It Isn’t That Long A Stay
At Seventy you’re pretty old, right? Odds favor you dying any day of the week. Because you got high mileage. Shit breaks with high mileage. I wouldn’t buy a car with three hundred grand on the odometer; it’s the same with People. You get up there kicking seventy-plus everybody’s looking at you like you’re a rusty mufflered Buick Skylark, rolling on bald tires, belching black smoke. I’m talking young people here. Old people are tight with you. They understand your predicament. People your own age are glad as hell you’re still around. This is why I like to hang out with people my own age. Fellow Boomers. They’re all rooting for me. Most of them, anyway. They want me to live forever in peace and love. Because they’re hoping for a similar fate…
Actually, eternity in Bliss is a goal of mine
I’m about ready to sign up for it. Plenty of churches around. All I gotta do is pick one and open my heart to Jesus. I should sign up now rather than later. Because I might suddenly die. In which case as an unsigned soul I’ll go to the bad place (Hell) where suffering, fear, dread, remorse, hate, insanity, grief, rage and a grim forever is like…you know…forever.
Hard to get my head around this forever shit
I’m used to pain and suffering in chunks like a lumpy blanket drawing over me or a rain shower that swells and fades. One bout of grimness follows another. You’re done with one about when the next one shows up. Several bouts of bad shit can hit you at the same time like say for example a dude with cancer goes bankrupt and his loving wife dumps him. Oddly enough, these multiple grimnesses hitting you all at the same time have a habit of cancelling each other out….until you’re left with the major grimness, which kills you….
So I plan to get on the SAVED bandwagon sooner or later. Maybe sooner…
Meantime, I’m trying to get my head around this forever grimness.
Forever grimness (meaning hell for all eternity) would be like multiple sufferings and hardships hitting you all at once with each of equal weight while the pain never ends.
I can’t imagine it. What I need is some illustrative examples.
This painter Zdzislaw Beksinski got a vision of FOREVER HELL and made pictures of the terrain.
Hells got lots of insects to plague yer ass…
I kind of like insects. These? Maybe not.
Lots of personal space for dwelling on yer lonliness.
You commit suicide and you end up here?
Man! Talk about a Gyp.
Cold as Hell, right?
It’s not like you’re on a ski lift.
The nightlife is maybe not so good.
Anyway, it’s all in your head.
Best to just hang out at home.
Party yer ass off.
Here’s a drawing of his I actually like a lot:
Reminds me of Basquiat.
Beksiński was stabbed to death at his Warsaw apartment on February 21, 2005, by a 19-year-old acquaintance from Wołomin, reportedly because he refused to lend him money.
I hope he’s not stuck where I hope he’s not stuck!
Anyway, where was I?
Getting tight with Jesus
The sign-up requirements are simple. You offer you’re soul to Jesus and he forgives all your sins whereupon you are granted everlasting life in paradise. That’s all there is to it. I already talked about what Biblical Paradise might look like in a prior blog post. I’m taking it for granted Paradise is not your time share in Cabo or a forever membership at Seven Flags.
Unless that’s your thing.
My thing doesn’t require a pack of Angels anointing my ass. Although that would be nice on occasion. I’m more of a TOTAL CONSCIOUSNESS kind of dude.
And if the Dali Lama can offer that kind of prize…
why not Jesus?
Matter of fact, I’m thinking Jesus…why would Jesus make me sign up for anything? Old Jesus knows if I repent or don’t repent my sins.
He’s not the one making the confession rules. He don’t care one way or another.
It’s the Preachers and the Priests. They want me to confess my sins.
That way I can join the church and give them money.
I don’t need to give them money.
I’m tight with Jesus!
Just like I’m tight with the Buddha and Allah and Zoroaster and all the other big shots. The ones that promote Peace, Love and Understanding.
I like Jesus in particular because he’s a Jew. I like Jews. The suffering Jews. Not the shit-kicking Zionists. The Jews that suffered the holocaust. The chosen people. I don’t figure I gotta sign up with some Con Man makes his living collecting tithes and scaring the shit out of his flock with fire and brimstone.
Forget about it.
I’m already tight with Jesus.
