It used to be unthinkable to express such a thing openly. Maybe not in the counter culture, but in the gray-flannel-suit culture you certainly might have thought of it, but you wouldn't say it, never, because those three assassinations that became the coming-of-age for this generation were too close, and still they're fresh in the mind. So even if you hated the president, and we're not just talking about liberals, if you blamed Jimmy Carter for 20 percent interest rates, for example, or you despised Bill Clinton after Monicagate, still, no matter who was president, you wouldn't want that old sick feeling again.
I remember people saying during Watergate how somebody ought to 'get rid' of Nixon. And, of course, the same thing about Lyndon Johnson. I remember feeling how daring it was to say on a sign at a march, "get out of Vietnam like your father should have" (gotten out of your mother). I remember people saying they wanted to put Reagan on hormone replacement therapy. Because he was too stupid to assassinate. It would be like killing Dumbo, the elephant. Or what Nancy Reagan needed was a good gang bang.
For sure, no president has escaped his would-be assassins, his vermouth-with-a-twist killers. His pot head killers, his SDS and Black Panther killers... But now there's something relentless about the loathing of Bush. And the idea of assassination seems more than just an outrageous thing to say. It's what some people really feel. "I want him to know what he did," someone told me recently. "But I don't think there's any way to do that. So yea somebody should shoot him. And it always amazes me no one has."
What's striking is that the people I'm hearing say these things are gentle by any other standard. They're not repressed, angry people underneath, or on the surface. They're smart middle class people, and not so 'liberal' as you would assume, people who are too sophisticated to honestly wish such a thing, much less say it. They're also women.
Incidentally, killing George Bush is not my own fantasy. Beyond Buddhist teaching, my argument is, why would you wish to make the man a martyr (Or men, since often the fantasy involves Cheney as well as Bush). And can you imagine how that would further deepen divisions and suspicions in this country?
Of course you can understand how someone might think such a thing, not wish it, but conceive of it. Not imagine themselves doing such a thing but feeling the way my Moroccan students felt about 9/11. 'It was a terrible thing,' they'd say, 'but America had it coming', and you could see that it made them happy on some level. And I would say to them, 'but you have to see those people jumping out the windows, 80 floors up, to really FEEL the horror of that day.' But they hadn't seen it and they couldn't imagine. All they knew was Goliath took a shot to the head....
That an American could talk so blythely about killing the president doesn't just come from opposition to the war. And it's not the feeling of hatred coming from the rest of the world, or wiretapping without a warrant, or any process of habeous corpus. Nor does it come only from the conviction that this administration has been overwhelmed with moral corruption, and utter stupidity, or that veterans have been abandoned or that corporate-profiteers have been so shamelessly rewarded, or that education feels like it's been sacrificed for the armchair policies and politics of the Vice President. And there's a piece of work. There's a figure you would want every child to know, like the sexual predator that lives in a house two streets over, and you would say to the child, "don't ever be like that person, that person is evil".
Thinking such things doesn't even cover this body blow to the economy and the culture of greed that brought it, Bush's culture of greed, and now the growing dread that this is not a recession but a depression and all the old ghosts of the previous generation are coming out of their crypts: That deep down fear that in old age to make ends meet we'll be selling life insurance door to door, and in a minute here there'll be no jobs and no social security and people will just start killing themselves because they won't see a way out or they'll think the only way they can save their families, is to commit suicide.
The black desire comes from all of that but maybe also the sense that every good thing you wanted for this country now seems lost. It's as though you realize the fantasy is over. This is the end date history books will include, marking the end of America's run. It's as though we've been exposed, as a country, and somehow as individuals, as second rate. As pretentious, naive bores who never did anything for the world after all, despite the good intentions. The truth is, Michelle Obama is right, there is very little to be proud of these days. And there's a lot of people that feel that away and not just latte liberals or blue state, blue collar people....
Theis black desire I'm hearing flourishes in the fear that all we've built up in the last 60 years is being washed away. It doesn't help that on the right wing talk radio, on 560 am in the Bay Area, one after another these pundits take the mic and blow fear and hatred your way. Limbaugh is the least of them. You listen to them and even the likes of Jeremiah Wright and John Hagee seem small in comparison.
We always say in this country that this is the 'turning point', this is the moment when we've all got to show our hand, and always we make a drama about it, we talk in extremes, we talk trash, we talk like we don't know the danger of reckless expression... but now we really are at one of those moments.
Mar 31, 2008
Mar 5, 2008
After 3 a.m.
And now the senator should respond something like this... "The danger this country faces is not the "inexperience" of the person who answers the hotline at 3 a.m. George Bush has proven you can have neither experience or intelligence and get through that call. The danger is from ignoring the calls that come in throughout the day — from people who have lost their houses, their jobs and their confidence. After all, we have the strongest army in the world; we don't need to fear other countries or other societies. They may attack us, they may wound us but they cannot destroy us, physically. But clearly we need to begin a new era, not based on fear and trepidation. That's the legacy of the Bush administration. That's the old enslavement. As a nation, as individuals, we face difficult times and we need our wits about us, but we also need to regain our spirit, our fearlessness, our humor as she would say, that quality that's always distinguished America and Americans."
Feb 23, 2008
Feb 20, 2008
Something Out of Nothing
Hence, the purpose of the Holy Life does not consist in acquiring alms, honor, or fame, nor in gaining morality, concentration, or the eye of knowledge. That unshakable deliverance of the heart: that, indeed, is the object of Holy Life, that is its essence, that is its goal.
-Samyutta Nikaya, translated by Nyanatiloka
-Samyutta Nikaya, translated by Nyanatiloka
Feb 18, 2008
Woman Sitting In A Chair
I heard this from one of the parents at the school. Naturally, you're thinking, ‘was this one of those Steinerian hystericals telling how someone's birkenstocking got ripped, or else a finger-knitting went awry in the middle of winter.'
Actually, this same person once assured me that everything in the Spear of Destiny was absolute fact. Which is nonsense. What Trevor Ravenscroft wrote in that book was largely make-up, particularly the business about Rudolf Steiner coming up with a potion to rid a wealthy Bavarian landowner of rabbits, not to mention the story about the psychic battles he fought with the intelligencia of the Third Reich. It’s all cult memorabilia mixed with urban myths. Chatchkas from Lourdes.
On the other hand, Steiner did believe he was the reincarnation of Aristotle. And he did sell indulgences as it were, famous reincarnations, to wealthy Anthroposophists. He needed the money to rebuild the Goteneum after it burned down. You'll remember what an architectural triumph that was.
Anyway, this story I was told was about a man who recently suffered a stroke. There's been a lot of that lately. A man in our own school had the same thing happen to him. When you hear this, immediately you think of the character in The Diving Bell and The Butterfly, although the man I'm talking about can see, can talk, albeit with a slur, and he can almost sit up. He can also move his right arm a little.
He used to be quite a boulevardier; grew up in New York City, became an antique dealer, then a race car driver, bought a vineyard in Italy, married three or four times, and finally settled here and into landscape architecture and painting. He loves parties and women of all ages and gets a squeeze whenever he can. On certain holidays, and not just Halloween he dresses up as a pirate or a matinee idol. He used to come as Errol Flynn but nobody knew who that was. He also used to drink a lot and would make terrible fun of his wife.
Incidentally, his wife is a doctor at California Pacific. Harvard Medical School, very cold, according to my friend, no charm, but extremely bright and sexy in her aloofness. She's always talking about the latest therapies and can quote all the statistics related to your illness, and your chances of survival.
So the story is that a friend of theirs, someone who often comes to their house for dinner, visits this man once a week, usually on Saturday afternoons and strips for him. Partly as entertainment and partly to speed up his recovery. The wife believes the neurons fire faster with some sensual stimulation, but not from her.
The good samaritan is a former jazz dancer, in her mid 40s, very in her prime, luxurious long black hair, great figure. She arrives, but the wife, the doctor, is not there. The samaritan doesn't speak. Literally, never says a word. She comes in, and believe me he waits for this all week, she turns away from him, takes off her dress, sits on a chair, a simple wooden chair, with her back to him, and then reaches behind and takes off her bra. Sometimes, he asks her to do it more than once. Then she takes down her hair and sometimes she'll turn to one side to show just the curve of her breast.
What really drives him crazy is when, after moving around for a long time, and you understand this is all subtle, this isn't pole dancing, it's more the way a painter's model might move to find a comfortable position; what drives him over the edge is when she turns the chair a little to one side, so she's more in profile, and then leans forward and spills her long hair over the chair. This is his erotic button and the heart of it is the way she exposes her neck, a very beautiful long neck. There's something about the vulnerability in that he finds spellbinding.
