So, today I was chatting on Facebook with my old pal Megan Thomas. Megan was relating to me a story of a friend of hers that passed away from lung cancer (non-smoking related...and the poor guy was only 27...super sad). The young man happened to be a huge supporter of Hillary Clinton. At the memorial service today, the following remark was made:
"Mike had to go to heaven to help Hillary. Because only a miracle can help her now."
That definitely qualifies for the Political One Liner of the Week Award. Awarded to Megan Thomas on behalf of the young man who passed away much much too soon.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
The Enron Factor
I am pretty much exhausted. I work for an organization comprised of largely kick ass individuals that I respect and love. But, like many small non-profits still in the start-up phase, we have lots and lots and lots to figure out when it comes to organizational development and personal interactions. I am as guilty as the rest of falling into the personalities not policies trap.
One of the strengths of organizing in the political left is that we value not only the product but the process and the people. For many of us, if the product is stellar but the process to develop it is fucked up and the people involved in creating the product walk away from the process hurting (physically, mentally, spiritually) then, truthfully, the product is worthless. Our inherent difference from the Corporate Right is that the total value of an outcome is not solely based on the worth of the product but indeed the worth of the entire endeavor from start to finish. The belief that only outcomes matter continues to be at the core of mainstream society and at the heart of the underpinnings of our capitalist system and our democracy.
Liberty Tree works specifically around democracy issues. At our core, we reject winner take all systems because, frankly, those systems are the “democracy” equivalent of Enron. At Enron, the bottom line was dollars and profits and it didn't matter that the process to create the dollars was flawed, faulty, and false. It didn't matter that while some few would become mega rich that the people involved, particularly the workers, would eat the penalities at the cost of their pensions when the three Fs were un covered. In a winner take all democratic practice, it doesn't matter how the process to get elected happens, who pays for it, what promises are made and not kept or the margin by which victory is declared (ie plurality versus majority) the only thing that matters is victory and the people left without representation or voice be damned and the shredded and mortally wounded democratic process be buried alongside the people. At Enron it was the top executives that “won.” In the American Democracy, it is generally Senators, Representatives, Governors and Presidents that are the Ken Lays.
Unfortunately, at times, these same values to which all U.S. citizens to some degree are inculcated manage to sneak across the center aisle, weave through the liberals and sneak into the progressive community. In the last couple of weeks, both internal to my own organziation and to organizations with which I volunteer the depth of the infiltration of the “me first, me second, me last and always” mentality has been unveiled. But there is a difference, on the right the Me Mentality is often calculated and conscious. On the Left, particularly the revolutionary left, it is a subconscious act that the conscious radical rejects while actively acting it out. I am no exception. When I find my personal issues triggered, I find myself to be a masterful player of the Me game. To my credit, when I am confronted (or I confront myself, which also happens) I do what I can to seperate the Me from the what's right and try to make amends for any actions I took in defense of my self interest that crossed from self preservation into selfishness.
I once believed that all my comadres and copadres on the left had the same ability and desire to overcome, reject, and replace the Corporate Right instincts that have been ingrained into us by pop consumer captialist culture. I am still convinced that 98% of my friends and loved ones that are seeking to change the world for the better are still committed to fighting the three Fs both personally and in the political realm and excorcising them. But, I realized today, after thinking over some of the struggles of the last couple of weeks, that there are some people on the Left that even when lovingly given the grace to confront their own inner Ken Lay instead hire an internal Karl Rove to run a public image campaign to allow them to continue presenting one reality while living another. For the first time in a long time, my faith has been shaken. Or, perhaps better to say, that for the first time in my life I am considering walking away from particular people because I do not believe they want to be different than they are now. Even more sobering is that there have been times in my life when people in my life have felt the same way about me.
One of the strengths of organizing in the political left is that we value not only the product but the process and the people. For many of us, if the product is stellar but the process to develop it is fucked up and the people involved in creating the product walk away from the process hurting (physically, mentally, spiritually) then, truthfully, the product is worthless. Our inherent difference from the Corporate Right is that the total value of an outcome is not solely based on the worth of the product but indeed the worth of the entire endeavor from start to finish. The belief that only outcomes matter continues to be at the core of mainstream society and at the heart of the underpinnings of our capitalist system and our democracy.
Liberty Tree works specifically around democracy issues. At our core, we reject winner take all systems because, frankly, those systems are the “democracy” equivalent of Enron. At Enron, the bottom line was dollars and profits and it didn't matter that the process to create the dollars was flawed, faulty, and false. It didn't matter that while some few would become mega rich that the people involved, particularly the workers, would eat the penalities at the cost of their pensions when the three Fs were un covered. In a winner take all democratic practice, it doesn't matter how the process to get elected happens, who pays for it, what promises are made and not kept or the margin by which victory is declared (ie plurality versus majority) the only thing that matters is victory and the people left without representation or voice be damned and the shredded and mortally wounded democratic process be buried alongside the people. At Enron it was the top executives that “won.” In the American Democracy, it is generally Senators, Representatives, Governors and Presidents that are the Ken Lays.
Unfortunately, at times, these same values to which all U.S. citizens to some degree are inculcated manage to sneak across the center aisle, weave through the liberals and sneak into the progressive community. In the last couple of weeks, both internal to my own organziation and to organizations with which I volunteer the depth of the infiltration of the “me first, me second, me last and always” mentality has been unveiled. But there is a difference, on the right the Me Mentality is often calculated and conscious. On the Left, particularly the revolutionary left, it is a subconscious act that the conscious radical rejects while actively acting it out. I am no exception. When I find my personal issues triggered, I find myself to be a masterful player of the Me game. To my credit, when I am confronted (or I confront myself, which also happens) I do what I can to seperate the Me from the what's right and try to make amends for any actions I took in defense of my self interest that crossed from self preservation into selfishness.
I once believed that all my comadres and copadres on the left had the same ability and desire to overcome, reject, and replace the Corporate Right instincts that have been ingrained into us by pop consumer captialist culture. I am still convinced that 98% of my friends and loved ones that are seeking to change the world for the better are still committed to fighting the three Fs both personally and in the political realm and excorcising them. But, I realized today, after thinking over some of the struggles of the last couple of weeks, that there are some people on the Left that even when lovingly given the grace to confront their own inner Ken Lay instead hire an internal Karl Rove to run a public image campaign to allow them to continue presenting one reality while living another. For the first time in a long time, my faith has been shaken. Or, perhaps better to say, that for the first time in my life I am considering walking away from particular people because I do not believe they want to be different than they are now. Even more sobering is that there have been times in my life when people in my life have felt the same way about me.
Monday, May 26, 2008
L.I.C.E and M.I.C.E
I think that everyone should be forced to take Continuing Education Credits and need to be re certified on basic skills learned in kindergarten at least once every five years. In particular, everyone should be forced to take a Live Interactive Courtesy Evaluation (LICE) and a Minimum Interaction Communication Evaluation (MICE) with a passing grade in order to be able to talk or otherwise interact with other living creatures including common pets and domestic livestock.
Let me explain how I came to this conclusion. This afternoon, I was attempting to take a nap on a languid early summer day in Madison. Taylour's apartment looks out over Lake Mendota. The vista combined with 45 minutes of canoing earlier in the afternoon and a tasty lunch had given me the -itis (for more information on the -itis please see Aaron McGruder's Boondocks). I had settled down on the Green Pleather Couch (aka my bed away from home when I visit the office in Madison) only to be awakened by the irate slamming of the microwave door, the bathroom door, several cabinets, and a plethora of pots and pans. Thus returned Andy.
Andy is Taylour's special needs roommate. In general, he is a likable guy. He is fairly quiet, and he is prone to passive aggressive fits of preschool playground behavior. I rose from my nap, and tip-toed into the kitchen. I knew that Andy had often gone nuclear on Taylour over a stray dish left in the sink. So, I ran water in my rice pot and into the wok and jumped in the shower with the intention of cleaning the dishes after I emerged. As I was toweling off, I was again aurally assaulted by another round of slamming and banging dishes and pots and pans followed by the crash of the kitchen door being flung open and slammed shut.
I emerged from the bathroom, this time, ready to cut a bitch in the throat. I looked in the kitchen to find the wok was missing. Then, a moment later, Taylour entered. I was hoping that she had temporarily gone crazy and had been the one slamming things around. Alas, it was too much for which to hope.
“Andy is mad because you put soap in his wok,” she said shrugging and looking apologetic for his asinine behavior.
“Andy needs to grow the hell up and stop slamming shit around like he was on the playground and the girls wouldn't let him play jump rope with them,” I said.
Turns out, to compound the situation, Andy was drunk. Drunk at 5pm on a Monday....GO ANDY GO (I am a little bit jealous). But, drunk or no, I expect anyone over the age of say 18 that has a full time job and a college degree to be able to knock on the bathroom door and say, “hey...you shouldn't put soap in the wok, let me show you how to clean it, so it doesn't lose the seasoning.”
Instead, I got the hipster femme biznatch that decided to do a scene from Stomp in the kitchen. Newsflash Andy, I don't read Morse code. But I sure do know lots of interesting symbols and gestures of my own that I would be happy to show you next time you throw a tantrum in the kitchen.
To quote Jenelope from that classic piece of cinema, Bring It On, “You been touched by an angel, girl.”
Anyone that has lived with me, that I have dated, or that is related to me knows that waking me from a nap is dangerous and that waking me from a nap for some bullshit has a direct mathematical relationship to the waker's continued good health. Andy is truly blessed that my love of Taylour and her continued ability to cover rent outweighed my desire to take a cheese slicer and peel Andy's face into thin slivers and feed them to Taylour's dog Cooper.
Let me explain how I came to this conclusion. This afternoon, I was attempting to take a nap on a languid early summer day in Madison. Taylour's apartment looks out over Lake Mendota. The vista combined with 45 minutes of canoing earlier in the afternoon and a tasty lunch had given me the -itis (for more information on the -itis please see Aaron McGruder's Boondocks). I had settled down on the Green Pleather Couch (aka my bed away from home when I visit the office in Madison) only to be awakened by the irate slamming of the microwave door, the bathroom door, several cabinets, and a plethora of pots and pans. Thus returned Andy.
Andy is Taylour's special needs roommate. In general, he is a likable guy. He is fairly quiet, and he is prone to passive aggressive fits of preschool playground behavior. I rose from my nap, and tip-toed into the kitchen. I knew that Andy had often gone nuclear on Taylour over a stray dish left in the sink. So, I ran water in my rice pot and into the wok and jumped in the shower with the intention of cleaning the dishes after I emerged. As I was toweling off, I was again aurally assaulted by another round of slamming and banging dishes and pots and pans followed by the crash of the kitchen door being flung open and slammed shut.
I emerged from the bathroom, this time, ready to cut a bitch in the throat. I looked in the kitchen to find the wok was missing. Then, a moment later, Taylour entered. I was hoping that she had temporarily gone crazy and had been the one slamming things around. Alas, it was too much for which to hope.
“Andy is mad because you put soap in his wok,” she said shrugging and looking apologetic for his asinine behavior.
“Andy needs to grow the hell up and stop slamming shit around like he was on the playground and the girls wouldn't let him play jump rope with them,” I said.
Turns out, to compound the situation, Andy was drunk. Drunk at 5pm on a Monday....GO ANDY GO (I am a little bit jealous). But, drunk or no, I expect anyone over the age of say 18 that has a full time job and a college degree to be able to knock on the bathroom door and say, “hey...you shouldn't put soap in the wok, let me show you how to clean it, so it doesn't lose the seasoning.”
Instead, I got the hipster femme biznatch that decided to do a scene from Stomp in the kitchen. Newsflash Andy, I don't read Morse code. But I sure do know lots of interesting symbols and gestures of my own that I would be happy to show you next time you throw a tantrum in the kitchen.
To quote Jenelope from that classic piece of cinema, Bring It On, “You been touched by an angel, girl.”
Anyone that has lived with me, that I have dated, or that is related to me knows that waking me from a nap is dangerous and that waking me from a nap for some bullshit has a direct mathematical relationship to the waker's continued good health. Andy is truly blessed that my love of Taylour and her continued ability to cover rent outweighed my desire to take a cheese slicer and peel Andy's face into thin slivers and feed them to Taylour's dog Cooper.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Accountability is not just for Accountants!
Accountability has become a big deal for me. At times in my life, I have run away from accountability or any situation in which I felt that I would be held accountable. Even now, I do not relish being held accountable for the stupid things that I still, from time to time, do. But, I am making a concentrated effort, particularly in my work life, volunteer life, and in my relationships, to be accountable and to hold the people I care about accountable.
Accountability to me is not a prejorative term. I believe that when I am held accountable (no matter how much I hate it) I am being helped to grow and become a better person. Now I have been on the receiving end of negative emotional fueled accountability, and I have been the recipient of loving accountability. The type of accountability that I am talking about and support is loving accountability...loving accountability is a process in which the humanity, fallibility, and worth of the person you are holding accountable is forefront in the accountability process.
Today, I had two interactions that have made me think about accountability. I received a rather terse email from an individual with whom, in the past, I have only had pleasant and mutual respectful interactions. But, our last few interactions have been characterized on his part by a cold, standoffish bitchiness that caught me off guard. So, today, I responded to his email with a gentle response and brought up to him that I had noticed a change in our interactions and that if there was something for which I needed to be held accountable to please bring it to my attention. He wrote back another short and snippy email that was briefly accusatory (he said I do not follow through with my promises), and I responded explaining what I knew of the promise I made (to attend a series of meetings when I could) and explaining also that I had started a new job in late winter which meant that I could not attend any meetings. I then asked him if there was something else to which I had committed myself for which I did not follow through. He responded with silence.
The second interaction I had came just this evening while attending the kick-ass Allies for Justice dinner. Lately, the board of directors of Headwaters has been engaged in some very emotional and complicated decision making processes around a range of issues. The processes involved have sometimes been less than ideal, including a process that happened earlier this week. A board member that I highly respect, in my opinion, dropped the ball in such a way that it caused more complications in an already complicated process. Avoiding Minnesota Nice, I called her immediately, expressed my concerns in a voicemail, and I asked her to return my phone call so we could discuss the matter further. She chose not to return my phone call and then, tonight, when I saw her in person, she gave me the cold shoulder as well. In this situation, I was taken by surprise, particularly since I was the one that had asked her to be accountable. I greeted her warmly, and she responded in a way that I thought was far far beneath her.
In both circumstances I was dealing with individuals far older than myself that were acting like people half my age. Both are members of the social justice community in Minneapolis and both are queer. We belong to a small community in which these sorts of issues become wedges that keep us from working together...when...in reality...in case one: I offered to be accountable if necessary and that offer was ignored, and in case two: I asked for her accountability and that was also ignored. In both situations I was not interested in somene being right and someone being wrong. I was (and still am) interested in a dialogue that allows all folks involved to express their feelings and to figure out how to acknowledge the situation, rememdy it, and begin the process of rebuilding trust and relationships.
