258 candles-day 37

I've been wracking my brain trying to think of what I can say that will mean anything to anyone about the current dismal, distressing state of politics in this country. And I've come to realize this: There isn't anything I can say. But there is something I can do.

My solution, based on the Chinese proverb that it's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness, is to provide daily candles in the form of links to other people's solutions, simple or complex responses to problems that they see. But as a single candle will hardly provide enough illumination to blot out the darkness that is the pettiness and meanness that characterizes this election cycle, I will light 258 candles, one each day between now and election day. In this way, I will do my part to remind each of us we are better than the baseness of the bases.

Today: At this morning's service someone, probably quoting somebody, said something like this: "We stand together so no one falls alone." That reminded me of one of my favorite punk songs, Sleater-Kinney's "Get Up," which I've used as an illustration in the past of what Unitarian Universalism and punk culture  have in common. It's this: We move together, lifting one another up as we go, because the only thing we can depend on is one another.

Johnny Thunders died for your sins!

Like my wife, I was astonished at how much I enjoyed giving out candy last night for Halloween. We have only this year moved into a hub, and while we're no mistake on the far edge of it-the city limits sign is roughly six blocks to our south-we are also no mistake part of a neighborhood. There are a couple bars, an auto repair shop, many single story homes with immaculate, manicured lawns, and the wide great inland sea just a few yards to our east. And last night we partook, for a couple hours, in one of the last surviving community regular events. Giving out candy to children who come to the door and ask for it.

In trying to explain my glee to her last night, I made reference to the change of perspective I got when I interned with a kindergarten class. But that's not what I want to write about.

 A friend wrote a Facebook post about watching some 17 year olds walking through her neighborhood and going up to doors to trick or treat. They carried a pillowcase for their loot. None wore anything she recognized as a costume. Her response, she reported, was to switch off her lights and ignore their ringing her doorbell.

"At least make a pretence," she told them via her friends on Facebook.

I noted that I was giving candy out to similar groups at my door; but as I thought about it, I started articulating a more complicated idea. In my childhood in the 60s and early 70s, trick or treating was something you did in an area you were already familiar with, with groups of kids you spent your days with (although some, like me, did it with siblings and a parent in tow). But the point was it was in an area and among people you already knew and were comfortable among. This accounted for the frisson of excitement that even in the familiar there could be deliciously spooky surprises.

No mistake, we were acting out a then-comfortably stereotypical American childhood event in which we were safe, no matter how we might enjoy feeling otherwise. For our parents, children themselves of the Depression or the War Years, it was a chance to see their kids enact something that they might have only seen in magazines or heard about from other kids or imagined staring at costumes available in stores.

All this changed because of fears real and imagined, as well as the shrinking and then eradication of neighborhoods and what people thought of as safe. Now younger kids are driven to approved Halloween events at malls. The younger we are the more time we spend online and less among people we might otherwise come to know from playing and exploring together.

Enter a feeling of having missed out on something. Maybe the delightful scare at being at someone's door and your parent absent or more than a short scamper away. Maybe the same parent's reminiscences about when he was young. Maybe even the uncertainty of what candy you might get from stores not sponsoring the mall event: unfamiliar wrapped sweetstuff or homemade candy apples (with or without razor blades) or anything other than that nasty candy corn filler. You're old enough now that your parents feel or you've told them you're too mature for costuming up.

But you're hanging out with friends and in between times or slugs of cheap beer one of them mentions the brother or sister going out in costume that night. And it wakens some urge in you, mixing with the crisp air and early darkness and driving you and the friend out to the street. Maybe you run home to slap some makeup on and rip some old clothes and become a couple zombies, but maybe you don't, you grab a pillowcase or a plastic bag and you say, "Let's get treats"-because you still think of them as treats-and you and the friends go out to explore the neighborhoods that are usually just background to wherever else you're going.

Maybe you're tipsy or a little buzzed because it's the only way you've got to make facing people you don't know, or will be surprised you do know, and asking them to reenact with you a ritual neither one is sure the other understands. Some of us leave the lights on and give them an extra handful because we remember what it is to be 17.

