June 2008 Archives

This is a hodgepodge of various NY shots, including the Ansonia Hotal at top, my friend Michael's artwork in the lower half, and a poem I saw on a Village 9/11 memorial that reads: "Last night I had the strangest dream I ever had before. I dreamed the world

Here, here.

Today I have to deal with many irksome realities of the physical world. I have to get my car emptied of stuff and towed to the mechanic's.  A  part has come off my phone, just as I have to get a hands-free device as the law insists starting July 1.   And now Gaza is acting VERY strangely. He's walking fine, eating fine, sleeping fine, but quite out of the blue, he's absolutely insisting on laying to the right of me as I type this, a crowded litte corner that he has not nested in once all the years that I've lived here. I coaxed him out, fearful of his paws and the plugs and wires about, but he went right back there, absolutely determined.

A while back, I let God know that if it was Gaza's time, I wouldn't object.  I would much prefer that he go relatively happy and healthy than in pain, or after a long period of suffering or infirmity.  I absolutely cringe when people tell me about giving their 10+ year old pet expensive surgeries or wail at the unfairness of their death after a nice long life.  Of course I'll miss him terribly, but I love him enough not to bear the idea of him suffering so I can have 2

Anyway, the only thing I can come up with about his sudden attachment to this corner is that it's the very closest he can get to me while I work. But why would a very secure dog who has never exhibited undue neediness suddenly insist on being in most womblike position he can find?  I have heard stories of dogs looking for a certain place to die.

I'm probably just being melodramatic. Maybe he just wanted to remind me  how utterly and completely sweet he is.  If so, it's working.

MCO 2008

Last night, on the Van Nuys offramp to the 101, my car decided it had had enough. It simply would not shift gears, and had to be towed all the way back to my parking space, where I took this picture. (Quite a lie, this picture is. The car is actually well dented and scratched up, but mostly near the back.)

My mechanic told me the next big repair, whenever it came up--and he suspected soon enough it would--was going to cost more than the car is worth.  So on Monday I will probably sell or give the car to him for a song in exchange for his help buying a new one, for I am not a good shopper.  (I realize there's also AAA's car-buying service--perhaps I will try them.)

The car was owned by my sister and brother-in-law for 14 years, where it was pretty much considered a member of the family, accompanying them from Seattle to Albuquerque. Its fatal design flaw was the lack of a cupholder, but that wasn't its fault, was it?

Possession passed to me when I got out of prison. It has taken me to hundreds of church basements and cafe meeting rooms. It has allowed Gaza and I to get to the many trails of Griffith and Elysian Park, among others.  It has held thousands of bags of groceries, and taken me to visit many a friend. I only started to find it a less than optimal mode of transportation when gas prices spiked and I calculated I was getting about 16 miles to the gallon. And would a cup holder really be so much to ask?

I don't get misty-eyed about things, (well, maybe tight-fitting leather apparel) but I do honor good service to the cause of making my life more comfortable. So 1990 Nissan Sentra with 183,000+ miles and a back seat full of dog hair?  I salute you and thank you.

MCO 2008

P.S.  Oops! That's supposed to read 1990-2008

When I was at my Mom's, I almost threw out an empty box of Kleenex and she stopped me. "I use them to file letters!" she enjoined. 

Part of this is being a child of the war, which was similar in Europe to the Great Depression here, in the sense of a reduction of circumstances for almost everybody. (I'd choose the Depression over the War any day, but they were both grim enough).  My mother tells me her mother once took a worn out coat, and turned it completely inside out, resewing it so that it looked right again.  "The buttons were on the man's side" my mother says, "but I had a 'new' coat."

Part of this stems from raising five little kids with no nanny, no grandmother or sister to help.  When you needed to solve a problem, you figured out how to use whatever was at hand.  No afternoons off to go to Hammacher-Schlemmer.

Lastly, she's a born engineer, a Cartesian married to an Artesian (referring to my Dad's deep-well thirst for spirits.)  I take after both of them--the very rational alcoholic.   I've gotten sober but I still reuse, recycle, re-everything.  Need to recover the sofa? Use a flannel sheet. Business cards? Make my own. Torn lampshade?  Try this upside-down vase.

It makes for a midly cluttered life, but if you have something to frame, I can probably pull something out from behind that shelving unit I dragged in from the street.  I am my mother's son.

MCO 2008

So here's a sampling of some of my New York pictures, and only now do I see the embarassing typos of "Ny" and "Mee."  I need to profe my work bester.

I have had zero problems with procrastination or distraction since I've started working on this Math book for my sister.  I'm amazed, amused and a little apalled by how productive I get when a check is attached. If I could do this all the time, I'd be on my 5th novel and 12th screenplay.

Well, all you guys might be unlocking your gun and preparing for the onslaught of burglars against whom you were previously defenseless, but I'm a felon. I still can't buy a gun.  Which is too damn bad, because I was going to head over to Zimbabwe and overthrow Robert Mugabe personally.  (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you need to watch more news.) 

Mugabe is the classic figure of the revolutionary turned despot, corrupted by the love of power for power's sake, the inability to accept or even imagine that you could not be as beloved as all of your crony synchophants insist that you are.  Let me see, who else is like that?  The Kims, of course, Il Sung and Jong Il, for sure...And there's someone else, well, so many really, but one in particular...from Texas, I know that...no, not LBJ--remember, he wouldn't run for a 2nd term, he knew he was a fuck-up, someone else...It WILL come to me...

