Good evening… I’m Walt Cronkite Jr., and welcome to our newest specialty cable channel, the…
24 hour FOX Mass Shooting Channel…
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Our network executives have been burning the midnight oil on this dream for years – and, with only 5 reported cases of sexual harassment to show –
… tonight it has come to fruition with our solid confidence that this is a channel that will stand the test of time…
We’ll have a dedicated team of journalists, weapons’ specialists, tarot card readers, and Dr. Oz on constant standby to bring you their expertise regarding the latest in the daily string of mass shootings…
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… we’ll bring you constantly updated lists of the deceased just like my father read in the 1960’s during the carnage of the Vietnam War…
… we’ll show you the latest high-tech weaponry – the pistols, the semi-automatics, the fully automatics – utilized by your fellow citizens to slay your children, your parents, your government leaders.
Yes, we’re excited about our modern news channel and we’re sure you will be too.
The COVID pandemic may be waning but the slew of bloodbaths in the shooting epidemic across our great nation is only picking up speed.
As of only 4 days ago, we were sitting at 146 mass shooting events – in only 100 days! – which are defined as any shooting where at least 4 or more victims have been wounded or killed.
This trendline is jumping ahead of last year and the year before, and yes, the prestigious Guinness World Book of Records is predicting another new record for America, Greatest Country on Earth this year… exciting news!
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But enough of what’s happened so far this year, let’s jump right into today’s headline shootings and mass murders…
We have a number of new fronts on the mass killing front… let’s join one in progress.
Our first story is from the tiny city of Freeport City, Kansas – which has… had… a population of 5 people.
Today, Freeport City is sporting a new city tagline, America’s Smallest Mass Shooting City.
The suspect, who is still at large, is the city’s “former” bank manager, who slaughtered his sole 4 existing customers as they attempted to make a run on the bank to withdraw all of their funds.
The suspect, it is believed, realizing his livelihood would be destroyed, then made his own withdrawal of sorts by redecorating the inside of his bank with AR-15 fire, before tossing a live military grenade received as a welcoming gift for his first purchase of an Avon product, Eau de Sang Versé.
The explosion not only blew the 4 customers into fragments, but also contained a lovely lavender scent that First Responders from nearby Harper, Kansas agreed made a surprisingly pleasant job of shovelling up the body parts scattered for 300 yards surrounding the bank. We won’t have identities of the deceased available until all teeth are gathered and cross-referenced across dental records.
In an ironic coincidence, a major Republican solution was unveiled this morning outside the NRA’s Indiana Convention Center by a grinning Senate Minority Leader Mutch McDuffell who said…
“Today the Republican Party is taking firm action to control gun violence by unveiling a high tech AI bot, an avatar that will warmly and personally send an immediate “thoughts and prayers” message to each victim’s family within seconds of any mass killing hitting the wires, further buttressed by a reassuring message that guns don’t kill, just Democrats with bleeding hearts, other leftie whackos, and anyone with any variety of mental health issue. We’re pleased with our sympathetic and empathetic response to this clearly unavoidable national tragedy. We are clearly a progressive and dynamic party, unlike the death-haters on the other side of the House.”
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When we return after this commercial break brought to you by our friends at the National Rifle Association, we’ll bring you a brand new mass shooting site in Slaughter Beach, Delaware, where soccer parents from two 10 yr-old girls’ teams had their own shootout after a winning penalty kick ended a “friendly” game.
Thanks for joining us today in our action-packed news adventure, as we bring you the best in up-to-the-minute coverage of death and carnage in this great country of ours.
Remember that great earworm CUPS song (“When I’m Gone”) performed by Anna Kendrick in the movie Pitch Perfect?
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Some co-workers and myself sang and performed a fun, modified version of the CUPS song as a retirement goodbye send-off to a pair of colleagues back in 2013.
“Cups” actually originated from a 1931 song “When I’m Gone” by the Carter Family (written by A.P. Carter)
The catchy hook of the song goes like this:
When I’m gone When I’m gone You’re gonna miss me when I’m gone You’re gonna miss me by my hair You’re gonna miss me everywhere, oh You’re gonna miss me when I’m gone
Now how about… actor Keanu Reeves being interviewed by Stephen Colbert in 2019.
The pair bantered back and forth until Colbert earnestly asked Reeves… “What do you think happens when we die, Keanu Reeves?”
“I know that the ones who love us will miss us.”
Simple words and yet it shows us the power of subtlety.
