what it's like to die - pt. II - the aftermath

 Sorry it's taken so long to get to part 2 here- there has been a lot of things going on here, mainly in the area of adjusting to a dialysis schedule.

In Part 1, I covered the higher points of what I saw during my death.  There were some finer points I left out- my wife called my son in Boston to let him talk to me one last time, and the fact that I did recognize some of the people on the hill as I was descending- family members that had passed on (my paternal grandmother, and my uncle Carl) and a couple of friends - but I was in such a hurry to get to the town, I figured I would catch up with them later.

At any rate, as I said I was in the ICU and I was intubated.  And, I had absolutely no idea of what had happened.  Oh, I remembered the "hovering" in the recovery room and seeing my wife and daughter crying, but the context of it was all scrambled.  I was sure it was still Wednesday, but I couldn't understand why I was intubated?  My left side hurt terribly and the right side of my neck felt like it was in a vise. 

Turns out that they had inserted a chest tube into my left lung to drain the 2 liters of blood that had gotten into it, and I had a sub-clavial IV (central line IV) inserted on the right side of my neck, directly to my heart.  They had sedated me, but they had also paralyzed me and restrained me so I would stop trying to tear out the tube.  Oh, and it wasn't Wednesday morning- it was Thursday around noon.

The intubation and neck IV were removed about an hour after I awoke and I could prove to the docs that I could breathe on my own, and a variety of other (painful) catheters were also removed, but the chest tube remained.

So, I was alive.  My wife was there and looked terribly tired and terribly relieved.  She went thru what had happened to me, to which most of replies were a very hoarse, "Really?".  It took me quite awhile to accept what had happened.

And then a very strange thing happened.  

One would think that if they literally dodged death, that their immediate reaction would be on of joy and thankfulness.  After all, I obviously had a family and friends that loved me very much, I had first-class health care and had been assured that I would walk out of the hospital under my own steam, and it was super-obvious that I must have some purpose left to fulfill by continuing living.  LOTS to be thankful for, right?

And yet, I felt none of that.  At first, I really felt nothing at all, neither good nor bad.  But as the hours wore on in the ICU, I started feeling more and more empty inside.  I also had this overwhelming feeling of "You don't belong here" and even though I wasn't wishing for death or being suicidal, I didn't really want to be alive, either.  It's so difficult to explain, and even now, a full month later, I can't hardly do it justice.  I described it to my wife like this:

"It feels like a big chunk of me is missing."

One of my closest friends, Paul, came to see me in the ICU.  Paul and I mess with each other all the time.  He walked into the ICU and said, "Dammit, motherfu**er, don't you ever do that to me again" with a big smile on his face, and my response was to burst out crying.  It wasn't from sadness and it wasn't from happiness at seeing my friend- it was because I actually felt NOTHING at that statement.  Not a blessed thing.

During times like this, my usual response is to cry out to God to help me.  So, I did that, and I got absolute, total silence as a response.  Nothing.  This deepened the feeling of being alone, immeasurably.

They moved me very early Friday morning to another room, and then to another room later that day, where I would be for the next 9 days, trying to recover.  For the first 4 days. my strength was completely non-existent- my wife literally had to bathe and shave me; I could walk no more than about 2 meters (and had to use a walker to do it) and then would have to sit for about 30 minutes trying to get my wind back; I was completely unable to feed myself and couldn't do the simplest things like rolling over in bed or adjusting my position in bed.  This just added to my despair, and I spent those first 4 days doing nothing but crying- especially when I was left alone.  It got so bad that my wife decided to stay at the hospital with me so I wouldn't be alone with my thoughts.  My nurses were very worried about me, too- they could tell this wasn't "me".

What I had never considered throughout this was this wasn't a lack of thankfulness or emotion, rather, it was the absence of thankfulness and emotion.  Yeah, I was alive, but I was emotionally wrung out like a dry sponge.  And the harder I tried to "come to grips" with it, the worse it got.

One day, the hospital chaplain popped into my room.  Turns out, my wife and the nurses had collaborated on getting this together, but didn't tell me.  After establishing that she and I would actually be able to talk (she was Episcopalian, so that was cool) we started talking about this "absence" I was feeling.  What she said was (and I had never considered this at all) that my reaction to this was coming from 2 places: I had just experienced MAJOR trauma and that I hadn't assembled all the pieces in my mind as to what had happened.  She also assured me that this was the most common response to these things, and likened it to a soldier who had just experienced combat.  So, basically, I have PTSD, and that is perfectly normal.  

This was a HUGE relief.  I thought I was going to completely lose it, but this is what it is, and it will take time to get thru it.  We're talking therapists here, and I'm 100% ok with that.

I was released on December 23, and on the drive home with my wife, I cried uncontrollably the whole way.  When I reached my couch in the living, I literally collapsed on it and cried like I have NEVER cried in my life for about 2 hours.  I was wailing and moaning thru most of it, and my wife could do nothing to give me solace except hold me.  Again- not sadness or happiness- and it wasn't all that cathartic, either.  It was just so completely overwhelming.

I managed to get to church for Christmas Eve service, and I wanted to do that because my church has been an UNBELIEVALBE support mechanism for me during this time.  It was also so good to be around people- that did help my mood a lot.  Christmas Day was very, very down (I never left the couch) and that Wednesday was my first dialysis treatment at the clinic.  My family had a small gathering for Christmas on New Year's Eve.

