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The Wild Palms of Etowah
— In praise of
holy madness
Joe Bageant—03/2005 |
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Joe Bageant shares some of
his correspondence with Bob D. on the subject of
holy madness and the uses and abuses of modern
spirituality. |
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MARK OF OUR SOULESS New
American Century is the lack of respect for saintly
madmen. By that I mean holy seers of the Blakean-Coleridge
stripe who could be found on America's streets as recently
as the hippy era. The kind of crazy adepts and enlightened
iconoclasts honored by Allen Ginsberg and the beats,
holy foolishness in the tradition of Saint Simeon with
the dead dog tied to his waist and throwing nuts at
the congregation, or Tibetan lama myonpas and India's
avadhutas. Perhaps such holy madmen are still out there
among the homeless and the crack whores. Maybe there
are legions of Zen alcoholics and the like, and maybe
we have lost the ability to see them in this season
of imperial hubris, consumer fatigue and existential
numbness. But I don't think so. I know crazy wisdom
and saintly madness in men's eyes when I see it, and
I am not seeing it very often in America these days.
It has been outlawed by the Republicans and soundly
condemned as Devil's work by the Christian Right. |
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| Of course if the dear reader is one who believes
science defines all reality and that men possess no
spiritual aspect, then it might be best to turn off
the computer right now and go out for a beer or click
on another story, because I am of the opposite disposition.
So much so in fact that I am convinced things like
grace really exist and that mankind is so murderously
full of shit because it cannot apply itself to higher
laws, laws which must be called spiritual for lack
of a better term. |
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| Having cleared the air between you and me (assuming
you're still reading), let me tell you about a rare
saintly madman I laid eyes and heart upon recently.
He is presently eating very expensive pies and watching
television with his dogs in his own personal hell out
in Etowah, Tennessee, the former "Rubberized Hair
Capital of the World." |
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| At home in hell |
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| For the past two days Bob D---- has lain stupefied
in his chlordane insecticide soaked house in Etowah,
alternating between near coma and electrifying terror
of opening his mail or answering the phone. Chlordane
poisoning has destroyed his nervous system, rendered
him freakish and weird, and in his own words "with
an agonized countenance, a bony 'horn' growing out
of the middle of my forehead, strange disoriented behavior,
and fat. I didn't get old. I got killed." And
on it goes… "I took my dogs to the vet last
week where 'substance abuse' on my part was suspected," he
tells me. "Once I got locked out of my car, and
the police took me in for drug testing. I'm used to
the horror of it all. I noticed in one of your columns
that you were struggling to remain objective after
watching a video beheading. That's my life. Early on,
I got this "view of things." I keep asking
myself, "Why would I, of all people, know these
things?" I have alienated all my friends and relatives.
My closest acquaintances know NOTHING about me. And
the question lingers always: "Why would I, of
all people, know these things? Am I just crazy?" |
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| Home for Bob D---- is a sprawling old Victorian
ruin on an entire city block, complete with fountains
and lighted gardens, with more white fence than the
state of Kentucky and covered parking for 10 cars,
paved parking for another 20. This is the materialist
nightmare of his late father who was raised in a boxcar
and obsessed with the American Dream. He advised his
wife, in the event of his death, to move immediately "or
be ruined financially." The old man died twenty
years ago and his admonishment has become prophecy.
