GRUMPY OLD BASTARD REBEL WITH ATTITUDE

antoni tapies

This morning talking on the phone with my friend Carole, I was talking about how paranoid I've become about driving. An alarming number of people I know have been given tickets over the last year. I've not seen it in the past anything like it is now. The state has it set so you don't get out of a ticket for less than $200. The ticket may be less, but court costs and fees run it up. Obviously, the highway patrol has increased the quotas for patrolmen, keeping state revenues up in a time when the working people of the state are bringing in less income, hence paying less taxes. What do you do? Screw the working poor. They're easy to rape. They have no recourse. You never see a Cadillac by the side of the road with a highway patrol car behind it, blue lights flashing. The attitude of cops toward we the people has become more hostile, year by year, to the point we "citizens" (a dead word) are taken for criminals, treated like criminals, spoken to as criminals. They think they're being smart in the manner of arrogant people. They're making enemies and stand all the taller for it. This is why we did not want police state. Now it's a law that police departments are right to exclude the more intelligent applicants from a job as a cop. I thought that was already a natural law. It's like making a law requiring us to observe gravity. Throw something up in the air and if it keeps on going you're arrested. I said a whole lot more than this, talking with Carole, that I'm too paranoid to repeat in print. Paying the fine is bad enough, then the hell you're put through from the moment you see the blue light until it's finally over, regarded a criminal every step along the way. Franz Kafka and George Orwell were prophets. We are now living in the adult world they foresaw. I lived it throughout childhood and youth, as have many. It is particularly reprehensible to see Kafka become the way of American enforcement. It must be inevitable, a process, a pattern. We laugh now at the old slogan, to serve and protect, like we laugh at wind, rain, sleet or snow, except in a Jerry Lee Lewis song.

 

 

antoni tapies

 

I was telling Carole that all my adult life cops and people in authority positions dislike me on sight. I don't have to make a face, say something smartass, nothing. They look at me and they see the enemy. It's so close to a hundred percent that I'm used to it. I've learned to go slack in the face of authority the way black people have learned that when a cop stops you, you go slack, be passive, no resistance. Otherwise, they beat the shit out of you, and might anyway. When you're white, it's not so overt. They don't give you respect, but they also don't treat you like a coon. People that go about with a superior attitude regard me exactly the same. On sight, like reading an aura, an authoritarian of any sort, official or self-styled, sees the enemy when they see me. I think my eyes have something to do with it. My eyes do not show respect for uniform or position. Nor do they show fear. They show absence of interest. That's what I feel. I know people I would call friends who have been involved in law enforcement in one way or another, people whose egos don't require they be deferred to as authority. The ones that need to be looked up to the most are the ones that hate me. I have this objectionable way of regarding people as who they are themselves, seeing through the transparent mask of appearance. I have this odd way of knowing people for who they are. Like when I saw Maureen Stapleton play Stella in Streetcar Named Desire, I saw Maureen Stapleton playing Stella, an actress, an artist performing a role. I don't know that I've ever lost sight of a performance enough to see just the role. Maybe in childhood I could have, but don't recall. Pre-teens I was in love with actress Claudette Colbert. Susan Hayward, too. Colbert as mother, Hayward as whore. My grandfather kept a picture on the wall of reclining Susan Hayward in his garage. It was the only thing I wanted after grandpa died, but couldn't ask anybody to attempt to mail glass. I imagine it's in a landfill by now.

 

 

antoni tapies

 

