Song For Everyman

on reflection, deflection, and the onerous burden on shoulders of Joe Biden

So it has come to this and originated in calmer mild dawn light typing calmly enough but gathering like a rain swollen river will up on its banks the flooded watery rush of too many words which needed siphoning off anyways as they usually do, sometimes so intent as to reveal an entire life and its attendant philosophy in a few paragraphs, the pure egocentricity of it all disguised in the artful pose of spontaneous prose which energy and absence of guile meant to seduce with boldness? hmmmmm… I’m bailing fast as i can so as to get to breakfast and thread a theme, the leader, through the diminutive circle of intent at head of a delicately tied dry fly and in low light as time will be telescoped now, the coming conventions, the election waits for no man nor woman and again with this practice, this action as with fooling of trout there lingers the untowardly aura of seduction.

On the day of the disaster and just Thursday which saw a shocking even brutal re-set in terms of many of our liminal strategies, desires, plans for a decent and fair and honest future for not only our nation but the planet i went scouting trout water and alone this time down without the critters down by Iron River. And at first when i came here sorting thru the ecstatic recognition of love in a landscape and its history, human and otherwise, absorbing the general geography it took awhile to disentangle Iron River from Ironwood to its north, Iron Mountain to the east not to mention how many Salmon -Trout or Sturgeon rivers have been confusingly interspersed in this relatively small if teeming with waters regional solitude. I mean: REALLY!!??!? My bastardised pronunciation of towns like Ontonagon, Lanse, Toivola aside and all the while setting up camps in state forests as close to vault toilets as possible as i was then 64 now 67 and my hips started grinding after a day of hiking beneath hemlock and cedar and white pine woods in waders using the sun as a compass, calibrating path back to abandoned truck by noting deadfall and weaving thru forest of a gravel smoothed stream which never runs straight for very long.

3 years now since i first set foot on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and came to own a piece of it and like most hard-won things which do not disappoint in their attainment it drew me into its confidence, accepted me for my world-weary survival skills and chief among them finding wonder whenever and wherever in a place that resonated and so deeply and the self set aside in brief intervals anyways, its habitual seeking of creature comforts and grasped at more greedily, urgently pressed against this ageing process, the solid granite of an unyielding cliff face, mortality. But connections made with a laughter after the years of self-recrimination, worthless regret, devoid of the former protective sarcasm which once guarded against insecurity, a genuine recognition and appreciation of the absurdity of life, the distracting veneer stripped away to uncover hidden treasure of the substrate, the base, the gratefulness of being alive.

Liberated from the dogs for a day who have been never far from arm’s reach and for a few months now but whose absence coincident with gentle sway of Tacoma’s motion feeling its way tenderly down a a car’s width forest trail looking for a north branch of a river glistening behind a thick impenetrable tangle of alders, spring growth of fern enmeshed around roots and happily discovering where a south branch fed into it but too deep to fish as the rain which has bracketed much of the 2 months work so far on the home has nowhere to go in the soggy earth and at first in May when i landed again to a newer reality on a balky knee which at night felt like a spike was driven thru it, a shoulder peripherally lame and not allowing the strumming of a guitar for long nor god forbid the spontaneous lifting of heavy inanimate objects or budging much a round small sturdy dog whose weighty solid if sneaky slumber keeps one pinned to edge of mattress like a brittle leaf awaiting tumble down a waterfall’s chute to floor in the night and the immediate perception of what has just been and will be accomplished slowly seeping into a dreamworld which comes as a complimentary free add-on to the paid-in-full awareness of waking hours and that dragging weight of self-consciousness which always seems to demand more.

And frankly i had anticipated, relished the drama of it all this debate, this debacle in making, the American Best Western version of a cowboy movie now sluiced through the ease of our electronic limp-wristed attention spans. This goaded through the first part of week and some challenges and the craving grew even more accentuated due to having been born the only son of a man whose competitive instinct knew no boundary into a sports and politics crazed Boston Mass. and for extra irony on November 3, 1956. in Salem as well for any who may suspect something ummmm darker beneath….And i’d give you credit for that.

Weaned from birth by a coach a teacher with the expectation of exultant victory, immunised against if still scarred by acceptance of unbearable loss as well the middle child of a mother whose empathetic evolving socialist soul marked me as well with a shared interest in the bloodsport surrounding power. Without the two vigorous young animals jostling for position in the front bucket seat and infuriatingly if somehow gratifying by their affectionate need blocking my side mirrors as they do, thrusting wildly curious snouts in my face prior to barking wildly when they spot a doe springing up out of ubiquitous forest and usually trailed this time of year by diminutive white-spotted fawn which recall toy horses stashed absently on some child’s bookshelf now come startlingly to life i contemplated the evening ahead. Without all that distraction i had a day and a splendid one of blue sky bequeathed by if not wrested from the fickle gods of summer who bracket such days in this north with rain from the heavens like thunderbolts as reminder of their dominion. I called Kimmee in Marquette and regaled her for an hour before the magic hour came and abruptly cut her off and she laughed but with tolerance.

