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| | Out With the Old | | | | Thursday, January 1, 2009 (6:24 PM) | | It’s not hard to live in denial. It’s the sort of thing that comes in degrees. Mine was of the lowest percentage… more like status quo meets limbo.
I’d spent some time waiting for the other shoe to drop – more than one “other shoe”, to be honest - yet I’d spent nearly as much time trying to lace, and re-lace, them, as I did pretending they’d never fall.
2008 was their year to drop, and they finally hit the floor, but not before giving me a couple of rude kicks upside the head. One lies motionless, already gathering dust. Out of the corner of my eye, the other seems to move, yet appears deceptively still when I look at it straight on. I’m afraid to reach for it. The thought of its imprint still brings tears to my eyes.
Can I make it barefoot through 2009?
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| | Blackout | | | | Friday, November 14, 2008 (6:09 AM) | | How many more of these blackouts can we expect before the the members themselves pull the plug on LiveVideo? Is Live Universe, in fact, a silent partner in Ning? Faith in LiveVideo drops, and another Ning site opens with each new incident. How long before LiveVideo is nothing more than a page of links for the many new sites opened by its own members who grow weary of the diminishing performance standards and reliability of a place they once fondly called home?
I think it's great that our members continue the community spirit they discovered here at LiveVideo. I've probably joined at least a half dozen Ning sites in the last three months, myself. While it may be difficult to maintain a solid commitment to all of those networks, I will try to stay in contact, touching base and bouncing between them as time permits.
If you see a member called Ning Pong Ball, that's probably me. | | | | 95 Views | 4 Thumbs Up | 3 Comments | |
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| | A Sheltered Life? | | | | Wednesday, November 12, 2008 (2:02 PM) | | I wouldn’t say I led a sheltered life as a child. Just like everyone else, the adults I knew were my parents’ friends, neighbors or people I saw at the store. However, I had almost no experience with African-Americans. With few exceptions, blacks lived on the east side of Buffalo, and absolutely not in the suburbs.
If my parents were prejudiced at the time, I wasn’t aware of it. Occasionally, I heard my father refer to a “colored guy” who delivered freight at work (his job was on a loading dock), or a “colored guy” who cut him off while driving, but there were never any tirades about or complaints against blacks.
Buffalo has very few high rise apartment buildings, and there were even fewer when I was a young child in the 1950’s. My aunt and uncle lived in one for a short time when I was about five years old. I remember visiting a couple of times and the last visit was the one time I can remember engaging with a black person, until I ran on the track team in high school.
The apartment building had a playground and large sandbox in the courtyard. I was there with my cousins, but I was the only one of the family playing in the sandbox. I was shaping a mound of sand, most likely into some sort of grand castle, when a young boy, about three or four years old, pushed a small toy car through the side of my creation.
We made frequent visits to the beach on Lake Erie, at Crystal Beach, Ontario, and building in the sand was something I often did with my father. The fact that the sand in the box was dry, and unlikely to form anything substantial, made it no less special to me than the castles I built on the beach. I grabbed a handful of sand and threw it at the boy, who started crying and ran off to his sister, who was playing nearby. My five year old mind immediately dismissed the matter and went back to the work at hand. We left the playground a short time later to go in for dinner.
Before we had a chance to eat, there was a knock at the door. I was immediately called from the table to face the woman at the door, who was ranting about the sand that was thrown into her child’s eyes. She proceeded to tear into my father, calling him a racist for teaching his child to treat colored children that way. After profuse apologies from my father, and a reluctant one extracted from me, the woman and her child left.
I was scolded by my parents and told by my father that I couldn’t go about throwing things at people, and especially at colored people. I understood that I was wrong for throwing the sand, but I puzzled over the “colored” part for quite a while (which, at that age, was probably until the next day). I simply had not noticed a difference. I was protecting my project in the sand from someone rude enough to spoil it.
