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1:39:00 PM EDT
My head is whirling...
After a weekend of feeling somewhat incapacitated I came to the conclusion once again that I was trying to do too much. I did not anticipate that I would be launching videos off on Youtube quite so soon, but I had absolutely no trouble doing it once I had filmed one I wanted to upload. I also have plans for quite a few more already, and that is where the trouble started.
Writing my memoirs at the same time is proving to be too much. Usually a person 76 starts writing their memoirs for fear they won't get them done if they don't. I have not yet come into the public eye, however, after years of trying with plays, novels, etc, so I think I should give that top priority. Especially since I have so deeply involved Doc. Even though he is just 70 he has a dangerous addiction to alcohol, and could at any time have a life threatening illness. I am planning some videos to display the talent he has, which is considerable. You have to remember that many artists in this country have been alcoholics their whole artistic lives. They died of their addiction. Some, it is true, as Bukowski, were able to quit. He would never have lived into his eighties if he had not quit. At the moment I don't know that Doc is going to be one of the lucky ones who can quit.
I have been reading a bio of Jack Kerouac who wrote "On the Road" and a number of other novels, largely autobiographical in nature as mine became. He died of varices of the esophogus which caused hemorrhaging. They gave him 26 transfusions to try to save him at the age of 47, but could not. Now that is sad, totally sad, he was too young to die, and many more writers he knew well died of alcoholism and other addictions. Many great musicians. Poets. Artists. I think the creative spirits can also be the ones most addicted to dangerous substances. It seems to go with the territory.
I am going to hold off writing my memoirs for a while, hoping that later on I will be able to pick them back up, still in good enough health to finish them. I have already documented my relationship with Dale in a book, as I did other studies of such men I made. My memoirs up until my dad died are a study of him and my mother, grandfathers, and other relatives. Our memoirs are as much about the other people in our lives and how we relate to them as they are about ourselves, which is why I think they are important to write.
I have long thought of myself as a historian, first and foremost, documenting whatever happened in my world. I thought I had been born on what you might call the last frontier in the west, descended from the rough and tough cowboy stock that roamed the cattle country. I went from a child struggling with a very primitive way of life to the big cities. I had to make the leap into the modern world as I am still doing, all spanned in one life time. To add to the complexity, my grandmother was one of the last of the mainstream Mormons to live in polygamy before the practice was abandoned because of pressure from the U.S. government. Many younger Mormons do not realize how deep Mormon ties still connect to polygamy with them expected to spread the gospel of the founder Joseph Smith to the world, who introduced polygamy into Mormon doctrine, where it still is, members having so much trouble ever admitting that their founder might not have been right next door to Jesus Christ.
As a result of being raised in Mormonism and seeing all the weaknesses of a doctrine close up that members are obligated to embrace and preach, I have been totally unable to be a Christian either. I just think it is too easy to come up with 'proof' that all kinds of claims are true. Joseph Smith was able to convert a lot of Christians who had already accepted the idea that Jesus was the son of God. I cannot believe that Jesus ever knew he was the son of God because I don't think there is exactly a God that works that way. Jesus like Joseph Smith may have wanted to be the Messiah that had been predicted would come, but after you read a memoir like "Alicia" in which it was routine for 'Christians' to call the Jews they were persecuting "Christ killers" you wonder if such passionate beliefs without what I would call good scientific proof if you will don't do more harm than good. It has always greatly annoyed Christians when Jews would not accept their version of Jesus as the Messiah. Why wouldn't the Jews of all people accept one of their own as the Messiah?
Well, maybe they have good reason. It can'tbe proved for one thing, except subjectively, and for some people that is not 'proof.' I don't like to be pressured and rejected for not believing in the claims of the religious. That's one reason writing my memoirs is taking so much energy. I feel that I am going against the tide all the time. But I am on the side of the Jews in this conflict. I was raised a Christian Mormon as all Mormons are taught to believe in Christianity. I studied the old testament an hour a day for a whole school year and an hour a day the new testament the next year. I studied hard and received a very good grounding in what is in the bible. Doc I might add had an even more thorough grounding in Christian belief in Lutheran churches and schools. Until he went to college he hardly even interacted with the world outside his German Lutheran community.
I think he understands why the Germans could have turned on the Jews in their native country. He has a tough time not being prejudiced himself, which is the trait I least like about him. He is always looking down on his inferiors, people he sees on the bus, etc, from the vantage point of his superior intelligence.
I can certainly see, even from his behavior, how superior intelligence can be turned into a sword. Bukowski whose parents migrated here from Germany when he was two years old is of Polish blood. His father first migrated to Germany. He writes in his memoirs how he hated his father who beat him unmercifully as a child if he failed to do tasks exactly as he commanded. He would go out and measure the grass after he cut it to make sure Bukowski had cut it as close as he required. Bukowski had also been gifted with superior talent and intelligence, but those gifts do not always keep people from being sadistic. As was the case with his father.
Now we as a country are contemplating the choosing of a black democratic candidate to run for president. I know why blacks did not come out against pro choice, but I am very sure that most of them were against it. They are not going to be for it because it is too close to what existed in mankind that produced slavery and the holocaust. Now we are telling ourselves that the unborn fetus is not a real person, and therefore we can kill it, even though as soon it is born that would be murder. Do you see how this very idea erodes the concept that murder is bad. People have been proposing ever since that parents should be allowed to kill Down's syndrome babies that do get born (escape abortion) and other babies with defects, we should be allowed to hurry the death of one afflicted with a terminal case of cancer or some other bad disease, and a person who wants to commit suicide should be helped, and maybe an old person should be put out on the ice so to speak at a certain unproductive age.
But then in China and India and other places baby girls have long been put to death by some parents who only valued boys, indeed in modern times so many boys were born as reported in China, while the girls were detected and aborted, that the boys cannot find mates! I interpret that troubling report to be the result of a society that buys the idea that legal abortion is necessary for our survival.
I do not trust anyone to lead us in our modern times who has supported legalized abortion. For me that only leaves two acceptable candidates, Obama and McCain. But I speak out for fear that Hillary Clinton will become the candidate and beat McCain! If pro choice advocates are powerful enough that is exactly what could happen. Is legalized abortion Christian? Is it more important to believe that Jesus is the Son of God than it is to fight legalized abortion?
I think I need to concentrate on what is happening in our country right now more than I need to write my memoirs.
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I imagine writing your memoirs would be mentally exhausting, I can see why you need a break.
Lisa -
Art comes from PAIN. That's why it is aquainted with alcohol, drugs, and broken hearts.
5/5/08 11:38 PM
Pam