This teasing goes on for about an hour. Sometimes, his wife has left on some music. Jazz, New Music. Sometimes, the patient moves his good arm, as though trying to paint her. Sometimes, he begs her to show more, to do more, but she doesn't and that, according to his wife is what makes the healing go faster. The wanting is the magic potion.
This lasts an hour or so and then the woman gets dressed but doesn't face him, gets her purse and leaves. My friend tells me that this therapy has done the man wonders. I'm also told that at least once the wife, the doctor, watched the whole thing from out in the hallway.
Actually, this same person once assured me that everything in the Spear of Destiny was absolute fact. Which is nonsense. What Trevor Ravenscroft wrote in that book was largely make-up, particularly the business about Rudolf Steiner coming up with a potion to rid a wealthy Bavarian landowner of rabbits, not to mention the story about the psychic battles he fought with the intelligencia of the Third Reich. It’s all cult memorabilia mixed with urban myths. Chatchkas from Lourdes.
On the other hand, Steiner did believe he was the reincarnation of Aristotle. And he did sell indulgences as it were, famous reincarnations, to wealthy Anthroposophists. He needed the money to rebuild the Goteneum after it burned down. You'll remember what an architectural triumph that was.
Anyway, this story I was told was about a man who recently suffered a stroke. There's been a lot of that lately. A man in our own school had the same thing happen to him. When you hear this, immediately you think of the character in The Diving Bell and The Butterfly, although the man I'm talking about can see, can talk, albeit with a slur, and he can almost sit up. He can also move his right arm a little.
He used to be quite a boulevardier; grew up in New York City, became an antique dealer, then a race car driver, bought a vineyard in Italy, married three or four times, and finally settled here and into landscape architecture and painting. He loves parties and women of all ages and gets a squeeze whenever he can. On certain holidays, and not just Halloween he dresses up as a pirate or a matinee idol. He used to come as Errol Flynn but nobody knew who that was. He also used to drink a lot and would make terrible fun of his wife.
Incidentally, his wife is a doctor at California Pacific. Harvard Medical School, very cold, according to my friend, no charm, but extremely bright and sexy in her aloofness. She's always talking about the latest therapies and can quote all the statistics related to your illness, and your chances of survival.
So the story is that a friend of theirs, someone who often comes to their house for dinner, visits this man once a week, usually on Saturday afternoons and strips for him. Partly as entertainment and partly to speed up his recovery. The wife believes the neurons fire faster with some sensual stimulation, but not from her.
The good samaritan is a former jazz dancer, in her mid 40s, very in her prime, luxurious long black hair, great figure. She arrives, but the wife, the doctor, is not there. The samaritan doesn't speak. Literally, never says a word. She comes in, and believe me he waits for this all week, she turns away from him, takes off her dress, sits on a chair, a simple wooden chair, with her back to him, and then reaches behind and takes off her bra. Sometimes, he asks her to do it more than once. Then she takes down her hair and sometimes she'll turn to one side to show just the curve of her breast.
What really drives him crazy is when, after moving around for a long time, and you understand this is all subtle, this isn't pole dancing, it's more the way a painter's model might move to find a comfortable position; what drives him over the edge is when she turns the chair a little to one side, so she's more in profile, and then leans forward and spills her long hair over the chair. This is his erotic button and the heart of it is the way she exposes her neck, a very beautiful long neck. There's something about the vulnerability in that he finds spellbinding.
This teasing goes on for about an hour. Sometimes, his wife has left on some music. Jazz, New Music. Sometimes, the patient moves his good arm, as though trying to paint her. Sometimes, he begs her to show more, to do more, but she doesn't and that, according to his wife is what makes the healing go faster. The wanting is the magic potion.
This lasts an hour or so and then the woman gets dressed but doesn't face him, gets her purse and leaves. My friend tells me that this therapy has done the man wonders. I'm also told that at least once the wife, the doctor, watched the whole thing from out in the hallway.
Feb 8, 2008
The Chords Underneath
You read about the nursing student who shot and killed two classmates at a school, in Louisiana. Her mother has no idea why she would do such a thing. In Arizona, a man who was angry that he couldn't secure a liquor license to open a bar, which he wanted to call Drunkenstein's, set out to kill a lot of people at the SuperBowl. He got to the parking lot with a rifle and ammunition, but at the last moment he caught himself and went to police. There's been an epidemic of shootings lately. Many of these involved multiple victims. There was a shooting in Chicago of five women, the shooter still at large; a couple of shootings in Colorado. In San Diego, and gang shootings in Pittsburgh. Bar shooting in New Orleans, Restaurant shooting in Seattle. The city council shooting in St. Louis. The shooting in Memphis: Two boys at odds; one shot the other at school. In Oakland of course there are shootings every night. And so what is that? Underneath, something is stirring again. The economy you'd say or soldiers returning from Iraq. Folks are jumpy. Weird weather you'd say, the icebergs melting. Or else maybe it's the same thing causing bees to drop dead. Bad transmissions. Electric lines. Radar's out.
Maybe, you can trace it to the year of the rat, the 60th year for some rats. Big change all over the place. And doesn't it feel cyclical. Things coming 'round again. Every 30 years, there's a convulsion. That's a real theory and look how it works. Look at the turn of the last century, the end of an era; in the 30s, the end of an era; in the 60s, and now, a little late, but there's something familiar. The beginning of a new era. There's a war, the economy has turned to quicksand, a "once-in-a-generation" presidential candidate is on the move, Amy Winehouse, direct from Rehab is singing Back To Black, the Janis of her time; old boomers having more sex, driven to recreate if not themselves then the feeling of themselves, the moth's last minutes.... New energy. Optimism. Disgust. The illusion of new. And a new cold war, albeit with Islamodogs. Everything is adjusted to this time. You listen to the music and the violence and you can hear the faint sound of something approaching.
Maybe, you can trace it to the year of the rat, the 60th year for some rats. Big change all over the place. And doesn't it feel cyclical. Things coming 'round again. Every 30 years, there's a convulsion. That's a real theory and look how it works. Look at the turn of the last century, the end of an era; in the 30s, the end of an era; in the 60s, and now, a little late, but there's something familiar. The beginning of a new era. There's a war, the economy has turned to quicksand, a "once-in-a-generation" presidential candidate is on the move, Amy Winehouse, direct from Rehab is singing Back To Black, the Janis of her time; old boomers having more sex, driven to recreate if not themselves then the feeling of themselves, the moth's last minutes.... New energy. Optimism. Disgust. The illusion of new. And a new cold war, albeit with Islamodogs. Everything is adjusted to this time. You listen to the music and the violence and you can hear the faint sound of something approaching.
Feb 7, 2008
The Senator's Charm
What is the man's charm? He makes reporters covering his speeches weep, forget their objectivity and become like so many pod people.
But how does he do it and why not the same success with middle aged women? Actually, I know one woman who becomes wet at the mention of his name, who can barely stand to hear Michelle's name mentioned, who read Dreams of My Father and was never the same. "He's Havellian, isn't he?" she'll say."He is. He's an American Havel".
Is she kidding? Yes and no. But most women, of a certain age particularly, prefer Hillary. The best they'll say about Him is that He reminds them of Gary Cooper in Meet John Doe (1941). Clearly, they like Hillary because they grew up in the 1970s alonside her, and also because she has achieved everything they ever wanted to achieve. She went to the best schools, was on the board of great corporations, moved and shook the communities she lived in, and did the life of a feminist and political co-pilot. She has EARANED the 'right'.
"After all I've done fa you and this is the way you treat me?"
She's done all those things that women have to do for men, cleaning up all the dirty work men do, all the deferring and sublimating, all the pragmatism and forgiving, which always needs to be done.... Now finally she can return to her destiny hold on to all of us who cannot return, who were systematically diswilled, who after being the best student in college and after being a successful executive, and after once believing 'I will achieve some great thing', got off track. Life happened and the uplifting, confident voice stopped. One too many banalities to endure, one too many years taking children to soccer games and recitals. And a little too long in the lap of luxury, which after a while wraps those steamy arms of kitchen smells and the annual week in Kawai, so tight you can't ever get away.
And so of course these women live vicariously through her. Her anger is theirs, her 'mysterious emotional life', as Judith Warner put it, is theirs. And her failure, if she doesn't succeed, will be theirs.
