Quicksilver Amusements

This is it!

2010-04-07T14:18:00.000-07:00

Not quite 5 months ago I had a daunting dream of Kali and her minions taking me apart and putting me back together. I wrote about it here.

I've been living with that dream and with that image ever since... Really... I've been living with Kali since I first met her in Calcutta as she was climbing through my bedroom window on a dark night of the soul in 1985.

It all comes down to one thing... As Joseph Campbell once put it rather succinctly, "There must be Destuction before there is Creation."

I've been destroying some or all of my life for the better part of the last 20 years.

The most pressing fact for me, with regard to the economic catastrophe that we are presently living in, is an awakening to the reality that often I have been consistently engaged in activities and enterprises that I not only don't find fulfilling, they also don't support me in the way I am hoping and expecting them to. Too often they have been activities and circumstances that have stolen the joy from my life, my time with my children and family, and any sense of heart I struggle to maintain despite the ugly, sad, frustrating mess that so often passes for every day life.

What I know now is that it absolutely must stop!

I keep trying to figure out how to save my present circumstances without undergoing the destruction that is of necessity that precursor of rebuilding.

Yesterday I applied for a job here in Petaluma that could possibly be the "job I was created for." I have another job that I've been waiting to hear about, a job that harkens back to my spiritual and political roots; both are the kind of thing that I would LOVE doing, but who knows whether those who make such decisions will see things in that way.

What Kali says is that it all must go into the fire. If I've learned anything in my life as a temporal lobe epileptic religious freak with desperate entrepeneurial socialistic tendencies, it's that Easter Sunday can't come until you suffer through Good Friday.

The last five years have been a very excellent example of a LONG Good Friday; a friday that I have exposed and expressed on these posts (along with no small amount of good times as well, I really must add).

In any case... it feels like it's time to move on. Move on to what is not as clear as I would like it to be at the moment, but moving on into the dark will have to be my present mode.

So this is the last post at Quicksilver Amusements... As for what I said yesterday, I can't decide if I'll keep up on the other blogs or not. The simple fact is that what comes up on the other side of the hill is anybody's guess. All I really know is that I will never find true baptism and rebirth if I don't stop treading water.

Time to kill things off.

Nothing to see here... please move along.

Looking For The Next Best Thing

2010-04-05T14:46:00.001-07:00

I began blogging 4 years and eight months ago on July 29, 2005 just before I made the strange and fateful decision to move to New Orleans after nearly 30 years in the Bay Area, and three weeks before Katrina.

With my engagement with Katrina (and a few other storms) that blog, which was intended as a sort of exploration of my new life, became a two year long exploration of what it was like to live in the aftermath of catastrophe (physical, emotional, and relational) in the new world order of George Dubya Bush's Amerikkka. I also stated a couple of other sort of specialty blogs for the purpose of branching out with the things I had to say: Butting Heads for long form, usually contentious, rants. George Washington's Cousin for political and religious pontification.

After two years of writing at SpeakLo I closed out that blog and began Quicksilver Amusements (by the way... some of those first pieces at QA are really good, and you should go read them, or even read them again.

It's now been two and a half years since I started this blog and lately (as most of you have noticed and noted) I seem to have lost momentum. With SpeakLo I had a drive that developed of its own accord and gave me something to relate to. In the early days of QA, I had new life and love to write about and I was experiencing things with whole new vibrant eyes; a way of seeing that I had not experienced for quite some time. Now, I simply find it difficult to grab hold of something in the general sphere of things to snag my hand on and wrestle with til dawn. It seems that when I do find those things, I have reason to put them in other places, instead of putting them here. I've even re-started SpeakLo with some pieces on sound and music that interest me and that seem to be appropriately in residence at that location instead of here.

So I've decided to start again... again.

For the next few months I'll be winding down this blog and winding up on some other formats, with the intention of making a full out relaunch in some completely new format on the fifth anniversary of my original blog. I haven't exactly figured out how I'm going to do it, or what I'm going to focus on, but I expect it to have a certain level of continuity that these other blogs have not had for quite some time.

In particular, I'm going to be writing on "spiritual matters" at the Bleeding Daylight, political thoughts and pontfications at Washington's Cousin and business, aesthetic, and practical concerns back at the renewed SpeakLo. Between now and summertime, I hope to find a voice and a process that can bring a bit more cohesion to these ramblings, but considering the fact that I have spent the better part of 55 years trying to accomplish something along those lines would indicate that I may be reaching for something that is truly beyond my grasp... We'll see.

I'll keep you posted here, on facebook and on Twitter and I hope you'll either contact me there, or leave comments here (and at the other blogs) to perhaps help guide my direction as I struggle to find the voice that speaks what I really want to communicate from my soul.

Meet Me In The Land Of Hope and Dreams

2010-03-01T16:57:00.000-08:00

It's been almost a month since I promised to write more about my feelings regarding the Super Bowl win by the New Orleans Saints, as well as other things that might come to the forefront of my mind but for some reason this has not been a good time for me in the writing department.

That being said... Let's start with the topic du jour and go from there.

First of all... I do not consider myself a sports fan, though perhaps what I should really say is that I have never BEFORE considered myself a sports fan, or perhaps to get even more accurate, that BEFORE 2007 I never considerred myself a sports fan, but that's nopt really true either, because? I have had my moments:

1) When my daughter was playing soccer for Lincoln High School in San Francisco.

2) During the 1998 World Cup matches that I watched with my limey surfer friend at San Francisco's wonderful (and now defunct) Twenty Tank Brewpub on 11th Street South of Market.

3) One or two times during the 49ers 1980s dynasty era when it was impossible to live in San Francisco and NOT be a fan. If for no other reason than to take my daughter down to Market Street for the post-Super Bowl victory parade.

4) When I was a kid in Florida and the then Milwaukee Braves came to West Palm Beach for spring training and my Baptist church had a "father and son dinner" with the team (I even had a baseball signed by a dozen members of that team, including Hank Aaron but it has somehow vanished from my life).

5) A little over two years ago when I fell in love with a baseball fan and the baseball team she loves, in the very same amazing moment.

6) When I first moved to New Orleans before Katrina and discovered in the Saints, a different kind of team and a different kind fan; a centralized Cathedral to Sport in the Superdome where people who don't even have tickets to the game gather around on the city streets surrounding the giant flying saucer of a building and tailgate and celebrate like people only do in The Big Easy. A team that people of all social classes and undivided by race (for a change) rooted for despite a long history of failure... A history so long that there are ubiquitous jokes and legends about all the things people will do when the Saints finally win the Super Bowl (and back last month many of those legends were played out). My initial attraction to the Saints (and to american football in general ) took me by surprise as I was captured by the spirit of Da Saints the same way I was captured by the bayou air that sticks to your skin the instant you set foot in The Crescent.

What I have come to learn, through all of these experiences (though especially #5 and #6) is that sports - perhaps more than anything else (with the possible exception of music) - has an almost magical quality that can bring people together, give them a way to rise above other differences (political, cultural, racial), find a common joy and live, if only for a few moments, as if the differences that stand between them are unimportant, and even unnecessary.

This experience was reinforced AFTER The Thing (as NOLA columnist Chris Rose always refers to Katrina) when the rebirth of the football team (and their famously devastated stadium) began to come back, first in fits and starts and then roaring like The City of New Orleans itself.

New Orleans has long been known as a place (like California in the West, or even the U.S.A. - both the country and the concept - itself) where people could imagine, build, expand and create whatever their hearts and minds believed in. It's this image that captured my own imagination when I decided in 2005 to pull up nearly 30 years of stakes in California and move to The Land of Dreams. The effects of Katrina (and the abysmal federal failure, first of the infrastructure, and then of support and follow-through, both of which are better detailed elsewhere) have gone a long way to discourage that image (for myself as well as others), but there is an unrelenting comeback spirit that resides in the soul of New Orleanians; a spirit which, like the food and the music and the people in general, is magical and compelling.

It is that spirit that was so remarkably in evidence as the Saints steadily advanced their game through the season, into the playoffs, and ultimately to the Super Bowl. In the midst of it all, and even on the day of the game, there were (and are) plenty of naysayers, plenty of folks who just don't get it... Don't get any of it. People who still echo Dennis Hastert's idiotic remark about not rebuilding New Orleans. I had to listen to one of those boneheads spout off during the Super Bowl, but unlike time's past, I held myself in check. I've finally come to accept that those folks are going to be around and I will have to leave them to their benighted and unfortunate POV. Their perspective no longer matters to me, because there are a lot more people cheering for the city's comeback, just like they cheered for the Saints. There are far more people seeking ways to make that comeback happen than there are people who wander around with their heads permanently inserted into unfortunate orifices.

New Orleans has proven that it's coming back.

The Saints - with their crazy, funky game plan and unconventional style - showed how it's being done.

To top it all off, on the day before the big victory, in an unprecedented election, 66% of New Orleans voters elected Mitch Landrieu (the candidate I campaigned for in the election immediately after Katrina) mayor, ushering in a whole new era of hopeful cooperation in a post-storm era. Mitch's campaign slogan for this election was one team, one fight, one voice, one city and it is that spirit of unity and triumph that keeps me hoping and cheering for this city that I came to love as my own.

There are still HUGE problems. There is still MUCH lack. It's possible to be in New Orleans and completely miss the fact that the city was almost completely destroyed. It's also possible to be in New Orleans and have no clue that anything has come back... But it has, and it is. With the Saints pointing the way, and its musical/celebrational culture kicking out the jams, The City of New Orleans is rumbling down the track again... into a new Land of HOPE... and Dreams.

I'm going out and buying myself a ticket for the ride! Wanna come along?

Who Dat!?!?

Super Saints!

2010-02-08T09:02:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

2010-01-29T13:20:00.000-08:00

Okay... I'm a little late with that, but it's taken me the better part of the month back to get my brain around the rest and relaxation I experienced from yet another one of KLL's suggestions that we get the hell outta Dodge for a while.

Zebras - or more specifically, a burro (or burra) made to look like a zebra - figured prominently in the first day of a trip we took to Baja as a way to put the year behind and hopefully set the year off right, by planting our feet on the beach. We stopped in Tijuana for lunch on the next to the last day of the year and felt compelled to take the obligatory Tijuana tourist shot. My favorite part of this experience occurred just after we had our picture taken and we were waiting to get the print. A guy came up to the zebra proprietor and asked "¿Burro o burra?" The proprieter snapped back instantly, "¡Zebra!" It was like one of those old sayings from my childhood... "Go away kid... ya bother me!"

I found my way... more or less... through the chaos of downtown Tijuana and out onto a beautiful beachfront highway that runs the half hour ride from Tijuana to Rosarito Beach and beyond, and our time over the last day and a half of 2009 was taken up with walks on the beach, newly discovered friendships, good beer and great tequila, the BEST fish tacos on earth and a family style New Year's celebration that was the perfect way to roll into 2010. This was followed, on the first morning of the new year, by a horseback ride on the beach. Though "riding" would be stretching the point as we had no idea what we were doing and the horses themselves were more aptly described as plodding... but it was still 20 degrees warmer than the Bay Area, the sun was shining and we were surveying the beautiful Pacific from the backs of horses. Do I really need to say more?

Saturday brought a series of great finds in the form of a road trip to Baja wine country. Tres Valles (where we met our new friends on the left) was a delightful place with rustic art fabrications of giant insects, a beautifully designed winery and tasting room, and the winemaker/owner and his son pouring some fabulous wines (Grenache, Petite Sirah, and Merlot/Cab specifically), and we almost missed it. Situated at the end of a rocky dead end that makes the roads of New Orleans and Petaluma seem positively smooth by comparison, the winery was only open for tasting beginning that very day. We spent a good hour there talking about wine making in Mexico, and wine importing to the U.S. and trading a few jokes here and there with the owner's amusing and engaging kid.

Admittedly, this is not the kind of trip to Baja most people make, but it suited us just fine. When we ended the day at the tiny Tres Mujeres winery (so named because it is owned and operated by three women winemakers... something I haven't even seen in California), tasting in a tiny little rock covered tasting room/storage area filled with ceramics and wine, it simply added to the feeling of comfort and hominess that had characterized the entire trip.

Concluding the day with venison and lobster in a cozy restaurant surrounded by cactus and mesquite and beautiful fireplaces, entertained by a roving collection of musicians and partying with some of our newfound Rosarito friends at their wine shop and art gallery afterward was the perfect ending of a perfect time. Of course, coming home was the typical day of confusion. From an abysmal attempt to locate a "fast track" across the border in Tijuana, to nearly losing half our rare and wonderful wine purchases due to our complete lack of attention to TSA regulative details (we were RELAXED... what else can I say?), Sunday was an experiment in maintaining South of the Border equilibrium upon reentry into the land of hustle and bustle. But we pulled it off with only a small stumble here and there; a tribute to how restful our year end holiday had really been.

Until we get back there, which I truly hope will be soon, I plan on exploring the possibilities that the trip opened up to me. This area of Baja is definitely a place where I want to spend more time: learning the area, meeting the people, and expanding my extremely limited ability to communicate en espanol... and next time... actually getting into the surf!

Now... it's on to finding my way through this new year, or at least the first months. I'm still not quit up to major forward planning, resolutions, goal setting, etc. but I'm workin' on it.

Thanks to everyone one who has supported, helped, chastised, and laughed with me this last year. Old friends - and no small number of new friends - are what I most appreciate about what was otherwise a rather difficult year (to say the least) in 2009. Despite all the difficulties we have all experienced, it's been a good time and I'm grateful for your presence. Here's to better days ahead.

WHODAT!?

2010-01-28T10:57:00.000-08:00

It is not healthy to sustain the kind of animosity for another person (no matter how horrible that person's words and actions might be) that I expressed in a previous post. Sooner or later, one must get on with life, get on with love and get on with the party!

I was assisted in this over the weekend by the NFC Championship game (and I am by no means your standard - or even your rainy day - football fan) on Sunday when the only team I have ever seriously rooted for came Marching out of the SuperDome, victors in a difficult game and headed to the Super Bowl for the first time in history.

This link came in from my favorite NOLA website Humid Beings this morning... It's a terrific little video look at the way New Orleans takes on a Championship, even before the game.

My favorite parts are the adoption of the Mardi Gras Indian chant, "Let's Go Get Em!" and the Saints Superfan shaking hands with the Vikings fan in the Quarter. The spirit that I have always known New Orleans to have, that spirit that existed before "The Thing," but which seemed to get lost in a morass of chaos and depression, is being revived by this year's incredible Saints season. It's hard for someone who doesn't know and love New Orleans to even comprehend this struggle and this shift but another video that came down the interwebs the other day expresses a small part of why this is.

Right now... and for the next 10 days... all I've really got to say is WHO DAT!?!?

The Mountain and The Mole Hill

2009-12-10T10:24:00.000-08:00

I had a rough day yesterday. Several things that I had been counting on simply slipped through my fingers and I was left about mid-afternoon with a feeling of failure and frustration that I have not felt in quite some time.

All the regular questions came to the front of mind, clamoring for attention, begging to be given favor, looking to be nursed and coddled and fed in that way we all feed the sad, frustrating, stupid things that make feeling sad and depressed at least somewhat tolerable and relatively comforting.

Fortunately, I found the wherewithal to lift myself out of this perilous funk (something that I didn't used to be particularly good at) and move into the evening (with a rehearsal for our final performance of A Christmas Memory). I got to bed relatively early and I got the first really good night's sleep I'd had in weeks.

I woke up with a head that was full of new ideas (and old ideas with new clothes on them) and Billy Idol on the iTunes to set me dancing around the room.

For some reason I got this Bible story in my head and couldn't let it go (that's the trouble with Bible stories doncha know?)

It comes from Matthew 17 and takes place right after the disciples had received a vision of Jesus standing on the mountain and chatting with Moses and Elijah. Peter had wanted to build some buildings and stay up[ on that mountain forever, but God had others ideas, basically telling Peter to chill out, shut up and open his ears. "This is my beloved Son... Listen to him!"

