THE BORN (in the u.s.a.) IDENTITY

Okay my fellow Americans. Once and for all, you have GOT to stop playing Bruce Springsteen's song, "Born In The U.S.A." at 4th of July Independence Day fire-works shows, political rallies, and hate-gatherings like those against Muslims near the former World Trade Center because you don't want them to build a community center.

This song is NOT PRO AMERICAN. It is CRITICAL OF AMERICA. SARCASTIC.

In particular of the Vietnam war, the poor sent to fight it, and treatment of veterans upon their return. I read it was originally titled "Vietnam", but was changed. You can challenge the specifics of my interpretation of the lyrics (which are coming up) but proving its pro American would be a neat trick.

Now, I used to sing along with the chorus at fire-works shows myself. I'm as guilty as any other American. Let's face it. No one can understand much of what Bruce Springsteen is saying. He, Michael Jackson, and Michael McDonald (from the Doobie Brothers - BEAVIS: heh heh... doobie...) have all had successful music careers with no one having a damn cloo what any of them are saying.

(You know what I'm talking about)

MICHAEL JACKSON

• What I know of his song, "Smooth Criminal" (a big hit in the States)
• "Annie are you okay? Annie are you okay Annie?" 
• "And the blood-stains on the carpet"
• "You were struck down, it was your doom" 
• What the HECK is any of the above about? 
• No cloo. 
• Hit song.
• Or "Billy Jean"
• "Do a dance. On the floor. In the round." 
• ??????
• Big hit.

But that's no excuse for the complete stoopidity that underscores the pro-American stance when the song is played.

In my opinion its symptomatic of Americans in general. Not paying enough attention to what they're railing passionately about, which is usually something bad for them though they scream they want it. (war, tax cuts for the rich, bail-outs for the rich, ending their own social security, increased military spending, disbanding unions - yes they, like any other human institution can become corrupt, but balance them, like we should balance government, banks, business', don't get rid of the workers only representation - you want your greedy-ass profit-motive managers to have all the power in deciding when to fire you when you and your pension and medical coverage is cutting into their bottom line? SO DO THEY.)

So, here, once and for all, I share the lyrics to Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." so we're all on the same page. You wanna be proud of your country, be proud of more than just being born there. It was chance. Big whoop. What ELSE are you proud of?

BORN IN THE U.S.A. by Bruce Springsteen

Born down in a dead man's town
The first kick I took was when I hit the ground
You end up like a dog that's been beat too much
Till you spend half your life just covering up

Born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.

Got in a little hometown jam
So they put a rifle in my hand
Sent me off to a foreign land
To go and kill the yellow man

Born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.

Come back home to the refinery
Hiring man says "Son if it was up to me"
Went down to see my V.A. man (mark note: V.A. = Veteran Affairs)
He said "Son, don't you understand"

I had a brother at Khe Sahn fighting off the Viet Cong
They're still there, he's all gone

He had a woman he loved in Saigon
I got a picture of him in her arms now

Down in the shadow of the penitentiary
Out by the gas fires of the refinery
I'm ten years burning down the road
Nowhere to run ain't got nowhere to go

Born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
I'm a long gone Daddy in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
I'm a cool rocking Daddy in the U.S.A.


MJW

IS NO GROUND ZERO MOSQUE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZpT2Muxoo0

TAILOR ROBBED

COP: How much did he make off with?

OLD TAILOR: The entire register! And everything in the safe.

COP: I see a yellow measuring tape along the door frame in case of robbery.

OLD TAILOR: To measure customers. 

COP: I know you only caught a glimpse as he exited your shop, but can you describe...

OLD TAILOR: ...Seventy-one and three eights inches tall. I'd say...thirty-four inch waist. Jacket should be forty-two long but he was wearing a blue cotton jacket that was at least a forty-four regular. Sleeves were hanging over his knuckles. Bad tailoring. Slacks had a thirty-two inch inseam, neck, sixteen and a half inches. Brow, seven and three eighths most likely.  Shoes size a twelve wide, probably. Torso...

MJW

MEN BEHIND THE CURTAIN

In all honesty I haven't been up on the news lately, (blog for another time) but I know there's debate about how Wiki-leaks posted documents called the Afghan War Diary, 2004-2010.  That people's names were mentioned who are helping us overseas and now they may be killed or something. I don't know enough about those specifics, but I feel over all its good the government knows shit may be leaked. Any place. Any time. World Wide. That's GOT to go far toward making them more legit, or at least covering their tracks better (which may not be good).

I'm so weary of the bullshit that holds this country together that I welcome any dose of another side - any reveal of the men behind the curtain. When people have no jobs, no home, no hope in this country, and billions of dollars, millions of lives are being wasted to increase the profit margin of corporations with more money and power than entire nations, I'm for anything that stings people into realizing governments lie.

