9/21/20: Richard Thomas Body of Work Portfolio #writing #professional #art #poetry
Here’s an inventory of my body of work. The past is my foundation. The future is something new. I am very grateful and proud, and look forward to what’s next.
My website shows my professional experience and accomplishments, and includes an extensive bio and CV: http://www.richardthomasjd.com.
This is the writing of the Rick Blog arranged in chronological order and annotated. It is the view of the writing on the blog not as separate segments, but rather as a connected whole, transforming and striving towards and achieving unity. It is the story of the development of the writer, the writing and the changes in the writer’s world.
7/6/20: I am Richie #poetry#satire#sitcoms#CarlReinerI waited a bit to post about Carl Reiner. It was just too painful. I knew Carl very well. As many of you know, I played the character of “Richie” on “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” I was working under the stage name of Larry Matthews at the time. Carl named my character “Richie” en homage to my real name.My relationship with Carl was complicated. He never gave me credit for my ideas for the show. I begged him for a writing credit. I came up with Dick Van Dyke’s business with the ottoman — both the prat fall and the avoidance — which Dick, of course executed brilliantly. Carl just claimed the whole bit as his idea.Carl and I argued a lot. I thought “Richie” needed more screen time. He resented it I think, and he never made me the focus of an episode.I became bitter. Dick was drinking at the time and I would tag along. It became a problem for me as well as Dick.Mary Tyler Moore was a second Mom to me, in an Oedipal way.Carl never gave up on me. He kept me in the show for all of the difficulties — but what could he do — say “Richie” died in a car crash? That wouldn’t have worked comedically.Surprisingly, Carl and I kept in close touch. We were closer after the show went off the air. I introduced Carl to Steve Martin at a party. Carl didn’t know who Steve was.In later years, Carl and I worked together on political causes. We split again when I invited him to perform at a MAGA fundraiser that I was organizing.I was inspired to write this remembrance when I saw that the show runner of “Modern Family” shared his remembrance of Carl, and I had as much to do with Carl as that guy did.The “Modern Family” auteur said that he did sitcoms because of the inspiration of watching “Dick Van Dyke” reruns on WGN in Chicago when he was a kid.“Modern Family” is a professional effort. Carl Reiner had a joy and innocence and simplicity. “The Dick Van Dyke Show” was made at a time when entertainment was still a human endeavor — corporations mostly just bought what they thought they could sell — they didn’t know how to get involved in the process of making it.“The Dick Van Dyke Show” was a love child. “Modern Family” is 3-D printing.I am big. It’s the movies that got small.Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
7/8/20: Danny Thomas is My Father #poetry#satire#sitcoms#showbusiness#confessional#hgwellswaroftheworldsIn my last segment, I informed you that I was “Richie” on “The Dick Van Dyke Show”. I am embarrassed because I didn’t tell you the whole story of why Carl Reiner gave me the job.I am “Richie” as a result of nepotism. Danny Thomas, the popular mid-century entertainer was one of the producers of the Van Dyke Show. Danny Thomas got Carl to hire me.And Danny Thomas is my father.If you don’t remember my father maybe the photo that I have provided here will refresh your memory. Dad is pictured here with my sister Marlo and some sick kid.Dad didn’t love me, and Mom was always pushing him to give me a break in show business. He refused to cast me in his sitcom “Make Room for Daddy” even as he was constantly making a fuss over Marlo. I acted out and spread false malicious gossip about actor Hans Conried who played the popular character Uncle Tonoose on “Daddy” just to cause discord on the set.Dad was livid and set me up in a cottage at the Chateau Marmont to get me out of his house and off of his set. He promised me that he would find me a job in the business.I was determined to strike out on my own and was shopping screen plays around Hollywood. The most successful script was the first treatment that eventually became cult classic “Billy Jack” in the early seventies. Not bad work for a six-year old.Dad finally was able to make good on his promise to me a few years later. My turbulent years as the star’s real life son hanging out on the set of his big time TV show were three years behind me then.I was six, and had become a different person.I had grown up a little even if Dad wouldn’t give me credit for it.Carl had high emotional intelligence and immediately recognized the competition between me and my father. He knew Dad hated my guts and that I was determined to be my own man-child.Carl made sure that Dad wasn’t around when I signed my contract. We had lunch at the Brown Derby and inked the deal.When I was cast as “Richie”, I finally felt recognized for my intrinsic value as an artist and as a man.Of course, my joy was short-lived. I was always stunted by Dad’s shadow. Dad founded The St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital just to spite me. He showed so much concern for those kids’ lives, and none for my career.Dad bored me with his old-fashioned schtick, and his Church going. I tried to catch on in the adult film industry, but I was too short at the time.Marlo married Phil Donahue, who is a big liberal douche. Holidays are insufferable.Sitcoms are still being made, libtards still get laid, and they still try to beat child cancer, but all I have are my memories.Sometimes, things aren’t as grand as they look from the outside.Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
7/9/20: There She Is, Myth America #poetry
I’m afraid to leave the apartment
I don’t mean to go on a trip
I mean to go to the trash room
or get the mail
or pick up a package
Myth 1: We’re all in this together
Then why does no one in this building wear a fucking mask?
Myth 2: The future belongs to the bold. You have to take risks to live
I’m going to be 65 soon
I’ve never been in a serious accident
I’ve never had a major operation
I’ve never been divorced
I’ve never been even accused of committing a crime
I haven’t been trapped for years in toxic jobs, friendships or relationships
I’ve never had a problem with alcohol or drugs
Some of this is luck
but far from all of it
I don’t like danger
(in anything but art — which isn’t really danger at all)
I have successfully avoided danger most of my life
Now I feel surrounded by people who are stupid or insane or both
that have taken me hostage and forced me to ride a roller coaster that didn’t pass inspection
The impositions of the stupid and crazy
manipulated by the craven, the thoughtless, the greedy, the murderous and the mean
Delivery people
workmen showing more care for the building than the people in it
young fools
demented old people
Myth 3: We take care of our sick and elderly
I love an old lady
(not my Mom, who passed last year)
who lives in a nursing home
that has by miracle and luck
avoided being the scene of a COVID-19 outbreak
It has been a very good nursing home
Very clean and attentive to the people who live there
They announced
in a flowery, corporate quasi -religious sounding letter
That their first floor rehab unit will be opened to infected people
the overflow from other hospitals
I stopped reading
I didn’t need their bullshit reasons
Here is the reason
My old friend and her peers are expendable
Rich bastards don’t want to part with their money
so that proper temporary medical facilities can be built for the sick
Better to save the cash
and just throw the dying in with the old
the old — who were deemed by headquarters to have nothing left to live for
We don’t give a shit about the old or the sick in this awful country
Which brings me to
Myth 4: Listen to the boss
he will reward you with fun and security
Follow his orders
and eventually you will be be the boss
I have been criticized my whole life
for not “pursuing success”
for not “listening to authority”
for not “CONFORMING!”
My turn
let me criticize you
If you haven’t created a life to please yourself
and have never ceded your rights and responsibilities to another person or institution or group
for a lousy paycheck and a false sense of belonging
You are a fucking schmuck
Because the boss doesn’t give a fuck about you
You are his slave
You are his utilitarian object
He flatters you and threatens you
to steal from you
to get what he wants
You are a jackass
over the moon when he gives you an A
wounded by his disdain
internalizing all of his manipulative criticism
selling yourself out
and calling it humility
And now you see what the boss feels about you
Now when the chips are down
He feels nothing
Get out there and work
Go to school
Go consume
Get out there and die if you must
die a horrible, painful, lonely, miserable, lingering
death
Go die
The boss would step over your dead body
to pick up a quarter in the streets
Myth 5: Children are our future
America doesn’t give a fuck about its children
Children are consuming units in development
Cannon fodder
future drones on assembly lines
who are growing increasingly obsolete
props
encouraged not to think
made to obey
bribed with lollipops
taught by low-wage saps
who are ordered to wade into the viral fog
like the pawns at a meat packing plant
or the suckers carrying arms in Afghanistan
Children, teachers, staff
go die
Schools aren’t here to educate
they are a baby sitting service
so the parents
the grown-up children
can go die in the useless stupid jobs
and if the jobs are essential
the grown-up children can go do them until they die too
without the proper protection
Proper protection?
Money doesn’t grow on trees
Myth 6: Entertainment is a nice escape. People work hard and they need a diversion.
Bullshit
Entertainment is fucking mind control
Sentimentality
Ass kissing
Marketing
Sales
Lies
Lies to keep you in line
Lies to tell you what to desire
what to value
lies to keep you distracted
lies to steal your souls
to block you from your potential
to turn you into a thing
Entertainment kidnaps you
exiles you from participatory democracy
and turns you into audience
Gives you an insult comic President
Performance artist teachers
turns the law into public relations
and the Chicago Lakefront into a tacky theme park
Entertainment gives you shiny images
while you sit in squalor
Entertainment puts you into a shiny new suit
that will shrink and fall apart if you are caught in the rain
Hordes wander the streets of the city
in altered states
If no one sees reality
does it cease to exist?
Myth 7: There is no love. There is no meaning. Live fast, die young and leave a good looking corpse.
Complete nonsense
The artist (that’s me at the moment)
tells you this
You and we are so much more
than what we have been told
Open your eyes if you haven’t already
Life will be sweet
for those of us who survive
the mass human sacrifice
now in progress
Art is coming out of its furtive shadows
Nature is encountering delusion face to face
If you have an inclination toward love and what is true
Now is the time to be bold and outspoken
Now is the time to take responsibility
Now is the time to stand up for what’s right
Live and die for what matters to you
and not for the agenda
of the nihilistic will to power
naked empire
if its not too late
if they don’t kill you first
if they don’t kill me first
I feel better after writing this
but I am still wisely afraid to leave the apartment.
Be smart and careful out there.
Myth #8: Good triumphs over evil. Everything works out in the end.
(it’s always narrow, never wide or generous — the world is a miser who can be fooled out of his jealously guarded abundance)
And now is a time of waiting
I am primed at the gate
I have never been more confident in what I have written and more importantly what I am able to write
I know I am a transformative teacher
but I also doubt myself
it is my nature
and I was taught to do so
that somehow it is good to be humble
and I have incorporated this anxiety into my talent
doubt is a short step from wonder and curiosity
fear keeps one engaged
a frightened man in my psyche asks questions
and a heroic white knight,
Me the Artist saves Little Me …
Me the Artist tells me
“You can figure out anything
and you will survive
endure
and thrive”
And while these parts of me engage in their useful dialectic
Gremlins emerge
gremlins that will vanish
when the world gives me an opening
and my soul is fashioned beyond my body
in external reality.
My story is one of transcending people and places,
good riddance to bad rubbish,
but ghosts remain
and torment me as I wait
I may wait for days unbothered
but they always emerge
Writing helps me expel these demons
creatures far beneath me with whom I once stood in relation
Writing relieves me in that way
But I need a bit more than writing now
I need a school
and an artistic community
worthy of my gifts
I need a nation worthy of me
I need intelligent fellow citizens
of good character
I have some individuals
some readers
who both comfort me
merely because they exist
and tantalize me
there are places where people are like these people
collectively
there must be
schools
artistic communities
and nations
Only promised lands will relieve me completely of the misery of past hells
that I have mostly left
but hector me
inflammatory bacteria in the deep bases of my wounds
There is one guy who hurt me in a profound way
and he is anything but profound in his essence
What he does has nothing to do with me
His concrete reality is also a figment of my imagination
His real life and his malicious and insulting nature
is the inspiration for a suicidal cancer in my being
I am endangered by his second-hand smoke,
tormented by a self-destructiveness far beyond useful self-doubt
and the archetype of this asshole
his image in my mind represents despair and surrender
that is always fought back by my white knight creativity
but he exhausts me.
When I look at the real man
I see
nothing
a cipher
just the dark void of an asshole
the black hole above the rectum
just the shadow of the crack
not even the flesh.
A college dropout, who is rightly self-conscious of the fact
a hack improviser
who has developed a following of younger college dropouts
and unsophisticated let’s-buy-a-map-of-the-stars tourists
that is infatuated with drug humor
and is a disciple of the horrible and ridiculous Del Close
who acts as an opinion leader on Facebook recommending awful comedians and improv troupes
and has made good money doing voice work for radio advertising
(he’s really proud of that money)
and plays minor roles in some television comedies
always badly
I saw him play a dentist
on a good show
he had an arch look on his face
and acted in a way that would indicate he wouldn’t be allowed to push a broom in a dental school let alone take courses
That good show had plenty of other storylines about dentists
they never asked him back
The creator of the show finds his comedy in character
and is based in reality
He wanted something more than condescension
based on nothing but the fact that a stupid asshole wants desperately to look smart.
Normally, I wouldn’t be nasty about this asshole
But sometimes unimportant people
become important
because their lack of creative skill is compensated by a gift for destruction
that they direct at anyone or anything of excellence
that they rightly intuit as a threat
The worthy expose the frauds
by dint of their worthiness
They compete
They have to win
This asshole is a trivial representative of a great ailment of the world
and my mind
Why has this fool’s insults stayed with me?
I am insulted all of the time — by all kinds of assholes
I’ve known lawyers and teachers and neighbors like this jerk
Why has this inconsequential peon
who is not widely respected or recognized by the world at large,
this man who couldn’t fail because of his limited gifts
this man who was doomed to manipulate a tiny group of people
and play act influence and importance —
why have I chosen this pathetic tool as a rival?
That’s the real question.
I am embarrassed that my psyche has given this ineffective clown the status of being my rival.
I think I know.
He stole from me something that I foolishly wanted
(I’m the fool now)
I have transcended my roots long ago
My life as an artist started in the world of improvisation
I think that I am one of the greatest artists that ever came out of that community
Now I do something unique to me
not following rules
not playing games
not aping what older improvisers have done
and making superficial changes and claiming innovation
no — improvisation was just my school
where I discovered what was already within me
I am the greatest improviser
So great that I am no longer an improviser
I have taken improvisation and transformed myself and it into something else
No one writes like me
No one teaches like me
I am not merely talented
I am a genius
I’ve gone beyond the wonders Sills, Shepherd and Spolin
and exposed the pretender Close
I liberated “improv” from show business
and made it art
I wanted to be recognized by improvisers as such
Of course, that is not possible because I have transcended them
and while there are several individual improvisers who can see my greatness
because they are artists themselves
or have art flickering somewhere in their depths
I will never be recognized by the community as a whole
which is mainly dedicated to bad sitcom work and advertising
and led by hacks
or nice talented people who do nice professional work
but aren’t called to the outer reaches that are my destiny.
I irrationally feel that this asshole has usurped my position in the improv community
which is nonsense (see above)
I have no position in the community
and he is a Prince of Hacks
and the place of my art in the world presently
is largely obscure
So this jerk represents nothing more in my unconscious
than my impatience
Oh if I can rid myself of his influence it will be a huge step forward!
I watched a doc about Gore Vidal
I admire much about him
But the show revealed many fawning audiences and admirers with agendas of their own
and I felt badly for him
and for the part of myself that harbored that ambition
for applause and adulation
I take comfort in the example of Van Gogh
who was consumed with the questions of paint and light
Art is best when done for oneself
the approval of others be damned
That was something that Viola Spolin taught me
and Paul Sills understood in workshops but not always on stage
That was Second City’s original sin
Paul Sills was the Thomas Jefferson of improvisation
and I am the U.S. Grant
I really believe that all men are created equal
NOW
I don’t just state it as an aspiration.
I don’t qualify equality with some belief in success, which Sills had
(EXCEPT in this little piece of my mentality that I am writing today to expel).
It takes great confidence and determination to commit to being an artist
and this is the painful lesson
(all real lessons are painful)
that I am learning right now
Even for all of that
I wouldn’t write mean things about this jerk
if he hadn’t disrespected me
Somebody has to abuse me before I decide to slice him up with my pen
(I probably should work on that too —- the world
is on fire — it needs razor sharpness
The Andalusian Dog’s eye becomes the blade)
The artist can make everything work for himself
even his own pettiness
I am petty
deliciously, wonderfully
petty
I was at an Italian-American Anti-Defamation League Awards Banquet
My brother, a judge, was one of the honorees
and this hack — my irritant —- and his wife were there
They were Networking
Networking was their action
and is their essence
They were looking to make connections
they do Italian-themed work often
and they were pretty much alone that night
So …
They came up to me and spoke with me
desperately
I was useful
they wanted to appear to fit in
Later, when I was working as a lawyer in the Prudential Building
I ran into the asshole and another similar shallow asshole drinking coffee in a cafe in the basement
They ridiculed me as a failure
I was doing ethics trials and they were doing industrial shows,
but that was the mentality
They were bullies and I acted appropriately insulted
They should have been wannabe bullies
but I gave them too much power
But I never shook the bad feeling — for reasons that I mentioned above
I thought the last straw arrived when a mutual friend — who is quite successful in show business — dragged me and my wife to a show this ignorant creep was doing at iO
Typically he posed in a pseudo-intellectual manner
acted in a way that would only seem cool to people uninitiated to the condition
and talked about drugs
After the show, he refused to speak to me
attempting to embarrass me in front of our mutual friend
and demonstrate his dominance
again he found me useful
I more or less forgot about this transgression
But then he interfered in my relationship with a dying guy that I thought was my friend
Again saying that I was a failure and that my writing was a waste of time
blah blah blah
An artist has to expel these wet blankets who attack and insult
But it isn’t that easy
God I want that artistic community!
It’s lonely at the top
in air too rarified to be seen by mere mortals
I AM HAPPIEST WHEN I AM BLISSFULLY ALONE
and open to the companionship of kindred souls
but not dependent on that friendship.
Today, I will be small in the hope it will make me large
I have to fight this guy who is not worth the trouble
On this page
in my mind
This cipher
this shit on the heel of my shoe
He wrote a “book”
called “Improv at the Speed of Life”
Think about that title for a second
It means nothing
which is perfect
It just sounds good
— to someone who is not listening!
It is just marketing
and has no creative value whatsoever.
I understand what he is trying to say
It’s a good phrase for those radio commercials that he is so proud of …
Now read this blog
and think about the blog
This blog is something important
This blog has meaning
This blog is soulful and intelligent and deep
This blog shows reflection and struggle
This blog works for clarity
and is committed to telling the truth
This blog is
Art
This guy’s criticism of me is in the same category as Trump’s criticism of Obama
The salesman mocks the lawyer, writer and professor
Trump can’t beat Obama
He can lie about him
and steal from him
But he can’t usurp him.
Just because they have similar jobs doesn’t mean they do the same thing.
This is the terrible process that I have to go through
in order to stay on track
and get back on track
This is what I have to do in order to keep the faith
and nurture hope.
Thank you for listening.
I feel much better.
I hope this insight sicks
I’m sick of this particular useless pain.
We’ll see.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
7/14/20: Dogs Playing Poker #poetry #essay
Unity in multiplicity?
Melting pot or beautiful mosaic?
Cacophony morphing towards harmony?
Chaos emerging toward its inherent order?
Maybe it’s the pandemic
or maybe it’s the aging process
or maybe it’s just the way I’ve always been
The peculiar archetypes of my psyche come out to play
and tease out the purposes of my soul
The Writer is in charge. He deals every hand. For years he sat off to the side of the table and kibbitzed, tormenting the other players, all-knowing and impotent, never doing a thing, an incisive critic as the others haplessly tried to get something done. He was often exiled from the game, but always returned — humiliated but alive. The Writer wished he could be anything else. he didn’t want to be the way that he was, but he just could not help it. He is a force of nature, animated by one dominant characteristic — a compulsion to tell the truth. Honesty is not a virtue in the writer, it is a genetic characteristic. The other operative word in this description is “tell”. The Writer simply cannot stop talking. “I talk therefore I am.” The stream of the writer’s consciousness is a stream of fast-rushing words. Slow writers are constipated, fast writers have diarrhea. My Writer is a fast writer. My Writer’s constant processing and expulsion of toxins fertilizes the world — and relieves the Writer.
The Entertainer is the baby at the table, adorable and pathetic. The Entertainer is a romantic. He loves to love and be loved. He enters into a mutual pampering agreement with his audiences. They make sweet fusses over one another. The Entertainer always aborts his mission, however. The Writer makes sure of that. “TELL THE TRUTH YOU BIG PUSSY!” “STOP KISSING THEIR ASSES!” “JUST TALK. YOU DON’T HAVE TO CHARM OR BE CHARMED. YOU DON’T HAVE TO PERFORM MAGIC TRICKS. THE FLASH BECOMES THE MESSAGE, DON’T YOU GET IT. IT UNDERCUTS WHAT YOU WANT TO DO. HAMILTON THE BIOGRAPHY BY RON CHERNOW IS SUPERIOR TO “HAMILTON” THE MUSICAL PLAY BY LIN MANUEL MIRANDA!” The Writer can be harsh, inappropriate and mean. The Entertainer is a vestigial tail, a previous state from which the Writer evolved. But the Entertainer is also a leavening influence upon the writer. The Entertainer says, “You should be warmer, Writer, baby. Aren’t you touched when they laugh or are moved? Don’t you like it when you make them feel good? It’s kind of sexual, isn’t it? Don’t you want to be connected to the human race? Yes, what I do is immature, I admit it. But maybe there is a mystery in the human touch that you too readily dismiss. I am your impulse. We can coexist, can’t we? I respect you, Writer. I would never interfere with your truth. But aren’t I part of that truth?”
… and with that exchange, another being emerged from the Entertainer and sat beside him.
The Poet asked to be dealt in. The Poet combines the warmth and common touch of the Entertainer, with the uncompromising gaze of the Writer. The Poet sees meaning and feeling and eternity in everything. He possesses the Writer with the intensity of a demon and the agenda of an angel. The Writer sometimes becomes elated, and precariously close to mania when under the poet’s sway. The Writer is occasionally overwhelmed by poetry and must take a break and rest.
The Essayist plays his cards now just at the right time. If the Writer were under the influence of the Poet without interruption, the Writer would internally combust and explode to smithereens. The Essayist is the Observer, the Researcher, the Critical Thinker, and the Explainer — a poker game within a poker game. The Essayist calms the writer down, providing boundaries and coordinates on a map, preventing the Writer’s premature demise as an individual being. “I keep you tethered to the Earth, Writer. Your particularity will disappear into the Infinite soon enough. Live now.” The Writer has such gratitude and respect for the Essayist. The Essayist is so practical. His work is so useful. The Writer places practicality in high esteem.
The Teacher speaks up. “Writer, I can codify everything that you and the others have learned, and more importantly how you have learned it, and I can introduce it to other people. I can give them an entree into living a full life. So many of them never get the opportunity to get to know their psyche, and they want to — even if they aren’t aware that they do. It’s not so much that they will ultimately do it your way, but your example can give them ideas, point them in a more fulfilling and noble direction. It’s a service that you can bring people, and it can bring in a little money.” The Writer thinks the Teacher is dull but useful. The Writer himself has had Influences instead of teachers. Teaching seems to be an artificial pursuit to the Writer. As soon as teaching as a source of income disappears from the Writer’s possibilities, the Teacher will surely leave the game.
The Artist plays his cards in his own specific way. Self-reliant, hearing everything, listening to no one, independent, discerning all from his unique perspective, making all assessments of himself, judging each aspect of the world in accord with his personal sense of value. The Artist grounds all of the other players in the game with the gravitational pull of his integrity. The Artist reminds all who care to listen of his and their existential freedom and equality.
The Wounded Man is the inspiration of all at the table. A perpetual and constant victim of many sorts of insults and assaults — emotional, psychic, physical, financial, sufferer of many torments — the energy committed to relieving the pains, the recovery from all of the traumas, becomes the engine from which the Writer creates his worlds.
The False Leads are all of the players who didn’t belong in the game — the Businessman, the Politician etc. — all the roles for which the Writer had strong but incomplete talent. Politics and business require silence. A great politician or businessman might not necessarily have to lie, but he can’t always give away the game. This reticence is simply impossible for the Writer. The Writer is great at policy and impatient with the processes of building consensus. It is not the Writer’s place to lead to consensus. He lays bare the fact of the matter. It is up to others to take it from there.
When the boss and the peer group have died, a man’s attention turns to what he thinks is right and how he perceives the world without distraction.
My last obstruction was overcome long ago. Perhaps I was born with the obstruction overcome. I just wasn’t interested in what I was told was so important. I just wasn’t ashamed about what I was told to be ashamed of …
I have no regrets …
I am beyond pride …
beyond self-justification
I have complete self-acceptance
I write to remove static cling
irritants that attach themselves to my hull
but have nothing
absolutely nothing
to do with who I am
Once I had a tiny apartment in Astoria, Queens
I was 42 years old
I had recovered from a nervous breakdown
and rose from my childhood bed at my parents’ house after five years of self-administered rehabilitation
I got several jobs
and earned this little place — very small
on the top floor of an old Greek lady’s house
I was so proud of myself
I got more jobs in New York City
and wandered the bookstores and museums and theaters of that great city
Originally, I wanted to regain past glories that I had experienced in New York
but that desire eventually disappeared
I was thrilled to be on my own
and alive
Educating myself
Engaged with the world
I met his guy who I thought might be a friend
I bragged to him about my apartment
He came to see it and told me it was so small
He told me that I had achieved nothing
His words didn’t hurt me at all
I didn’t care what he thought
I knew the importance of that place
and my time of solitude in New York
The only words that hurt me
in later years
were from people that I knew before I changed
Before the Writer emerged
and the other Poker Playing Dogs
The Essayist has been explaining to me
what an unusual path mine has been
for someone who has come from I started
and for my generation
This morning I feel the delicious nothing that I felt when that faceless half-remembered man tried to diminish my lonely achievement in New York when I was 42
I see my critics who never got beyond the truly tiny prisons of our youth
Who never had the courage to push themselves to the point of breakdown
and emerge as a writer
I see my critics still locked in their cells
and I see the world that they created being destroyed in a deluge
all of their dollars are gone
all of their books and shows are worthless trinkets
I used to be so puzzled by them
and now they just sound dumb
I who was so awkward is now graceful
They who were so sure-footed now walk off of cliffs
I am integrated and whole
They are distorted and misshapen
My infinite mind sends light over the skulls of the pygmies
The Pygmy Skulls were at the table too
But now have been kindly asked to leave
It’s not their fault
noblesse oblige
There is no transcendence without breaking and tearing and pain
Look at me and look at them
Really
I’m finally being honest with myself
I am so much better than they are
I was given so much more to work with
and I’ve done it
I am the scorekeeper of my own victory
and I present myself the trophy
The Competitor emerges at the table, but with a difference. They wanted to beat me — I never saw it that way. I was the little brother who wanted to be loved. Then I was hurt, and felt that competing with them was beneath me. Then I tried competing with them but couldn’t go through with it because I just wasn’t into it and didn’t care. But now I win on the field of discernment. I repelled all suggestions that I had a spirit of rejection, secretly believing that they had rejected me. The reality is that I rejected them. I grew beyond what they were. We all were suffering a sense of loss. Those who I intensely loved and then nearly hated, I now pity. I was right. They should have listened to me. No one is wiser than a fool. They never even got to be who they were born to be.
I wanted the last line to be “Living well is the best revenge.”
But revenge has nothing to do with it
because they have nothing to do with it.
They are gone.
My life is playing poker with all of my dogs, and defusing the irrelevant bombs of my past made present by my memory.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
7/22/20: “Why Do You Care?” #poetry #art #dignity #powerimpulse #loveimpulse #community #improvisation
It was a great question
It was “the” question
why do you care?
I got into a petty squabble with some theatrical improvisers, of all people
why?
I started out as a theatrical improviser
well actually, I started out as Catholic school boy
but theatrical improviser was the next step in my moral and intellectual development
such as it was
I had to kill my inner theatrical improviser
and I finally have on the brink of my 65th birthday
I have not murdered my inner child
I’ve murdered my inner childishness
I’ll tell you my fight with those improvisers was quite painful
a real struggle
and it had nothing to do with them at all
They were interested in applause and success
I am driven by a need to speak my truth
These are two quite different things
I didn’t know it at the time
but I became a theatrical improviser long ago to connect with my creativity
I did improvisation successfully — meaning making money at it and getting a lot of stage time
for about ten years
I am so happy that I got a chance to do that
I developed a very powerful craft to facilitate saying what I want to say
I was born with my talent
but I developed it as an improviser
No one ever taught me a thing
The experience onstage
to access what you think and feel
and say it
that is the only power that I ever wanted
Its my super power
not power over other people
It’s my “vein of gold” as the writer says
I’m great at speaking my truth
It’s what I do best
So “improv” was a stop along the way of my life
being, doing and talking me
I left improv because what I wanted to say
was not motivated in the least
by a need to please audiences
I left improv because it wasn’t that I needed attention as a person
it was that I needed to take my stand in relation to life
to be the authority of my own life
so I always was in conflict with groups and directors
and audiences
I really improvised as a way of developing my way of writing
Writing is a much better art form for me than theatrical improvisation
You just put your writing out there and whoever reads it, reads it
You don’t have to negotiate with groups and directors
and audiences
I left improvisation because I didn’t want the power that my peers wanted
which was expressed by success in show business
or control within the improvisation community
as directors and teachers and producers
So I didn’t need applause, attention or power over others
I was never a theatrical improviser
I was a writer soaking up all the act of improvising could teach me
I wish I could pose now as a wise man
It seems logical that I should have known all of this about myself decades ago
But I wasn’t aware of this aspect of my reality
until I got into a fight with some improvisers
I noticed that many other improvisers felt bullied by the improv power structure
I wasn’t bullied by it all for years
My talent was my power
And my start was at a fortuitous time
All of the founding generation of Second City were still alive
mainly in their 50s
and very active
I studied with all of them
or worked for them and was directed by them
Almost all of them weren’t bullies
I think that is what made me hold onto improvisation in my heart
even as I went on to do other things
and apply improvisation to my work as a lawyer and college professor
and to my writing of course
I was harboring under an illusion
I thought the community that I grew up in still existed
I mean I thought that two days ago!
It doesn’t
It’s gone
The more years that have passed after the founders of improvisation have passed
the less art that there has been in improvisation
and I think the time has come
I don’t exactly when
when the art has completely disappeared
This isn’t to say that the founders’ art has died
It is, like all art
eternal
It exists in other places
They live in the white spaces around the words of my writing
I had an illusion
I thought that I could return to the world of improvisation and make a contribution
I thought that I could teach and lead
and basically just mentor and support
younger artists who could make a real improvisational theater
uninfected by a need for applause, attention or power over others
a theater by, for and made up of
people pursuing their truth
individually and collectively
My improv antagonists accused me of being an elitist
and I plead emphatically
Guilty!
Art is an elite experience
It is not an elite determined by how much money you have
or where you went to school
It is an elite based upon your need to speak your truth
and your ability to communicate it
Why did I care?
I thought I cared because I wanted a restoration of something
and a place
that I loved and where I was loved
long ago
But that wasn’t it
On the cusp of 65, I am still learning about myself
that’s what artists do
and the applause loving, power grabbing, attention demanding
gremlin improvisers
have left the theater of my mind
The conflict was an internal one
The negative improviser was a dormant part of my personality
a bullying part
that taunted me quietly
so quietly that I couldn’t always hear it
and could function quite effectively in defiance of it
but it was always there
shaming me for not having power over other people — not being in charge, not taking their money
for not tactically manipulating applause
for not having the attention of everyone in the world
So it came out in the open
and exposed itself in a petty discussion
about nothing important
and now I am free
Gandhi said
First they ignore you
then they ridicule you
then they fight you
then you win
I’ve won
when I ignored my talent the world did too
when I stepped out and owned it, I was ridiculed
that hurt a great deal
when I persisted in my talent I was challenged and argued with
and most of my antagonists and oppressors were of the improvisation community
but lawyers and educators and writers got their licks in too
and I am truly grateful to everyone who has given me a hard time
they role played negative archetypes in my own mind
soul invaders
that I believe are part of the creative process
Gandhi’s observations to creating a nation
mirror mine related to creating a blog
While I was taken the required internal and external beatings
that shape an artist
I was also sustained by those who love me
and what I do
and they are all that remain now
Applause, attention and power over others
lives in another part of town
I won’t run into them anymore
As a practical matter
I can go out into the world
and not notice them
Just as I can pass a prostitute on the street
and not even be tempted to descend into that self-destructive world
or see a suicidal drug addict and not fear a similar fate
Just as I can see Republican fools enter a country club
and dismiss them as Babbitts and villains
Just as I can see the populist ignorance of a Trump rally
A writer in a solitary farm house in the wintertime
surrounded by gray and white
on the Southern Tier of New York State
Clarity in the night sky
Undistracted by noise
Fashioning books
Hearing every person that he ever knew
Listening to nary a one
Susceptible only to the influence of Nature,
of God
Uncorrupted by the fraudulent inventions of man
Confronting himself
and transcending himself
Confronting the influences of the illusions of others
and transcending the dark power of those illusions
Waking each morning with anxiety
beautiful anxiety
The anxious reminder that he is not protected —
or compromised by
any person or group
By risking connections based on safety
He can create connections based on love.
Only when he is so detached can the writer write
He can consider person, place and thing
and in his sustained attentiveness regard them
in depth
Only when he is unafraid
beyond need
can he love what he sees
To regard the people, places and things of the world
attentively
nurturing depth
with sometimes brutal honesty
and paradoxically tender love …
only then …
does the writer write …
does the artist make art …
is the person in relation to the other person …
A blog is a fascinating place to self-publish
You write something
in necessary solitude
no writing partners
immediate audience
or editors …
and then you make your writing available to anyone in the world
You have no idea who reads it …
You get some indications …
a note
a “like” …
but there are many silent readers
or not …
who knows …
You write most every day
and some people follow you or drop in occasionally
but you get the sense that they are observing your life
as friends
what is a friend other than someone who sits next to you with affection
someone who accepts who and what you are …
writing is acting
it’s relating
You show up
the other shows up and you regard one another with truth and love
There is no performance
there is no attempt to persuade
and nothing is make believe
No pretense
There is only relation
Stanislavski famously advised actors, “Be alone in the public.”
Reality is contradictory
We are alone and connected at the same time
Any art must consider the soul of the artist
and the nature of the world
Any art can only be created by people who seriously understand the need for those dual perspectives
People who are trapped in cliquish fear
competing for scraps of the infinite universe
which they ignorantly define as a field of scarcity
can only be the subjects of art
they disqualify themselves from participating
as creators or audience
The whelping of competing alpha dogs,
ploys for dominance in the pack,
or frightened squeals from the defeated
are not art.
They are the domesticated noise
unheard in the quiet winter of the Southern Tier.
Art is so often called “beautiful”
The poet says “truth is beauty”
Beauty and truth are places that one must go alone
Sometimes stand next to another who perceives the same thing
Your mutual warmth merging with reality.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
7/23/20: Process of (Inner/Outer) Revolution #poetry #freedom #happiness
Happy day!
Released!
First phase — innocence. Little sibling looks up to older sibling expecting praise and guidance. Older sibling resents little sibling. Trips the little fella, tells him he’s not good.
Second phase — shame. Little sibling still hasn’t figured out that older sibling is competitive with him. Little sibling thinks that he is as weak and incapable as older sibling tells him that he is. Older sibling eats cake that was sliced for the little guy.
Third phase — the youngest goes out alone. He makes a friend or two. The friends are nice to him. They praise his natural gifts. The kid starts to believe it — a little.
Fourth phase — the kid starts to get mad. He internalizes anger that turns into rage. He doesn’t know what to do with his feelings.
Fifth phase — the younger sib is now taller than the older. The older pushes him around just like he usually does. Younger loses it — erupts. It is scary. Big bro uses it against baby boy. Parents freak out and get scared by a side that they never saw from their quiet little boy before. They call a doctor and punish little brother. Big brother now becomes the cop on the beat, keeping an eye on the erratic little one.
Sixth phase — the little fella moves away from parents and sibs. He unconsciously lives out the dynamics set with his early family — and friends — over and over again. On jobs, at schools, in clubs, with girlfriends … spouses and children for some star-crossed little guys … the rivulet of happiness delivered by friends, the adoration and rage of peers and authority figures — glimpses of full potential when Tiny is loved, conflict the rest of the time …
the whole miserable thing — society — playing out myths on an endless loop —
Freud
Lincoln
Black and white
rich and poor
men and women
Seventh phase — prison — the lad or lassie is punished — stay after school, get fired, go to jail, go sit in a corner and think about your bad self … Scarlett Letters, the stocks —- “take that you insubordinate bastard”
Eighth phase — the small thinks about bad, and starts to excise his shame — he finds himself, reacquaints himself with the person he was born as … no more false apologies …
He/she starts to see the love and malice and jealousy and competition that he/she has experienced in life … he/she starts connecting the dots … sees patterns in his/her life, gains objectivity — finally sees his/her EQUALITY with all others
starts to see how he/she was misshaped by pain and his/her reaction to it, and how the pain led him/her to something more
He/she gains OBJECTIVITY regarding the persons and events of his/her life
He/she transcends reactions and starts to make DECISIONS
including separating from people, groups, institutions and ideas that don’t work, that only were accepted by him/her when he/she was not free
Ninth phase — solitude, not enforced loneliness as a punishment but INDEPENDENCE — standing proudly ALONE with INTEGRITY
Tenth phase — WAITING — when released from who and what are no longer helpful INTERDEPENDENT help arrives, but it necessarily takes time for one’s new consciousness to become apparent to the world
Eleventh phase — the like-minded-hearted-souled arrive … real COMMUNITY, FRIENDSHIP, LOVE and ACHIEVEMENT …
the INDIVIDUAL and the COLLECTIVE do the WORK of furthering mankind
A writer kills his subjects with arrows dipped in love
I read that somewhere
Akira Kurosawa made the classic movie The Seven Samurai
Hollywood westernized the story
and called it The Magnificent Seven
The Magnificent Seven was released in 1960
I was five years old in 1960
I don’t have many memories from when I was five
but I remember Elmer Bernstein’s theme music from The Magnificent Seven
Life as a joyful fight?
No anger
no bitterness
but striking out against evil
taking risks
and having fun
with your friends
It’s not just Hollywood
it’s Hollywood based on something deeper
an art film
that regarded real culture
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
reminds me of my happiest thoughts
words
and actions
AOC reminds me of my writing at its best
she reminds me of the pure me
the free me
fierce, loving, happy and true
Confident
speaking truth
not to power
speaking truth from a position of equality
defending herself
attacking ego
Jiu jitsu moves
of self protection
and defusing bombs of injustice and aggression
The Magnificent Seven displays the sureness of the samurai without showing the necessary recovery from woundedness
the natural pre-requisite
to joy and aplomb
AOC refers to the wound …
OK, so Hollywood only gives the cream and ignores the churning
but moments are sweet too
Samurai Moments
Joy and truth and action and community
as the Pandemic rages
and the structural injustice of American society is laid bare for all to see
As the body bags are zipped up
and the hospitals choke
and the streets are roiled with the violence of authoritarians and criminals
The Magnificent Seven also rides
Not the whole movie
but one of its themes
a theme that can’t be ignored or forgotten
as fear, bitterness and anger threatens to blot out the sun
AOC wasn’t hurt because Representative Yahoo called her “a fucking bitch”
She has heard worse
She tended bar in New York City not very long ago
She wasn’t hurt at all
Representative Yahoo is a foolish dying beast
AOC drew her six-shooter
and with precise aim
attacked Yahoo’s hypocritical belief
that he was a “good man”
because he had a wife and daughter
AOC pointed out that Yahoo’s words were not against her
but all women
perhaps especially Yahoo’s wife and daughter
She mocked how Yahoo had to be on top
and how this urge was sending people into homelessness and into the morgues
She didn’t hate Yahoo
She hated the evil that possessed him
Her speech was masterful writing
a true Samurai moment
and my perception of that moment
was a Samurai moment for me
She made me so happy as she tore Yahoo a new asshole
in such an artful way
It is for Yahoo’s good too
not just mine
not just women’s
AOC would have let it go if it was just about her
But it was her chance to write a poem
and this is mine …
Post script …
something is evolving in what is proper to say, and what is not
it was so great that AOC said “fucking bitch” on the floor of the House of Representatives
In this context
defusing another bomb
the words are harmless
they meant something different when they came out of a frustrated drunk at AOC’s bar
then when they came out of Yahoo’s mouth
The drunk was just crying in pain
bemoaning his own impotence
Yahoo was committing sexual assault
attempting verbal rape
frustrated yes by the weakness of his party at the moment
but trying to win
seeing the world turning toward AOC
and futilely trying to bend the earth’s axis
Samurai moments see so much more than words
A gunfight is more than the bullets
and the conflicts are all different
they are ultimately the people involved
Samurai read the people
and gracefully move with the reality before them …
Words …
I know AOC’s antagonist’s name is Representative Ted Yoho
I am describing him when I call him Yahoo
The term “yahoo” has come to mean “a crude, brutish or obscenely coarse person” according to the Collins English dictionary. The word was coined as the name of a race of characters in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.
Forgive the pedantry here — I am using it to make one last point.
Mark Twain created what is pretty universally regarded as one of the great characters of American literature when he fashioned “Nigger Jim” in Huckleberry Finn.
Twain was aware of the oppression in the word “nigger”. He created a noble character and gave him that name. “Nigger Jim” went down the river of the American Experience with Huckleberry Finn in complete equality and incomparable value. Twain was saying that black people were not only part of America, but that they made invaluable contributions to making what is best in America. Blackness is in the heart and soul of America.
Every once in awhile you see a school district or library or someone else try to censor Huckleberry Finn because it uses the word “nigger”. That is a mistake in need of the joy and grace and three dimensional sensory mechanisms of a samurai moment. The censorship is a poorly aimed bullet. The attention is to defeat racism, but the effect is to wound intelligence and nuance and art.
“Fucking bitch” wasn’t the problem. Being a yahoo was. AOC got that, and in so doing had a samurai moment and won a gunfight for all of her related causes.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
7/31/20: The Folly of Planning #poetry
It’s an old and common sentiment
planning is a fool’s errand
Reader’s Digest
John Lennon
Al Roker!
Robert Burns
my father
the guy next door probably
it doesn’t take a genius
or a poet
to see it
Life is beyond our control
Roker gives the sunny Today version
Life is a matter of being open to opportunity
My father was a contradiction
His example was improvisational
but he had plans for me
He wanted me to be a certain type of person
and so did most of the people around me
who were small town mediocrities in Rochester, New York
people whose entire constructs of their communal and individual lives
have disappeared
Kodak factory, sports, the Church. Italian-American social clubs
the primacy of doctors and lawyers and businessmen
the underclass of insecure and resentful worker bees
Conservative
with the pose of moral certainty
All gone now
swept away by progress, revolution and death
The best laid plans of mice and men, beautiful boy
I close my eyes and I see the Great Flood
Nothing matters but what I think
The only thing possible is what is possible
Dad had a friend that he knew from playing and coaching soccer
A Scottish guy named Andy McKay
He saw that my father was making a mistake with me
Dad said I was a dreamer, and lazy
Andy said I was a hard worker
I come from working class people
Andy wasn’t highly educated
But he saw that I was a writer
and he gave me a collection of poems by Robert Burns
I didn’t even realize this act of empathy and kindness
until this morning
about fifty-five years later
Andy is long gone
and so is my father
Did my father love me?
I’m not sure
It doesn’t matter now
I think he did
but not enough
from my limited point of view
I planned for my father to be an endless source of wisdom and love
unconcerned for his needs and psychology
I needed love that went beyond his plans
I needed him to put me first
to be there for me
not to have his own conflicts and frustrations
not for him to be in exile from his true self
not for him to be a sensitive kid burdened by other people’s plans
(he was fun and he did what he wanted and he was creative and funny and he could be very nice and he wasn’t serious and he disrespected social status in a wise and strong way … he was charismatic … he praised me as often as he criticized me, often for things that I didn’t think were important — you’re good looking ! —- but he was very concerned about all that was best and most important in me — he had plans — I was smart — I was supposed to become a rich lawyer — two things that I had no interest in — wealth or practicing law — he terrorized me as a kid — I was afraid all of the time — he was an orphan — abandoned by his mother and sent to a fascist school — I was my mother’s favorite and a whole psychological struggle was going on here too — I was a fat kid and he challenged me to a foot race — he was a jock and he beat me in the race — I was supposed to fail for him and then get abused by him for failing — of course I succeeded a lot at the things that I was good at it, and those things were dismissed as unimportant — I loved him and got involved with a lot of people like him who weren’t the best choices for me — I still love him — I think he did the best that he could and I believe he really loved me too — but I am not him and I never wanted his plans for me — I think that bothered him the most — he would say —- Your brother always listens, you do what you please … you have all of the answers …. He never controlled me … I never felt that I had to obey him — it was unplanned, but my relationship with my father made autonomy and equality natural things for me … My father had a sentimentality about his mother, America, the American Dream, “winning” that I just didn’t share … I am smarter than my father was, but I am not deeper — I’m pretty deep and I get that from him … He was very active and very reflective … he was sexually abused as a child by fascist priests and he was never abusive to anyone — but remained sentimental about the Church to honor his mother who sent him to the school where the priests molested him — and I guess I had to follow his legacy and seek out such undeserved pain …. my father and I are one — I am my father — shaped by the unintended consequences of misguided plans)
and his own strategy for survival
which unconsciously directed his being
not his bullshit ideas about how a man should be or how the world was
not by his wrong headed conclusions about the nature of reality
his love of power and recognition
neither of which he received in great quantities
I’m not angry at the memory
or even hurt
I can’t plan out who my father was
God didn’t give me what I needed in my father
God gave it to me in Andy McKay
It didn’t take a long relationship
Just assisting Andy with some work project in our basement
and getting a surprise gift of a book of poetry
Really a perfect gift
A personal expression of the giver — Scottish pride
with an understanding of the recipient — a writer
Years later I went out with a woman who worked in my agent’s office
She was the daughter of a college professor from Winnipeg, Canada
She gave me a copy of Moby Dick
She saw that I wasn’t meant for the auditions that she was sending me on
But I had plans
I followed a map
and I got lost
Plans
Plans about who I was
Plans about what a man was that my father “taught” me
Plans with confidence in the fairness and morality and possibilities of the world
that Rochester, New York was so stupidly sure of
Battered by the world
and the criticism of my father and his surrogates
and the unplanned truth of my soul
that perceptive kind people saw
like Andy and the agent’s assistant
My plans took me away from a world of kindness and creativity
and into a world of commerce and competition
for which I was wholly unequipped
Truth, beauty, words
ethics, kindness
this was the unplanned core
A former student asks me for a letter of recommendation
why I wonder
who needs schools
schools have been swept away in the tsunami
I never learned anything in schools
Just live
follow what interests you
take what comes and be where you like
If you want to do something apprentice with someone who does it
If you want to learn something read about it
Once you know how to read and write and think
You don’t need schools and all that bullshit
I went to lots of schools
It was all planned
It’s the reason I am a lawyer
But I learned about law when I prepared for the bar exam
and then worked at it
I never had a teacher or even a mentor in the law
I figured it out on my own
I taught in schools
that’s over now
Good riddance
I did a good job
but it was just a job
Anything I did for my students that meant anything was more like Andy McKay than a college professor
I did all sorts of improvisational acting workshops
as a student and teacher
didn’t learn a damn thing
I look at the Facebook page where all of the improv “teachers” market their classes
the teachers and their classes all look childish to me
and I mean all — no exceptions
not much different than being a recreation director on a cruise ship
My life has been a life of executing misbegotten plans
Listening to people who had their heads up their asses
and missing the kind whispers of people who cared for me and had some insight as to who I am
… and the true nature of the world of man which is a lot less wonderful than they thought in Rochester
You might think I am filled with regret
The opposite is true
The folly of planning was my opportunity
It gave me a chance to feel the world
It hurt
not just see the world
that’s art class shit
just seeing
Plans lead to the unplanned thing
Writing
I doubt that I am different than you
We have all of these vectors of our being
The first is who we really are
a unique soul
and then there is the force of the illusions of the people that we are close to
and finally is the burden of our plans
which lead us to all forms of disappointments
we pursue happiness and find something else
Eventually we reflect
and after a lot of hard work
our disappointments become understanding
we learn by living
about ourselves and the world
and how we and the world get in the way
of our understanding of what is
Once in a while
there is a congruence between our hearts, our understanding and the true opportunities that the world presents
and in those moments we are fulfilled
and we know it
But we are always fulfilled
whether we know it or not
There is no escaping
who we are
or the influences that fate has impressed upon us
or the reality of the world
Plan what will be?
No.
Discover what is
and let it take you where it takes you.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
8/1/20: Overture #poetry
I levitate out of Hades
Ragged leprous arms reach for my ankles
Flames lap at my feet
the sound of moaning becomes more and more distant
Memory has been processed enough
Essence is known
a feeling not a plan
Disease and depression and rage and fear and ignorance has ravaged the land
everything that I ever participated in is destroyed
Good riddance
the butter has exploded in the microwave
a tiny disaster that becomes an opportunity
to clear out all other dirt and mess
the oven is a tiny proscenium stage
an empty space
an opportunity to enter
without an idea
or a perspective
as innocent as Adam or Eve
Paradise found
nothing but a nap sack
filled with people
and songs
and movies and books
ice cream
the little “unimportant” moments
that people recall on their deathbeds
Rosebud
that have the most meaning
Sweetness
and universal base income
intelligence
and health care for all
the music of Frank Loesser
and the acceptance of a friend
The music of Lerner and Lowe
“Where am I going I don’t know
how will I get there I’m not certain
all I know is I am on my way”
After World War II it was time for Sid Caesar and Danny Kaye
and Rodgers and Hammerstein
songs and racial justice
an awareness of the Holocaust
and the choice for something else
in politics
in art
in human relationships
no not a choice — what was next
“Got a dream boy, got a song
paint your wagon and come along”
I am thrilled to not know what is next
I have the music
the words will come later
Musical comedy world
transcending pain and death and injustice
free from the burden of memory
no longer misshapen
biochemical anxiety
becomes delighted anticipation
the overture begins
creation is abundant
our fear is what is small
not us
we are the world
eternally young and new
negative is positive
adversity is opportunity
wounds expose our potential for joy
our endings are beginnings
our new existence will be glorious
in stark contrast to the misery of the old
I’m glad that I don’t know what is next
It’s a great surprise present
Tomorrow is for sorrow and death
today is for the thrill of the life that is upon us
a lot of life
Tomorrow is for the alchemy of the pain of memory into empathy
and demands for justice
and encouragement of the oppressed
and the removal of obstacles
and the mourning of life
Today is for a glimpse
of how it will feel
when all is what it should be
Life can be lovely you know
lovelier even than the best times that you can remember
“with a song in my heart … ”
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
8/2/20: “Disrespect is worse than hate” and Creative Autonomy #poetry
“Disrespect is worse than hate”
Representative James Clyburn, the Civil Rights Leader and South Carolina congressman said that
I paraphrase:
At least with hate, there is a sense of equality
Disrespect puts you in a position of “less than”
Now, I expand on the congressman’s insights with some of my own:
Hate is a fight with a sibling
A white nationalist might fill you with rage
you might wish them dead
and they will feel the same about you
but they don’t stop you in your tracks
and paralyze you
like a condescending person does
Disrespect is easily internalized
a good practitioner of disrespect can be really destructive
they can make you believe that you can’t do anything
that you are not worth anything
that the essence of your being is of lesser inherent value
the goal of a disrespectful person is to make you into your own oppressor
to break your spirit
Hate just makes you mad
Provokes you to conflict
Distracts you from the creative arc of your life
consumes you
moves you from an orientation of love to one of power
instigates crimes of passion
tempts your humanity to its worst aspects
but it doesn’t demean and discount your humanity in the way that disrespect does
Disrespect is like a forced injection of an addictive drug
It puts you in a state of dependence to something that isn’t good for you
You accept the condescension of the disrespectful person because you think you need them to survive
Disrespect sends you to a place of arrested development
back to when you were a little kid
and your parents told you that you couldn’t do something
and that you weren’t capable of deciding
and they were right then of course
you were just a little kid
If you were lucky enough to have good parents
they took care of you
did the thing for you
made the wise decision
and then tried to teach you why
and over time you assumed control
guided by the experience of having your parents determine your life’s course
until you were ready
The disrespectful person is a surrogate parent with bad intentions
They tell you to obey them
they tell you that they will determine what is good and bad for you
right and wrong
what you should value and what you should not value
They will assess your work product, creativity and direction
They decide what you deserve
they judge you in a kangaroo court
not to educate and guide and protect you
(even as they trip some pathway in your brain that can deceive you as to their intentions)
They usurp control from you to pursue their own agendas
to exploit you
to steal from you
to beat you in a competition before it begins
or probably the most common motivation
(and the other motivations are plenty common)
they diminish you to feel better about themselves
They humiliate you
for a petty and superficial sensation of feeling superior to you
but that is their own pathology
Almost always
the disrespectful person actually fears you
They envy you
and perhaps they distrust you
You are a big six foot eight athlete
so they put their knee on your neck in order to claim superiority in terms of physical strength and power
and slowly murder you
for example
Hatred
which is often misdirected toward people who aren’t the real source of the hate
comes from some buried legitimate complaint
The white nationalist has been consistently abased and abused — lower class, uneducated, impoverished
by other white people
but the nationalist has also internalized the disrespect
Instead of confronting his oppressors
he turns on black people
who those who disrespect him have told him are fair game
He doesn’t know it
but the white nationalist strangely confronts the black person as an equal
Donald Trump disrespects black people
he doesn’t hate them
they can box and sing at his casinos
they can dance in entrepreneurial minstrel shows
businessmen and preachers selling on commission for him
getting crumbs from the table
dying at his rallies
9 – 9 – 9 !!!!
It’s worse than hate
He, and the thousands like him in the here and now and for many generations — mid-century manipulators, get white nationalists to hate black people
as a way to keep both groups down
The Disrespectful don’t treat you as a threat
They objectify you
they treat you as their property
You exist in their construct
as a thing to be used to get them
stuff
could be money
could be just an air of superiority
or a good laugh
The African – American experience with hatred and disrespect is highly instructive because it is such an extreme example of abuse and injustice
but it is only the leading example
America (which may be changing, thank God) is a culture of disrespect
Mike Nichols said that Paul Sills was the only person that he ever knew
who didn’t “rank” people when he met them
I had that experience with Paul too
It is a primary reason that I loved him
He treated everyone with respect — he was blind to social status of any kind
he did not assess people from perspectives of money or fame or power
Another primary reason that I loved Paul
was that he recognized me
he recognized the quality of my work
He recognized my essence as a person
It wasn’t that he completely understood me or my work
but he looked intensely at me and it
and supported me with love and respect
a respect that was deserved by sheer dint of my humanity
and specific related to my particular gifts
Paul had a different ranking system’
how true was something
how much love was in it
how much of it would develop individuals and community
Paul was not parental
He treated me as an equal
My memories of Paul have nothing to do with him as an improvisation teacher and director
He was mentor to me
He showed me what an artist is
and that I was one
I don’t think I ever remember Paul using the word “art”
but that’s what he was
and God introduced Paul into my life so that I could not only be what I am
but also see what I am
So that I could more effective
and life could be less painful
So that I wasn’t confused about what was important
and so that I could be constantly attentive to the instructive voice God put inside me
and give that voice ultimate authority, supreme to any rule, group or person — including myself and my own ego and desires
I honor something within me that is much more than me
Paul didn’t tell me any of this
I created a constellation of spirit and growth based on my interactions with Paul
I CREATED something
Knowing Paul introduced me to the idea of “creative autonomy”
(I use that phrase here — Paul didn’t speak of such things, he just did them — or at least impressed me that such possibility was inside him, if unrealized …. Paul was kind of like Moses — one sensed that he could point others to the Promised Land but somehow could never get there himself …. he was a “teacher” …. he spoke of improvisation as “the family business” … such limiting ideas … and yet he saw greatness for me … I was Lenny Bruce and Thoreau … I did “the greatest piece of American theater in 25 years” … he relegated himself to service … I made him happy because I was one of the few talented people that he worked with who shared his values … he celebrated his actors’ successes in show business but he knew it wasn’t good enough … all of the founders of Second City with the exception of David Shepherd had a conflict between art and commerce — and the commerce side cheapened everything and led to a frustration … Paul knew what art was and never really figured out how to do it, and he left it to me. To my knowledge I am the only artist that Second City ever produced — there are many more people who are just as or more talented than I am — But I am the only one that I know of that has the insight into what art is … I got to the Promised Land … I just don’t care about the prisons that the others are trapped in … )
So … Paul didn’t teach me about creative autonomy
he saw it in me
and just regarded me as having it
which I do (chuckle)
It took me years to understand my interaction with Paul Sills
So simple
He just saw who I was and regarded me as an equal
and had a loving appreciation for the best of my character and actions
Paul was a major artist of the twentieth century
in spite of himself
and we are all artists in spite of ourselves
if we artists
(I pinch myself to think that God gave me the opportunity to know someone like that — in a real way)
His major artistic achievement in my view
(which was unconsciously arrived at
as all artistic achievement is)
is that he didn’t participate in the American culture of disrespect
He provided an alternative
It took me years to internalize Paul Sills’ respect for me and turn it into full blown self-respect
the prerequisite for creative autonomy
When I was very young I came at life guns-a-blazing, full of mirth and talk and ideas
I was born with a charismatic and dynamic nature
and then, naturally, I was slapped down
who did I think I was
I had to be disabused of my notions of equality and outspoken freedom
I internalized the waves of disrespect that washed over me
and subsequently lacked a certain confidence
Then I tried to please those who would limit and dismiss me
Maybe they were right, I thought
I’d do as they say
and “succeed”
They broke all of their promises of reward
refused to recognize that I had fulfilled all of their requirements
and either mocked me, unfairly punished me, slandered me, treated me harshly
or simply ignored me
banished me to go sit in a corner
and forgot me there
Then I went into years of anger
not hate exactly
I never even imagined myself hurting anyone
It isn’t in my nature to want vengeance
But I began to demand equality
I didn’t take any shit from anybody
I actually made progress with this stance
Ironically it was this defiance
that got me societal respect in some quarters
as a lawyer, a professor and a writer
I took all the unrecognized work from my years in the cold
and turned it into something
but this societal respect was not of the same high quality of the respect that I received from Paul Sills
who was beyond society
the respect that is the prerequisite for creative autonomy
Now I give that respect to myself
I determine what is meaningful for me
I assess the quality of my work
I am not dependent on the recognition of the world
I am immune to it
I am too preoccupied working on this writing
trying to make some expression of my personal truth
than to ultimately care what you think of it
This does not make me alienated from the world and society as one might expect
The opposite is true
We live in a terrible and exciting time
Huge social forces are demanding a world of respect
in contest with entrenched but failing forces who want to hold fast to their condescending control
I want the $600 unemployment relief
and universal health care
and economic justice
and good and fair housing, food security and education
a righteous criminal justice system
I want people to have the fundaments of life secured
so that they can grow into their creative autonomies
I don’t have the time or energy to argue with anyone over my worthiness anymore
I’m worthy — get over it
Fate can be unkind
but if you know what is right fortune will never desert you
The chronology that I gave of my development to a state of creative autonomy is a little misleading
because it is a chronology
actually all of these moments swirl around each other in one moment
more Jackson Pollock than Diego Rivera
Nothing linear about these matters
Each state of being —- respect, disrespect, hate, creative autonomy and all the others are separate colors
dripped and splattered on the canvas of my individual and our collective lives
Psychology, sociology, political science, philosophy, history, theology all darting avoiding and colliding into each other
ethics and morality shot into a particle accelerator
the physical properties of the soul
what is simply is
it is the level of our consciousness that is the complex challenge.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
8/6/20: Art as a Rick Blog “term of art” defined, a little #poetry #art #PoeticEssay
I use the word “art” a lot in my writing and I think I should explain a bit what I mean
One of those “improv” people got highly insulted and offended when I said that schlock was nothing that resembled art
and I got offended that he didn’t know what I mean — (laugh out loud)
I do not mean in the sense that you often hear the word
“recording artists”
“comedy artists”
No and no
I’ve written quite a bit about the difference between entertainment and art
I do not mean art as a matter of aesthetics
Art has much to do with beauty and nothing to do with prettiness
So what can I say positively to define art
not only what it is not?
Art is an elite experience
Everyone is not an artist
I once went to a poetry open mike
The host said that all the poems were equal and that all of the poets were worthy
That’s nonsense
Everyone can’t do art
Everyone can’t learn how to make art
You can’t learn how to make art
An artist is actually a rare being
There aren’t many of us
A merely creative manager or salesman or entertainer or anything else
is not an artist
Art is something more than creativity
Artists are born not made
all born artists don’t make art
These people tend to be relentlessly frustrated and unhappy
An active artist is frustrated and unhappy most of the time
but has great joy as the grit of alienation is changed through work into the pearl of truth and beauty
I got to thinking about doing this piece when reflecting on watching Chris Cuomo host his show on CNN
(and that is a clue into an insight in my art … the response of an ordinary person to the intimate and distant affairs of the world is important — that’s the view of the Rick Blog — that’s the Rick Blog’s view of life itself — it could be viewed as an act of demented hubris to write down one’s responses to every internal and external stimuli that affects you — and report your findings with great authority while lacking any actual authority to influence other people’s lives and attitudes beyond your self-proclaimed status as a writer — but that’s what writers do — artists see things consciously that their audiences see unconsciously — artists use words or paint or whatever medium that they work in to communicate their insights — and what are those insights? I read somewhere that priests communicate from the people to God, and artists communicate from God to the people — that sounds right — back to Chris Cuomo … )
Chris Cuomo was born an artist
He doesn’t practice art, but he was born an artist
Chosen by God or nature
a person with a connection to the eternal
(I have no idea if Chris Cuomo was born an artist — I don’t know him — so I project upon him, turn him into a fictional character to describe my own experience — my own experience which I never leave in the realm of the personal but connect to the universal — I never just talk about myself — my life is a field where I explore the nature of the essences of reality — it is not egoistic at all — I don’t choose the subjects of my art — I was surprised that Chris Cuomo became significant today — but here is how art works — your soul is in constant transformation and so is the world external to your soul — and the inner and outer changes are congruent — God constantly whispers to the artist in the forms of involuntary personal impulses and in people, places, things and ideas in the outside world that command the artist’s attention like colorized figures in the composition of an otherwise black and white movie —- the inner impulse and external fascination provoke a spontaneous response from the artist which is either simultaneously or subsequently shaped (depending on how the artist works) by critical thinking and reason)
the sculptor stands before the block of marble, the soul and stone alchemize into art, the frontier of creation, God is always in process, the artist is God’s hands fashioning new elements and species
The artist is not of society
or anti- or asocial either
The artist is extra-social
Society is co-dependent
The artist is independent
The Social Person (most people) has co-dependent relationships —- marriages, friendships, jobs — alliances
and in these ways advances
Matriculating up ladders
Gaining status and security by serving the group
The independent artist makes no such deals
His or her job is to speak of God’s goals and purposes to the Social Person
The artist does not further society’s ambitions
Some Social Persons of Good Will
want to hear the artist
so that they can change the aims of society and their own lives to conform more closely to the will of God
Obviously, an artist can have no worldly power
An artist with worldly power is a fascist
An artist can only be an influence and a suggestion
Sometimes an inspiration
If an artist concretizes his art
and imposes its conclusions upon others in a rigid way
turning metaphors into laws and rules
Art becomes an evil thing
If an artist is not social and therefore gets no status or security from society
how is the artist secure and recognized?
The independent artist is inter-dependent with individuals in the world
and discovers his places and people of support in the same way he discovers his subject matter
The artist’s life itself is a work of art
guided by God
God provides for the artist
not society
The artist can’t be beholden to society
no boss, person or group
If he or she is beholden
they are compromised in their ability to tell the truth
An artist is open to all sources of money
and would never change a brush stroke or a word for that money
Sometimes the life of an artist seems like a tremendous mess
artists get lost
confused
make crazy mistakes
go crazy
look like big fools and failures under the harsh glare of social expectations
but it is all for a reason
God sends artists on wild goose chases
so that the artists can see the world
not as tourists
not ladling the soup in the soup kitchen
but as a homeless guest
not visiting the mentally ill friend
but struggling in the cracker factory
An artist without suffering isn’t an artist at all
He or she
is just a doodler
a dilletante
Oh yeah, Chris Cuomo
fictional Chris Cuomo
He was born an artist
but hasn’t started working as an artist yet
and may never
He has money and fame
and an artist can get out from under all of that
but they make it tough to do so
Chris became a lawyer
but didn’t want to practice law
Law is not an art
It’s a trade
Antonin Scalia was no Philip Roth
Chris practiced a little
and bailed out
His brother the future governor said, “What now?”
Journalism
A journalist isn’t an artist
Art is more than the dissemination of information
Art is more than commentary
(it drives me nuts when people think I am just offering opinions in my writing — it happens less and less … )
Chris found success in journalism
Major success
On the cusp of his 50th birthday
he was infected by COVID-19
It affected him
Profoundly
He was always in great physical shape, and now he felt mortal and weak
But he also felt something that he was in him before adversity hit
Something that runs in his family
As regular readers know, I had a nervous breakdown when I was 34
(tomorrow is my 65th birthday)
I wrote a poem while I was recuperating and sent it to Chris’ dad, then -New York Governor Mario Cuomo
I wish I still had that poem
more as an artifact than a good piece of work
I don’t remember the poem
with the exception of one phrase
“Bush the Mean”
I was criticizing then – President George H. W. Bush
and I’m sure working my ubiquitous themes of stupidity and meanness
which have become quite obvious now
what is stupid and mean in society is destroying us
and inspiring us to want something more
artists are important always
but especially in times like today
when many Social Persons are happy to hear from God
as society devastates their lives
welching on all promises of recognition and security
Anyway, Mario Cuomo answered my letter with the poem personally
Again, I wish I had saved his response
I can’t recall what the Governor said
(it shows what I thought of myself in those days — I held onto nothing — nothing related to me could have been of any importance — I was an artist and dd not know it, I just knew that I was failed Social Person, rejected and dismissed)
Mario Cuomo answered my letter
I do remember how he made me feel
Good
He made me feel good
He didn’t respond as a governor
or as a politician looking for a vote
He was kind
He acknowledged my writing
He empathized with my pain
and he gave me a glimpse of a life that could be much happier
I remember that he did that
In 1985, a few years earlier, I did an one man show at the West Bank Cafe in New York
I invited the governor to come see the show
as a gag
And I got a form letter from his office wishing me “a successful event”
I read the letter to the audience and got good laughs
which was my intention
So with that history
the receipt of the personal note a few years later
was all the more moving
Well, Chris is his father’s son
Mario spoke of “the poetry of campaigning and the prose of governing”
Chris is the poet, and Andrew is the governor
Chris isn’t a good poet right now
He has a lot of impediments to doing good work
His name is shown in lights in front of his show
Just like Judy Garland
He spends most of his show pleading with Social Persons
to “be better”
Better policing
Better health care
Better economics
But when he goes beyond commentary
and ends the show with “Life Lessons”
he stumbles
He doesn’t have the time to reflect enough
or alchemize beyond his personal experience into something universal
He doesn’t have the support
He says his “big shot” producer told him
“So you’re just saying life sucks and then you die?”
Crude, facile and dismissive
When I was 50, I hadn’t matured fully into my artistic nature either
I’ve been lucky
consistently disappointing society
and failing upward
supported by the hands of God
that look a lot like other people
My art has gathered a lot of momentum
All time that seemed wasted is actually quite profitable
Social wounds are fountains of God’s intentions
for myself and the world
For quite awhile after I turned 50
I straddled art and society
Poetically campaigning and prosaically governing
Now I am released to my true nature
the poetry
the prose still lives in me
not as legal trials and course syllabi
but as essay
my form — the Poetic Essay
and I wish Chris Cuomo the best
artists are like sperm
from testicles with low sperm counts
very few to begin with
and very few actually impregnate the ovum of the world
It isn’t a question of achievement
It’s a question of fate
and God’s mysterious purposes
Few are called and fewer are chosen
and somehow, some way
here I am.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
8/9/20: God, Man and Business #poetry #essay #PoeticEssay #UniversityReopenings
I don’t take the car out much in the plague
Paula had an appointment in Wilmette and we got ice cream
I noticed that I needed air in my tires
Not flat but low from lack of use
I pull into the Just Tires at Broadway and Lawrence
Can I get air in my tires?
The guy was busy
an immigrant
Pull it up here
Drops what he is doing, grabs a hose, starts filling me up
No process, no pleasantries, no questions, no waiting, no up-sell, no sell
Matter of fact
I take out my wallet
I have to give the guy something
All twenties
I don’t want to give him that much
I look at Paula
What can you do?
I take out a twenty
He is finishing up
Hey buddy …
I put down my window and hand him the money
He takes it
Fine that I gave it
Fine If I wouldn’t have
No a-thousand-thank-yous-kind-sir
No big smile
People help each other
People appreciate it
Just another day in a decent world
No big deal
Why was Jesus a carpenter?
Why was he poor?
Why was he executed as a criminal?
Why the contrast?
Why the divinity and the low status?
Being There
My first job was in the installment loan department of the Lincoln Rochester Bank in Rochester, New York
Jesuit high school summer
I did the job for several summers into college time
Notre Dame summers
God at the edges of banking
Lincoln Rochester was bought out by Chase Manhattan Bank while I was there
and everything became colder
From George Bailey to the Hudsucker Proxy between Junior Year of High School and Junior Year of College
I saw the twilight of banking
Community became corporation
When I was at McQuaid Jesuit and Notre Dame in the 1970s
I never felt that people didn’t care about me
The teachers and staff wanted to educate me
They wanted me to be safe and happy
When I was a freshman at Notre Dame we used to go to Polka Bar up Route 31 into Michigan, where the drinking age was 18
Kubiak’s
A kid in my dorm got killed hitchhiking back from that bar one night
It was a big deal
I remember a big presence of
pastors
tending to us
trying to fix the root causes of what happened
concerned
Many years later
in the early 2000s I think
a student manager of the football team went up on a scaffold overlooking practice
making a training video in a windstorm
He was blown off the slight structure
and fell several stories to his death
I remember a big presence of lawyers this time
not pastors
concern for students was replaced by concern with legal liability
by this time
The cathedral steeple used to be the tallest structure in any town
before skyscrapers were invented
Corvias is a capital investment firm
that “partners” with universities
financing, developing and managing student housing
Notre Dame
Purdue
and Wayne State
are all Corvias partners
All have reopened their campuses this Fall 2020 semester
in the midst of the pandemic
Corvias does not even consider not reopening
as any concerned pastor would do
and these ivory tower institutions
have lost all self-determination
their values are necessarily compromised to the values of their
partner
The tentacles of business wrap around us all
quite literally choking us
we die for business
as we rush to the casinos and motels and water parks and car dealerships
that they instruct us to buy from
we need the collegiate experience
how neatly our desires serve business’ revenue streams
Notre Dame markets the teachings of the Catholic Church
for tuition, room and board
a tidy sum
you get to be successful
have fun
and here’s the kicker — be a really good Christian
someone who does good
Why wasn’t Jesus an investment banker?
Or a dean?
