Notes From A Burning House

If the hosts weren’t free, I probably would never have started blogging.  I get enough pleasure out of it that I would not paying a little bit of money if I had it to spend.  As it is, I don’t, and I am getting what I pay for.

A few minutes ago I attempted to log in to MySpace.  After typing in my email address and password and watching the entire Godfather trilogy waiting for MySpace to accept the login, the screen flashed the following message:

You must be logged in to do that.

Which makes me wonder if the U.S. government has taken over MySpace.

*     *     *

I am actually somewhat partial to Friendster’s blog.  Visually it is easier on the eyes, I think.  On the other hand, the editor has bizarre quirks.  Heaven help me if I incorporate the name of a geographical location.  As soon I hit ‘preview’ it automatically separates the names of places into their own individual lines, destroying my paragraphs and leaving the punctuation marks strewn below like children’s toys left on the stairs.  I have not found a way to persuade the editor not to do this work for me.  I then have to re-edit at least one time to correct all of its, um, assistance. 

On the good days, it accepts my corrections.  On other days, I have actually re-written my sentences in order to avoid the editor’s quirks.  Professional news writers deal with that problem anyway - but not on their personal blogs, for the love of Circe. 

The MySpace blog editor is slightly less of a hellcat, but it has strange habits of its own.  It likes to eliminate quotation marks, apostrophes, and ellipses.  I must ‘edit’ at least one time, go through very carefully, and replace each and every one of them. 

Some cultural genome is sending an impulse to my brain making me think that this is the natural course of a free service, and I might do better to pay a little money in exchange for more reliable service.  A sweet idea but the principle is not guaranteed in practice - I could very well end up paying for what I am currently getting gratis.  While feeling like a bigger fool, to boot (and to reboot, rather often). 

Gloriously, I had a creative day yesterday involving words on paper.  As long as my eyes don’t go, and a tsunami doesn’t soak the books, the technology is reliable.   Met my friend/conspirator in arms/creative partner Mr. Nelson for brunch at one of our Los Feliz hangouts.  It turned into an entire working day of creative work when an idea hatched over scrambled eggs and coffee in a loud room with children uproaring mayhem (and hemming upmay and upping the mayroar while they were at it) segued into an expedition to Skylight Books to procure research material (and some mulch), and a day at Nelson’s apartment to where beer went in and ideas came out. 

When the technology is working more steadily, and the banner ads aren’t making so much noise, I might gather my thoughts and tell you about them.  In the meantime, I’m working on them offline.  In the spirit of a Hollywood pitch, where familiar movies are combined to convey a "concept," I can say it is something like Aristophanes’s Peace combined with Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi and performed by Cirque du Soleil.  (And there’s gotta be a part for me somewhere -perhaps Lady Ubu in a fat suit and kabuki makeup.) 

Wikipedia.org has a great article on Alfred Jarry - look him up.  Note his resemblance to Johnny Depp.  Peculiar fellow.  A very peculiar fellow indeed.

I should talk!  And so should you.  Let’s talk soon.

A gun, a ukulele, and prana.  Some personal news updates.  Opening chords, please…

On Friday afternoon, a 30-year old man forced his way into the offices of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle.  He did this by hiding behind a plant in the lobby and holding a gun to the head of a 13-year old girl.  Before he surrendered, he had murdered one woman and wounded five more people, including a pregnant woman.  You can read about what happened here.

In Los Angeles, I work for another highly prominent Jewish organization.  We already have post-9/11 security measures in place.  Our office door is nondescript, and when you approach it we can see you through two cameras that are installed in the hallway.  You buzz, identify yourself if we don’t know who you are, and we buzz you in.  There are panic buttons distributed throughout the suite.  If the Jewish Fed in Seattle had these, it is hard to say what would have happened if the gunman had been surprised by police.  Oh yes, I am also trained to handle bomb threats.

What’s a nice lad from a small New England fishing state doing here anyway?

In the three years I have worked at this place, we have gotten a few weird phone calls but nothing threatening.  One day last week, an officer from the LAPD’s counter-terrorism unit called "just to see if everything’s okay" and doing his best to sound casual.  Then, on Friday, we hear about this shit in Seattle.  We will, I am sure, be taking a more diligent (perhaps a little more scared) approach to screening visitors to our office tomorrow.

Usually, when I tell people I work for a Jewish organization their eyebrows rise and I say to them, "Hey, they didn’t ask."  This much is true.  That was three years ago.  On my first day at work, an earthquake rocked the building and the rabbi lightened the mood by stalking across the office, which was still heaving, pointing at finger at the new Buddhist employee and saying, "This is because of you!" 

