October 2007 Archives

As far as sobriety goes, I'm a big believer in attraction not promotion (spelled out as such in AA's 11th Tradition). I try to imagine what could have provoked me to put down the drugs short of the forcible intervention of the law. There were plenty of examples of a real life attractive sober men I could have latched onto but didn't, and the arrests and deaths of friends sure didn't do the trick either. The problem is that when you're looking at the world with an alcoholic/addict's mind, you equate happiness with euphoria, or, if you're fundamentally miserable, with oblivion. Your disease tells you over and over that you can obtain said euphoria or oblivion with repeated administration of the substance, so look no further. The addict may purport to crave calm and "normality," but in practice equates serenity with blandness, or the absence of excitement, i.e boredom. Usually he'll finally only get sober because the pernicious consequences of all that "excitement" and "euphoria" become so acute and so painful, that he finally equates using with more pain than pleasure.

This is why it is so very hard to find ways to successfully reach addicts or recreational users who are on the way to becoming addicts (which happens far sooner with crystal users than drinkers). If they even admit that all that "fun" might be a problem (days off taken at work, broken off relationships, etc.), if they even imagine that a spiritual solution is possible, they look for it to be a white light experience, something intense and over-the-top, like an acid trip, or the Hyawasca sessions with South American Indians where the users have out-of-body hallucinations and discover deep mythological meanings to their life. The only "spirituality" most addicts can imagine competing successfully with the intense sensations of drug and alcohol use are in fact, other forms of intoxication.

The discovery one makes with continued sobriety is that spirituality is not about transcendence, but about the small experiences of daily life, the miraculousness of the ordinary. God is in a good conversation with a friend, being responsible, listening to your child, feeding your family, going to the doctor, taking a hike, petting your dog, laughing, crying, being a worker among workers, and most crucially, being of service to others. It can also look like meditation and prayer and worship, but the idea that spirituality is somehow primarily represented by such activities is one of the world's most persistent and destructive illusions.

Honesty, open-mindedness, willingness, acceptance, accountability. These are not glamorous, bells-and-whistles principles, but they are fundamentally spiritual. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to convey to someone who is still living in the madly ego-inflamed state of active addiction how deeply satisfying the serenity is that comes from living by these spiritual principles.

It's like telling someone that one house is more beautiful than the other because of its basement. They don't understand until a tornado hits.

MCO 2007

P.S. I finally landed another subtitling editing gig. Hooray!

I was a little blue that the Rockies lost, and little did I know that Tennessee Tony had something to perk me up.

As you can see, he's plotting his favorite pitch, "The Heartbreaker."

MCO 2007

P.S. I cropped the pic because Tony suffers from a medical condition: "Curvature of the Ass," and only a qualified professional like myself gets to see it.

I woke up early this morning (well, my bladder woke me up) and instead of going back to sleep I decided to go to a 7am meeting, which is so early it's only got 10 or so people, which means everyone can share. (And I do love to share, which will surprise absolutely no one.)

Anyway, the drive to the meeting was along Sunset Blvd., hence the seemingly contradictory title of this mini-photo spread of four sky views along the way.

Of course I could now blog about 20 things for 7 paragraphs, but yesterday's went on and on, so I'll give you a break. Besides, I have to get back to the screenplay I had to put on hold when I went to Ptown, although I am terribly tempted to get on the National Novel Writing Month bandwagon.

One must make choices, musn't one.

MCO 2007

I don't do a lot of You Tubing, then it occurred to me that my friend Scotch might be on there.

Far be it for me not to share such a delicious man with a great voice.

MCO 2007

blog2

Mike sent me another entry, which I promised to post.

MCO 2007

First of all, I am amazed and delighted at the fact that I have written this blog almost every day for over 3 years now, and still never seem to have the slightest problem figuring out what to write about. In fact, the simpler my exterior life gets, the less drama-filled, the more it hews to a certain routine, the richer and more textured my interior and spiritual life gets, the more connected I feel to the world, and the more often people tell me the nicest things.

This latest twirly-gig in my brain started with taking the newspapers in my Mom's down to the recycle bin Wednesday, and true to form, taking 20 minutes to do so because my attention was caught by several articles in one of the papers I was throwing out. One in particular led me to consulting the writer's work upon returning home, and reading this:

Our Kids Are Getting Dumber

On the one hand I was delighted to discover Mark Morford, and I heartily recommend you peruse his archives. On the other hand, the content of the article was so depressing, that the only solace I could find was to think that perhaps global warming was not such an awful thing, because maybe the only hope in the long run for a humanity that has so completely screwed things up is for most of us to die. Maybe the few hundred thousand who don't drown or fry can recreate a future where people are nice to each other, don't get into wars, don't beat their children, don't judge their neighbors, don't pollute and don't create economic systems that put gross concentrations of wealth and power in the hands of a few. (Odd that such a thought should constitute "solace.")

That said, I have to admit that using "depressing" to describe my reaction to the article is too strong a word. Because, to be honest, the concern I have for the all the wrongs in the world doesn't really provoke the same kind of despair that, say, the death or illness of a friend, a lover's rejection, or a creative failure might cause. In other words, my horrified sighs at the destruction of the Amazon while watching "Planet in Peril" would not for a minute prevent me from dancing a jig if Anderson Cooper called me and asked me out on a date. (Andy, email me first and I'll send you the number.) Likewise my "blues" at the content of Morford's article were immediately dispelled upon reading this email from my friend Claudia, who I called from the airport Thursday:

I just want to impress upon you that your laugh, the same laugh from 6th grade that you laughed at the airport, is on my list of the 10? 5? most beautiful/wonderful sounds in the world. If the word "incandescent" could describe sound that is what it would be. (Ironically, my brother Luke used to hush me in the movie theater. He thought my laugh was embarassing.)

That's what I mean by "All Politics is Local," even if I'm not really talking about politics. I'm talking about what makes you genuinely sad, or genuinely happy, is rarely anything that you see on television (Red Sox Fans excluded), or read in the paper (national tragedies excluded.) It is something that happens in your direct experience.

