November 3: "Hangover," Addictions, Be Kind

I don't drink much.  Once a week, my wife and I meet friends for dinner and a beer or two.  That's about it.  I'm very aware of my hereditary predisposition to addiction, so I try not to overindulge in anything, except maybe chocolate and poetry.  

I do host a podcast called Lit for Christmas in which my cohost and I drink a little to excess and discuss Christmas literature.  Had to put that show on pause last March for a little while.  I was working on edits for my new collection of poems and a lot of shit was going on in my life.  I'll be starting LFC up again this month now that things have sort of settled down.  

For some people, however, things never settle down, and that crutch of alcohol or pills or whatever becomes an anchor that pulls them down to the bottom of the Marianas Trench, and they simply . . . vanish.  I've seen it happen more than once.

Billy Collins has a rough morning after . . . 

Hangover

by: Billy Collins

If I were crowned emperor this morning,
every child who is playing Marco Polo
in the swimming pool of this motel,
shouting the name Marco Polo back and forth

Marco          Polo          Marco          Polo

would be required to read a biography
of Marco Polo--a long one with fine print--
as well as a history of China and of Venice,
the birthplace of the venerated explorer

Marco          Polo          Marco          Polo

after which each child would be quizzed
by me then executed by drowning
regardless how much they managed
to retain about the glorious life and times of

Marco          Polo          Marco          Polo

I'm not going to talk about my loved ones who suffer/have suffered from addictions.  That's not my story to tell.  But you all know that addiction comes in many forms.  Sure, there's gin and opioids and nicotine and cannabis and meth.  But there's also gambling and pornography and sex and the internet.  It's all about dopamine being released in the brain in smaller and larger amounts and the pleasure, however brief or intense, it brings.

In the past, I have succumbed to certain addictions.  The one thing I learned during those dark times is that addiction can alleviate pain or loneliness or stress or sadness for a little while, but all those negative emotions come roaring back with a vengeance.  It's a pretty vicious cycle.  Feel shitty.  Indulge in addiction.  Feel better.  Crash.  Feel shitty again.  Indulge even more.  Feel better.  Crash even harder.  Feel even shittier.  Repeat.  Over and over and over.

It's like a game of Marco Polo in the swimming pool, but you never find Marco Polo.  You just flail around blindly.

Don't worry.  This post is not some coded confession that I've started taking heroin or doing crystal meth.  I'm in a good place in my life.  (Not that being in a bad place gives me a free pass to start indulging in my past addictions.)  I'm fine.  But the holidays are upon us, and, for many people, it's not an easy time of year.  (No to mention that other thing that's happening in two days' time.)

Be kind in the upcoming days and weeks and months.  You never know other people's struggles.  

Saint Marty can tell you that, after the darkest nights, there's always a beautiful sunrise.

September 29: "Pornography," Mangled Glasses, Art

I'm often stirred or moved by works of art:  paintings and poems and songs and movies and books.  That is one of the functions of art--to inspire people to action.  To understand the confusing.  To love the unlovable.  To sing the unsingable.  Art is about celebrating the whole human experience.

Billy Collins celebrates a painting . . . 

Pornography

by: Billy Collins

In this sentimental painting of rustic life,

a rosy-cheeked fellow

in a broad hat and ballooning green pants

is twirling a peasant girl in a red frock

while a boy is playing a squeeze-box

near a turned-over barrel

upon which rest a knife, a jug, and small drinking glass.

Two men in rough jackets

are playing cards at a wooden table.

And in the background a woman in a bonnet

stands behind a half-open Dutch door

talking to a merchant or a beggar who is leaning on a cane.

This is all I need to inject me with desire,

to fill me with the urge to lie down with you,

or someone very much like you

on a cool marble floor or any fairly flat surface

as clouds go flying by

and the rustle of tall leafy trees

mixes with the notes of birdsong--

so clearly does the work speak to me of vanishing time,

obsolete musical instruments,

passing fancies, and the corpse

of the largely forgotten painter moldering

somewhere beneath the surface of present-day France.

This morning, I couldn't find my glasses.  I traced and retraced my steps.  Looked in all the usual places.  Then I looked in all the unusual places, including the refrigerator.  I was about to give up, but I decided to check by the couch one more time.  As I walked over to it, I felt something underneath my shoe bend and then break, and I looked down.

There were my glasses, mangled, with one temple snapped off.

I'm not ashamed to say I let fly from my mouth a long stream of obscenities.  Of the two pairs of glasses I own, my reading ones are necessary for me to function properly on a daily basis.  I can't even see my computer screen clearly without them.

