The Dead Kernal Journal

Sacred Life

“There are no sacred and unsacred places; there are only sacred and desecrated places. My belief is that the world and our life in it are conditional gifts.”   Wendell Berry

With the suicides of two well-known people this last week, I’ve come to reflect on the value of life in modern culture. I find it ironic that, at the end of every article reporting on the deaths of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, you can find information for suicide hotlines and prevention. Why? Why does modern culture care about the uptick of suicides in the last several years? Or for that matter, why the concern about the spike in opioid addiction and the epidemic of drug-related deaths? Has not modern culture preached for decades that to each her own? What about a woman’s right to choose what happens to and in her body? Is it not Kate Spade’s prerogative to end her life? In the realm of abortion, the right to choose is celebrated as progressive; in the case of suicide, it is a tragedy which should have been prevented.

                If we come from nothing and go to nothing, then who really cares about the in between? But we do care, which is why we can’t stop watching the news and asking ourselves how people who have it all: success, money, love, family, and fame, people who are well-educated, well-traveled, and rich in experience, find themselves in such despair that they can’t face tomorrow. The reason the news of Kate and Anthony’s suicides causes us grief, as it should, is, I suspect, because we recognize that something sacred has been desecrated. We wonder how it could have been prevented and perhaps are reminded of those we know who made similar choices.

What I find strange is that we, as a culture, don’t mourn the death of unborn children, don’t talk about how their killing could have been prevented nor how to curb the despair that might lead to that decision. Why do we have a political right that vehemently defends the rights of the unborn, but grossly ignores the plight of the alien, the refugee, the poor, not to mention the life of the planet and a left that fervently defends the weak and defenseless only if he or she manages to completely exit the mother’s body. Is this crazy? Is anyone else struggling to find an ideological home in the current political system, not to mention in modern culture?

As a disclaimer, I don’t write this in judgement of those who have had an abortion. Rather, I question a culture which only values some human life and not others, that only mourns some people’s demise and not others, who throws around the right to choose doctrine when it suits their argument. Maybe abortion and suicide are both inevitable, but both should lead us to grief. Both are accompanied by great loss and the passing of a sacred life.

Street Corner Circus

In an effort to continue to share about my life in Mexico, I want to talk a little about my daily front seat pass to some of the strangest shows around.  At most important intersections in the border city where I live, you will find a motley crew (not to be confused with the eighties hair band Motley Crue) of transient folks trying to live another day or maybe smoke another joint.  After a period of time, these serial performers acquire a renown that stretches from one edge of the city to the other.  I have witnessed, over the years, an assortment of acts who collectively could present one of the strangest circuses within reach.  

These are a few that have found fame...

1) Silver Magician Cowboy Currently my favorite act is a bald, rotund man covered completely in silver paint who performs magic tricks with a hat and a disappearing rabbit or monkey (or of late a stuffed rabbit which makes me wonder what tragic end the live one met).  His sidekick is a slight, silver painted cowboy who collects money.  When I am not wondering about the dizzying life of the poor rabbit or monkey being tossed repeatedly in the air, I am wondering whether their body can breathe through the silver paint that envelopes every inch of exposed skin.

2) Nail Nose This act is quite impressive.  It involves a teenager or young twenty something who taps two nails together to show you their legitimacy.  He then proceeds to shove the nails up his nose until only the very heads appears peeking out his nostrils, after which he slides them in and out of his nose alternating nails between his two hands.  I don't make this up.

3) Glass Torture This man had a show that varied depending on the audience.  He carries a handkerchief of broken glass around.  Sometimes he spreads the cloth on the ground with the glass scattered on top.  He then proceeds to either stand or lay on the glass.  However, sometimes he also eats the glass, at which point you are willing to give any amount of money just to stop the act.

4) Fire Breather We have a lot of fire breathers, so it has lost its wow factor.  This involves swishing gas in the mouth then blowing on a lit torch to send a wave of fire in front of your windshield.  All I can think about when I see this act is antacid.

