Saturday, July 29, 2006

Seeing the city for the trees

A glass of Syrah on the morning of my 24th birthday at this bustling internet cafe on First in downtown Seattle. Rode the ferry over with Trevor at 7:20, a nice change to see all the worker rats sleeping in their cars, spread out on the ferry benches, not yet ready to greet the day with grumbling sobriety. Can't believe I've been treading this tired track Earth for twenty four years now, long years that flew past my window like lightning delivering me to today with thoughts of the morrow evident on my sweaty brow.

Nervous about my palpitating heart here in the buzz of culture counter to almost everything I believe but swarming with an addictive energy I cannot help but harness when I roam these roads. As if the life threads of all these people were woven right before my eyes, open to my clutching, inky fingers.

Today will be long indeed. Up Queen Anne to make breakfast for two hungover friends still held fast in the clutches of drunken slumber. Then hopefully a shower, some relaxation before the storm of tonight's unknown party. A club called the Rainbow. I will know virtually no one there so the ball's in my court. I can be anyone I desire. Should I be myself? Should I change who my self is? Is it okay to drink wine in the morning? Good for the heart, right? Maybe I should ask that chick in Africa with twins who lounges around the savannah all day drinking wine...

I bet she knows all the answers.
Stay tuned for of Pirate Papa's savage tales of exploration on city streets with whole forests in my pockets. Searching for something I had long ago, before I ever came to cities, before I knew about class hierarchies and politics and prostitution. And isn't life just a sad series of trying to attain that state of mind we are born with? That clean slate in all its innocent naive beauty. That blank canvas on which we paint our futures.

Thursday, July 27, 2006

Talking with Toddlers, Grergory Corso, Gay Dads, Twilight and Early Bedtimes

Usually my little ladies go to sleep between 8:30 and 9pm when they stay with me, sometimes we have late night dance parties or special ocassions of course but I try to keep it fairly regular. Tonight they were just worn out and wanted to go to sleep around 7:15, signing "nap" or "sleep" (cheek resting on palm, head tipped to one side) and fell right off to sleep sail upon hitting the mattress. So papa got to enjoy the onset of evening alone for a night. Still not completely dark here until 10 something so I go out and garden after the girls nod off if I feel like braving the clouds of mosquitos.

Revamped and updated the links section today (read: inadvertantly erased it and had to make a new one), sorry to those sites that I couldn't retrieve. If you happen to notice just e-mail me and I'll toss you back up. I think I got almost all of the sites linked to mine at least. Found a few more excellent gay father blogs, Guy Dads, My Confessions, and Letters for Zac. Rick over at Talking with Toddlers has some cool ideas about using uTube for child speech analysis over the internet and a couple videos of a little tyke signing and a woman speaking on the benefits of teaching sign to children. Cool stuff.

Found a Gregory Corso poem today that struck some sort of nerve... disturbing for it's snapshot quality, it's freeze-frame of masculinity in the 1950s, and it's implications now. I wonder what you all think?

She Doesn't Know He Thinks He's God

He is God
John Rasin is God
He stands by the window smiling
watching a child walk by
'I am God!' he screams. He knows

His wife taps him on the shoulder
'John the baby is sick will die
His fever is up. Get a doctor.'

John Rasin stands as though he were dead
with the health and freshness of life
exaggerated in his deathness
He stands a man stunned with the realization
That he's God. He is God!

His wife pleads screams stamps the floor
pounds her fists against the wall
'John the baby will die!'

an antithetical serum

Heather comes and hangs out at the farm for a few hours, walking and talking and playing with girls. we talk of: memes and greek gods and tales of Hestia, Dionysus, Demeter, the integration of metaphors, the rhythm of the seasons, turning over of the earth, the reemerrgence of old ideas to solve contemporary problems, the offering of food, radical family structures for the 21st century, polyamory vs monogamy, how and why we hurt the ones we love, tiny potatoes, education, fresh basil, the beauties, mysteries and pitfalls of having children, her perspective from ten years of motherhood under the belt, the constant juggling of time, money, schedules, cars, school, work, hearts, brains.

we smoke and i tell her of my visions lately of the systems of biodiversity in ecological borderlands superrimposed over sociological geographies... sorry... I don't really have the correct vocabulary to articulate the things inside my head but here's the downlow: In nature, the areas where two extreme bioregions meet often mark a spike of increased biodiversity. I postulate that the same thing happens in cities. Look where we find the most colorful examples of culture, the community art studios, the bad-ass nonprofits - predominately in urban areas where you have two extreme economies or classes or a mix of ethnicities colliding in a contained shared space, a downtown, an old tenament housing/post-industrial distict, the spaces within our societies where heaven and hell conspire together to create the solutions of the future, and then the problems for that future. The cosmic consciousness melting pot from which our weapons and woes will be forged.

