The Warrior’s Songbook
Acknowledgements
In his final years Sir Isaac Newton was asked, to what he attributed his genius and phenomenal vision, to which he replied "I am able to see so far because I am standing on the shoulders of giants". Albert Einstein’s greatest achievement was the formulation of the General Theory of Relativity, which would have been virtually impossible with out the ground-breaking discoveries of Michael Faraday, Max Plankt, Antoine Corvoisier, Lisa Mietner, Emily DuChateaulet and, to a certain extent, Isaac Newton himself. We’re all in this together and everyone feeds off the knowledge and inspiration of those around us or who came before. And so it is with much gratitude and deep honour that I acknowledge the influences in my life, the great thinkers, writers, activists and visionaries, both past and present, who, through their indefatigable courage and commitment to truth and justice, have inspired me to look beyond the surfaces of things in an effort to uncover the real substance and deeper meaning of this life. These great souls have been my torch bearers, lighting the path of understanding and knowledge in these challenging times and I feel a great indebtedness to them.
I know that I cannot name them all but the ones who standout as my greatest influences are; H. D. Thoreau, Rumi, Martin Luther King, Plato, James Joyce, William Shakespeare, Nicolas Copernicus, Anais Nin, Jesus of Nazareth, Voltaire, Hagel, P. D. Ouspenski, Virginia Wolfe, Ghandi, Alexander Solshzenitzen, Ayn Rand, Lao Tzu, Herman Hesse, Albino Luciani, Freda Kahlo, Thomas Jefferson and the Great Laws of the Iroquois Confederation. These luminaries were the radicals, rebels and revolutionaries of their time, fearlessly riding the vanguard of change so that we today could aspire to higher ideals.
And today’s crop is no less illustrious with the likes of Nelson Mandela, Noam Chomsky, Bill Moyers, Bob Dylan, Robert Persig, Salman Rushdie, Laurie Anderson, Bob Geldof, Lech Lewensa, The Dalai Lama, Patti Smith, Vaclav Havel, John Lennon, Joseph Campbell et al. And last but not least, I want to acknowledge the influence of a gentleman whose ‘shoulders’ I have been standing on for the better part of my life and whose simple wisdom and guidance have helped immensely in providing me with a long-range vision, not so much without, but within. Prem Rawat is a gifted poet, artist, inventor, orator, humorist, photographer, humanitarian and peace activist who was born in the East and now resides in the US Southwest. His fresh and unique perspective on individual peace through something he calls ‘self-knowledge’ has been essential to the on-going journey within myself. Mr. Rawat’s generosity and compassion for humanity continue to be a source of inspiration.
Introduction
It is safe to say, after much consideration, that mankind appears to suffer from a strange form of myopia which, when mixed with an ample portion of ego, causes him to careen aimlessly around in an irrational state of madness, bumping into walls and rock faces resulting in many a stubbed toe and bloody nose. And, the saddest aspect of this affliction is that, by the same degree to which he ‘thinks’ he knows where he is going and what’s happening…..he doesn’t. That’s the kicker right there – that even though he is near totally blind, he has convinced himself that the world of shadows and phantoms he perceives is both the ultimate ‘reality’ and all there is to know. What cruel jest hast played itself upon we mortal fools.
In the past few decades, and with the advancements in the fields of Neurology and Quantum Mechanics, science is beginning to grasp just how limited we humans are when it comes to ‘knowing’ all there is to know. It’s humbling. Back in the fifties and sixties a few brave visionaries were already beginning to twig-on to these limitations and they even came up with quantifiable figure – three percent, yes, a measly three percent – as to how little man knows and understands of what there is to know and understand. Today that figure has been blown out of the water and the new percentage figure has a decimal point and a bunch of zeros in front of it. What gives?
Like all other organic life forms, Homo sapiens are sensory beings – we come into this world equipped with five basic sense perceptors and a highly advanced computer system, whose main purpose is to manage our bodily functions and process the boatload of data in-putted via the sense perceptors. But these sense perceptors are, by their nature, very, very limited – in fact we don’t actually know what’s happening outside our bodies until some form of exterior data stimulates the perceptor, i.e. a sound wave hits our ear drum, an odor wafts up our nose or a light ray reflects off an object and reaches our retina, etc. Our most important sense, being vision, is the one that gets us into the most trouble for, although we cannot actually ‘see’ or ‘know’ anything beyond the data coming in from the surfaces of objects, we indubitably believe this data to be real, true and all there is that exists. Ouch! Hence the bloody noses and stubbed toes.
To cut to the chase, humans are prone to developing their judgments, beliefs and truths based on the wafer-thin superficiality of the finite, temporal world around them when there is, in fact, so, so much more happening. When Einstein first coined the term ‘unified field’, which suggested that all of creation is sustained and interconnected by one, underlying force, (even occupying the space between objects), he provided us with a scientific glimpse, albeit a theoretical one, into the vast reality existing beyond our senses. (North America Aboriginals knew of this long before Einstein and identified this force as ‘The Great Spirit’ and even went a step further by developing a methodology (known as ‘The Vision Quest’) by which they could actually make inward contact with that all-pervasive power that science has thus far only theorized.
This book is an attempt to pierce through the ‘surfaces of things’, to burn away the fog of concepts and fantasies, and to get at the heart and substance of a life. In an effort to closely reflect a mirror-image of my existence, the following chapters will be laced with an earthy sense of humor, topical songwriting and even samples of my photography, but the core will stay true to the deeper pursuit of tearing down the walls and throwing open the curtains of culture and religious-based limitations. This book will in fact be two books, my first and my last – I humbly refer this as my magnum opus in which I get to say all I want to say and then that’s it, I can move on.
