What the fuck is Yoga, and Who Took My 40oz?

The title of this could be: "Parenting Through a Breakup" or "Overcoming Addictions as a Young Parent and Treading Water in the Aftermath" or "Having Kids, A Girlfriend, and a Baby Mama All at the Same Time" or "Holistic Therapy & Utilizing All the Resources of Your Community, Even if Part of You Hates Doing It" or "What the Fuck is Yoga and Who Took My Forty?"

Silence is a fence around wisdom. ~German Proverb

Nowadays most men lead lives of noisy desperation. ~James Thurber

Now all my teachers are dead except silence. ~W.S. Merwin

The silence depressed me. It wasn't the silence of silence. It was my own silence. ~Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

What page was I on? Why haven’t I written on Pirate Papa for a year and a half? What happened that distracted me from my ongoing project of self-documen-realization-tation? Perhaps there really are times to live, and times to write about living, as those wise-ones sometimes deign to tell us.

So... where to begin, for those of you who do not know the details of our sordid little web of worries, wants and wily individuals wreaking havoc with each others lives here on the Northleft Coast? Do you want/need to know the details? Do I want you to know the details? No, not really. So I’ll summarize to spare us all the brunt, blunt edge of truth: the details are a lot of pain and suffering, some very unhealthy violence, a dash of rejoicing, a few periods of intense personal growth, some fucking and some fucking over of good people on all sides of some painful issues, some healing, too much drinking, not enough writing, good food (always good food), tears, blood, sweat and ink.

There you have it.

Fast forward to now. I have a beautiful, doting Hannah who lives with me. I get my ladies half the time and have for the past nine months. Week on with me, week off with their mama… Someone said a few weeks ago: "You must be grieving." And I realized… I am grieving. I'm grieving and learning how to recover and balance and thinking about my posture, liver, kidneys, spleen, blood flow. "Am I standing up straight enough?" I think. "Am I clenching my butt enough for this to be better for my back than slouching?" I think. "You are standing up straight enough and this is good." My back thinks back at me. I walk taller now. I breath a little deeper in order to do so and that feels good. Sometimes I forget. I’m getting acupuncture and learning about my own body and my body feels good too and this makes me smile.

Like most other periods of my life, this past year and a half is blurred now, already, by whatever blurs our memories of things, faces, events. Evidently I have a surplus of that mysterious substance floating around in my brain, and not much else. I look at pictures and see myself smiling and my girls growing and I let the sounds and smells of what I do remember flood over me as often as I can. I try to live each day at a time and as a step towards something greater that I am trying to build and fashion from this clay of mortality I embody. I try to focus on whatever is in front of me. Nothing more. Nothing less. I give it my attention as best I can. I try not to dwell on broken hearts or fights or fanciful flights or past happenings of any kind, unless they directly pertain to what is at hand and then I try to embrace them, forgive them, gift them wings and let them fly away from my heart and disperse their bad energies back to whatever depths or heights from which they may have sprung.

Today I have a wonderful woman who loves us and lends her beautiful hands to our labors of love with joy and cunning and vitality and a smile. We have a large garden overflowing with vegetables. The ladies are walking and talking with amazing multi-syllabic words and rambling sentence-thoughts and a very advanced vocabulary for their boisterous, exuberant age of four. We care for a lovely Great-Dane Bull Mastiff mix named Deezle who weighs more than I do and gets spoiled like I want to be, but that's okay. The books continue to pile up, as they have a tendency of doing in my family. My job progresses as I grind my nose to oblivion on a stone. But I like my job. Sometimes I really don't like parts of my job but I do them anyway. I sell underground books to perfectly normal weirdoes all day long. We travel a little and go to book fairs, barter fairs, anarchist gatherings. I shop at bookshops, thrift stores, yard sales, a few auctions. Every few months some combination of us goes to Walla Walla to give the girls some Grandpa time and for me to get another load of antiquarian and interesting books to drag back over and on which to work for the next two months. We watch movies and put vintage paperbacks in bags and smoke into the night. Hannah helps guide me back into myself through every day.