I'm recalling the time of the music store. The parking lot was across the street. PhDs were a riot. I could see it in them getting out of the car. It's a certain trim of a beard, a stance, presentably dressed in something English, and professorial patterns in behavior. I like talking and visiting with intelligent, educated people. I like it very much. One comes in the door, I speak, we engage  in brief conversation. Right away I see he is sizing me up, asking test questions, assessing my knowledge in relation to his. That's when I say them for those. It's all it takes. Don't even have to go so far as to say aint. I see the conclusion register in his eyes that it's just another yokel, exactly as per expectation in his wife's home town. I realize in that moment this is not an intelligent, educated individual, and I lose interest too, at the same time. Its in my horoscope. Not many years ago I found a friend from the years just after high school by way of internet. We emailed quite awhile. Turned out he had a PhD in Psychology; mental institutions, teaching at a university, in charge, authority, retired. I got really tired of his emails full of instructions that I am to read Henry Kissinger's memoirs, lists of assignments and essay test questions. I didn't do any of the assignments and sure as hell did not read Henry Kissinger's self-praise. I started writing the blog and he'd quiz me on what I'm talking about, told me to explain this and that, explain, explain, you're wrong, something else is the case. The worst, according to an old Sufi saying, the straw that broke the camel's back, was when he told me to explain something I'd put up in the column on the right, of quotations, the one from the Tao te Ching, Not knowing is true knowledge. Presuming to know is a disease. Another essay question to be graded. All I answered was, "You had to be there." Explain the Tao te Ching to a PhD in psychology? He's Doctor Science: he knows more than I do. Of course he'd heard of Carl Jung. No matter how I would have explained it, he'd have known better than I did. He really didn't get it and I couldn't help him with it. It was too wide a strait for a bridge. It wasn't long after that I told him to quit writing me and unfriended him on facebook. Next thing, I got another list of essay questions to answer. I blocked him from my email. He had become an authority. He let me have it for not addressing him Dr, saying, I have a lot invested in my PhD. I said, I don't give a shit.

 

antoni tapies

 

It's the same with people who believe having more money than I have makes them my superior. I tend not to see it that way, nor do I honor the expectation. They call me strange because my eyes don't light up and grovel in the mud of greed when they speak down to me. I am able to give authority to someone I assess deserves it, like a martial arts sensei, or a meditation master, a teacher of something I want to learn. Just because somebody puts on a certain kind of clothes doesn't mean shit to me. I see an individual human being; their clothes usually show what they want me to think about them. Carole suggested my resistance to authority personnel goes back to daddy. Bingo. He was not right in the head. He did not adhere to the rational. Didn't pay much attention in school. He never saw but one look in my eyes after a certain point, indifference, nothing. Sometimes he'd explode, I want some respect outta you! The kid would think and dare not say: Show me something to respect. My eyes came to show absence of interest. This is what authoritarians trigger in the look they see. I could not talk back or defend self or explain. You cannot control my mind, I am the enemy. I used my eyes to say it. This, I suspect, is the root of why authoritarians and people who need to be seen high up hate me on sight. They see no light of respect in my eyes, the look of the enemy. It kept me in trouble all the time in the Navy; authorities everywhere requiring obeisance in the form of a salute and being called sir. Out of the Navy, I never said sir again but in irony. It runs awfully deep, so deep I choose to leave it be and not bother with changing it. I feel like it serves me well. It keeps me away from people I don't want to be around without any effort on my part. The same as my attitude that anybody too good for a Pruitt is too good for me keeps the pretentious away, indifference to self-importance keeps authoritarians away, too. Win-win.    

 

antoni tapies himself

 

 

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FALLING IN WITH MEHER BABA

yayoi kusama

A little bit ago I found and played a video of Mr Rogers in a remixed collage of him speaking the words in the song from different shows, "Did you ever grow something in the garden of your mind?You can grow ideas in the garden of your mind. It is good to be curious about many things. You can think about things and make believe. All you have to do is think, and they'll grow." I was too old for Mr Rogers when he appeared on tv, was one of the people that laughed at dumb Mr Rogers. Then one day I was sitting with a neighbor's kids and Mr Rogers was on the tv. The kids engaged. I sat watching him and them, listening to him, hearing his humility, his deep caring that came through for little kids. I sat there with tears running down my face for the loving attention he gave the kids and the charisma he had in their eyes. A man that doesn't speak down to kids, but talks to them the way every kid wants daddy to talk to them. I've found that no matter the company I'm talking with, the times I have brought up Mr Rogers with an adult I get laughed at in joking ways like the times I've requested Willard Gayheart to sing Little Red Wagon, a beautiful western swing love song. It pisses off the redneck in me and I want to say something hateful. I choose to say nothing and go on like I'm a good sport and can take it. I remind myself empathy is not an American characteristic, to stay home more often and let the people that don't value what Mr Rogers is doing congregate among themselves and leave me out of it. It was like sitting in church hearing about righteousness and we're such good Christians because we go to church, and wondering why the people in the church had no use for their neighbors or each other. The idea of loving one another was suspect of sexuality, like dancing, sin, repugnant. Not the kind of people I wanted to live all my life subject to. 

