Charley Socci

Wow… Michael Jackson is gone. We are a bit beside ourselves in this household. Its hard to imagine that the death of someone you never knew could stir such emotion.

I guess in a way I feel like I did know him. At least I knew him through his music and his videos. I always respected and admired his prodigious talent to the highest degree.

As a little kid, just seven years younger than Michael, I grew up seeing him perform on television with the Jackson 5. Ben was one of the first songs I learned to play on the piano. I always loved that song.

His songs and singing alone were magic, coupled with unparalleled showmanship he became a one of a kind performer.

I know he brightened many a dreary day for me through his music. What he gave his audiences and his fans is amazing, wonderful, and as close to anything divine I can possibly think of.

I spent many moments of my day today choked up. I listened to him on the train on my in to work. I watched the news during my workout at the gym. I thought about him all day. I just can’t get over it.

I don’t know whether to follow that ever present impulse to move and groove when they play his clips on CNN, or hang my head and cry knowing the show is over.

I was recently thinking about my days as a music student in Jackie McLean’s African-American Jazz Studies department at Hartt. I’m not sure why exactly. It might have something to do with recently reviewing my transcripts in the process of applying to graduate school (not for music). A great deal of the non-music education in that environment was about delineating hip from not-hip, white from black, or “European Western Classical” from “African”.

It might also have something to do with a book I’m reading called Human: The Science Behind What Makes Us Unique by Michael Gazzaniga. He discusses something called “in group and out group bias”. We’ve evolved to prefer members we identify as being part of our in-group.

I also remembered an elementary school social studies lesson that involved a 16mm film with no words called, “Us and Them” - the film basically showed a group with signs that said “Us” looking across a body of water at a group with signs that said “Them”. Then some of the “Us” folks swam over to the “Thems” to find out that the “Thems” were now “Us” and vice versa. Kind of clever, even if it was a bit hokey.

It may also be that the more I read about religious belief, politics, and the like: the more I see these biases. So much so that the conclusions of otherwise seemingly reasonable people completely defy logic and fact.

Take an example at Hartt. A very famous jazz bassist came to the school for a master class one day. He became very angry and irritated when he saw a video camera in the room, placed by one of the students. The camera was turned off. He then proceeded to pronounce jazz as an African-American art form, which it is. However, it is born of ancestors who were both forced slaves dragged from Africa, as well as European music in the form of hymns, parade music, brass bands, etc. He proceeded to spend the next hour explaining that there were no significant white pioneers in jazz music and all of the contributions had been made by blacks. This particular musician is a graduate of a famed classical conservatory - and the entire time he clutched a 250 year old Italian bass violin in his hands… Another example from Hartt would be the statement in one class that “Western European culture is over-obsessed with analyzing everything…”, a statement made by a famous saxophonist, who’s instrument was invented in Belgium, refined in France, and has evolved in great part due to the study of acoustics.

Those are just two examples from school. Consider the people that claim the Earth is 6000 years old. Consider others who believe Noah’s Flood was a literal event, despite species that we now know reproduce asexually… and with no regard for dinosaurs, fossil history, and vast evidence to the contrary.

It is hard to argue politics or religion. I think a mark of a real intellectual, or maybe just being a real grown-up, is realizing there are many sides to everything. Nothing is black and white.

It is never Us and Them. We are all a little of both.

If I am to trust recent DNA studies and the ongoing study of paleo-anthropology (and I do), we *all* came from Africa 60,000 years ago - from common ancestors. The DNA evidence is there. The same DNA evidence that sends men and women to death row shows our common heritage on the African continent 60,000 years ago.

These are the facts that emerge. Science, unlike religion, undergoes a constant and welcome revision. We interpret the facts, make theories, test them… and when they no longer hold up, we find more facts, revise our theories and test them again. This is the problem I have with the criticism of John Kerry as a “flip flopper”… BRIGHT people flip flop. When the information changes, they revise and adapt. There is nothing noble about standing your ground when the evidence changes. There is nobility in being able to say you were wrong, despite your best efforts, and adapt…

Historically, religion has held our fact finding and theorizing back. Galileo was nearly put to death, and forced to live under arrest for supporting Copernicus’ theory that the planets revolved around the sun - despite his invention of something called the telescope. The church’s refusal to accept fact persisted even into the 1700’s, long after Isaac Newton - and long after the mathematics were in place to explain planetary movement around the sun.