That has been the most exciting event to happen in the office and we all hope it stays that way. 

*     *     *

I’ve been practicing "Dream A Little Dream On Me."  Difficult chords.  Surprisingly, in this city where you can find just about anything you want (except an unmetered parking space), a ukulele instructor has taken a little bit of detective work.  I heard back from someone at McCabe’s in Santa Monica who will work with me.  He is a little expensive, and I don’t have much money (everyone who works at the high-security Jewish organization is handsome, but our pay is not), but something will get worked out. 

Practicing the ukulele is an effort that yields delightful results.  This has not been true in every area of my life, especially recently.  Subsequently, this feels therapeutic rather than indulgent. 

*     *     *

An old friend and Conservatory mate arrived in town a month ago and I think she will do very well here.  After one week, she had business cards.  She is an excellent theatre artist, a director who is also a trained and talented actor, and a yoga teacher.  We’ve had exciting conversations about teaching yoga and meditation for actors, and applying them specifically to actor training.  At her goading, I have conceived three classes I would like to teach - a writing class, an acting class based on movement rather than text, and a class about meditation and actors’ preparation.  Meanwhile, Jennifer has found a space.  Is this the beginning of a school?  Even as I think of leaving Los Angeles for someplace more walkable? 

Here is a more important question: will it rain today?  Please? 

*plunka dunk dunk plunka dunka dunk dunk…*

"I’m siiiiiinging in the rain…."

I cannot remember the first wallet I ever owned, but I remember receiving it as a Christmas present from my parents.  In a box with clear plastic bubbles I had to remove. 

There have been a few wallets since then.  Is it rude to talk to about ex-wallets?  They don’t mean anything to me anymore, honest.  And there weren’t that many.  It’s not like I’m Wilt Chamberlain or anything.  You know, he claimed he had 10,000 wallets over the years?!  I can’t fathom it.  No, it’s not that I had a lot of wallets in the past.  Sometimes I just wonder what happened to them, you know?

And how terrible is it that I can’t clearly remember the first one? 

There was the reddish leather wallet Halley gave me, that lasted for years until the clear plastic trifold windows were yellow and barely translucent.  There’s the wallet Mauro gave me because he was sick of seeing me with my driver’s license and ATM card in my pants pocket all the time.  The wallet was European, and shaped differently than my money.  It fell apart.  I was back to carrying things in my pockets until Tam bought me a hemp wallet on Venice Beach.  It fell apart.  I went back to pants pockets, but sometimes carried things in a little silk purse I bought at the Bodhi Tree Bookstore.     

So I spent ten bucks and bought a wallet.  Now my pockets have more room for all the random receipts I collect. 

*     *     *

Dadaism is described as nihilistic, yet in the Cabaret Voltaire episode I yet recognize an authentic emotional response to current events.  Hugo Ball used phonemes like a child uses fingerpaints, and there is such joy in  reading him aloud.  The poetry of Tristan Tzara, the man who wrote a manifesto in which he declared himself against manifestos, so playful and irreverent and rebelliously nonsensical, still conveys his anger and his nausea at World War One and a world where nonsense was taken for sense, where the conventional wisdom was insanity, where poison thunderclouds boomed and pipes clanged and tubas belched formaldehyde.  He took his great question about the human condition with him on a trip from the avant-garde, through surrealism, and into lyric poetry.

*     *     *

"It’s a good thing you bought a wallet - that was going to be your Christmas present."

Marvelous!  Causing someone to change their minds and return to the mind that comes before square one, this we call a dadamitzvah.  It is a small revolution.  That’s the effect of a Zen koan and the works of art I tend to enjoy.  Even better are the everyday, ordinary, un-special occasions where my mind is stopped and altered, even a tiny bit. 

*     *    *

In the course of thinking about the war I remembered my first wallet after all.  It was a light brown leather wallet with huge, decorative white stitches and a picture of a Native American on it. 

*     *     *

Speaking of an age gone mad.  Sense is dead and all that’s left are fractured points of view popping away blindly like land mines that maim innocents.  With so many wars going on it is as if the firemen are sitting around saying theres no sense in putting out a wildfire in the desert, since another one is going to start up again anyway.  We want to argue about the oxygen’s point of view versus the deadwood’s point of view versus the homeowners’ point of view and the right of a matchstick to fulfill its destiny instead of regarding uncontrolled combustion as the main problem.  In other words, we have learned to stop worrying and love collective violence.  War is peace. 

