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A Letter to My Daughter on the Nineteenth Anniversary of Her Death

January 3rd, 2012

Dear Kristen,

Can I tell you a secret? It’s ridiculous but I didn’t even know it was a secret until I heard Lady GaGa’s “Hair” this morning and then I realized that I’d kept it even from myself. In my ears, it’s a record where I always find you. “I’ve had enough, this is my prayer / That I’ll die livin’ just as free as my hair.” Those are the first song lyrics I’ve heard since “My clothes don’t fit me no more” in “Streets of Philadelphia” that capture what you
dealt with in those long, brief months you fought your illness.

Now, Gaga’s not as cool as you. She worries too much about being cool. You never worried about that—not as far as I could tell, and I was watching pretty closely. Why would you? You walked into a room and cool had arrived.

Nobody who remembers you could forget your glorious hair—blonde or strawberry, somewhere down around your shoulders or a little past, shimmering in motion, a glorious sight on a sunny winter’s day like this one. It looked as free as you always seemed to be feeling. Not free of worry or obligation. Free to be.

I know for a fact that cancer didn’t take much from the life you lived. But once you started the all-but-useless
chemotherapy, it took your hair. All your hair—not the way they do it in the movies and on TV, where they let the eyebrows stay. Chemo and cancer aren’t that kind.

Even if I hadn’t been caught up in the teenage hair wars of the ‘60s, I’d know that hair is a key to identity. I’d
know even if I hadn’t lost almost all my hair to age. What I remember, better than my own stringy locks, is the first time I saw a chemotherapy patient after you died. They looked just like you and I had to turn away. I’ve never turned away since then, that I promise you. Because I would never, even symbolically, turn away from your memory twice.

You lived beautifully without hair. We have pictures to prove it. The spirit shone more brightly from your eyes, your whole face was consumed with your conviction that life, not death, was what mattered.

Every time I write you, it always comes back to this same thing: The contradiction between the failure of your fight for life, and the reality that your life cannot be described  in any terms I know of, except duration, as anything but a monumental success.  You loved, and you were loved, for that matter you are still loved. You wrote, you danced, you sang, you worked, you slept late, you stayed up all night, you traveled, you had a home and a family and a man who loved you. When there was a fight, you figured out the right side to take, and you fought. When there were questions, you sought answers. When you saw that other people hurt, you tried to make them feel better.
As in anybody’s life, there were fights that couldn’t be won, consolation that didn’t change anything, important questions that lacked sensible answers, flat-out disappointments in some of your ambitions. Eventually there was even betrayal by your own body. Yet you had the courage and the grace to let it go, to move on, to come back to a center point that was fundamentally cheerful, accepting, open. You were a child of Manhattan, without a doubt, tough enough to cope with the worst and smart enough to try to outwit fate without ever denying who held the cards. If you could be cynical (and, boy, could you), you were the most optimistic cynic I ever met.

One reason I’m talking about this now is that I am watching that spirit rise again. It never made itself entirely
absent from my life, of course. Like everybody, you were a product of the family you grew up in, and if there’s anything that defines Barbara, Sasha and me, it is absolutely an optimistic cynicism. We assume the worst and look for the best. I’d say that we have done it better over the past nineteen years because of the example you set, but then again, the example you set was only the most extreme version of that family trait.

To me, the entire wonder of human life, its majesty and its mystery, are bound up in this ability to share aspects of our personality and yet arrive at a remarkably original individual synthesis—billions of times over. You and Sasha, sleeping literally within a few feet of one another most of the nights of your lives, are the paradigm, a similarity for every difference, a contradiction for every convergence. One of the luckiest
aspects of my own existence was to watch the two of you emerge. One of the happiest moments  was when Sasha returned from abroad and the two of you harmonized so effortlessly those last few weeks. And one of the most painful was watching Sasha have to learn the painful process of living a complete life without her sister.

This year, she reached a new peak. She became a mother. Her son’s name is Weston Kristof Carr.  He looks almost exactly like her, and yet, they must be substantially different, because when she holds him and they look into each other’s eyes, they are complete. You can imagine what happens when Barbara and I hold him.

At Christmas dinner, Sasha watched Wes at the table. He was doing what kids do, just immersed in his essential joy of life. He must have been doing something particular, but the details really aren’t important. What matters is what Sasha said: “Sometimes, you remind me an awful lot of your aunt.”

After all this time, we all want and need that reminder, Kristen. You are so far away, though you are always
close to mind. And heart.

