millsworks

I was in a shop with my son today and they were playing Leonard Cohen’s “Everybody Knows” while we were quietly persuing some neat old retro shit. I had my head buried in a box of vinyl disks, flipping through the cover art and falling, like Alice, down the rabbit to the days of my own teenage youth – when my boy sidled up to me and asked:

“Is what he’s saying true?”

“Who?”

“The guy in the song. The guy singing.”

“That’s Leonard Cohen.”

“Yeah, okay, but is it true?”

I looked at the somber face of my child entering his own version of the formative years and wanted to say all the things every parent has ever said to their child, every confidence building maxim, every fairy tale with a happy ending and every other desperate attempt to gloss over the bitter truths every one of us, through time, find easier to chew and swallow and, while not liking it, finding either acceptance or muted rebellion or numb ambivalence along with a meekly bowed head and the whispered prayer of: “Just leave us alone and it’ll be okay.”

I couldn’t lie.

“Yeah.”

“Oh.”

“It can change.”, I added feebly.

“Sure.”

He went back to poking through old hats and tin lunch boxes and I pretended to be interested in the old records for a little while longer – until the song ended – and then we walked home, talking about everything except how corrupt the world has been, is and hopefully won’t be.

The mix of retro memories, Cohen’s song and that brief burdened conversation between us helped me find a synchronistic link with this mashup of the song with clips from the old Man From U.N.C.L.E. series.

I couldn’t help but remember the scene in the Peter Yates film “Breaking Away” where Paul Dooley, as the father, has to admit to his son that life isn’t fair and people cheat and that’s just the way things are.

If you haven’t seen this film please seek it out. It’s the closest thing to a European film ever made in America.

I wanted to post that specific heart rending clip here to go along with this wandering scrawl of words but the best I could do was the wonderful “Refund?!!!” scene – which is actually better ‘cuz it’s funny.

Enjoy.

And, just so I don’t leave this post – and you – in an entirely bleak state of mind, rest assured that while I agree with the facts of Cohen’s grinding screed I am not bound by any attendant pessimism.

Regardless of the relentless and manic drive of the fascist cult of business to take over our governments, steal our public resources, deny our community voices and despoil all they cannot own and control – I really do believe it can change.

How? I have no fucking idea. My generation has failed completely and the best we can do now is prepare those who come after us to be better human beings than we were. I am not a man of faith – but I do have faith in our children. And if I could, I would take back all the wrongs committed against them and somehow give a refund for all that has been broken and wasted. But I can’t do that, can I?

None of us can. And we all know it.

Hug the ones you love.

Cheers.