Historically, Biblically, the seat to the right hand of God is the most desirable and is reserved for Jesus.  I have thought about God and Jesus recently in terms of our own earthly divisions and have concluded that God should sit on the right, Jesus on the left, and perhaps the Holy Spirit inhabit center stage.  God, the rock of ages, the Old Testament God is not really evolved spiritually.  He is wrathful, mean-spirited, unreasonable and unforgiving.  His idea of justice is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, he is always smiting someone for some minor infraction while his favorites indulge in sodomy, incest, murder, bigamy and adultery (the list goes on).  The Old Testament God is a right-winger.  The “Christian” Right is always quoting scripture to support their less than moral views but just like Republicans quoting the Constitution, they are in most cases ignorant of the meaning of either and one would charitably say, selective in their quotations.  Jesus is a liberal, a left winger (if you ascribe to the right-wing definition of the word).  He turns the other cheek, he helps the poor, he treats others as he would treat himself,  and love and forgiveness is his message.  Why do so many Christians worship Jesus when they do not follow his teachings?  How can the right-wing pretend to be Christian when their views are the antithesis of those of Jesus?  Whether you believe there is a God or not, whether you think you must believe in Jesus to get into heaven or not, the moral choices are clear.  You cannot have your cake and eat it too.  If you choose to live by Old Testament values you cannot be a Christian.  If you choose Jesus you cannot behave like his Father.  The truth is, if there are Heavenly beings, they would probably prefer it if we didn’t use them to support every  cock eyed idea we try to foist on the world.  Forgive me Jesus but I would like to close with one of your better ideas, love thy neighbor.

I loved Peter Eichenberger.  I never met the man and now that he is cycling across the sky, I never will.  I knew him only from brief cable access appearances on Todd Mormon’s Monkeytime show and from his acerbic, witty, pithy (and a thousand other adjectives I’ve left out), and of course truthful prose, first in the now defunct Spectator and then in the Independent.  For those of you in the universe beyond Raleigh, NC, Peter was an intellectual for the common man.  He refused to be dragged into the greed and corruption in which we are all drowning, and for that Peter paid a price.  It is said he smoked and drank too much but it seemed a perfectly natural response for one so afflicted by the horrors of our world.  He felt the pain of the homeless, the disenfranchised, the marginal beings on the edge of our society, he was one of them in many ways, but his voice was that of a lion, his pen mightier than any sword.  One friend said that Peter never met a conspiracy theory he didn’t like, but perhaps he saw things a little clearer than the rest of us.  In 2004 when Peter was hit by a car while cycling late at night down Bickett Boulevard, my first  thought was that the bastards had finally gotten him, another conspiracy theory come true.  After all, Peter made a lot of people in power uncomfortable.   Before the accident, Peter was John the Baptist, howling in the wilderness, afterwards he was beatific, like Jesus, preaching the gospel of love, not religion (let me make that clear), just love for his fellow man but he never lost his edge. He could still, with a surgeon’s skill, make a perfect incision in hypocrisy and peel back the layers of lies that concealed it.  If you are ever lucky enough to read any of Peter’s work, his tales of injustice, of government conspiracy, of the downtrodden among us then you will be among the blessed his words have touched.  In time the accident took its toll, the stress of coma, the seizures from brain damage and perhaps too many late nights at Sadlack’s and Peter was silenced forever. Peter should have died that dark night on Bickett but he wasn’t about to let someone else write his obituary yet ( http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/newsobserver/obituary.aspx?n=peter-eichenberger&pid=146838943 ).  He left us this Thanksgiving, while sipping tea and reading the newspaper (the printed word his Bible to the end).  I loved Peter Eichenberger and I will miss his heart and his mind, and of couse, his soul.

I woke up this day after the election and this is all I had to say.

The Ugly Truth

 My country tis of thee, but what have we become

The ugly truth rears its head

We settle every score with jackboots or a gun

Sweet reason’s dead

How easily we stray from cheerful hopefulness

Into a maelstrom of malaise

How do we think that we can make much more of less

By saying nay

Every day we wake up to another bout of blues

Every paper in the land has given up on news

Every time we hear the truth we only get confused

We’d rather hear a pretty lie than hear the ugly truth

The wise men tell us that we’ve been through this before

The politics of deja vu

Are we misguided to believe there must be more

Than the ugly truth

©November 2010 Frank Luck

This morning a friend of mine put it this way, “Change we can’t believe in”. 

The awful truth is that the truth is often awful.  The human race, ever striving to avoid or at least soften reality, came up with the platitude, a spoonful of easily digested truth.  Shakespeare and Benjamin Franklin are two of our most adept in all thing platitudinous.  It could be argued that Shakespeare merely recorded the homilies of his day, but Ben Franklin we, with typical American arrogance, consider a true original.  For my money, I’ll stick with Mark Twain who, as one of his literary heirs, Biff Rose, would say,”He told the truth but with a wink.”   Twain, like his contemporary P.T. Barnum, knew there was a sucker born every minute and he rubbed it in.  “Familiarity breeds contempt, and children”, ” He laughs best who laughs least”, “We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a  talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen we do possess”, “If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything”.  Twain wrote hundreds of these all to human observations and  the reason they are still relevant is that we still avoid the truth like the plague.  Our society is mired in sound bites, half-truths, outright lies and as Twain says, ” The most outrageous lies that can be invented will find believers if a man only tells them with all his might”.  Twain would have loved the Tea Party.  You get my point – I cannot improve on the wisdom of the ages so I will end with one final quote from the  cinematic heir to the Clemensian throne, Groucho Marx. “Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”  Mark Twain would be so proud.

