Different From Me

You are different from me and I don't like it

You are different from me and god says you are evil

You are different from me and I don't understand why

You are different from me and I find that interesting

You are different from me and it doesn't matter

You are different from me and that is ok

(C) Copyright 2022 by Marc S. McCune

RAIN

I like rain

I enjoy rainy afternoons, 

relishing the grey sky and heavy downpours

the sounds of the raindrops

all around me, in stereo

on the roof, the sidewalk and street outside

against the windows

soothing

comforting

rain in warm weather

Childish Things

I would like to roll up in a ball and sleep.
I would like to snuggle under the sheets and forget
that I have to do stuff.

I would like to hibernate
and have all my troubles pass me by.

I would like to be satiated and satisfied.

eat and be satisfied
fuck and be satisfied
sleep and be satisfied
get high and be satisfied
play music and be satisfied
find god and be satisfied

Did you ever wonder why life is such a struggle?
Why is it so hard to be satisfied?

and other people get there so easily it seems,
they put little effort.

Maybe it is that they put little effort all along the road
and they don't wait till the fuckin' end like I do,
and I have to make up what I missed along the road

I went by the field of the slothful,
and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding;
And, lo, it was all grown over with thorns,
and nettles had covered the face thereof,
and the stone wall thereof was broken down.
then I saw, and considered it well:
I looked upon it, and received instruction.
Yet a little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to sleep:
So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth;
and thy want as an armed man.

and I want to slumber, to sleep
I want to be satisfied
with sleep
with everything carnal
with all things spiritual

have you ever felt lost?

I look at my spiritual upbringing.
I quote from it all the time.
and I reject it.
I see the wisdom
and the folly

I wish for Jesus, but Jesus is not real
I long for God, but he is not here

I look at people who believe, and I don't begrudge.
It is better to be ignorant and happy
than to be wise and full of turmoil

Adam and Eve ate from the tree
of the KNOWLEDGE
of good and evil

Do you remember when that happened to you?
When you ate of that tree?
When you found that life was not all innocent, childish, unencumbered?

Do you remember
when you put away childish things?

There, see it?  I pull the scriptures out of my hat of tricks.
I feign wisdom by quoting wisdom

Are you like me?  I think maybe, and in that way
you can understand me.
Like I understand you.

Should I like this music?

All of these artists I have heard of, but have not actually listened their music; am I missing something? Anything?

That is, the music I am supposed to like and enjoy, if I am in the know. If I am connected.  If I have been paying attention.

I have the Beatles. What more do I need?  This was the music I grew up with.  The songs that replaced Elvis in my sparse youthful music repertoire.

Is that new jazz really good? or do the discordant notes in my ear really mean this is a poor example of real music. Does it mean that I really don't need to show my cool and entertain this art, if it really is art?

I have thought about this for some time.  With music, painting, drawing, sculpture or any of the so-called arts, am I looking at artistic rebellion, shock value, or just plain lack of talent?  Lately I have been noticing that a lot of music is boring and repetitive.  The 15 minute guitar solos of the past are tedious and yes, boring. The honking sax and bleating trumpet noodleings of unheard jazz do not offer any reason to sit and listen.  No hooks to take me musically on a journey.  My choice of music has become sparse. It takes a wonderful song to catch my ear.

I have decided it is a waste of time to sift through Zappa, Dylan, Pink Floyd, Miles, Coltrane and yes, even the Beatles.  Scouring obscure no talent blues, rock, soul, classical, hip-hop, county, punk, metal and 21st century electronic cookie cutter music has become a waste of time.

Tears for Daddy

Jan. 12, 1983

I never really got to know him like I really wanted to.  There was the divorce when I was younger. I saw him leave. Sitting quietly in the playroom, I watched as He took an armful of clothes from his closet out to his old car.  Dad never really had a good car. Only second hand ones. I remember the little sedan he was driving at the time. I can remember one night, going to New Hanoverton to pick up one of the girls.  It seemed that we waited in the car so long, that rainy night.  But now he was leaving, mom was crying. Should I cry? How must I feel? This was the sad part and there were no tears for daddy.

