December 2006 Archives

What is wrong with me? I didn't even acknowledge that 2006 ROCKED! I went back into the theatre, wrote most of a play, composed 365+ blog entries, and I fell in love! I also stayed sober, made some new friends, and did a good job of nurturing relationships I do have. And I didn't get truly angry at anyone (Presidents and Vice-Presidents not included).

And lest I forget, I picked up at least 1500+ bags of trash (at least 4 a day)

That's one bag (Ralph's plastic grocery size) of trash for each X below!

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Take that, Ben Hecht!

MCO 2006

How My Egoism Died, From: A Child in the Century

A simple fact entered my head one day and put an end to my revolt against the Deity. It occurred to me that God was not engaged in corrupting the mind of man but in creating it. This may sound like no fact at all, or like the most childish of quibbles. But whatever it is, it brought me a sigh of relief, a slightly bitter sigh. I was relieved because instead of beholding a man as a finished and obviously worthless product, unable to bring sanity into human affairs, I looked on him (in my conversion) as a creature in the making. And lo, I was aware that like my stooped and furry brothers, the apes, I am God's incomplete child. My groping brain, no less than my little toe, is a mechanism in His evolution-busy hands. --Ben Hecht

I'm hoping I can come up with something equally wise or insightful for tomorrow, but don't count on it. This guy, the most prolific screenwriter of all time, was frigging brilliant. Check him out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Hecht

But if you're a writer, be warned. He has something like a 100 credits, some of them for some of the last century's greatest films. It's rather, er, humbling.

Year New Happy.

MCO 2006

There's a man who collects cans that I cross paths with once a week or so. He is older than me, African-American, but any stereotype ends there, I think. He certainly doesn't exude the energy of an addict or a homeless person, there's something steady and unfrenetic in his demeanor. I have only spoken to him a few times, sometimes handing him cans I have picked up and once to tell him about a pack of full cigarettes I'd found, in case he was a smoker.

Today he stopped me to say: "You know, I really admire you for picking up the trash like that. I don't know if people appreciate it, but I do." I smiled widely, and thanked him, my hand over heart, for noticing. We talked a little about it, then I asked how the recycling business treated him. He replied: "Well I'm 54 and in the best shape of my life! And make about $2000 a month! It's enough for a little motel room on Sunset!" (I'll say! It's more than I live on!)

But really, I was so touched. For some reason it meant a lot more coming from him than from almost anyone else, and he could tell I felt that way, and I think that touched him back, as someone who collects cans all day is not likely used to having his opinion valued. And yet it was precisely because of what he did that I valued it so much. This man understands the inherent dignity of work, no matter what kind, for whatever reason it's done.

My friend Freddie came out of the hospital and had to go right back in. Poor Jerry has his hands full trying to figure out what's best for him. Hospice? Convalescent Home? I'm going to be as supportive as I can and probably spend New Year's Eve in the Hospital. Which is actually an excellent place for this or any alchoholic to be on that particular evening, commonly known in AA as "Amateur Night."

MCO 2006

U.S. President George W. Bush , in a statement late Friday, called Saddam's execution "the kind of justice he denied the victims of his brutal regime."

Actually, no George, execution was the only kind of justice Saddam Hussein ever permitted.

MCO 2006

Since I don't work, every day should really feel the same, but they don't. Sundays and holidays "feel" different, like it's in the air or something. I find myself chafing at my routine, giving in to the urge to join in with the other people taking off, even though I really have nothing to take off from.

All this to say that I've been indulging in my love of movies even more than usual. On TV, the day before yesterday, Casablanca, and yesterday morning, The African Queen. I can watch those over and over again for the screenplays alone. Then yesterday afternoon, Dreamgirls. I wish they'd consulted me, there are some glaring musical anachronisms, and contradictory motivations, but otherwise, damned talented people in a very entertaining confection. Then last night we rented the first episode of a Ric Burn's documentary "New York" which I somehow missed on PBS in 1998. Really wonderful, we are going to watch the second episode tonight and the third episode tomorrow.

I have given up drink, drug, and cigarettes. I eat too much red meat and cheese, but my high cholesterol notwithstanding, I have a fairly unpathological relationship with food. I am fairly recovered from whatever tendency I had to be co-dependent--I think my completely adult and undramatic reaction to the redefinition of my relationship with Tony attests to that.

But to the screen, I remain addicted. How much is too much? And why is it if you read all day, that is considered completely healthy, but if you watch TV or movies all day, it's not? I guess it is much better for your brain to have to imagine the story than to passively sit and have the story imagined for you, but in the grand scheme of things, is it so different? And if you are a producer of entertaining product yourself, like, say, a blogger, aren't you sort of karmically obligated to be a consumer as well? Why should you expect others to read/watch/listen to your work if you don't do the same for them?

Is that about the lamest excuse for not writing more that you've ever heard? Still, I do think if you want to be a Chief, you need to be an Indian as well. My solution du jour is to have reinstated my French TV channel, so at least when I have the TV on low, in comforting-roommate mode, I can still be keeping my French up to snuff. And I've discovered a new video store with a big foreign film section that I shall be visiting more often. Gonna brush up on all sorts of tongues--that can only be good for a future teacher of ESL, no?

Yes, of course I should just turn the damn thing off. But I love the illusion that when I'm on the computer and watching TV, I'm getting twice as much done. (I'm probably just replacing the feeling I used to get from smoking cigarettes and drinking cocktails at the same time.)

Then again, Swiss French News has just enlightened me on the plight of gypsies in Romania and Bulgaria--about to enter the European Union. I don't know how or why, but I'm sure that I'm a better person for knowing this.

