“The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A Death! What’s that, a bonus? I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you’re too young, you get a gold watch, you go to work. You work forty years until you’re young enough to enjoy your retirement. You do drugs, alcohol, you party, you get ready for high school. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last nine months floating…
…and you finish off as an orgasm.”
George Carlin—1937-2008
June 2008, the month George Carlin died, featured all this and more: GM’s stock plummeted to its lowest in 54 years, just under $10 a share. Ford’s stock price sunk close to $4 a share. Gas was about $4.25 a gallon, food prices had risen 50-300% in the last year. Business Week published an article, “Michigan: Epicenter of Unemployment,” (Business Week, David Kiley, June 24, 2008) documenting the personal pain in a state that leads the country in joblessness.
You might wonder what George Carlin would say if you could ask him about gas prices over $4.00 a gallon, a shrinking economy, a dying domestic auto industry, or a banking system that is reeling from losses, while two political candidates toss out changing platitudes that seem to originate in a lost world. He would probably smirk with an I-told-you-so look and make some comment using one of his “seven dirty words” about the U.S. If he hadn’t died from heart failure last month, he might have quoted himself, “Some people see things that are and ask, Why? Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don’t have time for all that…”
Carlin was one of the few public celebrities who actually talked straight. Whether you loved him or hated him, he said what others were afraid to say. He analyzed words and their usage, he disparaged all types of politicians and every form of religion, and wasn’t afraid to rail on the United States when he felt like it. Very little escaped his sarcasm or wrath and even if you cringed, you could laugh or at least sense some bit of truth in his words.
First, we lost Tim Russert, another straight talker who was respectful and polite when he tried to keep politicians honest. With the death of George Carlin, who are we going to turn to when we want the truth? Not the “straight talker,” John McCain or his opponent, Barack Obama, who both sound like standard cutout politicians.
We are left with a void. Now, it’s time to fill it.
Onward and upward with the adventures of Aggman…
It was not a typical Father’s Day in America. Sunday, June 15, 2008 became a day of mournful celebration. The morning began for me and millions of others viewing NBC and its’ Today Show, not normally shown on Sunday. This was followed by a Meet the Press that started by displaying an empty desk, the desk that Tim Russert had occupied for the last seventeen years. America’s preeminent “ television newsman” and writer of two best-selling books about fathers died on Friday the 13th, two days before Father’s Day.
Once the three bells and distinctive brass instruments of the theme song from Today sounded on CNBC on my XM radio in my work office on Friday afternoon, I went home and watched TV news coverage on MSNBC, CNN, and NBC, transfixed by the recurring images of Russert from Meet the Press, his election day assignments, from his cable talk show, as well as photos of Tim’s wife and son, Luke, and his father, “Big Russ,” in a constant loop. His handwritten words, “Florida, Florida, Florida,” written on a white chalkboard on Election Night 2000, was shown at least a dozen times.
When a public figure that we spend more time with than our extended family dies, we feel a sudden chilling loss. When that someone is a person as exuberant, passionate, influential, and memorable as Tim Russert, the loss seems so much harder.
I myself could hardly budge from my chair over the weekend. On Father’s Day, I hardly felt like celebrating. My father’s health has been slowly weakening in the last two years; my father-in-law has Parkinson’s disease and has had insomnia for months, and this week is discussing his funeral. I am 51 years old, have gained 20 pounds in the last year, have high cholesterol, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure. Over the Father’s Day weekend, my mood was exceptionally low.
Tim died at work when a cholesterol plaque dislodged and ruptured, causing an occlusive coronary thrombus in his left anterior descending artery. He had turned 58 five weeks and two days earlier.
Tim was one of my heroes, honest, hard-working, passionate, devoted to his family, country, and Catholic religion. He laughed and joked and cared about kids. He wanted Americans to know the truth about our politicians, our candidates. He grilled them on Meet the Press each week, always “taking the other side.” He may have been friendly and respectful but he made each guest accountable for their own words and actions, past and present.
He was the ultimate son and father, loving, proud, always striving to communicate honestly and simply. What we thought, Tim said; what we felt inside, Tim showed outside on his face and with his tongue. Now, it’s too late for any more of his interviews and words. We are left to watch TV footage and read his books to get a dose of his exuberance and joy.
On Father’s Day, we realized that we had lost one of the fathers of television news. He was like a father to many of his viewers and we trusted him to help take care of our country like a father should.