 

 

isamu noguchi

 

Evidently, this is what Mr Rogers brings up for me. A few times I have watched Mr Rogers on purpose, to give that vibe to my inner child, who doesn't get a lot of my attention. The video of Mr Rogers remix made my inner child dance. It woke up the kid within. I've preferred not to look back into childhood because it throws me into frustrated anger; hence, depression. But just now, my activated inner child reminded me there was much I enjoyed in that time. Why not take a look at the good times, because there were many. Like both my grandmothers, and mommy until daddy came home from the war. The neighbors up and down the street, parents didn't like any of them. We were the righteous ones. Lord have mercy. I know better than to dive back into that dark swamp. If I keep it up, I'll be cussing a streak in a very short time. The past. Let it go. As history, the past can be somewhat informative. However, recalling that part of my history puts me into a mood. It was WW2 PTSD on somebody whose screws were loose anyway. Fear to such an extreme something snapped within. He had no idea how close he came to being a victim of patricide. I reminded myself every night in bed crying into the pillow he was not worth a lifetime in prison. My sentence in his prison would run out eventually. I'd bear with it, go to school, see grandparents for affection, because a kid has no recourse; let them feed me in payment for the hitting and berating I couldn't defend myself from. He died to me and then started wanting my respect. Give me a break. Whatever. I'd think, though dared never say: I respect you like I respect dog shit--I step around it. I meant it. I learned pretty good avoidance skills from avoiding him in earnest. I went to the coast, as far as land allowed, seething inside. The hate took a lot of years to get over. Never did get over it, just turned it off like flipping a light switch. That didn't end it immediately, but it began the dimming process that took a few years, a seven-year cycle, and the next seven-year cycle working off the anger side effect at manual labor and going to an old-time religion church I loved.

 

australian aborigine

 

At this time of the life, looking back over the whole I see patterns unnoticed while involved in them. The most dynamic thing I found recently was seeing the first half of my life characterized by hate within, the second half characterized by love. I've come to see the balance. I've come to see the first half like drawing the bow string back so far that arm muscles are about to explode, holding it there until the aim is just right and letting go. The let go moment happened at age 33 when I fell in with Meher Baba. I say fell in with as a shorthand. The experience at the time I likened to a fish swimming along, saw something good to eat, bit, it had a hook, the hook pulled me through the water against my will and I ended up in Meher Baba's boat. I had no interest in rock star gurus. Peter Townsend of the Who made an album of his contribution to Baba gospel. I hated it. Never wanted to hear it again. I ended up at the Meher Spiritual Center between Myrtle Beach and North Myrtle Beach, between Hwy 17 and the ocean. Went there as a place to get out of my life for a few days or however long it took to think about things. Somebody I'd met at a party when I was so wasted I could hardly sit up straight started playing with my cosmic mind saying things like "Everything is nothing. Don't worry, be happy." My super-conscious mind that observes the conscious mind was thinking: Does this guy know what he is saying? A week or so later I ran into him at the apartment of a woman I knew from Knoxville, he had brought a kitten she wanted. I engaged him in conversation like I was talking with somebody I needed to know at the moment. I told him some things that were going on daily, signs, I'd been getting of the number 10 every day. And a spread of about a dozen postcards of Myrtle Beach, an Indian coin found on a small square of gold carpet sitting on some boxes put out for trash pickup. I picked up the coin. It said, 10.

