A DUNNO-WHAT KINDA DAY

It has been a dunno-what kinda day. Woke up feeling ready to go. Had the day scheduled to go to town for pills, gas and groceries. I know in advance a trip to town means I'll be so exhausted by the time it's all over, I can only take a nap. Today, the nap didn't happen right away. Had the radio going on an afternoon talk show, like Fresh Air, hearing it without paying attention. Up after an hour, then back down for another hour. Woke from that nap feeling at home again. Put on a movie, watched for half an hour and turned it off. Good film, but mind not willing to pay attention. Found a watermelon at the grocery store. I passed by the display thinking I have not painted a watermelon in a long time. I miss painting watermelons. I walked through the whole store thinking I'd like to make a one-day watermelon painting tomorrow. I've been so distracted for so long, I've not made anything to call art. I want to get back into the groove. Found a canvas already stretched, ready to go, one I stretched some years ago. I stopped painting before getting to it. The melon is in the refrigerator and the canvas is ready.

I've put on some Philip Glass music, four pieces, him playing electric organ. The one playing now, Contrary Motion, is solo. The others have accompaniment of piano and soprano sax. They were composed and recorded in the period of time I'm in his memoirs now, early 1970s. He practiced yoga and meditated regularly. He and wife went overland to India, rode trains across India to the Himalayan city, Darjeeling, and into northern India. He was overtaken by a serious interest in Tibetan Buddhism. It could be my suggestible imagination, I feel like I hear Tibetan music in his compositions, a lengthy repetition with variations moving around inside the patterns set up by the repetitions. It is meditative. I follow the sound in mind's eye, recalling the bouncing ball. His repetitions are relaxing as a good massage, like Tibetan chants. I'm vowing to self to play more Glass in the future. I have probably a dozen CDs of his music, all of which I love. It's a bit odd first time hearing it, but it took hold of me right away. I have his Dracula album. It is made as a soundtrack to the original Dracula movie with Bella Lugosi. I might order Dracula from netflix and play the Glass music with it. Good plan. I don't really want to watch the movie, but have a feeling Glass's soundtrack will make it new. 

I saw a clip today of news comic Jon Stewart losing a degree of my regard. Not that it matters to him. Or me. He made some unnecessary repeat swipes at Rebecca Dolezal, the wannabe. I recalled his sentimental show of embracing Kaitlyn Bruce Jenner in his proud of self way for being so piously PC, the champion of tolerance. Then a white woman wanted to be a black woman. He played the white racist role. What white woman in her right mind would want to be a nigger bitch? He can't get over his own dismay that a white chick would want to be black. He can handle a guy wanting to be a chick, sooo liberal, but not a chick wanting to be black. Methinks he might protesteth too much. It makes me never want to identify self liberal again. It strikes me hypocritical from a man quick to point the finger at hypocrisy. Reminds me of the saying that three fingers point back at self when pointing the finger at someone else. He's a bit off on the civil war too. He fails to notice it was a Northern invasion. In the South, it's called the War of Yankee Aggression. The North invaded the South. You don't see historical accounts of any Yankee cities burned to the ground by Southern troops. He's rewriting history too. He's still funny. Stewart has become a disappointment to me in his smug liberalism. He's a show liberal, a very well paid celebrity television comedian. Again, I remind self, the medium, itself, is the message.  

