visitation

I was holding him. He was pressed beside me, lying on his back with his front paws lifted limply above him. He was stretching his head backwards, and I was burying my face in his neck and rubbing his belly. I could feel the prickly soft whiskers under his chin poking against my cheek, and then I began to wake up, but before I fully opened my eyes, I remembered that he was gone.

It has been over a month, and the process of accepting this great loss; of acknowledging his complete absence, is long and aching. I am not devastated every moment of every day- I am not unable to function or to smile - I can have conversations, I can laugh. It has been more of a continuous, slow-moving, accumulative loneliness. Something very personal, very sweet, and unspeakably sad.

I'm often not aware of, or forget just how personal this loss has been for me until I leave the apartment. I find I don't want to meet anyone I know from the park or from the neighborhood who's known Zeke; don't want to explain what happened, don't want to say how I feel, don't want to see the expression in their faces, hear encouraging words, or sympathy, or how they might understand because they've lost beloved pets. I'd just as soon avoid any awkward or uncomfortable small talk about something that has been such a significant marker of transition in my life. I want to hold this experience close to my chest, like a cherished locket, and let its precious hidden secret hang just over my heart.

I remember a time when I was a child, it was sometime after Alexandra died, I must have been about 9 or 10. I was walking around the village with my favorite aunt. We were looking in shops and I wanted to go inside a small leather shop on Bleeker Street. In the window, there was a display of colorful fringed belts and bags. My aunt silently indicated that she'd rather not go in, but in my selfish childishness, it wasn't possible for me to take into consideration that she might have had a reason for denying me my wish - I couldn't have imagined my immediate needs not being met; I pressed through the front door. Inside the dark shop were two men; one of them smiled with recognition of my aunt and said to her, "How's the baby?" With a forced smile and no explanation, she said that the baby had died. The air was suddenly sucked from the room. I could feel her strength and her suffering. I was a child. I had no vocabulary for what was going on. I know intellectually that I wasn't responsible for her suffering at that moment, nonetheless, uncomfortable feelings rose in me - feelings I now might recognize as guilt. Decades later, these same tense feelings of guilt rise in me when I think that I might have forced my aunt into an uncomfortable situation all those years ago.

Similar feelings of uneasiness and disquiet have revisited me intermittently since that long gone afternoon. This very specific memory of that time with my aunt has repeated more frequently in my mind since Zeke's death. When I cross the street to avoid a dog walker, when I smile at a neighbor, quicken my pace, and silently acknowledge that I don't want to talk to them the memory rises. How could a young boy possibly have had any understanding of this personal and complex mixture of loss and embarrassment? He couldn't. Childish memory brushes against adult consciousness, and my heart reaches through time to comfort that grieving young woman, just as it reaches out to console that confused little boy.

With forgiveness comes freedom, and in freedom there is no time - I can be visited by an angel; I can feel his soft whiskers against my cheek, and maybe, even for just the briefest moment, I can forget that it's a dream.

zeke

I went to the opera last night and got home close to midnight. I took Zeke for a late walk in the park - he fell at one point, something that was alarming and terribly heart-breaking when it first started happening months ago, but unfortunately has become a semi-regular thing since then. He ate a few cookies, a couple who was walking their dog saw that he wasn't feeling well and stopped to pet him for a few minutes, then we came upstairs.

He couldn't get comfortable once we got in; he was panting, drooling, and he wouldn't stay in one place - I was wetting his nose with water and he was halfheartedly drinking it from my cupped hand. I held him, but he wouldn't lie down. He licked my ear and the side of my head a few times, and his tongue felt warm. I gave him extra pain medication, and sometime close to three o'clock I went to sleep. A couple of minutes after I closed my eyes, I heard him leave the room and walk down the hall.

I woke up this morning and he wasn't in the room. I looked all around the apartment and it took me a while to find him. He had situated himself behind the drapes in the living room, lying in the corner, behind the drapes and against the radiator, and he was dead. My beautiful friend is gone.

I knew last night that I was going to have to call the vet this morning and go in with him today to ask her to do the unthinkable. I brought him into her office a few days ago and she told me we needed to start thinking about making the decision to euthanize him. It was something I couldn't imagine having to decide, but also a reality I knew had to be dealt with, and soon. I got pain medication for him, and that was three days ago. In a final act of love, Zeke has saved me the heartbreak and misery of having to make the decision to end his life. I'm sorry I went to sleep at all last night. I wish I had held him all night long, told him how much I love him and let him know that he's not alone. He's not alone. He's now with everyone who has ever gone before: Nanny, Cleveland, Frankie, Johnny-Marie, Greg, Tom, Alexandra, Jesus - he will continue to be loved, and he can sleep in the hollow of God's hand. I know that these tears will eventually stop, but there's a hole inside of me that will never go away; a void so absolute, nothing could have prepared me for it. What this sweet and simple animal taught me about love is immeasurable. I'm so blessed to have had him in my life and to have been able to care for him. I wouldn't be who I am without him - he will live in my heart forever. And as sad and disturbing as his passing is, it is strangely comforting to know that wherever he is, he'll be keeping a spot warm for me for when I get there.

one fourteen

It is bitterly cold outside today, just like it was two years ago on this day, when Frankie died. I remember so clearly working my way across town, on the bus, through the cold and the snow, to the hospice on Second Avenue. I remember the kindness and patience of the staff there - how Frankie would weave in and out of consciousness; doing a dance with one foot in this world and one foot in another. She'd hold my hand and smile, then in an instant, all recognition would leave her face.

