Lunar Shade Press

It's Official

2006-11-21T08:07:00.000-08:00

I have moved over to vox. Please come visit me at http://katranon.vox.com/ .

love you long time,
Katranon

3 Announcements

2006-11-19T22:19:00.000-08:00

1. I will be changing my blog location from here to http://katranon.vox.com in a couple of days. Vox kicks ass. ("Tank you Buffy!")

2. KRUI is off the air this week of Thanksgiving break, so there will be no listing of all the songs you probably don't tune into listen to anyway. 1o am is early on a Sunday in Iowa City.

3. I have been watching Stargate Atlantis obsessively on youtube. And I refuse to stop. I embrace the geek I am.

fyi- i tried upgrading my blog page here to the "beta" version which is supposed to be cooler than the regular one. however, on the way to the "upgrade" i found that once you do so, Google owns whatever you post. so "suck my ass." there- own that, google. you corporate fucks.
-so please join me on vox from here on out (or at least very, very soon).

From Last Weeks Show: KRUI

2006-11-18T19:14:00.000-08:00

This is a week late, but should you want to know...here it be:

Artist / Album Title / Track title

the slats / boom patrol / Stegosaurus WrxxX

Bert Jansch/ the black swan/ the black swan

Alpinestars/ white noise / burning up

porlolo/ porlolo / usetonaut

Benjy Ferree/ leaving the nest / in the countryside

amps for christ/ oak in the ashes/ little angel

rotary downs/ chanined to the chariot/ 9-7 hit

track a tiger/ woke up early the day I died / I don't understand these machines

animal collective/ sung tongs/ who could win a rabbit

sierra leone's all star refugees/ like a refugee/ soda soap

blanket music/ love translation~the love/ connection time

anjali/ the world of lady A/ rainy day

thunderbirds are now!/ make history/ panthers in crime

flying canyon/ flying canon/ the bull who knew the ring

boards of canada/ the campfire headphase/ peacock tail

aterciopelados oye cancion protesta

slumber party/ slumber party/ strawberry Sunday

denison witmer/ safe away/ closer to the sun

oma yang/ from the heart of jumbo malaria/ rooom to acroo

rasputina / how we quit the forest/ sign of the zodiac

various / the world is gone /lost

park avenue music/ to take with you/ hiding

hella/ acoustics / women of the 90s

mochipet / disko donkey / electro ewok village

Band of the Week: The Slats

2006-11-08T13:02:00.000-08:00

Keith Olberman: It's time to vote

The tide has turned. The day before the election Keith Olberman put it all together so succinctly.

KRUI: the list of songs i probably played

2006-11-05T12:05:00.000-08:00

ah, it was a nice show- a nice show i tell ya. i inadvertently cranked the Love and Rockets- hope no speakers were blown out there. heh heh- sorry about that...

Artist of the Week: Mochipet

Artist/ Album Title/ Track title

scissors for lefty/ scissors for lefty/ lay down your weapons

ruffians/ ruffians/ hedonistic me

mochipet/ disko donkey/ robot girl (featuring Ellen Allien)

masters of the hemisphere/ I am not freemdoom/ who is this dog?

tanya donelly/ this hungry life/ this hungry life

land shark/ land shark / dangerous

low flying owls/ elixir vitae/ looks of a killer

junior boys/ so this is goodbye/ in the morning

I love you but I've chosen darkness/ fear is on our side/ the owl

love and rockets/ express/ an american dream

baldwin brothers/ return of the golden rhodes/ air is invisible

boards of canada/ the campfire headphase/ slow this bird down

modest mouse/ the moon and antarctica/ alone down there

ta shma/ come listen/ voice of my beloved (feat. Andy statman)

Koushik/ peanut butter world presents chrome children (v/a)/ none in my mind

skye/ mind how you go/ tell me about your day

the cat empire/ the cat empire/ hello

negativeland/chumbawumba/ the ABCs of anarchy/ smelly water

alias and tarsier/ oaklyn brookland/ rising sun

a northern chorus/ spirit flags/ I dreamt the world had ended

hooverphonic/ the magnficent tree/ waves

the slats/ boom patrol/ Erase U

need new body/ need new body/ land hobo/ monkey dancer

daedelus/ throw a fit/ unadventurer (featuring subtitle)

rotary downs/ chained to the chariot/ false protection

the network/ money money 2020/ supermodel robots

the spiral band/ the spiral band/ simple song

the Garish Side of Good Ol' Fashioned "Know How"

2006-11-04T14:34:00.000-08:00

These pictures are from my place of employment and they detail what happens when holiday decor takes a shortcut and runs into an embankment of error. Or something.

Click in the pics for a view and commentary:

Madonna and the Media: infotainment loves a good crucifiction

2006-10-30T06:36:00.000-08:00

I’m thinking about Madonna now and her adopting that little boy from Africa- David. I watched her on Oprah on Youtube last night. Oprah does think she is Jesus, by the way. she doesn’t have an audience, she has a following. anyway, Madonna is actually doing work in Africa, setting up- I think it is schools for orphanages, or working with these orphanages somehow, don’t quite recall now. but it is extremely humanitarian. and her taking this boy, keeping him from certain death growing up in a country in Africa where he has already survived malaria and- was it tuberculosis? something horrible. now had and has pneumonia. lifting a child out of that and providing them with more resources than they would have ever known- with the hope that he can then go back and make a positive change by being able to provide those resources and aid to his people is only commendable. I mean, I really do believer her on this one. the press has is trying to destroy something truly beautiful. she didn’t just fly in, take a baby, and run. she went through all the customary process she needed to in that country in Africa. I totally believe her. anyway, Natalie of the Dixie Chicks (also on Oprah- which is why I started watching it in the first place) made a valuable point. why is this even our business? it’s not. if something is fishy, let the courts handle it. why does everyone need to jump on the band wagon and make proclamations and snap judgments when they have hearsay and not facts. we have turned into such a bizarre people. it is like we feed upon ourselves. and the media has fueled and fueled and fueled this type of behavior. it is now all entertainment and the real news is the jumping off point. being able to twist and bend it into a completely unrecognizable shape is the goal, and then feed it to the masses as truth.

2006-10-29T13:32:00.000-08:00

Video the Vote 2006

Citizens acting up and out to make sure this fall's elections aren't stolen. It's the shit.

Campus Assaults: thoughts from a group discussion

2006-10-29T06:55:00.000-08:00

From this morning's journal:

so on Buffy nite(a group of us get together every friday nite to watch Buffy, the Vampire Slayer on DVD- we are now in season four- Love It!), we talked about this email that was sent out to warn people how to protect themselves against prowlers on campus. well, prowlers sounds tame. against rape and muggings- attacks. predators, I should say. and the boys in the room seemed to be slow on the uptake. there was this misunderstanding between the practical material the psa offered and the long standing application of the material- that the responsibility of being attacked always ends up on the victim. and initially, I was confused myself. I wasn’t grasping how this psa was in anyway a negative thing. eventually, I started to see the other side. there is nothing done to teach the boys/men on campus that it is not okay to invade people’s space. they do it all the time with a look, with a laugh, with a mean comment, with a stupid, random comment. keep your damn thoughts to yourself. but it starts with keep your hands to yourself and backs up from there. keep your leers to yourself, your sexist comments to yourself, your rude and invasive observations and assumptions to yourself and so on. but it is like a testosterone feeding frenzy and boys- not all of them of course, but enough of them- walk about like they own Iowa City and it was built just for them. its like if you are not a jock frat boy, then you are possible in danger of being, at the least, verbally assaulted. if you are a girl, you better be playing the role of the dress up doll or you will be mocked. if you’re a guy and you’re not “in” then you can be verbally harassed as well. and girls can expect an onslaught of sexual advances throughout the day. the girls who work over at the Field House parking ramp get hit on relentlessly throughout the entirety of their shift from the guys leaving they gym. it is not appropriate. it is sexual harassment but nothing is done about it. it is expected, even though it should not be the norm. just because something happens over and over repeatedly in society does not therefore make it an acceptable norm. this is where people turn to activism for change. the rights of blacks, gays, women- anyone who is not a white, straight, rich, male basically- have been fought for through activism. and certain rights have been obtained and others are still being ignored and occasionally still fought for on some fronts. so this city, Iowa City, has a campus where the basic rights of women, queers- anyone who is not in the Jock Box, are being ignored. my neighbor who is male but black also knows discrimination from this same crowd. his space is invaded by the same perpetrators wanting him to be a certain black stereotype for them. they try to high-five him as he is walking down the street. and he is not willing to perform that stereotype for them. he just looks at them and walks on by, and then he is the bad guy for not being friendly, right? cuz he didn’t reach down and meet their limited and narrow- and invasive- expectations. so this is a problem. the sheer lack of respect, common courtesy, uncontrolled sexism and racism is a problem. it is not being addressed by the school- except as a form of documented policy. but the policy doesn’t change behavior. it is there for someone to grab onto and try to use when they feel they’ve been discriminated against, but I’ve no idea how effective it is. however, this would be useful to know. especially, as I am now planning on pursuing this issue via performance and video. it is something that I would like to work on over the winter, but also once I get into my classes next semester. once I am into intermedia and video- doing some real shit, I can co-create a performance piece- even a simple documentary, detailing what happens to people on a daily basis when their lives are invaded by men who believe they have the right and privilege to do anything they want. and the idea is to have this documentary not just up for one night’s viewing in some gallery somewhere, but to promote it as something that is shown in classes around the campus(maybe even other college campuses). somehow mass distributing it. obviously, I will not be doing this alone, but it would be a fantastic learning experience for me, as well as, addressing something that is long, long overdue. I certainly don’t have all the answers- only some ideas about presenting the questions. however, working collaboratively with these beautiful women who are hot about this situation- and the men who have also known abuse, will teach me so very much. it is something like what I did with Norma (from Fringe Benefits) and the kids from the local High Schools, but with a different format. and it won’t be as much performance as it will be video. who knows where it could go. but maybe the time to start meeting about it is now. I feel an email coming on…

Dream Journal Post from 9.13.06

2006-10-28T19:00:00.000-07:00

This morning I dreamed that I woke up wondering restaurant I wanted to go to before school. I love breakfast food (omelets, taost, etc.) and this was the food I was looking forward to. The more I thought about which cafe I wanted to go to, the more cafes I remembered there were. I remembered there were quite a number of them I had not been to for a long while. The choices were piling up. I thought of the different restaurants and what they were like- the look, the vibe, the experiences I had had in each. When I woke up, I was back in Iowa City with a whopping choice of about 2 breakfast style restaurants (not including chains, like Village Inn). It was very disheartening. What world was I dreaming of with the growing list of places to eat? Was it purley metaphor or was I dreaming/remembering the future- perhaps VanCouver and all the options offered in a big city...?

dropping and changing

2006-10-23T18:45:00.000-07:00

well, it's a goddamn monday night in the big City de Iowa. I was out over the weekend visiting fabulous friends in Omaha. I would post some pics from the trip, but my PC is out and I am "surviving" off a very generous friend's laptop. I hung out with my dear friend Brandon, saw my friend Shelly's art show at the Hot Shops, met my friend Monica's loving, funny and warm parents, unexpectedly saw another old friend's art show, chatted with artists about installation work and art as a means of social change, and contemplated how to change my major from Performance Entreprenuership to something within the intermedia art disciplines. I met w/ an advisor today and tried to work out a new plan regading the change in my major. I think I need to speak with someone directly in the department, however. I know that business classes are still important- an artist without business savvy is an artist dependent on others- but i don't want be so loaded down with entreprenurial business classes that the art becomes secondary. Anyway, this is my current quandary, but it is for me to trust the path will emerge- that this shift has an energy to be followed, not feared.

I dropped my Fundamentals of Music class as it was becoming overwhelming. I learned more in half a semester than i expected to for the semester as a whole. it was definitely a course for music majors- not non-music majors. I would like to take a piano class now, to put what i've learned into the realm of the practical. something that is low-pressure, as music is something i want to continue to enjoy- not strive to prove myself in.

that is the general attitude that has been emerging with me as of late. it is time to stop striving, proving, fighting. it is time to ride the ride- take what is given and explore it, not prove myself in it. put the competitive nature aside and move into a place where I walk through the house of knowledge naked, not embarrassed of what I can or can't do. This will take practice, but the feeling of relief i find in this attitude is far more rewarding than the strokes the ego is ceasely in search of.

If possible, i will post pics from the trip sometime soon. see- if i was in a video class, i could just hop on the computer and load up images there. ah well. it will happen. a new bridge is being built.

todays' freaking show: KRUI

2006-10-15T16:51:00.000-07:00

today, i gave a little lowdown on the new film, Iraq for Sale. i was a bit awkward talking about it as politics is not one of my native tongues, but i am learning. irritatingly enough, i found that while i had read a good scoop about the film from boingboing, there were ads playing at the same time which i couldn't hear. but click on the links given for some of the good lowdown. you can also go to to youtube and find more clips from the movie.

Artist/ Album Title / Track Title

gotye/ like drawing blood / hearts a mess

horse feathers / words are dead / blood on the snow

air /talkie walkie / alpha beta gaga

willie porter/ available light/ loose gravel

susanna and the magical orchestra /melody mountain / crazy, crazy nights

brian blade fellowship/ brian blade fellowship/ lifeline

bound stems/ appreciation night/ excellent news, colonel

lila downs / la cantina / agua de rosas

the bruces / the war of bruces / sunken city

darkel /darkel/ tv destroy

zero 7 /the garden/ today

david byrne / look into the eyeball /the moment of conception

brazilian girls / talk to la bomb / talk to the bomb

dosh /the lost take / um, circles and squares

chris Koza /patterns /goldmine

georgia ann muldrow /olesi/ wrong way

lansing-dreiden / the dividing island / two extremes

lilys/ precollection / will my lord be gardening

xui xui /the air force/ the pineapple vs. the watermelon

create a prospect of freedom six dreams/divided

beck / the information /soldier jane

V/A /moonshake remixes /exotic siren song- rich costy

medeski scofield martin & wood / out louder / tootie ma is a fine big thing

Band of the Week: Brazilian Girls

2006-10-13T17:09:00.000-07:00

Robert Greenwald on Countdown with Keith Olbermann

Iraq for Sale: War Profiteers

2006-10-11T10:28:00.000-07:00

Jon Stewart Nails Conservative Bill Bennett

Thank you for laying it out, Mr. Stewart!

through the land of water: dream journal

2006-10-10T05:48:00.000-07:00

so i dreamt first of all, that i was watching a movie- a star trek stylee movie from the 80s or 90s. it was lovable even though the humour had become cheesy. and i was getting after someone in front of me for misbehaving during the movie. then we were in the movie. there was about 8 of us, maybe a little less. and we were in this- it was more like a space building than a ship. and we had to get out of it- go to this other place- it was like we were leaving the airport but we were doing it through some sort of teleporting system. me and this other person were the last to leave and there was a concern if we were going to make it through. we had to teleport one at a time (something i kind of decided within the dream- like i was authoring the rules of the dream as it happened). i arrived safely to the new destination with the other person as well. eveyone had made it except one person was missing. we then realized that two of the people had teleported together and that they were now one person- altering presence in one body- a girl and a man- each sort of coming out to the surface on different occassions.

alright- there will have to be a part two- i have to leave at the moment.
traveling through water, walking on water (albeit polluted) and bread with a barrier -up next.

Continued:

at one point, i am riding in a car with someone and we the road before us seems to be completely immersed in water. it is incredibly beautiful all around us. we keep going forward and the driver says something about having to trust it will be alright. as we approach the water it parts and we are able to see the road and drive on it safely. the road is brown, almost like some sort of adobe- made of the earth, and it has raised edges to it on either side. i remember being able to walk on the water at one point- or watching someone walk on it. in the water, however, there is pollution- fast food cups, and other debris. it is hard to describe because it is hard to remember, but this world was very beautiful- water- the beauty of water made up the place. it was like driving through the sky surrounded by water.
the bread thing- once we got to our new destination, i recall being inside this building, felt kind of like a shopping mall. we must have been in some sort of bread shop or food shop. there was this loaf of bread on top of a glass case. someone was showing me that if they tried to grab at the bread, an invisible barrier kept their hand getting to it- sort of an invisible force field. but if they just gently touched the bread- with no aggression, they could pull bread out of the loaf, while the loaf itself remained completely intact, looking as if it had never been touched. it is sort of like the bread came from the inside of "the place" of bread- if that makes any sense. like a portal of sorts.

today's dream journal entry

2006-10-09T06:09:00.000-07:00

I had a dream that I was a student in high school- but this was like almost an improv class. it was me working out a character, it wasn’t me back in my own high school. and this character was very smart and had a bit of whatever the disorder is that makes you touch things when you pass by them. he had to go around the room and touch each desk in the circle whether someone was sitting there or not. and he would be cool w/ everyone unless they said something shitty to him then he would let them have it verbally. and that meant one cutting remark that reduced them down to size. the teacher was very cool and he liked the teacher. it was really more a matter of surviving the school. and then I dreamt I was helping out this girl with her make-up- it was like a competition- but instead of “Top Model” it was like the show was there to help music stars who had fallen out of favor get back into the public eye. she had this big, black- it almost looked like a musical note, attached to her ear as some sort of earring. that was the first thing the judges said had to go. she was wearing this blue and red dress- I think the blue part was furry or fuzzy. maybe made of feathers- the torso part of the dress- the short mini skirt part was red. she may have even had a boa with this. and in the video it was kind of like she was walking out of this lighting stream, which I thought was cool. but the video didn’t really go anywhere. she had curly 80s hair. she had very striking eyes and I told her this. I said, “you know your eyes are your strongest feature, right?” she acted like she didn’t know. and I said she wouldn’t need that ear piece if she did her make-up right. so I started re-doing her make-up and realized that I really don’t know how to apply make-up- that I am/was not a make up artist. I can do stuff on my own face cuz I am so familiar with it, but I don’t actually have skills in how to make someone’s face up. so I kept re-doing it and wondered how I was going to fix this situation.

oh, and I dreamt that I was at this hotel. there was a big swimming pool as well. It was as if I had snuck in or was impersonating someone. this one is rather detailed, it went from seeing this guy on the street that I am really attracted to, to talking to him by touching his legs- I was sitting against him and signing with my hands against his legs and he could understand what I was saying, to being at this large swimming pool with him trying to signal this girl to not let him know that I found him very attractive, to getting kicked off the lifeguard chair that I was sitting on because I wasn’t supposed to be there, to trying to check out of the hotel and fighting w/ the clerks about how long I had stayed and how many tickets I had bought to stay there. then it was still the same hotel but about 1930 or maybe the 1950s. the woman- who was clerk and maybe one of the owners of the hotel, was going through all of my luggage. I forget the reason why. apparently, I had stolen at least my suit coat and one of my luggage pieces from a doctor. I had a dr.’s ID plus some official dotorish stuff in the luggage. I was making excuses for all the random shit I had in there. she eventually become delighted with me rather than annoyed for haggling over the money. when I finally got out of the building it was a different season and a different city. I wasn’t quite sure I was- it made me think of some developing country in Europe- charming but new in a lot of ways. my dreams seemed to have a theme of deviousness, of me pretending to be something or someone I wasn’t.

