The internet web log of Jesse La Tour

Mystery

2012-01-30T09:35:00.000-08:00

“My only rule: If I understand something, it’s no mystery.”

--Scott Cairns

When did people first begin doubting the existence of God, or gods? The Age of Enlightenment? Probably sooner. Was it hard for those people? It must have been.

For doubters today, at least there is a precedent. Lots of people don’t believe in God anymore. But what must it have been like for someone in a totally God-believing culture, where EVERYBODY believed, to doubt?

How lonely it must have been. And how scary to voice such doubts. Even Galileo, the great astronomer, gave in and professed faith (probably a false faith) before the Inquisition, to save his skin.

Today’s society is more relaxed about beliefs. You can believe what you want. But for someone like me, who grew up deeply connected to a Christian church, voicing doubts was (and is) hard and lonely.

I guess what is hard for me is the legitimate tension between faith and reason. I teach critical thinking in college. I am incapable of “just believing” something. A lot of academics I know, especially those in the hard sciences, those who have devoted their lives to understanding how the world works, are atheist or agnostic. And I don’t blame them. I have seen the skulls or Neanderthals and other pre-human hominids. I have seen a fish walk on land (the Japanese mudskipper). From a scientific perspective, evolution has a lot more explanatory power and utility than creationism, though (I admit) it offers little comfort as a worldview.

I also know some academics who are Christians, who have devoted their lives to explaining the rationality of belief. The ones I’ve met tend to be philosophers, not scientists. But there are some scientists.

Anyway, my point is this: If people who are way smarter than me, who have devoted their lives to studying the world, are still in fundamental disagreement about God, can you blame me for being sort of agnostic? Can you blame me for saying, “I don’t know.” It’s not laziness. I would wager that I have read more than your average American. I’ve even read some of those really dry “apologetics” type books.

My whole thing is this: If someone in today’s society is atheist or agnostic, I have no basis with which to say, “You’re wrong.” We could argue “till the cows come home,” and that is mostly what academics do. Argue.

Although I am an academic, my faith and my values are not academic. Some people find faith through academia. Some people lose faith through academia. What I call “faith” I did not arrive at through rigorous academic study. I arrived at it through human relationships and lived experience. It is not something I like to talk about very much because it is totally subjective to my experience. It is not something one can “prove.” How do you “prove” love, compassion, empathy, suffering, hope? These are matters of ones deepest heart and they are, in the best sense of the word, a mystery.

If I try to explain my heart to someone, I fail, but I sometimes still try. The only true way I know to show my heart is through action: active love, treating others as I would have them treat me, giving my time and resources to my community, to other people, trying to be humble, to shun power and wealth and status. To live simply, to help others in the ways I am able to help. I do these things, not out of a sense of duty or compulsion, but because it is the only way I have found to reconcile the conflict of my deepest heart. Language and argument are inadequate to explain these things, and that is perhaps as it should be.

For this reason, I feel uncomfortable in church buildings. There is too much talking, and it often rings false to me. At some point you have to say, “We have talked enough. Let’s start doing.” Which is not to say the church has done nothing. Many hospitals were started by churches, even though today they are big corporations (the hospitals). Church, to me, is not a building. It is people. In this sense, you could say I never left the church.

I watch, from outside, my old church struggling to stay relevant in a culture that moves way faster than it can keep up. In my heart, I still care about that church. This is what my heart says to that church: Forget about your facilities. Care for your people. They are hurting and confused. Don’t be afraid to let your wounds show. That is the only way they will heal.

One of the heroes of that church is my dad, who has been in some sort of leadership role there for most of my life. But he is the kind of leader who doesn’t stand up and give elegant sermons. He has always sort of quietly went about the business of caring for people: visiting the sick and dying, listening more than talking, writing when it is on his heart to write. We are not so different, my dad and me, though we look different and have different interests and often find ourselves on different sides of an argument. But in our hearts, we are not so different. In that place of mystery that pushes us to be our truest self, we are not so different at all.

The Japanese Mudskipper, the fish that walks on land.

Roberts Blossom

2012-01-29T10:46:00.000-08:00

Last night, some friends and I went to Mulberry St. for karaoke. It was my friend Brock's birthday. There was this old guy who kept singing Frank Sinatra songs.

"That old guy really looks like the old guy from Home Alone," Brock says.

He looks him up on his iPhone, on IMDB.

"The name of the actor who played the guy from Home Alone is Roberts Blossom."

"That old guy said his name was Barry."

"Maybe Roberts Blossom goes by Barry, to avoid getting bothered by fans."

"You really think there are that many Roberts Blossom fans?"

"You should go up and sing a song, and dedicate it to Roberts Blossom, to see if he reacts."

"Good idea."

So I go up and sing "No Woman No Cry" and dedicate it to Roberts Blossom.

Barry does a double take. He definitely reacts.

After the song, Brock says, "Did you see that?! He totally reacted!"

"Okay," I say, "I will go ask him."

I walk up to "Barry" and say, "Sorry to bother you, sir, but I have to ask if you are Roberts Blossom. Are you the actor from Home Alone?"

He smiles and says, "I am not Roberts Blossom, but he was a good friend of mine. I am an actor too (He shows me his Screen Actors Guild Card. His name is Barry Hope). Roberts passed away last year. He was a great guy. I miss him."

"Thank you," I say.

A bit later, I introduce Brock to Barry.

The mystery of Roberts Blossom is solved.

Benefits of Not Having a Car

2012-01-29T10:22:00.000-08:00

Not having a car in Fullerton has its benefits. Aside from the obvious financial savings, it forces you to walk more. And when you walk, you have to acknowledge other people more. Some of the walkers are either homeless or poor. When you walk past them, you see them. You are on a level playing field, so to speak. You do not have the isolating fortress of a car, and this can be good. After a few months of this, you might get to know some of these people.

Homeless Interactions

2012-01-28T14:57:00.001-08:00

The only two meaningful human interactions I've had today were with homeless people.

The first, Ernie, was at Starbucks. He was sitting by a young man, talking about various classic rock bands. I noticed, standing there, that Ernie seemed to be getting progressively more agitated. And then I realized that my hands were in my pockets, and I remembered Ernie telling me that he doesn't like it when people have their hands in their pockets. So I took them out, and he relaxed.

In the course of his monologue, Ernie tells the young man that he knew his father. The young man looks surprised, incredulous.

"You knew my father?" the young man asks, "What was his name?"

Ernie doesn't answer, just keeps talking about Led Zeppelin. I know that Ernie doesn't really know the guy's dad, that as a schizophrenic, he tends to mix up fantasy with reality. The young man doesn't seem to get this. Truth be told, Ernie's fanciful mixing of fantasy and reality is one of the things I've come to appreciate about him. In his world, he is not bound by "the facts."

The other interaction was outside Togos. This other homeless guy pushes his Target shopping cart up to me. He walks like a man with epilepsy. Inside his shopping cart are various boxes and a large pink stuffed rabbit. When he reaches me, he bends over, almost like he is bowing, and stays like that for a long time. He makes various strange noises. With homeless people, I have learned not to be disturbed by strangeness, not to expect social conventions. When the man stands up from his bowing, he sort of lolls his head around, opening and closing his mouth widely, a big toothless grimace. I help him lift his shopping cart up the curb. His grimace transforms into something like a grin, and he walks inside Togos, leaving his cart outside.

I walk home, feeling sort of heavy. Some of my days are heavier than others, but I imagine that, for that guy, most of his days are heavy.

Putting Together an Art Show

2012-01-28T09:47:00.000-08:00

I have been busily working on my art show for next Friday (Feb. 3) during the DOWNTOWN FULLERTON ART WALK. It's a book release party for my first book, An American Comedy. The art show features LOTS of little drawings, photographs, journals, and other things from the book. It's a long process, binding the books and compiling hundreds of drawings and photos into a coherent whole, but thankfully I have had the help of my family (mom, dad, grandma). I am tremendously excited about this. It feels like the culmination of over ten years of making stuff. Come check out the show next Friday at HIBBLETON GALLERY.

Photos by BRIAN PRINCE.

DJ Blues

2012-01-28T09:26:00.000-08:00

I'm spinning records for free at Mulberry Street, as in I get zero dollars. I do it, not for the money, but because I want there to be one bar in downtown Fullerton on a Friday night where there is music that is not Top 40 or "grind music."

It's pretty dead in here. Next door, the Back Alley is packed.

As I'm playing a Talking Heads song, this girl walks up and says to me, "You're not cool."

"Ok," I say.

She puts her hand to my face, as if to say, "Talk to the hand."

A bit later, my artist friend Jesse walks in and I give him a hug and he cringes.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

"I just got my ass beat," he says, "I went to All Hallows Ink (tattoo shop) and showed them my work, asking if I could be an apprentice and they said, 'You have no potential.'"

"That's bullshit," I say, "You are an awesome artist."

"And then, when they rejected me, I said, 'Fuck you.' When I walked outside three guys from the tattoo shop jumped me with a baseball bat," he says.

He shows me the scars and bruises on his back.

When I am finished, I begin carrying my four crates of records and Dj equipment upstairs. It takes about six trips. After each trip, as I knock on the door of Mulberry Street to let me in, this guy at the bar says, "Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin," and walks away. I stand outside, and continue knocking, knocking. I just want to get inside so I can take my equipment upstairs. Finally, Rene opens the door, and lets me in.

This happens every time I take a load upstairs, so it takes me quite a while to pack up my stuff.

I walk past the girl who said to me, "You're not cool."

I want to say aloud to the bar, "I do this for free. I do this for you." But instead, I quietly walk upstairs, feeling depressed, but not defeated.

Friday is a Pain Holiday

2012-01-27T22:49:00.000-08:00

I'm at Amerige Tobacco, picking up some smokes and iced tea. The Egyptian man who is the owner winces, and feels his abdomen.

"Next week, I have surgery. I have kidney stones."

A girl in the shop says, "It's Friday night. Don't be such a downer."

"I don't feel pain on Friday?" he asks.

"Friday is a pain holiday," I offer, and everyone seems to agree that this would be a good idea.

Fullerton Street Art

2012-01-27T13:37:00.000-08:00

How I Stay Creative

2012-01-26T09:15:00.001-08:00

I think a lot of creative people (writers, artists, musicians) struggle with "burnout" or "writer's block." I know I have. As I've gotten a little older, gotten to know myself a little better, I've found some ways to avoid these things.

The first is knowing when to rest, to relax. When I was a younger man, I would constantly push myself to always be creating. I would give myself a schedule like, I'm going to write from 5-7pm, or I'm going to paint for one hour this morning. What I discovered is that I cannot "force" inspiration. If I'm tired or frustrated, then writing or painting is going to feel like work (i.e. not fun). So I have learned not to schedule creativity, but to trust that the impulse will come, if my heart and mind are willing to ride that wave. One way to allow that inspiration to come is to allow myself to rest. I take naps and feel no guilt. I quiet my mind and my heart in preparation for the ideas and the drive to create. And because I'm ready, it comes.

The second important thing I've learned, to avoid burnout, is to constantly be searching for new things: new music, new books, new films, new art. "New," of course, doesn't have to mean recent. It could be a ska song from 1965, or an obscure Italian film. What I am hungry for is "new to me." There is a fathomless ocean of inspiration out there and I try every day to take a little dip. The books and music and films are a wellspring of inspiration.

The third thing is self-awareness, knowing your internal rhythms and being gentle with yourself. If you push yourself too hard, all the time, you will burnout. This takes time and trial and error. But you if practice this self-awareness, you will learn, again, when to rest, and when to write like hell.

The last thing is to disconnect your internet service and destroy your television. The internet and television can easily become life-sucking distractions. I do not have home internet or a working television. When I am home, I can read or write, eat and sleep, be with friends. When I need the internet, I can go to a variety of locations (the library, the local coffee shop). Cutting out these frivolous distractions has been immensely important to me.

So those things (rest, new things, self-awareness, disconnecting the net, destroying television) are what keep me creative, and happy, and sane. With quiet practice, reflection, and inspiration, you can cultivate a rich creative life. Your creativity can become an everyday part of your life, something you just do, like eating and sleeping. This is possible, and it is good.

My Writing Process

2012-01-25T09:21:00.000-08:00

Begin writing by hand in a notebook (preferably a Mead composition book). This lets you know that this first draft is only for you. It doesn't matter if it's "good." You are free to just write. When you finish, take a break. Get a coffee, take a walk, smoke a cigarette, listen to music, watch a movie. Then, later, type your handwritten draft onto your computer, editing as you go. When finished, read over it a few times, making small corrections. Then you're done.

What is An Argument?

2012-01-24T18:36:00.000-08:00

I am teaching a class this semester called "Critical Reasoning and Writing." This is my first time teaching this class. Today, the first day, I asked my students to write for 20 minutes about this question: What is an argument? And then we talked about it. As usual, I wrote about the question too. Here's what I wrote:

To me, the word "argument" has at least two meanings. The first is something like a heated dispute between people. Like, "My sister pissed me off and we got in an argument," or, "My parents grounded me and we got in an argument." This connotation of the word implies anger, raised voices, maybe even violence. "Arguments of anger," as I would call them, are "won" by who has the loudest voice and the most power.

The second meaning of the word "argument" comes from my academic background. This meaning is more like an honest and reasoned attempt to persuade. Unlike the fist meaning, this one does not imply anger or violence, but rather lengthy discussion and often writing. Unlike the first meaning this one carries the burden of evidence. In an argument with your parents, you do not feel the need to present research and evidence. "Arguments of reason," as I call them, have nothing to do with the loudness of your voice or how much power you have. They have everything to do with reason, evidence, deep thinking, and honest dialogue.

In the public arena, in the media, in political debate, in discussion of social issues, the tone of the argument often vacillates between these two poles: "arguments of anger" and "arguments of reason." When a person, outside of an academic context, makes a statement like, "We need to get rid of all these illegals," or "Obama's health care plan is blatant socialism" or "Muslims are terrorists," there is not the expectation that that person will back up his/her claims with careful research, evidence, discussion with those of different points of view. In an academic context, these statements could not be made without lengthy research and discussion.

I suppose my hope would be that more folks would learn and apply the burdens of academic argumentation to their everyday lives and views, especially when those views are about real human beings. In my English 103 class, I hope to help students (and myself) integrate "Arguments of reason" into our everyday lives. Although it takes more effort and work (and humility) to think this way, it is highly preferable to the alternative, in my opinion.

Greatest Writing Success!

2012-01-23T09:05:00.000-08:00

Today is the first day of classes at Cal State Fullerton and Fullerton College. On the first day, I ask my students to write about this topic: What was your worst writing experience OR your greatest writing success? Usually, when I ask my students to write something in class, I do it too. So here is my response to that prompt:

Greatest Writing Success!

I just finished my first book! It only took me twelve years to finish it. Twelve years, eighty pages. One thing I have learned from all this is that writing is a process. For my book, I was constantly editing, cutting and adding, but mostly cutting, which is hard because you think…Look at all these pages! But you also have to think about your audience. Will they WANT to read it? Will it seriously hold their attention? Anyone can write a lot of pages, but it took work, time, and sharing (via my blog) to reach a product I was proud of.

People think that, with writing, you need some kind of external validation, like a publisher telling you that they want to publish your book. But I was in a punk band and our ethos was DIY…Do It Yourself. So I self-published my book…printed, hand-stitched, and bound it, with the help of my grandma and the friendly folks at Kinkos.

I am very happy and proud of my book. Of course, I don’t think it’s perfect. I could spend the rest of my life editing that one book, but at some point you have to say, “It is finished,” and move on to the next project. I am already deep into my next project, which is a history of my hometown of Fullerton.

Commodifying MLK

2012-01-22T09:27:00.000-08:00

"You think it's funny, turning rebellion into money."

--The Clash

America, being a capitalist society, is very good at taking people or ideas that are good and true and meaningful, like Civil Rights icon Martin Luther King Jr, and turning them into a product, or a means to make money, like in this ad:

"I have a dream, that one day all people will be able to purchase low-cost mattresses."

An American Comedy

2012-01-22T09:10:00.000-08:00

Hello friends,

You are invited to Hibbleton Gallery's next exhibit: An American Comedy: An Art Show and Book Release Party! This is a release party for Jesse La Tour's first book: An American Comedy! You can buy the book (for only 5 bucks) and look at drawings from the book! This event is FREE and open to the public. The opening reception is Friday, February 3, 2012 from 6-10pm, during the Downtown Fullerton Art Walk.

For the past ten years or so, Jesse La Tour has written in his journal pretty much every day. An American Comedy is a memoir based upon these journal entries. You can read about Jesse's problems with health insurance, running for Fullerton city council, the ups and downs of Hibbleton Gallery, Del Taco deals, and much much more!

Included in the book are lots of drawings that go along with the story. It is called An American Comedy, but some parts are rather sad. It is an epic of ordinary life, set mostly in Fullerton, California!

Hope to see you there!

Love,

Hibbleton Gallery
The Magoski Arts Colony
The Downtown Fullerton Art Walk

I Gotcha Pizza Interaction

2012-01-21T09:31:00.000-08:00

It's like 2:12 am and I'm getting some pizza at I Gotcha Pizza. It's not great pizza, but it's okay. I order two slices of pepperoni, and while the girl is getting me my pizza, I take out a ten dollar bill. I look at the portrait of Alexander Hamilton on it. There is a young man next to me, waiting for his pizza. I ask him, "Do you know who shot Alexander Hamilton?"

He shakes his head.

"Aaron Burr," I say, "It was a duel."

For reasons I do not understand, the young man flexes his right arm's bicep, and looks at it. I feel like his response to my nerdy historical reference is to silently say, "Look at my muscles."

I continue my story, undaunted. "It was very sad," I say.

The young man does not respond. I take my pizza and hand the girl the ten dollar bill. The young man grabs my pizza box, as if he is going to take it. The girl takes it from him and hands it to me and gives me my change. And then I leave.

The Sense of Smell

2012-01-20T21:36:00.000-08:00

My therapist once told me
that the sense of smell
is the sense most connected to memory,
and that made sense.

Because, sometimes, when I
catch the scent of a certain
perfume, it takes me back to
a girl I used to love.

I have a condition that
psychologists call
"Depersonalization Disorder"
which basically means

that I often feel disconnected
from myself. It is something
I have learned to live with.
I am okay, but I won't say it's easy.

But tonight, alone in my
apartment, I smelled my armpit.
I shower maybe two times a week,
so the smell was kind of strong.

And then I smelled my arm,
the hair and the skin,
and in those moments, I thought,
"So THIS is what a human is

supposed to smell like." The smell
was not unpleasant. It was a real
smell, like the smell of men who
lived thousands of years ago.

And the sense of smell, and the
memory of people I never knew,
my ancestors, reminded me that
I am here, that this is my body.

The Gift

2012-01-20T15:55:00.001-08:00

by Michael Magoski

Jesse, in a somewhat related post you wrote, "In a capitalist society like America, however, this goes against the prevailing mindset. In a capitalist society, the primary goal of any citizen must be to make money." I'd like to refer you to Lewis Hyde's "The Gift". For me what really identifies capitalism is the following: wealth is determined by taking 'things' out of circulation ... you buy a piece of land, a house, even a piece of art - you do not share this; rather, you keep it for yourself. One of the fundamental problems with this type of economic system is that it 'teaches' selfishness and greediness. Obviously the goal then is to acquire more without an end ever really in sight.

A funny and true story, when our colonists first came over, the governor of one of the colonies was given a peace pipe as a gift by the local Indian chief. Unfortunately, the Indians didn't think that they needed to explain what the true nature of a gift is (the gift is not kept forever, rather it is housed for a while and honored, and then passed on - it is kept in circulation) After a period of time had passed, in which the peace pipe was obviously not 'passed on', the Indian chief went to the colonial governor and made an inquiry. The governor replied, "I sent your gift to the King of England."

"That is far away", said the Indian chief, "when will we get it back?"

The Governor, puzzled, said, "Never. It was a gift."

To which the Indian chief, now puzzled, said, "Yes, it was a gift, you keep it for a while, you honor it and share it with your people, and then you gift it to the next tribe. This helps to keep peace in the valley."

The governor had only two words in reply, two words that really sum up the capitalist thinking, "Indian Giver."

So long as the very core ideals of Jesus Christ himself are ignored by capitalist and Christian alike (we can include socialists and communists here to) the problems our society faces will never go away but only fester until the blood shed comes to our front doors. Jesus preached the act of being selfless (among other things). Why are we not able to get the hang of this? Why are politicians, Christians, capitalists and all the other stereotypes fully able to articulate the meaning and purpose of this act (selflessness) but completely unable to integrate the act into their public policy and daily life?

On another note, I fully understand that some form of housing will end up across the street from us (the Magoski Arts Colony) on Santa Fe, but I encourage all people, while the view is clear across both sides of the tracks, to stop and look. We, Fullerton, are a divided city. Those railroad tracks and the buildings that line them are in fact our Berlin Wall. We, Christians and capitalists alike, have done an amazing job of building ourselves a walled city with the serf peasant villages on its exterior. We do not want to acknowledge this, but just look. And when the opportunity to do something to bridge these elements arrives, we not only do nothing, we don't even think we have any choice but to build more apartments (and apartments that will serve no one's interests but the developer and those in their pocketbook).

I would really like ask our Christians, "When are you going to actually act like Jesus Christ is your hero and savior?" And I would like to ask our Capitalists, "When have you made enough money? When is it that you don't need more land?" And I would like to ask our people, "Why do we prefer building walls to bridges?"

Fullerton is Changing

2012-01-20T15:39:00.000-08:00

The following is an excerpt from a work-in-progress called The Town I Live In.

Fullerton is changing in very exciting ways. We have a Latina mayor. The Downtown Art Walk is about to celebrate its two-year anniversary. The Fox Theater is actually being renovated in noticeable ways. There's a new comic book store in Fullerton, a new independent coffee shop, lots of new things. Elections coming up this year, and a new generation of young voters who are way more politically involved and aware than any young generation of recent memory. A new spirit of creativity and real community and change. I am legitimately excited about the present and the future of Fullerton.

Trying to Connect the Dots

2012-01-19T09:20:00.001-08:00

The following is an excerpt from a work-in-progress called The Town I Live In.

This morning, walking around Downtown Fullerton, I passed a real estate office whose windows had been scratched by “taggers.” Window scratching is a particularly aggressive form of tagging, because it cannot merely be painted over. The windows must either be replaced or sand-blasted, which is quite expensive. I know, because I have had the windows of my business scratched.

This real estate office’s windows had been scratched more than I had ever seen. Every window was covered with scratches, some of them very deep and extensive. The windows of the neighboring businesses remained unscratched. I wondered, why were these windows scratched so extensively? I stared at the window for a while, and noticed that, near the bottom, were these words, “Equal Opportunity Housing.”

I don’t know much about real estate, but I do know that, until the 1970s, before the passage of the Rumford Fair Housing Act, it was often impossible for minorities (particularly Mexican-Americans) to get housing in Fullerton. This was because of racial “housing covenants” which explicitly excluded non-whites. This practice led to the housing segregation we have today, where most of the Mexican-American population in Fullerton live on the “other side of the tracks.”

Housing exclusion, coupled with job discrimination, led to the formation of gangs. Young Mexican-Americans, having had door after door closed in their faces, turned to gangs, where at least they could assert their solidarity and survive in a very racist place. This is not to excuse the violence and crime of the gangs, only to attempt to understand them.

Thinking about all of this, housing discrimination, job discrimination, gangs, real estate, I looked at the scratches on this real estate office and at the words “Equal Opportunity Housing.” It began to make sense, in a way. I have been reading the book Cry, the Beloved Country, which is about the segregation and social problems in South Africa at the middle of the 20th century. The crime and poverty of the African population in that book was often a direct result of the racist policies of the whites.

And then, this morning, getting my coffee, I glanced at the New York Times, and saw an article entitled “Mexico Drug War Bloodies Areas Thought Safe”. The article reads, “The Mexican drug war that has largely been defined by violence along the border is intensifying in interior and southern areas once thought clear of the carnage, broadening a conflict that has already overwhelmed the authorities and dispirited the public, according to analysts and new government data. Last week, two headless bodies were found in a smoldering minivan near the entrance to one of the largest and most expensive malls in Mexico City, generally considered a refuge from the grisly atrocities that have gripped other cities throughout the drug war. Two other cities considered safe just six months ago--Guadalajara and Veracruz--have experienced their own episodes of brutality: 26 bodies were left in the heart of Guadalajara late last year, on the eve of Latin America’s most prestigious book fair, and last month the entire police force in Veracruz was dismissed after state officials determined that it was too corrupt to patrol a city where 35 bodies were dumped on a road in September.”

And I thought of a short film I often show my classes called “Powder Keg”, directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, which is about a US photo journalist shot in a war-torn Latin American country. As he is dying, he says, “What are we doing to this country? All this so that our yuppies can have their weekly lines of cocaine.”

And I thought about all the vicious anti-immigration rhetoric that is so common here in conservative Orange County, and the constant fear of deportation that many of my undocumented friends live in. And I thought, we are all more connected than we suspect. What we do here in America has ripple effects. I don’t claim to have the answer to these things. But they are worth considering.

Truth-Telling and Healing

2012-01-17T18:57:00.000-08:00

For the past several months, I have been working on a history of Fullerton, the town I live in. There are two “official” history books about Fullerton: Ostrich Eggs for Breakfast (a book for children), and Fullerton: a Pictorial History (a book for adults). When you finish reading these books (which I have), you feel a sense of pride in Fullerton, because they tend to focus on its accomplishments, and downplay anything negative. They felt, to me, untrue, or at least not the whole truth.

The true story is found at the Center for Oral and Public History at Cal State Fullerton, thousands of interviews with ordinary residents. “Unofficial history,” you might call it. In reading those interviews, I have discovered some pretty awful things that happened here: the KKK, housing discrimination, forced deportations, segregation. For a long time, I was reading about this stuff, writing about it, but not really sure why. Something told me that the truth ought to be told, because the truth is important as an end in itself. But that didn’t quite satisfy me.

I care very deeply about Fullerton, I have invested much of my life here, but as I have shared my writings on my blog, I often I felt like a kind of traitor, like I was digging out all of Fullerton’s dirty laundry and showing it to the world, and there is certainly a lot of dirty laundry. One might get the impression from my writings that I hate Fullerton, that I regard it as a terrible place. But that is not true. If you know me, you know how much I love this place, despite all its flaws (past and present).

It was only very recently that I began to sort of understand what I was doing with all this research and writing. I recently read a book that my friend Kevin (the best bartender in Fullerton) loaned me called Speaker for the Dead. It’s a science fiction book (we are nerds) about a person who travels to an alien world to “Speak the Death” of one of its residents. This means that he talks to the family, does research, and when he is finished tells the true story of the man’s life to the whole community. The man whose death he speaks was a cruel wife-beater who was generally hated in the community. But, in telling the truth of this man’s life, the brutally honest truth, the Speaker for the Dead tells the truth of the whole community, all the awful secrets that had been causing them so much suffering and pain. His “speaking” causes great pain, but it is the first step toward healing and true renewal in the community.

Orson Scott Card, the author, writes: “Ender (the Speaker for the Dead) stood behind the platform, looking at Novinha’s family (the family of the dead man), wishing he could do something to ease their pain. There was always pain after a Speaking, because a Speaker for the Dead did nothing to soften the truth...Ender knew from the faces that looked up at him as he spoke that he had caused great pain today. He had felt it all himself, as if they had passed their suffering to him...But Ender had also felt the pain that people felt before (he had Spoken many deaths), and he knew that today’s new wounds would heal much faster than the old ones ever would have done. Novinha might not recognize it, but Ender had stripped from her a burden that was much too heavy for her to bear any longer.”

To some, Ender is regarded as an “infidel,” even evil. The religious and political authorities fear him. But, after Ender speaks, the mayor of the town says to him: “Only a wise man could see my people so clearly in so short a time. Only a ruthless one would say it all out loud. Your virtue and your flaw--we need them both.” Ender’s Speaking causes reflection and renewal in the community.

