"The American Dream."

November the Fifth is upon us once more, and on this day I find myself living in a very interesting time- there are the upsets and revolutions spreading throughout the Middle East, the Occupy movement that is now spreading across this country and countries beyond, the long and misguided affair that was the Iraq war soon being brought to a close, the work being done by Wikileaks and the detestable imprisonment of Bradley Manning, the unsteady state of our global economy, and a host of scientific discoveries that promise to change the way we view our world. It is a very interesting time, indeed. And with all of these issues and events filling our news stations and flooding into the conversations of our daily lives, I have had the opportunity to enjoy a wide variety of discussions concerning the aforementioned topics with an entire spectrum of different individuals, which has more often than not been an enlightening and enjoyable experience. And yet, while discussing many of these topics (some topics more than others) I have noticed a certain phrase which often seems to raise it’s head at one point or another in the discussion, and that is the age old ideal of the “American Dream.” Ah, yes, the good ol’ American dream- Uncle Sam and apple pie, the girl next door and voting day, democracy and getting rich off the sweat of your brow. Well, for those of you who feel the need to bring up the “American Dream” each time we discuss such weighty issues, here is a small piece of advice for you - I could not possibly give less of a damn about the “American dream” as it is most commonly understood.

Now, I know that this will almost certainly shock and offend some of you who read it, but to be honest I don’t particularly care about that, either, as I have never been in the habit of toeing lines in order to ensure the emotional comfort of those around me. Knowing full well that my statement shall probably offend some of you out there, I also know that this offense often seems to lead to a suggestion from the offended parties that if I truly don’t care about the “American dream,” that I should simply get out and go to some other country instead. First of all, if you were about to suggest this to me, then I likewise suggest that you point yourself towards the nearest wall and run into it with as much speed as you possibly can. Preferably head first. Secondly, the ideal of “If you don’t agree with the status quo, if you don’t think as I think, then you need to just get out and go to another country!” is one that flies in the face of almost everything the United States has ever stood for, and the fact that you are using it in defense of the “American Dream” is honestly just laughable. Throughout history, when people the world over have been told that they must embrace the status quo of their country with open arms or get the hell out, do you know to which shores they have so often turned? Go on, take a guess. And from the first people off the boats to the founding fathers, from those who fought and died for the rights of all people on this soil to those who died half a world away for the same reasons, from those who stood up to an empire and said no to those who stood up to a bus driver and said the same, we have always been and hopefully always shall be a nation of dissenters and rebels. The creation of democracy, the abolition of slavery, the Civil Rights acts, and so much more- these things did not come about through “agree or get out” thinking. These were the results of people who did not, in fact, agree with the way things were, who did not accept them because that was just the way they “had always been.”  The fact is that we live in a country as free as it is today because of dissent and protest, simple as that. So, please, do not dare try to tell me that if I don’t agree with you that I need to leave, that I am the one who needs to find another country- because if that is how you feel, then truth be told you have a much weaker grip on the “American dream” than I ever will.

As for why I don’t personally care about the idea of the “American Dream,” that is a simple enough thing to explain- it is because while I am a legal citizen of the United States of America, and reasonably proud of it, I do not choose to think of myself as an “American,” and so the ideal of an “American Dream” holds very little relevance to me. Why is that, you might ask? It is because I do not waste my time trying to express myself as an “American” anymore than I spend it trying to express myself as a “Caucasian” or an “Absurdist” or any other category you might try to shift me into in order to simplify and more easily understand who I am. These things are not me and they do not begin describe who and what I am as a person, and so I do not see any reason to so zealously use them in order to help define myself. It is true, I do not concern myself with the “American dream,” but neither do I worry about the Canadian dream, the Swedish dream, the South African dream, the French dream, or the Japanese dream. I don’t give two damns about the Atheist, Christian, Pagan, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, or Agnostic dream. I am not concerned with the dream of the Democrat or the Republican, the Libertarian or the Anarchist, the Fascist or the Theocrat. No, these things do not interest me in the least. But, by all means, you should feel free keep this supposed ocean of “dreams” if it so comforts you and appeals to you by giving you the flag you just need to wave or by beating the appropriate drum that you’re just aching to march for. All I ask is that you do not make the grievous error of either expecting or demanding that I myself must take an interest in your polluted, churning little sea. My “dream” concerns the only thing which I will readily and comfortably define myself as- a human being. My “dream” has nothing to do with religions, races, nationalities, philosophies, perspectives, gender, or any other sort of border- it has only to do with the fact that we are, all of us, human beings and with the idea that we should all be looking out for the well being of one another the world over.