I am not saint. I fuck up constantly. And I also have done exactly what these two folks did today. So please read that I am in no way offering myself as an example of the meritorious human being that always does the right thing and is ready to own up to his shit at all times. That is far from the mark. But I do feel, that when someone offers you a chance to reconcile and move on that it should be a no brainer that you do the brief work to figure things out instead of creating more drama and more issues that will, most likely, need to be addressed one way or the other.
Accountability to me is not a prejorative term. I believe that when I am held accountable (no matter how much I hate it) I am being helped to grow and become a better person. Now I have been on the receiving end of negative emotional fueled accountability, and I have been the recipient of loving accountability. The type of accountability that I am talking about and support is loving accountability...loving accountability is a process in which the humanity, fallibility, and worth of the person you are holding accountable is forefront in the accountability process.
Today, I had two interactions that have made me think about accountability. I received a rather terse email from an individual with whom, in the past, I have only had pleasant and mutual respectful interactions. But, our last few interactions have been characterized on his part by a cold, standoffish bitchiness that caught me off guard. So, today, I responded to his email with a gentle response and brought up to him that I had noticed a change in our interactions and that if there was something for which I needed to be held accountable to please bring it to my attention. He wrote back another short and snippy email that was briefly accusatory (he said I do not follow through with my promises), and I responded explaining what I knew of the promise I made (to attend a series of meetings when I could) and explaining also that I had started a new job in late winter which meant that I could not attend any meetings. I then asked him if there was something else to which I had committed myself for which I did not follow through. He responded with silence.
The second interaction I had came just this evening while attending the kick-ass Allies for Justice dinner. Lately, the board of directors of Headwaters has been engaged in some very emotional and complicated decision making processes around a range of issues. The processes involved have sometimes been less than ideal, including a process that happened earlier this week. A board member that I highly respect, in my opinion, dropped the ball in such a way that it caused more complications in an already complicated process. Avoiding Minnesota Nice, I called her immediately, expressed my concerns in a voicemail, and I asked her to return my phone call so we could discuss the matter further. She chose not to return my phone call and then, tonight, when I saw her in person, she gave me the cold shoulder as well. In this situation, I was taken by surprise, particularly since I was the one that had asked her to be accountable. I greeted her warmly, and she responded in a way that I thought was far far beneath her.
In both circumstances I was dealing with individuals far older than myself that were acting like people half my age. Both are members of the social justice community in Minneapolis and both are queer. We belong to a small community in which these sorts of issues become wedges that keep us from working together...when...in reality...in case one: I offered to be accountable if necessary and that offer was ignored, and in case two: I asked for her accountability and that was also ignored. In both situations I was not interested in somene being right and someone being wrong. I was (and still am) interested in a dialogue that allows all folks involved to express their feelings and to figure out how to acknowledge the situation, rememdy it, and begin the process of rebuilding trust and relationships.
I am not saint. I fuck up constantly. And I also have done exactly what these two folks did today. So please read that I am in no way offering myself as an example of the meritorious human being that always does the right thing and is ready to own up to his shit at all times. That is far from the mark. But I do feel, that when someone offers you a chance to reconcile and move on that it should be a no brainer that you do the brief work to figure things out instead of creating more drama and more issues that will, most likely, need to be addressed one way or the other.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Bookin' It II: Writing Boogaloo
So, I am in the middle of the fifth chapter of my as of yet unnamed book. As I am writing this bad boy, I have found myself in a constant struggle not only with being as true as possible to a set of circumstances from which, at this point, I am more than 12 years and a thousand miles distant but also with a litany that keeps cycling through my brain...why are you writing this...who cares...is anyone going to read this...is this funny enough...is this too funny...can you write a memoir this way....is there a right way...how the hell do you get a damn book published...you are dumb if you think anyone is going to publish this...when should I let folks start reading chapters to provide feedback. The list seems to go on ad infinitum.
I have found, though, that even with the struggles that come with writing the book, I am loving it. I am loving the process, I am loving the challenge, and I am loving forcing myself to delve into memories of perhaps one of the most turbulent times of my life (and for those that have known me...I can count the non-turbulent times on one foot). I have decided that the scope of the book is going to go from my sophomore year of college at Warren Wilson through my trip to Puerto Rico as a senior at the University of Minnesota. In the grand epochs of my life...it seems my life has naturally broken itself into various ages...birth to junior high...high school to the end of my freshmen year of college....my sophomore year of college up to my trip to Puerto Rico and my return to North Carolina...my return to Minnesota in 2001 to 2003 and the entrance of HIV into my world....2003 to Albuquerque and my return from Albuquerque to the present time. Good lord, that is a lot of subdivisions for a guy that is only 30 years old. At least I know that if this book sells, I have at least a good five or six more I can put out, and perhaps by the time those are done a new chapter in my life history will have been completed, so I can keep the paychecks coming.
Actually, writing this book has been a great exercise, and it has rekindled my love for great speculative fiction. I wrote a play a couple of years ago now about a vampire, since childhood I have read anything and everything I could get my hands on concerning vampires, and I have seen just about every major vampire flick from the early 80s forward (plus the original Dracula and snippets of Nosferatu). I love vampires, I love Anne Rice's vampires, I love Bram Stoker's vampires, I love Joss Whedon's vampires, and I think that the next project (see me always thinking ahead) is going to be my own take on the vampire legends. But, you know, I haven't finished the book I am currently working on.
Writing is such a beautiful beautiful thing. Folks have complimented me on my writing. And I have deeply appreciated those compliments, but I feel as if my ability to write is akin to someone that can sing their butt off, or is a piano virtuoso...there is hard work that goes into developing the talent, but, in the end, it is a genetic predisposition that resulted from the luck of the draw. Some people can see a piece a woman in a piece of marble, and I just see marble. The key, for me, is encouraging everyone to find their gifts and to explore them and share them and appreciate them as well. And I appreciate the opportunity to share my gifts, and hard work, with those around me. And, if by chance, someone gets laughter, joy, a good cry, or an aha moment from something I've written, then all the better.
I have found, though, that even with the struggles that come with writing the book, I am loving it. I am loving the process, I am loving the challenge, and I am loving forcing myself to delve into memories of perhaps one of the most turbulent times of my life (and for those that have known me...I can count the non-turbulent times on one foot). I have decided that the scope of the book is going to go from my sophomore year of college at Warren Wilson through my trip to Puerto Rico as a senior at the University of Minnesota. In the grand epochs of my life...it seems my life has naturally broken itself into various ages...birth to junior high...high school to the end of my freshmen year of college....my sophomore year of college up to my trip to Puerto Rico and my return to North Carolina...my return to Minnesota in 2001 to 2003 and the entrance of HIV into my world....2003 to Albuquerque and my return from Albuquerque to the present time. Good lord, that is a lot of subdivisions for a guy that is only 30 years old. At least I know that if this book sells, I have at least a good five or six more I can put out, and perhaps by the time those are done a new chapter in my life history will have been completed, so I can keep the paychecks coming.
Actually, writing this book has been a great exercise, and it has rekindled my love for great speculative fiction. I wrote a play a couple of years ago now about a vampire, since childhood I have read anything and everything I could get my hands on concerning vampires, and I have seen just about every major vampire flick from the early 80s forward (plus the original Dracula and snippets of Nosferatu). I love vampires, I love Anne Rice's vampires, I love Bram Stoker's vampires, I love Joss Whedon's vampires, and I think that the next project (see me always thinking ahead) is going to be my own take on the vampire legends. But, you know, I haven't finished the book I am currently working on.
Writing is such a beautiful beautiful thing. Folks have complimented me on my writing. And I have deeply appreciated those compliments, but I feel as if my ability to write is akin to someone that can sing their butt off, or is a piano virtuoso...there is hard work that goes into developing the talent, but, in the end, it is a genetic predisposition that resulted from the luck of the draw. Some people can see a piece a woman in a piece of marble, and I just see marble. The key, for me, is encouraging everyone to find their gifts and to explore them and share them and appreciate them as well. And I appreciate the opportunity to share my gifts, and hard work, with those around me. And, if by chance, someone gets laughter, joy, a good cry, or an aha moment from something I've written, then all the better.
Monday, May 19, 2008
We Are Family...
Family is a powerful creature. I spend exactly a quarter of the time wondering how the hell I survived growing up, another quarter time wishing I had a better relationship with my siblings, and the rest of the time I very simply love my family.
Last weekend, my family gathered to throw a fundraiser for my kick ass cousin Jim, who is a leukemia survivor and just had an experimental surgery involving a transplant of stem cells from his brother into his body...which has been amazing. His body not only has recovered, but, because of the stem cell transplant, Jim is no longer an indentifcal twin. He received the stem cell transplant from his older brother, Joe, and he now has Joe's blood type and will most likely develop Joe's food and plant allergies. Weird.
As I have been hanging out with my uber awesome niece Shayla and my little cousins Lonnie David, Danielle, and Edison James, I was struck that truly a new familial generation has arrived. Because Shayla is the oldest and calls me Uncle Billy her cousins have also taken to calling me Uncle Billy as well. Technically, Shayla is my niece, Lonnie david and Danielle are my first cousins, and Edison James is my first cousin once removed (the son of my cousin Ed). It is rather personally funny for me because I refer to my Dad's cousin with whom he was raised, my Aunty Bev, as Aunt Bev...and my other brothers and sisters also referred to Aunty Bev's sister Sharon as Aunty Sharon. I can actually remember when Sharon and her brother Vincent stilled lived at home with their Mother, so I call them by their first names. Family is fluid and funny.
One of my best memories from this weekend, besides nearly a hundred relatives and their friends coming together to raise thousands of dollars for my cousin Jim (at a honky tonk bar in Rice Lake, MN with my second cousin once removed's 70s rock cover band playing “Sweet Home Alabama), was of my little cousin Lonnie David. Lonnie is just shy of his third birthday and he is learning to be potty trained. Well, at one point, he went to the bathroom like a big boy (aka had peed in his baby pot). I was walking past the bathroom, and this adorable little brown boy rushes out of the bathroom and says,
“Uncle Billy, give me high five.”
So I give him a high five.
“Uncle Billy, give me a kiss!”
So I give him a kiss.
“Yuck!” He says and wipes his face giggling.
I was dying of laughter at that point. The kid has impeccably comedic timing, and in a family where sarcasm is a genetically inherited trait that boy is gonna give Margaret Cho a run for her money.
The other golden moment of the weekend was the night I spent at my Aunt Susie's house. Aunt Susie has always been an early riser. The new house that my Uncle Joe built her is fairly open. Two of my cousins and I had slept on the second floor in the loft/office area. So voices from the living room carried easily upstairs. Since I was so far north that it was too cold for Jesus to visit for most of the year, the sun comes up about as soon as it sets in the summertime. So, I woke up Sunday morning to a chorus of voices and laughter. And then I hear the overdeveloped, uberpowerful longs of my two year old cousin Edison James shout, “Is Uncle Billy still sleeping?”
I took this as my cue that I must have slept in ridiculously late. I come down the stairs, contacts scratching my eyeballs, and I see my Aunt Sue frying sausages in the kitchen. The sun is up and everyone else is sitting in the living room. I ask Aunt Sue, “What time is it.”
“It's getting' late. Twenty past six!” She said it with such wicked delight, that I screwed up my face, grabbed a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie and said, “You people are sick. I'm going back to bed.”
I then lumbered up the stairs and laid back down until eight.
Family is something else. Our is as dysfunctional as most, better than some, and worse than others...but when it comes down to it...we are like the Irish Clans of old...you fuck with one of us...you fuck with all of us...so you better bring your shillelagh or your stem cells, cuz it's on.
Last weekend, my family gathered to throw a fundraiser for my kick ass cousin Jim, who is a leukemia survivor and just had an experimental surgery involving a transplant of stem cells from his brother into his body...which has been amazing. His body not only has recovered, but, because of the stem cell transplant, Jim is no longer an indentifcal twin. He received the stem cell transplant from his older brother, Joe, and he now has Joe's blood type and will most likely develop Joe's food and plant allergies. Weird.
As I have been hanging out with my uber awesome niece Shayla and my little cousins Lonnie David, Danielle, and Edison James, I was struck that truly a new familial generation has arrived. Because Shayla is the oldest and calls me Uncle Billy her cousins have also taken to calling me Uncle Billy as well. Technically, Shayla is my niece, Lonnie david and Danielle are my first cousins, and Edison James is my first cousin once removed (the son of my cousin Ed). It is rather personally funny for me because I refer to my Dad's cousin with whom he was raised, my Aunty Bev, as Aunt Bev...and my other brothers and sisters also referred to Aunty Bev's sister Sharon as Aunty Sharon. I can actually remember when Sharon and her brother Vincent stilled lived at home with their Mother, so I call them by their first names. Family is fluid and funny.
One of my best memories from this weekend, besides nearly a hundred relatives and their friends coming together to raise thousands of dollars for my cousin Jim (at a honky tonk bar in Rice Lake, MN with my second cousin once removed's 70s rock cover band playing “Sweet Home Alabama), was of my little cousin Lonnie David. Lonnie is just shy of his third birthday and he is learning to be potty trained. Well, at one point, he went to the bathroom like a big boy (aka had peed in his baby pot). I was walking past the bathroom, and this adorable little brown boy rushes out of the bathroom and says,
“Uncle Billy, give me high five.”
So I give him a high five.
“Uncle Billy, give me a kiss!”
So I give him a kiss.
“Yuck!” He says and wipes his face giggling.
I was dying of laughter at that point. The kid has impeccably comedic timing, and in a family where sarcasm is a genetically inherited trait that boy is gonna give Margaret Cho a run for her money.
The other golden moment of the weekend was the night I spent at my Aunt Susie's house. Aunt Susie has always been an early riser. The new house that my Uncle Joe built her is fairly open. Two of my cousins and I had slept on the second floor in the loft/office area. So voices from the living room carried easily upstairs. Since I was so far north that it was too cold for Jesus to visit for most of the year, the sun comes up about as soon as it sets in the summertime. So, I woke up Sunday morning to a chorus of voices and laughter. And then I hear the overdeveloped, uberpowerful longs of my two year old cousin Edison James shout, “Is Uncle Billy still sleeping?”
I took this as my cue that I must have slept in ridiculously late. I come down the stairs, contacts scratching my eyeballs, and I see my Aunt Sue frying sausages in the kitchen. The sun is up and everyone else is sitting in the living room. I ask Aunt Sue, “What time is it.”
“It's getting' late. Twenty past six!” She said it with such wicked delight, that I screwed up my face, grabbed a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie and said, “You people are sick. I'm going back to bed.”
I then lumbered up the stairs and laid back down until eight.