I am writing this now after that day which found an abundance of discovery and re-connection both human and natural and another of reading the front page of the New York Times pleading with/for Joe to step down something i felt like a gut punch the second i perceived Joe Biden on my lap-top and with as much trepidation as my internet connection here robotically propelling himself to the podium as calcified and stiff as any fossil might be encased in grey folded edges of Cambrian rock. And having my own suspicions justified immediately after the fiasco when i pulled up Alex Wagner’s drawn and horrified face on cell phone, the one MSNBC front-man(woman) delivering with fearless compassion the first of a growing tragic chorus of what we all had intimately perceived, the coming of a decision which can never be forced on a man who deserves every ounce of compassion and privacy and respect as even at my age 15 years younger and pathetic in comparison with his ludicrously larger and exponentially challenging daily chores of KEEPING OUR SHIT TOGETHER as i have daily moments of forgetfulness and not even a job but working for myself: the running water in sink for an hour, a small radiant heater left on, or a stove burner, keys left in truck draining battery, walking into a room full of my still unpacked stuff and wondering: “why did i just come in here, what was i looking for??!@#!?”, even with all that this charade was willingly nurtured. I was raised to believe in and look up more authoritative, poised, photogenic people IF they showed proof of life imaginatively, intellectually. Last night after a rainy day of some brooding and reading and small outreach i waited patiently for Lawrence O’Donnell and his show “The Last Word” to see how his maturely evolved take differed from my own or co-incided and him truly Boston raised with a BA from Harvard and wrote for the Harvard Lampoon and rather than a scrrpt writer and actor on ”The West Wing” i have always felt calmed in his familiarity to my own roots, ie he could have been a beat reporter for the Celtics or the Bruins more likely, his Irish Catholic roots and sociability no doubt in South Boston, Charlestown bars. I was prepared earlier by Ari Melber who must have talked to Lawrence prior and started in on how life is not a “screen-play” insinuating that our expectations of replacing Joe Biden are a result of too many Netflix shows consumed and that the even less-viewed and brief but now fabled appearance by Joe with aid of teleprompter in N.C. was somehow a precursor to slowly grinding this nightmare to dust in the endlessly churning oblivion of the news cycle. I could see it in his eyes his own dubious self-delusion but can excuse that and even Lawrence’s trotting out of low debate viewing numbers as a bone to throw at whatever genuine deep hearted sympathy and yes respect for the Biden body of work. All that said im cribbed from yesterdays Times every last morsel but today have refrained from the no doubt minute to minute changing landscape of todays news but will consume it ravenously as an opiate immediately and perhaps prematurely (what else is new?) upon hitting “post to all concerned blah blah blah” of this ummmmm “content”.

i am not content. This is a decision Joe Biden must make with his family and close friends and with every scrap of dignity due to him. I do not believe he is senile but he has exceeded all generous boundaries of hope this performance can ever be unseen and if he stays in the race it will play on an endless tortured loop which even video of his syphillitic nemesis buggering an under-age school girl will have zero affect on altering the fact he would be handingTrump the election on a golden (years) platter. I am tempted to say “we all know what a Trump Presidency means” but we do not. Not even close. It will be a waking nightmare and i’m not even sure turning my head to face upstream will do any good. But one can try.

It was in Burlington in 1981 when Bernie Sanders really started to get going. I was bit player in all that and the run-up but i was there. Its not unlikely i will be here in Michigan this fall and even less a force as i can only vote in Florida (fuck!) and i dont do that shit anymore when Gretchen Whitmer cashes in her goodwill chips an delivers this crucial electoral state. For herself. Its time for risk taking and legacy making and depriving evil of oxygen. Joe must withdraw on his own terms or risk his legacy being that of a damaging hubris which in combination with being in too close to his opponent to administering the sort of stunning body blows Whitmer could and will if given the chance seduced him and that seduction being the worst of all, pride.

Obama has correctly and humanely and for now as a man like Lawrence been caught in fine predicament. It is left to those on the periphery, my humble self included, the inner circles and great unwashed both and all hands and hine-ends on deck, all who can persuade a half dozen votes to declare with unrestrained agony not of trepidation or agony but resolve, end this soon and begin it even sooner.