Time: Thoughts On The Nature of Mortality

So I am sitting here, watching the clock tick, and pondering the fact that with every tick, every breath, as the old Pink Floyd song says, I'm "one day closer to death." Cheery, eh? I'm sitting here typing on a keyboard with a few sticky keys (one of the kids is using my computer, so I'm in the living room using the spare computer, and every so often the k key, among others, will stickkkkk -- with results like that. It kind of reminds me of how little things -- and sometimes big things -- go wrong with our bodies as we age.) and I have allowed my mind to drift onto the topic that has haunted me for a couple of years, which is the indisputable fact that, like everyone else on the planet, I'm getting older.

Yeah, I know. This is not news. The TV news is not announcing, "Scientists say Seeger aging; film at 11." But all the same, it's a big deal to me, and if you have reached some sort of milestone this year, as I have -- the half century mark was mine -- then it's likely that it's been on your mind as well.

It's interesting to note that when I was 42 and teetering precariously on the brink of death after a catastrophic head-on car wreck, I never had these kinds of thoughts. It never occurred to me to worry about whether I was going to die -- I just pigheadedly pushed forward, determined to survive, not really in a conscious fashion (I didn't cry out that I wanted to live, I just more or less assumed that I would, and proceeded to do so).

It wasn't until the cusp of that half century mark, shortly after my 49th birthday, when I was hospitalized, diagnosed with kidney failure, and sentenced to a lifetime of dialysis unless a kidney transplant becomes available, that I really began to contemplate the fact that "it is appointed to man once to die." And you know what? That sucks.

I'm sure that this post owes a lot to the fact that Sans and I watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button last night. That film -- which, if you haven't seen it, is excellent, unique and very thought provoking in a manner that befits this topic -- got me to thinking about this even more than I had been. If this post makes you go, "Hmm, yeah, I know what you mean," then you should definitely watch Benjamin Button. That's all I'll say about it, as I don't want to give away too much, other than I understand why it won the Oscar for Best Picture.

Anyway, I know, it's true, like the surgeon says in Ghost World, "People die all the time." This year has been a shining example of a laundry list of famous people meeting up with the Grim Reaper. Some were more or less expected -- Farrah Fawcett's battle with cancer was very well documented, as was Patrick Swayze's -- while others hit out of the blue, Michael Jackson's death being perhaps the most shocking.

Adam Goldstein, known as DJ AM, survived a 2008 plane crash only to die of a drug overdose less than a year later. High volume television pitchman Billy Mays surprised us all by dying of a cocaine-related heart attack. (WHY DID I FEEL LIKE TYPING HIS SENTENCE IN ALL CAPS?) Kung Fu star David Carradine managed the ultimate "oops!" death, managing to die during an episode of autoerotic asphixiation. For a while this summer it seemed as if we were playing a morbid game of "Let's Check CNN To See Who Died Today."

Then there were the thousands of people living in the South Pacific who lost their lives in the last several weeks to tsunamis, typhoons and earthquakes. It's a rather graphic illustration of the fact that whether one is rich or poor, famous or unknown, the last page of all our our biographies can be summed up in one sentence: "And then he/she died."

It's what you manage to accomplish before then that matters.

I heard someone once say that everything we make of our lives is contained in that little dash on our tombstone. You know, the one between the birth date and the death date.

What have you accomplished so far in your "dash" through this world?

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The Guild: CyberDating 2009

OK, I realize I am about six weeks late in commenting on this, but I have been busy making googoo eyes at Felicia Day in this video. (Gosh, I hope Sansarya doesn't see this.)

In case you have been hiding under a virtual rock for the last couple of years, Felicia Day is the ubercutie who plays Codex the Healer, the de facto leader of The Guild, a web-based video series about a group of MMO players. (She's not the actual guild leader in the series -- that role falls to a balding cubicle dweller who goes by the name of Vork (Jeff Lewis).

The other guildies are Bladezz (Vincent Caso), the surfer dude Rogue; Tink the Ranger (Amy Okuda) who is one of those players who always has to put her two annoying cents in; Zaboo the Warlock (Sandeep Parikh) whose obsession with Codex doesn't border on creepy -- no, not a bit -- and Clara the Mage (Robin Thorsen), who juggles time online with sort of taking care of her kids (well, they're still alive, aren't they?).