I went a bit crazy for a spell back there and hurt myself a lot before I could pull out. Drinking too much on too little sleep for too long. Being single for all of six months and now missing it from time to time, in some stupid sentimental way. But not liking myself when I was single either. Too self-destructive, and thusly, too destructive of others selves as well, some of those closest to me. Slept around, flirted with poly-amory, drank myself into oblivion whenever I didn't have my kids, tried to keep my journals and my wits about me and my businesses growing and my friends happy. Nothing worked. Wasn't trying to keep myself happy. And I definitely didn’t feel like the ‘real man’ I wanted to be. Hannah found me like that, in the bars, pretending to be happy and social and healthy. She didn't try to ‘change me’ or ‘fix me’ or whatever, thank god, that's such a turn-off. She just stood beside me until I didn't feel like doing it all anymore, at least on the reckless level I was before or, as my father so delicately put it: “burning the candle at both ends.” Ouch. What was that about the truth? About saying these things that stab us outloud. About release. To heal myself I had to hole up inside, cut ties to everyone and everything I could. Now I slowly have to rebuild those damaged bonds (doomed stocks?), as time goes by. What an investment friendship is.

Now I have to deal with the wreckage and aftermath and conflicts of interest and vendettas sprung from my selfishness and emotional immaturity. Now I have to reckon with the results of my own actions. And I have to learn how to do all this without tearing myself apart with guilt and self-pity. I wish I hadn't had to do it the way that I did, the way that I am. I wish I had found a better way, a way to communicate my ideas and feelings to my friends as I pulled away, to explain my self and my necessary, temporary, painful absence from their lives but not their hearts. Instead I just donned the tough-guy mask and plodded forward stubbornly. I didn't share myself. I didn't share what was in my head, what was in my heart. Those bonds take so much longer to build back up after they've been broken. So that now I have to write about it, so that others can hear and perhaps avoid some slightly similar situation in a healthy, nonviolent, creative way.

We really are the only ones who can fix ourselves. Other people can aid us, give us gentle guidance, instill us with new methods or ideas. Around me people burn bridges that were so beautiful and leave each other in the ashes. Around me people abuse their bodies and minds and push themselves into a stupor closing in on death. Around me, flames burn bright and fast and threaten to extinguish themselves or each other. As communities we must learn to band together to fend off these flames from engulfing the fragile camps we have set into this wilderness of stimulus. Through a wicked cocktail of drugs, media, and privilege we have effectively stunted our own emotional growth and development. We must learn how to voice and share and thereby re-channel our collective anger and regret and fear and hate and worry into a cohesive, constructive force to be aimed at the heart of these issues: health care, poverty, anger-management, family planning and sex education, male bonding, patriarchy, alternative resources and support networks for young parents, other options to state-mandated assistance, a fundamental revamping of our educational system and a focusing-in on systemic problems contributing to our fractured society and sense of place. Need I go on? I share myself with you and ask for nothing in return save that you listen and let my words move through you.

Parenting as a Green Anarchist

I consider myself to be a pirate in some contemporary sense of the word. This is the lens through which I try to view our world. I am a nice pirate, where others rape and pillage I salvage and sow; where others sack and burn I liberate and grow. I pirate software, vegetables, herbs, bulk food aisles at corporate grocery stores, garbage, books, clothes, thrift stores, free boxes. I find homes for books lost on these high seas of a culture that, for the most part, doesn't read. I steal from the rich and give to the poor whenever possible. I try to be free in the fullest sense of the word and dream always of furthering that freedom.

I live with my twin three year old daughters on an old 250 acre farm outside of Shelton, Washington at the inner-most tip of Puget Sound. I try to live as a Green Rebel and a Pirate in this commodified world of disposable consumables. Does this mean I live a zero-sum harmonious existence with my local ecosystem, feeding wild animals by hand and growing or scavenging all my food while refusing to pay taxes and stockpiling an enormous underground arms cache of sustainably gathered weapons of creation? Well... not yet.

