September 2008 Archives

Notice how every year there is a general lament that we are saving less and getting more and more in debt, while at the same time there is panic at the prospect that people will do less Christmas shopping this year than they did the last? This makes no sense. You can't give the middle class less of the national income and then ask them to both save and spend more.

There is plenty of wealth in America. There is enough housing, enough food for everybody to eat decently, enough fans and air conditioners and heating oil and toothpaste for everybody to stay cool and warm and minty fresh. But when there are 10 pieces of pie, and one person has 3 pieces, the other nine people will have to share 7 pieces. The free enterprise right has tried to convince us you can always grow the pie and everyone will be happy, but that magical thinking has led us right into the current mess. 

If we expand this model to the world, then the United States become the 1 with the 3 pieces of pie, Europe has 2 pieces, and the rest of the world is divying up the rest.  It's why 500,000 women in the developing world died in childbirth last year for lack of access to medical care.  They can't live on crumbs.

The world has enough resources to comfortably support perhaps 2-3 billion people. We are now at 6 billion and it won't take long to hit 8.  Economic and political systems are cracking because it is impossible to fairly and efficiently manage the sheer masses of individuals competing for a finite amount of resources.   Throw in the drama of rising expectations that occurs when the bottom half starts to imagine they can live like the top half (the middle classes of China and India each are as big as the entire United States population) and you have a recipe for global disaster.

We possess an inner optimism as human beings, a belief that over time, things get better.  I think we evolved it so we wouldn't throw ourselves off cliffs when we couldn't find food. But there's really very little evidence to support that this isn't actually just a dressing up of the basic will to survive.  

So it could be that we are making decisions as one mass organism, and in order to survive as a species it will be necessary for billions of us to die off, through disease, starvation, the consequences of human-caused climate change or all of the above.  This sounds horrible, but 99% of us could die, and there would still be 6 million of us left to repopulate the planet.  On a level we are not even aware of, we could be creating the conditions in which that will occur to save ourselves collectively as homo sapiens in the long run.  

I can focus on how idiotic the Republicans are, and while that may be true, I do believe the current crisis is symptomatic of something much, much larger going on, part of a great historical process that we can't see while in the middle of it any more than the Romans understood in 400 A.D. that the Dark Ages were around the corner. 

It's not a very optimistic message, but I find it comforting, somehow.   There may be much more method to the madness than that which meets the eye. 

MCO 2008 

Well, yesterday I finished this draft of the script, which is tentatively titled "Lucky."  If feels completely different from the last draft, as that was finished over last Christmas at my sister's, writing 10 pages a day, and ended at p. 89.  This draft finishes at p. 103, so there's not only another 15 minutes of meat in the middle, (at the standard measure of a minute a page) but the fact that it was rewritten in dribs and drabs over the past 6 months means there is far more thought put into each scene.  The movie unfolds instead of jumps ahead; it is far more organic and far less jerky. 

This is not news, it's how the rewriting process works.  But it has been over a decade since I was truly in the process, and the last rewrites I did on a script were done in a state of psychological exhaustion.  I worked on a formulaic romantic comedy that had started to feel stale. I was also making the transition from recreational to occupational drug use, and the only writing I had the attention span for was poetry,  To be back in the thick of the creative flow, sober, that's wonderful.

Only in creating this hy-art (Munch/Monet) did I suddenly realize that this script has no romance at all in it--much love, but no romance.  And for some reason, that pleases me. It also reflects my life at present--a lot of love, but no romance.  And I'm amazed at how that  doesn't bother me, amazed because the whole "man" issue was front and center for so long. Now I consider it the icing on a cake that is perfectly tasty and moist without it.

So on to polishing the script. But not until I nap.  Some days I'm exhausted by 10 am, and that's just the way it is.

MCO 2008

So it occurred to me: what would be the democratic equivalent of Sarah Palin? Who could have Obama have appointed that would have horrified the right, and eventually the middle, as much as Palin--who, after her interviews, makes clear she even couldn't make a 9th grade debating team?

The obvious choice would be Hillary Clinton, but even the right wing admits that the woman is smart and knows what she's talking about, even if they disagree with her.  No, the Democrats would have had to choose someone dissolute, elitist, decadent.  A diva who spouted new age platitutes while downing champagne, a drunk Liza Minelli, Laurie David perhaps, or pre-rehab Lindsay Lohan.

Of course, such a choice from the Democrats is unthinkable, and this points to the ludricous double standard that Karl Rove has left us in American politics. I mean, can you just imagine how the right would have reacted if it was Barack Obama's unmarried 17-year old daughter having a child with a high school student rapper?  

McCain gets to lose his temper and his bearings every 20 minutes, displaying the most egregiously erratic and politicized behavior seen since Nixon (see the most excellent Frank Rich)  while Barack Obama has to maintain his "cool" in the face of ads that cast him as leering sexual predator, because God forbid he's cast as an "angry black man."

Here's what wrong with the economy.  In 1980, the top 1% had 8% of the wealth.  Now, the top 1% have 20% of the wealth.  McCain wants to make that even worse, by cutting taxes on the rich even more, and though Obama has been clear as glass about increasing taxes only on this wealthy 1%, "taxes" is still the area where McCain polls better than Obama.

