It would be impossible to sit out here without the cloud cover. It is 91 degrees just like it has been everyday I have been in this country. Almost two years now. My pale skin is turning pink; in a few days it should bronze. The pool is still. There is no one here but us. The screaming of children done elsewhere. The Chinese New Year holiday has begun. The city is empty. Time has leapt from the clocks and is not as cumbersome to carry.
I dog-ear my book every ten minutes or so to douse the fire on my skin. Water drips from my chest and fingertips, causing the bottom and tips of the pages to become wet. I lower my book to allow my thoughts to occasionally align and maybe form a complete idea:
Earlier, I read a great article by Gore Vidal, denouncing the current US administration. It made a lot of sense to me and was eloquently written. I wanted to send it out to as many people as I could, but I accepted that there wouldn’t be much of a point. What would one more deleted article in my friends’ inboxes accomplish?
In the water now, my eyes are open and they do not sting. The sounds are muted and soft. I close my eyes and assume the fetal position. Is this what it is like for you? I can’t wait to show how much more there is and for you to show me how much less. I kick to the surface, roll over and float on my back. The sun burns my chest before a cloud makes the equatorial heat bearable. My wife sits in the shallow end of the pool reading Breakfast at Tiffany’s. We spent several hours at the bookstore yesterday, loading up on literature for the next few weeks. I lackadaisically scanned the shelves. Sometimes sitting down with a book to feel the pages, read the first lines, decide if it would be worth my time to start a relationship. I found three suitors: The Spooky Art: Thoughts on Writing by Norman Mailer, Music for Chameleons by Truman Capote (If I can’t get my hands on the movie, I certainly can connect with his work.) The Age of Reason by J.P Sartre (I like the idea of being the type of person who reads Sartre.) And finally Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, the book I will begin tonight on the advice of a friend I trust more than myself.
As I am floating in the water, I think about what I will write later. Nothing seems important enough to warrant documentation. I am empty of angst and indignation. Writing about ease, happiness, and satisfaction feels boastful. Who wants to read about people who wake up with smiles on their faces determined to simply enjoy a cheese sandwich on lightly toasted bread with lightly salted tomatoes and pickles, before they fall asleep reading on the sofa.
Probably no one, but I feel the need to write it down, just in case someone, somewhere, sometime may be interested.
January 29, 2006
January 26, 2006
The New Radio
A few days ago, a friend of mine sent me a link to Pandora, an amazing music site, and let’s just say I now know why they call it Pandora. It has since opened my ears to so much new music that I don’t even know how to process it all. Just today I found a band called a Azure Ray. A band I am slowly falling in love with.
As if one great new site wasn’t enough, another friend with whom I had shared Pandora told me about Last.fm. While this site is a littler more complicated and designed to do different things, I think a combination of the two is great. Take some time and push the buttons so to speak on this site, and you will be pleasantly surprised by the number of things you can do and the great music that will pour out from your speakers.
Each allows you to find new music that you are likely to enjoy. Last.fm does this through analysis of what you listen to and like (and what others listen to and like). Pandora encodes different aspects of music and determines what you might like based on those factors.
Pandora is easier to use because it takes absolutely no setup and streams music on the site itself. Last.fm uses tagging and has social network aspects, but you have to download the player to listen to music.
I find Last.fm to be better at playing music I’ve heard before and like, whereas Pandora tends to introduce me to entirely new bands.
I am slowly becoming a tech head, and that last paragraph actually makes a bit of sense to me. If it seems like too much info to consume, don’t worry the sites are both easier than that. Both are great sites that allow you to share your thoughts and tastes in music. I have never been a fan of radio, because I felt it was too confining. But now the DJs have become giant computers and thousands of other people who like music similar to me. Have fun. These sites will change your life.
And if you find anything spectacular share it with me. Stay tuned, I will soon be keeping a running list of bands, I discover using these sites, on my website Intrepid Flame.
As if one great new site wasn’t enough, another friend with whom I had shared Pandora told me about Last.fm. While this site is a littler more complicated and designed to do different things, I think a combination of the two is great. Take some time and push the buttons so to speak on this site, and you will be pleasantly surprised by the number of things you can do and the great music that will pour out from your speakers.
Each allows you to find new music that you are likely to enjoy. Last.fm does this through analysis of what you listen to and like (and what others listen to and like). Pandora encodes different aspects of music and determines what you might like based on those factors.
Pandora is easier to use because it takes absolutely no setup and streams music on the site itself. Last.fm uses tagging and has social network aspects, but you have to download the player to listen to music.
I find Last.fm to be better at playing music I’ve heard before and like, whereas Pandora tends to introduce me to entirely new bands.
I am slowly becoming a tech head, and that last paragraph actually makes a bit of sense to me. If it seems like too much info to consume, don’t worry the sites are both easier than that. Both are great sites that allow you to share your thoughts and tastes in music. I have never been a fan of radio, because I felt it was too confining. But now the DJs have become giant computers and thousands of other people who like music similar to me. Have fun. These sites will change your life.
And if you find anything spectacular share it with me. Stay tuned, I will soon be keeping a running list of bands, I discover using these sites, on my website Intrepid Flame.
January 25, 2006
Directions
Death Cab Unveil 'Directions'
Death Cab for Cutie has announced details of their upcoming “DIRECTIONS,” an innovative anthology of 12 short films inspired by each song on the band’s acclaimed album PLANS. Every song will be delivered by a different director. 11 of the videos will be unveiled one by one at Death Cab For Cutie The first of which will be 'Marching Bands of Manhattan' on January 23. The entire collection will be available on dvd to purchase April 11, 2006. Among the filmmakers contributing to “DIRECTIONS” are Lance Bangs, P.R. Brown, Ace Norton, Jeffrey Brown, Lightborne, Autumn de Wilde, Rob Schrab, Laurent Briet and Monkmus, as well as Aaron Stewart-Ahn . Be sure and check the website for more details in the coming days!
Children Left Behind
It’s December 2002 and I have just been told that I will be teaching a Special Ed class next semester at Stevenson High School in the Bronx, the school where I am working full time while I earn my MA in ESL from Columbia Teachers College. The past semester, I taught several ESL classes, one with 44 students whose range of English spanned, “Hello my name is Jose” to “Yo! Fuck you holmes.” I was given no curriculum, guidance, books or direction. In a way it was nice because I had no one looking over my shoulder. If I wanted to start a class war and incite my predominately Hispanic kids to demand more from a system that was stacked against them from day one, that was my prerogative. But I would have to teach them how write a decent sentence first.
But that was last semester. Special ED, as I would learn, was a whole other beast. The New York Board of Ed has a great policy of giving the most difficult jobs to the least qualified people. Take a first year teacher with little to no classroom experience and throw them in a class with the worst behaved kids in the whole school. It is a great system if you want to terrify new teachers, and have them disappear one day and never come back. I was lucky because I was told, “At least you have the ESL Special Ed class, they are not as bad as the natives.” So, let me get this straight, not only do they have “issues” they also don’t speak English? “Well not really they are just in ESL because they have a Latino sounding last name. Most of them were born right here in the Bronx. So how does that make them any easier? “Well, I guess you’re right. It doesn’t.” The bar at the Board of Ed is not very high. “Just think. At least there can’t be more than 12 in a class, by law.”
Well that made me feel better. Twelve kids who were classified as “special”, who may or may not speak English, and me in a classroom. And if I thought things like support, supplies, and direction where hard to find in the ESL department, the Special Ed department was like something out of Mad Max. My two years of teaching at a village school in Mozambique, that didn’t have books, desks, or windows did not prepare me for the mess I was about to stumble into. Months later, I would go to the office to check out a TV only to have the assistant principle in charge ask me who the hell I was, and why I was “stealing” her TV. After I explained to her that I had been teaching ESL Special ED 101 since December, she told be suspiciously to have it back by 7th period because Mrs. Hernandez needed it. I would never find out exactly why these kids had been labled Special Ed, but I quickly learned that it would affect them for the rest of their lives, or at least until they dropped out.
Harold? Yo teach! A very well groomed light skinned black kid with Latin roots and last name. Would feel comfortable on the set of a 50 Cent video. Cheap gold Bling. Light blue tracksuits and impeccable shoes. A different pair everyday. Expensive. Nike. Respected. Nice kid, cocky, but polite like a well trained pit-bull. Lazy.
Francisco? Francisco? Is Francisco here? Wha? Here man, chill out dawg! Francisco could you please not lie on the desk and actually sit in it. Francisco? How do I play this one? We hadn’t discussed how to get a large fifteen-year-old man with a large un-groomed afro, a distant “crazy” look in his heavily medicated eyes, who smelled like a funky blend of soap, marijuana, sweat, and bad breath from laying across three desks during roll call. Francisco?
Yo, mista. He retarded. We all are. Can’cha see where you are? This is Special Ed bitch. Can’cha see how small the rooms are? He was right. The rooms in the Special Ed wing, they were actually all in one wing, were much smaller then the regular classrooms. I was never told why, but they did foster a cozy sense of institutionalization and claustrophobia that I would later find appealing.
You are not retarded. I whispered to know one at all. Francisco? Please get off the desks. Rolling his eyes, he slithered into a desk, pulled his hood over his head and started to sleep.