Sense is dead.  Our investment in Iraq makes perfect sense: the fact that it was predicated on falsehoods and deceit is now viewed, even by our one opposition party, as irrelevant.  The truth, that is.  Irrelevant.  Sense only detracts from success.  It is counter-productive.  Sense is unelectable.  Sense is unpatriotic.  Surrendering our will to wage war at will is seen as a violation of our sovereignty.  So war is freedom.  War is nation. 

Common ground is bad television.  Harmony is dissonance.  Points of view conflict - that’s good television.  Pundits shouting, prime ministers pointing, kids in ammunition belts, sectarian monologues.  Points of view don’t seek peace. 

What if people looked at things with no point of view? 

That would be a BIIIIIIG dadamitzvah. 

*     *     *

there are things you don’t know

without spending time being still

and paying very close attention

to yourself

it isn’t pretty, but that’s no surprise

what might be a surprise:

it isn’t ugly, either

*    *    *

In exchange for point of view, the Cabaret Voltaire soirees engaged no-point-of-view.  Before point-of-view, true nature is creative and playful.  More creative than many of us dare realize. 

*     *     *

So my ATM card with three brown bears on it and my drivers license with a photograph of myself looking like I swallowed a condom full of water and drowned with a morgue-ish grin on my face, and one ten dollar bill, all sit in my new black leather wallet.  It has a sleek, efficient appearance.

Yet hold it to your ear.  Can you hear the Chief of the Mohegans praying in his powerful language?  Yes, yes I can.  And while he prays, the bears inside the wallet are going through his food.

What can I do? 

Put things in it and keep it in my pocket.

It began with what I thought was a strange tick: a tendency for my right hand to hit the opposite arm, several times through the course of a day.

Then I noticed a cut on my left ankle, owing to a tendency to kick myself with the other foot. Soon the right hand was hitting my arm more often, with more force. At this point I became concerned and went to see my doctor.

The medical community was divided. A battery of tests failed to determine any disorder, and the specialists soon began to quarrel with one another even as the right hand escalated its assaults and began pulling my hair, and that right foot began to launch itself up to kick me in the ass.

The orthopedic surgeons tended to see things from the hand’s point of view and soon began to badger the cosmeticians, and the podiatrists assumed that my ass must be quietly provoking my feet. It became clear that nobody trusted the brain whatsoever, with rumors of factions from the lower right temporal lobe providing covert support for the ass-kicking. Hand and foot found some common ground and formed an axis, and soon my hand was punching me in the head while the foot persisted in hopping around to make my travel as difficult as possible.

There’s a friend of mine who works in some kind of international relations capacity, his name is Kofi Annan, and since he seemed like an even-keeled guy I asked him what he thought I should do. Annan said, in a very quiet tone of voice, "Limbs! You must all stop what you are doing right now!"

Whereupon my right hand flew out and caught him on the jaw. That did not go over well. Annan, still splayed out on the ground, produced a whistle that hung around his neck. He blew it, but I could hear no sound. Still, two guys in fatigues and blue helmets appeared. Annan said, "Arrest this man, he deliberately targeted me!"

Some other guy in an expensive suit appeared with a briefcase stuffed with papers stray bits of paper flew about his sweaty, red, bald head. "Not so fast! You don’t know that!"

Annan said, "I stand corrected." Then he noticed that he was still on the ground, and got to his feet. "NOW I stand corrected. Arrest this man, he apparently deliberately targeted me!"

My new portly friend, straining at the seams of his bulged-out suit, said, "Not so fast, internationalist collectivist appeaser-monkey!! This is not a member of the world community. THIS is an AMERICAN!"

Unfortunately, at that moment my troublesome foot heaved into the air and hit his briefcase with a thud. Shocked, he took several steps back. He pointed a fat, calloused finger at me. "On second thought," he yelled, "Take this evildoer to The Salt Pit! Wake up the dogs and get the black hood ready!"

While this was going on, I tried to apologize and explain what was going on with my limbs, but my hand kept punching me in the mouth and preventing me from getting out more than a couple of words.

"If you are interested in resolving this problem," said one of the blue helmets, "Why won’t you speak?"

At that moment, I punched myself in the mouth at the same moment that my foot jerked violently and for a moment I flew into the air. At this Annan blew his whistle and said, "This is not a safe place. We must withdraw! Come!" And he and his friends in the blue helmets ran off.

At this point, my hand pulled my hair so hard that I took myself down the ground where my self-beating continued. Somehow, I could hear my neighbors making remarks about the scene through the windows of their houses.

"Isn’t that awful?"

"Some people."

"If he would come to Jesus, I expect he’d leave himself alone."

"You know, maybe that’s why he’s beating on himself in the first place!" Satan’s in him trying to keep him from Jesus!"

"Isn’t there anything we can do to save his soul?"