I’ve been called an idealist (I’ve also been called a lot less nice things too…). It seems to me like the sooner people can give up the things that cause them these black and white, in-group/out-group, us and them biases the sooner we’ll have a peaceful planet to live on.

I never was a big John Lennon fan… and in my early years I though that “Imagine” song was a crock. But you know what, I actually think he had something there. Yes, I really do…

Imagine

Imagine there’s no Heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one

Believe it or not… Nearly 50% of American adults believe God created human beings in their present form within the last 10,000 years… I guess I’m glad at least a third are at least trying to reconcile creationism with the science that has been staring us in the face since Origin of Species was first published in 1859 and continues to enlighten. DNA evidence is accepted as fact in 50 states and sends men to death row. Ought to be good enough for everyone, no? Check out Dr. Spencer Well’s Genographic Project at National Geographic. It is fascinating.

Just for fun, let’s do some comparison dating…

1 - invention of the wheel 5,500 years ago

2 - domestication of the dog 15,000 years ago (must have been Satan)

3 - oldest known cave paintings 32,000 years ago (Satan again?)

( Gallup Poll. May 8-11, 2008. N=1,017 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3.)

Kristin sent me this and I had to post it. I have to say I really admire the General and the President for being such good sports to play along. The troops must have had a good and well earned laugh…

steam train is coming
at full spead, clickity clack
on time to nowhere

steam train before me
can the engineer see me
I wave my arms, stop!

steam train overhead
my screams masked by the rumble
I lie on tracks

steam train on its way
through the dark shadowed valley
running off the tracks

steam train far away
I tried so hard to stop it
But flesh can’t beat steel

An Open Letter To My Religious Friends:

To All You Believers:

I am not a religious person. I am an agnostic. I neither deny nor accept belief in an anthropromorphic deity who influences the day to day affairs of mortal human beings.

This does not by definition mean I think less of my friends who find comfort and meaning in their faith.

This does not mean I think their prayers or faith are without value. In fact, I believe they are very powerful. The only difference is that I believe their power can be explained without the inclusion of a supernatural god.

Some of the most dear people to me are religious people. I value them. I’m grateful that they think of me and pray for me. Again, I believe in the power of prayer, but more importantly, I believe in the power of human beings.

Many great people in history were agnostic or atheistic.

Religion motivated men to fly airplanes into the Towers on 9/11. Religion motivated the slaughter of entire nations right here in the good old USA. Religion was used by the churches and even Robert E. Lee as an excuse for African slavery. I have no use for organized religion. Zero.

Again, this is not to say that I think less of my religious friends. I believe there is a process that they experience in practicing their faith - much like the process I experience when I make music, or write - and if their mode of exercising that process is in a traditional church I have no issue with that what-so-ever. I think faith and belief are beautiful things. I simply prefer to find the beauty and place my faith in things that I can touch and see.

I spent the entire first half of my life as first a believer, and then as a skeptic who wanted to believe. I read the Bible. I got baptized again. I prayed - “God you gave me a marvelous, analytical brain. You gave me the ability to be objective and demand facts and proof… I want to believe, but what? Guide me. Help me. I don’t want to anger you or deny you… Let it become clear to me…” I investigated other religions. I read about history. I followed world events. I could not answer the question of why a Hindu God, Roman God, Greek God, Native-American Spirit, Pagan Goddess, or NO god is any more false than the Christian god. I was rational. My heart stayed open. I put aside my fear.

My “decision” to “become” an agnostic is the result of very deep and meaningful searching. Please do not deny that. Please do not try to debate me with proof or evidence. I’ve considered all of it already. We can’t have a rational argument about it. Faith in the unseen is not rational - therefore logic does not apply, so there is no argument. Again, if it brings meaning to you that is wonderful.

