It means you’re in bad shape. Worse, you’re toast. Not like old Rameses here. You’re still breathing but you’re breathing on borrowed time. A Quack (licensed physician) confirms that you wont recover from your illness. Whatever you got (mainly some kind of Cancer) will kill you within six months. I heard this phrase Grievous and Irremediable on the radio this morning. I don’t know the exact context. I’m assuming they’re discussing the California end of life option act, the law says you can off yourself with a self-administered death potion if it is determined by an “expert” that you definitely got six months or less to live…and the time you got left will not be pretty. Boomers like me are familiar with this law because somebody we know, or know of, took advantage of it…

Mike McBain, a friend of mine from high school days, self-administered a concoction of drugs and drifted off to sleep and died. I’m thinking peacefully. I wasn’t on hand. All I know is, Mike was a pretty tough dude. Tougher than me. And more gracious. When informed his illness was terminal Mike thanked the doctor! I wasn’t around for his last days but I’m sure as hell Mike didn’t do any griping. He played the cards he’d been dealt like a gentleman. I’m sure, too, as he was about to drink his last cocktail, he felt few if any regrets. There’s a point where howling against the injustice of life becomes an exercise in futility. I’m told a cockroach can live for at least a week after its head’s been decapitated. Does a headless bug spend seven days or more complaining about the injustice of life? I don’t know. I do know that getting by is a cockroach’s primary concern.

There’s a point when you can finally take consolation from no longer needing to get by…

The way I see it, Life is a weird-ass groove on even your worst day. Why not just live your life in the moment? I try to live in the moment. I try. I have trouble. I have trouble living in the moment because, well, because I’m still trying to get by.

My sister’s business partner and close friend, Jim, suffered from Cancer for many years. I knew Jim better than I knew Mike. Jim was another tough Dude. He didn’t end his life with a death potion. He suffered his disease for as long as he could. He refused to give up. They tried to move him from his home into Hospice, but he resisted. I’m thinking he wanted to die in his own bed.

He said, “I’ll die this weekend.”

And he did.

Man! Every time I think of what Jim said I’m blown away. I wish I’d spent more time hanging with Jim. But that’s another deal about life. WISHING is almost as productive as living for a week without a head…

All I’m saying here is…fuck it, I don’t know exactly what I’m saying.

The Free Press is mainly Dirt

Maybe that’s it. I’m just responding to the latest news. The shit I hear on the radio. None of it’s good. When’s the last time you heard something in the media that made you feel good all over? You don’t get that from the news. Unless you’re reading Pravda. The free press is mainly Dirt. The latest dirt, in fact.

The news is like a wall of severed heads.

Every heading’s a sad story…

Horatio Gordon Robley with his mokomokai collection.

wikipedia

Back in the day you could buy a Mokomokai head and display it’s gruesome visage on your trophy shelf. Who knows? Maybe you still can. Seems to me the trade oughta be illegal by now. The Maori people deserve better than to have the heads of their ancestors displayed in curiosity shops.

News Flash!

What if you woke up to this news flash:

Grievous and Irremediable are overturned! As of this moment, all living things will go on living forever in peace and tranquility. Life is now a never-ending bliss. Go about your business. Relax. Take it easy. Just know that from this moment forward you are beautiful, and you will never die. All your friends will live forever, too. Your enemies will become your friends. The lion will lay down with the lamb. Even the crawling things, bugs and worms, will live in peace. Mosquitoes will buzz around but they aint stinging. They’re singing. Life’s a groove and so are you. So Groove on baby!

There’s a word for this kind of beautiful news.

It’s called religion.

Most beautiful news is made-up shit

In some form or another.

The facts of life are usually the opposite. The end is always near. Grievous and Irremediable are real and true and impending.

The best case scenario, the world will come to an end in about one billion years.

Gamma rays from our dying sun will suck the oxygen from our atmosphere bringing an end to all life on our planet. That’s the bad news. The good news, we got a billion years to go. Unless massive asteroids pummel our world to smithereens. A single big one hit us sixty million years ago. That one wiped out all the dinosaurs. A few of them hitting us all at once and we’re all toast.

This is a real possibility.

These images complements of the Astronomy website.

Hit the link and check out their article. They are giving you the real deal.

Meanwhile we continue to suffer and die every minute of every day. That’s also the real deal. That’s what Grievous and Irremediable means. You live with pain and your number’s up no matter how much time you got left.

Embrace your grimness

That’s all you can do.

Life’s a fester. So what? Groove on it. What’s your alternative?

Complain? Gripe? Wallow in your misery?

That a good way to go? Make your friends miserable. I would say the best way to go is like Jim, who said, “I’ll die this weekend,” and kept his word. Go out with a smile. Or like Mike, who thanked his doctor when he got the bad news.

Show some style.

Cuz in the end all you got is your style. Your style is how you take the bad shit. Grace under pressure, Hemingway call it. Courage. Show a little courage. Cuz that’s all you got.

Me, I’m gonna keep going as long as I can.

Even though I know the world will end in about one billion years.

That’s what Grievous and Irremediable means.