Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Monday, August 4, 2008
Fifty
This is the last day on which my daughter’s age is the square root of my age. I have realized this just today, so have only a few hours in which to contemplate it. Tomorrow, August 5th 2008, I turn fifty. The square root of fifty is something with too many digits I suspect. Besides contemplating the ratio of my daughter’s age to mine I suppose I should be contemplating the Great Moments Of My Life. Or the Moments That Changed My Life or Shaped My Life. It’s all quite accidental probably though I do detect a certain pattern, not of deliberate Fate but of certain opportunities taken and certain pitfalls avoided. The opportunities missed and the pitfalls into which I have fallen, let us pass over. I have a habit of going back to seemingly quite small incidents. I was living in London and had been fired from a job (yet again) and went in search of something to pay the rent. I interviewed for a short term position overseeing a painting competition. Of course they asked if I had any experience in fine art or painting (the two, presumably, not necessarily coinciding) and I said I did not. Because I needed a job quickly I took the first offered, working in a wine bar in Covent Garden. The painting people called back, to my astonishment, and offered me the job there. I would have much preferred to spend my time with artists and because I have a knack for convincing people that I am competent, even truly efficient and dedicated, I imagine I would have found myself immersed in the world of London Fine Art. I might even have stayed in that grey and lovely city, though the UK at the time was a place of anger and violence, most of it perpetrated by the government and I was exceedingly unhappy there. So I served the avaricious new Conservatives their Rioja, a word none of them could pronounce, and planned to get out.
My first memory is of visiting my Uncle Bill on his deathbed. I didn’t know it was his deathbed, I was just doing my duty, but he died soon after. Bill and Aunt Alice gave me a child’s knife and fork. Which had blue handles. I like to think that having this as a first memory has shaped my life. I’m sure that’s nonsense, but nonsense is as true as anything else. My big brother mentioned something about the street where I was born while I was home this year. I thought I couldn’t remember anything about the three years we lived on that street but he mentioned a neighbor who used to cut our hair with hand clippers. I had this sudden surge of memory. Hughie Cooney was that neighbor and we used to play in some old abandoned houses at the top of the street, on the Stratford Road. We called them the haunted houses. We used old mattresses as trampolines and played Doctor. Hughie’s kids, Mick and Veronica, were always there. They knocked those houses down and built apartments. Even though they went up about forty years ago I still call them the new flats. Veronica is now terminally ill I learned on this trip. I am still trying to accept that. I think we were bouncing on a pretend trampoline about ten minutes ago.
When I’m home I usually stop in to the church I attended as a kid, where my mom and dad still go. I always have a very strong memory as I pass the priests’ house next door of standing on the semi-circular step in front of that house waiting for the housekeeper to open the door to our ring of the bell. My mom and I that is. I’d told mom and dad that I wanted to be a priest and so we went to see the parish priest, Canon Hirrel, a large, intimidating Englishman – you have to remember everybody where we lived was Irish, maybe an Indian or Pakistani or a West Indian family or two, but mostly Irish – and Hirrel was doubly intimidating, being educated and an Englishman. No one can talk down to others like a pseudo-educated English Catholic priest when dealing with Irish people straight off the boat. I loved the story of My Uncle Pakey, one of those single men who stood at the back of the church, ready for the run out the church door to the pub as soon as communion started, and the Sunday that Canon Hirrel approached him and the group of similarly single and thirsty men at the back. At Hirrel’s insistence the others had moved into the pews but Pakey stood his ground and Hirrel insisted one more time – Mr. Lee, please take a seat. Pakey hitched up his trousers and uttered the immortal phrase – Bollocks to you, Canon – and left the premises. My mother and I were ushered into the presence of the man defeated by my uncle, though I knew nothing then of the incident. He was delighted I felt I had a vocation. He suggested I take the exam for a boarding school in Staffordshire, fifty or so miles from home, where I would be educated while being groomed for the priesthood. As I remember he had gone there. So I did and passed with flying colors (where does that phrase come from, the Navy?). I learned Latin, the Catechism, that people can be inordinately cruel to each other and equally kind. That there is no way to describe the feeling of homesickness a boy has who faces the privations of a down at heel boarding school which delivers far less of an education than it promises and far more punishment and belittlement than most people we know have experienced. Or maybe they have, but at least it was at the hands of their parents whose job it is to kick us while we are down.
