On Not Eating for 21 Days

Yesterday I had my first real meal in 21 days, a raw collard green wrap with sprouted lentils & mixed greens in a coconut curry sauce, purchased from a raw vegan restaurant I fortuitously passed in Culver city, on my way to the beach. I had prepared my dormant digestive track with 36 hours of fruit juice and dynamic but bland homemade vegetable soup. I admit I scarfed down half the wrap in my Camry in the restaurant parking lot (though it was probably the slowest ‘scarfing’ of my life – my palette would only admit at little at a time, and then, only after vigorous and thorough chewing) – still, I henceforth restrained myself and made my way to the water, curious how the sudden advent of nourishment would affect my consciousness. I ate the second half on the beach, relishing the pleasure of each bite of life-giving sustenance, and then went to meditate by the breaking waves, allowing my stomach and gut the full resource of energy & blood flow they required to do their appointed task. It wasn’t just one of the most delicious meals of my life – it might have been the most fulfilling.

In any case, it was among my most fulfilling and successful meditations.

Truth be told, meditation got me into this mess. A little over three weeks ago I sent out a newsletter announcing the product launch of my films on DVD, along with two play collections, and shortly thereafter, I sat down to meditate for the first time in several months. It hit me like a blast of light, “Do the master cleanse!”

I never know exactly where these things come from – ‘marching orders’ as Julia Cameron would put it, dressed up with such certainty and drive that one doesn’t question them, because by their nature they seem the stuff of life. I had never seriously considered doing the master cleanse, and had only recently googled it out of vague curiosity (I am, for the record, the kind of person who will spend the better part of a day googling ‘arachnids’ or ‘Vietnam’ or ‘globster’, just out of curiosity). Nevertheless, “Do the master cleanse!” my meditation had told me, with a kind of insistent clarity that hadn’t come upon me in several years, and so I obediently sat down at my computer and began researching the idea – the pros and the cons, testimonials of glowing converts, ominous warnings from conventional western doctors.

The basic idea is this – on the Master Cleanse, one stops eating entirely, and subsists on a concoction of fresh squeezed lemon juice, organic grade B maple syrup, organic cayenne pepper, and filtered water. Meanwhile, one drinks daily a laxative tea and also consumes a quart of salt water (mixed with store bought sea salt) which flushes through the system dramatically in a matter of hours and which, in tandem with the tea, completely cleans the gut of anything it was holding onto. The essential philosophy behind this practice is thus– under normal circumstances, our digestive track is constantly overloaded with an unnatural flood of (often) unnatural foods. Like a desk which has become so piled with paperwork that the piles never get attended to, so to do our bodies never really get to sorting out the crap they we keep putting into them – they become overwhelmed sorting out all the new crap that keeps coming in every day. By effectively shutting down the digestive system, the body has a chance to take care of some long overdue business – sorting through, processing, and getting rid of the crap that has been piling up for decades. The theory is that once the body gets a break from being hammered with food, it will divert it’s energy to the long overdue task of cleaning house – hence, “the master cleanse.”

The man credited with inventing this particular lemon-maple-cayenne recipe (though of course, not the aeons long tradition of fasting itself), Stanley Burroughs, went so far as to say that ALL disease is caused by the body being overloaded with food, both good and bad (it is a fact that humans have a much higher rate of disease in general than any other species in its natural environment). Thus, Burroughs declared, the Master Cleanse has the potential to cure literally any disease, including cancer. He, and those who came after him, state the case unapologetically – when the body isn’t using all of its energy digesting, it will instead use that energy for a natural process of cleansing and healing itself.

Fundamentalist Scientists (some of the most dogmatic religious zealots on the planet) of course scoff at this kind of thinking and declare it dangerous nonsense. And of course, I would agree that any system taken too literally and to great extremes has the potential for great destruction (especially Fundamentalist Science!). I disagree with Burroughs very strongly that diet alone can explain all diseases. I do, however, give him the benefit of the doubt that his master cleanse has at least the potential to cure disease – even cancer. Healing comes in many forms, and Science is far too young (and in the early part of this century, still too religiously dogmatic) to claim to have all the answers.

I don’t deny that there is a danger involved for anyone one who strays from mainstream scientific wisdom, or for that matter, mainstream wisdom of any kind. Burroughs himself once came up against criminal charges because one his patients died – the prosecution made the case that the death by hemorrhage was directly related to Burroughs performing ‘deep abdominal message’ on the patient’s gut – pretty disturbing stuff, and Burroughs did end up spending time in prison later on completely different, non-death related charges (he claims he converted the entire prison medical staff to his methodology of healing). But, on the other hand, one reads one anecdote after another, after another, after another, that doing the Master Cleanse has changed their life, forever and for the better. I understand and respect why anecdotal evidence is not permissible in Science, but I also know that I would trust the passionate anecdotes of my respected friends, family and mentors over an unknown scientist most days of the week.

And so, within 36 hours of that initial, jarring meditation, I had given up food completely.