So... a bit later, as they were coing back down to earth, they were confronted by a man who had a problem with his son. The disciples tried to help, but couldn't so the man - like any father would do - said, "Okay hold it... let me talk to the boss."

Matthew 17:

14 When they came to the crowd, a man came up to Jesus, falling on his knees before Him and saying,

15"Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is a (N)lunatic and is very ill; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water.

16"I brought him to Your disciples, and they could not cure him."

17And Jesus answered and said, "You unbelieving and perverted generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him here to Me."

18And Jesus rebuked him, and the demon came out of him, and the boy was cured at once.

19Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, "Why could we not drive it out?"

20And He said to them, "Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.

I think that the reason this story came to mind this morning is because it holds for me a bit of information about how to look on days when things don't go right, and periods when nothing seems to work out.

For the longest time I struggled with what these miracles (things like moving a mountain) might mean for an ordinary person like myself. Then it hit me that it's possible to accept what Jesus says here, absolutely at face value. The simple fact of life is that you really can do anything if you believe. Jesus doesn't say if you believe A LOT... he says if you believe like a mustard seed. Can you envision what it is you want? Can you see who you are at the end of the road? Can you hold your task, whether it's taking care of a sick child or moving a mountain (as they are presently doing right now down the road from me in order to build a subdivision), with such clarity of vision that it can't help but come true?

That's what I believe Jesus was talking about (at least that's what I believe this morning).

Believe what you want is possible... is in fact already here... then get to work bringing it to fruition.

Actually seems pretty simple when you think about it, doesn't it?

What A Night!

2009-11-17T10:45:00.001-08:00

This morning at 4:30 am I was awakened by a terrifying visitation by an old familiar friend. A new manifestation of Kali crawled into my head and took me to task. This is not a new experience for me, but it has been a while since it last occurred.

This morning I find myself thrust, as if by rocket ship, into a slightly terrified pursuit of what the visit means. What I know for sure is that when Kali shouts, I'm supposed to pay attention.

40 Days to Christmas

2009-11-16T10:58:00.001-08:00

After 6 months of spending my time twittering, facebooking, and generally plugging into the internets on a daily basis for the purpose of work, it's been an interesting experience to stay out of the daily cybernetic spasm. What I find at such times of retreat (for lack of a better description at the moment) is a refreshing release from all the noise (or at least a good portion of it). However, I've received a lot of comments of late about the dearth of blogging on this and my other sites, so I've decided to take up the challenge and once more use this forum as a place to play out my life in public. So, here we go... Once more into the daily breach... Among a few other things that I hope to do between now and Christmas, I am renewing my dedication to daily writing, and something - at least close to - daily posting.

I've also restarted one final crack at my 40 Day regimen... I'll be holding forth on the progress of that one last time over at 40 Days To Life.

All in all... I'm really seriously burned out on all the raging cyber-realities and after almost 15 years of almost daily virtual living, I'm getting pretty damn close to heading after a less virtual and more real encounter with the universe and my co-residents.

Don't know where that's going but I'm damned determined to find out.

Instant Karma's Gonna Getchoo!

2009-10-22T15:25:00.000-07:00

The classic set of Washington Mutual commercials that came out in 2008, just as the bank - and the rest of the economy with it - was tanking, were about as perfect a social barometer as there has been in my lifetime. While the bankers, and their Wall Street co-conspirators were trading up and getting out on the real-time roller coaster of fiscal disaster, my bank - Washington Mutual - was running a really fun collection of consumer messages with theme Whoo Hoo!!!

I'm guessing that not too many people are finding it difficult to grasp my point here. One might find it amusing to watch the game show bankers speaking cluelessly except for the fact that it was a little too close to reality to accept with proper social aplomb.

Come the meltdown, CHASE bank bought up Washington Mutual and promptly launched a whole set of new CHASE ads for banking in California, using the lovely chorus line "We all shine on..." like California is the Sunshine State (which is actually Florida, and we WON'T go there at the moment). What the bankers at CHASE and/or the creative types at their ad agency don't seem to have grasped is that this lovely little light hearted chorus comes from John Lennon's absolutely brilliant song Instant Karma which - it seems to me - is exactly what these greedy funny men (and their greedy pocket politicians) are courting with every new move of their greedy little pens.

I'm Walkin' Here

2009-10-19T15:53:00.000-07:00

This new feeling of unexpected freedom continues today with a unexpected set of communications and the discovery of a surprising sermon, seemingly launched by the Spirit into the internets and onto my computer.

I explain the situation, and a little of the strange circumstances over at Bleeding Daylight.

Goodbye and Good Luck

2009-10-16T11:17:00.000-07:00

As most folks who have read my blogs for any time are aware, I moved to New Orleans at the beginning of August 2005, just three weeks before Katrina.

For two years thereafter I lived a peripatetic life moving from place to place, part time in New Orleans, part time in San Francisco, a brief time in North Carolina, always semi-docked in Petaluma and anchored in New Orleans. Then, just over two years ago (almost exactly two years after The Thing), I gave up the basic struggle of bouncing back and forth between the Gulf Coast and The West Coast and came back to California. At the time, I made the assumption that at some point in the relatively near future I would regroup, fix the problems that I was still juggling like so many oddly sized balls, and find my way back to The Crescent.

What happened instead was that I found new love, and new life, right here in the place from which I had spent many previous years running. As I explained in several posts (including the one immediately prior to this one) I found myself surprisingly at home in the very place I thought I could never be at home.

But this didn't change one thing about my previous abbreviated grounding in New Orleans. I have for the past two years, despite living my life out in Petaluma, lived on the feeling - and the longing - that I would some day soon make it back home to NOLA.

For the last six months I've been building those old hopes on the enjoyable, and financially fortuitous, surprise job of Twittering (and blogging and facebooking) for The Hotel Monteleone and Carousel Bar on Royal Street in The French Quarter. There were significant frustrations in this process because the whole time I was doing it, I was sitting here in my little apartment 2500 miles away, sometimes pretending to be in The Quarter, sometimes pretending to be at Jazz Fest; always placing myself in those places that I know so well, and literally imagining myself into those locations.

It worked too! There were many times when the fact that I was communicating about and for New Orleans really placed me mentally right there. It was as if I was dreaming at my computer as I wrote to, and related with, people in the place I so longed to be. It was a great imaginary exploration.. and it was a lot of fun. At the same time, I worked to build up additional connections and relationships and I kept hanging on to the connections that still remained from that time when I first moved to the city, four years ago in another world... another life... another reality.

Not any more.

Earlier this week I was replaced in my Twitter job by the local PR firm and the in-house promo people at The Hotel Monteleone. As a friend of mine says, "without so much as a boo... hey... or kiss my ass" I was told in an email to stop immediately. I was then promptly locked out of the accounts that I created and that I had been dedicatedly relating from within. I had placed myself - however virtually - into the person I created (a sort of amalgamation of my every day self, but more my "New Orleans self" than "my California self") to represent the hotel and to relate both personally and professionally to folks with whom I interacted. Since being let go... the replacements at Hotel Monteleone have turned the interaction into an infrequent and impersonal interaction purely based on self-promotion, and in my opinion completely wrong for Twitter... but hey... that's another story.

What I'm trying to communicate right now is the combined sense of loss, grief, homesickness and new life that I am experiencing as a result of this interaction and outcome.

The simple fact is that I feel released.. I feel found... I feel free!

Four years ago next week I returned to New Orleans as people gradually began to move back into the ghost town laid bare by Katrina. I was determined to make life work. I was determined to go "home." I was determined to stay. This last six months has been the way out of the lock that my meteorologically aborted migration to The Big Easy has held me in for the past four years. I've gone round and round, back and forth only to find - like Dorothy returning from The Land of Oz - that home was right here with me all along.

There will be many days, and many moments when I still miss New Orleans. I hope to return there from time to time for rest, or work, or play, but it is not my home any more... maybe it never really was.

I live in Petaluma... in California... on the Western edge of the Continent and I am happy here.

Settling Into Place

2009-09-17T11:25:00.000-07:00

For the last two years I have been moving through a process of settling in to the ground of being that seems to be home for me here in Northern California in general and Petaluma in particular.

In August of 2007, after two years of attempting to live in New Orleans (where I moved three very short weeks before Katrina), I gave up my peripatetic struggle to move back and forth between my two worlds and decided to re-settle in NoCal instead of NOLA.

Almost immediately, my life changed (and I've written on and on about that in this blog) profoundly. I began to find a depth of love and friendship that I had not experienced in a long time. It was as if as soon as I stopped trying so damn hard to figure my life out (who I was, who I was supposed to be, where I was supposed to be, and why I am), my life rose up to meet me. People and things (sweetheart, friends, work, and a place to live) became real in my life in ways that I had come to believe were not any longer possible for me.

Basically... for the first time in a long time, I had come home.

When I moved into a new (and pretty much perfect) little apartment, my sweety and my friends threw me a great party.

And for the past two years these experiences have continued... mounting on top of one another the pleasures and joys of friends, and family, and home and place.

I never thought I'd feel like this... but I have become a Petaluman.

So... to further solidify this geographic relationship, I registered this summer for the Petaluma Leadership Class, a year long collection of meetings, classes and activities that are designed to give a greater sense of place to those who want to be more planted (and more active) in this community. The picture at the top of this blog is from the "History Day" class which happened last week. My friend Trish snapped it of me coming out from checking on upcoming shows at Petaluma's wonderful Mystic Theater.

The day was great, with an introduction to the Petaluma History Museum, and guided tours from past notables in P-town history, and drop in at the Petaluma Adobe State Park where Mariano Vallejo raised cattle before California was a state. And since any good town history involves a solid drinking past and Prohibition story, we ended the day at Volpi's Speakeasy.

I've covered much of this material myself in the Petaluma Audio Tours that I created last spring, but to get a full day of information, entertainment and engagement with and from people who know and love the community was particularly special.

The fact remains that I still have one foot (or at least my big toe) stuck in the swamp water of New Orleans, and I don't expect I will ever be free of the hold that San Francisco has on my heart, but the people, places and things of this little chicken town have definitely captured me in a way that I have never before been captured and, frankly (and surprisingly), I like it.

This Has Gone On Long Enough!

2009-09-11T15:35:00.000-07:00

Okay... I've had it with this lack of blogging.

I posted a new piece (and a request for input, and story contributions) at http://generationvet.blogspot.com where I am hoping to begin development on a play that I have wanted to work on for quite some time.

Please check it out, pass it on, and add you fity cents.

In the mean time... Stay tuned here because there's gonna be more blogging coming immediately (well, at least this weekend).

Hazel Stage Web Design :: Web Marketing Strategies with Audio

2009-08-21T17:11:00.001-07:00

Hazel Stage Web Design :: Web Marketing Strategies with Audio

Posted using ShareThis

This was actually an experiment using one of the tools we will be demonstrating in the above mentioned (click the link) seminar this coming Thursday. Not exactly sexy, but useful in its way.

I suppose this also reflects the fact that after nearly two months away from blogging (except for the blogs I get paid to write at http://hotelmonteleoneblog.com and http://carouselbarblog.com ) I am on the verge of a sparkling return!

My 55th birthday is Tuesday... That kind of says it all.

Today's The Day!

2009-07-01T13:53:00.000-07:00

Starting today Quicksilver Amusements gets even more mercurial and mellifluous.

More info to come on that... Just wanted to write it down.

Remember!

2009-06-03T09:44:00.000-07:00

There have been some difficult days of late. Things continue to look like they will get more difficult before they get easier.

I keep hearing, and seeing, people make stupid, pointless, mind-numbingly inane statments like, "This isn't change you can believe in..." as if any change comes this fast (it did after all take Dubya eight years to screw things up this badly!).

The forces of darkness - whether they come from a gun fired at a man standing in a church doorway, angry hypocritical attacks made by ugly political hacks , or the blathering mediocrity of the nation's most inane broadcast personality - are arrayed against the President, a progressive political direction, and basic human openess and decency. As a remedy for the depressed reaction that tries to raise it's ugly head as a response to that, I've taken to listening to this song more and more (and viewing the video in my head even when I'm not watching it on a screen).

It helps to, as the song says, remember, the place we've come from and the people we've come with.

And I've really only got two things to say about that:

1) Nobody said this was gonna be easy.

2) Like the sign on a deli wall in post-Katrina New Orleans proclaims...

I love the smell of bike tires in the morning!

2009-05-20T08:09:00.001-07:00

Last Thursday morning, with my eyes still closed softly in sleep, a smile on my face, and visions of sugar plums dancing in my head... I had the dubious privilege of being rousted out of my nice comfy bed to trudge down to the corner of Petaluma Boulevard and D Street (Petaluma California's Walnut Park). Upon arrival I was commandeered to hand out coffee, apples, croissants, muffins, water and bicycle bags of souvenirs and information to 143 intrepid peddlers as they passed through downtown for their participation in Bike To Work Day 2009. I was joined by other hardy souls - a representative of Whole Foods who showed up with the victuals, a public affairs person from Kaiser Permanente who brought bike reflectors and bags, a student from a nearby massage school who enthusiastically provided hands on support, and a bike mechanic who came fully prepared (with his seeing eye dog in tow) to load bikes on his rack, give them a diagnostic spin and tweak them into performance perfection.

Most of the time I work from home, and have done so for the better part of twenty five years. I still have to travel to visit clients, or to research stories and interview subjects, but most of my time is spent in front of my computer in the same place where I eat, sleep and dream. I live in a section of my little town that allows me to walk to just about everywhere - the grocery store, my favorite pub, the bookstore and even the bus station. When it comes to transportation, I keep a pretty low carbon footprint, simply because I can. So for me, this morning was kind of a revelation. People were excited. They were enjoying themselves. Some of the folks I met ride their bikes to work every day, others were trying it for the first time. "I do this every day," said one smiling woman, "but today's the only day you get the booty!" I handed her a bag and a muffin and she rode on laughing. Kids rolled in and out on their way to school, and regular bikers talked about how encouraging it was to see other folks on the road. "So much of the time, you don't see anyone else," said another happy rider as she sipped her coffee and grinned. "This is fantastic!"

Every single one of the 143 folks I laughed with, handed schwag to, and waved at as they rode away were clearly juiced with the engagement of doing something to make a difference. As for me... I'm going out to the garage and pulling out my bike! They say misery loves company, but from what I saw this morning, so does happy peddling.

Happy Mother's Day Mom

2009-05-10T09:20:00.001-07:00

One of my favorite songs, by one of my favorite (albeit perhaps guilty pleasure) groups is "Yes We Can" performed by the Pointer Sisters and written by quintessential New Orleanian, Allen Toussaint. In the song, when talking about all the things we can do if we try, he uses the wonderful phrasing, almost as an afterthought... but not quite. "And do respect the women of the world, remember you all had mothers."

That's kind of the way we are in the world... And it's kind of the way I've been for too much of my life as an individual. Remembering our mothers... remembering MY mother... is often NOT at the forefront of my mind. I think that's why Mother's Day is such a big day for the flower, card, and dining establishment; it's the one day a year when we REMEMBER our moms and all the other days of the year that we've taken them for granted.

My mother is amazing. She always has been, and the older I get the more and more and more I see of her in me. So much of who I am and what I want comes from this woman whom I have basically taken for granted for nearly 55 years. She was born in Philadelphia, raised in Manhattan and on Long Island, and then later in Miami. As a teenager she was the first female "copy boy" at The Miami Herald (there was even a columnist at the paper who wrote about his amazement at this confounded new development). She started a radio show with my dad (Time for Betty & Tom), she was a model back in New York, and the host of a cooking show in Cincinnati (no doubt the origin of my own fanatical obsession with food and things foodie). After I was born and my family returned to South Florida, my mom worked the late show movie on local TV (where I got to perform as Santa Claus one year) and as a freelance camera person for a TV station on Florida's West Coast. One of my most vivid memories from childhood is of standing on the tarmac at Palm Beach Airport as Air Force One was arriving with President Kennedy and my mom was dashing toward the plane, Bolex in hand, shouting to my dad "What's the F-stop Tom!?"

