Easy fix to Income Inequality

Everyone should be rich. That's all. There is no need for this crazy income problem.

It is very easy to make all human beings rich and there is no reason to scare the wealthy into a corner, thinking everyone is coming for their heads to put be put on pikes. Plus, why should they be punished for being wealthy? It wasn't exactly their fault.

Here are my ten easy steps for deep wealth for all:

1. Create an atmosphere of acceptance. If we are all going to be wealthy, it is important to accept everyone, today, for exactly who they are and for what they have. This will put the wealthiest on the side of everyone else and so they become less afraid. We don't want our wealthiest people to be afraid.

2. Understand the math support. There is always some sort of pyramid that keeps a few people at top. Though, these days, the top of the pyramid does not need much support to be at the top--they are floating more than being supported--there is still the truth that SOMETHING has to be stable underneath that little plutopoint in order for it to exist at all. I would call that stability right now: law and order and easy tax laws.

3. Immediately let go of all law and order and go ahead and stop paying any taxes at all. Everyone. Stop. The wealthy hate taxes. We more Socialist types don't love forking it over, either. Just stop paying taxes.

4. After the collapse, a new world order will arise. This one, of course, will look just like the last one because nothing ever really changes.

5. Then, sterilize everyone.

6. As the population ages, there will be no possibility for anything new to happen.

7. The cycle will be broken.

8. At the last minute, let ten people have about ten babies. Do this in Southern California.

9. These ten will be equally wealthy because they will pretty much own everything on earth.

10. If this plan doesn't take, then just ask a rich person to fund your start up, make it successful, sell it, and stop complaining. Business ideas: Sex sells. So do services for pets. Aim low and stand back.

Easter Means a New Beginning

For everyone.

Or not.

But look at this magnolia.

The Bronx, 4-20-2014

Spring: The Equal Opportunity Energizer

Spring.
Surely, people dance more and fall in love more and get outside more and smile more.

This is a great thing.

But it increases other externalized behaviors. THE CRAZIES are OUT, TOO!

And don't get me wrong, I like the crazies. They're people, too, they're just a little crazier.

I saw three guys in some sort of guitar trio on the subway break out into a power struggle, with one guy accusing the other guy of going all gangster. It felt like something was about to go down. And yeah, someone threw a punch and the brawl went into full swing. I got off at the next stop and changed cars. Who knows who has a gun these days?

In the next car, a man spoke gibberish and sang loud and asked for money loud and blamed people loud for his misfortune. All of this, in a sort of growling howling, a cry against injustice. He was not dangerous. He was just exceptionally unhappy.

He was easy, compared to the prim guy sitting next to me, ninety degrees, with an instrument in a case between his legs...it looked trumpety. He had on ear buds. He smelled of a perfume spill at a Macy's counter. If you didn't have sinus trouble before meeting this guy, you will be needing an E.N.T. almost immediately after. So as the homeless man was wailing, and the entire inside of my skull was contracting in olfactory disgust like a beaked mollusk around an echinoderm, the smelly trumpeter, ear buds in, started in with his volcalise. Quiet, at first. But pretending the ear buds blocked his inability to hear himself so he could sing louder than he should, or he really could not hear himself so he just sang louder than he should, I eventually had to jump up and escape down the way. Monster.

I was like a man being controlled in an obnoxious live-action app game where foul asteroids or color blobs of hell were trying to kill me and I simply had to get out of the way.

I survived, of course. And clearly ready for more, when the final thing happened in the village, when a woman, in crazy black mules not made for running, ran past me just a few feet to the building we were both going to so she could stick her key in and not have to wait for me to pass?--or something, and then we both got in the same elevator and she was about to start a fight or a good cry or a big gas ball, or miss an appointment, who knows?--I decided to get out a floor early and just walk the last flight up.

Be gone crazy early bulbs!

Of course, I love them all and wouldn't have traded it for anything. They're just crazy. And there is nothing holding them back now. They are coming at you and you better bob and weave. No complacency as the daffodils send out their yellow warning signs. When summer comes, and the crazy rompers all get turned up to boil, the fun thing will be to watch whose carapace turns a bright red, who gets overcooked and who, simply, wafts away in a bloof of steam.

Ten Things to Buy with Your Tax Refund, for 99 Percenters down to .01 Percenters

1. A bus ticket to Nanuet, New York where you can go shopping at one of the many malls or centers.

2. A bus ticket from Nanuet, NY to Paramus, NJ where you can get all the things they didn't have in Nanuet.

3. Dinner with Chris Christie at one of the finest restaurants in Toms River, NJ called "Shut Up & Eat." And four Altoids.

4. A fur coat made from high quality fake fur. Underwear not included.

5. Two nights at the Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur. With chocolate and seriously trendy California wine. Morning and evening massages. A muzzle for the guy in the man-moo who won't stop talking about fair market quinoa and the supremacy of bisexuality.

6. Four nights at The Pierre Hotel on East 61st Street in Manhattan. Dinner at Per Se. Lunch at Per Se. You and a rodeo clown get to round up all the horses in Manhattan and drive them out to Pennsylvania to cheering fans. Ellen Degeneres has you on her show as a hero.

7. A two bedroom apartment in the Seventh Arrondissement in Paris. Right across from the best petit-dejeuner place you've ever been to and now you get to chow there any morning you like. With a bidet, a concierge and the occasional visit by the Queen of Belgium.

8. Six highly trainable STD-free whores of your choosing, for six months for six hours every day (1 hour each. Why do I always have to do the math?)

9. The other part of the Ukraine that Russia didn't take.

10. An Israeli-Palestinian resolution, which will require the colonization of Mars.

11. Everyone else's money that you haven't yet taken. And you don't have to worry about air quality.

12. The seeable-to-the-naked-eye universe. And everyone tells you you deserve it.

13. And Lucky Thirteen:  Everything else that hasn't yet been claimed. Plus, anything you can invent as long as it is within reason. Surely, you'll have at least one 3-D printer for that job. And a dog. You'll need a dog.

Why Would They Lie?

Not that it ever makes sense to approach things logically with "the other side"---

But my big question is: Why would scientists the world over all get together and in a wacky consortium of deceit for some unknown gain, lie about climate change?

Why would they lie? Do they all want to keep their jobs or something? Who is employing them? Bosses above them who want, like crazy, for climate change to happen because these higher-ups are all jonesing so bad for nuclear energy?

If they are lying, then maybe, too, the moon landing never happened?

Floods and earthquakes and tornadoes and hurricanes and erratic weather, sure, these don't mean, necessarily, that we have destroyed the climate. Fine. But there are all these other measurements that are being taken. Ice cores. And water levels. And comparative temperatures. Why would they lie about those?

