The WhodooUthinkUFoolin Virus

This just in:

Recent reports of the GoingViral pandemonium indicate that 19th-century Noveloqueen, Mary Shelly, might have been onto something when she cloned up her  beastly tale of some monstrous constrosity way back in 1818.

Correction: Make that 2018.

Novel Innards of Hubris (NIH) research indicates that Mary was indeed onto something when she hypothesized that the Franken coronanstein could have pathogenically busted out of some Woohoo research lab  at WhodouuThink University, near Foolin’, NY.

Mary was not just foolin’ around when she was caught red-handed,  tinkering with the pathogenicity of potential pandemic pathogens in her NIH-funded research on Howdoos YourGenomeGrow mutatational virology.

We have repeatedly received viral reports again and a gain of function mutations going viral where scientists flit around with disaster-prone bats in Believit, Ornotario.

Although the reports cannot be confirmed, the proof is nevertheless in the puddintane and I’ll tell ya the same blame game that is reportedly  going viral every time your garden-variety whistleblower’s twizzle gets blown or thrown out as fresh fodder  for CNthis, MSthat or Foxwoxy cottontail to jump on like a dog on a transgendated bone.

Exactly whether In Vitro or In Vivo these clonations have been detected is a matter of some speculation by the day-traders who perpetually monitor the Dow Genes infestuals in their OCD gyrations to buy the dip or to be or not to be or maneuver some newly-concocted transgendetic mutation of DNA into the profitability of Darwin’s Original Species and its corresponding mutational manipulation for the descent of Man.

Cross-species specimens have already been sighted in Whoohoo. Waterloo, and the Whodoo UThink Ufoolin Valley of Utah.

When geriatric musitionalist  Paul Stuky was queried about these alleged cross-species escapeades, his obscure replay was:

“I can dig it . . .

But if I really say it,

the radio won’t play it,

unless I lay it

between the lines.

    https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=TrXXx9706tc

And yet, and yet, on the other side of the Web, Ecohellth researchers stated inequivally, when asked if there was any danger in transgendetic lab procedures,

“This is nonsense. but not to worry. We’ve got u covid.”

Meanwhile, in Moscington, the President of the USSAR was queried about these GoinViral reports; he said not to woory cuz he wooda shooda cooda trump any Covird opps that those gene-snippers might throw at us.

In a final note, the number-crunchers and wave-flatteners have confirmed that indeed there is nonsense in the ongoing genetic ruminations; and if not heeded in a timely manner we could run the risk of making Amerika great again while facing a second wave of Whoodu uThink Ufoolin virus going viral all over again.

Glass Chimera

The Knave New World

In 2007, Alan Greenspan published a fascinating book that chronicled not only his own life, but the life of the monetary world in which he grew up,  and in which he ultimately played a major role as Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

  https://www.amazon.com/Age-Turbulence-Adventures-New-World/dp/0143114166 

Mr. Greenspan’s keen observation of contemporary monetary history is demonstrated throughout the book. On page 92, Alan had this to report about the legendary Reagan tax cuts of the 1980’s:

“The cornerstone of the Reagan tax cuts was a bill that had been proposed by Congressman Jack Kemp and Senator William Roth. It called for a dramatic three-year, 30 percent rollback of taxes on both businesses and individuals and was designed to jolt the economy out of its slump, which was now entering its second year. I (Greenspan) believed that if spending was restrained as much as Reagan proposed, and as long as the Federal Reserve continued to enforce strict control of the money supply, the plan was credible, though it would be a hard sell. This was the consensus of the rest of the economic board as well.

But (David) Stockman (Reagan’s Budget Director) and Don Regan, the incoming treasury secretary, were having doubts. They were leary of the growing federal deficit, already more than $50 billion a year, and they began quietly telling the President he ought to hold off on tax cuts. Instead, they wanted him to try getting Congress to cut spending first, then see whether the resulting savings would allow for tax reductions.”

Well good luck with that!

And gollee, that was about 39 years ago, and about 20 trillion $$ of federal deficit ago. . .

Ronald Reagan, God bless ‘im, was the last of the Mohicans of old-style let’s-try-to-balance-the-budget school.

Yet we still pay lip-service to that principle.

But–let’s face it– those days are gone forever. They went out with with saddle oxfords and gumball machines and  Archie Bunker and 1-cent lollipops and debits on the left with credits on the right that balanced each other out.

