157 So much like "Traitor" (the previous post) and yet, not quite.

Fatherhood: Part I

Part One: Fatherhood

MY FATHER by Judy Collins

My father always promised us
that we would live in France.
We'd go boating on the Seine
and I would learn to dance.
We lived in Ohio then.
he worked in the mines.
On his dreams, like boats we knew
we'd sail in time.
All my sisters soon were gone
to Denver and Cheyenne.
Marrying their grownup dreams,
the lilacs and the man.
I stayed behind, the youngest still
only danced alone.
The colors of my father's dreams
faded, without a sigh.
And I live in Paris now,
My children dance and dream.
Hearing the ways of a miner's life,
In words they've never seen.
I sail my memories of home,
Like boats across the Seine.
And watch the Paris sun
Set in my father's eyes again.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The stories about my son all sprung from the deep and bounteous well of time together. But they did not morph into stories until they had been cocooned in snail mail, letters written to my youngest sister, Marianne, a violin repair craftswoman residing (in April, 2007) in Amherst, Massachusettes, just about six blocks down from Emily Dickinson's home. Marianne encouraged me to continue the letter writing endeavors.

I also sent photo copies of these letters to my blessed mother friends Connie Moissant (who was a semester short of becoming a math major, but ended up doing wonderful things as a social worker) and Georgine Cooper, editor extraordinaire, possessor of the keenest mind, quickest-quipped wit, and highest standards of moral integrity, along with Dr. Kenneth Bennett, Ph.D., professor emeritus of the Department of English Literature, Lake Forest College, Lake Forest Illinois, dear and esteemed friend and sometimes duplicate bridge partner, also provided much positive reinforcement to continue taking fingers to keyboard.

MUCH more recently, Wilda (Trish) Hughes whom I "met" in response to a question she posed in the comment section of the Talk To Action web site, subsequently e-mailed with some suggestions about getting her book published, and Steve Mullins, my friend, confidant and Bob Seeger / Irish Folk Singer afficianado whom I met many months ago at the Rainbow Record store here in town, have both expressed strong interest in reading my stories.

Finally, words can never express my gratitude and appreciation to the Princess of Pith, Melanie Mattson, who blogs at http://www.beltwaybump.com/. The first time I ever commented on one of her posts, Melanie e-mailed me back, about 20 minutes later. Same thing the second time.

In response to my "Mark Ganzer now has a blog" e-mail, Melanie replied: "It's about damn time. Now enable comments on your blog and find out what it means to truly live ..."

Having written stories since age six (mom has likely kept them all), getting this kind of encouragement from people as loving, intelligent, intellectual and accomplished as these good friends is all the tinder needed to finally spark the writing flint.

A side benefit from documenting lived history comes from nuclear insights, not readily available from the living through the moments bombarding all five senses. For example, in December, 1988, when Adam was just a month past his fourth birthday, we were playing downstairs at his maternal grandparents' home. He called me BUTT HEAD! Thin-skinned and presumptuous, I was hurt and admonished him to never again call me that. He has not annointed that sobruiquet to me, at least in my presence.

Returning home and stiking out at the Smith-Corona keys, hoping to get some revenge for my hurt feelings, I detailed the incident to Marianne. Adam and I were flopping around the floor on all fours and intentionally crashing into each other. I described the action aloud in delighted detail, like a sports commentator, just as my four-years younger brother John and I used to do, many years ago.

"Head butts to the butt! Head butts to the ribs! Head butts to the head! Ooh, OUCH!"

My words from my mouth but now out in the light of day, visible to the mind's eye rather than raining upon the prejudiced reptillian brain, I experienced them much differently. Suddenly I SAW that what I had heard was divorced from the conclusion to which I had leapt. Butt head was homage to me and our game; our well spring of time well spent together. How rewarding to have taken the time to write Marianne and finally to have understood so clearly, so poigniantly and so deeply.

I vowed then to always give him the benefit of the doubt, to not cheapen his words with the counterfeit currency of my preconceived language biases, nor to punish him for my semantic shortcomings.

PSYCHOTHERAEUTIC HEALING LESSON #1:

When in a frustrated funk, or dealing with persistent pain -- physical or psychic -- seek an objective, non-judgmental human to talk with and help you carry your funk and / or your pain. Weakness comes not from asking for help, but from failing to recognize certain limitations; limitations of understanding, limitations of objectivity.

