bring the noyz

proud swagger out of the schoolyard
waiting for the world's applause
rebel without a conscience
martyr without a cause

static on your frequency
electrical storm in your veins
raging at unreachable glory
straining at invisible chains

and now you're trembling on a rocky ledge
staring down into a heartless sea
can't face life on a razor's edge
nothing's what you thought it would be

All of us get lost in the darkness
Dreamers learn to steer by the stars
All of us do time in the gutter
Dreamers turn to look at the cars
turn around and turn around and turn around
Turn around and walk the razor's edge
Don't turn your back
And slam the door on me

it's not as if this barricade
blocks the only road
it's not as if you're all alone
in wanting to explode

someone set a bad example
made surrender seem all right
the act of a noble warrior
who lost the will to fight

and now you're trembling on a rocky ledge
staring down into a heartless sea
done with life on a razor's edge
nothing's what you thought it would be

no hero in your tragedy
no daring in your escape
no salutes for your surrender
nothing noble in your fate
Christ, what have you done?

- N. Peart

You again, in a dream.

We busted out of class had to get away from those fools
We learned more from a three minute record than we ever learned in school
Tonight I hear the neighbourhood drummer sound
I can feel my heart begin to pound
You say you're tired and you just want to close your eyes and follow your dreams down

We made a promise we swore we'd always remember
No retreat no surrender
Like soldiers in the winter's night with a vow to defend
No retreat no surrender

Now young faces grow sad and old and hearts of fire grow cold
We swore blood brothers against the wind
I'm ready to grow young again
And hear your sister's voice calling us home across the open yards
Well maybe we could cut someplace of our own
With these drums and these guitars

Blood brothers in the stormy night with a vow to defend
No retreat no surrender

- B. Springsteen

You did.
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It's graduation day! This year my school has a class of 14 graduates. 14 kids with serious multiple cognitive and physical disabilities are about to be set free to go out into the world. Well not exactly free, none of them will ever have the skills or abilities to live independently. But their school days have drawn to a close. . .

While not as cool as this speech, I none the less have a few words to share about one student on graduation day. I will no doubt have more to share about others in the near future.

At our graduation ceremony a parent or a friend says a few words about the graduating student. It is always a very touching and moving moment. I am honored to be asked by a mother to speak on her son's behalf.

This is what I said:
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Matt. Say the name and you need not say anymore. Everybody understands. Everybody knows Matt, everybody has seen and heard him. And as most of the staff can attest, sometimes you see or hear a whole lot more than you bargain for.

I have spent the better part of the last four years getting to know Matt, trying to decipher the meaning behind his every utterance and action. Sometimes you get it right and sometimes you don’t. What worked on Monday may not work on Tuesday. Most days you just take your best guess and hope things work out. Matt quite clearly lets you know if you're wrong. That's just how it is. He's like Forrest Gump with a box of chocolates. This has always been the biggest challenge and greatest joy of being Matt's teacher and of being his friend. There has truly never been a dull moment; every day is a new, exciting and unpredictable adventure.

Matt loves to talk about his housemates at the State School and is most always eager to discuss his favorite modes of transportation: the bus and the van; or people: the man, the lady. Offer him one and he will undoubtedly want the other. He enjoys literature of all kinds. Whether it’s back issues of National Geographic, a section from yesterday's newspaper, or the phone book, Matt will eagerly share them with you and request that you sit with him and read together. He has periods of great artistic creativity, drawing page after page of circles and scribbles or dictating poetry about the people and things in his life. (An example: “Bus a bus all right / The lady she drive Matt / she drive Matt / Right there / Right there / How will the lady drive Matt?”)

From Matt I have learned more about the power of Gentle Teaching than could ever be taught in any staff training or professional development session. From Matt I have learned more about the virtues of patience, tolerance, understanding, and unconditional love than could be taught in a thousand church sermons. I am quite certain that Matt has taught me more about myself than I ever taught him.

Matt has left an indelible mark on the minds of all who know him, and on the bodies of a few of us who have worked with him. Thank you Matt for everything you have taught all of us. Future mornings will not be the same without opening the back door of the classroom to hear your booming voice echo from the bus across the schoolyard, “Noyz, Noyz come get Matt!” The School will be a different place without you.


