Good Friday, Jesus Christ crucified for for speaking the truth to the money changers in the temple, it’s said he died for our sins. Who’s going to die for our latest sins?
Will there be a resurrection this time or is it the end of civilization as we know it? People freaking out all over the country and killing their perceived demons. As an old viejito once said “Society is losing our minds!”
Maybe the old David Bowie song was a clue to our present circumstance.
David Bowie – Aladdin Sane
Aladdin Sane lyrics by David Bowie
Watching him dash away, swinging an old bouquet – dead roses
Sake and strange divine Uh-h-h-uh-h-uh you’ll make it
Passionate bright young things, takes him away to war – don’t fake it
Sadden glissando strings
Uh-h-h-uh-h-uh – you’ll make it
Who’ll love Aladdin Sane
Battle cries and champagne just in time for sunrise
Who’ll love Aladdin Sane
Motor sensational, Paris or maybe hell – I’m waiting
Clutches of sad remains
Waits for Aladdin Sane – you’ll make it
Who’ll love Aladdin Sane
Millions weep a fountain, just in case of sunrise
Who’ll love Aladdin Sane
We’ll love Aladdin Sane
Love Aladdin Sane
Who’ll love Aladdin Sane
Millions weep a fountain, just in case of sunrise
Who’ll love Aladdin Sane
We’ll love Aladdin Sane
We’ll love Aladdin Sane
—
Lyrics © EMI Music Publishing
When I first saw the David Bowie youtube, I thought I was at LA Westside…
Then I read your blog entry, and it all makes sense. Great piece, DQ. That’s a haunting tune, too. Don’t remember it, and I grew up in the ’80s. You could have played it safe with “under pressure”, another Bowie song a generation ahead of its time, but you took a chance. Nice pick.
Back when my dad was in the church youth group, he participated in a reenactment of the Stations of the Cross. He and friends dressed as a Romans, there was a guy (likely named Jesus) dressed as Jesus. There’s photos somewhere in boxes or albums. I wish I could find and scan them.
Thanks Rob, I know I have a tendency for the macabre, the fatalistic, ironic, kind of a Maugham’s “Appointment in Samara” philosophy on life. I have to fight it off constantly.
I blame it on my being raised by Grandmother’s and a Mexican American culture that thought everything was weird and ominous, life was for suffering (but still humorous!), and that in the end we all end up as bald as Comadre Sebastiana grinning in her death cart.
Also I must give a shout out to the Holy Roman Catholic Church (Sacred Heart in LH), where I was raised in the old style of Latin Mass, surrounded by depictions of martyred Bloody Saints (some holding their plucked out eyes on a platter), and the stations of the cross depicting Jesus suffering and death by bloody crucifiction on Good Friday.
Good Friday has always been a weird, oppressive, dark and sinister day for me going back to the Irish Priests at Sacred Heart Church who would perform a dark, brooding, bloody and scary Mass every Good Friday for us impressionable children.
If we were fortunate enough, sometimes on Good Friday we would be blessed by a chance to view an ancient artifact of the Holy Mother Church. One such vivid memory was of the Spanish rococo black filigree and glass box that cradled a finger bone of St Theresa of Avila that was passed along the altar so we children could kiss and cross ourselves over.
Hey no wonder I’m so weird!
Cindy Lu, thank you, I hope your Dad and his group of actors didn’t have to flagellate themselves like some of my New Mexico male ancestors, who were members of the secret society of Los Hermanos Penitentes, and who every Good Friday night marched to a local Calvario, beat themselves bloody with whips and lash’s and then crucified one of their members who sometimes died.
Back when I did time in Catholic School one of my most favorite times was Lent. I loved picking what I was going to deprive myself of…candy, dairy free ice cream, video games…what? I wanted to be a nun for some odd reason. I thought that would be very fun. I imagined myself going around the world helping people in an awesome outfit, my parents thought this was very weird.
I did a Station of the Cross project where I made little dioramas of each station. It was quite impressive.
I loved confession too…though I had to get away from all of that owing to the intolerance and history of the church. The foundation is too shaky to build up to do good work and I think I got tired of the idea of good work anyway.
Browne
Confession as therapy is good Browne, St Augustine confessed to the sins of theft, lust, and mathematics, and he became a saint.
Oh no, there was no self flagellation. Nothing that extreme.