Blue Moon Easter

Over at Jonestown, Fairlane wrote this brilliant post, "Shut The Door on Your Way Out and Don't Forget To Turn Off the Lights". The central theme of this post is when one says enough; enough to tyranny, enough to stupidity, enough to anything that is antithetical to human existence. It's what inspired me to publish this piece, where I finally get got my Ass back in out of Church. Here's my story Fairlane. I said enough and never went to church again....

Blue Moon Easter

There's always a cloud of doubt
Floating 'bove us
In church every Sunday.
Why else the need
For so much re-affirmation?

But on this Easter Sunday
This once-in-a-blue-moon day,
In my particular church,
The smell of deceit
Wafts rancid.

APEX worshippers come in droves
This Blue Moon Easter
To hedge their bets
Because heaven forbid
They're wrong about God.

It's a communion of people
So a common spirit lives
In this uneasy gathering;
Even if only to lather and blather
about rejecting earthly sin.

Ah, but a devil lies in wait
It takes the immutable form
Of our deep-seeded hate
Of having having to do this over and again
For four more hours a year.

Who has the time?
It's work for sure,
Which robs their spirits
Of everyday debauchery
on this APEX holiday.

But it's really having to face
The ills and evils
The brim and boil
'Neath their floral bonnets
And their fine linen suits.

Within this Jesus-house of tinted glass
Many stones are tossed
With wreckful abandon at
The nebulous reflections of
Their unlikeable selves.

And after the stones bounce back
Off the plexified windows
And lacerate their material forms,
They all exit happily, extolling
The salvation of their souls.

Please, open the doors.
Air me out of the hall
That's filled with choking smoke
Coming from all those altered
Candles and mouths.

For on this reverent day,
This Blue moon Easter Sunday,
In my church,
The stench of the mass
Is killing me.

Beautiful Ruin

Take a hammer
To my brittle heart
And loose the sludge
Of my discontent

Or violently shake me
And let the awful rubble
Fall where it may
To reveal the beautiful ruin

I stand before you naked
At the precipice of fear
A statue to propriety
Weather worn by experience

One push is all is needed
One shove into the abyss
One sledge hammer to my soul
The foundation of my weakness

And there I'd fall
Pieces of me scattered
About, as fractured basalt
And flat igneous shale

Some leave me running
in full-bore sprint
But you my dear lover
Stay, to sift through the shambles

For there are stories
In this beautiful ruin
Tales of love to requite
With your color-palette words

Tell mine to the world
And leave me where I've crumbled
Then return alone
To rest upon my dust

A View of Jena Through a Different Lense

I've had quite a few heroes in this life. Fortunately, for me, I've never had to look very far to find them. As the youngest of the six sons born to my parents, I had several right in my own home. Sometimes the object of my hero worship was my brother Joe.

He's the handsome devil way on the far right of this 1965 photo (I'm the baby on the far left). Joe is every bit as mischievous as his smile suggests. Some things never change.

But he's also a great guy. A friend of many. An enemy to few. He's my brother. He's done so much for me in this lifetime, I can write a book, so I'll limit my anecdotal example to just one; it's reason why I was riding home in his minivan this past Friday night.

In 1980, Joe taught me how to play the chorus of "Fade Away" by Bruce Springsteen on guitar -- C, G, and D. "That all you need to know for for now," he said to me. "Practice them and figure out the rest on your own."

It's 27 years later and I'm still playing those same three chords along with a bunch of others that I figured out on my own. But I didn't play them this Friday night. We just weren't into it, so he decided to drive me back to Lindenhurst, so we could talk politics, listen to some tunes, and enjoy some hierba.

We talked about how much happier I've been since I've started writing again; how blogging has provided me with a new outlet for my verbal diarrhea; how I like to use personal anecdotes to make observations about the wider world around me. He knows most of my stories. Shit, he's the protagonist of several yet to be written here. There's nothing new I could tell him.

We also talked about what happened in Jena. La. He knew the story well and even made a point about the noose incident being a prank, as if it were some harmless, meaningless act. He laughed, "The white kid got his ass kicked. How's that harmless?"

I knew what he meant. The kids that hung the noose weren't playing a prank, they were looking for trouble. And as our our Dad taught us about coping on the streets of Manhattan, there were a few rules that should not be broken. Rule number one, if you look for trouble, trouble will find you. Number two, if trouble finds you anyway, either talk your way out of it, run, or, as a last resort, fight. Rule number three, troublemakers hate people with friends.

As we recalled the rules, he told me a story about how they saved him from a certain beating when he was a freshman at Aviation H.S. Back in 1971, when someone said "I'll see you after school", it usually meant a date with an ass-whipping underneath the number 7 train el that ran along Queens Blvd. His date with destiny was with a junior who was shaking down freshmen for lunch money. Joe had managed to stay under the radar for a good part of the first semester, but his luck had finally ran out, when the bully tapped him on the shoulder, one fateful 5th period.

Joe told the bully that all he had in his pocket was 37 cents. The bully became enraged and demanded Joe's school ID, which could also be used to buy reduced fee lunch. Joe refused and called over a teacher for protection. The bully was hauled out of the cafeteria, but not before delivering the dreaded, "I'll meet you after school" line. My brother was frightened. In fact, he was "touching cotton" as the expression goes for someone who was shitting their pants in fear.

