On THAT DAY we call 9/11, after my initial shock and awe passed, in my inner ear I did hear America's Master Poet, Musician extraordinaire and caustic social critic from his 1981 "Shot of Love" Album:
See the massacre of the innocent
She was walking down the hallway while the walls deteriorated
West of the Jordan, east of the Rock of Gibraltar
I see the turning of the page
Curtain rising on a new age
See the Groom still waiting at the altar...
Try to be pure of heart; they arrest you for robbery"
Got the message this morning, the one that was sent to me:
About the madness of the comin'"
I see the burning of the stage
Curtain rising on a new age
See the Groom still waiting at the altar
But I know God has mercy on them who are slandered and humiliated
West of the Jordan, east of the Rock of Gibraltar"
I see people who are supposed to know better standin' around like furniture.
There's a wall"
West of the Jordan, east of the Rock of Gibraltar"
Cities on fire, phones out of order
They're killing nuns and soldiers, there's fighting on the border"
West of the Jordan, east of the Rock of Gibraltar
I see the turning of the page
Curtain rising on a new age
See the Groom still waiting at the altar.
In Christian lingo The Groom is understood to be Jesus.
Robert Allen Zimmerman was born in St. Mary's Hospital in 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota, and at six, he moved to Hibbing. In 1954-the year of my birth and Catholic baptism at St. Teresa's Catholic church on the lower east side of Manhattan, Bob had his Bar Mitzvah.
As I reflect back to THAT DAY, eight years ago, when the world stood still, I first recalled a trip I took in 1966 in the back seat of a 1964 gold Ford Galaxy with two of my three brothers and both folks up front.
We were on our way through the Holland Tunnel to a lake side vacation, when the radio announcer announced that John Lennon had admitted that The Beatles, "We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first-rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."
My pop nearly had a stroke at the wheel, when I blurted out, "He is so right! My friends and I know every lyric to every Beatle song there is, but nobody ever quotes Jesus. And if Jesus is supposed to be on the side of the poor, why doesn't the church sell all their art work and pope jewelry and go and feed them?"
It was also in 1966, during the last week of 6th grade, by a "Simple Twist Of Fate" in Mr. Friedman's music class at Island Trees Elementary School in Levittown, Long Island, that I was first introduced to "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan" and "The Times They Are A-Changin."
I "felt a spark tingle to my bones" which I now know was my first spiritual experience-and orgasm.
Normally, Mr. F would make us sing lame tunes such as B-I-N-G-O, and I would spend the weekly hour day dreaming out the window. But, on that particular day in '66, Bob became one of my gods; for there was something in his voice, lyrics and that harmonica that lit up my brain and every fiber of my being:
How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
Yes, n how many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, n how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?
How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, n how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, n how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
How many years can a mountain exist
Before it's washed to the sea?
Yes, n how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
Yes, n how many times can a man turn his head,
Pretending he just doesn't see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin in the wind,
The answer is blowin in the wind"
Come gather round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin
Then you better start swimmin
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin.
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin.
It has been said, that 9/11 changed everything: except how we think. THAT DAY we call 9/11 changed my way of thinking, and ever since I have never relied on the established media or my government to tell the whole truth.
On THAT DAY we call 9/11, the media assumed the role of secretaries taking down dictation from Big Brother who manipulated we the people with FEAR of the other. Corporate media failed miserably by not asking the questions and searching for the truth, such as WHY did a few [and back then it was just a few] people in the world hate US so much that they could target and murder innocent people?
"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official." -Theodore Roosevelt
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
2
2
1