Maybe a life should be measured in jobs. One of my first and still most hated was in a car silencer warehouse. After leaving the school of Latin and belittlement, before starting college. I remember my first pay packet was eighteen pounds and forty six pence. I loathed almost everybody there and was loathed in return. When one foreman threatened to fire me I begged him to do so. He didn’t in the end. I have packed razor blades. Changed light bulbs. Cleaned toilets. Picked fruit. Sold tickets. Cleaned dishes. Cooked burgers. Worked for a lobbyist. Moved furniture. Worked in law offices, insurance companies, schools. Been a publicist. Worked in bars. Worked construction. Worked for an animation company. Painted houses. At the razor blade plant the foreman, looking disappointedly at a group of us working a packing machine and failing even in that, said, “I’ve worked this machine, a monkey could do this job”. I said, fearing that I would regret it forever if I did not say it, “Well, you’re proof of that.” Next job was laying cable for cable TV. I liked that job. I worked in administration for a theatre and became great friends with the manager there. We went drinking a lot. One morning he said – that drink last night went straight to my head. I replied – Well, Nature abhors a vacuum. He is still my closest friend. He interviewed me for the job because he thought a man named Lee must be Chinese and it would look good on the affirmative action/racial diversity report. He makes me laugh like no other person on earth. I gave up a perfectly good job changing light bulbs to go into theatre. I’d even unionized the light bulb changers – yes, there were several of us. They make a good wage now and have fabulous benefits. I have never loved anything as much as the theatre. It has given me everything valuable, including two of my wives. And with one of them I have become a father and loved another human being more than I ever thought was possible.
I am building a shed in the back yard. That’s what I will be doing on my fiftieth birthday. With help from a friend or two. It is almost beyond imagining that I live in Los Angeles, that I own a house here, that I am enjoying building a shed. I will look forward to my daughter’s coming home and my wife’s return from work and I will have dinner with them and a friend or two and a glass of wine or two. I have said, now and again, that if I had had my life to choose, I would almost certainly have chosen this one.
My first memory is of visiting my Uncle Bill on his deathbed. I didn’t know it was his deathbed, I was just doing my duty, but he died soon after. Bill and Aunt Alice gave me a child’s knife and fork. Which had blue handles. I like to think that having this as a first memory has shaped my life. I’m sure that’s nonsense, but nonsense is as true as anything else. My big brother mentioned something about the street where I was born while I was home this year. I thought I couldn’t remember anything about the three years we lived on that street but he mentioned a neighbor who used to cut our hair with hand clippers. I had this sudden surge of memory. Hughie Cooney was that neighbor and we used to play in some old abandoned houses at the top of the street, on the Stratford Road. We called them the haunted houses. We used old mattresses as trampolines and played Doctor. Hughie’s kids, Mick and Veronica, were always there. They knocked those houses down and built apartments. Even though they went up about forty years ago I still call them the new flats. Veronica is now terminally ill I learned on this trip. I am still trying to accept that. I think we were bouncing on a pretend trampoline about ten minutes ago.
When I’m home I usually stop in to the church I attended as a kid, where my mom and dad still go. I always have a very strong memory as I pass the priests’ house next door of standing on the semi-circular step in front of that house waiting for the housekeeper to open the door to our ring of the bell. My mom and I that is. I’d told mom and dad that I wanted to be a priest and so we went to see the parish priest, Canon Hirrel, a large, intimidating Englishman – you have to remember everybody where we lived was Irish, maybe an Indian or Pakistani or a West Indian family or two, but mostly Irish – and Hirrel was doubly intimidating, being educated and an Englishman. No one can talk down to others like a pseudo-educated English Catholic priest when dealing with Irish people straight off the boat. I loved the story of My Uncle Pakey, one of those single men who stood at the back of the church, ready for the run out the church door to the pub as soon as communion started, and the Sunday that Canon Hirrel approached him and the group of similarly single and thirsty men at the back. At Hirrel’s insistence the others had moved into the pews but Pakey stood his ground and Hirrel insisted one more time – Mr. Lee, please take a seat. Pakey hitched up his trousers and uttered the immortal phrase – Bollocks to you, Canon – and left the premises. My mother and I were ushered into the presence of the man defeated by my uncle, though I knew nothing then of the incident. He was delighted I felt I had a vocation. He suggested I take the exam for a boarding school in Staffordshire, fifty or so miles from home, where I would be educated while being groomed for the priesthood. As I remember he had gone there. So I did and passed with flying colors (where does that phrase come from, the Navy?). I learned Latin, the Catechism, that people can be inordinately cruel to each other and equally kind. That there is no way to describe the feeling of homesickness a boy has who faces the privations of a down at heel boarding school which delivers far less of an education than it promises and far more punishment and belittlement than most people we know have experienced. Or maybe they have, but at least it was at the hands of their parents whose job it is to kick us while we are down.