It is perfectly possible to lead a happy, productive, thoughtful, caring, giving, loving, charitable life as an agnostic or atheist. In fact, there is scientific evidence confirming that these traits are genetic and selected because they promote the survival of human society. It IS good to be good - and fear of a burning eternal inferno is not required.

Some Quotes:

Thomas Jefferson - I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology.

Albert Einstein - It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. … Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death. Albert Einstein, “Religion and Science”, New York Times Magazine, 9 November 1930

Benjamin Franklin - The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason: The Morning Daylight appears plainer when you put out your Candle. Benjamin Franklin, the incompatibility of faith and reason, Poor Richard’s Almanack (1758)

Frank Lloyd Wright - I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.

President James Madison - What has been Christianity’s fruits? Superstition, Bigotry and Persecution.

Thomas Edison - I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious ideas of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God. So far as religion of the day is concerned, it is a damned fake… Religion is all bunk.

It appears I’m not alone…

I’ve given a fair amount of thought to death.

It isn’t something I talk to other people about very often, death, so I can’t say I really know very much about what other people think. It does seem to me that there is a lot of denial. Religion attempts to soothe our worried minds with a promise of everlasting life. Thoughts of things like euthanasia or assisted suicide are beyond rational consideration. Doctor shows and drug company ads seem based on the premise that death is the ultimate failure. Life must be preserved and maintained at all costs lest we give in to a simple fact: everybody dies.

Someday I will die. You will too.

I realized that there are a few simple questions that when I faced honestly were very enlightening.

A dear friend once said to me that when she died she hoped to go to a wonderful place and be reunited with her lost friends and relatives. Its a very lovely thought, but it’s veracity is neither here nor there for me. What really made me think was the statement that followed, where she explained that if she were to find out there was no after-life, no heaven, and no friends waiting on the other side she would get a gun and blow her brains out.

I tried to imagine the millions of people living in misery, enduring pain with the hope that something better will await them when they die. Being the person I am, I of course had to pose the question - what if there isn’t anything?

I realized at that moment that regardless of a heaven, regardless of religion, living this life in misery only to hope for better luck or a happy reunion in the next is madness.

Immediately I asked myself a very important question: if I were to die tonight - if I knew I had an hour or two left - how would it feel? Would I feel frightened? Sad? Angry? Relieved? Guilty? Happy? It might be a little bit of all those things. But that question put my life into immediate perspective.

I realized that when my physical body is gone, the things that will be left of me are the impressions and effects I had on others. There is my wife, my children, my job. There are the students I have had. There are the people I was unfair or unjust to. There are the people who read my blog. There  are people who love and who hate me.

So if I were to die tonight, what could I say of these relationships? Did I make my wife happy? Did I give my children enough information, enough of myself? Did I teach them? Did they know how much I cared about them and that the *only* thing I ever wanted from them was to see them happy and perhaps share in that joy? Was I an honest worker and did I serve my disciplines well? Was I a good teacher, and did I give my students anything good that they carried forward in their lives? Did I leave even a single reader with a kernel of something that sparked some positive change in their life? Did I try to take responsibility for my mistakes and make up for them if possible? Will even those who hate me, have enough respect to say I tried?

And what if I were given ten more years? Would I use them to be sure I left a rich legacy to those that follow me?

This is *my* concept of ever lasting life.

Some Buddhists meditate on the image of a corpse decomposing. I once read of Buddhist monks who would go to burial grounds of another religion (Zoroastrians?) who left their dead to decay in the open. There they would meditate on death and their own mortality.

A little creepy maybe, but doesn’t it make you value life just thinking about it? Does it shift your focus? I hope I can learn to better make the most of mine.

- link: my visit to an outdoor crematorium and grave yard in Mumbai (Bombay) India

My only brother was Joey. He was born in December 1964, which made him fourteen months older than me.

He was a Downs Syndrome baby. He was severely retarded and spent his entire life at a mental age of between two and four years.

He was primarily a happy child. Much of my early childhood experience revolves around doing what was best for Joey. I was raised with the belief that his care would be my primary responsibility when we grew up. The phrase, “…my brother’s keeper…” was one I learned early and thought about often.

