WORDS ARE MY PLAYGROUND

Meanest Dog On The Block

2012-01-07T09:40:00.004-06:00

I think the contemporary ensemble action movie, all be it on a larger scale, would be a good model to base our military on. First assemble the team. Remember, we have the whole United States, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines to choose our team from. At over four hundred million, that’s a pretty good pool to pick from. We can maybe have some kind of contest to figure out who’s the quarter million smartest, baddest people out there. I don’t know what the right number is? Maybe we could cut that down to a hundred and fifty thousand or so and then get another hundred thousand geek types for support people.

Then we train them. We get people like Lou Gossett Jr in An Officer and a Gentleman, Or like Jack Web from that old D.I. movie. You know; the grizzled veteran, the tough as nails sergeant, the one that acts like the meanest sob on the planet but deep down loves his boys and is just trying to keep them alive when they get in the thick of it. And by boys I’m not saying anything about gender here. If Angelina Jolie is any indication, chicks can be every bit as bad ass as guys. And don’t forget all those school-of-hard-knocks convicts secretly waiting for the chance to prove themselves for God and Country.

Then we supply them. I mean this is the United States of America. We can buy the best stuff. We can buy the baddest, the toughest stuff. And if we can’t buy it we can damn well buy who ever we have to buy to make it. I mean we pull out all the stops. We give them all the James Bond Q shit we can come up with.

Next we get the transportation up and running so they’re ready to go at a moment’s notice. I mean these guys are more than ready. They just need time for the drinkers to sober up and recover from their bonding bar fights. They can do that on the transports.

We got guys like that and eventually word’s going to get out we’re the meanest dog on the block. We can come up with some cheesy motto like, “We don’t start fights, we end them,” or, “Mess with us and we’ll kick your ass.” They can carry that Texas “Don’t Tread On Me” coiled rattlesnake flag.

We can talk about the spy section later.

Foreign Policy

2012-01-06T08:18:00.005-06:00

I suppose I have to have a foreign policy. I wouldn’t call myself an isolationist, but I’m close. It’s just not polite to impose my will on anybody else; in fact, it’s rather rude and tends to generate hostility. I’m all for responding to someone’s need for help if they ask and I have the means to provide it. I’m all for speaking truthfully about what I think. I’m not for being the world’s blowhard telling everybody the best way to do things.

If someone punches me in the face, my tendency is to usually act in a manner consistent to self-preservation. Usually. I have been known to act in a way to make damn sure said attacker never wants to do it again. I guess it’s about making the punishment fit the crime. So I think we over reacted to 9/11. We should have been more patient, focused precisely on Osama and his crew, and ground them into the dust. The best I can say about Iraq is we won the war and lost the peace. I think it didn’t fool anybody we didn’t admit it was at least partly about oil.

I think we probably did the right thing in Libya.

About Israel and the Palestinians, a friend is a friend, but a real friend tells you the truth, a friend tells you when you’re screwing up. From my point of view we haven’t been a real friend to Israel. Not saying you can take this literally, but just because your neighbor is an ass doesn’t mean you should be one too.

France is just like us. They think they’re better than everybody else, too. That's never going to be pretty.

I believe in fair trade, in paying a reasonable amount for a reasonable return. I don’t think we should bully anybody into giving us a deal. I also don’t believe in letting someone strong arm or guilt us into paying more than something is worth. If we are guilty and owe reparations, that’s a whole-nuther-thing.

I don’t believe in the practice of dumping, selling toxic shit we’ve banned here to third world countries. Similarly, if an American companies dose something outside our borders we wouldn’t let them do here they should be subject to prosecution as if they did it here. Same goes for American owned companies.

So that’s a start. I realize if I’m intending on shaking up the status quo a lot of people aint going to like it so it won’t be a cake walk.

Disgruntled Voters Unite

2012-01-05T08:59:00.003-06:00

When someone looks for a job for a long time and can’t find a decent one and they give up and quit looking, the're referred to as a discouraged worker. Well, I’m pretty much a discouraged voter. I would like to vote for someone but I can’t really stomach any of the horses in the race.

I didn’t vote for a long time. Not counting the last election, the last guy I voted for president was Barry Commoner and the only thing I knew about him he was an ecologist. It’s very discouraging when all you have to go on is talking heads reporting on which horse is in the lead and which one was bringing up the rear. I used to say I was voting no.

Then last time along comes this guy making promises sounding like what I’ve been waiting to hear for a long time. I don’t know? Maybe it wasn’t his fault, not all of it, maybe not even most of it. It’s not like I was expecting a lot. But I did expect something different. That’s what was promised, right? Well, we got change all right. It got worse. A lot worse. It’s like a bad SNL comedy sketch.

Now, before all you on the right get ahead of yourselves, the change I was looking for was for somebody to stand up and start telling the truth, someone concerned more about fixing the rather significant problems we face as a country and as a world more than they care about getting elected, reelected, padding their pockets, or spouting some BS from one party line or the other. But all we get is spin. So maybe no was the right vote to begin with? The problem is politicians either aren’t getting the message or, more likely, they know exactly what the country thinks and they’re putting their spin on the fact that less than half the country doesn’t bother.

A side note here to the media; you have been acting like total chicken shits. Quit acting like some of the whacked ideas out there have some kind of validity. Go after real stories. Let us know what these guys really believe and if the record is in line with their claims. Quit being so politically correct and report the damn news.

So, anyway, what I propose is a vote that counts, that’s heard loud and clear, that these jokers can’t talk their way out of. I’m talking about a vote of no. Say no to the idea we’re forced to choose one side of the coin or the other. Say no to the idea the more money and power you have the more right you have to speak and be heard. Say no to the idea that to be president you only have to want it bad enough and come up with enough money to buy it.

To that end, I declare I am starting the party of no. No more bull. No more super-pacs. No more influence peddling. No more business as usual. Vote no and make your no finally count.

Why not? What do you have to lose?

2012-01-04T07:58:00.003-06:00

Now that Mitt has been grudgingly declared the front runner for the republicans and nobody else seems to want to run on the democratic side I am officially shrugging my shoulders and throwing my hat into the ring under the platform of, “Why not? What do you have to lose? I can’t be much worse than any of these other Bozos.”