My dream has no time for the girl next door or Uncle Sam, has no room for baseball or apple pie- no, it is far too busy being concerned with the fact that we live in a world where someone dies from hunger every 3.6 seconds while there is more than enough food to go around, that we live in a world where we ceaselessly and senselessly slaughter one another day after day for the pettiest of reasons, that we live in a world where anyone is still debating the validity of the use of torture on another human being. Too busy by far with the idea of personal freedom and equal rights for every individual the world over, regardless of their nationalities, religions, sexualities, genders, or any other damned reason whatsoever. Too busy with the idea that children with HIV, children suffering from abuse, and children in general are infinitely more important than building more bombs, tanks, and landmines. Too busy with the simple, mad idea of a world where the well being of other people is always more important than the well being of our bank accounts. My dream is a simple one- it is a world where every last man, woman, and child is guaranteed their safety, their freedom, and opportunities to better themselves as they see fit. My dream, truth be told, differs only from one of the highest American ideals in that it does not seek to ensure life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for only those who were born within some certain set of borders, but rather for every last one of us the world over. And that, my friends, is why I have no use for something so small as an “American Dream.”

Remember, Remember the Fifth of November,

"Remember remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot..."

Guy Fawkes, the genuine man, was in all reality something of a fool and quite a long stretch from being any sort of inspiration – for those of you who do not know, the idea of blowing up Parliament wasn't originally his own, but rather that of his co-conspirators. No, he just happened to be the lucky fellow who was given the duty of lighting the fuses and making a few last preparations, and of course being the one who was caught and made a public example of. Then of course you have the fact that he wasn't really trying to overthrow the totalitarian government of the day, but was rather attempting to assassinate the majority of the Protestants who had taken control of the government and return Catholicism to a seat of unquestioned power in the country. Rather than attempting to overthrow a rather broken and unjust body of government and replace it with a more sensible one, he was merely trying to replace it with an equally unjust one…merely one that would be more favorable towards him and his chosen beliefs.

The fact is that Guy Fawkes Night, November the Fifth, throughout history has been about celebrating his failure rather than anything related to what he tried to do, and the celebrations have mostly centered around burning effigies of him on bonfires. For most of his history the Guy has been cast as a symbol of villainy, one whose defeat was a cause for both ridicule and celebration.

And yet for many of us, both before and after the brilliant work of Alan Moore, the fifth of November has come to symbolize something far greater than the man who originally inspired it and the machinations that made him infamous. For many of us, it has become a day not to remember that a man once decided he did not like a situation and thusly attempted to change it by blowing something all to hell (for such men are a dime a dozen throughout history, and many of them have been far more successful in their plans), but rather an occasion to remember one very simple, very dangerous idea. And that is the revolutionary idea that people do not need a vast army, immense wealth, or deep reserves of power in order to change our world. It is the humble idea that this can instead be accomplished by the lowly individual, the fiscally poor, and those of us who are most oft deemed as the "powerless."

From our earliest days we are bred, trained, and tested on the idea that many of the great changes we wish to see in our world can simply never be brought about, and that so many of the horrors and atrocities that are allowed to pass day by day can never be averted.  We are told that we must meekly learn to accept these “immutable facts of life,” and in that same breath they will scoff at the notion of a few mere individuals affecting any of these supposed “truths” in the slightest sense. They will warn you that such possibilities reside entirely in the worlds of fiction and fantasy, and that it would be best if you cast such childish thoughts from your mind. And yet, in the failures of a man who jumped from a gallows and broke his neck long before any of us were born so too do we see the failures of this very ideal. Even though their “Gunpowder Plot” failed in the end, a few common men came very close to blowing up a building, and in doing so quite nearly changed the course of history as we know it. And they did this without an army. They did it without wealth or power or influence. Thirteen men nearly changed much of what we know today, and they would have done it with nothing but determination and some barrels of gun powder. The truth is that they nearly did something that we have been told time and time again is "impossible." 

And as I pointed out earlier there are still others throughout history with similar ideas and plans, some of whom actually succeeded in their goals, and when combined with Fawkes' failure these brilliant or monstrous people serve to remind us of that one humbling, dangerous fact- any person can bring about a change in this world, any one of us can spit in the face of these “facts” and “truths” that we are commanded to carry as an ever growing burden on our weary backs. The dangerous truth that Fawkes taught us is that all it takes to change the world is for one individual to discover within themselves a willingness to go to the lengths needed to accomplish it, whatever they may be, and an equal willingness to make the required sacrifices as they are called for. They tell us that a single person could never change our world, and at the end of the day maybe there is some truth to that. But what they forget themselves, or perhaps merely wish for us to forget, is that when a person discovers these things within themselves, when that individual embraces them and allows them to become a force driving them ever forward with all the unrelenting force of a tsunami, they chance becoming something more than merely a person…and in that strange territory, on those unknown roads, anything is possible. Beyond the borders of the every day, in the land where gunpowder and words might perhaps make us more than what we are, we find the slim chance that a man in a mask might indeed change the world.