MCO 2008

P.S.  Ironically enough, my neighbor just told me about this shooting a few blocks away from my house, when a mechanic contronted young Armenian gang members tagging the wall of his business.  On the one hand, my emotional response is to want to blow the heads off of these little punks. On the other hand, I want to blow the head off of either Mr. Smith or Mr. Wesson or Mr. Colt or whoever invented the stupid gun in the first place. 

Lucky for me, as soon as I left prison, I became afraid anew of the very kinds of young men I was in there with, and I am not about to confront anybody who looks like they might have a gun. Still, I admire the man who did.  Maybe I'll  clean up around his shop when he gets out of the hospital.  Picking up trash is sort of the anti-graffiti.    

This is the one picture I took in New York (on the wall of the Roseland Ballroom, which is undergoing renovation) that simply could not share the stage with any other.  Thanks, Garris, for pointing it out as we walked past on 52nd Street.

Today would have been the 52nd birthday of my brother, Luke, who died in 1991.  He died at 34, my Uncle Roger died at 38, and everyone among you can reel off any number of unfair and arbitrary deaths of those who died too young or too unfairly. I used to take the irrationality of who lives and who dies, of who suffers and who doesn't, as proof that God couldn't possibly exist, or that "he" was on holiday or extremely incompetent, not worthy of honor or worship.

Now I am more inclined to take comfort in my complete inability to make sense of it all.  All I know is that for every horror story there is a miraculous one, that suffering seems to go hand in hand with redemption. There are some 6 billion extraordinarily complex beings upon this earth, marvels each and everyone of them. Some will die early or horribly, many will live brutish lives, all will have moments of utter bleakness and absolute joy.  It is a messy business, this living, but I can't reject some of it and embrace the rest. It's either Not-God-at-All or All-God, and out of those two contrary and outlandish notions, I have decided All-God is even less ridiculous than All-not-God.

I don't really think there is a reason that Luke died and I didn't. But I do seem endowed with the capacity to make my life all the more meaningful for having survived when he didn't.  And I'm pretty sure that capacity is not something I'm responsible for.  It is a gift from a power or energy or whatever you want to call it that I strongly suspect supercedes the composition of DNA in my cells over millions of years of evolution dating from a Big Bang that just happened for no particular reason.

On a practical level, today honoring my brother means collaborating on a project with my sister on writing this Math textbook she's been working on for a couple of years. Luke always encouraged me professionally, while calling me on my bullshit way more than I preferred but even less than I deserved.  I am actually feeling his presence today, his pride in his younger siblings working together.  There is no greater birthday present I can give him than getting to work.

MCO 2008

Anyway, it turns out he wrote a little tune about me, referring to the name that, unbeknownst to me, has become my moniker in the neighborhood! I wish I could sing it for you,-- think very 60s jingle.  It goes like this:

"He's nice, he's kind, he's really quick! / Here comes Mr. Pickup-Stick!"

I laughed so hard I cannot tell you. Color me tickled like never before. 

If you're in LA, go to his show. Funny, funny guy.

MCO 2008

On the trip home I sat next to a producer from the shows "Saving Grace" and "The Closer" on TNT.  Note to self: Always bring a copy of a script with you on NY/LA flights. That way you can casually pull it out and make notes, and the Hollywood type can ask YOU about it. I could have jumped through hoops trying to charm this woman, but people only really get jobs like that in the movies.

But, as I alluded to a few blogs back, there's an important scene in my own script involved being seated next to someone in an airplane, and this woman looked exactly as I imagined the woman to look in my script. The message I am getting loud and clear is WRITE WRITE WRITE and all the rest will fall into place.  I may even go to a every-other-day blogging plan. After all, you guys did not burst into flames of boredom because I skipped a few days this last week.  The everydayism is, in fact, my compulsion, I only like to dress it up in my head as yours.

I did grasp in a real way this trip that you can't just say to yourself that you have no expecations around something to make it true.  However, being aware that the hopes you have belong to you--they're not something generated by the situation--that makes it far easier to identify them and release them.  Then you can take a good, objective look and say: what do I have here? What level of engagement in the pursuit of this is justified if I take away all the ideas and preconceptions I have about what I think I want and what it should look like?  How can I factor in the logistics in a realistic way?

Zora Neale Huston wrote that there are years that question and years that answer. I think I may be in the former, and that's so okay.  I don't need certainty that way I used to, or thought I did.   Today I have a dog to walk, a street to clean (a week's worth, oy) and a Math book to work on, plus a least one scene from the screenplay. That's plenty enough to make for one great day.

MCO 2008

Years ago, if I made a trip east to visit my mother, tail-ended by a planned rendezvous with a potential paramour, I would have spent the entire time with my mother largely in a state of anticipation about the encounter. Now, although there a pleasant flutter in my stomach as I look forward to 5:00  today and Garris-in-the-flesh, I'm have been where I always seem to be these days, firmly rooted in the present.   The more the hyper, juggler extraordinaire  with the razor-sharp memory that my Mom was recedes, the more she becomes unbearably sweet and vulnerable.

In the morning, I go into her bedroom and she takes my hairy forearm against her face, almost as if to caress a blankie. Such intimacy would have freaked me out in the past, but now as the role reversal takes root, I am more inclined to feel the parental indulgence and affection for a needy child.