I’d no sooner typed those words than Sasha and Wes came into the house. (They live next door.) Wes gave me his huge smile—it’ll show all his teeth, just like yours did, once he has all his teeth. I walked over and picked him from his momma’s arms. “Are you writing?” Sasha asked me after I’d held him for a few minutes. “Do you want me to take him?” I didn’t say anything. “Yes and no, huh?” she said.

The heart is a muscle. It has an amazing ability to expand—you may feel like your heart will burst with joy and
love but it never does. And when it contracts, it finds a way to fill itself again. Each breath, in and out, a little different, a lot the same. If we’re smart, we treasure them all, deep and small. And while my breaths continue, that is the flat out truth, the one that really matters.

Not a lesson you ever seemed to need. But I surely did. Thank you for teaching me the things that kids teach
their parents (and grandparents). We are so lucky to have Sasha and Wes in our lives. We are—to this very second—so lucky to have you.

love from your Pop,

Dave

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I Might As Well Claim It: The Great General Johnson

October 18th, 2010

General Johnson died last week. He wrote the first great rock’n'roll song not about rock’n'roll itself exactly but about why the music would prevail. And he wrote a ton of other stuff, though that one and “Patches,” his deeply affectionate reminiscence of hard times in the rural south, got the attention.

“It Will Stand” was a prophetic voice in its way, as much as James Baldwin’s was. “It swept this whole wide land / Sinkin’ deep in the hearts of man.” Grown-ups must have thought he was nuts. It was 1961. Rock’n'roll was out of fashion since…oh maybe the plane crash. Two years, might as well have been forever. Who else believed that music would have a comeback?

Every kid who heard it. I was ten, it never left my mind all through the crap about the Beatles, long hair, too simplistic….ten years of blah blah blah.

And that whole period at Invictus Records….man! At that point, he was the most powerful ally Holland Dozier Holland (who owned the joint) possessed.

In that time, the early ’70s, General Johnson wrote some of the greatest anti-war songs: “Men are Getting Scarce,” “Bring the Boys Home.” He wrote the greatest anthem of the down-low, “Band of Gold.” He wrote Laura Lee’s “Wedlock is a Padlock,” which Loretta Lynn ought to have covered. Not forget Honey Cone’s rendition of his version of “One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show,” which I actually like better than Joe Tex OR Oscar Brown Jr and I don’t hardly ever like anything better than Joe Tex. Beyond that, “Westbound #9″ was just classic, like an updated “Expressway to Your Heart” from the Motor City.

For his Invictus group, Chairmen of the Board, Johnson wrote about fifteen great songs including “Patches” (I think that they did it before Clarence Carter defined it.) The Chairmen also had a stage act that is totally under-rated, with wild ass Harrison Kennedy adding a P-Funk thing. I remember him racing through the streets of some theater, in NY or Detroit I can’t remember, a la Shider, only wearing lime green jockey shorts instead of the diaper.

I interviewed them for Creem but can’t remember what I wrote. Maybe nothing. I was taking it in, but maybe not ready to spit it back out. It was one thing to see Funkadelic, a black rock band, but it was another thing for that kind of outrageousness to pop up with vocal groups. It made me ready for Labelle and Sylvester, probably.

Then all those beach music records, a steady stream of them it seemed like, as they worked the Carolina beaches. Just dance grooves—I never found a great song in any of those various albums they did for little labels down there. Never found any bad songs, either. Which is tougher than it might seem.

To me, General Johnson was a giant. A ton more interesting than a sometimes-inspired hustler like Solomon Burke. Probably that’s just my problem but…what if it isn’t?

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Help Prevent War in Iran; Help Iranians Establish Democracy

October 20th, 2010

I was one of the first to be asked to sign this statement, and did so eagerly.

Things like this might not seem very important, organizations like CPD might seem out of the way of the main stream of events. But I can remember how important it was that names I knew, and names I didn’t know, were signing such statements (and the statements were being published and otherwise circulated) as the Vietnam War “escalated” (“descended” would be more accurate).

I urge all Americans to sign this–all those, at least, who do not wish to see the people of Iran suffer further, and who do not wish a third reckless, ideologically-driven pretext-laden war to infest the Middle East and the world.

Campaign for Peace and Democracy also could use your economic support. Joanne and Tom work very hard with very little support. They are there every day and in sometimes unusual ways, allowing dissenters from Pakistan and Afghanistan, for example, to express themselves, helping them gain more exposure if they come to the U.S., accepting jobs that aren’t very glamorous but are vital to creating peace.