On New Year's Day, however, I started having trouble breathing and started experiencing chest pain.  Rather than mess with it, we returned to the hospital where an X-Ray and CT revealed that my lung had decided to start leaking again.  This required 2 more blood transfusions, another chest tube and another 4 day stay in the hospital.  I was finally released on 1/4 and have been home since.  I still cannot walk very well and my right leg (where they inserted the embolization catheter to embolize my lung) really doesn't work well.  My energy level is still darn low, but getting better.  My doctors are optimistic that things will turn around (I'm still not so sure) but we'll see.

The road ahead is steep and painful, but we're gonna tackle it.

what it's like to die - at least for me

 

It's taken quite a bit of thought on my part as to how to describe my death.  A bit of my hesitancy is because this is probably one of the most difficult things to explain, but it's also because I honestly can't think of anything that has happened to me that is this intensely personal.  This happened 15 days ago, and it's still kicking me, hard.

If you've ever read or heard someone's accounting of a near-death experience (of NDE), you'll hear some strange similarities between them.  I had those, but I also had some other things, too, and I'll do my best to describe them.

My surgery, a kidney biopsy to establish whether or not I had MCD (you can look that up if you like- I don't have it), started at 8:30am on the morning of December 13, 2023.  Pretty uneventful start, actually- just the usual stuff.  The last thing I remember well was laying on my stomach on the operating table and meeting the surgeon just as the anesthesia was starting to take hold.  No counting backwards- just lights out.

I vaguely remember waking up in the recovery room, and was still laying on my stomach.  Every time I took a breath, however, I was groaning involuntarily.  I remember quite a bit of pain, and I remember asking my wife to get the nurse because it really hurt.  My head was extremely foggy, and I really didn't quite know what was happening, but everything hurt.  And it was hard to take the painful breaths, as well.  

The nurse quickly gave me a shot of hydromorphone, and that helped a bit, but not enough.  I remember laying there, still not really able to get a decent breath and feeling like someone was pressing in on my left side.  After just a few minutes, however, the pain got markedly worse.

"Who is kicking me?" I started asking.

"No one is kicking you, Marc." my wife answered.

"Someone is kicking me!  Tell them to stop, PLEASSE!", I implored.

This went on for a bit until my wife got the nurse again, and I asked for more painkiller.  They gave me more hydromorphone.  

And, that's when it got bad.  I apparently went to sleep.  Like REALLY asleep.  This is a really big problem, you see, because I have very, very bad Obstructive Sleep Apnea or OSA.  Because of the anesthesia AND the painkiller, this kicked my OSA into overdrive and I immediately started losing respiration functions.  On top of all that, during the biopsy, the surgeon had nicked an artery near the bottom of my left lung and I was unknown to everyone, I was hemorrhaging inside my chest cavity very, very badly.  Within a few seconds my breathing stopped entirely, my blood pressure dropped to 0/47 (no systolic pressure and unstable diastolic) and my body temperature plummeted to 74F.  My wife and daughter, who were both standing there in the room said that I turned pale blue and then white as a sheet and became diaphoretic and cyanotic.  

They administered NARCAN to try and counteract the painkiller, and it didn't work.

And I was dead.  Just like that.   

It took 8 minutes for the Rapid Response Team to get me intubated and into surgery.  It's what happened during those 8 minutes that I am going to try to describe for you. 

The "Crowd"

It's very - well- foggy.  But it's not fog.  I don't know what it is.  And there are people standing in front of me, but I'm looking at them from the waist down.  They seem to be 2-dimensional, and they have no discernable features- like my eyes are out of focus.  They seem to be moving together in one motion, like their heads are moving, but there's no parallax - so they move more like they are "melting" into different shapes.  It's a little alarming.  It also looks like they are "contained" on a piece of cardboard or paper that is cut out into something like a pyramid.  (the picture above is the best approximation I can make) There is no noise at all.  It's very silent, which is weird for me because I have mild tinnitus, but that is completely gone.  The silence is overwhelming.

All of the sudden, I'm moving, backwards, away from the cardboard cutout of people.  It's a slow movement at first, then picks up a little speed.  Then I stop, and the cutout looks like it's about 3 or 4 meters away and I can see the crowd's entire "bodies" now.  Surrounding the cutout is.......it's not blackness.  It's not "nothing".  I honestly can't describe it other than to say it's "pretty".  I sit at that vantage point for a minute, kind of marveling at everything.  I'm not scared, and I'm not thinking anything- I'm just kind of enthralled and I'm trying to make sense of it.

I start getting this sensation of being really, really small- like I'm a drop of water.  I manage to look down, and I can't see a body or legs.  I'm just kind of floating in this ether, and I get another sensation of ascending up.  It's really slow, and my aspect of the cutout is changing.  I also notice that I am simultaneously seeing the cutout from the initial point of view.  But, as I "ascend" where I am starts to come into really sharp focus.  All of the sudden, I'm about 3 meters above the "crowd", looking down at a 45 degree angle.  And, to my right is the 45 degree angle of the bezel that's holding the lighting panel on the ceiling.  I'm on the ceiling....????

