The Good Life

What is it? The Harold B Gill Foundation, LLC Reflects

It’s another day in the bonus round of the game of “Beat The Reaper” and so far, I’m still in the running to make it to the finish line where the reaper will be meeting me.

Yesterday, we were greeted with the news that the senator from South Carolina had expired on Saturday night. There is speculation about another senator’s health. I don’t know. I just know how these things seem to me. I could be mistaken. It’s happened before and, when it comes to these matters, I’m slow to speculate. I’ll leave that to the pundits.

Meanwhile, Substack seems to me to be the media of the future. We can write our reports from the frontlines and, as I often do, step out onto the street to capture raw journalism - recording the “who, what, when, and where” of it all. I think of these things as possible primary documentation for research historians of the future. I do all my work with no edits. It’s the raw input that the world provides. My most popular capture is here:

These days, it’s much more usual for my captures to be a video blog.

As usual, when I sat down here, I had another purpose in mind but the fingers to to walking on the keyboard and that part of my brain that thinks of things to write is overridden by that part that actually writes. The former now breaks through.

My late father lived a good life. His father too. The latter was able to expire in his chair in his living room while reading The Cactus Air Force which, I imagine, was helping him feel close to his late younger brother, who had been in the South Pacific during World War II. CC Gill had passed away just a short time earlier. They all tended go by cardiac arrest. My late father didn’t have a DNR where it could be found easily, so the paramedics responding to his last fall in the master bath did what they had to do. He’d expire in the hospital the next day but, in the silver-lining department, his sister was able to come down to be at his side. She’d turning 96 on Friday, I believe. Both my father and my grandfather got a chance to pack a lot of life into their years, I suppose that was my main thought.

I, too, have put a lot into my years. Lately, I’ve been keeping it much closer to home. I go down to Williamsburg from time to time and up to Philadelphia to see musicians about whom I care, and that’s about it. Otherwise, I can be found here in the bunker. I like to walk the streets of DC and I enjoy recording "The Passing Show” as I call my video blogs. It’s a service and is creating a body of work. What will become of it, I don’t know and I don’t really think much beyond my intent that it be available as a possible resource for research historians of the future. Application of the tools that the future may develop could mean that this is something of a significant resource. It might just be keeping me entertained. My entertainment is important to me.

Lived Experience

It’s all about lived experience and preserving something of it for others to experience also. It’s about being embodied in the world with all that entails. Above all, it’s about attempting to be a good ancestor. No matter what else happens, I’ll be out here writing about my impressions of the journey from dawn to dusk and back again. I’ll be thinking back over all the experiences that I have had and pouring out what I can for you all to also see and hear. I’ll be writing; tapping out these symbols into the editor interface on Substack and marveling if anything is read at all. I’ll be reading many of you and doing what I can to amplify your signals through the noise of cyberspace.

We are, after all, in a data glut phase of history. It’s piling up more rapidly than we can track. Our primate brains are overwhelmed with information but it cannot truly be said to be knowledge until it is experienced in ways that construct meaning in our lives. At least, those are the thoughts emerging in the present moment.

Oftentimes, I’m pointing at other authors out here. I’m quite often throwing in a clip of some music that I find meaningful. There’s really nothing that can beat lived experience though and this is often on my mind as I make my way through the day.

The pleroma has seen fit to serve this up after the Samantha Fish clip above:

Sharing the lived experience of living “one day at a time,” as Joe is speaking of in this tune, is an important part of my life. Initially, here, I played my cards close to my chest. However, I’m opening up more about it. I found myself really going out on a limb lately, largely due to what a friend of mine is out there in the world has been experiencing at the hands of his “sponsor” and recovery community. He sent me a little screenshot of some person’s list of why “AA” is a cult. AA isn’t, but a lot of people can drift into cultish behaviors within the framework if they do nothing to learn and practice the principles laid out in AA.org. To this end, I shared this a day ago:

I hope anyone with an interest, especially those of you who consider yourselves members of the fellowship of AA, will take the time to read the note above. It’s really important that we get some real knowledge of what the social movement that is AA actually says, versus what people think it says.

Amplifying Signals

I am nothing, if not an amplifier. One of the voices that I do my best to amplify is that of a molecular biologist living down in Tijuana, Mexico, the Everyday Junglist. His “shoot from the hip” intellect suits mine and fires my imagination beyond what most of my friends manage to do. I so appreciate his voice and this post in particular:

How Much Power Do You Really Have?

Nearly everything that this guy does has a positive influence on my thinking and he deserves amplification.

Another person who is consistently inspiring is Patti Smith whose creative output includes Jesse Paris Smith. I first encountered these two years ago at the Lincoln Theater where Patti was being interviewed about her book M Train which came out after Just Kids. I was watching one of Patti’s latest dispatches from Europe in which she talked about letting out a howl as she was exposed to the news of the day:

CATCHING UP1

If you haven’t yet found these contributions to the commentary of our times, please click above.

There are so many others who are doing good work out here in the world and are worthy of amplification. Some are more accessible than others. Here is another:

Act always in accordance with conscience...

I could go on, and often do, but there is also another matter battering on my consciousness for access to the screen here:

Embodied Experience

Within me is that to which no other has access. It is that light that illuminates the interiority and where the catalog of my experiences resides. It is embodied here and dependent on the machinery of being, apparently, for its continuation in time and space. What’s brought this to mind?

This:

The rhythm and emotionality that emerges in this performance reminded me of my body and its drives. We ought not discount this aspect of ourselves. I have been so fortunate in this particular area of life and continue to be. There is energy there. There is a strong “will to live" embodied in this music. It reminds me that love is energy and, I would say, it’s anti-entropy. The creative drive that has led to me being here now. Listen to the whole thing.

Again, a memory, much more recent, comes to mind of being in the Lincoln Theater for Robert Plant and Saving Grace. He’s still out there doing what he does so well. The joy of making music together is not far from my heart either. In fact, I was back in my hometown doing it again just recently. Drummers Call is an annual event initiated in the 2000s by my generation’s Sergeant Major, Lance Pedigo. We’ve shared quite a few experiences over the years. For his birthday, I got him a front row seat at the Warner Theater for King Crimson, ROBERT FRIPP’s band:

Lance Pedigo (left) and me (right) at King Crimson at the Warner Theater on September 13, 2019

We’d see them again on 9/11/2021, their final performance in North America which was subsequently released as Music is Our Friend. It was the twentieth anniversary of our friend, Richard Middleton Blood, Jr., being lost in the second of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center to be struck on 9/11/2001. Ricky, as he was known during his days as a drummer in the Colonial Williamsburg Fife and Drum Corps, was the fire marshall for his floor of Aon Insurance and was credited by several survivors for getting them out. If memory serves, he was last seen on the 78th floor waiting with others for an express elevator before the second plane struck. His remains were never found. Everytime we march as Alumni of the Fife and Drum Corps though, we play “Adjutant’s Drummer” in his memory. Ricky composed it during his time in the Corps. In the clip below, the drummers are playing it toward the middle of the clip:

Getting back to amplification, a few days ago I did a more in-depth article about what the fifes and drums are all about:

Now it’s about time to drive Lynn into work and engage with the day. More soon!

Onward!

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