The original concept revolved around twelve folk songs, penned over my songwriting career that centered upon individuals or subjects who I consider to be ‘warriors’ – those who have taken on the system, whether willingly or reluctantly and often against insurmountable odds, in order to right a wrong or challenge an injustice visited upon them. These are the common folks, the little guys, the under-dogs who we will sing about in future generations lauding their valiant attempts to claw-back the individual rights and civil liberties so wantonly trampled upon by uncaring and reactionary governments, religions and corporations, many who still have their ideologies firmly entrenched in the dark ages. As the concept evolved, I began adding a chapter here, a chapter there and eventually the project blossomed into a much broader, holistic overview of hot-button issues and causes that I find interesting. Since I had previously recorded all twelve songs on CD’s produced over the years, I decided put together a compilation disc that would accompany the book so readers could listen along while they read the stories of each ‘warrior’.
"The Warriors Songbook" provides a glimpse into the ADD mind and will tend to wander around the landscape with no apparent design, often turning on a dime and sometimes heading off on seemingly disconnected tangents. (I did consider titling the book "Dog’s Breakfast"). But, at the end of the journey, I trust that my readers will sense the thread of cohesion running through the tome – it’s not my intent to make anyone dizzy, it’s just the way my mind works.
The set of ears that are closest to my mouth are my own – it is I who needs to read this book the most, for the chapters contained within are personal road signs advising me of the best routes to take along the path that I have chosen, the destination being the inner peace and deep joy that comes from knowing who I am.
Enjoy.
Chapter 1: The Sunday Funnies
If I were ‘King of the World’ there are a number of changes that would be made in the way things are run around here – the first has to do with the ‘Sunday funnies’. The Sunday funnies are sacrosanct – they’ve been a mainstay throughout of my conscious life going as far back as I can recall, somewhere around 5 yrs of age. Through a difficult upbringing the comics provided a steady, dependable and weekly escape from the drudgery of school and home life. Having been shunted through 17 Catholic foster homes and religious institutions, I was sorely in need of a respite once a week and the 3 or 4 page spread of colored comics was a God-send – I literally lost myself in them.
In the early to mid-fifties many of the cartoon characters included now-forgotten gems such as Mutt and Jeff, Jiggs the Butler, The Katzandjammer Kids, ‘Lil Abner, Dick Tracy and even Hank Ketcham’s Dennis the Menace. The plots were simple, the drawings were a little rudimentary at times but the cartoonists of that era never failed to breathe life into each character, so much so that it was impossible not to develop an on-going rapport with the central figures or an affinity to the story-lines.
Through the almost 60 years that the Sunday funnies have been a part of my life I have seen many of the classics come and go – no doubt many of the original cartoonists must have gotten old and tired or just simply passed on – but there was always a new generation of artists coming down the pike eager to showcase a fresh cast of characters such as Charley Brown, Hi and Lois, Cathy, BC and more recently the likes of Garfield, Calvin and Hobbs, Opus, etc. – to me, Bill Waterson’s Calvin and Hobbs was state of the art.
And this is my point – the fine art aspect of the weekend comics. I consider the Sunday funnies to be an art form, created by bona fide artists, not just for their ability to create the comical looking characters and goofy story-lines but because they did so in such a way as to engage these characters and their weekly antics and shenanigans with masses of fans and followers, including yours truly. Yes, this was fine art and these were fine artists. But, I have witnessed something insidious taking place over the past 15 to 20 years that I consider to be sacrilegious and that is this new trend of someone else taking over from the original artist when that artist retires or dies. This is tantamount to someone taking over from Picasso or Chagal, or Van Gogh’s next door neighbor continuing on his work after Van Gogh’s untimely demise. It Stinks!!!
Now, I won’t mention any names but oftentimes the person taking over the strip appears to be a family member, like the artist’s daughter or son, but that still doesn’t justify the offense – and it surely is an offense. It is offensive to observe that the plagiarized characters are weak facsimiles of the original artist’s work (can you imagine one of Gary Larson’s family members or his next door neighbor trying to copy ‘The Far Side’ – that would be sick). It’s offensive to read the watered-down story-lines and feckless humor in the copies, having been raised on the originals for so many years. And what adds to the insidiousness is the fact that no one ever told us it was happening – I have never actually seen a notice or caveat in the Sunday funnies stating the original artist of a particular comic strip decided to retire or die and someone else was designated to continue on with his or her work, blah, blah, blah. If so, then was there an intent to pull the wool over our eyes, to have some Joe Blow segue into the strip and hope that no one noticed. Hmmmmm. (And, on top of that, the alleged copyist never gives any credit to the original artist – hellooooo!!) Kudos to the cartoonists who, upon retiring or dying, terminated their comic strips – I’d rather have no cartoons than the tepid attempts by interlopers to copy the original artist’s work.
Anyway, if I was ‘King of the World’, I would make it an indictable offense to commit this type of artistic plagiarism – don’t mess with my Sunday funnies!!
Chapter 2: Dennis Lakusta and God
Dennis Lakusta and God can not exist at the same time and in the same space – one has to disappear in order for the other to exist. Why? The answer is simple – Dennis Lakusta is a concept, a complex collection of temporary labels and ideas slapped on a temporary body. God, on the other hand, is a permanent and limitless reality. Dennis Lakusta is confined to space, time and form whereas God is spaceless, timeless and formless. The popular religious concept that so-and-so will ‘sit’ on the right or left side of God is an indication of how difficult it is for some people to put the human body in its proper context, that being, a temporal vessel with a very brief shelf-life and a guaranteed expiry date. Many of these ideas about the human body were developed back in the dark ages and simply haven’t caught up to the current science – the science that understands that our bodies are born out of the earth, sustained by the earth and, after a brief tenure, are reclaimed by the earth. (The popular term is ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust – if people truly understand that the human form, like all organic life forms, decomposes and is reconstituted into the earth elements, then how can that same human form be sitting or standing at some other place or time.)
