A Good Death: Arthur Kane

Though a statement such as “Today is a good day to die” is mostly reserved (at least in Hollywood) to gunslingers, Apache warriors and Samurai swordsmen, I would like to begin what I hope will become a series of entries dedicated to good deaths in the realm of the arts.
Though most of the posts I am planning will have more to do with literary figures, I would like to start rather with a musician, Arthur “Killer” Kane, of “The New York Dolls” fame.

Perhaps it is not a good place to start, as his death, or the narrative of his death was brought to my attention as an overly produced and manipulated cinematic document, that is, the documentary, “The New York Doll” (2005, directed by Greg Whiteley).

Since I have no access to the story of his life through other sources, I have no choice but to refer to the cinematic version, but I must say that perhaps my biggest problem with it, would be actually that I wasn’t the one who threaded it together. So I will leave my ego aside for now and recount the series of events.

Arthur “Killer” Kane was the bassist of the famed “Dolls”, a rock group that emerged in New York City in the 70s and is considered as the group that opened the door for the punk rock era. Since I am not a rock historian, I’m afraid I cannot really contribute much in terms of musical critique, but the story is pretty fascinating.

The story brought forth in the movie is a story of redemption, of second chances, a modern day Greek tragedy. The Dolls had it all, the hype, the fame, the money, and were destined to remain the top of the game for many more years, if drugs and egos didn’t get in the way, which they did.

Some of the members were lost to Heroine, and the others went on to pursue their individual projects to varying degrees of success (It seems the only one who was really able to maintain some consistency, was the lead man, David Johansen).
Arthur Kane, on the other hand moved to Los Angeles and tried to regain his success but to no avail.

Slowly failure took its toll on him, and drugs, alcoholism and depression deemed his fate as an inevitable downhill spiral, which led him to several suicide attempts (I may be wrong, it could have been only one), the last of which, he jumped from his 3rd floor apartment only to break several bones that required a few weeks of recovery in the hospital.

It is there, where he found god. He received a leaflet from a Mormon church and wrote them asking to send him some more information. The information arrived in the person of two Mormons who were able to provide him comfort with their talks and redirected him to god.
Since then, though a much more stable and functioning person, he was still living in the past, or rather in that insufferable gap between what he had and what he has now. It is difficult for anyone to imagine a rock and roll personality working as a file clerk in a Mormon center, but it was a reality he had to cope with.

But he still had a dream; he was still hoping that one day he will be able to be on stage again, with the New York Dolls. And it seems life had a few more surprises for him after all.

Morrissey, the longtime admirer and follower of the Dolls (as a kid he headed the UK fan club of the dolls), was appointed in 2005 as the creative director of “Meltdown” festival, and one his first ideas was to reunite the Dolls for the concert.

He contacted Kane and the remaining members, and after a few weeks of rehearsals they preformed admirably in the concert. Kane received his chance, was able to reconcile with Johansen, and the dream became a reality.

Shortly after returning to the United States, Kane complained that he was suffering from jet-leg and overall weariness. After two weeks in which his state persisted he checked into a hospital and was diagnosed with some form of Leukemia. He died within hours of his diagnosis.
The film ends with the heartbreakingly appropriate Smiths song, “Please, please, please, let me get what I want”.

The proximity of the realization of his dream and his death is almost too uncanny. Those who favor longevity may object to my observation, but what good is a prolonged life if the echoes of one’s shortcomings will haunt him. And furthermore, wouldn’t the significance of this miraculous achievement wear off in times, breeding only more desires and more heartaches?

Timing is everything, especially when it comes to poetic justice.

Through the Nostrills Part I (A Story in Chapters)

It was during my second session with Dr. Vian, my new Central Park South psychoanalyst, that he recommended surgery.

I was a bit taken aback by the idea, but I was not able to study his expression at the time and didn’t have the leverage to make a sudden movement. You see, I was resting comfortably on his leather sofa facing Central Park (the snow covered trees shone brightly by the February sun), and was in the midst of a premeditated free-association.