Yesterday we went down on the train to see her two best friends, retired expatriate French teachers all. We had a wonderful lunch, and as they sat down to do the NYTimes Crossword puzzle, I borrowed the car and spent a hour with my childhood friend Claudia, who was back visiting her parents in a nearby town. We had a delightful time and when I got back, I cracked the last of the unsolved clues in the puzzle.

This morning I helped her sort through mail. One of the hallmarks of my mother's condition (I still can't get myself to say "Alzheimer's" ) is a reduced capacity to analyze.  You know how you sort through crap in the mail and in a split second know what's junk, what's important and what's in between? My mother tends to take every piece of paper seriously, always afraid she will throw out something urgent. A previously routine task has become fraught with implication.

Something very interesting just happened as I typed this. Another resident, the type I thought my mother would be like--energetic and funny and extroverted--just walked in and asked me to remove a tick from her ear with tweezers. Of course I complied.  We then had a lovely conversation.  I'm going to see if I can make her my Mom's new best friend.

A very busy 48 hours head. Probably won't see you until Wednesday.

MCO 2008  

Wednesday: The 9:30 flight leaves at 10, and is diverted to Syracuse because of severe thunderstorms in New York.  My seatmate and I haven't said a word to each other the entire trip, although I do notice a resemblance to the late Sydney Pollack, but around 10 years ago and with wavy hair. Something about the nature of delay and even the illusory hint of shared peril causes us to trade a few remarks that end up in a long swappage of stories the rest of the trip.  He's financial planner to the stars, (not usually in coach--a scene eerily echoed in my own screenplay, but in reverse) and I'm the shoulda-woulda-coulda-still-might-be aging wunkerkind who wudn't.  We actually exchanged cards, but I wish I'd caught a ride with him in his towncar into Manhattan, because I mistakenly decided to try the AirTrain instead of my usual bus in. The E-train from Jamaica at 10:00 is every bit as slow as it ever was, but I did pass the Grand Avenue stop in Maspeth where a major love took place back in 1977. Nothing like the smells of the subway to bring memories crashing back in. Paul, though, deserves way more than a line in an entry, I think there's a novella in that great affair of my youth.

I didn't get up to my Mom's till 1 in the morning.

Thursday: I'm encourage my Mom to try a little real coffee in the morning instead of decaf, because she struggles through a terrible fog when she wakes up. She is as preoccupied as ever with writing things down and scheduling, terribly beset by a sense of impending doom around the possibility of forgetting something that must be done.  She tries to field a call from "Medco," which has convinced her to order meds by mail 3 months at a time, saving her a couple of dollars.  But she can't for the life of her remember why she agreed to it, and it takes several hours  of my intervention for me to figure it out and cancel the order. We agree that she should stick to her local pharmacy and continue to go one month at a time.  I am immensely grateful to be there for her to handle this, but say a little prayer for the millions of elderly and confused who find themselves overwhelmed by modern bureacracy, voicemail systems, and salesmen out to increase their bottom line, and have no one to advocate or intervene on their behalf.

Last night we went out to very nice dinner with an old family friend, and when we came back my Mom stepped into the elevator with me and told me she didn't feel so hot. I took her by the elbow and managed to grab her just as her legs buckled.  The elevator doors closed, and my Mom was practically on the floor, barely sustained by my surprised grip. I had to get the doors open and carry her to a chair while calling for help. She revived soon enough,  as the nurse detected blood pressure on the low side.  It's hard to believe the 1/2 a glass of wine she had with dinner was the culprit, it's never been before. We are trying to get in to see the doctor this afternoon. I do wonder if she had a mini-stroke. Certainly the confusion this morning seems worse than ever. We have made a list of the days schedule (stationery bike, pick up lunch, haircut at 2) and she is referring to it over and over and over.

Moment of Reprieve: She left her little tote bag somewhere yesterday with a sweater and some fruit in it, and before we located it this morning (here in the computer room) she said: "It was a piece of shit, anyway. I already ordered another."  There is nothing funnier than an 82-year old Frenchwoman cursing.

And, just now, as I was typing this, my Mom wandered in and told me she couldn't find the lunch she just got in a styrofoam takeaway that she put down when she took an emergency trip to the bathroom. We located it in the cafeteria.

I'm thinking she did, indeed, have a little stroke. Thank God I am visiting.  I really, really have got to consider an eastward move.

I gotta get back up there.  Can't even check email.

MCO 2008

P.S.  Unfortunately, Just Laughing (shouldn't that be Just Sneering?) I completely forgot to flagellate myself until I bled for all my grievous sins of the past. I'll try to fit it in this afternoon.

If today was any indication, the street is going to go to hell in my absence. Every single morning I encounter at least two bags of last fast food detritus, often ripped up by skunks or coyotes (yes, they come down from Griffith Park) looking for a piece of meat of a french fry, evidentally.

Oh well. Can't let THAT ruin my vacation.

In case you forgot, after 4 days with my Mom, I'm going to see Garris!

I'll be off and on for a week,

MCO 2008

Some of those men think marriage will "cure" them, which is like assuming a heterosexual priest will not longer be attracted to women the moment he declares his vows of celibacy.  It betrays a fundamental valuation of one kind of sexual attraction over another, as if one is a choice and the other is innate  This myth has legs, but its repetition does not make it true, just propaganda.

