He was playing games in a very dangerous arena. I’m not saying he deserved to be killed for it, but I am absolutely unsurprised. I am also absolutely convinced that his death was not an “unfortunate accident.”
OK, OK, I just have to share this. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had a lot of friends in bands, some successful, some not so successful. I’ve seen a lot of press kits. But this heartless, cynical exploration of cliched band photos had me nearly falling out of my chair. Click to visit the Hall of Douchebags. Here’s a sample:
Sometimes I wish I could only see people from a distance. From a distance, everything is slow, peaceful, harmless. Up close, people will astound you with their stupidity, their carelessness, their wrongness, their ability to inflict pain and harm upon others.
It looks like they found Caylee Anthony’s remains. We all knew she was gone, but finding it brings it all home, removes all doubt. ABC says there was duct tape on her mouth. I can’t imagine inflicting this upon any living thing. Killing a 2-year-old girl and dumping her remains in a garbage bag.
After JonBenet, I spent countless hours following the websites of several close followers of the case, wanting to understand, wanting to know who could do such a thing and why. In the words of Okkervil River,
Now, with all these cameras focused on my face, you’d think they could see it through my skin.
Looking for evil, thinking they can trace it, but evil don’t look like anything.
They never found the piece of evil responsible for the death of JonBenet, or at least nobody was ever held accountable. But how could you hold anyone accountable for something so horrid and wrong?
Don’t get me wrong, I love cemeteries. I love looking at them, walking through them, reading the stones, photographing them, making up stories in my mind about the people buried in them… but they’re wrong. They’re fine for now, I’m not calling for their abolishment or anything. But at some point they will be reserved only for those whose fame has lasted longer than the proverbial fifteen minutes we are all allegedly allotted. The idea of burying everyone in a piece of permanent real estate just doesn’t scale. And as scattered as we are as a society, it doesn’t make sense. My grandfather is buried in Rockville, Maryland. His sons are living, spread across the United States. I think I prefer the cremation meme, but with a different way of handling it than we are doing now. Rather than storing someone’s cremains in a crypt-like setting, or romantically spreading them in a place that the person loved, why not pass them down to the next of kin, so that family members wishing to pay respects will be forced to speak with the holder of the ashes? I think a practice like that might encourage families to communicate, to get along, to act like families again. I went to a family reunion a few months ago, and none of my cousins recognized me. I had to be introduced — to family members, and even to friends I sort of grew up with. It was more than a little bit unsettling and alienating. Nobody intends to drift that far away from friends and family, it just happens that way.
When Shina from Zebra Bridge died, pieces of bone from his cremains were handed out to friends and loved ones. I thought that was a really nice gesture, so that we could all feel that Shina was still with us in some way. I know he’s still with me, every time I see, hear or touch a djembe, those memories are activated. I hear his voice reciting the drum sound syllables, or singing out to his Zebra family. But just like my own family, the Zebra family is dispersed, and is nothing more than an occasional whisper on the wires. Nothing left but memories. Sweet memories. Some are still in the same groove — Jaqui is still Jaqui (Jaqui’s website). Others have passed on. The rest, just whispers. If you remember, shoot me a whisper. Those were fine, fine days and long, long nights, and I remember them. I remember Chez, and Carrington, and when the band opened for Fela Kuti, and just hanging out on the porch listening to band practice, and much much more.