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My father wasn't outwardly racist, in language or otherwise, but one of the most embarrassing moments in my life was when I was seventeen years old and he told a realtor to never show our house to another couple like the one who had just left. He wasn't going to be the first person in town to sell his house to a "colored" family. I loved him, but he was a product of his times. That sounds like a defensive statement, considering many non-racists came from those times, but it’s a simple statement of fact. For myself, I was not raised to consider blacks in any regard (aside from that one incident as a child). The topic seldom came up – until that day. I could feel my face burning red with embarrassment as my father argued with the real estate agent. It was a defining moment for me.
I cannot say that I have any African-American friends. It’s an opportunity that never presented itself to me. I’ve worked with people I considered to be friends with at work, and who have earned my lasting respect, but they did not become friends outside of work, except to stop for an occasional drink after work. Of course (and why should it be “of course”), I’ve received comments like, “You walked into a bar with a black?! What are you, nuts?!”
So, I’ve encountered plenty of racism, at work and elsewhere. I’ve worked with and beside blacks, and I’ve represented them as a union steward. One of the major complaints against unions is the protection they provide for workers who are anything but workers. That’s not something I will address here. What I will say is that any fault I found with a black co-worker was not automatically attributed by me to their race. I’ve known whites with the same, or worse, character flaws. For me, it’s always been about the individual person.
I hadn’t considered any of this while forming my support for Barack Obama. It only came to mind after reading SillyLeslie’s latest blog, but I assume it plays a part in my acceptance of a black candidate, and soon President, without question. | | | | 68 Views | 4 Thumbs Up | 3 Comments | |
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| | November 4, 2008 | | | | Monday, November 3, 2008 (4:28 PM) | | | I trust all in the States are voting tomorrow. | | | | 74 Views | 4 Thumbs Up | 2 Comments | |
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| | White Knuckle Whiteout | | | | Monday, October 20, 2008 (8:16 PM) | | In response to SillyLeslie's blog about adrenalin and all things weather, I've decided to cut and paste my comment to that blog into one of my own.
I once drove 15 feet behind a semi at 10 miles an hour for 3 hours in a blinding snowstorm on the NY Thruway (I-90).
I have a memory from 12 years ago of an ancient, giant brick building that was once an armory on the Cornell Campus. Dust wafted through the air, suspended in the sunlight that filtered through large windows, high on the walls of that cavernous structure, built 100 years ago as a National Guard Armory and now a state of the art athletic facility.
It was a significant event in my son’s life. He was a high school junior, and he had been running 100, 200 and 400 meters on the track team since he was in eighth grade. He also ran indoor track, where the event distances varied. One exception was the 4x100 relay, and that year his relay team won most of the season’s races. Along the way, they beat their own team record a couple of times and set a league record. Their time in the Sectionals won them a spot at the New York State Indoor Track and Field Championship at Cornell University.
The races I remember clearly. They placed in the first race, winning a spot in the next round. Their time in the second race was one of their best, but some of the teams from downstate were smoking. They had two or three runners on their teams that were as fast as (or faster than) the number one runner on my son’s team, and there was no touching them.
The whole atmosphere, being there with a dozen members from his own team, along with other members of teams he’d run with all season, as well as running with some of the elite runners from New York State, made it a memorable experience for my son.
As I said, I remember the races. The building is a little foggier. I remember the upper heights of the inside of the building as being dimly lit, with those dust motes sparkling in the light that was filtered through filmy windows. It may be a faulty memory though, because I’ve seen recent pictures of that facility, and, as I said, it is state of the art. The pictures I’ve seen even show banked turns on the track, so maybe there have been improvements since 1996.
My memory of the inside of that building has been pushed to the back of my mind by the memory of the trip home. I had gone outside for some fresh air between my son’s first and second races. It was early March, and the ground was dry. The sky was partly cloudy, but it turned to gray quickly, becoming ominous by the time I went back inside. When I went outside after his race, the sky was black, and snow was starting to fall. It was obvious we had to leave soon for the drive home, if we didn’t want to risk being stuck 150 miles from home. The team bus wouldn’t be leaving for at least another hour. We struck out on our own around 4:00 pm.
