Darkness, Darkness

It's the name of a tune from the Youngbloods, 1969, my most wonderful and terrible year.

A tune as seductive as the Buckleys, Tim and Jeff, have turned out to be.  Father and son, gifted, each dying young, maybe suicide, maybe accident, maybe foul play.

So if the good die young, how good?  How young?  The better, the sooner dead?  Should it be, rather,  some of the good die young - or are all the rest of us baddies, still walking around.

What I do know is,  you can't retrieve lost virtue.

You die when your dreams die, and some days I think I died in Hong Kong.

Take more risk, make riskier choices.

I wonder if this is becoming an aphorisms blog.

Click.

The Middle Way

For some reason over the past few days I have heard cheerful-sounding guys who believe that we should follow our dreams, there's only one life to lead, live the one you want, you will be happy and as prosperous as you need to be.

Really.  Isn't it way more complicated than that?  Isn't all this living a series of compromises, leaving you with days that consist of some things you like to do, some things you don't, some people you love, some you like, some you don't.  And you navigate along, trying to inflict as little damage, on yourself and ones around you, as you can?  But not so self-denying that you line up for Early Check-Out?

I guess it depends on the protagonist.  I remember a conversation in my mid-20's, explaining my decision to go to law school, yeah a lot of work, but it will take me into a practice where I can do what all these other talented hard-working people do, it could lead to whatever, blah blah... I could be a star.  The guy I was talking to was very thoughtful, I figured he'd get it.  He said:  "Yeah, and good luck.  But I don't want to go for the top.  I want to go back to my home town, line up a decent job, play a lot of golf, cook a lot of barbecue, and raise a family."

At the time I was shocked.  I thought everyone wanted a shot at the top (whatever it is.)  I thought he and I were just different species, he Status Quo Man, I Sky's the Limit Man.

Indeed we were different and I'm sure we've had very different lives.  But Status Quo Man, pedestrian as he may have sounded, knew something.  He came a lot closer to the advice I started this piece with - he had a dream, he followed it, and for all I know he is supremely happy and thinks he never had to compromise a bit.  And feels not a bit boxed in by the life he now inhabits.

Sky's the Limit Man, on the other hand, sooner or later, and then more than once,  has to contend with limits lower than the sky.  Life pushes back, he compromises.  And navigates a long, complicated decision tree and finds himself, sooner or later, on a branch with, let's say, more starlings than he'd foreseen.

And he makes friends with the starlings, and it's all good.

But from time to time he looks across at one of the other branches...

Dumb Like Fox

This is in the nature of one of those topical things that I try to avoid, because they seem so dated later, but I can't help it.  I just think almost everyone is missing the boat on Obama and the budget compromise he reached.

As I understand, he got the debt ceiling raised until after the next election.  Congress has agreed to some kind of suicide pact where if sufficient additional reductions aren't agreed to, there will be huge cuts in programs that no one wants cut hugely. The Bush tax cuts and cuts in estate and gift tax  - cuts which, philosophically, he must hate - will be repealed on January 1, 2013 unless a bill (which he can veto) keeps this from happening.

I think it's brilliant.  The Republicans have now taken shared ownership of the economy.  If a compromise isn't reached by the end of the year, he will have a new chance - and about $1 billion in campaign funds - to make his case.  If the Republicans don't cave, they will be blamed for the economic Armageddon to follow.  And Obama can spend most of 2012 reminding voters who the bad guys are, and who is looking out for the guys on the souplines, as unemployment goes back into double figures.

It's Rooseveltian.  And we are in for a long, tough slog.  I only hope songwriting and music flourish the way they did in the 1930's.

Hollowed-Out Night

I crash when I retire for the night, after about one page of whichever book from the pile came to hand.    And that's great.  And like most of the rest of the human race, I do not spring out of bed in the morning, I crawl out, and do not really wake up until I'm outside with the dog.

But sandwiched in between, every night, somewhere, for some minutes or hours, I'm awake.  And I used to say, "I do my best thinking" when I wake up in the middle of the night.  Until a few years ago, when a very wise partner of mine said, "Strange.  Most of the thinking I do in then is dumb, way off base, and useless in the morning."

I think she was half right.  I now think of the litany of to-dos, fantasies, and mild obsessions as a list:  things that are bothering me, and need to be addressed.  It's not the list, it's the solutions that come to me in the darkness, that are usually useless.

The name of this entry, "Hollowed-Out Night", came to me last night in that middle period.  I don't think it fits what I'm saying here, by day, but I'm keeping it.  Maybe there was more, and I can't remember.  And maybe it was dumb.

Ennobled by U-Tube

There are probably thousands of ways that the modern computer world is a richer one than before, but for me there is nothing like the ability to see great musicians performing great music.  Ten years ago I could have heard about Lorraine Hunt Lieberson and hoped to catch her on the radio.  Today (and presumably forever) she is right there in front of us.  Alive.

If you have not seen this before, be prepared to be astonished.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQlt1UxjvWU

Driving Home

Back in St. Louis, but why?  When you drive from the temperate stone walls and beaches of Rhode Island to a place that's right about 100F with 50 percent humidity and lots of sun, well, it seems downright nuts.

And as you drive, you cross over 1000 miles of America that look pretty good and not so insanely hot.

Nonetheless, I'm glad to be back.

Hard to figure, and I'm sure it's all just the way things worked out, and could have been different, and if I'd wound up in a different place I'm sure I would have an explanation.  But the explanation here is pretty good:  St. Louis is the capital of Cardinal Nation, a giant footprint in the Midwest, people from at least nine states who love the baseball team with the birds on the bat.  As I run west I could pick them up from a radio station in Jasper and would be able to carry on at least until Ponca City.

Baseball and St. Louis, each at the heart of America.

The team is making another pennant run, as it almost always does.  The population curses the heat, gets past it, and cheers them on towards October.

Walking La Jolla Blues

Not that I had time to kill, but I needed a long walk.  So I walked from the village back up to Torrey Pines (OK, with a short shot on the bus in the middle) and it was mostly about close-up views of how California is really a creature of the automobile.  But in the last leg I got to the Salk Institute, took a left toward the Pacific, and found myself in a huge dirt parking lot with a truly spectacular view.

I was hoping to find the golf course, and navigate back to my room from there, but it seemed impenetrable until I spotted a gate across the moonscape of the lot.

But when I got there, the gate was chained and locked, so I wound my way to the left, towards the ocean, and wondered when they would run out of chain link fence.

Eventually they did, and the views in most directions made it pretty clear why lots and lots of people want to live here.

I walked through the brush (I'm in a suit, but no tie, and tennis shoes) and found myself on a deep back nine hole, greeted by five rabbits.  Three stuck around for a photo.

They seem to live a good life, these guys.  I saw about a hundred as I made my way back to the hotel.  Not tame, exactly, but they didn't seem to regard me as a predator.  Which I'm not.  Unlike some of the golfers... there was one who had hit way too close to another group, said the sun was in his eyes, he was sorry, but the targets were unforgiving.  So he yells, "If you can't accept my apology then kiss my ass!"

I'll take the rabbits.