This idea recently took on an even more heightened significance for me with the advent of my urban adventures. I bring the woods into the city and the city into the woods, attempt to create harmony between them in my own head, learning more from the juxtaposition of supposed opposites than from the study of either extreme by itself as well as acting to dispell biased dualisms which, unchecked, result in racism, sexism, and the other isms that helped get us where we are. I guess that's what we really need, a new set of isms, a fresh set of spell words to wield against our enemies and craft our poetry. But I guess that's also what we're already doing, reclaiming language, digging up the bones of the old words and worlds and bestowing upon them new meaning. I didn't just drop acid and I'll swear at/to any God you want.

outside the sun is shining
the weeds need to be pulled

i correlate the nothingness of yardwork with the howling tempest betwixt my temples and delight in Kundera's unbearable lightness of being. Is awareness a burden or a blessing? or both?

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

fresh pix of the pirate lassies at home on the farm




So Close

A popular blog written by an ex-infertile, wine drinking mother of twins living in South Africa. From boobs to botox, from babies to books; no subject is too big.

Also check out: The Other Side of Straight - "a gay man in a red state in rural midwest America. I am in a partnered relationship and a dad of 3 wonderful kids." Unfortunately this morning also marked the decision by the State Supreme Court to uphold the 1998 ban on gay marriage. But they did have the decency to say that the people have the right to redefine the definition of marriage using the initiative process. Well duh. We can supposedly do virtually anything we want using the initiative process, right? As long as enough of us want that change to take place.

Too cool! Can't believe I just found these sites. Wish I had more time to screw around online... of course, I could just wake up at 2:30 every morning and sit around for 3 hours before even starting my incredibly long days.

Tried to read the news today but I can't. Maybe Castro knew what was up and we should all arm ourselves to the teeth.

Uhhh... in other BREAKING NEWS FOR FATHERS The San Fran Chronicle posted a story last Sunday on the stay-at-home dad trend disspelling many myths accepted by the masses until recently. Bravo for big-time coverage, this kicks ass! From the article:

...The stereotype from the 1983 movie "Mr. Mom" -- a clueless father who tries to feed the baby chili and hangs out with desperate housewives -- officially became outdated more than a decade ago. The last U.S. Census, in 2002, reported 189,000 stay-at-home dads, a figure that many fathers say is deceptive because the government definition excludes a lot of dads on technicalities.

As the demographic grows and the raising-children-is-women's-work stigma subsides, most stay-at-home fathers will tell you their job isn't a novelty anymore. But even though there are a great many similarities between moms and dads who raise children full time, there are also some qualities that set daddies apart...


...some dads describe an eerie feeling similar to missing a flight and then meeting the love of your life in the airport bar -- knowing if they had followed their traditional gender role, or let someone else take care of their children, they would have missed out on the greatest experience of their lives.
Read More

and there's a Stay-At-Home Dad's Conference November 11th, 2006. Evidently it's the 11th annual one, held in Kansas City, Missouri. Sweet. Maybe Pirate Papa can check that out one of these years.

Props to Rebel Dad for the last two links and Raj at Green Parenting for the first two. Keep it rockin Papas.

I already have kids, next I want Robots


"I have my books and my poetry to protect me." - Paul Simon
"Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy." - F. Scott Fitzgerald

"ee-oh pol shu awn" - scarleht
the heel is where you pull the shoe on

"poo koo" - lyli
computer

lyli thinks her toy pianos are different kinds of poo-koos.

"Pai-Tee" - lyli
Pirate!