My theory is that a huge portion of the middle class is trapped in an illusion that next year or the year after, they or their kids are going to make it into that top  1%  (when there are 3 million of them, everyone knows a few, and it's easy to believe "if they can do it, so can I." ) A strange syndrome occurs.  They tend to vote for the interests of the class they aspire to more than in their own self-interest, particularly if they're in striking distance, say, in the top 20%. Then are bought off those who have no hope of seeing such mobility with social issues: there's nothing wrong with their lives that can't be blamed on the gays and the feminists and the non-hunting chardonnay-sipping volvo-driving pro-choice liberals.  All together, it's been enough for 50%, and with a little hanky-panky with voting machines and election officials, we've got the current mess.

There's my Sunday rant. On a personal level, I'm happy in direct inverse proportion to my digust at McPain. My nephew's opening has gone very well, full houses so far.  I'm one scene away from finishing my script, and I get to watch French rugby and American football all day. Last night we watched Chris Rock's "Kill the Messenger" and his bit on the only time a white person can use the n-word is one of the funniest three minutes in the history of comedy.

MCO 2008

Paul Newman was one of those men who make it easy to celebrate their life more than mourn their death. He had beauty, talent, an understanding that the true meaning of life lies in giving back.  What a cool guy, all around.

Of course I watched the debates and of course I'm amused by the frantic attempts of the spintelligentsia to claim success for either side.  It's so impossible to not have an opinion, that the media has a tough job of pretending to be objective.  In my opinion, its an objective fact that McCain and his cronies are bankrupt ideologues who should be vying for control of a small banana republic, but I recognize that unless you're  Keith Olbermann, you must pretend he's qualified to be leader of the Free World.  I found myself squirming as I watched, willing with every fiber of my being for Barack to interrupt with "That's bullshit, Senator" or "What a load of crap, John."  I guess that's why the Obama campaign is not calling me for advice. They wanted him to look and sound Presidential, and on that count, the reaction of my swing state sister leads me to believe it was a successful venture.

I've had some queries about goings on in my personal life. 1) We were outbid on the house, which I expected.  I don't think the housing market has hit bottom, and I think there's a better bargain awaiting.  Of course, no one knows anything as far as what's next in the credit market.  I just find it funny that the same people have the same stuff on Tuesday as they had on Monday, and yet suddenly $700 billion needs to change hands. There's a lot of perception going on here.  2) The arrangements are gelling for moving my mother out west.  She needs a lot of handholding, and so do my sisters and I. It's a big project, but we are all clear it constitutes her best chance for some happy remaining years.

There's a new post at Prison's a Bitch 

MCO 2008

It's odd when all is doom and gloom on a national scale, but in your own life, aren't much different than they always are.  In fact, when I'm writing every day, and I love what I'm writing, it anchors and heartens me in a way nothing else does.  To go to bed thinking about a scene I've just written, that I'm really proud of, there is just no feeling quite like it.

As alternately appalled and amused as I am by the economic and political goings on, I have to give points all around for the sheer theatricality of it all.  Compared to the mess on Capitol Hill, the McCain grandstanding, and Palin's incoherence about Alaskan airspace and Vladimir Putin, Ugly Betty's season premiere seemed singularly boring. Did they fire the writing staff?  Her horror over the condition of that HUGE New York apartment was ludicrous. So put on a coat of paint.

My nephew's film opens today.  The New York Times review was less than stellar and so I'm pissed off at the reviewer.  If you live in NY, ignore her and go see it. I promise, you'll have a great time.  Here's my official quote about it: "A study in hope, hubris and humor. Watch yourself spend 90 minutes without blinking."

MCO 2008 

Funny, in all this running to Washington to solve the monetary crisis, I haven't heard McCain insist that Sarah Palin be in on the negotiations.  Why, John, you're trying to sell her as the most qualified individual to be second-in-command of the free world. Don't you think her input would prove invaluable?  In fact, here's an idea: Let's let Sarah in a room with a bunch of books and newspapers, a pen and paper, and after 8 hours or so (with a break for mooseburgers, of course) we'll see what kind of plan she comes up with.  And just to make it fair, we'll put Joe Biden in another room for the same amount of time and see what he comes up with.  Then, John,  YOU can pitch her plan to Congress and Obama can pitch Biden's.  Instead of the debate you want to duck anyway. Sound good to you John?

The real crisis is that of the sub-prime intellects that have governed this country and are asking to stay in power.  Even the ostensibly smart ones are below par in the life experience department. Poulsen worked for Goldman-Sachs for 30 years. He thinks an ideal America is whatever America he's looking at from the back seat of a limousine on the way to  the Hamptons. The only reason this is a crisis to Wall Street is because THEIR kind of prosperity is threatened.  I didn't see Bush call an emergency summit when millions of homes were on their way to foreclosure. Hell, been to emergency room lately? Howabout an emergency summit on emergency room waits?

I know, I should be in a better mood, and rest assured, the flailing about, implosion even, of the McCain campaign (see the Letterman diatribe on You Tube) has provided me with immense frisson of shadenfreude. But an entire box-worth of styrofoam packing pellets was dumped on my corner, and despite all my efforts, the street looks like shit.  I try to take this personally, but sometimes it feels like a big Fuck You, Trashwhisperer.  

I gotta get some writing down before I go get my foot lasered.  I'm up to page 87!

MCO 2008

Okay, this is the first two paragraphs of today's Maureen Dowd in The New York Times:

I don't agree with those muttering darkly that the picture of Gov. Sarah Palin with a perky smile and shapely gams posing with a pleased Henry Kissinger, famous for calling power the ultimate aphrodisiac, is a sign of the apocalypse.

It isn't even a sign of the apocalipstick.

So I'm reading this and thinking, mmhh, that word sounds familiar. Wonder why?