Most, sadly, enter marriage fully aware of their true preference and end up leading double lives.  I have met them in the bars and the baths, David met several on a gay cruise recently, I cannot judge them, because I did not grow up in a small town or rural area where my coming out would have entailed a complete ostracization or disinheritance or both.  If they marry young, I can imagine they didn't have enough life experience to know for sure their urges would not ebb.  And if their only exposure to "gay life" is to highway rest stops, of course they might think that to be representative of gay life as a whole, so they easily enough can tell themselves if they want anything resembling a "normal" life, they have no choice but to get married. Not alot of competition to that kind of thinking in Pocatello.

Some of these men fairly successfully bury their urges, taking great pleasure in family life that goes far in compensating for the loss of a undefinable but irrefutable connection that only comes when the person you're in love with is in love with you and no one's lying about it. Even if they're faithful to their wives, it doesn't make them straight, any more than men screwing other men in prison makes them gay.  Left-handed people can learn to write well enough with their right-hand, after all. Doesn't make them right-handed.

I'm all for people having whatever kind of relationships they want. But I think they should be entered into honestly, that is the right of both parties.  I think that if every bride was told by her prospective groom that he definitely preferred men, and that would not change, and he would continue to indulge his true nature after marriage, that the percentage of such unions would drop precipitously. I am appalled by how many married gay men seem to not take into account the rights of their wives to a husband who desires them completely. They often betray no disturbed conscience, will often insist that their gayness had nothing to do with the eventual dissolution of the marriage. As if it could not.

I am also quite certain that when a 13 or 14-year old boy who starts to become aware of his homosexual orientation has grown up with a gay couple down the street, who has classmates with gay Dads or Moms who go to the same school plays or little League games, that he will enter into adolescence with an entirely different idea of what the alternatives are that are open to him.  He will be spared much unhappiness, and so will the woman he does not marry.

So, here's to all the marriages that will not happen, and all the marriages that will.

MCO 2008

P.S. I've come up with a new designation for a certain kind of person. "Socially Tone Deaf"  or S.T.D.  (not to be confused with Sexually Transmitted Disease) refers to those types who are constantly making off-color, off-center, or trying-too-hard-to-be-witty comments, whether on blogs or in real life, and then hiding behind the ever convenient "I was kidding!" or "Can't you take a joke?" -- as if you are the one with the crappy sense of humor.  Haven't they noticed a pattern over the years, when they constantly provoke eye-rolling and a need to explain themselves?  GET A CLUE. If people don't laugh, it's not funny, and it doesn't become funny because you insist it is.

P.P.S.  Talking about unintentionally funny, I caught "The Oscar" on TCM last night, and it is the ultimate deliciously bad movie, a mish-mosh between "The Bad and the Beautiful" and "Valley of the Dolls." An instant cult classic, cheese extraordinaire.

P.P.S. Yes I know these P.S's are cutesy and make the blog annoying long, but I'm leaving tomorrow for New York, so I'll be hit and miss for 8 days.  This will fill up your tank. 

In between eating, blogging, and walking the dog, I spent yesterday watching 1) This Week With George Stephanapoulous; 2) The U.S. Open (Golf not Tennis); 3) The Lakers-Celtics Finals; 4) The Tony Awards.  #1 is no surprise, I have always been a news junkie. I was probably the only drug dealer on the West Coast who subscribed to the New York Times, back when  you couldn't access it online,  #4 is no surprise either. One day they'll probably discover a musical comedy chromosome on the gay gene.

But who knew I liked to watch sports?  I sort of backed into it, via Tennessee Tony, who is a big football fan. (I backed into Tony too, but that's another story.)   He also introduced me to  basketball, particularly women's, and started to tune into the Lakers back home. I got into soccer for the men, frankly, (that's Sweden's Melberg) and then stayed for the game when France got into the World

This is pretty unremarkable stuff for your average Joe, but for me it represents a striking evolution. I really restricted my field of vision for most of my adult life, always seeing things through a rainbow prism.  I wrote a story for myself that some things interested me and some things didn't, and then stuck to the script.  When I realized I was in the grip of addiction I just adjusted the script accordingly.  It read like this: I was an outlaw pariah, yes, but with panache. I fancied the result an edgy low-buget indie instead of a milquetoasty mainstream feature. In my dreams. 

Life is a lot more satisfying when you discover what the script is as you live it. All the world's a stage now,  and I am just a one of 6 billion actors in a billion dramas and one gigantic comedy. I can let the adjectives that apply to me describe me, not define me. I can be a jock or a cheerleader, a top or a bottom, a visual artist or a wordsmith or both. I can be all of it, some of it, or none of it, and I don't have to decide what I'm going to be ahead of time.

The only script I need to write these days is an actual script. Who knew?

MCO 2008

P.S.  The Hy-Art is Metsu, combined with an old Hy-Art of mine of Church, DeHooch and Manet.

Among other things,  it boggles my mind that at only 32 he had five kids.  Thank God for the 60s, when you could buy a house and feed a family of seven on one middle-manager's salary. 

The later years of my Dad's life were not so happy for him or for us, as his drinking took its toll and cirrhosis killed him in 1996.   But in such cases, the time that elapses after a death can be a great friend. One can see a life in its whole, and the parts that shine are not so diminished by the parts that did not.

My Dad shined when we were little. He knew how to talk to kids, how to be silly. He patiently explained things.  He was very physical. We rode on his shoulders and swam on his back. I can count on one hand, if that, how many times he raised his voice. He spanked me once, and apologized about it for years.