Bruce Lee once said that, "Seriously, if you always put limits on what you can do, physical or anything else, it'll spread over into the rest of your life. It'll spread into your work, into your morality, into your entire being. There are no limits. There are plateaus, but do not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level." These ideas are to me a far closer approximation of what the fifth of November has come to mean for not just myself, but for many of us- it has become a day not to remember the failings of a man, but instead, a day to remember the possibilities of an idea. And that is something to never, ever forget.

Remember, remember, the fifth of November.

Black Seas and Forgotten Cities.

"Under the rocks and stones I'll find you,
Beneath the bottom of below,
Under the rocks and stones I'm waiting."
-Jill Tracy

I lie on my back in the near darkness of my bedroom, the only light in the apartment coming from the dim screen of the computer sitting on my desk, staring up at the dirty white of my bedroom ceiling. The only sound comes from the same computer, the slow echo of a piano working itself through a touchingly melancholy blues number which I have never heard before, and will probably never hear again after this. I close my eyes and let the sound of it soak into me like good gin, allowing myself to love it wholly and intensely for this single moment. And in this moment there is no world outside of each reverberating note, no spinning universe or burning suns other than these humming chords, no spanning vacuum but the space between each keystroke. It all falls away, until there is only the song. The music begins to swell, each note growing more powerful and yet melancholy than the last, and in that instant I give myself to it entirely, losing myself in the black waves of this boundless nighttime sea. And then, just like that, it is over. The radio automatically shuffles to something new, something with more of a jazz feel about it, and my anonymous song is lost to me, most probably forever. But I prefer it that way, truth be told- once I had listened to it a fourth or fifth time I might have noticed some imperfections in the timing or some notes that didn’t feel quite correctly placed to me. After twenty times, I might have grown somewhat tired of hearing it, might have found it simply didn’t stir me as it once had. After fifty I might have grown altogether sick of hearing it. This moment, that brief instant that I was adrift on that sea, was beautiful to me, and so I will keep that and it will have to be enough.

The riot of sounds that is some very decent jazz is interrupted by the sudden persistent chirping of my phone alerting me of a text message, and I go on lying there with my eyes closed, debating on whether or not I really want to read it. The chances that this message will be from someone I actually want to hear from is a likelihood that seems to be growing slimmer with each passing day- the chance that it will be news of either an interesting or positive slant are somehow even less promising. I couple this with the fact that every inch of my body is still sore from my trip to the gym earlier that day, and I find myself doubting that the effort it will take to retrieve my phone and read the damned thing would even be worth it. The moments crawl by as I try to decide, weighing a few possibilities, and the jazzy bit comes to an end only to be replaced by a familiar tune by an artist named Jill Tracy. I smile in the near darkness, forgetting the phone and letting my mind wander back, remembering the night I met with her after a concert and how we had sat in her hotel room afterwards until two in the morning, talking about the Twilight Zone, the world, the human condition.

That conversation had very nearly led me to packing up everything and leaving behind my hole in the wall for the shiny lights and dim basement clubs of distant San Francisco, but I had wound up staying, mostly due to being tragically broke. I had regretted that choice for quite some time once I had made it, at having not at least taken a stab at that whimsical bastard, at not having rolled the dice to see if that faraway city might choose to either make or break me. I have always felt that this is one of the most fundamental differences between myself and most of the people I have come to know- they have always seemed to regret mosty the things which they have done in their lives, trying to create reasons and rationales to justify why they did what they did. As for me, it is a rare thing that I actually regret anything that I have done, and the only reasons I usually give for why I’ve done them are either because it seemed like a good idea at the time, or fuck you that’s why. It’s the things that I haven’t done, the risks I’ve avoided or the chances I’ve shied away from that keep me up at night, my mind running in circles like a dog with mange, desperate for explanations to prop them up with. Shaky, shoddy things like I didn’t have the money, I didn’t have the time, or it was just too much of a risk. And they worked fine for me at the times when I needed them, or at the very least well enough for me to talk myself out of whatever it was I needed talking out of. But when I’m here now and the opportunities are dead and gone, lying alone in the darkness, I can’t deny that they were little more than my own personal brand of bullshit. My own flavor of cheap cowardice. And the world today has very little need of either- the market is already flooded enough as it is without my contributions.

I force those thoughts away for the time being as I realize that I haven’t had anything to drink since my morning coffee and that my mouth is beginning to resemble sandpaper, and that my bastard of a kitchen won’t be getting any closer no matter how much I yell at it. I attempt it anyhow, but find no more luck than any time before. With a groan I force myself out of the warm comfort of my bed and away from the blend of fond memories, bleak thoughts, and drifting music, making my way towards the shadowy doorway. The forgotten phone chirps again to remind me of my message and I snatch it up from the dresser as I walk past, more as an afterthought than anything, wincing momentarily at the brightness of the screen as I flick the thing open. I scroll through it as I walk into the dark living room and drift towards the kitchen, sighing as I stare down at the little rectangle of light, reading what it says.

“Damn it, it’s someone I actually like.”