Thicker Than Water

I miss my brother Chuck.

Four years younger than me, he died in 2005 from complications of alcoholism which included a ruined liver, failed kidneys and finally gangrene settling into his wounded legs. His death was ugly and painful and tore up everyone who knew him, because he was well-loved by many. I was especially slaughtered over his passing since just a couple of years earlier we had forged a long-overdue truce and became closer than we’d ever been. Dad still grieves over the loss of his second son. Thus is how it always seems to be for the families of alcoholics.

That being said, I find my memories of Chuck are mostly good ones, even great ones, spread across time and space. Years we spent first as childhood antagonists, then as distant adult siblings, and finally as seasoned brothers-in-arms, united against the stupidization of America. In his final years, we would have long phone conversations about politics, auto racing, music, family, business, women, pot, sports, television, our mutual and separate pasts… the subject matter always changed, but the best part was that we were, you know... talking.



It wasn’t always that way. The bloody internecine battles we humans wage can be a lifelong struggle for dominance, often at the expense of those we love most. My wife and I laugh often about the fact that honestly, every family is dysfunctional to one extent or another. No one is exempt from the petty silliness that can come between siblings, mates, extended family members. It usually blows up after years of quiet tolerance, clenched jaws and strained neck muscles, yearning for release and revenge. The revenge part is the most devastating and satisfying… as one sage commented, ‘Revenge is a dish best served cold.’

Chuck was a force of nature, as smart as a whip, yet he never graduated from high school. He read several newspapers each day, absorbing information that would be filed away in his cerebral hard drive, ready for withdrawal at a moment’s notice. He could talk at length about complex social and political issues with certainty and a great eye for the absurd. He was the funniest guy I ever knew, coming up with quips and comments and observations that would put me on the floor. He bore a complicated soul, with internal demons that most certainly lead to excessive drinking as his way of dealing with them.

In 1995, while our Mom was unconscious in a hospital intensive care ward due to alcohol poisoning (yeah, her too), I convinced Chuck to fly down and see her because I wasn’t sure she was gonna make it. He was silent during the very brief visit, holding her hand and just looking at her lying there, with a feeding tube down her nose and IV's stuck in both arms. On the way home from the hospital, he asked if we could make a stop. At a liquor store. Yeah. He came out with a bottle of Hornitos tequila and a six-pack of Dos Equis. I was stunned.

Me: "DUUUDE... how can you even THINK of pounding down so much booze after seeing Mom in the hospital, pickled and comatose on cheap vodka?"

Him: “Don’t worry, I’m a big boy, I know what I’m doing”.

He flew home the next day.

It was the last time he ever saw Mom. In early 2005, she was languishing in a nursing home with another feeding tube stuck in her belly (see my previous essay titled ‘The Long Pink Tube’). I drove up to where he lived in Northern Cali to try and drag him down to see her before she died, but no dice, he refused to go. I soon learned that he too was extremely ill, liver failing and stomach ulcerated and weight shedding from his frame. He couldn’t bring himself to see her in the final throes of her life, because it would have been a cruel mirror, reflecting his own pending demise. Mom died in April, Chuck seven months later in November. I reckon his actions made sense to him, but I didn’t understand it then. I certainly do now.

But guess what? As stupid and cruel and pointless as Chuck’s self-destructive behavior was, it pales in comparison to the incredible goodness of his heart, the way he ALWAYS put the needs of others above his own, how those he cared about were the center of his attention, often to his own detriment. His loyalty and friendship and love wasn’t in vain, as demonstrated by the hundreds of people in attendance at his memorial service, a standing-room-only affair that was filled with laughter and tears and a really great soundtrack. Six years gone now, I recall someone had suggested that his mini-truck be parked out front of the chapel, windows down with the stereo blasting Metallica, as if he had just stopped in for a minute. Did that happen? Can’t remember… was in too much pain… but if it did, it RULED.