KRUI and October 7th, 2006

2006-10-08T15:36:00.000-07:00

here's the show kids-

Artist- Album Title- Track title

mazzy star/ so tonight that I may see/ wasted

pacific UV/ ep/ chemical

david bowie/ earthling/ dead man walking

Frequency/ frequency/ take refuge

tap tap/ lanzafame/ here cometh

bosshog/ whiteout/ nusery rhyme

six organs of admittance/ the sun awakens/ the desert is a circle

radio 4/ enemies like this/ too much to ask for

bright eyes/ there is no beginning to the story/ loose leaves

estatic sunshine/ freckle wars/ wave chop

sing sing and i/ sing sing and i/ the time has come

b-52s/ b-52s/ dance this mess around

pet shop boys/ fundamental/ numb

polyphonic the verbose/ ada/ rumors of a war

Alexi Murdoch/ time without conscience/ wait

mosquitos/ III/ UFO

haley bonar/ the size of planets/ am I allowed

tara jane o'neil/ in circles/ the louder

the slats/ the great plains of san fransisco/ a payola granola

breaking pangaea/ cannon to a whisper/ wedding dress

amy millan/ honey from the tombs/ ruby II

the moon and the melodies(peeps from cocteau twins)/ the moon and the melodies/ eyes are mosaics

various- Suckle/ chem087CD/ to be king

junica/ over the atlantic/ kevin shields

the moon times seven/ sunburnt/ some of them burn

lee baby slims/ mystery loves company/ how you doin?

jenny lewis with the watson twins/ rabbit fur coat/ rabbit fur coat

Artist of the week: The Slats
http://www.spin.com/features/band_of_the_day/2006/10/061005_theslats/index.html

Norma Bowles and Fringe Benefits

2006-10-07T15:45:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to give a quick update- should such a thing be possible.

right now i am at Java House listening to KRUI on the net- REM- i think the name of the song is "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" -that one. anyway, it was mutherfukkin' homecoming today and the land was awash in gold and black. really, why couldn't they have picked more pleasant, earthy colors like green and brown. oh well. GAME DAY magically transforms Iowa City into Idiot City as people begin drinking about 7am. I am certain I will be accosted by more than one drunk frat boy who will announce some ignorant observation about me, my clothes, what i am doing- anything at all. ahhh, collegetowns! love 'em or go stark raving mad..!

But onto the real scoop. I spent an amazing two weeks (6 workshops, each lasting 3.5 hours) co-creating a theatre piece on the issue of racism in the iowa city high schools. Norma Bowles, of Fringe Benefits, came from LA to work with Darwin Turner Action Theatre on this project. The performance will be presented to about 1,000 faculty/administration/teachers of the Iowa City school system in January for a specific assembly- I believe connected to Martin Luther King Day- I'll have to double check the facts on that one. Anyway, it was an amazing experience. It was completely co-created by about 20 to 30 individuals- some of them students of City High School. The process itself was extremely democratic and involved developing real stories of discrimination into a workable script that will demonstrate a sample of what students of color are experiencing in Iowa City on a regular basis. It really opened my mind and eyes on what people of color have to get through in a day in a culture that relegates them to a limited list of stereotypes. It has opened me and changed me.
Anyone local to Iowa City who is interested in doing work around the promotion of social justice and human equality on all levels- I highly encourage you to get involved with Darwin Turner Action Theatre. Even if you have never acted before, you still have gifts to offer. Tish Jones, the director of Darwin Turner Action Theatre, told me just yesterday (after watching the amazing documentary, "Surviving Friendly Fire," in class) that someone showing up with consistency is more important to her than great acting or writing skills. It is so true, especially when it comes to social activism- which is what this Theatre is all about.
There is so much more I want to say about Norma Bowles and Fringe Benefits, but I encourage you to get a clearer picture of what she and her organization is doing by checking the links provided. What I can tell you is her work changes lives, creates community and heals the wounds found in a society that is fragmented and alienated from herself. I will be forever grateful for the time I was able to spend with her these last two weeks- as well as the other creative individuals involved in this powerful project.

KRUI: song list and banter

2006-10-01T11:42:00.000-07:00

Mighty nice show today. Suzanna and the Magical Orchestra sounds like Joni Mitchel and Beth Orton merged into one entity of melodic retrospection. ...that is meant as a compliment. Wovenhand is ever so Dead Can Dancey in the best of ways. And I think Justin will now be calling his show the Power Hour Sports Shower from now on...

Artist Album Title Track title
suzanna and the magical orchestra/ melody mountain /it's a long way to the top
apollo sunshine /katonah/I was on the moon
bound stems/appreciation night/ wake up, ma and pa are gone
the album leaf/ into the blue again/always for you
the atari star/ moving in the still frame/the atari star
medeski scofield martin and wood/medeski scofield martin and wood/ tootie ma is a big fine thing
beth orton/the comfort of strangers/countenance
baby grand/spectrum/how are you
under byen/samme stof som stof/ heftig
lightning bolt/hypermagic mountain/captain caveman
listener/whispermoon/fyi
venetian snares/ cavalcade of glee and dadaist happy hardcore pom poms/ plunging hornets
estactic sunshine/freckle wars/ tuscan
jenny lewis with the watson twins/rabbit fur coat/you are what you love
the low lows/fire on the bright sky/velvet
doug martsch/now you know/dream
early day miners /offshore/deserter
men women and children/ men women and children/ photosynthesis (we're losing oxygen)
ta-schm/come listen/rachamana
carmelize/thank you, uncle tom/if only I had…
pinback/nautical antiques/ versailles
javeiera mena/esquemas juveniles/sol de invierno
cranes/la tragedie d'oreste et electre/ la ceremonie
frequency/frequency/take refuge
wooden wand and the vanishing voice/gipsy freedom/friend, that just isn't so
coheed and cambria/the second stage turbine blade/everything evil
wovenhand/mosaic/winter shaker
joan jett and the blackhearts/sinner/a.c.d.c.

This weeks Featured Artist: Wovenhand
http://www.thespacelab.tv/spaceLAB/2006/09September/MusicReview-06-Wovenhand.htm

A Mug Only A Mother (Fucker) Could Love

2006-09-29T12:32:00.000-07:00

Guess the name of this wiley and vicious homosexual.

Is it A. Dolby Parsons
B. Jeremiah Bullfrog
C. Nasty J. Nelson
D. or just some random whore living in New York

If you guessed D- You Win!!!

(i've no idea why he is so blue- but i think the color really softens his, otherwise, sharp and jarring features)

not so charming: dream journal from this morning

2006-09-28T06:39:00.000-07:00

I had a dream that I was one of “the charmed ones” and we had to limit one of the sister’s powers because too much came too soon(it was a positive, loving thing). there was a lot to this dream, not all that I will get into here(like children who had accidentally conjured a couple of cats from playing a word game without adult supervision, and this deformed Spiderman [as in the Marvel comic book character] who showed up as the bearer of fearful power with an omen about changing something) okay- I have to de-bracket and talk about this. I think one of the things I had to box up into the attic wood floor was a kitten. I was suppose to- it wasn’t suppose to be up there- either something left or conjured by the children. but I remember having to mentally draw a wood panel over it. I don’t know that I was boarding up the kitten into the floorboard or sending it back to where it came from. but I don’t like that idea. and then the parallel with limiting one of the sister’s powers. it is making me think about my talking yesterday about going on meds. meds to even out my jagged emotions. does the deformed Spiderman represent a powerful drug bearing the directive to mute powers? when I was in the circle with Page and Leo- maybe I was the Phoebe character- it was a positive spell limiting the other sister’s powers. Leo was crying afterwards- being moved somehow by it. maybe sad for her, but it seemed that doing the spell was somehow emotionally bonding. and it was a funny little spell involving a little electronic device- rectangle shaped with a green and red light on it("go" and "stop"). the spell involved hitting the green and red lights in sequence of some sort. then once the spell had been done and the kitten was boarded up (not the same two full grown cats that had appeared initially) the deformed Spiderman wordlessly acknowledged the change and left. the two cats that had appeared originally, I don’t know what became of them. first it was just one cat- which woke me up, but was very loving- a grey stripped cat, somewhat furry- then an all white cat who it walked over to. maybe the second cat was jealous that the first cat was loving it up w/ me and not him/her. the kitten was also grey and white stripped but much, much more fluffy. what the fuck does it all mean? it eventually turned into a dream about a old tv series that had this cute little kid in it- a little boy- who now as this young woman somehow- not a tranny- and she wasn’t nearly as interesting or adorable. she was more narcissistic or just in her own world. this is where I commented that someone’s out fit made her look like an extraterrestrial- in a good way, it was a total compliment. it was curious, parts of it. or maybe I am remembering other dreams. forgetting that I owned a bat and that I needed to feed it- it was in a file in a box- like a manila file you put in a filing cabinet. it was probably dead at this point of the dream or dream life. I felt bad but there was nothing I could do at this point- that is how it felt.

bitter pill: from this morning's journal

2006-09-26T06:04:00.000-07:00

well, this fucking month is just about over. I have an exam in French today which I shouldn’t flunk. I got a 76 on my music test, which I can say, did not make for too pleasant of a class. but really, I am no longer here for the grade. I am just not going to care about that anymore. I am going to care about learning. and I have studied a good deal for my French exam, and will study just a bit more this morning, but I am not going to worry about it. done with that. tests are not going to beat me up anymore. I may graduate with a C average from school- who the fuck knows. but I am certainly not going to school for the grade. originally, I was all about keeping my GPA up for the point of getting more scholarship $$. at this point, I just cannot worry about it. it makes me angry to be chasing about good grades when they refuse to come. so I will just do what I can do. no longer about the A- it is about my experience now. and that is the best that I can do. and it is probably much healthier that way, even if I do suffer financially from not being able to pull off As in every class. it’s just how it is, I am doing my best and that is all I can do. if my best in music class and French are Cs, then that is the letter assigned to my best in those classes. and I am still getting a tension headache even though I am writing to make room for my experience. guess it all still stresses me out. what joy school is. what fun. what a good time. I really feel like I am growing.

anyhow, besides being bitter and frustrated- I guess that is where my headache is coming from- I am depressed. but it’s like a depression rollercoaster ride. I’m up-I’m down- I’m up- I’m screaming to the far side, I’m coming close to center and I’m down, then off the a sharp angle in a different direction. this is why they prescribe people prozac. but I will continue to march on through and do what I can with what is on my plate. it would be great to feel less, but perhaps this work with Jason (bodyworker) will end up working for me. I’d prefer to be healthy over medicated. I’d prefer to stop wanting to end my life. I’d prefer to be on vacation somewhere where there is an ocean and open sky and my biggest problem is figuring out which book to read while I am sunning myself. I’d prefer to be in less pain and have a life that makes a bit more sense- to be emotionally balanced so that I could actually be of service to the world around me without being blown out of the water by the slightest wind. I’d prefer to live inside my body, and not just my head. I’d prefer to stop thinking about how much of this I should stick on my blog and just get on with writing.

I think about how writing- as challenging as it can be sometimes, is really the thing that I am good at. that I should be writing plays and performances- that this is really what I should be doing at school- creating new work, not struggling over musical terms and placement of minor and major scales. but I will get through it. and being able to read music will benefit me. being able to speak a bit of French will benefit me. I am not here for the fucking grade. and I will do the best I can. I am free to get a C and move on.

KRUI: "Dolly Parton-Free Zone"

2006-09-24T12:15:00.000-07:00

Did you know that you can listen to KRUI on the net? OMIGOD- like, totally true. Today's online listener was from New York City...*ooh, ahhh*. And despite the disparaging IMs from one Jeremiah Nelson, no Dolly Parton was played today. However, I did play Jenny Lewis for said harrasser- and thus, she -and her twins, are today's featured artist:

http://www.uiowa.edu/~krui/

Artist/ Album Title/ Track title

tori amos/ strange little girls /rattlesnakes

adem/ love and other planets/ launch yourself

azure ray/ november/ no signs of pain

shapes and sizes/ shapes and sizes/ wilderness

nanotune /nanotune/ memorial

amy annelle/ a school of secret dangers/ will try

nanotune/ nanotune/ scientist

takagi masakatsu/ journal for people/ j.f.p.

Andalusia/ such a heavenly eyesore/ drag

Electric six /switzerland/ infected girls

Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins/ Rabbit Fur Coat/ Rabbit Fur Coat

The Anomoanon/ asleep many years in the wood/ y'know

the picture/ connect/ sellout

pinback/ nautical antiques/ concrete seconds

skye /mind how you go/ what's wrong with me

tv on the radio/ return to cookie mountain/ wolf like me

death cab for cutie/ transalanticism/ transalanticism (for Cammie)

the rapture/ pieces of people we love/ don gon do it

white whale /ww1 /the admiral

javiera mena/ esquemas juveniles/ como siempre sone

le tigre/ from the desk or mr. lady/ all that glitters

kimya dawson/ remember that I love you/ 12/26

marisa monte/ universo ao meu redor/ tres letrinhas

Megan's Blue: from today's journal

2006-09-21T12:07:00.000-07:00

Preface:
My writer/director friend, Megan, recently moved into a new home with her husband, Chris. One of the first things she did was paint her creativity room. and it happens to be the same color that is symbolic of my dream/fantasy/inspired life:

I was thinking about Megan’s creativity room. Blue- the same color of my dreams or fantasies. I was thinking about how one wall could be the sea or ocean- the subconscious, and the other wall could be the sky- the superconscious. and she is the land between where they meet carrying the messages of both. I guess that is what we are as creative people, the embodiment of what is below and what is above- the language of God and sunken treasure bubbling its way to the surface of consciousness into the form of plays, paintings, music. the body that holds both heaven and the hidden.

Life on Venus: a dream from yesterday's journal

2006-09-21T11:50:00.000-07:00

so I also dreamt about being on mars and venus alternately. except in my dream, Mars was closer to the sun and Venus was further from the sun. people had houses on both places. I am not sure if this dream was backwards or if it is my memory of it. on whatever planet was closest to the Sun- it seems like that was the colder planet with it snowing and what not. and we went back to- hmm. it’s getting muddled now. I remember talking down to Gabe (the 11 year old son of my friend, Monica) about not wearing a coat when he went to Venus- yes, that is it. Mars was closer and Venus was further and Venus had all the snow. (and even though Mars was hot and Venus was cold by a few hundred of degrees, the heat and cold was life-threatening, but conveniently bearable in my dream.) So I was talking down to Gabe (he was younger in this dream, maybe about 8 or 9) about not wearing a coat to Venus- I was really addressing his flippant attitude with my own flippant, pompous attitude. and Monica was there. she cut in and said it was better to talk to Gabe like this, and demonstrated- talking to him about the coat situation, not at him. Gabe made some comments about how I had been addressing him and it was obvious that the way I did it was disrespectful and hurtful to him- and that it only served to aggravate his defiance. I apologized to him and said this is how I talked to people even at work. I think at that point I started treating him like a person, not someone I had authority over.

2006-09-20T23:11:00.000-07:00

Remember Schoolhouse Rock?

Interjections! For excitement! And emotions! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

KRUI list 'o songs n such

2006-09-17T20:48:00.000-07:00

It was fairly uneventful...other than my not-so-secret admirer Jeremiah N. (the N is for Nasty) listened in today all the way from New York City - and was once again sorely disappointed that I had no Dolly or Dixies to spin. Sadly, we cannot please everyone all the time. Or even most of the people some of the time. But we are still KRUI and we are still *darling*!

Artist Album Title Track Title

kristy rock- radiodread (v/a)- paranoid android

enon- believo- conjugate the verbs

be your own pet- be your own pet- bicycle, bicycle, you are my bicycle

the purrs- the purrs- taste of Monday

kevin coyne- sugar candy taxi- tiger lilian

golden smog- another fine day- strangers

asterah- asterah- mamasita

crime in choir- crime in choir- come here, raider

the avett brothers- the gleam- when I drink

boards of Canada- the campfire headphase- oscar see through red eye

brian eno and peter schwalm- drawn from life- night traffic

psapp- the only thing I ever wanted- needle and thread

wooden wand and the sky high band- second attention- madonna

Danielson- ships- did I step on your trumpet

goldenboy- underneath the radio- summer of the evening

grahamcoxon- the sky is too high- r u lonely?

tall firs- tall firs- don't prey on me

kimya dawson- remember that I love you- the competition

the shadow government- guns of august- zero geez

urbs- toujours le meme film- tu moi aussi?

the divided body- future travel plans- last few minutes

semaphore- make- drone

ceschi -they hate san fransisco false- allofus

the cheeps- the cheeps- bees

wise in time- the ballad of den the men- letters

couch- figur 5- blinde zeichen

junica- over the atlantic- heart land

Featured Artist: Danielson

Dream: Transposed

2006-09-16T05:55:00.000-07:00

It has been a rather stressful week with many an up and down. Yet I offer up this humble dream journal entry from yesterday:

I dreamt that I was my mother- or rather that I was in her body (not sure where she was), and I had to try to fool people that I was her. I was doing a really bad job of it. This was pre-wheelchair and I was able to walk around with ease. my voice didn’t seem to be any higher than my own and I found that my legs were hairy and I wasn’t wearing any make-up. I would argue with or be annoyed by my sister and not as much with my dad. I was at the hospital for some reason and was making an appointment and had to make up a family name or maybe it was a real family name but I new nothing about it. It was sort of like Paltrow- but a bit inverted, like Trowpal. The doctor was saying that I would have to be related the Paltrows and I tried playing it off like I knew what he was talking about- this bloodline, but I was obviously bullshitting. Oddly, I had a hard time remembering to act feminine. My hips seemed narrow and it took effort to walk with a swish or speak with a lilt- both of which I have a “gift” for in every day life. I would watch TV programs that I liked but make comments on the shows my mother would like in a feeble attempt to cover of the body switch (I have no idea where*my* body was or who was occupying it. “I” simply wasn’t around but I did exist- just wasn’t in this story). I drove my mother’s van down the road much faster than she ever would and thought about how she would have been much more cautious. I marched in a gay pride parade (something my mother would *never* have done) and realized that as I was a gay man “trapped” in a woman’s body- I was now heterosexual. I thought about making up stories about how I used to like women and what I would do if I was hit on by a woman. Later on, while still sleeping, I realized that this dream was symbolic of transposing music (something I was working on for quite a while last night for my Fundamentals of Music class). The fact that my life was in my mother’s body was like a musical note that had been shifted from it’s place in the music cleft to a different but inherently related one. And somehow, if I were to be hit on by lesbians, those would be the sharps that would go before me. I didn’t get to the flats. Maybe that had to do with the fact that I wasn’t wearing heels (oh, ho-ho!).

KRUI- The Morning After

2006-09-10T11:12:00.000-07:00

so other than not realizing that my mic volume was turned down for the first 45 minutes, i'd say the show went pretty well. damn that Josh! he just lucky he's cute as a bug's ear...

Today's Featured Artist: Man Man

Artist/ Album Title/ Track title

macha loved bedhead/ bedhead loved macha /never underdose

tall firs /tall firs/ baby/buddy

low flying owls/ elixir/ vitae glad to be alive

moton/ klunk/ 1x1

caribou/ stop breaking my heart/ james’ second haircut

manifold splendour/ my night time career/ filling up the drama

Azam Ali/ six degrees/ in other worlds

franz Ferdinand/ you could have it so much better/ eleanor put your boots on

sondre lerche/ faces down/ you know so well

tap tap/ lanzafame/ talk slowly

goldfrapp/ supernature/ you never know

edith frost/ telescopic/ on hold

the never/ antartica/ snow starts to fall

the flying luttanbachers/ cataclysm/ the elimination of incompetence

man man/ six demon bag/ banana ghost

gotan project/ la revanch del tango/ epoca

john linnell/ state songs/ montana

the minders/ it’s a bright guilty world/ in the middle of your love

ryuichi sakamoto/ smoochy/ poseia

gigolo aunts/ minor chords and major themes/ half a chance

adam green/ jacket full of dange/r vultures

love and rockets/ express/ it could be sunshine

regina spekto/ begin to hope/ fidelity

pixies/ sell out/ monkey gone to heaven

It hurts...It really, really hurts...

2006-09-10T10:44:00.000-07:00

The painful truth as seen on http://www.onehorseshy.com/themes/

They say the first step in recovering is acceptance. *sigh*

2006-09-08T14:32:00.000-07:00

Kimya Dawson - Lullaby for the taken

Why Kimya Dawson Rocks...

KRUI- new show title: The Morning After

2006-09-03T11:03:00.000-07:00

which i feel holds the potential for a more positive interpretation (as opposed to the singular interpretation of "The Walk of Shame"). however, i will still be mocking our beloved listeners by asking the question- "What the hell were you thinking?" in terms of the previous evening's events.

http://www.uiowa.edu/~krui/
-my show is sunday morning's from 10am to noon.