MCO 2006

Re-reading the last entry, I realized I may have exhibited a tad more equanimity than I was actually feeling. But then again, if you're going to have this kind of change in a relationship, Tony is the man to do it with. Cause when he says he loves you and wants you in his life for good, you can take that to the bank. (Or Paypal, in Tony's case.)

Plus, with the distance between us, it's not like the facts on the ground have changed. We're not suddenly spending all this time together one day and no time together the next. It's just a shift in how we operate in our heads when we're out in the world. I still pick up trash every day and write, he still sells things on line and goes to the post office to mail them. He still calls me a "mouthy Yankee" and I still tell him he's "too mean to live." As for sweeter endearments that shall remain between us, I've insisted on the right to keep using those and he doesn't object, he just laughs at my endless "complicatin'." That's the key--we're still laughing.

I saw "Notes on a Scandal" yesterday. Almost flawless. (There was one plot twist that strained believability but was forgivable because other, rather larger plot twists depended on it.) Instant camp classic though. Perfect casting (Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett, plus hot young newcomer Andrew Simpson) and super script.

MCO 2006

Well, don't it always happen when you don't know what to blog about life serves up a little surprise.

And not a surprise. I've known for a while that what Tony and I have been doing--i.e, conducting a long-distance relationship--is inherently difficult. At the beginning every call and every email was imbued with such anticipation that it carried us through to the first encounter, and then our time together proved so special that it sustained us through time apart. But one month together out of six, with only a week here and there to look forward to down the line, well, it's too little to carry too much. Even though we agreed fidelity was not expected under these circumstances, it is hard to even flirt with someone else when there's this out-of-state-maybe-boyfriend hovering about. What can you offer? Is it just sex? Are you available for a second date? It's uncomfortable not to know. At least for Tony it was, enough for him to initiate the conversation, but I guess I was approaching that point myself.

So, "officially" we are now friends, with nothing ruled out down the line. It is entirely possible that dalliances with others will only reinforce that sense that what we have is special enough to make major sacrifices for, like one of us moving to where the other lives, or a shorter long-distance-relationship with more frequent visits that could occur if I was in NY and he lived alone in Nashville. Or not. Time, as they say, will tell.

Like the t-shirt reads: "If you love someone, let them go. And if they don't come back, hunt them down and kill them."

JUST KIDDING.

MCO 2006

P.S. A friend who reads the blog faithfully told me yesterday: "It's like a soap opera!" I hope he's happy.

So I'm doing my morning trash thing, and I am battling that overwhelming sense of frustration that comes whenever I decide to do a block I haven't done in a while. I'm never pleasantly surprised by the lack of trash, always dismayed by the opposite. So after my 3rd bagful of disappointment I run into this deflated Santa on the left, thinking he's reacting to having to deliver all those presents just the same even when he knows the kids on his list have been very naughty. I completely identify.

So, since the only thing worse than picking up the trash is not picking it up and having to look at it, I continue on my way, until I encounter the visual on the right. I try to pop the ballon, but pop it won't. And I suddenly realize that if Santa was under a tire, he would inflate the same way, and would appear rather heroic instead of droopy.

Well, it gave me a nice metaphor for the day, for trashpicking, for life. Not that it applies to me, really, but isn't it the way we all feel, from time to time?

MCO 2006

This was unceremoniously splayed on the sidewalk in front of an apartment building around the corner. After I had just cleaned up the remnant of last night's fireworks (it's an Armenian thing, I think) I got a little vengeful comfort at the thought of some hapless Dad not realizing that if he gave his kid a drum set, the kid might actually use it.

MCO 2006

People don't generally know this, but most elves don't actually live at the North Pole. I'm not at liberty to divulge where they do live, but this is a picture of one of them flying a bizarre one-winged airscooter they use to commute to Santa's workshop.

Yesterday's visit to Freddie was a great gift. It was helpful to Freddie, because his gay brother from whom he'd been long estranged was visiting, and my presence helped keep the conversation light and flowing. (Dare I say "lubricate," considering we were all devotees of back room afterhours clubs in NY in the early 80s, about which we swapped many a story?) It was very helpful to me, because it got me out of the house on Christmas Eve when I otherwise might have indulged in a pity party. And it was very helpful to Freddie's partner Jerry, as he was able to participate in a trip to Skid Row distributing all sorts of helpful stuff to its residents, among other activities.

To long-term readers of this blog, Jerry is recognizable as a friend with whom I have a long and very tortured history, both pre-and post-sobriety. Without dredging all that up, I will say that in the eighteen months since we were last in daily contact, Jerry has clearly underwent a tremendous amount of spritual and psychological growth, evidenced by the remarkable happenstance that he needed me to fill in for him as a caretaker so that he could go and fulfill a prior commitment to help strangers. This is not the same Jerry who I used to be very co-dependent with, to put it mildly.

Without taking responsibility for any of Jerry's change, I can say that my withdrawing from playing the role of savior and caretaker was clearly one of the best things I could do for both of us. Without any more "help" from me, Jerry got his shit considerably together. And I have a friend back, who I get to help in a completely constructive way as he helps Freddie through his final journey. Merry Christmas to us!

And to you.

MCO 2006

P.S. Last night when I got back from the hospital I watched "Ice Age" on TV. I thought the saber-toothed tiger was incredibly sexy. Am I really weird, or has anyone else found themselves attracted to non-human animated characters? Same thing with the tramp in "Lady in the Tramp." Hot!

Last night a dinner party at the fabulous Hollywood Hills home of a major production designer for the movies. On the one hand, I have to say the cocktails and wine looked very tasty. On the other hand I was very glad I don't drink anymore, because if I did, a spirited discussion with one guest would no doubt have probably turned into an argument. (The friend who brought me told me today: "Oh T? He's certifiable. We call him 'Crazy T') Thanks. Now you tell me.

