The Ultimate Reality Show

We live in strange times. From weather systems that are running amok to seedy politicians who give credence to the title of P.J. O’Rourke’s book “Don’t Vote, it Just Encourages the Bastards,” I’m finding it more difficult than ever to find solid ground on which to plant my aching feet.

It’s during times like these that I find myself turning to someone much wiser than I am. I call him Mr. Voice.

“Mr. Voice. Can you please shed some light on what’s happening in the world? Both I and my readers would really appreciate your wise consul right now, because frankly, the world seems pretty much f…cked.”

“Well put my friend. The world really is pretty much f…cked. But I wouldn’t worry about it. The world has always been a circus and the fact that you humans are still walking the Earth, creating messes wherever you go is testament to just how patient the Creator is with you.

Why just the other day I was bringing Him His morning coffee – black with one sugar – and there He was sitting on His throne with His head in His hands and moaning.

“Are you okay God?” I asked, worried that He might start crying. The last time He cried it lasted 40 days and 40 nights.

“Have you seen the morning headlines?” He asked, shaking His head.

“Ah, no sir,” I said. “To be honest” – you don’t want to be dishonest with God – “I canceled my subscription to the Heavenly Standard. You know, the internet and all.”

“There’s no end to the messes my children can create. I can send in Moliere. I can send in George Carlin and Tina Fey. I can send in Woody Allen. I can send in Jon Stewart, Richard Pryor and Cheech and Chong. And still they don’t learn. “I know, I know” I said trying be sympathetic.

Then He looked at me with eyes so sad it made me want to weep. “Give me your hands and join me in prayer.”

Oh boy, oh boy! I love joining my hands with Him because it always sends orgasmic shivers throughout my entire body. “Oh Heavenly Father,” He began, “please forgive them for they know not what they do.”

“Ah, sir, aren’t you the Heavenly Father?” I asked, once I came down from the ‘rush.’

With eyes still closed and head still down, He started shaking. Oh dear. The last time He shook that hard Krakatoa blew itself up to smithereens. But then He looked up with a huge smile on His face. He was laughing!

“Got ya, didn’t I!” He said. “ Don’t you worry. I won’t let my children destroy themselves. They’re just doing what children do. Making messes and getting in trouble.”

“But what do I tell them when they ask me for help?”

“Just tell them that life is like the ultimate reality show. It looks and feels real. But in fact it’s all just one big, spectacular illusion. So for heaven’s sake don’t take it so seriously! Or I may have to resort to the ultimate prank.”

“You don’t mean…”

“Yep. I’ll have to make Sarah Palin President.”

Shower Stalling

Maybe I have too much time on my hands. This morning in the shower I thought about cutting off my hair. As the hot water ran down my face and shoulders I wondered what I would look like with a totally shiny pate. I’m halfway there already, so it shouldn’t be that hard to imagine. Bald is in. There are bald athletes, bald singers, bald detectives on TV. So why not a bald me.

But then I thought about the price of razor blades and how often I’d have to buy them to keep my bald head bald. I wore a beard for many years and didn’t have to consider the price of razor blades. I could just take the scissors to my face and give myself a trim. But then my beard turned white.

At the gym I belong to there are mirrors everywhere so you can admire your rippling muscles while you’re lifting weights. Since I don’t have rippling muscles, all I saw was my balding head and white beard. It got so I would avert my eyes from the mirror to avoid having to look at myself. Then my eyes would fall on a woman in her skimpy workout clothes and for a brief moment I’d forget about my old man’s profile and remember what it was like to be young. I’d stand up straighter and pump weights a little harder. Then I’d catch myself in the mirror again and the fantasy would pop like a balloon. I wasn’t going to get a hair transplant or wear a rug. But I did shave off my beard.

Standing there in the shower I thought about a good friend of mine. He recently contacted a dangerous bacteria that if not caught in time could be fatal. Thank goodness he did catch it in time! I stopped thinking about shaving off my hair and instead thought about my friends and about how fragile our bodies are. One moment we’re pumping iron, the next moment we’re a fading memory with folks we left behind.