Jennifer? Whad Up Mista! Here. I mean present. Large hoop earrings. Black Hispanic blend, light skinned. Hair pulled tight into a ponytail. Hooded sweaty, very white teeth destroying a piece of gum, and very new sneakers. Nike. She is doodling. On her binder is scribbled, “get rice or dye tryin” “ I luv 50” and “yo shorty” She will become pregnant and disappear before the semester is over.
Maria? She don’t ever talk mista. She not only retarded, but she don’t even speak English. People say she walked here from Mexico when she was twelve. She is a short, plump but not fat, Mexican woman. She looks somewhere between 10-35. Her eyes sparkle as she smiles at me. She doesn’t say a word. Maria will become my rock. She will be why I come back, day after day. I will teach her nothing or so I think.
Eva? Here mista. She is a large girl. White Puerto Rican mom, black dad. Hair in a ponytail. I will learn that she is at a second grade reading level. Which is actually the highest of the group. She is quiet and sweet. She protects Maria like a large hen and her chick.
Francisco? Could you please wake up and join the class. Francisco?
Esmeralda? Yo, I heard that bitch was arrested last weekend. Turnin tricks for crack. She a fuckin chickenhead. Just kiddin’ mista don’t look so scared. I think she moved back to the DR. Thanks Harold. We’re ready to learn mista, start teachin. Thank you Harold. There were others, a few that came and went, but their names have disappeared from memory.
I am not sure how I survived the semester. There were many days that ended with me on 125th street: waiting for the bus, listening to Tupac, holding back tears, hysterical with exhaustion. I would arrive home; pass out on the couch, only to be awakened for a night class that lasted from 5-9 in which we would discuss classroom disciplinary actions like writing the student’s name on the board as a warning. Meanwhile here is a snapshot of that day, “Francisco, get the fuck off the desk! I am not going to warn you again. Yo mista, you can’t swear at us. I can do whatever the fuck I want. So either get up or get out. (I had no idea how I would actually remove him from the room, but if it came down to it; I could probably get one of the armed officers roaming the halls to help me.) Francisco moved.
The days passed. Maria smiled more often and drew words like a kindergartener. I realized early on that things like: homework, guilt, grades, discipline, threats or attendance were meaningless. I had to rely more on words like; trust, respect, honesty, flexibility, and of course patience. I was not going to change these kids in any significant way in the few months I would be a part of their lives. I was not Michelle Phiefer and this was not some Hollywood movie. It was a long series of cold grey days walking through the snow from the 176 St. stop on the six line. I woke up at 5:45 and made my way, first to the M60 to 125th than the six train to Park Chester and 176th st, then another bus to the school door, a little over and hour on a good day. These morning commutes were my own personal lesson on class relations in the good ole US of A. Crossing over the Harlem river at dawn, staring at the smoke billow from the industrial building covered in graffiti, was not the best way to get ready for what my day would entail. Everyday I pretended to be brave and strong. By ten o’clock I would stand outside in the cold and smoke four cigarettes in rapid succession.
One day, I looked out the window and realzied that we had found our rhythm. Since I had no curriculum and no one who even knew I was in the building, I could do what ever I wanted. So we examined rap song lyrics and talked about 50 Cent. I told them about Mos Def and we listened to songs like Umi says. “This shit is wack, mista.” We read poems by Tupac. One was about Van Gogh. So we did a unit on him. “He cut off his ear for a bitch, man that boy was whipped.” We talked about the rebel, the misfit, the artist. They told me that Van Gogh was like Tupac in many ways and like them too in other ways. I agreed. We looked at Starry Night and some self-portraits. I had them draw self-portraits. I told them that when you look at a real Van Gogh you could actually feel the thickness of the paint. I told them that van Gogh sometimes ate the paint because…they didn’t need me to tell them why. They understood his madness.
Francisco’s picture was bold and expressive. He was awake more often then not these days and asked a lot of questions. I told them his paintings were worth millions, they said that they should be priceless. “Where are they? His paintings.” There are some right here in NYC at the Met. I told them. You should go and see them. “Yeah, right.”
It hit me. Why not get a bus and take them to see the paintings? I filled out the forms, got the proper signatures, and on a clear spring day in March a full size school bus was waiting out front waiting for the five of us. Harold, Francisco, Eva, Maria and me. “I haven’t been on a field trip since third grade.” “I ain’t ever been on one.” I felt like Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest before they go on the fishing trip.
“Yo mista, why’da get such a big bus. You a fool.” Just enjoy the sunshine Harold and leave the bus to me. We sat in the back together. Francisco picked at his afro as we penetrated Manhattan with our huge yellow bus. We drove down Park Avenue first up in the 90’s where the pigment is still dark and the streets dirty, till we made it down to the 70’s where the trash has been swept and everything shines white. For anyone who doesn’t believe the US is a racist society drive down Park Avenue. Start in Harlem and stop at the Met Life building…
…or walk into the Met on a Tuesday morning with five Special Ed kids from the Bronx. I could feel the eyes follow our every move as we made our way through the Egyptian exhibit. “There are too many white people here mista.” Harold proclaimed as a small group of girls from a school that had probably catered their bag lunch walked by nervously. This art belongs to you just as much as it belongs to them, I assured him. We spent some time looking at the medieval armor before we made our way to the Van Gogh. There was no epiphanal moment, but what was I expecting? We looked and we walked by just like everyone else.
Outside we laid on the grass and ate the lunch the school had supplied and talked about: the dogs we saw being walked, the distant between Manhattan and the Bronx. They were convinced it was much farther than I said. But after watching Harold stare at a woman walking a Pug wearing a pearl necklace, I agreed that they might have been right. We took a walk, and Eva and Maria giggled as they spoke in Spanish. Francisco played in a fountain, and Harold fidgeted nervously about not looking cool or tough enough. “You’re a smart kid, Harold. You’re not retarded. Don’t ever forget that.” I know mista…
A friend of mine recently told me that she has been accepted into the NYC Teaching Fellows program, in Special Ed. She asked me what it was like. I wrote this account not to scare her, but to show her that there are kids out there who have no idea who Van Gogh is, and that it feels good to be the one to show them. Good Luck g-luv. I know you will be great. No matter what just keep going back at some point it makes a little more sense.
But that was last semester. Special ED, as I would learn, was a whole other beast. The New York Board of Ed has a great policy of giving the most difficult jobs to the least qualified people. Take a first year teacher with little to no classroom experience and throw them in a class with the worst behaved kids in the whole school. It is a great system if you want to terrify new teachers, and have them disappear one day and never come back. I was lucky because I was told, “At least you have the ESL Special Ed class, they are not as bad as the natives.” So, let me get this straight, not only do they have “issues” they also don’t speak English? “Well not really they are just in ESL because they have a Latino sounding last name. Most of them were born right here in the Bronx. So how does that make them any easier? “Well, I guess you’re right. It doesn’t.” The bar at the Board of Ed is not very high. “Just think. At least there can’t be more than 12 in a class, by law.”
Well that made me feel better. Twelve kids who were classified as “special”, who may or may not speak English, and me in a classroom. And if I thought things like support, supplies, and direction where hard to find in the ESL department, the Special Ed department was like something out of Mad Max. My two years of teaching at a village school in Mozambique, that didn’t have books, desks, or windows did not prepare me for the mess I was about to stumble into. Months later, I would go to the office to check out a TV only to have the assistant principle in charge ask me who the hell I was, and why I was “stealing” her TV. After I explained to her that I had been teaching ESL Special ED 101 since December, she told be suspiciously to have it back by 7th period because Mrs. Hernandez needed it. I would never find out exactly why these kids had been labled Special Ed, but I quickly learned that it would affect them for the rest of their lives, or at least until they dropped out.
Harold? Yo teach! A very well groomed light skinned black kid with Latin roots and last name. Would feel comfortable on the set of a 50 Cent video. Cheap gold Bling. Light blue tracksuits and impeccable shoes. A different pair everyday. Expensive. Nike. Respected. Nice kid, cocky, but polite like a well trained pit-bull. Lazy.
Francisco? Francisco? Is Francisco here? Wha? Here man, chill out dawg! Francisco could you please not lie on the desk and actually sit in it. Francisco? How do I play this one? We hadn’t discussed how to get a large fifteen-year-old man with a large un-groomed afro, a distant “crazy” look in his heavily medicated eyes, who smelled like a funky blend of soap, marijuana, sweat, and bad breath from laying across three desks during roll call. Francisco?
Yo, mista. He retarded. We all are. Can’cha see where you are? This is Special Ed bitch. Can’cha see how small the rooms are? He was right. The rooms in the Special Ed wing, they were actually all in one wing, were much smaller then the regular classrooms. I was never told why, but they did foster a cozy sense of institutionalization and claustrophobia that I would later find appealing.
You are not retarded. I whispered to know one at all. Francisco? Please get off the desks. Rolling his eyes, he slithered into a desk, pulled his hood over his head and started to sleep.
Jennifer? Whad Up Mista! Here. I mean present. Large hoop earrings. Black Hispanic blend, light skinned. Hair pulled tight into a ponytail. Hooded sweaty, very white teeth destroying a piece of gum, and very new sneakers. Nike. She is doodling. On her binder is scribbled, “get rice or dye tryin” “ I luv 50” and “yo shorty” She will become pregnant and disappear before the semester is over.
Maria? She don’t ever talk mista. She not only retarded, but she don’t even speak English. People say she walked here from Mexico when she was twelve. She is a short, plump but not fat, Mexican woman. She looks somewhere between 10-35. Her eyes sparkle as she smiles at me. She doesn’t say a word. Maria will become my rock. She will be why I come back, day after day. I will teach her nothing or so I think.