This morning, my ex- Mark called me, (very ex, we're talking 1999) as he tends to over the holidays, and I joined him and his sister at church and then at brunch. (They were hungover, I wasn't. Chalk up another one for sobriety.) Now I gotta do the park thing with Gaza, and then get to the hospital to hang out with Freddie.

How can it be that I am so busy, and yet I feel so lonely? It's a solitary wind that blows through the holidays.

MCO 2006

Well, there was photograher at rehearsal, and he snapped these cameos of me dancing. As you might suspect, I threw my hat out of the ring about an hour into it. I think the way I felt was a lot the way an accomplished choreographer would feel if asked to write a magazine article. Oh, he'd probably produce something decent eventually, with enough drafts, but it would not come remotely as easily as it would to someone like me, and would not be anywhere as good as something he'd dance. I just don't have that much desire to be on the stage to do so in a way that the result does not look wholly professional or if it does, requires so much work to get there as to be no fun. No harm done, Julien appreciated the effort and is grateful I'm still game for the stagehanding.

Today has been a remarkable day all around. It's my niece's 22nd birthday, the 10th anniversary of father's death, and my 2nd sober birthday. The details of that celebration must remain anonymous, but the circumstances were very special. Then I rendezvoused with Shaun and he became the grateful beneficiary of my guilt-driven need to do something for someone less fortunate for Christmas. I could certainly join more formal volunteer endeavors, but I am a strong believer in the idea that if everybody made sure they were part of a support system for everyone in their life, that we would need charitable organizations--or not nearly as much. So it was actually a relief to be able to help out Shaun. There's also a good friend in the hospital I hope to visit tomorrow or Christmas day. Send some prayers Freddie's way--he's probably looking at the end, though thankfully is very much at peace with it.

Tonight, dinner at some friends of friends. You might say I'm getting forked.

MCO 2006

So I'm sitting at the computer, minding my own business, when suddenly new mail appears from Julien, the director of "The Beastly Bombings" which is reopening on January 12. He has a three-word question for me: "Can you dance?" I reply if he means spin the fat girl around on the dance floor at a wedding and wow everybody, than yes. However, if he means Fosse Fosse 1, Fosse Fosse 2, half-twist, three steps, turn and jetee, then, not so much. Then he writes back "Can you sing?" and I just tell him directly that I can carry a tune perfectly well but certainly don't have a "legit" voice.

Well, it turns out he's wanting to add a fourth sailor to a line of them in a fun scene near the end of the show. It may well be that he sensed that I am a big ham and this might be a way to get me back to do the stagehanding for free. In which case he's a very smart man, it's a perfect bribe. We'll find how how perfect on Saturday when I actually audition/rehearse. (I'll do the stagehanding even if it turns out I have two left feet. I like having something to do on Friday and Saturday nights.)

This is the second cool thing that occurred because I volunteered stage managed in 2006. The first time, for Richard, got me the gig at Highways, and the second one, for The Beastly Bombings, may signal my illustrious return on the stage. Just kidding. It's an opportunity to have fun, and get my feet wet as far as performing for when I finish my imterminable play re-write. (I did alot of acting in high school, like almost every gay male adolescent I know. The Drama Society WAS our gay-straight alliance).

Of course I can't help but wonder if things are going to keeping "popping" on this coast just as I'm confronted with a real opportunity to move back east. It would seem when someone asks where I live, I just might have to answer: "Any blue state."

MCO 2006

Well, part of the interview process for the Teaching Fellows program is a five-minute "audition," in which you show how you would engage the class, explain a concept etc. I've been doing just that over and over in my head, and I literally have to rein myself in, because I go all over, wherever the words take me. It's reminded me that teaching--what it can do for me but mostly, what it could do for the kids--is what this is all about. Yeah, moving back East would be a challenge, moving always is. But nothing I can't handle just by taking a deep breath and putting one foot in front of the other.

So I am now back to the excitement level that had initially led to my initiating this process. At the same time I am totally comfortable with it not coming to fruition. I mean really, it's a completely win-win situation. I either get to live back in New York City, doing something valuable and getting paid for it, or I get to continue what is basically a great little life here. And boy, this is the season to get clear on how wonderful your life is, ain't it? (Especially as some challenging news has hit close to home. My brother's long-term girlfriend, Fumi, is starting chemotherapy today for breast cancer. Please send her some love and support in your prayers tonight.)

This working at the theater thing is just about perfect. Getting my first paycheck in forever feels wonderful, and it takes up just enough time that I am suddenly SO appreciative of the amount of free time I have today, after only 3 days of working. Gotta make it count.

I never thought I'd say this, but I'm feeling a little bit sorry for Bush. What a burden to be unable to admit that you've made a mistake. Trust me on this George, unburden yourself. It's very freeing, and people will respect you a lot more than if you continue your stubborn pigheaded refusal to face reality.

MCO 2006

P.S. My sister tells me Shaun, the just-out prisoner I squired around 2 weeks ago, just got a job as a forklift operator. Hallelujah!

"Marc,

Thank you for your honesty. However, the NYC Teaching Fellows program does not examine an applicant’s criminal records in reviewing his or her application. If you are accepted into the program, you will need to be fingerprinted by the Department of Education, and the Office of Personnel Investigations will run a background check. It is the NYC Dept. of Education that will inevitably decide whether or not your criminal record will obstruct your path towards becoming an educator.

At this time, you may continue the application process without undergoing any type of investigation. Good luck at the interview event!

