Enough, Already

Hey, it's all well and good to make fun of Michael Jackson, but I have to agree with him here. I saw part of this program last night and the follow up interview with Martin Bashir, and they treated Michael very badly. I'm not a big fan of his music; goodness knows he hasn't done anything original or groundbreaking since Thriller, and his dance moves are exactly the same now as they when he was five. But I thought the interview showed that he is simply unlike other people, and doubtfully a harm to others, especially children. This guy grew up with no childhood. Before he was a teenager, women were treating him in a sexual way because of his music and stage presence. His father never let him be a kid, pushing him to be a star. When his brothers got a break after The Jackson Five became a solo act, he continued. He was fabulously rich when he was a child. He said to Barbara Walters that, even in 1979, people wouldn't just speak to him like a "next door neighbor." So he creates this world of his own, and has his childhood. People have said he seems afraid of sex, asexual. I'm no psychologist, but just listening to him speak, I very much doubt he's a child molester. It just doesn't add up. I think he likes hanging out with kids because he wants to be one. Michael Jackson would also not be the first adult to sleep in a bed with a child in a non-sexual way. It happens every day. I've even seen it on television. And who cares how many plastic surgeries he's had? It's his business. This guy has been a very private person for a long time. It's the media who seek him out. Why treat an obviously afflicted celebrity like he's some kind of political figure or crime boss that we need to investigate? Leave him the hell alone if you can't say anything nice. He was once accused of something that he was not convicted of. The media isn't this harsh on George W. Bush's confirmed drug history, and he's our freaking president. I know everyone thinks he's nuts, but when a man grants you an interview in his very private compound, and you make it out that he's a lunatic and a liar, and a "law unto himself," you are betraying a trust. Celebrities shouldn't be treated the way world leaders and CEOs should be treated in reporting. Celebrities, unless they are currently under indictment or suspicion of a crime, are puff-piece fodder, not targets for hard-hitting journalism. ABC should really be ashamed.

Which reminds me, how sick is it to see headlines about terrorism and Valentine's Day right next to each other? And if that pesky war is getting you down, read all the latest reality TV gossip at the same site! Yippee! Having never lived through a "serious" war (we all knew Desert Storm was a joke when it was broadcast on Channel One into our homeroom), I wonder if the American media machine keeps pumping out this crap while our men are dying and killing? Is it a palative to the public to keep feeding them American Idol and new ring tones for their cellular phones? I know I mocked the entertainment industry for their somber reaction to September 11, but it seems even more disgusting to keep on shucking and jiving while we wage a concerted effort to destroy human life and steal oil. When a nation is asked to sacrifice for the war effort, they need the entertainment even more, they deserve it. Hell, if I had to give up my nylons and sugar and work at the airplane plant, I'd really appreciate a nice picture show on a Saturday. But who's sacrificing what? It's almost as if America is saying, "We have the GOD-given right to be consumerist pigs, wallowing in our Hollywood filth AND to demand that other countries recognize our inherent superiority." Ew. But it's not like you can turn back the tide of "progress." It's not like you can go back, cover up the pop singers' navels, convince rappers to stop cursing, Mark Burnett to stop producing, advertisers to stop plastering their logos all over the world, and news organizations to stop making up slogans and jingles for every damn incident. But sometimes I want to. Sometimes I just want to scream, "STOP!!!" What is this world we live in, where everything is branded, or it has no meaning. Gary Snyder talked about "the weirdness of television and advertising" when he was writing poetry in the late 60s. He said you had to know it to be a poet, but he said so much more about knowing animals, trees and stars.

Speaking of Gary Snyder (a friend and contemporary of Allen Ginsberg), I want to reprint a poem of his that he expressly wrote to be reprinted. It blew my mind. OK, I'm a hippie...

