VIEW ALL TEDDYVEGAS' BLOG ENTRIES
NOTE TO READERS OF THE DAY:
OK, time to try to get back on the horse. Or the keyboard. Or whatever. The following is a grab bag of things. Some scribbled between sobs in an effort to distract myself. Others in an attempt at genuine, perhaps even therapeutic expression. And others are little bits and notes that were written in the days preceding the sudden passing of my father and--while they feel ridiculously gratuitous from this side of that event--I have decided not to exclude them.
TEDDY VEGAS-MICHAEL JORDAN COMPARISON OF THE DAY: (aka Birthdy Recap).
Celebrated my birth and continued existence in the best way I knew how. By playing basketball like a man then crying like a baby then drinking like a fish.
It's official now. My birthday is over and my father has not called me. He has not been hiding out in some remote outskirt of existence after all. He is gone. I got countless beautiful calls, cards and messages on my birthday. And for them I am deeply appreciative. But it's the call I did not get that I couldn't (and still can't) stop thinking about.
I played uncharacteristically well on my birthday. And I thought of MJ collapsing in tears, trophy in hand, after winning the NBA champtionship right after his dad died. Obviously, despite playing very well by my modest standards, I didn't remotely approach him in the talent or the dominance department. But I sure as hell matched him sob for sob; wail for wail. In fact --not to trash talk...but I'm pretty sure I could have backed his blubbering ass down into the lachrymal paint and completely had my way with him.
BLOG-O-CENTRIC DEATH-INFORMED THOUGHT OF THE DAY:
Blogs are memorial shrines in the making; emerging portraits of a life hovering in virtual space that will survive the blogger and linger on in perpetuity as the cyber summa of who and what he was. Once the blogger dies, people can visit his blog posthumously--as they might visit his ashes in a tiny rented space in a mausoleum. I guess books are like that too. Except a book is seldom interrupted by a death the way a blog might be--and so seldom has its unfinishedness so explicitly inscribed within it. The endings of books are usually authored. Determined by the will of the writer rather than by the contingencies of death or neglect.
Blogs, lingering in virtual space...like astral debris...Like the light from stars long since extinguished...etc...etc...
Ok...quit fooling myself. All of life is like this. There's nothing really so special or unique about blogs.
So get on with it...
LFAQs OF THE DAY:
Who was more hypocritical: The doctors who were arrested in connection with the recent terrorist plots in London in taking the Hypocratic Oath or Bush in taking the Inaugural Oath to uphold the Constitution?
During Cheney's 3 hours as acting president, what actions were taken to prevent him from declaring a war, pressing a button or decreeing some new set of expanded powers for the imperial presidency? Was he locked in a room without a phone or a button? Or was he just busy the whole time video taping Bush's colonoscopy for his private video collection?
Can a nose be male or female?
How long will it be until black is the new black?
Do animals in nature ever choke?
Is the brief distraction with which these gratuitous little observations and entertainments provide me in my bereaved state sufficient recompense for the lingering after-echo of emptiness and inappropriateness that they evoke?
Should I, in my father's name and memory, put Teddy Vegas on haitus for a while and resume being Teddy Cohn?
METAPHYSICAL OBSERVATION OF THE DAY:
Life is like a dream. But all of its mystery, difficulty and glory is contained within the curious space of that word "like."
MEDIA COMMENT OF THE DAY:
The problems with the media coverage of this administration have been distilled to perfection in a single headline in the New York Times the other day.
"Bush Distorts Qaeda Links, Critics Assert."
OK, why do we need the last two words of that headline? Why qualify it as a critics' assertion when it is a matter of demonstrable fact?* Does that matter of demonstrable fact not constitute news? Why does it have to be claimed in someone else's behalf in order to be deemed newsworthy? Why is putting it above the fold on the front page with this cagey qualification as close as the Paper of Record can come to clarifying matters of fact from matters of assertion; matters of truth from matters of truthiness? There are NOT two equal and balanced sides to every story. Would the Times have to say "Evolution is a scientific truth, not merely a theory, some scientists assert?" Ok, bad example, these days. But the point is that the preposterous premise that there are no matters of objective truth left and that everything is subject to the equivocations of spin is profoundly damaging to our national discourse. Of course, it's arguable that "Bush Distorts Qaeda Links" with no qualification may indeed qualify as truth but it may not qualify as news--and thereby belongs on the editorial page and not the front page. But in an age where the truth (or at least the factual) is perpetually imperilled by cynical spin, its periodic plain and simple assertion would seem to constitute news. Very very important news. If this wasn't precisely the kind of thing that led the press to so egregiously abet the administration in getting us into the Iraq war, I wouldn't be so hypersensitive to these subtle concessions to the illusion debatability. But it is and so I am.
At least it's a step in the right direction. Nice to see the Times assuming their journalistic responsibility to do more than merely parrot (and hence validate) the Administration's claims. But it would be so nice to see the headline denuded of the unnecessary qualifier/ hedge.