My campaign promises are to put people back to work with something like the CCC or the WPA. Not going whole hog on high speed rail is pretty asinine. Our rail system needs to be completely rebuilt any way. That and everybody knows our bridges and national infrastructure is falling apart. If we decide to fix that, that’s got to be hell of a lot of jobs waiting on somebody. I’ll create an infrastructure tsar with a limited number of people under him to make sure the money is not wasted on some over bloated bureaucracy.

Speaking of money I will institute an income disclosure policy where all government employees and affiliates will be required to accurately report their income. There will be some kind of reasonable cap on their incomes. Anybody caught violating this rule will be fired.

I further promise to put some people at the top of the financial industry and, if applicable, the people charged with watching out for that shit who looked the other way will be in jail for a long time. I will do away with the idea that corporations are people.

Something has got to be done about tax fairness. I’m not sure what but the mega rich and giant corporations paying next to nothing will end.

I promise not to pretend global warming isn’t real, no matter what caused it, or engage in any other spurious debates like the birther crap.

I promise to restrict the house and senate to live with the health care they pass for everybody else. That’s my wife's idea.

I know there’s a lot of other things all screwed up so I promise to surround myself with other people from the appropriate fields a lot smarter than me to begin to figure out what the hell we can do to fix some of it.

Finally in full discloser, I have plenty of skeletons in various closets so if you’re looking for somebody squeaky clean it aint me, but I’ll leave the doors open and you’re free to look around. My wife also likes to decorate so she’s going to change some things in the white house. She's got great taste and design sense but it’s not going to be cheap.

Dog gets a bone

2011-12-23T12:49:00.002-06:00

Republican millionaires condescended today to allow 160 million American workers a twenty dollar a week pay raise. They also grudgingly agreed not to cancel unemployment benefits of three hundred dollars a week to a further two million. From their posh offices they agreed they were under great political pressure to stop their assault on the American worker and throw the poor slobs a bone.

The president and the rest of the democrats were overjoyed with their rare piddling victory even though it was handed to them by the republican senate who seem to be close to having had it up to here with the fanatics from the so-called tea party. The president and his party seem grateful for whatever scraps they can grab as do the fraudulently named middle class after getting thrown out on their ears in droves.

Meanwhile the richest Americans don’t know what all of the fuss is about. With the size of their paychecks, bonuses, dividends, and stock options they find it hard to believe some of it isn’t trickling down to the shit shovelers. If power wealth and prestige was available to everybody what kind of country would this be?

A letter of thanks

2011-12-21T09:05:00.004-06:00

I would like to take the opportunity in this special time of the year to express my thanks to the elected officials in Washington, especially to the republican side of the isle in The House of Representatives, for the concern and care you take for my personal welfare in such a holistic manner. In these days when so many are swayed by the uniformed opinion of the great unwashed masses it is with great appreciation I observe how from your exalted positions you do not bow to the uniformed pressures of your constituency. I understand with the great concerns of state you have little time to concern yourselves with the petty difficulties of the huddled masses and I hope our tribulations do not dampen your spirits as you jet home for the holidays.

I would also like to commend the Godly values you whole heartily encourage and support in me personally. I am mindful of James 1: 2-4, how much you are directly responsible for increasing my faith and ensuring I am “lacking in nothing.” Indeed, what good does a full belly do if I “lose my soul.” Take solace, especially, you men and women of the faith. Your Father in heaven is watching your deeds with great interest. If I can paraphrase Matthew 25:45, as much as you do to the least of these, you do to ME.

So again thank you very much. We all know how hard you are working and can see where your priorities lie. I am sure proper appreciation will be expressed come next November. A very special holiday greeting to you all.

Sincerely
Michael Lipuma

Dancing on the edge

2011-12-20T12:45:00.001-06:00

I find myself trying to procrastinate, to do anything else but write. It’s a combination of fear and laziness, I suppose. Writing is hard work. It takes focused mental effort. Good writing takes guts. It takes guts because you have to get over the fear you, let’s make this an I statement, I have to get over the fear I have nothing worthwhile to say. Nothing new and original. That I suck at writing. That anything good I’ve ever written has been a fluke. That I’m procrastinating right now.

This is all BS. I am pushing the keys and putting words in some kind of coherent stream. That’s the goal: one word after another until something worthwhile begins to form. Sometimes creativity is a hard slog. I’ve, at least somewhat, bought into the notion that it’s all some kind of mist I can grab out of the air, that it doesn’t take work and sweat. Partly this is because good art looks obvious; something one sees or hears and you say of course, how could it be any other way? Which is also not true because there is art that blows my brain and I have no idea how it was done. Art is complex, there is a mystery to it, much like the divine. This is why I think creativity and spirituality are, if not directly linked, close cousins. Creativity takes faith. Writing takes faith there will always be another word, that if you keep plugging at it eventually it will make sense, that you are more than the sum of your parts and with the help of the divine you can produce something bigger than yourself, which also takes maybe a little bit of hoots-spa, if thats how you spell it?

Moxie. You have to have some arrogance to put down a bunch of words and expect somebody to want to read them. You see how conflicted writers are. We are required to live surrounded by paradox. We have to live with the ambiguity of not knowing if we’ll ever produce another worthwhile word. We dance teetering on the edge of a cliff we often go over in a spectacular fall. Often there is no one to help us get up and dust ourselves off. It is not unheard of that some never get up again. Art is a dangerous game and not for the faint of heart. It’s the edge of the world and “there be dragons here.”

Invented People

2011-12-10T15:30:00.002-06:00

The world reacted with shock and dismay over the revelation of invented people. Though the most eminent scientist remain curiously quiet on the subject, US presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich revealed the existence of invented Palestinians. Though an accurate count of these invented people is imposable to guess, in 2003 it was estimated there were almost ten million, roughly half near the place they were invented and the remainder dispersed throughout the world.

