I am well acquainted with gun violence. I've witnessed gun violence my enter life. My father was a hunter and was very good at the hunt. My father taught me gun safety and how you shoot to kill. I was maybe 12 or 13 when I made my first kill. The old man was so proud. I suppose I was "blooded." Then 1963 and President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Shot in his head and that was on live television. I saw the top and inside of Kennedy's head fly over the back of his limo as did America and probably the world. I saw the Kennedy assassin get assassinated on live television. The Texas Tower Shooting in 1966. That was after the riots of 1965. Vietnam produced a continual stream of North Vietnamese being shot, bombed, tossed out of helicopters and, dang if'n that wasn't some fun. Vietnamese Buddhist Monks set themselves on fire in protest of all the other death. Live and on tv at dinnertime. Martin Luther King Jr was shot in 1968 then came the assassination of Robert Kennedy ... again 1968. Then came the fun times and years of drug addiction. During the interim, there were numerous gun violence deaths but I was busy paying attention to dope. Then came the karma and I went to jail to detox and damn did that ever suck. Made a believer out of me. To stay clean and have done so ever since. So when I was locked up I received a phone call in jail which NEVER happens. The raftees MUST make collect calls so, my youngest brother was on the phone and informed me that my father had taken his own life by eliminating most of his head with his Browning 12 gauge automatic shotgun. There was not shit I was able to do being locked up and all AND my judge was in no mood to grant me a "family emergency" jail release. I'd dicked my judge once prior to the grim news and I was unable to attend the old man's funeral. Just as well as my family blamed me for my father's suicide. Splattered his head all over the inside of his garage. Not my fault and it took a number of years for me to come to grips with the pain of not being able to ask the old man ... what the hell. So and to my point of all this personal venting of horrors witnessed over a lifetime and a damn long lifetime that I never dreamed of being able to pull off.
To the victims of gun violence and more to the point, the survivors of gun violence ... the roaring burning pain you feel at present does not ever go away. You will be haunted with questions ... "what could I have done ...?" There is nothing that could be done or answers provided and that in and of itself is a fair portion of the grief you'll experience over the coming years. I mean it will take years and years just to be able to get a modest hold on the knots and haunts that come in your dreams, your waking daydreams, your every waking thought is never far from your grief. Over time you'll learn to live with the torment. Hopefully anyway. I know your pain and I can tell you of the torment AND that godawful feeling of not being able to get an answer to all those questions. The horror can be a valid teacher over time and you can get some answers sort of but mostly you'll be able to empathize with the others that are to be victimized in the near and far off future.
All that I can tell you is ... the gun violence will be like an albatross hung around America's neck and that violence isn't about to cease anytime soon and that is for the most part ... unacceptable.
Now for machine art and Friday machine art at that
light -
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djinn -
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there is simply no excuse for violence, gun violence, war violence but ... we face the violence everyday. some may never face it so they should count themselves as lucky. gun violence is never very far off and that violence comes unannounced. 😐
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