Best,

XXXXXX

NYC Teaching Fellows

fellows@schools.nyc">fellows@schools.nyc.gov"

___

You'd think I'd be jumping for joy, but I'm nervous as hell. Not because of the interview--I'm actually extremely confident--but because of all my fears about the hassles involved with moving to New York with a dog. And leaving L.A. And working full-time. Would I be closing more doors than I'd be opening?

And yet, all the reasons that prompted me to fill out that application are still there. My desire to be closer to my Mom. My love of New York. My need to get a career going. I'd just thought it wasn't going to happened and completely shifted my thinking to remaining here. I feel completely ungurgled.

But I just spoke to my friend in NY who reminded me that he had a second apartment that might be available if the first one doesn't come through. It's small, a studio where he now paints but does not live, in Manhattan (They call Hell's Kitchen "Chelsea North" now). But he thinks he can't afford to keep it. In exchange I might be able to offer him a place to paint at my Mom's house in the country, which we only use a month a year. (Sisters, would you be cool with that?)

Anyway, my brain is churning and is far from serene. Meanwhile, I gotta vacuum the hallways, take Gaza to the park, and get out to the theater for another 6-hour day. The most difficult part of which is the terrible traffic back. I hope last night was a particularly bad night, it took me an hour and 1/2 to get home.

MCO 2006

This article is so disturbing:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/18/nyregion/18kearny.html?ex=157680000&en=aef9276bc787ce6c&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

I'm sure this blatant prostelysizing in the classroom passes unnoticed in Alabama, but in Kearny, N.J., it's sorta shocking. And what's even worse than a teacher saying there were dinosaurs on Noah's Ark is that the student who reported this has been vilified by so many of his classmates. Very, very disturbing. Good for you, Matthew.

I can't help but note my own trajectory of the past 2 years in regards to organized religion and spirituality. Soon after I first got sober, I found it very helpful to support and be supported by a formal religious community in the guise of the Metropolitan Community Church. I didn't miss a Sunday for over a year. And even though these are the most progressive, enlighted Christians imaginable, eventually my fundamental agnosticism reasserted itself, along with an incredible distate for any and all organized religion, no matter how anti-establishment. At the same time, I consider myself a spiritual person, in that I have an active inner relationship with that which I cannot see. It's all terribly hard to articulate, but I was struck by how well this man did on NPR, in their "This I Believe" series. It's called "Utterly Humbled by Mystery." Rock on, Richard Rohr.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6631954

Anyway I am all atwitter about the return of the NY teaching option. It's amazing how quickly I wrote it off in my mind because I hadn't heard back from them. Now the possibility of moving to New York again has me completely intimidated. Getting an affordable apartment, dealing with the weather, and my dog, my dog! Oh, and then there's teaching in an inner city school--most likely English as a Second Language--which makes complete sense given my background, but it's a bit different from the choices I imagined.

Needless to say, I'll be intrigued to hear back from the email I wrote them about my "background." Although I wonder at my motivation. Was telling them before I have to really about a desire to be completely honest or an expression of my own ambivalence?

Change is scary.

MCO 2006

To find a person who will love you for no reason, and to shower that person

with reasons, that is the ultimate happiness.

-Robert Brault, software developer, writer (1938- )

MCO 2006

FROM THE NEW YORK CITY TEACHING FELLOWS PROGRAM:

Sign-up Confirmation

To: Marc Olmsted

This message is to confirm that you have signed up for the following event.

Event: 2006-07 NYCTF Candidate Interview

Date & Time: 1/6/2007 1:00 PM - 6:00 PM

Location: M413 - School of the Future

Manhattan - Gramercy Park Area

127 East 22nd Street (22nd and Park Ave).

Take the 6 to 23rd Street Station.

Please visit www.mapquest.com for driving directions.

Details: Please arrive between 12:15pm and 12:30pm.

-------------------------------------------------------------

According to the initial e-mail, I was already invited to interview and hadn't responded. Hunh? Doubt I would have missed that email. But, no harm done, luckily they did send a follow-up.

However, I'm holding off on booking the flight quite yet. After much deliberation, I decided to write them first and formally ascertain that my felony conviction does not disqualify me from the program. I am reasonably certain that it doesn't, but flights are expensive and dogcare must be arranged etc. More than that, I have just enough trepidation about the entire prospect of moving to New York and teaching that I only want to proceed, as I wrote them, "under the umbrella of full disclosure." I sure don't need to set myself up for disappointment.

I feel like a radar trying to detect signs of my future, and finally, the sonar pinged back.

Just take the next logical step, stay honest and pay attention, right?

MCO 2006

Well, I don't know what to say. Person of the Year is a very ambiguous honor. The Gates got it, but so did Adolf Hitler. It means you had an extraordinary impact on the world--but that can go either way. I have to weigh my trash-picking, writing to my prison pen-pals, and some well-composed blog entries against the rise in unequal income distribution worldwide, the increase in childhood obesity, and overfishing of the world's oceans. Not to mention the return of the Taliban, the fact that I didn't even get honorable mention in two writing competitions I enrolled in, and of course, the ongoing threat of global warming.

Because let's face facts, if I was a better person, I would have convinced all of you years and years ago, in every language, to stop hitting your kids and to be nice to one another. I would have made polluters wake up and say "oh my God, I can't put that sludge in the river, what was I thinking?" I would have found the words to get through to cruel men so that they would stop torturing other men. I would have discovered cures for cancer, addiction, and grandiosity. (If I had cured that last one, I would not be writing this blog entry.)

But I didn't do any of those things, and the world is an unholy mess because of it. Therefore, I am Person of the Year for all the wrong reasons. Still, I confess I'm enjoying the attention. Every time I feel a little small and inconsequential, I just pick up a copy of TIME and stare at myself on the cover, and I feel better.