Later, when we moved to Arizona, she learned how to paint and she spent hours working in oils on scenes that brought the desert to life on our walls. My favorite of these (from a time in my life that was definitely not my favorite, but then what teenager ever likes their life!?) is still hanging on the wall in my little apartment in Petaluma. I have lugged it around with me to every place I have lived as an adult and it is always one of the first things I put up to know that I am home.

Through all of my life, my mom has been my champion and supporter. Five years ago when Jennifer graduated from college the day before I ran the Dipsea for the first time, mom and dad came out from Florida to be there for both. I still get an enormous amount of joy from remembering the way mom looked at me after the race, a combination of astonishment and pride, mixed with just a little bit (well, maybe a lot) of concern for the health - both mental and physical - of her first born.

Throughout my life, I have certainly not been what she might have dreamed for me to be. I remember one time during that hellashish high school period when I wrote her a song called "I'm Sorry." I still feel that way a lot of the time. I'm sorry mom for the ways I haven't been appreciative, the ways I haven't "lived up to my potential" and the ways I've gone astray. I'm also thankful for the things you gave me that have led me (and still lead me) to do right, to be loyal, to try hard, and to live fully.

Thank you for borning me, raising me, loving me, and still... over and over and over again... supporting me in so many ways.

Happy Mother's Day Mom. I Love You.

-------

And to the mother of my daughter...

As a post script on this Mother's Day, I also want to salute the mom of my daughter. Jean and I have been through 34 years together; some of them wonderful and fun, and some of the hard as hell. Though only 8 of those years were as husband and wife, she has been a great friend and a steady support for all the rest of the time as well. She gave birth to and mothered a grand and glorious girl/woman of our own, and I am grateful and proud of them both. Happy Mother's Day Jean!

Vicariously NOLA

2009-04-30T08:58:00.000-07:00

Today is the beginning of the second weekend of the greatest music festival held anywhere, The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival at the Fairgrounds Racetrack in New Orleans. It's been looking a little cloudy and even a little rainy on the webcams, but for most of the day tht will probably meant that the weather is just a little cooler and the dust is just a little more tamped down.

As for me, I am sitting (as I have done too many times in recent years) back in California listening to every minute as it plays out on WWOZ and thinking about my plans for next year. At the same time, I'm actually working on a project that gives me the opportunity and excuse to listen to Fest and imagine myself there. It's a small comfort, but it IS a comfort and I enjoy it.

On Monday night I took the evening, made myself a wonderful dinner, opened up a bottle of wine, and pulled up a chair next to the computer where I rocked out all evening long listening to WWOZ's Piano Night celebration from the House of Blues.

The event was a celebration of the life of Eddie Bo, who died recently. The last time I got to be at Piano Night, Eddie Bo was the honored guest and it is one of my great memories of my life to see Eddie on one piano directly across from Marcia Ball on another piano with Joe Krown on another piano at the back of the stage, John Cleary on Hammond B, and Dr. John on guitar (they had run out of pianos!!!)

Piano Night (always the Monday after the first weekend of Jazz Fest) and the whole reality of Jazz Fest is a celebration that manifests the amazing heart of New Orleans, that in fact is the heart of America.

What a Wonderful World!

I know what it means...

2009-04-24T11:36:00.001-07:00

Hardly a week goes by, and at some times a day doesn't even go by, without me finding one reason or another to pine for The Crescent City.

The next 10 days raise this longing to a level beyond compare, for it's Jazz Fest Time!

From this morning through Sunday and then again next Thursday through Sunday, The Big Easy will be easy with music and music will be absolutely EVERYWHERE!

Despite the fact that I can't make it this year (though at this point I'm still holding out the long shot hope that something will come through that takes me east in time for next weekend) I'll be swooning at each bit of music that comes down from the fairgrounds and lands on my iTunes courtesy of WWOZ.org and when I can't listen to it live, I'll be listening to the innumerable recordings I've made of everything from piano night to my friends James Singleton and Clive Wilson. I'll probably watch the short video I recorded of Donald Harrison and Galactic about a dozen times and listen tot he my jazz fest recordings of Ani DeFranco, and John Fohl, Sonny Landreth, and Anders Osborne, and more... more... more.

Yeah... it's the best week of the year right now in NOLA and one of these days I'll get back there.

Next year in Jerusalem!

Good Night and Good Luck... Mom

2009-04-07T19:11:00.001-07:00

Keith's mom died Saturday and this is truly a beautiful, and funny, tribute.

Happy Anniversary!

2009-04-06T10:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the anniversary of the big event of last year. Jen and Andy's wedding.

Despite all of the other events, excitements, and catastrophic cataclysms of the previous 365 days, it is not hard at all for me to pick out that Saturday at Fort Mason as the central moment of the year (of many years actually) for me.

One year on, I still look back on it as an experience of tremendous joy and extreme pride. Not a week goes by that I don't feel some moment of joy that pops into the mundane reality of the day and reminds me of the best of what living is. To experience a day where my child was so completely herself, with her partner in life beside her and surrounded by friends and family with laughter, and tears, words, and music, and food and celebration.

THIS is why we go through all the trials and tribulations. This is why we get up every day and struggle through work, and no work, bills, doctors, tears and fears.

This is why we are alive!

Take Me Out To The Ballgame... Again!

2009-04-03T11:04:00.000-07:00

It's not yet opening day, but for me it is. KLL and I are heading into San Francisco for the Bay Bridge Series between the A's and the Giants.

This will be the first time I've ever gone to "Pac Bell Park" as something other than a Giants fan. I once saw the Giants play the Mets at Candlestick, and on that occassion I was definitely rooting for the Mets, but this will be the first time I've ever changed colors in such a radical way.

I'm stoked... It's Springtime and I'm ready for Baseball!

The Business of Busy-ness

2009-04-02T12:59:00.001-07:00

Some thoughts for Lent and the Downturn. A new post I worked on this morning at Bleeding Daylight.

Fools Rush Inn

2009-04-01T12:17:00.000-07:00

It's April Fool's Day... or St. Stupid's Day, if you prefer.

15 years ago, April1 was also Good Friday and because of several things that were going on in my life at the time I declared it Coyote Jesus Day. It always seemed like Good Friday was a really great day for April Fools... Oh dear... God's Dead... Oh wait... No he's not! April Fool!!!!

It never really caught on, but it always seemed like a good idea to me.

This year, I'm having a different crisis of personal consciousness. Whereas on the original Coyote Jesus Day I was engrossed in the economic and emotional situation I was in, the new media company I was about to start, and the absurdity of all the elements of my life... THIS year April 1 comes at a time when I am engrossed in the economic and emotional situation I am in, the new media company I am about to start, and the absurdity of all the elements of my life... See what I mean?

Everything is TOTALLY DIFFERENT!

One of the things on my mind this week has been the philosophical difference between Amusements and Amazements and my personal jury is still out on that one, but I'm beginning to notice a thoughtful pattern.

My initial thought process, earlier this week, was that I liked the idea of Amazements better than Amusements. There is, in the word a seemingly greater profundity in amazement than there is in amusement. A person commenting on my previous post about this points out this very same thing. But when I looked up the roots of both words, I was startled to realize the extent that Amusements is rooted in the word muse and the root of muse itself. The Webster's New World Dictionary states that muse comes from muzzle and the implication of the connection is the image of a person, nose in the air, pondering the greater secrets of the universe. The root of amazement, on the other hand, is maze (as opposed to labyrinth) which is a device intended for confusion.

Personally, I am not much impressed with the concept of confusion these days. It seems to me that coming out of eight years of Dubya, we've had more than our fair share of confusion and it's time to work for a little clarity and a whole lot of consideration.

So... right here and now... on April FOOL'S day... I am leaning heavily toward Amusements. The word begins in contemplation, moves into a wholistic feminist image of inspiration and creativity, and winds up with fun. Sounds like a damn good trajectory to me!

Enlightening entertainment... Entertaining enlightenment.

quciksilver aMUSEments it is!

Happy St. Stoopid's Day!

Could We Start Again Please?

2009-03-30T08:17:00.001-07:00

I began this blog just short of two years ago, after I had been blogging at Speaklo for the two years prior. At the time, the SpeakLo blog had, somewhat by accident, become a blog about my travels and travails post-Katrina and I was at a place where I wanted to move on.

Perhaps I run in two year cycles, but I am definitely moving around to a new place in this process once more.

Whatever it is... perhaps it's the coming of Spring... the inevitability of return at Easter... but I am once again wanting to ask, Could We Start Again Please?

To that end, I have just begun posting once more at SpeakLo. My intention is to post things there that relate somewhat to my work in audio. That may be a look at music or audio in general, a review or a recommendation on something that I find of particular note, or simple gratuitous promotion of my own projects. It may also be a simple resting place for thoughts about what we listen to and listen for.

My plans are to continue posting here (though I am still evaluating a name change to Amazements instead of Amusements but the jury's still out on that for the moment.

In any case, I am beginning at SpeakLo this morning with the remembrance of an album I worked on nearly 25 years ago which, over the weekend, I had the opportunity to give a new listen... finding a surprising and comforting result.

I think - I hope - you'll enjoy it. Please feel free to let me know.

A Former Acquaintance

2009-03-29T11:44:00.000-07:00

There's a guy in my town who (with some assistance from his wife, and lots of capitulation from a "gang that couldn't shouldn't straight" collection of board members) runs the little local lodge like his personal, private domain.

In the opinion of many, Mr. Moose has, virtually single-handedly, saved the little local lodge from construction devolution, but for many folks, his interpersonal destructiveness and ugly and vindictive machinations have done more to destroy the potential for a truly fraternal and caring organization in the midst of this well-intentioned, though not always fully functional community.

During the last few months I have been engaged with Mr. Moose in a battle to save the little local lodge from utter implosion, but recently I gave up the fight. There are better things to do, as far as I can see (at least for me), than fight a battle with a little caesar bent on shoring up his self-indulgent, acrimonious kingdom of obsequious devotees.

In the midst of it all, one thing that has been sticking with me is the vague sense of having encountered this pompous turd on some previous occasion. And then it hit me...

My first encounter with Mr. Moose occurred in the summer of 2005, shortly after I returned to Petaluma, homeless, following forced flight from New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. I had been living in Petaluma for nearly five years when I decided to move to New Orleans just three weeks before Katrina sent me scurrying back to California.

The encounter was precipitated by the fact that I was sitting at a table in a little westside Petaluma coffee shop in the early morning. I was drinking coffee and reading a book and I was not disturbing anyone. Mr. Moose arrived at the coffee shop, and moved directly to me, towering over me, and glowering with rage in the slight mist of the early morning air.

"You're sitting at our table!" he bellowed.

I looked up in confusion and screwed up my face with consternation. "What?"

As I looked around at the nearly empty coffee shop I couldn't figure out why THIS particular table was such a prime piece of real estate. Little did I realize that the contempt, oafishness, and territoriality Mr. Moose demonstrated on this particular occasion would manifest itself three years later over a different piece of property.

In screenwriting, this kind of incident would be referred to as "foreshadowing."

Ultimately, I gave up my space, despite absolutely NO courtesy, kindness, or even deference to my presence. I was already beaten down by my journeys, the storm, and the process of trying to exist without a place to live on two different coasts.

I moved to another table and composed a poem about the experience. I then put that poem up online at Speaklo.

This afternoon, while digging around in the archives (a little bit like rummaging around in my closet of anxieties) in preparation for restarting that blog, I found the poem.

Here's the poem...

I must acknowledge that I made one mistake. There's a sense in which I imply within the poem that all people in P-town (or at least all those at the coffee shop) are liberals. That would be very much incorrect. It would be equally as incorrect to assume, as I may have to some extent implied, that all Petalumans (whether liberal, conservative, or uncommitted) are unpleasant, ignorant, assholes. In the time I've spent back in this town since the day I wrote the poem, I have become very close with some of the dearest friends I have had in all of my life. They run the gamut of spiritual, political, and personality perspectives and I cherish every one of them.

Beyond that, I stand by my observations of nearly four years ago.

I would also like to point out to Mr. Moose (and those who are like him), what goes around... does in fact seem to come around.

There's a BEVERAGE here!

2009-03-28T22:23:00.000-07:00

For the first time in about 17 years (the last time was for my daughter's birthday party), I went bowling in Petaluma this Saturday night. It was a benefit forPetaluma People Services Center, but the only thing that came to my mind was White Russians, and...

According to the "Which Big Lebowski character are you?" quiz:

This is what happens when you meet a stranger in the Alps!

70 Landings!!!

2009-03-28T13:02:00.000-07:00

I grew up in South Florida, carefully watching on TV, and then running outside of the house just in time to see it live, so many of the early NASA launches that they are probably embedded into my psyche at the sub-moelcular level.

Since moving away from Florida, and more or less growing up (something that does remain rather debatable) I remain fascinated by space travel and space missions. Thanks to Twitter, I am newly able to keep up with space developments in a way that I previously missed.

That's what happened just now. I got on the computer just to check some email, do a few Saturday based interactions and get on with the day. But I found a series of reports from "Astronautics" that led me to the NASA site, where I could get information on Discovery's landing after the week in space where they've been putting some of the finishing touches on the International Space Station. It was at the NASA site where I discovered that this makes 70 landings at Cape Canaveral and, frankly, that just makes me silly with excitement.

I am thankful for being given a love for space by my dad, and I am delighted to be able to be alive at a time and place where "the last frontier" is still being explored and where, thanks to our new president and his concern for new scientific exploration, we may finally - again - begin exploring the outreaches of our proximate universe.

It is indeed... An Amazement!

What's In A Word?

2009-03-27T09:15:00.000-07:00

I had a dream last night... well actually the dream I had was early this morning and it was one of those dreams - not a bad dream actually, it was in fact quite a good dream - that make you feel all out of sorts, like it's trying to tell you something about your life and you may not be ready to receive the communication.

I'm going to keep the dream to myself, at least for now, as I take it apart in my mind and put it back together in my soul, but I have already implemented one change that came out of the experience.

I am - at least for the moment (we will see how it fits me over time) - changing the name of this blog from Quicksilver Amusements to Quicksilver Amazements. Two letters that make for a significant attitude adjustment.

It seems to me that for most folks, despite the fact that a part of the root is muse, a word that describes thoughtfulness and consideration, the central idea behind the word amusement is the idea of entertainment, mindlessness, and relatively thoughtless jocularity. For me, at least right at this moment, the idea of amazement is more dynamic. It describes an experience of enthrallment, the state of being actively engaged with a conundrum. It is, to my mind, a more dynamic and interesting concept. It is a state, far more than amusement, that I am interested in partaking in and introducing to others. At it's root, it also contains the word maze. This word, closely related to labyrinth is in fact a structure that as a metaphor for living seems to bring with it a lot of power; power to move, power to confuse, power to elicit intentionality and interest.

Amazement, it seems to me, is a much more active, interesting and engaging state.

What do you think?

We Will Not Go Down

2009-03-14T11:53:00.000-07:00

I had a whole other post planned for this morning. A discussion of some new developments in an ongoing small town brouhaha I've been involved in; D.O.O.M. as I have taken to calling it, but fate (and the internets) intervened. I'll get back to that other topic later. For now I want to share my thoughts on this video which I picked up from a link on Twitter.

Definitely the "song of the week" by Michael Heart.

It is consistently very easy to become overly involved with things that don't matter while the things that do matter are left to sit on a back burner to be dealt with by "people in authority" who "know more than we do."

Who are those people? When will they do something new?

Another song, by Ken Medema, from over 20 years ago (a song I had a little something to do with) tells the same story in a somewhat different way.

Last night as I sat watching the V-Day Petaluma performance (I'm working backstage tonight) I was most moved, for a second night in a row, by the song at the end that says "If women all over the world will join together we can put an end to war." I would like to sign up as support for THAT performance as well!

