Men and their Drums

I spent last weekend with a remarkable group of men at Pyramid Lake, in the Adirondacks. Many were recovering alcoholics and addicts, but all were unique, and brave beyond measure in their openness and honesty with each other and with themselves. Maybe it was the years of Alcoholics Anonymous 12-step principles at work. Maybe it was the lake and the mountains. Maybe it was no women for miles. I've thought long and hard upon it this past week, and decided that it was none of these things.

It was the drums.

Up they drove in their burdened cars, parking in front of the ramshackle lodge to unload their gear. Almost without exception (me being one) they lugged large, Native American-looking drums from their trunks and back seats. These were not sissy high school marching band drums, played by scrawny teens laden with acne. No, these were manly drums made from earthy materials, pounded by real men. Living things died so that these drums could beat. Skin was stretched and antlers sawed. Each meeting began with a circle of chairs and impromptu drumming. The men couldn't wait. Like children on Christmas morning they rudely fiddled with their drums individually as the leader tried to give pre-meeting instructions. I would have said "If you touch that drum one more time I'm going to shove it up your ASS," but he was gentle with them, this leader of men. He was older, and had been through most of life's fires at work, at home, and in his own soul. He had great patience with his drummer boys, understanding their pain, their need to shut the #%$& up after a long week and just pound the piss out of these instruments.

Initially it freaked me out. I couldn't do it. Oh I tried lamely that first night, with a borrowed drum whose girth intimidated me. I'm a quiet person by nature, preferring anonymity when possible, and all I could manage was a timid tapping with my fingertips as the cacophony around me shook the windows. I felt pinned to my seat, unable to breathe, as this ancient war council worked themselves into a frenzy. Good God, there were even Indian war cries. What the hell had I gotten myself into? For me it brought to the fore all the negative emotions and memories of the Corps, all the things I'd tried to escape or bury for the last eighteen years, nothing more. It was my childhood's comic books, my father's Korea, my older neighbor's Vietnam, my own Desert Storm, and my children's GWOT (Global War on Terror), all marching to battle inside this low-ceilinged Adirondack great room. For the next three drumming sessions I sat silently, listening to THEM and to my own heart. Over the course of the next few days and nights I heard the stories of neglectful and abusive parents, saw the tears of injustice, frustration and rage, and felt in my own heart the raw emotion and pain that shapes our worlds...

...but on the third day, in the silence of the morning lake, I heard the music. It reverberated off the rock of the cliffs, bubbled up from the backs of great snapping turtles, and dropped heavy from the weighted boughs of the trees like pine cones seeding a wonderful new symphony upon the earth. The loons already knew this song. Maybe they wrote it? I don't know, but finally I heard it, and when it was time to return to the lodge for our final session I couldn't wait to dig through the box of spares for an unused drum. There was only one left, a small, 6" diameter lollipop of sorts on a 12" stick, but it was of animal hide and I gladly pounded it as enthusiastically as all the others in the room with their great buffalo drums.

Yes, I play guitar, and write songs. It helps.

But I know what I want for Christmas...

TRIBAL DRUMS

Fire and war.
Conquest, power, courage.
We drum them up in a 21st century sweat lodge,
20 ordinary men, for there are no extraordinary men,
just men willing to DO.
Many fall, but the drums beat on.
March to the beat of a different drum, but they are all different drums here.
There is no good, no bad, no rich, no poor. There is only energy, vibration, and freedom. It picks up without signal, develops rhythm on its own, and dies out without cue or purpose.
It is there and it is gone.
It is life.
I am above it, but I am also below it, inside of it while being outside.
Beat on, you beautiful bastards.
I'll beat my paper with pen...


RAGE WORK

Watching the rage work was like watching a southern lynching, or a gang rape. In a small, isolated room, in a building set apart and far away, a rope was hastily thrown over exposed rafter, and dangling dead on the end of it the body of our common ancestor, the limp, heavy, shapeless body of "pain." We watched in awe and horror as, one by one, men took axe handles to their pain, and gave it a name, and a circumstance. They hacked into it with the savage, gloating blows of the outraged victim, set free at last. It was a beautiful and terrible thing to behold, this beaten justice.


21st CENTURY HEROES

Men. Brilliant men. Beautiful, wax-winged, golden-haired men. Each has stolen Zeus' fire. And we flew high with it, didn't we, so high above the heads of mortals. But our wings melted and we fell to earth in pieces, waxy little god-pieces of bone and ash, to be dumped again into the stream of life on a wing and a prayer, carried off to the sea as the rhythms pound against our hearts. I get it now. I do, I get it. Somebody pass me a drum. And, don't forget to wear your life jackets, men.

Limp Flag

The flag hangs limp
Like a dick that is spent
Shot its wad on a course of empire
The political winds have all dried
It's a drought, and the only thing left
Is the fire.