Chuck was a music freak like me, and he was the one who turned me on to bands like Grand Funk Railroad, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple… rock stalwarts of the early 1970’s. For some reason, it took his early-adopter musical taste to get me hooked, and that hook is still set deep and strong. The really funny thing is that he absolutely LOVED The Jackson Five (5ive?) during their heyday, a fact that he was loathe to admit as an adult. Yep… a total J5 fanboy. T-shirts, posters, every album and 45 they released. He knew every word to every song and played them incessantly on his crappy little record player, their vinyl banned from my badass (ha!) turntable.

To burnish his musical fanaticism, he attended literally hundreds of concerts in his lifetime, surely more than anyone I’ve ever known. He collected souvenir t-shirts from those shows, and although I don’t know what happened to them once he’d passed, I know his closet was filled with concert t-shirts on hangars. He wanted to be able to grab one with precision if the subject came up and could tell you the date, place and level of inebriation he attained during the event. Although he was always what I would consider a heavy-metal/hard-rocker type, his tastes began to range widely in later years. During my last few visits to his home, I found music by Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Los Lonely Boys, stuff like that. His last musical crush was on songstress Diana Krall, whom he’d seen once in concert and became obsessed with her look, her sound, her style.



You know, I don’t want this whole thing to sound maudlin, but the more I think about Chuck, the more I keep getting images of him in my head, memories both banal and special. Weird. Chuck was a big guy, owing to the gene pool from Mom’s side of the family. When I say he was big, I don’t mean he was a fat slob or anything like that. He was mebbe 6’3” or thereabouts and somewhere North of 250 lbs. at his best fighting weight, but he’d fluctuate and began to shrink as he grew ill. For most of his life, he was a big, burly mammoth dude with a full beard and semi-long wavy hair… I always likened him to a Mexican Steve Reeves. At family campouts and gatherings, Chuck was ‘The Enforcer’ and used his imposing hulk as a warning to outsiders looking to crash the festivities. In reality, he was an extremely kind and gentle soul, only showing aggression when he was drunk.

What really drove me towards this subject was the darker side of Chuck’s life, the internal struggles and torment that gave him the rationale for his downfall. I think it really started when he was only about 14 years old and got kicked out of Dad’s house after lots terrible behavior and trouble. He stayed with friends for a while, then crashed at my apartment and used it has his party central. I’d come home at 1AM from my swing shift job and find him and a bunch of his friends, all wasted and sprawled on the living room couch and floor, the refrigerator emptied and a heavy cloud of pot smoke filling the room.

I never found out if he could have gone back to Dad’s on his own accord, but once Dad moved to Northern Cali, that option was eliminated. Methinks Chuck took the ousting as a serious rejection, one he never got over. Eventually he moved to Northern Cali and worked in Dad’s restaurant, but the jagged little pill of rejection had grown into a massive spinning carbuncle of razor blades, shredding his insides so badly that only copious amounts of booze and pot could numb the pain.

There’s more to the story… much more than I want to delve into now. Suffice it to say that Chuck was slaying demons his entire life, both real and imagined, and he was only partially successful. During that horrible summer of 2005, after Mom died and before he followed suit, my wife and I were sitting in his living room, talking and laughing and working hard to be upbeat. He was jaundiced and ill and had bright yellow eyeballs and his skin was only slightly less yellow. With her typically direct manner, wife asks “So… Chuck… knowing your health situation and all, was it all worth it? All the booze and drugs and partying… was it worth it?”

He didn’t miss a beat. “HELL YES it was worth it. I’ve spent my life partying and working and going to concerts and being with my friends and having fun. If my life is over, so be it. At least I’ve had a great time while I was here.” I remember thinking he was speaking with a bravado that masked his fear of death, but that was him to a tee. He rarely lifted the curtain on his secret personal life, always giving off the air of confidence and self-assuredness. He wanted others to view him with respect and admiration, regardless of the truth he held closest to his soul.

I would only see him alive once more, lying in a hospital bed after yet another bout of alcohol poisoning, boasting that he’d be able to get a liver transplant and would beat the odds by getting sober once and for all. Didn’t happen. Sucks.