All of these things (and even my little small town tug of war) have one thing in common: the simple fact that we, as individuals should not, can not, must not, leave things to "the politicians" or "the big boys" or the "experts." Barrack's speech from back during the campaign was right... WE are the ones we've been waiting for!

Let's act like it.

Celebrate Women!

2009-03-08T12:52:00.001-07:00

It's International Women's Day and we can (and must) celebrate it with vigor and joy despite the fact that in the U.S. we don't seem to be able have raised the day to the level of National Holiday as they have in China, Armenia, Russia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

Three years ago I wrote a post on this day while I was still struggling to make it in post-Katrina NOLA. It still seems valid today (though I did add some names to the list of women I am thankful for). There's also a blog that I work with that has a great post about the history and the reality of this important, wonderful, and lovely day.

This afternoon, while reflecting on the women I have known and loved (and know and love) the the wonderful poem Bread and Roses came to mind. Written by a man, but most famously sung by Judy Collins, it was the inspiration for Mimi Farina's wonderful organization which brings "hope, healing and music" to people in need.

The song is something that I first learned in the midst of the anti-nuclear protests of the early 80s Reagan years. but which stays with me, and haunts me, at this present time as we dig our collective souls and bodies out of the pit that Dubya built. It is always important to remember that we need food, but we also need art, and to me a day like today serves to bring that more to the forefront of my consciousness than some other occasions.

As Allen Toussaint wrote (and the Pointer sisters sang) "Do respect the women of the world. Remember you all had mothers!" I would like to add that some of us also had daughters... who we are very very proud of.

Down the rabbit hole...

2009-03-03T09:57:00.000-08:00

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Twitter Frenzy

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

Okay... So the BIG NEW THING right now, ever since half of congress was evidently too preoccupied to PAY ATTENTION to the the President's speech last Tuesday (it WAS Mardi Gras after all), is Twitter, and while I've been on Twitter since about the middle of last year, it wasn't until the last seven days that I got seriously sucked into the vortex of this new way to completely lose all ability to maintain concentration. This wonderful new technology that allows you to pretend like you're doing something meaningful while in reality your twiddling your twittery life away. I even added a second account so I could focus one on promoting my wine and food writing more directly (is that increased focus, or lack thereof?).

So today, on Twitter of course, I was directed to the above segment from Jon Stewart... And THAT seems to be more what Twitter is about than anything else, a new way to create yet another infinite loop... and another... and...

Of course, in the manner of such things, just when I'm ready to dismiss it all, something like THIS comes along!

Happy Mardi Gras - Part Three

2009-02-24T16:50:00.001-08:00

There really isn't anything else to say... but thanks to brianoberkirch you can see what it's REALLY about.

Happy Mardi Gras - Part Two

2009-02-24T13:25:00.001-08:00

For those that don't grasp the reality of this amazing day (which would be pretty much anyone who hasn't lived through it in one of the intriguing and wonderful places on the planet where they truly celebrate Carnival)... One more time.... It's NOT about "show us your tits!"

Pictures live and direct from New Orleans today via Twitter, and courtesy of pontchatrain

YEAH YOU RIGHT!

Happy Mardi Gras - Part One

2009-02-20T12:44:00.001-08:00

Last night I fired up the Safari on Nola.com and the iTunes to WWOZ and watched my favorite Mardi Gras parade... MUSES. I even pulled my Muses official high heel mardi gras beads down from the shelf and wrapped em around my neck.

The reality is that carnival began back at the end of Christmas but for me the celebration of "Mardi Gras Time" begins with the Muses parade. Now I'm here in my home/office struggling to track my way through a day of work (still recovering from the brain fog of a nearly weeklong cold), raise some money, pay some bills, and get some things done... but all I really want to do is be out wandering around on the streets this weekend, watching parades, listening to music, parading with the Indians and basically experiencing that thing that is Mardi Gras.

I'm even tracking a whole collection of folks who are Twittering their Mardi Gras experiences.

I am in party mode and despite the fact that I am in Petaluma and not in The Big Easy...

I WILL have a Happy Mardi Gras!

Y'all do the same!

Happy Valentine's Day!

2009-02-14T12:16:00.000-08:00

Creature on Fire by StoryPeepsWidgetbox

Groundhog Day!

2009-02-02T09:56:00.001-08:00

With the return of February 2nd, we once again "celebrate" Ground Hog Day, that time when we all wait to find out if that big rodent in Pennsylvania saw his shadow. This morning, evidently, he did, while also declaring the Pittsburgh Steelers to be world champions. I guess Punxatawny Phil keeps a tv down there in his hole.

My favorite part of Groundhog Day is the annual reminder of the film of the same name with Bill Murray and Andie McDowell. It's a classic early 90s goofball comedy, but better than most of that particular genre because it serves to remind us of the fact that we make our lives by the way we pay attention... or don't. In the film, Bill Murray repeats Groundhog Day over and over, until he first begins to realize what's happening and then finally learns the lesson he most needs to understand.

This also plugs into my return to a new 40 day plan. After bailing on my last plan, just before the new year, I've been floating along in search of focus and direction. The simple fact is that I do better when I have a plan. My various natural tendencies to distraction, and my perpetual flirtation with new ideas and intriguing projects, are all more creatively and productively channeled when I set myself up a structure to channel my flailing imagination.

So, here we go again. With Phil's prediction of 6 more weeks of winter, I am choosing to take on my own Groundhog Day discipline with a new six weeks of attention to the details of my life. My own sort of repeat it until you get it right discipline, running from now to the Ides of March.

In the meantime, just remember... Don't Drive Angry!!!

5 Years & 6 Beginnings... Part Six

2009-01-27T11:32:00.000-08:00

Just after midnight January 1, 2009: Sitting on the couch at Karen's with a bottle of champagne. We had just gotten back from "up the hill" where we attended a party with some old friends, some new friends, and a few people new to us both. We left shortly before midnight intending to spend the strike of midnight together and alone.

A rather uneventful evening if you look at the surface elements.

But it's the river flowing underneath that image that reveals the most about where my life stands five years on from that night of 03/04, alone in the living room of the little house on Dana, just a short 5 blocks from where Karen and I were standing with champagne under mistletoe at midnight.

The biggest difference is probably the smallest leap. I LIVE here now!

That simple reality is something that I never thought I would accept and/or admit to, but here I am living enthusiastically and more or less contentedly in my own little loft apartment (a long and wonderful story in and of itself) above a garage next to a beautiful garden with buddha statues and a magnificent live oak tree. We live (myself, the tree, and my terrific landlords) at the corner of B and Fair, and that is becoming, as the former owner of the house - Petaluma's first woman mayor, Helen Putnam - used to say, "my motto."

My life has indeed become (and is becoming) fair, not in the sense of mediocre, but in the sense of soft and lovely and delightful.

I fell in love with my new residence the first time I walked into the garden, and I waited in homeless limbo (on friend's couches, at Karen's place, and in "The Little House") for several months for the apartment to become ready to live in (I am it's first actual resident). I moved in during the first week of April, just days before my DDD got married in San Francisco, and between these two nearly simultaneous events, I experienced a deep and engaging sense of life beginning anew.

My growing collection of old and new friends threw me a fabulous house warming party that was organized by Karen, who commiserated with Joe to fool me more completely than I had ever been fooled before.

I also began a lot of new work, much of it in the writing that I have worked hard for much of my adult life to turn into gainful employment. I engaged my new presence in Petaluma by volunteering to co-chair the city's renewed Riverfest Celebration (and I have recently proven what a glutton for punishment I am by volunteering to chair the event for this year!), and by joining the unlikely amalgamation of people that make up Moose Lodge #475. Almost daily, I continue seeking to find ways to involve myself on the ground, in the place where I live.

And then there was the election. This amazing year of challenge and struggle and ultimate triumph when we as a country and a people, individually and collectively, discovered that... truly... WE are the ones we've been waiting for.

I also seem to have discovered that, I am the one I've been waiting for.

On top of it all... through the kindness, patience, insight, creativity and beauty of this surprising person who has come to share my life these days - in ups and downs and back and forths, with soft kisses and deep hugs, through lots of laughter and a few difficult arguments - I found my way back to love.

Indeed... There Is No Fifth Destination.

Still Speechless... Most Hopeful... Completely Committed!

2009-01-21T17:28:00.001-08:00

I really don't have anything to say that can equal this photo. I spent the entirety of yesterday staring at the TV, afraid that if I turned it off, I would wake up and it would all have been a dream.

I'm better today... and I just made a new volunteer commitment that I've been pondering for months. Time to get to work.

More tomorrow.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-13T16:17:00.000-08:00

This is a video that documents and commemorates the New Year's morning murder of Oscar Grant by BART police.

I have been simply speechless since I first heard about this, but getting this from the CAPE Blog, I had to put it up.

You can sign a petition to California AG Jerry Brown, or you can join a rally on Wednesday, but somehow... there's only one response.

You must DO SOMETHING.

5 Years & 6 Beginnings... Part Five

2009-01-10T12:46:00.000-08:00

January 2008 was a hard mid-winter.

I was homeless again after being blind sided by the guy I was subleasing from when he re-rented the place out from under me, packed up his stuff, and moved back to England. That all happened, over the holidays, in the last three weeks of the year.

In the rain.

I began the year setting up my office in a little room behind a friend's house. It was a major help to have a place to work even if I didn't have a guaranteed place to sleep.

As for sleeping... I was moving around a lot. I spent time on the couch of one friend (it was a pretty comfy couch, I must say) and in the "Little House" behind the home of another friend. This was particularly helpful, as it held some good memories from the months after Katrina when he and his wife offered me the place for a few weeks to settle in, recuperate, and find my bearings. Returning to The Little House was a true comfort and my friends were patient, kind, understanding and unbelievably helpful.

As it turned out... I was also staying fairly frequently at the home of a new friend, an unexpected, down from heaven, out of the blue, blessing of a friend... confidant... and lover. If it weren't for the fact that she had dropped into my life back at the end of the summer of 07 (right after the second anniversary of Katrina by the way) I don't know if I would have made it through the unexpected chaos that was thrust upon me as 2007 came to a close.

She walked into my life right at the crux point of the back and forth, give and take battle of my bi-coastal relationship with New Orleans. We met during the summer, when I was completely sure that I was not interested in being involved with anyone. I wasn't looking, I wasn't interested, and I thought that might be the way I would feel for the rest of my life. I was also sure that my life was fated to play out, eventually, in The Crescent City. I had attempted to move there more permanently back in the spring (having moved out of my San Francisco loft/office) but had found it necessary to move back to California in the early summer.

By mid-summer, I was meeting with an old old friend regarding the possibility of doing new work together, and this question (and its still unresolved conclusion) had thrown a new instrument into the mix of my already strangely mixed up life.

I wanted to kick my life back into gear, but I still didn't have any good idea about how, or where, or why to do it.

On August 5, 2007, two years to the day that I had moved there the first time, I returned to New Orleans with all intentions of staying... Within ten days I was on the last flight out from Louis Armstrong Airport bound for California with the hope of getting my computer fixed (it had crashed on me over the weekend and I couldn't get it fixed in still post-Katrina New Orleans). As I headed west for the last time (I have still not been back in New Orleans) I was sure that I would be back in a matter of days or weeks.

By the time I landed on the west coast I was less sure about that decision... and then the bottom fell out of all of it.

With the second anniversary of Katrina I went into a strange silence that led me to question almost everything that I had been desperately trying to patch together since my life had been blown apart two years before. One very clear thing stood out beyond all others. It was, once again, time to take on a serious change in my life and that entailed more than where I lived; it involved my work, my home, and my state of mind. The conclusion that I came to was that I needed to draw back in, let things settle even more, and find the still deeper ground and center that had eluded me for so long.

And then... my life was transformed in an instant (well... a weekend) and all of my separatist plans, individualistic intentions, and calculating singularities were tossed over. I was suddenly, and surprisingly, in love.

The rest of 2007 was pretty much a blur with concerts to attend, my daughter to cheer, walks to walk, books to read and a new life forming all around me,

Beyond all that... in the world outside my little bubble, new hope was rising like the bright sun in the east.

Despite a collection of lingering questions, not the least of which being where the hell am I going to live, on January 1, 2008, I felt like I was emerging from a cocoon.

5 Years & 6 Beginnings... Part Four

2009-01-09T08:36:00.000-08:00

January 1, 2007 found me running Stinson Beach in the sunshine and cold. In comparison to the previous three beginnings, it was a particularly good one.

By the end of 2006 I had come back to Petaluma and begun subletting part of a house just outside of town. This arrangement was extremely centering to me and I spent a lot of time simply lying or sitting in my room, petting the cat, and smiling out at the big tree that filled the view from my bedroom window. It was a settling and grounding experience that I was lucky to have fallen into after wandering about like The Lost Dutchman for most of 2006.

In general, 2006 was a recovery year. I spent most of the first six months in New Orleans, desperately trying to make a life there, and evacuating every once in a while back to my office in San Francisco to sit and have lunch with Jennifer, drop in at Grace or Glide to pick up a small modicum of sanity. By summertime I had pretty much reached the limit of my staying power and I drifted, with deep reluctance, back to California on a semi-permanent basis.

That summer I also dropped in on the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America, a group I had been involved with at their inception 20 years earlier, but which I had not visited since 1989. I spent that week in Atlanta speaking about Katrina, along with some of my friends and heros from Churches Supporting Churches and visiting with old friends I hadn't seen or heard from in a very very long time. It was a cathartic, and restorative, experience and one of the things I discovered was how much comfort I gained from meeting up with and sharing moments with folks who had ben through the same thing I had been through.

In the fall, I had another opportunity to meet up with CSC friends when we gave a presentation at Defiance College in Ohio. At that point, I had been back in Petaluma for several months and while I was experiencing the aforementioned comfort and quiet as healthful, I was also longing to be with people who understood what I had been (and was still going) through. My friends from CSC were those folks. When we would see each other we would smile, and hug, and hold each other like long lost relations. It was another aspect of the life of 2006 that brought me back to health.

There had been some rough points that fall as well. I had my car, and my computer, stolen in San Francisco in October, and the new computer I bought to replace it blew up on me right at the end of the year. About that same time, my brain blew up on me as well, and by January 1 I was still struggling through coping with all the residue (physical, personal, and practical) that my occassional seizures force me to deal with.

What I missed most at the beginning of 2007 was any sense that I had an actual life. I was definitely in a restorative mode. Like a cat that gets into a fight, I was hunkered down, licking my wounds, and trying to assemble the details of the past 18 months into a cohesive personal narrative that made sense and had a through line.

On that beach that morning in the sun, I felt like I was coming back to wholeness.

I was moving up from the underworld and had returned to a sort of zero point. I was getting better... But things were still going to take some time.

I was definitely NOT expecting the changes that were lying in wait on the far horizon.

Three Kings Night... An Epiphanic Interlude

2009-01-07T19:00:00.001-08:00

I truly love the Christmas season... but by that, I mean exactly what I said. I am NOT a fan of the shopping season between the Macy's Parade (though I love the parade itself, and Thanksgiving is definitely my favorite holiday) and December 23rd.

I love and believe in Advent. Many of those who know me at least a little bit think this means that I am some sort of a religious freak who can't get passed my past as a Baptist preacher (though... of course... Baptists in general have no quarter for a season like Advent). For me, the thing about Advent is the antici... PATION. The four weeks spent waiting for the creation to be fulfilled, the time spent thinking on who and what we might be, we could be, we... CAN be. There is an exquisite aesthetic to taking the darkest time of the year and going inward rather than jumping around in a shopping frenzy in malls and stores with jingle bells blathering out of every little tin speaker.

But when Christmas comes... I want to take the time to let it seep into my bones, trickle down to my toes and then blast up through my head in a celebration of how absolutely wonderful it is to be alive. I like it to take a long time.

THERE ARE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS.