Now Reagan, God rest his soul,  is no longer with us, nor Kemp,  and the world is a totally different place. Ronald Reagan was the last of a balancing breed that has vanished into fiscal history.

The cowboy hero has ridden into the sunset.

David Stockman is, however, still with us, and still living in the past,  still harping, God bless ‘im, on old-hat financial and fiscal responsibility. Good luck with that, Dave!

https://www.deepstatedeclassified.com/dsd20190426/

In his most recent newsletter, David Stockman posted this assessment of our present situation:

“The Main Street economy is failing. But the Wall Street fantasy is thriving. You can lay responsibility for this dangerous disconnect at the doorstep of the Eccles Building.

The Federal Reserve’s extreme monetary central planning regime long ago disabled capital markets and destroyed price discovery.

Bubble Finance has euthanized workers and savers and lobotomized traders and speculators.

And our monetary central planners know it.”

While Mr. Stockman’s assessment may very well be true, it may also be irrelevant.

The world . . . as it always does and always has, has changed.

Tap your ruby slippers together, David.

and close your eyes and realize: We’re not in Kansas any more. All the rules have changed. Take off your rose-colored glasses.

We’re not wheelin’ and dealin’ in ole Wall Street any more, or Peoria or Pittsburgh or Palm Springs. Now we are in, as Aldous Huxley once said, a Brave New World. . .

A world in which monetary markets and price discovery are no longer the primary determinants in the money game. . . a world that has, yes Virginia, yes Alice and yes Dorothy, been commandeered by a thunderous consumerist horde who have no wish to be bound by these old financial fuddy-duddy obsolete principles, a world that has been fundamentally transformed by Keynesian realpolitic and by the pragmatic keep-bailing-this-boat central bankers of the world with their legions of yassah data-crunching technocrats to maintain the welfare of us all.

And we will never go back.

Because money itself is, and always has been, truth be told, worthless, being nothing more than klinky coins that can get you a wad of chewing gum, or paper bills that can get you a sugar-high from a vending machine, or electrons that can get you a charged-up night on the town, or a day in the sun, a week at Disney if you’re lucky, and a health-insured, social-security certified lifetime in this knave new world.

The “Capitalism” of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill and Jacob Marley and JP Morgan and even Warren Buffet has . . . gone the way of the buffalo.

Now it’s just benevolent electrons whirling around the world taking care of everybody.

And when you finally see the writing on the wall, Dave, look at those deficits and . . . read ‘em and weep. Nobody cares about deficits any more.

The central bankers of the world will never have to face the music of fiscal responsibility that keeps ringing in your ears.

We’re never going back to the old balancing acts. Where we’re headed is. . . everybody gets a meal-ticket as long as all’s quiet on the Western front and the red sun still rises in the east. Welcome to the knave new world.

Glass half-Full

California!

there’s gold in them thar hills,

somewhere up near sutter’s mill:

them’s words that sparked the great gold rush,

and set us up us for the great golden push

California be the place you gotta go

so we loaded up our siri for sausalito

cruisin’ somewhere o’er the rainbow

where gentle dwellers come and go

speaking what makes their property ’ssesments grow

them gatlins said all the gold that’s there

be locked in some bank in beverly here where

somebody else will that precious stuff share

but hey

this is what i say

whatever stuff upon your dreams do thrive

whatever you do to keep that dream alive

whether you track with ferlinghetti

or train your sights on images of getty

keep that california dreamin alive

lest u get waylaid in some hotel california dive

where some say there’s alchemic gold

in that stuff that owsley sold

cuz when you wish upon a star

makes no difference where you are

whether u b goin’ to surf city surf city

or lookin for dem hollywood pretty

maybe try to hawk you little ditty

in tinsel town jez be twitty

cuz it be a factory town you know

they crankin up th’dream factory fo’ show

and when you wish to sight a star

makes no diff’n where you are

Cal the place you oughta go

so we loaded up the boat for sausalito

where weather underground stars did go

then caught light of day in law’n’order show

while light falls apart in a little room

like Alice with some kind of ‘shroom

on stanyan street

if you catch by beat,

where gentle dwellers come n go

speaking softly of how property ’ssesments grow

yeah demmie residents come and go

speak’n of what makes dem property ‘ssessments grow

but this i know

it may be all for show

okie from muskogee said

California or bust or ’til i’m dead

but whether u  b muskogee okie

yes i know i b get’n lit’bit hokey

or if’n  you b some smart silicon geek

u got to admit dat state is pretty sleek

been California dreamin’ all this week!

though you know i aint no freak

oh what fools’gold these mortals seek

u gotta believe it I know

and i be tellin you fo’ sho’

as so i been told

dem streets be wired wit gold

though i now be gettn’ somewhat old:

all that glitters is not gold

what stuff our dreams are made of, or so i’m told

may the bird of paradise eclipse  your deepest woes

in the land of gold’n dreams and shows

here in California.

Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.

King of Soul

Livin’ in the Dream

Walking through the BigStore we happen upon the BigWal of Big TVs’; they be flashin out the Dreamworld for all of us to enter into, enticing us to enter into the Great Collective Cloud of Imagining.

Since a (wo)man’s home is his/her castle, you gotta take advantage of the fact that the BigWal makes it oh so easy, so convenient and affordable  to pad your castle walls with the magic of the Dream Machine.

Swipe the card; swipe the Dream. Load it into your wheels and haul the Dream home. Mount  the programmed Dream World on the Walls of your castle; then with a touch of fingertips there you are livin’ in the Dream. Through the electrified power of all those magnified digified images, take flight momentarily, for hours or even days at a time away from  the slings and arrows  of Real Life. There you are, livin’ in the dream, king/queen of your own domain.

Ya may not have forty acres in the back—maybe .40—but by golly there’s the Dream Machine up on the wall bringin the whole wild world right in your living room. Tap into it with  the touch of a remote, and there it is–hot diggedy–pretty as ever, just like bein’ at Jellystone or somewhere. Nature without the dangers of lions tigers bears, frostbite, getting lost, or never comin’ back alive.

Take flight! high above the earth–far, far away from all your cares and sorrows. Problems at work?

Fuhgeddaboudit! At least for a little while.

But don’t get too carried away. Sorry about the reality check here. You can’t afford to miss Monday morning! Get ready for re-entering the matrix and the credit card bill that enables all your flights of fancy.

Glass Chimera

The Geneticus of Homo Onlinicus

In Phase One Man took charge of the virtual heavens and earth.

The earth was wild and perilous, and adversity was over the surface of the deep, and the Striving of Man was travailing over the land and over the waters.

Then Man said, Let me find some Light, that I might have some Sight, and (S)he separated the Light from the Night. Man called the Light Right and the Night he called Fright, and there was Light and there was Night, Phase One.

Then Man said, Let there be a Net in the midst of this stuff, and let it connect the Light to our Sight. Man made the Net, which separated what we Feel from the Real deal. Man called what we feel Cool, and the Real deal he called Cloud.

And there was Cool and there was Cloud, Phase Two. What’s it to you?

Then Man said, Let the Lectrons in the Net be gathered together, and let the Web appear, and it was so and so. And Man called the Web virtually Real, and the Cloud he made so Loud  that it was virtually every Where.

Then Man said Let the Web sprout vegetation: couch potatoes yielding their data with virtual tomatoes yielding their what’sittooyas. Yeah I say unto ya but you say tomato while i say tomahta and the Cloud say yeah we gotcha, it be just hot n jot like siracha.

And behold, as you can see, the Net broughteth forth confusion, or excuse me: vegetation. The Web brought forth vegetation: virtual tomatoes spurting their hootoos and and couch potahtas spudding their duds and the data from so many couch potatas tweeting their seeyalata alligata

and i’ll text it tooyah if’n I can. The candy man can the candy man can, sayeth the candy man sam, son of sam cuz he be a sagittarius ram or an L.A. ram i think i am i am therefore i am.

And there was teasing and there was mourning, Phase Three.

And then Man said, Let there be Sites in the Web to separate the Haves from the HaveNots, and the Littleduds from the BigShots and let them be for data and for you say potata an’ how’bout i say potahta and it was so and so and so on and so on.

And so Man made the two great Mights: the Righty Might to be the Right and the Lefty Might to amp up the Fright, all Night long, y’all. All night long they drum up the Fright and so by ’n by they drive the Trolls to Flight, while so many be high, high as a kite, up all night, surfin’ site to site.

It ain’t right, y’all.

Ain’t right.

And there was seething and there was mourning, Phase Four.

