P.R.

It’s reassuring that if I ever get into any real trouble in my life, if I hold a press conference and proclaim ‘this is political correctness gone too far!’ I’ll have at least 50% odds of getting away with my crime, whatever that might be.

Ingredients

I have come to accept that all of us are full of shit to a certain extent. I guess the goal in life is to keep the percentage of shit on our ingredients label as low as possible, like, say, under 10%, and to cram in as many virtues as possible without completely ruining the flavor. We all need to meet our daily requirements of compassion, patience, and humility, with just the right mix of vice and neurosis to maintain our patented taste. Too much of the secret sauce causes diabeetus of course, and we never want to tip the full-of-shit balance so heavily that our label reads ‘Complete Shit, now with human flavoring’.

So Many Poisons to Choose From

I just had my first casino experience. Aside from having a vision of how easily and quickly I could blow up my own life flash before my eyes, the most interesting part of the experience was how easy it was to tell the difference between the folks who wanted to be there, and the folks who HAD to be there.

How We Learn

There are truths in life that I have come to believe we will learn one of two ways:

1. By having an open heart and mind, by being willing and able to look inside of yourself, and having the humility needed to honestly assess your own strengths, weaknesses, triggers, and history, so that when these inevitable truths come to you, you are ready to receive them.

2. By pain.

Unfortunately, I’ve had to learn many important lessons by the second means, due to personal pride, magical thinking, or ego. 

Because I am deeply invested in being the best father I can be to my children—and realizing that kids learn more from how we behave than what we say—I am trying my hardest to reorient myself to receiving my lessons from the first means. It’s challenging, because we are pattern seeking animals designed to feel discomfort whenever we are forced to step outside of our own personal rituals, delusions, and thought processes.

We will all be humbled. The question is, do we embrace it, or have it forced upon us?

The Theologian

I know there's no god because my chihuahua's tail sticks straight up in the air so he walks around and everyone can see his asshole. I don't know what kind of god would do something like that.

Take Your Own Advice

Man, if I didn’t have so much cognitive dissonance over my failure to apply all of the brilliant ‘this is how to be happy and have a meaningful life’ advice I so freely offer others to my own life, I would probably be happier and living a more meaningful life.

On the Death of American Presidents

There has not been a president yet who hasn’t ruthlessly ordered the murder of numerous human beings to benefit their own careers. Yet it is anathema to mention these war crimes upon their deaths. Posts about their passing are always loving eulogies without qualifiers from their tribe, or loving eulogies from the opposing popular tribe with the qualifier, ‘maybe I didn’t agree with all of their policies, but...they were a good man, etc.’ This is gross. All 45 of our presidents have blood on their hands, and the rival tribes are different variations of capitalist original and capitalist diet. The fact that all the leaders of the ruling class in this country have to do is live at least a few years past their years in power to become respected elder statesmen harkening back to a better time—however many lives they’ve destroyed and families they’ve disrupted—should make everyone vomit. But I’m the troll, right?

Narrative Structure

Personal flaw: the compulsion to look for a bad guy and a good guy in every story. But what if there is no bad guy? Even more frightening: what if there is no good guy?

National Priorities

Thought experiment: we all agree that Donald Trump is the manifestation of all that is bad about America. He is the puss-head of America’s deviancy that we so badly want to pop. However, he has used his idiot abilities and carny talents to achieve everything he has ever wanted. And our disdain for him and underestimation of his perverted skill set has been used as leverage by him to become president (of all of us) and cult leader (for a significant portion of us). How do we defeat him? Righteous indignation obviously won’t work because it is boring to a culture hooked on sensationalism and dog whistles. As a social worker, my first thought is we need to be humble, self aware, conscious of our personal triggers, and aware of our public presentation. What do you think? Are you willing to overcome your own demons in order to overcome the specter of fascism?

Addressing the Issue

Never allow yourself to believe that just because you have recognized a problem, you have done something to correct it. Be the problem in society, at work, in a relationship, or inside of yourself, issuing a grievance about how things ‘should’ be versus how they actually are is not a contribution. It’s good that you see where things are broken, but how are you going to fix them? And if you can’t fix them, how are you going to navigate the brokenness to find the desired outcome? It’s great that you found Waldo. But how are you going to kill him?

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope every one of you enjoys your Thanksgiving holiday, and remembers the bottom line of what the holiday is about. Being thankful. Im writing this as much for myself as I am for you, but, in spite of whatever tribulations we are all experiencing at this moment, we are alive right now. Most people who have ever lived are dead now, so the spotlight is on us, and we—at least—have some rights in regard to whatever narrative we are spinning with our personal stories. We are still in the driver’s seat. Here’s what I am grateful for:

1. I participated in creating and raising—still raising—3 amazing human beings who are endlessly interesting and full of potential.

2. I am doing a job that I love and gives me a deep sense of meaning. 

3. I have family and friends that love me and understand me, and show up for me when I need it.

4. Ideas. Books. Songs. Movies. Stories. I am so grateful for art, and what it can do to (and for) the human soul.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Cincinnati

FYI, I was just on the phone with customer service and I couldn’t hear the representative clearly while they were talking. I said, ‘Sorry?’ and she adjusted something and sounded much clearer, and then said, ‘is this better?’ and I said, ‘Yes, that’s better’. Then she said, ‘Are you from Cincinnati?’ I paused and realized that I had said ‘sorry?’ and answered, ‘Yes’. She said, ‘You good?’ and I responded, ‘Yeah, I’m good’. and we both laughed and went on with the call.

Store Brand

I am honestly surprised that it took as long as it did for store-brand to catch on to the profitability of ‘Hawaiian’ bread. Since when has any American company ever lost money adding sugar to a basic commodity? I’m legit waiting for the Kroger brand of ‘Hawaiian’ roll toilet paper.

The Truth Kanye Told

You know what truth was told in Kanye West’s weird monologue in the White House? It was a truth that only someone speaking from the root of their own mental illness and trauma could tell. He talked about how Donald Trump’s public persona acted as a salve to his own wounded masculinity. That is some deep truth. Trump is officially the candidate for the men—and the wives of those men—who embraced the generic masculinity ascribed by our popular culture, and have taken every hole poked in that flimsy mythology as a hole poked in their own soul. I guarantee you that no man who voted for Trump had a healthy father, and by extension didn’t/doesn’t have a healthy relationship with their father. And, as is required by the power of the myth they had consumed, found a mate who had their own problems with their wounded and wounding fathers, and found a partner for themselves that was infected by the same disease their own fathers had. This is the truth Kanye told, and he was only free to tell it as someone more enthralled to his own disease than he was to the requirements of our wider culture.