In the last month our household has been hit with the news of 3 deaths of relatives…. so…
Each of these things I’m talking about above bring me around to my thought today…
Here’s a little secret I’ll share with you:
For sure, I fear dying… but even more, I fear dying without being able to say goodbye to my loved ones.
My Mom collapsed and died with acute suddenness on the driveway outside our home… there was no goodbye. This sticks with me like the shadow to my body.
It stresses me that my kids/grandkids might get that sudden, startling, late night phone call relaying my “unexpected” demise.
I’m holding out, holding on, for at least a short, cognitive, slice of time at my ending; a day or week when I can utter my final love words, and of course great last words of “Silly Larry” earthbound wisdom, to those who’ve: lived with me, put up with me, laughed and hugged and cried with me, worked and played with me, been bored with me… you know, the whole panoply of “with” stuff.
Yup, I know these are the things you should say to the ones you love every day, you’re right. Yup, so right.
But like the “beginning at birth” idea that boys don’t cry, sharing deep inner emotions and thoughts with others is very difficult… the words get stuck between my brain and my tongue.
And so, I’ll at least talk about this in verse and song.
Today I’ll share the verses with you, and hopefully someday soon, I’ll have a musical bed to lay the words over and roll them past you again.
It’s sad and it’s sweet… and I knew it complete… when I wore a younger man’s clothes…
How can any person live 79 years and feel they’ve been shortchanged?
How can you have lived in 7 countries, have a wife and 3 kids, 5 grandkids, 2 great grandchildren, and somehow be cheated by death? You can’t really… except…
… it feels to me like he was cheated, like a million others, probably someone you love(d)… not by death, death is certain… but by a beautiful mind that became shrouded in dense cloud and mist. Alzheimer’s storm.
Today I write this blog post as an homage and tribute to my brother Robert who passed this week… my family of 5 siblings has winnowed down to 3 …
I really didn’t come to know my brother until my adult years… Robert and I were separated by 15 years in age, and when he moved from Hamilton to Edmonton to work on his PhD when I was about 5 or 6 years old, our age separation was multiplied by a few thousand kilometres of physical distance.
As I grew up, I heard stories of my “foreign” brother… mostly about how incredibly smart he was. Bright enough to skip 2 grades in school. I teased myself later on that I was a failure, a black sheep, because I only moved ahead one grade.
Robert married a lovely prairie girl Lois (another PhD student) and they shared an adventurous life of making babies (3 in total) while moving every few years to live and teach in a host of countries (Malaysia, England, Egypt, Nigeria, India, Wales).
In between their globe-hopping they would settle for a year or two in Regina or Saskatoon before taking on another international escapade.
Robert was also a bibliophile, a book lover.
Broadway District, Saskatoon
One day he opened a popular bookstore in Saskatoon, Broadway Book Merchants.
Broadway Street is a destination artistic haven to this day and his bookstore was a well-known stop for many many wandering the streets. Robert revelled in the authors who regularly sat in his store to autograph new releases.
He was never so happy as when celebrated author and storyteller W.O. Mitchell (Who Has Seen The Wind, Jake and the Kid) came to the house for dinner after a book signing. After dinner, Mitchell said in his lovely sonorous voice that he’d be happy to share stories with the family all night long, so long as the alcohol flowed liberally! Robert (an inveterate wine and beer maker himself) was delighted to oblige.
Bookselling retirement was eventually forced on him as the inevitability of the mega-online booksellers ate away at bricks-and-mortar retailers. He accepted the inevitable and moved on.
Somehow, over the years, my wife Maureen and I were able to meet up and spend bits of time here and there with Robert; never for long, but let’s say it was “quality time”.
Cross-country skiing over mountain passes in Jasper, organizing and coordinating family reunions, vacationing together in China, visits in Cusco, Peru, teaching me to add cumin to my chili recipe, and his many visits to our Okanagan home gave me the chance to “bond” with Robert.
A wee sip of Chinese snake wine… adventurous!
He and I shared a silly sense of humour that was always best expressed while taking in anything by the Monty Python crew…
Robert wasn’t a perfect man (he and I must be related!), but he had an inner softness and vulnerability that I loved.
We became “brothers” as adults when childhood hadn’t afforded us that opportunity.
On our shared journey across China almost 10 years ago, I could sense small changes in Robert’s mental functioning that said something was awry.
Sure enough, only a couple of months after we returned, the Alzheimer’s diagnosis was confirmed and his lengthy downward journey became his final unwanted odyssey.