Then Man said, let the Web and the Net and the Cloud teem forth with swarms of living creatures, and let birdbrains fly above the virtual earth.

And Man created great Webbed monsters and Netted numerous comfortably numb couch dummies after their kind and Man saw that it was Cool.

Everybody’s cool, or thinking they am, and so the Cloud swarmeth with various and sundry mucho macho nacho-grandmother’s  critters of all minds after their kind,

some before and some behind, spouting babble with unbelievable babel meanwhile babylon be amblin’ along waitin for the watchtower to deflower all that proletarian power at the witching hour.

And Man messed with them, sayin’ be ye tooty-frooty and Occupy and fill the Cloud, loud and proud, and let the birdbrains multiply on their virtual reality schme-ality.

And there was scheming and there was dreaming and there was mourning. Phase Five.

And Man conceived Man in his own image, and (s)he deviated in their own lineage and brought them forth as if they were winning in their own sinnage, and stirreth them up in their svelte squirming, while they as yet knew not that they be tweeting their shittage in their own image.

And yet Man still saw it all as pretty damn good, and he liked them all; thumbs-up he gave ‘em all, y’all, in their teeming and in their scheming; so there was daydreaming and there was mourning in the days of Phase Six.

Man had at last evolved to his full potential, more crafty than any other beastly species of the field.

Good luck with that.

Glass Chimera

Czech out the New World!

Antonin Dvorak was born in the Czech region of Europe in 1841. His life path brought the gifted musician through a trailblazing role as a composer of bold, new symphonic music at the Prague Conservatory,

In 1892, Antonin chose, like many other adventurous Europeans of that age, to travel to  the land of wide open spaces and wide open opportunity—America.

Although his residence here was for only for a few years, that was enough time for the inspired Czech to catch hold of the American Dream; by skillful composition, he enunciated that dream in one of the most American-spirited pieces of music ever performed.

The symphony he composed here—his 9th—became known as the “New World.”

This transplanted Czech’s musical  gifting had propelled him to a podium of international renown, so the National Conservatory of Music of America recruited Dvorak as their Director. When Antonin left Europe in 1892, he was bound for the big apple— New York City, USA.

During that New World phase of his life’s journey, Antonin extended his westward adventure far beyond our Atlantic coast, into the very heartland of the frontier experience. In an Iowa community of transplanted Czechs, Antonin dwelt comfortably for a season with his countrymen.

That trip from New York out to our heartland and back must certainly have been a life-changing experience for the alert musician; the orchestral  piece he dreamed up— and then committed to musical score in New York in 1893— generates vivid images in my imagination. Whenever I listen to the New World Symphony, my mind fills up with excitement about the urgency and resourcefulness of our vast continent-wide expansion, which began in the farthest regions of an Old World and culminated in a New.

A recent New York Philharmonic performance of Dvorak’s New World Symphony, under the masterful hand of Alan Gilbert, presents a tender, and yet impetuous, rendering of the piece. An energetic portrayal of what Antonin had in mind when he composed his New World masterpiece.

Hearing this symphony summons adventures of travel in my imagination.

Embarking on a great adventure: this, it seems to me, is the theme of Dvorak’s  musical odyssey. In the early passages, I catch glimpses of a virtuoso voyage across the rolling Atlantic Ocean. . .

with the wind in my face and a sensation of sailing steadily toward some new venue of opportunities and bright horizons.

The bouncy flutes and piccolos set this course for my imagining.

Sailing onward through Dvorak’s audible vision, I hear a finely-honed orchestra moving melodically westward, inducing a sense of fair wind favorable terrain . . . past the Statue of Liberty, then disembarking in a bustling 19th-century New York port, negotiating the busy streets, through a dynamo of enterprising business and yankee industry, then rolling farther along, out of the city and into the countryside . . . moments of repose along the way . . . through coastal commerce past planted fields o’er dusty roads,  riding into green Appalachian hills,

over blue mountain ridges, catching a locomotive in Cincinnati, steaming past the fruited plains and barreling along across vast, wind-swept prairies:

The New World!

Along with the rhythmic locomotive journey through verdant landscapes, Dvorak’s bold, loud use of the trombones and trumpets provokes urgency, tension, danger at points along the way—then periodic resolvings through the ministry of exquisitely tender woodwinds—mellow oboes,

resonant clarinets—and the declarative legato of French horns, backed up, sometimes boisterously, sometimes gently, with those ever-present violins and violas.

