09 Friday Feb 2018
Posted in Literature, Uncategorized
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Thomas Merton was a Trappist monk. A convert to Catholicism after a somewhat dissolute youth, he chose the consecrated and contemplative life. His autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain is a classic of Twentieth Century literature.
I don’t think you have to be Catholic or even particularly religious, to find a big chunk of truth in this quote.
06 Tuesday Feb 2018
Posted in Politics, Relationships, Tolerance
How do we listen? What filters do we have activated at all times? When we hear or read something that raises our hackles, are we quick to decry what bothers or offends us, then dismiss the speaker or author as undeserving of our attention and respect? Do we consider a point of view that disturbs us to be as valid as our own? The person holding such a view may be unable to consider any other option. For example, a person may base a prejudice on a fear. That fear, unless dealt with constructively and lovingly, will continue to shape a viewpoint until the person holding that viewpoint abandons it. We can’t change the way other people think. Only those “other people” can change their way of thinking. Do we help or hinder that process by the way we react? Then again, maybe we are the ones where the change needs to occur. It is a disturbing paradox that our intolerance of intolerance may be precisely what perpetuates such intolerance.
Where did we learn to think the way that we think? If we consider ourselves open-minded, are we even aware when or how often we close our minds?
Hanging out with outlaws and outcasts is no big deal anymore. How do we assess the respectable people of this world? Do we give the full measure of respect to the worthy bourgeoisie whose tithes to the church where the AA group meets do more to keep the doors open than our relatively paltry rent does?
Contemplate how and why you determine a person’s worthiness.
04 Sunday Feb 2018
Posted in Literature, Politics, Sport
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I am currently in my Non-Sports Fan Modality. This phase comes and goes over a lifetime. Last baseball season, when Yankee right fielder Aaron Judge had his breakout year, I got jazzed up about baseball again. That enthusiasm bled over into the NFL season. And then…
I had enough. Enough Takeout Pizza commercials, beer commercials, soft drink, car, truck, smartphone, diamond commercials. Get it? The enthusiasm bubble burst, like a North Korean condom.
And then there is the game itself. Sure the players are great athletes, but then figure skaters, swimmers, bicyclists, and distance runners are great athletes too. Just for starters. There simply comes a time when I get tired of the spectacular catches, explosive runs from scrimmage, timely interceptions, and other superlative adjective demanding feats. It is called overexposure, Sports Fans.
There are the Sermons and Statements, and Gestures. Football has always been associated with Mom, Apple Pie, and The Flag (High Octane Gasoline, too I guess). So when somebody has a beef with the Good Ol’ U S of A, I’m not surprised it gets expressed at a football game. Free Speech means that a person can express what he/she believes, it also means that I get to ignore them. You too. The ignoring is as important as the expressing. Maybe more so. For example, I’ve been a wishy-washy State Of The Union viewer through the last seven Presidents, going back to Carter. I don’t get a knock at the door from an FBI agent asking why I don’t watch (or care). You don’t either, I’ll betcha.
So this wonderful unique American institution, the NFL Championship Game will be…..
ignored by millions.
And that is perfectly cool.
03 Saturday Feb 2018
Posted in Catholic Life, Uncategorized
Two AM. At three-thirty, I will drive down to St Benedict for my Holy Hour, my time before the Precious Body of Christ, my time with Our Lord. I don’t really understand metaphysics. What I do know is that this time has been transformative for me. So I continue to give Our Lord this hour in particular every month.
It is not about good social policy, social justice, or helping the poor. But this time makes me a better Catholic, a better Christian.
Holy Hour makes a crack in the wall of selfishness that surrounds my being. Through this crack enters a serenity a peace. The serenity comes from knowing that I don’t have to change the whole world, just me. I can be a little more respectful, a little quieter, more accepting of the way people are, people like my wife or my children, for starters.
We want grand solutions to the problems of this world. We think these solutions to problems like war or intolerance or poverty can be constructed as if those solutions were Saturn rockets or polio vaccines. Maybe the grand solution is by losing, a little bit every day, that wall of selfishness. That selfishness is not only our greed or hunger or lust, but also our hurts and our pains that we use to separate ourselves from others.