As he was walking out of the cafeteria, he ran into Wilfredo, a senior he knew from our neighborhood in Manhattan. Joe had known him since his CYO basketball days at Our Lady of Sorrows. Wilfredo was now on the Aviation H.S. basketball team and had been trying to recruit Joe to play with him. He sensed something was wrong with my brother, and listened with great empathy and concern as Joe tearily opened up about his ordeal.

"Don't worry about a thing, bro." Wilfredo said, "I'll take care of this. When you fuck with one brother from around the way, you fuck with all of us." Wilfredo told Joe to catch his train home as he normally does and that he has nothing to fear.

When school day ended, Joe did exactly what Wilfredo told to. Sure enough there was the bully and a few friends waiting under the el. Joe was touching cotton again. As the bully started to approach him in a threatening manner, Wilfredo emerged from out of nowhere with a few of his basketball teammates.

Wilfredo: Hey Joe! Whas happenin my brutha!!!! (Slaps him five.) Whas going on!

Bully: Stay out of this, man. This is between me and the rookie (what freshman were called at Aviation). This has nothing to do with you.

Wil: Yo, it is my business. You think I'm gonna let you fuck with my homeboy here?

Bully: Stay out this!

Wil: (Getting in the bully's face) And if I don't?

At this point, Wilfredo had motioned for Joe to catch a train home. As he was walking up the station steps, he could see that Wilfredo and his friends had started to beat the snot out of Joe's bullies.

It was a beating not unlike the one meted out in Jena, La. The bullies got their asses kicked but no one landed in a hospital. There were no arrests or lawsuits. There were no suspensions, in-school suspensions, or prosecutors threatening "I can make your life disappear." You see, back in those days, the ass kicking would have ended it.

Like my brother's bullies had done in 1971, those white kids who hung the nooses had broken the first cardinal rule of the street -- if you look for trouble, it will find you. They knew that those nooses would cause a stir, but what they hadn't counted on was one of them ultimately getting their asses kicked for it. Problem solved back then, not so now.

In our day, you didn't look for trouble because it was always lurking and took little effort to find. If you had the misfortune of finding trouble, you did what you can to get out of it -- talk to clear a misunderstanding; run, if you knew the talking wouldn't work; fight, if you had nowhere to run. Finally, you made as many friends as you can in our neighborhood because there was always safety in numbers.

It may seem like I'm condoning mob violence, but really I am not. In fact, I hate it. But it seems to me that these days, the "rules" we have in place validate the acts of troublemakers more than they curb them. In these days of zero-tolerance school fighting policies and an almost autonomic response to call the police for every minor infraction or slight, it seems like the rules I learned for staying out of trouble no longer apply. These days, if you're a troublemaker who gets his ass kicked for crossing that line, instead of humiliation, you get a lawyer, a news camera, and 15 minutes of fame. No longer do you have to pay for your stupidity, stupidity pays you. So was the Jena, La. incident a prank? Maybe. But if hanging the noose was just a prank, then the ass kicking the white kid got because of it should not have registered a response either. After all, it's just a prank, right?

And Now for Something Completely Different....

An Irish Ghost Story

This story happened a while ago in Dublin , and even though it sounds like an Alfred Hitchcock tale, its true.

John Bradford, a Dublin University student, was on the side of the road hitchhiking on a very dark night and in the midst of a storm. The night was rolling on and no car went by. The storm was so strong he could hardly see a few feet ahead of him. Suddenly, he saw a car slowly coming towards him and stopped. John, desperate for shelter and without thinking about it, got into the car and closed the door, only to realize there was nobody behind the wheel and the engine wasn't on!!

The car started moving slowly. John looked at the road ahead and saw a curve approaching. Scared, he started to pray, begging for his life. Then, just before the car hit the curve, a hand appeared through The window and turned the wheel. John, paralyzed with terror, watched as the hand repeatedly came through the window, but never touched or harmed him.

Shortly thereafter John saw the lights of a pub appear down the road, so, gathering strength, he jumped out of the car and ran to it. Wet and out of breath, he rushed inside and started telling everybody about the horrible experience he had just had. A silence enveloped the pub when everybody realized he was crying and....wasn't drunk.

Suddenly, the door opened, and two other people walked in from the stormy night. They, like John, were also soaked and out of breath. Looking around, and seeing John Bradford sobbing at the bar, one said to the other.."Look Paddy.....there's that f ..king idiot that got in the car while we were pushing it!!!!"

What Kind of Thuggery Is This?

"For Whom The Bell Tolls", a novel by Ernest Hemingway, tells the story of an American professor of Spanish who joins the International Brigades as an explosives specialist against the forces of fascism. I have no intention of turning this into a term paper on Hemingway's work, but rather to draw a parallel between 1937 Spain and what's happening here in our own country in 2007; that we are living in dangerous times and that a wave of fascism is bearing down on us, if it has not already crashed ashore.