I am about halfway through the book Cry, the Beloved Country, by Alan Paton, and many of the same themes exist in that book, which is not science fiction, but about the terrible social problems of South Africa in the past century. That book is full of suffering and pain and confusion caused by decades of colonialism, racism, and oppression. The famous quote from that book is: “Cry for the broken tribe, for the law and the custom that is gone. Aye, and cry aloud for the man who is dead, for the woman and children bereaved. Cry, the beloved country, these things are not yet at an end. The sun pours down on the earth, on the lovely land that man cannot enjoy. He knows only the fear of his heart.” The book itself may be read as a “Speaking,” an unvarnished truth-telling. And, ultimately, as a result of people like Alan Paton, who spoke the terrible, heart-breaking truth, a change began, a change that culminated in the rise of people like Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu, whose role it was to heal the wounds that had finally been spoken aloud.

It was this idea, that truth-telling can also be healing, that resonated with me as I reflected on the book I am writing about Fullerton. As I read about the injustices and wounds of the past, wounds that linger today in things like ethnic and economic segregation, I feel compelled to tell the truth, because the truth has the power to wound and to heal. My sincere hope with this project is that, in telling the truth of the past, the sometimes terrible truth, the truth we would rather forget... we might better understand why things are the way they are, and only then, with deep understanding and compassion, can real change come. I suspect I will continue to piss some people off, but that is not my intention. In my heart, I dream of a community that is creative and beautiful and honest and accepting of all people. I hope that, in giving voice to the true stories of the past, even talking about them, and reflecting upon them, we can learn and grow together. That is my hope.

Sex Scandals at EV Free Fullerton

2012-01-17T13:20:00.000-08:00

The following is an excerpt from a work-in-progress called The Town I Live In. Because of the sensitive nature of this post, all names that are not a matter of legal pubic record have been kept anonymous, with the exception of my own name.

Church sex scandals are awkward for everyone involved: the victim, the offender, the church community, the community at large. While the scandals of the Catholic church have been widely publicized, and the church's response often criticized (trying to sweep it under the rug), the protestant church seems to have had fewer (or at least fewer publicized) scandals. I suppose this has something to do with the fact that protestant clergy are allowed to marry, and therefore they are not expected to completely ignore their sexual urges. Also, the protestant church has a less bureaucratic structure than the catholic church, so methods of dealing with scandals probably vary with each denomination (and there are literally hundreds of denominations).

But the church I grew up in, the First Evangelical Free Church in Fullerton, had at least three sex scandals that I was aware of. Because my dad was on staff, I knew the people involved. As a child growing up, these things were hard for me to understand. I suppose, like most people, I have tried not to think about them too much.

But I just finished reading a book called Speaker for the Dead, a science fiction novel actually, that inspired me to think about and write about the scandals at my church. In the novel, when someone dies, a person called a "Speaker for the Dead" is called to "Speak" their death. The function of the Speaker is not to tell a eulogy, but to speak the truth about the person's life in front of the whole community. This event usually causes great pain, but is often the first step toward great healing, for the family of the dead, and for the whole community.

The Speaking is not, primarily, for the dead person, but for those who remain alive in the wake of great tragedy and pain. The author writes, "There was always pain after a Speaking, because a Speaker for the Dead did nothing to soften the truth…he was a destroyer, but what he destroyed was illusion, and the illusion had to die."

When I was 14 years old, in 8th grade, I learned that my church youth leader, Mike Blinkhorn, had sexually abused some boys in the youth group. You may read the LA Times article HERE. I was not one of them, but I knew one of them, and I knew Mike. He had been like a mentor to me. At first, I would not believe the charges. But as more came to light, I could not deny that it was true. This event greatly disturbed me on a few levels. First, students at my junior high found out about the scandal, and some of them made fun of me, suggesting that I had been abused, despite my protestations. Once, I remember, in algebra class, I broke down weeping, and was sent to the school counsellor.

This was also disturbing for me because my dad was the communications director for the church at the time, so he was the guy who had to speak to the local news outlets about the scandal. My dad was in the incredibly delicate position of being a spokesman for the church, while at the same time caring for his grieving son (me). To his credit, he did not try to sweep the scandal under the rug. He was as up-front about it as he could be.

In the 1970s and 1980s, an "elder" (leader) at EV Free named Jim Truxton sexually abused several Sunday school girls. You may read the LA Times article HERE. Some of molestations took place in the Truxton home. Truxton and his wife were expelled from the church and a public written statement was given which stated: "The purpose of this response is not to hurt Mr. Truxton; it is to heal the victims."

In the early 2000s, the music pastor at EV Free, Ed Cobb, a man who was married with two children, was caught soliciting sex at Hillcrest Park from an undercover male police officer. This incident disturbed me, not so much because Ed was cheating on his wife, but because it meant that Ed was probably gay, and that opens up a whole other can of worms. Protestant Evangelicals, generally speaking, believe homosexuality to be a sin. It would be impossible for Ed to be open with the church about his sexuality and maintain his position, so he had to go to Hillcrest, and live a lie. This, to me, is the most complex of the scandals because it is a pretty clear demonstration of the effects of the church's position on homosexuality.

I am fairly certain that there have been more scandals that I don't know about, but those are the ones I know about because I was there, and I knew the people involved quite well. It is tremendously painful for me to think about, but this stuff happened. It hurt a lot of people. And I think there is a kind of healing that is possible by "Speaking" these painful things and letting them out into the light.

Starbucks Theology

2012-01-17T10:54:00.000-08:00

These two dudes sit at a Starbucks table, one with a full Macintosh desktop computer set up on his table (not a laptop), the other staring very carefully at a page from a well-worn Bible. Nearly every line on the page has been underlined, which is kind of baffling to me, because if every line is underlined, it kind of defeats the purpose.

The two dudes are arguing quite intensely about something related to the "Holy Spirit." I can't quite make out the exact substance of their argument, but my general impression is this: These two dudes are arguing very smugly, with such certainty, about things that are totally abstract and unknowable.

And then this older heavy-set middle-aged woman and a thin middle-aged man sit at the table next to them. Somehow, the two dudes manage to suck the middle-aged couple into some kind of biblical argument about Adam and Eve, because the woman apparently gets excited about any mention of God or the Bible. It reminds me a lot of a couple Bible studies I was a part of when I went to church, where every one degenerated into a virtual dick-measuring contest of who knew more about the Bible.

These words flash through my mind: You can't see the forest for the trees.

One of the dudes says, "You have to read my book. It's called 'Ready for the Rapture.'"

"How can I get your book?" she asks.

"It's not published yet. Just take my cell number," he says.

The other dude says, "I'm writing a book too."

I think the dudes are homeless.

"The book is actually the first in a series of four."

The woman takes these guys totally seriously. She writes down the titles of their books, Bible verses they quote, and their various theological statements.

"The world is controlled by the spirit of the Anti-Christ." one of the dudes says.

These dudes sound borderline insane. They argue and discuss, but what do they do? They sit in Starbucks and discuss technicalities of the Bible. I guess it's better than taking drugs.

Writing About Orange County!

2012-01-16T20:59:00.000-08:00

So I have been preparing to start a new semester of teaching next week. One problem I have encountered, as a teacher of English 100 and 101, is finding topics that interest and inspire my students. This semester, I am taking my newfound passion for local issues and history and applying it to my courses. I am making my students write about local, Orange County, issues! Tonight I actually felt inspired writing essay prompts, so inspired that I felt compelled to share them with you.

Essay #1: Writing About Local Culture

Culture is a broad topic, but it is perhaps best represented by things like art, music, theater, dance, even festivals and celebrations. Find a particular aspect of local culture that interests you. It could be a local music scene, venue, or band. It could be an art gallery, museum, art walk, or street art. It could be a community celebration, like a parade or street fair. It could be a play, or even a local theater. Once you have found your topic, begin researching. Interview people who are involved. Find articles online. OC Weekly is a good resource for local culture. There are many blogs that deal with culture in Orange County. After conducting your research, write a paper in which you explain your chosen topic and its cultural significance. What does it contribute to the community? What is its purpose or goals? Is it relevant? Your paper should not be a “puff piece” for your topic. You want to approach your topic honestly and critically. Your goal is to understand your topic and explain it to your readers in a way that is fresh and interesting.

Essay #2: Writing About Local Politics

While presidential elections get a lot of media coverage and widespread interest, local politics often to not. However, local governments, like your city council, often make decisions that affect you more directly than the president. Your task for this essay is to find an aspect of local politics that interests you. Do you know how your city government works? Write a paper explaining it. Has there been a local political controversy that merits research and discussion? Write about it. Is there a local politician whose signs you see around town and wonder: “Who is that?” Find out who he/she is and what he/she stands for. You might visit your city clerk’s office to see who is bankrolling (giving large contributions to) a particular politician’s campaign. Your task is to inform your reader about information that would be valuable to their lives, and maybe even affect how they (and you) vote!

Essay #3: Writing About Local Social Issues

Social issues have to do with relationships between groups of people in society, whether they be ethnic groups, economic groups (rich, poor, middle class, homeless), religious groups, or even racial groups. While we like to think that we live in a society that does not draw lines between groups, the reality is more complex. In my hometown of Fullerton, for example, there is a clear ethnic/economic division that is represented by the railroad tracks. North of the tracks live affluent (predominantly white) people. South of the tracks live poorer (predominantly Latino) people. This exists today, in 2012. What sorts of social problems/issues do you notice in your local community? Once you have identified your topic, research it. The library is a good place to start. You might also interview people who are affected by your chosen topic. Again, your task is to inform your reader about issues that he/she might not be aware of, right in your own community. Your task in this essay is to open people’s eyes to social issues in the place where they live.

Essay #4: Writing About Local History

In researching the history of Fullerton, I have been continually astonished by what I have discovered, and most of these discoveries did not come from reading the two “official” Fullerton history books: Ostrich Eggs for Breakfast and Fullerton: a Pictorial History. These books are pretty boring and tend to gloss over unpleasant aspects of history. The real goldmine of local history is the Center for Oral and Public History at Cal State Fullerton, which includes thousands of interviews with ordinary residents. From these interviews, I learned about the KKK in Fullerton, forced deportations of Mexican-Americans, political corruption, housing discrimination, and lots of stuff that made me go: “Whoa! I didn’t know that happened here!” It is important to understand our history, our real history, so that we can better understand our present. For example, housing segregation in Fullerton did not happen by accident. It was the result of racist housing covenants that excluded minorities from living in certain areas for many years. Your task for this final essay is to find an aspect of the history of the town you live in, an aspect that interests, inspires, or infuriates you, research it, and present your findings in a well-developed and interesting paper.

Papers that strike my fancy will be published online by the Journal of Orange County Studies, because I am the editor : ) If any of you out there in cyberspace feel compelled to write an essay, feel free to submit it to the Journal. Everyone is welcome to contribute.

Fullerton Street Art...Winner!

2012-01-16T17:12:00.001-08:00

Lately I've been documenting street art I see around downtown Fullerton. I came across this gem today, and it is the best I've seen so far.

Teach-In at Cal State Fullerton

2012-01-16T11:12:00.000-08:00

The following is an excerpt from a work-in-progress called The Town I Live In.

On february 17, 1967, Cal State Fullerton hosted its first "Teach-In." What is a "Teach-In"? It was a relatively common thing in the 60s, an extra-curricular college event in which speakers were invited to give their thoughts on a wide variety of issues, often involving civil rights and U.S. government policy. The subject of the February 17th Teach-In was "The American Policy in Vietnam." It was sponsored by the CSF Understanding Asia Committee, a joint student/faculty group.

Dr. Stuart Silvers, the faculty advisor of the committee, explained the purpose of the Teach-In in an editorial in the Titan Times: "It is felt that now is a crucially important time to present as fully as possible an examination of the U.S. policy on South East Asia, and in particular Vietnam…In the face of continuing demonstrations and protests against the continuation of the war, the Administration continues with apparent impunity to increase the scale upon which it seeks to fight the war. This Administration continues this policy of escalation even in view of the reluctance of our allies to support us. There is virtually no support of America's policy in Vietnam, throughout so-called free world, yet we are continually told by members of the Cabinet and the President of the necessity of the war. Except for several unpopular and hence hard to buy magazines and newsletters, the mass media has offered, we believe, very little in the way of analysis which reflect positions alternative to those of the Johnson administration. Television and radio carry news reports from Washington which are in conflict with reports found in European newspapers and this has come to be known as the 'Credibility Gap.' This is serious, and in an attempt to do something toward bridging this gap, the Understanding Asia Committee has gathered a host of well-known spokesman for various positions with regard to U.S. foreign policy and especially Vietnam."

Among the speakers at the Teach-In were James Farmer, an economist from San Fernando Valley State College, who had spent two years in Vietnam from 1962-62; Edward M. Keating, founder and publisher of "Ramparts" a liberal catholic magazine; Robert Scheer, author of the book "How the U.S. Got Involved in Vietnam"; Theodore Edwards, the Southern California Chairman of the Socialist Workers Party, and a commentator on the Los Angeles radio station KPFK; John Harris, an African American civil rights activist, founder of the Watts Progressive Labor Party, and a participator in the famous "Freedom Rides" in the American South; economist Arthur Castens; and a special recorded message from philosopher Bertrand Russell.

News of the Teach-In alarmed local residents and politicians, who formed the Concerned Fullerton Citizens' Committee, and distributed handbills around neighborhoods asking questions like "Do You Want Berkeley in Fullerton?" The Fullerton Police Department was called in to maintain order in what was sure to be a controversial event.

On the day of the Teach-In, local groups set up protests outside the CSUF gym, where the event took place. Among the protestors were Ralph Forbes, president of the American Nazi Party in Southern California. Forbes partnered with Reverend William Fowler of El Monte to set up a makeshift speakers stand and say things like "If the same determination was shown in Vietnam as was shown in Germany, the war would be over now."

Local labor unions picketed the event, mostly the "communist" speakers. They carried signs reading: "We have traitors in the U.S." Inside the lobby of the gym, tables were set up representing groups like the Students for a Democratic Society. the Socialist Workers Party, and the black Muslims.

The event was open to the public, and was well-attended, by both supporters and opponents of the war in Vietnam. Attendance was estimated at over 1,000. Speakers were met with both boos and applause. President Langsdorf and others criticized the event for not booking more speakers in support of the war, as the vast majority of the speakers were against the war and for peace. Dr. Silvers replied to these remarks by stating: "More invitations were sent out to pro-administration representatives than to all others and the overwhelming majority of those invited declined." A student added "There is no paucity of official government views on the Vietnam conflict."

This event was unprecedented in Orange County, and its mixed response represented a growing conflict between the older conservative Republicans and the younger student Democrats in the county, a conflict that continues today.

Source: Daily Titan Archives

Burnt Pizza

2012-01-15T19:13:00.000-08:00

Once my roommate Matt left a pizza in the oven all night. I woke up in the morning and found this in the oven, with the oven still running at 400 degrees. I would guess it had been cooking about seven hours.

Art Deco in Fullerton

2012-01-15T09:02:00.000-08:00

The following is an excerpt from a work-in-progress called The Town I Live In.

Fullerton is a rare city in Orange County in that it has preserved many of its historical buildings. Architecture offers a window on the past. The various styles of the buildings tell stories about when they were built. Many of the historic Fullerton buildings were in various "revival" styles, Spanish Mission Revival, colonial revival, Italian Renaissance revival.

But there are a handful of truly modern buildings, in the Art Deco style. Art Deco was a style that emerged in the 1920s and its purpose was to create a style of building that reflected modern life, that departed from "revival" styles. The two main schools of Art Deco architecture were Zigzag Moderne (more decorative) and Streamlined Moderne (more basic/streamlined). Here are four art deco buildings in Fullerton

Zigzag Moderne:

Rialto Theatre (1930)
219 N. Harbor Boulevard

Streamline Moderne:

Val Vita-Hunt Wesson Office (1939)
1747 W. Commonwealth Avenue

Adams' Barbershop Building (1946)
509 N. Harbor Boulevard

Gamble House (1940)
1313 N. Raymond Avenue

Photos by Jac La Tour

To read more about Art Deco in Fullerton, visit FULLERTON HERITAGE.

Gangs

2012-01-14T11:26:00.000-08:00

The following is an excerpt from a work-in-progress called The Town I Live In.

Last night, I was hanging out with my friend Josue and we got talking about gangs in Orange County. Josue grew up in Santa Ana and Anaheim, in places where there are large latino gangs. As someone who lives in downtown Fullerton, and cares about the community, I am interested in gangs. I want to understand them.

The first thing I asked Josue about was graffiti. I like street art, but I must admit that I don't really like the "tagging" type of graffiti. To me, it is incomprehensible. Plus, I really hate it when they scratch their tags onto store windows. My business's windows got scratched a few times, and it is quite expensive to fix that stuff. I asked Josue what "tagging" its all about.

He said it was largely territorial. Gang members give themselves pseudonyms like "Shorty" or "Lazer" or whatever, and they tag their gang names on places in the area where they live. It's like a way of saying "I live here. This is my territory." Tagging ones name is also a way to obtain prestige within a gang. If you tag your name around a lot, you get noticed, and maybe respected.

I asked Josue, who was never in a gang, if he felt pressure to join a gang. I wondered if people joining gangs was something they wanted to do, or if it was something they felt pressured to do. He said that, in his high school, the gang members would bully younger students into joining a gang. They would ask the student to sell weed for them, or do some favor. If the student did not comply, they might get beat up. Josue, being a quiet nerdy kid who didn't speak much English, managed to stay off the radar of the gang recruiters.

He talked about gang members selling weed right in their high school classrooms, during class. Once in a gang, students stayed in gangs out of a mixture of fear (of getting beat up), pride (at being respected/feared), and perhaps a sense of belonging. One may ask, where are the parents of these young gang members? Usually, they are working. Orange County is an expensive place to live, especially if you are an immigrant from Latin America. Usually, both parents have to work full time, out of financial necessity.

Thus, gangs are a complex product of socio-economic situations, juvenile masculinity, a need to belong, rebellion, and other things I don't yet understand. I am trying to understand. I really believe that if we took the time to understand gangs, why they arose in the first place, what function they have in their communities, we might begin to find ways to give these kids a real and viable alternative.

Making a Book

2012-01-13T09:20:00.000-08:00

I finally completed my first book, An American Comedy! I am publishing it through BOOKMACHINE books + zines, and it will be officially released February 3rd at Hibbleton Gallery during the Downtown Fullerton Art Walk.

Yesterday, my grandma Sally helped me hand-bind the first copies of the book. I am using a thread and tape binding method, like they use for old school composition books.

You can read the book online HERE. But it's more fun to read physical books, so come to the art walk Feb. 3rd and pick up your very own copy!

It's Grandma Sally's Birthday!

2012-01-12T15:00:00.000-08:00

It's my grandma Sally's birthday. She is 81 years young!

Here are some things I like about grandma Sally:

1.) She hand-knitted me a cardigan sweater, despite the fact that she has Parkinson's.

2.) She makes hand-stitched pillow cases and quilts with Bible verses on them for every member of her family, which is a very large family.

3.) She is humble.

4.) She is really good at cards (and competitive).

5.) She survived polio.

6.) She reads a lot.

7.) She was married to the same man for over 60 years, until he passed away.

8.) She bakes amazing bread.

9.) She makes a fantastic dish with a very vague-sounding name: Bake dish.

10.) She comes to the Downtown Fullerton Art Walk every month.

11.) She has a cool hairstyle.

12.) She is genuinely kind to everyone, even strangers.

13.) She is very compassionate.

14.) She has a list of people she prays for every day, some of whom do not know that she prays for them every day.

15.) She is non-judgmental, especially toward drug addicts, alcoholics, and criminals. She is the kind of person who writes letters to people in prison or rehab.

16.) Even though her father was very wealthy, she has never been very wealthy, nor has she tried to become wealthy. She has always lived a simple life.

17.) She is well-loved by my friends.

18.) She likes zines.

19.) She hand-writes letters and cards.

20.) She is on Facebook.

21.) For people's birthdays, she makes a cake with a lamb mold, which she calls a "lammy cake."

22.) She plays the piano.

23.) When my mom was in the hospital with breast cancer, she sometimes spent the night at the hospital in my mom's room.

24.) She walks with a cool pink cane.

25.) She likes Johnny Cash.

26.) She lived for many years in a town with a population under 400 people (Endeavor, Wisconsin).

27.) She likes the show Colombo as much as I do.

28.) She knows Florence Henderson (the mom from The Brady Bunch).

29.) She was around before television existed.

30.) Even though she does not think much about "style" or spend much money on clothes, she has really cool style.

Lost Yorkie

2012-01-11T15:07:00.000-08:00

Fullerton Street Art

2012-01-11T15:06:00.000-08:00

Camus, God, and Love

2012-01-10T10:38:00.000-08:00

As I've been editing my book for publication, I've been reading over some old journals that I wrote during my early to mid 20s, during a time of intense spiritual searching. For me, writing was the best way to work out problems and questions. I have decided to share some of these "spiritual" writings. For a long time, I was embarrassed to share them with anyone, because of all the "God talk." I realize it is not that cool to write about God, and especially uncool to write about Christianity. But, in the midst of some really fantastic conversations with my parents, I have decided that these writings have value to me. I was quite young when I wrote them, and my views now may be different. Consider them food for thought. Call me uncool, but this is my blog. Deal with it.

When I was a young Christian, I tended to criticize existentialist writers like Albert Camus, because they believed in an indifferent universe, yet managed to create startlingly sensitive and compassionate characters within that framework. What, I wondered, would motivate people to sympathy and compassion if they rejected spiritual absolutes like God? Now, I think, I have an answer: The intrinsic value of humanity.

When a man is stripped of all points of reference except himself and the world that surrounds him, he is forced to create meaning as a kind of defense mechanism. The alternative (a total lack of meaning) would lead to fear and paralysis. Yet the characters of Camus do find meaning. Take the doctor Rieux, from The Plague. He doesn’t believe in anything outside the realm of human experience. His life, as a doctor, is to heal others, and prolong their lives. Thus, though he believes in no absolutes, he is justified in weeping when a child dies, because Rieux has made keeping people alive the crux of his existence, his meaning. In this sense, Rieux is a lover of humanity, and his compassion is real.

One could easily condemn Rieux for leading a life that contradicts itself. That is, he believes everything is ultimately meaningless, yet he places so much value on human life. He could, justifiably, let the plague killl everyone, and the universe would be no worse for wear. But he does not. He chooses to rage and rage and weep at the reality of death and the loss of a beautiful and temporal existence. Perhaps this is what Camus got that Christians tend to miss: human life is valuable because it is fragile and weak and uncertain and doomed to death. If human life continued forever, what would be the motivation to love, to cry, to rage? Out of the transient, Camus found beauty and meaning.

This idea is very like Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s idea of “this-worldliness,” from his Letters and Papers from Prison. We find ourselves in a precarious state of existence. Death can come at any moment and, in the meantime, we are left in a world that is real and vibrant and so full of life that it is bursting, boiling over, charged with grandeur. What are we to do? Live and love. And meaning will find us somehow in the process.

The emphasis is taken off the intricacies of doctrine and placed instead upon the value of life and a world that is so bright and full of energy that all we can do is shield our eyes and weep. And once we get used to the brightness, we are finally free to be alive and to become lovers of humanity. On this level, I believe, Camus was right. The term “lovers of humanity” might set off warning bells in the mind of the conservative Christian, who believes humanity to be utterly depraved, “deceitful and desperately wicked.”

I am not denying the existence of evil in humans. I am merely suggesting a different kind of love. A love that does not say, “I love you not because I love you, but because I love God.” I love God. But must our love for actual people be so condescending and selfish that we are loving them to somehow win God’s favor? I think we ought to love because it is our most excellent human faculty. We love people, for their sake. Rieux the doctor devoted his whole existence to it. I fear we lose a great deal if we do not, at least in some sense, learn from that example.

Whether we believe our faculty for loving is a God-given gift or an intrinsic part of being human, the fact remains that there is something welling up inside us, longing to love and be loved. Our beliefs do not change our ability to love. An atheist/existentialist like Camus may in fact have more love for his fellow man than his Christian counterpart. He loves not out of fear of punishment or reward, but because love is a good in itself. He loves because he knows what it like to be loved.

Loving people is one of the most beautiful and transcendent and worthwhile ventures that a person can undertake. I don’t claim to understand love, and I’m not even sure that Camus’ motivations are “correct.” But I do know that I’ve seen non-Christian adults demonstrating a very real capacity for genuine love. Love, or the possibility of love, is present in everyone. The older I get, the more I come to think that love is perhaps the best avenue to God, even if we have intellectually rejected the existence of God. In The Brothers Karamazov, a woman tells the old Father Zossima that she no longer believes in God, that she has lost all certainty. Zossima replies that certainty is impossible, but conviction is possible, through active love.

An American Comedy: Book 1

2012-01-10T08:29:00.000-08:00

This is the first part of a book I've written. I am in the process of editing and laying it out, for publication by BOOKMACHINE books + zines.

BOOK 1: HELL

"In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to
myself in a dark wood, for the straight way was lost.
Ah, how hard a thing it is to say what that wood
was, so savage and harsh and strong that the
thought of it renews my fear!
It is so bitter that death is little more so! But to
treat of the good that I found there, I will tell of
the other things I saw."

--Dante, Inferno

CHAPTER 1

“Father, father, where are you going
O do not walk so fast.
Speak father, speak to your little boy
Or else I shall be lost.”

--William Blake

Dear Beatrice,

I feel compelled to write tonight, I guess because I’m a little scared of death. For the past four months, my health has been getting steadily worse. First it was asthma, and now a mysterious intestinal thing that makes me wake up most mornings in significant pain. I went to our family doctor over Christmas break, Dr. Ogden, but I don’t think the medicine he gave me is really helping. I hope it is.

I suppose it is the chronic pain that has prompted me to ask the question: Why? What is the cause? Is it psychosomatic? Is it a result of all the psychological/emotional/spiritual problems I’m having? It is stress? A lack of love, of significant relationships, of real human contact? All of the above? All I know is that every day, in the midst of pretty severe abdominal pain, I bow my head and beg God to take this from me, whatever it is, to make me whole again.

I am losing weight. I am losing energy. I can’t remember the last time I actually went out with friends. I mostly just lay around a read and pray that one day I will be able to look back and say, “Man, age 20 was a rough one, but I made it through. Look where I am now. I’m happy. I feel close to God.” I’m actually living each day with that hope in mind.

Sincerely,

Jesse

My dad is a thin man, which is interesting because he comes from Wisconsin, which is full of fat people. But we have lived for many years in Orange County, which is not full of fat people. My dad is driving me back to Seattle for my third semester of college. I go to Seattle Pacific University, a private Methodist University. We are not Methodist. We are Evangelical.

I’m wearing a well-worn gray zip-up sweatshirt, old blue jeans and no shoes. My dad wears cargo shorts, sandals with white socks, and a t-shirt tucked into his shorts. We prefer different styles of clothing.

In our room at the Hi-Lo Motel, My dad and I lay on our beds reading. I’m reading Dostoyevsky’s Notes From Underground. My dad is reading the Bible. And then my dad begins writing in his brown leather-bound journal. I wonder what he is writing. He writes for a living. He is the “communications director” for the First Evangelical Free Church in Fullerton. He’s “ghost written” a couple books for the pastor. I begin writing in my black notebook.

I lay awake in bed in the darkness of this hotel room, pressing a hand against my side to suppress the pain, and thinking about an article I saw in a Newsweek magazine in the waiting room of Dr. Ogden’s office. It was called “Colon Cancer: A Silent Epidemic.” Colon Cancer. The words stick in my mind like a thorn. Colon cancer. Cancer of the colon. I press my fingers around the area where my colon is. Are there lumps?

My dad is snoring peacefully in his bed. I stand up, put on my shoes and sweatshirt, and slip out the door into the cold night air. I lean against a metal railing and look up at the sky full of stars. I close my eyes and grip the metal railing tightly.

Yesterday was a little sunny, but today is bleak. It reminds me of last winter, my first Seattle winter, the rainiest winter in 40 years. It rained for 90 days straight. It was during the winter that I obtained an original Nintendo Entertainment System and played and passed all the games I had never passed as a child: Metroid, all three Super Mario games, Mega Man II, and Contra.

