http://myheroinrecovery.blogspot.com/2007/05/being-christiaan-in-polokwane-9-lives.html
Then from his, came this one:
http://blogs.24.com/ViewBlog.aspx?blogid=f3848d14-92b5-45c1-b216-eb98ab419d55
I may have struck a chord, started something. Of course I want credit for the genesis, but that will soon be lost if this keeps reproducing. More than that, I'd love to know whenever a new one pops up, I'm keeping a list!
MCO 2007
You know, I didn't know what to blog about today, and then an exchange I had with a reader about a letter he'd written to Andrew Sullivan about torture prompted me to follow up with my own letter, which I share here. (An idea long-term readers may remember me blogging about a while ago. I think it's worth repeating. You never know who's reading.)
\\Andrew:
I see that you address some issues on an ongoing basis, so thought I'd throw in my creative suggestion on how to reduce torture in the world.
It's too long and not catchy enough for a bumper sticker, but it's true: "The Powerful Don't Torture, Those Who Follow Their Orders Do." If everyone refused to do the bidding of the Bushs and Cheneys and the Husseins and Hitlers of the world, torture could not happen. Of course, human beings being who they are, there has never been a shortage of willing enforcers, so the question is how do we appeal to whatever remnants of conscience still survive among those who physically commit the acts?
My idea would be for radio spots beamed into the offending countries with the following simple message: "It's 10:00. Can you tell your children what you did at work today?" It is my contention that even men who are immune to most appeals to do the right thing instead of the commanded thing still crave the approval of their children, and framing the issue this way may conceivably plant the seed that it is possible to refuse to do the wrong thing.
Unfortunately, such spots will never air on Radio Free Wherever as long as the regime that brought us rendition is still in place.Then again, maybe where they need to air most is right here at home.
Marc Olmsted\\
MCO 2007
Okay, sometimes this Internet Thing rocks! Check this out!
http://recoverybeach.blogspot.com/
MCO 2007
Well, according to Bonham's and Butterfield's, the love letters I have from Prince Charles Murat to his wife, the former Margaret Stuyvesant Rutherfurd, stepdaughter of M.K. Vanderbilt, aren't worth anything. They just weren't prominent enough. However, Murat is a royal name in France, so I might have some better luck there. Still, to all you googlers out there who might belong to any of the families related to either of these two people, I figure you might be interested in the letters for the family archive. They didn't have any children, but they did have plenty of nieces and nephews, and I'm pretty sure one of them--according to peerage.com--is named Prince Jerome Murat.
And, it turns out, there's a Jerome Murat who puts on a rather interesting show. Dare I attempt to embed a YouTube for the first time ever?
Anyway, maybe I'm supposed to have these letters to write a great love story about this pair.
Can my Fabulous Idea File get any Fatter?
MCO 2007
These were some of the denizens of the County USC Hospital in Boyle Heights today, where you go in L.A. when you don't have insurance. I accompanied such a friend there, where he needed to get a catscan to determine whether a clogged artery in his stomach was so calcified as to require immediate surgery. This might have been calamitous, as he is the primary caretaker for his ex-lover, who is battling a host of life-threatening maladies himself.
It was a long day, with a 4 hour stay in the waiting room in the morning until I took off to return in the late afternoon to pick him up. It turns out he is okay--it's to be watched but he is not in imminent danger. I was particularly proud of how we both just handled it. Our old m.o. would have been avoid, avoid, avoid--particularly easy to do when you don't have insurance. Now we just did what was needed to be done , and our worse fantasies--of him being left out on a gurney to bleed to death as Carrie-like schoolmate nurses laughed in slow motion: "You can't pay! You can't pay! You have to die now! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!" --never materialized. Everyone was actually very efficient and friendly. Which doesn't mean I'm not just as rabidly pro-National Health Insurance. My friend would have never had to let it go so long if he'd been been able to see a doctor before it became absolutely necessary.
I did, at least, spend the morning in those hard blue plastic seats working. I went through the manuscript sent to me by Craig's friend Steve, who's still in prison. It's some great stuff, very dramatic, as his time has been much much harder and longer than mine ever was. At the same time, he tends to write in anecdotes and vignettes that would make for some very good blogging. So that's what I'm proposing he do--independent of and concurrent to the continuation of his prison writing. The biggest problem is finding the time to type up his entries--I can manage a couple of times a week at most. At the same time, I'd like to do for him what my sister did for me.
I'm just going to have to trust between Craig and I, we'll figure something out. (When I post a pic and you see how goodlooking this gay single man is--I daresay I'll have a few offers to help. Though I am loathe to share him.)
MCO 2007
P.S. Tomorrow morning (Wednesday) I take my letters to Princess Murat to Bonham's and Butterfields for appraisal! Cross your fingers!
7-8:20 I wake up in Buenos Aires. I am a dancer with the Ballet Nacional de Argentina. After 2 cups of strong coffee and a plain yogurt, I stretch. My grandmother calls me at 8:00, as she usually does, and I promise to be by on the way to rehearsal, as I always do. I bring her a few groceries—bread, cheese, whatever she tells me she needs, and make sure she has enough for lunch. She worries about me but I worry about her.
8:20-10:15 I arrive at my job as the assistant to an International Bonds Trader in Shanghai. Mr. Chen is a difficult boss, always contradicting himself but completely in denial about it. Still, I am learning a lot, and have a moped to come to work instead of a bicycle. By next year, I hope to get a car.
10:15-1:00 As usual, I am selling fruit at a stand outside of Dakar, Senegal. I am very worried about my daughter, she has a terrific toothache and I have no money for the dentist. My husband is a truck driver in the Ivory Coast, and has promised to send some money. When I break for lunch I will run to the Western Union and see if it has arrived.
1-3:00 I am going to have my lunch here in a small Brazilian town south of Rio de Janeiro where I am a priest. And after I eat I will nap, as I have to take the bus to a neighboring town to officiate at a funeral. Maria Colon Gomes has died of cancer, leaving 5 children in the care of an distraught husband who drinks too much. As I doze off, I think he should have been kinder to her when she was alive.
3-4:00 I am an overweight black ninth-grader in Lubbock, Texas. I will spend this hour in detention, as I was disruptive in English. I don’t like reading out loud because I am dyslexic and it makes me feel stupid, so I played the fool and got in trouble. It’s not so bad. I get to draw, which is what I love to do more than anything.