And then comes Epiphany... The day The Wise Guys arrive with the presents... and then turn around and skip out on the government surveillance program. The radical nature of extending Christmas for nearly two weeks beyond what the capitalist structure wants us to engage in, and thereby breaking it out of the standard model of greed, and craziness, and tension and into a new world of sharing and talking, and eating and drinking and laughing... THIS is the subversive nature of Christmas. This is why it's more than Santa... more than Rudolph... and even more than the Baby Jesus.

This is why it's so deeply important... and so damn much fun.

So last night, for Epiphany, I decided to celebrate with friends in the true chaos of the season, for Epiphany is not only the day The Magi arrive... in New Orleans, it's also the start of Carnival. It's the time for craziness, for openness, for life breaking through the dismal mundanity of the day to day. It's the time to have a hell of a party - with your family (that's my daughter as Jailhouse Elvis by the way), friends, neighbors, loved ones and acquaintances - on a TUESDAY night!

It's the perfect time for The King... or more accurately, THREE Kings!

It's the time to go home by another way,

Five Years & Six Beginnings... Part Three

2009-01-04T14:41:00.000-08:00

To understand where I was on January 1, 2006 one has to start five months earlier during the last few days before I packed up, threw away, or left behind all of my worldly possessions and headed off into the sunrise for New Orleans on August 5, 2005.

[Ex]Partner showed up in the house a day early, seemingly for the purpose of messing with my mind (or perhaps hers) and she did a good job of it, but despite the amorous state of confusion we acted out that afternoon, I was still on the plane the next morning.

Friday Night August 5, 2005 I was on Frenchmen Street with friends old and new, listening to music, sweltering in the heat, and generally feeling like I was HOME. The feeling continued throughout that first weekend, when, despite the overwhelming August heat I enthusiastically joined the summertime trumpet summit known as Satchmo Fest. This feeling continued the next night, and the next, and into my first full, real week...

In fact, it lasted for three weeks, and I was on track. In that short span, I had contacted a whole collection of new work contacts, had begun work on two large projects and was well on my way to reconnecting to people I wanted to work with on my film project. I had even launched a project that I had been struggling to get off the ground for nearly ten years. August 2005 was the very best month (personally, financially, and creatively) I had experienced in years. This move was starting to look like the very best thing I could possibly have done with my life.

And then Katrina crossed into The Gulf.

The next five months were spent on the road. Two days in Hattiesburg Mississippi with ex-partner and family, two weeks with my parents in Murphy, NC and a month back in California before finally being able to return to New Orleans (though not to my apartment).

As most people already know... I was one of the lucky ones.

For the rest of 2005 I slid back and forth between the semi-vacant apartment of a friend in New Orleans, the couches and floors of friends around San Francisco and Petaluma, and the floor of my newly acquired "office" space (a vacant warehouse room South of Market in San Francisco).

And that brings us to January 31, 2005 and the night I spent in San Francisco's North Beach with a bunch of displaced New Orleans musicians. They played... I ate... we sang... and drank... and drank, and I wound up dancing through Union Square like Gene Kelly at 1:30 in the morning.

It was a truly joyful and exhilarating way to begin 2006. It was also more than a little bit manic and a whole lot depressing. Lying alone (who would have joined me!?) on the floor of my warehouse "office," I regularly barred the passageway downstairs so that the rats I could hear scurrying below would not come up the stairs and nibble on my toes (I still don't know if rats can climb like that, but I was not about to see if I could find out). In New Orleans, their cousins would frequently scurry across the courtyard of the apartment complex where I was staying and jump into the toxic pool water for a swim. While I had a Whole Foods Market nearby the office in San Francisco (where I regularly picked up a pretty serviceable version of Gumbo), most stores in New Orleans were still shuttered at the end of 2005 and predicting where I was going to track down my next meal sometimes meant guessing the corner where The Salvation Army truck was going to deliver hamburgers.

I was VERY glad to be rid of 2005... but I did not have a clue about what I was going to do next. Actually, that's not really true. I had some very good ideas about what I was going to do next.

They were all wrong.

Five Years & Six Beginnings... Part Two

2009-01-03T12:05:00.001-08:00

New Year's Day 2005, found me once again alone in the house on Dana Street, but this time I was most truly alone.

My aforementioned partner had moved to Mississippi late in the summer of 2004 with the plan of taking care of her father and getting a PhD in education at the same time. There was a lot of talk about our still being together, but as I look at the situation from this side of the great divide, I can see that we were both either lying, or trading on false hopes, or pretending for various reasons, or all of the above. The clear reality of our life together is that it ended back in the summer of 2004. It took another year to finally break down completely, but it was really over when she stepped on that plane headed east.

2004 had also seen my daughter graduate from college and subsequently move to London. My partners and friends in the house were three cats. Two (Hobbes and Angelica) had been in residence with me/us for a long time. George, who I was taking care of for Jen while she was in London - and who definitely did not get along with the other carts - was my only real company and friend. I was turning into a "crazy cat person."

A week earlier, coincidentally (or perhaps not) on the same day as the earthquake and tsunami in Asia, I had a small seizure while working in my office at the back of the house. I awakened from the seizure confused and disoriented with no sense of the day or date, where I was, or what had just happened. The disorientation didn't last that long, but the depth of the feeling remained. I was by myself and on my own. If something happened to me, no one would find out for days, or even weeks.

I was also finding it very difficult to get work and to keep up the mortgage for the house and the car payment for partner. My months had turned into a mad financial scramble that I couldn't sustain and that I would never have made it through without considerable help from my family. I had plans to meet partner in New Orleans over Mardi Gras, a month away, and that less than stellar reunion (ugly interactions in our lovely hotel room and arguments over brunch at The Court of Two Sisters) would clearly signal the true beginning of the end of our relationship. It was after that trip that I would decide that my place was in New Orleans. I had been working on a film about Mardi Gras Indians for quite some time and the work I put into it during Mardi Gras of 2005 convinced me that I needed a greater comittment to the task and a new way of viewing things in my life. I spent several months trying to get things in order and make plans to move. With each passing day, I found it more and more difficult to remain in California in general, and Petaluma in particular.

I missed JazzFest in April for the first time since I had begun attending, and I spent long hours listening to the music on WWOZ and watching my friends on Liuzza's web cam. When that was followed by the death of Tootie Montana in June I sat in a closet on Dana Street and sobbed for most of the day.

I was totally in the wrong place at the wrong time. My nearly 30 years in California had been reduced to an 800 square foot house, a bar stool at Dempsey's, and a few friends scattered about the world. I was as alone as I had ever been in my life.

It was time to get the hell outta Dodge.

Five Years & Six Beginnings...

2009-01-02T13:35:00.000-08:00

Earlier today, as I was journaling thoughts and plans for the new year, it struck me - not for the first time, but certainly more deeply than before - how much my life has been transformed in the last year. Walking backwards from a year ago, I was instantly flabbergasted at the way my life has been re-set in a relatively short period of time. This despite the fact that within the process, things seemed like they were never going to end.

The last five years of my life have included some of the highest and most of the lowest experiences of my nearly 55 years on the planet.

Five years ago, I was living in Petaluma, about four blocks from where I live now, but the life I was living then and the life I am living now are as different as night and day. The joy I feel now, compared to the misery I was feeling then, is as astonishing as it is delightful.

The journey in between these two points is even more incredible, while also being rather mundane. I don't want to pretend that I have had some amazing adventure (though there are many aspects of the last five years that would certainly qualify as exactly that).

The details of the last five years add a whole new level of meaning to the concept that you cannot step into the same river twice.

The experiences I have had, the friends I have come to know and to value (along with new and deeper relationships to old friends), the ways my life has been confronted and transformed, and the love that I presently feel from the tips of my toes to the center of my soul is nothing short of miraculous to me. In my comparatively short life, I have been in a lot of places (both physically and emotionally) around the world, but the last five years in which I have moved from a little house on Dana Street to a tiny apartment on Fair Street, all within the 94952 zip code have been the most profoundly life-altering experiences (with one singularly significant exception that I will talk about later) of my life.

I began 2004 in a little living room on Dana Street, my partner of 16 years visiting her family in Mississippi as she always did at that time of the year. There was nothing terribly odd about this at the time, but what I didn't realize on that lonely night was that everything I had built my life on for the last 20 years was going to be systematically obliterated over the coming twenty months. We had come through the struggles of raising children, battling cancer, fighting back the difficulties of financial distress and the basic frustrations of our difficult personalities. We had shopped for, bought, and decorated a house together, only to find ourselves trapped inside it like doomed sailors on a becalmed sea. The times when we couldn't keep our hands off of each other had transformed into several years in the same bed when we never made love once.

The stage had been set (we had been working on our respective parts for over ten years) and most of the coming actions had already been determined.

Things were about to get crazy.

Richard Does It Again!

2008-12-15T15:46:00.000-08:00

What might just be the best concert I saw in th last year rolled into the little Mystic Theater in Petaluma Thursday night when Richard Thompson played solo to a packed house.

One of the most amazing moments of the show was when he covered Britney Spears' "Oops I did it again." This clip is from the rendition he did during his "Thousand Years of Popular Music" tour. In one single song he revealed what an incredible story teller and musical interpreter he is. His take on the song flat out made it his own. If you had not previously heard it by Britney it would be impossible to think of it as the goofy pop song she created it to be. In Thompson's gifted hands it transforms into a dark amusement etched with playful evil.

It SOUNDS and FEELS like a Richard Thompson song!

This was just one single small element of a tasty show created by a consummate artist who is completely in command of his instrument, his song writing, and his voice.

Thompson reveals insight, darkness, playfulness, sadness and joy at each moment of the concert. He plays tennis with human light and shadow and in doing so brings to musical fruition a complete sense of what it means to be human.

This is why we live.

60 Years On...

2008-12-10T11:13:00.000-08:00

On this anniversary of the International Declaration of Human Rights, Amnesty International's WITNESS program is asking the question , "What image opened your eyes to Human Rights?"

For me, I think it was the images from Susan Meiselas' book on the Nicaraguan revolution. I had already seen other images by that time... mostly images provided by Amnesty International, but it really came home with Nicaragua and those photos; photos of decapitated bodies lying on the side of the road, and women wearing masks to avoid detection, torture and death. They were images that moved me to work to change things in Nicaragua, to go there twice and to try and bring something of the country back with me.

Twenty years ago, it was the variety of images propagated in conjunction with the Amnesty International Concert Tour in recognition and celebration of the 40th anniversary of the DHR. Those images and ideas, contrasted with the vibrant music and immediacy of the moment (and were magnified by the fact that I was newly in love and feeling so deeply that sense of freedom that new love gives you) and in that, the call to DO SOMETHING.

With the approach of this 60th Anniversary I have been feeling driven to find a way to place myself again in the middle of this fight for all. I'm still trying to comprehend what... and how.

What image opened your eyes? What have you done about it?

You can start (or continue) by signing onto the declaration at http://www.everyhumanhasrights.org/. You'll be in good company!

Death By Shopping

2008-12-02T09:52:00.000-08:00

In the dark hours of Friday morning, while I was sleeping off my food indulgences of the day before, in the doorway of a WalMart on Long Island, Jdimytai Damour was trampled to death by insane shoppers, desperate to beat one another to the "hottest deals of the season."

I'm working on a piece about this that I'll post on Butting Heads a little bit later, but in the meantime here are some links:

Reverend Billy's Comments

From the NY Times (which you actually have to go through an ad for)

A perspective from across the pond

And a quote from a co-worker... echoing what seems to have become the universal excuse lifted from the speeches of the Pretender In Chief for the last eight years (spoken after 9/11, after Katrina, and after the stock market crash)... “How could you know something like that would happen? No one expected something like that.”

Bruuuuuuuuuuuuuce!

2008-12-01T21:07:00.000-08:00

My Lucky Day

That's enough for the second day of Advent. I want to say more, but I won't...
Just watch. And Listen... And...

Wait.

Happy New Year!

2008-12-01T10:47:00.000-08:00

On Thanksgiving my sweety and I went to The Parks for Thanksgiving dinner with the widely extended family and it was a great time. From wine and multiple cheeses to pecan pie and champagne (through mushroom stuffing, amazing yams, perfect biscuits and a few small slices of turkey) and on to gratuitous karaoke competitions it was a great great day.

Afterwards we wound up at the Mark Twain Hotel (next door to Glide Memorial) for the night. We had plans to return to Petaluma the next day, but those plans changed.

Friday morning we arose lazily and decided to take a chance at catching the first showing of the day at the Castro Theater where we could see Milk right where the events took place and right on the block where it was filmed (not to mention the neighborhood I was living in during part of that time). After the film, which was beautiful and amazing and the perfect way to begin "Black Friday," we brunched in The Castro and shopped in The Fillmore, winding up in Union Square for a Macy's bacchanal, the Union Square Christmas Tree lighting, drinks and pizza in The Starlight Room and rides up and down (three times!) in the glass elevators at the St. Francis.

It was a great day!

We decided to spend another night.

On Saturday, we moved lazily through the day and wound up eventually at Grace Cathedral where we walked the Labyrinth.

It wasn't until this point that it even dawned on me that it was the Saturday before Advent... a sort of ecclesiastical New Year's Eve.

Walking the circuit inside the big cave of that cathedral, I was, even more than usual, taken with the sense that I was leaving one year behind and moving into another phase of my life. Every time I walk the labyrinth it's a completely different experience; that's one of the things I most like about it. This time I was introducing someone else to this part of my life (something I've never really done before) while at the same time experiencing everything in the weekend as its own gestalt.

Each piece held a magic, as if this place and this time and the newness of what is to come were telescoped into this singular segment of reality where all my life leading up to now was brought together on this one weekend.

Advent.

What Do YOU See?

2008-11-21T10:54:00.000-08:00

I found this picture on another blog and it completely blew me away (and wrecked my otherwise relatively efficient time usage for the morning). The original article for it is here and I hope it screws with you as much as it does me.

When I first looked at the picture I had it going clockwise, which is supposed to represent thinking with the right hemisphere of your brain. But then... when I start reading (a more left brained task) it switches to the counter-clockwise motion. After some practice (closing my eyes, relaxing my neck, wiggling my right and then my left hand) I can pretty much make it go whatever direction I want.

Now I'm obsessing... I wonder which hemisphere that uses. I'm also wondering what might happen with a male silhouette.... Hmmm?

Unsubscribe Me!

2008-11-19T11:52:00.000-08:00

In one of those classic moments of the internets I found the video above quite by accident, but it moved me to act.

The video is produced by a group with whom I had a long and active involvement a long time ago, but which I have in recent years allowed to largely slip off my radar.

The ability to transform an ugly, evil act into a life affirming piece of art and to do it for the purpose of changing the world is truly an amazing accomplishment. Despite the election of Barrack... this remains an important issue, and AI remains a vitally important organization worldwide.

Please view this video (it's astonishing when played full screen), sign up, then pass it on.

The Other Guy Counts Too!

2008-11-11T09:15:00.000-08:00

Last night's commentary by Keith Olberman was first brought to my attention via Twitter when I got a "tweet" from inlookout about the commentary. When I turned on my computer this morning I immediately downloaded last night's Countdown podcast from iTunes, opened it and fast forwarded to the end.

I have been mulling over some kind of response to the issue of prop 8 in California since it first appeared on the ballot, and I have yet to come to terms with the wording to explain how I feel. I have started an attempt at formulating those feelings at Butting Heads, so please go there and check it out as well.
--
P.S. There's also a new Veteran's Day blog at http://washingtonscousin.blogspot.com.
But first... give Keith another listen... It's worth your time.

It's Morning In America

2008-11-10T10:48:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning with those four words in my heart and the image of that old Ronald Reagan commercial unfortunately in my brain.

I thought about it... smiled... and dismissed the image, because as much as I love the sentiment, I did not want to despoil this extremely energizing, enlivening moment with old words and concepts that I feel have brought us (over the last 28 years) to our collective national knees, begging and scraping along ground that we should be able to walk upon with grace, and strength, and heart, and pride.