Can anyone say: "Marc's blog entry from September 8th?"

http://www.marcolmsted.com/trashwhisperer/2008/09/apocalipstick-thinking.html

I'm JUST SAYING.

MCO 2008

P.S.  And another thing.  It's MY IDEA that the press start to boycott Sarah Palin completely.  (Watch how soon she comes running and pleading for exposure.) 

Yesterday afternoon I snuck out with David (who takes Tuesday off) to see "The Duchess."  What a sumptuous, romantic movie of a sumptuous, romantic life. See it and be transported back the the 18th century.

I particularly like when art tweaks our perception of history. They had some scandals going on in the department of domestic living arrangements against which many modern situations pale in comparison. All behind a veneer of propriety and politesse that makes the contrast between perception and reality all the more cinematic.

Denys left a comment on yesterday's entry questioning why I didn't run for office. Little does he know that had I been born straight, I would have probably done that for a career, but in the late 70s, when I would have formulated such plans, the gay issue was the glass ceiling I knew I would have bumped against, and I was only interested in a political career  that could potentionally take me all the way, baby. 

These days, of course, the situation has changed--up to a point. But though I am political, I am supremely impolitic.  Today, for example, I am volunteering at the "No-on-8" offices (to preserve our right to marry), because I don't have to be on the phone.  But I won't sign up for Obama phonebanks, because I have zero patience for anyone who has yet to make up their mind.  I don't think I would be doing much service to the campaign by ending phone calls with "Well then you're an asshole and you get what you deserve!"

This morning, for example, on NPR I heard a report from Western Pennsylvania discussing how many hunters are voting for McCain just because Palin hunts.  These people call themselves "patriots?"  They're willing to throw the country to the dogs because the "liberal elite" wants to ban AK-47's, and they hear that as "we hate hunters?"  What consummate idiots.  I cannot restrain my contempt. ( Thanks to Brendan for sending me this article on how McCain volunteers are writing fake letters to the Editor, even posing as mothers of Iraqi vets.)

Apart from boomeranging from joy to despair on a daily basis in the political department, in the realm of the personal, things are quite on the plus side.  I'm ecstatic about my mother's move, which is take shape rapidly, and I'm at page 84 of the script rewrite.  And  how bad could things be with Cloris Leachman on Dancing With the Stars?

MCO 2008

I've been imagining an alternate world in which Al Gore had won in 2000 and again in 2004.  I believe we would probably still have been attacked on 9/11, and we would have invaded Afghanistan, but not Iraq.  This would have meant the budget would not have been hemmorhaging for the past 6 years, but, to be fair, a more robust occupation and development of Afghanistan would have cost a lot; an attempt to find Bin Laden in the area of the Pakistan border might have led to a quaqmire of its own.  I imagine we would be in the birth pangs of both National Health Insurance and switching over to a greener economy to prevent global warming, and it would have been very difficult to keep to a balanced budget. Saddam Hussein would have remained in power, and he certainly liked giving an ambiguous impression as to whether or not he had W.M.D.  Perhaps a Gore administration might have thought it wise to try to take out Kim Jong Il, and Korean unification would be the huge international crisis we were facing.

No matter how this alternative history had played out, it's so easy to imagine that George Bush, who might have perhaps become a Senator from Texas, would now be running for President.  I can just hear him decrying the situation in Afghanistan, insisting that if he'd been elected, he would have found Bin Laden and kicked Hussein's butt in a short war.  He'd be pointing to a 100 billion dollar deficit as evidence of Democratic fiscal imprudence, insisting the free market under his regime could have briought cheap health insurance to all without the bureaucracy.  Whether Clinton or Obama were running against him, noither would of course, been able to point to the mess not created by Gore that we see splayed in front of us now.

So here's the great silver lining of the last 8 years and the current crisis.  Joe and Jane SixPack needed to see for themselves the complete bankruptcy of Republican free-market ideology, how unbridled greed leads to unbridled ruin. They needed to see for themselves the destructiveness of a political philosophy that values power over governing, loyalty over competence, having more over sharing more. They needed to see for themselves that an undereducated, inarticulate leader who thinks America is better than other countries is an embarassment and inimical to our security,

Everybody loves Roosevelt now, but the truth is that all the changes he ushered in were only possible because of the Great Depression. In the 20s, no one talked about unemployment insurance or Social Security.  All of the changes in Civil Rights that everybody agrees upon now only came about because the country saw on its TV screens how brutal life was for black people in the south.  Gay rights have only come about because millions of men and women came out, and those they came out to realized they knew and loved someone gay.

In this country, people don't change because they read the right articles or educate themselves to the facts.  They change because they see for themselves what works and doesn't, what's right and isn't--usually after it affects them personally.  As much as I wish I could go back in time and cast another 1000 votes in Florida in 2000, I wonder if in the long run, Bush didn't serve a vital purpose.  Because of him,  the center has shifted to the left.  The Republican party can never again claim that if they had the Presidency and Congress for 8 years they could turn the country into a giant Texwitzerland.

So, take heart America. We're gonna throw the bastards out and have a smart brother in the White House. Inheriting a huge mess, for sure, but there'll be no where to go but up, and the generation that came of age in this decade will never want to come back here.

MCO 2008

So, if I get this right, the bulk of the financial meltdown comes from all those people who can't pay off their mortgages because their low introductory interest rates didn't stay low. When their variable interest rates shot up, they couldn't pay them, and boom, foreclosure.