And we will create peace or we and our children will not experience it. Nor, if we don’t create peace, will we know justice and freedom, or live with anything but a charade passing for democracy.

“Activist” means just what it says. You need no credentials, and only a modicum of courage, to become one. It can change the world. And one way or another, the world is going to change, the world is changing, and the world has changed. The future is up to us, to build or to destroy.

Thanks for listening.

Dave

#############

Dear Friend,

We are writing you at this critical moment to invite you to sign the Campaign for Peace and Democracy statement entitled

End the War Threats and Sanctions Program Against Iran
Support the Struggle for Democracy Inside Iran
We very much hope that you will join the initial 135 signers of the statement. Your signature can make a real difference: it will help build opposition to Washington’s belligerence toward Iran, while letting the people fighting for their democratic rights in Iran know that we have not forgotten them.

If you would like to add your name to the statement, see the emerging list of signers, or make a tax-deductible donation to publicize the statement, please go to our website.

A list of the initial signers and the text of the statement are below. We aim to collect a large number of signatures very quickly, and then publish the statement as widely as possible, both in this country and internationally. In addition to internet publicity, we will try to raise enough funds to put an ad with a selection of signatures in The Progressive, The Nation and other publications.

You do not have to donate in order to sign, but please give if you can, as generously as you can. If you’ve already signed the statement but not yet contributed to our publicity efforts, you can go to our website now to make a donation, or send a check made out to Campaign for Peace and Democracy to Campaign for Peace and Democracy, 2790 Broadway, #12, New York, NY 10025.

Initial signers of the statement include Bashir Abu-Manneh, Michael Albert, Greg Albo, Kevin B. Anderson, Parvin Ashrafi, Ed Asner, Rosalyn Baxandall, William O. Beeman, Judith Bello, Medea Benjamin, Joan G. Botwinick, Laura Boylan, MD, Frank Brodhead, Steve Burns, Leslie Cagan, Antonia Cedrone, Adam Chmielewski, Noam Chomsky, Margaret W. Crane, Hamid Dabashi, Gail Daneker, Bogdan Denitch, Manuela Dobos, Tina Dobsevage, MD, Martin Duberman, Lisa Duggan, Rusti Eisenberg, Michael Eisenscher, Mark Engler, Gertrude Ezorsky, Sam Farber, Thomas M. Fasy, MD, Dianne Feeley, John Feffer, Barry Finger, Bill Fletcher, Jr., Jean Fox, Dr. Harriet Fraad, David Friedman, Robert Gabrielsky, Bruce Gagnon, Barbara Garson, Irene Gendzier, Jack Gerson, Joe Gerson, Hoshang Tareh Gol, John Gorman, Greg Grandin, Arun Gupta, E. Haberkern, Thomas Harrison, Nader Hashemi, Howie Hawkins, Bill Henning, Michael Hirsch, Madelyn Hoffman, Iranian Centre for Peace, Freedom and Social Justice-Vancouver, Doug Ireland, Marianne Jackson, PhD, Melissa Jameson, Kathy Kelly, Tooba Keshtkar, Assaf Kfoury, Mina Khanlarzadeh, Jack Kurzweil, Dan La Botz, Joanne Landy, Marc H. Lavietes, MD, Roger E. Leisner, Jesse Lemisch, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Nelson Lichtenstein, Amy Littlefield, Martha Livingston, Robin Lloyd, Jan Majicek, Betty Mandell, Marvin Mandell, Nasir A. Mansoor, Dave Marsh, Don McCanne, MD, Scott McLemee, David McReynolds, Debbie Meier, Martin Melkonian, Marilyn Morehead, Erika Munk, Ulla Neuburger, Mary E. O’Brien, MD, Derrick O’Keefe, David Oakford, Rosemarie Pace, Leo Panitch, Peace Action New York State, Christopher Phelps, Charlotte Phillips, MD, Frances Fox Piven, Danny Postel, Judy Rebick, Katie Robbins, Leonard Rodberg, Richard Roman, Elizabeth Rosenthal, MD, Matthew Rothschild, Saffaar Saaed, John Sanbonmatsu, Ajamu Sankofa, Jennifer Scarlott, Jay Schaffner, Jason Schulman, Peter O. Schwartz, Lance Selfa, Stephen R. Shalom, Cindy Sheehan, Stephen Soldz, Cheryl Stevenson, Bhaskar Sunkara, David Swanson, William K. Tabb, Jonathan Tasini, Meredith Tax, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Chris Toensing, Bernard Tuchman, Adaner Usmani, Wilbert van der Zeijden, Steven VanBever, David S. Vine, Lois Weiner, Suzi Weissman, Naomi Weisstein, Laurie Wen, Billy Wharton, Sherry Wolf, and Julia Wrigley.