Eva? Here mista. She is a large girl. White Puerto Rican mom, black dad. Hair in a ponytail. I will learn that she is at a second grade reading level. Which is actually the highest of the group. She is quiet and sweet. She protects Maria like a large hen and her chick.
Francisco? Could you please wake up and join the class. Francisco?
Esmeralda? Yo, I heard that bitch was arrested last weekend. Turnin tricks for crack. She a fuckin chickenhead. Just kiddin’ mista don’t look so scared. I think she moved back to the DR. Thanks Harold. We’re ready to learn mista, start teachin. Thank you Harold. There were others, a few that came and went, but their names have disappeared from memory.
I am not sure how I survived the semester. There were many days that ended with me on 125th street: waiting for the bus, listening to Tupac, holding back tears, hysterical with exhaustion. I would arrive home; pass out on the couch, only to be awakened for a night class that lasted from 5-9 in which we would discuss classroom disciplinary actions like writing the student’s name on the board as a warning. Meanwhile here is a snapshot of that day, “Francisco, get the fuck off the desk! I am not going to warn you again. Yo mista, you can’t swear at us. I can do whatever the fuck I want. So either get up or get out. (I had no idea how I would actually remove him from the room, but if it came down to it; I could probably get one of the armed officers roaming the halls to help me.) Francisco moved.
The days passed. Maria smiled more often and drew words like a kindergartener. I realized early on that things like: homework, guilt, grades, discipline, threats or attendance were meaningless. I had to rely more on words like; trust, respect, honesty, flexibility, and of course patience. I was not going to change these kids in any significant way in the few months I would be a part of their lives. I was not Michelle Phiefer and this was not some Hollywood movie. It was a long series of cold grey days walking through the snow from the 176 St. stop on the six line. I woke up at 5:45 and made my way, first to the M60 to 125th than the six train to Park Chester and 176th st, then another bus to the school door, a little over and hour on a good day. These morning commutes were my own personal lesson on class relations in the good ole US of A. Crossing over the Harlem river at dawn, staring at the smoke billow from the industrial building covered in graffiti, was not the best way to get ready for what my day would entail. Everyday I pretended to be brave and strong. By ten o’clock I would stand outside in the cold and smoke four cigarettes in rapid succession.
One day, I looked out the window and realzied that we had found our rhythm. Since I had no curriculum and no one who even knew I was in the building, I could do what ever I wanted. So we examined rap song lyrics and talked about 50 Cent. I told them about Mos Def and we listened to songs like Umi says. “This shit is wack, mista.” We read poems by Tupac. One was about Van Gogh. So we did a unit on him. “He cut off his ear for a bitch, man that boy was whipped.” We talked about the rebel, the misfit, the artist. They told me that Van Gogh was like Tupac in many ways and like them too in other ways. I agreed. We looked at Starry Night and some self-portraits. I had them draw self-portraits. I told them that when you look at a real Van Gogh you could actually feel the thickness of the paint. I told them that van Gogh sometimes ate the paint because…they didn’t need me to tell them why. They understood his madness.
Francisco’s picture was bold and expressive. He was awake more often then not these days and asked a lot of questions. I told them his paintings were worth millions, they said that they should be priceless. “Where are they? His paintings.” There are some right here in NYC at the Met. I told them. You should go and see them. “Yeah, right.”
It hit me. Why not get a bus and take them to see the paintings? I filled out the forms, got the proper signatures, and on a clear spring day in March a full size school bus was waiting out front waiting for the five of us. Harold, Francisco, Eva, Maria and me. “I haven’t been on a field trip since third grade.” “I ain’t ever been on one.” I felt like Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest before they go on the fishing trip.
“Yo mista, why’da get such a big bus. You a fool.” Just enjoy the sunshine Harold and leave the bus to me. We sat in the back together. Francisco picked at his afro as we penetrated Manhattan with our huge yellow bus. We drove down Park Avenue first up in the 90’s where the pigment is still dark and the streets dirty, till we made it down to the 70’s where the trash has been swept and everything shines white. For anyone who doesn’t believe the US is a racist society drive down Park Avenue. Start in Harlem and stop at the Met Life building…
…or walk into the Met on a Tuesday morning with five Special Ed kids from the Bronx. I could feel the eyes follow our every move as we made our way through the Egyptian exhibit. “There are too many white people here mista.” Harold proclaimed as a small group of girls from a school that had probably catered their bag lunch walked by nervously. This art belongs to you just as much as it belongs to them, I assured him. We spent some time looking at the medieval armor before we made our way to the Van Gogh. There was no epiphanal moment, but what was I expecting? We looked and we walked by just like everyone else.
Outside we laid on the grass and ate the lunch the school had supplied and talked about: the dogs we saw being walked, the distant between Manhattan and the Bronx. They were convinced it was much farther than I said. But after watching Harold stare at a woman walking a Pug wearing a pearl necklace, I agreed that they might have been right. We took a walk, and Eva and Maria giggled as they spoke in Spanish. Francisco played in a fountain, and Harold fidgeted nervously about not looking cool or tough enough. “You’re a smart kid, Harold. You’re not retarded. Don’t ever forget that.” I know mista…
A friend of mine recently told me that she has been accepted into the NYC Teaching Fellows program, in Special Ed. She asked me what it was like. I wrote this account not to scare her, but to show her that there are kids out there who have no idea who Van Gogh is, and that it feels good to be the one to show them. Good Luck g-luv. I know you will be great. No matter what just keep going back at some point it makes a little more sense.
January 24, 2006
Dude! How Much Free Time Do You have?
While it may seem that I have nothing to do but sit around my tastefully decorated condo in a foreign capital and wax poetic about an array of topics, I actually have quite a full plate. Pardon the cliché. In an attempt not to judge the use of time by others, or assert that my use of time is superior to someone else, someone who may spend their time say refurbishing furniture, I thought I would try and document an honest record of the things my mind is currently shuffling. This list has not been recorded in any order of importance. It is simply testimony that I have no more free time than your average person. And to once and for all answer the question: How much free time do you have? The answer, as I hope you will see, is not much.
An honest record of the things my mind is currently shuffling:
1. Work is the best place to start, since that is one place that seems to suck up most people’s free time. I teach five English classes: three eighth grade and two seventh grade. I have a total of seventy-six students. Which compared to the 150 I had in NYC is manageable, but it still means seventy-six students worth of papers to correct. I currently have forty-six 3-5-page essays on the themes of power, fear, and conformity as seen in the novels Lord of the Flies, The Wave and the Diary of Anne Frank. And 30 compare and contrast essays by my sevens on The Christmas Carol. I have 46 vocabulary quizzes to correct and record. We have started the poetry unit that I am designing from scratch, in 8th grade. I am trying to convince 13-year-old boys, obsessed with a game called Battlefield 2, a game in which you go around killing Arabs in the desert, that it is important to write poetry. In the seventh grade, we have started our first real novel study of a book called The Giver. If you think this is easy, take some time to reflect on the maturity level of eleven year olds, throw in three ADHD kids in there and have some fun with it.
I am also working with another teacher in running an after school activity called Model United Nations. We are teaching a group of about thirty 6th, 7th, and 8th graders how to do research on a variety of countries, argue points about a variety of political issues, and how to write resolutions to correct these issues. For example: the diamond trade and how it fuels conflict in Africa. We are preparing them for a conference our school is running in late March, where ten schools from South East Asia will come to put on a mock UN debate.
I also tutor two students an hour a day, three days after school. In addition there is a variety show coming up in which I am set to perform. I am terrified seeing that I have never sung in front of anyone. I am planning on playing The Time Are A Changin. I practice once a day, but I am not sure I will be able to work up the nerve to sing in front of students, fellow teachers and parents. But it has always been a dream of mine to sing in front of a crowd, and well I ain’t getting any younger.
2. As you know I am designing, maintaining, updating and trying to promote a website and Blog. I am planning a major face lift for Intrepid Flame. I want to update the photography and travel pages. I also have plans to create a few non-informative, but more artistic pages. Think: images set to music with text. I also want to have author pages…This preparation takes up a lot of my time before I fall asleep. I try and hatch these plans in between dreaming of my unborn child and thinking up these Blog entries. I am also working on a draft of a short piece I wrote for submission to an online zine. Chinese new year is coming up thank god.
3. I try to read an hour a night. I am currently reading the Constant Gardener. I can only do this when I am not zoned out watching mediocre TV shows like America’s Next Top Model, or on an OC binge. I am not ashamed to admit I recently watched 48 episodes, seasons one and two, in two weeks. Do the math. That is something like four episodes a night for two weeks straight. For a while I forgot I had real friends, and I would dream about what Seth and Ryan were doing. The only reason this stopped is because we don’t have season three. I have decided to take a break, but I plan on watching a few episodes with commentary by witty creator, Josh Schwartz. Once I get season three it is back to the OC for me.
I try and stay tuned with current films. Right now I am worried that I may not be able to get my hands on Brokeback Mountain or The Squid and the Whale.
4. I am on beck and call for my pregnant wife’s demands. I am not martyring myself here, but “sweety can you do this.” Or “Honey, can you get me some...” are phrases thrown around our house every five seconds. I try and cook nutritious dinners, although I am often making grilled cheese sandwiches, washing dishes, and rubbing backs or feet. We go to doctor’s appointments and have great conversation about parenting. I am constantly told to get off the computer and spend more time with her. To which I try and oblige, but this shit is not going to write itself.