However, millions have held on to their house, by the skin of their teeth. They CAN pay their monhtly mortgages, if the payments remain at a low interest rate..  Wouldn't this 700 billion be better spent merely keeping their interest rates low and fixed, allowing them to pay off their mortgages? Hell, maybe some of those people who lost their homes could move back in.

Why do I get the feeling the real issue is that every bailout guarantees that that the financial managers and bigwigs that got us into this mess in the first place are going to make sure they get paid their million dollar bonuses and golden parachutes?  That the system they want to keep in place is the one where the wealthy stay wealthy, no matter what?

MCO 2008

Ronnie would later wonder why he really did it. He understood it on a  surface level, of course. He was hurt, and he was lashing out. But to do it in a way that would guarantee there could be no reconciliation, no make-up sex, no possibility ever of being a couple again, why did he make such a thoroughly irrevocable choice?

And that, of course, was the answer. He knew if he didn't free himself from the  relationship now, he might never. There would be more drunken fights, more sorrowful mornings after, more promises to get help, more no change.  Without such drastic action, the bonds of shared history, of overlapping involvements in each other's lives, of familial complications, all would become too tight, weigh too heavily to be ruptured. They would drift into a future of pathologies so interlocked separation would require the unweaving of a huge tapestry, not of a beautiful pastoral scene, but the tableau of a bloody battle in which the hero lies bleeding to death in perpetuity.

He knew she couldn't avoid seeing the sign, as it was on her way to where she always parked. And even though no one but her would know she was the "cow,"  the humiliation would be ten times more than if he had used the epithet in one of their rows, when they were numbed by booze and she could hurl back something equally ugly.  And the fact that he used the same pole she posted the flyer on when she lost her cat--oh that would hurt,

Somewhere inside he knew he would try to aplogize one day, and her refusal to hear him or worse, her complete indifference, would probably feel a lot worse than the perverse pleasure he felt now from putting up the sign.  That sense of triumphant vindication was already fading.  He was almost ready to go back and tear it down, but if she had seen it, she would have already done so, and if she hadn't, she might see him from the window, and he couldn't bear a screaming fight on the lawn in front of her building.

This was not going to be a good day.

MCO 2008

So I'm doing my thing this morning, and I encounter one of the regular homeless guys I've come to know who I give cans I gather too.  He's somewhat cleaned up from usual, I suspect a recent stay in the hospital, but it doesn't really matter.  He sees me and says: "There's Mr. Clean!" and I smile and wave, as I spy a can stashed within a retaining wall.  It's a FULL, unopened can of Pabst Blue Ribbon.  I pick it up and hesitate briefly, wondering if he's looking better because he's off the sauce.

That feels far too judgey and controlling, so I walk up to him and give it to him as if it's any other can. We smile,  Whether he will drink it or give it away is immaterial compared to the value of the smile, which I know he doesn't get a lot of spending his days digging through dumpsters.

MCO 2008

P.S. My friend Sam sent me this inspirational Kabbalah email, and it actually says it all perfectly.

To view this email as a webpage, click here.

Weekly Kabbalah Tune Up September 21 - 27, 2008 Clean Up Time " ... It's the nature of the conscious mind to run from pain ..."   72 Name of the Week Lamed     Hei     Pei 20. Victory Over Addictions I am ready to battle the nasty habits and unpleasant character traits that I have not been able to get rid of. This Name ensures my victory over the forces of ego. I am imbued with the emotional power and dis-cipline to triumph over all self-centered impulses and negative desires. PRINTABLE VERSION W  hy are we here? You know, planet earth, the grind of the mundane, the exhilaration of love and birth, the dread of what will be tomorrow, the roller-coaster ride of eternity. What's it all about?! Rav Ashlag says it's all about picking up our garbage. If you really understand that everything is Light and if you really understood that the only thing that creates separation between us and the Light is the garbage we have inside of us, then the willingness to look at the garbage means the willingness to expose it to the Light. The second the Light sees it, it burns it out. It's like a laser. The problem is, we don't always have the willingness to see what we do that separates us from the Light. Why? Because the second there's a willingness - a desire - to let the Light in, we let the Light in. And the second the Light comes into contact with darkness, as I said, it burns it out. Our Opponent knows that. It's its job to keep us from connecting with our source. In the month of Virgo we are all (hopefully) busy looking at the less pleasant sides of our nature, pressing in and down on ourselves to locate the stinking thinking and the not-so-sharing actions. That can be frustrating, because as we learn, we can't see our junk. For those of us without a teacher reflecting it back to us, what is to be done? Rav Ashlag makes a great point about this, a point that can totally transform and upgrade your inner search. Here it is: All you have to do is search. The willingness to look is more important than the actual finding. The problem is we don't even look. On a practical level, let's say we're going through apathy, depression, mourning process, not enough money, [fill in your own pain.] It's the nature of the conscious mind to run from pain, to subjugate it, so we don't fully embrace the emotions. That's the reason they stay. We need to apply the proactive formula process to our emotions and all the negative 'stuff' we have inside. We can't let go of something until we are first holding it, right? That's what Rav Ashlag is saying - don't be afraid to hold your garbage because when you do, you can let go of it! To put it in physical terms, you've got to pick something up before you can drop it. Be willing to embrace yourself this week - specifically those difficult, hard-to-handle emotions. When you are feeling angry or sad or lost, allow it to be there. Even speak to your emotions. What do you want to tell me? Listen to your emotions like you are listening to a child. With patience. With understanding. With compassion. With love. All the best, Yehuda

As usual, the return from a trip means a stack of mail, emails I couldn't get to when I was gone, a dirty house and an even dirtier street.  (For the record, I live in a in a perfectly decent neighborhood once it's cleaned up. It's not Beverly Hills, but it's not East LA either.)