If I could sum up, in one word, what I wanted out of this cleanse, it would be clarity. I had previously fasted as long as three days when I was younger, drinking only water, and each time I had been blown away by a sudden awareness of everything we Americans take for granted - constantly stuffing our faces with food especially. This fast was very different – the maple syrup was providing around 1000 calories a day, about a third of my official daily requirement, but even so a mechanism to keep my blood-sugar up. There are many (though not enough) important vitamins and minerals to be found in the organic elements of the ‘lemonade’ – but just to be safe I took ‘Emergen C’ every morning as well, to keep things as healthy as possible. Burroughs wouldn’t have approved of this addition (any sort of supplementation is against the divine perfection of nature, in his book) but I didn’t do this because I’m a true believer in Burroughs as the keeper of ‘all the answers’ – no human being ever will have all the answers.

The first two to three days are the worst. Headaches, exhaustion, fatigue, confusion, hunger, and cravings (not the same thing as hunger) – in short it was miserable. I could barely function during this time and passed the hours napping and watching nature documentaries and old Star Trek movies. At one point, a splitting headache grounded me in bed as it seemed to move it’s way, slowly, through each set of lobes in my cerebral cortex, finally burning itself out at my brainstem.

And then, magically, it gets better! The very difficult initial transitional period is often explained as ‘detox symptoms’ by true believers – and the best experiential evidence for this explanation is that the symptoms quickly not only taper off, but almost completely disappear (occasional, sporadic relapses are expected as one goes ‘deeper’ into the cleanse). I had originally planned to fast for 10 days, but by days 8 and 9, it had become so easy, and I was feeling so positive, that I decided to keep going.

Jesus fasted for 40 days, after all. And the funny thing is, once I had transitioned enough to start going out into the world again, I found myself encountering again and again people who had done the master cleanse, or heard stories about people who had done it, many for 30 days or more. One fellow, a Christian, fasts for 40 days every year.

If nothing else, the point was to hit the ‘reset button’ on my body, and thus, in many ways, on my life. We all know what drugs can do to human consciousness, and drugs are only chemicals that we ingest or inhale. What we take into ourselves on a chemical level through what we do and do not eat, every day, determines in part how we see the world and how we feel, for better or for worse.

There were great moments of purpose and productivity, balanced by stretches of fuzzy-headed lethargy. Ironically I found not eating was a much more effective ‘social lubricant’ than alcohol could ever hope to be – as if I were myself more naturally – I simply didn’t have the energy to put on any airs or play any social games – I was helplessly myself – and other people seemed to respond to this state with increased trust and respect. Lily, a small dog belonging to some friends of mine, who is prone to barking fits at the mere site of me, now instead leapt joyfully onto my lap and licked my face. This tended to be the case, more often than not.

The clarity I sought – and by this really I meant clarity about how to proceed with my life, after all the disappointment and hardships of the last few years – came slowly and indirectly. Old ideas and painful emotions would surface and work their way through me, sometimes I would seem to be inextricably mired in adolescent depression, only to wake the next morning feeling that anything was possible. Slowly but surely, my whole worldview was coming up for review, one little piece at a time. It’s the kind of process that’s hard to quantify or understand … one doesn’t know which aspects of oneself one has become unconscious of until they are literally slapping you in the face – and even then, there is a feeling of, “what the hell is this?”

There were only three overwhelming bursts of clarity – all three coming first thing in the morning and with such force that I had to roll out of bed and write them down immediately. The first was that I had moved to Hollywood because I want to make Studio films, and there was no point in denying it any longer. The second was that I still believe in Art as the mirror held up to society, the great instigator of cultural dialog and progress, and that the artist is, first and foremost, a servant to country, species, and planet – and that this was a value that I must never abandon. Third, that a great deal of my present discontent comes out of the fact that I am a director who is not directing. That was it. And honestly, it was more than enough.

And then things got hard. Not that the fast got hard – life got hard, and started to impinge on the fast. A credit card company suddenly doubled my APR on a huge balance which I had amassed making my films – an event which threw all my finances into chaos and pushed me once again up against the worst of the recession. Then, a film distributor, with whom I had once again childishly invested all my hopes, rejected a film which had been recently and painstakingly re-cut to their specifications, re-breaking my heart over the film and deeply dampening my spirits. And in the midst of all of this, I got into a horrific fight with my father via email. Suddenly I felt weak and starving – and although I still believe this feeling had an emotional basis much more than a physical one, I realized life was becoming too hard, and I was going to need real food, and real, complex, and dynamic nutrition to see me through it.

I had my heart and mind set on fasting for 28 days, but as life became more difficult, I realized I was going to have to call it at 21 and give myself a pat on the back for a job well done. Carl Jung is famous for saying that those elements of our psyches that we do not become conscious of will inevitably manifest and confront us on the material plane. It’s a romantic explanation but as good as any – as the ‘cleanse’ plunged deeper, the most difficult issues of all came up once more to demand an audience, and in order to face them properly, I needed to once again be nourished.

