Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright...

Do celebrities deserve their privacy? Well...yes and no. The recent debacle in Woods' life raised that question once again. And while individual human beings and families deserve the right to work out their foibles out of the glaring light of tabloids, people like Woods were happy to trade on the fame to make hundreds of millions of dollars. He's a billionaire NOT because he is the greatest golfer in the world, but because he is (or was) considered a role model. It was his endorsements, coming to him as a world-wide brand name. Now, if he was only endorsing golf clubs, balls, carts, and shoes perhaps a case could be made that he was just extending his physical skills into the market, and appealing to people who wanted to PLAY like him, not BE like him. But I couldn't begin to list the number of products he represents. And that means that he is a role model, and if he didn't want that, he shouldn't have taken the money.

Strangely, when it was cheating with one woman, both men and women were kind of "oh, Tiger...we're disappointed." But now that it's coming out that there are as many as eight different women, there is an odd mythic quality to it all, with women reacting as if they just stepped in something stinky, and men often revealing a queasy admiration. Maybe he can get an endorsement deal with Trojan. Or Extenze.

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Strange little political tidbit. KFI in Los Angeles is very conservative, KPTK (internet) is very liberal. The liberal talk-show hosts have been split on Obama's performance, praising certain things, criticizing others. The hosts on KFI universally attack, but it's a little strange...last night I heard one attack him because he wasn't aggressive enough on health care's Single Payer option. What? That's strange...it's as if KFI has made a decision that you can now be either liberal or conservative...as long as you savage the Democrat. That was a little disorienting.

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Experience is not what happens to you.

Experience is what you DO with what happens to you.

--Aldous Huxley

This is so incredibly important in growing up and getting on with your life. You may not be able to control what happens outside of yourself, but you have the ability to control everything you feel and do. Not that we often TAKE that control, but the potential is there. And it is vital that we engage with this internal mechanism, and daily work to cleanse our perceptual mirrors and react from mature emotions. Yes, we all have experience, but our past needs not control our future. And while it would only be a fully enlightened being who is never controlled by outside circumstance, all of us have experienced having very different reactions to stimuli than those around us (apparently) experiencing the exact same thing.

I bring up weight issues so much because it is a common cultural touchstone, and also, of the three major arenas, the ONLY one under our (almost) complete control. In other words, your behaviors cannot ever, ever control how another human being feels, so relationships are not under our control. And our financial success depends upon dozens, or thousands, of relationships, so that is even more dicey. But weight has to do with our behaviors. And for goodness sakes, listen to the excuses people make, the reasons they come up with, the lies they tell to avoid the guilt, blame, shame or fear. The straw man arguments. It's horrifying when you realize that the EXACT same thing is happening in the other two arenas, but because you can blame "him" or "her" or "the economy" or "my business partner" or "my boss" or "my employees" it is ten times harder to nail down the perceptual fog or negative internal menagerie that stands between us and a clear, vital expression of self.

Look at it. This is what it is to be a human being, lost in the dream of powerlessness. The sad thing is that most of us would not accept such excuses and lack of clarity in our children. We would tell them to do their homework, even if they want to play. To eat their vegetables, even if they want the ice cream. To be polite even when they want to scream. There is NOTHING we ask our children to do that does not have an analogous relation to our adult lives. NOTHING that we do as adults that does not have its root in what we do as children. How dare we ask our children to have discipline when we ourselves do not. No wonder children do not obey--they can damned near read our minds, and they know when we're b.s-ing them.

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I just got back from Florida, visiting with my in-laws. The available radio in Quincy Florida isn't very broad, but it does have the usual top-40, and Country-Western. And so I listened to both, and narrowed in one of the feelings I have about Rap music. And here, I'm talking about Corporate rap, and Top-40. Although most of the stuff I hear blaring from CD players in cars (I know it ain't commercial radio from the cursing) is even worse. Here's the thought: Rap sounds like the music of young men with no fathers. They have no perspective on life, on childhood, on their hungers for power and sex. They just don't understand how it fits into the overall structure of life. I contrast this with any other era of black music, or most other types of music. No opinion about Death Metal or whatever. But Country Western constantly impresses me with its storytelling. I can listen to a C&W station for an hour and hear stories about childhood, falling in love, working, marrying, struggling with family and finances, even growing old. Rap consistently represents a very narrow range: the high-testosterone 15-25 year old period when it seems as if acquiring money, power, and sex is all that life is about. Never heard one about parents growing old. Damn near never heard one about raising your own kids with responsibility. And where are the comments about relationships with fathers? Almost non-existent, while mothers are deified, and women treated like disposable sexual Handi-wipes, where getting a lap dance at "the club" is roughly equivalent to going on a date.

And this plays directly into that original thought. "My God," I thought after listening to the fifth homage to drugs and goin' home with somethin' "to poke on." (There's a charming, affectionate phrase. Would they want someone talking about their sisters that way? Their mothers? Sheesh). I thought: "These young men have no fathers. No uncles and grandfathers." There is no circle of men who have passed the Testosterone Flush phase (and trust me--that is an intoxicating hormonal brew. Sex and power and a direct electrical jolt to the emotional balls.) Without perspective...well, it seems that life is short, "sexual transmutation" is a voodoo dream, and the idea of only having sex with a woman who you would be willing to be with for twenty years, until YOUR sons are men...well, that seems absurd, simplistic, and terribly terribly out of touch.

I'm going to listen to more in the coming days, and see if I can disprove my thesis. But let me tell you...there is almost nothing more dangerous than swarms of young males who think they are men...and are not.

I remember hearing some asshole talking about how if you wanted to drop the crime rates, abort black babies. How true how true...statistically. But if you REALLY wanted to drop the crime rates, abort 99% of male babies--black, white, brown or yellow. NOW you're really having an effect. Odd how no one makes that suggestion. I wonder why?