I also remember the expanse of the white and grey sky outside her window, the view of snow-covered rooftops during the storms we had that year, and the sound of the cold wind as it whipped past the windows.

It was an arduous struggle to get Frankie into that hospice, but once there, she was cared for and safe, and she passed peacefully.

This year, I'm tending to Zeke. His pathology report has come back suggestive of lymphoma. There can only be a conclusive diagnosis with a biopsy, but I won't put him through that. Even if it is conclusive, I won't choose to give him the treatment. His walking is difficult, his breathing is audible in a way that it's never been before, and he's hardly eating (he wouldn't even eat a burger I cooked for him the other day). I've gotten some wet food that is pretty stinky and has a pâté consistency, and he'll eat some of that, but he hasn't eaten any dry food (kibble) for about a week.

A number of years ago, when Frankie was going through treatment for her ovarian cancer, she stayed with me for a few nights. Zeke snuggled up next to her in the bed, and the two of them slept together for the time she stayed with me. She loved him, claimed that he was more healing than any treatment a doctor could prescribe, and called him "Sweetie-Petey."

This morning, I started Zeke on Prednizone. Hopefully, this will reduce the swelling of his lymph nodes, act as an anti-inflammatory for his arthritis, and increase his appetite.

Zeke and I were introduced to each other eleven years ago, in a pound, in Hyde Park, New York. Though still a young dog at the time, he was fully grown; maybe a year, maybe older. Since then, he's had a very fortunate dog's life, some might even say spoiled; fed home-made food, slept on comfortable beds, walked at least three times a day, and gotten more love and better treatment than most humans. Even with all that, it's hardly payment enough for what he's given me in return. I know that Zeke may not be here for very much longer, but for whatever time he has left, it's my job to make him as comfortable as I can.

sam

There was a man who used to sleep on the benches on Riverside Drive, across the street from my apartment building. He would sleep there all year long; winter, summer, rain, snow - he was always there. His name was Sam.

Sam was a wiry, dark-skinned, African-American man, probably in his sixties. He always wore a suit-jacket and tie, often a muffler, and carried a small suitcase. He never asked for money. Usually he was quiet and polite, nodding good morning, etc., but on occasion, he would talk to himself loudly or mutter angry and indiscernible things to passersby, perhaps suggestive that he'd missed taking his medication or was having some kind of episode.

Sam used to have a thing going on about the trash cans on the Drive and right inside Riverside park. He would move them around and rearrange them all the time. Often, after having cleaned up after my dog, in the park, I'd find that the trash can where I'd usually toss the baggied refuse had been moved clear across the field from where it usually sat. It also wasn't an uncommon thing to see Sam dragging a heavy metal trash can behind him as he walked up Riverside Drive, or around one of the meandering paths in the park.

Sam lived on the street for years. People would often leave food for him. Once, on my way home from food shopping, I offered him some fruit. He refused it.

People in the neighborhood, the dog people in the park, doormen, etc., always talked about Sam. Some of the talk, mostly from the more recent nouveau riche additions to the neighborhood, was concern at the unpleasantness of such an 'unseemly character' hanging around what was supposed to be a 'nice' neighborhood. But the majority of the talk was curiosity, or even concern about someone who we saw everyday - a neighbor.

About four year ago, during the winter, Sam died. One day, he just wasn't there anymore. There was really no more information about what had happened to him. It might have been because he was ill, it might have been exposure to the elements. No one seemed to know. There were vases of flowers placed in the snow against the wall to the park, and bouquets laid out on benches along the Drive for weeks after his death. There was also a small sign explaining to the folks in the neighborhood that Sam had passed away.

While I don't know if there was ever any confirmation about this, the word was that Sam had an apartment on 79th Street, right off of Riverside, that he used to rent out. He was apparently financially stable, and was once a successful young man, then one day he came home to find that his wife and young daughter had perished in a house fire. He'd been living on the streets since. Whether that's true, or a tragic story that someone made up along the way, I don't know. Certainly, if true, something like that would drastically change a person.

Sam's story suggests an excellent example to the testament that it is best not to judge people by their outward appearances. You just never know...

see the blazing yule before us

At this time last year, I had just arrived in India. I vividly remember the first breakfast I had after waking up in a small guesthouse in Chennai (Swami Saradananda had ordered breakfast for me the night before, pretty sure that I'd be awake early): pongol and chai spiced coffee. It was so sweet and delicious, the smells and flavors of cardamom and black pepper in the morning was new, exotic, and instantly captivated me. I was thrilled to be starting my small adventure of spiritual exploration and cultural immersion; far away from busy sidewalks dressed in holiday style - at least the holiday style to which I'd always been accustomed.

