NEUTRALITY

It's a well-worn maxim that every difficulty in our lives is also a lesson, an opportunity to grow and expand as human beings. That has certainly been true for this writer over the last two weeks.

Around two and a half years ago, I moved into a lovely apartment in the Hollywood/Los Feliz area. The rent was cheap, the apartment spacious, the people friendly and, for the most part, quiet. One of the most luxuriant aspects of the place is the pool and central area, also called the 'patio' by our curmudgeony building manager, a flowery turn of phrase for a guy such as he. My girlfriend Victoria moved in a year ago and our apartment, on the ground floor, looks out onto the pool, the trees, the modest yet well-tended desert gardens, some ancient, moribund beach chairs and, most importantly, a table under an umbrella surrounded by four chairs.

I point your attention to the table and chairs because they happen to sit directly outside our bedroom window. As a result, any conversation had by people making themselves comfortable there is heard by my girlfriend and I, in the finest detail.

For as long as I've lived there it hasn't been an issue. People in the building like to use the pool intermittently; often the two children from a studio upstairs will use the area as their playground, which is fine by us- they don't fight very often and collapse into hysterics even less frequently. With most of the tenants in the building being working people who seemed to enjoy coming home to a quiet living environment, harmony and relative tranquility was generally the rule.

That all changed a couple of weeks ago. It was as if some unconscious mechanism inside me could sense that a steep learning curve had presented itself. Two young women who I didn't recognize were sunning themselves on the patio. Two others were seated at the table, drinking beers and kicking back. In an instant my apartment building morphed from living space to resort. In my eyes, anyway.

Before too long I was out there, standing over the two women, lying on beach towels. I asked them if they lived here and who they knew in the building, all the while acutely aware of how I must appear to them: stern, humourless, paranoid. We've all known someone like that; I never imagined I'd ever seem to be that person in anyone's eyes. But my protective instincts had been aroused. My sense of peace was being threatened.

In halting English adorned with a thick Russian accent, they told me they were staying with a woman in the building, a woman that I knew. I retreated, unsatisfied. I felt like Gandalf in Lord Of The Rings, when he discovers the presence of the Ring. Dark forces were mounting, and I was powerless to stop them from bursting through my living and bedroom windows.

Finances must have been scarce for these people, for I discovered that the woman they knew, Nadia, was allowing them to stay with her in her studio. Further evidence of their limited resources came in the form of their never seeming to leave the building: morning, noon and night they could be found lazing on the patio, much to my growing distress.

I could continue with this tail of woe, relating to you every little vexation that proceeded to occur, from late nights of loud conversation well past the allotted patio curfew to strangers showing up from other buildings with pizza, beer and static-spewing radios which conspired to familiarize me with the latest Russian chart toppers, but that would turn this column into a tedious,  glorified vent and that, dear readers, is not the subject of this post today.

What is at issue, and what has been my challenging opportunity for growth, is once again experiencing how easy it is to deeply personalize a neutral event, and how much suffering that can cause.

For it is clear that, at a guess, most people in my building have not had the same response to the presence of these three young ladies on vacation from Russia. The reasons for that will be varied: possibly (or probably) many of my fellow tenants don't possess the same sensitivity to noise or desire, however unrealistic, for a more or less constant state of peace and quiet in the common areas of the building. Possibly some of them feel as I  do, yet do not feel the need or are not prepared to confront the problem directly. Others, I am sure, are simply wholly indifferent to the situation.

So, as the days went by, days containing discussions with the people in question and demands for them to respect the peace of the building and the rent-paying tenants in it, I came to the fundamental question: what if these people were not going to return to Russia in two months, nor change their behaviour beyond tiny concessions on the fringes? What if despite the alerting of management, the raising of voices and the summoning of the police, I would continue to find them outside my window upon waking in the morning and resting my head on my pillow at night? How might I ever reclaim a state of inner peace?

Once I began to focus on that question, the answer made itself available. I would have to change what this event, which was beginning to consume my thoughts and feelings on a daily basis, represented to me.  Once again I had returned to a truth that may not seem satisfactory to us in the heat of the emotional, irrational moment, but nonetheless always sets us free:

None of this was personal.

These people were not sent here from Russia to disturb my peace and torment me. Their actions were not designed to disrespect me. Nothing could be further from the truth. The worst one could say is that they were entirely, blissfully oblivious to me. Their intent was to spend two months of fun and frivolity by the pool in Los Angeles. I, on the other hand, interpreted every laugh, every word, every splash and buzz emitted from their radio as a slight against me. That somehow these people were taking something from me and me alone and the only way to peace was to eradicate them, annihilate them, make them wrong, change their reality by making them disappear. I needed to win. For peace. For self-respect. To end the pain.

Sound familiar? If you are lucky enough not to have been caught in that web of inner conflict, you surely can recognize it in the world around us, in the dynamic between lovers and ex-lovers, co-workers, competitors in business or politics and most evidently in masses of people represented through organized religious sects, communities and nations. One person's reality is taken personally by another and the conflict begins and here was I, beginning my own little war in my tiny corner of the globe.

Some believe that the reason for the continuance of most large scale conflicts and many smaller ones stems from an appetite and desire for victory, revenge and ultimately validation and vindication which outweighs the desire to end the suffering that these conflicts create. I don't believe this to be true. The problem lies in the misguided notion, taught to us in so many unspoken and, unfortunately, spoken ways, that inner peace resides in vanquishing that which we believe to have caused us grief in the first place. But the event itself is always outside us, impersonal, a projection emanating from a neutral person who is acting from inside their own deeply personal, subjective prism. It is only when we choose to believe that their actions say something true and valid about us, that we feel and engage in conflict. Therefore, nothing from without is personal unless we make it so, whether it comes from a stranger who knows nothing of who we are or a loved one (or hated one) who we feel understands us deeply.