And ultimately, is this really any difference in force and effect from the spiritual impulse that leads people to approach other doors where unfamiliar neighbors might turn them away? And are they treated any differently, especially if they stink of booze or the street? Give them the damn candy.

johnny thunders died for your sins!

I'll be upfront and say that I'm jealous of this essay from the Orange County Weekly, both in its writing and its subject. I would prefer to be known as the punk pastor.

Having said that, I will admit the writing, by Nate Jackson, is done well. He allows enough of Joe Furey's (great name, that, for a punk) conflicted nature and the conflicts of interest between who he preaches to and the theology he preaches from to speak for itself. Furey is another in that line of preachers who have found a personal savior and want to make others aware that this same salvation can be theirs too. I can't fault anyone for wanting to spread the good news, as it were.

The story I would like to hear, however, is that of his wife, Therese. She has stayed with him nearly full-time from his early days as a catastrophically bad drug runner to his new days in the collar, raising three kids, often without help from him, and losing the eldest, her son, to an overdose. Her trust in life giving her what she needed and her ability to rise each morning is worth listening to and it's unfortunate that this isn't her story.

Which isn't to say Furey's story isn't interesting or worth telling. But it's another in a long spate, reaching back to Augustine, of libertines tamed by the Word and who make their life's work the spreading of that Word to the people they used to be. I can't complain about that, either, in that it's exactly what I want and hope to accomplish. As he comes across in the essay and in the single video I could find, he sounds like an amiable, avuncular, kind presence, and there's a lot to commend about that.

But what I'm uncomfortable with is the theology behind Furey's sermons. It's one that accepts what the Bible says as the end to all things, that there is a good and a bad and that if you would be one of God's People, you must change from one to the other. I don't credit that. It strikes me the Jesus of the Bible didn't seek out the homeless and addicts of his time because he wanted them to change in order to hear his teaching but because they were the ones most willing to hear and credit it. You were encouraged to change--"Go and sin no more"--but actual change didn't come from no longer drinking or hooking. Actual change was harder to accomplish (Matthew 19:22-4). Some people, of course, want to stop drinking or come off the road and they should be encouraged. But others don't. And they shouldn't be discouraged.

If there is a Good News to the messages of Jesus and Buddha and other teachers, it's that people  already have dignity, are of "God's People," through the virtue of being alive. They should be accepted as they are, unconditionally. End of message.

johnny thunders died for your sins!

I don't remember where or when it was that I first heard this song--I suspect it was when I heard about the death of Kristy MacColl--but "Fairytale of New York" is now one of those songs I need to rehear every Xmas season.  It's a reminder, as some of us need it, that there is always another Christmas others experience.

"that's not punk rock"

I have more to write about the last couple days when I was once again relocated within my tribe, but for now I want to write about an anecdote the 2 girls who stayed with us the past few days told me that pisses me off. 

the new term for kids living on the road now is "traveler kids," apparently, and they've got a batch of new terms I wasn't familiar with.  one of them is "oogle," which is someone who tries to be the hardestcore of all.  (I explained in my day we called them "assholes.")  these 2 sisters knew 1 guy that they say no one liked so everyone called him "oogeleven" (I guess cuz he went to 11?) and who had stolen from people he stayed with, claiming that to do so was an understood part of sofa surfing (and I would suspect would make constantly moving from place to place mandatory).  at 1 point when they were around oogeleven was drinking at the punk house 1 of the sisters lived in in kalamazoo and swilled until he got sick.  he leaned forward on the floor on which he was sitting and puked and then leaned back and drank some more.

he made no move to clean up after himself.  eventually someone asked him if he was going to clean his puke up.  "no," he said.  "that's not punk rock."