5. I try to stay informed on various news stories:
Eva Morales in Bolivia
My country of birth being transformed into Battlefield 3 because we have a lunatic for president (Iran and the bomb)
The war as usual
Canadian elections (what the hell is going on up there?)
Is Ariel Sharon dead yet?
The rise of China and what that will mean for my kids
How much oil is actually left?
Will I be able to buy the book Cowboys From Hell?
Palestinian parliamentary elections and the role of Hammas
Maoist rebels in Nepal
The end of Musharif and the powder keg that is Pakistan
War again in Sri Lanka
Will the 4 Marines rapists in the Philippines be brought to justice?
The antics of Hugo Chavez
Believe it or not this activity can be very taxing and takes quite some time. It can also lead to stress, anxiety, anger, frustration and deflated sense of optimism. Which makes everything else very difficult to do. It is hard to teach kids that flowers are pretty and full of poems, after reading an article about Condy Rice’s comments on Iran and the UN. I plan on going there next spring to show my grandfather his great grand daughter and it would be nice if he hasn’t been killed by a Hellfire missile, paid for by my tax dollars.
6. I play guitar and try to learn a few songs a month and record them for my website.
I try and stay informed on new music, and if possible stay focused enough to hone my skill when it comes to writing reviews of said music.
7. I relax. Go to the pool. I play poker with the boys. Bake brownies, and occasionally go out to brunch. I spend the weekends doing little to nothing.
8.Spend some quality time feeling guilty about:
Not meditating
Not cooking enough
Not painting or drawing as much as I would like
Feeling anxiety for wanting to be read and responded to
Believe it or not for not writing enough
Wasting time watching TV
Thinking too much about myself
Not going out enough/socializing
Not getting out of the house
Not exercising at all
And finally feel guilty for feeling guilty almost constantly.
As you can see, I have the same amount of free time as the next guy. All time is free isn’t it? I guess it just depends on what you do with it. Anyway it is almost nine and I am off to bed to read for a while and hit the sack, my wife is probably wondering why I am still on the computer when I told her I would only be here for a few minutes and it has been an hour. Where does the time go? Tomorrow is Wednesday and I have a faculty meeting after school.
So I find it odd when people tell me they don’t have time to read everything I send out. What are you doing with your time?
An honest record of the things my mind is currently shuffling:
1. Work is the best place to start, since that is one place that seems to suck up most people’s free time. I teach five English classes: three eighth grade and two seventh grade. I have a total of seventy-six students. Which compared to the 150 I had in NYC is manageable, but it still means seventy-six students worth of papers to correct. I currently have forty-six 3-5-page essays on the themes of power, fear, and conformity as seen in the novels Lord of the Flies, The Wave and the Diary of Anne Frank. And 30 compare and contrast essays by my sevens on The Christmas Carol. I have 46 vocabulary quizzes to correct and record. We have started the poetry unit that I am designing from scratch, in 8th grade. I am trying to convince 13-year-old boys, obsessed with a game called Battlefield 2, a game in which you go around killing Arabs in the desert, that it is important to write poetry. In the seventh grade, we have started our first real novel study of a book called The Giver. If you think this is easy, take some time to reflect on the maturity level of eleven year olds, throw in three ADHD kids in there and have some fun with it.
I am also working with another teacher in running an after school activity called Model United Nations. We are teaching a group of about thirty 6th, 7th, and 8th graders how to do research on a variety of countries, argue points about a variety of political issues, and how to write resolutions to correct these issues. For example: the diamond trade and how it fuels conflict in Africa. We are preparing them for a conference our school is running in late March, where ten schools from South East Asia will come to put on a mock UN debate.
I also tutor two students an hour a day, three days after school. In addition there is a variety show coming up in which I am set to perform. I am terrified seeing that I have never sung in front of anyone. I am planning on playing The Time Are A Changin. I practice once a day, but I am not sure I will be able to work up the nerve to sing in front of students, fellow teachers and parents. But it has always been a dream of mine to sing in front of a crowd, and well I ain’t getting any younger.
2. As you know I am designing, maintaining, updating and trying to promote a website and Blog. I am planning a major face lift for Intrepid Flame. I want to update the photography and travel pages. I also have plans to create a few non-informative, but more artistic pages. Think: images set to music with text. I also want to have author pages…This preparation takes up a lot of my time before I fall asleep. I try and hatch these plans in between dreaming of my unborn child and thinking up these Blog entries. I am also working on a draft of a short piece I wrote for submission to an online zine. Chinese new year is coming up thank god.
3. I try to read an hour a night. I am currently reading the Constant Gardener. I can only do this when I am not zoned out watching mediocre TV shows like America’s Next Top Model, or on an OC binge. I am not ashamed to admit I recently watched 48 episodes, seasons one and two, in two weeks. Do the math. That is something like four episodes a night for two weeks straight. For a while I forgot I had real friends, and I would dream about what Seth and Ryan were doing. The only reason this stopped is because we don’t have season three. I have decided to take a break, but I plan on watching a few episodes with commentary by witty creator, Josh Schwartz. Once I get season three it is back to the OC for me.
I try and stay tuned with current films. Right now I am worried that I may not be able to get my hands on Brokeback Mountain or The Squid and the Whale.
4. I am on beck and call for my pregnant wife’s demands. I am not martyring myself here, but “sweety can you do this.” Or “Honey, can you get me some...” are phrases thrown around our house every five seconds. I try and cook nutritious dinners, although I am often making grilled cheese sandwiches, washing dishes, and rubbing backs or feet. We go to doctor’s appointments and have great conversation about parenting. I am constantly told to get off the computer and spend more time with her. To which I try and oblige, but this shit is not going to write itself.
5. I try to stay informed on various news stories:
Eva Morales in Bolivia
My country of birth being transformed into Battlefield 3 because we have a lunatic for president (Iran and the bomb)
The war as usual
Canadian elections (what the hell is going on up there?)
Is Ariel Sharon dead yet?
The rise of China and what that will mean for my kids
How much oil is actually left?
Will I be able to buy the book Cowboys From Hell?
Palestinian parliamentary elections and the role of Hammas
Maoist rebels in Nepal
The end of Musharif and the powder keg that is Pakistan
War again in Sri Lanka
Will the 4 Marines rapists in the Philippines be brought to justice?
The antics of Hugo Chavez
Believe it or not this activity can be very taxing and takes quite some time. It can also lead to stress, anxiety, anger, frustration and deflated sense of optimism. Which makes everything else very difficult to do. It is hard to teach kids that flowers are pretty and full of poems, after reading an article about Condy Rice’s comments on Iran and the UN. I plan on going there next spring to show my grandfather his great grand daughter and it would be nice if he hasn’t been killed by a Hellfire missile, paid for by my tax dollars.
6. I play guitar and try to learn a few songs a month and record them for my website.
I try and stay informed on new music, and if possible stay focused enough to hone my skill when it comes to writing reviews of said music.
7. I relax. Go to the pool. I play poker with the boys. Bake brownies, and occasionally go out to brunch. I spend the weekends doing little to nothing.
8.Spend some quality time feeling guilty about:
Not meditating
Not cooking enough
Not painting or drawing as much as I would like
Feeling anxiety for wanting to be read and responded to
Believe it or not for not writing enough
Wasting time watching TV
Thinking too much about myself
Not going out enough/socializing
Not getting out of the house
Not exercising at all
And finally feel guilty for feeling guilty almost constantly.
As you can see, I have the same amount of free time as the next guy. All time is free isn’t it? I guess it just depends on what you do with it. Anyway it is almost nine and I am off to bed to read for a while and hit the sack, my wife is probably wondering why I am still on the computer when I told her I would only be here for a few minutes and it has been an hour. Where does the time go? Tomorrow is Wednesday and I have a faculty meeting after school.
So I find it odd when people tell me they don’t have time to read everything I send out. What are you doing with your time?
What People Call A Future
After a number of years of drinking myself in and out of several community colleges up and down the California coast line, I had finally earned the sufficient number of credits the state of California deemed acceptable to complete my General Education. No more Astronomy at Mesa College, or Speech 101 at College of Marin for this aging academic, it was time to get serious. No matter how entertaining taking classes called, the History of American Folk music, taught by a mildly insane hermit in some basement at San Francisco City College may have been, it was time to realize that deciding not to return to classes after spring break because I was too “tired” may not have been the best idea, especially, if I was to seriously consider the concept of what people call a future.
It was 1997, five years after I had graduated high school. I was twenty-three. I had friends who had already fulfilled their collegiate responsibilities and completed the arc from Graduate/Berkeley/Psychology/Cum Laude to despondent coffee barrista. I knew that completing forty credits in five years was not a feat to brag about, and that I was through with terminology like academic probation, suspended driver’s license, and drunk tank. I never wanted to ask a pasty-middle-age-woman, “ Are these credits transferable?” through a dirty glass window again. I needed a goal, a purpose, a major.
I had amply turned my 1.9 GPA around to be accepted to San Francisco State. I had filled out the applications, accepted several Pell Grants, all I need to do was fill in the bubble under the major category. I scanned the list: Accounting, Astrophysics, Biology, Corporate Finance, and so on, until I saw it. The answer: Creative Writing.
