Birthday - December 29, 2006

Well folks, it’s my birthday. I’ve become 62; two more years before I have to ask the musical questions.

And what do I think, having achieved such great age (great from the standpoint of youth, who’ve thought I was ancient since I was forty? Thirty ?

I guess I’d have to say that almost everything I have previously thought was isn’t. At times I want to write a book to let everybody in on the joke, especially young people.

I want to tell them, “It’s all fake; nothing is as it seems; nothing is what it claims to be; we live in a mad house where patients give lobotomies to the doctors and nurses.”

When I was very young I thought well of the mayor and the city council; I outgrew that and looked up, instead, to the governor and the state legislature ( whose chambers I visited and was allowed to sit in the Special chair - momentarily, of course ); I outgrew that as well, and looked up to the President, the federal legislature, and the Supreme Court all of whom - the television and everybody said - deserved our respect.

They were fake, too; and, in turn, I outgrew them.

Sometimes I want to write a book and let everyone in on the joke, especially young people. But I don’t think it would work. They wouldn’t believe me. Too many of my fellow inmates would call me a liar, say I was nuts, needed a straightjacket. They’d condemn me to hemlock for corrupting the youth.

And, anyway, what kid is going to believe that the president of the United States of America (whom anyone can grow up to be in this greatest nation on the earth and under God) is a totally self-centered, egotistical, ignorant, foolish, and heartless clod?

Nope. They wouldn’t believe it.

And what kid is going to believe that “An Army of One” is just so much Madison Avenue crap to lure the disadvantaged and oppressed into the deadly service of their oppressors, who won’t even spend the money it takes to equip them properly or care for them adequately when they are maimed and ruined? But will spend money like water to enrich their corporate cronies?


Nope. They wouldn’t believe me; that’s all too hideous to consider; it can’t be true.

So, I guess I won’t write the book.

Instead, on my birthday, I’ll share a poem with you and share it in honor of my Mother, whose birthday was always on New Years Eve:

The Music Crept by Us
...........................................By Leonard Cohen

I would like to remind
the management
that the drinks are watered
and the hat-check girl
has syphilis
and the band is composed
of former SS monsters
However since it is
New Year’s Eve
and I have lip cancer
I will place my
paper hat on my
concussion and dance.


- Uke Man