medida del hombre

What is a man’s worth? How do you gauge his weight, not in pounds but in impact? How do you quantify him, by actions or by bank account? Are deeds of daring more manly or are standing by your values? Is there a celestial tallying system that gives opportunities and hindrances upon global decisions? Are there universal truths about what is and is not acceptable for a man and how they are viewed?

Not easy questions to answer, I know. These are just a taste of the things that have been taking up my time and energy. Its been a long time since I have posted, I know dear reader. There has been a lot going on in these last nine (really?! holy christ…) months. I have started a number of posts but they just did not come. Blocked up by a seemingly constant state of motion of new and unfamiliar circumstances. Here’s the greatest hits…

I started dating again, at one point dating two women at the same time. I ended it with the first and became exclusive with the second, let’s call her M’lady. We met online (I know, I WAS the guy haranguing the downfall of humanity because of the anonymity of weblife. My life is one big contradiction, I get it.). I went to the Great Commonwealth over the holidays and brought back my little brother. We moved in together and I spent most of my time over at M’lady’s apartment. I taught a class on San Francisco films and blogging critiques to 8th graders. I moved into a new, bigger apartment with my brother and a friend. I stayed there less than 10 days between March and May. I told my job that I no longer wanted to continue employment in my then current role and that I was resolved to find a classroom position. I applied, wrote, interviewed, hoped, pleaded, resumé-ed, hurried, and was rejected ever since. I decided to move out of Berkeley and into another apartment with M’lady, in Oakland. I tried finding someone to take over my part of the rent so that my brother and my friend did not have to move out and move on. Alas, there’s the business of best laid plans…

More recently, I spent the summer chasing my youth around the rocky coast, giant redwoods, and majestic mountain tops. I went back to the Commonweal, only this time with M’lady. We participated in the only true sport of my homeland, toured the beloved sites, and she was introduced to everyone important, and a few not so much.

Returning to the Promised Land, I found myself…at a loss. The resolved classroom never materialized. Hoping to empower my lobby to get an honest-to-goodness classroom in an honest-to-goodness school I started an (online) class (I know, TWO things that I had previously bemoaned. Contradiction. Got it. Can we move on?). So, now I am working at lease three days a week, subbing for classes that are neither my own nor I am trained to be in, working on a series of online classes for a certification that has no guarantee other than to put me more into debt, and using the rest of my time trying to not slide down the slippery slope of the working class mindset of regret, self hatred, and fear. Heavy, no?

Whew! When I put it all down like that its pretty amazing how much can happen in a short amount of time. There’s a lot there and, I guess, a bit to be proud of. But, there has been this overwhelming and constant feeling that I have been struggling to explain and quantify. It’s not surprising nor even new. I have been grappling with it most of my life and even more in adulthood.

When I was a boy, I often wondered how adults got so smart. How did they become the voices of reason and advice? At the time, I was of the persuasion that there was a higher power and He would bestow things on His believers, I had decided that it just happened when it was time to be an adult. And it would happen when you proved you were ready, by way of some mystical, unseen tally system based on faith, and being kind and humane. Sure, there were those older people who were foolish, obtuse, or even criminal, but I just thought they were childish more than anything and they had not “grown up”.  Subsequently, through a series of events and unsatisfying conversations with my “religious leaders”, I lost my religion. Not in a REM way but in the adrift sort of way. I had to readdress the question. Without a higher power and the bestowal, how do you know when you are an adult? Through trying to find this answer I found only more questions, many of which introduced this blog. Of those, the most conspicuous was what is a man?

What is a Man? There’s a lot wrapped up in those three letters. I’m not even sure where to begin. Everyone seems to have an image of what a “Man” is in their head, but there are few that can offer a definition. What is usually offered, when pressed, usually amounts only to hobbies. Sports, beer, and barbeque essentially. These are common sentiments but they do not fit. I know plenty of women that love and willingly participate in those things, so there has to be something else. When I look back at the men I looked up to as a youth, there are some things that stand out in my mind as to what I thought was manly, and to some extent, still do. Things like: telling the truth, standing by your morals, working hard, being modest, doing the right thing, supporting your family, and being faithful to country, friends and most importantly family. There have been some adaptations but the core is still there. It’s these that I thought were universal. And with them there are certain expectations that society has for men. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to sound like some small minded male chauvinist here. There were just some chivalrous things that I always did that I thought were expected and welcome. A sign of higher breeding or thinking. Holding doors, pulling out chairs, killing spiders, carrying heavy things, etc. I performed these deeds not because I thought women couldn’t do those things for themselves or that I was using these things to impress panties off of them but because I felt that I was, socially speaking, expected to.