Here are some shots from the trip.  Obviously that's my Mom in the middle, and the two flanking shots are from the grounds where her community is.

We're in discussion with my Mom over the possibility of moving her to the west coast to live with my sister.  I'm hopeful if she can see her way past the upheaval of the move itself, she'll see how much happier and less lonely she'd be on a day to day basis, with her grandchildren on the premises.  When she imagined living where she is, she didn't bank on the anxiety and memory-loss that keeps her increasingly reluctant to go out, to participate, to be exposed to too much stimuli.  If she's out here, she'll be near all of her children, and that's really the way it should be.

Funny/Dramatic moment of the day:  Outside of the Ralphs on LaBrea and Fountain, a very drunk prostitute weaves her way down the street, leers at me, and sits on the ledge, opening her shirt for her breasts to be seen by any and all. Oh it's hard being a working girl.

MCO 2008

P.S.  You know they're calling Palin "Caribou Barbie" now?

Today was Day 3 of doctor's appointments, and I was glad to be able to help my Mother get new reading glasses to reduce eye strain, but to tell you the truth, I think most of my Mom's trouble with reading is not eye strain, but an inability to concentrate for long periods.

The mornings are awful. She clutches her calendar, and goes over the activities of the day obsessively. The call that must be made. The bill that must be sent.  What she needs to tell the doctor. No matter how many times I assert that I have things under control, to just have her coffee and read the paper, to find some pleasure in the moment, she goes back to her perpetual studying for some kind of popquiz that on a gut level, she experiences as having potentially horrific consequences if she fails. 

I've had to accept that there's very little I can do except love her and be patient with her. She tends to easily feel lectured to, is hypersensitive in the extreme. She can't bear even the whiff of reproach.

No appointments tomorrow. I'm going to see if she'll go to Mamma Mia with me, but probably we'll just hang out in her room. She feels safe there.

MCO 2008

My mother lives in a really beautiful community where she chose to be.  She's not wealthy, but she's comfortable. She has excellent medical care, friends and family who love her.

Upper Westchester in beautiful, it really is. So green. And rich.

Taking my mom to doctors, being a dutiful son. Of course, one of the problems with hanging out with your Mom is you can't exactly say something when you see a God. There was this superbuilt gorgeous cutie in the Pizzeria and I just had to swallow my slice demurely and pretend I didn't notice.

I've changed my mind:  Governor Paydirt might be a better nickname.  But I think Obama is right, he's not running against her, he running against McCain. 

This Lehman/Merril Lynch debacle should be fuel for the fire.  How do you deal with a crisis caused by the Republican mania for deregulation with even more deregulation?  How can you change the government when you insist government is the problem?   Make up your mind, McCain. 

I've said it before and I'll say it again. IN A DEMOCRACY, WE ARE THE GOVERNMENT.  Government is not the problem, bad governing is.

This is very first draft, not very well crafted at all, but I gotta get back upstairs. My Mom gets afraid I'm never coming back. Getting old sucks.

MCO 2008

I took this picture of a coyote in the park yesterday.  Helicopters hovered above on their way to the train crash, but this being L.A., I was fairly confident Gov. Palin was not coming down with a gun to add coyotes to the list of animals she thinks it's appropriate to shoot from machines in the air.

I have the icky feeling I'm going to spend the day stuck in the airport because of Ike.  At least I will know that I have started a movement to brand Palin: "Governor Earmark."  Last night's interview with Gibson made clear she has been no different from any other Governor trying to bring home the pork.  She should have owned up to it--she would have gotten points for honesty.

So spread the word, people. I wanna see ads up, I want Joe Biden to "accidently" call her that in a debate. Let's see how powerful this internet thing is.

MCO 2008

 

So this morning, my nephew, Keir, send me this link, listing his fim as a upcoming Fall release in the New York Times!  The purists among you can see it for yourselves, but here's what it reads:

UNSPOOLED A promising young director from N.Y.U.'s film school finds his lushly produced thesis film, a feature called "Bemoana," coming apart at the seams. Keir Moreano, a member of the crew, captured it all on his video camera for this documentary

What is so cool is to see it listed not as one of a group of indie film festival flicks, but flanked by big ass releases like "Nights in Rodanthe" and "The Duchess."  This film is very close to me, because when I came out of prison and spent my first Christmas in Albuquerque, I spent an entire day with my nephew, helping shape the the narration. (And let me tell you, I was a newly sober nervous wreck at the time.) Later on I gave him extensive notes as the film gained shape in the editing process. I can genuinely claim to have influenced the process, but mostly the very fine result reflects his dogged commitment to his craft, to going back to it over and over at every stage until he got it right.  This has been an invaluable inspiration to me, who used to be the same way in my 20s, until the weight of life and loss and disappointments and drug addiction took a heavy toll. I feel positively rejuvenated by his success.  Check out the trailer of the film--it's grand. (I'm sending you to the site instead of posting it here in case you want to click around and read about it as well.)

And that's not all. Those fans of HBO and vampires among you may have caught the premiere of the new Alan Ball series: True Blood.  If so, you may have noticed the opening credits--the shot of "God Hates Fangs" is hysterical. Guess who put those together? That's right, supernephew again.

I thought the show was good campy fun, but most critics weren't so kind. But there's three reviews we loved!