For Hispanic women, it goes without saying. Hillary is saint-saint, Mary-Mary, Madonna-Magdalene of Guadalupe and saviourena incarnate. Abd why not? More important she courted the powers that be in the Hispanic community for years. She did her homework, she tended her garden. She earned the right.
But what about men? What's their attraction to Him? 'He's not threatening' is the answer women give. Which is to say his femininity leaves men feeling safe. He's also articulate, he's the King Arthur that draws out the Lancelot in every man, the Sir that men long for. He's Tiger Woods, Walter Payton, and John Coltrane all in one. It doesn't matter what color he is, just let him play.
In that sense he brings out the fact that men in this country are all longing for a dream, for a lot more romance, for clear change, while women have seem to have become a little hardened, a little bitter. His campaign serves as the doctor's X-ray that show you just where men and women have been wounded.
When men hear women say he's not tough enough, that strikes home. When they hear women say he's not 'experienced' enough that has special meaning. It goes back to 7th grade and the girl you wanted, wanted an older guy who was more 'experienced.' So now a lot of men out there, men you wouldn't expect, are wishing he'll put the little blonde in her place, show her who the real commander and chief is.
The world has changed. Now white men want the black guy to rape the white girl. The dark truth is she betrayed them. She was the one who was not only too clever and too ambitious, and so made them feel less, but she also forgave her husband. But maybe not out of goodness, maybe because she needed him for her own ends. A man never wants to feel used, never wants to see another man used by his wife that way.
A man I know, a teacher, an artist, an exceptionally well educated man who has gotten to middle age and is happy with his success and his life told me about a dream he had. "I was in school and here were these two homeroom teachers: Barack and Hillary. And it wasn't clear whose class I would be in and I just wanted to be in his class and I tried to make that clear. I was doing everything I could to be in his homeroom."
But how does he do it and why not the same success with middle aged women? Actually, I know one woman who becomes wet at the mention of his name, who can barely stand to hear Michelle's name mentioned, who read Dreams of My Father and was never the same. "He's Havellian, isn't he?" she'll say."He is. He's an American Havel".
Is she kidding? Yes and no. But most women, of a certain age particularly, prefer Hillary. The best they'll say about Him is that He reminds them of Gary Cooper in Meet John Doe (1941). Clearly, they like Hillary because they grew up in the 1970s alonside her, and also because she has achieved everything they ever wanted to achieve. She went to the best schools, was on the board of great corporations, moved and shook the communities she lived in, and did the life of a feminist and political co-pilot. She has EARANED the 'right'.
"After all I've done fa you and this is the way you treat me?"
She's done all those things that women have to do for men, cleaning up all the dirty work men do, all the deferring and sublimating, all the pragmatism and forgiving, which always needs to be done.... Now finally she can return to her destiny hold on to all of us who cannot return, who were systematically diswilled, who after being the best student in college and after being a successful executive, and after once believing 'I will achieve some great thing', got off track. Life happened and the uplifting, confident voice stopped. One too many banalities to endure, one too many years taking children to soccer games and recitals. And a little too long in the lap of luxury, which after a while wraps those steamy arms of kitchen smells and the annual week in Kawai, so tight you can't ever get away.
And so of course these women live vicariously through her. Her anger is theirs, her 'mysterious emotional life', as Judith Warner put it, is theirs. And her failure, if she doesn't succeed, will be theirs.
For Hispanic women, it goes without saying. Hillary is saint-saint, Mary-Mary, Madonna-Magdalene of Guadalupe and saviourena incarnate. Abd why not? More important she courted the powers that be in the Hispanic community for years. She did her homework, she tended her garden. She earned the right.
But what about men? What's their attraction to Him? 'He's not threatening' is the answer women give. Which is to say his femininity leaves men feeling safe. He's also articulate, he's the King Arthur that draws out the Lancelot in every man, the Sir that men long for. He's Tiger Woods, Walter Payton, and John Coltrane all in one. It doesn't matter what color he is, just let him play.
In that sense he brings out the fact that men in this country are all longing for a dream, for a lot more romance, for clear change, while women have seem to have become a little hardened, a little bitter. His campaign serves as the doctor's X-ray that show you just where men and women have been wounded.
When men hear women say he's not tough enough, that strikes home. When they hear women say he's not 'experienced' enough that has special meaning. It goes back to 7th grade and the girl you wanted, wanted an older guy who was more 'experienced.' So now a lot of men out there, men you wouldn't expect, are wishing he'll put the little blonde in her place, show her who the real commander and chief is.
The world has changed. Now white men want the black guy to rape the white girl. The dark truth is she betrayed them. She was the one who was not only too clever and too ambitious, and so made them feel less, but she also forgave her husband. But maybe not out of goodness, maybe because she needed him for her own ends. A man never wants to feel used, never wants to see another man used by his wife that way.
A man I know, a teacher, an artist, an exceptionally well educated man who has gotten to middle age and is happy with his success and his life told me about a dream he had. "I was in school and here were these two homeroom teachers: Barack and Hillary. And it wasn't clear whose class I would be in and I just wanted to be in his class and I tried to make that clear. I was doing everything I could to be in his homeroom."
Feb 5, 2008
A Campaign Path through Pittsburgh's Pub
It's a bar three blocks from the beach. Long reputation, low light, a holograph of Pittsburgh itself. I have some door knockers, I have one last sign. Obama isn't doing well with lunch pail men and riveters. They don't believe him, they don't think he has the muscle.
So then you better go in, I'm thinking. It's coming up to 11, evening has been downgraded to night, but perhaps I can leave something off. Up on the wall, Gonzaga leads St. Mary's by two, late. Around the horn: Someone at a pool table. Video game screens. A bartender from The Iceman Cometh. The master of bleary. In front of him, hunched over, man and woman together, and then another man at the far end of the bar, almost over the horizon: 50s, red hair, blue eyes, reminds me of Red Skelton, and sitting bolt upright, frozen, staring like a person in a casket whose eyes won't shut.
Woman sees me, the sign. "Yeah, Obama, I'm for Obama," she says, draws me over. She's curly, in a man's blue shirt, gold on her wrist, a pendant on tan skin. Pretty. Man next to her in an old Giants jacket, baseball cap, hunched over, smells smokey, never looks over his shoulder. "Oh don't mind him" she says and hits him over the head with the side of her hand. "He's my boyfriend but he's no damn good. Are you, dummy?"
"I'm from Chicago," she insists. "Three towns over from where Hillary grew up." Great, I say. "You know Oak Park right?" I shake my head. It's coming to me, but no names or dates. "Well you been to Chicago right?" Once, I say and I'm remembering the time my father took me to the Pump Room for dinner and then we went out in a limousine to a mobster's house. I don't remember the man. Danny Devito if I had to come up with a likeness. But I remember his house. Heavy dark wood, a view of the lake, I suppose. My father wanted to share his links to the underworld and it never occurred to me what that was about, what he was saying, what he wanted me to take from that.
And at some point on that trip, on the airplane going, my father, from 26 miles of unpaved streets, in upstate New York, having been a football star and fucked his French teacher, got down to NY to drive a cab and go to night school at Pratt Institute, and here he was in First Class showing me he could read Chateaubriand's Atala, in French.
"Well then you know Oak Park, right? Don't you?" She's saying. I know the name, but I'm not channeling anything else just now.
"Have you ever heard of anybody name Wright?" She says, rolling her eyes like a middle aged valley girl.
"Frank Lloyd."
"Where you been?" She says.
"I can't imagine".
"Well you better wake up there, boy.... Yea, Lake Park."
"He built some houses there," I say, "a few houses", remembering a PBS special about the first homes he built there. And I'm thinking that must be the money suburb on that side of the city. But is it West or East?
"A few houses? Are you fucking kidding me? He built hundreds of houses. Where you been?" She's bobbing and weaving. "You need to get up to speed there, mister."
Dummy cackles and she hits him again over the head.
Here eyes are watery but she's making a go of it, if only she could remember how all this came up.
"Oh yea, so Hillary lived three towns over from us. West side, right. Then the blacks started coming over from the south and the property went down and we had to get outta there. No, it was.... well we did, we moved outta there and got to... " then she lost track again. Nothing happend for a moment.
"No, but I'm for Obama," she said. "Let me have one of those posters." She took one. The bartender, the towel over his sholder, came over looked down on it, shook his head in disgust.
Time passed. She said something, I said something. Dummy cackled.
The bartender noticed I had a plastic cup I'd picked up down the street. "Can't drink that in here," he said. "It's just ice tea," I said. "Sorry, can't do it. Just what we sell."