"Well, if he won’t come around, we could cut off his arms and give him an opportunity to embrace the Lord."

"Well hold on there, Jim, he can’t embrace the Lord if we cut his arms off."

"Don’t take me so literalistically. I’m using an alimony."

"Maybe we should leave him be."

"Well, I suppose you’re right, this is America and all, but I can’t have someone lying there on the street in our neighborhood rejecting Jesus like that. My kids will see him. Then I’ve got to explain he’s an infidel, and you know who infidels follow, don’t you? Here’s your clue: in-fidel. Fidel. Fidel, that communist! You want proof that atheists are commies, well there it is in black and white."

"There ya go, Ed, when it comes to logic, there’s no mouse going to change your cat’s pajamas!"

"That’s right!"

"Let’s drag him out of the neighborhood and leave him somewhere!"

"It’s too hot. Call the police."

"I’ve been trying to call 9-1-1 but they say it’s disconnected. Didn’t pay their phone bill, I guess."

"Damn government. Never there for us."

"Well, we are at war."

"Forgot about that."

"Shall we stand? I think we should stand."

The sun was glaring harshly, but soon I was beyond worrying about that because I had dug out one of my own eyeballs while my besieged foot decided enough was enough and my feet were now engaged in an all-out kicking frenzy. I heard a different pair of feet approach me. A young voice said, "Why do you hate America?" and then ran away.

Still, lying there as I was, now half blind with bloodied and swollen lips and broken ankles, I remembered the words I heard through one of the windows: that’s why he’s beating on himself. And as my limbs kept fighting, I thought, That’s true, isn’t it? These aren’t just a bunch of limbs fighting with each other. I am beating on myself. Why? And come to think of it, what am I anyway?

I had been thinking so hard I hadn’t heard the feet. My hand had also ripped one of my ears off and had tried to stuff it into my mouth, so it was a bit difficult to hear - but I felt a warm, friendly touch on my head.

"You are asking the right question," said a soft voice with a slight accent I could not determine. "’What am I?’ You are fighting yourself because you do not know what you are."

I responded as best I could: "Can you (SMACK!) please (BIFF!) teach me (POW!)?"

"Yes, but I’ll have to ask you to pay quarterly dues for a membership and attend three of my weekend retreats, and for those you are going to have to buy a uniform and some yoga mats and cushions and some surgical tubing - oh yes, and a dance belt - and you must read all six of my books - how is your Sanskrit by the way? - and before your first retreat, there is a cleansing workshop you have to go through and you have to raise your fee for that workshop by asking your friends for money and bringing five new people to an introductory workshop…"

Both my hands went for him and he danced away, chanting.

So I lay there. And the beating continued.

And continued.

And continued.

California State Treasurer Phil Angelides, wants to be Governor of California.  He is running against a very disappointing and frequently hypocritical incumbent, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. 

******

Like a lot of citizens who are elected to public office, Mr. S. once worked in another profession.  You may have heard of him.

In his new campaign ad, Angelides is bashing that profession by using it as a negative stereotype.  Angelides, the ad says, is a leader, not an actor. 

A lousy businessman can grow up to be the Decider of the United States, but the notion of an actor winning re-election as Governor of California is portrayed as a ridiculous notion.  An actor, says Angelides, is not a real leader.  Actors aren’t real.  They are pretenders.  It is based on a misunderstanding of what actors do, and fed on enduring negative stereotypes of actors as dishonest, infantile, and libidinous Dionysiacs who will steal your silverware and your daughter’s virtue if you don’t bar the door.  Love their movies, buy magazines that publish trespassing photos of them and say, "Look at the cellulite on her!!", accost them in airports and make them sign your baggage claim ticket while they’re eating, but do not regard them as intelligent and competent citizens with intelligent opinions. 

This goes right back to Plato, who would have barred actors and poets from his ideal republic because we are not to be trusted: we pretend to be other people.   Instead of seeing the actor as a storyteller and someone who addresses the truth by way of story, language, and visual imagery, the actor is frequently seen as practitioner of a deceitful art, a dissembler, an avoider of truth. 

Sadly, the Lotus Sutra also exhibits this judgment, as the Buddha includes actors in his list of dangerous persons that one should avoid on the path to enlightenment. 

Angelides is trying to portray Schwarzenegger as a failed leader, so he reached for something easy: the old actor canard.  "The Actor can’t tell real life from one of his movie roles.  Schwarzenegger thinks it’s all a movie!"  It’s an insult that doesn’t land on the man alone, but an entire profession, most of whose workers struggle to make a living.  The acting profession is so difficult to survive in, I myself wonder how or why any of us do it.  It certainly isn’t because of the widespread respect for our craft; not in a profession where survival depends on your willingness to sell Doritos on television and/or show your boobs, controlled by a marketplace that actively works against creativity. 