That winter, I played a lot of video games, listened to “emo” music, which was a relatively new genre at the time (this was 1998), viewed porn on the internet, got drunk occasionally, made the transition from a “social smoker” to a full-blown regular smoker, took walks alone downtown, stopped going to church, read The Plague by Albert Camus, and secretly pined for Beatrice.

I remember, near the end of last semester, we were all sitting in the Stearns Cafeteria, and Nathanael blurted out that Beatrice liked me. Beatrice, who I had pined for all year. We lived on the same floor of Hill Hall, she on the girls’ side, and me on the boys’. But, in short, I was too shy and afraid. In retrospect, it sounds so childish, so juvenile, but at that moment, in the Stearns Cafeteria, eating a soggy turkey sandwich, I felt the first chill of despair. She is gone. She moved back to Minnesota, which probably has a lot of fat people too, because it is the midwest and people are less concerned about their weight in the American midwest. Beatrice, however, is not fat. She is just right.

“Goodbye, bud,” my dad says, embracing me.

“Goodbye, Dad,” I say quietly, lamely returning my dad’s embrace.

I watch my dad climb into his white Toyota Camry and drive away.

CHAPTER 2

“From then on it was probably necessary to begin to think that there was no center.”

--Jacques Derrida

Dear Beatrice,

I am afraid I am losing my faith in the God of Christianity. I certainly believe in God, because I see no other reasonable explanation for the origin of the universe. Out of nothing, nothing comes. But what reason do I have to believe that Christian doctrine and tradition and the Bible are the true representations of God?

My claim that the God of Christianity is true makes all other expressions of God untrue. The Allah of Islam is false. The gods of the thousands of tribes throughout Africa and Asia and Latin America are false. Not only this, but those people, and the generations of people before them, are destined for eternal suffering in hell. Common sense tells me that this is not fair. What if the only truth is that all cultures develop their conception of the divine?

But, if God is spirit, my experience of Him/Her/It cannot be wholly rational. It must be, in a sense, extra-sensory. But this seems like mere speculation. Have I ever experienced God? Do I really believe in an afterlife? I don’t know. I am terrified to find out. And yet, in the midst of suffering and loneliness, my first instinct is to cry out to God. But it could be reasonably argued that this practice has been built into my psyche since I have been cognitive.

I am utterly frustrated that everything is so uncertain. All I know is what I feel and what I think. And, if these are my guides, I feel I am doomed to perpetual speculation and uncertainty. Some say that God finds us. If so, I say, “Here I am, God. Do you care that I am doubting you? I don’t want to let you go, but my mind is a slave to reason. Save me from myself!”

Sincerely,

Jesse

I walk down 3rd Avenue, down Queen Anne hill. The sidewalk has cracks. Don’t step on a crack or you’ll break your mother’s back. At first I try to avoid the cracks, like a little game with myself. Then I step on a crack and I imagine my mom, way down in Orange County, spasming in intense pain and writhing on the ground. One minute she’s at a garage sale, looking at a pair of Guess jeans, trying to get the owner to accept a quarter instead of fifty cents for them, and the next she’s convulsing on the driveway. I broke her back, by stepping on this crack.

My first class is called “The Latter Prophets.” It’s an upper division Bible class that I’m taking not because I need it, but because I really just want to understand the Bible, apart from memory verses and Sunday school stories.

Last semester I took this class called “Christian Scriptures,” which was basically the whole Bible in one semester. That class sort of like “whetted my appetite” for biblical studies. I read and studied the Bible with new eyes. This book, this painfully familiar book, became unfamiliar, bizarre, awful, beautiful, challenging. Many nights I would sit alone in a corner of the library until closing hours, studying my Cambridge Annotated Study Bible, trying to make sense of these complex, weird stories. The stories they didn’t teach me in Sunday school.

For some reason, my asthma really bothers me in this class--a tightening in my chest and a scary feeling like I can’t draw a full breath. This is how I remember this class--taking detailed notes on the Bible and struggling to breathe.

I walk into my “Latter Prophets” class and take a seat near the middle. A young man with a beard and glasses is sitting in front of me. I recognize him from my “History of Christianity (Early to Medieval)” class last semester. His name is Alex or Allen or something. A_____ turns around and says, “What’s up?”

“Hey.”

“Have you had Dr. Vanderhoven before?”

“I have not.”

“He’s a trip. He’s sort of like the black sheep of the biblical studies department.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, pretty much all of the professors here are ‘canonical critics’ but Dr. Vanderhoven is a ‘textual critic.’”

“Interesting,” I say, pretending that I know what “canonical critic” and “textual critic” mean. (I do not).

Then a chubby, middle-aged man with gray, thinning hair and an almost like unnaturally pale complexion walks in. He’s wearing a t-shirt (one of those “nature“ shirts that has a picture of a wolf in a forest scene, that you get from like a gift shop in Yosemite) that exposes more of his pale body than I would like to see, and shorts that expose more of his stubby, corpulent, pale legs than any man of this man’s age, weight, and complexion should expose to the public, in my opinion.

“Good morning, class,” the man says in a tone that seems, also, oddly inappropriate for the setting. It’s this cheesy, cheerful tone, like the way you might expect elementary (or Sunday) school teachers to talk to their classes.

“My name is Doctor Vanderhoven and this is the Latter Prophets, as opposed to the Former Prophets.” I can’t tell if this is meant as a joke.

“But before I get into the syllabus and all that, I’d like to give you all a little ‘heads up’ (he actually makes quotation signs with his fingers) on my health situation. For the past four years, I’ve been afflicted with a rare disease in which my gallbladder has dried up to something like a bag of sand. Thus, I’ve lived the past four years of my life in a state of chronic severe pain.”

“I’m telling you this,” Dr.Vanderhoven continues, “So that if I am forced to miss any class, you will know the likely reason why. I will either be confined to my bed, or in the hospital.” There is, I suspect, in Dr. Vanderhoven’s cheery voice, more than a hint of weary irony. Dr. V then explains how, although the class is entitled “The Latter Prophets,” the focus will be exclusively on the book of Isaiah, which happens to be Dr. V’s area of specialty. He passes out the syllabus and gives a general introduction to Isaianic studies and textual criticism. I’m paraphrasing and condensing here, because Dr. V is not exactly what I would call “a riveting lecturer,” so I will not try your patience with more of his actual words.

In this first class, I learn that the book of Isaiah probably had at least three authors, who wrote in different centuries, and that most, if not all, of the “Messianic” prophecies that Christians like to point to in Isaiah as proof of the Bible’s divine authority, actually refer to socio-political events from the time of the various authors, and therefore not to Jesus Christ.

I listen to all this with rapt attention, scribbling notes furiously in my spiral notebook.

When Dr. V‘s class ends, I walk toward the door with A______ trailing behind me. He’s trying to kindle some kind of theological discussion. I’m not in the mood.

“Hey, Jesse. What do you think of this? If the Messianic prophecies refer to events from Israel’s history, is it possible that they have like a dual fulfillment in Jesus?”

“That’s an interesting question.”

As I descend the stairs in Tiffany Hall, surrounded by students, I feel something like a small burst in my intestines, followed by a brief, searing pain. I almost fall, but catch myself on the railing.

“You alright?”

“Yeah, I just tripped.”

In the cafeteria I am greeted by the dull roar of hundreds of indistinct voices. I take a tray from a large stack and approach the salad bar. Though I’ve eaten nothing yet today, I have like no appetite. I am eating because I know I need to eat to live. This is survival. I fill my plate with spinach leaves (for iron) and egg (for protein). I find a seat beneath a large window. Suddenly, from behind, I hear a voice, “La Tour!”

Turning around, I see two of my dorm-mates from last year: Clark and Randall, both electrical engineering majors and both missionary kids (MKs) and therefore both pretty socially retarded. Mark refers to them simply as “The Nerds.” Randall is actually carrying some sort of circuit board in one hand and a tray of muffins in the other.

“Hey guys,” I say. Somehow their presence, their total lack of self-consciousness about their uncoolness, has a sort of calming effect upon me.

“Mind if we join you?” Clark asks.

“Not at all.”

As we eat our cafeteria food, we make small talk, catching up on living conditions and how we spent our Christmas breaks (Randall visited his family in Taipei; Clark stayed in his room and played role playing games [RPGs] online). We reminisce on the good old days in Hill Hall (our dorm). I wonder if Randall and Clark are suffering like I am.

My next class is entitled simply “World Literature.” There are only three required texts: Homer’s Odyssey, Dante’s Inferno, and Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov.

“This is so typical,” I hear a girl next to me say not too quietly to the girl next to her, “We’re only reading texts by white, western men. This is world literature? I thought we were past this sort of hegemony.”

Dr. David Thornton is a thin, balding, bearded man who actually looks like the portrait of Dostoyevsky from the copy of Crime and Punishment that I read over the summer. Dr. T says, “Now, who can give me a definition of an epic?”

For me, a book store is one of the best laxatives around. Whenever I enter a book store, I inevitably have to shit. And so, as I walk down an aisle of the SPU bookstore, scanning the titles of books, I really have to go. This is amplified by the already-present pain in my bowels.

But this bookstore does not have a bathroom. I know this because last semester, when I was buying my books, I (of course) had to shit, but had to walk all the way back to my dorm, and then come back to buy my books.

I can hold it. I will just get my books and get out. Ten minutes. Fifteen max.

My eyes catch the title of a book: Toward a Theology of Beauty. That sounds interesting.
I find the biblical studies aisle and my books: Isaiah 1-39 by R.N. Whybray, Deutero-Isiah by J. Barton, and Trito-Isaiah by A Winterson.

In the literature section, I find copies of The Odyssey (it has waves on the cover), The Inferno (it has flames on the cover), and The Brothers Karamazov (it has a cross on the cover).

Fuck. The line is so long. As I stand in line, holding my stack of books, and testing the tensile strength of my rectum, I hear a familiar voice behind me, “Little La Tour!” I turn and see Simon McNulty and Brad Sanders, two of my brother’s old roommates. It was with these characters that I first got drunk in college, on cans of Miller High Life, at a poker party, and after just four cans I ended up on the floor of a dirty bathroom, vomiting into a paper Thriftway bag.

“Wazzup, little La Tour!” Brad Sanders says, clapping me on the shoulder, so that I almost drop the stack of books I am carrying, and a little shit actually escapes my butt. I can feel it in my underwear. Shit. Does anyone smell it?

“Oh, not much. Just getting my books.”

Brad is tall and thin and blonde-haired and, by conventional standards, quite a good looking guy, though he is kind of a bro. Once, I heard him talking about his girlfriend “tossing his salad” and so that’s the mental picture that usually pops up when I run into Brad Sanders. A girl licking his butt-hole.

“Aiight, take it easy, Little La Tour.” I don’t like that nickname. It literally belittles me.

The pain is still there, and I am trying like hell to contain it. This shit wants out.

CHAPTER 3

"And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust."

--T.S. Eliot

Dear Beatrice,

I’ve been reading about Greek mythology. The Greek gods were so human. Everything hinged on the individual, the frail and helpless individual. I feel like like Daedalus, trying desperately to fashion wings of escape from the maze of my own confusion. But I am fumbling in the dark, pursued by monsters, wondering how I got here, and how I will escape.

Sincerely,

Jesse

I’m trying to put the events of The Odyssey in sequence in my head. The council of the gods. Circe’s island. The Lotos Eaters. The Cyclops. Scylla and Charybdis. Helios and the bulls. Or is that after the Cyclops? My head feels light and cloudy. I struggle to force clarity of thought. This mental exercise-a simple arrangement of events-will prove that my brain still works. But something is wrong. I’m too cloudy.

What is wrong with me? Last semester I remember walking along this same canal, my mind reeling with thoughts so clear and deep and beautiful and complex, they felt more real than the trees and sky and water and geese that surrounded me. I thought wonderful things, intellectual things, as if using my wonderful mind for the first time. Last semester I wrote in my journal, “To fly out of the maze on wings of my own creation!” as I struggled to breathe.

But something is clouding my mind. Like the thing that is laying hold of my gut and making me shit blood and double over with pain. Last semester I thought, Let my body suffer. I have my mind. But the thing in my body has found my mind. And, walking alone across Fremont Bridge, looking through fearful eyes at the dark waters below, I shiver.

I work in Puget Consumers Co-Op (PCC), a posh health food store similar to Trader Joes or Whole Foods, but less corporate. I am a stocker and occasional bag boy. The store has a health foody smell, like spices and patchouli. The smell is half from the products in the store and half from the customers and employees who populate it.

As I enter through the automatic doors and am greeted by Jeff, the pot-smoking juice maker, I feel an emergency in my bowels, a churning and an expanding.

“Hey Jesse,” Sarah, the overweight goth-girl checker says as I wave awkwardly and walk briskly past her toward the bathroom. I feel the handle. The door is locked. Oh shit. It takes all my force of will to keep the shit from escaping my bowels. The pain is significant. I wince and stare at the bathroom door. Someone has put a sticker on it that reads, “The only Bush I want is my own.” I get this image of a puff of curly hair wearing a suit, sitting in the oval office. President Bush. That’s kind of funny, but a searing wave of pain that starts in my abdomen and pulses outward to my extremities rips my mind from all things funny and forced it to focus only on itself.

Finally, when I’m certain I can no longer contain the volcano in my gut and that I will spray blood-red shit into my jeans and down my legs, I hear a flush inside, and the running of water. Hope.

The door opens and Charlie (who works in produce) walks out. Charlie and I exchange awkward wordless glances--the knowing glances of two people who know and recognize the stinking waste their bodies produce, and are embarrassed.

I rush inside, lock the door, fling my pants down, sit down (without using the seat cover--rare for me) and liquid explodes from my colon. When it is finished, I peer down between my legs . The water is a dark red-brown. The sight of it makes me more light-headed.

When finished, I stand up and watch as the red-browm mass swirls down and is replaced by clear water. I stand looking in the bathroom mirror. I look very pale.

Telemachus gets the message. Goes to seek his father. Penelope and the suitors. The island of Calypso. The swineherd. Oh, my swineherd. Wine-dark sea. Wine. Swine. What comes next? Was Calypso before Telemachus? My head, my head.

I am stacking cans of gluten-free soy giblets onto a metal shelf. I hold the can in my hand and a familiar thought enters my mind: What if I just throw it? Just fling it across the aisles and maybe hit some unsuspecting shopper in the head, or at least scare them? It’s a familiar impulse--to do or say the unthinkable. Like in high school when I worked at Longs Drugs and once, opening a box of stationery with a razor box cutter and an old woman with fat, wrinkly legs walked by, and I thought of making just a little slice on the back of her white leg, so thin she would not notice until maybe someone pointed out that there was blood running down her leg.

And now I am stacking cans of organic low fat low sodium black beans. The fight with the suitors, and reclaiming the throne. And that moment when Penolope looks upon her blood-soaked husband and maybe she is horrified and maybe she is glad, or maybe both. What were those lines? I am forcing my mind to recall Odysseus’ first words to his wife, but I cannot. I want to cry. What is wrong with my head?

And then I am filling plastic bins with various grains-spelt, wheat, whole wheat, millet, barley, rye. And, frustrated, I try again to put the events in their proper order: The council of the gods… As if my sanity depends on it. But the pain in my gut returns, and I press my hand to my side and hunch over. I feel another emergency approaching. When I stand up, I see stars. Little flashes of silver are exploding all around PCC. I feel faint, as if I will fall over. As if my head is detaching from my body. As if I am disappearing. I clutch my side and think/pray:

Please don’t let me disappear.

I touch the tops of the grain bins, feel the plastic on my fingers, seek refuge in the world of objects. But my gut still burns and my head still detaches, and my body looks unreal, as if it is another person, as if my head has disappeared. And the emergency is imminent.

In the bathroom, more dark brown-red liquid. Am I dying? Is this cancer. Cast all your cares upon him, comes the voice of my mother. I cast my terror upon him. But those are just words in my head. I cannot literally take my pain or fear and put them on God. I still feel like I am dying, and I bury my face in my hands and, after wiping, when I stand up, the stars are blazing all around inside my eyes.

The face in the mirror is a ghost-face.

I find my manager Tina, a middle-aged lesbian with cancer, and say I feel sick and want to call my brother and go home. Tina says okay.

I am standing outside PCC, under the awning because it’s raining, and it’s also damn cold. It’s really damn cold and all I have is this thin little jacket--just like a half a millimeter of cloth between me and this cold. It’s not enough. I hug myself with my arms, but I can’t keep myself warm.

Finally, Seth arrives.

I run quickly through the rain to his car and get in quickly to avoid the rain. Inside it is warm and music is playing. It’s Counting Crows--Seth’s favorite band. The singer sings, Step out the front door like a ghost into a fog where no one notices the contrast of white on white.

“Hey bro,” Seth says.

“Hey.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Not too good.”

“What is ‘Not too good?’”

“Like digestive problems.”

I think that, after children’s cancer wards and like the slums of Calcutta, and some parts of Africa, emergency rooms are like the most depressing places on earth.

I think it’s funny how that show “ER” represents emergency rooms. I guess I mean maybe there’s some drama in those places, but my experience of ERs has been hours and hours of monotonous, uneventful waiting and waiting, and then hasty treatment. I think there should be a show called “ER Waiting Room.” And it’s just like four hours of people sitting in chairs, watching like “The People’s Court.” Maybe one guy is holding an ice-pack to his head.

So me and Seth are sitting in this ER waiting room and the only thing breaking the monotony is the rising and falling pain in my abdomen. But it’s not exactly entertaining.

Seth is doing a crossword puzzle. He is amazing at crossword puzzles. I suck. My brain doesn’t work that way, or I just don’t have the patience for them.

“Hey bro, what’s the book before Psalms, in the Bible? Three letters.”

“Job.”

“Nice. Thanks.”

A nurse calls my name, and leads me to a room.

I’m standing outside my apartment building and of course it’s raining. I hug my bookbag to myself to protect the books, but nothing protects me.

Then Seth pulls up and I run through the rain to his car.

“Does it ever stop raining here?” I ask.

“Yeah. Give it a few months. How’re you feeling?”

“Okay. A little nervous, I guess.”

“You’re gonna be alright.”

He sings along to the song, I said momma, momma, momma, why am I so alone? I can’t go outside I’m scared I might not make it home.

“C’mon,” he says, “Sing along.”

“I’m really not in the mood.”

“You’re too moody. Sing it out, bro: I belong in the service of the Queen. I belong anywhere but in between. Cus I-y-I am...the Rain King.

“So, how’re your classes?” he asks.

“Okay.”

“You reading anything good?”

“The Inferno.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right. You have Thornton. I had that class.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you reading the Pinsky translation?”

“No, it’s this new one, Martinez.”

“So, what’s your favorite part?”

“I don’t know if I have one. I mean it’s all really good, but I wouldn’t exactly call it an enjoyable read.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of a downer.”

“Literally.”

“Hey, good one.”

Seth parks and we walk inside Virginia Mason Hospital. The electric double doors open and inside is the buzz of activity. Everything is flooded with fluorescent light. It bothers my eyes. A nurse wheels this really fat guy past me in a wheel chair. A man stands by the elevator coughing violently. A very old man is helping a very old woman walk slowly, slowly down a hallway. A baby is crying somewhere. It’s all too much. I can’t sort through the chaos of this world, and my head starts to detach. I am an unreal person amidst real people.

Then I feel my brother’s hand on my shoulder.

“This way, bro,” he says, and leads me to the reception desk.

Inside the elevator is a middle aged woman wearing overalls and a boy of perhaps nine years (She is not wearing the boy; she is with the boy.). The boy’s eyes are red, from either tiredness or crying or both.

We take the elevator to the third floor and find Dr. Samuels’ office. The sign on the door reads:

Gasteronology
Dr. Wayne Samuels, M.D.
Dr. Claudia Jervis-Shin, M.D.

These words flash through my mind: Abandon all hope, ye who enter.

We open the door and enter a fairly ordinary-looking doctor’s office. The paintings are pastel beach scenes. There are plastic plants in decorative pots. It is meant to evoke peace, serenity. But I am aware of its artificial construction. Aware that, beyond this world of beach scenes and fake plastic plants and Better Homes and Gardens magazines lies a world of metallic equipment, machines and devices for probing, penetrating, and cutting flesh. I cannot take comfort in this artificial world.

The girl at the reception desk is very pretty.

“Is this your first time here” she asks.

“Yeah.”

She hands me a clip-board with forms on it.

This bureaucratic necessity makes my head detach more. I am in this waiting room.

“Jesse, you were grinding your teeth again last night,” Mark (my roommate) says.

“Was I?”

“It sounded awful, like you were ripping your jaws apart.”

I nod and walk out of the room.

I step out of the apartment into another overcast day. The rain falls from the opaque gray clouds above. The clouds cover the city like a canopy. I can’t remember the last sunny day. The water pelts my head and drenches my hair, like a baptism I don’t want.

By the time I reach the chapel, I am thoroughly soaked. Students walk by on either side, holding umbrellas and folders and backpacks over their heads to block the rain. My hair is dripping. I think of using the Bible tucked under my arm to block the downpour, but I do not.

Inside, it smells of mildew, incense, and that strange blend of perfumes and colognes that people use to hide their natural stench.

I take a seat in the back, as usual. I look around, at the people still filing in, at the backs of peoples’ heads seated in the pews before me. I look up at the stained-glass window depicting Christ’s crucifixion. I stare at it for a long time, as a man in a Hawaiian shirt gives a talk about missions, as a young man with styled blonde hair leads college students in praise choruses. I stare at Jesus, alone, the suffering Christ, the dying God.

CHAPTER 4

"They fell in, soon enough, with Lotos Eaters,
who showed no will to do us harm, only
offering the sweet Lotos to our friends--
but those who ate this honeyed plant, the Lotos,
never cared to report, nor to return:
they longed to stay forever, browsing on
that native bloom, forgetful of their homeland."

--Homer

Dear Beatrice,

I tried pot for the first time last night. I wanted to feel something different from pain, and I thought pot might be just the thing, but it was not. Last night was the first time I ever really feared for my sanity. The pot changed something in my head, something that did not change back, even after the “high” wore off. I feel somehow detached from nyself. I look at my hands, my body, and it feels like another person. Oh, Beatrice, this is really terrifying. If you still believe in God, please pray for me.

Sincerely,

Jesse

Inside Sam’s house it’s dark and smells like strange incense. The only light is the shifting flicker of the television. Two men sit on the couch--one drinking a beer, the other smoking what I believe to be a marijuana pipe. The coffee table is littered with beer cans and little piles of ash. They’re playing a video game, a fighting game in which the winner gets to actually kill his opponent by tearing out his heart, or his spine, or perhaps by slicing him in half with a sword. Loud rap music blares from two massive speakers on either side of the television. The blending of the rap music with the grunts and wails of the video game creates a chaos of noise. It’s dark in here. I want to leave and I want to stay. The young men do not acknowledge us as we walk past. Their eyes look dead.

“Let me show you my room,” Sam says.

Sam’s room is in the basement of the house. We descend the stairs, and when we enter the dark room, Sam flips on a black light. There’s this huge Bob Marley poster on the wall, and another fluorescent poster with a picture of a colorful mushroom that glows strangely in the black light.

“You wanna see my djembeh?” Sam asks.

“What’s a djembeh?”

He pulls out a large, bongo-like drum from behind a dresser.

“This is a djembeh.”

“Oh, a drum, cool.”

“I take it downtown sometimes when they have drum circles,” he says, rapping the jembeh with the palm of his hand, making a series of booming sounds.

“That’s neat. Can I try?”

Sam hands me the djembe and I rap on it a few times.

“Cool,” I say, and hand it back to Sam.

“So, you wanna smoke some pot?” Sam asks.

“Sure.”

Back upstairs with the loud music and video games, Sam slowly rolls a joint, in deep concentration, as if constructing some delicate and precious thing. I’ve seen this done once, in a Cheech and Chong movie that I watched at my friend Luke Smude’s house in ninth grade.

Then Sam lights the joint and takes a “hit” and then smiles and then hands the joint to me. What am I doing here with these guys? Do I have dead eyes?

“Take a hit,” Sam says.

I put it in my mouth and suck in the smoke, and then take a deep breath, holding it in for a long time. It’s not like cigarette smoke where you can feel the smoke go down. It’s real smooth, and almost undetectable, which makes me wonder if I did it right. But then I breathe out the smoke and I know I have taken a big hit. I hand the joint back to Sam.

We pass around the joint until it’s gone. I take three more hits. On the television, one character is biting the head of another character’s head and there is blood coming out.

At first, I feel nothing, sitting in my chair, staring at the television. Then, slowly, the room around me starts like moving. Is the room moving or am I moving? Does the world move or do I? There is Sam. I cannot hold my eyes on Sam. Everything is moving. That’s nice. Then, it’s not nice. Do I have a fever? What is this room? I don’t want this fever. I don’t want this fever in my brain. It’s not stopping. I am in this chair. I am here. In this house. There is Sam. There’s the TV. There’s that guy. There’s that guy ripping that guy in half. Why is he ripping him in half? I will bring myself back to myself. I cannot.

“How does it feel?” Is that Sam? Who is Sam?

“Alright.” Is that me? Who is me?

No. Not this now. Not this thing in the stomach too. I am doing this thing with the smoke to get away from that.

Now they are passing around a pipe. I take a hit of the pipe. It comes fast this time. It feels good. Thank God. Pleasure. Pleasure is good. But then there is too much pleasure. I am dying of pleasure.

“Hey Jesse, you wanna play me?” That’s Sam. He’s offering me a controller. That’s nice Sam. Sam is nice.

“Okay.” How am I talking? How does that work with the brain and the mouth? And the arms. How do these arms work? That man is stabbing that man with a spear. That man is me. He is bleeding to death.

Why am I smiling and laughing? I just died.

“I can’t.” That’s me. Sam and Joe and that guy are laughing. The room is laughing.
There are chemicals in my brain. Just these little chemicals. Pretty chemicals. Happy chemicals. Sad chemicals. Pain chemicals. That’s all it is. Just chemicals.

In Nathanael’s car, loud music is playing. Love...Love will tear us apart...again. We park on the street in a suburb. The night air is cold, but it’s not raining. We approach an old house. Young people stand on the porch, talking, and smoking, and the upstairs window glows with a strange blue light.

I follow silently, waving at a girl I recognize from my Romantic literature class last semester. She has a cute face and a fat body. She is sitting on a couch on the porch, holding a bottle of beer in one hand, and a cigarette in the other, and talking loudly to a young man who sits beside her.

I follow Nathanael and Mark into the house and we enter into another, darker, warmer world, more alive with sound and movement.

Many dancing bodies. A very crowded room. Show me show me show me how you do that trick. The one that makes me scream she said. The one that makes me laugh she said. O Beatrice. Nathan dances and weaves through the crowd. Matt and I follow in his wake, not dancing. It smells of beer and perfume and bodies.

The kitchen is light and crowded. A few girls lean against the counter by the sink, talking and mixing cocktails, and others sit around a table, eating chips and salsa and drinking shot glasses of tequila.

Nathanael walks toward the girls by the sink and begins talking to them as if he knows them very well (he does not). He is mixing drinks. Then he hands one to Mark and one to me.

“Tequila Sunrise,” he says.

We stand awhile drinking our sweet cocktails, listening to Nathanael talk to the girls.

Back in the living room. Punctured bicycle on a hillside desolate. Will nature make a man of me yet? Nathanael and Mark dancing with the girls, me sitting in a chair by myself, against the wall. Nathan keeps giving me these “Get your shy ass out here and dance” glances. I’m sitting and sipping my Tequila Sunrise.

Oh, my fast beating heart. The dancers, the pulsing music, the darkness, the smells. The bodies and the music move together.

I find a bathroom. My shit is blood.

I can’t bear this fear. I stare into the toilet bowl at the red water, and I see a faint reflection of my face in the water--the ghost-face. I flush the toilet and watch the red wash away and return to white again.

My face in the mirror. I look older and thinner and more tired than I’ve ever looked. I’m an old man, sickly and frail, staring at himself. I will die soon. Who is that man? The muffled sound of the music from the living room. Loud knocking on the door.