Here’s the really funny part of all this: I UNDERSTAND. The whole arc of Chuck’s life makes perfect sense to me, all of it, start to finish. I sit and think of him and remember flashes and images and scenes. The summer vacation road trip when, as a 9-year-old, he held the map the whole time and calculated the mileage between each of our stops, dead-nuts every time. The half-hearted attempts to get him interested in the Indian dancing activities that our Boy Scout troop excelled at, which he HATED. The rare vinyl records I had stashed in my apartment closet which he snagged and sold to buy more weed and beer. The glasses of milk and half-eaten bologna sandwiches he’d stash under his bed for days until the stench got Dad’s attention. The washed-out Polaroid image of him and me, aged around 5 and 9, wearing scratchy new sweaters, Mom in her Red dress, all standing in our Grandma’s driveway in East LA, beaming on a Sunday morning.

The apartment neighbors from Oklahoma who were convinced the baggie of oregano he’d sold them was Class-A weed.

The ’71 Chevelle he and his friends painted Flat Black with spray cans, a car that barely ran but sure looked BAD-ASS rumbling down the street.

The video of my in-car racing driver school sessions he constantly ran in his restaurant, telling his friends ”DUDE… THAT’S MY BROTHER!”

The way he looked on his wedding day, decked out in a light Blue tux with tails, wearing white sneakers.

All of it. His incredibly loud laugh, the same one I let loose out of my own big pie hole. His goofy smile and angry scowl and the passive stoney stare when he HAD you, man. OK, now it’s getting to me, so I think I’ll stop before I go all gooey and start to weep like a little girl. Yep, there will never be another one like him, and I dunno if that’s good or bad, but it doesn’t matter. Like all those who I’ve loved that are now gone, he is with me right now, telling me to get bent, blowing smoke in my face and laughing that laugh.

Each of the songs I've posted in this essay were played at Chuck's memorial, and whatever they meant to me before, they now bring him closer to me each time I hear them. He did that to people, weaseling his way into their hearts and souls until they NEEDED him in there, man. Like a junkie needs a fix.

I miss him. Dammit.



'Samba Pa Ti' by Santana, 'Temptation' by Diana Krall, 'In My Life' by The Beatles, 'I'll Be Around' by Joan Osborn... todos muchismas gracias de YouTube. La Puente scout image, muchismas gracias de Manuel Macias.

Happiness Is A Warm Gun

So, the next Great Debate is upon us: our national obsession with guns and violence. Yep, all it took was another in a long series of ostracized outsiders/lone wolfs/mentally unstable yahoos with a Glock and 31 Wal-Mart bullets to cap a bunch of citizens in a grocery store parking lot. This time, tho… Fine Young American Jared Loughner had the bad luck of choosing Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords as his primary victim, so he’s gonna get hammered by the legal system no matter how crazed or demented his mental state was/is. Thankfully, Gabby is getting better every day… all my positive vibrations go out to her and the other survivors. I grieve for the dead and their families.

This situation leaves me with a feeling of disgust, because although there is mewling and bloviating and screeching from all sides on this horrid crime, we’ll likely see nothing of substance change with regards to gun ownership, sales, registration, shows, accessories… nothing will change. I’ll be gobsmacked if ANYTHING gets through the Congressional Star Chamber to alleviate this firearms firestorm.

But that’s not what has me contemplating my navel right now.

What has me mystified is this: what is it about guns that has such an addictive hold on so many of our citizens? Why do people feel the need to arm themselves with enough weaponry to stage a small coup? What is the mindset that pursuades people to strap a heater on their hip and mosey into a coffee shop, daring someone to question their ‘freedoms’? What is the attraction of posessing the capability to end another human’s life with the simple pull of a trigger?



I’m not gonna wade into the legal and political issues of gun ownership. What intrigues me is the personal and philosophical side, the muse that beckons, the siren’s call to hold and caress and fuss and fawn over an instrument of instant death. How romantic, eh? This is an important distinction, because although I am by no means a gun guy, I understand the nature of our society, one that has at its very core a deep and abiding love of the speeding bullet. It is pervasive. It is apparent in every aspect of our modern culture, our media, our collective psyche.

