Death, life, before and after

I have been thinking about death a lot this week.  The reasons are obvious: a friend’s mother died suddenly and it is the second anniversary of the death of my friend, Martha.  Plus turning 64 years old a few weeks ago added to those “questioning moments” that we all get as we get older.  Is there life after death?  What is dying like?  Do our souls get a second (or third or fourth) chance?  Bottom line, what’s it all about?  What is the meaning of life and the meaning of death or is it a fool’s errand to try and put meaning on either one?

Growing up, we were indoctrinated into the “afterlife” theory, all good kids go to heaven if they have first, wisely, confessed all their sins.  With sin on your soul, you would have to spend time in purgatory where you would do small labor, like baling hay or washing clothes in a river, until you accumulated enough toiling hours to make up for all those sins. Then you could get into heaven. (Or, if you had connections still on earth, those connections could pray for you a lot and shorten your time even more.)   However, if it was a really bad sin, like murder or stealing someone’s wife or bike, then you would go straight to hell, do not pass purgatory, do not collect indulgences.  Obviously, the power of the confessional was huge: confess and be saved.  Don’t confess and possibly be damned.  You had to time it right, of course.  If you did the Really Bad Thing, then you better get yourself to confession ASAP or risk death and damnation because who knows when you might get hit by that bus.

But I digress….  What if there really is an “afterlife” but not in that “Catholic god and devil” way?  What if, when we die, our spirit/soul has a little resting time before either moving on or being retired? It would be like the Green Room that people hang out in before going on a TV show. There would be good snacks, wine, beer and water (no hard alcohol), unlimited streaming movies, nice comfy couches and reclining chairs.  Maybe George Carlin would be on hand to make you laugh and Julia Child would be happy to cook you up a little omelet. (Unless they had moved on to other bodies, of course.)  That wouldn’t be too bad.  When your spirit/soul had rested sufficiently and the next phase of your life was about to unfold, you would exit the Green Room and carry on with your new life, facing whatever destiny was in store for you.

What if you are a “bad soul?”  What if your spirit/soul is not destined to carry on?  Or maybe that’s when you definitely get transferred to a new life, in order to keep trying to get better.  And when you have finally reached the pinnacle of how good you will ever be, the apex of the perfect spirit/soul, do you get to retire? Does your spirit/soul enter some kind of “Soul Hall of Fame?” 

When I think of people I know who have died too quickly, Martha is the one who comes to mind.  Martha was a smart, funny, kind, wise, slightly flawed (of course) human and to think that her spirit/soul wasn’t put to use again is a sad thought.  Anyone would be blessed to have Martha’s cumulative experience guiding him or her through life, even if unaware of that experience.  I wonder, did she wait in the Green Room for a while and laugh at George Carlin’s humor and discuss the perfect grilled cheese sandwich with Julia Child?  Was she ready and willing to take on another corporeal body? I think the answer would be “yes.”  Martha, probably like so many souls, was no doubt eager to see what the next phase would be, what her new destiny entailed.

But maybe I am 100% wrong and when we die, that’s it. Nothing else. That would seem so short sighted, simply discarding spirits/souls that could be of great assistance to future human beings. But we will never know, will we?  And we will continue to ponder all this until we die and even then, who knows what we will be conscious of. 

More to follow, I am certainly not done with this subject.

A Wave of Impetuous Youth

 There is something to be said about youtube.com.  Yes, there is a lot of crap on it but you don't need to watch the crap. On the other hand, it is an almost endless source of amusement and entertainment if you are so inclined.  Who would ever put together Jimmy Buffett, "Hill Street Blues" and David Foster Wallace in one shift?  But you can!  And you should!

In my past youthful days, I attended many Jimmy Buffett concerts.  Sometimes a great amount of wine was consumed.  Sometimes I was forced to put my hands over my head in the shape of fins, to the left, fins to the right.... and I always had a great time. His concerts are all about having fun and laughing and consuming some kind of alcohol.  So watching videos of his concerts online brings back some of those days.  Not the youth, that's pretty much gone, but at least the smiles return.  I can easily blame that on a sleeper wave of past impetuous youth.

And David Foster Wallace: if you haven't watched it, you should definitely take the time and check out his address to Kenyon College in 2005.  "This is Water."  Here's the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI
It's about 20 minutes long and you should try and watch it all in one sitting.  See if it doesn't change your perspective about so many things, every day things, how you think, how you wait, how much patience you have, why you think what you do.  It's great and profound and simple, all at the same time. 

Jimmy, Hill Street and David Foster Wallace.  All have meaning and yet the meaning is in the eyes of the viewer. The meaning is always in the eyes of the viewer, no matter what it is. The power to make meaning of anything is always ours.

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Hotel kindness in a crazy sort of way

My career is in hospitality. That doesn't mean I am hospitable, it just means I work in that industry. We hoteliers have many moments of inhospitable angst, mainly behind the scenes. Sometimes it's right on center stage, in front of everyone, but we try and keep it (the inhospitable angst) under wraps, away from the eyes of the guests.

Being nice and friendly when you want to poke someone in the eye with a fork is a talent and I am very, very good at it. If there was a talent show for this kind of manipulative lying, I would win first place.  Unlike others in this profession, I am not chirpy and cheery all the time, not really a "people-person" (an incredibly annoying term, I must say) or even a nice person all of the time.  Sullen might be taking it too far but reserved and quiet would be an appropriate description.  So would "shooting darts out of my eyes at your face" if that could be considered a description.