What troubles me more about the political climate is not that fascism is now alive in the U.S., but that the response from those we elected to defend us against this tide has been both ineffectual and tepid. While David Horowitz proclaims this week Islamofascist Awareness Week from his far-right pulpit of duplicitous hypocrisy, from press releases fresh off the Hillary and Obama spin machines, we learn how much they have in their campaign war chest. Like the insurgents in Hemingway's book, the fascists are fighting an organized well-funded war, while the rebels are arguing the intellectual merits of communism. Like those rebels, we have divided ourselves into our own petty issues. All that's left is the conquer, and it's happening as we speak.

Evidence? There's plenty for you to consider. I would start with the murder of Chauncey Bailey, which I wrote briefly about in a previous post here, who was killed by a Muslim thug for writing about Your Black Muslim Bakery -- a now-defunct organization based in Oakland, CA. that was once hailed as a model of black empowerment. Tell me. What kind of thuggery is this?

The evidence continues to mount, and grows closer to home. Witness the increasingly brazen thuggery that sprouted in my neck of the woods. In the last month alone here in the New York area, there have been several well-known noose placings. You may already know about the ones that made national headlines -- the one left on the office door of the Columbia University professor and the other on the locker of the Village of Hempstead (NY) police chief's locker. There have been several more noose droppings in my area since those incidents, the latest being yesterday when the Principal of Canarsie High School in Brooklyn received a two page hate letter in which a noose made of string was enclosed. You can read about it here. Copycats of the Jena, La. stupidity? I don't think so.

And, what do we get in response? We get podium outrage from high-profile individuals who trot themselves out before the camera to speak for a community, calling for more ineffectual laws and leading prayer circles to a non-existent God in the hopes things will get better. I can only imagine the laughter of the neo-con pundits who encourage this behavior from their less learned brethren because they know that all the laws and praying in the world won't do any fucking good if the net effect is to create more division and distrust between liberal blacks and whites. Like I said, all that's left is the conquer.

It gets much closer to home than this though. Recently, the author of Politits relayed in a recent post an ugly incident that happened to her on a business trip to San Antonio. DCup has many friends in the blogsphere and I am proud to consider myself one of them. So, when I learned of this news through her site I was too pissed for words. I applaud DCup for her decorum and good sense in the way she handled this ever-evolving situation. But there are several women in my life, including my dear sister and mother, who would have used some form of the incredulous expression "Oh no you di'int" and beaten this woman to a bloody pulp. Where I come from, there are just some lines you do not cross, without asking for a fight.

The final straw for me was this e-mail that I got the other day from someone, who I am ashamed to say, with whom I share the Village of Lindenhurst. I came through the Village softball league's e-mail address, the text of which I tried to preserve below. This is exactly the misguided and uninformed sentiment that feeds this monster called fascism.

Let's spread this one around the United States two or three times!!!!!!

AMEN TO THIS ONE!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm proud to send this one

I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG, OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND TO THE REPUBLIC, FOR WHICH IT STANDS, ONE NATION UNDER GOD , INDIVISIBLE, WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL!

I was asked to send this on if I agree or delete if I don't. It is said that 86% of Americans believe in God. Therefore I have a very hard time understanding why there is such a problem in having "In God! We Trust" on our money and having "God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. Why don't we just tell the 14% to Shut Up and BE QUIET!!!

If you agree, pass this on, if not delete.... I AGREE !!!!

PLEASE KEEP IT GOING---IT IS WELL WORTH IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now tell me, do you really want your lives and livelihoods to be controlled and coerced by the goons and morons who claim to be 86% of the populace? I know that some may need invoke an all-powerful god to make sense of their lives but I don't. And while I have serious doubts and offer no respect for their delusional faith in such a being, nonetheless, I do recognize their "right" to worship and not have my lack of faith imposed on them. This is a constitutionally protected freedom. Don't believe me? See for yourself.

U.S. Constitution

This document is loaded with many more self-governing rights and freedoms, which for some not-so-mystifying reason, we are now choosing to NOT defend. Instead, we are being mired with issues like racism and abortion, and the ethics of stem cell research, which while they may be important in their own right, are being used to divide us and prevent us from defending the current "fascist" assault on what should be our most sacred, secular text.

Robert G. Ingersoll once said:

They knew that to put God in the Constitution was to put man out. They knew that the recognition of a Diety would be seized upon by fanatics and zealots as a pretext for destroying the liberty of thought. They knew the terrible history of the church too well to place in her keeping, or in the keeping of her God, the sacred rights of man. They intended that all should have the right to worship, or not to worship; that our laws should make no distinction on account of creed. They intended to found and frame a government for man, and for man alone. They wished to preserve the individuality of all; to prevent the few from governing the many, and the many from persecuting and destroying the few.

I can only imagine what the Great Agnostic would say now...

What kind of thuggery is this?

Pulling Teeth?

Dentists visits are always a mix of pain and pleasure for me.

On the one hand, I hate sitting in that damn seat while the hygienist is poking at my gums and teeth with a sharp tool or that super-powerful water-pic that sounds like a grindstone sharpening a tool.

On the other hand, the hygienist that cleaned my teeth was pretty hot -- even under her burka-like uniform. Well, okay, she didn't look like the burka-clad lovely in the pic on the left, but being attended to by a hottie hygienist always makes the pain of having your plaque-laden teeth prodded, scraped, and poked an absolute pleasure.