The opening credits are great -- bottleneck-blues thump over fretted images of snakehandlers, swamp shacks, midnight roads, trembling Pentecostalists . . ."

--                -- The Boston Phoenix

"The best thing about (True Blood) is their opening credits."

--                -- Entertainment Weekly

". . . amazing, hallucinatory opening montage."

            --  N.Y. Times

" I'm so proud"

           -- Uncle Marc

MCO 2008

 

This Hy-Art is a throwback to a simpler time, when upper class ladies (via Morisot) might spend an evening reading a popular novel about classic love to one another, letting the imagination (the tortured couple is from Leighton) of the listeners be the television set.  Ah, the good old days, when women couldn't vote, much less run for Vice-President.  JUST KIDDING.  You are merely witnessing the depth of my contempt for the elevation of mediocrity to the level of qualification for high office  embodied first by George Bush and now by Sarah Palin. Karl Rove, you will rot in hell for the hell you have wrought.

But I promised myself I would return to the contemplation of happier and more thoughtful topics, even give you a triad of entries, as the next week will be spotty. I am off tomorrow for a week at my Mom's back east, this time renting a car so that we will not be trapped "on campus," as I like to call her deluxe assisted-living facility.

On Wednesday I volunteered at the "No on 8" headquarters here (to retain the right to gay marriage), and shall do so again when I get back. Right away they had me tallying contributions and xeroxing very sensitive credit-card information, and I immediately presented them with a xerox of my own license and let them know it was essential they asked it of every volunteer. "I'm a good guy, but I used to be a bad guy," I told them. I also made sure they instituted procedures to keep sensitive info under lock and key.  It felt great to put my past life of crime to good use.

I could also barely stand after an hour, so that quieted a bit my ongoing disability guilt. Deespite bi-weely visits to the humpy chiropractor, my feet are getting worse.  The limp is semi-constant.  He has a new machine for plantar fascitis that he's going to try on me when I get back, so hope springs eternal. 

I'm also on page 71 of the rewritten screenplay, and it's becoming quite the testament to the value of working on something consistently, if only a little each day. I've borrowed a laptop to take to New York, and hope to complete it at my Mom's.  Then I'll have a version ready for my nephew's visit in early October, as he, as you'll see in the next entry, is the man to please.

I also got a new entry from Steven yesterday I posted a Prison's a Bitch. It's one of his best.

MCO 2008 

The Palin Doctrine: You don't have to know anything to be qualified to be President. All you need is to love Jesus, hate our enemies and have a fierce attachment to all-American past-times like hockey, hunting and making babies. Learning foreign languages or visiting foreign countries is not a necessary part of God's plan unless it's to support our troops occupying other countries who have the nerve not to love Jesus and to talk funny.

Oh, and make sure you memorize well. You never know how the devils of the elite media are going to try to get you to think on your own. 

The Bush Doctrine:  I have already proven the Palin doctrine is correct, just replace hockey with baseball, and throw in some "gut" instinct. Intellectual mediocrity and a hostility toward diplomacy are minor faults, if faults at all.  Wanting to be called Commander-in-Chief is plenty of qualification for being one. Vote for her and you vote for me.

MCO 2008

From Lawrence Wright's, The Looming Tower, Knopf, 2006, pp. 106-107.

"It was death, not victory in Afghanistan, that summoned many young Arabs to Peshawar. Martyrdom was the product that Azzam sold in books, tracts, videos and cassette tapes that circulated in mosques and Arabic language book-stores. ... He told stories of the mujahideen who defeated vast columns of Soviet troops virtually single-handedly. He claimed that some of the brave warriors had been run over by tanks but survived; others were shot, but the bullets failed to penetrate. If death came, it was even more miraculous. ... Bodies of martyrs uncovered after a year in the grave still smelled sweet and their blood continued to flow....

"The lure of an illustrious and meaningful death was especially powerful in cases where the pleasures and rewards of life were crushed by government oppression and economic deprivation. From Iraq to Morocco, Arab governments had stifled freedom and signally failed to create wealth at the very time when democracy and personal income were sharply climbing in virtually all other parts of the globe. Saudi Arabia, the richest of the lot, was such a notoriously unproductive country that the extraordinary abundance of petroleum had failed to generate any other significant source of income; indeed, if one subtracted the oil revenue of the Gulf countries, 260 million Arabs exported less than 5 million Finns. Radicalism usually prospers in the gap between rising expectations and declining opportunities. This is especially true where the population is young, idle, and bored; where the art is impoverished; where entertainment--movies, theater, music--is policed or absent altogether; and where young men are set apart from the consoling and socializing presence of women. Adult illiteracy remains the norm in many Arab countries. Unemployment was among the highest in the developing world. Anger, resentment and humiliation spurred young Arabs to search for dramatic remedies.

"Martyrdom promised such young men an ideal alternative to a life that was so sparing in its rewards. ... And for those young men who came from cultures where women are shuttered away and rendered unattainable for someone without prospects, martyrdom offered the conjugal pleasures of seventy-two virgins ..."

If we're going to make the horrendous losses of  this day meaningful, it is not only essential we understand the mindsets of those who attacked us, we must also acknowledge a dreadful fact that none of us wish to face.  If we were young Arab men raised in their culture and society we would have been just as vulnerable to the kind of thinking they were.

