Sunday, October 17, 2004

WHEN I'M SIXTY-FOUR

I Wanna Live With The Cinnamon Girl

I'm showing my age, here. But I can't help "tripping out" on this one, "man"! Paul McCartney and Neil Young? HOLY SHIT! Duets on "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" and "Hey Jude." Jeez, I hope there's a recording of this.

See, kids, Paul McCartney was once the biggest pop star who ever lived (thanks in large part to John Lennon). And Neil Young, a little younger, was probly one of the kewlest dudes who ever actually got consistently recorded in the 60's and 70's (along with his buds in Crazy Horse, CSN&Y, and Buffalo Springfield). I mean, like, whoa, he's like an INDIAN or something, too! OK, CANADIAN Indian, or whatever they call them up there. But, still...

And when I was a wee nipper, McCartney's little band, The Beatles, were the shining light of the universe on my little patch of reality. Pretty much everybody's, my age, give or take ten years. And then, just a few short years later, there was Neil with the "Cinnamon Girl," just as I was trying to figure out those enigmatic creatures, like, in my various friends various basements, a la Wayne's World. (Remember that one, kiddies?)

So, anyway, here's the soundtrack of my stupid life being re-recorded by the original artists, and K-Tel isn't even INVOLVED. Yeah, though this was 8-track territory and all. Rolling along in the Vista-Cruiser, kicking the tape-player to keep it from playing two songs at once, eight of us smoking hash somebody brought back from a mystical, faraway place called . . . Afghanistan... Cool coats they had, too... Wonder what ever happened to those people that made them . . . ?

OK, you can go back to what you were doing.

McCartney, Young Sing Together at L.A. Fundraiser

TO POST A COMMENT: CLICK ON "COMMENTS," "Post a Comment" or "# of COMMENTS" just below the SOCIAL BOOKMARKING LINKS (Digg, Delicious, etc), about three inches down from here. Please do comment. Thank you.

IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM YOUR BLOGGERS:

Suggestion Box & Tip Jar We would like to make over this blog to make it easier to access, to read and to comment on. We would also like to serve our readers better by providing more of what you need and want to see. All serious suggestions will be considered. We hope to move to our own domain in the near future, and we would like to ask for your financial assistance in doing that, and in upgrading our hardware & software. Small one-time donations and larger long-term subscriptions are welcome. Exclusive advertising is also available. If you think we are wasting our time in doing all this, please let us know. If you wish to help us, now is the time. As always, negative bullsh*t from right-wing trolls will be sh*tcanned. Thank you to everyone else. Please send feedback & PayPal contributions to cosanostradamusATexciteDOTcom. Thanks.

SUPPORT OUR TROOPS: BRING THEM ALL HOME ALIVE, NOW!

HOME
NEWEST POST

CATHOLICS ARE REVOLTING

The Times They Are A-Changin' . . . Or Not

I've never quite understood why people wanted to be Catholics; I mean, remain part of the organized Church. The whole thing always seemed a bit strange to me, this vast edifice, this institution rooted so very far in the past. In America, so many of its' ways were so unlike our own. Even as a child in church and catechism, priests and nuns seemed weird and abusive to me.

As I grew older, these clerics' own personal attitudes towards sexuality began to seem pathological. Priests and nuns deliberately cut themselves off from the very well and fount of life itself, dealing with it God-knows-how (not real well, some of them), and then presumed to judge the rest of us, gay, straight or otherwise. All sex was bad, period.

Due to the necessity of having children, to keep those collection-plate dimes and dollars rolling in, sex was an unpleasant but necessary duty dumped on "the laiety," us breeder animals (HEY! Maybe THAT'S why they call us "lay people"!!!) : Not a joy, not a delight specially provided us by God in His infinite wisdom: Something nasty and dirty and shameful. This was the wrong message to send free, healthy young American boys and girls, post 1960. But then, these all-too-worldly and in-our-faces celibate church people were out of it on so many issues. They seemed more other-worldly than "unworldy," and not in a good, "E.T." way. More like "Aliens."

And it wasn't just me, I came to realize. Before abortion became an issue, before stem-cell research or any of that, the Church, or, rather, its' weird representatives here on Earth, had already alienated many. Of them, most left the Church. Those that stayed still felt strong social and spiritual ties, I guess. I didn't.

Now, with the priest-child-abuse scandals, ongoing and forever unresolved, there is a very real ferment, perhaps the beginning of a movement toward reform. For those who chose to stay, it's their church. They cough up the cash every week, they drag their kids to church and catechism, they ARE the church, not the weird aliens in the unisex robes.

The question is, can they remain Catholic? Can the Church remain Catholic, hierarchical, undemocratic, ruled by the Pope from Rome, and actively politically neanderthal? The original ultra-right wing were the Ultramontanists, the church officials in the upper far-right-hand-side bleachers in that tennis court at Versailles, as the French Revolution was exploding. They were against any and all change. Their blind, stubborn opposition, and seeming lack of awareness or concern for the plight of average French people resulted in an anti-clerical backlash that persists to this day, throughout Europe.

Plus ca change, plus c'est la same old shit. When the current Pope dies, what will happen to the Church? By choosing to take so blatantly political, and impolitic a stand on this election, the bishops may have laid the foundations for real change in the Church, which could end in their own demise. Or not.

Pehaps the Church will just continue to dwindle, slowly, while milking it's Western parishioners for money to proselytize in the Third World. Don't forget, there are more Catholics in the world than Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews or other Christians, taken separately. But will any Catholics be American, or European in the near future? Will any of them actually go to church, and pay to support it? The purse-strings belong to them, and that was the issue in Martin Luthor's time. It's all about the Benjamins. And, doesn't "benjamin"* mean "gift from God"? Not "entitlement for churchly Princes"?

*[Actually, it means son of my right hand, son of the south, or son of my old age. John, Jonathan, Ioan, Ionnes mean gift from God. So, it's all about the Johns, then...]

 "Catholic women activists protest Vatican's UN role"

"GLBT protest targets Catholic hierarchy"

"Catholics For A Free Choice"

"Working for equality and justice in the Church and society."

"TOWARD A CATHOLIC CONSTITUTION"

"New Groups Push for Change"

Links:

BLOGSHARES BLOGROLLING BLOGDEX WEBLOGS
BLOGGER SITEMETER PING-O-MATIC

Technorati
Profile

FEEDBURNER: Syndicate this site

TO POST A COMMENT: CLICK ON "COMMENTS," "Post a Comment" or "# of COMMENTS" just below the SOCIAL BOOKMARKING LINKS (Digg, Delicious, etc), about three inches down from here. Please do comment. Thank you.

IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM YOUR BLOGGERS:

Suggestion Box & Tip Jar We would like to make over this blog to make it easier to access, to read and to comment on. We would also like to serve our readers better by providing more of what you need and want to see. All serious suggestions will be considered. We hope to move to our own domain in the near future, and we would like to ask for your financial assistance in doing that, and in upgrading our hardware & software. Small one-time donations and larger long-term subscriptions are welcome. Exclusive advertising is also available. If you think we are wasting our time in doing all this, please let us know. If you wish to help us, now is the time. As always, negative bullsh*t from right-wing trolls will be sh*tcanned. Thank you to everyone else. Please send feedback & PayPal contributions to cosanostradamusATexciteDOTcom. Thanks.