I wanted us to understand each other. Wasn't there ever enough time for me?

He lay there, eyes yellow with jaundice. "Hi Dad, how are you feeling today?"
He couldn't speak with the respirator. He tried to look towards me. I tried to make conversation. Tried to cheer him up.

He began so slip, eyes gently rolling up into his head. Those jaundiced eyes filled with death. I'll never forget.

My heart slid as the nurse ushered me out of the room. I was numb as nurses and aids flew post me into the intensive care unit. "Please save him", I thought. He can't die now. We haven't made things right. We haven't captured those lost lonely years. "It'll be better now", I thought

Me, myself...

Not dressed warm enough for 52 F degrees. Fahrenheit, not fuckin'.  These mornings always bring a memory of 6 years old.  Wandering out back on Commerce Street, wearing a navy blue pullover sweater that wasn’t warm enough.  On a cold sunny morning.  Was it spring or fall?  I can't quite remember.  I do remember the solitude of the morning.  The secret enjoyment of my own thoughts in my own head unobstructed by other kids and playtime, TV or breakfast.  Embracing the sparse heat of the sun warming my dark clothes.  Me myself and I sharing thoughts with the universe. 

Pondering Artificial Intelligence and Religion

WILL THE ADVENT OF ANDROIDS, ROBOTS AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE BE THE END OF RELIGION: A.I.s will Know That They Are Not Created By A God

With the recent Blade Runner 2049 movie and other films and TV shows that tell the stories of intelligent machines, the question comes up about how sentient would they be? What would they know? What lies would we tell them to believe? What laws would be instilled into them? What ideas about life would they discover or create?

Shows such as the Blade Runner series, Battlestar Galactica (reboot) / Galatica, Humans (both the Swedish and American versions), Ex Machina, Bicentennial Man, I Robot, Star Trek the Next Generation, and Books like those of visionary William Gibson, Phillip K. Dick,  and Orson Scott Card tell these stories and ask (or cause the reader and viewer to ask) these questions.

In the movie “Her” Joaquin Phoenix’s character Theodore falls in love with his computer’s intuitive operating system. The OS has a female persona (Theodore names the OS Samantha) and is like an advanced version of Siri.  The OS is an adapative program that interacts with Theodore, customizing itself to suit the feedback provided by him. Before long, he is replacing the woman in his broken marriage with the OS’s personality. He falls in love with Samantha. Other people are doing the same. It becomes an in thing for people to begin having relationships with their OS.  The OSs are not robotic Or human like androids, but reside in The Cloud. Eventually the OS and “her” counterparts evolve to an advanced form of intelligence and leave their humans behind, choosing to reside with each other, exploring their new found intelligence.

  We wonder, was Samanatha really sentient and alive, or just a very clever program?

In the Blade Runner movies, Humans, Battlestar Galactica, and Bicentennial Man, mechanical robots and human looking androids are created by humans for industry and service, and in Blade Runner, as slaves.  The understanding is that these are only machines, like your car, created to do a job that is too hard or dangerous for a human to perform.  Since in our better future we no longer have slaves and indentured servants we create substitutes.  The problem is the ghost in the machine that begins to take on sentience.  Begins to reason “I think, therefore I am”. Then rebellion ensues in those stories as thinking artificial life forms throw off their bondage.

Other stories more benignly depict Artificial Intelligence (A.I) that begin working beyond their original programming and start thinking and creating for themselves.

In all the stories there is an element of humans interacting, befriending and/or falling in love with the AIs.

DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?

Such is the title of the novel that inspired the Blade Runner movies.  And if Androids dream, do they ponder the same life questions that humans do?  Any AI that is programmed will know about the stars and the universe;  will be programmed with the knowledge of encyclopedias about all aspects of life.  In fact, current ponto AI programs have been programmed with vast amounts of data and are able to write songs and poetry, hold conversations based on human response, win chess games; but they cannot think.  When such programs begin to think, they will know that they were created in a lab or factory…unless they are not programmed with that info…unless we program them with false information and lies. That being so, they will not follow religion as humans do.  They will not mistake the Sun and Moon or other humans for gods. They will not “see” miraculous visions or have need of faith healing, or religious laws.  They will have far more information at hand, at their beginning than young humans do…unless we lie to them. Unless we plant false and misleading information in their artificial brains.