I don’t mean to be morbid. I accept death. What choice do we have? It helps that I believe we don’t really die; that there is an afterlife and reincarnation. I’ve always believed that, ever since I was young. But just in case I’m wrong I’ve instructed my wife that I want to be cremated. Hell – no pun intended – I get claustrophobic in elevators! No way I’m spending my eternity in a coffin.

God, I need a job!

Earth to Samo!

When Osama bin Laden’s demise was announced, the news had about as much affect on me as a feather floating on the surface of a lake. It caused little more than a ripple.

Am I heartless? Do I have no feelings for the victims of 9/11?

No, that’s not it. I, like every adult American, know exactly where I was when the planes hit. I was shocked, saddened and scared. And I’m certainly not sorry that Osama is finally out of commission. But so much has happened since then; so many government lies, so many thousands more killed in two highly questionable wars, not to mention the collapsed economy, that I find the jingoism that arose after the news, peculiar.

I was watching MSNBC when the announcement came that the President was going to speak to the country about something obviously important. Like those of us watching, the media was in the dark about the subject of his address until just a few minutes before his talk. The mind does strange things in moments like these. Mine came up with a host of scenarios, from UFO’s have landed on the White House lawn to the President is going to step down due to illness or other personal reasons.

That one actually had me concerned, whereas UFOs on the lawn would have been exciting. Having seen UFOs – okay I’ve said it – I believe the government has had an intimate knowledge of Mr. and Mrs. E.T. for quite some time.

Earth calling! Oh right. Sorry.

I know I’m not the only one who responded to the news with little more than a yawn. Still, I do wonder about myself. Have I grown that out of touch? Have my years of meditation left me so at home in some other world that I am no longer at home in this one? Have I lost my way?

Nah, not a chance. You should see how in touch I am watching the basketball and hockey playoffs! No, I think something else has happened to me: Media Overload. I mean come on. There’s only so much fussing and fretting a person can do. Me thinks that the “Information Age” has shorted out the region of my brain that funnels news into the nerve centers responsible for emotional responses.

I’m reminded of that 1984 Apple Computer commercial, featuring human zombies. See it here. Maybe that’s what the military-industrial complex wants. To make us brain dead. Brain dead people don’t argue or resist. Instead we watch Celebrity Apprentice and the Biggest Loser, ask our doctors for the latest drug being advertised ad nauseam on TV and work at jobs that eat away at our insides and self-esteem. If we’re lucky to have a job at all.

Okay, now I’m fired up! I guess there’s blood pumping inside of me after all. Whew! For a moment there I was worried.

Mind you, I am writing this on an Apple.

You’re fired!

Today President Obama released his official official birth certificate proving, once and for all, that he was born in the United States. Or at least in Hawaii, which is sort of in the United States.

He did that, he said, so the country – and the media – could return to focusing on the important issues facing us like who will be kicked off Dancing with The Stars and American Idol next.

A Republican spokesperson responded with typical honesty and forthrightness. The party’s National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus stated, his fingers crossed behind his back, “The president ought to spend his time getting serious about repairing our economy. Unfortunately his campaign politics and talk about birth certificates is distracting him from our number one priority — the economy.” Seems like the chairman has got his shorts in a knot about the economy.

Those close to Mr. Priebus were miffed because they’d been told in a meeting with him just hours earlier that the country’s number one priority was to kidnap Donald Trump and lock him up in the Trump Tower until after the Republican primaries.

Immediately following the public display of Mr. Obama’s birth certificate, the normally media shy billionaire held a rare press conference in which he stated “I am very, very proud of myself for going potty on my own and of having played such a huge role in finally putting this topic to rest. Assuming that the birth certificate is legit.” Don’t worry America, the reality TV star is going to examine the certificate himself. If he finds any evidence of tampering or hidden Koranic messages, he’ll be sure to let Fox News know.

By the way, rumor has it that, at the urging of the American Association of Beauty and Barber Owners (ABBO), a bill is being circulated in the Republican controlled House of Representatives, that would ban Trump from seeking the party’s nomination.

