Dying Rock Stars

Dying rock stars
Remind us
of mortality
and missed opportunities
Hurry up and achieve
what you have passed up
countless times
As you grieve
for someone else's loss
of momentum

Cú Chulainn

I pretty regularly refer to March 17th not as Saint Patrick's Day but as Cú Chulainn's Day. Perhaps you're confused by this usage (or not) but the main reason that I decline to celebrate the life of Saint Patrick is that I am not a Christian and Patrick is the patron saint of Christian Ireland. He's the guy who started the conversion ball rolling (or at least accelerated the rolling), convincing many Irish to abandon the religion of their ancestors for the new (to them) Christian faith. Of course if you're a modern Christian, this is an unalloyed good thing, and it could be argued historically that the Irish were much better off as Christians than as Pagans. But as a modern-day Pagan I choose to honor and reflect upon my Irish ancestry by honoring one of the legendary heroes of the pre-Christian era.

Cú Chulainn is the central character in many stories of the Irish heroic age. His birth name was Setanta. As a young boy he attempted to join a group of older boys in a game of hurley, but was set upon by them because he did not observe protocol by asking for their protection. The result, in modern parlance, was that he kicked all of their butts. The king, Conchobar, having seen this, invited Setanta to join him at a feast taking place at the home of a local noble, Chulainn. Setanta asked permission to finish the game and Conchobar went on without him. When Setanta arrived at Chulainn's home, he found it guarded by a large and vicious dog, which attacked him as he tried to enter. Setanta killed the dog. When Conchobar and Chulainn rushed out to find out what the ruckus was about they found the young boy and the dead dog. Setanta apologized for killing the dog and volunteered to take the dog's place as guardian of Chulainn's gate until a new dog could be raised and trained, and gained his new name, Cú Chulainn, or Chulainn's hound.

In an account similar to that of Achilles and other legendary heroes, the young Cú Chulainn overhears the prophet Cathbad predicting that the warrior who first takes up arms on that day will be a great warrior, remembered and celebrated forever. Cú Chulainn goes to the king, tries out many sets of armor and weapons, but only the king's arms are sufficient. He then is told the second part of the prophesy, that the warrior who takes up arms on that day will be a great warrior, remembered and celebrated forever, who will have a very short life. 

Cú Chulainn has many exploits, including training with the great woman warrior Scathach and defeating her sister Aife. He becomes the greatest and most feared warrior in all of Ireland, but manages to gain the ire of the Morrigan, a goddess of (among other things) battles, and is brought low when he is presented with a no-win situation. He has two geasas, or taboos. One is to always accept hospitality, the other is to never eat dog meat. When he is offered to share a meal of dog meat he has no choice but to break one or the other of the geaseas. He is weakened and is defeated by a conspiracy of men whose fathers he has killed. When he receives a fatal wound he ties himself to a standing stone so he can die standing.

Cú Chulainn's main weapon was the gae bolg, a barbed spear that would always find its mark.

Irish Symbolism: Green vs. Blue

Every year around this time you see lists of things that everyone supposedly gets wrong about St. Patrick's Day. Many of them are correct, for example the tradition of corned beef and cabbage is an American invention. But one just seemed off the first time I heard it. This was the supposed "fact" that the color of St. Patrick was blue, not green. According to the Wikipedia article on "St. Patrick's Blue", English King Henry VIII was the first English king to declare himself "King of Ireland". He had an official flag designed that featured a gold harp on a blue field. The color blue in this case was not specifically associated with St. Patrick.

The color blue's actual association with St. Patrick only dates back to the 1780's and the Anglo-Irish  and Protestant 'Order of St. Patrick'. Yes, Anglo-Irish, the descendants of those who the English had settled in Ireland in order to keep the locals in line. In fact, the order had considered orange as their official color, but decided that the sectarian associations with the color would be too obvious. (Read up on William of Orange and the Orange Order). There is some debate among historians about whether St. Patrick even had an official color and if so, what it was, but there is a large consensus that "St. Patrick's Blue" was an "invention of tradition" to bolster the choices of the tenuously Irish 'Order of St. Patrick'.

Native Irish societies, such as 'Irish Catholic Confederation' and 'The Friendly Brothers of St. Patrick' founded in  the 1680's and 1750 respectively, used green as their official color, partially as a counter to the English use of blue as an identifying hue. During the 1790's Irish nationalists adopted green as their color as well. The phrase "wearin' of the green" comes from a song from that era referring to Irish nationalists being persecuted for wearing green. As time went by the color green became more and more associated with Ireland and by extension, St. Patrick's Day, a day when Irish heritage was celebrated. When the mass emigrations to the United States took place in the mid 1800's to early 1900's green was firmly in place as the color symbolizing Irish independence, Irish culture and especially independence from England. It's doubtful that many Irish thought about whether green was specifically associated with St. Patrick, but knew that it was intimately associated with a free Ireland.

Wear the green...forget that blue nonsense.