This, however, is the tip of the iceberg. If mister Gingrich is correct in his reasoning, the existence of invented peoples may go back to shortly after the dawn of civilization. History and, dare I say, pre-history is rife with stories and myths of original peoples occupying a distinct geographical land mass being driven from it or subjugated by invaders. The revelation of invented peoples gives new insight to these phenomena.

The implications are staggering. The question worldwide seems to be; Are there any original people left? If in fact we are all invented people what is the moral implication? We have never experienced an identity crisis of this magnitude and scope.

This is not science fiction. The whole world is holding its breath. What will be the unintended consequences of Newt Gingrich’s revelation? Newt doesn’t know. Neither do we. Lord help us.

Man Overboard

2011-12-08T08:04:00.003-06:00

The Tea Party, the original one in Boston, was about taxation without representation. It was about a big corporation, the East India Company, let off its taxes by Briton’s ruling class. Briton tried to make up the difference by jacking up taxes to the colonies.

Big business has representation. Lobbyists ply their trade in the corridors of power, special interest groups donate millions, and money fuels the electoral process. Corporate malfeasance is figured into the budget and the price is passed along. America’s myth of a classless society is a sham. Those at the bottom have always known this. As the divide between the bottom and the top becomes more apparent, word is getting around. America has a ruling class.

Maybe things don’t change in Washington because they like it how it is: political dynasties, old money, new money buying its way into the show. Blago’s crime was getting caught, lifting the veil on political horse trading, of rubbing it in our faces. I imagine the ruling class smug, the upstart commoner, got his comeuppance. It takes more finesse, a honeyed voice to steal in the name of the people.

Trickle down is an old idea. The great lords would put on lavish feasts for all the other upper crust and when they had their fill the commoners were allowed the leavings.

Who represents you? Remember the movie Network? “We’re mad as hell…” you know the next part. Throw’em overboard.

BP and Halliburton Do Their Part

2011-12-06T11:29:00.002-06:00

The economy, according to spokesmen for some niche sectors, has just received a tremendous boost. Lawyers for Halliburton, the world’s second largest oilfield services corporation, said the latest accusation by oil giant BP will require counterclaims and that mean litigation which can only be good for our firm and various support industries. We are not talking about an insignificant amount of money here.

Lawyers for BP agree. This can only be good for us and the people we putt to work to bolster our claims, detectives, researchers, expert witnesses, talking heads, media consultants and analysis. The list is quite extensive. Few people realize how much of a public service we perform.

And don’t forget all news men and camera people who will benefit from our litigations, Not to mention just the reams and reams of redundant paperwork we generate. The forest industry is a little known beneficiary of suit and counter suit.

Paper servers, repo men and loan sharks also expected and uptick in business. All them shysters putting on the screws bound to jack up the price a tea, if you know what I mean. Folks get behind in their payments. They don’t get persuaded to pay up all by their lonesome.

Architects of Capitalism

2011-12-05T09:52:00.003-06:00

Is it possible the economy is bi-polar? It seems to have manic and depressive episodes. Some bit of good news comes in and the economy is on the rise. You can almost hear them sing “Happy days are here again.” Then there’s a bit of bad news and up comes Boz Scaggs singing “Somebody loan me a dime.”

Congress is no help, squabbling about this plan or that plan when everybody knows what is making everybody nervous is they can’t agree on anything. Do they live in a bubble? This of course is a rhetorical question. Of course they do.

It’s made out of thick layers of narcissism, egomaniacal thinking that they are smarter than everybody else, or worse, that they’re holier than everybody, little Cromwell clones thinking they have the ear and sanction of the divine. They remind me of someone who used to be my friend. He came from privilege and had a very high IQ. He was very book smart. I told him once, for the smartest guy I knew, he sure was a dumb SOB. He had no street smarts at all. He knew how things were supposed to work, but had little practical knowledge of how they actually did, like an architect who expects things to work in the real world the same way they do on paper.

Meanwhile we have these giant soulless corporations running around like rabid dogs (We just passed the anniversary of Union Carbide's gassing of half a million in Bhopal, India. Some estimates say eight or ten thousand died the first day.) They chew up people and spit them out by the millions. You all know the great capitalist saying “Let the buyer beware.” Seems like we’ve all been sold the Brooklyn Bridge, or maybe swamp land in Florida.

I don’t even want to talk about the big financial institutions. They make Bernie Madoff look like an amateur.

The only football analogy appropriate to the Christian faith

2011-12-03T12:33:00.003-06:00

Contrary to popular opinion, Sudden-Death-Overtime is the only football analogy appropriate to the Christian faith and I hate it. It’s a nerve racking, a how am I ever going to get through this without everything falling into the toilet kind of thing? Part of it is just freelancing, irregular paychecks and all that. But that’s not all of it. It’s me and who I turned out to be when this faith journey thing started. I didn’t have any faith of my own, in anything or anybody. Back when, I used to hope life wouldn’t suck too much more before I got through it.
Then, as far as I can tell, God called me. Now this was not God calling out, “Oh Mike? Mike? Can you hear me?” No. This is the creator of heaven and earth and everything besides having ordained from before the beginning of time that at such and such a time that everything before has led to cause and effect circumstances leading to me having a certain kind of sight I had previously been blind to eliciting only one possible response. That kind of call.
Since answering that kind of call requires a certain amount of faith in a deity capable of, well pretty much anything, faith that this deity is good and faith that said deity has my best interest at heart. Since, as previously mentioned I had none of my own, faith must be provided. We now arrive at sudden-death- overtime, my inexhaustible ability to screw up and the use of rope.
You’ve heard the phrase “Give him enough rope and he’ll hang himself?” In my experience God is generous with his rope.
Sometimes he gives miles of it. Sometimes I’m up on the scaffold over the trap door with a noose around my neck and the man has his hand on the lever. And always God shows up and I get another shot at things. And every time He ups the ante a bit, grows my faith a little more and He’ll continue to up the ante until once and for all I finally believe He ain’t going to let me fall, I don’t have to get it all right or all figured out. All I have to do is trust in him. And every time he pulls my butt out of the fire I believe that for a while.
The problem is I’m a backslider. Truth be told, I think we’re all backsliders. He picks us up and sets us on our feet and starts us out and keeps us steady and after a little while we get comfortable walking and we start thinking we pulled ourselves up by our own boot straps and are doing things all on our own, especially here in the states with our “rugged individualism.” When I get like that He plays out more rope letting me get to a place, usually near the edge of a cliff somewhere, where I can see and hear again. But, like I said, that’s me. I don’t know if it fits for you?