I was browsing around a book store in Edmonton a few years ago and come across an interesting book entitled, ‘A Pictorial Essay of Heaven and Hell’ – a rather hefty collection of artist’s renderings depicting these two states of after-life dating all the way back to the Neolithic period. It was amazing to peruse through the hundreds of glossy images and realize just how much of a preoccupation mankind has had with trying to ‘figure it out’. Although the particulars and details differed from one image to the next, the main theme was consistent – heaven was a nice place to be and hell wasn’t. At the end of the book the author made a brief statement, about a half page in length, in which he found it most curious that throughout the entire history of art and across all cultural and religious boundaries, the human form was explicitly included in both states of the after-life and that the artists seemed unable to ‘let go of’ or transcend the human form in terms of mankind’s ultimate fate.
Getting back to the ‘sitting on this side or that side’ thing – God does not have a left side or a right side and for that matter there is nothing to ‘sit’ on. These concepts imply limited physical forms that we insinuate, from our finite little world and via our imagination, into the divine realm. (A popular religious concept holds that we are created in the image and likeness of God but, in actuality, it’s the other way around – we have created God in the image and likeness of ourselves and our ideas, complete with the judgments, fear-mongering and vindictiveness that are patently human). All we have to do is ‘think’ of Heaven or God and we immediately conjure up an imaginary setting in our minds which includes all the stuff we have ‘down here’ like chairs and white robes and beards and a bunch of people ‘standing’ around God. I’m sorry, but there is nobody standing around God!! It’s not like, God and a bunch of people – it’s just God. Let’s go with the popular term – ‘omnipresent’ – if God is omnipresent, which means that there is no place that He is not, then that doesn’t leave much wiggle room for Tom, Dick and Mary, or whoever else wants to be standing next to Him. In reality, there is only God, God is All and it is the ultimate challenge for a human being to transcend the finite human form, to humbly ‘disappear’ into that All, to surrender our limited, self-absorbed identities and our noisy little egos into the beauty and all-pervasiveness of that presence.
(Note: Pope John Paul ll ushered in the new Millennium by declaring that the Vatican no longer supported the ‘concept’ that hell was a place with eternal fire and damnation and lots of demons running around with pitchforks. The church’s new position, he claimed, is that hell is simply not being in heaven. That’s refreshing, but where the heck was he 55-60 years ago when I, as an innocent little child, was being terrorized almost daily by these idiotic ‘concepts’ of burning forever in the deepest pit of everlasting hell fire, complete with the guys (why was it always guys) with the horns and pointy tails. Did anyone ever stop to realize just how much damage that kind of crap can cause to a little kid’s psyche??? Now, the current Pope wants to change it back to the earlier ‘concept’ – come on fellas, make up your minds, which one is it?)
Chapter 3: Tracy’s Lullabye
When I first heard the news item on CBC, it was like so many others stories that one hears day-by-day coming out of an AM radio, you know, the kind that drift around for 15 seconds or so, and then disappear into the ethers, never to be heard from again. Some farmer, his disabled daughter and something about a pickup truck and a hose – one more isolated little tragedy in God-Knows-Where, Saskatchewan. But this was 1993 and the country was still primed and polarized by the Sue Rodriguez trial only a year earlier so the CBC news item had a ready-made context.
The first ‘hard copy’ came in the form a Maclean’s five-page article with photos that laid out the basic scenario of the tragic events that unfolded on a small farm just outside the town of Wilkie, Saskatchewan. The article detailed the methodology employed by the farmer, whose name was Robert Latimer, to end the life of his severely disabled daughter Tracy. The young girl, twelve years old at the time, suffered from the most extreme and debilitating form of Cerebral Palsy – the medical term is ‘totally involved’, which means that it affects every region the body. Cerebral Palsy is an incurable neurological disorder that develops in the brain during pregnancy (due to a lack of oxygen) and the damage causes the brain’s neurotransmitters to send out faulty signals to the muscles and tendons of the body, instructing them to contract in an extremely erratic fashion. The neurological damage also affects all regions of the brain itself and in Tracy’s case, it was determined she had the mental capacity and cognitive skills of an infant.
The article went on to detail the many operations that had been performed on and within the young girl’s body, specifically those dealing with scoliosis and the dislocation of Tracy’s left hip. Scoliosis, also a neurological disorder, causes a curvature of the spine, from side-to-side instead of front to back, and oftentimes results in the spine forming a ‘C’ shape which results in a high degree of discomfort and pain for the victim. Tracy’s spine had contracted to about 70 degrees, 90 degrees being where the shoulder bone and the pelvic bone are right angles to each other. To counter this sideways deformation of the vertebrae, surgeons had installed a stainless steel rod system, anchored to the pelvic bone and extending to the upper rib-cage area in an attempt to force the spine to straighten out. As for Tracy’s left hip, x-rays indicated the ball and socket were damaged beyond repair and could not be saved and another operation had been planned to sever the ball and a large upper section of the femur bone which would have resulted in Tracy having a lifeless and useless left leg.
