Sacred and Profane

“He's a walkin' contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction
Takin' ev'ry wrong direction on his lonely way back home”

-—Kris Kristofferson

“I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all.

I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe.

If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.”

― Mary Shelley

The photo above shows an angry mob. I imagine a scene, where, over the holidays, the old gang gets together with one plan on our minds. This year, we would break out of the consumerist trap, and dedicate an evening of our time to doing something pure and noble.

We would bring brooms and bags and meet at a central location, with the good intention of picking up trash. We would offer our sweat equity to clean up the community. But was our nascent civic pride drowning in something far stronger than holiday cheer?

We can all agree that brooms work best with the straw side down, but if you grip a broom upward, and point toward heaven, it could be possible that the straw side of the broom, when infused with gasoline and anger, may spontaneously burst into flames.

It takes all kinds to make a mob.

I imagine some folks arrived fortified with holiday cheer, while the recently sober were looking for any reason to jump out of their skin, seeking salvation in heavily sugared coffee, accompanied by a tall order of shortbread.

My sober self suffers the burden of a level mind. I struggle to maintain my clarity as I attempt to rise above the din of an inviting buzz. A clean city is a happy city. Everyone deserves cake. Unless, they deserve to be smited. Smitten with wrath.

How about a cup of Holy Anger and Cake?

Artificial Intelligence has generated the above image. This “photo” embodies the beauty of artificial intelligence, for there is no beauty in artificial intelligence. There is not even any intelligence in artificial intelligence. A.I. is a visual regurgitation, a travesty that might spark someone to raise a toast, or raze a city. It takes a village to raise an idiot.

The next image is likely more “real”, but I can’t remember the source, and couldn’t track down where it came from, other than some website in the wasteland we call the internet.

We can see a young woman, who had spent all day baking herself a cake, only to pass out in exhaustion upon the cake. There was no one left in the rain. No one forgot the recipe.

The question is why bother? Why even bother with this thing called life? It is very easy for us to drown in the constant waves of horror and madness. If I still drank, my voice would be louder, and a bit less coherent. In the Drunk’s Handbook, the first step is anger, the second step is laughter, and the last step is tears. There stands the glass. Oh, why have you forsaken me?

But wait. We can’t go on, but we must go on, say Mr. Beckett. On with the show this is it, shouts Bugs Bunny. Note to self: Don’t forget to bring your own mic. Don’t forget the words, like what happens when I get caught up in the sound and fury and I make the mistake of trying to do something new in the moment.

Try to be fresh at 66. It is not a good look. Everything goes haywire.

A few years back, perhaps a decade, I wrote a couple of posts on a new blog, which I entitled Holy Anger. “Holy anger can be anger at injustice – particularly when we link hands and hearts with others to address any of the many forms of injustice in the world. We need to look at the character of Christ and how he deals with anger,” she said. “When Jesus was angry, it was an appropriate – and not self-destructive – anger.”

Or maybe he just had a bad day. Isn’t the Son of God allowed to have a bad day or two? Doesn’t that perk come with the job? Perhaps the anger is generational? After all, his Father, God can be angry. We call his anger wrath. We say his anger is righteous, which makes it holy. Pure. Sacred. And yet profane.

Is the concept of Holy Anger simply another guy’s justification for lousy anger management? When justifying anger, are there levels of anger, levels of fury? From a quiet seething to a full boil? Is anger ever justified as a response?

Yes, Virginia, anger is a reasonable response to unreasonable situations. Is the anger response mere venting, or part of a conscious effort to create or make change happen?

champagne glass

Tonight is New Year’s Eve. The last gasp of an old year.

Should old acquaintance be forgot

And never brought to mind

Should old acquaintance be forgot

In the days of auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear

For auld lang syne

We'll drink a cup of kindness yet

For the sake of auld lang syne.

My favourite New Year’s Eve story was at the Purple Moose about 31 years ago. My band The Jazzmanian Devils had booked a show at this restaurant, and pre-sold all the tickets, only to be informed about a week before, that the restaurant was closed, as it went out of business. A good friend of mine was the daughter of the owner. She persuaded the club to stay open for the night. Since all the usual staff had been let go just before Christmas, she was able to round up some friends to staff the event.

So here we were, like many New Year’s shows before, all dressed up, and getting ready to go on. But I noticed the champagne had not been passed around, and the party hats and noise makers were still in the box. What was going on? Well, I discovered the friends who volunteered to help out for the night, were part of a support group for drugs and alcohol. Unfortunately, by around 11:30, they had all fallen off the wagon.

So I started handing out hats, and noise makers. I ran around pouring champagne. Caught up in the moment, I noticed at one point that it was 12:04 on my watch. This was in the days when people did not have cell phones. There was no social media. So I quickly got on stage, and without a hint of what was the actual time was, I started to count down to New Year’s.

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

The place went wild, we played more, and my alter ego Les Goodman saved New Year’s.

We played many New Year’s shows. I loved playing New Year’s, as I was able to be paid, quite handsomely at times, to get very drunk and play music.

Another great New Year’s was booked at the Four Seasons. At some point in the evening, the Beverage Director came to the stage, and asked me if we played any rap. At least that is what I thought he said. I said, rap? No, rack. Rack and Roll. In a Chicago accent, he said, ”Do you play any Rack and Roll?”

Another New Year’s, I drank champagne from a woman’s shoe. And another New Year’s Eve, we didn’t play but we did get paid. (After a minor lawsuit.)

For the Y2K New Year’s show, we contracted to play in February 1999 by the Freemasons. We charged them an outrageous sum, and asked for it to be paid in three installments, with the first installment due upon the signing of the contract. Second installment was to be paid a month prior, and the final payment was to be paid in cash, just before going onstage.

Around late November, the Freemasons decided to cancel the event. We tried, in vain, to get another show. So we took them to small claims court, in the infamous case of Devils vs. Freemasons. We won the case, but only due to the fact we had omitted to put a cancellation clause in the contract. As such, the event could not be canceled without compensation.

We had lost a similar case when we sued the maker of 7 Shiny Suits, as they were unwearable. The judge found that she had made the suits and we had paid her so the contract had been executed. Even though we were not satisfied with her work, our need for satisfaction was not written into the contract, therefore, she won.

These were all lessons. Life lessons. Just like all the things that make us angry are life lessons. That is the thing about life. It gives you lessons. It gives us lemons, leamings and lamination.

Good judgment is built on experience. Experience is gained with bad judgment.

Have a safe and Happy New Year’s Eve!

I’ll be home having a quiet night with my love. If she can stay awake, I will kiss her at midnight. And then it is on to 2025, which means that our jet packs are in the mail, and the moving sidewalks must be just around the corner. That was the Future we were promised. Am I more angry that the promise was broken, or that our expectations were not realistic? Life Lessons. Both Sacred and Profane.

Thank you for all your support and readership. I love your comments, so keep them coming. I offer my special thanks to those of you who financially support me to do what I love.