March 2007 Archives

Yesterday, I took this photo of the sky above the hills just south of where I take the dog every day. We had quite a little scorcher--it was even on the national news.

And then, this morning, as I was leaving Out of the Closet thrift shop, I had to take a shot of the store window--a Medusa made of neckties. Isn't it hot? Sometimes I'm so proud of my creative gay tribe.

In the store, I did my semi-annual shopping spree for clothes. I plucked 4 pants right off the rack and--don't hate me--they fit perfectly. A sprinkling of t-shirts and a belt, and I was out of there in less than 20 minutes and not even $100 the poorer. I HAD to do something. I was wearing this one pair of favorite jeans to death.

Okay, so ends my most superficial entry ever. It's a gorgeous day, the dog needs some sun, and I need to show off my new prescription sunglasses. (Actually they're my old glasses, tinted.)

MCO 2007

P.S. Citizen Cane is back to leaving his usual offerings. My cup runneth over, and I run over hith.

This morning I picked up my first trashed copy of the Los Feliz Ledger with my article in it. How's that for irony?

While I'm turning on the cell phone to take the photo, none other than Citizen Cane walks by. I couldn't get the damn thing on in time to steal a frontal shot, but this is how he looks from behind.

And I could not find his cup today. But in any case, I forgive him. I saw a documentary on the Armenian genocide last night on PBS, and even if he was born after it, he almost certainly lost family, and had to have grown up with the legacy of it. No wonder he's bitter.

Here's the thing about horror on a such a scale. Your brain can't wrap around it. You grasp one terrible story--a boy who watches his grandmother bayoneted in front of him, for example--and then you try to multiply that times 10, and then 100, and then 1000, and up to millions.You play these obscene games with numbers in your head--comparing holocaust death tolls, as if 200,000 or 1 million is somehow less obscene than 6 million, as if suffering on such a scale can be quantified, as if somehow breaking down the numbers is going to make it manageable, less horrific.

I shouldn't say "you" - sometimes I don't think most people think like I do at all. I don't even know what my point is--it's not as if straining to understand it equals understanding it. I will say one thing. The most obscene thing of all is that we have leaders who will engineer a disastrous war to propagate American hegemony over oil but never would have even attempted to marshal even 1/10 of the resources to prevent or stop the genocide in Darfur.

We should be in Sudan, not Iraq.

MCO 2007

This is a design I came up with for a t-shirt idea for a friend's business. (Ghandhi was nowhere near that ballot box. It's all Photoshopped!)

It's seems apropos for my task today. This morning I am accompanying someone to the oral surgeon, almost 2 years to the day from our last visit there, when we were both newly sober. I'm rather certain this was the only time ever that this Beverly Hills Doctor had a physical altercation in his waiting room. That is a reflection of the immense frustration that came from a new life in which we were trying to live differently but hadn't quite developed the tools to do so.

Anyway, this friend and I ended up barely speaking for over a year. Then, little by little we would run into each other, and I could see and feel the change in him. And me I guess. I started picking up trash and he started taking care of a very sick ex-lover full-time--the one I spent Christmas and New Year's Eve with in the hospital.

NOTHING CHANGES YOU LIKE SERVICE. In fact, I'm tempted to say that nothing changes you BUT service. So today I am returning to the same oral surgeon's to support my friend, who will get three teeth removed, and another friend of his who is well off is paying for all of it because she is so happy he is sober.

And I will drive him home and make sure he is okay and we won't argue--in fact we laughed so hard over what happened two years ago we might as well have done nitrous oxide. And he apologized for acting out back them--it was all fear, of course--which I always knew, but still, it was nice to hear.

Please check out the comments from yesterday's entry. I LOVE that some apartment manager put up my article in his lobby! And rest assured, I have written to Tom LaBonge, asking him to please read the article and offering to meet with him.

MCO 2007

So my article appeared in the Los Feliz Ledger this morning. Circulation: 32,500. I was a tiny bit dismayed that they mispelled my name as "Olmstead" - but at least they got the blog address right. Maybe I'll get a few more readers or the Mayor will send me a brand new trashpicker.

I do regret the use of "minority," instead of "few." I'm afraid it sounds like I'm singling out an ethnic group instead of pointing out it only takes a few litterers to make a big mess. If you're reading this to protest, I apologize for a poor choice of words. I meant minority in the numerical sense only.

I realized that what I love so much about picking up the trash is that it's the embodiment of the serenity prayer. Every morning I have to accept the things I cannot change: that people litter is just a stand in for everything else I am powerless over. Accepting one ugly reality on a daily basis brings with it the acceptance of others: war, hunger, poverty, abuse, and of course all the mistakes and choices of my own past about which I can never have a "do-over." But then I move into "change the things that I can." Because I can keep four blocks in Hollywood reasonably clean. I can also advocate for change in the world as a writer. I can VOTE. I can keep my hand out to people who are trying to get and stay sober. I can give some of my income to those in need. I can love my family and friends and dog and try to be understanding and kind to others and to myself. I can express myself creatively and try to be entertaining about it.

It's extremely simple stuff, even if it's not at all easy. How much time to we all spend not accepting things, stewing in frustration, anger and denial, wasting precious energy that could so better be used in actually changing what we can?

The key for me has been embracing the incrementalism of it all. You really can build a mountain (or clean one up) by the shovelful. A day at a time is not only a great way to stay sober, it's a great way to live.

MCO 2007

Tony Blair, you're an idiot. What the hell were British sailors doing a mile away from Iranian waters when there's a hair trigger atmosphere afoot? All you had to do was apologize, get your sailors back, and THEN reveal that your G.P.S. systems say they weren't in Persian waters. It's just a friggin' apology for chrisssakes, it never hurt anybody.

And that Joe Lieberman, what a dick. You just know he was the smart nerd kicked around by the schoolground bully, and he vowed that nobody would think of him as "weak" again. He wants to appear Churchillian, and instead he comes off like Alfred Doenitz (Hitler's successor-for about 2 days.) You know what Lieberman said yesterday? "The Democrats want to snatch defeat from the jaws of progress." "Progress" What an idiot!

I embarassed for him and for the people of Connecticut who voted for him.

MCO 2007

\\It is impossible to imagine Goethe or Beethoven being good at billiards or

golf. -H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)

Yeah, but I bet Thoreau picked up trash around Walden Pond.

--Marc Olmsted (1958- )\\

This morning there was ANOTHER mini-dump on my route--basically the items of a garbage bag that one of our homeless denizens saw fit to transport from several blocks away. (I know because in the detritus I picked up was a resume with an address not so close.) As you can imagine, I immediately tried whistling a happy tune, but there was no way around the specific consequence that in gathering this mess up I had less time to cover my usual territory--ergo, left behind some dirty streets. For some reason this put me in a tailspin over the subject of time.

Living in the moment is a good thing, I'm doing it more and more. But I think I tend to use that to justify devoting my time to activities involving instant gratification. Not including driving, food shopping and eating, which I have to do, this includes: picking up the trash/walking the dog, writing the blog, reading and commenting on the blogs of others, going to 12-step meetings, being of service to friends in need, napping, graphic design/marketing projects for fun, freelance and family, and last but CERTAINLY NOT LEAST, watching TV, emailing and surfing the internet. (Working part-time is slightly deferred gratification--I do it for the paycheck every two weeks.)