The reaction is also why I chose not to link to that old commercial, as I would normally do under such circumstances. I am done with that crap! My entire adult life has been colored with the residue of destruction that began with Reagan and ended last Tuesday night (it actually began with Richard Nixon when I was 14 years old, but that's for some other blog on some other day).

But then... I got up... I turned on my computer and I found this piece by Eugene Robinson (one of my favorite commentators, with whom I happen to share my middle name).

It IS Morning in America, and I, for one, am ready to rise!

I Rise!

2008-11-10T10:29:00.000-08:00

I love... truly love... Dr. Maya Angelou. This piece from the CBS morning show features her poem "I Rise" at the end of a terrific reflection on the meaning of the events of last week.

It's nearly eight minutes long (Dr. Angelou comes on about half way in)... and it's worth taking the time to visit.

Thanks to Engima4ever for bringing this clip to my attention. On her blog she has also placed a link to the letter Alice Walker (another of my great loves and deepest sheroes) wrote to the President Elect. It too is awesome and lovely and worth the time it takes to read.

What a great moment in time! THIS is what it feels like to be alive.

Gimme Rhythm... Gimme Rhythm!

2008-11-07T09:16:00.000-08:00

COWBOY MOUTH is comin' to Petaluma tonight! This New Orleans Rock and Roll band is not only a bunch of folks that I have loved since the very first time I heard them, they are the band that brought me though the sadness, struggle, lostness and turmoil of post-Katrina living with songs like Home and Avenue.

Now... with a new album called Fearless... they're coming to this current Home of mine with new music like I Believe and a rip roaring show that I am insanely excited about.

I'm feeling like a kid in a candy store.. and it seems to me that's exactly how Cowboy Mouth would like me to feel... because I AM glad to be ALIVE.

---

They play San Francisco's Slims tomorrow night... so hey... GO!

The World Has Truly Changed!

2008-11-06T08:55:00.000-08:00

Sweet Release!

2008-11-06T07:34:00.000-08:00

I had nothing on this blog yesterday to celebrate the transformation of everything we know because I woke up yesterday morning with some strange illness that barely even let me lift my head up from the pillow. Increasingly, over the last eight years, and most especially over the last several weeks, I've been holding my hopes, dreams, longings, and desires like holding my breath to duck dive under Ocean Beach waves. When the polls in California closed Tuesday night, I knew we - as individuals, as people, as a nation - had indeed overcome.

Underneath it all, I think my body knew that, for the moment at least, it could rest.... by Wednesday morning it had collapsed.

I lay in bed all day listening to the radio, attempting to watch television, falling asleep, waking up, strangely disconnected and constantly weeping.

What an amazing moment. What a wonderful day.

Say it IS so Joe!!!

2008-10-27T10:19:00.000-07:00

I started baseball season this year with my first opening day with Joe Blanton pitching (but of course not hitting) for the American League Oakland As.

I got the chance to see him pitch one other time before he got sent to the (NAtional League) Philadelphia Phillies, and when they made it to the World Series with him pitching... well, despite the fact that everyone else I know is rooting for Tampa Bay... I just had to go with my guy!

To be honest though... I also have a hard time - the pirate or no pirate - rooting for anything from Tampa Bay! Besides... my mom was born in Philadelphia so I've got plenty of cred here.

Last night... as Karen and I were just getting home from a day of gorgeous fall weather, good eats, and soft leisurely time, we turned on the TV just as Joe was stepping up to bat.

To everyone's surprise, he whacks that baby outta the park!

His first major league home run (his career batting record includes 33 at-bats, 22 strikeouts and just two hits, both singles) turns out to be the first world series home run from a pitcher in 34 years! Even Karen, who's busy rooting for TB, had to give him his props!

Then of course, the Phillies (led out in pitching by Good Ol' Joe) went on to clobber The Rays 10 - 2.

Now THAT was the way to end my first real season as a baseball fan.

THIS is MY President!

2008-10-27T10:09:00.000-07:00

I am perpetually challenged for the fact that I wear flip flops (or "go aheads" or whatever else you wanna call them) pretty much all year round.

I grew up in Florida and Arizona... and I live in California... They ARE my footwear.

Barrack's from Hawaii and he's got the right shoes on his feet!

Yes WE Carve!

2008-10-27T09:48:00.000-07:00

Gonna have a pumpkin carving on Thursday night and this awfully cool video just came down over the internets to inspire me even more.

You can see more pumpkins and even get stencils at YesWeCarve.com.

JUST BARELY A WEEK TO GO!!!!

CHANGE is coming soon!

Opie We Hardly Knew Ye!

2008-10-25T08:00:00.001-07:00

I've been hearing about this for days, but I hadn't seen it until this morning. If this doesn't make you vote for Barack... well... you're just wr.... wr.... wr.... you know.

Miracles... Eventually

2008-10-20T11:13:00.000-07:00

A little over a year ago, I wrote a blog about the then new Annie Lennox album "Songs of Mass Destruction." In that blog I mentioned the campaign that she had helped to launch to more fully address AIDS issues in South Africa, and the song that was created as that campaign's theme song.

Despite years of benighted thinking and little action (not too terribly different from the actions of Ronald Reagan's administration twenty years ago), last week a miracle occurred when recently appointed health minister, Barbara Hogan turned South African AIDS policy off it's head and right side up.

Ms. Hogan, who as a South African white woman joined the African National Congress 30 years ago, was arrested, imprisoned and tortured, and has stood up for truth on both sides of the South African color barrier, is someone who shows what it means to be truthful, intentional, and human under some of the most frustrating, discouraging, and inhuman of circumstances.

This is where the world CAN go... Stories like these prove that, despite numbskulls everywhere, humans ARE EVOLVING... WE ARE getting better.

Too Obvious To Comment...

2008-10-10T10:20:00.001-07:00

If... like me... you haven't watched this since you were a kid, do yourself a favor and take the eight minutes to do it now.

THE SCUM RISES TO THE TOP

2008-10-07T11:02:00.001-07:00

I've been trying very hard for the last several days (ever since the news fast I wrote about last week at 40 Days To Life) to remain upbeat and positive about all the news rampaging through the mediascape. But the last few days have truly been too much to bear.

Yesterday I got very excited about the fact that McCain's direct connection to the Savings and Loan Crisis of the late 80s, and his direct involvement in The Keating 5, finally made some news. The man claiming he has the solution to the banking and securities crisis is one of the central figures that got us here in the first place! I write more about it at George Washington's Cousin so please go there (and send your friends)!

Then... the campaign has decided to raise the spectre of Bill Ayers "the terrorist" as one of Barack's friends and supporters. McCain even had the audacity to get all hot and bothered about Bill Ayers "targeting innocent people." This man, whose much touted time as a POW was caused because he was shot down over North Vietnam doing that very thing... "BOMBING INNOCENT PEOPLE" Not only is the accusation false, deceptive fear mongering, it's also so massively hypocritical I can barely breathe. Most of it is being propagated by little Miss Sunshine, Pentecostal "Christian" Sarah Palin... I'm not sure what she's thinking about Commandment #9 (Exodus 20:1-17) there on that list that she and her Republican friends are always so interested in putting up in governement buildings. "Do not bear false witness" seems pretty damned clear to me! I'm thinking that she should give it some thought.

Funny how the whole bunch can be so worried about OTHER PEOPLE obeying "The Bible" while they choose to play fast and loose with it themselves.

I'm working on a piece about all that and I hope to have it finished before the debate tonight. It will also be at George Washington's Cousin, so please check it out.

I really am seeking a more centered peaceful, loving place... I am really TRYING to "be the change" I want to see in the world, but it's just so damned hard with such complete scumbags trying to take over the country.

O'Boss For Obama!

2008-10-06T10:33:00.000-07:00

To my way of thinking, Bruce Springsteen is THE consummate American musical artist of my lifetime. For more than 30 years he has told the particularly American story of Big Dreams met with Big Disappointments, while at the same time showing the possibility of keeping hope, joy, engagement, and rock & roll alive, thriving, and supporting the basic life of that dream and the lives of the people in his stories. He is the second coming of Woody Guthrie AND Johnny Cash, with a little bit of Billy Sunday and George M. Cohen thrown in for good measure.

There are plenty of people who don't share my perspective on The Boss. A lot of people, like Ronald Reagan, have not and do not understand the basic social realities at the root of even his most popular, most anthemic, songs (like Born In The USA).

This weekend, he once again spoke, sang, and showed his true colors at a rally for Barack in Philly.

You can read the text of his speech (before he sings The Rising) here.

Serendipity after Disappointment

2008-10-03T07:41:00.000-07:00

So I was reading the usual suspects this morning to see what people thought about the disappointing and worrisome debate last night. Disappointing because it wasn't the blood bath I and a lot of other people had hoped for(even pacifists want blood and circuses sometimes), worrisome because the fact that Palin didn't totally wash out makes me fear she might be taken seriously.

Well... too my surprise, my day was changed by an advertisement. At the side of one of the Palin articles on Huffington Post I saw this interesting little ad for the new movie The Soloist. WIth Jamie Foxx and Robert Downie Jr. I had to click the button (you should too!)

NOW... just because of this brief moment on computer I am sitting here in my apartment with tears on my face and hope for better things in my heart.

That debate last night... doesn't matter. THIS kind of stuff does.

Here's the movie website... the trailer's pretty darn good too.

Happy Birthday Elizabeth

2008-09-26T11:09:00.001-07:00

I began this post a couple of weeks ago after I missed the opportunity to attend the ordination to retirement ceremony for one of my best friends. I worked hard on it coming up to yesterday in the hope of getting it up in time for her birthday, but it tends to be one of those writing experiences where despite my desire to be, and my feeling that on a good day I am, "good with words," the words run away from me like a skittish bunny that is unsure of my intentions.

Elizabeth is one of three people I consider my "best" friend. She has been in my life for the last 26 years - nearly half of my life - and despite the fact that I am incredibly inept at being a steadfast and dependable friend to her, she is, and has always been that to me.

We first met, very briefly, in Seattle at a meeting of the Evangelical Women's Caucus when I was both a new seminary graduate and a new father, carting my kid around in a denim blue snuggly (something that I can't even find a Google link to in this age of modern pram/land speed vehicle high end strollers) and smiling in self-congratulatory smugness at my "feminist husband" act. The fact of the matter was that I didn't have a clue what I was doing, with my life, my marriage, my supposed calling, or for that matter, my new baby girl. Elizabeth, and her husband John, on the other hand gave me a sense that maybe there was something more grounded and honest in all this political/ theological posturing. From the very beginning I sensed a centeredness, a humaness, and a genuineness that drew me like a warm fire.

Over the next few years, with their visits to San Francisco and my visits to Los Angeles, we gradually became closer and closer friends. The glow of warmth that emanated from their lives and their home even made me love Los Angeles (a real stretch for an inveterate and unshakable NoCal boy like me). On my first visit to their house I tasted lox and bagels for the first time on a Sunday morning. Lox and bagels remain one of my central food cravings and weekend rituals. I even have fond memories of an afternoon spent in the sunshine with Elizabeth eating ceviche at Gladstones 4 Fish; an afternoon that turned into an evening of food poisoning misery, but which makes me smile now as I write about it.

At the time I thought of myself as a hotshot forward thinking progressive with a tiny little record company that I was hoping to turn into the next Geffen Records, allowing me to make millions of dollars while also changing the world. In reality I was pretty much like I am now: a wild eyed dreamer with little discipline, minimal resources, a whole lot of intellectual chauvinism, and so much hopeful idealism that I should have been given a handicapped pass. Elizabeth, even in the midst of less than fulfilling professional circumstances, was a solid rock and a light hearted fairy who could simultaneously make me laugh and think and hope. She knocked the air out of my windbag bullshit without knocking the hope from my heart in the process. She was serious, and solid, and spiritual, and fun. On several occasions I shared meals, wine and words with Elizabeth and John (and family) and those experiences have forever colored my concept of heaven and my underlying expectations for most other human interactions.

A few years later, when Elizabeth started making regular trips to the Bay Area for work on her Doctorate of Ministry, we each made time to eat well, drink a lot, talk more, and take in the loveliness of living where we live. The only moments in that time of my life that equaled those moments were the times I spent with my daughter. During those years, these were literally my best times; they were, repeatedly, Perfect Moments.

There was a definite sense in which Elizabeth saved my life. In the years since, she has remained an amazing delight at each and every moment. If I catch her note at the end of a blog, or a phone message saying she's coming to town, I am affected with a tunnel vision that momentarily blocks all else from my consciousness.

As I write this now I find myself experiencing those moments again, as if they happened yesterday, or this morning. The memories transform this otherwise mundane moment, and the task of cobbling these words together, into it's own Perfect Moment. I find myself loaded on joy and memory as if on psychedelics carrying me into a place of effervescent time and space. There is a joy in the memories from the last 26 years so solid and bright and real that it forces the majority of my other experiences into the shadows.

I believe that the only way any of us REALLY experiences The God/Goddess is in the body and blood of other human beings. I believe that THIS is the heart of the Christian myth of God and Jesus... A choice by the Divine to BECOME a flesh and blood person; a choice to live with joy and sorrow, abundance and want, pain and ecstasy. I believe there is no other God but us.

Elizabeth IS the face of The God/Goddess to me.

She is also my friend.

Happy (Belated) Birthday E. I am VERY glad you were born.

A Lighter Shade of Pale

2008-09-25T09:40:00.000-07:00

McCain dumps on Letterman and Dave returns the favor. This is SO great!

Blast from the recent past...

2008-09-24T14:16:00.000-07:00

It's been nearly six months since Jen and Andy got married and their photographer Chung Nguyen has recently put up this little video reminder of what a great day it was.

It makes me smile... it makes me cry... It reminds me of what life is REALLY about.

My Tree... Helen's House

2008-09-19T15:10:00.000-07:00

This is the view out one of my apartment windows. It's the largest live oak tree in Petaluma and it (like so many trees in my life during the last three years) serves as a source of spiritual piece and psychological respite. It is also the centerpiece setting for one of the most beautiful historic homes in Petaluma and will be featured in this weekend's Historic Homes Tour.

My little apartment isn't part of the show, and I will likely not be here while the masses tour the beautiful home that I am lucky enough to live so near.

There is a sense that this is a magical house. Helen Putnam was both a council member and a mayor in Petaluma long before that woman from Alaska came along to despoil the image of small town mayors, and she had a love for people and a care for the outdoors that was so deep that this little town has named both a downtown plaza and a beautiful regional park (just up the street and over the hill from me ) after her.

If you click on the above link to the Press Democrat story about the house, you will find a whole collection of photos of the truly lovely renovation job that my landlords and newfound friends have worked for ten years to complete. My little loft apartment is a bit more modest than the grandiosity of Helen's House... but it suits me just fine.

And then of course... there's the tree.

More... More... More

2008-09-19T12:19:00.001-07:00

New stuff up this morning at Bleeding Daylight and at 40 Days... Check it out.

More to come, so check back too!

Remember!

2008-09-16T19:09:00.000-07:00

There has been so much stupid negativity over the last two weeks (conveniently, ever since the Republcan Convention) and I will admit that I have been a part of it.

But so has Barack and his team. What started, in the primaries, as a call to action and the lead out of an inspirational juggernaut has, in the weeks since his great speech at the convention, turned into standard Democratic rudderless campaign meandering.

NO!!!!! It was the inspiration that moved us. The call to BE a people, not just expect MORE of Government. To Ask Not... but...

We still need THAT inspiration... we still need THAT leader. We still need THAT HOPE.

¡SI SE PUEDE! YES... WE... CAN!

What Would Jesus Do?

2008-09-13T11:02:00.000-07:00

This story, my storypeople story of the day, brings up an excellent point.