4-7:20 I am the wealthy wife of a Thai Diplomat in New York. He is always at work or with his mistress, so I spend my days in museums or shopping. Today I will go to the Frick, and then meet the wife of the Finnish Consul for an early dinner and to see a play. I am having strange feelings about her, and she about me, I think. I feel so much less alone in the world when I am around her.
7:20-8 I am a Japanese salaryman, taking the train home from Tokyo to the suburbs. I barely managed to avoid having to go out for drinks with my boss yet again. I hardly see my wife and son, and she tells me he is having trouble in school and needs a talking to. All the way home I stare out the window and wish I had been an architect instead of an accountant.
8-9:10 I am gay recovering alcoholic writer in Los Angeles. It’s Thursday night so I will watch Ugly Betty while checking email and reading blogs. Halfway through the show I have an inspiration for a piece called “Nine Lives” but my sister calls so I jot the idea down and remind myself to flesh it out over the weekend.
9:10-11 I am an Indian orphan who lives on the streets of Calcutta. My mother was a prostitute who died of AIDS. I will be snorting glue underneath a bridge, and hopefully I will not awake until morning. Or maybe not at all.
MCO 2007
Yes, all four images are the result of this morning trek. One of the little benefits of this neighborhood is the sprinkling of rockers amidst the Armenians and the gay bloggers, especially when they drop their trashy lyrics on the street.
SLUT PONY (some of it was on the back and I didn't scan)
Saddle up cowboy it's time for a ride
Pick a pace and keep a good stride
with a bite and a bridle by my side
Let me be your rodeo guide
Giddy Up, Giddy up
I'm not jaded
I'm not bitter
I'm just that slut
to end up in the gutter
You told me you'd love me till the end
And then you went and fucked my best friend
You said you'd give the world to me
But all you gave me was HPV
Just plug it on up
And sit and wait
Cause you got three-to-five days
Until you can date
(on the reverse, probably a snippet from another song)
When we met I was a lesbian newbie
For you I came out to my family
You told me that you'd love me till the end
You told me that you'd love me till the end
So I pocket these, and reveling in the richness of my find, I pass the motel parking lot where a very large African-American man is walking to his car. Our eyes meet, I say "Good Morning" and he, referring to my trashpicker, says "Thought you were gonna flip some ribs with those tongs!"
WE LAUGHED.
MCO 2007
If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied. -Rudyard
Kipling, author, Nobel laureate (1865-1936)
MCO 2007
This is a kick-ass memoir written by my incredibly talented (if-I-was-straight) girlfriend, Heather King. If you want a riveting read--especially if you are a woman and double especially a woman in recovery--buy a copy. This recommend is not just because I think she's the bees knees as a person, either. She's an amazing writer who captures the experience of alcoholism with an accuracy and attention to detail, and wry, even spiritual humor that is singular and just plain brilliant.
http://www.heather-king.com/parched.html
MCO 2007
I was just in Elysian Park and picked up a whole slew of these errant Monopoly bills, and it just struck me as ironic given my last post about capitalists producing trash to make more money.
Okay, the truth is, I needed to post again, because I have this boundless desire for attention along with an ambitious streak that's bigger than Montana. So I'll do anything to hold onto you new eyeballs thrown my way via Mr. Sullivan. Who knows who's among them? The "Shouts and Murmurs" editor at the New Yorker maybe? Please?
Ergo, one of my favorite pieces for your consideration. (And for the non-New Yorker editors among you, this is to balance the previous post, so you know I'm a renaissance kind of guy who doesn't just write about his odd obsession with refuse.)
Group Therapy
On Monday, Salman Rushdie called. “Believe me, I know what you’re going through. When I was in hiding it was just like prison. I couldn’t go anywhere, all I could do was write. And then they lifted the fatwa and I was ecstatic. I had so taken my freedom for granted, and vowed never to do so again. And guess what? Within 6 months I was just as depressed as I ever was. I don’t even remember that period in hiding as being so terrible. Part of me enjoyed all the attention. You know what I’m saying?”
On Tuesday, Joyce Carol Oates was on the phone: “Listen if being published equaled happiness, I would be in nirvana. I write 8 hours a day, longhand, because I can’t do anything else. Between you and me, sometimes I turn on a soap at lunchtime, and wish I was one of those actresses. Heart-breakingly beautiful, and able to just say the lines instead of come up with them. Not that what I come up with is on the same level, but when you write as much as I do, you have to wonder. Can you produce that much and maintain quality? Or am I just an output machine?”
On Wednesday, Woody Allen dropped by: “I hate to admit it, because we were on a panel together and completely disagreed—oh, maybe that was Cynthia Ozick—but Joyce has a point. I’ve made too many films to be covered in one semester, and there isn’t one critic—not that I read them—who says they’re getting better. Meanwhile I’m still asking the same questions I’ve always asked: ‘What’s the purpose of life? Why are we here? Why can’t I stay attracted to the same woman for more than a few years?’” Before he slunk out, Woody cautioned: “Oh, we never had this conversation.”
On Thursday I got an unsigned fax from a major celebrity: “Cheer up. At least you don’t have to arrange elaborate public love affairs with starlets to cover up the fact that you like to sleep with men. I sold my soul to the devil for fame and now I can’t get it back. Do you know how many people are on my payroll? Count yourself lucky. It’s a very risky business, this success thing.”
On Friday, Al Gore emailed: “You think you go down that ‘if only’ road? You should come over for poker night at John and Teresa’s. I wish I had stayed a journalist. I would have made a great anchorman, and had all of the glory and none of the sense of failure.”
On Saturday it was Peter Jennings, in a dream: “Gore is right, up to a point. All the glory won’t do you much good if you lose your health. What’s eating at me is that I still want a cigarette, even up here. You’re damned no matter what.”
On Sunday, the Lord appeared, looking exactly like Cher. She simply slapped me across the face. “Snap out of it!” she ordered.
I told her it would help if I could summer with Tennessee and Somerset in Key West or Cap d’Antibes. She said she’d have to talk to the Big Cahuna, and called Oprah.
MCO 2007
Well, many of you will be reading this for the first time because you have been turned on to this blog by Andrew Sullivan, who plugged me over at http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/05/recovery_blogs.html. He being a big hooha in the blogosphere, he's got a lot more readers than I do, and thanks to him my numbers doubled overnight. Of course, knowing how ephemeral this sort of thing is, I'll be lucky to hang on to a dozen of you, but I figure here's a chance to be heard by a lot more folks than usual, and I should take advantage of that somehow. So if you're just doing a drive-by, hear me out for this one entry, while I take my 15 minutes of fame to spread the Gospel of Trash Whispering.