Bush would have us believe that he understands this, that his invasion of Iraq was precisely designed to supplant the culture that produces terrorism, but this was an afterthought used to justify the real motive: regaining American hegemony and access to resources in a country that had been lost to the West.  If we cared so much about the nature of Arab oppression, we would never have been so cozy with the Saudis--Bush the Elder and the Pentagon has been in bed with them for years. We decry Islamo-Fascism? What coiuld be more islamo-fascist than the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia? They cannot  vote or even drive, must be covered head to toe and always accompanied by a male relative, and God knows what sort of abuse and marital rape goes on behind closed doors.  In Iraq under Saddam, the treatment of women was comparatively enlightened.  We never cared about the condition of the people in Arab countries, only if their leaders would give us their oil.

American foreign policy for decades has been a major contributing factor in the creation of the very terrorism we bemoan. We funded the mujahadeen against the Soviet Union, then abandoned them once they kicked out the Russians. Afghanistan has no oil, you see. We trained the Savak (the secret police) in Iran, who imprisoned and tortured thousands under the Shah, and then we were astounded at how angry the mobs were who held our hostages.  Later, we sided with Saddam in the Iran-Iraq war, allowing massive arms shipments.  A million Iranian dead later, we wondered again why there are some hard feelings. "But we're Americans!" we tell ourselves. " We're so nice!"

In 1953, nice American men from the nice CIA overthrew the democratically elected leader of Iran and installed the Shah. With the British and French, we carved up the Arab world and had their oil for a song for decades.  We didn't give a whit for human rights or the rights of women until Jimmy Carter had the nerve to bring it up. We could have started the hunt for alternative energy back then and be off of foreign oil by now, instead we threw Carter out for telling us the truth and then voted in a doddering old man because he told us what we wanted to hear, that it was "morning in America." Then we proceeded  to heat up the planet through the "go-go" eighties with zero heed for the consequences of our actions.

Nothing justifies flying planes full of innocent people into buildings. But if I've learned one thing in AA, it's that no matter how badly you've been wronged, you still have some part in things and you need to take responsibility for them and make amends. Amends may be owed to us as well, but we cannot control that, we can only control what we do.

If we make the basic rule of our foreign policy to side with people instead of profits, to care about the condition of man or woman on the street over the condition of the shiek or the shah in the palace, and we do so consistently, we will have no more September 11ths.

MCO 2008

I have no time to rant this morning about the evils of capitalism or the stupidity of "personality:" over "issues" voters, as I promised to volunteer at "no on 8" headquarters this morning, (Proposition 8 seeks to ban gay marriage in California.).

So I will just leave you with Sargent renderings of both this sumputuous sleeping seductress and the Venice Grand canal.  I hadn't meant to use the same artist, but I think I might do it more often. 

MCO 2008

P.S. David and I saw another house we liked and are sumbitting an offer. It's a long shot, a lot of people will want this one.

What they say is true. There is something magical that happens when one alcoholic talks to another. Or perhaps it's in the listening where the magic most lies.

I don't mean to diminish in any way the magic that happens when "just" friends talk to each other, (or comment on blogs), or when therapists and patients talk to each other, or mothers and daughters or lovers or nuns, for that matter.  But there is something very special that occurs when people in recovery meet for the common purpose of staying sober, and in the conversations we have before and after.

I don't do prayer and meditation well, I suppose it's a function of my impatient, A.D.D. brain. But I can ALWAYS do something kind for someone today, several times a day in fact.  I can always mean it when I say "How are you?"  and really listen to the answer. When I have something from my experience that might help, I can share it. And sure as shit, I can always find something to laugh about.

When I make this my primary purpose (not my only purpose, but the one I put above others) it's amazing how the rest of my life works--at least on the inside, where it counts.  And it doesn't depend on getting the desired result. I've been working with one sweetheart of a chronic relapser, and it's been an amazing spiritual lesson to not take the fact that he keeps picking up as some sort of referendum on me. It's an opportunity for me to take a deep breath and send him a loving or nudging text--in this case, "Come Back Little Sheba." And he does come back, and I truly believe one day he'll stay.  And if he doesn't, it still won't diminish the love we exchange one whit, and that is its own reward.

Last night I was enjoying an old episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which I used to so enjoy watching with my brother when we lived together in San Diego in 1989. It was the perfect marriage of my love of good writing and his love of fantasy fiction.  I don't know if I ever felt more his brother.  I'm so grateful to have that memory.

MCO 2008

 

P.S. Champaigne is the Nuns, Corot the background

                                                                       

 

It all started when I was walking Gaza, and decided to take a picture of this truly remarkable tree, with roots that have grown so dramatically they have virtually upended the sidewalk. Being a creative sort of guy, I subsequently added all sorts of things, including a sneaker-wearing komodo dragon, and Lady Liberty (played by Penelope Cruz) growing from the tree, with a flourescent bulb to replace her torch, because surely she must care about global warming, if only not to drown in New York Harbor (played by a panoramic vista of Barcelona for reasons that will become clear.)

Of course Sarah Palin must think the torch held by the famous gift from France (horrors, France) must have been for the purpose of burning the book she's holding in her other hand, perhaps on the list of books Palin wanted banned from the Wasilla Library.

The list circulating on the internet can't be substantiated, and I bet it never will, because the Rove attack machine will probably reduce it to "Heather Has Two Mommies" and "Daddy's Roommate."  In any case, I would bet my left arm that Sarah Palin never read any of the books on the list she would have suggested being banned, because the woman is ignorant and incurious, interested only in confirming her world view.

Just the idea that she would have proposed banning any books begs the question: John McCain  ARE YOU PAYING ANY ATTENTION AT ALL?  Is your lust for power so unbridled you would really be prepared to look past this negation of everything precious that America stands for?  What kind of country was it that you were you so proud to "fall in love with" when you were in the Hanoi Hilton for 5 years?