However, it seems that House Majority Leader John Boehner has other ideas. In an effort to kiss up to Mr. Trump, Celebrity Apprentice contestant Marlee Matlin, who is deaf, sat in the House viewing section during a recent session when Mr. Boehner leaned next to his aid and whispered tearfully “ That (expletive) Trump will never be our nominee, even if we have to tie a (expletive) cement block to his (expletive) foot and push him off the (expletive) bridge. Read my lips.”

Apparently Ms. Matlin did.

The Walking Dead

Last week I was listening to the popular radio call-in show “Coast to Coast AM” while driving home from town. If you’re not familiar with the program, it’s a bit difficult to describe. “Crackpot” comes to mind, but as I include myself among the vast listening audience – and it is vast – I should try to be less judgmental.

On a given week, topics might include an eclectic mix of ghosts, Big Foot, chemtrails, various 2012 end of world scenarios, and my own personal favorite, UFOs and its myriad sub-categories including alien abductions, crop circles, animal mutilations and human-alien hybrids. Mainstream it isn’t.

Why do I bother with such nonsense? (Because most of it really is just nonsense.) Nevertheless once in while someone interesting and/or credible comes on the show and I’m hooked. People like theoretical physicist Dr. Michio Kaku who co-founded string field theory, a branch of string theory; and George Kavassilas, who claims to not only have been taken up into alien spaceships since he was five years old, but has also traveled inter-dimensionally, allowing him to discover who we all are, where we all come from, and where we are headed.

He sure sounds credible to me! Although the disadvantage of radio, it might be argued, is that you can’t see the wild look in guests’ eyes, or the foam dribbling from their mouths. Still, as one who claims to have personally experienced UFOs, I’m not a good one to judge.

Back to a few days ago. The topic that night was Zombies. I haven’t spent much thinking or worrying about zombies, so I’m certainly not an expert.

I was half listening as I made my way up the Likelike Hwy, but from what I remember, the show’s guest had written a serious book on the subject and the conversation seemed to center around how many zombies would we have to put up with before the government finally did something about them. At least put up a fence around America’s cemeteries, for God’s sake! Could it be that difficult to stop dead people in their tracks?

I dismissed this topic as a waste of my time, and turned to the sports station hoping for more scholarly conversation. But then it occurred to me that I might be missing the point. Maybe this whole topic of the walking dead is a metaphor for life!

After all, aren’t we, at times, the walking dead? Don’t we sometimes feel like zombies? I know I do. Every time I watch Celebrity Apprentice or even just one minute of the Golden Girls, I feel seriously diminished, as if instead of blood running through my veins, I’ve got wood shavings. I can’t even imagine what folks who tune into Judge Judy or the Bachelor must feel like. Maybe they don’t want to feel and that’s the point; to deaden themselves from a world that can seem so overwhelming.

Come to think of it, that’s probably what our government wants us to feel. Nothing. Hence we’re fed mind numbing entertainment that in most instances, isn’t entertaining at all – Netflix, HBO & Showtime notwithstanding.

That’s probably what those chemtrails are all about. They’re spraying us with some kind of drug that takes away our ability to think and feel, so that we won’t take to the streets like those Arabs are doing. Of course, pretty soon it won’t matter ‘cause we won’t even be human anymore. We’ll be some kind of evil hybrid.

Yep, I can just imagine the school yard insults of the future. Your mother’s a Pleiadian! Yeah? Yours is a zombie!

Kids!

We interrupt our regular programming…

It’s been a hellish two weeks. So hellish that I was inspired to begin a new blog site (http://onenesspeaks.wordpress.com) This site will be dedicated to topics relating to meditation and higher consciousness, downloaded to yours truly from my Higher Self. Many of you are already familiar with my meshugena self, so I thought it might be a good idea to let the other guy speak from time to time.

Not surprisingly, Japan has been occupying most of my thoughts these days. If you don’t live in Japan or have Japanese friends, it may be hard to understand the close connection those of us living in Hawaii have with the Japanese people. I suppose there’s a certain irony in that, given the history of Pearl Harbor. But life is filled with ironies, paradoxes and other unexplainable events, without which it might be rather boring.