They both said Pirate Papa yesterday! I rule. Let's see, what else... oh, so Lyli made it into the backyard due to their newfound ability to cruise at the speed of now (when I say now, they go the opposite direction). anyway, there she was in the backyard (read: place of the occasional piece of broken glass, rusty nail and five foot thistles) standing beneath said thistle and I turned the corner and said something like: "Urkkkknnnnnooooooooooooohhhhhhhh! That flower will hurt you!" Lyli looked up horrified and immediately signed hurt (this is the part where you tap your index fingers together in front of you or go and learn ASL) while doing her little thing for flower (which is a kiss - long but incredibly cute story) and thus "hurt-flowers" were born. Then Scarleht and Lyli sat in the living room for 15 minutes and lectured each other extensively on the proper usage of the word and sign "please" - fascinating, wish I had been spying better with the digital but that one will live in my head forever anyway.

Been working tirelessly whenever I can on Pirate Papa, planning a trip to Seattle this weekend for my birthday and to reunite with my childhood friend unseen in ten odd (tell me about it) years, hoping he really is a jack mormon 'cause I'd like to buy him some. Tomorrow super-mama-to-three Heather will come and visit us at the farm and we will play with girls, talk about all sorts of strange things I'm sure, smoke, walk, share stories. Stay tuned, will post re: topics of discussion tomorrow night if I have time. Thursday is bookstore/Olympia day I think. Friday we will be visited by guitar virtuoso Trevor Larkin, another old friend from Walla Walla I haven't seen in 6 years now. Check back on his site later, it's not really up I just wanted to get it out there early. This is all new to me since Lyli and Scarleht's birth, being this social. I like it but it also wears me out in ways that my chainsaw can't. Then next week who knows? Getting ready for kick ass Portland adventure with China in a few weeks.



My girls, you're just like the heavens
Not a soul to take your hand in theirs
Your tears and wild constellations
Broad limbs and hard folding chairs

But there's millions to count you and keep you
And lovers that don't understand
Don't let them tell you you're nothing
'Cause you'll change the world pretty girls

Come chain yourself from my ankles
You'll see the world like a bird
Diving down low, flying up high
Thru all of these saccharine gutters we'll ride and I

Won't say that I told you so

From "Pretty Girls" by Neko Case


and this is just too funny:

"if you have rejected some of the Baby Industrial Complex's relentless propaganda and have NOT bought something major, and you're pleased with your non-purchase--and you're not saving the secret for your upcoming Real Simple Parenting DVD series, available at Amazon for $49.95--tell us what it is, so we can not buy it, too." from a post I missed awhile back from Daddy Types

Monday, July 24, 2006

Human chaos is so amusing...

Everyday this week I have been able to work global warming into several common conversations...funny.

"your looking good, loosing weight"

"Its just water weight, sweating from this heat...global warming could be a good thing...kill off some old people this summer so we dont have to share food and medicine! WW3 is starting you know"

I think its important to be humored by this fucking life. If you can keep your distance...you can manage to not want to jump off a cliff on a daily basis... Ignorance is...bliss. Have a whiskey on ice from a glacier before its too late. I here it's the smoothest drink you can have. Ahh the simple things...

submitted by Heidi, unintentionally :)

captain's log XXVII

I am an often troubled soul dwelling in a place too beautiful for my scattered time to grasp. My fingertips are lacerated daily by the pages of many tomes, the foundation I lay for myself and my kin to walk upon. Language used to be my temple but as of late my mind resides in the alleyways of emotive stimulus and reminiscences. I am a pirate papa, spawning outside the stream, seeking complimentary ambitions and small beauties. I smoke, I feel guilt, I bleed, blister and drink beer, read books when I can squeeze them in between the bullshit, I raise my children the best I can with what I have immediately around me, I listen to my dreams in the day and let them flow over me at night, I feel regret for some things, I know who I am most of the time but am unsure of who I want to be, I watch movies at nap time and sell books anywhere I can, I pick up interesting rocks and take close-up photos of different textures, I love when I can and cry when no one's watching, I am that I am and no more.

This is from a few months ago, I just didn't want to lose it. Wow. It's nice to not feel that way anymore, or less... or... (insert something profound)

Sunday, July 23, 2006

Piano Babies, Moo Cows, Bee Stings, and Zines

how many cows lyli?

won! too! phive cow-ows!

let's see if this u-tube stuff really works, this was from a few days ago:

_____________________________

first bee sting today for Lyli
on the foot too, ouch!
baking soda and water and hugs
i was worried about her falling asleep
'cause it was right before nap time and
she immediately got drowsy but I riled her back up
iced her foot and she stopped crying and was walking on it again in minutes.