5) Indian Flute Dance These guys hardly come around anymore, but they certainly are more exciting then some.  There is an older gentleman wearing a large feathered headdress playing a flute, accompanied by a younger boy or two also dressed in native gear playing the drums. They dance as they play, which doubles the excitement.

6) Orange Toss There is no need to get fancy in order to put on a show.  One of our simplest street shows is another bald, rotund man (not to be confused with silver magician) who tosses one, sometimes two oranges between his two hands.  No optical illusions here, just straight up hand-eye coordination.

7) Unicyle Fire Juggler This kid must actually have some performance background as his show is quite varied an impressive.  He either juggles flaming sticks, or rides a unicycle in a tight circle while juggling.  Very nice indeed.

8) Beer Girls On Friday nights, the Tecate beer company hires young ladies to dress in blue spandex and dance on the corner of the 7-11 convenience stores in order to draw beer buyers.  The risk it brings is the occasional multi-car pileup caused by drivers whose eyes are on the bluetylicious spectacle and not on the road.  I want to believe that this is not an effective way to sell beer, but it has endured through the years, which disproves my theory that subtle advertising is superior.

9) Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My No circus is complete without animals.  Some of my most shocking moments in Mexico have involved driving up on large, generally wild animals, being led or transported through the streets.  Since portable circuses are all the rage, it is not uncommon to drive up on an elephant on a leash being led from one place to another.  Or maybe a tiger in an open air cage, riding in the back of a pickup in front of you.  If fact right in front of the colonia where I live they set up the circus every few months.  That means every night during circus time, large cats and elephants and such are sleeping in the parking lot in the cages representative of the traditional animal cracker boxes.  Those cages are only meant to hold animal crackers, not lions.    

 

 

Blingle Bells

I saw that rapper Kanye West has been participating in Occupy Wall Street.  This same Kanye recently had his front row of bottom teeth replaced with diamonds.  Really Kanye?  You are concerned money is being spent on the wrong things and that some have more than they need while others are struggling to make ends meet.  I don't know that you make the best poster boy for the cause.  Why don't you start by selling your teeth.  Each one could bless a charity this Christmas.  Blingle all the way.

Lyrics Revisited

I don't know if I will ever be old enough to sing the scramble of songs in my brain without being informed that I am lyrically mistaken.  The older you get the less confident you are singing nostalgic songs, because chances are you have wrongly learned some of the lyrics.  Here are some of my confessions:

In Sunday school, I used to sing "On Christ the solid rock I stand all other ground is sinking sandal, other ground is sinking sand."  And I always imagined Jesus sinking in his sandals into the Galilean dirt.  Sinking sandal and sinking sand, neither is to be trusted.

At Christmas time I can still be heard singing, "in the meadow we can build a snowman, and pretend that he is sparse and brown."  Now this never has made any sense to me, but I have always imagined a snowman made of many sparse and brown sticks.  Really the most interesting part of that song was the fact the snowman could talk.

Another Christmas blooper was the "Good tidings we bring to you and your Ken."  They sang this at the end of my Annie the Orphan record, and I never really knew who Ken was.  I wanted to imagine it was Barbie's boyfriends, and that he was going to show up under the Christmas tree. 

Then of course there is the rock classic, "Shot through the heart, and you're too late."  Too late for what?  To learn the lyrics correctly it appears.

 

It is Time to Say Goodbye to...

I confess that I am an avid Reader's Digest fan and have been for years.  I read it cover to cover each month, along with throngs of winter Texans.  This month they had an article on fads that we would like to see go by the wayside.  Some examples of these were: the use of the word "huh," people talking on their cellphones in public bathrooms, yooneek baby names, pre-schoolers with mohawks, elastic waistbands, etc.  I could write an entire essay myself on the subject, but let me start with my first topic.