Maybe a life should be measured in jobs. One of my first and still most hated was in a car silencer warehouse. After leaving the school of Latin and belittlement, before starting college. I remember my first pay packet was eighteen pounds and forty six pence. I loathed almost everybody there and was loathed in return. When one foreman threatened to fire me I begged him to do so. He didn’t in the end. I have packed razor blades. Changed light bulbs. Cleaned toilets. Picked fruit. Sold tickets. Cleaned dishes. Cooked burgers. Worked for a lobbyist. Moved furniture. Worked in law offices, insurance companies, schools. Been a publicist. Worked in bars. Worked construction. Worked for an animation company. Painted houses. At the razor blade plant the foreman, looking disappointedly at a group of us working a packing machine and failing even in that, said, “I’ve worked this machine, a monkey could do this job”. I said, fearing that I would regret it forever if I did not say it, “Well, you’re proof of that.” Next job was laying cable for cable TV. I liked that job. I worked in administration for a theatre and became great friends with the manager there. We went drinking a lot. One morning he said – that drink last night went straight to my head. I replied – Well, Nature abhors a vacuum. He is still my closest friend. He interviewed me for the job because he thought a man named Lee must be Chinese and it would look good on the affirmative action/racial diversity report. He makes me laugh like no other person on earth. I gave up a perfectly good job changing light bulbs to go into theatre. I’d even unionized the light bulb changers – yes, there were several of us. They make a good wage now and have fabulous benefits. I have never loved anything as much as the theatre. It has given me everything valuable, including two of my wives. And with one of them I have become a father and loved another human being more than I ever thought was possible.
I am building a shed in the back yard. That’s what I will be doing on my fiftieth birthday. With help from a friend or two. It is almost beyond imagining that I live in Los Angeles, that I own a house here, that I am enjoying building a shed. I will look forward to my daughter’s coming home and my wife’s return from work and I will have dinner with them and a friend or two and a glass of wine or two. I have said, now and again, that if I had had my life to choose, I would almost certainly have chosen this one.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Political Gold
Tony Shwarz died today. You have probably never heard of him and yet he has had a profound affect on your life. He created the single most famous political advertisement ever made. It was in 1964 and in the United States Lyndon Johnson was running for President against Barry Goldwater. Johnson was the incumbent by virtue of the death of John Kennedy and Goldwater was that creature that would one day run the US, a radical conservative. The Republican Party, whose banner Goldwater carried, had been something of a mildly socially conservative party with a strongly conservative fiscal policy. From a liberal point of view they had some attractive qualities - such as a reasonable approach to race relations compared to Southern Democrats. Goldwater, however, was something else. A crusading anti-Soviet hawk, he was known to boast of his willingness to wage nuclear war against the US's greatest enemy. Schwarz created what is known as "the Daisy ad". In it, a little girl pulls petals off of a daisy, counting them as she does so. A stentorian man's voice, treated with a slight echo effect, superimposes itself and we realize he is counting down rather than up, in contrast to the little girl. In the background we see the image of a nuclear weapon exploding. This ad, which ran once, is still considered the threshold moment of so-called negative politics. There was such a reaction to it that it was pulled immediately. If you have never seen it , you should, it still carries a hefty wallop. Though it was attacked as beyond the pale, Johnson went on to win the election in 1964 by the largest margin ever.