I can't finish an ice tea?
"Get the fuck outta here," he said. I had that button to the floor. "Get the fuck outta here."
The woman looked at me frowning.
I didn't want to bend to this bartender. "Mystery to me," I said. "I'd think you'd want all the people you could get in here,"
He turned away and put the towel to another wet glass.
It's in the blood, I thought, I can't get rid of it. It's the nature of bars and organized alcohol, it's why birds can migrate, it's that the old gaelic bag of denial and woof-woof. It's what you get for running with Obama, I thought.
So then you better go in, I'm thinking. It's coming up to 11, evening has been downgraded to night, but perhaps I can leave something off. Up on the wall, Gonzaga leads St. Mary's by two, late. Around the horn: Someone at a pool table. Video game screens. A bartender from The Iceman Cometh. The master of bleary. In front of him, hunched over, man and woman together, and then another man at the far end of the bar, almost over the horizon: 50s, red hair, blue eyes, reminds me of Red Skelton, and sitting bolt upright, frozen, staring like a person in a casket whose eyes won't shut.
Woman sees me, the sign. "Yeah, Obama, I'm for Obama," she says, draws me over. She's curly, in a man's blue shirt, gold on her wrist, a pendant on tan skin. Pretty. Man next to her in an old Giants jacket, baseball cap, hunched over, smells smokey, never looks over his shoulder. "Oh don't mind him" she says and hits him over the head with the side of her hand. "He's my boyfriend but he's no damn good. Are you, dummy?"
"I'm from Chicago," she insists. "Three towns over from where Hillary grew up." Great, I say. "You know Oak Park right?" I shake my head. It's coming to me, but no names or dates. "Well you been to Chicago right?" Once, I say and I'm remembering the time my father took me to the Pump Room for dinner and then we went out in a limousine to a mobster's house. I don't remember the man. Danny Devito if I had to come up with a likeness. But I remember his house. Heavy dark wood, a view of the lake, I suppose. My father wanted to share his links to the underworld and it never occurred to me what that was about, what he was saying, what he wanted me to take from that.
And at some point on that trip, on the airplane going, my father, from 26 miles of unpaved streets, in upstate New York, having been a football star and fucked his French teacher, got down to NY to drive a cab and go to night school at Pratt Institute, and here he was in First Class showing me he could read Chateaubriand's Atala, in French.
"Well then you know Oak Park, right? Don't you?" She's saying. I know the name, but I'm not channeling anything else just now.
"Have you ever heard of anybody name Wright?" She says, rolling her eyes like a middle aged valley girl.
"Frank Lloyd."
"Where you been?" She says.
"I can't imagine".
"Well you better wake up there, boy.... Yea, Lake Park."
"He built some houses there," I say, "a few houses", remembering a PBS special about the first homes he built there. And I'm thinking that must be the money suburb on that side of the city. But is it West or East?
"A few houses? Are you fucking kidding me? He built hundreds of houses. Where you been?" She's bobbing and weaving. "You need to get up to speed there, mister."
Dummy cackles and she hits him again over the head.
Here eyes are watery but she's making a go of it, if only she could remember how all this came up.
"Oh yea, so Hillary lived three towns over from us. West side, right. Then the blacks started coming over from the south and the property went down and we had to get outta there. No, it was.... well we did, we moved outta there and got to... " then she lost track again. Nothing happend for a moment.
"No, but I'm for Obama," she said. "Let me have one of those posters." She took one. The bartender, the towel over his sholder, came over looked down on it, shook his head in disgust.
Time passed. She said something, I said something. Dummy cackled.
The bartender noticed I had a plastic cup I'd picked up down the street. "Can't drink that in here," he said. "It's just ice tea," I said. "Sorry, can't do it. Just what we sell."
I can't finish an ice tea?
"Get the fuck outta here," he said. I had that button to the floor. "Get the fuck outta here."
The woman looked at me frowning.
I didn't want to bend to this bartender. "Mystery to me," I said. "I'd think you'd want all the people you could get in here,"
He turned away and put the towel to another wet glass.
It's in the blood, I thought, I can't get rid of it. It's the nature of bars and organized alcohol, it's why birds can migrate, it's that the old gaelic bag of denial and woof-woof. It's what you get for running with Obama, I thought.
Feb 4, 2008
Feb 1, 2008
Three Sluts At Dinner
Around the oak table in the secret light of candle stubs,
Three faces coming to a reunion, three sluts of yesteryear.
This is the way they describe themselves, not me.
Between them, they've had hundreds of men, in their day,
Which was years ago, athough still now, at least one of them,
She is still very much at it. Prefering young professors,
The more esoteric knowledge the better. And above all, German.
Although she is Jewish, spanking the ghosts of Bergen Belson.
Is it that inexplicable pleasure in being told
you are a goddess,
By the sons of soldiers, feeling that heaviest of German artillery
firing right into your mouth, round after round,
incarnation after incarnation...
Or is it an Old Testament need to catch the bad seed
before it can take root somewhere
Else... somewhere more fertile, more deserving even,
more in the spirit
of Munich games, more supple truth to tell....
So yes, she gets her power
however she can, and when the conversation turns to a Berkely
Hot tub, a secret speakeasy for sex under the redwoods,
And one of the others makes a joke about the Jewess's predilection
for professors, she put her old friend right down.
"Professors weren't into you, truck drivers right?" Said
with a carefree bitterness you sometimes find
in childless women of a certain age.
had interest in you..."
Three faces coming to a reunion, three sluts of yesteryear.
This is the way they describe themselves, not me.
Between them, they've had hundreds of men, in their day,
Which was years ago, athough still now, at least one of them,
She is still very much at it. Prefering young professors,
The more esoteric knowledge the better. And above all, German.
Although she is Jewish, spanking the ghosts of Bergen Belson.
Is it that inexplicable pleasure in being told
you are a goddess,
By the sons of soldiers, feeling that heaviest of German artillery
firing right into your mouth, round after round,
incarnation after incarnation...
Or is it an Old Testament need to catch the bad seed
before it can take root somewhere
Else... somewhere more fertile, more deserving even,
more in the spirit
of Munich games, more supple truth to tell....
So yes, she gets her power
however she can, and when the conversation turns to a Berkely
Hot tub, a secret speakeasy for sex under the redwoods,
And one of the others makes a joke about the Jewess's predilection
for professors, she put her old friend right down.
"Professors weren't into you, truck drivers right?" Said
with a carefree bitterness you sometimes find
in childless women of a certain age.
had interest in you..."
Jan 26, 2008
Mrs. Martin
Phone canvassing continues. The work is slow. Many of the numbers have changed. Or people don’t answer. Or else we don’t speak the same language. Or some say they support Obama, but you have the sense they’re merely trying to please. Perhaps, they think you're an immigration detective, one of the police tricksters from 850 Bryant Street. Officer Bizzaro calling in a strange voice to see who is there and for how long.
Or a certain kind of woman will answer. She’ll have a name like Sonya or Deirdre. “I understand what you’re doing,” they’ll say abruptly. “But I’m not interested.” As though you were peddling time-shares in Reno. They hang up. I assume they’re leaning toward Billary. Man haters, I’m wondering. But then I’m sometimes short when people call, so perhaps, this has nothing to do with politics at all.
Then once I get this. “Is Ms. Martin there?” I ask.
“Who is calling?”
“I’m a precinct captain with the Obama campaign”. TV gurgle in the background.
“My daughter is not here,” she begins. “I’m Mrs. Martin.
Mrs. Martin is mother of nine, grandmother of 14, a woman of 40 times 2, once a player in city politics, and in bad health in recent years. Heart surgery is at the top of the list. Diabetes, gout, inflammations. She names them all. But tonight for this moment, she is fine, smooth, wise and gracious.
I make my pitch. I don’t mention Billary, although I assume for some reason that Senator Obama is not her choice. She says something to distance herself from him. That seems strange and I want to say, “Mrs. Martin, I assume you are African American by your accent, and I can’t imagine you are not for Barack Obama. For God’s sake this is the time to believe if there ever was…
Of course, this is a white man’s appeal, some might argue this is modern racism. "Oh yea you like this man because he and his wife went to Harvard and she has straight hair and he's part white'." I know that. Still. Finally, I confront her. “What are you afraid of?” I ask, not a little impetuously.
“I am not afraid of anything. Not at this age, I can tell you that. There’s nothing left to be afraid of, although you probably wouldn’t understand that. It’s not that I’m afraid of anything. But you have to remember what I've seen. And they'll take him out. They always do. They won't let him go for a month in the White House. So what you are asking me to do is to choose between voting for this young man, and I like him very much, I do, I think he would make a great president, but you are asking me to choose between helping him become president and signing his death warrant.”