As I grew older, he had some favorite themes that came up when he gave me advice--not easily heard by a smart-ass know-it-all like me.  He would tell me "it's all about positioning, son" and this has proved a valuable insight when I needed patience when maneuvering closer to my professional goals.  And the one that most irritated me that turned out to be the one I live by now: "It's only money."  He never lost sight of the fact that what you could touch was never as important as what you could hold.

I  really wish my Dad had gotten sober, especially because he would have absolutely loved AA, had he given it a chance. But he didn't.  I have a fair amount of regret about how much impatience and irritation I showed him in life, almost always because of his drinking, and it's been hard to find ways to make amends to him. 

I think the best thing I can do is stay sober for the both of us, so that the amends I can make to my siblings and Mom and nieces and nephews by being the best brother, son and uncle I can be, are also the amends he never got to make for the ways he fell short in being the best father, husband and grandfather he wanted to be. I know he felt those shortcomings acutely; ironically, the drinking that largely caused them was also the only thing that gave him relief.

Mostly, I can say out loud to the world that I am proud to have been the son of Stephen Beebe Olmsted, and immensely grateful as well. Happy Father's Day to everyone.

Click on the link for a home movie of My Dad creating our very first pool of us.

A Great Dad

MCO 2008 

I loved the book, thought it was written very cinematically, and yet the movie--though very faithful to the story--never seemed to develop the sort of emotional impact of the book (even though I still cried.)  I might have added a narration, because the main character's richness was mostly an interior one that is hard to translate successfully to the screen. But a larger lesson is that screenwriters often need to depart from the original to make a better result.

I'm rereading Gone With the WInd, and I'm so impressed by the choices the writers made in creating the movie. The pulled off the rare feat of doing the book one better, changing and condensing without losing a bit of the psychological texture, in fact, sharpening it.  It's rather like the relationship between these two men.  One is literary, the other cinematic. You get the feeling the Van Scorel is thinking about himself, but the Holder, below, is thinking about you. 

As a screenwriter, albeit a distressingly slow one, these lessons are very important for me to learn. Now I just have to work not talking about writing so much, and actually doing it. 

MCO 2008 

But I can probably help them along. Here are the 5 pros and 5 cons for making me a Vice-Presidential candidate:

Pros:

1) I am SO vetted. I have no secrets, I mean none.  There will be no "October Surprise" -- you can't embarass me, I have been a credit to my disgrace for years.

2) I have tons of friends in Colorado (well 2, but they know lots of people), I think I could swing that state, on top of California of course, and maybe even Tennessee. Plus anyone who's ever read this blog is a lock, for sure. Well, most of them.

3) I could save some money by doubling as Press Spokesman.  I look good in a suit and am very articulate. I speak French, so can campaign in rural Maine and Louisiana.

4) I willl sleep with any gay Republican who agrees to vote Democratic.  I can probably get Sheria to sleep with any of the straight ones--she really wants Obama to win. Don't worry, I'll make her my Second Lady--I'm all for mixed marriage (that would be a man and a woman.)  WIth her we get North Carolina and any wavering Clinton voters. She could also double as Attorney General, saving some more money. 

5) I would be an excellent insurance policy for Obama. Would you want to see me become the President? No-I didn't think so.

Cons:

1)  I didn't file taxes while I was in prison.  McCain could probably make an issue of it.

2) There are some questionable pictures of me on the Internet.  What can I say, I was high when the pictures were taken.

3) My dog sheds.  It would mean extra vacuuming for Blair House.

4) The Secret Service may not like it when I pick up trash in D.C. every morning, Of course, the streets would be cleaner. (Add that to "Pros" maybe.)

5) I have to nap at 4 every day.  It could be a problem when Kings and Prime Ministers come to visit, but I think they could schedule around it.

Of course, I could probably stretch either list, but in the interest of brevity. let's leave it as is.

I want to see your list. That's right, I'm starting a meme. List the 5 Pros and Cons of why you would/wouldn't make a good choice to run for Vice-President. And if you post something even remotely serious, I'll have Dick Cheney come over and shoot you. 

MCO 2008

P.S. The trio (that's the V.P. Search Committee--recognize Caroline Kennedy?--is via Honthorst, the "frame" is from Charles King.)

Here's another:

"If the nucleus of an atom were a basketball located at the center of Earth, the electrons would be cherry pits whizzing about in the outermost layer of Earth's atmosphere. Between our nuclear [basketball] and the whizzing pits, there would be no Earth: no iron, nickel, magma, soil, sea, or sky, ... nothing, literally, to speak of. ... We live in a universe that is largely devoid of matter. Yet still the Milky Way glows, and still our hemoglobin flows, and when we hug our friends, our fingers don't sink into the vacuum with which all atoms are filled. If in touching their skin we are touching the void, why does it feel so complete?"

Natalie Angier, The Canon, Houghton Mifflin, 2007, pp. 85-86.

I find this idea of an opposition between a belief in God and faith in science increasingly absurd.  What better evidence of the presence of some sort of Higher Power than that which allows us to touch and see each other when we are technically mostly matterless voids?

MCO 2008

Boy it's really hard to know what to say to someone you love who is going through a troubled time, particularly if you have very definitely ideas about what ails them that they don't want to hear.

But ultimately, I have come to the conclusion that you have to stand in the truth as you see it. That last part is important, "as you see it" means that you hold it out as your opinion, your perception, not the objective truth. (I don't always do that so well.) I have found this will upset the hearer only to the degree that they themselves agree with you, even if it's too painful to admit out loud to themselves. The truth hurts rather more than falsehood. (Notice how Barack Obama remains fairly unflappable in the face of continued rumor that he is a "secret muslim?' He knows it's not true, defensiveness would only give it more credence.)