This was my chance to become Jack Kerouac and change the way Americans saw America. A few poetry classes and I’d be Walt Whitman. What was Tobias Wolfe doing that couldn’t be taught by an overworked, unrecognized graduate student. Answer: Writing Short Stories 101 (workshop class) I filled in the bubble and was ready to begin the first leg of my literary E true story. First stop a Borders book signing, an appearance on Letterman, New York City record release parties with Jonny Depp.
The reality was a stack of journals crammed with self-loathing poetry camouflaged as passion, a few poorly written short stories about drunken episodes in Mexico and “the road”, and a play that was so embarrassingly bad that I can’t believe I am mentioning it. Something about a bus ride, characters breaking through stereotypes and over coming class issues that keep them apart. Everything I wrote was cliché, autobiographical, and poorly punctuated. (I am since an Ivy League graduate and an English teacher, but that damn punctuation still haunts me, as is evidenced by this very Blog.)
But I will say this I worked hard, and I thought I was changing the world. In two years I earned my BA with a 3.8 something, while working 40 hours a week at a series of restaurants scattered throughout San Francisco, and held my own when it came to partying. But did I learn how to write?
The point of this entry is just that: Can we learn how to write? A friend recently said, “Man you have totally evolved. You have become such a good writer. I am amazed at how well you can take what's going on in your head and put them into words, whether that be on paper or in cyberspace. I think the last few years I really watched as you battled to find a voice. I am hearing that voice.” Although it may seem like I am simple stroking my ego with that a quote, I think it raises a good question: How did I go from writing a poem called Mr. Greedy Man to actually connecting with a reader? How did he recognize my voice and where did it come from? I can safely say that writing was not what I learned those two years at SFSU. Sure I learned a few little tricks. I read a great deal of work I never would have otherwise. I had a few professors that showed me a different way to look at fiction, but I did not find my voice. Where is it coming from now, and how can I help it become louder?
As an English teacher, I spend the majority of my day selling writing to thirteen year olds. I am not only peddling ideas like: organization will help you write your college essay, although that is part of it, I am teaching them to see the poetry of life, to recognize it, process it, and write it down. I have learned to see writing not as a product but as a process, an act, a prayer, an existence. I think it is this transformation that has helped me improve my craft. In college, I was only after the product. I wanted the perfect line, the accessible poem my “fans” could swoon over. I wanted to write the flawless novel so I would be: recognized, praised, admired, and respected. Most of all I wanted people to read me, look inside and find something worthwhile buried in there. I was writing to be loved and to be told that I was talented. I wanted to write to be famous. Immortal.
Things have changed. A bit. I cannot sit here and say those things are still not important to me, but I am starting to see that writing is not a ladder to fame, writing is simply an act I have no choice doing. This is what I am teaching my students. We do not write to always produce something. We write because we have no choice. We write because it feels good to watch the words spread on the page as fast as we can write them. It feels right to be able to uncover the poems in the world and present them through words. We write to write. And the more I do it, the easier it gets. It helps me think, it helps me meditate, it helps me. Period. The more I do it the louder my voice becomes. I never enjoyed writing while I was at SFSU. It was the difficult task I had to endure while I was waiting to win the awards and accolades. Now, there are very few things I like to do more than to sit at these keys and write. It doesn’t matter what the topic. Just set it in front of me and watch me go. I turn phrases in the shower and on the can. I have written several novels in bed before I fall asleep. it is alwasy on my mind. I never stop writing.
Maybe something worthwhile will be produced on this Blog, or maybe I'll find it on the files complicating my hard-drive. After all it is not too late to write our generation’s Tropic of Cancer…
In the mean time, I search for words everywhere.
It was 1997, five years after I had graduated high school. I was twenty-three. I had friends who had already fulfilled their collegiate responsibilities and completed the arc from Graduate/Berkeley/Psychology/Cum Laude to despondent coffee barrista. I knew that completing forty credits in five years was not a feat to brag about, and that I was through with terminology like academic probation, suspended driver’s license, and drunk tank. I never wanted to ask a pasty-middle-age-woman, “ Are these credits transferable?” through a dirty glass window again. I needed a goal, a purpose, a major.
I had amply turned my 1.9 GPA around to be accepted to San Francisco State. I had filled out the applications, accepted several Pell Grants, all I need to do was fill in the bubble under the major category. I scanned the list: Accounting, Astrophysics, Biology, Corporate Finance, and so on, until I saw it. The answer: Creative Writing.
This was my chance to become Jack Kerouac and change the way Americans saw America. A few poetry classes and I’d be Walt Whitman. What was Tobias Wolfe doing that couldn’t be taught by an overworked, unrecognized graduate student. Answer: Writing Short Stories 101 (workshop class) I filled in the bubble and was ready to begin the first leg of my literary E true story. First stop a Borders book signing, an appearance on Letterman, New York City record release parties with Jonny Depp.
The reality was a stack of journals crammed with self-loathing poetry camouflaged as passion, a few poorly written short stories about drunken episodes in Mexico and “the road”, and a play that was so embarrassingly bad that I can’t believe I am mentioning it. Something about a bus ride, characters breaking through stereotypes and over coming class issues that keep them apart. Everything I wrote was cliché, autobiographical, and poorly punctuated. (I am since an Ivy League graduate and an English teacher, but that damn punctuation still haunts me, as is evidenced by this very Blog.)
But I will say this I worked hard, and I thought I was changing the world. In two years I earned my BA with a 3.8 something, while working 40 hours a week at a series of restaurants scattered throughout San Francisco, and held my own when it came to partying. But did I learn how to write?
The point of this entry is just that: Can we learn how to write? A friend recently said, “Man you have totally evolved. You have become such a good writer. I am amazed at how well you can take what's going on in your head and put them into words, whether that be on paper or in cyberspace. I think the last few years I really watched as you battled to find a voice. I am hearing that voice.” Although it may seem like I am simple stroking my ego with that a quote, I think it raises a good question: How did I go from writing a poem called Mr. Greedy Man to actually connecting with a reader? How did he recognize my voice and where did it come from? I can safely say that writing was not what I learned those two years at SFSU. Sure I learned a few little tricks. I read a great deal of work I never would have otherwise. I had a few professors that showed me a different way to look at fiction, but I did not find my voice. Where is it coming from now, and how can I help it become louder?
As an English teacher, I spend the majority of my day selling writing to thirteen year olds. I am not only peddling ideas like: organization will help you write your college essay, although that is part of it, I am teaching them to see the poetry of life, to recognize it, process it, and write it down. I have learned to see writing not as a product but as a process, an act, a prayer, an existence. I think it is this transformation that has helped me improve my craft. In college, I was only after the product. I wanted the perfect line, the accessible poem my “fans” could swoon over. I wanted to write the flawless novel so I would be: recognized, praised, admired, and respected. Most of all I wanted people to read me, look inside and find something worthwhile buried in there. I was writing to be loved and to be told that I was talented. I wanted to write to be famous. Immortal.
Things have changed. A bit. I cannot sit here and say those things are still not important to me, but I am starting to see that writing is not a ladder to fame, writing is simply an act I have no choice doing. This is what I am teaching my students. We do not write to always produce something. We write because we have no choice. We write because it feels good to watch the words spread on the page as fast as we can write them. It feels right to be able to uncover the poems in the world and present them through words. We write to write. And the more I do it, the easier it gets. It helps me think, it helps me meditate, it helps me. Period. The more I do it the louder my voice becomes. I never enjoyed writing while I was at SFSU. It was the difficult task I had to endure while I was waiting to win the awards and accolades. Now, there are very few things I like to do more than to sit at these keys and write. It doesn’t matter what the topic. Just set it in front of me and watch me go. I turn phrases in the shower and on the can. I have written several novels in bed before I fall asleep. it is alwasy on my mind. I never stop writing.
Maybe something worthwhile will be produced on this Blog, or maybe I'll find it on the files complicating my hard-drive. After all it is not too late to write our generation’s Tropic of Cancer…
In the mean time, I search for words everywhere.
January 22, 2006
Life is Life
It is late 1991. The car is laying into the switchbacks with regularity like windshield wipers, a metronome. A pendulum. Through the windshield I can make out the Pacific Ocean, a shade darker then the sharkskin sky sitting above it. To the right, hearty California sagebrush and mountains; to the left maybe a valley, a void, emptiness, the end.
My parents are in front, dad is driving, mom is quiet allowing the wind to enter the car to wash over us and escape out through the back window. I am seventeen and hungover. I just threw up a little in my mouth; if my dad doesn’t turn down the Rockmoninoff, I may vomit all over the back seat.
There is a not so subtle discussion permeating the car, one that I am expected to be a part of. Concepts like middle of the road, moderation, neutrality, and balance are lobbed at me in the back seat, only to be volleyed back with grunts and moans. “We should not become attached to ideas of happiness or pain”, a voice in the front says. We are on our way to the Green Gulch Zen Farm. My parents are trying to understand the lessons they learned last week. I wish I could just ask them to shut up and pull over so I can get rid of the Southern Comfort pickling my liver.
We have an agreement. I can spend the weekends with my friends with relative impunity if I make the once-a-month trip with them to Green Gulch. “If we can find balance in our lives, then we are not too excited when things are going well, and we are not crushed when they don’t. We simply float comfortably through life, allowing it to take us where we need to go, like a river. What do you think, Beezy?"