As I continued to read further into the article, I remember cobbling together a mental picture of Tracy Latimer and the condition she was in during her final days. The scoliosis, the hip problems, her refusal to eat, the incurability and severity of the disease, the convulsions and seizures, the futility of her future prospects plus the numerous other operations, including the necessity to sever tendons and ligaments to provide Tracy with some relief from the errant muscle contractions. And, more than anything else, the pain and suffering that she endured in the final days of her life. I felt a big cry coming on and what sent me over the edge was the section of the article that described Tracy’s emaciated state and the fact that she weighed only 34 pounds in the weeks leading up to her death. 34 pounds for a 12 year old human being. I wept.
That night I wrote the song ‘Tracy’s Lullabye’.
Mr. Latimer had been charged with second degree murder and I kept abreast of the proceedings leading up to the 1997 trial and it was shortly after that I came in contact with court transcripts which included the testimony given by Dr. Anne Dzus, Tracy’s orthopedic surgeon. This is what I had been waiting for since reading the Maclean’s article – a more in-depth understanding of what actually happened to Tracy Latimer.
Over the years ‘Tracy’s Lullabye’ has been sung at many concerts and I’ve spoken a bit about the history of the case and it never fails to ignite an emotional outpouring on both sides of the issue. There had been numerous confrontations with people who had summarily written Robert Latimer off as a callous child-killer and it turns out that these folks hadn’t read any of the transcripts and therefore did not know the facts in the case. In the late 90s I got in the habit of carrying around copies of Dr. Dzus’ testimony and would give them out at the concerts and when this book idea began to formulate, I realized it provided a perfect platform for presenting Dr. Dzus’ testimony.
Like other Canadians, I feel the need to speak out about the Robert Latimer case. I’m not a lawyer or a doctor, but I am a concerned citizen who, based on the facts available to me, feels strongly that there was a miscarriage of justice in Mr. Latimer’s ordeal. The incidence of prejudicial conduct among certain members of the judicial and law enforcement communities appear to indicate there was a concerted effort to win a guilty verdict, no matter what – this is not speculation, but documented fact. It was obvious throughout the two trials that Robert Latimer was not afforded the basic constitutional right of being innocent until being proven guilty – instead, according to some, his guilt was a foregone conclusion and the only purpose of the trial was to determine just how long Mr. Latimer would spend in prison. (Section 7 of The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees that those individuals who are charged with a criminal offence be treated fairly – this was supposed to be Robert Latimer’s guaranteed right).
But, there is something else, much more profound and hidden deep underneath the surface of things that need to be addressed in the Latimer case and that is the question of rights and ethics, specifically, Tracy Latimer’s rights and ethics?
In this juggernaut we call advanced technology, where we have invented every kind of machine conceivable and, in regards to the medical industry, hooked many of them up to our terminally ill patients with the expressed purpose of keeping them alive until we’ve sucked the last drop of existence out of them, is it possible that we have stepped over an ethical line where we begin to violate the rights of the very people we are trying to help? The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Section 12) protects our citizens against cruel and unusual punishment – can there be any doubt, given the facts of this case, that Tracy Latimer’s Charter Rights were violated? Is it possible that in its rush to judgment, the ‘system’ (including the courts, the governments, the religions, the police, the medical industry and the lobbyists representing the disabled community) was willing to condemn a helpless and hopeless little girl to ‘hell on earth’, in order to protect and further its own conservative agenda and the status quo. If anyone thinks the term ‘hell on earth’ is too strong, try imagining what Tracy Latimer’s life would have been like (given the statements by Dr. Dzus) had her father not ended it on that October morning near Wilkie, Saskatchewan.
Perhaps the ‘system’ itself needs to be put on trial – from the Supreme Court of Canada, the governments, the medical industry and religious organizations on down. The Robert Latimer case was a political ‘hot potato’, as was the Sue Rodriguez case that preceded it – nobody wanted to touch it. Ms. Rodriguez came within a whisper of changing the laws concerning ‘death with dignity’ issues – four out of the nine judges on the Supreme Court supported her right to end her life when she became totally incapacitated from the effects of A.L.S. (Lou Gehrig’s Disease). There is little doubt that the Rodriguez case had shell-shocked the ‘system’ and thus had a direct influence on the 7-0 decision to convict Robert Latimer.
(Note: The Supreme Court came to its 7-0 decision based largely on its nebulous claim that there was some form of effective pain medication out there somewhere that would not counteract with the powerful medications already present in Tracy’s body – this claim is refutable and conveniently provided the court with an easy way out of a ‘touchy’ situation. Think about it – Tracy Latimer was already in the system, she was surrounded by doctors, nurses, surgeons and all sorts of other medical specialists – if there was a more effective pain medication that existed don’t you think that one of these many professionals would have known it, found it and administered it to Tracy. Why, all of a sudden, was the onus to provide effective pain medication put on the shoulders of a simple farmer like Robert Latimer)?
(Note: It’s also worthwhile mentioning that in the ensuing years since the 1997 Latimer trial, there have been several high profile cases of mercy killing/euthanasia that have made it onto the national news and, in not a single case has the perpetrator (loved-one) been sent to prison or even charged with second degree murder – go figure. Given the general atmosphere of lenience surrounding these cases one wonders why the ‘system’ decided to gang-up on Mr. Latimer. Hmmmm).