And low thumping bassos that stand as tall and deep as elms in the great American landscape.

These flights of fancy then deliver us into thankful moments of contemplation, yeah, even reverence for a Providential presence, accompanied by fluted tremelos, and blown deeper into the traveler’s soul by the vibrant contemplation of oboes, with resonant clarinets and mellowing horns. Excitement decrescendoes past repose, into full  contemplation, with the ultimate reward: wonder.

And by ’n by, sudden stirrings of urgency—yea, even danger and warning—from the bells of the trumpets and trombones, because that is the real world.

Always back to the real world. That’s the American way.

The real world of conclusion. A good thing can’t go on forever; it has to end at some point.

Oh, what a strong, bold brassy conclusion from our trombones and trumpets!

A great piece of Music!

But maybe you’d have to be there to catch my vision of it.

Or, maybe not. Next best thing:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HClX2s8A9IE

Glass Chimera

How BabyRow Be Made

Up there in the maternity ward is where the babies come out. After they’re born, the Ob staff lays them in little cradles all in a row, where fathers, friends and relatives of mama can gawk at the newborn and ooh and ah.

There they are all in a row, behind the glass, experiencing life in this world for the first time, not that they’ll remember this moment or anything. But there they are all in a row.

In another ward nearby, expectant mothers wait to have ultrasound pics taken of their developing unborn babies. There they all are in a row—the expectant mamas, waiting to get baby’s first pic.

Back In the ultrasound room, the tech person dawbs some gooey stuff on an expectant mama’s bulging belly; then she presses the ultrasound device  to bare skin and moves it around.

Suddenly BabyRow appears on the screen.

Lo and behold, it appears that BabyRow is already making some progress in physical and cognitive development.

Squinting, the tech wonders: what is that child doing? BabyRow appears to be counting his fingers!

Ultrasound Tech Barbie exclaims unexpectedly, “What in the world are you doing in there, BabyRow?”

Meanwhile, up in the stratosphere, something unusual is happening. From 93 million miles away, a Sonspot has just arrived at planet Earth. The wave of rogue  energy penetrates stratospheric earth.  Suddenly, without explanation, a phase change/spectrum reversal interchange  warps our planet’s delicately balanced spectrum of electromagnetic razzmatazz . . .

And sound morphs into light

while light moves into sound,

exposing presence of a planetary fight.

Perpetually in world it goes round by round.

While BabyRow counts on fingers

suddenly his musing ultrasound  lingers;

As Ultra forms image now of BabyRow

inexplicably his musing’s heard, roe by row.

Tech Barbie and Mama hear him, half-amazed

as BabyRow’s recitation changes phase:

“Eeenie meenie mynie moe,

  catch a fetus by the toe.

  Believe Brett and maybe I’ll come out alive.

  But believing Blasey I’ll surely take a dive.

  Don’t believe everything you hear on internet.

  I’d surely appreciate a chance at life to get.

  If judges abort the roe v wade,

  maybe then will BabyRow be made.”

  

Glass Chimera

Elemental shenanigans

At the Start, Hydrogen heaved ho.

Helium laughed. Lithium lay low while Beryllium became bemused.

But Boron bore the burden of all the work yet to be done.

Then Carbon was conceived, and came forth in a manger wrapped in swaddling clothes, surrounded by angelic hosts of other elements, celebrated as the great center-point of history. He would go on to  bring myriads of other elements together in peace and productivity, but in latter days was criticized for attaching himself to everybody’s business.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, good ole Nitrogen nourished all the stuff that came later.

Oxygen got involved and opened a whole new way of life.

Fluorine flew flags of fluorescence for all to see.

Neon knew nothing but nonsense, but was neutral enough to practice non-intervention.

Sodium solved a lot of problems, and he’s all over the map with that

Magnesium managed to make itself useful.

Aluminum lightened everybody’s load.

Silicon solidified his/her position, early on in the sands of time, and then later went on to establish a ubiquitous presence in the science of small smart circuits.

Meanwhile Phosphorus flamed along, brightening the path for others.

Sulfur suffered through a lot.

Chlorine clung to just about everything, cleaning house along the way, but has been known to kill when too excited.

Argon atoms are gone until somebody proves their actual existence.