Which is what I was thinking about when, while picking up trash this morning, I cleaned around this big crate pictured above that's been left out in front of the Karaoke bar for months. Inside it was someone under a blanket, a very short person who I woke up as I almost picked up some leftover Chinese food from the shopping cart. She peeked out from under her blanket, and it occurred to me that might be breakfast, so I asked her if I should leave it. "Yes please" she answered, in a high, shy voice.

This girl was not a day over 15. I've seen the runaways on the streets of Hollywood, of course, but this was the first time I came face to face with one in such circumstances. I immediately scoured my pockets--wouldn't you know I had left the apartment without taking any money?

Of course I coudn't stop thinking of her, and yes, I did return shortly thereafter with breakfast and what I could afford to give her, as well as a mention of a center for runaway youth just down the street. She said "thank-you" in the sweetest voice imaginable--it broke my heart. I also recognized it wasn't what I was giving her that mattered so much--there ARE a lot of services for runaways in L.A.--but that she maybe needed to feel there was a little hope, that she wasn't invisible, or seen as prey. Or perhaps it was me who needed to feel a little hope, by doing something, even a little bit, about something I normally just wring my hands about for a second before moving on.

Here was a social problem I might lament on TV that was suddenly right in my face, and both cause for a momentary sense of despair and then the exact opposite when I finally found a good reason not to empty all your change into Coinstar but let someone else do it (Literally "keep the change.") It was a complete nexus of the personal and political, the desire to change the world and the realization that charity begins at home.

MCO 2007

P.S. I'm also having the best love life based almost entirely on flirtation and REALLY good, funny, spiritual conversations. Who knew NOT doing IT could be so much fun?

I shared this morning about what a joy it was to be with my Mom in a grocery store in Tarrytown, calming her down a bit when she got nervous about whether we could get hand sanitizer there or had to walk down to the CVS. The sharer that followed me thanked me for talking of my Mom and joy, because Joy had been the name of the mother who died when she was a child.

I was so relieved to hear her kind acknowledgment, because I have felt terrible for months over a episode of foot-in-mouth disease I suffered that caused me to make a well-meaning but actually insensitive suggestion in response to one of her shares, to which her retort to me had been an extremely irritated "You're NOT helping."

This morning was the first time I'd seen her since then, and after the meeting I sincerely apologized. To which she said: "For what?" "For what I said after our last conversation. It was stupid." "Oh that..." she answered. "Don't even worry about it." And I got the feeling she still had no idea what I was talking about.

How funny life is. And yet I don't regret it at all because it did cause me to examine how often I try to solve instead of just listen. We men do that you know. We have trouble being with someone else's pain, we think we should "do" something about it, and sometimes cast about for the most inappropriate "solutions" instead of just empathizing and being unconditionally supportive.

Anyway we graduated to mutual complimenting, as I thought she looked great and vice-versa.

But how nice to close the door on that dangler. I don't think I have any other apologies pending. If I'm wrong, let me know. And if you owe me, you're pre-forgiven.

MCO 2007

I'm overwhelmed with catch-up today, as is always the case the day after I return from a trip, so today, a sampling of some shots from the East Coast.

I'm not a big one for posting 80 shots on Pikasa or Flicker--I just don't think photos of people you (the reader) don't know are that interesting (to you).

I've got some posts from Steven waiting--I'll be posting one a day for the next few days, so if you're one of his fans, do check out prisonsabitch.

MCO 2007

One of the epicenters of the fires is Rancho Bernardo. I worked at a firm called Beach International there in 1989-90, right when I first moved to California and was living with my brother in San Diego. I was a adminstrative assistant with 3 or so job titles during my short tenure there, it was one of those odd companies that did a little of everything. I remember I taught the sweetest group of divorced Moms rentering the workforce how to use the computer. We all got screwed over together when we got laid off en masse and never got our last pay check. I bet at least one and maybe all of them are still there, perhaps homeless now.

Of course, me and the other alcoholics found each other soon enough and it was cocktails after work at least twice a week, and parties on the weekend. We were young enough that we could pull it off, but I kept in touch with at least two and that sure wasn't the case a decade later. I hope to God they found their way to sobriety.

As for Rancho Bernardo, far too many Reagan Republicans for my taste, but no one deserves to get their house burned down, of course. Maybe at least a few of the last holdouts will finally get global warming is quite real and no joke. (I'm just remembering that the other Rancho Bernardan I met was in prison--when I was in protective custody for 6 weeks, where the older or HIV or gay inmates sometimes went. Dick was a white banker who accidentally hit an undercover cop with a baseball bat--didn't kill him, thank God, but just barely--at a game his son was playing at. Dreadful story. He used to work in the prison kitchen and would make incredibly tasty burritos for us, and in exchange I would massage his diabetic feet. He should be out be now--geez, I hope his house didn't burn down.)

My Mom and I are all about doing crosswords puzzles together. Still working on the Sunday Times one. I return to LA tomorrow and will blog Friday morning. Let's hope some of the rainy weather will follow me.

MCO 2007

So I'm here at my mom's deluxe retirement home on the Hudson river for a few days. I arrived by train from Boston yesterday, and except for 15 minutes after a nap when I couldn't find my glasses (they'd fallen into a crack where they couldn't be seen--I had to feel for them) it was a delightful trip. God I love trains. I was even inspired to start a novel about two gay soldiers who have an affair in World War II. Somehow the fall foliage and Connecticut waterfront zipping by acted as a muse.

My mother is very happy to see me. I find it interesting that I shared but three blogs ago about my logistics-phobia, and this is precisely the area she seems to have the most difficulty with as far as her memory goes. Where is she going tomorrow and how is she getting there, or how I am getting from her place to the train station, or the train station to the airport--all of these things take on a great importance for her, even if the answers matter much less than the questions. She doesn't really need to know, but she needs to know. I was helping her understand that a check she received was hers to deposit, that the Feds had already taken out what was owed, and she said "I wish one of you children was close by." I really need to be open to the idea of moving back east. I'm not going to decide anything, but by being open to it I'm more likely to pay attention to any signals on another front the universe sends my way that point in that direction.