Opinions In Cars

What’s the deal with middle aged men recording YouTube rants in their cars? Why is this a thing? I’m interested in the cultural/psychological/sociological roots of this phenomenon. Why is it middle aged men? Why in the car? Why do you still have your seatbelt on? People are fascinating.

Playlist for 5 Year Old Me

I decided today to make a playlist for 5 year old me. It will contain all of the earliest songs I can remember liking.

Here’s the track list:

1. On Top of the World - Van Halen
2. Panama - Van Halen
3. Jump - Van Halen
4. Down on the Corner - CCR
5. Bad Leroy Brown - Jim Croce
6. You Don’t Mess Around With Jim - Jim Croce
7. Mr. Blue Sky -Electric Light Orchestra
8. Pretty Woman - Roy Orbison
9. You Got It - Roy Orbison
10. The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald - Gordon Lightfoot
11. I Don’t Want to Live on the Moon - Ernie, from Sesame Street

This is actually a pretty sweet playlist.

Voice Messages

I love reading voice message transcriptions on my phone because no matter how careful a person is to consider every word and present professionally, the transcription captures every ‘um’ and ‘like’ in text. Things that humanize people are beautiful.

Advice

there is a hustle to every business.

At the Drop of a Hat

“At the drop of a hat”. Intended to mean a super-reactionary response, before all of the evidence is in. What is it about the sound of a hat hitting the floor that makes certain people do rash things? Is there a unique sound? Does it trigger a primitive response? Does it matter what kind of hat? I need to know.

Free Speech

Do you ever suspect that people who say things like ‘I’m entitled to my opinion’ and reference their right to free speech in debate believe that these things somehow validate whatever stupid argument they’re making?

You Have to Love Yourself First

When I get around to purging toxic relationships from my life, my alarm clock will be first to go.

9/11

9/11 was traumatic for all of us, yet I feel hesitant to even mention it publicly for fear of enabling demagogues, fascists, and nationalists. 9/11 was a great crime against humanity, but it’s also a crime that has been turned into social currency by bad people in order to rationalize bad and dangerous international behavior by our government.

That being said, this was my 9/11: 

I was working on a loading dock. My first son (Eliot) was born in July of 2000. I was married in 1999. I was 18, and fresh out of high school. We were listening to NPR as we unloaded a delivery truck when we heard the first plane hit. We all rushed to the break room to watch the live coverage. There was lots of speculation and wonderment. We were watching live as the second plane hit. Then the pentagon. You know how it went.

All of my kids grew up in a post 9/11 world, and we all currently live in a post 9/11 world. Bad people cashed in on our collective national fear and horror. They cashed in on our experience of having our bubble of privilege burst by retribution from outsiders for generations of America’s commodification of countries primarily inhabited by folks of a darker skin tone, with foreign sounding names, customs, and religions. Bad people were quick to reframe the attack as an expression of foreign hostility towards our ‘freedoms’. They also capitalized on our new outlook of resolve and unity.

To understate the significance of today completely, 9/11 changed everything for everyone, for all time, all over the world. There is only a before and after.

Valet Parking

If you delete your Facebook account because of ‘all of the negative political posts/comments’ or some variation of that, I can make one guess about who you are with 100% accuracy: you are white. I can make a second guess at about 75% probability of being correct: you are either lower middle class or higher.

Catching feelings about political statements is a function of privilege. I don’t care if that hurts your feelings. Cry into your pumpkin spice latte. It’s only when you have to fight for even a view of the table (not even a seat) where decisions are made that you realize EVERYTHING is political.

My Apologies

The phrase 'my apologies', sounds weird to me. I know it means, 'I am offering you my apologies' (without actually saying sorry), but the phrase itself, and the austere tone people tend to take when employing it, creates a different picture in my mind. First of all, 'my apologies' is almost always sarcastic. Second of all, the statement itself evokes the image of a man standing in front of a big curtain in formal wear, announcing to the crowd, 'Ladies and Gentlemen! I present to you...my apologies!' And then he pulls on a rope, the curtain drops, and there they are--all of his apologies--swimming around in, like, a big aquarium or something.

Or, I don't know. Maybe it's just me.

Realistic Expectations

As an overweight fellow myself, I instinctually know that when another overweight fellow says, ‘Give me 5 minutes, I’ve got to run to the bathroom’, it will be many more than 5 minutes, and there will be no running involved.

Make a Move!

“Each moment, each day, each choice, is a test” -Barack Obama, from his eulogy of John McCain. 

That is exactly how we should understand each unpromised breath we are lucky enough to breathe.

When I worked at Fifth Third Bank’s processing center, I had this bulldog of a manager that always stressed a ‘sense of urgency’. It was an annoyance to me at the time, working in a job I was just working to pay the bills, but I internalized that message. Partially because of the level of passion my manager stressed it to me, but also, primarily, because it deeply matched my own orientation towards this brief and powerful flicker of a candle that is our life.

No moment is more important than this one, and the only way to honor that truth is to make a move that disregards whatever our fears may be.

On Love

Allowing yourself to experience love in any form is the ultimate vulnerability, but the only thing that makes life worth living. It’s a conundrum: the ability to love is the reason we seek to protect ourselves, but in order to experience it, we have to leave ourselves unprotected in a sense.

Ted Cruz is the Worst

The thing that makes Ted Cruz the worst is that he instinctually understood that supporting fascism was bad, and he took a few moral stands against it before fully capitulating. The fact that he obviously knows right from wrong, but still chose wrong, makes him infinity times worse than your average opportunist. Vote Beto!

Don’t get in your own way

For some reason the failures that sting me the most are the ones where I get in my or someone else’s way. So I always try to be hyper conscious of my own intent and motivation. Plus, I’ve learned when I don’t make things about myself, they turn out better. 

Or, as David Byrne said, ‘Life is long if you give it away’.

Empathy

Serious question: what is it about the conservative mind that makes it only allow nuance and ‘gray areas’ when they themselves have personally had an interaction with the idea on hand?

Shower Thought #1

Thinking about the difference in meaning of ‘throw up’ and ‘throw down’ is amusing.