 

 

meher baba / jesus

 

I told him I'd been thinking about getting on a bus and going to some small town in South Carolina, check into a cheap motel and stay there until whatever I needed to know came through. I knew it was something life foundation basic with no idea what. He told me about a place at Myrtle Beach, 500 acres of virgin forest, cabins in the woods, didn't cost much, had to supply my own groceries, that was it. It was a spiritual retreat for Meher Baba. I really wasn't interested in doing the guru thing. By this time I was a convinced atheist. I'd brought my own books, but found first day some copies of discourses and excerpts from discourses lying about and picked up the discourses, opened the book randomly and my eyes fell upon the direct answer to a question I had in the front of my mind. Opened it randomly again and eyes fell on a paragraph that answered another question in the front of my mind. It turned into a fun game for me playing with chance like the I-Ching, but this one was like rigged chance, like a consciousness was involved in selecting what I opened the book to. Two days of reading in the discourses like that, and some biographical the same way, all my big questions were answered. Third day, I was in the act of sitting in a chair on a screen porch to read some more and my elbow knocked over a glass of iced tea, the glass fell to the floor and broke. It was two feet away. It told me I'm not right. I realized I was a bundle of nerves and needed to settle down. Took a nap, woke wide awake refreshed, went to the meditation cabin and said, You've done it, you've convinced me. Now that I know God is, I gratefully accept the offer to guide my chariot through the rest of my life adventures. Love was the only path he allowed. I wanted the path of knowledge, not love. Later for that. I went with the path of love like a fish flopping in a net. Toward the end of the second half of my life, the hillbilly half, I can listen to Mr Rogers sing to little kids about the garden of our minds and tears bounce off my cheeks. It took several years to open the closed vault I'd locked my heart in for protection. I have enjoyed the second half so much, I'm grateful to the first half for getting me here. It's like the bowstring was drawn back so far it sent the arrow on a flight it could not have made otherwise.    

 

marcel duchamp

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

  

WHAT FRIENDS DO

robert mangold

Coming down from a week of mental agitation, emotional spinning, stress throughout the entire body. Yesterday I came down with a case of intense weariness. Went to bed early, got up late. I was glad to feel the weariness yesterday; it told me the emotional intensity of the last several days is waning. It tells me the wired feeling is subsiding gradually, is on its way out. My neuroses flew to the surface and made a mess of me, reviewing childhood rage, the only recourse I had to keep balance as an individual. My mother's reaction to daddy's madness was to stay in the kitchen and sing hymns to herself while he was berating her from another room, which was so ongoing. By the time I was out of college and visiting parents for a few days, I was ready to confront him, kick his ass and tell him to shut his damn mouth. But by then, I was seeing it was her solution to his bullying personality. She buried herself in church to "make our marriage work," the same as I buried myself in a bonfire of rage to survive. There was nothing I wanted to do to make anything work with him. Their example of marriage was such that I never wanted to go there. Made a mistake and tried it. It didn't work, and I set out to go it alone, against the way of society, but I didn't care. I knew he was in me and I would do what he did. Didn't want to do that, didn't want to subject anybody I cared about to a bullying personality.

robert mangold

 

I have spent my life coming to terms with daddy in myself, avoiding situations where his training would rise to the surface. I have dealt with it until who I am does not have access to that bullying nature anymore. Still, when somebody with perceived authority pisses me off, the rage within overtakes mind and body. I don't like it, primarily for the memories that surface. I tell myself, I can't change the past, but I can be somewhat self-aware and not put my worst thoughts into action. I've not wanted to reproduce and pass that bullying spirit on. I've not wanted to subject anybody to it. I have used the adult part of my life to heal the child within. It has worked well, in my own estimation. The learning and the practicing what I have learned has made a difference. I have no impulse to bully anybody. Though when I see somebody being bullied (a woman by her husband) that rage within pops to the surface instantly. I remember it in the man and never have more to do with him. He's not the kind of people I want in my life. Another blessing of this neurosis I carry is that it keeps people of a berating personality out of my life. It keeps authoritarians out of my life. That's a redundant sentence. Authoritarians tend to be berating personalities, or anyway, in my experience. I've known several women who lived with a berating man. Some were bent by it and some seemed to like it on some level, like it makes them feel secure somehow. It's too particular to the individual to look at in general.
 