There are 11 people in the room, and they are standing against a wall.  The room is very bright.  In the middle of these people is a tall, blonde woman.  Her arms are folded against her chest, and she seems very angry.  She is yelling at all the other people in the room- barking is more like it.  And is she LOUD.  Next to her is my wife and my daughter.  They are both crying, and my daughter looks completely inconsolable.  (that is not like her)  My wife is leaning over something, and her right arm seems to be going back and forth very quickly, but I can't see what she is doing.  I'm starting to hear other sounds now, too.  My wife's voice is the only intelligible noise.

"Will you please just look at me?" I hear my wife say.  I have no idea who she is talking to.  My wife is the only person talking that I can understand, but the rest of the people are talking- no, they are yelling, but it all just sounds like gibberish.  I'm still not scared, but I am confused as to what it is I am looking at.  The tall blonde woman motions to another woman, who touches my wife's arm and says something to her like "you are going to have to leave now", and takes my wife and my daughter out the door at the end of the room.

I notice that there is a little guy laying in a bed just below me.  I have no idea who it is. As I'm staring at him, I suddenly realize that it's me!!  I don't look right.  My face is all contorted, my head is off to one side, my mouth is wide open and my eyes are rolled back in my head.  My color is really weird- it actually kind of looks like a mannequin of me, and it's not real. 

It dawns on me- very suddenly - Oh, shit. I know what's happening.  

"Oh, wow!  This is really happening to me!! I'm dead! I cannot believe it!" 

A teeny bit of panic hits me, but for some reason, I can handle it easily.  It's scary, but it's also kind of fun in a really weird way- kind of like being on a roller-coaster for the first time.  I watch the nurses grab my body, and start to turn it on my side, and I get this weird feeling like I'm being bent in half- I don't quite know how to explain it, but as they moved my body, I could feel stuff.

And OH, BOY, does it hurt.  The pain is.........I can't describe it.  I've told some people that the only way I can really explain it is that it was "perfect".  It was EVERYWHERE, ALL AT ONCE- it was life itself and all consuming- but here's the weird part- as much as it hurt, it didn't phase my thinking.  I just marveled at it.  It didn't bother me.

All this time, I'm still seeing all this happen within that "cutout" that I described earlier, and all of the sudden there is a REALLY loud noise like a million people all decided to march forward in one step, and the cutout flew at me.  It's such a jarring motion and sound that I backup along the ceiling and notice the metal bezel plate that holds the light fixture screen- like I almost crash into it.  Then another "WHUMP" sound, and the cutout is suddenly a mile away from me, and it's at a different angle.  WHUMP again, and I'm looking at a corner of the cutout.

The "whumps" and sudden movements and aspect changes happens about 8-9 times and it's starting to really scare me- I really don't like this at all.  The yelling in the room has gotten an awful lot louder and way more frantic.  Things start spinning, slowly at first but they pick up speed, rapidly. All of the sudden everything goes completely "blank".  Absolutely nothing for a nano-second that felt like a million years.

I'm standing in a mist.  More of a light fog.  I still don't see my body.  I'm also moving, very, very fast but I'm actually not doing the running or walking.  I'm just standing still, and things are rushing by me. The fog starts to clear.  It's dark, but I see what look like low hills on either side of me, and it looks like I'm travelling over a big grass field.  There are people in the field, just walking around, and I fly by them at ridiculous speed.  I really can't see who they are, but I get the feeling I know some of them, and I want to stop to talk, but I have to get somewhere.  The field seems to be on the side of a steep hill, and there's some lights at the bottom of the hill that look like a small town, but it's hard to make out in the darkness.  I'm picking up speed, too, and it's really exhilarating to feel the cool grass going under my feet (even though I can't see them) and the wind in my face.  I'm getting the feeling that the lights are where I'm headed.  I can smell what I think are pancakes, too!  And BBQ.  I recognize my deceased paternal grandmother and her brother, Uncle Karl. They are saying something, but I can't understand them.  The people that I pass by start waving at me- I initially think it's heaven, but- there is a complete absence of anything divine here.  That fact is extremely jarring to me, because........well, because........Bible.......stories......faith.......redemption to Jesus.....none of that is here in any way, and I'm struck by just how alone I actually am.

Even though this hillside is small and I'm moving pretty fast, after I see me relatives, it's an eternity to close the gap between me and the town.    I know now what the town I'm seeing is- it's Jackson, Wyoming.  This part felt like about 3-4 months of travelling, but the town never got any closer.  This wasn't like the stress dream where you're trying to run away from something and your feet won't move- I am covering distance her because my POV to my back is changing, but forward of me view never does.  I' m seeing a ton of people fly by on my right, back up the hill, and fewer and fewer of them seem familiar to me.  

Without warning, everything goes completely black.  No sensation.  No movement.  There seems to something in my mouth, and I don't like it.  All of the sudden, it's really hard to breathe.  I can't see.  I want to yell, but I can't make any sound at all.  I can't open my eyes. Ok, I can barely open them.  

I'm in a big, dimly lit room.  There is a small platform on the other side of the room- I think it might be a scale?  Sitting on it, staring at me is........ Elmer Fudd?  What the fuck is that?  He's just sitting there, his right arm wrapped around his shotgun, staring at me.  It isn't alarming or scary, and I immediately know that this is a hallucination, and it makes me laugh.  Some people get Jesus in their hospital rooms- it figures that I would get Elmer.  Elmer fades slowly and the blackness comes back.

Someone is holding my hand.  It's my wife.

"Can you squeeze my hand?" I hear her say.