The Guild began in the late summer of 2007, and for the first season was financed solely by fan donations. Since season 2, The Guild has been distributed by Xbox Live and Microsoft and sponsored by Sprint, and is now midway through season 3.

In August 2009, The Guild released a music video entitled Do You Want To Date My Avatar? for which Day wrote the lyrics. Composer Jed Whedon wrote the music for the song, as well as directing the quirky video, which features the real life Guild members, dressed as their MMO characters, singing, rapping, and dancing.

According to Wikipedia, the video reached #1 on the iTunes download chart on the day of its general release and reached 1 million YouTube hits in less than two days, as well as reaching #1 on the UK iTunes charts. It was the top download at Amazon.com a day after its release.

One interesting thing to note is that while it's never stated that they are playing World of Warcraft -- the gaming terms used are kept deliberately generic for copyright reasons, but it's likely that they are WoW players, since 11 million people play the game -- no one that I know who plays WoW ever refers to their character as an avatar. We use the "A" word in Second Life, of course, where far more people tend to think of the pixels onscreen as an extension of themselves, but in WoW most players refer to their characters as "toons."

At any rate, it's fun. I know it ain't rock and roll, but I like it.

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My First Powwow

[Disclaimer: This is written from the point of view of a person who, although "only" 7/8 European Imperialist Invader and 1/8 Native American, managed to grow up in Oklahoma without having once attended Red Earth. "You never went to Red Earth?" my wife asked me in shocked tones. I admitted that I hadn't. This, then, is the story of my first powwow.]

I am seated next to my wife and two dear friends on the wooden bleachers of the Adam Bordeaux Memorial Arena in Rosebud, South Dakota, listening to the sound of Native drum groups from all over the state as they play while dozens of dancers drift slowly, majestically, around the floor of the arena.

It is the 133rd annual Rosebud Fair, and we are in the audience at the powwow (wacipi). Men, women and children, some in traditional dress, some in fancy dancer regalia, some simply in hoodies and ball caps, move about the grassy floor during the intertribal dances.

Then the competitive dancing begins. Women dance, straight and proud. Men stir up the dust, their moccasined feet pounding the ground as the half moon, Jupiter and the ancient stars look down from the heavens just as they watched the ancestors dance in these Dakota hills hundreds of years ago.

Women twirl, holding their ornate shawls as if they are wings. The music -- the beating of a single large drum by multiple beaters at once, the voices lifted together -- seems at once alien and yet familiar, as if it calls to that part of my blood that springs from this American land.

Some groups of judges evaluate the dancers, while others stand in clusters near the drum groups, judging the performances of each simultaneously. No recorded music here -- the music is as authentic as the blood that was once spilled on these grassy hills.

Jingle dancers in beaded leggings wear brilliant colors of every shade Nature ever created, plus a few that I am certain she never imagined. The silver bells which cover their dresses, traditionally made from the metal lids of chewing tobacco containers, chime softly as they dance to two songs. The judges ask for a third, a sidestep song. One dancer is in hot pink, another in royal purple and lavender, one in red and white divided along the diagonal. Still another is in hunter green, yet another in turquoise, one in silver and black -- there is even one whose dress is plaid.

The men, some holding symbolic spears, coup-sticks, shields or hoops, perform dances that enact hunts and battles. The grass dance, it is said, originated when the young boys of the tribe were sent to trample down the grass in the area where the wacipi was to be held, and over the years developed into its own dance style. The grass dancers' regalia includes long, colorful ribbons of fabric that recall the tall blades of grass with which they once decorated themselves.

Some sights seem a little incongrous: the man in full fancy dress garb, checking text messages on his cell phone; the woman snapping photos of other dancers on her digital camera, then slipping it into a pocket of her bell-adorned dress.

I smile as the dancers form a line and move past each other, each giving the others high fives of congratulations like two opposing Little League ball teams.

Families watch, soaking it all in; after more than a century, I am pleased to report to you that the prolonged effort begun by the U.S. government of the 1880s to breed the Indian out of the Indians has failed.

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Oh, my god...