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ANOTHER LIFE DISMISSED BY THE MEDIA SPIN MACHINE

richard shelton

The last few days I've seen headlines and pictures of Rachel Dolezal, the white woman who identifies black. I was disposed toward indifference. Not interested in seeing interviews with her. I didn't care about her getting busted for being a wannabe and it working for her. I couldn't help but feel like she was thrown under the bus for smokescreen, to distract attention from something else that matters. This morning I went to an interview with her and found it interesting. Found another and found it equally interesting. I even felt like I understood her. I don't have an inclination to do such a thing, but she did. It's her story, not mine. I was able to pay attention to her once I got it settled it has nothing to do with me or anybody but her. It's her's. I like hearing other people's stories, and took an interest in Rachel's. I see the liberal news talking heads, pundits, in full judgment, belittling her, talking about her like she's a fraud. The white male interviewers attempted to make her story a lie, and she kept saying it's more complex than true or false, right or wrong. Seeing her exasperation with them talking down to her, I felt like she was being true to her meaning. All she said is she identifies black and has felt closeness with blackness since childhood, age five. 

richard shelton

It's at about that age kids sometimes tap into their previous lifetime. Maybe she was black last time and more comfortable living in black culture over white culture. Growing up in northern Idaho seems to me to have a dreariness factor the equal of Kansas. When a child has a passion for making music, picks up an instrument, figures it out and starts playing, it's a good sign the kid played music in the previous lifetime. I wanted to paint as a child, but due to circumstances and a bad case of low self-esteem, I didn't even try it until I turned forty. I already knew what to do and how to do it. Everything about it seemed obvious. This could have something to do with why I don't paint any more than I do. I lose patience with the obvious. It has to do with why I stay away from television, for having raised the obvious to a lucrative art form. Television swallowed up irony the same as it swallows the life spirit. Listening to the interviewers badger Rachel Dolezal, and the pundits making fun of her, it came to me that just a week or two ago they were praising Kaitlyn Jenner for growing up wanting to be a girl and going ahead and doing it. So transgender. So PC. So de rigeuer. So awesome. So cool. Cover of Vanity Fair. The time Jon Stewart slipped up and said Bruce, he instantly apologized, red-faced, hand over mouth. 

richard shelton

This week we have a white woman saying she grew up wanting to be black and one day committed to live as a black woman from then on. She's being called a liar, her motives questioned, her credibility questioned. They give the impression they believe outing her is going to make her go back to being a white woman in shame and defeat. She will go on living as a black woman. She likes black culture, the company of black people, like I like mountain culture and the company of mountain people. Nobody calls me a liar or questions my credibility, that I know of, for adopting a culture for my own that I did not grow up in. I like living among these people. She, too, grew up in a place without a culture and likes living among black people for their culture. The pundits say she can't call herself black. Then I can't call myself a hillbilly. But I do and will, because I am a hillbilly, a working class white guy living in the mountains who has adopted the culture, naturalized. Somebody interviews me and tells me I can't call myself a hillbilly because I grew up in Flatland, how do you tell a television interviewer, who is unable to step beyond the obvious for a thought, "it's more complex than true and false," in words more obvious?

richard shelton

I saw a clip from the women's tv show, The View. They were theorizing about this and that, and Whoopie Goldberg said, if she wants the black woman experience, come on and get it. It's not so popular an experience that white women are lining up to pay admission. I came out of reading a few brief articles and seeing some videos of interviews, including with her parents. sympathetic with Rachel. The comedy for me was seeing the talking heads so righteous about transgender acceptance, gay wedding acceptance, we're just human beings, after all, last week. Then mocking Rachel when she said she's a human being with a deep inner longing to be black, who let herself live as a black woman. Why is Rachel a liar and Kaitlyn Jenner not a liar? He didn't grow up in the girl locker rooms? Not a problem. Tres PC. I saw something saying the black people of Spokane, where she was president of the NAACP, embrace her now as before, like about her that she wants to be black. The community may bond with her like never before. The only problem I saw she had on the television interviews was her attempts to be honest were cut off by presumptions and Joe McCarthy statements in question form, Are you an African-American? I can't see changing racial identity any bigger a deal than changing gender. It's no more than a cultural change. I don't see any of it a big deal, and had the impression Rachel Dolezal didn't see it a big deal either. But she's caught in media spin, the novelty of the week, somebody exposed being true to self in a false world, and shamed for it at will. 

     

richard shelton himself

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