‘For now, let’s throw down. After that, we can throw up’.

A Review of Sorry to Bother You

I have never done psychedelics, and it’s not something I typically think about or am considering, but for some reason the first thought I had after leaving ‘Sorry to Bother You’ last night, was ‘I’m really glad I didn’t make tonight the first time to try LSD’. I think that movie broke by brain a little bit, and I’m still processing it. I went to see it because I liked the director based on interviews I had heard, and I liked that he is an open Marxist. And the movie looked funny. I went into the movie with a certain expectation, eventually thought I saw where it was going, and then discovered I was incredibly wrong. And then I thought I caught on, but was wrong again. I went through this cycle about two more times, and eventually was just left with my mouth open, and must have muttered to the person I was with some variation of ‘what the fuck is happening?’ a dozen or so times. I was incredibly tired and feeling a little spacey, and towards what turned out to be the end of the movie—the end point was never really evident—I started remembering the play ‘No Exit’ and wondering if I had died and was in some absurd hell. After the first scene to interrupt the credits, I leaned into my partner and was like, ‘Let’s get the fuck out of here.’ She was like, ‘I want to see what happens next’ and I was like, ‘I’m afraid if we don’t leave now, we will never leave. It will be 12 hours later and you’ll be like, I want to see what happens next forever, because this movie will never end’.

Reality sat in for us as we sat at a Chinese restaurant across the street eating the best spring rolls I have ever had. The movie made everything look strange, and our conversation became odd in a funny way.

I’m not sure if I liked the movie. I’m not sure if I totally understood it. I will always remember it, and I’m thinking about it still the day after, so I know it was good.

That’s my review.

Numinous Communications

Weird! I just showed this movie to the boys last night for the first time, and it turns out on this day 6 years ago I shared this picture on Facebook. Watching it last night was emotionally potent for me. I became very reflective about my choices in life and where they have led. In the movie, Clementine shows her panties to Joel in order to anchor him back to reality and hope. Here she is flashing me this morning and it’s having the same effect. I guess the point is that God sends angels to some people, and for others, he sends Kate Winslett to show you her panties.

The Devil Made Me Do It

You know what’s funny about religious folk who believe in Satan as a literal being? They’re always looking at bad shit in the world and their lives from the vantage point of Satan attempting to usurp them in some way or the other. ‘Satan is tempting me’, ‘Satan is behind this global catastrophe that has savaged the established order of things’. What was Satan’s biggest sin supposed to be? Wasn’t it Pride? What is more proud or presumptuous than assuming that you were born into a system signed off on by God and any attack against that system comes from the adversary? Allow yourself to consider this: what if Satan took over a long time before you were born and established his own status quo, and taught all of the entities you received instruction from as you grew up—parents, religion, culture, government—to teach you to see them as the holy truth? What if the bad shit you ascribe to satanic action in the world is really just the resistance against the world Satan has created? To assume that your original orientation is representative of the truth is supremely arrogant.

He Never Laid a Hand On Me

The fact that I, a relatively thoughtful, progressive minded 37 year old man just realized how deeply messed up the following observation is, raises a completely different set of questions for me to reckon with.

But, it just occurred to me how terrible it is that when women of prior generations (our mothers, aunts, grandmothers, etc.) would reflect on their marriages after their partner had passed, or were just in a stock-taking kind of mood, it would be very common to hear the following assessments levied in a tone of gratitude:

“He never laid a hand on me”

Or

“He came home every night”

Or

“He was a hard-working man”

What an incredibly low bar husbands throughout history have had to jump over. Regarding the first one, since when do we get praise for not being an abusive piece of shit? This bit of praise is an indication of the degraded state women in our country have had to accept for themselves; expressing joy that the man who owned them chose not to hit them. A subtle implication is also that he chose not to hit her,but he would have been fully in his rights to do so.

There is also an indictment of man as a gender in this praise: it is the suggestion that man is inclined towards violence. It’s like saying, ‘I swam through the shark tank and the shark didn’t even take a bite!’

For anyone who likes to extol the virtues of manliness, this should be offensive to you.

On the second one, it seems to suggest he was faithful, but that’s not really what it’s saying. ‘He came home’ means that whatever else may have been going on outside of the home, at least at the end of the day he comes back. I am the one who gets to wash his underwear.

The final one is often left for men who had no other redeeming qualities. He worked hard, it drained the soul from him, he was an empty husk at home, had no joy, was unrelatable to his wife and children and the changing world around him, but at least the electric was kept on.

This makes me sad, and makes me realize that we—as a society—are not even close to out of the woods when it comes to equality and progress. The wounded, fearful men of our country—predominantly white and undereducated—and  their obedient, wounded wives, just elected as president a heaving postule of toxic masculinity, fearful chest-beating, and regressive ideology. This vote is a cry for help to some extent; the mewing of a wounded animal. As much as their pain has been inflicted upon them by their fathers, they have retained a striking obedience to authority and empty symbolism. The personal pain they will not look at is transformed into fear of the other, and antipathy towards the government, Hollywood, liberal elites, etc: those who would dare suggest to them ‘a better way to live’.

‘No thank you’, the Trump voter says. ‘I’ve made it this far without any guidance. I’ll pass on yours’.

This is why they are so triggered by the concept of safe spaces. This is why they are bothered by minorities being given equal rights and voice: where was their safe space growing up in this absurd patriarchy? Where was their voice and rights when dad would come home drunk

But, they might say, ‘At least he came home’.