Family is something else. Our is as dysfunctional as most, better than some, and worse than others...but when it comes down to it...we are like the Irish Clans of old...you fuck with one of us...you fuck with all of us...so you better bring your shillelagh or your stem cells, cuz it's on.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Please and Thank You
What the hell ever happened to please and thank you? Now, don't get me wrong, I am no Miss Manners. But growing up, I was taught that when you bumped into someone or otherwise invaded someone's personal space by proximity or accident, you said “excuse me.” When you were given a gift or someone gifted you with an act of kindness (holding a door open, etc.) you said thank you. And, when you asked for something, even if you are paying for it, you say please. Common courtesy goes a hell of a long way.
Now maybe because I have been spending a bit of time in New York lately, I am finding myself on edge, but I swear to God the Father, his Son Jesus, their pal the Holy Ghost, Mary Magdalene, Mary Mother of God, and Maria Fuentes the tranny working girl from down the block, if one more person is unnecessarily rude to me, I am going to go Miss Manners Commando and start cutting bitches with impunity.
The latest rude moment I encountered was perhaps the single most perfect walking and talking example of irony I have ever experienced. I was sitting on my return flight from New York to Minneapolis and the flight attendants parked their goodie cart right by my seat. Now I was attempting to sleep as was the gentlemen in front of me. And the guy across the aisle from me was trying to read his book. The female flight attendant is talking in the loudest most obnoxious New York accented English possible telling the male flight attendant about a rude experience she had with a passenger that was yelling at her in Spanish because she did not speak French and they were on a flight to Paris. The female flight attendant was going on and on and on about how rude this woman was being all the while not giving a good two shits that she was running her damn mouth at decible levels that usually require a permit.
If it wasn't likely to get me shot by an air marshall in our post 9-11 travel world, I would have gotten up and shoved a pair of my dookie stained underwear from my carry on bag in her mouth. If you are going to embrace diarrhea of the mouth, then I am going to help you experience it literally. I absolutely love New York, but I do not love the lack of manners. Maybe I am getting a little more Midwestern as I age, but I just can not see any excuse for not engaging and respecting your fellow movers through life with a little basic respect. I mean, we all screw up now and again. We all have bad days once in a while. But, I refuse to believe that ten million people are living such rough lives that they are at BitchCon Delta 24/7.
Don Miguel in the Four Agreements says to not taking anything personally. Lord I am trying, but some of the folks with whom I have interacted lately would push Ghandi to consider mass murder. Namaste ya'll. Namaste.
Now maybe because I have been spending a bit of time in New York lately, I am finding myself on edge, but I swear to God the Father, his Son Jesus, their pal the Holy Ghost, Mary Magdalene, Mary Mother of God, and Maria Fuentes the tranny working girl from down the block, if one more person is unnecessarily rude to me, I am going to go Miss Manners Commando and start cutting bitches with impunity.
The latest rude moment I encountered was perhaps the single most perfect walking and talking example of irony I have ever experienced. I was sitting on my return flight from New York to Minneapolis and the flight attendants parked their goodie cart right by my seat. Now I was attempting to sleep as was the gentlemen in front of me. And the guy across the aisle from me was trying to read his book. The female flight attendant is talking in the loudest most obnoxious New York accented English possible telling the male flight attendant about a rude experience she had with a passenger that was yelling at her in Spanish because she did not speak French and they were on a flight to Paris. The female flight attendant was going on and on and on about how rude this woman was being all the while not giving a good two shits that she was running her damn mouth at decible levels that usually require a permit.
If it wasn't likely to get me shot by an air marshall in our post 9-11 travel world, I would have gotten up and shoved a pair of my dookie stained underwear from my carry on bag in her mouth. If you are going to embrace diarrhea of the mouth, then I am going to help you experience it literally. I absolutely love New York, but I do not love the lack of manners. Maybe I am getting a little more Midwestern as I age, but I just can not see any excuse for not engaging and respecting your fellow movers through life with a little basic respect. I mean, we all screw up now and again. We all have bad days once in a while. But, I refuse to believe that ten million people are living such rough lives that they are at BitchCon Delta 24/7.
Don Miguel in the Four Agreements says to not taking anything personally. Lord I am trying, but some of the folks with whom I have interacted lately would push Ghandi to consider mass murder. Namaste ya'll. Namaste.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Political One Liner of the Week Award
Last summer I started a tradition of awarding the One Liner of the Week Award. This award was granted to a member of the Slammers (my softball team) that came up with the wittiest line during the week.
Tonight I start a new tradition: The Political One Liner of the Week Award. The first ever recipient of this award is Taylour Johnson...aka Tay Tay Begay...aka Little Chicken. Taylour recieves this award for the line:
"We are on stolen land. We stole people to come till our stolen land. And we built 'our' (white people) democracy because of 'our' (white people) theft. "
Congratulations Taylour...u put the sass in USASS.
Tonight I start a new tradition: The Political One Liner of the Week Award. The first ever recipient of this award is Taylour Johnson...aka Tay Tay Begay...aka Little Chicken. Taylour recieves this award for the line:
"We are on stolen land. We stole people to come till our stolen land. And we built 'our' (white people) democracy because of 'our' (white people) theft. "
Congratulations Taylour...u put the sass in USASS.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Lube It Up
Saturday night I did something I never even slightly imagined myself doing even in one of my porn quality wet dreams: lube wrestling.I love my softball team. The Slammers are the provebial shit. I decided not to play this summer as I am strictly enforcing the Mary J. Blidge Rule: No More Drama. When coach told me that there were gurls from the team that had issues with me, I decided not to go back to junior high. If you have a problem with me, tell me. If not, it is actually your problem and not mine. There is nothing I can do about an issue if it is not brought to my attention. A bitch might look like Miss Cleo's mixed grandbaby, but psychic I am not. And though I be Minnesotan born and bred, I am committed to leaving Minnesota nice behind and dealing with people face to face.
I love my friends, and I respect my friends, and I love my friends enough to tell them when they have pissed me off, hurt me, or made me happy. That is the mark of a true friend, someone that is not just there for the good shit but for the bad shit and they let you have your shit and hold you accountable for it. As I told my good friends David Cobb and Patrick Barrett..."I am going to fuck up. It is my hope that when I fuck up that you afford me the graciousness of holding me accountable and letting me make amends. And I will afford you that same grace." The Golden Rule is great but when the Golden Rule is broken apply the Golden Principle: Allow Others to Be as Human as You Are.
But anyone, I digress, Saturday night, in support of my softball team, I allowed myself to be stripped half naked in public (for those of you that know me...I DO NOT ALLOW MY BACKFAT TO SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY...ESPECIALLY STROBE LIGHTS). Hoppe, my teammate, and I were lubed up and had two minutes to go at it. After about one minute, I was out of breath and hoping desperately that Hoppe would pin my ass so that I could put my clothes back on. It didn't help that I had just come directly form Melissa Tangye's graduation party and had gorged myself on fried chicken, teriyaki chicken, and grilled chicken. Basically, if a chicken clucked anywhere in a ten mile vicinity, I had eaten it that evening. Add to that several glasses of reisling, a plate of pasta salad, two slices of homemade pizza, and two rum and cokes...and I left the ring, showered, got dressed, went to the bathroom and threw the hell up. Hoppe bruised my tonsils, and I spent the next half an hour convinced that pro-wrestlings must be secretly anorexic.
It was a fucking blast.
I love my people. I love my Slammers. And though I can not be as present as I would like to be, I am present when I can be. Though this winter I was going through some things, was sick as hell on several occassions, and had a minor break down, I still show up when it matters. Whether it is buying a table at an event to support New York and Isha Mae, going to a Hawai'in concert with Titi, or getting slathered in ID lube and then having my ass kicked publicly, I show up for the people I care about in ways that matter.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Bookin' It
I have led a very interesting life for someone that has not yet finished out his 30th year of living. For a person that grew up poor and at times near homelessness, I have seen and done quite a bit, less than many but more than most. I have, because of luck or the love of friends, been a part of some moments that will most likely be talked about in history books one day: the first Day of Silence, the first Youth Pride in DC, part of the planning committee for the first U.S. Social Forum, etc. I have also lived through some shit. And done some shit. Some of which I am proud of some of which I am deeply not proud.
As I look back at the last thirty years of life, look at my life now, and continue with my commitment to maintain my joy and strictly apply the Mary J. Blige Rule: No More Drama, I am trying to systematically revist my memories and those experiences that, at least at this point in my life, I believe have done much to shape who I am, where I've gone, and the choices (good and bad) that I have made.
A couple of weeks ago, I started writing a book. I have started many a book in the past. The furthest I had ever gotten before was two perhaps three pages. As of this evening I am in the middle of the third chapter and some twenty or so pages into the project. The book starts off shortly after I turned 19 with a trip I took with some friends to Washington DC to see the AIDS Memorial Quilt the last time that it was fully displayed. In the narrative of my life, particularly now as an HIV positive adult, that experience was and continues to be important. I am writing the book as a memoir. It is creative non-fiction that uses a sassy humor that I hope will both examine personal and collective experiences and help me better understand who I am.
Writing this book has been both liberating and terrifying. There are narratives that I have told to myself and to others that have not always been the most honest and truthful. But, the stories that I have told myself are the ones that I needed to tell in order to get me through. But, as I look back over time and at my failure to face my own shortcomings or my downplaying the choicies of others and the impact of those choices on my life, I see how I have sold myself short and robbed myself of the honest self-evaluation that leads to growth.
Yesterday I went for a walk with Titi around Southdale Mall. Titi is a brilliant man. One of those rare individuals that is honest and tough and you know, even as he is breaking you down, that he is doing so because of love. Titi has let me have it on a couple of occassions. With most folks, I immediately get defensive...Titi's approach to accountability is one that is forthright and pre-emptively disarms those self-defense instincts. As we were talking yesterday, about a range of topics, I mentioned to him how as I have been writing and finishing drafts of chapters, I have found myself going back and re-reading, re-writing, and going deeper into the experiences that I have had.
Titi had some wisdom to share over Dairy Queen blizzards. Titi explained it to me like this, he said that our brains are built to defend us from particular emotions and experiences. Sometimes we are unable to access those experiences because we are not ready to face the reality of what was really going on. But, he said, as we lay down, through writing or whatever, those experiences, each time our brain allows us to add another layer of perception and understanding. As we grow and face that which we need to face, we are able to deepen our memory and, thusly, our interaction with the truth of our experiences.
As I write about some beautiful and tough experiences in my life, I hope that I am able to maintain the bravery necessary to make this more than just a ra-ra to me. Without being morose, I want to be able to critically look at my life, a life that has, without a doubt, been full of humor even at its ugliest moments. I want to be able to show my humanity while still maintaining a joyful engagement with the comedy of errors that is living. And, also, as I tap into the feelings that I have held on to for far too long, it is my hope that I can release them on to the pages and out into the world. Holding on to the lessons of life is necessary, holding on to the hurt is not.
As I look back at the last thirty years of life, look at my life now, and continue with my commitment to maintain my joy and strictly apply the Mary J. Blige Rule: No More Drama, I am trying to systematically revist my memories and those experiences that, at least at this point in my life, I believe have done much to shape who I am, where I've gone, and the choices (good and bad) that I have made.
A couple of weeks ago, I started writing a book. I have started many a book in the past. The furthest I had ever gotten before was two perhaps three pages. As of this evening I am in the middle of the third chapter and some twenty or so pages into the project. The book starts off shortly after I turned 19 with a trip I took with some friends to Washington DC to see the AIDS Memorial Quilt the last time that it was fully displayed. In the narrative of my life, particularly now as an HIV positive adult, that experience was and continues to be important. I am writing the book as a memoir. It is creative non-fiction that uses a sassy humor that I hope will both examine personal and collective experiences and help me better understand who I am.
Writing this book has been both liberating and terrifying. There are narratives that I have told to myself and to others that have not always been the most honest and truthful. But, the stories that I have told myself are the ones that I needed to tell in order to get me through. But, as I look back over time and at my failure to face my own shortcomings or my downplaying the choicies of others and the impact of those choices on my life, I see how I have sold myself short and robbed myself of the honest self-evaluation that leads to growth.
Yesterday I went for a walk with Titi around Southdale Mall. Titi is a brilliant man. One of those rare individuals that is honest and tough and you know, even as he is breaking you down, that he is doing so because of love. Titi has let me have it on a couple of occassions. With most folks, I immediately get defensive...Titi's approach to accountability is one that is forthright and pre-emptively disarms those self-defense instincts. As we were talking yesterday, about a range of topics, I mentioned to him how as I have been writing and finishing drafts of chapters, I have found myself going back and re-reading, re-writing, and going deeper into the experiences that I have had.
Titi had some wisdom to share over Dairy Queen blizzards. Titi explained it to me like this, he said that our brains are built to defend us from particular emotions and experiences. Sometimes we are unable to access those experiences because we are not ready to face the reality of what was really going on. But, he said, as we lay down, through writing or whatever, those experiences, each time our brain allows us to add another layer of perception and understanding. As we grow and face that which we need to face, we are able to deepen our memory and, thusly, our interaction with the truth of our experiences.
As I write about some beautiful and tough experiences in my life, I hope that I am able to maintain the bravery necessary to make this more than just a ra-ra to me. Without being morose, I want to be able to critically look at my life, a life that has, without a doubt, been full of humor even at its ugliest moments. I want to be able to show my humanity while still maintaining a joyful engagement with the comedy of errors that is living. And, also, as I tap into the feelings that I have held on to for far too long, it is my hope that I can release them on to the pages and out into the world. Holding on to the lessons of life is necessary, holding on to the hurt is not.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
DEMOCRACY DAY PRESS RELEASE!
###FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE###
May 1, 2008
Contact: Brandon Lacy Campos, Associate Director
Organization: Liberty Tree Foundation
Phone: 612-408-7375 Email: blc@libertytreefdr.org
Website: http://www.claimdemocracy.org/
Organization: Liberty Tree Foundation
Phone: 612-408-7375 Email: blc@libertytreefdr.org
Website: http://www.claimdemocracy.org/
HUNDREDS OF PRO-DEMOCRACY & ELECTION REFORM
ADVOCATES TO CONVENE IN MINNEAPOLIS THIS SUMMER
ADVOCATES TO CONVENE IN MINNEAPOLIS THIS SUMMER
Exclusive Media Access for Speakers at Democracy Day conference,
to be Held in Conjunction with the National Conference on Media Reform
to be Held in Conjunction with the National Conference on Media Reform
MINNEAPOLIS, MN - On June 5, 2008 hundreds of democracy activists and organizers will gather for Democracy Day, a one-day gathering organized in conjunction with the National Conference on Media Reform. Democracy Day is a joint project of the Liberty Tree Foundation, FairVote, Public Campaign and Common Cause with support from local partners FairVote MN, Verified Voting, TakeAction Minnesota and the Center for Election Integrity Minnesota. This one day conference will take place at the Minneapolis Hilton from 9:00am-7:00pm. Registration information can be found at http://www.claimdemocracy.org/. Complimentary registration for members of the media can be obtained by calling Ross Margulies, FairVote Development Director, at 301.270.4616.