The same with you.
Anybody tells you you’re not tight with Jesus already, they’re conning you.
People are dying that never died before
Hemingway said that.
And it’s true. The older you get the more true it becomes. I got a call yesterday from my high school buddy Will. He called me out of the blue, as they say. He wanted to tell me about good old Bob.
Good old Bob Salter.
He passed away from lung cancer.
A fairly recent photo of Bob from Facebook.
This is a recent Bob. All my memories of Bob are of a young Bob.
Last time I saw Bob was maybe 40 years ago…and then only briefly. He was at the boat yard painting the hull of his Monterey fishing boat. Before that? I don’t remember. I hung out with Bob back when I was a juvenile delinquent. I was not his friend like Will was. Will and Bob were tight. They surfed together. Me, I just hung out with him when I was wandering around with nothing better to do. I’d end up at Bob’s pad and we’d stare at his tube or drive around in his old pick-up, scouting for Broads. I knew his older brother. I remember one night we dropped acid and watched The Harder They Come at the Rio Theater. The Acid was provided by Gary. A fairly weak dose but I remember Gary spending half the night chanting “Johnny Too Bad!” That was around 1975, or 74. Good years to be alive. Yeah, that’s right, I pretty much grew up with Gary and Bob. Gary’s been dead maybe ten years. Bob…
Bob just died.
This is what happens when you reach a certain age.
People you know.
They start dying off.
Cradle to Grave…it isn’t that long a stay
I started this Blog Post intending to talk about my old friend Bob. Instead I got off on a tangent discussing eternity and bliss. Which is easier than talking about Bob. I have very few specific memories of my old friend…because it’s been so long, so many years, I’ve lost most of the memories. All I can say is, he was a good guy, a happy guy…he laughed a lot. He liked have a good time. He could have a good time just sitting on his couch staring at the tube or eating a can of sardines or painting his boat or fishing or surfing or hanging out with his buddies. Bob enjoyed his life. That much I know for sure.
And maybe that’s the answer. That’s what it’s all about. Instead of yearning for some kind of Eternity Of Bliss, maybe it’s better, far better, to enjoy your life while you have it.
Just like Bob did.
Show some gratitude for being alive. I got the clue last night when I opened my fortune cookie.
The pot stickers were good although I’ve had better. But I’m not complaining here. I’m trying to imagine the rest of my life–what life I got left, that is–filled with JOY.
That’s the plan.
I don’t gotta sign up for that. It’s free. I can start right off the bat. Enjoy my life like good old Bob did. Like I imagine he did. That’s all there is. And if that’s not all there is, well, so be it.
For the time being, why not join the cabaret?
6 thoughts on “It Isn’t That Long A Stay”
Gloomy:
Peggy Lee — Is That All There Is? 1969 – YouTube
Spot on, Gloomy, it’s a short story, life, and once we’re gone we don’t even know we had it. Anyway, here is the best non surreal poem, i.e. Sola La Muerta, by Pable Neruda, I know
Aubade
BY PHILIP LARKIN
I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what’s really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.
The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
—The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused—nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.
This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear—no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.
And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.
Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can’t escape,
Yet can’t accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.
What to do?
Stand in front of the mirror and scream NICE TRICK BABY!!!
And thank your stars you ain’t the Mickey Rourke character in ANGEL HEART….
Spot on, Gloomy, it’s a short story, life, and once we’re gone we don’t even know we had it. Anyway, here is the best non surreal poem about death, i.e. Sola La Muerta, by Pable Neruda, I know
Aubade
BY PHILIP LARKIN
I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what’s really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.
The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
—The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused—nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.
This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear—no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.
And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.
Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can’t escape,
Yet can’t accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.
Dear Gloomy:
Having been informed by a literary expert that the Larkin poem in enclosed was “cold, distant and unfeeling,” I wanted first to apologize, then include a poem about death that is, if you will excuse my malapropism, more lively; Thanatopsis, by 17-year old William Collen Briant, who, believing was dying of TB (the Covid of his time), stuffed this poem in a bottle he launched on the shoreless waves of eternity, Wallace Stevens figured it out f. “Will we ever know we existed?”