“That sounds like you are dead,” I manage to spit out. I had ignored most of the conversation, but come on, this was ridiculous. Not feeling happiness or sorrow sounded more like a coma than life. Should I share the quote by William Blake that would become my mantra, “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.”? But instead I say, “Can we please pull over? I think I am going to be sick.”
That ride to the Zen center, years ago, ended with me throwing up outside the car, as a group of turkey vultures circled overhead and tiny particles of the ocean fell on my face. How did they make it so far inland? I wondered as my parents waited in the car. Back in the car, the talk about moderation had ended. Apparently, my parents assumed that the lesson had been learned.
Little did they know that I would spend the next ten years trying to prove them wrong. Middle of the road, who were they kidding? I would take everything I did to one extreme or another. Filled with unexplainable rage and vendetta towards the universe, I wanted to prove that life was best lived in the extremes. I filled several photo albums and journals with images of me: jumping off bridges with fire red hair, crying alone with a sixteen pack of Mickey’s and corndogs on Thanksgiving, floating over crowds of thousands at hundreds of concerts pumping my fists, bouts of depression fought off with bucket of alcohol. Good or bad, I did the opposite of what we discussed that day in the car. The middle was the last place I wanted to be. I would rather be on the verge of suicide or euphoria that to just sit numbly and watch my life pass by.
It has taken me many years and many more scars to finally realize what my parents were talking about that day years ago. Now that I am thirty-one, married, a middle school English teacher who doesn’t drink, and a father-to-be, the idea of not becoming attached to the duality of life is starting to make sense. The lesson doesn’t say that we shouldn’t live our lives to the fullest. It explains that it is futile to place any value on the emotions we attach to life. Separating concepts like happiness and sorrow, or good and evil, or success and failure, even life and death causes us to want one or the other. In which case we allow events to control our lives. Where as if we simply live our lives, unattached, we are better able to simply be.
Finding balance does not mean that you are dead. A life lived neutrally is by no means a life lived in a coma, but rather a fuller life. One in which we accept both the good and bad, but we do not conceptualized these emotions. We simply accept them and know that the events in our lives are not affected by the emotions we attach to them. Life is life and that is all.
I was thinking of all of this last Wednesday as my wife and I were sitting in traffic on our way to the hospital. She is sixteen weeks pregnant, which is the best time to learn the lesson of taking things as they come. Pregnancy is a time when the smallest problem can seem like the end of the world, or when any positive event, like a beating heart, can seem like the ultimate miracle. It is a time where a couple can go mad if they live each day on the polar extremes.
And at no time was this hypersensitivity more evident than last Wednesday. The doctor had called us and said that the results of a blood test we had taken had raised some red flags and our risk for having a baby with Downs Syndrome were higher than normal. This news immediately set off a series of emotional crisis. I sank to the bottom and started thinking of the worst things that could have happened. My mind raced as I imagined a life spent with a baby that wasn’t perfect. I was riddled with guilt for these thoughts, but they kept assailing me.
I thought back to the car ride to Green Gulch years earlier, and the idea of not investing too much in any one emotion began to make more sense. I could have sat in that cab and focused on the worst, or I could have wished for the best, but the thing that would make it bearable would be to simply not attach myself to either outcome. These tests were something that was happening. How would my panic help the situation? I looked over at my wife and tried to comfort her, but we were both too far out there with worry to help each other.
I realized that the idea of moderation was not an easy one. It is anything but living life in a coma. It is a very active way to live life, fully aware and accepting everything it has to offer. I had misjudged the complexity of the concept in my youth. I had tried so hard to prove that I was alive by taking everything to an extreme that I had never simply sat in the middle of my life and allowed it to enter me so to speak. Last Wednesday, sitting in that cab staring out the window, I did just that. Every time I thought about the possibility of having an imperfect baby, I told myself that it would be okay. No matter what I would love her. And every time I thought about having a perfect baby, I told myself that it would be okay. No matter what I would love her. Like a seesaw, I tried to balance myself in the turmoil of my emotions. The end result would be: no matter what, I would love her.
I am not going to lie and say this was easy. As a matter of fact, it was the hardest thing I have ever done. I could have thrown myself to one side or the other like I had done in the past. To assume the worst and get drunk, or assume the best and ignore reality would have been the easiest way out, but to try and realize both options and fully trust that both would be okay proved to be much more difficult.
The doctor performed an amnio and granted my wife and I the opportunity to test our Zen philosophies for a few more days. We knew we couldn’t wait two weeks for the results even while trying to remain calm. We decided to do another test and get the results in two days. During those two days I laughed, brooded, dreamed, and tried stay in the middle. I thought about the years that had gone by before I had learned this very simple lesson: Life cannot be divided into two parts. Everything is everything. We suffer when we attach value to a life that is impermanent.
I tried to remain calm, last Saturday, when the doctor told me everything was fine, but I became ecstatic when he said we were going to have a little girl. I reached out a grabbed the good news. I am still learning after all. Maybe I can help Kaia learn these lessons. We do have an eternity after all.
My parents are in front, dad is driving, mom is quiet allowing the wind to enter the car to wash over us and escape out through the back window. I am seventeen and hungover. I just threw up a little in my mouth; if my dad doesn’t turn down the Rockmoninoff, I may vomit all over the back seat.
There is a not so subtle discussion permeating the car, one that I am expected to be a part of. Concepts like middle of the road, moderation, neutrality, and balance are lobbed at me in the back seat, only to be volleyed back with grunts and moans. “We should not become attached to ideas of happiness or pain”, a voice in the front says. We are on our way to the Green Gulch Zen Farm. My parents are trying to understand the lessons they learned last week. I wish I could just ask them to shut up and pull over so I can get rid of the Southern Comfort pickling my liver.
We have an agreement. I can spend the weekends with my friends with relative impunity if I make the once-a-month trip with them to Green Gulch. “If we can find balance in our lives, then we are not too excited when things are going well, and we are not crushed when they don’t. We simply float comfortably through life, allowing it to take us where we need to go, like a river. What do you think, Beezy?"
“That sounds like you are dead,” I manage to spit out. I had ignored most of the conversation, but come on, this was ridiculous. Not feeling happiness or sorrow sounded more like a coma than life. Should I share the quote by William Blake that would become my mantra, “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.”? But instead I say, “Can we please pull over? I think I am going to be sick.”
That ride to the Zen center, years ago, ended with me throwing up outside the car, as a group of turkey vultures circled overhead and tiny particles of the ocean fell on my face. How did they make it so far inland? I wondered as my parents waited in the car. Back in the car, the talk about moderation had ended. Apparently, my parents assumed that the lesson had been learned.
Little did they know that I would spend the next ten years trying to prove them wrong. Middle of the road, who were they kidding? I would take everything I did to one extreme or another. Filled with unexplainable rage and vendetta towards the universe, I wanted to prove that life was best lived in the extremes. I filled several photo albums and journals with images of me: jumping off bridges with fire red hair, crying alone with a sixteen pack of Mickey’s and corndogs on Thanksgiving, floating over crowds of thousands at hundreds of concerts pumping my fists, bouts of depression fought off with bucket of alcohol. Good or bad, I did the opposite of what we discussed that day in the car. The middle was the last place I wanted to be. I would rather be on the verge of suicide or euphoria that to just sit numbly and watch my life pass by.
It has taken me many years and many more scars to finally realize what my parents were talking about that day years ago. Now that I am thirty-one, married, a middle school English teacher who doesn’t drink, and a father-to-be, the idea of not becoming attached to the duality of life is starting to make sense. The lesson doesn’t say that we shouldn’t live our lives to the fullest. It explains that it is futile to place any value on the emotions we attach to life. Separating concepts like happiness and sorrow, or good and evil, or success and failure, even life and death causes us to want one or the other. In which case we allow events to control our lives. Where as if we simply live our lives, unattached, we are better able to simply be.
Finding balance does not mean that you are dead. A life lived neutrally is by no means a life lived in a coma, but rather a fuller life. One in which we accept both the good and bad, but we do not conceptualized these emotions. We simply accept them and know that the events in our lives are not affected by the emotions we attach to them. Life is life and that is all.
I was thinking of all of this last Wednesday as my wife and I were sitting in traffic on our way to the hospital. She is sixteen weeks pregnant, which is the best time to learn the lesson of taking things as they come. Pregnancy is a time when the smallest problem can seem like the end of the world, or when any positive event, like a beating heart, can seem like the ultimate miracle. It is a time where a couple can go mad if they live each day on the polar extremes.
And at no time was this hypersensitivity more evident than last Wednesday. The doctor had called us and said that the results of a blood test we had taken had raised some red flags and our risk for having a baby with Downs Syndrome were higher than normal. This news immediately set off a series of emotional crisis. I sank to the bottom and started thinking of the worst things that could have happened. My mind raced as I imagined a life spent with a baby that wasn’t perfect. I was riddled with guilt for these thoughts, but they kept assailing me.
I thought back to the car ride to Green Gulch years earlier, and the idea of not investing too much in any one emotion began to make more sense. I could have sat in that cab and focused on the worst, or I could have wished for the best, but the thing that would make it bearable would be to simply not attach myself to either outcome. These tests were something that was happening. How would my panic help the situation? I looked over at my wife and tried to comfort her, but we were both too far out there with worry to help each other.