Anderson Cooper stunned

2011-12-02T08:23:00.000-06:00

Country outraged over revelation members of US Congress live lives of privilege unlike their own.
Citizens were shocked and Anderson Cooper stunned when a Sixty Minuets probe revealed members of the US Congress don’t play by the same rules as the rest of us. The revelation that they lead lives of wealth and privilege is absolutely stunning. When confronted with the accusation of unfair practices one member bristled. “This is America where everyone is allowed to make a buck. Technically, nothing I did was illegal and nobody got hurt, really.
Having been apprised of the situation that she and other members of congress, in a bipartisan effort, are making a quick buck off of privileged information, congressperson Pelosi jumped on the growing bandwagon paying lip service to endorsing a fact finding subcommittee tasked with dragging out an investigation into the alleged wrongdoing until the rubes that voted for us go back to worrying about Kim what’s-her-name and how short her marriage was. Then we can get back to business as usual.
In a rare act of empathy Speaker of the House sided with the former Speaker. “Were just like everybody else. It’s just all our money and the lavish perks we get that make us seem different from you average Joe Blow. Come on? Don’t you remember that plumber we duped into shilling for us to show we’re just regular guys.”

The White Dragon and the Chosen One

2011-12-01T12:38:00.000-06:00

The black wizards have set their minions on gatherings East and West. Tents were flattened and many were taken. They were not the first gatherings trampled. They will not be the last. Councils held throughout the land vow to continue to gather. The red and blue wizards continue to bicker in their impotence. The wizard chief calls for the factions to reconcile falls on deaf ears. The land founders, the people downcast.
The black wizards continue to weave their spells, taking profit from illusionary gains. The dragons are loose in the land pillaging the storehouses while winter begins to bite. I sit in a cold kitchen feeling the chill air press. How many want for work? How many look at their meager shelves and scheme for ways to stretch it more.
When will the white arise? I hear rumors of their stirrings. There was hope the wizard chief was of the white. Some still hope, but hope is fading as he seems to grovel and scrape at the feet of the black. If only he would stand and that hope prove true.
Still, the white wizards are said to summon their power. It is said the white has dragons, too. The old ones tell of a great white dragon that awakes at the appointed time when the chosen one finds the narrow gate to his chamber. I have heard the chosen one is with us now. I have also heard he does not yet know he is chosen. The white wizards watch and guide, but the chosen one must discover his own destiny.

Time keeps on slipping, slipping, into the future

2011-11-30T07:25:00.002-06:00

I turned sixty last month. A lot of things are never going to get done. Nothing in particular, just a lot of them. Everything else being equal, there’s just not enough time. Even if money wasn’t an issue, there’s still not enough time. There’s too many places to see, trails to hike, stories to tell, roads to ride, mistakes to correct, too many books to read.
And there’s something wrong with part of my brain. It thinks I’m thirty, or that’s not it exactly, but it definitely thinks I should be, or it forgets sometimes that I’m not. It gets reminded pretty fast when I stand up and, just like my old man, it takes me seven eight steps to straighten my back. Do you remember that song; Peter, Paul and Mary might have done it?

“Work your fingers to the bone and what do you get?
Boney fingers. Boney fingers.”

That was my old man. It’s beginning to look like it’s going to be me. Sometimes I can feel my fingers trying to twist over one another. I have to grab them and force them back. Who’d a thought?
It seems life is about getting sidetracked. Best laid plans, as they say. It ain’t till your looking back you can see where you’ve been going and you thank whoever there is to thank if you’re in a half way decent place because there’s no going back to change things and how ever far you are when you look back there’s always more coming. And things don’t ever stop, at least not when your eyes are open, usually not even then.
So what choice is there? I’ll keep living the life I got, breathe in breathe out, keep stepping out having faith there’ll be something to catch my foot when it comes down.

Cold feet vs pie

2011-11-28T09:12:00.002-06:00

The economy being what it is, this winter is going to be hard on a lot of people. I write this sitting in my kitchen with my fleece vest on, putting off as long as I can turning on the pellet stove. Well, I have a pellet stove to put off turning on. And I’m not going to go hungry or lose my house. I have a lot to be thankful for and I could write about that, but that’s not what this post is about. This post is about the widening gap between the one and the ninety-nine.
This post is about fat cats here in the states knowingly selling a lot of people a bill of goods, making an obscene amount of money, and, not only getting off, but getting huge bonuses for piloting their ships into the rocks. It’s not like they didn’t see the rocks. They were in plain sight. And everybody knows what they did. There is no mystery, or if there is it’s how much governments were a part of this gigantic Ponzi scheme?
And what of the ninety-nine? We’re getting cold here. We’re putting on extra clothes and downgrading our dinner menus. We’re buying used tires. We’re adjusting the hell out of our expectations. We seem to have the right to free speech as long as we don’t cause any inconveniences to commerce. People are getting arrested for trampling the grass while those trampling on the lives and futures of millions are getting another piece of pie.

Remember The White

2011-11-26T09:48:00.000-06:00

Everything is broken, in the sea, on the land, in the air, and we who go about proclaiming our knowledge; we are the most profoundly broken of all. The best of us, with the best of intensions, hit so wide of the mark, are so blind to the infinite amount of things we do not know existing outside the reach of our puny grasp, we fail to judge rightly the inadequacy of our assumptions, refuse to understand the infinite cannot by us be divided into its components, studied under a microscope, and figured out.
This is the failure of both the Red and the Blue factions. The limitations of their private vision elude them obscuring the wisdom of the other and the foolishness of the self. They cannot hear the other not because they are deaf, but because of the belief there is nothing to learn.
The dragons of the Black are not hindered by this dilemma. The single mindedness of their devotion concerns itself only superficially, if at all, with the discussion of right or wrong. The bottom line is always the bottom line. All things must come under subjection to it. Mercy is only a viable option if it serves the ultimate goal of accumulation.
There is a longing for the White to come forth, to speak a new hope into the realm of the dispossessed beginning to occupy the public squares; the cobbled together meeting places, clamoring inarticulately for a better way. The White has been silent for too long. Its voice is barely remembered. It is like a word on the tip of the tongue one fails to grasp. Then, when one least expects, it suddenly burst forth, and White is remembered and believed. This is the only thing the Black fears.
Let this be the cry; Remember the White.