I squeeze her hand as hard as I can.

"YEAH!!!!" I hear her exclaim.  "Do it again!"  I do it again.

"Can you take a big breath for me?", she asks.  I take as big a breath as I can.  There is cheering in the room.  I'm intubated (which sucks) but this is where I will leave the story for now for the next installment.

well, that was different

I was going to write a new entry today to try and clarify my last post a bit, but since I had written that last post, a rather significant event happened that I really must write about.  It's one of those rare, once-in-a-lifetime events, too, and it really can't be ignored.  What happened, you ask?

I died.

Last Wednesday, December 13, 2023 at 8AM I went into the hospital for a pretty routine procedure- a kidney biopsy.  Supposed to be in and out in 3 hours.  Supposed to be 3 hours......

Instead, what happened was that the surgeon made a mistake, and unknowingly severed an artery near my left lung, and for 5 hours after the procedure, I quietly bled out internally in the recovery room while my wife and daughter watched.  During this episode, my blood pressure went down to 0/47 and my body temperature went down to 74 degrees.  I was without respiration for 8 minutes.  That's dead, folks.  The hospital called a full Code Blue on me, the Rapid Response Team took over my care, ushered my family out and resuscitated me thru 2 different CT scans, 2 surgeries, a chest tube to remove 2+ liters of blood in my chest, re-inflation of a deflated lung, 3 separate blood transfusions and intubation.  I was placed on a ventilator and in the ICU for recovery.   

When sedation medication was lifted and I began to wake up, I thought it was still Wednesday, but it was in fact Thursday evening.  I had no idea what had transpired.  Oh, wait.....yes I did.  It started coming back to me.........oh, boy.  Did it ever.

I will be writing much, much more about this- I promise.  I'm still collecting my thoughts, but suffice it to say that yes, I did leave my body.  And yes, I did see things.  And, yes I will describe them.  There is much to tell here, but for now, I am still healing and still pretty weak from all of it.  I am also home now, and it's Christmas Day as I write this, and that is a very, very good thing.  For now, this is really all I have to say, as this experience is a little bigger than a breadbox and I want to take the time to describe all that happened as accurately as I can and that is going to take time for me to do properly.

In meantime, I covet anyone and everyone's prayers and good thoughts as I try to heal, so if you are in the mood, please feel to send those my way.  I can really use them.

More to come.

let's get on with it

 I must have started this blog entry a dozen times so far.  I think this is the one.

It’s been a minute since I’ve blogged anything, and in that minute, MUCH has happened on the health front.  Right before Thanksgiving, 2023, I started having a lot of swelling on my legs and feet and that old, “congested” feeling was coming back- yeah.  Great.  The heart stents from 2020 have failed, and it’s gonna be time for the big cutdown triple bypass operation.  And, on top of that, I had been laid off from my job of the last 5 years (a company I dearly loved), and we just bought a new house, and work is scarce, and……..well, shit.

Except that it wasn’t my heart.  It was fine.  The problem was that I was what is known as “diabetic ketoacidosis” or DKA, which is weird.  Shouldn’t be happening at all.  My diabetes was pretty well controlled- but guess what?  It wasn’t. I had a blood sugar of over 430, an A1C of 13.7 and a creatnine level of 7.8 (anything over a 2 is very bad) and my protein level was immeasurably low- super anemic.  Bottom line: I was dying.  For real.  My kidneys had gone the way of the dodo, and I was staring down the barrel of being forced onto peritoneal dialysis. 

Oh, it’s fun to be me………..

After 2 weeks of being in and out of the hospital, with at 15-20 needle sticks/injections/infusions per day (I could make whistling noises if I walked fast enough- if I could walk, that is) I was sent home, where I am now.  Things are on the mend now, and numbers are looking a little better each day, but I have a LONG road ahead of me, and those that know me will understand the gravity of this statement- this is, by far, the single hardest health issue I’ve ever experienced.  Full stop.  But none of that has anything to do with why I’m writing this blog entry.

Because of this and a few other happenings in my life, I’ve gone into what I can only describe as a “soul searching walkabout”, where I am re-evaluating many, many things in my life.  And being the critical thinker that I try to be, I decided that no matter where the evidence and trail leads, I will follow without preconceived notions or hangups.   Everything is up for grabs, and I do mean EVERYTHING.  In doing this, I decided to try and start small- my diet.  That’s controllable.  I’ve removed an awful lot of things out of my diet – kind of scorched earth like, too- no carbs, really low fat, NOTHING fried, no potatoes or pasta, etc.  The result?  My A1C this morning was 8.8.  It’s working.  Next was rest and trying to unplug.  That seems to be helping my blood pressure- I’m onto something.  Let’s keep going and see where this takes us……….

And it was inevitable- I found myself really and truly re-examining relationships in my life and my faith.  I knew I’d hit this at some point, but I honestly didn’t think it would happen that soon, but boy it did and HARD.

What I realized was that my relationships weren’t surrounded by my faith as much as they were rooted in my faith, which is completely different.  I had this recalcitrant idea in my head that, as long as someone believed in something like I did (not necessarily WHAT I believed in) that I could have a relationship with them.  What I didn’t realize is that when one of my best friends came to me and told me that he was renouncing his Christianity earlier this year, I instantly had a very difficult time relating to this person.  They didn’t change, and I didn’t change- we just “lost” a commonality that had a lot of meaning, but I still love this person very, very much and I know they love me, but something was different and I couldn’t figure it out.  Until I got very, very sick.  Then it was all too clear, and even though I pledged to follow this trail no matter where it leads, I really, really hated what I was seeing.

