My Baggage Thanks You

I'm always amazed when individuals "in charge" -- those wearing clothing emblazoned with company logos ... In uniform, running the shows, ostensibly, and holding down forts in exchange for their paychecks -- engage that representative power to help ...

You'd think this is something that should go without saying ... and in Europe, across much of the airline, food service, banking, car rental, hotel and other hospitality sectors, it does.

There is pride in a uniform "over there", still ... A sense of contributing to the common goals of a shared community as much as an overriding ... if not desire, than at least, obligation, to represent their company logos appropriately, and make an effort -- in a pleasant way -- to provide assistance, if and as needed, to other human beings.

In the States, this is often sorely lacking.  There is laziness.  Indolence.  Pushback.  Sore attitude.

All of the above being preferable, arguably, to stark indifference:  the apathetic numbness shown by employees too bored to give a shit.

Thus, happily, did I arrive to depart recently at one of New York's better known "third world" airports ...

For some reason, my flight was being "operated by" another airline - not the airline whose website I visited, and which collected my payment.

A different airline.

... Ergo, a different airport terminal than the one in front of which a taxi deposited me and my baggage.

To my further dismay, I realized I was already about 45 minutes from my scheduled departure; and walking (or running!) between hugely spaced, unconnected terminals at this particular third world airport would not be an option.

So I flailed around trying to find a ride for a minute ... then fumed as I heard a harried shuttle driver bark into a dispatcher's radio, "Ten minutes!  Be there in five to ten minutes!"

I waited.  I fumed.  A shuttle finally arrived, and I climbed aboard with a pilot or two ... a baggage handler ... and sped off toward the correct terminal ... which again, for some reason, did not belong to the airline I was supposedly flying!

Praying this wasn't some sort of mistake (or a sick prank ... Deceived again!) ... I climbed over the pilots, the baggage handler ... Did a lap dance with an elderly couple ... and leapt from the shuttle van.  Ran into the airport and up to the kiosk ... Swiped this, and entered that ...

NO!

My flight, by this point departing in only thirty minutes, was already closed.  As instructed on-screen, I went to 'see attendant' ..

To make a long story medium-length, this lovely lady loved her job.   Respected the uniform she wore, and the corporate logo she represented, and skillfully, helpfully, whisked me to the front of the security line ... Rock star-like bypassing the holiday throngs, with a hastily printed standby ticket for any random later flight (This lovely lady knew things! ;) ... so I was able to get to the gate and catch my flight.  Against the clock, and against all odds.

I'm on that flight now ... and as the sun sets above the clouds, it dawns:

We Americans ... Hectic, obnoxious, harried, demanding, rude, preferring to be left alone; inconveniencing others when we're inconvenienced (often through nobody's fault but our own) ...

Or I, in any case; ME, American ... get the service and treatment too often deserved.

"Freedom, Struggle", ©Jeff Glovsky

Riddle Me This

Recent input (from me) on a social network:

What fascinates me about social media is the psychological aspect.
 
What is/are the reason(s) behind the loneliness ... the histrionics ... the sad, almost desperate need for attention? The delusional hope -- or worse, the belief -- that every thought or "tweet" we make is somehow necessary/interesting?
 
That we have, and are supposed to have, "fans" - literal strangers, for whom we preen and pout and smile in "selfies" ... so that we might be "liked".
 
When did we become so sick?  What void does social media fill?
 
Were lives of people always so empty ... lacking as well in the not so distant past, the milennial capacity we now have to "share"?
 
Or do we exist today in a permanent, new "normal" state of mental illness?

Try Logging Off This Holiday Season ... It'll Be OKAY!

 Really.

Zero Humanity + Daily Indignity =

Not Ann

I spoke last week with a friend of mine in Istanbul.  Ann has been living in Turkey for the past ten years or so.  Having just become a part-time expatriate myself, I was happy to catch up with her ... but decidedly less happy that our conversation kept returning to our country, and the stresses which lead to madness in America.