1) If you hate litter as much as I do, let me share my experience, familiar to any of my regular blog readers. Every morning, when I walk my dog, I take my E-Z reacher (see masthead photo, right) and about 4 or 5 Ralphs plastic shopping bags, and pick up trash from the street as I walk. The result is that the blocks that comprise my "route" make up the only clean streets in an otherwise filthy neighborhood. (Thank God for the Mexican gardeners who come once a month, or it would be positively third world.) Every day at around 3:00, I do the same thing in either Griffith, Echo or Elysian Park.
I would like to encourage everyone to do the same whenever they walk their dog or hike. If you're anything like I was, you will find a host of valid reasons not to do this. I mean really, why should anyone have to pick up after inconsiderate people with no sense of civic responsibiltiy? I have no answer for that, except I'm not asking you to do it because you should.
I'm just suggesting that if you do, you might find that it feels a lot better to pick up the litter than to be angry about it. You also might enjoy the many interesting encounters and conversations that ensue with people, the vast majority of whom think and say nice things about you for cleaning up. Plus, just in case there is reincarnation, it can't hurt your karma. Most important, it keeps trash from flowing into the sewers and polluting our oceans, so the value goes well beyond the aestethic.
2) Whether or not you heed my call, if you work near or for a city councilman or state senator or congressman of any kind, or work for any kind of environmental advocacy organization or know someone who does, please join me in suggesting and agitating for ordinances which ban the pelting of our streets with Walgreens circulars such as the one pictured above. Ditto all the fliers for low car insurance, restaurants, gyms, nightclubs, and so on that go under our windshields and on our doorknobs. They are clogging our streets and sewers and denuding forests, all for very questionable return on the investment. (Free speech, free enterprise, blah blah blah. Advertise on the internet if you want the extra business. The planet is dying and you're worried out making a few extra dollars a month. Shame on you, Walgreens.)
Okay, enough fingerwagging. If you checked me out hoping for some "painful honesty," humor, insight, recovery or the occasional political rant, please peruse. Any of my regulars will reassure you I won't disappoint.
My 15 minutes or up--or who knows, perhaps just starting.
MCO 2007
copse \KOPS\, noun: A thicket or grove of small trees.
I'm sorry, but sometimes I think I am just hysterical.
So I spent most of last night and this morning proofing articles for the magazine. That part is easy and I do well. The co-ordination between myself, the editor, the copy editor and the art director has been less than optimal, a reflection of the management style of the head honcho discussed yesterday. I keep reminding myself to be grateful, I have been able to make far more money than I would have had the workflow been, er, more efficiently handled. It's an odd thing to be grateful for though, someone else's chaotic tendencies.
My sister is thinking of starting a blog, but felt some trepidation at whether it changes things with the people you know who read it. I haven't found that to be much of a problem, as very few people I know read this, although the converse of that is true, the people who read this I've come to know. And that, finally, is the great unexpected gift of blogging. Sometimes I wonder if God specifically invented the Internet because she just couldn't find another way to efficiently arrange the karma needs of billions of souls that somehow need to interact in this incarnation. C'mon, even God must find the logistics a tad daunting.
I'll sign off now. If you're anything like me, trying to keep up with the blogs you follow plus new recommends and discovered commenters, you guys will probably be grateful for a shorter entry.
MCO 2007
Today I am reminded of that alcoholism is alive and well in the alcoholic even when the alcohol is removed. And that goes for you too, addicts. For all drugs.
The problem is not the substance being abused, it's the relationship the addict has with the substance being abused. Even when the addict stops using, that relationship remains--and its deeper, underlying dynamic, that which tell us you can fix what's in here by what's out there.
This is certainly not just an addict thing, obviously, it's a human thing--the idea that if you have XYZ--the right job, spouse, place to live, etc etc contentment will result. But with addicts this illusion is particularly pernicious because that was once very real to us. Trust me, there isn't an ex-drunk or druggie alive who never once had the absolute certain sensation that how they felt (or didn't feel) while intoxicated was the solution to life. That's why we almost all fought getting sober so tenaciously. Even when it stopped working we clung to the delusion that it would work again the way it once did, if we just kept trying.
So addicts, even sober, are particularly prone to transferring our addictions. Sometimes it's another substance--food, gambling, shopping. But most often it's people. And not necessarily individuals per se, very often it's the drama and chaos and hurt that come inevitably with relationships, particularly if that's what we grew up with. Never underestimate the power of the familiar. We will return to what we know over what we don't know over and over even when it creates an amazing amount of misery for us.
I have had a recent professional interaction with one of the nicest people I've ever worked with, but he's so afraid of making others feel "less than" (as he was made to feel growing up) that he projects that fear onto others, and this results in professional interactions in which conviviality tends to take precedence over competence and efficiency. The emphasis is always on the relationship over the work, which leads to endless anecdote-swapping and a profusion of detours into every tangent under the sun.
This is all great fun up to a point--but rather treacherous when you're in a business revolving around production deadlines. When every call that should be 2 minutes long lasts 20, it sets up an inevitable time crunch in which X work must be finished in Y hours (X being greater than Y). When you don't communicate unequivocally the requirements for an article for fear of appearing bossy or demanding, you don't get the result you need for the space you have when you need it finished.
I think my friend genuinely hates the resulting stress of being one more time in crisis-mode, but I also think it serves a purpose. It perpetuates the illusion that one's discontent is the result of what happens to us instead of how we happen to life. This is the goal of the disease of addiction, the "ism" of alcoholism. It wants you to stay in ego and away from God.
I have absolutely nothing but the deepest affection for this man--he's terrific fun, extremely smart, a great writer. But in 10 years, I see no change in a style that ultimately guarantees crazy-making just-under-the-wire finishes. I can't help but try to figure out what it's about, even if--thank God--I get to witness it at a distance now instead of in the next office.
It does remind me to stay extremely aware of any and all of my own tendencies to reverse the equation of happiness. I need to start with me and my relationship with spirit and let everything else flow outward from there, not the other way around.
MCO 2007
Sometimes little moments come out of nowhere that are just friggin' magic.
The details are unimportant, but all I did--I swear to you, it was nothing--was offer some small decorative elements to adorn a handmade gift a friend was making for a woman who he is crazy about, and they were so perfect that he gave me the biggest, longest, most sincere hug I've had in a very long time. It was soooooo sweet, and not something you get every day from a straight man, let me tell you. (Of course, I'm starting to realize how many of the barriers to that kind of exchange were put up by me.)
