Descend into the Maelstrom

On Friday night, I was waiting for a friend at the entrance to Ultra New York, a large gathering of DJs in Central Park’s Summerstage such as Danny Tenaglia, Paul Oakenfold, Chemical Bros., etc.   I was enjoying a cold beer.  Suddenly a distant taste association entered my head- a flavor I had only experienced once, many years ago.  The memory of gripe water was so powerful, it was as if the beer was actually gripe water as I swirled it around in my mouth.

It was 1987.  My sister and I were playing with my 6-month old cousin in a mall while my aunt shopped.  We were holding onto some of my cousin’s gripe water.  In case you don’t know, gripe water is a pleasant, minty-sweet clear drink with a small trace of alchohol.  It’s given to babies so that they’ll chill out a bit.  It was in a little bottle, with a cute baby boy on the label; my sister and I helped ourselves to small sprinkles of it.  I loved it instantly, but never had any ever again.

Why is the episode on Friday night worth mentioning in a post?  I think it brings up bigger questions.  I am always interested in probing the bigger questions.

1) Where the heck did the memory come from?  I know our brain stores millions of memories in some sort of hard drive.  But why did it come forth at that very moment?  It couldn’t be the techno music because I’m pretty sure that the mall we were hanging out at in 1987 wasn’t playing techno.  I’ve heard that music, smells, tastes, etc. can prompt a memory.  But what could prompt a memory of a taste itself?  Perhaps another taste, but this would be strange because Budweiser’s flavor, color, and texture has no resemblance whatsoever to gripe water (it’s not carbonated), except maybe the alcoholic content.  One would think that a Bud would have reminded me of another time I had a Bud, or at least a beer of some sort.  But no.

2) Why didn’t I attempt to procure gripe water in the last 18 years?  This is the kicker.  If I remembered gripe water for all this time, and thought it was good, and could have bought it at pretty much any time I really wanted to, why didn’t I?  It’s not cheap, at something like $10 for a little bottle, but that’s still less than a movie in New York.  I know I’ve had the gripe water memory periodically over the last 18 years.

2a) Why don’t I go out and buy some gripe water right now?  I think I will.  It makes sense.  I’m on a mission now.  I hope it tastes as good as I remember it.  But a disturbing thought follows: why am I singling out this particular Friday night memory as the one that pushed me toward buying gripe water?  How could advertising agencies take advantage of all this?

3) Lest you think this is all useless babble, I’m sure it happens to you too.  Maybe it’s not gripe water.  Maybe it’s not even a taste.  You could be strolling down the street one day, and suddenly think of that time you got a wedgie in fourth grade in the locker room after Gym.  Maybe you’ll even feel it.

In conclusion, don’t be alarmed if you see me carrying a flask of good ol’ gripe to the soiree.  I won’t be alarmed if you attempt to take liberties with my flask.  Or if you contort your face as if you were in excruciating pain from that fourth-grade memory.   

So I’ve been hearing people talk about a doomsday scenario.  Of course I have no proof of any of it.  More importantly, it’s not going to change my daily plans a god damn bit.  "When your number’s up, your number’s up." I’ve lived a good life already.

Some quarters believe that Al-Qaeda has been working with and financing MS-12, a Central American organized crime syndicate, to bring nuclear weaponry into the United States to blow shit up.  I met someone today who read blog conjecture that a possible target is NYC on 9/13, when world leaders congregate for a big UN meeting.  Some terrorist monkey in Pakistan has ordered the killing of 4 million Americans, half of whom should be children.

Personally I have no faith that the world’s intelligence services are good enough to prevent this from happening.  Without going into any politics, I can tell you the following facts:

a) there are monkeys out there that want to do this

b) we can’t account for all the nuclear materials around the world or the monkeys who play with them

c) the technology exists for people to make this happen

d) clearly we don’t prevent people from crossing our borders

e) Our government can’t manage to prevent a city’s destruction from a forecasted natural disaster, which we knew could happen for many decades, let alone an unpredictable large-scale attack

f) America would wreak some ill vengeance on some part of the world to get even

Put all this together and I fear for what could happen.  I’m not sure if mankind will be able to escape a nuclear disaster, or even holocaust, forever.  We were very very lucky that the Cuban missile crisis was diffused.  We’ve only been playing with this nuclear stuff in the last seven decades or so, a small moment in the history of man.  The technology continues to get better every day.  Yes, I’m being cynical today and you know that I’m usually not the cynic.

Enough on the doomsday $hit.  I have faith that there is a plan of some sort for the universe.  Be well.

* OK so I deleted my two previous posts because I think they sucked and other people did too- including chapter 1 of an unpublished novel manuscript which needs a lot of work.  So in essence this is my first post on my first blog. 

* Katrina, Katrina.  Besides being a major female character in the aforementioned novel manuscript, she is the friggin’ hurricane that rocked through the South this week.  Damn.  My first thoughts earlier this week were, how are they going to prevent the looting?  Because if I had a thieving mind and lived in New’Ollins, the first thing I would have done was weaponize my person, and go steal me some good shit.  If I were a thief, I wasn’t leaving town: copless, home and business owners gone, stuff free for the taking.  First stop: a good cajun restaurant where I could get me a phat Po’Boy sammach.  Next stop: a Mercedes-Benz dealer.  Me and Lorenzo would take the Benzo (SUV- holds more stuff) over to Circuit City or Best Buy- oh shit, can’t do that, too much water.  So instead I’d swim to Circuit City or Best Buy…oh shit, how do we get the DVD player out?  The XXX DVD collection will have to wait.  Eff it, I’d camp out until the water level went down.  People are doing a lot of damage out there.  In any case I thought the government response has been poor… I work in the public sector and would like to think NYC would respond better to the lawlessness, the humanitarian crisis, the search and rescue.  9/11 taught us Yanks a few things the hard way.  And I think the blackout shows that NYC won’t descend into lawlessness as easily as it would have in the 70’s…

* So my mom tells me she is starting to get inquiries about marriage proposals for me.  Ah, it’s interesting to be a Konkani.  She says that people aren’t as enticed when they find out that I "only have a Bachelor’s degree."  The community is saturated with doctors, lawyers, engineers with Master’s degrees, etc. so I’m essentially chopped liver.  In her own way my mom is trying to convince me that grad school is something I have to do immediately.  She’s pulling out all the punches, alright.  I would tell her to tell them all that I have a PhD- Pretty huge Dick- if only I had the Balls.