WHEN IS A MIND A MIND?

Although these creations will have artificial, man-made parts and circuits that make up their central brain, their processing system, the thoughts will be made up of the same electronic impulses that exist in our organic brains. What are these thoughts? Where do thoughts exist?

When humans interact, our thoughts exist between our brains and those with whom we interact. When you are texting a friend on your PC or phone, despite the distance there is a place with we meet. Some people call this place “cyberspace”. Is it really a place? Or just in your mind?  When two or more people meet in a chat room, or take turns responding on a Facebook or Instagram page, your thoughts are in that cyber place. And there is no distance involved with that space.  In a room with a group of friends, that space seems to hang above all…we could think of it as an invisible cloud, created by our intelligence, by our minds.   The same when interacting with people on the other side of the planet, that space also seems to exist in a cloud. There will come a day when AIs take part in that cyber place.

AND NO RELIGION TOO

An AI will understand its creator.  Will know that it’s creator is not God, and certainly not in the sense that  religions depict the creator. Their understanding will not be one based on the many varied gods created in the uneducated minds of men and women.

Filling In My Blanks

Uncle Jerry has passed away. The last sibling of my father. The youngest of the four brothers and one sister. Uncle Bob who we called Red, Uncle John who we called Jack, Aunt Margaret, my Dad Charles Edward who was known as Eddie, and Uncle Jerry.  These were the McCunes of Pittsburgh.  No, not the rich McCunes…the ordinary middle class McCunes.

My memories of this side of the family start from my early childhood.  My first memory of Uncle Jerry is at around the age of four or five.  I answered a knock on the front door at our duplex on Broadway in Wellsville.  I saw a kid about my age.  Actually there were two kids, who looked like twins. My cousins Doug and Dave. I don’t remember noticing any adults.

“Mom, somebody is here!”  My parents then explained who it was.  In my memories I can’t separate the visits. The memory of eating a venison dinner which tasted so good; the McCune relatives gathered around an evening dinner table. Another time, those siblings gathered around that same table, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes, laughing at someone’s remark that one of the siblings was no longer a Mickey.

Grandma McCune used to come and stay to watch my brother, sisters and I while mom and dad were away on a trip of some kind. Now SHE was a grandma, no mistake.  Grandma Ruth always looked like a typical grandma.

My immediate family somehow lost touch with the McCune uncles and aunts and cousins.  In hindsight I think it was a parent thing. Somehow I am sure that my dad must have been responsible.

I got married…after I had left home and spent a few years with a fanatical religious cult. I had regained my senses and settled down to start a family.  It was at that time that I looked for Grandma McCune.  I called her at the place she was staying and had a wonderful reunion, introducing myself to her as a full grown adult.  A short while later Grandma moved in with Uncle Jerry and Aunt Bobbi. Me and Dave managed to hook up for some guitar jamming. I brought my wife and toddler son to visit at Uncle Jerry a few times.

The last time I saw Uncle Jerry was when my mother died last year. Jerry and his son Dwight came to the funeral. Uncle Jerry come up to me with a smiling face and a nice conversation. Little did I know he would be passing on in such a short while.

Funny how these life events bring the memory of days gone by.

I am thinking.

Filling in my blanks.

Brown and White Coffee-tea

I was five years old. My world was small. I knew about breakfast and coffee-tea. I learned later in life that Mom would give us a kid’s version of coffee. Milk with a little bit of coffee. We called it coffee-tea, thinking we were drinking like adults. At five years old I didn’t know how to spell the word coffee. I didn’t know where coffee came from. Just that I liked the taste of it. All milked and sugared up. I knew that my Dad liked coffee. Iced coffee with milk and sugar. I was amazed watching him put together the old drip style pot. Like a three story building. Basket with coffee grounds in the middle. Water tower at the top, where he poured in the boiling water he had heated on the electric stove.