I've been asked to clear my plate for the day, as I will be proofing the final copies of the magazine that I've been editing over the past week, ergo, I need to make this a quickie. Especially since I must run to Circuit City to get a mega-gigabyte flash drive to back up all my stuff as my computer is acting really really weird and my gut tells me it could go any second. I've spared you from the details, but there's been a lot of computer drama of late--wheezing hard drives and freezing crashes and emergency defrags and the like.
I did want to share that I've figured out what to do about the prison part of the blog. I'm not going to worry anymore about whether an edit/rewrite detracts from its "authencity." It needs work--work I couldn't give it in prison without a computer to produce multiple drafts. I also have a perspective on the experience I didn't have while I was going through it, and I can also toss a lot of the verbose sociology that belongs in a different book. I'm going to call the result "A Season in Purgatory" (to evoke Rimbaud's "A Season in Hell") and give it to the agent that a friend of mine said is always on the lookout for new stuff. That's the exciting news I referred to in the last blog.
I can't tell you how good it feels to be unblocked about this. I'm gonna work like the wind.
I AM going to make this happen. Or rather, let the happen. You see, what I'm really doing it getting out of the way. It looks like exactly the opposite, but it's not.
So much for quickie-ness.
MCO 2007
This morning I had a severe attack of PLS. (Periodic Love Spasm). I don't know why it came on, I was just doing my morning route, and I just felt in this big and powerful way all the people in this world I am warm and close to. I'm not talking about that I love humanity/mankind kind of love, I'm not talking about that romantic-kiss-me-you-fool kind of love, I'm talking about that intense psychological intimacy and affection kind of love, the sort I never really thought it was possible to feel for so many people concurrently.
I've never even met some of these people, or YOU people I should say. But I have of course, because I've read your words and words matter. They matter a lot. Words, not eyes, are the windows of the soul. But this sense of overflowing proximity did not discriminate between people I have hugged for real or only virtually, it was global.
I knew from experience that the sensation would dissipate--such is the nature of the beast. But to key into it, even for a bit, to feel completely familiar with the idea of love being an absolutely unlimited commodity--well that was worth reporting.
So, if anyone felt an odd but pleasant frisson around 8:15 am, that was me.
MCO 2007
So Welcome to Elysian Park, where I now often do my midday trash picking instead of Griffith Park, much of which is still off limits since the fire. It's a big, lovely park, here's one view of it on the left. Behind that copse of trees is a road, and beyond that a hill and some more trees. But the placid tableau is deceiving.You have no idea how many mini-dumps just like the one pictured on the right are lurking under and around and behind. Those low big bushes on the left? I pulled 12 empty Coronas bottle from beneath their tangled underbrush. (It KILLS me that people make the effort to hide their littering but won't walk 100 yards to a can or a dumpster.)
Adopting a new park invites particular lessons for me in patience and incrementalism. Since huge swathes have not seen any clean-up for months and sometimes years, I fill up a bag or two quite easily, but then have to leave most of that particular mess to finish over several more days. (Some messes are far worse than that pictured above.) Elysian Park, it seems, is where the denizens of Skid Row decide to spent a few days in the country. They set up makeshift campsites, and sadly, the idea of cleaning up after themselves seems an utterly foreign concept.
Luckily for the park, I am a relentless Trash Whisperer, who knows that consistency is the key. You keep going back and back and back, over many months, and three or four bags a day really add up over time. Unfortunately, the park is just far enough from where I live to incur some GWG (Global Warming Guilt.) Are the carbon emissions of my car getting there offset by the cleaning up I do? You can't win.
So today, I notice a grizzled alkie with a 24-ounce bottle of beer in a paper bag, the kind I gather so many of, staring at me intently. I am certain he is intrigued by this strange sight of someone cleaning up with no evident ulterior motive, wearing no orange vest or Dept of Parks uniform. When our eyes meet he pops the question you'd think I'd expect by now.
"Part-Dalmatian?"
I can't tell you how many times someone who is clearly noticing what I'm doing with the trash addresses the pedigree of my dog instead--as if it's going to make the remotest difference to him what breed to which Gaza's spotty coat can be attributed. A 6-year old, yes, of course they're excited by a chance to say one of their bigger words. But grown-ups?
I swear my trash-collecting makes some people uncomfortable, It's like they want to say something, but are somehow nervous, like I'm going to be embarrassed by it or something. Wouldn't it be funny if I pretended to just notice for the first time what I'm doing? "Oh my God!" I could cry out, mortified, as if I'd been awakened sleepwalking in my underwear.
What a contrast the park was to a few hours earlier, when I was copying the love letters from Prince Charles Murat to his wife, the wealthy Vanderbilt heiress/divorcee Margaret Rutherford. I read many of them as I went along, my body in Kinko's but my head across the Atlantic and 70 years in the past.
Made some very interesting professional connections over the weekend. That will have to wait for another blog entry, plus, I need to take some action before I report on it.
MCO 2007
Read this please:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/16/sports/basketball/16cavaliers.html
Basically, 14 of 16 members of the Cleveland Cavaliers Basketball Team have used their status (B-ball is huge in China and the Olympics makes it huger) to protest to China about their mega-investments in Sudan, which are directly propping up the Government in Sudan and indirectly fueling the very elements perpetuating the genocide in Darfur. Chinese pressure on Sudan could go very far in halting the horror.
LeBron James, who seems only interested in become richer and more famous than Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods, has pled that he "doesn't know enough" to sign the petition. Bullshit. He knows that he has a $90 million deal with Nike, for whom China is obviously a major market. (He hasn't responded to pleas to pressure Nike on the sweatshop conditions in their factories, either.)
Anyway, I've been asked to write a quick note to Lebron, and to spread the word here to ask others to do the same. This may be like spitting in the wind, but I promise, if you are pissed about Darfur you'll feel better for having done at least a little something about it. I'm told snail mail is much more powerful than email, (and we can't get the right email in any case).
So do drop Lebron a line. Mine reads: "LeBron, be a man. Sign the letter to China on Darfur. Choose people over money."
Address it to his agent:
Leon Rose
4300 Haddonfield Rd Suite 309
Pennsauken, NJ 08109
or fax it:
856 662-0165
MCO 2007
At first I thought this loose piece of paper found in the park was written by someone in the throes of Meth Psychosis. It reads:
Who can you trust?
Where can you hide?
Paranoia?
--You can't go home
--Anyone you talk to dies
--How can you fight back?
--Use what you know...
--It's an accident. Was supposed to be clean.