So I try instead to let these simple ideas bleed into my everyday interactions with nature and with the individuals around me. I try to be anti-authoritarian with my children for the most part, but every parent raises their voice or demands some sort of obedience from their kids, because that is the world we live in, try as we might to escape it. But I have become acutely aware of what a collaborative process parenting is and, as surely as I am raising two beautiful, intelligent, gentle girls in this crazy world, they are raising and molding a new kind of parent in me. And these new kinds of people we are helping each other foster and create and assemble from old bones will be the same people faced with solving the growing problems of tomorrow and bridging our polarized communities with what common ground we have: our children and our desire for them to be healthy and survive.

I vaguely recall mulling over possible titles for my fatherhood blog before settling on Pirate Papa: An Anarcho-Green Journal of D.(o) I.(t) Y.(ourself) Parenting. The ones I remember are: Running with Scissors , Don't Tell Mommy, and Hip-Pop. When I use words like 'Anarcho-Green' I am attempting to bend accepted norms by sheer use of language, I am attempting to lure in folks who are curious about these ideologies (even while I am obviously alienating whole other groups), I am attempting to extract everything I deem to be of value to contemporary parenting from both movements and synergize it into a harmonious, sustainable whole systems anti-corporate naturally organic approach to parenting and child-rearing in this day and age.

I relate 'Anarchism' to parenting in several very simple ways: I firmly believe that large-scale industrial capitalism is inherently bad for babies; I think all children are inherently anarchists and that these qualities need to be nurtured and respected rather than repressed; I advocate a refusal to follow accepted norms (without massive research) as applied to my children's diet, medicine, entertainment, education, etc.; I think that families are best served and children best reared by as much economic and political freedom as possible. I believe in creative problem solving, involving children in political activism, and being as anti-corporate, anti-capitalist and anti-standard as possible. I believe we need localized communities operating on a face-to-face basis in equilibrium with each other and their surroundings without official hierarchies and centralized establishments to arbitrate and rule our lives. We have learned from this system of coercion, capitalism, domination and patriarchy that it does not work, does not jive with the natural human spirit or bodily rhythms. Now it’s time to try something else.

I relate 'Green' to parenting thusly: I see today's generic diet and monocropped culture as definitely deadly to the kids and mothers and fathers of the future (that's all of us); I see lowering the ecological footprint of today's typical American family as a fundamental first step to saving tomorrow's children, as well as maximizing our own limited time here on the planet; I believe that, as a species, we require a healthy chunk of re-wilding in order to return to some sustainable balance with nature as well as with our own collective psyche; I believe that a resurgence to THE LOCAL for food and medical needs for our families and elderly and children will best sustain our communities and revitalize our economies with the inherently unique culture granted them by place.

If we don’t want a world full of standardized testing and rulers and competition then we need children who can live outside the box and be the most unique individuals they can be. If that is what they want to do. And I think it will be. If we want a world without bars on its windows then, more than ever, will we need children who are free.

Further Reading:

http://www.grizzlybird.net/greenparenting.html

http://motheranarchy.blogspot.com/

http://piratepapa.blogspot.com/2007/01/too-cool-for-kids-how-anarchist-bigotry.html

http://piratepapa.blogspot.com/2005/12/what-methods-of-child-rearing-do.html

http://piratepapa.blogspot.com/2007/02/revolutionary-parenting.html

http://piratepapa.blogspot.com/2007/01/taking-children-seriously-and-anarchy.html

http://piratepapa.blogspot.com/2007/05/taking-children-seriously-future-of.html

This essay was first published by Tomas in Rad Dad #7, July/August 2007.

Beyond Primetime: Will Media Help Grow Healthier Kids?