When I moved to the Left Coast, there were many things that were new and unfamiliar to me. I have been able to wrap my head around most of them but how men are viewed out here is something new to me. Very nearly, every preconceived notion I had has been shown invalid. A perfect example of this is the search for a job. With hard work and sincerity in interviews and conversations I had expected some snags, some interests, some…thing. But there was nothing. I didn’t expect these things because I felt that I deserved them but because I had proven my worth. But, I guess these people had felt I was not worthy and therefore worthless. Ugh. There is no greater fouling of a male psyche than to pronounce him worthless.

Recently, I watched a documentary about the Greek demigod, Hercules. Of course, they covered the stories of his strength but there was much more there. Despised by a vengeful step-mother, remorseful for the loss of his family, and so eager to clear his name and show his worth he took up not just one unfathomable and deadly job, or in the parlance: “labor”, but TWELVE! And with which he took trophies to show just how legitimate he was. He is very commonly portrayed with his first trophy on his head and shoulders, the pelt of the Nemean lion. Clearly, this was the very definition of manhood. Slay beasts, take on difficult tasks and insurmountable odds, clear your name.

But now, things are different. There are not beasts to slay and hardly are there insurmountable odds. Your actions don’t prove your worth, you have to verbalize your worth, in minutia. What the people in the biz say is “sell yourself”. Yeah. Like I’m some fucking doll or foot lotion that I have to convince you that you NEED. Pointless to point out, I am no good at this. I have always thought that my work will speak for me. Or, if you can’t see my work, look at the pain and suffering I went through to get to this point. Look at my scars, see my trophies. Surely, that will be enough. Well, evidently it isn’t. Scars are not always easy to see. Trophies are not given, or taken, anymore. And, in an intellectual world, it is hard to point at something whole, something tangible, that you can say “I did that. That was me.” So, you have to rest on telling them about your exploits and in a world of liars and cheats its hard to find some believers.

I try to not be sour, become cynical (more than I already am). I write all this not say that I am better than anyone else, I just want to be validated. I am no better than anyone else, I don’t mean to besmirch anyone’s credit. All I am saying is that sometimes men don’t want to be seen as boys, the way women don’t want to be viewed as girls. I have worth, I have worked hard and I have reasons to prove. I stand with the Nemean pelt across my shoulders and I hope it can be seen.

 

Poetry and the Residents of Cicely

It really is funny how your mind works. Seemingly unconnected things can have profound associations after they have bounced around in your gourd for a while. Sometimes inexplicable connections are made. Take for example the other day: I was drinking some delicious mint tea (Bigelow Mint Medley for those keeping score) and I suddenly started to think about the Edinboro History Club, of which I was a member during my undergrad years. Not so much a nostalgic pining of romanticized campus life and occurrences of outwardly audacious camaraderie, but a very specific time and event.

It must have been ‘96 or ‘97. Two fellow members and I teamed with a certain department member and conspired to make a histo-political statement in front of the Baron-Forness Library (pre-renovations) on campus. On the eve of Columbus Day we, sans faculty member, attempted to string up a banner stating something about genocide and Columbus being a war criminal or some shit, and plant a sea of Popsicle stick crosses to blanket the grassy knoll that was the front of the building. All for the eyes of the 6000+ undergrads to look at and contemplate the meaning of the holiday. For me, it was a bold act to create and inform. To question our existence and move forward with a renewed wonderment for life and “what it all means.”

All was for not, though. For the fuzz showed up and we all ran for the bushes. They had ripped up and torn down our handiwork and we were left holding our dicks in our hands, so to speak. So, instead of running the risk of being arrested for vandalism, we went our separate ways. Quickly.

I’ve been having thoughts like this for weeks now. It’s no real surprise, I’m homesick. My entire last post was about this longing. Things have only slightly changed. Recently, I was able to go back to the Great Commonwealth and see friends, family, the fiery leaves of autumn, and to shiver against the encroaching cold. I went to Erie, specifically.

For those of you that do not know, I had lived in Erie for six years and more or less hated every stinking minute of it. I had lost touch with nearly all my friends and family, I became damn near a chain smoker, worked too fucking much for too little, I drank like a fish, noshed on soul-sucking, waistband busting bar food, and swallowed nothing but insults and put downs from my then succubus, um…ahem, girlfriend. It was not what you might call my “finest days.”

So, my return to that city was not expected to be heraldic. I was there to officiate a wedding (my fifth!) for my friends and then turn around the day after and fly back to the Left Coast. I did not expect much. But during the time there I was able to reconnect with family and reminisce with those people that I had tried to enjoy the “Mistake-on-the-Lake” living. At one point, I walked into my former workplace (what can only be described as the cultural mecca of Erie) Barnes & Noble and I was accosted with handshakes, back-slaps, and hugs! Dear lord! I felt like a celebrity! I had expected to see exactly zero I knew and people that I had not even thought about since moving to Cali were coalescing out of the ether to say “Hi!” I was and am humbled. With the wonderful wedding, it turned out to be a great trip and had put the homesick hounds at bay for a time.

Back in the East Bay, the jet lag quickly dispersed to the return of the aforementioned hounds. I had gone back into my head. With all of the talk of the Alaskan Governor’s run for veep-hood and Ted Stevens’ conviction, I have taken to renting and watching seasons of Northern Exposure en masse. I had forgotten just how much I truly love this show! At first glance, admittedly, its your basic “fish-out-of-water” comedy set up but if you go deeper is it so much more. The philosophical, historical, social, and literate aspects of the show that are covered in a mere hour show is mind boggling!

If you are unfamiliar, the show’s premise is a recently graduated doctor from New York City, is promised his medical school bills to be paid off fully by the State of Alaska if he puts in four years as the resident practitioner of the town of Cicely. Unwitting to just how secluded and un-NYC it was, he is quickly awakened to the “hell” that he has found himself in. Essentially, it turns into a supposed prison without bars for Dr. Joel Fleischman who clicks off the days like marks on his cell’s wall.

The amazing thing about Cicely, and any great television show for that matter, is that it is full of interesting and empowered individuals that you find yourself wanting to share a cup of tea or, as in this case, a beer at The Brick. If the show is compelling, you can, on some level, see yourself in it’s universe. Walking down the streets, sitting in the living room, riding in the trucks. I had not really realized it before these recent viewings, but a large portion of my subconscious is preoccupied with that town. If you were to wander through my dreams, we would all be wearing -50 degree coats and talking about the Mosquito Festival in Ruth Ann’s store.

Truth be told, the plot is formulaic. Shows have to have a formula to follow to keep it organized, but the trick is to have numerous subplots to move around in to keep the thing going forward. There is no shortage of these on Northern Exposure. Some of which aren’t even re-entertained until a season of two down the road! This is a show with memory. Wonderful. But, I must admit, what makes me want to continue to watch the show is the people. The town seems to be filled with self-actualized, cosmopolitans that we never get their full story but are completely comforted in the fact that they are there. A town full of misfits, square pegs, nonconformists, and eccentrics that all move in and out of each others’ path with enough consciousness and attention to be in everyone else’s business but not enough to care. It is really funny how they had set the role reversal. Dr. Fleischman, from NYC, is supposed to be the big cityite that has seen it all and can take it all but turns out to be stymied at every turn by the seemingly “simple” residents of Cicely.

Every character gives another luscious layer to the onion of Northern Exposure, but I seemed to have latched onto Chris Stevens. Chris was the poetry-spouting ex-con radio host on KBHR, the officiant of all proceedings of the religious nature, the embodiment of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. For some reason, the younger, impressionable me found something greatly compelling in this character. Every episode I watch now has revealed something of my self that parallels something of this character. For example, I am a minister of sorts. That is to say that I have ministered weddings. My first couple, Mark and Elaine, and I were watching Northern Exposure when we hatched the idea of me doing their wedding for them. The story on the show is that Chris filled out a form from the back of Rolling Stone to become a minister; I updated that idea and went on the internet and, well, filled out a form. Chris suffuses every conversation with reference to philosophy, street level or Nobel. Somehow his homilies at weddings are completely about death and the futility of “hitching your horse to one post” but somehow its perfect. Its a high water mark that I strive for in my officiating but fall short every time. I just hope my charges are happy with their day.

Throughout there is mystery and lore, partly (I believe) because a focal point of the show is the large indigenous population. The shows are filled with or follow legends and beliefs of the Alaskan natives. Storylines cover the mysterious, the magical, and the unknown where the climax is that sometimes you Just. Don’t. Know. Maybe the wind does make you act irrationally. Maybe your temper is shortened in the waiting for the ice to melt. Maybe, just maybe, you can switch consciousnesses with your half brother that you never knew you had.

The wonderment of life is covered and reexamined at every turn. Science has a place but, ya know, there are some things that just are. It is this mindset that pervades every aspect of Cicely-living, a self-realized comfort of becoming one with your own existence. The basics are covered. The heat is on. You’re fed. The chores are done. Now you can look in and try to find the truth, the poetry of life. C.M. Bowra wrote in the forward of Octavio Paz’s Mexican Poetry, “Poetry lives by tradition. It derives from the past not merely its consciousness of its own nature and function but much of its technique and outlook. In doing this it not only keeps alive great discoveries made in the world of spirit but makes new discoveries of a similar character for its age.”

I think that says it all. Poetry is alive and well in Cicely. That may be the ultimate problem Dr. Fleischman has: an analytical thinker can rarely look beyond explanation and just accept. If you just stop and listen to the wind, smell the ether, stare at the wonderment you can find great things that don’t need to be defined or quantified. Art, music, love, poetry they all try to touch it and sometimes you can get close. I try to find it every day. In the bold night-shrouded acts and standing at the edge of the mystery with two that are to about to marry. Watch the clip.

 

But the Moon…Oh, the Moon

Sunday night, September 13, was the Harvest Moon. Midway through my routined NPR listening, I was informed of this and made a point to go out and try to get a glimpse of it through the bright city lights. What a wonderful night for it! The temperature had dropped considerably and the fog had not rolled across the Bay yet. Clear, cool, pristine, quiet.

Specifically, the Harvest Moon is the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox, and what makes it special is the time that it rises. It comes up with very close proximity to the sun going down. And thus making a very short time of darkness, if any at all, between the two. Farmers would use this phenomena to their advantage with Artemis and Apollo united again above them to bring in their crops.

There was no trouble in seeing the moon. It was, as they say back home, “as big as all get out!” I could not see very many stars, but the moon… oh, the moon. A short distance from my apartment, I got it in my sights and I stopped in my tracks. I was entranced. This has always happened to me. When I was growing up, from my bedroom window, I would watch it’s slow arc and let my thoughts wander through the day’s events, gliding to farther memories or swirl forward to future wonderment. Sometimes for hours, I would moon over the orb. Ultimately returning to bed for exhaustion, disappearance behind clouds or over the house, or quizzical parental units.

But now its gettin late, And the moon is climbin high, I want to celebrate, See it shinin in your eye.

I have always cherished this time of year. The shorter days, the cooler temperature, the slowing down, it all triggers a mental inwardness, introspection. Granted, I have been accused of “living in my head” but this is different. Introspection is not being reticent, withdrawn, or even farouche. For me it has always been a personal inventorying of the year past and curiosity of what is to come. To take into account the successes and the disappointments. To learn from mistakes and missteps and attempt to revive merriment from a joyous memory. It seems a natural process. Everything has seasons, even human emotions.

We are spoiled here in the Bay Area. The temperature is an average of 60-70 degrees all year round. There is little alteration in the outlook. People love it. They speak of the weather not in small talk ways but like they are recounting their favorite book. So much so, that any major change in it sends them into a general malaise. As soon as the sun breaks through the clouds, the spirits are lifted and all is well. It can seem a bit childish. This is of no great surprise.

The Bay Area has some of the most desired zip codes in America, present economic woes notwithstanding. The residents know this and treat living here like its a club. An exclusive club. A VERY exclusive club. Where you get whatever you want, when you want it. And if you do not get it you pout, become irritable, or even belligerent. Like that spoiled child, the Bay Area does not pause to reconsider their actions, to put things into a larger scale. Just focused on the infantile demands.

I have found myself slipping into this mindset and I don’t like it. I suppose living somewhere for a while, you start to pick up idiosyncrasies. It is this self-revelation that appeared to me in this Harvest Moon. My wandering thoughts also remembered the frost-covered September mornings, the shock of oranges, reds, and yellows in the hills, the extra blankets for sleeping, and visible breath of the Commonwealth.

I have become fairly homesick. I can’t shake it. The thing that is really getting to me is the lack of physical change in the environment around me. There is only more of the same. Even today’s rain (the first since I don’t know when) had little impact on me. I guess the honeymoon is over. Can you have too much of a good thing? Maybe.

I don’t know how long I stood on that corner staring heavenward. I was shaken out of my enchantment when a pedestrian happened by. He was walking his dog and was looking at anything but the Moon. “Evening,” he said as more of a reaction than a conversation. “Hello,” I said. “Cold enough for you?”, he asked. “Not nearly enough,” I responded and turned home, humming the below song.

 

Your Hypocracy is Astounding

Mother fuck you, Alice Waters. This last statement will, and has made me somewhat of a pariah in some circles of Berkeley. She seems to be the Patron Saint of the town. To hear residents talk about her you would think the sun rises and sets over her flat fucking ass.

A little historical and informational perspective may be in order here. According to her Wikipedia page, Alice is an East Coast transplant, New Jersey specifically, to the Bay Area. She studied at Cal and then went on a year-long studying tour of France. Coming back to the states she decided to develop a restaurant, Chez Panisse, to essentially encapsulate her time in France. Chez Panisse’s shtick is to serve fixed price meals, prepared by using primarily French-style cooking techniques, and only locally grown, in-season ingredients. Hence, “California Cuisine” was born.

While, and because of, doing this, she has become a champion of organic and small farm produce. Ms. Waters even developed a school lunch program for a local Middle School and later the whole school district, called the “Edible Schoolyard”, in an effort to help curb childhood obesity. Also, she has been uber advocate for the Slow Food Movement. More on this in a minute.

So, she seems pretty cool, right? I mean, these are things that I sorta support. In a time of global warming and economic meltdown, who couldn’t get behind supporting local, organic farming? AND, a program to help curb childhood obesity? Surely, you have been reared at the teats of Aphrodite and Athena, Alice Waters. If she were in her mortal shell once again, Mother Teresa would bow in your honor. Brava.

No, not really. Please allow me to retort. Did you notice that she had a post-studies, YEAR LONG tour of France? Who does this? Better yet, who can afford to do something like this? This sounds very similar to the much written about “Grand Tour” that 19th century rich industrialists’ sons took after graduating to “take in the culture”. Which was essentially philandering through the beds of doe-eyed Europeans, staying just long enough to learn how to say: sure I like you but I’m not in love with you. Can you hand me my pants? in the local language. I mean a whole fucking year? When I graduated, I could barely afford to drive my car back across campus to my apartment from the graduation ceremony, much less fuck my way through a European country for 365 days!

So, she was able to spend a year abroad. Maybe she hosteled and backpacked for most of it, but I doubt it. Nothing I’ve read about or by Alice Waters mentions anything resembling “humble beginnings” so I can only surmise that she is of the same ilk that own land in the Hamptons and talk of “summering” on Martha’s Vineyard. Or take up pet projects to help those unfortunates who were not born of such fine breeding. Projects that would land them in the photos in the Sunday paper’s Style section, blithely smiling with their associates at a garden party. Upper class people finding a cause to throw money at, in order to increase their notoriety and tax breaks. Neighborhood watches, shoes for Brazilian children, local theater groups, or childhood obesity.

On the surface, or the top soil (as the case may be), a program to show kids that lettuce is better to eat than Twinkies is pretty good. But, I can’t get past the fact that this stinks of “white man’s burden”. The foundation that brought this program to the schools (the Chez Panisse Foundation) is filled with primarily upper class whites who, in turn, started this program for a school district filled with Latino and Black students that most of the foundation wouldn’t even consider sending their children to, opting for other institutions (read as: private, privileged, and white).

What is more, somewhere in all of the back-slapping, some of Ms. Waters’ acquaintances coined a culturally insensitive nickname for the area of Berkeley that Chez Panisse resides. Plainly because it shares the same parcels of real estate as the high end restaurants of The Cheeseboard, Cesar, and the first Peet’s Coffee, it has  become know as the Gourmet Ghetto. Are you fucking kidding me? Let’s look at this for a second.  I understand the “gourmet” part but “ghetto”? Do these fuckheads know what the actual ramifications of using a word like “ghetto” are? Do they realize that it develops feelings of being forsaken and of segregation: social, cultural, and RACIAL! There’s a Jewish deli not a block away from Panisse’s stoop, for fuck’s sake!

If that’s not enough, Ms. Waters has become a major advocate (a “governor” by some reports) of the Slow Food Movement. These foodie elitists really get my dander up. They are an Italy-based movement to “combat” fast food and fast life. According to their Slow Food Manifesto “[w]e are enslaved by speed and have all succumbed to the same insidious virus: Fast Life, which disrupts our habits, pervades the privacy of our homes and forces us to eat Fast Foods.”

These “eco-gastronomic” supporters (their self-prescribed name) have given themselves the charge to help “counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world.” Well, its a commendable idea but flawed for sure. If they think that simply “slowing down” will heal all the world’s problems, its starry-eyed nostalgia and a damn bit short-sighted. They seem to want to go back to a “simpler time” when food was savored and paused over with the meals being built from scratch. Never mind the blatant anti-feminist leaning here, maybe they forget that people have to work long and hard in these “fast times” so that they can have enough money so that they can eat at the “eco-gastronomy” restaurants. One look at Chez Panisse’s menu, you see the problem. How are you supposed to “slow down” and still make enough moolah to be able to afford the upwards of $75 per meal? That’s for one person, by the way. If you have children, you’re fucked. Once again, who can afford this? Who are of the type that can afford to live this way?

To top it all off, and what really got me thinking about all of this, local supporters of this international movement (don’t worry, dear readers, the juxtaposition of this sentence and movement is not beyond me) staged a concert and program filled festival this weekend in San Francisco to get the word out. The San Francisco Chronicle has been putting up a fair amount of press behind it and even put a guide in last Sunday’s paper and more online.

The focus of the festival: the concert, named Slow Food Rocks! (gag.), touted big name acts like Gnarls Barkley, G. Love, Phil Lesh, and Ozomatli. With tickets costing $59-79, for single or multi-day attendance, I can’t help but to point out that the supposed support of “localization” is offering festivities that can only be attended by the better off and the bands are anything but of the “local” variety. Well, there is Phil Lesh. But I wouldn’t really call the former Greatful Dead member “local”, he’s been somewhere else for years.

So, Alice, I stand by my original statement. Your foodie glitterati isn’t helping anyone but yourselves. As if your back-handed racism and echos of anti-feminism aren’t enough, recently, as pointed out in a grist.org article, when asked about higher food prices and inability of families to actually meet their food needs, you responded with: “make a sacrifice on the cell phone or the third pair of Nike shoes.” Christ, you’re out of touch. You sound like you’re telling them to eat cake. Well, you know what the struggling masses did with the last person to tell them to eat cake? In the words of your Rocks! headliner: And I hope that you are/ having the time of your life/ but think twice/ that’s my only advice/ come on now, who do you/ who do you/ who do you think you are?/ Ha ha ha, bless your soul/ You really think you’re in control?/ Well I think you’re crazy…

 

Berkeley Police, Open Up Please…

There has always been something great in a Welcome Home. It has always been part of our collective experience. From the “prodigal son” stories, to When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again, its place in life has been well documented. Everyone wants to return to their homes and be greeted with smiles and open arms. Truth be told, I have always loved this. As a child, I dreamt of going off to far places, for a long time, and come home to a big, happy greeting. Read into this as you will, but those fantasies are now beyond me. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child…

When I first moved to California, nearly three years ago, I was really bothered by all the crime that was going on in the Bay Area. Every night I watched the news there were more and more reports of homicides, double homicides, assaults, car-jackings, etc. I took solace in the fact that they were not happening near me. I could localize the violence and avoid those area. I reasoned it away: overpopulation, drugs, poverty, mental illness, some ships need a larger berth. Problem solved, right? Well, mostly.

Don’t get me wrong, there was still crime around where I lived but it seemed to be crimes of opportunity. Crime is crime, but with this type you could prevent the possibility of becoming prey. Lock your doors, lock your windows, put your things in the trunk of your car, don’t leave your laptop unattended in a cafe, keep your bag closed and close to your body. Pretty basic stuff here. Even growing up in a town of less than 5000 people, I knew these and it is amazing to me that this is not standard operating procedures for others.

This gets me back to what I started this entry about. Recently, I went back to the great Commonwealth, with a sally into the former Catholic colony. Great welcomings all around. I am always happy to see my friends and family. Especially now, since I went through a time of estrangement with both camps, nearly equal in amount. But this is a subject for another dispatch. Whirlwind as it was, it was tremendously fun and a fulfilling time. But the time came for me to manifest my destiny and return westward.

The trip back was uneventful, at most. I caught the planes, they took me where I needed to go. I got back to my apartment and everything was as it should have been. No break-ins, no damage, no cause for concern. Not that I had a reason to believe this would happen. Its just that sort of creeping anxiety that you get when you are away and you don’t have someone to “watch over” your place for you.

I spent the next day busying myself with getting groceries, cleaning, laundry, getting used Promised Land living again. I went to bed kind of early, I had to work the next day. Sleeping soundly, I was awoken to a knocking at my door, somewhere near quarter to 5 am. In my bleary, dream-soaked mind, I didn’t respond, hoping that it was just a passing car or a neighbor dropping something against our shared wall, or the vestiges of a forgotten dream. These thin inclinations began to be wane once I realized there was flashing lights sifting through my blinds and curtains, and they were formally dashed with the doorbell. “Hello?” I gruffly asked through the door. “Berkeley police,” a voice responded. ” Open up please, I would like to ask you some questions.”

The police officer asked exactly three questions: “Have you heard anything having to do with an attempted crime that happened in the past 30 to 40 minutes?” (no.) “What’s your name?” “What’s the address to this residence?” I answered each one of them with my recently risen, phlegm-coated voice and he apologized for “waking you up, buddy.” and moved onto another apartment.

Once I closed the door, my mind sparked awake and I was full of questions and I went from window to window to try to get some answers from what I saw. Nobody in the back of any of the five (!) police cars on the street. No caution tape or flash lighted searches in the park across the street. No screaming, yelling, or hurried movement. Just police officers milling about the sidewalk and their cars. No real information to be taken in without going outside and asking, but if this was an investigation, they were not going to tell me anything. Besides, it was five o’clock in the morning. I was tired. I had to go to work at eight. It probably was just a couple of homeless guys fighting each other. There is always homeless people milling about the park. Berkeley is full of them.

Feeling a bit vulnerable, I went back to bed and pulled the covers up a bit higher. After a while I fell back to sleep and had uneasy dreams. With the alarm clock, I got up and started to get ready for work and was greeted by the doorbell again. This time it was a concerned neighbor. She asked me if I knew what was going on. I told her about my early morning visit from the Badge. She said that there were some people gathered around one of the other apartments and asked if I wanted to go see if they knew anything. Which we did. Unhappily, we found out that one of our neighbors was treated to a break in and an attempted rape. GOD DAMN, FUCKING SHIT! I’m not going to go into the details but you can look at this news video for them.

Welcome home, Rev. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not victimizing myself, but DAMMIT! Why does it have to happen here? Why does it have to happen anywhere? I don’t know much about my neighbor but I’m pretty sure that she didn’t deserve this. No one does. Also, the scary shit is that it seems that this motherfucker had planned it out. He had watched the place. He knew where and when to strike. Her apartment was way in the back of the property. It happened after the security lights went out. He planned it out and he acted. This is beyond the “opportunity crimes” that I had previously mentioned. I am pissed. I’m angry that this thing happens. Why do some men feel they can do this and think that it is okay? I’m embarrassed to even share my chromosomes with these assholes. I won’t say that the answer is castration of these fuckers, but it is starting to sound better and better. Worst part is that, as of this printing, they have not caught him, and there was another break in and attempted rape this past Sunday at a nearby location and the description of the perp is the same. Even worse, they think this is the same guy that raped two other women in two other similar break ins that are within a mile radius of each other!

So, here’s the silver-lining, Pollyanna. I now can say that I know most of my neighbors. We have gotten together a couple of times and shared feelings, anecdotes, glasses of wine, and smiles. Now we actually stop and say “hello.” In fact, I’ve become fairly good friends with one of them and I check in on her often. Actually, I try to check in on a lot of my neighbors, since most of them are single women. Not that I’m trying to be some sort of big protector, daddy figure, but I just want them to know that I’m there for them. I want to express to them that some guys, say me, actually care and want to help.

I know that in times as this, you can start to feel like you are alone. You can feel like you have to only rely on your own fortitude and always be looking over your shoulder. That can be exhausting, especially after your daily grind. You start to think of ways to get a protective advantage. You start considering to carry weapons and avoid contact with others. You pull away from everyone. But, sometimes if someone just gives you a smile, if they ask how you are doing and actually wait for a response, you can start to feel like you are part of a group, a community. You’re not in it alone, there are people there for you, to offer you help, to welcome you home.

 

Dude, Are They Talking To Us?