MCO 2006

Well, I just checked and the movie clip downloaded on my computer, though the screen was quite small. My sister has been transferring the original Super 8 to I-Movie, and she added the music. It's amazing how watching it completely convinces me I actually remember the moment itself. My Mom seemed so tall, so powerful. She was the sun and the moon. My Dad, the filmer, was deep-voiced, calm, soothing, utterly dependable. My childhood was infused with a feeling of total safety--at least within the world of my family. I only started to sense the greater world was a bad place when JFK was shot. The rarely watched TV was suddenly on as my parents were glued to it, and the funeral is one of my very first memories. I was fascinated by the stirrups on the riderless horse. I thought they were facing backwards and that meant the rider's boots would also have to face backwards. I was just 5.

Anyway, I'm feeling much better, much more rapidly than I usually do when I've been as bad a sneezing mess as I was. Staying in and resting as much as possible yesterday did lead to a major funk, however, and I don't want a repeat of that today, so I'm off to my friend Michael's to videotape him cooking. It's one of those creative collaborations we've talked about for a long time, getting a cooking vlog going for him, and considering I went to film school it's almost unconscionable that I barely know my way around a video camera. It's also about to rain, and it looks like a huge storm is on the way, which is a great day to stay in cooking.

News from the Neighborhood: Last night, two Armenian families were screaming at each other in the courtyard of a building, they almost came to blows before one of them retreated behind a door. As I continued around the corner with the dog, I saw 4 of the young men who hang around on the sidewalk every night drinking beer and looking vaguely menacing handcuffed as the police arrested them.

I know not if the two situations were related. If they were, I suspect one family dropped a dime on the nogoodnik son of the other. If that's the case, I was fascinated by my equal identification with both parties. I understood what it is like to be handcuffed, feel utter fear and dread and hatred of the cops. I also know what it is like to be perpetually irritated by the two-bit thugs littering the neighborhood with their beers and a general sense of unease that comes from drug dealers, cars driving by, strangers double-parked at all hours.

So happy though, for my personal status in this situation to be that of innocent bystander.

MCO 2006

Moreano.mov (2607k file)

In principle, clicking on this file will allow you to watch the Olmsted brood do the Hokey-Pokey, in the winter of 1961-62.

Tell me if you think it's worthy of You Tube or of no interest to anyone but the Olmsteds and those who know them personally.

MCO 2006

I nap, because I can.

--Marc Olmsted

MCO 2006

What I edited out of late versions of Chanel's entry (day before yesterday) was another "He gave me.." at the end of Page 3...Well wouldn't you know I found page 4 today, across the street. So "he" gave poor Chanel AIDS, and in her warped way, she's trying to warn the new girlfriend. Sorta.

Why is it that in matters of infidelity, women tend to attack the rival as much or even more than the unfaithful partner? This is a rhetorical question, of course. I do understand that it's a function of the need to diminish the rival to assuage one's own sense of rejection. But really, it's so illogical. If someone else falls for your man, that would indicate you two have a lot in common. If you thought he was worth loving, why shouldn't she? And if he thinks you were worth loving, shouldn't she have some qualities in common with you as well? In any event, if you are legitimately trying to warn her, calling her "slut" and "smelly pussy" in sort of undercutting your credibility. Chanel, Chanel, Chanel. That's not nice. He's not going to come back to you after you said those things. Does it really make you feel better to hurt him just because he hurt you? It probably does, sadly.

What I like about sharing this is the last thing on the planet Chanel is imagining is that someone in Finland (according to my statistics) knows about this late night brouhaha between drug addicts on Franklin & Russell in Hollywood CA. Though I bet Chanel'd get off on it. Probably insist on a cut of nonexistent money I'm raking in. She'll have to settle for 15 minutes of infamy.

Yesterday was tough to get through, cause I felt so crappy, but it was exhilarating to work again, and I got enough of a handle on what I'm going to be doing to not burst into tears when I have to go back without the benefit of Richard showing me the ropes. He'll only be a phone call away, and I'm a pretty smart cookie, so I'm not too worried. As Mildred Pierce says: "In three weeks I was a good waitress. In three months I felt like I'd been working in a restaurant forever." In not too long I'll be coming up with all kinds of good ideas and be thinking I was born for this.

It certainly is motivating me to work on the play. I see these fliers on the wall, the "upcoming shows" newsletter, and I want to be one of those names.

Today I am still congested as hell, but I think I'm over the worst.

MCO 2006

I found this treasure around the corner, it's a mini-grand piano garlanded with flowers. Class, I want you to write a short story on who gave this glorious montrosity to whom, why, and how it got placed on the street.

The funny thing was an Armenian taxi driver, parked at the Thai Karaoke bar, who could see me taking the picture but not of what. As I continued up the street picking up trash, I could see him get out of his car, and nonchalantly walk into the street, then look around to see what the interesting visual was. I imagine he didn't know what to make either of my hobby or my interest in this particular discarded item, but at least he got 5 minutes of distraction. (I had the feeling he was waiting for someone, like a Tony Sopranian type-boss, if you catch my drift.)

I am physically miserable. How can it be that every cold I get feels like the worse cold I've ever had? I never "fight it off," I never have a "little cold" (or a "50 cent-cold" as my roommate call them), I never get over it in a day or two, it's always two damn weeks and it always goes down into my chest and turns into a cough. And that Zicam--useless, for me at least. No effect whatsoever.

I medicated myself to be able to sleep and am now not sneezing all the time but I have to breathe through my mouth and my head feels like a watermelon. But I have to go into the theater and start my job at noon. It is utterly illogical to me that the universe gives me this job but also gives me yet another cold. I am so unvarying in my schedule, I eat and sleep well and get plenty of exercise.