In my oh so-sexist pursuit on the Internets for more hottie hygienist information, I came across this brilliant post from blogger Mister Peace who attempts to answer the question, Dental Hygienists: Why Are They So Hot? Here he states what has been so obvious to me, yet blissfully unsaid until now.

Ah, but no story of mine is complete without some conflict-resolution subplot. One of the cool things about the dentist I visit is the LCD TV attached to the dentist chair. I was even given a remote to change the channel and engage in one of my favorite Saturday morning activities -- watching SpongeBob Squarepants. Apparently, this struck a nerve with my hottie hygienist who doesn't share my opinion that SpongeBob Squarepants is the most brilliant modern "kids" cartoon ever. She told me, in very coded language, that SBS was "too over the top" (read: too gay) and that she doesn't let her kids watch it (read: she's rather they watch Pastor Osteen than pollute their pure eyes and minds with animated homo-erotic send ups.) This is too over the top?



It wasn't exactly a hair-pulling drawn out death match between this atheist and a hot, teeth-cleaning x-tianista, but her carelessness in de-plaqueing my teeth after our SpongeBob discussion was noticeable -- she managed to squirt water in my eye and get some of that gritty tooth polish on my shirt. No matter, any animosity I harbored for her dislike of my favorite animated yellow sponge went out the window when she rested two of the softest boobs I ever felt on my head as she was cleaning my bottom teeth. Awesome. In tribute to that titillating tooth cleaning, I give you this:

1979

Today my daughter walked out to catch the bus looking like a disco queen. The reason she was dressed this way was because her high school was holding a decades day where each grade had to dress in the style of a particular decade. She got the 1970s. When I saw her get up the night before, it got me thinking to 1979. I was 15 going on 16, in sophomore year in high school, and not sure what I was going to do with my life. It's a far cry from high school kids these days who, as sophomores, are already lining up for college scholarships. Even my own daughter has already decided that she is going to major in elementary education. Awesome. I think she'll make a great teacher.

Me? I was trying to make sure I get through eight periods of shop and academics at Aviation HS, and wondering if the girl I made out with at the roller rink would ever call. She never did. "On The Radio" was on the radio everywhere





and young Spartacus was sporting a serious DA hair cut ala John Travolta....







Such were the younger days of Spartacus! But something changed in the summer of 1979. I started letting my hair grow out and became totally turned on by all manner and sorts of rock music. This band, more than any, rocked my world....



I was torn and lonely back then. On the one hand I had a cool set of friends who were all into disco. Being the public slave to peer pressure then, I went along to get along. The only time I could listen to this music was when I decided to ditch my "disco" friends and retreated into room in basement of my house in Richmond Hill, Queens (NY) and jacked up the volume on the earphones plugged into my "hifi" stereo with a tape deck --- oooooh.

However, one thing I could never get enough of were the slow jams. About 3 or 4 times a year, the youth group I belonged to at St. Theresa de Avila in South Ozone Park, NY would let us hold a fund raiser dance. $5 bucks would get you in the door for night of dancing and smooching and what have you. I wasn't much of a dancer then, even though I liked to pretend I was. That is until a slow jam came along.....



Nothing like a few "oldies" to make one feel like a kid again! Enjoy 'em. I did.

I Hope You Feel Better

Hospital emergency rooms. They are a necessary fact of life in our society that we hope we never have to visit too often. Yet, there I was last night at Good Samaritan Hospital in West Islip, NY, sitting amongst people with serious injuries and illnesses, all to have a possible fracture on my left pinky finger examined.

I injured it on Sunday playing in my regular touch football game, trying to knock down a pass that was thrown to me. I was running a 15-yard out pattern, but was covered too closely by the defender to catch it, so I decided to keep him from catching it by knocking the ball away, and smashed my left pinky finger in the attempt. What's worse is that I put on my brave face, taped it to my ring finger and continued playing. Real smart.

That afternoon when I got home, I treated it like I would any jammed finger: I iced it and took some Advil, but the pain got worse. So I drove over to a local CVS and picked up a splint to immobilize it, discovering in the process that you can buy a lube to prevent premature ejaculation (Now there's a random thought.....) I digress.

By bed time Sunday night, my finger looked something like this:









As much as I denied it, this was not your ordinary jammed finger. So when I walked into work on yesterday, I went up to our medical department where it was x-rayed and examined by a company doctor. (Yes, we really do have an on-premises employee clinic. It's one of those perks of working for a REALLY HUGE insurance company.)


Doc: It's definitely broken. You need to visit an emergency room to have it reset.

Me: Are you sure?

Doc: Yeah. Take the x-rays with you and get it reset by a surgeon so that you don't lose mobility in the knuckle.

Me: Okay. I'll have it checked out tonight.

I returned to my desk to tell my boss the grim news that I would be leaving early, but that I would hold out and finish the work I lined up for the day. I ended up leaving about 15 minutes earlier than normal. The boss was completely underwhelmed.

I told the wife the bad news and she was incredulous.

E: Really? You're going to drive all the way to West Islip to Good Sam just to have them splint it?

Me: Yes. The doctor at work said it needs to be reset.

E.: Okay. (Rolling her eyes) I'm sure they're just going to splint it. It's just your pinky!!!

At this point I was bent on going. At best it was a night out of the house. At worst, it was a long night out with me being given a local anesthetic and a surgeon manipulating my finger to straighten it out. It was off to the ER at Good Samaritan.

