N IS FOR "NEW AMERICAN MAGAZINE" & "NEVERLAND LOST"

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“Tired of being the life of the party?
Change your shorts, change your life, change your life
Change into a nine-year-old Hindu boy, get rid of your wife . . .”

GOOD STUFFS
N IS FOR “NEW AMERICAN MAGAZINE” :
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It will be hard for anyone who knows me to accept that I was at one time almost apolitical. Didn’t wanna know, didn’t care, don’t talk to me ‘bout politicians, got my fingers in my ears goin’ “LA!-LA!-LA!-LA!”

But a funny thing happened on the way to the bar. I came to realize that politics, whether or not I like it, have a very intrusive effect on my life. Depending upon the way the game of politics is played, I could end up a free citizen in a free country or quite literally a slave on a prison planet.

Yeah, if I have any interest in my future at all (not to mention an interest in the future of YOUR children and YOUR grandchildren – because I haven’t got any), I had damn sure BETTER take an interest in politics! “Politics” is just another way of saying “Stuffs that affects MY life.”

Well, I just want to share with you a link to a website of an organization that publishes what I consider to be far and away the best current events magazine in the country today. It’s called 'The New American' (TNA), and a reader will find more truth in just one single copy of TNA than in 100 copies of Time and Newsweek.

I first began subscribing to TNA back in May of 2001, and although I have disagreed with a few minor ponts of view expressed by the magazine over the years, I have found it to be a highly reliable, factual source for news - both nationally and globally - as well as social commentary and American history.

One unique aspect of ‘The New American’ magazine, giving it more credence, in my opinion, than other current event periodicals, is its world-view which includes a well-supported argument that political events are unfolding in our time which, by design, are leading us to a one-world, socialistic government. While not articulating any denominational preference and rarely even straying into overt discussions of religion, TNA is coming from a Biblically moral point of view based upon God’s Judeo-Christian laws and a respect for Scriptural guidance.

TNA covers an extremely wide range of topics from Constitutional issues and healthcare reform to significant European happenings, from book and movie reviews to the “real” history of America’s founding. In other words, ANYTHING that’s newsworthy or impacts the world today is liable to be examined within the pages of and on the website of The New American.

Anyone interested in broadening their understanding of the world they live in is hereby encouraged to peruse the writings published by TNA.

Here’s a link from me to you: ‘THE NEW AMERICAN’

(You can thank me later . . . preferably with money. Lots of it.)

BAD STUFFS
N IS FOR “NEVERLAND LOST” :
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We’re all familiar with the concept of Neverland from J. M. Barrie’s story about Peter Pan. It’s commonly thought of as a place where children don’t grow up, a place of eternal childhood.

And in high school, most of us were subjected to John Milton’s endless 17th-Century poem ‘Paradise Lost’ (what was lost was my interest!)

But how many of you are familiar with ‘Neverland Lost’? That’s right – NONE of you. That’s because I just now invented the term for this Blog Bit. Well, to me, “Neverland Lost” represents the slipping away of our childhood despite our protestations. It’s the unfulfilled wish to remain pure and free - free from adult cares. In other words, it’s us begging, “Stop the world and let me off!” but that bastard with the dirty cap, three day’s of hair growth on his jowls, chomping down on a moist, smelly stogie answering our pleas by merely shouting back, “Sit down!”

In looking through these old poems of mine, I’m struck by the concern I expressed about aging, or growing up. In the poem ‘A Chance At Heaven’ it’s oddly humorous to see “the dwindling days of my youth” mentioned. I was just 19 or 20 when that was written. In ‘Ah, Thunder’, a poem written even earlier, I find myself worried that the time available to pursue my dreams is running out. In ‘Questions’, I write of “opportunity stolen by passing years.” Yes, childhood (or “Neverland”) lost was one of the principal themes that inspired me to write “poetry” in my youth. I seemed to be unusually and acutely aware of my aging and sad to see my innocence dying.

Below is the final poem that I’m planning to post on my Blog. Written just four days after I turned twenty, it’s called ‘Days Long Past’ and the subject matter is – you guessed it – “Neverland Lost”.

DAYS LONG PAST

Often I look back into days long past
Those careless, easy days when I was small
And again I play children’s games in a timeless Summer
The wind bringing the sound of my Mother’s call

Father was working, Mother was young
My Brother was little and so was I
Dirt was free and imaginations were wild
I thought that I could fly

Our days were new and never ending
And, Oh, those stories told under the tree
I remember the long walk to school
And the walk home, to Brother, waiting for me

Still I recall those sunny days
Playing with friends and that punch on the nose
Real cowboys and real Indians
Back then one could be whomever they chose

And of course I was always in love
With a little girl who lived down the street
Those wondrous days when fantasy
Made reality obsolete

Those long gone days seem almost perfect
One thing I’d change, however
I only wish that I’d been told
That they wouldn’t last forever

For the days moved very slowly
But the years fell behind so fast
And now I’ve come to realize
The best is in the past

Now Father is working and Mother feels old
And the world tells me I am grown
Boys are calling, Sister is dating
And Brother lives alone

You see the world through different eyes
When you support yourself
And it’s no fun to act your age when younger days
Are toys on the shelf

The body slows down along with your thoughts
As age steals your imagination
And your claim to youth has long been taken
By a brand new generation

I see so much has changed
Mother and Brother say they want to die
And I can’t relive the age of nine
Despite the tears I cry

And the happiness that I once knew
I simply cannot find
Now all I have are memories
That echo in my mind

[Interestingly, although ‘Days Long Past’ is now 30 years old, I still remember seeing “Mouse” - a stuffed animal given to me on my first birthday - sitting on a shelf in my room, while I was writing the poem. And it was “Mouse” who inspired the line about “toys on the shelf.” The same “Mouse” in the photograph above.]

Le McQuote Du Jour:
Woke up with my shoes on
Couldn’t find my pants or my knees
Coffee’s gone
And my aspirin is just nowhere to be seen.
One warm beer in the fridge now
Warm because that bill’s overdue
I’ve lived through mornings like this before
Guess I’ll live through this one too.
~ John Napier

~ Stephen T. McCarthy
Doggtor of Semiliterate, Half-Naked Blogological Studies
Stream O’Consciousness University in New Noogie City, Neverland

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