My nephew continues to send absolutely hallucinatory reports back from India. Monkeys jumping on tin roofs, and fireworks exploding at ground level in a festival, and young men who will come up to his girlfriend as if she's a prostitute if he's away from her for even a moment. She's now wears a head scarf--this helps a bit.

Here's what I don't get about the parts of the third world where women are treated like property, or third-class citizens, or faithless whores. They are treated that way by the men who were raised by women. Women who have the opportunity to instill different attitudes in each generation, but who evidentally don't even try to dispel the ideas that women who go out in the street unaccompanied are unvirtuous, or husbands should beat their wives, or widows should throw themselves on their husband's funeral pyres. In fact, I have to believe they repeat and reinforce these notions.

This is what is so tragic to me. That the women internalize this garbage, that they believe it and perpetuate it. That they are the ones holding down their daughters and sisters during female circumcision, inflicting the very terror that they themselves had to endure. The ironic and tragic truth is that they could alter the equation in one generation simply by telling their sons different things, like your sister is equal to you, and stoning even an adultress is wrong. They won't of course.

And what that tells me about the way the human mind works is that we have a very deep, primal need for the approval of the group, and we will often do anything to conform to the status quo rather than risk feeling a part from mass opinion, even if we harbor intense inner doubt or have to tell outrageous lies. Look at Larry Craig. He goes on National TV to restate the most ridiculously unbelievable scenario ("I guess I tapped your shoe"- as if one could EVER do such a thing unintentionally), all because he can't bear the idea that people will think he's one of those dirty, godless homos. He seems to believe being gay is not a question of who you're attracted to but whether other people perceive you as such. Well no Larry, we don't think you're effeminate, and we know you're not looking for a committed relationship with a man, and we believe you love your wife, but we DO believe you're attracted to members of your own sex. So if you have to be proud of that to be "gay" so you're not gay then. But'cha are a homosexual, Blanche. Ya are.

MCO 2007

It's Sunday night, and I'm back in Boston--just in time for Game 7 of the playoffs in one of the craziest baseball towns in the nation. It'll be fun to root for the "home" team, even if it's only my home for a night.

Saturday I went to one workshop, about creativity, and then led another for members of Crystal Meth Anonymous. Marvelous, both. Saturday night--well I could write a short story about Saturday night. There was something very literary about the minor and major dramas that unfolded over dinner, dancing, even a big old altercation in front of Spiritus Pizza between the police and a drunk Australian "professor" (so he kept shouting) who was led away in handcuffs. There was also a chance encounter that occurred after all that that I will leave to the pen of someone else to recount or not--in fact I hope he's the one who writes the short story.

Today, the weather was breathtaking--you couldn't ask for a more picture-perfect backdrop for the final "gratitude" meeting, at which attendee after attendee took a minute at the mike to speak to why they are so grateful. Is there any other spiritual program in the world that operates on the same principles? It was a very beautiful thing, and great honor, to participate.

After Rod and I bid goodbye, Billy and I were waylaid by Bostonian friends of his who asked us to brunch with some friends of theirs from Palm Springs. What the hell, I said. Good move on my part, as right in the middle of brunch one of the guy's friendly demeanor suddenly turned into something even more friendly, followed up by a suggestion walking back to our guest houses. Isn't that how it always goes? Here I was thinking that if I got lucky it would probably be wearing my leather pants and shaking my booty on the dance floor, and the moment I completely let go of even a smidgen of expectation, the universe said: "Here you go! Don't you get it by now? I like to SURPRISE you!" In the interest of discretion, I'll spare you the details, suffice to say I hummed all the way back to Boston like Madeline Kahn in "Young Frankenstein." (Thanks to Billy for delaying our departure for an hour.)

Okay, the game has started. Off to NY to see my Mom tomorrow. So far, a grand trip.

MCO 2007

It was a dark and stormy night, but we had a blast none-the-less.

My friend Billy and I arrived in the afternoon, settled into our deluxe Guest House, The Prince Albert, and took a walk, eventually landing at Rod (kickintina's) Guest House. (In case you wondered, Rod is very handsome and very funny. We get along great and I'm sure will be friends for life.) Along with his traveling companion, Mark, the four of us went to dinner and then to the big meeting in a giant tent set up outside of the Provincetown Inn. As always in these big meetings the speakers were well-chosen and full of laughter and inspiration, but I will never forget the sheer drama of the storm outslde, whipping at the tent flaps, as the rain beat down in sheets.

As for imagining I was somehow going to get points for being a fresh face, what a grandiose crock of wishful thinking that was. There are so many good-looking men here, from all over the country, and I am falling in love every 12 seconds. Hopefully there are a few out there thinking the same thing about me, but then again, this testosterone-challenged old thing cares more about it in the abstract that in any urgent, actionable sense of the word. After an hour of AA cabaret (AA=adorably amateur except for a few standouts,) I was totally content to snuggle alone in the deluxe bed in my room as the storm raged and the others went to Spiritus Pizza and dancing. They obviously don't come from drought-ridden, sun-drenched states. (Billy dragged his sober butt in at 3 in the morning, but that's between you and me.)

Tonight, I promise I wll be more sociable. I'm gonna put on my leather pants and tightest t-shirt and show these boys why I was voted "Most Likely Not to Know Who The Father Of My Children Would Be" when I starred as Mary Lou Retinitis in the Lower Westchester Dinner-Theater Production of "The Damned Don't Die: The Musical." (The reason I make that reference is because this weekend is also "straight transvestite" weekend, or "Linebackers in Wigs." We're talking about heterosexual men who like to dress as women, and most of them don't seem to make too much of an effort to act like women, they just get off on the look. This town is a HOOT.)