whew. reading about anaphylactic shock is no fun. at least we got to watch H. Rietta (our chicken) devour the bumblebee immediately after we took care of Lyli's foot. That's actually what made her stop crying at first was talking about the chicken eating the bee.

gorgeous and green here today despite the heat, need to water the garden once it's in the shade. nice adventure in olytown last night, saw the baby mama at the bar for the first time in ages, awkwardly cool vibes and some productive chatter.

argued with my mother this morning and she left for a few days
she's been visiting and helping me out this past month for those of you just tuning in but it's beginning to wear on me a bit, as parents tend to do to the wits of their offspring (and vice versa) after prolonged exposure.

drafting the first physical pirate papa zine for the Portland 'Zine Symposium august 11-13. will be adopting Rad Dad's table at the conference along with China Martens, gypsy-punk author of The Future Generation and counter-culture-mama-pioneer-guru. Google her ass, you'll find all sorts of cool stuff.

so if you're a parent or know some in the northwest or even if you're not a parent and even if you're not in the northwest (shame on you) you should come check out the Symposium. good folk to be sure. come look us up. we're gonna kick ass.

Saturday, July 22, 2006

kick ball, beer, and books

i must be the world's best walking anachronism. always in the right place at the wrong time or the wrong place at the right time. my heart walks circles around my head, each trying to convince me the other is the crazy crazy. fucking lakefair in downtown Olympia and I'm working at the bookstore dreaming of the beach and how much I hate the people who flock to the downtown for this stupid carnival. They don't even read their cereal boxes much less Bakunin or Baudelaire. So what good are they to me?

I'm feeling a little feisty and cynical today, nice mix what with the heat and swelter. today i put up a sign on the front counter that read: "For service please step outside with the books you would like to purchase and gesticulate wildly at the strange bearded man sitting in the window of the bar across the street wearing a black shirt and rainbow parachute pants. We will be with you shortly." Then I went across the street, sat down and had a couple beers. The sign worked! Twice! People waved at the wrong bar, I put my beer down, trotted across the street and sold them their books. There's been talk of having a bell installed next to the table by the window at the bar connected to a rope across the street at our bookstore's counter. It's too damn hot to work today and we're all worked up over our little downtown being invaded by barbarians so we play kickball across 4th avenue and keep the bastards on their toes. Ahhh, the life of a pirate.

What tales the heart can spin the head and what a fool the head is for ever listening. Dreams of her run through my head. I juxtapose each past lover against all the others, holding them all up together to see what shape their combination might contain, as if by mere close scrutiny alone I can decipher the secrets of my own shallow hallowed heart. As if by reading my own story I will see where I am going... but I don't want to be that predictable. The best books, like the best lovers always keep you guessing. At least when your heart is wild and seeks wildness to sustain itself. Opposites attract, compliment, convince, deceive, critique and walk together paw in paw through a landscape foreign to them both, inventing islands.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

So I watched Transamerica twice over the past few days and can't help but tell you people who read this little blog that you have to watch this movie! Netflix it, rent it, do whatever it is you do. This movie will amaze you. I haven't been literally on the edge of my seat holding my breath during a film for a long time. Whew!

Disembarking soon. On the tail end of my fantasy vacation, or, as I like to call it: Grog go to big city. Back to Bremerton on the ferry this afternoon and a few bus hops down to the park and ride, 3 mile walk down my road and I'm home to my little lovies. Talked with them on the phone yesterday morning for a few minutes. They already sound different than when I left chirping out "halo papa!" with much improved enunciation. This is the longest I have gone without seeing them since they were born and the least we have spoken. Strange effects on us all I'm sure. I am excited to be back with them.

I achieve similar states of consciousness whether walking in the woods alone or in the crowded city, a certain introspective, observational euphoria. Maybe all my senses just enjoy being stimulated by polar extremes? Today my senses are enjoying being stimulated by red wine, street odors and the constant flickering ocean of motion around me: cars, bikes, people, birds, dogs, buses, airplanes, boats, bigger boats, mopeds, skateboards, motorcycles, para-sailers, helicopters, trucks and trains. Whew.

Well fed by a friend I wander the city streets with my bags packed full of poetry, books crowding out clothes as is usually the case towards the end of any of my adventures. I can't stop smiling, as if my being learned a secret about itself. It has been a long time since I had the time to stop and think about my life and take the time to bask in real happiness with no responsibilities and let my thoughts roam over my emotional landscape doing odd jobs, cutting fence, pulling weeds.

