More time in my old hometown. I’m not going to pretend that it’s an enjoyable place for me to visit. With the cold, damp blast of winter, it’s even less hospitable. My camera provided little solace, though a wander through the woods down the block from my father’s house gave me a small bit of nature; a reprieve. Back when I was a kid, you could cross paths with a skunk or a possum in these woods. But in the decades since I left, deer have become ubiquitous in the area. They show little fear of humans, which is maybe a blessing and a curse for both sides of the equation. I did come face to face with this youngster while wandering through the late February thaw / muck. We sized each other up before parting ways. Two lone creatures trying to get through life while surrounded by suburban sprawl, we shared something in common on a gray afternoon in New Jersey.
Enjoy The Silence
With family, work, art and performances taking up so much bandwidth, I finally have some time with “nothing much going on.” Which has it’s own challenges, to be sure. We humans like to be busy, or do we like to be lazy but are forced to be busy? Not sure if this drive is intrinsic in our DNA or if it is the result of some Christian work ethic (what is the source of the seven deadly sins, after all?) but it is the twin poles of an ongoing existential dilemma for me. Quiet times open the door for introspection, which opens the door for melancholy, which opens the door for depression. But the other side of that coin is overwork, over stress, tension, anxiety…and a desire to break free of all responsibility. So where is the middle ground? I have been trying hard to be at peace with the “in between” times, the silence, the quiet, the time of not much happening. Maybe there is some Buddhist tome that would explain it all to me. Maybe it’s just the burden of having a brain that never turns off, even when it is at rest. For now, I’ll just try to BE. Enjoy the silence.
Just a lonely guy from Jersey.
2021: 31 Hero
Who do we look up to? Who do we admire? What qualities mark someone being a “hero”? Do heroes even exist? As a child, I had a few “heroes”… the astronauts who walked on the Moon, Bobby Mercer, an outfielder for the NY Yankees; later Bruce Springsteen, then maybe Robert Frank… then…well the list kind of peters out after that.
One man who I held in high esteem since he emerged on the pop cultural scene in the early aughts was Anthony Bourdain. Bad boy chef, former junkie, writer, tv show host, traveller, citizen of the world, and sadly, lastly…suicide. Bourdain had a profound impact on my adult life, encouraging me to become a curious, open-minded (somewhat) adventurous traveller and eater. More than that, he made middle age seem cool. He was the epitome of hipster cool, in the best sense of the words.
He was also a very sad, lonely man. Looking for love, finding it and losing it numerous times. A romantic spirit forced to live in the real world. A poet, a beat, a wanderer, a punk, a cynic, an artist. I saw the recently released documentary “Roadrunner” last night (in a real theater, no less.) The film covers the rise to fame and the journey to death at his own hands. It was a story I thought I knew a lot about, but I came away with a deeper understanding of the man, his public and private life, the costs of fame and the pressures of trying to be an idealist in a less than ideal world.
Was Anthony Bourdain a hero? To me, he was simply a human being. Same as you and me. A overly curious, yet surprisingly shy man, battling demons in his own head while trying to be a force of good in the world. Inspiring, infuriating, frustrating, comical and yet, profound. A cautionary tale of the pressures of fame and success. But also a guide: to a world of possibility that exists just down the road, just around the corner, or down some dark alley in a foreign country at 2am.