I have no problem with any of these activities, I mostly enjoy all of them immensely--particularly writing this every day. But something has got to give if I am going to finish the play or write some of those books I have plotted out. I am trying to grapple with why, for example, I will read that one more blog while watching American Idol instead of getting down to WORK.

If I generally love to write, why is working on the play so much harder than writing the blog? It's not as if I won't edit both to death (everything you're reading is the result of at least 5 drafts). The answer is that when I finish the blog, I post it, then I know you read it because I get reactions/commments and my stats tell me the next day how many of your read it. All my favorite activities have different payoffs, but almost all are fairly immediate.

I despair of regaining the discipline I once had of putting aside a part of each day or week to do the kind of work that will only bear fruit down the line. And I wonder--does it worry me so much because I feel the work I have in me will be of such quality that it deserves to see the light? Or just because I made an interior determination long ago that my life will only have meant something if I achieve a certain amount of artistic success and a little bit of name recognition?

So what if I'm driven by ego-based ambition instead of a pure desire to create? Could I even escape that if I wanted to? Or should I just LET MY AMBITION GO, accept that I enjoy my life exactly the way it is and stop tormenting myself that one kind of writing is of less value than another kind of writing because you don't get paid for it and it won't end up in a library.

The truth is, I say I'm not lazy, but finally, deep down, that's exactly what I think I am, because the kind of writing I need to do is a lot harder than the kind of writing I like to do. I am an aging effort-phobe and this is just a day when I'm doing a lot of me-bashing over it.

No doubt, this will serve a purpose--sometimes it's the negative motivation that gets you going. I'd just so prefer if I walked toward the light without having to run from the fire.

MCO 2007

About once a week, sometimes more, this is the sort of dumping that literally appears overnight right on the route of my morning walk.

This, you can imagine, SENDS me. I want to track down the asshole who did it and lock him in a dumpster for two days. I want to put a note on the boxes: "I KNOW WHO YOU ARE. CLEAN UP YOUR TRASH OR I WILL HAVE YOU ARRESTED." Finally, of course, I picked up what I could, then fumed all the way to the dumpster.

On the way, though, I thought through my emotional reaction. Some initial righteous indignation is certainly understandable, maybe even a good thing if it provokes constructive action. But howabout the part of me that's genuinely upset, that's taking it way too personally?

Whether or not the offending dumper knew or has noticed that I pick up trash doesn't matter. This was something he did in spite of me, not to spite me. It's not about me at all. It is the toxic act of an inconsiderate, lazy, and self-centered person. Why should I internalize that?

It's true that if I choose to clean it up that doing so is bit of a pain. But really, I could be spending good money to exert a lot more physical effort to lift weights in a gym. It's the idea of it that's exasperating, not the actual work involved. (Those guys with the tire a few entries ago? They weren't rolling it, but lifting it end over end as a workout. No kidding.)

That's an idea I create, that someone dumping necessitates a reaction of disgust and anger on my part. I COULD just go right to acceptance. I cannot change that someone made this mess. I CAN leave it there, or clean it up (probably over a few days.) Whichever I choose to do, being upset about it is not a requirement, it's entirely optional.

And another option was to go a step further, to not only not be upset, but to recreate the good mood I was in before I let this stranger puncture it. I thought of the maxim one hears in AA: "You can't think your way into right acting. You have to act your way into right thinking." So I decided to do battle with the negativity with a specific strategy: Rodgers and Hammerstein. Yes, I started to whistle while I worked.

It's very powerful tactic, to act happy on the outside when you're not "feeling" it on the inside. (They also say: "Fake It Till You Make It.") I can't say it was entirely successful, but I did manage to at least neutralize my upset.

But I viewed the whole process as a reminder. I am not responsible for what goes on in the world, I have little control over what other people do. But I can choose and be responsible for my reaction to everything. In fact, I can even choose joy on daily basis.

Again, knowing this does not equal the capacity to always make that choice, but it does make it far more likely. It's a powerful understanding. I do not ever HAVE to react a certain way to ANYTHING. I never HAVE to take offense--even when it's intended. Neither do I have to hate anyone, even people who do contemptible things.

Anger or hurt or anxiety is never a requirement. Serenity is always an option.

MCO 2007

On Friday I saw "Bill W. and Dr. Bob," at the 68 Cent Theater (www.68centcrew.com) just a block away from where I live. It's a very moving dissection of the early days of Alcoholics Anonymous, and boy, did I need to see up close all the lessons they learned about how you go about helping others and yourself get and stay sober. Though I didn't know that's why I needed to see it until I ran into X. on Saturday, a friend out on an extended relapse, in exactly the same place I ran into him about two years and two rehabs ago.

I don't know why some people "get it" and some people don't. I do know that it has nothing to do with the addict's intelligence and talent--X. has both in spades. I also know he is killing himself with meth--and he knows it too. He was in very bad shape.

I drove him around. We talked. I attempted to reassure him away from his intense paranoia. I tried to let him know he was both liked and loved by those who knew him--and not judged. I gave him money for food and bought him a gatorade. I reminded him of who he can call rehab-wise, and I did ask him to call me the next day.

Last night, he did. He spoke the words: "I need help." I heard the relief in his voice just from saying it. I directed him to a meeting. I did not take him myself--it was a 15-minute walk from where he was and I felt it essential that he make that walk himself, as an act of faith. You cannot take the first step for someone else.

I did thank him for keeping me sober today -- which was the lesson of the play, you keep it by giving it away. I could tell that of all the things I tried to come up with to be helpful to him, that was the one thing I said that gave him at least a temporary sense that all of his pain was of value to somebody else. Even in the depths--and I mean depths--of his despair, he needed himself to feel of service, to feel meaningful.

This message was driven home over and over to me this weekend And I'm torn about sharing it and how much, the sense that service is the answer. It is impossible not to question my motives in doing so. I can only be truthful that, yes, absolutely, when I get a comment like the one from Patrick William's daughter on my entry of several days ago about the bereft widower in Tennessee, it makes me feel great. OF COURSE I like to be seen as a good person, YES, I fantasize about getting the Nobel Prize for picking up trash, YES I want to make and give away more money than anyone else in the planet. And yes perhaps I-or anyone--should do good anonymously. Or perhaps not.

See, I get inspired by others on a daily basis, and I am extremely grateful they do not labor in anonymity. As Michael Beckwith said yesterday, "It's not what you pray for that counts, but where you pray from." Hearing that kind of insight is powerful, I want to share it and learn from it, I want to try to follow it in my own life and be honest about the extent to which I manage--or don't manage--to achieve that. I hope I'm coming from the "right" place about it. ( For example, when I didn't, at first, hear back from Mr. Williams, I had to remind myself--and it wasn't easy-- that whether I did or not had NOTHING to do with the value of writing him in the first place.)

I have already been an example of where the insanity of addiction and a life cut off from spirit can lead. Now I want to be an example of what can come from a life anchored in an ever expanding base of love. AND I want people to like me, to make them laugh, to get lots of attention, to be thought of as insanely sexy and just a little perverted and eccentric, even.