Things were better in the seventies
I’m not being nostalgic
They weren’t better because I was young
They were better because business hadn’t bought everything yet
There was just as much greed and exploitation
just as much blood money
but business wasn’t as good at being business
It was still learning
It didn’t learn how to control data
it hadn’t figured out how to commodify everything
I knew drunk, tormented priests when I was a kid
who thought about theology and philosophy all the time
Now students are customers
and the clergy is a customer service career
Nancy Pelosi is an 80 year-old Catholic grandmother among other things
She remembers what it was like better than I do
of how it was before business took over
Even she has said
of her $ 3.4 trillion necessary Heroes Act
“It’s a lot of money”
the irony is
that money
and more like it
is needed to save business itself
the economy
besides the people
but business will now implode
its credo
never give
only take
never be honest
manipulate
use use use
control control control
be larger than life
supersede life
will now create a genocide
and pull business down too
Business has always been a thief and a murderer
and now it has come for itself
Why was Jesus betrayed for thirty pieces of silver?
Of what earthly good is business?
We write In God We Trust on our money
but we have foolishly put our trust in the money itself
and it has betrayed us
Business needs ego and show and public relations and awards
to cover up how unimportant it is
The priest-President of Notre Dame was recently photographed partying with non-socially distant students
promoting and selling back-to-school in a viral cesspool
desperately trying to gin up enthusiasm for the local “townies” who are sure to get sick and die so Corvias gets its money
(In the seventies we used to go see movies like The China Syndrome and we’d believe it, take it as a warning — now with all of the sophistication and idealism that’s out there — somehow the puzzle is still confusing to most people — because the reality is so
God awful)
The priest dances an Irish jig
to sell his corporation that spews deadly toxic waste into the air
as wanton and murderous
as any criminal chemical company creating cancer clusters in the neighborhoods adjacent to its facilities
The priest-President later apologizes for not keeping socially distant
I made a mistake
he says with a boyish smile
Oh father — you are so charming
how can anyone stay mad at you for long
Your such a good salesman
Your product is to die for
I wish I was as good as the guy who put air in my tires
that will never be
but I am glad that I have always been such a lousy businessman
that has saved me
It is so odd to watch the people who have been anointed as pillars of the community
run around so desperately and maniacally
Their institutions
so rich and high-minded and holy
turn from the seven sacraments to an infomercial
from the nation’s foremost Catholic university
to Jonestown, Guyana
How many people will business kill before it dies?
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
UNITED STATES – SEPTEMBER 27: President Franklin D. Roosevelt leaves his home at 49 East 65th Street for a short visit to his family estate at Hyde Park, north of New York City. This photograph is unusual in that FDR’s leg braces are clearly visible. (Photo by Martin Mcevilly/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)
8/14/20: People with Toy Problems, and Other Conditions #poetry
People with toy problems
Never been sick
Never been out of work
troubles with their careers
and relationships
and finding themselves
not being asked to the prom
not making the glee club
toy problems
I had toy problems when I was much younger
the issues weren’t the objects of my frustration
the issue was me
You’re lucky if you have toy problems
they direct you back to the life that you should be living
the life that you have no say in
the acorn planted in the pit of your soul
that grows into an oak if you let it
and the first half of your life is learning to let it
You manufacture one obstruction after another
and then use Herculean effort to clear your way
only to return to the easiest thing in the world
Some people don’t have the opportunity to have toy problems
They are denied food, air, water and love
They scrape for survival
like wild animals
the strong survive
the weak ones die
The survivors earn the right to dream
but are unable to
Insomniacs
fearful or proud
they are distorted
their souls never got a chance to be considered
Men have something more than animals
That something more is indescribable
It is why poetry exists
Poetry points at it
It’s the best that you can do
Dreams are adjacent to it
so is imagination
toy problems are illusory gateways to the truth
if you let them
The luckiest get both conditions
toy problems and the fight to survive
FDR was a bon vivant
a rich kid
a mama’s boy
things came easy to him
he didn’t have to work very hard
He had setbacks in work and love
lost an election and probably a girl or two
toy problems
and then he got polio
ease was replaced by struggle
no one could help him
he either lived or died
it was up to him
He chose living
his toy problem career became a vocation
his personal ambition became
grounded
in compassion
he did not only master polio and transcend it
to fulfill his destiny as a person of action
He transcended the suffering of the polio
turned polio into his school
and saw the suffering of the world around him
FDR didn’t sacrifice any of his essential being
He still loved power
and being the center of attention
he was still was a strategist of his destiny
He still had all the personal characteristics that he had in his era of small problems
It was his consciousness of his purpose that had changed
A life well lived sees the foolishness of past preoccupations
and the importance of why they possessed you so
I used to be in awe of the “New Journalists” of the 60’s and 70’s
Especially the flamboyant theatrical ones
Gore Vidal, William F. Buckley, Norman Mailer, Truman Capote
Ken Kesey … to a lesser extent Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese …
their fathers, Dwight MacDonald and James Agee
I was in awe of their writing
and I was thrilled by the ones who went on television
witty, incisive, vulnerable, raw
they were stars in every way
merging their toy problems with the facts
infusing imagination into reality
brazenly taking their rightful positions as co-creators of the world
Now
years later
my awe is replaced by affection
they aren’t as smart as I thought
and they were hardly the gods that I thought they were
they were repetitious
as we all are
I think we are like birds
we have one call
and we sing it
that’s all
Their stardom was a blessing and a curse
it either kept them from their potential
or was where they landed because it was the outer limits of what they were capable of
I’m not sure
They were my fairy tale New York
bright people sharing fascinating ideas and starting love affairs at parties and bars
Woody Allen was gobsmacked by all of this too
Of course its all gone now
that New York
that type of writing
those talk shows
even when those writers were critical of America they were convinced of its enormous potential
The American Dream is a toy problem
FDR was replaced by JFK
feeding everybody and defeating fascism
was replaced by sex with Marilyn Monroe and a trip to the moon
We didn’t want heaven
we wanted the Garden of Eden
and then came the Fall
we’ve worked ourselves back to a place worse than the Great Depression
so that we can start all over again
We have to separate from the unimportant desires
and cope with hard cold reality
saving our endangered species
without losing our magic
placing our joy in service of what has to be done
and each other.
Churchill
painting
writing literature
cigars and scotch
and defeating Hitler
the congruence of poetry and necessary, practical life
the satisfaction of fulfilling one’s authentic individual destiny
in the bosom of the world
successes and failures
illusions and epiphanies
are not the ultimate things
they are mere tactics
executing the strategic designs of destiny
your destiny
my destiny
our destiny
the destinies of our peoples
and the destiny of the world.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
8/15/20: Brands #poetry #essay #PoeticEssay
Every institution that I ever participated in
with full allegiance and passion
and most humanly
self-identification
is now
just a brand
The Catholic Church is just a brand
Jesuit education is just a brand
The University of Notre Dame is just a brand
Second City is just a brand
The practice of law is just a brand
Teaching at university is just a brand
Noble aspirations and high ideals are a distant second to the budgets and box office
Excellence doesn’t stand a chance next to public relations and sales
How good you are
as a person and
in what you do
is nothing compared to how much money you bring in
and how you are rated on customer satisfaction surveys
It doesn’t matter where you go
your supervisor is an accountant or a lawyer
usually an accountant
Our souls are commodities
Bought and sold
Nothing is rewarded
Not even the famous “hard work”
Returns are made on investments
it’s not the quality of the thing that matters
It’s the seductive strength of the illusion attached to it
Careers and life preoccupations
are sold like cars and dishwashers
the Church gives you comfort in the face of the terror of existence
and an antidote to anxiety
it tells you how to think, feel and be
and your place in the seeming chaos
The first of many opiates of the people
Jesuit education is the Church for smart people
It gives you the reassurance that you can go forward in a community of intelligent people of high character
and that your life can be something fine and noble
and all of your sacrifices,
particularly loneliness
are well worth it
The University of Notre Dame is a more pernicious lie
Now you are something special
ordained to be good and respectable and rich
you will be a leader of the world
and an anointed son of heaven
simultaneously
Smug and humble at the same time
a neat trick
God and money shaking hands
equal partners
fifty/fifty
Second City sells cool and fame mystique
to the drab and ordinary
a museum where the docents play act the roles of the people who actually did something
who are figured in the unavoidable dioramas that line the corridors
Real wit and humor only occurs there by accident
inspired by ghosts
who the current inhabitants channel and reject
again — simultaneously
A map to a future walk of fame
that’s what the customers get
that’s the brand
the branded laugh
let’s laugh whether we get it or not
whether we like it or not
See our new revue — “Pavlov’s Dogs”
A lawyer is an officer of the court
our world is governed by reason and fairness
and honesty
Put “the rule of law” in the same branding category as “hard work”
Really, dear?
You are so jejune
We are only as good as we actually are
We can’t work for a brand
or consume it as a client or “guest”
(isn’t “guest” one of the great euphemisms of branding — don’t pay at the Marriott and see how long you enjoy their “hospitality”)
Real reason is a quality of the mind
Real justice is a quality of the soul
Atticus Finch is more saint than lawyer
The world received me in a different way after I passed the bar exam
but nothing has really changed
Reality has nothing to do
with branding
My character and intellect are what they are
for better or worse
irrespective of the certifications of the Supreme Court of Illinois
Come to the university!
You can check off boxes here!
Get the pass you need to get a job (that’s the main thing)
Broaden yourself as an individual (that’s for the dreamy types)
Absorb the modalities of your accomplished professors’ thought processes (oh brother)
A big scam
a life tax
If you want to learn about something you can read about it, observe it
You don’t need a professor
If you want to learn how to do something you have to do it
Maybe with the direction and mentorship of a more experienced person or people in the beginning
If you want time off in your life to reflect
take it
The only reason that you need the collegiate middle man is
money
You get no return on investment with a do-it-yourself education
There’s a TV commercial for Audi
A tough branding problem
How do you make someone buy a luxury car
in the middle of a pandemic?
You show dogs
itching to go outside
jumping up and down at the door
Everybody loves dogs
Cut to the doors opening
and the dogs sprinting
no leashes
into a wide green expanse
with a high blue sky
(aren’t you dying to go outside — quite literally?)
Cut again
this time to the Audi
gliding on the most beautiful road in the world
Cut still again
into the cabin
the handsome male model glances at the beautiful female model sitting on the passenger’ side
You get sex in the deal too!
Cute charming dogs
freedom
and you get laid
in the middle of a pandemic
for only $75,000
I could make that commercial into a work of art in short order
Turn the branding into art
I’d just throw in some quick cuts
to cemeteries
and people being intubated
and make shift morgues
maybe a shot of George Floyd being murdered
and the recent Chicago looting.
There’s the real thing, and then there’s the brand
I really believed in all of the brands of my life
I bought in
and then again, I never did
I’ve never really felt that I belonged anywhere
I’ve felt betrayed by all of my brands
and at the same time thought, unsurprised,
“that figures”
I started out with the burden of dreams
I thought that I could be all of the things that my brands promised that they would make me
and since they are just illusions
I failed at them one by one
mourned each loss
writhed in self-doubt
only to finally be released
with a shrug
“oh well, that really didn’t matter at all”
All the shabby, ordinary imperfect realities
that were misrepresented by their brands
were places for me to live
and there was something inside of me besides the branded illusions
I loved every minute of it
Every step in my journey could excite me with romance
and hurt me deeply
prompting my descent into operatic bitterness
I had to extricate myself from each embrace
the perfect spot for a time always became too small
this is the tale of the art of living
we are spiritual sharks
we grow down into our consciousness
and we fashion our autobiographical works of art
out of the existing world
we change
our inner revolutions inspire outer ones
I could only stay in a place as long as I could believe the branding
and then I had to move on
What wonderful places I’ve seen
and wonderful people I have known
dear friends
and villains
lovers
and family
a wife
kind strangers
people who loved me and wished me all that is good
people who despised me and sneered at me with bad intentions;
and the touchstone
the constant
me
not as I had branded myself
not as I wanted to be
or as others wanted me to be
not a creation
not a feat of self-invention
but me
as I am
good at what I am good at
lacking what I lack
nothing heroic
nothing saintly
not a star
or a genius
just a guy who like to talk
and did it so much he got halfway good at it
I like to read obituaries
The final branding
Pure baloney
Advertisements for the estate sales
Thank God the world is so mysterious
one layer peeled to reveal a deeper strata
and thank God I like to talk
It’s my way of just being
and gives me something to do before I die
beyond membership
but still connected
not untethered beyond the earth’s gravitational pull
or is all that just branding?
To know oneself and the world
is not a matter of definitions
It is a matter of knowing in the biblical sense
a constant copulation with life
an exploration of our inner reality
and its expression in other things and people
we don’t have to be sold that we can be more than what we are.
that somehow we are not enough
I used to like musical comedy
not so much anymore — it’s OK, I guess — it keeps me awake when I am driving
but it still represents something essential about who I am
I like happy endings
I think getting to a place of peace, love and understanding is the goal of art
without sugar-coating any of what’s true
Perfect writing
a theoretical and unattainable action
would evidence perfect accuracy
unflinchingly truthful
and perfect compassion
without a trace of indifference or bitterness
I am strong on not being indifferent
Lacking bitterness comes and goes (this line gives me slight anxiety — potential fuel for my enemies and critics, but that’s where unflinching honesty comes in …. )
We are imperfect
love and art are what’s perfect — not us
Branding is the opposite of art (advertising)
born out of the opposite of love (fear)
Branding: you need this because without it you will never have enough money and whatever else you need
AND
without it, you are not enough.
Wrong.
You will and you are.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
8/16/20: The Guru #poetry #essay #PoeticEssay #Improvisation #Teaching
Another recycled anecdote
of the dead guru
of the dead performance form
with all the secrets of success and life
primarily for actors
(they are particularly susceptible to this kind of bullshit)
but for other people too
conquer your introversion
make it in show business
let your freak flag fly
and if you do none of the above
at the very least be hip
special
too cool for school
Be a bum with a difference
All cults don’t involve God
The Guru remembered
He once acted with coleslaw in his pants
“Is it true?” the aging acolytes of the dead Buddha giggle
Um, no
The Guru was an off and on drug addict with horrible personal hygiene
He sneered at the establishment with an insincere conspiratorial grin
a horrible actor who taught acting
every once in a while he shows up in an old movie
in small offbeat parts
he never got a good one
He was the thesp equivalent of a novelty act
When a director wanted a strange or unreal moment
or wanted to warmly remember their youth in improv class before they went off and made a living at it
The Guru was their man
He wasn’t really cut out for a profession which required access to one’s vulnerability and personal feeling
But he was a hell of a businessman
A real innovator
His insight was that you could corporatize anything
even the drug abuse and faux spiritual habits
of a bum
and the basic creativity 101 insights of a failed artist who never finished the job of developing his gifts
Afraid and lazy
like all salesmen are
If he hadn’t made himself into the King of Improv Teaching
he might have set up shop at the train station
seducing teen runaways into white slavery
He had many students who became successful entertainers
Let me tell you something about teaching
School is like Vaudeville
A lot of people go through it
They get experience
good and bad
no matter who the teacher is
and some of them use their brains and talent to figure out how to be successful
I’ve done a lot of teaching
I taught improv for several years
A lot of my students have been successful in show business
Probably a better percentage than the Guru’s
A network talk show host
Several TV writers and show runners
An Oscar-nominated actor
sitcom stars
and a lot of my students have been successful in other fields
and life in general
Here’s the thing
I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT
THEY WOULD BE WHO THEY ARE IF THEY NEVER MET ME
This isn’t false modesty
I think a lot of myself
as a person and as an artist, writer
And I am a good teacher
It’s just that teaching is a gig and it’s not a big deal
teaching is just a job where you manage an environment where people can work before they have the opportunity to be paid for that work so that you can do the work that you love that no one pays you to do
Universities don’t look at teaching as the primary thing in selecting their tenured faculty
They look at the research and the writing
But the Guru was a big bum
salesmen are bums
and bums are cunning
they spot people’s weaknesses
and they exploit
I have no idea where the coleslaw story came from
But I am sure the Guru never did it
Probably he heard that someone else did it
and pounced
a homely outre’ move
turning working and middle class life
into bohemian subversion
meaningless
because that’s the nihilistic message isn’t it
it’s all bullshit
get the drug
get the attention
get the applause
there ain’t no love
love is for suckers
This is the message of the salesman
I’ll answer your need
Methadone for the soul
The first hit is for free
This con man
(who was a human being too, he had many warm moments with people — why not, gangsters and white nationalists are good to their dogs — sometimes … )
was just trying to get over
He lost his main enabler
and he figured out a way
to periodically walk into a theater
and preen in front of wide-eyed disciples
intone rambling monologues
sprinkled with occasional tidbits of useful information
while a shoe box was filled with tens and twenties
Then he would take the cash
go back to his chaotic and filthy apartment
get high
and read comic books
The crock of shit life
led to a great legacy
a theater devoted to the spirit of the Guru’s blather
Several books glorifying the Guru
written by reporters and academics who don’t understand theater or the creative process
all of which is relatively harmless
There is a lot of jerk-off material available so people can distract themselves
But one aspect of the Guru’s immortality sucks
He was the founder of a shit “improv” culture
as insensitive and disrespectful
and banal — don’t forget banal
as the Guru was himself
Circle jerk improvisation
sniggering about navel lint
or some other insignificance
a siren call to lives without purpose or excellence or value
the prison of the adolescent clique
never transcended
love. work, marriage denied
The existential equivalent of sitting on a rug cross-legged
with your ne’er do well no exit friends
sucking on a bong
The fond memories of the Guru aren’t about the Guru at all
they are nostalgic remembrances of a moment of youth
that his adherents lust to make permanent
But here’s the thing about moments
they always change into something else
and Paradise becomes Hell in a split second
if you don’t let it go
Here’s one more thing about all the students who become successful, independent agents of their own lives
The alumni winners that are the Guru’s top marketing bullet point
they aren’t really “successful”
They are in process
moving on
just like the rest of us
Here’s the thing about improvisation
How can someone teach you how to do it?
It’s about meeting the unknown, right?
The games, the rules, the forms
are false equivalencies
to the unfailingly surprising transformative instances of life
The Guru has nothing to do with that thrilling and/or terrifying reality
He just took credit for it
killed it and pressed it onto a microscope slide
The sweet people who worked with him remained sweet
The bitter, cynical pricks got a license to spread his gospel of denied despair widely
to the four corners of the earth
Impostors of importance
selling something of no more importance than fame
or even more cruelly for the less gifted and misguided masses
a dream of fame that will never come
The famous find no satiety in their prominence
the frustrated obscure are blocked from the opportunity to move on to the deeper and glorious satisfactions of life
so they light candles to honor the dead Guru
and give outsized attention to each other and compete in petty power games
in a sad
and pathetic (I use the word sorrowfully and not with meanness)
This photo is at least 8 years old — several weight fluctuations ago. I thought the picture read “Fuck the Rich” but I guess it is the same meaning. I offer this as a companion to my “Fuck Trump” photo portrait. I think this one gets at the root problem —the situation that made Trump possible.
Are you frustrated that Congress hasn’t passed a relief bill for your unemployment, rent, virus control, school safety etc? Fuck the rich! They don’t want you to get the money to survive beyond the disaster that they created because the government will have to print more money to save you, and that makes their money worth less. They are all for expensive tax cuts or wars — they make money on those. But every dime that goes to you is less for them.That is the ultimate debate in this country — always. The fucking rich getting more value for their money or the rest of us getting what we need and justly deserve.
The rich know that the idea that we don’t want to work is bullshit. They always blame us as a tactic in order to get their money.
Any issue in this country, any conflict, any tragedy has the rich as a silent partner.
Every issue is always doing what is right — which is usually obvious — or preserving and not lessening the value of the rich’s money.
Hundreds of thousands of people are dying in the pandemic to protect the value of the rich’s money.
Hundreds of thousands of people are suffering with chronic lifelong illness …
Millions are unemployed …
Millions are under-paid and unprotected …
The rich have already destroyed our democracy. Democracy doesn’t work for the rich. It lowers the value of their money.
We adjust our existences for their money.
We can’t go outside because of their money.
We cancel or defer our dreams because of their money.We can’t breathe because of their money.
We can’t just do normal things … make a living doing something that serves our human values and that we enjoy because of their money.
Our self-esteem is based in what we can do for their money — until we get wise and say
FUCK THE RICH!
We don’t need revenge — we just need their knees off of our necks.
We need to take back our self-determination that they have usurped from us.
Trump is the culmination. The rich impose him upon us because they make money doing so.
I guess the first step is defeating Trump.
But it’s only an early battle.
We have to FUCK THE RICH!
Fuck them first out of our minds and then do everything to take all power that they have over our lives away from them.
That’s politics, culture, personal relationships — everything will be changed.
You’re going to have some unpleasant confrontations; and you are going to lose some people that you thought were friends.
We all have friends who admire the rich, who are working to be one of the rich, who would live in squalor self-medicating on a drug of rich-love.
These former friends are the imaginary rich — they are rich in their own minds. They are not fair-minded. You only know them because they don’t actually have money. If they had money, they wouldn’t give you the time of day.
Some people — THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT — who have money are not RICH. Some people got their money not by being worried about the value of money, but being good at something, or inheriting it or getting lucky. These good people with money are also harmed by the obsessions of the rich to preserve the value of their money. These good well-off people have to live in a dystopian reality when what they want most is to enjoy life and be nice to other people.
But with that caveat to carefully identify who is friend and who is foe —
there is no choice.
You have to
FUCK THE RICH !
We can’t put their needs before our own any longer.
We were outraged when George Floyd was murdered by police
Black Lives Matter!
A couple of months later
Police shoot Jacob Blake several times
in the back
Two protesters are murdered in the aftermath
another maimed
and now Black Lives Matter not so much
We can’t stay focused on root causes
We just worry that a Wendy’s got vandalized
We can’t stay away from the racism
and blame the victims
We can’t sort out the white nationalist violence
and the politicians’ who incite it
Our democracy may be dying
because we can’t pay attention
can’t stay focused
We can’t stay focused on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights
The Declaration of Independence
and the moral teachings of every religion and humanist philosophy
We need brief social media posts
We call short pieces too long
Our entertainment has to move quickly
A 30 second commercial might have hundreds of quick cut edits
Some people graduate from college without having to write an essay
The Presidential Polls usually bounce around
The famous “October Surprise”
Campaign professionals exploit the fact that we have A.D.D.
Decisions made based upon our reaction to the last thing that we heard or saw …
People who suffer have focused minds
Black basketball players speaking about what it is like to worry that their little brothers and sisters
or black coaches’ children
could get killed for no reason
or punished for merely having dignified outrage
at insult and abuse
Nurses who see communal death
day after day after day
and fear getting sick themselves
because of lack of proper protection
stay focused
They know a genocide continues in America
eliminating the unproductive old
and the unjustly persecuted people of color.
We walk through our lives unaware of their arc
Unconsciously fulfilling stories written by the rich
Happily surrendering our power of self-determination
Just existing
in our one-thing-after-another manner
In denial of death
in denial of our own misery
It’s not that we can’t see what is going on
we just can’t keep seeing it
easy pickings
for murderers and thieves.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
8/29/20: The Finer Things #poetry
A writer is an eternal novice
He thinks he knows what he is doing
and then everything changes
subtly
almost imperceptibly
like a slight change in the direction of a breeze
Old personal challenges get solved
naturally
seemingly magically
It only seems that way
Epiphanies follow experiences
Aha! comes after change
Consciousness follows reality
Everything seems so easy up close
The far away is difficult
All good writing is personal
The social is just a projection
The Democrats give a poem of community
Overcoming adversity together
It is nice but distant
I want all that for the world
and more for myself
The Finer Things
The Republicans threaten
they promise the continuation of all that is wrong
and the achievement of all that can go wrong
I can’t get outraged or fearful or indignant
Been there done that
The Finer Things
The Upper West Side of Manhattan
before 9-11
before the development of the last thirty years
Independent bookstores
Writers talking in coffee shops
art house movie theaters
Off-Off Broadway plays
warm apartments
with plants on old window sills
Old furniture with thick upholstery
I walk alone
No commerce
No entertainment
No conflict
Lectures and talks at the Y
Unconnected
No love of other
Love of words and ideas and images
Not lonely at all
The Finer Things
A Sea of Tranquility
Forget schools
Forget therapy
Forget mentors
Forget conventions
Time to make the finer things oneself
To stand naked and vulnerable and expectant before an empty page
and fill it
to create an upper west side and bookstores and coffee shops and conversations and art houses and over-stuffed furniture
and in so doing
make a community that overcomes adversity
unafraid of the crass threats of barbarians
All good writing is personal
and that which inspires what is calm and warm inside of us
is who we are, what we do and everything we can be
it teaches us, cures us
and connects us to others
Conflicts transcended
the world starts anew
again and again and again.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
9/4/20: The Evolution of Mistaken Criticism on the Road to Quiet Self-Contained Joy #poetry
When a person is fully living their own life
Fulfilling their destiny
Honoring their character
Creating
Fortunate enough to be born surrounded by love
Not spoiled but cherished
Endowed with a natural sense of entitlement
not in the social superior way
but in the existential respect for humanity way
grateful for the very gift of life
in awe of the vast array of possibilities associated with that gift
Possessed of self-esteem
before he or she could talk or walk
The imprint for all human interactions set as a baby
a mother’s nurturing warmth
a father’s strong admiration and protection
bestowed upon the person
not as a reward for any success, achievement or attainment
not for any beauty or intelligence or any other extraordinary attribute
but simply for the fact of his or her life
The blessed person is welcomed into the world with great hospitality
The second womb
For the first two or three years of life
the lucky fetus-like soul is cared for and grows
Then …
the happy little fellow or girl is introduced to the broader world
Teachers, friends, aunts and uncles, grandparents, kindly neighbors
initially continue to build the environment that the golden child knew at home
but sometimes slowly
and sometimes in abrupt and shocking ways
the little one is unfairly criticized
out of misguided concern
what was seen as a blessing is now characterized as a disability
out of an assertion of societal authority
the little one can’t be allowed to be and do as he or she pleases
There are rules
“Should”
The child learns a new word
“You should do this”
There is the shock of being mocked and condemned
for the very qualities that led to such love and admiration at home
Why?
Why the fall from paradise?
Most people never receive the unconditional love that our little hero or heroine got consistently and without interruption from day one
That love is necessary
and when it is denied people suffer greatly
They become misshapen
distorted
The absence of love leads to ignorance — a lack of curiosity and interest in the world, because the world is seen as a harsh and mean place to be avoided
The absence of love leads to lust and aggression — power as an ultimately inadequate love substitute
The absence of love leads to envy of those who are loved — a hate for those who have what is desperately desired and believed to be unattainable
The absence of love leads to fear and identification with societal authority to provide a facsimile of the security that love provides
The absence of love leads to criminality — life is seen as a war, a fight, a field of murder, rape and thievery
The absence of love leads to pride — armored souls mistaking their ability to survive as proof that they live lives of self-determination
The absence of love leads to greed’s golden false idols
The absence of love leads to the worship of success — the need to prove oneself in a way that is wholly unnecessary for the loved one — the loved one never had to earn his or her right to feel worthy, wanted, cared for
… of course,
our little protagonist begins his or her journey
completely unprepared to meet all the sorrow and anger and pain and stupidity of the world
and all of its assaults
At first, the loved one thinks all criticism directed toward him or her is right
and all criticism is sincere
The loved one thinks love is the nature of the world
without exception
Innocence
So the innocent listens and learns
and of course suffers
The loved one becomes exiled from his or her essence
His or her excellence
That special quality
becomes a source of shame
He or she began life as a unity
and is, at this point, divided
This might go on for several years
Self-betrayal has its rewards
Once plucky and independent
our main character now
fits in
This goes on for years
But the soul is a nag
Shame tuned into compromise and acceptance
which turned into a legitimate doubt
and legitimate guilt
something isn’t right
which turned into anger
which turned into argument
who was right? The loved or the unloved
Which turned into frustration
and resentment
and finally the unloved completely disappear
beyond being objects in an artist’s studio
still lifes
The only trace of the unloved
is the as a weakening delusional voice
in the loved one’s mind
that finally disappears
after decades of an odyssey
he or she returns back to hearth and home
quiet, peaceful and happy
this time aware of the sad storm outside …
Nothing to prove …
nothing to earn …
no one to please
love and work unite
the greatest social forces
are forces of nature.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
9/5/20: Giving Us the Business #poetry #commentary
Trump’s view of people in the military as “losers” and “suckers” because they take great risks, including the ultimate risk, and get little money for their troubles is the ultimate Republican point of view.
The Republican Party — the party of business. For Republicans money is the only valid motivation for doing anything, with the exception, perhaps, of the adjunct goal of the power money gives you.
Business has been at the helm for the last four years. How’s that going? Business supported a clown authoritarian as President that is destroying our democracy. Business doesn’t want to spend the money necessary to control a pandemic, and we have the worst response to that public health crisis in the developed world. Business doesn’t want to pay labor fairly, or provide a safety net to working people adversely affected by business’ bad decisions, and thus, we are in a depression. Business believes that the person with the most money rules, and that attitude has brought on a time of great social unrest as a result of that injustice.
Business has laughably said that government is the problem. They assumed the total control of the government that they had building to for forty years in 2016. We live in chaos.
The three businessman Presidents have been Herbert Hoover, George W. Bush and Donald Trump. Other Presidents, including Democrats, have been pro-business in their policies, but those three men’s backgrounds were the actual making of business.
I’ve noticed two quirks in discussion with business people this week. They have a hard time accepting moral outrage. They believe that everyone has good intentions — always. It’s a curious stance coming from people whose whole worldview revolves around competitive selfishness. Business people also respond to the presentation of facts by saying, “we have to agree to disagree”. They see reality as a matter of argument.
The best business people — the Bill Gates, Warren Buffet types, are masters of reality. They made their money skillfully responding to real needs and desires. At one time, The Wall Street Journal had the best reporting, because wealthy business people wanted to know precisely what was going on so that they could make the best decisions. The best business people are usually something else too — professionals or artists or intellectuals who have actual expertise in some substantive subject matter, and aren’t simply focused on management, accounting and marketing.
But the populist business man, the Sinclair Lewis Babbitt types, the scions of main street have no tolerance for nuance and little skill for adaptation to the needs of others. The Main Street Moguls get visions — American dreams, and pursue them come hell or high water.
Business people remain inexplicably popular with the American people writ large. It seems almost everyone wants to be one. And everyone looks to the successful business people as sources of all jobs and security, in spite of all evidence that business people are not adept at providing either of those essential commodities.
Business people can build and destroy, but they fall down in roles of stewardship which are required of all leaders.
Fred Rogers said that in times of crisis we should “look for the helpers”, and yet we crazily keep looking for the takers — business people.
Most Americans are not successful at business, because we want to do other things.
Did you become a school teacher because you like working with kids? You’re a sap.
Do you do art for art’s sake? Loser.
Do you become a lawyer and then do some work in the public interest? How can you use that money and education that you put into that degree and get so little out of it? Fool.
Business certifies everything. If you do anything that isn’t successful in a monetary or commercial sense, it doesn’t exist.
Business hates regulation and the law because it unnecessarily gets in its way. The ultimate business is crime.
Business turned our government into a criminal enterprise.
All of the rest of our institutions — churches, schools, charities etc. now operate as businesses because business is our only barometer of success.
Business is the fuel that makes our American Rome burn.
The primacy of business must end …
or we are all going to die …
at the same time.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
9/9/20: Sam Wasson’s “Improv Nation” — The Confusion of Art and Show Business #poetry #essay #PoeticEssay #improvisation #SamWasson #MikeNichols #DelClose #SecondCity
When Sam Wasson called me a few years ago to interview me as part of his research for his book on improvisation, “Improv Nation”, I was excited. He said that he wanted to write a book about improvisation as an art form. That was a topic of great interest to me.
Wasson and I have different definitions of the word “art” however. Consequently, he largely ignored what I had to say and misrepresented my views, and even my background in the form, in the slight mention that I have in the book. In fairness, my views about the art of improvisation were in an earlier developmental form than they are today. I was trying to find my place in the improvisation community, and was learning, at first painfully and then happily, that I had no place within it.
So Wasson’s confusion was similar to my waning confusion.
My confusion related to improvisation has ended. You cannot serve art and show business at the same time. They have contrary aims. Art is about truth, show business is about money, popularity and power. Some artists share their creations through the marketing mechanisms of show business, somehow making all relevant decisions regarding the work without compromise to commercial pressures. Sometimes, art does make money, popularity and power, because the truth and audiences’ need and desire for the truth happen simultaneously, maybe even miraculously. Just as often, the audience doesn’t want the truth, and prefers an “escape” into its prejudices. Show business will willingly offer either option to make box office receipts grow.
I don’t think there has been a good book written about the essence of improvisation since Viola Spolin’s “Improvisation for the Theater”. There have been decent works about the history of improvisation, but none of them really deal with the essence of the form. And most of these historical books tend to be hagiographic — written by improvisers for improvisers —a kind of “Lives of the Saints of Improv”. There has never been a really critical work about what it is to improvise since Spolin. Many amplifications of what she wrote are out there — but Spolin is the seminal work, the best consideration of what improvisation “is”.
Tellingly, Spolin’s book is interactive. You can only understand improvisation by doing it, and the depth of your understanding matches how goo you are at improvising. In the 1980s, Paul Sills said that I was a great improviser. I don’t mention this to promote myself. I say it because I have done the work at a high level that gives me a right to participate in this discussion.
I should be limited in my criticism of improv writing since I have no interest in writing such a book myself. I think these short pieces honor that limitation.
I commit myself to creating my own art which is beyond improvisation. I learned a lot about creativity as an improviser, but I have transcended the form — my art is beyond improvisation. I think improvisation’s greatest contribution has been introducing artists to the basics of group and individual creation. The artists have always matriculated to more sophisticated forms. I think improvisation’s original sin is how it has been co-opted by show business, advertising and marketing. Spolin’s tenets have been corrupted to … sell shit.
The opposite of the artist is the salesman. Sam Wasson can’t seem to distinguish one from the other.
“Improv Nation” isn’t about the art of improvisation. It’s just a current rendering of the myth of improvisation.
Spolin’s improvisational practice was at once accessible and challenging. It was democratic in that it was open to anyone who showed up. Its values demanded the best in all participants.
Spolin has been bastardized by the commercial improv “schools”. The improvisational practices are open to everyone — that’s where the money is, but the values are simply the prevailing fashions and attitudes of the greater society. Art, on the other hand, stands outside of society and reflects it, so society can see its vices and virtues and act accordingly.
The “schools” and most current teachers claim Spolin as an ancestor while ignoring her idealism and rigor.
I don’t think much of what calls itself improvisation today is improvisation at all.
And any claims to artistry in these “classes” is mere sales puffery.
As a former improviser and former student of the founding generation of improvisation — Sills, Shepherd, and to a lesser extent Sahlins, I feel no kinship with the hostile takeover of improvisation by commercial interests.
Improvisation is not only not an art form as most often practiced currently. It is actually anti-art.
Second City has teamed with the University of Chicago Business School in the application of improvisational instruction to the training of business professionals. I am tempted to rest my case. Business almost always assumes primacy in any relationship — they don’t call it the almighty dollar for nothing.
Something can be art or business. There is no possible compromise. Business might be employed in a secondary way to further art, but it can never lead.
What has happened in the history of improvisation has happened in other sectors of society, including commercial real estate. Artists move into an undeveloped area. They innovate and create interest and vibrancy. Real estate investors see opportunity. They infuse capital. They market to expand the audience for what the artists have created. The dark anti-arts of marketing corrupt the pure artistic visions. Something new is born. What is left of the art in the area are museum pieces — dead things. Actual living artistic process moves on to different neighborhoods …
much as the true artists of improvisation emerge from the improv cauldron and create with purity elsewhere.
Wasson has a commercial writer’s sense of what sells. He claims that “Improv is America’s farthest reaching indigenous art form.” He is right that Improvisation writ large has had a big impact on popular culture. He is wrong that improvisation has had a big impact as an art form in American culture.
I agree with Viola Spolin’s famous introductory line, “Anyone can improvise.” It is a wonderful first line for a teacher. But I will add a caveat — not everyone can improvise as an artist.
Art is an elite experience. Talent is required. Development of that talent in craft, but mainly in values is required.
Anyone can play football in the backyard. Few can play in the NFL.
The selling of improvisation as an art form that anyone can do leads to a lot of ignorance and arrogance around “improv’s training centers”…
and also a cruel bait and switch for naive people who think they can take classes and become movie and TV stars.
There is an Improv Nation of lost souls chasing impossible dreams of little value, dutifully paying tuition for nothing with money they don’t have.
Wasson offers a thesis for his book — improvisation is an art, but really doesn’t follow it up with any depth. He fades into the fallback position of past writers about improvisation — biographies of the stars who cut their teeth as improvisers early in their careers.
“Improv Nation” is not about the art of improvisation. It is ultimately about improvisation’s commercial success. I find that perspective to be hardly groundbreaking and of little interest. Of course, it is a great addition to the industry that lies to people and says you can be a combination of Picasso, Einstein, Bill Murray and Marilyn Monroe if you just come pay us and play some some games.
Wasson descends into who-slept-with-who gossip when discussing the early Compass and Second City eras when improvisation was actually an art leading the culture instead of calculating ways to exploit it. It is a telling distraction. If he really went into an in-depth analysis of the work of the likes of Paul Sills and Nichols and May, it would destroy his flimsy hypothesis for the book and he’d have to start over.
Mike Nichols saw limitations in the artistic potential of improvisation and Del Close thought improvisation was an art form in and of itself. I worked with Mike Nichols and Del Close and have great admiration for Nichols and no admiration for Close. I think a comparison of the two men’s bodies of work can rest my case on the false claims regarding “improv” as an art form.
A recent piece on Nichols:
6/25/20: Mike Nichols #poetry #America #movies #theater #improvisation
Some of my beats are America, movies, theater and improvisation. All of those beats are in trouble right now, and also on the brink of great opportunity. Today’s segment is a song of praise that surprised me about a man who surfed time from Hitler to Obama, adapting and thriving as a human being, artist and businessman — in that order — maintaining his core and transforming his approaches to stay timely, relevant and healing until the end.
Mike Nichols was a nice man
a good man
a man from another time
I worked for him briefly
He made me feel like I was a genius and the next big thing
He did that for most everybody
He loved actors
and writers
and audiences
He personified the best of what Second City could be
during and after
he hit a sweet spot that touched art and commerce and being a mensch
He was very smart
and very warm
I didn’t set out to praise him so today
I started with the idea that Mike Nichols’ life and work and career are already of a time gone by
never to return
Nichols tracked the arc that America followed from culture to markets
he died before our descent into fascism
but he surely saw it coming
he knew it
he saw it as a seven-year old escaping Nazi Germany
and he never forgot it
He was a hybrid American
a refugee
A paradox
The ultimate insider
deflecting all eyes
from his role as precocious outsider
That was his ultimate magic trick
a master of disguise
Therefore …
He wasn’t as innocent as most of the rest of us
He knew how dark Man could be
But also how light
He was Einstein’s cousin!
What kind of crazy strains of goodness and brilliance was at his childhood dinner table
from the lesser members of the family who shared that gene pool?
He was a bard of how psychological and sociological attitudes affected ordinary people’s behaviors
His work, to me, seems to be about always finding a route to kindness, empathy, humanity
through a field of weakness, quiet desperation and temptation
He wasn’t nice just to be nice
Like everything else about him
he knew that it was smart to be nice
He got the most out of his colleagues with the sweet attitude
and he relied on them greatly
Nichols was less a creator and more of an arranger of other people’s talents
He had remarkable taste
Like a great baseball manager he knew how to put his players in the optimal positions and situations in order to win
Working that week for Mike Nichols was a great experience for me
Very instructive
Turns out, I was just a brief visitor to his world
I don’t do what Mike Nichols did
I just tell the truth
He was more subtle
He told as much truth as the audience could hear
He listened to the audience
and like a master politician
he led them as far as they could go and never went farther than what they were ready for
It’s my job just to tell the truth
I don’t think one approach is better than the other
Both are needed
Nichols was, and I am an untrained intellectual
Our type isn’t certified to understand things
We just look
I retreated to Mike Nichols yesterday afternoon
watching old videos in my sanctuary
as America goes through its necessary unraveling
and begins to
at long last
deal with racism
and capitalism
and sexism
and all the other abstractions we attach
to our fear, ignorance, arrogance,
stupidity, meanness and cruelty
and old, dead, man of the past
Mike Nichols
was less an escape
and more of a balm to me
Nichols made a lot of money
and made a lot of art
but as I watched him get progressively older in his interviews
those material things
were revealed to be means and not the end
I liked him much more than I expected to
The man dwarfed the prodigious body of work
and the gold medal career
Mike Nichols had a special life
My week with him was a special week
Nichols saw the world’s darkness with the eyes of refugee from Hitler’s Germany
its potential delights as a golden boy who enjoyed stratospheric early success
and its moral responsibility as a spoiled boy who more than anything wanted to grow up to be loving man
When I was with Mike Nichols for a week
I was in awe and nervous for that week
Stunned by the movie stars and New York intellectuals that I sat by
He was impressed by all of that too
but never to the exclusion of what really mattered
and now I see why fate sent me into that brief close proximity to Mike Nichols
and to my distant appreciation of him in the subsequent years
culminating with my video viewing yesterday
and it has nothing to do
with Hollywood
acting
show business
money
art even!
or
careers.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
Recent pieces on Close:
8/16/20: The Guru #poetry #essay #PoeticEssay #Improvisation #Teaching
Another recycled anecdote
of the dead guru
of the dead performance form
with all the secrets of success and life
primarily for actors
(they are particularly susceptible to this kind of bullshit)
but for other people too
conquer your introversion
make it in show business
let your freak flag fly
and if you do none of the above
at the very least be hip
special
too cool for school
Be a bum with a difference
All cults don’t involve God
The Guru remembered
He once acted with coleslaw in his pants
“Is it true?” the aging acolytes of the dead Buddha giggle
Um, no
The Guru was an off and on drug addict with horrible personal hygiene
He sneered at the establishment with an insincere conspiratorial grin
a horrible actor who taught acting
every once in a while he shows up in an old movie
in small offbeat parts
he never got a good one
He was the thesp equivalent of a novelty act
When a director wanted a strange or unreal moment
or wanted to warmly remember their youth in improv class before they went off and made a living at it
The Guru was their man
He wasn’t really cut out for a profession which required access to one’s vulnerability and personal feeling
But he was a hell of a businessman
A real innovator
His insight was that you could corporatize anything
even the drug abuse and faux spiritual habits
of a bum
and the basic creativity 101 insights of a failed artist who never finished the job of developing his gifts
Afraid and lazy
like all salesmen are
If he hadn’t made himself into the King of Improv Teaching
he might have set up shop at the train station
seducing teen runaways into white slavery
He had many students who became successful entertainers
Let me tell you something about teaching
School is like Vaudeville
A lot of people go through it
They get experience
good and bad
no matter who the teacher is
and some of them use their brains and talent to figure out how to be successful
I’ve done a lot of teaching
I taught improv for several years
A lot of my students have been successful in show business
Probably a better percentage than the Guru’s
A network talk show host
Several TV writers and show runners
An Oscar-nominated actor
sitcom stars
and a lot of my students have been successful in other fields
and life in general
Here’s the thing
I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT
THEY WOULD BE WHO THEY ARE IF THEY NEVER MET ME
This isn’t false modesty
I think a lot of myself
as a person and as an artist, writer
And I am a good teacher
It’s just that teaching is a gig and it’s not a big deal
teaching is just a job where you manage an environment where people can work before they have the opportunity to be paid for that work so that you can do the work that you love that no one pays you to do
Universities don’t look at teaching as the primary thing in selecting their tenured faculty
They look at the research and the writing
But the Guru was a big bum
salesmen are bums
and bums are cunning
they spot people’s weaknesses
and they exploit
I have no idea where the coleslaw story came from
But I am sure the Guru never did it
Probably he heard that someone else did it
and pounced
a homely outre’ move
turning working and middle class life
into bohemian subversion
meaningless
because that’s the nihilistic message isn’t it
it’s all bullshit
get the drug
get the attention
get the applause
there ain’t no love
love is for suckers
This is the message of the salesman
I’ll answer your need
Methadone for the soul
The first hit is for free
This con man
(who was a human being too, he had many warm moments with people — why not, gangsters and white nationalists are good to their dogs — sometimes … )
was just trying to get over
He lost his main enabler
and he figured out a way
to periodically walk into a theater
and preen in front of wide-eyed disciples
intone rambling monologues
sprinkled with occasional tidbits of useful information
while a shoe box was filled with tens and twenties
Then he would take the cash
go back to his chaotic and filthy apartment
get high
and read comic books
The crock of shit life
led to a great legacy
a theater devoted to the spirit of the Guru’s blather
Several books glorifying the Guru
written by reporters and academics who don’t understand theater or the creative process
all of which is relatively harmless
There is a lot of jerk-off material available so people can distract themselves
But one aspect of the Guru’s immortality sucks
He was the founder of a shit “improv” culture
as insensitive and disrespectful
and banal — don’t forget banal
as the Guru was himself
Circle jerk improvisation
sniggering about navel lint
or some other insignificance
a siren call to lives without purpose or excellence or value
the prison of the adolescent clique
never transcended
love. work, marriage denied
The existential equivalent of sitting on a rug cross-legged
with your ne’er do well no exit friends
sucking on a bong
The fond memories of the Guru aren’t about the Guru at all
they are nostalgic remembrances of a moment of youth
that his adherents lust to make permanent
But here’s the thing about moments
they always change into something else
and Paradise becomes Hell in a split second
if you don’t let it go
Here’s one more thing about all the students who become successful, independent agents of their own lives
The alumni winners that are the Guru’s top marketing bullet point
they aren’t really “successful”
They are in process
moving on
just like the rest of us
Here’s the thing about improvisation
How can someone teach you how to do it?
It’s about meeting the unknown, right?
The games, the rules, the forms
are false equivalencies
to the unfailingly surprising transformative instances of life
The Guru has nothing to do with that thrilling and/or terrifying reality
He just took credit for it
killed it and pressed it onto a microscope slide
The sweet people who worked with him remained sweet
The bitter, cynical pricks got a license to spread his gospel of denied despair widely
to the four corners of the earth
Impostors of importance
selling something of no more importance than fame
or even more cruelly for the less gifted and misguided masses
a dream of fame that will never come
The famous find no satiety in their prominence
the frustrated obscure are blocked from the opportunity to move on to the deeper and glorious satisfactions of life
so they light candles to honor the dead Guru
and give outsized attention to each other and compete in petty power games
in a sad
and pathetic (I use the word sorrowfully and not with meanness)
lousy
imitation of life
exiles from art
and ordinariness
The Con Artist Guru and his marks
generations of denial
and unconscious suffering.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
11/5/19: The Definition of Success
I think Del Close was an asshole. He directed me briefly at Second City when I was just hired and he was about to leave. I have a few memories of him. I saw him yell at a baby. I saw him enter the theater with vomit stains on purple corduroy pants.
He liked me initially. He gave notes to me like “you beat the other player with a stick in that scene.” He encouraged me to dominate. I wasn’t interested. His enthusiasm for me and my work waned.
I knew Close just before he reinvented himself. He was ending his codependent relationship with Second City and was about to strike out on his own. He exploited his bohemian appearance and sold himself as hip and edgy. He did drugs and had a pedigree as a beat intellectual, but he had the values and aspirations of an insurance agent. His core attitude never transcended the foolishness one hears growing up in the neighborhood. He wouldn’t let it. There’s no money in that.
It’s an artist’s job to reflect the whole world, not merely his audience.
Close was no artist.
Close’s legacy is the iO theater. I’ve never seen anything on the stage of the iO theater that I enjoyed or admired. I haven’t been there often. To me, the place has the feel of a Trump rally. It’s a crude and stupid place.
iO is a place of ignorant name-in-the-paper ambition. It rejects excellence.
iO is a museum, a wax museum. It hasn’t furthered the art of improvisation. It sells it. It’s a training ground for noisy TV commercials and insipid sitcoms.
I think “yes, and”, which has become the international mantra of improvisational theater, is bullshit. Agreement with everything that is initiated by anyone leads to denial of the real.
The classes at iO and Second City offend me as an educator. They sell a base level success. Embrace mediocrity as a means to popularity.
It may strike you that I have some ax to grind here — some personal animosity. I truly don’t. It’s my job as a writer to separate high and low. No one ever makes these criticisms. I find what is happening in these “improv factories” to be morally repellent.
I saw a Conservatory graduation show at Second City a few years back. A lady sat next to me. She was a nurse who worked for film studios. She knew Sylvester Stallone. Her son was in the show. He was awful. The show was terrible. The students lacked craft, the directors didn’t know what they were doing. Yet, the woman was convinced that her son was going to be a star, and that this improv “training” was worth his dropping out of college.
He would be a better improvisor if he went to college. What an evening with vampires. People with nothing to say shouting look at me! look at me!
There is something cultish going on in “improv” education, reminiscent of Trump and Scientology.
When I was in the resident company at Second City, sometimes people looked at me with foolish awe. “How do you learn your lines?” “Do you get nervous?” “You met Eddie Murphy?!?!” Improv training as it stands at iO and Second City exploits that innocent, stupid immature take on life, and capitalizes on it. Real education and art would transcend it.
Bernie Sahlins was my director and producer when I was at Second City long ago. He told me “you don’t want to be famous doing shit work in show business. You are an artist.” Bernie was a sophisticated man, and he gave me great advice at a formative time.
I learned my lessons more from people like William Blake and Herman Melville than from Del Close. Both writers worked in the commercial realm and then walked away from it. They knew that the market corrupts. They weren’t salesmen. They were interested in what life was saying to them, not in what people want to hear.
Close told me when Gilda Radner’s obituary was international news, “We’re bigger than the Beatles.”
What a cold morbid fucker.
My job at Second City was like a school for me, but it was actual work with people who had done accomplished work, not classes taught by people who never did accomplished work, when I worked there in my 20’s and early 30s. Like any other school, I had some good teachers, I made some good friends and I dealt with a lot of assholes.
But it was just a school.
And I graduated.
I’m not part of it anymore. I’ve created my own art — which has transcended all that I learned. Many Second City alumni have done the same thing. Others are like middle-aged and older former high school football players who are trapped in memories of a state championship game played in the last century.
One of my friends from Second City is very well-known as a commercial actor, and he has done excellent work at that trade. He also has written some very good plays and has tried to get them produced. He felt dissatisfied with his hit TV show that he also occasionally wrote. He felt limited by commercialism. His journey to get his worthy work produced led him down the road of exploitation. He found open doors, but they were the wrong doors. People wanted to exploit him. Little theaters wanted to use his name to sell tickets. Actors and directors saw him as a gravy train and flattered him and gave him false support. When push came to shove, and people had to take the next step —- take a risk, put their own skin in the game, they were nowhere to be seen.
The outer rings of success are rings of hell. Fame, money and popularity, like beauty, fades.
William Blake lived a life of joy. He supported himself running a print shop and making art. It is said he lived his life in obscurity, but that’s not true. He connected with people in a real way. Melville said “fuck struggling to get published.” (I paraphrase.) He worked as a customs inspector. The result was Moby Dick. Their successes were not within the capitalist definition of success.
Conventional wisdom says that Blake and Melville were obscure. I say that they knew the world and were more known to the world than Del Close or John Belushi with their eyes on the grosses, the ratings, the box office, their brand and other drugs.
It is moronic to calculate success by counting dollars in the bank or likes on Facebook.
An artist limits himself when he caters to his audience.
A commercial artist is like a scientist who works for a tobacco company. All of his findings are bullshit.
I was in the Second City resident company when John Belushi died. Bernie sent our company to the funeral. I was walking into some gathering related to the memorial in a line with famous people. Hundreds of people surrounded as we made our way to the entrance. They shouted at each individual who passed. “Bill Murray!” “Dan Ackroyd!” When I passed they shouted “Nobody!”
This did not hurt my feelings. I smile as I remember it. I thought then what I think now —
who could possibly give a damn about what these people think? What a burden — to restrict yourself to some lowest common denominator — what a lousy job show business is for the successful and for the strivers …
My brother is a prominent judge — considered very important in his community. When my father died in 2009, word got out to the entirety of the Illinois Bar. A few hundred showed up for the wake and funeral. My father was buried at a lawyer’s networking event.
I didn’t like it, but to my brother’s credit, he didn’t either. He wanted to be a judge because he believed in the Law. He liked being able to spend more time with his kids than he would if he worked at some big firm. He didn’t like all the ass kissing and schmoozing — all of the using. He was in the same boat as my friend the TV star.
When my mother died it was just family and a few close friends. The death notice was posted right before the funeral, which was held on an inconvenient Monday morning. We only wanted the people who really loved her there.
We wanted meaning, not spectacle.
I consider myself very successful. I’m not rich and I’m not famous. But I was a very good improvisor, and a talented trial lawyer, and I am a very good writer and a very good teacher. I have a good marriage, and good friends. I’m a concerned citizen. I live my life as an artist, and I’m good at it.
A teacher at iO recently challenged my claim of success. He said, “Success isn’t about what you think, it’s about what other people think.”
Au contraire.
Copyright 2019 Richard Thomas
Wasson argued that Close ultimately had more influence than Nichols.
Not with me — obviously.
Art may have its day soon. The artist is usually called upon when the people are in trouble. When they feel more secure, they enjoy having their asses kissed and indulging fantasy.
Wasson calls the current long-form improv team “T. J. and Dave” as “brilliant” and exemplars of Del Close’s vision. I’ve seen the team perform three times. T. J. is a good actor, Dave not so much, and their scenes had no substantive content. For example they did a scene in which they superficially improvised some exposition related to exploring the nature of death, and then retreated into jokes about getting high in a cemetery work shed. Their audience was a group of iO improv students. The theme of the evening was “look we are making money at this”.
Exhibit B for the plaintiff in the case of Nichols vs. Close.
Wasson ignores improvisation as practiced the world over. This American “improv” is an efficient tool of cultural imperialism. There is a poetic aspect in the improvisation of other countries that Americans would be wise to learn from — and international improvisers would be well-served to have a greater skepticism about much of the improvisation they are too willing to embrace as influences from the United States.
Tina Fey claims that “improvisation will change your life.” She is wrong. Art is what changes lives …
and improvisation needs more of it …
I close with a piece that I wrote about my experiences with Second City. The piece was one of the most read and positively commented upon segments that I have ever published, and, of course, ignored by Second City …
My name is Rick Thomas. I am an alumnus of the Second City – Chicago Resident Company from the early 1980s. I am also an exile from Second City. I’ve always been an outlier on the fringes of the Second City tradition. I didn’t pursue a career in show business. I am a writer, a lawyer and a college professor. Please check out my website at http://www.richardthomasjd.com and my blog at http://www.richardsteventhomas.wordpress.com. Those links will tell you more than you want or need to know about me.
I have always been interested in improvisation, acting and writing as art forms more than Second City as an institution.
I want to give you a bit of an oral history of my experience with Second City in the hopes that it might be helpful to you in your time of systemic change.
My relationship with Second City has always been mixed. I have some friends who I got to know there, good friends —- and there are people associated with Second City who have done work that I greatly admire.
But there also has been much about Second City that I have been ashamed of, and I have been hurt by Second City as well.
I am writing this as an open letter because I want anyone who is interested to know that I have never been a part of any of the institutional or onstage racism that has occurred at Second City, and that I have also been anti-racist for a long time. I have suffered within Second City culture for my values, and ultimately have had to disengage and go my own way — which has actually been good for my art and my career.
I also am going to make some pretty direct observations here, but it is not my intention to be harsh.
For example, I know and like Andrew Alexander. I think he is a very good and well-meaning guy.
My goal here isn’t to punish or chastise. It is to contribute to a conversation that hopefully leads to improvement in the future.
OK, here are some anecdotes from my personal experience at Second City:
1982 -1983: As a young improviser in the resident company, the natural development in my personal voice gravitated to discussion of social issues. I came back stage during a set and senior cast members were getting high and mocking me “Rick is getting heavy again.” This was my introduction to an anti-intellectual, anti-social justice strain in some but not all Second City performers. It seemed the idea that was encouraged was to sound smart and have “reference level” but not really to say anything. I think the reason for this was to be sure not to alienate any of the paying customers in the audience. The unspoken ethos was to be hip, but not transformative.
Also in this period, Bernie Sahlins, who was the producer/director called me into his office and said that he wanted a “floor” to our content onstage, but he didn’t want to get too far ahead of the audience. I rebelled against this, and eventually this led to me leaving the company. I think Bernie was saying that Second City was show business and not theater. I think that Second City needs to be theater.
Later, Bernie, who I loved by the way, took me to lunch at Nookie’s down the street. He told me one of the most helpful things I ever heard. He said, “You don’t want to do some stupid sitcom. You are an artist. You are better than that.” That was wonderful for me, but damning for Second City. I think Second City should be better than that. I think the world is demanding now that a theater be just that — A THEATER — and take sides. I think Second City has to do a lot better in its training and casting and direct its efforts to smarter audiences of greater quality than ignorant bus tours etc. Andrew’s great mistake was giving the conservative white exurban point of view its commercial due — if Black Lives Matters gets a benefit, cops should get half the proceeds. What the Trump administration has taught us, and what I knew in the ancient history of Chicago main stage in the 1980s is that you have to take sides. Evil has been falsely presented as a debating point. Second City has to do everything it can to speak the truth.
I had a conversation with Kelly Leonard, another person that I think very highly of, a few years ago. He had shared a “positive” review of a Touring Company show in Colorado, I believe, that praised Second City for not taking sides. This was a satiric review that radical right wingers could enjoy. Kelly was happy about that review. He spoke about a colleague he had on the corporate side at Second City who was a Republican and had a right to his point of view. That all sounds very reasonable and liberal even, but I think Kelly was making an error. Oscar Wilde or some other great writer said, “There are some people that I wish to offend.’
SECOND CITY SHOULD TAKE SIDES.
Here’s what I think — SECOND CITY SHOULD BE A THEATER. A THEATER TAKES SIDES BOTH ONSTAGE AND OFF. SECOND CITY SHOULD NOT BE SO COMMERCIAL THAT IT CATERS TO LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATORS INSTEAD OF BEING A TRANSFORMATIVE PERSONAL AND SOCIAL FORCE.
I think Second City has done much better aiding people in personal transformation than on the social side of the ledger — but the personal work is never complete without addressing the social as well.
In my period on the main stage in the early 1980s, Bernie introduced me to Paul Sills, the founding director. Paul introduced me to David Shepherd. I loved both Paul and David very much.
Paul and David were socialists. Paul spoke to me about police misconduct at the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention and how Second City became a refuge for demonstrators beaten during police riots. In the 1990s, I did a video workshop with David in the Hamptons on Long Island no less — that had a very diverse group of participants. David’s thing largely involved giving unheard people a voice. This constructive radicalism is a big part of Second City’s artistic and social tradition and I hope as its leader you reclaim and restore it. The current issues are not new — that’s part of the problem.
I once did a cartoonish gay character in a scene in one of Paul’s workshops. He got pissed off and growled “comic books.” I got the point —-artistically, socially and as a matter of personal development. You need teaching like that. I’m willing to teach for you, by the way — under the right circumstances. The people who founded Second City were artists and intellectuals. They had life experience. They were thinkers. I think you have to pick up your game in terms of the quality of your teachers and instruction in the Training Center. I taught with some of your Training Center faculty when I taught Professional Presence using improvisation as a pedagogy at UIC. I found my colleagues ‘approach lacking. I don’t think that they knew a thing about improvisation. The Training Center was a good business model and a lousy artistic one. Those levels, the conformity of mastering the “games’, the dumbing down and making everything fun … all is anti-improvisational and anti-creative. I was around the Training Center briefly in the early 2000s. I felt like Frankenstein being chased by the villagers. I was taunted for things like being smart or taking a stand. I had a guy lecture me on why 42nd Street Porn Peep Shows were superior to Pulitzer Prize winning plays. Faculty held their turf. Students rebelled against being challenged in workshops and demanded party games. It was an awful place — artistically and educationally. I went to teach at universities where I knew that I would be in a more serious atmosphere.
I want to say again that this is MY EXPERIENCE. I am not painting with a broad brush or saying good things weren’t going on — but I am telling you problems that are part of the organization that you have inherited.
An interesting thing about the way that Paul and David taught was that they did not want their methods to become sacred script. Improvisation, like any art form, is a process and in a state of constant revolution. I have always felt that I wanted to honor Paul and David’s values and to do improvisation, writing and teaching my own way. I think Second City should do that too. I am not an old alum saying that we did it better in the old days. In fact, we didn’t and today requires the new. I don’t like reminiscing for the sake of it. I live in the present and the future. I am writing you because I see opportunity in Second City’s current challenges. There is enough of a strong foundation to build on, and enough mistakes and sins to learn from to make a better future.
Bernie hired Ed Greenberg as a director while I was at Second City. Ed is another nice guy, very progressive and woke — but he was wrong about one thing. I was taking suggestions from the audience one night and some young guy yelled out “Lech Walesa licks pussy!” This was at a time when Poland was fighting a non-violent war of liberation from Soviet Russia. I was repulsed by the ignorance of this drunken audience member and the insensitivity to the courage and suffering of the Polish people. He was also mocking me for being intelligent on stage. I got angry with him. I wasn’t cute or clever. I told him he was ignorant and spoiled. Ed told me that I was too angry. Ed was wrong. I was right. Ed wasn’t angry enough. John Quincy Adams knew that black lives matter. He said so. The point isn’t just to say what is right after the social change occurs. That’s just show business. The point is to be outraged now whether it is popular or not. That’s what a theater would do.
I HOPE UNDER YOUR LEADERSHIP SECOND CITY RECLAIMS ITS BIRTHRIGHT AS A THEATER, AND LOSES ITS NERVOUS PRE-OCCUPATION WITH KISSING THE ASSES OF BIGOTS AND FOOLS.
In 2017, former Second City Director Tommy Giannis, briefly directed me in a one-man show. Tommy directed the acclaimed Pinata Full of Bees. The show was based on my writing in my blog. I was trolled by some white nationalists on my blog. Anti-fascism and anti-racism have been major themes of my blog since I started it in 2014. Tommy suggested that I invite the white nationalists to my show. There was no fucking way that I was going to invite Nazis to my show. I put them in a category like pedophiles — it is necessary to shame and ostracize them and punish them — folly to engage them in a dialogue. Again, I was wrongly criticized as too angry.
SECOND CITY HAS TO LEARN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN REACTIONARY ANGER AND VALID MORAL OUTRAGE. SECOND CITY SHOULD BE A VOICE OF SOCIAL OUTRAGE AGAINST ALL FORMS OF INJUSTICE —- BECAUSE SECOND CITY SHOULD BE A PLACE OF ART AND INJUSTICE IS REALITY AND OUTRAGE AGAINST INJUSTICE IS WHAT IS TRUE.
1990s to today:
Since my time on the main stage I have interacted with Second City and its offshoot iO from time to time. I was always treated with respect by Andrew and Kelly and some old friends. But … I have also been hurt in those interactions, and I think my personal wounds are connected to a larger problem.
I never received the respect with the overall Second City community that I deserved.
Paul Sills saw my one-man-show in the mid -1980s and said that I was the greatest improviser that he ever saw, and compared me to Lenny Bruce.
I had a nervous breakdown shortly thereafter and I had to mend myself personally.
At age 50, I became a lawyer and ultimately a professor. I developed my writing. I taught using improvisation in colleges.
I was never accepted back into the improvisation community. I was a loser because the community became so sitcom-centric — defining the only type of success as that of fame in the world of entertainment.
Many non-entertainers — psychologists, business professionals etc. applied improvisation to their professional objectives to very good results and I applaud them.
But none of those people are as accomplished at improvisation itself as I am.
I had and have much to teach improvisers — both in classes and also in sharing my work (writing and performance) but I was not given an opportunity to do so.
Oh soME old friends included me — Jeff Michalski and Jane Morris, Dan Castelleneta and Deb LaCusta — but other than that all doors were closed.
And even in those situations, I was constantly fighting people who didn’t want me there.
This jealous guarding of turf …. this resistance to being challenged …. this resentment that somehow I had been away and therefore didn’t deserve a seat at the table anymore — and they didn’t like me anyway because I talked smart, and I talked truth — not show business kiss ass nonsense.
MY POINT HERE — SECOND CITY SHOULD BE NICER AND MORE CIVIL AND MORE INCLUSIVE; AND HAVE A BROADER VIEW OF WHAT IMPROVISATION AND THEATER CAN DO.
Of course, as an old white guy, a legitimate question to ask of me is what do I have to offer to people of color?
I have found that racism and other discriminatory oppression has been a common theme of almost all of the students that I have taught at Lewis, UIC and Loyola. I went to higher ed because my tribe rejected me. The problems are the tribe’s and not mine. And now that the tribe is recognizing its blindness — I think I may be well-positioned to help Second City get back on the right track in a big way.
My teaching uses improvisation through speech and writing to empower students by removing the internalized obstructions placed upon them by the power structure.
I am not writing you to beg for a job. My commitment is to my own work, not to fitting into some corporate scheme. But if Second City has mutual goals, I’d love to help. (I know you don’t want my help.)
I’ve been right on anti-racism and improvisation as an art form.
I AM SECOND CITY AND IMPROVISATION. MORE THAN THE TRAINING CENTER OR IO OR THE MAIN STAGE NOW OR IN THE PAST.
I’M THE REAL THING. PAUL SILLS USED TO SAY THE ARTIST IS REJECTED UNTIL THE PEOPLE GET IN TROUBLE AND CALL HIM BACK TO SAVE THEIR ASS.
I, and others like me, young and old, can save your ass now. Bernie used to talk about the tension between commerce and business. Second City has gotten into trouble because it has tilted too far to the business side. You can be the leader who charts the institution’s course back towards art.
I have worked my entire adult life to further the arts of improvisation and writing, the causes of social justice, and individuals in their human development. I don’t wear the blinders of show business. I am highly educated and broadly experienced.
You need people like me right now. I am not interested. I like to write.
Best,
Rick Thomas, Chicago Main Stage ’81 -84
9/15/20: Some Notes on Writing from Another Project That I Am Working On #poetry#essay#writing
Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Matthew McConaughey said on a commercial for Lincoln motor cars, “Don’t look for what you want to do. Find out all of the things that you don’t want to do, and you’ll find your way.” I’ll take my philosophy where I can find it. When I quote someone, I don’t do it before the fact. I do it after I have seen what they have said is true, or at least resonant with mepersonally, through experience.
Success is the great enemy of a writer. If a writer finds something that works, and makes him popular, he will be blocked from doing anything great. Writing is provoked by an irritant. You have to be in pain to want to bother with all of the otherwise uncompensated work of writing. Your pain is your ignorance. Your joy comes when your understanding ends that ignorance forever. Writing frees you, and then you can negotiate life in a sure-footed manner, actually looking forward to the next irritating obstruction that will provoke you to write.
Writing is not a discipline. You just do it. At first, I saw it as an aid to me, adjunct to my life. Now it is my life itself. Norman Mailer said that the professional writer is impure — constantly inducing labor and forcing the words out. He saw the artistic writer as more natural, writing only when properly inspired. This isn’t my experience. I think Mailer wrote those words when he was tired, and motivated by something other than being a writer. He had a brand to maintain, a reputation to preserve and try to expand, and probably substantial financial responsibilities. I find all of those considerations just too complicated. I simply write. Every day. All the time. I write when I am not at the keyboard. I write when I am awake and when I sleep. I am not spending my time thinking about whether something is said in an interesting way, or is beautifully expressed. Or profound or unique. I just try to understand everything. I examine my life as per Socrates. I dispose of things a la McConaughey. I write therefore I am.
I knew a fool who was an unsuccessful professional writer. He got up every morning and wrote for a specific amount of time — four hours — at his meticulously organized desk. He kept his inane and mediocre observations in big white binders. Unsurprisingly, he often didn’t do his writing. He neglected it in the same way he ignored the stationary bike that he always planned to exercise on after his (not so) daily writing.
He was a misguided hack. Writing was a means to an end for him, he didn’t love it all. If you love writing, it will reward you in all kinds of ways, but it is unwise to demand what bounty it will deliver to you.
Part Two dealt with the emergence of consistent writing real writing.
Part Three deals with the transformation of the writer, his writing and his vision of the world.
This next segment deals with alienation and solitude on alternating currents.
10/10/19: Real Writing and the Lousiness of the Group
Real Writing
I delivered my mother’s eulogy. My brother’s friend, a doctor, stood next to me at the urinals after Mass.
“You’re really a writer. Your words ‘resonate’ (he was quoting my remarks). I’ve tried to write, but I am just not good at it.”
I told him two ways people become “real writers.”
First, it’s important to be a lost soul for several years — to wander the earth. To experience life’s variety and thus be prepared to make unlikely connections.
Next, you have to write a lot. Just write. Classes, workshops, teachers give you little or nothing. You learn what your writing is and how to go about writing it by simply writing it down. (Redundant or musical? I decide. Musical.)
I have more to say on the subject of real writing, so I’ll continue here.
You have to spend a lot of time alone. Your mind must restlessly consider any person, place, thing or abstraction that engages your interest (and what interests you is a mystery in and of itself — why one object of contemplation and not another?) from countless angles. The process is painful — it feels something like deep frustration — but then a moment comes, ironically when you are not thinking at all, when a tiny silver hammer taps you lightly between the eyes and you see as much of the big picture as is possible at the moment.
Then you write it, what you understand to be the truth, down.
A writer is always writing, whether he puts fingers to keyboard or not on a particular day.
A writer is in constant conversation with the world. And he is part of that world. So real writing is talking to oneself, and allowing the rest of the world to overhear.
The overhearing is communion with others. The real reader and writer are not escaping loneliness. They expose loneliness for the lie that it is. They recognize themselves in the words and faces of the others.
Real writing is an existential understanding that we are all one
Therefore …
A writer cannot belong to any particular group. I know. I have tried, and suffered many painful separations from various group
illusions.
A group is a lie that perpetuates lies.
It’s a myth to say that real writers are lonely and sad.
The truth is that real writers are solitary. Solitude is ironically the prerequisite of real community. Only from a basis of independent and individual spirituality, can one enjoy a real marriage, real friendship, engage in real creative collaboration with work colleagues, or connect with one’s comrades in the body politic.
A writer, through the act of writing, can engage in a community that transcends time, connecting to writers and others living, dead, and not yet born.
Real writing, even poor real writing, touches an eternal ground. As much as the nature of living changes — the cultural and technological revolutions that spin from one age to another — what it is to be human being remains the same —- and that remains a mystery as confounding in the present as it was at the dawn of time.
And yet, that mystery gives us clues and small epiphanies
the mystery whispers to us
look there
say this
do this
notice that feeling
stand here in your place
we fashion a quilt of perception
from our limited perspective
and then the seams fall away
and for a moment we glance
at the All
that’s what resonates, doctor.
Not everyone can be a writer
anymore than everyone can be a doctor
I didn’t choose to be a writer.
I couldn’t escape it.
No one can.