I was recalling a dream I rehearsed for my previous psychoanalyst, Dr. Schumer, it was about me trying to get in a rustic lodge-like house. It was dark, perhaps very late evening. There were other people with me, and we were all running around that house trying to find a way in. I didn’t have the key, and all the doors and windows were shut and locked. Though I've never seen this house in my life, I was convinced it was my home.

“Describe what you see outside the house”, Dr. Vian asked, to which I replied with a satisfied smile (he took my bait): “I think it is in the country somewhere”. There is grass on the ground, many bushes and trees. There are fruits on the trees but I cannot make out what kind. And yes, flowers, lots of flowers. But it is dark so I cannot tell what kind or of what color…”

“Interesting, what happens next?”

“I finally get into the house, but something is wrong. I feel like the walls are moving, like they are closing in on me. I feel like they are about to crush me, as if the house is collapsing into itself. And then I woke up? What say you, Doc?”

He took his time before he replied, I could hear his lips sucking on his cigar (that was one of his only conditions, he will take me as a patient as long as I will not mind his smoking and will not steal any of his Cuban cigars).

By the time the first hints of smoke reached my nostrils he uttered with great dignity: “Well… this is very interesting… It seems like you are expecting an interpretation of this… hmm… dream, right? This is your motivation… this is interesting indeed. Let me share with you my own train of thought if you are willing to indulge me…”

“But of course!”

“I am certainly not your first psychoanalyst and not your second either, as Dr. Schumer did mention that you were referred to him by another psychoanalyst. So, you must know by now that it is not my job, or any other analyst for that matter, to interpret your dreams. Is that correct, so far?”

“Well, yes, but I thought…” He cut me off in mid-sentence.

“However, this is not a dream. This is a fabrication. This is a piece of literature that you presented me with, am I right?”

“I am not sure where you are going with this Doc, but I like the sound of it, so I will humor you. Let’s say I did fabricate it, what of it?”

By now the space in front of my face was covered in thick smoke, but I know how to fight a cough when I need to.

“Well, the answer to that is obvious. Both dreams and a literary works demand interpretation, however in a dream the interpreter can only be the dreamer, with help from his psychoanalyst of course, but still most of the work is in the hands of the dreamer. Literature, on the other hand, demands interpretation from a third party – do you see where I’m getting at?”

“Of course I do. You found a loop-hole. You are dying to interpret my dream, so you created a scenario in which you can interpret my dream and not compromise your position as an analyst. Gotcha, Doc. Don’t worry I won’t tell anyone.”

He coughed. “I beg your pardon…” Then he coughed again.

“You are mistaken, Bob”, he said. “You WANT to tell everyone. But the biggest trick your unconscious is playing on you is to hide the truth by actually telling the truth. You fabricated a dream in order to lead me to a particular analysis. However what you are not able to take into consideration is that the truth shines through even your most outrageous fabrications. You never stopped to consider why you wanted to lead me astray, why you wanted to lead me to a particular interpretation, now, didn’t you?”

“It is all too philosophical to me, I am not sure I follow…” For some reason my right hand started twitching.

“But you do. You studied Jacques Lacan, you already told me that. So think of his analysis of Poe’s “Purloined Letter”, how was the letter hidden? It was placed directly on the desk for all to see. Given that no one in his right mind will think that a secret letter will be left in clear sight, nobody bothered to look at it”.

My right hand stopped twitching. The index finger of my left hand twitched and then stopped.

He continued. “So, now that we have established that the message you were trying to convey to me, or rather the message that you were trying to dupe me with, is actually important – my question to you is: are you able to explore with me the possibilities hidden in this message? Will you tell me to which conclusion you wanted to lead me?”

A wind blew through the trees outside, moving eastbound through the leaves. I could see a wave pattern forming on the tree tops, like a pulse bomb. Massive chunks of snow fell to the ground, covering a small dog, his owner, an Upper East Side middle-aged woman, now seems to be strapping a leash to a pile of snow. She didn’t realize it yet, she was on the phone.

“Bob? Are you still with us?” he inquires softly.

“Yes. A house usually signifies the Ego. Wanting to get inside, meaning I want to get inside myself, remove myself from the world, and the splendor that is outside: Fruits, flowers, trees, etc. Once I finally get inside the house, the ego collapses into itself as in a psychotic episode. But I’m sure you got it, didn’t you”.