As a young adolescent I moved away from my brother emotionally. As I continued to try and pursue my own life as a young adult, the distance became greater.

Toward the end of his life, my brother’s personality changed drastically. He went from being outgoing to withdrawn, happy and complacent to angry and violent.

My mother didn’t know what to do for him. She had taken him to a string of psychiatrists, neurologists and others. Nothing helped him. It was suspected by some at that time that there is an Alzheimer’s-like syndrome that occurs in Down’s patients in some cases. This remains the only physical explanation for his outbursts. Whatever perception he had of himself - perhaps an understanding that he would never grow out of his limitations - was never discussed. There was little anyone could do. He was becoming physically dangerous and decisions had to be made.

My Mother committed him to a very prestigious psychiatric hospital. This was utter desperation on her part since the main propulsion through her own adult life had been “keeping Joey at home…”. Indeed she had participated in many efforts to close the state institutions and integrate the mentally challenged into public life.

After a few weeks she brought him home. She installed a wire barrier and removed the door handles in her car so he could ride in back without incident. She hired various and sundry people to come to the house and help out.

He was sick when he left the hospital. She thought it was a cold. It got worse, and he appeared to be very ill. She took him to the ER.

This was the same day in 1992 that I had decided to try making my move to New York City permanent. I had been living with my mother in-between traveling gigs and trying to build a career. She called me in New York and told me that he had been admitted, tubed, and was on a respirator.

I returned home. My brother had a very severe case of pneumonia. His chest x-rays, to quote one physician, looked as though someone had painted them with White Out. I later went to school at that same hospital and studied to be an x-ray tech. For one of my assignments I checked out his films. The school didn’t work out, but we’ll save that for another story.

His oxygen saturation plummeted lower and lower. The doctors explained that his organs were all still working well, but that they would eventually fail. One nurse pointed to his catheter bag and showed me the urine which meant his kidneys were still functioning.

It was explained to me that the respirator was set as high as it could go. The oxygen concentration being delivered to him was high. The oxygen saturation was below the level necessary to sustain him and going lower. The pulmonologist assured us that he was not going to get better. The medical staff assured us that there was no brain activity and we needed to make a decision.

My mother decided that they should turn off the machine. My dad and his wife came. The doctor and a nurse came in the room and the doctor turned down the dial on the machine. He explained that he was turning down the supplemental oxygen and left the machine on. The machine would continue to fill my brother’s lungs with air from the room.

I sat next to him and held his hand. He was very swollen and a fungus had started attacking his eyes - likely a side-effect from the massive antibiotics they had given him to fight the pneumonia.

The monitor beeped with every beat of his heart, and I watched the line trace across the screen.

The doctor turned down the dial. My brother’s face turned immediately bright purple. The beeps began to slow down and the predictable line began to zig-zag across the monitor unpredictably.

His body arched up from the bed. The doctor explained that the muscles were in spasm from the lack of oxygen.

My father left the room.

Soon the spasm settled. The line went flat. The beeps were silenced and we made plans for his funeral.

My brother was gone.

Kristin loaded the DVD, which arrived from Netflix after much anxious anticipation… An intelligent and satirical look at fundamentalist religion… A focus on the politics of religion… What could be better?

Since this is MY blog - and I reserve the right to say whatever I want - I’ll tell you, briefly, what my own feelings are.

1. I’m an Agnostic.

2. The God that many teach about, the one that picks sides in battles, the one that brings floods, famines, and disease… is mythology.

3. As far as a supernatural omnipotent power goes, or a heavenly father (or mother if you prefer) of some kind - I’m not ready to say I *know* anything one way or another. I especially affirm that I do not *know* enough about any such being or power to preach for it, kill or torture for it. I’ve said before - we are born of stardust. The physical bits inside all of us came from a common place. Science will not argue with that statement, and neither will religion. We are related. It seems highly unlikely to me that there is anything or anyone intervening in our daily lives - giving blessings to some and cursing others. But the fact is, I don’t *know*. And frankly, I’m pretty certain nobody else knows either.

4. I believe in reason. I believe in tolerance. I believe in the ability of human beings to treat each other fairly, and kindly - without fear of a fiery hell or supernatural judgment.

Back to Bill Maher. The themes of his movie were interesting to me: superstition, church and state, fear, and the political danger of self-fulfilling prophecy like Armageddon. This is all scary stuff.

Back to me. I came to my agnostic viewpoint by way of great personal searching. I was “born again” in a Pentecostal church. I went to Sunday school and attended the Congregational Church as a child. I was baptized as an infant; and again by my own choosing in Long Island Sound as an adult. I read the Bible cover to cover. I could simply not reconcile my own experience, education, and reasoning with what the dogma that my religious friends held dearly. So, not being able to make sense out of the need to be, “washed in the blood”, I quit going to church. I continued to search. Ultimately, I came to the place I am now.

I feel quite at peace right now in terms of my beliefs and disbeliefs. What hurts me now is what I see on the world stage. I see the manipulation of people through religion. I see religion as an excuse for genocide. I see divisive and tragic consequences. I think human kind would be better off without any religion at all.

Back to Bill Maher… I think there were two things that offended me the most. The first, was where Bill Maher visited a truck stop. The truck stop had a chapel that was set up inside the back of a large semi trailer. There was a preacher and several men in the chapel. There were hands in the air, and Hallelujahs, and plenty of “Praise God”’s… Bill Maher came in with his camera and crew and tried to make these guys look like idiots. I’ve got a whole lot of not so nice things to say about the “moral majority” and the attitudes and policies of right wing Christian *groups* as a *whole* - but leave these guys alone.

The second thing that offended me quite deeply was when Mr. Maher interviewed Rabbi Yisroel Weiss from Neturei Karta International, an anti-Zionist grouping of Haredi Jews. Rabbi Weiss tried to explain his position quite calmly and rationally to Mr. Maher, yet Mr. Maher refused to let him speak. Next, we are shown footage of the Rabbi meeting and embracing Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad’s now infamous comment on Israel’s existence (the one quoted by John McCain last year with little effect) was brought up to the Rabbi - who neither defended nor rebuked it. Next, we were shown Mr. Maher in an East Jerusalem Mosque, speaking to the Imam. Many seconds of the footage are devoted to a woman praying in the corner as the religion dictates - to illustrate the “misogyny” of the religion and culture. A man from the Mosque walks by and asks, with great disgust, “What is that Jew doing here… I’ve seen his show… It sucks… He isn’t even funny…”. We are told the Muslim’s built this Mosque on a Jewish holy site and won’t let the Jews come in. We are told a statistic of Muslims to Jews that outnumbers Jews a thousand to one. I *think* Mr. Maher’s implication is that Israel is the underdog. It wasn’t quite clear. Mr. Maher conveniently slips between his Catholic Father and Catholic education and his Mother’s Judaism to identify himself. Yet he was not raised in a Jewish home, nor did he receive Jewish education, nor does he keep Jewish laws and traditions. Any Rabbi will tell you that means he is *not* Jewish. So it isn’t clear exactly what Mr. Maher is trying to say at times. At this point, the whole raison d’etre of the film is suspect. It degenerates into a rather poorly edited set of compiled sequences of Mr. Maher trying to make fun of people.

I’ve already stated how I feel about the Israeli - Palestine political situation. Just read my post on Palestine. Regardless of world populations of Muslims and Jews, Israel has Palestine in a death grip. East Jerusalem is an important holy city to *both* sides and a major issue in all negotiations that have taken place between both sides. The streets are still ruled by Israeli soldiers carrying machine guns. The check points still exist. Palestinians voting in East Jerusalem are still intimidated by armed Israeli police and soldiers when they go to vote. None of these things were mentioned at all. It should also be said that many Palestinians can not even GO to East Jerusalem, because to do so would require crossing borders inside Israel that Palestinians are not allowed to cross.

Thanks for your objectivity Mr. Maher. You are no better than the religious zealots you so love to poke fun at. (and your movie sucks)