End the War Threats and Sanctions Program Against Iran
Support the Struggle for Democracy Inside Iran
Statement by the Campaign for Peace and Democracy-October 2010
(add your name, donate or share at our website)

We, the undersigned, oppose the U.S.-led campaign to impose harsher sanctions on Iran, and the ongoing threat of war against that country. Despite Washington’s claims, its policy is clearly not animated by a genuine concern for protecting the world from the threat of nuclear war; otherwise how could Washington support such nuclear-armed states as India, Israel, and Pakistan, or maintain its own huge nuclear arsenal? Nor is U.S. policy driven by the goal of defending democracy. If it were, how could the United States support brutally authoritarian regimes such as those in Saudi Arabia and Egypt?

Months after it began its recent program to sanction Iran for its nuclear activities, the United States, in a move described by The New York Times as “more symbolic than substantive,” denied visas to and froze the foreign assets of eight Iranian officials, citing their role in the post-election crackdown. This symbolic gesture cannot obscure the fact that Washington’s fundamental motivation for imposing the comprehensive sanctions aimed at Iran’s nuclear program is to neutralize or eliminate a major threat to its power in the region.

In June 2009 people around the world were inspired by the courageous protests in Iran, when hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, took to the streets to demand their democratic rights. Since then the Iranian government has tried to repress the movement: hundreds of political prisoners remain behind bars, often tortured, deprived of medical care, and forced to live under dangerously unhealthy conditions. We support those who struggle for democracy and social justice inside Iran.

Far from helping the Iranian people, sanctions and war threats strengthen Ahmadinejad’s regime, helping it to shift the blame for worsening economic conditions from itself entirely onto the external enemy. In the past the Iranian elite has proven able to circumvent sanctions, but if Washington actually succeeds in preventing Tehran from importing refined petroleum, exporting oil and other items, and conducting normal trade and banking activities, over time millions of ordinary Iranians will suffer.

We don’t want Iran, or any other country, including our own, to have nuclear weapons. But even the U.S. government admits that Iran does not now possess nuclear weapons and has no imminent prospect of acquiring them. Moreover, Iran has no less right than any other nation to develop civilian nuclear power. Many of us oppose the use of nuclear energy by any country, both for environmental reasons and because of its link to nuclear weapons — but that is not the issue in the present U.S.-Iran confrontation. The United States, a major producer of nuclear energy and by far the leading nuclear weapons nation, which continually upgrades its own conventional and nuclear arsenal and tolerates the possession of nuclear weapons by other reckless and aggressivepowers, has no moral legitimacy when it tries to punish Iran for its nuclear activities.

U.S. belligerence — its continual warnings that “all options remain on the table,” possibly including acceptance of an Israeli attack — only creates strong inducements for Tehran to seek nuclear weapons for its defense, or to become, like Japan, “nuclear-weapons capable,” i.e. possessing all the elements necessary to make a bomb without actually manufacturing one. And it’s not just Iran: U.S. militarism has helped to create a Hobbesian world in which more and more countries come to believe that their survival depends on nuclear “deterrence.”

The United States can best reduce the danger of nuclear war by taking major steps to divest itself of nuclear weapons as part of a new, democratic and socially just foreign policy. This would include initiating both nuclear and conventional disarmament, encompassing missile “defense” as well as more obviously offensive weaponry; ending its predatory wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan; supporting a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in the Middle East; giving real support to Palestinian rights rather than continuing one-sided support to Israel; and dismantling its more than 1,000 military bases around the world. Such steps would help undermine the rationale for Iran and other countries developing their own nuclear weapons. These actions would also be the most effective way to strengthen women’s, labor, and other democratic movements in the Middle East, and to promote the interests of ordinary Americans and real peace in the world.

If for any reason you have difficulty at the website, just send us an email at cpd@igc.org. Please circulate the statement to your colleagues and friends. And you can share the statement on Facebook by going to our website.