Everyone's yelling about Mexicans or Mosques, all riled up and so emotional they can't think straight about the infiltrators and fundamentalists, orthodox capitalist terrorists working daily in DC and Wall Street.

MJW

YOU SAY POTATO I SAY TOMATO

I'm convinced America is made up of two kinds of people. Those who say "supper", and those who say "dinner". I'm a "dinner". You know why? Because I'm dining. Dinner. Dining. Dining on dinner. I guess people do "sup" together. Thus, "supper". Though "supper" sounds more like a person who sups. Not an activity.

 I also find there are two types of people when it comes to putting on shoes. Some leave the shoes on the floor and bring their feet into to the shoe, while others lift the shoe and bring it to their foot. I however do both for some reason. I lift it to my foot, put said foot half way in, then set it on the ground to complete insertion. (now there are three types...)

Also there are people who say "soda" and those who say "pop". This is a big one. I even remember working with a guy from Kansas who called all soda, "coke".

And I asked how that works if you want something other than Coca-Cola, and he said you order a Coke, and then they ask what kind, and you say Sprite or whatever. And I was like, okay... Seems like wasted communication in there if you ask me. I always thought the purpose of vocabulary was to make communication concise. To the point. As quick as possible. Why use four words when you can use one? Perhaps I'm insane. (quite possible)

On this issue, I'm a soda man. You know why? Because that's what it is. Soda. You can say "soda pop", but the "pop" part, referring to the bubbles I guess, is inherent in the use of the word "soda". We need not describe the soda as "popping" soda, as there is no soda without "pop". (unless your brother left the cap loose and it went flat).

But you can't just say, "pop". If you say "pop" your father might turn around. Your father responding to a request for a fizzy beverage is the last thing anyone should experience. Shouldn't even be a possibility. And to say Coke when you want a Sprite? Not just saying Sprite? Even more insane.

A lot of weird names for submarine sandwiches, or subs, or heroes, or what I saw them called up in Maine, "Italians". Even if it wasn't an Italian sub. (which usually has salami and other Italian ingredients) One summer, zooming past a roadside deli in the gorgeous Maine woods I saw a sign that said, "Come in and see our beautiful Italians." And I was like, what the heck? What about beautiful Hungarians? Albanians? Romanians? Got any of them?

MJW

NO REVOLUTION IN EVOLUTION

I'm no scientist. I'm also not a religious leader. (Or follower).

I hear about all the conflict, hatred, division and rhetoric hurled about by one group of humans at another over the subjects of evolution and intelligent design, and it all sounds pretty crazy.

I offer a point of view from a place of simple observation:

If you look in a full length mirror, you'll see a head and four main appendages. Two arms, two legs. You'll see two eyes. Two nostrils for breathing. Two ears for hearing. You can feel your rib cage in your chest. Feel the spine your ribs are connected to.  Feel the bones in the digits of your fingers. Your toes. Feel your heart beating. Your lungs breathing in. Exhaling.

Now, if you look at pics of the following creatures, you'll see that they all have the exact same features as you; dogs, cats, mice, rats, birds (two feet, two wings for arms), horses, cows (the latter two with hooves instead of digits, though a deer has two digits in its cloven hoof), lizards, alligators (the latter two have tails, but still they have four main appendages, and you can feel your own tail bone at the top of your butt), elephants, rhinoceroses, giraffes, zebras and so on and so on - all have the same main features. Maybe different numbers of bone digits in hands/feet, but they're segmented all the same. Not to mention reproduction with eggs, which even human women release every month from their body when unfertilized. (yes ladies, you lay an egg)

With the exception of shell fish, sharks and whales and other sea creatures, most of them, have two eyes like us, nostrils (or one blow-hole in a whale's case) for smelling things in the water, have spines and ribs (of varying size/thickness) and hearts and arteries and stomachs and intestines and so-forth.

So what I'm saying is, why don't all these creatures have three eyes? Why not some with one, some with four, some with eight? Five arms, three legs? Why do they all share these very few, very similar traits that anyone can see?

I know insects are very different. Fly eyes are pretty crazy, and millipedes have tons of legs and all that. Bugs are pretty crazy. But they have their own similarities once you get down into that realm of life.

Human nervous system

Even if you look at trees, they too have fluid (sap) moving through them, they take in water like we do, their root systems and branch systems sure look a lot like our veins and nerves. I dug the earth with my dad for a garden he wanted to start and we hit the teeny tiny filament ends of a trees root system attached to larger roots and man did it look exactly like diagrams of the human nervous system.

Now, just as I could say all this simple visible evidence suggests clearly that we were all once connected and branched in our own ways over time, someone could say that clearly one creator engineered us in their laboratory.

I personally can't see it, but I leave it to you to see for yourself.

(With your own two eyes...)

