1970 « Vichy Water – Author's Blog

August 25, 2011

The Earth Moved For My Birthday. Earthquake. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. Me and Hurricane Irene: Storm Fascination? More Life Absurdities. NJ Clearwater Festival (Asbury Park, NJ) Thursday August 25, 2011

Filed under: November 2009 — Tags: 1970, mighty, mouse, performed, young — earthood @ 1:13 pm

Me in Hurricane Earl last year

Yesterday, August 23rd, I celebrated my birthday, the numerical achievement, which doesn’t escape me, but is irrelevant to the conversation we’re about to have, although I discussed the number with my friend Ruth, a Seattle psychic. We both don’t dig three numbers in a row, etched on the back of Damien’s neck; it’s all fairytale concoctions to sell movie tickets, keep folks in line, ignite imagination, or depict after-life undesirable retirement locations.

One of my favorite movies, with Don Ameche, 1943’s Best Film Nominee “Heaven Can Wait” depicts the ‘bad guy on the bottom floor’ as ‘His Excellency;’ it was the sinister moustache which gave him away but a nice personification. At the end, the nefarious character touchingly pushes the ‘up’ elevator button for aged Henry Van Cleeve, hinting that there might be “a small room vacant in the annex”(heaven).

Stephen Hawking

Hurricane Irene Now I originally saw the movie as a teenager. Don Ameche’s character, ‘Henry Van Cleeve’ at movie’s end was an old man at sixty-something. He and his movie wife, beautiful Gene Tierney, had celebrated their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary; a lot of years together for 1943. Well I just celebrated my 34th wedding anniversary in my sixties and I played tennis twice this week; pretty effective at the net (take that, John McEnroe). Henry Van Cleeve was an old man at my age in 1943; this fascinates me and so does living to 150 years.

Back in May, an idol of mine, physicist Stephen Hawking, said that there is not God as we imagine it and there is no life after the death of the body. Regarding his vision of life and death, the scientist sees the brain as “computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers” he said and completed, that life after death was a fairytale told to the people that are afraid of the dark. One point of this blog is that I disagree with Stephen Hawking; “Imagine that Archie,” as Edith Bunker used to say. All I’m prepared to say at this time, is I’m rather convinced; I’ve got a pretty full-up diary of strange celestial synchronistic angelic-intervening occurrences which have long since passed coincidence or mathematical improbability. Maybe you’ll have to read my second novel.

Charlton Heston: A dead ringer for Moses.

I spent yesterday responding to hundreds of Facebook birthday greetings; old school, personal touch. Somewhere after 1PM, my heavy computer desk started to sway back and forth, so I grabbed it, believing it was a dizzy-spell excessive email manifestation. Funny: I was actually angry at myself for being dizzy. Then I noticed my office door swaying to the same cadence and knew it was an earthquake; certainly not ghostly dudes from ‘Amityville Horror.’ I ran to the television; Channel Six in Philadelphia was already reporting on the earthquake and shame on Channel Seven in New York, still soap operating. My first communiqué: I sent an email off to Ruth in Seattle. A few months ago my psychic friend from the old neighborhood in Newark told me to expect an earthquake here in New Jersey. Politely, I said it’d never happen. As the crow flies, I ingested prideful resignation; once again she was dead-on. After my reality onset, she wished me happy birthday and explained the significance of the earth moving on my birthday; just add it to the diary of a mad blogger and novelist.

Movies always pop into mind. ‘Diary of a Mad Housewife, starring Carrie Snodgrass (finally a movie in 1970 played entirely from the housewife’s point of view) Dig social change, ERA, not as much Charlton Heston’s NRA(hopeless oratorical pacifist) I love when Lenny Bruce thought Moses was a dead ringer for Chuck Heston(or someone similar).

So the earth moved on my birthday; I do feel special and meditated/communed heavy duty last night, after swallowing 1/4 of a moist chocolate layer cake and repenting with 90 minutes on the exercise bike. So spirits supplied an earthquake on my birthday. Flamingoes at the National Zoo in Washington, DC huddled together just before the quake and until the shaking stopped.