The Hall of Wizards

2011-11-24T09:08:00.001-06:00

The hall of wizards is in an uproar, divided Red and Blue. They raise their fists across the aisle shouting accusations, hurling counter spells until nobody knows what confusion their magic brings.
In secret chambers upon the great wall gleeful hands are rubbed together. Overlords assure one another. “The fools,” said the fattest. “Let them argue. Let them believe their own lies. Let them fill their grubby pockets with our leavings. As long as they are at each other’s throats they leave ours alone. Always have we profited. Always has our secret incantation been proclaimed. Let the Red and Blue squabble among themselves. The tentacles of our dragons continue to multiply, search out ever more pockets. We continue to prosper. It is good to be in the Black.”
“Hail the Black.”
“Oh yes. Hail we Black wizards.”
And all their bellies shook as they roared out, “Hail the Black wizards.”
“What of the White? They attempt to stir the rabble.”
“Let them stir. It will be a weak broth. None believe in the White. Without belief their spells amount to nothing.

2011-11-23T08:43:00.000-06:00

In the old days dragons hid in the dark recesses of the earth guarding their hoard of ill-gotten treasure. Today they sit on their treasure and gloat in broad daylight. Those of the occupy movement are the peasants with their pitch forks and torches, slightly amusing to the ruling class until the rabble become too much of a nuisance at which point the king’s men are called out to disperse them.
I don’t know where the dragon slayers are. The only one I know is Ralph Nadir and he is getting to old even to tilt at windmills.
The church, as usual seems to have taken residence with the dragon. They drink tea together lamenting days gone by when the rabble seemed to know their place.

Woops

2010-07-20T06:36:00.003-06:00

July 8, 2010
Avascular necrosis is the death of bone tissue due to a lack of blood supply. Also called osteonecrosis, avascular necrosis can lead to tiny breaks in the bone and the bone's eventual collapse.

For reasons unknown, I have it and I could be on crutches for months. Let me express a great big crapola.

July 10, 2010

I’ve been wrestling with God all my life. I suppose it was only a matter of time before touched my hip.

Avascular necrosis.

It’s the death of bone tissue due to lack of blood. In more graphic layman’s terms, I’ve got a hip joint rotting in my left leg. It is extremely painful if I walk on it. It’s painful just to sand up, to move to joint at all. I’m taking vicadin, however you spell it for the pain. I’ve been on some kind of painkiller for six month now so I’m not sure how it would feel au natural, but I get twinges just sitting. So I’ve had a stroke. I’ve got a couple tears in my rotator cuff, a hernia, and now this.

A friend of mine would ask me, “What is God saying to you in all this?” Jackie thinks He’s telling me to finish my novel. For me, that came through loud and clear with the stroke. So other than things don’t necessarily only come in threes, I’m not really sure.

I am avoiding talking about the good possibilities, like after the touch comes the blessing. Maybe He’s about to bless my socks off and He’s telling me to get ready. I’ve been reminding Him a lot these days He promised not to give me anything to heavy to bear. Maybe he’s telling me I can carry a lot more than I think I can carry. Wait. Now that I think about it, that doesn’t fall into the good things category.

July 13, 2010

I’ve been dreaming of a new life. Me and Jackie chucking it all and movingt to Italy. Perhaps understandable since the life I’m living now involves all my recent medical irregularities. The newest one is my left hip joint beginning to rot inside my leg. Unfortunately this is not an exzadurate. The medical term is avascular nacrosis. It’s the death of bone tissue due to insufficient amounts of blood leading to deterioration and eventual collapse. In some cases, with treatment the bone can regenerate. At the other end you get a new hip. So I could be on my way to becoming bionic.

July 20, 2010

So what I actually have is called an impingement on my left hip. I also have one on my right hip but that’s not bothering me now. They’re going to treat it with a shot of steroids to the hip joint. If I was younger they would do arthroscopy surgery a shave the little lump of bone that’s screwing things up but, apparently, in us old folks, it has a tendency to make thing worse. So I have to get the shot every six months or so.

I’m scheduled for the injection on Aug 11. It’s a tricky shot and the have to do it through radiology so the can see were to place it. I forgot to ask the implication of getting radiated every six months. Right now I’ll assume it a very low level dose and I don’t have to worry about it.

They said I can’t do damage by walking on it and I’m under no restriction so, if I can stand the pain, I’m allowed to do it, which means I’m off the crutches. I’m going to try walking for a day or two and if that works I’m going to try a go back to work.

This is all very good news as the alternative is a new hip and six months of rehab before I could work. With this, I could be back to work in a few days and at worst in about a month.

Woo hoo, praise God, and all that good stuff.

Fear And Trembling

2010-05-21T09:56:00.008-06:00

Jackie, my wife, has encouraged me to write about this depression thing with out a censor, so if your squeamish or the sensitive type or easily upset by foul language you probably shouldn’t click the link for my blog, or if you did, you should probably quit reading now.

I can feel my throat tightening as I think about doing this and anger welling up. I’ve learned to be sociably acceptable, to tone myself down and sanitize my language, for my Christian brothers and sisters yes, but also for the rest of the population. Some of this is good, trying not to offend my weaker brother or sister or children.

The reality of me, Mike Lipuma, Christian man, is not pretty. Don’t get me wrong. I know I am redeemed, loved by God, but I am not talking about that side of me right now. I am talking about the side of me that makes it a good thing for me His mercies are new every morning.

