sockmonkey

INTRODUCTION

My name is Paul Rusesabagina.  I am a hotel manager.  In April 1994, when a wave of mass murder broke out in my country, I was able to hide 1,268 people inside the hotel where I worked.
     When the militia and the Army came with orders to kill my guests, I took them into my office, treated them like friends, offered them beer and cognac, and then persuaded them to neglect their task for the day.  And when they came back, I poured more drinks and kept telling them they should leave in peace once again.  It went on like this for seventy~six days.  I was not particularly eloquent in these conversations.  They were no different from the words I would have used in saner times to order a shipment of pillowcases, for example, or tell the shuttle van driver to pick up a guest at the airport.  I still don't understand why those men in the militias didn't just put a bullet in my head and execute every last person in the rooms upstairs, but they didn't.  None of the refugees in my hotel were killed.  Nobody was beaten.  Nobody was taken away and made to disappear.  People were being hacked to death with machetes all over Ruanda, but that five story building became a refuge for anyone who could make it to our doors.  The hotel could offer only an illusion fo safety, but for whatever reason, the illusion prevailed and I survived to tell the story, along with those I sheltered.  There was nothing particularly heroic about it.  My only pride in the matter is that I stayed at my post and continued to do my job as a manager when all other aspects of decent life vanished.  I kept the hotel open, even as the nation descended into chaos and eight thousand people were butchered by their friends, neighbors, and countrymen... 

These are the opening words from a book called, "An Ordinary Man",
written by   Paul Rusesabagina, the man who was portrayed in the movie "Hotel Ruanda".

I note, here, that he continues to say, only, that he did only what every man, every human, should do... every day.  He does not see any thing shining in what he did.  He only sees it as the responsibility of every~average~one.

A few years back, I chose to give myself an exercise...
Every day, before I went to bed, I had to do something of service for someone.
Not just like open the door for a pregnant woman, but something that would be a sacrafice for me... And no~one could see.  Or I had to find another good deed.
So many nights, I would be driving, exhausted, around, looking, peering, hoping to find that person that needed a blanket and dinner, so that I could just go home and go to sleep.
My sons did it too, willingly.  We gave up the strictness of that exercise, eventually, but here is what happened.  I began to see need, where others might pass by it, and not notice.
I began to have another sense.  One of  a tiny grain of sand, that might not make a difference,
Or... It might.  I began to live like every moment that I lived, might be the one that I was born for... I would never get this chance, again.

I am not a saint.  Far from it.  But my sons and I trained.  Trained ourselves to become not victimized by media, and popular "my life importance" schools of thought.

Becoming un~numb hurts.  It takes time.  And sometimes, you have to try again and again.

The introduction, from the book, "An Ordinary Man"...
ends with this:
     I am not a politician or a poet.  I built my career on words that are plain and ordinary and concerned with everyday details.  I am nothing more than a hotel manager, trained to negotiate contracts and charged to give shelter to those who need it.  My job did not change in the genocide, even though I was thrust into a sea of fire.  I only spoke the words that seemed normal and sane to me.  I did what I believed to be the ordinary things that an ordinary man would do.  I said no to outrageous actions the way I thought that anybody would, and it still mystifies me that so many others could say yes...

All of us have rubies buried in the floor of our hearts.
We just have to stay home and dig.

I send you wings, sweet dreams, pretty girls, and fat babies...
Good coffee, Smooth whiskey, and peace...  For now, ~Cake~

Currently listening : Bird on a Wire By Toby Lightman Release date: By 25 July, 2006

You say that you become a monk.
But you become lost in technology.
You become lost in yourself.
In your advice for others,
You forget to follow your path.

You own media.
Or, does it own you?
You spin.
You project.
You feed others only what you want them to see.
You are immersed
In what this shining world offers.
You have immersed yourself, entirely.
Is it real?
Do you really need to believe in an illusion?

