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it looks like i can't avoid the "double-life" topic... a much as it seems to agrieve me. one aspect of being absent from home that had escaped me, until recently, is alienation from the television set. granted, if it wasn't for cable (and English soccer) there wouldn't be much i could stand to waste time with... except Yoko, rather than have friends, finds solace in the tube. therefore, it's on constantly. thankfully, quote-unquote reality shows aren't part of the picture... else i'd have been gone, long ago. my biggest quarrel is constant repetition... especially with the passing of Reagan, so i'm finding. granted, as a man... i understand the respect and admiration. and the import of his role in history. but, eulogising tends to gloss over sticky details like circumventing Congress, mountains of debt, and defoliating Jamaica... which details, if you mention, get you tagged as "disrespectful" and "unAmerican". i recall Nixon getting the same treatment when he departed. so, it was fitting that i heard of the passing of Ray Charles on 'TJU. when the DJ played three songs in a row, i knew something was up. maybe my morals are a bit askew, but this hit me harder that the President's passing. i remember seeing him on TV, when i was a child... and un-jaded. my first reaction: fear, of a sort. militant, seemingly angry, alien through his infirmity, just his televised presence was intimidating. but Lord, he could sing... and seemed impervious to his blindness. then i saw the stength, the determination, and the reason for the righteous indignation, when i became old enough to understand the real reasons for a militant attitude. talk about instilling patriotism... though the tears i shed are few, hearing Brother Ray's reading of "America", last year, gut-punched me. to hear this man, this talent, straight-backed at his age, turn an anthem into a hymn... well, that brought the mist. i thought he'd be here, forever. but that's wrong. it's a given that coverage for a soul singer will never be even a thousandth of that of an ex-president... but that kind of recognition, i could get behind.
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