The place is a money trap beyond anything yet known,
and as Bob carries pills to his 90-plus-year-old mother
between his own attacks of chlordane poisoning, she
loudly refuses to move, despite the roof and the floors
and the ongoing disasters. Now everything's gone but
her small pension and health insurance. The roof is
shot, furniture, rare books and carpets ruined by rain
long ago. So Bob D---- spends his days amidst buckets
and pans full of water watching videos and eating expensive
Edwards pies: |
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| As you probably know Joe, a Christian company
cooks those Edwards pies, and they are — to
my taste — decadent. Next to a really good
orgasm (the once-in-five-years kind), the Turtle
Pie, or Key Lime or Lemon… well, it's not something
that should be discussed in decent company. One of
Edwards' likeable things, in addition to the pies,
is what they call "personality pans". There's
a Bible verse embossed in the aluminum under the
pie. Surprise! "God is love" "All
good things come to him who waits" "Do
unto others…" Nothing heavy, just fun wholesome
Bible verses. Anyway, one day I was eating my pie,
eagerly anticipating the happy moment when the Bible
verse would be revealed. As I pushed aside the last
lump of gooey lime and lard, there it was, one of
those "jaw on the floor moments" (still
scraping)… "He who will not work, let him
not eat!" |
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| STARVE THE MOTHERFUCKER! Implicit in this is
everything I despise, the assumption that the poor
are worthless scum and "won't work", blah.
It's about money, taxes… It's about corporations.
And it's embossed onto the bottom of a $10 pie (as
opposed to a $2 pie, if you get my point) The spirit
of the moment, after eating a pie with enough calories
to restore all the starving children in Calcutta,
was another right-wing "FUCK YOU" in the
name of the Lord. IT'S THOSE FUCKING POOR PEOPLE,
GOD DAMMIT. |
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| As to the videos, Bob has made an intense study
of Oliver Stone's 1990 ABC TV miniseries, Wild Palms,
which he deems prophetic. Set in 2006, Wild Palms begins,
with a nightmare, a rhinoceros in an empty swimming
pool, symbolizing "the beast in place of the
baptism," Bob asserts. "The hero
runs inside to the screams of his children where, if
you look closely, a shadow forms a distinct cross on
their bedroom door from which hideous screams emerge.
It is about media manipulation, especially through
television. Corporations are running wild and their
goon squads are beating the uncooperative; torture
is discussed and executed by children. There has been
a 'synthetic terrorist attack' which gave the police
'broad new powers.' I think it is damned weird that
Wild Palms was so correct right down to the specific
year. All cultures have their own prophets that are
every bit as important as those in the Bible, but the
prophet of course is never recognized in his own time." |
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| Agonizing divinity |
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| The first time I experienced a human window into "something
other" was in 1972 with hipster holy man Stephen
Gaskin. At one point it was very clear that he was
experiencing samadhi, the nature of which could be
glimpsed. Another time was the birth of my children,
that moment when the infant opens its eyes briefly
and gives you that unearthly glance of recognition,
and the whole room is filled with a funky penetrating
electricity that literally smells like the flesh being
made holy… as the kid's eyes give off a flash
that says, "Yes we know each other and always
will across space and eternity." |
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| But there is also the terrible anxious look of the
sadhu of the burning ghats, the madman, and others
connected to that same eternity from which the baby's
consciousness flashed. I have seen far more of this
than the blissful kind, which should probably tell
me something about the nature of things. Sometimes
it is the ecstasy in a Hare Krishna's eyes, other times
it is the look of the universal agony of existence,
the sort to which we respond when we behold a legless
beggar in Varanasi, India or a homeless schizophrenic
in Washington D.C. or Scranton. Agony/divinity. About
the worst news I ever got from the pursuit of these
things was that enlightenment and truth is all suffering
and no bliss, which was always the point. There is
no free prize at the bottom of the Cracker Jack box.
Just increased consciousness of the world's suffering.
Anyway, when Bob sent me an email, part of which is
excerpted below, I suspected I was about to meet another
mad adept, or maybe just a madman, either of which
prospect always delights me. |
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| Rubber hair transfiguration |
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| As to Etowah being the Rubberized Hair Capital: "When
I was young, my home town Etowah was the rubberized
hair capital of the world. There was a BIG sign at
the city limit informing travelers of that dubious
horror/honor. The stuff was bright green. It was
hog hair coated with stiff, green rubber. People
actually did that for a living - they did that with
their lives. Then came the Eighties and the hair
plant closed down. All those deaths and maimings
on the loading platform of the rubberized hair plant
rendered pointless. A few of the dismembered and
widowed collected big settlements from the railroad
or the plant but, usually, they spent it all frivolously
and now live in penury - but with some stories to
tell. The richest people in town, the rubberized
hair barons, went bankrupt and their family estate
is now a Rodeway Inn and McDonalds. Spooky transfigurations
took place. The carcasses of abandoned textile mills
have been turned into what might loosely be called "outlets," cavernous
holes simply DUMPED full of discarded, outdated,
broken merchandise. When I say, "DUMPED",
I mean, "DUMPED". It is piled up on the
floor, sometimes to the ceiling. Much caution is
required when walking through lest one be crushed
under shifting/falling merchandise. I'm not kidding.
