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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).

 

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.

 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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%.

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.

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.

 

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