Frieda and Josephine

I have 2 cats.
Frieda came first,
I drove for hours
To pick her up
After seeing a posting
On Craigslist
Because she looked
Like my previous cat
Stevesie—
My favorite cat ever—
All grey with a white belly,
Who was a perfect Buddha
Of a cat, very loving
And calm,
But died suddenly and young,
And not long after the end
Of my marriage,
Tearing another small hole
In my heart,
But it was one hole too many.
Frieda was not like Stevesie.
She had no chill.
She was all energy and
Playful biting and clawing.
I accepted the appropriateness
Of this: an attempt to make
One living being
A replacement for another
Always turns against both of you.
Later, feeling Frieda needed a friend,
I went back to craigslist
And found the cat who would become
Josephine. Another kitten. A calico.
I picked her up and took her home,
And she hid for the first month
In the couch, which she accessed through a slit
That Frieda had put in the back of it
During one of her playful kitten rampages.
I coaxed Josephine out eventually.
There was a brief power struggle between
The two cats. Frieda quickly established dominance,
And there was peace in the house.
Frieda has a wanderlust though. Ever since
She was a kitten, she would arbitrarily run
Out of an open door, jump out of an open window,
Or—in one extreme case—claw through
A window screen.
Just to get out, just to explore the neighborhood,
Probably also to honor that distinctly animal
Instinct to get laid.
At first we would freak out when she left,
But she would always come back.
Eventually we learned to respect her strong will,
And let her out when she wanted out,
Not worry too much while she was gone,
And greet her like a traveling friend when she returned.
Awhile after the ecosystem in our house had been
Established, Frieda left for an extended period.
While she was gone, Josephine doubled in size.
When she came back, she was scrawny,
And Josephine chased her under the bed,
And would growl at her whenever she came out.
Frieda stayed under the bed. She would urinate under there.
I would research the conflict, attempt mediation,
But to no avail.
One day Josephine caught Frieda at the food bowl,
And chased her out of the front door.
And that is where things stand to this day.
Frieda is now an outside cat, and Josephine has
Won the kingdom of our small house.
As I type this on the porch swing outside, I see Frieda
Sunning herself in the driveway.
I just filled both her food and water bowls (outside)
And Josephine’s (inside).
I don’t understand animal politics, but I have to reflect
On The battle between these cats.
Yes, Josephine owns the inside, but Frieda owns
The outside, and—most importantly—herself.
This kind of freedom may put a cap on life expectancy,
But looking at her now, in the sun, stretching grandly,
I have to remember that old saying about quality over quantity.

On Language Barriers

I just heard a woman at Mt. Storm park say a typically beautiful sounding sentence in Spanish, and then immediately translate it for someone on the phone: ‘That means your sister peed in her pants and I’m taking her home.’

4th of July, part 2

I expressly remember complaining to my English teacher in 10th grade after having to read 1984 and A Brave New World back-to-back (among however many other dystopian books and short stories) ‘Okay, Jesus! We get it! If we’re not careful we will fall into an authoritarian state! Fuck, can we talk about something else?’ And she smiled knowingly and said something cryptic, and I’ve justified the fact that I had to read all of these shitty, heavy-handed warnings over the years because the population has to be wary...and now we’ve elected a fascist government who joyfully obfuscates the truth to a willfully ignorant and compliant electorate, and all I can think is that maybe banking on English departments in the Midwest defending the concept of democracy all by themselves wasn’t the best bet in the long run. Happy 4th of July!

4th of July

It just occurred to me that posting something critical of the domestic or foreign policy of the U.S. (even a critique of how we treat returning veterans) is frequently met with the rejoinder, ‘Yeah, try to post something like this in another country!’. Which is akin to saying, ‘Yeah, maybe my boyfriend cheats on me constantly and gave me the clap, but at least he never hit me!’. Which is an incredible lowering of the bar.

On Criticism of Cardi B

 I hate people who dissect Cardi B in ‘think pieces’. It pisses me off to see some pseudo-intellectual mine her entire being for material to support whatever worldview they are pushing, delegating her entire existence to a footnote in their grand philosophy. First of all, Cardi B is 26. Why do we feel entitled to indict her entire being over some mild to non-existent infraction upon our preferred social outlook? I can tell you this: I didn’t know shit when I was 26, and I barely know shit now at 37. Cardi B is a gifted performer with charisma and a compelling personal narrative. Maybe we should hold off for a second? Maybe we shouldn’t expect her to be Howard Zinn at 26? Maybe that’s not what she even wants to be? Jesus, I don’t know. Let the woman breathe!

Social Work

As a case worker, I have intentionally absorbed a very stoic worldview, and rely heavily on a dark/absurd sense of humor to navigate this environment. I care for my clients and work as hard as I can to help them succeed, but the human condition and our society is unpredictable, so I make it a point to stand outside of any given situation, and to focus on celebrating the small successes.

Today a client of mine who has had a lot of anxiety over her situation got matched with housing, and when I showed her the e-mail about her match, she cried with joy. Her whole spirit changed. It was infectious and inspiring, and it cracked my demeanor and made my heart swell. This job can be very hard, but when it’s good it is very good. I’m going to allow myself to enjoy this moment of euphoria.

Fundamentalism and Happiness

It doesn’t matter how much one thing seems to naturally follow another, how clear-cut causes and effects are made, or how straightforward the rules for success are made to appear by the eyes given to you by your fundamentalist faith; you will never be happy, no matter how closely you adhere to the tenets of your church, or how often you pray, or how many times you read the Bible. The reason is the eyes. The eyes your church gave you control you by making you see God where God is not. With those eyes, you learn to not look for what is true, but rather what confirms the lies of your church about your holy book. A book of truth doesn’t create the truth. It conveys the truth. Therefore you can’t prove the truth of something by saying ‘because the Bible says’. If the Bible says something is true, then you should be able to arrive at the truth in dialogue without reference to the Bible. Like the math teacher in school said, ‘Show your work!’

You will never be happy deforming your body and soul in attempt to conform to the doctrines and values your eyes have been trained to seek out, because they aren’t of God, and they aren’t even human. They are constructed to maintain power for certain people and oppress others.

You have been given lying eyes, and you need to pluck them out and replace them with your own eyes.

What Happens When You Show Up Early

As is my tendency, I showed up way too early to pick my kids up from camp. My days in college working at a bank informed me: if you’re 15 minutes early, you’re 15 minutes late. I pulled into the only parking lot in this predominantly farm area. It turned out to be a biker bar. A guy and his girlfriend pulled up beside me  on a Harley Davidson as I smoked and read a book. He struck up a conversation with me. His name was Curly, and his girlfriend was called Half-Pint. He seemed very impressed by the fact that I was a social worker. We joked, exchanged stories, and he ended up inviting me into the biker bar, where he introduced me enthusiastically to his friends Violator, Roman, Gator, and Tito. We all talked and laughed and joked, and they seemed to appreciate the idea that a ‘city guy’ wasn’t afraid of them or uncomfortable in their environment. We ended up singing ‘Keep on Rocking in the Free World’ with the band on stage. Everyone had liquor on their breath. Now I’m outside of the boys’ camp—that has a very rave like feel—waiting for their end of camp dance to end so we can get home and get enough sleep to get up early for the pride parade tomorrow. What an unexpected night.