Trying to ignore and bury your frustrations, your pain, your feelings has unlimited potential for damage. All creatures buried alive will instinctively scrath and claw and crawl and fight to their last breath to get back to the air and light of day. This is the time for fight; there is no place for flight. The lizard brain goes into overdrive. A person buried alive can not resurface the same as before burial; more likely, less human, defensive, possessing of the rational fear of again being buried alive.

A hot, muggy August Saturday afternoon the following summer found Adam perched upon my lap. Suddenly his eyes alit, divinely inspired, while I immediately visualized what was about to happen -- my gut reaction antenae finely attuned to realities on the ground. Too lethargic to intervene, as if in a slow motion dream I watched as he clenched his hand into a fist which he buried past his wrist into the depths of my belly.

"Adam," I begged. "I'm a very, very, very old man. Please do not do that to me again." I could not be angry about his innate inquisitiveness, his scientific sensibilities, for after all, in America, surely that which is not specifically prohibited is permitted.

"You're old? How old are you?" the cherub chirped.

"I'm thirty-eight years old," I answered as Adam began to silnetly count, his lips moving every so slightly. By the time he reached 38, a relevant portion of his life had passed by. "You really ARE old," he said. "Are you going to die?" he continued, his train of thought its gathering a head of steam.

"Weekend Fatherhood 101" was not part of my liberal arts ciriculum, and I had no text book answer. What good were all those actuarial multiple choice exams I so proficiently passed so profficiently? While I have been a criminal much of my life, I'm not a liar. I answered immediately, instintively and honestly: "Yes Adam, I am going to die. Every creature ever born eventually dies. You too will someday die, but I love you so much, I'm not going to die for a long time."

PSYCHOTHERAEUTIC HEALING LESSON #2:

Always speak truth to children. Avoid evading their questions. They CAN handle the truth. If you lie to deceive them, even if you believe it is in their best interests, you do damage that can never be undone. You teach them to countenance lying. As Adam James Ganzer once told stated, while watching television on one of those holy, blessed and sacred Saturdays when it was just the boys -- me, my son and his cousins, "It's a shame when the truth is revealed to children."

Adam was not commenting upon truths of the moment, but rather, the later revealed truths about the lies and obfuscations of the past. Had you been there, watching the television show with the intense impeccability with which we were watching, you too would know the truth of this truth.

Three summers later when he was seven, Adam, he of the unbounded energy, exhorted me to race and play chase in the yard. I didn't want to. I was an old butt head. I said "no," a word he has seldom encountered from me. He called me a loser. I remembered my vow, and gave him the benefit of the doubt. "Why do you call me a loser?" I asked.

"Because you won't even run or race with me," flowed his frustrated answer. Had I not asked, I would haev assumed deeper meaning.

PSCYHOTHERAPEUTIC HEALING LESSON #3:

Two people use the same words are not necessarily speaking the same language, much less communicating effectively with each other.

With this background, I now cheerfully characterize myself as an old, butt head loser. The words are mine, but they are also gifts given me by my son -- perpetual reminders that:

A. Things are not always what they appear to be and

B. Words do not mean the same thing to different people.

Mark Ganzer

6 April, 2007

Author's preface

In my life, upon only one thing have I been able to consistently count for comfort, sucor and solace -- lyrical music.

While everyone has ups and downs (Even Ozzie and Harriet Get the Blues), sometimes for me the brightest, sunniest days looked blacker than the darkest nightmares, and sometimes situations were so radiantly resplendant in forests in the darkest of nights, that those who loved only the me they would have shaped and molded me to be, became upset, hurt and frightened. Seeking professional help, they found the paradigms to explain away the apparent behavior abberations which were, for me, old but finally uncloseted techniques for dealing with other people and situations which roiled my soul. In so doing, they disproved the children's ditty that:

Sticks and stones can break my bones,

But names can never hurt me.

Don't believe this lie for a moment. Words are POWERFUL. Names can hurt, names can even kill. Some of the names which have most hurt me and impeded my attempts to realign my life with my destinay as a useful and productive child of Allah include, but are not limited to the following:

Alcoholic

Manic Depressive

Paranoid Schizophrenic

Schizophrenic

Borderline Personality Disordered

Fractious Syndrome (also known as Ganser's Syndome, ironically enough)

Convicted Felon

I prefer what I believe to be more accurate and less pejorative characteriaztions of my behaviors and beliefs (as opposed to the oppressiveness of the psychiatric and legal labels, from which virtually NO recovery is possible, nor foreseen) as follows:

Hedonistic

Atavistic

Spiritualistic

Immature old butthead loser

I benefit from my preferred adjectives because they do not carry the stigma that the psychiatric and criminal justice labels carry. Cheers to stigma!