At least, that’s what I’d like to think…

After eating nothing for so long, the idea of eating anything is a truly novel and celebratory notion, and so the idea of transitioning into a raw food diet for the remainder of the summer became a prospect which I could embrace with true enthusiasm. As convincing as the Master Cleanse zealots are about it’s health benefits, the Raw Foodists blissfully exceed them, and understandably so, as they have rich nutritional evidence to back up their lifestyle (with the unfortunate exception of vitamin B12). Their philosophy goes that all life on this planet evolved to eat everything raw, and that vitamins, minerals, energy, and nutritional enzymes are much more readily available before being cooked and otherwise processed.

Based on the raw lentil curry wrap I ecstatically (albeit slowly) devoured on Venice Beach last night, I’m inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt – at least a couple months worth of benefit. Of course, any system taken too far, and to extremes, may begin to acquire the stink of fundamentalism. I’m also inclined to listen to certain other contingencies that insist cooking certain foods makes them easier to digest and can even release vital enzymes. In my opinion, the truth is always more complex than any one individual or group would have you believe.

In the meantime, I’m thrilled to be eating delicious, raw, vital foods – aware once again that food is one of the great blessings we humans are given on this planet. 21 days is a long time to go without eating, especially during a great recession – but I’m adding it to my to-do list for Life, right after getting my black belt in Tae Kwon Do, to one day take the plunge and fast for the full 40 days.

After all, one need only ask oneself … what would Jesus do?

...And the Fundamentalists Take California.

"You can't stop the river as it rushes to the sea,

You can try to stop the hands of time,

but you know it just won't be!"

On November 4^th, 2008, California voters passed Proposition 8, effectively making it illegal for two loving, committed souls to be married, if they have similarly shaped genitalia. As one might expect, this victory for bigots everywhere was accomplished primarily through lying to the good people of California.

As a liberal, I am disappointed. As a libertarian, I am outraged.

The most heart-breaking aspect of the whole sordid affair is that those valiant souls opposing Proposition 8 trusted us to do the right thing, and made their arguments accordingly. This great state is their home, here they are surrounded by accepting, loving and affirming friends and family, and accepting religious communities -a culture evolved far beyond the hate-forged manacles of religious fundamentalism. The bigots may take middle America, but here in California, the people believe in love. And trusting, perhaps these brave souls didn’t fight quite as hard, or argue quite as incisively, as they should. After all, they thought it was a matter of justice; in fact, this hostile invasion of bigotry into the California psyche is apparently a matter of war.

(Not the aggressive war exemplified by our soon to be former president, but the defensive war of a righteous people, defending their right to life and liberty against a hostile force.)

The “Yes on Proposition 8” cartel lied to the people of California in the following ways.

1. If proposition 8 is not passed, gay marriage will be taught in schools. The California Supreme Court’s decision to allow gay marriage had nothing whatsoever to do with our educational system, at all. It is illegal to teach about health and family issues without parental consent in California schools, including marriage of any kind, regardless of Proposition 8. By Law, parents may remove their children from any health and family curriculum of which they do not approve. The notion that proposition 8 had anything to do with education, in any way, is a bold faced lie. Parties concerned with health and family education in California were free to create a proposition to address educational concerns specifically - however, as those concerns are already adequately addressed under California law, they had no need to, and instead used the topic as a foil in order to lie to their fellow Americans. If Proposition 8 had failed, and gay marriage allowed, it would still be illegal to teach gay marriage in California schools without parental consent. Those who voted for Proposition 8 based on this information were lied to, and led to take the immoral action of robbing fellow California citizens of their basic rights.

2. If Proposition 8 is not passed, churches could be penalized by the government for refusing to perform gay marriage ceremonies. The California Supreme Court’s decision to allow gay marriage specifically stated that no church should be forced to marry anyone whom they deem unfit. No church would be forced to marry a gay couple, or penalized for not marrying a gay couple, under any circumstances, as the decision of who can be married within a given church is strictly a matter of that church’s faith tradition. Catholic churches wouldn’t be required to marry gays any more than they would be required to marry Hindus. This protection was already guaranteed to churches under California law, but Proposition 8 sought to BAN this freedom of religion and deny all churches the right to marry gay couples, even where their faith traditions affirm same-sex unions. This BAN on religious freedom does not protect conservative churches, which were already protected, but instead forces non-conservative churches to comply with the fundamentalist agenda. Proposition 8 in fact attacks religion, by denying religious freedom to non-fundamentalists, and thus effectively dissolves the separation between church & state – Uncle Sam can now officially declare Episcopalian marriages illegal.

3. Proposition 8 protects marriage. This statement is so patently false – in fact being the opposite of the truth – that it insults the intelligent reader to dwell on it too long.Proposition 8 is a BAN on marriage. It is a piece of legislature defining marriage in strictly fundamentalist terms, and forcing the government, and all non-fundamentalist churches, to comply with the fundamentalist agenda. It denies churches, the government, and the people the right to define marriage for themselves, and forces a fundamentalist definition of marriage upon them.Proposition 8 makes marriage a function of anatomy, specifically, the shape of the genitals, and BANS marriage that is based in love, faith, & commitment. It is however true that Proposition 8 protects loveless marriage - by removing love from the equation.