This is not to say that behaviour should not be challenged. Nowhere am I advocating the passive acceptance of all conditions and actions. Far from it. We all must decide in each moment what will bring the most inner peace. Sometimes it will mean asking somebody in the firmest possible way to keep the noise down. In other moments it may require more drastic action. But in many moments it will also mean reminding ourselves that what others do says absolutely nothing about us and proceeding from that place always with a view to what will be the most harmonious action in the long term that will most allow us to accept the situation facing us in that moment.

This is a lesson I am engaged in even at the very writing of this today. As I type these words I hear, as on every other day, the laughter and conversation of these young women probably visiting these shores for the first time. They have been made fully aware of my feelings, as has the manager of the building. My sense of peace today will be contingent on my ability not to block them out, but rather to accept their presence as a benign entity, saying absolutely nothing about who I am. The struggle is no longer with a force without, but within.

The good news is that it is now a conflict that is completely within my power to end.

NUANCE-FREE - JUST ADD WATER

The Democrats are doomed in November.

A recent poll found that over half the country thinks President Obama is a socialist.

Over half.

The President and his administration can take a lot of the responsibility for this collective malaria on the part of a large portion of the US electorate.

But before we get to that, let's first aim our guns at the pollsters. Because remember, these polling companies are businesses, and as such, they need to constantly be coming up with juicy stuff that will attract headlines, just like the one I'm discussing today.

When are the pollsters going to show some integrity? I have news for you- whoever took this poll was in on a dirty little secret that no one in the media ever talks about when speaking of the President and the public's perception of him as a 'socialist'; it's a secret that would threaten to make the whole subject a little less sexy. Would you like to know what the secret is? No? Tough. I'm going to tell you.

Most of the general public don't even know what the word 'socialist' means.

That's the twist here. I think Barack Obama would be quite content to be  called a socialist, even to use the word himself in his political discourse if he felt the word was being used appropriately.

But of course, it isn't. 'Socialism' is now on the same polemical scrapheap as 'liberal', or the words 'gun' and 'control' when joined together. The right wingers have done a marvellous job; just as they managed to equate liberal with weak, wasteful, naive and even gay, they have long since made socialism absolutely synonymous with communism. I hear that in Texan schools the two words even come right after eachother in the dictionaries provided for the students.

So let's look at the two, shall we?

A summary of The Oxford Revised Second Edition definition of communism reads this way: 'a political theory... advocating a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person is paid and works according to his or her needs and abilities.'

Hmm. And socialism? Let's take a gander at that: 'a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution and exchange should be regulated or owned by the community as a whole... socialism has been used to describe positions as far apart as anarchism, Soviet state Communism and social democracy.'

Ain't that the truth, Oxford. That's exactly what Fox & Friends (many, many friends) have been doing- brainwashing people into believing that a social democracy- exactly what the United States has always been, similar to every other Western industrialized democracy in the entire world- must mean people standing in lines for bread and the great, unwashed proletariat coming to tear down your mansion and behead your entire family as well as all of your servants.

But socialism, as defined by the dear Oxford, sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Something any sane person could get behind, right? The community owning certain enterprises better left untouched by private profiteering and regulating the rest for the greater good? A very good formula for peace and prosperity for a large share of the population.

And guess what? When most Americans are asked questions with a tad more nuance related to these issues, they usually feel the same way. So instead of asking powder-keg, tabloid-style questions designed to produce results that will be talked about by the models and actors posing as news anchors on cable and network news, pollsters could actually be of assistance in illuminating the political landscape of this country and giving all of us a better reflection of exactly who we are and what we stand for. Here are some questions that might produce a slightly different impression of the average American voter:

• Do you believe every American child should have access to a decent public education?
• Are you in favour of the very richest in this country paying a lower rate of tax than yourself?
• Do you think the nation's air, water and soil should be clean?
• Do you think corporate lobbyists should have greater access to Congress and the Administration than the general public?
• Should a citizen have to bankrupt themselves and possibly lose their house if they get sick?
• Should every American citizen, including you, have a fair chance at having a job with decent conditions, a genuine living wage and the chance to send their children to a good university at an affordable price?

• Should the general public have access to intelligent, impartial news broadcasting entities that are free of heavy corporate influence?

I am convinced that if people chose to answer honestly, they would probably give answers that would lead us all to the conclusion that wait, most US citizens believe in a social democracy, a blending of private enterprise with public regulation and State providence in the areas of education, environmental and economic protection and health care, to name a few.

But we won't see that. Because it requires nuance- on the part of the 'news' and polling organizations who are less interested in the truth than they are in making a profit for their shareholders. But we can't put all of the blame on them. It also falls on us, the citizen. Most of us are conditioned from a young age not to probe beneath the surface, to challenge edicts, decrees and perspectives that are supposed to be accepted as fact. Somewhere along the way we all decided that capitalism and socialism had to be mutually exclusive. Many others have known better, from the Founding Fathers through to FDR and, I suspect, Barack Obama.

So where to go from here? The Democrats, most of whom have long since been bought many times over by Wall Street, refuse to call the Republicans by their true name: Rich fatcats serving the needs of fantastically wealthy corporations at the expense of the poor and middle class in this country who, nuance-challenged as they are, just want to kick out whoever's in office and get someone else, even if it means a return to the policies that broke this country in the first place. And while President Obama remains well spoken and polite, little will change before November.