You hear this all the time in the black community, all the time. And what can you say..
“I’ve lived through too much she went on,” and described her first husband who came home from World War II, practically in a box he was so shot up. She stayed with him to the end, a bad end by the sound of her voice. She married again, and that man also had been in the war and was injured although he didn’t tell her until after they were married, and then he died…..
“What is your name again?” she asked. I told her. She broke away for a moment….
“Oh my God, baby. Don’t you look beautiful . I am looking at an angel. Where you goin’ baby. Saturday night I know you goin’ somewhere. You look so good baby. Now, you got any money? I didn’t think so,,,, well you go on over there, and get my purse. Right there under those things. Now bring it here. How much you gonna need? … Okay. Well, here what I got.”
“You still there,” she said to me. I nodded with a word.
“You look so good baby but don’t be home too late. You hear me? I don’t want you runnin’ around so you just come on home and I’ll still be up. Okay, baby?”
Baby said okay and Mrs. Martin came back to me. She launched into another subject and then another after that.
“It sounds like you have a lot to do,” I said.
“I do have a lot to do. And it’s all in my book.” She described it, an autobiography, and everything she knew about this city was going to be in it.
“Don’t you know how life just comes around. But you know, the worst racism I ever experienced has been in the last five years. Yes, right here in this city.”
“This city,” I said shaking my head. “Who does this?
“Samoans, Asians, Whites, Blacks. They call you “b” word. ‘F’ word. I’ve never been called a nigger more times than here. And you know who’s the worst? The worst are the Russians. They just hate black people. I hear it all the time, again and again. ‘Get outta here nigger,’ they’ll say. ‘Get off this bus, nigger.’ “
And that’s about the time she got to Him and how He was keeping her going. “I don’t know why. He must have some plan because he coulda gotten rid a me a long time ago. You know that. But He’s got some desire for me and I’m trying to find that. So I just get outta bed every mornin’ and go on about my business.”
She said she’d had a revelation some years before. “I hear voices, someone is always talkin’ in my head, but you can tell the difference, there’s a special voice that speaks and it’s like nothing else, it’s clear as a bell and once you’ve heard that voice you never doubt again.”
I wanted her to go on, to reassure me, to send me God’s blessing, but she had to go. Baby wasn’t out the door yet. “Baby, you look like the sun just came up,” she said. “What’s your name again?” she asked me. I told her. “Well, I’ve really enjoyed talkin’ to you tonight.” I have too, I said. “I’ll think about what you said, but you think about what I said. Bye bye now.”
Or a certain kind of woman will answer. She’ll have a name like Sonya or Deirdre. “I understand what you’re doing,” they’ll say abruptly. “But I’m not interested.” As though you were peddling time-shares in Reno. They hang up. I assume they’re leaning toward Billary. Man haters, I’m wondering. But then I’m sometimes short when people call, so perhaps, this has nothing to do with politics at all.
Then once I get this. “Is Ms. Martin there?” I ask.
“Who is calling?”
“I’m a precinct captain with the Obama campaign”. TV gurgle in the background.
“My daughter is not here,” she begins. “I’m Mrs. Martin.
Mrs. Martin is mother of nine, grandmother of 14, a woman of 40 times 2, once a player in city politics, and in bad health in recent years. Heart surgery is at the top of the list. Diabetes, gout, inflammations. She names them all. But tonight for this moment, she is fine, smooth, wise and gracious.
I make my pitch. I don’t mention Billary, although I assume for some reason that Senator Obama is not her choice. She says something to distance herself from him. That seems strange and I want to say, “Mrs. Martin, I assume you are African American by your accent, and I can’t imagine you are not for Barack Obama. For God’s sake this is the time to believe if there ever was…
Of course, this is a white man’s appeal, some might argue this is modern racism. "Oh yea you like this man because he and his wife went to Harvard and she has straight hair and he's part white'." I know that. Still. Finally, I confront her. “What are you afraid of?” I ask, not a little impetuously.
“I am not afraid of anything. Not at this age, I can tell you that. There’s nothing left to be afraid of, although you probably wouldn’t understand that. It’s not that I’m afraid of anything. But you have to remember what I've seen. And they'll take him out. They always do. They won't let him go for a month in the White House. So what you are asking me to do is to choose between voting for this young man, and I like him very much, I do, I think he would make a great president, but you are asking me to choose between helping him become president and signing his death warrant.”
You hear this all the time in the black community, all the time. And what can you say..
“I’ve lived through too much she went on,” and described her first husband who came home from World War II, practically in a box he was so shot up. She stayed with him to the end, a bad end by the sound of her voice. She married again, and that man also had been in the war and was injured although he didn’t tell her until after they were married, and then he died…..
“What is your name again?” she asked. I told her. She broke away for a moment….
“Oh my God, baby. Don’t you look beautiful . I am looking at an angel. Where you goin’ baby. Saturday night I know you goin’ somewhere. You look so good baby. Now, you got any money? I didn’t think so,,,, well you go on over there, and get my purse. Right there under those things. Now bring it here. How much you gonna need? … Okay. Well, here what I got.”
“You still there,” she said to me. I nodded with a word.
“You look so good baby but don’t be home too late. You hear me? I don’t want you runnin’ around so you just come on home and I’ll still be up. Okay, baby?”
Baby said okay and Mrs. Martin came back to me. She launched into another subject and then another after that.
“It sounds like you have a lot to do,” I said.
“I do have a lot to do. And it’s all in my book.” She described it, an autobiography, and everything she knew about this city was going to be in it.
“Don’t you know how life just comes around. But you know, the worst racism I ever experienced has been in the last five years. Yes, right here in this city.”
“This city,” I said shaking my head. “Who does this?
“Samoans, Asians, Whites, Blacks. They call you “b” word. ‘F’ word. I’ve never been called a nigger more times than here. And you know who’s the worst? The worst are the Russians. They just hate black people. I hear it all the time, again and again. ‘Get outta here nigger,’ they’ll say. ‘Get off this bus, nigger.’ “
And that’s about the time she got to Him and how He was keeping her going. “I don’t know why. He must have some plan because he coulda gotten rid a me a long time ago. You know that. But He’s got some desire for me and I’m trying to find that. So I just get outta bed every mornin’ and go on about my business.”
She said she’d had a revelation some years before. “I hear voices, someone is always talkin’ in my head, but you can tell the difference, there’s a special voice that speaks and it’s like nothing else, it’s clear as a bell and once you’ve heard that voice you never doubt again.”
I wanted her to go on, to reassure me, to send me God’s blessing, but she had to go. Baby wasn’t out the door yet. “Baby, you look like the sun just came up,” she said. “What’s your name again?” she asked me. I told her. “Well, I’ve really enjoyed talkin’ to you tonight.” I have too, I said. “I’ll think about what you said, but you think about what I said. Bye bye now.”
Jan 14, 2008
Off the Daily Telegraph
Here's a story....
A city worker who was "obsessed with money" jumped to his death from a luxury 10th-floor apartment he was viewing, as an estate agent looked on in horror.
Police were called to Discovery Dock on Tuesday afternoon
Vincent Ma was looking around the £850,000 flat in London's Canary Wharf when he leapt onto a ledge and plunged 100ft from an open window.
The day before he died, the £150,000-a-year creative director had phoned an estate agent to arrange an appointment to view one of the flats at Discovery Dock, the highest residential block in the area.
It is understood the offices of the design consultancy he worked for looked out over the building. Police sources said when the sales agent took him around the property, Mr Ma seemed disinterested in the fixtures and fittings.
But moments later he suddenly threw himself out of the window, plummeting 10 floors in full view of guests at a nearby hotel. A suicide note addressed to his parents was found in his pocket by officers from Scotland Yard, who were called to the apartments at 3.30pm on Tuesday.
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The 33-year-old was declared dead at the scene. Mr Ma's devastated family said he had disowned them four years ago, after becoming obsessed with money and the trappings of wealth.
His father Yiu Ma, 60, an undertaker from Warrington, Cheshire, said: "Vincent was once a happy boy who had time for everybody.
"He was an extremely intelligent young man and a talented artist - he would always be drawing. He gained a 2:1 degree from Reading University in Graphic Design and we were very proud.
"But after university he moved to London and became increasingly obsessed with money. He would talk about nothing else, how much he was earning in his job and what cars he could buy.