MCO 2007

Another gift of sobriety: I've rediscovered my love of travelling. I still get anxiety-ridden about packing, but at least it's not that kind of paralyzing panic. It's more like the way I dread cleaning the bathroom. I just do it, and it's over. Since I'm living so much more in the present, I don't spend a lot of time anticipating anything--good or bad--so that the dread I feel about anything lasts for about the 5 minutes I use to procrastinate about doing it. Then I do it, and it's done.

Then of course, there's always the getting up for an early flight, arranging for a friend to drive me or for a shuttle, and getting to the airport on time. Not once in the past 4 years has anything happened to justify my fears about missing a plane or forgetting something, and finally, I'm starting to mellow out. I've never been afraid of flying or even terrorism---it's a generalized logistics-phobia I have, one of the reasons I became a writer intead of a director. I like it being just me and the computer. Directing means arranging things, making lists, being on top of things. (Also, could never be a wedding planner. Just so you know.)

Ironically, I have had a few jobs, both at the NYU French Department and as a magazine editor, where I was the KING of list-making, multi-tasking, remembering, answering, arranging, etc. and I actually liked it. But the process of getting there, going from not understanding how anything works to figuring it all out--especially when it was on-the-job teach-yourself training--that sucked. As a know-it-all from way back, I don't like the part where I don't know what's going on. I guess not a lot of people do, but with my hyperactive imagination, I always come up with scenarios where someone is going to give me 20 minutes to memorize the instructions for piloting a plane, then tell me if I don't fly flawlessly they'll shoot my dog. (Actually, the fantasies are way more dire than that, but I don't want to give nightmares to anyone who thinks the same way.)

Boy did I go an a tangent there. Suffice to say, I haven't been to Boston sober in a decade, and I do love this city. My buddy Billy has a two bedroom condo in a brownstone in the South End, and of course I fantasize about living here--as I do when I travel everywhere. You watch, one of these days when I'm a big fancy schmansy writer making a billion dollars a year, I'm going carry out my threats and have apartments in Boston, Barcelona, Buenos Aires, and Berlin. Then when I get bored with the "B's" I'll choose another letter, and so on, until I'm 109 and have lived EVERYWHERE.

MCO 2007

Boy, last night was intense. I am not a psychiatrist, but I swear, sometimes I wonder if I missed my calling.

Still, there are no magic cures when you're dealing with depression. You're lucky if you can get someone out of bed and willing to go to the doctor. Sometimes it's less than what you say that the message you send, which is you are loved and there is hope.

There's another entry from Steven--he's had a very tough week. I'm realizing more and more what utterly easy time I did.

Bon Voyage to me.

MCO 2007

Everything is different. Nothing feels real anymore. Don't run from me. Don't hate me. Have feelings. Have heart. Feb. 20 Michael

Sounds to me like she broke up with him at 7 months, and he's trying to get back together, eh? Breaking up is hard to do.

Today is prep day for my trip back East. Showed my house/dog sitter the ropes, gotta pick up the dry cleaning, pack etc. etc. I'm sure in a better mood than I was yesterday or the day before. Luckily, my blues never seem to last much longer that 2 days. But I am grateful for them. If I never got off my pink cloud, I think I'd have trouble having the same degree of compassion and understanding for those people I meet on a daily basis who are going through a rough time.

And since the laptop I'm sure someone had to have bought for me for my birthday seems to be lost in the mail, it looks like I'll be blogging spottily over the next week. Actually, I hope I'll be too distracted by the men and the recovery in Provincetown to blog much. I'm getting excited about this little adventure. This is the first out-of-town gathering of gay 12-steppers I've been to since I got sober. I know from the ones I've been to in LA that the men who fly in from elsewhere have a special allure. All the natives know each other a bit too well from meetings, in fact they're often sick of each other. Being from out of town gives you an automatic half a grade boost, i.e. If you're normally a B, you're a B+, A, A+ etc. (Sort of like leather.)

AND I get to discover what at least one blogbuddy is like in the flesh. AND enjoy one of the nicest spots in the world in the best month to enjoy it. Provincetown in October might as well be the title of this year's Bridges of Madison County or Snow Falling on Cedar Ridge.

I have to go now. My ex-roommate's current roommate is having a nervous breakdown and I'm needed for a consult.

MCO 2007

Usually, picking up trash picks me up. Whether it's being of service, or that accomplished feeling when I see the results of my work, or the serenity that comes from accepting what I can't change and changing what I can, I'm not sure. Probably all three.

This morning, though, I picked up four bags' worth, one of which is pictured above. EVERY SINGLE MORNING THERE IS THIS MUCH TRASH--ON BUT 3 BLOCKS' WORTH. At least half of each bag is fast food packaging. People eat on the way home, then park their cars and just put their Burger King or McDonalds or Jack in the Box right there in the gutter or on the curb. And they do it over and over and over again, night after night, but since I don't actually see it happening and there's so much parking turnover in this neighborhood, I can never know if it's from the car parked there or someone who was there earlier.

Today, I just couldn't find any serenity or acceptance about this. I wanted to wring the necks of every body who walked by and scream in their faces: "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU! ARE YOU A FUCKING MORON? DO YOU REALLY NEED SOMEONE TO TEACH YOU THAT THIS UGLY, GROSS, INCONSIDERATE, DIRTY AND DISRESPECTFUL TO WHERE YOU LIVE AND TO YOURSELF?"

And it really really bugs me that this problems seems much worse in immigrant-heavy neighborhoods in LA like mine. It just doesn't seem like so much to ask to respect the environment of the country that has given you a new life, and that seems so patently obvious, that the very idea of having to tell people they shouldn't do this makes me even angrier.

The day I finally move, I am going to put up signs, in several languages--pissed off signs (maybe even before, if I can get my hands on a staple gun). Until then I'm certainly not going to stop picking it up--if only for the pleasure it gives ME to see a clean street. It just seems like the problem should be getting better, by now, at least in my neighborhood. I know most of these litterers HAVE to have seen me. HAVE THEY NO SHAME?