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Again last night you visited me in a dream. You had travelled down from The Ponderosa to attend a party along with a the rest of our gang of Sprawl survivors. When you walked through the door along with the others my surprise was matched only by my elation. We embraced like brothers and laughed until we both began to cry.

I awoke with a sigh of quiet resignation.
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My previous posting's bad joking aside. . .

Truth, justice and the American Way?

You may have to register to read the article. If you have not already done so, I beseech thee my dear reader to do so now.

Here's a sampling to hopefully fuel your curiousity and peak your disgust at the behavior of those who act in our name:

Even as the young Afghan man was dying before them, his American jailers continued to torment him.

The prisoner, a slight, 22-year-old taxi driver known only as Dilawar, was hauled from his cell at the detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan, at around 2 a.m. to answer questions about a rocket attack on an American base. When he arrived in the interrogation room, an interpreter who was present said, his legs were bouncing uncontrollably in the plastic chair and his hands were numb. He had been chained by the wrists to the top of his cell for much of the previous four days.

Mr. Dilawar asked for a drink of water, and one of the two interrogators, Specialist Joshua R. Claus, 21, picked up a large plastic bottle. But first he punched a hole in the bottom, the interpreter said, so as the prisoner fumbled weakly with the cap, the water poured out over his orange prison scrubs. The soldier then grabbed the bottle back and began squirting the water forcefully into Mr. Dilawar's face.

"Come on, drink!" the interpreter said Specialist Claus had shouted, as the prisoner gagged on the spray. "Drink!"

At the interrogators' behest, a guard tried to force the young man to his knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days, could no longer bend. An interrogator told Mr. Dilawar that he could see a doctor after they finished with him. When he was finally sent back to his cell, though, the guards were instructed only to chain the prisoner back to the ceiling.

"Leave him up," one of the guards quoted Specialist Claus as saying.

Several hours passed before an emergency room doctor finally saw Mr. Dilawar. By then he was dead, his body beginning to stiffen. It would be many months before Army investigators learned a final horrific detail: Most of the interrogators had believed Mr. Dilawar was an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time.

The story of Mr. Dilawar's brutal death at the Bagram Collection Point - and that of another detainee, Habibullah, who died there six days earlier in December 2002 - emerge from a nearly 2,000-page confidential file of the Army's criminal investigation into the case, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times.

Like a narrative counterpart to the digital images from Abu Ghraib, the Bagram file depicts young, poorly trained soldiers in repeated incidents of abuse. The harsh treatment, which has resulted in criminal charges against seven soldiers, went well beyond the two deaths.

In some instances, testimony shows, it was directed or carried out by interrogators to extract information. In others, it was punishment meted out by military police guards. Sometimes, the torment seems to have been driven by little more than boredom or cruelty, or both.

As my contempt, disgust and revulsion at those who act in our name allegedly for our protection currently exceeds my capacity to be expressed in language this post will end here.
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???

The Wife tells me the Tyrant's in my pants, and He must be obeyed.

Thank you very much thank you, good day.
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Frank Gorshin died today
He's dead and gone and passed away
Never again will we hear him say
"Riddle me this. . ."

- newest verse, The Song of Death

It's kinda funny, when I heard the news he was the first person I thought about calling.

Back in the summer of 1987 we flew out to California to visit Count Spew. Somehow we had learned that the entrance for The Batcave they used on the television show was out in the hills by the Hollywood sign. We spent an entire day searching those hills cruising around in Spew's T-bird and listening to The Sex Pistols. We never found The Batcave.

Until I see you both in the Great Batcave in The Sky. . .
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This photo was taken months and months ago at The Bar:


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Lest you, my dear reader think that my relative recent silence from the land o' blog is any indication if ill tidings, please allow me to now reassure you.

As I have previously stated, things are good. Very good. I have been spending my evenings enjoying the comforts of family life. The Wife is on a break from nursing school and The Boy is well, The Boy. It is often true that no news is good news.

My current state of relative tranquility was quite unexpectedly and rudely interupted this morning.

This morning I was traveling back to school following a vocational outing with a student. The bus driver had the radio on.

It was then my peace was shattered, by this, The Worst Song Ever by The Worst Artist Ever.