Don’t Wait For History to Set You Straight!

I look forward to hearing this child tell their story as an adult. I look forward to it, and also feel anxiety about it. They are going to tell us something important one day, but what will the message be? To me, this photo is the same as the naked Vietnamese girl running away from her village with her skin burned by napalm. It’s also the famous photo of the little black girl being escorted to her newly de-segregated school by the national guard. Let me ask you this: where do you fall on this photo now? To me, your answer to this question now tells me so much more than your answer 50 years from now ever will.

Credit Where It Is Due

PS, I’m not giving Trump props for signing an executive order ending his own fascist policy that separated families and put kids in cages because he realized it was ‘bad optics’. And to the person who responds, ‘See! They don’t even give him credit for doing the right thing!’, I respond, ‘Fuck you too. You don’t get credit for doing the bare minimum to pass as a human being’. No props for creating an unnecessary disaster and then choosing to end it.

Trump’s Patriotism

You know that whenever Donald Trump speaks reverently about ‘our flag’ he doesn’t even comprehend the basic conservative 101 idea of what ‘our flag’ is supposed to represent in an ideological way. To Trump, loving ‘our flag’ is essentially the same as rooting for your local sports team. Trump doesn’t know the constitution or the history of this country (even the version embraced by the most conservative folks among us). He just knows ‘our team’, and maybe doesn’t even know that; he just knows rooting for the team that embraces ‘our flag’ will make him more popular amongst a certain portion of his electoral demographic. In a way, he’s like the sudden fan of a team that is going to the super bowl, and he likes the excitement of the event and wants to cash in on the cultural momentum. He’s the guy that only started liking Nirvana after Target started selling Nirvana onesies in their stores, and even now the only song he recognizes is ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’.

My First Weed Wacker

I just bought my first weed wacker. I don’t know much about manly instruments of fixing and building and maintaining things, but I have read a lot of Freud, so I went for the longest, thickest weed wacker I could find. Woe unto ye, overgrown weeds!

On Black Women

Someone I know made a joke about me being into black girls today, and it got under my skin. It took me a minute to figure out why. I think it’s because the implication was that black women were a kind of fetish for me. This is not the case. I am attracted to powerful, fully actualized women. It just so happens that the most powerful, fully actualized women I have ever met happen to be black women. I don’t know exactly why this is the case, but apparently there is a correlation between the experience of black women and power, wisdom, and self actualization. I’m not apologizing for my attraction. I like to be close to the fire.

I Think I’m Over Nerds

I just saw a headline at Inverse Magazine discussing the possibility that Gwynyth Paltrow spoiled the next Avengers movie by stating that Pepper and Tony have a child together. In the opening paragraph, the writer mentions that Tony and Pepper discuss having children in the movie.

This spoiler alert sums up nerds to me perfectly. I haven’t seen this movie, but every spoiler review has been, ‘oh, I can’t believe they killed so and so’, or ‘this is how so and so messed up trying to stop Thanos’, or, ‘maybe Thanos had a point’, or ‘where is this or that character’, ‘That’s not canon!’...blah blah blah. Only now does some magazine mention the human development of a character, presumably because all of the rest of the nerd hypothesizing and spoiling has been done. This is some classic escapist, miss the forest for the trees, failure to appreciate meaningful character development, nerd bullshit. Nerds have become cool, and along with a popular embrace of nerd-centric culture, the antisocial and non-productive elements of nerdiness have also been embraced. 

There are cool things about science fiction and fantasy, and being a fan of whatever, but there’s some fucked up shit in nerdworld too. Part of the reason nerds got into the things they did was that they were escaping from social isolation. Some capitalist realized that all of that pent up social neglect and fantasizing about a world where they might matter was marketable, and started hiring these sad fucks to write movies and books, and over time made themselves the heroes of the stories, and normalized their social deficiencies, made them charming, and wrote themselves into all of their stories as the unlikely hero and loveable underdog in the popular zeitgeist.

And overall, that’s fine. It’s good for people to have a voice and to feel included. But please don’t forget that the triumph of the nerd also gave us ‘nice guys’, ‘Incels’, gross libertarian atheists in fedoras, ‘social justice warriors’ with cartoonishly over the top abilities to be offended, the alt-right, animal-kin, furries, hentai, etc. the embrace of nerd culture also smuggled in some anti-social and counter-productive, degenerate shit.

So, Iron Man is going to have a baby. At least I guess, in the movie, he talked about it. No one mentioned this in their reviews because nerds don’t think about basic human shit like this. They’re more worried about whether or not the tailpipe on the Millennium Falcon is loyal to the original design George Lucas scrawled drunkenly on the back of a cocktail napkin, or whether or not the ghostbusters are allowed to be girls.

As someone who has dipped heavily into nerdy things, who has even identified as a ‘nerd’ in the past, let me say this: fuck nerds. 

Art is wonderful. Culture is essential. Being a fan of things can be transcendent. But if art gets boiled down to a basic comic strip, if culture becomes a dehumanized, collective escapist fantasy, if being a ‘fan’ means reducing any creative endeavor to whether or not something matches the source material, whether or not it validates our personal prejudices, insecurities. And ineptitudes, or just a set of stupid memes and hashtags, then those things don’t mean anything anymore. Just more capitalist fast food. The mainstreaming of nerd culture has eased up the stigma of being different and really (really) liking offbeat things, but it has also elevated nerdiness to almost a virtue. Yeah, it’s cool that you are able to publicly embrace whatever you like, whether you like it as a stand in for real human and life connections or just because you like it, but if you can’t even see the beating heart behind the thing you love so much, I would suggest that maybe you suck. Also, the government doesn’t owe you a girlfriend, Ron Paul is an idiot, you should really learn how to change a tire, prepare a meal without a microwave, get some exercise, and spend time in the actual company of other people. Tumblr doesn’t count. Also, why are nerds always the ones worrying about the zombie apocalypse when we all know that no nerd would survive the event?

In summary, if you’re more worried about what hue of purple Thanos’s skin is than the moral and human arc of Tony Stark, you’re a shitty fan. Plus, the Ghostbusters ARE girls.

Andy Rooney approves of this message.

Old Men in Lawn Chairs

“You’re walking like you’re going somewhere”. - old men in hats who sit in lawn chairs on the sidewalk have the best lines.