In peace and solidarity,
Joanne Tom
Joanne Landy Thomas Harrison
Co-Directors, Campaign for Peace and Democracy

To sign or support the statement, please go to the
CPD website
Campaign for Peace and Democracy, 2790 Broadway, #12, NY, NY 10025
Email: cpd@igc.org
Campaign for Peace and Democracy
2790 Broadway, #12 | New York, NY 10025
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Don’t Just Deplore Bullying — Fight It!

October 21st, 2010

Author/attorney/child-and-anti-abuse advocate Andrew Vachss’ latest, the graphic novel (and a half) HEART TRANSPLANT, hit the stores this week. Read it!

I can’t do better in pushing you to do that, than to repeat the quote I gave the publisher:
“Heart Transplant is a necessity in a country that sometimes seems to be run by bullies at every level, from kindergarten to Capitol Hill. It fits the bill perfectly, with a simple and simply terrific story, wise and scholarly commentary that lets nobody off the hook, and the incandescent Rorschach of Frank Caruso’s illustrations. IF YOU’RE WONDERING NOT JUST WHY BULLYING HAPPENS BUT WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT, READ HEART TRANSPLANT. It ranks alongside Andrew Vachss’ Another Chance to Get It Right as a signpost on the road to a more human society.”

I keep a stash of Another Chance in my house, in case of emergencies–like people who don’t know what to do about their own histories of enduring abuse. Reading it changed an important part of my life. Heart Attack is just as important, and maybe even of more widespread importance. A big part of that is the part written by Zak Mucha, a Chicago social worker.

Zak and artist Frank Caruso will be on Kick Out the Jams and Land of Hope and Dreams on Sunday, October 31. The date could not be more perfectly chosen if we’d tried. This week on Kick Out the Jams, we will feature the “It Gets Better” speech by a Ft. Worth City Councilman along with a spoken piece by Zak, “The Problem with ‘It Gets Better.’” The text and video of Zak’s piece are at

http://www.protect.org/tools/newswire/161-national/1165-the-problem-with-qit-gets-betterq

While you’re at protect.org, I hope you’ll join Protect, the National Organization to Protect Children, which is unique in two ways: First, it’s the most important lobby in America, fighting for better legal protection against abuse–a lobby to advocate for kids of all classes and, truly, to advocate for a nation that tells the truth rather than trying to lie and cover-up scandal and evil. Second, it’s the only place I can think of where I regularly keep company with police, prosecutors and conservatives. It takes much more than a village on this one; it takes a nation and a world.

Andrew Vachss will be on Land of Hope and Dreams on December 14. (Part of the interview Andrew and I did–with production by the great Kara O’Connor–in 2007 can be heard at http://www.vachss.com/av_interviews/vachss-marsh.html )

The following is from a message sent by Andrew’s mailing list (and yeah, I’ve read The Weight and it’s terrific too–might be a good starting point for reading his one-of-a-kind novels):

If you’re willing to wait about a month , you can order a signed copy through the link at http://vachss.com/heart.

And we’re only three weeks away from the release of THE WEIGHT, Andrew Vachss’ next crime-fiction novel. Info at http://vachss.com/weight.

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“We can catch courage from one another, sparking a New Year’s momentum to put an end to war.’

December 30th, 2010

From my friends Joanne Landy and Thomas Harrison, co-directors of Campaign for Peace and Democracy. I hope you will join us in this simple but meaningful activity.

And let’s all add a New Year’s resolution for our too often bloodthirsty nation:
End the war! And don’t start any new ones.

Thanks for all of you who already work toward that goal. Thanks to all of you who will begin soon.

Happy holidays to all,
Dave

* * * * *

Dear Friends,
I’m writing from Afghanistan where Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers have urged us to stop hunching over computers and head outside to visit a nearby lake. But with this encouragement to join their New Year’s Eve – New Year’s Day, let me add gratitude for all that you do to connect the dots of peacemaking worldwide. Sincerely, Kathy

“Dear Afghanistan:” A New Year’s Call for Peace
While the US may be the world’s single super power in military terms, it faces another super power: the voices of war-weary millions who detest violence and killing. In Afghanistan, in the United States, and among the populations of countries whose governments have joined the NATO coalition, millions of people are calling for an end to war in Afghanistan.

On New Year’s Day, 01/01/11, people around the world are invited to raise their voices, through Facebook, Twitter, Free Conference calls, Skype, and blogs at several websites in a massive refusal to accept this war any longer. Let your New Year’s resolution be to stand for the people and end wars by sending a digital or spoken peacemaking message to people in Afghanistan. By amassing millions of messages calling for peace, we can create yet another indication that ordinary people within and beyond Afghanistan have had enough of war.