Featured Artists: Chris Koza

Artist-- Album Title-- Track Title

Kimya Dawson/ remember that I love you/ my rollercoaster

cinnamon/ vertigo/ more than you bargained for

angels of light and akron family/ angels of light and akron family/ future

lenine/ lenine / Tubi Tupy

michael zapruder's rain of frogs/ new ways of letting go/ on the arm of a burning city

Cibo Matto/ Viva! La Woman/ birthday cake

the cairo gang/ the cairo gang/ bones in the ground

cocteau twins/ lullabie to violaine/ pink orange red

chromatics/ plaster hounds/ jesus

jivaro/ jivarodelia/ galactic

Regina Specktor/ Begin to Hope/ Samson

cruiser/ northern electric/ hardly even here

the constatines/ the modern sinner nervous man ep/ underneath the stop signs

lanterna/ desert ocean/ 48th and 8th

Hylozoists/ la fin du monde/ strait is the gate

steward davis/ bright apocalypse/ seven wonders of the soul

chris koza/ Patterns/ look left look right

sing sing and i/ sing sing and i/ I do

Holly and Plastic/ life after the lie/ rebirthing speed

echoboy/ Giraffe/ automatic eyes

the futureheads/ news and tributes/ cope

matson jones/ a 4 song ep/ exes and ohs

milemarker/ frigid forms sel/l signal froze

Calexico/ garden rain/ lucky dime

- and all those poor people calling in demanding that i play Dolly Parton were, once again, sorely disappointed.

"Don't Judge It, Just Write It Down"

2006-09-02T20:40:00.000-07:00

(about a month or so, ago)
After having a dream about David Sedaris being violently angry with me for not being able to speak French, the theme eventually changed to one of self-love and acceptance. There was a poem or song that David Sedaris was saying and I was trying to remember it and write it down. Upon waking, I practiced what the message of the poem was about which was trusting the flow. I wrote this at that time:

Woke up again at 2a.m.
Felt that same fear once again,
Like all I had was up against a wall
Who's time was up and was ready for a fall.

Those words in my dream-
They've escaped my head.
So I'm writing these ones
Down instead.

Ripping a page off from
My soul,
I push fingerprints into
The holes.

You know I'm gonna be there.
You know I'm gonna care.
It feels like you have nothing at all,
But that's the time I love you most of all.

All my life was a perfectionist's race,
Doing double time with all the fears I'd come to taste.
But now I know if i just let go
The words come through and start to flow.

It's not about thinking up the perfect poem;
It's about responding to the song.
Pressing my ear against my heart,
I can hear all the words I thought were wrong.

And don't you know I'm going to be there?
And damn it all, I'll always love you,
Even though I know you're scared.
But til the end is how long I'm going to care.

from yesterday's journal: David Sedaris in France

2006-09-01T06:38:00.000-07:00

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/

David Sedaris is living in France- and to hear him speak, he sounds native- to my non-native, so much less than fluent, French ear. but he actually doesn’t know nearly as much French as you might expect after having lived there for 4 or 5 years. but he pushes his way around in that world and gets by doing what he can and going to places where people embrace him or, at least, treat him with respect. I am sure I would do the same (avoiding the “mean” French people). but my point is, he is doing it. and not because he loves France and has had some fantastical idea about what living in France would be like. it was like, “why not?” he moved there with his boyfriend and has grown to love it, even though he is uncomfortable. and it is the very things that make him uncomfortable that he appreciates. and I marvel at that. instead of being able to tootle down the street and stop in here and there, not giving your day a second thought, every convenience taken for granted, he has to think about what it is he is going to say, how to say it, and where it is he can actually go where people will be receptive to him in a way that is congenial. every street sign and store window contains text he has to decipher. every cultural norm is not his own and his own unexamined cultural habits are spectacle. I just- I marvel at this. could I ever be like that? moving to Vancouver is nothing like going to a different country. there will be some cultural difference, but most everyone speaks English in that part of Canada. it is nowhere near Quebec. so basically, that is the kind of chutzpah I am talking about. to be willing to get up every day and be uncomfortable, but undeniable aware and alive in your surroundings. it really brings one back to one’s self, I would think. you would have to get to know not only the world, but yourself, in a whole new way. and he says that as soon as France because familiar to him, the way that New York was, he will probably leave. there won’t be anymore purpose in staying once he as become comfortable. so as much as he derides himself for a multitude of flaws, he is actually one brave little elf. his huevos are the counter-balance to his lolly-pop kid voice (which I love- mostly cuz in comparison, I sound more manly).

KRUI: Walk of Shame-- song list

2006-08-27T13:03:00.000-07:00

howdee. so i am doing a KRUI show on Sundays from 10am to noon. refering to the date and time of the show, i've deemed the title of the show "Walk of Shame." you get it, right?

http://www.uiowa.edu/~krui/

Artist/Band- Album- Song

pslam one /the death of a frequent flyer /beat the drum

brian eno and david byrne /my life in the bush of ghosts /regiment

Kimya Dawson\remember that I love you/12/26

ryuichi sakamoto/bricolages/war and peace- cornelious remix

the cooper temple clause/kick up the fire and let the flames break loose\ new toys

azam ali/elysium for the brave/ from heaven to dust

jed and lucia/candles in daylight/answers

v/a- chico hamilton/ impulsive! /el toro

cocteau twins/ bbc sessions /feather-oars-blades

the channel /tones are falling/ green grass

cadence weapon/ sharks (single)/sharks- russian futurists remix

rachel's selenography\ self titled\ the last night

prolapse /the italian flag /deanshanger

nobody/ soulmates/ green means

yip-yip /in the reptile house /slime shuns sun shine

roadside monument/ I am the dam of current taste /OJ Simpson House Auction

electric six /senor smoke /dance epidemic

regina spector /begin to hope / fidelity

sing sing and i / self titled / come, sing me a song

photek / solaris/ glamourama

antibalas /who is this america? / pay back africa

faux pas / entropy begins at home / tim as a brim

ladytron / light and magic / seventeen

kid koala / some of my best friends are djs / spanky panky

featured artist for the day: Sing Sing and I

from this morning's journal: straight man hand

2006-08-26T14:50:00.000-07:00

oh, one last thing, we closed the class (Theatre for Social Justice) with a circle and it involved holding hands. so I was holding the hand of this guy who was one of the directors (there are the directors working with the class and the actors who are signed up for the class) and I am thinking he was uncomfortable holding a gay man’s hand (after I flashed around my “queer card” earlier) though trying to be not completely freaked out- I don’t know that for sure- but his hand was sweaty. anyhow, we also went in a circle saying what we were happy about at the moment. and I wanted to say that I was happy to be holding the hand of a really cute boy- just to be devious and sort of draw attention to the awkwardness of the situation- as a joke. but I thought better and chose not to be so obnoxious on the first day. but maybe I should have anyway. I can use that line in the future I guess. love to push those buttons.

Updateey

2006-08-24T20:41:00.000-07:00

Right now, it is 10.36 central time and I am listening to Kimya Dawson's "Rollercoaster." Did you know that she has recently had a baby? So she won't be touring for awhile: http://kimyadawson.blogspot.com/

So school has started and it seems that life has peeled back on old layer, and new life has emerged. I am going to have to really immerse myself in French if I hope to actually understand what is going on in the class- and you know, have a functioning understanding of the language. Things were easier at Kirwood, but I don't really want "easier." I want the real experience. I think gen. ed. tends to be easy in general, but now I am in my major. And it is like I have finally dipped my toes into the water of the world. Before I was trailing along the shoreline, getting ever near the salty waves. And now those waves have wrapped around my feet and I have to sink into the wet sand. Do I panic and head for the shore or do I dive in? Diving in becomes the only real option- although I certainly had my day of fear and denial. But I have to give in to these larger waves. It does not mean that I will be swept away or that I am going to float with ease. I have to swim with the tide which takes muscle, patience, perserverance and determination- but there is also the tide beneath me and around me- supporting me- lifting me up to touch the sun. I hate working. I really do. I like things to be easy and I like to look good doing what I am doing. I like being the smart one, being the one that stands out and shines. But that is not what I came to school for. I came to grow up and give up old dreams so that new ones could be birthed. My old dreams were based on a false understanding of the world and myself. My new dreams are built on humility, service and passion. I am willing to sacrifice the fantasy on the spear of truth and let the sky-blue blood run down my dreams and set them free. Almost a Jesus thing there, huh? Some language between the two- the sacrifice of the ideal so that reality could have a chance to know God. Something like this.

Anywho, it is not so late, but I am tired. Good to catch up with you, eh? Pleasant dreams.

2006-08-20T19:37:00.000-07:00

Water Power- technology that we could be using:

Witness a welding tool that melts steel like butter, but runs water when it touches human flesh:

dream: boy kiss boy

2006-08-14T07:32:00.000-07:00

edited from this morning's journal:

had this dream about Leo (fake name) last night, which was good- but frustrating. He showed up and there was this truck next to him of his friends (he introduced us)- not sure where we were at. but he was fixing something in this house or apt- don’t even know if it was mine. but the thing is he kissed me- or we kissed. this is the first time I think I have ever had him in my dream. like, now that I’ve decided to get over my obsession and acknowledge that we will only be friends, he shows up in a dream and we kiss. and it was a good kiss. and he looked a little surprised at how good it was. and then we are in this other room and he is in front of me and I am kind of spooning him while we are standing and I start rubbing his belly. it was really sweet and sexual. so then I remember that we can only be friends, and I give him this hug that is very loving but not sexual- kind of like, “oh yeah, we are just doing this (friendship).” then I kind of wake up because I realize I have bad breath- like my bad breath from sleep has carried over into my dream. I excuse myself and as I do so, I realize that I won’t be getting back to this dream and wake up. then several dreams after this are about Leo but not as clear as the first one- and Leo related business- like this woman tells me she thinks he is using- which he isn’t in real life. he may smoke some pot- but he’s not a druggie, by a long shot. he is extremely functional. and I am not consciously trying to pursue this Leo theme- I think it may have been concern over if that was actually Leo showing up in the first dream (sharing dreams- connecting astrally) or if it was just some wish trying to fulfill itself. how funny that I would have this dream now, after I have let go of pursuing him. maybe it is the part of me that still harbors that fantasy. I mean, he is an amazing guy. a true catch, for sure. but not my catch- you know? we will continue to foster a great friendship, but we will be brothers, not lovers. so- frustrating. such a sweet kiss and such a lovely connection. damn. but I have to just let it go and clear my head. a kiss is still a kiss, but a dream is still a dream.

A Huge Gay Booger: wednesday's confession

2006-08-09T08:04:00.000-07:00

alright, I do have to pop off a bit early to get to the UI Parking ramp and drop off the stupid tickets that I didn’t realize were in my pockets when I left work last night. and there was this guy there named XXXXX who I had talked to before at KRUI and I thought we had a really nice connection. and we were chatting it up until the ride came to pick him up (he worked before me) and then was like, "get me the fuck out of here." like, his energy totally shifted and he just wanted to be away from me. that was my experience of it. and I probably flirted with him, but I certainly didn’t hit on him. I did ask for his number but it was because I thought he was a really nice guy and I would want him to come to one of my parties (which I stated to him) and meet my other friends. but it was weird- it was like he was freaked out and I’ve not the slightest what I did that caused it- other than I was chatty and bubbly- but that doesn’t usually alienate people- especially when they are chatty back. so I am trying to apply what we talked about in AA last week- and what XXXXX said- to just forgive people even before they hurt you- just do it immediately. I mean, my feelings are hurt cuz I thought this could be a new friend, but it makes me realize this is the layer of skin that I need to develop. that I can’t take people in that quickly. I can’t care about what they think like that. I know that I am loved and I know that I am a good person- his reaction has to do with something going on inside of him. I did look at his crotch a couple of times. but you know, I AM GAY. like, guys look at girls boobs when they talk to them and girls expect it- they may not like it but they tend to know it’s a guy thing. like, I am not going to condemn myself for behaving like a gay man, you know? that is so ridiculous. and my tendency is to want to get angry and at the same time be freaked out thinking that there is something wrong with me to make people react to me in such a way. maybe I had a huge booger sticking out of my nose and I just didn’t know it. a huge gay booger [originally, i wrote "bugger" instead of "booger"- Freudian slip?]. so my intention is to let it go and just let this person be freaked out around me and maybe talk about it if it seems right. but I don’t have to figure out what is going on. I don’t have to invest any more energy in it. I can wish him well and let him be freaked out. the evil twin would love to just go and freak him out intentionally every time I see him- flirt outrageously- just to push him over the edge. that would be my revenge for feeling hurt. but I am opting not to do that. I am opting to go with love and compassion instead. it is nice to have choices. and it is nice to not have to care what every single person thinks. and you know, I can still care about this person. just because he freaked out around me or over me doesn’t make him a bad person, doesn’t mean that he isn’t worthy of love and doesn’t mean that I can’t care about him. it doesn’t mean the good I saw wasn’t there.

expectant dishes- a metaphor

2006-08-09T07:58:00.000-07:00

you know, I just feel so damn good about school. I am so excited. I can’t wait to start using media equipment to record sounds and create soundscapes. I am looking forward to creating, producing and directing original works. and I saw in my head last night, as I was almost falling a sleep (a bit of insomnia) these dishes with faces on the right side of my sink. they were all scooted over together and looking at me expectantly to wash them. it was like, my first job is to work with artists and wash them up- get them ready so that they can do their work- does that make sense? take them and show them what they are capable of- wash away their limited expectations and thoughts of themselves. like, I won’t just be diving in and working with people who are seasoned. I will be working with people who have potential but need to be cleaned up so they can see and use their potential. and then they will be ready to “serve.” it was good to understand this. it will give me a better sense of things to come, of what it is I am to do- what not to look for, and what to expect to encounter.

(also, i think this analogy holds true of my own potential- cluttered with old thoughts and disheartened expectations)

How I Impressed My New Boss

2006-08-07T14:43:00.000-07:00

Hey Tish,

Well, I’ve contacted the designers and they said that they could start remodeling your cube by the Aug 27th. Of course, I let them know in no uncertain terms that this was unacceptable. They put up a good fight, but I now have them scheduled to come in next Tuesday 9.30am sharp- right after your private session with that new, single (and quite handsome, I must say) pilates instructor that has just moved to town. I told the designers that we would need no less than 100 swatches to determine the colors, shapes, textures and designs that best suit your coloring and complexion. They also promised to install some low-intensity track lighting so that you- and your projects- could be properly lit and looking your best at all times.

I have you scheduled to leave work early next Friday (approximately 10.15 am) so that you can make your appointment with the pedicurist. I thought you might enjoy some traditional Swedish massage, so I booked you an appointment with Hans at 2pm. The contractors said they should have your Jacuzzi installed and working by 4pm- I told them to make it 3pm. I’m sure you could use a good soak after an hour or so with Hans. Naturally, I’ll have a bottle of champagne chilled and waiting nearby.

I’ll be picking up your dry cleaning tomorrow and should have your house feng shui-ed by the time you get home. No more bad chi for you, little missy! Your love life and financial situations should be flowing full force in no time. I’ll be sure to let the chef know he can come back Thursday to resume preparation of your meals. Where you going with a French theme this week or sticking to that light but nutritious So-Cal cuisine that you love so well?

Arlight, gotta go. I still need to pick up your beloved pets from the groomer’s. They’ll be so happy to see you when you get home!

-Oh, and Candice, the new make-up artist you hired, agreed to your request and will now start applying your make-up while you’re still in bed- sleeping or otherwise. She’s such a doll!

Take care- and give Millie [my former boss] my warmest regards,

Katranon
Tish’s Personal Project Assistant

straight, white girls with bad hair

2006-08-07T11:45:00.000-07:00

...love men in uniform.

And it goes something like this:

(and you know, it just leads to more breeding)

no bitter harvest

2006-07-31T19:48:00.000-07:00

something new-
there is no bitter harvest
as petals fall from the hopes
i pressed between pillows and prayers.
a flower opened its arms and held the sun.
now it finds its fading and bends into brown death.
and for once, i do not curse its leaving
nor the soil
which contained its seed and fed its filaments.

sweet man, born on the underside of sleep
where dreams stretch from the canvas of living watercolor-
i do not, i do not, and i do not
condemn thee-
nor myself-
for wanting love.

and for a while,
there was love. and its glow
fed my toes, tickled my
fancy and my fanciful notions
of union.
now that you have arrived
dearly departed,
i do not scream at the soil of the soul
where our friendship flowered.
instead
i see the cycle of death inside the
cycle of life-
beyond my control and double blessed
for being so.

forgiveness softens the soil.
surely all of life could not rest upon the shoulders
of one small flower.
sprouting out of these heavy ashes wasn't hope-
but truth,
and new possiblities.
the ground remains fertile,
and new seeds find books to read beneath the brown earth.

I dream of Hugh

2006-07-31T08:05:00.000-07:00

I had a dream this morning that I was comparing body hair with Hugh Jackson. I have a little extra tuft of hair on the left side of my already furry tummy(someone once told me that it was a genetic throw back from caveman times- which I didn't necessarily appreciate). In my dream Hugh Jackson had one an extra tuft on his arm and I believe one on his bum- which he showed me. The dream wasn't sexual at all (although I heart Hugh Jackman as any good homo does and was happy to see his bum cheek), but it was nice. Sort of the benign dethroning of celebrity- like we all have little quirks.

I am including this photo which depicts Mr. Jackman's more...colorful side.

KRUI: theme: Love, Play List: artist, album, song

2006-07-25T17:39:00.000-07:00

hylozoists/ la fin du monde /hearts and harps

cocteau twins/ four calendar café/know who you are at every age

Elf Power/ back to the web/ 23rd dream

Alias and Tarsier/ oaklyn Brockland/ luck and fear

ceschi/ they hate fransisco/ false calluses

dot allison/ we are science/ I think I love you

semaphore/ make/ veggie

moving units/ dangerous/ dreams birds of prey

stuart davis/ stuard davis/ swim

gabin/ gabin/ sweet sadness

the everyothers/ pink sticky lies/ dive with you

milosh/ meme/ couldn't sleep

moby/ animal rights/ now I let it go

the slats/ the great plains of san fransisco/ diatomic

cibo matto/ stereo type a/ clouds

devotchka/ how it ends/ you already know

smoosh/ free to stay/ free to stay

Poseidon’s Daughter: I, the Nymph

2006-07-22T09:12:00.000-07:00

I wrote this for my poetry/literature class as an extra credit assignment.

It is a *response* to Sir Walter Ralegh's The nymph's
reply to the shepherd which is a rsponse to Christopher
Marlowe's The Passionate Shepherd to His Love.

Poseidon’s Daughter: I, the Nymph (Beyond Ralegh)

I came with you quickly,
to those promised pleasures in
groves and fields,
so moved was I.

I laid in your bed of roses
and felt the prick (a thorn to my side).
Quickly did I bleed,
but was slow to disbelieve
all promises barren,
until the posies’ bent heads broke,
the gold buckles tarnished and
the coral clasps cracked.

And for this I am traveling back.
Age has bound me to your side,
tied in the dreams that bloomed
and died.
But the sea still calls
and each night tides
slap the sand
spelling out my name in codes
you cannot understand.

I, the nymph, creature from the sea,
mermaid of legend and lore,
reclaim my right as Poseidon’s daughter.
I leave you with you the amber,
the myrtle, the corral,
the kirtle curdled.

Into long grey tendrils, my hair and history have been spun,
but the waters are forgiving and ageless.
I sink down beneath the rhythm of the waves
and wish you promises that float and
rise with the sun.

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant poises,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs;
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

The shepherds's swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.

Christopher Marlowe
1599

Sir Walter Ralegh
FROM JOHN BODENHAM'S England's Helicon, 1600

The nymph's reply to the shepherd

If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy love.

Time drives the flocks from field to fold
When rivers rage and rocks grow cold,
And Philomel becometh dumb;
The rest complains of cares to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
To wayward winter reckoning yields;
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall.

The gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten,—
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.

Thy belt of straw and ivy buds,
Thy coral clasps and amber studs,
All these in me no means can move
To come to thee and be thy love.

