Passing the places where Pauly was

 

 

Thursday, December 31, 2020
 
We didn’t intend to pass by Pauly’s trailer park again during our Magical Mystery Tour this week, even though it would have been his 73rd birthday.
We were heading north to Ellenville and just happened to come back south near enough to see the signs that pointed in his direction.
I had spoken with Garrick the day before on his 70th birthday – always forgetting which year he was born in, and getting it straight only after asking him again.
Hank was always the middleman in age – and would have turned 71 on Christmas Eve had he survived this long.
We all knew Hank would die relatively young. But Pauly was the surprise.
Others assumed Garrick would go next since he was overweight and vulnerable. But he is like a Sherman tank, surviving through the worst if not unscathed, then at least not too damaged.
Even COVID seemed unable to get him, passing over him like the angel of death as if he had spread lamb’s blood over his doorway.
He still works in what is considered a critical profession making latches for military and medical equipment. He simply abandoned his tendency to make social visits, going to and from work with a stop over at some food establishment where he picked up his meals to bring home.
Our trip was a repeat trip from August when we accidentally came across the mountain to Ellenville in search of Monticello and Max Yascur’s grave. We by passed the lookout we stopped at this time, gawking at the vast valley that opened before us and the drips of ice that covered the walls of stone behind us as we looked out.
We drove back through Port Jervis where Garrick and Alf had stopped for lunch on their way to Woodstock 51 years ago, losing ourselves briefly in the crisscross of highways until we found Route 23 that took us up to High Point – another overlook – and then down into New Jersey again.
Off this path were roads that would have taken us back to the place where Pauly died had we chosen to take them, taking note of them instead as if markers in yet a mystery tour we are not yet ready to take, though aware of how Pauly had already taken them. But there is no place in this state we could go without being reminded of him, the signs to places he lived, bars Hank and I went to without him (such as in Sussex and Hamburg (me wondering if Hank the Beatles lover ever got the irony of our going to this place to sing to Beatles songs on the bar jukebox), then down to West Milford, passing the turn off to Melody Lake where the band once played for a biker’s picnic, passed the turn off to Smoke Rise where the band won at battle of the bands and a recording contract that would never lead to fame, and finally along the slice of Route 46 where we as kids hung out, each diner a holy place, even though the names have changed, sideroads leading to the heart of Pauly’s childhood I could no longer bear to take.
I thought of him the whole time, being the first birthday, we might celebrate after his passing in January – and recalling how his birth announcement had been delayed until early in the year as if to indicate he would pass in the same month that records recorded his birth so many years ago.
Now, our time on this mortal coil, our part in this play of life, is almost done, and soon we will like Pauly step off it having had our brief time to strut.
Surviving is almost too much to bear since the stage grows emptier with every year.
 

Too far to the right?