Now, we can wander aimlessly, trying to learn from his life. “Go get ‘em,” he would tell his news reporters in the Washington Bureau that he managed. Now, we have to imagine him saying, “Go get ‘em” to us. Can we strive to be courageous, honest, passionate, and still believe in our country? One of Tim’s favorite phrases was “What a country!” Will we in America strive like Tim to prepare every day for work, for life, to believe that if we give every thing we have, we might reach a higher level?
The old catchphrase when Michael Jordan was winning championships for the Chicago Bulls was, “Be Like Mike.” Today, the mantra spinning in my mind is, “Be like Russ.” Not the Big Russ who was Tim’s dad, the man who inspired him by taking care of four kids by working two jobs, just quietly being a good father who worked and lived with honor. Russ to me and so many more is Tim Russert, and what I remember so clearly is his big smile, the way he cajoled the people he talked with to come clean and be honest about themselves.
Tim Russert was a devout Catholic but I can’t think of any public or private figure who radiated the definition of menschkeit more than Tim. He was “admired, respected, and trusted because of a sense of ethics, fairness, and nobility;” he was just a fundamentally decent and good person.
Without ever meeting him, I can still relate to Tim as a mentor. His passionate enthusiasm for America, families, and life was contagious. His smile was broad, his excited intelligence was exhilarating, and his caring for so many others was inspiring. If I can live the next seven years aspiring to the legacy of Russert, I would be satisfied to drop dead at 58. If I can live with the passion, love, and joy of “Little Russ,” I will count my life as a “noble” success.
This is my first weblog. I will post some of my older essays that haven’t been seen and then I will print some newer pieces. I hope to make this site inviting and interesting. Hope you enjoy it.
It was not a typical Father’s Day in America. Sunday, June 15, 2008 became a day of mournful celebration. The morning began for me and millions of others viewing NBC and its’ Today Show, not normally shown on Sunday. This was followed by a Meet the Press that started by displaying an empty desk, the desk that Tim Russert had occupied for the last seventeen years. America’s preeminent “ television newsman” and writer of two best-selling books about fathers died on Friday the 13th, two days before Father’s Day.
Once the three bells and distinctive brass instruments of the theme song from Today sounded on CNBC on my XM radio in my work office on Friday afternoon, I went home and watched TV news coverage on MSNBC, CNN, and NBC, transfixed by the recurring images of Russert from Meet the Press, his election day assignments, from his cable talk show, as well as photos of Tim’s wife and son, Luke, and his father, “Big Russ,” in a constant loop. His handwritten words, “Florida, Florida, Florida,” written on a white chalkboard on Election Night 2000, was shown at least a dozen times.
When a public figure that we spend more time with than our extended family dies, we feel a sudden chilling loss. When that someone is a person as exuberant, passionate, influential, and memorable as Tim Russert, the loss seems so much harder.
I myself could hardly budge from my chair over the weekend. On Father’s Day, I hardly felt like celebrating. My father’s health has been slowly weakening in the last two years; my father-in-law has Parkinson’s disease and has had insomnia for months, and this week is discussing his funeral. I am 51 years old, have gained 20 pounds in the last year, have high cholesterol, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure. Over the Father’s Day weekend, my mood was exceptionally low.
Tim died at work when a cholesterol plaque dislodged and ruptured, causing an occlusive coronary thrombus in his left anterior descending artery. He had turned 58 five weeks and two days earlier.
Tim was one of my heroes, honest, hard-working, passionate, devoted to his family, country, and Catholic religion. He laughed and joked and cared about kids. He wanted Americans to know the truth about our politicians, our candidates. He grilled them on Meet the Press each week, always “taking the other side.” He may have been friendly and respectful but he made each guest accountable for their own words and actions, past and present.
He was the ultimate son and father, loving, proud, always striving to communicate honestly and simply. What we thought, Tim said; what we felt inside, Tim showed outside on his face and with his tongue. Now, it’s too late for any more of his interviews and words. We are left to watch TV footage and read his books to get a dose of his exuberance and joy.
On Father’s Day, we realized that we had lost one of the fathers of television news. He was like a father to many of his viewers and we trusted him to help take care of our country like a father should.