Some real writers refuse to write
some real readers refuse to read
and writing kills them
puts them to death
Madness is exile from reality
It is violent and fatal
Groups
all groups
are genocidal
The person seeks the protection of the tribe
and the tribe destroys them
Some die at war
Some live lives of quiet desperation
the walking dead
conforming
and numbing the anguish of their souls
with addictive escapes
ricocheting from the pain of the betrayal of life’s moment
to the existential pain beneath the pleasurable sensation of the narcotic materialistic sales pitch
empty calories for the
unavoidable
void
Ignorance is not a function of a lack of intelligence
it is born of a lack of character
the open and innocent are brave
the ignorant are cowards
looking back at Sodom and Gomorrah
instead of out at God’s
All
turning into pillars of salt
(If you don’t believe in God, you don’t believe in art — I am one of God’s stenographers — the word God itself is just a symbol and other words refer to “Him” as well — I actually don’t believe in God, I experience Him — I don’t believe in trees either, but I affirm their reality. This world would be doing a whole lot better if there was more real writing and reading figuring out what God wants instead of following these ridiculous phony groups
God doesn’t want this money, power, fame, condescension, oneupmanship bullshit
and the way it destroys our world
But he lets us choose
so don’t go blaming him for the crimes that we commit)
It is all so unhealthy
It’s the writer’s job to speak for and to the repressed souls of those who are unable to write
but who live and feel
the un-sedated life
longing for cures
not painkillers
art burns out the pain
No condescension is intended here
Everyone is not an artist
but everyone can relate to art
The writer relates to his writing in the same fashion as his readers once it is finished
The writing is not what is important
What is important is what the writing says
I write for personal freedom. Writing memorializes my perceptions and values. It enables me to be the author of my own life. The group defines reality to secure its own survival. The writer is braver. He has faith in the truth’s beauty. He is sure of the truth’s unknown rewards, rewards more bountiful than any of the achievements motivated by fear or desire.
The Lousiness of the Group
The Group is
envious
selfish
greedy
insecure and therefore condescending
needing to be special
primary
disposed to war
needing to see the other fail
immoral
sentimental
Rick Blog poll
45% of Americans are woke
and done with the Group
sick of office/neighborhood/family/government/social bullying
they get the lousiness comes up over and over again
40% of Americans are fanatics
Identified with the group
Hazing the new guy at work
mocking disabled people at rallies
persecuting immigrants
abusing children
wishing death to the Kurds
and suicide bombs to Europe
Addicted to the excitement of meanness
worshipping their money
lusting for fame and power
for themselves
or if that’s not possible
for the famous and powerful people
who have an angle
and get something out of kissing their asses
THIS IS NOT JUST ABOUT TRUMP SUPPORTERS
I said the writer wanders
I’ve seen this lousiness for years
in many places
Second City/iO actors
Illinois lawyers
Higher ed faculty
Even community theater and other tangential moments of my life
for Christ’s sakes
A critic would dismiss me as simply not getting along with people
A critic would be wrong
I won’t accept the lousiness toward my person and I won’t participate in it toward other people
and consequently I connect and will continue to connect with the first 45% in my poll
The Woke
And the remaining 15% ?
Of all the sins, indifference is by far the worst
they call themselves moderates and make compromises bartering other people’s suffering
they get a taste
they call themselves realists
they think they’ll go to Purgatory instead of Hell
but it’s worth it for some money, comfort and fun in the meantime
They will go to Hell unfortunately
Evil flourishes while good men do nothing
Hell for those who choose the Group leavened with a little kindness
instead of Real Writing.
Copyright 2019 Richard Thomas
The change in the writing is apparent.
10/12/19: Experience, Memory, Meaning and then we Disappear
Life experience is an improvisation
we huddle backstage with a premise
and then step into the world
following the focus of our minor desire
or deep impulse
we look for Mueller to save us
he doesn’t
then someone plays the whistleblower
we decide on love
and sign up for eHarmony
leave the site discouraged and disappointed
only to find joy on Match.com
Moments are like sperm
most are meaningless
they die on our frightened hand
or stain the sheets
billions of moments dead on arrival
nothing nanoseconds
of all mankind
and any individual
but some
a relative few
make a rich complex narrative
of people places and things
penetrate the ovum of memory
and love is conceived
the stuff of meaning
the important breaths
that define our existence
the old lady died
long after experience was over
she lived many years looking at photo albums
pondering her life
creating her life
fashioning a story that made sense to her
then memory began to die
it fought maniacally to stay alive
its distortions
were hallucinations
sometimes angry and violent
thrashing about her fading mind
sometimes grand baroque musicals
making life bigger than it is
and then …
the hallucinations stopped
replaced by a bland affect
Experience, Memory, Meaning and then we Disappear
her son saw her hours before she died
she recognized him
her last experience
there would be no memory or meaning
he saw her body still in a hospital gown
laid out at the funeral home
“Hi Mom”
he said sweetly
“can I kiss her?”
he asked his brother
“sure” the brother said kindly
he kissed her forehead
it was cold and waxy
and at that moment he knew she was dead
in something more than an intellectual way
he experienced his dead mother
and that experience is now memory
Experience, Memory, Meaning and then we Disappear
His brother told him, “She’s not there”
“I know” he said softly
She never fully knew who he was
No one ever fully knows someone else.
The genius thought for years that he was betrayed by people he loved
less than he loved his mother but he still loved them
but he was only misunderstood
The genius never bought Jesus’ line
“Father forgive them they know not what they do”
But he buys it now
Experience, Memory, Meaning and then we Disappear
many more than nine lives
each experience transformed in meaning and memory
leaving past loves in its wake
The granddaughter says that grandma and grandpa are now together in heaven
maybe
But I think they are mist rising from the ocean
becoming clouds
and raining upon people and animals and cities and plants
released from their egos
participating in something even greater than love.
Copyright 2019 Richard Thomas
10/17/19: Blood on Hands; Atonement
The Blood*
*only quick deaths included here — nothing slow moving like addiction to initially prescribed opiates, or disease related to climate change or enforced poverty or abuses of the criminal justice
** the sudden violent deaths are only included here — not that the slow rolling homicides aren’t plenty bloody — but really how can you itemize all of the violence, loss and pain of this American Carnage
The Kurds
Bahamians
Puerto Ricans
Central American immigrants and refugees
Babies in jails
El Paso Walmart shoppers (and other incited acts of domestic terrorism — mass shootings by mentally ill people should be included after the asterisk
Rivers of blood,
dead rotting fish floating on the surface of stagnant rivers
This American Apocalypse
The Hands
“It’s all a joke”
“I know more than the professors and generals and doctors and lawyers”
their arrogance, disrespect and condescension oppressed me
oppression is a great teacher
the whole experience aroused a desire in me to be a better man
the blood was on my hands too
most of it was pit there by other people
a little is my own doing
very little
a droplet on hands drenched in blood
I always knew that droplet was my responsibility
but
sin is the road to sainthood
My conscience is racked by things that I would not do or want to do
I am responsible for what you are
I bear no fault or blame
I feel shame
and pity
May Almighty God bless us all
the rings of hell are precincts of heaven
I long for the turmoil of the world
Maybe I will understand you more this time
You have really gone to hell without me
You rejected me
I said no to you
now I return to you
to be there with you
My personal suffering has ended
now I bear yours
I will teach you
and prosecute you
and rehabilitate and heal you
and if those avenues are denied me
I’ll stand by you
and contemplate you in silence
a man atones with mankind
our boundaries are obliterated
beyond time and space
beyond me and you
we are the world, we are the children
la la la la we’re saving our own lives
la la make the world a better place
for you and me
la la la la
Individual and universe on alternating current
the world is wonderful on the most awful night of the year
the night of the world’s psychotic break
the raging fire immolates shaman and sinner alike
the dead rise
only to be cremated
zombies and townspeople
indistinguishable
…
Ignorance kills
Father forgive us, we knew not what we did
even when I didn’t do it
I have to shoulder the sins of all mankind
not just my own malfeasance
and so do you
Forgiveness doesn’t tolerate evil
Forgiveness is not martyrdom at the hands of evil
Forgiveness puts evil on its back
until it nearly disappears
and the Self nearly disappears too
replaced by nearly complete peace with regard to every individual matter
Only a speck
of evil
and Self
remains
growing very slowly
until the ritual must begin again
Copyright 2019 Richard Thomas
10/19/19: Welcome to My Art Studio
When I was really young, just starting out, I cared about fame
but not really
when push came to shove I always chose to do and say what I want
and the fame chasers
were always chasing
the standing ovation
the good review
the right time to give the casting director a shoulder rub
they weren’t really creative, you know?
they were creative like ad men are creative
public relations executives
they weren’t concerned with authenticity or
their truth
they were concerned with people pleasing
people defined as people with money
they struggled to create a persona
a brand
that would get over
I was a young fool
I thought they were all like me
that they thought like I did
I didn’t understand
how different we were
I hung around them
and they tried to destroy me
that’s just what they do
they found my sincerity to be immoral
Welcome to my art studio
or welcome back
I choose personal and intimate connection over fame
or money
I would rather do honest work for a livelihood
I teach
and say and do what I want in my art
(If you want to give me money for doing and saying what I want, I will gladly take it — but I won’t work to get it — I’m too busy working on doing and saying what I want, not from mere desire but from my own authenticity — so it’s not likely that you will give me money unless you are a patron who wants to serve the collective — and who are we kidding — do people who fit that description even exist anymore? — and as for fame — I like people, I like attention but I want real enthusiasm, you know what I mean — real connection — do I have the capacity to have a million friends — I felt real sadness when Elijah Cummings died, when John Belushi died I went to New York to go to a party … )
Why am I writing this now?
It has taken me a long time to figure this out
to unsuccessfully figure it out
but each time I get deeper into it
you know
(I believe in absolute truth — but I know its unattainable — I knew some fiction writers who were so convinced they got it — ridiculous figures, ripe targets for the comedians that I know, but that work is beyond them — the fiction writers think they know, the comedians are nihilists — in it for the money and broads — as limited as the poor dumb working stiffs who think work can only put food on the table —- comedians are materialists — they call their words ‘material” — they can never get near the truth — trapped in their form — needing to be funny — not accepting that real humor only occupies natural spaces and can’t be summoned on demand — the requirement of inducing laughter smothers their free expression — their art only goes as far as their marketing will allow — the greatest comedians outgrow comedy — I used to revere Richard Pryor and George Carlin and now I remember them fondly like good high school teachers — I am grateful for their importance to my personal development, but my interests have transcended them — am I placing myself among the greatest of comedians? Honestly, yes — I learned so much on those stages, but now I am something more — I feel good tonight … Don’t think me arrogant — every once in awhile you have a day where your life makes sense — you see everything that you did by choice and happened to you by fate and appreciate who, what, where and how you are. I thank God that I was exiled from comedy, the exile sent me to the breadth and depth of the world, and wondering what’s next … at the skilled nursing facility the old people teach a course in “living in the moment” — all sorts of great things happen to them and then they die — maybe someday I will get money for this stuff — the old lady has a boyfriend — no one saw that coming — and they connected by simply being themselves)
to free myself from the shame
of not wanting to be rich or famous
and now
given that our recent history has exposed
the folly
even the evil
of bread and circuses
the constant appeals to fear and consumption
the darkness of the American character of my entire life
personified in a President
a comedian President
I thought I was a comedian
I wasn’t
near the end of that false occupation
I heckled the audience
I started it
I grew to hate them
I wanted them to want something more
but I wanted to say my truth
and they wanted to crucify me
I got off the cross in time
Co-dependence won’t lead to redemption
My peers in comedy found their niches
Some were real friends
but our connection had nothing to do with performance
it was based on our shared humanity
they liked my art
their hearts wanted to sing too
not sing for their supper
but even the friends didn’t do what I had to do
to separate from the other peers
the ones who became incapable of friendship
not only with me
but in general
they were distorted
mis-shaped
from their years pursuing their own commodification
they turned into bizarre reflections in fun house mirrors
cold and shallow
jealous and scared
looking over their shoulders
like the last scene on “The Sopranos”
endlessly repeating the same old schtick
bores
transactional
I”ll be your friend
for your praise
and a referral
friendship downsized
to networking
and finally drudgery
their faux glamorous
faux roads-less-traveled-lives
were actually
spotlight as cubicle
and every show
was an industrial show.
Meanwhile
out in the wilderness
I looked at love
through a plate glass window
in a self imposed exile
and performed a painstaking surgery on myself
removing the poor fools from my soul
the pain of their mean rejection
forced me to pursue the cure of understanding
and my true vocation was born
Life is a process of separation and union
retreat from ignorance
and embrace of enlightenment.
Welcome to my art studio
I hang my paintings on this blog
people are welcome to come and go
browse
or engage with intensity
their presence warms me
and is part of what I do
I am so happy today
So satisfied
I’ve been free of marketing
and self-promotion
and longing for broad popularity for a long time
but today I am conscious of my freedom
and grateful
the old comedians who used to frustrate, anger and hurt me so
now arouse my pity
a mural of emaciated tormented naked howling people on a circus train
extending their reed scarred arms through the bars of their cages
shrieking into the desolate countryside
deluded that they are saying anything to anybody
the bitterness that I once held is theirs
their successes are pyrrhic victories
what matter if a man gains the whole world
and loses his soul
The carnival barker-in-chief works so hard
to avoid working
real work in the arts
involves the exploration and understanding
of the inner and outer worlds
just like real work in education, the law, medicine
the bosses
seduce
mock
patronize
and punish
and their salesmen and entertainers
rabid poodles with shaved asses
doing tricks and snarling at the ringmasters’ whips
emulate the bosses
mistaking what is worthless
for precious value.
I’m not better than them
I speak with no superiority
I’m a shaman who has worked out their illness
but I am so happy that I am free
and some day
not now I’m certain
one or two of them will read these words
at the the moment when they too feel these feelings
but have not articulated them
either by lack of process or ability
and the words will help them
walk away
and to
the beautiful
real
world.
Copyright 2019 Richard Thomas
I no longer consider teaching part of my art. It is mentioned in this segment as a vestigial tail. Otherwise, some good words about transformation, separation and solitude, written from an increasingly peaceful place.
10/24/19: Beyond Improvisation — the Nexus of Reason, Professionalism and Art
Improvisation is only the starting point of my writing/spoken word/teaching art. Improvisation gives access to spontaneity and authenticity. My backgrounds as an improvisational artist, trial lawyer, professional responsibility attorney and college professor are all platforms for what I do and am now. The platforms complement each other. Ultimately the platforms in total transcend each individual experience. Reason gives structure, organization and coherence. Ethics gives values and the purpose for all of the work. Professionalism gives the discipline to do the work, the focus, and the persistent follow through.
I look at my life’s work with paradoxical pride and humility. I am proud because I have seen it through to this point. I am humble because what I have created has only partially been developed by my own intention. Real life improvisation is a journey to the unknown. The other platform elements make the discoveries of that journey conscious, coherent and useful.
An artist is never satisfied, always looking beyond his current position, open to the discovery of what is missing. The process delivers full satisfaction in the moment, and an enduring restlessness in linear time.
My experience has taught me that rigid identification in any of what I identify as my platforms is a state of codependence. Leaving the various tribes has always led to a state of solitary independence. That independent state has always led to inter-dependent community — the like-minded always appear. Eventually, the inter-dependent group calcifies into codependency, and the process begins again on a higher plane.
My website is a representation of what I have done, what I do, ultimately who I am, and clues to who I will become and my future creative action.
the other side is clueless, genuinely surprised that the other half
will no longer shake its hand
will we have a democracy?
get the job?
Find our place?
Will our angels become mortal
and our demons be held at bay?
One certain thing emerges at the moment
the demons smell of death
they are the past
history
zombies
that we loved when we were young and foolish
that we made excuses for and compromised with
but we genuinely loved them
what was important was our love
they weren’t important
we grew and they didn’t
and now we have to put a stake in their heart
in our minds
in the great out-of-the-house too
they could possibly win in the out-of-the-house
subjugate us
bring us to heel
kill us
that’s what makes it a little interesting
brings some drama to the waiting room
that’s what fuels the war in our minds
a theater of war that is doubtlessly
winnable
the fruits of our victory
will be an expansion of our understanding
of our humanity
regardless of any of the demons temporary victories
the demons can win battles
but never the war
the demons are suicidal
nihilism kills millions
Hitler
climate change
drunk drivers
condescending players unjustly denying opportunity or our due
they steal lives and years and happiness
they murder
but they don’t win.
we wait
because of them
they obstruct the life that we could be living
but they can’t end or deny it.
They teach us who they and we are
that is their bloody purpose
in the hemispheres of the earth
and our mind.
Copyright 2019 Richard Thomas
10/28/19: Embarrassed and Ashamed
I woke up lightly after a deep sleep
I cheerfully accepted the first thought of the day
The purest, most un-compromised thought
a direct message from my unconscious
unsullied by worry
or self-justification
or wishful thinking
or bias of any kind
or all of the seemingly infinite onion layers
it is my job to peel away,
My first thought of the day is a gift
the truth on a silver platter
the emotion that I felt in this particular moment of hyper-sanity
was delight …
I tell you all of this just to try to explain
that what I am about to say is not motivated by any pettiness
or grief
I’m not trying to rationalize anything
I’m not trying to make myself look like a hero
I’m not indulging the writer’s revenge
telling people off
in my imagination
I’m not speaking as a hybrid of Walter Mitty and Dirty Harry
gaining temporary relief from my tormentors
attacking them with bullets made of images
building a temporary fortress of self-acceptance;
why am I telling you at all?
well, I tell you everything
in a manner of speaking
for me privacy is just a disguise
that speaking out does give me no small measure of personal satisfaction
but I can’t have it all about me
if that were true
I’d be a vampire sucking all of your blood
and then stealing your spirit before it escaped your lifeless body
reducing you to mere audience
people who existed only as mirrors
for my narcissism
I’m not that
I’m far from that
I’m the opposite of that,
Someone thanked me the other day
“for the inspiration”
I wondered what she meant and then I saw a local bank commercial
a guy was painting his face to go to a Bears’ game
he said he was an artist
and that his job was to inspire people
the inspiration couldn’t be directed to encouraging
maintaining a checking account and cheering for a mediocre football team
it had to be about the very face painting itself
about our right to create our own individual ways to face the world
about being eccentric
like no one else
and seeing ourselves in all that we know;
this prologue is almost over
I will tell you my morning epiphany
my epiphany was a discovery
not an invention …
there is a corner of my soul which is going through the 7000 stages of death
not literal death
the death of friendships
associations
passions
illusions
most people deny or ignore hurtful memories
isn’t the present tough enough?
I mine them
drilling for God knows what
but this morning
what was gold.
OK, I’m ready —
My happy morning thought
was about people
who
insulted me
slandered me
betrayed me
ostracized me
mocked me
unjustly condemned me
distracted me with toxic comments
wished me poverty, illness and loneliness
cleverly shamed me
and forced me to spend years dis-assembling their lies
attempted to push me around
subjugate me
and use me
as a prop to further their self-importance.
I have transcended all of that
I hope that inspires you.
I woke up and saw a Facebook notification from one of them
transparently self-promoting
an infantile and idiotic show
a show that lets you know how bad it is
in its self-serving and sentimental title
and I felt …
wait for it …
I felt embarrassed
I felt embarrassed that I ever liked this person
that I ever associated with him
that I ever worked with him
that anyone would think that he and I do anything remotely resembling one another
that anyone would think that I could possibly think that there was any value to what he does
I felt embarrassed that he was part of my life at all
embarrassed at my past naivete’
embarrassed by my innocence
embarrassed by the whole process of transformative life
embarrassed for all the bad marriages
the dumb life choices
the shitty jobs
the getting-in-with-the wrong-crowds
that anyone ever engaged in the history of the world
embarrassed that I wasn’t born wise
embarrassed for all of the meaningless suffering endured
for not knowing the time of day
and the embarrassment was thrilling
a natural alchemy
that asked nothing of me but my openness
turned all of my pain to joy …
and then …
I felt ashamed
I felt ashamed of how mean and stupid he
and every other personal oppressor that I ever encountered
is and was
ashamed of him
them
and that delighted me too
because my shame for him and them
connects me to them still
estranged yes
wiser yes
on a different path yes
but I still love them
anger
hurt
regret
and resentment
have been replaced by
embarrassment and shame.
Copyright 2019 Richard Thomas
10/29/19: The Trouble with JoJo Rabbit
The greatest satire about Nazism set in Nazi Germany is Charlie Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator”
Charlie Chaplin’s childhood was dominated by poverty and injustice
His half-brother’s father was a Jew
He made the movie when 90% of the American people had no appetite for a war against Hitler
The creative energy for all of Chaplin’s work came from his love of ordinary people
He was an advocate for man’s impulse for love in opposition to man’s will to power
“The Great Dictator” was passionate and immediate
Charlie Chaplin’s art used the raw material of his own inner and outer
experience
JoJo Rabbit uses Nazism as a metaphor
It’s not the right metaphor
I watched the comic set pieces in the film
of Nazi fools
I watched Nazis portrayed as bullies a la the bullies in teen comedies
I looked at the technicolor hangings in the town square
and I thought about newsreel footage of thousands of dead emaciated bodies in the ditches of liberated concentration camps
JoJo Rabbit is well-intentioned and lame
The poet Rilke is quoted at the end of the movie
something about accepting the beauty and the terror of life
unearned by filmmakers who never lived such terror
and are just starting to explore the beauty.
I use my own life as the basis of my work
I don’t do it because I think I am so interesting
I do it because I don’t have anything else to work with
reasonably
I could care less about aesthetics
I have experienced injustice
I have experienced nothing like the Holocaust
Mel Brooks’ “The Producers” is much better than JoJo Rabbit
That movie isn’t really about Nazism
It is about how we think about it
That — specifically through the lens of show business
is what “The Producers” is about
I’ve written in the past about how deeply I was affected by the film “Twelve Years a Slave”
I understood the brutality of slavery in the abstract before I saw that movie
I understood it (a little more) emotionally after seeing
“Twelve Years”
It is no accident that the film was made by black artists
“JoJo Rabbit” sees Nazism the way I used to view slavery
There are limits to education and comedy
“JoJo” resembles a college term paper
and “Hogan’s Heroes”
Art is about more than being smart
and sketch comedy is a low form
entertainment and not art
ill-equipped to deal with what seriously matters
Life is a sacrificial right
humor is acceptance of, and perspective on
the sacrifice
making art is a lot harder
than making “JoJo Rabbit”
“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” is a great movie
It’s loaded with humor
but it is not a comedy
or a satire
it’s something more
it is Quentin Tarantino’s personal experience
made universal
that’s art
it’s not easy
what is tough about it is not the technical skill
it is the approach to living
to think and feel
The filmmakers of “JoJo Rabbit”
may not be bad people
I’ll know for sure years from now if they are dissatisfied with this film
I started out as a sketch comedian
It’s a good impulse to want to talk about important things
like the JoJo people
but you have to find your lane
and change lanes as you move forward
the drive to entertain and be popular
has to be replaced by the need to connect
life hurts
and the artist changes the pain into something else
“JoJo” is loaded with skill and craft
that is looking for something worthy to be applied to
that something is life
Postscript:
Every generation thinks it finds something new
but the real thing is timeless
not to serve the artist’s quest for immortality
no one is immortal
Do you want to see something timely about Nazism in the year 2019?
watch “The Great Dictator”
and read “The Rick Blog” for explorations of watching movies about Nazism …
I don’t do cataclysm
we all have a tough go of it
we all have plenty to say and hear
we all can warm each other with resonance
seeing our own hearts beating in very different others
but we have to tell the stories that we are meant to tell
it’s not pretend dress up
it’s not make believe
the best fiction is autobiography
every character that we imagine is ourselves
we can’t steal someone else’s
(I’m glad I can’t write about the Holocaust
but for the grace of …
the Holocaust is a story I must listen to
not tell)
when I started doing this, I had no idea as to what I was getting into
In my case I always experienced my life intensely
I discovered what to do with that experience relatively late
I started typing this blog in 2014
I started writing it on August 7, 1955
I just didn’t know that I was doing it
the hardest part about being an artist
is living with the flame of dissatisfaction
experience
observe
reflect
apply
and know when to get out of Dodge
the possibilities in a moment are greater
than I can ever imagine
and they are bestowed upon me
a boon from heaven
art steps in
beyond the limits of talent, wisdom, intelligence or education
life in all of its
beauty
and terror
is greater than
all of the above.
Copyright 2019 Richard Thomas
10/31/19: Surrogate Trump
I used to have
anger
fear
anxiety
self-doubt
frustration
boredom
daydreaming about escape
hurt feelings
questioning about man’s inhumanity to man
fight/flight ideation
internal conflict and self-questioning
and occasional despair
related to the rise of Trump, and the abusive power, corruption and betrayal of American, Christian and any other decent set of human values
evils that he did not invent
his darkness has been part of our country and our world from the beginning
but he is the personification of the hideous impulse in the dark heart of mankind
to make evil victorious
to subjugate us all
to make the myth that I was taught in my Christian religious tradition
of Satan’s murder of God
because of our own free choice
a concrete reality.
Trump made me wonder if I was weak
wonder if there was some crucial element of my character
that was missing.
Trump felt like a threat to my freedom
and therefore to my life itself.
I had all of these feelings
when I had a job
where I was lied to
and disrespected
and associating with colleagues
that were not of my moral and intellectual caliber
who were superficial and lazy
and concerned with petty fiefdoms of power
instead of excellence, fulfillment and service.
I also had good friends on that job
and great love for the work that I was doing individually.
Eventually my lesser colleagues attacked me
using the levers of money and power
and I stood up to them.
Subsequent to the confrontation
the job ended.
Meanwhile, I felt betrayed by some people
who I associated with in the sphere of my work in art
I thought they were friends
I thought they were artists
I thought they were educators
they weren’t any of those things
This whole experience was on a parallel track to my experience in employment
I also had friends in this particular arts milieu
I had work that served, satisfied me and pursued excellence
but I was too often insulted
and not given my due
by my small less-than-mediocre associates
who were motivated (again) by power and money
and their own narcissistic insecurities
jealous for their own illusions of self-importance
My participation in this false community
ended with the same finality as my job.
After these two major breaks
I spent a relatively short amount of time
at sea
at first this felt like depression
I thought I was reeling with a sense of loss
and failure
but really it was a time of wonder
a wonder that did not lead to obvious epiphanies
but was a short time that healed all wounds
my antagonists receded
not in my memory
but in my heart
they disappeared from my soul’s meaning
thoughts of them lost all power over me
they became like dead acquaintances
or answers in a trivia quiz.
What remained were the friends that I made
and my own work
which I did while with them
and continued without them.
My past conflicts were finally resolved
At last I had clarity regarding
what I thought about
myself
my work
my values
and all else that was important
without their toxic false arguments
accompanying my actions and decisions
as chatter in my head
and shadows following me down a hallway.
When I was writing mostly about Trump
I was occasionally asked
“What do I do in the face of his terror?
I am a small person. I have a job. I have a family. I live in a neighborhood. I’m not a billionaire. I’m not in Congress.”
I was never satisfied by answers like ‘write your congress person” or “go to a protest”
(although they are fine things to do if you are so disposed)
I have my answer now
Emphatically accept people who love you
Emphatically do the work that you love
Emphatically speak up for and personify your values
Emphatically reject any person or situation that insults and obstructs your values
first in your concrete reality
and then in your mind
understand that your process to freedom
is a painstaking one
that requires persistence, courage and hope.
You are the world
when you change the world changes
nature gives us villains to teach us who we are.
Trump is being impeached in a big place
because enough people
did the work of freedom in small places.
Life requires
saying yes and no
Firmly
the firmness
leads to resilience,
confidence
and joy.
The evaporation of the oppressor is the formerly oppressed’s chance to re-make the world.
History
and your story
are one.
Copyright 2019 Richard Thomas
11/4/19: Toxic Fog and Disinfectant Sunshine
Sunshine
When I was a kid, I saw a show on PBS about dolphin researchers
I had no real interest or aptitude for science
But I loved the poetry
of these passionate souls
working in harmony
with each other and nature
engaging in enthusiastic curiosity
on the outer edge of knowledge
expanding the consciousness of the world
serving and protecting the ecosystem
infused with joy
exemplars of unambiguous kindness
shamelessly nice
tanned and healthy
full participants in life
living at the intersection of creativity, ethics and reason
brothers and sisters on a journey
and having the time of their lives.
Fog
I have never been insulted, cheated or condescended to
by anyone that I was not better than
we’re all equal in our humanity
but quite unequal in terms of what we do with our humanity
a wound is a gold mine
I never “let it go”
until I get the gold
The gold I received yesterday was an even new level of confidence
I woke up yesterday remembering slights
I could make a large spreadsheet of slights
from many individuals and groups
the slights really hurt
the source of the pain was that I secretly thought
(a secret that I kept from myself)
the rejections had something to do with me
I wasn’t strong enough, I thought
(unconsciously)
I wasn’t tough enough I believed
(we are all ruled by unspoken philosophies, guided by dark, indirect voices that whisper in languages that we simultaneously can’t understand and heed)
but after a day of feeling dull, agitated and sick
and doubting those feelings
seeing them as perhaps further evidence of my weakness
weeping inside because of the disapproval of people and groups that I thought I needed
and hated simultaneously
(conflict and confusion are the same thing … near the end of my stand-up career I tried to figure out ways to tell audiences to go fuck themselves, I couldn’t stand their ignorance, their immorality, their meanness … the humiliation of standing bare in front of them and giving them the power to judge, criticize or praise the processes of my soul — and yet I wanted them to like me … that of course was crazy — my stand-up career ended with a nervous breakdown —- this was a long time ago —- I was in my 30s — my psychiatrist was a retired Navy doc who compared me to medal of honor winners — I fought a war to find excellence in stand-up comedy until my brain blew out — but like a medal of honor winner, I acted with admirable heroism in wars of no value … the fog people will never change within their systems — those systems are fog machines, invented to maintain and perpetuate the fog … people enamored with fame care fuck all for real personal connection … people motivated by money care fuck all for real work … the contestants in the rat race are rats, but the sea beckons and sustains — three quarters of the earth is covered by water — the people of the fog built a plastic world —- the real one is better )
I finally understood something my father inarticulately told me when I was young
“you should take their insults and bullying as a compliment”
they wish
I’ll say a prayer for cowards tonight
Less concerned with winning
than just looking like a winner
they’ll settle for that
because they lack the confidence
to be real
I am a dolphin researcher
I live on a boat
with friends that I work with
I have no time for competition
and jockeying for position
I spend my days looking at the sea
trying to understand it
and sharing my insights with my friends
I’m happy and useful and creative
and the fog people envied me
the hatred that I thought I felt for them, they had for me
the people of the fog were (note the past tense — they are still alive, but dead to me — they might revivify and emerge from hell, but I can’t help with that —- most are incapable of it — many are too stupid to know what they are doing, some are just lazy and following orders, the ones who betrayed me did the worst to me and have the most hope —- they know what is possible, but quiver pathetically, cowering with fear — trying to disguise it with bravado)
lawyers who counted beans with their backs turned to the sea of justice
teachers who were functionaries maintaining a bureaucracy instead of educating
improvisers who worked in sales instead of the creation of art
improvisation gurus who peddled lies about “success” —
it’s false possibility for the untalented
it’s false satisfaction for the gifted
they hated me
oh yes
my very existence made them feel bad
they weren’t as smart or good-hearted as me
and somewhere they knew it
I played Mozart to their Salieri
they had to destroy me
they are in opposition of excellence and decency
but I wouldn’t die
I wouldn’t quit
I never pledged allegiance to their groups
My commitment was to my work
and my own sense of being
and I did one other thing
I talked back
I reared on my tail
and squawked like a dolphin
asserting myself and retreating at the same time
I naturally saw my equality and never ceded them the upper hand
I got fired
I got thrown out
I was castigated and criticized
they manipulated weak minded people to first dismiss me and then attack me
but I had possession in great measure
of myself, my faraway friends, of the world itself
my presence changed their corrupt lives and compromised communities forever
I learned that the envious and mean fog people couldn’t take anything away from me
No one can steal what truly belongs to you
It is impossible to murder a soul
I never stopped working
I never stopped breathing
I never tried to overthrow the fog people
take over their lousy endeavors
lead their cliquish communities and organizations
I never wanted to be in charge
I never fought them back using their tactics
although I was tempted
the time they saved by not being creative
they invested in being violent
and they were good at it
masters of other people’s wounds
But
I was stronger than that
smarter than that
better than that
I’m still standing
still going strong
when I die I will have no regret
I am proud of who I am
proud of what I do
and now I also know
I’m not a sap
I’m not a martyr
I won without a fight
the people of the fog are gone
and I sail on a ship
challenging the horizon
with my friends
studying the sea
and the dolphins
and each other
and sharing what I’ve learned.
Copyright 2019 Richard Thomas
This next segment was the beginning of my the expression of my final and complete separation from Second City and the improvisational community on a professional, social, personal and most importantly, psychological, basis.
11/5/19: The Definition of Success
I think Del Close was an asshole. He directed me briefly at Second City when I was just hired and he was about to leave. I have a few memories of him. I saw him yell at a baby. I saw him enter the theater with vomit stains on purple corduroy pants.
He liked me initially. He gave notes to me like “you beat the other player with a stick in that scene.” He encouraged me to dominate. I wasn’t interested. His enthusiasm for me and my work waned.
I knew Close just before he reinvented himself. He was ending his codependent relationship with Second City and was about to strike out on his own. He exploited his bohemian appearance and sold himself as hip and edgy. He did drugs and had a pedigree as a beat intellectual, but he had the values and aspirations of an insurance agent. His core attitude never transcended the foolishness one hears growing up in the neighborhood. He wouldn’t let it. There’s no money in that.
It’s an artist’s job to reflect the whole world, not merely his audience.
Close was no artist.
Close’s legacy is the iO theater. I’ve never seen anything on the stage of the iO theater that I enjoyed or admired. I haven’t been there often. To me, the place has the feel of a Trump rally. It’s a crude and stupid place.
iO is a place of ignorant name-in-the-paper ambition. It rejects excellence.
iO is a museum, a wax museum. It hasn’t furthered the art of improvisation. It sells it. It’s a training ground for noisy TV commercials and insipid sitcoms.
I think “yes, and”, which has become the international mantra of improvisational theater, is bullshit. Agreement with everything that is initiated by anyone leads to denial of the real.
The classes at iO and Second City offend me as an educator. They sell a base level success. Embrace mediocrity as a means to popularity.
It may strike you that I have some ax to grind here — some personal animosity. I truly don’t. It’s my job as a writer to separate high and low. No one ever makes these criticisms. I find what is happening in these “improv factories” to be morally repellent.
I saw a Conservatory graduation show at Second City a few years back. A lady sat next to me. She was a nurse who worked for film studios. She knew Sylvester Stallone. Her son was in the show. He was awful. The show was terrible. The students lacked craft, the directors didn’t know what they were doing. Yet, the woman was convinced that her son was going to be a star, and that this improv “training” was worth his dropping out of college.
He would be a better improvisor if he went to college. What an evening with vampires. People with nothing to say shouting look at me! look at me!
There is something cultish going on in “improv” education, reminiscent of Trump and Scientology.
When I was in the resident company at Second City, sometimes people looked at me with foolish awe. “How do you learn your lines?” “Do you get nervous?” “You met Eddie Murphy?!?!” Improv training as it stands at iO and Second City exploits that innocent, stupid immature take on life, and capitalizes on it. Real education and art would transcend it.
Bernie Sahlins was my director and producer when I was at Second City long ago. He told me “you don’t want to be famous doing shit work in show business. You are an artist.” Bernie was a sophisticated man, and he gave me great advice at a formative time.
I learned my lessons more from people like William Blake and Herman Melville than from Del Close. Both writers worked in the commercial realm and then walked away from it. They knew that the market corrupts. They weren’t salesmen. They were interested in what life was saying to them, not in what people want to hear.
Close told me when Gilda Radner’s obituary was international news, “We’re bigger than the Beatles.”
What a cold morbid fucker.
My job at Second City was like a school for me, but it was actual work with people who had done accomplished work, not classes taught by people who never did accomplished work, when I worked there in my 20’s and early 30s. Like any other school, I had some good teachers, I made some good friends and I dealt with a lot of assholes.
But it was just a school.
And I graduated.
I’m not part of it anymore. I’ve created my own art — which has transcended all that I learned. Many Second City alumni have done the same thing. Others are like middle-aged and older former high school football players who are trapped in memories of a state championship game played in the last century.
One of my friends from Second City is very well-known as a commercial actor, and he has done excellent work at that trade. He also has written some very good plays and has tried to get them produced. He felt dissatisfied with his hit TV show that he also occasionally wrote. He felt limited by commercialism. His journey to get his worthy work produced led him down the road of exploitation. He found open doors, but they were the wrong doors. People wanted to exploit him. Little theaters wanted to use his name to sell tickets. Actors and directors saw him as a gravy train and flattered him and gave him false support. When push came to shove, and people had to take the next step —- take a risk, put their own skin in the game, they were nowhere to be seen.
The outer rings of success are rings of hell. Fame, money and popularity, like beauty, fades.
William Blake lived a life of joy. He supported himself running a print shop and making art. It is said he lived his life in obscurity, but that’s not true. He connected with people in a real way. Melville said “fuck struggling to get published.” (I paraphrase.) He worked as a customs inspector. The result was Moby Dick. Their successes were not within the capitalist definition of success.
Conventional wisdom says that Blake and Melville were obscure. I say that they knew the world and were more known to the world than Del Close or John Belushi with their eyes on the grosses, the ratings, the box office, their brand and other drugs.
It is moronic to calculate success by counting dollars in the bank or likes on Facebook.
An artist limits himself when he caters to his audience.
A commercial artist is like a scientist who works for a tobacco company. All of his findings are bullshit.
I was in the Second City resident company when John Belushi died. Bernie sent our company to the funeral. I was walking into some gathering related to the memorial in a line with famous people. Hundreds of people surrounded as we made our way to the entrance. They shouted at each individual who passed. “Bill Murray!” “Dan Ackroyd!” When I passed they shouted “Nobody!”
This did not hurt my feelings. I smile as I remember it. I thought then what I think now —
who could possibly give a damn about what these people think? What a burden — to restrict yourself to some lowest common denominator — what a lousy job show business is for the successful and for the strivers …
My brother is a prominent judge — considered very important in his community. When my father died in 2009, word got out to the entirety of the Illinois Bar. A few hundred showed up for the wake and funeral. My father was buried at a lawyer’s networking event.
I didn’t like it, but to my brother’s credit, he didn’t either. He wanted to be a judge because he believed in the Law. He liked being able to spend more time with his kids than he would if he worked at some big firm. He didn’t like all the ass kissing and schmoozing — all of the using. He was in the same boat as my friend the TV star.
When my mother died it was just family and a few close friends. The death notice was posted right before the funeral, which was held on an inconvenient Monday morning. We only wanted the people who really loved her there.
We wanted meaning, not spectacle.
I consider myself very successful. I’m not rich and I’m not famous. But I was a very good improvisor, and a talented trial lawyer, and I am a very good writer and a very good teacher. I have a good marriage, and good friends. I’m a concerned citizen. I live my life as an artist, and I’m good at it.
A teacher at iO recently challenged my claim of success. He said, “Success isn’t about what you think, it’s about what other people think.”
Au contraire.
Copyright 2019 Richard Thomas
11/10/19: The Trouble with “Yes, and”
I was recently asked, “Why do you think “yes and” is bullshit?”
Here’s my answer :
I personally believe that my understanding of the Spolin concept of “acceptance” is the best way.
I make no claims to be a teacher of Spolin improvisational practice. I teach my own approach. I do this with what I believe is the encouragement of Viola Spolin, who I never met. She wrote that the rules of improvisation should not become rigid. She is surely one of the most skilled, effective and inspired teachers of any subject that ever lived. She was not looking for disciples. She wanted to develop free people, and for those so endowed and inclined, artists.
Spolin said that there should be constant revolution in improvisation. A core value of improvisation is transformation, and that transformation extends to the art itself. I did know and work with Spolin’s son, Paul Sills. He saw a one man show that I did at the West Bank Cafe in New York in the mid-1980s. He called the show the greatest piece of theater that he had seen in twenty-five years, and compared me to Lenny Bruce. I lacked confidence at the time, I was in my early thirties. I didn’t understand my power as an artist. After Paul showered me with praise, the significance of which I didn’t fully understand until many years later, I answered with a quavering apology. “I’m not good at object work (the Spolin way of introducing tangible objects through something that resembles mime to the uninitiated).” Paul got pissed off, and growled “who gives a shit?”
I learned that those improvisational concepts, which have far too often been commodified as rules, are only a means to an end.
I had achieved those ends in the show that Paul Sills saw, which was one of the peak experiences of my life, but I didn’t know it. I had a nervous breakdown one year after I gave that performance.
It took me fifteen years to complete the personal development that I needed to make art. I had to learn to take care of myself and make a living. My art was not going to make me a livelihood, at least not then.
I had to learn to not listen to other people.
An artist needs armor to protect himself from ignorance, arrogance and envy.
I had to grow as a person before I could even begin to do the the work of making art, and developing my potential as an artist.
Ironically, I returned to active creative work when I became a lawyer. I graduated from law school in 1981. I didn’t sit for the bar for twenty-five years.
After wandering the streets of New York as needy and lost soul in my mid-thirties, I worked in soulless telephone sales jobs for several years.
I rose in that awful profession and got a good paying job. I was fired from that job in my mid-forties.
Flat on my ass, I found my sole financial asset to be the human capital of my law degree. I took the bar in 2006 and I passed. It was really an accomplishment to pass the bar on the first try twenty-five years after my law school graduation. It was a lot of work and showed me that I had many resources of intelligence and character to apply to my life and work.
In all of my years in the wilderness, I always self-identified as an improvisor and an artist even when I was seemingly in exile. Those years also made me a writer. A writer has to be lost for a time. A writer needs to struggle in his life before he puts his life into words, to joust with inner and outer experiences, to be innocent, and therefore open, to suffer a thousand wounds, before finally realizing that his life in all of its particularity reflects the universal pain and joy of all men and women.
A lot happens when nothing is happening.
I practiced law for about six years. My bar admission eventually found its real utility. It was the credential that qualified me to be a college professor.
While I was gone, I had missed all of the “yes, and” business. I got a job at the University of Illinois at Chicago Business College teaching “Professional Presence” Improvisational acting instruction was the basis of teaching skills for business students to build self-confidence and communication and leadership skills. Other faculty at UIC, who also taught at the Second City Training Center. mentioned “yes, and.”
I was open to the idea. As a writer and teacher, I’ve never thought that I know everything. I grew to understand that the only thing that I could know is what I know.
Experience is the teacher.
So here is my experience with “yes, and.”
I read Kelly Leonard’ and Tom Yorton’ s (of Second City Works — an offshoot of Second City that teaches business people improvisational concepts to aid their personal and professional competencies and effectiveness much as I did at UIC) book Yes,and. I liked it. I thought it was a realization of David Shepherd’s (a founder with Paul Sills of the Compass Players, the forerunner of Second City) dream of using the teaching of improvisation as a means of positive impact on the lives of ordinary people who had no ambitions related to performing or any other arts. I even wrote a positive review of the book on my blog.
I applied the “yes, and” concept in my UIC classes. I wasn’t happy with the results. I also wasn’t sure if the problem was with “yes, and” or if I wasn’t teaching it properly.
Aretha Sills, Viola Spolin’s granddaughter, and the keeper of Viola’s flame, told me that “yes, and” was not a Spolin concept. She said that the idea originated with Josephine Forsberg.
One of the greatest living improvisation teachers, a friend and a person for whom I hold great respect (you’ll see why I don’t use his name here) told me that Jo Forsberg’s nephew, Martin de Maat, the founder of the Second City Training Center, stole the idea from Jo and commodified it.
To state the obvious, “yes, and” is a hugely successful commercial concept. “Yes, and” has taken over the world. Speak to almost any person who has ever taken an improvisation class in the last twenty years, and “yes, and” will be among the first words to come out of their mouths. I have talked to lawyers who discuss it …
University of Chicago intellectuals …
sales people …
and of course, actors.
“Yes, and” has become a synonym for improvisation in much of the public mind. The masses think that is all there is to it.
It, of course, isn’t.
I stopped using “yes, and” in my UIC classes. My way was getting much better outcomes. I improvised with some old friends that I had worked with at Second City when we young. I did that my own way too. I was very pleased with my work. I was an excellent improvisor again., even better than I used to be. I applied my own way of improvising to my writing, and noted steady improvement in the writing over time.
I like my writing.
My rejection of “yes, and” was the final step in my conscious claiming of my own artistic power.
I don’t even practice the same general creative form as the people who swear by “yes, and”.
I think “yes, and” practice is a bastardization of improvisation. I don’t think it’s improvisation at all.
An improvisation, like any art form, should reflect life.
It is important to accept reality, but we don’t have to like it.
For example, if MLK followed “Yes, and” he would have agreed with racism. He accepted racism’s reality but he didn’t agree and add to it.
In practice, “yes, and” leads to linear scenes — at least in my experience.
“Yes, and” scenes resemble the corporate meetings they seek to enliven. With “yes, and” business has informed improvisation, not the other way around … to the detriment of improvisation.
With “yes, and” everyone gets equal weight at all times. We are all equal in our humanity, but art is an elite experience.
I use a concept where I say the person with the highest consciousness has responsibility for the scene as long as they maintain that consciousness. The job of improvisers is to find the reality in the moment. They explore and heighten the reality and create a new moment. It is harder than just agreeing and implementing whatever the other player lays on you.
“Yes, and” is easy and gives its players a feeling of accomplishment. It doesn’t challenge them to the difficult process of pursuing excellence.
True interactions are more complex than just agreeing to what you are handed.
Give and take, mirroring, status tension (Spolin and Spolinesque concepts)—- all of these are reduced if just focused on “yes, and”. Viola Spolin’s great book Improvisation for the Theater is filled with exercises that I see, when considered in total, as a complex diagram of a human moment. Spolin looks at the split second of spontaneity from many perspectives — the hands, the voice, the heart, the soul … The book is a masterpiece.
Even Spolin’s genius cannot find every aspect of “the moment”, the passing speck of time that contains eternity — because those aspects are infinite.
Good thing too, that leaves something else for the rest of us to work on.
I think “yes, and” got traction because beginners can get a feeling of accomplishment quickly when directed to do it.
Jo Forsberg famously taught children. “Yes, and” might be a nice warm up exercise for children.
“Yes, and” is a sound bite compared to Spolin’s symphony.
Or mine.
Another weakness of “yes, and”is that it is too plot driven. Improvisation isn’t about plot, it’s about who, what and where transformation. If you explore and heighten what is there it naturally transforms into something else. You don’t have to invent an “and”.
“Yes, and” doesn’t lead to real content in scenes. It is usually just one thing after another.
And finally if you agree with anything and add to it, as a rule, you can potentially further evil or crazy or otherwise lousy things. I believe we have to bring our unique voices to the stage — and decisions in life are based on yes and no.
A loud mediocre voice can ruin a “Yes, and” scene, and often does. We have to accept our differences and work with them.
“Yes, and” leads to conformity, and never transcends the collective sense of reality. Art must expand consciousness, not be limited to its current boundaries.
“Yes, and” does not serve improvisational theater, business, writing, or human development.
“Yes, and” is a powerful engine of commerce, and irrelevant to art.
Experience
Observe
Reflect
Apply.
Art is about intensely experiencing life, allowing it to transform you, and communicating what you learned to other people.
Art is hard, and complex in its detailed beauty. It can’t be reduced to a formula.
Copyright 2019 Richard Thomas
11/12/19: Beyond the Trouble with “Yes, and”
A nice reader sent me a note in response to my recent piece “The Trouble with Yes, and”. In that piece I mentioned that I knew and had worked with Paul Sills.
“I didn’t know you knew Paul. I trained with him. I trained with him and Mike Nichols and George Morrison for two years in New York. (at the New Actors’ Workshop) Mentors all, and all gone now. I understand your point but “yes and” was to keep one out of their heads and work as an ensemble. Rather than using “but” which is shutting down what’s in the moment and going into one’s conscious not subconscious.”
I answered, “That’s interesting —- I guess I do it differently than they did —- with different artistic and social aims —- Paul, Viola are influences on my work, and I really loved Paul —- but now I’m on my own.”
She replied, “We all do. Did you know them?”
I said, “I wrote about it in the piece. I knew Paul not Viola. I met Nichols (I had a very small role in his movie “Heartburn”) and Morrison — but I wasn’t part of that school at all. I was there a few times meeting Paul. Maybe I did a workshop there. I met Paul when I was in the Second City resident company. Bernie Sahlins told me take a workshop with Paul. We hit it off. In the mid-80s I would sometimes take walks with Paul around NYC, get coffee. I had a different type relationship with him. As much as I was in Second City — I was really something different. I did one performance of Sills and Company and he didn’t ask me back. I understood. I am not by nature an ensemble player. I’m a writer.”
Now I will answer more in full.
I personally don’t believe in training in the arts. I inaccurately describe myself as a teacher, but that’s not true. I would never go into a classroom if money wasn’t involved — money for me.
I don’t teach a class. I share my art with them. I invite the students to share their art. Then we talk about all of it, and do it again.
I’d really rather just write. The classroom is a compromised place. It artificially limits art. I don’t like collaborating with my students. I’d rather just get to the truth undiluted, not diminished by the terms and proportions that whoever happens to be around can understand.
A great thing about art is you just put it out there, and it can be met at the various levels of individual audience members. When I write, I don’t have to worry about being materially useful to my students, or to entertain an audience. My entire focus is to explore reality and truth. It isn’t poetry to say that writing is always unfinished. No one ever fully understands the world or themselves. When it works, the artist surfs on the constantly changing reality of his essence, in harmony with the constantly changing world.
I have written that experience is the artist’s teacher. Experience, when viewed from fifty thousand feet, is a pretty simple affair. There is the individual —- conscious, unconscious, physical, emotional, existential, spiritual — in relation to everyone and everything else — the world. There are moments of epiphany where a hidden reality becomes visible. Each microcosm reflects each macrocosm and vice-versa.
You can say yes, and you can say no, but the fact is that reality keeps rolling on no matter what you say. You can add to reality, but if what you add isn’t real itself, part of the stuff of reality —- reality will reject your artificial invention and throw it back into your face eventually.
I don’t see why “but” would throw one into her conscious mind. If an individual is creating from her authenticity anything she might say is the truth as perceived from her perspective — whether she’s conscious or not.
The conscious mind has a great role to play in artistic creation. When engaged in my prostitution as a teacher, I call upon my experience as a writer and improvisor, and my training as a lawyer. I do believe in legal training. Training is a way of learning how to do the tasks of a job. Training is about technical skill. My website gives you a better idea as to how I present it. https://www.richardthomasjd.com/
Art is not a job. It is work. An artist is guided by his own real impulses, which do not derive from the ego. Beyond fear and desire, an artist, when engaged in real work, does and says what he must do and say. He is not a participant in a local community. He dialogues with the world. The local collective should adapt to its true artists, and over time usually does. The artist should never accommodate the local collective.
I have done many things in my life in many settings. When I worked at Second City, I began in harmony with the group. Yes, anding, although we didn’t call it that, was easy for me because my consciousness matched the consciousness of the group. But as I grew, my truth changed (my personal truth, not an understanding of some absolute truth — we all are limited by our own perspectives, no one has the vantage point to see the All.)
I outgrew Second City in stages. I the last show that I opened at Second City, I physically broke away from the rest of the cast. I did most most of my scenes downstage center, directly addressing the audience, and not relating to the other actors. The next stage was conflict — a tension between me and the group. The next stage was leaving. The next stage was Second City became part of my past. The next stage after that was my transformation into the next community that I participated in.
This cycle repeated itself in the world of business, the practice of law and teaching in higher ed.
Eventually my participation in local communities fell away in total.
An artist is completely with the world, and paradoxically outside of the world.
To identify with a group is to be in conflict. To participate in life — a state of being beyond what we merely think about life — is bliss. One exists on two planes. We choose the sides that nature has assigned us, as we simultaneously and humbly understand that each point in the universe is the center of that infinite space, including the point where we stand. From that perspective, everything is wonderful.
We live our lives in fierce opposition to the detonation of hydrogen bombs, while we appreciate their horrible beauty.
Acceptance of who we are, where we are and what we do. We play our parts in the play of existence and we are also the play itself.
We oppose fellow players or ally ourselves to them, and admire them all the same.
We live placing one foot in time and one foot beyond time. Our individual memory and our collective history, and our individual and collective futures all reside in the now. We proceed chronologically as we transcend the time/space continuum.
I have not lived my life “yes, anding.” Life is not lived when you are “yes, anding.”
We are children and follow the rules of childhood. We rebel against them and become adolescents. We mature into adulthood. Some of us become outlaws reaching for something more. Finally, we become lovers — engaging in the passions for the activities and the people that we were born to love. The individual and the world atone — become one.
Each transformation involves breaking and tearing and pain.
I think Paul Sills was frustrated. I think he wanted to be a writer. He wrote many notes when his mother, Viola, was writing Improvisation for the Theater. She didn’t use a word of them. He told me this regret. He described his work as being part of the family business. He never made the step of following his own impulses and creating from his own voice.
Paul’s interest and dedication to the collective was born of his misunderstood and misplaced loyalty to his family.
Love’s nature changes.
(By the way — I am by no means certain in my assessment of Paul Sills. What is important here is that is MY assessment. This really isn’t about him, at all. He’s not around now to clarify. It’s about me. What i see in Paul I see in myself.)
I had an easier family hand to play. I was devoted to my mother, who recently died, for the entirety of her life. I still am devoted to her. My mother was not a genius like Viola Spolin, so she was infinitely easier to transcend in the realm of my creative work. My love for my mother was a constant — not unlike my love for improvisation, the law and education, but my relationship to her and all of those things has changed more than once.
Everything changes.
I was a certain type of son until the day that I married. I married late — I was 57. I was a certain type of artist until I started this blog, at around the same time.
Marriage does not involve loving the person that you marry. It is about committing to loving all that the person will become, and fully participating in the changing dynamics of the interactions between her transformations and yours. A marriage is a creative thing. It is not an invention. It is not built. You accept your wife, and let her change you as you change her.
That, it seems to me is the natural course of life, and art. Substitute “writing” for “marriage” and “the world” for “my wife” and the previous paragraph relates to my work.
Reality is not something to be agreed to .. . we really have no choice in the matter.
Reality is something to be understood to the best of our ability.
We don’t have to add to reality. It is impossible to add to reality.
Reality is a shifting point. We are most fully conscious when our being is congruent with that shifting point.
Change is natural. It comes whether we know it or not.
I’ve experienced change in pleasant ways and in harsh ways. Change is indifferent to my comfort or pain.
We are given the conscious mind to understand life, not direct it.
That, it seems to me is the natural course of life.
“Yes, and” shuts down both the conscious and unconscious mind when the total mind and soul is at the point of expansion. Accepting the limits of a particular group imprisons us, and denies us full participation in life.
The members of my ensemble are every person who ever, or who will ever, live. It is not constricted to six other people with whom I happen to share a stage or a faculty lounge.
Even the most well-intentioned teachers of any of the arts and their students remind me of Chairman Mao and his followers during the Red Chinese Cultural Revolution. The teachers have their little black book that delineates the teachers’ claimed wisdom, values and objectives. The students subjugate themselves to the teachers’ will.
The students become slavish cogs in an inauthentic machine of the egoistic teacher’s invention.
Acting teachers are the most unreal because they improperly tell students how to act. Roles on stage or in broader life have requirements. How to serves those requirements. But the person underneath the role’s costume … recall the old improvisation maxim “where a character as lightly as a hat or coat” … cannot be directed. The proper relation to another person is love, not control.
We have to see others and open ourselves to be seen by them.
I do more by showing myself to you in these writings than I have ever done supposedly teaching anyone. You do more by listening to me than you ever would do by performing my assignments.
We shouldn’t consciously or unconsciously act. (Easier said than done.) We just need to be with each other. The challenges are existential, not psychological. (Easier said than done squared.)
All real action comes out of our presence. We don’t create together in an ensemble, community or company. We influence one another, and the universe in total influences us all, and true action happens.
At peak moments we come to truths that are found in everything and everyone. Truths that unite us.
The world is not a choir singing in one key relying on the directions of a conductor’s baton.
The world is a harmony of infinite and diverse songs.
Copyright 2019 Richard Thomas
11/17/19: Ford vs. Ferrari — Corporate Hate and Envy and the True Triumph of Art
I never thought that I would identify with a macho 1960s race car driver.
But art makes strange bedfellows. I’m Ken Miles.
Henry Ford II competed with Enzo Ferrari in the 1960s. Ford envied Ferrari, but envy is too weak a word to completely describe the feeling. Ford hated Ferrari because Ferrari was everything that Ford was not. Ferrari was an artist of auto racing and design. Ford was the son of a genius who inherited a company. Ferrari held Ford in a justified, less than heroic contempt. This exacerbated Ford’s hatred.
Ford did what all mediocrities do. He couldn’t define achievement by the fruits of his applied talents, intelligence and character, so he defined it as dominance of other people. If you can’t master an art, your will to power will be satisfied with power over others. The victories of the mediocre corporate climber are pyrrhic ones.
I feel pity for the mediocre, the Salieris of the world — the men and women who are born ordinary, but are smart enough to know excellence when they see it. They are left with no option but deny artists their due within the organizations that they control but don’t really lead.
Artists lead. Mediocrities manage.
The corporatists use the true artists for a time. They need them to get actual work done.
But then they discredit and discard the artists. The credit must be theirs. They surround themselves with other mediocrities who compete for partial power in their organizations in the hopes of one day sitting on the top of nothing
— of something very big and rich that gets its immediate way — big temporary shows of power and success — that on closer inspection are revealed to be voids of negation.
Ken Miles was independent and rebellious, but initially naive about the jealous corporate haters. He was supported by other useful executives to Ford, Carroll Shelley and Lee Iacocca, who appreciated Miles’ art and who realized that nothing great is ever done by committee. Artists can collaborate, but that collaboration never involves subordination to group think. It involves each person bringing individual and personal genius to his or her role and harmonizing the music that each brings to the symphony.
Iacocca, Shelley, and ultimately Miles saw the lies and duplicity of the corporate power players as part of the price of creative admission. They dealt with it as part of their jobs. Shelley and Iacocca were able to continue from that stance.
Miles was more of a pure artist. He stopped compromising. His art couldn’t coexist with hateful mendacious green powered envy.
Miles sacrificed his life for his art. Martyrdom isn’t so rare. We all sacrifice our lives for something. Henry Ford II sacrificed it to hate and envy.
Trump smeared Ambassador Yovanovitch because he needed her out of the way. Her real anti-corruption efforts made his fake ones impossible. But he also smeared her because she was everything that he could never be. Trump hates Yovanovitch and all people like her. He’s hate me if he knew me.
Trump took Yovanovitch’s title and sullied her reputation, but she received a standing ovation of appreciation at the end of her testimony. All the money and power in the world could not destroy people’s enthusiasm for the real thing. The mediocre can mock, condescend, dismiss and slander. They can withhold official credit. They can put people in tough financial straits. They can even murder.
What is beyond their ability is the power to destroy art or artist. The artist touches eternity and people love the artist for it.
The mediocre chase success, a poor substitute for love. The artist loves and is loved, time and time again.
Love is the energy of life. The mediocre are walking suicides — exiles from life itself.
I am blessed. I matriculated through all of the corporate duplicity and now work in a metaphoric room of my own.
Ferrari disdained Ford’s power and wealth, but he still thought it was something real. He wanted to beat it. That’s a waste of time. Let the dead bury their own dead.
Shelley and Iacocca thought they needed to work within the mediocre power structure in order to make a living. They probably did. They were generous benefactors of artists.
Love is more important than art. Everyone cannot make art. Everyone can love.
It must have been tough for Henry Ford II to be the son of a genius, to inherit a name and feel pressured to live up to legacy that he was ill-equipped to follow. The job of his life was to work his way to love — to let go of competition with his father. He didn’t pull it off, and ultimately the only thing that his father passed down to him was autocracy.
I am Ken Miles.
I am almost embarrassed by how much love that I have received in my life. I never felt that I had to make a name for myself or be in charge in order to be loved. I have a name. Parents, friends, family members, audiences, colleagues, students, readers have really loved me. Bullying bosses , cunning Judases exploiting my generosity and innocence, and weak colleagues who fear and despise what I am can’t take anything real away from me.
They can only cheat me out of mirages in a universe of illusion. They deny me only the respect of hell.
Heaven, the earth and the regions of purgatory belong to me.
The kingdom of the mediocre is a dark art magic trick. It seems so big and substantial.
And absolutely nothing is there.
I was naturally endowed with many gifts that I take no credit for.
We don’t choose who we are. We grow into our essential natures, or more more precisely how to live within those natures.
No one can fundamentally alter reality — no amount of money, no powerful megaphone, no base of political support —- can change what is.
I used to wish, when I was young, that I wasn’t an artist. I wished that I was an accountant or businessman. I thought things would be so much easier — more money, fewer life disruptions.
I was a fool.
Life isn’t easy for anybody. Life bestows a gift and a responsibility. It doesn’t come with a user’s manual. It involves understanding limits and differences, joy and sacrifice.
Life in general, and my life in particular, is the seat of humbling and awesome power, and challenges that —
when accepted —
lead to an expansion of consciousness and possibility
and paradoxical participation in eternity and loss
simultaneously
we live and we die
we are nothing and we are everything
we a speck in infinity
and the center of it all
the same old story
the fight for love and glory
the case of do or die
doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world
Henry Ford II is the answer to a trivia question
Ken Miles is an inspiration
Miles lived life
he didn’t try to conquer it
the Henry Ford II types got it all wrong
Christ said to forgive them, they don’t know what they do
I think they know, they are just afraid to find out the alternative
Illusions are tough things to discard
they would rather hold tightly to answers we suspect are wrong
than risk finding something better
an illusion of a bird in the hand
is better than two real birds in the bush
People aren’t naturally lazy
they fear work
we meet ourselves in our work
what if we aren’t as grand as our scam
Laziness is fear of oneself
better to bully and lie
than take on the eternal responsibility of the center of the universe
and the parallel insignificance of a dot in the ocean
better to be bigger than life
than the intense concentration of life
lived with the knowledge of our own mortality
To love persons places and things deeply
depths and depths of all encompassing loves
that we will lose one by one or in one fell swoop
as life abandons us
always abruptly
well, we’ll always have Paris
sort of
We all have jobs to accomplish to achieve our full humanity. I had to learn to embrace my essential nature as an artist, and free myself from taking the envy and hatred of the poor stymied souls who have created artificial love and excellence substitutes.
When I was young I had to learn not to lower my head and worry about whether I made the mediocre feel bad.
Then I had to learn to not be distracted by their unjust attacks.
Next I had to learn not to compromise with them.
Then I had to learn to love them, to transcend my rage over what they were and to own what my purpose is in the world.
Finally, they began to disappear.
I drove past a place that used to hold painful memories for me yesterday. I didn’t notice that I had until I travelled a few more miles.
When I was aware that I passed that place, the recollection was accompanied by no discernible feeling. I was not hurt, aggrieved at injustice, angry or numb.
I felt nothing.
My compassion for the mediocre people of envy and hatred has taken on a detached and distant quality.
There is nothing that I can do for them.
For me, Henry Ford II has died
and Ken Miles lives
My soul’s attention has turned almost completely to the joys, sorrows, problems and victories of those who love.
Eventually I’ll die too
and that will be that.
None of it will make any difference
and all of the difference in the world.
Copyright 2019 Richard Thomas
11/22/19: Self-Portrait
What led to who I am today?
What combination of nature and nurture
the love of friends and the opposition of adversaries
the alchemy of my genius and stupidity?
Why am I free
sure of myself
imbued with self knowledge
unafraid of the unknown
my person faces the world
and wonders where are the new places, people and things
a page of one’s own
a classroom of one’s own
a stage, perhaps of one’s own
venues for my voices
written
verbal
and the voice of my very person …
Life without conflict
natural as a bird
secure in my insecurity
not knowing what is next
and unconcerned.
64 plus years
and the kernel of being bestowed upon me by God
in utero
all of my basic nature
changed by pummeling experience
yet essential the same.
I document myself
this blog shows my changes
it in and of itself, in total is my art
series of sketches hung on the walls
sometimes repetitive
sometimes misfiring
but progressing
always progressing
each piece building to certain segments of epiphany
roughly placing itself into chapters as I transform
the experience that brought me to what I had created by 2018
a picture of that creation
constantly updated by the blog
which is a tab offered on the website
I love my selfie which accompanies this piece
I’m a lousy photographer
I’m too heavy
I’ve largely spent the last 15 months in this easy chair writing
but I feel no shame
I feel no regret
I feel something beyond pride
I am dignified
I know that I have done something worthwhile
I know I have remained true to something
that is beyond all of these words
I am certain that I have honored my talents
developed them through periods of pain and sacrifice when necessary
certain that I still have much to offer
and looking forward to the opportunities that will surely come
open to people of good will
and the authentic dictates of my heart.
Copyright 2019 Richard Thomas
11/23/19: A Surreal Day in the Neighborhood
I would have liked “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” better if it was directed by Bob Fosse or Luis Bunuel.
The film has some surrealistic touches, but it would have packed more punch if had a little hair of “The Andalusian Dog” or at least a taste of “All that Jazz.”
I start this piece with a quibble. You don’t expect exquisite fare when you go to Applebee’s, or the local multiplex.
Some might argue that hardcore surrealism has nothing to do with Mister Rogers, and that a gentle technicolor offering that looks like almost every other movie that you’ll see this year suits him fine — mainstream with a difference.
But “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” isn’t about Mister Rogers.
Mister Rogers defines his vocation in the film. His mission was to help children, and by extension adults too, deal with their feelings in positive ways.
Dealing with feelings is akin to dream interpretation, only much more common and important.
The film makes the point that it isn’t about Mr. Rogers, and in a related matter — that there are no saints or heroes.
Those are profound, if common, observations and I appreciated hearing them. My experience watching the movie was similar to having a conversation with a well meaning, insightful and somewhat boring individual. I appreciate where they direct my attention, and I am warmed by their hospitality — but I have to go further than they do in order to really learn anything.
The hero of “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” is writing. An Esquire writer who is extremely angry with his father is assigned a profile of Mr. Rogers. Mr. Rogers engages the angry not-so-young man in what at first seems a therapeutic way, but is actually more of a pastoral one.
Mr. Rogers, the writer and an invisible God share the screen. Bunuel or Fosse would have made God visible.
A writer writes to burn out pain, his own and the pain of others.
The writer is redeemed from his anger and brought to a place of forgiveness born of understanding through writing about his connection with Mr. Rogers to work through his problems. And Mr.Rogers feels better about his anger, because as a wounded healer he uses his hospitality for troubled people to relieve his own pain and theirs simultaneously.
Dealing with one’s feelings, particularly anger and sadness, is a surreal experience.
Anger and sadness are intense — they paradoxically make all of the tiny details of a moment hyper-real, and also distort reality into an overwhelming malevolent threat to our very existence.
My mantra — cited on these pages often
Experience
Observe
Reflect
Apply.
“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” goes through these four phases of writing, decision making and living — and I thank the filmmakers for making that available to everyone.
But there is so much more to be said on the movie’s themes.
The movie is trapped in marketing. It could have been less popular and more honest — in another universe where Adam and Eve never ate the apple, and money was never invented.
There are many kinds of anger, and the movie implies one size of anger fits all. Keeping things simple for the masses …
The Esquire writer had a father who cheated on his mother when she was dying and then abandoned his children. The writer had an understandable disgust for humanity as a result. The father seeks forgiveness before he himself will die. Mr. Rogers tells the writer we get most angry at those we love, and that the father had as much to do with what was good about the writer as the easier to love good Mom.
The writer does the right thing and they live and die happily ever after.
That is valid — and understanding and forgiveness are necessary to let go of even more horrendous pain and abuse than the writer suffered.
But the anger and sadness related to the more horrendous rages and sorrows of life are more often not resolved in death bed confessions and pleas for forgiveness.
The resolution of pain related to something like a father’s child molestation, for example, happen when the hurt party is alone. There is no celebration. There are no family Christmas photos with the old man on his deathbed surrounded by his noble and adoring family.
There are also many more shades of anger than the movie describes.
The Esquire writer has the anger of conflict. He wants to love his father. He wants his father to be better than what he was. He wants a happier history for himself. He gets his wish in the film. That’s not false — it happens.
But the story becomes dangerously sentimental when it is sold as a universal one.
There is also the anger of insult. Feeling insulted is a demand to be treated with dignity and respect. It is a good anger — a hot and clean thing. It sets a boundary. It only becomes a problem when it is not transcended. Sometimes the hurtful person is what must be “let go.”
There is the anger of feeling forced to do or say something that you don’t believe in. This anger leads to integrity. If maintained beyond separation and new direction, it leads to conflict.
All transformation involves breaking and tearing and pain. It requires leaving behind people, and ways of being, that prevent one from living out the truth of their destiny.
I was feeling quite self-actualized yesterday. I thought like I had it all together. I had let go of all toxic relationships and situations that had bedeviled me in my past lives.
I knew who I could love effectively, and who was beyond my power. I was filled with a passion to connect and expand any positive influence that I might be positioned to bring into the world.
I chart the course of my life like an explorer in my writing.
And then someone that I love very much told me a story which ostensibly had nothing to do with me. She had coffee with a former work colleague who was being forced out of his job by venal bosses who had previously abused her in the same way. She had talked to me at great length about these mean and petty people when they had tormented her.
I was very proud of how she dealt with these bastards. She got an employment lawyer and protected herself. She fought through the temptation to internalize their emotionally abusive disrespectful comments and behavior. She got another job surrounded by nice people whose work was guided by values other than greed.
I thought mention of these creeps was over. I had forgiven them. I don’t have a problem with anyone that me and those I love are not dealing with.
Let the dead bury their own dead.
I can’t do anything for these people. I only have hospitality for them if they ask for forgiveness and pursue love — like the Esquire writer’s father.
But most often that doesn’t happen.
Criminals belong in jail. Assholes deserve to be iced.
Love is a two-way street. People may not love for many reasons. I don’t judge their immortal souls — and I do believe in redemptions.
But I also believe that toxic people, places and things have to be avoided at all costs.
Nothing good comes with tolerance of toxicity.
I was with the person I love as she recounted her meeting with her suffering friend until she started analyzing his oppressors’ actions and motivations
And then I hit the roof. It was surreal.
And I’m not sorry.
I want nothing to do with the Devil’s thought processes.
Years ago, I tried to maintain working and other relationships with people like my beloved’s ex-employers.
Then I learned to tell them to fuck off and I left.
I love them like I love the angry guy talking on his cellphone three cars behind me in the rearview mirror. I hope he doesn’t get into an accident, but he most likely will — killing himself and other people.
Oh — he turned off.
Good I’m through with him.
Mister Rogers believed that there is good in everyone. I do too, but I don’t think it is always accessible.
A samurai warrior never strikes a foe in anger. He defends himself without anger. He uses evasive tactics without anger. He retreats without anger.
A samurai accepts that people sometimes choose bad, and life in the world requires dealing with it.
But I am glad I got angry with my love last night.
Because even Samurais get pissed off. I don’t care what they say.
I can be calm and enlightened now when I am writing.
But last night’s temper tantrum was a surreal moment. Fueled by fears of backsliding and distraction from my and my love’s proper course.
It was terrifying to see those grotesque people enter our lives when we are just at the moment of liberation from their abuse.
Mr. Rogers and Jesus turned the other cheek.
They loved their enemies.
But they also stood up to their enemies …
and didn’t let their enemies distract them from their holy missions.
Forgive … yes.
Love your enemies … yes
BUT
Sincerity toward disintegrating influences is dangerous.
I want to die for what is important to me
not be destroyed to satisfy the meaningless purpose of an abuser.