 November 29, 1985

 
Jim just left here with a few bundles of “Scrap Paper Review.”
Another messenger we send out into the dark world to do our desperate duty as an underground newspaper.
He figures he can spread the news despite the fact that mainstream world really isn’t ready for us or has a desire for us to speak our minds.
Jim, however, isn’t like the rest of our crew. Some see him as our token Nazi for his extreme right-wing views.
Michael certainly reacts to his statements in that way and gets irritated by the fact that I continue to publish him.
I believe in free speech; Michael often doesn’t.
Nazi is too strong a term in describing Jim.
But we are living in a time when the so-called righteous have become intolerant, and if someone doesn’t share our views, he clearly is evil.
Jim is someone insensitive when it comes to issues of racism and refuses to see a racist under every rock the way many of my fellow former school mates do. He also reflects a lack of sensitivity when it comes to antisemitism, although I would not consider him anti-Jewish.
He reminds me of my uncles who I see as stereotypical Americans, too busy with their noses to the grindstone to worry about who they offend.
Jim is more talk than action, an intellectual right-wing icon who stands out against the backdrop of left-wing ideology we all were forced to endure while students. He’s not the kind to go out and buy a gun or promote violence. He just won’t judge other people if they feel the need to do it.
Jim is more about being an individual rather than being part of left-wing machine – although because he says what he says, people think he’s a spokesperson for some new Arian nation.
The left is constantly looking to scapegoat people by calling them some kind of racist when a person refuses to buy the party line.
I guess that’s why I tolerate him.
We are all the product of our upbringing and Jim was raised in Boonton, whose parents are part of the West Jersey wasp elite – though technically, he has little attachment to that way of life either.
But the left is always looking for their scapegoats to stand out somehow as extreme, while Jim looks on the surface too bland to play that role, more blue collar than middle class, dressing like a dock worker or a seaman most of the time.
Unless you hear him talk, he seems invisible in a crowd, blending into the background. Even when he speaks, he seems bland, cold, his voice detached and unemotional, rarely sounding excited about anything, even when he claims he is.
Even today, he seemed distant, while I know he must be feeling horrible about the death of his father last Friday.
Jim isn’t stupid.
He works as a biochemist at the Jersey City Waterworks, in an office at the reservoir a few blocks from his house in Boonton.
Terry knows him best. They were close once at college although they seem to be more distant now. They shared writing.
I remember his submitting massive amounts of material when I was editor of the literary magazine at school.
Michael hated it all and yanked out only those pieces he claimed, “almost worked,” complaining each time about how Jim rambled – although the Celine piece he did last spring (yet another hint of fascism?) was brilliant and sharp.
It becomes harder for me to judge others especially those who I might disagree with.
There is something sterile and clinical about borderline fascism that is fascinating, even when at times as an ideology is seems confused.
But it is difficult to tell if the confusion is his or mine, and whether or not, he and people like him will slip over the edge into real fascism if times get bad.
I don’t know him well enough, only what he submits to our newspapers in the mail.
He’s a regular contributor with something to say, which is more than I can say about many other so called creative artists.
And I appreciate it.
 
 
 

A two-nation solution?

 

 

 Saturday, December 12, 2020

 
 
Well, the Supreme Court put the nail in the Trump's coffin not a surprise after its refusing to deal with the issues in the Pennsylvania suit.
Too many people put too much faith in Barrett and the right wing of the court, refusing to acknowledge that the court is just as political as the rest of the world, and though Barrett may be a Catholic, she is also political.
Good people do not go into politics – at least, not intentionally. Some might survive unscathed if the contact is brief. But the longer you play the game, the less likely you are to come out of it unchanged – especially when you are suddenly saddled with the kind of power Barrett has.
This may be a valuable lesson to those seeking to drain the swamp. Hip boots won’t do. You need something more suited to deep sea diving.
This lack of ruling also may make it clear to those states that supported the Texas lawsuit that there is never going to be Justice in America because the so-called justice warriors aren’t seeking justice or equality at all, but the suppression of other people to think for themselves.
Now that they have apparently won control the country, it may well be time to break the country in two, so that all of the citizens might get the kind of government they need if not deserve.
The wackos are running the White House now or will be anyway.
They will be faced with the task of repairing the damage they caused in order to get back into power.
Unfortunately, nothing can repair the loss of faith in a system that allowed Democrats to cheat and lie to get power. After four years of watching their antics out of power, it is terrifying to think of what they intend to do with power.
Media gloats when it shouldn’t be. If any body lost bigger than Trump did, it’s mainstream media, who comes out of this election with almost no credibility.
Fortunately, we are at a time when the baby boomer generation is passing off this mortal coil and will not have to witness firsthand the chaos that this generation is bringing to the world in the elusive and illusionary concept of social justice
We have the most over-educated ignoramuses who are part of this woke movement, people who think they actually know things and really do not.
But as history has shown us we need to keep reliving the same mistakes over and over again because humanity is incapable of learning from the past.
It is said the winners write history and losers rewrite it well we are watching massive revision by a lot of losers and many of them don't even realize they are losers yet
 