What I am much less apt to do is to tailor my input to a desired outcome, or edit it for fear of causing upset.  If, for example, someone who says he wants to get sober is finding all these reasons not to take the necessary steps, then I am going to call a spade a spade. If he continues to call me, I am going to tell him that's what he's doing, and I'm not going to hesitate to point out the clear evidence of the wreckage that got him almost willing in the first place. If he gets pissed because I'm not being the gentle accomodating nudger, then I will point out that I've been taking that tack for quite some time, and ultimately, not serving him and feeling completely inauthentic.  I can survive being pissed at, and I am not responsible for the choices he makes or does not make. But I need, for me, to be honest.

On a much lighter note, I spoke to Tennessee Tony today, and as he gave me the weekly sports report (he plays gay softball), he told me that at one point, there was a dispute, because the agreement is: "no more than 4 straight players on the field at a time."  Did you ever imagine a time when the issue could shift from gays agitating for the right to play on a straight softball team to there being too many straights trying to play on a gay one?  This heartened me immeasurably, as well as caused me to spit out my coffee, I thought it so funny.

The times, they are definitley a'changin'.

The thinker within a thinker is Michelangelo inside a Modigliani.

MCO 2008

P.S. A shout out to Michael, serving in Iraq. Or should I say, YouRock!

I love words, and adjectives are some of the words I love the most. What would life be if  the only way to describe a resplendent bouquet of roses was merely as "pretty?"

But adjectives are also powerful, and can carry baggage. Look at how the Republicans, with the simple dropping of an "ic," managed to turn "Democratic" into the derogatory "Democrat" party.  The connotations around "gay" are so powerful that millions of homosexual men go through a self-described "bi" stage--and trust me, the overwhelming majority of them don't have a remotely equal attraction to both men and women.  (One of the first jokes to come out of the AIDS crisis was this: Q: "What's the hardest part about telling your parents you have AIDS?" A: "Convincing them that you're Haitian.")  Just as common among these types will be a rejection of any word at all to describe their sexuality. "I don't like labels," they'll say.   These same men will have no problem being described as an Italian-American businessman who has a passion for travel and horse-racing, but suddenly "gay" is a "label."  ( I've never heard any heterosexual man objecting to that "label.") Thousands of gay men regularly describe themselves on personals as "straight-acting" instead of "masculine," unintentionally reinforcing the message that "gay" equals "effeminate" - which is what they are objecting to in the first place.  Sometimes we are our own worst enemy.

I live in Little Armenia, and on a daily basis as I pick up trash, I do battle with my mind's urge to cast all Armenians as chronic litterers, even though I know in my head that it only takes 1 out of every 10 people to litter to create the perception that everybody is doing it.  I also walk many a non-Armenian multi-ethnic Hollywood neighborhood of very dirty streets, and lest I ascribe the practice to all immigrants I need only visit my friend Wayne in the desert where 90% of the trash he picks up comes from poor whites.  It's a class thing, not an ethnic thing. But the brain wants to make simplistic associations, because as humans, we need explanations.  We tend to chop reality into manageable bites.

When we describe people to others, we tend to throw in their ethnicities and/or where they're from and/or their professions and/or their sexual orientation.  It's hard to know when that enriches and when that obscures.  I found myself telling my Mom about my blogami Sheria, and found myself second guessing my descriptives. A blogger made sense because that's how we met and that's how we communicate. North Carolina made sense because that situated her.  But then I hesistated.  If I said "lawyer," does that bring with it all this baggage we tend to associate with lawyers? And what if I said "black lawyer" - is that code for, look ma, an educated black person?  I would never say "white" lawyer, but whites are a majority, so there's an assumption there. I would certainly say "Dutch" or "Japanese" if that was the case. Why not "black?"  After all, I would certainly expect Sheria to describe me as "gay" even though I know when we think of each other, the words insightful, funny, and interesting come first to mind.  I think I ended up settling on "a good friend I met on line," as my mother knows I don't use the word "friend" lightly. That tells her plenty enough and probably all she can remember, at 82.

I am pushing no agenda here, I am skipping in the fog like the rest of us. But I do think that the candidacy of  Barack Obama may be a singular opportunity to talk about things we talk around in this country. What is racist and what is not? What describes us in an enriching way and what labels us in a way that creates separation? When are words neutral and when are they loaded, and how do we unload them?  How can we move towards a language that reflects Martin Luther King's suggestion that we judge each other based not on the color of our skin but on the content of our character?

I don't know.  But this gay male, half-French/half-Wasp Little Armenia- living, trashpicking, dog-loving, sober, blogging,  American human being would like to encourage a discussion.

MCO 2008

P.S. The Hy-Art is Lorenzetti and Lichtenstein. It has nothing to say but everything.

The drive up there leads to a winding road that snakes around some pretty dramatic gorges.  It brought back memories of southern France, but I realized that if I was making the same drive there, I would be singing the praises of very similar vistas with twice the passion merely because we were in France.  I would have written back about this charming spot by a bubbling stream, certain nothing so delightful could be found a mere hour from Los Angeles.