By the way, none of that losing is easy. It demands a daily surrender to God.
30 Tuesday Jan 2018
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Every once in a while, I think about getting a tattoo. On the back of this CD of Portuguese Fado music is
is this lovely picture of a bluebird. The tattoo artist would need to be skilled enough to render a complete image of this little bird. I think it would look great on my left pectoral.
29 Monday Jan 2018
Posted in Catholic Life, personal grooming, Popular Song, Sport
In my fantasy, I am drinking French roast coffee made in a French press pot with freshly ground beans. I am eating a butter croissant slathered with butter and fig jam. I am reading the New York Times at a leisurely pace in no hurry to do anything in particular.
In reality, I made the coffee, prepared the croissant, took the papers off the porch, sat in my “comfy chair” (imagine Monty Python’s Spanish Inquisition), found the Mississippi John Hurt Delta Blues recordings on YouTube my friend recommended. As I opened the paper, I acknowledged to my innermost self that I have zero (0) interest in reading the paper. I am not going to spend this Sunday, damp, chilly, and rainy though it may be, getting agitated by current events. Why? I have a whole damn week for that. Shortly after Mississippi John Hurt finishes Sliding Delta and Charley Patton does Jesus Is A Dying Bed Maker, I go upstairs, put on starched white shirt, black trousers, hounds’ tooth jacket, black tie, and shiny black shoes. I’m going to Mass.
My soul needs it all. The time with God, sitting with my friend Madeleine, and watching the families together, especially the children. Unbeknownst to me, it is Catholic Schools Week, so the school children process in and sit together in the front pews. The children are wearing their school,uniforms, the boys with white polo shirts with the St Benedict Crest, while the girls wear the grey plaid jumpers. (Is it really 2018, not 1958?) The oft-satirized Drill Instructor Nuns are a thing of the past. The teachers are all lay people.
The Mass ends just as my back can take sitting, kneeling, and genuflecting no longer. Now comes the piece de resistence. We sing the beautiful Alma Redemptoris Mater for the recessional. Father Tony notes my buzz cut with approval when I shake his hand at the door. He gives my noggin a rub, a most friendly and welcome gesture. He is human. Whaddaya know!
Home. Then we take a trip to a pizzeria for white spinach pizza, then back home. Mrs CorC? has work. I take a nap, debating whether I really want to swim today, aching body and all. I go, complete 2500 meters. I’m glad I did. It means that my average is 5 workouts per week, 20 swims in 28 days. The pain is considerably lessened. Thank you, endorphins.
I am especially proud that I watched no sports this Sunday or the whole weekend for that matter. I have had enough. In my head, I hear Dylan Thomas read:
“I see the Boys of Summer in their ruin…”
It is over.
Instead I listen to Ella Fitzgerald sing Rogers & Hart songs. Such a voice, such delightful songs. I secretly long for a woman who loves Rogers & Hart and Ella as much as I do. That would be, well, perfect.
Simply perfect.
28 Sunday Jan 2018
Posted in Amtrak
I’m sitting in my chair, watching the Ashland Train Webcam from Virtual Railfan LLC. A long freight is moving Northbound, hauling what I think are empty coal cars, but who knows in the dark. Amtrak #97 Southbound Silver Meteor also passed by. Kind of cool to see both.
I had a swim today, 2500 meters (1.55 mi). I went to the grocery store, purchased croissants and Cafe du Monde Coffee With Chicory. I plan to have those as part of my leisurely breakfast as I go through the Sunday New York Times. Sounds kind of cool, but that New York cosmopolitan sophistication is gone, at least for me. Last week’s Entertainment Section had a long article on drag queens. I guess when the great stars of musical theatre, the Ethel Mermans and Carol Channings are dead and gone, the Times is hard-pressed to report on something. Make that anything.
My wife is at work. I am a little unsettled, not knowing what to read, watch on the TEE VEE, or do that is constructive. So I sit, drink my decaf, watch the trains.
All in all, the night noise picked up by the microphone in Ashland is comforting, perfect for a bit of introspection.