Just a bit ago I wrote something to post on Facebook, a simple little statement, and several words were misspelled. (In the interest of clarity I will be censoring that part of me that can’t spell) Anyway, in my endeavor to get into the uncensoring mood, this rift of familiar condemnation went through my head wondering what the fuck I thought I was doing, trying to write when I still spelled like an imbecile, something like that, fucking imbecile was there.

Now I’m spiraling into something about shutting my mouth because I really don’t have anything to say and it’s all a bunch of narcissistic bullshit and I ought to quit bothering people. That bothering thing has been with me for a long time. Every time I want to make a phone call to somebody I know, it’s there, and especially if it’s somebody I want to know. (I’m re-reading this now and I caught myself thinking, God, how pathetic) When I see two people talking, it doesn’t matter where, it’s always a battle to get myself to say something. The idea of what I have to say not being important enough to speak, I’ve had to learn to circumvent. These days it’s a God thing that allows me to open my mouth. My thinking goes this way. God made me to be who I am and to be visible in the world, to speak what is true for me. When I do not speak the truth in love, I am telling God to go fuck Himself because I refuse to be used. Speaking is an act of obedience for me. It is, by the way, a sobering and humbling thing to admit I tell God to go fuck Himself on a regular basis. Maybe I don’t use those words, but you know what they say; actions speak louder.

Every once in a while I tell God things would be a lot easier if He would arrange to put a stray bullet in my head, or maybe a car accident, most typically after a fight with my wife after one of us has said something no spouse should say to the other one. Sometimes I am just so tired of struggling to be alive that a bullet seems like a viable option. Don’t get all freaked out now. I’ve always been too much of a chicken shit to kill myself and if I haven’t done it by now I’m not going to.

I feel like such a cliché now, a whiney little fuck.

Sometimes I wish I could just weep. Sometimes I think if I start I’ll never stop. Sometimes I think I’m not worth the tears. Christianity is sometime such a paradox for me. It gives me hope, but it doesn’t necessarily get rid of the despair. I so want to leave that behind. There is talk of the “now” and the “not yet;” the not yet of the coming kingdom and the now of living through the process of getting there.

In the now we get glimpses of the not yet in the Amish community in Pennsylvania befriending the wife of the man who murdered their children, or in my church helping us out with our mortgage while I convelesce from my stroke, in people like Desmond Tutu leading the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, or the part Christianity played in the Solidarity Movement in Poland or the Civil Rights Movement here.

I’m sure I don’t have to mention examples of the other side of the coin. You can come up with enough places where the world and its people are broken all on your own. If you are willing to look, you can find the places where you’re broken. There are plenty of times in life when it is appropriate to weep. I think we all have much to grieve. After all, it is in the now with all it’s fucked up shit that we all have to live. Before conversion I used live trying to make sure things didn’t suck much more than they already did before I died.

I’ve been a Christian for at least twenty years now, all that time learning how to hope and not lean on my own understanding of things, to understand that my despair is not the truth about how things are. Christianity is not opposed to the concept of the yin and yang. My despair, which I despised with a powerful hatred for a very long time, I have learned, is also a coin with two sides. It’s like the theory of relativity: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. As much as I have despaired, so I am capable of that much hope. As much as I have felt abandon, it is with that much sureness I am found.

I don’t know if despair and sorrow is where everybody’s art comes from, but it is the source of mine. Slowly I learn to see beauty and hope, that my despair is the mirror I see through dimly. But in the now, the sorrow will always be there, it is the cross I am commanded to pick up. It is the weight giving the rest of my life substance. There is a book I’ve called the most terrible, beautiful novel I’ve ever read. It is called The Last Of The Just. It was written after World War II by Andre Schwarz-Bart, a French Jew trying to come to terms why so many willingly walked into the gas chambers.

Christianity is like that, terrible and beautiful at the same time. Some one said, “Life is hard if you do it right.” I don’t know where my next statement is, theologically, so keep that in mind. I don’t think Christianity is for everybody. If you want a nice easy life with no troubles, my advice is for you is to run the other way as fast as you can. On the other hand, if you want something real and you're willing to put up with some shit, I don’t know a better place to find it. Keep in mind; it’s not no bed of roses. Biblically speaking, there are very few out right commands; you know, do this, don’t do that. One of them is, “Work out your salvation in fear and trembling.” Note it is in present tense. Now. In fear and trembling. Doesn’t that make you just want to jump on board?

New Mercies

2010-05-19T15:55:00.002-06:00

The people with a spiritual bent of the medieval period tried various methods of self-piety and abasement to find their way to holiness. Pebbles in their shoes, hair shirts, ice water baths, and self-flagellation were some of their methods. Anchorites used to wall themselves up with only a little hole to pass food and excrement through. Some ascetics sat in trees, tying themselves in. For some, over time, the coarse ropes would rub and chafe on the skin, dig it self in. They would try and out do each other, going higher in the tree, staying up longer. One famous ascetic stayed up long enough for his skin to grow back over the rope and his cloak, like a tree gown into a chain link fence. When I think about dropping my guard against the depression, I feel like that ascetic: the guard grown into the fabric of my being.

I remember a dream. There’s this pretty little storybook house with closed swinging barn like doors to an upper loft. The house was not taller than I am and as I reach out to the upper doors, they burst open reveling an enraged, terrified little boy. In his fist he’s got a grade school protractor made out of steel, its curved edge a sharpened blade and he’s swinging it at me wildly, screaming, “Get out. Get out. Get out.” The boy is very young, four or five, and of course, he is me.

That’s how the guard works, indiscriminately keeping everything out. I used to live my life with two rules: Don’t fuck with me and we’ll get along,” and “I don’t come out and you don’t get in.” I’ve made considerable progress over the last twenty years, bit by bit opening myself to others with the help of the Holy Spirit and those He has brought into my life; principally the Safe Place/metanoia people, my work groups, New Adam, and by no means last or least, Jackie my wife. But it seems there is always more darkness to bring into the light.