This past year, I wrote a song (with an irreverent title but one that Robert would have laughed over anyways) about Robert’s decline that I’ll share with you here once again today.
I t must almost be winter because I’m having darker thoughts.
… could I ever be a… killer… a cold-blooded killer?
Could I? Could you?
Of course not… unless…
UNLESS is always the exception…
What about a passion kill? Or how about a suffering, terminally-ill relative? Nothing comes across as cold about these. These sound like warm- or hot-blooded kills to me…
Prisons are chock-a-block full of poor buggered guys (and gals too) who wish they could take back THAT moment when their world spun out of control and they did something horrific.
We have the 10 Commandments in the Christian religion to guide us towards a righteous and principled life… a set of moral rules … but… if we’re so noble and incorruptible, why…
… do churches have special places where you slip into a dark booth and whisper through a peep hole about WHY you DIDN’T follow God’s guidelines. It’s all pretty clear.
It’s because we’re fallible Charlie.
Humans are human… which is why the word human is both a noun AND an adjective.
But, if I WAS going to kill someone, who would it be and how would I do it? (I’ll give you a little example later)
I came across a website that stated the following as the 10 most common causes we might kill someone:
Mercy killing
Road discipline
Greed
Anger
Self-defense
Religion arguments
Alcohol and drugs
Revenge
Money
Domestic reasons
I’ve looked at each of these groups, and after some deep reflection, decided that I might qualify as a “killer” for 2 of the categories: Mercy killing and Self-Defense. In my personal moral code, I could justify taking a life under these circumstances.
Of course these are the ones where I might realistically pull a trigger, brandish a knife, or slip a pill… Commandment or moral code notwithstanding.
I’m guessing that most of you would likely fall into the same quandary box as me.
But, my inbred tendency to anger sometimes would, at the very least, have my mind running through the idea, the notion, of taking a life for far less compassionate reasons eg. road rage, revenge.
Honestly, there are times when I scare even myself with the depth of my anger and hostility. I know it’s not rational or warranted, but still… there it is. I see red, I feel a fire burning, and want to bludgeon.
The good news here is that evolution, and societal pressures and norms, have carried me far enough along the lines of civility and peacefulness where self-control and rational thought and compassion would not allow such a thing to happen. These types of killings are outside my range of morality, thank goodness.
Here’s that example I promised earlier:
Years ago, I would joke around with a few of my work colleagues in the lab about killing our boss. We mapped it all out and picked the place to bury his body in a nearby swamp for rapid decomposition.
We unanimously agreed he was a jerk and in making our working days miserable, justified a ignominious ending submerged face-down in a murky mud bog. Sounds pretty reasonable, yes?
OK, I know… we had probably read too many Agatha Christie novels or watched excessive TV and movie murder shows that filled our heads with insane, scandalous ideas.
Our anger needed a “healthier” outlet and we found it thankfully through talk (threat) therapy alone! No action required.
So, I’ve looked deep inside myself – I’m not a cold-blooded killer… but I have come to the conclusion that I could … reluctantly… potentially… be a warm-blooded one.
Time to “kill” these dark thoughts… breathe deeply… hum a big Ommmmmmm… and rid myself of this inner darkness. I hope. Namaste!
Today, a spicy little twist from this Man On The Fringe.
As we enter a Northern Hemisphere summer, I’m offering up thisrehash/reprint from a younger, stronger, handsomer… me.
Eight short years ago (June 2013) this week I wrote this post, a fantasized vision of my own funeral.
Morbid, maybe… but also how fun really! Let’s hit the time machine on this mini pseudo-philosophical tale…
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The rear swing door of the black hearse sitting in the horseshoe-shaped driveway was already gaping open like a Domino’s pizza oven, impatiently waiting for the deceased’s delivery.
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Sun rays were prying their way between the clouds, trying desperately to make this final day bright.
Alone, I hesitated a second at the tall, heavy oak door of the generic staid but stolid funeral home – I pulled it open. Within seconds, a tall, dark-suited bespectacled man approached.
—Did you know the deceased well?
He was dignified and compassionate in his well-honed professional approach to terminal matters.
—Very, I said, grinning in a sheepish, modest sort of fashion.
—In fact, I AM the deceased.
I spoke in a breathy whisper, hoping he would pick up on the discretion I wanted for such an unusual occurrence. He barely blinked when I said it though…
How often does this happen? This guy was a pro. He slide-stepped a quarter turn sideways and gestured with a sweep of his arm that I might like to enter the chapel.