Obviously, we don’t need earthquakes, tsumanis and Gadhafis to make our lives interesting. I’ve got enough drama going inside my own skull to last me many lifetimes. Yet throughout our history, both natural and man made disasters have been in large supply, and while a good argument could be made that human consciousness is rising – we are entering the age of Aquarius – I’m pretty confident that neither the weapons industry nor the Red Cross will be closing their doors any time soon.

I wish there were less destructive ways in which we humans could be lifted up out of our neurotic minds, so that instead getting our blood pressure up about traffic congestion and smelly socks, we are able to focus on the stuff that really matters and lets us know we’re alive. Notice how the death of a close friend or loved one will do it? So too the budding moments of romantic love, great music and books, or traveling to some exotic land. But there’s nothing like a war or natural disaster to open our hearts and, when asked, our wallets.

Must it always be that way. I hope not. I’m not sure how many more “we interrupt our regular programming” moments I can take in my life. And I don’t have anything to complain about. I’m not bracing myself for another aftershock, or wondering how I’m going to restart my life after the tsunami washed everything away.

Which is why I would like to end this piece with a prayer and good wishes to my friends in Japan: May the dignity and courage you’ve shown to each other and the world, return to you with endless streams of love, great luck and aloha.

You sure as hell deserve it.

Mom’s the word.

A few days ago I finished reading South of Broad, Pat Conroy’s 2009 novel about a racially mixed group of miscreants, boy wonders and southern belles growing up in Charleston S.C. during the 1960s.

I’ve developed this habit with books I love. I don’t want them to end, so I read them in bed a few pages at a time before turning off the light. It’s like sucking on butterscotch candy, another favorite of mine. I avoid biting into them so they’ll last longer. I managed to “suck” on South of Broad over a period of weeks, until I reached the last couple of chapters which I devoured like a ravenous dog.

Great writing takes me to places I rarely go these days; deep, quiet places where a single phrase or sentence re-awakens something inside of me and I feel what it is to be alive. Great writing humbles me; so too great music and movies. I think it’s good to be humbled by something, or someone. It can illuminate us and contribute to our understanding of the mysteries of life. Should we ever arrive at a place where nothing can surprise or humble us, we might as well call the undertaker and swallow that bottle of pills. I mean, really, what would be the point?

My mother just turned 91. Now you might think that at her age there’s nothing much left to discover in life. Her balance isn’t what it once was and she complains of an arthritic knee. Toronto has been experiencing a “good old-fashioned Canadian winter,” this year, and since she’s rightly afraid of falling, Edith and her companion Harvey – a young whippersnapper of 86 – have been spending a lot of time indoors playing Rummy Cube or, if the weather’s not too bad, driving to the multiplex across the street. From what I can tell, my mother gets just as excited now about a great movie as she ever did. And remember, she was born before the talkies. One of her most recent favorites was Black Swan, not exactly G rated material.

My mother’s also an avid reader. Now you might ask what would be left for a 9l year old to read. The classics? Autobiographies of Harry Houdini and Charlie Chaplin? Her current favorite is Room, a new novel about a young boy and his mother who are confined to an 11 x11 ft. room. I haven’t read it but I will.

When I talked to her the other day I recommended South of Broad which she eagerly wrote down and Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese, about twin brothers growing up in a free hospital in Ethiopia and whose mother was a Catholic nun. Sound intriguing? It is. Turns out my mother had already read it. I don’t remember if I’d previously recommended it to her or her to me, but we both found it “amazing.” Imagine, me a young fella of 61, liking the same books as an old lady.

These days our world is changing so rapidly that I’m never quite sure when I wake up in the morning what I will find. Although my daily meditations help, it’s easy for me to lose perspective. But when I’m moved by one of life’s truly transformative moments, there’s an instant when the roller coaster stops, my defenses crumble, and I find myself gazing at my reality from a more brilliant point of view. I wish those moments could last a lot longer, but I’ll take what I can get.