So, what do my pulverized glasses have to do with celebrating the human experience through art?

Collins is moved to sexual excitement because of the painting by the forgotten painter moldering in his grave.  I was moved by Collins' poem to write a blog post about breaking my reading glasses.  There is really nothing in the painting that should make Collins randy, and there's not even a mention of eyeglasses in his stanzas.

Perhaps, after reading my words, you'll feel pulled to call your significant other and set up some afternoon delight.  Or maybe you'll be compelled to contact your eye doctor's office to make an appointment.  Art affects every person differently.  Where one person sees pornography, another sees love and passion.

Tonight, all Saint Marty sees is a new pair of glasses in his future.

June 23: One Dam Ingin, Social Media, Cat Videos

When in the Southern Fishery a captured Sperm Whale, after long and weary toil, is brought alongside late at night, it is not, as a general thing at least, customary to proceed at once to the business of cutting him in. For that business is an exceedingly laborious one; is not very soon completed; and requires all hands to set about it. Therefore, the common usage is to take in all sail; lash the helm a'lee; and then send every one below to his hammock till daylight, with the reservation that, until that time, anchor-watches shall be kept; that is, two and two for an hour, each couple, the crew in rotation shall mount the deck to see that all goes well.

But sometimes, especially upon the Line in the Pacific, this plan will not answer at all; because such incalculable hosts of sharks gather round the moored carcase, that were he left so for six hours, say, on a stretch, little more than the skeleton would be visible by morning. In most other parts of the ocean, however, where these fish do not so largely abound, their wondrous voracity can be at times considerably diminished, by vigorously stirring them up with sharp whaling-spades, a procedure notwithstanding, which, in some instances, only seems to tickle them into still greater activity. But it was not thus in the present case with the Pequod's sharks; though, to be sure, any man unaccustomed to such sights, to have looked over her side that night, would have almost thought the whole round sea was one huge cheese, and those sharks the maggots in it.

Nevertheless, upon Stubb setting the anchor-watch after his supper was concluded; and when, accordingly Queequeg and a forecastle seaman came on deck, no small excitement was created among the sharks; for immediately suspending the cutting stages over the side, and lowering three lanterns, so that they cast long gleams of light over the turbid sea, these two mariners, darting their long whaling-spades,* kept up an incessant murdering of the sharks, by striking the keen steel deep into their skulls, seemingly their only vital part. But in the foamy confusion of their mixed and struggling hosts, the marksmen could not always hit their mark; and this brought about new revelations of the incredible ferocity of the foe. They viciously snapped, not only at each other's disembowelments, but like flexible bows, bent round, and bit their own; till those entrails seemed swallowed over and over again by the same mouth, to be oppositely voided by the gaping wound. Nor was this all. It was unsafe to meddle with the corpses and ghosts of these creatures. A sort of generic or Pantheistic vitality seemed to lurk in their very joints and bones, after what might be called the individual life had departed. Killed and hoisted on deck for the sake of his skin, one of these sharks almost took poor Queequeg's hand off, when he tried to shut down the dead lid of his murderous jaw.

*The whaling-spade used for cutting-in is made of the very best steel; is about the bigness of a man's spread hand; and in general shape, corresponds to the garden implement after which it is named; only its sides are perfectly flat, and its upper end considerably narrower than the lower. This weapon is always kept as sharp as possible; and when being used is occasionally honed, just like a razor. In its socket, a stiff pole, from twenty to thirty feet long, is inserted for a handle.

"Queequeg no care what god made him shark," said the savage, agonizingly lifting his hand up and down; "wedder Fejee god or Nantucket god; but de god wat made shark must be one dam Ingin."

Again, Melville lapses into stereotype with Queequeg, making him talk pidgin English--the same kind of dialogue used by actors playing Native Americans on Bonanza and Rawhide.  It reduces Queequeg from a fully realized character to the "savage" Melville's readers would expect.  It's not surprising.  No character with skin of any shade darker than white fares well in the book.  This little chapter is simply a reflection of a larger social issue, one that has been a part of the United States since its inception.

I'm not going to spend this entire post ranting about racism or ageism or sexism or homophobia or Islamophobia.  We can all agree--hopefully--that those problems are blights on the American landscape.  What is on my mind this morning is the danger of social media in propagating these kinds of beliefs.  For a computer savvy racist out there, it's not too difficult to splash offensive subject matter all across Facebook or Twitter.  Stuff that flashes across the screens of smart phones and laptops, right into the minds of young people who are only beginning to understand the adult world.

