Friday, September 14, 2007

I See Dick Cheney


I keep seeing Dick Cheney. Well, not exactly. I keep seeing balding white men with glasses, a curled lip and an expression of smoldering dissatisfaction. I saw the first one in a restaurant called Suzanne’s in Ojai, California. He was ignoring a woman I took to be his wife in the outdoor patio facing a lush garden replete with pale pink roses and a stone fountain. It was a beautiful mid-August night. Many couples seemed to be celebrating some occasion, as we were, chatting and smiling, sharing bites of their meals with one another. Dick Cheney’s wife seemed to tolerate his gradual retreat into glacial remoteness with calm resignation. Maybe he had a legitimate beef. Maybe the service was slow or the food not up to his expectations.
Why did I even notice him? We were having a lively discussion, enjoying the ambience, the unusual appetizers, the celebration of our 28th wedding anniversary. I noticed because one of the elements that make a restaurants a fun place to celebrate is the energy of others, the general good will and happiness, the sense of sharing at a little distance with others through a smile, an acknowledgement. Seeing and being with others who are in a state of pleasure and enjoyment amplifies my own. The warmth that emanates from other people in such a public setting is something we take for granted but it is important. It is a way we each can contribute to the common good in a simple and modest way. Sometimes we take it further, when eyes meet or by an appreciate glance. Sometimes a compliment or comment of recognition: “Oh, that entrĂ©e looks great, which one is it?”
So I noticed Dick Cheney because his light was out. I felt a chill. Not the feeling of annoyance that follows the ring of a cell phone and subsequent conversation. This was more a perception of absence. The look on his face convinced me that this man was in angry retreat from the human condition. His wife, abandoned, stared off into the distance.
Since that night I’ve seen Dick Cheney in a car stopped at a red light, hands clenching the wheel, eyes as flat as coins, mouth in a thin tight line. I saw him on Michigan Ave. in downtown Chicago striding along aggressively, crossing against the light as if daring someone to hit him.
I believe life is about call and response. The spark in each of us calls out to that in others to reassure us we are not alone, we are all together in the complicated mystery of life. I worry that if Dick Cheney multiplies, the world will grow too cold to sustain life. Each time I feel that chill, a sense of cold anger, I wonder if this is a trend, like the opposite of global warming, human tundra syndrome. I fear the simple glance or smile is not enough to bring Dick Cheney back. More desperate measures may be in order. Is this like the die off of the honeybees? I want to study this problem. Why is Dick Cheney multiplying? And, can anything be done?

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maybe it is Jane or Puff's fault? You see Dick. When I first saw Dick. I saw Jane shortly afterward. If I am not mistaken I also saw Spot and Puff run. It was a long time ago.
Maybe if we can find Jane or Puff or Spot we can help Dick. Dick needs help.

Anonymous said...

Maybe it is Jane or Puff's fault? You see Dick. When I first saw Dick. I saw Jane shortly afterward. If I am not mistaken I also saw Spot and Puff run. It was a long time ago.

Anonymous said...

The problem: hearts that are jammed shut. The solution mandatory art therapy or another expressive arts.

Anonymous said...

See Dick run. Run Dick run. Why does Dick run? Does his brakes work? These are questions I ask myself when I see someone retreat into glacial remoteness. (NB: what an evocative line: "Dick Cheney’s wife seemed to tolerate his gradual retreat into glacial remoteness with calm resignation.") I also have been visited my a mirage, one that may cancel out the toxicity of withdrawn Dicks. Lately, I've come into contact by the Serendipitous Stranger, a cross between Charlie Chaplin and the muse in "Playing for Time," the holocaust TV drama starring Lynn Redgrave from a few years ago. This figure is an odd one - made of fog but yielding a diffuse light. Its presence reminds me of the valuable opportunities underlying crisis or danger. Like a dream only partially remembered, I am reminded of new portals that appear and disappear along my path. Serendipitous Stranger (with the alias "SS") allows me to look at the Dick Cheney's I encounter with a bemused detachment. An unintentional benefit is an awkward acknowledgement. If the Dick Cheney's even notice me when SS informs my space, he usually get's annoyed or even pissed off. Aaah, the power of nonverbal communication.

Anonymous said...

I was in that restaurant for lunch on the Sept 19th- one of my favorite places to look at the garden, and
to love the fresh food there- I am glad I didn't see
Dick there- though I have seen him other places-
and other times- sometimes in me- I feel such shame for him- and him in me- I hope not to take
him back to my studio in Joshua Tree this week-
and if I do- I hope I work with that feeling- in the
art I create next week-

elizaBeth Benson said...

i think even dick cheney doesn't want to be dick cheney. i think cold and angry is hard for human beings. i think the natural impulse for something alive is vibratory--even celebratory--but every single mechanical thing in this culture is designed to cut the human out. imperfection is the only place to stay alive. varied, wild, human, raw, imperfection. and when we, as humans, get hooked on the idea of perfect, we start to kill (ourselves and others) with our berating self-abuse. i think dick cheney, in his car, in his job, ignoring his wife, cutting himself off from his daughter and messy humanity--i think he's dying inside. and i think when i start not caring about dick cheney--well, that's when creepy things start to happen in the world. note our national politics at the minute, the coopting of media by the few, (also dick cheneys), the sick addiction to a fascist response to terror, the weird invitations for sick and twisted foreign dignitaries at important schools--i think the dick cheney thing is systemic--and out of control kind of cancer--that is killing the human body. i'm reading judy chicago's book about her holocaust project at the minute--and it is full of her artist's wonderings about how and what existed in the human psyche such that a holocaust could take place. in a passage i read today she said something like this: "no one is to blame and everyone is responsible." i found it such a poignant thought. by focusing, on the crazy, out of control, control freak, aging, scared, white guy, we are, as a culture, somehow, not taking the effects of the guy seriously. he's sick and twisted--a symptom of something sick and twisted in the american body. what is it one needs to eradicate sick and twisted ness? empowerment? expression? nourishment? nature? what?

elizaBeth Benson said...

i found this on mindfully.org.
i don't know why i can't sleep tonight???
anyway--it's a follow up to my long blog response about cheney and lost lying white guys--big blighted white cells--and the count is much too high. what's the "right" cancer treatment for this kind of disease?

here's the quote:


If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.

JOSEPH GOEBBELS (German "Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda," 1897-1945) more on propaganda. . .

Anonymous said...

Yes, Dick is us, and we can be him. Compassion and a fundamental belief that he (or she) can still be warmed. I need to come with an assumption of goodness and maybe he'll come out to play.

Pat B Allen said...

I know! I feel that way too! I bet if we could get him out on his own, no secret service, maybe a beer, he'd warm up and be able to laugh. david brooks wrote today in the NY Times about "Boomer Narcissus" (sounds like a night blooming, flesh eating plant, doesn;t it?) He calls it the disease of this generation to think that our experience is THE experience, the truth, what it is. A silly thought but we're such a big cohort, it has an efffect.