Quaff! Oh, quaff! Time and time again my mind is racked with torment! Help me, my dear reader, by shouldering this burden with me.

I thank you for your support.
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A probable explanation for what was witnessed in my classroom today, and therefore a topic of conversation:

Unrequited Gay Autistic Love.

I don't think I'll ever get that raise.

Oh well.
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Just what the hell is it that makes ginger snaps so damn delicious?

Is it the ginger?
Is it the snap?

Discuss.
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Twice in the past week both you and you have come together and visited me in my dreams. The dreams were part imagination and part memory of parties and celebrations.

I awoke to the brief feeling of jubilation you feel after visiting with old friends whom you have not seen in a long while. As that feeling faded there was no more sorrow, no more sadness. There was only the dull sighing acceptance of a dream being replaced by reality.

Moving on? I guess so. Damn you both.
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'Whore College' Offers Hands-On Training

Kinda gives new meaning to graduating "cum laude".

Thank you very much, thank you, good day.
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I am quite pleased to report that thus far I have been fairly successful at sticking with my new routine. Not everyday, so fear not my dear reader. I have not suddenly and completely abandoned by beer loving hedonistic ways to become a fitness nazi. I just am trying to restore a certain sense of balance, three or four days a week.

And swimsuit season is nigh at hand. I have to look good in my Speedo.

(Joking. I just find it amusing to momentarily frighten you with the imagery.)

This afternoon while enjoying yet another of the myriad of reasons I absolutely love this town, a bicycle ride downtown and back via the neighborhoods and park trails, I unexpectedly hear someone shout my name.

I slow down and look over my shoulder. About a half-block back a blonde woman is waving and calling my name from the rolled down window of a large white SUV at the stop sign by the turn I just made.

"Who's that?" I silently ask myself, "I don't think I know anybody that drives a large white SUV." There is a vague familiarity to the voice that strikes a memory.

She turns the corner. As she drives closer I start going down lists in my head, "Is it. . , is it. . ?"

She pulls past and pulls over, my memory clicks simaltaneously as she shouts out, "Hi! It's . . . "

An old acquaintance, a one-time close friend of the ex-wife. I have not seen her in many, many years.

We talk for a few minutes, sharing pleasantries and briefly answering the "well, what have you been up to?" question. I tell her about The Wife, and pull a photo of The Boy from my wallet.

"Wow, really? Wow. He's beautiful. . . Wow. Great. . ."

She tells me about her married daughter and grandchild in Hawaii and of her dinner plans later with her other adult daughter I last remember seeing when she was around 12 years old.

"Has it been that long? Doesn't seem like it. . . Wow, that's great. Cool. Awesome."

The conversation lags and there is an awkward moment. You know what I mean, we've all been there.

She puts the car back in gear and says, "Well, I need to get going. I just wanted to say 'hi'. . . I thought that was you. I recognized your smile."
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Arrest Made at Coulter Speech

"You say that you believe in the sanctity of marriage," said Ajai Raj, an English sophomore. "How do you feel about marriages where the man does nothing but fuck his wife up the ass?"

Hook 'em!
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I awake to the sound of my sneezing. My head throbs and my body aches. My nose is running away from eyes on fire. I am dry, very dry.

It is time to pay The Piper for yesterday's festivities.

Ow. Ooh, the ibuprofen bottle is empty. Damn! What to do, what to do?

Well sir, I am a patient of Dr. Feelgood. My doctor has a minor reputation as an easy and regular distributor of the good stuff. It's true. He does not want his patients to experience pain, for any reason, no matter how small. I grab a small bottle previously prescribed for an eariler ailment.

One hour, a few large glasses of water, a vicodin, a couple of actifeds and about three cups of coffee later I am again feeling right as rain. Better living through chemicals indeed.

The Boy sits snuggly in my lap bright-eyed and smiling. The Wife still slumbers on a Sunday monring. The television is on, presumably on the same channel it was on when The Boy and I fell into a sound sleep on the couch the night before. It's an infomercial now: The Joy Mangano Fitness Disc. Awesomely bad television, amazingly so. They should attach a swiffer to the bottom and market it as a way to exercise yourself into a clean home.