An original.

MCO 2007

So this morning I pass Citizen Cane, and seeing no cup either in his hand or behind him on the ground, I offered: "Good Morning." He did not respond, in fact seemed to quite intentionally look away. You can imagine that when I got to Hollywood Blvd. and looked to my right, I wasn't terribly surprised to see his cup in the gutter.

It was suddenly clear as day to me that this man is ashamed, terribly ashamed. Not of his littering, but of something in his past. I mean think about it: he tries to hide the cup from me because he knows that littering it is wrong, but he can't actually just not litter, because it would somehow mean an admission that he has been wrong by littering all along. Why would that be so difficult, unless it was because it opened up another, far more painful can of worms? Perhaps a relationship with a wife or children in which his inflexibility proved toxic? He wouldn't be the first man on the planet to equate admitting he was wrong with a survival-threatening perception of weakness.

But my "Good Morning" to him was likewise neither defeat or weakness. I've already called him to account--there's nothing to do but accept I'm not going to change him. I am certainly not diminished by an extra "Good Morning" no matter what he does or doesn't do with his cup. It's called taking the high road, as my dear old Dad taught me to (try to) do long ago.

In fact things my Dad taught me are going through my head when across the street from my apartment, I pass a blue car with a set of keys sticking out of the passenger-side lock, on an "Enterprise Car Rental" key chain. There is a suitcase and a jacket in the back. I look around, and keep an eye on it while I pick up trash, then bring in the dog and look up the number for Enterprise. I go back outside and call them and report the license number. A very nice young lady in Florida tells me she called the renter's cell-phone and left a message, and then suggests I lock the car and leave a note on it. I do exactly that, and then decide to pick up a little more trash in case the hapless driver should appear. (If it was there all night, it's amazing the suitcase wasn't taken, given this is Hollywood and it was Saturday night. Hell, I'd just picked up a used needle.)

Sure enough, a young black man who just happens to be gorgeous soon stumbles bleary-eyed out of the building next to mine. I am sure he must be the little brother of a guy who waves at me every day--if both of them aren't models they should be. As he gets to the car, clearly looking for keys in the door, I ask him if that's his rental. He nods, and I smile and hand the very relieved and grateful young man the keys. He is clearly surprised at my "honesty--a rare thing nowadays."

I wonder. Is it really rarer? Or is that just the perception that every generation has, that times past were so much safer than times present? I'm not sure what the reality is--after all, my step-grandmother's father was stabbed to death in a robbery on a train in 1912. But it is too bad that doing something as easy and completely unremarkable as making a phone call so that someone's vacation wasn't ruined should have been thought of as the exception instead of the rule.

For sure it was one more story to come out of picking up the trash, because that has forced me to pay close attention to my immediate surroundings, leading in turn to the creation of a rich texture to what would otherwise have been the routine experience of walking the dog. This morning I imagined the conscience-prickled past of one man, and boosted Hollywood's reputation to another--who unknowingly gave my eyes quite a treat in return. And from the trash I retrieved a book about Hinduism with lovely illustrations. (Below-reincarnation).

It put me in the perfect space for yet another amazing service at Agape, where it felt like Rev. Beckwith was addressing directly the interior experience I just described, mainly, the opportunity we have every day to see using more than just our 5 senses.

MCO 2007

This visual speaks for itself, and to my political sentiments, but is not a reflection of my morning.

Army of One am I. There is some days that more happens before 9 a.m. than happens to some people all day long. The thing is, I'm off to Agape, and will have to blog it all later.

This trash-picking-up venture has turned out to be an amazing set of binoculars on the world, not to mention a vehicle for inner transformation.

MCO 2007

These are my new glasses. And you didn't think I could get any better-looking.

MCO 2007

They can't just pick up trash like me, can they? No! They have to go way over the top, and pick up monster tires. Yeesh. Straight men. They're so competitive.

Isn't this a funny pic? It started me off on an AMAZING joy-binge this morning--I swear to God I've been like Mother Teresa on crack! Everyone and everything looks beautiful to me today. First it was Carpenter Smith, who, it seems, broke up with whoever he was dating. This man is a conundrum to me. He addresses me with names like "Sexy" and "Handsome," but when it comes to the possibility of a date, he won't jump through my hoop. I just feel like there is a dealbreaker element that I have no control over. Perhaps it is my HIV status. Perhaps he only dates "normies" so as not to muck up his recovery. Perhaps he thinks I'm attractive but he has a "type" -- like tall latins. Perhaps there is too great a difference in our length of sobriety. Oh well, I still have two charmed-filled minutes with him a week. And he still may come to his senses and realize that he can't live without me. (Maybe I just scare him. I'm not exactly the mellow type.)

Anyway, nothing could puncture my good mood, and as I was crossing the street on the phone my eyes met the eyes of a woman stopped at a light, who reminded me of Rita Moreno in her early 50s. And I just thought, "what a striking woman" and quite out of the blue, I just gave her the sign in ASL for "beautiful" - and pointed at her. Well, you have never seen a bigger smile in your life, which in turn, put me on Cloud 9. Finally, I found a genuinely "free" compliment to make. (Cause lets admit it, even if I say something nice to a hot guy with no expectation of something in return, I'm certainly choosing guys I would be fully open to if in fact, I were their cup of tea. It's not entirely unulterior.)

But what made it a perfect moment was that she was not beautiful in that aging Lauren Hutton way. She was beautiful in the way usually only articulated by a considerate and loving husband. From me, a compliment meant a pure and simple stroking of her ego I doubt she's had from a stranger in a very long time. And we all can use that once in a while. Certainly once a decade.

Then I went to Trader Joe's and started to look, really look at people. Imagining them through the eyes of someone who was in love with them. I was very tempted to tell a few of them how beautiful they were, but I knew it would probably backfire if I tried to strike lightning twice. It "worked" with the red-light woman because it was completely spontaneous, completely authentic, and completely "safe." She knew if she smiled back I wasn't going to ask her for money or try to pick her up--I was on a cell-phone crossing the street, and well-dressed. In a grocery store. such a compliment would make almost anyone suspicious--as, in their experience, a stranger who says such a thing would be high or looking for money.

But I will file this brand of compliment under "cheap anti-depressant." When the moment is right, the time and place appropriate, I will not shirk from telling a stranger, particularly one who never or rarely hears it (no models or hunks need apply) that they are beautiful. I highly recommend it.

MCO 2007

P.O. Buenos dias to a handsome senor from Costa Rica who charmed the pants off me online yesterday. (People, do you realize, on my disability income alone, I'd be rich there? I'm VERY tempted.)

So yesterday I pass Citizen Cane and soon after, find his cup. As I pick it up with my pincers I look back at him, and, as usual, find him staring at me. So I don't put it in my bag. Instead, I make a big show of crossing the street and throwing it in the dumpster, as if to say: "SEE? EVEN A CHILD CAN DO IT!"

So this morning, I see him at the same corner, no cup in hand, which means he's already tossed it. I continue past him to the right, just as I did yesterday, but there is nothing. No styrofoam awaits my picker. I continue to the next corner, and look to my right, down Hollywood Blvd, where he has stashed it before. Nada.

