Monthly Archives: June 2020

Dawdle

Dawdle: (v) to waste time; idle; trifle; loiter

I don’t know whether to apologize to the word “dawdle” because it’s so old-fashioned that it’s already up in the attic with dust all over it, or to feel sorry for folks who never had a grandparent speak to them tersely, “Come on! Don’t dawdle!”

You see, I didn’t know what “dawdle” meant when I was a kid, but I did know the sound of my grandparents when they were pissed off.

That was an era when grandparents were very dignified and would never think of saying “fuck you,” but with the same intensity of voice would call you a “pernicious dawdler.”

“Pernicious” meaning constant and unchanging.

And “dawdler”—a lazy mofo.

We call these words “old English.” Sometimes I wonder if they’re still spoken in England or just bandied about the royal palace by aging monarchs.

I think “dawdle” would suffer anyway—even if it weren’t so stuffy-sounding.

People, in general, do not like to be hurried.

Matter of fact, one of the worst things you can do if you’re waiting in line behind someone is suggest they speed up—or dare to act upset because they’re taking too long. (This usually causes them to slow down.)

But writing this essay makes me think about when I dawdle.

I now dawdle a little bit about going to pee. It’s not a big deal—and when I get there, I really enjoy myself.

And sometimes I delay by watching another television show—putting off getting my butt up to go to bed.

I dawdle over doing chores (although I never call them chores). Chores are things you would never do yourself, but somebody has suggested you address them. Yes, I have dawdled over things that people want me to do that I don’t necessarily want to do myself.

So I am grateful you can join me here, on the final day of “dawdle’s” life on Earth.

From now on, young children, when asked what the word means, will look with a perplexed face and say, “Dawdle? Isn’t that one of Donald Duck’s nephews?”

Davis, Jefferson

Davis, Jefferson: (n) man who served as president of the Confederacy throughout its existence.

I’m not brave.

I am not a warrior for the truth.

I am not the kind to run up, state my opinion and stand my ground.

I prefer to appear from behind with a squirt gun, spray everyone and scamper away.

But there are certain things that elevate my consciousness, stimulate my “god-image” and demand that I build a fortress.

I spent most of my adult life living in the American South.

On one occasion, I overheard a gentleman talking about hosting a “minstrel show” in the community. I immediately assumed I misunderstood what he said, but when he sounded it out for me slowly, I realized that he intended on producing a program that was begun in the Confederacy after the Civil War, which allowed white people to dress up in blackface and make fun of the Negroes.

I was confused.

I thought minstrel shows had been outlawed years ago.

Now, here was the word, flying through the air as if it had wings.

For a moment I was emblazoned with a ready hostility—but still, tepidly opined, “Aren’t those illegal?”

The man became indignant and explained that minstrel shows were part of the heritage of the South and gave the people in that region a sense of pride over what had been pursued attempted by President Jefferson Davis and all the Rebels.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Freedom,” he replied.

Even if I were to buy in to the idea that Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis were just trying to “protect their way of life,” I would still be left with a stark anomaly.

If the Civil War was all about “state’s rights,” standing up to Washington, D. C., and not being pushed around anymore, why not just free the slaves and change the dynamic?

If it really wasn’t a malicious adventure to keep four million kidnapped human beings in chains and forced labor, why not just take the higher ground and convince the entire world that you were merely out to sanctify your choices instead of imprison human flesh?

Jefferson Davis was not a nice man.

I suppose if you sat down and had a drink with him and shared some boiled crawdads, you might find him amiable.

But on the inside was a greedy, corrupt man who insisted that black humans were mongrels and needed white people to help them reason.

And he did all of this standing in front of a church, holding a Bible in his hand.

Davie

Davie: (n) a town in SE Florida.

I have a unique perspective on Davie, Florida.

After years of traveling on the road and performing, I decided to settle there because it was near where my son, daughter-in-law and two granddaughters lived.

They had just begun a church and I thought it would be so terrific if I could join them and help out in any way my box of experience might afford.

You see:

The key to that phrase is “I thought.”

You would assume that after many years of living, I would realize the weakness—and sometimes even complete calamity—of the words “I thought.”

I never asked my son and his family what they felt about me moving down there.

I didn’t seek permission.

I envisioned something in my own mind—how things might pan out without ever realizing that those around me might not consider my gift of time with them to be of as much interest as I had supposed.

It went poorly.

When I tried to be involved, I seemed nosy.

When I backed off, I appeared offended (though I wasn’t).