Former Congressman Dr. Bob Edgar (D-PA), Executive Director of Washington, D.C. based Common Cause, stated that, “While every day should be Democracy Day in America, this conference provides a special opportunity for activists and experts to come together and strengthen the movement for self-government in our country.”
In the run-up to the upcoming presidential elections, the Democracy Day conference will include workshops addressing electoral reform, instant runoff voting, election integrity and protection, student unionism, and a host of other visionary work aimed at expanding, deepening, broadening, and protecting U.S. democracy.
Featured speakers include:
- Secretary of State Mark Ritchie (D-MN),
- Radio Host Amy Goodman,
- The Nation Columnist John Nichols,
- Author Walter Mosley,
- Former Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic,
- Former Presidential candidate David Cobb (G-CA),
- And other leaders in the national democracy movement.
Please inquire about opportunities to schedule interviews with any speakers during the conference.
FairVote MN Executive Director Jeanne Massey said, “Now more than ever we need to be fully and deeply engaged in a discussion around the future of our Democracy. For eight years we have watched our democratic institutions attacked and weakened, but, here in Minnesota with passage of instant runoff voting in Minneapolis in 2006 and the St. Paul IRV campaign in 2008, we are committed to expanding democracy. It is right that the first Democracy Day conference is held here.”
The conference is a continuation of the work of the Claim Democracy Coalition, which is a national coalition spearheaded by FairVote which held the Claim Democracy Conference in November 2007 in Washington, DC.
###
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Passing Fathers
The Fathers of two of my friends are dying. The Father of another friend passed away in the last three weeks. And, I found out today that the father of a man with whom I was to meet tomorrow is also deathly ill. In times such as these I find myself at a loss. I have no idea how you truly provide comfort and support to someone that has just lost or is in immenent peril of losing a parent. Frankly, I anticipate falling completely apart when the mortality of my Mother comes knocking. But, particularly with Fathers and death, I find myself confronting an entire host of complicated and conflicting feelings.
As an abstract concept I understand the concept of Father. As a matter of fact, at one time or another, I have legally had four Fathers in my lifetime. In practice, there are two men that I have called Dad—my biological father William and my first step-father, and the man that raised me during the formative years, Clinton. One man my brother and I had decided to call Dad just before he abandoned my Mother and left us in Kansas City. My current step-father married my Mother two years ago and is four months younger than I am. He doesn't really fit into the Father equation. My birth Father popped in and out of my life every three or four years until I was a teenager, as he was in the military and moved around the world. At the feet of my step-father I can lay most of my psychological trauma—I wrote extensively about him on my old blog at www.itainttruthifitdoesnthurt.blogs.friendster.com. Look for the entry called Whose Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf.
I have spent a lot of time thinking about my Father(s), the impact or lack of presence they have had on my life, the wounds that I have carried around that, at this point, are my fault and no longer theirs (at some point, as adults, we have to realize that though they may have wounded us as youth...the only way those wounds can keep bleedings is if we keep ripping them open), and the legacy, role, and history of black men and why so many turn out like my Fathers.
But, as I have engaged with friends---many of whom share a similar history of disconnection and dysfunction when it comes to their own fathers—I have found myself wondering at my lack of ability to offer anything more than surface platitudes and an empathy that is responding to their pain as opposed to their experience. Juxtaposed against the very clear idea that I have and the ghost hurt I have felt even imagining the passing of my Mother, my confusion, contradictory emotions, and awkwardness at connecting with loss or potential loss of a dad is sharply outlined.
I am at an age where friends are having babies and the parents of friends are beginning to die. This is a new stage in my life, one that illuminates ever more clearly that whether I am ready or not, I am moving into a generational experience where I and my peers are expected to take up the official reigns of leadership, care for our ailing parents, and begin creating, prepping, and educating the generation that will come after us. It seems ludicrous that in that context that I still have so much to sort out with regards to a parent(s), nor is it hopeful watching those I care about, some of whom are older, trying to grapple with some of the same issues as their Father is dying.
It is hurtful, to me, to watch friends have to set aside the wounds and pain and hurt caused by their dying parent in order to ease the passing of that individual. It is n honorable sacrifice on the part of my friends that they are setting aside their very real grievances and hurt, but it also seems to me that there should be, in the minds of these passing shapers of young lives, a corresponding desire and move to frankly evaluate their lives and attempt to make amends for their shortcomings. Ideally we do this as we live, but, it seems that the principle of Last Rites and Last Confession should be applied broadly in principle if not in practice: a final reckoning of sin and, if necessary, making amends with your last breath.
I don't necessarily have a point to this other than to share my confusion and to publicly acknowledge the loss to those that have lost and the love and honor that those who are losing are sharing with those that are dying. They should have that love and honor lauded by those that still live even if those that are passing are unable to do so.
As an abstract concept I understand the concept of Father. As a matter of fact, at one time or another, I have legally had four Fathers in my lifetime. In practice, there are two men that I have called Dad—my biological father William and my first step-father, and the man that raised me during the formative years, Clinton. One man my brother and I had decided to call Dad just before he abandoned my Mother and left us in Kansas City. My current step-father married my Mother two years ago and is four months younger than I am. He doesn't really fit into the Father equation. My birth Father popped in and out of my life every three or four years until I was a teenager, as he was in the military and moved around the world. At the feet of my step-father I can lay most of my psychological trauma—I wrote extensively about him on my old blog at www.itainttruthifitdoesnthurt.blogs.friendster.com. Look for the entry called Whose Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf.
I have spent a lot of time thinking about my Father(s), the impact or lack of presence they have had on my life, the wounds that I have carried around that, at this point, are my fault and no longer theirs (at some point, as adults, we have to realize that though they may have wounded us as youth...the only way those wounds can keep bleedings is if we keep ripping them open), and the legacy, role, and history of black men and why so many turn out like my Fathers.
But, as I have engaged with friends---many of whom share a similar history of disconnection and dysfunction when it comes to their own fathers—I have found myself wondering at my lack of ability to offer anything more than surface platitudes and an empathy that is responding to their pain as opposed to their experience. Juxtaposed against the very clear idea that I have and the ghost hurt I have felt even imagining the passing of my Mother, my confusion, contradictory emotions, and awkwardness at connecting with loss or potential loss of a dad is sharply outlined.
I am at an age where friends are having babies and the parents of friends are beginning to die. This is a new stage in my life, one that illuminates ever more clearly that whether I am ready or not, I am moving into a generational experience where I and my peers are expected to take up the official reigns of leadership, care for our ailing parents, and begin creating, prepping, and educating the generation that will come after us. It seems ludicrous that in that context that I still have so much to sort out with regards to a parent(s), nor is it hopeful watching those I care about, some of whom are older, trying to grapple with some of the same issues as their Father is dying.
It is hurtful, to me, to watch friends have to set aside the wounds and pain and hurt caused by their dying parent in order to ease the passing of that individual. It is n honorable sacrifice on the part of my friends that they are setting aside their very real grievances and hurt, but it also seems to me that there should be, in the minds of these passing shapers of young lives, a corresponding desire and move to frankly evaluate their lives and attempt to make amends for their shortcomings. Ideally we do this as we live, but, it seems that the principle of Last Rites and Last Confession should be applied broadly in principle if not in practice: a final reckoning of sin and, if necessary, making amends with your last breath.
I don't necessarily have a point to this other than to share my confusion and to publicly acknowledge the loss to those that have lost and the love and honor that those who are losing are sharing with those that are dying. They should have that love and honor lauded by those that still live even if those that are passing are unable to do so.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
The Bed Bugs Are Coming! The Bed Bugs Are Coming!
“Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite.” I remember my Mother saying that to me as a child. As a kid, I thought bed bugs were a mythical creature to which my Mother referred as a way to strike a minor fear in me. She can be wicked that way. But, as I grew older and began to read more broadly, with a particular penchant for Medival and Renaissance literature and fantasy novels set in the same period, I recognized that bed bugs were an affliction of the unwashed masses of feudal Europe. Now, however, I know them to be the 11th Plague of the Bible...a new scourge unleashed by a newly reawakened Old Testament God who is warming up his powers of smiting after a 2,000 year lull.
My apartment, and those around me, have bed bugs. A couple of weeks ago, I started waking up with angry red bumps on various parts of my body. At first I thought perhaps an early riser spider had woken up and decided to come out for a little midnight snack. But, then, two weeks ago, before I left for New York, I noticed a sign posted on the apartment door next to mine, “Sprayed for Bed Bugs at 1pm, Do Not Re-Enter Apartment Before 5pm.” Considering the heinous red bump attacks occurred when I slept in my living room near the wall that separates my apartment from the sprayed apartment, I realized that it wasn't a friendly neighborhood brown recluse come out for a nibble, it was a vast horde of teeny Medival invaders come to suck me dry.
When I was in New York last week, I was clued into the fact that there is a bed bug epidemic going on. One poor woman had bed bugs in three different apartments. This morning, I ran into my old roommate, and he told me that in his old building in NE Minneapolis they had also had a bed bug infestation. The little critters have been slowly infiltrating our apartments and houses for years and no one said anything, now the stage is set for a massive frontal assault which could result in the collapse of the world as we know it. Soon, we may be all forced to trade in You for Ye and The for Thou. Sitting in coach will literally mean climbing into a wooden box on wheels behind randomly shitting horses. And when children start singing “ring around the rosies,” it will be because the Black Plague is rampaging through the Northside.
Tonight, I will spend my evening, before going to Ka Vang's fantastic book signing, prepping my apartment for chemical warfare. Tomorrow, the counter insurgency troops led by Terminex will release smart bombs in the hopes of beating back the assault on my western dry wall. But if bed bugs have managed to survive since a time when bathing was considered to be bad for your health, it may be only a battle won with the war already lost. Goeth Ye With God, I pray thee surviveth, the Bed Bugs cometh!
My apartment, and those around me, have bed bugs. A couple of weeks ago, I started waking up with angry red bumps on various parts of my body. At first I thought perhaps an early riser spider had woken up and decided to come out for a little midnight snack. But, then, two weeks ago, before I left for New York, I noticed a sign posted on the apartment door next to mine, “Sprayed for Bed Bugs at 1pm, Do Not Re-Enter Apartment Before 5pm.” Considering the heinous red bump attacks occurred when I slept in my living room near the wall that separates my apartment from the sprayed apartment, I realized that it wasn't a friendly neighborhood brown recluse come out for a nibble, it was a vast horde of teeny Medival invaders come to suck me dry.
When I was in New York last week, I was clued into the fact that there is a bed bug epidemic going on. One poor woman had bed bugs in three different apartments. This morning, I ran into my old roommate, and he told me that in his old building in NE Minneapolis they had also had a bed bug infestation. The little critters have been slowly infiltrating our apartments and houses for years and no one said anything, now the stage is set for a massive frontal assault which could result in the collapse of the world as we know it. Soon, we may be all forced to trade in You for Ye and The for Thou. Sitting in coach will literally mean climbing into a wooden box on wheels behind randomly shitting horses. And when children start singing “ring around the rosies,” it will be because the Black Plague is rampaging through the Northside.
Tonight, I will spend my evening, before going to Ka Vang's fantastic book signing, prepping my apartment for chemical warfare. Tomorrow, the counter insurgency troops led by Terminex will release smart bombs in the hopes of beating back the assault on my western dry wall. But if bed bugs have managed to survive since a time when bathing was considered to be bad for your health, it may be only a battle won with the war already lost. Goeth Ye With God, I pray thee surviveth, the Bed Bugs cometh!
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
New York Spring
New York is surreal. With ease you can feel absolutely alone and isolated in a city of ten million or you may turn a corner and run into a good friend. Walking down any street in Manhattan I have encountered a half dozen languages half of which I could not identify. In a city that is portrayed as a concrete jungle, it is a concrete jungle that, in springtime, blooms. The streets and corners are lined with crabapple trees in blossom and tulip trees in full bloom. On a block of two hundred year old apartment complexes, you may find a single corner, a triangle, reclaimed as green space, with a wooden gazebo and lined in blazing yellow daffodils shouting to passersby that spring has finally come.
There is something about this city that is so vitally alive. At home, I find it hard to leave the house. Going outside takes effort, and I find myself with little energy. Here, even when I try to sneak away for a midday nap, something carries me back into the streets, down cement rivers into humanity of every stripe and flavor. I literally want to make out with every other person I see. I want to physically experience the way they taste, the uniqueness that they add to this most cosmopolitan city.
I arrived in the East Village early today for a meeting with local folks from the Green Party. We are going to have dinner at one of my favorite spots in town, Itzocan Cafe—a French/Mexican fusion restaurant. Yet, less than half a block away, I find myself sitting in a hipster honkey tonk bar sipping a vanilla rum and diet coke. The juxtaposition is Dali-esque in its absurdity. Where else in the world would you find a Mexi-French-Hipster-Honkey-Tonk street corner?
I spent nearly a week meeting with folks in New York, wandering the streets, marvelling at the architecture and at the poverty thrown up against unimaginable wealth and luxury. And it was so telling in so many ways that the places where poverty was the most apparent so was the vibrancy of living. The streets that were perfectly polished, with stately 250 year old town homes were conspicuosly quiet, almost inhumanly quiet in a place where from river to river to ocean there is not a square of land unplanned or unoccupied. On the upper east side luxury affords the residents with an eerie silence where in Crown Heights poverty brings a manic street energy that proclaims against the quiet that those that can not afford silence are there and alive despite the odds.
I have been to New York perhaps a dozen times in the last eight years. But never before have I spent so much time walking and listening to the negro streets as the poet Allen Ginsberg put it. I had no short of background music to which to read his poem Howl. The same sense of life and rage and pain and joy and hell and hurt and the raw sewage and purity of life that he wrote about forty years ago is still all right there. The streets may be better kept now, the subways a little safer (though for sure not cleaner), and a fresh layer of makeup painted over the old lady's face but she is still New York nee New Amsterdam and I am in love with her.
There is something about this city that is so vitally alive. At home, I find it hard to leave the house. Going outside takes effort, and I find myself with little energy. Here, even when I try to sneak away for a midday nap, something carries me back into the streets, down cement rivers into humanity of every stripe and flavor. I literally want to make out with every other person I see. I want to physically experience the way they taste, the uniqueness that they add to this most cosmopolitan city.
I arrived in the East Village early today for a meeting with local folks from the Green Party. We are going to have dinner at one of my favorite spots in town, Itzocan Cafe—a French/Mexican fusion restaurant. Yet, less than half a block away, I find myself sitting in a hipster honkey tonk bar sipping a vanilla rum and diet coke. The juxtaposition is Dali-esque in its absurdity. Where else in the world would you find a Mexi-French-Hipster-Honkey-Tonk street corner?