--Set up a double-cross
--Innocent death
And then I came to:
--send family off somewhere and you
get rid of them for rest of movie.
--Also, somewhere to go
--fake contact.
This town.
MCO 2007
Recently, in "Mr. Olmsted Regrets," I spoke about an unfinished prequel/sequel to Gone With the Wind, 5 chapters of which I wrote a couple of years ago, deciding not to pursue it because it was a hopelessly quixotic affair to even hope to get the rights. Last I'd heard, Pat Conroy ended up not writing it, but it turns out they kept hunting, and they found an author. "Rhett Butler's People" is coming out in the bookstore this fall.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/16/books/16book.html?_r=1&8bu&emc=bu&oref=slogin
No matter how unrealistic it was that I would ever finish it, much less get it published, I couldn't help but occasionally wonder if that's where I should put my efforts. Now I can just put it to rest.
MCO 2007
Well I guess the little story I'm about to tell could easily have happened if I just walked the dog and didn't also pick up trash, but I do think I observe my little world with a great deal more attention than I would otherwise because of it, so I'm going to chalk this fun moment up to one of the benefits of my little hobby.
The building pictured above is called The Trianon. It's right on the corner, and a lot of movie stars used to live there, I'm told. Its a very impressive building in a comparatively modest neighorhood. My little squiggly arrow is not the greatest, but it points to where the basement apartment is which belongs to the window on the right, (probably living quarters for chauffeurs and supers in days of old. Which reminds me of an ethnic joke from the 60s. "How come the Polish suicide rate is so low? It's pretty hard to jump out of a basement window." Sorry, my Eastern European friends, but you gotta admit it's kinda funny.) The window is always open at least a crack, and Harriet the Spy that I am, I of course check it out as I walk by. So far, when I walk left to right, I've only seen a slight bit of a TV screen, and then only for a second, because I certainly don't stop to peer in. (I figure whatever you happen to see as you innocently pass is fair game.)
Walking left to right, in the opposite direction, it was always dark--until today, when, clear as can be, I see a man showering! I kid you not!. His back is turned, and there's a cute sun tattoo right under his neck, and he had a pretty nice body from what I could tell. Such an erotic frisson I felt, so early in the morning! Yes, I was tempted to double back, because it seems rather probable he left the window open accidentally on purpose, if you know what I mean. But I didn't, just in case he was one of those oblivious straight men or someone apartment-sitting the regular resident forgot to warn to close the window during morning libations. If that was the case, had I been noticed gaping, the reaction might have been less than neighborly. As it was, it was the perfect 1st scene from a porn movie, and how often doesn that happen?
In other news, yesterday I worked in Santa Monica and the tension over the different approaches my boss and I take to problem-solving finally resulted in a conversation altering my status there. I will now be coming in just once a week, for mailing list maintenance only. I couldn't be more delighted. The commute alone was becaming intolerable, especially once I found out through "Who Killed The Electric Car" that one gallon of through-the-roof gas produces bazillion tons of CO2 emissions. I would have quit all the way but I can't afford to. But I will have to replace the income with something closer and less stressful--hopefully this editing job will lead to others.
MCO 2007
P.S. Speaking of cheap thrills, Nash at http://nashdrift.blogspot.com/ actually read the entire blog since it started back in 2004. That is like, 2 Gone With the Winds. I may just have to sleep with him for that.
I think we need to start a "Send Marc to Australia" Fund, don't you?
So, Trash Whisperer that I remain, I snapped these two photos today. The first is self-explanatory, the second was just a canvas unrolled there on the sidewalk. Sometimes I do wish I witnessed the backstory of how some of these things get thrown out. I would invent one for this, but I spend my normal blog time editing and I still need to get the dog exercised and out to work in Santa Monica, so this will have to do.
I did want to share this tidbit I found in the Time magazine archives:
Monday, Oct. 08, 1945
Married. Margaret Rutherford, 53, the late Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt's daughter who became ballerina, cultist (Oom the Omnipotent), husband collector; and Prince Charles Michael Joachim Napoleon Murat, 53, great-grandnephew of Napoleon Bonaparte; she for the fifth time (once before to Murat), he for the second (she was also his first); in Manhattan.
Their first marriage (see below) ended in divorce. Margaret remarried another guy, named Sprague, then divorced him and remarried Charles. I can't blame her. Some of his love letters are quite beautiful. (I still haven't been able to find out if she married yet again, nor locate her obituary.) But I'm completely mesmerized by her Noel Coward/Somerset Maugham life. I think I was a wealthy aristocratic expat in a previous life, I really do, speaking in a continental accent and crossing the Atlantic in boats on my way to various pied-a-terres and ritzy hotels. The whole lifestyle feels completely familiar. (It would certainly explain my deep-seated grandiosity and sense of entitlement).
I got way distracted by doing research into this yesterday. I've become such a spoiled brat. I get nervous and pissed that all these people are not clamoring at my door to give me work, and then when they do, I resent actually having to work. God forbid I can't blog to my heart's content, spend an hour in the park with the dog or take a 2-hour nap.
If you work for a living, don't be so quick to take too much time off. It's very hard to get back on that horse, let me tell you.
MCO 2007
Oh Lordy Lordy I'm feeling overwhelmed, though rather in a good way.
Months ago I shared on this blog that I had rediscovered a cache of love letters that I've had for 20 years that somehow came into my hands when I worked at the French Department at NYU. They are addressed to "Princesse Charles Murat" by her husband, (their marriage announcement above) written when he was in Morroco and she in Paris in the mid-30s. Anyway, this writer doing research on the Murat family found the reference on the blog via google, and I came very close to just sending him the whole batch. However, after doing some research myself, I've decided to copy them and send those to him instead.
It seems Mrs. Margaret Rutherfurd was this blue-blood heiress who led a fabulous life and had a few more husbands after poor Charles, who adored her madly, according to his letters (in French). I don't know whether I can auction these babies or give them to a museum or historical society, but I'm pretty sure they are worth something.
Unfortunately I don't have time to do the research now, although I'd love to. I'm in the midst of editing job #2 which is just huge. Although the article is well written, it is not only way too long, but lacks an angle/focus that will make it "work." It's virtually impossible for me to reshape it without doing so much rewriting the original writer is bound to be upset. But that's why I was hired. I am the King of the Big Revamp. But I don't know how I'm going to get this dome today and make it to work in Santa Monica.