Quintuple-blade razors and Beyond

This fad of adding a new blade to the razor each year has got to stop.  This morning in the shower I realized that my razor had five blades.  Really?  What happened to simplicity and preserving the stainless steel reserves for our grandchildren.  Granted, whoever invented the original single blade plastic handled bic razor could have had no other goal in mind than to thin out the population.  Then someone had the idea of the double blade which acted more as a sophisticated potato peeler than a useful razor.  Finally by the late nineties the triple blade razor made its debut on the market, and finally women could shave their legs comfortably, quickly, and with minimum risk.

But of course we couldn't let a good thing be.  Next thing I knew new blades were being added and the prices keep going up.  Why stop at 5 or 6?  My vision is for a 45 blade razor that you gently rest on your leg and with the slightest twitch of the wrist the entire side of your leg is hairless.  Four good twitches of the wrist and you are ready for the beach.

Why my complaint?  Other than the economics of $4 disposable razors, I am now hopelessly dependent on these steel depleting gadgets.  I recently flew somewhere and didn't take my five bladed razor for fear that it might be confiscated as a threat to national security.  Instead I bought a cheap twin blade that would suffice for my short trip.  I have become such a pansy with the new fangled razors that I can't manage the old potato peeler, and I carved up my leg as a reminder of why my generation is not the greatest that ever lived.

Passwords

I do not do well with passwords.  In the moment I think of the most imaginative passwords but rarely can I remember or keep track of them.  The other day I was trying to remember what my password was for a particular on-line transaction.  I couldn't remember so I asked for a hint and a picture of a basket of apples popped up with the word ORCHARD.  Let me assure you that I have no recollection of choosing this as a hint nor was it helpful.  Bushel, cider, apple, juicy, applesauce, canning, dreadful ...nothing was working so I finally called customer support to figure out how to access my account because it was not letting me proceed.  The girl that answered said she could help me but I would have to first answer the "secret question." 

"What is the secret question?" I asked

"The secret question," she replied, " is....what is your password?"

What???  She proceeded to tell me that the secret question I had chosen to be asked IN CASE I FORGOT MY PASSWORD was "What is your password?"  Really?  Really?  From now on I am going to use "brainfart" for every password.  I can even reference this blog in case I forget (of course that is only if I remember my password to access my blog).  Sigh.

Don't Swallow Your Earplugs

I find it interesting how under and overstated warning labels are these days.

Take for example:  McDonald's coffee.  Caution: Hot beverages are hot.

Then there are the noise reducing earplugs I was given during my stay at a hotel recently.  The warning label says.  This product is non-toxic but may interfere with breathing if caught in windpipe.  You think?

The Choir

As if composting weren't enough, I caught wind of a choir that was taking shape for Reynosa's bicentennial festivities, and I couldn't resist.  Mexico is celebrating 100 years since its revolution and 200 years since its independence.  As part of that celebration, Reynosa decided to organize a choir to sing at important events throughout the year. Despite my fears of rejection, they gladly welcomed a foreigner into this patriotic cause.

My first day in choir, I had to get up in front and sing scales in front of everyone, which was rather awkward.  Ten seconds into our first song I realized that this was perhaps the weirdest thing yet I have attempted.  I felt as though I had been transported to the odd yet endearing world of a Mexican Lake Wobegon.  We are mainly singing patriotic old Mexican songs, composed of words that neither I nor anyone alive understands.  There are many themes like war, horses, limes, the motherland, the sunset and love, oh yes, love as sentimental as the serenades of old.  And then of course we also have within our repertoire a few foreign pieces, Latin, Hebrew and such to increase our international appeal.

The choir is composed of around 25 people so far, young and old, all sizes, classes, colors, and singing abilities.  At this point anyone can join, but the hope is either they can sing or will be drowned out by those who can.  It just so happens that I am placed between two ladies who tend to fall in the latter category.  The one lady, on her first day told me that she didn't know how to read music but just sings whatever God gives her (with much gusto I might add).  The lady on my other side has incredible volume and the enthusiasm to match.  When she is on the right note (or a note that harmonizes) all is well, but when she take a detour, it is all I can do to not derail. My exposure to music here, whether that be the nasally norteña singing, the karaoke, or "las mañanitas" song sung at every birthday, has revealed that sentiment trumps being on key.  That bodes well for our appeal among the locals.