So here's what you do, Mr.President. You take a leaf out of Alan Grayson's book. Remember him, the Congressman from Florida? During the healthcare debate he went onto the floor of the House with a presentation that declared that the Republicans' answer to the healthcare problem was for poor people to "die faster". No, it wasn't pretty nor was it particularly fair but the spirit of it was right: in effect, what Mr. Grayson was saying in flashing neon lights was: "THESE GUYS DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU."

That's the tone you and all of your representatives must take, Mr. President. It's time for the fireside address to come back- except it won't be by a fire. It'll be at the homes of people who can't afford to have their illnesses treated due to the lack of an affordable public coverage option. It'll be in hospitals where people are dying of emphysema due to pollution in their cities, pollution that is allowed to remain thanks to Republican opposition to clean energy bills and stronger environmental protection legislation. It'll be at unemployment lines where people spend fruitless hours looking for decent blue collar jobs that have long since disappeared overseas due to the 'free' market and a lack of government oversight and regulation that would work to keep industry alive in the US, the kind of regulation that Republicans and corporate-bought, right-leaning Democrats kill before it even has a chance to breathe.
You, Mr. President, with your persuasive intelligence, mellifluous voice and quiet strength,  would rail at these senators and congresspeople every single night, putting their pictures up on the screen, listing their campaign contributors and focusing on the thousands of votes they have cast in their political careers protecting the rights of Big Business at the expense of the rest of us.

Would it work? I have no idea. But at least you and your party would be going down swinging, in addition to finally calling out these people for what they are.

But, in the spirit of Colombo, I have one more question, Mr.President:

If you do ever decide to go on that kind of attack, what are you going to do about your campaign contributors?

Maybe it's time to have coffee with the folks at Goldman Sachs and the rest of the bad guys who are keeping the campaign coffers full and tell them you want to break up. Move on. It's not them, it's you.

Because I think you yearn to be free, Barack. You're like Jack Nicholson's character Nathan Jessop in A Few Good Men. You want to tell the truth. And in spite of what the pollsters might be telling you...

we can handle it.


Pictures, from top:   Alan Grayson- the right idea.
                                 Jack Nicholson as Nathan Jessop, A Few Good Men, 
                                 Columbia Tri-Star Pictures, 1992.




































 





 










 

BOYS WITH TOYS

The Russians are in custody.

Don't be scared.

You can let your child leave the house again. Even send them back to school. 

The bad guys are behind titanium bars.

We got 'em.

What were these evil superspies doing, I hear you ask?

What an inane question.

They were spying, people. That's not cool. Actually, they're pleading guilty to "conspiring to act as an unregistered foreign agent." That is so, way uncool. Don't these Ruskies know anything? Any actor who's played a KGB villain in a James Bond movie can tell you that if you want to act as a foreign agent- in fact, if you're not ready to play the part but are still only just in the conspiring stage (leafing through the dailies, practicing in front of the mirror, putting on a feeble Soviet brogue in restaurants), you have to register. Guys, come on. Get with it.

But let's say for argument's sake that these strapping fellows are actually spies. That they meant to do us morally upright US citizens (and residents, in my case) harm. I guess that's possible. Well, then guys... you still have to let us know! Please, by all means, be an agent, be foreign, but goddamn it, fess up!

Here's how it's supposed to go. It's not complicated. Work with me here. You board the Aeroflot airbus at Domodedovo, cyanide pills and microscopic camera safely stored where the sun rarely shines, and we're not talking Siberia. A quick hop across Europe and the Atlantic, involving the standard spy-on-a-plane fare:

• 29 vodkas on the rocks, with no drunkenness or subsequent hangover thanks to a special pill designed by the Russian equivalent of Q. His name is Ӛ. Nice guy from what I hear.
• The mandatory faceless sex with a steward in the bathroom. No orgasm, though- she accidentally hit the flush lever. You know that flush in the airplane bathroom. It sounds like the end of the world. Farewell, erection.
• Having settled back into your seat in coach (it hasn't been the same since the KGB disbanded- the new Foreign Intelligence Service doesn't even have half & half in the office fridge), the friendly, morbidly obese American tourist forces you to casually snap his neck and pull his Minnesota Twins baseball cap down over his face after talking too much hockey and saying you bear an uncanny resemblance to Howie Mandell.
• After sneaking into business class to avoid the soggy gases now escaping from the Minnesota Twin's doughy, decomposing corpse, you recline in your seat to enjoy the assorted Latest Hits! movies available on every Aeroflot flight.
• Having been thoroughly moved by The Bridges of Madison County, thrilled by Mission Impossible 2 and amused by the latest, pathetic actor playing James Bond (you make a mental note to Google this Pierce Brosnan guy when you land), you recline in your seat and fall into a deep sleep.
• A loud commotion back in coach wakes you with a start. As the flight crew races past, you hear something about the smell of death and horrific, noxious gases. Breakfast has just been served.

The rest of the flight proceeds uneventfully, aside from finishing things up with the steward, sans flush. She gives you her number and tells you to meet her in the hotel bar. You smile, say your goodbye and silently wish for a time when gay spies didn't have to keep up appearances. Not that it would help during a flight- male, gay flight stewards don't come along every day.