I was also thrown a bit of a loop yesterday to find out about the recent death of someone I used to be close to, an addict named Denny Gregory who just couldn't stay sober. He was one of the hottest and angriest men I ever met, and going out with him, back in 2005 when I was newly sober, turned out to be a nightmare (his code name in the blog was "Hot Air Balloon"--as he'd plummet to earth and back up just like one). Between his heart and his liver, the years of abuse and countless hospitalizations, his death was not unexpected. His blog' s last entries are sad evidence of what happens when an addict just can't "get" it. http://outtamyheadandintocyberspace.blogspot.com/.
Denny made it VERY hard to love him, or even stay friends from a distance. He could be funny, and affectionate, and adored dogs. But ultimately, with his rage he burned every bridge and tested every friend beyond enduring. But of course such pathology can only come from terrific pain, so, ultimately, I am glad that he has found relief. The sadness is not in his death, it was in a life lived as a burden and not a gift.
In other news, last night Craig was on LetsTalkRecovery.com radio, discussing his book, and I called in. They almost immediately asked if I would come on the show myself. Of course I'd be delighted, and told them so. I obviously will let everyone know when this actually comes to fruition.
I gotta get to work, but I just couldn't skip more than a day blogging.
MCO 2007
Unfortunately, I farted around on line instead of getting a blog written this morning, and now my second editing assignment has come through and I must turn my attention to that.
Therefore my fascinating story about letters to a Princess written in the 1930's, how I got them and who I'm giving them to, will have to wait until tomorrow.
I blog so much that you guys will probably be relieved. Thank God none of the people I read are as mouthy as me or I'd never get through them all.
MCO 2007
P.S. Last night at Bioneers I saw "Who Killed the Electric Car." Fascinating. Rent it. Buy It. Talk About It.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning. -Bill Watterson, comic strip artist (1958- ), in his comic strip Calvin & Hobbes
Oh well, Jerry Falwell is dead, and here I survive, unscathed by the lightning that should have been my due as a dreadful sinner, according to him. Do I rejoice in his death? No, I mourn that it is 30 years too late. How do you love a hater? This is the challenge for someone who aspires to live along spiritual principles, believing in a God of love instead of that ugly God of the Falwells and the Robertsons, the one who sends down AIDS to punish sin. I wish I could be as amazing in regard to the haters as Mel White and all those people over at http://www.soulforce.org/. That whole movement, determined to meet hate and oppression with love, is one of the most perfect embodiments of Christ/King/Ghandhi Consciousness I ever seen. I'm afraid I'm not quite there, but I'm trying to walk in that direction. It's great to have examples to emulate.
I want to thank all of you who commented on "Mr. Olmsted Regrets." I had that neat cool feeling writing it that I'd come up with something funny and original, and of course I was dying to hear that others felt the same way. It gave me just the shot in the arm I needed as I undertook the first assignment on the editing job. I plugged away for six hours straight yesterday, typing right through "Dancing With the Stars" (wink, wink) with barely a glance up at Joey Fatone. (Actually it's that Apolo who was hotter than hot!) I finally sent in the finished piece to the Editor at 11 and at 11:30 he emailed back "beautiful." I am still buzzing from being in the "zone," that special place where creative flow meets a paycheck! Heaven! (The article was about Gays and Racism, and I had to cut it in half, which necessitated writing some new transitional paragraphs to frame the discussion that I am very proud of. I will share them when the magazine comes out in a month or so.)
Anyway, today I'm back working at Highways in Santa Monica, then tonight I bring my new buddy Craig to a meeting of Bioneers. www.bioneers.org so he can network over his book. I'm sure I'll come home to editing job #2.
I am feeling quite wonderful. There's nothing like the feeling you get when your talents and desires seem completely aligned with what you are doing and what you feel the universe is asking of you.
MCO 2007
P.S. On my AOL hournal, which is this blog exactly, I have a whole different set of commenters. One of them is this Evangelical Christian girl with a persecution complex who is HALLUCINATORY in her remarks. We have a fairly fascinating exchange under "Mr Olmsted Regrets" over at: http://journals.aol.com/makemarc/SoberGayEx-Con/ if you're curious.
I should have taken the photo on the left 5 minutes previous, when they guy was actually vacuuming the lot with a heavy duty vacuum cleaner, instead of changing its bag. You can imagine that the only one more surprised than me to come upon someone doing my job me was this guy, when he saw me doing his job! It turns out he was doing some renovation work for the restaurant on the corner and decided to use his industrial strength machine to scoop up the many butts carpeting the parking lot. It was rather an ET moment when we saw each other. Sort of like the only two cars in Kansas having an accident in 1905.
On the right is a child's doll house, just placed right there on that grass corridor between the sidewalk and the curb (what is that called? anybody know?) What do these dumpers think? That somehow an impoverished father of seven is going to drive by, refurbish it, and make the day of his 6-year old? It will sit there for a month or two at the very least, and thinking otherwise makes about as much sense as my going to the Post Office this morning and finding no choice on the vending machine for buying 2 cents stamps, today, on the date of the postage increase. Fifteen minutes I waited in line to get some, and when I pointed this lack of forethought out to the teller she said "We don't handle vending machines. They going to take those away." (You supply the accent.)
I just got a call offering me a freelance editing job that should earn me a nice chunk of change over the next 10 days. It's for the same magazine I wrote an article for when I got out of prison, the Pride Guide that goes to all the Gay Pride Festivals in the country each summer. The timing couldn't be better because I'm really needing a change, professionally. Between the commute to Santa Monica and some creative differences on how to do the job that need not be gone into here, I don't see myself there for too much longer. But I might miss some blog/journal reading/commenting--though that doesn't let you off the hook dammit. You miss one of my entries, and I want a note from the doctor. (Especially "Mr. Olmsted Regrets." I was kinda hoping for a little more feedback on that one.)
MCO 2007
So San Jose was a bit dry. Not the city, but the conference, which had to do with arts administration. I was able to contribute a few helpful tidbits from my own experience, and I did flirt with one cute fellow conferencee who actually gave me a ride to the airport, but that was about it.
At least I wasn't hungover. In the past, sure as shit if I had a free night in a deluxe hotel in a strange city I would have found the busiest gay bar and some willing local for some freelance romance. I actually had a fair amount of these affairettes in my twenties and early thirties, sometimes we stayed in touch and even became friends. But often enough these nights could be charitably described as misadventures. I'd end up with the wrong person, in the wrong place, or just not making choices that I was particular proud of. Sometimes, when I later got to know my new "friend," I realized our "chemistry" was entirely chemically-based and we had nothing in common. And always, the morning after, I would have to struggle through a haze to function.