If a law, or set of laws need to be amended or adjusted, then we have the mechanisms available to us by which we can effect those changes. Human laws are fallible by their very nature and are subject to amendments from time to time. A number of national polls conducted over the past 10-15 years have consistently indicated that a clear majority of Canadians want to see changes to the laws that will create protections for the basic human right to a more natural and dignified death – why are our courts so reluctant to take on this issue? Our governments appoint judges to the Supreme Court with the specific power to amend laws in order to protect the rights of all Canadians, not just the special interest groups with the loudest voices. Changing these laws will require a Supreme Court with vision, impartiality and a great deal of courage, a Supreme Court willing to take the ‘bull by the horns’, to handle this ‘hottest of potatoes’ and until that happens, Tracy Latimer, Sue Rodriguez and many others like them, will continue to endure unspeakable indignities and needless suffering.
To the 700,000 disabled Canadians I say this; think for yourselves, weigh the facts and the evidence before you make your judgment. Robert Latimer has been out of prison for a number of years now and he has not been running around hurting or killing disabled people. According to testimony from the court transcripts he was a caring and loving father to Tracy over the 12 years that they were together – it’s preposterous to suggest that, on that final day, he all of a sudden was transformed into a callous and merciless killer of little children. But there are lobbyists and extremists, claiming to represent the disabled community, who have been filling the airwaves with such poisonous, fear-mongering statements, such as ‘Robert Latimer was granted early parole – it’s no longer safe for the disabled to sleep at night’ or ‘now it’s open season on the disabled’. Canada has one of the most progressive and vibrant disabled communities in the world – just look at our involvement in the Para-Olympics – these are athletes who, through many years of dedicated training and hard work, are in better health and more fit than most Canadians. There are vast numbers of disabled Canadians who are intelligent, productive members of our community who enjoy active social lives and a high quality of existence. If one believes the aforementioned fear-mongers from the special interest groups, now that Robert Latimer has been released on day-parole, he is going to go around trying to hurt or kill all these folks – these above statements (oftentimes religious-based) are absolutely asinine and dangerous.
I wasn’t there that October 24th morning near Wilkie, Saskatchewan – I don’t actually know what happened and no one except Robert Latimer ever will, but based on all the facts presented at the trial, including the sworn statements regarding Mr. Latimer’s character and over-all treatment of Tracy during her brief life, I am willing to give the man the benefit of the doubt – I personally feel he did the right thing. I will continue to advocate for a change in the laws that protect the rights of the individual, whether disabled or not, and who find themselves in extreme and terminal situations, to have a legal option to end their lives if they so wish (I would definitely want to have that option available to myself as well). For extreme cases like Tracy Latimer, whose condition had deteriorated to the point where they do not have a say in the matter, the legal option and the exercise of their fundamental rights still needs to be available to them. And, it has to be set up where the parents or/or loved ones have the last word when it comes to the final decision.
Why I feel confident that laws can be enacted that protect both the rights of the disabled and the rights of the individual is because of the track record of other caring and humane societies, including our American neighbors to the south, who have, with much courage and hard work, already enacted such laws. The laws in Oregon and Washington State are deliberate and stringent, with checks and balances at every turn, providing a high level of surety against abuse and, at the same time, protecting the rights of those with terminal illnesses to have a say in their own destiny. These laws have been in place for years now and there has been clearly no evidence of an ‘open season’ on the disabled – we can come up with a system that protects the rights of all Canadians.
Tracy Latimer was dying – consider the facts; she weighed a mere 34 pounds and had rejected all attempts to feed her; she was in constant pain, and according to Dr. Dzus, that pain would have continued for at least a year after the anticipated hip replacement; Tracy would still continue to require other forms of invasive surgery as her condition continued to deteriorate (this added to all the other operations performed on her over her lifetime); pain medication was not an option because it counter-acted with the anti-convulsant and anti-epileptic drugs already in her system; she had no hope of recovery and the prognosis was that things would only get worse, plus her quality of life was virtually non-existent. Could all of these factors combined (especially her total rejection of food) have been interpreted as a cry from Tracy that she had had enough and wanted out.
**Dr. Dzus’ testimony will be reprinted in this space.
Tracy’s Lullabye (Track #1 on the enclosed CD)
Go sleepy little baby, you don’t got to cry
Daddy’s here, he’s gonna hold you, sing you a lullabye
There’s a big fat moon in the kitchen window
And the cats and the cows are fed
Sandman’s sneakin’ around the corner
It’s time that babies were in bed
Babies were in bed
Babies were in bed
Close your eyes little darlin’
You’ve had a long long day
Mom’s here, she’s gonna love you
Kiss your blues away
This old rockin’ chair’s like a cloud in heaven
You’ll be safe in the maker’s keep
Dreams are a-goin’ at a dime a dozen
It’s time that babies were asleep
Babies were asleep
Babies were asleep
Rock-a-bye, rock-a-bye baby
Rock-a-bye, rock-a-bye now
Rock-a-bye, rock-a-bye baby
Rock-a-bye, rock-a-bye now
Go sleepy little baby, you don’t got to cry
Daddy’s here he’s gonna hold you, sing you a lullabye
There’s a big fat moon in the kitchen window
And the cats and the cows are fed
Sandman’s sneakin’ around the corner
It’s time that babies were in bed
Babies were in bed
This old rocking chair’s like a cloud in heaven
You’ll be safe in the maker’s keep
Dreams are a-goin’ at a dime a dozen
It’s time that babies were asleep
Babies were asleep
Babies were asleep
Rock-a-bye, rock-a-bye baby
Rock-a-bye, rock-a-bye now
Rock-a-bye, rock-a-bye baby
Rock-a-bye, rock-a-bye now
For Robert and Laura Latimer
Chapter 4: 9/11
Most people remember where they were when Kennedy and John Lennon were gunned down – so too with 9/11. For us baby-boomers those will be the three ‘markers’ that we will base our lives around as we grow old and wax retrospectively. I was couch-surfing at a friend’s place in Edmonton that morning when he rushed into the house and turned on the television and there it was, in living color – ‘the day the earth stood still’. Anyone who follows world history and American foreign policy, especially the past 50-75 years, is aware of the possibility that something ‘big’ was bound to happen sooner or later, but nobody, in their wildest dreams, expected what ‘went down’ that September morning in 2001. I remember distinctly the thoughts that were flashing through my head at the time – I’m not surprised that it’s happening, but I am surprised how it’s happening.