Every week, there's a pent-up release of bloodshed, a new "latest shooting" which makes the news.  Seventy-four school shootings in the U.S. since Sandy Hook.

...How many???

Seventy-four school shootings in the past eighteen months.  Doing some quick math, that's about four shootings per month ... or a deadly, public shooting each week!

One can only imagine the daily horrors ... the actual "latest" killings, updated on our collective akashic record, but otherwise ignored by the breathless who show up on TV for the 'big ones':  to furrow their brows and look "concerned", and gesticulate, holler, emote with weird voices and burp about gun control (... or not.  Too often, protecting our children falls by the wayside, with "fair and balanced" demands that we protect our 18th century right to bear arms.).

Though this sorry, and particularly American, state of telejournalism -- and its attendant looks, movements, voices, inflections, cackling, guffaws, fake camaraderie and endless transparency -- is in itself, a painful horror to watch ... the real daily horror, the every day pain Americans tend to inflict on each other -- the killings; the psychological need to harm or take life in America -- is not an "event", and therefore goes largely unreported.

What causes it?

My friend Ann and I were discussing this.  Neither of us will ever know, fully understand, live and breathe like second skins, our adopted cultures and imposed new languages - hers, Turkish, mine German.  The best that we'll be able to do, at this point in our mid-lives, is to try and comprehend our own ...

That is, American.

To be an American in this century, particularly, this decade, is to be slapped and assaulted and abused at each turn; to face zero humanity, suffer daily indignity ... To be stripped of privacy, financial freedom or any expectation of same.

Wait, let me explain:

From the "deposits" sucked off of your credit card balances -- to stay in a hotel room or rent a vehicle, say -- to being told you can't stay, or drive, if you don't have a "deposit".  Though your room, and your vehicle, are fully prepaid, the "deposit" may prevent you from staying or driving.  Unable to check in, then, you're out on the street!  Or unable to get where you're needing to go.

(And then you're insulted with semantics:

"It's only an 'authorization'.  You are not being charged, sir."

Oh.  That's OK then.  I don't have access to the $250 that you're "authorizing" in addition to payment -- I can't use it or buy anything with it, since it's being "held" -- and although it's been "authorized" from me immediately (not by me, mind you, but from me), it will take up to seven business days (!??) until it's returned to my credit or debit card and I'm able to spend it again.

Because you haven't CHARGED the amount, of course, thank God!  You're only "authorizing" it, correct?

I understand.  I'll just wait a week.)

... to being told, "I can't help you.", when you ask if the airline really needs the $30 fee for your carry-on bag.

"Why don't you ask the CEO?" you're actually asked, snidely in response, by a monstrous dismissive who can't give a fuck.  Clearly, this creature doesn't want to be there dealing with you, any more than you do, her ... Except it's her job to deal with you.  Courteously.  Professionally.

She fails at it daily.

When you try to complain, speak to anyone, someone ... You're only met with telephone "options" (all of which, "recently changed", of course!).  No human being to hear you screaming...

No common sense arguments need apply.  Just tap-tap-tap, computer says "NO!".

It's enough to make a grown man cry.  Or ...

Thoughts Aloud

"You are black and I am white

You are blind as a bat And I have sight"

- Ebony & Ivory (SNL version)

In the wake of the latest (over)played U.S. race card, the loutish, last century remarks of a set-in-his-ways old fool, hackles are raised again that, as a nation, the United States has made zero progress in terms of race relations (and/or cultural tolerance) over the centuries.

This is nonsense.

As is often the case, it's the secretly hating and seething themselves, the self-righteous, gas baggy, glass-housed souls, who heave the most aggrieved, loud stones.

To hear them tell it, these thought police -- these angry, directionless ministers beseeching their already converted choirs ... Donald Sterling is a Klansman.

Such extreme vilification of an old fool is not only also nonsense, it's a danger:  To shine a spotlight of any kind on extremism only feeds it.  Donald Sterling is no Cliven Bundy ... and he's not particularly extreme in his outlook.