But could youth last and love still breed,
Had joys no date nor age no need,
Then these delights my mind might move

To live with thee and be thy love.

dream journal: i dreamt of parrots

2006-07-19T09:40:00.000-07:00

so I had a cool dream this morning- something- I was looking out a window, maybe that of my apartment- yes that is where it started, but the location shifted as I went. I was looking out my window and there was this colorful parrot sitting on my window sill. I started talking to it and it started mimicking me. I would say a line a couple of times and it would pick it up immediately. I found this delightful. further off there were more parrots, but they looked different than any other parrot I’ve seen. One had all white feathers with small spots or flecks of orange and blue. I remember someone else being outside the window with the birds. I started to talk to him a bit- but I don’t recall what about. I was talking to him about the parrots/birds. He had blond hair, and he was very nice. the scene is subtly shifting. I am now with the birds and the white/orange/blue one is perched on my finger. there is another one I have on my finger after this. normally, I am not a bird person and parrots freak me out a bit. but I felt totally comfortable with these birds. someone was talking about taking one home. there was a debate on whether to take one home or allow it this sort of freedom. I didn’t feel a need to own one, but enjoyed them being able to come and go at will. later, I seem to be in a parking lot with a former friend. she has one of the birds land on her finger, but she is very uncomfortable with the bird- not knowing what it will do. the bird doesn’t seem all that comfortable on her finger either and sort of pulls itself down- hard to explain- it isn’t acting calmly. she gets the bird off her finger and it is on the hood of my car. maybe there is one in the inside of my car at one point. there is more talk about the birds and taking one home. Can’t quite recall what we talked about. but she was clearly not comfortable with them, but wanted to be. there was just that uncontrollability factor that she wasn’t okay with. after I woke up, I realized that my former friend represented the other part of me- the part that was still insecure and couldn’t just allow this beauty to be without reacting to it somehow. issues of trust and control.

KRUI: Yesterday's playlist

2006-07-19T08:25:00.002-07:00

The Hour of Awkwardness celebrated "prepareness" with the following list o' music:

Band/Album/Song

Awesome Color
s/t
ridin'

Rufus Wainwright
poses
one man guy

13 Ghosts
cicada
toby dammit- part one

Archie Bronson Outfit
derdang derdang
kink

the Cheebacabra
exile in the woods
the secret agenda

violent femmes
violent femmes
please do not go

the North Atlantic
wires in the walls
the man who saved your ass

Peter Walker
young gravity
39 stars

Tram
frequently asked questions
are you satisfied?

Tori Amos
strange little girls
97 Bonnie & Clyde

Wise in Time
the ballad of the den of men
back from somehow

the Soft Boys
next doorland
lions and tigers

Slight Return
you are not our demographic
exploding beautiful

White Whale
WWI
we're just temporary ma'am

lower-middle taste public

2006-07-17T20:16:00.000-07:00

According to my Mass Media text book people in the “lower-middle taste public” are made up of white collar workers (including but not limited to…public school teachers, computer programmers, government bureaucrats, lower-level managers).

And this is what they enjoy- entertainment-wise, that is…

Yes to unambiguous plots and heroes- and they tend to disapprove of positive portrayals of homosexuality, promiscuity or other “deviant lifestyles.”

They really like John Wayne as he was a symbol of “traditional” values.

They commonly read romance novels, buy magazines like Us, and enjoyed watching “Bay Watch” back in the day.

The lower-middle taste public like soap operas, situation comedies and quiz shows.

The music they tend to enjoy ranges from country-western to easy listening to golden oldies.

My book says, “Such music makes few intellectual demands on its listeners.”

and I say, “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU PEOPLE THINKING?!!”

Sweet Jesus.

dreams from this morning

2006-07-14T06:20:00.000-07:00

So last night or this morning, I dreamt about these stars that would appear in the sky. they would- trying to remember- would they burst into the sky like fireworks? there were also dolphins involved. it was either that dolphins appeared in the sky and became stars or visa versa- and there was this sense of great love, of being loved. and I would start to channel the dolphins out loud- but there was no one really there to hear it. and after the images faded from the sky so did the sensations and the channeling. I asked a co-worker, Mollie, what her experience was because she seemed to be experiencing it too. but her experience was much less, I think she say the stars like once a month- I saw them once a week, and she didn’t experience the same sensations. I was disappointed by this. I didn’t want to be the only one.

I also dreamt that Bea Arthur was in jail, but it was like no jail I’ve seen. and this little girl put a ribbon around her head and neck- sort of like Christmas paper ribbon. Bea Arthur started to re-adjust it and then I helped her with it. I think I was the little girl, but then I was me. it was two different patterns, one white snowflakes with a blue background- that went in her hair- the other red? yellow? it was around her neck. but I am sure the colors kept changing. (earlier she had a boa she was wearing- and all the prisoners had to give up their garb- it became available to everyone equally/ also she had been wearing a wig as well, her hair underneath was short and wiry and sparse) so then I began giving Bea Arthur a reading. there seemed to be a renaissance fair or a new age fair going on inside the prison. there were books being sold, one of them was older, like from the 70s. it had two women on the cover who seemed happy enough, but they were selling prosperity through the tarot which I was really suspicious of. soon the book “came to life” as the woman on the cover started talking and it became its own little scene with people coming out of the book, testifying to its working (I think). so when I was talking to Bea, we were sitting over this table that had a bunch of stuff on it, but it sort of had this gold application on top- that looked kind of cheesy- I don’t know how to explain it. I was telling Bea that right now she had this sort of richness that she wore, but it wasn’t real. I was using the table as a queue for the reading- what I say it to be and what I saw on it. so I was saying this sort of applied value she was going to shift- there was a tear in the cloth that joined it to the table next to it. something in between that tear- like a lighthouse figurine or something else- that I also interpreted. the next table had this rich purple cloth covering it that was sort of iridescent. I was saying that this is what she could have, she could let go of the façade of richness and actually have this true richness as the base of her life. and it wasn’t monetary- it was her very life that was rich, not the trappings. the first table had all sorts of trappings on it. when I looked at them the second time, I sort of looked away from them, because everything was becoming part of the reading, signals I could decipher, but I didn’t want to read all what was on her table. it was too much and I knew I would have some judgments about them so it was better not to look at them.

there was also some other dream this morning. something about a huge change- the symbol may have been prison again, or a gun. something that represented death. and even though it seemed sort of dark and depressing at first, it was the first part of a shift into something much better.

KRUI: today's theme...All the Men I Never Loved Before

2006-07-11T12:50:00.000-07:00

so these are the songs I played today at my KRUI "radio show"- as i like to call it- even though it is a mere hour long. should you have the hour to spare it on Tuesdays from noon to 1pm.

http://www.uiowa.edu/~krui/

the official name for the show is "the hour of awkwardness." and these be the songs for July, 11th, 2006:

BAND/MUSICIAN: *** ALBUM/CD: *** SONG/TRACK:
psapp *** the only thing I ever wanted *** hill of our home
portishead *** portishead *** all mine
wilderness *** vessel states *** last
feathers *** feathers *** to each his own
dabrye *** two/three *** encoded flow
isotope 217 *** who stole the walkman? *** kidtronix
boat *** songs that you might not like *** beast for hire
voices and organs *** orphanage *** ghostwriting
Gritty Kitty *** mistaking airlplanes for stars *** be my monopoly
electronicat *** 21st century toy *** expereience
create! *** a prospect of freedom *** six dreams dividend
polara *** pantomime *** light the fuse and run
pj harvey *** rid of me *** rid of me
milosh *** meme *** you fill me
don lennon *** routine *** my resume

Assignment: Soap Opera

2006-07-04T19:31:00.000-07:00

(for my Mass Media Class)

Who is Watching Soap Operas and Why:

The first program I watched was The Young and the Restless on CBS- which was neither young nor restless. I was astonished to see that Victor and Nicky are still on this show and still together. I remember watching this show when I was 14 or 15 years old in the summer- simply because I had nothing better to do- and my mother liked this program. The drama at that time was Nicky had done this sexy dance strip video and her lascivious behavior threatened to doom her relationship with Victor. That was the 80s. Twenty years later, a demure and refined Nicky finds her main concern is Victor’s health- he seems to have started passing out involuntarily for unknown, mysterious health-related reasons. It may be because he is just really old. So the drama here was Victor’s mysterious ailment, his brutish denial of anything being wrong (and the fact that he is really quite old), and a troubled Nicky being spinelessly appeasing despite the dangers that will come of it.

Another story was between a cut-throat business man named Jack- who looked very familiar as well, and Phyllis. He now owns the business that Phyllis has been an integral part of. It starts off with them butting heads and ends with Jack wanting to make good over past transgressions- they’d apparently “been intimate” in the past. He is wooing her and she is slowly starting to believe that just maybe this man could change. The actress playing Phyllis is probably one of the better actresses on the show. At least her character is more interesting than the rest- she seems a bit more three-dimensional.

There was a romance brewing between a boss, Neil, and his secretary, Carmen. He invites her back to his place for dinner, and there we meet Neil’s son. I am taking it that Neil is separated from his wife. Neil’s son, Davon, is adopted- and would have to be because Neil is way too young to be having an 18 year old son. The “romantic tension” is cliché with dialog that is cheap and forgettable. That could be said for most of this soap opera, however. The issue her is that the son Davon, is clearly concerned over the romance brewing between Carmen and Neil.

The final storyline has to do with Nick and Sharon. Nick is apparently Victor’s son. Sharon, who works for Jack and with Phyllis, is taking her husband Nick to the place where he proposed to her 11 years ago. It is a coffee shop- and Nick bought this shop previously as a way to always have that fond memory near. This particular story has to do with Sharon tearfully gushing over how happy she is and how in love they are (with more inconceivably bad dialogue). Nick expresses similar feelings, but it would seem there is also a look of concern in his eye. Toward the end of the show, there was a commercial for the next episode, and from what I can gather, Nick and Phyllis have “been intimate,” and I hate to give it away, but I think Phyllis is with child. Then at the end of the show, Sharon announces she wants to have another baby with Nick. Well, who wouldn’t; he is just a doll. The theme here would be true love and the threat of its impending doom.

As one would expect, this show provides the perpetual treadmill of romance and true love being threatened from a variety of angles and plot twists. At one point I counted and amazing number of 14 commercials between episode scenes. From pickles to panty liners, from menopause to the Boston Pops- there were countless things to be sold, promoted and updated- and generally, but not exclusively, to a female audience.

The second show was All My Children on ABC. This show generally moved much more quickly from scene to scene, yet didn’t accomplish much more in the hour time than The Young and the Restless did. It may be because they had more stories to tell within the same amount of time. Because of the quick scene changes, it was difficult to get people’s names- they weren’t stated as often if at all. This show was seemed to be geared to a slightly younger audience, or maybe it had slightly younger people producing it. The drama was higher, as were the theatrics.

The time is 4^th of July in the late evening. Briefly, we have a woman, Dixie, who had apparently lost her daughter, Katie, four or five years ago, shortly after she was born. A silver-haired Adam (who I very much remember from the 80s- and his twin brother, naturally) and Crystal (a younger woman with a southern accent) have had a fight and are sleeping in separate rooms. Apparently there has been a small earthquake and he is trying to use the occasion as an excuse to kiss and make up. (I assume they are married.) A young girl, maybe 16 years old, (who really can’t act) is being arrested for car jacking. She is blond and bratty and looks like your standard mall chick that wants to be Britney Spears. There is a young man with her trying to help her- handsome, virile, etc. In another scene we see a man enter a dark room and get hit on the back from behind and he falls down unconscious. Finally, the most annoying storyline, a woman is at the hospital waiting to be able to bring home her baby (who’s name is “Spike,” and I’m serious) the next day. She is jolted from her sleep thinking she has heard something. She is there with her friend, Ryan, who is sleeping on the couch- she has been sleeping on the hospital bed.

Dixie, has received a phone call from a child who she thinks is her long lost daughter although it turns out to be a child just playing on the phone. She goes from crazy-hysterical to somber as her formerly estranged sister is there to calm her down and talk some sense into her. Also, there is some business over a man named “Chad” who they both had apparently loved at different times. The sister vows that she will always respect Dixie and Chad’s relationship, and that she will never give up the search for finding Katie, the lost daughter/niece. Waterworks ensue.

The bratty girl ends up in jail; a woman comes from a social serve organization and she cannot appease the demands of this two-dimensional piece of blond overacting. The virile young man is still at the scene of the crime, where the blond girl previously pointed out the hand of a dead guy sticking out of the ground before she was thrown into the clinker. For the next few scenes involving the young man and the dead guy that he and the police lift from the ground (we later find out he had been buried alive), the scene goes in slow-mo- which eventually just becomes unintentionally comical. It seems that this dead man is of great importance to the young guy, and the entire soap-opera- hence the slow-mo and stringed music whenever we see the young man trying to revive the gentleman who had been buried. When we do learn he is in fact dead, there is a the “traditional” shot from above looking down on the young man as he raises head and voice to the heavens, yelling “Nooooooo!” I guess if it worked all those times at the movies…

Crystal and Adam eventually get lovey dovey, only to be interrupted by a phone call, which was kind of nice as the actor playing Adam seemed fairly awkward and uncomfortable in the role of wooing Crystal- despite his best efforts. We see Adam arrive at the jail. Lo and behold- the bratty blond girl is Adam’s daughter. This is revealed in such a way that I can only assume no one watching the show would have known this previously.

The man who was hit on the head regains consciousness and is being threatened by another young man, with something that looks like a tire iron. The man is a doctor and apparently somewhat villainous. The younger man, who is part of Dixie’s family, tells him that he is a “virus” (using a clever medical metaphor) and to stay away from his family. However, this all seems to be a ruse. As the young man leaves the scene, he shows the camera a little medicine vile which he is quite proud of having stolen.

Ryan is trying to get the woman at the hospital (mother of Spike) to fall asleep, while she goes on and on about her concerns over her new born. This has to be the most painful exchange of dialogue throughout the soap opera. It is so unrealistic and hackneyed that it is hard to imagine that even Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons could make it work. Finally, we get the crux of this storyline. As the Spike’s mom starts to drift off, she begins remembering things she heard while she was in her coma- “Being in this hospital bed reminds me of being in that coma.” She remembers all the things that were said to her while being in that state- even Ryan, who is not her husband- saying that he loves her. And there is our drama. We hear her “inner dialogue” about this memory and at this point I have to wonder if maybe it is this woman’s acting that is bringing so much attention to how badly this script has been written.

The reason I would surmise that more women watch soap-operas than men is because the dramas I outlined above were filled with glamorous women and good-looking, wealthy men. The problems we witnessed were the problems of society’s elite. There were no homeless people, or single mothers on welfare- where’s the glamour and fantasy in that? Also, the themes tended to revolve around romance and love. This is an area is not generally considered “guy stuff.” Additionally, when soap operas first began- as literally a means to sell soap and other household products to women, it was during the 1930s (and originated on the radio, according to Wikipedia.com) when women were expected to stay at home and take care of the house, while men went off to work to earn the money.

My final thought on soap operas can be summed up by a phrase from our text book, Understanding Mass Media. On page 197, Newton Minow, former chairman of the FCC is quoted to have said that network TV is a “vast wasteland.” There are few better television programs exemplifying this statement than afternoon soap-operas. With drama, sex and the occasional acts of violence, soap-operas certainly do their best to sell to the “lowest common denominator.”

Dream Journal: Poseidon and the Sea Green Sun

2006-07-04T08:06:00.000-07:00

(from this morning's journal)

so I had this very interesting dream this morning. it had to do- I lived in an apartment house like I do now, but I was on the first floor. this guy that I knew came to my door. he was sort of looking for a refuge. he attacked a girl, maybe even raped her, which was very out of character for him. but now he was looking for absolution. I tried to find ways to justify this, make it not what it was, but I couldn’t. so then, I had to figure out what to do. I believe it is at this point that the Greek god Poseidon appeared. Except he had more solar energy than ocean. he felt very strong and in the dream I didn’t connect him to the ocean- it was definitely more solar. and he counseled me on what to do. this man couldn’t go on unpunished. and it was as if this crime were a crime that one cannot be released from. it could not be absolved. what it came down to was me giving the guy over to Poseidon. the guy kept trying to talk me into just letting him go, but I couldn’t. I surrendered to Poseidon’s wishes which I knew was right. And at one point I said this sort of prayer or incantation: Oh Poseidon let your will be done- something like that. and this energy comes out of this sea green or patina sun piece I have on the wall and pulls the guy up into it. the guy didn’t show remorse for what he’d done, he just wanted absolution. I think it is important to keep that in mind. and there he would stay for eternity. and a couple of times, he would get out and I would talk to him, or I would talk to him through the sun piece, but I never would release him- I always called on Poseidon to reclaim him. he seemed to be getting- he looked different after awhile when I would see him in the sun piece. it was like he was looking at me through the bars of the piece, but he didn’t really look human anymore, as if the vile thing in him had taken on its own persona. he actually looked like something Egyptian- from the time of the pyramids.

at one point in the dream I am in bed and these girls come into my apartment, it’s the middle of the night. I sort of welcome in a joking way, but want to know what is going on. it is some drama that is none of my business so I send them on their way. two girls leaving seem like they are being very sweet but it turns out they are just faking it as a part of some mockery of me. and the girl that is still there points this out and says that is how they are. I send her on her way as well, but I think she leaves through the front door- the other two girls went up the back door to the upstairs apartments.

so at another point, after I have given the guy to Poseidon, all these people, including a couple of the girls that were in my apartment earlier, are standing around. they all have snakes, and they have put their snakes on some platform in the middle of the room. and I am suppose to deal with their snakes the way I dealt with the guy- I am being looked to as some sort of healer, I guess. But I decide that it is not my job to resolve everyone else’s snake issue and I clear the people out of my house, all of them except for one man. if I recall correctly, he was in a wheelchair and had a sweet nature. he truly needed help, and I think he was the only one I assisted directly.

what I think this dream has to do with is addressing some part of my own person, some lower nature that wants to be excused for its behavior as just being “human” when really it’s sub-human. I don’t think the snakes represent kundalini energy in this dream- I think they represent fear and a lower nature that cannot be contained. more like the snake in the garden of Eden, embodying temptation, hissing uncontrollably. I think it was good for me to clear the people out of my house, acknowledge that it is not my job to deal with other people’s demons and resolve their issues for them. it is for me to tend to my own.
I knew that I would never be able to move out of this house, that it would always be my responsibility to make sure that the guy on the other side of the sun piece didn’t get out. I wanted to be able to move on, but I resigned myself to that as my fate. I wouldn’t want to leave the house and have some one else take care of that responsibility. I think the man in the wheel chair- that could either represent myself or someone who truly needed help, not just looking for someone else to fix their problems. and I think the guy represented that lower nature I referred to- specifically my own, the part of me that wants absolution without repentance, without having to change.

additional thoughts:
Poseidon:
perhaps he represented the sex charka in this dream which is both liquid and fire. maybe the green sun- well, that color denotes the heart charka. so maybe it is capturing that lower nature and holding it in the heart so that it can be contained and not act out. that would be a lifetime commitment.

I think another interesting note is that Poseidon is the one to have raped Medusa in Athena’s Temple- and Athena turns Medusa, once incredibly beautiful, with gorgeous flowing hair- into the creature that could turn men to stone with her gaze. but again, in the dream, Poseidon was not a watery figure or pompous like a Greek god. he intervened to offer guidance and resolution.

"Night" and God's examination

2006-07-01T07:36:00.000-07:00

(from this morning's journal)

so one other thing I want to discuss and will be discussing more- and it frightens me to write about it- is the Jewish Holocaust. I am reading Night by Elie Weisel and this man who wrote it, his faith, his God died in the German concentration camp. and I know there is this idea that Jesus was God on earth and that Jesus also suffered and died- that this suffering is not unique to the Holocaust- or to Darfur- or any other point in the atrocities that humans have inflicted upon each other. but I am thinking that as much as Jesus was to have known suffering, there have been those that suffered worse. and this is good for me to look at because it shows me the difference between God the parent, who I don’t think really exists, and God the force of life that inhabits all things, that is intelligent and is active in seeking reconnection to the force that is life, that is love- and love not being the warm mushy feeling, but love being a reality- a place of integration into All That Is, a place that most humans never come to know in their mortal lives because it is a reality that is well beyond this three dimensional world. we have sips of it- and those sips overwhelm us because it offers a connection that is so absolutely foreign to our daily lives of disconnection, separation and distraction. so, what is God that God does not intervene to save these people being gassed and raped and tortured and starved to death by the Germans at this time? What is God that is the life force of all existence that when cried out to in pain and suffering, the pain and suffering continues on into deeper and deeper levels of unthinkable hell; become everyday experiences- unbelievable, overwhelming anguish is the norm. what is God then? and I don’t say this out of attack, but because it needs to be examined- these beliefs that God is benevolent vs. lazy or indifferent or dead. those are very human qualities to place on something that we don’t understand- this Being of Life that we have been grafted from. so this is where the break is, I think. it is not that God is indifferent, or cruel or distant- God is simply not what we expect It to be.

in this space I have now, I am not suffering at all really. yes, I do have my disconnection from the source and the resulting sense of loss and isolation- but even that is something that I can acknowledge and actively seek rectification with. so I can comfortably sit here and ponder the mysteries and talk easily about, “what is this thing, God?” but what if I were to be fag bashed later today? what if I were to be put into the hospital, permanently physically damaged somehow- loss of vision- loss of limb- loss of my ability to walk- maybe lose the majority of my bodily functions and become a quadriplegic? would I still ruminate about the mystery that is God, or would I close down and become bitter, believe that the worst possible about humanity is its ultimate truth, or just shut my heart off forever and live in the most superficial of ways? who would I be then if I saw the ones I loved so much be tortured, maybe raped, then murdered in front of my eyes. would I still see God as the Life of all things? I will be able to articulate these concerns and questions the more I read this book, the more that these horrors are spelled out in front of me. I know of them already, but time has given me some distance- and after all- it didn’t happen to me, right? so it is easy to sit and speculate from a distance. but I want to know what God really is- not just my safe beliefs that make me happy or feel good- keep my world from spinning off the planet. if God allows not just suffering, but torture and death- then God is not a parent in the way that I have been brought up to believe. instead, God is something beyond my comfortable beliefs.