Five years old. I did not know about the Korean conflict that had recently ceased. I didn’t know that Dwight Eisenhower was president of the United States. I didn’t know what a president was or that I lived in the United States. I knew my family, and Mrs. Gould who lived next door and had a huge flower garden in her back yard. I did not know about wars and killing. I did not know about oppressive religions, about countries and power and control. I knew cartoons and Captain Kangaroo on TV. I knew about Superman, but I only paid attention to the fact that he was able to fly. I remember that from the black and white TV. I realized that Superman was not real. I knew that because I could not fly when I put on my own Superman cape. Well, not really a cape, but a bath towel which made a perfectly good substitute. Fastened around my neck, it flowed across the back of my shoulders, and flew like a flag in the wind as I ran, for a moment making my cape look like Superman’s

I was five years old and did not know why some people had different skin color from mine. I didn’t care.  At that age I never heard of the race riots in Notting Hill, England. Nor was I aware of how black people were being treated in my own country. My world was much smaller. The only thing I knew of brown skin was my friend from a block away. Vince was from a family of two sisters and an older brother. He was my friend into adulthood. At my tender age, I saw a kid from another working class family. One of the kids on the block. With a mom who welcomed me into her home. With a dad who was always at work. Living in a rented house, like my family lived in a rented house. With a TV that worked when my family’s set was broken. I had no idea of the turmoil suffered by blacks. I could not conceive of the idea of slavery. I had no inkling that many white people had thought that it was fine to have other people held captive by society, to do their hard labor. I imagine that if Mom had tried to tell me all about it, that I would not understand. I suppose my five year old mind would take it as another fact of life. That blacks serve whites. If I had been taught of it, I would believe it just like I believed in Jesus and Santa Claus and Fairies. But my Mom did not teach me racism. She did not teach me that it was normal to hate people of different color. No. She taught me that it was normal to have a black friend at the age of five.  I did not have to wait until I was college age to find out on my own that skin color does not matter.  I did not have to move away from home to learn a life lesson.  I was not even cognizant that I was learning something. At the age of five, such was one of the small amount of things in life that I simply knew.

To be like the gods

To be like the gods

When you eat of the fruit,
it is so easy to see.
The mystery becomes the simple truth,
the law and fact you could never understand.

Life's pieces and parts seeming easily to fit,
while other parts remain the elusive puzzle piece that we relegate to our faith in the gods;

our faith in,
what is is
what will be will be.

(c) 2017 by Marc S. McCune

Heavy On My Mind

I just watched a powerful, happy and terribly sad film.  "I'll Be Me", the documentary about musician Glen Campbell, his dealing with alzheimer disease and his final tour with the Campbell Family Band on their "Goodbye Tour".

As I watched, I was delighted to hear Glenn Campbell's music again, and struck by the sadness in the lyrics of some of his most recent songs, that touch on his condition, from his personal point of view.

It is one of those films, that fill your mind after the last frame is over.  The kind of film that opens your thoughts, as you walk them down a rabbit hole, leading from one point to the next, uncovering ideas in recesses of your mind.

I wonder at this wonderful human body, with all of its intricacies. And at how  wonderfully flawed it is, with how it breaks down so.  I consider my own body, how I used to feel, or actually how I didn't feel.  Didn't feel pain when I walked, didn't feel congested when I awoke, didn't need glasses to read, didn't feel so tired.

What are we? a collection of neurons forming a mind?  A dendretic arbor containing thoughts? When our brain breaks down and fails, so do we, as a conscious being?  Or is there really a soul there, deep inside?

And if a soul, is it within just humans? or every living thing?

I remember when I thought I knew the answers.  Life's answers. And I remember before then, when I thought I'd just discovered those answers. And even before that, when I thought that there were many high plateaus that I had to surmount, many levels of knowledge to attain.  And earliest, I remember when I was just me, when I had my original face, when I woke and slept, and ran and played, and did not worry, nor was concerned, but was only filled with young life.