What I love about the choir is that everyone finds common ground.  After all, the mayor's wife is in the choir, sitting alongside the nobodies of the city.  The only reason we come together is not because we all can sing, but rather because we all love to sing.  You can find punk boys seated next to retired engineers, and old rich bejeweled women sitting next to poor young moms.  What's more, you blend all these motley voices and somehow make music when all is said and done.  It is beautiful.  I think it is a picture of what the Church should be.  Everyone is welcome, some for their ability and others for their spirit.  The good, the bad, the ugly, all together to sound God's grace.  I believe the joyful noise coming out of the choir room is beautiful to God.  Here's to hoping our audience will feel the same way. 

The Com Post

Since my telenovela ended and several of my friends have moved away from Reynosa, I needed a new activity to absorb my energies.  I decided to start a compost "situation" in my front yard. (I say situation because anyone who knows anything about this sort of thing would certainly say we have a situation on our hands).  The soil surrounding my house is horrible for growing anything but ant piles.  Every time I have had to dig to plant anything, I always think I am discovering buried treasure, when in reality it always turns out to be rocks.  That clink of the shovel always makes my heart skip a beat anyway.

So composting.  I skimmed through a book at Barnes and Noble and decided to give it a whirl.  I was so excited to finally get it started that I purposely ate eggs, vegetables and fruits just to have scraps to start my project.  Now I feel the need to become a coffee drinker as well because the coffee grounds are vital to the compost.  If nothing else I will become a high-energy vegetarian through this whole thing.

My compost situation has been running about three weeks now, and so far the soil is still terrible.  I feel embarrassed every time I dump compost material because it looks like I am starting a garbage dump in the front yard.  Actually it kind of scares me because here in Reynosa there are many dumps, where the garbage collectors live.  I half expect to find a family settled on my little pile, chewing mango scraps, when I wake up some morning.  Squatting on property is quite common here.  In order to combat this possibility and save face with my neighbors, I have started throwing dirt on the top of the situation to hide my new hobby.

The trick is to find sources for compost.  One person doesn't produce much kitchen waste.  Then it occurred to me to start getting the scraps from the mission, where we are cooking for large groups of people.  Not so fast. Our head cook Amalia also has started composting, so there is serious competition.  I saw her ferrying away a pile of egg shells just the other day, but I beat her to the coffee grounds.  My friend Wes the hitchhiker said he will provide me with some chicken poop, which also is important. Too bad it is not feline poop, because the street cats on my block give freely.  My boss NoNo told me he would contribute the compost worms as soon as I had a sufficient compost material for them to feed.  Apparently that is a sort of graduation within the composting world: worms.  I admit I will probably add both of those new materials to my compost under the cover of dark so the neighborhood association doesn't kick me out.  Just wait till they see my rock patch transformed into a lush garden, or more likely, Reynosa's newest dump.

Cabbage Patch Stink

Okay so I was a big fan of the Cabbage Patch Dolls when I was a child.  In fact for Christmas one year my older sisters sewed four Cabbage Patch Dolls for Susan, Mary, Jane and me.  I named mine Carla Sniff, and she was brunette.  Then one day my uncle gave us a real Cabbage Patch Doll, verified with a toymaker signature on the butt.  Oh how I prized these dolls.  I remember a book I had about the dolls and their life crawling around in the patch.  They were all so happy, clean, and rosy cheeked.

However, now that I live near cabbage fields, I realize that the creator of the Cabbage Patch Dolls never really visited a cabbage patch in his or her life.  How do I know? Because cabbage reeks, and no one would want to be friends with a stinky doll.  Sure the fields look pretty, but when the cabbage harvest starts in south Texas, it smells like moldy leftovers for miles on end.   I imagine the doll didn't go over really big in these parts.  It would be kind of like marketing a Honey Wagon Barbie in Iowa.  Maybe it was fitting that my doll was named Carla Sniff.