Links Between Illness and Global Warming?

2006-06-28T08:55:00.000-07:00

...from asthma to malaria

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5511686

this from Terry Gross on "Fresh Air:"

Fresh Air from WHYY, June 26, 2006 · Dr. Paul Epstein is a physician in Boston, and the associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School. He's created a niche as an eco-physician, exploring the link between increased illness and global warming. Illnesses such as heatstroke, asthma and allergies are the more obvious outcomes of a warmer and more polluted planet, but Epstein says an increase in infectious diseases such as malaria and West Nile virus may also be linked to the greenhouse effect.

The Logic of War

2006-06-24T21:20:00.000-07:00

The Glory of War

2006-06-23T13:51:00.000-07:00

Dead Iraqi soldier in Gulf War http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/thisiswar/

There have been 2,735 coalition deaths, 2,510 Americans, two Australians, 113 Britons, 13 Bulgarians, three Danes, two Dutch, two Estonians, one Fijian, one Hungarian, 31 Italians, one Kazakh, one Latvian, 17 Poles, two Romanians, two Salvadoran, three Slovaks, 11 Spaniards, two Thai and 18 Ukrainians in the war in Iraq as of June 22, 2006, according to a CNN count.

At least 18,572 U.S. troops have been wounded in action, according to the Pentagon.

from CNN, from http://www.whodies.com/

Iraqi Civilian deaths: minimum: 38475, maxium: 42889
from http://www.iraqbodycount.net/

Not So Funny...

2006-06-23T13:22:00.000-07:00

The Backside of Fame

2006-06-22T08:32:00.000-07:00

(from my morning journal)

Keanu Reeves- oh my god, my Word program recognizes the name Keanu. amazing. I guess that is the power of celebrity. even Word documents recognize you without being asked. anywho- wow sirens going off. hmmm. I always wonder about where they are going in this city. I mean, there is at least one ambulance/fire truck going past my house once a day. usually at 2 am in the morning when I’m in a dead sleep. but this one- at 9.51am. I always wish I could fly off in my superman cape and see if I could be of any help. some college kid hurting themselves somehow- drunk driving or something else. anyway- I am hardly one to talk about Keanu Reeves- I think he’s an alright actor- I don’t have any strong feelings about him, but I do think he is rather attractive- cuz you know, he is. But not usually my drool material for whatever reason. but I was looking him up- as I was making a comment to someone’s comment (in tribe.net) about Homer Simpson being gay- I asked if he’d been spotted hanging out with Keanu Reeves. and then I thought about Keanu Reeves- who I am just going to call Keanu for the sake of typing- and I thought, hmm- naked pictures- cuz I’m super horny these days. then I look him up and find that he was born in 1964- he is three years older than me. he is forty-two! a real man, at this point, right? and it turns out he denies being gay, but will not answer when questioned about being straight or bisexual(at least, according to wikipedia). and has apparently made some comments about being bisexual in past interviews. so why am I saying all this? cuz Keanu, oh hell, Reeves- it’s almost one word anyway- is 3 years older than me (and found this to be shocking- as i am usually the older one in the group anymore). I also found out he lost his wife in 1999, and when they did try to have a baby she miscarried. I mean, how horrible! to be so young and lose wife and child. but I also read the for the first 10 years or so after his fame, he didn’t own a home- he just went from hotel to hotel. isn’t that odd? and then I thought- wow, it would be great to have that lifestyle, and then I started lusting for fame and fortune. but it’s one of those things- if it doesn’t come from my life’s path naturally, I just can’t pursue it. those were my dreams when I was 20. I mean, yes, it would be great to be affluent, be able to meet with people to make movies and work on projects. but you know, I just have to trust my path. oh- I did find a naked backside picture of Mr. Reeves. delicious. not sure where from.

Gay Pride Iowa City Pics and Peeps

2006-06-17T14:28:00.000-07:00

cool tatooes, people in the groove and the "hand pump" howdy-do

Gay Pride Iowa City- from the parade and festival

2006-06-17T14:24:00.000-07:00

More Melora

2006-06-14T07:30:00.000-07:00

Sadly, this isn't a picture from the actual show at Gabe's. She looked so cute, very 18th century. And I'd like to show off the rest of the band as well. Both the celloist(a new face to the band- but originally from Dubuqe, IA) and drummer (Jonathon TeBeest)were fantastic. Maybe I'll find some one else's posting at a later date.

When they first came out and everyone was crowded around the stage, she asked "Can no one see?" And most people confirmed that they could not. She shared her common solution to the problem, which was to have everyone sit down because "it's not fair that only the front row can see." We were all kind of like- um, are we really going to sit down..on the nasty, nasty floor at Gabe's? And yes we did. And it was great. The show became much more intimate and immediately enjoyable at that point.

Anywho, among their own songs- they also did a cover of Heart's "Baracuda," which was very unexpected and just amazing. And until you have heard "I Like Big Butts" on electric cello, well the, you've never really heard the song at all.

Her between song banter and song intros really showed the theatrical side of her. And she did this great lil' number- I hope it is on the new album, which I've yet to buy, in this sort of 1920s Brooklyn accent. So great. My admiration of Rasputina grew immensely from this show. I really got to see Melora's level of genius and the band's talent. And the woman can really belt out the songs. By listening to the music on the cds, you may not know this. I always thought she had an interesting and unique voice and vocal style, but not a necessarily strong one. She proved otherwise in this performance.

The encore number was apparently from a rock opera that they have been working on. She gave the pretext for the song, which was that the Bush Administration orchestrated the 9/11 attack. This theory has become quite popular with many radical liberals. You can see more about it here: http://www.loosechange911.com/ The song itself was rather long (in a good way) and varied- true to any good "rock opera." The ending chorus line is "...the infidel is me."

This is a performance I would love to have as a bootleg. The audience just loved them up and everyone was feeling great after the show. Should I be able to find any pics of this show, I'll be certain to post them.

Our Goddess of Cello Rock

2006-06-12T22:39:00.000-07:00

If you have not heard of or have yet listened to the amazing Rasputina, then you are missing something fantastically unique.
I just got back from seeing them at Gabe's Oasis, and it was by far one of the best shows I have ever seen in my life. Amazing music, amazing wit, amazing talent. The live show gives one a much better understanding of Melora Creager's genius and sassy, offbeat humour. If I have time tomorrow or Wednesday, I will give more details. And hopefully the other attendees will have loaded up some images from the show on flikr.com for me to lift and share with you here. Amazing.

In the meantime...www.rasputina.com

Not that I am in favor of the global economy...

2006-06-12T10:42:00.000-07:00

But, hello hot Kabul boy...

from NPR homepage:
In a Kabul clothing store, 20-year-old Javed Yusufzai proudly shows off what he describes as his "fancy clothes." Yusufzai says tight pants, tight shirts, pointed shoes and long hair are in fashion in the Afghan capital. But, he adds, "they would kill me if I went to the countryside dressed like this."

...honey, you would be embraced here.

admitting the problem is half the battle...

2006-06-11T00:25:00.000-07:00

Coming Out as Spiritually Political

2006-06-09T13:03:00.000-07:00

So I’ve now got a fresh cup of tea. And maybe through the minor din of business, something creative or insightful will bubble up through the surface. What I really want to do is take a nap. Guess this is the closest I can get without actually sleeping.
So hmm. I was thinking in terms of saving people and saving the world. And saving the world hits me more than saving people. I do want to save people, but they seem to be so much of the problem, you know? So much fighting. Of course, humanity is important, I am one of them after all, but it seems like- well, I guess there has to be a balance. I know you can’t save the world by alienating people and making them distrust you- you know, think that you are too left or too right. At the same time, radical activism seems to be the one thing that can make an impact. But radical doesn’t have to mean violent or angry- it means bold. Bold- taking a stand where others fear to tread. Having the scorn of other heaped upon you for following your heart, doing what you know will open the door for healing of people, healing of the world. Calling out liars and cheats, but not in a way that is filled with hate or venom- that only fuels the fire. To be clear and concise- to speak truth and pull no punches, but do it in such a way that you do not become part of the hate that fuels the division of sides. So much hate going on these days, you know? It seems like the division is so deep and it truly keeps us from coming together as a country to find workable solutions. And I would say that maybe that this radical division- I wonder with the world so close to collapse- at least the way we’ve been doing it…What am I trying to say? The Global Free Market continues to wreak havoc on the environment- so does the unification of our country make an impact on this? It does, how the unification looks, the agreements and dynamics. I look at all the things our government has done in secret, all the power plays, the oppression of people for resources- GMO farms in “third world” countries- secret wars and torture centers- It is not enough for our country to change the current administration. These sorts of things have been going on for years, although, presumably not to the extreme that we have witnessed now. Bush is pulling out all stops, doing away with almost all diplomatic reasoning in order to fulfill this neo-con regime ideal. So the scale keeps tipping to this way then that. And I wonder if some huge global disaster is the one thing that would make everyone stop and re-focus their attention on the core principles of life- the core essence of love, of a global family instead of a global economy. Part of me, I have to admit, loves the idea of some sort of cataclysm. I think it is the part of me that thrives off change. Like when I cut my hand and have to approach everything I do from this other way of thinking, of operating. I mean, the consequences of disasters bring about so much pain and heart ache, yet I find that there is so much potential good that can come out of them. Katrina was horrible- I think that if I went down there and had been part of the clean up crew- helping people out, that I would feel differently about disasters. I was in a tornado and that was horrible and traumatic, yet I seemed to thrive from it; it shifted me for the better. But that is not the same as a national or global disaster. I think that if I were in something like Katrina, I would be actively working to prevent disasters vs. looking at the good that comes from them. People die, you know. And ultimately this doesn’t bother me in that the soul is eternal. But what bothers me is if people are learning from pain and suffering or if they are closing down. I don’t like to see anyone suffer, and I am the first one to comfort someone when they are suffering. It’s the burden of empathy. But when it comes to our world, it is so outrageous what we do to each other- and not just the U.S. This country should be modeling “every man (person) created equal” but we are so far from it. But people all over the world, in other countries, cultures, times- they have all been brutal to each other in the name of greed and power. And now I feel it is time for our planet to wake up from this. I am here to herald this. However, how it comes about, I do not know. If we find a way to address the evil we have done and change the hearts and heads of the collective consciousness of our planet, or if it must be done through suffering and loss. Something that breaks the illusions we’ve held as true and spurs forward the evolution of our collective souls, of the beings clinging to this planet, calling it home.
I think it is also time for me to start speaking up on this mix of politics and spirit that I have found- that I am exploring. Willing to be wrong, willing to learn- not coming to the scene as an expert, but rather coming with questions. Standing up and not letting fear of attack, of being wrong, keep me from saying what I see. I think this fear has silenced me- that I have silenced myself with it, for as long as I can take. It will not do to believe I must be perfect before I open my mouth. I am not coming to the scene of politics as an expert, but rather as a participant- as an experiencer. And why should this be a reason to keep my mouth shut? When will I be good enough to show my face, in regards to my beliefs, in public- in a wider public forum that goes beyond the safe circle of my friends? And I feel that as I am coming into the circle, not to attack but to understand, that when I am attacked for stating my beliefs and questions, I have the opportunity to see an attack for what it is- fear. And when I succumb to attacks, and attack back, isn’t that my lesson to learn? To finally come to a place where true communication is the space where I spend my time, with the ability to see through attacks and remain in love. I will only learn how to do that by immersing myself into the water and confronting all the things I fear and wish to control- people and their reactions to me. Yeah, to stand up to those slings and arrows and find my soul through the storm of misunderstandings and doubt. Then I would be a real man, indeed.

The Healing of Industry

2006-06-09T11:15:00.000-07:00

(I am not sure who this artist is, or the actual title,
but I would glady take the information. I don't mean
to post without giving credit where due.)

Post-Apocolyptic Friday

2006-06-09T07:13:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm glad to see so many people survived the rise of The Beast on Tuesday (06.06.06). There was this incredible lighting and thunder at about 4am that morning. I can't replicate the sound in text, but I thought Zeus was raining down his wrath- first the mumphs, then the tornado, and now this- BBBBZZZZAAAACCCCK-BOOOOOM!-rumble, rumble, rumble. Then I remembered what day it was (06.06.06), and realized it was just the heralding of armageddon, and I felt much better.

On Tuesday (the day of The Beast) I started my radio show at KRUI, the local college radio station. (http://www.uiowa.edu/~krui/) I have a petite show from noon to 1pm (i'm a newbie so i got last dibs), and I am calling the show "The Hour of Awkwardness." I invite people to put down all pretenses of knowing what they are doing, of trying to fit in- and just be awkward with me for this hour as I figure out how to run a radio show, push wrong buttons, and leave gaps of dead air between songs. I feel like I'm bonding with "the people." On Tuesday's show, in order to celebrate the impending reign of hell on Earth, I tried to play songs according to that theme. "Rapture?" by Sonic Youth, "Bright Apocolypse" by Stewart Davis, "The ABC's of Anarchism" by Chumbawamba, and so much more. I think I did the Dark Lord justice so maybe we'll be spared from his all consuming desire for submission and annihilation. I notice that we most of the planet remains in tact, so I can only assume my efforts were noticed and acknowledged.

Speaking of Dark Lords, I best get back to work. I will say that I have three classes this summer and boy is my ass sore. Spank, spank, spank. More details on those classes and their all consuming nature soon.

The Sypmtoms and Complications of Post-Modern Gratification

2006-05-28T22:38:00.000-07:00

Beneath the skin of buildings
mounted on mortar and moments,
history like lightning sediment
piles upon itself.

The flies have stopped buzzing,
they're too busy blogging.
Everyone is famous,
drenched in 15 minutes.

Expedite,
right away.
Time went flying
yesterday.
Tomorrow is so passé.
Today is a memory
just moments ago.

Communication is vision,
the altitude of saints re-commissioned.
Look to the heavens,
thunder is italics in the text.

I travel as pleasure
under stormy weather.
But the pages have been pressed,
and we are caught within the sound.

Expedite,
right away.
Time went flying
yesterday.
Tomorrow is so passé.
Today is a memory
just moments ago.

History like lightning sediment,
drenched in 15 minutes.
Thunder is italics in the text,
and we are caught within the sound.

Mass Media: Assignment 2

2006-05-28T21:31:00.000-07:00

In approximately 500 words describe what book publishing will be like in 10 years. Include who you think will be writing books, what the content will include and what form they will take. Discuss how they will be alike and different from the medium we have today.

I do believe that we will continue to have physical books in the years to come; I don’t believe that we will be using purely electronic mediums. There is too much romance around the idea of books. People enjoy being able to physically pick up a book and thumb through its pages. I’ve heard many people say, “I love books!” I’ve never heard anyone ever say, “I love digital text!” Furthermore, people enjoy having personal libraries and collecting books for those libraries. I would agree that the world is becoming more “digitalized” every day, but that won’t stop book lovers from loving books.

I imagine that book publishing will still be run by conglomerates; however, I do think independent presses will still prevail in some form. There are people with money who are interested in information for its own sake, not just for turning a buck or a few million bucks. Depending on how our government evolves (or de-evolves), independent bookmakers may have to go underground with their texts that don’t support mass consumerism, blindly following the current “decider,” or the globalization of capitalism. The world has fallen into dark ages before; it is possible that what is left of the democratic process to be completely oppressed by corporations seeking ever greater wealth. The corporations that run the government may well decide to censor renegade citizens and their heretical publications as “terrorist threats.”

However, I hope it never comes to that. I would hope that people continue to stand up in the name of genuine free speech and use mass media, such as books, to reveal injustice and political corruption. I would like to see people really become aware of the very real current threat of global warming and stop using trees for paper. It would be fantastic if the slander against hemp (not marijuana) products was revealed for the falsehood that it is, and paper products were manufactured from hemp plant instead of trees. There is a great book called Cradle to Cradle which talks about using alternative materials to create not only books, but all manufactured goods, that can be recycled continuously into other items. The book itself is a prototype for this concept, and is made from a plastic resin that can be recycled into another book or, potentially, into any number of items. None of the book is made from paper, yet it doesn’t feel like your holding a “plastic book.” It is a pleasure to the touch, it’s good for the environment, and as a product made from plastic resin, it’s waterproof. You can take to the beach or to your bathtub and it won’t get ruined if wet. I hope that this sort of progressive thinking starts taking hold, as we realize the increasing threat of global warming. Forests keep the eco-system in balance by acting as banks or sinks for CO2, one of the main greenhouse gases contributing to global warming. We can save our trees, ourselves and still have books to make, own and share.

Following this line of thinking, it would be fantastic to see more books on how to reverse the effects of what we have done to our environment- even text books for high schools. It may be fantastical to think, but I very much like the idea of plastic resin text books on the importance of Global Ecology and its reparation. Sadly, I am more inclined to believe that we will have more paper books on “the glamorous life” by Paris Hilton types. As corporate conglomerations now run most of the book business, it will be the almighty dollar that dictates the future of books. And as our textbook points out, selling entertainment is much more profitable than selling knowledge or wisdom. I’m sure it will get much darker before any sort of dawn.

some angels play banjos instead

2006-05-28T09:09:00.001-07:00

I like Sufjan best with pinions...

Something that started in my head this morning:

2006-05-28T08:43:00.000-07:00

Oh great rock star,
the world is your little Zanzibar.
Most of us labor
so the world is rich for you to savor.
Look how we toil.
think about us now.

On our backs
we carry
industry and black cherries.
What is your
preference?
How does it vary?
We can
accommadate you now.

And in our solitude
we pray to be just like you.
Your not just soda-pop
falling from the heavens.
Your fuel for economy
and we worship you for now.

(to the tune of Sufjan Steven's Come On! Feel The Illinoise!)

Wow, I never knew that I was being enabled...?