Making Amends

Facebook posts are primarily good for catharsis: celebrating, bragging, and venting about the actions, beliefs, and lifestyles of people who don’t share the immense levels of enlightenment you perceive yourself to possess.

Allow me to indulge in a different kind of post.

When I was 16 or so, I worked at a fast food restaurant for about a year. It was my second job, but my first experience of no-bullshit hard work. I was self absorbed, insecure, and had an undercurrent or anger I didn’t fully understand. There was an older woman (maybe in her 30’s) who worked there. She was generally good natured, and I realize now she probably had some kind of cognitive issue. One night her, a friend of mine, and myself were working drive thru, and we all had our headsets on. My friend and I were saying vulgar jokes to each other. Suddenly, I heard the gruff voice of the general manager come over the headset: ‘Spencer! Get your ass to my office!’

When I got back to his office, he was holding the woman’s headset. She had told on my friend and I. The general manager chewed me out (rightly) for being an asshole, and closed with ‘That woman shouldn’t have to listen to that kind of filth from a young pup like you!’ And sent me back to work. I was embarrassed, but I was also mad at the woman for snitching on me. I kind of remember her trying to smooth things over afterwards, but I was cold, and made some kind of comment about snitching.

A few months later I had quit the job, and was walking through the mall with a different friend. The woman was there with two small children who I assumed were hers. She smiled broadly and waved to me from across the floor. She approached me, one tiny hand in each of her own, and I shouted at her, ‘Fuck you, bitch!’

She looked mortified and shrunk away. My friend, who was similarly placed on the idiot spectrum—thankfully I have better friends now—laughed, and we moved on.

This morning I stopped by a gas station and I am ninety percent certain that same woman—older, heavier, worn down looking—was working 3rd shift. I don’t think she recognized me (because I look older, heavier, more worn down probably), and I couldn’t guess if she’d even remember what a tool I was to her back in the day. It occurred to me that I should apologize to her. 

I brought my items up to the checkout, and began going over how to start the apology. I noticed she had a few blotchy looking tattoos around her wrists, and wondered if she had them when she worked at the restaurant. She scanned my items. I began to speak, and then another customer walked up behind me in line. My courage failed me, and I paid for my items and left.

I don’t know why I chickened out when it came to making amends. I’m usually very forthright and quick to correct my errors (or, I am now anyway).

As I drove away I kept thinking I should turn back, but the distance got greater and greater.

I know where she works now, and what shift, so the apology could still happen. As I’m typing this though, I’m wondering if it was best that I didn’t at that moment. Not apologizing forced me to sit with who I have been, and to reflect on who I am and who I still could become.

I am sorry that I added unnecessary pain to that woman’s life. I’ve thought about her more in the last 30 minutes than I ever did in all the preceding years. 

I’m going to apologize, I just want to make sure it is in as thoughtful a way as possible.

Lenin & Trotsky’s Dinner

I love the October Revolution. I love Lenin and Trotsky, both for different reasons.

One of my favorite stories about the October Revolution takes place after Lenin has seized control of the government, and he and Trotsky are sitting in the Czar’s palace dining hall, being waited on the Czar’s servants, who Lenin couldn’t bare to fire because they had devoted their lives to their jobs, and that was all they knew.

Lenin and Trotsky are sitting at a table in the dining hall discussing strategy. The head servant walks up to them and reverently asks them what they’d like for dinner. The revolutionaries say ‘roots and gravy’, which was a common peasant meal. The head servant reminds them they could have anything they want. They are busy, so they stick with ‘roots and gravy’.

Eventually the head servant brings their meal to them on the Czar’s own personal China. The Czar, who had lived in opulent luxury while his people starved, had the best forks and spoons and plates.

Lenin and Trotsky look at their peasant meal of roots and gravy served on this ridiculously decadent dining ware, look at each other, and laugh their balls off.

It’s a beautiful story.

Kanye West

I have loved and defended Kanye West as long as he’s been around. His ‘slavery was a choice’ comment is where we part ways. It’s hard not to imagine Kanye as a slave asking to speak to a manager.

Effective Leadership

So, I created this work flow chart for my job. It had everything that needed to happen broken up into days. It was beautiful and perfect. My team, however, had difficulty getting on board with it. Something about it didn’t work for them. They needed guidance and structure, but not ‘that’ guidance and structure. I hung in with my flow chart longer than I probably should have based simply on the fact that I created it. Today I realized it wasn’t working, brought in other people, and came up with something better.

Now, I could have begun penalizing my team for not flowing with MY flowchart, but I reverted to mission, got over myself, and came up with something better.

This is all just to say I came up behind a truck with a bumper sticker that read ‘Jesus died for sinners’ in traffic today. Now, anyone familiar with effective leadership should see that, in the Jesus situation, God clearly dug in because it was HIS FLOW CHART. Good leaders can’t be precious like that.

Nietzsche

i have a picture
Of myself
Before I stared
Into the abyss
And it stared back
Something subtle
Changed about
The eyes
A subtle shift
In light

I have three sons
Aged 7 12 and 16
And in their photos
Their eyes
Even the eyes of the one
Who is 16
Still have that
Pre-abyss light

Someday
They will see
What I have seen
Someday
The eye light will change

And we will still
Love each other
And we will still
Share our thoughts
And we will still
Live on

But our laugh
Something about
Our laugh
Will change

To match the change
In our eye-light

Bernie Sanders and Cardi B

Allow me to be the wet blanket that falls over the whole ‘Bernie Sanders shouts out Cardi B’ thing.

1. Bernie subtweeting Cardi B is a major Hillary ‘I keep hot sauce in my bag’ Clinton form of pandering.

But most importantly,

2. People who’s people haven’t been affected by the policies of elected people who are clearly their people tend to rationalize away the policies of elected people like them who overall tend to endorse and progress their particular worldview but also endorse and progress policies that hinder the advancement of people who clearly aren’t their people. 

Specifically, in the case of Bernie cynically attempting to cash in on Cardi B’s praise of FDR, I say this:

First of all, FDR was The Godfather of redlining. Secondly, the people who’s opinion of FDR that I most value are Japanese Americans. Who cares about social security for white Americans when Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps? 

On Love

Idealized love. Intoxicated romance. Teenage love: “I would die for you”.

Adult love. Real love. Mature love. Commitment: “Yes, I would die for you, but I will also do the dishes”.

Punching Down

I love stand up comedy. I tried it for about six months after high school and it didn’t work out, but I still love it.