“Just a moment,” I say weakly. I splash some water on my face, run my fingers through my hair, and open the door. It’s a girl, waiting. The putrid, lingering smell of my shit in the bathroom and I am embarrassed. I catch the girl’s eyes for a moment, blush, and then look down, and walk past her back into the living room and the loud music and the darkness and the dancing people.

Mark and Nathanael are still dancing with the same girls. They are attractive and youthful and full of life, thinking only of dancing and music and kissing and the tingling desire for the touch of another young body. Why ponder life’s complexity when the leather runs smooth on the passenger seat?

I am a thing cut off, an objective observer. Do they understand the importance of these moments? Are these moments important?

Mark and I are sitting at the kitchen table and we are eating tofu stir fry that I made. It’s my first time making tofu stir fry and it’s not very good. Mark is writing in a notebook.

“What’re you doing?” I ask.

“Working on my philosophy paper.”

“Oh yeah? What’s it on?”

“My working title is ‘God is not omnipotent.’”

“Interesting.”

“Yeah, I’m basically arguing that the Christian notion of an omnipotent God is rationally untenable. I’m using Cartesian logic and a bit of Kant.” These names mean very little to me.

“So, why isn’t God omnipotent?” I ask.

“I guess my argument is a more complex version of the ‘Can God create a rock so big He cannot lift it?’ paradox. Or, can ‘God create a square circle?’”

“It does seem impossible.”

“Exactly. There are things even God cannot do.”

“Do you believe in God?” I ask.

“Of course not,” he replies, as if the question is ridiculous.

“So what does it matter whether God is omnipotent or not if you don’t even believe He exists?”

Mark brushes his long black bangs from his face with the back of his hand and says, “It’s not about God. It’s about making a fucking argument.”

I sit there processing this statement, and chewing a piece of bland tofu. Then I try to imagine a square circle. And then I imagine God as a man, like a body builder, struggling, struggling to lift an enormous rock. And I think of Atlas holding the world, and it toppling off his shoulders. And I think of Sisyphus pushing that big old rock in Hades, and hard as he tries, he cannot push it all the way up the hill. And I think of the song, “He’s got the whole world in his hands.” And I imagine these enormous hands, the hands of God (They look like the hands of my father), struggling to bear the weight of a very heavy world, and then dropping it and it falling, falling, into the infinite black abyss of space.

CHAPTER 5

“He was in full possession of his physical senses. They were, indeed, preternaturally keen and alert. Something in the awful disturbance of his organic system had so exalted and refined them that they made record of things never before perceived.”

--Ambrose Bierce

Dear Beatrice,

People tell me that sin is cultural, that we have created the concept of “sinner” and “original sin” through a long tradition of Judeo-Christianity. Once, when I was 14, I pointed the barrel of a pellet gun at a small finch and blasted off half its face. But then I cried.

I have done things that have made me feel guilty. But, if I’m honest, that’s not all of who I am. I have walked alone along a boat canal in the evening. I have cried at the words of Ernest Hemingway. I have cried myself to sleep at night for no other reason than a general feeling of sadness. I have felt genuine compassion for an old man for reasons I couldn’t understand. I have been aftraid to fall asleep at night for fear I would not wake in the morning. I have played frisbee with my brother on a crisp morning when the grass was white with frost.

I will say that I am incomplete, that I have never known “completeness.” I want to find it in God. I want to raise my hands and finally and really understand this grace I’ve heard and talked about all my life, but sometimes it just seems so unclear, and of a different sort than I understand. I expect it to be unexpected, and I desperately want it to be real. But I am afraid that this “real” might be quite different from what I suppose it should be.

Sincerely,

Jesse

I’ve heard about students who visit their professors during office hours and have terrifically interesting conversations. My brother is one of these students. I’ve seen him walking across campus with professors, engaged in what I presume to be terrifically interesting conversations. I am not one of those students. In my college career thus far, I’ve felt pretty intimidated about talking to a professor in a one-on-one setting. I have trouble holding conversations with my friends. How could I hold a conversation with the possessor of a doctorate degree? What would I say? I would sound like a dumb-shit.

But today I am visiting a professor during office hours and I don’t completely understand why. I don’t have a class-related question. I don’t have a gripe about my grade. And yet I am ascending the stairs of Tiffany Hall toward the office of Dr. Luke Reinsma. I guess I just want someone to talk to. A confessor of sorts.

“Jesse! Come on in!”

“Hello, Dr. Reinsma.”

“Have a seat.”

“Thanks. Are you busy?”

“Nope. What’s on your mind?”

He has this like nervous habit of messing up the hair on the front of his head as he’s talking, so it looks like a big gray poof.

“I just sort of wanted to chat.”

“Splendid. Let us chat. How’s life?”

“Okay, I guess.”

And then I say, “There’s this thing, like a question, that’s been bothering me.”

“What’s that?”

I look at my shoes as I say, “Well, I think I’m in the midst of, like, a crisis of faith.”

“Meaning what?” He messes up his hair for the third time.

“Meaning I’m having pretty serious doubts about Christianity.”

“Okay, like what?”

I think a moment, playing with a piece of rubber from the sole of my shoe, and then I say, “Like I’m not so sure about the idea of hell. I mean, what do you think about hell?”

And then he messes up his hair and says, with a kind of strange conviction, “I stopped believing in hell ten years ago, when I visited China.”

“Really?” My abdomen cramps badly.

“I was working with these wonderful Buddhists, and getting to know them pretty well, and I just refused to believe that these people, and all the billions of people in places like China who believe things different from me, are going to hell. It seemed morally absurd.”
I sit for a moment, nodding, and registering the fact that a professor at a Christian university has just confessed to me that he doesn’t believe in hell. I was kind of expecting some sort of comfort. I wanted an educated man, an older man, to affirm that he was still a believer. But Dr. Reynolds was instead reinforcing my doubt. I was not comforted. I felt more alone.

I’ve got this idea for a story. I think there’s something important in my head. I’ve been thinking about death lately, like the thing in my gut is colon cancer and I might die young. I feel I have to write. I imagine writing a great story--a story that will live after I die. So, I take out my black notebook and pen and write.

The temperature is brisk, borderline cold. The chill air stings my face and hands. There’s the soccer field. A layer of white dew on the artificial turf looks like frost. Seth and I played frisbee there. How long ago was that?

There’s the university, good ol’ SPU. What’s Professor Vanderhoven doing today? Maybe bedridden, with his gallbladder problem. It’s cold and the sky is cloudy. I look for patterns and recognizable shapes in the clouds. There are no patterns or recognizable shapes.

The boat canal is lined with dying sycamore trees and a bike path runs along it. This man and woman zoom by me on fancy Trek mountain bikes. They are wearing skin-tight biking gear, like scuba divers, with these hoods that conform snugly to their heads. A long, skinny crew boat glides past me on the canal. I like how they all row in unison, but I don’t like how there is a man who is not rowing just sitting on the front of the boat and barking instructions at the crew. And how there is another man in a small motor boat riding beside the crew boat, shouting at the crew with a bull horn.

Canadian geese peck the grass beside the bike path. They’re pretty big and scary, like if they all decided to attack, they could eat me alive, so I keep my distance.

If you squint your eyes and look at these trees, they look like giant people, like ghosts, reaching their arms to the sky. My breath exhales white mist into the cold air.

The ground beneath my feet. Rocks and grass and sticks and dirt. Each individual rock, each blade of grass, each stick, each piece of dirt, every molecule is separate. I can’t fit them together. There are too many things in this world. Millions of things. I close my eyes because it is intense to look things.

“Watch it, Mack!” I walk into a jogger.

“Sorry.”

I feel my abdomen, which hurts. Are those lumps? Maybe it’s just the muscle or organs. Colon cancer. I’m going to die. I will die before the semester ends and people will go to my funeral. What will they say about me? My brother will find that story I wrote and send it to a literary journal, and it will be published. I’ve got to leave something behind.

Geese honk noisily overhead. They are perched on the branches of the sycamores, and sometimes they defecate into the water, making little splashes.

Standing on Fremont bridge, watching a giant barge pass underneath that is filled with fragments of broken cement. How do those pieces fit together? And what do they make?

The neon sign says Public Market.

It’s crowded. Too many separate faces. A child atop the bronze pig statue, and his father taking a photograph. Behind the pig and the child and his father, the fish market. A crowd of tourists. The men in bright orange rubber overalls, talking loudly throwing fish to each other. The crowd smiles and laughs and claps their hands as if they are at a magic show and not a fish market.

I walk past the crowd, past the fruit stands and flower shops and food vendors, past a man who is selling many varieties of flavored honey. Open jars on the table in front of him. He is saying, “Free samples, taste nature’s goodness, fresh honey!” The old Asian women at the flower stand cutting the stems of flowers and making bouquets to sell for five dollars, talking quickly among themselves in speech I do not understand. Not beautiful. Painful. Each face, each flower, each piece of fruit, each color, each item separately. I cannot form them together into a complete picture, into a coherent whole. I see in fragments. I feel compelled to close my eyes.

I’m hungry. Three dollars in my pocket. I’m usually pretty short on cash. An old hot dog stand. An old man wearing a paper hat. A hot dog and a Pepsi.

The boats and the houses and the buildings on Puget Sound. The light scatters and plays upon the surface of the rippled water.

A young couple leaning against the metal railing, embracing each other, talking close and occasionally kissing.

An old man, a bum, vomiting into a trash can. Quietly. White vomit dribbling into the open trash can. He is very dirty, and his hair and beard are disheveled and gray, and now with dribbles of vomit in his beard. My abdomen hurts.

3rd avenue. McDonalds. Another homeless man sitting on a bench. The man’s eyes meet mine and he extends his hand.

“Could you spare some change?”

The man’s sad, intense eyes. What oceans of woe surge and swell behind those eyes? The thousand yard stare. You get it when you’ve been in the shit too long. I am in the shit. Two quarters in the dirty, outstretched hand.

“Thank you, God bless.”

Pine avenue. The individual cars. Toyota Camry, a Chevrolet minivan, a Buick Le Sabre. The advertisements on the buses creaking and stopping. McDonalds: I‘m Lovin’ It. Enter the Matrix. Just Do It. The squeaking brakes. My head, floating above my body. My side. This is my body. This is the world. The buildings. Citibank. Travelers. Merril Lynch. The faces, the people streaming past, all around, the endless distinct faces. The lines on the sidewalk, the pieces of garbage, the shop windows with bright signs (Mitso Sushi, Panda Express, Watches Repaired, Closet World, Live Nude Girls. Nude Nudes.). What are nude nudes? People with no skin? Their organs and blood exposed. Even the air hurts. The poisoned air. A crow in the sky. I wish I had a video camera, then I could at least capture it all, and then later go back and try to make sense of it. It’s all too much. I have to close my eyes. Something has happened to my eyes. My eyes and the world.

CHAPTER 6

"You show us hard things. You make us drink the wine of astonishment."

--Psalm 60

Dear Beatrice,

When my brother found me, I was shaking. My thin hands balled into pale fists. My eyes pressed firmly shut. A look of anguish. Lines formed here and there on a face once smooth. The sound of grinding teeth.

I was not the brother he knew. I was frail and weak and doubled over and unable to stop from shaking.

I felt his hand on my hand.

“Brother, are you okay?” he asked.

“No, Seth,” I said, “I am not okay.”

When I opened my eyes, I could see that he was crying.

Sincerely,

Jesse

I’m laying awake in bed and it’s late morning on a Sunday. I’m not sure what time. My mom just called and left a message that went something like this:

“Hey bud. Just calling to see how you’re doing. You’re probably at church. But give a call back whenever you can. (And then to my dad: “Say hi to Jesse.”) My dad: “Hi bud.” My mom: “We love you.”

And then I sort of come apart. As a kid, I was a real crier, a real sensitive type. But some time around junior high or high school, for whatever reason, I just stopped crying. I can’t really remember the last time I cried. But now I start crying, and I’m afraid Mark will hear me on the bottom bunk. I smother my face in my pillow and just let loose. Through my tears, I start whispering into the pillow, “Oh God, Oh God, Oh God.” It is more than I can bear.

I lay awake in great pain and my abdomen is cramping very badly. I take two of the anti-inflammatory pills the doctor prescribed, but they do not help. I slide down from my bed and stand a moment staring at my dresser, and the wall above it, where I taped pictures of my family.

I go into the bathroom, fill the toilet with more blood, look at it with benumbed horror, and wash my hands. I take a shower, get dressed, grab my backpack, and walk outside into the cold rain.

I enter the chapel and sit near the back in my usual place. After scanning the familiar sights--the stained-glass window, the cross, the backs of peoples’ heads’--my eyes fix on the wooden engraving of the Last Supper behind the pulpit.

I am started from my thoughts by the sound of a voice coming from the front of the room. A familiar man in a polo shirt holds a Bible and reads. The words are so familiar that I do not even listen, I only catch fragments:

... He reclined at a table ... eat this Passover ... I suffer ... I shall never again eat ... the kingdom of God ... a cup ... fruit of the ... some bread ... He broke it ... This is my body ... in remembrance of Me ... My blood.

I stare at the stained glass window depicting the crucifixion.

When the man in the polo shirt finishes reading, he invites the congregation to take communion. Two young men stand at on either side of the stage, holding loaves of French bread and bowls of grape juice for dipping. A praise band takes the stage and begins playing various contemporary praise songs.

I slowly walk toward the front of the chapel, with my head lowered. I want to double over and lay on the ground. I clench my fists and bear the pain and whisper to myself, “Let this cup pass from me.”

Finally, I reach the young man and tear off a piece of bread and dip it in the juice and put it into my mouth, almost mechanically. And yet, as I chew it, the pain in my side is so great that it takes great effort to keep from crying out.

I lay awake in bed. I am curled up in a ball, clutching my pillow to my abdomen in a vain attempt to suppress the pain. I’ve just taken three times my normal dose of anti-cramping medicine, and it does nothing.

In times of trouble, my mom often quotes the verse, “Let your requests be made known to God.” I pray, “My request is that You would take this pain from me. And don‘t let me die.” But God either does not hear, does not care, does not exist, or simply chooses not to answer my request. I am deeply disturbed by all of these possibilities.

I am lying on an operating table on my side. Dr. Samuels is ramming a three foot lubricated flexible scope deep into my colon. I am awake.

The nurse gave me Demerol and said I wouldn’t feel anything and would probably be asleep. But I am awake and I feel everything. Every twist of the scope. Every poke against the walls of my insides. And sometimes it is excruciating.

A monitor behind Dr. Samuels shows the inside of my colon as the scope probes deeper. I see little traces of shit. I see blood. This is my body.

“And we’re comin’ round another corner,” Dr. Samuels says in a sing-song way , almost to the tune of “She’ll be comin’ round the mountain.” It hurts real bad, like someone is stabbing me.
Do I have cancer? I crane my neck to see the screen. Is there black? What is that? Blood? It looks like hamburger.

“Just relax there, Jesse,” Dr. Samuels says in his nonchalant way, and a nurse places a hand on my head, gently forcing it away from the monitor.

But I have to look. I struggle against the hands that won’t let me look.

I cannot form the thoughts in my head into sounds from my mouth. It feels like that dream where you are being chased by monsters and you try to run but you are in slow motion. Do you know that awful dream?

I have to force my thoughts into my mouth, but it is so very difficult, like speaking underwater. Finally, in fragments, I hear myself say:

“Do I…have…cancer?”

And Dr. Samuels does not appear to hear. Why can’t they hear me? All around are lights and machines and masked faces and instruments and the monitor. The monitor contains my fate and I cannot see it. My eyes roll around inside my head.

I am falling.

And then the dream with Kermit the Frog.

Kermit the Frog is standing outside an industrial building and he is in his reporter’s uniform and he says, “Kermit the Frog, here!” and he gives his report but the words don’t make sense and I only know that something bad is inside the building.

And sometimes I think that Kermit the frog is my father and sometimes I think he is me.

And now I am inside the industrial building and Kermit is still reporting, cheery and charming as ever, but his words don’t make sense.

Inside the industrial building is a big vat of fiery chemicals with a monster inside who looks like a Sesame Street character, all dopey and shaggy and puppet-like, but he is covered in fiery chemicals too, so he is terrifying.

I am being lowered into the vat of fiery chemicals. And I can still hear Kermit the Frog reporting--just sounds that are not words, or maybe I cannot remember the words.

I am being lowered lower and lower and I think I might die of fear. I do not want to die from chemical burns.

This is where the boy wakes up. Just above the vat. Just out of reach of the fiery monster. The boy forces his eyes open and lies awake in his room shaped like the letter “L” and takes comfort in the sports figures who populate his wall: Magic Johnson, Bo Jackson, Nolan Ryan. The boy may not fall asleep again, but he is safe from the monster. He thinks the monster lives in a real place--in another world he enters when he falls asleep. He does not think the monster is inside his head. The boy wakes up and forces his eyes open.

But the young man does not force his eyes open. He descends into the vat of fire and chemical and monster. And it hurts like hell. It is bitter as death. But he does not die, though his body is enfolded in flames. The young man knows that the monster is inside his head and so he faces the monster. And he does not die.

CHAPTER 7

“He looked up to the sky, doubting whether there really was a heaven above him. Yet there was the blue arch, and the stars brightening in it.”

--Nathaniel Hawthorne

Dear Beatrice,

It’s really quite amazing what the body will endure. I’ve learned that about myself. I can bear a lot of pain for a long time. My mind sort of detaches itself from my body and, though I can still feel the pain, I can like mentally distance myself from it, so it’s like another person’s body. In psychological terms this is called dissociation or depersonalization. It’s what rape victims and victims of abuse and war and torture often do. It’s ironic that, once the physical pain stops, this dissociation becomes a new kind of torture.

Sincerely,

Jesse

When I wake up, I notice two things. First, my mom is sitting beside my bed. Second, I am not dead.

And then I notice everything, like all at once: the fluorescent lights that bother my eyes, the lime green paint on the walls, the beeping, tubey, metallic medical equipment, the woman laying across from me in another bed, her head lolling to one side and her mouth opening and closing wide, but no words emerging. God, do I look like that?

My mom is saying something, but the words are far away. I strain to hear, but catch only fragments: “Bless ... healing hand ... mercy.” Oh, okay, she is praying. I close my eyes, out of respect, until I hear “Amen.”

When I open them again, Doctor Samuels is standing at the foot of the bed. I am embarrassed because he might have seen my mom praying. I want to apologize, but my mouth will not form sentences, only sounds that no one understands.

Dr. Samuels is talking to my mom, but his words don’t make sense. Again, I catch only fragments: “Ulcerative colitis ... scar tissue ... inflammation ... comfortable .. wakes up.”

A needle is stuck in my wrist. I hate needles.

I am surrounded by people I know-family, friends, acquaintances. I am here. Alive. It's my brother's engagement party. Seth is standing a ways away, beside a small park bench overlooking Puget Sound. He is on one knee in front of Christine. She is holding her hands in front of her mouth. All these people are watching this private moment, and my dad is taking pictures.

And now all these family and friends and acquaintances are making a tunnel by connecting hands. My hands are touching my Aunt Mary’s hands, and through the tunnel I can see Seth and Christine running across the street, holding hands, and I think Christine is crying. And now they are running through the tunnel of people and Seth is smiling and Christine is smiling and crying and sometimes making little wails.

My brother is engaged to be married. I will never be married.

I wonder if anyone notices the distance in my eyes, if I look thinner than before.

“Jesse, hey big guy!” my grandpa Glenn says enthusiastically in the way he said to me when I was a child. Grandpa’s t-shirt reads: America: Love it or Leave it.

“Hey grandpa,” I say, trying and failing to match his enthusiasm. My attempt comes off forced and fake-sounding to me. It’s still so hard to appear to be feeling okay. I still want to close my eyes and go to sleep and disappear. I am exhausted.

The pain has moved from my abdomen to my head.

And now Seth and Christine are standing in front of me. And this feeling of detachment is so intense that I feel I am clawing my way through metal wires just to converse, just to stay in reality.

“Hey guys, “ I hear myself say.

“Hey Jesse,” Christine says.

“Hey bro,” Seth says.

“Congratulations,” I say.

And now we make a three-person group hug and, for a moment I close my eyes, only feeling their hands on my back and I am reminded that this is me, I am here, and for a moment the pain subsides.

But then my parents walk up and I find it hard to look them in the eyes. I force myself to look at my dad and the detachment intensifies so much that I don’t think I can bear it any more.

The detachment is stronger around family than around anyone else. Why? And then a crazy though tells me that it is love. I cannot bear love, so I detach. I don’t know how to feel it in my heart, so I feel it in my head, but my head doesn’t want it either. I look at my brother and soon-to-be sister-in-law. They are in love. How can they bear it?

I am with my father on an airplane--Alaska Airlines flight 132 to Orange County (John Wayne) airport. It’s a Boeing 737. As a boy, I wanted to be a pilot or a doctor or an Olympic track and field star.

My dad is writing in his brown, leather-bound journal. I watch his hands as he writes. I can see two large veins puffing out. I remember, as a boy, pushing on these adult veins with my little boy’s finger. They were soft. My dad’s hands are wrinkled--too wrinkled for his age. But, then again, so are mine. We have old man’s hands. His wedding ring is a silver band with a cross engraved on it. My fingers are ringless.

I wonder what he’s writing. My father is a writer, like me. I remember, when he edited the town newspaper in Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin, he used to write stories. Stories based on his childhood in Moose Lake, Wisconsin. In his stories, there was this kid named Fran, whom he used to bully endlessly. Like once he gave Fran these really hot peppers form his mom’s pepper plant and Fran practically puked. Another time he almost electrocuted Fran with a mini generator. Poor Fran. I always got a kick out of those stories. He wrote this one called “Warts and All” about how his hands were covered with warts when he was in the fourth grade and this girl still held his hand for square dancing. I liked that story.

I’m reading a story by Flannery O’Connor called “Everything That Rises Must Converge.” I like Flannery O’Connor.

And now the plane is taxiing onto the runway for takeoff. For some reason, I look at the side of my dad’s head, at his neatly-cropped, conservative hairdo, at his mildly receding hairline (which makes his forehead look bigger than it used to), at his glasses (the right lens is much thicker than the left--he has a “lazy eye”), at his freckle-less skin. I guess he senses me staring at him because he turns and looks back at me. There is this strange moment when we’re looking each other directly in the eyes and nothing is said. I see, or sense, the sadness in his eyes. And I feel that he sees the suffering and distance in mine. Nothing is said between us.

And now we are taking off. This is my favorite part. Many things scare me, but a plane takeoff is not one. It feels like a ride--the muffled scream of the engines, and the force pushing you back in your seat, and then the feeling of being airborne, and watching the slowly widening distance between yourself and the ground, and the ever-expanding perspective of the landscape. You are flying.

We are soaring towards the gray cloud canopy that covers the city like a shroud, and suddenly we are in the midst of the clouds. Looking out the window, all I can see is a gray fog. But we ascend higher and suddenly we are above the clouds and the sky is everywhere blue and the sun is shining so brightly that I have to shield my eyes from its glory.

END OF BOOK I

Street Art in Fullerton

2012-01-08T08:30:00.001-08:00

Downtown Fullerton Art Walk 1/6/12

2012-01-07T10:22:00.000-08:00

The Downtown Fullerton Art Walk is Tonight!

2012-01-06T17:35:00.000-08:00

Landon Lewis's Incredible Photoshop Achievements!

2012-01-05T16:23:00.000-08:00

My best friend Landon Lewis is having an art show tomorrow night at BOOKMACHINE during the DOWNTOWN FULLERTON ART WALK. I am super duper excited about it. This is the first solo art exhibit by Landon Lewis.

Here's a little description of the show:

Prepare for an assault on your senses. Landon takes the Adobe Photoshop product to its maximum potential of creative expression. After seeing these creations by Landon, you will undoubtedly ask yourself, "Where can art go from here?" because Landon takes art to its apex, using the Adobe Photoshop product on his computer.

There will be lots of celebrities there, like Billy Chrystals and Whoopsie Goldberg.

The event is from 6-10pm and it's totally FREE, but you can buy artwork (for very reasonable prices).

Star of Track and Field

2012-01-04T10:45:00.000-08:00

I attended Rolling Hills Elementary School, situated in a quiet suburb of north Fullerton.

The school event that I looked forward to with the most anticipation and anxiety was the annual track meet. Around third grade, I had discovered that, while I was small and not nearly as good an athlete as my older brother, I was a fantastic runner.

In elementary school, running is a sport that you can excel at, not by inborn gifts, but by sheer force of will. And I was all will. I could pinpoint my gaze on the finish line and run with unflagging intensity.

When I reached the "upper grades" I was allowed to participate in the track meet. Unlike most students, who probably viewed the track meet as a nice break from class, I actually trained for it.

I spent my recesses organizing races among my friends. I always won. I watched the movie Chariots of Fire almost religiously. I went on evening runs with my dad, who I had employed as my trainer. I participated in local community races, like the Brea 5k.

When the fated day arrived, I was ready. I warmed up, doing stretching exercises, preparing myself mentally, donning the blue Nike spandex pants and New Balance shoes I'd asked for for Christmas.

The "main event" of the day was the 50 yard dash. My dad stood at the finish line, camera in hand, ready to capture the "photo finish."

"On your marks!" Mrs Goltz (my teacher) said.

"Get set!" Butterflies. Cramping. Fight through it.

"Go!"

We were off in a blaze of pre-pubescent glory. I ran with all my might, pushed with everything I had…

…and tied Jimmy Klienfeldt for the win.

As I crossed the finish line, I burst into tears. I did not run to tie. I ran to win. My father hugged me as I wept, unashamed to be weeping in front of my confused classmates.

Jimmy and I had tied. We had also broken the school record. I shook his hand, wiping my eyes. I wanted a look at my dad's photo finish shot, to see who was the real winner.

When the picture was developed, it confirmed the tie. It was also strange to see myself, frozen in time. My face expressed agony and ecstasy. I was usually a pretty quiet, shy kid. But that moment, captured on film, showed me that there were emotional depths to myself I had only begun to glimpse, that might not actually have to do with running.

For a class art project, I made my dad a picture frame out of macaroni and sea shells. He put the photo finish picture in it, and displayed it proudly on his desk at work for many years.

VISTA Recruiters at Cal State Fullerton

2012-01-04T08:47:00.001-08:00

The following is an excerpt from a work-in-progress called The Town I Live In.

In the 1960s, amidst the Vietnam War Draft, and the accompanying student protests, another government group also began to recruit students, called VISTA, which stands for Volunteers in Service to America, whose goals were radically different from the Draft Board.

According to an article in the Titan Times from 1967: "This year VISTA expects to recruit 4,500 volunteers to serve in one of 300 different projects from coast to coast and in Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. The projects are located in urban slums, rural areas, migrant camps, Jobs Corps centers and mental hospitals. VISTA Volunteers may express a preference for location and type of assignment."

While I was well aware of the Vietnam War Draft Board, I only recently learned about VISTA. It was sort of like the domestic peace corps, with a mission to help those in need, to heal instead of wound. VISTA survives today, under the name AMERICORPS VISTA.

Working on two college campuses in Fullerton, I often see Army Recruiters on campus. I have never, to my recollection, seen VISTA Americorps recruiters. I would prefer them to the military folks.

Street Art in Fullerton

2012-01-03T09:33:00.000-08:00

Stars: a poem

2012-01-02T09:20:00.000-08:00

I awake at 2:21am and step outside.
I look up at the stars. The light pollution
prevents us from seeing a lot of stars here,

but I can see Orion and a several others.
I remember when I was ten, in Yosemite,
lying on my back at night, looking up,

and seeing thousands and thousands
of stars. I recently watched a TV show
with Stephen Hawking, where he said,

in his computer voice, "Our galaxy,
the Milky Way, has over 200 billion
solar systems, and we are just one

of billions of galaxies in the universe."
That kind of info is really hard to
wrap your head around. What strikes me,

tonight, 2:21am, looking up at all those
tiny points of light, is that each tiny
point of light is a solar system, with

its own planets. Because we see them
every night, stars might cease to amaze
us, but if we remind ourselves that they

represent other worlds, millions of
miles away, they can be quite
astonishing. It's a nice reminder that

our problems and passions, while not
unimportant, are also pretty tiny, in
the vastness of the universe. For some,

the realization of our relative smallness,
might be grounds to say, "Our lives are
meaningless." But I take a different view.