When I waited for them to contact me, I was pissed at the infrequency.

And when I tried to start other things on my own, they were somewhat threatened by my intentions.

Along with this colossal misunderstanding, I ended up living in a very small home—well beneath my needs, not to mention my standards.

Although I can recite many miraculous things that occurred during my stay in Davie, Florida, whenever I hear the word “Davie,” what comes to my mind is:

“It’s better to move when you feel a tug…”

“…than trying to shove your way in.”

 

David

David: (n) a king of Israel.

Faith might occasionally be interesting if it weren’t so damn religious.

Rather than being a state of spirit, where we seek to know ourselves better and understand God by loving other people, it is turned into a mortuary, where we sit and perform all sorts of religious exercises that make yoga appear to be not such a stretch.

One of the more interesting characters in the Bible is David.

He’s not interesting because he prays, and he’s not fascinating because he wanted to build God’s temple.

He’s intriguing because any time, day or night, when he removes his human will from religious pursuit, he goes to town—just a’sinnin’ away.

David knew how to repent. That’s how he pleased God.

I understand David. When he saw a naked woman bathing, he immediately conjured a plan to get inside her.

You see—that’s human.

I am not impressed with people who only sin and am completely terrified of those who claim to refrain from it.

David has a good story even without the Bible.

Why? Because David was human and didn’t try to pretend he wasn’t.

He was a rotten father yet never touted his children as being anything but the renegades they were.

He had a huge ego, which created problems with the King of Israel before him.

Early on, he had a really good day when he accurately tossed a stone and killed a really bad giant.

It doesn’t happen again.

But I guess if you do it once, it can last for a lifetime.

He is called “the apple of God’s eye.”

It isn’t because he was very religious.

It isn’t because he never sinned.

It isn’t because he went throughout Israel, trying to get everybody to be judgmental and mean.

David found a gear.

He knew exactly how far to go before he drove himself off the cliff.

Short of that disaster, he stopped and got himself right.

It’s a great talent.

Because he understood sin, he didn’t judge the sinner.

And because he understood grace, he did not advertise the sin.

Davenport

Davenport: (n) a large sofa, often one convertible into a bed.

Language is made out of razor blades.

It took me a while to learn this.

If you’re not careful, you’re going to cut people.

And if not agile, you may end up slicing yourself.

Whenever you contend that a certain word is necessary in order to communicate sophistication or perhaps being a well-rounded human, you’ve grabbed the razor blade and slashed out at the world around you.

Over the past fifteen years, I have made a concerted effort to make my language out of marshmallows. Even if they occasionally bounce off someone, it produces a giggle-fest instead of a bruise.

To do this, I had to get rid of the assertion that I became a “better person” by using “better talk.”

Example:

The best way to describe a large seating place in a living room is to call it a couch.

Once you abandon the word “couch,” everything else you say is an attempt to separate yourself from the milling masses and the ignorant idiots.

Even calling it a “sofa” is filled with such pretension that people immediately know you’re trying to communicate your verbal—or even perhaps natural—superiority.

I won’t even discuss the word “divan,” because truthfully, friends, it is not divine.

Yet when I was growing up, there were those who referred to a couch as a davenport. Generally speaking, they were old, white, and held their noses a little higher than others. It was obvious they were in a constant search for obscure terms to describe common things.

Many of them said tomato and potato with a soft sound on the “a.”

“To-mah-to.”

“Po-tah-to.”

Occasionally, when using a word from foreign extract, they actually fell into an accent which they mustered for the moment.

The pastor’s wife from my church had a davenport. That’s what she called it. Now, she never corrected anybody for calling it a sofa or a couch, but she refused to join them in such lollygagging of the tongue.

So let me tell you:

If you want to find out what your profile is on Earth, see how many attempts you make to establish patterns of speech that you have decided are more “high-minded” than others.

If you have many, many of them, you are officially an Earthly asshole.

If you have a few, you’re pretentious.

The recommended number of fussy words that you dare keep around in your lingo is zero. 

Dave

Dave: (n) a male given name.

 Realization: it is the goal of life.

To come to some sort of conclusion that fits both the circumstances and the purity of truth.

Sometimes a realization is a couple of steps away; sometimes so it sits on top of you.

But there are times that a realization seems so uncertain that it may take many years for the brain, the soul and the heart to have a decent meeting and come to common ground.

I knew a fellow named Dave.

Dave was four years older than me.

Dave loved music.

Dave loved gospel music.