Guernica is Pablo Picasso’s interpretation of war.  It was painted in response to the bombing of civilians during the Spanish Civil War.  It is black, white, and gray but perhaps it should be red like blood and green like money – these are the real colors of war.  All countries, but particularly America, glorify war.  In America it has become a video game where death is not real and winning is penultimate.  There are no good wars!  Sure you can justify some of them, like WWII but there was no nobility in our participation – we needed to boost the economy and pry ourselves loose from the Depression and it worked, and it only cost a few million lives.   Ask anyone who fought in that war if it was good.  George W. Bush, a life long failure at everything, even managed to wreck the economy while fighting 2 wars.  Perhaps his friends at Halliburton were a bit too greedy and the benefits of war didn’t trickle down to the rest of us. My God, even Viet Nam turned a profit.  I am a child of the Fifties, a boomer.  We were taught that the world was a wondrous place, that our superior technology and intelligence would free us from the horrors of war and the drudgery of work.  Where are the hover cars, the milk and honey, the world at peace?  Is it really just about greed?  Are we forever condemned to repeat the past?  America must change or it will die (Rome comes to mind) but this isn’t the 18th century, a few tea parties will not free us from oppression.  We are rapidly becoming too dumb to deserve democracy.  What will save America, if anything, is intelligence, education and dreams.  We the people have to be prepared to save ourselves despite the government, the corporations, the radical fringe.  How do we do this?  I haven’t a clue.  The tenets of Christianity, love thy neighbor, etc. (unless he’s brown) haven’t worked, the wisdom of the ages hasn’t worked, the good intentions of good men have not worked.  Perhaps we need a war, one that will obliterate all of mankind, so we can climb out of the primordial sludge and start all over again but  I fear Darwin’s theory (reality) of the survival of the fittest will again rear its ugly head and war will reemerge as the only thing all men have in common.  Unless…….

Okay, maybe it’s just me but isn’t it even a little bit suspicious that  “Pastor” Terry Jones and Rush Limbaugh went to the same Missouri high  school together?  No one in the mainstream media has made or suggested a connection but I, for one, am beginning to miss the sophomoric prank level of Tricky Dick’s dirty tricks. The Republican base has reached a new low with this one, and interestingly Rush has been conspicuously absent from this controversy (have you seen any reporting on his opinion?), allowing the Cowardly Grizzly, the Sanctimonious Scarecrow, and the Tan Man to carry the message from Oz, conflating it with the  NY “mosque” (can you say Islamic Community Center?) madness.  Rush knows a nutjob when he sees one, after all one need only look at his millions of listeners for proof, and he probably called Reverend Jones (what is it with preachers named Jones) an offered him a little  Kool-Aid and suggested he could be as big as the Kardashians if he pulled off this stunt.  Of course he drank every drop.  When will this country ever get beyond jingoism, racism and all the other isms that keep America from truly being a beacon of hope and truth for all? When will we learn from the past?  When will we do what Jesus would do (or Mohammed, Buddha, etc.)? When will we learn to shut up (guilty as charged) and ignore these vermin?

The dog days of summer are drawing to a close.  Sirius has finally wearied of lending its heat to the sun.  I always look forward to autumn, it is my favorite season.  For some reason the dying of the light fills me with happiness and hope. I’m strange that way.  I began this blog about a month ago and the great question is who cares, the greater question is who will ever read it, and the greatest question is why am I doing this in the first place.  I don’t really have an answer other than the old bid for immortality that everyone, but particularly an artist,  feels.  I write songs, I sing songs, and only a few people will hear or remember them.  Without me to sing them they become dead poetry. I have heard that people make money doing this blog thing and I’m all for that (but how?).   I have an old girlfriend (more than that really) who blogs on her website.  She is an accomplished novelist and her command of the language and subject matter far exceeds mine.  It is a way of talking to her without talking (perhaps that is the triumph and the tragedy of the Internet).  So she, in some way, is responsible for my rants.  Another friend, who knows me as a songwriter, urged me to write a blog and flattered as I was I decided to do so.  Which brings me to a question I forgot.  What do I have to say?  I guess that is for the reader (or imaginary reader) to decide.  For now it is enough to say something, to fill the world-wide web with my paltry opinions.  If anyone is reading this, thanks.  Tell a friend.  The leaves are turning and Sirius is setting.