MJW

BROKEN-BAT SINGLES

Broken-bat singles are a baseball phenomenon whereby the bat breaks when it hits the ball, and the force of the swing is so diminished that the ball often bloops between the defending players for a hit. (EXAMPLE VID)

There were so many broken-bat singles in the Yankees/Red Sox game last night, I'm surprised a manager has never gone with an all broken-bat line-up. 

ANNOUNCER: And there's the SEVENTH broken-bat single in a row! I've never seen anything like it! We have their manager standing by for word on what HAS to be a league record. (to MANAGER) What the heck's going on down there? Your bats made of balsa?

MANAGER: Ha. No. We saw them a bit. Just enough to ensure a clean break. As you can see, we're breaking new ground here. Ha.

(I can imagine "Broken-Bat Singles" being a great name for a singles dating service for divorced baseball players. But, that's a bit for another time...)

MJW

SHOCK OF AGES

Aging is one of the more fascinating facts of life.

I'm in my thirties, and I'm well aware that I'm not the same physically as I was when I was ten. Nor do I lament not being ten anymore. And that's the thing about aging that has struck me the last few weeks.

On FaceBook an old friend had an ongoing dialogue with people about how old he feels (he's a year younger than me) and all the aches and pains and his memory is going and so on. How aging is nothing to look forward to and what a drag.

My father constantly moans and groans when he gets up out of his lazy-boy or moves a wrong way and gets a pain or ache, and he'll say something about getting old, or re-tell what his grandfather told him when he was little, "Never grow old."

Now, I can only imagine how I will have to deal with the fact I can't walk like I used to, or as fast as I used to and so on. To lose ever increasing levels of independence when you reach later years in life and people have to do things for you that you used to do for yourself. Experiencing what Shakespeare called "second childishness" during old old age (As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 7, from the famous "All the world's a stage" monologue),  "sans teeth, sans eyes, sans everything." (sans = without)

Frustrating no doubt. Something that one has a genuine right to dislike having to deal with or anticipate coming down the road, if the road continues that far. But what surprises me is the shock people seem to exhibit as well.

As if they didn't see it coming. I mean, like I mentioned above - I can't do all the things I could do when I was ten - run forever without tiring, climb a tree in the blink of an eye, contort my body like a pretzel playing twister and feel no stress, strain, aches the day after.

Nor do I lament the fact I'm not ten. Or fifteen. Or 20 anymore. Fact is, I've been changing my whole life. I'm aware of this. I think we all are. We may not LIKE it, but we're AWARE of it, yes?

But people I've talked to lately seem to feel as if ignoring the fact they're aging will make it not happen. I mean, didn't my dad see his grandfather go through aging and death? His parents, my grandparents died 6 years ago now and they went through it. And we all know people in our family or without, or see elderly people in the course of life who are going through it. (and I mean no disrespect to my dad. He did have knee surgery a few years ago and they seemed to have made things worse than better)

But the shock that its happening to us does not compute for me. Disappointment? Understandable. Adjustment? Yes. But can we really be shocked its happening? Surprised?

I do feel American pop culture stresses youth to no end. Television shows and movies are almost all exclusively cast with 20 or 30 somethings (or younger) in the lead roles. Commercials bombard us with, "Be Young, Drink Pepsi", or their more recent, "Stay Forever Young" campaign. Products to dye gray out of your hair (and then put a little gray BACK - can you believe it?), anti-aging creams, weight loss pills, wrinkle-removers, the list goes on and on.

So can we blame pop culture? Human nature? Instincts of self preservation?

I don't know. What I do know is that we age. We grow, change and pass away and I don't feel this is some evil to be ignored and thus shocked by. Whether you think it is or isn't happening, its happening. Naturally. Its the way things are. You can roll with the way things are or go against it. It doesn't care. But I feel going with it will make the experience more harmonious. I won't say, "happier", cause life ain't all happiness. Never is nor will be nor is supposed to be. Its a balance of up and down. A cycle of highs and lows. Thus my use of the word harmony.

All my opinion of course. (hence being my blog) May take some practice to keep mindful of it, but its possible. Its an attitudinal thing. We can choose to complain and keep the negative feelings in the forefront, continuously listing what we're losing instead of all we've got. Its up to you.

Until next time, fellow ager...

MJW

GREETINGS EARTHLINGS

Hey world. (well, those of you with electronics hooked to the interweb)

MJW here, proud to announce the launching of this, the EARTH MAN CHRONICLES.

I am a man. I live on earth. This is a chronicling of thoughts, observations, humor, philosophy I have in the course of life here. (as opposed to my life on Mars)

I thank you for stopping by. Let me know what you think. Dialogue is highly encouraged.

I look forward to sharing more in the days, weeks, months to come. 

Welcome. And thank you.

MJW