When I was about the age of the boy in the dream my uncle, a fat grease-ball in a suit, watch fob and all, would sit at the head of the kitchen table. He was my father’s older brother, the one who bullied him into adult hood. The man he worked for. He’d come over in his late model Cadillac, walk in like a fat prince. My mother made his something to eat. My father sat at the table with him and poured him shots of whiskey, and call to my mother when they needed a beer. A place setting was set before my uncle and then he would call to me in Italian, “Miguel, vin aquee.” Something like that.

“Your uncle’s calling you,” My father would say.

Eventually I would be standing along side him, just tall enough to see over the table. He made me get him a knife, usually sending me back for a sharper one. The he’d start telling me how much he liked me. In fact, he liked me so much he wanted to eat me up. Fork and knife ready in his hands, “Put you hand in the plate,” he told me.

“He just playing with you,” was all my father said. My mother stood staring into her pot at the kitchen stove.

After much stern cajoling my hand would be in the plate. I wouldn’t jerk it away when he reached with the knife and fork. He’d mention how plump a juicy my fingers looked and witch knuckle he would start cutting at and he put the knife to my finger so I could feel it’s sharpness, and he would say something about not spoiling his appetite and how I was probably to stringy anyway, a scrawny little thing like me. My ma would bring him his food. My father poured him another shot.

“Come on now. Don’t be a baby. Your uncle’s just playing with you. Char? Give him a piece of bread and butter.”

What I wonder is, if I remember that, is there more I don’t remember? Is there still something behind the doors of the storybook house the little boy is afraid to let me see?

I‘ve been thinking about the dream, that the protractor maybe means school, which would fit with the storybook. At Saint John’s, I flunked second grade, every subject, and every category, without exception. I received an unsatisfactory in every little box on the card save one. I don’t remember the exact wording, but basically, it said my grade were satisfactory considering what the child was capable of.

In second grade sometimes we were put in the coat closet/storage room for punishment. I remember hiding in the coats, a wet fur winter smell, and the fur against my face. All the other teachers I had at Saint John’s were nuns. My teacher for second grade I remember as a young girl. I pretty sure she pulled down my pants to spank me now and then and sometimes I got sent home for peeing in them.

It’s hard to tell that far back what is memory and what is a story I’ve cobbled together over the years or if it even makes much difference when you go that far back. I don’t know if I can go deep enough to get to the bottom of thing. When it comes down to it, I don’t know if there’s a bottom to get to. To paraphrase Paul, who will save me from this retched body of memory? Thanks be to God, Whose mercies are new every morning and Who makes broken things whole.

Sunday's Coming.

2010-05-18T07:31:00.001-06:00

I don’t really want to write about this, but my wife, Jackie asked me to. She said it was important for me to write it while I was in it.

I’ve fought depression all my life as far as I know. I know some have it a lot worse than me, or I tell my self that. I really don’t know what it would be like if I didn’t fight it and now I have theses pills that are supposed to make it better in a week and a half so I’m trying to let myself feel what I feel, to stop fighting enough to really get a look at it and that’s really scary because I know enough about it enough to know it’s a place of hopelessness, the opposite of faith. It’s the opposite of my faith, anyway.

A guy I knew, or I knew as well as you can know anyone who is really depressed, a fellow believer as far as I know, on a Easter morning, I think, waved to an El train conductor right before he jumped it front of the train. I talk to people afterward to see if I could figure out if we failed him somehow. From what I could tell people better than me, more compassionate than fearful anyway, bent over backwards to try and be there for him. He chose, or did not know how to chose anything else, not to receive the help.

I’ve been telling Jackie I’m waiting for the Zoloft to kick in. To her, it sounds like a choice I’m making. Yesterday she asked me if I was still on my island, giving me the metaphor to describe it. Immediately I saw the island, deserted, bare, and surrounded by treacherous waters breaking on the rocks. I’m still here and I don’t know how to get off. It’s a perpetually gloomy place, with occasional barrages of thunder and lightening. Do you know that opening for ”Mystery” on public television where it’s a graveyard and there’s thunder and lightening and there’s a damsel running back and forth going, ”Oohhhh. Oohhhhh,” really plaintive and forlorn like? That’s sort of what it’s like, if you take all the humor out of it.

So I’m here waiting wondering if I really let my self feel if I’ll just start sobbing and cry all over my laptop enough to short it out. I’m making jokes. I’ve got a very dark sense of humor. I’ve often said, maybe not so bluntly, I make jokes when the alternative is sobbing, when my feelings of helplessness and despair are ready to overwhelm. I’ve known for a long time now, the sobbing I carry very close to the surface, maybe so I can keep an eye on it, so it can’t sneak up on me in public. I’ve learned to compensate in sociably acceptable ways.

That makes me wonder how much of myself I’ve missed. Maybe this is where the grief comes from, the parts of myself I’ve learned to indiscriminately kill. Christianity teaches me I supposed to die to self. It never occurred to me the alternative to that is what I have learned to do, rather then letting Christ put to death those thing that keep me from being fully who I was intended to be, I’ve taken a slash and burn approach. It is no wonder I perpetually feel the desire to weep.

Don’t get me wrong. I know there are many things in this world besides me to weep for. I don’t know maybe we depressives view them as a black hole of grief we dare not get to close to. I know I do guard myself. Vigilance is something I am used to, an old habit hard to put down. Maybe that’s what I’m waiting for, lowering my guard and finally letting others into places not even I’ve been to?

A while ago, before I was married, almost a decade ago, I remember God saying to me, “It’ time.” When I met Jackie, I thought, that’s what He was talking about. Then I thought it was getting married. I keep thinking, oh, that’s what it was about, and then a little time goes by and I realizes it was just another step along the road to a place he will show me, each step needing a bit more faith than the last one. I don’t know. Maybe this is what He was talking about, time to look at these last dark spaces inside me. Even as I write that I know they are not the last ones, just the next ones.

If there’s always more, maybe the Zoloft is like the seventh day. Maybe they’ll give me enough peace with myself I can begin to accept the Sabbath, a day of rest. That would be nice.