So now I'm intrigued. Is it possible I finally got through to him? I cross the street to the left, and am so curious I actually open the gates to where the 2 Karoake bar dumpsters are to peer inside them. No cup.

I toss in the bag I have filled, close the gate, and head back up the street, in the same direction but across the street from the old man, who is now standing in front of his building, watching my progress as I get closer. I cross yet again back to his side, and pass very close to him as I fill my bag. (SO MANY FRIGGING EMPTY CIGARETTE PACKS). I debate what, if anything to say. This is what I come up with: "I didn't see your cup today. If you threw it out, I appreciate it." There is no response, but do I note a slightly satisfied look on his face? Or is that a smirk?

I truly don't know what he did do. I think he probably drank the coffee where he bought it. It would be the only way he could think of throwing it out without throwing it out. Anything but dispose of it the way I suggested it, that's for sure.

Or he did toss it, say in the sewer, which is why I didn't see it. Then that puts him in an uncomfortable position tomorrow, wouldn't you say, since I already thanked him? It's like getting a magazine subscription and then not paying the bill when it comes. And if he disposed of it correctly, then I'm glad I thanked him--although it's kind of like clapping for someone who stops at a red light.

It occurred to me that he's probably very lonely, and our "cup wars" may have constituted the most attention he's had in a long time, which is why he was being almost provocative. In which case, I'm hoping he felt at least a flush of happiness at getting some positive acknowledgment.

So I either taught an old dog a new trick, or tomorrow he'll be back to his old tricks. In which case,

then it's a great exercise for me to take a breath, just put it in my bag and even be cheery about it. Unless its a not-so-spiritually-evolved day, in which case I'll sigh in disappointment and feel oh-so-the martyr, which, let's face it, definitely has its satisfactions.

Either way, I should really put this guy on my payroll. He practically has a cult following. I wonder if I should ask him who he wants to play him in the movie?

MCO 2007

You know, it's my fondest hope that if there are silent readers of the blog who are active alcoholics or addicts, they are reading me at least partially as part of a process of inching toward making a change. I know SO SO well what it is like to be out there, and to feel so powerfully that no matter how tired you are of the relentlessness of needing to get high all the time that the mere prospect of sobriety seems like a terrific punishment, as if it means going from an exciting, technicolor universe into a drab world of black and white. Ironically, that is exactly what I did do--you can't get more black and white than prison. But my unbelievably hyper existence as a drug dealer, in which I indulged almost every sensual whim while raking in cash and being on call 24/7, was hardly glamorous or technicolor. It was drama-filled and exhausting. It was bereft of spiritual richness. Depression was my constant companion, merely temporarily obfuscated by the endorphin rush that got less and less as I administered it more and more.

Here's the metaphor that I accidentally stumbled on today. When you're out there using, you're like a balloon. The latex itself is your ego, inflated by the substances you're abusing. So you float around, looking down at the world, thinking "why would I ever want to be down THERE?" Until you get lodged in a tree, and realize you have to wait for a gust to dislodge you, and you have no control over what happens to you. You could float into the clouds or wilt into a limpness. Suddenly floating around doesn't seem like freedom, especially, when you hit the electric wires like I did. And then you plummet to earth--like I did. What you dread most happens, and you think your life is over.

But the opposite happens, because you find out that all along there was a seed inside the balloon. That's God--as you understand God. And if you choose to, you can plant yourself into the earth of recovery of the 12-step variety. You may think yourself buried and in the dark, you might be terrified. But sure enough, you sprout into the light. The growth is fast for some, slower for others, but always just as it should be. It rains, it turns cold, there's a drought, there are times when you think life as a balloon was better. But slowly, surely, you grow roots, and and a trunk, and leaves that reach for the sun and the sky. You wouldn't trade this grounded, sun and rain and wind-filled life for anything.

Take it away, Joyce Kilmer.

I THINK that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

MCO 2007

Well, you know you've made it into the spintelligentsia when you start getting described in other people's blogs. This one from my friend Peter:

"Friday night, after months of being goaded mercilessly by trash-obsessed, ex-con, literary giant, and quivering slice of drugfree manlust Marc Olmsted, I attended a performance of "The Beastly Bombing."

He pegged MY ass, but good.

Peter's blog address, by the way is http://paullyndeisgod.blogspot.com/.

And on a completely unrelated topic, welcome to my first webrant:

There are blogs written by writers, and non-writers who make no pretense of being writers--they're just talking about their life. There are websites devoted to art, poetry, photography and business. Then there are the pages of social networking websites that purport to give a sense of that person through voluminous detail concerning everything they like and dislike--TV, Movies, Music, YouTubes, Heroes, Favorite Celebrities, and endless photos of "friends." Which is fine--up to a point.

I've noticed that many such users seem to be replacing quality with quantity. It can take an incredible amount of time just to navigate one page, and what you're being exposed to is not expression of that person's creativity, like his or her poetry, or photography, or personality even; but endless references, as if the page owner is an agglomeration of their likes and dislikes, as if the sum of listing all these preferences in the creative acts of others, or in their affections or connections, equals a creative act itself.

I find myself blinded by all the smoke, wondering if this blog and my site has too few bells and whistles--video, links, wallpaper, audio, etc. etc. But I also find this profusion of information exhausting. Do I really need to know your 40 favorite movies instead of top 5 or 10? Am I supposed to be impressed that you have 300 "friends" instead of 30? Must I leap over 4 giant You Tube videos to find your pics? Do I need to read an 80-point list ranging from what your favorite ice-cream is to what you hated about your last boyfriend to get a sense of who you are? I feel like the more "facts" I know, the less real sense I'm getting of the person.

After about an hour or two perusing MySpace, I feel like I just got out of a casino. It's completely addictive, but completely exhausting. So out into the etherinternet I throw out this idea to anyone who'll listen.

Less is more, perhaps?

MCO 2007

I’ve mentioned that my ex-roommate and one of my closest friends, Molly (http://www.myspace.com/mollysecours) is a filmmaker and activist in Nashville. She

made a beautiful and powerful short documentary called The Faces of Tenncare, profiling a few of the many thousands dropped from the state Medicaid system when the Governor decided to ram draconian cuts through the legislature. One who fell through the "safety net" and lost her benefits was a woman with lung cancer named Beatrice Williams, and this is a letter Molly just got from her husband. (Yes, I received permission to blog it, address and everything.)

\\Dear Molly Secours

I want to thank you for what you are trying to do for us, who were dropped from Tenn Care.

To update you on want has happened since we last communicated. My wife Beatrice Williams who had lung cancer in which the governor said did not qualify her for Tenn Care. The governor will not have to be concerned about her qualifications now. On January 28, my wife passed away.

My wife now is in the presence of the Lord. I myself feel that I do not have long to live but in my wife and I will stand before our God with a clear conscience. Can the governor say the same? My wife was not a number in a computer she was a wife for 42 years and mother of two and grandmother of four. I wish that the governor would have to stand by her bedside with me and watch her dying as I did.

The governor also said that there was safety nets in place to help us. Well like a real net they are full of holes. After the safety net I am left owing $22,584.00, which I don't have due the fact I am myself disabled with COPD. The safety net will pay some on the hospital but it will not pay doctors or paramedics and ambulance services.