Customer Service Part Five: What You Do Outside of Work

In some circumstances, extreme circumstances, it makes sense for employers and customers to take into account what you do outside of work. If you are responsible for young children, it's indisputably relevant if your hobby is collecting child pornography. If you work for the police department and publicly advocate breaking the law, that's likely relevant. But most jobs do not have the societal importance that the business owners think that they do. Why do we think that sports figures, musicians, actors and politicians are role models and examples to the rest of us? They are being paid to throw a ball, or play an instrument or what have you, not to be my template for morality. It could possibly be argued that people in these visible professions live their lives in public and influence their fans or supporters. In the case of politicians they have actual power over people's lives. But what about those of us who aren't in the public eye? Does it matter whether the Electronics Manager at Wal-Mart is a racist? Or a Socialist? Or smokes pot on the weekends? Or posts stupid things on Facebook? What matters is whether the electronics that is available for sale is of the price and quality that I require and whether I receive decent customer service. The rest is none of my business.

At my former place of employment I was subject to random drug testing, just in case I consumed some illegal drugs, whether or not there was any reason to suspect I was doing so; my Facebook posts were perused, looking for items that were offensive - I was actually written up for a couple of posts that the top dogs thought reflected poorly on the company, even though they had nothing to do with the company. Who cares what I do outside of work?

When I accept employment, my expectation is that I am being paid to do a specific job, not to arrange my whole life to refect the supposed values of the comapny that I work for.

Customer Service Part Four: Who Gives a Shit About Your Opinion?

Okay, you're a customer, you're spending money, you're indirectly providing a living to the retail staff where you're spending your money, you have the right to expect good service. But what precisely does that mean? Sure, not being treated rudely is on the list, but what are the specifics of proper interaction? At my former place of business it was required to ask the customer if they found everything alright, to inquire after their well-being (how are you today?), smile, make eye contact and demonstrate that you cared about them as a customer by making small talk. Oh yeah, and ask if they had their loyalty card early in the transaction and thank them at the end of the order. Forget for a minute how hard this is if it's a small order all the while trying to quickly and accurately ring up an order; different people want and expect different things.

Not long ago one of the courtesy clerks, those employees tasked with bagging and carrying out groceries, told a customer "have a nice day". The customer berated the employee and the manager, insisting that "have a nice day" was not a proper way to end the transaction, but "thank you" was appropriate. Not only appropriate, but the only way to end the order. Really? Who says? Why was one more appropriate than the other. Of course you are entitled to your opinion, but who gives a shit what your opinion is? The next guy might have a different opinion. There is no engraved stone tablets brought down from the mountain inscribed with proper responses. I mentioned "Hand Basket Guy" in my last post. Another thing that Hand Basket Guy did was raise a ruckus if the cashier neglected to ask him if he found everything that he was looking for. Sure, the store wanted the cashiers to ask this question, but Hand Basket Guy acted like not asking this was an offense against the hosts of heaven and all that is good and pure. He typically would express his dissatisfaction by yelling at the checker. While Hand Basket Guy may have thought that asking this question was good customer service, who gives a shit what Hand Basket Guy thinks? Another common irritation is when a retail employee responds to a customer request with "no problem". Okay, I can see why this might be annoying and a cause to wonder why it might even potentially be a problem, but who gives a shit? It's an idiom, idioms don't necessarily have a literal meaning. It means, basically, that your request will be granted happily and without delay. Lighten up!

You're a customer. You provide money, the retailer provides a product or a service, sometimes both. It's not a master-slave or lord and servant relationship. How are retail employees to know what your specific expectations are? What your imagination tells you are the exact right words to use? And why are your niggling little quirks that standard on which others must act?

Dad

No matter what we believe about the afterlife, that is, if we believe that there is an afterlife, death is always sad. There's always more we wish we could have done, more we wish we would have said, and more times we wish we should have just been there. But in the end, we all go. I believe that it was Jim Morrison who said, "nobody gets out alive"; our bodies do not appear to be built for endurance. Whether that's supernatural design or evolution, I don't know (but I have a pretty good idea), but death is part of the natural order. We're all, eventually, some day, going to die. Personally, I don't spend a lot of time worrying about what it will be like. If it's oblivion, which is a good possibility, I'm okay with that - I didn't exist for centuries, millennia...eternity before I was born, I'm cool with not existing again. If I'm wrong about my former belief in going to heaven and being with Jesus, well, I hope he has a sense of humor and isn't too pissed about the links to atheist Facebook pages that I occasionally post, or that remark about the Pope and Trump from a few weeks ago. Nirvana sounds interesting, Valhalla sounds really interesting! But I'm serious about no haunting if I'm still around after death: too much work!

Two years ago my Dad passed on. Died. We were all sad that he was gone, but I have to say, that everything about his life was "a win". He worked hard all his life, sometimes two jobs, to provide for Mom and us kids. He saved and invested so that he was able to have a comfortable retirement and so that Mom would never have to worry about money after he was gone. Although he was a man of loud and pointed opinions, he was not hurtful with his words. I never ran into anyone who actually disliked him. He and Mom raised five kids who made it safely, albeit with some bumps, bruises and detours, to adulthood. If you look at each of us, you'll see different aspects of his personality. He was proud of each of us. When Dad breathed his last, he was surrounded by his family and friends and by members of his church family as well.

I miss him every day.

But I'm not sad for him. He's...somewhere, however you view that somewhere...free of cares and pain...I'm sad for us, who no longer have him physically among us.