We are about to enter another general election here in the US and I am waiting with baited breath for the ads. I like to think of myself as someone who is not swayed by such messages, but that's probably because I make my mind up very early and do not waver. Admittedly, had Clinton won the nomination I would be voting Green, but I'm a reliable liberal Democratic voter, so it's Obama. What if I were undecided though? What would influence me? Would Schwarz's ad have made me think Goldwater was a nutcase? I watch that now and think about the "coding" in it, the unspoken nuance, the perceived message. Will I see and hear ads that are coded references to Obama's race? Already there is blatant reference to McCain's unsuitability because of his age. Is that fair? As someone pointed out recently, given the choice between two candidates, one of whom had been a Representative for five terms, a Senator for ten years, Secretary of Stae and Ambassador to Britain, the other a member of the Illinois legislature, whom would you choose? The first describes James Buchanan, one of the worst Presidents ever, the second describes Abraham Lincoln. The opposite might equally be true. What if Obama really is an empty suit? There's a notion - which actually holds true to some degree - that really bright people make bad presidents. Roosevelt, for instance was no intellectual and Woodrow Wilson was. Obama is very, very bright. I hope he's also smart.
I am always wrong in my political predictions but I'm going to risk this anyway - the moment John McCain lost the 2008 Presidential election occurred on Tuesday June 3rd. He gave a very bad - and badly received - speech. The Great Losing Moment was when he began complaining that Barack Obama was calling a McCain Presidency "a third Bush term". McCain complained, "why does he insist on saying this over and over?" Here's something Lyndon Johnson understood and John Kerry didn't - he complained about the "Swift Boat Veterans For Truth" ads - never, ever, complain about the opposition's ads or their comments about you. Always respond with a more vicious and more wounding ad or comment. And, so,ladies and gentlemen, I give you President Obama by a landslide.
We are about to enter another general election here in the US and I am waiting with baited breath for the ads. I like to think of myself as someone who is not swayed by such messages, but that's probably because I make my mind up very early and do not waver. Admittedly, had Clinton won the nomination I would be voting Green, but I'm a reliable liberal Democratic voter, so it's Obama. What if I were undecided though? What would influence me? Would Schwarz's ad have made me think Goldwater was a nutcase? I watch that now and think about the "coding" in it, the unspoken nuance, the perceived message. Will I see and hear ads that are coded references to Obama's race? Already there is blatant reference to McCain's unsuitability because of his age. Is that fair? As someone pointed out recently, given the choice between two candidates, one of whom had been a Representative for five terms, a Senator for ten years, Secretary of Stae and Ambassador to Britain, the other a member of the Illinois legislature, whom would you choose? The first describes James Buchanan, one of the worst Presidents ever, the second describes Abraham Lincoln. The opposite might equally be true. What if Obama really is an empty suit? There's a notion - which actually holds true to some degree - that really bright people make bad presidents. Roosevelt, for instance was no intellectual and Woodrow Wilson was. Obama is very, very bright. I hope he's also smart.
I am always wrong in my political predictions but I'm going to risk this anyway - the moment John McCain lost the 2008 Presidential election occurred on Tuesday June 3rd. He gave a very bad - and badly received - speech. The Great Losing Moment was when he began complaining that Barack Obama was calling a McCain Presidency "a third Bush term". McCain complained, "why does he insist on saying this over and over?" Here's something Lyndon Johnson understood and John Kerry didn't - he complained about the "Swift Boat Veterans For Truth" ads - never, ever, complain about the opposition's ads or their comments about you. Always respond with a more vicious and more wounding ad or comment. And, so,ladies and gentlemen, I give you President Obama by a landslide.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Mail and male
I've been fetching my mail from my home every day and carrying it to the house where my family and I have been staying for the last three months. In case you're all thinking that some sort of war or ethnic cleansing has been taking place in Echo Park, Los Angeles, worry not. We've been having our kitchen renovated or redone or remodeled. I'm a guy. A cabinet's a cabinet. Actually, the kitchen is quite lovely. Mind you, there is a sort of ethnic cleansing going on but it's entirely economic. I found out today how much the developers of a block of condominiums is asking for the cheapest of their wares. Now, be aware that Echo Park was, even when we moved in seven years ago, a questionable neighborhood. You still hear gunfire often enough to believe that you live in a really cool area. These condos are going for $750 000 at the low end. Anyway, the mail, the post, the old fashioned envelope and enclosure. I remember when I was hugely excited at the arrival of the mail. I have lived much of my adult life a long way from the place I was born and grew up and, despite these distances, have kept in very close touch with my family and all of my old friends. A letter, that thing written in pen, stuffed into an envelope and sent thousands of miles - to Israel, Athens, Istanbul - was a link to what I still consider home. All those crossings out and indecipherable phrases were somehow heartfelt and all that manual labor just to get thoughts down on paper and then a stamp stuck on it takes it all that way, just to tell someone that mom is OK, dad's fit, your best friend from school got arrested, got married, had a kid, even got a job. I'd read those letters over and over just because they came from home and even though I had no desire to live back there again and all the people I would see only once in a very great while, it mattered that I knew where they were and who they were with. Of course, it still matters, but now there's e-mail. Instant messaging, Facebook. And I love e-mail. I just got back in touch with a friend from my last year of living in England - an unending year of misery that encompassed the Falklands war, but, as ever, good friends were made. I love the internet and its instantaneous effect. However I miss the envelope and the ink and the emotional impact that a letter has. When I go to the mail box now I dread the bills because that's about all that comes that I don't immediately throw away. I could write letters myself and I occasionally do but the electronic vice is hard to break.