Stand up was my introduction to moral philosophy as well as politics. Stand up comedians are the people’s philosophers, and they typically inhabit and convey truth in a succinct and moving way that, say, Slavoj Zizek and Jordan Peterson never could, with none of the pretension. That being said, I am so glad that ‘punching down’ has become a legitimate cultural criticism of comics.

My orientation towards art has always been summed up best by that Cesar Cruz quote that ‘art should comfort the disturbed, and disturb the comfortable’. Comedy is art as well as low-key philosophy, so I am especially glad that rich and privileged comics are now consistently receiving dings for attacking and belittling disenfranchised individuals.

Dave Chappelle used to be great. His most recent specials—aside from being overly self impressed—were dismissed for his material regarding transgender individuals. Ricky Gervais—who has never been great—has suffered from the same assessment, but to a greater degree.

Comedy is for the people. Comedians should never punch down. Punching down is designed to satiate the prejudices of the powerful. When a comedian punches down, they become nothing more than the court jester, validating the prejudices of the monarchy.

 Real comedy only works when it is either delivered by a disenfranchised voice, or delivered in order to lift a disenfranchised voice.

When our most prominent comics begin acting as clowns for the powers that be, they’ve got to be held accountable. The good thing about comedians being the philosophers of the people is that you neither have to punch down nor up to let them know they’ve missed a beat. You can punch them right in the face.

Wounds

Life seems to be an endless series of receiving and recovering from wounds. This is not a cynical observation! Often, our scars become the best parts of ourselves. While it is perfectly honorable to retreat and recover for a moment—everyone needs to be able to catch their breath—we have to move forward. Our wounds and scars are part of us, but they’re not all of us: do not move into your wound. Let it heal. Help it heal. Understand it, and learn how to avoid similar wounds in the future, but do not set up residence in that bloody, pus-filled gash. Don’t keep picking at it. Don’t keep cutting it back open.

Body Language

Body language is fascinating.

As someone who has such distinct body language that it is incredibly easy to do an impression of me—I barely move my top lip when speaking, I stroke my beard, touch my ears, fidget with the rings on my fingers, gesticulate like a caricature of a stereotypical Italian mafioso—I find the terrain of body language both informational and treacherous.

When I was a child, up until the time I was a pre-teen, I didn’t know exactly how to be human. I knew what resonated with me when I saw it in others, but I didn’t exactly know how to manifest authentic physical representation of myself until maybe my mid twenties. So, I copied other people. I copied 3 people in particular, to the point that I have completely Zeliged their body language idiosyncrasies into my own behavior to the point that even a decade after finally becoming comfortable with my authentic self, those people who resonated with me and I very intentionally studied and copy-catted are still evident in my day to day interpersonal communications.

The 3 folks I copied: My dad, Levar Burton, Jeff Goldblum.

1. My Dad

I remember the moment my mom chastised my dad for biting his nails. I looked up to my dad. I was small enough to sit in the front child’s seat of a grocery cart at our local Kroger, I remember that clearly. Also, we were in the produce section. I remember at that moment I had discovered one concrete way I could echo the behavior of my father, and I looked down at my hitherto unbitten fingernails. I started chewing. I remember chastising myself for forgetting to bite my nails when they got too long. I kept at it and succeeded in creating a habit. I still bite my nails to this day.

2. Levar Burton

A lot of PBS as a kid. Reading Rainbow was so important. Levar would do this hand gesture when he would say, ‘See you next time!’ I practiced it. It’s just something I do now. PS, thanks to my mom for reading to me when I was little, and thanks to Levar for reinforcing the importance of reading.

3. Jeff Goldblum

My grandfather loaned me a copy of Jurassic Park the book maybe one year before the movie came out. I loved it. I read it in 3 days. I suppose to reinforce that bonding experience, my grandfather took me to see the movie when it came out. The character of Ian Malcolm wasn’t that impressive to me in the book—I was a Muldoon guy—but, Goldblum’s on screen persona rocked me. He was cool and smart and charming, but most importantly, he was fully comfortable with his idiosyncratic conversational tics. The uhms. The ahs. The awkward pauses and gestures. The general sense that he was floating above all of human experience...my kids still point out when I’m Goldbluming.

It has always struck me that however bad we may want to rebel against whatever force in our life, the  laziest way to do it is to embrace the opposite of whatever that force embraced. Dad drank Pepsi? I’ll drink coke. Mom was a democrat? I’m a republican. That’s easy.

What’s not easy is to change behaviors. Reactions to stress, fear, happiness, confrontation, success...these are things our parents taught us not with words, but with the core of their beings. Language is thought out and at least somewhat prepared. Most people don’t strategize body language. No one strategizes sweat or red ears. One of my favorite quotes from some dead catholic is ‘Preach the gospel at all times. Use words when necessary’. Maybe you are drinking Pepsi now instead of Coke, but what noise do you make when that sugary liquid hits your taste buds? Plus, it’s still soda.

And it’s the same for body language. Whatever clever word games we use to convince the world we are who we say we are, our body—more often than not—is telling the world who we actually are.

History Class

Talking to my son about the history program at his school. Of course, he has a more expansive view than the curriculum suggests, but here are the common themes:

1. Iconic white people of European descent.

2. Famous battles fought by iconic white people of European descent.

3. Historical tragedies that impacted white people of European descent.

4. Wasn’t it nice that we didn’t kill Martin Luther King Jr until he was finished saying his most quotable lines?

5. Wasn’t it nice that—under pressure from a restless underclass—that eventually we gave non-white Americans the opportunity to buy into the same opiate of capitalist-consumerism that white people have been able to opt into for much longer?

6. When it comes to non-white people within the U.S., and non-European countries, here are A.) the times we (white) interceded and saved non-white people within the country and B.) ‘Maybe you have never heard of this overwhelmingly non-white country before, but we (white people) dropped a lot of bombs there, and stopped communism.

Signs and wonders.

Respect

One thing I have consistently taught my boys: you do not owe anyone respect. Respect is earned. It may be beneficial to engage someone who has more situational authority than you diplomatically, but you don’t have to respect them, or let their opinions impact your self evaluation. Title, age, position...they don’t matter. My boys respect me because I have earned it. You can’t raise children to sacrifice their own dignity in order to appease the fragile ego of undeserving authority figures.