“Very good! So in a way you are deliberately attempting to do something that will harm you, is that right?”

“Yes”. The lady outside begins to be irritated with her unresponsive dog and turns around. Through the closed windows I can’t hear her scream but I can imagine it. She has a very annoying high pitch voice.

“Why do you think that is?”

“Well, its quite simple, Doc? I’m tired. I had enough with myself, I’ve been with myself for 30 years and it’s not fun anymore. Not that it ever was particularly fun in the past, but now, it seems particularly, well, not fun. I think its time for a change. I think I need to be someone else from now on. It is very tiring to be in my head all the time. I want a clean break. I think it will do me good”.

“Are you sure this is what you want?”

“Well, yes. I want to be someone else from now on. If I can make some requests, I would like it very much if I could be a lot more selfish, with a lot less guilt, a lot less consideration to the people around me. I find that it’s very paralyzing for me to keep considering other people. In short I want to be an asshole. Assholes usually get what they want. I want to be one of those. Is this possible?”

I think I stunned him, because no word was spoken for a minute. But then I heard his lips part as they were sucking on his cigar.

“Its funny you should mention this solution, because it just so happens that we developed a procedure for that. It involves a pretty complex operation, but we do it in-house. We have recently renovated a room in the back, turning into a state of the art operating room. You will be the first patient, of course, but you may want to take that chance, if not for your sake, perhaps for the sake of human progress?”

“I will very much like to take the chance, but if you don’t mind, in case the operation fails I prefer that any lessons learned from this failure will not be put to good use for future treatments. I would hate to think that my untimely death helped other people or future generations, it will be defeating the purpose, don’t you agree?”

“Hmm… I see what you mean… I can promise you that I will definitely try to forget anything that occurs in case the procedure goes wrong. But I cannot guarantee success even on this matter; the mind is a strange thing. It remembers and forgets what it wants. And I cannot speak on behalf of Iggy”.

“Iggy?”

“Well, Igor. But he prefers Iggy, he is ridiculed enough as it is being a hunchback. You sat on him in the waiting room, but don’t worry about it. A lot of people confuse him with an ottoman, especially when he is doing Yoga wearing his leather jacket. You will have to speak with him separately about this request of yours”.

“And how does this procedure work, exactly?”

“It is quite simple, you see… we first need to find a point of exit, that is, a point from which we can remove you from yourself. It is normally one of the six facial cavities, but it is too early in the game to restrict it only to the face. Who knows? We may include other points of exit in the future. With you, I think the nose will be sufficient. I am not sure if anyone mentioned this to you before but you have quite a remarkable nose - very Hellenistic.”

“You mean Jewish”.

“Right… We will cut a small incision in your left nostril and see how your body reacts. If bleeding is maintained to mere minimum, we will begin to expand your point of exit by cutting upwards, creating a chasm in your facial tissue which will run diagonally across your nose.”

“I will not be much to look at after that? Wouldn’t I?”

“You will not have any use for this body anyway, you will be someone else”.

“Gotcha. And who will I be?”

“That’s a good question”.

“How do you mean?”

“I don’t know who you will be, but you will not be yourself. After we allow you to exit yourself, it is all up to chance. But you would definitely not be yourself. Does that sound good to you?”

“That sounds marvelous. When can we start?”

“I will need you sign a waiver of course”.

“Of course, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Accountability is key in medicine nowadays, or lack thereof.” I smiled, but I am not sure he caught it. I tried to maintain a smile, hoping that my right ear is stretched enough to suggest a new facial expression. But I am not sure he can see my ear from the place he is sitting.

The operating room was brightly lit with exception of the bed on which I was placed. After the anesthetic was injected and was making its way circulating through my blood stream, I began to feel softness spreading through my organs; Softness and lightness, as if my body was floating in mid-air. The ceiling of the room was made of a checkers-like arrangement of small black and white tiles. They began moving before my eyes, as if I was racing through them in very high velocity. My legs began to feel even lighter than my already floating body, and it seems like they are rising up in the air and heading towards the door.

“It’s working!”