It would make sense that the trash picking is exposing me to more yucky matter. I should get some latex gloves maybe.

I'm going to lay back down.

MCO 2006

Boy, did I hit the trash jackpot this morning. Three pages that read:

"Ur man is a liar and a crackhead. Cocaine Bitch. He

made me get an abortion and Chlamydia. Don't allow smelly pussy. Chanel.

Talk to him. He is really dirty & sick."

Now here's what I find interesting about Chanel's missive:

1, She can spell Chlamydia. (must have had it more than once)

2. She has a drag queen name yet she had an abortion.

3. Making her have that abortion, in this case, seems like a fairly responsible act.

Yesterday, the doctor thought I just had some post-nasal drip because of the colder weather, but this morning I woke to a full-fledged runny-nosed, mega-sneezy cold. The fourth one this year, I think, which really bugs me. Not the best way to greet your new employer the first day of work, but I left a message and gave him the opportunity to veto my appearance, if he just doesn't want to risk contagion. (I did want to mention that getting this part-time gig is a direct result of my first volunteer stagehand gig back in August for my friend Richard's one-man show. See how the universe works?)

At the doctor's, I did notice in myself a momentary disappointment at the pedestrian diagnosis. Couldn't he come up with, I don't know, esophegeal cancer or something? The awful truth is that a part of me enjoyed the drama of having full-blown AIDS back in the old days. It was very Camille. There was no guilt for not working, because you really couldn't, and you never knew when something was going to send you to the hospital or at least another round of antibiotics. There was the grave look on your doctor's face when your lab results were terrible, the sympathy you'd get from your family when you just had to take another nap. It made me feel important. And it was fabulous justification for doing all the drugs I wanted.

Maybe I was able to enjoy it because on some level I sensed I would be one of the lucky ones. Even though my head completely prepared for the worst, bet on it even, on a completely ephemeral level, I had no presentiment of death. Which makes perfect sense, since how could I sense something that didn't occur? (Not that everyone who dies senses it ahead of time. But some do. Whereas I don't think those who don't die do.)

Make no mistake, I have very happy to have my health (and future) back. I just have to cop to enjoying some of the payoffs that came with having a life-threatening illness. In some ways I was as addicted to the drama as "Chanel."

MCO 2006

So I am doing my morning walk with the dog, practically muttering to myself. The damned couches, they're getting worse, and then there's the floods in Somalia and the stomach-churning conference of Holocaust deniers in Iran. I'm in a mood because last night I slept so poorly because something is wrong with my throat for which I'm about to go the doctor. (A bizarre allergy I think, my largynx feels constantly parched.)

And then I hear, from across the street, a woman's voice. "HEY! Thanks for picking up the trash!" I smiled a 100 megawatt smiled and answered. "You're welcome! And thanks for saying something! I really appreciate it!"

Completely redeemed my morning. So far.

I'm working tomorrow and Thursday afternoon at a theater in Santa Monica, for real money. Hooray!

MCO 2006

Or Merry Christmas

Or Happy Holidays

Or Whatever

MCO 2006

Okay, I excoriated the Taliban, now it's only fair I point out that we have plenty to look at in the mirror.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/11/us/11prison.html?th&emc=th

The article is about how the powers that be are finally poised to do something about the dreadful overcrowding in the California State Prison System. Oddly, they didn't mention what I consider to be the worst aspect, the racial politics. Looking at a photo of a gym crammed with bunkbeds, I had the same reaction that anyone would have: "I can't imagine being there..." Isn't that bizarre? I don't have to imagine, I was there. But thank God, I was segregated in the gay and HIV dorms for most of the 1st half of my stay, and then in Minimum Security in the second half, which is another world compared to Medium and Maximum. Even so, prison, and the whole life that led to prison, seems so foreign to me now. It's remarkable how addiction can overpower even a fear as intense as the one I had about being one of those men in the photo, not to mention upending the lives of my family, my dog, my friends.

And yet, the completely broken system worked well for me. It got me sober, humble, and returned to me a healthy fear of things one should be afraid of, like prison. That's one of the main themes of the play I am (still) working on, (if only 10 minutes a day, some days.) That overcoming my fear of death, in order to live with HIV without being paralyzed by it, turned out to be a terrible thing. I became unafraid not just of death, pain and disease, but of consequences in general. Fear of painful consequences makes you avoid doing dangerous and stupid things. Ask any 4 year old. (I have regained a healthy, if right-sized, aversion things like prison and death.)

Lot of interesting emails and conversations this weekend about the future. One such, this morning with the roommate, revealed that he anticipated his new roommate will implode in about six months and she will move out. (If you knew this gal, it's completely plausible. Some people seem addicted to rising from the ashes, getting what they want, then self-destructing, over and over). Then, he says, I can move in, and it's a BIG 2-bedroom for a song, by LA standards. Nothing to count on as a done deal, of course, but it does cast his departure in a new light. With change comes opportunity.

With that thought in mind, I got some Ebay research to get going on.

MCO 2006

P.S. I submitted the Nigerian Scam Parody Letter to The New Yorker.

FROM CNN.COM

This is from a recently discovered Taliban rulebook: Taliban "are not allowed to take young boys with no facial hair onto the battlefield or into their private quarters."[Sexual abuse, says Rizvi, has always been a problem for the movement, especially in some of the madrassas (religious schools) that feed recruits to the movement.]

The hypocrisy of religious fundamentalists boggles the mind. These are the same men who will flog a woman for not wearing a burka, and stone adulterers. But there evidently is such a problem with man- on-boy rape in their ranks that it requires being spelled out as forbidden in a field manual.

