Now
you see me … and POOF … 80 years
later now you don’t! According to the
latest baseball stats, I shall live (as other males my ilk) until I am 78 years
of age. The ladies of my eye ball shall
dance until they are 82 years of age.
This
was a glorious week for busking. I
doffed my hat and ruffled my shock, sported a white t, faded blue jeans and green
leather Rockies, and made considerable coin, whilst strummin’ my twelve-string
and blowin’ my harpoon.
This
was not a glorious week for a couple of (past) acquaintances. I was
in attendance at their funerals, which no doubt inspired this particular blog
topic – DEATH (so euphemistically
referred to as LONGEVITY in my title).
With
regard to death, historically, here is how we humans have fared to date:
In
1798 there was a person who lived to be 103.
In 1898 there was one who lived to be 110. In 1990 one person lived to 115. And in 1997 the longest living human, whose
dates of birth and death have been verified with both Guinness World Records and the Gerontology
Research Group, is on record as
being 122 years of age. Her name was Jeanne
Calment and she lived and died in France.
As we crawl in inchmeal fashion along our continuum of life, how do
we compare with our other-type sisters and brothers and cousins under our sun? (Being positioned at the top of the food chain does have certain survival and psychological advantages, but longevity is not necessarily one of them.)
A
house mouse can squeak and nibble cheese up to 4 years. A dog can yip and chase its tail for 29 years. A cat’s ninth life can happen at 38
years. Polar bears can guzzle ice-cold coca
cola until they are 42. Asian elephants have
trumpeted until 86. Polly parrots can
want crackers for 90 or so years.
Galapagos tortoises have raced with hares until they were 190 years old. A Bowhead whale was recently killed (not by
Captain Ahab) having a harpoon stuck in its body which dated back to 1890. A carbon analysis of that harpoon indicated
that this particular whale likely died at the age of 211.
Ah,
in spite of their comparatively long lives, they do have one common
quality. They are finite. They do die.
We,
as humans, differ quite innumerably from these other aforementioned creatures. We, as a species atop the food chain, tend to
glorify busyness. We count our successes
according to the number of inbox messages, and according to the many circled
days on our calendars.
We,
as a species, distinguish our shiny selves from those other prosaic selves through
forms of cultural beautocracies. We draw
bright-lines between bon-vivant and boor. We engage in conversations pettifog, shaggy-dog,
and monologue. We are zoomorphic, and we
are sun worshippers and mooniacs.
We
are a species that spreads itself thin.
We’ve
just two creatures on our planet that do not have a finish line.
One is a distant cousin, a special species of
jellyfish, the Turritopsis Nutricula. Rather than dying after reproducing, this
jellyfish somehow manages to revert backwards to a sexually immature stage. Consequently, Turritopsis Nutricula, is considered biologically immortal!
And the other is our incestual cousin, the vampire! One such vampire was Dracula, introduced to
us in Bram Stoker’s epistolary horror of 1897. Dracula was a folklore being who fed off the
blood of the living. On a good day he was
a gentleman, tall and aristocratic, dressed to the nines in a jasper suit
with puce trim, and living faraway in a frightening castle on some mountain in
Transylvania. On a bad day, Dracula, when
thirstily blanched, transmogrified into a blackened sang-froid blood-sucking
murderer.
(Fortunately for us, we know
that Dracula met his maker more than a dozen times on the big screen. Also fortunate is the fact the Vampire Killing Kits are readily available -- just google vampire kit for more information!) Except when they get their heads chopped off,
or a wooden stake pounded through their heart, or when they're forcibly scorched
under the burning sun, vampires have the capability of lasting up to a million
years!
A
million years! Wouldn’t that be
nice? Maybe. Maybe not. Let’s
examine the Dracula advantage in the areas of love, work, and play.
Love. Conservatively
pretend that any one of us could experience one sexual encounter a year; then,
given a million years we could wriggle and writhe and wag our tongue and sweat
sweetly with a million different lovers.
Work. We’d
have a million years to work at googolplex jobs. This would give even the most ordinary bloke
plenty of time to climb to the top in any company.
Play. Our entire existence could be
nothing but. We could party from dusk ‘til
dawn (pun intended). But alas, as my buddy, Father
Basil, pointed out (quoting Richard Rohr) …
If
we knew we would never die, then we would never grow up.
CHAUCERIAN
PARADE
I
had a few characters marching in my Chaucerian Parade this week who are worthy
of mention.
- Kaydon … a young and generous consumer with that 60’s hippy look, stated that he’s off to the center of the universe (Toronto) to study ukulele.
- A plump and pleasant woman dropped oranges and bananas into my guitar case.
- My busker buddy, Dylan, left his guitar under my watch while he bought groceries for his family. (Dylan gladly took the oranges and bananas when I offered.)
- There was the superannuated doxologist schoolmarm who insisted that I had lots of original songs in me because the Lord told her so. (I’ve seen her twice since and the Lord has yet to tell her to toss some coin into my guitar case, or if He did, she didn’t listen!)
- There was a ragtag who wanted to borrow my health card so he could purchase codeine from the pharmacy, and got angry when I refused. I’m a framer with a bad back, he insisted. He stumbled into Shoppers Drugmart but hastily exited with a security guard close behind!
Phenomenology
haunts me always. (I know this is because I’ve studied
phenomenology and therefore, am always receptive when it arrives.)
This week one of my favorite students asked
me to work on BAD THINGS, the theme
song from the television vampire series, TRUE
BLOOD. I
did work on it and even performed it a few times while busking. (I’d like to tell you, fellow buskers, that singing
this hot song is one long strong pick-up line for attracting the most luscious
and voluptuous of the opposite sex.
However, this is certainly not so.
If anything … it is creepy, creepy.
BAD THINGS
Em B7 Em
When you came in the air went out
Em B7 Em
And every shadow filled up with doubt
Am
Em B7 Em
I don't know who you think you are but before the night is
through
Em B7 Em
I wanna do bad things with you
Em B7 Em
I'm the kind to sit up in his room
Em B7 Em
Heart sick an' eyes filled up with blue
Am
Em B7 Em
I don't know what you've done to me but I know this much is
true
Em B7 Em
I wanna do bad things with you...okay
Solo
Em B7 Em
When you came in the air went out
Em B7 Em
And all those shadows there are filled up with doubt
Am
Em B7 Em
I don't know who you think you are but before the night is
through
Em B7 Em
I wanna do bad things with you
I wanna do
real bad things with you!
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