong facility. There are dozens of Emory facilities here all with codes for where they are. But the codes aren’t public and the addresses are not put on the appointments. Just the codes. So I went to the wrong place. But they worked me in. The do MRI’s in about 6 differnt facilities like most everything they do and this treatment program is going to have me getting in whereever they can get me in the fastest. I have appointments or Zoom calls with doctors every day next week. LABS, Tests, Zoom calls, in person doctor appointments. So much shit happening. Sue really helped me sort it all out and figure out the best way to ask the questions so I could get the answers I needed. She has been on both ends of this communication as nurse at the VA on the Emory payroll. She knows and let me tell you. I NEED her on my team. She is incredible and knows how to work this medical system. It’s not like how I could work the system in the business world. This is very different.
So Dave I were talking about this and I told him I was in a Sprint. We have the cancer sprinting through my body and now we finally have chemo (which IS curative) Sprinting to kill the cancer before it kills me. And I’m in this sprint on the side of the chemo. My job is to do everything I can to Sprint with the chemo. That means using all my energy and all my tools all the time to win this race. So Dave mentions to me remember when you did Sprints. Abslotuely ALL your energy is completely focused on the Sprint. You’re not thinking about the chemistry test or the girlfriend or anything else except getting to that finish line as absolutely as fast as you can. There is just ONE FOCUS. Well that’s exactly right — exactly how I feel. I don’t have time for anything else. I am in a Sprint. One of my tools is this blog where I can work out my thinking, my memories, my support system. I have a GREAT team that just keeps getting bigger and bigger every day. And if you’re reading this, you are on the TEAM.
I’ve gotten Dylan on random playing loudly in the background. You all know I love him and always have — When the Ship come in is blaring. One that I play on the guitar. Music is one of my tools. And Mindfulness mediation, and Translation, and reading. Read some of the TAO this morning in the wating room. I have to get walking into this mix next. I’ll walk in cirlces around the house. Have to use those hiking poles. Not walking as well lately. But I need to spend an hour doing nothing but walking around every day. And since the chemo I haven’t done that. I used to swim every day until that second biopsy when I got that sore on my leg that still hasn’t healed. I really miss that. easy on the joints. Good for the heart and well just kind of meditative and quiet. Oh well not now. Not with cancer and Covid and open wounds.
Shared some YouTubes with David. That one you told me about Jack with Terry Kath. Great guitar riff but not Jimi quality to me. Sharing YouTubes is a cool way to share music until we get this playlist database thing together. Here’s a couple I shared with him — a Neil Young cover and an old Dylan cover.
Just added those linbks after I had stopped. Enjoy .
MEMPHIS BLUES AGAIN just popped up on random play. Fucking AWESOME. I’m gonna go sing! Back in a minute!
GOD THAT WAS FUCKING AMAZING. I PLAYED IT AS LOUD AS I COULD AND SANG AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS. I KNOW ALL THE WORDS. IT WAS LIKE AN RHS. SO FREEING. Give a listen to the Blonde on Blonde version and play it loud. But for one chord progression that I never did quite master on the guitar, I could almost accompany myself. So Cathartic. I danced and sang. What a release. Hallelujah!!
So back to business. That was a really nice interlude that popped up on random play. So David (Garry) this time and Allison. Are we gonna get this playlist sharing idea together. Not sure Spotify is the answer. It might not be doable at all. Heck this might be a business idea that produce revenue if it could be created. I don’t know. Need you guys to keep thinking about it. A buddy here was thinking maybe Drop Box would work — kluge-y but so is everything else. I hate that you can’t get classical and choral music on Spotify and also you can’t share obscure things like what Jack has on his playlists or my choral concerts. I want to make all that accessible to even someone like Ronna at a link someplace. So keep scratching your heads OK.
So music is one of my “tools”. Really important one. And this blogging thing is just so awesome for me to just get things out. Hope it’s not too hard for anyone reading it. But well truth be told and I think I said this before these are my thoughts my memories my hopes my dreams my reflections. And that’s all they are. And I don’t need anything at all from you — this is just for me to process what’s happening.
So nobody texted me or emailed me that photo from the Troop street backyard. I sure hope that one isn’t lost forever. It is priceless. I asked Cathy to send me a picture of her Dad. I wanna write about him a little bit. Mike Leahy reminded me about him last night when he called.
Jack’s in Florida with the Family. Jack and Carey working their jobs remotely this coming week and the kids going to school remotely this week. And OUT of the Chicago cold. Pretty awesome. And no schooldays missed since all the driving was done on holidays.
OK I’m rambling. I’m gonna stop for now and just walk for a while and listen to Dylan. Later.
Back but only for a minute. Ate a gummy and have been strectching on the table — calves, hamstrings, hips, and still need to quads. Then I’ll walk around the house for an hour or so. I haven’t moved since Chemo and I NEED to. Another tool in the toolbox.
OK I’m gonna let this gummy kick in and go finish stretching and taking a stoll. I wanted to get these links in today’s post. Cool I can add links now.