Could it really be collective hysteria that is making this all happen? That it isn't true? That a bunch of people just really want to take down the oil industry so they just keep lying through their teeth?

Lastly, by simply logic, wouldn't it make sense that now, since 25% of CO2 in the atmosphere is man made, that it would be a good idea to scale that back?

Okay, now really lastly, what's in it for you, other side, that makes you want to believe that all these people are lying?

A Sense of Jonquility

Let's Be Franco

Following James Franco on Instagram is strange, enjoyable and a bit sad.

First of all, his handle is jamesfrancotv    He looks like he is having a great time.

But this is the thing that I don't understand. At all.
How can he be a movie star, a painter, a teacher (in LA on Mondays, his day off from his Tuesday through Sunday Broadway run in New York) be getting a bunch of degrees, it seems, right now from Yale in literature while hopping over to RISD for some classes? Oh, and he's a poet and filmmaker.

I am in awe of his stamina? I remember running at that speed (but not at that level, obviously) when I was in my early twenties. He is in his mid-thirties and I wonder---Is this all catch up? Is this a super-duper runaway train of hyper avoidance?

So I looked a little closer. When he was going to Columbia, NYU and Brooklyn College for degrees in writing, film and...writing, there was a lot of controversy about him not actually going to all his classes. How could he?

So I wonder. Why all this running around, so densely?

I worry about the day he crashes. You spread yourself too thin...and you end up in two dimensions and you keel. Of course, I may be writing this in a vague cloud of jealousy, but nah--more than anything, I am wondering..."HOW DOES HE DO THIS? but really, WHY?"

He must not waste an ounce of energy on worry. He must not, at all, be bothered by the judgment of others. He just does all this stuff.

It's fascinating.

He does seem to be having a good time. Of course, he's an actor and he is doing his "Instagram Show"---so who really knows?

It may just be all performance. And that's fine. But if it is that, I wonder if he knows?

It's been strange...James on my phone. I've not witnessed anything quite like it before.

I Thought I Knew

About ten years ago, I turned to my not-yet-husband and said, “I’ve come to some conclusions.”

And I really thought I was done. As if there was nothing else to know.

I believe I was tired of learning.

Before that day, I had subscribed to Socrates’ mode of travel which was to approach everything with the fresh face that sings, “All I know is I know nothing.”  This is not the exact Socratic quote and I only followed the spirit of it as I understood it, and then took it too far, but it’s close. The real quote, and I just looked it up, is “I know that I know nothing.” Socrates, in an ego toss, was actually saying that he is wiser than the man who claims he knows something when that man does not know, that Socrates at least knows that he doesn’t know, which makes Socrates wiser than the man who claims he has knowledge.

I simplified all that competition. I just decided to take the quote and live it without any double meaning, taking no one else into it for comparison. I figured if I approached every situation as if I did not know anything, then I would be very open to learning. Thus, I would probably learn something I did not know before. Instead of being a frigging expert, I would always be open to new information.  I did take this on for most of my twenties and thirties. It was a thrill. And it was my misinterpretation of the quote, or rather, my ripping just a hunk of it off for my own use that sent me down my path. Chance.

Eventually, I felt like I had been too open, took too much in, approached things with a constantly quizzical mind and this proved to be overwhelming. In other words, I got kind of worn out. Plus, it was ridiculous to pretend that I knew nothing when, clearly, if you approach a situation completely open to learning new things, well, you would end up learning a real lot. I was done knowing nothing.

So then, at that about-ten-year-ago-point…I just carried on with whatever I had learned, applying it here and there, within my state of mind that was all about very defined conclusions. I was open to new information, but most new information was only bits that I added on. Nothing radically changed.  I knew a bunch of stuff to approach most situations while only adding those little bits. I played it. It did certain things. Going from knowing that I knew nothing to then one day saying, “I have come to some conclusions,” was a pessimistic turn. But more than that, like Socrates, a bit of an ego party: the philosopher, claiming greater intelligence over others, me, figuring I had learned all that was needed.

Eventually…I got bored, being an expert, like all the other experts who were bored. I felt like I was living my life out in this sort of paper trail, or really, an email trail.

Then things got dark. I did not know how to continue, exactly, with my conclusions. Joyless, sort of. East coast winters are depressing. Seasonal living is a bit of a wash, rinse, repeat thing. There is a lot of anger and aggression on the Atlantic. And of course, everyone went to Yale and though I have seen it from the highway, I have not been able to face the birthplace of so much expertise. I had doubts. I had a lot of non-clarity. And despair, which I banished from my life for decades, did creep in, especially on Mondays, and told me that it was in charge.

I did many things to outrun it.

I tried to be fully sober for two years. I succeeded. And that was interesting. But drink was not really the problem. So I started drinking again, and nothing really changed.

I tried being exceptionally industrious for four years. Certain things came from that. But certainly, no great amount of money, or fame or ecstasy. Being disciplined did not bring transcendence, at all. In fact, the discipline felt a bit compulsive. So that was not very fun.

During all these days, I was exceptionally organized. This is nothing new. This is something I have always done. And frankly, the things that I did to be organized, like having systems in place for the care of properties, the paying of bills, the planning for social events, travel and necessary correspondences, was something that came to me naturally, but it all felt a bit dead. (I was going to say old and dead but now that I am getting older, I don’t want to use that phrase. Old and alive. Yes.)

So I was left with a big looking mess at my feet. A history of not knowing, then knowing everything followed by drudgery. The question then became to know, or not to know? To approach with expertise or to approach with an open, flat face?

I knew I would keep the simple things going in a very organized fashion. This has to be done. Unless I want to job it out, which I could do, I may as well take care of the minutia as it arises since managing someone to take care of the minutia as it arises can take almost as much time.

But this idea of either knowing or not knowing, this approach, to decide that you can decide one approach or another, at all, is a form of fear and control that is useless. Socrates was in his head more than he was in his experience, it seems. But then, I might know this or I might not know this or I might know something else that is pushing me to write this.

I do not believe in any dogma. I think the serenity prayer is good in a pinch. However, it is useless for generalized mood states and is not a catch-all bowl for struggles.

I do not believe in any sort of God unless I am feeling exceptionally vulnerable, and then I do…and it is the God of my childhood…some sort of parental figure up in the sky who cares about me, so, in effect, it is most likely my parents and my good grandparents all rolled up into some love-ball in the ethers that I am drawing from. Which is fine. One needs to sometimes feel that a burst of unending love (but really: care) is the force that is keeping things upright. So bully for us all who call upon a made up brain based Daddy-Mommy-God in times of despair.