I spent most of 1988-1992 gypsying around the US as an itinerant artist, living out of the back of a Chevy station wagon and schlepping my work around to prospective galleries which included New York City. On a number of occasions I visited the World Trade Center just to feel the rush of traveling up to 75 miles per hour in an elevator (it took two separate elevator rides to get to the top of either tower). It was a unique experience – there you were, one moment you’re in New York City with its bustling traffic, exhaust fumes and cacophonous din at street level and a mere few minutes later you’d step out onto the observation deck and the illusion hits you – you were no longer in New York City. It was eerie. The first thing one notices is the quiet – you’re so far up in the sky (plus you stepped out onto the center of the deck and not the near the edge) that you neither see nor hear the city, except for a low, distant rumble like white noise. The second thing that hits you is the air – it’s so clean and fresh and cool – at that altitude the wind that skims the top of the towers is coming in right off the Atlantic and it felt like you’d been magically transported to the deck of a very big and very tall ship way out in to ocean. As soon as you walked over to the edge and looked down you kinda snap out of it but it was a truly mind-blowing experience.
When the towers fell that morning I felt the adrenaline surge through my body, partly from what I was actually witnessing via the TV screen but also from vicariously imagining what it was like to be somewhere in the buildings or on the observation decks. This vicariousness reoccurs every time I view archival footage or watch one of the many documentaries on the events of that day. Regardless of the number of times a person has been up and down the towers, we will never actually ‘know’ what it was like to have been there and my condolences go out to the many victims and their families who were swept up and swept away by this historical event.
The images of 9/11 have seared themselves into my consciousness and I have tried to make some sense of it all, compelled as a human being to attempt to understand what actually happened and why it happened. Besides a basic, working knowledge of history, this also requires a fair amount of time and introspection – this coming September will mark the eighth anniversary and for many, not all, the initial shock is becoming more mollified as each year passes.
For the past fifteen years I have been taking a number of unique programs into Canadian high schools and universities, one of which examines the history and origins of racism, both globally and locally, from a purely scientific perspective. The data and models for this program are gathered from the fields of anthropology, genetics, psychology, human biology and linguistics. One of the chief aides for explaining to students the origins of racism, in the context of world history, is Sir Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion. Newton was only 22 years old when he came up with the Laws of Gravity and 26 when he formulated the Laws of Motion – the third law, that every action is equal to an automatic and equal reaction, is not only universal, but infallible – it appears to work 100% of the time and in 100% of the cases. History is a series of events, much like the links of a chain – each link affected by the preceding links and thereby producing a causal influence on the links that come after. Every event in our lives, whether day-to-day or throughout world history, in fact, everything that happens in our universe is inextricably bound to this law – the law of cause and effect – the law of consequences. It’s inescapable.
The tragedy of 9/11 was not an isolated incident – it too has a consequential history dating back thousands of years to a time when burgeoning cultural and religious ideologies were beginning to butt heads in that area known as the Middle East. It would take years of study to grasp the intricacies and myriad nuances of this brief (3-4,000 yrs) epoch in world history but if we were to isolate any one, single event and pick it apart, it would be clear, via Newton’s law, that that particular event unfolded ‘perfectly’ based on the events that preceded it. From a scientific and purely clinical perspective, 9/11 was the most recent and consequential link in a long chain of global events and in that context, it was destined to happen – it was scientifically inevitable according to Newton’s law, given the historical factors leading up to it.
Like everybody else, I was glued to the television for the next few days and remember some of the interviews with ordinary citizens on the streets of New York City and one of the recurring comments was ‘how could this happen to us’ or ‘what did we do to deserve this’. It’s sad that many citizens of our neighbor to the south are uninformed about what’s happening in the world, both within and without the US. It’s small consolation but, hopefully, 9/11 helped awaken many from their safe, narcissistic slumber that inevitably comes from being the world’s only super power. Perhaps 9/11 will spur more people to find out for themselves what the facts are that led to September 11th, and I don’t mean the fluff you hear on the evening news, but actually delve deep under the surfaces of things, to the covert inner workings, the underbelly of governments and institutions, both American and foreign – the answers are there if the will exists to uncover them.
Chapter 5: The Panhandler on Johnson St.
What caught my attention was the receptacle. Normally it’s a baseball cap, a tin can or a small cardboard box, but in this case it was a Volkswagen hubcap, the baby half-moon type from a pre-90’s model. Now, I don’t always give loose change to panhandlers because I am sometimes just as broke as they are (being an artist, ex-busker and ex-panhandler myself), but on this occasion I had a few extra coins in my pocket and, grabbing an indiscriminate number of them, I dropped them into his hubcap. (The upturned hubcap formed an natural parabola and thus amplified the sound of loose change hitting the metal). I was about to turn and walk away when I noticed the panhandler reaching into the receptacle and, extracting the coins (a couple of quarters and a few dimes and nickels), he informed me, rather abruptly and while handing the coins back to me, that the minimum donation was now a ‘loonie’ (Canadian one dollar coin). As I walked away I thought to myself, what’s next ‘MasterCard or Visa’. But you have to hand it to the young man, he gets high marks for originality and balls – I don’t know if I would have thought of something like that when I was on the streets.