If you doubt that we are a gun-obsessed nation, watch a few hours of network television on any given night and count the number of times you see a gun being pointed and/or fired. It might surprise you to see it over and over and over and over. Even the commercials make it a point to show the gun… point the gun… shoot the gun. Are you and/or your kids fans of video games? If so, sit down with your collection and count how many of them are first-person shooter games. Do you have a movie collection? Count how many of them have a central character that will ultimately resolve the plot development using a firearm.

Pervasive... ingrained... ubiquitous.

OK, maybe you don't agree with my premise, which is counter to popular opinion, especially knowing there are almost as many weapons as there are people in this country. However, my goal here is to help myself understand the gun thing... if the reader gets a tiny nugget of clarity as well, then I am a Happy Camper.

First and foremost, guns are for killing. They are designed, manufactured and sold with only one capability: to render lifeless that which is at the receiving end of the bullet thrown at high velocity from the end of the barrel. Yes, you can use it for hunting or target shooting or Russian Roulette (a.k.a. 'self-protection'), but it really doesn't matter what the individual purpose may be. It doesn't issue warnings or threats, it doesn't convince or cajole or demand, it doesn't posit or pontificate. It's a gun... it's designed to kill. That's why I prefer my version of the old saying, "Guns don't kill people. People with guns kill people." Dying by bullet is a crappy way to go, because it was another human being who pointed that gun and pulled the trigger.

I've often commented that if we treated gun ownership in the same way we treat automobile ownership, i.e. educating, testing, licensing, registering, insuring, re-testing, restricting... we'd be much better off. That concept illicits howls of derision and contempt from my gun-owning friends, who mostly feel that there should be absolutely no oversight to their weapons fetish. "Dude, it's in the Second Amendment! Besides, cars kill people too!" I love it when they say that, because my first comment is that cars are designed to transport humans and cargo... they typically only kill when the humans involved fail at their task. My second comment is to ask if they've actually read and understand the Second Amendment to The Constitution as it relates to gun ownership, but that's another essay entirely.

When I was in Boy Scouts, I earned my Marksmanship merit badge by learning proper gun etiquette, demonstrating my prowess on a gun range with a variety of weapons, and answering questions about handling them. In later years, I would have additional chances to blast away at targets and junked cars, but for some reason the gun bug never bit me. I've never owned a gun, never had the desire to own a gun, never had the situation where I needed a gun for self-protection. I only have to think about guns when confronted by someone else carrying one or when I have to walk in front of the business next door that sells semi-automatic weapons to large males driving large American trucks with large piles of ammo cases in the back.

Typical Gun Ownership Rationale #1: The Second Amendment to The Constitution of The United States of America.

'A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.'

The Second Amendment was written before this country had a standing military or local police forces (Thanks, socialistic tax revenues!), and it's a subject that could be argued for days. Suffice it to say there are wildly divergent ideas about the meaning, intent and interpretation of The Second Amendment. You may already know where I stand on it. I'll not belabor the issue here.

Typical Gun Ownership Rationale #2: Self-Protection.
My life has been negatively impacted by guns exactly twice: 1) when my two Uncles were killed in a shootout with police after a failed grocery store robbery, and 2) when my gang-banging cousin was capped on a SoCal street. That's it. In both cases, the individuals were exercising poor judgement and wound up, you know, DEAD. Of all the other family and friends that I know (or know of), none has ever been threatened or in a dangerous situation where they needed a heater in their hand. I'd submit that the vast majority of gun owners fall into this category as well. Where you live, what you do, the company you keep... all these things can increase your chances of needing or being at the receiving end of a gun. (I bet that went over well, right?)