Afghanistan’s people need food not bombs, health care not warfare and courage for peace, not war. In the words of Abdulai, an Afghan teenager whose father was killed by the Taliban, the “Dear Afghanistan” campaign offers an alternative to the Obama administration’s most recent review of the war. Abdulai’s experiences of impoverishment, bereavement, and discrimination highlight realities that Afghans face every day. The U.S. government’s December review paid no attention to these conditions.

You can let Afghan people know that their lives matter as much as yours. Assure them that the U.S. government’s war is unacceptable to you and that you are working to end it.

We can catch courage from one another, sparking a New Year’s momentum to put an end to war.

Follow the steps below to communicate the simple yet crucial demand: Stop the Killing in Afghanistan.

On New Year’s Day 2011, from 7.05 pm Eastern Standard Time on the 31st of December 2010 to 7.05 pm Eastern Standard Time on the 1st of January 2011, from wherever in the world, you can:
· Call from your Mobile or Home phone by dialing (661) 673-8600 & access code: 295191#. Please arrange to talk by sending an email to CallAfghanistan@gmail.com
· SKYPE: Please arrange to call Afghanistan by sending your Skype ID in an email to CallAfghanistan@gmail.com
· Send an email message to DearAfghanistan@gmail.com
· Text or sms by mobile at +93 7791 84146 or +1 727-248-0308 (001-727-248-0308 if text messaging from outside U.S.)
· Facebook: Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
· @DearAfghanistan on Twitter

For more information: Visit Dear Afghanistan

A note on timings for the NEW YEAR CALL :

Place Time Date
London 12.05 am to 12.05 am 1st Jan to 2nd Jan
EST 7.05 pm to 7.05 pm 31st Dec to 1st Jan
Pacific Std 4.05 pm to 4.05 pm 31st Dec to 1st Jan
Jordan 2.05 am to 2.05 am 1st Jan to 2nd Jan
Afghanistan 4.35am to 4.35 am 1st Jan to 2nd Jan
–
Kathy Kelly
Co-coordinator, Voices for Creative Nonviolence
1249 West Argyle Street
Chicago, IL 60640
773-878-3815
www.vcnv.org

* * * * *
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A Letter to My Daughter on the Anniversary of Her Death

January 4th, 2011

Every year, on January 3–the anniversary of her death at age 21, from a very rare cancer, retroperitoneal sarcoma– I write my daughter Kristen a letter. This is the 18th. The others are available if you would like to see them.

Thank you for the attention you might give this.

If you would like to know Kristen better or more about the fight to cure and find better treatments for sarcoma, please go to www.sarcoma.com, the website of the Kristen Ann Carr Fund. (There is also KACF info at Twitter, MySpace and Facebook.) Among other things, there is a brief but very fine video by Mark Cerulli that explains the whole situation beautifully and features many of Kristen’s cast of characters.

May you really live.

Dave

P.S. Christine Ohlman’s song is “The Gone of You,” two versions of which are on her beautiful 2009 album, The Deep End.