While the governor is practicing genocide the medical professionals needs to wise up that he is burning them also. There is no way I can pay bills like this and continue to pay for medication and maintain a very modest existence.

I have never felt so alone and abandoned in my life as I feel now. I have lost my wife but I will not let the governor cause me to lose my soul. I have asked God to help me to forgive the governor and to pray for his soul. He may escape judgment in this world but in the next world, he will stand before a judge that cannot be bought.

Thank you very much may God bless you in your crusade for us.

Think You

Patrick Wayne Williams Sr.

7344 Glastonbury Road

Knoxville, TN 37931

(865) 938-2958\\

I found this letter wrenching, but was extraordinarily moved by it as well. The way, in the midst of his pain and need, he does not ask for help, but takes the time to thank Molly for her efforts. I don't think it'll make much practical difference, but I thought a check from a stranger might help restore his hope, so I sent him $25. I'm hoping one or more of you might feel the same way.

MCO 2007

On the left, a plaster skull attached to a board found in Griffith Park. I think it was part of a kid's science project. I hope the jocks didn't subject a smart nerd to some sort of hazing. (In fact, I hope that's not the nerd's skull!) And on the right, I have no idea what the hell that is. My best guess would be a pencil case gone terribly wrong.

So this morning I wake up to an email from the Los Feliz Ledger, with the most gentle edits to my piece you can imagine, necessary to trim it just a bit for length. It will run virtually intact. And the editor happened to ask me whether the newspaper (distributed for free) itself is ever part of the problem. In telling her that sometimes it was (it only takes one copy, opened up and windblown, to muck up the a half a block) I also expounded on some more possible solutions to the trash problem that could be the basis of a second article.

This got me to put my thinking cap, as we say in the first grade. Here's my idea: Once every month, the city would declare Trash Day. Fleets of trucks would carry around quickerpickeruppers just like me, stopping at all filthy blocks until it was fully cleaned.

But here's the cool twist. This wouldn't be a volunteer effort. It wouldn't be for pay, either, exactly. Each person who put in a 4-hour shift would get a voucher worth $200 to see a doctor--$100 for the doctor and $100 to cover any labs or meds. The doc, lab, or pharmacy that turned them in to get reimbursed with a check.

The cost of this would be substantially offset by the fact that most of these visits would mean one less visit to a public emergency room, which costs the city a lot more. I would also suggest it be paid for by a special "trash tax" -- directly on the tobacco companies. Do you know how many empty packs of cigarettes I pick up every day? Also a tax on any company that wants the right to distribute fliers under windshields--the other bane of my existence.

If I can't propose this via the Ledger, I think I'll try to land on op-Ed in the L.A. Times.

MCO 2007

P.S. Yesterday, I picked up Citizen Cane's cup right after he tossed it, and as he stared at me, I gave him a look that said: "You don't honestly think I don't know it's yours, do you?" Today I discovered his cup--I know because he always leaves it a 1/4 full, the lid still on,--around the corner on Hollywood Blvd., where I don't normally pick up. (I spot trash like a new mother hears her baby cry) So he's actually going out of his way so I don't "catch" him. I literally burst out laughing. He sure showed me!!

So I find this pink piece of stationery during my picking, and am intrigued. It seems to me to be notes taken about a trip to Russia, clearly before the present era. 30's, 50's, 70's? My instinct is that this fell out of box of memorabilia being tossed or moved.

Straw hats on horses

{?}

Issac “5’oclock,” talking fast”

Letters [?] traveled 3 times across [time zones?]

Silver holders for glasses, handles, pictures

Visiting Lenin’s Tomb

Eating diners at Hotel Metropole

Swell music by orchestra

Seeing baseball game by Moscow Foreign workers club vs.

Gorki Automobile Americans.

1 Russian on “GAZ” team – “1st to bat a ball”

Game held in Phys. Culture Institute, one at Bolshevo

Eating dinner at Bolshevo

Visting Hymie Bonner’s home there

U.S.S.R Parade

Wheat fields

Peasants with livestock, vegetables, in costume, singing dancing military

Airplanes and anti-aircraft things

Balloons – let go before Lenin's Tomb.

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

And then, talk about contrast! I find the torn index card in Griffith Park. I think it's fairly legible. What possibly can this list mean? I wonder if maybe is the song list for a really scuzzy rock band? Can't you just hear this grungy lead singer?: "And now we're gonna do our big hit--you can get the ringtones on our site--'Pee With My Girlfriend!' And a one, two, three!"

I won't regale you with my fantasy lyrics (which would pale next to "Herpes Jock Itch" in any case.)

MCO 2007

So at Agape this morning, Rev. Beckwith was brilliant as usual, on the topic of "Learning to Think Like God." Out of many fascinating insights, here was one in particular that stayed with me. I paraphrase, of course.

Most human beings tend to think inside the box of their own experience, and pray that way as well. They are like chicks in an unhatched egg, who grow exhausted from pecking, and so instead end up praying for a bigger egg. And then they get the bigger egg, and end up wondering why their experience has scarcely changed.

He is one of those speakers who induce an enormous amount of nodding as he speaks. One truly feels like he is talking to you personally--at least I do. For example, just last night I was updating my MySpace profile (Holy New Addiction, Batman) because I came up with the one word I wanted to use to describe both myself and what I most looked for in someone else. That word is: "interested." And then the Rev does about 5 minutes this morning on the difference between being curious, inquisitive, scrutinizing and being "interested." Guess which of the four was the one he recommended?

I had the funnest fantasy this morning while trash whispering. First, let me say that I have a neighborhood that is very busy at night-particularly on the weekends. Even though I go to bed by 11:30 or so, I walk the dog at 9 or 10 pm, so I know what trash wasn't there the night before that's there in the morning. Mostly empty fast food bags, which tells me someone got drunk or high and decided to eat something before going to bed--probably because they didn't get laid.

So I'm thinking of someone coming home after a night in the clubs, someone who moved in recently and has never seen me at work. A guy who doesn't want his precious car full of crap but God forbid can't be bothered to bring it into his house--that would be considerate, i.e. "gay." Plus it's 2 in the morning, who's looking? So he just tosses it on the curb, but suffers a twinge of guilt as he walks in. Let's say it's something he wouldn't do sober.

He makes one of those tipsy bargains with God, as he starts to pass out--for the 4th time that week. "I'll stop drinking if..." and he tries to think of something so unlikely that if it occurs, it can only mean that God is real. The "proof" he settles on is "if my trash is gone tomorrow..."

And so the next afternoon when he makes it to his car to meet up with some buds to watch the NCAA March Madness at a local sports bar, he sees that the trash he tossed is gone. He KNOWS there is no way anybody would have picked it up--it's Sunday, the street cleaners come on Mondays and Wednesdays, and the bag was empty, so there was nary a fry to satisfy a hungry homeless passerby. And with a gulp, he realizes that there is only one explanation that makes sense.

Okay, I said it was a fantasy, didn't I? (And I'm still sure it's happened at least once that someone's done a double take and thought: "I coulda sworn....")

MCO 2007

I think this picture sorta says it all. I almost titled it "Truck Most Likely to be Broken Into in My Neighborhood."