He was one of those classically attractive men of bygone days—with long, dark, straight hair, which he wore in bangs coming down to his eyebrows, making him appear much younger than he actually was.

Even though Dave had graduated from high school, was married and had a baby, he wanted to sing so much that he lobbied to join our group of high school friends.

What helped us make the decision was that Dave had a van and went out and bought a bunch of sound equipment, causing his entrance into our organization to be much more likely.

I didn’t like Dave.

Dave didn’t like me.

I was a precocious young man, who my enemies would have called “arrogant.”

It was my group. It sure wasn’t Dave’s.

As I look back on it now, I realize that Dave was unpopular with people his own age. Dave felt trapped in a marriage and was completely uncertain of fatherhood.

Dave wanted to be a professional gospel singer, traveling around the country wearing fancy suits and new patent-leather shoes.

Well, that didn’t fit in with our group—but he was so desperate to stay in the cattle call that he just decided to be one of our steers.

I probably didn’t like him because he was good-looking.

But Dave was one of those guys who had enough insecurity that attractive women were a bit put off by his tentative nature.

So even though he didn’t want to hang around a bunch of high school punks, he needed us to have a band. We needed him to have a van and a sound system.

It was all very nasty.

But recently, as I’ve thought back on this arrangement, I’ve realized that Dave was the greater loser from interacting with us. Well, especially with me.

I had lots of friends, I talked a good game and I was fortunate enough to have plenty of musical talent.

I undercut Dave, I made him angry and was so unsure of myself that I nearly gave him a nervous breakdown.

And even after I graduated from high school and he still wanted to work with me, I treated him like my neighbor’s dog’s poop.

Eventually, at the end of a singing engagement one night, he went his way and I went mine.

I never saw Dave again.

I’ve tried to locate him but had little success.

Or maybe I know that if Dave wanted to get in contact with me, he probably would have done so by now.

Here’s the thing about realizations:

Be prepared.

Because they’re pretty damn real.

Daunting

Daunting: (adj) description of a task which is disheartening

 I do not begrudge someone ascending Mount Everest.

More power to you.

I’m certainly glad if you hit home runs.

And feel free to win the Heisman Trophy as long as you don’t kill your wife and her guest.

But physical achievements are not daunting efforts.

As long as you train well, prepare your body and understand the task set before you, you have a fighting chance to achieve your goal and win.

The true daunting tasks are to bring about the peacefulness of the Garden of Eden in a world which is gradually deciding that generosity and kindness are unusable virtues for battling greed and hate.

With the rest of my journey on Earth, I have decided to take on three daunting tasks:

  1. To fight gender inequality by continuing to tout how similar men and women are instead of insisting that we are radically constructed to be at odds.
  2. Destroy racism by pointing out the bigotry introduced to me, which I am dismantling, encourage those who will join me and joke around with those who won’t.
  3. Live and promote a faith which is grounded on Earth and survives through the fruit it bears instead of the mere promises of eternal life.

Everything I sing, everything I write, everything I produce, and every conversation will be laced with these three adventures.

It is my belief that “daunting” is achieved by beginning the denting of the walls that separate us.

 

Daughters of the American Revolution

Daughters of the American Revolution:  a patriotic society of women descended from Americans of the Revolutionary period, organized in 1890

I will receive no applause, acclamation, nor much readership by sharing this. Nonetheless, I will do it to promote the sanity of our species and grant peace on Earth a chance to give goodwill to men.

No one is special.

When we started believing some people were special, it opened the Pandora’s box brought about by the belief in equality. For if all men are created equal, and we have found some men to be special, therefore, aren’t all men (and women) special?

From that position, we developed the doctrine of uniqueness—“there’s no one exactly like me.”

“I am a daughter of the American Revolution…”

…which actually  means that many generations back, your great-great-great-great grandmother had sexual intercourse with a revolutionary man who was about to be hung by the British Empire.

Because that particular revolution panned out pretty well, I am allowed to feel proud of my old Grandma, and even to assert that I have maintained a drop or two of “special blood” through the process.

Let us not even consider the reality of mutations.

Because a study of DNA immediately informs us that talents, character and attributes are not transferable in entirely through the double-helix.

But as long as we can convince ourselves that we’re special, we might just feel a little better about how mediocre our lives have seemingly turned out to be.

Of course, I’m not nearly as special if you’re special, too.

A debate on who or what might be more special seems childish. So to be special, I must insist that you are ordinary, or even cursed by birth.

So it may appear noble to be a Daughter of the American Revolution, but since you weren’t there, didn’t sew any new flags, or put bandages on amputated limbs, you must understand that it just doesn’t mean shit.