Zoo gorilla just before the earthquake in Washington DC.

A zoo gorilla picked up its child and climbed high-up several minutes before the earthquake; examples of sixth sense (if you believe). I remember Scrooge saying, after the ‘Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come,’ “I do believe. I do. I do.” Stephen Hawking, explain the earth moving on my day besides being a 365 to one shot. So we had a serious earthquake on the east coast which affected twenty-two states; something about the geology under our eastern feet here that allows easy transmission of geologic tremors.

Last spring, I blogged about the safety of New York’s Indian Point Nuclear Plant; if we got an earthquake; I think we’re covered there to 6 on the Richter scale. Our surprise earthquake centered in Virginia hit 5.9. Nine out of ten nuclear plants in America that are considered suspect and dangerous when it comes to earthquakes are located right here in the surprising east coast.

On August 31, 1954, Hurricane Carol devastated the East coast while mother was giving birth to my youngest sister. Maple trees on my street bent in 70 mile per hour winds eventually strewing broken arbor casualties all over. When clouds and winds abetted, I biked around the block repeatedly, pondering symphonic forces of Mother Nature responsible for my newborn sister and the extensive damage. And so began my love affair with hurricanes and nature’s power magic. I can’t explain inner desires to feel wind and ocean spray on my face. Many times in the life, I’ve dreamed of flying down to Galveston, Texas, becoming a county lineman after a hurricane hit but most importantly experiencing in situ, all that nature could throw at me. As I aged, a need to be at the epicenter of meteorological maelstrom prospered; if I were prosperous (a rich man) I really would’ve flown to cyclonic tropical events.

hurricane Irene. 2 days ago. from high (up)

EZ pass lane from Garden State Parkway Essex County

One day I concluded that I was just like ‘Mr. Roberts,’ Henry Fonda in the movie. Doug Roberts had to get into WWII before it ended; his life revolved around getting into the Pacific War which was slowly dying away and fighting for freedom and America. Gosh, seeing the movie many times, I felt for Henry’s character; to me, one of the noblest and saddest celluloid characters I ever fell in love with. But I realized that I was like Mr. Roberts; my war was to be in a hurricane. Often when big-wave producing storms approached New Jersey, I drove to watch the waves, on my dock at the bay, a rocky jetty in Belmar. But everything I saw was the Little League World Series; small teen waves and moderate breezes. New Jersey never gets hurricanes; well, once in 1938 it was really bad.

Reggie Jackson. 1977 World Series. and I caught a ball.

In 1977, I caught a baseball at game three of the World Series; Yankees versus LA Dodgers; I was tall and knew how to claw rebounds and baseballs. And yes, a lot of beer went flying around as elbows swung violently protecting my baseball. So everything is possible.

The 100 degree Alamo last August

We (65 million Americans) might get really nasty dangerous Hurricane Irene on Sunday. It’s a monstrously large storm, 400 miles across; can’t help but think global warming had a hand in this, warming oceans to well over 80 degrees; the natural fuel for storms; a hard rainy picture of things yet to be on our earth, like ‘Scrooge’s Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come.’ An hour ago, listening to weather channels and message boards, I started to get cold wet feet; do I really want 100 mile per hour winds and 12 inches of rain messing around with my neat orderly suburban world? Goodness, gracious sakes alive: I’ve become a chicken, dancing ceremoniously around my wood-floor kitchen, to steer the storm out to sea (OTS). I don’t want Hurricane Irene; a familiar echo of ‘not in my backyard.’ Of course cynicism time: Is the media over-hyping; millions of people spending excess retail monies on batteries and water. I told my son to come home for the weekend; he lives in Brooklyn; maybe we’ll need him to bail water, gently row the boat, climb the crows nest and try to dissuade me from driving to the Jersey Shore early Sunday morning before full impact. I’ve got to make sure my jetty is alright and let salt water spray moisten my eyebrows.