I spent nearly a week meeting with folks in New York, wandering the streets, marvelling at the architecture and at the poverty thrown up against unimaginable wealth and luxury. And it was so telling in so many ways that the places where poverty was the most apparent so was the vibrancy of living. The streets that were perfectly polished, with stately 250 year old town homes were conspicuosly quiet, almost inhumanly quiet in a place where from river to river to ocean there is not a square of land unplanned or unoccupied. On the upper east side luxury affords the residents with an eerie silence where in Crown Heights poverty brings a manic street energy that proclaims against the quiet that those that can not afford silence are there and alive despite the odds.
I have been to New York perhaps a dozen times in the last eight years. But never before have I spent so much time walking and listening to the negro streets as the poet Allen Ginsberg put it. I had no short of background music to which to read his poem Howl. The same sense of life and rage and pain and joy and hell and hurt and the raw sewage and purity of life that he wrote about forty years ago is still all right there. The streets may be better kept now, the subways a little safer (though for sure not cleaner), and a fresh layer of makeup painted over the old lady's face but she is still New York nee New Amsterdam and I am in love with her.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Brandon Unplugged
I am currently sitting in a fantastic condo on 152nd and Saint Nick, which is owned by my friend Signey Harriday. Signey is a fellow Minnesotan that up and moved to New York a few years back, leaving us behind in the snow and ice. Signey and I were trying to figure out how we first met, and we were unable to come up with anything specific. I got to know Signey, however, through participation first in the Bi Show—a production on intersectional identities, which was acted, written, and produced by MaMa mOsAiC Theater Collective, a group of FIERCE women of color performers that includes or has included Jeany Park, Shá Cage, Signey Harriday, and Juliana Pegues.
This trip to New York has been eventful and interesting. I arrived last Friday night and immediately, one of my friends, a dear person that I love and have known for a decade, went into crisis. It was terrifying in that she would not tell me what was really going on, when I offered help she rejected it, and she was far enough away that I could not get to her easily or quickly. The following day she appeared to have stabilized and to be out of danger, only to slip back into crisis the following evening. This time she reached out a bit more, but then, comically, I got off the 1 train, looked back, and watched my cell phone ride away without me. All my friend's contact information and the contact information for the people that could also support her rode away in my phone. That happened on Saturday night. Because of my own personal financial insolvency, I was not able to reconnect to the matrix until Tuesday afternoon. At which point, I checked in with her and she seems ok again. But I am dealing with the guilt of “what if...”
When the hell did our lives become so dependent on electronics? With the loss of my cell phone, I was unable to be of support to a close friend, I have lost my calendar—which includes a pending meeting with a state legislator, performance dates, and important meetings both here and in Minneapolis, and I was basically unable to communicate with anyone.
Last night I discovered that Signey does not have wifi, which left me in an internet black hole. I had planned on doing some work last night, but without the Internet I could not access the information I needed to do the work project, which meant I could not do the work, which means that I am now a day behind where I wanted to be. I had planned on spending a leisurely morning in the apartment, working on several projects and then leaving later this afternoon in order to use the office space that Jeremy and CCR have so generously allotted. But the Internet beckons and I must go. THE MATRIX OWNS ME and I CAN'T UNPLUG!
Where the hell is Morpheus when you need him. I'll take the red pill please.
I am convinced that it is all a capitalist conspiracy, because my first thought was—gee if I only had a Sprint PCS wireless Internet card, this would not be a problem. I could be plugged in all the time just like Johnny Mnemonic. Speaking of the Matrix and Johnny Mnemonic---what is up with Keanu Reeves' fascination with having phone jacks run directly into his medulla oblongata?
On the upside, as usual the food in NY is great, the men are ridiculously beautiful, I have had a great time seeing RJ and Jeremy, and the weather has been stupidly perfect. And once I get my own phone jack installed in the back of my head this morning, all my worries will fade away.
This trip to New York has been eventful and interesting. I arrived last Friday night and immediately, one of my friends, a dear person that I love and have known for a decade, went into crisis. It was terrifying in that she would not tell me what was really going on, when I offered help she rejected it, and she was far enough away that I could not get to her easily or quickly. The following day she appeared to have stabilized and to be out of danger, only to slip back into crisis the following evening. This time she reached out a bit more, but then, comically, I got off the 1 train, looked back, and watched my cell phone ride away without me. All my friend's contact information and the contact information for the people that could also support her rode away in my phone. That happened on Saturday night. Because of my own personal financial insolvency, I was not able to reconnect to the matrix until Tuesday afternoon. At which point, I checked in with her and she seems ok again. But I am dealing with the guilt of “what if...”
When the hell did our lives become so dependent on electronics? With the loss of my cell phone, I was unable to be of support to a close friend, I have lost my calendar—which includes a pending meeting with a state legislator, performance dates, and important meetings both here and in Minneapolis, and I was basically unable to communicate with anyone.
Last night I discovered that Signey does not have wifi, which left me in an internet black hole. I had planned on doing some work last night, but without the Internet I could not access the information I needed to do the work project, which meant I could not do the work, which means that I am now a day behind where I wanted to be. I had planned on spending a leisurely morning in the apartment, working on several projects and then leaving later this afternoon in order to use the office space that Jeremy and CCR have so generously allotted. But the Internet beckons and I must go. THE MATRIX OWNS ME and I CAN'T UNPLUG!
Where the hell is Morpheus when you need him. I'll take the red pill please.
I am convinced that it is all a capitalist conspiracy, because my first thought was—gee if I only had a Sprint PCS wireless Internet card, this would not be a problem. I could be plugged in all the time just like Johnny Mnemonic. Speaking of the Matrix and Johnny Mnemonic---what is up with Keanu Reeves' fascination with having phone jacks run directly into his medulla oblongata?
On the upside, as usual the food in NY is great, the men are ridiculously beautiful, I have had a great time seeing RJ and Jeremy, and the weather has been stupidly perfect. And once I get my own phone jack installed in the back of my head this morning, all my worries will fade away.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Stump Speech: An Election Year Poem
Last night, I had the honor of performing for a reception at the United Association for Labor Education conference at the Bedlam Theater in Minneapolis. It was a blast. It was great to be surrounded by some of the best and brightest labor organizers and educators in the country. And, the crowd was raucous, as labor crowds tend to be.
Last fall, a man who is now a friend of mine, the fantastic poet Emanuel Xavier, came to Minneapolis and did a reading, and I had the privilege of opening for him. He performed his "America" poem stating that every poet has an America poem. I did not, and my pal Jesus suggested that I write one. So I did. The crowd loved it last night, and I am tickled to death by it.
Since this is an election year, and we are forced to endure stump speech after stump speech...I decided to write my own. Thanks to Emanuel and Jesus for your encouragement and your words.
Stump Speech
by W. Brandon Lacy Campos
Dedicated to Jesus Urbina and Emmanuel Xavier
I don't believe in America
I don't believe in the Constitution or the lies my teacher told me
about Washington, Jefferson, the Boston Tea Party, or the American Revolution
I don't believe in the Declaration of Independence
because it wasn't just all white, straight, rich, gender conforming, racist, misogynist, sexist men that were created equal
I don't believe in America maps that put Indians in green and brown boxes
legend calls them reservations
history will call them concentration camps
labels call them Indian Country
Rand McNally fucked up
this whole hemisphere is Indian Country
I don't believe in preemptive wars for oil or oil to feed our hunger
or hungry people when there is enough of everything for everyone
I don't believe America gives a shit
about aching bellies or dying babies or street walking crazies
driven to insanity by crude priorities that emphasize refineries over health care
bombers over rehab, night sticks over a place to sleep at night
I don't believe that corporations are people or that people should be slaves to corporate interests
or that the interest of corporations is in the best interest of anyone but themselves
I don't believe the business of America is business or exporting democracy or that America is a democracy or that democracy is voting or that there is a a Lesser of Two Evils: Evil is evil.
I don't believe in America because it had a name before Columbus, it had a name before Amerigo Vespucci, Cortes, de Soto, John Smith, and Lewis and Clark, it had a name before Roanoke Island, Jamestown, Santa Fe, Miami, Detroit, Chicago, San Francisco, Milwaukee, and New Orleans
I don't believe that New Orleans was a victim of a natural disaster, it was a human disaster, global warming, White House ignoring the writing on the levy and the Kyoto Protocol, black lives, black faces, racist policies that paid more attention to a Minneapolis bridge collapsing than the collapse of an entire city
I don't believe in CAFTA, NAFTA or maquiladoras, national borders, border fences or illegal immigration: the border crossed us, and we are coming home to Aztlán, rebuilding Teotihuacan, Tenochtitlan, Turtle Island, the Iriqouis Confederation, the Mississippi civilizations, Diné, Lakota, Dakota, Nakota, Cherokee, Shoshone, Creek, Blackfoot, Mohawk, Sonomish, Yupik, Inuit, Choctaw, Seminole, and Anishinabeg, First Nations still fighting the Indian Wars
I don't believe in colonization or the annexation of Puerto Rico, Hawai'i, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, or Guam, I don't believe in forced sterilization, or tying tubes for toaster ovens or toaster ovens as a bribe to give up self-determination or the right to give birth to revolutionaries
I don't believe that we have put up with the KKK, Ronald Reagan, the CIA, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, Wound Knee (the first or the second one), the Iraq invasion or the invasion of our phone conversations, emails, text messages, bedrooms, high schools or library selections
I don't believe America has a right to tell me who to fuck, how to fuck, when to fuck, what to fuck or where to fuck. I am fucking tired of hearing about which President or Senator or Governor got caught fucking in a stall, with a prostitute, or intern. I don't believe that loving someone has ever fucked with the moral foundation of the institution of marriage or the family. I don't believe America understands the fucking irony. Fucking get over it
I don't believe a social safety network, welfare, food, clothing, housing, quality education, health care, clean water, clean air, dignity, job security, affirmative action, reparations, the right to organize, the right to unionize, or the Bill of Rights is asking too much
For the record it's not enough.
Arundhati Roy said, “Not only is a new world possible, she is coming. And on a quiet day. I can hear her breathing.”
I don't believe that, I believe a new world is coming and that she is on her way, but she is screaming, she is calling to the poor, the downtrodden, the wretched masses of this teeming shore, and she is organizing them into an army. Prostitute Generals and Faggot Commandos. AIDS babies in the artillery and Dykes on Humvees. She is on her way, and she is pissed off, and she doesn't believe in America either.
And so I stand here in front you, with my disbelief, with my rage, with my anger, with my hunger, and I say it is time to stop believing that America is a dream. America is a nightmare, and it is time to wake her up.
No Justice, No Peace
No Justice, No Peace
No Justice, No Peace
Blow up the ballot box, it's time for revolution.
-Minneapolis, MN, USA
-20 March 2008
Last fall, a man who is now a friend of mine, the fantastic poet Emanuel Xavier, came to Minneapolis and did a reading, and I had the privilege of opening for him. He performed his "America" poem stating that every poet has an America poem. I did not, and my pal Jesus suggested that I write one. So I did. The crowd loved it last night, and I am tickled to death by it.
Since this is an election year, and we are forced to endure stump speech after stump speech...I decided to write my own. Thanks to Emanuel and Jesus for your encouragement and your words.
Stump Speech
by W. Brandon Lacy Campos
Dedicated to Jesus Urbina and Emmanuel Xavier
I don't believe in America
I don't believe in the Constitution or the lies my teacher told me
about Washington, Jefferson, the Boston Tea Party, or the American Revolution
I don't believe in the Declaration of Independence
because it wasn't just all white, straight, rich, gender conforming, racist, misogynist, sexist men that were created equal
I don't believe in America maps that put Indians in green and brown boxes
legend calls them reservations
history will call them concentration camps
labels call them Indian Country
Rand McNally fucked up
this whole hemisphere is Indian Country
I don't believe in preemptive wars for oil or oil to feed our hunger
or hungry people when there is enough of everything for everyone
I don't believe America gives a shit
about aching bellies or dying babies or street walking crazies
driven to insanity by crude priorities that emphasize refineries over health care
bombers over rehab, night sticks over a place to sleep at night
I don't believe that corporations are people or that people should be slaves to corporate interests
or that the interest of corporations is in the best interest of anyone but themselves
I don't believe the business of America is business or exporting democracy or that America is a democracy or that democracy is voting or that there is a a Lesser of Two Evils: Evil is evil.
I don't believe in America because it had a name before Columbus, it had a name before Amerigo Vespucci, Cortes, de Soto, John Smith, and Lewis and Clark, it had a name before Roanoke Island, Jamestown, Santa Fe, Miami, Detroit, Chicago, San Francisco, Milwaukee, and New Orleans
I don't believe that New Orleans was a victim of a natural disaster, it was a human disaster, global warming, White House ignoring the writing on the levy and the Kyoto Protocol, black lives, black faces, racist policies that paid more attention to a Minneapolis bridge collapsing than the collapse of an entire city
I don't believe in CAFTA, NAFTA or maquiladoras, national borders, border fences or illegal immigration: the border crossed us, and we are coming home to Aztlán, rebuilding Teotihuacan, Tenochtitlan, Turtle Island, the Iriqouis Confederation, the Mississippi civilizations, Diné, Lakota, Dakota, Nakota, Cherokee, Shoshone, Creek, Blackfoot, Mohawk, Sonomish, Yupik, Inuit, Choctaw, Seminole, and Anishinabeg, First Nations still fighting the Indian Wars
I don't believe in colonization or the annexation of Puerto Rico, Hawai'i, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, or Guam, I don't believe in forced sterilization, or tying tubes for toaster ovens or toaster ovens as a bribe to give up self-determination or the right to give birth to revolutionaries
I don't believe that we have put up with the KKK, Ronald Reagan, the CIA, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, Wound Knee (the first or the second one), the Iraq invasion or the invasion of our phone conversations, emails, text messages, bedrooms, high schools or library selections
I don't believe America has a right to tell me who to fuck, how to fuck, when to fuck, what to fuck or where to fuck. I am fucking tired of hearing about which President or Senator or Governor got caught fucking in a stall, with a prostitute, or intern. I don't believe that loving someone has ever fucked with the moral foundation of the institution of marriage or the family. I don't believe America understands the fucking irony. Fucking get over it
I don't believe a social safety network, welfare, food, clothing, housing, quality education, health care, clean water, clean air, dignity, job security, affirmative action, reparations, the right to organize, the right to unionize, or the Bill of Rights is asking too much
For the record it's not enough.
Arundhati Roy said, “Not only is a new world possible, she is coming. And on a quiet day. I can hear her breathing.”