My gun-owning friends, of which there are many, all say the same thing: "HA! Wait until you need to protect your home from an intruder, or someone holds you up, or you're attacked. Then you'll wish you had a gun!" My response is always the same: "So... how much time of each day do you spend worrying about something that, as statistics prove, will most likely never happen to you?" When I start asking them if they are also constantly worried about driving on the freeways or of a ladder accident or eating raw seafood-- all circumstances that are far more likely to cause injury or death -- they insist that I am changing the subject. BANG ZOOM!



Typical Gun Ownership Rationale #3: Personal Freedom (Part 1).
In this case, as it relates to the notion of 'open-carry'... that is, the ability to carry a unconcealed and unloaded weapon in public. The open-carry proponents argue that if everyone was armed, no one would be a victim (?!?!). That if there had been more armed citizens in Tucson on that fateful Saturday, fewer people would have been shot and killed. That an armed populace encourages lawful behavior. These rationale demand adherence to the idea that 'our freedoms' give us the legal right to carry a piece in public... anytime, anywhere. Don't like it? Don't tread on me, friend.

I live in Orange County, California... a bastion of Deep-Red Republicanism with a seething hatred of taxes, President Obama and 'them damned illegals'. I do not live in a war zone. I do not live in a crime-ridden city. I do not live in Tombstone, Arizona circa 1880. I also just found out that it is legal to open-carry in this lovely slice of the country. I DO NOT WANT GUNS ANYWHERE NEAR ME, DAMMIT!!!! Unless you are a law enforcement officer grabbing coffee or giving me a ticket, keep your death stick away from me. There is no sane or logical reason for anyone OTHER than law enforcement to pack open heat in The OC. Honest!

My new awareness of local open carry was raised via a recent gathering of Open-Carry OC, a patriotic bunch who decided to gather with their warm guns at a local breakfast spot on a Saturday morning. Their goal was to demonstrate that their 'freedoms' are law-abiding and perfectly normal. As you can guess, they knew exactly what the reaction was going to be. Some people were supportive, but most were upset that their morning family ritual was exposed to gun-toting strangers creating a stir in the 'hood.

The eatery Manager, unaware of the event until it happened, made the right choice and asked the Po Po to stop in, grab a java and make sure all the weapons were unloaded. No bullets in chambers, but the law doesn't say they can't carry ammo, only that the weapon be empty. Open-Carry OC makes the point on their website that although an unloaded weapon isn't much good, "it only takes 2 seconds to load and be ready for action". Nice. Eventually, Eatery Manger asked the OCOC boys and girls to hit the road, as they were pissing off his customers and making a scene. He VERY brave. Again, that was exactly what OCOC was hoping for... they were prominently featured in a Sunday paper article the very next morning.

Scenario: I am inside The Daily Grind waiting for my Joe to come up when someone walks into the room with a gun holstered on their hip. I have three choices: 1) ignore the gun, avoid eye contact with this Fine American and hope like hell my order is almost ready, 2) smile and ask the Fine American if the piece is unloaded or, if unsure about my safety, ask the Manager to inquire or call John Law, or 3) immediately exit the building, hopefully with my coffee, but at the very least, with my life.

I don't know this armed individual. I don't know if he/she is sober or drunk or drugged or stoned or angry or crazy or depressed or suicidal or hates my shirt or thinks I cut him/her off in the parking lot or that I look too much like his/her ex-spouse or whatever. What I do know is that I am now in the presence of someone who, if they so choose, can instantly kill me with no discernable reason or explanation. Is the gun loaded? What, you think I'm gonna ask?!? I certainly ain't gonna stand there, ignore the death stick's presence and calmly wait for my coffee. Nope, me sees a gun, me exits the room, PRONTO. My personal 'freedom' to buy an overpriced hot beverage has been taken away by a stranger who decided today was the day to strap-on and feel like a god. My choices are now subjugated, my safety is in question, and my decision could make the difference on whether I live or die.

Leave your gun at home, where it belongs. In a civilized society, is that too much to ask? The answer, apparently, is YES.