26 Friday Jan 2018
Posted in cooking, Exercise/ Fitness, Fashion & Grooming
Figuratively, of course. I came to the realization that that is precisely what I am doing. Call it belated New Year’s Resolve to Do Things Right For A Change, By Golly!
It’s just that goals and purpose in my life got muddled. The new glasses and the haircut shook me out of my complacency. Add to those look-changers shaving my beard off. That action brought the only near-instantaneous Buyer’s Remorse. Then again the beard grows back pretty quickly.
I just started thinking about all that I do reflexively. For example, I will do something with the computer without fully clearing out old stuff. It’s like the computer needs a cyber-enema.
So today I got some techs to go over the machine to clear out unnecessary programs and updating drivers , all with the intention of optimizing performance. Any of this activity merely reaffirms that I have not the foggiest of ideas of what I have been doing, am doing now, or will do in the future. Anybody else like this?
That completed, and with face and skull in transition, I decided to began my figurative clean out.
1) What’s Important and Must Be Kept: Sobriety, Faith, and Fitness.
A clear head, free of alcohol and drugs fosters honesty for me.
My Faith opens the door to Love. Not sentimental “niceness”, but not harsh judgmentalism either fall within my concept of Love. Lots of acceptance of people as they are comes with my idea of Love. I must point out when my friends are on the road to self-destruction, but understand that I can’t make them who they aren’t. That either makes sense or is just so much psychobabble.
Fitness is taking caring of my body. Exercise means swimming for me. Long restorative swims work my muscles.
Fitness means eating right and eating well. To that end I bought Ghirardelli 100% Cacao Baking Chocolate, and Nielsen-Massey Vanilla. Luckily I know plenty of Chocolate Sluts. There will be some serious chocolate goodies prepared here.
OK, one of the Techie Types will be calling soon about something.
Here is a pic of Beardless Me. I’m beginning to scare myself
26 Friday Jan 2018
Posted in alcoholism, Baltimore, memoir
(I do not own the copyright to this image. The folks at Pabst Brewing do. I am not using the image for commercial gain and hope they understand.)
That cartoon image of the one-eyed chap with the handle bar moustache is an image from my childhood. Way back in the 1950’s there was broadcast on local television here in Richmond, a show called Strikes ‘N’ Spares. Its subject was bowling, duckpin bowling. Most of y’all don’t know what duckpin bowling is. The pins are smaller. The ball is smaller, fitting in your hand, about the size of the ball used in bocce. The bowler has three rolls per frame, rather than the two of ten pin.
The show originated from Baltimore, just up Rte 301, I-95. or the railroad tracks, where duckpin was, and still is, popular. The game is loads of fun. It was the first bowling game I played. We played it on Fridays in Freshman Physical Education at Willow Bowl just west of my high school. They came and picked us up on an old school bus, repainted baby blue, from the old school bus yellow. WILLOW BOWL was printed on the side where the old school district legend once was emblazoned.
The sponsor of said show was National Bohemian Beer, known colloquially as Natty Boh. This was a strong, Baltimore-brewed brand, popular in the Richmond market as well as Baltimore. As time ground on, Budweiser, Miller, and, at one point, Schlitz, took away market share from local brands like National Bohemian. The financially weaker local brands disappeared or faded into the background, becoming minor players in the beer market.
To this day, I can sing the National Beer jingle. I’ve pulled the cartoon commercial up on YouTube. Still has that funky naive charm that Fifties commercials possessed. Whether this advertising subtly seduced me into the drinking life, I can’t say. But they did portray beer as an innocent enough beverage.
Back then, we had no admonitions to enjoy beer “responsibly”. In Virginia, the Baptists and Methodists still had enormous cultural sway. They set the tone. Drinking was not cool. There weren’t bars selling hard liquor by the drink till the late 1960’s. A different world it was.
25 Thursday Jan 2018
Posted in Popular Song
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Last night, January 23rd, there was a hockey game in the NHL between the San Jose Sharks and the Winnipeg Jets. Sharks vs Jets, just like in West Side Story. Anybody else notice this?
The Jets won in OT 5-4.
Dispatches From Dystopia 