There is a sense of a return to normalcy. Or more accurately, finally settling down and discovering what it is and how it feels. What a fucking year it's been. After all the drama surrounding the arrival and adoption of The Boy, after the dark months of Curtis then Chris, there is a feeling of a new beginning in every morning breeze.
_______________

Flashback.

Señor Suavé and I seek shelter from the rain beneath the boughs of an old oak tree. It is about fifty degrees. In places the sky is dark with a threatening rumble. The tree's leaves deflect the steady rain into a slowly drenching mist. We stand next to a tall and aging hippie, made taller by his fuzzy neon rainbow striped hat. He talks about protecting his drum from the rain. The hippie reaches into his pocket, pulls out a pipe, loads a bowl, and lights up. He makes a glancing offer that I politely decline, "No thanks man, it's kinda early for me."

It is kinda early for me. Yet here I am, milling around in the rain on a Saturday morning with a dozen or so other guys awaiting instruction as to how to prepare the park for the party that's to come.

The party? Hell yeah a party! Eeyore's Birthday Party! An annual tradition and a celebration of the Rites of Spring.

What began in 1963 as an excuse by a small group of University English majors to skip class and go drink beer in the park has grown into our fair city's largest and most festive recurring celebration of heathens and hedonism. Thousands gather in a modern version of ancient rituals worshipping long-forgotten goddesses far older than any god remembered and revered today.

Through trial and error, through periods when nobody knows what the hell is going on, and through periods of not enough indians we gradually transform a flatbed trailer piled high with pipes into a hundreds yards long row of scaffolding. From this scaffolding booths will soon be fashioned. While we toil others unload and set up kegs of beer by the dozens.

And dozens and dozens.

The beer will be dispensed from the booths we craft. It is a constant happy reminder of the impending reward for our labors. It is the reason for my being there, out in the cold rain in a city park early on a Saturday morning. Those who volunteer to help with the party are rewarded with a nearly unlimited supply of the best beer in the world: FREE BEER.

For many years past my friends have volunteered and have hooked me up for the party. Today I am looking forward to having the opportunity to give something back by making sure that a friend's plastic cup will not run empty on my watch.

A little before noon the booths are complete and the beer begins to flow.

The ancient Dieties of Nature we gather to celebrate and appease, whether consciously or not, bless us with Their Favor. The rain stops, the clouds vanish, and the sun shines brightly in a clear blue sky.

By mid-afternoon the park fills with thousands of people: the freaks (tattooed, pierced, and painted in interesting ways and interesting places), the geeks (Dungeons and Dragons warriors doing battle in real time with foam swords), hippies (at heart if not in appearance) both young and old. It is a family event for the progressive and open-minded. Children of all ages scamper about in costumes equally colorful if not quite as revealing as those worn by their adult counterparts.

Let's not forget about the beer.

The Beer is the Blood of our Springtime Communion.

And we commune, I'll tell you what boy, we commune. We commune and consume by the plastic pint glass after plastic pint glass. By mid-afternoon the lines for beer are rivaled only by those for the porta-toilets.

The beer is the blood, and the Drum Circle is the proudly beating heart that pumps it, pumps it, pumps it with its pulsing pounding omni-present ever-progressing rhythms.

Slightly off-centered under a small grove of trees in the middle of the park scores of people are assembled in an amoebic circle. They bang bang bang on drums of all shapes and sizes or any other object that you can beat out a sound. Hundreds more surround them, drawn by the hypnotic beat and the nubile gyrations of scantily clad young women. The earthy aromas of patchouli, pot, and perspiration hang in the air.

Near this perimeter in the shade of an ancient tree we stake our vantage point to take in the mass of humanity that surrounds us. The Wife and The Boy have arrived. My world is complete. I cheerfully engage friends young and old, old and new. Conversations flows like the beer, punctuated with hugs, handshakes and high-fives.

I discuss with Coffee's Child, an old friend and Sprawl survivor, how some people still could use a good cock punching, and how some books can never be returned. We raise a memorial toast and then move on concluding thusly:

"Life is good."
"Life is very good."
"Yes, life is very good."

It is, as Bono might be heard to proclaim, a beautiful day.

Renewal?

No, reborn.
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