My faith has been a lie.  The whole time.  And I never, ever saw it that way, and I didn’t see it coming.

Now, mind you, and I want to be crystal clear here: I am still a Christian.  Very, very much.  But I am not the Christian I was 60 days ago.  Not even close.  I am an ardent fan of Jesus, and I can honestly say that since I’ve been thinking about this, I feel even closer to Him now in many, many ways.  I have figured out what has been missing all this time in my life now – and it’s not what you think (hell, it wasn’t what I thought it would be!) – and it’s simply this:

People need to be Jesus to others.  People DO NOT NEED to be told to do things to MAKE them like Jesus.  In other words, what people need from you is support, help, assistance, empathy, compassion, caring and love.  They DO NOT NEED you telling them that they need to be that way.  You should do this without the need for reciprocity or an expected return.  Don’t castigate them if they don’t do as you do.  Don’t yell at them.  Don’t tell them that they are going to hell, because you don’t get to make that call.  (I don’t either, but there are those I like to encourage...)  Live and let live.  Love EVERYBODY all the time and stop this absolute bullshit practice of saying that “love doesn’t constitute acceptance” – because it DOES.  An example of this-

Remember the woman at the Jacob’s well in Samaria?  He tells her what she did wrong in her life – but he doesn’t condemn her for it- and he tells her to go and sin no more- guess what?  I’ll bet you a shiny new nickel that that woman DID sin again, because even though she was forgiven – by Jesus directly – she was still a flawed and frail human being.  Was she still forgiven?  You bet she was.   Was that first forgiveness null and void because she absolutely committed a sin later in life?  Not at all.    Was Jesus, who knew everything about this woman and who more than likely knew that she would sin again wrong for even doing this in the first place?  Nope.  Did Jesus want her to sin again?  No.  Then for Him to do this, he had to both LOVE her and ACCEPT that this was going to happen.  You just cannot get around this, folks.  Jesus didn’t spend one pico-second telling her that if she didn’t listen to Him that she was going to go to Hell, nor did He give a 45 minute sermon on the wages of Sin and Death- He showed up, was present, exhibited love and acceptance and launched His ministry.

Sidenote: All of you miscreants who think that women have a lesser place in ministry or are somehow not imbued with the “correct spiritual acumen” need to collectively remove your craniums from your gluteus maximums: in every, single reveal of Jesus’s ministry and miracles, it was to a woman FIRST.  Every.  Single.  Time. 

Now, here’s where it gets a little more pointed, and I’ll say right now that I am not sorry if I offend folks with this last part.  As of this writing, this has become a 100% non-negotiable for me, and that’s not gonna change.  What I mean is that if you’re first reaction to this is to try and correct me or sell me on some kind of “theology” that says that I am “backsliding” or bending to fit societal norms or something, I will consider that hostile and toxic, and you can go straight to…….somewhere else (because I don’t believe in Hell) and we are done.  I ain’t kidding.  This is sure to cause some rancor in some of my relationships, and I can honestly say that I don’t care.  You don’t even have to say goodbye- in fact, I ask that you don’t.  Just unsubscribe and unfriend and un-Insta-G or whatever you want to do.  I’ll not wish you a good life (I won’t begrudge you one, either) but nothing is getting in the way of me seeing this through.  NOTHING.  There are relationships within my own family (one in particular that is really toxic) that are about to get a Biblical send-off from me, and that’s just how it has to be. 

So, let’s get on with it.

More to come.

influenced

 

I don’t remember this well – at least not when it happened, that is – but the outcome of this event is something that shaped me forever.  It was Christmas, 1968 and I was 4.  My paternal grandparents came to visit and my grandpa pulled out his violin to play Christmas Carols with my grandma playing piano.  I had never seen a violin before, and I was transfixed on it and the sound it made.  I watched my grandpa drag the bow across the strings and move his fingers, and for some reason it just made sense to me.  I said, “I can do that!” and my grandpa handed me the violin- and guess what.  I could do it.  And, yes, I could play in tune.  My family was gobsmacked, and I was completely hooked.

When I turned 7, I was dared to try to play bass, and I did- and that’s a story for a different time.  The thing I want to impress here is that even though I became a bassist, I never stopped being a violinist.  I continued to play violin all thru elementary school, Jr. and Sr. High, and really only gave it up after high school.  (I still own a violin and viola and do play them, but not nearly as much)

Trouble was that I really didn’t have that much affinity for “legit” music.  As the player of a classical instrument, composers like Bach, Telemann, Vivaldi and Beethoven are basically your bread and butter.  I could play that stuff (once I learned how to read music) but it was never “me”- then again, I wasn’t really sure who I was as a player, but classical was definitely not the thing. 

When I went into 5^th grade, I started hearing artists like Stephan Grappelli, Joe Venuti and Ray Nance.  These guys were doing things I kind of liked, but couldn’t really identify with.  Players like Jean-Luc Ponty, Jerry Goodman and Allen Sloan were taking things in a direction that was closer to what I thought I wanted to do, but they lacked a certain melodic quality that was needed for me.

Then I heard the song “Lonely Wind”- and time just STOPPED.