Copyright 2019 Richard Thomas
11/25/19: Excellent
I was in my early thirties about a year away from a nervous breakdown. I was sleeping on a succession of friends’ couches and eating in soup kitchens or begging from restaurants and bakeries. I was anonymous in New York. There was seemingly an infinite supply of nooks and crannies where I could hide out and avoid life.
There weren’t.
I secretly thought that I was afraid of life. It was a secret that I kept from myself.
I wasn’t afraid. I was on a right path/wrong path. I thought I was pursuing a career as an actor. I wasn’t pursuing any career at all.
A writer has to get lost.
Check that — be lost.
A writer has to naively wade into his soul and the world (same thing)
and let his dark illusions
about them (it)
kick the shit out of him
as the real thing tries in vain
to give him a hug
A writer has to be
lost
For a time …
only a time
until finally he is ready to settle down
and
consciously
write down
what he has been auto-typing in a blindfold
on the streets
and in the air,
in countless rooms
where he thinks he is a stranger,
focusing on imagined difficulties
perplexed
believing he doesn’t have a friend in the world
a starving man
at a free
all-you-can-eat
banquet
a pauper
in an abundant land
unknowingly climbing
the Big Rock Candy Mountain
insanely taking it
for a ring of hell
mistaking real oases
for a repetitious unreliable mirage.
The conscious writing started
many years later.
Everybody has an interesting life — even if most people don’t think that they do.
I’ve been everywhere from Notre Dame to the mental hospital. I have worked with Oscar winners and accomplished lawyers — been a pretty great performer and a pretty great teacher.
Regular writers I repeat how great I am at what I do in many pieces for a reason —
not the obvious one …
If any of this seems immodest or insecure,
come on, I just told you that I was a bum on the streets of New York.
It all makes me happy
being dragged to the emergency room
and my wedding day
collapsing with rage
and performing miracles.
I wasn’t afraid of life when I was avoiding it.
I was born with a bigger and stranger talent than I knew what to do with.
My parents didn’t know what the hell was going on with me. It’s not that I was so different than them, but my vectors were pointed in directions they knew nothing about.
I never had a teacher or mentor
who saw the whole thing
I have to figure it out
That’s the thing about my thing.
Oh yeah — back to the story that I started to tell you …
I got a call from my agent — or rather a message from my answering service which I used to check in with from pay telephones — I didn’t have a permanent residence to maintain a phone and cellular wasn’t invented.
As if I could afford a cell phone if it existed …
Anyway, I get this call. Bill Murray was directing a movie and he wanted me to audition.
I didn’t have a head shot. I had a friend take a Polaroid —
young people, that was a quickie do-it-yourself photo in the olden days—
lousy quality,
developed in twenty-five seconds or something like that.
You yanked the picture out of the phone.
You think the selfies and videos that I use on this blog are of suck-hole quality
You should have seen this Polaroid
It looked like my soul was being stolen
and I was trying to disappear
It was technically a black and white photo
but if you didn’t know better
you would believe that all color had vanished from the world
and I was evaporating
I wish I still had that photo.
I’d give it to a museum
and call it
“The Last Second of Multiplicity/Nothing”.
Of course, it was my friend’s camera.
What else?
I showed up for the audition. The casting director looked at me like I was a little nuts — which I was …
“You should have a headshot.”
An employer for some kind of teaching job in that period said the same thing to me about a checking account.
I was supposed to have that too.
I wasn’t anti-social
I was a-social.
How dare anyone see the world for me?
Tell me what is necessary!
Sigh
An artist has to be a mystic for awhile
Just awhile
Before he consciously starts writing
(refrain) The casting director looked at me like I was a little nuts — which I was …
I also was kind of a saint, you know — actor, writer, lawyer, professor, crazy person —
put saint on my resume —
jobs that I’ve tried …
Yeah, crazy like a saint …
I know what it is like to be intimate with the spirit and detached from the earth …
I floated down the streets of New York as a flame —
I saw eternity
and I couldn’t give you the time of day.
I inhabited all of the earth
and was unaware of my current location.
Bill Murray liked me because I was a recent alumnus of the Second City main stage.
But he also did the movie “The Razor’s Edge.” It was a passion project for him. Maybe he saw some of that character in me.
Anyway, he couldn’t have been more kind.
I didn’t have a Screen Actor’s Guild card.
Hell, I was lucky that I had pants. I
had done another movie a year or two before but didn’t pay my dues. I held onto nothing in those days.
I wasn’t only not materialistic. I was anti-materialist.
I hated stuff — it seemed such a burden. And I didn’t know that I was kind of unusual in this regard. This is the writer’s grace — to know nothing about himself or the world, and to let the inside and the out teach him everything.
It is crazy. It is idiotic.
It is also genius.
A life without bias, perpetually confused, cornered to the existential need of survival —
as we all are, no matter how easily we talk and buy our way out of it …
Oh yeah … Bill Murray talked to me about SAG cards with me for awhile
in a funny kind of protective way ,
and then he cast me in his movie.
He really wanted to help me.
He wanted to connect me to the world.
A week or two later, I was sitting in this big room with Bill Murray and Jason Robards and this great old Broadway actor, Philip Bosco, who did a lot of character parts in movies at that time — and some other big stars — but it was those old hands,
plus Murray’s old soul
that matter here …
They were so — nice, you know. No airs at all — the opposite. I walked for awhile with Philip Bosco after the run-through — that’s why we were there — to read the script. He said he was a working stiff and regarded me as a total equal.
Which of course, is true, you know?
I am the equal of Phil Bosco — or anyone else on the planet.
I think you are my equal
no matter how awkward and bewildered you are
I know you have good qualities
whether I can see them or not.
You’re welcome.
Gifts and trials, challenges and breaks …
genius and imbecility
Actors and jocks — when they are good
they are often humble.
The jock knows he is an injury away from it being all over.
The actor knows he could win an Oscar and not be able to get a part for the next year.
Actors and jocks live at a place where glory and hard luck coexist …
all they have is the present …
the pursued excellence of the moment.
Jason Robards was a good guy it seemed. I’m sure he was just there to keep working. This was a guy who married Lauren Bacall. I think he was a practicing alcoholic when he was young — I don’t know the whole story —
anyway he lived,
really lived
you know what I mean …
most importantly here — he was regarded as the greatest acting interpreter of Eugene O’Neill for his generation …
and his generation was right behind O’Neill’s
he was there first
those massive plays — wide and deep as the ocean
he mastered those masterpieces …
fuck talent —
yes he had prodigious talent — obviously
fuck breaks —
his talent was his break, the rest was inevitable …
Jason Robards didn’t have breaks
he had destiny
think about how much fucking work that man did
to inhabit the soul of Eugene O’Neill?
Excellence
and he was nice.
Nice nice nice nice nice nice nice nice !!!!!!!!!
He was a good guy.
He was nice
TO ME —
the St. Francis of Assisi of Hell’s Kitchen —
nice
to me …
me
a genius trapped in a fuck up …
who was brilliantly fucking up
no one understood
least of all me
but I was on to something
not only inept at the practical things that geniuses charmingly fuck up …
but inept at the genius things that geniuses do …
an exile too stupid to know that I was an exile …
who gained the experience of exile
and the point of view
that I wasn’t born with
but was born to pursue
I did everything right
when I thought I was off-track
Off-track is on-track for me
The flame of discontent
angry at the world
and creating a new one
working on a treaty with world
Equals.
Yes, Jason Robards was nice to me.
I got the idea for this piece while I was watching football on TV with Paula. Well, she wasn’t watching. She indulged me and was doing something on her laptop.
Poor Paula — she patiently listens to me as I drift off into reverie — wandering without a GPS, off route and a laser beam at the same time …
I began remembering Walter Payton. My brother played with him for several years on the Chicago Bears.
I got to know many of my brother’s Bear friends. I did comedy routines for them at camp a couple of times. They liked me.
They were nice to me too.
I count being nice to me as an aspect of excellence, okay.
I mean, look at me. What’s not to like? I don’t have a jealous bone in my body. I get thrilled by excellence — it could be football or acting or journalism — anything really — it would be organic chemistry too if I had a clue as to what that is … I mean I’ve heard of it — that’s about it …
The best of the jocks — the pros, the gold medal types — aren’t the bullying stereotype that some often think of …
The pricks are the pishers — the small fries without the talent or the character to play in the NFL or other big time competitions.
The pishers are envious and mean.
Sometimes someone who is excellent might be an asshole — but they have something wrong with them. I don’t mean being a drunk or something like that. I don’t mean seeming mean at times of stress — which most of them usually do.
Sometimes the real excellent ones don’t know it, so they are as insecure as the wannabes who will never play in the bigs.
I always knew that I was great. I never had that problem. My problem as I stated above was the conundrum — what do you do with such greatness?
I keep working it out.
I think Michael Jordan probably has something wrong with him beneath all the swagger. Clearly excellent in almost every way related to his work— but a prick with rivals, teammates, wives — never does a goddam thing for anybody else — fuck social justice, philanthropy — all about his money — huge talent, but a douchebag — something wrong with him …
selfish …
I mean Jason Robards might have been getting extra cash working on a mediocre Hollywood comedy — but at one time he gave himself to Eugene O’Neill …
sacrificed himself
the demons in those plays
only a war hero could act that shit right
a Medal of Honor winner
when I was in the mental hospital, my psychiatrist was an old Navy doc
the branch of service, not the store
He said I had the make-up of Medal of Honor winners that he treated
I tried so hard
It’s funny
I could be in total disrepair
begging
an outpatient
disheveled
and I always had the respect of good people
they admired me, you know
they saw something
they saw art in the mess of my life
I was like Dr. Richard Kimball,
the Fugitive
I didn’t kill anybody
and I was still a doctor even if I was on the lam.
I was a decency Rohrschach Test
Good people could see me
People who were only socialized
who couldn’t see beyond the expected and required surface
dismissed me
People who hated themselves hated me
and wanted to kill me
in so many words
My father straddled both points of view
He was merciless in his criticism
but would sometimes say with a bit of wonder
“There’s something special about you … ”
I felt like the kid with the banjo in “Deliverance” around him.
Michael Jordan loved playing basketball, but he didn’t love basketball, you know what I mean?
Jordan was a great basketball player
with the soul of a salesman.
I may be missing some meaningful tragedy in Jordan
even so
if that’s true
as great as “Death of a Salesman” is
It’s no “Long Day’s Journey”.
So, anyway … Bill Murray wanted to save me —
those routines that he does where he invites himself to the wedding at the hotel he is staying and parties with everybody and gives them memories for a lifetime …
I know that is real.
Bill Murray once said that If he was considering doing a business deal with someone, he would observe how they treated their server in a restaurant. He said those simple transactions revealed the prospective partner’s character.
Bill Murray has this loving thing for ordinary people.
In me, he was confronted with an ordinary genius — he wanted to help,
you get that by now?
Bill Murray fired me from his movie.
He was dissatisfied with me and Jason Robards. I think Bill Murray was learning something about directing. Jason was too cooked. He was done. The juice was for O’Neill, not Murray.
I was uncooked. I wasn’t even an actor.
Yes, I worked for years at Second City.
But I’m not an actor —
I’m not even part of Second City.
I wandered through there — thinking I was something that I am not,
most everyone else thought so too
but just because you are good at something doesn’t necessarily mean it is what you are.
Being at Second City
and everything else that I have ever done
was doing precisely what I needed to be doing
to be
and to do
what I actually am and do.
To do or not to do
Enough with the questions.
A writer is a wanderer — through his mind and heart and soul and the world …
the art of not knowing what you are doing …
any community has expectations …
a writer has no expectations …
a writer is a surfer …
I’m too big to act in someone else’s play
interpret someone else’s words
follow someone else’s directions
one’s gifts are one’s burdens too
Bill — I’ll talk as if Bill Murray is a friend of mine now, even though I never saw him again after “Quick Change”
but I know Bill treated me as a friend then — he sees millions of friends in the world — that is part of his genius —
a kind of genius too big for me for me to understand …
in this life.
My genius is my voice
I can experience life and talk about it
It is all that I know how to do
Let me finish this story about how Bill Murray was so great to me’
He called in Geena Davis and Randy Quaid
I was supposed to do a scene with the three of them
and they worked with me for two hours to try to help me to do it right
Bill really wanted to give me that part
He was doing a major motion picture
his first time directing
and he wanted to use a piece of his opportunity
to create an opportunity for me.
Isn’t that something?
Wow.
The thing that is worth enthusiasm.
It was a hopeless case
even though I initially showed some talent for the job
of course I did
I am not meant for that job
This is what I do
what you are reading right now
this peripatetic
at times poetic
digressive
writing
this blog
not “Quick Change”
rather, “Constancy in Change”.
Bill Murray redeemed me nonetheless
even though he couldn’t use me in the movie
as much as he wanted to
because he saw that I had some sort of genius (we all do)
and he wanted to help.
Generous, kind Bill Murray
I get hurt pretty easily
but I have a good sense about being hurt
I only get hurt when the person is being stupid or mean
Getting fired by Bill Murray is a warm memory.
I could tell he felt bad
he really did.
I’m sorry for that.
I hope he wasn’t frustrated
that what we thought was the right thing
was an impossible one.
A mensch!
I loved my brief interaction with Bill Murray
but I didn’t belong with him
My place is here.
Oh yeah —
before I forget
Walter Payton …
I didn’t know him
but he was nice to my father
and when my brother was cut from the Bears after ten years, and all of the other players understandably avoided him (they feared the same fate)
Walter Payton
one of the best football players who ever lived
Walter Payton
who usually ran,
but could catch
and pass
and punt
and kick
Walter Payton
who was gifted with immense talent
and worked to develop every drop of it
Walter Payton
who spent most of the off season running up steep hills of sand
who gave his life to the game as Jason Robards gave his to Eugene O’Neill
and Bill Murray gave it to seeing a world filled with friends
Walter Payton
sat down next to my brother before he cleaned out his locker
at the moment after they heard that my brother was cut from the team
and cried with him
sobbed with a sense of love and loss
It’s all so wonderful
it all hurts so good
thrilling sadness
glory and lost glory
genius and confusion
life, death
and the space between us
What do we make of that space?
Everything is exactly the way it is supposed to be
whether we know it or not
and that’s
Excellent.
Copyright 2019 Richard Thomas
11/30/19: Process of Elimination
I have a friend who occasionally makes insightful comments about my writing. He understands the creative process in general, and he knows how to talk to artists.
I use the word “art” a lot to describe what I do. My friend sent me a comment the other day responding to a ‘segment” of mine that he enjoyed.
See how talented he is in viewing creative work? He didn’t call my entry a “post.” Of course not. He knows this is something different than the usual blog. He didn’t use the word that I often use — “piece” — a word I have been dissatisfied with. He knows that although what I write can be read independently as separate pieces, they are all parts of a whole.
My blog is the piece — a narrative of sorts, certainly not chronological or plot-driven, but a narrative nonetheless, that follows my progress as a person, and the progress of the world from my limited perspective — my limited, human, fallible, certainly not omniscient perspective — my limited, human, fallible, certainly not omniscient, transforming and transformational perspective.
My friend, in his comment responding to that particular segment of mine that he liked very much, provided just about as good a definition of my art and my process as I can currently imagine (he was describing the work of another writer that he thought shared some similarities with me):
“When asked if he wrote for others or wrote for himself, he responded with a quote — “To write for myself would be narcissistic. To write for others would be pandering. — and something like, I write to liberate the ideas inside me that must be born” — and I paraphrase with only vague recall. But it was jolting. Again, it was a beautiful and truthful, authentic segment. Best … “
My friend had previously bemoaned my obscurity. I use social media as a means of self-publishing. Many of my connections on social media are from my distant ill-fitting past life in show business. My friend was troubled by what he considered fewer likes for my work than what he considered inferior work.
The work of others that he perceived as more popular than mine was not only written by show business professionals, it was and is show business itself.
Show business is pandering.
(Repeat) The essence of show business is pandering — finding what “works” with the audience.
I’m not in competition with those entertainers. I do something completely different.
It took me a long time to discern the difference between me and the colleagues that I never meshed with very well anyway.
But I finally made it. I’m an artist. I don’t pander to the audience …
I write to liberate the ideas inside me that must be born.
My process is very painful. I write to burn out pain.
The pain is born in innocence, and sometimes festers with a cancerous ignorance.
My ideas are released from me like fetuses that have come to term
or cancers that must be expelled so that I must survive.
I write with the knowledge that I am not so different from anyone else, that we all have a shared human experience, inflected by our different natures and history, but all variations on a theme.
I have suffered two unexpected losses recently.
My arts are writing (and by extension spoken word, which is really just reading my writing) and teaching.
I haven’t had an income in fifteen months. It has been the most productive time of my life.
I am looking for three things in the work that I do for income, and actually in every other aspect of my life.
One, I can only do my work. I have a specific way of teaching and writing that I have developed.
In higher ed curriculum is formed by committees.
Corporate College (schools have become corporations — education comes in far behind profits and bureaucracy) have managers called deans, who check off boxes which satisfy marketing, finance, future employment training objectives — everything but the students’ human development — I’m not generalizing — I worked for five years at UIC and have interviewed and communicated with dozens of other schools since then — they are all the same. They are all initially very excited to speak with me — but eventually don’t know what to do with me. It’s my fault. I go too far. I actually educate people.
A young woman was killed at UIC. A pretty eighteen year old murdered in a parking structure at 1:30 on a Saturday morning. She was found alone in her car.
One of the courses that I taught was called “Freshman Orientation” . I hated teaching it. It was a kind of insult that they assigned it to me (see insults below). I ignored the bullshit lesson plans they pushed upon me — for example “proper professional dress” — as if an ad agency has the same culture of dress as a law firm — it all was worthless activity — bean counting for accreditation committees.
Teaching is more a spiritual vocation than an intellectual one. I can only teach what I know how to do — think, feel and write and talk about it.
I used to give this essay assignment to the freshmen — “The Two Fears” — I asked them to write about the fear that they feel when they are facing potential danger, and the fear of failure when they are facing opportunity. I didn’t give them any tips or codes. They wrote, they gave speeches based upon what they wrote, and they talked to each other and to me about what they wrote.
Experience
Observe
Reflect
Apply
I taught my students the process of this blog — how to thoughtfully create a life.
Not narcissistic writing for oneself — the students taught each other. Each student had different gifts and insights.
I think that girl who was murdered might be still alive if she had taken my class.
We talked about their lives in my class, and their lives were often dangerous and surrounded by violence. A naive girl would have heard a little about the perils of parking structures at 1:30 am.
There is precious little of what I teach at UIC or any other school I’ve engaged with.
A school should have many learning objectives. I taught courses a little more substantive than Freshman Orientation. A school should socialize and impart complex skills and knowledge to students — but in all of its tasks it should be concerned with human development.
I wasn’t the only good teacher at UIC. But there were just a few of us — and we got, or will get, drummed out eventually.
Students aren’t the only people who need to concentrate on human development. Everyone does. So I met with this very nice guy who teaches “soft skills” to corporations, law schools, and law firms.
I had done a little of this type work — a bare beginning — before I worked at UIC. My generous friend gave me a lot of practical advice about how to start a little practice doing this type work.
I got a little bit of entrepreneurial training. I talked to a lot of firms and businesses.
Again, there was a lot of initial enthusiasm for what I had to offer. I’m well-credentialed and a good writer.
But I lost enthusiasm for these people. They never — I am not generalizing, I spent months talking to these people — they literally are all the same. They combine a belief that they know a lot more about creativity than they do (the truly creative person reveres artistic process as a mystery — have you ever wondered why so many books, movies, songs and paintings etc. are about people struggling — about people learning something or changing. These people are too smug to learn what art can teach them. A few are very artistic — but they are outliers and usually not long for their professions or stuck for years of unhappiness within them) with an unwillingness to put in the time and effort to make any progress at all.
The last “marketing call” I made to one of these professionals was a coffee meeting with the Chief Operating Officer of a major law firm with offices all over the country. He had the words “artist” and “innovator” written all over his LinkedIn page. He cried in my presence about the passing of his father who died twenty years earlier — this guy was pushing fifty, but he carried himself like a high school sophomore with gray hair — and he informed me that “art” work could be done for his partners an hour or two or three a month. They were too busy with their billable hours to work on human development. Maybe that was the reason he didn’t get around to processing his grief related to his father’s death, and could speak with any adult perspective about his Dad, but sounded like a sentimental fifties sitcom — his father always knew best.
Usually, I am empathetic — I’m glad people feel comfortable crying in front of me — but this guy left me cold.
Materialism and sentimentality are not my things.
(Refrain) One, I can only do my work. I have a specific way of teaching and writing that I have developed.
So Corporate College and business and the professions are out.
Two, I have to be respected and well-treated.
I’ve told myself and I’ve been told that I am too sensitive. I’ve been told that envy is just a part of competition, that condescension and meanness comes from the bosses on any job. You have to take some guff and eat a little shit to make a living.
But I hate the disrespect so much — I think more than most everyone does. I can’t abide it. I’ve had a suspicion which has now grown into a belief, that I hate the bullying for more than personal reasons. It’s wrong. It’s not true.
All men and women are created equal. All men and women can’t flourish without an inner sense of equality.
Once they have that they want the outer sense of equality too.
I don’t do my best work when I am being ridiculed and hassled.
Plus and ultimately, it’s my right to be respected — as a human
and specifically as an artist. I have demonstrably good work.
Disrespect is an expression of a variety of base things — arrogance, ignorance, jealousy, insecurity, malice, misguided and misdirected love, fear and the need to control …
Whatever the source of disrespect, I’m just sick of disrespectful people. I’m 64 years old and I’m quite cranky regarding this point.
There are limits, grave ones, to my compassion. I want to be happy. I can’t suffer these fools anymore.
(Refrain) Two, I have to be respected and well-treated.
Three, no more stupid punishments.
I’ve been punished too often for doing the right thing. I’ve been punished for being smarter and more effective than other people. I have to work with people who have the same level of character, talent and intelligence that I do. This is a tough requirement to meet because I’m likely in a high percentile in those categories.
But those people are out there. I know it. I know some. I need to engage people of the same caliber.
(Refrain) Three, no more stupid punishments.
(Refrain) I have suffered two unexpected losses recently.
Oh yes — the losses. Two friends that I dearly loved — one in show business, one in higher ed.
The higher ed person tells me that fifteen months is a long time not to work. (I’ve never worked harder. I just don’t have an income.
She says that I am too much of a maverick — I should just get a job and do what is assigned by the curriculum committee.
She says that I get too angry when I am disrespected and insulted.
She foolishly thinks I could conform to her prescriptions for success.
She believes that I am unrealistic and can never find what I want.
I have no idea how to “find” what I want, I suspect that I just have to be open to it and I’ll see it at the appropriate time.
She lives in a self-imposed prison — worrying about money when she is comparatively well-off, addicted to the praise of people who exploit her like a piece of office equipment, ignorant of the possibilities beyond her tiny world.
I really loved her, but destiny is more powerful than individual love. My love would turn rancid if I incarcerated myself in her air-conditioned nightmare.
The other friend is in show business.
He liked my funny writing.
He says I am unsuccessful.
He encourages me to get over instead of get to the truth.
I am not of the same occupation as my friend, and haven’t been for decades. I learned some craft as an entertainer and use it now as I do something else — art.
He can’t be friends with someone not of his occupation. It’s such a shame.
I think he has something more fine within him, and my pursuit of a similar thing threatens him.
Each of these friends unsuccessfully tried to convert me to their point of view. When they knew that they failed, they iced me.
They tried to pressure me to abandon, and violated, my three goals:
(Refrain) One, I can only do my work. I have a specific way of teaching and writing that I have developed.
(Refrain) Two, I have to be respected and well-treated.
(Refrain) Three, no more stupid punishments.
(Refrain) I have suffered two unexpected losses recently.
I innocently didn’t expect the creative process, making art, to lead to personal losses of the type that I described, but here we are — it did.
I know from experience (this isn’t Pollyanna time) that every time the world splits in two,
it subsequently gets bigger.
Copyright 2019 Richard Thomas
12/2/19: Jack Lemmon, Adam Schiff and the American Character (I’m an American)
I have a free moment. I don’t know if it is a temporary respite, or a permanent state.
I don’t care what anyone thinks of me.
I understand my past,
all transgressions against me are forgiven,
all of my life choices bringing me to this moment are clear.
I suffer no confusion.
I harbor no regrets.
I am as sensitive as I was on Thanksgiving Day,
but I no longer suffer
from the memory
of long gone
slights
and injustices.
I have let it go.
I’m not conflicted in any way.
I accept myself,
and the world,
life
and other people
as they are.
I have no illusions.
My mind is well ordered —
everything and everyone is in their proper place.
Ogres have turned into the topography of life.
They are no longer adversaries,
they are just mountains,
deserts
and raging rivers
that I have traversed
or avoided.
Ogres have a beauty this evening,
as all natural things do.
I don’t fear them,
or hate them
or need them.
Pain seems to be history
and the future a mystery
as I sail on a lovely calm moonlit evening towards an inviting horizon,
secure that the world is round.
Thanksgiving Day was a day of furor and frustration that I spent alone
in order to protect myself from imagined insult,
and to not spoil anyone’s dinner.
I don’t know why I was so upset.
My mind was a roulette wheel —
no check that — a juke box
blaring a medley of bad thematically related memories of
different times,
people,
places and things.
I roared with pain, employing mostly silent screams
as I simultaneously enjoyed a movie,
and a drive up Chicago’s north lakeshore
and a very good roast beef sandwich.
What an odd state I was in —
blissful serene pleasure listened to frustration persistently knocking on my door.
I was a very happy baby and I still am.
Conflict is a figment of my imagination.
My conflict is all nurture and no nature.
I can watch myself feel badly. It kind of interests me.
I always get upset when I am undergoing a change.
Each transformation is accompanied by an anger or frustration related to my sense of loss,
even when the out with the old and in with the new
is an improvement,
and in my case it always is.
I’m an American.
Freed from any reflection on myself,
my mind turns to …
myself
I am
America …
what other place could I be?
My immigrant parents chose this place for me.
I’ve never chosen another
and would not do so
if I had the chance.
Jack Lemmon
was such an American actor
he played
in comedies and dramas
losers struggling to succeed
conflicted
pulled by the anti-morality of the rat race
and the biological reality of the conscience
of the human race
America nobly claims to be the best hope for all humanity
with comic bravado
and tragic consequences
ordinary Joes and Josephines
willing ourselves to magnificent triumphs
and colossal disasters
the cake and eat it too country
believing we can have the rainbow
and the pot of gold.
Lemmon, that American actor
as
Ensign Pulver hiding from the authoritarian power of a petty man
finally inspired by the martyrdom of a good man
to stand up to that false power,
Jack Lemmon as
An alcoholic deciding he’s had enough
and finding
finally
the integrity to lose his equally alcoholic wife
in order to gain sanity and sobriety,
Jack Lemmon as
a man reeling from divorce
saving himself with the help of a sloppy friend
and saving the friend in the process,
Jack Lemmon as
a real estate salesman desperate for a good lead
pathetic in his inept attempts to lie to get it
begging for mercy
from an unconcerned and heartless world
personified by an angry capitalist avenger —
the manager of a sales office,
Jack Lemmon as
an entrepreneur
who like most Lemmon characters was far from pure
(who like all Americans are far from pure
our Bibles and our flags
give us false confidence …
“the greatest country in the world”
is an aspiration
never an actuality
a contest of free will
a cartoon angel on our shoulder
while a demon seduces and bullies us
modulating his volume
in our other ear)
(Repeat) Jack Lemmon as an entrepreneur,
who energetically created something of value
cutting corners along the way
but also loving what he was doing
collapsing into despair
and resorting to arson
burning down all that he built
believing that he and America died,
such hope in that bleak movie —
Save the Tiger
The director, John G. Avildsen, also did Rocky
which was about redemption
and was much more popular
but real redemption is found in our despair
not in our resolve to self-improvement
not in moral victories with Apollo Creed
but in our defeats
in the death of our illusions
not the conquering of that we couldn’t grasp before
but the embrace of something new —
a new perspective
we must die to the world and come to birth from within —
America, the most materialistic place on earth
and the most spiritual.
To be an American is to face the existential question
“What matters?”
Every day.
Jack Lemmon as
a Mid-western businessman
looking for his missing son
in a South American dictatorship
and allowing his love for that son
make him renounce his previous naive belief
in American goodness and innocence.
Jack Lemmon was the bard of the dark side of the American Dream,
a poet of the unhappiness that accompanies
the pursuit of happiness.
My current favorite of Lemmon’s characterizations
is in Billy Wilder’s 1960 film
“The Apartment”
which I watched again on the Saturday night
after my Thanksgiving furies.
A very junior man
in a large insurance
corporation
lends out the key to his apartment
to senior executives
in an absent-minded strategy to get ahead.
Again, Lemmon is far from pure,
but he doesn’t play the role as a cynical climber.
He plays a nice guy
really too nice to compete up the corporate ladder
a weak man
who by nature will accommodate other people
whether he believes what they are doing is right or not.
He
finally
choose love over success
he loses the job
and gets the girl
who was fighting the same battle.
It is to America’s credit
that Jack Lemmon was so popular.
Most people would choose love over winning
eight days a week
and most people go through similar struggles.
There are unrepentant winners
who are unmoved
unmoved
Winner and user are synonyms in America.
Users are unmoved
by the suffering of their victims
Users (winners) are the walking dead
Ill-equipped to give life meaning
cold-blooded
bored
having as little regard for themselves as they do for other people
distracted by their scorecards …
tallying their scorecards
in a region of hell
that they call
“success”.
Jack Lemmon’s performances were so often
moving
the best performances weren’t sentimental
in his best performances he was far from a hero
he was nothing maudlin like a hero
he was that much more interesting persona
a human being.
Jack Lemmon loved golf
and he lost every time.
Maybe happiness isn’t something to pursue
happiness,
rather,
might just be something to follow.
I am glad the Libertarian Cubs finally won a World Series a couple of years ago
but the lovable losers
were the superior work of art —
when fat unemployed men
watched all of the losses
in sagging lawn chairs
on yet-to-be-monetized roof tops.
Which brings us to Adam Schiff
who
precisely
artfully
and manfully
built an elegant
airtight case
to impeach a pretender President
who most likely will never be convicted
by a corrupt Senate,
America seems less important to the Senatorial winners
than the tallies on their American scorecards
and yet
and yet
Schiff stood up
for right not might
for truth not lies
for reason
not emotional manipulation
undistracted by catcalls and attacks
simply doing his duty.
We all have to get over ourselves
as Jack Lemmon’s characters have done time and time and again
and stand up for what we know is right
what we were born knowing is right
what we love
as Lemmon usually did by the final scene
and Schiff did when circumstances asked him to do so.
A friend said that I was both lucky and unlucky to be so introspective.
We should all be so lucky and unlucky.
It is called being alive
and being an American.
Our country is about being good and righteous
and making a million 1960 dollars,
it’s a contradiction and we have to choose
every day
Choose.
Introspection?
I die to the world and come to birth from within.
The answers aren’t in the world.
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars / But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
Original sin and free will make so much sense tonight.
You may not so cynically say
“Lemmon got fame and money
Schiff got power.
How can you be so sure that they are so damn special?”
Well,
Not even Ivory Soap is 100% pure
I have no idea what kind of fathers, husbands, friends
Lemmon was
and Schiff is
but I know on the professional occasions
that I cite here
they did the right thing.
The true word must be said
at the precise moment that it must be said
The true deed must be done
at the precise moment that it must be done
these things are what we are called to do.
Lemmon and Schiff have excellent American
timing.
The American dream has haunted me
and love is my birthright.
Copyright 2019 Richard Thomas
This segment was not born out of pain. I usually am annoyed or angry or sad or distraught or irritated or disturbed or some other emotion which is often mischaracterized as “negative” or “dark” when I begin writing, and usually feel happy and satisfied when I finish. I felt happy all the way through on this one. I enjoy all of it — the dark and the white meat.
12/5/19: The Great and the Ignorant (I am Great.)
Forget talent. Forget intelligence.
Character is the most important thing.
Ignorance is a matter of character, not I.Q.
Unintelligent people can be great.
Talentless people can be great.
Anyone can be great.
And anyone can be ignorant.
The ranking member of the House Judiciary, Committee,
a Republican from North Georgia (his name escapes me and I am not going to bother to look it up because I don’t give a shit)
said in his opening statement
at the impeachment inquiry hearing yesterday
that the law professor witnesses who sat before him offered nothing to aid in the determination
of whether Trump (I’d like to forget his name but no one can)
should be impeached.
He said that there was no way that the professors had a chance to familiarize themselves
with the voluminous (he didn’t use that word — he can’t be bothered with high falutin’ things like vocabulary)
with the voluminous record of the impeachment inquiry
The ignorant bum said
they couldn’t possibly master the facts of the case.
This pissed off a lady law professor no end (I’m not going to use her name either. I think she is great, but she’s not a hero of mine. I don’t have heroes. I don’t look up to people. I’m great too. I chose to be great a long time ago. I’m not impressed that she is a professor at Stanford or that she is testifying before Congress. I identify with her greatness. I like her because she is like me.)
Greatness is a choice.
The pissed off lady law professor said that she was insulted by what the ranking member said. She read all of the reports. She read all of the transcripts. She said she wouldn’t speak about a matter until she had thoroughly learned all that she could know about it.
The Republican from North Georgia is (as previously mentioned) a bum. He has never worked a day in his life. Work is not running for office or marketing or making connections or building a career.
Work is passion and exertion. You care enough about something to become great at it.
Those last two sentences are news to the North Georgia bum.
He’s too busy being jealous and feeling victimized because he never got a chance to go to Stanford Law School. So he bullshitted and bullied his way to a powerful position on the House Judiciary Committee and never bothered to learn a fucking thing about the law.
None of this is about Stanford or North Georgia.
All of this talk about cultural differences, red and blue is a lot of hooey.
All of this envy and resentment is a dodge to get out of work.
The North Georgia bum is qualified to do nothing more taxing than being a heckler in a comedy club.
The bum said another notably ignorant thing. (I’ll restrict myself to what I remember of his comments — everything out of his mouth was mean and stupid — and he was the most impressive Republican on the committee — their leader.)
The bum said that no one can say what the Founding Fathers were thinking at the time of the writing of the Constitution.
That’s a large part of what Constitutional law scholars do.
It’s often not even that hard.
The founders wrote about every decision that they made. They wrote a lot. Letters. Journals. Essays.
The bum never heard of The Federalist Papers, obviously.
He didn’t know that records were kept of discussions at the Constitutional Convention.
We know a lot about what the Founding Fathers were thinking.
A fucking lot.
The Founders were writers, talkers and thinkers.
They didn’t wing it.
They knew the difference between hashing something out
arguing, brainstorming
and working to the completion of a finished product.
The Founders were great.
They knew how to work.
They were creating something big
and creating something big requires
(repeat) passion and exertion
work
Work!
They weren’t like the North Georgia bum who specializes in coming up with what ever bullshit that he can ad lib in the moment that he thinks can help him maintain the upper hand.
(Repeat) Ignorance is not a matter of talent or intelligence. It is a matter of character.
The ignorant can’t deny one thing that they fully understand
something they were born knowing
the ignorant know what greatness is.
We know what greatness is the moment we leave the womb
A large part of American history
and my life story
has been a frustrating argument
what is right versus ignorant bullshit
The great have complicity with ignorance
when we compromise with it,
which we have done far too often.
The founders wrote a constitution that originally said that a black person
was three fifths of a person.
They knew that was ignorant bum bullshit.
But they thought they had to compromise to get things started.
That compromise caused the continuation of slavery, the Civil War, and the American apartheid that followed in some ways until today after that war ended.
I went as far as I could go with the improvisation community, the law, writing communities and higher ed until I got too hip for every room and finally became a mature artist. Each place that I went was a developmental phase — and became a restricting limitation.
I am better than every group that I have ever been a part of
and I stand seemingly alone
but sure in my knowledge
that I have entered the world community of the great.
I was reborn years ago.
Now I excitedly leave home.
Anxiety has become anticipation
I am now a great writer and teacher
I have a trickle of great readers
but larger world await me
not showy places
but sustaining ones
I am congruent with the will of God
I’ve sorted mediocrity away from greatness
the die is beautifully cast
The Republicans on the Judiciary Committee said more when they sat silently —
than they said when they opened their mouths.
If I were a painter
I’d paint a mural of the Republican side of the Judiciary Committee dais.
Each face would represent
jealousy
insecurity
sheepishness (like kids who didn’t do their homework at the moment the teacher collects it)
and shame.
The ignorant know that they have sold out their lives.
They know that they are hurting other people.
They know that they are fucking everything up.
But they are cowards.
They give up
and they form little cliques
celebrating one another without justification
and demeaning and ostracizing
anyone who is great.
The ignorant hate the great
because the ignorant fear the great.
The great make the ignorant feel bad
by dint of the great’s very existence.
And it has nothing to do with Stanford or North Georgia.
There once was this woman in Chicago who was mentally challenged in the days before there was little sensitivity or awareness for people with such challenges. Her family was connected politically to the old Richard J. Daley machine.
The machine got the woman a job stapling papers together in a bank. It was a made up job tailored to her limitations.
She was great at that job. She inspired everyone around her — not in that sentimental patronizing way that people with mental or physical difficulties often are prey to —
she was a shining example.
The bank got more than its money’s worth from that great woman’s salary.
(Repeat) Everyone can be great. It’s a choice.
A part of my mind has a child-like view of God.
My child-like view of God sees almost everything.
But He (not ‘or She’ — we didn’t talk that way when I was a child)
doesn’t see money or education
he doesn’t see the difference between big national stages where everyone is watching
and quiet rooms where only one, two or a few people would know what was going on
all he sees is the ignorant and the great.
When I was a kid I had an old Italian aunt
My mother’s aunt
She spoke very little English
she made great homemade pasta
wonderful sauce
a modest home
on a busy street
so comfortable
great big over-stuffed chairs
giant dining room table
the dining room was the place she spent her money on
a great place
for her great family
so warm
so loving
My aunt was one of the greatest people that I have ever met
Her house was as beautiful as the Art Institute
Her pasta was as breathtaking
as A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.
At every place that I have ever worked (as I mentioned earlier)
I’ve experienced greatness and dealt with ignorance.
I’ve had passion and I’ve done the work
I’m great
and I’ve had to deal with ignorant bums.
I’m done with the bums.
There has been too much tolerance of ignorant bums
in my life
and in America.
The ignorant bums have had much too much fucking say about everything
always insulting
always causing problems
always trying to stop greatness in its tracks
and then pleading for sentimental understanding
The lady law professor from Stanford is fed up with ignorant bums.
She told them off.
I’m through with phase one
the bums are expelled from my psychology.
America has to do that too.
This won’t be over when Trump leaves office.
The cowards are taking too much from us.
Phase two is ignoring the bums.
You might say, “Well Rick you are writing about them — you are hardly ignoring them.”
But it’s different
they don’t upset me
I’m doing what I do …
which is phase three
unfettered creation in spite of the bums
the bums disappear
we have to create an America
and we have to create our own lives
without them
They aren’t Americans
there is no “working with them”
in Congress or for one’s livelihood
They don’t know how to work.
They can’t be friends or social connections
They are incapable of friendship or connection.
(Repeat) If I were a painter
I’d paint a mural of the Republican side of the Judiciary Committee dais.
Each face would represent
jealousy
insecurity
sheepishness (like kids who didn’t do their homework at the moment the teacher collects it)
and shame.
“Make America Great Again” is ironically a slogan used by ignorant bums
(Ignorant bums aren’t only Republican —- many pose as being quite liberal
One needs a sophisticated ignorant bum detector
to identify ignorant bum radiation
I’ve known ignorant bum
improvisors
lawyers
academics
writers
neighbors
false friends
family members who betray the family ( I could give personal examples but I’d rather not — Here’s a public one — Dr. Blasey-Ford’s father told his country club buddy, Brett Kavanaugh’s father that he was glad “Brett got on the Court.” What kind of fucking father does that in those circumstances?)
Anywhere where envious cowards amass in a clique and attack great people
is the region of ignorant bums.
Enemies of progress
justice
excellence
and joy
clinging to their pathetic status
in a pecking order of mediocrity.
America is great
America is too good for them.
I’m great
I’m too good for them
WAAAAAAY too good for them
I’m better than ignorant bums
better person
better improvisor
better lawyer
better teacher
better writer
better at friendship
better at familial love
better citizen
BETTER BETTER BETTER
It’s an incredibly low bar.
The zeitgeist is shifting
people have enough of these fools
The biggest thing that I have done personally in the last fifteen months
is process this phenomena
I have been fated to wander through many communities
and the ignorant bum situation is everywhere that I’ve gone
but now I am possessed of blind faith
I know —
with no evidence whatsoever
but rather with a kind of spiritual certainty
that dealing with ignorant bums is not a fact of life
they don’t have to be around where I work
or engage with people in any other way.
They can live and work somewhere else.
I wish them no harm
I would never do anything to hurt them
I am just so fucking sick of them.
I want them out of my life.
I am not competing with them.
They can have whatever shitty mediocre fiefdom they carve out.
If they come after me because my greatness makes me feel bad
I’ll defend myself or walk away
whatever makes sense at the time.
It’s not that I can’t stand them
I can’t stand being around them
I just want to live in a free country
be great at my work
be treated with respect and dignity
and love my friends and family
and accept their love.
It’s not too much to ask.
The ignorant have to get their shit together
before they are worthy of having anything to do with America
or me.
Copyright 2019 Richard Thomas
12/7/19: The Unfairly Maligned Mrs. Maisel
I binged Maisel yesterday. Later, I read a couple of predictable online reviews. They said or implied that the show was dangerous escapist nostalgia, glossing over a difficult time, giving a sentimental and comforting treatment to good old days that never were.
Fashion is created to be glorified and destroyed. Last year’s perfection is this year’s dreck. Star actors and writers are made to be objects of adoration who turn into fakers and frauds in the second act. Fashion critics erect marble statues of idolatry, and mold feet of clay to attach to the idols on cue.
I don’t do criticism. I do art and I look for it anywhere and everywhere. “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” is art achieved with a seemingly blank checkbook.
A true voice can be heard on a blog or with the reach of Amazon Prime. The material dimensions don’t matter to me. The art is the thing. The voice is the thing.
I don’t know what show the fashion critics were watching.
The fashion critics say that the show is about 1960, the year rendered in Season 3. They are wrong. The show is set in a fairy tale version of 1960, but that era is not what the show is about.
The show is about, in no particular order:
racism
feminism
the Hollywood blacklist
friendship
dilettantism masquerading as left-wing politics
courage and cowardice
homophobia
the struggle between art and commerce
the tension between romance and realism
familial love
older people pursuing dormant and suppressed passions
free speech and martyrdom related to free speech
drug addiction (look very closely it’s there)
sin and redemption
and much more …
“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” is an epic video novel told with an idiosyncratic and energetic voice. It is a joyous and passionate work celebrating music and colors and actors and words that the creators love.
The fashion critics only see the surface — the costumes and the art direction of the piece and accuse the creators of the critics own superficiality.
The show is done with such skill that the shallow eye smugly says that it is just showing off.
The creators create a world — not the real world — a representation of their own perceptions
a world that celebrates what they love in the natural earth
and chastises the lies that betray what is natural.
The plucky characters of Maisel instruct and inspire the audience. They roll with the punches of exploitation and mendacity thrown at them by inferior beings, never letting the obstacles deter them from loving who and what they love.
The characters inner lives are expressed in quick brush strokes of witty one liners, and in huge set pieces in vast high ceilinged rooms or wide open spaces under cloudless and limitless skies populated by active scores of extras seen by a bold and sensitive camera capturing scope and nuance at the same time.
Maisel is not realistic, it is true. It takes the mixed bag of the world and gives it meaning.
The show says that we are responsible for own lives, and that we can do anything if we have courage within the limitations of life and death, and our natural endowments; and if we can humbly learn from what the impulses of our hearts, and the world’s responses to the impulses of our hearts can teach us.
It is only right that Midge and her family and friends deal with dumb criticisms from lesser hearts and minds in the trivial press. It gives them something else to process and transcend.
Buster Keaton’s films involved his navigating a series of obstacles and so did his life. He was the toast of Hollywood, and a jobber hanging on for dear life — doing commercials and getting favors from Charlie Chaplin.
“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’s” creators are having a moment in the sun. They have reached a zenith, and smaller people want to bring them down to size. If they stay true to the truth that they express in this wonderful show, this work of art, all that is small won’t matter.
Art serves life, and life can be great as our bold acceptance of it can make it — whether we are up or down — all the rage — or the innocent objects of the rage of the fearful.
Art uses whatever material is available. The spirit can express itself through the medium of millions of dollars, or through a stick figure drawing under a refrigerator magnet.
“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” is what art looks like when the artists have all the material in the world at their disposal.
Copyright 2019 Richard Thomas
12/9/17: The Right People
I am a writer and a teacher, and without plan or foresight, much of my recent writing has involved a deconstruction of my past, particularly my past related to my work and working. That recent writing is largely a story of development and elimination — my commitment and allegiance to my own voice. Each job and situation that I have been engaged with, and there are many of them, provided with me an opportunity to gain experience and skills to share my personal voice with greater clarity, and also and ultimately became confining and inappropriate venues for me to share my arts without compromise betraying my personal character and values, my intelligence, my personality, and my authenticity.
I became too hip, or too principled, or both, for every room that I was in. The story is told in great detail on this blog at http://www.richardsteventhomas.wordpress.com. I am not going to repeat it here. I couldn’t repeat it here.
Sometimes I told the story as personal quasi-memoir, sometimes I wrote about everyday passions and incidences in the world around me, but I was always writing about my personal experience. What else can I write about? Writing of this type or related types is always personal. One’s experience and perceptions are all that a writer has to work with.
My story is unique in its specificity, and quite common in its general themes. I write at the intersection of myself and the world. I know that the inner and the outer reflect each other, and change each other in the very act of their mutual contemplation of each other.
There is no such thing as “teaching”. Education happens between people. Education is a conversation between people, an endless sharing of insights and questions. A good teacher talks a lot, and so do good students.
It is sinful to take life at face value. Without education and art, life’s potential is ignored. Life must be contemplated to understand it, or more precisely comprehend the nature of its mysteries.
Education and art, in my case writing, are not ivory tower escapes from living. They are ways of living with awareness and purpose.
Education and art are not separate from life at all. They are life.
Today’s blog segment seems, at first blush, to be a departure from my recent writing, and a transformation based on that writing. I didn’t look at my past to celebrate it. I didn’t write out of self-justification. I wrote for the future — to liberate myself from anything false that would hold me back, and to make firm all that was worthwhile that would sustain me going forward.
But perhaps all education and writing is repetitious. Pope John Paul II said that his writing was always plumbing the depths of questions that he previously considered.
Today, I consider the life question that we all face — where to find the right people to associate with — specifically in the world of work. I found the right wife, and I have found right friends, and of course I am open to finding more right friends. Family, of course, is not a matter of choice. Today’s segment is not about where I or you are from. Today’s segment concerns where we choose to go. We can form surrogate families, but we can’t transcend biology. Whether our biological families are boons to our overall happiness, or wounding forces that we must attend to in order to function as a whole person and heal (or at least adapt to whatever permanent challenges that they left us with), or the common combination of all of the above, our biological families are aspects of our destiny. We can make choices in how we relate, or not relate to our families, but we can’t honestly decide that they don’t exist. We can leave jobs behind without a trace.
We paradoxically are called to discover meaning for the world. We are the world’s mind, it has no meaning except that we assign to it. Those meanings must accept the world’s natural laws, and factor the existence of those laws into our decisions. To not do so would be ignorant, dishonest or insane.
True creativity does not deny reality. True creativity sees reality and gives it meaning. This is the relation between education and art. Education explores the world and dispels our ignorance regarding what is knowable about the world, and awakens our awe in the face of what we don’t know about the nature of the world, our curiosity about the world, and our reverence for the world’s mysteries.
Experience is the medium of all education. We learn about life by living it. Art, in my personal case, writing, is the way to give meaning to what we learned from our education, our experience. A self-determined life is the execution of decisions that we make to live with the meaning that we discover in our art.
To live a life of nihilism, devoid of meaning, is to not live at all. Zombies and body snatchers are fanciful creatures that exist only in the imagination that communicate an accurate perception of an aspect of human reality. There is a “walking dead” that conforms to what others tell them is real, unthinking, ignorant and contemptuous of education and art.
The walking dead have no interest in the truth. They have no interest in developing meaningful lives.
The walking dead are not only existentially suicidal. They are also existentially homicidal. Unconcerned with the nature of life, and uninterested in experiencing it as a thing of value, they destroy life with impunity. They pursue sensation, because they have denied the higher aspects of humanity.
The walking dead are often called “animals” but this is unfair to animals. Animals are governed by instinct. They generally don’t learn and create based upon their experience. They respond to experience in a way programmed by nature.
Man is born the most helpless animal,
and man is the animal gifted with the most freedom and potential.
The walking dead ignore the mind, the heart and the soul — the three collective aspects of the conscience.
The walking dead simply follow their urges —
lust, power, greed, violence, sentimentality —
raping, pillaging, murdering and deluding themselves with phony sentiment
concocting phony rationalizations of their betrayal of humanity
to alleviate the boredom of their emptiness.
Without education and art, life only has a rejected potential of humanity.
Without education and art, life is, quite literally, murder-suicide.
So ends my prologue to the question that animates this segment, who do I associate with now, in my work — my writing and teaching — at this stage of my development? With whom will I have the space to continue to grow, and where will I have the freedom to change as my values refine themselves again and again? Where can I expand my knowledge while engaging with others who want to expand theirs, and where can I penetrate more deeply into the mystery of my personal meaning which mirrors the meaning of all mankind?
To live fully is to serve one’s needs, feasting guests and the human spirit
and what serves most fully is the sharing of one’s highest potential.
With who and where can I share my highest potential?
I’m not a fan of Hugh Hefner, Playboy magazine, or Gahan Wilson. I don’t have anything against them either. I have no strong feelings or thoughts about them. They simply aren’t in my scope of interest. We are born to be interested in some things or persons and not others. These proclivities help shape our destinies.
What interests us in life is like a river. Much more exists beyond the river’s banks.
A model of an atom resembles a model of the solar system.
The essence of the universal exists in the microcosm of the individual.
Art, the art of my writing in particular, attempts to exist at the congruence of the universal and the individual. We communicate our experience and our processed perceptions of it, and we connect with very different individuals in the resonance of our commonality.
True communication is the resonance that connects us to the All,
our tiny finite lives participate in All that is and ever was through true communication.
Life is a conversation between two equals
the individual and the world.
Atonement is the unity of the individual and the world.
I saw a clip of Hugh Hefner discussing how he came to work with the cartoonist, Gahan Wilson.
Hefner had just started Playboy magazine. He had no idea what it might evolve into.
Hefner thought that he would like to have a group of single panel cartoonists contribute regularly to each issue. He admired the concept that he had seen in The New Yorker and other publications.
Gahan Wilson was working as a free lance cartoonist for several magazines at the time. Hefner admired Wilson’s work.
Hefner knew that Wilson’s work would evolve in unknown directions, just as Playboy would.
Hefner commented parenthetically that he “didn’t think Wilson would have survived if he didn’t find a place at Playboy.”
Hefner knew that Wilson had to eat, and he knew that art had to be nurtured. He didn’t support Wilson as a favor. He didn’t want credit for Wilson’s peculiar genius. Hefner was practicing his own art of curating what he thought was worthwhile.
Hefner was serving his readers, serving the material and creative needs of Gahan Wilson and himself.
I need schools and publishers and spoken word venues that resemble Hugh Hefner in at least this one regard,
Hefner,
a man who understood reality and its attendant necessities,
developed a sense of personal mission and meaning through his own art,
and applied it to the benefit of other artists and audiences.
Hefner and Wilson had a dignified relationship, one free of exploitation.
They honored one another working to serve shared values in their very different roles and ways.
Hefner and Wilson worked together with generosity,
generosity with one another,
and to the broader world.
Since it is my nature, I’ll end this segment with the story of another video clip which engendered a more negative response from me.
It was a more contemporary clip than the Hefner interview (which spoke of events in the 1950s) —
the more contemporary clip was probably from the early 2000s. It also involved single panel cartooning.
An editor at the New Yorker was meeting with an artist who had submitted a portfolio. The editor asked the man if he had been published. The man said that he “self-published.” The editor said dismissively, “so you haven’t been published.”
It was as if the man and his work did not exist.
Robert Altman’s film “Vincent and Theo” is about the relationship between the great painter Van Gogh and his brother Theo. Theo supported Van Gogh financially for much of his life.
Van Gogh is, of course, the prototype of the starving artist, and is often portrayed as being driven mad by the combined forces of the neglect of the world and his courageous refusal to abandon his revolutionary artistic vision.
The movie was more complex than that stereotype, but the screenplay explored Van Gogh’s isolation, poverty, financial dependency, applied genius to prolific creative work, and mental anguish.
The entire film is a fictionalized interpretation of Van Gogh’s life until it’s brief final documentary scene.
The scene is actual footage of a Van Gogh painting being sold for $6 million dollars at an art auction.
Van Gogh was told by his contemporary world that his work had no practical value.
The world revised its opinion after Van Gogh’s death.
Van Gogh’s art has value far greater than $6 million —
value beyond material assessment.
But Van Gogh also had to eat. He died from not finding the right people.
Contrary to common belief, the world improves in many regards.
Humanity gets smarter and teaches the world.
Fatalism is wrong.
Existence is a two-way street.
Hugh Hefner showed the right people how it’s done.
Please emulate Hugh Hefner, right people.
The map has been charted. Call the auto club.
You have a responsibility to me, yourselves and the people we both are meant to serve.
Step up, right people.
The value of my work is self-evident.
I may not be within the scope of your interest, but if I am, you have a duty to seek me out and work with me, right people.
Van Gogh “self-published.” The only question the right people will have about my work is whether it is good or not …
whether it will serve our common values?
It’s good.
It does.
It is up to you to find me.
If I have to sell myself to you, you’re not the right people.
Around the same time the New Yorker editor demeaned the self-published unknown cartoonist, Tina Brown took over the magazine.
Brown changed the New Yorker’s policy toward its cover art. She wanted the cover artists to be more concerned with how the magazine looked on newsstands to prospective customers. Brown wanted the cover to sell the magazine.
A tiny sub-genre of art, the New Yorker cover, was murdered by Tina Brown. It would have been better for the New Yorker to go out of business instead of what actually happened. The old New Yorker ended and was replaced by a con game — it became a marketing broadsheet that marketed nothing but the ads for itself that it created.
The journal that shared literature and thought and art was over.
Business should only be the necessary practical aspects of sustaining things finer and more important
art and life.
Feed Van Gogh and make art.
The self-published cartoonist dodged a bullet when the editor insulted him. The New Yorker he longed to work for no longer existed, and he wouldn’t fit in a marketing position.
The cartoonist innocently was trying to connect. He wasn’t prepared to be obsequious to the condescending villain and fool, the editor. The editor didn’t give the cartoonist an opportunity to compromise himself, and that was a blessing.
When business wags the dog of art and education, the dog quickly disappears.
The right people know that.
Copyright 2019 Richard Thomas
12/11/19: Flashlight Operation and Maintenance — Thoughts about the Process of Writing: an Email with a FriendThis segment is best read after reading my previous segment, “The Right People” at https://richardsteventhomas.wordpress.com/2019/12/09/12-9-17-the-right-people/On Wed, Dec 11, 2019 at 8:29 AM Robert McCaskill wrote:Enjoying your segments.Was reminded that not only did Walt Whitman self publish, he wrote his own reviews! Gave himself raves! Deserved, of course.I keep a copy of Leaves of Grass by the toilet. Open wherever you like and read a page. Helps to let go of one’s shit.
James Baldwin said the act of writing is, “Finding out what you don’t want to know, what you don’t want to find out.” He was so brave. Did you see I Am Not Your Negro? Thrilling.But writing for me is also about remembering what I’ve forgotten. That my life is a wonder, a marvel, a fabulous collaboration between me and unknown forces.It’s an improv game of Fill In The Blank. The Great Writer and I are hilarious, poignant.I like it that Hemingway used to ask bullfighters, “How’s the writing going?” Meaning life in the ring. He saw veronicas as sentences. A sequence of turns makes a paragraph.And, conversely, what we do is bullfighting. How close can you come to the horns?I like that you’re looking for the right person, people. I think they’ll find you.On Wed, Dec 11, 2019, 11:16 AM Richard Thomas wrote:
Rob, you are a mensch.Love Whitman — love your insights regarding letting go and remembering through reading and writing.I’d gladly partner with a publisher if he or she replicated my self-publishing — where I handle all of my edits and I don’t have to sell or kiss the publisher’s ass.I saw “I Am Not Your Negro” on that L.A. trip we talked about. I saw it in this little bookstore and they threw me out after the movie because I got into an argument with a Republican lady during the group discussion. It was before everyone who is sane had Trump’s number and most were still afraid. I was pissed that Baldwin was being diminished by the equal weight the Republican fool was given in the discussion of the evening. I don’t get mad in the same way anymore. it was a very inartful response, That movie made me understand the utility of writing — the real service it provides. For years I had doubt —- why wasn’t I doing something more practical or active — politics or some kind of activism. I decided it just wasn’t my nature. Yeats, I think said that poets were the unacknowledged legislators of the world. When I saw the Baldwin movie, I got what Yeats meant. I was impressed by the power of writing in a new way after seeing that movie. It is a concrete thing. Ironically the writer has little or no personal power. But his work makes the world go round.Intrigued by the line in your letter—– the Great Writer line —- I like that dialogue — if I get something close to what you are getting at — it’s a pretty deep thing, lots of levels — I hear you — when the writing process gets exciting for me I feel like a stenographer. I often have the experience of really liking something that I wrote and feeling like someone else wrote it. Oh, I see — the Great Writer did it!The Hemingway section of your letter elicits another Yes! We live, we write. Our lives influence our writing. Our writing influences our lives. The life and the writing are each as good as the extent of our courage.Courage is a great theme in your letter.I saw a documentary yesterday about Graham Greene. He’s not a big influence. I read some of his books long ago. I was just curious. The title of the film, if you haven’t seen it, is ” Graham Greene, a Dangerous Edge.”We have to be on that edge, I guess, but we can’t manufacture it. Greene, Whitman, Hemingway and the bullfighters, Baldwin, you, me — it’s simply who and what we are. I think this points back to something you said in a previous communication about not everybody being an artist. There is a destiny about all of this. We can’t help it. We can run from it which I have done a couple of times in my life, and the avoidance unleashes furies. We experience anti-joy — our greatest gift turns into pain. But even the time off-track is on track in a strange way and grist for the mill of creation.I am sheepish to ask, but courage sometimes blushes. I ask your permission to publish this email exchange as I did before. Our friendship is a triangle — the third point is our greater worlds — I’d like to let them see the sausage being made. Maybe not always — but this discussion has universal applications, not exclusively personal to us — no exhibitionism, no violations of our personal containment, no violations of privacy … a part of what we share with the world … of course If you have any reservations, they will be respected and that will be that … these letters are friendship acts and of personal value to us, but they also resemble “My Dinner with Andre” in form, except that this is an exchange between equals — equality is so important in art and education — if I remember that old movie right Wallace Shawn had a lower status, at least initially ,than Andre Gregory and that brought the drama — Shawn changed in that regard … or maybe I got that wrong. Anyway, I think an audience will get something out of our back and forth.I read your letter here on a couple of levels. First and foremost, I love hearing from an old friend. Next, I appreciate the focus on writing. It’s invaluable to talk with a generous and trusted peer about what we do. Then, it struck me that a great frustration for me when I was a nightclub improviser was the mediocrity of the audience suggestions. Your sensitive and insightful writing and the hospitality of your invitation of my response (we share that hospitality mutually) is a great suggestion. It triggers my creativity.This is a weird connection to make — but once I had a massage. The masseuse touched exactly the right spot on my back. I felt like a technicolor movie was projected from that spot. I was in blissful relief and I saw bright tigers and a luminous green rainforest. The release cleared obstructions and remembered and showed the future at the same time.That is similar to what I feel talking to you. I am certain that you are an extraordinary leader in the theater. I think you take a little silver hammer and gently tap people between the eyes and they bloom. Among other things, you are a maestro of human potential. You have such diverse and related talents, Rob, and they are sourced in the breadth and depth of your personal character.Authentic and natural.How great it is to be in touch, Rob. I look forward to our continuing conversation and in hearing all about your world.And all about one of your projects — that show.Have a great day, Rob.RickOn Wed, Dec 11, 2019 at 1:04 PM Robert McCaskill wrote:
Great corresponding with you. I enjoy your flashlight. Even when the glare is harsh. When it’s gentle…. it’s like William Daniel’s lighting Dietrich.You can post our email with my gratitude.I misread one of your sentences. When you wrote that during a massage you saw “bright tigers and a luminous green rainforest,” I first read, “bright tigers in luminous green raincoats.” Perhaps I’m holding onto a little protection. Or maybe I’m still a fan of fashion.On Wed, Dec 11, 2019, 2:41 PM Richard Thomas wrote:The gratitude is mutual, Rob. Thank you.Fashion is a nice and protection is natural, I reckon — a public service announcement from your friendly bull in a china shop. I can be brusque and presumptuous and pay too little attention to the form of fashion, but I am an upright character and you forgive me for it. You are better than me at reading the nuance of the other. I am solitary. I quietly listen to the world for hours on end and then roar my responses. I appreciate your patience and your cautious steps to total trust. You appreciate people and art on their and its own terms. I am a challenging friend — eccentric and obsessed — but you love me for it. Your generosity has bequeathed you a huge world. It gives you access to the good stuff.Rage is part of my process, often the departure point — the match that lights the fire. I often get pissed off and write to understand. (Other strong emotions get the ball rolling as well.) Writing has helped me deal with anger in my life. The better I get at writing, the less I explode. I am a much more gentle more of the time than I was when I knew you in my early 30s. But I still get mad. I think the right people will be a kind of cure. I have sometimes lived in too small a world. More is possible than I realized at those moments. I only recently have begun to consistently feel at home. In other periods I wanted to believe that I was home, told myself that I was home — and then I got upset when I found that I wasn’t. When I was younger I sometimes felt let down and betrayed by the world. Later I felt that I betrayed myself. Now I know that I am simply learning. And so is the world. Being too hard on myself and others was a limitation of my consciousness— a flaw in my swing. I was enraged on Thanksgiving. I can’t remember why. I wrote a couple of subsequent segments after that frustrating pain — one was gentler, the Jack Lemmon segment, and one was harsh — the one about the ignorant and the great (I’m great). The segment on ignorant/great is in my estimation the least strong of my recent writing, but I still like it. I think “The Right People” is a kind of rewrite.But the harshness, as you acknowledge has its place, so I still work on how to use that color of my palette. I wrote a segment shortly before we reconnected “The Definition of Success.” The first line was “I think Del Close was an asshole.” Part of what the segment did was tear Close, iO Theater and the Second City Training Center new assholes. I really like that piece. It wasn’t bitter. It was liberating. It wasn’t expressed frustration. It was release from frustration. It was about a lot more than local theatrical politics — it hit universals.My anger is part of my power when it is processed through the alchemy of writing. My sweetness is too.I don’t do precisely what Daniels did, if I understand what he did. He turned Dietrich into an ideal. Is that fair in your view? When Maximillian Schell did his documentary about her she when she was old, she refused to be photographed. I would have taken her picture. But I want my version of Daniels’ eye for beauty as a major arrow in my quiver.Your comment about gentle light reminds me of that Thomas Mann quote. It was something like ‘a writer kills his subjects with “arrows dipped in love.”I’m working through your comment here. You’re right. A samurai never fights in anger.I can only get to that sweet spot through experience — my living and writing.Alan Alda said something like ‘don’t let go of things — go through them.’ Actually I think I said that. Alda said something like it, but I like mine better.Can anger at times be an expression of love?I think so. I think the zeitgeist of the present moment calls for it. But I also think the best way to pass an ogre is to go around him. That contradicts my Alda comment! And my assessment of the zeitgeist!You got me thinking and wondering, you bastard!To the extent my anger comes from a sense of inequality, it’s a vestigial tail. We are shaped, and we shape, the world. We aren’t life’s victims.I’ve made progress — a lot of progress in this regard, but I have further to go.Tigers in green raincoats? GET IT RIGHT GODDAMMIT!!!! Kidding, kidding, kidding!Take care, pal,RickPS — greatness isn’t complete until it learns to bear with imperfect people (including oneself). I’ll never connect with the right people until I learn how to do that with little effort. Preoccupation with past and present offenses are distractions. When one has truly left the wrong people then one can write about them with detachment and love.From that perspective harshness is a shadow on my writing — and bullfighting.Deliver us from evil.I’m getting there.The hardness and soft luster of jade.Copyright 2019 Richard Thomas.
12/13/19: Richard Jewell, Trump Supporters, and the Tree of Knowledge
Abel killed other people because he looked up to Cain. (Biblical rewrite — “The Art of the Raw Deal”.)
The character, Richard Jewell in Clint Eastwood’s new movie was ridiculed and falsely accused by people of higher status in academia, local and federal law enforcement, and the media.
High status people shit on the fat, frustrated little guy. Elites bullied the fat, frustrated little guy, a security guard at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.
Jewell found a bomb in Centennial Park and was accused of planting it.
The real bomber was a right-wing anti-abortion fanatic. (Inspired by the Bible rewrite.)
Jewell learned to stand up for himself. He lost his admiration for people he once saw as his superiors.
Jewell learned his equality with all men and women through his ordeal.
Once exonerated, Jewell created the life that he wanted for himself, a career in law enforcement.
Eastwood and company slandered a real-life woman reporter, portraying her trading sex for leads with no evidence that she did so.
The woman’s real name was used. The FBI agents had fictionalized names in the movie.
The FBI agents were men.
Eastwood and company followed the Bible for the men, and called in Biblical rewrite for the woman.
We all have been ridiculed and unfairly accused.
We have all been bullied.
We all have not been given our due.
We took a bite of the apple. Eve gets a bum rap. The Bible was written by men.
They were influenced by the rewrite.
We have all looked up to people who don’t deserve it. We have to learn that we are all equal.
The mistake of lacking the confidence of equality opens the door to our potential participation in evil.
Anyone can be good in the Garden of Eden.
It’s tougher when Cain is coming after you.
The Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee answered rational, legal and historic arguments
with incoherent howls of resentment.
They ranted for their constituents.
“They hate us. They can’t stand us — the ordinary people in Ohio and Missouri and Texas and Tennessee. We didn’t get to Harvard. We are hassled by the government and the educated snooty bastards who have ridiculed us and never given us our due. They get everything and we get nothing.”
A woman cries outside of the Trump rally arena in Hershey, Pennsylvania. “I can’t believe that they are doing this to our President Trump. He is doing such a good job and they hate him.”
The Republican ranking member of the Judiciary Committee doesn’t understand fundamentals of the law. He can’t believe that a law professor could master a three hundred page report and its attendant documents and depositions in a week. He is incompetent. Unable to do his work because he is ignorant of what the work is, he brays and fumes.
He ridicules and makes false accusations.
He prepares to kill Cain.
Abel is Cain.
Germany was humiliated and falsely accused by the rest of the world after World War I.
Germany prepared to kill the world.
The movie character Richard Jewell learned of his own equality. He stood up for himself. He created a life for himself.
Trump, the phony billionaire from Queens, who was ridiculed in Manhattan, uses his resentment to make the world burn. There were no false accusations. They must have happened generations earlier in his family saga. He sucked evil from his mother’s tit.
Trump’s envy, resentment and rage finds a willing audience in people ripe to embrace the biblical rewrite.
All criminality begins with a justifiable complaint.
Injustice becomes victimization becomes murder.
We all know to do the right thing. But we bit the apple, and we know evil as well.
We choose.
Jesus said, “Father forgive them they know not what they do.”
James Joyce said, “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.”
James Joyce was trying.
They know not what they do because they choose not to know.
It isn’t easy.
Knowing is hard.
The mortal sin escape clause
mortal sin is doing evil and knowing it
Choosing evil.
But venial sin is sinning without knowing it.
Venial sin is as bad as mortal sin.
G. K. Chesterton, the British Catholic philosopher once said, “Of all the sins indifference is by far the worst.”
To err is human, to forgive divine.
Christ was divine and he forgave.
Our job is to correct our errors.
We have to try.
Richard Jewell tried.
It wasn’t easy for the character, Richard Jewell.
He endured an ordeal.
We have to choose that ordeal.
We have to transcend grievance, and understand our equality — understand the existential fact that we are equal.
We have to stand up for ourselves.
And we have to create a life for ourselves — work.
It’s either that or being Nazis, criminals and Trump supporters.
We will become Trump equivalents if we don’t do this right.
Resistance is weak tea.
Equality is the thing.
Understanding Trump Nation’s wounded nature is not enough.
To Trump and his supporters —
No.
First, impeach
next a Senate trial
next the 2020 election
If Trump takes power again
Revolt.
No.
No.
No.
Deliver us from evil.
Every wounded bully must be stood up to
and then we must create our lives.
The divine in us can forgive them
the human in us must stop the madness
in us and them.
Babies in cages
No.
An uninhabitable earth
No.
Office gossip
No.
Insults and indignity
No.
The global and petty offenses
No.
We can do it together
or do it alone.
We can do it in the streets
or in the voices of our mind.
Instead of looking up to Christ
we should try to be Him.
Of course, we won’t make it
but we have to try
to get closer
to keep getting closer
and over time
the world and Christ will be one
Christ and the world are closer to each other than they were in 1945.
Each time we make strides
Cain and Abel show up
Redemption follows a fury.
There is a great opportunity in our time.
Our furious time.
This is not a time for compromise.
There is no peace without justice.
Forgiveness can come later
or more precisely be an undercurrent
as we do harsher things to honor good
Now
we have a chance to awake from history.
Pope John Paul II said that one day the Church will not be needed.
He said the consciousness of the Mystical Body of Christ
the Body that suffered on the Tree of Life
that consciousness,
will become universal.
Adam and Eve
Cain and Abel
Jesus Christ
James Joyce
Richard Jewell
Us and the Trump Supporters, Nazis and criminals
Us.
We are called to heal the wounds of the world
and create it anew.
*Read this as poetry, not theology. I grew up Catholic and American. I was schooled on Joyce and Western history …
yes this segment is for my neighborhood
my history
my personal experience
learned and lived
But is also for Asians
and Sikhs
Native Americans
Africans
and atheists.
It applies to your nation, your job, your family, your condo association …
the planet you can see from your chair
and the four-walled room in your line of vision
This segment is to be translated.
That’s your job
Don’t get me started on the Tower of Babel.
Copyright 2019 Richard Thomas
12/16/19: Letter to Nepal — Exposed and Beating Hearts in Bentwood Chairs
Hello, Nepal
You reached out to the world and the word got to me
You asked me to introduce myself
I am so ignorant of Nepal
I am an American
Americans are all ignorant
Preoccupied with our petty dreams and problems
America is a country that was young not long ago
That has recently become old
prematurely aging
hastening its decline
in need of a blood transfusion
from you.
I am an ignorant American, so I looked you up
Thank God that the internet gives me some idea of you
a thin and incomplete idea
that doesn’t do you justice
but gives me a place to begin.
I see the pictures of your beautiful land and people
I learn that you recently became a democracy
Your old king gave back to the people their sovereignty
that God gave you at the beginning of time.
I see a poster for an acting class at your theater,
An exposed and beating heart in a chair …
And I imagine you.