I realized that the idea of moderation was not an easy one. It is anything but living life in a coma. It is a very active way to live life, fully aware and accepting everything it has to offer. I had misjudged the complexity of the concept in my youth. I had tried so hard to prove that I was alive by taking everything to an extreme that I had never simply sat in the middle of my life and allowed it to enter me so to speak. Last Wednesday, sitting in that cab staring out the window, I did just that. Every time I thought about the possibility of having an imperfect baby, I told myself that it would be okay. No matter what I would love her. And every time I thought about having a perfect baby, I told myself that it would be okay. No matter what I would love her. Like a seesaw, I tried to balance myself in the turmoil of my emotions. The end result would be: no matter what, I would love her.
I am not going to lie and say this was easy. As a matter of fact, it was the hardest thing I have ever done. I could have thrown myself to one side or the other like I had done in the past. To assume the worst and get drunk, or assume the best and ignore reality would have been the easiest way out, but to try and realize both options and fully trust that both would be okay proved to be much more difficult.
The doctor performed an amnio and granted my wife and I the opportunity to test our Zen philosophies for a few more days. We knew we couldn’t wait two weeks for the results even while trying to remain calm. We decided to do another test and get the results in two days. During those two days I laughed, brooded, dreamed, and tried stay in the middle. I thought about the years that had gone by before I had learned this very simple lesson: Life cannot be divided into two parts. Everything is everything. We suffer when we attach value to a life that is impermanent.
I tried to remain calm, last Saturday, when the doctor told me everything was fine, but I became ecstatic when he said we were going to have a little girl. I reached out a grabbed the good news. I am still learning after all. Maybe I can help Kaia learn these lessons. We do have an eternity after all.
January 19, 2006
Young Adults To Modernize
Upon my return from Africa in 2002, I was told by several friends that Rock n’ Roll had a fresh, new, but somehow recognizably old school gritty sound. Apparently a group of young art school debutantes had taken over the East Village, NYC and the world, with a blend of driving rhythm guitar, a metronome like drummer, melodic baselines, and a condescending ambivalent coated angst that made young girls scream and men seethe with jealousy. The soundtrack for the hipster movie had been born.
Lost in the shuffle of the “The” bands, I opted to wait out the new saviors of modern music and see what would stick during sophomore record season. So when Room On Fire first hit the streets, I jumped onto the preverbial Strokes bandwagon with a dedication only seen with teen geeks prone to fan club memberships and groupies. Within a week, I had memorized every word, not only on said album, but I had discovered songs like Modern Age, Barely Legal, and Someday from The Strokes much publicized debut.
Living in New York City, The Stokes became the soundtrack for my life. Their sparse unsympathetic and perceptive lyrics took me back to a time when I wasn’t engaged and women were relationships falling apart or coming together. Weeknights were spent passing out, mornings filled with shallow regret, sometimes guilt. But despite the pitiless self-absorption there was always a sense of hope. This feeling of stark reality in the face of idealism was what The Strokes mastered with lines like:
I don't want to change your mind,
I don't want to change the world.
I just want to watch it go by.
Add a raw, gritty, dare I say honest sound to these lyrics and The Stokes became the perfect band for a generation lost in themselves, wanting to care and not care about society at the same time. Their music moved. It was the sound of road trips with synthesized sensibilities and Casio inspired drums beats staring in the eighties and never ending.
The Strokes took me back to a time when it was okay to don headphones, ride the trains beer in hand pissing in between cars, screaming at the top of my lungs that, “I don’t need anybody, I never needed anybody, it won't change now.”
The last year before I left the US, I saw The Strokes in concert five times. San Francisco, Boston, two times at the Garden and a show in Central park. At one point in Boston, Casabalancas, the lead singer, was sitting next to me with his microphone and spotlight in my face, as we screamed, “The end has no end” to the delight of the packed crowd at The Orpheum. Also how fitting that on my last night in NYC, stumbling out of The Big Bar in the Village, I should run into Albert Hammond Jr, guitarist of the band that had defined my NYC experience.
Since then I have used The Strokes’ music every time I have needed a shot of youthful apathy coupled with a dedication to some kind of unspoken dream shared by everyone who has ever believed that Rock N’ Roll will somehow save us all.
click here for a song by song review of First Impressions Of Earth
January 17, 2006
One Channel
My mother has been living at the Green Gulch Farm Zen Center in Mill Valley for the last eight months. Green Gulch Farm Zen Center, also known as Green Dragon Temple is a Buddhist practice center in the Japanese Soto Zen tradition offering training in Zen meditation and ordinary work. It is one of three centers that make up San Francisco Zen Center, which was founded by Shunryu Suzuki-roshi.
Their effort at Green Gulch is to awaken in themselves and the many people who go there the bodhisattva spirit, the spirit of kindness and realistic helpfulness. This is how they offer their understanding of Buddha's Way.
Green Gulch Farm is located in Marin County, just north of San Francisco, in a valley that opens out onto the Pacific Ocean. In addition to the temple program of zen and study, it includes an organic farm and garden, as well as a guest house and conference center.
I am lucky to receive some extremely insightful, simple and beautiful reflections on the things I say, do or write from my mother. I wanted to share the following email she sent me:
What a cool thing you are doing on the computer, Blogging, Logging! Today marks the eighth month that I have been living at Green Gulch and for eight months I haven't watched TV, so I don’t really know what you are talking about in regards to the show…
But an interesting thing is that I do have a TV set myself. It has very large screen, about a meter by a meter. This TV has just one channel, and there is no remote control for it, but every second it changes the charnel by itself. There is no on and off switch, and nothing to lower or increase the volume either. The only choice I have is to sit and watch it or not to watch it. Actually I love to watch my show, so I put my bed in front of it.
Yesterday was my day off and I ate in front of my TV. I also read in front of it and took a nap there. I sat and watched the show for a long time. The soundtrack you hear is the sound of the rain, wind, owls, coyotes, foxes, frogs, birds, but most of the time it is the soundless music of silence. You can watch the sky, the sun, moon, stars, and the movement of clouds. Oh I forgot to tell you the program runs 24 hours a day, and it is in color. The other interesting thing about this TV is that you are in the show as well. You play your part but you don't have any control over the scheduling or programs. There is no TV guide. I love the show happening here. I can sit and watch the change on different channels every second, but like everything else I can't become attached to any one program, so like you said, I watch for an hour or so, but then I need to play my role.
January 15, 2006
OD'd on the O.C.
When living overseas, trends that sweep the US take longer to make an impact on the lives of us ex-pats. But thanks to the relentless proliferation of everything American, I too can become absorbed by hour-long television dramas. And furthermore thanks to the bootlegging DVD pirates I can do it cheaply, quickly and in the privacy of my home.A further advantage is that I don’t have to sit through the mind numbing commercials, or wait an entire week to know what is happening. I can pop in the DVD and four episodes later I forget who I am, where I am living and any notion of reality I may have had before I started.
Like any good addiction, I can get my fix when I what, how I want, and how often I need it. And lately since I have started using, I have been needing a lot. I am here to admit that I am addicted, and if something doesn’t happen soon I may OD on The O.C.
But why the O.C. you ask? How can I the self-proclaimed defender against all things mainstream, the higher then thou self-righteous individualist, the soap-box orator (okay maybe I am getting a little carried away) but how can I be addicted to a show dedicated to the trials and tribulations of a group of air-brushed beauties dealing with such important issues like: teen jealously, teen angst, and how can I be wondering week in and week out if Seth can just be friends with Summer or not. I am not sure how this happened, but I am not ashamed in the least to say I love The O.C.
Maybe it is a primal need human beings have to allow ourselves to get lost in the world of fantasy that soap operas offer. Maybe after spending five nights of not being able to sleep because I felt guilty, firstly for wanting Ariel Sharon to die and later hoping he lives so he will suffer, I needed to lighten things up and lose sleep over whether Ryan will be happy with Lindsay or if he will let his anger take over again. He has been better at handling his emotions lately. Taking the world too seriously can be just as dangerous as not taking it seriously at all. I don’t want to be so jaded and cynical that I cannot laugh at what I detest. And when a show comes long that is self-aware of its shallowness, than I will gladly jump on board and go for the ride.
The O.C. is everything hackneyed and predicable about the soap opera genre: twisted improbable love triangles, power plays, millionaires gaining and losing fortunes, jealousy, miscommunication, and misunderstanding. But there is something fresh about this show. Through the effective use of witty sarcasm and one-liners The O.C. adds a sense of humor not usually seen in the soap opera. Although Beverly Hills 90210 and shows like it were comical to the point of absurdity, they seldom tried to be funny. While tackling deep, serious issues, the characters became caricatures of human beings, but in The O.C. there are no attempts to touch on serious issues, and because the characters are post-modernly aware of their own absurdity and comment on it constantly, as the audience we are allowed to watch them and not feel guilty. The O.C. is fully aware that it is not going to change the world, and for an hour (or four if you are like me) it allows the audience to take a break from over intellectualism and sit back and root for Marissa to get away from Oliver, or comment on what a good guy Jimmy is, although several episodes earlier he was arrested on fraud charges. I am certain everything I am writing has been stated a million times over, but like I said living overseas trends arrive late and while The O.C may not be new it is new to me.