Potassium produces plenteously.

Calcium is known as a great  collector of a lot of stuff.

Scandium is scant. Titans use Titanium to tighten up their tridents.Vanadium is very strong, while Chromium captures all the attention. Manganese manages to make good use of itself.

Iron Age innovations initiated innumerable inventions.

Cobalt combines with others to combat corrosion.

Nickel has made itself a necessity.

Copper’s a good cop,  conducts a lot of traffic.

Amazing Zinc sets up rustless zones wherever it goes. Thank God.

And then there’s Gallium; it has the gall to call itself a metal, as if it were a major player along with iron and nickel and all those other big-time movers and shakers.

Germanium is a dope in silicon valley. Arsenic is also a real dope, but reputed to be a pathological killer when let out of his cell. He hides behind old lace.

Selenium periodically illuminates this end of the Table, while Bromine combines medicinally and then resigns.

Krypton is a rare super-phenom found only in old comics of the 1950’s.

Now here’s the line-up for the second Period:

Rubidium rules while Strontium drools— radioactivity, that is— 90 times a second, I think, and then renders all those other metalistic johnny-come-lately wannabees as metalla non grata.

 If we keep this mining expedition going long enough, we could  find  lucky ole  Silver hiding under the Table.

Along the way we’re bound to kick up that perennial  also-ran can—Tin— he comes to town and makes the rounds, but always  ends up  wasting away in a landfill, a real slacker if there ever was one.

And I mean, sure, there are some bright spots on the Periodic Table. There’s the star of the show, gold, hiding down there in the middle of the pack, and glinting in at a clandestine #79. Highly-prized all the time, but he’s oh-so-hard to find, unless you’ve got a really big credit line.

Every now and then you may catch sight of that tempereal Mercury, but its hard to pin him down.  He never stays in one place long enough to amount to anything. He’s got a really hot temper, but, I’m told, a cold personality.

Down there in the middle of the defensive line there’s the Lead heavyweight– not very fast, but good on the line– a good blocker for those fast Uranium backs.

 Uranium backs are the stars of the show, you know, forever racking up the big stats. But most of them are real hot shots, and if their temper gets worked up, you can’t get rid of ’em. The refs kick ’em out of the game, but they hang around for a long time like they own the place and make trouble for anybody who crosses their path. Don’t cross ’em. If they get really fired up they’ll go plutonium on ya and that’s all she wr

Glass Chimera

Puff and Jackie Paper

For many, many years I have wondered about Peter Yarrow’s mention of “a land called Honah Lee,” in that silly old song he wrote about a dragon named Puff.

Just yesterday I was wondering as I wandered along the shoreline of Hanalei Bay, Kauai, Hawaii.

While vacationing on the north shore of Kauai I had been feeling a little constricted by the touristy setup there. It was obstructing my sense of adventure.

So, busting out of conventionality, so stealthily did I violate the boundaries of tourist propriety by launching into an unauthorized jungle trek.

Past the condos and the pool and the shuffleboard court and the boats-for-rent and the obligatory paraphenalia of predictable recreation, I stepped stealthily into a kapu area of overgrown, untended wild Hawaiian hoohah!

Through broadleaf wild flora damp with recent rain I did venture, stooping beneath gangly trees, tromping around some ancient black volcanic boulders and fearlessly bounding over others, I hazarded the uncharted course I had serendipitously set for myself, plodding along the secret shore, and footprinting wet brown sand, I splashed forth  through shallow wavelets along the neglected eastern edge of Hanalei Bay.  This untamed pocket of Hawaiian paradise has somehow proliferated between two resortified developments of American flimflam.

’T’was then the dragon entered my mind:

“Puff the magic dragon lived by the sea,

and frolicked in the autumn mists of a land called Hanah Lee.”

Here was I, perchance, sauntering adventurously through the last wild boundary of Hanalei Bay, maybe a little like the legendary Puff in that old classic Peter, Paul and Mary song:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z15pxWUXvLY

Within the deep recesses of Baby Boomer recall, Puff the Magic Dragon still yet  blows through, across an ocean of imagination. Can you hear the tale?

“Little Jackie Paper loved that rascal Puff

and brought him strings and sealing wax and other fancy stuff.

Together they would travel on a boat with billowed sail;

Jackie kept a lookout perched on Puff’s gigantic tail.”