Our lives are important because they
are the only ones we've got. And,
should aliens from another world

ever visit us, I would prefer that they
find our planet in good condition,
peaceful and beautiful and just,

sort of like how my mom always
made sure the house was clean
before important guests arrived.

Happy New Year, Downtown Fullerton.

2012-01-01T09:15:00.000-08:00

I found these little treasures on the ground outside my apartment this morning.

A Prologue to My First Completed Book

2011-12-31T11:25:00.000-08:00

The following is the Prologue to my first book, soon to be released by BOOKMACHINE.

Dear Reader,

This book took me a very long time to write, and a very long time to decide to share it with people.

The genesis of this book was my sophomore year of college. I was attending a private Christian university in Seattle, WA. I grew up in a Christian family in Fullerton, CA. My dad worked for the largest church in town: The First Evangelical Free Church in Fullerton. Up until college, I was a very devout Christian.

Ironically, it was at a Christian university that my faith, and much of my identity, began to unravel. During my sophomore year, I began taking lots of Bible classes. Growing up, I was encouraged to study the Bible, to read it devotionally. But, in college, I began to read the Bible academically. I learned about textual criticism, studied contexts and cultures of when the Bible was written, how it passed through scribes and editors, how a group of clergy decided, hundreds of years after it was written, which books were to be included, and which excluded. To make a long story short, I began to question the Bible as God's infallible word.

To an average college kid, such thoughts might seem normal, even boring and irrelevant. But to me, a sincere, devout, bookish 20-year-old Christian, my doubts and questions were devastating.

My solution to my doubts was to read more, to study more, to grasp at the truth that was crumbing beneath my feet. And the more I read, the deeper my doubts became, and the once solid ground beneath my feet gave way, and I fell into a deep and dark depression. I began having severe stomach pains, intense loneliness, and a level of inner suffering I had never before felt.

In the midst of this, I began to write.

I had always been a pretty shy kid, quiet and introverted. The only outlet for my suffering and confusion were the pages of my journals. Writing became my voice. Quiet and alone, in the throes of pain, I became a writer. I wasn't seeking fame or money. For me writing was, and continues to be, a method of survival. At the time, I wasn't thinking about writing a book. I was just writing.

When my depression became more than I could bear, I returned home to Fullerton, utterly broken inside. But I continued to write. As I went to twice a week therapy, as I tried various anti-depressants, as I started taking art classes at Fullerton College, as I took long, lonely walks through suburban neighborhoods, as I accompanied my parents to church (feeling utterly detached), I wrote. I wrote everything down. One thing that depression can do for you is destroy your ability to lie to yourself. The writing style that worked best for me, that alleviated some my pain, was brutal honesty.

I continued reading, took literature courses, and found, in the voices of writers like Dostoyevsky and Shakespeare and Hemingway and Plath and Achebe and O'Connor and Blake and Byron, kindred spirits, fellow suffering humans trying, in their different ways, to find meaning in this big and lonely world.

Somewhere along the way I began to think about turning my journals into a book. They were personal and weird and tormented, but reading lots of classic literature helped me understand something that had eluded me in 18 years of public education: most of the really good books, the ones that meant something, were about suffering humans trying to find meaning in their lives.

That's what I'd been doing all along. And so, around age 22 or 23, I began compiling my journals into a story, a memoir of sorts.

My biggest problem, for a long time, was that my journal entries were so fragmented and random that they seemed to lack what writers call a "narrative thread." There was no "story arc" that I could see. It was pages and pages of observations, feelings, ideas, drawings. It was, like my head at the time, a mess.

And then I discovered Dante. I had actually read Dante's Inferno in college. Most people are at least aware of that book. It's a 13th century epic Italian poem about a man's descent into hell, the stuff of horror films and goth music…and depressed people.

What many people don't know is that Dante's Inferno is only the first third of a three-part epic called The Divine Comedy. The second part, Purgatorio, is about Dante's slow ascent up an allegorical mountain, as as reaches nearer and hearer to the heavens.

The third and final part of The Divine Comedy is Paradiso, about Dante's journey into heaven, into paradise.

The Divine Comedy is not a comedy in the modern sense. It's not funny. It's filled with suffering and angst and frustration, but it ends well. The classical idea of a comedy is basically a story that begins in misery and ends in happiness.

Something about Dante's epic rang true with me. He wrote it in the midst of a long and lonesome exile. My story, this far, felt like Dante's. I'd been to hell. I was in the process of slowly ascending the mountain of purgatory, of healing. And though I was certainly not happy at the time, the idea of happiness in life gave me hope. I began to believe that happiness was possible, not in some distant afterlife, but here, now, in this life. For a 23-year-old suffering a major depression, this was a revelation.

And so I took the three-part structure of Dante' Divine Comedy and applied it to my book. My experiences in Seattle were hell, a slow descent into torment and loneliness. My experience in therapy, in art classes, in my decision to major in literature, post-hell, were my purgatory. And paradise? When I began compiling my book, paradise was a distant dream, a whisper of hope. Paradise was, to quote the Bible, "a still small voice," a voice that told me, "Don't give up. Keep trying. Keep writing. The story is not finished. This is a comedy, you dummy, not a tragedy, even though it feels like one."

As I continued through college, got my degree, and began teaching college English, I continued writing. Many times, I found myself thinking, What am I doing? I'm not happy. I'm functional, but I'm not happy. For me, purgatory lasted a very long time. About seven years. Interestingly, in those years, as I moved into my own apartment in downtown Fullerton and became an "independent adult," many of my experiences mirrored those in Dante's purgatory. On his journey up the mountain, Dante encounters people with all the classic human flaws and weaknesses, people looking for happiness in all the wrong places…in sex, in drink, in petty jealousies, in power, in wealth. I tried all these avenues (except wealth), and always found myself miserable and empty.

For me, paradise, real happiness, began when some friends and I decided, against all "good judgment" to open a small art gallery in downtown Fullerton. This was in 2008. At the time, the downtown was dominated by bars. Our gallery was a weird little anomaly. But, through the gallery, I found myself starting to share all the passions I'd picked up on my journey of suffering. We had poetry readings, art exhibits, live music performances. And, from the very beginning, our little gallery became a catalyst for artists and writers to come out of their lonely cocoons of torment and see that they were not alone.

The real test, and the real turning point on my journey came about six months after we opened the gallery, when the initial excitement wore off and the financial reality hit. our rent alone was $1500 a month, and there were many months when we didn't sell anything. People came to the shows, but they were mostly like us, poor artists.

It was around this time that a new passion began to stir in me, an idea that changed my life and has made me happier than I ever dreamed I could be. It was not an original idea. It was, in fact, a very old one, an idea the stretched back to my Christian upbringing, to my earliest identity, an idea that would ultimately lead me back to a faith I had long thought impossible.

The idea was this: It is better to give than to receive.

Simple. Cliche. But revolutionary for me.

I began to view the gallery, and other involvements in the downtown community, not as avenues for making myself wealthy, but as gifts, gifts I had been especially well-equipped to give, precisely because of my journey of suffering. The art, music, and literature I'd absorbed like a sponge for years became the substance of my gift.

Now, as part of a vibrantly creative downtown scene, I get to experience paradise every day, in the relationships I've made, in the coffee shops and galleries and poetry and music I hear. The first night of the Downtown Fullerton Art Walk, an idea I'd cooked up a year before, I walked around downtown, past families and students and artists and folks interested in art, and I thought, "For me, this is heaven."

This is not to say that I'm happy and ecstatic all the time. I still suffer depression more often than I'd like. As the wise old Gandalf said, "That wound will never fully heal." But now, in a strange way, I am thankful for my years of lonely exile. C.S. Lewis once said, "The pain then is part of the happiness now."

This is my story, An American Comedy, a journey from hell to heaven, and other places in between. You may be wondering, why does every chapter begin with a letter to someone named Beatrice? Who is Beatrice? In Dante's epic, Beatrice is his muse, a woman who represents love. For me, Beatrice is based on a young woman I met up in Seattle, a woman I actually exchanged letters with for years. The letters to Beatrice are my invocation of the muse, the one who represents the hope of love and happiness in the midst of great suffering.

Sincerely,

Jesse La Tour
Fullerton, CA
December 31, 2011

You can read the whole book HERE.

Dante Alighieri

The Great Loss: Fullerton City Council Denies The Norton Simon Museum

2011-12-29T09:44:00.001-08:00

The following is an excerpt from a work-in-progress called The Town I Live In. This is an edited version of an essay by one of my English 100 students at Fullerton College.

The Great Loss by Nataly Palma

Norton Simon carries a renowned name as he not only created a million dollar business (Hunt Foods), but he also had a keen eye for art. With his grand wealth, he accumulated one of the most impressive private collections in the world. Works by Picasso, Van Gogh, Vermeer, Degas, and other masters grace the walls of his collection's permanent home, the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, CA. As one enters the doors, viewers are greeted by a vast collection of Degas' famous ballerina sculptures and Rodin's The Burghers of Calais. It's hard to imagine the collection in any other city, but if not for the short-sightedness of City Council, Fullerton would have been the home of Simon's priceless collection.

Norton Simon's roots were deeply embedded in Fullerton, CA when early on in his life he invested in the Hunt Foods Company and turned it into a successful business based in Fullerton. For many years, Simon (a resident of Fullerton) displayed his thousand dollar collection in the Hunt offices, placing Rodin sculptures outside on the lawn, and hanging Van Gogh's in the Hunt Branch Library on Commonwealth, which he gifted to the city of Fullerton.

But Simon needed a permanent home for his prized possessions, and the obvious choice was Fullerton. He offered the city a start-up gift of half a million dollars in 1964, asking in return that the city provide the land and security.

But the City Council argued that they could not afford the security guard.

Simon's offered, as a location for the Museum, the Hunt Branch library, which he had already gifted to city. He also planned to purchase several houses on the same street, to make room for the Museum. But the City Council did not approve the project.

After two years of waiting for the City to approve his project, Simon took the hint, and took his collection elsewhere, to Pasadena, though Fullerton had clearly been his first choice.

Street Art in Fullerton (Peace)

2011-12-28T23:32:00.001-08:00

God Save The Beard: Scene 1

2011-12-28T11:31:00.000-08:00

The following is an excerpt from a play I'm working on called God Save the Beard.

The year is 1967. The place is Cal State Fullerton. The Vietnam War is underway. The draft is in place. Governor Reagan has proposed severe cuts to the State College system, which would make thousands of students ineligible for college admission, and therefore eligible for the Draft.

Terry Gordon, a graduate theater student at Cal State Fullerton, bumps his way through a crowd of student protestors holding signs against the Draft, the war, and Governor Reagan's budget cuts. Terry's girlfriend, Marion, is with him.

Marion: I just think it's a dangerous idea. This is Orange County, for Christsakes.

Terry: This is the perfect place for it.

Marion: If the police shut down a performance in San Francisco, what do you think will happen here?

Terry: It will be a small production. For students.

Marion: Word will get out.

Terry: (Reading from the Daily Titan) Listen to this: "In his inaugural Address Gov. Ronald Reagan stated the need for the universities and state colleges to, in addition to teaching, instill moral and ethical values in students." Whose moral and ethical values? What a fucking hypocrite! He slashes higher education, supports fire bombing villages in Vietnam, and he wants to preach about morality?! The world is upside down, Marion.

Marion: Have you talked to Dr. Young?

Terry: Not yet.

Marion: See what he says. I'm telling you, Terry. (Holding a copy of The Beard by Michael McClure) This play will raise hell.

Terry: Hey, did I tell you my sister joined the Peace Corps? She's going to Brazil.

Marion: You're changing the subject.

Terry: (kisses her) I'll talk to Dr. Young.

This is Ernie

2011-12-27T09:02:00.000-08:00

If you see him around Downtown Fullerton, say hello.

Christmas Eve: a poem

2011-12-26T23:35:00.000-08:00

It's no secret that I don't attend church regularly.
I used to. But now I'm one of those people who only go
with their families on holidays.

Which offers me a unique perspective
on the church I grew up in
because I remember when it was all
so familiar, but now what strikes me most
is how unfamiliar it all is.

The music from the guitar and the
weird marimba thing and the organ
is unlike any music I ever listen to.
It is strange to me.

The lyrics are familiar.
Christmas carols and hymns.
The usual Christmas Eve fare.
But what it lacks for me now is the very
thing I seek out in music:
originality and real human emotion.

I feel no emotion about this music.
I look around to see if others do.
They generally seem about as bored as me.
So I ask myself: Why do they keep coming here?

Is it obligation?
For most, I suppose, it is sincere belief.
The belief is somehow separate from the
cheesy trappings of the place and the music.
Or maybe they just don't really seek out
new music. Maybe, for them,
the music and the building and the congregation
are somehow comforting.
For me, it is all vaguely unsettling,
because it is so disconnected from my life
or any reality I experience in the world.

Being the kind of person who can usually find
something interesting in the mundane,
I sort of tune out the music and start looking around
at the people, and wondering about their lives.
Like the 50ish guy with the styled hair and Vans.
What's his deal?

Or the old woman with the immaculate hair
and makeup, sitting next to a man
with a disability I can't quite pinpoint.
The man is dressed in green sweats
and he looks pretty disheveled.
Is he her son? What are their lives like?

At one point, two men walk down the aisle
hand-in-hand, and for a moment I think,
Is this church becoming more gay-friendly?
But then I realize that one of the men
has Downs syndrome, so he is
probably the guy's son, not his lover.
But you never know.
Maybe things HAVE really changed around here.
But I doubt it.

I guess the main conflict I'm feeling here
is what I feel every time I go to church,
which is about twice a year.
And that conflict is that I am uncertain.
I find Christian doctrine to be
unknowable,
like all spiritual knowledge.

And what I can't reconcile in my head
is how in the hell those people up
on that stage can have such strong conviction,
can talk about heaven as if they are talking about
a place that definitely exists, like Wal-Mart
or Angel Stadium. And they talk about God
as if they have a direct line to him.

I literally can't understand their certainly,
or at least the certainty they pretend to have.
Because for me, though I love Jesus a whole lot,

I am unafraid to say, "I don't know if heaven exists
or if, when you die, your body just rots and
your brain stops working and that's it."

I am unafraid to say, "I have no idea if Jesus was God."

I am unafraid to say, "I don't know if God exists,
because I can't know. As a flesh and blood human,
that's not one of the things I get to know."

I am unafraid to say, "Although I really do pray
a whole lot, most of the time I feel like
I'm just trying to calm myself down,
to comfort myself in the face of the
angst of suffering like crazy,
every single day,
and never really understanding why."

But, like I said before, I really do love Jesus.
He is my biggest inspiration.
Really. Truly. Unironically.

But, for me, when I feel closest to Jesus
is not sitting in a pew listening to
weird music,

but when I am
sharing a cigarette with a homeless guy

or playing rock music to a crowd
of drunk people,

or writing another rent check
for my art gallery, knowing
it has cost me thousands of dollars
I will never see again,
but still believing in the community
it incarnates,

or a conversation with a student
who is completely lost,

or sitting alone on Christmas Eve,
writing exactly what is in my heart,

or watching A Charlie Brown Christmas,
when Linus says to an almost empty
auditorium,

"Peace on earth,
goodwill toward men…
That's what Christmas is all about,
Charlie Brown."

The Kingdom of Kevin Malone

2011-12-26T12:42:00.000-08:00

On Christmas Eve, I went to a party at my friend Wayne's house. Kevin Malone, another friend, lives right across the street from Wayne. Kevin is a bartender at Mulberry St. Ristorante, my favorite bar in Fullerton. Kevin and I share a love for all things nerdy: comic books, sci fi, action figures. He has been blogging since 2002, before I was even on Myspace, on his blog FAT FREE MILK. During the Christmas party, Kevin took me across the street to look at his collection of action figures and comic books. It was a rare look inside the world of Kevin Malone. I took some photos.

A book about Kevin Malone (no relation to my friend Kevin Malone).

"I find your lack of faith disturbing."

Rancor and baby.

Jesus and ET.

Ash vs. Vader.

Spidey vs. Rancor.

Guy Fawkes baby.

Ultimate Battle.

Hangin' in the kitchen?!

Malone family portrait.

Kevin and Kevin Jr.

An Analysis of the Starbucks Christmas Pastry Packaging

2011-12-24T12:50:00.000-08:00

This morning, Christmas Eve morning, I went to Starbucks and ordered a coffee and a blueberry scone. As I was eating my scone, I began staring at the packaging that it came in. It looked like this:

For some reason, that nutcracker guy looked surprisingly familiar. Suddenly I realized, that's Guy Fawkes, the English revolutionary whose mask has become a symbol of the Occupy movement, like this:

It got me thinking, why would Starbucks, a huge corporation, use an image that so closely resembles the symbol of an anti-corporate movement? And then it hit me. They are commodifying the rebellion. They are re-purposing a symbol of rebellion, and using it for capitalist purposes. You may argue that the resemblance is purely accidental. But I know enough about corporate advertising and marketing to know that NOTHING they do is accidental.

It's also interesting that the Guy Fawkes character on the Starbucks packaging is winking at us, as if to say, "Get it?"

The text is also interesting. It says, "Let's remember why we go together so well." Guy Fawkes is handing a nut to a squirrel. Why would a squirrel need a nutcracker? Its teeth do the job just fine. Perhaps the text is suggesting that, while we do not need corporations to do everything for us, we'd rather they did. The packaging is using the spirit of "goodwill" of Christmas to send a complex message about American apathy and complicity in corporate culture.

The Guy Fawkes/Nutcracker represents the benevolent corporation, and we are the squirrels, taking what they give us, too lazy to do for ourselves what the corporations have been doing for us for years. Merry Christmas.

Adolescents T-Shirt

2011-12-23T10:51:00.000-08:00

The other day, my friend TJ, who owns the Noco Studio on Malden in Fullerton gave me an awesome Christmas present. It was a t-shirt he designed based on The Adolescents, an iconic hardcore punk band from Fullerton. This is the t-shirt. Thanks, TJ!

Here's a cool Adolescents song from their self-titled album from 1981.

The Experimental College

2011-12-22T12:44:00.000-08:00

The following is an excerpt from a work-in-progress called The Town I Live In.

As an instructor at Cal State Fullerton, I am often frustrated by students' lack of enthusiasm for what they are learning. Many students at Cal State view their education as, primarily, an economic transaction. They pay their tuition, earn their grades, get a degree, get a high-paying job. Done.

What often gets lost in this transaction is the joy of learning, of education as an end in itself. As a teacher, I see my purpose as helping students see that reading and writing and learning are ways to deepen and expand themselves as human beings. I tell my students, "Your college years are precious. At no other time in your life will you have this kind of freedom to explore, to learn, to find your path in life."

The "economic transaction" view of education was not always the norm at CSUF. In the 1960s, amid all the social movements happening on campus, students and faculty established the Experimental College, a tuition-free, gradeless, progressive satellite of the "regular" curriculum.

Former professor Lawrence de Graaf writes, "The Experimental College epitomized a combination of the idealism and disdain for convention prevalent in the 'counter culture' of the late 1960s. The college intended to prepare graduates to organize the poor, work with peace and ecology movements, and start free schools and communes." Students graduated when they were ready, when they "discovered how to relate constructively, creatively, joyfully, to other people."

By 1970, the Experimental College offered 24 classes to 447 students. Unfortunately, as the revolutionary spirit of the 1960s began to dissolve into the disillusioned haze of the 1970s, students lost interest and the Experimental College ended in 1974.

Perhaps someday soon, when the culture is ready again, the Experimental College will re-emerge at Cal State Fullerton.

Source: The Fullerton Way: 50 Years of Memories at Cal State Fullerton by Lawrence de Graaf

Reagan vs. Higher Education

2011-12-21T13:22:00.001-08:00

The following is an excerpt from a work-in-progress called The Town I Live In.

Budget cuts to higher education are nothing particularly new in California. What changes is the student and faculty response to such cuts. Students and faculty can choose to sit back and take them, or they can exercise their right to free speech, assembly, and protest.

In 1967, with governor Reagan in power in California, higher education took some pretty serious cuts in funding and enrollment. But, it being the late 60s, students and faculty did not accept these cuts quietly. An article from the CSUF student newspaper from January 20, 1967 describes a massive protest at Cal State Fullerton with over 500 attendees. Here are some highlights from the article and the accompanying student editorial:

"An estimated 500 students turned out last Monday to protest Gov. Reagan's proposed 10 percent budget cut and tuition measures at a noon rally."

"Dr. Julian Foster, head of the CSF Faculty Council, told the rally Reagan's proposals were 'incomprehensible.' It is a shortsighted, materialistic policy and would be self-defeating. We will not dilute the quality of education."

"The university and the college has traditionally been, and is on the verge of becoming again, a forum of discussion and ideas…a place to pursue academic freedom and creative excellence. We are here today to protest the attempts of the Reagan administration to interfere with that tradition."

"Dean of Stiudents Ernest Becker said approximately 60 percent of the families in the state earn less than $8,000 a year. 'They would be unable to send children to the state colleges of university if tuition were charged,' he said.

"Out of necessity, the operations of the state college system must be economized. Massive reject of new students is clearly an irrational answer to achieving this economy."

In this same issue is an editorial by a student named Fred Droz called "Reagan and Cutbacks: A Parable for 1967" which gets at the heart of what was and is at stake here:

And the Prophet was elected. His name was exalted throughout the land and his words carved out on the marble steps of the temple. Righteous Ronnie had carved out his first goal.

The prophet was to save the land and the people believed. Cut the budget, he spoke and the people believed. Start with the rebellious young ones, and the people believed. So the prophet cut.

The young ones could not attend the institutions of higher education for the institutions had no room for them, and the people believed.

Rather than wanting to learn, the young ones wanted to get a job and be like their parents, and the people were happy.

The prophet and his people created the elite society, for the elite did not trust the common people, and the common people believed.

The young ones could not reason with the prophet for he was "all knowing." The young ones continued as planned, bowing down to the prophet.

hello this

2011-12-20T10:11:00.000-08:00

The following is an excerpt from a work-in-progress called The Town I Live In.

The other evening, I was in Bookmachine, organizing some used books, when I ran into Mike Magoski, who owns the Violet Hour studio, next to Bookmachine. Mike and I got talking about books. We agreed that selling books, in this culture and in this place (Fullerton) is difficult. Books are not cool. We started talking about ways to help people see that books are cool. Mike had the idea for me to read from books during the Downtown Fullerton Art walk, and then talk about them. Then we got the idea to do a podcast-type show where we read from books and talk about them. 15 minutes later, we were recording our show in Mike's studio. Artist Valerie Lewis was there as our "audience" and contributor. Mike played music, I read poems by Arthur Rimbaud and wrote a few poems. We drank wine. We talked about books, music, the railroads, the 1920s LA Modern art scene, and we felt like were were on to something. The next day, I edited the show we recorded into the first "Violet Hour Radio Show." Here it is:

And here is a poem I wrote on my old typewriter and read during the show, called "hello this."

hello this

i summer in new orleans
by a sleeping cat i sit and read rimbaud
the sound of mazzy star from an old radio
and a single old black man laughing
new orleans. unreal city unreal city
shall we at least set our lands in order?
london bridge is falling down falling down falling down
but i am here, the water stains three feet high
on the walls of a hostel. and we are all of us here
together. a man from india a woman from england
i just decided to travel for a year.
and me ridin the rails. ultimate irony
that from such ugliness i might be born
upon this adventure of peace and freedom.

Arthur Rimbaud

The Violet Hour Radio Show: Episode 1

2011-12-19T21:44:00.000-08:00

Street Art in Fullerton

2011-12-19T18:48:00.001-08:00

A Conversation With Ernie

2011-12-18T11:28:00.001-08:00

The following is an excerpt from a work-in-progress called The Town I Live In.

Ernie is a homeless guy who I see around downtown Fullerton a lot. I'm pretty sure he's schizophrenic, but he is also one of the warmest and most interesting people I know. I always enjoy my little interactions with Ernie.

Me: What's up, Ernie?

Ernie: [Fiddling with the tuner on his cassette boom box. He stops on a Christian music station.] Hey, my friend. Check out these coins. [Shows me a collection of wheat pennies.]

Me: Cool. I inherited a bunch of those from my grandma. Does your boom box play cassettes?

Ernie: Yeah. All my cassettes got stolen. I had John Lennon, Tom Petty, Creedence Clearwater Revival...[Mumbles something about avocado sandwiches and laughs to himself.]

Me: I have some old cassettes I can give you. I'll bring them tomorrow.

Ernie: That would be great. I'll give you something for them. How about a tie with peace signs on it? I know where I can get one.

Me: I would love a tie with peace signs on it.

Ernie: Alright, merry Christmas. [Fiddles with the tuner on his boom box. Stops on a classic rock station].

The Case Against Tuition, or Reaganomics

2011-12-17T10:50:00.000-08:00

The following is an excerpt from a work-in-progress called The Town I Live In.

Before he was president, Ronald Reagan was governor of California. As governor, he made severe cuts to higher education and began charging tuition at public colleges, which before then had been tuition-free. In light of recent debates about tuition hikes at CSU schools, it's important to remember that these schools used to be tuition free. Thanks to Ronald Reagan, tuition and fees have steadily increased, making college education slowly less obtainable. Here's a student editorial from a 1967 issue of the Titan Times, the Cal State Fullerton student newspaper:

The Case Against Tuition

CSF students have had their first glimpse of California's 1967 Late Show, the ill-named "Creative Society," and as one legislator bitterly observed, it may be more accurately described as the first act of the "Illiterate Society."

Recently Gov. Reagan suggested that tuition be levied on all students of the state colleges and university to ease what he terms "the heavy financial deficit." The imposition of tuition, however, would strike at California's greatest natural resource, the college student. The state has provided a tuition free system of higher education for nearly a century, and its positive results are readily apparent with the locating of business and industry in California to tap the available resource of talent and minds.

Currently, any student has the opportunity of obtaining the nation's finest college education. A tuition charge adds, not relieves, an economic burden. Many students, already saddled with part-time employment and family support, will be left out in the academic cold.

This years's plan calls for a $200 charge at CSF, but next year higher fees could be used as a means of easing the governor's future financial crises. In short, Gov. Reagan is pressing a group least able to pay, the students, to save the state from deficit. When education becomes the victim, it should rather be the duty of the chief executive to search elsewhere for fiscal salvation.

Source: The Daily Titan Archives

A Future Without Money

2011-12-16T10:50:00.000-08:00

One thing that impresses me about Star Trek is that it often has a social or political message, much more than most popular science fiction. In the movie Star Trek: First Contact, Captain Picard and the Enterprise crew travel back in time to help the humans make "first contact" with an alien race. This "first contact" happens in the middle of the 21st century, after a third world war has decimated the population of earth.

What happens when humans make first contact is that it ushers in an age of peace. Humans, realizing they are not alone in the universe, work together to create Star Fleet, build space ships, and explore the galaxy. War, poverty, and disease become a thing of the past as human values undergo a radical sea change. This change is perhaps best illustrated by a conversation between Captain Picard and a woman from the 21st century named Lilly.

Lilly: How much did this thing cost? (She is speaking of the Enterprise)

Picard: The economics of the future are somewhat different. You see, money doesn't exist in the 24th century.

Lilly: No money? You mean you don't get paid?

Picard: The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity.

Department of Motor Vehicles

2011-12-16T10:35:00.000-08:00

The following is an excerpt from a work-in-progress called The Town I Live In.

I have nothing but sympathy for DMV employees. They work in a place where no one wants to go, but everyone has to go.

Every 5-10 seconds they have to listen to a robotic woman's voice say over the loudspeaker, "Now serving B141...Now serving H024...Now serving C173..."

I feel especially for the woman at the check-in counter, whose job consists mostly of pushing a button and handing people little pieces of paper.