I imagine a sweet and sincere people
Closer to God than America is ….
Nepal
Up in the Himalayas
Too filled with hope to be burdened by trivial optimism.
Brave people
who know sorrow and triumph,
and know that neither is guaranteed.
Good, hospitable and generous people
who have suffered for freedom
And who now want to connect
With dying people old in freedom.
America’s freedom is a fading ember
a waning glow of an energetic and lively flame
that once lit a welcoming harbor.
You turn to sick, old America
to see how it is done.
You are more America than America is
with your three branches of government
and love of things more sustaining than a dollar.
You want to fill the world with art
and be more a part of the world.
You don’t wish to dominate other nations,
you wish to sit with other nations,
to befriend other nations.
Your time has come.
So you ask me to teach you about improvisation.
You want me to tell you what it is like
to be the authority of your own life.
You want me to show you how
to make your voice heard
and how to listen to the other voices of the world
with your new and growing sense of equality.
You are so lovely, and earnest.
Beautiful.
Your nation is a young and talented actor
filled with emotion and dreams,
yearning for a life of moments
in which your love is congruent with all of your actions
as is the love of everyone in the world around you.
The world will disappoint you
(that’s what the world does)
and Act II will involve your quest to regain your love in spite of it all.
If Act II is successful, you will re-engage the world and make it better
with a smile on your face
a tear in your eye
and a fortified heart
beating in steady rhythm
in harmony with what is
and what can be.
I learn online that the Buddha comes from Nepal.
The spirit is immediate in you
and the theater that you have just begun to build
is the arena where that spirit will be made manifestly apparent,
in the mundane interactions of daily life
which you will transform
into sacraments.
I would love to spend time with you.
No one teaches anyone anything.
All an artist such as myself can do
is expose others to his process
and ask them to expose their emerging processes
to him.
I was an actor on the main stage of America’s Second City Theater in Chicago long ago
but I am no longer of Second City
My improvisation is not Second City’s improvisation
It is now my own
Just as your improvisation will not be mine
when our connection becomes a memory.
We will visit together
and experience each other
and come away from our intimate days together
transformed.
We will change
because we will have decided that being together
is meaningful.
You will bring your lives to your improvisation,
you already do.
And your lives will make improvisation a new thing.
Tradition reveres where we have come from.
Art celebrates where we are.
I admire your courage and openness and hope,
I am moved by your longing.
I am a lawyer
so my creative process includes rationality
and critical thinking
I will encourage those things in our interactions
and sit in wonder at the modalities of your thought
and your rich history,
the ways in which you think and process and decide,
so different from America
and so much the same.
I am a writer, so my process involves exploration
and the painful excavation of the depths of beating hearts …
the pain and the release of pain,
the deliverance from obstruction
that insight grants us.
I don’t know you at all
but I love you.
My love makes me curious about you.
My love makes me want to stand beside you as your friend,
support your growth,
be happy for your happiness,
and weep for your sorrows.
We unconsciously know that part of ourselves
inhabits the other.
We know that we are the same person
and we want to meet each other.
How beautiful you are
how fine your aspirations
how innocent
and pure
and new.
What a tonic your new freedom brings to the world
how enriched all mankind is by it,
how generous you are to share it.
I am a college professor
(yes I am many things and so are you)
and I communicate through constructing guided exercises
experiences
that you will do and have
and in the process
show me amazing things
and show me
your refined and noble sensibility.
It charms me that you are so unaware
of how stunning you are.
Together
me,
the old and ignorant American
and you,
so young
and so curious
standing upon mountains
of art and culture
much more than a country …
You are a nation
a nation is greater than its land
or even its people
a nation is shared ethics and ideals
a nation is its people’s potential for greatness
a greatness that paradoxically belongs to all mankind.
Your specific song of freedom
the freedom and culture particular to Nepal
and to your individual and communal lives in Nepal
the result of my process which will be our starting point when we are together.
You will work alone and in groups
Together we will experience improvisational art
and whatever other art it turns into.
Real improvisation always transforms into something else.
The only way to learn art
is by making art.
The only way to learn how to make art together
is by getting together and making it.
I hope I see you in Pokhara.
Copyright 2019 Richard Thomas
12/18/19: Existential Impeachment in Improvisation, Teaching, My Soul and Everything Else
Beyond Show Biz Hacks,
Beyond “Yes, and,”
Beyond Corporate Authoritarianism
Beyond the Tyranny of the Group
Beyond the “Banking System of Education” … rip open the student’s skull and pour propaganda on his brain
Beyond Calculating Political Action
Beyond personal demons
What lies beyond?
Art not show business, advertising, marketing and public relations.
Improvisation as art, not the facile pandering of “Yes, and”, not following Spolin as a religion and never pushing into new approaches and forms.
Discovering ways to survive beyond corporate conformity.
Avoidance of cliques and their soul-stunting conformity which mutes pure voices and celebrates echoes in nasty miasms of collective fear. Freedom.
True equality in education, not socialization for a dysfunctional society.
Replacing politics in government, employment, and all potentially creative and personal relationships. Engaging the world with integrity. Simply doing the right thing. The right thing is simple to ascertain. We are born with the ability to know it when we see it. What is complex is the deconstruction of all of the rationalizations that we invent or have foisted upon us when we are possessed by the fear and desire of ourselves or others.
The last personal demon to transcend is optimism. We’ve seen too many movies where the mentally ill concert pianist is finally healed after years of personal struggle. He gives a concert and receives a standing ovation. Optimism must be replaced by hope. Hope does the right and true thing with no guarantee of happily-ever-after.
We live in post-democratic America. Our minds are manipulated. Critical thinking has become a subversive act. When our authentic thought and feeling escapes through the programmed noise, we are oppressed — brought to heel, banished into exile or left on the side of a hill to die. We live in a moment where intelligence and art are frustrated. Poets, philosophers and public servants are bullied by salesmen.
America is run by casino owners. The people always lose to the house. Anyone who cracks the game and starts to win is tossed out of the hotel and roughed up in the alley.
A great movie of our time, December 2019, was released in 1975, Warren Beatty’s “Shampoo.” The characters pursue getting money, getting over and getting laid against the backdrop of the Presidential campaign that resulted in the election of Richard Nixon. The characters choose corruption in all things. They know what they were doing. Their evil choice leads to their personal destruction and the destruction of all that was good, true and holy. They descend into despair and compound the sin by calling their degradation “the pursuit of happiness.”
I write on the day that Congress impeaches Donald Trump.
America is suffering an existential breakdown.
I know the way forward.
I can only hope it works.
Below are links to many, not all, of the segments that I wrote in the last month or so.
The links are a narrative of my journey, which is a miniature of the immense mural on the floor of Congress (among other things).
Hemingway said that all true stories end in death. I don”t think so. All true stories are open-ended. Stories illuminate the present and end with the question — now what? How do we live when our illusions are dispelled?
The last sentence of this sequence of my writing, when laid out in chronological order (the form of a blog usually requires a reverse chronology), contains the words
“I hope”.
I know what to do. I can only hope that the world joins me.
The demonically possessed and ignorant world has rebuffed me at many turns. It has unintentionally taught me that I had more work to do. It’s last lesson taught me to abandon my optimism.
It will not teach me to abandon hope. I was born knowing that hope is a true thing. Hope has humility. Optimism is strangely arrogant and self-involved.
All my psychological pain derives from self-concern. Art is the process of transcending personal pain. Understanding the nature of reality is what heals. The world and I are both larger than I previously imagined. What once seemed essential seems pathetic and petty.
Art, education and freedom are what is real.
All that I am beyond was a nightmare masquerading as dream.
The impeachment isn’t about Trump. Trump is just a bad choice projected against the sky in giant relief.
Trump is a horoscope, a vague meaningless abstraction that we contemplate in order to see ourselves.
The impeachment is a fictive drama. We act in the play and are its audience.
The impeachment is a metaphor for the existential decision we all must make, whether we have the integrity to be conscious of that decision or not.
As of today, it looks like Trump won’t be convicted and removed from office. What do we do next?
I hope we continue to do the right thing, refusing to participate in all that is false in our public role as citizens, and in all of the private aspects of our lives.
Being human is a choice. I will continue to stand upright as a human being …
and I hope that others will join me, so that we can be fruitful in the accomplishment of all that matters, and free ourselves from the yokes of fear and oppression …
I live in reality
Beyond illusion
I know that I am not alone.
I hope for the hospitality of others
so that we can go forward together
and expand reality.
We can create a new world.
We can discern the actual limits of existence
and distinguish the actual limits from the hallucinations that we make so damned important.
Copyright 2019 Richard Thomas
12/22/19: Bombshell: Fascist on Fascist Crime
Boo hoo.
In the new movie, “Bombshell” which deals with the sexual harassment scandal at Fox News Network in 2016, John Lithgow says in character as the subsequently disgraced Roger Ailes, the Fox News CEO and Chairman, “Bullies aren’t mean. Bullying is the way that the more powerful control the less powerful.”
A title card near the end of the movie informs the audience that Ailes, and fellow more powerful Fox bully, Bill O’Reilly, received much more money in severance packages than the women that they bullied received in court settlements.
Boo hoo squared.
The medium of bullying was sexual harassment.
Somewhere a baby in a cage at the Southern border is saying “Me, too.”
Or a person dying of no health insurance.
Or the millions of people oppressed by the immoral political culture that Fox News has energetically promoted and in some cases created with its cocktail of lies and propaganda for disgusting immoral anti-values and political figures, most notably Herr Trump.
I have more sympathy for prostitutes abused by their pimps than for the women degraded by their bosses at Fox.
I imagine that prostitutes are forced to that horrible lifestyle by ignorance and desperation. Prostitutes are usually born powerless — oppressed to a condition of few or no choices. Prostitutes are exploited by criminals — most usually men.
The whores of Fox News are a different story. Megyn Kelly, Gretchen Carlson and the fictional Kayla, played by Margot Robbie, wanted power as much as Roger Ailes or Bill O’Reilly.
Kelly sucked dick to get it.
Carlson was pissed off because she was demoted.
Kelly and Carlson had other motives too — better ones — they wanted to be journalists. That begs the question — what were they doing at Fox News?
Kelly and Carlson felt guilty — they cooperated with something evil and made things harder for the more innocent, but equally ambitious Kayla, and many more like her.
If “Bombshell” was more about Kelly and Carlson’s journey to repentance and redemption, and to be fair the movie alludes to that complexity — but not emphatically enough to my satisfaction — it would have been a better movie.
To be explicit and obvious — Ailes and O’Reilly were pieces of shit. What they did was an abomination and the women were victims.
But the women were not only the victims of Ailes and O’Reilly’s pathetic evil — trolls equating sex for power because they were skilled at getting the latter and incapable of getting the former without bribery and coercion.
I didn’t enjoy being in the company of these creeps of both genders for two hours at the movies. I’ve had a bellyful of them for the last forty years.
I feel superior to the women of “Bombshell.” I’ve had more than my share of bad bosses — mostly men, but a few women too. While it’s true none of my would be oppressors ever forced me to fuck them, they ATTEMPTED to demean me in other ways. I was like Kayla, an innocent on each job — thinking the places were better than they were. I was ambitious to work on the side of the angels, and like Kayla I was confronted with deformed trolls.
But …
here’s the difference …
I never took their shit …
I never compromised my dignity …
I never did the immoral shit that they tried to bully me into doing …
I never placed my ambition over my mission …
I never rationalized and said if I suck some dick I’ll get to a position of power and then things will be different …
I risked unpopularity in the workplace …
I quit …
or was fired.
I always failed up … each wrenching separation led to greater knowledge about myself and greater skill at sharing what I have to offer.
None of this makes me a hero. It makes me a human being.
It might be argued that it is different for women — that women have to work harder to be confident because of the centuries of oppression that they have endured. That is certainly true.
But the women of “Bombshell” were pretty damned confident. More confident than I have ever been.
They lost a power struggle to men who had all of the advantages.
But in the end, they were betrayed by their own mediocrity. They wanted money and fame and success and most importantly POWER …
and they wanted to be good journalists and moms and pioneers for other women.
Sorry, it doesn’t work that way.
You have to choose — humanity or bullshit.
We all make mistakes. We all can get greedy or power-hungry. We all can repent and get back on the right track.
The women of “Bombshell” aren’t heroes.
And their victimhood is a small part of the story.
The women of Fox News were useful idiots in the rise of the new American autocracy.
They liked the money and the clothes and the attention. And the very evil that they served feasted upon them.
They got multi-million dollar settlements, but not as much as Ailes and O’Reilly.
Boo hoo.
The people of Puerto Rico lost loved ones when the autocracy ignored their hurricane.
Ditto the Bahamas.
Genocide was brought to the Kurds.
Police misconduct brought violence to African-Americans.
Public schools faded,
hungry people were denied food stamps …
what am I missing …
American democracy is gasping for life …
what else …
just look at the news …
all of this suffering was aided and abetted by the sexual harassment victims of Fox News.
Talk about bombshells.
Boo hoo.
Copyright 2019 Richard Thomas
12/22/19: More Sausage with Rob McCaskill: Literature, the Temporal and the Divine, Male Friendship, and Other Stories in ProgressRob McCaskill to me Sat Dec. 21 12:46 PMI’d heard of Henry Miller before ever reading his work. Not just his scandalous reputation, but reference to his achievement – his skill and talent pointed out, even by those who condemned him. When I finally picked up Capricorn and read a dozen pages, I was surprised to see it written, more or less, as Henry’s journal.Then later, reading Kerouac, I saw a similar style, a daily account. And also heard that Hemingway’s friends were shocked to see their lives portrayed exactly as they happened.These writers shaped their notes, of course, shading, arranging events into art. But I could feel a difference, reading Gatsby, and then The Sun Also Rises. Gatsby is more of a painting, while Hemingway’s more photographic.Your segments, written or read aloud, demand to be heard as works of actual literature, cooked fast after decades of preparation, and I find that my mind does absorb them that way.Liked what you said as a teen about Protestants overhauling the church, but leaving out the art. Too bad. The were right to dump the weight of Rome, rejecting the sale of indulgences. But then the dry parts of their minds turned poetry into reporting. What if we had a culture as deep as what we see in Tibet, but with our Western knack for innovation.Enjoyed your layout of post war American stand up. Especially the part concerning the club that commodifies with time limits. What if instead they only chose artists who could tell on their own when to stop?Me to Rob, Sun. 12/22, 12:11 PM
Rob,These are the most useful comments that I have heard regarding my writing. A few years ago I went to the Iowa Summer Writer’s Workshop for nine days — this email is more valuable than that experience in its entirety. You offer practical observations here — a template of discernment — a description of the right people.Saw something about Hawthorne “getting” Melville at a crucial time in the development of Moby Dick. I feel like we are in a Hawthorne/Melville moment.“… the part concerning the club that commodifies with time limits. What if instead they only chose artists who could tell on their own when to stop?” This insight shows genius in its simplicity, a demonstration of your producer’s art.Writer/actor/teacher/coach/director/producer — diverse and unified — I’m fascinated by guys like you so broad and deep in their talents — diverse in their work with a single focus.The actors that you coach went to the right guy. You sensitively take people and their work for who and what they are. You put them and their work into an educated and sophisticated context and in so doing say the right thing at precisely the right time — gentle and surgical direction.You are the same guy that I knew 30 years ago — same humanity and talent plus 30 years of WORK — you have developed yourself to your highest potential as an artist and a man. Congratulations. I am proud to be your friend.Excellence — here’s to excellence!I’m sure that I embarrassed you here, but you mention me in a tradition with Miller, Kerouac and Hemingway, so I guess we are even.Your enthusiasm and encouragement of what is fine in people is beautiful. Artists love art.“Your segments, written or read aloud, demand to be heard as works of actual literature, cooked fast after decades of preparation, and I find that my mind does absorb them that way. ” This is the best description of my process that I’ve heard — and a wonderful, positive and affirming understanding of deep creativity. I am so happy that my writing has value for you. Art is a two-way street. I get so much out of our dialogue.Point well taken on selling indulgences — art as baby in corrupt bath water.“What if we had a culture as deep as what we see in Tibet, but with our Western knack for innovation.”Jung wrote something about the marriage of East and West in religion — I read it years and years ago — I don’t remember the title or much about it — might be a lead … I remember Joseph Campbell — who was big on Jung — had material on how the East has closer access to the All, and the West was better at the individual — I think that is what his follow your bliss was about — moving from the universal space within us inflected by the particulars of our individual lives. I agree with your provocation — East and West should be integrated. Bloom on self-overhearing in Hamlet seemed to be getting at that. Getting to know oneself and what one is to do. Not making it up — not from ego. The ego is the defender of the true self when used properly, not the source of the true self. Western ego when nobly applied brings Eastern participation in divinity down to earth. The Catholic Catechism says that emotions are neutral and that our rationality mediates them — understands them. Our emotions, like our dreams are messages from God. My work always starts with a feeling. It never starts with an idea. The ideas come after the inspiration. James Hillman’s acorn theory —- we don’t grow up, we grow down. We are born an embodiment of the All and then we learn how to act from that place in the creation of our individual lives. I’ve never “invented” myself — I work to be myself. My limitations are not of Self, they are limits of consciousness — the transformation from comedy to literature, for example, was not a change of the All in me — it was a growth in my understanding of what that All is. And the All aids externally — like when you show up as Hawthorne. And you say that my work helps you — so the All is at work there too — this harmony — all these individual lives spontaneously forming one thing … Blake said eternity is in love with the productions of time. Mortality needs eternity, eternity needs morality … East needs West, West needs East. We wonder about the existence of God, and God wonders about the existence of Man. God and Man each need the other to fulfill their purposes. God is the more reliable partner — but Man is more free. God just is, we say, “To be or not to be.” Real action happens when we live our lives congruent with the inspirations of God, inspirations that He gives us constantly. If we didn’t have to work on figuring out God’s messages we’d have nothing to do — and we wouldn’t be men, we’d be something else. Reality is too big for us to see in total. So living is an act of faith — an enthusiastic participation in mystery. All identifications with God substitutes — Power, Money, Fame, Sex … other “stuff” — things not necessarily bad in themselves that become destructive when worshipped — false idols that alienate us from our authenticity — are born of fear and desire — those obstructions to intimacy with the Buddha. God is simple, our road to Him is complex. Makes life interesting. This is all about something that I am guessing exists in science as well as religion. The scientists who plumb the sources of creation — energy, time and space speak of these same things. I believe art is a lot like science — reality from different access points. God wouldn’t be so miserly to require an MIT Phd. as a prerequisite to talking to Him.I was out running around yesterday, and fell asleep in my chair upon my return — apologies for the delayed response. But it worked out because I needed to reflect on your comments a bit more anyway.Have a great day, Rob.Me to Rob, Sun. 12/22, 12:30 PMRob, I want to publish this and include all of my embarrassing praise of you. I think it makes a universal point. You should be held out as an example.I wondered if it would come across as gay if shared with strangers — not that there is anything wrong with that — but it is inaccurate. But since we are talking about literature and Hawthorne and Emerson came up — this is how men wrote each other in the 1800s. Perhaps that should be restored. Men, all men, not just artists — need this type of mutual affirmation of their best creative impulses. Men are wired to make things and we can support ourselves in higher aspirations than success and competition.My writing begins as the admiration of a friend — but I want to say to the greater world — look at THAT, honor THAT, be like THAT …Rob to me Sun. Dec. 22 3:08 PM
Hey Rick,Okay by me to let folks listen in. And if people misunderstand and imagine I’m gay I’d be honored.Right now the powder of what you are saying is sifting through the words you wrote, piling into meaning.The various cultural pieces you gather combine, forming a kind of encouragement – permission to think from the more adept person within.That persona, within us each, may be the famous beloved, who poets write verse to …I’ll need to let what you’ve said explain itself to me. Might take a sleep cycle or two.Me to Rob, Sun. 12/22, 3:11 PMOK, pal … until next time …Copyright 2019 Richard Thomas
12/24/19: An Artist’s Prayer
Artists are 1.8% of the world’s population
I received that data in a dream
A waking dream
A constant dream
My life is a dream
on the one hand
and the other hand?
Artists speak for God
not unlike grandiose deluded crazies
But artists aren’t granted the escape of insanity
An artist stretches a hand on the Sistine Chapel
while he stands in a puddle of shit
An artist looks for love in all the wrong places
and then slams the door of all that is false and low
and retreats into seclusion
Artists are drunks and failures
they have poor personal hygiene
they alienate themselves from society
so that they can bring God’s messages to people
in relation but not conformity
connected
but not part of
but apart
Priests pray to God
Artists deliver the answers
Artists are denied prayer
they are God’s stenographers
constantly receiving his dictation
no time for one request of their own
So who does an artist pray to?
An artist
if lucky
learns to trust God
no matter what shit storm he sends them into
Not all artists have that innate confidence
But God maintains his demanding pace
pushing them anyway
The artist could live to be
91
36
or 5
The duration of their lives is of no concern to God
Nor are the artists fears
desires
or needs
“Get it down and push it out!”
God roars
“Your pathetic wishes are of no importance!”
“Be what I made you to be!”
“Your ideas are of no importance!”
The artist is a human sacrifice
Isaac
and God does not stay the hand of Abraham this time
God could care less about man’s ideas about the world
He makes clear to the artist the reality of the world that He created
and demands that the artist tells the world
God doesn’t help the artist
God created the artist to help God
So who does the artist pray to?
Who does the artist pray to
for equality
and autonomy
for independence
for freedom from the editorial committees of Man
for sustenance
for release from the wolves of material necessity
for invitations and hospitality
for opportunities to teach
and speak
and write
and fashion images
to relate God’s answers to Man’s prayers
with their messages of challenge and joy
The artist shares God’s word
humbly
always uncertain
because God did not create artists with perfect antennae
sometimes the reception is bad
for encouragement
because God has made the artist eternally unsettled
12/26/19: “Little Women” — Poetry, Popularity and Commerce
A character in Greta Gerwig’s new movie adaptation of “Little Women” says that Shakespeare is our greatest writer because his poetry was delivered in popular works.
This character is wrong. Poetry can be found in highly accessible work or in dense, complex literary forms. Poetry can make millions of dollars, or leave the poet destitute. The poet uses the means available to her. Shakespeare was an actor and a man of popular theater. He enjoyed the patronage of a Queen. He lived in a moment when serious and important themes were popular. So Shakespeare enjoyed, and his work still enjoys of course, great poetic, popular and commercial achievement.
The most important of Shakespeare’s three achievements was the poetic achievement. The popular and commercial achievements obviously don’t diminish Shakespeare’s artistic accomplishment in any way. They also don’t amplify his art.
An artist uses the craft and material advantages available to her. I recently wrote a passage comparing “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”, Moby Dick , “The Rick Blog”, the Elizabeth Warren campaign and the new movie, “Bombshell.” All are works of art, with the exception of “Bombshell” which is a work of commerce devoid of poetry.
Here’s that passage:
“I will point out that we also need art and not show business.
We need reality not escape.
We need consideration of the interconnected world not just our own problems, even when they are quite serious and real.
I favor Elizabeth Warren in the Democratic Presidential Primary because her specific plans reflect a coherent and accurate vision of what is currently happening in the world.
Caged babies at the border, income inequality, endless foreign wars and all the other social ills — including sexual harassment in the workplace — are all the result of thought manipulation and bullying by powerful forces who want to deny us freedom so that they can subjugate us and control our lives.
Warren uses every crime against us in two ways. She addresses it specifically, and points to it as a metaphor with the big picture.
That’s what art should do. The symbol of the great white whale in Moby Dick ultimately points to something beyond words —
The world is demanding that we consider the nature of existence …
Can salesmen convince us to surrender our power of self-determination? Can bosses degrade and bully us in order to exploit our very lives as raw material for their profit?
Can we survive without solidarity?
Can we survive without seeing ourselves in the suffering of a refugee baby in a concentration camp?
Can we work for the men and women who want to destroy us and call it making a living?
I am watching Season 3 of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” for a second time. Paula is home for the holiday and she hasn’t seen it.
The writers are professional comedy writers. They have come from show business. They use the craft of the sitcom, the clever patter invented by Neil Simon.
The Maisel writers use the Neil Simonesque craft of the sitcom. What makes what they do art is what they use that craft for.
Mrs. Maisel uses what they know how to do to discuss love and courage. They create something highly enjoyable, but the show is not an escape. The show is about love and courage and it resonates with people who aren’t female comics trying to make it in the 1960s.
“The Rick Blog” is an amplified journal. When I’m good, and when you are good, it is as much about you as it is me.
Maisel is as good as Moby Dick in all of the important ways. Of course Moby Dick is much more intellectual than Maisel, and the craft involved in creating the novel is infinitely more intricate and involved than Maisel. It was harder to write Moby Dick than Maisel.
But each piece is a satellite in space sending data back to earth. Each piece is a chapter in the never finished user’s manual for the operation of the human being …
so is the Warren campaign
and “The Rick Blog”.
We are at a decision point — slavery and murder-suicide or love and freedom.
My first response to “Bombshell” was that I didn’t have a response. Then I had a revulsion to the characters and I wrote about that in the first “Bombshell” segment.
Today, I focus more on the writers of “Bombshell” than its story. I am not interested in the words of people just looking for a hit. How small are the concerns of such writers? The screenplay never questions the ambitions of its characters. It shows them as pariahs, tainted by their association with Fox News, but it doesn’t question why they made the choice of Fox in the first place. They bury the lead.
The untold story beneath the corrupted script of “Bombshell” is the evil unleashed by pursuing success by achieving the ends of greedy genocidal nihilists.
The untold story of “Bombshell” continues … Fox News is a metaphor … a great white whale … that represents something beyond words … a sickness found on Main Street in every town in America … the abuser in every incestuous family (“Chinatown” was a better movie about Fox News than “Bombshell”) … Fox News is the whisper we all hear in the moments of our darkest despair … the glancing split second thought … that we dismiss … and tell ourselves that we never had … that hisses … maybe I’ll just kill myself instead of face the world today …
Maisel says live! Joy!
Moby Dick says work! Struggle! Overcome the evil whale! Love the cosmic force of the whale!
No wonder I first didn’t want to write about “Bombshell” and then did a half-assed job of it.”
Greta Gerwig opens her movie with a quote from Louisa May Alcott, “I’ve had many troubles in my life, so I prefer to write jolly stories … ” Jolly stories are popular and make money. Alcott certainly found poetry in her jolly book, Little Women which may have introduced America to the poetry of feminism.
Alcott and Gerwig’s alter-ego, the character Jo March is a feminist revolutionary who chooses to be a writer, chooses not to marry, chooses not to be supported by a husband or anyone else, but to make her own way in the world financially … Jo March is a feminist embodiment of New England’s tradition of self-reliance.
In order to achieve financial independence, Jo March compromised her poetry. A publisher tells her to rewrite her ending. The heroine must be married. Sentimentality sells. Jo agrees to the change, negotiates a good contract and opens a school in a mansion that she inherited from an aunt who told her that “no one gets by on their own.”
Jo March’s commercial success was the end of her poetic achievement. Gerwig shows Jo’s poetic struggle until the moment of her decision, but presents the decision and its aftermath without comment.
I assume, and I can only assume because Gerwig doesn’t point me in any direction, that Jo’s financial independence is meant to be seen as Jo’s feminist triumph.
My values are not the same as those of Jo March. I think an artist, a poet wants as much money and popularity as he or she can get, but he or she would never change a word or brushstroke to get it. Shakespeare or Amy Sherman – Palladino got material rewards for their poetry without compromising poetic truth. As I’ve mentioned before, Van Gogh’s great art made no money in his lifetime and he was a social outcast. Later generations appreciated his work’s value.
My recent “Rick Blog” segment, “An Artist’s Prayer”, makes the point that the financial success and popularity of an artist is the responsibility of his or her audience — not the artist.
Shakespeare’s audience at the Globe Theater applauded his insight. Romeo and Juliet don’t get married at the end of the play, and the audience loved it.
The audience has the responsibility to care about the truth, and to care about the divine unseen aspect of living. “Mrs. Maisel” is about characters striving to live in truth guided by mystical forces.
Barack Obama recently said the world would be better off with woman leaders. He said the men have screwed everything up.
I quite agree. But I believe in what Gloria Steinem called “prophetic feminism.”
I have no belief in a feminism where women participate in the materialism and competition that men have cursed us with.
Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women” ends with Jo March doing what a man, her publisher, tells her to do.
Jo March succeeds in a man’s world, and abandons her poetry. She indulges the sentimentality of her young woman readers, and denies them their liberation.
And so has Greta Gerwig.
Vaclav Havel wrote Living in Truth while living as a political prisoner in a Czech prison. His uncompromising truth led his people to freedom, and the playwright was then recognized as an important artist, and as a world leader.
The artist is sometimes greeted by the cheers of an adoring public and sometimes condemned to solitary obscurity and personal deprivation. Neither circumstance affects the artist’s work.
How the artist is personally treated is the public’s responsibility.
Copyright 2019 Richard Thomas
12/28/19: Rick Blog Quickie Movie Reviews
Uncut Gems — Two hours of maniacally reckless behavior leads to a predictable conclusion.
Joker — Perfect for people who like to gawk at car accidents, painstaking consideration of a man who is mentally ill by people with no inclination to help him.
The Irishman — A remake of “Goodfellas” for the geriatric set. A prolific hitman with over twenty-five murders on his resume lives through a very long old age , and regrets the loss of his best friend who he murdered, and his favorite daughter who he repulsed. He is condemned to a friendless, loveless and interminable last chapter of his life — a sentence of chronic loneliness — not unlike countless old people who never killed anybody.
The Two Popes — an excellent and well-acted exploration of what it is like to be a sincere priest.
Marriage Story — how to deal with the ordeals of divorce and custody disputes when your only resources are an extensive support system, a residence on each coast, the income from an Emmy nominated TV series, a Broadway directing career, a prestigious academic appointment and a MacArthur Genius Grant. Noah Baumbach graduates from middle-aged people indulging in adolescent navel gazing to real world problems tormenting middle-aged people sick of navel gazing.
Dolemite is My Name — “Ed Wood” meets “Freedom Writers”, a boringly predictable underdog story superficially elevated by superficial racial consciousness.
Knives Out — “Clue” meets “El Norte”, a boringly predictable underdog story superficially elevated by superficial racial consciousness.
Jo Jo Rabbit — the cute side of Hitler; how the aftermath of the Holocaust became a dance party through the power of positive thinking.
Little Women — how to achieve woman’s liberation through a big inheritance and pursuing a career as a hack writer.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood — Quentin Tarantino’s anthology of poems inspired by his sincere love of pop culture and the people who create it well.
Judy — artist as human sacrifice.
Pain and Glory — Almodovar’s personal poems about making art, friendship, family, love and chronic physical pain.
Richard Jewell — Hey, Trump supporters, the government and the media are out to get you. Will be a good movie about brazen careerism versus humbly and generously working at a meaningful vocation — but not now.
Bombshell — Bad people being treated badly. Fascists and whores under pressure.
Hooray for you, Hollywood. You movies are so pretty and talented and smart. And every once in a great while, one of you actually says something.
Show off with soul.
I dare you.
Copyright 2019 Richard Thomas
#theater #poetry #friendship #spokenword
12/31/19: Rob in London — Exuberance and the Power of Our Tenderness
Rob McCaskill wrote me at 6:36 am CST on 12/31/19:
Five days, now, and six shows, three of them by Shakespeare. Asking myself about my impressions, what am I broadly aware of? Professionalism, excellence, attention paid to detail. Cleanliness of presentation, and beauty in the sets.
Maybe though the quality I want and most enlist for is exuberance. The overbrimming of passion and action, a madness. A food fight, a dance, ascension in a speech. The craft, it seems, entails delaying, finding pleasure in construction, while building to the moment when it breaks.So much of the fineness of William’s writing loses itself in abundance and pace. But phrases shimmer through, along with cleverness of argument. The goings-on constructed with relatable motives and logical moves.Time and again his plays point out our selfishness and cruelty. But planted in them as well the power of our tenderness. This central bud, it seems to me, leads his overwhelming skill to true importance.Today, The Duchess of Malfi (Webster) and, in the West End, Hamilton.I responded to Rob at 9:53 am CST on 12/31/19:
Very exciting …the limits of professionalism and craft … which is only a means to an end … when it becomes the primary objective, one wonders why … a kind of materialism that ignores what matters most … all building and no architecture … the great stuff transcends all of that …the interaction between you and the London stage … your dynamic watching …the paradox of your personal exuberance and endurance … the merger of work and play …your value of art in the service of life … the life leads …your focus on what is important …beyond talent and skillbeyond aestheticssince you are in England … the ecstatic reverie of the Declaration of Independence …you respond to what is restrictive in an old theater …honor what works in the old … you don’t throw out the Magna Carta …but take it furtherand create something new …drawing on something deeper than merely what we can do …competence and developing technique is a given …accessing the mystery of life itself …our vast potential is ultimately not something to be worked for …but to be asked for and received …you share a note with me today …which gives me much more than a description of an experience …you share with me a human being lit by the reflective light of the divine …your existence shows me what is possible in the external world …you view constructed productions …and transform them into natural things …machinery miraculously evolves …into flesh and blood.Copyright 2019 Richard Thomas
1/4/20: A Most Clever Tyranny; Democracy is Dead Except, Maybe, in You
This is a poem
It’s not an analysis
It’s not a political screed
I just know what I see in front of me
Some innocent, powerless people have democracy in their hearts
They see that everyone is equal
They want to follow their own hearts
They know their natural rights
They don’t want to dominate anybody
They want to make a living
get an education
feel safe and cared for when they are sick
Drive around town when they feel like it
Go to dinner and a movie once a week
Just be normal …
no problems … fewer struggles …
they love some people and things
and respect that other people love some people and things
Free to be you and me
You know what I mean
Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time
You know what I mean
Basic desires
basic rules
not that complicated
rights and responsibilities
Democracy lives in the hearts of these people
Democracy is a poetic concept
meaning it speaks to a natural truth
it’s God’s will
and a natural part of these people’s hearts
They didn’t have to think it up
they were born feeling it.
Democracy is the truth
It’s not an ideal
It’s the way it is.
The hearts of these people never completely synchs up with external reality.
Every once in awhile the outside world comes close to matching the democracy of the heart.
At this moment
democracy is far, far away
so far away that it has fled to another dimension
Democracy is hiding in heaven
It is all cyclical
and people who don’t trust democracy
and don’t give a shit about you
put all of their trust in the pursuit of power
surveying the earth with inert shark eyes
destroying every material means that you need to make your democracy real
Just yesterday
a power person who is a judge laughed at a lawful subpoena
a power person sworn to uphold the rule of law
ridiculed the rule of law
to honor the rule of the autocracy
Just yesterday
a cabal of militarists leveraged their advantage against a weakened impeached President
and started a full scale war with Iran
they didn’t have to spell it out to him
You have our support for all of your crimes, sir
but you have to give us this war, the way you gave us the judges …
The puppet complied.
Hundreds of thousands of civilians will die in the Middle East
thousands of American soldiers will die
or get their limbs blown off
their skulls crushed
their souls stolen
and the people with democracy in their hearts won’t get universal health care
or decent schools
or decent jobs.
A most clever tyrany
Only the most resistant and vulnerable will be killed
scores of others will be manipulated
the media will argue about transient considerations
studiously avoiding the essence of what is happening
Advertisers will sedate and distract
Entertainers will usurp the role of art
and moderates will legitimate the actions of the people of power
by compromising with them
secretly being people of power themselves
the Washington Generals versus the Harlem Globetrotters
the Globetrotters always win
but the Generals are in on the act
and get their cut of the gate.
Scavengers see what is happening
the feckless, weak people with democracy in their hearts
being run over by the cunning and ignorant people of power.
The scavengers want no part of either team
so they focus on themselves
their success
con men running hustles to get by
it’s all bullshit they say
I’ll commit petty larceny and have a good time …
But the power people are smarter than the scavengers
and say to the con men
“Work for us or die.”
So the scavengers always go to work for the power people
and do awful things for a nice car and room to strut
Trump is scavenger President.
Obama was a moderate.
Puppets all.
The power people who run things sit in shadowy rooms
subjugating us all.
Yes
Such a clever tyranny
90% propaganda
10% murder.
An ultimate artist
Jesus
said
Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and give to God what is God’s …
be as innocent as a lamb and as cunning as a serpent
democracy is dead in the world
and may be alive in your heart
take these riddles as clues
as to what to do in the face of
reality.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
#genius
1/9/20: The Excitement of Genius
Genius is the most exciting thing in the world
Genius is not something to identify with
Genius is something to participate in
Genius is access to one’s natural essence
When you act as yourself in all purity
you participate in genius.
And it is thrilling.
Genius does not involve work.
All work involves clearing brush
removing all the obstructions to reach that pure thing.
The brush can be in your head
or in society at large.
It doesn’t matter
It’s the same process
accentuate the positive
ELIMINATE the negative
and don’t mess with Mr. In-Between.
You can’t decide to eliminate obstructions.
You have to joust and wrestle with them until you realize that you can just walk around them.
It sounds so egoistic and narcissistic to claim that you have touched genius,
but actually it is a statement of true humility.
We are all born with an essence
an essence that is mysteriously quite individual and specific to each one of us
and universal at the same time.
That true essence is there
even when it is blocked by our neuroses
and/or society’s evil foolishness.
A moment of genius is a moment of joy.
When you feel isolated
or alone
or a failure
you are clearing brush
picking up sticks
to build something with your genius later.
Every once in awhile your genius teaches your uncertain soul
that you have lived a perfect life
Everything is the way it should be
and the world is a place of abundance
It isn’t like you will never again feel pain or frustration
but you are aware that there is a place where pain and frustration are exposed for the lies that they are
It is best when genius reveals the truth to you
before you receive any material evidence
Genius will rise where you least expect it
when you get the rejection letter
on the unemployment line’
when you don’t have a date for New Year’s Eve
in jail
and on your death bed.
Up or down
popular or unpopular
understood or misunderstood
respected or un-respected
rich or poor
mansion or flop house
hero or reviled prophet
remembered or forgotten
big name or anonymous
historic or inconsequential
it doesn’t matter.
The chronological makes these distinctions
the eternal sees them for what they are
meaningless.
The truth is
that
You
and the world
are perfect
just as you and the world are.
And genius is that spot where you know it
and everything else that you ever did or thought or felt
is hard work
for which you should be commended.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
1/10/20: 1917, Schitt’s Creek and Joyce Carol Oates — Craft Services
I’ll pass on that old-time religion.
The world dialed up 1917, Schitt’s Creek and Joyce Carol Oates for me in the last twenty-four hours. I emerged with a feeling of not-so-smug superiority.
These people go to a lot of trouble to say what is on their minds.
1917: Sam Mendes directed this museum diorama trying to pass itself off as a movie. I am sure that Sam Mendes has a very neat apartment. I am also sure that he never stepped beyond a proscribed line.
Mendes brings a fastidious eye to the fog of war. He doesn’t do chaos. Each person place and thing in this World War One story is arranged in an aesthetically pleasing manner.
Mendes brings his mastery of scenic composition to a decomposing world.
1917 is a reassuring lie. Carnage doesn’t have to be gross after all.
World War One was a massively unnecessary tragedy, and an opportunity for Mendes to show what a technically brilliant filmmaker that he is.
True storytelling is a lot harder than mastering a craft. A real artist learns a craft or crafts and then forgets them. He or she is guided by an urge to communicate an earned truth from the artist’s perspective.
1917 is the type of movie that gets awards. It is impossible not to (momentarily) admire its complex technique. Look how beautifully Mendes arranged those dead bodies. Each limb is so expressive. Look at the stark mural of dead cattle precisely placed across the battlefield. Look at the engaging abstract geometrical forms of the bombed out city. A lonely silhouette of a tree — the only survivor of a forest that was destroyed — stretching its black limbs into a rust-colored poisoned sky.
I miss Robert Altman. He did confusion so well. His work wasn’t pretty but it was beautiful.
1917 famously features a structure of being two seemingly unedited tracking shots. I thought constantly about these feats of cinematography — war, death, man’s inhumanity to man, loss, friendship, survival, a lone man moving through an absurdist hell-scape of the dead, and dying — not so much. I once did sales for a photographer who did baby pictures. He also hung up shots in his store showing off what a good picture taker he was.
Altman just picked his shots to tell the story.
Fuck aestehtics.
Mendes said as he picked up a Golden Globe that he told the story of 1917 in the hopes that something like World War One — the most brutal war according to Mendes — would never happen again. He must have missed World War Two and hundreds of other wars. He said nothing about the potential war with Iran.
Watching 1917 is like having a conversation with a very well-spoken man who doesn’t know what he is talking about, and doesn’t much care about his subject. His goal is to inspire your oohs and ahs for his brilliant vocabulary and elocution.
I worked in a corporate law firm once that hung inoffensive visual art in its waiting area. The paintings posed as provocative art, but were really inoffensive interior decorations.
Just what we need at the moment — phony empathy.
Thank God we don’t have to suffer and struggle like the action figures of World War One. And aren’t we good people to feel sorry for them. And isn’t Sam Mendes so cute in the way he busts his ass for our approval. Now let’s go to that restaurant with the engaging atmosphere and the charming waitstaff.
Schitt’s Creek: Speaking of sentimentality, I met Eugene Levy once. He was holding court with a big group of people, talking about making money. He was very serious about every possible dollar, like the couples my parents used to play poker with when I was a kid.
Schitt’s Creek is a sitcom soap opera. I don’t enjoy sitcoms or soap operas.
Eugene Levy was on SCTV. One of that show’s famous sketches was “The Sammy Maudlin Show.”
Schitt’s Creek is just plain maudlin.
I like Eugene Levy. I’m not going to write here about his show. Schitt’s Creek is awful — let’s leave it at that. I’m going to write about Eugene Levy and his family — people that I know nothing about.
Schitt’s Creek is a family affair. Eugene Levy co-created and stars on the show with one son, a daughter acts on the show, another son produces.
Here is my imagined story of the Levy family.
Eugene Levy’s father was a businessman or wanted to be one. His mother wanted to act and played the piano at family gatherings.
Eugene Levy’s supportive wife stays in the background.
Eugene Levy has a gay son and has never been disturbed or conflicted about his son’s sexuality.
Eugene Levy worries a lot about his children’s financial security. He and his gay son created this show and employed the rest of the clan.
The entrepreneurial gamble paid off, and everyone is making a nice living.
The entire Levy family believes in hard work, friendship, finding significant others who are kind and not flashy, community and humor. The Levys are very nice middle-class Canadian people.
Since they are Canadian, the Levys’ entrepreneurial spirit is leavened with socialism and good manners.
Schitt’s Creek is the Levys’ story ruined by the crafts of sitcoms and soap operas. I’d rather just see the Levys — like the one time I met Eugene Levy. I’d rather just see the actual people. I don’t need the cliched and cloying expressions of formulaic romantic love or friendship , the broad slapstick and mugging, the stale situations — Dad put poison oak in the floral arrangements! — the couples who obviously love each other but take years to get together, the tidy morals-of-the-story at the twenty-six minute mark, the ersatz warmth awkwardly play-acted by genuinely warm people.
You don’t need to watch Schitt’s Creek. My few paragraphs here, unburdened by so much unnecessary craft is better than the whole show. But you may want to watch the show anyway to support these sweet-natured mopes who wouldn’t hurt a fly.
Joyce Carol Oates: I watched a video promoting Joyce Carol Oates’ Master Class in Short Story Writing. I was curious but not interested. I accepted taking the bar exam and being certified to be a lawyer. I am not interested in certifications in order to write.
Law is a lot easier than writing and not nearly as important. Practicing law is a defined occupation. There are basics that all practitioners need to know and accept.
Writing is something one creates oneself. You don’t learn how to write in school. You learn by living your life.
Oates says that all good writing comes from writers honestly addressing their personal taboos.
No, not all good writing. Taboos, sometimes, sure … but I am much more diverse than that … Oates defines her work as the exploration of taboos … good even interesting … but I don’t want to burn incense in front of it … can’t she just settle for being a good writer … she sets up her students to fail — at being her!
Usually something happens to me. I wonder about it — then I get an impulse and I start writing about it.
Experience
Observe
Reflect
Apply.
That’s how I do it. Find your own way. Don’t come to me for answers when all I want to do is talk to you. Being an audience is a creative act — you have to show up and make the meaning for yourself. I write to make meaning for myself. I can’t make it for you. If you engage with my words then you have to come up with something.
Oates says that everybody has at least one story to tell.
I say that I am living a story that won’t end until I die.
Actually, stories don’t ever end. They morph into other stories.
Oates is selling seats in her class. Everybody lives a story. Not everyone can tell it.
Writers tell everyone’s stories — not just their own.
Listen, literary forms are fine. I’ve enjoyed good novels, poems and essays.
But for me personally, I like the examples of visual artists — where the nature of expression leads to more innovation of the form.
I don’t need any rules regarding craft.
I start with the thing that I am compelled to say, and I figure out the craft as I go along.
Joyce Carol Oates presents herself as an authority on writing. She’s an authority on her writing — her way has nothing to do with me.
Personally, I like to reinvent the wheel.
When today’s inspiration turns into tomorrow’s requirement, creativity dies.
Craft should know it’s place.
Art picks up craft and puts it down — sampling and selecting from a thousand paintbrushes …
craft is utility
art is God
yes, of course,
craft
but no need to be so goddamned precious about it.
Precious craft
is just
ego
weeds choking
the flower of beauty.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
1/15/20: Pelosi and her Team — Greatness in Real Time
Today is too important for writing
too important for art
America is the Hanged Man in a Tarot card spread today
(I don’t believe in the occult — don’t pin that shit on me — but that card is a beautiful and appropriate image)
America is hanging on a cross
at a moment of great uncertainty
but like the hanged man, it is possessed with serenity and calm
because of Nancy Pelosi
and her team
At moments of intense adversity
at times when evil poses an existential threat
Greatness fills the breach
I used to doubt that reality
but Lincoln showed up
FDR showed up
MLK showed up
and we all have moments in our lower case lives
when we are saved after the darkness and before the dawn
Nancy Pelosi
and the congress people that she leads
have transcended politics
and remembered America
Pelosi moved me today
A grandmother
a junior high civics teacher
a masterful strategist and tactician
stood up
with her team
for the right thing
Atticus Finch is an Italian-American lady pol from San Francisco
Pelosi accomplished nothing in her delay of delivery of the articles impeachment to the Senate
EXCEPT
Prevent Mitch McConnell from railroading a summary judgment and quick dismissal of the articles in the Senate
Create the possibility of witnesses and documents in the Senate trial
Allow time for significant new evidence to emerge
Further the education of the American people as to Trump’s, and his thugs in the Administration and Congress, threat to our democracy, system of government and way of life
Further the investigation into the nature of this criminal fake-Presidency — actually using the continuing impeachment process, now in the Senate, to keep doggedly and relentlessly exposing the truth
Exemplify the correct use of power as a means of service performed with justice, grace, dignity and integrity at a time when we desperately need it
Greatness and evil are always acknowledged after the fact.
Justice may or may not prevail.
Trump may be convicted or walk away scot free.
Trump’s marketers and criminals may secure him power again in the November election
but America will not die.
Democracy will not die.
I wrote recently that democracy in America was dead
EXCEPT
perhaps
in your heart
I wrote that Jesus, the Ultimate Artist
gave us clues for survival
Be as innocent as lambs, and as cunning as serpents
Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and give to God what is God’s …
and here comes our prominent example
the leader
this daughter of a mayor
this straight-laced Catholic
this politician
who started out wanting no more than the maintenance of her majority
her power
this pragmatist
who is always ready to compromise
who will never let perfection be the enemy of the good
this experienced professional
had the innocence to keep believing in what she learned in Civics class
the humility to master Caesar’s system
the commitment to be useful
this mother and grandmother with loving concern for the health and welfare of generations of Americans
NANCY PELOSI
GREATNESS IN REAL TIME
Nancy Pelosi
and her team
made me cry a little this morning
it was so moving
Humanity used its free will
to do what God wanted this morning.
Today is too important for writing and art.
Today is a time to hang on a tree with serenity
sanguine in anticipation
dutifully waiting
for the fulfillments and challenges
of the new world
which is sure to come.
It is important to recognize greatness and evil in real time.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
1/16/20: I Am the First Millennial, a Poem (I Guess)
I’m not feeling poetic.
Maybe poetry in 2020 is as simple as just spitting it out.
My wife calls me the first millennial.
She means that I am skeptical and spiritual.
I see a hypocritical society
composed of institutions
run by greedy aging people
with no interest in excellence or service
only committed to their own advancement
which is measured,
simplistically and stupidly,
by the amount of money that they amass
and the number of weaker people
whose destinies they can control.
So we millennials
a generation that I personally founded,
deal with mendacious society
in the same manner that we handle climate.
We dress properly to mitigate the excessive heat and frigidity
and live a life of freedom
in the landscape of our souls,
unburdened by materialism,
buoyed by the satisfactions of the creative life,
not reformers of the hopeless case of society,
almost full participants in the bliss of nature
while wearing necessary armor
struggling to survive.
What paradoxical creatures we millennials are,
flower children minus the naivete,
incongruously cynical and ecstatic at the same time.
Being millennial isn’t only a generational matter
others of our same age are not millennial.
Some
from all socioeconomic backgrounds
are the dumb people.
I was wondering about Mike Pompeo,
younger than me,
older than the other millennials.
He went to West Point.
That’s a hard thing to do.
He went to Harvard Law School.
That’s a hard thing to do.
He got elected to Congress.
Ditto.
Became Secretary of State.
Same thing.
But he wasn’t pursuing a dream
he wasn’t taking the acorn of his essence
and planting it into the earth,
indulging in the pleasure
of making his mysterious and ethereal
God-given identity
a concrete reality in the world.
He wasn’t committed to living out his natural destiny.
He just wanted to win the society board game
Chutes and Ladders.
He is soooo un-millennial.
As part of my official duties as the first millennial
I celebrate Pompeo’s coming humiliation
for sacrificing all of his hard work and ability
on the altar of the Nero from Queens,
Donald Trump,
who is society’s final spasm of control
(Millennials will be triumphant — we always are — everybody gets a trophy and we deserve it — humanity is its own reward — we don’t have to earn it — we ARE entitled to it — we get to live out all of our eccentricities — our value is not something to be achieved — it is our birthright — the adoration in our parents’ eyes at the moment that we emerged from our mothers is reality and truth — society’s hassling is what is unreal and false — the only thing we owe the world is our happiness — we have nothing to prove and we demand that nothing be proven — what is, is all that matters — and it is wonderful)
where was I?
oh yes,
on the altar of the Nero from Queens,
Donald Trump,
who is society’s final spasm of control
the death rattle incarnated as farce …
We are sick of winning as Trump warned us we would be
and a new millennium is upon us
whether society is coming along or not.
Society has jumped the shark
Society’s “Happy Days” is about to be cancelled
and Fonzie Pompeo will be reduced to selling reverse mortgages.
Life ends in death
death can be noble
I love reading the obituaries of people who lived life from the heart
No regrets
the gift of life accepted
the peace and joy
of ignoring society
dealing with it
and creating that new thing that one was born to do.
The pursuit of societal success
of which Pompeo’s path is just this morning’s notable example
always ends in
failure
embarrassment
depression
and failure.
Pompeo is in the news
but he also walks in the bodies of millions
on LaSalle Street in Chicago
Wall Street in New York
Rodeo Drive
Main Street in Toledo
and a truck stop in Nebraska.
One third of America
wants to kill one third of America
while one third of America looks on with indifference.
It smells like victory.
Millennials don’t participate in the poll.
We are the x factor
like Old Man River
we just keep rolling along
naturally.
I guess I wrote a poem after all.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
1/18/20: Life of the Unknown Writer
Any resemblance between the characters in the poem below and any persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
Good writing is true but never right.
Memory is a present thing, not about the past at all.
All writing of any kind is a collection of studies — self-portraits — arranged chronologically in a rectangular gallery, with a large open space for viewing. The writer’s understanding of his subjects, self and world, evolves and deepens. His skill of expression might improve, in some cases to a level of mastery …
but each memory is a mystery
an infinite onion endlessly peeled
yesterday’s event illustrates today’s meaning
Today’s meaning changes by tomorrow
sometimes because of epiphany or education
sometimes simply because of the progression of life
I don’t tell stories to dwell on the past
I am not much interested in past wounds or victories
Children are told that they can grow up to be anything
and that is quite certainly true
what is not guaranteed is the world’s responses to their choices
We hone our memory to determine our destiny
we fashion meaning with our reason and imagination
and find where we belong
Remembering is like looking at the night sky
Some nights are impenetrable
covered in clouds
Some nights are sick with pollution
The clear nights fill one with awe
The vast expanse
the brilliance of each individual star
so much to explore
so much we will never know
The story below was overheard in a coffee shop
a man was delivering a monologue to a woman
It was either a job interview or a date
The unknown and emerging writer
making his peace with his soul and the world
an endless project
which will preoccupy him until his death
and beyond.
Why bother with him?
Are you any different than he, except in the details?
Isn’t there a true blue you
that is sometimes free and sometimes frustrated?
Isn’t the meaning of your life a moving target?
Hasn’t the call and response of your soul and the world
brought you confusion at times
and great joy at others?
And haven’t you found peace, love and understanding
or at the very least are looking
and haven’t given up on it.
Man in coffee shop speaks:
“All about me
I was born in a manger
warmed by the hot breath of farm animals
Mom was a virgin
Dad was a mensch
I became a toddler
the Last Emperor in the pre-school years
my extended family
aunts, uncles, grandparents, great aunts and uncles
Came to court
to adore me
showering me in gifts and praise
My genius was obvious at a very young age
I went to school
and tyrannical nuns tried to humble me
they thought that my abundant self-love was sinful
they insulted all of my deficiencies
the lack of competence that bedevils those who had always been served
My mother, the Queen came to the school
and yelled at the nuns
and things got superficially better
but from then until very recently
I was always aware of being a stranger in a strange land
possessed of an inner confidence
delighted with myself, really
and awkward and afraid in my engagements
with the people that I was forced to be with
I was smarter than they were
I was charismatic and they were dull
I was virtuous and they were selfish.
I finally was released from grammar school
the smartest and fattest boy in the class.
I was sent to the care of Jesuits
to be educated
They adored me
I was smart and funny
deep and morally inclined
I wondered about the existence of God.
At the end of my four years in Jesuit high school
where I regained the recognition of my special nature
that I had enjoyed as a small child
I announced to my father, Bluto
who also sired St. Francis of Assisi
that I wanted to be a priest
His barrel chest swelled with rage
“You will have sex!
You will make money!
You will not be a pansy professor!”
Then my father went to church and lit a candle.
Dad wanted me to be a lawyer for money and prestige
and laughed at my jokes
big, deep laughs
that shook the world.
I left for college
in conflict
confused
a comedian or a lawyer?
for Daddy
Far away from the perfect baby in perfect harmony with a perfect world
that I once enjoyed being.
A writer has to get lost.
If a writer doesn’t get lost
he disappears in a puff of smoke
Confusion pulls him down into the shit with everyone else
It gives him concrete material for his genius to alight upon.
I regret nothing
I have done everything that I have wanted to do
especially when I failed
or fucked up
or sinned.
I went to Notre Dame
a cold place
picked up a few friends who were more like brothers
learned nothing that I didn’t already know
from high school
or picked up on my own.
I graduated
Dad mocked my favorite professor
a professor who
in retrospect
was meaningless to my life.
Most of my life has been spent waiting
waiting interrupted occasionally by moments of impact
The waiting ended when I started to write
Writing has resurrected all the lost time
and made it meaningful
Sometimes people disagree with what I write
Sometimes I disagree with what I write
But my writing is not something to be debated
I turn my soul
and the perceived world
from my unique perspective
no two people have the exact same vantage point on the world
I turn my soul and the world into words.
I became a comedian
and learned some tricks
developed some habits of creation
and became dissatisfied
I disliked show business
I rebelled against trying to be popular with audiences
I hated being evaluated and judged
What people thought of me
was none of their fucking business
What I thought of me was all that mattered
So I was the odd man out
Popular with smart and creative people
despised by the others.
I had a hard time letting go of people
and situations
mistaking towns where I briefly rested on a journey
for home.
Every transformation in my understanding of myself
hurt and made me angry
I argued with people who criticized me
all the while sculpting the differences between me and them
in the marble of existence.
I became a lawyer in these young and not-so-young adult years, 20-35
an experience that had no effect on my soul
simply a practical thing
done
like getting a driver’s license.
Young and not-so-young adulthood died hard for me
I went briefly mad
then went home to my boyhood bedroom
and stayed on my bed for a year
seething with resentment.
The aunts and uncles who worshipped me as a child
now saw me as a madman and layabout.
My primary emotions in my late thirties were
humiliation
and resentment.
I had lost all confidence
overwhelmed by the complex reality that I had to bring into the world.
Finally I got off the bed and got jobs
Once on the rocket to stardom
I sold lawn mower maintenance agreements over the phone
and one hundred other terrible jobs
and wandered through the depressed, and crazy back roads
of Reagan’s America
selfish people with money
and their bullying office managers
and dim-witted grunt laborers
who were constantly demeaned and cheated
depressed and self-destructive
identifying with their captors
and dying before their time.
I was having the time of my life
observing a world of dysfunction
seeing things that I would never have seen if I became a star
or a successful lawyer
or a writer too soon.
Eventually I rose from the degradation
of the phone boiler rooms
I was too smart and talented not to be noticed
I got a corporate marketing job
with a real salary
and proclaimed myself a success.
It was awful
life in decent hotels
eating in dull restaurants catering to people in suits
listening to people mumble about golf and wine
Disinterested.
Then I left that job
Selling wasn’t enough
and returned to Chicago to be a lawyer.
I learned a lot about writing as I practiced law.
The best lawyers were good
good at their jobs
good people
but I was better.
A writer is so much more than a lawyer
the stakes are so much higher
Lawyers just resolve a case
writers resolve the world
concerned with so much more than judgments and settlements.
Practicing law ended with the usual sturm and drang
and I landed as a teacher
a useful thing
as practical as a law degree
with a bit more nourishment for my soul.
I outgrew a place where I was teaching
and paused for a year and a half to regroup
Regrouping led to breakthroughs in my writing
and now my teaching career resumes
in a more appropriate place
and more challenging job
and my writing is on the brink
ready for a more visible place in the world.
I teach
I write
unapologetically
in my own way
open to the people and places in the world
where I and my work belongs
Clarity and participation.”
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
Next came some blog posts, vlogs, and some material for a course I was teaching. None of this was distracting me from my writing focus, but it was stealing valuable time.
Picking up where I left off …
1/29/20: Mom and Dad Dropped by Tonight
Feeling something
not like mourning
grateful that I’m not alone
loved by Paula right beside me
grateful that my folks went home
they ran their race
they did it well
and loved me so when I was young
and not so young
and middle-aged
and even old
I never felt myself undeserving
as many sad people often do
I always felt that people could love me
secure that someone cared
Far from perfect
with loads of baggage
passed generationally
and changed with the times
but
but
but
where would love be without imperfection
where would it be without the struggle to understand
where would love be if it were just damn easy
nowhere
that’s where love would be.
I always had a place where I could be an asshole
angry
resentful
frustrated
petty
vain and
insecure.
I always had a place where I could heal from my follies
and the blows that came from unloving parts of the world.
They never fully “got” me
my essence was beyond who they were
but that didn’t matter
they always loved me
I was their son
I was their world.
They nursed me back a thousand times
coaxed out my sweetness when it was blocked
Warmth and kindness and generosity are my inheritance
and a fierce commitment to be myself
all they ever wanted from me was me.
They never knew what I was
but they always knew who
and they reminded me of that in my darkest hours.
Their sins against me were all in my mind
they did me wrong a few times
but not on purpose
no one knows everything
people have blind spots
people make mistakes.
They taught me the difference between naivete and malice
It’s not what people say
it’s what’s underneath the words
and every word they ever said to me
translated into “I love you.”
Children live on one-way streets
two directions come with time.
Parents have to die
so the once young can take their turn caring for the young.
1/30/20: The Fight for the Rule of Law — Social? Anti-social? Moral Character.
I wish David Mamet was a better writer. Oh, he’s plenty entertaining and he looks at how things work. But he doesn’t go that deep. And I needed deep this morning.
Mamet’s 1980s screenplay for the movie, “The Untouchables” is about a fight for the rule of law. At the end of the picture, Kevin Costner/Eliot Ness, who has been fighting an obsessive and bloody battle against the gangster bootlegger, Robert DeNiro/Al Capone, is asked by a reporter, “What’ll you do now that it looks like Prohibition will be repealed?” Costner/Ness replies, “I think I’ll have a drink.”
It’s a memorable line. The point is protecting the law. If you don’t like it change it, but while its on the books you comply with it. Costner/Ness has another tough line to forget. “It’s nice to be married.” Costner/Ness believes in the rule of law, because he believes in society. He wants a safe, comfortable and predictable place for his wife and baby to live. He feels it his job to create and defend that place. The law is the means that he applies to his job. We will honor what society collectively requires of us, and if we want to change the requirements we can do so through the mechanisms of democracy. We get a say in how laws are made, and we agree to follow them.
(What of immoral laws? Thoreau, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mandela, Vaclav Havel … civil disobedience … the extreme act of democracy … the necessary change agent treated as criminal in order to correct a criminal society … but Mamet doesn’t go that deeply … no characters in “The Untouchables” earnestly want to change society — the show is about the conflict between the social and the anti-social man, and the conflict between the social and the anti-social in every man —- I want to add “and woman” but this is a very male-centric movie — men are the warriors, it’s their role — and that perspective lacks depth — women are warriors, men are nurturers, testosterone and estrogen flows in every body and gender has become irrelevant — wow, I’m much deeper than Mamet —today it is the individual that matters — we reflect the universe —- masculine and feminine polarity is a fiction — I digress, but I don’t because “The Untouchables” is a story — albeit incomplete — of emerging identity — the battle between social belonging and preserving, and maturing to the full potential of one’s character … Mamet’s screenplay isn’t finished … it’s a provocation which is left to me to work on … and you …)
Costner/Ness is the social man. He gets what he wants in an ordered world, so he wars against disorder. DeNiro/Capone is the anti-social man. He thinks that Costner/Ness is a naif in a fantasy world. He is right to a certain extent. The dramatic arc of the movie involves Costner/Ness losing his naivte. DeNiro/Capone mocks the fairy tale of democracy. He sees all men as corrupt. (He’s right about that.) The law is just a club that some men grab to have power in his estimation. No one is sincere. So DeNiro/Capone uses raw animal power — violence, brashness and cunning.
DeNiro/Capone doesn’t even consider how nice it is to be married. He has no need for society. He is the anti-social man. Society is a fake. The wife doesn’t really love you. The child would kill you if your death gave him a chance to survive or thrive.
I guess Mamet is saying that Costner/Ness, who outfoxes DeNiro/Capone in the end learns that DeNiro/Capone has a point. Society is corrupt. If you fight for the rule of law, you are fighting for a far from perfect thing. Survival is not achieved with innocent faith in law and society. Law and society are conceived in idealism, and maintained and executed in corruption.
A famous line from Sean Connery/Jimmy Malone, an older honest cop who mentors Costner/Ness in the movie: “They send one of yours to the hospital, you send one of theirs to the morgue. That’s the Chicago way.”
The question Mamet raises — if you have to use violence and cunning to defend society and the rule of law, don’t you lose society and the rule of law in the process?
I guess Mamet is a little deeper than I gave him credit for when I started writing this — but still — where is Mamet’s answer? That’s what frustrates me. Where is my answer?
Costner/Ness wasn’t just trying to win out of competitive spirit. He was fighting to defend the ideas and people that were important to him. His commitment became an obsession and his ideas transformed.
Into what?
Costner/Ness descended from innocent purity into the battle of life.
Here is where I get deeper than Mamet — but not deep enough.
Costner/Ness loved the rule of law, society and being married. His love defined him.
His love determined who his friends were, who was indifferent to him, and who hated and attacked him.
Just like you and me, just like everyone.
Costner/Ness worked with his friends.
The indifference of others set the boundaries of Costner/Ness’ life.
Just as we experience the universe in the little stream of our finite destiny.
And Costner/Ness went to war with DeNiro/Capone.
Just as we live in a constant state of war. Some people love us, some hate us, some are indifferent. The indifferent aren’t part of our destiny. The lovers are our destiny. The haters aren’t important unless they attack. Then we have to defend ourselves.
Mamet seems to be darkly — cynically? — saying that when we have to put on our armor and pick up our swords, our enemy haters drag us down. The necessary acts of defense are also acts of self-betrayal — we lose ourselves in the act of saving ourselves — we need to employ the enemies’ ways in order to defeat them.
I’ve recast “The Untouchables.”
Adam Schiff now portrays Eliot Ness
at least in this moment.
Donald Trump is Al Capone.
And yesterday we had the scenes where Schiff/Ness battles Trump/Capone’s devious henchman Frank Nitti, played by Jay Sekulow.
You could see Schiff/Ness quite properly descend into obsessive rage when engaging Nitti/Sekulow.
So far Schiff/Ness has followed the rule of law and society’s rules in pursuit of Trump/Capone.
Schiff/Ness loves society and the rule of law and being married.
Society and the rule of law’s rules aren’t getting the job done.
How will Schiff/Ness protect what he loves?
How far will he go?
How far will we go?
Will we go to war?
What will be the nature of that war?
Will it be bloody like “The Untouchables”?
Or Antietam?
Dear God, I hope not.
Mamet disappointed me because he didn’t answer that question.
I haven’t either.
Yet …
Wait … is there a third way?
Is there a resolution to the conflict of the social and anti-social man or woman?
Authenticity — our character defined by what and who we love is met with love and admiration, indifference and attack. We remain committed, we defend ourselves and we realize that we will never enjoy ultimate victory.
So, for example, in this moment where the rule of law is threatened we will fight but not lose ourselves and remain loyal to our convictions in our darkest hour.
Schiff (not Schiff/Ness) quoted Bobby Kennedy — moral courage is rarer than courage on the battlefield.
Moral courage is what we need now. It’s what we always need. Moral courage is the prerequisite of being truly alive.
Without moral courage we are just going through the motions.
Bobby Kennedy was right. Being truly alive is a rare thing.
But it is getting more common.
Moral courage was common at Dunkirk — the great British moment of World War II was a retreat — the resolution that love of the idea of England was more important than life itself.
We aren’t fully alive until we commit to that fullness.
Give me liberty or give me death.
Integrity brings us love from others.
Integrity is unconcerned with indifference.
Integrity is the ultimate defense against attack. A person of integrity will use whatever power society grants to her to defend herself. She will disobey society if necessary to stand up for her soul. And she will never get into the mud with her attacker. She will personally suffer rather than betray what matters most.
I love the America described by Adam Schiff. I am repulsed by the America described by Trump’s lawyers.
I am going to live in the America Schiff describes — come hell or high water.
I refuse to demean myself by employing Trump’s methods to defeat him.
I accept the reality that what Trump is has always been part of the world. Sometimes that part is noisier than others.
I want no part of that part of the world.
I’ll take Thoreau over ‘Jimmy Malone’s “Chicago Way.”
Thoreau said that most men “live lives of quiet desperation.”
Integrity is the antidote to desperation.
I will stand up to them and not become them.
The point is not to defeat them.
The point is to not let them defeat you.
America is an idea, and it will live as long as you stick with it.
And so is every other true thing about you that some people love, and some people ignore while still others attack you.
Stick with it.
No one can change the nature of your existence unless you let them.
Fortunes can change, but your moral character is your fate.
Don’t worry about high or low or up or down.
The important direction is deep.
Victories, defeats (shrug)
Moral character is what endures.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
2/1/20: Impeachment Silver Lining
It is really depressing
how can people be so heartless
easy to be hard
but as the dog bites
and the bee stings
and I’m feeling sad
I see decency rising
kindness
equality
democracy
We used to just go about our lives
we knew that there were mean and corrupt people out there
but we generally avoided them
then they put babies in prison
and ridiculed us
took our jobs
told us to shut up
raped us
cheated us
walked past us with a condescending air
and told us the way it was going to be
they made us feel stupid
they outmaneuvered us at every turn
because we had no idea how bad they were
and then we woke up
we stopped taking democracy and decency for granted
we started noticing the babies in cages
we saw how much racism hurt
we became better people.
Trump is a scary fascist
but people in general
ordinary people
are nicer than they have ever been
Nice people are hurt
angry
disgusted
afraid
but also
kind
smart
caring
empathetic …
beautiful.
It is not Trump or Mitch McConnell’s country
Your life doesn’t belong to the people who want to make it small
The Republican Party is going to die
Trump and his cronies will be disgraced and punished
America will have a compassion revolution
The past slaveholding, genocidal (Native American Holocaust) country
The country that demeaned my immigrant father
The maniacally consuming country
Insane for success
Violently materialistic
is changing
into a sweet country
sweet
smart
caring
a compassion revolution is coming
our anger is changing to moral outrage
our fear is changing to resolve
our hurt feelings are changing to love for those who suffer with us
our ignorance is turning into voracious passion for knowledge
our distraction is changing into the need to think
to feel
to understand
to act
America has never been worst
and America has never been better
We are at the brink
of dictatorship
or
a New Jerusalem?
It will be the New Jerusalem
Every Christ needs an anti-Christ to give him definition
This Trump/McConnell/Plutocrat oppression
has brought out the best in us
you don’t know what you got til it’s gone
we know now
and we will get it back
and cherish it
we now know what we really are
beautiful.
From the scrolls of NostraThomas.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
2/1/20: The Official Result and True Victory are Often not the Same Thing
Sometimes the less deserving person gets the job
Sometimes the guilty go free
Sometimes the fool out-polls the prophet
Sometimes a fraud is not impeached AND convicted.
Management cares about the official result.
Leaders care about true victory.
Are you a Christian?
Look at the cross.
Portrait of a loser
who won it all.
Third rate people worship the official result.
Mitch McConnell gets the trophy
but Adam Schiff is the people’s champion.
Schiff possesses the hearts of the people
even his adversaries.
McConnell possesses nary a one.
It is easy to see the difference
between raw power and real achievement
on a big stage like an impeachment trial,
but may I make a modest suggestion
trust the rhythm of your heart
in the office
the family room
and the neighborhood
when the person who won laurels and authority
is confronted by someone real.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
2/1/20: We Won the Impeachment Trial
We won the Impeachment Trial. They are completely exposed. People are disgusted. No one can support them by claiming that they are anything other than what they are. The propaganda of the last 40 years — since Reagan changed the country … Citizen’s United … the descent into this bullshit — is over. They are already dead. This last fit of bullying is the death rattle. Schiff gave us two weeks of “Have you no decency, sir at long last?” The shark has been jumped. They used the last of their leverage — the ruse that they had Senators who represented the people and not a handful of corrupt donors. But not anymore. People saw it on TV and connected it to what is happening in their lives. This is the beginning of the end of the right-wing domination of our country. This isn’t optimism. It’s what is happening.
I had hope that Roberts might actively be on our side in the trial. But he made clear that he wasn’t. Then I remembered this is the guy who said racism had ended in America when he overturned the Voting Rights act.
I had hope that there was still a little decency there. The loss of that hope is the seed of victory. The slate has been wiped clean.
Lamar Alexander personifies it. He and they have lost it. They have been so self-serving and corrupt that they can’t remember what America is.
Alexander is incoherent. He’s guilty but I am voting innocent. Why, Lamar? Because it’s better for me. Good luck with that on election day.