2006-05-23T11:25:00.000-07:00

an image i lifted off of tribe.net

2006-05-22T11:46:00.000-07:00

Capitalsim: the Ecological Virus

2006-05-19T12:24:00.000-07:00

(This was my final paper for composition class)

Undoubtedly, Americans in the United States lead an incredibly privileged lifestyle. Our material needs (real and imagined) are identified, mass produced and marketed back to us at alarming speeds. Needs we didn't even know we had are cleverly crafted and sold through marketing, advertising and mass media. The advent of the Industrial Revolution blasted off the doors of traditional ways humans consumed goods and services. And from industry was born the capitalist. Aristocracy was forced to one side, as a new system of obtaining wealth took center stage: capitalism. The sociology text book, Society, the Basics, compiled and written by sociologist John J. Macionis, defines capitalism as “an economic system in which natural resources and the means of producing goods and services are privately owned” (Macionis 306). Along with the new institution came a new breed of rulers and their insatiable appetite for economic wealth and domination. The earth in all her splendor transformed from natural habitat into natural capital. But the world is finite- a concept unknown to the early industrialists of the 1800s. Naively, they believed the world to be boundless in its natural resources. True enough, it is always through the backward glance that humankind learns best. And had the capitalists of the time chosen to take a backward glance into the history of civilization, they would have easily spotted a lesson that has repeated itself with few insights gained. Humankind destroying home and habitat in the name of lifestyle is absolutely nothing new.
What is it that causes people to deny the obvious; that they are servants, not masters of the land they keep? In his short, yet incredibly insightful book, aptly named A Short History of Progress, Ronald Wright reviews the human practice of creating civilizations that strip the land of its integrity. This causes not only ecological devastation, but the ruin of the civilization itself and the death of its people. Of the several civilizations that Wright deftly details the rise and ruin of, the Easter Islands, with their giant stone heads looming as they stare blankly into the horizon, stand out as a superior example of consumption without consciousness. Wright unfolds the mystery of the huge silent heads, explaining that the statues were created by the various clans to honor their family ancestry:
These were hewn from the yielding volcanic tuft of a crater and set up on platforms by the shore. As time went on, the statue cult became increasingly rivalrous and extravagant...Each generation of images grew bigger than the last, demanding more timber, rope, and manpower for hauling to the ahu, or altars. Trees were cut faster than they could grow, a problem worsened by the settlers' rats, who ate the seeds and saplings. (Wright 59-60)

Eventually, the obsession with the giant ancestral effigies, or moai, ended up resembling something similar to Americans’ obsession with the car: “By the end there were more than a thousand moai, one for every ten islanders in their heyday” (Wright 61). However, the destructive obsession ended with its logical conclusion. The island, so generous in its natural resources, had been stripped bare. As with any civilization, the prosperity of the land had fostered the prosperity of its people. Accordingly, as the population continued to expand, the natural resources diminished. Famine ensued and the civilization perished, leaving only a few survivors in its wake (Wright 61-62). By blindly pursuing an inherently destructive ideology to the exclusion of all common sense, the Easter Islanders wrought utter and complete devastation upon the environment that sustained them, and their entire people. It must be understood that “The people who felled the last tree could see it was the last, could know with complete certainty that there would never be another. And they felled it anyway” (Wright 60). This page from humanity’s history embodies the lesson that we have been so resistant to learn. Since that time, human civilization has evolved incredibly. We no longer experience ourselves as living on islands or countries disconnected from one another by stretches of water or land. With everyday terms such as “global economy,” “global marketing,” “global communications” and “global warming,” it is clear that we, as humans, understand ourselves so be a true “global village;” a planetary island within the vast ocean of the universe.
Now that we have established mankind's appalling capacity to refuse the obvious, let's turn our attention to how this tendency is currently manifested in the “modern, civilized” world. In the book, How Much Is Enough?, Alan Durning addresses the issue of living in a consumer society, and how this kind of society impacts the earth. Marking the rising increase of consumptive behavior in America after World War II, Durning cites the sincere words of retail analyst Victor Lebow: “'Our enormously productive economy...demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption...We need things consumed, burned out, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever increasing rate'” (Durning 21-22). The statement reads like a corporate edict. There is no sense of a greater picture, of consequences, or of true forward thinking. Instead what we have is a world where immediate gratification is the norm, “instant” being a key word to express the time in which a “need” find its resolution. Such “instant lifestyles” are devoid of any grounding, any lasting foundation. They lead to connections of the most superficial kinds, not only with people and the environment, but with the objects manufactured from the environment by people.
The infamous sociologist, Karl Marx, termed this superficial relationship the fetishism of commodities. In the book, Karl Marx, Selected Writings, the editor, David McLellan, includes Marx's views on this relationship between people and every day objects or the “world of commodities with the products of men’s hands” (McLellan 474). To translate Marx-speak, the scenario goes something like this: We, as a people, have lost our capacity to appreciate where our everyday items come from. We identify with the product (DVD player, microwave oven, laptop, etc), as the absolute manifestation of said item- from thought of product to actual product, easy as you please. The process of industrialization has allowed this malformed relationship to flourish. Where do Happy Meals come from? McDonalds, of course. More than one vegetarian friend has told me that it was upon the childhood discovery that meat came from cows, pigs, etc., and not the grocery store, he or she converted to vegetarianism on the spot. Because I am not immediately involved in the production of the laptop that I am currently using to write this paper, I cannot truly appreciate the labor, the technology, and the natural resources that were utilized in making it. Industry has granted me the “privilege” of this detachment. It is like an apple picked from the tree, wholly formed and complete. I also have the opportunity of never knowing what happens when I inevitably toss out the no longer functioning laptop. Where do good laptops go when they die? Do they decompose naturally in my backyard? Sadly, no. They go to landfills- despite the many toxic components within the laptop that are required to make it function. But in a consumer driven society, my concern is not that I am pissing in my pool by tossing this laptop into a landfill (in my somewhat literal backyard) when it dies (or even that I am in close range contact with those numerous hazardous materials while it is “alive”). No, my concern is my next act of consumption- “Where am I going to get my next laptop and for how much?”
To answer that question all I need to do is check out the ads in the local paper, or flip on the TV and wait for the new “Dude, it’s a Dell!” commercial. The media is great about letting me know what I can buy and for how much, but where are the public service ads telling me how what I am buying is affecting the planet and the rest of the people on it? Besides the occasional blips about the possibility of global warming, the news media tends to downplay what we need to know the most. Why is it that I am much more likely to hear what Paris Hilton did last weekend, rather than the rate at which the polar ice caps are melting? How is it that celebrity news beats out the ecological devastation of the planet? In a capitalist society, the bottom line is “What sells?” Celebrities sell products (movies, cel phones, themselves), and even the news breaks for commercial sponsorship. Plus, toxic build up is a bummer, and it isn't nearly as fascinating as the lives of the obscenely rich and famous.
Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, notes the following: “Disney, Viacom (now known as CBS Corporation), Time Warner, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, Bertelsmann, and General Electric together own more than 90% of the media market ” (Wikipedia). Ah, those capitalists…there really is someone, or rather, a few but powerful some ones, pulling the strings and orchestrating the show. And this evening’s line up of entertainment must keep the financial capital flowing- and not just flowing, but increasing exponentially. Anything less is considered failure. Here we find the belief that with money comes happiness. Money, power, and status are the foundations of the American dream. Yet as Alan Durning points out in How Much Is Too Much?, the correlation between money and happiness is relative:
The happiness that people derive from consumption is based on whether they consume more than their neighbors and more than they did in the past. Thus, psychological data from diverse societies such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel, Brazil and India show that the top income strata tend to be slightly happier than the middle strata, and the bottom group tends to be least happy. The upper classes in any society are more satisfied with their lives than the lower classes are, but they are no more satisfied than the upper classes of much poorer countries- nor than the upper classes were in the less affluent past. Consumption is thus a treadmill, with everyone judging their status by who is ahead and who is behind. (Durning 39)

So the illusion is that accumulation equals happiness- like the “wisdom” from that once popular bumper sticker: “He Who Dies with the Most Toys Wins.” It is an obviously shallow motto that sums up the consumerist creed perfectly. However, Society, the Basics, records that a century ago the French sociologist Emile Durkheim found those most likely to commit suicide in modern society ended up being the rich, white guys (Macionis 3). Shocking? It is a study that still holds true in today’s modern America (Macionis 3). So why is it that people who have it all end up throwing it all away? Because when all is said and done, material wealth does not equate to richness of life. Living as an elite actually causes the individual to suffer from greater societal isolation (Macionis 3). Standing apart from society, ones loses a realistic definition of “self”. It turns out that being an integrated part of society is much healthier psychologically and emotionally than being better than or above that same society. But wealth, power and status are intoxicating, and as with any drug, the high is always short term. When it wears off, the cravings return and it takes a little bit more and a little bit more in order to get back to that previously achieved temporal state of euphoria. This means one must expand individual and collective “empires” in order to appease that sense of inflated, yet false, identity.
Following the tradition of our European Imperialist forefathers, we are ceaselessly expanding, imposing our western lifestyle on the rest of the planet in the name of global economy and the free market. Naturally, global ecological degradation is increasing accordingly. As capitalism continues to demand more and more natural resources, the people that dwell on those lands have less and less choice but to adopt the American lifestyle. The World Wildlife Fund, an environmental advocacy and restoration organization, reports that the American “ecological footprint” is far more devastating than most of our global neighbors: “To calculate the average size of each person's footprint, it [WWF] measures land use, pollution, energy consumption, and the level of carbon-dioxide emissions. The impact of an average North American is double that of a European, but seven times that of the average Asian or African” (Fowler). As the global economy spreads the virus of capitalism, what then becomes of the planet when the rest of the world begins to emulate the way Americans consume?
In order to understand the role of capitalism in environmental devastation, it is important to investigate the big brother of capitalism, the corporation. Generally, corporations do not assess environmental damage when they go about burrowing into the planet for the resources they need to transform natural capital into economic capital. The damage inflicted on the planet and the toxins created by the making and discarding of manufactured products are not calculated into the price tag of the products when one picks them up off the shelf at Wal-Mart. Marjorie Kelly explains in her book, The Divine Right of Capital, that corporate financial statements are intended to leave the community footing as much as the financial burden from their processes as possible; that this is just “good business”:
The corporation aims to internalize all possible gains from the community and to externalize all possible costs onto the community. Costs placed on the corporation show up on the income statement, and diminish the bottom line. That’s bad. But costs placed on the community are invisible: the financial lens doesn’t see them, so they are of no consequence in the corporate world view. (Kelly 26, italics in text)

To show how this business practice plays out, Kelly cites the example of Texaco drilling in Ecuador for 2 decades: “If Texaco had to pay to clean up the environmental mess, that would be bad. Environmental remediation is expensive” (Kelly 26). So lucky for them, they were able to dump four million gallons of untreated waste water each day into the Amazon’s rivers and streams for twenty years, because “Aquifers, rivers and streams are not assets of Texaco” (Kelly 26). However, they are assets to each and every one of us, Texaco CEOs included, whether we opt to acknowledge it or, instead, pull into our local Texaco station and gas up our SUVs without a second thought. Again, the capitalist’s creed puts all else and all others at the bottom of the list in its vampiric obsession for more.
Returning to Donald Wright’s A Short History of Progress, we find that this invention of human folly cropped up in societies long before greed was constructed into the institution of capitalism. Wright examines the short-lived Empire of Ur, which, similar to our earlier example of the Easter Islands, met its doom for the sake of “sticking to entrenched beliefs and practices, robbing the future to pay the present, spending the last reserves of natural capital on a reckless binge of excessive wealth and glory” (Wright 79). And who benefited from this the most? “The result was a few generations of prosperity (for the rulers), followed by a collapse from which southern Mesopotamia has never recovered” (Wright 79). Again, we find the societal elite relishing the sweetest fruits of the land only to lead their entire community into utter devastation. Now that we live in a society that is built on a drive for consumption as a way to maintain “economic freedom,” it is only a matter of time before the history of Earth records the thunderous wails of another great empire collapsing- unless we, as a country and as a true global village, act now.
Clearly, not enough can be said about the importance of recycling, energy conservation, going from fossil fueled to hydro-electric powered cars and other popular, progressive innovations. They are designed to act as allegorical thumbs, pressing into the leaks of the cracking, ecological dam. Compliance with these reformative solutions should be an obvious and immediate response to the dangers that we, as a nation, are now aware of. Yet too many people still refuse to take any responsibility for the damaging and damning impact that their lifestyles are imposing on the Earth. And quite frankly, even if we all did suddenly leap into action, it would do little bring us back from the genuine peril we have collectively created. Slowing down the progression of cancer does not alter its inevitable outcome. More than just redemptive acts of recycling, we must reconstruct the very way we live our lives.
Author and visionary, David C. Korten, offers 9 design elements for a new way of life in his book, The Post-Corporate World. With his 5th design element, Closed-Cycle Materials Use, Korten shares the following vision:
To the extent possible, necessary resources are harvested and processed locally and then maintained in a constant state of use, reuse and recycling. All packaging materials are reused. Bottles are refilled locally. Products are designed to be repaired locally and ultimately recycled. Organic matter is composted in local vegetable gardens. Sewage is biologically processed, used to generate biogas, and recycled onto agricultural fields. Products such as appliances, vehicles, machines, and electronic equipment are leased rather than sold and returned to their local manufacturers at the end of their useful life to be repaired, upgraded or broken down into their basic material components for recycling. Virtually no waste is dumped into the environment. (Korten 129)

Expanding on this idea of recreating how societies interact with their ecological environment are architect William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart, co-authors of the book, Cradle to Cradle. They envision a different sort of capitalism- one that allows people to indulge in their craving for “the newest and the latest” but within a system that not only doesn’t degrade the environment, but leaves a genuinely beneficial “eco-footprint.” Instead of engaging in the familiar battle of environmentalism versus industrialism, the two offer solutions that allow materials to be created, then deconstructed and recreated again into new products- without producing harmful toxins in the process. In this scenario society, as the metaphorical Adam and Eve, is able to gain re-admittance to Eden by recreating the Garden within the world they already inhabit:
We believe that humans can incorporate the best of technology and culture so that our civilized places reflect a new view. Buildings, systems, neighborhoods and even whole cities can be entwined with surrounding ecosystems in a way that are mutually enriching…we believe that industry can be so safe, effective, enriching, and intelligent that it need not be fenced off from other human activity. (This could stand the concept of zoning on its head; when manufacturing is no longer dangerous, commercial and residential sites can exist along side factories, to their mutual benefit and delight.) (McDonough and Braungart 87-88)

Because one of the authors of Cradle to Cradle is a chemist (Braungart) and the other a designer (McDonough), they not only believe that such a world is possible, but are actively demonstrating ways in which both esthetics and function can meet in an agreeable manner without digging a hole into natural capital. The actual physical book, Cradle to Cradle, is a prototype of possibilities to come. Neither its “paper” nor its cover are made from trees or tree pulp:
Unlike the paper with which we are familiar, it does not use any wood pulp or cotton fiber but is made from plastic resins and inorganic fillers. This material is not only waterproof, extremely durable, and (in many localities) recyclable by conventional means; it is also a prototype for the book as a ‘technical nutrient,’ that is, as a product that can be broken down and circulated infinitely in industrial cycles- made and remade as “paper” or other products. (McDonough and Braungart 5)

Are these visions just expressions of utopian idealism or might they be realistic alternatives? Living in such a distinctively individualistic society, it becomes hard to imagine people willing to change and adapt to such a seemingly radical and different way of living. However, history has already spoken on what our outcomes will be if we do not begin entertaining these alternate ways of living now. If humans are capable of anything, especially within the context of societal living, it is change. Furthermore, the very function of legislation is to create laws that protect people and provide structure that promotes well-being for all. Does anyone remember that crazy old axiom “By the people, for the people?” The “people” need to be educated about what is happening in the world around them; shaken, stirred or tossed from the blankets of sleep that mass consumerism induces, and agitated into a state of action by the facts that have been subtly omitted from their morning news. It is important to address forces that resist these revolutionary changes in both conventional and non-conventional means. We need to re-educate our law-makers as to why they hold the positions they do. We need to demand that they address our updated list of truly self-preserving priorities, and begin implementing laws that hold people and corporations responsible for the types and amounts of waste they create and the ways in which they process it. It is only by our collective voices rising up in the face of social and environmental injustice that the destructive tide of the current capitalist system will be turned back onto itself. It is for us to stand up and say something, get out and do something, sit down and write something to cause a pause in the consuming masses- even if just for a moment. New thoughts, and therefore, new possibilities must be proclaimed openly so that they may germinate and grow. It is time to recreate our world, even if only a section at a time, into a true global village; a place where we are willing to act within the genuine spirit of community, supporting each other and the planet we all share.

References

“Concentration of Media Ownership.” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. 2006. Wikimedia
Foundation, Inc. 6 May. 2006
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_of_media_ownership>.

Durning, Alan. How Much Is Enough? New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1992
Fowler, Jonathan. “Consumption of Resources Outstripping Planet's Ability to Cope.” 2004.
Associated Press. October 21. 2004 <http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1021-02.htm>.

Kelly, Marjorie. The Divine Right of Capital. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 2001
Korten, David C., The Post-Corporate World. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 1999
Macionis, John J. Society, the Basics. 7th ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, Inc., 2004
McDonough, William, Michael Braungart. Cradle to Cradle. New York: North Point Press, 2002
McLellan, David., ed. Karl Marx, Selected Writings. 2nd Edition Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2003

Packard, Vance. The Waste Makers. New York: David McKay, 1960, quoting Victor Lebow in Journal
of Retailing

Wright, Ronald. A Short History of Progress. Toronto: House of Anasi Press Inc., 2004

a pic from January

2006-05-18T19:57:00.000-07:00

Blog Revival

2006-05-18T19:52:00.000-07:00

I recently learned how to easily upload pictures onto my lil' blog page. can't believe I didn't see it before. anywho, this inspires me to do more with my blog now. so perhaps this will give some new life to this page of mine...one thing i want to do is publish my paper on capitalism and the environment. maybe i'll do that next.

sweet Brandon and myself

2006-05-18T13:49:00.000-07:00

a letter to my friends about last night's tornado

2006-04-14T08:45:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

Just sounding out a word that I am okay. we had several tornadoes go through IA City last night. actually, I was at the Java House alternately looking out at a funnel cloud a few blocks away and rushing to the back of the building away from the glass doorway and windows. at the same time, unknown to us at the Java House, another tornado was actually just a block behind us wreaking some havoc on College and Burlington sts. i know of at least a couple of shops that were destroyed, several roofs blown off, the tops of buildings being damaged around the Pedestrian Mall area, windows of a bank and of Starbucks being blown in, street signs poles being bent down to the ground, metal light poles being bent over, trees uprooted and so on. down on the other side of town another tornado hit maynards and wal-mart- some damage to their roofs, not sure how much. (of course, i was hoping for the utter and complete destruction of wal-mart if it was devoid of human occupacy) I live about 3 or 4 blocks from downtown(on the corner of Burlington and Dodge), but my house was fine although i was w/out electricity for the night. there was a car flipped over with a tree on top of it next the to the gas station a block away from my house. i should have a picture of that to send later.
of course, there was a mix of reaction, some people (remember it's a college town) finding it an occassion to party hard and make jokes about surviving the apocalypse. there was apparently some looting, but nothing too crazy. it was hardly a world gone wild, just a few stupid people taking advantage of the misfortunes of others. of course, there were throngs of people flooding the downtown to survey the damage and many people felt obligated to drive down to look even though street lights were blown over and traffic lights were either missing or not working. some post-chaos chaos.
there were people out drinking publically as they surveyed the damage. in the silence of my apartment- no electric white noise to block out the sounds, i could hear people partying and walking around til about 3am. an event is a reason to drink in a college town.

i'm sure there are many more details that i don't even know about. i am at work right now and people are comparing stories and noting what damaged occured around the town. from what i know, no one was killed and there were only a few hospitalizations. as i find out more, i will send out a follow up email. but considering the amount of tornadoes that were in the area, it is incredible that the city wasn't leveled.

much love to you all,
Kman

a random Tuesday in the time/space continuum

2006-03-14T09:11:00.000-08:00

well, hello.

so today is tuesday and this is the week of springbreak for all us collegate types. sadly, so sadly, i cannot afford to escape to cancun or wherever it is that all the wealthy, or credit card imbued college kids go. and i'm 38, so i really don't want to vacation in the same environment offered at a collegetown bar.
but i do miss the ocean. i wish i could travel and visit the ocean and hang out where the sun was just pouring over me and soaking me up while i did the same.
i don't feel like filling in the details of my life here. school, work, yada yada. it's all pretty much going pretty good. i am still in love w/ IA City and it loves me.

oh- i do want to say that i HEART sociology. it is fascinating to me. Weber, Durkheim and Marx- sister that is where it is at. and feminism. the whole cultural dynamics of our society, how we got here and what is creating all this suffering that we seem to slap brand names on and force down the throats of developing countries. capitalism. organic solidarity. Calvinism. the alienation of the proletariat. my brain is being turned on, all these dark areas of disconnection are being lit up. the more i understand why the world works the way it does, the better i can be of service to recreating a reality that promotes equality, peace and the preservation of life- the earth and all its worthy enhabitants. i don't know if we are going to make it, though. i know a big breakdown is on the way because the environment can't sustain capitalism- at least not in its current form. the current form of capitalism is like a virus. it infects its host and spreads, destroying its host and the environment the host occupies. why people insist on a deep sleep, i don't know. but i can continue to be a voice of love and alarm. Love Alarm. i like that.