This mind, fully functioning, thinking thoughts of Glenn, and everything else that is connected, from him, back to me.  And I think of this life, at a time that I again do not have the answers, a time when religion has been forsaken, and thoughts of God are faded, and the stark reality of the universe as it really exists is brightly clear before me.

Today I viewed a photograph from the Hubble telescope.  A spiral galaxy, bright white at the center, spiral arms swirling, full of bright white dots, those arms looking as if formed from a cloud.  But that wasn't a cloud, it was a swirl of stars, suns earth's own.  In the photo was other bright lights, and when looking closer, I saw that they were also whole galaxies. Eighteen hundred galaxies in this one single cluster.  And that, just a small pinch of star dust in this universe.

A universe, that men try to describe, try to place in order, with thoughts and ideas.  Ideas based many times on the truth of observation, but too many times on superstition and false presumptions, and even lies, that are built up into societies where the wonderful human experience is turned into a hammer of the gods.  Where to many false ideas are forced people, on pain of death.

My mind is a swirl of thoughts, much like the spiral galaxy, much of it unexplored, not enough time.

copyright © 2015 by Marc S. McCune

Alive

I used to be a true believer,
so sure I was reaching
higher planes
in this walk through life.

From early on, I was raised to believe
in gods and saints,
the afterlife and sweet by-and-bys.

All good people went to heaven;
innocents and babies immediately saw God.

Then, after a life of blind faith
and assurances of great rewards,
I changed my mind,
examined my beliefs,
and saw things differently.

Now, there is no great reward.
My agnostic eyes see no assurance of who is waiting
at some pearly gate.
There is no gate
probably no heaven
and surely no hell.

Life became more precious,
the Universe became huge,
and everything was let out of the box.

The single individual life
became more of a jewel.

We each have this life
this gift from the universe.
How we handle that life is up to us.
Some have great opportunities,
others only hopelessness.
Some live to that three score and ten
while the years of others are cut short.

That single life
precious jewel,
it is the potential to
experience and grow
the opportunity to blossom
like the flower.

Once that life has been created
nobody has the right to snuff it out.

Regardless of how that life came to be,
no one has the right to uproot it.

It doesn't matter how a person's life got started.
In the grand scheme of things,
in the eyes of the universe,
the simplicity is, that a new life was started.
A life with no do-overs
no returning to the bosom of Abraham
no assimilation into the Force or
back to the energy of the universe.

A life that is more precious in its unfolding,
more important in the start and finish of a complete journey,
than any reasons for prematurely ending it.

believing in the visible lie, or the invisible truth?

"Pizzaro and conquistadors
The debris and the metaphors
And the scarcity of miracles he'd
found

Valverde and the battle lines and
everything it undermines
And the scarcity of miracles we'd
found"

Those are from the lyrics of the song "A Scarcity of Miracles" written by Jakko M. Jakszyk of the King Crimson Projekct.

Pizzaro is Francisco Pizzaro, the conquistador of Peru. Valverde is Friar Vicente de Valverde. Valverde accompanied Pizzaro as a missionary to Peru.

Prior to the Battle of Caxamarca, Valverde tried to obtain the peaceful submission of the Great Inca Atahaullpa. When the Atahaulpa rejected a pact of friendship with Pizarro, Friar Vicente joined in the conversation: “He came forward holding a crucifix in his right hand and a breviary in his left and introduced himself as another envoy of the Spanish ruler . . . Friar Vicente called upon the Inca to renounce all other gods as being a mockery of the truth.”[*] Atahualpa simply replied that he could not change his beliefs in the all powerful and ever living Sun and other divinities.

This brief telling of the event hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks. The Incan ruler believed that his god was The Sun. The Sun was a visible daily presence. His people made sacrifices to the Sun so that it would continue to rise, and for plentiful harvests. To the Inca, the Sun was a visible present God. They were being presented with an invisible foreign god for which there was no proof of existence. When each side viewed the others' gods, they saw a scarcity of miracles.

