i go out and sit on the plump, stuffed designer chair on the narrow, red-tiled front porch, in a little corner i like to call “mi rincon de memoria” (my corner of memory), amongst the low hanging creeping charlies and the wood-carved mexican religious figurines, and i notice a single white easter lily growing through the green ground vegetation towards the black wrought-iron fence. it is singularly beautiful and very alone. i know that it is way too late in the season for a white easter lily to be growing in the garden. but there it is. i look a little closer to admire it, and i see that its white graceful edges are now fading to brown. in a few days, it will be gone. it stands there entirely alone, so fragile, in its slow, elegant decline. inevitably, it will crash like a springtime flower into the cold of september.
and… i aim my RAV 4 directly at mike. he sees me coming and his eyes start bugging out of his head. captain of industry, huh, mike? mike tries to maneuver out of my way, practically falling off his tan beach cruiser. i hit the brakes to a full stop… about 2 inches from mike’s front wheel. mike looks terrified. he should be.
i’m a civilized man. intelligent, educated, compassionate, even, some might say, sophisticated in the ways of the world. i’ve traveled a good deal of the planet, survived cancer; i have a good job at a major university, i married for the 1st time at 54 years old; hell, i have a lot to be grateful for. then why, oh why, dear shiva-allah-buddha-yaweh-whoever the fuck is in charge, is my goddam temper still on a such a short leash, threatening to explode in the most unpredictable, humiliating, and inopportune times? am i a fool? or am i just cursed?
“well, you see, ms jones, i was using a metaphor for the disempowerment of the gypsy people of romania. a metaphor for the dispossession of the entire roma people. i was actually standing up for the underdog people of the world when i said that “the gypsies were the niggers of europe”. just the way john lennon and yoko ono said that “women were the niggers of the world”. just the way lenny bruce used the words, ‘nigger. niggger. nigger. fuck fuck fuck. nigger nigger nigger. fuck fuck fuck.’ they’re just words, ms jones. understand? nigger, fuck, cunt, pussy. words! just words! but we load them like guns. and we shoot them off at each other. and some of us can use them. and others of us can’t. how are we supposed to know, ms jones? who’s to say who can say which words to whom? i didn’t call anyone a ‘nigger’. i don’t hate black people. i didn’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings, ms jones. if i did, i’m sorry. i already apologized to everyone i could think of. why won’t fucking white liberal rachelle get the fuck off my case, ms jones?”
but ay, here’s the rub. as promised, i’m thinking as much about american empire as i am roman. specifically, i’m thinking about mr. gibbon’s insight and explanation for the decline and fall of the great roman empire… and finding it frighteningly parallel to the current state of our american empire. no doubt, our 20th century, and now 21stcentury, american empire is the greatest in the history of mankind. with our cyber and post-industrial tentacles of the age of technology, the internet, and the global economy reaching ominously and lucratively around the entire planet, we have had more influence and more control over the the economies and politics of the world than any empire in history. the reach and scope of the current american empire simply dwarfs such predecessors as the greeks, romans, chinese, mongols, moghuls, autro-hungarians, british, soviets, or any other previous conglomeration of tyrant, government, religion, or nation-state. simply put, the power and influence of hollywood, wall street, and madison avenue have collectively hypnotized and seduced a good majority of the rest of the world. and sure, the muslim and chinese civilizations have been giving us a good recent “clash” or two, but what i’m most intrigued by… should i have the courage to admit it… is the end of the american empire.
by now the airport shuttle bus from attaturk international is driving over one of the many, many bridges that connect the city into a whole, and i can not only see the multitude of islamic mosques dominating the istanbuli skyline, but i can hear the muezzin’s call to mid day prayer, which for me, is the clearest sign that i’m no longer in the clutches of western civilization. the shuttle drops me in dead center of taksim square, for lack of a better comparison, the istanbuli equivalent to the big apple’s times square at 42nd and broadway. perhaps taksim should be called “the big olive”, because there seems to be all the energy and bustle of an 18 million person cosmopolitan capital hovering on the crossroads of two antithetical continents. but there, smiling at me welcomingly, is hassan, the manager of “istanbul apartments”, our home for the next 2 weeks. as i de-board the bus, i can hear the cacophony of arab-turkish “belly dance” music, mixed with the sounds of britney spears, turkish rap, and the loud voices of touts on megaphones, hawking their restaurants’ mid day discounts.
may 21, 2010
bucharest, romania,
it started out with just the 2 of us. mihaela and i. sitting for lunch at a little wooden table at the “one” café, right next door to the caragiale film and theater university, where i’d been invited to teach for 2 weeks on a fulbright from my imperial government. it was [...]
it seems like the perfect time to make my exit. to die. to watch my own death… right here on the still shag-carpeted, not hard wood, floor. yeah, my wife’s in the other room. my gray wolf, faithful old dog, clay, is lyin’ right next to me in front of the hearth; i could do it right here… at home. an act of will and surrender, simultaneously. i mean, everything’s in order, right? i’ve had my living will and trust drawn up a few years ago when the old man passed, my 401k is big enough to support my lovely wife for a few more years until she grows into the rest of her life; there’s nothing else i want to do or accomplish. i could just…. let go… sink to the floor… like a movie… right now… and watch my life… be… gone.
things happen in 3s, right? life, near death, death…..
i’m drivin’ hard along the I-70. just west of kansas city. pushing 90, eyes on the rear view, lookin’ for the fuzz. the radio’s tuned into K-MAX, blaring kelly clarkson, carrie underwood, and miley
cyrus, the young estrogen tri-fecta! my foot’s heavy on pedal, and i’m dreamin’ of “oklahoma joe’s”
which has the best pork ‘n beef [...]