It is a tough and unromantic profession, one that faces rollbacks on salaries and benefits like the ones confronting so many other American workers.

And this candidate for Governor is on air suggesting that actors really should not be considered fit for public office.  How thoughtless.  How mean-spirited.  And how basically undemocratic. 

If he has something to teach me about being a good leader, I would like to hear it.  In the meantime, this semi-retired actor has a couple of things to say to him.

Miss Manners, the reliable and witty arbiter of etiquette and fine manners, was asked in her column last week to elucidate our rules on the use of a fork versus a spoon.  Surprisingly, the fork has achieved its prominence at the table by way of its own charisma rather than any established rule, so says the divine Miss M.:

Are you sure you are up to hearing the truth about flatware? Miss Manners must warn you that there is some vicious competition going on in the most ordinary and innocent-looking place setting.

The fork is the latecomer here, having been in widespread Western use for only a few centuries. But it quickly bullied its way to the top of the hierarchy and established the rule that everything that can be eaten with the fork alone should be. (And even some things that can’t be, such as peas; your mother’s acquaintance was sadly mistaken.)

The knife and the spoon had to settle for the leftovers. Well, not the leftovers you eat straight from the refrigerator while Miss Manners averts her eyes, but the foods that the fork had to admit it can’t manage.

The knife kept the meat (but not fish) although now in partnership with the fork. The spoon still had the soup to itself, but for informal service, got only the mushy stuff, while the fork got solids, such as cake. In formal service, the fork and spoon are both presented for dessert, whatever its solidity, and can be used together. But it is easy to see which is the ranking instrument.

I don’t know when it happened, but over time I have moved away from the fork and have approached my meals armed with a pair of chopsticks and a Korean-style spoon.  Korean spoons are excellent for their long handles and slightly wider heads, at less of an angle from the handle, making them much better for soup and rice.  Together, the spoon and chopsticks handle just about anything I want to eat – other than sandwiches, which I pick up and eat with my hands.  At a Korean table, this would be alien behavior. 

The one exception, I suppose, would be for carving into a nice, juicy steak or a slice of turkey.  For these, spoon and chopsticks would not do, and I would have to stab the meat with a fork and cut into it with a serrated knife.   I don’t eat much meat these days – I lost the habit when I learned how to cook and discovered beans, vegetables, tempeh, and other foods rich in protein and/or iron.  As a child, though, I would open the fridge, remove cold slices of roast beef from Tupperware containers, flick on some pepper, and eat straight from my hands.  Again, alien.  Both Miss Manners and the Koreans turn and avert their eyes at this memory.

Back to my beloved spoon and chopsticks.  I also have a long sock designed to hold them.  While I do not often carry the spoon around with me, I have two pairs of chopsticks in my briefcase, and I make no bones about using them in an Asian restaurant.  I much prefer to use my own than to consume a pair of disposable chopsticks, the ones you break apart to use for a single meal before they are thrown away. 

The worldwide demand for disposable chopsticks has led to frightening deforestation.  Literally, forests are cleared just to produce these things.  China alone consumes 25 million trees per year just for chopsticks. In British Columbia, whole aspen forests were cleared in just a few years by one single manufacturer of chopsticks. 

In China, the government has actually encouraged the use of disposable chopsticks for health purposes.  Still, many people in China have petitioned their government to reduce this practice.  In March, China instituted a disposable chopstick tax.  Korea also took measures to reduce disposable chopsticks at their restaurants.  In Japan, where plastic reusable chopsticks are not popular, the sanitary objections to reusable wood chopsticks have led to renewed interest in a natural lacquer finish so the sticks can be safely washed and re-used.   For those of us over here, David Strauch has some additional suggestions.  Me, I tough out the strange looks and break out my chopsticks, or hit myself over the head if I’ve forgotten them. 

To my knowledge, Miss Manners has never offered any suggestions for how to encourage others to bring and use their own chopsticks, but I am sure she would do it – as she does all things – with grace and wit. 

…and so once again, words try to find little cracks through the inexpressible, as undaunted as ants that chew through barriers and press on in determined formations. 

Hot.  Hot.  Hot.  Even the shadows take shelter elsewhere and leave us alone in unrelenting, pitiless light.  Too hot to stay home, too hot to go anywhere.  Get in the air conditioned Civic and just cruise town, look for a book store, look for another cafe.