Going north from Ithaca towards the Thruway, there was 6 inches of snow on the road before we drove 30 miles (on a country highway). My wife kept her window open and "navigated" by watching the ditch alongside the road, since I couldn't see any lines, while I drove about 25 mph for the next 10 miles. The snow let up for the final 10 miles to the Thruway, but started blowing hard again within a half hour, as we headed west.
In the next 3 miles, traffic slowed to 40, then 20 and then to a crawl at 5 mph. After a half hour at that speed, the pace finally increased to 10 mph. At that point I moved from the passing lane and into the right lane, behind that semi – where we stayed for the next 3 hours.
The weather finally let up, and by the time we were within 50 miles of Buffalo, the roads were fairly clear. We parked our van in a suburban mall parking lot and waited for our son's team bus to arrive. After three or four hours of white knuckle driving, that hour and a half nap gave me some much needed rest!
I had the license plate number of that trailer etched in my mind until the middle of summer.
~~~ The next week, my son and I drove back east. We were going to visit Clarkson University, one of the schools my son was considering attending. Clarkson is in Potsdam, north of Watertown, east of Lake Ontario and about as far north as you can get in New York – and frigid. The snowfall we experienced near Ithaca was doubled, or tripled, in Potsdam, and still on the ground. When my son saw the prospect of crossing the quad for breakfast and first class in 10 degree weather – walking past snow piles 10 feet high in March – he said no way. He didn’t care how good the school was.
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| | Sleeping with Grieg | | | | Thursday, September 25, 2008 (9:18 AM) | | Lying in bed, a half-hour after I first fell asleep, I awoke from a dream. It was slipping away, even as I lay there, and I knew I must get out of bed and write it down. If not, it would be lost.
As I started to type, I struggled to bring it back, as it foundered beneath the waves of two other dreams that preceded it.
I went to bed to the music of Edward Grieg. Normally, it takes ten to fifteen minutes for me to fall asleep, but thirteen minutes later I awoke from my first dream.
We were younger, much younger; by thirty-five years, in fact. It was before we were married. We were sitting at a table in the dimly lit dining room of a sumptuous restaurant. All the other tables were empty, with no waiter in sight, but it did not matter, because we were satisfied with the single bowl of soup on the table before us.
We sat close together, with my right arm wrapped around her. As I brought my arm back to my side, I reached for the bowl of ivory porcelain with my left hand and placed it into my right. It was shallow, and perhaps nine inches across, and I held it from beneath. I reached for the spoon, one of delicate silver, and dipped it into the broth that seemed to shimmer within the bowl. Nearly pearlescent, it shifted between silver and gold as I broke the surface with the spoon.
“How odd,” I thought, “that I should be doing this with my left hand.” Yet somehow it seemed natural.
As I raised the spoon to her lips I could see notes float into the air as they left the broth. As the spoon touched her lips, I could feel the glow that spread through her body. I had introduced her to classical music, and the rapture she experienced was unmistakable.
It was then that I awoke for the first time, the last notes of Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor fading away. As the first of Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Morning Mood, started to play, I once again fell asleep. Almost immediately, I was sitting at my mother’s side, trying my best to soothe her worries and fears away. As I gently stroked her arm, I realized she was at peace, and that the worry and fear were my own.
The peace she felt flowed from her arm into mine, and I felt as though my burden had lessened to a small degree. Music played in my mind, as concern for her dissipated with the warmth that flowed into me. My worries for her were gone, but I knew that my fear lay dormant beneath the warmth I felt.
I awoke again, but only briefly; this time to the first notes of Aasses Death. The light of dawn was filtered through a sheer curtain of gauze, so that I seemed to be looking through shadows. The room was one of darkly paneled walls, and I sat in an overstuffed chair of worn, forest green velvet. The lamp on the table beside me threw a pale yellow light through a cream colored shade. Tassels hanging from the shade rustled as I reached across the table for a gilded letter opener lying beneath the lamp.
As I held it before me, I felt the razor sharp edge that glinted even in the pale light and knew that it would serve the purpose. I raised it to my throat, knowing how it would appear should someone happen to enter the room.