let me make this clear.  he's right but only if he was admitting he was not behaving in a punkfriendly manner; not cleaning up after onself is not punk rock.  it's fuckedup.  one of the primary definitions of the punk movement is d.i.y.--do it yerself.  that involves cleaning up after yourself as well as, say, having an experience yourself.  we don't disengage from community when we join this tribe, we just locate ourselves in a different community, and a part of that is following the basic commandment jesus and prophets in other traditions recognized--treat others the way you'd like to be treated.  in words of single syllables:  don't puke on floors (either metaphorically or literally) and not clean it up.

we don't want to live as isolated individuals because that seriously hurts us, not only when we are with others but on our own.  if you have occasion to be in a room with oogeleven, remind him of this, perhaps with a gentle slap to the back of his head.  if you are hosting oogeleven, begin the cleanup process with him by taking him firmly by the scruff of the neck and using him to wipe the floor.

teach naked

I'm sitting in the coudersport public library where I have a solid wireless signal. reading last sunday's nytimes I came across this essay in the "week in review" section and was absolutely charmed by it. what does it mean for author tim kreider to say, "I hope kids are still finding some way, despite Google and Wikipedia, of not knowing things"? it means that there is some only partly acknowledged thrill to being the only one on your block--or in your county--to know of, let alone appreciate, the wizardry of devo or david bowie (to my knowledge there was only 1 other bowie afficienado in my high school and we argued fervently which was better, early ziggy stardust bowie [my position] or later thin white duke bowie [his]). when I was a student of secondary education I was told by a professor that the 3 most important words a teacher could say were, "I don't know," followed years later in grad school by the advice of my mentor that the 2nd most important words were, "you should find out." the years between are probably the important ones.

johnny thunders died for your sins!

"there is, too, a connection between the era bret easton ellis attempts to satirize in [1991's american psycho], the greed-is-good '80s, and the time of [john] lennon's murder, one month after the election of ronald reagan, the man who would make that era possible. in lennon's rolling stone obituary, greil marcus was the first person to note that 'nothing like lennon's killing has happened before.' while marcus was careful to say that reagan's election did not inspire mark david chapman--any more than [j.d.] salinger did--he did note the confluence of chapman's actiions with the 'secret message' of reagan's election: 'some people belong in this country, and some people don't; that some people are worthy, and some are worthless; that certain opinions are sanctified, and some are evil.' he went on, 'such a message, which tells people they are innocent and others are to blame, can attach a private madness to its public justification.'

"in 1980 john lennon was far from the canonized figure he has become. the people who grew up with the beatles had not yet moved into controlling positions in the media. in his time cover story, jay cocks was talking about himself and his contemporaries when he wrote that some people 'wondered what all the fuss was about and could not quite understand why some of the junior staff at the office would suddenly break into tears in the middle of the day.' it's easy to dismiss cock's piece for its openness of feeling. for all the things that cocks had to do, and did exquisitely, in that piece--it was a news story, an obituary, a career restrospective--what still comes through strongest is shellshock, his disbelief that he is writing the story. which is why it was a risk, and essential, for him to insist that the shooting was an assassination. putting lennon's killing in the company of the killings that had preceded it in the previous decades is not, though, a contradiction of marcus's claim that this had never happened before. it had--but not to a popular artist. what both cocks and marcus understood was that lennon's murder was a symbolic murder of what he represented. chapman was disturbed by the denunciations that ended [lennon's song] 'god,' lennon's brutal elaboration of [bob] dylan's line 'don't follow leaders.' but the beatles, for all the adoration they inspired, stood for a vision in which people, as marcus wrote, did not lose their identity but found it.

"a vision that tells you it's possible to live a good life and to live it your own way holds out possibilities that other visions--reagan's or salinger's--deny. those visions judge who belongs and who doesn't, who shuns contact with the wrong kind of people, chooses to withdraw from or tries to control the world rather than embrace it."

--from "the ballad of john and j.d." by charles taylor in the february 14, 2011, issue of the nation

johnny thunders died for your sins!

someone, I don't remember who, once said to me, in parody of jeff foxworthy, "if your idea of gospel music is the velvet underground, you might be a punk." well, the answer seems clear...

johnny thunders died for your sins!