The reality may be
That you want
The things that you say you don't
Because you think that you cannot get them.

A monk stays still.
Solitude is nothing without quiet.

Currently listening : Fish out of Water By Chris Squire Release date: By 22 September, 1998

You.
You are so quiet
on this night.

So quiet.
Are you out there?
Are you well?

Do you love me?
Can you tell?

Do I want you to?
Do I want you?
Do I want to?

In the quiet
In the still...
I do want you.

~Cake~

It comes from black and brown, you know.
And sometimes red and amber.

It never came from blue or grey.
It never came from pink or white.

It came from fire from within.
It came from souls on fire.

Ashes, burned things.
It came from those.

It comes from black and brown.

~Cake~

Currently listening :
Drill a Hole in That Substrate and Tell Me What You See
By Jim White
Release date: By 08 June, 2004

Catch a thousand kisses.
I've sent them on the wind.

When I say that what I really want
is waterproof thigh~highs
in the desert...

Forbid the still.
Forbid the sun.

Until my pouting lips
are close enough
to prove to you,

my love,

the weather.

~Cake~

Currently listening :
Twoism
By Boards of Canada
Release date: By 26 November, 2002

The smell of you is sex.
The thought of you is cream.
The taste of you is

I want to scream.

~Berlin~

Tonight, you made me laugh, Rybones.
As if that were to be a surprise.

You made me think of things
that a lady should not think.

You made me think of things
That perhaps a lady should think.

And after she thinks these things.
She should find some way to do...

Currently listening :
Ways Not to Lose
By The Wood Brothers
Release date: By 07 March, 2006

Firecode Violation

Lets break for the border in an open top box car and talk about marriage in a town much like mine where we are handcuffed together like it or not and we are drinking our dreams because it's all that we've got, and the bar manager smiles because he's seen it all before...

We are tied by light ,we are tied by history..I came for you in a crowded room that was a firecode violation where God punished me for the fake that I was, but as soon as I held your hand it all made sense and even God let that that one go,why? Because I asked him to..I've been drinking from your eyes and I love this feeling, I am blindsided but I will go with you there...

I smell Parisian cafe's and as soon as I clean the dirt from under my nails I promise to kiss your sweet sullen lips there,I know you'll drink with me there,I just know it....God said it was ok Why? Because I asked him ....Take my sick sense of humor and the water that flows from my eyes where it drips onto my olive skin and let it seep into yours.........I promise you it will be worth it....Why? Because for some strange reason, you get me.....

These, again, are not my words, but those of a friend, who touches me with his writing.

you said,
say that,

say that
one week from now.

find me.

find me.

find my hair.
black on brown.
find my eyes.
brown on jade.
find my soul.
jade on red.
find my skin.
red on white.
find my heart.
white on black.

it's been one week.

in the black,

i say,

find me.

~cake~

you said,
say that,

say that,
one week from now.

find me.

find me.

find my hair.
b ack on brown.
find my eyes.
brown on jade.
find my sou .
jade on red.
find my skin.
red on white.
find my heart.
white on b ack.

it's been one week.

in the b ack,

i say,

find me.

~cake~

I woke in the night
and saw the ghost of a child.

The wraith of a son
dressed in the sharp looks of Pan.

He carries an outkast soul
of Mercury spilled.

How do you clean up mercury?
How do you speak to a ghost?

I whispered to that silent figure.
I spoke, though he stayed still.
Un~answering in the dark
To his mother's frame.

Teetering between tragedy and greatness.

Screams of art and sound
and Oval.
Atmosphere and Boards.
Pastor Nuemellor and Che Guerra.
Drinks vodka from his water bottle.

A soul patch
And the curls of Zion.
Antique slacks and boots.
A hand~rolled cigarette behind a heavy~balied ear.

And eyes that make the seas seem calm.

It's true, young Rogue,
You die.

You have not chosen, yet, to live.

You, yourself, have made you the luxurious victim.