Reminds me of my busking days in Toronto during the early 70’s when Yonge Street was still a pedestrian mall – passersby used to throw joints in my guitar case – those were the days. I remember busking as far north as Bloor and Yonge St and there was this most enterprising fellow who’d sit in a light folding chair with a makeshift sign which invited passersby to insult him for the nominal charge of 50 cents. No kidding – for a mere 50 cents you could hurl whatever insult you wanted at this guy and he would just sit there and take it – I think it had something to do with providing a release or outlet for the office worker’s pent-up aggression or frustration. (I wonder what that guy’s doing today)?
Busking in London was a blast – it was 1970, I had just learned to play the guitar and only had a few tunes under my belt but there I was, busking on Shaftsbury Avenue, Piccadilly Circus and down in the ‘tubes’. The first couple days I thought I was doing rather well, money-wise, because people were throwing lots of coins into my case and especially a small, rust colored coin known as the ‘thrupenny bit’ or three penny bit – I was quietly informed by another busker that this particular coin had been recently phased out in England and was worthless. I’m glad I didn’t throw them away though because I later discovered they still worked in the slot machines in Dublin.
Chapter 6: Recollections of Lenny
Circa 1974. While playing at a club in Winnipeg called the ‘City Center Inn’, I noticed three people sitting at a table in front of the stage who were taking a particular interest in my set. They invited me to join them during the break and they introduced themselves as Reg Kellin, Ron Halderson and Mary Nelson. I immediately recognized Reg and Ron’s names, having been a huge fan of jazz legend Lenny Breau’s music – Reg, on drums, and Ron, on bass, had been two thirds of the ‘Lenny Breau Trio’ and had backed Lenny during his delightful live recording at ‘Shelly’s Mann Hole’ in San Fransisco in the late 60’s. Mary Nelson was Lenny’s ex-ladyfriend.
For those not familiar with Lenny Breau, he was an American ex-patriot who had moved with his family from Maine to Winnipeg back in the 50s. His father and mother were both touring entertainers and had obviously passed their musical genes on to Lenny for he developed a long-lasting love affair with guitar at an early age. His career blossomed while living in the ‘Peg’ and he eventually moved to Toronto, which happened shortly before my meeting Ron, Reg and Mary at the City Center. Although Lenny died tragically in 1984, he is now regarded as one of the true masters of improvisational jazz guitar and is revered world-wide, by the who’s who of the art form, as a musical genius. Lenny was to jazz what Robert Johnson was to blues – I once referred to him as the ‘Captain Kirk’ of jazz guitar because he went to places where no man had gone before. A consummate gypsy, Lenny roamed freely around the 12 frets, experimenting with new ways to say what he was feeling, discovering all sorts of new colors, textures and hues and I feel a personal debt to him for inspiring me to do the same. (His double album at Basin Street, with Dave Young on bass, is a keeper).
So, anyway, Reg, Ron and Mary invited me over to their place later that evening and we sat around till early the next morning jamming and reminiscing. Much of what I know about Lenny was learned that night and, combined with taking in a number of his live performances plus the circumstances surrounding his death in Los Angeles in 84, I came up with the lyrics for ‘Recollections of Lenny’. The song examines the contradiction that was Lenny Breau through the age-out adage that ‘beauty and tragedy’, ‘genius and madness’ often come in the same package. Though up to his eyeballs in phenomenal talent, Lenny became his own worst enemy via his drug dependency and eventually it destroyed his music and his life.
Recollections of Lenny (track #2 on the enclosed CD)
There is a rainbow of colors even the blind have seen
A rapturous realm where barely the few have been
Its flashes of brilliance light up the darkening skies
For only a moment or two then fades and dies
You wore madness well like a mime or maybe a fool
Concealing the boiling point while playing it cool
But like a molecule of steel – hidden, tempered and hot
What was it, you could hear that we could not
Like a molecule of steel – hidden, hammered and hot
What was it, you could hear that we could not.
A soldier’s fortunes lay somewhere over the line
Returning now and again with the spoils he’d find
Like the dangling webs of silver, jewels of light
Mixed with the darkest fears from the deepest night
But a soldier’s fortunes all meet at the end of a spade
When the weapons of war are a needle and razor blade
And like a warrior back from another battle fought
What was it, you could hear that we could not
Like a warrior back from another battle fought
What was it, you could hear that we could not.
Refrain……..
Though the masses rush to avoid the threatening ledge
You spent your life doing cartwheels on its edge
No safety net ‘neath a fine balancing act
With six high wires and a monkey upon your back
And when the rapture and snowflakes finally left your for dead
And the angels and demons stopped dancing around in your head
What the forces of heaven and hell’s turbulence wrought
Was it this, you could hear that we could not
What the forces of heaven and hell’s turbulence wrought
Was it this, you could hear that we could not
Refrain……..
There is a rainbow of colors even the blind have seen.
For Emily Hughes
Chapter 7: The Seed and the Carton of Milk
Throughout the strata of human history there have been many civilizations and empires come and go, along with kings, queens and paupers, warriors, artists, poets, philosophers, systems of government, religious ideologies, etc. But also threading its way through these historical layers of time is a vein of constancy in the form of a lineage of great visionaries who have all cautioned mankind about putting too much stock in the physical world they see around themselves. (We humans tend to grab onto exterior things and hold on for dear life only to have those things unceremoniously wrenched from our grip at some point). The caveats and constant reminders issued by these wise individuals have always been intended to help mankind live more balanced lives – to not put all their eggs in one basket, so to speak. Many of these visionaries have gone so far as to refer to the outside, temporary realm as an illusion, but what do they mean by the term ‘illusion’?