So here is the moment of truth. You have landed. You have disembarked. Now you are waiting in line at customs. As you near the front, you see your man: buzz cut above a chiselled jaw and thick, military neck. Photos of he and his marine core sweetheart on the desk. American flag lapel. Mikhail Gorbachev dart board on the glass partition behind him. A Minnesota Twins coffee cup next to him.   Damn.

But wait. You're not going to lie. You're going to follow the Pentagon's rules; play by the book, for Marx's sake.  You're going to tell the truth this time, and do something never before attempted in the entire history of US-Russian espionage, something that will create sudden, irreversible change in how things are done:

You're going to register.

You're next.  You head to the counter,  and here's what happens:

"Good day, sir. Passport, please."
"Certainly. Go Twins."

 Pause. Blank stare.

"What's your business in the USA?"
"Spying."
"How long will you be here?"
"As long as it takes to get my hands on critical military and state secrets."
"How long does that usually take? Ballpark."
"Hmm... how does a month sound?"
"Your tourist visa's valid for 3 months, so that'll work fine. "
"Cool. Maybe I'll have time to get to Vegas. Us spy types are mean poker players. You ever play Petrozavodsk Hold'em? Scintillating stuff."
"Never had the pleasure. Where will you be staying while you're here."
"All over West Hollywood."
"Excuse me?"
"Ah.. Los Angeles. I don't have an address yet. I'm a spy. We improvise."
"Got it. Well, this all checks out. Good luck with the state secret thing."
"  'Preciate it. You have a beautiful country. Really glad we got with the whole capitalist thing and can work together."
"Me too."

You start to walk away with a light skip, awash in contentment. His voice stops you. Uh oh. You turn, fearing the worst.

"One last thing. Has anybody ever told you that you look exactly like Howie Mandell?"

RUN OUT OF BIG BEAR

Ever since I arrived in Los Angeles, I have been scolded, berated and chastised by friends and strangers alike over my negligence in not taking a trip up to Big Bear, a mountain region 90 minutes northeast of LA. Most popular as a skiing destination in winter, Big Bear also features mountain lakes for boating, trails for hiking and of course a multitude of scenic areas for camping.

So it was with a healthy dose of excitement that Victoria and I decided to spend our Saturday in that part of the world. It was Independence Day Weekend and a patriotic feeling was swelling our hearts; we wanted to explore this great land, wrested from the smelly British and taken from the Native Americans and the Mexicans by force. With that backdrop of adventure, heroism and manifest destiny seamlessly blended with cultural genocide and mass land theft, we set off.

The journey to Big Bear allowed me to view some suburban areas heretofore unseen by the writer and, in retrospect, better off left alone. The San Bernardino Valley is a wonderful place to raise your children if you like choking smog, endless cookie-cutter houses that line up like identical pieces of beige lego and a smorgasboard of strip malls to choose from, which is critical because Subways and Jamba Juices do vary enormously from one store to another. All of this is set in front of an incredible backdrop of mountains- I say incredible because although they lie only a few miles to the north of what amounts to a huge suburban concentration camp, they cannot be seen due to the pollution.

Having passed through that nightmare, our spirits lifted as we began our ascent toward Big Bear. The weather was refreshingly mild as we finally put the windows down to take in the fresh-ish air, bidding farewell to the dull, heavy layer of airborne filth covering the valley below. Victoria decided to bring a little bit of Los Angeles with her, blasting all and sundry with her horn as she passed slow-moving drivers trundling around the winding road, set amongst sheer cliffs promising certain death to anyone plunging into the abyss below. "Put your teeth back in, old timer!" She bellowed at an elderly man, whose smiling face melted into sadness as his ego and weekend were simultaneously crushed. "Learn how to drive, humanoid!" She screamed at an acne-ravaged teenager, driving with what appeared to be his girlfriend, a young girl now suddenly looking to greener romantic pastures in the face of her now former boyfriend being so effortlessly humiliated on the open road.

So it was with some relief that we headed into Big Bear Lake, one of the bigger towns in the area, ready to take in the sights, fraternise with the locals and enjoy some lunch. American flags abounded as we cruised down the main drag. I felt vindicated- the location on the plane ticket said 'United States'; but one could never be sure these days. Thank heavens for these wonderfully orienting flags, confirming that yes, I was indeed in the US of A. Having experienced the drive out, I was beginning to suspect that I was in fact living in war-torn Beirut.

Our first sighting of the lake was downright disturbing. Upon its shores was the same horrific slice of suburbia that I thought I'd left behind in San Bernardino. Soulless houses lined with the token wood siding, packed against eachother,  ruining what would have been a tranquil shoreline, usually so inviting to a visitor. What is the point of a lake if one cannot have access to it? Of course, later there would be many places where one could walk down to the lake (and venture out onto it), but once again private development of formerly pristine natural areas had succeeded in adding to their beauty its own unique brand of ugliness. This was where people so desired to visit? Big Bear was off to a bad start.

Further along, we came to the town center, an assortment of shops and bars, many of them draped with a Wild West motif, which seemed appropriate, given the demographic amidst which we were walking. I casually hid my Star of David necklace, fearing a mountain-high pogrom as I put a protective arm around Victoria, who in turn slid a protective arm around me- she had recently seen Deliverance and, noting the average length of the beards, thickness of the beerguts and fullness of glaze in the eyes, had decided that the person in danger of deflowerment was me.