Mr. Special Meets “The List”: A Review in Dating

2006-02-25T09:05:00.000-08:00

This from my Comp II class:

Starting up any kind of partnership can be difficult. New beginnings are not always swift to form and firm to hold. This is true of any joint association, whether it be business or pleasure, personal or professional. Romantic relationships are possibly the most tenuous bonds one can attempt to form, as so much unspoken expectation can easily drift in front of the observers’ lens, causing the participants to see what isn’t there. Even the most honestly communicated romantic encounters are still fraught with the distracting hope that something exciting, yet stable, will form. Expectations and hope are understandable, albeit clearly not enough to build a house on. But what if one sees the key ingredients available for making a solid start with someone, but that someone has an unwitting habit of impeding the solid start? Do you stick it out and hope (that word again) for the best? Do you have the right to ask the person to change? Dating at any age is difficult, especially for a queer man over the age of 30. In this review of my attempts to begin “something special” with a man we will refer to as “Mr. Special,” I will expose the difficulties and dangers that arise when putting romance before friendship.

Iowa City is not the easiest environment to meet someone romantically, unless you are between the ages of 18 and 22, as approximately half of the town’s population is comprised of college students. In that case, welcome! -it’s a fool’s paradise. If you are over the age of 25, finding someone that you feel “on the same level” with becomes challenging. Being over 30 or 40 years of age turns the challenge daunting to the point of despair. Oh, and let’s not forget to calculate in the “gay factor”. That reduces this reviewer’s chances of finding that certain someone another soul-crushing 90%, as statistically, only a reported 10% of the world’s population is gay.

Although I appreciate meeting someone who shares my same beliefs and values, I often find that it is not always enough. For me, it is also important to be with someone who shares a similar cultural history, memories that run in parallel during the same time continuum. Let’s take, for example, a major personal influence- growing up in the 80s.

Imagine you are on a date with a gentleman caller who is smart and funny but a youthful 22. And you, in this empathetic example, are a mature, but buoyant, 38. The two of you are driving down the road to some idyllic location, listening to the radio, gaily chatting away. An oldie-but-a-goodie Madonna song surfaces through the airwaves. “I love this song!” exclaims your enthusiastic companion. “Me too!” you eagerly confirm, and then naively continue, “Why, I was 21 when this song came out. I remember dancing to it at the clubs.” “Wow,” responds your date, looking at you like a prehistoric artifact gifted with the power of speech- “I was five.” Hand me my walking cane, please. For him, it’s a fun, retro tune. For you and me, it is a thread in the fabric of our history.

I don’t have to worry about this timeline discontinuity with Mr. Special. He is a delightful, earthy and practical 41, which matches my 38 ever so nicely. And yes, he’s gay. What good fortune! He is also smart and funny, those two key features that seem to come up in most anyone’s list of desirable mate qualities. Additionally, our values line up quite well: he is health-conscious, concerned about social justice and environmental issues, cherishes creativity, and doesn’t sleep around (at least, not that I’ve noticed). Furthermore, we share a vast pool of interests: creative writing; art; design; a love for cats, spiritual growth, and female vocalists; and a deep, abiding reverence for “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (which only seems ridiculous and small to those poor souls who are genetically disadvantaged in lacking the ability to appreciate the genius of writer/producer, Joss Whedon). And did I say smart? He is getting his PHD in religious studies. Few things are sexier to this reviewer than a man with a big brain size.

Even though we all have varying criteria in our dating/relationship standards, certain favored characteristics, beyond the generic “funny and smart” requirements, tend to re-appear over and over again, especially with the older dating crowd, into which I unmistakably fall. A brief list of these highly valued characteristics are as follows: good communication skills, sensitivity to the other person’s needs, financial self-sufficiency, similar interests and/or values, confidence, honest (always a popular essential), physically attractive (specifications may vary), and lastly, (almost too obvious to mention) availability- having real time to spend with the other person so that a relationship may be fostered and begin to grow. Although there are no guarantees, it seems logical that the aforementioned list is not only a lineup of desirable qualities, but also the fertile ground from which the sprouting buds of companionship may bloom.

Is it unfair to walk Mr. Special through The List and compare how he matches up without inviting his direct participation? Maybe, but it’s simply inevitable and cannot be avoided.

Confidence? Check: he made himself right at home when meeting my friends at our little artsy-fartsy collage party. Physically attractive? Check: When he arches his eyebrows above those clear blue eyes, I think of wolves racing through white snow; and he has calves that would be the envy of any lumberjack. Good communications skills? Well, he’s chatty, which is not the same as “good communications skills”. Does he ask me questions about my life? Is he saying what is really on his mind? Let’s get back to that one. Sensitivity to the other person’s needs? Um…It’s still too early for me to have expressed my “needs” as of yet- so possibly, time will tell. Honest? Check: I’ve only heard good things about him from mutual friends. Financially self-sufficient? Check, check, check: In addition to working on his PHD, he teaches at the University, gives yoga lessons at local fitness centers, and works at a restaurant- tallying up an amazing 60 hours of work a week. Mr. Special is working to pay off his debt so that he can easily move out of Iowa City when that time comes. This gives him extra bonus points for “responsible” and “industrious”, categories not even mentioned on the The List. However, it does run us directly into the last item: Real time to spend with the other person? BAM! A serious strike is blown against the convincing stack of checks as a major imbalance is revealed.

Quickly, let’s hop back to Mr. Special’s first category of question in The List: Good communication skills. It cannot be assumed that everyone has developed the same level of expertise in the art of conversation as, say, your charming reviewer. But I am aware of many people capable of what is known as follow up questions. Follow up questions look like this:

First question: Do you enjoy dancing?

Answer: Why, yes I do.

Follow up question: Really? Have you ever taken any dance classes?

Instead, what Mr. Special usually offers is his own answer to the question: I enjoy dancing, too. I use to dance all the time when… etc., etc. and off he goes. Is he nervous about keeping up the conversation? Did he ask the question just so he could answer it? Why doesn’t he want to know more about the person he is seemingly fond of? Doesn’t he realize that I’m incredibly interesting, rich with textures and layers? (Despite any self-indulgent tendencies?) When asking for clarification from another male friend who shares the same egregious communication trait, he offered that questions aren’t necessarily necessary. Information is gleaned, he elaborated, through the art of observation instead of the more obvious method of direct questioning. He assured me that it doesn’t equate to a lack of attention or care. Is this presumed “defect” forgivable? Probably. Different communication styles are one of those areas of compromise for which people have to be willing to make allowances should they be serious about making a relationship last.

Now, onto the more pressing question of time and availability. Workaholism has to be a sure way to kill any relationship dead. Patient and few (or maybe, desperate) are those willing to commit to a person who constantly places work commitments first, above all else. Another friend cautioned me about this, stating that Mr. Special’s current behavior can be seen as setting the tone for things to come. He warned that dating a workaholic (which Mr. Special has confessed to be) is not easy, and that workaholics are unlikely to change their ways. This brings us back to the “sensitivity to the needs of the other” item of The List. Admittedly, this new relationship is working in slow-mo (as rare as a miracle in gay culture), and I am happy for the difference in approach. However, is there any hope of bud finding bloom when the man who says he wants to spend time with you continues to leave the garden to go work in the factory? Even days off (to be exact, Valentine’s Day) are sacrificed in the name of paying off debts. It’s a noble goal that has distinctive draw backs. A wise friend pointed this out as the folly of “making a living rather than making a life.”

I cannot claim to be an expert in dating, and the very idea seems like a media-fueled attempt at pop-culture psychology. However, in my increasingly seasoned years of beating around the block, I have learned a thing or two about human relations. I will confess that I have abstained almost entirely from engaging in the rituals of modern-day courting- with its cauldron of commercially-driven mores. However, I have made enough mistakes in my modicum of experiences and witnessed the army of failures and the insurgent of successes in the lives of others to have an informed idea on what it takes to foster new love. One should avoid certain things: making demands without consultation, habitually acting on unexplored assumptions, seeing your potential new love through the fogged filter of expectations, and believing that any one person can be all things to you. Things one should embrace: be honest with yourself about what you feel, say what you feel without attacking the other person, be willing to compromise the small stuff, and be willing to take risks.

Acknowledging this fundamental understanding, it becomes clear that putting demands on Mr. Special is unwise; yet ignoring the root necessities of creating a relationship seems even more foolish. How do I proceed? Do I have the right to ask him to change? Do I acquiesce and savor the time he is able or willing to spare? Perhaps you’re wondering why I am willing to remain invested in an embryonic relationship when Mr. Special is so pre-occupied with everything other than me. One of main draws about being with Mr. Special, which I have not yet discussed, is that he enjoys me as I am. In the gay culture where the Cult of Masculinity is strong, it is refreshing to find a man that takes me as I am without making any subtle or overt requests for me to be less feminine, less off-beat, less me. In relatively little time I have spent with Mr. Special, one of the fundamental truths of life has become profoundly clear: I never have to be someone I’m not. Anyone petitioning for something different just doesn’t get it and can promptly move on.

Because of this, I can say that I am pleased to have met Mr. Special, regardless of the outcome. Even at the slow speed at which we are proceeding, my guess is that a genuine friendship is likely form, if nothing else. When I stop and think about the molasses miles I have traversed in other friendships, I find they compose the rich layers of our mutual history. I do not demand, nor wish, that the time spent with them conform to some pre-determined standard. In an environment where romantic possibilities are scarce and committed relationships are diamonds from coal, friends that are willing to walk as forgiving companions on the awkward journey of life may make the best partners of all- to which no list can compare. I cannot guarantee patience in forming this new bond with Mr. Special, but I can learn to honor the rate at which our relationship is growing. In its own season, it will find its truest bloom. As with any friendship- new or old, there may be difficulties. But nothing as difficult the grief caused from placing romance before friendship.

Ultimately~

2006-02-07T21:05:00.000-08:00

Journal 01 22 06:
cuz ultimately we are companions to each other in our journeys home.

Journal 01 26 06:
and I just don’t give credit for it cuz it’s my life and ultimately the judgment is that my life doesn’t count.

Journal 02 01 06:
so I may get knocked down a bit for that, but ultimately I don’t give a fuck.

02 04 06:
cuz, ultimately, I see him liking me and trying to get something to work.

Journal 02 06 06:
I say “ultimately” a lot. maybe I should go through all my journals and extract the sentences where I use “ultimately” and put them all on a blog page.

Journal 12 07 05:
or you know, ultimately the channel, because I feel that is what writing is in a lot of ways; having fun, being creative, and listening.

Journal 12 21 05:
you know, ultimately, she can’t and doesn’t hurt me.

Journal 12 25 05:
I know it ultimately has to do with a part of me that I have disowned and have claimed is “possessed”.

Journal 8 21 05:
I know, ultimately I have to use my own mind and judgment, and I will make mistakes- I won’t end up being perfect.

Journal 8 9 05:
and I do like my job, but ultimately there is that knowledge and frustration that it has nothing to do w/ my life’s work.

Journal 9 29 05:
ultimately it is probably fear.

Journal 9 07 05:
so whether anything ever comes of my affliction for Patrick ultimately is not for me to worry about.

Journal 9 5 05:
I am here to be a conduit of love, and ultimately, i have to submit to that calling.

Journal 01 22 06:
you know, it’s a short road, ultimately.

Journal 8 14 05:
ultimately , it is beyond my control and trying to control it takes me out of trust.

Journal 12 28 05:
Isn’t that what it is ultimately?

current life

2006-02-03T08:35:00.000-08:00

here at work, it's a slow day so the guilt (of not working) will be slow to build. and what do you want for pocket change per hour?

so life is continuing to break open when i submit. the moolah deal is still on the mend, but the student loan gave me room to breath- to eat, buy things i needed- oh the little luxuries when you are riding the poverty train.

i'm out looking for an additional part time job cuz this semester is not too diffiucult at all. and even if its, i gotta have more $$. it's just not open to debate.

i plan on starting a t-shirt biz a/ friends which i am very keen on. this is something that will feed my soul and hopefully pad my wallet- just a bit, enough to not struggle so.

i seem to have started seeing someone. which is cool and odd and good. we are going in super slow-mo so there is not rushing into what isn't there. which is good. and frustrating. but in the end, it's really how i want it to be. we'll see where it goes. it's nice to have someone who is intelligent and insightful and queer and cute pay me some mind.

for my single reader out there who does not leave his/her name, i may be closing this blog up and start posting on my Zaadz.com blog.

i've got some savvy things to say but the guilt themometer is raising and i best get to work.

alphabet in reverse

2006-01-16T12:00:00.000-08:00

the way gay boys run and hide
just when they flash a silver smile

students loans just saved my life
the goverment says take a sanctioned slice
we are eating your spirit
we are eating your soul
go find your place while we dig your
sanctioned hole

a bridge builds just beneath my feet
the past promises to stay behind
the present says i'm your best friend
the future says the alphabet in reverse

there's a blender in my belly
and words that struggle to the top
a censor in my psyche
a thought cop, thought stopped

the way gay boys run and hide
just when they flash a red-toothed smile
they always promise desire
fenced with chicken wire

a bridge builds beneath my feet
illuminated within the night
my legs are growing longer
as my feet are sewing songs

all along, all along
the future says the alphabet in reverse

down

2006-01-04T10:41:00.000-08:00

feeling incredibly depressed today. and the green tea isn't helping as it usually does.
i am so fucking financially decimated. i am remembering the tao thing- what is the solution? there is no solution as there is no problem- that i am here and even though it appears my life is filled with sharp sticks, i'm actually okay. can't quite make it stick. it's one of my faults that i can't stay in the moment.

i keep comparing myself to others and wonder how they do it- how do they maintain their lives on little income or what is that they do to turn the tide. my only solution is to work more hours which makes the rest of my life incredibly stressful in other ways. work/school/work/school, etc. and i should expect that, that should be my life right now, just bare down and take it. but i have a hard time just pushing myself that way. guess it's time to get over it and suck it up. working more will provide mild relief to my current situation, but mild relief is better than none.

i want to jump in the river with cement blocks on my feet. the ophelia ballet.

Follow Your Bliss And The Golden Ass Monkeys Will Follow: a pauper reflects on the holiday ritual

2005-12-24T08:40:00.000-08:00

(from this morning's journal)

24 hours til doomsday and counting.

(regarding xmas presents for the family)
so I have had to concede to make one collage for all. the individual collage thing just wasn’t going to work out. it was a nice idea, but not in, like, 48 hours. that wasn’t going to work. so one color collage that is photocopied 9 times. and then I will buy some treats at the coop and that will have to be good enough this year. part of me feels bad, the other part of me is aware that everyone in my family has more than enough crap and this is a holiday designed to make poor people feel shitty about themselves. it’s only working in part. I wish I could go have fun supporting our capitalistic society and endorse this contrived holiday ritual, but oh well. life goes on.

so I am bummed about the xmas thing. it’s embarrassing being broke. but I am so broke that I had to forward $ from my credit card in order to get gas to be able to see the family and friends. so, that’s fairly sucky. but it’s one Christmas, and again, everyone has plenty of shit. none of them are suffering financially. none of them are rich by any means either, but they have enough. wonder if I’ll ever be rich. wouldn’t that be cool? always thought I would be. now I don’t know. it’s not so much a goal as an expectation. like, do what you love and the money follows. that is really kind of a fucked up statement. it leaves a lot of detail out. do what you love and find a way to support yourself until the money follows. do what you love and the money follows, but when is another story. do what you love and run like hell to get funding so the money can follow. I really kind of wanna smack the person who coined that phrase. I loved working with Medusa Project, the money didn’t follow. I loved acting my solo pieces, the money didn’t follow. I loved working on the film project, the money didn’t follow. now I’m learning how to do what I want to do with consistency and not on the side. was that one of the stipulations that isn’t in that short and simple expression? do what you love all the time whenever you’re not at your day job for 5 years and the money will follow. anyway, my life has never been a faerie tale dream come true. I’ve had startling synchronicity before, and actually count on it in some ways, but that hidden dam blocking my good fortune has yet to burst, sweeping me into the land of magical treasures.

sissies

2005-12-19T12:21:00.000-08:00

so last night, as i was unpacking the last- well, almost the last of my stuff into my new apartment, i was listening to an earlier NPR recording from this summer's This American Life- (thisamericanlife.org). the topic for conversation was "sissies".
i have been called a sissy in my life and far worse- or more degrading, at least. Dan Savage(/www.thestranger.com) was one of the guest- um- hosts? -people chatting up the topic- and he had such a refreshing take on the subject. from what he could see, it takes a lot of courage to be a sissy- to be able to be exactly who you are regardless of how feminine or flambouyant (that word) you may be. it is, in fact, the men who are so afraid of being anything less than socially acceptable(masculine, and worse- "straight acting") that are truly the ones who need to grow up and be real men. if sissies scare you, make you feel uncomfortable, isn't that a story about your own insecurity?

yes, let's talk about "straight acting" for a while. there is a whole sermon that could be preached on this. i have struggled and still struggle with coming to terms with my own androgony and the blessing of having an easy time slipping into the perspective of either gender. the feminine was always the easier of the two for reasons that i won't analyze here. so i know what it is to be the outcast and the socially unexcepted. and now in the current queer cult of masculinity, it seems so tragic that heterosexual gender roles are the goals for gays. i always felt that as an outcast, it was my job to teach the hiearchy to which i am subject, to learn how to see me and the rest of the world through eyes of compassion. it is not my job to change my behavior to meet the demands of an intolerant world, but rather to hold my ground, perhaps like the strong sissy i am, and not back away from what i know love can teach. the men who chase the masculine fantasy are truly the ones who need help in coming to grips with reality.

so Dan Savage was such a delight to listen to. he called up people who had placed personal adds and asked them what they meant by "fem" and "straight-acting". he did a great job at slicing into the fear which motivates fags to cloak themselves as indistinguishable from their hetero counterparts. it made me think about my own fear, my own desire to be more masculine and less feminine- this struggle that is based in fear and self-hate. the middle path, the path of androgony, is mine. and until i can accept my place in this world, how can i ask anyone else to do the same? no one has the power to make my world "safer" for me. no one can forgive me for being a fag. it is this shame that so many of us carry which takes us away from ourselves and into the world of elusive images that hold no real weight once their cover is peeled off.

through the ice and snow

2005-12-19T12:12:00.000-08:00

And hello.
it's monday and i'm at work, stuck at the receptionist desk. eating popcorn and chocolate cake for lunch. looking up updates on xmen III and Brandon Routh's bulge.

even though it's damn cold out, i find that i am not minding winter so much this year. previously, when i lived in Omaha, winter felt so oppressive and depressing. fighting through the cold, having days end abruptly at 5pm, wanting to hibernate until spring cracked the endless expanse of white..but in Iowa City, winter feels different. the cold can still be painful and oppressive, but it doesn't have the same weight that it did in Omaha. instead, everything feels cozy somehow. this feeling of coziness, i'm sure, is accentuated by my cozy new apartment- an efficiency/studio just a few blocks from downtown. but it also has to do with the energy of Iowa City. it can be next to zero out, and people are still jogging, walking down to the coffee shop, hanging out waiting for the bus. winter doesn't feel like an adversary here, as much as a change of clothes. driving to work today, in zero weather, singing in frozen falsetto about the cold, i marveled at how i embraced this painful lack of any life-giving warmth. there's something about Iowa City that embraces me, supports me and gives me safe space. others have commented on this, too. the snow makes the world much more immediate in a way. i have to really want to go somewhere, or really need to go somewhere in order to make an outing. but even if i need to go downtown, it's a 10 minute walk from where i live. if i bundle up enough, it's absolutely bearable even in this week's arctic front. i know that i am loved here, and not just by my assortment of fabulous friends. the city, the energy of the city itself has embraced me, said "yes" to me. like cinderella slipping into her slipper, there is something so right here. life is saying yes to me- and i am responding, letting old habits come to the surface so they can be shed. it's exciting and humbling. knowing that i am loved is healing my soul. it is making room for more life and less pain- that senseless pain that comes out of habit, not uncovering hurt.
i'm still feel sad at times, about being such a late bloomer in life. but the fact is that i am blooming. and don't get me wrong, i'm not all buds and bloom- but damn, mostly. mostly i am. nothing wrong with being happy. don't really have to apologize for it.

money and monday

2005-11-28T07:22:00.000-08:00

Here at work again. Stewing about what to do w/ my finances or what my finances are doing with me.
Thanksgiving is over, and the break was nice. Got a few things unloaded into the new apartment. The apartment is close to downtown- a little too close and I am certain I will encounter more than one drunk college kidding yelling outside my window in the coming months. But other than that, I am pleased that i will be living alone and pleased that I am close enough to so much that outside of work, driving will be a minimal expense. However, I just don't know how I am going to do all that I need to do. In the new place, I will not have a TV and I may not even have internet access- which will be difficult for school; however, my point being no TV means better living. I will be much more likely to get things that matter to me done. School work will be done more quickly simply out of having so little to distract myself with. I'll work more industriously on the play I've been slowing building over the last couple of years. And I'll have more time to put into a job.
Of course, there is something up with my car. My friend's husband is going to look at it, but I don't quite know when. Worse case scenario is that I sell the car because I can't afford to fix it. The good with the bad is that I could use that money to pay for next semester's school since I don't know that type of loans are avaiable at this late date in the game. I've not done well with the school business at all- I needed to hit up these critical things like loans and grants much more aggressively than I have. The habit of falling into denial about my responsibilities is taking big ass bites right now. So these old ways of being will have to fade out and a more assertive self must emerge. I simply don't have a choice. Life is scarier when you avoid it- things just build up.
I keep thinking there must be some sort of crafty way to make money a reality in my life. Make and sell collages(assuming someone would want to buy them), have a website about my oh-so exciting life and hey, who doesn't want to support a burgeoning experimental theatre director whose passion entails building community between artists and community. by god, i'm here for the people! so yeah, that and all the other challenges i've had to face- it does make an interesting story, I'm just wondering how to craft it so that i people feel inspired to lend financial aid. I am not beyond pity.