I did notice the guy getting out of this truck first and bringing in a handful of trash from inside it into his apartment. I got the distinct feeling seeing me in the midst of picking up trash very similar to what he had in his hand was what prompted him to dispose of it in a way he normally wouldn't. Then I saw a guy on the corner who just screamed "I just got out of prison"--droopy mustache, one bag, right off the bus--as he downed his first beer as a free man in about four seconds flat. He threw the can into a dumpster, and I got the same feeling that it would have been tossed right on the ground had he not just seen me.

This morning I did an impromptu Paul Lynde imitation in front of a large group of people and got a very hearty laugh. It reminded me that I have to keep a lot of humor in "The Trash Whisperer." Although I think all I have to do is concentrate on being authentic, and relaxed, and just allow myself to play with the audience. I used to give the power be funny that way to alcohol, (like surrounding myself at a party and pulling a Robin Williams) and now I'm starting to see that I can get "there" sober. Although I have to say, hearing people laugh at my humor gives me a buzz that would be illegal if I could bottle it.

MCO 2007

Prepare for me to sound like a 15-year old teenage girl.

Okay, I put up a My Space page. Now there is nothing any of you will find out there about me that you don't know already, BUT when one starts out, of course, one has no "friends" on it, and one basically looks like a pathetic loser.

So do me a favor? If you have a myspace page, will you swap friendship requests with me? Here's the URL (big surprise with the name.)

http://www.myspace.com/thetrashwhisperer

Yes, I know I'm so much more than just a pickerupper of trash, but it's the only truly original angle I can lay claim to.

Thank God there's no i in my name, or I'd have to put a little heart of it. (And no, the "C" in "MCO" does not stand for "Cyndi.")

MCO 2007

So this morning I ran into C., someone I'd known in recovery who just had to spend 9 months in a Florida penitentiary to make amends to the state for some ill-advised credit card transactions made under the influence. I'd given him a few car rides across town and we'd had a fair amount of casual chats, but I wouldn't say we were "friends" in the formal sense. Still, when I saw his address posted on a bulletin board, I took it down and intended to write him, because I knew all too well what he was going through. And then, invariably, I'd get a letter from Mike, and would spend a good 2 hours on my weekly Sunday night missive to him, and I felt it was all I could do to maintain consistent communication with him much less someone else.

As irony would have it though, another Mark was writing him all these months. C. hadn't known my last name, and assumed it was me! He only found out otherwise this morning--and, without dissing the other Mark because what he did was wonderful---I can say that C. was a tad dissapointed to discover his misapprehension. I laughed and apologized and congratulated him on getting out, and then remembered that probably he wasn't as lucky as I had been and was coming out to no money in the bank. I remembered how wonderful it had been to never have to ask--my mother and sisters always asked me first. So I asked him if he was broke, and the pained smile told me he was praying someone would come to his aid. I gave him what I had on me--not much but it'll get him through the day. I figure that's what I would have spent in stamps over 10 months!

When you gain distance from that experience, it's amazing how powerful the draw is to revert to the thinking you once had pre-prison, where the whole issue is so discomfiting that it is far easier to not think about it or make assumptions that other people are helping than it is to extend yourself.

On the other hand, I have to take care of myself as well. I have another good friend I adore who keeps relapsing. I don't judge it, I completely understand it (watch "Addiction" on HBO--it's a frigging miracle anyone gets sober), but the wear and tear on me is considerable. Every time his daily check-in calls stop for a long weekend I have to wonder if the next call I get will be from another friend telling me he's dead. I want to come from a place of unconditional love, at the same time, clearly my friendship, however available I have made that, will not do the trick of keeping him sober. So I end up detaching, to protect from an emotional rollercoaster.

I don't know why it "works" for some and not for others. I don't know for sure what, if anything, I've done that he hasn't done. Maybe, in the end, it will be more helpful for him to feel a consequence that he hasn't felt so far. This is a tough one.

MCO 2006

Well, no two days are alike in my world. thank God. This morning and last night have been about coming up with logos for my sister's business and for my other sister's landscapers.

I've done this kind of consulting for years, mostly as a favor for friends or relatives, but I think it's time to make some money on it, don't you? So hire me, dammit! I love the freelance life! I've been the master of my own schedule for 10 years now, and it's extremely addictive. Especially the part where I get to completely indulge my creative impulses. Not to mention the commute from the bedroom to the computer is rather less stressful than the 10 freeway, which is one of the most congested in the free world, and twice a week, the bane of my existence.

Enjoy the shorter entry. You know it won't last.

MCO 2007

P.S. I heard a report on Alberto Gonzales on KPFK. Didn't realize he was just a 2-bit real estate lawyer in Houston when Bush "discovered" him. It makes sense now, watching him flail about, way out of his depth. Bush's style of confusing loyalty for competence is really coming back to bite him. You know what he should have done for a living? Been nationwide president of a fraternity. Or owned a golf-course, maybe. But leader of the Free World? Talk about out of his depth!

Sometimes I think the Garbage God is a Dramaturg who had led me to this bizzaro Trash World purely for the stories it coughs up. At the very least I sure go a whole lot of places in my head in the course of one walk.

Such as this morning. It was nuts from the get go, with a first thing conference call to both sisters discussing the design of the website of one of them, interrupted by the pharmacy delivering meds for my inflated cheek--an infected perotid gland, it would seem. Finally I make it outside, and the first thing I see is a man with a cart, distributing restaurant fliers.

I know, here's the part where trash avenging Marc throws the bum off his block. You think you know me so well. But, #1, I noticed that he had only placed one menu in my building's front door, and seemed to be doing the same with the others. This struck me as eminently reasonable. #2, I noticed he was trudging. A slow, sad walk that just cried out "please, my life has been hard. This is the only job I can find. Be nice to me." And I had the thought, 'hell, in a just world, for all I know, that man could have been a great soccer player, a Math Professor, a talented lyricist. How hard it must be to be distributing restaurant menus when you should be playing golf in Florida.' So I said nothing, but I did enjoy the quizzical face he gave in reaction to my bag-filling. Newbies are fun.

So I'm rounding the corner, and my brain is now on to the NPR report I heard this morning about rural life for women in Sudan, when it can be an 8-hour project just to hike back and forth to a well to get a jerri-can full of clean water. It reminded me to get some gratitude, ASAP, and I start to whistle, just as a young and handsome Armenian man passes. I didn't whistle for anybody but myself, but I got off on the bemused smile I caught on his face. I'm pretty sure he found my behavior odd, to say the least. I love seeming to enjoy what most seem to assume is some sort of punishment.

Then I run into a wad of old Armenian newspapers, that had the look of being tossed from the back of a finally cleaned back seat. I go from perky to pissed in the blink of an eye. As I gather up the papers, I look up and notice a very elderly uber-bubushka in a black dress and walking with a cane across the street. I fantasize asking her why the sons she and her sisters raise do things that I'm certain she taught them not to do, but that's a mystery as deep and long as the world itself. For all I know, Dick Cheney had a very sweet Mom.

