A Day in the Life of Chaos

My father always seemed old.  Okay, maybe older is a better word.  He never seemed ancient and he certainly has never been like "old guy."  Old guy is a guy in my office that is slightly 10 years older than me but has seemed old since probably the day he was born.  I swear to God his mother gave birth to him and he came out in a tie gripping about those nasty kids.  He drives a Cadillac, need I say more? My father never even seemed older in the way that young people view those 10 years their senior.  Like they some how came from a world alien in from their own.  A world with completely different culture, values and rituals when it comes to growing up. No, my father just seemed like a father.  He mostly stood in an adult world but still had or toe or two in the world of a child. As I cross through the midpoint of my life I often look at myself in terms of my father.  I consider my age and the stage in life of my son.  I think about how when I was at that point, my father s

At some point in my life I crossed the line.  When it was, how it happened, I don't know.  The line was as blurry as my memory of breakfast last month.   Every generation has experienced this feeling because music is effectively a time stamp on our minds.  For whatever reason the teenage years are the most susceptible to this impression. I don't think there is a human alive that can't close their eyes and think of a song that was once playing on the radio or archived on an LP or a cassette tape.  Of course both of these terms alone are a generational divide.  Even before our very eyes the CD is giving way to the .mp3. Perhaps it is a result of a fundamental resistance to change but each successive generation has also despised some new music just as the one before it did.  From Duke Ellington to swing.  From swing to Elvis and the Beatles overtaken by the psychedelic and rock.  The latent violence and sexuality of rap and the screaming beat of punk each seemed to reach

As time passes I have always chosen to look over my shoulder.  I like to know who is still following, who is still there.  Some people blaze a trail into the future and chose to let the moments of their life they built it upon to fade into the mist.   You should never look back they say, never dwell in the past.  While we can't live in the past, forgetting is is like forgetting the foundation a building was constructed on.  Memories can be kind, beautiful or as sharp as a knife.   They can rip at our psyche like the teeth of a jagged saw yet they make us what we are.  To forget them entirely is to forget a piece of yourself. While I may never see them again, there is something wonderfully cathartic about knowing the figure I harbor in a memory still exists.  Occasionally, lives might cross again.  The most magical of these crossings allows for apologies for the mistakes of the past and redemption through the knowledge of a moment in life once shared together.  It transitions the

Years ago the immortal Monty Python, a name that means everything to anyone born before 1970 and almost nothing to those born after, created a film called The Meaning of Life.  It was vintage Python, filled with exploding men and Catholics singing Every Sperm is Sacred.  In a Python way it laughed at our own preoccupations, our own uniquely human thoughts. The film began with a song: Why are we here, what's life all about? Is God really real, or is there some doubt? Well tonight we're going to sort it all out, For tonight it's the Meaning of Life. What's the point of all this hoax? Is it the chicken and the egg time, are we just yolks? Or perhaps we're just one of God's little jokes, Well ça c'est the Meaning of Life. Is life just a game where we make up the rules, While we're searching for something to say, Or are we just simply spiraling coils, Of self-replicating DNA. In this life, what is out fate? Is there Heaven and Hell? Do we re

When I was a child I had a mentor.  Well not really, mentor is a word that conjurers up an image of an apprentice working with a powerful wizard.  In reality it was more like a person that feels special to you for an unknown reason.  There was just something about that person that seemed to sit right.  Maybe they listened, maybe they didn't.  Maybe it was just a person that even though I never asked anything from them, they made me feel secure.  They made me feel important or valued in some way.  In my case they were friends of my parents who in some way through my contact with them made me feel important in their eyes. Ken Piper Nearly as far back as I can remember I knew a wonderful man.  He seemed seven feet tall and had a body four feet wide.  His head was bald and he had a smile and a laugh as deep as a geyser billowing steam.  He used to give me books or records when I was small and as I grew older he would take me to school.  He lived with us for awhile while his life w

It is not easy being a liberal. Once I listened to an episode of the Prairie Home Companion, I know, a distinctly liberal thing to do, and Garrison Keillor had an interesting thought.  He announced at the beginning of the show he was going to become a Republican.  After doing so, he commented how easy life was.  His emotional guilt was gone.  He didn't have to worry about the environment or about charity.  He didn't have to consider other people, only worry about himself.  Yes sir, for Garrison Keillor, life was sweet.  There are times I wonder what it would be like to follow in his path.  I think I would sleep so well at night, my mind would be clear and my focus would be my own. It is funny how when we cross paths with a homeless person in our own world we are often oblivious.  If they are an everyday sight, they become invisible and often a nuisance.  When at work I often leave through a back door to avoid the out stretched hands.  I have never given to them choosing