Go to Seal Beach, and walk along the ocean even though it is hot here, too, and everyone is talking about the hottest summer they remember.  Why talk about the heat on the news and with your neighbors, unless it is for the simple reason that it is too hot to think of anything else than the present experience, that to depart from the pure experience of dripping-wet humidity and extreme temperature required too much energy, that to think of another topic in a space without air conditioning could induce headaches and nausea.  It is too hot to manage this, and I find refuge in Hennessy’s pub where I keep a book company with a cold sandwich and an even colder beer. 

Go to Long Beach and watch two dog owners face off in a similar manner, if a bit more erudite, than their dogs have just confronted one another.  Contender #1 is a Belmont Shore resident in spandex leggings and a t-shirt, with a rouged face and blue eye makeup, walking her very large dog.  He seems to be as tall as some of the BMW’s parked on the street here, who could damage an adversary with a head-butt as well as with his bite.  Contender #2 is a barrel-chested man who learned his civic values from an unruly frat house, banging open his front door and allowing his own large dog to lunge out of the house without a leash.  The dog is essentially a beer keg with four hamhock legs, leaving a long, slick line of drool behind him.  Frat man himself does not exactly bound after the dog - indeed, if he and contender #1 were in a foot race, Madame Rouge would sail past him without sweating off her rouge.  Frat man’s bounding days are over. 

So it took him a while to catch up when Beer Keg Dog launches after The Empire State Dog, who looks down from his tremendous height as the low-lying, wide-built malamongrel introduces himself by sinking his glistening, spit-slick teeth into Tall Dog’s legs.  Madame Rouge is already yelling to the skies about the assailant not being on a leash, and don’t people understand there are leash laws.  She zigs, her dog zags, and suddenly she is falling backwards - one of those falls that are hilarious in a cartoon, when the head disappears and you see feet pedalling in the air.  A great pratfall. 

Frat man (a bit of a prat himself) is entirely focused on getting his ambulatory beer keg out of the confrontation, and finally - finally - produces a leash and clips it to the animal’s collar.  Miraculously, neither guardian has gotten bitten for their intervention, and although Marmaduke had his attacker’s leg in his jaws and had hoisted him in the air, it appears no blood was spilled.

Madam Rouge, now standing again, tells Frat Man that this is why there are leash laws.  Frat Man retorts that with dogs like hers, he can see why such laws are necessary.  A cheap shot, considering it was his unleashed dog that attacked.  At no point did Frat Man ask Madame Rouge about her fall and whether she was hurt.  Instead, he stalked off with Beer Keg dog with an air of pugnaciously indignant self-righteousness.  Madame Rouge and the Sears Tower went in the opposite direction, with a promise that she would send Her Husband to the guy’s house. 

The Husband.  Oh no, not the Husband.  Time to leave Belmont Shore. 

Try to sleep, try to wake up.  Can you manage either?  Try to blog - but your fingers stick to the keys, and the letters have begun to wear off and drip onto the table in a Dali-esque mess.  Put an ice cube on top of your head and let it melt slowly as you rock in your chair.  Break out the uke and practice for a while but the chords don’t sound right because the G, E, and A strings play but the C-string just says, "Lord of all the holy mercies it is HOT!!!"  no matter what key you try and after a few strums it seems like it’s not going to get any better.  Drink some iced tea and think about your radio script and jot a few more things on the sketch pad but soon again that effort to focus the mind on some other realm begins to burn units of heat that pop in the brain and smell like spent firecrackers so you have another iced tea and touch the wall and realize it’s hot, too, it’s so hot the house could begin to tire of standing there and decide to lie down and throw your dishes crashing to the floor in the process.

Pray for lightining, pray for rain, and the sun goes down with the fan blowing unlit air into the room and the air-conditioned cars outside still zooming back and forth, back and forth, with no place to go. 

Yet if you keep your mind still, the heat travels through you like so much steam and you can find your way of sitting in it.  So it is with everything: just surrender and be hot.  Drink some water.  Sit in front of the fan.  Go ahead and take your shirt off - it’s too hot for Sunday best.  Too hot for skin, even.  Take it off and hang it on the rail outside, right next to mine.  We two skeletons can just sit here and drink iced tea and not think about a damned thing.

Today I walk mincingly because I am wrapped up tight in a blanket of noise and so I traipse daintily as if I carried an egg between my knees and where the light falls it grazes the wall and leaves the softest brushmarks.  The floorboards were organ pipes and the lid on the sky rattled when Gloria exploded into sound and the house flew in every direction in a million pieces of mirror that caught the moonlight and bathed your first kiss in twinkling bluish peekaboo light. 

The shadow of the jay skips from battleship to marigold. 