I was worried that I would be noticed when I passed into the dimly-lit open hall so I sat down quickly on one of the empty long wooden pews at the back of the room.
Fortunately, in churches and funeral homes, people don’t turn around to look behind them. You only look left, right, or forwards. I haven’t perused the holy book lately so perhaps it’s some religious rule, maybe even a commandment– that you don’t turn around unless they start to play “Here Comes The Bride“, and then it’s rude NOT to turn around.
Music … I love music. Jim Croce’s “Time in a Bottle” was just ending and the distinctive guitar picking of James Taylor began softly echoing off the high wood-panelled ceiling of the chapel – “You’ve Got a Friend”… I closed my eyes and absorbed one of my favourite songs.
I was adjusting my pant leg when a woman’s voice coming from my right whispered, “Are you the dead fellow?“
My eyes were just adapting to the low lights of the room. Surprised, I turned to see an elderly woman scrinching her way, sliding gently towards me on the bench. She looked familiar, but only in the way that any woman of her age might remind you of your grandmother. She was squinting at me through her thick eyeglasses.
– How did you know that?
– Well, you might think its a bit strange, but I come to a funeral here every week. IF there’s a funeral on a Friday. I have bridge club on Thursday and my daughter comes to help me out on Wednesdays. The other days just don’t feel like funeral days to me. I don’t know, maybe it’s because I’m Catholic. Fridays feel like a funeral day.
She slid her hands slowly over the knees of her dark dress to straighten the pleats that had been disrupted on her slide towards me.
– I never know the dead person, but I enjoy a good funeral. I get to see and hear the sum of a person’s life in about a half hour. I learn a lot about what’s important to different people. Sometimes it’s all just religious rigamarole – sandwich without a filling – almost like the dead person never existed. But sometimes, there’s a whole gourmet dinner laid out of a person’s soul. It makes me see my own life better somehow. I like those ones.
She fell quiet when she spotted the man in the dark suit, the same one that greeted me at the front door, approach the podium at the front of the room.
He paused at the metal-faced lectern, looked down quietly at his notes, then slowly looked back up, and began:
–One of the great benefits of living for a number of years, is that we absorb and observe and enjoy the things that make our time as humans on earth special and memorable. We experience the multitude of stages that constitute a life. Birth, childhood, teen years, first loves, fast cars and vehicles, first jobs, the stresses and great joys of family life and interacting with people that surround us. We see beauty, and pain, in so many forms, often those things that we glance past in early years become the treasures of our later lives.
-If Larry was with us here today, if he was sitting right here in this chapel at this moment…
He glanced with a small ironic smile towards the back of the room where I was sitting.
– if he was here, he would want us to reflect on the things that mattered greatly to him and at least take them into consideration in the living of our everyday lives.
– Hallelujah brother, I wanted to yell out.
But I didn’t want to distract the modest crowd of mourners and well-wishers who had broken away from their daily existences to say a final farewell to a small piece, a fragment really, for most of them, of their lives.
Aside from close family, a funeral, at its most basic level isn’t really about the person who has passed. A funeral is about how each of us reacts in the moment, decides our own personal life course, and editorializes how we’re doing so far.
– Highly spiritual but not a typically religious man, Larry suggested in his final requests that I put in a good word about 5 things that stood out for him and that made his own existence special and noteworthy.
Love of creativity. Creativity surrounds and envelops us every day. Almost everything we touch from simple kitchen gadgets to fancy cars is there because another human conceived and made it. Our medicines, our clothes, chocolate bars. You name it, simple or complex, it needed creativity. Music, sculpture, yes even Fifty Shades of Grey… they all originated in the amazing mind. We need to observe and appreciate the good and great we’ve created and be mindful of the not so good. But more importantly, we need to be an active participant and create within our own sphere too. Create a garden, create a meal to be remembered, create a poem, create a pair of socks. Perform some idea sex and create something totally unexpected. Absorb others’ creations but take the time to make your own little masterpiece too.
Love of at least one other who loves you back. The warmth of another’s love and respect is what makes humans human. It grounds us, it gives us purpose. Giving love to someone else lifts up the poorest beggar to the richest monarch. It can’t be bought, it can’t be sold, but it’s more valuable than the Crown Jewels.
Love of health and activity. Our bodies are striated top to bottom with muscle. Bone and blood and muscle thrive on movement, active movement. Our mind muscles and our body muscles all feel better when they’re exercised and strengthened. An internal global sense of health and well-being starts with active movement.