robert mangold

 

On the driver's license test, I was asked if I had any psychological problems. The answer was to be yes or no, true or false. I started to say what I would say to anybody, realizing at the same time the way to get through this experience is say and do as little as possible. My impulse was to say, "That's so subjective it's not even a question." I rolled my eyes uncontrollably, which I knew at the moment was not going to go in my favor. It was not my place to question authority. This was not a discussion group. Yes or no. I said no. If I'd said yes, it would have required long explaining that we both need to define what we mean by psychological problems. I realized what he meant was have I ever been institutionalized. He probably doubted me when I said no, but went on with the next question. My entire life has been a psychological problem. I mean everyday life. Every day is a psychological problem for anyone self-aware. It's swirling around in my head right now that a bully authoritarian was the kick-off of my own self-awareness. What can I feel but gratitude? This is where it becomes a psychological problem, being grateful for what I hated by way of understanding. Phew. That's a tough one.

 

robert mangold

 

The clearest example of the subjective good this neurosis has done for me is in my friend Justin. I've known Justin since he was a baby. His mother and dad were my friends. Justin's dad treated Justin the same as I was treated, but worse. I'd have killed my daddy if he'd done to me some of the shit Justin's daddy did to him. I mean it. I was on the verge of killing him anyway. All that stopped me was knowing I would not get away with it and he was not worth however many years I'd be in prison. I'd ride out my time, let him feed me, let him give me a shelter as payment for his mental, emotional and physical mayhem. From that point on it made me laugh inside that he was feeding the enemy. In Justin's childhood I acted as his witness, an adult in his life who saw and knew what he was going through, was sympathetic, empathetic and understood. We couldn't talk about it and I couldn't intervene on his behalf. If I did, we couldn't be friends anymore. Justin and I were bonded by the time he started school. I couldn't change any of his circumstances, but we could talk in code enough that he understood I was pulling for him the way you pull for a NASCAR driver to win the race. I realized early the only thing I could do for Justin's benefit, knowing where his dad's behavior was pushing him, would be to assist him finding his own self-awareness.

 

robert mangold

 

His daddy's behavior was such that the guys who were his dad's friends in Justin's childhood are now Justin's friends and have nothing to do with his dad. Every one of us is grateful Justin is not in prison. Each one of us did our part in whatever ways we saw could help. In my case, I prayed him up. His mother and dad fed and sheltered him and I prayed for him, from the heart, the kind of prayer that is heard. I claim that part of his parenting, which is every bit as necessary as the other. His grandmother and mother prayed him up too. In Justin the man I see our prayers were heard. A few weeks ago, a neighbor who openly hated Justin's dad, and was wary of Justin as just like his dad, said to Justin in my hearing, "Justin, you have become a good man." I had to turn and walk into myself for a moment of solitude. When someone tells him he is by surprise a good daddy with his kids, he answers, "I learned by negative example." A year or more ago a neighbor in Whitehead started bad-mouthing Justin, telling me what was wrong with him and how he's just like his daddy. I was heating up inside and had to stop him. I said, "Before you go too far, I need to tell you Justin is the same as my own." It stopped him. He took back every word he said and I said, "Thank you." I knew when I said it that it would be all over Whitehead next day. That was how I wanted it. I don't know how he took what I said, but my meaning was that in my heart Justin is blood. We're the same as brothers.

 

robert mangold

 

Now Justin's baby is my friend. His fabulous wife Crystal is my friend. His two kids by different mamas are my friends. These are people I value deeply in my heart. I feel like Vada is my grandbaby. A child I would die for without thinking. She makes me aware of the beauty in little kids. Most I love it that I see so much of what Justin was like in that time of his life. At thirty, he is still the very same Justin I have known since early childhood. He has retained himself throughout his ordeal. He's giving his own babies a happy childhood. He doesn't spoil them. He lets them know he means business when it's necessary. He explains to them why they get in trouble. He gives their questions straight answers. Vada clings to her "Dadu," for loving him so much. Justin and I have talked many times over the years about the absurdity of our daddies. When I grew up, mine automatically expected me to be his friend. All I could think was, What? Justin's dad kept at him after he turned 18. Finally, his daddy provoked Justin in front of about thirty witnesses to fight. Justin pleaded with him not to start, saying, "I will hurt you." He had too many years of rage in his fists to hit lightly. Daddy swung and missed, Justin drilled him and gave him a punishing ass-kicking without being hit one time. When the police came, daddy said Justin started it. In chorus, the crowd of witnesses said, "No he didn't." That moment gave Justin healing like ten years of psychotherapy. In his teens when he could drive he would drop in at my house for "the calm down place." Now I go to his house for the calm down place.  