When I get there, I got a sense right away of just how insignificant my injury was. I signed up with the reception nurse (they all seem to be RNs at this place) who asked me what was wrong. "I broke my finger and I have an x-ray to prove it," I said proudly. "Okay, hon," she said after raising one eyebrow while taking my information. She gave me one of those hospital bracelets and directed me to "Walk through the first door on the left and take a seat someone will be with you shortly. I hope you feel better." I thanked her and thought nothing of the comment.

The next step was the triage nurse who took my pulse, blood pressure, and temperature. All normal. She then asked me a few questions about the injury:

Triage RN: How did you hurt it?

Me: Playing football. I was catching a pass and....(Triage RN cuts me off)

Triage RN: When did you hurt it?

Me: Yesterday

(Long pause. Eyebrow raise.)

Triage RN: And you're coming in now?

Me: Well, I didn't think I broke it when I hurt it.

TriageRN: Okay, go out into the waiting room and listen for your name. And, I hope you feel better."

Okay, now I know something's up. This is the second RN to tell me this and I wonder if it's some customer service mantra they're pulling on me. After all, this emergency room is a really modern set up where people are moved through as quickly as possible. Again, I politely thanked her for the well wishes and moved to the waiting room.

There I saw all types of sick folks. One guy had cancer and came in after getting sick from a chemo treatment. It was likely he was waiting for the on-staff oncologist to see him. He had to wait. A young woman with scratches and bruises on her face was waiting to be seen too. She was in a car accident over the weekend and was suffering dizzy spells and nausea. She didn't look to good either. Me. I'm sitting in the room making a few phone calls to pass the time. About 15 minutes later, I hear my name called to the registration desk.

Registration RN: We need you to sign some release forms for us and get your insurance information.

Me: Okay. Here's insurance card. I'll sign the forms.

Registration RN: Great. Are you still at xxx N. x Avenue in Lindenhurst? Is E. your emergency contact? Is xx7-x7x4 your number?

I answered yes to all her questions while signing the form. I handed her the form. She handed me my insurance card. But before I could walk away she said, "I hope you feel better." Okaaaaay. Now I'm getting suspicious as I head back to the waiting room. On my way there I pass two more wounded souls. One guy looked like he volunteered to be the target in a fist-throwing competition. Another guy with an ashen look on his face was being wheeled through on a gurney. Me? I got a splint on my pinky and huge manila envelop with my x-rays in them.

Doubt started to creep in at this point because here I was seeking treatment for a minor while some poor bastard in a gurney might be breathing his last. "But I have a broken finger," I said to myself. "It needs to be reset."

No more than 30 seconds pass after heading back to the waiting room, when I hear, "Spartacus please come to Fast Trac." I'm directed to the second to last treatment station where a pretty, but abrupt physician's assistant asks me, "you have x-rays?"

Me: Yeah. Here ya go.

PA: Okay, have a seat I'll have a look at them and we'll go from there.

Me: Great.

(Two minutes later.)

PA: There's nothing broken.

Me: What? Look at my finger. It's more purple than white!

PA: Okay, we'll have another x-ray taken. Ours are digital so we can zoom in and color them. You do present with a break, so we'll check it out.

I walk over to the X-ray room where another attractive attendant ushers me into the room, lays my hand on the a plate and shoots a few shots. As I'm walking away she too says, "I hope you feel better."

Now I know what going on here and I'm pissed. I'm thinking it's some sort of code for "what the fuck are you doing here. This is place is for serious injuries only!!!!"

Even after the PA was done with me and confirmed that I had a chip fracture of the PHP joint in my pinky, she too gave me the mantra, as did the attending physician who came in to give me the splint, and says the same thing. I was almost ready for General George Patton to walk through the curtains and give me the glove slap.

(I was going to add a clip from the Patton movie for effect, but incredibly, I could not find in on YouTube , not even the Simpsons Parody of that movie scene where Bart smacks Milhouse after he complains about his nerves.)

To bring a merciful end to tale of woe, I returned home about an hour later, work x-rays in hand, to find E. with that I-told-you-so look on her face.

When I told her the whole story about the hospital ER and how I felt like a complete dick for showing up there in the first place, she softened a bit and showed me some empathy for my trouble. But as I was headed towards the bathroom to fetch another Advil she says to me..."Honey. I hope you feel better."

Fuck. How I hate eating crow.

Stale Gum

I wrote this poem about how words speaking obscenities. It's my way of shouting out to Fairlane for sharing his thoughts on racism.

Stale Gum

Imagine the horrible taste of stale gum
Once sugarless sweet
But now devoid of all it’s flavor.
You chew it autonomically
Gnashing your molars
Against this temporary cartiledge

It’s like an idea so dark
That it waits for your slumber
To enter your mind.
It surfs on an airwave
Into your brain, washing ashore
Refuse your mouth would never say

Faggot. Cunt. Bitch. Dick. Asshole.
Nigger. Spic. Mick. Kike. Cracker.
Satanist. Papist. Fornicator. Blasphemer.
God Bless America!

Imagine all this from
Chewing flavorless gum;
Visceral obscenities out of some
Recess in your mind that lack taste.
Spit them out into the garbage
Where those words and gum belong.