Evidently not.

MCO 2007

P.S. I just had an appalling thought. How I feel toward the litterers is probably how the Islamic guards and police in places like Iran feel toward woman without the veil, or who--Allah Forbid--are wearing makeup. I don't even KNOW what to do with that thought. I guess the trick is to not let your certainty about something bleed into self-righteousness. I can believe someone terribly wrong for littering, but I cannot think of them as somehow less than me, or less loved by God because of it. And certainly chopping their hands off is not the solution, even if, some days, that's exactly what I want to do.

There is another prisoner I write to besides Steven. His name is Mike, I was actually his cellmate briefly and invited him to guest blog. (Unfortunately he doesn't have a typewriter, but he did pretty well with handwriting.)

If you want to write him, let me know and I'll give you his address.

MCO 2007

P.S. There some new Steven entries over a Prison's A Bitch.

I have to post this before my birthday is officially over. (An extremely uneventful day if there ever was one. Thank God I went to see "Elizabeth: The Golden Age on Sunday." Faaaabulous.)

Anyway, I ALWAYS forget to look at his "If you were born today" feature, and finally remembered this year. Any Virgins and Aquarians out there I should know about? (WINK, WINK).

MCO 2007

Hey, it's my birthday, it's grey out (in frigging Southern California, the first overcast day since March), I can do what I want.

MCO 2007

This essay has been percolating in my head for a long time, but an exchange with a blogbuddy prompted me to write it down. Note to Sheria: You will understand after reading it while I was so quick to affirm that we are indeed spirtiual siblings.

Maryland has always been a strange state. It has that wacky shape, and it straddles north and south both geographically and psychologically. It’s got the ultra-liberal District of Columbia in its groin, and right across the Potomac river there’s Virginia—the erstwhile heart of the Confederacy, It has a battlefield, Antietam, on which more Americans died in one day than any other in our history. In 1964, at the start of the 6 years I lived there as a child, it had cities like Baltimore that could have swapped places with a Pittsburgh or a Cleveland. And it had rural swathes that would have fit unblinkingly in Mississippi or West Virginia.

We—my parents, two brothers and two sisters—moved to Rockville in 1963, just before the assassination of JFK, which was one of my very first memories. I was just 5, smack dab in between John Jr. and Caroline, and tried desperately to understand what was happening. I remember my parents transfixed by the television, my mother—who actually looked rather like Jackie Kennedy—unable to hold back her tears. For my part, I was fascinated by the boots in the stirrups on the riderless horse, which faced backwards. It’s a military tradition in the funerals of illustrious military men, symbolizing the fallen warrior who will never ride again, looking back at his troops. I couldn’t get around the backwards part, not understanding the symbolism. I understood why there was no rider, but if there was, I kept pointing out, he would have to wear the boots backwards, and short of the most excruciating foot-binding, I could not see how this could be done.

Looking back at such a preoccupation, I think it evidence of my being both a smart and somewhat odd child, for other strange and inconsequential things bothered me inordinately as well. For example, how our cleaning ladies did their job. We had two of them, Mary and Nancy, a pair of sisters who alternated their visits. As children often do, I felt it necessary to choose a favorite, and mine was Nancy. This because I thought Mary used too much Windex, and when I pointed this out to her so she got justifiably irritated at this uppity 5-year old telling her how to clean.

What I probably picked up on was that Mary spent a suspicious amount of time at the windows. My Mom later told me she noticed that Mary always seemed to be on the lookout for when the garbage was picked up, eager to help out the men hauling it down the driveway into the back of the truck. Mary probably felt like I was spying on her, when in fact I had taken so to heart my French mother’s rants about how wasteful Americans were, that I think I really did care how much Windex she used.

Nancy was older than Mary. I think she liked working for a Frenchwoman—my mother had none of the racial baggage of most Americans, even if sometimes she and my mom had a bit of trouble understanding each other through the accents. Nancy seemed to enjoy my hanging around her blabbing away about God Knows What, and evidently I approved of the amount of Windex she used. I would share the few French words I knew on her, and when I ran out of those I made up gibberish. Nancy thought it was cute that I thought I was fooling her. Mary thought I was a smart ass.

One day, Nancy came to work in tears. My mother took her aside and asked what was wrong. “They gonna take Mary’s kids away” came the answer. When my Dad—the quintessential liberal WASP if there ever was one—came home, he and my Mom pieced together that the conditions in Mary’s home were such the Department of Social Services were considering removing the children.

Later on my father told me he wasn’t entirely surprised. Every time he drove Mary home, she’d asked him to drop her off at the end of the road, ashamed for him to see where she lived. My parents would have gladly paid both Mary and Nancy more, but we were what I call middle-class poor. In 1964, a man could work in an office and still manage to take home enough to feed five children and pay the mortgage on a fairly nice house, but there was very little left over. It was either $8 a week for a cleaning lady, or no cleaning lady at all.

While Mary’s problems were inextricably related to her socio-economic status, they also went beyond it, though, in a pre-Oprah world, concepts like low self-esteem and “sexual acting out” still went generally unarticulated, even by fairly enlightened folks like my parents. Whatever the cause of her woes, my parents were sure of two things: The system couldn’t be trusted to treat poor black women fairly, and Mary didn’t want to lose her kids.

So that weekend, my parents decided to try to make Mary’s shack presentable for a visit from Social Services. What it must have been for her neighbors to see this white couple descend on Mary’s house armed with buckets, mops, soap and scrubbing brushes. (Some oldtimer is probably still telling the story of that visit at the barbershop, 45 years later, and I bet it is considered the tallest of all of his tall tales.)