Last Christmas eve I visited St. Thomas Basilica, a cathedral that is built over the site where St. Thomas is believed to be interred. For me the holiday was quiet, reflective, personal - all very different from the Christmases I'd spent before. More than a small part of me is wishing I could be having a similar experience this year.

This Christmas eve I'll be going into a locked detox ward of a hospital. I'm going in there to hopefully share a message of hope and recovery with some folks who are probably going to be feeling pretty lousy having to spend their Christmas in a place like that - a lucky few might realize the auspicious gift they've been given, but the majority will most probably be sad, resentful, frustrated, even indignant. I'm looking forward to it; it's the part of my holiday plans this year where I can most easily focus on the spirit of giving and the brotherhood of man. The other stuff, the family stuff, is always more difficult for me - and I'll be doing some of that a few days after Christmas.

In previous years I always brought a big bundle of fabulous gifts; all sparkly and well thought out, hoping to impress with the most well-suited and best gifts - I didn't have to necessarily do anything - I could let the gifts speak for me. I didn't have the luxury of doing that this year. This year, the challenge for me will be to try and bring the same spirit of love, service, and open-mindedness to my often deranged family as to the sick and suffering people in the locked ward. Practicing the principles of honesty, faith, tolerance, patience, love, humility, and forgiveness is easier in theory than it is in practice. Even if I'm willing enough to try, I'll be doing better than I have before. If I can add to those principles a glimpse of the quiet, reflective, and personal Christmas experience I had last year in India, then maybe I can even be a demonstration of good will.

working with others

Life will take on new meaning. To watch people recover, to see them help others, to watch loneliness vanish, to see a fellowship grow up about you, to have a host of friends - this is an experience you must not miss. We know you will not want to miss it. Frequent contact with newcomers and with each other is the bright spot of our lives.

pepper spraying america

Yesterday police mercilessly pepper-sprayed seated, non-threatening UC Davis students, who, in a bitter twist of irony, where there protesting, among other things, police brutality! The escalating violence by police against Occupy Wall Street protesters has reached new levels of viciousness. It is cowardly, unethical, and unAmerican. These nationwide attacks continue to increase daily, and continue to be antithetical to the constitution. Republican candidates have repeated that the protesters should "get a job," and claim that "These people just want a handout," but it's painfully clear that what's going on is beginning to threaten the foundation of the current Machiavellian capitalist machine. As proof, a memo from lobbying firm, Clark, Lytle Geduldig, Cranord warns that there may be political fallout from growing support for the Occupy movement, and offers advice to its Wall Street clients. The banking industry is getting scared, and while it may take a long while to see any legislative differences come to pass, protesters keep getting arrested and brutally attacked by hired thugs (police). Thugs who may very well be only a paycheck away from joining the protesters whose heads they're currently whacking.



This isn't an America I recognize. I'm proud and heartened by the resolve of these brave protesters, but I'm equally disappointed, disillusioned, and disheartened by my country and its leaders. Watching these happenings unfold strengthens my hope in the human spirit, just as it rips away any glimmer that a quality of life in America for the 99% might get better. My support for the movement remains unwavering. I wish the president and legislative leaders would show some integrity, and demand that our police exhibit characteristics befitting of our country's standards.

We can talk the talk, but apparently find it much more difficult to walk the walk:

"I want to be very clear in calling upon the Egyptian authorities to refrain from any violence against peaceful protesters. The people of Egypt have rights that are universal."

- Barack Obama - January 2008

survivor

Like it or not, reality television is not just for television anymore, it’s become a way of life. And, we, the American people, have turned out to be the Biggest Losers. America’s current cultural default setting of voyeuristically watching sordid manipulated dramas unfold before our eyes is proving to have much more far-reaching consequences than anybody could have ever imagined. The phenomenon of commercially produced competition masquerading as 'reality' has become more than just guilty-pleasure-lowbrow entertainment. In fact, it has so thoroughly influenced and oversaturated our cultural identity, that it’s become difficult to differentiate a game show from a political campaign.

A little more than three years ago, a perky, photogenic, flag-waving, self-proclaimed pit-bull with lipstick entered the national media spotlight, and at the time, it probably didn’t occur to most of us to draw a parallel between her specific brand of mean-spirited, attention-grabbing, political backbiting and America's Next Top Model. But, as time has gone by, and as we've watched her carry her Down’s syndrome baby around like a loaf of bread from one political rally to the next, heard her repeatedly misquote the constitution, watched as her chastity championing teenage daughter got knocked-up by the local bad boy, and listened as her rabid rhetoric became more and more malicious, all in the name of patriotism and Christian values, it began to look as if Sinclair Lewis’s prescient 1935 quote might actually come to pass.

"When fascism comes to America,

it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross."

Sinclair Lewis

'Real America,' the one of cup holders, mud flaps, and chewing tobacco, was finally getting the representation it had long been lacking, and the grateful middling masses turned up, tuned in, and lifted up their strident and shrill, newfound spokes model with the force of a tsunami – ethics violations be damned!