When I cross the street to toss my first bags in the dumpster behind the karoake bar, Mme. Babushkian is just arriving and clearly wants to say something. I've been breaking through to the Armenians more and more, but she is definitely on the far side of 80, so this surprises me. She utters slowly three simple words: "God Bless You." And as if she's afraid I somehow don't understand through her accent, she illustrates with her hands and she repeats it. She points to the sky and says "God" and then puts her fist over her heart as she says "Bless" and then pats it twice as she says "You." I almost cried. As I thanked her I nodded in a way that said it was definitely, indeed, all about serving the Great Trash Whisperer.

Her words, to put it mildly, motivate me. So I decide to add another block to my route, Russell Street, which I actually usually just do on the weekend and takes me a good hour because it gets so frigging trashed in between. There is only one open dumpster at the end of it, in which I'm obliged to put all the bags I fill. And today I'm confronted there by the super. "Please, my friend," he seems pained. "I have only one this for fourteen apartment in building. It fill too much by time come truck. Please, do not."

Believe it or not, I was expecting something like this one day, and decided to play incredulous. "Are you serious? ARE YOU SERIOUS? I clean this entire block regularly, including in front of your building, and you don't want me to use your dumpster?"

."Please, my friend, the truck no come from Tuesday."

"Listen I understand you don't want it to be too full, but there are no other dumpsters that are open to the street on this block. Are you saying you'd rather not have the street cleaned up than let me use yours?" (I so wished I knew how to say "Are you SHITTING ME?" in Armenian.)

I didn't get angry, really, I realized in his mind he was just doing his job. But it was so small-minded, so reflective of the idea that you take care of your very own and screw everbody else. I tried one last time: "I do this for everybody, so the street will be clean. You can't help me out a little by offering your dumpster?" He shrugged, as if to say there was nothing he could do about it.

I could only walk away shaking my head. (I did take a moment to revel in a sense of martrydom. Oh poor me, Don Quixote, flailing at windmills.)

So you see, one hour can be a universe of moral dilemma, redemption, gratitude, selfishness, protectiveness, frustration, acknowledgment, self-pity--and all from just wanting to enjoy the view while I walk my dog.

MCO 2007

So I discover that being a New York Times "Select" member grants you access to their archives back to 1850, and decide to search for references to my grandfather, Russell C. Olmsted.

First I find his marriage announcement to my grandmother, Hazel Beebe, in 1923. And then I found the report of his suicide, in January of 1944, which erred in mentioning a wife left behind but not four children, the third of whom was my father.

I've written, on this blog, an essay on my theory of why my grandfather killed himself, and if you're interested, you can read it at in the archives at http://www.marcolmsted.com/blog/archives/00000164.php Long story short, in the absence of any convincing explanation to the contrary, I theorized that my Grandfather may have been secretly homosexual, and it was grief--the death in the war of someone who he loved, whether or not that love was ever acted upon--that might explain why a prosperous, happily married man would take such an irrevocable step with absolutely no warning and leaving no note.

This theory, unsurprisingly, did not please my uncle, his last surviving son. Obviously I see no shame in wondering if my Grandfather was gay, even if he was not, but that difference in perception about such speculation between my uncle, a heterosexual man of 80, and myself is to be expected. But in elaborating on possible causes for his father's suicide, my uncle did share that he remembered that his father had been very depressed about the atrocities committed on Bataan, in the Phillipines.

I thought this odd. There was so much horror going on in the war, why would this one particularly upset my Grandfather? Unless, I thought, it was a clue. That there was someone he knew personally and cared about was caught by the Japanese there, or killed, and my Grandfather found out. Imagine what the grief of that loss would be, something he could scarcely share with another soul, much less his wife?

So it occured to me to search the Times Archives for Bataan, in late 1943, and one of the article that came up was the article on the right You will note that I put a box around one paragraph, about civilian miners also trapped and imprisoned by the Japanese.

In the decade prior to his meeting my grandmother,when he was in his 20's, my grandfather worked in Cuba and Nicaragua and Panama, on engineering projects, surrounded by other men far from home. It is inevitable that he developed very close friendships, and maybe something more. He only met my Grandmother after an accident put in him Bellevue hospital, where she was a nurse.

It is entirely possible that my grandfather could have known and worked with some of the men who eventually found themselves working in the Phillipines when the war broke out. If he did, one of them could very easily have been sick, imprisoned, tortured, or died on Bataan.

The date of that dispatch is November 5th 1943. My Grandrather killed himself the following January. He could have struggled through Thanksgiving and Christmas, for his family, then finally succumbed to the grief and isolation in January, when he killed himself.

There is zero proof, of course, to any of this. There can never be. But whether it explains my Grandfather's death or not, I am absolutely certain it explains some mysterious wartime suicide, and probably more than one.

MCO 2008

Okay, last night I pass in front of the building next door, and see the white van pictured above, and there is open tray of oil right in front of it (the gate was open). This morning I see the same tray in front of the dumpster in the building on the other side of mine, meaning this bozo and moved it from his building to one two doors down from his.

This bad, bad man lives at 5347 Loma Linda Blvd in Los Angeles, and I have called the Bureau of Sanitation Watershed Protection program on his sorry ass.

Unfortunately, my visibility in the neighborhood is so high I'm bound to be suspected as the one who called it in. On the one hand, I'm prepared to stare him right in the eyes and tell him "I'm not afraid of you--I've been to prison, motherfucker, bring it on!" On the other hand, I'm not actually thrilled at the idea of him bringing it on, obviously. When it comes to anything resembling violence, I'm all bark and no bite.

I don't know whether I'm engaging in paranoid imaginings or recognizing that I see these guys hanging out late at night in sweatsuits and leather jackets, and I don't think they're discussing what stocks to buy tomorrow morning on their cellphones.

Then again, I've got a lot of allies in the hood. Most are silent, but I know they're on my side. I just couldn't let this offense slide. It's not like I could just safely dispose of the oil myself.

MCO 2007

P.S. So after writing the above, I go outside, just in time to see a gardener-type washing all of the dumped oil into the gutter with a hose, watched over by the landlady of 5347, an Armenian woman who proceeded to apologize for the actions of her tenant, who had supposedly committed the offense when she and her husband were away over the weekend. (She had clearly gotten worried by my note on the dumpster informing 5331 tenants that the tray of oil came from 5347.)

While appreciating her attempt at solving the problem, I did not hide my irritation at what they were doing. "The city needs to dispose of this correctly. Now you're just washing it right into the ocean." The gardener looked at me like I was crazy. "Ocean? What are you talking about?" I enlightened him. "What do you think happens? This washes into the sewers, and the sewers wash into the ocean." I get the distinct impression that some of the people who come to this country to pursue the American Dream seem to have an exaggerated and unrealistic idea of our technological and problem-solving prowess. The level of conciousness about the environment and the damage done to it by individuals is woeful, there seems to be a very convenient assumption that everything is magically handled by big machines somewhere offstage.

I did not hesitate to tell the landlady that her tenant knew damn well what he was doing was illegal or he wouldn't have tried to dump the oil down the block from his building. And that I hoped he got a fine. I didn't care whether or not she relayed that information.

What it comes to this, it seems my anger trumps my fear.