Pardon Me While I Burn

I'm in a pissy mood today. There's alot of shit that's got me down, not the least of which is this idea that I am simply spinning my wheels in mud. There's a song by Incubus that keeps bouncing in my head, so rather than belabor you with my troubles and self-loathing, let me give you a song to warm you up....




Why Do We Need A Constitution?
While I was out in San Francisco last weekend on weekend trip with my family, I came across a series of articles in the San Francisco Chronicle about the murder of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey. I've linked the articles here, here, and here .

At first, I thought I was going to rant on religion by bringing this up, but it really wasn't about that but about silencing dissent. Chauncey Bailey's murder is another slide down that slippery slope of fascism that includes the intimidation of the MSM by their corporate owners and by the White House; threats and murders at abortion clinics; the penning in of protesters whenever the President visits a major city -- it's all part and parcel of the same form of intimidation.

Chauncey Bailey was gunned down by a member of an Islamic goon squad, but one can easily substitute the "islamic" modifier with any other word and achieve the same effect. Have we reached a point in our country's history where the constitution even matters? Consider the oath of office that one must take before assuming the office of President of The United States:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. So help me God.

You consider the events like Chauncey Bailey's murder, it makes me wonder which part of the oath our President takes most seriously. I would venture to guess the "so help me God" part because he's done nothing but chip away constitutional rights such as due process, illegal search and seizure, the establishment clause of the 1st Amendment, all in the name of security. It's as if he's the god and we're the ones being so helped.

Please. I say we just tear up that fucking parchment and pull out a piece of construction paper and a Sharpie Marker, and scribble a new constitution that reads:

Do as I say and nobody fucking gets hurt.

For certain, that banker robbers oath may sound like a threat, but I'm beginning to wonder if it would have saved Chauncey Bailey's life, by making him shut the fuck up in the first place. Speaking of security....


Smile, You're On Security Camera....
The day after we returned from our trip, October 10, I came home to find out that my youngest son got in trouble for fighting in school. This was not your typical bottle-flinging, chair-smashing, paddy-wagon worthy fight. This was a couple of 11-year old kids pushing each other's shoulder blades with fingertips saying things like, "Oh yeah? Well, I touched you last. So there."

For this, my youngest, his good friend, mullet Tom, and their enemy, bully-boy Nick, were dragged into the 6th Grade dean's office and separately interrogated to determine what happened. This was all part of the school's zero-tolerance policy for fighting, which calls for this type of Abu Ghraib isolation. However, the interrogation was merely for the purpose of providing context to the taped video surveillance they had of the whole scene. The dean saw it all on tape.

A truly what the fuck moment, for me, because I had absolutely no idea that our schools were using video surveillance in the cafeterias. I asked E. about this because I was always under the impression that video surveillance was being used outside the school to monitor the entrance and egress to the numerous doorways into the building. She confirmed that this was the case; that it had been this way for quite some time; and that it was being done for that all-encompassing and nebulous reason...Security.

I almost spit out my mouthful of penne pasta mixed with Filomena's gravy (that Italian for marinara sauce) because I was stunned by what I was hearing. What really made my heart sink, however, was the discussion that ensued between me and The Eldest over this point.

TE: Daddy, I don't get why you're so upset by the cameras. They have them in my school, too. They're for security. They make us feel safe.

Me: So let me get this straight. You think that those cameras are there for your safety?

TE: Yes. Now would you just drop it. This is sooooo stupid! Mom!

E: Ya know. This was supposed to be a nice family dinner. Thanks (E. picks up her plate and leaves the table)

Me: What? So now our family dinners can't include discussions about security? (Turning to TE) So, you think that some camera hooked into the false ceiling in your cafeteria is going to stop someone from kicking your ass and beating you senseless? Where are the teachers when you eat?

TE: Well... maybe people won't want to do stuff like that if they know cameras are on them.

Me: And, maybe, some people bent on violence won't give a shit about the cameras and lay some knuckle on your face anyway. Will the camera "secure" your personal safety then? And doesn't it bother you that someone is watching everything you do every second of the day?

My daughter's words troubled me because it appears to me that we are raising a society that is so used to being watched and protected from all of the evils in the world. They've become so numb and indifferent to the invasion of privacy that video surveillance represents. In this case, the school is using video surveillance to cover it's ass from liability in case a kid gets hurt in an altercation. But how long before it becomes a tool for controlling what information gets passed on in classrooms.

As well intentioned as this form of security may be, do they honestly feel that surveillance will be a deterrent? It doesn't stop people from robbing banks, why would it stop kids from pounding each other senseless? It's yet another form of fear-laden laziness that, once accepted, will insidiously creep into other areas of the school curriculum. You can just imagine little Joey going to home to his fundy mother and telling her "Mom, today I learned that the earth is not 6,000 years old", and having some poor science teacher called to the carpet with the scrutiny of video evidence because some wingnut parent complained.

What scares me even more about this video surveillance coupled with zero-tolerance is that it's telling my kids not to defend themselves; to keep your hands down while some bully pummels their faces to pulp just so that they won't run afoul of school policy. To be mindless, voiceless idiots whose only mission is to automatically absorb whatever information they're being fed and take willingly whatever punishment they receive. Fuck that. My kids have a standing order to defend themselves with words and fists if anyone tries picking on them. They may get detention as my son did, get suspended, or even expelled. In my view violating this stupid school policy in the act of self-defense is a grounds for a holiday.