What my mother couldn’t wrap her head around, (I wish you could hear how she said this with her emphatic French accent) was how Mary “cleaned our house so well. It was spotless! But her own house—I cannot even describe it.” Although she could, actually. For instance, how desperately she and my father tried to clean crusted excrement off the walls—yes excrement. They swept, mopped, scrubbed, folded, threw away—as if a hundred band-aids could effectively patch a thousand cuts. By Sunday night, my parents were physically exhausted and emotionally drained. Neither of them thought their efforts were enough.

The home assessment was the next day—there was no time to even consider more substantive work. After the social workers visited, my mother was contacted to testify in court. I bet the judge was no less astonished to hear of my mother’s efforts than Mary’s neighbors were to see them, even if he later recounted that story over martinis in big houses with manicured lawns on the other side of town.

I do remember my mother’s return home after court. She was wearing one of the outfits she wore to church—with a hat and everything. She was very somber, her eyes red from crying. Whether she actually sat on the stairs and drew me close to her, or whether I’ve created that memory because writers do that, I don’t know. I do know, because I know my Mom, that she went over and over her testimony in her head, wondering if she could have or should have said anything different.

Over the years, I’ve noticed a universal reaction from people when there’s a discussion of a loss no one wants to contemplate. What you hear is this: “I couldn’t imagine losing a child.” Or a brother, or a sister, or a husband or a wife. I’ve heard it hundreds of times. I used to say it myself, until it happened to me—when I lost my brother. Now when I hear it I think—and sometimes even say: “Yes you can. You can imagine it quite well. It’s exactly as bad as you’re afraid it is.” I think saying “I can’t imagine…” is an attempt to protect yourself, to be overheard by God so he knows to mark you down as someone to be spared such pain, because it would just be to unbearable for you.

My mother had no trouble imagining the loss of her children, though oddly enough, when I brought up this story to her recently, she couldn’t remember whether Mary had actually had hers taken away. I’m quite sure she used to know, but because the answer was yes, she chose to forget. Or perhaps not so much forget as to hand off the memory to me, in a sense asking me to take it from her.

I believe that while one’s capacity for love may be boundless, one’s capacity for pain is not. Eventually you must find space for the new hurts life is sure to bring by releasing some of the old ones., like a lifeboat that must be lightened in order not to sink.

Indeed, this may be the secret to a heart’s longevity, how it manages to keep beating, even when by all rights it should have been irretrievably broken long ago.

MCO 2007

This tableau reminded me of the sort of crime scene the jogger happens upon at the beginning of Law and Order. (Clearly it's a murder staged to look like a hit-and-run.)

Although I really shouldn't have detoured from working on the screenplay, a piece I've had in my head for a long time decided it needed to be written, and it will end up being my birthday blog tomorrow. I didn't plan it that way, but it's sort of appopriate. I grew up in a very particular time and place, with a very particular set of parents, and of course, while that description applies to everybody, I think this particular incident definitely qualifies as unique.

A demain.

MCO 2007

The poor Jews. Needing to be "perfected" according to Ann.

They're probably sitting around wondering how she does it, the perfection and all.

The answer is by keeping her real self in the closet.

MCO 2007

Sam Harris references ME

Okay, I am tickled. I think Sam Harris is smart, adorable, unbelievably talented and funnier that shit. For him to quote ME is a major THRILL (about halfway through).

MCO 2007

Please tell ten friends to tell ten today! The Breast Cancer site is having

trouble getting enough people to click on their site daily to meet their

quota of donating at least one free mammogram a day to an underprivileged

woman. It takes less than a minute to go to their site (see below link) and

click on "donating a mammogram" for free (pink window in the middle).

This doesn't cost you a thing. Their corporate sponsors/advertisers use the

number of daily visits to donate mammogram in exchange for advertising.

Here's the web site! Pass it along to people you know. *

**

*http://www.thebreastcancersite.com/

AGAIN , PLEASE TELL 10 FRIENDS TO TELL 10

MCO 2007

My nephew, Keir, the director (I sound such the Jewish uncle, don't I?) is traveling for several months with his girlfriend and almost my certain future niece-in-law, Emily. They spent an idyllic month in Hawaii, and now--for reasons that I can't even begin to fathom--India.

But I have to say, it makes for compelling reading.

\\Today marks the most serious blow to my soul I have yet experienced on this earth.

I know that i am one for dramatisation as per my job but i mean this with all my sincerity.

Varenassi is a holy-city to the Hindu people. The belief is that dying here in Varenassi can break the endless cycle of birth and rebirth and give your soul a chance to go to nirvana, heaven or 'etermal being.'

As a result 500 (yes that many) bodies are cremated here everyday on massive funeral pyres that fill the air with smoke and the smell of human flesh. The 'city'--if you can call it that--is something out of Dante's Inferno, thousands of cement shacks stacked on other cement shacks, twisted alleyways, hundreds of cows cramming the narrow streets and the city's lack of plumbing mean that open sewers regularly bathe the streets in human and animal shit.

The very first thing that happened when we stepped from the road is that a dog (missing part of its HEAD) ran into to me apparently lost and then promptly laid down to sleep ....or die.

When we got the the Ganges river I was assaulted by the site of a dead baby floating in the river followed by a dead water buffalo. Right next to it was a man bathing himself and saying his morning prayers.

I was informed that dead babies are regularly thrown into the river due to some tradition that forbids burning them. This seems totally isnane beyond any use of the word. No amount of political correctness or "open-minded" thinking can prevent me from being horrifed by this.

Staring at these images I can feel my soul FREAKING out. But I stay calm for Emily who is also shaking and feeling generally uncomfortable, to put it mildly.

The moment we stop we are surrounded by men selling us all manner of things and tours. This is normal but this morning it is all I can muster and eventually after a good 10 minutes of this haggling I shout NO! to one in the crowd which scatters all of the touts* immediately.

Strange....is this the word you use. English doesn't have enough descriptors words to explain any of this.

To escape hagglers we wallk back into the maze of streets bewildered. Not going anywhere but not staying put, we sort of glide in a daze and at one point i realize i am standing in a river of sewage off to the side of the street, staring wide eyed as body after body are carried by on stretchers, louds bells, whistles, and incense being burned over each body while the procession walks.