"The last time we saw him was Christmas in 2003. It was a normal family celebration and there was nothing to suggest that he was about to sever all contact with us.
"Since then he has kept the same number, but never answers his phone to us and wasn't speaking to friends.
"We've tried everything - even calling the police who said he no longer wanted to have contact with us."
Mr Ma's mother Kwai Chang Ma, 57, added: "He was a loving son before he moved to London, he always had time for the family. "But even when his cousins would e-mail to say they wanted to visit him he would write back and say 'who are you? I don't know you.'"
* * * *
A man desires to be in a certain place. He can see this place every day. It's not in his imagination, it is real... The sight taunts him. It says to him, 'I am everything you need to fulfill your identity.' If he could just be in that place, he thinks, if he could just have that address, that view... Finally, he visits this place, and ends his life. It appears he did not go to inquire about how he might live there. For some reason he knew or he guessed that he could not. It is simultaneously a moral tale about desire and yet also a homely urban myth about someone who draws no sympathy. But you wonder what happened in those last say 12 hours before he goes into that building. Has he envisioned this drama for months? Or is really on the spur of the moment, a flash of inspiration, even brilliance, about how to put an exclamation on an ordinary life.... But who did he imagine would be the audience for this act?
A city worker who was "obsessed with money" jumped to his death from a luxury 10th-floor apartment he was viewing, as an estate agent looked on in horror.
Police were called to Discovery Dock on Tuesday afternoon
Vincent Ma was looking around the £850,000 flat in London's Canary Wharf when he leapt onto a ledge and plunged 100ft from an open window.
The day before he died, the £150,000-a-year creative director had phoned an estate agent to arrange an appointment to view one of the flats at Discovery Dock, the highest residential block in the area.
It is understood the offices of the design consultancy he worked for looked out over the building. Police sources said when the sales agent took him around the property, Mr Ma seemed disinterested in the fixtures and fittings.
But moments later he suddenly threw himself out of the window, plummeting 10 floors in full view of guests at a nearby hotel. A suicide note addressed to his parents was found in his pocket by officers from Scotland Yard, who were called to the apartments at 3.30pm on Tuesday.
advertisement
The 33-year-old was declared dead at the scene. Mr Ma's devastated family said he had disowned them four years ago, after becoming obsessed with money and the trappings of wealth.
His father Yiu Ma, 60, an undertaker from Warrington, Cheshire, said: "Vincent was once a happy boy who had time for everybody.
"He was an extremely intelligent young man and a talented artist - he would always be drawing. He gained a 2:1 degree from Reading University in Graphic Design and we were very proud.
"But after university he moved to London and became increasingly obsessed with money. He would talk about nothing else, how much he was earning in his job and what cars he could buy.
"The last time we saw him was Christmas in 2003. It was a normal family celebration and there was nothing to suggest that he was about to sever all contact with us.
"Since then he has kept the same number, but never answers his phone to us and wasn't speaking to friends.
"We've tried everything - even calling the police who said he no longer wanted to have contact with us."
Mr Ma's mother Kwai Chang Ma, 57, added: "He was a loving son before he moved to London, he always had time for the family. "But even when his cousins would e-mail to say they wanted to visit him he would write back and say 'who are you? I don't know you.'"
* * * *
A man desires to be in a certain place. He can see this place every day. It's not in his imagination, it is real... The sight taunts him. It says to him, 'I am everything you need to fulfill your identity.' If he could just be in that place, he thinks, if he could just have that address, that view... Finally, he visits this place, and ends his life. It appears he did not go to inquire about how he might live there. For some reason he knew or he guessed that he could not. It is simultaneously a moral tale about desire and yet also a homely urban myth about someone who draws no sympathy. But you wonder what happened in those last say 12 hours before he goes into that building. Has he envisioned this drama for months? Or is really on the spur of the moment, a flash of inspiration, even brilliance, about how to put an exclamation on an ordinary life.... But who did he imagine would be the audience for this act?
Jan 4, 2008
Barack Obama Will Be Our Next President
Here are some reasons to consider Barack Obama for president.
1. If we can agree that the United States is, for another moment, the most powerful nation in the world, then you could argue that every person in the world should be able to vote for America's president. Failing that here is a candidate, whose father comes from Kenya, his mother from Kansas, and of course whose middle name is Hussein. Isn't the diversity inherent in this man one of the most important qualities needed in the next president? Can you imagine the sense of participation this man will give to so many people, not just in America but out....
2. He's the smartest candidate. He has a vision of the future and a vision of America. He also has plans, and whether you agree with a particular plan, for say Healthcare or Foreign Policy, there is a clear statement of purpose. That's more unusual than you might think. You begin to see that his plan for one is like his plan for another. Everything is based on the idea of including all sides. You don't isolate healthcare providers from users, you don't shun dialogue with Iran because they support Hezbollah. The goal is to move things along, get past fear and ideology, and if discussion doesn't work then you try something else. But talking to opponents is the first option not the last.
3. Barack Obama is also healthy and you see that particularly in comparison to Hillary and Bill, still playing out their family drama in public. How could Hillary every say, "and I want to thank the great love of my life"?
As an aside, can't you see Bill listening to Obama's speech and thinking how much it sounded like something he would have written, and how much more visionary it was than what his wife was saying. And can't you see Bill at the nominating convention, forever more black than white, secretly wishing Obama wins the nomination. And after all, he stands a much better chance of some plum job, say this country's representative to the UN, than what he's like to get from his wife.
1. The endless argument is that Barack Obama lacks experience. But one could argue that if experience is what we've had for the last eight years, and maybe longer, then something else is required. The brain trove of experience imbedded in the Bush dynasty has lead to every kind of disaster but, most of all, a growing sense of hopelessness. Which is why Obama's speech last night was so inspiring: he know how to express the desire for hope, he understands how to dispell cynicism. Meanwhile, he's splattered as an idealist, partly because he wants to bring people to the table to talk. "Yes, but you can't simply say, 'let's talk' and assume that solves the problem." Of course not, but the lessons from Camp David have always been that you get opponents together and, using your imprimatur as president, you get them to agree to something. That's not idealism, it's pragmatic. Obama lacks experience? Perhaps, depending on your define it, but certainly intelligence, principle and the ability to provoke hope is worth more than some familiarity with the political passageways of the White House.
5. B said a true thing last night after listening to the speech. It was that Barack Obama speaks to the soul of America in a new way. it's partly because there's so much substance in his style, and because he has taken on, subconciously or not, the role of that Black preacher who really believes his message and through that conviction, convinces others. He offers a unique sense of security, a deep down trust in the rhythmic mantras of those people like Martin Luther King. It's that American lullaby that appeals even to whites who've never been to the south. It's that assurance that 'you know what, I guess everything can be okay after all, that with a fresh effort we really can succeed.'
Here is the part of his speech following his win in Iowa....
1. If we can agree that the United States is, for another moment, the most powerful nation in the world, then you could argue that every person in the world should be able to vote for America's president. Failing that here is a candidate, whose father comes from Kenya, his mother from Kansas, and of course whose middle name is Hussein. Isn't the diversity inherent in this man one of the most important qualities needed in the next president? Can you imagine the sense of participation this man will give to so many people, not just in America but out....
2. He's the smartest candidate. He has a vision of the future and a vision of America. He also has plans, and whether you agree with a particular plan, for say Healthcare or Foreign Policy, there is a clear statement of purpose. That's more unusual than you might think. You begin to see that his plan for one is like his plan for another. Everything is based on the idea of including all sides. You don't isolate healthcare providers from users, you don't shun dialogue with Iran because they support Hezbollah. The goal is to move things along, get past fear and ideology, and if discussion doesn't work then you try something else. But talking to opponents is the first option not the last.
3. Barack Obama is also healthy and you see that particularly in comparison to Hillary and Bill, still playing out their family drama in public. How could Hillary every say, "and I want to thank the great love of my life"?
As an aside, can't you see Bill listening to Obama's speech and thinking how much it sounded like something he would have written, and how much more visionary it was than what his wife was saying. And can't you see Bill at the nominating convention, forever more black than white, secretly wishing Obama wins the nomination. And after all, he stands a much better chance of some plum job, say this country's representative to the UN, than what he's like to get from his wife.
