Flip The Dial

Fire can't be made with dead embers, nor can enthusiasm be stirred by spiritless men.

James Baldwin
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Hello Ernie
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I've spent much time and effort scraping through embers trying to find a spark to light up the spirits, other people's and my own. It's so easy to shut down the fire and settle for the hum drum. "Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear yo not?" (Mark 8) Why do we maintain the habit of looking at the world as if it was mainly uninteresting? Why do we not look for the invisible things, and listen to hear what may be inbetween the sounds around us? Have we forgotten or do we take for granted that we have a mind filled to abundance with thoughts, ideas, dreams?

Remember the radio with two stations? You don't? I bet you have the feeling right now that I am about to remind you. I wrote about it a couple of times. It's a Cabbalist idea. Imagine there is a radio and it plays only two stations. One of them broadcasts only good news, and the other one only bad news. Now image that you turn the radio on and set it at the good news station. But as soon as you turn your back and walk away it automatically flips over to the bad news station. When you realize it you have to go back and readjust the dial, until the next time.

Now imagine that this radio is your mind and the way it works. Right? How many hours a day do you listen to the bad news, the fear, worry, anger, resentment, doubt, depression, despair? Dial flipping is seriously needed there.

Believe me I know how difficult it is to get that dial pointed in the right direction, especially since the bad news station has given you something to worry about or to be afraid of. You don't want to let go of it. You would almost rather chew your head off than hear some cheerful news. You are enjoying the misery. And that's why you need an impulse, a reminder, a kick. And that's where the vagabond comes in.

I have just about typed my finders to the bone stirring up the embers, trying to get people to stay tuned to the good news station and to remind them that the human spirit when armed with the everything of good thoughts and not the nothing of bad thoughts is a powerful force, and when focused on the ins and outs, the ups and downs and the backs and forths of life it can perform miracles.

Remember, the opposite of good isn't evil.
The opposite of good is good-and-evil.

Dana Bate - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up

One Life

To be able to look back upon one's past life with satisfaction is to live twice.

Lord Acton
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I have sometimes heard seniors say if they could live their lives over again they wouldn't change a thing. I don't know if they really mean that or not but to me that's total nonsense. If I could live my life over again I would change almost everything, beginning with a home and a family.

I would wish to be born into a family with a mother and a father and some brothers and sisters to grow up with. I would want to be in a home, a house that was a permanent place in the world to which I could return when I wanted to. I would want intelligent guidance and influence. I would like to know who my relatives are and get acceptance from those around me for who I am and what I can do.

I never knew my father. There were two grandfathers and one grandmother I never knew, two aunts and a whole flock of cousins. I have relatives now that I will probably never meet.

There was no stable home. I moved 25 times during the time I was growing up. I have no school chums because I kept changing schools. Even as an adult I found no stability. The longest time I lived in one place was 20 years in a transient hotel room, but even then I was touring all over the country as an actor.

I've noticed that many great writers are focused on particular circumstances that preside in their writings in one form or another. Many of Shakespeare's characters live through loss and sometimes regaining of place, power or influence. Dickens spends much time on the plight of the young in a poverty society. Dostoyevsky was in a constant search for spirituality.

I suppose I have been on that long search for home and family in my own writings. I guess I've always been a wanderer in search of my life, a life that got left somewhere. I tried, pointlessly, to make a family out of whatever theatre company I was with, an attempt that was misinterpreted by everyone.

I became a walker. I walked for miles through the cities of New York, Boston and it's suburbs. Hartford, Connecticut, Springfield, Massachusetts, Westchester County in New York State. In Boston one night I walked from Back Bay across the Charles River through Harvard Square to Somerville. In New York one day I walked from 104th Street and West Enid Avenue down to 4th Street and !st Avenue. In Westchester I walked from
Rye to White Plains. What was I looking for? My home? In 1960 I hitchhiked across the country, from Boston to Los Angeles.

I spent a few years, off and on, walking through the White Mountain National Forest where I was searching for myself.

People wonder why I live where I do now. I have no roots here and know almost no one. Well, I've grown accustomed to that.