I suppose that's the point.  Get 'em while they're young.  For example, when I was a kid, my exposure to pornography was limited to the magazines I would find under the mattresses of my brothers' beds.  And it was pretty tame stuff, comparatively speaking.  Now, hard core porn is only a computer click away.  If a young boy can operate a mouse or has access to an iPhone, he can find just about anything he wants to see.

I know it's ironic that I'm writing about this subject in a blog post.  I use social media a lot to connect to people, speak my mind, share poems I like.  Yet, I can get sucked into the cesspool as much as anyone else.  On Facebook, I will stop and read anything that is critical of Donald Trump and his cronies, because it validates feelings that already exist in me.  (It doesn't help that the Trump administration has an agenda that is completely antithetical to my Christian faith and my values as a human being on this planet.)

Social media has always been a part of the human experience.  First there were cave drawings.  Stone tablets.  Then bards wandering around, singing songs and telling stories.  Papyrus.  Theatrical plays.  Pamphlets.  Posters.  Books.  The Information Age has just made it a lot easier to spread messages (good and bad) across the globe.  Social media can be useful (fundraisers for flood victims) or damaging (gatherings of Neo-Nazis).  It all depends on who's using it.

I don't think Herman Melville was trying to further the cause of racism and colonialism with Moby-Dick.  He was trying to write a book, and he was a product of his culture and time.  As a parent in the 21st century, I find that I have to be really vigilant about what my kids see and watch on social media.  Point out the flaws and mistakes in political posts.  Discuss the harmful images of women and sex in pornography.  Try to raise my children to be responsible citizens in the Digital Age.  And, maybe, pass along a funny cat video every once in a while.

Saint Marty is thankful today for his kids, who usually think he's pretty cool.

February 11: Had a Snootful, Addicted People, Fairly Good Place

Billy blinked in 1958, traveled in time to 1961.  It was New Year's Eve, and Billy was disgracefully drunk at a party where everybody was in optometry or married to an optometrist.

Billy usually didn't drink much, because the war had ruined his stomach, but he certainly had a snootful now, and he was being unfaithful to his wife Valencia for the first and only time.  He had somehow persuaded a woman to come into the laundry room of the house, and then sit up on the gas dryer, which was running.

The woman was very drunk herself, and she helped Billy get her girdle off.  "What was it you wanted to talk about?" she said.

"It's all right," said Billy.  He honestly thought it was all right.  He couldn't remember the name of the woman.

"How come they call you Billy instead of William?"

"Business reasons," said Billy.  That was true.  His father-in-law, who owned the Ilium School of Optometry, who had set Billy up in practice, was a genius in his field.  He told Billy to encourage people to call him Billy--because it would stick in their memories.  I would also make him seem slightly magical, since there weren't any other grown Billys around.  It also compelled people to think of him as a friend right away.

People do stupid things when they are under the influence of alcohol or drugs.  Billy is living proof.  He's drunk, at a New Year's Eve party filled with his colleagues.  Most of those colleagues know his father-in-law, who runs a school of optometry.  And Billy's cheating on his wife, the daughter of said father-in-law.  Stupid.

I've had a lot of experience with addiction and addicted people.  Alcohol.  Prescription drugs.  Sex.  Sitting here, typing this, I have to say that this little passage from Slaughterhouse conjures up a lot of bad memories.  Personally, I've been lucky enough to avoid problems with alcohol and pills, although it runs in the family.

Because of my experiences, I have a greater understanding and empathy with family/friends who struggle with any kind of addiction.  I understand it on a deeper level because I have an addictive personality myself.  I become obsessed with things.  Food.  TV shows.  Authors.  Work.  In this social media age, it's easy to develop compulsions for pornography and unfaithfulness, too.  Billy Pilgrim might have had more than one indiscretion if he were alive today.  He may have had serial affairs, several wives, and ended up President of the United States. 

Don't worry.  Nothing bad has happened to me.  Vonnegut just forces me to do a little time traveling when I blog.  See the wider picture.  I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.  I'm in a fairly stable place at the moment.  That could change tomorrow, obviously.  But I do have people in my life who continue to struggle with addictions.  I try to be supportive, but the addict personality is sometimes difficult to handle without wanting to punch the addict in the face.

I pray for the addicts in my life, every day.  There's not a whole lot else I can do for them.  They make mistakes, like Billy, and deal with the consequences of those mistakes. 

Saint Marty is grateful today for Diet Mountain Dew.  One of his little addictions.