Have a Nice Day

A Facebook friend quoted his Facebook friend:

"For the people who are annoyed with all the political stuff on Facebook: must be nice to only feel mildly irritated right now. Because as Trump makes move after move to rapidly shape this country into one that is overtly hostile to them and the people they love, many people are terrified right now. They would trade it for being annoyed in a heartbeat. So, sorry for the inconvenience."

Then the first friend added:

“Turning away is the definition of privilege, folks.”

Then I added:

“We can no longer be the "have a nice day" culture. We need to shift to "have an involved/ informed/ truth-seeking/ truth-telling/ people-caring/ politically active/ spiritually-awakening/ artistically beautiful/ courageously conversational/ willing to be outraged/ willing to listen/ willing to draw-the-line/ etc. day." Though a bit long for the restaurant hosts to memorize.”

I noticed some Facebook folks prefacing posts with apologies like: “Sorry to post something political here…” I’m thinking, “Yes, how dare you talk about something that can impact the lives of thousands/ millions of people, including you, now or down the line?! Don’t you know I really wanted to hear what you had for dinner? And the story about your sore shoulder? ”

Another posts: “This will be a spiritual, not a political post.” Yes, because Jesus stayed in his room and meditated while the moneylenders transacted business in the temple. And Gandhi preferred to monitor his biorhythms instead of having to deal with those nasty British.

Okay, I get it, politics is a dirty business. It divides neighbors, makes Thanksgiving dinners unbearable, brings us down into a muck we’d rather not step in. But it needn’t be a dirty word. It dates back to Aristotle’s day, the Greek “polos” the word for city, poloitikós—a citizen, a civilian, politikee—affairs of the state, the science of government. When democracy rose up, the civic responsibility of citizens to be informed, involved and actively shaping the government that shapes their lives in turn, became part of the deal. And never more so than now. If we have to do it, let's do it from a wider perspective than mere allegiance to dogma, take the opportunity to reflect on, name and stand by our highest values. 

Again, I get it. I’d rather play Bach and Monk all day long instead of having to call my Senator, the privilege to do so came from the hard work and sacrifices of others down in the political muck. If we all agree to shoulder our share of the burden, the load will be lighter.

I also get that the problems we face are not political alone. There are necessary conversations neither side of any political divide is having and there are spiritual solutions to human problems that are real and necessary. No political decision alone has ever brought peace and happiness. But many political decisions have made it possible for people to engage in the spiritual struggles, the self-reflections, the personal relationships with others that also demand our attention. It’s time to do away with the categories. Humanism is political, politics are spiritual, genuine art is humanistic, every act of authentic care and truth-telling is all of the above.

No more “have a nice day” please. Have a hell-raisin’ and heaven-blessing day. There, restaurant hosts, that’s short enough. Try it out.

Gonna Build Me a Mountain

Since my wife retired, I drive to school alone. After 42 years of sharing the commute, you might think it would be lonely. But—shhh!— I love it! Mostly because I get to listen to music of my choice both there and back.

Today I stumbled into Sammy Davis Jr., who has to be one of the more extraordinary performers in American entertainment. Whether playing drums, tap-dancing, acting or singing, the guy fills up the stage with 150% of his charisma and draws you into its power. He was a pretty amazing imitator, doing the voices of James Cagney, Marlon Brando, Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart and more in the middle of his songs (check out Because of You and  Rock A Bye). So here I was driving to school and on came this song, Gonna Build Me a Mountain. Catchy gospel-infused melody and great words— perfect for my current Singing Time theme of Happy Songs.

This is a repertoire I gathered years back, mostly jazz standards of the 20’s, 30’s and 40’s designed to help lift Americans out of their depression caused by the Depression. Accentuate the Positive, The Sunnyside of the Street, When You’re Smiling, Side by Side, Pennies from Heaven, High Hopes, Pick Yourself Up and more. Most of them are about maintaining a sunny disposition, looking on the bright side of any matter and yes, they’re naïve, bordering on denial and repression, corny and maybe contributing to political apathy by making some of the nation’s sorrow a personal problem instead of a political one. (As in no black person in the South who could be lynched at a moment’s notice with no accountability for the murderers should ever have to be taken to task for not looking on the “sunnyside of the street.”)

But they are a part of us, inextricably woven into our cultural fabric, brought to life by the voices of Ella, Billie and Louie, the horns of Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins, the remarkable piano fingers of Art Tatum and Teddy Wilson. The old folks at the Jewish Home still love to sing them and the young folks at The San Francisco School love to sing them and occasionally, the two groups get to sing them together.