When the publicity-hungry hockey mom finally relieved herself of her pesky gubernatorial duties, and went on a self-promotional, nation-wide book tour, her supporters didn’t question her deserting her constituents, rather they seemed reinvigorated by her fearless-buck-the-system-confidence. They gathered in malls and town squares crying for smaller government, looser regulations, and called for a firearm in every pocket. They shouted accusations of tyranny and socialism willy-nilly at the current President all to the half-governor's smiling approval. Cameras kept rolling and supporters and critics alike tuned in daily to watch the latest installment of her partisan performance piece.

Political strategists took note of what was capturing the attention of both the media and the discontented voting public, and political contenders acted in kind – loudly courting the far right lunatic fringe with the same strident fear-baiting tenor as the rogue Alaskan. Cable news network pundits, arugula-eating liberal elites, and even old school Republican plutocrats watched aghast as the new rules of campaign strategies took on the character of a Jerry Springer, hootenanny, cage-fight.

At the same time as the moose-hunting-pageant-walking-hockey-mom-media-bus-tour and jamboree was gathering momentum in the nation’s heartlands, our ultra-right leaning Supreme Court weighed in on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. From here on out, there would be no limits on corporate campaign contributions. Essentially, Walmart can now buy the presidency! Of course, this was potentially great news for an uneducated public who believes that Walmart and its ilk are prototypically American. They haven’t been reading the fine print that explains how Walmart has outsourced American jobs to third world nations where cheap labor can be exploited under even slacker regulations than our own. They’re not concerned that Walmart’s produce is flown in from Chile and Costa Rica at the expense of local farmers, and they’d long ago forgotten those mom and pop stores that had to close up shop when behemoth corporations opened their doors with prices that mom and pop couldn’t compete with.

Since then, we've luckily managed to avoid bearing witness to a Trump campaign. Apparently the Donald felt that his real reality television responsibilities outweighed the public's call for his run for office. Instead, however (along with a pack of other irate wingnuts, all clamoring for the Republican nomination), we've got an angry, media hungry Georgia business man, who's made a fortune from a mediocre pizza chain. And if mediocre pizza wasn't enough to substantiate this man's patriotism, his self-righteous, uncompromising insistence that there would be no room for a Muslim in his cabinet, his indignant claims that government regulations inhibit free market advantage, and his hardened no nonsense tone has struck a chord with a certain disgruntled conservative constituency during an economic crisis.

Despite all odds, Cain has managed to stay in the running amid the more seasoned darlings of cable news and talk radio, even grabbing the spotlight away from such legendary lunatics as Michelle Bachmann and Rick Santorum. In the past weeks, however, four women have come forward with accusations of sexual harassment against the pizza man. With all his bobbing and weaving around the accusations, it's hard to remember that republicans claim to be the party of 'personal responsibility.' Of course, even with all the accusations of Cain's sexual inappropriateness, he continues to use dismissive and misogynistic language; joking about Anita Hill and referring to former Speaker of the House Pelosi as "princess Nancy." One would think that this brazen demonstration of insensitivity and denigration of women when his character is in question would be detrimental to someone in such a public arena, but in the last month the Cain campaign has raised nine million dollars!

Perhaps this may not be so surprising after all when one considers that Cain's attitude seems to fit directly into the groove of the current anti-woman agenda that the Republicans have been so relentlessly pushing forward. It might also make perfect sense in light of the fact that the folks he's appealing to are the very same folks who cheer executions, call for the death of the uninsured, and boo soldiers.

I don't have the interest or energy to expound upon the foolishness of the pizza man's 9-9-9 tax plan (a tax plan shockingly similar to the one that the inhabitants of video game SimCity live under), nor do I care to blather on about the irrationality and idiocy of his proposed immigration reform plan other than to say that it includes not only an electrified fence, but also a moat filled with alligators all along the U.S.-Mexico border (I wish I was making this up). But what I would like to point out is that in his closing statement for one of the Republican debates, Mr. Cain said: "A poet once said, 'Life can be a challenge, life can seem impossible, but it's never easy when there's so much on the line."

Actually, the poem that the pizza man chose to quote really isn't a poem at all, it's the theme song from a Pokemon movie! Yes, a candidate for the Republican nomination for the President of the United States of America is quoting Pokemon. Kudos to Mr. Cain for taking our already twisted reality television culture one step further, and entering it into a world of bizarre performance art.

This is what these recent years of championing ignorance and spectacle over intelligence and substance has brought us to.

gut yontif!

I don't usually like to use this space as a venue to vent my frustrations, but, please, just bear with me for a minute.

For those of you who don't know, this week is Sukkot (or sukkos). I'm not an expert on these things, and there's certainly no shortage of more qualified people to explain this to you, but Sukkot is a Torah mandated festival that involves an outdoor structure that looks like a walled booth with some kind of plant material covering. This structure is called a sukkah, and it is meant to represent the makeshift dwellings that the Jews lived in during the exodus from Egypt. Sukkot also includes repeating specific prayers and blessings, recited while holding a yellow citron (called an Etrog) and a date palm frond (called a Lulav).