I had another brush with youth and all that we half remember the other day. I saw a picture of Medvedev and Putin being installed as dictators of the New Democratic Russia - don't you just love how the Russians just love being told what to do - and they were framed alone against a massive set of red carpet-lined steps. Most significantly, they were both wearing suits that looked as though they didn't fit. That was the most noticeable thing about the Old Russians - Brezhnev, Gromyko etc., other than the blood on their hands - they wore the worst looking clothes. After selling off the oil, gas, coal, trees, dirt, tractors, newspapers, television stations, all the radio and all the radio spectrum, all the false teeth, all the garden hoes, all the uranium, gold,diamond mines ..... you'd think they could get better tailors. Is it some Hillary Clinton-like ploy - Hey, I'm just like you, look, I wear crappy suits, too (Hill wears pantsuits, of course because she's embarrassed by her ankles). Maybe it's a reminder that Russia is now back where it was, ruled by a few ex-KGB hatchet men and the suits are simply an outward sign of that.
I noticed something else today while I was looking at Facebook. I tried to hate Facebook because it has an intrusive quality to it but now I find it's a bit like those old library index catalogues where everything was on 3x5 cards and you'd be searching for "Darwin, On the Origin of Species" (note correct title, significant, for any creationist morons out there). Before you got to Darwin you'd hit some intriguing title and it would make you wonder if that book might be just as interesting as Darwin, who was very, very interesting let's admit. The most significant thinker/scientist of the last thousand years. But then I, quite seriously. consider Elvis Presley to be the most significant artist of the twentieth century. Note the use of the word, "significant". Not "greatest" (though he may well have been). Not "deepest". Just "significant". So, I'm looking at Facebook, where you can make these odd connections because someone happens to know someone who knows someone else and I notice that "cl" in the font the site uses closely resembles the letter"d". At least to my aging eyes. Here's what I saw: "Reach your customers before they start searching. Pay per click." However in their font it looks like "Pay per dick". I must now retire and ponder this.
I had another brush with youth and all that we half remember the other day. I saw a picture of Medvedev and Putin being installed as dictators of the New Democratic Russia - don't you just love how the Russians just love being told what to do - and they were framed alone against a massive set of red carpet-lined steps. Most significantly, they were both wearing suits that looked as though they didn't fit. That was the most noticeable thing about the Old Russians - Brezhnev, Gromyko etc., other than the blood on their hands - they wore the worst looking clothes. After selling off the oil, gas, coal, trees, dirt, tractors, newspapers, television stations, all the radio and all the radio spectrum, all the false teeth, all the garden hoes, all the uranium, gold,diamond mines ..... you'd think they could get better tailors. Is it some Hillary Clinton-like ploy - Hey, I'm just like you, look, I wear crappy suits, too (Hill wears pantsuits, of course because she's embarrassed by her ankles). Maybe it's a reminder that Russia is now back where it was, ruled by a few ex-KGB hatchet men and the suits are simply an outward sign of that.