Most humans are repelled by bureaucratic agencies like the DMV because they are so unnatural to human life.

If you say to your friend, "I'm going to the DMV today," chances are he/she will wince and say, "I'm sorry."

The only positive thing I can see about the DMV is that it is a great social equalizer. Perhaps there is no other place in America where people of literally every socio-economic status and race gather in one place. They are angry and frustrated and bored, but they are all there together, which is actually a kind of a miracle.

I'm fairly certain that the DMV office on Euclid and Valencia is the most diverse place in Fullerton.

Elephant Races at CSUF!

2011-12-15T10:37:00.001-08:00

The following is an excerpt from a work-in-progress called The Town I Live In.

Ever since I was a student at Cal State Fullerton, I was confused about the mascot. CSUF are the Titans, and yet the mascot is Tuffy the Elephant. The titans were powerful greek gods who preceded Zeus and the Olympian gods. Zeus’ father was Kronos, a titan. Atlas, the god who supposedly held up the world, was a titan.

But my favorite titan was Prometheus. He is the god who gave the gift of fire to humans, thus kick-starting civilization. He was punished for this by being chained to a rock and having an eagle eat his liver every day. The eagle would eat his liver, it would grow back, and the eagle would come and eat it the next day, for eternity.

The full title of Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein is Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus. The myth of Prometheus, as one who defied the gods and gave humans knowledge, has a rich history in literature. The English Romantics of the 19th century, of whom Shelly was a member, loved Prometheus. But I digress.

In the early 1960s, when Cal State Fullerton was selecting its mascot, students chose an elephant. One of the main reasons for this was the First Intercollegiate Elephant Race which took place on May 11, 1962.

Why an elephant race at a college? The idea for the event began as a joke. The Dean of Students published guidelines for campus organizations and clubs and gave, as a silly hypothetical example, “Elephant Racing Club.” Some students from the Sigma Phi Omega fraternity thought it was a great idea, and began actually organizing it.

Gathering faculty and administrator support, the event took shape. They invited other colleges to participate in the elephant race, including Harvard. The event caught media attention and ultimately became a reality.

On May 11, 1962, 10,000 spectators and 89 reporters gathered on “Dumbo Downs,” a large dirt field near campus. 15 colleges were represented, each with an elephant and a rider.

CSUF historian Lawrence de Graaf writes, “The actual race was more a spectacle than an organized contest. Elephants, a motley group ranging from 77 pounds (a baby elephant) to three tons, were raced in three categories. Moreover, they inclined toward following their own instincts rather than the guidance of humans trying to get them to run down regular lines. Most of them never completed the course. Eight races were staged; some essentially parades in which the animals carried water buckets and flags in their trunks.”

The event was almost a disaster. De Graaf continues, “One moment of excitement came when the full-sized elephant from Long Beach State College broke into a gallop and veered 90 degrees into the spectators. Fortunately, everyone got out of its way in time and the driver eventually guided it back to the field.”

Because of all this, there was no clear “winner” of the elephant races. Harvard was awarded the prize of a golden shovel with “Super Duper Pooper Scooper” emblazoned on it, because it was the oldest university present.

The Elephant Races solidified the elephant as the Cal State mascot. The silliness of both the event and the mascot had both positive and negative effects. On the one hand, it put the newly-formed Cal State on the map, so to speak. On the other hand, “association with such an eccentric event coupled with the college’s proximity to Disneyland produced a stereotype of a college with frivolous foundations.” Some called Cal State “Disneyland Tech” and “Dumbo College.”

Source: The Fullerton Way: 50 Years of Memories at California State University, Fullerton

Japanese Re-Location During WWII

2011-12-14T16:25:00.001-08:00

The following is an excerpt from a work-in-progress called The Town I Live In.

During World War II, thousands of Japanese Americans were forcibly removed from their homes and placed in “internment” (i.e. concentration) camps because of the United States’ fear of Japanese spies. One such Japanese American was Betty Oba Masukawa, who was born and raised in Fullerton. In an interview for the CSUF Oral History Program, she recalls her experiences during WWII. I am amazed at the matter-of-fact way she recalls her experiences, and the fact that, years later, she is able to laugh about it:

CSUF: You mentioned evacuation. What was your major concern at the beginning of the war?

Betty: Honestly, I didn’t think anything of it, because I was born here. I didn’t pay any attention to any of the rumors, until it was really happening.

CSUF: How were you told about the evacuation?

Betty: It was in the newspaper.

CSUF: And what were your feelings at the time that you found out about the evacuation?

Betty: If we had to evacuate, we had to evacuate (laughter).

CSUF: What sorts of provisions did you make?

Betty: You mean our home?

CSUF: Yes.

Betty: The mayor of Fullerton, William Hale and his son Harold took care of all our things. We gave him power of attorney and he took care of our ranch; we had a ranch at that time. Well, it was my parents’ ranch. He took care of all our personal belongings for us, so we had no worry.

CSUF: Was he a friend of your family?

Betty: Yes, a very good friend. The whole family was very good. My personal things he took to his house, and he stored it up in his room, which he didn’t have to; he could have just put it in the garage. But, no, he put it in his house, and really took very good care.

CSUF: Where were you then sent?

Betty: We were sent to Poston, Arizona.

CSUF: From Fullerton?

Betty: From the Anaheim train station. We were the last family to go from Orange County.

CSUF: Were you notified in some way that you were to…

Betty: Yes. At that time my daughter…We were supposed to go at a certain time, a certain date. But we could not make it, because my daughter had chicken pox or measles, one of the two. So we asked if we could wait and be the last ones to go. So they were very kind and let us wait so I wouldn’t have to leave her at the Orange County Hospital, by herself and then we’d be gone. So they let us stay ten more days, anyway.

CSUF: And you went on the train?

Betty: Yes.

CSUF: What were you able to take with you?

Betty: Just your personal belongings. One suitcase. But I told the Army fellows that, “I have a child, and I have to have more than one suitcase.” So they passed it. I got to take more…We took a trunk then. But they said, “Don’t tell everybody that you’re taking a trunk.” (laughter)

CSUF: And what was it like when you arrived in Arizona?

Betty: Terrible.

Betty’s husband (Mas): It was hot and dusty. Rattlesnakes all over.

Betty: If it wasn’t rattlesnakes, it was scorpions.

CSUF: What was the physical building that you lived in at Poston like?

Betty: Like barracks, a lot of cracks in it, you know, so the dust could go through.

CSUF: Oh dear. What time of year was that?

Betty: In May. A really hot time. It was really hot.

CSUF: You were in a barracks with how many people?

Betty: Well, each barrack had four rooms; it was all partitioned. We had the font, and it was a larger one. The dust blows, and everything gets dusty inside. You can just have tears, you know. But gradually, we were getting mail orders, like Sears or Montgomery Ward, to make it look more like a home. Eventually they gave us linoleum for the floor, which is very good. Or course, we had to buy all our window shades and things like that. And dinner sets, also, because sometimes we’d go to the mess hall and bring the food home to eat.

CSUF: What was your occupation while you were there?

Mas: She worked at the beauty shop.

Betty: To begin with, I knew the police chief; he was from Anaheim. He (Kiyoshi Shigekawa] asked me if I’d like a job. So he gave me a job as police matron. That’s a laugh, isn’t it? (laughter) So I was in the police department for a while, and then I got into the beauty work. They had classes. I met the two girls; there were only two girls who had a license. They were leaving for Chicago. Eventually everybody could go out from the camp, you know. So they went to Chicago, and I took over as head of the beauty shop in Poston.

CSUF: Had you ever done anything like that before?

Betty: No. But since they were licensed girls, they showed me everything…

CSUF: And what about your husband? What was he doing?

Mas: I was in the police department.

Betty: He took care of the baggage.

CSUF: Of the people that were coming in?

Mas: Coming in and going out.

CSUF: So your little girl was how old when you went to Poston?

Betty: Four years old. There was a class in front of our barracks, so she went to school there.

CSUF: Was there a social life going on in camp?

Betty: Yes. There were dances.

Mas: Outdoor baseball.

Betty: Outdoor theater.

CSUF: Do you have any special memories about that period of time?

Betty: Well, a group of friends would come over to our apartment, and we’d play cards and stuff for the evening. That’s about all we could do in the evening.

CSUF: And how long were you in Poston?

Betty: Three and a half years.

Oba family, 1918. Betty is the little girl in the middle.

CSUF Center for Oral and Public History: Gold Mine!

2011-12-13T09:13:00.001-08:00

The following is an excerpt from a work-in-progress called The Town I Live In.

In researching the history of Fullerton, I have read a number of interviews from the CSUF Oral History Program, where students and faculty interviewed residents of Fullerton and transcribed them, mostly back in the 60s and 70s. The Fullerton Public Library has maybe 50 interviews that I've found. The Fullerton College Library has about the same number. But yesterday I stumbled upon The Mother Lode of Oral History Interviews! On the 3rd floor of the CSUF library is the Center for Oral and Public History, where they have over 5,000 interviews!

I felt like a kid in a candy shop, scanning the titles. There are two full shelves of interviews with Japanese Americans who were put in internment camps during WWII. That's probably a good month of reading and writing right there. Needless to say, I am pumped. Over the winter break, the CSUF Center for Oral and Public History will be my "home away from home."

Hawaiian Punch Started in Fullerton

2011-12-12T18:51:00.000-08:00

The following is an excerpt from a work-in-progress called The Town I Live In.

Like most medium-sized American cities, Fullerton has spawned a few companies over the years that have risen to national prominence and become household names. Fender Guitars is probably the most well-known. But a close second is Hawaiian Punch.

The story of how Hawaiian Punch started is really not all that interesting, I’m sorry to say. Some guys made a product in their garage, it became popular, they sold it.

What is WAY more interesting to me is how Hawaiian Punch got swallowed into a giant corporate conglomerate, as is the case with most successful American products.

Here’s the story:

1934: A.W. Lee, Tom Yates, and Ralph Harrison develop the first Hawaiian Punch recipe in a converted garage in Fullerton, CA. It was originally meant as an ice cream flavoring, but people apparently liked to add water and drink it straight up.

1946: Reuben P. Hughes, with other investors, buys Hawaiian Punch and re-packages it as a beverage.

1963: Tobacco giant RJ Reynolds acquires Hawaiian Punch under its RJR Nabisco subsidiary.

1981: RJ Reynolds transfers Hawaiian Punch to another of its major food subsidiaries, Del Monte.

1990: Proctor and Gamble, one of the largest corporations in the world, acquires Hawaiian Punch.

1999: Cadbury Schwepps, which becomes a subsidiary of Kraft Foods, acquires Hawaiian Punch.

Today, Hawaiian Punch is operated by the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, a subsidiary of Cadbury Schwepps, a subsidiary of Kraft Foods.

Hawaiian Punch used to be made largely from fruit concentrate. Now it is 95% high fructose corn syrup and water, and 5% fruit juice. Hooray for the corporatization of American food!

Here's Larry D. Young, CEO of the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group. With his pale skin, jowls, and round body, he kind of looks like "Punchy" the Hawaiian Punch mascot:

Hey DJ: Guidelines for Creating "Good Vibes"

2011-12-12T08:30:00.000-08:00

The following is an excerpt from a work-in-progress called The Town I Live In.

I DJ once a week at an old Italian restaurant, Mulberry St. I started DJing, primarily, because I couldn’t find a bar I liked to go to on Friday nights in downtown Fullerton, where I live. It’s all top 40, dub step, and stuff you are meant to “grind” to. I take a different approach to DJing. Here are some guidelines I’ve made for myself, as a DJ:

1.)Listen to other people. Take requests, unless that request is for a song that you don’t like, or one you don’t have.

2.)Only play music that you like. Some might call this selfishness. I call it integrity.

3.)Don’t play the music so loud that people can’t have real conversations. People, in general, are lonely and one of the reasons they go out is to talk to people and feel a part of something.

4.)Try to play music that people haven’t heard before.

5.)Don’t try to play what is considered “popular.” Popular music tends to be rather shallow. Instead, play what you love.

6.)Always be open and searching for new music. “New” might mean a blues record from 1934.

7.)Real records are preferable to digital files. They sound warmer and have more soul.

8.)As in life, seek to be different and unique. Try to create a “vibe” where people walk in and think, “This is unlike any DJ set I’ve heard before.” If someone walks in and thinks, “This place sounds like everywhere else,” you fail.

9.)Don’t do it for the money. If money is your main purpose, don’t be a DJ. That is the problem with music these days (people doing it mostly for the money).

10.)If a record skips or you “mess up,” that is okay. It lets people know that a human is playing the music, and not a machine.

11.)Invite friends to DJ with you. Sharing good music is something almost everybody loves to do.

12.)Above all, as in life, follow your heart. Seek to let the music channel and express a beautiful part of yourself.

Photo by Christie Yuri Noh

Data Feels Emotions

2011-12-11T15:42:00.000-08:00

Picard: Captains Log, Star Date 48632.4. Dr. Crusher has informed me that Data's emotion chip has been fused into his neural net and cannot be removed. However, she believes he is fit for duty, so I have asked him to join me in stellar cartography.

Picard: Data, give me a list of anything in this system that has been affected by the star's destruction. Data?

Data: Sorry, sir. It will take the computer a few moments to compile the information.

Picard: Data, are you alright?

Data: No, sir. I am finding it difficult to concentrate. I believe I am overwhelmed with feelings of remorse and regret concerning my actions on the observatory.

Picard: What do you mean?

Data: I wanted to save Geordi, but I experienced something I did not expect...fear. I was afraid...According to our current information, the destruction of the star has had the following effects in this sector: gamma emissions have increased by .05 percent...Captain, I cannot continue with this investigation. I wish to be de-activated until Dr. Crusher can remove the emotion chip.

Picard: Are you having some kind of malfunction?

Data: No, sir. [Getting angry] I simply do not have the ability to control these emotions.

Picard: Data, I have nothing but sympathy for what you are feeling, but right now I need...

Data: [Shouting] Sir, I no longer want these emotions! De-activating me is the only viable solution!

Picard: Part of having feelings is learning to integrate them into your life, Data. Learning to live with them.

Data: [Crying] Sir, I cannot...

Picard: You will not be de-activated. You're an officer aboard this ship, and I require you to perform your duty. That is an order, commander.

Data. Yes sir. I will try, sir.

Picard: Sometimes it takes courage to try, Data. Courage can be an emotion too.

from Star Trek: Generations

Haiku

2011-12-11T08:07:00.000-08:00

Childhood memory.
A flying bird catching fish.
A dream of freedom.

A Walk Down Harbor

2011-12-10T17:56:00.000-08:00

The following is an excerpt from a work-in-progress called The Town I Live In.

Walking down Harbor this evening, passing under the railroad tracks, to "the other side of the tracks," the clear division, I had a vision of a fully integrated downtown. People walking under the tracks, back and forth, cool stores, theaters, comic book shops, coffee shops. A kind of downtown you get excited to even visit. Not because you know you are gonna get drunk, but because there is an undefinable sense of good vibes there. Stuff happening all around, all the time. Beautiful.

A New City

2011-12-10T16:11:00.000-08:00

I woke up from a dream and thought to myself, "Why don't we get to found cities anymore?"

Back in the day, people founded new cities all the time. They bought land, or got it from the railroads or the government, and they founded a city. They made their laws, elected officials, set the rules..a new city.

The problem is that, back then, lots of people founded cities for the wrong reason. It wasn't to make a nice community or to be fair to everyone...it was to make a lot of money. People fought for property rights, and the really rich people got to make the rules.

But why can't we found cities today in different ways? Why can't we find some land, and found a city where the main purpose is not to make lots of money, but to be creative and fair? There is lots of land in America. I know that because I once spent a month riding trains around the US. There are vast stretches of open land.

Why can't we found new cities? Why can't we try different ways?

Deadwood: This is America

2011-12-09T19:47:00.000-08:00

"For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?"

--Reverend H.W. Smith, quoting the Bible, on the death of Wild Bill Hickok

I've been in bed sick this week, and have been watching a lot of the HBO show Deadwood, and I have been reminded of one of advantages that good television has over movies…the ability to tell a very long story, and to develop characters with real depth.

I am speaking here of GOOD television, which I would define as having a purpose other than mere entertainment. Probably the best modern example of this is the show The Wire. But Deadwood is up there.

So what is Deadwood about? I think it is about the formation of an American community, and all the forces that are at play to create a sustainable community. The main driving force is, of course, capitalism. The two saloon owners are the kingpins of the town. They, basically, call the shots.

But a community is more than its kingpins. And the show develops how each character comes to find his or her role in this frontier community, which serves pretty well as a microcosm of America. It's messy, unfair, brutal, vulgar, hypocritical. But somehow it works. The show is not saying, "This is how things should or shouldn't work." It's saying, "This is how things have worked here, in America." It is based on real people and real events in a real place.

As someone who has spent the past several months reading about the development of a community in California (Fullerton), I can see clear parallels of development. Of course, things were not as overtly brutal and lawless here, but the same patterns emerge. In Fullerton, the kingpins were the growers, specifically Charles C. Chapman. He owned the groves, he became the first mayor, he called the shots.

But I digress. Aside from the saloon owners in Deadwood (who are also, of course, pimps and property owners), who are the other important players, and what roles do they play?

On the opposite end of the spectrum of the saloon owners are the doctor and the reverend. They care for the sick and dying. They are the compassionate contrast to the saloon owners. While the doctor does make a good living, the reverend, being sincere in his work, does not. His sermons at the frequent funerals provide a kind of commentary on the life of the community…he is the voice of conscience.

Somewhere in between the capitalist kingpins and the compassionate caretakers is the lawman, as represented by Seth Bullock. He is neither greedy nor compassionate, but has a passion for justice. He plays his role well, sometimes clashing with the kingpins, but giving some order.

And then what you have left are those in the middle, employees of either saloon owner, the prostitutes, miners, small business owners. The newspaper man pretty much becomes the employee of the saloon owners.

And there you have it. A functioning society. A wealthy elite. A compassionate few. The lawman. And lots and lots in the middle, clawing for their share. A microcosm of America.

When Deadwood gets annexed by the US government, a new agency gets involved, the US congress. But, like everything else, congress can be bought. There is a classic scene between a wealthy saloon owner, Al Swearengen, and a lawyer representing the US legislature. The lawyer speaks in complex legalese. Al, who is corrupt but frank, cuts through the bullshit:

Al: I wanna know how the camp stands with the legislature. And don't give me this, 'On the one hand, and on the other hand.'

Lawyer: Alright.

Al: Just say, "This is the way I think it's gonna be,' cus this several hands fucking shit don't help me.

Lawyer: Alright. I'll boil it down. Lets assume, for the sake of conversation, that there's a new treaty with the Sioux people.

Al: People? That's what we're calling those cocksuckers now? That's the way things are going now?

Lawyer: Assuming the new treaty, the [Black] Hills will be annexed. The Territory respects the statutes of the Northwest Ordinance which states that a citizen will have title to any land, unclaimed or unincorporated, by simple usage. Essentially, if you're on it, and you improve it, you own it. But, what complicates the situation is the Hills were deeded to the Sioux by the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty. This could mean that the land occupied by the [Deadwood] camp doesn't fall under any statutory definition of 'unclaimed or unincorporated.'

Al: So who needs to get paid?

Lawyer: Signs of conciliation and willingness would weigh in the camp's favor. But just as important is the presence of an ad hoc municipal organization that would enable the legislature to say, "Deadwood Exists." We don't have to create it. It would be disruptive if we did. The community is already organized, not legally maybe, but informally. Why not let's give this informal organization the blessing of legal standing.

Al: What's the right fucking number for the legislature?

Lawyer: There's a lot of gold out here, Al. To define "right" in this environment is liable to be an ongoing process. What I'm prepared to do is make a list of names [of congressmen] and a preliminary guess at some numbers.

God Save The Beard!: part 2

2011-12-09T12:45:00.001-08:00

The following is a continuation from yesterday's post about the Senate Investigation of the performance of the play The Beard in 1967, held in Fullerton City Hall.

[Terry Gordon, the director of The Beard, takes the stand]

Senator Richardson: Mr. Gordon, what were the other plays that you directed?

Mr. Gordon: The Dutchman, and The Madness of Lady Bright

Senator Richardson: What was that play about?

Mr. Gordon: Basically the plot is concerned with a homosexual who is a very lonely man in his old age, and towards the end of the play…he goes insane because of his problems that he has had in the past with his family, society, acting upon him, problems imposed upon him.

…

[Dr. James Young, head of the Drama Department, takes the stand]

Senator Richardson: There's another play that I see you are going to be putting on soon that I am rather curious about. It's called The Knack. May I read from the Titan Times, which is a publication, I believe. It says:

"Seduction is the knack of 'The Knack,' an eccentric comedy in three acts by Ann Jellicoe, which comes sliding in on a splendid blaze of nonsense Friday, Saturday, and Sunday…A genuinely comic play of antics and random images, 'The Knack' centers on the gentle art of getting girls." What do they mean exactly by "getting girls"?

Dr. Young: I talked to the student who put this particular article in the paper and asked about even the pictures which were superimposed thereto, and he said, "Oh, come on, Dr. Young, this is the way we advertise. You see it in the paper all the time, don't you?" And I said, "Well, yes you do, but don't you think we could have overlooked it at the present time?" And he said "No."

Chairman: I want to commend Dr. Young for his honesty.

Senator Richardson: May I go on: "…the gentle art of getting girls. In a London rooming house, three dissimilar young bachelors exercise their charm on a bewildered, apparently innocent young girl from the country. Tolen is arrogant, hard, a sexual Fascist. Colin is shy, fumbling, and earnest. Tom is witty, cool, tart, and very humane. Into their lives comes seventeen-year-old Nancy Jones, a young fawn of maddening innocence."

Dr. Young: It's a rather old theme.

Senator Schmitz: May I ask what a sexual Fascist is?

...

[Paul Omar Stilwell, a campus custodian who found a ticket to The Beard in the parking lot and attended it, takes the stand]

Chairman: Do you have anything to add to the testimony we have already heard? Would you sit down, please?

Mr. Stilwell: I sure can't see why anybody would put on a play like that, whether it's free or be charged for or anything else. Sex is sex, but I don't think it should be put in those respects. I think it's a disgrace to the school and to the people that had anything to do with it and also to the City of Fullerton. And anything like that, I can't see it.

…

[Dr. Stuart Silvers, professor of philosophy, takes the stand]

Senator Schmitz: Dr. Silvers, do you think the hangup on sex, as I believe Dr. Duerr described, the fact that some people are a little, well, shall I put it mildly, squeamish about this type of thing; is that the problem or is the problem the fact that people are getting a little too liberal with sex?

Dr. Silvers: I don't know whether squeamishness at all is an issue. I would say there are any number of events that take place on all college campuses which are, in my opinion, as provocative , but since this one is sexually provocative, it has generated this type of response.

Senator Schmitz: Well, you see, I also teach philosophy, or used to, before going into the legislature. There are two opinions here: One, of course, is that certain things are right and certain things are wrong. The other thing is the relativist's opinion who feels that the absolutist is a disease; the absolutist feels that the relativist is the disease. Which is your point of view?

Dr. Silvers: I subscribe to none of those oversimplified remarks, philosophically.

...

[Jane Arthur, a student who played the female lead in The Dutchman, another play directed by Terry Gordon, takes the stand]

Chairman: Do you have anything you wish to convey to the committee in connection with what you learned from having been in [The Dutchman]…I assume there was some educational value?

Ms. Arthur: It was done two years ago; however, I do remember the experience that I received from doing that play, as I am sure does most of the audience, my mother included. It was a very moving play. It has a great deal to say about society, about the viciousness of the conflict between the negroes and the whites, and it was brought out, not with the language intended to titillate, but intended rather to expose the viciousness of this particular person that I play.

...

Senator Richardson: The Supreme Court of the United States discussed a book by John Cleland in the October term, October 1965, and there is a quote in there by Alexander Pope which I think is rather interesting and I would like to have it entered into the record. It's called "Monster Vice":

Vice is a monster so frightful mean
As to be hated only to be seen.
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, pity, and then embrace

I thought it was a rather interesting quote and I would like to enter it into the record and also I would like to move that the full text of the play The Beard and also the full text of the other one we discussed, The Dutchman, be entered into the record and the excerpts from the Free Press we discussed.

…

[Dr. Miles McCarthy, Dean of Medicine and Science, takes the stand and makes this statement]:

Dr. McCarthy: My name is Miles D. McCarthy. I am before you today as a representative of the California State College at Fullerton Faculty Council and the Chairman of the Committee on Academic Freedom and Ethics. The committee recommended to the Faculty Council and Council approved the following statement:

We, the faculty of California State College at Fullerton, have a common concern, cause and purpose with the community at large; namely, the operation of an institution to discover, analyze and disseminate knowledge, and to educate our youth. The fundamental method, or tool, used in this process is freedom of intellectual inquiry. While it has been often challenged, such freedom has repeatedly been upheld as a method which is absolutely necessary to the pursuit of knowledge. Therefore, in consideration of our obligation to society, we, the faculty of California State College at Fullerton, reaffirm our determination to encourage the free pursuit of learning, and to seek and state the truth as we see it concerning ideas, art forms, issues and controversies within the framework of law. The responsibility to assure, insofar as possible, peaceful demonstrations and assemblies when ideas clash and contend is also recognized. As responsible scholars, we pledge our energies to the enrichment of society. As a fulfillment of our pledge, academic freedom is the single most important condition we require of society…It must be recognized that seeking the truth is sometimes hazardous but that all avenues of approach are meritorious as are all pieces however small and awkward in completing a puzzle.

Senator Richardson: And this group and organization you are talking about of teachers, professors, et cetera, they should have the final word?

Dr. McCarthy: I believe that in order to maintain the kind of institution that you and I want, they must have.

Senator Richardson: If my understanding of a dictatorship is correct, those who have the final word on all situations, thus comprise that sort of a group; is that not correct?

Dr. McCarthy: Say that again?

Senator Richardson: What I am trying to say is that all the characteristics that I have ever known of a dictatorship is when a few people have the final say so on anything.

Dr. McCarthy: That is exactly what I hope will not occur. In Russia, as you may remember, they were prohibited by law from examining genetics…

Senator Richardson: But this is the point I am trying to make: People of the United States of America and the State of California decide by representative government what should happen. That's the free system. That's my understanding.

Dr. McCarthy: Right.

Senator Richardson: What I gathered from your testimony is that you are saying that a small group of people in the state, numerically, and the educators and the professors have a right and should have a right to have the final decision. Now, that isn't the mass of people in this state, in my opinion. Do you see my point?

Dr. McCarthy: Yes, I see your point, but it seems to me that what I want, and what I hope you want also is that we, as tax-supported institutions, have a very real challenge and also a very real purpose in examining everything from as objective a point of view as we can…

Senator Richardson: But you said that you thought the professors should have the last decision.

Dr. McCarthy: Not just one, but the body…

Senator Richardson: In other words, the oligarchies…

Dr. McCarthy: The oli-who?

Senator Richardson: I do believe the power of this state still rests within the people and to their elected officials.

Dr. McCarthy: That's correct.

Senator Richardson: And they have a great deal to say about what happens in the state college system. I do not believe that the sole and final decision rests with the instructors only.

Dr. McCarthy: Well, that's probably not a very fair statement to make. I would say that if this be the case, perhaps maybe the people should run the institutions and not seek professional help.

…

[Dr. David Malone, English professor, takes the stand]

Chairman: If you would be seated there, your background…perhaps you could tell us.

Dr. Malone: Yes, sir. I am professor of comparative literature and chairman of the English department at the University of Southern California. By way of explaining possible relevance, my being here, I regularly teach courses in European drama. I have been asked by the district attorney's office in Los Angeles County and Orange County to testify as an expert witness in pornography trials.

Chairman: We have asked the witnesses here to confine their testimony to about five minutes.