 

Daughter

Daughter: (n) a female child or person in relation to her parents.

 I think I spent more time studying daughters, even though I only had sons, than I might have if my children had been girls.

There is a tremendous responsibility for a man to understand a woman.

That’s why it is so sinister for the sarcastic theater and the socially stunted church to make relationships between men and women seem so unlikely and unfulfilling.

Six sons came through my house.

Three of them were my natural children and three were my godsons.

I immediately realized they were not getting adequate training on their relationships with the female gender by hanging out with friends, watching television or attending school.

For some reason, we are completely satisfied to make male and female conflict a part of our culture, holding gender equality at bay.

I don’t know what I would tell my daughters about boys. But I do know what I told my young gentlemen about women.

I explained that it’s set up perfectly.

I mean, the way a woman is constructed is ideal for interaction.

It is polite to start at the head and go to the toe.

In her head is a brain.

Get to know it. Study it. Have sympathy for the struggles. Help her ease out of her culture, where her upbringing was short-sighted, and allow her to do the same for you.

Next are the eyes.

How do they see? Is it a small world? A big world? Or a dangerous world?

The lips.

What does she speak? Do you easily discern her messages? Or are they too garbled and unclear due to her training? Help her find her voice.

How about those ears?

Women, like men, have not been instructed to listen. They envision a verbal conflict with the opposite sex, so they are prone to close off their hearing. Learn to hear each other.

A chin.

It’s easy nowadays to see that chin sink over the simplest of offenses. For some reason, depression has become synonymous with “deep thinking.” Foolishness. If a man loves a woman and a woman loves a man, they help each other keep that chin up, and eyes on the goals.

The heart.

Fortunately, it’s near the breast. I always told my boys to consider that the appreciation they have for the female breast is also expressed through a respect for her heart—her feelings.

As you can see, as you ease down from the top, love has a chance to grow. So by the time you get to the flesh and the sexuality, there’s a purpose for it.

On the other hand, if you start there, you will wade into emotions you don’t understand.

As for the legs and feet, they take her where she decides to go. She should have her own determination, based upon the joys of sex, which were enhanced by having an understanding of emotions in learning how to “face” one another.

I never had a daughter, but I probably would tell her much the same.

We are not as different from each other as advertised.

What keeps men and women apart is a calloused indifference—because we think we know everything.

Daub

Daub: (v) to spread plaster, mud, etc. on or over something

Shortcuts lead to long-suffering.

That’s been my finding.

Some time ago, I had my speakers set up in an auditorium and the brutality of road travel had left them a bit chipped, needing to be painted.

I had the bright idea of buying a can of black spray paint and touching them up so their age would not show unless you were standing right in front of them, staring.

It seemed like a great idea.

I will not lie to you—since the speakers were up on stands, I did actually consider that it would be better to take them down to the ground to spray them. But I quickly rejected that—because I lease a room to laziness in my brain, and since he pays most of the rent, I decided to stand on a chair, as close as I could get, and spray the worn places.

Let me tell you:

There is a reason they call it a spray can.

It sprays.

The mist floats through the air and on this particular occasion, it landed on a perfectly white wall directly behind the speaker.

To be honest, the speakers were not ugly enough to be noticed.

But the spray on the white wall was a definite attention-getter.

I had a problem.

Do I tell someone, who owns the auditorium, that I blackened his wall? Or do I try to fix it?

I chose the latter.

I bought a can of paint that was as close to the wall color as possible. But no matter how I tried to blend the whites, you could still tell two things:

There was some blackened shadow underneath, and where I stopped painting was an obvious line of demarcation.

I didn’t know what to do.

A young lady who was traveling with me suggested that it would be better, instead of using a paint brush or a roller, to daub on the white paint with a sponge, letting it dry, until every single portion of the black was covered.

I wanted to reject the idea.

I wanted her to be wrong so we could be wrong together.

But my greater desire was to get this horrible mistake into my past.

So I daubed.

With the artistic style of a Van Gogh or Reubens, I carefully covered up the black splat.

I stepped back three feet, five feet, and stood on a chair—peering right at it.

I could not see it.

I was overjoyed that my daubing had eliminated my sobbing.

That evening when the owner of the building showed up, he walked up to me and said, “What’s wrong with the wall?”

I looked up, aghast.

“I didn’t notice,” I lied.

He flicked his hand in the air, and as he walked away he said, “I’ll just have ’em paint it.”