———————————————————————————
Dear Kristen,

Eighteen years and no, it doesn’t seem like yesterday since you departed from us. It seems like a long time–though not so long that once in a while, I don’t find myself reattached to the emotions and memories of the end of your life.
The better times are easier to remember, or maybe I mean that when those reminiscences come, there’s no resistance, they are not accompanied by fear. Mostly, there’s just the pure pleasure of re-experiencing your growing up, the laughs, the triumphs, and even the failures, the trials of courage and patience and understanding that we shared. These memories are of life, and they are true, therefore some of it is “bad.” Anybody’s life is made up of misfortune as well as blessings.
Death is another matter. I suppose as a release from suffering, you can call it beneficial. But suffering in that degree isn’t part of life so much as it is part of death.
I cannot say, as the blues song does, that if it wasn’t for bad luck I wouldn’t have no luck at all. Part of the shock of your death is that we had been so fortunate, that things had to that point worked out so well.
We were lucky to have made a real family, you, Sasha, Barbara and me, and luckier still that we were able to extend that family to include Michael, and your aunts and uncles and my mom and Jon and Barbara, so many of your friends, especially Ilyse, and a whole bunch of others. You kids are the best of it, and not just in my memory. No trouble in school, no misbehavior that mattered a damn. Your futures weren’t a hope, they seemed assured.
Then our luck turned. It turned on you, of all people, and it turned viciously.
You could make a case that we are still a fortunate family. Lucky that losing you, who sometimes served as our center of gravity, didn’t shatter us, but instead, left us bonded for the rest of our lives.
A lot of those people we think of as family will be here tonight and the rest will be thinking of us, which really means, of you.
Yet tonight, even tonight, the room will spin around Sasha. That’s as it should be, because in a few weeks—days, really—she’ll add to our family a baby boy: A son for her, a grandson for us. In these next years, all the rooms will spin around him, I promise.
Sasha, with her courage and wisdom, has brought us so many gifts—I’m sure you could imagine, since she was your other half. I am not sure you could imagine how beautiful she is, right now, though. It isn’t so much a surprise as a wonder. An unqualified joy, in the way that only children, and their expectation, can be.
I hadn’t thought of this for a while, but now I remember how much you loved kids. There are some photographs of you holding the newborn child of a friend during your last trip to California that radiate your presence in a way that no others do.
What’s in those photos is life. Not a shadow of death. Not a hint. The camera lies so well.
So, is it death I’m here to discuss with you, or life? You’d say, life, because about death there can be no discussion. The older I get the more I realize the rightness of your choice—not to talk about it but to speak and think, whenever possible, only of life. Life, over which we have at least some control. Life, which offers much more joy than sorrow, which can transform the dingy mud of winter into spring’s green exuberance.
I don’t know why life is so much harder to describe than death. Maybe because life is complicated and ever-changing; its joys seem to come and go so quickly we can overlook them, while death is simple, because it’s final. Not even the biggest fool could miss it, although God knows, they try, every last one of us.
Death is also part of life’s complications, though, and not a small part. Death bears a message, and those who succumb to its infatuation want to believe that the story is that Death conquers all. But that’s not really it. In fact, life is supreme. Life is where our focus must remain, and if we have to struggle for it, then we need to find the beauty in that struggle. Death is not an accomplishment, just an inevitability. Life is another matter. “Tell me,” asks a character in one of James Baldwin’s novels, “do you find it hard to live? I mean really to live? Not just to go to the job and come home and go to sleep and get up and eat and go back to the job—but—to live.”
Everybody will say yes. I doubt everybody, at least a little. I doubt me—sometimes a lot. But by the end of your life, I didn’t doubt you. There was pain and there was suffering but the focus remained on living, really living. Barbara and I were just now listening to Enya’s “Wild Child,” because that was the song playing when you died, and we always gather for a few minutes on this mournful anniversary to listen: “Ever feel alive / And you’ve nothing missing / You don’t need a reason / Let the day go on and on.” There you are.
So you set a standard, and, in dying, put us to the test. Not an easy test. All of us fight every day to get to, to stay in—hell, sometimes to believe in—the very real spirit of life as you lived it.
I thank you for setting the standard. And I do try. All of us do, no reason to doubt that. But you know, it’s like that song Christine Ohlman wrote after her mate, Doc Cavaliere, died: “I’m out here in the big wide world / It’s a beautiful place sometimes / I keep my eye on the sparrow and my mind open wide / But I just can’t keep from crying / I miss the gone of you, the gone of you, the gone of you / Right now.”
And I always will.
Love from your pop,
David

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Please welcome Weston Kristof Carr–Another Chance to Get It Right

February 4th, 2011

Born about 6:45 PM Tuesday at Norwalk Hospital, to Sasha Carr, a 9 pound 1 ounce baby boy. He has his great-grandfather’s thick black hair. His mother’s nose. All of our hearts. 

The nurse who measured him held up the tape and mouthed to me through the nursery window, “Twenty one and a half!” (Inches, she meant.) I thought she did this for all onlookers. When I met her later, she explained she was amazed at how long he was. A few minutes later, a family standing nearby said, “Look at that one. He doesn’t look like a new born. He looks like he’s a month old already.”  He does too—none of that Winston Churchill resemblance. He’s built like a point guard or a wideout, maybe.  But already, he’s his own man, which is the important thing.

 He overwhelmed me, like babies are supposed to do. As did his mother. And her mother, who stood by all night the night before, not a wink of sleep in the hospital’s bed chair, then caressed her daughter through the final round and, finally, cut the cord. I have seen my wife and my daughter look beautiful many times. But this is the best yet. Sasha and Wes live next door, and we get to participate. I await further instructions with an eagerness that suprises me a little. I’d think there comes a point where you’re too old for love at first sight, but I guess you never are.   