But it was not my intent to take my life. Carefully, I drew a fine line, half the length of the blade, to the side of an artery, then laid the opener on the table. No more than a scratch, the cut I made showed a bare trace of blood, forming just one drop in the next few minutes. I let that drop fall onto the green velvet and knew that my fear was gone.
What that fear was I may never know. Before it could speak to me, it was gone. I awoke to the last notes of Aasses Death and left my bed to write this down.
The titles of those last two movements by Grieg seem appropriate for my dreams, but I haven’t read anything about that music in years. It’s a coincidence I’ll be thinking about for a some time.
It’s 4:00 in the morning, and I have been up for an hour-and-a half. I’m heading back to bed now to hear the rest of that Peer Gynt Suite, knowing it will be a while before I’ll have the opportunity to remember my dreams in such detail. | | | | 97 Views | 2 Thumbs Up | 2 Comments | |
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| | Her Smile | | | | Friday, September 19, 2008 (7:32 PM) | | On one of my infrequent visits to the front page today, I noticed that I’m a featured blogger. Go figure. And that must be a thumbnail from the archives that they’re using.
The thing is, I’m an infrequent blogger. I’m too busy thinking about videos, I guess. I need to tell myself it’s not necessary to make a video every other day. Add to that the desire to contribute to VloggerHeads, and before you know it I need a poke in the eye to keep my head from spinning!
Of course, the LiveVideo Offensive (II) has contributed to that. Trying to come up with ideas, making videos, watching videos, and totally missing the efforts of some of my favorites: that’s been the last eight days for me. Fortunately, I have #9 done already, so I have a little room to breathe - and figure out what the hell #10 will be.
The timing for LVO was perfect. Coming after my mother’s funeral, it provided a diversion. I don’t need anything to help me stop thinking about her. That’s not what I want. It gave me another thing to think about – as opposed to something else to think about. There’s a difference.
Dealing with her estate and her belongings, I have plenty of things to remind me of her. I have some things that will never leave the house – once hers, and now mine, they’ll always remind me of her. The grandfather clock I made for my parents as an anniversary present twenty-five years ago has been here for two years, since she came to live at our house. I’ll always think of it as theirs. There are some small items she had in her room. A porcelain hummingbird I gave to her for Christmas one year, framed poems I wrote for her… the sort of things that bring her to mind instantly.
If it sounds like I need those to retain my memory of her, that’s not the case. Over the years, I’ve always tried to do as much for her as I could. It always could have been more, but I think anyone might say the same for himself. There’s never enough time to do the things you want to do.
Something I always made a priority was family gatherings. They weren’t frequent – mostly at the holidays – but I made a point of being there for all of them. Even though my siblings all live in the area (the farthest being fifty miles away), there may have been a half-dozen over the past thirty years that had everyone in attendance. Work schedules, especially for grandchildren with entry level or minimum wage jobs were usually the cause for that. Fortunately, my work schedule never involved weekends.
Those holiday gatherings were important for my mother, especially after my father died. A change in her was evident, and we adopted a practice of the daughter’s preparing the meals, with her help. It was obvious how much it meant to her to have her house filled with people. Her biggest joy was to have the whole family together for the day.
In the last six months, a lot of people have commented on her smile. The secret to that smile was in her eyes, and those gatherings were the times that really lit up her face. She was not very comfortable in her last few months, but a smile always greeted each visitor and each of the aides and nurses who treated her with tenderness - even if her memory had become a casualty of her illness.
Her smile is one memory that will never leave me.
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| | LV is Home | | | | Thursday, September 4, 2008 (12:03 PM) | | LV is still a home base for me. I've done quite a few videos at VloggerHeads, but for the most part they're VH specific. I'm anticipating the art aspect of Viral Video 2 - I hope I won't be disappointed.
Making as many videos as I have for VH in the past four weeks, my blogging has dried up. However, it has shown through in a couple of my vlogs, which I may post here. The feedback here is just as important to me as making the videos - not the volume of comments, but rather the thoughts behind them. I still look to LiveVideo for inspiration.
In reality, my pace at LiveVideo has reached a saner level. Once the novelty of VH wears off, maybe I can maintain that level of sanity.