To that Dr. Vian dryly replied, “We haven’t even started yet”.

Then Iggy, or Igor, came into the room, and I tried to apologize for sitting on him earlier but no words came to my mouth, as if my mind already began separating from itself. Igor was indeed very short and his hunched back made him even shorter. His face was facing the ground when he walked, carrying a tray of operating tools. He reached Dr. Vian’s legs, and said, “Master, I bring you these fine tools which I cleaned myself”.

“Thank you Igor”, replied Dr. Vian, feigning a Romanian accent. They both laughed. Dr. Vian patted Igor’s head (which was still facing the ground), took the tray and placed it on Igor’s back. He then picked a small shinning object but I couldn’t make out exactly what it was. He drew closer to me, his face filling my entire field of vision and the shining object was gleaming before my eyes like a small sun. “Do you feel this, Bob?” he asked. I felt like someone is applying pressure on somebody’s nose. Then Dr. Vian’s faces filled with red liquid, he was startled and took a step back, but a handkerchief was promptly handed to him so he can wipe his glasses.

He continued, and I felt someone inflicting on somebody incredible pain. The shining object became the only thing in the world for somebody in the room, and then a sharp ray of light emanated from somebody’s nose upward toward the sky, flickering for a second through the stars and constellation and then in an instant drowning into the black of space.

The operation was a success. When I came back into consciousness I didn’t remember any of this. For the first few days the feeling of lightness persisted, but then it too surrendered to gravity. My body was restricted to a bed, in a strange room with a checkered ceiling, and had tubes attached to my hands and there was a feeling of discomfort in the nether area. I slept a lot, but it was very confusing. For some reason I remembered going to the dentist, but this doesn’t look like my dentist office, nor did I believe that I was supposed to stay overnight for a root-canal. The person I became had no knowledge of Bob, nor any personal knowledge at all for that matter.
I was trying to catalog all the things that I knew for sure, but it was all too general, did I have a name? a past? a family? a job?

Surprisingly (or not) I wasn’t so much concerned for this lack of orientation, because something else was bothering me; something else was creeping inside of me; something that I was pretty sure was very new. An overwhelming feeling of greed was beginning to show itself in my intestines, which was supplemented by a weird scent that came and went. It was metallic, and I remembered tasting something that had the scent in the past.

It reminded me of hospitals, football games, street-fights after school, but nothing particular about any of these. Something was in common with all these fragments of memory that I was missing, what is that smell?

A wind blew through the half open window, and a scent of trees filled my nostrils, I sniffed it in and then felt pain. I reached in great difficulty with my left hand to touch my nose, navigating through tubes knotted against each other, and I felt a pang of pain and something rough to the touch: stitches.
But also a thick wetness, I drew my hand closer to my eyes but couldn’t reach that far. I tasted. The familiar scent, the metallic taste, it all came together. I wanted blood!

To be continued.

The Shish Kebab Chronicles (an explanation)

I would like to begin this journey in the beginning, that is, to start by elaborating about the name of the blog. I must admit that the wording “Shish Kebab” is first and foremost a language tick I indulge in, it is a term that fills in for me spaces in conversation, thought, and imagination. But, names have a strange way of revealing meanings about things and people, and though it is especially true for the Hebrew language (which is my first language) in which all names mean something, I think it is true for all names.
Because every name operates on that fascinating tension between its inherent meaning and the many latent meanings it acquires and then reacquires.

With all this in mind, I would like to begin first with the fact that Shish-Kebab (pronounced Shish-Kah-Bab, with a silent ‘g’), does have an inherent meaning. Such as all names there is a primary binding narrative that lends it its’ meaning and significance.

All names, well, with one obvious exception, the name ‘Dusty’.

I am sure most of you are aware of the different versions, so as a rule I will insist not to bore the reader with information he or she may already be acquainted to. However I will recall the most formidable of these versions (if only to disprove it once and for all) which refers to the first appearance of the name in the English speaking world: the now posthumously famous Dusty McFadden, the third chambermaid of Adam the Toiletteer, King of the Scotts, is thoroughly considered as the first recorded Dusty in world history.