It is clear to everyone.
They will cheat in the election — but a tsunami of voters will go to the polls and overcome all of that.
Idiots and rogues will make a lot of noise for them, many will continue to be manipulated, but the true silent majority will get the last word.
I even detect a bit of air going out of the balloon at Trump rallies.
I feel very confident about this.
Getting rid of them — politically and in your head — is like spitting out water after you nearly drowned. It comes out in spurts — sometimes furious, sometimes weakly and finally relieving.
Once you get what someone is trying to do to you, they can’t hurt you anymore. They can’t gaslight us anymore.
The problem isn’t the system. The House Managers and many of their witnesses demonstrated that the system is pretty damn good. The Constitution is pretty damn good.
They revealed that they are the problem. They betrayed America and the morality they’ve made a big show of for decades — for a buck.
It is obvious — so obvious that even people who haven’t paid attention can see it.
We will fight and we will win. I know it.
It’s our country, not theirs. America is an idea, and we have the right one.
What an odd, great feeling to be joyful and victorious at the moment they tried to make you feel inferior and small.
2/2/20: Persist Self-Righteously in the Face of Opposition and Oppression
I originally posted the segment below, To All Things Trump: Just Say a Collective No. It is a Time to be Legitimately Self-Righteous, on December 11, 2016. It is still true today. We will vote in record numbers and get rid of Trump and the Republicans — but this piece speaks to the post-Impeachment nine months in the interim.
I stopped writing about Trump a lot in January 2018. I had said all that I wanted and repeated several points a few times.
I don’t think of my writing about Trump as art — I take my other writing very seriously in that regard. I think of anything that I write about politics as a public service — not that I have all the answers. I just think it is worthwhile to have the thoughts of a relatively powerless ordinary citizen chronicled. The process makes me feel not alone, and I think it performs the same function for some of my readers.
The artistic writing — real writing, I call it — goes deeper than merely being an opinion in response to the news of the day.
I think there is some real writing in this piece if you extend it beyond the political question and into the existential dimension of one’s life.
You know, up until age 30 or so, my life was pretty easy. I pleased parents, teachers, bosses, audiences, peer groups — most people. But around that time who I really was began to emerge. That person was a lot less pleasing. Fatter, smarter, more argumentative.
After 30, when I stopped doing what I was told and started to do what I want, I got a lot of criticism and worse.
They told me I couldn’t do improvisation as an art form instead of in show business. I did it anyway. I went broke and nearly lost my mind, but I did it.
They told me I couldn’t become a lawyer at age 50. I did it anyway. I taught myself how to do trials and won every case I tried.
Because I’m an artist, a spiritual shark I wanted something new to do — a challenge. I decided to teach improvisation to lawyers, a fool’s errand. I got my brains kicked in, financially and emotionally — but I learned a lot which was the point.
The folly led to work as a university professor — my writing and teaching grew enormously in that period, but then my bosses tried to deny me my academic freedom and that job ended.
I lived on savings for a year and half and only recently got the first teaching work that assures me academic freedom and I need more of it.
At every turn, I followed my true artistic calling and got a lot of hassles and a lot of nos — many insults, and people to knock me off track and get me to do what they wanted.
I’m lucky. I get physically ill at the prospect of self-betrayal.
I’m 64 years old now, still working to connect with readers, audiences and students and some people say I’m too old.
I’m just getting started. I am doing better work now than I ever have, and I’ve been good all along.
For years, I was served by my anger. It was really unpleasant and at times exploded into rage (never violence) but I thank God for it. It kept me alive.
I’m not angry anymore. I don’t need the anger.
I know the truth.
I’m an improviser.
I’m a lawyer.
I’m a writer.
I’m a teacher.
Good at all of the above. The work serves my soul and other people. No one can stop me from doing that work. I’ll do it with and for people who see its value.
The naysayers have disappeared. I’ve replaced anger with a selective deafness and blindness. Stupid and mean people are free to live stupid, mean lives. I wish them no ill — they are doing a good job of ailing themselves.
By definition, I do all of these things my own way — guided not by ego but by my values and inspiration that comes from somewhere deep inside of me and somewhere far outside of me.
Now the naysayers are telling me that I am not an American. They are telling me that America is a different place than the place that I was taught it was when I was young.
Fuck them.
I hear people whining in the face of the oppression that is upon us in our current political situation.
I love many of these people, but I don’t respect where they are coming from.
I don’t respect packing it in and giving up when times are hard. I never have done so, so why should I?
I don’t want to tell anyone else what to do, but if you want to keep the real America — live in it. Today. Now. Don’t let Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump tell you where you are living.
Rebel against bosses and social groups who try to trim your sails. Rebel against your own inclination to self-betrayal to gain the praise of people’s whose opinions aren’t worth anything. Rebel against your fears about money and acceptance and survival — and do what’s right — and what’s true.
If you rebel, you will eventually learn what it took me years to learn, if you don’t know it already.
It doesn’t matter if you are up or down, the toast of the town or a pariah. Stick with who you are. All the biographies of great people in any field are about men and women who stayed true to who they are.
Be great.
I’m an American.
Fuck them.
I love the video that accompanies this piece, and I love the source of it, the movie “Nashville” . I first discovered my real writing in this stanza of my life when I wrote a piece about “Nashville.”
This clip is so perfect for this American moment. It’s about what is right — persistence — and what is wrong, the demagogue and the mob.
I think this long preface today is real writing — and now from 2016 — a public service announcement
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
12/11/16: To All Things Trump: Just Say a Collective No. It is a Time to be Legitimately Self-Righteous.
The incoming Trump administration, Trump supporters and the past Trump campaign is a culmination of the decline of American culture and government over the last 35-40 years. Normally a black-or-white reading of any situation is wrong-headed. Real understanding usually requires an eye for nuance and honorable agendas in conflict with one another. You usually can choose sides and maintain respect for those you disagree with.
Not at the moment. All things Trump and related to Trump are evil.
Trump is not truly in charge of his administration. He is a face-man marketing rep who lied to his followers in order to hand over our government to the people who own him. Trump’s presidency is the absurd low point of pay-to-play politics — a cynical abrogation of democracy and a complete elevation of the corporate state. Evil. His election victory is legal but it is not legitimate. CRITICIZE TRUMP EVERYWHERE. WITH YOUR FAMILY. AT WORK. ON LINE. ON STAGES. IN COFFEE SHOPS. YOU HAVE NEVER HAD A CHANCE LIKE THIS TO FEEL MORAL OUTRAGE AND EXPRESS IT EVERYWHERE. DO SO. (Note from 2020 — be unapologetically yourself in thought, word and deed. Don’t worry about offending fascists).
The people who voted for Trump knew that they were voting for evil. I will repeat what I have written before. A dog would know Trump was a bad person. Trump encouraged beatings at his rallies. This would be enough for any decent person to not vote for him. Trump is a bigot. Anyone who voted for him is a bigot too. His words about women, Mexicans, Muslims and others were disgusting. The people who voted for Trump wanted to hurt other people. DON’T REASON WITH TRUMP VOTERS. DON’T SPEND TIME CRITICIZING CLINTON. DON’T SPEND TIME UNDERSTANDING TRUMP VOTERS’ PROBLEMS OR FRUSTRATIONS. TELL THEM THEY DID SOMETHING VERY WRONG. TELL THEM THEY DID SOMETHING TO HURT YOU AND PEOPLE THAT YOU CARE ABOUT. DON’T HAVE A CONVERSATION WITH THEM. TELL THEM OFF. REFUSE TO PUT UP WITH THEIR ATTITUDE. THEY’RE WRONG. PERIOD.
Refuse to cooperate with anything that the Trump administration does. Don’t follow the lead of Democratic legislators who have a different job than you do. They will compromise to accomplish some crumbs of tangible benefit to ordinary people. Bernie Sanders said that the real opposition to Trump will happen at the grassroots. That’s us. (Note from 2020 — I’m for Elizabeth Warren).
WHEN THEY COME AFTER OUR MEDICARE AND SOCIAL SECURITY, THE MINIMUM WAGE, AND OTHER RIGHTS OF WORKERS, WE SHOULD HAVE A GENERAL STRIKE. SHUT DOWN THE WHOLE ECONOMY. WHEN THEY START ILLEGITIMATE WARS OF AGGRESSION FOR CORPORATE PROFITS, ENLISTED SERVICE PERSONS SHOULD REFUSE TO DEPLOY. CITIZENS SHOULD REFUSE TO PAY THEIR TAXES. (note from 2020 — I’m paying my taxes — don’t be recklessly self-destructive about it).
When Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who married into Amway money, attempts to destroy public schools we should withdraw all of our children from schools and refuse to send them back until our schools are properly funded. When President Trump continues to make unconstitutional pronouncements and receive gifts from foreign governments and individuals in clear defiance of the Constitution we should refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of his Presidency. (2020 says amen — wasn’t legitimate then or now).
Every Cabinet appointment points to another assault on our rights, freedoms and well-being. Trump and the people behind and around him are filth. We should not cooperate with these evil people who hate us and delight in our suffering.
Bold free speech is key. In so speaking we refuse to participate in the murderous lies against us.
What is most important is saying no. Rosa Parks was told to sit in the back of the bus and she said no. It was an immoral request. And so began the liberation of a people.
We must say no collectively. They can’t send all of us to jail. Or kill us, which they surely dream of accomplishing. Millions of people are fed up. All together now — NO!
NO — to persuasion.
NO — to cooperation.
What these punks are doing is not right. If we cooperate with them we are their accomplices. In this case, collective moral action is in our collective and individual self-interest.
NO! WE DIDN’T PLAN TO LIVE WITH THIS TRASH VALUE SYSTEM!
NO! THESE PEOPLE AREN’T GOING TO RUIN OUR LIVES!
NO! IT’S THE ONLY ANSWER.
The Congressional Republicans said no in order to block President Obama for their own selfish political and economic interests. Rosa Parks said no because it was the right and dignified thing to do. This is the time for a Rosa Parks NO. (2020 says the Obama blocking in 2016 is the same phenomenon as the Impeachment Sham of 2020. Same shit different day).
and wasn’t called on his shit until a few months ago
The error of his ways was laid out to him
in excruciating detail
for the first time
I feel sorry for him
He gives the little boy’s response
to the realization that his role as mother’s darling has ended
that no one sees him as cute any more
that he has to grow up.
He doesn’t have a chance
The Republican donors
pass their money through McConnell’s spigot
They use Trump
who knew?
they laugh
who knew that this asshole would deliver us
all the riches we lust for.
I feel sorry for Trump
Everyone talks about how people fear him
He is the one who fears
He wakes up every day
in the most important job in the world
paralyzed
knowing deep down that he isn’t up to it
seeing no way out
Trump lives in a slow rolling nervous breakdown
I feel sorry for him
He melts before our eyes
Projecting his immaturity
which has grown into a cancer
upon all who really care about him
The best thing for Trump would be to surrender the Presidency
Go to jail
Show his bald gray head
and his pale skin
sit alone in a room
and become a man
I believe in redemption
but for Trump it’s possibility comes too late
his tragedy has become our own
He should have been a comedian
or a salesman
He should have used his skill to work a crowd to do no more
I feel sorry for Trump
the ersatz boss
the weak tough guy
the man who never knew love
was never taught how to love
the pawn of greed
melting before our eyes
I feel sorry for Trump
so pathetic
impotent
and sad.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
2/7/20: Glossary of Power
Power — all that matters Money — the scorecard Free Press — propaganda, public relations, mass mind control The Law — a weapon to use against your enemies Democracy — a con for the suckers to make them think they matter and manipulate them as an army to get what you want The Military — the means of acquisition of resources framed in a fairy tale of “honor” to keep the suckers in line Politics — a veneer of public relations for the suckers coating dark influence horse trading of a cunning few Friend — someone you can leverage to get power Enemy — a competitor for your power History — an irrelevancy to be manipulated as a phony story useful in public relations Truth — doesn’t exist, a tool used by sanctimonious enemies in attempts to take or gain power Love — a pretty word signifying something that doesn’t exist Patriotism — bullshit that is often useful in the mobilization of suckers Knowledge — something to be used or attacked depending if it is useful in getting what you want Ritual — a joke that no one wants to dress up for, something to be mocked Sex — rest and recreation, the fruits of victory, a weapon to be used against competitors Hypocrisy — who cares, consistency only matters for a minute Existential meaning — who cares, a waste of time, power is all that matters
Trump lives by this glossary, but he is not the first. He knows the people are aware of this fact. He seethes because he is the one “who got caught.” He feels justified because he is the outer borough trash who forced his way into the party. This is the meaning of his “populism.” The establishment follows the glossary of power, and their high minded words cover up the pursuit of power that they do in genteel rooms. The Great Liar believes that he is actually the most honest man in the world. he speaks the the roughness and crudity of the working trash who have to bully and fight for every morsel that drops from the table of power. And the working trash, proud of that designation, admire him as the man who took on the establishment and won.
The great opportunity and peril of our time is the task to preserve and defend our birthright to make a more perfect union.
I personally believe all of the American ideals that I was taught as a little boy.
I believe that we can restore power to its first definition — effectiveness in achieving the dictates of love …
But then again, I’m just an aging poet in control of only my own destiny.
The call of heroism falls to you.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
2/8/20: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” MLK
The Women’s March
Journalistic and Legal Investigations
Tax, Emoluments, Sex and other scandals
The Muslim Ban
Foreign and domestic disinformation campaigns through social media and propaganda channels masquerading as journalism
The Tax Cut for the rich
Leaving the Paris Accords, the denial of, and the exacerbation of climate change
The attack on public education and the encouragement of fraud in for-profit schools
The denial of the fact of income inequality and economic injustice in America
The end of Department Injustice prosecutions related to police misconduct, racially motivated and otherwise
The attempt to repeal Obamacare
Gorsuch and Kavanaugh (the unjust aftermath of Garland)
The Cultural Divide — some identify with the Constitution and democracy, some identify with raw power
The mainstreaming of phony legal and political philosophies asserting absolute Presidential power, unchecked by Congress or the courts (Dershowitz and Barr)
Trump’s continuing dismantling of the Obama legacy, the social safety net and government regulations — government for sale to the highest bidders
Trump’s attack on the alliances that sustain the Free World
Trump’s sympathy and collusion with dictators
Trump’s continuing attacks on U.S. diplomats, law enforcement and intelligence professionals and the integrity of the military
Trump rallies filled with invective
Trump’s incitements of violent acts
Charlottesville
Emboldened white nationalists
Cruelty towards refugees at the Southern border including infants
A pattern of criminality, indecency and incompetence
The Mueller Report
Barr’s Distortion of the Mueller Report
Criminal convictions of several close Trump associates
The House Judiciary Committee’s Unsuccessful Hearings re: the Mueller Report
The Ukraine Conspiracy
Trump’s blanket obstruction of Congressional oversight
Schiff’s investigation
Impeachment led by Pelosi
The Republican Senate Caucus’ (minus Mitt Romney) corrupt acquittal of Trump
The Republican Party’s betrayal of America in complete supplication to Trump at the behest of their donors for money and political power
Trump’s 2020 State of the Union address, a dictator’s polemic is praised in the press and Trump gets his highest approval rating of 49%
Trump attacks Pelosi, Schiff and Romney at the 2020 National Prayer breakfast
Trump outlines his agenda of revenge related to his impeachment at a White House “celebration” the day after his acquittal.
The Iowa Democratic Party screws up the Caucus vote count
The Democratic Presidential candidates give a strong collective performance at their debate four days before the New Hampshire Primary, prosecuting a case against Trump and offering positive ideas to serve the desires, needs and values of the American people
The 2020 election’s security is in question given fears of foreign interference, domestic dirty tricks, and voter suppression and repression
and God knows what evils have been covered up by darkness, depriving us of awareness of all specific information and evidence
America’s Constitution, laws, ideals, culture and values have been under attack by Trump and the Republican Party.
Our laws, ideals, culture and values are always under attack, and weren’t in very good shape prior to the rise of Trump and Mitch McConnell.
Citizen’s United is one of the worst decisions of the Supreme Court, on par with the Dred Scott decision. The Trump nightmare is the whirlwind that Citizen’s United has reaped.
A cabal of rich Republican donors have achieved a hostile takeover of that party and much of America’s wealth and power.
America has always been a contest between freedom and democracy and community, and greed and authoritarianism. We have seen worse times than Trump. The Civil War and the Viet Nam era (including the struggles for even basic rights for African-Americans at that time) were worse.
The times now, however, are pretty bad — the climax of a regression toward greed and power that began with the election of Ronald Reagan.
And Democrats were not immune from applying power to the diminishment of American justice, freedom and morality.
However, I am hopeful. The arc of American history tends toward progression. Slaves were freed. Women got the vote. Immigrants participated in economic and political power.
What is good about America won’t die, unless we let it …
and we won’t let it because we never have.
Through all of the pain since Trump was elected, we have been fighting
in the courts
in Congress
even in the Executive Branch
in the streets
in the family room
at the water cooler
and online.
Eleanor Roosevelt said that no one can make you feel inferior unless you let them do so.
As long as you keep good America alive in your heart,
and assert it’s reality and defend it
without hesitation
fearlessly
and at the right time
in the moment that it is challenged
it
you
and we
will be OK.
Dark America tries to intimidate
scare
distract
and confuse.
But you know who and what they are
and who and what we are
Good America will not die.
Hang in there
we will be OK
and when this Trump thing is finally over
we’ll be better than ever
improved
and ready to eliminate the root causes
of Dark America.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
I next took a hiatus from writing and respond to the political moment. My opinion-driven blog posts are more skillfully written than they were in years past, but they are not real writing, so they are not included here.
Poetry returns.
2/23/20: Courage #poetry
I know a young woman who comes from a very nice family — religious, conservative, hard-working and kind.
The young woman was always perceived as troubled — shy and afraid of everything.
She was diagnosed as a schizophrenic. She joined a support group.
She loves poetry.
She is “out” now as a bisexual.
She is seeing someone.
She is agnostic.
She is an individual … thousands of miles from whence she came.
The timid, fearful one has turned out to be one of the most courageous people that I have ever known.
It is time that the simple act of being herself should not require such extraordinary bravery.
We, the rest of us, have an obligation to make the world safe for democracy …
to make the world safe for her.
She is our leader.
Our greatness lies far away from our conformity
rooted in our individuality
our scars and our passions
and in inclusive community.
Ignorance is not a matter of intelligence.
It is a question of character.
God help us if we can’t be moved.
The world cries out for leaders.
They are right before our eyes.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
And then political blogging roars back.
And then politics informs poetry, a simple snapshot of the onset of the pandemic.
3/8/20: What Did We Learn This Week? #poetryWe learned that women are human beings.We learned that doctors and scientists know more about pandemics than criminals and salesmen.We learn that every time we try to advance collectively we experience a powerful pushback of stupidity and lousiness.We learned that each public injustice and ignorance hurts us personally because we have spent much of our lives being adversely affected by injustice and ignorance.We learned that there is a huge disconnect between our ideas and values, and the spiritual and emotional content of our lives, and the cesspools that too many other people live in.I have tried so hard to insulate myself from stupid and selfish and mean. But there is no escape. All I wanted to do was vote for Elizabeth Warren in the Illinois Primary. I would’ve enjoyed it. I can’t because of stupid, unjust and mean.I just wanted to enjoy early Spring. I love early Spring. This year I have wear a Hazmat suit to avoid a plague.And then I have to deal with all the memories of when I’ve been personally demeaned, or treated unfairly or had my will frustrated by colossal ignorance. Every public event, every societal participation is a Passion Play. We see our inner lives and individual biographies in the big events and personalities that touch us all.The best person won’t be President, and I can’t even vote for her.I can’t enjoy Spring.Two things that cost no money — voting my values and enjoying Spring — two things that used to be givens — big and nice parts of my life — are RUINED RUINED RUINED by the stupid, the unjust and the mean.I have my wife, my writing, my teaching and my friends. They can’t ruin those things.I’d like my freedom back, but I don’t know how to get it.I tried anger — futile.I tried ignoring them and just doing my thing — but they always come around RUINING something …Their cascade of insultstheir idiotic assertionstheir cockeyed prioritiesin stark contrast to love and learning and human potential and art.I have a bad habit in my writing of always working to some sort of answer. I can’t help it.Today’s answer is in the very things that are worthwhile — focus and commitment to those things.And I guess I know that you just have to deal with the assholesit’s just that I’m sick of it.They insult us as losers in a ploy to steal our lunch money, but our real frustration is not that we fail to get what we want out of life, it’s that we can’t figure out a way to get rid of them.Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
I started teaching my course and the writing suffered again. The writing requires my full devotion. It’s a big thing. I can’t share myself with the problems of students and the petty frustrations of institutions. The writing was really outstanding and then it was pulled down. I don’t mind the opinionated blog posts as much. I’m just being a citizen, and the digressions don’t hurt my work.
The road back …
3/13/20: Alone in Community #Poetry #social-distancing
Everything that I ever did
Everywhere I ever went
I always felt like a man or a boy or a person
apart
never one of the gang
always the outlier
surrounded by laughing people,
busy people,
focused people,
people I often liked,
some made me nervous
they seemed to hate me and I didn’t know why
some made no impression upon me at all
faceless extras in a movie in need of a good editor
(I did before the pandemic — it’s just the way I am)
There is nothing anymore
No money
No social standing
Just people off on islands
mostly equipped with walkie talkies
and libraries of all the books and songs and movies ever made
accessible in most homes
Your brain
Your heart
and the history of creativity
that’s all you got
You can’t fear anything
You’ll either die or make it
You can’t desire anything
It’s all out of reach
You don’t owe anyone any service
Society just wants you to stay home
You are free
and maybe
if you are lucky
you won’t get sick
and the government will support you for months.
When this finally ends
and we emerge from our catacombs
stiff-legged and squinting into the sunlight
everything will be different
society will be different
the nature of work will be different
the earth itself will be a little cleaner
all those parked cars and planes let out no exhaust for months
but most of all
you will be different
a new person
your freedom from all that chaotic activity
connected you to real action
you got to know yourself
the passages of your mind
the rhythms of your heart
the deep eddies of your soul
all inventoried and catalogued.
Every revolution that you ever wanted on the earth’s face
will be evident on yours.
Of course, most of you won’t do anything like that.
Some of you will get high, masturbate and play video games for months on end
Some of you will be filled with duty every day
Thrilled that you got the chance to be like the Greatest Generation
Addicted to duty in avoidance of reality
But those of you who are always dissatisfied
who chafe at orders
who wonder
wonder
wonder
wonder
wonder
wonder
The Pandemic is a time of wonder
Your self-portrait is a mural of the world.
The disgraced comedian
who sits in prison
maybe contemplating the jigsaw of his corrupted mind heart and soul
an old man wondering what happened
may find a new world.
The now-despised comic once asked
a wonder-full
question
“Noah, how long can you tread water?”
For the humans blessed by the existential opportunity of the pandemic
the answer
is crystal clear …
As long as it takes.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
Separating from business …
3/22/20: How to Succeed WITHOUT Business Without Really Trying #poetry #passion #survival #love #economy
From personal experience
From recent personal experience
Let me begin with a qualifier
I have nothing against business
My later life has been financed by business schools
and what is business
when practiced by decent people
normal people
not perverse or psychotic people
not larcenous condescending mad men
not men who raise competition to social pathology
but just normal people
whose only sin is that they confuse their fearful building of homes and stocked pantries and school tuitions and health care savings accounts
as morality
as the first thing
and the only thing that they worry about
who let their responsibilities as informed citizenry atrophy
and their spiritual lives devolve into superficiality
turning their churches into social clubs with auxiliaries
raising money and playing bingo
indifferent to art
a quick tour of a museum once a year when the grandkids come to town
will suffice
or, mostly,
not at all
the sugar high of marketing
disguised as entertainment
flattering their quietly desperate lives
Paying bills
Feeling compromised
Having a little fun
Indulging in a few bad habits
living and dying
one not much different from another
Spectators
programmed to follow
what to do
what to value
how to feel about everything
proscribed in an employee handbook
delivered at birth
Dying in wars prematurely
or succumbing to early deaths
never questioning the power lines in their sub-division
Suspicious of any one who cries “injustice!”
Chastising and mocking
anyone who breaks from the herd
and charts a new independent course
occasionally romanticizing such mavericks
but disappearing when the cock crows three times
Human Sacrifices
on the Altar of Business
to the Great God Money
Subservient to the rich man
Grateful for crumbs off his table
Ecstatic when Scrooge emerges with an occasional Christmas Turkey.
You may be a bit depressed at this picture of a world imprisoned by mortal and venial sin
But I know a secret
I’ve seen it myself
It has happened to me
It is happening to me now
and always has, whether I’ve known it or not
When you love
love — the pure energy of creation
that’s what love is
it makes things
and it makes things important
it is the source of all true action
and all real meaning
when you love
God will provide
He turns the world into a field of abundance
Old friends show up to support you
New friends emerge
Your bills get paid
you can’t always get what you want
but you get what you need
God will not support your mediocre desire for fame and fortune
Business does that
and business always fails that too
The market is a big casino
God runs an art gallery
God will not support your need to escape fear
and aggrandize yourself above others
He will support your need to be you
A long ago poet owned a print shop
he fashioned poems and drawings
and taught on the side
There were holes in his bathrobe
but he never worried
he never starved
he went to his death singing
blessed not with success
but with achievement
We are God’s hands
We are not Gods
We are the front line of his Creation
born to extend His work on the edges of his universe
He cares for us as long as we do His assigned Work
He whispers to us
in our guts
our hearts
our heads
our souls
He tells us what to do
He tells us who we are
He even tells some of us to do business
and makes money their artistic medium
but he doesn’t mistake the implement for the work
Our security is not in our good or bad economies
Our security lies within our souls
GOD WILL PROVIDE
God
not business
or money
or the boss
or competition
or success
or fear
or power over others
The Source of All Abundance
overwhelms the Root of All Evil
if you let it.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
Teaching plus politics equals talk and no real writing.
A rant tending toward poetry crawls out weakly from beneath the weight of teaching and blog posting. This is a period of regression for the blog. I get the thread of real writing and then life steps in — a class as an adjunct professor, an election, a pandemic … and I step away …
The real writer in me has gained resilience over time. Poetry returns as the calendar changes to April.
4/1/20: Killing Us #Poetry #Pandemic
Killing us
Narcissism is killing us
A new father wants to witness the birth of his child
He knows he has symptoms
He knows he’s been exposed
He doesn’t disclose
He infects his wife
He panics the maternity ward
He contaminates a sacred place
He compromises many lives
because he is an immature child himself
He just had to be there
and he is killing us
Trash capitalism is killing us
The office manager pushes his peons to stay in their cubicles to the bitter end
one of them that I know gets sick
what happens to the others
It’s killing us
Every person who thinks that money is more important than other people’s lives
be they Presidents, Governors, Rich, Middle-Class or Poor
Everyone who drank the kool-aid of an immoral economic system
is killing us
Everyone who ever insulted or mocked “losers”
who humiliated other people
the rapists, the thugs, the bullies
everyone who lived for greed and power and not love
is killing us
That attitude is the reason that doctors, nurses and other health care workers
go into battle without body armor or guns
Lambs to the slaughter
is killing us
Anyone who said government was a bad thing
actually argued against civilization itself
those people are killing us
Health insurance companies that made a right into a commodity
and created a culture where we accepted that people could be allowed to die if they didn’t have the means to survive
are killing us
Prisons run for profit
crowded to the rafters
breeding grounds of death
devaluing human lives
figuring out a way to make a buck off of lost people
instead of helping them
are killing us
The idea that soldiers should die not for our freedom
but rather for the profits of oil companies and contractors
is killing us
Religious fanatics said that the AIDS epidemic was God’s punishment of homosexuals
A vile violent sentiment
We are experiencing an American Holocaust
not as God’s punishment
But as the logical outcome
of all that is killing us
including religious fanaticism
A “Christian” University keeps its dorms open and creates a death cluster in its surrounding area
Killing us
A state leaves its beaches open far beyond the time they should be closed
Killing us
A mayor wants to encourage local business and goes out for a drink and visits a health club on the eve of shutting down all activity
sending a mixed message and killing us
Lemmings form large crowds at a harbor to view a hospital ship coming into port
and creating more sick people to overburden the hospitals of the city that the ship was sent to relieve
Our greed
our resentment
our stupidity
our narcissism
our selfishness
our bowing to authority
our choice of some crude definition of success as opposed to what’s right
our lack of community
OUR TOLERANCE OF ALL OF THE ABOVE
are killing us
Our choice is clear now
either we individually and collectively commit to human decency
or we won’t survive
When we get through all of this
things must be different
Germany admitted its sins after World War II
and flourished in the aftermath
Our darkness is much trickier than Nazism
Madison Avenue and Hollywood are the greatest propaganda agencies ever made
We have been brainwashed to be
selfish
materialistic
“I consume therefore I am ”
“It is worse to be poor than to be a criminal”
“Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing”
We turned our ambition into a national religion
and we disregarded what matters
What matters being unattended for forty years
is killing us
If you don’t think that a nurse is infinitely more important than a salesman
you are
killing us.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
And an excellent poem, as good as anything that I have ever written, emerges …
4/4/20: Death Terrors #poetry
I’m not afraid of dying
I’m afraid of suffocating
I’m not afraid of dying alone
I know I’ll die alone
My mother died alone
I saw her the afternoon before
But she was alone
Alone in her dementia
Alone in her sleep
She didn’t want to die at first
She cried like a baby
She yelped like a puppy
She was such a little thing
Four feet long
ninety pounds
but then she changed
she accepted her death
she didn’t fight it
she mustered a smile for me
one last look of tenderness
and drifted to sleep
The next morning
early
I got the call that she was gone
My father was more stoic
He knew that he was dying
He settled his affairs
He forgave his enemies
He told everyone what he felt about them
On the night he died
as reported to me
I wasn’t there
My mother came to him and asked him to eat
He said that’s over now
He kissed her and stroked her arm
and asked her to go into the other room
They knew he was going to die that night
She did as he asked
and he died alone on his bed
We all die alone
I’m not afraid of dying
I’m not afraid of dying alone
We all die alone
I’m afraid of suffocating
My aunt just died
She lived alone
all by herself
in an independent living facility
depending on the kindness of strangers
and unlike Blanche DuBois
she found that kindness
a nurse
a neighbor
an estates attorney
a banker
and in the end an undertaker
tended to her needs
She knew she would die soon
“I’m 95 years old” she’d say with a laugh
She wasn’t afraid to die
but she was disappointed at the end
she said “I didn’t want it to be this way”
I don’t know what dissatisfied her
She was buried during the pandemic
Anonymously
like everyone else
our faces are illusions
they disappear as our breath
diminishes to nothing
My brother and I couldn’t take the trip to where she died
Death prohibits all travel
Death is a stay in place situation
Motion ends
Still blindness prevails forever
Life is an opportunity to imagine meaning
and for a time to think that our imaginings are real
then penultimately to recognize our own illusions
and then to die
The only thing that matters
the only thing
was in my mother’s weak tender look at me
on her death bed
the only thing is care and kindness
We are all alone
24/7
in life and in heaven
we live alone and die alone
We are all as solitary as a COVID-19 casualty
struggling for her last breaths in a crowded hospital hallway
we suffer and we are alone
and even those who we perceive closest to us
will ask us to leave the room when they die
we are solitudes
planets revolving about each other
and the only thing that counts
is our tenderness towards each other in our mutual solitudes
our understanding that the other lives and dies alone
and is afraid of suffocating
I’m afraid of suffocating
My aunt’s funeral was a professional affair
Her body tended by a priest, her nurse and the undertaker
That’s it
It seems a life should be noticed more when it passes
I don’t know why I feel that way
I don’t know what difference it makes
My aunt died alone like everybody else
I’m preoccupied by nature’s terrors
and man’s perverse ignorance and cruelties
and gravitate toward those who love
and try to love myself and others
belatedly
I’m not afraid of dying alone
I’m afraid of suffocating
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
4/6/20: Waves #poetry
It’s not nearly over
There is no end in sight
What’s natural comes in waves
ebbs and flows
crests and flattens
once something is introduced it never goes away
it seizes our attention
and fades
it only surprises us
because of our denial
we want things to be a certain way
we enjoy ideologies and fairy tales
but nothing that we believe
alters the phases of the moon
the changes of the seasons
the imperceptible evolution of day to night
people die
species die
worlds seemingly end
but life endures
rising to divine consciousness
descending to protozoan existence
Our greatest terrors and comforts
can be tracked mathematically on a heart monitor.
Constancy of change.
Only one type change is voluntary —
the change of our perception.
We can define the world as a static place
and calcify our fear;
we can falsely define a world without waves
and think we have all of the answers.
The virus will come in waves
we won’t ride out a brief hardship
and get back to normal
waves wash away what was once normal
we will never relate to each other as we once did
our politics and economy will never be the same
our relationship to life and death will never be the same
the evil and good responses to the waves of the Great Depression and World War II
the welfare state, and fascism and hyper-capitalism and social democracy
are anachronisms
the prescriptions for the ailments of an older world
which has been changed
by the waves.
The waves erode our world
and transform it
and we must adapt.
We will unite and care for each others fundamental needs,
discarding the fictional distinction of rich and poor
recognizing that we are all one
or we can turn on one another
see each other as an enemy
and compete
granting survival only to those most willing and able to kill.
There is always an argument
between recognizing waves
and denying them
between surveying the changes the waves have brought to the world
and denying those changes
between jealously holding the illusions of past realities close to our chests
and making our lives
sacraments of sacrifice
for one another.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
4/7/20: Bad Dream #poetry#Trump#Pandemic#democracyI had a bad dream last night, that the country was stuck in a virus plague, and no one could go outside, and people were dying and the government made sure they didn’t get an accurate count of their numbers for propaganda reasons, and the economy stopped, and the President was an orange gorilla who did nothing about it, and did red assed insult comedy that made everyone upset while doctors, and admirals and other big shots had to stand around him and kiss his ass, and the whole world was affected by the plague but the US did the worst job of it, and there was 47% of the American people who loved the orange gorilla despite all evidence to the contrary, and evidence and facts didn’t matter any more and people just made shit up to get away with other shit, and the gorilla was really good at it, and elections were all fucked up by bad people who wanted to control the result to elect other gangsters like the orange gorilla, and everyone was scared and frustrated and trying to cope, and there was no known vaccine yet for the virus or the gorilla, and it would take a long time to get both.I’m still dreaming.Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
Trump and his administration and supporters caused an unmitigated plague and a depression and they are not intellectually or morally capable, and lack the necessary expertise to address the conditions of those tragedies or lead any type of recovery. They lie to protect their own interests, and plunder our treasury and resources instead of addressing our needs. They must be excised from our body politic in total. This is not tribalism. This is not ideology. This is not the natural competing interests in a democracy. This is tyranny. And it must be stopped — by us.
Who wants war?
No good person wants war
Most people don’t want to suffer
Most people don’t want to be bothered
But Trump
and what Trump represents
will not be defeated in a debate or an election
it can’t be compromised with
it can’t be tolerated in certain localities
we can’t acquiesce to it’s directives
we must stop it’s influence on our lives
in total
it has invaded our existence
in a virulent way
It must be defeated
the way slavery was defeated
the way Nazism was defeated
the Civil War and World War II are the templates for our current time of need
As in both those instances
we face enemies
who are criminals
and otherwise lawless
immoral
unconcerned with ethics
indecent
and engaged in words and deeds reprehensible and offensive to the human conscience
They observe no rules
They have no sense of fair play
Their objective is to dominate and subjugate
They care nothing for our health, welfare, security or very lives
They oppress, torment and murder the weak
and come for us
They are nihilists given over to evil
as much as any Southern slaveowner or German Nazi war profiteer was
People such as this need to be stopped, punished and rehabilitated
The Civil War and World War II are considered “good wars”
as horrible and morally confused as they were
I hold out hope for non-violent passive resistance
Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. won wars like that
Eastern European nations overthrew Soviet aggression like that
That may be a way
But one way or another
Trump, the zenith of all that is ugly and wrong in the American character
and all who support him, emulate him and further his aims
Must be forced to stand down.
There is no way that they will do it on their own.
This means war.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
4/8/20: This is Easy for Me; She Suffers #poetry #love
This is easy for me
She suffers
I live in my mind
I have rejected the world
And the world has rejected me
Long ago
What matters to me is what I see
the world is my subject
and sometimes I depart my body and soul and mind
and take a look at myself
as a distant and alienated and separate thing
and I say what I feel
about me
and the world
in words
and the words become my world
It’s just the way it is
and I accept it
But she loves the world
she’s part of it
The world is not her subject
it is her partner
she smiles all the time
and says words like
“friend”
and “community”
she is thrilled to answer the telephone
genuinely excited to hear from others
she laughs warmly at pictures of babies and old ladies and young women and kind men and dogs
she misses all of them
touching them
being in proximity to them
she misses tables
and conference rooms
shared meals
and shared ideas
I have her all to myself
and at first I very much liked it
But now I am sorry she is sad
I feel her sadness as if it were my own
Damn her!
She’s made me participate in the world
But she is kind
she doesn’t demand that I stay
she knows I have a positive escape
and that makes me happy.
She wants nothing but the best for everyone
I married goodness.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
4/11/20: Thanks, Coronavirus! #poetry
The air is clearing up
Combustion engines on pause
Smokestacks just stacks
Thanks, Coronavirus!
Someone on TV suggests that we should have another lockdown to end climate change
Thanks, Coronavirus!
People are starting to respect the black and brown people who work at the grocery store
Thanks, Coronavirus!
Everybody is talking straight and honest like old people who know they are going to die and don’t give a shit anymore
Thanks, Coronavirus!
Who needs this fucking economy
and its mass acquisition of useless shit
and mass anxiety about how to pay for the shit
and selfish morons in charge
and the ridiculous adulation of those ignorant assholes
The ownership society?
You own a plague, shitheads
You organized how we do things and it is inadequate
People who stock grocery store shelves are more important than you
and that line is not poetic license
Thanks, Coronavirus!
I don’t “relax” at the movies anymore
Never will again
Wasting my time
paying fifteen bucks for a sack of popcorn
and diet soda served in a vat
watching some calculated piece of marketing
diverting me from …
what exactly
inside of a drafty filthy converted warehouse
serviced by acne-faced kids who should be home tending to their learning disabilities
Thanks, Coronavirus!
The iO Theater is shut down
and so are all the other “improv” shops
The plague hit them like the asteroids hit the dinosaurs
Hopefully they will never return
and improvisation will come back in a less crude and stupid form
Thanks, Coronavirus!
Real music and real art are more important
They aren’t just background noise
People really listen
There’s nothing else to do
and people change because of it
Thanks, Coronavirus!
and all of the hack commercial shit is exposed
what was once unconsciously annoying
is five-alarm PLEASE TURN THIS SHIT OFF annoying
Thanks, Coronavirus!
And I’m more honest with myself
I’m not appropriately sad
as expected when anyone
anyone at all gets sick and dies
I don’t feel bad that Boris Johnson is sick
serves the motherfucker right
and I don’t worry about the bad karma of wishing anyone ill
I don’t wish him ill
I don’t wish him suffering
but I wouldn’t mind if he was gone
He has caused a lot of suffering
I figure I get some karma points for wanting justice
Thanks, Coronavirus!
There’s a lot of hand-wringing about whether the world will be the same when the plague is over
I fucking hope not
Who needs what America has become
Thanks, Coronavirus!
If the rich motherfuckers use their leverage to steal relief money
don’t forgive debt
and basically don’t torment the rest of us to collect to keep their shitty wealth
that does no one any good
including them
keeping money from shit we really need
to finance their condescension and boorishness
the rich have no taste
in their stick-up-the-ass clubs and restaurants
dying slow deaths from the secondhand smoke of tasteful interior design
while people who want to be educated, and healthy and human
always have a looming pressure over their heads
a gold-plated tyranny
If the rich don’t get their shit together
If the rich don’t stop being the rich as we know them
and they push us to unbearable extremes
we are going to have a revolution
Thanks, Coronavirus!
Thanks, Coronavirus!
for the re-emergence of skepticism
in ordinary people who never paid attention to the news
you kinda wanna know a proper death count
Thanks, Coronavirus!
Coronavirus is a barbaric instrument of human sacrifice
all the people worthy of life and love taken before their time
but it also is killing some evil assholes
and putting some stupid shit out of business
and giving us a chance, just a chance to do better
giving society a mulligan
We probably won’t take it
and fall back in the same worthless lines waiting for the same worthless shit
jerking off and liking it and paying $200 like boss man wants us to
So, Thanks, Coronavirus!
and fuck us.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
4/11/20: I Felt Nothing #poetry #art #death
An artist goes into a wheat field
and gets lost in eternity
contemplating each grain
reproducing its image
with brush and knife
expressing the intersection of truth
between the grain and the artist
living a life foreign to most people
artists are nature’s oddities
chosen by God to speak for Him
or Her
Half human and half angel.
when the artist comes home from the field
his superpowers
or hers
recede into remission
and a feckless
quite helpless human being remains
the intense sensitivity that creates masterpieces
becomes a source of extreme pain.
The pain is delivered by minor, inconsequential and ignored figures
when the artist is in the field
who become ogres of destruction when the artist is unguarded in practical life.
Dismissive whores
hissing crowds
the artist is a frankenstein
pursued by the townsfolk
the ridicule of salesmen
the betrayal of false friends who turn on the artist as soon as they realize what he is
and hate how it challenges them
the worst are the Judases who know the artist’s worth
and hate how it reminds them of the insignificance
that they are too cowardly to discard
and perhaps not blessed with the talent to be able to
and hating the artist because of their envy for his gift.
The artist is oblivious to all this hate and ridicule and skepticism and envy
There is only he and the subject of his painting
enveloped in the eternal embrace of God
but when the artist goes home
to have dinner
and sleep
and pay the bills
and grab a little bit of entertainment
and human companionship
even God can get tiresome
art is work after all
the artist wants a break
when the artist returns to the world of only three dimensions
the toxic destructive people swarm him
or her
and he
or she
has to learn
containment
How can I take a good shit
and protect my jewel
the rare thing that God bestowed on me
how do I protect myself from the toxic cancerous creeps who approach me
who could destroy my connection to eternity
and lower me to simply a broken down failure
who can’t care for himself
or herself
and is of no use to anyone
(his or her art is of the most use — art is paradoxically the most useful thing in the world — the artist gets to live in the world)
?
Every once in a while
one of the toxic tormentors
the malevolent people that want to destroy the artist
and all of his
or her
art
dies.
They die.
And the artist doesn’t feel sorrow
and doesn’t feel relief
doesn’t feel liberated
doesn’t feel safe
doesn’t feel happy
doesn’t feel sad
doesn’t feel justified
doesn’t feel shame
doesn’t fill with memory
pleasant or bad
doesn’t reflect on lessons learned
doesn’t feel something important happened
doesn’t feel like going to the funeral
doesn’t feel upset at phony eulogies for goodness that never was.
What was subjective and painful
becomes objective and clear.
I don’t mourn some deaths
I don’t celebrate them either
at certain points all of the foes and villains in my life die
and become nothing more
than objective facts
of irrelevant
history.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
4/14/20: The American Economy, a Eulogy #poetry
The house burned down
We have to build a new house
No one is going back to the movies for a long time
It’ll take more than a green light from a governor to get people to go back to a movie theater
No one is going to a ballgame of any kind
Maybe we will watch them on TV from empty stadia
No one is going to a restaurant or a bar
or the theater
forget plays
or concerts
Improv is dead
The kids who paid $5 a beer to watch those dumb shows
and paid hundreds of bucks to take those dumb classes
used to work in restaurants
They won’t have the money
even if they are stupid enough to want to go sit in the improv petrie dish for hours on end
which I fear that they are
Television production will survive — people want to be entertained
So will recorded music
So long mega-churches — where’s your Messiah now? (just kidding — but seriously — fuck off)
Comedy clubs? You died in the nineties of natural causes
I have to admit, I like seeing the toe tag put on stupid
American factories will look like medieval torture chambers for a time
or Roman slave ships
exhausted people dying beside assembly lines
their bodies tossed into refrigerated trucks or furnaces
Eventually capitalism will be overthrown
It’s on its last legs
when labor markets make human life a commodity, they’ve gone too far
they are only possible in the desperate, ignorant outer reaches of the earth
like Texas and South Dakota
Farmers who grew food for commercial buyers
like restaurants, hotels and schools
will destroy their crops to keep prices reasonably high
until the government steps in
and tells them to retool for food banks and grocery stores
another marketplace destroyed
The idea that free markets solve every problem is idiotic
I don’t care how many Nobel Prizes it received
Schools won’t reopen until we have national testing
that gets ironclad results
until we know who is infected and who is not
and exactly who is going to administer these tests?
the current Administration?
Lord Corrupt Dumb Fuck and his Ass-Licking Minions?
We gave up on government, remember?
We gave up on government
and the rights of labor
and education
and human rights
Everyone got their gun and their TV set
and alternated between blowing shit up
and zoning out
The poor died first
they always do
we didn’t notice
because at one time
this country had leaders that did a lot of the right things
They came out of the Depression and World War II
and said, we don’t want that shit again
But they eventually died of a natural causes
and their spoiled kids took over the companies
It is often said that FDR saved capitalism
by introducing regulation and a social safety net
FDR saved capitalism from itself
But nothing can save capitalism now
capitalism has disrupted the natural harmony of the world
killing the ecology
or making it filthy
and we have become prey to a virus born
in a diseased Chinese bat
our bars and restaurants and improv clubs are closely connected
to that dead bat
and now they are dead too
They are going to have to eventually forgive all of the student loans
No one is going to be able to pay them
and if people can’t pay them, they’ll have what little money they have sucked away from them
to pay the student loans partially
minimally and partially
to the point where the creditor isn’t making money, but is just proving a point
a ritualistic shaming of the sin of not being a capitalist
“we’ll give you money so that you have capital to go out and make money and then maybe someday you’ll be in the same position, but we know many of you will fail and then we will exploit you and work you to death and suck every dime out of your pathetic change purse —WE WIN! I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!”*
*By the way — the wife of the guy who made that milk shake movie does shitty corporate commercials
NO ONE ESCAPES! THERE IS NO WAY OUT! WE SAIL ON A SHIP OF FOOLS! A VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED!
and THE BORROWERS won’t be able to buy anything else
let alone invest in anything ELSE
We’ll have to have universal health care
if you die, I die — get it
It’s not just a New Age poster
We are terrifyingly connected
What does an investor do exactly, Mr. Experienced Man-of-the-World who knows how everything works?
“Hurumph, hurumph —- well, young man an investor provides capital which is the economic engine that creates jobs and spawns creativity and innovation … ”
Yeah — well then where were the investors when health care workers needed masks
or ventilators
or food banks needed food …
Have you ever been flat on your ass in life?
Have you ever had to acknowledge that what you were doing wasn’t working and you had to start over?
Have you ever had to look at what you wanted and needed, and realized it wasn’t what you thought you wanted and needed before?
I’m just a poet
no one listens to me
you’ll listen to the governors and economists
you’ll evade the situation
this thinking stuff is hard! you’ll whine
you’ll dismiss all of the artists who ever lived
who knew all this rigamarole was bullshit since the dawn of time
you’ll stumble around
a bunch of necrophiliacs
trying to have sex with this corpse of an economy
people will die
people will be frustrated
marriages will end
young men will simmer with rage
young women will breed hordes of improperly cared for children
in an attempt to find meaning
schools won’t know what to teach
they had forsaken education for vocational training long ago
now there are no vocations to train for
a unlucky few will have jobs
that will kill them immediately
or destroy them slowly
in an inexorable march of time
People with post-graduate degrees will work
remotely
for a brief time
mining the last bit of relevance out of their education until there is no world to apply its wisdom to
A few artful dodgers will survive
find the safe corner
and the untainted food
untrammeled by fear or desire
they’ll create
in peace and contentment
I’m one of those
The poet is freed of all of his sorrow
so that he can assume yours
and unfortunately, you are a big fucking mess
you need to get focused
and clear out all of the dead wood
to make way for the new.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
4/17/20: Stating the Obvious #poetry #government #professionalism
Are you against government?
How do you like it now, when you don’t have one?
Doctors are important
Scientists are important
Academic intellectuals are important
Public policy experts are important
Lawyers are important
Management professionals are important
Writers are important
Teachers are important
Cops are important
Nurses are important
Food supply chain workers are important
Sanitation workers are important
Skilled tradesmen are important
Artists are important
True spiritual leaders are important
People who reason, create, maintain, organize, problem solve, help, serve …
are important;
Salesmen, not so much
Bully boy bosses, not so much
Advertising executives, not so much
Public relations professionals, not so much
Hack entertainers, not so much
Moneychangers, not so much
Creditors, not so much
Parasitic corporate profiteers, not so much
Criminals, not so much
Con men, not so much
Thieves, legal and illegal, not so much
Abusers, not so much
Exploiters, not so much
Libertarian community denial fanatics, not so much
Uncredentialed false prophets (and profits) of phony churches, not so much
Bullshit artists not so much.
It is time for America to grow up
out with selfish, in with meaning
out with sensation, in with feeling
out with stupid, in with smart
out with mean, in with kind
out with exploitation, in with caring
out with superficiality, in with depth
out with trivial ego, in with love.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
4/18/20: Dark Saturday #poetry
Optimism dies hard in an American
I am an American
I was taught
more than taught
forged
in a cauldron of Americanism
that “the arc of the moral universe bends towards justice”
I was shaped by Martin Luther King
even before I understood who he was
but today
I am unburdened of hopes and dreams
I am facing reality
and reality hurts
Breaking and tearing and pain
I saw a sweatshirt
worn by a helper
“look for the helpers” — Mr. Rogers
a sweatshirt with a quote from Pope Francis
an Argentinian
a country more aware of how it has disappointed God than the United States is
The quote:
The world tells us to seek success, power and money; God tells us to seek humility, service and love.
That’s the truth
creation is in constant conflict
good always contends with evil
evil with good.
No arcs
just a mess
We had to leave the house today
We saw working class people walk streets purposely
unprotected
bereft of self-esteem
exposing themselves to disease
and horrible death
with annoyed resignation
chum for the leviathan capitalism
Homeless people beg at red lights
the walking dead.
An evil Republican donor
is quoted as saying that a person’s worth is determined by how much wealth he or she creates
but the evil is more widespread than merely in obvious villains
a holocaust is occurring in nursing homes
howls of demented fear echo across the land
and let’s face it
really how many see tragedy in the pain of people with faded and broken bodies and minds
death at 96 gets a shoulder shrug
death on Medicaid — well how much care for them do you expect
what is the cost benefit analysis
they aren’t productive
they haven’t been fully alive for years
junk in human junkyards
give them up for scrap
even the newly sainted Democratic governors see it that way
the technocrats know that the junkyard nursing homes
are an irredeemable bridge too far
we could never do what needs to be done
and pay the creditors
and dividend the investors.
working class
homeless
elderly
the stupid — young and middle-aged people
with blank expressions on their faces
unaware of the moment
the context
the danger
the ramifications
idiots bumping into things and each other
on the aging streets of Chicago
and my mind
my mind
gets away from me
a pleasant ride with my wife
intruded upon by seemingly random memory
but related to all that I saw
in the once familiar neighborhoods
made strange by isolation and history
a sick feeling feeling in the pit of my stomach
of an awful memory
the toxic imps of malice
trying to disrupt
the illness of shamans
every moment of the present brings me to the past
I open a vein
and bleed
in order to awaken empathy
to learn something and then teach it
I had a friend
check that
he was never my friend
I thought that he was
but he was on one side of Pope Francis’ equation
and I am on the other
He died recently
he was sick for a long time
the last time I saw him
he shamed me
called me “unsuccessful”
and told me not to write the “serious pieces”
and “get back to the jokes”
he was dying then
and he condescended to me
he was told by friends of his and a wife
who I had rejected
as stupid, superficial and mean
they told him to condescend to me
“you’re better than that loser”
I had made my peace that these people had ruined an art form that I loved
long ago
and how they made sure that I had no place in the venues that they worked
which was fine with me
My vision
my work
was certainly more important to me than any association with them
but I thought my assumed friend was different
I thought he was kinder and deeper
he wasn’t
he chose them
and not only because he needed the wife and the extended community for his survival and comfort
he thought they were right
He had been using me
he always sort of looked up to me
but wasn’t so sure
he was torn between the two sides of Pope Francis’ sweatshirt quote
he went with the dark side
dark Saturday.
So, we were estranged when he died.
I don’t feel bad about that at all.
Our “friendship” was an illusion.
I used to go see him every week.
I brought him his favorite pastry.
I sat in his bedroom and joked.
I read his scripts and text book — they weren’t very good
I read him my writing and teaching — they were very good
My mother died when he was doing OK before his final decline
I didn’t hear a word
I was reading some of my writing the last time that I was at his house
and his wife rudely interrupted me
She teaches at 3 crude and ignorant schools that I decided to avoid long ago
I don’t feel badly that I missed his death
or of course that I will never see her again
I miss the illusion of their friendship
and I am wounded by their attack
I realize that I knew them at a stop in my unending journey to self-esteem
Self-esteem not in the pop-psychology way
Self-esteem in the existential way
For the more that one is conscious of the sides of Pope Francis’ equation
the more one knows one’s own value
and then suffers shamanic pain
on the way to wisdom to share
so here’s the wisdom:
America is fucked up
She thinks what is worthless is important
and what is precious is expendable
The evil side of the papal equation is vicious
the good side makes it feel bad
then the good side has to fight through the misplaced shame
and reaffirm the value the value the good side was born knowing
a knowledge the evil tries to destroy
and the evil side unconsciously knows its evil
but denies that knowledge
and so corrodes itself.
Eventually evil destroys itself
and a lot of innocent collateral damage
The arc of the moral universe does not bend toward justice
the moral universe is a chaotic place
evil implodes
good is martyred
good comes back to life in the brief pauses after evil is shattered
and for a time things seem OK but evil re-groups
and good lets its guard down
and suffering begins again
I don’t have much hope for the world today
America is debating human life versus money
It seems so backward
The Pope described the way things are
It is a stupid debate
I don’t have much hope for the world today
But I have a lot of hope for me
I don’t think I’ll be any better
I think I have always been good and a martyr for good
sometimes sidetracked by illusion
but I’m sadder and wiser
getting ready to be more more effective
unburdened of hopes and dreams.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
4/19/20: The Rick Blog Daily BriefingIt’s so simple — what must be done to re-open America:First the government has to make a massive investment in our health care system. No one will work or consume if they are sick, dead or afraid of getting sick and/or dying.Second, the government must make a massive investment in the financial relief of the American people. No one will ever go to school, work or consume if they are wiped out and too destitute to start over.Third, the government must make a massive investment in building a much more secure social safety net — millions fell into unemployment, poverty and food and housing insecurity in a month under the former system. Universal healthcare, free higher education, forgiveness of personal debt on many levels, etc.Right now, radical capitalists are fighting to maintain control of an economy that they ruined. They will yell — who is going to pay for it!The real question who will pay for anything if we don’t take these necessary steps.You can always make money back. No one has to die of avoidable causes. No one has to be driven to such poverty that they can never recover financially. No one else benefits form the death and suffering, and the indigence — not even the radical capitalists who are desperately trying to hold on to their money which they will lose anyway. They need workers. They need people to buy the garbage that they sell. They don’t have an economic philosophy. They are criminally insane.Of course, this will be a huge ordeal — not simple at all …but the actual solutions in broad strokes is easy.Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
4/20/20: The Catastrophe of Success; the Meaning of Excellence #poetrysuc·cess/səkˈses/noun
the accomplishment of an aim or purpose.“the president had some success in restoring confidence”Similar:favorable outcomesuccessfulnessfavorable resultsuccessful outcomepositive resultvictorytriumphOpposite:failureI’m OK with this definition — almost, but really all positive action is open-ended; every outcome is simply the foundation for the next process; creativity and reason surf time; all life is in constant evolution and transformation; the core is solid and static, the force fields surrounding the core dance. There is an unreality to the idea that anything is truly settled or determined for good. Yesterday’s triumph is tomorrow’s object lesson for improvement.2.
the attainment of popularity or profit.“the success of his play”Similar:prosperityprosperousnesssuccessfulnessaffluencewealthrichesfortuneopulenceluxurycomfortlife of easethe good lifemilk and honeyOpposite:failurepovertyI think this is bullshit. You can get rich or popular by doing things that lack excellence or provide no service. There are many activities that lead or have lead to riches or popularity that are negative and destructive. This is the type success that is catastrophic. This is success that honors death and mocks, defiles and murders life.3.
a person or thing that achieves desired aims or attains prosperity.“I must make a success of my business”I think this definition is about something pathetic and insane. What a superficial, stupid and ignorant way to define oneself. And many, many people do. This definition diminishes the people who adhere to it. They are arrogant, insecure, ignorant and condescending. What a pitiful need to feel better than other people, and to be addicted to the sensation of lording your faux superiority over them. What a miserable existence to be in constant competition — always needing to be better than the other person. All envy is gestated in this definition. All bullying and meanness comes from this. All stealing. All keeping people down. All madness “I win, you lose, I live, you die!”
Success is a distraction and a catastrophe. Its pursuit knocks one’s off track. Life is about work and love, and work as an act of love, and love as a thing one does and works at. Success is a phony fixed point. The music of life follows a bouncing ball.
Success fucks everything up — for oneself and other people. The lovers of success will always oppose those who are excellent of mind, heart and personal character. Success is materialistic. Success has no soul. Success celebrates mediocrity, because excellence is too risky.
The lovers of excellence are alive. The lovers of success are dead.
The excellent leave the successful, who gradually disappear from their excellent lives. Occasionally the excellent have to deflect attacks from the successful. The last thing the successful want is for the excellent to endure. The successful create economic, political and psychological difficulties for the excellent.
The excellent have to learn how to be sure-footed and survive without compromise with the successful or avoid being eaten by them.
The successful provide one great service for the excellent. They initiate the excellent to the sufferings of the world. If the excellent could just exist unobstructed as a natural and supernatural being, there would be no grit from which the excellent could fashion her art.
People who look successful, might actually be excellent, or if not excellent are naturally kind and nurturing of excellence.
I’ve known successful and excellent children
students
writers
actors
visual artists
academics
skilled tradesmen
business people
lawyers
clergy
comedians
chefs
maintenance people
merchants
oh … everybody … everybody that I’ve ever known. This is the dividing line of humanity — the successful and the excellent. The successful are the source of all calamity, the excellent are the source of all service, healing and progress.
The motivation to succeed is a selfish and narcissistic one. It never leads to “a good outcome.”
The energy of excellence is love and love does not conquer all — that is the business of success …
Love gives all its meaning.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
Another detour into teaching and blog posting …
4/27/20: COVID-19 Pet Peeve #poetry #commentary #advertising #entertainment
It’s not that big of a deal
or is it?
I am sick of the uplifting commercials
“better times are coming”
When?
I am sick of the uplifting well-intentioned messages from entertainers
Tony Bennett leading a group-sing-along
“I Left My Heart in San Francisco”
in San Francisco;
a mini “We are the World” star-studded line-up
singing “Tomorrow” …
Here’s the thing
when “A Nightingale Sang in Barkley Square”
buoyed the spirits of the British people in World War II,
The British people were fighting the war
The British people were being led
by Winston Churchill,
a master of the poetry of leadership
and the prose of governance
especially
War,
the British people decided to survive
and followed a clarion call of leadership;
sentiment isn’t perverse in such circumstances
not as it is in our own;
Annie sings “Tomorrow” with FDR
in the Second Act
post-Hoover —
after cold stupidity had been overthrown;
Annie didn’t sing with Trump;
The song “Tomorrow” needs FDR
Without FDR, the song “Tomorrow”
is nauseating;
Just a reminder —
FDR is dead
and nowhere to be seen at the moment;
Even the best of our leaders aren’t thinking as big as this situation requires.
Hopeful messages irritate me when they are not accompanied by action
Hopeful messages are happy talk propaganda
“The virus will magically disappear”
Jeep/Chrysler promises better days to come
in a cynical message that is only looking for better sales numbers in this Godforsaken quarter
Entertainers are in the business of making people feel good
in the right moments they can be a big help,
but platitudes about how we are all in this together
Now?
(We’re actually horribly, murderously divided)
actually do a disservice
I don’t know what we need to do
I wish I did
But I know we can’t be passive
being told what to desire
and being pacified by escapist fantasies
and unrealistic assessments of our situation
Deaths in the U.S. alone are at 55,000 and counting — officially — as of this writing
(and that surely is not the actual number which I am certain is much higher)
We are heading for a depression worse than the one in the 1930s
and we have corrupt, ignorant, incompetent, un-empathetic national leadership
that is not only not helping our circumstances
but instead
is actually working against us.
Sing that.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
4/27/20: COVID-19 Pet Peeve #2 #poetry #commentary #smallbusiness
I’m sick of small business
sainted, special, brave, American with a capital fucking A small business
Save their payrolls, God forbid that their shitty little restaurants and hair salons and tattoo parlors go under
They are so hassled by the big bad government that is stepping on their freedoms
Their right to be special and superior
They are more important than everybody
teachers, cops, firemen, doctors and nurses
old people, kids
the sick, the disabled
sensitive creative types
bohemian philosophical layabouts
and especially people who work for a living
people who work for other people
Small business people are living the American Dream
They are more American than the rest of us
They are first in line!
Listen you self-centered assholes
Your pizza parlors aren’t coming back
Your eateries and shoppes and salons are going the way of the blacksmith
The world changed
We are throwing money away trying to save these bullshit dreams
Forget payroll protection
Protect people not businesses
Avoid corruption
Just send people money to live on
Direct relief
Let the businesses go
Let them die
Sorry soldiers of the “ownership society”
You lost what you owned
Go home so that you and other people don’t get sick
Collect your relief checks like everybody else
And when the coast is clear
you can get a job and start over again
It won’t kill you
You sound like spoiled children when you talk about your realized dreams
How different and unique that you are
Asshole — you sell scented candles
Snap out of it!
Every once in awhile you have to think about everybody, not just you
We need schools and hospitals and fire departments and cops
and everything that you sell
with that special flair that only you can bring
is available elsewhere
There is no going back to how things were
We can afford to take care of you
We can’t save your dead dream
How many times have I changed direction
never compromising my essence
but realizing that I had to put my old wine in new bottles
Fuck your payrolls for your losing propositions
We’ll pay your employees relief — real bill-paying relief
We’ll pay off your rent or mortgage
We’ll pay you
But you will have to start over
just like everybody else.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
4/30/20: Proud #poetry
This is an experiment
Usually what I write starts with pain
I’ll be angry
or sad
or anxious
or at the very least annoyed
and then the poem
or the joke
or the commentary
gives me some clarity
and I feel more in control of the only thing that anyone can really control
my initiations and responses
For me writing starts with burning out pain
then breeds self-confidence
“Oh I get it!”
and finally is shaped in such a way as to communicate to other people
Therapy is just palliative in nature
Art is what cures
So what to do today?
I feel …
Proud
Expansive
Proud of how I’ve lived
Proud of who I am
Proud of what I’ve done
Proud of what I am capable of doing
Proud that I feel no hesitation
Proud that I use doubt productively
Certainty is idiotic
Uncertainty doesn’t have to be fear
I am proud of my family
So proud of my wife
Proud of my friends
Proud of all the artists and teachers and doctors and lawyers and cops and grocery clerks and and and and and and and and and
Proud of community
Proud of my nation
Proud of goodness
Proud of my sensitivity
Proud of my ability to feel pain
Proud of my rage at injustice
Proud of my sorrow for the suffering of others
Proud of the times that I’ve shown up
with a spotlight shining
or in quiet desperate rooms
I am so proud of myself
And I am a life form
with an easy to penetrate shell
permeated by you.
I defy illness
I defy financial insecurity
I defy malicious bullies
I defy violent tyrants
I defy all that wishes to bring me low
All that demands that I not be
Proud.
I am humble before God
and I admit that God created something pretty sensational
Me.
Living in the fullness of who we are
is the opposite of self-hating narcissism
Self-love is gratitude
Self-love is a prayer
God has given me so much
in my soul
and in the glorious world that envelopes my soul
You and I come together in a glorious sublimation of an orgasm
and separate again
I am proud when we unite
and proud when we separate for our next engagement
Proud proud proud proud proud proud
Onward!
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
5/5/20: Spirit and Nature #poetry #publichealth #economy
The sainted Democratic Governors are wrong
There should be no re-opening of the economy
One — the re-opening is sacrificing human life for money
They talk about a balance of public health and making money
There is no balance
The scale weighs totally toward life
Two, the American Economy is dead
It’s never coming back
in its previous form
Small businesses are dead
They can never return
Our previous way of life is dead
The way that we navigated the world in February 2020 will never return
Nature has asserted itself
The re-opening is a final act of human arrogance
Get ready for the slaughter
Survival as a part of nature
has nothing to do with the abstractions we took for realities
Economy doesn’t matter
Politics doesn’t matter
Culture doesn’t matter
Hopes and dreams don’t matter
When you are sick you stop working
When you are near danger you retreat
When your house is on fire you don’t go live in it
You go to safety
and rebuild
We have to step away
and plan
We can no longer subjugate nature
We have to get along within it
Know our place
Observe its laws
We can no longer survive if we continue to be unjust to one another
We have been living a lie
Always favoring one over the other
While reality says that we are equal
It is not sustainable to exist in an illusion of superiority and inferiority
We cannot die for the burden of men’s dreams and illusions
Finally — for today
Enough with the happy talk
Enough with optimism
Enough with the impatience
Enough with the feel-good stories
We have to observe REALITY
Natural
and
Spiritual reality
We are sacrificing our weak, old and unlucky
to our past hubris
We have to recognize that hubris
today
this second
Our ignorance gave us a moral pass
Father forgive us, we know not what we do
But now
RIGHT NOW
we have to know
and change
RIGHT NOW
or each death from this moment forward
will be murder
EVERYONE STAY HOME
TAKE THE MONEY LEFT FROM THE OLD DEAD ECONOMY
AND USE IT TO SUPPORT US
WHEN WE RE-EMERGE INTO THE GREATER WORLD
BUILD A NEW ECONOMY
in harmony with the natural and spiritual world.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
5/6/20: Death of our Elders #poetry
For my mother and the staff of her nursing home, the Holmstad in Batavia, Illinois
My mother died last September
I posted her picture on Facebook
A debate started in the comment section
What is death’s sell-by date?
The comments were generally heartfelt condolences
from old friends
many of whom I hadn’t seen for years
and no comments had bad intentions
but some people said or implied
“You’re old. She must have been really old. She had a long life. People die. What’s the big deal?”
I’m so glad my mother died in September 2019
at 97
from something related to her advance dementia
and didn’t struggle for air
and cry out in fear
and pass anxiously into that good night
My mother didn’t deserve a hellish death
We were lucky
She found a nursing home that was very nice
and matriculated from independent living to skilled nursing
and was kindly treated by a virtuous staff
handpicked by the Swedish Covenant Church
we’re Italian and Catholic
but my mother usually made shrewd choices
an immigrant unafraid of trying something new
Even when she descended into deep dementia
she had many emotions
easy and hard to deal with
and many memories
distorted by a dying brain
but still vivid
she was a person
a person I cared about
a person that I wanted to be happy
a person that I wanted to protect from suffering
someone I love still
I see commercials on TV for charities that care for abused and abandoned dogs
I wish that ad agency would go to nursing homes
and play the maudlin music
for the old-timers
who often aren’t cute
My mother was very cute usually
but sometimes she was like a small creature in a horror movie
sometimes it seemed like a slasher film was being projected out of her eyes
sometimes it hurt to be around her
Ho hum
all the more reason to let them die
they take up room
they don’t make money
they are pains in the ass
they are helpless
they aren’t cute like pit bull puppies
Everyone
not only Trump
are asking how much death is acceptable
to keep the world spin around
Do they still talk about standards of beauty?
Does Disney still make movie heroines from all races and ethnicities
to say thick lips are pretty, slanted eyes are pretty, kinky hair is pretty?
We have to fight for every subset of who we are to be respected
People of color are dying in greater numbers than white people in the pandemic
Just like they did before the pandemic …
What of the very old?
We all have the potential of one day being very old
We stack them in human warehouses
to be cared for by underpaid people of color
and don’t care if
or how
they or their caretakers die
My mother loved her nurses and nurses’ aides
and they loved her
the poor and the old build makeshift hospitals
clad in garbage bags
and warm each other
validate one another
affirm each other’s dignity
while the healthy, wealthy and self-involved
wonder how much dignity costs
and get misty eyed at the thought of their dog
or the theme song of a romantic movie
People should find romantic love
and cruelty to dogs is horrible
but love should extend to beings who aren’t as cuddly, sexy
and in need of Disney to market the attributes of their beauty
to people alienated from the fact that they are human beings.
Humanity forgotten
the humanity of the oppressed
the humanity in the oppressor.
I love you, Mom.
You were important to me every second of your life
you showed your love to me the day that you died
and I have such respect and gratitude
for the big women of color
who got you to eat
and put you on the toilet
and wiped your ass
and put on the TV shows you seemed to respond to
and sang you songs
and did all the dirty work
laughing and praying all the way
to maintain a place of abundant life
your nursing home.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
5/7/20: The Dawning of the Era of Good People? A New Hope? #poetry
A new hope?
An epic poem?
A mural?
A resolution?
A greater understanding?
A refinement of vocation?
The aftermath of separation?
A new man?
Holy Saturday?
The interregnum between chronic pain (with occasional acute flare-ups
and
redemption?
Is this the dawning of a new era of good people?
People who mourn
People who revere life
Doctors
nurses
poets
ordinary people
who bring ice cream to isolated little girls on their birthdays
The Stages of the Era of Evil
Stealthy cunning
met with naive innocence
the good give all to the bad
out of misguided generosity
out of fear
the spinning of wicked tales
seducing the good
fooling the good
the evil take control
the evil’s guile is replaced by brazenness
the good fall into a sea of anxiety
the good worries
concerned for each step before them
and each step behind
the good sense constant danger
the enlightened
blessed with education and time
and a certain confidence
dissent against the evil
they get the evil’s number
The evil secretly feel doubt
although they don’t show it outwardly
The good have bad things happen to them
and they remember the enlightened words
Naive no more
Beyond fear
the good begin to stand up
not ultimately in anger
(anger is the emotion of a necessary phase of awareness — the loss of fairy tales and false hopes — the birth of a new awareness of the nature of reality, and new aspirations related to the meaning of life)
evil notices a new integrity in the good
and a new resolve
not demonstrated in conflict
but in a commitment to real work
work motivated by love and service
deaf to evil’s demands of fear and unrequited greed
in the good
This independence (of the good) frustrates the evil
Evil lies become more ridiculous
Evil assertions become more shrill
Evil gets meaner
more violent
more murderous
The air becomes red
the atmosphere stinks
of a fetid rotting smell
Good and evil people alike begin to die
en masse
Evil is all about negation
Evil is lazy
Evil doesn’t create
Evil doesn’t care
Evil has no sense of meaning
Evil distracts itself
from it’s own emptiness
by quantifying false standards of human value
How big
How long
How many
How high
How much
What do you OWN
OWN
not owe
the evil owe no one nothing
everyone is in debt to the evil
the evil cornered the market on survival
but the abstractions the evil created
the make-believe world that they control
begins to fall apart
the world descends into chaos
Evil is a wealthy sniper
a successful gambler
murdering people
with a high powered rifle
from a high elite floor
of a Las Vegas casino hotel
raining murder from a tower of tasteless make-believe
Negation
Negation
Negation
nothing left
nothing left
nothing left
commandos climb the tower
and shoot evil in the back
carnage complete
The evil are suicidal
their destruction of the good is indexed to their own
The evil can’t just kill themselves like ordinary severely depressed people
They have to be important
They have to take others with them
The surviving good
see the great unraveling occur before them
and roll bandages while evil goes on its murder spree
and finally when the gunfire has ceased
the surviving good
bury their dead
and look around the world
360 degrees
knowing how to be
what to do
that life means loving each other
applying their talents and skills
humble or grand
to the service of each other
being rewarded with great satisfaction and joy
and finally knowing the difference
between good and evil
which is important
because evil never completely goes away
a faint ember always remains
always ready to destroy the world in fire.