Love of the unknown… fearlessness. Stepping to the edge of the metaphorical ledge makes our heart race and our soul sing. Horror movies are so popular because they take us to the edge of our comfort zones, creating a sense of exhilaration, but pulling back and leaving us drained from a cathartic high. Taking ourselves to the limit or into an area that intrigues but intimidates us at the same time is a fantastic journey that puts LIFE into life. I’m told that Larry confided once that running marathons or learning another language in a strange, exotic locale filled him with fear. But, living and pushing forward into that fear is exhilaration exemplified.
Love of the senses. This is a world replete with sights, sounds, smells that can overfill our senses, and yet we often downplay or ignore them. We need to learn to slow our breathing and absorb the plethora of beauty in all its forms that surround us. The smoothness of pine needles, the scent of seafood in a crowded marketplace, the roar of a jet piercing the sky overhead, the glitter of the setting sun rays caressing the lake surface at sunset. Our lives can be so much richer when we take the time to appreciate the exquisiteness around us.
– So, Larry asked that we all retreat within ourselves today and reflect on those things we feel an affinity, a love, a respect, a passion for in our days and years living this amazing miracle that brought us to this place, this time, this world that evolved from no one yet knows what or where.
Oh, and one more thing. Larry wanted me to add… eat some chocolate … always eat some chocolate!
Life can be as simple as that sometimes.
The time felt right for me to leave.
The old lady next to me turned and nodded knowingly with a small smile. Leaning in slowly, she bussed her lips against my cheek and whispered, “Thank you for the lovely soulful meal you made for me today. I’m going to think about the things that were important to you. I’m glad we had this chance to meet.“
I stood and took one last look over the group of my friends, my relatives, my life.
Some were smiling, some were gently wiping beneath their eyes with white kleenex; the ladies dressed in mixtures of short and long skirts, with sweet floral smells and red lips. Men in dark suits, some in clean blue jeans and open necked shirts, a disjointed harmony of style and generation that spoke of honour and fashion.
To my own surprise, I felt good. It was a bittersweet moment knowing that my own few eternal seconds had come and passed so so quickly.
I turned and pushed my way through the door of the chapel. Instantly, a brilliant white light shone through the upper windows of the funeral home, the sun had won its skirmish with the clouds.
I wasn’t sure where the white light led but I felt a robust attraction to first one exit door on my left and then an equally strong pull towards an exit door on the right.
On each door a sign was posted prominently on its surface. The one to the left stated:
Buddha awaits your reincarnation
The sign on the door to my right said:
Chocolate Eternity
I hesitated and thought deeply.
SERIOUSLY? All of life’s philosophies come down to this?
Maybe deathcan be as simple as that.
I paused for a moment longer, then smiled a little smile and stepped confidently forward. I’d made my choice.
I drove my 1967 Rambler American more than a dozen times while numbingly inebriated before I turned 19. The lights of Main Street were lit, and so was I.
Terrible choice, absolutely, but also – poor excuse aside – common in that era.
On more than one occasion I recall thinking to myself after arriving safely back home late at night…
… shit, I don’t remember that drive.
I wouldn’t describe it as a blackout but more a trance-like state, as if someone else had taken control of the steering wheel and magically transported me home while I hazily observed. Gage Park wobbled back and forth in my heavy eyes as I passed by…
I could have killed myself, or even more tragically, some innocent pedestrian or decent steelworker making his journey home to his family upon finishing an afternoon shift at Dofasco (my boyhood hometown Hamilton, Ontario is a well-known steel-making city).
At other times, I’ve foolishly wandered down dark alleys in seedy areas of cities (eg. Hamburg, Germany, or Granada, Nicaragua) where you could reasonably expect a grisly murder to occur… or gone home with total strangers that I know I shouldn’t have but was too polite to say “NO THANKS” (it’s that damned Canadian politeness factor)!
I’ve scuba-dived down deep… jumped from an airplane at 10,000 feet (yes, WITH a parachute attached, I’m not a TOTAL idiot!).
Minor and major life-threatening events occur to each of us throughout our days and come at us from different angles… some we anxiously avoid and some we dive into wholeheartedly.
BUT… still…
I fear death… do you?
I fear it more intensely now than when I was younger and even more witless.
Why? The fear isn’t so much about a lack of courage (although I would easily win the part of the Lion in The Wizard of Oz!) I’ve decided that it comes down to a big three for me… CURIOSITY … FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) … and AMBITION.
I begrudge you death…
CURIOSITY?