I'm tempted to write something like "it's a month of deaths," but it's always a month of deaths, isn't it? some months are just longer or shorter than others. ari up died last thursday, and while her name won't be known well to modern punks, her group ought to be. of the slits and their initial offering, "a boring life," greil marcus famously wrote

"Nothing could keep up with it. Shouting and shrieking, out of guitar flailings the group finds a beat, makes a rhythm, begins to shape it; the rhythm gets away and they chase it down, overtake it, and keep going. Squeaks, squeals, snarls, and whines--unmediated female noises never before heard as pop music--course through the air as the Slits march hand in hand through a storm they themselves have created. It's a performance of joy and revenge, an armed playground chant; every musical chance is taken, and for these women playing the simplest chord was taking a chance: their amateurism was not enlightened."

we tend to overbow much to the god of professionalism and I'm as guilty of doing that as anyone, and in my professional (irony intended) life as a teacher I may even be guiltier than most--but as I've tried to argue here there is much to be said for enthusiasm and the sheer gutsiness of doing something you've never tried and don't know how to do and making a message with it. that's the essence of both punk and of spirituality: few of us are professional singers but we sing hymns every sunday or when the spirit moves us. arianna forster at 14 was a prime and cogent example of the drive of that, even before johnny rotten became her stepdad. “You cannot be a female artist on the wild side, very passionate and self-expressive, without being formed at least in part by Ari,” [Vivien] Goldman said. “In her feral 14-year-old way, she did represent a new archetype of womanhood.”

requiescat in pace, ari up. now let's get happy.

johnny thunders died for your sins! (3)

X See How We Are
Uploaded by Celtiemama. - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.

jesus christ, what a great song. I let my class out early this afternoon and on the drive home I was thinking about the way the golden light played across the fields in the distance and a memory of dancing in the twilight to this song came back to me. remembering the song reminded me of the following which was written a few years back when I was the commissioned lay leader for the menomonie uniterian universalist congregation further out on the rim. part of my duties included writing a paper pulpit for the local newspaper 2ce a year and I think this was the last one I did before they ended that practice. I suspect mine was the only one to have quite this message. what's left out of it, of course, because of space constraints is the dancing alone in the twilight with my car as a partner, buying the tape for $14 when the cost of cassette tapes was hard on a guy sleeping in his car, trying to duplicate in my journal the welling-up that happened in my chest when I listened to x and how that translated into actions like picking up hitchhikers and giving people my money when they looked like they needed it more than I did.

PUNK SPIRITUALITY
By Bob Bledsoe, Commissioned Lay Leader
Unitarian Society of Menomonie

Twenty years ago when I was living in my car I had a religious conversion. This wasn’t the normal type of conversion you might generally hear of: it wasn’t to Christianity or Judaism or Krishna Consciousness, all of which I’d experimented with. It was a conversion to both a music and a view of life. I was converted to punk.

Punk as a musical form had come and gone a decade before in response to the lush excesses of Fleetwood Mac and late-era Beatles, but it was enjoying a second wave, focused primarily on loudness and speed. I had a 78 Dodge Aspen station wagon with an AM/FM radio and an old boom box on the front seat whose tape player was held shut with duct tape. I had a batch of tapes—The Clash, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Talking Heads—I listened to during those long stretches between radio signals. But the tape I listened to over and over was See How We Are by the Los Angeles group X. I admit it: I was sort of in love with chunky poet Exene Cervenka and her long, multicolored proto-dreads and her weirdly throaty vocals.

I’d bought the tape for the uplifting tune “Fourth of July,” but I kept getting drawn back to the title track. John Doe’s lyrics like, “Now there are seven kinds of Coke / 500 kinds of cigarettes / This freedom of choice in the USA drives everybody crazy / But in Acapulco / Well they don't give a damn / About kids selling Chiclets with no shoes on their feet,” meant more to me, and meant more in a more immediate way, than any number of verses I’d read from the Bible or any of the Sutras I’d committed to memory or any lessons from the Bhagavad-Gita. They spoke to me of a consumer-oriented society whose War on Poverty had already tipped over into a War on the Poor, where I’d been taught that living a life that was hard or where I had less was commensurate with living a less important life.