I had never heard anything like this.  It wasn’t just the violin in it- the song had a majesty I had never heard before; the vocal just SOARED and it seemed like they were speaking to me.  I made every effort to get ahold of the first Kansas album, their eponymous debut effort- and when I did finally get it, I was completely and irrevocably hooked by what I heard, most notably the song “Journey from Mariabronn”.

That was my introduction to Robby Steinhardt and what was possible in music.

Robby was the whole package to me- a complete artist and showman, a phenomenal player and equally adept singer and writer.  He didn’t look like the rock stars of the day- wearing overalls, he looked like he’d be more at home in a corn field than on a stage.  That persona never changed thru the next several albums – “Song For America”, “Masque” and then the juggernauts of “Leftoverture” and “Point of Know Return” and follow-ups like “Monolith” and “Audio Visions” – Robby’s presence and playing on those incredible works were the thing that separated Kansas from every single band out there.  NO ONE sounded like them, and NO ONE sounded like him.

As a bassist, I do claim Dave Hope, the bassist from Kansas as a primary influence on me as a bassist, right along with Jaco Pastorius, George Hawkins, Anthony Jackson, George Porter, Scott LaFaro and all the rest- but Robby was my constant muse and was (and still is) my primary influence as a musician.  Everything I’ve ever written musically has been done with his musicality in mind- from his ability to add serious grit to vocals on songs like “Lightning’s Hand” and “Mysteries and Mayhem” to his soaring lines on “Nobody’s Home” and “Paradox” – Robby’s influence is there on me, palpable and undeniable. 

Robby went thru some personal stuff after “Somewhere to Elsewhere” that negated his ability to continue with the band, and even though I really do love what David Ragsdale has brought to them (and he is a SPECTACULAR player), the band hasn’t been the same without Robby’s vocals or his delivery both on violin and vocally.  I have, sadly, heard a few stories about Robby and his dealings with folks during some of that time that does not paint him in a particularly good light, but I know that everyone makes mistakes and goes thru stuff – and I prefer not to dwell on any of that.  I really wanted to hear some new music from him, but…..

Now he’s gone.

I know how silly this may seem to some- I’m waxing on about a man I never met that was in a 70’s super group that was larger than life, but here’s the deal and this is why it’s such a gigantic thing to me- it was during that time when I first heard Robby that I was physically abused by a couple of family members, and it was Robby and Kansas that somehow got me thru that, and for that I am eternally grateful.  If songs like “The Wall” and “Closet Chronicles” and “Portrait (He Knew)” hadn’t been there for me to disappear into, I honestly don’t think I would be here today.  If tunes like “A Glimpse of Home”, “Hopelessly Human” and “Angels Have Fallen” weren’t part of my world, I don’t know where I’d be.  And while it was Kerry Livgren who wrote those songs and Steve Walsh was the one who did the lion’s share of the singing, it was Robby with his overalls, wild hair, menacing stare, unbelievable feel and formidable chops who brought all of that home for me and make it so that I could identify with that and feel part of it. 

I know we hadn’t heard anything from Robby in quite awhile, but I knew he was still out there, and there was always the possibility of something new.  Now, that won’t happen, and I am left feeling both sad and grateful for this man – again, who I never met – and the part he played in my life.  I’m going to miss him terribly, but I have his work to listen to and remind me of what is possible. 

Thank you, Robby.  Rest well.

 

we've all lost

I’ve been watching the Brett Kavanaugh and Dr. Ford dealings now with a very heightened state of observance, and I’ve not offered anything on it yet, but I really feel like I need to finally say something about this. 

Should you care what I have to say?  Maybe.  If nothing else, it might serve to illuminate something you might have not considered in this matter.

I’m going to assume that you’ve watched the judiciary debate on Mr. Kavanaugh.  And, even if you haven’t watched it, I won’t assume you have an opinion on the matter- I know you do, whether or not you watched it all.  All of us seem to.  I’m not calling into question your opinion on whether or not Kavanaugh did what Dr. Ford alleges he did or not- you are completely entitled to your opinion, as am I.

Now, we’re basically down to deciding if Judge Kavanaugh should be confirmed or not, and the one thing that strikes me is that people have made their decisions on what they think.  And here’s the deal:

It doesn’t matter what you think.  And it doesn’t matter what I think, either.

The simple fact of the matter is that justice isn’t based on what we think.  It’s based on the facts that come from the case and the investigations that get that data.  Now, before you run completely off the rails and say, “but there was no investigation and that’s the problem”, let me correct you here- there was an investigation.  And, truthfully, there was more than one.  And all of them found no corroborating data to back up Dr. Ford’s allegations.  You can call into question the veracity and scope of these investigations and sworn testimonies, but the fact is that none has been found.

But that’s not the problem here.  Believe it or not.

The problem here is that the judiciary committee – both sides – have run roughshod over the entirety of the law in order to get what each other’s side wants, and they have done so at the expense of two people who are caught in the middle, Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh.