* At the very least, he has clearly confused the matter by claiming that the Iraq Al Qaeda members who have responded to our invasion of Iraq are the same people who attacked us on 9/11. This is at best sophistry. and at worst a downright lie. The statement "these are the same folks (folks!!!!) who atacked us on 9/11" is patently untrue. These "folks" had no involvemend in that attack--whatsover. The alleged link between the 9/11 al qaeda attacks and Saddam's Iraq has been clearly established to have completely spurious. And the "folks" who are attacking people in Iraq after our invasion (whom Frank Rich aptly calls the jihadists-come-lately) weren't even part of al qaeda at the time of our invasion. They have only been radicalized in response to our aggresssion --and represent a Mesopotamian faction of al qaeda that has no direct ties to tha al qaeda of Osama Bin Laden, El Zawihri etc. In other words, with the people responsible for the 9/11 attacks. In fact, these people are by all accounts part of a completely separate entity that--for purposes of solidarity and self-legitimization--shares the same name as the organization involved in the 9/11 attack--but none of the same organizational infrastructure or chains of command.
PROPOSAL OF THE DAY:
The New York Times should have one day of the year called Truth Day--and maybe have it on or contiguous to some symbolically important (and relevant) day like Election Day or Veteran's Day or 9/11. And on that day, let the Times simply publish truths as news. Because of the special event context of the day, their bold, simple, unapologetic truthfulness (as opposed to their truthiness) will render them newsworthy. And there it will be: Simple truthful headlines, asserted boldly and unapologetically as a corrective to our dangerously compromised public discourse: "Global Warming is a Scientifically Established Truth"--freed of the diminsihing qualifier "overwhelming majority of scientists agree." "Evolution is a truth and not a theory"--uncompromised by any subordinate clause or source reference and, clearly, not dismissing the idea that religious faith can certainly co-exist with Darwinian ideas but cannot replace them. "Five is more than three." "The Cat in The Hat was written by Dr. Seuss" "Bush and Cheney Misled America into War." Etc. Truth Day. A vital cultural corrective. Just one day a year. Then we can go back to truthiness and spin and the maddening carnival of competing claims.
We've had reality TV. Now it's time for reality journalism.
It might be the most radical thing left to do in our society.
PARADOXICAL PHENOMENON OF THE DAY:
An apartment cluttered with unused organizers.
CARTOON WITHOUT ILLUSTRATION OF THE DAY:
Guy: (with effeminate affect) to two short haired women: "We were having a great day together and were THIS close to bonding."
ONION-ESQUE (SHALLOT-LIKE) HEADLINE OF THE DAY:
Bush says still too early to judge surge. July 4, 2035.
ACTUAL HEADLINE OF THE DAY THAT I MISTOOK FOR AN ONION HEADLINE:
"Bush dismisses CIA leak as old news."
I swear I thought it was an Onion article. I can't wait until we can dismiss Bush as old news.
POLITICAL COMMENT OF THE DAY:
Hillary Clinton's doing the Soprano's parody may have helped her in overcoming the perception of her being humorless. But her having asked people to vote on what her theme song should be hardly helped with the perception that she lacks personal conviction and that she focus groups everything to death.
BOOK REVIEW OF THE DAY:
Black Swan: A nice core insight woefully overblown into an endlessly repetitive, tediously self-righteous tome. An interesting idea that mistakes itself for a startlingly revolutionary concept--a Copernican master trope. The subtext of every sentence is "I am amazing and everyone else is an absolute idiot." Which would be tolerable if he had the fierce brilliance, lyrical depth or compelling urgency of someone like Nietzsche. But of course, he doesn't. It is hard to decide which is more insufferable: The mediocrity and blindness he derides or the smug self-righteousness of his derision.
OBSERVATION OF THE DAY:
At some unconcious level, you still keep thinking your childhood is not entirely over; There are still a few more lines to be written in that chapter of your life. The death of a parent rudely and unceremoniously puts an end to that illusion.
IMAGE OF THE DAY:/THOUGHT OF THE DAY
An old copy of Heidegger's "Being and Time" accumulating dust and rotting...
RANDOM SINGLE SENTENCE PORTRAIT OF THE DAY:
He was exiled from profundity by an excess of seriousness.
JOURNAL OF MOURNING EXCERPT OF THE DAY:
First reflections...upon receiving the shocking news of my father's sudden death.
The last talk with him...just hours before. After a routine and "successful" leg angioplasty, he had been sent to the rehab center on a Saturday when there was no one there to begin therapy until Monday morning. They put him in a room with a fellow convalescent. We talked on the phone. He told me he was having a lovely day in the company of the four beautiful females in his life --his daughter Jennifer, wife Carla, housekeeper and resident godsend Carolina and his beloved dog and constant companion Daisy. He sounded great. I asked if he wanted me to visit the next day and he said no need. He was fine. I said that maybe I'd take off one of the days during the week and come up and he said, that'd be great. But there was really no need to. This was nothing. Just a few days of rehab and then he'd be back. He complained of pain in his foot...that the doctors had convinced him was arthritis or something --that he could now feel because there was finally blood flowing to the foot. (In hindsight, I suspect it was phlebitis or some kind of unheeded symptom of the blood clot that would kill him hours later.) Anyhow, there was suddenly some kind of commotion and he said something about a firetruck arriving and an ambulance and he couldn't hear me with all the noise and he must have just handed the phone to someone. After a few moments of disorientation, during which I wasn't sure if we were still connected or not, I heard my half-sister Jennifer pick up the phone and explain that a firetruck had arrived with a new emergency patient for rehab...who was in a lot worse shape than dad. I said, whoa...I really thought he'd just dropped there for a second. She made some joke about no...but the person who was being brought in by the EMT crew might drop any second. Or may have already. Anyhow, she said dad seemed great and I said she and I should talk about taking turns visiting him next week.
