Stuff I've Read Today
OK, here's how I rationalize it. I've been learning rationalization by listening to republicans and raising teenagers. I'm getting pretty good I think. It's this. My normal business involves sitting at the computer and reading newspapers and writers from all over. I read a lot. I read books, magazines, newspapers, I love to read. So, in essence, reading these things is my normal practice of the day. Here's some of the stuff that touched me.
pretty dumb things written by chelsea girl usually I read her blog because she's hot, She writes hot, sexy prose. This post is about how she feels five years later. i read it and decided to call a couple of friends of mine who live in new york just to say "I love you and I'm thinking about you today." She even put the post below a fold because she felt in retrospect that it was maudlin. Honey, if you live in New York, were there that day, I am more than willing to forgive you a little maudlin.
The Dark Wraith analytical and eloquent, of course, that's business as usual for this guy. I even made a comment, complete with mispellings and grammatical errors which he is usually to gracious to point out. If this site is not on your regular list of reading, it should be. Reading both posts and comment threads here has gone a long way toward making me into a better writer.
Ken Levine a well respected comedy writer talks about a personal loss on this day five years ago.
Tennessee Guerilla Women this post has nothing to do with 9/11 and everything to do with a young woman getting beaten badly by an asshole that claims to be a "musician" and a "man." I say the motherfucker is an asshole, talentless and genderless. I also say that he could practice the one instrument he claims to play everyday for the rest of his miserable fucking life and I will still be better than him and making lots more money in the music industry. If you have the time, check out the entire roll of postings at this site. They are free thinkers in a sea of conformity. They deserve our support. That means dropping a little in the old change jar.
Back on topic tata one of my six regular readers and a frequent comment presence has a post which is part of 2,996 project. She talks about a single one of those who died this day five years ago. She also includes a clip of Aaron Neville who is glorious singing Bird On A Wire. Worth the price of admission alone.
In a comment thread below I stated that I have played some benefit shows for The Jersey Girls. I thought I might explain that I have a 3 tier system for how I approach a benefit show. Usually it's for a cause that I actually support (if not, it's just another gig and I charge scale) and what I do is tier 1: I must charge scale for my performance because that's how my union works. For a normal cause that I support I deduct my expenses (travel, lodging, stuff like that) and write a check for the balance.
tier 2: I write a check that matches what I've been paid and donate that. I handle my expenses myself.
tier 3: I write a check that takes what I've been paid and doubles it.
So far this year, Wesley Clark and the Jersey Girls are the only ones to make tier 3.
Now, in the true spirit of going about my business I'm going to shower and go to a noon AA meeting. Maybe stop and get some lunch. The deus ex fax machina which dispenses my revenue stream hasn't coughed up any work today. So when I get home I'll take care of the critters, make some dinner for me and the boy.
Mainly, going about my business.
posted by The Minstrel Boy at 9:48 AM
6 Comments:
Wishing you well today, a very sad and spacey-feeling day for me. Though I am grateful that none of my friends or family was killed in the attacks five years ago, I remember all too well the days we worried and waited; it was weeks before we were able to confirm that our NY friends and family were either out of the City that day, or that they escaped the WTC buildings early on.
I can't write about it--I can't even pinpoint why I feel so hollow and gutted this afternoon--but I'm never far from that feeling of complete panic that I felt when I was half an hour away from the boys school, having dropped them off exactly that many minutes prior, and learned via cell phone that one of the towers had been hit, then two. I remember jumping back in my car, racing up the highway to Tampa (where the school is only five minutes away from MacDill Airforce Base, aka Command Central), and joining the growing line of stunned parents who were also collecting their children and whisking them back home. We didn't know, at that point, who would be next or what would be next.
I haven't done anything special today, other than try not to watch the news. It isn't news. It hasn't been news for a while now.
Of course, I have cried several times today, less due to the day itself than the fact that I have felt horribly, deeply lonely ever since Robert left to go back to Ruskin this morning. Lonely and hollow and gutted, like that sad hole in the heart of the world where everyone is gathered today, still asking Why?
like that sad hole in the heart of the world where everyone is gathered today, still asking Why?
moi aussi ma chére, moi aussi.
Tonight, I''m doing things I would do anyway ro keep my hands busy. Polishing my nails. Medicating Larry, the little black cat bent on stealing your soul. Nairing my mustache. What, you don't?
As the Buddha said, what we do is the same before and after Enlightenment: chop wood, carry water.
Thank you.
except when dark wraith makes one blush before chopping wood and fetching water.
Far too many people seem intent on commemorating this anniversary in very narrow ways. I would rather do nothing than ten thousand frivolous something’s. Dead Americans soldiers in Iraq now outnumber the dead of 9/11. What a lousy thing to be. You know - I knew someone in Manhattan that day. He lived. Some of his friends and colleagues didn't. What’s next, I wonder?
i also absolutely abhor sanctimonious flag waving by assholes who don't even realize that the first two times the flag waving is mentioned in the national anthem it is a fucking question. for most of that night francis scott key didn't know whether or not the garrison at mchenry would survive, or even if this nation would survive. had the british been able to take baltimore and control the chesapeake a whole lot of things might have been very different. on a comment thread over at shake's place i described an assault i endured at the very beginning of the tet offensive. i am working on a full post of it because it still means something to me today. for over 36 hours we were alternately rocketed and mortared, then assaulted. this went on, it seemed, endlessly. yet, we managed to hang on. five times that i saw, our little base flag came down due to shrapnel and general detrious of war. five times somebody at great risk put it back up. then, literally by the dawn's early light we finally heard helicopters bringing in supplies and a chance to take out the worst of our wounded. somebody, somewhere started singing our national anthem. we were standing there, bloody, filthy, exhausted, utterly spent and were fucking singing. staring at this tattered, dirty little flag, crying, laughing, but singing through it all.
after something like that it's hard to get worked up when they bring out kenny g to spit it through a soprano sax.
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