People's Choice

I can't believe I did, but last night I watched the People's Choice Awards.  It was sort of a shameless commercial event...at least that is how it seemed to me.  As I watched, I wondered how much truth the recipients of the award felt as they proclaimed their gratitude and appreciation for the people...you know, because without the people they wouldn't be who they are.

The final award went to Johnny Depp.  Mr. Depp has received the most votes in the last ten years of any other artist.  Honestly, I was a bit surprised he showed up to accept the award.

So why did I wish to write about this, especially as you can see it has been almost two months since I've written a blog here?  I feel my motive is somewhat pure and somewhat self serving.

To begin I feel like part of it is we as a society want to feel like answers can come in small easy to digest packages so they are fast.  You know like our food.  That very few of us are willing to enjoy the process or wait.  We want to skip right from the first page to the last page of the story.  I think about this when I film something like people surfing.  Much of their time is spent waiting for the perfect wave just so they might ride it for a couple of seconds of bliss.  And when you see my footage of them surfing, I will have cut out the majority of the waiting time so my audience will simply get to see the good stuff, so to speak.  Yet truth is we are eternal, spiritual beings.  We have all the illusory time in the world to experience anything we desire.  There is always time and space as long as we wish to participate in this earthly 3-D experience.

I feel like my pure motive can best be explained by example.  The other day while working on the computer with the TV news on in the background, a story was being reported about how despite the bad economy this past year crime in L.A. was still at its lowest point in many years.  And then to comment was a representative of the police/law enforcement faction of my fair city, L.A., to take credit on behalf of police/law enforcement for keeping our city safe.  It got me to thinking that except for things like wearing my seat belt and certain parking of my vehicle habits so I don't get tickets, the police have little to do with whether I commit crime.  I'd like to think I am not the only one who is similar.  I am not violent because I am afraid of being punished.  I am peaceful because it is the right thing to do.  Nay!  It is who I am as a child of God.  It is how I define myself.

My point being if you blindly believed the representatives statement, you would accept that the only reason we are safe is because we have police.  While it may be nice to feel like you could put a nice little bow on the result of lower crime and attribute it all to police and law enforcement, I feel this is a disservice to all who essentially self-police because the thought of harming another intentionally is abhorrent to them.

That's where the self-serving part of this came into play.  As I was showering I was thinking about how I have been going over in my mind the different topics I gravitate towards when it comes to sightseeing L.A. and what will my "people" (and by people I mean my treasured readers of my LA Sightseeing Examiner articles or my blog post readers) think?  Will they be excited about it?  Will they love it?  Maybe I should just stop because how do I know what they'll like or what will excite them (okay unless they tell me, which at this point I dont' have that sort of feedback)?  And yet, right there on my CaliforniVacation:SoCal Style blog...hell...on this blog I mention that I write for myself.  Ars Gratia Artis!  Art for Art's Sake!  Metro Goldwyn Mayer used this as their slogan.  Complete in itself.  Get it? I write 'cuz it pleases me...the rest is gravy.

Now I have come full circle.  That's Johnny Depp's win proves my point...my choice.  In my mind the most celebrated actor of the first decade of the new millennium is the actor who would have done it the same way and would have continued to act no matter what the people thought or felt.  He isn't an actor because of the people.  He is an actor because it pleases him.  Art for the sake of Art.  I technically can't speak for Johnny Depp, but I get the sense he has acted and will continue to act as long as it pleases him.  If we love it too, great.  If not, that's okay!  (Plus, it seems to me it also proves that he doesn't owe any of us anything if we love him, buy tickets to his performances or vote for him, etc.  After all did he put a gun to our head to watch any of his performances or force us to love him or for that matter vote for him?)

I feel I would have somehow felt let down if Mr. Depp had implied that without the people he wouldn't be an actor or a great actor, which it appeared to me that some of the other recipients were somehow implying.  Maybe he wouldn't be as popular or as financially wealthy.  I'd like to think, as I write this with my rose colored glasses on, in some innate way, we the people sense and admire this about him as we enjoy his performances.

I guess what the BLEEP I'm trying to say is that if I was looking for an excuse to continue and to write about what pleases me and what I find exciting or interesting without worrying if you will love me or admire me or approve or appreciate my art, I feel I found it.

Party on, Garth!  Party on, Wayne!

The Business of Death

I write another blog, CaliforniVacation: SoCal Style, and articles as examiner.com's, L.A. Sightseeing Examiner.  I am happy to have the opportunity to do both.  The examiner gig allows me to be more journalistic while the CaliforniVacation gig allows me to be more loose and conversationalistic.  Still, both are primarily about sharing destinations and events in Southern California (SoCal).

This blog fills my void of writing about stuff that's makes me go "hmmm".  Simply I wonder about this.  Are there answers.  This seems like it might be fun.  No rhyme.  No reason.

I have this friend, also a blogger.  She is a fine photographer and a recent ex-Minnesotan.  She finds cemeteries beautiful.  She enjoys pondering what someones life may have been like to have the headstone which marks their grave represent them.  I'd never really thought of cemeteries in quite this way before.