Later. Heard this one while waiting for my brain MRI when I was listening to a Blues mix: Reminded me of Caroline. Remember her? Way way back. She used to sing it. I didn’t know it then. Flip of a coin and she was back in France. Geeze. A counselor on ZOOM today helped me process that remembering.
Been stretching for hour. Legs really needed it. Thought of a couple of things so before I spend and hour sauntering around on my feet….
I had an old cleaning lady a few years ago. Sweet old lady in er 80’s irish and Red Hair. I hope I remember her name beofre I finish telling this story. He eyesight wasn’t all that great but she did the best she could and I was happy to have the help. I’m not that big into cleaning as most of you know. Well I just boiled a cup of water in the microwave to make some tea. And forgot about it while I stretched. Went looking for my cup of tea and well I never made it. So I immediately thought of this woman. What was her name. I hit it for another 2 minutes — got the water boiling again and made the tea. Sue told me about these mug warmers at lunch on the deck today and I orddred one from Amazon. So your coffee and tea or whatever can just stay warm whiule you slowly drink it instead of it getting cold and funky and then well just not good no matter what you do. Oh well I digress. Well when this woman cleaned the microwave, she always put a cup of water in it and let it boil so that the whole inside of the microwave steamed up. It’s a really cool trick for cleaning your microwave when it gets all funky and shit with splashes of food or whatever. They all get some of that. I wiped my clean after i made the tea with a paper towel and viola, I have a clean microwave without doing shit. She died and her daughter called me one day to tell me she wouldn’t be coming over anymore. I was sad.
I’m gonna go walk for a while but I want to tell you about Gee Gee.
Taking a quick break. I have to do that when I walk lately. I’ll get back to it in a minute. I wash remembering skiing today on the phone with someone. Just taking the short breaks to rest a minute. Can’t do a long story. Need to talk though about cleaning more and how we were all taught to save shit in case we might need it someday. Dave and I talked about that a little bit today and I do have some thoughts. Back to the trail. Each time I come back it’s anothe little mini break with a quick thought. I just realized I could post YouTube clips of songs here — not videos but just songs from albums and you could listen to them while you read if you wanted. Amazing the shit you think of when you’re slightly stoned. Wait til I get really wasted. Who knows what will come out.
So GEE GEE. This is just a short break. Gee Gee was the elderly — like 75 or so woman who actually looked alot like Alice but softner and leaner and more athletic. And funnier and more fun. But she looked kinda like Alice. But Gee Gee was SO CLASSY. I mean she really had class. Wish I had a picture. She was full of life. She played golf her whole life and we played a few times. I went to the Masters with her one year. She got the tickets from her son who ran a pretty prestigious golf club near me then —
I volunteered at a US Amateur there and at East Lake one year. Played with Gee Gee few times there and at Chastain once I think. We didn’t play a lot. She played once a week with a group of women. Anyway, she could play a narrow 400 yard par 4 in 5 most of the time. She dusted me on the golf course. She could only hit it 120 or 130 yards anymore. She must have been amazing when she could drive. She hit it as straight as an arrow and she could putt. There’s hope for us old golfers yet. Anyway, I want to tell you about her as my long term bridge partner but I gotta get back to the trail. I could make a couple hundred dollars tomorrow in Fantasy football. I’m in second place and I think I have that sewed up already. That’s worth I don’t know maybe $300. First is probably a little over $500. But you know it’s just not worth it to me to spend a couple of hours researching who gonna play, who’s gonna get rested during week 17, who’s injured, what the match up are: WR vs DB, defenses all that shit. Value plays, odds over/unders — (high scoring games produce alot of points). And you have to work with a budget. A set Lineup — 2 RB’s, 3WR’s, FLEX, QB, DEF, TE. The better players cost more to use. And your total budget is limited. So you fit together the best lineup you can based on all that criteria and even more if you want. But you know….I just don’t give a shit. Not even gonna take the time to enter a lineup. I’m happy with 2nd. Pete can have first. btw — ***He brought me THE MOST INCREDIBLE Christmas dinner this year. Oh my GOD!! I got to eat GOURMET for 3 days. I’ll tell you about it sometime. OK out again.