Now if you venture far enough back into one of these
monstrosities - and down, down, into the belly -
you will find amidst the crumbling, raw subterranean
concrete and filthy molded block and exposed, termite
eaten wood… suddenly a gleaming modern glass facade
and, behind it, luxurious big-city-like air-conditioned
offices where well-dressed people seem to be doing
something useful while sitting on polished chrome
and leather furniture with fake Motherwells and Pollocks
on the wall. It's just fucking weird… |
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| Deepak Chopra, get a job! |
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| East and West, for the most part religion is synonymous
with fraud, with the Pope, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson
and our president's phony religious values being the
icing on the Christian cultural cake of our times.
Bob D---- sees the same things in the low-fat spiritual
icons of the left and the New Agers: |
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| How has Deepak Chopra managed to express such
Republican conservative values with no criticism
whatsoever from the left? Chopra is the ultimate
example of the wolf in sheep's clothing, a denizen
of Oprah, and a spiritual guru for the superficial,
self-serving rich in a miserable, dying world. Listen
to him carefully. It's the Benny Hinn/Robert Tilton/Creflo
Dollar "gospel of prosperity". (If you're
poor, you're ungodly, and you got what you deserve.
God prospers his people.) Chopra states overtly that
material success is directly related to spiritual
attainment. Oh, really? It would be news to Christ
and Buddha. |
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| I will concede the poor are spiritually bankrupt,
but no more so than the rich. No more so than the
many monasteries and religious communities I have
visited. IT'S ALL OF US (on the other hand, the left
seems to think the poor are all saints by virtue
of their poverty. And I DO think the poor have a
more valid excuse for their crimes.) Then Chopra
drives in the stake, decrying "throwing money
at social problems" and the says, "where
you see poverty it is the expression of a deeper
impoverishment — the soul, the spirit screaming
for nourishment". Conspicuous by its absence
from Chopra's words is any mention of integrity,
ethics, morals, self-sacrifice, commitment, and renunciation.
The message, essentially, is,"FUCK YOU! GET
A JOB!" Another rhetorical point scored for
General Motors and Phillips Petroleum. God comes
home to the Wall Street Journal. But this IS America,
where everybody is a businessman and Chopra makes
his pitch with that sweet, smiling, gentle face reminiscent
of Ted Bundy. Chopra's place is in Beverly Hills
telling rich people what they want to hear — for
money. And will Chopra read this, sneak in while
I'm asleep and beat me to death with $150 ayurvedic
bars of soap in one of his Versace silk stockings? |
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| Trim your beard |
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| "If the scissors are not used daily on
the beard, it will not be long before the beard,
by its luxuriant growth, is pretending to be
the head." |
| Sufi mystic Nur ad-Din Abd ar-Rahman
Jam |
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| Joe, it is all about the center. Getting away
from the destructive, divisive periphery (the beard
growing out of control, ritual, dogma, concepts,
arguments) and right to the universal core germinal
point (the face behind the beard, out of which the
beard grows) "from within which all religion
arises and back to which, ideally, it should lead
us." When I occasionally pass through center
while on my way from one periphery to another, IT
IS HEAVEN. But today it is warm and raining. The
chlordane is reeking. I am having much trouble now,
especially opening the mail. Still, those who have
been to the center, who have at least perceived,
if only for a moment, the face behind the beard,
have a responsibility to be critical of those who
remain at the periphery with their beards growing
out of control. |
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| Meanwhile, the sheer carnage of our terrible
national enterprise is staggering! Yet no one mentions
the back rooms of research facilities filled with
mutilated tortured beings kept alive for study or
force-fed Drano to see how long it takes fifty-percent
of them to die. I am always astonished at how very
few people know what goes on in medical and corporate
research labs, not to mention the meat industry. "For
every action… "It's the nature of reality.