Donald Sterling is an old man.

My dad, 80-something, is also 'up there' in age.  Stormin' Norm has been known to blow hard too, and -- unpleasantly -- reveals on occasion some of Sterling's, shall we say, irascibility ... This statement of fact does not excuse either of them.  It just is:  old boys will be old boys ... and old ladies and teenagers, Wall Street wolves, working women and children ... You get the idea.  There are segments, and often unpleasant behaviors which come with each territory, and within varied contexts.

A universal regulation of speech, of opinion -- no matter how unpalatable -- cannot apply.

Yes, there are laws, as of course, there should be.  There is hate speech, incitement ... Donald Sterling wasn't hating.  He was caught with his pants down, in an old man's moment.  The kind that I'm willing to bet you, and virtually everyone you know -- male or female, black or white, in fact, young or old ... with few, if any, exceptions -- has (had) on occasion.

Depending on how one defines the term, most of us are "racist", to some degree.  To dispute this is to deny the problem.  But the paradigm has shifted over the past fifty years, so that overt bigotry and non-tolerance is the exception, not the norm.  We should accept this fact as a glass half-full starting point, at least, and advance with it ... and not keep expecting, thereby creating problems.

Beyond this, there is a little matter of privacy, in the fact that Donald Sterling was recorded having his blathering, pants down, old man's moment ...

"Right" or "wrong", whatever Sterling (or I, or you) may think, and whatever words he (I, you) may choose, to express random thoughts as they form and present themselves, in private -- are his (mine, yours).

  

Why was this old man's private conversation being recorded?

And was he aware it was being recorded?  In the U.S., it's a crime in some states, including California, to record individuals without consent.  Did Donald Sterling know he was being recorded?

We'll leave that to the lawyers, for now.

I'm not defending Donald Sterling (nor my old dad, when he pipes up) ... and I'm certainly not defending any racial "privilege" Sterling thinks he might have; nor the toxic, old school attitudes which he apparently retains from his younger self, in a bygone era, towards women, money and the "ownership" of human capital ...

But I will say that I empathize, as an often wrong individual -- a human being -- whose reasonable expectation of privacy becomes violated.

Cold, War and Otherwise

Though spring has sprung in Deutschland, in the States, the cold weather's unrelenting and winter storms -- for some reason, christened like hurricanes now! -- keep howling and blowing.

Also howling and blowing is western media, every time there's a new "global conflict".  Usually so ridiculously narrow and self-interested, reporting breathlessly the "breaking" news of Oscar night parties, celebrity deaths (all too often, self-inflicted) ... and/or imperious, like dolts in a small town, poking fun at perceived foibles: "Sochi problems", for example, or an "inept" investigation (or the opposite: escalating random acts of breathing -- those naturally occurring, every day things we all do because we're supposed to, and most of us are wired that way -- into newsworthy, larger than life acts of "heroism") ...

Where was I?

Oh, right.  So usually the media, particularly in the US and UK, is carrying on this way, perpetuating its curious combination of smug isolationism and Big Stick condescension, the whole time relying on unpaid contributors to file "i-reports", in order to fill all the 24/7 content platforms) ... but Vladimir Putin "takes" Crimea, and suddenly, hot.cool.Sochi gets forgotten; the meaningful Paralympics all but ignored, and CNN and the US start clucking, 'What to do about UKRAINE?'.

Geopolitically speaking, the US should have nothing to do with Ukraine.  The people of Crimea are speaking, and they seem to prefer not to be part of 'the west'.  This (so far) peaceful expression of self-determination should be recognized, in fact, allowed.

Beyond this simple statement of what seems, to me, obvious, I offer no public opinion.  My thoughts on politics, like religion and like my home address, telephone number, love and sexual doings that actually matter to me, are private, and will remain that way ... at least until they matter less, and/or I am ready to "share" them.

Does this mean, though, that I can't opine?  I don't have a politcal thought, or opinion?

