Hanks Ongoing Future

Hanks future arrived the other day. He’s in it right now.

It’s raining out. The windows are still open in a last attempt at forgetting it’s late fall, but the ‘a bit more than cool’ breeze blowing in won’t even allow that illusion any longer. You see Hanks future came with a certain amount of clarity. At least, he told himself, he had seen it coming.

In his moments of self professed clarity he would often see himself lying in an almost empty, carpeted room. There was an strange sense of order that came from the emptiness he found himself surrounded with. Within himself he felt a void that he couldn’t precisely place though it seemed rooted in a nostalgia for something that never existed. At times it came with the warmth and odor of a woman. Though that could have been just a whiff of the birthing process that he pictured himself in.

Hank readily acknowledged that he was a victim of false promises and exaggerated claims. He was less forthright with the fact that on occasion it had been him at the origin of those claims and promises. Whatever their origin, there was no longer any denying he had been living a clouded existence filled with noise and bluster.

Now there was no more psychiatric babble or ladder climbing dancers. This was the future. He was in it. It was as silent as death. It was dark and fecund. There was only the sound of breathing. In Hanks case that was a rasping, rattling, in and out that kept weakly pronouncing that something was still clinging to life.

In this future it was silent. Hank was alone. After one, there was nothing left to count. In his exagerrated states Hank would pass the time counting – one, one, one, one… just until it became limitless. He would feel exalted, graced, but eventually he had to stop. Immediatly a wave of nostalgia would wash in and Hank realized clarity had come with a stiff price.

Breath in, breath out. Breathing in the pain was like diving under a wave. It washes over and another is before you. Dive under again, and there’s another, over and over again. In this future it’s all he could do, breath in breath out.

Hope it would pass. Hope it would get better. Hope grace would be bestowed. Hope in, hope out. Limitless.

Seamlessly Integrating Endless Conflict - for Fun and Profit

I just friended my childhood sweet-heart on facebook. Drole le vie, je dit ca parce que je suis en train de making moves on my current gal at this very moment. In short it made me think of something to do with determining the critical path. But that isn’t what I want to tell you.

I friended the old neighborhood girl and then went to check out her story on facebook. Not much different than most, husband, kids, friends, family. Her son is in the army somehow and there was a post that he was away somewhere learning to fire a FGM-148 Javelin. It’s a shoulder fired missile. There was a video attached from you-tube which showed a field demonstration of the latest Raytheon/Lockheed Martin (Hughes/Martin Marietta) must have weapon. Wow.

Thinking back to my childhood and that sweet little girl up the street, I remembered that having fireworks gave you a standing on the block. The bigger they were the higher your standing. Fireworks were good for getting girls. But at the time fireworks were not so much illegal, as expensive. So after seeing that rocket fired I was curious how much that little FMG-148 Javelin missile was costing us. And really what was the son of my childhood crush doing so far from his home blowing up expensive vehicles of someone he doesn’t know.

Well the cost was, of course, enormous - $125,000 for the launcher and $40,000 per missile, plus the support and repair and blah blah blah. In any case since the first missile came online in 1996 there have been approximately 30,000 missiles produced and the total project cost has been $4,5 Billion dollars.

But that isn’t that shocking. Just like banks receiving billion dollar benefits, it's just how it is nowadays, and who are we to ask how or why. What I came across looking for the cost of this little military jewel (it does has rave reviews from its producers and end users) was, however, a bit more shocking, .

Smell this – it stinks.

I googled: FMG-148 Javelin cost. The second hit had a figure in it and I went there for more detail. It turned out to be the Call of Duty Wiki site.
Call of Duty (a series running since 2003) is the popular video war game all the kids play on the x-box and playstations etc. (it’s 2010 edition - Call of Duty/Black Op’s - held the record for the largest ever entertainment launch in history for any form of entertainment. Sales from the game worldwide reached US$650 million within five days after its release. That record was broken by Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.). This video game site has all the detailed info for playing at full action. The players go to this site to learn how to use the weapons to ‘improve’ their game.