Now, if you live in New York City, you are most definitely aware that during this one week of the year there are both stationary and mobile sukkahs strategically located around town. Seriously, who doesn't love a sukkah-mobile? And accompanying these multiple sukkahs are young orthodox Jews carrying Etrogs and Lulavs. Personally, I think it's terrific that these young guys are so committed to their traditions and practices that they wander around town wanting to share the joy of this sacred festival with others. I don't know exactly how it's phrased in the scriptures, but because it is mandated for Jews to take part in this festival, these young orthodox guys ask passersby, "Are you Jewish?" This would be fine too, but several times when I've been asked, "Are you Jewish?" and I've responded, "No." The guy just turns around and goes hunting for the next potential Jew.

Seriously?!

Dude! If you're going to be asking people if they're Jewish, there are most probably going to be a number of people who are going to say, "No." In this case, I would suggest that the appropriate and polite response might be, "Okay, enjoy your afternoon." or "Very well, thanks man. Have a great day." or "Sorry for disturbing you." or "May the love of God be with you." or possibly a handshake and a friendly nod. But somehow me being a non-Jew qualifies me for immediate dismissal. Call me sensitive but this REALLY PISSES ME OFF!

This very scenario happened to me earlier today, and when the young Jew dismissively turned and walked away from me, I wanted to chase the guy down and say, "Hey, haven't you been taught about the teachings of Rabbi Hillel? About how he said, 'That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbors?' What part of that very simple interpretation of the golden rule do you not understand, Putz?

But I didn't. I had a moment. I stopped. I breathed. I remembered that justified indignation is rarely a good idea, and, truth be told, I'm glad that I live in a city where Jews are celebrating this ancient and joyous festival all over town, and encouraging others to join them. So I was able to shift my focus from one of anger to one of gratitude. Seriously, I love seeing a sukkah-mobile working its way down an avenue, and most of all, I love New York.

99%

The occupiers have been camped out downtown in Zuccotti park for thirty four days. There doesn't seem to be any end in sight, instead the movement is only escalating and gathering momentum. Earlier today, I saw online that #OccupyWallStreet had planned a march from Washington Square park to Times Square. The marchers were scheduled to arrive at Times Square at five o'clock. I was home this afternoon working on some homework, so I walked my dog at around quarter after four, then I headed out the door, and down to Times Square on the subway. As soon as I got above ground at forty second street, I could feel that something big was going on. There was just an electric buzz in the air, I don't know how else to describe it. I crossed from the west side of Broadway over to the other side of forty second, and then I saw them; thousands of protestors marching up seventh avenue from downtown, many of them carrying banners and signs; young people, older people, some with children on their shoulders, some made up as zombies, veterans, union members, nurses, Teamsters, students, thousands of people as far as the eye could see, all gathered to express their grievances and discontent with corporate greed and economic disparity - all gathered at the crossroads of the world beneath blazing electric corporate logos; a brilliant metaphor of we, the people versus them, the gleaming corporate machine.

I was quickly ushered by a cop into a penned off area in the middle of the street between police barricades. I slowly inched my way uptown, trying to get further into the heart of Times Square, but I could barely move because so many people were jammed into the penned in area. Thrilled and excited to be part of this movement as it gathered momentum, I snapped photos and chanted with the crowd, "the whole world is watching!, the whole world is watching!" and "We are the ninety nine percent!, We are the ninety nine percent!" I got bumped into and jostled, and began to feel a little claustrophobic and concerned that I might get caught in the middle of the crowd, so I continued to inch my way uptown. It took me about a half an hour to go the single block to forty third street. Once I got to forty third street, I quickly shot east to sixth avenue to go uptown a few blocks so I could maneuver myself back into the thick of it. Walking up sixth I could see the police presence that I couldn't see when I was in Times Square. The whole avenue was lined with cop cars and cops on motorbikes and a few paddy wagons. There were also countless police on foot, some in riot gear, others with plastic hand ties, and orange crowd control netting.



I turned left onto forty sixth street and started heading west toward the big plaza in the center of Times Square, but about three quarters down the block, I saw that the crowd was so thick that there would be no crossing. I didn't want to get trapped in the middle of it like I was earlier. I got as close to the intersection of Broadway and forty sixth as I could when the police started calling for the crowd to get on the sidewalk. Helicopters could be heard overhead, and still the unrelenting cheers and chants from the people, "We are the ninety nine percent!" The sky was beginning to grow dark, and on the diagonal corner across the plaza, a Bank of America sign blazed brazenly red, back-lighting the impassioned scene below and in between.

The police continued to call for the crowd to get onto the sidewalk. I jostled for position at the curb, craning to watch the action, still trying to take pictures though it was getting too dark for my camera. There was a handsome young cop right in front of me, Officer Campanelli.

Me: "Any idea of how many people have shown up for this? It looks like there's about four or five thousand police here."

Officer Campanelli: "Yeah, there's at least that many of us here. No, they haven't said how many protestors they think are here."

Guy from the crowd: "Where's the Mayor?"