Blogs tend to be rants, a lot of people like me bitchin’ and moanin’ about the current state of the world.  Allow me to bemoan the fact that there are not more websites like “Live from Daryl’s House” http://www.livefromdarylshouse.com/welcome.html .  As a singer and songwriter, I suppose I am predisposed to enjoy this site but if you are at all human you will derive unadulterated joy from watching Daryl Hall and the guys (and gals) make beautiful music.  The site has been up about two + years and I only recently found it but the premise is to bring musicians out to Daryl’s house to play Daryl’s music, their music and the music of others they admire.  The results are spectacular.  Not only are the greats (Smokey Robinson, Todd Rundgren) invited but also young artists at the beginning of their journey.  And, as if the music is not enough, tales are told around the fire (don’t miss the story of T-Bone and the sacrificial salami), heartaches revealed, and the stories behind all this great music are brought to light.  One warning, do not come hungry.  Great chefs from the area are invited to prepare food for the band and the late, great T-Bone Wolk contributes his own culinary delicacies which are as delicious as his tasty guitar licks.  I could go on and on about LFDH but if you want to experience something really positive and inspiring in this wicked world, set aside several hours (days) and see (and hear) for yourself.   Keep up the good work Mr. Hall

Remember the great Lily Tomlin character on Laugh In, the telephone operator from hell and her catch phrase, “We’re the phone company, we don’t have to care.”?  Back in the good old/bad old days of monopolies, Bell Telephone/ AT&T operated with impunity.  We had no other options – the Bell way or the highway.  On the plus side, they were dependable beyond belief.  The calls were clear and nothing short of Armageddon could knock out the lines.  I am old enough to remember party lines and alpha prefixes (KING 999-no area codes) and sitting beside me (and running through my computer) is a circa 1940 bakelite Bell I rescued from the demolition of WWII barracks in Chapel Hill, NC (it is the best phone in the house).  Americans were so comfortable with the telephone company we called it “Ma Bell”, and “she” was like a member of our families.  Those days are gone, at least the warm and fuzzy memories we recall through the mist of nostalgia.  I, and scores of others, welcomed the demise of the Bell monopoly.  By that time Bell had become a bloated, arrogant, and not so dependable company.  Competition is good, right?  AT&T has not been sitting idly by, accepting of their fate.  They have been systematically devouring their competitors, eliminating customer rights and doing all the bad things monopolies do.  With the advent of cell phones, the soup has gotten even more murky.  You may think you are giving your business to one company but in fact they are probably a subsidiary of another.  At this point, I should probably get to the point (my personal point).  For years I have had a land line telephone, dial-up internet service, and whatever local cable TV monopoly that provided service for my area.  Even these minimal services  came to represent a large chunk of my income but what options were there.  My basic phone service was bloated with BS charges (alternatively,cell phones are a bottomless pit of charges and useless features and besides I can’t see well enough to use them), my internet service, originally provided by Prodigy swallowed by Yahoo, swallowed by AT&T was slow and constrictive, and, I never thought I would say this but I miss “free” network TV.  I decided it was time for change.  Along comes AT&T (remember good old Ma Bell) and their U-verse packages, offering unlimited joy in each tailor-made package (I would laugh, but…).  So I wait for the right offer – a different one  every nano-second, and I go down to the AT&T store (I know, I’m a dinosaur) and sign up with a real live person.  She was lovely (a chubby Drew Barrymore), efficient and professional, so far so good.  I got the $99 package – 100+ channels, unlimited local and long distance and high-speed internet (I can even get phone calls while on-line), and she waived the offensive box rental fees for a year!  I was a happy camper – paying about the same amount as I had been and getting so much more.  Then the installer showed up – again unbelievably nice and professional.  I couldn’t believe it, God was smiling down on me.  Then the first bill showed up and I was being charged $109 and all the offensive box fees.  I called my lovely, if chubby, representative and she verified that I had not lost my mind, that I was being overcharged and so I called billing and again, a very nice lady gave me a case number, told me to pay the bill and I would receive a credit.  God quit smiling – not only did I never receive a credit or in fact any response on the case – I got more incorrect bills and so I called again. This time, I was told that though they might consider allowing me the $99 that I signed up for in the beginning, they would not waive the box fees.  I asked for a manager, and I was told that one would call me back by the end of the day if possible – it has been 3 days and still no call (I guess they have a lot of claims to ignore).  I called back, this time getting another call center in another state and the rep said she would go and get a manager right away and then she hung up on me.  So, I paid the bill to avoid oppressive charges for reconnection, resolute that I will explore my options and prevail. On top of this, my internet connection is slower than dial-up and disconnects at will, the high fee boxes have to be reset constantly, of the 100+ channels, only about half are real channels (the rest are televangelists, sports, home shopping and promotional channels for the more expensive AT&T services), and after a few minutes on a phone call a noise akin to a buzz saw destroys any hope of  civil discourse. Do you remember that monopoly thing way up at the beginning of this blog?  Having left the dreaded cable company for AT&T, I have only the satellite companies available to me as options, but now I find that both Dish Network and Direct TV are subsidiaries of, you guessed it, AT&T.  I wonder if the State Attorney General would like to help me out?