Another area where The O.C. rides the fence between the mainstream and “indie” sensibilities is music. If like me, you are fan of the dramatic scene, melting into a musical montage than this show is for you. I mean an airport departure scene with a cover of If You Leave, the OMD classic by Nada Surf, come on, who could want more during primetime? The producers of the show have said that they want music to be a character on the show, and that they want to find smaller bands to promote. To the diehard anti-establishment militant this is the exact type of subversive tactics “the man” will take to infiltrate the none commodified world, but even as a thirty year old man I like to watch a show where the characters like good music, and better still this music is played throughout the show at strategically perfect times. The cynic in me may argue that this type of blatant promotion is the work of record company execs who know they have a plaint and gullible audience waiting to be told what is “cool” and what is not, but the other side of me thinks: if I were to make a show wouldn’t I want to fill it with good music? Would my love of songs be considered selling out? Would I not want to have my favorite bands perform on my show? Would I not want the character based on me to name drop bands like Bright Eyes and Death Cab? And if this resulted in thousands of teenagers to listen to these bands rather than Ashlee Simpson, isn’t that a good thing?
I have also noticed that The O.C. doesn’t use its grip on the impressionable minds of young audience members to blatantly place products. Except for the obvious placement of Apple products like the iMac and iPod, there are not many obnoxious placements. Sure the wardrobe and makeup- can probably be found in every teen mag, but at least it is nice not see constant references to StarBucks and Cheeros.
So if you are tired of doing anything productive, like reading for pleasure or reading news, or if you are tired of always fighting and need a break, or simply you want to escape into the wonderful world of the American soap opera I strongly suggest you start in The O.C.
Where nothing is ever going to change. The people are young, rich and beautifully sculpted in the images that Park Avenue tells us means success, and for just an hour that is okay. You re-group and get back to trying to figure out how it is that we live in a world where a remote controlled plane, piloted by the CIA can murder 22 innocent people, ten of which were women and children and not face any consequences.
Like any good addiction, I can get my fix when I what, how I want, and how often I need it. And lately since I have started using, I have been needing a lot. I am here to admit that I am addicted, and if something doesn’t happen soon I may OD on The O.C.
But why the O.C. you ask? How can I the self-proclaimed defender against all things mainstream, the higher then thou self-righteous individualist, the soap-box orator (okay maybe I am getting a little carried away) but how can I be addicted to a show dedicated to the trials and tribulations of a group of air-brushed beauties dealing with such important issues like: teen jealously, teen angst, and how can I be wondering week in and week out if Seth can just be friends with Summer or not. I am not sure how this happened, but I am not ashamed in the least to say I love The O.C.
Maybe it is a primal need human beings have to allow ourselves to get lost in the world of fantasy that soap operas offer. Maybe after spending five nights of not being able to sleep because I felt guilty, firstly for wanting Ariel Sharon to die and later hoping he lives so he will suffer, I needed to lighten things up and lose sleep over whether Ryan will be happy with Lindsay or if he will let his anger take over again. He has been better at handling his emotions lately. Taking the world too seriously can be just as dangerous as not taking it seriously at all. I don’t want to be so jaded and cynical that I cannot laugh at what I detest. And when a show comes long that is self-aware of its shallowness, than I will gladly jump on board and go for the ride.
The O.C. is everything hackneyed and predicable about the soap opera genre: twisted improbable love triangles, power plays, millionaires gaining and losing fortunes, jealousy, miscommunication, and misunderstanding. But there is something fresh about this show. Through the effective use of witty sarcasm and one-liners The O.C. adds a sense of humor not usually seen in the soap opera. Although Beverly Hills 90210 and shows like it were comical to the point of absurdity, they seldom tried to be funny. While tackling deep, serious issues, the characters became caricatures of human beings, but in The O.C. there are no attempts to touch on serious issues, and because the characters are post-modernly aware of their own absurdity and comment on it constantly, as the audience we are allowed to watch them and not feel guilty. The O.C. is fully aware that it is not going to change the world, and for an hour (or four if you are like me) it allows the audience to take a break from over intellectualism and sit back and root for Marissa to get away from Oliver, or comment on what a good guy Jimmy is, although several episodes earlier he was arrested on fraud charges. I am certain everything I am writing has been stated a million times over, but like I said living overseas trends arrive late and while The O.C may not be new it is new to me.
Another area where The O.C. rides the fence between the mainstream and “indie” sensibilities is music. If like me, you are fan of the dramatic scene, melting into a musical montage than this show is for you. I mean an airport departure scene with a cover of If You Leave, the OMD classic by Nada Surf, come on, who could want more during primetime? The producers of the show have said that they want music to be a character on the show, and that they want to find smaller bands to promote. To the diehard anti-establishment militant this is the exact type of subversive tactics “the man” will take to infiltrate the none commodified world, but even as a thirty year old man I like to watch a show where the characters like good music, and better still this music is played throughout the show at strategically perfect times. The cynic in me may argue that this type of blatant promotion is the work of record company execs who know they have a plaint and gullible audience waiting to be told what is “cool” and what is not, but the other side of me thinks: if I were to make a show wouldn’t I want to fill it with good music? Would my love of songs be considered selling out? Would I not want to have my favorite bands perform on my show? Would I not want the character based on me to name drop bands like Bright Eyes and Death Cab? And if this resulted in thousands of teenagers to listen to these bands rather than Ashlee Simpson, isn’t that a good thing?
I have also noticed that The O.C. doesn’t use its grip on the impressionable minds of young audience members to blatantly place products. Except for the obvious placement of Apple products like the iMac and iPod, there are not many obnoxious placements. Sure the wardrobe and makeup- can probably be found in every teen mag, but at least it is nice not see constant references to StarBucks and Cheeros.
So if you are tired of doing anything productive, like reading for pleasure or reading news, or if you are tired of always fighting and need a break, or simply you want to escape into the wonderful world of the American soap opera I strongly suggest you start in The O.C.
Where nothing is ever going to change. The people are young, rich and beautifully sculpted in the images that Park Avenue tells us means success, and for just an hour that is okay. You re-group and get back to trying to figure out how it is that we live in a world where a remote controlled plane, piloted by the CIA can murder 22 innocent people, ten of which were women and children and not face any consequences.
Just what we need: another blogger
I have often said that writing, no matter how we try to romanticize it by claiming that it is an art form, is really nothing more than an act of desperation and vanity. It is a plea for attention, a prayer to stave off loneliness. The writer begs to be heard, so that he won’t disappear in obscurity. Each writer, either rightfully or swollen with delusions, thinks that what he has to say means something, or more pathetically that his words may help others identify with the world more easily. We writers naively believe that words chained together to form poems, or arguments, or stories will somehow lead to something better than what is already here.
We sit alone in dark rooms, while the music plays and the cat sleeps, and craft sentence after sentence on a torrent of ideas, hoping to penetrate someone, somewhere. So that maybe they will say that they understand us, or they agree with us, or maybe they will say thank you.
The Blogger is an even more deprived, more pompous writer. Because this creature does not even wait till his prose has been crafted. He simply sits and writes about whatever comes to his mind and has the audacity to post it in the world. As if there is room enough for his thoughts. As if anyone needs one more Blogger filling cyber space with his random, useless thoughts about television shows, politics, music or whatever else he deems worthy for that week’s entry.
But what if we take a less cynical approach? What if we think that the amateur Blogger is simply finding a venue that will force him to write? And that maybe sharing these thoughts with anyone willing to read them may prove to give him some kind of redemption? What if we believe that the very act of writing is what is important, because it forces us to think of the world as nothing more than what it forces us to write about it? What if we are English teachers and we talk all day about why writing is important and we want to prove that by actually doing it? What if we tell or students that writing helps us learn how to think? It helps us break down the world and recreate it in a way that makes sense to us? What if we believe that writing is the last form of communication, and that the freedom on the Internet and Blogging may help us connect with ideas we never knew possible? What if we believe in the honesty of the Blog as a venue to connect and share? What if we are tired of cynicism?
I hope this Blog forces me to write. I hope this Blog is read. Other than that I do not expect much from it. There is no theme here. The topics will vary depending on my mood. So welcome to yet another Blogger who thinks that what he has to say is worth your time.
We sit alone in dark rooms, while the music plays and the cat sleeps, and craft sentence after sentence on a torrent of ideas, hoping to penetrate someone, somewhere. So that maybe they will say that they understand us, or they agree with us, or maybe they will say thank you.
The Blogger is an even more deprived, more pompous writer. Because this creature does not even wait till his prose has been crafted. He simply sits and writes about whatever comes to his mind and has the audacity to post it in the world. As if there is room enough for his thoughts. As if anyone needs one more Blogger filling cyber space with his random, useless thoughts about television shows, politics, music or whatever else he deems worthy for that week’s entry.
But what if we take a less cynical approach? What if we think that the amateur Blogger is simply finding a venue that will force him to write? And that maybe sharing these thoughts with anyone willing to read them may prove to give him some kind of redemption? What if we believe that the very act of writing is what is important, because it forces us to think of the world as nothing more than what it forces us to write about it? What if we are English teachers and we talk all day about why writing is important and we want to prove that by actually doing it? What if we tell or students that writing helps us learn how to think? It helps us break down the world and recreate it in a way that makes sense to us? What if we believe that writing is the last form of communication, and that the freedom on the Internet and Blogging may help us connect with ideas we never knew possible? What if we believe in the honesty of the Blog as a venue to connect and share? What if we are tired of cynicism?
I hope this Blog forces me to write. I hope this Blog is read. Other than that I do not expect much from it. There is no theme here. The topics will vary depending on my mood. So welcome to yet another Blogger who thinks that what he has to say is worth your time.
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