I don't believe that, I believe a new world is coming and that she is on her way, but she is screaming, she is calling to the poor, the downtrodden, the wretched masses of this teeming shore, and she is organizing them into an army. Prostitute Generals and Faggot Commandos. AIDS babies in the artillery and Dykes on Humvees. She is on her way, and she is pissed off, and she doesn't believe in America either.
And so I stand here in front you, with my disbelief, with my rage, with my anger, with my hunger, and I say it is time to stop believing that America is a dream. America is a nightmare, and it is time to wake her up.
No Justice, No Peace
No Justice, No Peace
No Justice, No Peace
Blow up the ballot box, it's time for revolution.
-Minneapolis, MN, USA
-20 March 2008
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Chemical Dependency Road Show: PTSD vrs. Addiction Round One
Mental illness is not a four letter word. But, those of us living with diagnosed mental illnesses are treated by everyone, except perhaps medical practitioners, as if we need to perk up, cheer up, get over it, get some fresh air, change jobs, or get a hobby. Even medical insurers treat mental illness as a second-rate physical ailment (for those that need it spelled out mental illnesses are permanent physical incapacitations of various brain functions that result in various outward behaviors that are described as mental illnesses).
Paul and Sheila Wellstone, may they rest in peace in their kibbutz in the sky, were champions of mental health. One of Senator Wellstone's as yet unfinished projects was a mental health bill of rights that would have, if passed, required that medical insurers treat mental illness in the same way they treat other illness and not as if mental illness were something that the American Medical Association made up to make sure that doctors specializing in psychiatry had something to do with their days.
Let's take this out of the abstract and into concrete examples. I have been diagnosed with severe PTSD, which mimics both depression and anxiety, and, in many cases, including my own, trigger another mental illness/brain dysfunction, which is chemical dependency. Even within mental illness there is a hierarchy to which the medical insurance establishment adheres. For example, PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) is most commonly caused by direct or approximate exposure to various extremely violent events: war, rape, extreme physical and mental abuse, etc. versus chemical dependency—also classified by the medical establishment as a medical condition directly related to a malformation of the brain and atypical brain functioning, which is generally also triggered by traumatic life events. How these two mental illness are treated, though, by medical insurers (not to mention the general public) are criminally different.
Medical insurers treat folks with PTSD with pity and concern. Those suffering from PTSD are generally completely covered when seeking medical treatment. For PTSD and the various forms of behavior that are engendered by a person living with PTSD who has not received treatment or has stopped taking their medication, the answer is hospitalization. In general, most medical plans that both non-profit and for-profit workers possess are actually decent once you qualify for hospital treatment (they may still leave you with crippling medical bills later on, but once you have been admitted for psychiatric treatment and maintain your medical insurance, the burden of care is on the hospital and they are liable if they release you before you have satisfactorily completed a course of treatment, received the proper medications, and have an exit plan in place). Because mental illness such as PTSD are treated in a medical hospital setting they are covered under the hospitalization benefit of medical insurance plans which tend to max out at between $1 million and $5 million a year. You can receive a lot of in-patient treatment for a million dollars a year. As a matter of fact, at an average of $15,000 a week for in-patient mental health treatment at a hospital, you can, quite literally, live for an entire year at a hospital receiving treatment and still have funds left over at the end of the year for that special minor medical procedure you've always wanted to have. Merry Christmas.
Addicts and alcoholics are treated as morally perverse and suspect. Although the AMA has, for decades, recognized chemical dependency as a mental illness the same as depression, PTSD, bi-polar disorder, etc., the fact that the outward manifestation of this disease is the visible use of various intoxicating substances, addiction is viewed as a failure of character rather than as a medical condition deserving respect and treatment. This plays out in the insurance industry and in the courts very differently than PTSD and other mental illnesses. Beat up a nice old lady on the street and have it be proven that you you were reacting to external circumstances mis-processed by a PTSD brain that has gone off its medications, and you will be found not guilt or guilty of a lesser charge, court ordered to psychiatric treatment (and if you do not have medical insurance the state will gladly pay). Let it be discovered tough, that you beat up that nice old lady because you were drunk and she reminded you of your own grandmother that used to be the hell out of you with an extension chord and until you bled, then you obviously are a dangerous and violent drunk, you will most likely receive the harshest penalty that the district attorney is able to levy, and you will spend the next five to ten years in the county jail with untreated mental illness and a whole new set of experiences and triggers being built up around those that you had going in. In the insurance industry, chemical dependency is treated like a Jew in the Reichstag. The mental illness of chemical dependency is treated outside of the normal medical establishment in special “treatment facilities.” Since these facilities are not hospitals, they do not trigger the in-patient hospitalization insurance benefit, allowing the insurance companies to write their own chemical dependency treatment benefit, which, since there will be no CNN Headline special about the poor alcoholics and addicts left to suffer the ravages of their illness, and, even if there is, the public won't give a shit, so, therefore, the medical insurance companies---being about making the dollar and not making people well—writes off addicts and alcoholics providing minimal benefits, so minimal that they are virtually guaranteed to not cover the costs of even part of a basic course of treatment.
For example, let us look specifically at Group Health Cooperative of Wisconsin. For inpatient, in plan hospitalization for mental illness such as PTSD, I am eligible for 30 days of inpatient coverage full stop. For inpatient Alcohol and Drug Abuse services, I am also eligible for 30 days of inpatient coverage. But wait, there are two little asterisks following that plan benefit. The asterisks read, “The maximum alcohol or drug abuse benefit is $6,300 combined (including outpatient, transitional, and in patient).” Considering that the Pride Institute, the leading chemical dependency treatment facility for the queer community charges roughly $12,000 for 28 days of inpatient treatment and Hazelden, the treatment center that has set the standard of care for chemical dependency treatment and success for more than half a century, charges nearly $30,000 for a 28 day inpatient program, the result is that even with private insurance individuals living with the mental illness diagnosis of chemical dependency, unless they have significant private means or are able to secure private loans or qualify for public chemical dependency dollars, are looking at partial treatment only to be released, half-treated, back into the community where 90% of those that COMPLETE treatment relapse.
Three years ago I went through inpatient treatment. I made a commitment that before I would ever allow myself to fall back to the place I was when I checked myself in first to Fairview Riverside hospital and then to the Pride Institute, I would seek preventative help. Yesterday, I called the Pride Institute with my insurance information to seek admission to their outpatient treatment program. Pride called back and said that because of my insurance maximum benefit of $1,800 a year for outpatient chemical dependency services, I would be covered for 11 of 23 sessions and after the 11th session I would either have to leave the program or pay $2000 out of pocket to cover the remaining 12 sessions. Basically, this is the same as if I were to break my leg in several places and the doctor saying that it will take 23 days to heal, but my insurance will only cover the cast for 11 days and after that I either have to pay for the remaining 12 days of healing out of my pocket or they will gladly take off the cast, and I can take my chances that I have healed enough in that time that I won't simply shatter the leg again by attempting to walk on it. Of course, should I shatter my leg and require surgery, I will be welcomed at the hospital where the medical establishment will receive a greater payout, and, after which, I will require rehabilitative therapy if I ever want to walk again...and...oh yes...23 sessions of therapy will be required...but only 11 will be covered by my insurance.
Paul and Sheila Wellstone, may they rest in peace in their kibbutz in the sky, were champions of mental health. One of Senator Wellstone's as yet unfinished projects was a mental health bill of rights that would have, if passed, required that medical insurers treat mental illness in the same way they treat other illness and not as if mental illness were something that the American Medical Association made up to make sure that doctors specializing in psychiatry had something to do with their days.
Let's take this out of the abstract and into concrete examples. I have been diagnosed with severe PTSD, which mimics both depression and anxiety, and, in many cases, including my own, trigger another mental illness/brain dysfunction, which is chemical dependency. Even within mental illness there is a hierarchy to which the medical insurance establishment adheres. For example, PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) is most commonly caused by direct or approximate exposure to various extremely violent events: war, rape, extreme physical and mental abuse, etc. versus chemical dependency—also classified by the medical establishment as a medical condition directly related to a malformation of the brain and atypical brain functioning, which is generally also triggered by traumatic life events. How these two mental illness are treated, though, by medical insurers (not to mention the general public) are criminally different.
Medical insurers treat folks with PTSD with pity and concern. Those suffering from PTSD are generally completely covered when seeking medical treatment. For PTSD and the various forms of behavior that are engendered by a person living with PTSD who has not received treatment or has stopped taking their medication, the answer is hospitalization. In general, most medical plans that both non-profit and for-profit workers possess are actually decent once you qualify for hospital treatment (they may still leave you with crippling medical bills later on, but once you have been admitted for psychiatric treatment and maintain your medical insurance, the burden of care is on the hospital and they are liable if they release you before you have satisfactorily completed a course of treatment, received the proper medications, and have an exit plan in place). Because mental illness such as PTSD are treated in a medical hospital setting they are covered under the hospitalization benefit of medical insurance plans which tend to max out at between $1 million and $5 million a year. You can receive a lot of in-patient treatment for a million dollars a year. As a matter of fact, at an average of $15,000 a week for in-patient mental health treatment at a hospital, you can, quite literally, live for an entire year at a hospital receiving treatment and still have funds left over at the end of the year for that special minor medical procedure you've always wanted to have. Merry Christmas.
Addicts and alcoholics are treated as morally perverse and suspect. Although the AMA has, for decades, recognized chemical dependency as a mental illness the same as depression, PTSD, bi-polar disorder, etc., the fact that the outward manifestation of this disease is the visible use of various intoxicating substances, addiction is viewed as a failure of character rather than as a medical condition deserving respect and treatment. This plays out in the insurance industry and in the courts very differently than PTSD and other mental illnesses. Beat up a nice old lady on the street and have it be proven that you you were reacting to external circumstances mis-processed by a PTSD brain that has gone off its medications, and you will be found not guilt or guilty of a lesser charge, court ordered to psychiatric treatment (and if you do not have medical insurance the state will gladly pay). Let it be discovered tough, that you beat up that nice old lady because you were drunk and she reminded you of your own grandmother that used to be the hell out of you with an extension chord and until you bled, then you obviously are a dangerous and violent drunk, you will most likely receive the harshest penalty that the district attorney is able to levy, and you will spend the next five to ten years in the county jail with untreated mental illness and a whole new set of experiences and triggers being built up around those that you had going in. In the insurance industry, chemical dependency is treated like a Jew in the Reichstag. The mental illness of chemical dependency is treated outside of the normal medical establishment in special “treatment facilities.” Since these facilities are not hospitals, they do not trigger the in-patient hospitalization insurance benefit, allowing the insurance companies to write their own chemical dependency treatment benefit, which, since there will be no CNN Headline special about the poor alcoholics and addicts left to suffer the ravages of their illness, and, even if there is, the public won't give a shit, so, therefore, the medical insurance companies---being about making the dollar and not making people well—writes off addicts and alcoholics providing minimal benefits, so minimal that they are virtually guaranteed to not cover the costs of even part of a basic course of treatment.
For example, let us look specifically at Group Health Cooperative of Wisconsin. For inpatient, in plan hospitalization for mental illness such as PTSD, I am eligible for 30 days of inpatient coverage full stop. For inpatient Alcohol and Drug Abuse services, I am also eligible for 30 days of inpatient coverage. But wait, there are two little asterisks following that plan benefit. The asterisks read, “The maximum alcohol or drug abuse benefit is $6,300 combined (including outpatient, transitional, and in patient).” Considering that the Pride Institute, the leading chemical dependency treatment facility for the queer community charges roughly $12,000 for 28 days of inpatient treatment and Hazelden, the treatment center that has set the standard of care for chemical dependency treatment and success for more than half a century, charges nearly $30,000 for a 28 day inpatient program, the result is that even with private insurance individuals living with the mental illness diagnosis of chemical dependency, unless they have significant private means or are able to secure private loans or qualify for public chemical dependency dollars, are looking at partial treatment only to be released, half-treated, back into the community where 90% of those that COMPLETE treatment relapse.
Three years ago I went through inpatient treatment. I made a commitment that before I would ever allow myself to fall back to the place I was when I checked myself in first to Fairview Riverside hospital and then to the Pride Institute, I would seek preventative help. Yesterday, I called the Pride Institute with my insurance information to seek admission to their outpatient treatment program. Pride called back and said that because of my insurance maximum benefit of $1,800 a year for outpatient chemical dependency services, I would be covered for 11 of 23 sessions and after the 11th session I would either have to leave the program or pay $2000 out of pocket to cover the remaining 12 sessions. Basically, this is the same as if I were to break my leg in several places and the doctor saying that it will take 23 days to heal, but my insurance will only cover the cast for 11 days and after that I either have to pay for the remaining 12 days of healing out of my pocket or they will gladly take off the cast, and I can take my chances that I have healed enough in that time that I won't simply shatter the leg again by attempting to walk on it. Of course, should I shatter my leg and require surgery, I will be welcomed at the hospital where the medical establishment will receive a greater payout, and, after which, I will require rehabilitative therapy if I ever want to walk again...and...oh yes...23 sessions of therapy will be required...but only 11 will be covered by my insurance.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Midwest Social Forum: Dare to be Powerful
(This is my last entry in a series of reflections on the Midwest Social Forum Teach-In, which took place March 27-30 in Camp Lake, Wisconsin)
“When I dare to be powerful—to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether or not I am afraid.” -Audre Lorde
I spend a lot of time being afraid. I am afraid I am not going to be able to pay my bills. I am afraid that I am not going to figure out what it is that I was put on this planet to do. I am afraid that my faults outweigh my worth. I am afraid that the abuse that I survived has damaged me beyond repair. I am afraid that the hurt I have done while lashing out from my own pain is unredeemable. I am afraid of my own power and strength because I am afraid that I am not worthy of that either.
It is moments like those that took place this weekend at the Midwest Social Forum Teach In, where the opportunity to live the famous Audre Lorde quotation is possible. It doesn't matter if I am afraid, if, in spite of my fear, I dare to hold my power in my hands and use it towards the end of justice and liberation. During the entire event this weekend, fear based thoughts were front and center in my mind. Am I prepared enough? Has my work thus far legitimated me standing in front of this room? Are the people in this room getting what they need out of this? Am I making sense? Do I sound stupid? All of these thoughts, consciously went through my mind at one time or another, which means that at all times they were running in an unending powerful undercurrent on repeat in my subconscious. But, ultimately, none of that mattered because I continued to show up.
As I have spoken to folks that were at the event and those that were not at the event, I have come to an understanding of what being a part of the teach in meant to me. For me the benefit did not come from sitting in a workshop. The richness of the experience came from being able to learn as I taught, and to confront the fear of my own inadequacy by being forced to acknowledge my own failures and successes in the context of personal, political, and collective growth towards a vision of justice where inadequate is a term never applied to a living being. It was about looking at the work I have done since my first environmental justice campaign 20 years ago, as a ten year old in the fifth grade at Longfellow School of the Arts, where five children learned about the damage caused to the ozone layer by styro-foam and decided to launch a campaign in South Minneapolis against McDonald's use of styro-foam hamburger containers. It was about acknowledging that this year, as I turn 31, I also celebrate 16 years of continuous organizing and justice work, starting as a youth organizer and now as an organizer around blowing apart our idea of democracy and working for true democratic practice in this country...and...to use another of Audre Lorde's concepts...create new tools that the master has never touched and has no power to resist.