There it is - the FMG-148 Javelin – in the game it looks like and is called exactly the same as in the battlefield. The site shows how to use it and in what scenarios it is most efficient. The description of the weapon and it’s highly detailed use in ‘game’ situations is coldly similar to the description and field use laid out in the Raytheon/Lockheed Martin web site.

Suddenly I saw the young son of my old flame and hundreds like him responding to the growling sergeant assigning positions. “Sure I’ll do it, I already know how.”

It dawned on me as I read this how sick we have become. We have been buying our kids expensive games so they can sit in their rooms not only being totally desensitized to killing but actually training for war with real life weapons in actual combat scenarios. It's too complexly integrated for it to be an accident, and so the question is always begging – who is it profiting from this illness.

Wonderful. P2

I made the call from Heathrow on the transfer from Paris to Newark. I got my brother. He said the word - - my father had already flown out. I had, would upon my arrival have, missed him. He had been teetering on the precipice for months, I had misjudged his balance. He had fallen hours before I arrived. He fell silently, smoothly, everything in order. My presence, in the end, would have been for me. It’s the desire to see our kith and kin before they depart on grand voyages.

I thought about you today in the vines, it’s funny how present you’ve become in your super-flowering state, you command attention with your balancing act. I was working my way through the rows, taking out any, and I thought all, unnecessary growth when I came across a small birds nest built within one of the vines.

Oh. Four tiny brown speckled eggs huddled in a nest intricately woven within the new shoots. Alive - delicate, precise, against all odds, and yet there it was, and for the moment full of life. Ah - there you are.

When your friend and I had put together our little book of sweet smiles and you had critically given it a good look I remembered you being in disaccord with my statement that the beauty that surrounds us is less staggering than the beauty we can imagine. At the time I countered with my blasphemous reasoning, but upon seeing that nest today, so wonderously there, I suddenly became conscious that you were right. We are incapable of imagining something so unexpected and perfect – beautiful - in it’s being.

I spend a short moment with awe, and you, bonheur. I smiled out loud, then went on with my work. Did you hear me screaming your name – P.......

Do you hear me whispering it now – peace.

Falling Slowly Down the Stairs. P1

I didn’t get a call at 3 :30 in the morning telling me that you had fallen, coming up/or going down the stairs we will never be sure of, and were not going to make it back to the plane we were flying on together.

Your call came in the early evening, though it seems like gravity has started pulling you down to your cellar floor too. From what you say, it sounds like you may be booking flight on the same plane my sister is on.

It seems the most shocking thing that can happen.

We pre-view so much, but there are some things that happen out of our fixed order. It bamboozles on fundamental levels. The future becomes limited. Time appears finite. The sense of loss/losing is unrelenting and sorrowful. I wish I could help you, but I am limited to thinking of you. The veil has opened to you, and only you know what that conjures up.

You may not know it but you have spared us. Kindly given to us the luxury of watching you, listening to you, feeling stunned along with you as you stumble slowly on the stairway. Your balance right now seems so tenuous. I am helpless to aid you regain it, in only that sense our frustration may be equal.

I am hoping for you, not even that you don’t tumble and fall, because we all do that eventually, but just hoping that if you do fall, the trip down isn’t so painful, that you are aware, and knowing that you are loved, and that you are LOVE.

I am so sad to hear of the route your trip calls for, I was really looking forward to seeing you.

If you need anything -

profit.

Just to Prove I'm Alive, I Will Send Out a Missive...

Just to prove I'm alive, I will send out a missive...

Contemporary news... forget Japan, forget Libya, forget your inherent bonheur, Osama is Dead.
The word is out and the crowd is cheering the news! It's shaping up to be the happiest news since the great wall of iron rusted down when I was a boy.