You see, the Republicans want their judge.  The Democrats don’t want the Republican judge.  It’s as simple as that.  Both sides are posturing and proffering their sides and hiding behind the legalese of the moment.  Yes, the Republicans did call for an investigation (that’s where Mark Judge’s sworn statement came from- it did not appear out of thin air) and Sen. Jeff Flake asked for another one that resulted in the non-findings we saw on Thursday.  The Democrats were presented with a letter from Dr. Ford in July and were asked to not make it public – and, by the way, they could have asked for an FBI investigation right then and there based on that letter, as is their right – and they chose not to do it until Judge Kavanaugh’s record failed to disqualify him, and then Sen. Feinstein’s office leaked it at the 11^th hour.  (and they did leak it- they had the only copy of the letter, and the entire letter was leaked to the press) The hope in leaking the document was so that they could delay the confirmation hearings until the mid-term elections in November, where they hope they will win the Senate and the House and turn back the nomination that way.

Both sides have committed egregious sins here.  BOTH SIDES. Both sides performed their tasks at the barest of minimums to be within the bounds of the law - just enough - and did so knowing full well that they would have plenty of places to hide.  Neither one is better than the other, and what we’ve been left with is a court of popular opinion as to whether Judge Kavanaugh actually assaulted Dr. Ford in the summer 1982.  Based on the findings of the FBI and the other sworn statements, it simply cannot be established. 

It’s important to understand that justice simply cannot be born out of what we think.  Facts have to be corroborated in any court case for guilt.  In this country, you and everyone around you is supposed to be innocent until found guilty of a crime, and the mere allegation of a crime is not and should never be enough to find someone guilty.

So, both sides have “gamed the system” here, and we are all left to our own devices.  Whether or not Judge Kavanaugh is actually guilty of Dr. Ford’s allegations is something we will never know, and our government has seen to that.  

All of that is really sad and troubling, but it pales in comparison to the truly troubling part- and that is that a very serious allegation has been weaponized for political gain by both sides.  Both sides have set investigating sexual assault back at least 25 years.  ANYONE who makes a claim of sexual assault, regardless of when or where it happened – they need to be validated and heard.  This is an awful, awful thing to have happen to anyone, and to have it marginalized in the fashion that we’ve all witnessed – and marginalized by BOTH SIDES FOR THEIR OWN GAIN is just about the worst thing I’ve ever witnessed in my 54 years on this planet.  Watching the testimony of Dr. Ford and then Judge Kavanaugh last week (I watched the entire thing from start to finish) made me physically sick to my stomach.  No one was listened to.  No one was heard.  Not Dr. Ford and not Judge Kavanaugh.  Both of them were equally compelling in their testimony, and I personally could reach no real determination based on what I saw, because all I saw was the Democrats pandering to Dr. Ford and doing their level best to crucify Judge Kavanaugh and vice-versa for the Republicans (while their side stepped asking Dr. Ford any real questions at all).  

I have to say that the single most egregious thing I saw all day was Sen. Feinstein’s answers to whether or not she leaked the letter.  That was amazingly disgusting to watch, but basically she knew she was caught, and when she knew it, she immediately threw Dr. Ford under the wheels of her own particular bus and actually suggested that Dr. Ford was somehow to blame for it.  The media pretty much ignored that, but that was seared into my brain and was a real tell on the entirety of the proceedings- there was no depth either side wasn’t willing to sink to in order to get their agenda met, including sandbagging their own “witness”.  Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans had even the slightest desire to hear anything that didn’t directly serve their purpose, and for the first time in my life I saw the very darkest side of US politicians.  They are all truly scumbags and none of them should be in any place of power.  Not one single one of them.

This weekend, we’re supposed to have the final vote to confirm.  I don’t know how that’s going to turn out, and now I don’t care.  The Supreme Court is supposed to be the final non-partisan arbiter of the law, and with this set of proceedings it is extremely clear that isn’t going to be the case anymore.  Maybe it never was, but at least it hasn’t been so obvious before.  At least not to me.

So, when that vote comes down and you find yourself just echoing the same crap you’ve been spewing from your pie-hole on what you “think”, think again.  No matter how that vote comes down, all of us have already lost.  You might just want to think about that and shut your mouth about it.  I know I plan to do just that.

heartbreaking

Seems the only reason I ever blog at all is because I'm frustrated.  And I'm frustrated today, so here we go again.

17 dead in a Florida high school.  God, have mercy on us all.

In terms of frustration ratio, my more than mildly irked that this has happened again.  AGAIN.  What's worse about this time is that, according to the news accounts, the shooter showed all the warning signs.  A lot of students predicted that this would happen from this guy, and yet-

It.  Just.  Did.

But, getting back to the frustration ratio, my real frustration is with the folks who chime in when these things happen who cannot and will not make suggestions to "fix" this ongoing problem with any kind of suggestion that is based on reality.  They have knee-jerk reactions and suggest things like smaller capacity magazines, a moratorium on gun ownership, more background checks- that list goes on and on and a lot of that has already happened- and yet, the problem persists. 

That frustration is heightened even more because no matter how many of these "suggestions" we put into play, they ignore two immutable facts:

1. All those "suggestions" do is make it harder for citizens who obey the rules.
2. Criminals - and would-be criminals - don't obey the rules.  That's why they are called "criminals" in the first place.

What this tells me is that the folks who make these "suggestions" fall into just a couple of camps: those who really don't have anything actionable on their minds and feel they must react (kind of like the guy writing this blog right now.....ahem) and those that have buried their heads so far into the sand that they might as well double for a fracking rig.