I’m wrestling with hope
I prefer reality
(I’m done with optimism and pessimism — they are both worthless)
Hope works with no assurance of victory or success
Hope does what is needed
But it still is to oriented toward outcome
This narrative of good’s overcoming of evil
is reality
It is how existence works
the dance of good and evil
our grappling with the decision to participate in creation
or arrogantly and fearfully (a paradox)
delude ourselves into being above it
The only question is whether we have the spirit and endurance to be good
What will become of us and our vast potential?
It’s up to us.
Our hope is only in our own response
Good things happen
when the good walk
openly
fearlessly
wisely
lovingly
honestly
reverently
humbly
respectfully
caringly
into the unknown
?
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
5/12/20: The Iron Fist in the Velvet Glove #poetry
How does one survive
as a good and intelligent person
as the author of one’s own life
the master of the interpretation of one’s existence
as an artist
as a free person
who makes decisions related to all the matters of one’s life
large and small
in the midst of a dystopia
navigating through an atmosphere
saturated with disease and ignorance?
How many times has stupid harmed me?
How many times has dull brutishness insulted me?
My sensitivity is my power
I hear more
see more
feel me
I reflect more deeply
My capacity to reflect
is the instrumentality
of my exploration of infinity
There is always more to understand
so my greatest gift is the source of my humility
I journey through the layers of a mystery
Each realization uncovers a new puzzle
My objective is not knowledge
but rather
being
harmonious participation
fulfilling my role
expressing the truth
that I was born to express
My life gives me self-contained joy
peace and solace
empathy and insight
It makes me useful in the most profound way
to myself and others
There is nothing special about it
What is most extraordinary about any one of us
is that which is most universal
Yet, yet,
we are always susceptible to exile from ourselves
Innocence can get contaminated by ignorance
Ignorance calcifies into hubris
Egoistically claiming a final understanding of the meaning of it all.
So a parallel journey takes place as we traverse the sweetness of our life
A struggling trek towards consciousness
or not
I have found that I have to be ruthless with my ignorance
I have to oppose it
shout at it
argue with it
probe the wounded nature of it
descend into it’s pain
It’s rough stuff
and at the end of such forays
I remove an obstruction before me
and return to my creative life
pain-free
Gliding
in tune
with
All
there is.
I am an old dog
but I learned a new trick
new to me
not to the wisdom of the ages
I’m a sweet man
I am generous
I encourage what is smart and kind and best in others
I say all of this with, again, humility
I am sweet because I was born to good parents
I am love’s recipient
I know what love is
I know how it is done
My parents were geniuses of loving
Masters of that most important art
Love is second nature to me
I never had to figure it out
And I am quite smart and creatively gifted
I was born with those attributes
I didn’t have to develop them
Nature and nurture granted me riches
But destiny does not come without deficiencies
that must be addressed and overcome
I was so
blessed
with love
and ability
that stupidity and ignorance
fear and meanness
careerism and greed
fame – fucking and competition
the worship of popularity and success and the indifference to real achievement
the impulse to manipulate and give orders
dishonesty and insults
the lack of civility and reverence
arrogance and condescension
the need to feel superior to others and envy
Hatred and resentment
Slander and malice
Bullying and cold indifference …
all came as a surprise to me.
I entered the world innocent
and was hurt almost immediately
I stayed silent and endured my pain
And gave credence to the words of my oppressors
This curtailed my access to my beautiful life
that never died within me
that never lost all of its potential for me
I knew something wonderful was my birthright
But I was frustrated
trying to place my enlightened round peg
into an ignorant square world.
I kept rushing the barricades of the world
Putting my sensitivity out there
being brutalized in return
with just enough reciprocal love to keep me going
Eventually things came to a head
I collapsed
I saw what was going on
My nature and nurture had met a much more complex world
with many more dark hues than I had realized
And I became angry
Angry at the opportunities lost
Incensed over the injustice
Just plain insulted
My life went on an alternating current of
the bliss of my actual destiny
and rage at the ignorant world.
We live in a plague
and I don’t want stupid people to kill me before my time
what am I to do?
If I don’t assert myself in opposition to practices of dumb asses
they might infect me.
If I get angry at them they might kill me
as a meaningless victim of the culture wars.
I have to refine my two speeds of love and anger
I have learned
something that my father knew and my mother didn’t
how to suffer fools gladly
how to stand up for myself
to avoid compromise
which in these times could be fatal
and at the same time be cordial,
friendly
I can only describe my realization in a metaphor
not original to me
The Iron Fist in the Velvet Glove.
Quite a life lesson to not arrive until I am 64
but there you have it.
My previous harshness
came from my own fear
and my own lack of confidence
I was terrified of the ignorant
I gave them a power
that only I could give to them
I thought they could destroy what I truly am
I now know they cannot.
The next mystery is forgiving their ignorance
“Father forgive them they know not what they do.”
My rational mind gets it
Not everyone was born in the arms of love as I was
Not everyone was born as smart and talented with a predisposition to good character as I have been
Even with all of my advantages, I have succumbed to ignorance
why am I so unforgiving?
They hurt me so deeply
They taught me so much
I don’t regret my ignorance
it has been my greatest teacher
it has given me authorship
it made me something far more interesting than a paradisiacal being
why can’t I accept that ignorance is part of the energy of the universe
why can’t I understand the two levels of existence
the world of battle
and the world of harmony
Can I master this grace before I die
dancing where those two worlds meet?
Do those worlds meet at
The Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove?
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
Still working through my relationship to the concept of friendship … it is no longer an issue for me … friendship is good when it happens, it isn’t necessary when it isn’t. There is really nothing to understand about it, with the exception of how to discern connections that might lead to destructive false friendships.
writing is a process of addition and subtraction …
5/12/20: I Coulda Been … #poetry
I coulda been a great trial lawyer …
I’m smart enough and I have presence …
but I am not competitive enough
and I don’t like arguing all the time …
I coulda been a great actor …
I’m sensitive and insightful and I have presence
I can understand and communicate …
but I don’t like pleasing audiences …
or listening to directors …
or only going as far as the people immediately around me can understand …
and the competition thing again …
and the compromising of talent to fit a niche …
(put that in the lawyer part too)
I coulda been a great academic …
I’m smart and creative enough …
but I am too peripatetic …
I can’t just concentrate on one narrow area of life …
I like to make connections between disparate things and ideas …
and I don’t trust expertise and authority …
So …
I turned out to be a writer …
and a teacher that teaches the way he writes …
as an appetizer …
and then helps the students find theirs …
I can say I coulda with certainty …
this is not a Walter Mitty daydream piece …
I actually did all of the things that I coulda done …
I learned how I fit and how I didn’t fit in all of those vocations …
I’ve led an adventurous life …
in its way …
I tried all of my professions with fallible certainty …
with romance …
like the person hungry for love …
hoping each lover was THE ONE …
It was useful folly …
I engaged in total immersion
I became each job
and found how my deep self
agreed and disagreed with what I was doing
A poet
gets lost
A poet wanders
A poet is a poet when a poet don’t know it
I traveled a world …
never as an observer
I took on each nationality
Each topographical feature
I coulda been a bum
mooching on friends’ couches
begging at bakeries
I coulda been a mental patient
seething with rage on his boyhood bed …
I coulda wandered through low wage jobs with no sense of self-esteem …
seeking out the company of people who would demean me
I coulda dined on the top of skyscrapers surrounded by rich bastards
and traded insights with lauded professors …
and told blue jokes with successful attorneys in a steak house
I coulda been friends with star actors and athletes and homeless people and maintenance men
I coulda been all of these things …
and I was and I am
I talked 100 books to anyone who would listen
driving them crazy
talking prose instead of conversation
I coulda coulda coulda
and I have no regret
because I did
I spent a lifetime
discovering what my own voice sounds like …
I learned more by emphatically doing whatever I wanted to do …
than I ever did by knowing what I was doing.
Love,
Rick
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
Finally realizing that I don’t give a damn about success and never did.
Love #poetry
5/14/20: Tunnel of Love #poetry
Heart murmurs
Die to the World and Come to Birth from Within
without regard to achievement or success
the end of hurt
and the periodic internal arguments
flesh and blood human beings appear
as archetypes of the psyche
a personal dream world becomes a religion
which subsequently becomes obsolete
I understand a bit more how black people have done it
Other oppressed people have done it
But I most familiar with black people
I’m an American of a certain age
I was alive for the emergence of black people
the resumption of Reconstruction
the attempt to finish the job that was aborted in 1876
I was alive when America’s Original Sin came out of the shadows
Just an interested observer
vaguely sympathizing with Black People
Still not fully aware of the depth of their pain
I still have new revelations of the variations and permutations of their sufferings
They amaze me
and fill me with admittedly romanticized admiration
but this is a dream piece
I’m writing at 3:28 am
A complex epic mural on the wall of a Depression Era Post Office
but color bleeds through
Black people
the people with Soul
a not so dark night of my own soul
Black lives and voices express something very deep and important in the universal human experience
Black people keep bringing me gifts.
I see, I think, maybe … how they reached the existential state of certainty without arguing
For years, I couldn’t understand how black people didn’t just kill all white people in their field of vision
Why weren’t they cross-eyed with rage
why didn’t they assert and accost and demand that each and every white person understand what was done to, and being done to them …
But black people didn’t argue or lash out …
There is a point when oppression becomes surreal
It de-personalizes
It doesn’t hurt anymore
It becomes a matter to solve
no longer a point of conflict
Black people created …
Freedom, so fragile, so dearly won
was not to be squandered
MLK re-made America for all of us
He led us to a new understanding of justice and equality
He didn’t fight
He sang
Stolen from their homes
demeaned as property
murdered, raped, beaten and exploited
their first culture destroyed
their families discarded
bred like livestock
inseminated by another culture without their permission
and what did they do?
Jazz
Basketball
Vibrant religious denominations
Historically Black Colleges
The Negro Leagues …
Segregated in Commerce,
They petitioned White America for inclusion
and when finally some small progress was made
they enriched White America in every newly integrated endeavor
What exemplars of creativity
what transcendence of natural bitterness
what sureness of themselves when not recognized by any power structure
what focus.
Has this quarantine finally done it?
Is my mind finally reliably calm
or is this just a moment?
Am I on the solid human ground of being
where Black America dwells
or is that just an aspiration?
A genocide is taking place in America
The horrors that visited the poor and oppressed
have come to visit formerly privileged White Middle Class America
WE DON’T CARE IF YOU LIVE OR DIE
WE RUINED THE ENVIRONMENT AND THE ECONOMY
AND YOU ARE GOING TO PAY FOR IT
JUST LIKE MEXICO
GET OUT THERE AND WORK AND BUY
WE OWN YOU
YOU LIVE AND DIE FOR OUR PROFIT
JUST LIKE THE SLAVES OF OLD
YOU ALL HAVE THE HONOR OF BEING BLACK NOW
When the hatred and oppression and selfishness and abuse becomes so brazen and directly stated and so large in scope
when the implications are obvious
one sees the futility of arguing with the oppressor
one thinks, “how am I going to survive? The world is a dangerous place. These people are crazy. They will kill me if they think it makes them money … ”
one commits to what is right — no arguments — one is morally more clear than one has ever been …
one decides to pursue work and relations with others infused with love …
Oppression is a crucible
Pressured coal becomes diamonds
Does every time my mind descends into argument demonstrate how un-black I am? How pampered I’ve been, how privileged? How naive I am in the face of the fallen nature of the people from which I came?
No answers come from performing, pretending or persuading …
the ecstatic religious devotion expressed so artfully, joyfully and authentically in a black church
the genius and discipline of black athletes and artists
the courageous integrity of John Lewis on the Edmund Pettus Bridge
the prophetic poetry of James Baldwin
the crystalline clear leadership in the rhetoric of Martin Luther King
the soft-spoken African-American epidemiologist that I saw on TV tonight …
This poem isn’t about black people at all.
It’s about me.
Black people are my dreamscape.
When a poet observes a bird or the wind
or a painter observes a girl or a peach or a sunflower
They are seeing themselves
Making no historical claims.
Tonight, I realized that many people in my country are indifferent to whether I live or die
or how much I might suffer
I knew it before of course
but they are acting on their feelings
and talking about very loudly
in a way that I’ve never heard before …
and it made me think of black people,
and maybe I changed a little bit.
Focus.
Tunnel of love.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
Finally owning my antipathy to the culture of business.
5/14/20: Small Business, Big Evil #poetry #commentary
The sainted middle class
The Main Street Pilgrims
They met a payroll
They are independent individualists
They have vision
They have balls
They have the smarts they don’t teach in college
They walk with swagger
They condescend
They are aggrieved
They are better
They are America
The rest of us are immigrants
They like the action
They like the money
They like the control
No one tells them what to do
THEY GAVE THEIR LIFE TO THIS FUCKING STORE
THIS STORE IS THE MEANING OF LIFE
NOT JUST THEIR LIVES
THEY DON’T HAVE JOBS
THEY’RE OWNERS
THIS IS THE OWNERSHIP SOCIETY
THEY ARE KING OF THE HILL
TOP OF THE HEAP
THEY AREN’T AFRAID OF A FUCKING VIRUS
THERE IS NO TIME TO SET UP PRECAUTIONS
TESTING AND TRACING?
SHUT-DOWNS?
STAY IN PLACE?
WHAT ABOUT THEM?
What about black and brown people who work in the food supply chain?
What about doctors, nurses and health care workers without needed personal protection working to exhaustion?
What about the hundreds of thousands of people dying horrible deaths?
For what?
For the burden of dreams
for self-esteem and plasma TVs
SELFISH SELFISH SELFISH
Selfish to the point of mass murder
NEWSFLASH
Small businesses are just jobs
Jobs come and go
GET THE FUCK ON RELIEF WITH THE REST OF US AND GET A NEW JOB WHEN WE GET THROUGH THIS
Poor babies
you’ve had your asses kissed by politicians and big advertising for decades
and now you are no different than Germans sincerely cheering for Hitler in the 1930s
You are so proud that you put food on the table
FULL DISCLOSURE: I NEVER LIKED YOU
There are people on the streets that are risking all of our lives
making stupid choices in a pandemic
They are ignorant, that’s all
But you are much worse
YOU KNOW THAT PEOPLE WILL DIE DIE DIE
AND SUFFER SUFFER SUFFER
YOU DON’T CARE
YOUR DREAMS, YOUR SELF-IMAGE, YOUR INDEPENDENCE IS MORE IMPORTANT
YOUR COMPETITIVE SPIRIT HAS NO BOUNDS
You are cruel, cold and indifferent
You have forgotten that your original claim to superiority was the furtherance of life
YOU MET A PAYROLL
That money fed babies and sent people to school
But of course that is all bullshit
You could care less what happens to your employees or customers
It was always all about you …
The Sainted Middle Class
Smug in their moral superiority
sitting in phony faux churches
assume the persona
of
EVIL.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
5/16/20: Storytime #poetry
Tell me a story
Man’s search for meaninglessness starts early
Here’s a story, you little brat
You are nothing really
Just protoplasm
stupid matter
and you want to feel important
What’s it all about, Alfie?
No, you’re too dumb to even know what that is
It’s an old movie
I have to say “old”
so you think it is irrelevant
and then I’ll tell you a story to make it relevant
Something that keeps your interest
and entertains you
that you can internalize
and use as a blueprint for all of the decisions of your life
You don’t have it in you to come up with a story on your own
Everyone isn’t a storyteller
So you give your whole existence over to my kind
You are empty
a void
you can’t be filled
you are insatiable
First you believed in Santa
A fat old man cared about you and brought you presents
Then you believed in Jesus
A nice God/Man told you to be good
Then you believed in play
It was important to learn and have fun
and then you believed in competition
If you won you were better than the next guy
Then you believed in work
do your chores, maintain your responsibilities
Then you believed in money
the more you got the better you were
Then you believed in love
life would be fulfilled with the perfect other that God made especially for you
Then you believed in your country
It felt big, and swelled you with power and security
Then you believed in the eyes of the people around you
Everything was defined by how they saw you
Then you believed in justice
Then you believed in conscience
You committed to what was “right”
Then you believed in disappointment, resentment and rage
immolating in a bonfire of rejected stories
Then you believed in self-esteem
determining that your own evaluation of yourself was the only one that mattered
Then you settled down
and accepted objective reality
You became happy and got that all the stories were playing out simultaneously
and you adapted
without a story of your own
seeing others’ stories
skillfully avoiding war
Your expectations lowered
You began to ignore plot
and be fascinated by setting and character
liberated from narrative
Happy to survive.
Shit happens
and then we tell stories about it
to reassure ourselves that it was all for a reason
it all had a purpose
that we are noble and important.
The stories seem humane
but really they are burdens
The self-justification is painful
the being is bliss
For years I believed a line that I read
“Life has no meaning. We bring meaning to it.”
Now I believe this …
Life has a meaning and it is our destiny to meet it
All the stories of America have disintegrated
Our history has disappeared
The American Dream, charitably described, is a quaint old story
You’re still alive and most of you aren’t homeless
I am not going to preach service to you today
You should be served and not serving
I am not going to preach hard work to you right now
Get the opportunity then do the work
You’ve been fucked over by a corrupt, immoral and ignorant system
It’s a lousy society run by lousy leaders who don’t give a shit if you live or die
You want a better world?
Demand dignity
Be intolerant of all injustice
Learn quickly that insult and condescension are weapons of oppression
Don’t let any motherfucker make you feel small
Don’t take any shit
Whatever you do, don’t internalize the disrespect of thieves, bullies and killers
Stand up
Demand what is your birthright as a human being
You have a right to
food
housing
education
health care
a fair justice system
and a base income that cares for your basic needs
You can work for the rest
You don’t have to earn anyone’s respect
You get that as a human being
If someone doesn’t give it to you it’s their problem
Trust your anger
Be insulted
Don’t put up with it
Hang out with people who love you
Get far away from those who don’t
Be in charge of your own life
Accept no bosses
Don’t waste time jerking off to porn or stupid sitcoms that are just not-so-subtle commercials selling you crap you don’t want or need
Listen to yourself — you know what you want and need
don’t let anyone
politician
advertiser
army recruiter
con artist
salesman
parent
peer group …
any fucking body
tell you what to think and feel
Make your own decisions
Assume all responsibility
and accept all freedom
related to your own life.
You CAN remake the world
just know that you inherited a shit hole
There are a lot of great people
and many of them are a lot older than you are
But assholes hold a lot of sway right now
You are graduating in
THE TIME OF THE ASSHOLE
You have to get around the assholes to do your thing
You have to slay the assholes to heal the world.
Don’t do drugs or any other stupid self-destructive shit.
DON’T BE TRIVIAL
Don’t spend your time planning parties at water parks
It is actually more fun to be serious
Get good at what you are good at
and do it
Don’t get hooked on inspiration
Get hooked on commitment
OK, now think of the nicest person you ever knew
just the sweetest, the holiest
and now think of the worst person that you can imagine
Hitler or some such shit
and everything in between
Now know that is what you will face in the world
the whole range
and you are going to have to make choices
in who you associate with
who you fight
who you are going to be
A lot of dicks are going to want you to make the unimportant important and vice versa
Don’t let them
In summary
take care of yourself
PROTECT:
your health
your mental health
your dignity
your sense of justice
your right to self-determination
your ability to love
your material well-being
Ignore the world and create your own unique vision
Engage the world when it fucks with you
and stand up to it
You are equal to everybody else
and anyone who says otherwise is an asshole
You are heir to everything great in humanity
Shakespeare, Einstein yadda yadda yadda
And you are heir to every horrible shit show man ever came up with
Slavery, the Holocaust, everything murderous, ignorant and mean
Your mission
if you decide to accept it
is to further what is good
and push back against what sucks
DON’T FUCK IT UP
but of course, you will
that’s part of it
Just get back out there and start over
You know times are shitty
but they always are
It’s just all out front with this pandemic cluster fuck
But it’s always bad
In a way you are lucky
You have no reason to have illusions at a young age
All right, get out of here
I’ve got my own problems.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
5/18/20: Everyone Has a Voice (Post — Apocalypse) #poetry
You are your own school
All the teachers are dead
You don’t need assignments
read what yo want
write what you want
no certifications mean anything
you don’t have to pay to claim that you know anything
You are free
and you are responsible
There are no mores
There is no law
There is just what you think and feel and see
There is just what you think is right
and what you want to do
Nobody can tell you anything
If they make you feel bad it’s because part of you agrees
and why would you do that?
There are no arguments
because there are no group decisions
You are on your own
Does anyone listen to your voice?
Does it matter if they do?
You hear it
You can’t snap your fingers and make the world change to your liking
but you can deal with the world in any way that you damn please
You stay alone in your room
When you venture out you cover your face
because the spray of your voice hangs in the air
and infects others
You keep to yourself
Impregnable
Self-contained
Is it so terrible?
You watch old movies
No new ones are being made
You re-read old books
Books aren’t written any more
You connect with others virtually
which means you don’t
blog posts and Zoom meetings
You are uninterrupted
You can’t make people sit and listen to you
They can shut off their video and still claim to be present
They read a few lines of your poem and then drift away
and still make a statistical mark on your analytics
You are happy
Your mother’s dead
Your father’s dead
The boss has abdicated all responsibility
Every club that you ever were part of seems ridiculous
No one can tell you what to do
You personify freedom
and you hold all responsibility
You can’t blame anybody
There is no one to thank
The end of the world has come and gone
And you are the last person on earth
What are you going to do?
And how are you going to go about it?
It’s not what you know
or what you do
or who you know
or where your from
or what you have
it’s who you are
all the distractions have disappeared
there is nothing but you
and you
The truth of your solitude
is the dawn of a new world.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
5/18/20: Postscript to Ambition #poetry
What do you when you have nothing left to prove?
When ambition died long ago
and you just noticed it was gone?
You stopped keeping score
Money — ho hum
Fame — seems dumb
What people say — shrug
You want to go on living
It’s never been more fun
You are on the other side of stress
and the other side of confusion
You have a lot of energy
What animates you?
What motivates you?
You have no sense of duty
You are indifferent to the recognition of the tribe.
It gets so easy.
You are who you are — nothing you can do about that.
You like who you are
you surprise you
You’re pleased
and young
in a way
innocent
fresh eyes
but armored too
and a quick healer
unburdened by the cynical residue caused by past repetitive pain
Nightmares processed and forgotten
You are not at odds with nature
You accept it
Love it
You know any attempt to dominate it
is foolish
You know that you will die
That’s OK
Maybe you’ll be scared when the moment seems closer
But for now it only affects you when you see other people dying
You hold their hands and feel what they must feel
And don’t hold their hands when it is not a true thing to do
Yeah — you love some others
and hate none of the rest
in the particular and in the abstract
we are the stuff that others are made of
some anxious hands reach out from hell
and try to pull us down
but we can fly
and we elude them
our bloody ankles soothed by the cool winds of the higher altitudes
and you want to do whatever you can to help them
when you can
and evading their pain when they are incapable of doing anything but hurt you
calling on the resources of who you are
You accept other people the way that you accept nature
You know that there are rings of hell
and gates of heaven
and that every person resides in one or more of them
You take sides because that is a practical matter of being alive
We are defined by our oppositions
Without boundaries we would just be a moving point in the All
Not an individual
at All
Acceptance
of
who we are
Nature
Human Nature
Love
and our animal needs
the rent
the groceries
the car or the bus pass
Necessities
But not anxious about those either
we are not conflicted
we are sure-footed
even in a Depression
We, now more than You
You transforms to We
We just move forward
one foot in front of the other
We survive because we are in harmony with all Creation
All love exists beyond ambition
All art is made beyond ambition
All abundant life
happens
beyond ambition
Ambition is fear
Ambition is fear of death
fear of the truth
fear of ourselves
fear of our greatest joy
The pursuit of success is failure
We have success already
the unique personalized success that we were born to live
the stirrings of our soul finding the very same matter as themselves
in the world that we thought was external to us
We live alone
and we live connected to All
Each of us is
an Individual
and the Universe.
This is not something to strive for
This is something to receive
with humility and gratitude
We are not granted our intelligence to master ourselves, our destinies and the world
We are given our intelligences to understand
and to know
that every level of understanding that we reach
is the portal to a new mystery.
The following of the mystery
is deep joy …
The constipated forcing of a path of ambition
arouses my pity
and my insecure trepidation
at being infected by it
again
Ambition is a wound in me
And in you too
The temporary rush of “making it”
The great accomplishments
which always fade with time
and are only remembered for the stages of my real development that occurred when I thought I was on my way
and worse …
and better …
the “failures” that taught me so much
and exposed to violent attack
Oh … I thought that I had succeeded at transcending ambition
but we never transcend anything
The euphoria of most of this poem
well, euphoria is too strong of a word
the contentment of most of this poem
ends with a small amount of anxiety
tethering me to rest of mankind again
preparing me for the next epiphany
and the new mystery that awaits.
My guess
My hypothesis
is that the next subject
will not deal with ambition
but will focus on a particular type of service
and my wound will heal
as I tend the wounds of another.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
5/19/20: The Shame of Notre Dame #poetry
I’m an alumnus of the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana
I don’t donate any money to the school
So my alumni status is much like my status as an American citizen
I can say whatever I wish
and it will be very respectfully ignored by the powers that be.
I believe in other powers than those that be
Invisible powers
I believe that there is more force
in the sincere statement
and the honest action
than there is in the billion dollar endowments
of the seemingly great universities of America.
Notre Dame announced today that they will be opening the campus for in-person enrollment for the fall semester
I left the following comment below a public relations announcement the University placed on LinkedIn:
As an alumnus, I can only express my disappointment in this immoral decision. Testing and tracing and the other mitigation strategies aren’t enough. ND employed a balancing test between money and human life. It will regret its decision. This is not consistent with Church teachings. And it is unfortunate that ND is leading the nation in this folly. Sadly our profession of values based leadership is more branding than reality in this instance. America is reaping the whirlwind of its narcissism and greed. It always infects the poor first, but a similar ethos is being used against ND students, faculty, staff and local neighbors as is employed against food supply chain workers and Indian reservations. It is a disgrace in all instances. The poor are the canaries in the coal mine. Greed comes for us all.
My words have no impact in the material world.
I know it.
I don’t go looking for trouble
and I won’t get any because I am an invisible man
to the decision makers
I coulda been one of them
I chose not to …
or rather I was destined not to …
Poetry is the art of the powerless
The meek will inherit the earth
My words are not just talk
My obscurity is testimony to what I’ve sacrificed for God
I wouldn’t trade this blog
for the Presidency of a University
and the myriad opportunities the position would give me to decide who lives and dies
I teach out of love for my students
I find them to be the opposite of expendable
There is no balance in my perception of them
They are of incomparable value
I govern the world in my writing
True none of my ideas are implemented
But that is not to say that they aren’t effective
The poet plays the long game
The poet stands for what is true and good
in opposition to contemporary delusory passions
Obscurity
and modest material circumstances
are small prices to pay
What is art for?
It can’t be for making pretty decorations
or being regarded as fashionable trendy or cool
It can’t be for extra taking bows and curtain calls
It is not a means to becoming a big shot
Art is to tell the truth of the world
How beautiful and wonderful it is
and
thus
how it shouldn’t be defiled
This insecure greedy obsession with the abstraction of the dollar
murderous
callous to suffering
made real by people who should and do know better.
My art alas is not for the powerful
it is for the people who could be powerful
but decide to be something else.
When I am alone and tired
I often wonder about why I never assumed the mantle of societal control
Why I always made the decision at the crucial moment not to pursue it
I go over and over this territory
musing if my anxiety is shame or regret
was there something deficient in me
But then something like the Notre Dame announcement happens
and I am back on track
I made another related decision today
that I won’t talk about now
A choice that involved more than words
There was a little money involved
and I did the right thing
the true thing
I always do
and it is always hard
the powerful control more than classrooms and budgets
they have access to my mind too
but it is getting easier
You are the world
Stand up
You’ll be punished and ignored
and on your way
to the reformation of the world
and your personal redemption.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
5/21/20: 59% #poetry
According to a new Quinnipiac poll
59% of American white men
Think Donald Trump
is doing a good job as President
59% of American white men are assholes
There can’t be any other explanation
And I know a lot of white men
who I am sure didn’t vote for Trump
who are assholes too
So more than 59% of white American men are assholes
I’m a white man
I’m not an asshole
So it is unfair to say that all American white men are assholes?
Am I the only American white man who isn’t an asshole?
I’m a football fan
but I don’t feel good about it
traumatic head injuries for my entertainment
or my Sunday afternoon nap
remind me of weekend afternoons with my Dad
that haven’t mattered for a long time
Comfort food of domination
I like musical theater
(or at least I used to … all entertainment bores me lately … I’ve seen everything)
but I’m not gay
I’m heterosexual
a straight American white male who is a fan of the NFL, but is guilty about it, and who used to enjoy Julie Andrews but now is just bored by it all …
I’m a poet
a writer more accurately
but I’ll claim poetry
I like words
and the truth
I’m spiritual
I’m not a jock
I don’t work with my hands
I’m a man of action
but I am willing to wait
for opportunity and inspiration and clarity
I abhor all of the men of action who are always doing, doing, doing
and usually fucking things up
I hate being one of the boys
I’m not weak
I’ll fight when necessary
and sometimes when not
I have a lot of integrity
I’m overly sensitive
and perfectly sensitive
You have to be sensitive to do what I do
and fragile feelings are an occupational hazard
I am resentful
at times and always
I feel that I have been treated unjustly
but not like my fellow white men
I feel that I have been mistreated mainly by white men
and some white women who might as well be white men
who admire them
who want the same type power
who’s only beef with white men is that they hold power that these women want
That being said
there is a prophetic type woman that I admire
that I want to be like
that I think I am like
there are prophetic women and people of color and immigrants
that I admire
and think that I am like
Can I be a prophetic white man?
Certainly
must be so
because I am
I actually don’t feel that I have anything to say to my demographic peer group — white men
Except this …
stop being white men
Be human
White men suck
all the conflict
all the power
all the destruction
all the violence
all the oppression
White men suck
Because white men have been the ones with power
They like Trump because he represents their power
To them, this corrupt, perverted, murderous, lying fucking idiot
is preferable to anyone who is not a white man
That is so seriously fucked up
Human
Human
Human
Something beyond color
and gender
and language
and nationality
HUMAN
Touch the human
Human is what I am
White man is just a coat that fate says that I must wear
A coat that embarrasses me
I can never know
the totality of a woman’s experience
or the experience of a person of color
or the experience of a foreign national or an immigrant (although I am a little closer here because my parents were immigrants, but I still don’t totally get it, and I’ll never completely understand all of the variations between cultures and countries)
but I do know what it is to be human
I know what it is to be afraid
to love
to feel anxiety
to be brave
to watch a loved one die
to be hurt
I know what it is like to be with someone or people who make you feel welcomed and cared for and about
and what it is to be brutalized emotionally and physically
I know what it is like to struggle with the outer world
and wrestle with the inner world
I know confidence and doubt
I know the urge to create
and the need to be free
I know the solidity of justice
and the wound of injustice
I know what it is to internalize negative lies that would-be masters say about me
and the thrilling certainty after determining the words of their hate were wrong
I know what it is to forgive
but not too soon
I know that there is no peace without fairness.
How pathetic white men are
Don’t they see that unity
at-one-ment
is so far preferable to dominance and control?
I see God in the faces of all man(and woman)kind
I see Satan in the face of white control.
Trump is the personification of all that is wrong with America
He is the personification of white men
Please my sisters and brothers
all people of color
and people of the world
Please don’t defeat white men
and then become white men yourselves
No more of the same please
I know that as a human
because I feel that sometimes
I fantasize and see myself as a powerful white man
Of course
when push comes to shove
I choose humanity over white maleness
but I waver
that’s part of being human
Don’t admire the mother fuckers
Don’t let them rape you and colonize you again
It’s always a temptation
It’s their last victory
The world will look the way you look now
if you let it
The white men went home for two months
and the innocent animals came out of hiding
Let the world look like our hearts
59%!
What an embarrassment.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
Creative gestation.
5/22/20: Purgatory #poetry
I enjoyed living on earth
Where my goals seemed important
and my diversions were pleasurable
Where my friends seemed to have intense interest in my happiness
and the government kept me safe
my neighbors wished me well
My employers expected that they’d have to pay me for efforts
and everyone said please and thank you.
Things worked
There was an order to things and I had my place in it
I enjoyed the dream of earth
But then I woke up
Consciousness is an unraveling
It all unwinded
My goals weren’t goals at all
Just failed hypotheses
worthy experimentation
discovering nothing but the process of discovery
which is something I guess
My diversions seem laughable in retrospect
The movies that I thought were so important
the books and teachers that I found so wise
I thought I found paradise
but paradise was a mirage
It was all well-meaning
and immature
Some of my “friends” turned out to not be
the others couldn’t possibly care as much as I thought
everyone has troubles of their own
and are on their own paths
There are places where one must go alone
The government didn’t care
My neighbors don’t know my name
There are no employers
Everybody works for themselves
People say please and thank you but don’t mean it
Or get sick of it
and just don’t bother
Sure there is love and kindness and friendship and appreciation on earth
but it is special and rare
It’s not the order of things
The Holy Spirit flies over in and through
a slaughterhouse.
I see hell through a thick plate glass window.
Every painful experience that I ever had plays out before me
Holograms of pain
Insults
Injustices
Cheats
Beatings
Frustrations
Doubts
Not hurt
Memories of hurt.
I sit in a waiting room
I am not afraid
I am waiting
Purgatory is a waiting room
Waiting for heaven
Waiting for the New Thing
The new idea
The new feeling
The new people
The new action
The reward for all I have learned
Earth whispers “escape, escape back into me — enjoy normality again”
Hell pounds on the window and shouts “fight me and be justified, feel alive, argue with me, wallow with me, it feels good”
No
I resolve
No
Earth I am better than your fulfillments
I am something more than normal
I can’t go back to believing in things that I’ve learned aren’t true
Hell you imposed yourself upon me
I simply turn away from you
It is harder to give up hell than earth
Earth is boring
It’s not that hard to let go
But hell hisses at me
“There’s nothing else … you have to prove yourself … you must defeat me … there is no heaven … it is your delusion … there is only fighting me … and if you beat me I’ll give you a medal”
When hell becomes as weak as earth
When hell becomes a bore
Heaven will arrive
after a period of grieving silent sorrow.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
5/23/20: Could it Be? #poetry
It feels very nice
Calm and satisfied
Not ecstatic
My mind doesn’t race
I’m not excited
I feel complete
The past is past
deliverance
will it last?
Is the useless shadow gone?
It was all so dumb
Everything was perfect
just some static around the edges
that was never really there
Will I never hear the noise again?
Is it truly gone?
As gone as it feels right now?
The future crowns
a head peeking out of my vagina
as always head first
A lifetime of gestation
I protected my baby from all the abuse
Sometimes I needed bed rest
A baby comes out of me
the spitting image of the baby world before me
a smarter, kinder, more creative world …
than I ever imagined
Reality pulled me through insult and darkness
the drama of the gifted child
The last thing that the innocent soul learns
is that some others are far away from the joys of that soul
and finding the ones intimate with those joys
is an odyssey
I’ve always reckoned that this was a process
I circle and circle and circle reality
and I am blessed by moments of epiphany
But I want it to be forever
Can’t it be forever?
I’ve forgiven the ignorant part of the world
they are locked in cells of fear
I was locked in a cell of disappointment
I always expected them to be better
But I think I get it
Life is a stream
the sweet water runs through many people
the brackish water splashes up too
I get evidence that I am not alone
That’s when the ignorant specters haunt me
When I don’t think that I will ever
CONNECT
that nothing is better than the misery of the past
that’s all there is …
But I keep going
what else can I do
defiant anger keeps me moving
and personal, independent joy
I accept being alone …
and then you show up …
you always do …
and I realize that I am right
Me is right
My being is right
It’s a natural thing …
others are like me …
a universe of others …
and the more I sing
the more you appear
my audience finds me
and then they sing for me too
and then we sing forever …
Together …
I never understood when people said that people only remember the good times …
I never remember the good times
except when I am living them
then I don’t remember anything …
Sigh … I’ll have to remember again
to protect myself and keep myself alive
but maybe it will be easier
because you will be waiting for me
as always
on the other side?
Aaaargh!
Can I at least fucking remember that?!?!?!
It’s such a nice afternoon …
Peace.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
5/24/20: I’m With Stupid #poetry
I’m an American
America is a chain gang
I am shackled to many people
Hundreds of millions
and many are idiots.
Cynics say that they were just born that way.
Low IQ people married for generations and now they have taken over.
I doubt that.
I have a hard time accepting the epidemic of stupidity
as insoluble.
If that is true
we are doomed.
Everyone is stupid from time to time.
My greatest stupidity in life
has been relying on the judgment of stupid people.
I’ve never been given a hard time
of any kind
by people who were smarter than me.
The evil genius is a mythic creature.
Stupidity is the source of all evil.
Even people who are otherwise brilliant
commit evil acts out of stupidity.
The first obvious observation of life:
TA DA!
everything is connected.
(bow to audience)
If you think you can dominate life
or get more out of it than other people
you are just being stupid.
We are smart when we take care of each other
stupid when we fight.
I think stupidity is a matter of personal character not IQ
(Obviously someone might be a mathematical genius etc
but as I mentioned above, a person with high IQ can be stupid)
Stupidity is arrogant
Stupidity claims that it knows what it doesn’t know
Stupidity is fearful
It lacks the confidence to believe it can understand reality and truth
Stupidity is lazy
Thinking is hard. It’s a kind of agony. Conception is exciting, delivery is painful, arrival is joyful, the process begins again.
Stupidity is narcissistic — it wants to claim that it is the one who knows
Stupidity is a death wish — there is nothing new under the sun, so let’s dig in and hold on as long as we can …
WHAT WORKS AND DOESN’T WORK IN THE STUPIDITY EPIDEMIC WHICH HAS PLAGUED AMERICA FROM THE BEGINNING OF MY COUNTRY*
*the World has been in a stupidity pandemic since the dawn of Man
First, I became a comedian because I (unconsciously) felt that making fun of the stupid would somehow help — people would decide not to be stupid, stupid people would feel ashamed …
It doesn’t work that way
I wasn’t stupid to think it would, I was learning
I am learning
The most stupid thing is to think that you know anything
You have to experiment and experience
Stupid people who listen to Trump
who refuse to wear masks and open their universities
are timid people
oh they come off all mean and strong
they yell and say they are in charge
but they are scaredy-cats
They deny pain and struggle
they never learn how to learn
how to investigate
and observe
and reason
and think critically
and apply higher level thought from smart people who have studied and written and taught in order to help them
they have no bullshit detectors
because they want to believe the bullshit
the fantasies
they want their asses kissed constantly
and they love to
PUNISH
anyone who upsets their idiotic worldview
They create these abstract power structures
and call that reality
They love authority
because authority spares them from thinking for themselves
They love to be entertained
because they hate creating, serving and working
oh how they hate work
they take no responsibility for their lives
they fuck up their lives and then blame other people.
After comedy, I with drew from the world and tried to avoid the stupid.
But that didn’t work.
I was a fugitive from a chain gang.
My fellow Americans always came calling.
Then I became a prosecutor
I figured they needed to punished.
But punishment does no good.
To the stupid, all punishment is injustice.
Punishment is just a tool for the stupid to assert power.
The stupid are cynical.
They don’t believe that justice really exists
and it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy,
they create an unjust world.
Then I said to myself,
“Duh! Teach them.”
So I became a teacher.
But I can only help smart people get smarter,
Stupid people are immune to teaching
Herd immunity
Stupid people think all teachers are full of shit
and only attend classes because their parents told them they had to do so to get a good job
They only want the “A”
whether they learned anything or not
and when they have that attitude
the answer is always
NOT
Even teaching doesn’t work,
WHAT IS A SMART PERSON WHO WANTS TO BE OF SERVICE TO DO TO PROMOTE SMART AND PUSH BACK AGAINST STUPID?
Finally?
(at least up to now)
I do two things
re: making things better
I don’t know if they work or not,
(you want answers ask a stupid person)
MY CURRENT ANSWERS
I live my life authentically
and I write about it
not with the stupid
certainly not of the stupid
but unavoidably among the stupid …
So …
you won’t find me on the Boardwalk in Ocean City, Maryland
or in an improv club
or following orders
or listening to people who attack me for not sharing their stupidities
or thinking that I know everything
or pulling any punches in my writing
or being impressed by anybody
or looking down on anybody
or actively trying to hurt anybody
or forgetting that there are a lot of stupid people out there
who want to infect me with their stupidity
or punish me for being smart.
I will constantly be open to the company of other smart people
they teach me things and keep me safe.
The stupid have not killed me
hard as they have intentionally and unintentionally tried,
they have made me stronger.
This is the gift of the stupid to the smart
they make us smarter and deeper
they lead us to our spiritual destinies
in our simple struggle to survive.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
5/24/20: A Writer is a Traitor #poetry
Every writer
man or woman
had a moment when they were young
toe to toe with their father
telling him to go fuck himself about all he thought they should do with their lives.
A writer just can’t go along to get along
If he is a comedian or lawyer or doctor or architect or businessman or priest, his colleagues raise their eyebrows at the way that he proceeds
He naturally does things differently
It’s not that he refuses to conform — at first, anyway
He doesn’t know how to
If he is on the faculty, he shames the other teachers with his approaches;
He gets physically ill if called upon to lie
or ordered to do something in a way other than his own.
A writer is an
AUTHOR
the author of his life
There is no proscribed path for a writer
A writer uses a scythe and hacks a channel through the wilderness.
A writer never works to please
He writes to discover
He never gives the chieftains the flattering portraits and pretty landscapes that they commission from him before they fully understand who he is
He gives them accuracy and insight
quite willing to see all that is good
but never compromising
and omitting or covering up
what is not good.
A writer raises up that which is too low
and lowers that which is too high
He frames his pictures in a different way
showing outcomes usually held from view
A writer’s actions are not guided by his tribe’s approval or disapproval,
therefore,
A writer is always a suspect
Uninterested in power,
he terrifies the powerful.
A writer doesn’t side with his tribe
The tribe should honor him for that very reason
But instead they want to kill him.
He takes the side of the world
not the puny, pathetic, ignorant tribe
its members seem to act so certainly
they are so happy, and safe
aren’t they?
they know it all
but they are secretly anxious
they doubt themselves
they are frustrated
stuck in the prison of their own making
but they are out of touch with their feelings
and the writer is fully in touch
with both his and theirs
They hate him for his open eyes
and big mouth
They demand silence, death or exile
Usually they get exile
which the writer resents at first
he’s human after all
but grows to enjoy
The writer’s treachery ended his misery
The tribe’s condemnations
cover their own unacknowledged agony
Some in the tribe remember the writer
and when they are ready
they follow his path
to freedom.
All writers are revolutionaries
they overthrow the way things are
and explorers looking for what could be.
A writer won’t leave well enough alone
He won’t accept spin of any kind
He needs the straight truth
to get where he is going
A writer doesn’t belong to people who have a place
A writer is a bard to the homeless
The outcasts
The refugees from tyranny
the people of the endless road
The power structure people of all tribes
even those beyond his own
argue with the writer
mock him
try to shut him up and make him stop
but they can’t do it
He is beyond their power
They can punish him in their tiny worlds
but the very oppressions expose the power structure,
which is essentially the same
in all of its diverse forms and places,
for how small it actually is
A few nascent writers take note
they learn from writers from every locale
The tribes engage in new treachery
but the results are always the same
many people suffer
and the tribe disbands
The power brokers’ troubles never end
they begin again and again and again
The writer doesn’t need the tribe
The writer is self-sufficient
He makes his own culture and laws
far superior to those of entire
(rotten)
civilizations.
Any good writer has the skills to be the chief of any bad tribe
He prefers not to
(for now obvious reasons)
and that combination of skill and preference mean
the writer has the power brokers’ numbers
He knows how they think
and he calls them out every time
They laugh at him
(their nervousness masked by a harsh bravado)
“He’s a crank, he’s a loser, he’s a kook”
But they more than anyone know
that the writer is true
the writer sees them for what they are
They know their own schemes
There is such a thing as mortal sin
A writer is a traitor
he is cast out
or runs away
from his first community (a matter of biology and geography)
and lands
smack in the middle of the whole world (a matter of man’s soul and the intentions of God)
blessed with more
more
more
than he ever could have gained
by identifying with a lie.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
5/25/20: Little Guy Sees the Big Picture #poetry #commentary
Dateline the halls of power — everywhere: Business leaders and politicians are shitting their pants
They are trying to save the economy
the economy is unsustainable
it hasn’t been for years
but now the disaster is heading for people who aren’t supposed to be touched by disaster
The head honchos know it
So they make a desperate gamble
which in their hearts they know won’t work
Dateline ordinary people — everywhere: they bow and bend over
the bosses tell them to go to work and consume and they do so
out of habit?
The ordinary people have listened to the bosses
because the bosses said that they provided them security and a little fun
but the bosses never really gave the security
and used the fun for crowd control
Dateline Lake Geneva, Wisconsin: the state supreme court tells people to go boating and golfing and eating and drinking and shopping and walking in big streams of people without any protection or social distancing — it is your right
The scientists say don’t do it, you are risking your lives
The people don’t listen to the judges or the scientists in any detail
They just follow authority
The go-have-fun green light has been lit
So they go
The people don’t know from rights or risk
Dateline the future: people in Wisconsin and neighboring Illinois will suffer horrible deaths resulting from the Memorial Day Fun Order
Dateline Walgreen’s 47th Street and Lake Park, Hyde Park, Chicago: I got a text that one of my prescriptions was ready
I put on my mask and gloves and went out to my car
which I run once a week to keep the battery and the brake rotors in good shape
I drive to the Drive -Thru window at Walgreen’s
They have a sign up
THE PHONE SYSTEM IS OUT OF ORDER
PLEASE COME INSIDE
There is no way that I am going inside
I call the store’s main number
That phone number is out of order too
A pharmacist shouts at me through the layers of plate glass
COME INSIDE
I yell back
I’M AT RISK (we all are)
We each repeat ourselves three times before recognizing our situation was hopeless
I’m not out of pills
I’ll try again next week
Makes me wonder
how this re-opening will ever work
That lady was a pharmacist
a healthcare professional
and she didn’t consider a solution to the phone problem
which considered options
or at the very least an apology and deferment of service
to at-risk people who shouldn’t enter the store
It’s a pharmacy!
A place you go to get healthy
What would happen with less educated people
handling simpler matters
than pharmacology
Dateline Oak Brook Shopping Center two weeks ago: Paula stops at the Pottery Barn for a curbside pick-up
I have no idea what it was, I just see boxes
This kid comes to the car
Paula is the driver
She pops the hatchback and tells the kid to put the box in the car
The kid says he can’t do that
He says he is under orders to hand the package to her personally
We tell him to just leave it on the ground, we’ll take care of it
After a long negotiation, our hostage situation is resolved
Our lives were in the hands of a high school kid working his first job
and a store manager at the Pottery Barn
Social distancing?
How far away from society can I get?
Dateline the same excursion with Paula two weeks ago at a little shop that sells refurbished Herman Miller chairs — Paula found a nice one for her office: the proprietor comes out and hollers a friendly come on in
I say (from behind my mask) Can’t you just bring it out here?
The guy — a small businessman entrepreneur — says (no mask)
“Listen I don’t just refurbish chairs. I clean offices. I have this special spray which disinfects everything. My place is totally clean. No danger.”
Um, epidemiologists on TV were saying that droplets spread airborne from individuals was thought to be the leading cause of infection, but they weren’t sure, so they advise masks to prevent spray and wiping down surfaces …
So the scientists aren’t sure
but this guy wants to decide things
He has vocational school training and has met a payroll
Dateline CNN: Notre Dame President, a priest who has had some training in giving a damn about other people, dithers and backtracks after his rushed decision to re-open the school
If we don’t have enough tests we won’t re-open
I think we have the space to quarantine
The Father blanches when the anchor mentions that the student body is sure to have COVID-19 infections
He wanted to be first to market
but his gut is telling him disaster looms
and his advisers, who think somehow that they can con people into accepting danger and loss of life so that the University makes money
tell him the con will work
Cheer Cheer for old Notre Dame
That works at first
Like at Lake Geneva this Memorial Day
or the beginning of the Viet Nam War
but nothing destroys credibility and authority
more completely
than massive casualties
and America’s Viet Nam horrific death total
will look reasonable by the time this pandemic is over
Dateline MSNBC: a bright young woman anchor, recently back from maternity leave, who never offers her own opinions
who just reports the news as objectively as she can
launches into a blistering commentary
lambasting the government for not protecting her baby
She works in Washington, D.C., a hot spot
She is an “essential worker”
She regularly is at the Capitol and White House
where political hacks won’t wear masks
and look like sissies
and flaunt social distancing
Trump recently went to the Capitol for a lunch with Republican Senators which was served as a buffet …
Leading by example
Dateline Missouri: An infected hair stylist at a Great Clips exposes hundreds to the virus
Dateline America: Forty states say dental practices can re-open
What could go wrong?
Dateline France: Two weeks after a primary school opens, seventy children test positive for COVID-19
Dateline Poor People: Dying — Navajo Nation, largely black and brown food supply chain workers, prisons — canaries in the coal mine
all misery that comes to the poor works it’s way up the social ladder
you don’t have to be prophet to see what will happen when everybody goes back
without the proper facilities and protection
How many people are going to die?
The numbers are already astronomical
Dateline what’s next:
The Hunger Games?
June’s death numbers will spike higher than was necessary
The government and businesses will try to lie about the numbers and say that they are too high
when actually they are greatly under-counted
The rich will try to hold onto their money
The stupid will follow their lead and argue that mass death is a reality that we have to face
Propaganda will be thick and deep
Already a news station shows a young bride crying because her big wedding was cancelled
She should be grateful that she is healthy and alive
and in love
But the puppet masters will manipulate the burden of dreams
Destination weddings
baseball
Fine dining
this year’s model car
all nonsense
Dateline what should happen:
I said it when this started
It’s even more obvious now
Our health security and our financial sustainability should be our only concerns
The details are quite difficult
The Big Picture is easy
People need to feel safe
They have to survive
Healthy people who are not bankrupt, homeless and destitute
can rebuild our economy
This economy hasn’t worked for a long time
People have been talking about health care accessibility and economic justice for years
This pandemic should be a wake-up call to get things right
Dateline Me: I’ll tell you one thing — I’m making every decision of where I go and how I go there. I’m not listening to pharmacists, Pottery Barn personnel, College Presidents, advertisers, public officials, chair refurbishing tradesmen …
Right now, it’s the Wild West
in matters of health and economic security
we’re all on our own
The official line is that we are all in this together
we should be
but it’s just not the case
oh, some of us are
but that’s not
The Big Picture
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
5/26/20: The Soul’s Anatomy — Failure #poetry
Failure
Why failure first?
Failure gives access to the soul
Failure of self
Failure of dreams
Failure of the world
Failure of other people
Failure scrubs the eyes
Painful temporary blindness
and removes a layer of illusion
the layers and layers of illusion
our inheritance of ignorance
pressured by the events of our lives
fossilized
Failure is an archaeological phenomenon
Getting us closer to the essence.
The fools who honor victory and success
and mock failure
are soul-less
Exiles from wisdom
rejectors of love
Failure is the gate
that opens character
It shows you
resilience
and courage
and commitment
and integrity
and talent …
Failure forces you to do things that you never knew that you can do
It makes you a reflective person
Failure throws you back upon yourself
People thoughtlessly work
and thoughtlessly marry
and thoughtlessly make friends
and thoughtlessly vote
and thoughtlessly pursue faux interests
always acting at the suggestion of others
always doing what they are told
Failure teaches
that your conception of yourself is too small
that your choices aren’t suitable
Failure is the soul’s demand
That you organize your life
in conformity to something true.
Paradise resides in wounded-ness
The soul finds itself in the pursuit of necessity
not in ambition
or even desire
G was the same man when he was humbly clerking and selling fire wood
and leading armies to moral victories
and traveling the world as a celebrated figure
and writing his memoirs as he died of throat cancer
A man of great talent and character
as much a failure as a success
We should not identify with our failure or success
They are beside the point
What matters is our soul
which is an unchanging kernel
DNA coiled within us
even before we were born
that is shot into the rest of existence
as if from a particle accelerator
causing all forms of combinations and permutations of mass and energy.
Our soul is not only within us
It is outside of us too
We create lives with self-determination
and have our destinies imposed upon us by fate
Simultaneously
No one can ever understand the complexities of life
Its variations
Its processes
Its essence
Failure teaches us to participate in life
exposing the folly of our attempts to control life
but also
if we listen carefully
the folly of believing that we ourselves can’t act upon life
A baby plays
experimenting, experimenting, experimented
seeing what works and doesn’t work
what pleases and displeases
what brings pain and pleasure
what she’s good at and what she is not
what resonates in her heart as her identity.
Moment after moment after moment,
life rolls on
most moments have no meaning
they are forgotten as soon as they pass through
but some moments —
many moments for the soulful —
have meaning
those instances are the soul’s code
and failure moments are among the most meaningful
Pride
conflict
malice
ignorance
foolhardiness
naivete’
good intentions
impractcality
missed calculations
bad luck
impediments and disabilities from past abuse
fatigue
heroism
sacrifice
choice — failing in one way in order to succeed in another
Failure gives perspective
How broadly can we look at our existence?
How many planes can we live upon at once?
I’m just curious
what lessons are there for failures as human beings
for those who fail and fail and fail
but declare victory
who make the world so difficult
How is their consciousness raised
to be in harmony of the mysterious spheres of reality
and awakened to compassion?
Somehow that happens
because history seems to speak to a kind of progress
mankind in general seems to be learning from its failures
the consciousness quotient seems to rise with each generation
evil seems more desperate and farcical
Mankind ages like an individual man or woman does
The soul emerges in some leaders every generation
and the work of the past iterations is not forgotten
but rather expanded
what starts as an elite experience becomes more accessible
prevailing ignorances gradually become fringe points of view
A person and the human race keeps failing
in its relentless quest for perfection
This is what is mythically represented in Judaeo- Christian religious traditions as
the Return of the Messiah
after we process our last failure
and finally see
we will no longer be men
We will be
Divine
What an odd response I just felt
I don’t want to be
Divine
I like being a man
I’m addicted to all of this struggle with failure
My soul says that is who I am
for now
or forever?
Maybe the last looks that I saw on my parents’ faces
was the split second before they became God
There embalmed heads in the coffins
were sculptures of their last moments of failure
I don’t want that for myself
not yet, and frankly
not ever
although I know it is coming
but only in my mind
my soul doesn’t believe it.
And that failure to comprehend reality
will be the final painful lesson from my soul
but I am sure it has many other things to teach me
in the meantime.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
5/27/20: Unintended Consequences — Speak and Let Your Life Speak # poetry
I’m not into motivation
or inspiration
I’m not into entertaining
or being provocative
or cheering people up
or making people feel good
or teaching
or helping
or serving
or leading
or getting attention
or shocking
I guess I’ve spent a lot of time doing all of those things
but as you get older
and work
shit falls away
you get closer to essences
and you see that all real consequences are unintended consequences.
The only thing that I am interested in now
is the truth
Not Truth with a capital T
I’m not interested in persuading you
or coercing you
or making you see things my way
I just want to see things my way
from my perspective
and with rigor
to really look
really pay attention
and then I want to say it out aloud
and act accordingly
I’m not trying to boss you
or make the world into my image of what it should be
I don’t suffer the burden of dreams
I don’t need people to stand up when I walk into a room
I want to be respected
but we all deserve that
I don’t mind if you don’t want me around
or want to hear what I have to say
I just don’t want you interfering with me being where I and others want me to be
or trying to tell me to stop talking
I wrote a brief comment on LinkedIn criticizing my alma mater’s decision to “re-open” in Fall 2020 in the middle of the pandemic as immoral
I got the usual right trolling
and I was surrounded by Notre Dame rah rahs who have invested their life in thinking their association with that University makes them special
A young woman, a recent Notre Dame graduate, wrote me a LinkedIn note
Her father, a 1979 graduate, was diagnosed with COVID-19 in April 2020, a month ago. He almost died.
He wrote the President of Notre Dame a letter imploring him not to open the school
The daughter wanted to thank me for standing up for her father
She took note of the trolls and how so many educated people — affluent alumni — were oblivious to the pain, suffering and death and the irresponsibility of the University’s decision
I did an innocuous comment on a LinkedIn stream
expression that doesn’t rise to the level of a Letter to the Editor
or a self-published poem on my blog
and it meant something to someone else
Not the most important thing that happened to the young woman
not even that day
probably not even that hour
but it gave her some comfort, encouragement and support
unintended consequences
I just had to get it out
I can’t be silent
I have to openly state my truth
I suffer if I don’t
I suffered that way for years
But my just speaking up
I gave a little friendship to someone I don’t know
We search for our purpose
we really just have to accept who we are
and be that thing as consciously as we can
Every interaction doesn’t have a sweetness to it
I have readers who also write
and readers who don’t
Visual artists
doctors
young people
my students
older people
old friends
entertainers
lawyers and other professionals
business people
Some read me all the time
Some drop in every once in awhile
They come from all over the world
Some are lonely
Some struggle with mental or physical illness
Some are very upset at the state of the world
Some just want a little companionship
Some hold me in very high esteem
Some want to, but have reservations
Some hang back and hope they are not noticed
Some rush me with comments and praise
They all get something out of reading me
in a different way
and who knows why
in all instances
The one thing that all of my readers have in common
is that they want meaning
they are well-intentioned people
they appreciate humanity
they want to participate in it
Any good my writing does for any of my writers
is not to be my credit
and I don’t say this with false humility
I say it out of observation
I’m just being who I am
and they are just being who they are
and we get something out of
our mutual existence
From my point of view
all there is
is Me and the World
My readers bring the World to me
A part of the World which is not always in my immediate locale
I extrapolate from my current readers
my other readers who will see my words in the future
The Inner Reaches of Outer Space — Sam Keen
The Outer Reaches of Inner Space — Richard Thomas
My readers are pieces of my soul
apparitions in flesh and blood
I talk to the trees and while you are listening to me, I suddenly see them come true — Alan Jay Lerner
Speaking
Let Your Life Speak — Palmer
Not always a warm and fuzzy
but its own kind of fun
How many times I have been fired
and/or insulted
or shamed
because I say my truth
and assert the authority over my entire life
Action is saying yes and no
And how many times have I found that after I suffered all sorts of vilifications
my decisions had impact
“I didn’t think so then but you were right”
“The whole place went down after you left”
“I felt the same way and I quit shortly after you did”
“I didn’t have the guts to move on”
And my antagonists were troubled by my point of view
their hatred of me was a projected self-hatred
Cynics have it all figured out
They are sure that there is no such thing as integrity
until they meet it in the flesh
and then they enact little dramas
they want the free person
the honest person
to heel to their demands
or just go away
JUST SHUT UP AND GO AWAY
I never set out to challenge anybody
and certainly not to shame them
Sometimes good people are challenged by me
another unintended consequence
It is just natural
They being who they are
Me being who I am
People who live for power see my honest existence
as an attempt to wrest power from them
They try to make me an antagonist in their power struggles
But I could give two shits for their power
The Power of the Powerless — Havel
Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the age — Shelley
Be like the little birds — Jesus
Nothing is more powerful than Living in Truth — Havel
Look and be simple
We make the world better
by fully committing to
being ourselves
LOUDLY
the truth in solitude
is more powerful than a trillion dollar lie
I position myself for unintended consequences.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
5/28/20: Grant — History is Poetry #poetry #history
For several years after Ulysses S. Grant died he was in the Pantheon
Theodore Roosevelt said that the greatest Americans were Washington, Lincoln and Grant
Mark Twain said Grant’s memoirs were a great work of American Literature
They built Grant’s Tomb
By the time of my boyhood in Rochester, New York
in the 1960s
when I studied my U. S. Presidents pencil box
and compared and contrasted their biographies in the Encyclopedia Brittanica
Lee was the great general in the Civil War
Lee was the man of tactics and sophistication,
the cultured one
Grant was the butcher
who had more men and money
and ruthlessly bludgeoned the South to death
Far from the Pantheon
Grant was one of our worst Presidents
Corrupt and disorganized
What happened?
History is a chronology
and poetry is an eternal moment
Both are complicated
They involve a jockeying between two sides
Good and evil
In history it may seem that one side or the other has the upper hand in a particular moment on the timeline
In poetry the two are always there
side by side
Poetry asks for a decision
History has decided
But the process of writing history is a poetic one
the personages of the past are ourselves
and no notion is more poetic than that
The human thing
that doesn’t change
I can’t see a difference between the Civil War and Reconstruction
and today
The same choice confronts us
The same forces divide us
We suffer the same pain for the same reasons
And our struggles
most often fought on the battlefields of politics
and politics more sedate cousin — historical interpretation, which has more influence than we know
Intellectualism unlike wealth does trickle down to the general population
we get it through secondary sources —
historians give us moral arguments as they assess which figure was “good” or “bad”
and in that way direct us in the conduct of our current affairs
One’s view of Grant is one’s view of America
and even more profoundly, one’s view of human existence.
Leonardo DiCaprio is the executive producer of a documentary about Grant on the History Channel
The best current events programming that was on last night
The poetic DiCaprio and the historians on his show are attracted to each other
Opposites attract?
Like seeks like?
Same thing.
Rick looks at Grant:
Grant was an artist
He started life with a lack of confidence
His father was a mixed bag
Hyper-critical of Grant
but an abolitionist
The father sent Grant to West Point
Grant had no vision for his own life and just went along to get along
Grant was an indifferent student
smack in the middle of things
but great at what interested him
which at the time was horsemanship
Several years later, Grant did a good job in the Mexican War
but was generally unrecognized
When you look at his photos he has a kind of blank expression
He had no instinct for self-promotion
But Grant was an artist, an artist, an artist
He had excellence in him
Grant came home and got married
His father-in-law gave him a slave as a present
which he accepted
Grant was criticized for not beating the slave
Grant was in a haze
just being told what to do
but something else was stirring inside of him
Grant sucked at business
He was not a man of business
He was a man of humanity
He was quite poor
and at that low point
he freed his slave
which was just about his only asset
He saw a man
not a thing
Grant was humble
He wasn’t ashamed when he sold fire wood for a living
He did what he had to do
He saw the art in obscurity
He may have been obscure his whole life
and how many extraordinary people are unknown
never having their chance in history
yet shining eternal in poetry?
Grant lived into his forties in the shadows of fathers
Flat on his ass, he asked his father for a job as a clerk in his tannery
thin gruel for a West Point grad
He might have died an ignored failure
but opportunity arrived in the adversity of the Civil War
Grant had been drummed out of the military
because he was lonely on a remote outpost in then-frontier California
missing his wife and children
and self-medicated with alcohol
which caused him to neglect his duties
But all trained military men were needed for the war effort
He was immensely talented
and became the star of Lincoln’s generals
eventually becoming supreme commander
and devising and executing the strategy that won the war for the Union side
Lee wasn’t superior to Grant in any way
Lee was a patrician aristocrat with bloodlines running back to the Revolutionary War
Grant was an ordinary Joe
Lee loved uniforms and took a great photo
All of that bullshit made Grant feel awkward and seemed beside the point
Lee was a great general of his time
Grant was an innovator who helped invent modern warfare
Lee was courtly and well-spoken
Grant was quiet and direct
Lee was a racist who didn’t believe in America, and claimed his greater allegiance to Virginia
Grant was color-blind, and saw America as an ideal that unified all people
Lee fought for ownership
Grant fought for freedom
The Confederacy and Nazi Germany are cousins
The romance for Robert E. Lee and the Confederacy that denigrated the memory of Ulysses S. Grant
came from a strain of evil in the American character
a fascist strain
White Nationalists march around statues of Lee
a President orders people of color to go die in meat packing plants
the lack of humanity doesn’t stop at color
old people are ordered to die for the owners
anyone unlucky
in the wrong place at the wrong time
must die for the owners
Leonardo DiCaprio’s rehabilitation of Grant
arrives at precisely the right historic
and poetic moment.
Grant was a lousy businessman
He was baffled by business
His mind was on other things
His arts:
horsemanship
warfare
public policy
and ultimately
writing.
So his Presidency and later life were hurt by poor business decisions.
His critics
pursued their agenda of advancing fascism in America
by amplifying Grant’s human frailties
and ordinary failures
as a way of distracting from his great accomplishments
accomplishments that the critics are committed to undoing
Grant believed in equality for all people
His eight years of President were committed to freedom, respect and economic opportunity for Native-Americans and African-Americans
He was right
He was good
on the major issues in American life
Race
and by extension
Ownership.
Are we to be a free people?
Or owned?
This remains our primary question
and Grant was on the right side of it.
Grant’s side only had the upper hand for brief periods in American history
The mythic figure of the late 19th century
became the butchering, drunken corrupt lucky bum of the mid 20th
Grant’s Tomb gave way to
Birth of a Nation
and Gone with the Wind
The racist owners had their way in the late 20th
but as always they over-reached
Progressive politics gained momentum in the last twenty years
and my pencil box history has been overthrown
The owners are on the run
They can be Robert E. Lee
relying on tradition and fancy clothes and all sorts of bullshit
to prop up our division and the owners control of us
and we can be Grant
scruffy
human
sensitive
but skilled
persistent
resilient
adaptive
overcoming all obstacles
within us and placed before us
grounded and passionate
slogging through the mud
against enemies and our own inertia
to justice
welfare for all
and dignity.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
5/29/20:
The horrible murder in Minneapolis and the completely understandable response of the oppressed people of that city is
a gross violation
followed by a primal scream
One particular group of people
in one locale stand for us all
I stand with the abused black people of Minneapolis
They are experiencing what we all experience
in extremis
I can’t begin to understand the degree of their suffering and pain
But I know it too
I’ve seen it
I find it hard to breathe today
and enough is enough
I stand in solidarity with the protesters
Dast not shame them
Dast not!
They are not responsible for the burning buildings
Dast not thou punish them!
You can’t close all avenues of progress for them and expect a genteel response
I am shocked that black Americans are not in a constant state of violent rage
All the time
400 years of this bullshit
ENOUGH! ENOUGH! ENOUGH! ENOUGH! ENOUGH!
No one listens to them
The law doesn’t work for them
They are a captive people
They need support
and love and opportunity
A chance
Dast not thou even say tsk tsk
Dast not say that they made their own bed when you set it on fire
It’s time for the white power structure to take responsibility for the hell that it wrought.
Attention must be redirected
Money must be redirected
White supremacy
and unjust hyper-capitalism
are murder.
MURDER
ANGER AND RAGE ARE AS NATURAL AS THE BLOOD RUSHING OUT OF A DYING MAN’S NOSE
The loser white thug cop
is told by his white masters
that he is better than African-Americans
They laugh at him as he proudly leaves the room
They give him nothing but racist bullshit
and he goes and kills black people
Who are disposable
to the owners
a living example of how bad things can be
Everyone is kept in control
everyone has a boot on their throat …
It is all connected
different symptoms of the same lethal virus
Pandemic.
Economic Injustice.
Making the rule of law into a farce.
Government of thieves
Destruction of the environment.
Lack of access to health care.
Food insecurity.
The privatization of education.
Censorship of the arts.
War profiteering.
Mind control through propaganda.
Destruction of democratic processes.
Racism.
Are we owned or free?
Something has to give. A boot has been placed on the windpipe of we the people. We react with rage.
Enough is enough.
The owners have to let us go.
Revolution doesn’t have to be advocated.
It is happening
counter explosions
the owners should worry
and so should we
but we can
dare I say
hope
no, not hope — but maybe something adjacent to it
can we channel this volatile energy to something better?
It’s never been done before
but what choice is there
except to try.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
5/30/20: Alone at the Grand Re-Opening #poetry
Fuck business
It’s unimportant
100,000 death toll?
What a joke
You think they are counting the deaths in prisons
or Nebraska
or nursing homes
Have you ever worked with death certificates?
The cause of death section is a creative writing assignment
You know why Trump and the Republicans don’t want to fund testing?
Because they don’t want to know
Are the dead homeless getting a precise count
as if they got a precise anything in their entire lives?
Governors and Mayors re-open
but the idea isn’t whether you are safe or not
It is simply to make sure that the hospitals don’t go beyond full capacity
100,000 plus confirmed cases?
The Rick Blog estimates the real count at 250,000
Where did I get that number?
I pulled it out of my ass
100,000 plus came out of somebody else’s ass
The dean at the last place that I worked said that the faculty and students are anxious to get back in the classroom
Really?
Did he ask them?
Are they high?
An architect spoke to us and said that we needed signage and hand sanitizer
That’ll do it
I am not making any decisions regarding my safety or ethics by committee
I was asked with other faculty to call students who were accepted to the school to send in their deposits
When I was a kid my mother got a job selling freezers to use for meat storage
You got the freezer for cheap and then were roped into a long term contract for the meat
Frosty Teddy was the name of this scam
My mother quit after a day
A Catholic University is the name of the scam that I was asked to participate in
I didn’t pick up the phone
Business, Catholic and University
all synonyms
for scam
Every place that I have ever worked it’s been the same drill
I show up thinking I have found a place to do good
I do some good
but then the bosses fuck it up
in the name of keeping the enterprise alive
they destroy it
The bosses at Our Lady of the Scam
are quite nervous
They talk in a perilous tone
Trump briefing happy talk
They have their Dr. Fauci’s
who play the game of striding the line
honoring the truth
and feeding the business beast
I can’t even listen to that anymore
JUST TELL THE FUCKING TRUTH
Please
The sales meeting cheerleading sounding from the administration of Our Lady of the Scam
sounds more manic than enthusiastic
America is having a nervous breakdown
fearful and depressed
and rambling with a bunch of crazy fucking bullshit about how great things are going to be
Of course I will be blamed for all of this
I’m self-destructive
I can’t hold a job
I have problems with authority
I am not realistic
Fuck all of that
I am the one who knows how dangerous all of this is
I am the one who is not going to lie and hurt other people
I am the one really focused on education
I am the one who doesn’t change every fucking activity of my life into sales and accounting
I am the one who is smarter, kinder, of a higher character and more sincere than all of these mother fuckers that I am supposed to bow to
I am the one who makes all decisions for my personal safety and my personal ethics
So sorry if that doesn’t make a team player on the horde of lemmings running off of the cliff
What will I do now?