Despite all the daily worries and problems out there in the big world, and certainly not for everyone, but… to me, the time in which we live is a Golden Age.
And the mountain of gold is growing bigger still.
In my murky crystal ball I foresee huge peaks of future excitement.
Technology has increasingly enlivened my days with each passing year, and the wonders of new ways of doing things, communicating, travelling, learning, and relating to the world around me.
I’m flabbergasted and invigorated with enthusiasm for what is still to come. It makes me giddy… and I don’t want to miss a thing even if I don’t understand it all. Humanity’s creativity has generated some crazy and amazing stuff.
Masters and those who display a high level of creative energy are simply people who manage to retain a sizable portion of their childhood spirit despite the pressures and demands of adulthood.” Robert Greene, author
Which brings me to…
FOMO?
Add to this curiosity my relatively new (3 years) experiment as a grandfather, and again, I don’t want to miss out on seeing all the potential and wonder of who and what becomes of my young successors.
There’s a heightened level of pride that seems to skip a generation where it comes to grandchildren: perhaps there’s less intense pressure as a grandparent to micro-manage the little ones’ day-to-day direction that frees us to see the beauty and marvel of a developing new life.
What a loss it would, and will be, to miss these million milestones …
AMBITION?
This is tied part and parcel into this compulsion I have for goal-setting that I’ve mentioned here on numerous occasions.
Guitar skills, songwriting, new cooking artistry, language learning, running targets… goals towards anything that gets my heart racing for all the positive reasons related to the marvels of endorphins.
I’m a minstrel at heart who pines to become a better minstrel… and becoming better at anything – as Malcolm Gladwell will happily tell you- requires time and HOURS of practice.
I need time because… Death has a way of cutting short practice time…
How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice.” E.E. Kenyon, 1953
The thing is, life is short and precarious. Much of our success in living another day is as much luck as anything else.
To attain old age is akin to the way the late Bob Ross painted his quiet little masterpieces, all… “happy little accidents“…
In a breath this grandminstrel (ie. me) will be dust in the wind, a universal nomad… no matter my curiosity, FOMO or ambition… it’s preordained…
The bottom line just has to be Carpe Diem... wash your hands, eat your vegetables, live your life in high-definition, bravely, fully and well…
Let me know if you have a fear of dying, and if so, why.
PS You can put your mind at ease… I haven’t driven under the influence in many…. decades!
PPS Just one more reason to live a long time… I want to wear these clothesthat are smarter than me!
The sunshine in our days is growing shorter and I’m growing longer in morbid thoughts. It’s an annual tradition I celebrate with hot roast turkey and cranberries while giving thanks.
Death is a part of my DNA… literally.
It is for you too, and so we all think about it, some more than others.
My own “bible” says that if we lived in a world with 16 hours of daylight every day no matter the season or time of year, we’d smile and never die and never know anyone who has died. That’s the power of sunshine.
This would be my Garden of Eden. No apples of temptation, no sneaky serpents, but the running around naked part stays put. I’m convinced.
The notion of death is easy to come across these days not only because of the COVID virus but also because there’s huge amounts of scientific data spewing from research labs that are shining spotlights on the aging process (eg. stem cell treatment, senescent cell removal, CRISPR technology and others) and how we can reset the epigenetic clock and delay the onset of “not living”.
With each passing month, scientists are driving us closer to a length-of-life that more closely resembles the biblical ages of such well-known celebs as Moses and Job (or Ibrahim in Islamic faith) who reportedly lived well beyond 100.
Orville Rogers, 100, sets age group record for 60 m sprint.
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John Green: “You die in the middle of your life, in the middle of a sentence”
Isaac Asimov: “Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.”
Dylan Thomas: “Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
Benjamin Franklin: “Most people die at 25 and aren’t buried until they’re 75.”
Woody Allen: “It’s not that I’m afraid to die, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”
“I have a very low threshold of death. My doctor says I can’t have bullets enter my body at any time.”
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So while I’m hopeful that we all surpass the century mark of aging (while remaining healthy), death is our lifetime companion, like a child’s imaginary friend that we all have but can never truly share with another.
We all must die alone in the sense that we pass through the door one at a time, like a turnstile at a sporting event.
Given its inevitability, what is THE best way to die?
Death… rapid-onset, or slowly drawn-out is shocking. There is NO good way to die because the end result is that you’re no longer alive.
There’s no easy or right answer.
I bump into folks all the time who opine on the best way to die. It’s great party chatter.
I wanna just drop dead on the sidewalk… BOOM!