So bridge is a great game. We all know Mom and Dad played often. And I know you remember that we had to be quiet when they had another couple over but we also mostly got a big box of See’s candy so there were perks for us too. That’s party bridge. You shuffle each hand, change partners, Really kind of a social thing in many ways. Not that dad didn’t take it seriously or mom either, but that’s not the game I played with Gee Gee. I hope you all know bridge is partnership game. I’m not going back that far into it. In duplicate bridge, there is nearly no luck of the draw — everybody plays the same hands in the same postion. N-S vs E-W. You pass them along in a board. And you change opponents every few boards — usually 3 or 4 depending on the size of the game. An average game would be between 24 and 32 boards (hands). And I played this game for alot of years with all different partners. It’s a game of strategy, communication, signally, defense, bidding, scoring, memory ands thinking and you are literally playing against every other team in the room. So If I play E and my partner then plays W, we’re competing again every other E-W team that night. And to get points you have to come in no worse than third and to get signifcant points you had to beat say 11 other teams. This is highly competitive. It ain’t a social game although most folks make some small talk and are friendly but they want to kick your fucking ass no matter how nice they seem and you want to kick theirs just as bad. Pete and I played a little bit. (Yeah he’s a very competitive guy.) I played with Mom a few times at La Costa. We did OK. Mom was a good player. Better than dad. Dad was little too reckless sometimes. Mom took more calculated risks than dad did. So Gee Gee and I played for many years. She was a delight and everybody loved her. She was the matriarch of a big family. Tons of kids and grandkids. They’d go to Sea Island every summer for a week as a whole family. Very close. Her daughter was named CHEESE and I ran into her at a bar when I was working at ATT when I was out for lunch. This was about a year after Gee Gee died. Well we did OK. Parnetrships have ups and downs and people change and well your goal in this game (until you get off the chase for points which I did just short of Life Master. You can google the criteia for Life Master if you care. I really did want to make that goal but you only get those last GOLD points at National tournaments and you have to win them against the best in the country. I tried one year in San Diego with a partner from here named Alvin but we didn’t really know about each other’s style that well and we didn’t score anything in 4 or 5 days of playing. Gee Gee got cancer at about age 80. It was terminal. She just decided that the way she would deal with is to just let it take her quickly and painlessly say all her good byes and move on. I wasn’t part of her dying process but I did go to the Memorial service. Just wanted to share Gee Gee with you all. She was happy with her life and decided it was OK to just let it go.
So this is a great way to do this. Walk some come back and write some and then go walk some and then write some….etc. Listening to music — first a Bob Marley mix and for last few hours a Taj mix. I’m not as complled tonight to jsut pound out my thoughts as fast as I can like I was last night. I’m more relaxed. It’s probably change every day. I don’t know haven’t really done any writing quite like this where I just sort of write what comes in my head and not really worry about it much. So my “trail” is the path from my living room around to the room off the deck where you Peg and Mark slept to the kitchen and back to the living room. I just go around and around and around. It’s good. Not worried about speed or anything. Stop and stretch if I need to but tonight I did so much stretching before I started that I haven’t needed anymore. GIANT STEP just come on. Consciousness works.
Oh clutter and cleaning. So the older red haired cleaning lady alwys used to bring useless shit over and ask me if I wanted it. And I always took whatever it was off her hands. Old sheets, books on tape, old DVD’s books — all kinds of shit. It’s hopefully mostly gone and donated by now. But I have this habit and I suspect some of you do too of just holding on to things in CASE you might need or wear them sometime. I think we got some of that from Mom. You know the next kid in line might fit in those clothes. You younger ones always got hand me downs. It was a depression era thing like not wasting food so just eat it. You can’t risk being without. Well I have collected way too much shit in this small house over the time I’ve been here. I’m not quite a hoarder but I never get around to really cleaning it out. I tried to watch Marie Kando on Netflix but she just didn’t Spark Joy for me. I feel guilty cuz if I die someone’s gonna have to help Jack get rid of it all. I’ll leave some instructions and wishes and stuff. I’ll try to work on it after this is all over but I have this SPRINT to take and I can’t stop sprinting right now to clean up shit.
I know I’m talking alot about death. It’s part of this process right now. It doesn’t mean I’m afraid of it or feeling “negative” (if that’s really a thing) Or anything like that. It’s part of the process for me. Don’t worry about me. Just celebrate that I might be finally getting a little bit of my shit together. There are addictions and behavior patterns that I need to confront. Things I’ve done all my life. So talking about death is part of my process about cancer. It doesn’t mean I’m giving up. I’m facing it realistically and I’m racing with the Chemo against the cancer. That’s all. That is all I am focused on. Not small talk, not wasting any more time, not anything but doing whatI have to do to fight this 24/7. So if I don’t answer a call of a text it’s because I’m busy doing MY work. That’s all. I’ll get back eventually. I need you guys. I need your love and support. And I need to do my work. And doing my work is my highest priority.
Time for new mix. Taj just ran out. Let’s give Tom Waits a twirl. He’s good and bad depending on the album. Or rather he’s GREAT or he’s not IMHO.
Its’ midnight. I’m goona see if this posts and get some rest. Had to get up early today for the MRI. Talk to you tomorrow.
A stevedore on the San Francisco docks in the 1940s, Eric Hoffer wrote philosophical treatises in his spare time while living in the railroad yards. The True Believer — the first and most famous of his books — was made into a bestseller when President Eisenhower cited it during one of the earliest television press conferences. Completely relevant and essential for understanding the world today, The True Believer is a visionary, highly provocative look into the mind of the fanatic and a penetrating study of how an individual becomes one.
(Goodreads.com)
Consciousness, spirituality, biography, sexuality, androgyny, futurism, space, the arts, science, astrology, democracy, humor, books, movies and more