IT'S ALIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111eleventyone

Second Citizen

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Bolton Decries Release Of Euna Lee And Laura Ling

"Euna Lee and Laura Ling are safe at home and in the warm embrace of loved ones and it's hard to feel bad about this. But, since Bill Clinton has a hand in their release, someone's got to step up and naysay the effort, and predictably, that task has fallen to former UN ambassador and noted rage-walrus John Bolton, who says the "Clinton trip is a significant propaganda victory for North Korea, whether or not he carried an official message from President Obama." Of course, holding Lee and Ling as prisoners was also a significant propaganda victory for North Korea, insofar as the ravings of a crackpot rogue nations can be held to be significant. If Kim Jong Il bakes a mediocre angel food cake today, North Korea will claim they've achieved a significant propaganda victory."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/05/bolton-decries-release-of_n_251697.html

So what would you have preferred that we do, Mr. Bolton, simply abandon these two young women to rot for the next twelve years in a North Korean prison? Most people who enter those camps never come out alive.

This man is incredibly shortsighted and obtuse. I think that this is a great day and a true victory for America and for freedom in a time when few things hat are touted as such truly are.

Bill Clinton, despite any moral failings he may have had or immoral acts he may have committed (and who among us is innocent of such?) was a great president in many ways, and once again he has proved his ability as a negotiator. Kudos to you, Bill.

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Radio 559

I am proud to announce the formation of a new radio station:

Radio 559 will play mostly classic rock from the 60s and 70s -- the stuff I grew up with and that I still love. I'm not ready for prime time quite yet, a microphone is still on its way and there are a few other logistics to deal with.

Many thanks to my friend, the most excellent Sean McPherson, for sponsoring Radio 559 with a streaming server. You rock, kilt boy!

P2

I haz a guitar!

Thanks to my good friend Lecktor Hannibal (obviously a stage name, eh?) I am now the proud adoptive father of a bouncing baby Fender Squier Stratocaster. It's really a nice instrument, and I am looking forward to getting my chops built back up after having played hardly any guitar since my wreck in late 2002.

For those who may be late to the show, I began playing guitar (if you want to call it that) at the age of 11, when my parents got me both a set of drums and a classical (read: nylon string) guitar for my birthday.

I soon realized that the sound I desired was not the soft sound of nylon strings, but the brighter sound of steel strings. Not realizing that a classical guitar wasn't made for them, I put a set of steel strings on it, and within a few days I had what appeared to be a bow... with six strings.

Later, I got an inexpensive Japanese electric and a book and decided, at the age of 14, that I was gonna figure out how to play that thing. I did well enough that a few years later I traded in the cornet I had played in junior high on a cheap ($129) Kay sunburst Strat copy. It was all right to progress my learning on, but this was the era of Kiss, AC/DC, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, so I soon decided that single-coil pickups were out, and humbuckers were in. I went through a couple of Les Paul copies (a tobaccoburst and a white one) and a really nice copy of a '58 Explorer which was later stolen. This was the period in which I was a member of Greyhaven, which played the greater Oklahoma City area for several years and drew a pretty decent following.

Later, during my church music period, I played a succession of no-name or off-brand copies: a wine colored SG, a natural finish Strat, a black single-pickup metal-style Strat, a Ventura 12-string acoustic, and finally a black Hohner Telecaster. At the time of my car wreck in late 2002 I was lead guitarist at a church in Springdale, Arkansas and having a ball. At that point my principal instrument was a lovely blue Peavey SSH Strat-alike which I had borrowed from one of the other band members.

After the wreck, which damaged my left forearm (among lots of other things) and left me barely able to move my left hand, I sold off the guitars I had. Later I got an Oscar Schmidt acoustic but ended up giving that to my daughter after becoming frustrated at my inability to play. I stuck to playing keyboards for several years.

Recently, I began feeling the urge to play guitar again. I would have dreams where I went into a music store or a pawn shop and discovered a guitar with a buttery soft action. I'd wake up disappointed and frustrated.

I decided a few months ago to take the plunge and get another guitar, and began shopping. One day a few weeks ago I got a message from Lecktor, asking whether I'd be interested in a Squier Strat. I replied that I would, wondering how much he was asking. Much to my surprise, he replied that he was sending it to me as a gift. (Don't shed any tears for him -- he got a new Epiphone Les Paul which is a beauty.)

And so it is that I now own this beautiful instrument. Many thanks to Lecktor.

P2