I wonder if my loneliness, which is definitely still with me, just drunk... I wonder if the feelings I was having last week and the weeks before will come flooding back in upon my return or if I have healed strongly enough. I'm not being very lucid right now. Deal with it. In my head I picture a medieval knight returning to his castle with a few magical gifts from the city, the essence of movement, the sociology of the metropolis encapsulated in a glass bottle, something wondrously unreal that will draw me back to the city again. Something that will bridge the worlds I want and keep me busily happy and relaxed. They say variety is the spice of life. All I want to do is season myself all over.

wonderfulletterfromshiningsoul

dancing in the you,

in these realms we inhabit with eons of protocol bred into our very cells, awkwardness is a constant state of being. it seems at times as though an entire day, week, lifetime can be spent just trying to say the right thing once.

then come the times were the words were right and the presentation wrong, causing the need for entirely new word arrangements.

is revealing art [before it's completed(?)] really a safe thing to do? with neccesity come risk, and risk can be quite sweet even when you lose something. fear of loss can equate to pleasure as action can equate to stillness. kinetic energy and potential energy are both still sources of power.

awkwardness is the fear of loss, that fear that what path you follow may drop away without warning at one sudden mistep. calculating guides reach far and past, a sudden glance can change the whole equation.

the glance may define. the path may drop. when one path is lost another will always appear and the cycle is repeated perhaps?

so long as the sun rises and sets in ones heart there is progress and perpetual opportunity for self guidance.

hand in hand we self guided creatures seek both self and the multiplicity of companionship. the awkward realization is that we self guided creatures guide each other like great flocks of birds or enveloping schools of fish.

the sharks of doubt may hunt, the clouds of regret may fog, but hand in hand many is one and one will always be as strong as the bonds that hold within.

atom to atom. soul to soul.

you've got some brilliant colors yourself mister. sorry i didn't make it to the crescent, school yadda yadda. do you have return plans? tool?

i would like to hold your hand.

thank you for reaching to me.

love likes pieces like us,
prost

A lovely poem from a close friend

And a woman held who a babe against
her bosom said, Speak to us of Children.
And he said:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's
longing for itself.
They come through you but not from
you,
And though they are with you yet they
belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not
your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not
their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even
in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek
not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries
with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path
of the infinite, and He bends you with His
might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand
be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Monday, July 17, 2006

Pirate Papa Takes Seattle by Storm

My first real vacation since my girls were born! Five days in bustling city of Seattle. Quite a change from my normal rural setting. I keep pretending all the people are leaves on a tree blowing busily in the wily winds of change and chance. Slightly inebriated at 2:56 in the afternoon, my weekend was enjoyably spent in the company of my dearly beloved orange-haired urban goddess Crystal, attending a concert of our friends' at the Mars Bar and then graduating to The Crescent, an extremely radically colorful gay karaoke bar where we spent the duration of the evening. Slowly/quickly I grow reaccustomed to the idea of bachelorhood (A male animal that does not mate during the breeding season, especially a young male fur seal kept from the breeding territory by older males.)

ha!

I miss my medium sized ladies but this trip is quite liberating/invigorating I must say. Laid back, relaxed, full of thoughts and fresh ambitions, old soils turned over into new light. The word culture literally means the turning of the earth, take it as you will.

Just finished reading Brave New World overlooking Seattle's Sound, in the heart of the concrete jungle, a perfect finish to a perfect book. How timelessly strong our words may seem when held up to the ravages of clocks if we but speak what lies within our hearts and talk in truths about that which we see before us. Who knows what people thirty, eighty, three hundred years from now may derive from our scattered prose, our songs of praise, our tragedies and triumphs.

All I know is that I love life, and love loving life. Some days are dark, others awkward, but my essential human spirit seems virtually indefatigable. I wonder how these processes continue as the body and the mind age, foment and ferment and frolic and fill with endless experience. It will be strange and wondrous to see I am sure. But sometimes here, in the center of constant change, the symphony still sounds silent, static, a body at rest amidst incessant motion, capable only of the most pedestrian observational skills, the basest emotional impulses. I learn from my own poor example what it is I want to be and ceaselessly attempt to better myself in my own eyes.