The work that we do as social just organizers is damaging. We, who are the front lines of various segments of the movement for liberation, are constantly taking psychic, emotional, and physical wounds from foes and allies alike. We hear messages aimed at de-constructing our sense of self worth. We are attacked for our beliefs and ideas. We are physically assaulted for living out loud and being who we were meant to be. And, despite our best efforts, some of these wounds sink deep beneath the surface where they continue to bleed and lock into a cycle of self-inflicted pain. But, when we come together, be it across the dinner table or at a formal gathering, there we have the alchemical ingredients necessary to help each other be powerful and in doing so, in being powerful publicly, moving beyond shame and fear, we are able to bring some of our wounds to the surface and have them lanced in the heat and light of our own spiritual and communal glory.
Audre Lorde passed away five years before I would have been in a place and space where I could have touched her physically. But, spiritually, through her writings and through associations with her friends Mandy Carter, Barbara Smith, Suzanne Pharr, and others, I am able to see and touch and feel the essence of who she was and benefit from the work she did and the gifts she left as she moved on to her next great journey. I look forward, years from now, to meeting her on that great shining road and thanking her for being a guardian angel to those of us for whom she prepared a way to live with our fear and still stretch our arms wide and embrace the power that is our inheritance.
“When I dare to be powerful—to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether or not I am afraid.” -Audre Lorde
I spend a lot of time being afraid. I am afraid I am not going to be able to pay my bills. I am afraid that I am not going to figure out what it is that I was put on this planet to do. I am afraid that my faults outweigh my worth. I am afraid that the abuse that I survived has damaged me beyond repair. I am afraid that the hurt I have done while lashing out from my own pain is unredeemable. I am afraid of my own power and strength because I am afraid that I am not worthy of that either.
It is moments like those that took place this weekend at the Midwest Social Forum Teach In, where the opportunity to live the famous Audre Lorde quotation is possible. It doesn't matter if I am afraid, if, in spite of my fear, I dare to hold my power in my hands and use it towards the end of justice and liberation. During the entire event this weekend, fear based thoughts were front and center in my mind. Am I prepared enough? Has my work thus far legitimated me standing in front of this room? Are the people in this room getting what they need out of this? Am I making sense? Do I sound stupid? All of these thoughts, consciously went through my mind at one time or another, which means that at all times they were running in an unending powerful undercurrent on repeat in my subconscious. But, ultimately, none of that mattered because I continued to show up.
As I have spoken to folks that were at the event and those that were not at the event, I have come to an understanding of what being a part of the teach in meant to me. For me the benefit did not come from sitting in a workshop. The richness of the experience came from being able to learn as I taught, and to confront the fear of my own inadequacy by being forced to acknowledge my own failures and successes in the context of personal, political, and collective growth towards a vision of justice where inadequate is a term never applied to a living being. It was about looking at the work I have done since my first environmental justice campaign 20 years ago, as a ten year old in the fifth grade at Longfellow School of the Arts, where five children learned about the damage caused to the ozone layer by styro-foam and decided to launch a campaign in South Minneapolis against McDonald's use of styro-foam hamburger containers. It was about acknowledging that this year, as I turn 31, I also celebrate 16 years of continuous organizing and justice work, starting as a youth organizer and now as an organizer around blowing apart our idea of democracy and working for true democratic practice in this country...and...to use another of Audre Lorde's concepts...create new tools that the master has never touched and has no power to resist.
The work that we do as social just organizers is damaging. We, who are the front lines of various segments of the movement for liberation, are constantly taking psychic, emotional, and physical wounds from foes and allies alike. We hear messages aimed at de-constructing our sense of self worth. We are attacked for our beliefs and ideas. We are physically assaulted for living out loud and being who we were meant to be. And, despite our best efforts, some of these wounds sink deep beneath the surface where they continue to bleed and lock into a cycle of self-inflicted pain. But, when we come together, be it across the dinner table or at a formal gathering, there we have the alchemical ingredients necessary to help each other be powerful and in doing so, in being powerful publicly, moving beyond shame and fear, we are able to bring some of our wounds to the surface and have them lanced in the heat and light of our own spiritual and communal glory.
Audre Lorde passed away five years before I would have been in a place and space where I could have touched her physically. But, spiritually, through her writings and through associations with her friends Mandy Carter, Barbara Smith, Suzanne Pharr, and others, I am able to see and touch and feel the essence of who she was and benefit from the work she did and the gifts she left as she moved on to her next great journey. I look forward, years from now, to meeting her on that great shining road and thanking her for being a guardian angel to those of us for whom she prepared a way to live with our fear and still stretch our arms wide and embrace the power that is our inheritance.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Midwest Social Forum: Talking About A Sexual Revolution
Last night, during the evening plenary at the Midwest Social Forum Teach In, a small group of folks broke from the larger break out groups to chat, build community, and, as usual, the talk turned to sex. The group was diverse in age, race, gender, and sexual orientation. And the flow of the conversation was punctuated by giggles, snorts, indignation, and embarassment. Considering the age range of the folks in the circle went from early 20s to late 70s...it was a very visible reminder that the queer movement has so much to offer the rest of the movement for social justice.
The one truly refreshing moment in the exchange came from the late 40s/early 50s, straight, African-American woman faith organizer who just happened to be into leather, bondage, and S&M and had a special place in her heart for the "leather man conference" aka International Mister Leather, which takes place each Memorial Day weekend in Chicago. Old girl was an old school sex radical from back in the day, took advantage of (in the early 80s and today) the dungeon scene in New York City. I can't remember her name, but I am in LOVE with her.
In February, I was at the Creating Change Conference in Detroit. Creating Change is the largest gathering of queer organizers in the country. After the conference, I wrote an essay called "Talking About a Sexual Revolution." I am going to repost it below. After the conversation last night and the seemingly pre-teen reaction to sex that these sexually active adults were having reminded me even more that as we continue our revolutionary struggles that sex, sex positivity, and pleasure organizing need to be front in center in that work.
Talking About A Sexual Revolution--An Essay and a Call to Bed (2.22.08)
On 28 June 1969 queers, trannies, and drag queens, many of whom were people of color, expressed the explosive repressed anger of the queer community and in a night of resistance launched what would become the global movement for queer and transgender freedom of expression, freedom of being, and the freedom to fuck without social, moral, or legal discrimination.
The decade following Stonewall and before the advent of the AIDS crisis, the queer community, took the Free Love movement of the 1960s to new heights. Bears, leather queens, S/M communities, lesbian dominatrix, bath houses, the Christopher Street piers, Fire Island, the Castro, polyamorous/non-monogamous/multi-partner relationships, tea rooms—these were some of the people and some of the sites of a sexual revolution that declared that consensual pleasure, where ever it may be found, will be found and enjoyed. The right to fuck whoever, however, wherever with whatever was never simply about getting off...it was the battle cry of a community reclaiming their bodies, their spirits, and their connections with one another.
Without a doubt, sexism, racism, and other forms of institutionalized oppression were (and still are) present in the community, but never before had identity politics been intimately linked to the politics of sexuality. Queer folks pushed the envelope of what was considered acceptable sexual practice, and in doing so, forced the definition of acceptable to expand. Straight women could find auto-erotic supplies and learn about self pleasure. Straight men found that they could explore being topped by a woman with a strap on and not lose something of their masculinity. The queer sexual revolution was not just for queers.
Every gay bar in every city had a “back room,” and the movement knew that the revolution was created, stirred, and advanced just as much in these places as in the offices of the newly formed (what was then called) the National Gay Task Force (National Gay and Lesbian Task Force) and the other LGBT advocacy organizations beginning to find their voices during the same period.
With the advent of the AIDS crisis there was a systemic backlash both inside of the queer community and outside of the queer community against the sexual liberation politics of the 60s and 70s. As the era of Reagan and the “Me Generation” took hold in 80s, a conservative attack on queer sexuality and sexual expression, coupled with the AIDS crisis, created a sex paranoia that caused many to back away from the radical sexual politics of the previous decade—some in shame and some in fear. There were still many advocates that continued to fight for both a strong sense of health education and a healthy, positive sexuality—but the court of public opinion and the lack of response from the Reagan administration to the AIDS crisis conspired to set the sexual revolution back. It is clear to me that the queer sexual revolution was not to blame for the spread of AIDS, it was the systemic denial, demonizing, and hate mongering of Ronald Reagan and his administration.
I grew up in a different era.
Coming of age in the mid to late 90s, I was lucky to be a part of a resurgence of positive sexuality, sex positivity, slut politics, and diverse expression of sex interests, forms, and play. I believe that this resurgence, led largely by a strong and vibrant queer youth movement, was a direct reaction to the sexphobia and sexfear of the 80s and early 90s. Having grown up in the upper Midwest, my idea of sex and sexual play was understandably vanilla. Minneapolis closed all of its bathhouses a decade before I even thought about coming out of the closet. I believed that the only valid relationship was a long term monogamous relationship, and the thought of getting spanked, pissed on, fisted, double-fucked, or anything else that was outside of the queer version of the missionary position was simply beyond my experience.
As I matured as an individual and as an organizer, I was blessed to be surrounded by loving and caring peers that took great and gentle joy in blasting apart everything I thought I knew about myself, my beliefs, and sex. At my first Creating Change conference in 1998, I found myself surrounded by kinky, slutty, loving, caring, radicals that taught me figuratively (through workshops) and literally (through hook-ups) about the power of sex as a tool for movement building. At Creating Change, and subsequently while working at the North Carolina Lambda Youth Network, I was surrounded by folks that had done enormous work to leave behind, or at least mitigate, the puritanical U.S. sexual construct. My friend, mentor, and boss—a fierce New York lesbian Jew-- told me just before my first Creating Change conference that I should go and hook up. At the time, I thought she was just encouraging us to have sex, what I learned later was that she was encouraging us to use all of the tools at our disposal to connect with others in our movement and to celebrate, without shame, a core and fundamental aspect of our being: our sexual selves.
As the new millennium hit, the queer community found itself again at a crossroads. This time our sexual revolution was not under attack by the establishment, indeed by the early 2000s, the Supreme Court struck down Bowers versus Hardwick, decriminalizing sodomy and de facto ending a large portion of the institutionalized sexual homophobia (although, it is still illegal to buy dildos in Texas!), our nascent resurgent sexual revolution was under attack from our own “success” stories and from our own political organization(s). By the end of the 90s, queer folks could see themselves staring back from Ellen, Will & Grace, MTV, Bravo, and a host of feature films. Except for Queer As Folk, and later the L Word, all of the media images screamed one message, to the straight community, “DON'T BE AFRAID, WE ARE JUST LIKE YOU!” Instead of June and Ward, you had Jack and Will---still a chaste American couple. Queers had been made palatable by removing the sex and ramping up the camp. Baby gays and dykes began to see and hear overwhelming conformist images and messages: find a man or woman (forget a tranny!), settle down, get a house in the burbs, adopt a baby girl from China,vacation in Europe, work for Target, resistance is futile!
And on the political side, you had organizations such as HRC (and later Freedom to Marry) continuing on the conformity battle cry while sucking up vast community resources and achieving next to nothing of their federal agenda. HRC, as the fairly unchallenged “national voice” of the movement until a recent resurgence by the Task Force, had the ear of the media and the nation...and used queer celebrities to extol the virtues of the heteronormative lifestyle—their sexual politics can be summed up by the image of Ted and Steve, white, in great shape, perfect hair, extremely butch, Log Cabiners, in business suits saying: “Hi I'm Ted and this is Steve, were are just like you...except I like to deep throat his cock and he likes to take it up the butt now and then. Buy American!”
And so, the growing visibility of the queer community, to me, was a blessing and a curse. It is great to see in media and in politics individuals with whom I am able in some ways to identify. It is horrifying that those same people have forgotten that our movement consciously tied sex and politics together in an effort to erase, permanently, regressive efforts to control our bodies and our pleasure.
During the last 10 years, the one place that I could count on to find the old spirit of sexual revolution was the Creating Change conference, For a decade, walking into the registration room of the conference was like taking one big politically charged viagra. For a week, I was able to fall in love with the politics, personality, and ass of dozens of revolutionaries---and I could, with celebration instead of shame, end my night deepening my connection to someone else in the movement through gymnastic rompings on the heavenly bed at the Atlanta Westin.
This year was different. Around the third day of the conference, I called a good friend to tell her that she was missed. She asked me what I thought about the conference, and I shared that in terms of style it was amazing, in terms of substance, somehow, the HRC had finally managed to infiltrate and suck every bit of sexual energy from the conference. The program book contained almost no workshops on sex, sexual organizing, polyamory, or any of the other staples from years past. There was no conference sponsored S&M play party as their had been in Milwaukee. Creating Change had lost an integral part of what made it truly about creating change...changing our beliefs and thoughts through conscious, shameless, safe, and supported exploration of our entire identities—including our sexual selves.
Although I was saddened by the specter of desexualization at the conference, I was not surprised. It was only a matter of time before the marriage movement/HRC borg was able to worm its way into the few places left that embraced radical sexuality and a sexual revolution.
I shared my thoughts and concerns with the conference staff at the Task Force, and they assured me that the evaluation process would include these concerns. But my concerns run much deeper than an annual conference. My concerns run to an active distancing of sex radicals from the queer movement. The same conformist queers advocating for marriage and monogamy, are the same ones you can find on Manhunt advertised as bareback, fist fuck, piss whores. Through the Reagan era into the mainstream conversion process, it has become unacceptable to bring to work and our lives the freedom of sexual expression that was at the core of our movement 40 years ago.
I challenge our national and local organizations, our youth organizations, our faith organizations, our media, and all of the other institutions we have created for ourselves to challenge the messaging we have been given about our sexual expressions. It is one thing to examine your core sexual attitudes and, through a conscious process, come to decide for yourself that at your deepest level you are meant for the long term partnered monogamous life. It is wrong and antithetical to ourselves as human beings and to the roots of our movement to accept a framework for sexuality crafted by James Dobson and approved by the board of the HRC.
It is time for the sluts, whores, kinks, leather community, chicks with dicks lovers, and every other shade and stripe of queers to come out of the closet and declare that our sexuality is not the price we are willing to pay for a grudging tolerance of ourselves as queer people.