Speaking of being alright: Why is Cuba’s infant mortality rate lower than America’s? We spend more money on health care than they do. And some dude just bought new bifocal eyeglasses and paid $1000 (there isn’t much competition anymore in retail, wholesale, designer eye and sun glasses. Yes it’s all basically owned by one foreign man, through a multi-national foreign based corporation.) I won’t say anything else because as Bill Murray (Tripper) said in ‘Meatballs,’ “It just doesn’t matter.” And it doesn’t. Resignation reigns bovine supreme.

Edith and Archie Bunker. The old LaSalle ran great.

I love the EZ Pass lines at the Turnpike; you breeze right through, no waiting, while the cash lanes are backed up 1/2 mile. EZ pass is 15 years old and when tolls go up dramatically in September for the cash customers, people will still wait in cash lines, not buying EZ pass. Maybe it’s why people still smoke. 21% of adults still smoke and 1000 children start the habit each day. But help is on the way.

Mighty Mouse is here to save the day; I liked that flying caped mouse; he made me feel good even though mice have not culturally been treated well as urban dwellers. Once I tried to draw Mighty Mouse and become a cartoonist. Confession: I drew that flying mouse with tracing paper and tried to pass it off as original art for a back of a magazine contest. New warning labels on cigarette packaging are here: “Warning: cigarettes can kill you.” I don’t think. Images take up 50% of the packaging, some showing diseased lung tissue. I still don’t think. Remember ‘The Alamo’ and short EZ pass lines.

My hero. Mighty Mouse.

Last summer, I fulfilled one of those water container lists: I went to Texas for research on a second novel and stopped in San Antonio to see ‘The Alamo’ baking in a hot sun. Texas’s governor(my lips are bitten and smitten) debunks global warming even though my ten Texas days were all well over 100 degrees. Jon Huntsman, also running for higher office, acknowledges global warming and as Edith Bunker said, “Isn’t that nice, Archie?” It is.

Absurdities of the day: Burger King is doing away with their iconic boy burger King advertising character. Some call it a royal flush away. Personally, I’ve always wondered why this hamburger loving red-headed king dude never had a woman queen; like a burger queen to help attract female carnivores. Funny: McDonalds got rid of Ronald; big food chains concentrating on the serious side of atherosclerotic food purveying. I want to say something political (independent I am) but once again, “It just doesn’t matter.” More absurdity: Melanoma rates are higher for the rich (who won’t be getting tax increases). Many lifestyle-related cancers disproportionately affect the poor, but new research finds the opposite to be true for the most lethal form of skin cancer: melanoma. In a California study, non-Hispanic, white teens and young women living in the most affluent neighborhoods were nearly six times as likely to be diagnosed with melanoma as white teens and young women living in the poorest neighborhoods. Oh and California’s unemployment just hit 12%.

Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial

On August 28, 1963 the ‘March on Washington’ took place. I was eighteen and should’ve been there; my eyes have always been on the prize. “Keep Your Eyes on the Prize” is a folk song that became influential during the American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Although the song was composed as a hymn before World War I, the lyrics to this version were written by civil rights activist Alice Wine in 1956. It is based on the traditional song, “Gospel Plow”, also known as “Hold On”, “Keep Your Hand on the Plow.” Mavis Staples sings “Eyes on the Prize” (a very graphic YouTube video)

Mavis Staples. a graphic YOuTube Video. Eyes on the Prize.

My spiritual leader, Dr. Joachim Prinz, from Newark, N.J. was a good friend of Dr. King and actually spoke right before “I have a dream.” This Sunday is the unveiling of a memorial to the March and Dr. King. Once again, 48 years later, I anguish about not being there with 500,000 people. First I’m going. Then I’m not. “First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is.” From Donovan.

Donovan singing ‘There is a Mountain’ on YouTube

Now with Hurricane Irene, I’m not sure. The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial had financial help from some major corporations: GM ($10 million), Tommy Hilfiger ($6 million), and the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity ($3.5 million, Dr. King was a member). I can’t keep missing these amazing events (like Woodstock in 1969 too).