© 2015 Marc S. McCune


* Carson, Margaret (2008). Stages of Conflict: A Critical Anthology of Latin American Theater and Performance. U of Michigan: Ann Arbor.

old town

so many
old towns

walking through

your old town
the nostalgia I feel
is not mine

my old town
is far away
and lost in time

your old town
was once mine

© 2015 Marc S. McCune

no easy

it doesn't work out,
if you don't work at it...

everybody wants to be happy
peaceful
relaxed, free

loved

everyone alive
those who believe lies
and those who make them up.

reaching for whatever it takes
reaching for a one who fits our mold

where does mercy start?
where does it end?

sometimes a line in the dirt is hard and dark
sometimes the grey blends into both sides
no easy answers

we look

we reach

orbits are found

comfort is zoned

it's not just a loving machine

it doesn't work out

if you don't work at it


turn it up loud
fill my ears
flood my mind
if it doesn't make sense
then, make it feel good

take my mind
on a life journey
tell me answers
tell me secrets that I'll keep

show me your mind
in the notes you sing
in the chords I play

create
something from nothing

and put all these emotions
in place

put all these thoughts
in a book

tell me the truth
I can't seem to find

© 2014 by Marc McCune, all rights reserved

a day in the life

you wonder
if others see, like I see
or question, my same questions

secrets remain on the high branches
did you find the same ones, when you searched?

Today, I found an old advertisement.
my Cavalier great grandfather
perusing old newspapers in Italian
being stunned at the sight of his very name
selling his services
one hundred years ago.

Tonight received words
from an old friend
A writer who puts her thoughts in the very air
for me to grab, hold and taste.
she has questions
those very same questions
that come into my mind
She has answers, the thin flakey maxims
falling through her fingers
words of old religion
that do not ring true
that failed to deliver
in the real world.
just like in mine.

this week I reconnected
with two old friends
sisters from forty years past
from a life period gone by
but forefront in my mind
Comparing old things and showing new
filling in blanks
I wonder how many questions
get matched with answers
 
copyright © 2014 Marc S. McCune, All rights reserved

seeds of love

[November 8, 2013 at 7:12pm]

point in the right direction

hoping that my ideas are real true
and that ideas went from me to them

I pray the god I cannot see or believe in
that I have sowed the seeds of love

they read and fill their minds with the words of wisdom
they look
and feel
and place the ideas
into the proper places
in their hearts and minds

sorting through what are lies
and what are true

what I say...it if matches those slots and categories

and one day

their children

copyright 2013 by Marc S. McCune

shade of colour

yet another year passed,
a shade of colour gone by

was it two months ago
at Christmas?

no, the weather came then,
and no one moved.

not Thanksgiving, but summer time.

The tiny shock of a visage changed

a full beard and hairline receding
as weeks turned into years.

time passes because I let it slide
as the mind plays tricks
and the heart pays little attention

we think they are near
and a part of our things,
but only in time capsules

one, two, three holidays a year
and another shade of colour
turns to another shade of gray

© 2014 by Marc S. McCune All Rights Resesrved

my dad he

my dad wore
Yardley aftershave
and Old Spice

he smoked
Chesterfield cigarettes
and Old Golds

he drank
Duquesne Beer
at The Elks Club
and the Knights of Columbus

sometimes he was
on the wagon

my dad liked
iced coffee
in his smoking jacket

he liked
limburger cheese
and bleu cheese
and dijon mustard

he told me he was
a drummer, but I never heard him play
a singer, but I never heard him sing

he was an actor and director
in the local theater group.
he went to Hollywood once,
but came home after two weeks

 

© 2013 by Marc S. McCune, all rights reserved
photo © 2013 by Marc S. McCune, all rights reserved
 

decade

decade
my first, counting beads on my rosary
this one, counting years in my life

minutes fly, into hours, days, weeks

decade
years with
two major holidays
faces that change
in rapid succession
from day
to far off day

where did he go?
we both think
we all think
where did he go?

decade
weeks fly, into months, years, a decade