I'm amused by the various reactions on this site to the fact that Dick Cheney is not feeling well.
Some people want to celebrate, go dance on his grave, bid a very fond goodbye to a person who is thought of as being a war criminal and an enormous war profiteer.
Other people want to be decorous, and not say anything bad about anybody that's dead, out of some kind of respect that I don't entirely understand.
I guess the dead are entitled to some form of respect, but I don't believe that dying makes you less guilty of war crimes or of war profiteering.
Me, I just don't have time to go dancing on graves, and here's why.
I do feel that Dick Cheney is a war criminal, and I know for a fact that through his association with Halliburton, and with KBR, he has made quite a bit of money from the Iraq war. I don't want to have to go into why KBR is making so much money other than the fact that it's the biggest supplier of everything to our troops in the field. And I really don't want to go into the fact that the Iraq war was based on complete lies, because that's been hashed out so many other times that I really have nothing to add to that, other than the fact that war sucks, and that it really doesn't work as we presently do it.
The fact is, there's a few different people whose graves I would not only dance on, but piss on as well, if I had the time and the inclination. I can think of a couple, including the person who intercepted my college acceptance letters, told me that I did not get accepted to the college is my choice, and enrolled me in a religious college, the nature of which was about as useful as tits on a boar hog, and from which I failed miserably. There's a few others I can think of, but in the end, after these people are worm food, or after they're, as we say in my neck of the woods, "pushing daisies", I just don't care.
You see, I'm a musician. Last night, after getting overwrought I went down to my music room and practiced for about an hour. I have some concerts coming up and I wanted to be in good shape for them, so I did some calisthenics, which for a musician means scales, and then I just played, abandoning myself to the sound.
Now having a hard day, and getting overwrought, both of these things are very inspiring to me if I just have the strength to go down and pick up the instrument. I pick it up, and the first notes that come out, I think "oh, God, do I really want to do this? This sounds horrible!".
After a few minutes, usually about 20 minutes or so, something happens. There is an alchemy between me, God, the instrument, and my state of mind, that enables music to start flowing out of the instrument. At best, I just listen. I stand there with the instrument in my hands, and enjoy the incredible meditation and massage that the music gives me. Yes, it's definitely me playing, and let's not forget I have a good healthy ego, but I realize that when the best music comes out I'm just a channel, a tube through which this stuff is flowing, and I'm just so thankful. I'm thankful for this cascade of notes, for this amazing turn of phrase, for ancient compositions that I have written down and for something that arises out of the moment, the genius of the time and the place that steps down and plays through me.
That's what I don't have time to go and dance on graves, and that's really why have no time to say "that son of a bitch really had it coming". Even if he's the worst war criminals in the world, even if he made millions of dollars of profit off the deaths of innocent Iraqis and Americans, I just don't have the time or the inclination to glory in someone's death. I just pick up my instrument and I play, and I really don't give a damn about all that stuff; I just thank the Creator for my life and for the fact that I have enough to eat and to wear and a roof over my head.
And of course I thank the creator for the fact that I even have the leisure time to dedicate to music, which I consider to be the ultimate religion, the greatest meditation, the most fervent prayer, the most real way to thank the Creator for the bounty that we have been given.
Have a wonderful day, and make music a part of your life.