"Gloaming Looming", ©Jeff Glovsky

Once I was sitting outside a jazz club where I used to mix sound.  It was a beautiful spring night, and I stepped out of what was, at that time, the stereotypical smoke-filled room to gulp in some fresh air.  It was during a bass solo ... These always tended to go on forever anyway, so I figured I had a few minutes, at least, before the singer would come in again and start gesticulating (wildly) toward her ear, suggesting (none too subtly) that she wasn't able to hear herself, or the piano.

As I was sitting there, pleasantly digging the gloaming, this homeless guy shuffles up to me and says, "Nice night, huh?"  He sits down on the brownstone stoop beside me, and offers up something about the second Gulf War ...

Well, I'd always been taught, and took pains to adhere to, the common sense adage about not talking to strangers.  I took this literally, and to this day -- fast-tracking to fifty (!) years old -- I struggle with its application.  Innately shy, to the point of awkwardness, if not coming across as 'differnt' (as in, 'that boy ain't right!') in most social settings, I was struck even dumber by my new companion's next and final communication.

After commenting about G. Dubya Bush, our troops in Iraq and September 11th -- all still very fresh wounds at the time -- and receiving zero response from me, this homeless guys says, "Man, I thought you were an asshole, but you might just be stupid."

Then sneeringly, he shuffles off.

I go back inside the jazz club, not offended or defensive, but really struck by what the homeless guy just told me: that I was an asshole, but I might also be stupid.  I'd never thought of myself as "stupid".  Throughout my academic career, with the exception of some shaky punctuation, Geometry in high school and five years of college, it was always the opposite!

But as I made my way back toward my sound booth that night, noticing that not only had the bass solo ended but the first set as well ... that the house lights were on, the stage was empty (though an amp was buzzing) and people were standing up to leave ... it occurred to me the homeless guy was probably right.

Hysteric Indulgence

"I am not a saint, unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying." - Nelson Mandela (1918-2013)

I'm ill-fitting, and self-absorbed.  Upon hearing of Nelson Mandela's death, I posted a picture of myself, and a link to my page on Writers-Network.

Here is what I was thinking:  I was trying to illustrate his quote about saints and sinners and perseverance, by putting up a "selfie" that might have sort of worked as a visual, sort of, 'Should I or Shouldn't I?' ... 'Done that (too late!), now what's the next move?'.

And then I linked that photo to my page on Writers-Network, because the apropos quote, attributed to Nelson Mandela, has always been a part of my profile there.

The move backfired, though, when that one guy who's following me intimated that I seemed like an asshole for doing this.

Beyond which, my sincere and timely post on Tumblr -- a humble homage to one of history's great leaders, and a light and inspiration to millions -- could have achieved 'maximum viscosity' (i.e., re-blogging) if I'd only decided to bag the link ... or better yet, do away with my own photo completely.

I did end up choosing to lose the linkage.  But my photo's still there ... first of all, because I think it does, in a way, sort of lend itself to the above quote, and this was my intention.  Secondly, because it's my damn Tumblr (just like Lil Wayne's cup) and I'll post what I want there!

Generally, I prefer to let my WordSpeak (and my Photos by Jglo) without boring, pretentious exposition.  'I wrote this piece when I was not in a good place' ... 'This next song...'.

"Shut up and sing!" I used to scream, when I'd drop into an open mic. to read my words, or be trapped in a sound booth mixing a gig, and some insecure windbag would get up before me.  'And then my dog suggested, "Eat the bone!"...my dog is my muse.  Why, I'm just a vessel.  But I can't do an English accent...'

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" I used to scream ... as the audience assembled would invariably chuckle in indulgent, embarrassed anticipation at what the insecure windbag might utter next ...

Now the internet screen has become the stage ... but other than this, there is little that's changed.  I still become hysterical when I visit most blogs and read all of the reasons and rhymes for each posting; the gestation behind each creation, the excuses for what, why and how each exists.