Officer Campanelli: "I dunno. In the Hamptons, eating a steak dinner."

There was some more friendly banter with Officer Campanelli. He told a couple of us how he wasn't supposed to be working tonight, and he'd rather be at home eating dinner. I chatted with a few other people around me too; a guy from Australia who said he fully supported what was going on and that protests have started down under too. I chatted a little with a nurse who was standing next to me, a middle aged Asian woman, who held a hand-written sign that said, "Nurses against corporate corruption." I also spoke with a young Latina, who told me that she's been going down to Liberty Park after work a few days a week since the protests have been going on to show support and solidarity for those who are camped there. She also told me that she wants to go down this week to hear Poland's former President address the crowd (Lech Walesa has said that he supports the Occupy Wall Street movement, and is coming to New York to speak to the protestors!). Then police in riot gear approached from down forty sixth street, some holding their clubs, others with their hands poised atop their pepper spray nozzles. They stretched the width of the street, shoulder to shoulder, and began moving slowly toward the plaza. I noticed police on horseback across the plaza, silhouetted by the Bank of America sign. I silently cursed my camera, knowing it wouldn't read in this darkness. Other cops were walking beside the cops in riot gear, carrying orange police netting, and it looked like they were getting ready for something. I had the horrible thought that the police might start pepper spraying the crowd - it was then that I decided it was time for me to leave.

I knew that there was no way I could make my way through the crowd and get to the subway, so I walked back toward sixth Avenue, and walked up the block to forty seventh through a small plaza between some office buildings. Forty seventh street was also lined with police cars, but I saw no riot gear and no lines of police readying themselves for aggressive confrontation. I walked toward seventh avenue, stopped at the blocked street and looked down from the corner at the crowd. Signs, banners, cheering, people, horses, celebration, madness, mayhem, hope, revolution; all of it perhaps signaling the beginning of the change we were promised and never got. I sidled up seventh avenue, crossed over to Broadway when I could, still constricted by the massive crowds, and made my way to the fiftieth Street subway station.

I'm encouraged by the huge escalation of this movement, and I'm optimistic that this will make some difference. I know that as long as bought politicians continue to decide legislature, nothing can or will change. I'm proud that this movement began in my city. I'm proud of my countrymen and women, and I'm filled with respect and gratitude for the occupiers and their dogged determination and commitment. I can't help thinking that if I were a little younger, or a little braver, I'd be camping out in the street downtown too.

i took the subway to the revolution

Tunisia, Egypt, Greece, Libya, Wall Street; The United States should be set to experience the same sort of grassroots, youth-driven uprising that we’ve recently seen surge in other nations. Yesterday, police led protestors onto the Brooklyn Bridge, penned them off, and then arrested more than 700. This happened just one week after explicit videos of police brutality hit the Internet, showing an unprovoked police captain pepper-spraying a group of young women, as well as numerous excessively violent take-downs of peaceful protestors. While these videos have stirred shock, anger, and allegations of excessive force, they’ve also, I believe, dissuaded older, more middle-of-the-road, and even conservative leaning concerned citizens from joining the fray. People are pissed off. There are distant, and not so distant sounds of underground rumblings getting ready to erupt, and in my view, these numerous unwarranted arrests along with the use of excessive force on peaceful protestors are all part of a systematic strategy to deter people from joining the cause.

Last week, I went downtown to #OccupyWallStreet to see if I could take some pictures, and even show support for the cause. What I found hanging out in Liberty Park was a bunch of mostly young grunge-y looking folks who looked like they might be leftovers from a Lollapalooza festival; shirtless women, pot-smoking kids, boys banging drums, girls braiding one another's hair, etc. The crowd almost immediately erased any feelings of significance or urgency, and gave the whole movement an amateurish, disorganized impression. That was last Sunday, the day after the pepper spray and violent arrest incidents, and the systematic operations of the NYPD seemed to have accomplished their goal of stripping the demonstration of its legitimacy.

At first, I wondered why the police; hard working union folk who make roughly fifty grand a year, would side with the establishment over the principles of the demonstrators. Then it dawned on me that the police work for the Mayor, and the Mayor is a billionaire, who, while perhaps partly responsible for a decrease in crime, is also mostly more concerned with tourist revenue than with the city’s public education or transportation departments. Also this last week, it has come under some public scrutiny that JP Morgan Chase donated an unprecedented 4.6 million dollars to the NYPD, the largest donation in their foundation's history, so it should come as no surprise that the po-po are working for the man rather than the people.

The occupation of Wall Street has been going on for twenty two days now, and it doesn't seem as if there's any end on the near horizon. Even if the police have managed to intermittently make the crowd look like a bunch of disenfranchised misfits, the fact that the Teamsters Union, the New York Transit Workers Union, and even United Airlines pilots joined the protest is compelling evidence of the demonstration's equilateral message. The ramifications of corporate greed, social and economic inequities, and this country's current political oligarchy are worldwide - no one is invulnerable to its consequences. This relatively small movement downtown is only the beginning. It seems that the revolution has started, and this time it will be webevised.

Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

memorial

I had to turn it off. Family members are reading the names of their loved ones lost exactly ten years ago this morning. The nation continues to be compelled by this defining moment of our time, as it should be, but I feel the need to resist diving into what seems the somewhat manufactured sentimentality of the moment. Each network has specially designed logos for this week, each news magazine a commemorative cover story - across the board there is a strong encouragement to "remember" - as if what happened could ever be forgotten. Forgive me if this reads as somewhat cynical, but I can't help thinking that the great machine that is our nation's media, economy, war, everything - somehow benefits by the persistent fear of its constituency.

I had been awake only a short time after just a few hours fitful sleep, still reeling from days of endless drug use and little rest. I was watering flowerbeds beside the house on Hollis Street, a block south of Japantown in San Francisco. The bedroom window on the second floor opened, and my boyfriend leaned his head out and shouted down to me, "Hey, come up here. The World Trade Center's not there anymore!" The sun was only just beginning to light up a clear blue sky, and every station on TV was playing footage of the planes flying into the towers over and over.

We had been in the process of moving to an apartment downtown on Sutter Street. In the weeks that followed, I remember sitting on the floor of the empty apartment at dawn, cradling him in my arms as he shook and cried, terrified and convinced that the sounds of early morning garbage trucks were airplanes crashing down the streets of San Francisco. We had both spent the past few years destroying our minds with drugs. The attacks on the towers and the tragedy in New York was calling me home.

I'd been living in California for ten years. Within six months I would be back in New York. I dragged him with me. The country, the city, the two of us, everyone was on high alert. We fought, we lied to each other, cheated, drank excessively, were angry, and were both very unhappy. He didn't stay, he couldn't, I didn't understand it then, but I do now. In a swift clandestine move, he arranged his overnight departure and was gone. He left me in debt, unemployed, unemployable, hurt and confused. I continued to drink and drug for a few more months, spiraling downward to what I've heard described as pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. How obliged I am to that utter humiliation as it gave me the gift of desperation. An acronym that was working in my life when there was nothing else.

In the same way that my life imploded and crashed down, I've been rebuilding at almost the same rate as the site downtown. Wreckage, debris, trauma, grief, illness as a result of the fall - my personal relationship to that day a decade ago stands as a metaphor of my downfall and recovery. Careful and slow rebuilding, brick by brick - each passing day a little more healed - each day a little better.

what's your name?

Perhaps you've had this experience when ordering a beverage in a crowded Starbucks; you tell the counter person what you'd like to drink, then he or she asks your name before ringing you up and relieving you of your three or four dollars (depending on how fanciful your thirst). Then he or she scribbles your name on the side of a cup, and sets it in its chronological place next to a frantically milk-steaming and syrup-squeezing barista.

When this name-asking business started happening a few years back, and I'll admit, I was going through a rather angry period, my thought process was "Fuck you! This is just another invasion of my privacy. It's none of your fucking business what my name is!" and then I'd resentfully tell the counter person that my name was Mario, or Hezekiah, or Duke. But as this name-asking began to happen on a more regular basis (which also happened to coincide with my angry period merging into my having a more all-around accepting attitude of most things) I started to see that this what's-your-name-system made pretty good sense, in order to avoid any kind of beverage identity confusion when they all wind up sitting there on that little elevated beverage shelf at the far side of the espresso machine, huddled together in their steaming, half-caf, sweetened and unsweetened, non-fat, soy-chai succulence, just waiting for their parched owners to claim them and delicately sip at their deliciousness. So I reluctantly conceded to giving the counter person my name. But after doing this a couple of times, and after hearing my name mindlessly shouted out into the store by the barista, I thought "Not only is it not any of their business what my name is, but now everybody in the store knows my name too!" This indiscriminate announcement of my identity undercut my comfortable sense of New York anonymity to the core. So I started giving the counter people different names, and I noticed that the funnier or more unusual the name, the more they would make eye contact, or smile, or be momentarily taken away from the monotony of their quotidian and mindless money-taking, coffee-making responsibilities. Not only would the initial name exchange elicit a smile or pleasant response, but when the barista read it on the cup, he or she would smile or giggle, and when they shouted it to the store, it was an opportunity for others to smile as well. I don't know that I have the power to make a great many people happy at any one given time, but this miniscule opening may be an opportunity for me to lighten peoples' day, even if just for a moment. I see it as a kind of selfless-service to working folks who might not otherwise be able to get a break from the tedium of their day.

The name I usually give the counter people in this situation is, Pickles. There's something about the silliness, or the incongruity of that name that always makes people smile. "I have a grande Americano with extra room for ... Pickles! (tee hee)."

It works every time.