Having hidden any sign of my Jewry and removed my shirt from my pants to cover up my firm, shapely derriere in order to make myself more resistible to the local orthodontically-challenged male population, we decided to venture into the Cowboy Express Steakhouse for some lunch. Victoria's mouth began to water at the sight of all kinds of black and white photographs on the log-cabin walls depicting the glorious slaughter of peaceful herbivores for her imminent dining pleasure. Any salivation was duly halted, however, by the sight of stoic, moustachioed men with large guns standing in front of old saloons, men who looked frighteningly similar to those that we passed on our way to this fine culinary establishment. Dryness of mouth reigned.

The first sign of danger came on the heels of our drink order. We were happily seated under a large, shade-bearing confederate flag (I immediately felt cozy- my comforter cover bears the same symbol) when the waitress came over to take our drink order. I sensed I'd made a mistake as soon as the words, "I'll have a Cosmo, heavy on the cranberry" came out of my mouth. Victoria's shoulders slumped as we watched the waitress give me a second look before heading over to a barrel-chested, woolly gentleman wearing overalls and a flannel shirt who sat watching by the jukebox. As the waitress whispered in his ear, pointing me out on the patio, I felt like a fugitive seated at a bar whose image comes on the television, being forced to watch as recognition dawns on each of his fellow patrons' faces. My ensuing response was also in line: run. But Victoria was next to me; no man can afford to be a coward in front of his girlfriend. That can come later, when she's not around.

So I sat tight, under the glare of this beast from another age. I snuck another glance and by this time he had put a toothpick in his mouth, sending it on vertical loops between his lips. I felt myself being hypnotized. Luckily the spell was broken by the waitress returning with our drinks to take our order. My beloved Cosmo, however, was nowhere to be seen. In its place, next to Victoria's beer, was a tumbler of translucent brown fluid. This was dumped in front of me with the words, "Jedediah thought you'd do better with this." I stared, mouth agape as the glass landed on the table. Victoria took a sheepish sip of her beer, awaiting my response which she knew would undoubtedly involve the overturning of tables and a maniacal, raised voice.

"Thank you, ma'am."

Not the time or the place. Jedediah would get his. In the meantime, it was time to order. Victoria ordered a burger while I hesitated, perusing the menu.

"Do you have any vegan meals?"

The waitress took a quick look at Jedediah. Then back to me.

"Uh... we could put extra lettuce and tomato on the burger."

I looked up and into her bored, vacant eyes. Was she playing with me? Because I could have dealt with that, even appreciated some good old urban, downtown sarcasm at a moment like this, a little sprinkle of Letterman thrown into my Davy Crockett experience. But no. She was trying to help a lost cause. Trying to rescue me. But I was too deep into a state of shock to grab the lifeline.

"I'll have a burger, medium, meat on a separate plate, please, no bun, salad instead of fries, no dressing, oil and vinegar on the side."

What?? I asked Victoria after the dumbfounded waitress had walked away. My reasoning was clear: she could have the meat tomorrow. Why waste it? But my love wasn't appeased. I had let her down. This was my chance to channel John Wayne, and instead I'd summoned early Woody Allen. This was a mess. To add to my vexation, Jedediah was once again receiving an eyewitness news update on the happenings at our table.  An almost toothless sneer was beginning to form on his cracked, tobacco-slimed lips. I was starting to think about everything unfinished in my life when Victoria nudged me.

"Let's get the hell out of here," she whispered. My head whipped around with a faint crack.

"What?" I asked. "But we just ordered!"
 "I don't care. This isn't gonna (her anunciation is perfect, but 'gonna' works better for action sequences) end well. Let's just leave a 50 on the table and blow this popstand."

She didn't really say popstand. And I didn't have a fifty. With a wearied sigh, Victoria pulled a 50 dollar bill from her wallet and stuck it under the mouldy ketchup bottle. "Let's get outta here!" She hissed. Jed was still sitting near the jukebox, which was too close to the exit. The patio was too high to leap off. I needed a distraction. Life can be strange: all day my wits were absent. Meatless burgers and cranberry-heavy Cosmos had abounded. But in this moment, genius finally arrived. I stood up, pointed to the street below and shouted:

"LOOK! A PERSON OF NON-CAUCASIAN ETHNICITY DRIVING A HIGH FUEL ECONOMY VEHICLE WITH A RALPH NADER BUMPER STICKER!"

Chaos ensued. A primal, vengeful scream emanated from Jedediah as he jumped off his bar stool and sped out into the street, along with the rest of the staff and some patrons wielding deer carcasses. Victoria and I filed out with them, sprinting away from the place, only stopping once we'd reached the corner. We chanced a look back, to find Jedediah throwing his arms in the air in frustration, his grimy overalls billowing in the wind. To this day I am convinced I caught his stench on the breeze as we retreated to our car. That smell is keeping me awake at nights. But that's for another day. Victoria and I, heading out of town, had escaped with our lives. Big Bear had opened its arms to us and we had come eerily close to being another picture on its walls. Victoria had also managed to snag back the fifty clams from under the ketchup bottle as we bolted out of there.

As we passed through San Bernardino on our way home, its confines suddenly seemed a little friendlier to the eye. With the accent on little.

Don't get me wrong. Big Bear is a pretty place. But Red Neck might be a better name.

THURSDAY MARINE LAYER

I wish I could tell you, dear readers, that there is some compelling, mysterious, sexy reason for my absence. I've felt your pining- just as one proton simultaneously responds to its sister proton's oscillations, I also cannot help but be affected by your collective emotional state. I feel your longing. It's time to return to public life.

Enough nonsense. Let's debrief.

It's been a busy week. Where to start? How about nowhere in particular?

The Retirement Of  Larry King.