The Kids And The Media Conference 2007 just finished in New York City, awesome info for any rational, intelligent parent raising children into this nightmare world. Below are some notes of mine from a media literacy workshop which my business partners from Last Word Books and I delivered at the Olympia Public Library several years ago. Thanks Dadventure for the link!

dictionary definitions of ‘media’ and ‘literacy’

media – plural of medium

medium – a channel of communication;

a publication, or broadcast, that carries advertising

there we go, as early as my 1971 Webster’s Dictionary, advertising is inextricably linked to media

literacy – the quality or state of being literate

literate – educated, cultured, the ability to read and write

media literacy is defined as “the development of skills to empower persons to be both critical thinkers and creative producers of an increasingly wide range of messages using image, language & sound.”

now we’ve all heard Marshall McLuhan’s famous aphorism: “The medium is the message.” So, how the message is conveyed is just as important, if not more so, than what it has to say.

now remember, media is a representation of reality, only one representation, not the representation. We are representations of reality, you and me and everyone here. And media is a constructed representation, a machine, not a human being.

one of my primary arguments is that the person sitting next to you is just as valid a source of news as a newspaper these days and they don’t cost $1.50 on Sundays. And really, what good is reading the newspaper if you don’t talk to anyone about what you’ve just read? Where does your media come from?

Check your sources. 1st hand info is more reliable than 2nd hand info. Like the game telephone, each conduit thru which a piece of news passes is a filter, a lens through which that piece of news can be distorted, whether it be by accident (misinformation) or on purpose (disinformation). Take everything with a grain of salt and research all sides of an argument.

Know this: Media literacy does not give you the answers. It gives you the ability to ask the right questions…and the left questions. How often do we question things as opposed to accepting them on blind faith?

Media Literacy is also defined as: “The ability to access, analyze, evaluate and communicate messages in a wide variety of forms.” The ability to communicate across cultural, social and economic boundaries, the ability to read and write and indeed begin to rewrite the world itself, and to be a good writer or reader, one must have a love for life as well as a love for language. Bad journalism can love language while disrespecting life, can be well written but distort the facts, be persuasive towards its points but ultimately dishonest. Rachel Carson, one of the most powerful figures on the Environmental Front throughout the 20th century said: “You must ask yourselves: Who Speaks? And Why?” What media sources do you find biased and how and why do you deem them so?

Context is crucial. Reported Israeli deaths versus unreported Palestinian deaths is a great example of media bias. What are the motives and political agendas behind the media? Who’s not being heard? Was anything taken out of context? To what end? Indeed, content and intent are two very different things. Look beyond the letters, look past the flashing lights, read in between the lines and listen through the sounds and background music. Media has ulterior motives.

In 1977, entertainment news averaged 15% of total content on televised evening news; by 1997 that number rose to 43% of total content. Celebrity gossip, movie advertisements, name brand clothing and products pushed on daily sit-coms.

Why is control of public information moved into the hands of the private sector? Why is our news controlled by corporations looking out for number one? How does mainstream media define patriotism? How do media and politics interact? If media literacy is about receiving information from a wide variety of sources, then why is our mass media controlled by eleven companies? I, for one, would rather receive my news from four million people as opposed to four.

Change starts small, understanding media helps you to better understand your neighbor’s point of view, regardless of whether or not you agree with them. Just talk to people, that’s all I ask. I know I’ve asked a lot of questions but we do have the tools to find the answers.

Okay, so us alternative fathers need to take this site by storm.

I find the website AskMen.com to be stereotypical and demeaning to men in general. Look at their topic bar on the left column. It's sections include: Dating & Sexuality, Love, Women, Men, Entertainment, Fashion & Lifestyle, Health & Sports, Power & Money, Gaming, Poker, and Cars. Nowhere on the site can I find a trace of quality info on fatherhood or families or caring for children or the importance of a man in a kid's life. Who do these fucking horny assholes think they are, pretending to speak for men's interests in general when they just end up contributing to our being typecast as senseless, sexed up, power-hungry, celebrity-obsessed, money-grubbing studs who drool over tits, video games and chrome bumpers? Fuck them and fuck that. I urge you to send them an e-mail at:

iwanttowrite@askmen.com (or just send them a bunch of spam and viruses)

If they truly plan to live up to their image of representing men and providing resources and entertainment then they should buck up and hire someone who's not shallow and deluded by pop culture's glitz and glamor. See if they'll let any of us alternatively minded men write for their shitty little site.

Maybe I'm being too judgemental but this shit really pisses me off. Then again, I suppose most of the people in the United States piss me off as well and perfectly embody this Image Of Man we spin off to the rest of the country and world. Well... I'd like that to change sometime.