Finally, last Saturday I attended the Clearwater Festival in Asbury Park, New Jersey which focuses on environment, oceans rising. I kept blinking eyes; walking streets of Haight-Ashbury, with a marigold flower in my hair, chewing on a reed of hay, listening to Scott McKenzie sing on a new portable radio, resting on my shoulder. It’s good to be alive, sun shining warmly on face, in Asbury Park, hearing Springsteen on a sound stage (one year he did show up). People really care; life changing causes on tables with pamphlets.

Lisa Bagwell art

The red-headed ducks

An imaginative artist, Lisa Bagwell, created art sculptures from garbage and plastic discarded things found on a beach. One caring politician showed up: Congressman Frank Pallone. On the way to my car, crossing a bridge, I bumped into a pair of red-headed ducks. I yelled “Aflac” and they ran away; maybe they thought I sounded too much like Gilbert G. Then down Ocean Avenue, we discovered the Long Branch Vintage Auto show instead of doing diet ice cream; I love watching folks load up on the hot fudge because the ice cream is ‘diet’.

What if I had to paraphrase this blog today? Pretend I’m in Freshman English 101. Subliminal: Somalia. Damn, I care about a lot of things all of a sudden these last eight years. Environment. Living to 150 years. Spirit. Absurdities: Politics: I know; it just doesn’t matter because half the people will never get it. And the Kyoto Protocol unsigned. And ocean’s rising and warming; go ask Alice or Irene. A white rabbit just tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I liked the earth quaking on my birthday. “Excuse me, you rascally wabbit, but is your name ‘Harvey’?” “And yes, I greatly appreciated the earth moving for me.” An epiphany, it was. And there are lots of miles before I sleep or drift away to an awaiting limo or parallel world; whatever comes first. And I know I’ve been floating and stinging like a butterfly (huh?) all over the place. So I’m going to reign myself in (my new editor Lisa, tells me that all the time) and wish 65 million people along the east coast peace and especially to be safe these next few days.

Congressman Frank Pallone, Jeff Tittel(Sierra Club NJ head) and ME

A Bonneville and Me (Long Branch NJ)

LINKS:

August 2011. Guest on Alicia Cramer Show (podcast) “Thin Healthy Happy” :
http://wausauhypnotherapy.podbean.com/2011/08/02/calvin-barry-schwartz-interview-on-living-life/

Are you in search of another blog that is also outspoken, unique but
unbridled which means uninhibited ???? Meet Linda Chorney:
http://lindachorney.wordpress.com/

CONTACT INFO:

website: http://vichywater.net

Facebook: Cal Schwartz

Twitter: Earthood

Book Trailer (hey it’s 65 seconds long!!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qj2ko9gcC_M

Comments (2)

August 11, 2011

Dentites (Dentists). I Love an Ostrich. More Absurdities. Me, Monmouth County and Bobbie Magee. Yup, More Notions on Living to 150 Years (important JUST IN stuff). Thursday 8-11-11

Filed under: November 2009 — Tags: 1970, full, mighty, mouse, to — earthood @ 9:37 am

me. a favorite pix. by my jetty. protecting it from hurricane earl

Dentists? But what’s a ‘dentite?’ Yesterday, I had intense, futuristic dental surgery, implanting sinus- bone artificial flowers and waiting nine months to see if it grows. “It’s alive,” the Baron said. A unique computation: three percent of my earth time has been spent sitting in ‘dentite’ chairs. Moments ago, I checked ‘Urban Dictionary’ for ‘dentite.’ Not there, nada, doesn’t exist. The opposite, ‘anti-dentite,’ from ‘Seinfeld’ means, “someone who doesn’t like dentists.” I do. I do. Some of my best tennis partners are dentists; no wonder why; great eye-hand co-ordination.

Dentist.....my first dental chair. amazing how i saved pix.

When I was eight, my first tooth extraction was followed by regurgitation in the dentist’s face. My mother, embarrassed, was told to rinse my mouth with peroxide and teach me manners. At home, my father held me while mother tried forcing a clear malodorous liquid. I kicked, screamed; they knew not why. Peroxide is colorless, odorless. My protestations resulted in turning the peroxide bottle around to find it was really carbon tetrachloride, a poisonous cleaning fluid which could’ve put me in Forest Lawn; perhaps my second encounter with a saving spirit. When I was a little taller, my next dentist tried to get me a basketball scholarship at Rutgers University. (Dr. Jack G.) And then, when I stopped growing, I married a dentist’s daughter. I can’t seem to recall if there’s a book called, ‘The Dentist’s Daughter.’ I like the title; perhaps?