I fled from the isle of wights in horror of their ways, their scheming and conniving ways, their scheeving and combating ways, their lying and wightwashing ways.  Still I make use of their talents, their wicht-craft if you will (and you did, so I have).  You will not see me if I will not be seen when I don my good vetter vest, and for this you call me "recluse" at your pleasure although my friends can see me, as do children.

And, of course, the owl gazes where it pleases.

That night of your first kiss and the magical twinkling light that accompanied it in moonlight song, a beautiful song was sung by a group called The Underyards whom I may never hear again.  George played sitar (he’s gone now) and Pynchon played his post horn.  Salinger hit a drum. (And by the way, the latter two don’t even look alike.)  It was a grand time among friends and that is often how it really is with so-called recluses. 

The house is gone and I hold the blanket tighter.  The egg has just dropped and the broken shell revealed the little thing he gave you that night he kissed you.

My friend Rabbi B. gave me a small present the other day – literally.  It was a palm-sized copy of the Psalms in two languages: Hebrew and Chinese. 

He said to me, Al, the Biblical conception of God is that He is reaching down to us; and the post-Biblical conception is that He’s done with that, and now it’s time for us to reach up to Him. 

*     *     *

The other day I got a call from D. urgently seeking any contact I might have who could make travel arrangements within Israel.  Her sister lives in Zfat, an Israeli city near the Syrian border.  Her street had been bombed.  A Katyusha rocket found her neighbor’s backyard – the backyard where all the neighborhood children play.  All the children were accounted for, Kwan Seum Bosal and thank God, but D.’s sister described the sickening experience of hearing the sound, seeing the smoke, and thinking, “Where are the kids?”  Now the family was crammed into a bomb shelter and D. wanted to get them into a car and further south, to safety.  I knew someone, and they knew someone, and it got worked out.  For a moment, anyway. 

*     *     *

An eminent teacher was asked: "When cold and heat come upon us, how can we avoid them?"

Tung Shan said, "Why don’t you go to where there is no cold or heat?"

The student asked, "Where is there no cold or heat?"

Shan said, "When cold, let cold kill you; when hot, let hot kill you."

Our hot dharma room never killed anyone, but it sure kept attendance down for a long while.  Now the Zen Center has an air-conditioned dharma room and during our recent retreat day it felt downright chilly at times. Gone are the days of sitting in hot robes with beads of sweat rolling down the nose.  One handy excuse for skipping a retreat was taken away, but there will be others.  There always seem to be 90 things to do other than sitting down and practicing. 

This morning a very rambunctious kitty named Wallace did his best to convince me there were other things to do than sit. (Playing with him, for instance.)  He even wiggled into the space between my joined hands and for a moment they held his warm, wriggling body.

*     *     *

And a voice said, “What are you reaching up towards Me for?  You want me to high five you or something?”

“What are we supposed to do?” cries the human.

“I have hidden nothing,” says the voice.  “Find out.”

*     *     *

Today I meet with an old friend, theatre colleague, and yoga teacher to discuss some joint teaching for actors – dharma and drama together as an enriching practice of awakening and bringing meditation into social activity and storytelling. 

And some fun for tomorrow night: Janet Klein and her Parlor Boys sing a few grand old songs at the Hammer Museum.  She is not a museum piece, no, she is (as she says in her bio) “on a mission for charm.”  She and her ukulele and the ensemble will open for a screening of Piccadilly.

We can be very hard on ourselves and on one another during these trying times.  Come on out to the Hammer.  There will be no solutions for the war, but a dose of charm and a smile won’t hurt.

It’s free of charge, even.  God does still reach down.

[1] What is your middle name:
I use MuMun, but legally it is still Mark.

[2] what color is your mailbox:
don’t have one

[3]last time you kissed somone:
Kissed myself in the rear view mirror.

[4] Have you ever hit a deer:
No, the deer and I worked it out with a third party.

[5] Do you have to drive over a bridge to get home?
The only bridge that comes to mind is sometimes I go to the Alcove and drive across the Shakespeare Bridge in Los Feliz and make a wish and then wonder if I’m driving in the wrong direction on the bridge and UNDOING my wish.

[6] Do you get the paper delivered to your house in the morning:
no

[7] Who checks the mail in your house?
House?  You have a house?  Must be nice, you have a house.  I don’t even have a mailbox.  If I had a mailbox, I could live in it and call it a house.  Yeah, must be nice you having a house and all. 

[8] how many tv’s are in your house?
Oh now we’re accessorizing!  Great big old house gee whiz gotta put some stuff in it!!  Must be nice, that’s all I’ve got to say.  Wonder what I’m going to watch on my TV in my great big HOUSE!!