1. The endless argument is that Barack Obama lacks experience. But one could argue that if experience is what we've had for the last eight years, and maybe longer, then something else is required. The brain trove of experience imbedded in the Bush dynasty has lead to every kind of disaster but, most of all, a growing sense of hopelessness. Which is why Obama's speech last night was so inspiring: he know how to express the desire for hope, he understands how to dispell cynicism. Meanwhile, he's splattered as an idealist, partly because he wants to bring people to the table to talk. "Yes, but you can't simply say, 'let's talk' and assume that solves the problem." Of course not, but the lessons from Camp David have always been that you get opponents together and, using your imprimatur as president, you get them to agree to something. That's not idealism, it's pragmatic. Obama lacks experience? Perhaps, depending on your define it, but certainly intelligence, principle and the ability to provoke hope is worth more than some familiarity with the political passageways of the White House.
5. B said a true thing last night after listening to the speech. It was that Barack Obama speaks to the soul of America in a new way. it's partly because there's so much substance in his style, and because he has taken on, subconciously or not, the role of that Black preacher who really believes his message and through that conviction, convinces others. He offers a unique sense of security, a deep down trust in the rhythmic mantras of those people like Martin Luther King. It's that American lullaby that appeals even to whites who've never been to the south. It's that assurance that 'you know what, I guess everything can be okay after all, that with a fresh effort we really can succeed.'
Here is the part of his speech following his win in Iowa....
Jan 2, 2008
News From Eldoret
Marina received this email today from friends in northwest Kenya....
Dear Friends,
I find comfort as I take a moment amid the madness here to catch you up a bit on what we see on the ground.
First, let me assure you that Sarah Ellen and I are safe and fine. We feel fortunate in getting the US community out of here for the time being. Our British friends will fly out on a charter today if we can find fuel for the plane.
As far as I know, we have not lost a single AMPATH staff member or patient. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to run clinics since there are no matatus [van-taxi] running. It took almost three hours for one of our pharmacist to walk by foot to give us access to drugs. Most staff are busy securing safety of loved ones and most patients are either afraid or can’t travel. We will have some fairly unique decisions to make if we can’t move supplies around safely and soon.
I took heart in an ER this morning when I no longer needed to step over a body.
Eldoret is quiet today but all roads in and out remain blocked by unpredictable gangs. Many residential areas of Eldoret are insecure and many of our friends are simply scared to death. We are doing all we can to help with the food and shelter needs of our Kenyan friends seeking safety.
We can find food as of today since a few markets reopened. And we have our farms. Can’t get the food out to patients so will harvest food to help feed our compound and the many refugee centers that have popped up in churches and jails.
We have seen some things over the last few days that cannot be described in this note. We have witnessed sad evidence that we as a human family have a lot of growing yet to do. When you think a moment, you realize the IU-Kenya Program is at its core symbolizes what is so critically needed by Kenyan leadership. This is not a program dedicated to building medical schools or even stamping out a pandemic. At its heart, it is a program that screams “Yes” in a world to ready to say “No”. This program puts love and compassion front and center. Those values build the rest. When that message is embraced here, we can go home. We are unable to stop what is now happening, but we are rock solid in keeping to our core message.
Deep in our heart, Sarah Ellen and I believe Kenya will find a way to move back from the abyss now staring them in the face. As they reclaim their lives, programs and pride the IU-Kenya program will be there for them. Please do not be discouraged. Stay with us as we stay with our Kenyan family. Shortly they will need us all more than ever.
Pray for each other as we go forward with hope one day at a time.
Dear Friends,
I find comfort as I take a moment amid the madness here to catch you up a bit on what we see on the ground.
First, let me assure you that Sarah Ellen and I are safe and fine. We feel fortunate in getting the US community out of here for the time being. Our British friends will fly out on a charter today if we can find fuel for the plane.
As far as I know, we have not lost a single AMPATH staff member or patient. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to run clinics since there are no matatus [van-taxi] running. It took almost three hours for one of our pharmacist to walk by foot to give us access to drugs. Most staff are busy securing safety of loved ones and most patients are either afraid or can’t travel. We will have some fairly unique decisions to make if we can’t move supplies around safely and soon.
I took heart in an ER this morning when I no longer needed to step over a body.
Eldoret is quiet today but all roads in and out remain blocked by unpredictable gangs. Many residential areas of Eldoret are insecure and many of our friends are simply scared to death. We are doing all we can to help with the food and shelter needs of our Kenyan friends seeking safety.
We can find food as of today since a few markets reopened. And we have our farms. Can’t get the food out to patients so will harvest food to help feed our compound and the many refugee centers that have popped up in churches and jails.
We have seen some things over the last few days that cannot be described in this note. We have witnessed sad evidence that we as a human family have a lot of growing yet to do. When you think a moment, you realize the IU-Kenya Program is at its core symbolizes what is so critically needed by Kenyan leadership. This is not a program dedicated to building medical schools or even stamping out a pandemic. At its heart, it is a program that screams “Yes” in a world to ready to say “No”. This program puts love and compassion front and center. Those values build the rest. When that message is embraced here, we can go home. We are unable to stop what is now happening, but we are rock solid in keeping to our core message.
Deep in our heart, Sarah Ellen and I believe Kenya will find a way to move back from the abyss now staring them in the face. As they reclaim their lives, programs and pride the IU-Kenya program will be there for them. Please do not be discouraged. Stay with us as we stay with our Kenyan family. Shortly they will need us all more than ever.
Pray for each other as we go forward with hope one day at a time.
Dec 26, 2007
Not A Country For Old Men...
... and not worth four Golden Globe nominations, certainly not one for Best Picture. Good performances, great dialogue, what you can hear of it, clever editing, evocative cinematography, altogether a compelling story, as Bonnie & Clyde was once compelling... All that, but finally thin, unsatisfying, and disturbing: not only because evil limps away to flagellate the world another day, but because good is portrayed as such a lesser force, something finally personal, clownish, tired and sentimental.
As for the violence, by the last 20 minutes, even the director seems to have had enough. The film persona also seems uncomfortably close to Fargo, although here the black comedy is much blacker, less forgiving.
I've never been a Cormac McCarthy fan. Either you are or you're not. And I didn't read this book, which might have made some difference. But despite the problems, there is something that stays bolted to the mind, more a feeling than an image, and perhaps there is one thing to be saved from the story. it is this contemporary view of evil.
Not something that can be ever beaten, but something that's implacable, impervious, and lucky. Did you ever imagine evil as being lucky? The sinister quality here is not heavy black, that signature breathing of Darth Vader, and there's no theatrical aspect. This reaches beyond psycopathic, which after all has its limits.
Segur, as he's called, is much more like an Islamic extremist. A strong believer in nothing at all save the joy of destruction. But he's a mythic extremist, the Bin Laden in the tri-city area. He's also vaguely unfuckingAmerican, vaguely Latin or Mediterranean, with off-color skin and watery eyes, in sum the particular shade of foreigner that reminds you of Jewish stereotypes created by the Nazis.
For Anderson, the film maker, old-fashioned evil, here played by dead Mexican drug dealers and corporate devils, seems like a sail boat next to a super tanker. Here's evil that flips the coin and lets his victims decide, and to be terrorized by the odds. Why? Because even the most evil spirit needs some entertainment, some challenge and heehaw.
There's no good challenge here, no corresponding white hat, which is the real problem with the story. Still, it's interesting to see evil who is forever lucky, yet never missing an opportunity to destroy and so to those who unknowingly help him, he always leaves division and resentment. No deed — good, bad or indifferent — goes unpunished...
* * *
And then in the middle of the night I got up to read that Benazir Bhutto had been murdered. I should have known that, I thought, I should have expected some dark thing to follow the portrayl of something so dark as Segur.
As for the violence, by the last 20 minutes, even the director seems to have had enough. The film persona also seems uncomfortably close to Fargo, although here the black comedy is much blacker, less forgiving.
I've never been a Cormac McCarthy fan. Either you are or you're not. And I didn't read this book, which might have made some difference. But despite the problems, there is something that stays bolted to the mind, more a feeling than an image, and perhaps there is one thing to be saved from the story. it is this contemporary view of evil.
Not something that can be ever beaten, but something that's implacable, impervious, and lucky. Did you ever imagine evil as being lucky? The sinister quality here is not heavy black, that signature breathing of Darth Vader, and there's no theatrical aspect. This reaches beyond psycopathic, which after all has its limits.
Segur, as he's called, is much more like an Islamic extremist. A strong believer in nothing at all save the joy of destruction. But he's a mythic extremist, the Bin Laden in the tri-city area. He's also vaguely unfuckingAmerican, vaguely Latin or Mediterranean, with off-color skin and watery eyes, in sum the particular shade of foreigner that reminds you of Jewish stereotypes created by the Nazis.