Against Sesame Street Liberalism

Sesame Street is great and important. For children. As you pass puberty and move towards regular colonoscopies, your worldview should widen and expand. It should be capable of acknowledging the dark as well as the light, and making necessary adjustments to policy prescriptions and ideology. When I think of Sesame Street Liberalism, I admit to having a caricature in my mind: A white male or female born of economic privilege but moved by sympathetic narratives of racial, gender, and non-heterosexual sexual orientations, who has really never struggled too much in their own lives, but generally has a worldview that boils down to, ‘Why can’t we all just get along/I’m ok, you’re ok’ kind of Oprah platitudes. I think Ben Affleck might perfectly embody this label.

Now, it’s all good and wonderful to think folks should just get along and leave each other in peace. But the reality of the situation is that humans are animals, and the laws of the jungle still apply. If you were born in a two story house in a white, upper middle class neighborhood to upwardly mobile parents, you have to square with yourself: you really don’t know struggle. It’s easy for you to ‘not see race’ or suggest some kind of global group hug might eliminate all of the strife in the world. That’s because you had a nanny. And, PS, race exists. You are the person Langston Hughes wrote about in his poem about Northern Liberals. And PPS, you will never address your fashionably liberal social concerns unless you address root issues, which in this country, and—actually—all over the world, is capitalism.

Capitalism is highly concentrated in the US, but it’s ripples go far and wide across the globe. Capitalism rewards highly active consumers. It lionizes on inherited wealth and purchasing power, and only allows enough comfort to the exploited under class to keep them from revolting and to allow them to reproduce enough future workers to keep the system of alienation going. If the Sesame Street Liberal was serious about social justice, they would forsake their inheritance and become a foot soldier in the movement to abolish our capitalist prison.

Another perfect embodiment of Sesame Street Liberalism: McDonalds recently inverting their Golden Arches on Women’s Day to turn their iconic ‘M’ into a ‘W’ for ‘woman’. I’m sure some pampered, disconnected, middle aged upper class house wife might offer a polite golf clap to that gesture, but maybe it would be more meaningful if you paid your employees—many of whom are women—a living wage?

There is a difference between leftism and Liberalism. In a culture where there is real justice and equality, Liberalism would be fine and wonderful. But Sesame Street Liberals have jumped the gun becaus their privilege disconnects them from the struggles of people who are still outsiders in this system. They’re skipping scenes because they know they’ll make it to the end of the movie.

What we need right now is not this brand of Liberalism. We need militant leftism, which is capable of fighting for these beliefs in real time. Leftism is capable of winning these victories instead of simply sliding flower stems down the gun barrels of their oppressors and offering a loopy peace sign in response to the enemy order to fire on all opposing combatants.

Liberalism is John Lennon. Leftism is Che Guevara. Liberalism is Jimmy Carter. Leftism is John Brown. Liberalism is Oprah Winfrey. Leftism is Huey Newton. Liberalism is Joel Osteen. Leftism is Jesus Christ.

One of the worst parts of Sesame Street Liberalism—among so many other bad parts—is the arrogance, condescension, and apparently inherited sense of superiority. George W Bush played this cultural blind spot in order to obtain 2 presidential terms, and the Democratic Party stuck the stick in their own bicycle wheel when they sabotaged other candidates in order to put forward their own anointed candidate (Hillary Clinton, an icon of Sesame Street Liberalism, and Neo-Liberal capitalism) against the most transparently terrible (in all categories) candidate in our country’s history, and lose.

When you never have to worry about going a day without cable TV, air conditioning, or internet access—let alone clean water, housing, food, healthcare—you make lazy and arrogant decisions. When you get to the bottom line—and capitalism is all about the bottom line—the Sesame Street Liberal is only concerned about the condition of the real people as long as they get cultural cache from their support, and their own bottom line is not affected. Cut off the inheritance stream that daddy and granddaddy earned by exploiting laborers for years and years, and that’s when you’ll see what’s behind the mask.

Divine Commandments

I don’t know why, but whenever a woman begins a statement to another woman with ‘Girl...’ it almost feels to me like a proclamation brought down from the mountain by Moses himself.

Neighbors

I am so involved in my own life and my own passions that I am sometimes astounded by the pettiness and nosiness of other people. My neighbor—who must know the zoning laws by heart (they probably rest on his bedside table next to his bible)—called the police on another neighbor for a trivial zoning infraction, and all parties stood on the sidewalk discussing the situation. The person who made the complaint was animated and emotional. The police officer wore an expression of stoic boredom. The neighbor who had the complaint made against them was a mixture of amused, dumbfounded, and diplomatic. It was something to see. There are surely many shortcomings to my own orientation, but the orientation of someone with so few inner resources and so much personal boredom that they feel obligated to monitor the totally benign social transgressions of others always reminds me of the denizens that occupy he’ll in C.S. Lewis’s ‘The Great Divorce’.

Things That I Know About Donald Trump That He Does Not Know About Himself

FYI

Donald Trump has never had to agonize over whether to pay the electric bill or buy groceries for his kids.

Donald Trump has never walked up to a locked door that mentioning his daddy’s name hasn’t been able to unlock.

Donald Trump has never had to work. He has also never appreciated the joy that work can bring to a person, because it’s never been something he has had to do.

Donald Trump doesn’t know what love or loyalty mean, because he has always viewed such things as contractual.

Donald Trump doesn’t know what it feels like to break in a pair of steel toed work boots. He’s not familiar with the experience of sliding a pair of new work boots on in the face of a ten to twelve hour work shift of non stop walking and lifting, in spite of calluses and open wounds on your feet.

Donald Trump doesn’t know what it’s like to skip breakfast because there is only enough food in the house for the kids, even though he’s off to do hard labor in the aforementioned work boots for 12 hours, and there is no time for a lunch break.

If Donald Trump has ever been in a fist fight, it was with another inheritance baby, with the full knowledge that some kind of administrator would stop the thing before dental bills needed to be considered. He has never fought a real person, the kind of person who knows how to fight, because they know what struggle and survival means.

I don’t know where he gets the idea that he deserves the streetwise cowboy persona he attempts to inhabit, because he has never faced any of the dilemmas such a persona is bound to encounter.

This is not a tough, wise, smart, or compassionate man. This is a sad and stunted man who needs only one thing, and it’s the only thing his money could never buy him: the love and acceptance of his (dead) father, and any semblance of inner peace. What a sad and grotesque character.

His hands are small, but I also bet they are soft as fuck.