A Bad Day in Dallas

Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas is a haunted place.

Not haunted in the traditional sense--you won't see a phantom limo speeding past the Book Depository Building, nor a shape in the sixth-floor window holding an Italian Mannlicher-Carcano rifle. But the atmosphere of the place--the weight of the history and sorrow and dreams that died that November afternoon in 1963--is oppressive.

This atmosphere isn't helped a bit by the men standing on each corner of the intersection, hawking commemorative magazines and replica newspapers like they're standing outside a sports stadium selling programs to fans--not at the site of one of the most famous and most public murders in history. And when the men see someone who is obviously a tourist--like, say, a tall, lanky guy with a camera around his neck--they descend like pidgeons on bread.

The area doesn't look that much different than what we've all seen in numerous documetaries, news programs or the infamous "Zapruder Film" (you know, the one that shows JFK's head exploding like a meat-filled balloon). There's the Book Depository Building, which now has a museum on the sixth floor and a plaque that lists Lee Harvey Oswald as the "alleged" assassin (somebody helpfully underlines the word "allegedly with chalk). There's the "grassy knoll," from which a second assassin could have taken a shot at the president. And, in the middle of the road, there's a permanent metal "x" where the third, highly fatal bullet struck the president.

Where that third bullet came from is, to this day, a matter of conjecture.

While visiting the site in 2002 with my hosts, Junebug and Praxx, and taking many photos of downtoan Dallas, Praxx told me about a theory he'd read. It goes something like this (at least as I recall it):

Oswald did indeed fire at the president from the Book Depository building, but only got off two shots--one than landed behind the limo carrying JFK, Jackie and Texas governor John Connally, shattering on the pavement and spraying fragments; and one that hit Kennedy in the back of his neck, passing through (and, in the process, doing more than enough damage to kill him without a third shot being fired) and subsequently hitting Connally, even though the bullet itself looked like it had just come straight out of the box (and hence has since been labeled "the magic bullet").

And the third bullet? The one commemorated by the metal "x" in the middle of the road? Where'd that bullet come from?

Well. See. Here's the thing. When the Secret Service guys hear the two shots and realize that the president has been hit, the limo speeds up while they draw their guns. And one of those guns discharges accidentally--right into the president's head. (Some variant accounts try to pin this on the driver, though both of his hands were right where they should have been--on the steering wheel.)

This, to my mind, makes way too much sense. Think about it: This would account not only for the odd way Kennedy's head reacts to that last shot, snapping back instead of forward (which has led to the "second shooter on the grassy knoll" theories), but also for the alleged coverup, which wasn't designed to hide the identity of the assassin (who was, in truth, Oswald), but to hide the fact that the Secret Service accidentally shot the president--not the kind of thing the government would want to publicize, even if Kennedy was already essentially dead due to the damage from Oswald's second shot. This theory also accounts for the missing evidence (unretouched autopsy photos, the remnants of the president's brain, etc.).

But this is, of course, only a theory--one of seemingly thousands swirling around the Kennedy assassination. And, when you get right down to it, none of us will ever know the truth. Oswald is dead, killed by Jack Ruby with remarkable ease on live TV. Ruby is dead, too. We'll never get to know what exactly happened, or why.

And does it matter, really? Knowing how and why wouldn't change the fact that it happened. Hell, I hadn't even been born yet when it happen (though Mom was three months pregnant with me, so I did technically exist). So why should I--or anybody else--care about what happened in Dallas 40 years ago this week?

Because the assassination of JFK and the lack of a satisfactory explanation for it peeled away another layer of innocence from the world, with many more events--Vietnam, Watergate, Iran-Contra, 9/11, Iraq--lining up to do the same.

Nudge the World

As I compose this week's update at Polly Jean, the lime green e-mail machine, and sit in this desk chair whose springs have long since sprung and now threaten to depants me every time I sit in it, there is a coffee cup sitting on a Tiki-themed coaster atop my SuperDisk drive. Unfortunately, the cup does not contain coffee tonight, but, rather, Apple Cinnamon TheraFlu; I've been fighting a cold for the better part of a week, and as my sinuses remain jam-packed with fluids best not seen by human (or even nonhuman) eyes, I fear the cold is winning.