At another point i realize i am leaning on a water buffalo trying to buy water at a tiny market stand. The buffalo gives me a look like "How did i get here?" and i gladly return the look and smile. I get this look alot from the cattle here, which are treated like royalty, often they are dressed up in costumes wearing hats or covered in flowers, always giving that blank bovine stare...

Varenassi:::::

Something that will forever stick with me are the old people here that are just sitting waiting to die, they are usually meditative but they line certain streets like people in a waiting room.

i'm out of words to really explain it is so much more fantastically powerful and scary than any of this.

i am safe.

thank you for writing back it fills my soul up when i read your emails as some days are harder than others.

only 52 more days to go.

LOVE LOVE LOVE

-Mr. Keir

*In British English, a "tout" is any person who solicits business or employment in an importune manner.\\

My two rupees about this: I certainly think it makes sense that the soul never dies, and this is not our only lifetime. But I also think that the deeper the poverty, the more pernicious the belief can be in practice. It manifests in the barbarity of the caste system, in which 300 million people (the ENTIRE POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES) live as "untouchables" --and are made to believe they deserve no better because this is the natural order of things. They endure unimaginable poverty and hardship, and instead of fomenting change in this life, invest an enormous amount of belief and energy in a better NEXT life.

It sounds to me that Hinduism is merely a tool of the ruling classes and castes to keep control over the masses, who should, by all rights, have overthrown them long ago.

What I find most remarkable is that so many people living out short, brutish lives keep getting married, keep having children, generation after generation. For the vast majority, life doesn't get measurably better, and hasn't for millenia. You'd think there'd me mass refusals to have children, or even mass suicides. You sure as hell would think there'd have been a revolution, or, two, or three, after they threw the British out.

I don't know whether to be inspired by the resilience of hope, or despaired by its folly.

MCO 2007

So I get an email yesterday from the recipent of the check I found this weekend, who found my email address via the blog, which he found via google. It was the loveliest of thank yous, made all the more sweet because I'd practically forgotten about sending the check. Not because my life is so busy or important, but just because I'm living more and more in the present. On Tuesday I was thinking about Tuesday, not Saturday (and I rarely reread an entry once it's posted.)

What was so nice was this moment of connection with a total stranger. I have a nodding aquaintance with some of the Armenians who walk their dog when I do or have thanked me for picking up trash, but it is hard to break out of that mutual isolation so common in cities, where various social or ethnic groups (gays are just as guilty of this as anyone) tend to congregate with those who are alike and familar.

I didn't find out too much about the man who wrote such kind words in his email (a little about his rare name) but I would hazard a guess that he doesn't hang out with a lot of HIV+ gay men who are ex-cons and ex-drug addicts, and all of those facts are on immediate display the second the blog comes on the screen. Through this simple interaction, we had a chance to get a sense of someone we might normally have preconceptions about based on linguistic or cultural differences, issues that in the great scheme of things are so much less important than what we have in common as human beings.

This doesn't mean that either of us are suddenly miraculously color-blind or stricken of cultural prejudice or bias. But I think both or us are just a little more willing than we were last week to acknowledge and own the ways in which we block ourselves from seeing people as people first and everything else after.

And that's a small thing--but huge.

MCO 2007

My two poems have appeared in the 16th Edition of International Carnival of Pozitivities (ICP), at Ogre’s Politics and Views. "This edition represents an attempt to reach out to a conservative political community about HIV/AIDS. It is my hope that our messages might encourage those who normally do not come in contact with the issues of HIV/AIDS to think about how to help us fight the pandemic. We have poetry, video, personal accounts and news from around the world."

Regular readers will have already read these poems, but anyone interested in anything related to HIV--please check it out.

Also, my friend Leslie's work with a writing program for gang members and at-risk youth is profiled today in the Los Angeles Times. It's extremely inspiring. Leslie is a phenomenal person. "Now the Giant Awakes"

I couldn't be more thrilled that her excellent work and the excellent work of her students is being profiled.

MCO 2007

First off, on ABC World News Tonight there was a story about this guy, Ken Yager, who has started a crusade to clean up Yosemite, one bag of trash at a time. He has now inspired thousands of volunteers and they are moving the park back to a state it hasn't been in decades. I TOLD you I was on the cutting edge! In a few years, EVERYONE will be picking up trash. Will I get credit for being one of the trailblazers? NO! That'll probably go to Coco Peru! Life is so unfair!

When you look at litter spoiling the landscape, it's hard to see any God in such a state of affairs. You think, people are dirty and inconsiderate, and if they can't even throw trash in a can, what hope is there to avoid things like war and child abuse. But then, you - or thousands of volunteers AND you--pick it up. Voila, there's the God in that.

I've been absolutely haunted by the article about the Congolese women getting raped. Where is the God in that? God is in the women, in their fear, in their fight, in their will to survive. It's also--and this takes a great leap--in the men doing the raping, or at least in the boys they used to be. Because they were not born cruel. They were made cruel. You can be sure that to a man they also suffered terrible abuse, because their ability to inflict such horror MUST be the expression of terrific anger, the kind that only comes from terrific hurt. I have to remember that in order to understand the men, if not to forgive them.

You know what Blackwater should be for? To send to places like Darfur and the Congo, to defend women and children against the madness of rape and slavery. Instead they are paid 10x what our soldiers get, for defending fatcats and corrupt officials. The call it The "Green Zone" for a reason.

I've got to admit, the only God I can see in that situation is "In God We Trust" on the dollar bill.

MCO 2007

This article on the use of rape to brutalize Congolese women is nothing short of horrifying. New York Times Beyond contributing to Maltese International I don't know what to do about it either. I do know that intervening to prevent THIS kind of horror should be what American military is for. Or hell, why not hire Blackwater to protect these women?

Unfortunately, I know the answer. Because poor Congolese woman have no money and no oil. All they have is their humanity.