What WOULD Jesus Do... not just in his circumstances meandering about Palestine 2,000 years ago, but right here today, under THESE circumstances, with THESE conditions, and THIS world? That's a reasonably interesting question. One of the first, and one of my favorite, things I learned in seminary was the principle of reading and grappling with scripture here and now, living with it in present reality and not simply accepting the stories for their ancient, and temporally-bound, content.

When you ask the question what would Jesus (or whomever you choose to emulate) do in my circumstances, you are indeed likely to come up with a new answer like the one posed above. The next question is, of course, does "NO" mean he would do the same thing he did before, or that he would do the same thing as you?

What does YOUR "magic religious 8 ball" say? Hmmmmm?

A Sneak Preview of Things To Come

2008-09-12T12:01:00.000-07:00

My post at George Washington's Cousin which I mention below has recently been altered.

The Sarah Palin video, which includes large chunks of images and information regarding the fanatical and incendiary group of right wing "christians" that she belongs to has been removed from You Tube and is no longer available. Instead I went to the filmmaker's website and was able to find the piece hosted on another server, so I have subsequently changed the link.

This kind of thing is pretty typical procedure for Google (which owns You Tube.. AND Blogspot). It has also been increasingly typical behavior in the U.S. during these "Bush League" years.

I REALLY hate getting into these fear-mongering perspectives and propagating the kind of negativity that seems to be flying about, BUT... I am afraid that it is only a small example of what is likely to come if we do not defend our precious liberty and prevent McCain/Palin and their cadre of revisionist neo non-thinkers from taking over the government.

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." ~Benjamin Franklin

Women Against Sarah Palin

2008-09-11T12:23:00.001-07:00

THIS needs no explanation and it's damn good reading. I offer it as my last word on the new candidate for Vice Pretender in Chief (who has already received FAR more attention than she deserves). These women are much more eloquent on the matter than I can even hope to be (duh!).

Here is the initial post (you'll find it, as usual, at the very bottom of the site scroll).

Read the rest for yourself! Then pass it on!

OUR ORIGINAL CALL TO ACTION
Friends and compatriots,

We are writing to you because of the fury and dread we have felt since the announcement of Sarah Palin as the Vice-Presidential candidate for the Republican Party. We believe that this terrible decision has surpassed mere partisanship, and that it is a dangerous farce-on the part of a pandering and rudderless Presidential candidate-that has a real possibility of becoming fact.

Perhaps like us, as American women, you share the fear of what Ms. Palin and her professed beliefs and proven record could lead to for ourselves and for our present or future daughters. To date, she is against sex education, the pro-choice platform, environmental protection, alternative energy development, freedom of speech (as mayor she wanted to ban books and attempted to fire the librarian who stood against her), gun control, the separation of church and state, and polar bears. To say nothing of her complete lack of real preparation to become the second-most-powerful person on the planet.

We want to clarify that we are not against Sarah Palin as a woman, a mother, or, for that matter, a parent of a pregnant teenager, but solely as a rash, incompetent, and all together devastating choice for Vice President. Ms. Palin's political views are in every way a slap in the face to the accomplishments that our mothers and grandmothers so fiercely fought for, and that we've so demonstrably benefited from.

First and foremost, Ms. Palin does not represent us. She does not demonstrate or uphold our interests as American women. It is presumed that the inclusion of a woman on the Republican ticket could win over women voters. We want to disagree, publicly.

Therefore, we invite you to reply here with a short, succinct message about why you, as a woman living in this country, do not support this candidate as second-in-command for our nation.

Please include your name (last initial is fine), age, and place of residence.

We will post your responses on a blog called "Women Against Sarah
Palin," which we intend to publicize as widely as possible. Please
send us your reply at your earliest convenience-the greater the volume of responses we receive, the stronger our message will be.

Thank you for your time and action.

VIVA!

Sincerely,

Quinn L. and Lyra K.
New York, NY
womensaynopalin@gmail.com

**PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY! If you send this to 20 women in the next hour, you could be blessed with a country that takes your concerns seriously. Stranger things have happened.

Be AFRAID...

2008-09-09T11:48:00.000-07:00

I've posted a video and discussion regarding Sarah Palin's churches and her connections to The American Taliban at my George Washington's Cousin website because people need to know what this woman is, and those behind her are, all about. I am not a fear monger, and I believe in the political process, but we are truly through the looking glass here and we need to be paying attention.

Someone said about politicians that "It's not who you vote for, but who they bring with them." This has been especially true in the last eight years and if, by some absurd possibility, the country elects McCain/Palin the folks THEY bring with em will be a disaster.

40 Days To Life

2008-09-08T08:27:00.000-07:00

For several years now (all the way back to when I was in New Orleans at the time of Katrina) I have tried to create a "change your life" program that runs for something around 6 weeks. I've tried different approaches, different lengths of time... I've tried pretty much everything and it has never worked.

So... with motivation I picked up at Glide Church yesterday morning (more on that later) I'm starting again. This time I'm going to blog it in the hope that the practice of publicly journaling my thoughts, feelings, experiences, and work in this arena will help me stick with it, and provide me with some sort of insight into my psyche that I might not have otherwise.

If you're feeling curious, or just particularly voyeuristic, you can read along at 40 Days To Life.

Just About The Only Thing That REALLY Matters

2008-09-06T16:42:00.000-07:00

This song just kills me. The video takes me to another place altogether...
Right now I really need this inspiration.

Right now I need THIS to be what my life is really about.

It's not about Obama... It's about life counting for something... really.

Taking Cover... Round Two

2008-09-06T15:25:00.001-07:00

Ike is working up a head for destruction and an intention for New Orleans. Already a Cat 4, it's bearing down on Cuba's eastern side, and that is already not a good thing.

When Ike pushes over Cuba, the storm will lose some power, but then it heads into an overheated Gulf of Mexico, already hopped up and ripe for the increase in force that the Gulf's high 80s temperatures is almost assuredly going to add.

Folks just getting back to their jobs in New Orleans on Monday are likely to find that they have to retreat again on Tuesday.

It's mind boggling... it's frustrating... it's scary.

It makes the overwrought issues of my life feel COMPLETELY inconsequential.

All I've got to say, is that I'll be prayin'... again.

Amnesia Central

2008-09-05T08:22:00.000-07:00

The Republicans spent most of the last week and ALL of last night trying to pretend that THEY haven't been the ones in charge of the country for the last eight years.

They tried to pretend:

1) That it wasn't on THEIR watch that 9/11 took place. As they have for the last 7 years, they ignored the arrogant, ignorant, self-aggrandizing attitude of the incoming Bush administration that ignored the warnings they were given. They tried to pretend that Bush and Company didn't ignore security briefings and detailed reports exploring the possibility of the very thing that happened, and happened while Bush was just coming back from vacation.

2) That it wasn't on THEIR watch that we entered a quagmire of a war built up on the basis of lies by all involved, with an enemy that was set up by the VERY SAME PEOPLE who chose to fight it, for reasons that had nothing to do with a threat to the U.S. or even retribution for attacks against us, and with the sacrifice of men and women who were not properly prepared, supported, or equipped (and not by a Democratic controlled Congress, by the way... but by a REPUBLICAN controlled Congress).

3) As recently as last night, they tried to avoid the fact that it was a Republican administration that established us in Iran after setting up the Shah (a man at least as bad as our other "friend" Saddam), and that it was their beloved Ronald Reagan (along with George Bush Senior... the former director of the CIA) who treasonously engineered the continued capture of American hostages and then finally their release on Reagan's inauguration day. A deal brokered with arms for Iran, provided by business cronies of the Reagan administration and used to subvert Congress. an entire - and ongoing - process that has us EXACTLY where we are today.

4) That we are "hated" for our freedom, when the clear evidence is that we are "hated" for our reckless, insidious, and violent abuse of OTHER'S freedom.

5) That it wasn't on their watch that Bush and McCain laughed and joked and ate cake, while New Orleans (the second largest port in the U.S.) went under, and stayed under, water.

6) That it wasn't on their watch that the largest budget surplus in U.S. history was turned into the largest budget deficit in just 8 years through the haphazard policies of a renegade president, a thieving vice-president, and a complicit Republican controlled Congress.

7) That it's "Morning In America" and the Reagan Republicans have come back to save us from the Democrat's Debacle.

This debacle belongs to The Republican Party... and it belongs to John McCain. He not only has inherited it - a fact he spent the week (and the night) trying to avoid - McCain helped to create it!

It IS Morning in America... and THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON HOPE!

So long John... Don't let the door hit ya on the way out!

Busy Making Other Plans

2008-09-03T16:16:00.000-07:00

I've been having an interesting experience over the last few weeks. Actually this experience has been playing out for me over the last year. It just happens that because of certain significant events in my life, the focus of this tends to become extremely sharp during the last of August and first of September.

Whether it's fretfully watching the progress of Gustav (or now Ike) approaching, in, and through the Gulf of Mexico, or alternately laughing hysterically and biting my nails over election events, busting my chops to drive in new work and new business, or filling my mind with grandiose ambitions for hopeful personal futures, I am fully aware that LIFE is happening on a whole other level.

This was especially the case with my Bubble Day last Monday, but it was also the case this weekend as we simply threw up our hands and glided our way into Dry Creek for Bella Winery's Labor Day Weekend celebration, a laid back, easy to take, day on the grass with good wine and Mitch Woods at the keyboard. This was followed by a friendly party at a friend's house down the street, and then yesterday, an invitation to take the last of the afternoon off and join some friends for tasting and touring at Petaluma's own, Lagunitas Brewery.

The plans are still there... the fretting, the conniving, the hoping and dreaming... but life keeps going on anyway, and at times like this, in late summer wine country, I find it very hard not to echo the sentiment of a friend of mine in Sonoma, who once last fall made the observation that we "live like kings!"

Values, Voting and Vetos

2008-09-03T09:28:00.000-07:00

The above graphic from Salon shows Governor Sarah Palin's use of line item veto to cut $1,100,000 of funding (more than 20%) for Covenant House, a home for teen mothers.

I thought about that for a while, in light of Sarah's new status of Vice President/Grandmother in waiting, and decided to write about it over at George Washington's Cousin.

Adrift in the Home of the Free Part Deux

2008-09-02T11:26:00.000-07:00

I'm not a major fan of Amy Goodman's Democracy Now program. While on the one hand it always seems to me they do good work, and they have a history of paying attention to the things that matter, they also come off amateurish, overwrought and ineffective.

NEVERTHELESS... Amy Goodman and the folks that work with her serve a VERY important purpose in the ongoing reportage of incidents, material, and secrets that would not otherwise see the light of day (even if the daylight they see is extremely limited). In the midst of their reporting they regularly enter the fray of the controversies and protests that they are covering (as far back as 26 years ago, Pacifica reporters were broadcasting from jail when I was arrested with several thousand other protesters at Lawrence Livermore Labs).

Yesterday two producers from Democracy Now, and later Amy Goodman - who was working to get them released - was arrested as well. The above video shows her personal citizen/authority interaction.

This is the general nature of police forces under such circumstances, and particularly the case under present circumstances, present legal convolutions, and the present administration.

As of this writing, Amy, et al have been released, but are still under indictment.

This is not America!

Short Attention Span Theater

2008-09-01T14:55:00.001-07:00

The Republican's are already getting all self-congratulatory over how they've handled the catastrophe of Gustav three years after Bush and McCain served up birthday cake while New Orleans drowned.

Everybody's breathing a sigh or relief and patting each other on the back for doing a better job this time around (so far...) as if that excuses them from the travesty of Katrina three years ago and the ongoing incompetence, callousness and irresponsibility that has continued to plague relief efforts to this day.

This time George, who likely was looking for a way to get out of a disastrous speech to close out his horror of an administration anyway, got served up a reprieve. Instead he wound up in Texas looking as bored and dull-witted as he did when he attended Kermit Ruffins concert at the White House and reminded him to "...make sure you pick up the trash when it's over.".

So far, the best thing about Gustav is that we won't have to suffer through Dick Cheney's speech, while the "Maverick" tries to make us forget that gargoyle of a Vice President by soft-peddling us Little Mary Sunshine. McCain and Ms. Lightweight headed off to Mississippi to make sure they were seen looking concerned about storm damage rather than shoving pieces of birthday cake into each other's mouths like fawning teenage newlyweds.

SPEAKING OF WHICH... Mama Palin and her family offered us up an interesting thought on the office when she acknowledged that her 17 year old daughter is pregnant. I seem to remember a moment in Barack's speech the other night when he said "...regardless of whether or not we agree on abortion we can all agree on the need to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies." I'm guessing this isn't going to be a major focus of the McCain/Palin campaign over the next two months.

And the beat goes on... Happy Labor Day!

Just Too F&!#'n Funny

2008-08-30T11:43:00.000-07:00

On a lighter note... This is the kind of thing I was just talking about... THIS is what happens to you when you watch too much You Tube (though I actually found this in the most recent issue of Rolling Stone).

In honor of the 10th Anniversary of The Greatest Story Ever Told, here's 2 minutes of Fantastically Funny Freaking Filmwork.

To quote The Cowboy (and a number of my personal friends)... "Do you have to use so many cuss words?"

[Note: Not for family (or office) consumption.]

Adrift In The Home Of The Free

2008-08-30T09:14:00.000-07:00

I was checking on the Gustav blogs that Enigma4ever has at Watergate Summer and found a link to a really beautiful version of Randy Newman's Louisiana 1927, a song that always made me cry BEFORE Katrina, but which now days I can barely make it through without breaking down into sobs. In that sense it's alot like an Anders Osborne song (sung here by Jesse Moore) that really has come to be the Katrina anthem to me, and a lot of others.

All of that is actually by way of saying that the song above has nothing to do with that (well even that's not really true, but you'll have to watch the video to see what I mean). I found the song above in one of the You Tube synapses that almost always happens when you go to You Tube for one thing and emerge four hours later, glassy eyed and confused.

In any case... with Gustav bearing down on The Crescent City, and The Republican Convention bearing down on The Twin Cities (at the opposite end of the country), I offer the above video as honor, memory, and wistful longing for an America that might have been (and with ANY luck at all, might yet still be).

You're Kidding... Right?

2008-08-29T10:59:00.000-07:00

So John McCain has decided that the way to go after a dream ticket like Obama/Biden is to pretend like Sarah Palin is somehow the equivalent of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

To quote a line from Firesign Theater, "It's an interesting approach... but it isn't us."

On Wednesday night Senator Clinton brought her historic campaign to a close when she came to the floor of the Democratic Convention, took her name out of nomination and asked that the delegates nominate Barack Obama by acclamation. It was an amazing political moment, a classy act, and shrewd politics. It was the act of someone who knows what she's doing and has been doing it for most of her life.

To the contrary, John McCain has just chosen a woman whose entire political career consists of being the mayor of a town of less than 10,000 and being Governor, for all of eighteen months, of Alaska, a state with a population (670,000) smaller than most large cities in the U.S. THIS is her entire experience, and THIS is who John McCain puts up as some sort of equivalent to Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden.

There are plenty of people who I am sure will fall for this ruse, but please, let us not fall into the stupid argument that there's anything about Sarah Palin that makes her the political equal of anyone on the Democratic ticket. The campaign that has been ranting about Barack's inexperience to govern has just provided us with a candidate for Vice President who could not be LESS suited to high office. It's too bad that John couldn't have tapped the small though significant list of far more qualified Republican women... But those women likely would have been too much for him.

Nice try John... and it IS indeed nice to see the Republicans nominate a woman for the nation's second highest office.

Next time, could you maybe nominate someone actually CAPABLE of holding it?

Between A Rock and A Wet Place

2008-08-28T07:54:00.000-07:00

Because of my experience 3 years ago today when, at pretty much the last minute I grabbed my landlord's dog and my landlord's van and beat it (very very SLOOOOWLY) north to Hattiesburg MS to ride out Katrina, and because of my care for and concern for so many people still in The Crescent City, I worry A LOT about what goes on during hurricane season.