Funny, it mentions no punishment for violators. I have a feeling if they court-martialed all the men who'd broken that rule, they'd lose half the army. (I'd also bet there's a lot of fully consensual sex between men and a fair amount of romantic love as well. No doubt hidden, guilt-ridden, and creating no inconsiderable amount of inner confusion. How incredibly sad.)

MCO 2006

Poor George. He's read the wrong book (easy enough when you only read one.) The biography of Lincoln has deluded him into thinking he's heir to the mantle of the embattled President who holds on through the darkest hour, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. (And Honest Abe didn't call it a Civil War either, it was the War Between the States back then.)

Unfortunately for Dubya, we can see who he really resembles. Another Texas politician who declared to his advisers: "I will not be the first American President to lose a war!" And LBJ didn't lose Vietnam. He let Nixon let Ford do it. (Boy, the best thing that could have happened to Bush is if Kerry won. As if he would have known how to get out of this mess either. Bush could have run again in 08' and pulled a Grover Cleveland.)

George is doomed to failure in Iraq because he doesn't have the slightest grasp of Iraqi history and Islamic culture. He thinks Joe Arab values American-style freedom when an Islamic culture values virtue above all else. He also doesn't grasp that democracy cannot take root without a culture that supports tolerance and dissent. Islam means "obedience to God." If you think of yourself as obedient to God, then obviously those you tend not to tolerate those you think as disobedient to him, to the point of killing them.

Take heart George, and look from Lincoln to LBJ. He didn't understand Vietnam either. He thought it was a War against Communism when it was a War of Independence. They kicked us out, but look what finally happened? Vietnam is becoming a capitalist dynamo, and American companies are making a mint there. We lost the battle, but we won the war.

Iraq may be in for even worse bloodshed if we get out, or they may revert to dictatorship, or partition, or become an Islamic theocracy. All options are better than what is going on now and doubtfully worse than life under Saddam. What's not going to happen is what we fear most--a Jihadist Juggernaut aimed at the Western heart. If there is a silver lining to the nightmare, isn't it the proof that the divisions in Islam and the Arab world run hard and deep? They can't even unite against us when we're occupying them, they certainly won't when we're gone.

What will eventually happen is that some authoritarian regime will emerge that will faces the same realities that China and Vietnam faced--the necessity of economic growth to survive. With that--not war--comes the positive social and economic change that tends to sap terrorist of recruits. Angry young men get angry when they're not making money, and that's the damn truth.

The best thing we can do for Iraq is to bring the troops home and concentrate on being the most prosperous, tolerant country we can be, with a fair, human rights-based foreign policy (that's includes you, Israel). In a satellite dish world in which young people always want to rebel against their parents, the generation of kids being raised by the Death-to-America Firsters will like us just fine, if we don't give them any reason to hate us. We have MTV, after all.

MCO 2006

P.S. As for me, I cancelled Christmas in Alburquerque and selling my car. Don't worry if you can't keep up. Neither can I.

Not clever enough.

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl-bush-scam.htm

MCO 2006

Tonight, 20/20 exposes the Nigerian scammers ripping off unsuspecting westerners of millions of dollars a year—and how one American is fighting back.

Abrahim Umusbekrazi

Chief, Cachinga Tribe

Lagos, Nigeria

Dear Chief:

Your name has come to my attention as a likely representative capable of aiding me in the distribution of a large fortune with only a minor investment on the part of a willing agent.

Oh heck, I’m not the formal type, let me just get down to business. You see, my dear late Aunt Edna put aside 40% or so of her pay as a librarian at the Martin Van Buren Elementary School in Hamilton, Nebraska for the past 42 years. You wouldn’t think it, but that came up to a mighty nice pile of dough, though how much exactly I ain’t so sure, cause here’s the thing. Edna didn’t trust banks. She also didn’t trust mattresses. She used to tell me “Rodney, burglars always know to look under the mattress, just like robbers know the money’s in the bank. No siree, I ain’t fallin’ for that! The only place it’s really safe to park your moolah is Nigeria!”

That’s right, your fine nation! For 42 years, my Aunt Edna—she was an eccentric, that’s for sure—sent her money to the uncle of her maid, a very nice woman from your country who was the only person she trusted, black or white, except for me of course. She said to me “Rodney, when I die you just tell Mary to call her uncle and he’ll just bring the money back over here.” Only when Aunt Edna died, wouldn’t you know that Mary took off! So I figure I better get over to Nigeria right quick, because I have the address where her uncle lives, where Aunt Edna sent the money every week.

The thing is, don’t you know all I’m missing is the airfare? Got my passport and everything, but Aunt Edna’s funeral, well that kind of wiped me out, with that deluxe model casket Mr. Sorensen over at Sorensen’s Funeral Home told me Edna always had her eye on.

So being a practical and fair man, this is what I propose. Why doesn’t your Eminence wire $1200 via Western Union to Rodney P. Smith in Hamilton Nebraska, and I’ll get on the first flight to Lagos (I looked it up on the map), and together we’ll go straight to the house of Mr.—oops, can’t tell you that yet! You do that, and we’ll split the $700,000, fair and square, before you even drive me back to the airport. How’s that sound to y’all?

So, that’s it for now, I’ll be seeing you in person soon enough, Allah Willing and all that. (I heard that’s who you worship over there, sorta like the fella we call God over here.)

Mr. Rodney P. Smith

Hamilton, Nebraska

The time has come for me to do what's necessary to secure my finances. As for many of us, an outside motivator has finally provided the tippping point, and that has been the surprise announcement that my roommate is moving out. I can't get another roommate, the place is far too small and it only worked with David because we've known each other 20 years. Plus, both our stuff is crammed in here, the removal of his will just make it merely full again with my things.