A year later, my father-in-law dentist arranged for me to get orthodontic appliances three days before a physical. Proudly I hailed and wore the necessary braces until two weeks after my divorce, when it became perfectly clear, that I wasn’t the dentist’s son-in-law and I was fair game to be charged for three years of here-to-fore free service.

(similar pliers used to self-remove braces)

So one rainy Monday afternoon, I found a pair of rusty pliers, scoffed down a million units of penicillin (Prophylactic move) and proceeded to pull-out one quadrant of braces every month, to the horror of my young sisters. It was messy, they cried, but I got them off in four months free of charge. A funny thing happened 38 years later (last September); I had braces put on again to the delight of the pediatric patients who thought I was either someone’s grandfather or a planted aberration, extolling joys of the appliances. One of my recurring blog themes is living to 150 years. Periodontal cleaning and hygiene is an essential tool to that goal. Gum disease is linked to heart disease; something about oral bacteria messing around with blood vessels and allowing plaque to build. Strangely and perhaps masochistically, I love the feeling of a deep probe four times a year attacking gum and teeth plaque. After my last cleaning, I thought about doing a shrink’s couch for analysis why I love the pain of periodontal cleaning.

i love the Ostrich.

I can’t remember when I actually fell in love with the ostrich; maybe when I became a regional sales manager years ago; I thought this large flightless bird native to Africa could serve me as tongue and cheek example how to deal with problems. Now, if I was a betting soul and I’m not (I dislike gambling mostly because I never win), I’d bet the candy store that most of you readers believe the ostrich deals with problems by sticking their head in the sand. I did. I preached to my world; be an ostrich; the good news when you take your head out of the sand; the problem will be there or not. I love fifty-fifty odds. Well, contrary to a life time of thinking that bird, who can run forty miles per hour to escape guys like me, sticks head in the sand; it simply is a myth probably started by Gaius Secundus (Pliny), a Roman author, naturalist and philosopher. Now the plot thickens. My friend Ruth from Seattle, a pretty gosh darn good psychic, told me several times, that way back, I was Roman, probably a warrior.

I’d like to think I was a naturalist philosopher at the court of Mel Brooks (History of the World: Part I) or Julius Caesar himself. Needless to say, the ostrich is critically endangered. It’s worth saying again that by the end of this century, fully half of earth’s animal species will be gone forever unless we tip-toe into ‘Jurassic Park.’ In South Carolina, as we speak, a scientist is growing meat (hold the hooves and tail) in a test tube. I’d still miss the ostrich and the other half-million species.

This stream of consciousness absurdity dissertation on the ostrich was meant as a metaphor of sorts how we stick our heads in the sand. Ask my cousin in Texas with thirty straight days over 100 degrees if global warming is a myth; heads should roll rather than be in sand. The Kyoto protocol (greenhouse emissions) is in sand. Somalia(subliminal).

Last week I watched the movie, ‘Secretariat.’ As mentioned above, I don’t like gambling, so no horse racing for me. I never thought about what happens to these wondrous animals after racing for us. Secretariat sired 600 foals but how many proletariat ex-race horses wind up in a Mexican food processing plant? ‘TROTT’ in California is a non-profit entity dedicated to providing retiring racehorses with opportunities for new careers after racing. Through rehabilitation and retraining, they make sure each horse donated to TROTT has the chance to learn new skills necessary for life in a non-racing home; heads not in sand.