I noticed something else today while I was looking at Facebook. I tried to hate Facebook because it has an intrusive quality to it but now I find it's a bit like those old library index catalogues where everything was on 3x5 cards and you'd be searching for "Darwin, On the Origin of Species" (note correct title, significant, for any creationist morons out there). Before you got to Darwin you'd hit some intriguing title and it would make you wonder if that book might be just as interesting as Darwin, who was very, very interesting let's admit. The most significant thinker/scientist of the last thousand years. But then I, quite seriously. consider Elvis Presley to be the most significant artist of the twentieth century. Note the use of the word, "significant". Not "greatest" (though he may well have been). Not "deepest". Just "significant". So, I'm looking at Facebook, where you can make these odd connections because someone happens to know someone who knows someone else and I notice that "cl" in the font the site uses closely resembles the letter"d". At least to my aging eyes. Here's what I saw: "Reach your customers before they start searching. Pay per click." However in their font it looks like "Pay per dick". I must now retire and ponder this.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
In all the horror of the Austrian father who imprisoned his own children, born of his own daughter, I find myself thinking of the power of the songs that stay in your head even if you don't want them to. I have to assume that this is all part of my not wanting to think about what went on in that house for all those years. It was reported that Herr Fritzl, the father/grandfather, was an "electrical engineer with interests in property management and retail underwear". So, like that awful song that sticks in your head, I will always think of Fritzl as the man who imprisoned his children and had a side interest in retail underwear. I noticed, also, that the children hidden in the basement were reported never to have been to school "or a disco". In what world does the notion of freqenting discos (are there any discos anywhere anymore?) automatically follow the shock of learning that a child has never been to school? Surely the next thought is about the child's health, or the child's ability to speak or interact with others. No, The Times of London is most interested in how a child will cope with a world he/she has never seen given that he/she has never been to a disco. How will the child cope? I mean, getting over the awful health problems, the psychological earthquakes, that's all fairly straight forward, but how does one cope with a lack of Gloria Gaynor? Who writes these articles? And how did every newspaper sink to the level of the Sun or the National Inquirer?
Saturday, April 19, 2008
How's it hanging?
The United States Supreme Court ruled the other day that a method of execution using injections of three chemicals is constitutional. There have been questions whether the first of these drugs renders the condemned sufficiently insensitive to pain and so avoids any possibility that the punishment is "cruel and unusual". The ruling does not surprise me in the least. Perhaps the truly significant moment in the report I heard was that during oral arguments in another death penalty case in which one of the anti death penalty lawyers talked about certain historical barbarities and the unfortunate frequency of judicial killings in the past, Antonin Scalia exclaimed, gleefully according to the reporter, "you mean the way it used to be?" We'll get back to Scalia in a moment, but first let's examine an interview that followed the Court decision. It was with an official from the state of Georgia which has, if I remember correctly, a hundred and seven inmates on death row. She said that the ruling meant that Georgia could now resume its execution schedule and begin dealing with "the backlog". After that beautifully expressed and deeply humane response she responded to the interviewer's next question about when exactly the "process" would begin. Well, she said, she was not certain. There are certain rules and protocols that have to be examined and a certain rigor employed in light of all the challenges to the death penalty, just so Georgia does not fall foul of that awkward little thing, The Constitution (my interpretation, of course, she said much more politic and evasive things). Now, here's my favorite moment: she told the interviewer that there would not be a sudden surge of executions - "you know, four a week or something" because "our culture just wouldn't tolerate that sort of thing". So, in case you are wondering about our "culture" (don't get me started on that one), it essentially can be boiled down to this, according to one state official in Georgia: when killing people, make sure you space them out. You see, that's the problem with the Chinese. They kill people almost daily and that's what makes them, basically, barbarians. If they killed people. oh, say, twice a month, well,that would constitute a proper "culture". Of course then they'd have a terrible backlog, but surely that's a small price to pay for becoming truly civilized
Now, Scalia. A member of Opus Dei. A devout, fulminating, proseletizing Catholic. An apoplectic reactionary, an Old School supporter of the most deeply conservative form of Catholicism, including the absolute submission of the Faithful to the teachings and rulings of the Pope. The Catholic Church, in all its teachings, in all its pronouncements, and at every opportunity, is absolutely and officially against the death penalty in any form and at any time.