I once started a list titled WHERE ARE YOU. On it were the names of all the people I once knew and liked, former friends and colleagues. It was astonishing to me how many people I used to know well. I stopped it before the list was finished and before I got too depressed. Today I am grateful for the few friends I have.

Music, literature and my career as an entertainer have been my life's companions and there have been very few people to share those things with.

Now I write. My two finished novels and a few of my short stories are about people who don't stay put, either because they can't or because they don't want to.

I'm a wanderer, a vagabond, I accept that. Now I wander through the pathways of what might have been and among the endlessly interesting imaginations of my mind. I do not look back on my past life with satisfaction. So instead I look forward.

DB - The Vagabond
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WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)

What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?

dbdacoba@aol.com

1 response so far

I await your answer.
DB
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Verse From A Vagabond's Song

A man cannot live without a permanent trust in something indestructible in himself.

Franz Kafka
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Let me tread patiently along the road I'm on even though it is not the one I chose.
Let me walk among the trees and rest beside unknown brooks.
Let me see the stars at night and wonder on which one is my home.
Let me plow this stranger's field in peace and spend some time with my brother mouse.
Let my song be sweet but let it not interrupt the birds.
Let the wilderness with all it's dangers surround me.
Let my spirit hang like a harp on a branch and let the wind play it.
Let my tears water the ground and bring forth violets.
Let my days be wrapped in cool, soft linen and my nights fly on moth wings.
Let me sleep in comfort and dream of peacocks.
Let me see the lambs at play.
Let me gather wild ferns and flowers from the hills.
Let me fling my wrongs into the sky like sand from the desert.
Let me name the clouds as they form.
Let me be important to someone or something.
Let my final stopping place be safe.

DB - The Vagabond
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Questionable Qualifications 4/21/09

You should always look your best, because someday, when you least expect it, you may meet yourself.

DB The Vagabond
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I hope all is well.
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It often seems to me that I've spent most of my life being defined and described by other people. Family members knew me to be one way, my teachers another, colleagues another, critics another. That is an awful lot of hats to wear, especially since none of them fit my head. The worst part of it is that I tried, as most young people do, to be the person they described me as, and in those rare moments when my real self oozed through the cracks, I disappointed them.

Isn't it odd how people have to tuck others into nice cozy boxes with labels on them? And isn't it even odder that we let them do it? The result is a giant cover up. One can spend a lifetime trying to believe he is what other people say he is. One can adopt attitudes, behavior, opinions, even careers and life styles trying to conform to a fiction.

The human being is an infinitely complicated creature. There are no two alike. And yet when we become even the slightest bit self-aware we find it hard to believe that any one else is as complex as we are. And that's an easy mistake to make if the other person is only acting out a role he thinks is assigned to him.

I'm amused when I read that the critics are unanimous in their praise of some rising star, knowing that in three years or so that star will be a footnote. Or if he remains on the scene the media will be prying into his private life trying to come up with some way of defining him. Even though I was only a minor league celebrity I had the same label pasting put on me. A few times in my career I received a standing ovation from a large audience after my performance, which was very appreciated. But I knew there was at least one person, not standing, who didn't like it.

I've been labeled a realist, an idealist, a humanist, a socialist, a religionist, a classic, an eccentric, a traditionalist, a failure, ignorant, too sensitive, impractical, foolhardy, a dreamer, a loser, a liar, a genius, undependable, irrational, a joker, a loner, sarcastic, stupid, a leader, a curmudgeon, a betrayer, egotistical, awe inspiring.

What am I? The answer is: None of the above. I am a human being. And I am more complicated than I will ever possibly know. I have spent many unhappy hours struggling to squirm out of one or another of those boxes. But one of the advantages of growing older is that one can more freely throw off the labels, like leaves of a cabbage, to get to the heart. Yes, it gets harder, because some of the lower layers have been there for a long time.. But with each discarding of some false category that I have found myself believing in, I get closer to the real man. I sincerely hope that some day soon I will meet him.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
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May you have glee today.
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