I have nothing to say that is clear or connected to Jesus or any prophet or any political garbage or anything about war. This tends to go nowhere.

I think the free market is fabulous for creativity and gives not a single whit about people who have not figured out how to harness their own power. In fact, it denies they have any value, so this free market is ultimately sparklingly alive and a murderer.

But why I wrote all this when what I really wanted to write was something else, is completely surprising to me. I wanted to write about how it is so important to have your housing and your whole physical life figured out and settled so you can be free to be free, to have a huge free internal life. And I still believe that and it is worth writing and this was all I set out to do.

But why I wrote all that I did, beforehand, in addition to recommending having one’s housing and place on earth all figured out so one could be free, is something I did not have much control over. I felt a strong need, today, to be myself, completely unedited. And for that, this blog entry happened. It may be because I am using my body more, now that it’s spring, so I feel more grounded and happy. It may be because I insist on living on earth in the greatest joy I can find—understanding that that can only happen with a great acceptance of very little control. It may be because I have spent every spring sort of sick and weird with allergies…and strangely, when I feel sick, in addition to being a bit buzzed on low doses of Sudafed, I also feel like great things are possible, that once the ills are over, joy is there, big and strong. (I recently read that joy is the natural state of a person. That one of the great ways to experience joy is to remove pain. But that was just someone being an expert and so it is suspect.)

But I have decided that instead of worrying about knowing and not knowing and experts and dogma, I am just going to be a young thing, a soldier and a baby for joy.

And so, this blog entry is brought to you by Joy. Joy is what we are after here. But more readily, joy is what we are here. 

You

Let's just say
You were yourself
All the time
And that whole thing
Of taking on a role to get things done
isn't real, isn't even happening

So it's all you
You're always you
no need for performance or the outfit

You do this
every day
It will be your habit

Much more vital and interesting

Please no one.

Note to self.

News for Today

1 out of every 4 carbon dioxide molecules in the atmosphere was created by human beings.

Have a good day.

Blacks and Queers and Jews and a Bonus

When I was in high school and then later, college, I used to look at African Americans and I would think, “If I was treated how they are treated, I would be so pissed off, I’d spend every minute of my life protesting. Every single minute.”

This was the 70s and 80s and it sucked. And people did not treat Black people like they were people. Not really. Not yet. It was ridiculous.

Of course, I was also enraged because I was gay and similarly mistreated. But look, I could at least travel incognito. I had little breaks from the horror. They never got a chance. I could distance myself from my own rage and secretly ally with the Black kids. I felt their outsiderness.

Wonderfully enough, the Western World has changed, dramatically, in my lifetime in that most of us, or at least the people I know, don’t even notice skin color any longer and as a bonus, I am married to my male husband and it’s all fine and cool. Thank God/Allah/Nature/theLiberalMedia.

But you never get over the shit. Not really. Okay, you do. You get over it, some. But you were formed when you were formed. And it’s in there.

Living on the West Coast, there is a great sense that all  history is dead, that you should live right now as it is right now and if you are at all hampered by your past, well, you should just make a movie or a cabaret out of it, get it off your chest and carry on, happily. Closure. And in some ways, I agree. But, stuff does creep back up on you from days gone by and you can feel sort of undermined by it.

In the East, the past is never ending. It’s like Europe here. And it’s a heavy energy. My West Coast Jews make fun of the Holocaust. My East Coast Jews are still feeling it. I understand the horror. It was so awful. So much so, I know Jews who are not much older than me who won’t go to Germany. But I have such lovely friends in Germany and I think they’d all get along.  But the horror is too great.

They say it takes seven generations to really get past something. Seven.

I’ll be so dead.

Until then. We inch into better times.

Now, let’s help our transgender brothers and sisters. Immediately. It’s their time.

Fran Lebowitz on Editors, Toll Takers and Pornography

I love Fran.

Thanks, Paris Review Twitter folk, for the posts of great interviews of yore.

Fran Lebowitz is one of our funniest, ever. Because I said so.

Read:

http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1931/a-humorist-at-work-fran-lebowitz

Box is Distributed

Read all about it here.

http://boxthemovie.wordpress.com/2014/03/28/box-is-distributed-in-europe-and-north-america-by-shorts-tv-the-shorts-movie-channel/

I'm Completely Content and Absolutely Happy About Everything

April Fools!

I remember well when our good friend David K would call us on April 1 with a gigantic hoax. One year, he got Adam to believe that he owed an enormous amount of extra dues to the WGA. It wasn't until Adam started throwing fits on the phone that David let him in on the prank and did the ol' April Fools! yell.

I am not a prankster. I do not like surprises, rubber chickens, whoopie cushions, garage door openers that squirt water in my face. Though these things are simply juvenile, they do have a whiff of cruelty about them.
However, if someone really does go to great lengths to pull a huge prank, there is art in that and maybe worth the trouble.

April really is the cruelest month, not so much because it begins with this silly "holiday," but because it is spring and it is still cold. The flowering trees do not start up until mid to late April. Spring does not really take hold until May. But I digress. Back to silliness.

I do not like Renaissance festivals or body paint. I do not like people in furry outfits. April Fools Day feels like the silliest thing ever. And maybe, just maybe, it is good for little kids to learn that lying can be a bit fun-hearted. I don't know.

Don't let anyone fool you today. And if they do, it better be worth it.

This Blog Entry is Brought to you by J. Kaufman

Thanks, J.K.!

Look at this link that compares castle prices to shithole NYC apt. prices, and vomit.

http://themetapicture.com/castles-vs-apartments-in-nyc/

Provided by J. Kaufman, we are all lucky to have such a clear picture.

My friend, B.F., who is not my B.F. but a good friend, has been boasting about living in the greatest city in the world, publicly, and chiding all those who do not live here. Perhaps it is the barely erupting spring that has pushed him into optimistic boosterism. Have your pride, and have a good time.

But the reality of New York, supplied by J.K., is a weird real estate madness, fueled by weird market madness, that makes this city pretend it is a collection of Versailles. Be delusional as you will, all you can hear from inside all the other Versailles around are screams that sound something like, "I went to Yale and have a masters degree in _______ and now I have to live with cockroaches the size of Donuts??"  or  "Go fuck yourself!"  or  "I just  hate my life. My bonus was only 450K this year!"  Things like that.

I love New York, mostly for the trains and subways that whisk you along and through rivers, bays, oceans and mountains. It is enjoyable to never drive and to see a lot of things and people all around. But there is a misery quotient here, measurable in real estate woe and weather horrendosity (don't judge me) that is not only pathetic but borders on tragic.