http://www.trottusa.org/index.html

Secretariat

Solar energy is a head in sand deal. 10,000 times more sunlight is hanging around than we use. The feds recently came up with new diet guidelines involving more vegetables; but head in sand; additional cost of $400 more per year to adhere is not affordable for a lot of Americans. Is the FDA’s head in sand? Lipitor (statin drug for cholesterol) is so widely used it takes in $11 billion and people joke that one day it’ll be put into our water supply like fluoride. But good old Pfizer, the manufacturer, is losing their patent and lots of money; now they’ve got their heads out of sand by proposing to take the drug over-the-counter and still rake in money. Bad idea I think. You’ve got to be monitored regularly for liver function, lots of side effects and what about patient compliance with a drug sold on shelves next to ear plugs, support stockings and lubricants (ocular). And Pfizer was the ‘Avandia’ company; the diabetes drug that caused heart attacks which someone forgot to mention. Well, it’s comforting to know Pfizer is consistently, whatever. Hey, 82% of Americans said congress is doing a bad job; head out of the sand but America ranks 70th in the world for women in national legislature; back to the sand. A political leader that gives not takes; Mayor Bloomberg recently personally donated $30 million to the Young Men Initiative to overhaul probation, training and mentoring of young minority men in New York.

surf boarders in sea bright, monmouth county.

JUST IN: Scientists are reporting the first clear success with a new approach for treating leukemia; they’re turning a patient’s own blood cells into assassins that hunt and destroy their cancer cells. They’ve only done it in three patients so far, but the results were striking: Two appear cancer-free up to a year after treatment, and the third patient is improved but still has some cancer. Scientists are already preparing to try the same gene therapy technique for other kinds of cancer. Wow!! This is just the kind of news that gets us to 150 years. That’s all folks with sandy ostriches.

Time for integration of my new writing responsibilities into blog: Through magic, ten days ago, I became associated with OUR TOWN/Bar Fly Newspapers/Publications. Yours truly is now a columnist/reporter covering all of Monmouth County; events, music, arts, theatre and people. Funny thing: I do it anyway, always running, exploring, absorbing and listening.

from Left: Ritchie Blackwell. Linda Chorney. Nick Clemons. pix courtesy of Scott Fadynich

My first few hours: Last Saturday, by a lake in a park, I saw amazing singer Linda Chorney with Ritchie Blackwell accompanying and the Nick Clemons Band sing. Nick is the talented son of the late immortal Clarence Clemons. I pinched myself. Later: I found a special painting by Michael McCrink in the Monmouth Beach cultural center that I got stuck in; couldn’t get out for a small eternity. I didn’t want to get out. Kind of like Alice’s rabbit hole in wonderland.

Janis Joplin

Later: I reviewed the movie “7 Years Underground; A 60’s Tale” about Cafe Au Go Go in Greenwich Village during the 60’s. Hey, I really made it back to the 60’s for 87 minutes. Later: I talked to a couple of real surfers with surf boards. I’ll never be bored now. Oh and Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Lenny Bruce and the whole musical world passed through the Cafe Au Go Go. When I see Janis, I think “Me and Bobbie McGee.”

“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,
Nothing don’t mean nothing honey if it ain’t free, now now.”

Janis Joplin you tube video Me and Bobby McGee

Michael McCrink painting i got 'stuck' in.

Last Wednesday, I went to see Ray Kurzweil (Transcendent Man) and Dr. Michio Kaku (Physics of the Future) and a tour de force of intellect talk live about the future on a big theatre screen. A friend in Wisconsin drove three hours one way to see the same lecture. I love living in the most densely populated state. Everything is thirty minutes away.

me and Dr. Kaku

And I love repeatedly shoving things into my head. A few minutes ago a new Facebook friend talked about aging and how the mind takes over in a negative way. Every birthday is a nail in the coffin for him. As long as I keep playing beer pong, doing keg stands, running all over and biking nowhere for 90 minutes a day(stationary bike), I’m not going anywhere(not aging). Funny: at the lecture on Wednesday (and I’m saving you two hours) the most important thing I gleaned; If we can all make it through the next fifteen years with most things working, technology will be all grown-up and will allow us to get to the magic 150 years and beyond. I tend to get a little piggy with that notion. I’d want to make sure I still ‘can’ and ‘enjoy’ or why bother, if you get my drift. I just thought of something else. I remember, since becoming a writer and blogger (serious responsibility) spending only just a few fleeting moments with my head in the sand (and definitely not up anywhere else). Have a nice day.