So my "free" night took me to a meeting and then I watched TV and read. I no longer have to view visiting a new city as a success because I made a conquest or a failure for going back to the hotel alone. It's such a relief to not have anything to prove.
Next to the venue where the conference was held was an art gallery at which I took a picture of the painting on the right, ("Las Tehuanas" by Valerie Andriola-Purpura) because it to startlingly reminded me of a photo I took 3 years ago on the left--that I called "Tres Senoritas."
And then there was this fabulous photo. If you're in San Jose, go to the exhibit at MACLA (Latin American Art and Theatre Space) on 1st street and buy something.
MCO 2007
I'll be off this afternoon to San Jose for a one-day conference tomorrow representing Highways Perfomance Space where I have my part-time job. Hey, do I have any readers in San Jose who'd like to meet for dinner tonight? If so, email me quick at makemarc@aol.com">makemarc@aol.com!
But I wanted to leave you guys with the piece of been talking about, below.
No wonder I have trouble with lengthy works. I must have spent 8 hours on these 1600 or so words.
I don't have a laptop, so won't blog in SJ. Look for me on Sunday.
MCO 2007
P.S.
I rediscovered this poem that was not on my website, that's rather a propos.
KNOW82SJ
i have this dream
that bob Weinstein
calls me on his cell
he says my script
is ultra hip
and rescues it from hell
from turnaround
to surroundsound
i’m flavor of the month
my grocery lists
cause bidding tiffs
i’m dating kirsten dunst
quentin pleades
but I say please
my fiction’s hardly pulp
i’m nibbling prawns
on oprah’s lawn
she wants me for her club
steven’s spiel
is quite unreal
but he can wait in line
cause bill awaits
at my front gates,
with editors from time
larry king?
right after sting
the amazon needs saving
steven hawking
won’t stop squawking
al-qaeda won’t stop raving
the paparazzi
act like nazis
i’m one degree from bacon
when proust drops by
with lady di
it’s clearly time to waken
wish me well
the road to hell
is paved with good intentions
but know the way
to san jose
i’ll give you directions
MCO 2003
“Next” intoned the clerk.
It was 48 years ago, back in 2007, but I remember it like it was yesterday.
I was ushered into a spare white room and motioned to sit. St. Peter (I knew because of the nameplate on his desk), peered over his bifocals at my file. I wondered why he needed bifocals.
“I wear the bifocals because the Afterlife takes on whatever appearance you think it will.”
Clearly, he could read my mind. I figured right then I didn’t have to do much talking.
“Let’s get to the point, shall we?” he proposed.
I squirmed. Surely I was in for it. I was going to find out that all that redemption I experienced in the last part of my life didn’t even begin to compensate for the wreckage I created of the first part of my life. Let’s face it. I was fundamentally a bad person, rotten to the core.
“Your ‘IDEAS’ file.”
“What?”
“Your ‘IDEAS’ file. On your hard drive. Surely you didn’t think we didn’t have complete access to everything in your computer, did you?”
I actually wasn’t thinking about Judgment Day at all when the cab went into reverse at Serrano and Hollywood as I stupidly jaywalked behind it. But if I had, I certainly didn’t think the file listing all the ideas I had for screenplays, movies, and novels, the ones I never wrote or never finished, was going to come up for discussion.
“What about my ‘IDEAS’ file?”
“Let’s review, shall we…? ‘Back to the Future – Hitler’” he began.
“Oh that!” I jumped to the conclusion that I had to defend the story. Was heaven all about heresy and inquisition, after all?.
“Well, this scientist goes back in time to kill Hitler as a baby. And he does. But when he comes back to the present, everyone is speaking German, and he finds out there was a worse guy than Hitler who came to power but who won the war. So he goes back in time to kill himself—his other self--before he can kill Hitler. And he’s successful! But he’s caught! And they put him on trial and---“
“Yes, we know how it ends. In fact it was very inventive.”
“Oh.” I was taken aback. I didn’t expect a compliment. “Thank you.” I found out you can blush even when you’re dead.
“Let’s move on. ‘Prequel to Gone With the Wind.’”
“That was a novel, or supposed to be. I did write 5 chapters of it. It’s the love story of Rhett Butler and Belle Watling, in the years leading up to the Civil War. Since they had a son and everything. But I couldn’t get the rights, of course. Hell, the Martha Mitchell estate couldn’t even come to an agreement with Pat Conroy,” I noted defensively.
“Yes, we know.”
I rolled my eyes. What was the point if he knew everything?
“The point is that it was another good beginning of a work you never finished.”
Oh, so that’s what this was about.
“Well…” I flailed about for legitimate excuses, trying to keep the focus off the 25 years when I drank and used. “I was busy. I had a blog to write. Or do you think I shouldn’t have spent so much time on the blog?”
“No, we actually liked the blog very much. But it only took an hour a day to write, maybe two.”
“Well, I had to read other blogs too. You can’t expect people to read yours if you won’t read theirs. And what about picking up trash? My meetings?”
“All good, Mr. Olmsted.”
And then he waved his hand, and a holovideo appeared. I thought it was going to be a technicolor expose of the millions of wasted hours spent in bars and on the internet, when I could have been building a literary empire to endure for centuries.
Instead, it was a fast-motion montage of me watching television, the shows clipping by in fast motion, but just slow enough that I realized they were all of recent vintage, from the last three years of my life. It looked like I was getting a pass for those decades under the influence. At least I had an excuse of sorts then. Since I’d been sober? Not so much—evidently.
It was painful to watch. And to hear, as St. Peter accompanied the damning cinema with a reading of the rest of the undone, unsung projects in my idea file.
“Black 'High Society.'" ‘Copenhagen/Eduardo Story,’ ‘ Uncles and Nephews,’. ‘War Occupation-Fay/Mom Story.’ ‘Children’s Color Story,’ ‘What if I’d Grown Up in France Story,’.’ Therapist/Two Patients Play’, ‘Bloggers in Love screenplay.’” And on and on.
“Please, stop, I get the idea.” I pleaded.
He snapped his fingers, freezing the holovideo on a frame of Joey Fatone doing the mambo on “Dancing With the Stars.”
“I don’t understand. Why are you showing me this?”
“It’s Judgment Day, Marc” Uh-oh, he was calling me Marc, now. “But it’s not God’s judgment, but your own. For all that you think you should have done with your talent but didn’t because you watched too much TV.”
“And because I’m lazy” I added.
He shrugged. “If you wish.”
“Well, so, if God does not judge me, why does he want me to feel so guilty?”