A lot seem to think that a sudden demise- maybe a bullet to the head- is the perfect solution to life’s thorniest conclusion.
It’s uncomplicated and “painless”. It’s like an “Irish goodbye”, leaving quietly out the side door of a party or bar without saying goodbye to anyone.
Others prefer the more drawn-out ending where you are conscious of your final days. The downside here is that longer deaths are often wrapped part-and-parcel with agonizing pain or discomfort, sometimes a foggy confusion.
Let me lay on my death bed for weeks, get my affairs in order, and tell my loved ones how much they’ve meant to me…
Yup, there’s no happy or easy answer, and much like the unknowable question of whether a God does or does not exist, in the majority of cases, we aren’t allowed the decision.
For me, given a game-show choice – Door A or Door B – as part artist, part-scientist… I’d take the hybrid highway, Door C… no express check-out, but also no long, drawn-out painful plod to the finish line.
My own wish is for a (lucid and relatively painless) week or two to wave from the deck of my personal Titanic.
Perhaps our aging-research scientists will be the artists that one day allow us all to become the “forever 21” Dorian Gray.
Until then, I’m going outside to do my Sun Dance for a few more hours of delicious Vitamin D.
There’s nothing lovely or sentimental about a car crash (or a helicopter crash). They’re crushing and painful.
But in music, the bittersweet can be fabulous.
Most of us are drawn into sad songs as a way of dealing with our own sadnesses and knowing that others have experienced and felt the same…
I’m not a religious guy (surprise!), but I’m currently in love with a song… a set of lyrics playing on the country charts these days. It’s called Jersey On The Wall (I’m Just Askin’), written by a talented young Canadian singer/songwriter Tenille Townes.
If I ever get to Heaven You know I got a long list of questions Like how do You make a snowflake? Are You angry when the Earth quakes? How does the sky change in a minute? How do You keep this big rock spinnin’? And why couldn’t You stop that car from crashin’? Forgive me, I’m just askin'”
There are big questions we all have… monster-sized questions we’ll never truly know the answers to… I won’t be so arrogant as to tell you that your religious beliefs are wrong or swear that my lack of belief is right … I won’t boldly declare there is no heaven … nor hell…
But I will share my words that mark the final seconds of a life and wherever those moments take one…
Note the simple rhyme scheme… a new one for me in lyric writing.
.
GOODDAY GOODNIGHT
by Larry Green
when your last breath sighs sense the closing of your eyes once you’ve murmured your last goodbye heard your final baby’s cries had all the high 5’s lived enough years to say you’re wise passed the tests stripped the disguise lost the game sometimes but won the prize Paradise
been to weddings, worn the bow ties dipped in water been baptized thought long and hard about euthanize camped in forests bit by horseflies watched the dipsy-doodle magpies topped the CN Tower high rise cooked some meals ate tons of fries tasted apples Ambrosia and Sunrise Paradise
college days spent learning blood types years before I knew differences between bytes and disk drives drawn in by girlish wares and fantasize wore out jeans both Lee’s and Levi’s drank too much beer so so unwise scanned the northern lights in inky skies strummed guitars and lyricized met the girl and crooned the lullabies Paradise
it’s chilly now on my glassy eyes sailing back to days of mud-pies swinging bats and catching pop-flies street hockey games choosing sides Heinz poured thick on Mom’s chicken potpies steamy days steamy nights in Julys evening breezes float cicadas and dragonflies newspapers tossed for daily exercise Paradise
CHORUS
GoodDay GoodNight final frame unfrozen running into the sun GoodDay GoodNight
Like a straight-line, linear graph (this is my lab background rearing its ugly head) …
… emotional intensity rises as we inch closer to Christmas.
Must be all that Harking and Jingling and O Holy’ing…
The good, the bad, the beautiful, the tragic. The amplification soars.
I feel this intensity every year… my emotional core was struck deeply this past week by the news of a senseless cold-blooded murder of a young woman – a daughter, a sister, a student, a musician – in a New York City park.
Any parent will tell you that likely the most gut-wrenching and worrisome part of bringing children INTO the world, is still being alive to usher them OUT OF the world.
Nothing can prepare us for this.
Although I once experienced a close call many years back, I can only pretend to understand the inner devastation that cuts into a mother or father for the remainder of their days, upon the loss of a child.
So, as a kind of catharsis, I’ve “penned” a set of lyrics this week leading up to Christmas, that attempts to capture a bit of the heartbreak in losing a child, like the family of Tessa Majors … the unexpected, the shock, the despair.