A pariah in a fishbowl full of guppies

 

 
Friday, December 11, 2020
 
I’ve obviously become a pariah among some old colleagues.
I have fallen from the true faith (a line stolen from Indiana Jones) and no longer believe what my old colleagues believe, and therefore have become excommunicated by those who still carry on the truth faith in a never-ending crusade against President Trump.
Yesterday, I had an encounter with yet one more Jedi Knight, an unfortunately naïve soul I knew from years ago, who began his career selling biased stories for a biased publication, and never recovered by the bad habits such slanted reporting brought him.
He was so enraged at seeing me, he could hardly speak.
“Are you angry with me?” I asked as we walked side by side for a short time.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“You know why?” he said.
It was like talking to a robot, only one so full of rage, you know he’d been programmed wrong.
He among the new religious zealots that sell their politics like scripture. If you do not believe what they believe, they hate you.
They paint politics as a battle between good and evil rather than conflicting ideas.
Unfortunately, this is a man who has had serious ethical lapses of his own, from allowing someone to ghost write his copy in order to get a media job to accusations of stalking a female fellow employee.
Unfortunately, he is not alone in this godless crusade, and many of those who condemn me for supposedly supporting Trump, come from very questionable ethical backgrounds, many of whom have sold their souls to local politicians for booze, sex or status.
One really questionable character attacked me for writing poetry that questioned the whole moral foundation upon which this new religion has been founded, poems that called these crusaders bigots and hypocrites.
This is a man who sold his soul to an ethically challenged public official, who had used aspects of his public office to investigate and blackmail political opponents.
Yet another priest in this unholy faith has been selling his soul politicians on every level for years, a drunk rather than a drug addict, who wore out his welcome and ran out of politicians to rescue him, but always maintaining the one true faith.
There are some legitimate people who had brought into this new social justice cult. But they all suffer from the same intolerance. You cannot express an opinion different from theirs and not be labeled something most often white supremacist.
The current political scene is constructed on such misinformation, stereotyping opponents so that the true believers can stand on moral high ground while pissing on our heads.
One former colleague greeted me at a musical fair a year or two ago with such hatred, you would never believe we had once been very close – but close at a time when my philosophy better reflected his. The more I moved away, the more hostile he became – especially when I question some of his misguided heroes such as Howard Zinn.
I unfriended him from Facebook when he – like so many of his faith do – used social media as a tool for indoctrination, erroneously calling it “a discussion.”
The lack of ethics infects many of these crusaders, such as someone I deal with daily who poses as a professor and has spent the last four years indoctrinating his students with anti-Trump literature.
It is not enough for these crusaders to believe a certain way; they need to inflict it on other people – which makes for a painful parting of ways when I refuse to listen.
Another true believer ceased talking to me when I refused to accept her ranting about Trump being a racist – a largely politically-created myth by media, although racists apparently do embrace Trump – largely because the left has become so unbearably fascist.
The left no longer believes in the concept of free speech or alternative thought, even though both are protected by The Constitution. They are determined to stamp out bigotry, and to force people to comply with a specific doctrine.
In their view, anyone who is a bigot ceases having rights everybody else has.
I believe people have a right to believe what they want as long as they don’t create conditions that inflict those beliefs on other people – whether they be bigots or members of the new social justice league.
But social justice warriors do not believe this, and label anybody who believes otherwise is a bigot and must be stamped out.
None of my former colleagues and friends have actually asked me what I believe. Instead, they spew crap among themselves like a pack of frustrated housewives, creating a cult of hatred that is based on what they think they know rather than what really is.
It is impossible for people like this to understand that you can be unbiased and still have personal opinions that run counter to this cancel culture movement.
But the problem is these true believers mix their personal opinions with their professional lives and come up as rather pathetic characters whose opinions cease to mean anything, and whose associations become more cumbersome than they are worth.