I’m pretty blown away by this one. This was the second take sitting down with some old notes and rather selfish thoughts about why I see things the way I do. Asking myself the question “what messed me up?”
Eden Bloom – Interesting (Improvisational Sketch) Day 2
Maybe it was the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King that messed this up for me. I love myself in what I hope is a healthy way, but I see nothing in myself that gives me superiority. Maybe that message that deep down we’re all the same sunk in and damaged my ability to think that somehow I’m more special or more deserving than anybody. Maybe his dream damaged me.
Maybe it was watching all the children I was supposed to hate playing hand in hand with kids who looked like me on public TV. I know it was The Jeffersons had something to do with it, but that’s another story. Maybe it was the rise of seeing more Black people on my TV that did this to me.
Maybe it was Roots, 7 years old, watching a man who looked like me with a whip doing extreme damage on the guy from reading rainbow, Star Trek to be. Maybe that seeded the evils in my mind that now look a lot like critical race theory.
Maybe it was Paul and Stevie (edit) singing about black and white keys that so damaged my psyche that now I want to open borders and give all your stuff away to people in need. Maybe it was learning how to read. I don’t know what got me to fall for it, justice, equality, standing up and working for what is pretty much black, white and right.
Maybe it was those ‘tribal beats’ that rattled my brains. I know Apollonia on the banks of Minnetonka got me thinking a little differently. Maybe it was that Depeche Mode song that fucked me up to the point that I have zero desire to kill anybody. Maybe it was Field Commanders Cohen Shulgin dropping into the 90s.
Maybe it was the DIA, or maybe the zoo, public institutions notably too, that got me thinking about “other” people and “other” places in a respectful way. I know a subpoena should be sent for the idea that “Life is Art” and that we can become living breathing social commentary. These institutions radicalized me.
Maybe it was Kung Fu, white women doing yoga at 5 am on the basement TV, that got me thinking other cultures might be holding some of the goods I was seeking. Maybe it was feeling the tree bark against my palms, grains of sand falling through my hands that got me thinking wrong about connections between all things and that to cause others pain was gonna happen, but wrong. (They got me with their public parks and beaches.) Maybe it was Rev Dr Martin Luther King that messed this up for me.
© Eden Bloom, Eschaton Life, December 2, 2023
#TheCommons #martinlutherking #Minnetonka #DepecheMode #LeonardCohen #Shulgin #Roots #PaulMcCartney #StevieWonder #TheJeffersons #StarTrek #LeVarBurton #Apollonia #KungFu #Yoga #Lifeisart #SesameStreet #PublicTV #pbs #criticalracetheory