We're All Niggers of Some Sort
Last night I read and commented on Fairlane's post over at Jonestown titled Wingnuts Of a Different Color, where he laid down a spirited and inspired rant on racism in the context of the Jena 6. I found his commentary on the state of racism dead on target because it is alive and well in this country. And, if I understood his post correctly, Fairlane's main point is that we, as nation, seem to have grown too used to racism, and that now that it's rearing it's ugly head in the form of non-s0-coded noose hangings, our reactions, particularly those of liberals, are tepid.

In the context of his post, he's right. The image of a noose is not just some prank or joke and, particularly to blacks in the South, it's an image which connotes fear and violence on a scale I can't even begin to imagine. However, whenever the subject of racism is broached, the discussion almost always denigrates into a shouting match of epithets, instead of a rational discourse on what it really is -- a divisive misuse of cultural labels by really stupid people.

Consider the meanings of the word nigger from the American Heritage Dictionary:

1. Slang: Extremely Disparaging and Offensive.

a. a black person.

b. a member of any dark-skinned people.

2. Slang: Extremely Disparaging and Offensive. a person of any race or origin regarded as contemptible, inferior, ignorant, etc.

3. a victim of prejudice similar to that suffered by blacks; a person who is economically, politically, or socially disenfranchised.

Put in this context, nigger is not just a label applied to blacks through the ages, but anyone for anyone who, as some point in their cultural history has been relegated to the scrap heap of inferiority. This is not to diminish the hateful and hurtful nature of the word in any way, particularly in the manner it's been used to label blacks, but the fact remains is that it is a label. And if it hurts, it's because we choose to let it hurt by identifying with it in some way. Let's face it folks, a noose around your neck will kill you, a burning cross on your lawn is dangerous, but filthy words -- ones that only require the collective intelligence of Randy and Damien to use -- will not.

The fact is that we all stem from the same genetic source code. While many different versions of this "source code" has been modified by physical and cultural forces and time, the code is the same. Were I to mate with black woman, we would likely produce children not much different from the gorgeous, young mulatto woman with crystal blue eyes and a kinky afro of blondish brown hair who rented us bicycles to me and my family in San Francisco last week. Would you call her a nigger? How about an Oreo cookie? Do you think she would call herself that? Does it really matter?

I ask because, whenever we allow ourselves to be affected by these labels we become no better than the people who use them. This is the denigration that I'm talking about where I call a black man a nigger and he calls me a cracker. Why are we paying so much heed and attention to this nonsense?

I don't have any simple solutions to the problem of racism and I doubt very much I will see it's eradication in my lifetime. But one thing I know is for certain: The less an issue I make of it, the less it affects me. While there's no way to avoid racists, we live with them, we commute with them...shit, in my case, we even have to call some of them family. Some may think that I am avoiding the problem by avoiding the label. I'm not. What I am saying is that we can and should demand a higher sense of decency from ourselves and others. We must stand firm on the fact that racist language has no place in human society and that anyone's use of it puts them at risk of becoming the very same social outcasts that they used to express their unfounded fear of differently colored people. You no more legislate away the hatred of racism anymore than you can make the use of the word nigger a crime. But we can, as humans, move towards the goal of eradication racism by removing the words that feed it from normal social discourse. These are labels for which we no longer have any use.

I've Been Away...

I took a weekender to the West Coast with the family. A while ago E. and I decided (really, it was E.) to spend the bulk of my United Airlines frequent flyer miles to spend two days and three nights in the lovely City of San Francisco, California.

We had a great time, especially considering the fact that the flight and hotel were gratis. However, we did spend a boat load of money staying fed and doing the "tourist" thing.

I plan to post several entries about this trip as I took copious notes of the events of the two days we were there.

I am writing this post to accomplish several items on my to do list:

1) Apologize to all of you who left comments on my blog while I was away. After thinking long and hard about whether or not to stay connected to the blogsphere while on this mini-vacation, I decided to leave it home because the purpose of this trip was to spend some "exclusive" time with E. and the kids.

2) Thank my friend Dave for looking after the pooch for us while we jetted to the left coast. Originally, my older brother (yes, that older brother) agreed to look after him, but backed out because his estranged wife didn't think it was a good idea for him to stay at our house while we were gone. (Apparently, she thinks he's an adult still in need of supervision.) It's times like these that I wonder how and why I've been blessed with such a great friend.

3) To get back in the flow of writing. I did quite a bit of writing while I was in SF. I not only wrote of the events of the day, but I started scratching out some new verse that I've had brewing in my brain for quite some time. Well, the words have started to percolate and I'm ready to starting pouring out a few fresh cups of angst.

With malice toward none, with charity for all, I finish this work with these little ditties about the great city of San Francisco.....



Apologies for the Japanese subtitles. This was the best version I could find on YouTube.

But if Tony Bennett is not your thing, then perhaps a little Journey is what you need.



Question: What is your favorite city to visit (as opposed to living in)?

A Question of Ethics?