Now, we can wander aimlessly, trying to learn from his life. “Go get ‘em,” he would tell his news reporters in the Washington Bureau that he managed. Now, we have to imagine him saying, “Go get ‘em” to us. Can we strive to be courageous, honest, passionate, and still believe in our country? One of Tim’s favorite phrases was “What a country!” Will we in America strive like Tim to prepare every day for work, for life, to believe that if we give every thing we have, we might reach a higher level?
The old catchphrase when Michael Jordan was winning championships for the Chicago Bulls was, “Be Like Mike.” Today, the mantra spinning in my mind is, “Be like Russ.” Not the Big Russ who was Tim’s dad, the man who inspired him by taking care of four kids by working two jobs, just quietly being a good father who worked and lived with honor. Russ to me and so many more is Tim Russert, and what I remember so clearly is his big smile, the way he cajoled the people he talked with to come clean and be honest about themselves.
Tim Russert was a devout Catholic but I can’t think of any public or private figure who radiated the definition of menschkeit more than Tim. He was “admired, respected, and trusted because of a sense of ethics, fairness, and nobility;” he was just a fundamentally decent and good person.
Without ever meeting him, I can still relate to Tim as a mentor. His passionate enthusiasm for America, families, and life was contagious. His smile was broad, his excited intelligence was exhilarating, and his caring for so many others was inspiring. If I can live the next seven years aspiring to the legacy of Russert, I would be satisfied to drop dead at 58. If I can live with the passion, love, and joy of “Little Russ,” I will count my life as a “noble” success.
The video game, Halo 3, set an opening-day US sales record of $170 million, outdoing any video game or movie debut.
When a troop member in a flak jacket, goggles, and helmet who looked like Halo 3’s Master Chief approached me in the summer of 2006 with a bungee rope, I did nothing. As three friends seated next to me at Cirque Du Soleil’s Love show at the Las Vegas Mirage told me to hold on, I laughed and thought twice. Should I take the rope? If I grabbed it from his hands, would I be flung like the rest of the circus members to the top of the ceiling, watch my hands slip off the rope and fall to the ground below? It’s the dream I’ve often had, the one in which I fall inexorably to the hard earth below.
In a daydream last October, imaging Saltimbanco by Cirque Du Soleil at the Breslin Center in East Lansing, I envisioned something stranger. An unicyclist was riding on a thin rope, holding a long horizontal bar for balance, far above my family and I seated in the front row. We stared, amazed at his skill as he turned the bar vertically to catch plates that came flying at him from all angles. He caught every plate while he propelled his one wheel faster and faster.
In my dream, the spinning plates came in multiple colors with the words fluorescent underneath: Halo 3 Xbox, Blackwater Iraq, O.J. Thomas, Blackberry iPhone, Mac Book Leopard, Subprime Housing, Dow Record, Iran War, Nuclear Pakistan, California Fires, and China Lead Paint. The plates spun faster until they become an indistinct blur.
Everything’s a blur today in its scattered headlines. President Bush, not content with just the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, recently commented, “I’ve told people that if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, than it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing (Iran) from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.” Newsweek, in its October 29th issue, claimed that “the most dangerous nation in the world isn’t Iraq” or Iran. “It’s Pakistan,” where “Islamic militants have spread beyond their tribal bases, and have the run of an unstable, nuclear-armed nation.” In the same issue, Fareed Zakaria (“Stalin, Mao and …Ahmadinejad?) wrote, “Here is the reality. Iran has an economy the size of Finland’s and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?”
Really now, how many Americans are worried about starting another war? The Iraq War has featured less bombs and bloodshed in the last few months and the stock market has been within its record highs. Yes, a barrel of gas is still worth over $90 a barrel and Merrill Lynch and Citigroup have both fired their CEOs and written down mortgage-based assets of over 20 billion dollars, far more than Iran’s defense budget. The stocks of Chinese companies have risen like internet companies of the late nineties even with all of the news of lead-tainted toys and hazardous food exported to the United States. The headlines have come so fast that we forget who Blackwater is: a private company that has made millions in Iraq while sacrificing a few innocent Iraqi women and children.
In Michigan, we’re wondering what kind of new taxes we’re actually going to pay. In another state, fires rages across Southern California, burning down houses, driving a million people from their homes. A lack of rain and water in most of the western and southern states is causing havoc in much of the country. A friend in Atlanta has said that the state has flown in Indian guides to perform rain dances as a last desperate option in a time of unprecedented drought. Maybe the Georgians should move to Michigan. Michigan’s new motto could be, “We welcome refugees of fire and drought to our state to replace all those who’ve left. We need someone to pay for the new taxes.”