Luckily I had my rendez-vous already in place at the U.S. embassy in Marseille to renew the kids passports. Worldwide heightened security and all. It's the last time they will need me to be present with them. It's times like this we are happy to be together. Marseille - the ancient port of shakanary and the American embassy that's been doing business there for some two hundred years. It's always a fun time, though with everyone at serious giddy level red it may be less so if they want to get technical about the photographs I've got (I took them at a photo booth for 3 bucks in lieu of the 20 buck official photographer), or then again more so (if they have a military helicopter hovering overhead, or even stationed on the top of the building).

Official government channels, they are our only remaining religious liturgy. Mysterious and exciting, damning or joy giving, they have it all. Or should I say they HAD it all. It seems like no one likes it visceral anymore. I mean, what's up with Osama Bin Laden. Will we see Osama dead, or do we just have to take the bosses word. Old school government channels had it we paraded the body through the streets. I realize we are civilized now but at least give us some blurry night vision navy seal helmet-cam video of the raid.

It seems like we are giving up everything and getting nothing back, it's so Vatican II. We are getting nothing. This story about throwing the body into the sea and all, how about at least a shot of that. The Heroic Seal with the corpus corporis at the door of the helicopter. The dead body shot would give a nice sort of closure to this whole disheartening chapter in the Al Queda story which is threatening to run longer then the entire Star Wars saga.

In any case, after cutting back the vines all winter, they have started growing again and are now demanding more cutbacks, so after the big day today with Osama literally dis-appearing, and the high security trip to Marseille tomorrow, it's back to the vines Wednesday. I thank Big Daddy for that, plants growing is the only old time religion I can get these days.

Everyday In the Vines

Ca arrive.
Aujourd'hui c'etait le tour de la femme du vigneron.
11:55 CET.
Moi, je passait le après-midi dans le vigne seule.

:::::

It happens.
Today it was the vignerons wifes turn.
11:55 am CET.
I spent the afternoon in the vigne alone.

Round and Round We Go

It’s time for the taille.

I’m in the vines again snipping and stripping at migrant wages. Like the taxi, which I’ve left behind for nostalgia to consume, the vines have the endless, repetitive, back and forth that draws me in. I am drawn to constant motion that goes nowhere. It allows me look around, inside and out.

It can get scary, like boots caked with icy mud. Cold wind all day long making you beg for the end of the shift. Or it can get beautiful, like a thin sliver of moon starting to shine in a newly night blue sky as the workday ends. Often it’s a mix of the two and I’m free to choose which side I glance towards. That’s when the choice of regard becomes critical.

The souche and my thoughts.
There’s a digression that goes on. A weaning away of the wasted distractions that suck energy for wild and unproductive growth. That’s what we are doing in the vines, getting the growth into the position that leads to a healthy, productive direction.

What can I say, it’s taille time again. It’s all I do. Wake, work, sleep. And perhaps something in between that is saturated with the thought of waking, working and when I can get to sleep.

But I digress, I wanted to tell you what I saw the other morning. It’s one of those moments that doesn’t lead in a productive direction because it already is in itself perfect. It needs nothing. It leads nowhere. It just is. It is direct, without distraction.

I am doing the taille. Cutting the vines back. The vines are carried on 3 horizontal lines of metal wire that are strung along the 100 yard rows on 10 metal poles. We cut the growth back to the vine stump which runs along the lowest wire.

It is December 7th. 8:30 am. Latitude 43.6291. 1° centigrade. In other words, it is cold and the sun is just rising. I am standing in the mud and the myth of southern france. I am starting my day of work. It will end when this same sun sets at 5:15 pm. But that is the end and this is just the beginning.

At this moment (that moment now), all along the now empty wires of the rows we have cut yesterday are drops of water. Each in perfect suspension and lined up one against the other along the wires. Frozen solid in their ‘drop’ form, they are back lit by the just rising sun and are gleaming. Thousands of drops of frozen water lined up like gleaming jewels row upon row just to the horizon.

For a moment I think of nothing else. Stunned by the perfection of the cold muddy world I am in.