Most dictionaries define illusion as something that ‘appears’ to be real but isn’t, or, as in many instances, is opposite to the way we ‘think’ it is. Hidden in our daily activities and interactions with the physical realm are clues that provide substance to the above assertions – that the world we perceive through our five limited senses is illusionary.
A fairly accurate gauge of measuring illusion can be found in the development our value systems – what we ‘think’ is important – in many cases what we ‘think’ is important and what is ‘actually’ important are quite opposite to each other. Take the human body for example. There has been a general consensus among the aforementioned visionaries that the human being has two distinct natures – one ‘outside’ and one ‘inside’ – that the outside (the temporary, finite physical form) is actually a vessel or ‘package’ that carries within it a very precious commodity. A simple seed is the starting point for the genesis of all creation and therefore provides a perfect example – the seed has an outside shell that protects and carries life inside (the DNA and all the potential for growth and reproduction), and once its usefulness comes to an end, the shell is discarded. Another good example would be a carton of milk – when you buy a carton of milk from the corner store it comes in a sturdy container and is easy to transport home where the nourishing milk will be consumed and the carton thrown away. The main function of the milk carton, as with the shell, is to act as a temporary, disposable vessel. Implicit in their very conception and written right into their DNA code is perishability – the shell and the milk carton were never intended to out-last their usefulness – both were designed to decompose and eventually find their way back to the elements from whence they came.
But many human beings have the whole thing ass-backwards. It’s like they get home with the carton of milk and proceed directly to the kitchen sink where they pour the life-giving milk down the drain and place the empty carton on their mantle piece or alter. These human bodies play an important role in this brief pit-stop we call life – we can do so much stuff with them – we go for walks, watch sunsets, enjoy great meals, help other people, make love, have kids, build things, go to ball games, etc. etc. But the deeper, underlying purpose doesn’t change, we are still temporary vessels that carry within us a very precious substance and that substance is life and divinity itself. (Life isn’t all the stuff we do on the outside, life is the power inside that allows us to do all the stuff on the outside.)
Chapter 8: 551,880,000 Miracles
Another case for this world being illusionary is mankind’s general avoidance/ignorance of the profound, juxtaposed with his day-to-day preoccupation with the trivial (probably the reason we can’t get enough of television). The profound is inherently simple, quiet and hidden and usually takes a lifetime to find whereas the trivial, well, it’s all over the place in big, noisy dumptruck-fulls. And, what’s most illusionary is our propensity to worship and venerate the mind-numbing superficiality of the trivial while ignoring or taking for granted the deeper, profound elements in our lives.
For example, there’s nothing more taken for granted than a human breath. I read somewhere that the mean average length for a human breath is 4.4 seconds – 2.2 seconds in and 2.2 seconds out. Some breaths are longer, as when we are at rest or sleeping and some are shorter, as when we are active at work or play and breath length can also vary with age – but the mean average over-all is around 4.4 seconds. If these estimates are accurate then a 70 year old person will have taken 551,880,000 breaths in his or her lifetime. With such a lavish abundance of this simple commodity, it would be easy to overlook or take for granted the value of a breath, but there is another way of looking at this.
Here’s a little experiment – take a few deep breaths and then hold the last one until you can’t hold it anymore (don’t pass out). While you are holding that breath, quickly ponder the following….. Everything that constitutes your future, including watching sunsets, eating dinners, taking walks, making love, going to movies, enjoying families and relationships, the work, the play, the victories and defeats, the vacations, the arts and music, etc. etc. – all of it, depends entirely on you taking that next breath and if that breath doesn’t come, your future is essentially toast. That’s how important the breath you are currently taking is. This brief sojourn called human life is nothing more than a long, chain-linked sequence of these life-giving, 4.4-second miracles – every 4.4 seconds a neat little package of pure existence is given and when that breath is expended, well, here comes another one….. hopefully.
Throughout history there have been those who have assigned great significance to the simple act of breathing and further counselled mankind that through a better understanding of the inner dynamics of breath, one can achieve a deeper sense of peace and an understanding of our life’s purpose.
Another Breath (Track #3)
Another breath, so deep and wonderful
Rising and ebbing like the sea
Another breath is like a four-second miracle
There is no one as fortunate as me
I met a sage walking along the road today
We stopped to rest under a tree
He smiled and said ‘You know
There is an inner way
And the knowing of this will set you free"
Refrain……
Chorus: Set you free to find your loved one
Set you free to walk in peace
He said there is an ocean of joy within
That will never, never ever, that will never ever cease.
He said the world that you see is just a cosmic dreamers work of art
The grandest of illusions, this is true
But hidden in the silence and the stillness of the human heart
Is a presence, and that presence is you.
His eyes were so kind, his face a calm beatitude
And his voice was as clear as clear could be
When he said the key to all is just a pure and simple gratitude
And the knowing of this will set you free
Refrain……
Chorus: Set you free to find your loved one
Set you free to walk in peace
He said there is an ocean of joy within
That will never, never ever, that will never ever cease
Another breath, so deep and wonderful
Rising and ebbing like the sea
Another breath is like a four-second miracle
There is no one as fortunate as me
Another breath is like a four-second miracle
And the knowing of this will set you free
(repeat four times)
The knowing of this will
And the knowing of this will
And the knowing of this will set you free
(For Prem Rawat)