The Rolling Hills of Antietam

I went to visit the Antietam battlefield last week. Located in Maryland, Antietam is only 20 minutes from where I used to be stationed at Camp David. I'd never heard of it when I was guarding the President. In fact, I'd never cared. Only in mid-life does Antietam matter. To me. The one day battle of Antietam was the bloodiest day in American military history. It represented a first, tentative step toward victory in the Civil War. The North lost more men on 9/17/62 but Robert E. Lee's strategic vision was forever squashed on that day. Europe could not be enticed to support a confederacy that was chased back across the Potomac river and Abraham Lincoln would use the occasion to announce his "Emancipation Proclamation," freeing the slaves. The world changed forever at Antietam. I think that deserves a song. You can hear it at http://www.acidplanet.com/components/embedfile.asp?asset=1239236&T=6014.

On Seventeen and September
Back in Eighteen and Sixty-Two
The Civil War was a year and a half
Into bloodshed 'tween Gray and the Blue
Momentum had swung the Confederates' way
General Lee saw an opportune chance
McClellan got wind of old Bobbie Lee's plans
And he marched off from D.C. to dance

On the rolling hills of Antietam
On the rolling hills of Antietam

The armies of Lee and McClellan would meet
On the farmlands of Maryland's peace
One hundred and twenty two thousand young men
Near a creek, on a map just a crease
The canons roared through that bloodiest day
From the rise of the sun till it set
And the cornfield just north of the old Dunker's church
Was as far as the rebels would get

On the rolling hills of Antietam
On the rolling hills of Antietam

North woods, west woods, east woods...fire
Morning in the cornfield...fire
Burnside's bridge is drawing fire, come away

The Sunken Road swallowed regiments whole
The dead like the ties of a railroad in rows
And their afternoon's blood soaked the earth to the creek down below

The Yankees fell like the hard summer rain
And Southerners too who had so much to gain
They were piled up in heaps in that long bloody lane, come away, come away

Now one-hundred and forty-seven years have gone by
Like the sand of an hour in a glass
And the fears of a nation at war with itself
Would retreat as the crisis had passed
For a short time it seemed that the sacrifice made
Would supply all the dead men we'd need
But soon we found out it grew worse without doubt
It was just a down payment indeed

On the rolling hills of Antietam
On the rolling hills of Antietam

Ancient Ritual

We witnessed an ancient ritual last week, my youngsters and I: the victorious homecoming of Fox Co., 25th Marines, USMCR after a tour in the western deserts of Iraq. I felt bad for them, these proud weekend warriors. Despite advance press coverage of the parade route and time, there were precious few patriots to welcome them home. I'm not a patriot in the way we define it now. Oh sure, I raised $1,000 for the troops once and shipped them as many comfort items as I could cram into cardboard boxes. I donate money from every single biweekly paycheck to help wounded Marines get their lives back in order in the land of the free and the home of the brave. I write poems and songs about their pain, and I help them get money from the government when things go to hell and the VA can't be bothered. I've even accompanied several of them on that long, last trip deep down into the ground, into that final six-foot foxhole that will protect them forever, but no, I'm not a patriot, not to those who wave their flags and shout loudest on the radio. But once upon a time I too was a Marine, and I wanted to be there for my brothers. It doesn't seem to bother them that I never stuck a yellow ribbon on my car, these beautifully tanned, dusty-looking young men marching into history along Freeman's Bridge Road in Scotia New York. They march as experienced infantry have always marched, with a tired insouciance, a hint of slouch in the shoulders from carrying things most will never understand, or care to. If you had been there you would have seen a strangely fragmented celebration that only an "I don't really give a shit" America could produce. Old Marines in their Marine Corps League red jackets guarded the entrance to the assembly area as blue-jacketed Veterans of Foreign Wars manned the charcoal pits and lugged cases of beer, all while smiling, white-haired, white-shirted Ladies' Auxiliary handed out flags for those of us with nothing else to do. Strangest of all, a platoon of motorcyle mercenaries, the Freedom Riders, prepared the parade route, rumbling menacingly past in their glinting chrome and faded denim, followed by a green-skirted phalanx of tartan-clad bagpipers, holdovers from those glorious days of yesteryear when wars were simpler for everyone but the dead and the dying. Why, there were even firetrucks. Yes, everyone had their places this day, everyone played their roles, even the scattered media in their sloppy clothes and long lenses, but no one really seemed to care, no one was really there but for the family and friends of the tired men in sandy clothes and short hair, the very same ones who show up for the funerals. Oh we've moved on, haven't we, my friends? Six long years later we've moved on. But maybe we were never there.