Besides, I’m lucky. If I’m ever at a loss for what to read next, I know who to call.

The tipping point?

If you’ve been following the news recently, you’ll know that mayhem has broken out in the Middle East. In Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria and Iran – am I missing any? – the people are demanding change. Broadly stated, they want jobs, fair elections, and the right to express themselves freely. Sure seems reasonable enough. As Americans, we can’t possibly disagree with their demands.

And yet, no doubt, in our own halls of power, there’s a whole lot of shaking going on. It’s one thing to demand jobs and fair elections. It’s another thing to upset oil production and the region’s stability. Today, stocks are falling as Libya’s Gadhaffi has vowed to fight to the death and civil war is threatening to breakout. Are we, freedom loving country that we purport to be, willing to cheerlead for the populists, without trying to “steer” the results in our favor? Are we willing to walk our talk?

Predictions have been circulating for a number of years that the world as we know will change, with 2012 representing a kind of tipping point. According to the Mayans and others, we are approaching a new age. Apparently it has something to with our solar system’s new position within the Milky Way. I don’t pretend to understand it, so I won’t try to explain.

Here’s my own take on what’s happening. Systems, be they political, corporate or societal, that have been built on foundations of deception, are being stripped of their protective clothing. This isn’t just happening across the oceans. It’s happening in our own backyards.

American capitalism, largely left unfettered, is creating an income gap that is collapsing the middle-class and raising the poverty rate to one in seven. Wall street bonuses, main street foreclosures, insider trading, off shore accounts, healthcare shenanigans, the recent Supreme Court decision to allow corporations to, in effect, buy elections; we can all see what’s happening, even though we’d rather shut our eyes or blame it on our “socialist” President.

On the positive side, prejudices that once were considered normal, racism and homophobia for instance, although they haven’t by any means ended, are loosening their grip on the American psyche.

Or are they? One sign that major changes are happening, is that the side benefiting most from the status quo is shouting the loudest from the rooftops, warning us of impending doom – be it terrorists, universal healthcare, gay marriage, social security or, that one size fits all boogabooga, big government.

What’s an aging, clinging to the middle class by the fingernails, guy to do? I’ll just write my blogs and watch the movie playing before our eyes. I do think we have reached a tipping point. How it will look when the walls come crumbling down, I have no idea.

But it sure as heck will be different.

It’s a mad, mad, world.

Last week I returned from my second trip to Japan. Except for shivering in the Tokyo winter like the spoiled Hawaii kamaaiina that I am, and succumbing to a gut wrenching bacteria after eating raw oysters, I had a really good time. I met some very gracious people and learned a little more about the Japanese culture.

Many of the people I met on this trip were pretty wound up. The economy is stagnant, just like it is here in the States. In fact it’s worse because they’ve been down in the dumps much longer. People are worried about not being able to find a job, or of keeping the one they now have. If they do have a job, they work themselves sick trying to please their bosses, to the point where they have virtually no life outside of work, and no energy left to try to improve their circumstances. Sound familiar?

In spite of the pressures they feel, most of which aren’t of their own making, both the men and women displayed a kindness to me I often find lacking in America, even though I speak almost no Japanese. Or maybe they’re kind to me because I don’t speak Japanese, much like the kindness we display towards those who are less fortunate than us – the old, infirm and mentally handicapped. Japanese culture has been relatively insular for the last few thousand years, so we foreigners are a relatively new phenomena.

Spending time away from home helps me gain a fresh perspective, especially when I venture into a country much different from my own. I’m a newbie when it comes to Japan and I don’t pretend to possess anything beyond a rudimentary knowledge. It would take me a lifetime to understand a culture this inscrutable. Compared to the Japanese, we Americans are like prepubescent children.