Hiidee Hooo

2005-11-23T14:15:00.000-08:00

So today is Wednesday, November 23- the day before Thanksgiving. Sweet Brandon is coming to visit me over the holiday which will be a joy. I am moving, god almight, AGAIN- the 3rd time in 6 months. This is an efficiency apartment near downtown. I'm rather excited about it. No roommates to contend with- no one's wife coming back to reclaim the house, no one putting a kennel of dogs next to my bedroom- just the traffic outside and the sweetness of being single.

So I could be doing work or homework right now, but I'll deal a deck of guilt and enjoy pushing off those responsiblities for a later time.

Peter Gabriel is singing in my ear- Games without Frontiers, War without Tears- the Massive Attack Remix.

Odd you know, these humans and the ways they do or do not communicate. What I find so often is that people are not willing to claim responsiblities for their actions. They are much more content to blame someone else- deflect, deny. Bush is such a role model for that. No wonder I can act like a complete jackass, harm myself, then sue someone else for the accident. When someone tries to honestly communicate with you- it is best to be willing to own up to your shit. If you don't then you can't really count on having legitmate relationships. They will always be echoes of what could be, and never the reality of connection. Humble yourself, own what is yours. It will do wonders. It is how little wooden boys become flesh, and velveteen bunnies find their back legs. Yes, it is hard to eat humbel pie, but it makes you strong. It turns phantoms into real live people. It makes one strong. Being able to fight and being able to claim your ground with integrity are two completely different things.

I wish that people flooded to my blog to read it. Wish they cared about what I wrote and what I said. The desire for celebrity, for love- fame. It is all based on falsehood, I know- on unresolved abandoment issues- but it still sounds like fun. Virtual fame in virtual reality.

But I'm typing for a party of one- both musician and dancer. Here I am, spilling my sounds over the dance floor. Join me, won't you?

Kpersona Out.

September 9, 2005

2005-09-09T14:09:00.000-07:00

Update- just in case someone actually is checking out this blog and no, I’m not turning blue holding my breath…

So things have gone south with the current roommate- some distinctive control, trust and communication issues that I won’t get dicey about here. So I have found a new place off of Mormon Trek with this really great guy named TJ. He has a little toddler-son named Cameron. TJ is very nice, laid back, easy going and open to me, my queerness, and just my spirit in general. What a relief! I feel very welcome in his home and in his space. His son is very sweet and they have a great relationship- so it will be a pleasure to come home to this happy little family.

I’m going to have to hit hard the medical assistance for glaucoma. I don’t have insurance and trying to get money for assistance will take some super resilience and the patience of which I have not previously known. I have 16 units of school and two part time jobs, so finding time to address it is a bit of a challenge, but I am also aware that I resist diving in because it will be a struggle in general. And then there is the denial- not wanting to think about the glaucoma, although I do all the time. The Dr. diagnosed me with what is referred to as “normal tension glaucoma” or NTG. From the little research I have done, I understand this to be what is called a “wastepaper basket” diagnosis. Meaning, it covers a wide array of possible types of glaucoma without being specific. I also read that there are over 40 types of glaucoma. So I have a good deal of confusion in regards to what type of glaucoma I have specifically, and what I can and should be doing to aid myself in not losing any more optic nerves. I can’t afford to lose anymore. Doing so will continue to affect my vision- the subtle loss of it. That scares me.

School is going well. French has just recently become something I am embracing. It has been more of a struggle than I anticipated. And I’m not very keen on how the information is being taught- it feels sort of all over the road to me, but I know I have to be that much more dedicated.
Hate math, but love the teacher. Very good, funny man. Dry sense of humour, and good hearted.
Biology is fine, pretty easy- it’s for non-majors. Feels a bit spoon fed, but I’m not complaining as I already have plenty of challenges on my plate.
Voice I dig, and I dig the teacher. I’ve really got a good deal of training to go but of course this is why I’m taking the class. I’m also realizing that the process is my humbling point. I can learn in layers, take some of the perfectionist drive down a few notches. It is okay to be in process, it is good to take steps versus being upset I wasn’t born with wings.
Love literature class. The teacher is fun and has a great personality. This class will be pretty easy as well, but very enjoyable. Finally learning some authors and their styles.

I’m at work right now. I’ve run out of projects to work on and it’s a Friday, so I don’t feel to compelled to hunt down some new task before clocking out. Work is fine, but man would the insurance be a good, good thing. Back to the challenge of fending for myself and figuring out how to enlist the help of resources I’m not familiar with. But mostly friends have been very loving and supportive. I’ve got some beautiful peeps in my world. And my world truly is beautiful.
I’m hearing Cheney went down to New Orleans and guess who’s company got contracted the clean up job. It must be great to have friends in some of the highest places in the world possible. This tragedy is unfathomable, yet people line up to make a buck without a second thought. Others continue to evolve forward in love and compassion.

thoughts: august 12

2005-08-12T07:07:00.000-07:00

i'm at work, sneaking in blog thoughts.

have to remember i'm not performing in this space. i'm really just walking around in my underwear. and just like anything else, some people care, some people don't, some people wish i'd put my proverbial pants back on and get on with the day.

hungry. went jogging and didn't have breakfast, but we're having a potluck at work today so i plan on sneaking food when i can.

so anyways. wednesday, this coming, i will go to the dr.s and take this test for my eyes to check my eye pressure. actually it's the same test done every three hours from 10am to 10pm, then again at 7am on the next day, thurdsay. my friends, whoever is reading this, it is likely that the glaucoma is actually symptoms of something else. what exactly, is yet to be determined. but they apparently feel comfortable to not rush me in for examinations to determine what exactly is going on in my head- organ-wise. i wonder how much that has to do w/ not having insurance. but i just go forward w/ each day as is, not fretting too much, cuz it won't do much good. but i'm also preparing for the worst.

i'm so hungry right now, i can't think about much else til i get some food in my belly. maybe i'll come back to this later.

chow mein,
Kman

update fo' ya'll. word.

2005-08-04T11:19:00.000-07:00

I no longer live in Coralville, but now live in IA City proper. My roommate/landlord is very nice, a lesbian, manages the print production department for the local news paper, smokes (Aaaahhhh!), has a tail-less cat who is incredibly shy (I have yet to learn if the shyness is connected to the unknown incident leading to the de-tailing) and has a huge side yard and/or small park. I live a mere 10 minute walk from school at Kirkwood Community College where I will be completing my gen ed for the next year, before going to UI for my BA.

It has been determined that I have glaucoma and will see the specialist w/in the next week to determine treatment. Freaked out (oh so freaked out), but slowly coming to terms.

I have an amazing gaggle of friends who love me and aren't afraid to say/show/express it.

I no longer work for Dillard’s (YEA!!), and now work as a project assistant for Compleware Corporation which, to briefly describe it, creates software programs for pharmaceutical companies. You can check it out at CompleWare.com. Project assistant means helping out w/ whatever area needs tending to: taking notes, answering the phones, doing inventory, helping with this, organizing that, etc. etc. I like it and the work environment I am in. Much, much better than Dillard’s and the glory of selling women’s shoes. I have my own desk area and computer, I can check emails and sneak in updates like this one on my blog. Nice. Quality.

I have rediscovered my love for videography, tight pants and Kathy Griffin.

I have been making little collages from my pics photocopied from my notebooks, magazines and whatever else is handy. Kind of like the little collages I did for the art show “Shrink” back in Medusa Project days.

Zen did not die for my sins and Jesus was mostly crabby and demanding in real life.

I am deeply in love with Iowa City and continue to sing its praises on a regular basis. The people here are amazing.

When school starts, I will be taking Elementary French, Literature, Biology for non-majors, Voice (singing), and Survey of Math (designed for those of us numerically impaired students). I look forward to learning French and dread having to go back to math after years away from it. Voice is scary, but so important to me.

I have a coffee date sometime this Saturday with a cute boy named Christopher. He is gay and single (imagine!), -and I’m hoping over 22.

I have shaved most of my head which reveals a huge scar on the back of my head which I like to attribute to alien transplants or gang related activity from my brazen youth.

I still haven’t found a therapist, but will start pursuing this necessity w/ a renewed vigor once my boxes are unpacked and can focus better on a routine.

I have been jogging on a regular basis (twice a week) and haven’t had a cigarette in over 5 months at least.

Okay, that’s that. You can check my new do on tribe.net. Put “Katranon” or merlandverse@yahoo.com in the search field and you can find my profile.

Much love,
Kman

the guiding stone

2005-07-08T22:06:00.000-07:00

so..you know. this summer. i think that if we stopped to look at our lives througout the entirety of the journey, each part would be so odd and fascinating in complexity- it becomes fascinating or at least intriguing. amusing, maybe? heartbreaking, perhaps depending.

so currently, my world continues to remain in a good deal of flux. -job, home- where and when. this isn't bad- only unsettling to the mind that wishes to control. and it is Normal to wish to know what is what and when is when. underneath the flesh, inside the flesh of the body- the life, there seems to be a stone. a solid stone that knows. it knows that the world is still turning and that the path i follow is not fallow. it pulses to a path that my waking mind believes to be in jeopardy, or even peril. but really, this stone inside my flesh, more acurately, inside my life, just knows. it doesn't panic. it follows the path and all the drama i place on top of it and around it, is simply my lesson- or perhaps just a choice. lesson or no lesson, it doesn't matter. it IS what i am prone to do- trained or otherwise. the joy of rage, the high of panic. addiction to emotions that have, really, such a limited, narrow run. but trust- how much more the challenge when it doesn't offer the adrenal rush.

and really, i don't want to condemn these "lower" emotions. emotions based on limited perception that are completely understandable and natural-"natural" in some definition relating to a world fed on disconnection. i want to offer mercy to myself- and others, for this limited range of movement. when you don't see the food on your plate, it is natural to fear starvation. and some people have that as a reality- not an easy, simple metaphor. but in my case, it doesn't mean death. it means movement. i live in the land of plenty. my pre-occupation with drama and suffering perpetuates it as a reality. it is the movie i play in my head, then throw onto the screen in front of me. when i see my world collapsing around me, the responsibility to adapt falls back into my lap. and for me, this reality has to do with going back into the stone- the part of me that is not fretting, is not in alarm. that knows i am being pulled to something beyond my limitations and a part of my soul. i can indulge the rage and pain until it becomes pointless or too much, but that part of me - the stone of certainty, propels me forward. it is a wisdom beyond my own. eventually, someday, it will be a wisdom where i live. in this lifetime or the next.

Kman

in the garden

2005-06-28T23:13:00.000-07:00

wish i would have submitted more in this blog during the month- but then i wish a lot of things, don't i? why, yes i do.
june has been a trip. an emotional dunk tank game. everytime i want too much, bullseye! and i'm deep in the water. i've fucked up more than one job interview (i'm sure) by wanting the job too much- losing myself in my words- in my performance of myself. instead of knowing who i am, i silently asked, "who do you want me to be?" there's a surefire road to hell.
i have been trying to leave my current job (selling women's shoes at Dillard's- say no more) while cutting back the hours i normally work and using funds from taxes and what not to subsidize my lack of income. it is true that this provided me more time to myself, but a nice deal of that time was spent fretting over my next move and how i was going about it. this month was a lesson in just how mean i am to myself. how i fight myself, beat myself up, verbally and emotionally brutalize myself. the summer of zen has showed me just how little i actually know about granting myself grace and space- as well as much needed discipline and structure. and those seem to be warring factions within myself, when really they could be comrades. but this is where the self-parenting comes in and this is where i'm still quite green. mother of grace, father of practicality. and giving myself enough room and credit to be the man who makes my decisions and trusts myself to take care of myself, and shift and change when needed. the love that i offer my friends can be the same love i offer myself.
i thought about this while jogging tonite. in my mind, i was thinking of a young new friend i've met and made recently. i was seeing him all broken up, feeling like a failure for whatever reason. i held my hands out to him and took his within mine. i started beaming love into him and telling him that he was beautiful beyond his comprehension. this love started to heal him. then i realized that this is what i have been trying and wanting to offer myself. that type of compassion that doesn't give up, sees all the good and the glory of the person before me. sins washed away in the pure understanding of love. so i let myself have a little of that as i walked after the jog. i practiced not being just the giver, but the reciever of grace, love, understanding. the vision that sees the God within the other person, and by seeing it draws it out. giving myself that sort of compassion creates the opportunity for healing.
keeping with my analogy of the garden that i've been entertaining previously, i thought about how doubt is a like a parasite feeding off the life force i offer and contain. and that it is not only my job to plant the seeds, but also to weed out that deadly toxic weed- comparison. when i compare my life to anyone else's, i wither. and its true, i do. i can feel the toxin pump through me and i turn jealous of the other person and hateful of myself. what kind of garden is that? it is also my job to be feed the garden love and faith. faith, rather than hope- which is always open ended and lacks confidence. and as the seed, it is my job to recieve love and faith- let myself know the love that i plant so freely in the garden of my friends. i have this gift to give, but i must also give it to myself. i am the life i am nurturing. my job, ultimately, is to say "yes" as often as possible.

the centering sun

2005-06-08T23:10:00.000-07:00

so i've been looking through some of the fairie profiles on tribe.net- in the Radical Faerie tribe. envy. that is what i have with me now. and i have been talking backwards, trying to find my way out of it- rearranging the words that say "better, more alive, beautiful, successful" so that i am not condemned by what i do not have. tricky. it's tricky. this game of comparison is toxic and built on non-reality, yet it feels so real. this is my life- one shot. regardless of any ideas about re-incarnation, i will only be Katarah once. it is so much easier on me, my soul, to look at what i have- all of it, and rejoice, not base my perceptions on what is not in my grasp. how do i admire another man's beauty and success without feeling so hollow and useless? why is another's beauty a comment on my own? why is another man's success a light against my failures? i feel like such a late bloomer in so many ways, and in so many ways i am. but still, i AM blooming. and the fruits are beautiful. am i not the gardner? does the gardener go about thrashing his garden because it is does not look like his/her neighbor's? nothing can really grow with that type of contempt, that type of abandonment. the challenge of finding how to allow a place for myself with out condemnation continues. practice, practice, practice. i am beautiful. let the rain fall and i will sing in the sun. see the blooms and encourage them, don't hold them to a standard that does not apply or that is not relevant. that isn't love- that's fear. and love is the centering sun.

summer of surrender

2005-06-07T22:26:00.000-07:00

Happiness is an emotional habit
habit habit habit habit
A little luck, a bit of discipline and you can have it
have it have it have it have it
-the TomTom Club

this summer is about surrender. it is about giving up the fight and listening. mostly i fight myself. i fight love, i fight acceptance and i fight peace. i fight God- this sound that waves over my existance like a hand gently rocking a crying babe in its craddle. i see how this disease of perfection infects my every waking thought. it takes a strong push for me to step back and realize i have no one to please- that there is no other shoe waiting to drop. i have spent so much of my life living outside myself. i have poured myself out for the love and compassion of others, disguising myself as sage, as friend, as lover- all in the name of finding a safe space(living in the accepting space of others, rather than owning my own) in a world that can be so jagged. but now, the discipline of love asks that i be enough. that i stop stretching out and stand still to receive the world that is around me. so long i have been unhappy. so long i have believed that i wasn't enough. that belief continues to crumble. i see that i am all i have, and that this is not lonely- it is only truth. it is time to make a deeper peace within myself. embrace myself as comrade, not obstacle. no more twisting and turning into shapes that others find pleasing. i am all that i have. i am a self contained package. there is no sorrow in this. there is only freedom. i believed in the desolation. but despite old habits, buds of green break thru the debris. i find myself unexpectedly happy- "wasn't i down just a minute ago? where did this giddy feeling come from?" i can only surmise truth is bubbling to the top through my habits of sorrow and defense. and to this i surrender. to God i surrender. to love i surrender. perfection is a disease that chases me around a room with barred windows. how do i stop the judgements? practice. trust. faith. wiggling one finger at a time until a whole hand is free, then an arm, then my torso- the tricks of freedom. the mystery of love.

meeting May's end

2005-05-26T22:31:00.000-07:00

i haven't posted for a while and i feel that i need to touch in- for my own peace of mind, if not for the precious few who pick up my words in passing.
so its the end of May. the month has been sweet with slowing down, reading for personal gain, and talking walks in the beauty the season has to offer. i can feel myself calming down and opening up- starting to trust more. life, the life all around me is extending its essence which is the continuous flow of harmony and re-creation -from creator to spirit. it's this conversation that takes place silently, that i am starting to tap into. trees don't grow in a panic. grass doesn't flop over after eight hours of daylight in exhaustion and flip on the tv. there is this natural conversation about what is coming and what has been that fills the moment of the present if we only stop racing, hurdling toward the next goal, and listen. the goal, i think, IS to listen- to slow down long enough to know that we are loved and that in being loved, we are offered grace- not a deadline.
something about Iowa City is offering me long awaited growth. its not just the education that my brain has been craving, but it is an energy here of possibility and of new beginnings. it is okay to jump off into space here and see where i land. it is a safe haven for exploration and letting go. so much support, so many beautiful, loving people- all of them saying "go! go! go!" in the most honest and earnest way. they not only see my wings, but breath wind into their outstretched inspiration, offering new possibilities to dreams now unburied. it's love, really. that's what Iowa City is giving me- love.

sweetest dreaming,
Kman

"parables from other planets"

2005-05-09T22:22:00.000-07:00

this is an excerpt from the book with the title above written by Gail and Hugh Prather:

Your treasured opinions never made anyone happy.

PLANET: Sauv (10)

TRANSLATION: The primary industry on Sauv (10) is the codification of all mortal knowledge. Their encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other reference books are widely used in several galaxies. The long-term effect of this ocupatoin on the Savits themselves has been to develop a deep neutrality regarding all intellectual issues. "Facts are fashion," they say. And when someone is overheard insisting doggedly on his or her point of view, the typical Sauvit retort is, "About even this, you will change your mind."

MEANING: You cannot insist on being right and at the same moment extend the gift of love. The only punishable crime on Sauv (10) is narrow-mindedness, the penalty for which is to be a foster parent to a two-year-old and a parrot. The parrot is trained to say "I'm right" in a firm but cheeful voice forty-eight times a day., and the two-year-old is not trained to, but nevertheless does, say "No" in a firm but uncheerful voice to all attempts at communication. Despite their apparent skepticism regarding opinions, knowledge, and facts, Sauvits have cultivated an unreasonable love for all living things. Language is used carefully, not to achieve accuracy but to achieve compassion. Or, as the Sauvits themselves would put it: An unloving question has no answer.

Lunar Shade Press

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A gown made of the finest woolWhich from our pretty lambs we pull;Fair lined slippers for the cold,With buckles of the purest gold;

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Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant poises,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;