Happy Birthday

I turned 48 on Good Friday in the un-holy city of Manhattan. It was a beautiful place to age another year, surrounded by male friends and in-laws, a pilgrimage of sorts, a monastic retreat into the heart of manhood. We took communion with chicken wings and hefeweizen. We took confessions at the Manchester Pub. We recited our creed block after block after block: "Isn't this great? No man, really, ISN'T THIS GREAT!" There was communal singing to hits from the 70's, the sign of peace for every bar maid we met, our blessing upon every pub on 2nd Avenue, the mortifying of our flesh over 100 blocks of aimless ambling, with always the pungeant incense of beer farts wafting to remind us of what we could be. There was a late night vigil at The Waterfront Ale House, and fresh encouragement for the journey from master beerologist Randy Mosher, author of Tasting Beer. Brother Mosher, what shall we drink? "My children, there are many paths to intoxication, but you must choose wisely. Let your palette be your guide." So we took the common cup of unusual brews from around the world, and we found therein a bond of fellowship so strong that not even the persistant pull of distant wives could weaken it...

...for a day.

Good Fences

I cast a long, westward shadow on the earth this morning. Fifty feet at least. I'm not sure I want that kind of influence. Can I be trusted with it?

We leave the rental car in a lonely pull-off about a mile from the Buttercup Ranger Station. Mom, age 72, is wearing a turquoise blue jump suit as I lead her by the hand far out into the desert. I'm surprised she wants to make the trek. We stumble through the flotsam and jetsam of American leisure strewn along the ground as a hard wind from the north blows at our backs, pushing us on like tumbleweeds, out to the dirty black scar in the distance. As we get closer the scar grows immense, stretching as far as par-boiled eyes can see after a day in the brilliant Yuman sun. Ignoring the lilting warning post 50 meters out we press on until the scar towers over us, fifteen feet of six-inch black steel, closely packed, anchored and bolted onto the shifting sand. The wind through the gaps in the immense steel pickets makes the fence moan and scream with the injustices of time, and timing, all along its endless length. Change is coming. Change has come. Change will come again. The Spaniards took our brief footprints from the Indians, then morphed into Mexicans, who lost out to the Americans, who, when nobody was looking...

Walking back to the black KIA Rondo I hold onto mom's hand tighter than before. The coarse grains of America bite hard into our eyes and faces before blowing off into northern Mexico. The fence won't stop them. It can't. I don't know if this is what Frost had in mind when he said "good fences make good neighbors." Maybe. And I don't know if this fence is a good thing or not. Maybe. But one thing is for certain: it is a sad thing, this long, lonely, moaning fence in the desert. Endlessly sad.

Small Kindnesses

I don't know, it's a strange day here. Turbulent. Windy, cold, not sunny but not cloudy, not spring but not winter either. It's nothing. Or is it everything? I had a steak last night, medium Delmonico with fresh mushrooms. Maybe that's it? It's been a day for small kindnesses, small blessings. My mother unexpectedly invited me to the movies when I went over to borrow a chain saw sharpener. While I was waiting for her to finish up the breakfast dishes dad gave me a pair of old work gloves he'd been sheltering, the leather kind with wide wrists. They were brand new. You could tell because they were still stapled together with cardboard at the fingers. New, but old. Like the movie we saw,The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. There's one that will make you think. How did they make Brad Pitt look so old? How did they shrink him down to look like a little baby? Twice! After the movie I re-filled the large $7.50 popcorn bucket to bring home for the kids. The middle-aged woman at the counter stopped me from leaving with the piled-up bucket. She was worried that I'd spill it in my car on the way home. She dug into the drawer under her register and pulled out a yellow plastic garbage bag for me. But she went even further- watching me clumsily try to put the bucket into the bag she said "Here, let an expert do it for you," and she took the bucket from me and quickly secured the popcorn. I told her that was very kind of her.

As soon as I got home I took Levi to get an X-Box 360 for his birthday, but TARGET only had one left and it had been returned. We decided to go to WALMART instead, despite my 3-year boycott for the way they treat their workers and the rest of the world. The clueless kid in the electronics section asked me if I wanted the one with the hard drive or the one without. I didn't know, Levi didn't know, and the assistant couldn't tell me why one was better than the other. There was a gansta-looking young man in the aisle with us, however. I didn't like his looks, but, as he heard the sales associate fumbling for an answer he spoke up and told me, in thoughtful, perfect English, why I should get the one with the hard drive. He said it would save me money and aggravation in the long run, because he himself had made the mistake of going without the hard drive. He even wished us well as we walked off to pay for it! I thanked him for his kindness.

Please understand I've done nothing to deserve this.

Then, when I got home, my brother-in-law Matt called to invite us to his house for the Siena vs. Louisville "March Madness" game. Shortly thereafter a friend called with a similar invitation. Twice invited in less than an hour! Walking into Matt's I was offered cold beer, hot chili, and I'd not yet even said hello. Siena, the local Division 1 school with only 3000 students, very nearly beat the best team in the nation. Nearly.

In summary: I was given a chainsaw file, a new pair of work gloves, admission to an outstanding film, popcorn wrapped by an expert, gaming advice from another expert, food, drink, and friendship- all in one day. Oh, and a great basketball game too.

Like I said, it was a day for small blessings. Maybe there's more of them than we realize?