This morning however, checking to see the status of Gustav, I caught this image from the National Hurricane Center and thought... YOW! My sister, aunts, cousins and friends on the east coast of Florida, The Pirate and his family on the west coast of Florida and even some new friends I just met the other day in wine country, are sitting smack dab in the middle of a tropical onslaught that's going to be ugly no matter how you look at it. Folks from Cuba and the Caribbean and pretty much all points north are looking at a one two punch like nobody's seen in quite some time. This is what life in the tropics during the late summer is really all about.

Our Lady of Prompt SuccorHasten to Help Us...

2008-08-27T08:32:00.000-07:00

I got a call last night from New Orleans. My friend Mary had called to ask me to go to the website of Our Lady of Prompt Succor, the patron of New Orleans, and to pray... and to KEEP PRAYING. Knowing me, and my rather dubious spirituality, she wasn't 100% serious... she was only 99.97% serious.

Mary already had much of her stuff packed and was preparing to get things, like risers for her bed, if and when the flooding comes. Mary knows the drill. She lost her house three years ago when The Thing took us out last time.

Yesterday, Louisiana Governor (and possible McCain running mate) Bobby Jindal made statement trying to reassure everyone that plans were well in hand and that comes as soon as Thursday, the state might start "activating bus contracts" with contraflow escape routes starting as early as sometime Saturday. Of course, during this time, a week away from probable landfall, C. Ray Nay-gone has yet to utter a word (at least any word that I can find) and Governor Jindal is probably feeling pretty pissed that he might have to miss the Republican Convention.

So here we go again. Gustav has already killed 11 in Haiti and will no doubt cause even more havoc in Cuba when it blasts that little island sometime tomorrow. The fact of the matter is that wherever this storm goes, it's likely to be massive. I have friends on the West Coast of Florida that could get hit if it heads East, and friends in Mississippi that will get hit if it heads down the middle, and lots and lots of dear folks in New Orleans (who I expect will get the hell outta Dodge pretty quickly), if it stays on the track the weather service is now predicting.

So... I'm heeding Mary's request and taking the prayer to Our Lady of Prompt Succor out to the backyard where I can pray it in front of the statue of The Virgin that my landlord has in my little "Garden of Good Graces." Care to join me?

Happy Bubble Day!

2008-08-26T10:37:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my birthday and in an ongoing change of lifestyle that has been rolling out ever since last year at this time, I actually TOOK THE DAY OFF!

What did I do instead of spending the majority of my waking hours staring at the screen of my Mac? Well... to read about that go over to FoodFetish and take a look. It mostly has to do with Karen and I heading out in search of bubbles... many many bubbles.

For me this birthday felt like the culmination of a process that began for me a year ago when I finally put to bed some of the deepest struggle, lostness and pain that came out of the summer of 2005 when I first moved to - and then away from - New Orleans, before, during and after Katrina. For me it's been a year of truly rebuilding my life; finding new love, of finding a new place to be, seeing my daughter get married and enter a whole new life of her own, finding new people, new work, new enjoyments (and renewed old enjoyments), new pastimes, and new hope.

We ended the day in another BUBBLY FASHION, when we made it home in time to catch Ted Kennedy at the convention.

Watching his speech felt like a significant part of my birthday, for it ended a truly perfect day with the up note of positivity, hope for the future (even in the face of brain cancer) and the idea that a change really just might be around the corner.

It was a very good day. Indeed... it was a BEAUTIFUL day.

I'm Sorry E...

2008-08-24T15:16:00.000-07:00

I can't not write this blog today.

The Olympics, which I love... always... and which I think are, and should be, mostly apolitical are ending tonight in Beijing.

Because yesterday I was accidentally (in that internet sorta way) directed toward a new site with very interesting and informed connections, I have been fully confronted with a reality I was very aware of, a reality I was having a problem with, and a reality that disturbs me on many many levels.

19 years ago this summer I stood in the living room of my home in Sonoma, watching a black blank TV tuned to CNN as reporters screamed news about an unbelievable event happening at that very moment. I was stunned. My mouth open, my mind astonished. There was a real revolution happening right before our ears and the juxtaposition of voyeurism and compassion was nearly impossible to stand.

These moments were then followed by one of the most astonishing images to ever cross a media screen. The single image of one man, staring down a line of tanks.

Since that time there have been many changes in China... changes theoretically for the good, and changes theoretically for the better.

One of the main changes is that in the 19 years since Tiananmen Square the Chinese government has come to own a massive percentage of our Dubya created debt. They also are creating an ubelievable market economy that, as usual, ignores, and even exploits, the reality of the lower classes in the rural areas.

There is of course the question of the issues with Tibet and ongoing human rights violations

But the most compelling question with regard to China still comes back to those days 19 years ago when first students, and then the general population stood up to say STOP. There is an amazing documentary on the event and on the inspiration of "Tank Man" which takes 90 minutes to watch, but is completely available on You Tube. Most importantly, this documentary looks at how the west has chosen to accommodate the Chinese government and it's abuses for the simple fact that there is profit... LOTS of profit... to be made there.

At the same time that we as a government, and individuals, sell ourselves out hook, line and sinker to the authoritarian government of China, we are closing in on 50 years of embargo against a little tiny island 90 miles from our shores. Because both sides of our government cowtow to the Gusanos in Miami, in search of the ever present dollar and the ever elusive chad, our government permanently (at least in my life time) exists within a reality between selling out to a set of big time "communists" on one continent and big time greed heads on our own, while pretending that "Amerkkka" stands for freedom.

I'm 54 years old tomorrow, and I don't think I can remember when we have ever REALLY stood for freedom, despite our rhetoric and despite what I want to believe. I am pretty sure, on this evening before my anniversaire, that I don't want to live life in any way that ignores any longer the basics of what really matters. But I've struggled with that reality for my whole life (literally my WHOLE life) and I still don't have a decent answer regarding how to both exist in a life that is lovely to live, AND a life that matters.

Somewhere about 22 years ago (more or less) I was visiting new friends in LA, when one of those new friends made a comment that transformed my life. Sitting around the middle of his living room, drinking wine and pontificating about what mattered in the world, a whole collection of us waxed eloquent about the way things ought to be in the age of Reagan. At that time, I had just come back from the first Witness for Peace trip to Nicaragua, and my business partner and I were developing a gospel album that chose to truly take on the ongoing story of American militarism that included, Iran, Iraq, Guatemala, Nicaragua and more (the fact that one of the songs being worked on at that very moment could have been written yesterday is for another blog at another time). My friend stopped the conversation (and stopped my heart, my brain and forever my ongoing sense of what matters) with the comment, "Plato said that three things matter; Justice, Truth, and Beauty, and I'm ready for a little beauty." We were very big on justice and truth in those days, and I thought his advocacy of beauty was vitally important.

Right now, at nearly twice the age I was when we had that conversation, I am once again looking for truth and justice, but with the added hope that maybe we could include beauty as well. I've never been able to really pull this off, and I am forever, and rather unsuccessfully, searching for it.

But these days... I seem to have a bit more hope, and on this birthday eve I really am hoping that we might get there this time.It is indeed MY AMERICAN PRAYER.

Let's Go Joe!

2008-08-23T10:42:00.000-07:00

Okay... so the suspense is over. I didn't get my promised text message last night though. Several weeks ago the Obama campaign txt messaged (can that REALLY be a verb!?!?) me stating that Barack would be announcing his VP choice by txt message in the coming weeks so all us lucky millions of minions should stand by our phones.

Well... I did. Don't ask me why. It's not like I didn't have plenty of other things to do besides checking my cell phone, but there I was all day yesterday, checking and rechecking the little silver Motorola in my pocket every time I felt a stray buzz or heard a faraway beep. Other people got the call, but not me.

So this morning I get up and turn on CNN only to find out that John King has scooped me! Joe Biden is the VP selection, and while it left me feeling a bit jilted, I have to say that this really is MY Dream Ticket.

I have admired Joe Biden since I was in college and he was a freshman senator during the Watergate hearings. I have never ceased to be impressed by him ever since. There have been many times when he felt a little too conservative for my most leftward leanings, and other times when his straight talk, down the line, dog with a bone questioning in Senate hearings has made me smile and made me proud. He's always been one of those people that makes me feel glad about being American. He's given me a lot of those "see what humans can do" kind of moments.

Joe Biden is, as one commentator I heard described him this morning, a "happy warrior." He is perpetually smiling while at the same time you get the sense that the man is about as grounded as it's possible to be. It's going to be tough for the McCain campaign to weasel in on Joe. He provides the stability that people keep trying to claim is lacking in Barack (I don't agree with those people by the way, but that's for another blog).

Besides all that... he's a real snappy dresser!

Right now though, I wanna know how come I didn't get that 3 am phone call.

Down the Rabbit Hole

2008-08-05T09:40:00.001-07:00

It's been nearly a month since I actually wrote a blog. It's not that I haven't been writing (au contrare) it's just that focusing on BLOG writing, or even taking the time to put some of the things I have written for blog consumption ON LINE has been completely unavailable. I've tried to address that a little bit by starting a "mini blog" at Twitter, which you can find here, but in general it's just been a little bit like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride over the last few weeks.

About three months ago I volunteered to co-chair the Petaluma Sesquicentennial River Fest committee. I thought, hey... it'll be fun; it will get me more connected with the town (something that hasn't happened since I moved to New Orleans three years ago) it won't take that much time, I'll be working with people with whom I enjoy interacting, it's far enough down the line that most of the critical stuff has been taken care of. Well... I couldn't have been more wrong, except for the people part. Most of the people I've worked with on this have been fantastic and have made it truly a worthwhile experience despite the insanity). What I never counted on (and I should have because, hell... I used to be in the CHURCH) was the way literally every waking moment would be sucked into the black hole of this exciting, though poorly planned and poorly executed adventure. Pretty much ALL of my assumptions about what had been done, needed to be done, and the time it would take were wrong. By the time I learned this it was indeed too late. That's pretty much the way such things go in general, and like I said, I should have known that.

What I'm glad about is that I have indeed found my way into deeper connection with the town where I live at present and in another way altogether, a deeper connection with myself in that way that only doing things outside your comfort level, and for others around you, can do.

It's going to be a GREAT event! If you're in Northern California this weekend you should stop by P-Town on Sunday and check it out for yourself. As for me... I'm going to be REALLY GLAD for this week to end so I can get back to WORK.

There Is No Fifth Destination

2008-07-08T10:31:00.001-07:00

I moved to San Francisco 31 years ago next month. I was soon to be 23 (4 days after arrival), married for a year and a half, and about to become a seminary student at the Baptist seminary at the edge of the known world. I had been told by many folks back in Arizona that I should not let "sin city" turn me around and that I should be very careful that what they taught me in seminary didn't somehow destroy my pure beliefs. Of course, most of the people that provided that advice didn't realize that, even then, my beliefs weren't even close to pure (hence the reason I was moving to San Francisco rather than Dallas).

Despite the fact that we lived on the seminary campus in Mill Valley for the first three years of residence, I never felt like anything other than a citizen of San Francisco. My wife almost immediately got a job in the city. We went to a a wonderful very liberal, very political church in the city. I first volunteered and then was hired at a youth center in the Fillmore... We were San Franciscans in waiting, and upon my seminary graduation in 1980 we made it official. A couple of years later our daughter was born in San Francisco, where she still lives as a proud "San Francisco Native."

It was during this time that I stumbled upon Armisted Maupin's "Tales of The City." First, as a column in the Chronicle and later as the first book in this now 7 (a perfect number?) series.

From the first paragraph of the first story, I felt like I was a part of the Barbary Lane crowd. Sometimes I felt like one character, then at other times I felt like another. Most of the time I felt like I knew every one of the people (they were never characters) in the book and most of them were my friends. The ones I didn't fully know (for example, I didn't yet know anyone like Anna Madrigal) I came to love anyway and to look for them in the environment like someone searching for a unicorn or a magical wizard. I found them all soon enough.

When the series ended back in the 90s, I was overcome with a sadness much akin to the feeling you get when good friends - very good friends - move away, or otherwise disappear from your life. This happened at a time in my personal life (again a feeling of solidarity with the folks on the Lane) when I was a losing a lot of my personal flesh and blood friends. Losing them to AIDS, losing them to moves (both theirs and mine) out of The City, losing them through stupid disagreements, or simple relational laziness.

When the stories stopped coming, it was like my best friends had walked out on me and left me alone and dazed.

It was just about a year ago that I walked into Copperfields Books in Petaluma to be greeted by a new book display with the three word proclamation, "Michael Tolliver Lives!"

It stopped me dead in my tracks.

Armistead Maupin had done it again. While I had thought that my friends were gone forever. I was surprised to find out that, just like me, they had been continuing with their lives. Growing better... different... older. Here's Michael - whose inevitable and eventual demise I had come to sadly accept in the same way I accepted the deaths of so many flesh and blood people - alive, reasonably well, and strolling the streets of The Castro. My personal reaction was much akin to that of a character on the first page of the new book. "Hey, you're supposed to be dead."

It took me a year to get up the courage to finally purchase the book and begin to dig into the lives of these people I had lost. And it took me all of three days (it would have been one, but I had work to do) to tear my way through the book, laughing, crying, gasping, and cheering all the way.

These are my friends! And despite the fact that we lost track of each other for so long, they've come back and I am discovering how deeply I missed them. I spoke about this with a friend the other day and she had the exact same reaction... "Michael's ALIVE!?!?"

Yeah... Michael's alive... and he's my age, and the day after the clerk at the grocery store gave me the "senior discount" upon checkout, Michael gets it from a waitress in Florida. His reaction was much the same as mine.

Anna makes me smile softly with her understanding and her peace. These days she reminds me of several folks I know and love. Brian's daughter Shawna (and Michael's daughter as well, really) reminds me of my daughter; in attitude, and humor, and dress. The City is still The City, no matter what they do to change her.

I've really missed these people. This really IS my life...

There IS No Fifth Destination.

Happy New Year!

2008-07-01T09:26:00.000-07:00

Many years ago I ran a recording company that operated more like a business than most of the work I've done in the years since.

Recently I was speaking with a friend of mine about his year end/year beginning tasks as his new fiscal year was approaching on July 1. It reminded me that the fiscal year for the record company had run from July 1 and it gave me the idea that maybe one way to kick start some of the things that I would like to do and some of the new work that I would like to take on, as well as helping me find a way of closing off other work that I would like to end (and have been trying to end for quite some time) would be to re-adopt this model of the mid-year new year.

So yesterday that's what I did. I spent much of the day working through the ideas, goals, and plans that I have had running around in my head for months (some even years), I laid them down on paper, I set up specific goals (some of which I am sure you will read about here over the coming months) and I went completely against my general tendencies and set up a relatively orderly plan and structure to accomplish these things.

I even gave the company a new name... but that's something I will definitely talk about later and soon (there's actually a hint right here in this blog).

In the meantime... one of the things (yeah yeah, I know I've said this before) that I have set myself as a goal is to blog on at least one, and hopefully more, of my blogs every day. If you want to keep track of this for yourself you can link to the RSS feed for this blog and/or any of the others. If instead you would like me to do that work for you, then send me an email at thom@mercreate.com and put "blog news" in the subject line. I'll add you to my new mailing list and let you know when there's something to read.

Like I said... beyond that, there's more news to come, but right now... there's still rent to pay, and I've gotta get back to work!

The Hack vs. The Mack

2008-06-09T14:07:00.000-07:00

A reporter for Bill O'Reilly's show actually had the balls (or perhaps just the stupidity) to take on the most honest, most forthright, most intelligent, most informed, most caring journalist in media. And, my hero, Bill Moyers... SMOKED HIM (but in a kindly manner).

Moments like this make me very proud of the people I know, have grown up around and worked for. The people, like Bill Moyers, that have taught me what it means to be a journalist, an American, and a human being.

To quote Moyers himself... He's "a journalist... Bill O'Reilly is a pugilist." As for the hack on a mission from O'Reilly... well Bill... "You're a better man than I am Gunga Din."