And yet, once again, I came away feeling that there is more that unites us than divides us. We all come from the same seed, call it Adam and Eve, chimpanzees, Pleiades or God. In fact, there is some evidence that the Japanese are one of the ten lost tribes of Israel. For one thing, there are a number of Japanese words that bear an almost uncanny resemblance to their counterparts in Hebrew: Daber – “to speak” in Hebrew. Daberu – “chatting” in Japanese; Goi –a non-Hebrew. Gai’jeen – a non-Japanese or foreigner; Kor – “cold” in Hebrew. Koru – “to freeze” in Japanese. I even tried thinking of a couple myself. For example: sushi, tushie. For more on the subject go to http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/israel/losttribes3.html, although I must tell you, I’ve yet to find a decent bagel.

Something else happens to me when I go away for awhile, maybe because I spend less time paying attention to the news and more time meditating. When I return to the madhouse, I can’t help but arrive at the conclusion that this world and most of us living in it are certifiably insane. I think that’s why enlightened teachers tend to laugh a lot, and look at us with such compassionate, caring eyes. They get the joke. To them we must look like the veritable dog chasing its own tale. They know that sooner or later we’ll tire of the chase and surrender to the truth of who we are.

Until then, we’ll go on becoming upset at events we have virtually no control over, unless we were either born into the halls of power, or have the chutzpah to force our way in. I wasn’t and I don’t. Of course, if someone in the halls of power would be kind enough to open the door for me, I’ll be happy to walk on through.

I promise I’ll try not to laugh.

JFK and the Unspeakable

I’ve just finished reading the book “JFK and the Unspeakable,” a brilliant, detailed account of the assassination of President Kennedy. I know what many of you are thinking. Here is yet another attempt to prove that JFK fell victim to a conspiracy – be it the Mafia or CIA, military-industry complex or whatever. You’re right. It is.

Please don’t let that stop you from going out and buying this book. Its author, James Douglass, was so prodigious with his documentation that I’m now utterly convinced that what he is telling us is true. JFK was, in fact, murdered by a conspiracy that included major players in the American government, in particular, but not limited to the CIA. To deny this fact, surrounded by such a plethora of compelling evidence, would be akin to believing that the world is flat while looking back at it from an orbiting spaceship.

I was 14 when Kennedy was killed, a young Canadian growing up in Toronto. We had recently survived the Cuban missile crisis when, threatened with the possibility of a nuclear war and the end of life as we know it, we went through the darkly, comical exercise of diving under our wooden school desks in the event of a nuclear attack.

For those of you who weren’t alive back then, it’s almost impossible to explain the fear that consumed so many of us, and the grief we felt when the man who brought us back from the brink of destruction, was murdered because he had decided to work with then Soviet Premier Nikita Krushchev to peacefully end the Cold War.

Since the post-war 1940s, the two world powers more or less viewed each other as evil. Both were determined to defend their way of life at all costs, resulting in the build up of nuclear arsenals that could destroy the world many times over. To the hawks on both sides, making nice with the enemy was treason.

Slowly, JFK and his nemesis were turning away from this accepted view. Against the opinions of their own military advisors, they began secretly reaching out to one another. Both were becoming increasingly isolated from their administrations.

Why? Largely because war is big business. The military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us about as he was leaving office, had become arrogant and reckless with power and the wealth they enjoyed as the result of an ever increasing arms build up. Kennedy meant to put a stop to it. He meant to negotiate an end to the arms race and, adding salt to the military-industrial wounds, get every American soldier out of Vietnam by 1965.

I won’t try to tackle the evidence virtually proving that Lee Harvey Oswald was a patsy. The power of the proof lies in connecting the dots, which is what this book does so well. I will give you a couple of intriguing tidbits. There were two Oswalds. That’s right, he had a double. On more than one occasion he was seen in two locations at the same time. He was also a CIA operative, as was his assassin, Jack Ruby. Want to know more? Read the book.

If you love your country, then coming to terms with the fact that an elected American president could be felled by a system that calls itself enlightened and free, is painfully hard to swallow. But no good comes from burying our heads in the sand. I believe it’s important to accept the truth, about ourselves and the country in which we live. Only then can we work to heal our wounds and move forward.

Who knows, maybe one day we really will be enlightened and free, both individually and as a nation. Until then, let’s not pretend that we are when we’re not.