Resurection

2010-05-15T09:19:00.004-06:00

I use to work at the North Suburban Postal Facility, a two-city block long mail warehouse in River Grove, Illinois. Sometimes I’d work in a cubical in front of a compartmented stand with slots for all the north suburban zip codes. Somebody would come by with trays of miscellaneous mail that did not get sorted by the letter sorting machines and I would sort it manually. If you’ve read Post Office by Charles Bukowski you have some idea of what that was like, but that’s a story for another time.

I think of the brain as somewhat like that stand of compartmented slots, each with a category to store information. In the stand at the PO was a miscellaneous slot for mail I didn’t know what else to do with, say a piece of mail from Peotone, clearly not north suburban. I figure there’s a miscellaneous slot in my brain, too, for information I don’t know how to categorize.

I used to have what I called blank spots. In them I was very confused and I couldn’t figure out what was going on with me at all. When I came out of them, days, weeks, sometimes months later, it seemed I had figured things out I didn’t know before they started. Eventually I figured the blank spots were my brain shutting down because the miscellaneous slot in my head had got to full. At the PO, someone came around to empty the micsilanious slot every now and then. In my head I figured the way it got emptied was for my brain to kind of go off line, except for the thing that got me through my day, and reexamine all the information and experiences and reshuffle and make new categories to fit and explain the new information and how it related to the old.

Thinking this, I had an idea. What If I could induce the blank spots artificially? Wouldn’t that make me figure out thing faster? I decided to give it a try. Better living through chemistry, I figured. Work or not, it became my rationalization for getting extremely high every now and then, once or twice a year or so, until the experiments gradually merged with my everyday life style. I ended up in Wisconsin in a crummy farmhouse with retreads on a car that wouldn’t start without a jump. For a while though, from my perspective the self-induced black spots actually seemed to work.

A word of warning, though; along with the bad car in Wisconsin, I figure I lost ten years of economic productivity doing this, so it is not something I would recommend, not to mention the risks involved when not thinking clearly in the blank spots and the very real possibility of overdose. I consider myself very lucky to have survived my experimentation and one of the reasons I undertook them is I probably figured it would be no great loss if my brain shut down permanently.

That said, I hadn’t noticed a blank spot for a very long time, decades. Now, looking back, I think I’ve been in one for quite some time and I’m wondering if it started with the first stroke. If this is so, the implications are quite astonishing, especially when I think about the Christian walk and brokenness and resurrection. Add to this the Zoloft, which is, for the first time, supposed to take away the negative aspect I’ve been putting on things all my life, and give me the ability to concentrate more and think more clearly. This puts me on the verge of the biggest paradigm shift and leap of understanding I’ve ever been through.

I find it quite exciting and interesting to be in the unusual position of witnessing my own resurrection.

Invisible Monkeys

2010-05-12T10:21:00.002-06:00

Depression is something I have acknowledged fighting all my life. My stroke has exasperated these struggles and so I sought a prescription of sertraline, the generic name for Zoloft. A friend of mine in my men’s group mentioned it after hearing of my emotional response to my wife and having a similar response helped by the anti-depressant.

My stroke rehab doctor prescribed 25MG a day and recommended I see a psychiatrist in conjunction with it. I figured why pass on free therapy from the VA?

I had my evaluation on Monday. It was, to say the least, an eye opener. The first thing the psychologist I met wit first mentioned is that this is not my first stroke. The MRI’s I had taken while in the hospital showed a previous stroke on the frontal lobe. Apparently, sometimes they don’t tell you. It was the neurologist decision, I assume, so as not to freak me out. My rehab doctor did not know. There is no way to tell when it was, only that it was old; three months, three years, they can’t tell.

I’ve talked to my wife about it and we think it happened during the spring of last year, when I lost all my patience and started feeling really tired all the time. I also remember some confusion at work and an inability to concentrate.

The previous stroke was revelation enough, but it was also suggested that I have long term, low-level depression. It was first broached as a possible negative aspect in my view of things, the question being weather it was long term or brought on by the strokes. In the men’s work I do we often as each other to try something on, to see if a thing fits. As soon as I heard it, I knew it fit.

I can best describe it as a nagging question, a constant asking if I am enough, and the answerer being, not quite. You can see where the fatigue comes from, the never ending striving for something jut out of reach. Is it Sisyphus? Or is he the guy continually rolling the rock up the hill? I looked it up. He’s the rock guy. All day long her rolls the rock up a hill. Every morning it’s back at the bottom. I think there another guy chained just out of the reach of food. Same difference. A never-ending, never fruitful labor.

The new information answerers a lot of questions for my wife and me, like why, from my wife’s point of view, I went off the rail last spring. I didn’t catch it. I notice now in retrospect. For my wife, she doesn’t have to take my moodiness and outburst of anger personal. It’s a brain thing. Chemical imbalance, maybe. She knows it’s not directed at her.

For me, I can understand she was not making everything up and, with the sertraline; I have something of an answer on the horizon. I’m actually beginning to be excited about it. It seems I don’t know what it’s like not to be depressed, that learning to live with it, to function in a basically sociably acceptable way is not the same thing as living. I had been asking myself why I couldn’t figure this marriage stuff out, why I couldn’t get hold of my emotions.

I don’t like finding out I’ve been carrying this low level depression thing all my life, like an invisible addiction I couldn’t quite make out, a nagging suspicion I’d catch glimpses of every once in a while, a monkey on you back is one thing. An invisible one is something else. There’s something wrong but you can’t quite put your finger on it. You suspect sometimes you’re just making shit up to give yourself an excuse. I recognize knowing is better than not, but I feel like the hole I sometimes suspected I was in just got confirmed and it’s a lot deeper than I thought it was.

The up side is the sertraline. They increased my prescription to 50MG. I’m wary of it, but they say it’s supposed to help; it addresses the chemical imbalance or whatever. I have this idea that it’s going to fix the not quite, that for the first time in my life I’ll like myself with out reservation, that I’ll be able to trust myself, that my thoughts will be clear and not a confusing jumble I’m forever trying to sort out. That’s a scary thought. I think I’m on the edge of it. But I’m not there yet and I don’t know how to live over there and I feel like for the first time I’m about to find out what I really think.

Ready or not, hear I come.