I am crushed.

One song I cannot get out of my mind:

I pulled into Nazareth, was feelin' about half
 past dead;

I just need some place where I can lay my head.

"Hey, mister, can you tell me where a man might
 find a bed?"

He just grinned and shook my hand, and "No!", was 
all he said.

(Chorus:)

Take a load off Fanny, take a load for free;

Take a load off Fanny, And (and) (and) you can 
put the load right on me.


I picked up my bag, I went lookin' for a place 
to hide;

When I saw Carmen and the Devil walkin' side 
by side.

I said, "Hey, Carmen, come on, let's go 
downtown."

She said, "I gotta go, but m'friend can stick 
around."


(Chorus)


Go down, Miss Moses, there's nothin' you can say

It's just ol' Luke, and Luke's waitin' on the 
Judgement Day.

"Well, Luke, my friend, what about young Anna Lee?"

He said, "Do me a favor, son, woncha stay an' keep 
Anna Lee company?"


(Chorus)


Crazy Chester followed me, and he caught me 
in the fog.

He said, "I will fix your rack, if you'll take 
Jack, my dog."

I said, "Wait a minute, Chester, you know I'm a 
peaceful man."

He said, "That's okay, boy, won't you feed him 
when you can."

(Chorus)


Catch a cannon ball now, t'take me down the line

My bag is sinkin' low and I do believe it's time.

To get back to Miss Fanny, you know she's the 
only one.

Who sent me here with her regards for everyone

hyoutube.com

So what in the hell does this all mean?

Well Robbie Robertson wrote it so let us ask him:

Buñuel) did so many films on the impossibility of sainthood. People trying to be good in Viridiana and Nazarin, people trying to do their thing. In 'The Weight' it's the same thing. People like Buñuel would make films that had these religious connotations to them but it wasn't necessarily a religious meaning. In Buñuel there were these people trying to be good and it's impossible to be good. In "The Weight" it was this very simple thing. Someone says, "Listen, would you do me this favour? When you get there will you say 'hello' to somebody or will you give somebody this or will you pick up one of these for me? Oh? You're going to Nazareth, that's where the Martin guitar factory is. Do me a favour when you're there." This is what it's all about. So the guy goes and one thing leads to another and it's like "Holy Shit, what's this turned into? I've only come here to say 'hello' for somebody and I've got myself in this incredible predicament." It was very Buñuelish to me at the time.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Weight

Bunuelish or not, the song is creepy, disjointed and incomprehensible; and always has been to me.

But I get into moods and sometimes I play this at least once a day after running away from it for weeks at a time.

Nazareth, Pennsylvania is not Nazareth, Israel which The Gospels note is the one-time residence of Jesus Christ.

Yet for a number of reasons The Christ is also known as the Nazareen...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazareth

And coincidently, in the song the traveler cannot find a bed, giving us all a further reference to Bethlehem where there was no room at the inn.

Picking up bags and hiding is beyond my understanding (although one would think that drugs are somehow involved) but go down Miss Moses is surely associated with Go Down Moses; an old Negro Spiritual.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Down_Moses

Then Luke wants me to stay and keep an eye on Anna Lee.

I figure the thing involving Chester has something to do with offering someone a bed for the night as long as he takes care of a dog. I mean the weight or the burden of responsibility lies with Chester. He is attempting to hand that responsibility to someone else. And Chester does not even care in the end how much responsibility the new caretaker is willing to take.

Dylan is always easier to figure out, at least for me anyway. 

Now, Fanny definitely sounds intriguing.

Nevertheless, the tone of this song has always rung clear to me. As we humans pass each other, day or night, what obligations do we incur along the way to those humans we pass?

You know the terms of expressly written contracts put burdens upon us. I will mow your lawn for you once a week and you will pay me $100.00 at the end of each month.

Now, you have the duty of budgeting for the c-note every month and I have to drag that frickin lawn mower over to your place and pray the damn thing starts every week.