Harry Chapin's Mr. Tanner and Leonard Cohen's The Stranger Song tell my life's stories better than the labels.

Mr Tanner by Harry Chapin

Mister Tanner was a cleaner from a town in the Midwest. And of all the cleaning shops around he'd made his the best. But he also was a baritone who sang while hanging clothes. He practiced scales while pressing tails and sang at local shows. His friends and neighbors praised the voice that poured out from his throat. They said that he should use his gift instead of cleaning coats. But music was his life, it was not his livelihood, and it made him feel so happy and it made him feel so good. And he sang from his heart and he sang from his soul. He did not know how well he sang; It just made him whole. His friends kept working on him to try music out full time. A big debut and rave reviews, a great career to climb. Finally they got to him, he would take the fling. A concert agent in New York agreed to have him sing. And there were plane tickets, phone calls, money spent to rent the hall. It took most of his savings but he gladly used them all. But music was his life, it was not his livelihood, and it made him feel so happy and it made him feel so good. And he sang from his heart and he sang from his soul. He did not know how well he sang; It just made him whole. The evening came, he took the stage, his face set in a smile. And in the half filled hall the critics sat watching on the aisle. But the concert was a blur to him, spatters of applause. He did not know how well he sang, he only heard the flaws. But the critics were concise, it only took four lines. But no one could accuse them of being over kind. (spoken) Mr. Martin Tanner, Baritone, of Dayton, Ohio made his Town Hall debut last night. He came well prepared, but unfortunately his presentation was not up to contemporary professional standards. His voice lacks the range of tonal color necessary to make it consistently interesting. (sung) Full time consideration of another endeavor might be in order. He came home to Dayton and was questioned by his friends. Then he smiled and just said nothing and he never sang again, excepting very late at night when the shop was dark and closed. He sang softly to himself as he sorted through the clothes. Music was his life, it was not his livelihood, and it made him feel so happy and it made him feel so good. And he sang from his heart and he sang from his soul. He did not know how well he sang; It just made him whole. PSYCHOTHERAPEUTIC HEALING LESSON #4: Know thyself. Follow your destiny. What you do for your livelihood does not define you. What you do for yourself is sacred and holy. Never compare yourself to the best of what others can do. The single most useless profession in the world is critic. The critic (differentiated from the commentator who reports facts and bases conclusions on the facts reported ... and no, making stuff up does NOT qualify one to be a commentator) judges, and often harshly what others create. The critic prefers destruction to creation. But one of life's large secrets is this: know what you best love to do, and figure out a way to get somebody to pay you a living wage to do it. The Stranger Song - by Leonard Cohen It's true that all the men you knew were dealers who said they were through with dealing Every time you gave them shelter I know that kind of man It's hard to hold the hand of anyone who is reaching for the sky just to surrender. And then sweeping up the jokers that he left behind you find he did not leave you very much not even laughter Like any dealer he was watching for the card that is so high and wild he'll never need to deal another He was just some Joseph looking for a manger He was just some Joseph looking for a manger. And then leaning on your window sill he'll say one day you caused his will to weaken with your love and warmth and shelter And then taking from his wallet an old schedule of trains, he'll say I told you when I came I was a stranger I told you when I came I was a stranger. But now another stranger seems to want you to ignore his dreams as though they were the burden of some other O you've seen that man before his golden arm dispatching cards but now it's rusted from the elbow to the finger And he wants to trade the game he plays for shelter Yes he wants to trade the game he knows for shelter. You hate to watch another tired man lay down his hand like he was giving up the holy game of poker And while he talks his dreams to sleep you notice there's a highway that is curling up like smoke above his shoulder It's curling up like smoke above his shoulder. You tell him to come in sit down but something makes you turn around The door is open you can't close you shelter You try the handle of the road It opens do not be afraid It's you my love, you who are the stranger It is you my love, you who are the stranger. Well, I've been waiting, I was sure we'd meet between the trains we're waiting for I think it's time to board another Please understand, I never had a secret chart to get me to the heart of this or any other matter Well he talks like this you don't know what he's after When he speaks like this, you don't know what he's after. Let's meet tomorrow if you chose upon the shore, beneath the bridge that they are building on some endless river Then he leaves the platform for the sleeping car that's warm You realize, he's only advertising one more shelter And it comes to you, he never was a stranger And you say ok the bridge or someplace later. And then sweeping up the jokers that he left behind you find he did not leave you very much not even laughter Like any dealer he was watching for the card that is so high and wild he'll never need to deal another He was just some Joseph looking for a manger He was just some Joseph looking for a manger. And leaning on your window sill he'll say one day you caused his will to weaken with your love and warmth and shelter And then taking from his wallet an old schedule of trains he'll say I told you when I came I was a stranger I told you when I came I was a stranger.