With that, we do have a density of experience...but it was a mathematical fluke. This density was earth-formed, bounded by watery limits, infused with historical arrivals and was, basically, London's West-Pond money printer gone nuclear. It was not great men that made this place, but great chance and timing. Although, all the stories that are bandied about, on the stages, in the magazines, in the papers, verbalized on the streets, spit out a monster self-congratulations. I say, go slap a bearded hipster, sell your box, take the cash to Europa, and live in a castle. So what if the taxes will kill you. If you stayed in New York, you would have worked yourself to death anyway.

New York, you are interesting. But you're just too expensive. And for that...you create hacks, drones, depressives, fearful shut-ins and exhausted workaholics without an ounce of creativity. Take that. And keep me entertained and busy until I go live in a castle.

I do love the geography. A lot comes together here. It must have been amazing Pre-Columbian.

Remember when People were Funny?

Listening to Prosac? Make me Laugh!

There used to be a time when you could be a real fucking hardass depressive or anxious mess and you could turn it into a good time.

The true antidote to disastrous mental health was humor. Some people figured out that physical exercise helped. But really, humor always won the race.

You could find a clever way to complain about your dark abyss, and you sort of had to, because no one would put up with your whining miserable self loathing sun-starved hopeless ass otherwise. You had to get creative if you were going to be useful company. So you dug into the darkest reaches, took one good look at those miserable crags, and you figured, "I better turn this into an amusement park or I'm going to die alone on these sharp, empty rocks."

Anxious? That was easy. You just ran around screaming, "I'm a mess! I'm a mess! Let me tell you about _______."  And you'd insert your latest neurotic tale and flap your fucking arms up and down and everyone had a good time at your expense. If you had a sense of proportion that is, and knew when to bring down the curtain.

We have all died on the rock of productivity and normative behavior. We want and want.

It was more fun when people were fucked up and sang about it.

BOX Premiere in Europe

Hello Friends,

Our short, BOX--Chris Dolman and I in cahoots--was acquired by TVShorts International, based in London and we had our broadcast premiere in Europe on March 2.

http://www.shorts.tv/

Other (older) news about BOX, below, including its many festival inclusions:

http://boxthemovie.wordpress.com/

More news coming, soon, to supporters about how you can watch BOX at home.

BOX.  It opened.

A Change Will Do You Good

A Tale of Three Cities

As I was leaving midtown Manhattan after seeing a sweet little musical review called GREED, directed by pal, Chris Scott, at New World Stages, I was reminded of when I was a student in Paris, having to always leave the center of town to get back to my place on the edge of town. Though, here in New York, it’s a little faster. (And go see GREED. Entertaining and talented stuff.)

In Paris, I lived at 61 Blvd Soult. It was on the ring road in the 12^th. You can see it here. There is nothing special about this building on the edge of town. It could be a Miami Hotel.

https://www.google.com/maps/search/Boulevard+Soult+and+Rottembourg+Paris+France/@48.839799,2.408813,3a,75y,242.39h,82.57t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1snmjSBm7_9e_uh2wsypgiog!2e0

But there was always something exciting about leaving it in the morning and it was always exciting coming home. Leaving, because, well, look at it. Who would want to stay there? But coming home at night was interesting. You’d leave all that Paris that you see in movies, on posters. And then you travel for 30 minutes and you are on the edge of nowhere. Nowhere feels good. You can really get to know yourself in nowhere. (Christopher Isherwood says Americans are more advanced and more spiritual than Europeans because we have to come to terms with ourselves living in unadorned boxes, whereas Europeans get distracted by all the material beauty around them.)

I was only in Paris for a semester because I was a science major and I did not have the time to hang around, smoking Gitanes, for a full year. But the spring semester I was there was one of those, “Yeah, I found out some things,” times of my life. It brought me off the straight and narrow. Plus, I was a little crazy at 20 and I used the time to pull myself together.

When I was coming home tonight, it had a similar feeling. Early spring. Going home to another edge of another city. And it felt good. I was tired. I just had to get there. And when I did, it was quiet and exciting. To be somewhere that is on the edge, where you can be involved with just being yourself and know that just five stops away is the center of a city. It’s a good deal.

But, in LA, you can be right in the center of town and be nowhere. And that, is why LA is so brilliant.

I Officially Declare

Any more language based art about people's inability to connect and ersatz Pinteresque alienation is over.

It's about connection now.

Money

Besides basic tragedy, most news items are about money. Someone is about to make money. Someone made a lot of money. Someone has no money. A country grabs land so they can secure their money. Legislation to make sure someone keeps their money. Legislation to make sure the money is shared. Money here. Money there. Money.

I celebrate the free market. It's pretty creative.

But aren't we bored with all this? As a species? Endless conflict over money?
Which is really just endless conflict over--Who deserves what.
It's like sibling rivalry.

And so there are the people who shrug--"This is just how it is." And then everyone jumps along. Splat. Repeat. Deadening repetition.

I do not propose that I have an idea of how to do any of this differently. And I am not silly enough to think you can scratch it all out and come up with something else. But what I am proposing is this. Since money is ultimately shared--we all are in this huge system of money and we all use it--and money is often not shared, but squirreled off--I have mine, you have yours, now let's play nice or not at all--then why don't we just accept that we are part generous and part selfish and with that consciousness, force the issues into the light and maybe break up this pattern some? Because the issue isn't really money. It's more about whether or not you have any desire to share or not to share.

I am bored with people basically playing poker with each other, hiding their hand, grabbing what they can. But I am equally bored with the whining experts who try to shame people into giving people stuff for no reason other than it is morally a solid action.  Both methodologies cause everyone pain.

I wish there was something we could do so that our narratives weren't so much about money. But then, that might be asking us to not be this particular species. I do hope when we are extinct that packs of dogs rise up and have a very different experience. They may be calmer and less neurotic. But it is impossible to know.

So Damn Gay and Irish: Do the Math

Approximately 10% of all Americans have major Irish ancestry. At about 34 Million people, this is about five times the actual population of Ireland (6.8 Million).

Of these 34 million, it is safe to say that at least 3% of them are full-on gay.  That's over a Million gay Irish people in the U.S.  And let's face it, I am being conservative here. It could be double that.

So, you have over a million gay Irish people and you don't want them in your parade?  Why, now?

You are phobic fecks!

Irish Americans, listen up. In Ireland, whenever there is a St. Patrick's Day Parade, the Gays are out and proud and stomping on their floats. As one Irish person put it, "Aren't all parades pretty much gay?"
If the gays in Ireland are having a good ol' time, why can't the gays on this side of the Guinness pond be included too?