robert mangold

 

 

*

 

 

 

MY INNER CRIMINAL

jasper johns

Monday's and Wednesday's encounter with perceived authority has my nerves still rattled. Some inner stuff came to the surface I didn't see coming. It's still raging. I continue to see the dead eyes I looked at that were the same as a statue's eyes, eyes that are looking but don't see. I looked at his name tag, because I like knowing the names of people I'm interacting with. It turned out I was the only one interacting, meaning there was no interacting going on; it takes two to interact. When I spoke it was the same as talking to a statue of John C Calhoun, somebody from so far away in time and so high on a pedestal that I, meat puppet on the ground, have no relevance for attention. I had to remind myself this is how police state works. This is what 1950s propaganda told us the Communists were like. Be careful what you hate, because we become what we hate. After all the Cold War time of hating Communists (people without rights), here our side is, the Christian side, manipulating the population by propaganda, police state. In America now the cops give us attitude that they have power over us, that I can be put in prison by their whim if I give a smart-mouth answer to a smart-mouth question.

jasper johns

Yesterday and today, all day, I swam in my ongoing subconscious argument with authority figures, militarists who like marching, shouting orders, saluting, obeying. My time in the Navy was a time in hell for me. It was a culture totally alien to who I am. It was about killing. I am not. My childhood was spent dominated by a Jar Head who was proud of it. "I'm a marine!" I'd think: Hot dog! You're big an bad! Liked uniforms and badges and guns. I'd hear, "I want some respect outta you!" I'd think: Show me something to respect. I'm not an actor; I can't respect on command. These memories from the past came up in the presence of being looked at and talked at like I was automatically a criminal because I'm a citizen. I knew the authority figure could see absence of respect in my eyes. I saw stone deadness in his eyes, he saw disrespect in mine. Lack of respect really sets off obedience robots. In the place called home, I was beat into the ground to start showing respect, and never broke. I saw myself one of the tough guys on the pirate ships in 40s and 50s movies strapped to the mast being whipped, never showing on his face a wince of pain and never in his eyes a glint of repentance. You can beat me all the way to death and you will never see a split-second of respect in me.

 

jasper johns

 

Officers in the Navy saw it in me. The most authoritarian ones saw it on sight. They saw they would never control me, that my obedience was superficial. All authoritarians see me, on sight, the enemy. It has to be my eyes. My eyes don't brighten up with respect, nor do they show fear. They show indifference, because I know I am face to face with the same to me as a dead man, one who thinks manhood equals obedience to authority. I'm possibly as anti-authoritarian as it gets. I'm not a reactive anti-authoritarian who obsesses with contempt for authority. I totally ignore authoritarian figures. They have no part in my life, in my consciousness. I do my best never to attract the attention of a self-important authoritarian robot. It's why I wear what I call my old-man hat that says Farm Bureau on the front. Old people are past being regimented and authoritarians know it. I have a friend whose job requires a uniform, badge and gun, but he's not an authoritarian personality. He's not somebody who would stop you and say, "What's your hurry?" or another one I've heard, "You going to church?" No, I'm goin to a pot party; we're gonna have a orgy and play cards all night, might shoot beer cans off of each other's heads with a shotgun. Stuff came up from way far back, things I would think when threatened. Couldn't say anything, but nobody had any control over my thoughts. Not even me. There was, "I oughta hit you for what you're thinking." My thought: If you really knew what I was thinking, you'd kill me. You don't have a clue. That's what authoritarians see in my eyes. They want to hit me for what they perceive me to be thinking. They want respect for nothing and I don't have it to give. Respect is earned or not at all. And it's not that I'm devoid of respect, because I respect a lot of men and women and children I know. I lean toward the people I respect, and away from the others.