Gonna Build Me a Mountain isn’t exactly in this style, but it was sung by a guy—Sammy Davis—who sang all the others and has an extra perk—it talks about happiness not as a simple outlook, but as an achievement that takes vision, work and hard labor. That certainly has been my experience. The important words in the songs are verbs. Action words. Build, hope, do, try, push, make, take. So I taught it to the kids:

Gonna build me a mountain from a little hill.

Gonna build me a mountain, at least I hope I will

Gonna build me a mountain, gonna build it high.

I don’t know how I’m gonna do it, only know that I’ll try.

Gonna build a daydream from a little hope

Gonna push the daydream up the mountain slope

Gonna build a daydream, gonna see it through,

Gonna build a mountain and daydream, gonna make them both come true.

Gonna build me a heaven from a little hell,

Gonna build a heaven, and I know darn well,

If I build a mountain with a lot of care,

I’ll take the daydream up the mountain and heaven will be waiting there.

I asked the kids how many understood the message and about half raised their hands. So I went to the piano and showed them my first piano lesson and how at the end, I couldn’t even play Hot Cross Buns. But because I had heard my Dad play piano and some records of people like, well, Vladimir Horowitz, I had a little hope that I could learn to play like that. At 6 years old, my hill was very small indeed. I didn’t know how I was gonna do it, but decided week after week of piano lessons, day after day of practicing and pushing my fingers on the piano keys up the mountain slope, that I was gonna try. And sure enough, that hill got bigger. (Needless to say, the mountain peak of Horowitz remains like Everest—I'm never gonna climb that high. But I still I play every day to ascend a little higher.)

I went on:

“You know, kids, when I was a kid, school was a little hell for me. I didn’t like it very much and thought it could be a lot better. So I when I got older, I started to try to build a little heaven in the music class. I cared about it a lot and I tried to build it with care and I took that dream up the mountain and sure enough, heaven was waiting for me there. And here you are! Singing with you every day is my heaven. Now do you understand the song?

Good! Let’s sing it again!”

After the euphoria of the weekend marches, I heard some damn depressing stories from folks on the left dismissing it and raining on the parade. Bad timing. No one needs that kind of division now, even if the points are worthy to consider. It’s like the guy on the beach telling the other guy not to bother throwing the starfish back in the water or walking by someone building their mountain and stepping on their daydreams. We need to be out on the streets and I suggest walking on the Sunnyside of them, even as we are fully aware of what’s on the other side. We’ve got a bit—or a lot, depending on your skin color, religion, gender or sexual preference—of hell coming up and it’s time to build a heaven together, with a lot of care, for each other as well as for the work. Heaven may not be waiting at the top, we may be doomed to the Sisyphusean torture of pushing our daydream up the mountain only to see it roll down again, we have no idea how we’re gonna do it, but damn it, don’t you think we should try?

So at the end of school, a third grader was walking next to me out to carpool and she turned to me and said, “You know, Doug, Happy Songs are the best!”

Yep.

Signs of the Times

(Before Saturday's march gets too far away, I better share this rap I made based on many of the signs I saw {actual sign quotes in bold}. It's a work-in-progress, stay tuned for a more finished version. If you want to try rapping it, put on Herbie Hancock's Chameleon from his Headhunters album. They go together well.)

The slumbering giant is startin’ to stir,

Out marchin’ in the streets, sayin’ I’m with her.

Four million people who feel that things ain’t fine

Expressing themselves with their personal sign

50 countries ‘round the world, in cities and in towns

Sayin’ they ain’t happy with what’s been goin’ down

So listen up, Mr. Trump, we’re talkin’ to you

We ain’t takin’ lying down what you planning to do.

You run a campaign all based on hate,

Calling all who aren’t like you an enemy of state.

Standin’ up there and rantin’ every day,

Talkin’ about a wall to keep Mexicans away,

Then register the Muslims to kick them out,

But the people standin’ up and marchin’ while they shout,

“You’re a mean hombre, your thinking’s kind of hazy

Calling all Muslims terrorists and Mexicans lazy

Your hands are small and so’s your heart,

You make the Grinch look good, so we’re doin’ our part,

To let you know that we’re here to stay

We ain’t gonna go, and we just gotta say

Hey Mr. president, respect our existence

If you can’t do that, expect our resistance. 

You’re a liar and a cheat, an illegal resident

It’s for damn sure you ain’t my President

You sign up for a job, but you ain’t got no credential

You think that making money can make you Presidential

Hey Hey! Ho Ho! You’re incompetent and you got to go!

You think you’re the big cheese, the chairman of the board

But yesterday we got up and democracy roared

Can’t make America great again

By making America hate again 

The only person who’s an enemy of the state

Is the one who’s fannin’ the flames of hate.

That’s you! That’s you! Watch what we’re gonna do!

We said it! We meant it! We’re here to represent it!

You think that you are free, to be gropin’ and grabbin’ it

If someone is incompetent, you appoint them to the cabinet,

Are you crazy? Don’t you know that’s a terrible i-de-a?

They makin’ better cabinets in I-ke-a

You givin’ out all kinds of misinformation

Tryin’ to keep the people stupid in this here nation

Things ain’t true just cause you say it’s so

This ain’t no reality TV show

We’re goin’ to wake the people up with a just education,

Deport DeVoss and open immigration

Don’t you think for a minute that you’re gonna do it

We won’t take people like your Steve Pruit

Well, Humpty Trumpty, wanted a wall

Humpty Trumpty, get ready to Fall,

We gonna take you down, one way or another

You got to deal with my pissed-off nasty grandmother

Dump the Trump, dump dump the Trump 

You’re either on the bus or off the bus

It’s all of us or none of us.

No hate! No fear! We all are welcome here!

No fear! No hate! That's what makes us great! 

We don’t like what you’re doin’ and that’s a cold fact

So we’re getting’ together to ovary-act

We know you can’t feel, don’t care what we think

But you gonna have to deal with the women in pink

You spending all your time with your orange hair

Thinkin’ you can take away our Medicare

Keep your hands off our health, stop thinkin’ ‘bout your wealth.

Get off your spinnin’ axis, reveal your taxes!

Martin Luther King was our American hero

You tryin’ to take his moral arc and bend it back to zero

Hear our anger, feel our care, listen to our rage

You can’t drag us by the hair back to the Stone Age

Get out of the Oval Office, vacate the West Wing

Unless you pay attention to the words of Dr. King

“Injustice here is injustice everywhere.”

We were shocked and shaken, like a nightmare wild

That people vote for someone who behaves like a child

A child leader’s dangerous, like nuclear fission

You should wear a sign, “Needs adult supervision.”

All you care about is you!, livin’ in some swampy bog,

You think we can trust you? You don’t even own a dog!

You’re a super callous Fascist Racist Extra Bragga Docious

Every change that you propose is really quite atrocious,

Every thing you say is alternatively factocious,

Super callous fascist racist extra bragga docious.

Um-dittle-ittle, um did ya lie? Um-dittle-ittle, um did ya lie?

Uh –huh, you did! Who you tryin’ to kid?

You never say a kind word, all you care about is power,

Sittin’ high and mighty in your tall Trump Tower.

Now you in the white house looking out at your plantation.

Thinking that who you are will define our nation.

But, Mr. President, we beg to disagree

And so do the four million who came out to see

All who do their best to listen and be kind

But we’re just so damned mad that we even made this sign.

Dump the Trump, dump dump the Trump

We’re sittin’ at the crossroads, meetin’ at the junction,

Then you get elected by electoral dysfunction

Tinkle tinkle little Czar, Putin put you where you are

You lost by 3 million, but you think you won

You don’t know that girls just want to have fun–

damental rights, not be rated from one to ten,

So we’re rising up and singing songs, then singin’ them again

You shall overcomb, but We shall overcome…

Climate change is real, how can we make you see

That we better pay attention, there is no PLANet B?

Take out the mock in De-mo-cra-cy

R-E-S-P-E-C-T,

that’s what  you should be givin’ to me

So listen up and stop your tweets, or tweet me with respect

From the leader of this land, it’s the least that we expect.

We’re turning up the heat, put that on your tweet.

We’re gonna keep on marchin’ on our 8 million feet.

We need a leader, not a creepy tweeter.

If you’re elected President, your job is to represent,

To respect this institution, you got to read the Constitution

It’s of the people, by the people, for the people, true?

All the people, not just the ones who voted for you.

So listen up good, pay attention. Mr. T.

You gotta deal with all of us, people like me!

I’m a big bad music teacher and I’m ready to talk

Get out of your Trump Tower and let’s go for a walk.

Let’s go to every corner of this here nation

Listen to the people and get an education

Gotta talk to the workers, the women and the gays,

All the colors of the rainbow and not just the greys,

From the Statue of Liberty to the good ole Golden Gate

People in the land are getting’ tired of hate.

There are no easy answers, it’s a monumental task,

Want to know what's goin' down? All you gotta do is ask.

Yes, the slumbering giant is startin’ to stir,

Out marchin’ in the streets, sayin’ I’m with her.

And she's with him and he's with they, 

U.S. means us! We're gonna make it that way.

The Day Democracy Roared

Don’t Mourn—Organize!

Before he was executed in 1915, social activist Joe Hill wrote a telegram to a friend saying “Don’t waste time mourning for me—organize!” This was shortened to the slogan above used by the IWW—International Workers of the World. Known as the Wobblies, this group of labor activists was formed in Chicago in 1905 to define the very real problem of labor/management relations and craft a vision of the future. The opening of their Constitution reads:

The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of the working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.

Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the Earth…

These folks are part of our American ancestry of resistance, along with the Founding Fathers who rebelled against the British, the Underground Railroad helping escaped slaves and the Abolitionist Movement, the Woman’s Suffrage Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, the United Farmworkers Movement, The Black Panthers, the Vietnam War Protest, the Environmental Movement, the Women’s Movement, the Nuclear Freeze Movement, the Gay Pride Movement and beyond. Each took on a different slice of injustice, organized and swam upstream against the popular tide of business as usual. The common ground was refusal to be defined by others who didn’t understand them and only sought to control them, use them, manipulate them, suppress them, oppress them. At the bottom of each lay the call for human dignity, for equal rights and opportunity, the chance to be judged by the content of their character instead of gender, skin color, sexual preference or economic status.  As happens with us flawed mortal beings, folks in these movements could be inconsistent, focused only on their issue. Blacks could be homophobic, gays could be racists, labor organizers could be sexist, women could be CEO’s causing environmental damage or treating workers badly, etc.

But yesterday, out on the streets around the world, two remarkable things happened.

1)    Heeding the IWW’s slogan, we crawled out of our depression, aloneness, hopelessness watching the transfer of power and organized and took to the streets and wasn’t that extraordinary!!! Alone with our TV’s and computers, we felt like strangers in a strange land, but out on the street—Hey! Here we are! Thousands of us, millions of us who are not fueled by hate and false superiority, not brainwashed with the lies of the powers-that-be who are playing us for suckers, not desperate to have Daddy promise to fix the world for us when we know full well the guy can’t even fix the toilet. Out there marching, we didn’t all look alike, we didn’t all think alike, we didn’t buy our carbon-copy signs at Walmart with the same old mindless slogans, but made our own at home and crafted our words with our own creative zest— and with humor too! Suddenly we didn’t feel alone and in fact, felt the truth of the 3 million more popular votes and the tide of world opinion at our side. My wife and I marched in San Francisco, my daughter Talia in Washington DC, my daughter Kerala and our granddaughter Zadie (see photo above) in Portland. Marches happened in cities all across the country and in 50 other countries besides! Over 4 million people saying no to the guy who represents our worst selves and saying yes to our better selves. It was glorious.

Of course, it doesn’t erase the evils threatening to be signed into law, but it lets those folks know we’re not gonna take it lying down. And just a thought here—doctors, think about treating patients without charging them too much, teachers, close the doors to your rooms and treat kids kindly and tell them the stories of the Wobblies and such, policeman, refuse to arrest peaceful protesters, judges, stand up against the bad guys. And all of us watching each other’s backs.

2)    There’s nothing like a common enemy to bring people together and that’s the small light at the end of this dark tunnel—all these movements were finally together yesterday, each united against this man and his followers determined to set human evolution backwards, each looking beyond their immediate agenda to the unifying principle at the heart of them all— human kindness. And even beyond human kindness, because we have to speak on behalf of animals, trees, plants, watersheds, ozone layers. The Buddhists have a very broad view of what’s alive and worthy of love and protection, granting consciousness to a larger world than merely human. They call them “sentient beings” and the first Buddhist vow is:

     “Though sentient beings are numberless, I vow to save them.”
      
      And so I’d like to announce the movement that gathers all worthy movements together: The International Sentient Beings of the World. Not very sexy or swingin’, but you get my drift. It began yesterday with folks from just about every major city in the U.S. and dozens around the world taking to the street and speaking clearly: “Not in our name!”

     One of my favorite signs from yesterday:

    “The Day Democracy died ROARED!”

     The slumbering bear of activism has awakened, determined to protect her cubs!!!! Arise!!!