So, in my head, I decided to pretend I was a Frenchman vacationing in California, to try to experience the day with that sense of pleasure of being on an adventure abroad. And when it was time to go, instead of lamenting the fact that I couldn't proceed to some sort of walled medieval town for a three-star dinner, I enjoyed the reality of my cute little air-conditioned apartment waiting for me, with an evening ahead of full control of the remote.  I took a langorous nap, watched the Lakers almost come back from a 24-point deficit, and then luxuriated in a repeat viewing of the fabulous Hairspray, as I did the laundry, like Edna Turnblatt. 

Then I drifted off to sleep,  praying to Queen Latifah that one day, I too might be as cool as your average black person, but grateful at least that when God was passing out the ability to dance, the gays were right in line after the blacks, and some of that magic rhythm dust got sprinkled on us too.

MCO 2008

P.S.  Okay, so it's a stereotype that blacks have rhythm, but I've never heard one black person argue with it.  Just like you'll never hear me argue with the rumor that hairy-chested men are good in bed. (What rumor, you ask? The one I'm starting!)

Between anniversaries of assasinations, recent current events, and Gay Pride today in Los Angeles, it occurred to me it's time to propose some new Mount Rushmores for the present.  At first I had Hillary Clinton in the place of RFK, but then it occurred to me that if I was going to do this right, the women had to have their own spread.

Of the men, I fear Harvey Milk is not so well known among the general population or even the younger generation of gay men. He was the first openly gay person elected to a position of real prominence in the United States, when he was voted in as San Francisco's City Supervisor in 1977, only to be assasinated in 1978 along with the Mayor George Moscone. He had in common with the men next to him a calm and gentle confidence, a fierce determination to abet change, and a singular talent to inspire others.

As for the women, Edith Wilson (with whom I share a birthday) virtually took over for her husband Woodrow when he became extremely ill in his second term, and pretty much ran the White House from 1919 to 1921.  Just as Bill Clinton was called our first black President, she is often called our first woman President.  To her right is Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of FDR, and her accomplishments are so numerous if you don't know about them click on the link and read up. (She also covers the lesbians, as she had a rather passionate liason with Lorena Hickock.) . Then, of course, there's Hillary, whose concession speech yesterday was a dazzler. If she campaigns for Barack like she promises, all is forgiven in my book.

Your sharp eyes, of course, noted the presence of Whitney Houston, and that's because her hit, "I'm Every Woman" allows her to stand in for all women who should be up there, which is a far greater percentage than of the men. I can think of few mothers who don't deserve statues in their honor, for example. And I particularly like that as black female singer, she can also also represent in particular those great ladies of R&B--Aretha, Diana, Billie, Lena, Etta, Chaka, Nancy, and Sheria--among so many others. Because let's not forget,  change, ultimately, is not so much about better jobs or more things. It's about being able to live life more richly, more passionately, more spirtually, more lovingly, which is everything their music is about. (I guess I also liked Whitney to represent the struggle with addiction and recovery, which speaks of redemption like nothing else.)

I won't be going to any Gay Pride celebrations because it's too damn hot and all that walking makes my foot act up. (Trust me, I was front and center on two coasts in the 70s and 80s). But I did post an entry for Steven called "Queer in Here" over at Prison's a Bitch. It's very well written, and I hope you find some time to read it.

MCO 2008

P.S. I was thinking of Obama as a great man,  worthy of being on Mount Rushmore, but I realize putting him with three assasinated figures may send a different message. I certainly didn't intend that.

Yesterday I offered some help to a sober friend who was going through a hard time. First, the apartment below his had a very bad fire and literally smoked him out of the sublet he was in. Then, stressed out from that situation, he misread a sign, which is a notorious problem in L.A. ("No stopping between 4-7, except on weekends, but only with Permit 7R" - I exaggerate only a little), and his car was towed.  Having spent most of his adult life in and out of prison, he's still in a learning curve in the paying-attention-to-detail part of living sober out in the world, I'm afraid.  But he takes complete responsibility for his part in things, nodding ruefully about his tendency to put off paying a parking ticket until the next paycheck, until a fistful of them, with penalities, reached $900.

I had my car and my fluid schedule, and he called to see if I could drive him to the DMV, which turned out to have moved. Other complications ensued, one stop turned into four, (all over town at $4.41/gallon!) and when we finally got to the tow yard it turned out he was missing yet one more essential piece of paper. Five hours after picking him up, I had to drop him off empty-handed and dispirited, but much less so than if he'd tried to accomplish all of this by bus and foot, in the wilting June sun. 

What was different from the way I used to operate is that I did what I could, but apart from brainstorming about solutions, did not try to step in and fix things. This is a great change for me.  I finally seem to get that not only am I not indispensable to this person's survival, but that that they need to face the consequences of their own choices in order to learn from them, just as I've had to. I seem to have finally learned that a person in crisis needs to do most of the figuring out of how to get out of it, even if they do a messy job of it.  

This may seem obvious on its face, but I've found the humility required to maintain this understanding rather elusive. I've often blurred the line between being of service and trying to play God in someone's life. Saying yes is a spiritual act--but so is saying no, sometimes. And coming from this new attitude made the experience of helping out yesterday completely enjoyable for me. I was not trying to create a result, I was just being of service.

Straight, no chaser. 

MCO 2008

Sheria

It must have been very heady for Hillary to fly with the wings of a frontrunner.  To find out that the sun she was flying toward was not the Presidency, but Barack Obama, must be making for a very dizzying fall indeed.