Finally. This man is one of the most over-rated television 'personalities' to ever foul up the airwaves. Talk about wasting a public platform. Just another reason I adore Rachel Maddow- her arrival on MSNBC assisted in accelerating the decline of Larry's already dismal ratings. There is only room for one old, decrepit Jewish man on television- me in 30 years. But I'm getting ahead of myself. What will CNN do with the 9pm timeslot? As it stands, their current team of anchors (Fareed Zakaria excepted- his show GPS is one of the smartest and most understated in cable news)  makes Fox's people look like Nobel laureates. I have some ideas:

• To Catch A Predator 6 featuring Larry King - MSNBC and CNN team up to follow Larry as he looks for his next wife.
• CNN Smackdown! - Anderson Cooper, Wolf Blitzer, Campbell Brown, John King and the rest of the drones  have to wrestle for the right to stay at the network. In a janitorial position.
• Diff'rent Strokes Reunion Hour - The guy who played Willis performs monologs for 60 minutes.

• Queer Eye For The Straight Guy - Anderson Cooper moves in with Wolf Blitzer, gives him a shave and a wax, plies him with Cosmos and E and eventually turns him. Ratings soar, Anderson is excommunicated from the gay community and Wolf lands the lead in a Broadway revival of Gypsy.

 Le Bron James' Free Agency Adventure


I have an idea. It may not be legal, but at this point I don't give a hoot. It's called collusion. Why don't we collectively decide, as a society, to do something better with our money than giving gobs of it to monosyllabic, egomaniacal, misogynistic young men whose greatest contribution to our community is throwing a large rubber sphere through a steel rim attached to a frilly little white net?
Enough already. NBA owners: take the hundreds of millions you're going to throw at all these free agents and spend it on funding for arts schools in poor and working class neighbourhoods. Maybe we can start affirming that poor black kids are good for something other than enriching sporting teams. As for the rest of us, let's leave the stadiums empty and the TV off for a year and seek other forms of entertainment. More lovemaking will occur, novels will be written, museums will fill up again and just maybe the oil will get cleaned up.

 General McChrystal Got Fired

Aaah... very original, Mr.President. David Petraeus. Never saw that one coming. Of course McChrystal had to be fired. Reminds me of the time the woman I was seeing told all our friends that I was a lousy lay. Too fast, she said. Okay, number one: in the words of Christopher Durang, wanting sex to take a long time is sick. Second, as I explained to every single friend, once I'd hunted down all 472 that my then girlfriend called,  in matters of sex I am not "fast"- I am efficient. If my lovers need more time to get their work done, that's not my problem.
But I divagate. The point here is that this guy slagged off his boss in a public forum and had to go. As far as his replacement... why is it that we hire generals to oversee these campaigns? If Obama really wants to end matters over there, shouldn't he put someone in charge who doesn't have a strong vested interest in seeing it continued? It is simple logic which suggests that military folk, especially those who have been entrenched in that arena for decades, have little interest in a genuine, lasting peace. Wouldn't that mean they'd all be out of a job?

For a coherent analysis of the actual situation confronting us in Afghanistan, read Bob Herbert's op-ed this week in the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/26/opinion/26herbert.html?_r=1&ref=bobherbert

As the old Vietnam anti-war slogan goes:

"Fighting for peace is like fucking for chastity."

Amen.

Tea Partiers Are Idiots

Yes, I know that title is reductive, it's judgemental, it's simplistic and it's absolutely spot on.

Having said that, early members of an emerging Nazi Party may have been called similar names by the very people they ended up carting away in trains, so we should treat this sub-sector of our society with a little care. I don't believe for a second that this fringe element has increased markedly in number- the real problem here is that it has found a way to legitimize itself and therefore has a heightened capability to attract the lesser-educated and bigoted among us who, in spite of their limitations (limitations often placed on them due to conditioning by parents and their immediate environment), would otherwise have made more rational political choices. It's up to the media in addition to all of us to correct lies and false propaganda when we come into contact with it; unfortunately, most of the corporate media is all too ready to embrace the neanderthalic grunting of Tea Party candidates as educated discourse. Luckily, ladies and gentleman, enter Chris Matthews, of Hardball fame:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/01/chris-matthews-grills-ric_n_632139.html

Enjoy.

The World Cup

I have had it with the dives. These fellows, when lightly tapped by an opponent, behave as if there is well-aimed sniper fire coming from the stands, finding a home in the middle of their rippled torsos. I haven't seen this much useless, shameful, shambolic diving since BP last tried to fix the leak. It must stop. I suggest a new colour coding system: the Pink Card. If these fellows like falling to the ground in hysterical tears so much, upon receiving the Pink Card they will be suspended, bound and gagged and forced to watch Fried Green Tomatoes and Steel Magnolias over and over again, without sleep, until they see the error of their ways. Problem solved.

Trust me. I know all about falling to the ground, overcome with deep, convulsing sobs.

My team is Australia.

Enough said.

Pictures, from top:  Larry King, public menace.
                          Petraeus... awful hair.
                               A gargantuan tea cup rocket that will carry away all bigots and oil company executives.
                               Another soccer player shot in the back. Tragic.
                              

NO BURGER WEEK

I'm about to spoil your day.

Can you imagine a society in which we stopped making burgers from cows and started to make them out of, say... kittens? Or puppies? Or, dare I say... babies? Let us imagine for a moment that legislation was passed enabling all restaurants to sell these exciting new burgers legally. Let us also imagine that the meat tastes and looks exactly the same.