For those of you who asked or may wonder, Barbara is Nonna, and he can call me Grandpa, Pops, Pop-pop, Duke, Dukie, or a term of his own devise. The one thing that’s clear already is, I don’t own him. He owns me. Remind me of that once in a while, if I slip….

Both this morning’s Live from E Street Nation and this Sunday’s Kick Out the Jams are about what it means to be a grandparent, in their different ways.

Dave

“What children are, more than anything else, is this: another chance for our flawed species. Another chance to get it right.” – Andrew Vachss

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KICK OUT THE JAMS MOVES TO THE SPECTRUM (Channel 28) BEGINNING THIS SUNDAY, DEC. 4 2011

December 2nd, 2011

Effective December 4, 2011, my Sunday morning SiriusXM program, Kick Out the Jams, which covers the world of music, with an emphasis on music and current events (or music and politics, if you prefer) moves from the Loft (channel 30) to The Spectrum (channel 28). The first show on The Spectrum will be the pre-recorded Read more...

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Who’s Demonizing Who?

October 17th, 2011

President Obama said yesterday that Dr. Martin Luther King would want “us” (whomever that may be) to “challenge the excesses of Wall Street without demonizing those who work there.” Talk about raising more questions than you answer! Let us ask: 1. For what reason should the proscription against “demonizing” apply to Operation Wall Street and Read more...

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Music on Kick Out the Jams for July 31, 2011

July 29th, 2011

We’re pre-recorded this weekend so I can be sure that what I wrote down is what actually plays. We usually change several pieces of music every week–pieces get removed because we’re out of time (talked too much, or I miscalculated), or because I had a brainstorm on Sunday morning before the show (at home–good, I Read more...

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Music from Kick Out the Jams July 17 and July 24, 2011

July 25th, 2011

Kick Out the Jams 7 17 2011 Howdido, Woody Guthrie CD: Nursery Days Do Re Me, Bob Dylan  CD: The People Speak soundtrack Pastures of Plenty/This Land is Your Land, Lila Downs CD: La Linea This Land Is Your Land, Bruce Springsteen CD: Live 1975-1985, Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band Buffalo Skinners, Jim Read more...

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Why I have no need to write fiction

July 15th, 2011

From the Rock & Rap Confidential mailing list (www.rockrap.com). Letter to the  Baltimore Sun July 7,  2011 Sen. Benjamin Cardin’s recent letter defending Bono and his ONE foundation puts him in direct opposition to President Obama’s appeal for “corporate jet” owners to pay their fair share of tax (“Cardin: ONE Campaign works,” June 27). U2 Read more...

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Last Week on Kick Out the Jams 7 10 11

July 14th, 2011

Sorry we failed to update the last couple weeks. Send me an email at dave@davemarsh.us and I’ll send an update for 6/26 and 7/3 shows.–DM Roadrunner (live), Bo Diddley CD: Bo Diddley’s Beach Party Drive All Night, Eddie Vedder, Glen Hansard and Jake Clemens (found material) Roadrunner USA, Joan Jett CD: Hit List Swallows of Read more...

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Jimmy Cliff: “Let us send a message to all the leaders of the world today. Tell them that we the people don’t want another Vietnam in Afghanistan!”

July 14th, 2011

It’s said that Bob Dylan once called Jimmy Cliff’s “Vietnam” the best protest song he’d ever heard. If he did, there’d be no reason to argue. If he didn’t, he could’ve. At Glastonbury, last month, Cliff changed “Vietnam” (41 years old) into a contemporary song once again by changing the title to “Afghanistan.” As you Read more...

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Last Week on Kick Out the Jams 6 19 11

June 23rd, 2011

Peter Gunn Theme, Clarence Clemons (Porky’s Revenge soundtrack) Slow Walk, Sil Austin (The Greatest R&B Hits of 1956) I Wanna Be Your Hero, Clarence Clemons and the Red Bank Rockers (Rescue/Hero, Clarence Clemons and the Red Bank Rockers) Blood Brothers, Bruce Springsteen (outtake from Live in New York City–Madison Square Garden 2000) Smokey Joe’s Cafe, Read more...

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MIGHTY MIGHTY, SPADE AND WHITEY: Clarence and Bruce, Friendship and Race

June 22nd, 2011

Clarence Clemons, said both my daughter and Bruce Springsteen this week, passed through his life doing exactly what he wanted to do. Bruce said the rest, which amounted to admitting that you can’t really do that, and the result of trying to is confusion and turbulence and discomfort and illusion. Except when it works. Then Read more...

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