I love being Irish, that is 3/8 Irish, myself. I would be half Irish if my father's mother's father had not been a Dietrich. But what's in a number?  A lot.

In addition to the 10% of Americans who have major Irish ancestry, another whole boat load, not even countable, also have Irish ancestry. Next after the Germans, there is more Irish blood coursing through the veins of Americans than any other ethnic corpuscle. Being Irish is practically like being American. For God's sake, get over your foolishness and let a gay leprechaun in. We're magic.

Next year. 2015. Enough already. You bunch of drunken sods!

The New Guard: Paul Kouri

Friends,

http://kouri2014.com/

This is my good friend who is making a stab at great governance. He's a well balanced Democrat with solid ideas and a killer work ethic. He also has a heart of gold and is smart like, well, you.

Oh let's face it. He's one of us! A person who wakes up every morning--who looks at the world and says, WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE??!!  But instead of doing what I do, which is to do something else, he is doing something about it.

You won't be Sorry, if you head for Kouri.

http://kouri2014.com/

Yours, in politics, sort of.

Don

PS--For those who need to know, I am a pragmatic moderate Democrat with both Socialist and Libertarian leanings. I believe different things can be put in different baskets and everyone will be better off for it. I can't say Paul is like me. But I can say Paul Kouri has his eye on all the baskets. And, Paul was the name of the witch's tarantula on Bugs Bunny.

http://kouri2014.com/

Last Day of Frozen Hell

After Last Night's Rain
The Wind Blew In
Canada

Fucking Frozen

The End of It
Now

Done

Two Weeks Ahead
40's  50's

Haiku Gets Long
When You Are Completely Done

Nothin' Doin'!

Sometimes, you put on an ugly hat and cut a move.

Start at 7:20 when Alfalfa is assured of the love of his object of affection.

She sets him straight ten seconds later.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=garTJ3Mdy8s

I love how Georgia Jean Larue, ten years old, is Going Hollywood and she already looks 47.  Good luck, girl. She should have left Alfalfa’s farm when she was 3. Maybe then she could have played some aged action hero’s girlfriend.

Ragey Lady, I Love You

I was coming back from Brooklyn from my smarty writing group of funsters, clanking over The Manhattan Bridge on the Q train, when I noticed the lower middle to lower class woman sitting opposite and a little to the left was glaring at me, hard, as I read Caryl Churhill’s Top Girls.  Now, it’s a pink tattered library copy and the title sounds sort of sexy and the only parts of a woman’s body you see are the feet in serious white and black pumps.

So maybe that was why she had the look on her face? Like, she thought I was reading smut, openly?

Anyway, I didn’t even know the cover looked like that until just now when it Tony Orlando and Dawned on me that maybe that was the problem.  But maybe not. I don’t know.

So I continued to Times Square and somewhere around 14^th Street I looked up from my book and I noticed this very angry woman staring at me and I wondered, “Where have I seen this woman before?” 

Of course, it was ten minutes ago on the bridge. I just sort of forgot. I was tired. It was a long day. But did I really forget?

No, I got rid of her in my mind. I just pushed her out.

But then I noticed something, once I remembered that I knew exactly who she was, the woman who had been sitting there all along. She was pissed off but she was interested. She sort of wanted to know what I was doing. She liked that someone was actually reading?  Who knows!

But she was angry. Real angry. And because she was paying attention to me, or my pink book with the perhaps-smutty cover, or she figured out I was doing some work because she noticed the book had a library catalog number on it and I was taking notes, anyway, she would soften, then harden, soften, then harden. Something was going on.

People are furious. I have always tried to ignore furious people. I don’t want to be the object of rage. And though we are all capable of deep murderous rage (so the psychological pundits tell us), I have tried, mostly, to get the hell away from that side of myself.

But then there was this woman. And she was vacillating between curiosity-warmth and raging-judgment. And she seemed to be surviving that teeter-totter.  So what I usually want to write off as low-rent un-evolved public nasty person, because I am actually afraid of that kind of thing, I sort of let in. I just looked at her once or twice and all she got from me was, “I’m curious about you.” And I think that was enough for her.

Sucky, Fucky in Kentucky

This is quite heartfelt, yes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUqqUCPAOYg

I don't, though, exactly understand what the crying is all about. Is there something going on there personally? He mentions his daughter in the end. And he wants to be proud.

Maybe he is simply overcome with the heartfelt warmth of doing what he knows is right.

Or maybe he is crying over the greater pain of the human condition: this horrendous divide of opinion and people fighting over what really should not be a fight at all.

I do not know.

But it is clearly clear that the gay rights of gay citizens are pummeling the land from stem to stern. Another lost item--Kentucky--for the Socially Conservative Right. All the rest of you Rights, you Party-of-Lincolns, you Libertarians, you freedom seeking roustabouts---we all know you are with us, the entire Democratic Party. This is something we all agree on. Let it ring. Let it be done. Sea-to-Shining-Sea equality by 2015.

Churches--go on and marry no one you don't want to marry. We just don't care.

Kentucky. Yes. Kentucky.

Mr. Franco

Obviously, James Franco is a big fan of and for gay people. It is an enjoyable thing to know that he made this movie:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/05/movies/interior-leather-bar-spun-from-recreated-lost-footage.html?ref=todayspaper

I have been following James on Instagram and it does look like he is actually posting, that it is him. Or at least, he is feeding things to someone who is posting for him.

He is very comfortable being himself, whether he is playing a straight guy or making an art film doc about Pacino's Cruising or a parody video with Seth Rogen, making out with him after a good long motor cycle ride.

The point, it seems, that James Franco is trying to make is that the old labels of gay and straight are sort of fading away. He plays with all of it. Good for him.

He is younger than me by a good chunk and when I look at him on Instagram, it is clear that he is as much in love with the images he is sending out as his fans are. In other words, he is experiencing a clear gayish narcissism. And why shouldn't he? He's lovely and bright. He is enjoying his own image. You feel it.

This pushes people to speculate as to what his sexuality is. And the point he most often makes is that it does not matter what anyone's sexuality is. This is a good point.

I sometimes get bleary when I consider it. The most defining horror of my youth and the later enjoyment of my adulthood was the exact parameters in which my sexuality was confined. I do maintain that had things been a little different culturally and had women been a little less scary to me, that I might have had a more ambi life. Well, in fact, I did have that kind of life in college. A fellow member in the drama department who eventually became a famous person, in angry response to my sleeping with his on-again-off-again ex-girlfriend, threw me into a costume rack and said one word, "Decide."