Dr. Malone: Yes. All of the issues in this case are at the very center of my own professional life…It seems to me that in yesterday's questions and answers that three essential issues have been a concern of these hearings: First whether or not the plays, which predictably would offend many people, such as The Dutchess and The Beard, should be used in college instruction. Second, whether or not responsibility for academic decisions is properly placed and exercised at Cat State Fullerton. And third, whether or not in public institutions the institutions should not act in accordance with the will of the taxpayers who are paying the bills. You've all heard a great deal of testimony about The Beard and The Dutchess and whether or not they should be included in the instructional program. I would argue that their inclusion as performances in classes in play directing was justified. There is no way of knowing whether a play is any good or not unless it's put on. It's possible to depict all kinds of offensive things tastefully on the stage. Sexual intercourse is depicted in the movies constantly, and frequently with considerable taste.

Senator Richardson: Mr. Malone, what do you think would happen on the Southern California campus if you put on the play The Beard?

Dr. Malone: There would be great public outcry.

Senator Richardson: Do you think you would lose your job?

Dr. Malone: No.

Senator Walsh: Mr. Malone, I would like to ask you as an expert witness…

Senator Richardson: First of all, I would like to bring up…I don't know if he's really qualified as an expert witness…

Senator Walsh: These pictures were introduced yesterday, and I'd like to know your opinion as to whether or not, as a pornographic expert, these pictures would be classified as pornography.

Dr. Malone: In my opinion, no.

Senator Walsh: Would you say they were more or less art?

Dr. Malone: I can identify it as the ending of The Beard…

Senator Walsh: What act is assumed in that, answer me that!

Dr. Malone: It assumes an act of cunnilingus.

Senator Richardson: Dr. Malone, would you consider that a pornographic act in that picture?

Dr. Malone: If the act were the actual act, it would obviously be a felony.

Senator Richardson: I'm asking if you believe that is act of pornography if called as a witness on it. It's my understanding that experts have opinions.

Dr. Malone: This is a picture, not an act. Now, the act itself, I would have to see staged. I do not believe those pictures are pornographic.

Senator Richardson: You do not believe those pictures are pornographic?

Dr. Malone: No.

Senator Walsh: Using the inserts or the excerpts and fact summaries of both plays, The Dutchess and The Beard..

Dr. Malone: Yes, sir.

Senator Walsh: Would you call the terminology used in these plays, in the scripts, would you call this a superior form of education?

Dr. Malone: No, sir, I would not. I might point out that all of those statements are taken out of context.

Senator Walsh: Do you feel that academic responsibility was properly exercised?

Dr. Malone: Yes sir, I most certainly do.

…

[James Clancy, an attorney, is called to the stand]

Senator Richardson: Mr. Clancy, would you give us your background, please?

Mr. Clancy: I am an attorney, licensed to practice in California. I have been interested in the obscenity field for approximately 10 years. I was special prosecutor in a charge of a special section looking into the pornographic situation in Los Angeles County during the year 1964. i have been Assistant City Attorney of Burbank for five years. I have participated in approximately 10 amicus briefs in the United States Supreme Court, 26 of them in this last term, and I have written several documentaries or commentaries on laws of obscenity.

Senator Richardson: You are recognized by William McKesson's office as an authority in the field of pornography because he has employed you in that line of work?

Mr. Clancy: Yes, I was a special counsel.

Senator Richardson: Would you mind giving your statement on what your opinions are relative to The Beard? Do you believe that it would be considered as tending toward pornography or a proper subject for a state college to present?

Mr. Clancy: Yes, I've read The Beard and it is my personal opinion that it is an obscene play, and it's also my personal opinion that it fits within the California definition of obscenity. I base this upon a recent California case, Landau vs. Fording, involving a similar situation up at California at Berkeley campus. There, Mr. Landau wanted to show a film which was known as Un Chant D'Amor. This was a 26-minute, what they would call an underground film. He was told that if he did show it, he would be prosecuted. Thereupon, he went into the Superior Court in Alameda County, and after a full trial in which many experts testified, Judge Phillips held the matter to be hardcore pornography and enjoined its showing. I, in connection with preparing this documentary filmstrip, the clerk of the court showed me this 26-minute film, and I would strongly recommend that the senators in this investigation take a look at it as it is a matter of record in the superior court in Alameda County. It is nowhere near the offensiveness of The Beard…

…Of course, this goes back to the year 1716, the basis of the obscenity crime and the purpose of it is to exclude from public showing those types of conduct which are regarded as private. This is what our civilization, based on our Judeo-Christian norms, requires, or the majority requires…

…People say you can never drive it back to what it was before, but the same situation existed in the 1700s, and strangely enough, the result of the reaction was to drive society in the other direction toward Puritanism…You've got the same situation today, but unfortunately there are very few Alexander Popes to speak out against playwrights who are pushing the line…

…

[Dr. George Forest, assistant professor of drama at Cal State Fullerton, is called to the stand]

Dr. Forest: Throughout the testimony, there has been an assumption that somehow political freedom and the ability of the public to manifest its rights politically has something to do with the educational process in general. I think this is an awfully murky area for many people, but I think we have to face the fact that people are going to be offended no matter what we do in the college system. There are people who last spring came around to me personally, outside the school, who objected to our teaching the theory of evolution. There are people I know who object to the use of live nude models in the art department. There are people who object to teaching of the anthropological proof or disproof of the existence of God, who object to reading Chaucer…

…

[Henry S. Samuels, a resident of Fullerton, president of a group called the Fullerton Improvement Association takes the stand]

Mr. Samuels: I have children, one which is graduating from high school this June, that I expect to go to this college. I have two more within the next three years, and I must state that under terms of types of programs of The Beard and The Dutchman, I would not want any of my children associated with this college…

…

[President Langsdorf is called again to the stand]

President Langsdorf: May I make one statement for the record? I have been a member of the board of the Chamber of Commerce of Fullerton for some several years, and I have never heard of Mr. Samuels or the greater Fullerton Improvement Association.

[Applause from audience]

Chairman: First of all, the audience will confine their applause to something reasonable. Would you rather be excluded, ladies and gentlemen? I have the sergeant and staff here ready to do it. Take your choice.

…

Senator Richardson: Do you believe that a play like this, The Beard, is corrupting to the youth?

President Langsdorf: Is simulated sex any worse than simulated murder? We see that portrayed before young people, before children on television every night, and I assume that this is part of the background and culture of our society that regards sex as somehow evil, whether its normal or abnormal. So, philosophically and logically, it's hard to understand this, even though my own background revolts at something like this.

…

Senator Walsh: As far as I'm concerned, the fish smells from the head and I can't seem to find the head around here…

…

President Langsdorf: I think it is the function of higher education to investigate and challenge everything. I think that which is valid would stand up. I think the primary authority of the professor is not the indoctrination of the student, but to educate the student to look and examine and use logical means to determine what is truth, the search for truth…the one thing that the college should insist on is intellectual honesty.

…

[Dr. Duerr is called to the stand again]

Senator Schmitz: I called you up because we had TV time together last night and I wanted some more.

Dr. Duerr: I didn't see that.

Senator Schmitz: Seriously, Dr. Duerr, how many hours per week do you teach?

Dr. Duerr: I think I teach about 13 to 14.2 or something like that.

…

Senator Schmitz: You indicated there is a difference between an experimental play and one that you put on for public consumption?

Dr. Duerr: Many of the experimental ones are open to the public. All of them could be.

Senator Schmitz: The one you showed last week…what was that production?

Dr. Duerr: The Swamp Dwellers.

Senator Schmitz: Was that an experimental play?

Dr. Duerr: That was put on directly in class.

Senator Schmitz: One thing that struck me, and I say this in all seriousness, have any of these experimental plays ever had a theme other than sex?

Dr. Duerr: Other than sex?

Senator Schmitz: Yes, I mean, all of them that we have talked about here so far have had sex as the theme.

Dr. Duerr: Well, that was your choice, wasn't it?

Senator Schmitz: I didn't bring up the title for this discussion.

Senator Schmitz: We asked the director what plays be produced and Senator Richardson said that the only one that didn't seem to have sex was Shakespeare, and he said that Shakespeare had sex too.

Dr. Duerr: Senator Richardson was in error because the Moliere play was not a sex play.

Senator Schmitz: Excuse me

Dr. Duerr: The Moliere play was not a sex play, so he was wrong.

Senator Richardson: Then I stand corrected.

Dr. Duerr: I am saying that you can call everything sex plays.

Senator Schmitz: Not Walt Disney.

Dr. Duerr: Sometimes it seems to me, after listening for a couple of days, that you are not investigating a state college, but you are investigating drama.

...

Former CSUF history professor Lawrence de Graaf writes:

"At the end of the hearings, the committee issued a public statement calling for the dismissal of Duerr and Young from the Cal State Fullerton faculty. If such action was not taken, the committee would offer legislation requiring the dismissals. The senators introduced 10 legislative proposals in April 1968, 'aimed at calming campus turbulence and upholding moral standards,' through internal control of the Board of Trustees and the college president. Senator Schmitz warned budget cuts to higher education could emerge as one means to handle 'flagrant moral corruption and revolutionary violence planned and carried out behind the cloak of academic freedom.' The California State College Academic Senate call for for defeat of the proposals, which could 'lead to a trend toward autocratic, dictatorial control of College Trustees and every student and faculty activity on campus.' Although several of the bills introduced by [the committee] passed in the senate, all died in the State Assembly.

Dr. Young later reflected on the episode, 'Academic freedom is perhaps stronger here for having been tested.'"

Here's a little bio on Senator John G. Schmitz, taken from the Arlington National Cemetery web site. He is buried there.

Schmitz first made the headlines in 1962 while stationed at El Toro as a Marine officer teaching other Marines about the dangers of Communism. Using nothing more than the sheer authority of his voice, he disarmed an assailant who was stabbing a woman by the roadside near the Marine Corps base. Although the woman died, Schmitz's reputation as a hero--and the roots of his political career--were made.

The next time his picture was on the front page was in 1964 as Orange County's newest Republican state senator, a position to which he was reelected in 1966. By then, Schmitz had attracted the support of such wealthy conservatives as fast-food magnate Carl Karcher, sporting goods heir Willard Voit and San Juan Capistrano rancher Tom Rogers. So when the county's longtime conservative Rep. James B. Utt died and local Republicans needed a successor, Schmitz--by then a national director of the ultraconservative John Birch Society -- was a natural choice. Using such slogans as "When you're out of Schmitz, you're out of gear," a parody of a well-known Schlitz beer commercial, the Wisconsin native who had grown up scrubbing beer vats won easy election in 1970 and moved his family to Washington.

Schmitz soon established himself as one of the country's most right-wing and outspoken congressmen and just as quickly enraged his most famous constituent, part-time San Clemente resident President Richard Nixon. Of Nixon's historic visit to China, Schmitz, whose political hero was Sen. Joseph McCarthy and who considered the visit a sellout, quipped, "I have no objection to President Nixon going to China. I just object to his coming back." The congressman's fellow Birchers laughed, but the president was not amused. By election day, neither was Schmitz, who lost his seat to a more moderate candidate. But his political career was far from over. In 1972, after Alabama Gov. George Wallace was seriously wounded when shot by a would-be assassin while campaigning for president, Schmitz was drafted by Wallace's American Independent Party to run against Nixon. He collected more than a million votes but lost muchof his longtime Orange County support.

"He was operating on a higher level of politics than any of us had the guts for," recalled former Schmitz campaign treasurer Tom Rogers. "His philosophy was unbending, even for his fellow Republicans, and he never doubted his own abilities and was never humble . . . until it was too late."

In 1978, Schmitz won a second state Senate seat, representing Newport Beach as a Republican. By then, though, caustic remarks about Jews ("Jews are like everybody else, only more so"), Latinos ("I may not be Hispanic, but I'm close. I'm Catholic with a mustache") and blacks ("Martin Luther King is a notorious liar") had grown so outrageous that he was beginning to lose the support of even the John Birch Society, which eventually dumped him. He also got into trouble with feminist attorney Gloria Allred after criticizing her support of abortion rights by calling her a "slick, butch lawyeress." A lawsuit she filed resulted in a $20,000 judgment against him and a public apology. Schmitz drew fire as well by issuing a press release referring to the audience at a series of hearings he chaired on abortion as consisting of "hard, Jewish and (arguably) female faces."

But the scandal that ultimately brought his downfall was the 1982 revelation that the politician who so loudly espoused family values also had a secret life that included a pregnant mistress and a 15-month-old son. "It was an unimaginable shock," Santa Ana lobbyist and former Schmitz aide Randy Smith later told The Times. "It was simply unbelievable."

When Schmitz's mistress, a 43-year-old German immigrant, was charged with neglecting their son, the former congressman stepped forward to defend her and to identify himself as the father. Although the neglect case was eventually dropped, the damage to Schmitz's political career was permanent.

Schmitz moved back to Washington, where he purchased a house once owned by McCarthy, and worked part time at Political Americana, a memorabilia store in Union Station. But there was to be yet another scandal involving his family. In 1997, Schmitz's 35-year-old daughter, Mary Kay LeTourneau, a teacher in Washington state at the time, was convicted of carrying on a sexual relationship with a 13-year-old student whose child she ultimately bore. LeTourneau, married and the mother of four children when she became pregnant by the boy, served a six-month jail sentence in 1997 after pleading guilty to second-degree child rape. After her release on probation, she became pregnant by the teen a second time, drawing a seven-year prison term which she is still serving.

Among his publications is the book "Stranger in the Arena: the Anatomy of an Amoral Decade, 1964 to 1974" (1974).

Survivors include his wife of 47 years, Mary E. Suehr Schmitz of the District and Washington, Va.; LeTourneau and five other children, John Patrick Schmitz of McLean, former deputy counsel to President George Bush, Joseph E. Schmitz of Bethesda, Jerome T. Schmitz of Mesa, Ariz., Theresa Manion of Front Royal, Va., and Elizabeth Crnkovich of McLean; two brothers; three sisters; and 27 grandchildren. A son, Philip, died in 1973.

How to know if you are doing what you are supposed to be doing: a poem

2011-12-08T21:15:00.000-08:00

If, when you do something
when no one is telling you to
that makes you feel,
not lonely or sad or dead,
but alive and aware,

If you do that thing
not to impress anyone
but because you believe
in your heart,
I like this thing,
and I am good at it.

If you feel compelled to do that thing,
not once in a while,
but every day,
and you never really get tired of it,

If when you talk about that thing
to your friends,
they say, "Wow, you really
like that."

If the thing is not just for you
but also for others somehow,

If, when you do that thing,
you feel like,
I am not wasting my time,
I am making really good use of it,

If that thing doesn't hurt you
or other people,
but rather helps,

If that thing makes you
want to keep growing
and learning
and expanding your limits,

If you are prepared
to not be wealthy,
if it means you get to
keep doing that thing,

If your doing that thing
makes the world
a little less dark and lonely,
for yourself and others,

Then, I think, you are doing
what you are supposed
to be doing.

God Save The Beard! (part 1)

2011-12-08T16:37:00.000-08:00

The following is an excerpt from a work-in-progress called The Town I Live In.

In 1967, amid the turmoil of the Civil Rights movement, the anti-war movement, and all the other social and cultural turbulence facing America, a battle for academic freedom was waged in Fullerton City Hall.

The conflict began when a 24-year old graduate student at Cal State Fullerton, Terry Gordon, directed and put on a play by Michael McClure called "The Beard". Michael McClure, an iconic figure in the Beat Generation, wrote numerous poems, plays, and novels that dealt with the social realities and problems of 20th century America. "The Beard" is a about a fictional encounter in heaven between Billy the Kid and Jean Harlow, which culminates in a simulated act of oral sex (not actual oral sex). At that time, "oral copulation" was a felony in the state of California.

Although the showing of "The Beard" was a private performance, some members of the local press got word of it, and got in, and ran headlines like "Lewd, Smut-Ridden Play Given at Cal State Fullerton." This issue caught the attention of conservative local politicians. Historian Lawrence de Graaf writes, "Seizing an opportunity for publicity in an upcoming election year, politicians from Orange County joined the attacks." A "Special Senate Committee on Pornographic Plays" was created and they subpoenaed Terry Gordon, his professor Edwin Duerr, CSUF president Langsdorf, and many others.

The proceedings took place in the fall of 1967 in Fullerton City Hall. The investigating senators included John G. Schmitz, a member of the John Birch Society, a group famous for opposing civil rights legislation and for their anti-communist zeal. The entire transcript of these hearings was recorded and published by the Senate of California. I found a copy of it in a special exhibit on "Banned and Challenged Books" in the CSUF library.

I felt like I was reading the script of a brilliant legal thriller. It reminded me a little of the play "Inherit the Wind" about the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925, which was also about academic freedom. I don't have the time or patience to reproduce the entire transcript here (its about 200 pages), but here are some excerpts. Don't worry, this intense story has a happy ending. I am seriously considering writing a play about this whole thing.

Anyway, it's fall 1967 in Fullerton, CA. The sun is shining, the wind is blowing, oral copulation is a felony, and people have gathered at City Hall to determine the future of academic freedom at a public university…

The Chairman: The first witness will be Mr. William Drake, editor of the Yorba Linda Star. Would you care to tell us generally what you saw when you witnessed the production of The Beard at the Fullerton College [at that time CSUF was called California State College at Fullerton]?

Mr. Drake: We witnessed the entire play, the dirty four-letter words, and with the final conclusion of the oral sex act. And we were, of course, very disappointed that we had witnessed this thing in a tax-supported school…

Senator Kennick: Mr Drake, did you say you witnessed an abnormal sex act at the play?

Mr. Drake: I witnessed the sex act as presented in the play.

Senator Kennick: Were they not simulated?

Mr. Drake: They could be and they could not be…

Senator Richardson: [Reading] It says, "moving upward, and went absolutely as far as he could go…Her body was moving, etc, and she was making quite a bit of moaning noises," it states here. And indicated possible sexual enjoyment and eventually the achievement of sexual climax, etc…boy, this is rough stuff to read. Is this what transpired?

Mr. Drake: Yes.

…

Chairman: I would like to call an eyewitness requested by the college, Mr. Charles Leonard Ford [Charles Leonard Ford had taught drama at Santa Ana College for 12 years]

Senator Kennick: From your point of view, what is accomplished by the production of the play? You say it has some value?

Charles Ford: Well, the play is really not much different than many other plays that are on the public market at this point.

Senator Kennick: Well can we distinguish between the public market and a tax-supported campus before we start?

Charles Ford: I don't think there is a difference, Senator. It seems to me that the college is also part of the public. It's part of the world.

…

[CSU Chancellor Glenn S. Dumke takes the stand]

Senator Richardson: If they [students and teachers putting on experimental theater] are a tiny minority, why can't the intelligent majority like yourself and the other people get rid of them?

Chancellor Dumke: Well, one of the problems we face in academics, I think, is the same problem that people face out on the streets and in the cities. We do have constitutional protections. We do have academic due process.

Senator Schmitz: I would not like to take the action that I think we are being force into. [He is suggesting removing state funding from the college]

…

[Dr. Roger Dittman, professor of Civics, is called to the stand]

Chairman: Did you have a presentation to make?

Dr. Dittman: Nothing formally. I would just like to speak extemporaneously about what I saw…during the play, which I thought, first of all, was very well performed. The play gives you quite a lot to think about.

Senator Richardson: What did it give you to think about?

Dr. Dittman: I think there are several things that the play meant...I was reminded of Dante's Divine Comedy.

Senator Richardson: What part of the play reminded you of Dante's Divine Comedy?

Dr. Dittman: The play took place in heaven.

Senator Richardson: It did?

Senator Schmitz: Dr. Dittman, does this connote heaven to you? Did it give this impression to you?

Dr. Dittman: Well, let's say it connotes heaven more closely than harp strumming does.

Senator Schmitz: My analogy would be to a stag party or a Tiajuana exhibition, it came a lot closer, but you and I viewed it differently. I didn't see it, I just read the book. And I suppose you can read into those things all you want but my question was, I was just curious about the button you're wearing there. I can't read it.

Dr. Dittman: It says I'm registered to vote. I'm registered in the Peace and Freedom Party.

Senator Richardson: Do you believe that there are things that should not be shown on campus?

Dr. Dittman: Well, I think our greatest feelings are in the things we don't say. As a matter of fact, I think these hearings are probably having that kind of effect.

Senator Richardson: What should't we say on the campus?

Dr. Dittman: Well, I think we shouldn't say things that compel people to immediate action before they can think. I think all other kinds of speech should be allowed. If people can reflect on what has been said, so they have some opportunity to evaluate and make their own decision based upon accumulation of a wide exposure of ideas and opinions, I think all these kinds of speeches which do not require immediate action should be…

Senator Richardson: In other words, doctor, you are saying that anything goes, pretty much?

Dr. Dittman: Yes, I think that's what our Constitution means.

Senator Richardson: Might I ask, is there any type of sex act that is put into a play you would think improper to show on a college tax-supported campus?

Dr. Dittman: Well, what I consider to be obscene is not sex, but violence, killing, napalm.

Senator Richardson: Or senate investigations?

Dr. Dittman: But sex, I think, should be considered to be rather an expression of affection and a more healthy attitude toward sex.

Senator Schmitz: Are you saying in a long way that there is no possible sex act which should be excluded from a play on a college campus?

Dr. Dittman: As society's mores change, things which are capable of being presented will change. And we are undergoing some kind of moral revolution in this country. There's a generation gap which is probably being manifested here.

…

[Wayne Devorak, who played the role of Billy the Kid, is called to the stand.]

Senator Richardson: I think we could agree that there was a great deal of what would be referred to properly today as vulgarity…in the play itself. Does this add substantially to the mood of the play, or what was it for?

Mr. Devorak: This is one of the points of the play because playwrights don't use language, you know, just off the top of their heads. This language was necessary to the development of the characters because it's a part of their problem as people.

Senator Richardson: You say these characters are extremely vulgar characters?

Mr. Devorak: Yes, they are.

Senator Richardson: As an actor, were you trying to portray a very vulgar character?

Mr. Devorak: I was trying to project a human being with a definite conflict.

…

[Marion Stanek, who played the role of Jean Harlow, is called to the stand]

Senator Kennick: Do you have a feeling that you might have been misled by people much older than you are who should have portrayed much better judgement than we could expect from you?

Ms. Stanek: No.

Senator Kennick: You think that their judgement was very fine in leading you into this part?

Ms. Stanek: They didn't lead me into the part. I willingly accepted.

Senator Kennick: They suggested that you accept?

Ms. Stanek: No.

Senator Kennick: They prepared the vehicle for you to accept?

Ms. Stanek: No, no, they didn't. I willingly accepted to do the role.

Senator Kennick: You don't think you were ill advised?

Ms. Stanek: No, I do not.

Senator Richardson: Miss Stanek, you stated that there were sociological and psychological things to be gained from this particular play. Could you clarify that a bit? In what manner? How?

Ms. Stanek: I can tell you how I approached the play as the character Harlow. Our society has put Harlow as a sex symbol type of thing, a woman who lives in a fantasy world. We started off, Billy the Kid and Harlow, as two equals, and he was trying to get me to go to him or that I should try to get him to come to me. It's the same little game that is found in dating with boys and girls. The girl is trying to not do anything that the man says and she goes through all the tricks of a woman of femininity, emotion, crying, flirting, arguing, to get him to come to her, emasculating the man, in other words.

Senator Richardson: Do you think that this could be projected without the use of the language or do you feel that the language is a very important part of it?

Ms. Stanek: The language is [important] because I know for a fact that Harlow did use this language, and it's used because when she does use it, it's the only way, a masculine way for her to get at the man. And he, whenever he used the language, she stopped talking because he was breaking her down. He was getting on her level and she didn't want that.

Senator Richardson: Well, do you think it could have, well, no, I'll discontinue that line of questioning.

…

[President Langsdorf is called to the stand, and he delivers the following statement]:

President Langsdorf: The responsible conduct of higher education is not an easy thing. It requires exploration of ideas of all sorts, many very unpopular and sometimes risky for the faculty who do so. Yet our free society's life and future depend on such continued challenging and testing. This is called academic freedom; it has constitutional protection. To limit the right to explore and challenge would soon erode all our freedoms.

[Applause from audience]

…

[Edwin Duerr, the drama teacher who approved the play, takes the stand]

Senator Schmitz: Mr. Duerr, what educational value did you feel this play was going to bring forth?

Mr. Duerr: The primary benefit from doing The Beard is to do a different kind of play, a poetic play. To do the kind of play that is in the mainstream of American drama, not a 1910 play. Those are the values.

Senator Schmitz: What is your definition of mainstream?

Mr. Duerr: Well, I would say the plays that are being done in the theater in this country and this world are mainstream.

Senator Schmitz: Would it include plays that have had the police close them up and then are being appealed in court and so forth?

Mr. Duerr: Yes.

Senator Schmitz: This would be part of the mainstream?

Mr. Duerr: Yes. These are being written today by men living today writing about today's problems.

...

Senator Schmitz: Mr. Duerr, would you like to run a political campaign against me making this the only issue?

Mr. Duerr: I'd have to think about it.

Senator Schmitz: I'd love to have it.

Mr. Duerr: I'd have to think about it.

Senator Schmitz: I would love to have that. I would love to have this as the only issue in running for reelection. You see, you don't have to run for reelection.

Mr. Duerr: I run for reelection in a sense every year.

…

Senator Kennick: Most of us are ordinary people. When we get in proximity to plays of this sort, it's like getting close to fantasyland over here. We don't quite know where we are. Would you tell me what the benefits of the play are? What would you have said to me if you wanted me to attend this play? How would you explain the value?

Mr. Duerr: I think I would say it is saying, and this is only my interpretation, that somehow, and this hearing may be a demonstration of this fact, that we have an obsession with sex. Our society has an obsession with sex. And I think some of us who are over 24 are more obsessed with it than the students. Do you follow me, sir? And this is what this man is trying to say: Let's not make sex guilty. It is a normal, human act like eating or swimming. In other words, what hangup does America have with sex? I think, in the long run, I could do more to end dropouts, to end all these things that are happening, if people could face these things and not make them guilty. That's what the playwright is trying to do.

Senator Kennick: If the community had knowledge that you were putting on this play, the newspaper had announced it and the newspaper had run a couple of paragraphs with the dialogue, do you think the community might have been upset?

Mr. Duerr: I'm not sure that being upset is wrong. Plays should upset people. That's one of the prerogatives of a play, one of the rights of a play, to shake people up.

Senator Kennick: You fellows live in a world that is a strange one to me.

Mr. Duerr: We live in today's world only.

Senator Kennick: It's a very, very strange world.

Mr. Duerr: It's today's world.

Senator Kennick: I'm not sure of anything after talking to you educators.

Mr. Duerr: You said you don't know much about drama.

Senator Kennick: I don't.

Mr. Duerr: And yet you're making judgements about drama.

Senator Kennick: I don't know anything about drama, but I know a certain amount of dirt when I see it.

Mr. Duerr: Well that could be in the mind of the beholder.

Senator Kennick: Could be. Do you think your judgement in this matter was strictly good?

Mr. Duerr: I'll rest my 40 years experience on my judgement in this case.

Senator Kennick: I've fought for your salary increases for 10 years. I'm not too sure I'm right.

Mr. Duerr: If we in the college have to have our plays picked for us…

Senator Kennick: No one's saying that.

Mr. Duerr: You're implying that. If you don't like it...

Senator Kennick: No one's implying any such thing.

Mr. Duerr: I don't know what you mean.

Senator Kennick: We all recognize green or yellow…at least we should.

Mr. Duerr: This is not that simple.

Senator Kennick: You've made it that unsimple, that's an absolute cinch.

Mr. Duerr: I didn't make it. It just isn't simple.

Senator Richardson: Do you know that oral copulation in the state of California is a felony?

To be concluded tomorrow...

The Power of Acronyms to Obscure Meaning

2011-12-08T08:46:00.000-08:00

The other day, I saw a copy of what I thought was a new newspaper. It was called "WSJ." Curious, I looked closer and realized that it was the Wall Street Journal. They had simply changed their header from the traditional "Wall Street Journal" to a very large acronym. I have a theory as to why. It is, of course, only a theory. The term "Wall Street" has taken on pretty negative connotations in the past few years, what with the economic collapse, government bailouts, executive bonuses. I suspect the Wall Street Journal realized this, and went with the acronym "WSJ" because it has no connotations. It's just an acronym. Weird.

