In Black Ink

2010-03-05T08:43:00.001-08:00

The Chamber music concert Sunday afternoon definitely brought back fond memories. Music was a big part of my childhood. While I can recall some negatives all involving my father and his mercurial temper, music itself was always a lovely thing.

Deciding what to do about the move to Austin has been very painful. It is impossible not to think of Lesley while I consider the possibilities. A friend of mine told me my motives had to be pure. I can't do it. The best I can do is practice letting go, something I have been trying to do a little of every day.

As for feeling like a different person, J was the first person to point out how different I was from the way I was a year ago. She described it as being sort lofty, high and mighty. Then many months later I'm laid low by heartache and depression. As I emerge from that depth I find myself not returning to "normal". My hubris has been wiped away. Not drinking I have no place to hide from myself. Going to therapy and talking to friends, some of whom I have not seen much of until lately - like you - has helped me find the words for what had been going on with me over these past four years. When we were driving back to your house from the concert and I told you about my falling out with A you asked me what was I thinking. I wasn't thinking at all. I was living on impulse without thought of consequences. I'm not doing that now. It's weird. When I look for the impulsive bastard I used to be a few months ago I'm not finding him.

Lately I've been too needy to give much to others. Perhaps my past giving is the reason why I had people I could lean on when I needed them. Now that I'm feeling better I find solace in listening to my friends. I have a lot more clarity than I've had in a long time. And my recent hardships helps me empathize and really listen better than I ever have in my life.

I felt rotten this morning. Rotten all day. Almost cried during zazen. And yet all that misery was ok, just a drop in the bucket. It's temporary just like everything else. Eventually I was able to let it go.

In the Samyuktagama Sutra the Buddha compares living beings to four types of horses. The best horse will run fast or slow, turn right or left, with the rider's will, without the use of a whip; the second best runs as well as the first at the sight of the whip; the third responds when it feels the painful lash on its body; the worst horse responds only when the pain penetrates to the marrow.

I am the worst horse.

Monday of the Sixth week in Ordinary Time

2010-02-15T08:13:00.001-08:00

passion_1200dpi006
Originally uploaded by gesualdo

Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials,
for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.
And let perseverance be perfect, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

James 1:2-4

Valentines Day 2010

2010-02-14T14:30:00.000-08:00

The Heart will know what the mind cannot
Solitude is never bridged,
Even in Love's fevered knot.
Dreams are echoes
Of Words unsaid,
Pantomimes of Hope and Dread.
The World is awash in chance encounters,
A lonely figure in the rain.
Through it all she learns by listening
To the Authors of her Pain.
So when the Lover met her Other
Her Confidante and Counterpart,
She knew that reason has no season
Though even Winter has a Heart.

Sunday Morning

2010-02-07T11:40:00.000-08:00

Yes regret can keep you stuck in the past. It can also be prospective. I will never be a young father for example, something I'm reminded of when I see young dads with their children. But you're right, whether it's about the past or the future regret gets me out of focus and stuck someplace other than where I am now. It's another form of wishing, escaping.

I'm glad and surprised to learn W helped you through your grieving. I first heard about him from one of his patients. She is the sister of Amy #1. It was around the time I was living in Bandera and when I was seeing you. My friendship with her is a story for another day. I just wanted to acknowledge our longstanding connections. It's quite something.

The idea of going to the Zen Center stems from a lot of different things - an interest is Eastern culture, past experience with meditation and the need to quiet my troubled mind. I thought about yoga first but that is too connected to memories of Lesley to be appealing right now. Coincidentally the Center is quite near my house. I'm planning on walking there for the sessions. Also coincidentally the first book in the list of suggested reading posted on the Center's website is "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind" by Shunryu Suzuki. I've had a copy since 1978. I know because I kept the receipt for the book tucked inside its' pages. 32 years later I'm finally getting around to reading it carefully. It speaks to me and my situation quite directly.

Perhaps this time is a respite to catch up on my grief backlog. Hopefully nothing will add to it. I recognize I'm not supposed to be in a relationship right now. Perhaps my biggest mistake with Lesley was not honoring this credo. I thought wrongly the marriage was over and I was ready to move on. I wasn't. Knowing this is one thing, sticking to it quite another. The longing is always there. And there are many ways of giving in

Letter to Mary the Red

2010-02-06T11:38:00.000-08:00

This is a better morning for some reason. I'm still too much in my head and lonely. But my mood is better. I'm finally getting started on fixing the roof today. I'm thinking less about what's going to happen with Lesley. I have a lot going for me which will just slip away if I don't get myself back on track. I'm feeling more hopeful that everything will be ok. I'll get the house fixed, make some progress at work, start doing more with myself than just sit around.

Last night you mentioned something about the internal conversation one has with oneself, how the repeated wish for death is a hallmark of depression. These "ideations" trouble me even though they're not seriously entertained. I've had them more often over the past couple of days. This morning I remembered this was not something new, how I slipped into this kind of thinking in the past, going back to my freshman year in college. It has been with me a long time.

Last night as I was driving home I thought about how my suffering was really tied up in this self I was holding onto. I was reminded of my favorite part of the film "I'm Your Man" about the musician Leonard Cohen who spent five years as a Zen monk. Cohen said of his teacher, Roshi “became a part of my life and a deep friend in the real sense of friendship: someone who really cared about – or didn't care, I'm not quite sure which it is – who deeply didn't care about who I was. Therefore who I was began to wither, and the less I was of who I was, the better I felt."

The less I was of who I was, the better I felt... That makes a lot of sense to me. Maybe I've found my path forward.

2009-01-01T18:32:00.000-08:00

The Art of the American Snapshot, 1888-1978 by Sarah Greenough

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
A nice history of film photography. The text frequently referred to photographs on some other page. Would have been better to organize things so the reader doesn't have to flip back and forth through the book while reading it. After a while I just read the words and looked at the pictures later. More bettah.

I didn't know the word "snapshot" originally referred to a hunter getting off a quick shot at his quarry before it scurried away. I have sometimes felt like a gunman carrying my camera in a bag. Once I was hassled by people at a club thinking I might actually have a gun.

I like the "no rules" message of this book. When taking pictures, it's all good. Random misfires always teach you something, about the camera, the setting or yourself. But when snapshots work they have a beauty all their own, like John Cage's chance operations.

View all my reviews.

Praise for Greg McKendry

2008-07-28T12:42:00.000-07:00

Another hate crime over the weekend, this one in Knoxville. An unemployed man who hates liberals opened fire with a shotgun during a children's play at a Universalist Church. I won't write his name here. He doesn't deserve recognition. Instead I hope the whole world hears the name Greg McKendry over the next few days.

A burly usher who died was hailed as a hero for shielding others from gunfire at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church...

Church members praised Greg McKendry, 60, saying he attempted to block the gunfire. Barbara Kemper said that McKendry, who died, "stood in the front of the gunman and took the blast to protect the rest of us."

Kemper said the gunman shouted before he opened fire, though police said others didn't recall him saying anything.

"It was hateful words. He was saying hateful things," she said, refusing to elaborate.

"Greg McKendry was a very large gentleman, one of those people you might describe as a refrigerator with a head," said church member Schera Chadwick. "He looked like a football player. He did obviously stand up and put himself in between the shooter and the congregation."

Update: Two of my friends, Beauvais and his wife Diane, were in the church just a few feet away from the shooting. They weren't hit by any gunfire but are dealing with the awful shock of being there. More over at The Tin Foil Hat...

Welcome to my MicroBlog

2008-07-13T20:42:00.000-07:00

I recently opened an account over here at Twitter. It's a "microblog" which for the uninformed is a blog made up of text message updates no longer than 140 characters. Twitter was founded July 2006 so its ancient by internet standards. Last year it won the Web Award in the blog category at the South by Southwest Conference. So how cool is it? Well, don't ask me. I'm a hopeless nerd.

My Love Still Shines Bright...

2008-07-08T22:44:00.000-07:00

This blog's name is borrowed from the Bard. It's about the power of “the love that moves the Sun and other stars.” I'm not a great writer or thinker. But I believe in the power of love.

SONNET 65
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'er-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack,
Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
O, none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

Introducing a new look

2008-04-29T23:47:00.000-07:00

Zombiewalk...

2007-08-07T14:25:00.001-07:00

Coming to San Antonio Soon...

zombiewalk_012_1
Originally uploaded by Mt. Heart Attack

New Forms of Tea Bagging Taking the Nation by Storm

2006-09-20T21:04:00.000-07:00

Memorial Day Weekend 002
Originally uploaded by phlash.

Jeff Buckley - live on canal - Hallelujah

2006-09-03T21:24:00.000-07:00

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Remembering Rita...

2006-08-25T10:49:00.000-07:00

I just posted this over at the Banned Books Cafe blog. It's sort of a collage of memories and other things going on in my life about this time last year. For me Hurricanes Katrina and Rita symbolized personal turmoil, forming a chaotic context to the story of my life. Alas, for a lot of other people the storms were far more than metaphor.

September 23, 2005

We just talked and talked, mostly about what's been going on in her life, really going on not the bullshit she was spreading. It's so sad. I've got no words left in me right now.

Well, maybe just a few more words...

Yesterday I had lunch at the Liberty. It was very crowded and I was by myself so I bellied up to the bar, placed my order (including a nice glass of Vouvray) and started reading a bit more from Jeanette Winterson's "Written on the Body..."

"Cheating is easy. There is no swank to infidelity. To borrow against the trust someone has placed in you costs nothing at first. You get away with it, you take a little more and a little more until there is no more to draw on. Oddly, your hands should be full with all that taking but when you open them there's nothing there."

What a perfect summation. Wish I had read this years ago.

Wake Up

2006-08-23T16:29:00.000-07:00

Wake Up
Originally uploaded by phil dokas.

and smell the mac

copenhagen toilet art

2006-08-20T00:14:00.000-07:00

copenhagen toilet art
Originally uploaded by sammarin.

I'm so fucking sick of war...

dada constitutional poem

2006-08-17T21:01:00.000-07:00

Peace-Make Love

2006-08-17T18:12:00.000-07:00

Peace-Make Love
Originally uploaded by Gail Orenstein.

Much better alternatives...

Mad Cabaret - R.I.P.

2006-08-17T13:36:00.000-07:00

Slipper Club
Originally uploaded by The Tonya Show.

Pierce Bottoms, you will be uhmmm sorely missed...

dada goes up at MoMA

2006-08-17T12:59:00.000-07:00

dada
Originally uploaded by LeaningLeft.

I saw this exhibit when it was in DC. What struck me were the words describing DADA-ism as a reaction to War, Modern Media and the new "machine culture". Fortuna's wheel has brought the world back into similar circumstances - Iraq, the internet and myriad strange wirelessly connected devices. Time again for DADA. Time again for embracing chance randomness and randy chances. Time again. Hooray!

Bush Is A Wanker

2006-08-12T23:45:00.000-07:00

Bush Is A Wanker
Originally uploaded by Gail Orenstein.

heh... indeed!

UW-Madison Union Terrace

2006-08-12T23:41:00.000-07:00

Union Terrace
Originally uploaded by gesualdo.

Summertime.. And the living is easy...

Zidane!

2006-07-10T21:40:00.000-07:00

Reflections on the World Cup 2006 Final

I was heartbroken to see Zissou headbutt Materazzi. It was an awful violent act magnified on the world stage. But I'm more disappointed in the millions who watched and those who comment on the game as part of their media job who completely missed the human drama unfolding.

Zidane went down in the second half with a shoulder separation. I've had the same injury and surmise from the fact Zidane's shoulder didn't snap back into place he probably endured the same agony many times before. I saw the medics pop his shoulder back into its' socket. I didn't think he'd return to the game but he did. I guess it must have been all that "magic spray" they squirted under his shirt.

The great German player Beckenbauer did the same in a classic Cup game. In Mexico 1970, Beckenbauer is most remembered for playing on with an obvious shoulder injury in the classic 4-3 semifinal defeat to Italy. Heavily strapped he refused to be sustituted and battled throughout the full 120 minutes only to see his side lose.

I have never played professionally much less in the World Cup. Being a fool for the soccer I also once played with a shoulder separation. My own shoulder injury happened a few days before the game. But I can tell you it is crazy painful. I can't believe the Kaiser or Zissou played immediately after having themselves popped back into place.

Consider that Zidane would have won the game for France despite his injury but for Buffon's great save.

Well then the headbutt thing happened. And that's all people talk about. Nobody noticed what an incredible effort Zidane put forth just being in the game at that point. Yes, he should have kept his head to himself. But I love the game he played that day just the same. And so does Beckenbauer I suspect...

Bravo Zissou!

~e

If I Was A Real Man

2005-09-25T15:39:00.000-07:00

If I was a real man, I'd know how to lead or at least how to two-step. I've learned a few moves but fall far short of the ideal cowboy tightass wrapped in Wranglers and a very big belt. If I was a real man, I'd have the decency to divorce without muddying the waters. Or at least have the courtesy to lie through my teeth. If I was a real man she wouldn't treat me this way. If I were all the things I'm not, I wouldn't be in this predicament.

But I like to shop. And once my soccer teammates caught me wearing my girlfriend's panties instead of a jock. I cry when I think about Mama. My idea of fun includes buying clothes by Betsey Johnson, collecting California Free Form Poppy Trail dishes and extolling the virtues of Delonghi toaster ovens. So if you want Butch, runaway runaway. I have my Macho moments. But I'd rather be me.

Oh yeah, I also tend to tell the truth. Not always but most times. Long ago in Kerrville Texas I once saw a letterboard sign in front of the First and Last Baptist Church which read "It's Better to be Hated for Who You Are, Than Loved for Who You Are Not..." Which would you choose?

June 16, 1978...

2005-09-23T20:12:00.000-07:00

I'm a quiet guy, mainly an observer. Perhaps I was a bit anti-social on the trainride from Bombay.

The odors of India are amazing. Some are so pleasant I feel sheer joy through my nostrils. Others invoke my foulest moods. Most though are so alien I have no way to evaluate them.

Proof I Didn't Let My Education Go to My Head

2004-10-28T14:08:00.000-07:00

Have you ever done something so incredibly stupid it changed your whole outlook? Well I did. A week ago today. I know you want the dirt but it still hurts too much to talk about it. So sorry I just can't. Indulge me for now while I nibble around the edges.

Of the many reasons I was single for forty plus years the lousy example of my parent's marriage stands out as a kind of central truth. There was nothing between my parent that I could recognize as love. How was I to learn what makes a happy marriage? It's amazing I was able to have any intimacy in my life at all.

I only remember my father calling my mother by her first name once. And that was just for show I'm sure, not because he was at that moment a caring husband. All my life he called her by her last name - Porrata. Usually he tagged on an insult like "Lluevona" which in Chilean Spanish is what you'd call a dumbshit or a fool. Nice huh? Wouldn't you be proud to have a Dad like that?

My mother died two years ago. She was the unhappiest person I ever knew. Ironically she had exactly the kind of death she feared most. Alone in a hospital after a stroke left her mostly paralyzed and unable to speak. This truth still hurts too and will have to be told another time.

So you see the long odds I'm faced with. A happy marriage isn't in my cards. In the same odd self fulfilling way my mother's unhappy life unfolded, so have these last two and half years of matrimony. What a life.

Shouting "Rebekah" Down the Well...

2004-10-05T14:00:00.000-07:00

Okay, I know nobody reads this stuff and I don't care. It's liberating really. I can say whatever I want and it just echoes meaninglessly like a shout down an old water well.

So Rebekah, wherever you are, I wish we were still family. Seems like my whole world started unraveling after you left. First Hector went crazy. He withdrew from holidays with the family, stopped talking to Mama and starting taking Prozac. You were that small thread holding together his frayed ego. After you two married I remember thinking how fortunate he was to have found you, so smart so beautiful. I despaired of ever marrying as well as my brother had.

I understand why you had to go. You had little choice. Hector never could forgive anyone or really love anyone. A lot of time has gone by since. Now you're married to another, have a family of your own. I see your happiness framed in a few photographs of you and your kids. How I wish we could have stayed all part of the same tribe.

Honey Queen

2004-10-03T23:45:00.000-07:00

I used to date the Honey Queen of Uvalde Texas the town that gave America red-necked ranchers, an old opera house and John Nance (Cactus Jack) Garner, the thirty-second vice president of the United States. Every summer the Uvalde Chamber held a beauty pageant and selected a Honey Queen. Dee won five years in a row. She posed for pictures in her tiara and satin sash with local beekeepers in their clunky outfits and mesh.

Kerrville Diaries

2004-09-21T08:45:00.000-07:00

Becky and I met 14 years ago in Kerrville Texas. She was working at Herring Printing two doors down from where I worked at Texas Rural Legal Aid. She kept coming by the office hoping to get my cute coworker Phil to have lunch with her. But Phil kept avoiding her. I think it was because he was afraid of short aggressive women with red hair. So one day Becky comes by for the millioneth time looking for Phil and I tell her he's climbed out the window or something. "That shit" she says, "well how about you and I have lunch then?" That's how we became friends.

As I have always been a slacker I admired Becky's work ethic. She worked two sometimes three jobs and counted every penny. One of those jobs was helping out her Momma Marsha, God rest her soul, at her video store. Marsha's was the only place in Kerrville you could rent dirty movies. So naturally I went there a lot. For Becky it was more than just a job. She became an expert on the details of video production. She told me once that Hunting and Fishing videos have the same Techno-Beat soundtrack as porn flicks. Sure enough she was right. Now I get a hardon every time I pop "Bill Dance Outdoors:Bass Anatomy" into the VCR. Thanks Becky! I owe yah!

Song for the Luddites

2004-08-27T07:41:00.000-07:00

The other day I read a reference to Lord Byron's poem in an article about free trade and "outsourcing" of tech jobs to India and China. This is a old issue in contemporary drag it seems. Just ask Ted "Unabomber" Koszinski. Or your neighbor who just lost his telemarketing job. Read more about the Luddites here.

Song for the Luddites
by Lord Byron

As the Liberty lads o'er the sea
Bought their freedom, and cheaply, with blood,
So we, boys, we
Will die fighting, or live free,
And down with all kings but King Ludd!

Dolcissima Mia Vita - My Sweet Life

2004-08-12T14:16:00.000-07:00

Today started out all wrong, in anger and bitter silence. What a shame because it was such a beautiful cool late summer morning. Last night's Norther swept the sky clean. I opened the doors and windows letting in the fresh air and birdsong. Shana and I weren't speaking to each other. Neither one wanted to be the first to swallow pride. So it went today.