Today I went into a Starbucks, ordered my beverage, and the young woman behind the counter asked my name. I was a bit surprised as this Starbucks wasn't very crowded, but it was kind of loud, and there were a few people waiting for their drinks to be made. "Pickles," I said. She blankly looked across the counter at me, and paused for a moment before scribbling on the side of the cup. I found this a bit odd, but thought, Oh well, maybe she's just having a bad day. Then, after waiting for a little while with the few other folks at the far end of the counter for our drinks, I noticed that the barista wasn't calling out people's names, he was just calling out the different kinds of drinks that he was making. He called out the name of the drink that I had ordered, and then he placed it on the elevated beverage shelf. I took the drink, and as I walked over to the cream and sugar island against the wall, I read the side of my cup, and it said, Nick.

cowboy

Just a quick follow-up to the previous post:
(giggle).

sweet jesus in the land of corn

I've been trying to ignore the yammering asshats in the media lately, take it all in stride, and let their drivel roll off my shoulders, but my disillusionment, disappointment, bewilderment, and anger has been magnified to un-ignorable levels this past week with news from Iowa, and of the band of blathering, rabid right wing lunatics vying for the Republican Presidential nomination. As if political news this summer hasn't been disturbing enough, what with the whole debt ceiling fiasco and the new "super congress" appointed to reduce the deficit, the winner of the Iowa Straw Poll, and the driver of the Republican clown car this week, is none other than Tea Party favorite, Michele Bachmann. Bachmann leads the conservative fringe’s furious call to “take back our country!” (From whom? I wonder.)

Yesterday on “Meet the Press,” she gave America an idea of what a Bachmann Presidency might look like. Here’s a snippet:

Also this weekend, Texas Governor, Rick Perry has announced that he's throwing his cowboy hat into the ring for the Republican nomination. This exciting news (can you detect my sarcasm?) comes just one week after his much publicized prayer rally, where he and 30,000 of his flag-waving, God-fearing supporters asked Jesus to fix the nation's economy (take that separation of church and state). So along with Bachmann and Santorum, it seems that we now have a third candidate who claims to get his political direction from an imaginary sky-friend that talks directly to him.

(For some essential reading on Rick Perry, click here.)

While it might embarrass me to admit to anything that could align me with Bachmann, Santorum, Perry or the like (or any of their supporters), I must share that I admire, respect, and attempt as best as I can to adhere to the teachings of Jesus. I'm fascinated by the parables, the altruistic underpinnings of His philosophy, the etymology involved, the history and the poetry of the library which is the New Testament, and I am challenged, on an almost daily basis, to find personal and practical applications in my life of the principles that Christ taught.

With such a surfeit of accessible low-hanging fruit, it would be easy to embark on a diatribe about the golden rule, doing unto others, etc., the basis upon which most all the major world religions are based, and then compare that to Bachmann and her twisted view of people with a different sexual or gender-perspective orientation than hers. I'll even refrain from going off on her husband, Marcus, his Paul Lynde-like patois, or even the hypocrisy of his mental health clinic, which practices "pray away the gay" therapy, and has received annual Medicaid payments totaling $137,000 since 2005, in addition to $24,000 in federal and state funds. (Bachmann has vociferously denounced the Medicaid program. You can read more about it here.)

If you've followed my blog for a while, you'll certainly have noticed that I sometimes have a tendency to wax philosophical about Jesus, Christian values, religious principles, spiritual practices, etc., and then counter that with examples of political deceit, dishonesty, corruption, and hypocrisy. One of the things I find exceedingly interesting is what Jesus is reported to have said about the poor. I wonder how these ideas put forth by Jesus are justified in the minds of those public figures who claim Him (or their followers), and how those justifications correlate with the agenda of those neoconservatives whose commitment it is not to raise taxes on the super-rich or corporations, and to simultaneously cut social spending for the disenfranchised who benefit from such programs.

Here are just a few examples of what JC had to say about the poor:

Matthew 19:21

Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”

Luke 14:12-14

Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

There's also that much repeated bit about it being easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.

It makes me wonder: are these politically-conservative-big-talking-frontrunners living by the same principles outlined in the same texts that I've read from? Or is there yet another set of fundamental regulations and bylaws of which I am unaware, that also fall under the category of "good Christian ethics?"

Poppycock!

The bottom line is that these ruthless and unscrupulous fanatics are pandering to an audience of almost exclusively white evangelical conservative Christians, and they are feeding them exactly what they know they want to hear. If division, voter suppression, demonization of anyone foreign or with brown skin, corporate tax loopholes, eviscerating women's reproductive rights, and ensuring wealthy-white-entitlement is paraded around under the guise of religiosity, then so be it. How is that any different from bigotry and xenophobia being paraded around under the guise of patriotism? It's not. I want to believe that these people are stupid, but I'm not so sure about that anymore. These people are, however, crazy and mean and competitive and driven by personal advancement at any cost, even if that means they need to do it in the name a Jesus whose principles they've thrown under the bus long ago.

It becomes too much for me to grapple with. I'm flustered and I'm tired. I tend to get too ruffled by these nefarious nutters and their hateful shenanigans, too invested in outcomes, and I find I need to blow off steam, or just zone out in any way that I can. For me, the best things that have come out of Iowa this past week (aside from deep-fried butter on a stick) are the embarrassing photos of the aforementioned wing nuts. Perhaps in a few weeks' time there will be a photo of cowboy Rick Perry double-fisting a wiener into his pie-hole. Until then, please enjoy these two priceless moments captured forever in time: