Plague Journal, Wanted Dead Or Alive
How do I write this morning?
I did not listen to the debate last night. I cannot expose myself to a litany of lies, which is nothing other than emotional abuse. Mentally and emotionally I have suffered enough from the verbal battering that accompanies the President of the United States.
Nevertheless I found sleep with difficulty last night. Aware that the “debate” between Biden and Trump was conducted by ABC News, I lay awake, attempting to shift my conscious mind to focus upon my breathing. It’s a meditation technique to calm the mind. It didn’t seem to work. I am out of practice. An hour passed. I got up to take a double dose of melatonin. Did it help? I cannot say. The natural sleep aid involves less hazard than a late evening tumbler of coconut rum, night after night.
Sure enough, here is what I read while at breakfast a few minutes ago in the New York Times .
But the debate wasn’t normal by the standards of nearly all of American history. It wasn’t normal because one of the nominees — the sitting president — told one lie after another. He did so about the virus, North Korea, China, Russia, climate change, his own health care policy, Joe Biden’s health care policy, Biden’s finances and the immigrant children who were separated from their parents.
I understand you may be tired of hearing about President Trump’s untruths. I’m tired of writing about them. They hardly qualify as surprising anymore.
But it’s impossible to analyze a debate filled with untruths without first acknowledging them. They undermine an event meant to highlight differences between candidates. They undermine democracy. To ignore them is to miss the biggest story: a president trying to construct his own reality.
— excerpt, The Final Debate by David Leonhardt, New York Times Oct 23, 2020
How does one sleep when a time yet to come for our nation is being created at this moment, in these days? Which alternative future will the voters chose on November the 3rd? Will it even matter, the choice of the voter? One can only lay awake for so long. Sleep eventually comes. In Japan I once fell asleep while standing, riding in a train.
I want to offer this song. The lyric is about becoming numb as you search for sleep. Also, it is about our fate, inescapable. We are descendants of those who exiled communities already living here from their homes. We killed many of them. The founding wealth of the nation came from enslaved peoples imported from Africa. Should we be surprised that we instinctively feel like a gunfighter without any expectation of a “natural” death? We are haunted, as if wanted “dead or alive,” descendants of an outlaw gang. And the lyric is about time which passes, yet nothing changes, — not really.
It’s all the same, only the names will change
Every day it seems we’re wasting away
The lyric line is also about music, how that music is the bond which keeps us together. Some must play, and some of us must listen. With that six-string the one who plays, and those who come to listen both “play for keeps.”
Let’s continue to stand tall my friends.
Wanted Dead Or Alive
By Bon Jovi
It’s all the same, only the names will change
Every day it seems we’re wasting away
Another place where the faces are so cold
I’d drive all night just to get back home
I’m a cowboy, on a steel horse I ride
I’m wanted dead or alive
Wanted dead or alive
Sometimes I sleep, sometimes it’s not for days
And the people I meet always go their separate ways
Sometimes you tell the day
By the bottle that you drink
And times when you’re alone all you do is think
I’m a cowboy
On a steel horse I ride
I’m wanted, wanted, dead or alive
Wanted (wanted) dead or alive
Oh and I ride!
I’m a cowboy
On a steel horse I ride
I’m wanted (wanted) dead or alive
And I walk these streets, a loaded six-string on my back
I play for keeps, ’cause I might not make it back
I’ve been everywhere, and still I’m standing tall
I’ve seen a million faces and I’ve rocked them all
‘Cause I’m a cowboy, on a steel horse I ride
I’m wanted dead or alive
‘Cause I’m a cowboy, I got the night on my side
I’m wanted dead or alive
And I ride dead or alive
I still drive, dead or alive
Dead or alive
Dead or alive
Dead or alive
Dead or alive
Written by Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Samora