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RANDOM THOUGHTS:
On Halloween, Love, The Vote, and the Mythic Presumption of American Innocence
by Earl Hazell
=> I love Halloween. I’m proud of my friends who represented at the end of last month with imaginative stuff. Especially the parents, who led by example and created a magical space for their children's self-expression and imagination.
=> Churchill once said, "Democracy is the worst form of government, with the exception of all of the others." I have been, in this life, a colleague, a competitor; an adversary, a best friend, an acquaintance; a contrarian, a cheerleader; an employee, an employer; a child of the Bronx and a citizen of the world; a Sagittarian (sun), Gemini (moon), Libra (rising) and Scorpio (Venus); a son, grandson, great-grandson, nephew, and brother--along with an uncle, cousin and frightened/confused but loyal, committed and proud father.
And while all of these relationships (and others) have made me what I am, and I treasure them all, nine years with my wife, Alexis has taught me that, on a bad day, marriage can be the worst of human relationships there are--with the exception of ALL of the others. On a good day, to say nothing of great...
Like most people, I usually don't talk about hard times on social media. Aaron Sorkin set it best: social media is a giant digital stage upon which everyone is "living their best lives" a la The Oprah; performing in their own eternal Halloween costume & role, with no one being their authentic self (at least on purpose). (I [obviously] am a musician who loves being a faux investigative journalist online.) Hard times, or how they make us feel, for example, are not a part of the established narrative of most people on Facebook.
But I usually don't discuss the great times with my wife either; not even to say how they simultaneously overshadow and remove the shadows of bad times so often, so routinely, so magically, as to make me laugh at their memory. I am a verbose dude, but there aren't words to accurately describe how my marriage has been a personal Balm in Gilead for my soul. Not even any of the roles I play online have scripts that poetic. If you ask me about my wife and my face lights up, trust: I'm a trained actor, but I'm not THAT good. In my eyes, when you say her name, you are seeing joy.