An hour later, I spoke to his wife who told me they were back at the house. That they'd had a great day. That dad seemed really good--except for the pains in the foot. And that he was just tired so they'd left so he could sleep. She said the only thing that was really sad was that his beloved dog Daisy didn't really seem to recognize him in the wheelchair. And instead, when she saw a guy with a baseball cap like my dad always wore shuffling towards them down the path on a walker, she ran towards him barking and whelping excitedly like it was dad. She said that was really really sad. And dad seemed heartbroken. I remember thinking how weird that the dog didn't recognize or respond to him even though he must have still had his signature smell. But I didn't say anything about it.
It was a beautiful day.
I went for a little half hour walk and then came up to the apartment to catch the start of the Mets game.
A few minutes later, my cell phone rang. As I reached for the phone, I saw the incoming call was from my sisterm which surprised me. When I answered it, I heard her screaming hysterically:
"Teddy...Dad died! Dad died!!"
???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
His wife was screaming hysterically in the background.
"He just collapsed. He's dead on the bathroom floor. He's just lying there dead. He's just lying there dead. And no one is doing anything!!!"
???????????????????????????????????????
They had gone back to the hospital because he had gotten sick from the sandwich he had eaten...and when they got there, he was in the bathroom along with the nurse--who, I suppose, was helping him out. Suddenly they'd heard her scream. They opened the door and he collapsed, forward. They caught his head before it hit the ground. But they knew instantly he was dead.
???????????????????
"He just collapsed. He's dead on the bathroom floor. He's just lying there dead."
?????????
The surreality. The shock. The feeling faint and nauseated. The crazy suddenness. The crazy this isn't happening-ness. The..the...the...the complete out of the blueness.
?????
The beautiful day,
???
The beautiful day.
?
The terribly beautiful day.
----
The the the...mind, instantly seeking patterns, weaving a webwork, retroactively, of foreshadowings and premonitions. Oddities and ironies that in retrospect seem to suggest meaning. The dog not recognizing his smell. The dark joke about him dropping when the EMT and fire truck showed up. The having been concerned he'd stopped breathing during a deep nap during what now turns out to have been the last visit I will ever have with him 2 weeks earlier.
The the the..mind simultanously seeking patterns and mocking the effort to do so.
The sudden end of childhood. The loss of the last person to whom I was a special little boy. The interruption of a life-long story. I am cast back into the primal familial narrative. This was my parent. He gave me life. And raised me. And loved me. And now suddenly --radically and without warning--he is gone. There will be no new memories. I feel like Nate at the beginning of "Six Feet Under"...except without the extreme familial dysfunction or the anonymous sex in the airport or the hair. And of course, for the fact that this is my life and not a television show.
It is all feeling so surreal still. Except for moments of piercing howl-inducing pain. I am suddenly--in the space of a single phone call--cast out of the population of people with living fathers and into the population of the fatherless.
It is certain now that my father will never see me married. Thriving. A father.
This aches endlessly.
---
As suddenly as that, the ancient vestige of shelter is removed and you in your irreduceable and ineluctable you-ness are exposed to the unsheltering sky.
I am on the last train to Westport.
This is so real.
And this is so happening.
---
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.
---
After going up to the house he lived in to exchange sobbing hugs with his wife, daughter and housekeeper, I borrow one of their cars to drive up from Westport to spend the night at my mother's place in western central Connecticut--where I think I'll feel more at home at this terrible moment. During the 1 1/2 hour drive along back country roads, I am accompanied only by my staggering shock and grief and by the strange automated voice of the G.P.S. system which my brother-in-law has set for me. "In 1/4 mile...take a left turn."
---
Arriving at my mother's house around midnight to her partial deafness. I have to speak at a volume absurdly inappropriate to my emotional state.
---
Before going to bed, I call my brother in Prague. I blind side him at 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning. Breaking the news of the death of a parent to your only full sibling ---one of the hardest and most intimate acts of my life. The reactivation, across time and distance, of long dormant associative pathways and primal bonds. Much like my mother, my brother has very poor hearing and so, again, I have to pitch my voice at an unnaturally high volume. He tells me he hasn't heard many of the details of what I had to tell him, but then the howling sobs of grief begin and I know he has got the main idea.
--
My father is dead. My father is no more. I am suddenly fatherless. Today is the last day ever that I will have awakened with a father in my life. And tomorrow is the first day i will awaken without one.
Tags:
None
© All rights reserved.
Posted on 7/29/2007
(
Permanent Link
)
Read
452 Times
Send to Friend