Have no fear; this will not be a post tearfully exhorting you to consider the feelings of our bovine friends. The puppy/kitten/baby strategem was an idea borne of desperation: what will it take to rein in our obsession with the Burger, to get us to resist its insidious charms, to move on to (literally) greener pastures that await us on that menu or at the supemarket? Although I am all for the compassionate treatment of all living creatures, that's another post for another day. This essay, dear readers, concerns our health.

There are a multitude of enormous, teeming cities in the world today dealing with traffic problems that have become almost too big to even tackle. The reason for these problems lies in the paradigm of more requires more. I see it in the city that I currently inhabit, Los Angeles. Many decades ago the local government, presumably stocked up with loads of campaign cash delivered in Trader Joe's cardboard bags by the burgeoning automobile industry, decided to do away with the light rail system that not only was tremendously efficient in carrying large numbers of Angelenos (an insipid term, I know) all over the city at an affordable price but also added to the character, beauty and connectedness of the town, in favour of building many more roads through developing neighbourhoods. As the population (and the pollution) increased, the government saw the most obvious answer that would have been self-evident to all but the most unhinged... or far-sighted: build more roads to accomodate the ever-expanding car fleet. As more people and therefore more cars filled the city, the government continued to build more roads, all the while neglecting the health concerns of the city's people and the environmental and social degradation that occurs when neighbourhoods are literally passed over by massive construction. More Cars Means More Roads Means More Cars and so on.

It would seem that this same phenomenon is occuring around burger consumption.

It's a sneaky little critter, our burger. The old-fashioned Steak still seems to occupy rarified air. Restaurants charge more for it and we don't seem as cavalier in our consumption of it. McDonald's has not released the McSteak. It's as if we're all aware of the excess that might be inherent in devouring a steak four times a week. But the friendly burger? Ah, what the hell. Pick one up at the drive through on the way home. Order it at the diner. Order it at the three-star restaurant that is fleecing you with its 'gourmet' burger. Throw a frozen patty in the oven. No big deal. It's just a sandwich, right?

Burger King, McDonalds' stinky little brother who forgets to wipe his nose occasionally, currently has 8,700 'restaurants'. There were 756 new Burger King franchises opened last year and the corporation plans to open another 1,000 throughout 2010. The wonderful Wendy's franchise has around 4,900 locations and has opened some 470 more in the last year. As for McDonald's, they've moved into the direct-delivery arena. They're currently laying a pipeline that will stretch to your home, with a nozzle for each home; just stick the nozzle into your mouth (it's shaped like a snorkel- just bite down) and the good folks at Maccas will simply pump the product directly into your gullet.

Despite greater awareness and more media attention being placed on the consequences of over-consumption of artificial, fatty, salty and sugary food than at any other time in history, not to mention an abundance of evidence proving how problematic a diet high in red meat can be, we continue to munch away on them cows.

I remember back in Australia in the early nineties when McDonalds had its first ever closure due to lack of business. I remember how excited I was to announce "the beginning of the end" for the fast food industry, that people were finally "getting it" and renouncing their idolatry of the hamburger.

I was dead wrong. The burger has become fashionable. I can't remember how many times I've heard someone declare in their best shrill voice, "I just went to --- (fill in the blank here with your favourite overpriced, pretentious eatery- oh, wait... "eatery" is itself a pretentious term.. damn), they have a GREAT burger."

Really? A particular establishment's burger is that much better than another's? Has ordering a burger become akin to getting a massage? Can we really be that discerning over a piece of grilled red meat? Even if there is a discernible difference between hamburgers, maybe it's time we raised our sights a tad; if we're really that keen to be discerning in our food choices, let's shoot for foods that involve a little more preparation and care than a hunk of ground beef being rolled into a puck like a piece of playdough.

Americans eat on average around 67 pounds of red meat every year. While no one can agree on just how much may be too much (and levels have come down from the all-time high in the mid-70s due to something called the 'national beef herd liquidation'- I don't think the words 'beef' and 'liquid' should ever be that closely associated), I think we can all agree that we're probably eating way too much- one only has to look at the levels of heart disease, colon cancer and digestive problems that are currently being experienced and attributed by much of the medical community to a diet too heavily laden with red meat.

But that won't stop us. Oh no. Just as we've come to accept The Soda as being the natural accompaniment to every meal, we also have been brainwashed into thinking 8 ounces of red meat paired with a bunch of fried potatoes devoid of all nutrition is just fine as a daily meal.

It ain't, folks. Let's start voting for fresher food with our wallets. Us men have a lot to answer for- somewhere along the way some construction worker spread the word that 'real' men eat steaks and burgers; the classic old Aussie farmer breakfast is steak and eggs. Steak for breakfast. Every goddamned day. Terrific.

Guys,  eating a lot of red meat doesn't mean you're tough. It means you haven't built a good log cabin in about a decade and your meat breath in the morning is melting the paint off the walls. Enough is enough. Real men, tough men, strong men eat salad and cry when watching Titanic... for the third time.

Some fun facts from a report done by LEAD, which is the Livestock, Environment and Development Initiative, supported by the Food and Agriculture Administration of the UN:

- Meat production by 2050 will double what it was in 1990
- Livestock currently provides a third of human protein intake
- Grazing lands take up 26% of the ice-free land on this planet
- Feedcrop production is 33% of all arable land on Earth
- 70% of previously forested land in the Amazon is taken up by pasture
- Livestock account for 9% of all human activity related carbon dioxide emissions
- Livestock are responsible for 37% of all human activity related methane emissions, and methane has 23 times more global warming potential compared to carbon dioxide
- Livestock account for nearly two thirds of human related ammonia emissions
- In the USA, Livestock are responsible for over half of the country's erosion and sediment issues.