CRIMSON CHRISTMAS (A Parent’s Lament)
by Larry Green
INTRO:
If she wasn’t young and pretty
would they care?
If he wasn’t an agitated kid dressed out in civvies
would they care?
Are thoughts and prayers enough for us
to show they care… when
the past is our only gift left to unwrap
Verse 1
Silver bells and mistletoe laugh
why would she walk those steps
in darkness alone?
gaudy glittered trees and romantic chaff
frosty wreathes over blood-stained snow
our goodbye epitaph
Verse 2
What ghostly happenstance
brought her to this savage moment
this chain of devil’s chance
from a day of season’s fa-la-la’s
from a life crammed full of plans
CHORUS
Headlines rage
screen lines scathe
tears scorching scars
ripped into our hearts
who asked for this unwanted fraternity
lasting for eternity
Verse 3
Her jacket torn and gashed askew
down feathers fill the evening sky
her heart that lost its beat
her bro that’s lost his feet
her guitar left deathly quiet
Verse 4
There’s little left inside this shell
please god I’ll bare my chest with glee
slash me deep to spare her tears
Crush my face in gravelled snow
I’ll forgo life’s wine and years
Bridge
Our morning seems to never come
Snow angels turn your heads in shame… while…
CHORUS
Headlines rage
screen lines scathe
tears scorching scars
ripped into our hearts
who asked for this unwanted fraternity
lasting for eternity
She felt the warm, wet mascara running down her cheeks.
Wondering to herself why she ever slipped into this narrow black alley at 1:30 in the morning… wondering why she left her friends at the curb as they climbed into a UBER outside the club … wondering how much alcohol she had consumed, how much weed smoked … wondering what gave her the courage, the stupidity, in a blinding snowstorm … to seek out …. eek…. it doesn’t matter what she’s looking for when a heavy quilt-shadow silently creeps up behind her…
Cue the blood spatters and curdled screams… zoom in closely on dark rivers of viscous inky fluid slowly spreading in cloudy storm patterns through the slushy snow on the ground.
And … CUT!
How many people will die on your TV screen tonight? At the local Cineplex?
How much blood and guts will be splashed via XBox or PlayStation by 10 year-olds on a basement couch?
We’re mostly wonderful people and yet, in the books we read, the movies and TV we watch, many feel the strange urge, the inner fascination that draws us with magnetic attraction towards death … frequent, violent, often gruesome.
We know that murder is bad. BAD BAD BAD!!
Irrevocably awful, terrifying and so hard to understand. We know not to do it and we know we’re meant to be really scared of it. Most of us see death as a complicated concept to try and come to terms with at the best of times, but murder?
Is there something wrong that this “entertains” many of us?
It’s the season of love and warm tidings and yet one of the most acclaimed Christmas movies, Die Hard, accumulates a body total of 23 victims by the time the end credits roll. HO HO HO! (maybe one day I’ll actually watch it following It’s A Wonderful Life … Sweet and Sour on the menu)
It’s confusing because we all know the same results flashing across our TV screens from a war zone in Afghanistan or a mall shooting in Topeka is usually met with our horror, revulsion, and cries of anguish.
So, are we beasts?…. is it simple Schadenfreude…. an inner need to see others’ suffer so that we feel better about ourselves? A similar tale to why we can nastily gossip about the person who just left the room with whom we just smiled and joked?
Do we have an inner psychopath lingering in the deep recesses?
Is it an addictive need for adrenaline, like riding a rollercoaster?
It can’t be a gender thing because women appear to watch and read murder stories in numbers that equal (some studies suggest exceed) men’s fascination.
We are contradictory people, we humans.
We abhor violence, murder, rape, abuse in all its forms … and yet … here we soak up the crime shows, the murder mysteries, the Fifty Shades of BDSM Abusive Behaviour.
We are mostly able to detach and go along for the wild ride with no apparent ill effect. Not totally of course. I still harbour nightmares about the little red-coated girl from Schindler’s List.
It may just come down to the desire for guilty pleasure… the wondrous high of a sweet cinnamon bun, the juiced sensation of diving from an airplane, the taboo notion of being bound and taken advantage of sexually.
I spend my days in a cycle of bemused wonder at the complexity and contradictions of myself and the souls that surround me.
Each day we live adds another perplexing question to the immense wall that will never be totally built.
Even Alex Trebek doesn’t know the answers to ALL the questions.
Man On The Fringe 