Which, of course, is funny. I had no idea he was even following my antics. Plus, his girl was fair game at the time. But my bed greed pissed him off. I ran into him years later on set and he was kinder than a pussycat. I did not bring up the incident.

James Franco looks at men having sex with both genders with equanimity. And also, perhaps, with a bit of a boner. We won't ever know. But the point he seems to be making is that there is a continuum. But even larger than that, he thinks all bigotry is a ridiculous load of bullshit.

It's guys like him that help us all out.

I just hope he's doing okay.

Career News: Face It

I have always been happiest when I put things in this exact order/subordination:

I am a person first. I am a career maker second.

Whenever I swap those, I get into wretched trouble.

Of course, what I have been mostly paying attention to as an adult is what it is to be a person. So it would make sense, in order for that to have any career value, to be a person first, anyway.

But even more importantly, if career comes first, then you are a career person and since you are what you do, then you are simply that and you slowly but surely become less interesting. Plus, you burn out and your ego gets inflated, takes a beating, rinse, repeat, blech.

Additionally, you could end up with a very skewed and sad perspective and a very strange face if you are single minded. Look at Goldie Hawn at the 2014 Oscars. She had an idea of her career, or something like that, coming first. She mutilated herself. If she had been a person first, she would not have ended up looking like ___________. There are so many sharp jokes that could be made at her expense. But really, sadly, she got caught up in a thought process that chucked herself first and put some misguided ambition in its place. It's not worth it. And it eats up your time and energy. And who you actually are.

Do not mutilate yourself. Anyone. Have a career. Second. Be a person. First.

Cold and Clear

1. Arizona, you are a nutbag.

2. So much attack on people who post, tweet and look for approval. In a culture where competition and success are everything...how can you blame a person for looking for affirmation? Isn't it clear that people have been needing this for a long time? And as the population grows and the jobs shrink and the tenor of human interaction gets colder and meaner and the need for love remains constant, why wouldn't people be looking for some good rays of human warmth? Columnists call this behavior narcissistic. But isn't it narcissistic to have a column? These established writers are simply competing with the posters for attention. They unconsciously want to bring the posters down because they are taught to compete. And then--love deficit again. Thus, proving this point.

3. This winter, as we know, is horrendous. But you have to give yourself credit for getting through it. In complete awe of Canadians and all the United States citizens who live within 1000 miles of the 49th parallel. You go, girls. And you're probably going to have to keep those tights on through all of March, too.

4. The publishing industry is dead. Long live the publishing industry. It's actually getting interesting. On demand. E. Hard. Self. And they are all getting integrated. Oh, the slowness of business! But here we are, finally.

5. Theater is dead, too. Long live theater and the strange interactive thing it is becoming. It just proves that in the end, people like a good rib eye when they are watching Macbeth. And a potato with sour cream.

6. Marijuana is everywhere. I like it. But it makes me a bit crazy. So I kind of don't like it. Sparingly, sparingly, sparingly, kiddies. You wouldn't eat a whole bag of Smarties, either, would you?

7. Oscar weekend, or what we like to call it: the biggest holiday season of all in Los Angeles. Watch out for helicopters getting caught in your wig, friends.

8. It has nothing to do with race or size, but I can't help but sort of hate Africa right now. And strangely, what is exempt is South Africa. Change, turn, surprise.

9. No more time for boasting. Only time for doing.

10. I once wanted to be important. Now, I want to be important while having a good time.

I Want to Say Something to the Ladies

First of all, there are so many jokes that could be made here so it is essential that we do not do that in this little message-in-a-bottle-thing-that-is-a-blog. Who even blogs any longer? Oh, me.

So, there I was, reading and reading about all these women who are upset and all these parents of girls who are upset about the images that are being fed to them...of women.  Nice looking ones. Look. It's awful. No one denies that. It's all computer manipulation and other horse shit. But I want to put my foot down in one place. Can't the women in movies and on T.V. still be pretty? We all like to look at good looking people. Sure, we want them to be able to act, too. And be charismatic. And have that ability to behave so naturally that you think they are your best friend. All that. But sometimes, I've noticed, that when a young woman is attractive and she is real comfy with that (just like young men) then a lot of these other traits are more permissible. We give the more attractive, naturally, more attention. They often blossom under this positive gaze. Let them have it. Let them get rich on it. Let them enjoy it. Let them be beautiful. Would you stop a physicist from understanding String Theory or a cafeteria lady from screaming, "Eggs!" when she runs out of them in the steam table? I don't think so. As far as magazines go, the air brushing and slimming and all that, well that's just hell. But please leave me my good looking film and television actors. I'm getting old and loose and I like to be reminded of what it once was like. Hot is hot. It keeps us going. Some joy, please.

Now, let's hit abortion. I've talked about this before. If you are an atheist, and it seems I am, at least in any way that a religious person would define me by how I view how the world is here...then there is really no way that you can even begin to talk about when-a-soul-enters-a-fertilized-egg. There is only fertilization and non-fertilization. So, once there is a mash-up of an egg nucleus and a sperm nucleus, I don't see how you have anything else there BUT a future person. However. If it were me and some frigging future person invaded my body and I didn't want it, I'd simply kill it. Yeah. Kill. You're killing it. So kill it. And let's not pretend that it is anything less than that.

People kill and are killed and die and cause death every day. Sorry to be so callous. But there it is.

So here is my plea:  Let women be beautiful. At least on the screen. (And PLEASE, let the men be beautiful, too, by all means.)  And if you are invaded by sperm and it hits your egg and you have a new life in you and you don't want, Fucking kill it and let's all stop crying about it.

JR, a cafe owner in LA, once said so eloquently about Reproductive Rights, "Men just have to stop talking about it. Now!" She's right. Sort of.

But when it comes to beauty and Biology, I kind of can't stop talking about either one.

Gay Marriage and My Caddyshack Secret

Let us be warmed. The New York Times is reporting so much on gay marriage, gay oppression, hateful laws against gay people, gay sportsmen and the unalienable rights of gay men and women to love how they need to love, that you’d think it was just a liberal rag. ;)

I say, bring out your liberal rag if that rag is doing the right thing. Which it is, of course. Clearly, the paper has an agenda, and that agenda at its furthest reaches have almost nothing (but everything) to do with each other:  To give me a greater tax break, and to stop African governments from torturing, imprisoning and killing its gay citizens.

I do hope in a few hundred years, a gay woman in Nigeria can marry her girlfriend without reprisal. Or much much sooner.