On Wednesday, November 5^th, 2008 I was never so proud to be an American, and never so ashamed of my home state, California.

Let me make one thing clear – as a libertarian, I don’t have a problem with bigots. They can go live their bigot lives and have their bigot thoughts and their bigot conversations and their bigot rallies. They can live in their bigot towns and go to their bigot churches and worship their bigot god with hatred as their sacrament. That’s all fine with me. I can even find it in my heart to forgive them and to love them – that’s what Jesus and the Buddha taught us. As a libertarian, all I ask is this – please keep that bigotry to yourself. Keep it in your bigot thoughts, your bigot conversations, your bigot towns, your bigot churches, where hatred is your sacrament, and even your bigot rallies, where you stir up hatred as a weapon against love and reason. If you’ve managed to convince your culture, God and Jesus bless and forgive you, then keep it in your bigot culture, that’s fine with me, I can still find it in my heart to love you and forgive you. If you’ve convinced your state, then keep it in your bigot state.

Just stay out of California, you bigots!

Is it possible to believe that marriage is between one man and one woman, and not be a bigot? Of course! God Bless you, I respect your religion. You can even teach it to your children! It doesn’t make you a bigot to believe what you do about marriage, as it doesn’t make you a bigot to believe Jesus Christ is your savior. If, however, you think there is something fundamentally wrong or sinful about Jews for disagreeing with you on the savior issue, you may be in danger of bigotry – and even so, God Bless you, that is your right, to believe as you do. However if you pass a law saying that Jews cannot get married because there is something inherently wrong with them, and that recognized Jew Marriage would erode society`- then, my friend, I think I must call you a bigot. You may live in a state and a city and a community which affirms all that, and God Bless you -

Just stay out of California, you bigots!

I choose the Jew analogy over the more attractive and more incendiary racial analogy because, I think, it is a closer fit. While blacks have certainly been victims of horrendous bigotry over the years, it can still be argued that race is something you are born with, and homosexuality is a behavior. Whether others would argue that homosexuality is also something inborn -a gift from God, as it were - is a matter that cannot be entirely proven, and this forces the play, once more, into the arena of belief. What do you believe about God and the cosmos? What do you believe about sex? What do you believe about personality, psychology, and soul? What do you believe about ethics and morality? Prior to the passing of Proposition 8, I had been under the impression that California was a state that still valued the individual liberty to believe as one sees right and just - a state which protected minorities who adopt a religion other than that held by the majority. However, this recent turn of events is especially confusing, because California does not hold a majority of fundamentalists. Where did they come from? Who let them in?

STAY OUT OF CALIFORNIA, YOU BIGOTS!

This is not your bigot church, it is not your bigot rallies, it is not your bigot town, and while it tolerates your thoughts and conversations, bigoted or no, it is not your bigot conversations, and it is not your bigot thoughts. This is California.

God and Jesus and Buddha bless you and love you, and live your own lives and believe whatever you want, whatever you believe – that’s fine with me - but you keep your legislating hatred out of my good, equanimitous, and ethically upright state! California doesn’t want you. California believes in love and freedom and tolerance and progress. California birthed the free speech movement, she birthed the internet, she birthed the consciousness revolution. She cannot rebirth bigotry, because bigotry is an old and dying thing. Your bigotry is a virus in her womb, attacking her unborn children, and she wants you out.

In coming here, you have crossed the line.

My outrage isn’t merely personal – for my many friends and family who are gay; good, upright, hard working, intelligent, compassionate souls all – who have now been told that they are unaccepted, that their citizenship is second-class, and that their love is unreal, unrecognized, unworthy. Their love - unreal, unrecognized, unworthy.

Love, they are telling us, is unreal, unrecognized, unworthy.

Nor is my outrage merely civil – a minority oppressed by the majority. The basic rights of a small group of people, voted down by their fellows. Their freedom, personally, sexually, spiritually, religiously, BANNED – because we cannot shake off the hate-forged manacles of fundamentalism. BANNED, their truth, BANNED, their love, BANNED, their religion. BANNED, you sodomites! BANNED!

My outrage is, above all else, spiritual. You have forced your fundamentalist Religion upon me – upon my friends and family, upon my city and upon my state, upon every church, every religion, in California, you have forced your Religion. You have forced your Religion upon my government, and told my government that it has the right to strike down marriages performed in other religions. You have denied us religious freedom. You have denied us a government that is separate from religion. Worst of all, you have denied us the right to love whom we love.

You have perpetuated the greatest lie of all, that Christianity is against homosexuality. As if there are not a multitude of gay Christians! And more so, a multitude of Christian churches, who have been performing gay marriages for decades, regardless of your attempts to use government to limit their religious freedom. The Episcopalian church, over 200 years old, now performing marriages for loving, committed, and faithful couples, regardless of their gender, - you have mandated the government deny them their religious freedom. The United Church of Christ, a nation-wide protestant church establish in 1957, now performing gay marriages for loving, committed, and faithful couples, despite your best attempts to wipe them out, to force their Christianity into silence, to force your fundamentalism upon the world.