I BECOME HYSTERICAL with explanations which have themselves no need for existing, and only serve to pad the word count (or cleverly populate search results).  Rather than letting the words, or the various images, speak -- and rather than allowing me to absorb them subjectively -- there are zillions of  "creators" all telling me what, why and how I should feel, follow, "favorite" or "like".

Of course, zillions respond to this becoming-less-and-less-subtle steerage, and the "blogosphere" gets born and is an ever indulgent, happy place ... I become hysterical!!

Though all things considered, I am happy to be weighing in.  I will steadfastly be keeping your two cents to yourself ... but I know you'll continue to 'stumbleupon' sundry Random Poetix and other works, and Wor(d)s in Progress, by Jeff Glovsky, and take what you may from them ... without any boring, pretentious exposition.

I just wanted to take this moment here, to elucidate my self-absorption.

Thank you very much.  Thanks for reading.

Good night!!!

"All of Me", ©Jeff Glovsky

Fight or Flight (or Up a Tree)?

We forget the lessons of our youth.

So when I read that Abby Wetherell, the 12 year-old girl unpleasantly surprised then badly hurt by a black bear in northern Michigan "played dead" in staving off further attack, it occurred to me, "What would I have done?"

Thinking it over, I realized with some surprise that laying down and actually playing dead is not something that would have even crossed my mind.  Instead, faced with the choice between fight or flight, the nuance of feigning capitulation (sleep, death) as a means of escape would have escaped me ... leaving my only option to be literal escape from the animal's paws and jaws.

I would've run like hell!  And probably not gotten very far - or gotten myself stuck in a tree, which is a lesson of my youth I do seem to remember, when and if ever being chased by an animal.  First, there is "don't run" (which I guess could be interpreted or translated to "play dead", come to think of it) ... but failing that, the advice I remember is:  run up a tree.  Someone told me that once, I'm pretty sure of it.  But bears climb trees (don't they?), or at least shake them ...

 

(fuzzy) Photo(s) by Jglo

My run-in with wildlife would've ended badly.

The girl, though, did well, and is doing well (already making the interview rounds).  It could've been me! I scream in silence to myself ... on any one of countless late night walks through the northern Wisconsin small town I grew up in.

Another recent incident to 'shake my tree' involves the late night (early morning) abduction of Alex Band, lead singer of The Calling - a group that has not been on my radar since I snapped off the car radio in disgust about 10 years ago, when that song came on for the zillionth time ... But what made the whole thing particularly jarring to me -- apart from this snark-fail attempt at trivializing the incident:

"Bad news for fans of the early 2000s: it looks like that promise the guy from The Calling made to go  wherever you will go will have to wait for a while, because he's not going much of anywhere for a while."

...Good writing, man!  And I feel your empathy as a "reporter" (and human being).

But apart from that, what gave me pause was that this slice of life also happened in Michigan - this time in the lower ("mitten") part of the state, not too far out of Flint, but in relative darkness, en route to the Canadian border.  In other words, peace of night, middle of nowhere - a climate / environment I know well, and a circumstance with which I'm also familiar:  specifically, a late night walk from hotel to convenience store while on tour or traveling; and in general, walking alone through peace of night and middle of nowhere.

It could've been me! I scream again ... on any number of occasions when, while walking "safely" outside of New York City, it would occur to me that if vans pulled up, bears showed up, axe-wielding creatures leapt out of dark woods ... there'd be no deli to run into, no taxi to hail ...

No one to hear me scream when I'm bleeding.

There's an "element of danger outside of Manhattan" a childhood friend said to me once when visiting from the Midwest - a remark he made in passing while I was conducting a tour of my ex-girlfriends' houses, driving him around through these late night, bridge-shadow neighborhoods in Queens, the Bronx and northern New Jersey ... pointing out to him my own personal landmarks and milestones since leaving the hometown we'd shared.

... That particular night, I guess I kidnapped my friend.  A fellow Wisconsinite, like

Walter Bradford Cannon, M.D. 1871-1945