If there is one lesson to punk it is “make-do.” Do it yourself. Don’t like what’s on the radio? Make your own music. Don’t like your home life? Make a new family. Got holes in your shoes? Wrap them with duct tape or go barefoot until you can find another pair. What I heard in punk and especially in the music of X was that, while I had a hard life, I didn’t need to live like a bum. Early in my travels I’d met a guy who’d been on the road more years than I would and who explained that the difference between a bum and a vagabond was that “a bum doesn’t brush his teeth.” The vagabond made his own changes was more in control of his life than the bum, to whom things just “happened.” The vagabond recognized his reliance on others and cared for himself so not to offend before introductions had even been made.

Thereafter, no matter where I was, no matter how little water I had access to, I brushed my teeth every morning. It was a matter of my pride. I would be a vagabond instead of a bum. The lesson I took from punk was that to live a hard life doesn’t mean I had to live an undignified life. Punk was like Judaism and Islam: a hard life conferred on you extra responsibility to live a more dignified life.

We read in scriptures of the changes that holy persons made in the religions they proposed and the care they took about taking others into account, and it’s in exactly this way that Krishna, the Buddha, Bahá'u'lláh, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, and any number of other holy people up to and including Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., are punks. This is the kernel of punk spirituality: recognition that others have as much right to the world as you do yourself and that right is non-negotiable. See how we are and accept us.

I am nearing fifty and it’s been more than a decade since I’ve ventured into a mosh pit. Chunky myself now, between my long hair and my ties, people are more likely to think “aging English professor” than “aging punk.” That’s all right. The cleft between groups is often more accentuated by outsiders than by members of the groups. I looked any number of years for a religion that reflected this, for a way to connect with my larger community more completely than when I was a skinny punk cleaning out bars. Religion is where our communities plunge deepest, and Christianity and Judaism and Sufism all had things to commend them, as did Buddhism and Taoism, but I found the most welcoming of my punk mindset is Unitarian Universalist. It’s often denigrated as a cafeteria religion, but with its focus on the law’s effects on the people rather than the Law, on the spirit of the people rather than the Spirit, and its willingness to embrace both people and change, it gave me the best opportunity to combine my love for what’s inside with what’s out. For further information about the aims and beliefs of the Unitarian Society of Menomonie, please visit our website at www.menomonieuu.org. For more information on Unitarian Universalism, please visit www.uua.org.

johnny thunders died for your sins! (3)

spork is a new film premiering at the tribeca film festival in nyc that I'm greatly looking forward to. from most accounts, it's a good but not a great film, as most first features ought to be. but why it's important to me is its existence as pastiche, as homage, and as example of the power of punk in the making of art. director/writer j.b. ghuman is relaxed talking about his methods and his direction and the mere existence of this storyline makes me tingly.

A Scene From "Spork" from Alex & Peter Knegt on Vimeo.

johnny thunders died for your sins! [2]

"in latin american christology...jesus was killed as a consequence of his scandalous message and ministry, not because it was demanded by god, as taught by some theories of atonement. the cross was not necessary to change god's attitude toward human beings. rather, it is the culmination of a life totally dedicated to god and god's reign. 'jesus' life as a whole, not one of its elements, is what is pleasing to god'...[in this interpretation] god has irrevocably drawn near to this world...he is a god 'with us' and a god 'for us.'"

this quote, from daniel migliore's faith seeking understanding (p. 202), was a revelation to me. it had never occured to me before that the traditional idea of atonement, that jesus died on the cross in order to fulfill god's need for blood sacrifice and as a way for expiating humanity's sins, was also a way of diluting the easily read message that jesus' death resulted from his radicality and subversion of the status quo. it's this shift of focus from revolution to obedience that transforms jesus from an anarchic influence to the more familiar guy who died so you and I could masturbate without damnation.