But why worry? We don’t have as tough a life as Clarence Thomas or O.J. Simpson but we can imagine we do. We can sit back and read the new books by Justice Thomas of the Supreme Court telling how he has been “railroaded” into one of nine guaranteed a place on the Supreme Court for life. We can watch O.J. Simpson on Court TV again and remember a more innocent time while we watched the daily O.J. trial, imagining how O.J. actually did it. Now, the Goldmans have been awarded rights to Simpson’s “imaginary scenario” and changed the name of his book to “I Did It; Confessions of the Killer.”
If we get too puzzled by the blur of news, we can turn instead to conscientious consumerism. We could buy a Blackberry phone or Apple’s iPhone or get the Leopard software on the Mac Book. The addictive nature of getting emails 24 hours a day, wherever you are, drives consumers to keep buying. I myself had been wrestling with the shopper’s dilemma: To Blackberry or Not to Blackberry? But after dropping my Motorola phone on the Quik Park parking lot after returning from Dallas and then recovering its crushed shell at a bowling alley at midnight, I went to Verizon the next day, hoping to be the next high-tech-cell-phone wizard, able to pick up and send emails at lightning speed. So I quickly decided on the Blackberry 8830 World Edition but after spending hours confused by the tiny buttons and the basic functions of the phone with no actual manual to navigate and little patience, I gave up. I brought the Blackberry back to the Verizon store and brought my wife’s old phone from the basement to be brought back to life as “Arnie’s Phone”. At least, that’s what it says on the “wallpaper.”
Our daughter, Marlee, is much more advanced in technology and was excited to finally receive her bat mitzvah gift from us, an Apple Mac Book with the new Leopard software. She’s already sophisticated enough to take hundreds of photos of herself and her friends and create a multi-media collage of images and songs. Me? I’m stuck in a blur of news images and concerns about the world’s gyrations from Iraq to Iran to Pakistan to Michigan all the way to California, flooded with worry and little water. Cool technology doesn’t make us feel much better.
I close my eyes and stop the noise around me, imagining I’m back at MSU’s Breslin Center in the front row, seated next to Judy, my two daughters and their girlfriends. We are transfixed by the colors and sounds of Saltimbanco and amazed at the athleticism and grace of the Cirque members. They play to us and laugh, they bicycle and balance each other; the clown brings laughter as he picks a heavy-set audience member to joust with him. The circus performers climb ropes up to the rafters above and swing from one side to the other. We look high above our heads, hoping that there are no accidents and no one comes falling from the thin bungee cords holding them above.
We can forget for a night that the new game Halo 3 that has eclipsed every game and movie ever made as the fastest selling media juggernaut ever is transfixing hundreds of thousands of consumers on their Microsoft Xboxes in their bedrooms and living rooms. Kids and adults are all pretending they’re the Master Chief (John-117,) Cortana, or Sgt Johnson while shooting “brutes, elites, and hunters,” on their X box screens, blasting their high-intensity weapons until they kill and kill again. This is superb training for real war in Iraq or Iran as they get to use lifelike weapons such as the M6G Pistol, the M7 SMG, M90 Shotgun, BR55 Battle Rifle, M41 Rocket Launcher, or the MA5C Assault Rifle, just to name a few.
Of course, none of this killing is real though we have to wonder how Halo 3 influences children threatening to kill. Early this October, a cache of weapons was found in a home of a 14-year-old boy in a Philadelphia suburb who had been talking about mounting an attack on a high school, the same day that another teenager shot and wounded four people at a Cleveland high school before killing himself. All in the same month as the unprecedented release of Halo 3.
Was The Lion King wrong? Do we live in a “circle of life” or a circus of craziness? Maybe the human animals and clowns are circling us while we wait in our bedrooms, hiding out with our pretend weapons and big screen TVs.
Why should I worry? Instead of getting bug-eyed from all the violent news, I can instead go back to last year near the end of the Cirque show, Love. When I was given the rope to hold, I thought quickly and didn’t follow my friends. I laughed and said, “Are you nuts? I’m not holding that rope, watching it suddenly rise to the ceiling without anyone holding. I remember the relief, the fear drizzling away from me, being able once again to listen to the sensational Beatles music from the built-in speakers in our seats.
I relaxed and looked out at the blinding flash of colors, the music draped around my skull, as the haunting tune of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” began. I had no trepidation, no worry at all.