I said this in my tribute to Louie:

After taking some time to disparage the pick-up point, Louie describes one of the trio's first encounters with urbania.

"So she sees this bum lying in his own vomit on the sidewalk. I mean she really sees the guy. We of course see these guys all the time, they are always there. But I mean this farm girl REALLY SEES THE GUY."

Then Louie goes on to describe he and his buddy's horror at seeing this rural waif bend down to take a closer look at destitution and they both let out a shriek when she reaches down to touch him and speak with him.

"Are you Okay? Is there something I could do?"

 SOMETHING I COULD DO. WHAT IN THE HELL COULD THIS SWEET COUNTRY GIRL DO FOR THIS GUY?  dick

Citizens going about their business in the great urban centers in this country cannot stop and render aid to every single homeless person on the street.

What Rudy Guiliani accomplished for NYC was a miracle. He 'cured' the problem of homelessness by hiding the homeless from the busy citizens going about their business.

If one of our blood kin finds himself in dire financial distress due to internet gambling, how far must we go to help the fellow out?

Yet, what if the financial distress was due to medical costs not covered under his insurance policy?  Are we now more or less under an obligation to help him out?

What if the person is not blood kin but 'just' a friend? We might rethink the situation and attempt to recall everything that person has done for us.

We, as human beings, 'pick up' obligations we never 'sought' in the first place.

And these obligations infringe upon our 'freedom'.

Canada still has its own Candid Camera show--I assume we lost ours due to legal problems although Funt died a long time ago. Every time I view the show I am astounded at what you can talk people into doing.

A guy with a dog appears to be headed for a porto-potty and asks a bystander to watch the dog for a minute. The leash is fixed so that when the dog is properly cued, it runs away breaking the leash.

The character emerges from the potty break pretending to wonder where his dog has wandered and wondering how this bystander could have failed his trust in such a manner.

We already know that all we have to do is ask. I mean that is all an advertisement is, after all. The admen are asking something from us and only transparently (in most cases) promising something in return.

If you purchase and ingest this product you will have a bigger piece of junk although you may die from heart, liver or lung problems associated with ingestion of the product.

Hell, millions purchase these junk extenders every goddamn day.

But when we see someone who is homeless, we are promised nothing.

So we fancify. Well the fellow is a drug/alcohol addict. Or the fellow is an ex-con. Or the fellow did not work hard enough in 11th grade math class. Or....

We find ways to blame the person for his situation in life.

Doctors do this all the time. Out of hundreds of thousands of medical records I scanned the record will note that the patient smokes. If the patient is 25 pounds overweight you might even see the phrase 'morbidly obese'. 

These notes are only there to take the blame off of the medical staff in case something bad happens.

Our friend Acamus notes:

This is real. This is very real.
This is absolutely inescapable.
And we are utterly unprepared.
And we have nothing to offer but each other and our broken hearts.
And that will be enough.

My friend Ken died 18 days ago. I found out yesterday.

Ken would show up in chat almost every single night for almost a year. We were usually the first ones there.

In the early days he disclosed to me his diagnosis, his pain and his despair.

He wrote of the aloneness of it all.

No Exit, I thought.

Then, of a sudden, his tone changed. He was going to fight this thing.

And he would report how his lady companion and his sisters and his entire family showed up for him.

And throughout the fight Ken wanted to try some things.

He would create these visual images on special software and give us snippets every night.

He wanted to start a new blog site and worked on it daily.

He had his own exercise regimen and would report how many blocks he had managed to travel during his two walks. Hell, he gave us full satellite pictures of it all. Ha!!

He was fighting medical facilities and Social Security/Medicare.

He was fighting for his life and his sanity.

I am so saddened by all this.

Toward the end he would show up in our chat room for shorter and shorter visits.

He would complain about how the pain was increasing and ceaseless.

And then he was there no more.

I knew something happened.

Hell I could have checked the Las Vegas newspapers on line or something.

So I find out yesterday.

I am so very, very sad.