With enough extra income I won't have to worry about moving to Nashville or New York, I can just travel more often. The way to accomplish that has been staring at me in the face, literally, watching Tony thrive with his Ebay business. I just needed to find something people would want at a price that could at least match my competition, and that too was staring at me in the face. The roommate owns a hair salon and gets ton of Redken and other beauty products for wholesale. Voila, (which is shortened French for "see it!"), I can even start with some of his unsold stock and then replace it as it sells and slowly add to it. I even have a little ad campaign devised that I'll be sharing soon enough.

Tony is of course playing invaluable adviser, but he's let me know there is no substitute for the trial and error hard work of teaching yourself, doing research and clicking on the Help button. So I got a paypal account and have been doing just that, search upon search upon click. Hell, there ain't a damn reason in the world I can't teach myself like everybody else. My sister wants to learn too, together we have some really cool ideas for other products. That's why I'm gonna take a look at moving to Alburquerque when I visit at Christmas--I actually think my sister and I would make excellent business partners.

The other tipping point to the tipping point was an untoward moment in the car after I dropped off Shaun at the DMV yesterday. I reached to get something in the back, and the seat just broke on me. Clack-clack-clack, all the way back. It's irreparable, I have to replace the whole thing. $250.

I'm gonna get rid of the car. Between the savings on insurance, gas, and maintenance, and the profit from renting out my parking space, I can almost cover David's rent. When the Ebay biz picks up, (not if, see how sure I am?) I can get a new car.

What about the teaching job? I'm still waiting to hear, but if I'm one of the lucky one in eight who gets in, that'll go right back to the top of the list. As for the writing, I bet I'll do more when I have to squeeze it in. Witness Exhibit A, which follows, which I'd like to submit to The New Yorker's "Shouts & Murmurs," but I bet they've published something similar. Anyone who follows the New Yorker sure they haven't? (I'm getting a subscription for Christmas, but only been reading it at the Doctor's office once a month.)

MCO 2006

So two and a half years ago, I'm sitting on my bunk in the California Institute for Men at Chino, writing a letter (as usual), and a tall, black kid, lightly complected, with a sweet, pleasing face comes up to me and says:

"Man, you're always writing!"

To which I answered:

"That is true!"

I can't quite remember the rest of the conversation, but I think he asked me who I was writing to, and I told him my sister. He left and came back later, shyly asking if I thought my sister was the kind of person who might help him find a pen pal. I said, "yeah, maybe, I can always ask" and ended up sending her his information. She answered him to tell her she'd try, and the two of them ended up corresponding for the next 2 years. Shaun got out yesterday.

Shaun's history isn't important, but it isn't violent. Suffice to say he certainly had none of the advantages I had, to put it very mildly. But he seems absolutely determined to remake his life. To that end my sister sent me $200 and his birth certificate (she's gotten to know the family), and asked that I get it to him when he called. That's what I was doing this morning, getting him the money and squiring him from the Social Security Office to the DMV to various cheap places to acquire a wardrobe from scratch. We actually laughed a lot, he's a good kid (27) with an excellent attitude. Very happy to be out of course, and so grateful that he's doing things differently this time and the universe seems to be responding in kind. (He seems far less suellshocked by getting out than I did, though in for far longer. Go figure. I'm such a pussy whiteboy.)

I have absolutely no question in my mind that these many months of writing and calling my sister, even getting a visit from her, have had a major beneficial impact on Shaun. I could even hear her voice in some of his more spiritual asides. The $200 is also not a lot in and of itself, but to someone just out of prison with nothing--it's transformational. (Sometimes, with money it's not the amount but the timing.) Obviously, they would never have met each other if I hadn't gone to prison, so this adds to the sense that perhaps my going in had as much to do with other unintended karmic consequences to others as with getting me sober and sane again.

In any event, I hope his story turns out better than the Ballad of Amber and Jimmy. I haven't wanted to say anything, but it seems that Jimmy has returned to his old ways and Amber has had to cut him out of her life. It looks like he's determined to fullfill the NA mantra that describes the inevitable outcome of prolonged drug use: "jails, institutions or death."

As sad as I am for Jimmy, it's his merry-go-round and he has to decide when to get off of it. Others can only do so much.

MCO 2006

Must run and be of service to a friend you just got out of prison and needs squiring around. "Friend" is pushing it--it's a story I'll explain later.

My cell phone service is completely awry. I can't get a signal from my house for the life of me. This is damned annoying.

It should be an interesting day--though I little scary to be back in proximity to the headspace that comes with the first days out of prison. Talk about fear and disorientation. It was almost as bad as the first days after the arrest.

Human beings ache for the familiar.

MCO 2006

Tomorrow morning my computer will be in surgery, so I'm blogging the night before. I realized I haven't spoken of Tony of late, and just wanted to reassure everybody that we are not going to pull a Jennifer Aniston-Vince Vaughn (I never really believed that couple, did you? Methinks she still loves Brad). Tony and I speak twice a day, very lovingly, and we miss each other madly. We'd like to see each other more often but we don't panic about it. A move to Nashville might well be in my future, but right now we're not about to fix what ain't broke.

That said, he's back in Florida, working from the same honeymoon suite where we had such a lovely week back in November. As it's Christmas season, he's busy, busy, busy, selling mostly watches from his Ebay store. I plugged it back in August, but obviously my pleas to send him your business are rather better timed given the present holiday shopping madness. Do mention the blog if you order something, the profits of any such sale will go for airfare for the loveboyds!

http://stores.ebay.com/Thomas-Anthony-Trading-Company

His watches are really nice and his service is excellent. He also sells some male athletic apparel and women's handbags.

MCO 2006