The one truly refreshing moment in the exchange came from the late 40s/early 50s, straight, African-American woman faith organizer who just happened to be into leather, bondage, and S&M and had a special place in her heart for the "leather man conference" aka International Mister Leather, which takes place each Memorial Day weekend in Chicago. Old girl was an old school sex radical from back in the day, took advantage of (in the early 80s and today) the dungeon scene in New York City. I can't remember her name, but I am in LOVE with her.
In February, I was at the Creating Change Conference in Detroit. Creating Change is the largest gathering of queer organizers in the country. After the conference, I wrote an essay called "Talking About a Sexual Revolution." I am going to repost it below. After the conversation last night and the seemingly pre-teen reaction to sex that these sexually active adults were having reminded me even more that as we continue our revolutionary struggles that sex, sex positivity, and pleasure organizing need to be front in center in that work.
Talking About A Sexual Revolution--An Essay and a Call to Bed (2.22.08)
On 28 June 1969 queers, trannies, and drag queens, many of whom were people of color, expressed the explosive repressed anger of the queer community and in a night of resistance launched what would become the global movement for queer and transgender freedom of expression, freedom of being, and the freedom to fuck without social, moral, or legal discrimination.
The decade following Stonewall and before the advent of the AIDS crisis, the queer community, took the Free Love movement of the 1960s to new heights. Bears, leather queens, S/M communities, lesbian dominatrix, bath houses, the Christopher Street piers, Fire Island, the Castro, polyamorous/non-monogamous/multi-partner relationships, tea rooms—these were some of the people and some of the sites of a sexual revolution that declared that consensual pleasure, where ever it may be found, will be found and enjoyed. The right to fuck whoever, however, wherever with whatever was never simply about getting off...it was the battle cry of a community reclaiming their bodies, their spirits, and their connections with one another.
Without a doubt, sexism, racism, and other forms of institutionalized oppression were (and still are) present in the community, but never before had identity politics been intimately linked to the politics of sexuality. Queer folks pushed the envelope of what was considered acceptable sexual practice, and in doing so, forced the definition of acceptable to expand. Straight women could find auto-erotic supplies and learn about self pleasure. Straight men found that they could explore being topped by a woman with a strap on and not lose something of their masculinity. The queer sexual revolution was not just for queers.
Every gay bar in every city had a “back room,” and the movement knew that the revolution was created, stirred, and advanced just as much in these places as in the offices of the newly formed (what was then called) the National Gay Task Force (National Gay and Lesbian Task Force) and the other LGBT advocacy organizations beginning to find their voices during the same period.
With the advent of the AIDS crisis there was a systemic backlash both inside of the queer community and outside of the queer community against the sexual liberation politics of the 60s and 70s. As the era of Reagan and the “Me Generation” took hold in 80s, a conservative attack on queer sexuality and sexual expression, coupled with the AIDS crisis, created a sex paranoia that caused many to back away from the radical sexual politics of the previous decade—some in shame and some in fear. There were still many advocates that continued to fight for both a strong sense of health education and a healthy, positive sexuality—but the court of public opinion and the lack of response from the Reagan administration to the AIDS crisis conspired to set the sexual revolution back. It is clear to me that the queer sexual revolution was not to blame for the spread of AIDS, it was the systemic denial, demonizing, and hate mongering of Ronald Reagan and his administration.
I grew up in a different era.
Coming of age in the mid to late 90s, I was lucky to be a part of a resurgence of positive sexuality, sex positivity, slut politics, and diverse expression of sex interests, forms, and play. I believe that this resurgence, led largely by a strong and vibrant queer youth movement, was a direct reaction to the sexphobia and sexfear of the 80s and early 90s. Having grown up in the upper Midwest, my idea of sex and sexual play was understandably vanilla. Minneapolis closed all of its bathhouses a decade before I even thought about coming out of the closet. I believed that the only valid relationship was a long term monogamous relationship, and the thought of getting spanked, pissed on, fisted, double-fucked, or anything else that was outside of the queer version of the missionary position was simply beyond my experience.
As I matured as an individual and as an organizer, I was blessed to be surrounded by loving and caring peers that took great and gentle joy in blasting apart everything I thought I knew about myself, my beliefs, and sex. At my first Creating Change conference in 1998, I found myself surrounded by kinky, slutty, loving, caring, radicals that taught me figuratively (through workshops) and literally (through hook-ups) about the power of sex as a tool for movement building. At Creating Change, and subsequently while working at the North Carolina Lambda Youth Network, I was surrounded by folks that had done enormous work to leave behind, or at least mitigate, the puritanical U.S. sexual construct. My friend, mentor, and boss—a fierce New York lesbian Jew-- told me just before my first Creating Change conference that I should go and hook up. At the time, I thought she was just encouraging us to have sex, what I learned later was that she was encouraging us to use all of the tools at our disposal to connect with others in our movement and to celebrate, without shame, a core and fundamental aspect of our being: our sexual selves.
As the new millennium hit, the queer community found itself again at a crossroads. This time our sexual revolution was not under attack by the establishment, indeed by the early 2000s, the Supreme Court struck down Bowers versus Hardwick, decriminalizing sodomy and de facto ending a large portion of the institutionalized sexual homophobia (although, it is still illegal to buy dildos in Texas!), our nascent resurgent sexual revolution was under attack from our own “success” stories and from our own political organization(s). By the end of the 90s, queer folks could see themselves staring back from Ellen, Will & Grace, MTV, Bravo, and a host of feature films. Except for Queer As Folk, and later the L Word, all of the media images screamed one message, to the straight community, “DON'T BE AFRAID, WE ARE JUST LIKE YOU!” Instead of June and Ward, you had Jack and Will---still a chaste American couple. Queers had been made palatable by removing the sex and ramping up the camp. Baby gays and dykes began to see and hear overwhelming conformist images and messages: find a man or woman (forget a tranny!), settle down, get a house in the burbs, adopt a baby girl from China,vacation in Europe, work for Target, resistance is futile!
And on the political side, you had organizations such as HRC (and later Freedom to Marry) continuing on the conformity battle cry while sucking up vast community resources and achieving next to nothing of their federal agenda. HRC, as the fairly unchallenged “national voice” of the movement until a recent resurgence by the Task Force, had the ear of the media and the nation...and used queer celebrities to extol the virtues of the heteronormative lifestyle—their sexual politics can be summed up by the image of Ted and Steve, white, in great shape, perfect hair, extremely butch, Log Cabiners, in business suits saying: “Hi I'm Ted and this is Steve, were are just like you...except I like to deep throat his cock and he likes to take it up the butt now and then. Buy American!”
And so, the growing visibility of the queer community, to me, was a blessing and a curse. It is great to see in media and in politics individuals with whom I am able in some ways to identify. It is horrifying that those same people have forgotten that our movement consciously tied sex and politics together in an effort to erase, permanently, regressive efforts to control our bodies and our pleasure.
During the last 10 years, the one place that I could count on to find the old spirit of sexual revolution was the Creating Change conference, For a decade, walking into the registration room of the conference was like taking one big politically charged viagra. For a week, I was able to fall in love with the politics, personality, and ass of dozens of revolutionaries---and I could, with celebration instead of shame, end my night deepening my connection to someone else in the movement through gymnastic rompings on the heavenly bed at the Atlanta Westin.
This year was different. Around the third day of the conference, I called a good friend to tell her that she was missed. She asked me what I thought about the conference, and I shared that in terms of style it was amazing, in terms of substance, somehow, the HRC had finally managed to infiltrate and suck every bit of sexual energy from the conference. The program book contained almost no workshops on sex, sexual organizing, polyamory, or any of the other staples from years past. There was no conference sponsored S&M play party as their had been in Milwaukee. Creating Change had lost an integral part of what made it truly about creating change...changing our beliefs and thoughts through conscious, shameless, safe, and supported exploration of our entire identities—including our sexual selves.
Although I was saddened by the specter of desexualization at the conference, I was not surprised. It was only a matter of time before the marriage movement/HRC borg was able to worm its way into the few places left that embraced radical sexuality and a sexual revolution.
I shared my thoughts and concerns with the conference staff at the Task Force, and they assured me that the evaluation process would include these concerns. But my concerns run much deeper than an annual conference. My concerns run to an active distancing of sex radicals from the queer movement. The same conformist queers advocating for marriage and monogamy, are the same ones you can find on Manhunt advertised as bareback, fist fuck, piss whores. Through the Reagan era into the mainstream conversion process, it has become unacceptable to bring to work and our lives the freedom of sexual expression that was at the core of our movement 40 years ago.
I challenge our national and local organizations, our youth organizations, our faith organizations, our media, and all of the other institutions we have created for ourselves to challenge the messaging we have been given about our sexual expressions. It is one thing to examine your core sexual attitudes and, through a conscious process, come to decide for yourself that at your deepest level you are meant for the long term partnered monogamous life. It is wrong and antithetical to ourselves as human beings and to the roots of our movement to accept a framework for sexuality crafted by James Dobson and approved by the board of the HRC.
It is time for the sluts, whores, kinks, leather community, chicks with dicks lovers, and every other shade and stripe of queers to come out of the closet and declare that our sexuality is not the price we are willing to pay for a grudging tolerance of ourselves as queer people.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Midwest Social Forum: Facilitaton
This weekend at the Midwest Social Forum Teach-In, I have had the blessing of being one of the facilitators of the cohort groups and the LGBT organizing (both the Caucus and a workshop continuing the work of organizing the Queer Left started at the U.S. Social Forum last June). I count it as a blessing even though this weekend is reminding me just how mentally tiring it is to be a facilitator.
I remember sitting in workshops and caucuses and attributing all sorts of superhuman characteristics to the facilitators. I thought, for the most part, that they were uberly wise, hip, and so damn cool with their fancy lefty talk and their seemingly boundless grasp of the intricacies of politics, community building, power analysis, and vision. I still feel that way. Adrianne Maree Brown of the Ruckus Society (http://www.ruckus.org/) is one of the star facilitators here this weekend as well as one of the plenary mavens. She makes facilitation look effortless. She has a commanding and relaxing presence. Which, of course, makes me feel like a complete sham when I leave the plenaries and walk into a room that I need to facilitate.
Facilitation is one part preparation and one part empathy and two parts prayer. This weekend, I have had a brilliant collection of engaged individuals from across the age, race, ability, class, gender, and sexual orientation spectrum. In my cohort group one young 14 year old woman, Devyon from Urban Underground (http://www.urbanunderground.org), blew me away with her transformation in one day around her engagement with the work at the teach in but also the analysis she has come up with around the work of her own group. Yesterday, she was a little shy and somewhat disengaged. After a single day of working with people with whom she would not normally engage, and, in her own words, people from ages groups with which she normally does not collaborate, she came to our cohort today with a cogent breakdown of her groups challenges and self defined solutions that, I believe, will move her group passed some of the places they have been stuck.
There is also Lisa, an environmental and development organizer from Bermuda, who yesterday walked into the cohort group with a list of challenges around how to more broadly engage folks from different racial and class backgrounds around her work in Bermuda, who today was able to articulate some clear strategies for bridging the divides that exist around her work and with the ability to say straight forwardly that she needs help and resources and clearly illuminated what those needs and resources would be.
It is those growth moments that, as a participant, I have not gotten to see in the past. As a facilitator, it is my job to listen, guide the conversation when necessary, and offer resources when appropriate, but the greatest gift is being able to have the space to observe the room, watch the dynamics of the interactions, and, in the case of the structure of this teach in, see some of the growth that has taken place as folks have moved through the processes and engaged more deeply with the themes as time and the agenda has progressed.
And, it was surprising and humbling to have, in several instances over the course of today, people with whom I have worked and facilitated this weekend tell me or repeat back to me or in a group insight or support that I was able to provide them and their work. The beauty of it is that each of those people are also people from whom I have taken away a perspective or insight that I will be able to apply to the organizing work that I do.
This entire weekend is a testament to the principles of popular education (bless you Paolo Freire, Highlander Center, Project South, and Pedagogy and Theater of the Oppressed). It is evident to me that the skills, know how, drive, stamina, vision, and power to drive real revolutionary change is present and accounted for...in every generation....from the 14 year old black woman from Chicago to the 60+ year old Latina woman from Minneapolis. To be here and a part of this, though tiring, is a gift.
I remember sitting in workshops and caucuses and attributing all sorts of superhuman characteristics to the facilitators. I thought, for the most part, that they were uberly wise, hip, and so damn cool with their fancy lefty talk and their seemingly boundless grasp of the intricacies of politics, community building, power analysis, and vision. I still feel that way. Adrianne Maree Brown of the Ruckus Society (http://www.ruckus.org/) is one of the star facilitators here this weekend as well as one of the plenary mavens. She makes facilitation look effortless. She has a commanding and relaxing presence. Which, of course, makes me feel like a complete sham when I leave the plenaries and walk into a room that I need to facilitate.
Facilitation is one part preparation and one part empathy and two parts prayer. This weekend, I have had a brilliant collection of engaged individuals from across the age, race, ability, class, gender, and sexual orientation spectrum. In my cohort group one young 14 year old woman, Devyon from Urban Underground (http://www.urbanunderground.org), blew me away with her transformation in one day around her engagement with the work at the teach in but also the analysis she has come up with around the work of her own group. Yesterday, she was a little shy and somewhat disengaged. After a single day of working with people with whom she would not normally engage, and, in her own words, people from ages groups with which she normally does not collaborate, she came to our cohort today with a cogent breakdown of her groups challenges and self defined solutions that, I believe, will move her group passed some of the places they have been stuck.
There is also Lisa, an environmental and development organizer from Bermuda, who yesterday walked into the cohort group with a list of challenges around how to more broadly engage folks from different racial and class backgrounds around her work in Bermuda, who today was able to articulate some clear strategies for bridging the divides that exist around her work and with the ability to say straight forwardly that she needs help and resources and clearly illuminated what those needs and resources would be.
It is those growth moments that, as a participant, I have not gotten to see in the past. As a facilitator, it is my job to listen, guide the conversation when necessary, and offer resources when appropriate, but the greatest gift is being able to have the space to observe the room, watch the dynamics of the interactions, and, in the case of the structure of this teach in, see some of the growth that has taken place as folks have moved through the processes and engaged more deeply with the themes as time and the agenda has progressed.
And, it was surprising and humbling to have, in several instances over the course of today, people with whom I have worked and facilitated this weekend tell me or repeat back to me or in a group insight or support that I was able to provide them and their work. The beauty of it is that each of those people are also people from whom I have taken away a perspective or insight that I will be able to apply to the organizing work that I do.
This entire weekend is a testament to the principles of popular education (bless you Paolo Freire, Highlander Center, Project South, and Pedagogy and Theater of the Oppressed). It is evident to me that the skills, know how, drive, stamina, vision, and power to drive real revolutionary change is present and accounted for...in every generation....from the 14 year old black woman from Chicago to the 60+ year old Latina woman from Minneapolis. To be here and a part of this, though tiring, is a gift.
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