[9] Do you know anyone with the same ringtone as you:
I like to keep all that shit off. 

[10] What do you do first in the morning
Recite the Four Great Vows:

Sentient beings are numberless, I vow to save them all. 

Delusions are endless, I vow to cut through them all.

The teachings are infinite, I vow to learn them all.

The Buddha way is inconceivable, I vow to attain it.

[11] What brand is your printer?
You mean the guy who works at Kinko’s? 

[12] Do you enjoy fighting with people:
It happens but I feel sick afterwards.

[13] Is your hair naturally straight or curly:
Curly when long. 

[14] Who was your kindergarten teacher:
Aaaaah.  Miss Powers. 

[16] Are you taller than your mother:
yes

[17] Do you have a favorite word:
Eunoia.

[18] Are you good?

At what?

While we’re on this subject, what’s with this recent fashion of saying “I’m good” instead of “No, thank you?”  It goes like this: “Can I get you some water?” “No, I’m good.” 

[19] What do you do to get over a broken heart?
Put it in a chest and bury it on an island, wear the key around my neck, and sail the waters disabling ships with the help of a giant kraken and recruiting the dead sailors to be part of an undead navy that does my bidding.

[20] Do you have a deep dark secret:
After the last question, do you need more? 

[21] Drink of choice:
Bass ale, chianti, Vernor’s ginger ale.  (Not mixed together.) 

[22] Do you enjoy writing in colored pens?
No.

[23] Does anything hurt on your body right now?
my mind hurts

[24] Do you often cry during movies:?
happens, but not often

[25] Do you hate your life:?
When the mood is right.

[26] Do you get mad easily:
yes.

Where’s 27?

[28] What is your biggest pet peeve?
traffic

[30] Do any of your friends have kids?
more and more of them as time goes on.

[31]If you could have a threesome with any 2 celebrities:
Have a threesome with me and I will MAKE you famous, I promise. 

[34] Do you have any friends:
yes

[35] Do you have any mean friends:
as mean as you?

[36] What is the ugliest color in your opinion:
Where does ugly come from?

[37] Have you ever liked someone who all your friends couldn’t stand?
you.

[38] Have you ever felt like driving off a cliff:
And ruin my car?  No way.  I have had the urge to leap into the sky with open arms, but not in a suicidal way.

[39] Have you ever been fired from a job:
A looooooong time ago I worked in a paper mill in Manhattan – a small specialty shop.  They fired me because my girlfriend used to work for them, and when we broke up they canned me. 

[40] What year was your house built:
Again with the HOUSE!  Why don’t I come live with you in your great big HOUSE!??!

[41] When was the last time you slept in someone else’s bed:
When’s the last time I slept? 

[42] What brand are the pant/jeans you’re wearing right now?
I just herniated a disk trying to read the tag on my pants.  They are grey slacks I bought at Ross. 

[43] How tall are you:
5′ 11’’

[44] What is the closest green object:
The cover of a sketch pad.

[45] What is on your feet:
grey socks and black shoes, scuffed.

[46] Do you always wear underwear?
yes

Where’s 47?  Is there some kind of censorship going on?

[48] Do you want to have kids?:
Very sad, mixed feelings about this.

Where’s 49?  Is DHS redacting this survey?

[50] Who is the last person (a friend you have) who you would ever expect to be gay?:
My Uncle Al is the least gay person I know.  His father was even less gay, but he died quite a while ago. 

[51] Do you know how to draw?:
everyone knows how to draw.  Yes, you do. 

[52] What is your mother’s maiden name?:
You’re trying to get into my bank account, aren’t you?

[53] Stupidest movie you ever saw:
Oh, this is really tough.  There have been some real stinkers. 

[54] Do you collect comic books:
no.

[55] Do you look like your dad?
…and like his dad, and a bit like my mother

[56] Do you have any TV shows on DVD:
no

[57] Are you wearing makeup:
no

[58] Do you have a tattoo:
no

[60] If you win the lottery you will:
1. Repay all my debts.  2. Fix up my parents’ house.  3. Save what’s left.

[61] How many pairs of underwear do you have:
7, and I like to wear three pairs at a time.

[62] Is there something you want to tell someone, but you
haven’t?
yes

[63] Who is your hero?
Bugs Bunny

[64] Who’d you last IM:
Maybe Tam (Gmail chat) but it was a long time ago.

[65.] Do you work a lot of hours?
yes

Where is 66?  There IS something going on.

[67] Who was the last person that called you?
Dev.

[68] Is there anything you regret?
yes

[69] Do you know where your family name originated from?

Italy

.

[70] Is there any animal that creeps you out?
human beings.