Truth is I never really thought much about cememteries at all for most of my life.  I'm not sure you can call it luck but very few people in my life seemed to die.  At least very few close enough that I might be included in attending their funeral or their final cemetery resting place.  Now that I live in L.A. that's changed.  My dad, grandma and grandpa (and some great grandparents I don't really even remember) all have their remains residing at the same cemetery, Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City.  I know.  How convenient.

My aunt's parents are also resting at Holy Cross as are her aunt, uncle and some celebrities too.  My aunt and uncle are quite dutiful about visiting all of them at least two or three times a year and bringing flowers or whatever. Bless them!  When I first moved back I admit I was a little excited and fascinated about visiting and being included in their ritual.  I was also amazed and most likely will blog about a future trip to the cemetery in about a month or so.

Why?

I guess I didn't actually ever think about it much, but the first time I saw the way Holy Cross gets decorated at Christmas time by those who visit their dearly departed, I found myself a bit in awe and a little amused.

Okay, so I can understand grief.  I can understand mourning.  But they are dead people, people.  What is left is inanimate dust more or less.  In my mind I have a better chance of connecting with my loved ones when I think of them than trekking to a cemetery to visit a slab of stone covering where their lifeless body is buried.

When you drive through the iron gate of Holy Cross Cemetery you are at the entrance of 200 acres of beautifully manicured grounds.  It really is a quiet and peaceful place.

I want to be very clear that I have nothing against Holy Cross Cemetery per se.  As far as places go, I am sort of proud to have my loved ones remains residing in such a beautiful place.

NOW!  Let's visit some of the things that make me go hmmm.....

A place for the dead.  Burying.  Won't we run out of room?

What would aliens from another planet think that we preserve a dead loved one in a coffin and bury them in the ground?  We go through all of this and yet we will never see them again with our physical eyes.  And the part of them we really remember most, isn't there anymore anyway.  Doesn't it seem silly?  And doesn't it make more of a case for simply torching our cold dead bodies to "ashes to ashes, dust to dust" then?  Or put them in an urn, which takes much less room?

About 60,000 people a year die in Los Angeles County.  Wouldn't we soon run out of room to bury them all?  If each dead person needs about 8' by 4' of real estate, how long before all the real estate is consumed by dead bodies?  I'd do the math, but I don't want to?  Might just be very, very depressing.

I also wondered about the business of all of this.  In 2006 it was estimated that the business of death was booming in at about $11 billion dollars.  Yes, that is with a B.  And the average funeral at about $6,500.

All that money.  Yet as I looked around Holy Cross Cemetery grounds I couldn't help thinking of the way they have things set up and how it seems like such a metaphor that whoever you thought you were in life; rich, poor, young, old, etc. death was a great equalizer.  None of all the this and that and crying or joy or fights with others...none of it made a lick of difference to the deceased now 'cuz they are dead.

I personally didn't want any of it and had always just assumed I would want to be creamated with my ashes thrown into the Pacific Ocean that I love so much.  Then through my visits and walks through Holy Cross Cemetery it got me thinking that at least with so much of my family already residing in the same place and with more slated to reside there as their time comes, maybe I could have my cake and eat it too.

I could still be creamated.  And perhaps like Gandhi some of my ashes could be ceremoniously strewn into the ocean and the rest could reside in an urn and placed in one of the urn spots at Holy Cross Cemetery.  I mean as long as a relative is visiting, they could stop by and visit me too.  Right?

I also muse at some of the things we think about.  I know someone who has a shared site with a spouse who is already deceased.  Now that it is over ten years later and she is ten times happier with her new man, she's not so sure she wants to spend eternity in the spot she's already secured.  Then there are those who loved each other so very, very much but the husband just didn't want to be buried in the dirt.  Too dark.  So he is in the masoleum and she is in the ground.

That was the other thing that struck me as I walked around.  How do you decide where on the grounds you would want to be buried assuming you want to be buried?  If you don't want to be buried, how do you decide where in the masoleum you want to spend eternity?  Do you want the stone that is big or do you want the small one.  How much do you want written on the stone?  Which color stone?  Do you want to be by the rest of your family or should you wait?  Would you rather have an urn spot?  Do you want one you can see in or one you can't?

This particular cemetery is catholic-based and opened in 1939.  Back in the day did you have to be catholic or they turned you away?  Did you have to be white?  Have the parameters changed over the years to "get in"? Does it matter now?

And the more I pondered and walked around, the more all of this seemed to make a case for reincarnation and the like.  Is this really all there is?  Is this really where my remains will stay for all eternity?

It seems like some of the things us humans come up with that eventually become acceptable and the norm, why don't we question them more?

And I don't really have any answers for you.  According to the article I found on the Business of Death, it would appear that much of what is driving the $11 billion industry is that individuals want to have lavish and personalized funerals as a sort of last hurrah.  So as silly as it all seems to me, who am I to say what is or is not silly to you.

One of the residents at Holy Cross Cemetery is Bela Lugosi, the original movie Dracula, who was buried in his Dracula cape.  We have to take this on faith 'cuz we can't see into his coffin or tell from his quite plain grave marker whether this is really true or folk legend.  If that is how he wanted to go or if you want to be buried with your golf clubs, who am I to say?

And with that, that is all the BLEEP I wish to blog about today.

Oh yeah!  Happy Halloween.