In addition, the collaborations here, whether or not I’m involved, are something I wouldn’t want to miss. Creativity abounds here – in the solo projects, the photos and the blogs. There are blogs here I wouldn’t want to miss, including those of Syd, flop, sillyleslie and NatureJunkie.
Yeah, porn is porn, but I ignore the LiveShows and pretty much avoid the front page, so I don’t see it. That’s not necessarily turning a blind eye. It disturbs me that it’s becoming the public face of LiveVideo when, to me, the true face belongs to the people who share their thoughts with me.
I still look to LiveVideo for inspiration. | | | | 109 Views | 8 Thumbs Up | 4 Comments | |
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| | Niagara | | | | Friday, August 8, 2008 (11:00 AM) | | I’ve talked about this in videos, but it’s been on my mind lately, so it’s showing up here.
I have this thing for the Niagara River and Niagara Falls. Of course, it shows in my videos, from the Bird Island Pier at Lake Erie to the Fort Niagara lighthouse at Lake Ontario.
| The gorge below Niagara Falls is beautiful, and it’s easy to spend a whole day walking the trails at the bottom of it. Usually, I’m only able to allow three to four hours, including travel time, so I end up short-changing myself. I’ve even gone down into Devil’s Hole knowing I had to be back at the top in an hour. A fast ten minutes down and a fast (and breathless) ten minutes back up, with a good half hour just soaking up the view. It’s worth allowing even that short period of time for that part of the river. |
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| Then there’s Niagara Falls State Park. I could go there three days in a row (and have) spending three hours each day taking pictures (and video). With three different views of the Falls, and dozens of vantage points, it’s never a disappointment. |
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| And the Upper Rapids are just as exciting. Whether it’s along the main shore of the rapids above the Falls, along the edge of Goat Island or at Three Sisters Islands, the sight of that sheer power is enough to draw you in – as it has done, literally, to those without the will to resist. |
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When I have enough time, I cross the Rainbow Bridge into Canada. It’s probably a mile walk across the bridge and back along the gorge to the edge of the Horseshoe Falls for what is probably the most exhilarating view from the top of the gorge. The twenty dollar parking fee is plenty of incentive to make the walk. |
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Back on the American side, the base of the Observation Tower and the Hurricane Deck of the Cave of the Winds, on each side of the American Falls, take you right to the base of the Falls. Leaving with dry clothing is not an option. Another spectacular view from an even lower level can be had on the deck of the Maid of the Mist. There are four boats that can be boarded at the base of the Observation Tower in New York, or from a dock on the Canadian side of the gorge. They take you so close to the base of the Horseshoe Falls that you’d swear a barrel was going to come down on you!
I should have the time to revisit some of these places by September. In the meantime, I recently found some video from October that I never got around to editing. I almost found the time in June, but got sidetracked by real world issues. I’m working on that now, and should have it up today. It’s footage taken from the deck of the Maid of the Mist. It’s a breathtaking ride, and I hope that shows in the video.
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| | Loss of Will | | | | Friday, August 1, 2008 (6:47 AM) | | Life would be so much easier of it was scripted.
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It might be as complex as a Jackson Pollok painting – variables vectoring from nowhere to somewhere, intersecting, even masking each other. A cacophony of action and inaction – all reduced to the dry language of a five hundred word review. |
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Or simple: the terse language of a catalog entry in the Library of Congress, with no hint of the complexities veiled by the sparse landscape of “Our Town”. |
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Heartache? A simple bump in the road.
Grief? A shadow erased with the turn of a page.
The mystery of the light
at the end of the tunnel?
Revealed.
No question of what to do next; what to expect next.
No surprises. A good thing, right?
Or is it?
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Would we simply be characters reduced to black and white on a page, or actors holding a script – with no chance for rehearsal; denied the chance to ad lib? |
Either way, each response to every situation would be out of our control, yet controlled.
– scripted –
The exhilaration of new experiences would be reduced to twenty word footnotes. Passion and sorrow would be as measured as a paragraph allows.
The temptation of a scripted life, when life is overwhelming, pales in the loss of will sacrificed as a result.
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