It's physics. There will be a reckoning for the culture
that creates a holocaust of that magnitude. The fact
that there is something terribly wrong with anyone
who does such a thing, and that this same "lack" will
therefore affect EVERYTHING he/she does, eventually
creating magnificently awful problems. Elevating
carnage to cultural protocol is very dangerous. And
official rationalization of it is disastrous. Why
isn't someone talking about these things? We have
no examples. We have no ideals. We have only corruption
and self-justifying silliness in service of capitalism
as it runs further and more terribly amok. |
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| A lamp unto the left |
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| And to the forces on the left trying to combat
all this I say: The realization IS compassion." "Consciousness" and "heart" arise
together. They are one thing. The compassionate try
to help even their most despicable brothers. That's
why it is written: "Without love, I am nothing." Yet
the left throws it all away. Though the left is so
often correct in principle, it becomes merely the
other side of that one counterfeit coin we have been
offered. True spirituality is the answer. Therefore,
I say to the left, "don't throw religion away;
find out what it's about". And intelligent smug
people on the left will answer, "There is no
God!" Yet that statement is unperceptive, pointless
and offensive. |
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| Be compassionate, but be careful. I saw a fighter
pilot on the 700 Club who described what sounded
like an homoerotic orgasm experienced while shooting
down some enemy planes killing the pilots. He interpreted
the rush of killing them as "finding God".
God had visited him there in the cockpit. But he
and Danuta talked glowingly about it. We have to
be careful around these people. Very careful. |
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| Anyhooooo… It is raining tonight and right
now I am finishing off my liver with orange soda
and vodka. The wind is blowing so hard there'll be
no roof left tomorrow. And to that I offer a hearty, "GOOD
FUCKING RIDDANCE!" Last night I was getting
together my mother's "next-day's" medicine — her
prescriptions and other pills. But I forgot what
I was doing, drew a glass of water and took them
myself. HA! THERE'S NO HOPE! I have a case of beer
and a pizza, so LOOK OUT, MOMMA! |
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| And so this is all very surprising to me — in
fact, shocking — what you are doing. Respecting
me like this. I'm a little scared you'll find out
who and what I really am. Nobody has ever taken me
seriously. All my words are a humble attempt to point
at the moon. Like the Buddha said, "my teaching
is a finger pointing to the moon, but all of you
are looking at my finger." Of course, the finger
pointing to the moon is analogous to "trimming
one's beard"… the teaching, the teacher,
the ritual, the dogma, the practice, language, even
the concept of "god"… all of that
is also the beard which "grows out" of
the face and obscures it. Trim it daily. |
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Now I ask you this: What do you call the opposite
of someone who is out of his mind? A poet? A divine
monster? We do not much acknowledge horror in this
country, except the petty stage-managed kind for which
we have developed such an appetite, such as Terri Schiavo's
morbid gurgling, etc. Yet none of it comes close to
the type of horror and grandeur that's lacking in our
life, the kind from which we flee, such as our own
graves or the sight of the things we do to sentient
others so long as they are poor, voiceless, out of
sight, or perhaps have four legs. And even then, the
only way we can keep up the ghastly charade is by deeming
the saints amid us as madmen, and anointing the truly
depraved among us kings, avoiding at all costs our
divine monsters. |
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| Copyright © 2005
Joe Bageant |
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| Joe Bageant is
a writer and magazine editor living in Winchester,
Virginia. He may be contacted: bageantjb@netscape.net |
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