Netflix and Squirrels

Reflections on a Netflix documentary about David Geffen

Such brilliant sun as today’s casts a shadow of one telephone pole onto and across the rooftop next door. It is a cameo of telephone pole, street light and connecting wires projected on the roof. Where pole-shadow intersects the boundary created by roof-peak, I see a squirrel. He/she is poking a curious head and shoulders up above the shadow-roof intersection. They are just sitting in the shade, thinking. In truth, I can only suppose they are thinking, I do not know. It is not necessarily an accepted fact. I am not a squirrel expert, a researcher, a squirrel whisperer. I have no friends who are. I am not David Suzuki. Still, the squirrel is thinking, that is what I see, what I imagine, that is real to me.
I can safely assume that the shadow squirrel is not thinking about politics, the future of democracy and capitalism, the abuse to earth and her creatures, her flora, her water by billionaires – or the life and times of David Geffen. I am thinking about these things. I am thinking about capitalism and David Geffen and the squirrel on the roof.

Personal observation of the animal kingdom lends an element of conviction to my understanding of things. I am sitting at my window and I am thinking. I see and I understand based on my prejudices, my experiences, my history. I understand that the animal kingdom has little regard for, bears little resemblance to the human kingdom. I understand this because the animals cross streets in the middle of the block, disregard stop signs, help themselves to whatever is not locked down tight. They make noise as they deem necessary and ignore that my car has been freshly washed when answering certain calls of nature. The creatures look at me and stand their ground when I try to ‘shoo’ them away. They must know I am not going to shoot them or harm them or call them names. I do eat them, sometimes. I enjoy that. I enjoy eating them but I don’t enjoy killing them or even shoo-ing them away.

I don’t think the animals are capitalists but I do believe that capitalists can be animals. The squirrel who is watching me, possibly or just thinking, is not a capitalist. He is not a capitalist even though he saves various things, hiding them to eat later – like putting money in a savings account. He is not a capitalist because I don’t observe capitalist behaviour. This head and shoulders of a squirrel is not earning walnuts from the labour of lesser squirrels. He is not searching more and more profits, greater and greater rewards. He is just thinking. He is resting. He will go out later and search for enough. He looks happy. He seems satisfied. He will live until he dies.

The squirrel is not profoundly unsatisfied, I think. He is not David Geffen Squirrel, he is Ordinary Squirrel. David Geffen does not have enough, the squirrel has enough. I have heard from the lips of David Geffen and from the pen of music business journalists that there is unkindness and lying and cheating and such going on in the David Geffen world. I don’t think that happens in the life of Ordinary Squirrel. I am not certain the squirrel is observed to be kind to other squirrels, there have been squabbles, but for the most, he/she/they scamper amongst others of like species on what seems to be an equal basis. This shadow-squirrel is just thinking, he is resting, he is not planning (maybe not), not scheming (maybe not), not feeling an urge for anything more (maybe not.)

David Geffen has everything (by whichever method you believe it was obtained, the method was capitalism at root). I am not a David Geffen scholar, researcher or observer but I have witnessed his unhappiness on my tv set and in the magazines. He was disappointed in Laura Nyro leaving his management and going to Columbia Records. He thought she was using him. As to whom was using whom, I have my own opinion. She broke the rules, she crossed in the middle of the block. This made David angry and hurt. David expected Laura to obey the rules of human(David)kind. I have an opinion about that. I formed my opinion of David Geffen based on what Mr. Geffen did. I have seen him crossing the road in the middle of the block, ignoring the stop signs and refusing to be ‘shooed’ away. He is like a squirrel or other creature in that way. He disregards the rules of humankind, like Ordinary Squirrel does. He was hurt when Laura Nyro did the same, when she broke his rules.

There is a great difference between Ordinary Squirrel and David Geffen, though. I think David Geffen has everything but he does not have enough. Ordinary Squirrel only has enough. I think it is capitalism that creates a situation where David Geffen does not have enough. Msr. Ordinary Squirrel has enough, he stops at a point and hibernates a little bit. Ordinary Squirrel may have a quest each year, he may seek, grab, bury each year. Ordinary Squirrel does these things but he does not do them because he believes it will make him a better squirrel. He does not do them for self-gratification. He does not believe that burying, hiding, squirreling away will do anything more than prepare him for the winter ahead. He doesn’t make other squirrels do the work. He doesn’t use his ‘items hidden away’ to create more items to hide away. He has enough.

Capitalism’s root and focus is on more and more and more, better and better and better. Out with the old, in with the new. There is no other need or definition for capitalism. The whole idea is to use capital to create capital and on and on and on. It, as an economic system, has no purpose beyond expansion. Life, in the pure, isn’t like that. Life is enough. Life is it’s own purpose. Life stops for a second and watches me from atop the garage roof, in the shade. Maybe it hums a little tune that was recorded and sold by David Geffen on Asylum Records or Geffen Records but the tune could not be owned or controlled. The tune was written by someone else and sung by someone else, it is now hummed for free by a squirrel on the roof. David Geffen bought it and sold it and wasn’t satisfied but the squirrel was. He sits, thinks, hums the tune. Maybe it is ‘Sweet Judy Blue Eyes’ or ‘The Three Great Stimulants’.