Life is fluid and I a fish. Would that my pockets were as bottomless as my soul, my essence, my umbra, my very marrow. Then could I share to the extent my dreams sum up. Surely brevity is not only the soul of wit, but the widow of waffling frustration, the decanted spore of a life well lived and shrewdly packaged morals. Like a classical kids book, simply written but ingeniously constructed.


"All my doors are open."
"All my eggs are broken."
"Now my prayers Awaken."
"Drink me when you're ready."

Friday, July 14, 2006

maps describe themselves

Eight months now Pirate Papa has been up and running. Everyday the dork in me google earth's all my new visitors and tacks them up
on my digital map 'o the world. I'm getting 5-20 hits a day from all over the globe, mostly inside the United States. An odd feeling, to
be sure, having an effect with ones words on an audience totally unknown but for bread crumb comments and scattered feedback. I have made
friends with a solid dozen activist parents across the country, gotten mediocre feedback and support from my local community and spent
many hours writing and surfing the net researching something I never gave two bits about before it happened to me. The disconnect is strange,
almost as if I sacrificed my local support network for a more global model. Now the world of parenting has consumed my waking hours and
changed me on a fundamental level into a creature capable of tackling the new dawn. In the last eight months my relationship with my partner
Stephanie has crumbled and reshaped itself. We are no longer living together but are trying to fashion some sort of cooperative holistic
rearing situation in the face of this land of alimony, child support, absentee fathers, proxy parents, teletubbies, ADD and massive sugar
intake. It is very hard to live this life that the world around you does not cater to, in fact denies and devalues and sweeps under several
rugs and makes next-to-impossible to maintain. It is very hard to try to collect several lives inside one perfect painting and sometimes
the lives you end up with are not the ones you started with... crews change I guess is what I'm trying to say, rules and boundaries
evolve, treasure troves are plundered, hearts are broken, maps describe themselves, planks are walked, even on the most lawful of pirate ships.

Monday, July 10, 2006

misery is company

i miss my daughters and my love who is moving on much better than i

it seems

my hollow heart echoes in my head
resounding within caverns of self-consciousness
i try to take myself apart
hoping there is something left inside

my fingers have fiddled with guitar strings again
my writing creeps back
i try to keep my hands busy so they don't distract my mouth with beer

downtown drains me
carcass at dawn
but oh, the water

Wednesday, July 5, 2006

it no longer takes a village

just a little something i wrote awhile back, thought it could use an audience.

It no longer takes a village. Now it takes a venture capitalist with a blog and a law firm. Now it takes some hollywood cheese and his million dollar diamond shoes sparkling on corporate network television. Now it takes Visa, Mastercard or American Express! Now it takes Big Business International bulldozing the friggin rainforests of the world to wake up a few liberal hippies to direct action in their own bioregion against the weathered old warrior that is industrialized logging in the Northwest. Now it takes denigrating fashion ads and decades of brainless video hypnotism for us to notice theres something wrong with our children. Hmmm, tTough one. Now it takes our very bodies withering away beneath the wiry fingers of cancer, AIDS (see conspiracy), or Alzheimers for us to realize that maybe we shoudnt have been living next to that power plant; maybe having all these chemical ingredients that we dont know what are isnt a good idea; maybe we should have traced our drinking water to its source; maybe something really is up with the Hanford Nuclear Reservation; maybe its not too late now.

With old enemies like these deadly sins wearing new masks, we need old warriors in masks of their own to do battle with them. From the darkness emerges a fairy tale clad in peasants robes, dirt poor Zapatista Mayan farmers armed with pitchforks and solar laptops combatting the International Monetary Fund and the Mexican Government, and inspiring a new generation of activists. Guerilla gardens begin springing up in metropolitan areas all over the world, on rooftops, in alleyways, on abandoned lots. Radical, free-thinking college professors like Ward Churchill step up to the plate (see badass) and deliver what such exhorbitant tuition costs should be paying for in the first place: quality controversy and informative debate. On a lighter note, massive global anti-capitalist uprisings are occurring more frequently and efficiently and on a greater scale. Green and Sustainable Business shoulder their way into the arena after the initial boom of socially responsible investing, more cool lawyers and business people that will chain themselves to the doors of the WTO preaching about the evils of governments who hop in bed with corporations (see Mussolinis definition of fascism) and then represent everyone in the courtroom later. We need more small, sustainable, local pirates with their radio stations and far-reaching ideas all over the world. Or secret shoplifters who watch the secret shoppers. We need Big Sister to beat the snot out of Big Brother. Where are the writers and artists who will craft for we, the people, a contemporary cultural mythology which transcends borders and ethnicities, genders and classes and unites the people on the common ground of food, water, shelter, clothing and medicine for everyone? Where are the wordsmiths to wrench back our language from the ad designers and corporate whores and corrupt politicians and media moguls and wield it like the magical weapon that it is, the magical weapon to which our country owes its roots? But we dont think of roots much these days do we?