Now, Scalia. A member of Opus Dei. A devout, fulminating, proseletizing Catholic. An apoplectic reactionary, an Old School supporter of the most deeply conservative form of Catholicism, including the absolute submission of the Faithful to the teachings and rulings of the Pope. The Catholic Church, in all its teachings, in all its pronouncements, and at every opportunity, is absolutely and officially against the death penalty in any form and at any time.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
I passed a truck the other day that had emblazoned upon it: “Christian Karate”. In case anyone thinks this blog is dedicated solely to religious observation and incident, fear not. There will be other topics, but it does stand out, doesn’t it? “Christian Karate”. It is possible, since I drove past the truck while it was parked and, therefore, had only a glimpse, that this truck belonged to a company owned by somebody by the name of Christian Karate. A florist or a fruit and veg man. However, this is the United States of America , admittedly full of people with all sorts of names - I remember when I worked in a theatre box office and frequently came across a subscriber by the name of Marshall Dump – and I think this truck was in fact owned by a dojo (note the breadth of my knowledge, throwing that little snippet of karate jargon in there.) I began pondering the notion of Christian karate. Did a group of people who loved karate, attended the dojo diligently, listened to the sensei (it just gets better and better), learned the moves and the philosophy, decide one day that they just needed to earn their black belt with fellow Christians? Were these agnostics and Jews, these Buddhists and Muslims, ruining the whole martial arts experience simply by being there and just, well, heck, NOT BELIEVING? Sometimes a karate practitioner simply loses all concentration just knowing that the guy or gal next to him does not believe in transubstantiation and the salvation of the soul. So, they start a new Christian dojo and people flock. Enough people to enable them to buy a nice looking truck. What does a karate gym need a truck for? Maybe it was a fruit and veg man.
There is another possibility. A group of entrepreneurs gets together and decides that the martial arts is a profitable niche. However there are bucketloads of martial arts teachers and gyms out there. We are rancid with sensei. How do we get folks to come to our gym? We could appeal to older people. We could try to attract the Japanese American crowd. Maybe find someone famous to stick his or her name on the door, pay them a small sum for their image rights. WAIT! Why don’t we go for the Christians? There are loads of them and they’ll accept almost anything you tell them – except that Jews go to Heaven, but that doesn’t affect the business plan. So. Christian karate.
Or, maybe, they see karate as reflective of Christ’s teachings. Jesus as the ultimate sensei. To get to Heaven you have to strive to be a black belt. It’s very Gandhi, very Martin Luther King Jr. Only used in defense. You have to do as you’re told and it costs money every week. Blessed are the yellow belts for they shall see more of the punching bag. There’s a very successful graphic novelist who has made a very good living drawing a Samurai rabbit. Apparently its ears are tied in a topknot. How it holds a sword without an opposable thumb I cannot say. That’s always bothered me in cartoons. The thumb thing. Even as a kid. Oh, sure, they can talk, I have no problem with that. But the swordplay, no.
I’ve got a few ideas for a business. Jewdo. Jew-jitsu. A basketball gym called Islam Dunk. Kung Fucious. An acting school that teaches Methodist acting. A new car racing circuit, Nascarma. Possibilities are endless.
There is another possibility. A group of entrepreneurs gets together and decides that the martial arts is a profitable niche. However there are bucketloads of martial arts teachers and gyms out there. We are rancid with sensei. How do we get folks to come to our gym? We could appeal to older people. We could try to attract the Japanese American crowd. Maybe find someone famous to stick his or her name on the door, pay them a small sum for their image rights. WAIT! Why don’t we go for the Christians? There are loads of them and they’ll accept almost anything you tell them – except that Jews go to Heaven, but that doesn’t affect the business plan. So. Christian karate.
Or, maybe, they see karate as reflective of Christ’s teachings. Jesus as the ultimate sensei. To get to Heaven you have to strive to be a black belt. It’s very Gandhi, very Martin Luther King Jr. Only used in defense. You have to do as you’re told and it costs money every week. Blessed are the yellow belts for they shall see more of the punching bag. There’s a very successful graphic novelist who has made a very good living drawing a Samurai rabbit. Apparently its ears are tied in a topknot. How it holds a sword without an opposable thumb I cannot say. That’s always bothered me in cartoons. The thumb thing. Even as a kid. Oh, sure, they can talk, I have no problem with that. But the swordplay, no.
I’ve got a few ideas for a business. Jewdo. Jew-jitsu. A basketball gym called Islam Dunk. Kung Fucious. An acting school that teaches Methodist acting. A new car racing circuit, Nascarma. Possibilities are endless.
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