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SMOKEY THE BEAR SUTRA

Once in the Jurassic about 150 million years ago
the Great Sun Buddha in this corner of the Infinite
Void gave a Discourse to all the assembled elements
and energies: to the standing beings, the walking beings,
the flying beings, and the sitting beings -- even grasses,
to the number of thirteen billion, each one born from a
seed, assembled there: a Discourse concerning
Enlightenment on the planet Earth.

"In some future time, there will be a continent called
America. It will have great centers of power called
such as Pyramid Lake, Walden Pond, Mt. Rainier, Big Sur,
Everglades, and so forth; and powerful nerves and channels
such as Columbia River, Mississippi River, and Grand
Canyon.
The human race in that era will get into troubles all over
its head, and practically wreck everything in spite of
its own strong intelligent Buddha-nature.

"The twisting strata of the great mountains and the pulsings
of volcanoes are my love burning deep in the earth.
My obstinate compassion is schist and basalt and
granite, to be mountains, to bring down the rain. In that
future American Era I shall enter a new form; to cure
the world of loveless knowledge that seeks with blind
hunger:
and mindless rage eating food that will not fill it"

And he showed himself in his true form of

SMOKEY THE BEAR.

A handsome smokey-colored brown bear standing
on his hind legs, showing that he is aroused and watchful.

Bearing in his right paw the Shovel that digs to the
truth beneath appearances; cuts the roots of useless attach-
ments, and flings damp sand on the fires of greed and war;

His left paw in the Mudra of Comradely Display --
indicating that all creatures have the full right to live their
limits and that deer, rabbits, chipmunks, snakes, dandelions,
and lizards all grow in the realm of the Dharma;

Wearing the blue work overalls symbolic of slaves
and laborers, the countless men oppressed by a civilization
that claims to save but often destroys;

Wearing the broad-brimmed hat of the West,
symbolic of the forces that guard the Wilderness, which is
the Natural State of the Dharma and the True Path of man
on earth: all true paths lead through mountains --

With a halo of smoke and flam behind, the forest
fires of the kali-yuga, fires caused by the stupidity of those
who think things can be gained and lost whereas in truth all
is contained vast and free in the Blue Sky and Green Earth
of One Mind;

Round-bellied to show his kind nature and that the
great earth has food enough for everyone who loves her
and trusts her;

Trampling underfoot wasteful freeways and needless
suburbs; smashing the worms of capitalism and
totalitarianism;

Indicating the Task: his followers, becoming free of
cars, houses, canned foods, universities, and shoes, master
the Three Mysteries of their own Body, Speech, and Mind;
and fearlessly chop down the rotten trees and prune out the
sick limbs of this country America and then burn the
leftover trash.

Wrathful but Calm. Austere but Comic. Smokey the Bear
will
Illuminate those who would help him; but for those who
would
hinder or slander him,

HE WILL PUT THEM OUT.

Thus his great Mantra:
Namah samanta vajranam chanda maharoshana
Sphataya hum traks ham mam

"I DEDICATE MYSLEF TO THE UNIVERSAL DIAMOND
BE THIS RAGING FURY DESTROYED"

And he will protect those who love woods and rivers,
Gods and animals, hobos and madmen, prisoners and sick
people, musicians, playful women, and hopeful children:

And if anyone is threatened by advertising, air pollution,
television,
or the police, they should chant SMOKEY THE BEAR'S
WAR SPELL:

DROWN THEIR BUTTS
CRUSH THEIR BUTTS
DROWN THEIR BUTTS
CRUSH THEIR BUTTS

And SMOKEY THE BEAR will surely appear to put the
enemy out
with his vajra-shovel.

Now those who recite this Sutra and then try to put it in
practice will accumulate merit as countless as the
sands of Arizona and Nevada.
Will help save the planet Earth from total oil slick.
Will enter the age of harmony of man and nature.
Will win the tender love and caresses of men, women and
beasts.
Will always have ripe blackberries to eat and a sunny spot
under a pine tree to sit at.
AND IN THE END WILL WIN HIGHEST PERFECT
ENLIGHTENMENT.

thus we have heard.
(may be reproduced free forever)

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How ya like them apples?