May We Please Protest, President Gordon?

2011-12-07T11:51:00.000-08:00

The following is an excerpt from a work-in-progress called The Town I Live In.

Fascist shenanigans are afoot at Cal State Fullerton. In light of growing student protests against tuition hikes and bloated executive compensation, CSUF President Milton Gordon issued "President's Directive No. 5." If it sounds like something out of George Orwell's 1984 or the Vietnam War days, it is.

The directive reads, "Public meetings, performances, rallies and similar events may be held by students and faculty in accordance with procedures approved by the president."

So, basically, if students or faculty want to protest the fact that, in the past 12 years, president Gordon's salary has increased by 71% while adjunct faculty salaries have increased by 7% and student fees have increased by 238%, they have to do so in a time, place, and manner dictated by the president, the very person they are protesting.

If I'm not mistaken, the First Amendment gives all Americans the right to assembly and petition, especially on a PUBLIC university campus. Many of the major social movements of the 20th century have begun on college campuses.

The reason given by the president for this directive was that the protests might interfere with normal campus activities. Um, well, that's kind of the point of a protest. If president Gordon tries to suppress peaceful protestors, even if he uses the University Police as enforcers, the Constitution is not on his side.

Here's a tip for protesters. You have the right to protest, and no presidential directive can stop you. Last time I checked, we live in a democracy, not a dictatorship. Know your rights, and excercise them! No justice, no peace.

Read the full article in the Daily Titan HERE.

As a sociologist, how do you keep from getting super bummed?

2011-12-06T08:23:00.000-08:00

The following is an excerpt from a work-in-progress called The Town I Live In.

Yesterday, I had a meeting with a woman who just got her Master's degree in sociology, and is about to start teaching community college. She wanted my advice on teaching. I told her I am still figuring things out, but I did have some advice. After talking about teaching, we started talking about sociology...

Me: What kind of things do you study, as a sociologist?

Sociologist: Social problems, power relationships, racism, discrimination, human trafficking. How social institutions affect peoples' lives. How they work. For my thesis, I went to South Africa and interviewed people who lived through Apartheid.

Me: That's amazing. I guess I've been doing a bit of sociology lately. I'm reading these interviews with people who lived in Fullerton during the days of the Ku Klux Klan, housing discrimination, overt racism.

Sociologist: Exactly.

Me: One problem I've encountered with studying this stuff is that it really bums me out. As a sociologist, how do you keep from getting super bummed?

Sociologist: That's a good question. In college, I would get really depressed. But what I do now is try to apply my knowledge to how I live my life, to share it with others. I just love learning. I try to be an activist too, working with non-profits and community groups.

Me: Yeah. What gives me hope, I guess, is that with understanding and positive action, change can come.

Sociologist: And we can make change in little ways, just in our local communities.

Me: I have tried to do that. Act locally. I can't fix the world, but I can help make my community a little better.

Sociologist: Exactly, that's the counter-measure to the depression.

Landlord Blues

2011-12-05T16:06:00.000-08:00

The following is an excerpt from a work-in-progress called The Town I Live In.

Me: I’ll get you that rent check today. I have a new roommate moving in.

Landlord: I need to talk to you. I have some bad news. I need you to move out. I’ll give you 90 days.

Me: Really? Why?

Landlord: I keep getting complaints from the cigar shop owner.

Me: Really? What did he say?

Landlord: That you put holes in his roof.

Me: I didn’t put holes in his roof. I'm a 32-year old college teacher. Why would I put holes in somebody's roof? I’d like to see those alleged holes. I know for a fact that the cigar shop owner doesn’t like us. He has called us “hippies” in a derogatory way. I hope you’re not basing your decision on the cigar shop owner. He is prejudiced.

Landlord: No, I’m not.

Me: So why, then?

Landlord: Some of the hair salon’s roof tiles caved in.

Me: That could be because the building was built in the 1920s. There’s a 20-foot gap between my floor and her roof.

Landlord: I just don’t like all the rooftop activity. I can’t keep sending Kevin up there to clean it.

Me: You mean Kevin, the guy whose solution to roof leaks was a tarp? Look, I’ll admit we’re messy up there, no denying that, but I think you may be getting some bad information.

Landlord: To be honest, I just want someone up there who goes to his job and comes home and watches TV.

Me: So you don’t want someone like me who is involved in the community? How were your sales Friday night, during the Art Walk?

Landlord: Really good, actually.

Me: Well, there you go. I did that.

Landlord: I know you do a lot for the community, and I realize you guys are still growing up…

Me: Growing up? I’m 32. I’m an English teacher. Is your definition of a “grown up” someone who goes to work and watches television?

Landlord: I just need you to move out.

Me: Alright man. It’s your place. You’re a good guy. It’s okay.

[Handshake]

Afterward, I went upstairs and talked to my “hippie” roommate for an hour about experimental music. Then I had an advisory conference with a new teacher. Then I taught three college courses. I’m just a kid, I guess. Someday, I’ll “grow up” and realize that the point of life is making lots of money and watching television. Someday, I’ll “grow up” and stop all this childish community involvement, academic work, and fostering an art community where there was none before. I’m just a naïve kid, I guess.

These hippies are movin' away. Probably a couple blocks away. Anyone need a roommate?

Business Degree: a poem

2011-12-04T14:37:00.000-08:00

I am seriously considering
going back to school
for a business degree.

Not because I want to be
a successful business man,
but because I want to understand

business, from the inside-out.
I want to see what college
business courses are like.

Sort of like how David Foster Wallace
took accounting classes
to prepare himself

for his last novel,
The Pale King, which is set
in an IRS office.

I think, by understanding business,
I might get a clearer sense
of what is wrong with America.

As a student, I will
ask questions like,
"It works, but is it humane?"

If I am asked to give
a presentation, I will not
wear a suit and tie.

I will wear jeans and
a punk t-shirt that
exposes my tattoos.

I don't even care if I
get bad grades. I don't care
about grades anymore.

I care about understanding.
I hope my professors argue with me,
or are, at least, mildly annoyed.

Richard Nixon's Fullerton Roots

2011-12-04T11:34:00.001-08:00

The following is an excerpt from a work-in-progress called The Town I Live In.

When I attended Fullerton Union High School, I remember hearing that former president Richard Nixon had attended my school. I never thought about it much since then, but as I've been researching the history of Fullerton, this fact seems important. Nixon was from Orange County. He was born in Yorba Linda, attended school in Fullerton and later Whittier, and his personal and political roots are deeply embedded in this place. The $25 million Nixon Library is in Yorba Linda. Nixon's deep connection to Orange County is discussed in some depth in the book The Big Orange: The History of Republican Politics in Orange County since 1950 by Lois Lundberg. Much of Nixon's fundraising and support was tied to Orange County businesses and politicians, like the Lincoln Club. When he was president, he established the "Western White House (Casa Pacifica)" in San Clemente. Richard Nixon, perhaps the most corrupt politician in modern American history, has roots in Fullerton.

Nixon attended Fullerton High School from 1927-1928, his freshman and sophomore years. His years as a student are documented in an Oral History Project conducted by Cal State Fullerton in 1970-71 (when Nixon was president). The project, a series of interviews with students and teachers who knew him as a student, is called "The Richard M. Nixon Project." This document, available in the Local History room of the Fullerton Public Library, is a fascinating read because it shines light both on Nixon the young man, and on the culture of Fullerton in the late 1920s, when he was a student here.

Regarding Nixon's personality as a high-schooler, the consensus from the interviews is that he was "a quiet fellow," a "serious student," not "an easy person to get to know," and yet "an excellent public speaker," and "a tough opponent in a debate."

Irvin Chapman, son of Fullerton's first mayor Charles C. Chapman, came from similar circumstances as Nixon. Both men grew up on farms, somewhat isolated from the community-at-large. Chapman recalls, "A person who comes in from living in a house on an orange ranch or a farm back in those days...has a feeling of being apart from the community...I felt, and I think I kind of basically had a very similar nature to his [Nixon's], reserved and kind of apart from the kids that lived in the town...I think both nature and the environment in which he grew up tended to make him that way, so he was reserved and shy and did not make an effort to get acquainted."

Nixon played violin in the school orchestra, tried football (rather unsuccessfully), and participated in dramatic plays. But his real skill, as a student, was in debate. Chapman recalls, "He was always well-prepared...never could you get a point on him that he wasn't prepared for with a rebuttal in his card file... He had done his research and he knew it." Nixon, the young man, even in high school, "seemed to have a desire that he was going to be someone in politics," said classmate James Grieves, "He was tenacious, very tenacious."

What was the culture of Fullerton like in the 1920s, when Nixon went to school there? Although none of the interviews mentions it, there was a fairly pervasive Ku Klux Klan presence in Fullerton that included Louis Plummer, Superintendent of Fullerton Union High School. Was Nixon, or his family, involved in any of that? I don't know, but he could not have escaped its influence.

Fullerton Union High School, at that time, had a dress code for girls, but not for boys, according to Nixon's former English teacher, Helen Dryer. "If a girl stepped over the line at all," Dryer recalls, "she was called in before the uniform dress board." Regarding boy's clothing, she said, "They could dress, I suppose, as they pleased."

The 1920s was the Prohibition Era and the Fullerton leadership, including Chapman and Plummer, had rather rigid ideas about morality and "good citizenship." Grieves describes a typical school assembly at the high school in those days: "The principal would have something to say, something was bugging them or some corrective measures had to be taken, and then there would probably be a speaker who would talk on various subjects...smoking, drinking, safaris [safaris?]...our sex lectures were always put on for separate audiences, girls one time and fellows the next." I would be VERY interested to hear some of those "sex lectures."

But Fullerton was not completely conservative. For entertainment, students could see films at the Chapman [later called the Fox] theater or vaudeville shows at the Rialto Theater. Another popular weekend activity at the time, according to Nixon's schoolmate Rowe Boyer, was "to congregate on the sidewalk or sit on the car and watch people Saturday night...Everybody would go down on Saturday night and walk up and down the sidewalk, if nothing else."

Some of Nixon's classmates, like Irvin Chapman and James Grieves, continued their relationships with Nixon after high school, as he climbed the ranks of American politics. Chapman and his father Charles had the most interaction with Nixon, as the Chapmans were deeply involved in Republican politics. Irvin recalls a speech that Nixon gave to the Lincoln Club (an elite cadre of Orange County uber-wealthy businessmen who helped bankroll the political careers of Nixon and Reagan). "It was after he had been defeated by Kennedy for President," Chapman recalls, "He seemed to be much more in command of the situation. The speech that he made that night was, I think, probably one of the best ones that I have ever heard him make."

James Grives was an Air Force officer during the early years of the Cold War. He recalls, "My speciality was intelligence...I had the problem of indoctrinating troops in anti-Communist activities. I had worked with the American Legion and the Associated Farmers in this capacity, and I have attended Communist meetings undercover." Grieves and Nixon shared anti-communist zeal: "At that time Dick [Nixon] was heading the national anti-communist move, you know, and was chairman of the House Committee on Un-American activities. That really kicked him off in national politics," Grieves recalls.

Thus, Richard Nixon's roots in Fullerton tie him to perhaps two of the darkest areas of modern national politics: corporate campaign finance, and the Red Scare.

Hannah Nixon with her sons (from left) Richard, Harold, and Donald, around 1927, when Nixon was a student at Fullerton Union High School.

Lemons into Lemonade: a poem

2011-12-03T20:44:00.000-08:00

To be happy in life,
you have to practice
turning lemons into lemonade.

I am speaking both literally and figuratively,
because there really is nothing like
a glass of homemade lemonade.

But the metaphor
about turning misfortune into fortune
is also important, I'm learning.

When my laptop broke,
I saw it as an opportunity
to read more books.

When all the music
on my iPod vanished, I thought,
"Now I get to find new music."

When my truck broke,
and I couldn't afford to fix it,
I thought, "Now I get to exercise more."

It's easy to go through life
wondering why raindrops
keep falling on your head.

But to learn to use those raindrops,
to see the hidden blessing,
is an occupation for the saint.

In America, we try to insulate
ourselves from pain,
and this is probably normal.

But, in my life, the most important
things have happened
when the insulation failed,

when I came into
direct contact
with life's bitter heart.

If I had not had a major
clinical depression
during my second year of college,

I may have never discovered
the importance of art.
Lemons into lemonade.

And if the art gallery I helped found
had not been a continuous
worrisome financial failure,

I might have gone along
thinking its purpose
was to make me money.

I don't think it's a coincidence
that out of the greatest tragedy
of American history,

human slavery and racism,
arose the only truly American
artforms: the blues and jazz.

I'm not saying the oppression
and suffering were justified.
Such things are never justified.

But the ability to transform
that suffering into beauty
was an occupation for

Charlie Patton and Son House
and Robert Johnson and Miles Davis
And Charlie Parker and John Coltrane.

Out of his Siberian exile,
Fyodor Doysoyevsky gave the world
The Brothers Karamazov.

Same thing with Dante and the Divine Comedy,
Milton and Paradise Lost,
Picasso and Guernica.

The ability to crush
the bitterness of tragedy
into sweet song

Is an occupation for the artist
and the saint, who are
sometimes one and the same.

I'm not saying, "Seek to suffer."
I'm saying, "Follow your heart
with fearlessness and tenacity."

If you do that, in this world,
you will probably suffer.
But what will you do next?

Downtown Fullerton Art Walk 12/2/11

2011-12-03T10:35:00.000-08:00

Downtown Fullerton Art Walk is Tonight!

2011-12-02T12:15:00.000-08:00

It's my favorite day of the month for Fullerton, the first Friday, the Downtown Fullerton Art Walk! With over 20 venues to visit, people to see, music to hear, treats to eat, conversations and good times to have. All completely FREE and open to everyone. It's an explosion of the creative awesomeness that exists right here in Fullerton. I sincerely hope to see you out and about in Downtown Fullerton tonight. I'll be at The Magoski Arts Colony, and then DJing at Mulberry St. The fun starts at 6 and goes till we say so...

Hibbledudes Art Show Tomorrow!

2011-12-01T22:27:00.000-08:00

Tonight we were setting up for the Hibbledudes art show tomorrow night at Hibbleton Gallery, featuring work by me, Landon Lewis, Steve Westbrook, Chuck Oldfield, Nickie Fixx, and Tony Bach. This is the first time the owners of Hibbleton have all shown their work. Don't miss it tomorrow night from 6-10pm, during the Downtown Fullerton Art Walk.

Thoughts on Barack Obama

2011-12-01T13:52:00.000-08:00

With the current economic crisis and the nation-wide Occupy Movement going on, it is easy to blame president Obama for our various national crises, and people have certainly done that. But I see Barack Obama in a different way. I see him as a transitional figure and a (perhaps unintentional) instigator of a real change in America.

Barack Obama irreversibly changed the game of national elections. He was perhaps the first president elected in the era of globalized social media like facebook, twitter, youtube, even google.

For most of American history, elections were a game for the old school political machines: corporate media endorsements, good old boys clubs (like Orange County's own Lincoln Club), religious juggernauts like the Christian Coalition, corporate contributions, special interests, unions, etc.

What Barack Obama did was to empower and mobilize a new generation, technologically savvy and generally disconnected from the old political apparatus. People voted for Obama because he represented a new way of doing things. No longer do you need some inside connection to be politically involved. You need only a computer and a brain. What Barack Obama did was to democratize an American election, perhaps as had never been done before. This, I think, is the chief legacy and contribution of Obama. Not his policies or positions, but how he got elected in the first place.

Once in office, however, he hit a major roadblock. Perhaps he had democratized the election process, but the actual legislative process was (and is) still dominated by the old school machines: corporate lobbyists, political action committees, major media, powerful and monied interest groups, and good old-fashioned party loyalty.

The American political process is still a fumbling dinosaur, a fact that has been frustratingly illustrated by Obama's political impotence. Any "reform" bill he magages to pass is a piece of compromised bureaucratic poop.

But the movement, the change inspired by his election, continued. And when the fumbling dinosaur allowed ordinary Americans to lost their homes, their savings, their faith in American politics, this movement stepped up and evolved into something America has not seen since the Vietnam War: a real, national, grass-roots political movement...the Occupy Movement.

Using their technological savvy, global social media, and a newfound passion for participatory democracy, this movement has grown and continues to grow. I doubt presient Obama anticipated (or even wanted) the revolution his election inspired, but it is here just the same. The game has been changed, irreversibly.

One question that has been heavy on my mind for a while is...What's next? To quote Samwise Gamgee, "How can the world go back to the way it was after so much bad has happened?" We cannot go back. We can only go forward. I don't know what the future holds for American politics and society, but I am hopeful and I will continue to do my small part in my small corner of America, to seek a more just and peaceful and truly democratic America.

This is what the Occupy Movement is Protesting...

2011-12-01T08:56:00.001-08:00

The Occupy Movement is protesting the shady relationship between banks, corporations, and legislators. When people vote for a candidate, rarely do they look at which corporations are bankrolling their campaigns. In the future, this will become part of the conversation, thanks to the Occupy Movement.

To see which corporations are giving to any congressman, you can visit THE FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION.

Here is a local example. Here are some of the corporations who gave big bucks to Fullerton Congressman Ed Royce.

Ed Royce (R) Contributions over $5000:

Bank of America
Chevron
Edison
Allstate Insurance
American Bankers Association
American Express
Liberty Mutual
Lockheed Martin
Morgan Stanley
Pacific Life Insurance
Raytheon
Boeing
The Hartford
The Irvine Company
Wells Fargo
and more...

Ed Royce, you don't represent me.

Notes From the OccupyLA Police Eviction

2011-12-01T00:44:00.000-08:00

As I understand it, the Occupy Movement is not about "redistribution of wealth" or any such easily dismissible misnomers. It is protesting the very real power that large banks and corporations have over legislators. As someone who ran for City Council and has reviewed campaign contribution forms at the City Clerk's office, I know that this problem exists locally, and all the way up to the highest levels of government. The Occupy Movement is not some Communist/Socialist Plot. It is real people protesting the corporatization of the US government. What they want is participatory democracy, not oligarchy. Listen to the people, not the corporate media. Talk to an actual protestor. Educate yourselves. This shit is real and it is growing, and it is exciting. The following is a brief online chat I had with a friend of mine who was at the OccupyLA protest when the police forcefully evicted thousands of peaceful protestors.

"I got arrested at Occupy last night.."

"Holy shit, really? Did you get pepper sprayed? what happened?"

"So, I got pushed out of the actual encampment by the police almost as soon as I snuck past the perimeter...I hooked up with a contingent that was blocking one of the intersections...so that the arrest buses couldn't get through to the camp...after the cops tore down Tent City, they started coming after the intersections...I got arrested with a bunch of other people and they had us line up against a nearby fence..."Backs to the street!" they said...a couple cops hung back, as the rest pushed forward...THEN OUT OF FUCKING NOWHERE, this guy comes running down the line with wire cutters and snips our restraints..."

"Just a random dude with wire cutters?"

"Anarchist guy...I didn't know him, but you could tell he was skilled at unarresting...I almost died THRICE hopping a fence through a construction site...booking it through the whole time..."

"Did you get any photos or video?"

"Unfortunately, no video or pictures...I'm poor...all I had was a shitty phone...I keep the battery in with tape...haha...

"That is badass, although its a bummer they destroyed Tent City. Are there any plans to re-occupy?"

"I know they had a candlelight vigil today around city hall for those who got arrested (200+), but, I'm sure they'll have no problem re-occupying..."

Others: a poem

2011-11-30T20:21:00.000-08:00

At summer camp,
come meal time,
we all assumed a pretty
aggressive, "me-first"
attitude.

When food came to our table,
it was a no-holds-barred
free-for-all to see
who could grab the most
chicken strips, or pizza,
or pie, or whatever.

If you were not aggressive,
or fast enough,
you might get stuck
with a plate of beans.

Observing this,
our counsellor reminded us
of Jesus' command:
"Do unto others
as you would have them
do unto you."

It was, after all, church camp.

Out counsellor, Jeremy,
suggested that,
before serving ourselves,
we serve the guy next to us.
He called this "others."

Grudgingly, we complied.

But when Jeremy wasn't looking,
we cleverly inverted
the Golden Rule.

We would grab a bowl
of pasta salad, for example,
and, heaping giant spoonfuls
onto our own plates
we would say, mockingly,
"others."

What we meant was
that the guy who got stuck
with the plate of beans
should be grateful
that his food went to
"others"
as we stuffed our faces.

American Pharmacies: a poem

2011-11-30T20:10:00.000-08:00

I'm pretty sure that,
in most other countries,
pharmacies just dispense
medicine.

But, in America,
they are supermarkets
where you can buy clothes
and DVD players
and pop tarts
and booze
and cigarettes
and a Sham-Wow!

Self-Evaluation

2011-11-30T15:54:00.000-08:00

The end of a semester is always a little overwhelming for me. There are stacks and stacks of papers, literally hundreds of pages of student writing that I must not only read, but write comments on and evaluate.

This semester's end has been particularly overwhelming for me, and it was in the midst of feeling totally overwhelmed that I stumbled upon an idea that I think is pretty good.

For my student's last essays, I am making them do the bulk of the commenting. Let me explain, lest you think I'm just being lazy. There is a method and a purpose to my "laziness."

As a teacher of freshman English, there are a handful of comments that I find myself writing over and over and over and over again on student essays. I have seriously considered getting some rubber stamps made with these comments on them. Here they are:

"Grab my attention"
"Support claims with EVIDENCE"
"Needs development" (i.e. too short)
"Seems unorganized/scattered"
"Break up really looooong paragraphs"
"MLA format!"

Because freshman essays, by and large, tend to have these same problems, grading them has become more of a chore than a joy, especially when I have to grade 125 of them.

So here's my brilliant idea. For this last essay, I am making the students do the commenting. I write those six comments on the board, and have students go paragraph-by-paragraph on their essays, and write the comments as they see appropriate.

If a student thinks their essay is "perfect" or "just fine" they must raise their hand, and I will provide suggestions because writing is never perfect, even for experienced writers.

Here's my rationale. First, it frees up my grading time to focus more on the ideas of their essays instead of getting too caught up with the form. Second, it reinforces for students what I feel are important aspects of writing (focus, organization, development). Third, it teaches students to approach revision in a different way. Instead of them seeing revision as simply making the specific changes I mention in my comments, they are empowered to see themselves as instigators of revision, a part of the process. This is a skill I hope they will carry into other classes.

It is important to mention that I am doing this with their last essays. I have already graded and commented on a couple previous ones, so they are not ill-equipped.

I did this activity in my classes today, and it has worked rather well. The students identify formal problems with their writing, and I am freed to comment on their ideas, which is a much more stimulating and worthwhile activity for me.

This semester, as never before, I am experimenting with new teaching ideas. Too often I hear horror stories about teachers who are boring, passionless, and rather arbitrary with their grading. If we, as teachers, are not keeping things fresh and relevant and enjoyable, what's the point? If a student leaves a class thinking it was boring or irrelevant, I think we do them a great disservice.

Though I am a teacher, I am still learning.

The Loggerhead: a poem

2011-11-29T00:27:00.000-08:00

There are miracles happening all the time,
every day, mostly invisible to us.
Many of them are happening in the ocean,
way down deep, those strange fluorescent creatures,
delicate as paper, ancient as turtles.

The life of the loggerhead turtle,
the sea turtle, is a miracle.
Buried alive, born in sand,
no larger than a child's hand,
its journey begins in danger.

Soft-shelled, it makes its
perilous trek from land to sea,
running from crabs and gulls.
Half of them do not make it.
And when they do, as newborns,
they must swim 70 miles to the Gulf Stream,
where perhaps they will find a life raft
of seaweed to bear them north.

But perhaps it will drift off course,
into the wide Sargasso Sea,
a purgatory of no current, no wind,
a wasteland of oil and trash.

But, in the lifespan of a turtle,
a few lost years are okay, even normal.
Perhaps it will make its way back
to the Gulf Stream, with its in-born
magnetic map of the ocean.

A loggerhead is, in fact, never really lost.
It carries the genetic memory
of its ancestors, millions of years.
It knows what to do.
It knows, for example,
to find its way to the Caribbean,
where it will wait for 15 years,
after which something inside it
will compel it to move along,
its purpose being elsewhere.

The loggerhead turtle
is capable of being alone for years,
just swimming and eating,
guided by the earth's magnetism
and millions of years of memory,
its inheritance.

It knows where,
in the vastness of the ocean,
to find a mate, one mate.
It knows, after 20 years or so,
how to find the shore where it was born,
to lay new eggs,
and start the whole cycle over again.

It knows these things with a brain
the size of a walnut.
This is a miracle.
At this point, arguments about
creation and evolution
collapse into irrelevance.
The turtle doesn't know how to argue.
It knows how to live,
with a tenacity and fearlessness
and grace that I will never know.
This is a miracle.

In some ways, in a lot of ways,
I envy the loggerhead turtle.
It goes through its life with unflagging purpose.
It knows, by heart,
when to swim like hell,
and when to wait for 15 years
in a kelp bed.
It knows how to listen
to the stillness of its own inner purpose.

And me, writing alone on a couch
at my parents' house,
my head messy with depression,
asking myself: What am I supposed to do?
My brain is like 15 times bigger
than the loggerhead's,
and yet I fumble around
and fuck up and live
in a haze of confusion,
unable to answer the question
a fucking sea turtle
doesn't even need to ask:
What am I supposed to do?

But I will not end the poem there,
because, messy head or no,
I still believe in miracles.
For I am also like the loggerhead.
I know how to listen to the stillness
of my heart, even when I have drifted
into the oily trashy wide Sargasso Sea.

I know that it is okay to wait,
sometimes for a very long time.
I know that it is sometimes appropriate
to swim like hell,
and sometimes it is appropriate
to ride a seaweed raft for a thousand miles,
or take refuge under a quilt
sewn by my grandmother
before I was born,
my inheritance.

I know to trust that thing inside me
(call it evolution/fate/soul/heart)
that compels me to keep going,
that I have many miles to swim,
many places to see,
creatures to encounter,
and a largely unspoken/invisible purpose
that is no less real
than my flesh and bones.

The loggerhead is totally okay
swimming alone for thousands of miles,
into the abyss of the Atlantic.
Other travelers will cross its path,
other strange wanderers,
each with its own journey and purpose
that has something to do with
its ancestors and with the future.

The loggerhead can survive
the cold of the arctic seas
and the warmth of the Caribbean.
Its heart is adaptable.
The loggerheads outlived the dinosaurs,
took refuge in the ocean
when the world burned and then froze.

They are the ancient ones,
who are guided on their journey
by the same invisible power
that turns northern skies
to green fire, the aurora borealis.

Humans and loggerheads have similar lifespans,
but turtles predate us by ages.
Humans are, geologically speaking,
relative newcomers to this planet,
still fumbling around
and fucking things up.

We haven't yet established
that invisible inner map
that guides the loggerhead.
We spill oil in the ocean;
the loggerhead holds its breath
and swims to friendlier waters.
We dip nets in the ocean;
The loggerhead grimaces and swims on.
It has seen worse threats, much worse.

Given such a humanity,
how do I resolve the poem?
There is no resolution, I suppose,
except quiet wonder at the loggerhead,
and the comfort derived
from such ancient miracles.

Barroom Monologue

2011-11-28T14:22:00.001-08:00

The following is an excerpt from a work-in-progress called The Town I Live In.

"I never went to college. It wasn't for me. After high school, I packed up and moved to Las Vegas. I graduated from the school of Las Vegas life. But I was always a good speller. I was the best speller in my school all the way through high school. I won all the spelling bees. I beat Mark Dannemeyer every year, even though he was Valedictorian and went to some ivy league school and now he's a big lawyer or some shit. I beat him every time. I hated school, but I could spell like a motherfucker. I got my real estate license. I was working for this finance company and everyone would ask me all the time, 'How do you spell this?' And I would tell them. Sometimes when I was in the shitter, I would sit and read the fuckin air freshener can, cus what else am I gonna do in there? And, you know what? I found spelling errors on that goddammed can."