My father is a minister with the United Church of Christ – he has devoted his life to God. Even when it meant he couldn’t be there for his family, he served the church, and Jesus Christ his Savior, with unconditional devotion and faith. He has performed Gay Marriages in his church and in our backyard – even before he knew my brother was gay. You attack his faith, you attack his love, you attack his freedom.

You are not welcome here.

The fact that it was put to a civil majority vote at all is somewhat ludicrous – if the bigots put a measure on the ballet saying blacks couldn’t be married – or, if the racial analogy offends you – if the bigots but a measure on the ballot that Jews couldn’t be married (because it might lead to Judaism being taught in schools! Or the Catholic Church being penalized for not marrying Jews!) – would justice prevail if the bigoted majority prevailed over the minority? Or would justice call for the protection of the minority against its oppressors?

The most ironic thing in this tragedy of human heartlessness, is that Proposition 8 passed by the Black and Hispanic votes. It’s true, the Whites came close (47%) – but they wouldn’t have quite made it if 70% of African American Californians hadn’t voted to deny Gays their civil rights. And this, on the night that we elected our first Black President. I’d like to think that these are the fruits of a two-term Bush presidency, but perhaps it isn’t that complicated – perhaps it’s just sad.

I know it won’t last long, but it shouldn’t have lasted into 2008. Let the red states BAN gay marriage for as long as they like (though I doubt few will last more than 100 years – bigotry is old and ailing – but if they do, God bless them) – the fact remains that 60% of voters under the age of 30 voted against the marriage ban. Denying the rights of gays to marry in California in 2008 is like trying to stop the hands of time.

Jonathan Whittle-Utter

November 8, 2008

Hollywood, California

Git, Git, Git, Git, Git, you Doggone Bigots!

Summer in the Belly of the Beast

“Everybody comes to Hollywood/
How can it hurt you when it looks so good?”

It’s a little discussed fact that the Los Angeles Basin is a desert. They don’t tell that to all the bright eyed youngsters who come out here seeking fame and fortune – they might tell them “art doesn’t put food on the table” or “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” or even “you’ll never make it!” – but nobody ever says, “do you realize you’re walking into a God-forsaken desert?”

I’ve spent perhaps 18 of my 29 summers in Pasadena - a hill-and-valley refuge 20 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles. I’ve never cared much for summers in Pasadena, hot and dry and relentless and torpid - in fact last year I swore that I would never do it again.  So this Summer I packed my things and bid my family farewell. I drove over hills and through valleys and into the Los Angeles Basin, to a land called Hollywood, and set up camp in the wasteland.

I pay $400 a month to live in a converted hotel room near the corner of Santa Monica & Vine – a heartbeat away from the heart of Hollywood. I have my own bathroom, a refrigerator and a hot plate. North and West, East and South, I am surrounded by concrete and billboards; the Hollywood Sign looms in the hills to the North like a post-modern guardian angel. I can see the sun rising from my window, and wash my dishes in the bathroom sink. I buy purified water, three gallons at a time, from a friendly Korean man named Dave, who installed a water purification system in the back of a store in which he also sells electronics and shoes. I march for ten minutes along endless stretches of concrete under the desert sun to pay for internet access in any of a number of cafés, or perch on the fire escape of my building and try to steal a signal.

I’ve become a working editor – an un-intended (and honestly not particularly desired – vis a vis the dream) side-effect of editing the three feature films that I somehow produced and directed over the last 30 months - despite my persistent lack of resource. I’m working consistently, paying my bills. I’ve even started getting work as a script supervisor for independent film and television shoots. It isn’t work I’m interested in or much care about, but it keeps coming. It pays my rent, it pays the credit bills I amassed shooting my films, it keeps me alive, it keeps me attached, it keeps me in Los Angeles.

It’s true you know – art doesn’t put food on the table, it doesn’t matter what you know, it’s who you know – and you’ll probably never make it. Those are the basics. And those of us who persist in this mad struggle for creative and financial survival as we dream the impossible dream – that’s the starting point, that’s square one. If you’re going to live in a desert, the first thing to know is this – food and water are scarce, and the sun is merciless. You can accept that basic fact and learn to cope – or you can deny it and perish.

Dismal? Perhaps – but life is still immeasurably better for artists and actors in Los Angeles than for civilians in Iraq. We Americans – all of us - have those people’s blood on our hands – the Republicans especially. And that is why, despite my unwavering support for Hillary Clinton as one of the great visionary leaders of our time – I look forward with optimism toward November, when we elect Barack Obama the 44^th president of the United States, and bring this nightmare of political regression to a close.

*

I’ve just finished a three week shoot, script-supervising a low budget film. The days often stretched on for 12 or 14 hours, without overtime. Still, some combination of dedication and (I imagine) desperation keeps us plodding on – giving our all, making this film the best that it can be, hoping that this job will lead to the next, that the next job will pay a little more. In the midst of this practically Marx-era labor, I had to move into a new apartment – two floors down and two rooms South, to a smaller enclosure with only one window, facing East – I chose it because it gets a little morning light. Moving is like dying, Greg says –and there’s nothing like dying when you’re working to the bone.