Where's ours?

MCO 2007

I saw Miss Coco Peru last night in a very funny show--my birthday present to the ex-roommate. (Couldn't really afford it but he brings dinner over EVERY night, so I it's the least I can do.)

It's a surprisingly spiritual show, that makes a great argument for Drag Queens as the shamans of the modern world. But the part that really hit me between the eyes was when she proclaims: "I HATE LITTER" and recounts a confrontation with rude teenagers on a Florida beach who left a mess and refused to pick it up. I wanted to run up on stage and tell her "Me too, me too!" and buy her her own trashpicker. (In fact, maybe I'll do just that. Give it to her as an end of the run gift).

Maybe she'll introduce me to Liza and Barbra.

MCO 2007

I've periodically recounted the story of my friend Molly here, (halfway through her chemo) but let her tell you in her own words:

http://www.blackcommentator.com/247/247_beneath_the_spin_cruel_reality.html

There is going to be a benefit, "The Molly Show" at the Belcourt theater in Nashville on October 18th. There a tremendous line-up of great talent, and it will be a wonderful show. I have no idea how many readers I have in Nashville, but I doubt very many. However, I would bet a substantial percentage of you know at least one person on your email list who lives in Nashville, and they in turn, would know many more. I figure if I can get this blog entry forwarded to 20 people, and they each forward it to 5 of their friends who they think might be interested, out of 100 people maybe 4 will show up to the show, and Molly can at least get a few bags of groceries out of it. (That's the hard-boiled realist talking. The grandiose Marc is imagining 10x those numbers.)

For those of you not in Nashville who would like to help, (howabout a dollar for every month you've followed this blog? Surely I'm worth 3 cents a day!) you can mail what you can to:

Molly Secours Benefit Fund

AmSouth Music-1600

Division #100

Nashville, TN 37203

THANKS GUYS.

And if you're broke or every extra penny goes to prior commitments, PRAYER COUNTS. That's includes you, Atheists and Agnostics. You don't have to believe in anything resembling a higher power to send thoughts of love and support with her name on it out into the universe. Whether they do a damn thing on a practical level, I have no idea, but there's a lot of hope in that not knowing. In 100 years we might find out such thoughts have just as much physical reality as sound waves. And then won't you be sorry.

MCO 2007

P.S. 12 pages on the script. I'm being pretty consistent with 2 pages a day, and should be able to better that today if no one calls for a ride to the hospital (twice in the past week, different people.)

So I wake up this morning in a good mood, as I had dreamt an entire screenplay, and I thought the plot was a keeper. Then I realized as I drank my coffee that we just saw that plot in a recent Adam Sandler movie about controlling time with a remote. Drat. As I'm musing about all this, I notice something out of the ordinary outside my window, and lo and behold, someone has covered a neighbor's car in suntan lotion, furious that his space has been "stolen." (It turned out to have been a miscommunication with the super after a recent move-out from another tenant.) At the time though, it just made me feel uncomfortable, like I'd witnessed a fight between a husband and wife at a dinner party.

Then, on NPR, I hear the harrowing tale of a woman's survival in Peruvian prisons, and by the time I was out picking up trash, I was in that knotty state I sometimes get into when all I can think of is that at any one moment, 24/7, somebody is being tortured somewhere in the world, and that most of the other people in the world, particularly in this country, never even think about it--and certainly would STILL deny our tax dollars ever finance such horrors. In fact, in this country, there are more people who can tell you what American Idol is than what Amnesty International is. In this country, we have talk show hosts like Elizabeth Hasselbeck who make moronic points like: "No, I don't think we should necessarily torture them, but I don't think we should be coddling them, either" as if allowing someone to sleep after 3 days, or not repeatedly almost-drowning them, or keeping them chained to the floor naked in frigid temperatures constitutes "coddling." As if there is no possibility that someone who was arrested by Americans might not be guilty of anything but the wrong name or wrong friend or wrong political sentiments.

When I get in that state of mind about the world, it takes a lot of breathing and prayer to get back to practicing acceptance, as I find it unacceptable that man is such a cruel beast, and worse, that even if I make a billion dollars and give every penny away to the worthiest of causes, by the day I die, there will still be hundreds of people being tortured, beaten, and starved on a daily basis, and that will probably be the way it will be for many more lifetimes, if not always.

At least I don't stay in these states of lament for too long--I have trash to pick up, dammit. And when I concentrate on the task at hand invariably the Gods throw me a bone. So I find this check for $65 from an insurance company to a person with an impossibly unique Armenian name.

How it got there on the curb I cannot say, but I take it home and look the addressee up in the white pages. (Can you believe I actually threw out my Armenian phone book just last week--no kidding--they're given out for free in this neighborhood).

I can't find the name on the check, but I do find only one listing for that last name, so they're no doubt related. So I mailed them the check, with a note of explanation. (I actually went to both buildings first but the story is already getting a bit too long.)

It's not the money--although I'm sure they'll be glad to have it. What lifted me out of my funk was the idea that they might think: "wow, there's some people out there who give a shit," and thereby be spared the same morning I'd just had, when the world just looks like a hard place full of mean people.

I cannot, helas, banish torture from the planet, nor single-handedly vanquish child-abuse or starvation. I can, however, lick a stamp. Humility's a bitch, ain't it?

MCO 2007

P.S. I finally got a call from Steven. He had a dreadful staph infection that could've killed him, and would have if the last antiobiotic they tried on him hadn't worked. He is back at in the Wisconsin prison , and says a blog recounting the entire nightmare is in the mail. I will send him your supportive comments.

P.P.S. The reply note:

This is me keeping my blog entry quick, by posting a poem on by website that a reader recently told me moved her greatly. I'm pressed for time, as I spent the morning getting registered at APLA (AIDS Project Los Angeles) at long last, so I can get free dental care. Next stop, a long awaited bridge, so I can finally chew on both sides of my mouth HOORAY.

MCO 2007

Life is SO interesting.