jasper johns

I know cops I respect. They've earned the respect. I think of them as good men. They don't use their uniforms to bully people. They're obviously not authoritarian types or I wouldn't know them. This week's encounter with obedience robots has unsettled my nerves like I don't remember happening since quite awhile. I don't like it when this rage comes to the surface. It takes me back to the part of the life I prefer never to think about. They say in old age we remember way far back clearly. I don't look forward to that. I don't want to get that old. This week told me that rage and hatred for authority is still burning in a furnace in my heart. Maybe it came up to be looked at before I fade into thinking I'm spiritual or something hi-fallutin when a blue flame of rage continues to burn in the deepest part of who I am. I don't even want to go there to deal with it. Can't even stand to watch cop tv shows or movies. In cop movies, I tend to pull for the criminal. Possibly this rage inspired identification with Plains Indians in childhood, enemy of the white man that speaks with forked tongue, authority in a hierarchy of obedience. Obedience is what it takes to make a good military. I am not military. I don't want to kill others who are every bit as uninterested in being killed as I am, nor be a part of the legion that does the killing. Like I don't want to be a mechanic who works on planes that drop bombs that kill many and hurt more, people who aren't even a problem, just anybody. The enemy? I'm the enemy.

jasper johns

That brings to mind a moment in the Navy that cracked me up at the time. A lieutenant talking to a bunch of the boys, talking every old star-spangled cliché there ever was, remember Pearl Harbor, Communists, the enemy. I stood there, "at ease," laughing inside, thinking: Hey man, I'm the enemy. But kept quiet. Didn't want to draw attention to my behavior. The enemy is not out there. He hated me too, for my superficial obedience. I didn't get in trouble, much, because I obeyed, but they all knew I was not converted to automatic obedience and never would be. I could not dedicate myself to murder and be proud of it. I was pist off at my country for putting me through mandatory warrior training. I'm not a warrior for anything or anybody until the threat is real. Then I'm in front, ready to fight. No matter what I may do to intellectualize my distaste for authority bullies, give it rational associations, it comes from childhood and has nothing to do with the US Navy or police or any other form of social authority. It came from daddy. There it is, the thing itself. Because I rejected his irrational unto arational authority controlling a child by fear, it is a deep down within rejection of what turns out to be his insanity. One day not very long ago mommy said in a light-hearted twinkly way she glosses over denial, "Well, you had your share of discipline." I couldn't stop it--it came out of my mouth bypassing my inner editor. I heard it at the same time she heard it. "Mine wasn't discipline. It was insanity."

jasper johns

All I could think was:  It must have needed saying. She didn't take it hard. She already knew I knew. She knew it too, just kept the denial lid on it. The blessing I derive from this neurosis is that I am not an obedience geek. I am happy to the very core of my heart this is the case. The only freedom in this world is in disobedience. It's why our prisons are so full. No matter where my rejection of obedience came from, I'm glad I have it. I'm glad I don't like having cops look me over like if they look hard enough they can find reason to put me in prison. I am a criminal at heart, and they know it. I don't want to steal anything from anybody, don't want to hurt anybody, don't want to kill anybody, don't want to kill a cop, don't want to run over a dog. I just want my American freedom to be who I am, suspect as that may be. I don't like it being expected that I should want to be an obedient warrior. In a world where war is ongoing, I don't want to be expected to kill teenage kids conscripted by the other side, like me, when American wars are about more money for the rich and less for the working people. Why would I even want to put myself in harm's way toward such a self-destructive end? That's how I saw it then and how I see it now. I'm guessing that what the men in authority positions see in my eyes is that furnace of rage flaring up, confronted by a man demanding respect for nothing. No wonder they dislike me so intensely as soon as we meet. I'm glad they don't like me. Keeps them away so I don't have to deal with them, except when the spider catches the fly.

 jasper johns

 

 

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