Case in point: yesterday there was no power at the hotel were I am employed.  The power outage was throughout the neighborhood, not just in the hotel, so it was 100% out of our control.  That's a good thing because then guests can't blame us for no hot water or for the lack of toast. It was a random act of energy, not a plot against anyone.  I was almost perversely delighted in the discomfort it gave some guests. Some took it personally and their momentary lack of hot water ruined their otherwise perfect weekend.  HA!  "Too bad!" I thought, ruthlessly.  I wanted to say something like "You know, a huge part of the world's population doesn't even have cold water, let alone hot water at the turn of a tap."  But I didn't say that because I didn't want to deal with the retort, which would have been "Yes, but the rest of the world isn't paying $300 a night to sleep here, is it?"  That kind of sentence deserves not to be spoken, and it warrants no response.

But, hospitable or not, I am very good at my job and I make people happy and I make them smile and I help them make the most out of their visit to the Wine Country.  I get them free wine tastings, difficult to obtain restaurant reservations, good tour guides. I make them espressos and pour them wine and clear their tables and help them pay bridge tolls online and print out their boarding passes when they leave.  I am their helper, their concierge. I am the front desk manager.

The fact that I can still entertain ideas of poking some of them in the face with a fork is simply a perk of the job.

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"Hill Street Blues", 30 years later

In the 1980's, when I was renting what was known as the "Teeny Apartment" in Daly City, overlooking the Walgreen's sign that stayed on all night, I became addicted to the TV show "Hill Street Blues."  I was in my 30's and I wondered, while watching it, if I was too old to become a cop. I seriously considered finding out if I could still apply, but I never followed up on it.  My Mom had given me $100 to buy a television and I had a tiny black and white model, which I watched while sitting on the floor in front of it, after the kids went to bed in the only bedroom in the apartment.  It was too loud to watch it from the couch (where I slept) because it would keep the kids awake, so I sat on the floor, like a kid watching "Sesame Street," engrossed in the plot, the characters, the cops and the criminals.  Whatever night it was on, maybe Tuesday or Wednesday, I planned nothing for that night except watching the show.  It, in some ways, defined my week.

It is now possible to get "HSB" on DVD through the library but it is also available on youtube, at least some episodes. Poor quality, poor sound, but it's there.  I do not have a computer that would allow me to watch it on youtube, but I do have access to such a computer while I am at work, on the evening shift.  (I sincerely hope the owners of the hotel do not read this blog.) Imagine my happiness when I discovered it was alive and just waiting for me to watch it! 

Sadly, all the episodes do not hold up to the 30 years of lag time from then until now. But really, what has held up for those 30 years?  Certainly not my body. Not my mind, not my stamina, not my blood pressure, not my moral compass....... nothing.  The only thing about the show that works is that it is still  entertaining and it takes me back to a time when I needed a TV show to get me through the week.  I can appreciate it on that realm, and when I do, it's a pleasure to watch.

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Mumford and Sons and Driving to New Orleans

I wish I was driving to New Orleans...... but I'm not.

However, today I was driving west on Guerneville Road, the coastal cool air of the coastal fog was mixing with the heat of Santa Rosa and Mumford and Sons' first CD was in my car player. I picked up the Big Dog (Bebe) at the kennel and as I was driving back, driving east, no one in front of me, that driving guitar of the album was blasting and all I wanted to do was keep on driving.  Windows were down, hot air mixed with cool was blowing my (short) hair around, the road was straight and, honestly, all I wanted to do was drive. Through Reno, out to Hwy. 50, the Loneliest Highway in America, on to wherever.

It was probably the confluence of the hot air, the wind in my hair and the music, but it was just as powerful as the driving guitar. Just as seductive and just as enticing.   I simply wanted to go. To drive. To keep on driving. The end didn't matter.  The drive did.

But here I am, still in Santa Rosa. The drive to drive will stay. Hitting the road is in my blood. Soon, I hope.

No writing in two weeks. But now, locked in a car with "Locke."

NO ONE WILL READ THIS.  If you read my posts, you probably all think I have lost my fingers and thus cannot type or that I hate you all (so not true) or that I have bloggers block or that I have nothing to say (so true) or that I just am a lazy fucker and haven't bothered to write (a little too true to talk about.)

So here I am. Back. Again.  And I have a dozen (or a half) posts in my pocket so just suck it up and tune in and read, for pete's sake.  No apologies.  No judgement.

The movie "Locke" is as you would imagine: locked (virtually) in a car with a guy named Locke and that's it.  Nothing else.  No other people. No other scenery except the car.  Just Locke on the phone, talking.  We hear the other side of the conversation but see no one. Just talk, talk, talk.  There must be no law in England about talking incessantly on the phone because that's all that happens here, a guy just talks and talks on the phone as he drives.

But wait!  It is so much more than that. Yes, he talks and although the movie is almost in real time (but a bit condensed) we learn a lot about this guy in 90 minutes, more than we often learn about real people in 90 days. A life-changing event has hit him like a truck load of cement on this very night and he realizes that he must deal with this event straight on, now, not tomorrow, but now.  So he puts everything else, his job (on the night before the biggest job event of his life) and his family and everything, on the back burner. He tries to smooth the waves a bit (because he does cause some big waves) but he is a man on a mission and he will not stop until his mission is complete.

The brilliant and surprising thing about this film (which is probably now 100% out of theaters) is that it is gorgeous. It's like a Kurosawa film, full of silence and light and the play of the light on surfaces, colors streaming along the sides of the car and shooting off into the air, sometimes the only sound is the car tires on the road. Visually, it is mesmerizing. It is worth seeing just for that.  And it is worth seeing for the one guy, in his car, trying to right the world he has just turned upside down.  You leave wondering what happens next.  

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