And now these:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/24/us/politics/ohio-gay-marriage-push-divides-some-advocates.html?ref=todayspaper

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/25/world/europe/ugandan-president-to-sign-antigay-law.html?ref=world

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/25/us/holder-says-state-attorneys-general-dont-have-to-defend-gay-marriage-bans.html?ref=us

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/25/us/governor-of-arizona-is-pressed-to-veto-bill.html?ref=us

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/25/your-money/for-same-sex-marrieds-a-tax-season-to-look-back.html?ref=us

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/25/sports/basketball/nets-players-act-as-if-jason-collins-debut-was-not-a-big-deal.html?ref=sports

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/24/sports/basketball/jason-collins-finds-spot-again-and-moves-nba-forward.html?ref=sports

And for a bonus:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/25/movies/harold-ramis-who-helped-redefine-what-makes-us-laugh-on-screen-dies-at-69.html?ref=arts

Long live Harold Ramis. In addition to seeing Animal House about 900 times (I was a kid looking forward to college), my greatest memory of Mr. Ramis’ work, unhappily, was of Caddyshack, which I saw at one of the last drive-ins to exist with some best friends from high school. We were in a large customized van. There was a whole lot going on. I barely drank anything when I was younger, so I do believe the culprit was food. My stomach went south and there was a certain disgusting mess that accumulated in my drawers. I felt it coming on and I thought I was in charge. But I was wrong. I waddled over to the drive-in bathroom, hoping nothing would reach past my socks and into broad moonlight to expose me. I made it. Naturally, the horrendous toilet was without toilet paper so I had to think quickly. My underwear became my mopping device. After I got pretty clean, I threw them out. I slinked back to the van and watched the rest of the movie in jeans and shirt, only. Everyone in the van continued to drink and carouse. People seemed to notice that I was gone a long time but no one asked me why so no one knew what had happened to me. Until now, of course. 

Ten Things I Love Today

1. People don’t want to eat unhappy pigs. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/20/opinion/kristof-is-that-sausage-worth-this.html

2. When Hannah (Lena Dunham) talks in GIRLS in very flat, declarative sentences whenever she is uncomfortable. She starts mad and blaming and often ends up hurt and crying. Yeah, that. Girls.

3. House Plants.

4. Sea to Shining Sea: California, The West, in general. The density of travel opportunities in the Northeast.

5. The middle class and all its average solidity. When it’s there.

6. Spinach. Noodles. Cheese. See 1 above.

7. All those good body things you’d rather not hear about from me right now.

8. France. Up, down, all around.

9. Didion, Beckett, Woolf, Nabokov.

10. Recorded music, more than live. Mostly without drums.

Bonus:

11. My friends, of course.

ENJOY your weekend.

Time to Come Clean About Ten Things

1. I don't mind monosodium glutamate. In fact, I eat flavor packets.

2. Better drones than full out wars.

3. I don't care much about the unheard voices. Everyone is unheard.

4. Pain is pain and no one's is that much more interesting than anyone else's.

5. Beavers are taking over Massachusetts. Time for a thinning?

6. If I can live this entire life without ever going to Russia or China, I'll live.

7. I sleep late because I'd rather be alone at night, getting things done without any noise, than listen to the whir of the daily musts of others.

8. Cold is not the problem. Lack of light and lack of being outside with others---is criminal: NY.

9. Everyone has a mood disorder. It is interesting to know how and when it kicks in.

10. I want a dog. But not like this. Not without a dog door.

Fresh like Vik, Iceland

Windows full open.
Cold rain.
Storm is ending.
34 degrees.
Feels like spring.

Super Storm Pax has Begun

Okay, earlier this winter I had a certain attitude about all the bellyaching. It was, "Yeah, this is winter. Like back when we had winter."

Frankly, the very cold temperatures, always under freezing, are fine. People are talking about how they are used to it now. No one is shivering. We have become Icelandic.

But it's this endless filthy snow that never melts that just keeps building up. The well worn paths---they are covered with sand over frozen bridges of snow and ice. People walk over all this horror and go about their business. Everyone is wearing huge ugly boots. Souls are encrusted with salt. Walkways are encrusted with salt. It's like a huge crunchy dirty pretzel. But even saltier. It's hideous.

This could get a person down. But you start thinking this---after every storm, you are done with one more storm. The earth does orbit and the axis shifts. It has shifted quite a bit lately. The days are longer. The sun is pushing up toward a higher angle. You KNOW that spring will be here in five weeks. At least in name.
So there is hope.

We are a hopeful people.

But this PAX snow just started. And people are talking 8 or 12 inches. You just hope the rain that is coming in afterward will destroy the whole mess. Obliterate the dirt and salt.

So, hate to be all prissy. But it's not the snow or the cold. It's the mess.

Fun

What is fun?

Watching over your money and getting your taxes ready?

Trudging through the ice and frozen dirt because you have to?

No. Neither are.

But you have to. You have to. You have to.

So, since you have to--you may as well make an effort to enjoy yourself.

They say that looking back too much causes depression and looking forward too much causes anxiety. That staying in the moment, on task, is the road to enjoyment. Unless, of course, you are traumatized, then the past will simply grab at you.

Bringing everyone up to the present, having fun, even while doing taxes or crawling through another filthy 15 degree day, is possible. But it means that those who were mistreated need a little extra loving. We can all do that. Love the unfortunate. The loud. The stupid.

There are so many people. It really is like the great fungus of New Hampshire out there--huge and spreading. It can't be healthy to have all these people around. But there they are.

I'm no big lover of abortion. But, you know, a woman's right to choose and all that. Certainly.
The greatest birth control is a bad economy. Maybe it needs to continue at a pokey rate.

I hear we are going to top out at 9Billion. And then, somehow, by some sort of equation or prediction or I don't know what--we will level off at that level. Though, there are competing papers. Some say we will hit 9Billion by 2050 and then crawl up to 13Billion and then level off.

All those people need to have some fun. They can't all be slumped over their bicycles in Lagos, waiting for their next customer. Yes, that's what happens in Lagos. It's a crazy high-trade society. Many people have little businesses and they sleep at their business. That's what they have. A guy who cuts wood by pedaling his bicycle, in place, that is connected to a saw, has nowhere else to go but there. And he sleeps on the bicycle. Maybe if he stays in the moment he is then having fun?

I don't know.

Sometimes, I think we are reading all these things and doing all these things, and we don't really know what the hell is up. We make movies about it. We hit the issues. But we are not mathematicians, most of us. And it is math, the numbers of strivers, that dictates so much at any given moment.

Chaos. A bit. Hopeful. Some.

I complain about preparing taxes for my accountant and freezing ugly streets. None of it is fun. But when I do try, and I do try, to stay in the moment during any and all tasks, I am happier than when I don't.