I felt the pure in-the-moment sensation of pleasure and realized that this “day in a life” would never be forgotten and never lived again.
Let video game lovers play their violent imaginary games. I plan to play my own head games filled with circus performers and the Beatles back again, playing “I Am the Walrus,” just for me.
The Kenny Goldman Basketball League began its 24th year on October 14, 2007. The league has nearly run itself for the last decade with guidance from Bruce Wineman of the Jewish Community Center who is the league’s director. My parents and I check in periodically and donate but we don’t have to worry much about the legacy the league carries. My brother’s name has become imbedded in the Jewish Center and its gymnasium.
The passage of time makes unspeakable loss bearable. On the same day as the start of the league, Miles Levin’s mom, Nancy, wrote on CarePages.com of the loss of her son and its everyday markers:
This one is going to be challenging to put words to, but that seems to be my strength. I've had this feeling (actually, in grief, "feeling" doesn't fully capture it, sensation, wave, something) many times in recent weeks. When I feel something many times, when something persists, I tend to believe it has truth in it; and if it has truth in it for me, it probably has truth in it for others struggling to cope with this (un)reality. I'm beginning to define my own mission as that: putting words to the unspeakable.
Periodically, I venture into Miles' room. The object that destabilized me last time was a very small desk – miniature – that I had purchased for Miles when he was about three or four. I had seen it at an antique show. It's made of wood, kind of cherry in color, has a small swivel chair with slats at the back; there's a ridge for pencils on the top, and a board that pulls out – just above the two small drawers on the right side – for writing. The desk never really worked well for him because he was left-handed and the desk is designed for the assumed right-handed child. He had planned on giving it to his child.
I opened one of the drawers and discovered his collection of balls – all sizes, materials, and times in his life. The other drawer held his collection of colored pencils, the mainstay of his Waldorf education. I felt awash with sadness, fond memories, and a weak smile. That's when I realized this: When we lose a child, we don't lose (in Miles' case) only an 18 year old, I lost my 16 year old who just got his license; I lost my 13 year old who is disciplining himself for his Bar Mitzvah; I lost my 10 year old who was so spacey I wondered if he'd make it in this world; I lost my 5 year old who used that little desk; I lost my 2 year old who tripped on a bucket and put a permanent scar on his nose; and I lost my baby who was completely reliant on us for food and care. I lost many children. I realized, when I walked out of his room, that his childhood is in that room. That's a lot to say good-by to.
I thought that was a lot to grieve until I also realized that although there was no evidence of his future in that room, I felt the loss of what could have been. In another one of my forays into this territory, I discovered all the materials related to Miles' college pursuit: application essay, SAT scores, books of course listings from various colleges, and his acceptance letters. I had a strange sensation when I read the letters: did "life" know then that he would never go? Did Miles know then that he would never go? Was it a tease? Or, was it life's way of keeping hope alive.
Hope. That's what our children carry. They are OUR hope for the future. We invest in them. We care for them. We feed them. We believe in them. We love them. All the while, hoping and planning on an adult to emerge from our efforts, ready to leave the nest and begin their own life. Hope dies when our child dies; we're left with memory. But, it is not pure memory, it's filled with, what could have been, unrealized potential. The now vacuum has elements of purposelessness in it since our job has been terminated.
Living in the moment seems to be the watchword of New Age thinking. That's a tough order for bereaved parents because the feelings in the moment are a jumble of memory, impossible future, and confusing pain. Why would a bereaved parent WANT to live in the present: it hurts. Mentally, we escape to the past because that's where our child lives. The present reveals the truth that our child no longer lives, in the physical world. It is an enormous shift in consciousness to create a relationship in the present with someone who doesn't have a body. Yet, this is what we must do. Or die – if only spiritually – ourselves. This is the task, this is the requirement, this is our growth edge. I've not yet figured out how to do it, but I'll be sure to let you know if and when I do.
I cannot write as beautifully about “unspeakable” loss as Nancy Levin does. Her words are a testament not only to Miles but to all parents of children who die. I can’t think of a better way to honor my parents and their son on the anniversary of a basketball league for kids, named in my brother’s memory. Nancy says that we must “create a relationship in the present with someone who doesn’t have a body.” For us, the league allows us a little bit of time to ponder that tenuous spiritual relationship.
Let it go at that.
Aggman's Blog 