I have another editing job lined up already. One job ends, another appears – the more you work, the more work comes – at least until you hit a dry spell. I’m not doing what I love, but I have to admit, the Los Angeles Entertainment Industry is an economic umbrella, keeping me safe and warm. I may not care for the vapid, violent, life-debasing movies and television that pour out of Hollywood – but they put food on the table for hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of us. It’s easier to stand up to glorified violence and shallow representations of humanity in the media when you’re perched in the ivory tower, or behind the church pulpit – not so easy when the production of that media is paying your rent, your medical bills, replacing the shoes on your feet. I’ll consider getting back to my outspoken criticism of Hollywood (for it’s lack of accountability in constantly introducing violent, negative and debasing energies into the culture) – maybe once I can afford a down-payment on a house.

As a good liberal (and libertarian) I used to bristle when I heard men use the term “gay” to put each other down, to suggest lack of substance or insincerity or masculinity in the other. After a year working in Hollywood, not only am I used to it as innocuous banter almost completely lacking in substantive intolerance – I’m actually becoming convinced that it’s the closeted gay and bisexual men who speak as such most of all. It’s part of the Hollywood culture of image – you project something palatable for the social scene, keep your real identity secret – just as the celebrities do. Hollywood is a place where everyone pretends to be someone else, and holds onto their true self like a secret treasure. Like a community of would-be super-heroes, guarding their secret identities, Hollywood fosters a legion of magicians and illusionists – some more skilled in the craft than others.

*

It’s odd, you know, as a Berkeley graduate, I’m passionately concerned about the state of the world and society – I wrote a 100 page bachelors thesis on the power of human creativity to change the world – through, for example and among other things, writing, acting, theatre and film-making that challenge the status quo. Hollywood culture laughs at all that – the film industry is about survival, then prosperity, then celebrity – not making the world a better place. Likewise as a deeply spiritual person I’ve long idealized the power of film to open hearts and minds – in fact I sank $30,000 in credit making two films meant to provoke, to challenge, to wake audiences up. The end result of this impassioned altruism, so far, is that my credit bills every month exceed my rent by almost 50%. The movies are too esoteric, the consensus murmurs – people don’t go to the movies to think, they go to check out, to be entertained, to be stimulated, titillated, scared, numbed, exorcised – movies aren’t about healing the planet, they’re about marketing, manipulation, consumption, box office. Still, I’ve been working towards this blasphemous approach to art & entertainment for the past decade – I’ve sacrificed for it – it isn’t just a question of giving up a dream – it’s a matter of giving up a whole life. I fantasize about moving to Europe or Australia from time to time – and who knows, if McCain wins the election and my third feature goes nowhere and I can’t get my novel published – it may be time to bid this crazy country goodbye. In the meantime, I’ll suck it up and keep playing the game.

The gardens give me hope. Strident blooms of life encased in a sea of concrete. Walk for ten minutes from the major streets and you start to see them, window sills and balconies, facades and whole front yards, bursting with vibrant greens. I recently went to Pasadena to retrieve some of my own plants – managed to fit twelve into the bedroom and bathroom windowsills, where they happily soak up the morning light. They range from Southern California staples like Jade and Geranium to the more esoteric Aloe Vera and African Paddle Plant – some I’ve been keeping alive for 18 months now, dispelling the long-held suspicion of a purple thumb. Since the addition of the plants over the weekend, two hummingbirds have cruised the window for nectar – miraculous to me, as the last thing I’d expect to see on Santa Monica & Vine is a hummingbird – I’ll hang a feeder shortly. Large blue and gossamer beetles buzz around the building from time to time, and every now and then, when the roar of the traffic, sirens, and helicopters ebb, I could swear I hear whole flocks of parrots and parakeets, chattering and calling as they make their way over the Basin.

And the biggest surprise, to me at least, is that I’m now sharing my small room with two small Red Ear Sliders. I rescued them from a movie I script-supervised, where they were essentially props, and spent weeks soaking in their own waste without access to light or dry land. Sliders can live for 40 years and grow to a foot in length – these turtles could still be with me when I’m 68 – and I’ll have to invest in at least a 100 gallon tank within the next 2-3 years – all daunting to a struggling bohemian who doesn’t know where the next paycheck is coming from. This was all researched thoroughly ahead of time, and the adoption took place anyway – they needed rescue, I needed some companionship, and, I guess, something besides myself to take care of. I’ve named them Terra and Althea - I find them adorable; they think I’m the devil, and try to hide from me whenever I come in range of their excellent eyesight. I trust with time we’ll work it out.

They’ve awakened a long dormant, pre-adolescent passion in me for the amphibious and the aquatic. I’m considering adding a catfish to the tank, and perhaps a couple of cichlids – Also flirting with the prospect of setting up a separate, five gallon freshwater aquarium of colorful fish (separate so as Althea and Terra don’t eat them)– as I’m monitoring water quality and temperature for one tank, it seems no great inconvenience to add another. These things bring me unprecedented joy – I find myself making another trip to the pet store rather than firing up my editing equipment. Living things return us to the essence of life - at least, they do so for me.

*

Like Winter in New York, Summer in Los Angeles drags on a little too long. The inevitably brief cold front in September offers false hope – “say, that wasn’t so bad,” we think – and next week stifle through a heat-wave to rival the worst in August. October is a wild month of blistering heat, wild winds, and spontaneous thunderstorms – a time of devastating wildfires or mudslides and floods, depending on the year. Life becomes vague and chaotic. I spoke too soon when I said the work was coming steady – a sudden dry spell strikes and I’m back milking my credit cards for food and gas.

It doesn’t bother me the way it used to – the financial turbulence – some combination of faith and Zen keeps me calm, even as I scrape the bottom of the barrel and find nothing there. Despite my piecemeal employment, I directed a short film over the weekend, and paid for everything out of pocket – that’s what a starving artist does, I suppose. You know I honestly thought I’d be a millionaire by the time I was 28 – really, I believed it – so while money is scarce, meaning will have to suffice. The blessing of choice persists – value my life at my financial circumstance and suffer, or value my life in spiritual terms and feel content.

Within three weeks of bringing my turtles home, I’ve purchased for them a 50 gallon aquarium for now, and a 150 gallon aquarium for when they grow up – the latter has gone into storage as it will not fit into my tiny room. My dream of a five gallon fishtank quickly grew into the 30 gallon aquarium now sitting on my dresser, full of strange and colorful tropical fish. On my desk I have a 15 gallon tank which will soon house a brackish-water puffer-fish. My mind swims with even more exotic setups, so I suppose my limited funds keep me grounded, amidst the unexpected reawakening of this childhood dream.

Since hanging the feeder, a dozen hummingbirds visit my window every day – and I’ve actually caught sight of the wild parakeets – they pass over Hollywood chattering in lime-colored swarms. I’m thrilled with my third feature film, “Autodoc”, and look forward to putting it out to market. With one short film wrapped over the weekend, I’ll aim to make one more before the end of the year, and try to finish a screenplay or two while I’m at it. I’m thinking of buying a mudskipper...

To tell you the truth, it's not a bad life.

... I'll look forward to the rains, all the same.

BIG EMPTY CLUB - a poem

I

Big Empty Club
Dance Party tonight until dawn
I showed up at 9:38
because it was right around the
corner from my apartment
and I have work to do tonight.

No one is here
the loud music hurts my ears
the vacant dance floors hurt my heart, enormous.
Bright flashing lights and mist and nobody all around me.

Thank God I brought my pen.


II

This club has six bars
I'm serious
and three dance floors
There are maybe 37 people here.
Too bad I'm taking a break from alcohol this summer.
The pulse pounding music vibrates the plush
leather couch in which I sit.

I didn't have to pay to get in
because I know one of the DJs.
How many more people need to show up
before I start dancing?


III

I just shook hands with the DJ I know
I'm not sure he recognized me
with this black bandana tied around my head -
plus it's dark in here.
Also, he's the music supervisor for my film.
As far as I know, his name is Wolfie
at least, that's how I address my emails to him

It's hard to be in a gigantic room throbbing with music
and not dance.

tap, tap, tap, goes my sandaled foot...


IV

This place is awesome.
I wish I'd brought my laptop,
I could get some great writing done.

Except, of course, I'd be worried about protecting the laptop
and might never dance.


V

Actually,
the fact that I know the DJ
is probably the one reason
I'm not dancing yet.

His limited knowledge of my person
is a small but powerful antecedent
to my anonymity
and one always dances
best when surrounded by friends
or anonymous.

(I moved to a different couch
and now it's too dark to see what I'm writing)


VI

I've taken some
cursory rhythmic strolls across the
dance floor.
There are some colorful costumes here -
I admire the few who aren't afraid to dance alone.

They are my heroes and role models.

Sometimes they see me watching
and they contract
stifling their creativity under my gaze.
It hurts to know my inhibition
has the power to inhibit others.

This is what I get for showing up to a dance party alone
wearing a black bandanna.


VII

Eventually the Inhibition becomes
unbearable and I force myself
onto the floor and wait 

for the rhythm to start 

picking up my 

body.

There is an art to being
one of those first, lone
dancers on the dance floor -
you have to be willing to look 

like a Damn Fool.

Not because you are one
(necessarily)
but because if you're too good at it
the others will become 

intimidated
and will not join you.
You have to make 

being a Fool okay.

Plus, you know, when you're
not afraid to play the Fool,
the world has a way of
opening doors for you.

I think I come here
to listen to my heart -

- Dance from anywhere else
and they'll think you're an asshole.

There are a couple
hundred people here now.

Open Heart, Open


VIII

I went to the bar
to get a bottle of water
The guy tried to charge me $5
What!
$5 for a little bottle of water?

Time to go!

Cheap ass dance party.
Over-charging for alcohol is one thing
water is a vital fluid
we will become dehydrated without it,
and could die

I was only dropping by anyway,
I have work to do back home.