However, in his recent study “Primeval to Medieval Latrines in the Highlands”, Dr. Norman J. Hinterland had clearly demonstrated that in the dialect of the medieval Toiletteers the name was actually pronounced as Du-Sh-tee (again pronounced with a silent ‘g’), which led him to the natural conclusion that the name ‘Dusty’ must be a derivative of the English word ‘Douche’, and therefore Dusty or Duchty should be considered as a feminine term of endearment rather than an actual name.

The emission of the letter ‘o’, claims Hinterland, pertains to the phobia of round images within the Toiletteers cultural makeup (A round image symbolized the abyss, death, eternal damnation, as well as that hole which should be religiously avoided when one is entering a latrine. Given the lack of archeological points of reference we may never know the purpose of this hole).

Since there was no evidence of migration from the highlands to different parts of Britain prior to the assassination of Adam of Toiletteer (which brought an end to his dynasty), we conclude that the word Dushtee and its specific pronunciation became obsolete and was carried over in its displaced form by the word ‘Douche’. This theoretical deadlock leaves all contemporary etymologists at a complete loss as to the origins of the name. The name Dusty, one should assume, will be forever falsely associated with the modern English word: ‘dust’. How very simplistic…

But as always, I digress. I tend to do that. I beg your pardon and thank you for your patience.

Shish Kebab derives from the ancient Persian dialect that was promoted in the Americas during the first Persian occupation of Central and South America, which lasted between the years of 400 BC and 407 BC, and which covered Belize, Ecuador and the greater part of Argentina. We do not have any validated information as to the means of transportation of the Persians to the Americas nor to the years of the second occupation, and in fact the only relic of that period is the bronze statue, still found erected at Iguaçu, of a very large woman kneeling in grief for the end of the empire (or according to other views reclining in violent constipation), and globally referred to in the academic world as the statue of “The Fat Cow”, dated either 411 BC or according to other sources, 317 BC.

The debate on the actual dates of the 2nd Persian Empire reign in the Americas in is still open, and it was brought forth recently (7:16PM on October 19th, 1984) by the esteemed geologist Sir Duncan de Vere that at the heart of this enigma one can trace a truth that renders visible an inherent flaw in our metric system.

Tradition tells us that Chess, or “Shakh-Mat” in its Persian name, rather than Shish Kebab means “King is Dead”, and it is an honest and excusable error. What misleads us continuously is the insistence on content rather than context. For in fact, non can argue that the word “Shakh” does not mean King (or the equivalent) and that “Mat” does not means Dead, however one only has to consider the rigid censorship during the First and Second Person empires in order to appreciate how very much an impossibility was it to publicly utter a sentence such as ‘the king is dead’ in ancient Persia, let alone across its colonies.

The Perisan Kings (Shakhs) were notoriously paranoid, and rightly so. It is quite known that over the course of a King lifetime he would have to rebuff at average 170 assassination attempts (not counting those attempts orchestrated or executed by his own mother).

In fact during the Achaemenid Persian empire (559 BC–338 BC), the game known to us as Shakh Mat was known throughout the empire as “That Game”, for even a semblance for an assassination of a king was considered a crime, and though the game was not considered illegal, most citizens refrained from playing the game on the street, and restricted their play to Chess private “parties”.

Since any form of gathering could raise the attention of the authorities, and with it thier suspicions, the participants were forbidden to carry any form of weaponry on their person so that if a sudden inspection will be imposed on them by the King secret police, no claims for conspiracy could be made.
As a side note, I believe it is interesting to state that unarmed men were considered as unmanly. Some will find it hard to believe, but this custom is the foundation of the modern day Chess clubs (and the reason these clubs attract mostly unmanly men).

What strikes me as truly remarkable is how in the course of human history, censorship has always served as a vehicle of ingenuity and creativity, oftentimes from unlikely places.
“The Persian fishermen guild”, is a prime example (their motto, “if you own the ship, sit in it” can still be found engraved in doorsteps in modern day Tehran, traditionally hidden under a heart-shaped wool-woven doormat). As an entity initially created under the platform of free and secure passage to the Mediterranean in order to expand on the varieties of fish available to the center of the Persian Empire, one can only assume that had the King of the time known the consequences or the amount of clout this group eventually accumulated, he would never have allowed the guild to come into being.