Our communal sense of place and purpose that has held us together sustainably as indigenous peoples for eons has been increasingly eroded over the last ten thousand years by Civilization & Empire, Inc. Its gotten to the point now that barely anyone knows their neighbors, most money spent leaves town immediately on the corporation superhighway and people pacify themselves with mindless forms of entertainment instead of interacting with other living, breathing beings. Were Americans, we dont know who the hell we are or where the hell we are and this ahistorical, geographically ignorant mindset is reflected perfectly in the way we treat the places that we live in and around. It is mirrored in the boring shoebox practicality of our architecture, in our hopelessly linear urban planning, in our destruction of and open indifference to the natural world. As we grow more and more detached from ourselves and each other, the environment and all the teeming life around us that used to hold our utmost attention and respectnow suffers most.

Not just our own survival is at stake here, but the fates of all the species we havent already eradicated are in jeopardy as well. Even if we are just a microcosmic blink in the eye of the universe or some unnamed god and the mushrooms will clean up all the harm we do, shouldnt we have our act a little more together? Were supposed to be custodians of this place to pass on to our children and our grandchildren and their grandchildren. Theres supposed to be something left for them to work with.

But even the little things add up and at times overwhelm. Daily we are driven to subconscious distraction by a million blinking lights, at night we cannot see the stars to wrap our world in perspective and remind us of our miniscule size in the grand scheme of things. This contributes directly to the false inflation of our collective ego, not to mention just jamming our receivers full of junk, and drives us further away from the sustainable, communal model that we once practiced in harmony with our surroundings. This ruggedly reckless nation of individuals who can do everything alone except think for themselves is running the rest of the world into the ground selfishly and effectively.

In recent years a globalized industrial agricultural whirlwind coupled with rampant deforestation and over-consumption of fossil fuels in the stupidest way possible (burning them) has accelerated this cataclysmic process of environmental annihilation to the boiling point. We live in a radioactive chemical neon nightmare of automated ease and capitalist-industrialized (find a better way to say this) freedom built on the backs of screaming trees and bloody natives. But can we, as individuals, be blamed for our neophobic, rut-loving ways? Can we be blamed for not listening to the land? We who are bombarded by a virtually constant buzz of motors, engines, stereos, beeps, whirs, whistles, and clicks? It is no wonder we cannot stop for a few seconds and focus on our surroundings, or the silence inside our own heads, or the plight of a sister or brother. But we need to try.

Urbanites questing towards something better should look closer to home for the answers. Villages exist within our midst, we just have to define them. Seek out the local craftsmen, the local bakers, the local bookstores. We have the answers and solutions to most of our problems right here in front of us (some assembly required). It will enhance our individual quality of life and make our community more whole. It still takes a village, in fact, now its gonna take all the villages weve got to de-standardize the world. We just need to tell all the venture capitalists, hollywood cheeses and Big Business brokers. And we need to tell them loud.

Sunday, July 2, 2006

a life of lost love taught me to lose love

lost my rhthym of switching from labor to love to labor this last week with my lonely hunter lost in this forest of no feeling i have built around my soul over the years; buttoned lips, narrow hips, and smart ass quips kept me distant from devotion, for a life of lost love taught me to lose love, purposely misplaced like a pair of socks you're scared of wearing because the colors are too bright or don't match the way you want your eyes to look, an elaborate, idiotic defense mechanism designed to fail and fail and fail by never sharing enough. mistaken for selfishness time and again i don't know how to explain to people that in order to be myself I need time to recharge. in order to be dynamic one must maintain a variety of intensities always in motion, in order to do this one must, at times, remain perfectly still in order to learn by juxtaposition and the graceful lessons of combined opposites that which they were seeking towards the wrong extreme. confusing? well, a parent is the most rewarding and the most lonely of occupations. what better to do with my down time than attempt to dissect the loneliness? maybe it will help someone else even if it never helps me more than this simple act of sharing I am trying to re-learn.