As in all things, I’m late. I have always been late. In fact, my family has the ignoble reputation of always being the last to arrive. Referencing this, I have recently been self-depreciatingly saying: “if you look up late in the dictionary, there will be a picture of my family tree there.” If you keep reading this weblog and, more importantly, if I keep writing it, you will find that I will be writing about things that are not as current as they should be. With that said…

June 16, at close of the business day, 5:01 PM, San Francisco started to officially conduct same-sex marriages. This was huge news! Legally speaking, the reason for it happening is because the California Supreme Court found that denying it is unconstitutional. You can get all of the back story, front story, middle story, under story, and over story here: same-sex marriage.

Personally, I’m happy about it but I really have nothing more invested in it than my personal convictions towards human rights. That’s not to say that it is not important to me, it is. I’m just not going to go dancing in the streets, I’ll keep that on the inside. There are many people that I know that the decision is truly emancipating and I’m not trying to undermine their victory. Bully for them and it is what it is to me.

Speaking of me, I have always had some connection to the gay community. I’m straight but I have always supported gay rights, and some of my best friends are gay. Not that I’m looking for some sort of tolerance medal or anything but I have always, in some way, been part of the struggle for acceptance. Mostly because I have had experiences as I will share with you now.

The Friday before the aforementioned date, my buddy Josh, his lady friend Gina, and I went to a little place in Albany, in the East Bay, called The Pub. Its a great little place. Situated on the main drag of town and in a remodeled house, it has the bookshelves, fireplace, large comfy seating and mismatched chair and table ensembles that I imagine an Anglophile might decorate with to try to recreate a countryside pub.

We sampled a few of the English ales and porters on tap, and pontificated on everything, oddly enough, EXCEPT gay marriage. When the conversation waned and eyelids began to rest around half mast, we decided to leave. Not having a car and it being a bit of a walk, Josh gave me ride and Gina drove separately. Josh said his good nights to her and we went our separate ways.

On the way to his truck, about four blocks away and on a side street, Josh and I were lost in inconsequential conversation when behind us some loud-mouthed youths appeared. No big deal, this is a heavily populated area of the country and there are always people around, especially in this suburban town. They were walking behind us and talking very loudly. I thought they were just mouthing off to each other but as we walked, I started to notice that Josh had become fairly rigid and stopped talking. “Dude, are they talking to us?” I asked. “Yeah, they have been.”

They were slinging some wonderfully hateful words at us. I’ve heard them all before. I have even had them all directed at me: “Where ya goin’ faggot?!” “You gonna suck each others’ dicks, faggots?!” “Hey faggot-assed faggot!” “Fuckin’ homo!”

You get the point. Probably the most shocking of all this was not that it was directed at us or even their wording, what was shocking was this was going on in the Bay Area! And not even in the outlining areas where there is smaller minds and populations. This is right across the bay, 7 miles, from the first US city to elect an openly gay man to a political office (Harvey Milk) and unfortunately, the first to assassinate one, too. Since then, the Bay Area has become the mecca of homosexuality and the lifestyle has been tolerated, if not down-right accepted. This is why the whole experience is so flabbergasting to me! Its been a long time since I have heard any whispers, jeers, or outright slander towards homosexuality.

So, when these gay-bashers were following us to the truck, I was so awestruck I didn’t react. No emotion, no fear, no retaliation. I just kept walking to the truck and when we got to it I just stood by the door, being pelted with Cheetos, waiting for Josh to open it. When I got in, I closed the door and just stared at the youths as they walked by. Actually, two of the threesome kept walking, seemingly fulfilled in their hate crime, but the third had something to prove. He kept spitting the slings and arrows of hate at Josh and I as we got in the vehicle. I couldn’t stop looking at this ass. I was transfixed.

When Josh finally got in, he started the truck and revved the engine. Seemingly sick of this punk’s tirade, he threw it into gear and jumped the curb. Stopping just short of him, this seemed to make the kid more angry and he started to kick the door, my door. My response: an apathetic stare and the double-bird salute. How do you deal with this type of situation? You back off of the curb and drive home. No reason to deal with this any further. The buzz was killed, we were tired and the imbecile had something to reconsider.

So, I guess that homosexuality is still a hot button issue. As much as everyone, including myself, would like to believe that this area is a bastion to a better, accepting America, it is not. There is a long road ahead and an even longer history of bigotry. There is hope that we, as a society, can get past all of this but as of right now, I’m not so sure. So much for acceptance, meccas, and martyrs.