But it's not the cold, nor the coaster, nor the computer, nor the chair, nor even the sizable backside in the chair, that hold my attention tonight. No. It's the coffee cup, which came to me through a job I worked in one of Chicago's northern suburbs for just under five years (or about three years too long, depending on how you care to look at it) that has my eye--maybe even both of them.

Actually, though, even that's not entirely true: It's the words on the coffee cup that command me to stare at them in wonder. The cup itself is off-white (whether the "off-" part is by design or by age, I'm not certain) with a blue corporate logo on the side facing the Elizabeth poster (Ah, Cate Blanchett) on my "office" wall. (My "office" is really a bedroom which, since I now sleep on the increasingly uncomfortable futon in the living room, has been converted to house Polly Jean, the desk beneath her, the desk chair before her, and whatever other shit I can't fit into other rooms in La Casa del Terror--plants, action figures, free weights, comic books, clothing, porn tapes, a bicycle that hasn't been ridden in at least two years, etc.)

Facing me, though, are words in the same shade of pale blue as the logo. The words are attributed to the playwright Tom Stoppard: "...Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little."

I stare at those words often and remember that, when I graduated from college, I thought my fellow poetry mates and I were going to change the American literary landscape. No. Really. I thought that. Then I remember that, in one of my midterm conferences, my instructor told me, quite out of the blue, that the poet Wallace Stevens didn't have his first book of poetry published until he was 35. (Was he trying to tell me something?) The fact is, we didn't change the American literary landscape. Some tried, but failed. Others died before they could finish what they started. And still others abandoned the effort altogether and concentrated on children or careers or significant something-or-others. The arrogance and energy of youth settled into the bump-and-grind of everyday living.

And yet, even with all the years that have passed since then, and even with the time that has gone by since I left that job where I acquired the cup, its words keep coming back to me. "Nudge the world." Not "change." Not "reshape." Not "blow to fucking bits." "Nudge." Maybe that's how you go about changing or reshaping the world (though I'd rather not blow it to fucking bits, thank you)--with one little nudge at a time.

When I started this Web site exactly one year go today, I didn't go into it with the intent of changing anybody's world or mind or whatever; I really had no clue who would want to read what they'd find here (and I still don't); and I wasn't even sure how often I could get around to updating it (though, as it turned out, I posted 26 updates during that year, which averages out to one update every two weeks). More than anything, though, I just wanted a little corner of the Internet on which I could be somewhat creative--write, post photos, have a bit of fun. And if, in the process, I could "nudge the world"? Just a little? Even one tiny bit? All the better.

So here I am, sitting in a cluttered room, letting the springs in this chair eat my ass for dinner, and trying to gulp down the Apple Cinnamon TheraFlu before it goes cold. As good a way to celebrate the one-year anniversary of Adoresixtyfour.com as any, I guess. And if I have my way--which doesn't happen often, but, every once in a while, the very fabric of reality is split assunder and I do have my way--I'll be trying to nudge the world for a while to come.

Special thanks to JB, VB, Red Secretary, Mr. E, Sister Dee, the Fluffies of St. Joseph, the Grays of Dallas and everybody else who has encouraged, inspired, poked, prodded or otherwise given support over this past year. You all rock.

So. Here We Are. Now What?

I debated back and forth as to whether or not I should write a lengthy explanation of why I decided to do my own Web site. You know...how I needed an outlet for my creative writing (such as it is--the writing, not the outlet) and how friends kept asking me, "So, when are you gonna do your own Web site?" And so on. And so forth.

"Do you really need to tell them that?" I thought. "They'll figure out that you're an egomaniac soon enough. You're way overthinking this. And you're referring to yourself in the second person, which is really creepy. So stop it. Now." And so I did.

Essentially, this bloggity is just a place for me to have a bit of fun. I'll post my photos and poems. I'll provide links to sites I like to visit.

And I'll express an opinion or two. Or three. Or...you get the idea. I'll try to update this page regularly--once a week or so should do. And I'll let you know when other pages on the site have been updated. From there, it'll be up to you to decide whether or not a return visit to this Web site is worth the trip.

So take a tour of Adoresixtyfour. See the sights. Smell the smells. Taste the tastes. And come back again some time.

(PARTICULAR THANKS: To JB in Chicago and Junebug in Dallas for their encouragement and support.)