As long as we don't deal with reality, this is going to continue to happen.  We can confiscate guns- and then the bad guys will be the only ones with them - again, this is the reality we live in.  I don't make the rules here- but as long as there is someone who is willing to "bend the rules" and sell/give away guns in an illicit manner, folks like this latest shooter will continue to be able to get them.  And, don't fool yourself- it's easy to buy an illegal weapon from someone who obtained one thru illegal means.  Clearly, confiscation will do no good- and like it or not, it's prevented by the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution no matter how you'd like to read it or read into it:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Again- people can read into this all they want to, but the operative words here are the last 4- "shall not be infringed" - and if you actually did read the Bill Of Rights you'll already know that it says nothing about what the government can do- all of the Bill Rights has to do with what the government cannot do, and that's important delineation to note.

So, like it or not, the 2nd Amendment is here to stay, folks.  Confiscation is illegal, and it wouldn't help anyway since there's an awful lot of guns in this country and there's simply no way to get them all.  That's not gonna work.

I've been around firearms all my life, and consider myself to be somewhat of an "arm-chair expert" on them, and I can tell you that there has never been a case of a gun killing anyone when a person isn't attached to it.  That's incontrovertible.  Moreover, there's no such thing as "accidents" when firearms are involved- there is only "negligence".  That is also incontrovertible.  If it isn't an unintended firing it's worse because they meant to do it.  Again- incontrovertible.

The thing no one really wants to sink their teeth into is this - and I hate like hell that I'm about to sound like a GOP guy, but it boils down to mental health.  It just does.  No person in their right mind would do the things that this shooter has done.  In colloquial terms, they are "crazy" but in clinical terms they are mentally ill.  

And, that's really all there is to it.  It's difficult to take a step back on a day like today and dispense with the partisan rig-a-more-roll and just examine the facts dispassionately, but that's what needs to happen if anything is really going to be done about this.  Or, let me try to illuminate this another way:

Florida is well known to be a very liberal leaning state.  That's not a bad thing, mind you.  But, the mindset that seems to suggest sweeping reforms is largely from the liberal mindset- and, again that's perfectly ok - so it follows naturally that the predominance of the folks affected by this latest shooting are probably liberal in their stances on this issue.  (I am NOT saying, trying to say nor infer that there is anything wrong with a liberal stance here)  These same folks who think and understand these things from a common mindset are the ones probably paying the most attention to those things, and yet, when confronted with a known person who many said they predicted would do something like this - those same people didn't do anything about it.  Now why is that?

Because as a society we are plagued with the idea that this kind of thing happens only to others.  And, as a society, we want a "fix" in place that relinquishes all of us of the need to invest in the solution.  If someone had reported this, they would have to go to the police and make a complaint and that takes time.  If someone did go to the police with this, then the police would have to start a case and invest their time.  If the police did start a case and they contacted this person, then that person is going to be inconvenienced and that takes time.  And effort.  And follow-up.  And, also in this society, there is absolutely no tolerance for an undotted "i" or an uncrossed "t" and either of those make the litiphobes go nuts, so they don't even bother to put in either the time or effort.

So, the only real thing to do is bury your head in the sand and hope it doesn't happen, or you bury your head in the sand and hope someone else takes care of it- and let them be litigated when things go wrong.

We have to do something about mental health in this country, and not just because of school shootings.  The population that has mental health problems is so vastly "underlooked" after (note: NOT overlooked, because that would imply that someone is looking but not seeing) and that state of disarray is the single biggest common denominator in things like domestic abuse, homelessness and also wanton violence.  I'm all for mental health checks as part of a background check regimen for gun ownership, but the problem there is that only the lawful will participate.

People who have had diagnosed mental health issues should not own a gun.  I'm onboard with that.  Again, we're talking about just lawful people here- so what to do about the unlawful?  What do we do with the folks that absolutely will get their hands on a weapon and use it like this shooter did?

I have a partial answer to this:

1. If the perpetrator of an act like this is found to be in illegal possession of a firearm, they immediately and permanently lose their US Citizenship.  Even if they were born here and their entire family is US Citizens.
2. The perpetrator should be tried as a Terrorist.  Not "domestic" or "extremist" - terrorism is terrorism.
3. If the perpetrator is found guilty of Terrorism, they should be sentenced to life with no possibility of parole- and by that, I don't mean they get a parole hearing every 7 years as a formality- I mean they don't even get a hearing.
4. If the perpetrator has their citizenship revoked, they must immediately find - at their own expense - a country that will take them.  They will also be unable to re-enter this country on a work visa or even with a passport from that country.  They are literally pariah as far as this country is concerned.
5. Failure to relocate as a newly defrocked American citizen earns you a nice long stay in a Federal prison.  Without parole.  Without parole hearings.  You're done.

Now here's the worst part of my idea- culpability.  People who have heard of someone possibly doing these things and don't report it- they should be guilty as accomplices.  Perhaps lower in stature than what constitutes a normal accomplice, but nonetheless- they should be held responsible for their own inactions.  That doesn't stop with mere citizens- if the cops knew that this could happen and no one stepped in, they should be equally responsible as this type of accomplice.

The idea here is simple: this is a problem that we all face, and we all have to get involved if we're going to fix it.  No one is immune, and there should be consequences for those that think they are.

This is a problem that is going to take a lot of time and energy to fix, and it's not going to go away overnight.  If you're idea of fixing this is somehow related to purely gun ownership, then you're as much a part of the problem as those who hear stuff and don't do anything about it.

In the meantime, I'll just be over here, heartbroken.