If this woman becomes Vice-President, I really have to wonder if we won't look back at this period as being parallel to Weimar Germany in the late 20s early 30s.  If the economy spins into chaos, I can just see Vice-Chancellor Palin taking over from the doddering Von Hindenburg, and under the guise of National Emergency and the march to Armageddon, Rush Limbgoebbels (the dragon)  helms the Ministry of Propaganda. and all sort of expression is banned as we prepare for Holy War.  One can easily imagine an entire sequence of events that makes the Mayan prophecies of the end of times in 2012 all too plausible.

The question an alcoholic like me secretly asks himself in the face of this alarming scenario is whether he wants to face the apocalypse sober or use it as the ultimate rationale to get wasted. Yesterday I saw Vicky Christina Barcelona, which was drenched in both romance and prodigious amounts of wine. Despite a "date" Saturday night that confirmed my absolute comfort with a state of continued singledom, I found myself quite seduced by the idea of a summer in Spain hosed by sultry hombres and mucho sangria.  Thankfully, I was forestalled by the actual memory of a messy vacation to Madrid full of dreadful hangovers and nightly arguments with the beau du jour who was as easy on the eyes as Javier and about as crazy as Penelope (or maybe that was me.)

So I pour all this anxiety into art, which yields an odd visual pastiche and a fugue of words that I can only hope would get me on a list of Palin's proposed banned blogs. After all,  I am nothing if not a bad influence on the minds of formative young Christian men who might actually get their girlfriends pregnant if they heeded my recommendation to see a movie that asks all sort of questions about whether love is the product of happiness or happiness the product of creativity or creativity the result of love, or all of the above.

Don't want them to get the wrong ideas, after all. They may just start to think.

MCO 2008

I heard a gut- wrenching report on NPR this morning on the devastation wrought by Gustav in Haiti. (Here's an article about it.)

The per capita yearly income for Haiti's almost 9 million inhabitants is around $1200.   With the money we spend in Iraq in ONE month, $10 billion dollars, we could double that.  Obviously, it would be highly simplistic to think we could just pass out 9 million checks and eliminate poverty, (the resulting instant hyperinflation would eat up most of it) but that kind of investment in infrastructure, housing, and education could go a long way.

Given the extraordinary income inequality in Haiti, they themselves could probably eliminate much of that poverty with a redistribution of wealth,  but that would basically involve something along the line of the Cuban revolution. The privileged don't usually give up their privileges freely, they tend, in fact, to feel completely entitled to them.

Hey, I'm no fan of Castro--but I'd much rather be poor in Cuba than poor in Haiti. I haven't heard any reports of starvation or malnutrition in Cuba, in fact the medical care there is better than for anyone in this country who lacks insurance. (Been to an emergency room lately?)

This is the bug up my ass this Sunday.  I didn't hear one reference to poverty at the Republican Convention, and way too few at the Democratic convention, not even to poverty in the United States. To poverty abroad, zilch. (Most Americans would probably find it difficult to find Haiti on a map.)

The preoccupation is with our military security, but what of our spiritual security?  Wasn't the greatest revolutionary of all time about being "my brother's keeper?"   McCain says "we are all Georgians" but would he ever say "we are all Haitians?" Why is bone-crushing poverty suffered daily by millions not considered a crisis like a military incursion affecting tens of thousands?

I do not have a simple cure for poverty, but I know the lack of questioning on the part of most Americans about a system where so few are allowed to amass so much has something to do with the fact that so many have to share so little.  You can't give three pieces of pie to one person, and expect the other three at the table to make do with the one piece that's left over. But most Americans not only don't question this system, they are devoted to it. 

We have gotten so inured to poverty in the world, so overwhelmed by how much of it there is, that we take refuge in mass distraction as a form of denial.  I'm as guilty as anyone. I love me my Tabitha's Salon Makeover. Then  I work on my screenplay in hopes of making enough money with it that I can live much better than I do now.  I just hope I always vote for more taxes on myself, for more foreign aid, and that I give a lot of money away. 

I suppose I suffer from pre-guilt at the suspicion that I might hold on to more of it than I think I would now, when I have none to give. It's easy enough to imagine oneself a philanthropist, isn't it? At least nudging everyone else to keep remembering what it's like out there for most people is free of charge.

MCO 2008

P.S. The Hy-Art and Dyce and Pisarro and has nothing to do with anything, it's just pretty to look at.  Too bad art never filled a belly.

What a relief to return to my fantasy world of Hy-Art after a week spent as if Joe Biden was going to call me at any moment to help in debate preparation, and I had to read EVERYTHING.  As it was, I found www.truthout.org and The Huffington Post to be indispensable sources of news.   And of course, Jon Stewart and Keith Olbermann are national treasures.

I went out to dinner with a good friend last night, and it somehow clicked what September 5th meant to me.  It was the day I left for my year abroad in France in 1975, a month shy of 17.  It astounds me that it was 33 years ago.  And I realized with that calculation, I am exactly now the age my Mother was when I left for France (which sounds like abandonment, but she arranged the whole thing.)

I was already actively gay, but my parents did not know it (my father suspected) until January of 1976, when my mother announced she was coming to France to see me during her February break from teaching.  By then I had moved in with Rene, who was 29.  This seems impossibly young to me now, but it was 12 years older than I was then, so a dramatic enough detail added on top of the considerable shock when a well-meaning cousin decided to tell my Mom the truth about me back in New York, a month before