But I do not think I would be happy living on a bicycle in Lagos. But that's just me.

Woody and Michael

So little else needs to be said about Woody Allen and his crazed family life.

Except this:  We won't know, ever, what lurked in his heart. Or loins. Maybe it was proven that he did nothing untoward to his daughter. But, of course, he married the daughter of his girlfriend and everyone got pretty upset about that.

Michael Jackson and Woody Allen and millions of other men like them young. It seems. Men will do what they can, too, to satisfy an itch. Go behind a closed door. Make a whole movie about it. Open up a theme park. Etc.

Beyond any criminal activity, this also becomes a biological problem. Why on earth are some men sexually attracted to children?

You can understand the men who want kids in their late teens. Not long ago, that was when people got married. Rich men got to have very young women as their brides. Beyond the questions of power and property and control, most of us can agree that kids in their late teens are sexual. But young kids? Who are not sexual? Yeah, that's the difficult one.

I know so many people who were wrongly handled as children. It's a true crisis.

We have to figure out why and how men are sexually attracted to children. And if it is genetic, then it is time for some genetic engineering.

Good News About the World

Though we hear all this anti-gay hell about Russia...and it is hell...

Think about this:

The entire Western World, almost, is supporting all athletes of all sexual orientations. Think about it. Just twenty years ago, you would not have had a major corporation jumping up and down with its rainbow flags, saying, GO GUUURRRRLLL!
Now, it's just what is done. It has become the norm. It's brilliant. (And it sure does remove a certain amount of tension from my life.)

So Russia, yeah, you are a drag. But the civilized world?  It's pretty damn civilized. And for that, I have to say this: I am going to continue to live in the United States, in the usable places, and there is no need, really, to ever go to Russia. I'm no Olympiad.

Happy Sports to all.

We always progress. Always. Toward including everyone. That's the groovy thing about democracy.
Now, let's get behind our trans friends. And our one armed paper hangers!

Moby on LA

Thanks, BC.

I agree with everything Moby says, except for this line:

That's what New York became, a victim of its own photogenic beauty and success.

Moby is as Moby does:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/03/leave-new-york-for-los-angeles

PSH

Post Seymour Hoedown:

There has been so much bandying about the tragic end to the heroin user and wonderful actor-artist, PSHoffman.

Most of it has been kind and compassionate.

Some people are terrified and have blamed him for his own demise. “How could he do that to his three children?”

How could he not?

What happened happened.

I was shocked about this news. I had no idea he even had a drug problem. Maybe I was too drunk/high to notice?

Strangely, I have been able to “abuse” alcohol and weed at weekend levels that in other cultures would be considered just a tame Wednesday evening. It’s hard to know the extent of the damage you are doing. Luckily for me, I have a very sensitive, weak system, so there is just a limit to what I can handle and I just stop. For days at a time. For weeks. Sometimes years. Depending on the bender.

At the root of whatever it is that keeps me from going off the deep end, chemically, is I am terrified of illness and refuse to destroy myself (even though, at times, I do believe that others would be happy with my disappearance). My self preservation is stronger than my desire to numb out.

The primal horror in reaction to the death of this wonderful actor is that we all have a very questionable impulse. To self-obliterate. We all, while standing on a tall bridge, feel the desire to jump over the divide into the nothingness. We all want to escape this fucking veil of tears. Those of us who are high functioning, or medium functioning, or functioning within the legal limits of our house pants while sitting on a stained couch, find it terrifying that we could be so self destructive. Not to mention what we are doing to others by self immolation. But we all have some kind of wish to disappear. Even if only occasionally. Certainly, we all want pleasure, even if that pleasure is nothing more than a lack of pain.

There is much talk about brain chemistry. The chemistry of addiction. All that. I believe we will fully understand the chemistry of this whole addiction mess more fully in decades to come. But then, I do believe we may use our scientific ability to genetically engineer human beings who will then not have problems with addiction.

However, I fear the world will be less colorful.

I sort of know, or have the sinking feeling, that my creativity—which is really a form of reaching for transcendence—comes from the same area as my need to obliterate my negative feelings and increase my warm feelings. This is not dissimilar to drinking gallons of cheap beer at the Hofbräuhaus am Platzl in Munich (and why didn’t Duncan ever call me? We got along so well that evening!) or like when I am stoned on some of the good weed you can simply have delivered to your door, anywhere in livable U.S.A., and use it to enhance ye ol’ sex life or dry pot roast.

Of course, there are limits. For me. But I completely understand that old saw you hear in 12 step rooms, “One is too much and a thousand never enough.”  The desire, “To find God at the bottom of a bottle.”  Pascal’s “God Shaped Hole,” Etc. There is a need FOR SOMETHING ELSE. And maybe for some people this need is filled while watching sun motes dance around their sweet children’s heads who love to eat noodles with their hands. But many people don’t have the luxury…of noodles. More abstract things can take over.

Death always lurks. For all of us. Horrible, horrible death. Yet on some level we crave death because for one thing, life can be too hard or too boring and also, it’s a curious place, death. Like, what the hell is it? And if we are going there, anyway, wouldn’t it make sense to get there sooner? Who likes to wait for anything?

Life is better, we say. But we don’t really know that. I have come out of anesthesia three times—each experience leaving me thinking, “Damn, if death is that kind of nothingness, why on earth is anyone afraid of it? I’ve never felt more well rested!” (And on my tombstone, please write, “My sinuses have never felt better”)

I believe the righteous indignation that people hold against addicts is a projection of the fear of their own death and the death of the ones that they love. People hate the idea of no longer existing. But why? They did not exist for all those long years before they were born. Are they mad about that, too? And does someone have to pay for this most great probability that we are not immortal?

I did not know PSHoffman. I know some people who did. They are all saddened. Sad. Not mad. Just sad. Anyone who did not know him who is angry at his action is projecting a fear onto him. Anger will not change anything here.

One day, we may figure out how to handle ourselves better on this earth, with all its pitfalls and problems and aggressions and miseries. But until then, I think we are going to drink and do drugs. And probably after that, too. It’s tricky.

Rest in Peace, Philip. You gave more than most. Sorry you’re gone. It’s sad for all of us. Living, unlike being dead, is often sad. 

Wintry

The Hudson

We're sleeping right on it. Windows Open. Fresh air. It's geography right in the right wet good place. And today: 45 degrees.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson_River

Sure, helicopters and planes use it for their visual. And you want to kill. But it calms down. And it's quiet. And all the windows are open.

Air blown across salt water is fresh and good.

Air blown across Fresh Water is the breath of fucking Jesus.

I love you, Jesus.