There's a story in my local paper Newsday titled, "The Match", which profiles a local family's efforts to save their daughter from a rare blood disorder called Diamond Blackfan Anemia. The solution, as they saw it, was to have a child that is an exact genetic match to their daughter and extract the younger child's bone marrow and transplant it into her in the hopes that it would jump start her body into producing red blood cells.

There is a question of medical ethics here that is easily trumped by justifiable efforts of two very desperate parents wanting to save the life of a child. What parent wouldn't do that? However, that's an incomplete, if not misleading question, once you consider the relative wealth of the family in question. The Trebings are from Smithtown, NY, an affluent suburb on the North Shore of Suffolk County. One look at pictures of them in their beautiful home, and one can easily assume that these people are not for want of money. They probably have very good health care coverage, too. And, of course, they're white.

Before anyone goes on to blast me for sour grapes over their wealth and the attendant privilege that comes with it, understand that I am not at odds with or envious of what the Trebings have. I grew up poor and, yet, I can honestly say that my parents provided quite well for me despite our economic standing. And I'm not very different than the Trebings in what I would do to save a member of my family. I would do anything within my means to save my wife and children from disease.


The dog? Feh....(Only kidding Chester. You're family, too.)

And like the Trebings, I, too, am gainfully employed and live in a nice house in Pete King's "red" district. E. and I could not be considered poor by any standard. We both work and have health coverage, which she foregos for a cash payout every June because my employer-provided coverage takes care our whole family, excluding Chester (those bastards!!!). Although our coverage is not as good as the Trebings.


But there are others in our neighborhood who don't have it as well as we do; many of whom E. comes into contact with at the school in which she works. On an almost daily basis, she brings home her own heart-wrenching stories of parents who beg to get their children placed into either the free and reduced lunch program; or who get upset with her because the school doesn't provide after-school daycare. Clearly, these people -- these good people -- are not making what we make on annual basis, let alone the amount the Trebings rake in. And, unlike the Trebings and my family, these people, by and large, are people of non-white ethnicities, who have the same basic needs and desires, if not the means. They can't afford experimental surgery to save their child, let alone afford to send them to school with something healthy to eat. What's more is that they are legion.

So, why is it that this story garners more attention than that of the poor folks in my wife's school? After all, they're both heart-wrenching stories. The key difference is that one story is about a wealthy white family that found happiness and success in the end. The other is a collection of desperate tales of woe that end sadly for those poor kids in need of a free meal. If you were one of Newsdays many well-off, white readers, which story are you prefer to read?

You can answer that question in the comments section if you like, but when I saw the story on Monday when I got home from work, I peeled off the 16-page pullout to get to the real news. The one that's got my knickers in a twist now is of the Gestapo tactics being used by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to round up illegal immigrants. (Read about it here.) Yes, we are now living in a facist state.

But I'll give credit where it's due. We ought to see stories about medical ethics because advances in medical technology have put us at a very dangerous precipice. We can now harvest human organs. Further, reporter Beth Whitehouse and her editors did a wonderful job of framing the issue in this light, and giving it a human face. Browse through the sections contained in the initial Newsday story link above and you'll discover all there is to know about Diamond Blackfan Anemia; the controversial treatment options available; the fact that they conceived a child invitro that is a perfect genetic match to their very sick daughter; and (surprise, surprise) that the treatment worked. The little girl is cured. I want to and should feel good about this, but I don't.

That's because with all due respect to the editors of Newsday, Beth Whitehouse, and the Trebings, this is not news. In fact, this is the kind of story that ought to be published in People magazine (which I don't read) along side other feel-good stories, like Lindsay's day with dad. It's a sell job and a shameless one at that. Yesterday's chapter even included a sidebar about the latest Jody Picoult's book My Sister's Keeper -- yet another tear-jerker from the new queen of chick-lit written in the usual large type, short sentence style, all enclosed in sexy, pastel-colored cover art. MSK is a story of a woman who was conceived for the sole purpose of keeping her older sister alive, and sued her parents to keep her body from being harvested further. Talk about a cross-marketing opportunity!

When you get right down to it stories, like these, and the preference that Americans have speak alot to how fucked up our priorities have become. Can you imagine a story like this running in the 1930s at the height of the depression? How would an unemployed, bread-liner respond to the Trebing crisis? Better still, casting this question onto a more recent tragedy, how would the people of New Orleans' devastated 9th Ward respond? What would be their take on this crisis?

I know what they would say -- and it's alot stronger than the tame, feh. In fact, I suspect it would be well beyond the incredulous, Are you fucking kidding me?

Really. Again, I don't begrudge the Trebings anything, and I am quite glad to hear that the treatment worked.

I also don't begrudge Newsday the right to publish stories such as these. They are in the business of selling newspapers, and in order to be successful in this business, they must bow to the tastes of the market they serve; even if the story is of the self-serving, feel-good People magazine variety.

No. My screed is directed at the people who can't see beyond the tips of their noses and recognize the real issues of the day; those folks who willfully ignore the problems our nation faces, choosing instead to revel in some deluded feel-good fantasy world where the only stories worth reading are ones like the Trebings' crisis where everything turns out okay. Call it escapist, unrealistic or what you will, but this is bullshit.

Is this a question of ethics? You betch ya. It's a question of whether we, as a nation, have any left.