And of course timing in such matters is everything. The most vocal of the guild’s leaders was Behrooz the Great, a man largely celebrated as the person who first introduced shrimps to the Persian Empire (according to some sources, he received his name – Behrooz the Great - thanks to his remarkable built, as he was very tall, but according to others his greatness was rather manifested by the size of his shrimps, which led some to believe that he was actually fishing prawns).

We know all this only through various transcripts of his speeches retrieved recently in excavations near the port city, Bandar Abbas, his hometown, all of which began with the greeting “Good morning! I bring you Shrimps by the plenty!” (after which the scribe reserved a space of a few lines in the Papyrus. At first it was speculated that some of the text was missing, but given this space recurred in all of the discovered documents, we now assume this space was intended to signify a pause in his speeches caused by the crowd’s roar of acceptance).

Once the shrimp was introduced to the Persian citizens, it became all the rage, that is, the most desired commodity in the various bazaars, and the most talked about cuisine in every household. And, of course, the person who was responsible for the distribution of the shrimp became all the more influential and powerful, which finally didn’t escape the attention of the king, Artaxerxes II (404–358 BC).

Knowing perfectly well that Behrooz was a highly popular figure in the empire; Artaxerxes II wasn’t able to simply eliminate Behrooz, so instead he orchestrated a special banquet for Behrooz in the royal palace in which he provided the latter the key to the South American colonies. The pretense was that Behrooz will be able to use his special gift in fishery and supply the empire with an even more diverse supply of fish and sea food. It seems that Artaxerxes II wanted to distance Behrooz from central Persia hoping that his influence and popularity will soon wear off. But what he didn’t take into account was that Behrooz’s fame carried over the Atlantic Ocean into the colonies, so that when he actually arrived, he was received has someone who can unite the colonies and turn them into an autonomous kingdom, and to finally separate them from Persia and its taxes.

Though this notion never occurred to Behrooz (in fact once he heard of it, he immediately rejected the notion, swearing his allegiance to the Artaxerxes), the rumor reached the kings ear, and within two weeks of Behrooz arrival to South America he was arrested, incarcerated and was sent back in a cage to central Persia. According to the law of that time, the king had the liberty of choosing the method of execution, and despite Behrooz pleads of innocence and loyalty, as well as the massive public cry for mercy, he decided to execute Behrooz by skewering him on a golden spear and displaying his corpse near the gates of the royal palace.

What Artaxerxes didn’t take into account again, was Behrooz vast popularity and how the image of him skewered will affect the public’s imagination and sense of resentment. As solidarity from that day on shrimps were eaten on a skewer in Persia, which was proceeded by a silent treacherous hiss, “this should be done to him as well”. When even someone was publicly asked who would that “him” be, they would answer, “Behrooz’s son, of course”. However, Behrooz didn’t have a son (he had three daughters) and the intention was of course, that the king should endure the same fate as poor Behrooz.

And therefore, Shish Kebab (which nowadays mostly designates Lamb or chicken on a stick, rather than the original ingredient, namely shrimps) was the only way for a Persian citizen to express his resentment to the king without fearing prosecution, and in a subverted way, means, the King is dead, or rather, The King should die on a stick.

Finally, after coming full circle, this blog will have nothing to do with killing kings (please do not mistake me for a dissident), but rather to the extracting of truth from fiction, or possibly extracting fiction from truth. For every name holds with it its own intrinsic past as well as the endless possibilities that are the future.

Introduction

I am not really sure as to the use or relevance of this space, but I am doing it anyway.

The object is to start writing again, and by doing so I hope to discover something.

The initial idea is to demonstrate some kind of truth through writing, or rather to speak about truth in general. Which truth? well, I would like to believe it will be mine.

I am assuming the Hegelian notion of work, that is, that only in work or the product of that labor one can find a reflection of oneself. So, I will be very liberal and random in terms of the posts, and will not restrict myself to any formal boundraries.

I will follow my whims, because my whims are who I am. Sounds pompous, I know, but that's who I am too (rightfully or not).