In case you have 'disappeared' because of something you found online about me, I will state unequivocally that most of what you may have read, stemming from a business failure in 2010, is one-sided, emotionally driven, willfully malicious and/or false.
That said: my apartment is available to you for the dates we've discussed, and to which we contractually agreed.
If you don't want to pay 6 months in advance without seeing or receiving the key to the property, of course I understand. But obviously, I cannot just hold my apartment for you and hope you'll arrive. I'm sure you can understand this.
If you don't wish to move forward with our signed contract at all, it's okay. But if this is the case, and it's due to something you have read online about me - to be honest, you are doing yourself a disservice.
I would appreciate the courtesy of a response please, one way or another.
* * * Addendum: Thank you, Dr. G., for 're-appearing' ... in fact, responding ... for listening rationally, understanding and deciding to move forward and rent my property (as many have done before you, satisfactorily and without drama or incident, before and since my business, name and reputation collapsed in 2010).
Your movements, actions are recorded .... Chased and captured, space and time ... Pasted, cut up, posted up on places, Facebook! Websites you don't know or use.
You move freely ... But you're seen. You are collected, grouped and categorized, followed and recognized by eyes unseen ... Obscene!
But I like to keep things light between us ... When I follow you with eyes unseen, I blur the lines. I don't name names, or "tag" or claim to be your "friend" ... but I watch too.
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?
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.
After restless slumber the night before, you bound from your bed like a Christmas child and run off to the bank ... Anticipating, hoping to rip and tear open the gift of my "ripoff", my "scam", my "scheme".
I've written you a check. But guess what? It cleared.
I'm sorry!
I didn't mean to dash your dreams. Eliminate your expectations. Yank the ground from underneath your threats and sweats and trepidations ... Your accusations. Baseless noise, about having to take "a legal recourse" (of course, you "don't want to" ... Understood, sir!).
I'm sorry ...
I didn't mean to end your intrigues! At 8:32 am, at the bank ... Waiting, hoping to be apprised of "insufficient funds" to take your fun against me to the next level. The phone call: "advising", chiding, deriding, detailing the things you "really don't want to" do, but WILL DO (you yell), because I 'leave you no choice'.
I'm sorry?
What time will you be at the bank, Jeff?!
I don't know the hour, sir! But your check will clear today after I get there. OR you may simply deposit my check and you'll have no issues. I'm sorry you've got issues now ...
My check has cleared, sir. I'm done with you.
You Yelp-ing creep! With your threats of "review" and unpleasant demands - because you think you can. You've read somewhere online, you MUST: "avoid", "beware", run / keep away ... before I "take advantage" of you, you will do unto others ... But not me.
Get out of my house, man.
Your stay is ended, your welcome worn. I am putting you out of (y)our miseries and returning a full month's rent to you. The check will clear.
On Medium, I submitted Freundlichkeit (Human) Kindness as "A Time and Place", to a number of seemingly appropriate collections, but so far it hasn't found a home.* Another tl;drorphan, full of too many words.
"I hate words"
"Words suck."
"I don't like stuff that sucks!"
The Unparallelled Wisdom of Beavis and Butthead
... Mere words, pooled unread around the ankles of a "friend"-poked teen - not at all caring what I do, post or have to say!
They're out there, my words, though. Because they can be. Herking and idiosyncratic and jerking, and lurking like shadows in need of some light.
Recovering from the rush of "addiction" apologists -- falling over themselves, as they have been this month, to try and justify the high profile heroin overdose of Philip Seymour Hoffman -- it was refreshing to be distracted this past weekend by the The Beatles' arrival in America and appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show fifty years ago.
While I tended to prefer the Sex Clark Five growing up, to "ageing musician" Dave's bunch and the rest of the early British Invasion . . . like millions of people before me and after, I did grow up in a Beatles household. Introduced to their music on old Scotch cassette tapes, which my dad had recorded for my mom back in the day, I was intrigued at first by the musical whimsy ("All Together Now", "I Am the Walrus") ... the overall happiness of their early sounds ... then the melodies and singability became apparent ...
I remember cruising around our backyard on a riding lawnmower once, singing "I Should Have Known Better", and our neighbor complaining about the noise. "The lawnmower is fine," I remember him shouting. "Just lower your voice!"
Later, the bash and steady beat of The Beatles' 'college music', as I used to call it -- "Helter Skelter", "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" and "Day Tripper"; those three, in particular -- would keep me hooked ... and ultimately, there were the lyrics. John, the poet, as the cliche goes ... but there was George, waxing wise about "the space between us all", and deadpan singing, "Love me while you can / Before I'm a dead old man" ...
There you go: whimsy and poetry!
For that matter, the Ringo line, "You were in a car crash, and you lost your hair", I always found to be hilarious (regardless of whether or not it meant Paul was dead).
So suddenly last weekend, it was 'fifty years ago today' ... and sadly, John and George could not make the party. There was George's son, Dhani Harrison, on-stage, representing. There was Yoko, instructed to dance, representing. There was Sean Lennon, looking disturbingly like his father ... There was the new and latest Lady McCartney ...
But how cool would it have been to see Sir Paul's son, James, and Ringo's son, Zak, a part of things too? If not to perform something together there, with Seanand Dhani -- because let's face it, "Sean, James, Zak and Dhani" (in fact, the Post-Fab Four roll call would need to be "Sean, James, Dhani and Zak" to align with "John, Paul, George and Ringo" in the 21st century) just sounds weird - and that's without them even playing a note together! It certainly would have been unfulfilling musically, for everyone --
If not to perform, then at least to speak together, reminisce a little ... and let the evening, not to mention the legacy, embrace them.
Perhaps they didn't want to be embraced. The legacy already instilled within them, what need do James McCartney and Zak Starkey have to show up anywhere - let alone to what amounts, for them, to be just another family reunion with, quite probably, annoying relatives?
That said, the biggest omission of Sunday night's Grammy Salute to The Beatles -- an omission too often made in the grand Beatles' scheme of things, I think -- was Julian Lennon. John's first son, and, arguably, the most creatively gifted Beatle offspring ... deserving, if anyone, to be included; invited, to carry a legacy.
Where was he last Sunday night when they were all together? He was a no show man (goo goo g'joob) ... Hey, Judedeserves the torch passed down! Not to keep getting burned, kept at bay, from The Beatles' ongoing and present flame!
... But what do I know? I'm not in the Beatles' realm, and certainly don't claim to know any internecine goings on there. I just think it would've been cool, and a richer golden anniversary -- not the golden slumbers that we saw and heard, and which came and went with seemingly too little forethought -- if all of the relatives could've been in the same room.