Typical Gun Ownership Rationale #3: Personal Freedom (Part 2).
This time, it's the concept of owning as many weapons as you get your hands on. The gun hoarding thing is really, truly confusing and scary. However, we are a nation who loves excess in all things, as demonstrated by our other national obsession: food. All-you-can eat pancakes... triple-meat cheeseburgers topped with pastrami... 3-cheese pizza with cheese baked into the crust... 40-ounce soft drinks... the Double Down. We'll stuff absolutely anything into our pie holes and go back for more, burping and belching and scarfing down antacids in anticipation of the next round. No wonder a third of our citizens are clinically obese.

Same for the gun thing. There are many among us who feel their only means of protecting themselves, their family and belongings is to amass a cache of weapons. These are the true believers, the ones who are sure their government is hell-bent to turn them into Socialist zombie-slaves. They might be living next door and you'll never know they have dozens and dozens of firearms, some likely loaded at all times just in case the Tax Police try to knock down their door and send them to indoctrination camps.

I kid... but not really.

The people I read about who actually do have a weapons cache are the quintissential anti-government types who think they will be compelled to fend off an un-American assault on their freedoms by the Communist/Fascist/Socialist/Marxist/Muslim/Usurper/Illegal Alien Comrade Obama, so they are READY. It doesn't matter that the facts don't support their reality... perception is 9/10ths of reality, so perception WINS!

But seriously, the gun hoarding seems to be a reaction to baseless fears and anxiety of 'the other', which is a uniquely American pasttime, as noted in the fine cartoon posted earlier in this essay. Hey, if having one gun is cool, having twenty is downright chill. I have heard a personal story about someone's ex-spouse where gun hoarding had gone to the extreme, which included dozens of loaded weapons stashed in the attic, buried in the backyard and several stashed in the bedroom. Why? Well... WHY NOT? I can't think of anything more conducive to rowdy wedded sexuality than loaded guns under the bed, can you?

Maybe it's simply a matter of going to excess, and if that's the case, so be it. It's been going on for quite some time now, and we are all familiar with the news stories about local police finding a massive collection of wepons in a seemingly quiet neighborhood home. The locals all tut-tut how they never had a clue about their neighbor's predeliction to collecting firearms and how shocking it all is. It could also be a reaction to the crazy directionless world that seems to surround us all, and the pile of warm guns gives us a feeling of security and safety.

Whatever. I... just... don't... get it.

So here I sit, having peeled my brain open to seek an understanding of the American gun lust. I'm not sure if I am any closer to gaining any insight, but at least I finally have a firm grasp on MY perspective, which was the point all along. As a hard-core Radical Progressive Liberal Democrat, I will always champion the notion of an individual's right to own weapons, but within reason and with a hefty dose of social consciousness and civility. As a human being, I am apalled at the casualness of our relationship with the death sticks and the destrucion they cause, but I dinna expect anything to change in my lifetime. As a Father and Son and Husband and Grandfather, I hope like hell that I never again suffer the loss of another to a bullet.

Guns are an integral part of The American Psyche, and anyone who thinks that banning them will solve the problem is fooling themselves. Ain't gonna happen. On the flip side, anyone who believes that the government is trying to take their guns away is just not paying attention. That fact is confirmed by a massive gun-buying spree from sea to shining sea, and sales of 9mm Glocks, just like the one used to pierce Gabby Gifford's brain, are breaking records because the citizenry are certain that they'll soon be separated from those lovely death sticks.

I hope that somewhere in this mass of words, my perspective has offered a note of clarity. I don't seek to change anyone's mind about guns, only to create a space for introspection and consideration. It's what we humans do best, next to polluting our planet, procreating and killing each other. But HEY... like I always say, every day above-ground is a great day.

As always, your comments are most appreciated, but PLEASE... put the piece away first!



'Happiness is a Warm Gun' by The Beatles, 'A Brief History of America' from Michael Moore's 'Bowling For Columbine' and 'Saturday Night Special' by Lynyrd Skynyrd, all via www.youtube.com... Girls with guns image courtesy of www.freakingnews.com