Well, this note to Andranik's parents never made it to them--I found in on the street. Can you blame Andranik? I would imagine that if he's knocking kids around at recess that he's probably learning how such kind of behavior at home. I don't know whether to feel more sorry for Andranik or for his poor teacher. And then there's Andranik's mom, who's probably gonna have to miss a day from work if Andranik doesn't go whale watching, and who might be getting the backhand from Andranik's dad. He I don't feel sorry for, unless you go back to his childhood in Armenia. I've concluded one thing living in this neighborhood. It's no picnic growing up in that neck of the world.

I just saw "The Lives of Others," the German movie that won this year's Oscar for Best Foreign Film. It's very powerful. One of the comforting thoughts that redeems some of the bleak depiction of cold war East Germany is that for all the hell-in-a-handbaskosity of the world in the past decades, the fall of the Iron Curtain was no negligible improvement. That's many millions of people no longer forced to face some of the excruciating moral dilemmas posed by living in a police state.

The poor North Koreans, living in a state that makes pre-wallfall East Germany look like paradise. That would have been an invasion I could have gotten behind, frankly.

MCO 2007

So yesterday I open an email from the free local newspaper, The Los Feliz Ledger. I had written to them well over a month ago proposing an article on the scourge of trash in Hollywood and my thoughts about what could be done. I'd almost forgotten it by the time I read this:

Hi Marc: would you consider writing an editorial about this. This means 300-600 words—in your own words—about the problem. If you are able, please let me know and I can schedule this for my April edition. I also pay for editorials--$60.

The last time I was paid for my writing was 2005, when I made $1300 for an article on my imprisonment for the Pride Guide. But far more important than the money was the idea that this will actually be read by members of the City Council who can actually do something with my suggestions. I also hope to inspire some other people to buy a trashpicker and make their dog walks an opportunity to transform their neighborhoods.

But needless to say, when I started with this little sideline, the last thing I ever imagined was making even a penny off of it. For that unexpected twist alone, I'm tickled. It just goes to show you: when you do the right thing, the right thing does you.

I also note that when I'm getting paid for it, even a modest sum, I seem to have no problem whatsoever writing. The article practically wrote itself, I'll share it here when it appears.

So I'm positively buzzing as I do my route this morning, and I run into this visual:

It's hard to tell, but that cart is actually chained to the parking sign. I was struck by how it embodied the aphorism: "one man's trash is another man's treasure." Little did I know... Read on.

I find myself pulling off of windshields not only cheap car insurance flyers, but those xeroxed religious tracts that I've also blogged about. It's irritating but nothing can puncture my good mood, as I've just written about these very scourges in the article, proposing making their distribution considered misdemeanor littering.

And then I see him. Right across the street is Mr. Fire and Brimstone himself, a old African-American sticking an incoherent selection of the worst of what the Bible has to offer under each windshield. Do I approach him calmly and serenely, asking him to please consider the consequences of his actions? Not at all, instead I am guilty of my own brand of righteous fanaticism.

"I want you to stop polluting my neighborhood. You put these under the windshields, NO ONE reads them, EVERYONE tosses them on the street, and I HAVE TO PICK THEM UP. I WANT YOU TO STOP."

To his credit, he first asked me to be civil with him. I paused, took a breath, and let him make his statement. This is what he came up with:

"Why do you hate God? Why do you hate Jesus Christ?"

I tried, unsuccessfully, to remain patient.

"I do not hate God! I do not hate Jesus! I hate trash!"

"Why do you hate the Bible?"

"The Bible, I admit, I 'm not so crazy about."

"Why are you racist? Why do you hate black people?"

Okay, now I get really mad. At the same moment, I recognize that it is completely pointless to get into a theological argument with this bozo. A screaming match was another thing.

"RACIST?" I sputter, but don't even try to refute the ridiculousness of the accusation. "I just want you to STOP POLLUTING THE NEIGHBORHOOD! You might as well not bother, because I am picking up the flyers and putting them in the trash before anyone can read the crap on them! 'SPOIL THE ROD!' Do you have to pick the worst verses!?

To illustrate I mean business, I move across the street and continue to retrieve his tracts from under windshields. He keeps yelling "WHY DO YOU HATE CHRIST?" as I yell back "STOP POLLUTING MY NEIGHBORHOOD!"

At that moment, I am distracted by a passing German Shepherd who starts barking at Gaza from the sidewalk, on the other side of a parked car. My eyes meets those of the Shepherd's owner, a rather fetching young man who I've seen many times but who's never addressed me. Clearly noticing what is going on, he blessedly offers: "You know, we notice what you're doing in the neighborhood. It's really inspiring."

My immediate shift in tone from Screeching Avenger to Lady Bird Johnson was comic. "Thank you so much" I tell him, all honey-voiced. "I so appreciate hearing that." A second later I turn back to Fire and Brimstone: "I DO NOT HATE JESUS CHRIST! NOW GET OUT OF MY NEIGHBORHOOD!"

I walked away from his shouts to keep cleaning up, and he finally continued on his way. It wasn't till I got back down the street that I realized the cart was gone, it had been his belongings parked and locked on the corner. And as I calmed down, I also realized this poor deluded man, who was probably raised by some preacher who literally beat the Bible into him, thought he was doing God's work every bit as much as I did. And he was trying to make his life meaningful by being of service, just as I was. But even if I could get him to understand me as I understood him, our positions would remain unchanged. Still, I could have and should have been nicer to him.

But I gotta say, it was all quite cinematic. I do love my life.

MCO 2007

Yesterday in New Bedford, Massachusetts, the INS arrested 350 undocumented aliens working at a factory--making kevlar vests for our TROOPS, of all things. A large contingent of the workers had children at home, who now are fending for themselves or have been hurriedly taken in by friends or relatives.

I doubt any of the stormtroopers even thought of the children. This is anti-immigration hysteria at its worst. There isn't an American alive, who, if he or she woke up in the body of a poor Central American with a family to feed, would not do anything they had to to feed them, including risking life and limb to go where the work and the money is. It's called survival.

We have a regime that spends BILLIONS every month on "defense," and spends next to nothing to do anything about alleviating poverty south of the border so that people would not have to emigrate. We are punishing these people for behaving like completely rational human beings. This is what irks me most about the anti-immigrationistas. The sense that they don't really see undocumented aliens as being quite the same kind of human being as "we" are. They are dark, they speak foreign languages or with accents, they have committed the unpardonable crime of being poor. And despite the huge amount of taxes they pay and money they feed into the economy, doing work "we" won't, they are branded huge drains on the sytem, because, God forbid, they need to go to the emergency room or die. A system that is so screwed up we pay $35,000 a year to incarcerate someone and only 1/5th of that to educate them.

Okay, I got that off my chest. One would think I'm in a bad mood, but rather the contrary. I had a very nice date last night, although I use the word "date" loosely, if you catch my drift. Not that it was entirely horizontal, but the vertical part will have to remain anonymous.

Though I'm noticing more and more that I face almost completely forward throughout my day. A nice date is lovely, a "thanks" from the cutest man on the planet this morning while picking up trash is divine, but increasingly, my generally good mood seems to run on a present engine. Most of the time, I'm pretty much in the moment.

Which sometimes includes, obviously, planning the future. But since these are usually nice plans--like the possibility of driving cross-country this summer to spend a month in Massachusetts--I