TRAITOR

Last November, while performing my deci-annual calendar year 2000 Spring Cleaning I finally found the manuscript my son and I had been working on and had finally transcribed. Amazing grace, that saved a wretch, like me. Hallelujiah.

In the on-going followup and delayed followup house cleaning, over the course of the next five months I uncovered various versions of the basic text -- the children's version (which is actually a how-to-write-a-book manual for parents and their children) and the X-rated version, wherein I launch preemptive attacks upon societal ills.

The children's version is called Snapshots From the Family Album, quite Floydian, don't you agree?

The X-rated virgin (harsh, graphic language) which I had forgotten about composing (things go like that for those of us fortunate enough to have experienced manic moments enduring continuosly for months -- the mother of all mixed blessings) I had entitled Love it is a Razor, with the explanation:

An alcoholic, 

manic depressive

paranoid-schizophrenic

with a litany of personality disorders

lays his soul bare-naked on the table

in prayer, praying that

his son won't have to bleed

from the cuts of the same blades.

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to the millions of perople seeking professional help and healing from the psychotherapueutic community.

WARNING: Most of you will not be helped by that community because many of the psychiatric practitioners are frauds, quacks and worse -- despots, soul killers, perverts, voyeurs, and judgmental pill pushers who are satisfied to mask symptoms of existential crises with "medication" (poisonous toxic man-made substances).

If you find yourself asking "I wonder if my psychiatrist is one among the many?" then the answer is an unqualified Yes, he is!

In the frontier of the new millenium, the twenty-first century, the psychiatric / psychological paradigm works as follows: You are healed when YOU decide that you are healed. Your therapist will almost never tell you that you have become well, nor that it has done its all for you, and that you must be kicked loose (from the couch) as long as you choose to continue seeing your therapist.

The reasons are simple: as long as you continue in therapy, you must be, a priori, unwell, otherwise why would you pay money for something you don't need? The other reason is their vested financial interest in your continuing therapy. This model assumes that the mentally troubled are smart shoppers, rational consumers.

HEAL THYSELF!

Your therapist will acknowledge that you have been cured when you finally reach the realization that you can put ALL the sources of your trouble, your dis-eases, upon the broken backs of your parents: that you are genetically defective.

- - - - - -

Recently, I have toyed with changing the title to TRAITOR, with these notes.

I am a traitor

A traitor to my race

A traitor to my creed

A traitor to my gender

A traitor to my former corporate standing

A traitor to my former socio-economic status

A traitor to my cultural inculcations.

In my treachery to these, the circumstances

of the random and improbable mating of sperm and egg,

of the accident of my birth, I am empowered,

and have become the most dangerous of all creatures.

walking cloaked like those, and speaking to language of

those who cleave unto their unfounded beliefs:

I am the creature which haunts their nightmares,

I am the born again human who has looked into the mirror

Seen his true self and been lain low by the painful realization

that my life's choices had corrupted me, and made me and turned me

upon my genuine self -- I had let creature comforts numb me

from what the universe first called me to be and called me to do.

I have rejected all that for which they stand; all that they worship.

Their unfounded beliefs and idols of worship revolve around these matters:

In the superiority of the white race over all other races,

In the superiority of christianity over all other faith traditions,

In the superiority of men over women,

In the wisdom of the corporate elites over the working class masses.In the superiority of their western "culture and civilization" to

all other cultures and civilizations.

They self-justify these beliefs by their material "blessings" that have accrued unto them resulting from the circumstances of the random and improbable mating of sperm and egg, of the accident of their births, and, at the upper echelons, by their celebrity.

The gospel of prosperity and the cult of personality are sufficient self-justifications.

This gospel and this cult I reject out of hand, and will oppose to my last breath.

Mark Ganzer

6 April, 2007