For Anderson, the film maker, old-fashioned evil, here played by dead Mexican drug dealers and corporate devils, seems like a sail boat next to a super tanker. Here's evil that flips the coin and lets his victims decide, and to be terrorized by the odds. Why? Because even the most evil spirit needs some entertainment, some challenge and heehaw.
There's no good challenge here, no corresponding white hat, which is the real problem with the story. Still, it's interesting to see evil who is forever lucky, yet never missing an opportunity to destroy and so to those who unknowingly help him, he always leaves division and resentment. No deed — good, bad or indifferent — goes unpunished...
* * *
And then in the middle of the night I got up to read that Benazir Bhutto had been murdered. I should have known that, I thought, I should have expected some dark thing to follow the portrayl of something so dark as Segur.
Dec 20, 2007
Holiday Poem For You
At the cirque, under big tops shaped like pointy,
striped breasts, Hamster devils scamper in spinning
cages; three blonde waifs, with liquid joints,
pouring in and out of each other; a clown
filching time out of pocket, sequined girls
twirling far above your head. Then someone
from the audience disappears, before your very eyes.
Afterwards, the hero finally flies his kite.
But before all that, a man Runs through us,
like some hotel red cap, with a box, yelling,
“Package for Mr. Innocent. Package for Mr. Innocent.”
“Package for Mr. Innocent,” you think.
“Ah, but that’s not me. No,but I wish it was.”
To be both innocent and innocent. To be a clean
Sheet for a day. To have little knowledge beyond
fresh sensation, to be of no particular age,
or era, no particular background or filament.
To be without much desire, stripped down to your
briefs, plum out of sentimentality, unable
to second guess, yet able to withstand
relentless curiosity and make out subtle joys
in the foreground.
This is what I wish for you, at the end of the year,
at the end of a luckless, blue year for so many,
wasn't it, and a bad presidency to boot.
But this package remains, for you, now. Take it, go on.
Why not? It's what you’ve been waiting for,
you need only accept to deserve it.
striped breasts, Hamster devils scamper in spinning
cages; three blonde waifs, with liquid joints,
pouring in and out of each other; a clown
filching time out of pocket, sequined girls
twirling far above your head. Then someone
from the audience disappears, before your very eyes.
Afterwards, the hero finally flies his kite.
But before all that, a man Runs through us,
like some hotel red cap, with a box, yelling,
“Package for Mr. Innocent. Package for Mr. Innocent.”
“Package for Mr. Innocent,” you think.
“Ah, but that’s not me. No,but I wish it was.”
To be both innocent and innocent. To be a clean
Sheet for a day. To have little knowledge beyond
fresh sensation, to be of no particular age,
or era, no particular background or filament.
To be without much desire, stripped down to your
briefs, plum out of sentimentality, unable
to second guess, yet able to withstand
relentless curiosity and make out subtle joys
in the foreground.
This is what I wish for you, at the end of the year,
at the end of a luckless, blue year for so many,
wasn't it, and a bad presidency to boot.
But this package remains, for you, now. Take it, go on.
Why not? It's what you’ve been waiting for,
you need only accept to deserve it.
Dec 19, 2007
Love As Imbalance
This is this man, Zizek, who calls himself an "orthodox Lacanian Stalinist". He's from Slovenia and is always standing at the intersection of wisdom and the ridiculous, shouting some compelling nonsense. This is what he has to say about love....
Dec 6, 2007
Swooping
I had to look at this several times until I believed it was real and not a computer simulation. Isn't this how you've always imagined flying, or swooping as it's called?
Old Valentinos
We are, so to speak, at a little restaurant around the corner from the public television station. In the Mission District. This is the 'faux mission". What was once Latino has become Valentino. What was once a VW community garage is now a sushi bar. What was once a city is now a trendy boutique. Once dangerous, now trite, mealy- mouthed and whiny.
Sure enough look out the window and watch the trendy blue eyes walk on by, upshot hair on older slackers rising to the moon. Youthy folks on the prowl. Meanwhile, we're in tears, aren't we. We can't believe the city has come to this.
The restaurant, itself, is less a la mode than a year ago (this is what I hear, I can't say, I don't think I was ever here), yet still people like to pay for 16-inch white plates, each with a little fist of food. The menu is rodente al dente: rabbit loins, squirrel tips, fish tits. The place is done up in industrial androgyny, cement floors, phosphorescent blue light over the bar, metal chairs. Everything as though on a screen.
And over there, so to speak, there are these three men. Furtive Fifties, low sixties. In a cloud bank, so to speak. Black t-shirts, leather jackets. Drinking vodka and tequilla. Gray not gay, nor particularly metro sexual. What would you call that? One has long hair. Another has a perpetual smile. The third looks anxiety-ridden, torn. They're talking about their wives and girl friends. Several times you hear the word, "bitch".
They're stragglers from Glenda Jackson days, from the old British cinema verite, the old Bore wars, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. Then, men were leaning forward, they were hitting out, even their women, they were crude and could care less. Now men are on their hind legs, caught in the prison spot light, cornered and splayed out.
"She's such a bitch," one is saying. "But I'm sure she'd like to see me dead as well."
Stories follow, proofs, clarification and lies. 'Women are always wanting. Men are always giving.' That women feel the same way about men is no matter. These men are tired. They need women but more and more in theory. Yes, why not? Theoretical women, who are wondrous, exotic and erotic. That nothing has changed is devastating.
Men have grown so frail, haven't they? The pioneer blood is below the minimum, and they can't climb to the top of masts the way they used to do. When they finally do, up like very old spiders, they look down and there are the women saying, 'yes, but can you clean the sheets not just open them....' 'Can you extend the yard arm a little?' 'Can you catch the albatross?' 'Can you Errol-Flynn me?' 'Do you see the island of my content?' 'Can you make it all burn off and go away and come home and go away and provide more of this and that....
Meanwhile, the waitress comes and goes. They're having another round. There are schedules to keep. Children are waiting. Ex wives are waiting. Current wives and lovers are waiting. The show has to go on. And here they are back stage, the men, putting on their costumes for Act IV. Flagstaffs and old Hamlets, older MacBeths. Kings fiddling with their crowns, longing for their horses. Flying on their petards.
Sure enough look out the window and watch the trendy blue eyes walk on by, upshot hair on older slackers rising to the moon. Youthy folks on the prowl. Meanwhile, we're in tears, aren't we. We can't believe the city has come to this.
The restaurant, itself, is less a la mode than a year ago (this is what I hear, I can't say, I don't think I was ever here), yet still people like to pay for 16-inch white plates, each with a little fist of food. The menu is rodente al dente: rabbit loins, squirrel tips, fish tits. The place is done up in industrial androgyny, cement floors, phosphorescent blue light over the bar, metal chairs. Everything as though on a screen.
And over there, so to speak, there are these three men. Furtive Fifties, low sixties. In a cloud bank, so to speak. Black t-shirts, leather jackets. Drinking vodka and tequilla. Gray not gay, nor particularly metro sexual. What would you call that? One has long hair. Another has a perpetual smile. The third looks anxiety-ridden, torn. They're talking about their wives and girl friends. Several times you hear the word, "bitch".
They're stragglers from Glenda Jackson days, from the old British cinema verite, the old Bore wars, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. Then, men were leaning forward, they were hitting out, even their women, they were crude and could care less. Now men are on their hind legs, caught in the prison spot light, cornered and splayed out.
"She's such a bitch," one is saying. "But I'm sure she'd like to see me dead as well."
Stories follow, proofs, clarification and lies. 'Women are always wanting. Men are always giving.' That women feel the same way about men is no matter. These men are tired. They need women but more and more in theory. Yes, why not? Theoretical women, who are wondrous, exotic and erotic. That nothing has changed is devastating.
Men have grown so frail, haven't they? The pioneer blood is below the minimum, and they can't climb to the top of masts the way they used to do. When they finally do, up like very old spiders, they look down and there are the women saying, 'yes, but can you clean the sheets not just open them....' 'Can you extend the yard arm a little?' 'Can you catch the albatross?' 'Can you Errol-Flynn me?' 'Do you see the island of my content?' 'Can you make it all burn off and go away and come home and go away and provide more of this and that....
Meanwhile, the waitress comes and goes. They're having another round. There are schedules to keep. Children are waiting. Ex wives are waiting. Current wives and lovers are waiting. The show has to go on. And here they are back stage, the men, putting on their costumes for Act IV. Flagstaffs and old Hamlets, older MacBeths. Kings fiddling with their crowns, longing for their horses. Flying on their petards.
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