Fuck if I know
I’ll tell you what I need from you
Support and opportunity
I don’t need your criticism
because if you are of such a mind
I likely don’t think much of how you go about things either
All the common sense in the world
has resulted in this piece of shit culture
we are gasping for our breath in
Trump Trump Trump
I’m sick of that asshole
The boogey man
The scammers
who seem to be almost fucking everybody
The deans and the architects and the Jesuit priests and the educators
and everybody who is supposed to be doing something smart and good
and arrange meetings where they kiss each others’ asses
and stand up for each other when they enter a room
are more dangerous than Trump
They’ll kill the world to preserve their fucking careers
They aren’t consciously evil like Trump
that motherfucker directly and maliciously hurts people
They are consciously indifferent to the whispers of their conscience
and I think that is worse …
Okay, whew … I’ve punched it out
I’ll be okay
I always figure a way through
I thought I found the answer this time
but then again I always do
I’ll learn from all of this and come up with something better
I used to think that the biggest thing that I needed to learn in life was discernment
that I was always looking for love in the wrong places
I don’t think that anymore
I know now that love is out there
but it is very hard to find.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
5/30/20: Ordinary White People and the Revolution #poetry
Waiting …
The immediate present is comfortable
I love my wife who is feet away
I am comfortable in my chair
The sliding door is open
Cool fresh air is welcome
The ceilings seem 1000 feet high
I am happy
in my immediate world
Just blocks away
a revolution is starting
I wish it would start faster
I wish it won’t be a flash in the pan
I wish it becomes a sustained pressure
I wish it shakes the world’s axis
and makes the earth spin differently
in a new direction
and a better rhythm
I want angry shouts
ignored orders
broken curfews and windows
I want golf games disrupted
tables overturned in fine dining establishments
Shit smeared all over luxury cars
public urination in private gardens …
all forgiven
and understood
and the parasites who caused the frustration and rage
punished
forced to pay damages
and to give the world back to the rest of us
I want the rich to apologize
sincerely
for all of their lies
and all the suffering that they have caused
Justice in all of its forms!
First justice
we’ll get to order and clean up later
Fuck order
Injustice should be put in disarray …
Let’s have moratorium on punishing poor people
for what they aren’t responsible for …
Let’s go to the source of their problems
and if an AutoZone store or two burns to the ground
who cares
certainly not me
The rich have to come forward
and get their just desserts
after all of these years
The future stirs
the layers of time and space
distant and in the palm of my hand
justice
decency
kindness
an end to tyranny
right livelihood
health, education and welfare
You want law and order?
Make justice blind
Make the rich pay their debt to society
Make a society that deserves order
The current society is chaotic
not because of the loudest voices of those most abused
but because of the silent mendacity of the few who control it
They’ve squeezed and squeezed and squeezed
until it has become totally unbearable
A subjugated population with nothing left to lose
is a dangerous population as it should be
The past arrives
I find a YouTube video
Anthony Newley and Sammy Davis Jr. singing
a medley of Newley’s songs
written with Leslie Bricusse
I forgot that they wrote so many good songs
And they reminded me of being in my parents’ living room
Listening to records on the big expensive stereo my mother bought
that no one else in the family ever used
and was just an impressive piece of furniture
And the songs reminded me of those sweet days in the 1960s
when I was so so loved
and so sure that nothing bad would ever happen to me
My security and happiness was the meaning of the universe
Not far from that homely genteel location
was my father’s body shop
The Rochester “riots” in 1964 happened all around my father’s shop
But the violence and mayhem never touched the place
Because my father had grown up very poor
and he loved his neighbors
He saw their pain and not their race
He never condescended to his neighbors or criticized them
He never judged them and was stung when they were unfairly punished
He wasn’t a political man
or a particularly well educated one
But I am remembering something that I haven’t thought of in a very long time
If I ever thought it at all
And I love my father very much
right now
He was Italian
and you know the stereotypes
the mafia, the guidos, the greasers
but there is another Italian thing
a warmth
a sense of justice
a hospitality
a humility
I remember all of that
and I am back in the present
Ordinary white people
have to stand up for the oppressed in America
including myself!
Even if few people listen
Ordinary white people
have to appreciate and enjoy the immediate moment that God gives us
and we have to hear and feel and taste and touch
the cauldron of desire for freedom
that can save us all
Ordinary white people have to speak out and stand up for the oppressed
and against all of our rich masters
The Rochester “riots” of 1964 were one night of a recurring nightmare that started in 1619
in one way
but even started before then
when the first rich boss started bullying the person with nothing trying to survive and enjoy the gift of being alive
Have you had enough?
I sure have
All the contrast in one moment
calm and comfort
love and safety
and a burning flame of dissatisfaction
a yearning for revolution
an incendiary spreading fire
for day-to day reality
to get just a little closer to perfection.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
5/31/20: Agony and Ecstasy on the Road of Freedom #poetry
Be the authority of your own life
Easier said than done
The process of liberation is a painful one
It starts with innocence and looking up
The person you most love and depend on betrays you
They push you down hard
For the fun of it
For the lust of it
For the power of it
You slowly get to your feet
dazed and confused
They laugh at your inexperience
Unsure of yourself
doubting your own perceptions
They own you
They tell you what to do
what you are capable of
and what you are worth
which they say is not much
They take everything
you get nothing
Every once in awhile they patronize you
they praise you in some way
they gift you with trinkets
and you feel a pathetic sense of pride
you feel you pleased them
and if you work hard enough you’ll be like them
You get a little confidence
and get a little positive attention from third parties
and they become jealous of you
they punish you
and shame you
They hurt you and claim that you hurt them
You innocently say something that is not in their interest
and they become enraged and censor you
They demand that you conform to rules of conduct and behavior which maintains the illusion of their control
That word — “illusion”
Something has awakened
nothing that you were taught
something inside of you
You’ve become sensitive to truth
Truth
Awareness of truth gives way to frustration
You don’t like this jail that you share with your oppressor
and then comes more confusion
“how do I escape?’
and then options slowly emerge
and then you feel fear
“what if I can’t do it?’
By this time you are in an uneasy dance with your captor
He knows that you are on to him
He knows that you will subversively work against him whenever you can
You stare at each other in mutual distrust
You won’t let the other out of your sight
This is one of the worst phases
You don’t even have your daydreams any more
and none of the minor creative activity that you’ve always managed to sneak on the side
Your life is an obsession with your jailer
and his life is an obsession with you
Imperceptibly your subversion
grows into defiance
Your master actually makes a few concessions to you
out of two things
exhaustion — he’s not enjoying himself either
and fear
He’s always been afraid of you
He doesn’t want to be exposed as a usurper of all of your potential
He cares most about how he appears
and you
in spite of yourself
because you have been denied any chance of recognition for your talents and achievements
have been growing into a person of substance
You begin to blossom
and he is terrified at the sight of the first bloom
and he violently attacks you
He takes everything
and you’ve finally had enough
you’ve nothing left to lose
and you strike at your enemy
You are no longer subjugated
You are equal
Fuck his rules
Fuck his interests
Fuck his shaming
Fuck his punishment
“This son of a bitch has been beating me for years — now I am going to kick ass on him and anyone like him”
You go to war
He tries shaming you
You are so past buying that horse shit
You demand justice from him
and you start to get it
but you are still not home
because then you are tempted to have the type power that he had over you
over other people
You fall into it
but then you can’t go through with it
every move that you make that resembles your old master
makes you sick to your stomach
now you are confused again
if you don’t go for power
what do you do
Then your memory fucks with you
every day you are reminded of your master
ways that he humiliated you
stole from you
cheated you
slandered you
and now you have to go through the whole process of liberation again
this time inside of your own head
and you have to discipline yourself
to choose freedom and happiness
to create your life on your own terms
There is something oddly seductive about misery
It is a siren call
that unfailingly arrives when you are about to sing
Your experience of oppression becomes part of the fabric of who you are
as much of the part of your essence as the kernel that you were born with
Pain never leaves you
We live our lives in chronic pain
Independence is an act of courage and transcendence
we have to constantly reclaim our faith in the knowledge that we were born with
that we are beings of value worthy of love
that we have vast potential
we are co-creators of the universe
it’s our right
we are up to the task
AND
that we are wounded
controlled by our fear of bullies in the streets
and by archetypes of our mind
We scream for justice
when it is right there inside of us
we shall overcome
and be overcome
Justice gives us wings
and injustice prevents from flying to close to the sun
So we struggle and fight and go through the stages
always trying to reach an impossible promised land
proud that we transcended innocence
and fear
and co-dependence
and stood on our two feet
as a just people
able to love and join who and what is meant for us
never forgetting the misery of the past
sometimes revisiting that horror in our minds
and gaining compassion for those who follow us a few steps behind us on the trail.
Every time we see someone suffering from injustice, we re-live our own such suffering again
Every time we are on the brink of free creation
the excitement is interrupted by the static of the memory of our past pain
“all that was lost when I could have been doing this all along”
We have to know what it is to be blocked from our creativity in order to consciously create
All children are artists
who can make art when they have been kicked in the balls repeatedly?
That’s the question
I used to think that I could just walk away from the oppressor
Put him out of my mind and be happy
But it doesn’t work that way
You have to work at it
Anger when he is close by and worrying you
becomes integrity when he gets further away
Anger explodes and sets a boundary
so that you can move forward
You assert your authenticity and defend it
You determine your own path, vigilant and on guard for your power of self-determination
Moral in the extreme
Committed to never consciously interfering with anyone else’s power over themselves
It is very demanding
You are required to intensely experience the events of your life
take them as they come
and reflect upon them and apply them to your present and future circumstances
Writing has radicalized me
It has made me the authority of my own life
My innocence my anger my frustration my commitment my creative joy my unjust shame and my just rewards
all in one moment
my blood is a tributary
running to the river of blood of the world
the binary agony of the necessity of taking sides
the orgasmic ecstasy of creation itself
Slave rebellions
and Jazz.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
6/1/20: Hamlet Wasn’t Crazy; He Was Upset #poetry
To be or not to be
It wasn’t a Freudian question
It was an existential one
To be is a daunting proposition
It requires the acceptance of life
in all of its manifestations
the sweet and the bitter
the difficult and the easy
the agony and the ecstasy
life and death
America is in withdrawal from its dreams
Its dream of safety
Its dream of cohesion
Its dream of abundance
Its dream of the pursuit of happiness and escaping all pain
Its dream of dominating nature
Its denial of death
The small business owner cries outside of his shop
The protesters destroyed his life’s work
he wails through bitter tears
To be or not to be?
Did he ever give a thought to the persecutions within the criminal justice system that he rarely if ever interacted with?
Did he ever think of the desperation of people without employment, capital or opportunity?
Did he ever think about how bad so many schools in America are?
What reductions in food stamp programs meant to mothers and children?
Did he ever think about how many people live their lives mostly ignored, only noticed periodically to be punished and abused?
Did he ever consider for a moment that his particular dream was not particularly important?
What a powerful delusion!
That no else matters
that you can make it on your own without help
That human suffering is something “out there”
irrelevant to your life of industry and ingenuity
A man is intensely focused on accomplishing his goals
and is brought to his knees by a heart attack
We are part of the world
We can’t exist above or around or near it
If we ignore it
It comes looking for us
suddenly
shockingly
violently
We are not separate from nature and mankind
no matter how we wish to be
To be indeed
We have come to moment
when we have to set aside the burden of dreams
End or defer all of our plans
and tend to our collective needs
Attention must be paid!
To the sick and dying
and the poor
We must become upset
dismayed
distraught
about what has happened to us
US
Self-interest now lies with the community and the earth
Our desire to misname our alienation as autonomy has to end
To be is to be moved by the suffering of others
To be is to be awed by the infinite, multitudinous eternal ever-changing expanse of nature
and to be upset by lies and injustice
The sick and the poor save the rest of us
They announce to us OUR pain
Be! they shout
Look!
See!
You can no longer be numb to reality!
Your dreams and ambitions
Your distractions
don’t work any more
We challenge the meaning of everything!
Money — what’s that?
Your status?
No rung of the ladder matters now
The ladder is on fire
Your hobbies and entertainments are impossible to enjoy while you gasp for air
on a ventilator
or from the acrid smoke of your burning neighborhood
No one cares about what you want anymore
It’s time to take care of the world
Can you see the distinction now
between the frustration of injustice and the denial of the necessities of life
and whining about not getting the pathetic little trophies that you worked so hard for
To be or not to be
To live in truth or be one of the walking dead
zombies who feed on people consciously aware of participation in the world
Politics
and the economy
are abstractions
Constructs of “not to be”
Nature and Humanity are real
The regions of the world
and the verb
(action word)
To Be.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
6/1/20: Too Good for Hollywood #poetry #movies #teaching
Yesterday’s offerings in the COVID-19 film festival were The Dresser, the highly regarded 1982 film about the relationship between the lead actor/director of a touring Shakespearean Rep Company in Britain during World War II, and his Sancho Panza homosexual dresser who keeps his body and soul together and the musty show going on;
and the 2009 straight to video effort Tenure directed by the mysterious Mike Million (his Twitter feed says that is his real name) and starring Luke Wilson as a good teacher.
Both films are also good featuring some nuanced acting and sensitive writing, and each are compromised by distractions for the sake of the commercial audience: The Dresser gets demerits for its preoccupation with plot — the lead actor dies in the end, the dresser loses the meaning and the unrequited love of his life (the lead actor was more concerned with being loved than loving). The Dresser can show us all it has to reveal without the neat “action” of the dramatic event at its conclusion. Albert Finney and Tom Courtenay are great actors who reveal the relationship between their respective characters in its complexity. Ronald Harwood is a fine writer. He doesn’t have to underline anything.
Tenure is a nice reflective character study partially buried under the requirements of a standard Hollywood loner/loser comedy. David Koechner, who is an amiable presence when comedy is called for, is more than miscast here. His character shouldn’t be in the script. Koechner drives a ridiculous sub-plot that has no basis in reality in the belief that idiotic irreverence draws audience. College professors trying to “TP” (festoon toilet paper on someone’s property) a pompous dean, but getting the wrong house — is a comedy misfire that should have been spotted early in pre-production. But the bet was that the then middle-aged Animal House generation still wanted the fantasy of doing cool fraternity pranks, at least vicariously. They didn’t. The first place that audiences encountered Tenure was Blockbuster Video.
Tenure’s writer/director doesn’t have a Wikipedia page. I have a greater internet presence than he does, and mine is definitely a quality-not-quantity affair. What happened to Mike Million? I debated with myself whether to use a question mark at the end of the title of this piece or to go without it. I decided to go without it.
I decided that Mike Million is better than Hollywood whether he knows it or not.
Ronald Harwood isn’t better than Hollywood. He is a master craftsman and does excellent work. He has written many good movies including Roman Polanski’s The Pianist, but he doesn’t aspire to something more.
If you are wondering “what could be more” please read on. If you agree with what I say, I have enlightened and/or encouraged you. If you disagree, I have spited you. Either option is a good result from my point of view.
Mike Million wants something more — more than making well-crafted entertainments or even art. Mike Million dreams of a life beyond mastery or achievement and success. His life is his ultimate art. He wants to touch the rest of mankind effortlessly with his natural sweetness and sincerity.
Tenure isn’t a great movie, but it has nice observations about the art of teaching. Million had the insights, and Luke Wilson does a subtle and perceptive job acting his character.
Tenure teaching lesson #1: A good teacher does it his own way. He brings himself to the classroom and engages his students in a real relationship. For the weeks of the course, a teacher becomes very close to his students. When the course ends, the teacher becomes obsolete. Million and Wilson excellently portray how a teacher is a temporary benevolent presence in students’ lives whose objective is to help them start something. A teacher accomplishes this, in part, by sharing himself as someone who is further along in the process. A student learns the teacher and the teacher learns the students. Million writes with such understanding about what teaching is, it’s impossible to believe that he is not a teacher himself — either in practice or in the potentialities of his soul.
Tenure teaching lesson #2: A teacher studies his students in order to engage them — he speaks to each and every one of them personally in order to direct each and every one of them personally in their particular and unique potentialities. The teacher mirrors his students and initiates transformations by emphatic acceptance of the mutual reflections.
Tenure teaching lesson #3: A teacher entices students to interest in the subject matter. This alluring aspect of teaching is something adjacent to flirtation but can never cross that line. A young co-ed has a crush on Wilson’s professor. She seductively and insecurely asks him at a party if she is “fat”. Wilson gives a perfect line reading when he kindly tells her she is not fat and is a lovely young woman. His tone is adjacent to “fatherly” not flirtation. There is nothing creepy in his response. He understands that teacher can never exploit his students in any way. He can’t lie to them. He can’t use them. He has an almost clerical obligation to them. Any selfishness will destroy any good that the teacher achieved with them. A teacher has to love his students as students.
Tenure teaching lesson #4: Million writes lines that indicate the intensity of teaching in the present, and the body of work that all the various schools and students — people and places — that a teacher touches in the course of his career. Classes come and go, but a teacher has an anonymous legacy in his positive impact on the world.
The parts in Tenure about Wilson’s character as a son, and brother, and love interest, are quite good, since teaching is the vocation whose main qualification is experience as a human being.
That’s true of writing as well, and I wonder if Million isn’t self-publishing on a blog somewhere.
Million has his professor refuse tenure with its pressures to publish and engage in campus politics. He just wants to be in the classroom and teach.
Natural art, without self-promotion and ambition, is the most beautiful art of all.
It is better than Hollywood
and just about everything else.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
6/6/20: The Owners and their Thugs #poetry
The owners look at black people
and they think
“There goes my property that was unfairly taken away from me”
The owners look at a child
and they think
“What a nuisance, I resent having to feed and clothe her and give her a little education”
The owners look at a sick person
and they think
“What a useless idle waste of money”
or
“What a captive market, we can make a killing”
The owners look at an old person
and they think
“He can’t buy anything from me, he can’t do any work for me — let him die”
The owners look at a sincere person who loves the black and the sick and the young and the old etc etc etc (immigrants, people of other colors, women … really anyone who is not an owner … sorry if your demographic wasn’t mentioned — it’s a poem, you know? Everything is representational, everything is real … )
and they think
“What a threat to my way of life! with their talk and example of morality and care, we have to kill them — figuratively or literally if it comes to that”.
The owners need someone to do their dirty work …
the owners don’t know how to work themselves …
they just know how to take control …
the owners look for the capos …
the Jews who swelled with pride when the Nazis gave them petty authority in the Concentration Camps …
the capos kept the lines to the showers straight …
Cops are modern day capos …
all of them …
even the nice ones …
the ones who would never give an old man brain injuries
or choke a dad in a gutter …
The owners aren’t stupid
and they live in fear
they know there is a teeming powerful force of the millions of people that they subjugate
and they need to put fear into the restless hordes
who threaten to rise up and wrest them from their mansions
and hang them on meat hooks in Northern Italy …
The cops are the enforcers
of the primacy of the owners’ property
they are in place to intimidate and warn.
We own a condo.
It’s very nice
we have a little balcony
and an island in the kitchen
it is very comfortable
plenty of space for the two of us
and a bit of protection.
Ownership
even in a tiny amount
affords us protection.
On the other side of our front door
is a revolution and a plague.
The police deal with the exposed
the people who don’t own a refuge
The police don’t generally deal with the likes of me
except with courtesy, and something close to respect
I’m an older white guy still capable of work
I look like I must be doing something of value to the owners.
How do the owners control someone like me?
How do they make sure that I don’t get any ideas
that I don’t represent some ethos other than making them richer and facilitating their control?
They have capos working in business, theater, higher ed, the law and every other milieu that I have ever found myself working in
Those capos are bosses and competitive peers
They mock, insult, slander and generally don’t give one his or her due
They force conformity and censor
They lie, withdraw promised raises and promotions
They love to tell people to shut up
They claim the people are frauds
They break deals and contracts
and then rage
sometimes violently
when their false “authority” isn’t valued
They tell racist jokes at country clubs
Watch child pornography
sexually harass people with less power in their organizations
These capos really don’t do a damn thing
except figure out how to amass petty power
like a good capo does
They pose in their stuffed shirts at banquets
and intone who they think is worthy and who is not
They “teach” based upon their success
either in a classroom or as an esteemed “mentor”
Their message is always the same
“This is how you please the owners”.
Of course, no one can make you feel small unless you let them;
it is the goal of the empty owners and their pathetic insecure capos to make you feel small;
and there are many more people who aren’t owners or capos than those who are;
and the owners and capos are engaged in a big phony show;
and every once in a while all of society sees that the emperor has no clothes;
but it is the option of readers and writers of poetry to see it every day.
I never went along with them.
I internalized a lot of their shit
I had to purge it from my system.
I feel rage about the repeated abuse that they rained on me every day
My name is Rick Thomas. I am an alumnus of the Second City – Chicago Resident Company from the early 1980s. I am also an exile from Second City. I’ve always been an outlier on the fringes of the Second City tradition. I didn’t pursue a career in show business. I am a writer, a lawyer and a college professor. Please check out my website at http://www.richardthomasjd.com and my blog at http://www.richardsteventhomas.wordpress.com. Those links will tell you more than you want or need to know about me.
I have always been interested in improvisation, acting and writing as art forms more than Second City as an institution.
I want to give you a bit of an oral history of my experience with Second City in the hopes that it might be helpful to you in your time of systemic change.
My relationship with Second City has always been mixed. I have some friends who I got to know there, good friends —- and there are people associated with Second City who have done work that I greatly admire.
But there also has been much about Second City that I have been ashamed of, and I have been hurt by Second City as well.
I am writing this as an open letter because I want anyone who is interested to know that I have never been a part of any of the institutional or onstage racism that has occurred at Second City, and that I have also been anti-racist for a long time. I have suffered within Second City culture for my values, and ultimately have had to disengage and go my own way — which has actually been good for my art and my career.
I also am going to make some pretty direct observations here, but it is not my intention to be harsh.
For example, I know and like Andrew Alexander. I think he is a very good and well-meaning guy.
My goal here isn’t to punish or chastise. It is to contribute to a conversation that hopefully leads to improvement in the future.
OK, here are some anecdotes from my personal experience at Second City:
1982 -1983: As a young improviser in the resident company, the natural development in my personal voice gravitated to discussion of social issues. I came back stage during a set and senior cast members were getting high and mocking me “Rick is getting heavy again.” This was my introduction to an anti-intellectual, anti-social justice strain in some but not all Second City performers. It seemed the idea that was encouraged was to sound smart and have “reference level” but not really to say anything. I think the reason for this was to be sure not to alienate any of the paying customers in the audience. The unspoken ethos was to be hip, but not transformative.
Also in this period, Bernie Sahlins, who was the producer/director called me into his office and said that he wanted a “floor” to our content onstage, but he didn’t want to get too far ahead of the audience. I rebelled against this, and eventually this led to me leaving the company. I think Bernie was saying that Second City was show business and not theater. I think that Second City needs to be theater.
Later, Bernie, who I loved by the way, took me to lunch at Nookie’s down the street. He told me one of the most helpful things I ever heard. He said, “You don’t want to do some stupid sitcom. You are an artist. You are better than that.” That was wonderful for me, but damning for Second City. I think Second City should be better than that. I think the world is demanding now that a theater be just that — A THEATER — and take sides. I think Second City has to do a lot better in its training and casting and direct its efforts to smarter audiences of greater quality than ignorant bus tours etc. Andrew’s great mistake was giving the conservative white exurban point of view its commercial due — if Black Lives Matters gets a benefit, cops should get half the proceeds. What the Trump administration has taught us, and what I knew in the ancient history of Chicago main stage in the 1980s is that you have to take sides. Evil has been falsely presented as a debating point. Second City has to do everything it can to speak the truth.
I had a conversation with Kelly Leonard, another person that I think very highly of, a few years ago. He had shared a “positive” review of a Touring Company show in Colorado, I believe, that praised Second City for not taking sides. This was a satiric review that radical right wingers could enjoy. Kelly was happy about that review. He spoke about a colleague he had on the corporate side at Second City who was a Republican and had a right to his point of view. That all sounds very reasonable and liberal even, but I think Kelly was making an error. Oscar Wilde or some other great writer said, “There are some people that I wish to offend.’
SECOND CITY SHOULD TAKE SIDES.
Here’s what I think — SECOND CITY SHOULD BE A THEATER. A THEATER TAKES SIDES BOTH ONSTAGE AND OFF. SECOND CITY SHOULD NOT BE SO COMMERCIAL THAT IT CATERS TO LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATORS INSTEAD OF BEING A TRANSFORMATIVE PERSONAL AND SOCIAL FORCE.
I think Second City has done much better aiding people in personal transformation than on the social side of the ledger — but the personal work is never complete without addressing the social as well.
In my period on the main stage in the early 1980s, Bernie introduced me to Paul Sills, the founding director. Paul introduced me to David Shepherd. I loved both Paul and David very much.
Paul and David were socialists. Paul spoke to me about police misconduct at the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention and how Second City became a refuge for demonstrators beaten during police riots. In the 1990s, I did a video workshop with David in the Hamptons on Long Island no less — that had a very diverse group of participants. David’s thing largely involved giving unheard people a voice. This constructive radicalism is a big part of Second City’s artistic and social tradition and I hope as its leader you reclaim and restore it. The current issues are not new — that’s part of the problem.
I once did a cartoonish gay character in a scene in one of Paul’s workshops. He got pissed off and growled “comic books.” I got the point —-artistically, socially and as a matter of personal development. You need teaching like that. I’m willing to teach for you, by the way — under the right circumstances. The people who founded Second City were artists and intellectuals. They had life experience. They were thinkers. I think you have to pick up your game in terms of the quality of your teachers and instruction in the Training Center. I taught with some of your Training Center faculty when I taught Professional Presence using improvisation as a pedagogy at UIC. I found my colleagues ‘approach lacking. I don’t think that they knew a thing about improvisation. The Training Center was a good business model and a lousy artistic one. Those levels, the conformity of mastering the “games’, the dumbing down and making everything fun … all is anti-improvisational and anti-creative. I was around the Training Center briefly in the early 2000s. I felt like Frankenstein being chased by the villagers. I was taunted for things like being smart or taking a stand. I had a guy lecture me on why 42nd Street Porn Peep Shows were superior to Pulitzer Prize winning plays. Faculty held their turf. Students rebelled against being challenged in workshops and demanded party games. It was an awful place — artistically and educationally. I went to teach at universities where I knew that I would be in a more serious atmosphere.
I want to say again that this is MY EXPERIENCE. I am not painting with a broad brush or saying good things weren’t going on — but I am telling you problems that are part of the organization that you have inherited.
An interesting thing about the way that Paul and David taught was that they did not want their methods to become sacred script. Improvisation, like any art form, is a process and in a state of constant revolution. I have always felt that I wanted to honor Paul and David’s values and to do improvisation, writing and teaching my own way. I think Second City should do that too. I am not an old alum saying that we did it better in the old days. In fact, we didn’t and today requires the new. I don’t like reminiscing for the sake of it. I live in the present and the future. I am writing you because I see opportunity in Second City’s current challenges. There is enough of a strong foundation to build on, and enough mistakes and sins to learn from to make a better future.
Bernie hired Ed Greenberg as a director while I was at Second City. Ed is another nice guy, very progressive and woke — but he was wrong about one thing. I was taking suggestions from the audience one night and some young guy yelled out “Lech Walesa licks pussy!” This was at a time when Poland was fighting a non-violent war of liberation from Soviet Russia. I was repulsed by the ignorance of this drunken audience member and the insensitivity to the courage and suffering of the Polish people. He was also mocking me for being intelligent on stage. I got angry with him. I wasn’t cute or clever. I told him he was ignorant and spoiled. Ed told me that I was too angry. Ed was wrong. I was right. Ed wasn’t angry enough. John Quincy Adams knew that black lives matter. He said so. The point isn’t just to say what is right after the social change occurs. That’s just show business. The point is to be outraged now whether it is popular or not. That’s what a theater would do.
I HOPE UNDER YOUR LEADERSHIP SECOND CITY RECLAIMS ITS BIRTHRIGHT AS A THEATER, AND LOSES ITS NERVOUS PRE-OCCUPATION WITH KISSING THE ASSES OF BIGOTS AND FOOLS.
In 2017, former Second City Director Tommy Giannis, briefly directed me in a one-man show. Tommy directed the acclaimed Pinata Full of Bees. The show was based on my writing in my blog. I was trolled by some white nationalists on my blog. Anti-fascism and anti-racism have been major themes of my blog since I started it in 2014. Tommy suggested that I invite the white nationalists to my show. There was no fucking way that I was going to invite Nazis to my show. I put them in a category like pedophiles — it is necessary to shame and ostracize them and punish them — folly to engage them in a dialogue. Again, I was wrongly criticized as too angry.
SECOND CITY HAS TO LEARN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN REACTIONARY ANGER AND VALID MORAL OUTRAGE. SECOND CITY SHOULD BE A VOICE OF SOCIAL OUTRAGE AGAINST ALL FORMS OF INJUSTICE —- BECAUSE SECOND CITY SHOULD BE A PLACE OF ART AND INJUSTICE IS REALITY AND OUTRAGE AGAINST INJUSTICE IS WHAT IS TRUE.
1990s to today:
Since my time on the main stage I have interacted with Second City and its offshoot iO from time to time. I was always treated with respect by Andrew and Kelly and some old friends. But … I have also been hurt in those interactions, and I think my personal wounds are connected to a larger problem.
I never received the respect with the overall Second City community that I deserved.
Paul Sills saw my one-man-show in the mid -1980s and said that I was the greatest improviser that he ever saw, and compared me to Lenny Bruce.
I had a nervous breakdown shortly thereafter and I had to mend myself personally.
At age 50, I became a lawyer and ultimately a professor. I developed my writing. I taught using improvisation in colleges.
I was never accepted back into the improvisation community. I was a loser because the community became so sitcom-centric — defining the only type of success as that of fame in the world of entertainment.
Many non-entertainers — psychologists, business professionals etc. applied improvisation to their professional objectives to very good results and I applaud them.
But none of those people are as accomplished at improvisation itself as I am.
I had and have much to teach improvisers — both in classes and also in sharing my work (writing and performance) but I was not given an opportunity to do so.
Oh soME old friends included me — Jeff Michalski and Jane Morris, Dan Castelleneta and Deb LaCusta — but other than that all doors were closed.
And even in those situations, I was constantly fighting people who didn’t want me there.
This jealous guarding of turf …. this resistance to being challenged …. this resentment that somehow I had been away and therefore didn’t deserve a seat at the table anymore — and they didn’t like me anyway because I talked smart, and I talked truth — not show business kiss ass nonsense.
MY POINT HERE — SECOND CITY SHOULD BE NICER AND MORE CIVIL AND MORE INCLUSIVE; AND HAVE A BROADER VIEW OF WHAT IMPROVISATION AND THEATER CAN DO.
Of course, as an old white guy, a legitimate question to ask of me is what do I have to offer to people of color?
I have found that racism and other discriminatory oppression has been a common theme of almost all of the students that I have taught at Lewis, UIC and Loyola. I went to higher ed because my tribe rejected me. The problems are the tribe’s and not mine. And now that the tribe is recognizing its blindness — I think I may be well-positioned to help Second City get back on the right track in a big way.
My teaching uses improvisation through speech and writing to empower students by removing the internalized obstructions placed upon them by the power structure.
I am not writing you to beg for a job. My commitment is to my own work, not to fitting into some corporate scheme. But if Second City has mutual goals, I’d love to help.
I’ve been right on anti-racism and improvisation as an art form.
I AM SECOND CITY AND IMPROVISATION. MORE THAN THE TRAINING CENTER OR IO OR THE MAIN STAGE NOW OR IN THE PAST.
I’M THE REAL THING. PAUL SILLS USED TO SAY THE ARTIST IS REJECTED UNTIL THE PEOPLE GET IN TROUBLE AND CALL HIM BACK TO SAVE THEIR ASS.
I, and others like me, young and old, can save your ass now. Bernie used to talk about the tension between commerce and business. Second City has gotten into trouble because it has tilted too far to the business side. You can be the leader who charts the institution’s course back towards art.
I have worked my entire adult life to further the arts of improvisation and writing, the causes of social justice, and individuals in their human development. I don’t wear the blinders of show business. I am highly educated and broadly experienced.
You need me right now.
Best,
Rick Thomas, Chicago Main Stage ’81 -84
Richard Thomas JD, LLC Ethical Presence TM Consulting
1000 E. 53rd St. Unit 405, Chicago, Illinois 60615
America has had enough of entertainment and advertising
The world will have had enough
when they get all of the bilge America has to offer
That moment must be fast approaching
It isn’t cultural imperialism
It is imperialism masquerading as culture
Commerce castrates art
and cuts out art’s tongue so that it can’t sing falsetto
Don’t believe the insincere improvisers
They call themselves improvisers
but they are salesmen
who sell nothing
They just sell desire
They have contempt for their audiences
Suckers born every minute
Tell them what they want to hear and run out with the box office take through the back of the tent
America is crying out for art
America is crying out for the sincere improviser
America wants to be heard
and to listen
America needs words
and plays
and jokes
and movies
that meet the longing in our individual hearts
and in our communities
America needs places to go
to see hear and feel themselves
America wants to laugh with real joy
and weep with real grief for our losses
Individuals and groups want to go somewhere
or read somewhere
and figure things out
We need real classrooms and stages
actors
not actor-impersonators
not facsimiles of plays
that are really manipulative sales presentations
How cruel — to seduce people with claims of friendship. meaning and love
and just leaving them with a sales pitch
The world wants to be heard
and to listen
to see plays
not be played.
The human is tired of the commodity
the commodification
The human is tired of everything being merely useful
Even the practical can be sacramental
We need the sacramental
We are something more than eating, shitting and fucking
We are something more than the chemical sensations of power
We know that there is something more
We have to experience it
We need it as much as air
We aren’t alive without it
We are sick of con artists saying that they will answer our need
and then mocking us and stealing our money
Forcing us out of our rightful place in the world
Making us refugees of the spirit
In order to hold on to the real
we must be homeless
The insincere have stolen all of the buildings
But we have more of a home in our nomadic wanderings
than they will ever have in their usurped existence
They squat in our mansions
but no matter
We have inherited the earth
Art is not just a source of branding
It isn’t just a good idea to exploit — a premise, a pitch
Art is an exploration
scary and glorious
The hack will never know ecstasy
And his insensitive denial of agony
is an unconscious agony in and of itself
The hack is miserable without knowing it
Trapped in his petty meanness
always avoiding reflection
telling himself that he is such a big winner
when he really feels like shit
When art isn’t present
everything gets stupid
everything gets mean
The sincere improviser gets real laughs
not some crude cackle
which serves as an audio ID card
as membership in the Idiot In – Crowd
Sincere improvisation is inclusive
It touches the ground of being
It doesn’t keep people out
or say that they aren’t worthy
Sincere improvisation makes everybody feel good
valued
regarded
brothers and sisters on a journey
Sincere improvisation isn’t competitive
Every scene is a problem that all involved
players and audience solve together
Sincere improvisation wishes everyone the best
no pecking orders
Sincere improvisation pursues truth
not bullshit
Sincere improvisers don’t calculate
they go on quests
alone and together
Improvisation isn’t owned
Improvisation is an opportunity to turn life into art
and vice versa
I improvise on the pages of this blog
and in college classrooms
The theatrical stages are controlled by an occupying army
but life finds a way
People find ways to create
educate themselves
and connect
People find ways to discover who they and their communities are
Enough with the salesmen and the corporate managers
I’ll go sit with the artists
The occupying army makes a lot of noise
but they can’t subjugate us unless we let them
They bet on money and attention
We cast our lot with God.
KEEP WORKING
NEVER STOP
DON’T BE DISCOURAGED
(I DON’T WRITE TO ENCOURAGE YOU)
I WRITE THIS BECAUSE IT IS TRUE
WE ARE THE REAL THING
WE MADE THE RIGHT CHOICE
Pity the salesmen and hyper-competitive narcissists
They preen and insult you
but secretly
perhaps even secretly to themselves
they envy you
They know you are smarter
they know that you are more sensitive
and they know that you are freer
You drive them nuts because you don’t play by their rules
They shame you when they are the ones who bear shame
They would kill you if they could
You remind them that they are not free
But stay in place
don’t go where the virus is
always disinfect wherever they might have been
and keep your social distance
You are improvisation
and so am I
Their persons
and their “shows” and “classes”
are dumpster fires
pretending to be the coolest thing in the world
to a bunch of kids and unsophisticated people
too innocent or ignorant
to know the difference.
The sincere improviser finds moments
that are recognizable to everybody
transcending ignorance and innocence
activating human souls
to recognize what is true.
Don’t compete with the posers
They aren’t in your league.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
Good bye, Notre Dame.
6/12/20: Moral Outrage on LinkedIn #poetry #re-opening #socialjustice #democracy #Churchteachings #NotreDame
Educated people
praise Notre Dame for its re-opening
in a plague
“The campus is so beautiful”
“Notre Dame is so good so professional”
ooh ooh Notre Dame is a ticket to heaven — home of national champions, great academics and the finest character building and ethics — put an ND on it and it represents God’s will — no work needed at all
This Fall Notre Dame will smugly and righteously
KILL PEOPLE
Notre Dame is taking “reasonable steps”
to “mitigate risk”
Reasonable?
Mitigate?
The job is to keep people safe
Period.
Domers know to read the fine print. Half of them are lawyers, half of them are theologians, half of them are doctors, half of them are engineers, half of them are business masterminds
The many halves are a mystery
Like the Holy Trinity
but Domers know when to ignore the fine print to
When it pumps up their bank accounts
or egos
Imperialists who live in Winnetka and Grosse Pointe and Beverly Hills
God rewards his people of great character
who eat poor people alive in fine dining establishments
Their dreams are dreamed to be realized
While their slaves die
out of sight and out of mind
If a slave dies in a forest and no one hears
was the slave ever there at all?
I NEVER LIKED THEM AND NOW I KNOW WHY
I CRITICIZED AND CHALLENGED THEM OVER DETAILS BUT I NEVER SAW HOW WRONG THEY ARE
HOW BAD THEY ARE
I’M NOT COMPLICIT
I’M NOT
I NEVER GOT THE REWARDS
BUT I WISH THAT I SAW WHO THEY WERE EARLIER
We live in an age of deconstruction
Our ideas about what matters
what is important are changing
I am free of a conflict
I never lived like these people
but today I am liberated from any shame that I felt at being not like them
THEY ARE THE FAILURES, NOT ME!
IN A MOMENT MY STORY CHANGES
In a moment, every slight and punishment becomes a badge of honor
Regular readers might think that what I am telling you is very new
You’ve heard this tome from me before
but something is different today
very different
I have broken the last bonds
I have loyalty to nothing and no own
I have no need to belong to any group
I see where I am from
who I am from
I am not angry at them
I kind of pity them
I just see them for what they are
I paint what is in front of me
I didn’t set out to paint a grotesque
Someone said that the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews was not the first murder of a race
It just was the first time the genocide was done by the race’s neighbors
I look at the Notre Dame enthusiasts
the parents and alums
so smug in their education
so wrongly confident in their goodness
looking like the prosperous Hitler-era German couple who live up the strasse
having blood on their hands
and staring at it like it was invisible ink.
I’ve written about this specific situation before
It’s worth the redundancy
It has this new idea for me
more than an idea
I am thrilled for myself
and sorrowful for humanity …
By the way,
Who are these people to decide whether other people should risk their lives?
Why doesn’t Notre Dame have any more morality and respect for human dignity than a meat processing plant?
In order to be a full human being
you have to leave all alma maters
My Notre Dame diploma is an artifact
but I have learned much more since I left that place
than I ever learned there
I believe the world is changing
The alumni and parents are relics of an old world
whose time is passing
No one cares about their false achievements
reaching positions and accomplishing tasks
that lose all meaning even years before they die
collectors of awards and other things
pleasurable experiences
avoiding all the necessary questions
they give me a faintly sick feeling
nauseated
pathetic
enraging
and disgusting
All the years that I sat with them
expecting the truth
sensing the truth
smelling the truth
but today is the epiphany
The world is getting real
Persons and nations in revolution
All is exposed
Blood on their hands
the phrase chants in my mind
BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS!!!!
We live in the ridiculous moment
evil stands naked
ALL IS EXPOSED
evil’s old disguises are at evil’s feet
around evil’s ankles
The “Ordinary People” at the country club
destroying their children
and everyone else’s children too
(along with some essential workers and some old people)
Here’s my LinkedIn comment:
I am very disappointed in these comments. People are going to die because of this decision. There is a lot of talk of risk, but people with no say in the matter are going to take on that risk. That’s immoral and unjust. Those of you who are expecting the great ND experience will soon be disappointed. The CDC says the safest strategy for higher ed is internet distance learning. That is the only moral choice. What is going to happen when the inevitable spike comes in the fall? Is everyone going to go home? Or is the suffering going to be ignored? The national ND student body brings to campus COVID-19 from the 21 states that are spiking right now. Nothing anyone mentioned in these comments justifies endangering other people’s lives. The cleaning crews and maintenance people will be infected. The parents and grandparents of students. South Bend residents who tend to the practical needs of your ND dreams. People of color. Poor people. The people who always suffer. This is so wrong. It is not Catholic and it is not consistent with American democracy. You are all highly educated. You should see this, and if you see it but don’t care shame on you.
Key words
moral
endanger
Catholic
democracy
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
6/13/20: The American Book of the Dead #poetry #revolution #socialjustice
I have only one life to give for my country
And what is my country exactly?
It’s not the people
I’m not dying for my brothers and sisters
It’s not ideals
My country is not freedom
or equality
or democracy
or opportunity
There is no American dream
Capital can’t dream
The Capitol in Washington, D. C. is a shrine to capital
Our scripture is not the Bible
or the Constitution
or the mythology of Washington and Lincoln and the other great men
Our scripture is the story of the worship of the golden calf
Money is the root of all things American
All money is interest
Made from the investment of human life
America sings, “How do I kill you? Let me count the ways?”
I leave you unprotected when you are born
deprived of doctors and teachers and food and housing
I don’t care for you when you need to be educated
I give you unprepared teachers
unheated buildings
no internet connections
Vulnerability to mass school shootings
Gangs in your hallways
checked by right wing enforcers from the police department
guns on their hips
guns everywhere
I tell your teachers to carry guns
Guns make lots of capital
If you die in this dangerous atmosphere
that the human child is not equipped to deal with
you are hero that has given your life for your country
You can also vape or smoke or take street drugs
You can serve by giving your life to addiction too
or you can join a street gang and kill to sell street drugs
you are heroes
you create public and private profit in the criminal justice system
and really lucrative prisons
Thank you for our service
Your boldness favors capital’s fortune
If you survive your first two opportunities to be a human sacrifice
as a small and then school-age child
You can still be of great use
You can go to college and acquire enormous debt
which you will then spend your life in servitude to
sentenced to paying it off
You must work for capital’s desires
It doesn’t matter whether they match yours or not
or whether they match your values
which they never will if you don’t believe in killing people
and if you are out of work
America will never take care of you
It will give you a little bit of unemployment money
but never enough
America wants to encourage you to get back to work
but never provides enough jobs
So if you are unlucky
and don’t get one of the jobs available
you can die
of poor nutrition
or poor health care
Oh yeah — America won’t take care of you if you are sick
If you don’t work
you don’t eat
or get medication
You will be shamed and hounded
capital demands that you serve it
Mocks you when you do
whatever you do for capital its never enough
You are supposed to be scared
all of the time
You live your life in fear
the stress shortens your life
If you go into the military
you will die
or lose your limbs
or go insane with post-traumatic stress
lied to with lullabies about honor and duty
ignored and left on your own if you come back broken
given an American flag for your coffin if you don’t come back
Your flag draped corpse is great public relations
You waste your life in front of a box that fills you with propaganda
Capital infects you with delusion
When plagues come
Capital lies about their severity
and tells you death is OK
Capital tells you that slavery was an aberration — and not so bad
The genocide of the Native Americans was an aberration — and not so bad
The murderous exploitation of many waves of American immigrants was an aberration — and not so bad
Capital tells you more — the African and Native Americans and the immigrants were the villains
They can’t govern themselves
They have to be controlled
Many of you stupidly agree
You don’t understand that capital is talking about you
To be an American is to give your life for your country
a country that sees you as an asset
Your country will praise you if that praise helps create capital
Your country will shame you if that shame helps create capital
To live with self-reliance
determining your own destiny
serving your own values
placing humanity — your humanity and the humanity of others
is a dangerous and radical act
But to serve your country
is just dying for capital.
I don’t think that the protests are going to stop
I think a long and enduring revolution has begun
Our masters made one mistake
their propaganda is really good
The Declaration of Independence
The Constitution
The Rule of Law
True Religious Teaching
Talk of freedom
and goodness
It was all that they gave us
the hope of that type of life
we want it for real this time
We want to write a new ending
to the American Book of the Dead.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
6/14/20: The Artist is Brilliant; The Man is Small #poetry
The Artist is brilliant
The Man is small
The Artist hears everything
and listens to no one
clear and brave and not confused
full of wonder and as large as the universe
The man is solipsistic
hurt, doubtful, angry
burdened by petty slights
frustrated and dissatisfied
The Artist reflects
The Man obsesses
Yet let us praise small things
The Artist is glorious
The Man is admirable
The Man clears away obstacle after obstacle
so that the Artist can run free
The Artist luxuriates in solitude
The Man worries there
The Man takes care of business
and makes a thousand mistakes
The Artist is perfection
The Artist brings peace
The Man is struggle
The Artist is wise
The Man is in pain
The Man is courageous
He refuses to avoid any agony
The Artist’s canvas is the fruit of the man’s labor
The adversity of every provocation of the world
is the Man’s ordeal
and the Artist’s opportunity
The Man fails at all that he should have been
so that the Artist can proudly be what he is.
I’ve always known that everyone is not an artist.
I read it once or twice and then observed it’s true
It has taken me longer to understand that everyone is also not a man …
Not men doing what their fathers want
Not men competing with the others
Not men playing out proscribed roles
written for them by master planners
dull and dead
feelings reduced to sentimentalities
off-the rack insights
cowards, really
never tuning out the dictates of the world
in order to really perceive it
and their unique nature
Thoughtless, insensitive and cruel
animals really, these Not men
surviving or Not by dint of their fitness
winning and losing
achieving nothing
lives of quiet desperation
sound and fury signifying nothing
never taking the next step
until they are incapable of doing so
suffering from atrophy of the soul
divine impulses engender sclerotic responses
Not men feel vague occasional pangs of longing
which they ignore
and over time simply accept as their fate
and the acceptance makes it true
A Man
on the other hand
is always anxious
a flame of dissatisfaction gestates in his belly
A Man tends that flame every day
and the inspiration explodes from within him
A Man is only a host
for the divine
a most humble vessel
for the manifestation of …
For a moment a Man is sure-footed and secure
serenely aware of the stupid and unreliable structures created by the Not men
and the perfection of Life as created by …
the pantheons of gods who live furtively and sluggishly and impatiently and expectantly
inside the Man
Man’s labor transforms into God’s song
and then the cycle repeats itself
Grace and awkwardness.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
6/14/20: I Write To … #poetry
I write to hear myself
to listen to what I think
to catalogue what I know
to process all of my thoughts and emotions
to make my life my own
to keep my life my own
African-Americans
my heroes
my teachers
archetypes of my psyche
dream figure victims of injustice
noble figures struggling
thrown in quicksand and left there
for dead
valiantly trying to climb to solid ground
Stunned by the violence
physical
material
spiritual
violence
trying to get beyond it all
and live in the joy of their immense potential
Sometimes purposeful
sometimes flailing
strong
with knees occasionally buckling
under the burden of white oppression …
African-Americans argue with the white power structure
asserting that they suffer and feel
they hurt
they demand justice
THEY DO NOT HAVE TO TELL US THAT THEY ARE EQUAL OR IN PAIN
THEY DO IT FOR US
IT IS AN ACT OF LOVE FOR THEM TO TELL US HOW WE MAKE THEM FEEL
WE DON’T DESERVE THAT LOVE
THEY’VE SAID IT FOR 400 YEARS
WE HAVE TO GIVE IT TO THEM NOW FOR CHRIST’S SAKE
OR THEY SHOULD JUST TELL US TO FUCK OFF
AT A CERTAIN POINT, ONE WONDERS WHY THEY EVEN WANT TO BE PART OF THIS SOCIETY
they can’t keep asking our permission to live in their God-given equality
having to ask in itself is unequal
TIME’S UP
TIME TO UNDERSTAND
AFTER 400 FUCKING YEARS
IF YOU DON’T GET IT
I DEMAND MY FUCKING RIGHTS
EVERY FUCKING LEGAL, MORAL AND NATURAL RIGHT THAT I AM ENTITLED TO
OTHER THAT GO FUCK YOURSELF
I DON’T NEED YOU
YOUR INSULTS AND LIES AND BROKEN DEALS
The bartering
the fighting
the demanding
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
Fuck them
fuck the white power structure
you don’t need their permission for a goddam thing
you don’t have to be an entrepreneur or live any other way they tell everybody is the way to live
you don’t have to amass money
or be the new master
you can be who you are right now
the condescension doesn’t have to bother you
Fuck them
do whatever you goddam please
know that they will kill you
rape you
steal from you
so avoid them
they aren’t worth it
not to say that you don’t fight them when you have to defend yourself
but fuck them really
You have been leading the rest of us
making concrete America
making moral America
You keep leading us to being better people
But fuck us now
Really — enough is enough
at a certain point a shitty student just isn’t worth the energy
You have loved us so much and we haven’t deserved it
get over that
we’ve exhausted you
depleted you
Some of us are complete assholes and the rest of us are dense fools
Fuck us
Do what you want
Pay us no mind
You are too good for us
First you really love somebody or group or job or thing
and you feel like they love you
then you can’t breathe
something is wrong
why? why?
You’re trying to get along
why are they like this
and the next step is that you see the truth of the assholes that you loved
and they weren’t worth it
Black people you have been denied dignity by people who don’t have any
Don’t work with them
or belong with them
Protect yourself from them
and do whatever you fucking please
and think about yourselves in any way that you fucking please
don’t let trash define you
You came to this continent as innocents
You have been abused children for 400 years
You looked up to us
You expected help from us
You loved us
We wounded you
grave wounds
we were jealous and tried to destroy all of your genius
some of you were martyrs
some of you adapted to our bullshit
and became almost one of us
but sensing that dreadful difference at all times
some of you became enraged and fought back
answered violence for violence
None of you were wrong
I write to know what I think
I process my own life
I identify with you more than I have a right to
You go somewhere
you work hard
you care
you help people
you ignore the bossy
for as long as you can
and then you finally realize that you can’t associate with the bossy anymore
You are better than the bossy
and you leave
History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake
I don’t want to care anymore
I don’t want to care about my wounds anymore
I don’t want to care about where I don’t fit in
I don’t want to care what other people think about what I am doing
I hate assessments
I hate grades
I don’t think I care about that bullshit anymore
I have never acted like I cared
I don’t think that I have ever acted like I cared
I learned at every stop
about myself
and the little shreds of connection
a person here, a person there
I honestly believe that I am better than every person, place or thing who ever said that they were better than me
I don’t think that I am rebellious
I think that I should be honored as a guest wherever I go
I never signed up to be used as a tool
I’m not a slave
I believe in mastery
and I don’t believe in masters
I think that the shaming to be doing something
the persistent hectoring
you should you should you should
is an assault
a pummeling
I have to block the punches
and dance around the ring
avoid the hassle
stay in place
don’t get infected
I don’t do
I be
I be and I do when I have the opportunity
and the opportunity comes
it always comes
if you be every day
I have no problem with suffering
I want to end this type of suffering
I don’t want power
except over my own life
and I want equality
and no one ultimately can give those things
but me
Oh they can fuck with me sometimes
but they can’t hurt me
I’m almost on to them
I’m almost there
We shall overcome.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
6/17/20: Why I Never Went For It #poetry
No offense, but I don’t owe you an explanation
I don’t write, or teach for that matter, to explain anything to anybody
I write to understand
I overhear myself and I invite you to overhear too
Your presence here makes me feel useful
But I hate the idea of owing other people explanations
I hate how the black families who lost loved ones to police violence
feel pressured to perform their grief in front of television cameras
I used to think that I wrote in order to justify myself
that notion bothered me
but I never did
I wrote and write to understand myself.
I never went for it
I never wanted to part of it
Then I would think that there was something wrong with me
Because peers who went for it
told me I was weak for not going for it
They called me “effete”
and “poetic”
When they felt kindly toward me they compared me to St. Francis Assisi
and Henry David Thoreau
They called me an artist
I lived on those kind evaluations
Held onto them like life preservers
never fully understanding who I was
One of the first good things that I wrote provoked anger from a would-be mentor
“WHY DON’T YOU GET A PUBLISHER AND GET IT OUT THERE?”
I didn’t want to
I didn’t know why
I didn’t know how to
I still don’t
I don’t live in the world
“Build relationships with critics,” well – meaning friends advised me
They were sad for me
They had some success and they wanted me to enjoy what they enjoyed
For awhile, I was ashamed of myself
I thought that I was jealous of those friends
But I wasn’t jealous at all
I enjoyed watching their performances
I was happy that they were happy
I guess I thought that I should be jealous
I guess I thought that there was something wrong with me
I felt like I was being physically beaten by criticism
People saw the intelligence and character
but they saw me as a coward
and they told me so
Even people who thought very highly of me
said that I was hiding
I heard an actor say on TV that the best actors that he knew never made it
They were too sensitive for the business
And I was and am certainly that
People well-disposed to me and indifferent or worse
always went to the weakness track
They never saw the pain
and I do hurt more deeply than they do
not because I am more of a human being
but because I am an artist
and everybody doesn’t make art
It’s an occupational hazard
My father who knew me better in some ways than all the personalities of society, that big father substitute
heard me deciding whether or not to regret a past decision
I didn’t pursue an opportunity to write for a big TV show
and wondered whether that was a great error
at a later moment when I was at loose ends and didn’t know what to do
My father told me
“Maybe you didn’t want to do it.”
Dad was right
I didn’t want to do it.
I didn’t and don’t want to do any of it.
I live in a parallel universe
where people don’t “get” publishers
and ingratiate themselves to favorable critics
and compromise their work to give the bosses what they want
Artists quietly do their work
and get support
emotional
economic
support
side jobs
Somehow one gets by
supported by an abundance that isn’t driven by the laws of business
Life and spirit become one
I don’t enjoy my old friends’ movies and TV shows anymore
I only liked those things before I understood who I was
My old friends do “near art”
I just coined the phrase
Their work has elements of the truth
but they can’t go all the way
They worry about how their words get over
You can’t really write until you don’t care about “success”
Art has nothing to do with popularity
Other things that I heard from professionals
“You are too sincere to be an actor” — well-meaning
“You are an amateur” — dismissive
I am sincere
and I am an amateur
I can’t claim to be the voice of truth
I’m not arrogant
but I don’t lie
I am not even tempted to lie
and I won’t lie for your applause or money
and I guess that makes me an amateur
All artists — real not near — are amateurs
we’ll take needed money wherever we can find it
but we would never change a word of our work for money
I hear “successful” people
on TV and in social media
discuss how the economy must re-open
they say, “yes, the pandemic is dangerous”
“but we have to take risks”
the most direct of them acknowledge that hundreds of thousands of Americans are dying and will die
They don’t get more granular in their observations
Granularity meaning — old people in nursing homes, prison inmates, poor people in “essential” jobs and a few unlucky younger, whiter more affluent people
will die
These people will die
so that small businesses
“succeed”
so that upper middle-class young people
“have optimal educational experiences”
So that deans won’t have their schools pursue more modest growth agendas
so that shareholders get their dividends
so that rich people get richer
The pursuit of American success
is violent
To “make it” is to have blood on one’s hands
I never wanted any part of that
I didn’t know why
but I knew it was wrong
Mass murder to maintain our water parks
I’m no St. Francis of Assisi
I understand myself at age 64
Finally
He got it when he was very young
Thoreau was ready to write his words when he was in his 30’s
I wasn’t ready until I was 60
I felt conflict about all of this until this morning
Business people step in and turn the innovators’ work
and the talented and smart people’s subsequent success
into brands
As if the walls of the institutions magically made men and women
innovative, talented and smart
People pay to watch the institutions’ walls
and to learn from the institutions’ walls
suckers born every minute
But by this time the magic has left the building
the innovators are all dead
the talented and smart are off making it in larger institutions
or on their own
making it in all sorts of innovative ways
that have nothing to do with the institutions
Some talented and smart people still pass between the institutions’ walls and succeed
because that is what talented and smart people generally do
they find places to grow and water themselves
turn their faces toward the sun
take any experience
good or bad
and use it to develop the seed inside of themselves
which was placed there by God
and more powerful than any institution
charged particles in a cyclotron
destroying and creating worlds
So the brand survives.
Marketing is a powerful thing
and crowds of people visit the institutions
learning and watching
and the institutions make a lot of money
taking something less than ordinary
and packaging it as special
Then something happens from the outside
a pandemic
a revolution
a depression
all of the above
and the institutional dinosaurs become extinct
it seems sudden
but it is a natural thing
a process of evolution and demise
like when an old person’s memories die at the moment of their death
It is the innovation and talent and intelligence that matters
not the institutions’ walls
Good riddance or nostalgia
what difference does it make?
That which seemed so concrete
all the money and buildings and rooms
is what is transitory
the innovation talent and intelligence
the love that shines through the layers of trivial mediocrity
the excellence that transforms the mundane to all that truly matters
is what stays.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
6/22/20: Charles Grodin #poetry #successandfailure #rejection #choice
Success and failure
Acceptance and rejection
“Rich and famous” and “getting good”
“Anger and aggression” and self-esteem
Charles Grodin went back to the Neighborhood Playhouse in 2008
He had studied acting there
He didn’t have much good to say about acting teachers
“They are usually too self-important”
“If I were teaching acting I would get out of the way. Just create a place where people can get up and act in front of other people. That’s the whole point of acting class. You can’t get work so you go get some experience and the experience teaches you. If I were teaching, I’d be sure not to say anything negative. Let people do scenes again and again. They will get better with repetition — simply learning from the experience.”
Grodin was talking to Dabney Coleman, another talented actor who didn’t have Grodin’s self-esteem.
Coleman loved the Neighborhood Playhouse because he was accepted there and recognized for who he was.
Grodin didn’t really love the Neighborhood Playhouse.
He appreciated the fact that it gave him a space to get crucial experience.
Grodin didn’t need the approval of the other people. He didn’t need acceptance or to be recognized for who who he was. This attitude inoculated him from the grinding rejection of pursuing a career as a professional actor.
In a certain way, Grodin didn’t pursue a career as a professional actor. He simply “wanted to get good.”
He took each rejection and either used it as a lesson in how to get better, or trusted his own assessment of the value of his work. He never saw that a person’s position of situational authority necessarily meant that they knew what they were doing.
Grodin is a compassionate man who shares his wisdom about:
Success and failure
Acceptance and rejection
“Rich and famous” and “getting good”
“Anger and aggression” and self-esteem —
with anyone in the general public who is ready to listen.
It is no accident that some of Grodin’s first opportunities to act in challenging roles came in separate projects directed by Mike Nichols and Elaine May.
Nichols and May began with the Compass Players
whose foundational acting methodology came from the work of Viola Spolin
Spolin rejected (rejection is a two-way street, and on closer inspection almost always mutual) “success and failure”
and replaced those oppressive concepts with “play” (which in my writing I usually call “art”)
Spolin transcended “social acceptance and rejection” and wrote of getting beyond “approval and disapproval”
She did not see the group as a collective of conformity. She saw it as a collective of play.
Spolin rejected “teaching”. She wrote “No one teaches anyone anything.”
Spolin knew that experience is the only teacher
and that all authority in the person of a boss, leader or group
is false.
Self-esteem and real connection.
Spolin asserted another kind of “acceptance”
not as an antonym for “rejection”
but as an embrace of truth
Grodin and Spolin believed in achieving our individual highest potentials in loving congress with the world
There is something very profound in this play
Spolin’s son, the theater director and teacher Paul Sills, loved the philosophy of Martin Buber … I and Thou …
this mystical interaction between the self and the world
resulting in an at-one-ment
a unity
Peter Brook, a great theater director, who never worked with any of the people previously mentioned here, I don’t believe
described theater as “dreams mixed with shit”
Grodin tried to achieve that mixture
and had moments
a few
when it came to pass
but largely he found it impossible to prevent the shit from overwhelming the dreams
He left acting
and did other things
occasionally returning
only to be freshly disappointed
This dissatisfaction is not a bad thing
We don’t care about success or failure, remember?
Certainly, most pseudo-improvisational acting is a betrayal of Spolin
paying formal lip service to exercises, games and rules
to serve the value systems of the advertising agencies and commercial film and TV studios
that are devoted to the antithesis of what Spolin was
or what Grodin is
My own experience has taught me that I feel good in the company of Grodin and Spolin
and in the company of Jesuits
who also believe in learning through experience
the blossoming of the individual in loving intercourse with the world
and a mystical contact with the All which is beyond faith
and can be accessed through exploration and reason …
I feel good there with those people
I feel bad with:
Success and failure
Acceptance and rejection
“Rich and famous” not “getting good”
“Anger and aggression” not self-esteem
Grodin writes
and so do I
The theater was never what I loved
it was that Grodin/Spolin thing
that way of living …
Another actor, Alan Alda …
(these actors know some things)
said that you can’t go around difficult emotions
you can only go through them
Grodin says that he saw through rejection
He lived another way
I still think he felt it
so did Viola Spolin
I don’t think they could have spoken and written about it so beautifully if they hadn’t
I told a now lost friend
lost before he died
that people had criticized me but I proved them wrong
I was so proud of who I am and what I have done
and he looked perplexed
The next time I saw him, he said “your value is not determined by what you think — what matters is what other people say”
It hurt me so deeply
It was irrationally painful
I couldn’t even admit to myself how painful his statement was
it seemed so stupid
I felt so vulnerable
and childish
why did I care so much?
The lessons which I learned through my own experience
that I try to communicate to you here by talking about Charles Grodin and Viola Spolin and Jesuits
They are all me
just as Grodin was Spolin before he met Nichols and May
It hurts to lose a friend
It hurts to think that you are welcome somewhere and then you are not
If you don’t feel hurt you were never there
If you get stuck in the pain you are no good to yourself or the world
If you don’t go through the pain you don’t learn anything
and have no higher consciousness to express to the world
I learned in my pain
more about what a friend is
I needed someone smarter and more secure
(I met Dabney Coleman once when we were both much younger — he was insecure then too — his classmate Grodin is more my speed)
I need someone who doesn’t believe in
Success and failure
Acceptance and rejection
“Rich and famous” instead of “getting good”
“Anger and aggression” instead of self-esteem
I teach and write
I need friends and groups where I can teach like Spolin and the Jesuits in my own unique way
and write with the same spirit as Grodin in my own unique way
This is all about me and my transforming relationship with the world
It’s not about Charles Grodin or Viola Spolin or the Jesuits or my lost friendship
The black and white film of the Neighborhood Playhouse
The “successful” old alumni coming home
The black box theater
and the dance rehearsal area
the dressing room and the lounge
the administrative offices serviced by the tiny old elevator
littered with posters and props and playbills from student productions from years gone by
the play is not the thing
it is the old actors themselves
some nervously looking for approval
igniting the flames of long-forgotten rivalries
some nostalgically wandering through the premises
clinging to a moment when they were young and loved
and Grodin detached
making the past something else
suffering and liberation
Life Lessons.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
6/25/20: Mike Nichols #poetry #America #movies #theater #improvisation
Some of my beats are America, movies, theater and improvisation. All of those beats are in trouble right now, and also on the brink of great opportunity. Today’s segment is a song of praise that surprised me about a man who surfed time from Hitler to Obama, adapting and thriving as a human being, artist and businessman — in that order — maintaining his core and transforming his approaches to stay timely, relevant and healing until the end.
Mike Nichols was a nice man
a good man
a man from another time
I worked for him briefly
He made me feel like I was a genius and the next big thing
He did that for most everybody
He loved actors
and writers
and audiences
He personified the best of what Second City could be
during and after
he hit a sweet spot that touched art and commerce and being a mensch
He was very smart
and very warm
I didn’t set out to praise him so today
I started with the idea that Mike Nichols’ life and work and career are already of a time gone by
never to return
Nichols tracked the arc that America followed from culture to markets
he died before our descent into fascism
but he surely saw it coming
he knew it
he saw it as a seven-year old escaping Nazi Germany
and he never forgot it
He was a hybrid American
a refugee
A paradox
The ultimate insider
deflecting all eyes
from his role as precocious outsider
That was his ultimate magic trick
a master of disguise
Therefore …
He wasn’t as innocent as most of the rest of us
He knew how dark Man could be
But also how light
He was Einstein’s cousin!
What kind of crazy strains of goodness and brilliance was at his childhood dinner table
from the lesser members of the family who shared that gene pool?
He was a bard of how psychological and sociological attitudes affected ordinary people’s behaviors
His work, to me, seems to be about always finding a route to kindness, empathy, humanity
through a field of weakness, quiet desperation and temptation
He wasn’t nice just to be nice
Like everything else about him
he knew that it was smart to be nice
He got the most out of his colleagues with the sweet attitude
and he relied on them greatly
Nichols was less a creator and more of an arranger of other people’s talents
He had remarkable taste
Like a great baseball manager he knew how to put his players in the optimal positions and situations in order to win
Working that week for Mike Nichols was a great experience for me
Very instructive
Turns out, I was just a brief visitor to his world
I don’t do what Mike Nichols did
I just tell the truth
He was more subtle
He told as much truth as the audience could hear
He listened to the audience
and like a master politician
he led them as far as they could go and never went farther than what they were ready for
It’s my job just to tell the truth
I don’t think one approach is better than the other
Both are needed
Nichols was, and I am an untrained intellectual
Our type isn’t certified to understand things
We just look
I retreated to Mike Nichols yesterday afternoon
watching old videos in my sanctuary
as America goes through its necessary unraveling
and begins to
at long last
deal with racism
and capitalism
and sexism
and all the other abstractions we attach
to our fear, ignorance, arrogance,
stupidity, meanness and cruelty
and old, dead, man of the past
Mike Nichols
was less an escape
and more of a balm to me
Nichols made a lot of money
and made a lot of art
but as I watched him get progressively older in his interviews
those material things
were revealed to be means and not the end
I liked him much more than I expected to
The man dwarfed the prodigious body of work
and the gold medal career
Mike Nichols had a special life
My week with him was a special week
Nichols saw the world’s darkness with the eyes of refugee from Hitler’s Germany
its potential delights as a golden boy who enjoyed stratospheric early success
and its moral responsibility as a spoiled boy who more than anything wanted to grow up to be loving man
When I was with Mike Nichols for a week
I was in awe and nervous for that week
Stunned by the movie stars and New York intellectuals that I sat by
He was impressed by all of that too
but never to the exclusion of what really mattered
and now I see why fate sent me into that brief close proximity to Mike Nichols
and to my distant appreciation of him in the subsequent years
culminating with my video viewing yesterday
and it has nothing to do
with Hollywood
acting
show business
money
art even!
or
careers.
Copyright 2020 Richard Thomas
6/27/20: Culture of Brutality #poetry #blacklivesmatter #pandemichumansacrifices #willtopower #therootoftheproblem
Of course it is racism
But its even worse
Skin color is the threshold question
once “otherness” is established
other hatreds come into play
George Floyd was killed out of envy
the huge man
was felled by an inferior rival
who could never beat him fair and square in a boxing ring
It wasn’t fear driving the killer cop
it was competition
The killer wanted to be able to cast George Floyd’s literally giant shadow
To have Floyd’s natural authority
the authority of the large, gentle man
but the killer knew that was impossible
The killer had to be certified in his authority
with a badge
and qualified immunity
There was nothing natural about it
Floyd’s existence reminded the cop of his own smallness
The cop knew his own power was just a Halloween costume
Floyd’s royal stature was an unintended indictment of the cop
The cop saw his better walking in the street every day
and he hated him
so the cop killed Floyd
Natural superiority in a place of social inferiority is dangerous
Floyd didn’t belong in the same space of that limited, petty cop
and the hazard was insurmountable
the tragedy inevitable
God did not create the noble to be subjugated by the small
Envy is murderous
“If I can’t have what you have, you can’t have it either”
Cops killing black people
like slander killing good people’s careers through office gossip
same dynamic
Grimmer results
These cops are just crude unsophisticated examples
of a lousiness in the American character
that rifles through all strata and activities of our society
from the hoi polloi to the wealthy
from the unskilled laborer to the the most brilliant academic and professional elites …
The black flower child who was killed in Colorado was another story
A poetic massage therapist
with a natural courtesy, innocence and kindness
that the cops perceived as weak
was killed for that perceived weakness
for the same reasons that bad children torture kittens
THEY KNOW THAT THEY ARE DOING WRONG
This is all mortal and not venial sin
Racism gives leverage
for the deeper problem to come to the fore
a perverse lust for the sensation of power
the need to dominate
The rapist sees that which makes a woman desirable
and chooses to hurt it rather than love it
This culture of brutality
This admiration for bullies
Stealing joy
stealing credit
stealing money
stealing self-esteem
stealing confidence
stealing possibility
STEALING LIFE
in family rooms
and schools
and social clubs
and mean streets
and fancy offices
among the barely literate
and the people with large vocabularies
Genitals on fire
hearts of stone
The Culture of Narcissism is The Culture of Brutality
George Washington knew that slavery was wrong
He “gave” his slaves their freedom in his will
What took him so long?
THE FATHER OF OUR COUNTRY KNEW THAT HE WAS WRONG
Washington was brutal to preserve his prestige
Justice and kindness would make him look like a loser
So he kept up appearances
His bad character was useful in preserving the image of his good character
Lincoln wanted reconciliation with the South
so he named Andrew Johnson his Vice-President
It was a big mistake
The Civil War should have defeated the brutality of slavery
600,000 men didn’t die for nothing
but it didn’t
You can’t reconcile with evil
You must not tolerate the intolerable
I fear Biden will repeat Lincoln’s mistake
He will make good progress on many fronts
but will be lax in ending the brutality once and for all
We have to put a dagger in brutality’s heart
with justice
without hate
aiming for rehabilitation instead of reconciliation
People of color murdered for fear, envy and need for domination
Hundreds of thousands murdered as human sacrifices to the greed of entrepreneurs, corporations and universities
We must defend human life and its natural and spiritual impulses
against brutality’s false authority
World War II had a more satisfying conclusion than the Civil War
Nazis were judged at Nuremberg
Germany owned up to its sins and repented
and taught its evil past in its schools
Redeemed by holy shame
American brutality in all of its forms
in all of its venues
in all of its permutations
in all of the myriad guises of its bullies and victims
must be punished in a humane and enlightened way
in order to end this mean foolishness once and for all
It won’t be easy
but we’ve already started
We just have to stay focused and look deeply enough to see what is animating all of our suffering.
We’ve done a great thing already
We’ve called out the brutality
We’ve repudiated its fraudulent claim of power over us
now we have to deal with it.
History will aid us in a long, complicated and arduous process
if we remain courageous
honest with others
and true to ourselves.
We were born with an innate sense of decency and justice
So were our adversaries
we must train ourselves to always listen to that innate sense
even when it seems impractical or to lack common sense
the true action
the true word
performed and uttered in a modest room
will fell empires.
We must give our lives to save our lives
As we ourselves are delivered from evil
we can’t tolerate it, or cooperate with it
or fight it on its own terms.
EVERY ONE OF US WHO IS NOT ENGAGED IN BRUTALITY IS A BLACK LIFE THAT MATTERS
EVERY PERSON WHO IS UNJUST, INDECENT AND CRUEL IS A BRUTAL COP