 The answer? Very simple. If you want to live longer, be healthier and feel better, do what nature intended you to do as a human being: eat more green plants. 

It's time for No Burger Week. Take 'em off menus, out of the freezers at supermarkets and out of the display window at the local butchery.




It could be one glorious week for our bodies: salads piled high, bunches of fresh fruit and healthy grains and legumes by the sackload. With the occasional kitten thrown in for some protein.

Sorry, folks. I'm a dog guy.

BOREDOM

I visited my local Target store today, located in the friendly confines of Hollywood. The idea struck me on our way out of the place- why not hand out free razor blades with which to off myself? It would save me the trouble of finding the means with which to end my life and the misery I felt after strolling down the antiseptic lanes, stuffed with useless detritus that people are talked into believing they need or want.

The mall culture, invented by America, is one its most insidious global exports. There are many sad things to behold in our world today- starving children, environmental decay, the most recent winner of American Idol; but the most depressing thing my senses have had the misfortune of coming into contact with is this verbal interaction between two people:

"So what are you doing today?"
"Going to the mall."
"Oh, what are you planning on buying?"
"Nothing. We're just going to go there and walk around."

Boredom is pervasive in our society. Most of us never have the privilege of having jobs that are stimulating, the kind of jobs that have us bouncing out of bed in the morning to get to. We also are not encouraged to create dynamic, fluid and daringly honest relationships with friends and family. Many couples live an entire life together and never really discover the true self lying next to them every night. For that matter, many of us never do the introspective work that can lead to profound personal growth and a more stimulating, vital life.

Instead, we go to the mall. People used to worship religious gods on sunday; now they worship the god of stuff. I witnessed people with flaccid, impassive expressions on their faces heading to the checkout holding onto large cardboard boxes. Were there objects to be found inside those boxes? Possibly. I don't think for the most part it really matters. What is essential is that we buy something, that we obtain a bright and shiny new object that we will inevitably tire of tomorrow. But no matter; we will have found something else to purchase by then.

I had a wonderful, austere, ascetic teacher who used to say, "boredom is a defense."

Her postulation was that wherever we are, if we are truly present and possessing a quiet mind, we can find anything fascinating with which we come into contact and if we feel bored it is only due to a resistance on our part to opening up to the immediacy of the moment. While I find those words ultimately incontestable, there are difficulties we all face in arriving at that quiet mind, that state of sensual curiosity. Somewhere along the way our society decided that 'shock and awe' qualified as entertainment. We have become spoonfed, our tastes and likes decided for us by corporations. We stand mute before so many bright lights and deafening sound, murmuring 'wow' to ourselves, all the while being  anaesthetized to such an extent that we forget to check in with our feelings in time to discover that in fact, the 'entertainment' we shelled out our hard earned money for actually made us feel bad. 'Bad' in this case could mean emotionally shut down, depressed, frightened or even angry. There is a reason for certain restrictions being introduced to prevent some 'entertainment' being experienced by children. The effects of extreme violence and sensory overload is usually clearly visible in infants, but we have made the mistake of assuming greater maturity and life experience renders that same stuff harmless to adults.

It isn't. The more in touch we are with our feelings, impulses and urges for creativity and greater self-care, the more dissatisfaction we may discover with movies that deaden us, food that constipates and fattens us and possessions that do not fulfill us. They may briefly quell the needs of our all-consuming ego but they do not go close to even touching the unconscious mind, the one that dreams and the voice inside us that seeks creativity and self-expression.

We have accepted boredom as a common state, something to be tolerated and assuaged by external salves that only leave us with a more profound sense of that same boredom. Many people, when asked how they are, will respond with the murderous cliche, "same shit, different day".

The bar must be lifted. It is never the same day, never the same shit. The mall will usually leave most of us drained, tired, lighter in the wallet and just a little more cluttered at home, yet we are all surrounded by nature, which is free, renewable and usually leaves us feeling better, more at peace and with a renewed sense of kinship with the people who are sharing the experience with us. The same could be said of authentic interactions with other people that transcend small talk or creative enterprise that doesn't necessarily involve the outlay of large amounts of money.


For make no mistake: there are countless corporations who are actively seeking, on a daily basis, to ensure that we do not find more authentic, vital and nourishing forms of entertainment and fulfillment. They do not want our minds to become quiet; human beings tend to like feeling good, and it is only our ignorance of those states of greater peace, joy, stimulation and aliveness that prevents us from seeking out places and ways of being in which to experience them more regularly.

Nancy Reagan said Just Say No in the 1980s, even as her husband said Yes to the greater corporate dominance of our society's politics and culture through massive deregulation and disempowerment of the citizen by divers means, including media monopolization.

Illicit drug abuse is a problem, but there are more universally accepted drugs which are far more harmful to the general population.

Let's starting saying No more often to empty forms of 'entertainment': too much TV, violent and hyperactive movies, the consumption of useless toys and awful, chemical food that is killing us.

What do we say Yes to in order to replace those activities?

I guess we'll have to start getting creative.

Post script:  In the interests of full disclosure, I bought a packet of tank tops, 2 t-shirts, a soccer ball and an air pump. I had no intention of buying any of those items upon entering the store. I suggested to my girlfriend Victoria that we get some people together and play soccer. Let us hope I turn that idea into a reality.