Lost at Sea

No, I haven't actually been anywhere--not physically, anyway, but were it not for two extremely kind, gracious, and supportive readers, Michele and Robin, I probably wouldn't even be posting here right now. Not for any lack of things to say: I've come up with, and in some cases have written all or most of, half a dozen blog entries. It's just that nothing ever got completed, and time went by, and you know how reality is. Especially in the holiday season, and especially when you've got kids and Santa to think about.

One of the first things I had planned to write, and actually did write, was a response to all the interesting comments on my previous post. I wanted to make it clear to those who had served in the armed forces that I absolutely respect the sacrifices of those in uniform during that time--it just so happens that my own tour of military duty in the early 1980s was exceedingly uneventful.

And I also wanted to address Bad Alice's comments on the aforementioned post, comments that reflect an opinion all too prevalent among those of us born after World War II--the idea that Communism was never more than a phantasm, a boogeyman. In fact Communism was probably worse than Nazism, both in simple numbers--if you added up all the deaths of the Holocaust and the war Hitler started, it still wouldn't approach the death toll left behind by Stalin, Mao, and others--and in its insidious appeal. It's pretty hard to imagine a decent, sane, rational human being embracing race-hatred, whereas the precepts underlying Communism are still routinely described as "a beautiful idea." (For some concrete stats on death tolls, see my friend Rudy Rummel's site. Rummel is a retired professor whose work on the subject of democide--his term--has earned him a number of accolades, including a Nobel Peace Prize nomination.)

Oh, and I do have to mention another subject about which I wrote pages and pages and pages before realizing that I had far exceeded the purview of a blog entry. The impetus was the film Grey Gardens, a 1975 documentary depicting two down-and-out relatives of Jacqueline Bouvier living in gilded squalor among the mansions of East Hampton, Long Island. There is so much to say about that story--about madness and missed opportunities and codependence and the aristocratic mindset--that all I can do is heartily recommend the film to anyone who's interested in experiencing a certain type of beauty-in-ugliness.

Actually, I had started out the Grey Gardens post not so much to write about the film itself as about the last thing in the preceding paragraph: the beauty to be found in stained, marred things. It's an idea that underlies many a great piece of writing, music, and visual art. In that vein, I might have discussed the story of Big Star, one of my all-time favorite groups, whose first-ever book-length bio came out in late September. Or if you don't have the time or interest for that, listen to a couple of the sweetest songs on their strange and unforgettable third album: "For You," for instance, is impossible not to like, and remains one of my children's favorite good-night songs. Or "Blue Moon"--not the "Blue Moon," but a song every bit as memorable as the more famous one.

Well, I could certainly write more, but that's the thing about blogging: sometimes you have to stop writing and post the dang thing. So--many, many thanks to Michele and Robin, and I promise I won't let a year go by before I post again. That's a promise I'm sure I could keep, though I don't suppose I would have retained any readers at all by then--even those two exceptionally supportive ones I've mentioned. Okay, I won't let a whole season go by... or a month. Maybe, then again, I'll post next week. Who knows? That's one of the interesting things about life. As Indiana Jones says at one of the most desparate, adrenaline-pounding moments in Raiders of the Lost Ark--at least, it was very exciting the first dozen or so times I saw that movie--"I'm making this up as I go along."