“She.”
“What?”
“God. The correct pronoun is ‘She.’”
“Oh.” That was an interesting bit of information.
“God does not wish for you to feel anything at all. God simply allows you to see clearly what’s necessary for your personal growth.”
Personal growth? Who was God, anyway, Oprah Chopra?
“These were things you need to know if you decide on a Do-Over.”
“A Do-Over?’”.
“Yes. We’ll put you right back into your mother’s womb in 1958. You can live your life all over again. “
I was intrigued, to say the least. But skeptical. There had to be a catch.
“The catch is you’d die again at the same age. That’s predetermined.”
“But I’d know everything I did wrong the first time around?’
“It means you’d have a keen presentiment available to you of what choices not to make again.” A little vague, but it still sounded pretty cool.
“I’m afraid our time is up.” Two doors appeared behind him, marked “#1” and "#2." You must choose now. There’s Door #1, the Do-Over, or you may move on through Door #2 to the next existence, the details of which I am not at liberty to disclose…”
That offer came 48 years ago, and with it came a return to 1958, because of course I chose the Do-Over. Wouldn’t you? And now I’m right back where I ended, dead in 2007 for a second time, and I’m here to tell you living life over knowing what not to do turned out to be the worst idea ever. It’s not that I didn’t make mistakes—I made plenty, just different ones. New ones. Foreign ones. Foster mistakes. I feel like a dog person forced to have cats. You grow to care for them, but it’s just not the same.
I miss my old errors, my original rueful regrets. I don’t know who I am without them. I had no idea how much the paths not taken defined you as much as those you did take. Who knew they were so much who I was? Who anyone is?
So yesterday, when the cab hit me—in Quebec, this time, because, of course, I’d had the good sense to move to Canada the second time around--I was ready to go. I was tired of a life with all the wrong mistakes.
Except for some of them.
They found my most treasured possession curled up in my hands, the infamous “IDEAS” list, printed out. Yes, the same list of all those unwritten projects. Those “mistakes” I kept. As I grew older a second time, I realized that those were regrets I could recreate, and that somehow comforted me, made me feel more myself, as I lived my alternative redux life of smarter choices. Not writing those same projects was my only link to my first life, full of those doubts, those same “what ifs” that, unbeknownst to me, were some of my closest friends.
This time, I can face St. Peter—or St. Pierre, as I’m entering through the Montreal gate—loving my regrets instead of regretting them. I could do Edith Piaf one better. Je ne regrette rien—not even my regrets.
I should note one thing however, The list is not entirely the same. It’s missing item #16, that last one on the original, which read: “Possible New Yorker Piece/St. Peter/Regrets.”
“Entrez!”
This time, it’ll be Door #2. I don’t care who my new parents are, or where I grow up. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know a thing.
MCO 2007
How ironic that I've been working so hard on that comedic piece about all the writing I feel I should have done that I haven't, and I can't manage to get it right. I've decided that part of my problem is that I want things to look or be a certain way fast, and I become totally discouraged by the work required to make it just right. I have counselled countless aspiring writing to understand that almost all writing is rewriting, but for me that seems to stop at 5 drafts. And of course there is the genuine danger of overwriting. That's when you try to improve it so much, get it so just right, that you end up going past the best draft--at which point it's rather hard to find your way back.
But that's okay. I will finish it soon enough. Though may have to settle for posting here, as it's rather less funny and too long for the New Yorker and probably too personal for anywhere else. But I sure seem be coming up with some insights about regret and identity I wasn't even aware I had before I started. I think writing about not writing may be the very way I come to grips with the possibility that all art that is supposed to be made, gets made, and not to fret about that which doesn't get made. Unless, of course, that's just my extremely elaborate rationalization for not doing the hard work.
I got my first letter from Steve, the gay inmate Craig hooked me up with, who still has 16 months on his sentence. Very funny and charming. This is going to be a very interesting relationship. Nothing I like better than getting to know someone via the written word, regardless of whether we end up being friends or something else.
I found new stomping grounds for Gaza and me--Elysian Park down near Dodger Stadium. It's great there and there's plenty of new trash for me! So I'm gonna sign off and get there so I can get back in time for work way out in Santa Monica.
Frankly, this job and commute is starting to get on my nerves. I'm starting to think I may claim global warming as an excuse to move on. But let's face it--good luck finding a job without a downside.
MCO 2007
Click on the Purple Box in the Center-"the Free Fund for Animals" ---and each time you do, the advertisers give some money to an Animal Rescue Fund.
It doesn't cost a thing, but it would be nice if you actually looked at the ads in case there's something that interests you.
http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com/
MCO 2006
He's actually rather more dashing than this inside cameraphone photo would indicate, but this is my new buddy Craig, the fellow ex-con and author who I have recently mentioned. I spent most of the morning helping get his new blog on line, and I'm asking you guys to please visit it http://over-the-wall-craig.blogspot.com/. Tell him I sent you (there's a silly picture of me on there), then leave your blog address so he can return the visit and join our big happy family.
One of the gifts of sobriety has been my increasing comfort with straight men. And Craig is of the particularly secure ilk that has no trouble being found attractive by gay men and being very physically affectionate--without you ever questioning the sex of the gender he really goes for. This man LOVES women--in that way that women love to be loved. It never about a body part, it's about the style, the silhouette, the energy, the laugh. He'll "gets" them.
Oh, and he's a pretty snappy writer too.
MCO 2007
A few posts ago, I asked you to visit a YouTube video on the impending execution of an innocent man in Tennessee, Philip Workman.
Despite the valiant efforts of my friend Molly Secours, who made the documentary, Philip was executed last night. This is the letter I sent her this morning.
\\The only thought about it that I can imagine being of comfort is to think of what it would have been like for Philip to go to his end with no one but perhaps his brother or lawyer believing in his innocence. Thousands--because of you---knew it and were thinking about him last night. That had to have meant so very much to him and his family.
For me, the fires literally in sight from here were such an eerie counterpoint. The cameras actually just found a lone coyote who didn't know quite where to turn. I bet you feel a bit like that right now. But I am convinced that because of your work, there is someone out there--whether he's in prison yet or not--who will not now be executed. I am quite certain no matter what the prosecutors or clemency board say, they slept poorly last night. They will operate with less arrogance and less certainty in the future. And there are law students now who will be different kinds of lawyers because of it, and future jurors more likely to question the scenarios handed to them by authority.
We have lost this battle but we will win the war.
Much love and a huge amount of respect,
Marc\\
MCO 2007