She has been going from rally to rally to rally for 16 months.  Room after room of supporters cheering her name.  Wins in some huge, highly populated states. A sense of historical destiny as dramatic as her opponent's.  In that bubble, of course she thought she'd win. It must be almost incomprehenisble to see her vision be revealed a mirage.

The woman is in a state of shock, not to mention exhaustion. She needs to go through the stages of grief, and right now, I think she's somewhere between anger and bargaining. She needs to go somewhere for the weekend and have a good two-day crying jag. And I don't mean that as a sexist remark. I think Edwards and Gore and Kerry probably did something just like that, and whether or not there are actual tears, mourning needs to be done.

And then there's Bill.  Barack is sensible and so is his search committee.  Anyone with half a brain and a copy of Vanity Fair can easily imagine the campaign blowing up in mid-stream over the revelation of all sorts of things.  Does anyone really think Bill has kept his pants zipped for the last 8 years? And what about the $109 million they  have made over that time.  The Republicans are merciless, dying to blow up any scrap of association into Whitewater or Lewinsky II. The dream ticket could easily become the stuff of nightmares.

Here's the betting pool I'd like to set up.  If she doesn't become V.P.,  how long before the Clintons get a divorce? 

MCO 2008

But when I don't have anything particular to say, I feel like something is terribly wrong, I feel inadequate, like I'm not doing my job.  In AA, when meetings are round robin, I have never once passed, even if I've shared the preceding day or two. Most people pass because they spoke the day before, or they don't think they have something helpful to contribute or they're shy.  Those sentiments are completely foreign to me.

On the one hand, I like the fact that I try to come up with interesting and humorous insights. On the other hand, there is definitely an unhealthy dollop (or two) of self-importance at work when I find myself almost incapable of not opening my mouth or posting even when I have little to say or there's another activity  that truly demands my time and attention. I'm getting better at it, but I have a lot of work to do in the shut-up-and-listen department.

Sometime I wonder if I've hit on a personality trait that is about a easy to change as my fingerprints.  How much is this a character defect I can change, and how much is it just something I need to accept as who I am? Humility is a worthy goal, but so is authenticity. I guess acceptance will have to find the balance between the two.

Meanwhile, a great quote from Anna Quindlen on Gay Marriage at Newsweek:

"Here's what I don't understand: is there so much love and commitment in the world that we can afford, as a society, to be contemptuous of some portion of it? If two women in white want to join hands in front of their families and friends and vow to love and honor one another until they die, the only reasonable response to that is happy tears, awed admiration and societal approval. And--this part is just personal opinion--one of those big honking KitchenAid mixers with the dough hook."

I wish I'd say that.

MCO 2008

I'm a little irritated that the pundits seem to hardly be mentioning Barack's goosebump-inspiring oratory last night, which in turn, inspired this art work. This stuff counts.  This is what history remembers; Churchill during the war, Kennedy's inaugural address, King's speeches.  The ability to make words into music is a gift that transforms whole countries, and sometimes the world.

The end of his address last night: 

America, this is our moment. This is our time, our time to turn the page on the policies of the past...

(APPLAUSE) ... our time to bring new energy and new ideas to the challenges we face, our time to offer a new direction for this country that we love.

The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge -- I face this challenge with profound humility and knowledge of my own limitations, but I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people.

Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that, generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless...

(APPLAUSE)

... this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal...

(APPLAUSE)

... this was the moment when we ended a war, and secured our nation, and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth.

(APPLAUSE)

This was the moment, this was the time when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals.

Thank you, Minnesota. God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.

Dare I feel proud to be an American again?

I had read some less-than-stellar reviews, so my expectations were low, and I was happily surprised to enjoy it immensely, to think it quite good actually. It's really about how the marriage to one's friends constitutes for many the most important marriage in their lives, and putting aside the gorgeous clothes (fashion porn, I heard it called) and the fabulous apartments in the movie, that is surely a theme that almost all of us can identify with.

If we're lucky, we all get to be the Carrie Bradshaw of a circle of friends at least once in our lives.  I had a moment in the 80s, sitting at a table having a fairly regular Sunday brunch, that I realized that I was the linchpin friend at a table of eight.  Several of them had met through me, and had developed independent friendships with each other, but all of them called me one of their closest friends. Like the characters in the movie, life took us to different places and relationships, and unlike the characters, half of the men at that table died of AIDS. 

Things change--such is the stuff of life. A big part of growing up is acceptance that you will fall out with this one, this one will move, this one will get married or this one will, yes, die. If you are lucky, you will constitute new gangs of three or four or more, sometimes coming back together again with some you thought lost to your past.  The luckiest of you will have the feeling more than once in your life, sitting amongst friends, that everything is just right exactly the way it is, and if you could, you'd keep it that way forever.

MCO 2008

This weekend was very unpleasant physically, as I suffered from a severe case of intestinal distress, as in the type that requires Kaopectate.   This has happened periodically over the last several months, and it dawned on me that this might be occurring when I use roach spray. Although I am very liberal with the boric acid, there is just no way to penetrate wooded baseboards at the backs of cupboards, for example. In frustration at the hidden sources of these nasty little critters, I sprayed rather liberally behind the refrigerator, and I honestly think the fumes fucked my stomach up.  I won't make that mistake again.

Anyway, I hadn't intended this entry to be a warning about the perils of roach-napalm.  What I wanted to share was that I had a good weekend nontheless.  Here I was, confined to being pretty close to the cerami