Once upon a time, when there was as yet no jet-plane, no cruise-boat, no trans-Pacific ocean liner. . . long, long ago while approaching an island far, far away, during an age in which the only transport to these remote islands of Hawaii was by sailing ship. . .

“Little Jackie Paper loved that rascal Puff,

and brought him (from highly developed, civilized countries far, far away) “strings and sealing wax and other fancy stuff.”

Do kids these days even know about strings and sealing wax? This is ancient legend stuff. I mean, who uses strings and ceiling wax these days? Who folds an envelope and closes it and then affixes the back flap with a buttoned string and a blob of richly-colored wax impressed with a regal insignia?

Nobody I know of. You?

These were communicative implements of a by-gone age, when persons of certain authority or rank used strings and ceiling wax to assure a remote recipient that the letter or parcel being hand-delivered had originated with the accredited sender.

Such strings and sealing wax were used in centuries long gone, when mighty sailing ships voyaged halfway around the globe from London or Lisbon or Boston or some such port of great commerce.

Those majestic ocean-going vessels would arrive with pomp and fanfare at many  an exotic destination along the way, where fabled creatures inhabited magical shores, places where a fast-industrializing world had only recently managed to  impose  its rigid demands of productivity, efficiency and conformity on clueless, unsuspecting noble savages such as Hawaiians were when all this commercializing globalization had only just begun.

Puff the Dragon was the quintessential  wild uncivilized creature of old; he held sway over that formerly vast, untamed region where primeval legends prevailed, as yet unspoiled by modern mediocrity, a time and place where magic and myth, not capitalizing pragmatism, still reigned supreme.

So, in the 1950’s-60’s televised commercialized USA where young Baby Boomer imaginations ran wild with the likes of Mickey and Minnie and Davy Crockett and the Jetsons and the Flintstones . . .

Little Jackie Paper, the nascent civilized child, found Puff among his privileged playthings. And letting his imagination run wild, he frolicked with Puff in the autumn mists of a land called Honah Lee.

For a few years, he made play of Puff— until young Jackie decided to move on to bigger and better pursuits . . . baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet, Elvis and the Beatles, Mustangs and Volkswagens,  Lost in Space and lost in purple haze,  caught up in fantasy and privileged college days, gathered up in protests and rockfests and counterculture forays, and eventually outgrowing even all that stuff and finally picking up the better “toys” of governments and companies and  corporations . . .

“A dragon lives forever; not so little boys.

painted wings and giant’s rings make way for other toys.

One grey night it happened; Jackie Paper came no more,

and Puff that magic dragon ceased his fearless roar.”

Surely we now understand this about Peter Yarrow’s classic song of forsaken childhood innocence: In the end, Puff ceased his roar because . . .

Jackie ceased his playing. The roaring voice that had bellowed was not Puff’s at all; it was young Jackie’s intonation of Puff’s imagined roar.

Remembering this old tune while trudging along Hanalei bay. . . dredges up old memories.  My feeling is that the quaint longevity of this simple song slips up from beneath the surface of a sea deeper  than mere child’s play.

It is a longing for the past; it is a vague recollection from our collective vault of  wishes and dreams; it is a pining away for a former age of mankind, a time when the people who were in charge of things were benevolent and empathetic, a Camelot time before the brouhaha of democracy, a Shangri-La time before the anarchy of revolutions, before the abuses of communism. . . a simpler, Arcadia time before everything got so complicated and leaders were not so self-infatuated, a time when . . .

“Noble kings and princes would bow whenever they came;

pirate ships would lower their flags when Puff roared out his name.”

  King of Soul

Give me America

Give me America anyday because

I hear America bringing

politics gone mad

into process.

Just give it to me:

America.

Give me America anyday because

I see America clinging

to an old notion

of liberty.

Give me America anyday because

I still feel America flinging

the deadends of malice

into arcs of goodwill.

Give me America anyday because

I know America’s still singing

an old song, just with

a new beat.

You can’t beat

America.

Give me America anyday because

I can sight America winging

its way o’er terrains of pain

and strife.

It’s just life, y’all

to have to put up with

this stuff.

This stuff that’s goin’ down now:

them with their their guns and butter

vs. them with their lgbt muttering—

just give me America, you guys!

Give me America anyday because

I feel America clinging

to hope and justice

and even God

is still with us,

y’all.

King of Soul