Another night,
another rave

Religion & Politics Made Fun

According to the Belief-O-Matic, I am 100% Unitarian. This came as a surprise to me, as the last time I took the test, three years ago, I was 100% Mahayana Buddhist, with Unitarianism at a close second. The biggest shocker, however, is that I am apparently now a Quaker.

My top ten:

1.	Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2.	Liberal Quakers (90%)
3.	Neo-Pagan (90%)
4.	New Age (84%)
5.	Mahayana Buddhism (84%)
6.	Reform Judaism (81%)
7.	Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (78%)
8.	Hinduism (71%)
9.	Theravada Buddhism (71%)
10.	New Thought (68%)

My Political results at votehelp were less surprising. That test was more fun six months ago when there were a dozen people in the race. My results back then were something like:

1. Kucinich 97%
2. Clinton 92%
3. Obama 88 %
4. Ron Paul 79% (!!)
5. McCain 68%

Now I'm Hillary 84%, Obama 78%, and McCain 70%.

By this estimation, I liked Obama then more than I like Clinton now, I liked Ron Paul then more than I like Obama now - and most alarming, though only a slight increase, I seem to be liking McCain more and more as time goes on.

Does this mean I'm getting jaded about politics again? Maybe I should bring that up at my next quaker meeting... ;)
.

Thoughts on Witch Burning....

I will start by once again stating that Barack Obama is an extraordinary individual – a genuinely good man with great ideas, a solid vision for America, and potential to be a great leader. I have recently, finally, begun reading The Audacity of Hope, and I’m quite enjoying his perspective on Washington (although so far I haven’t come across much that wasn't widely discussed amongst the student body during my Berkeley years, or featured more recently on The West Wing) – I think he would make a good president. Still, I have yet to be hit over the head and see the light, as to why he is so clearly the obvious choice for our Presidency, or why eloquence about change, unity and hope is generally being understood as an actual ability to manifest those things in the world. I have yet to understand why my vote for Hillary back on February 5^th was such an obviously bad idea, or why Obama is so clearly qualified to head the executive branch of our government and command our military. I remain open to being enlightened about these things, I just don’t see it yet.

But moving on to meatier subjects – there has, once again, arisen a chorus among Obamacrats – Excuse me, democrats – that Hillary should drop out of the race because her continued involvement is “hurting” the Democratic Party. This chorus, in addition to MSNBC’s “this week in Political Cartoons” in which almost every cartoon was a vicious attack on Mrs. Rodham-Clinton, with nary a thing said about dear, sweet perfect Obama – left me with some new thoughts on the subject:

Hillary is hurting the Democratic Party by staying in the primary, rather than conceding - because she is slightly behind? Why don’t you just come out and say the Democratic Party is hurting itself by holding the primary to begin with? Why even hold an election? Lets just grant Obama the title of Supreme Ruler of Everything Forever without a vote and be done with it! I mean clearly, the opinions of millions of democrats who are voting for Hillary, contributing to her campaign despite their own financial problems, inspired by the prospect of her leadership – clearly we’re just a bunch of blue-color idiots who don’t believe in “hope”, right? We’re not real democrats, because we calmly question Obama’s leadership ability, rather than worship at His Throne. True Democrats vote for Hope (that-only-Obama-may-bring), and dissent shall not be tolerated!

There seems to be a general consensus in the Obama camp that Hillary’s supporters are uneducated, working class fools whose votes shouldn’t count. Leaving aside the dangerous levels of elitism present in that sentiment, I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that I am young, intellectual, college educated at a top, liberal university, and that I have a bachelors degree in social studies and literature. Am I still not smart enough to realize that Obama is the greatest thing ever? Do I need to get a perfect score on my verbal SAT before I get to join the genius club and see Obama’s light? (By the way, I did get a perfect score on my verbal SAT). Or am I simply a traitor, not a True Democrat, because I have the audacity to speak up against the mob, and maintain my personal opinion that Hillary is the best person for the job?

Here is the fundamental contradiction – the basic fact that sends chills down my spine: Barack has promised us the hope of a less divisive, more inclusive America – and yet his followers are among the most divisive, hateful, irrational, and negative political bodies I have ever encountered. Their complete and total lack of respect for Hillary, their joy in tearing her to bits, their self-righteous assurance that she’s some sort of robotic power-starved criminal – their bizarre mantra that electing our first female president is “business as usual” (In the last 28 years, 20 have been under Republican presidency, and during the eight years Bill held the white house, for six of them he was facing off against a republican majority in congress – boys and girls, a return to Democratic Party leadership by anyone won’t be “business as usual”!) – while Hillary’s supporters sit back and say, simply, “I'm sorry, he seems great but he doesn’t move me.” If this rabid hate mongering, this shameless witch burning, is the kind of unity and inclusiveness that Obama’s leadership will inspire – if this is indeed a fair example of how his “change” will manifest - then I tremble for America.

You think I’m wrong? Try this one: I began here by saying that Obama would make a good president. Go out and ask Obama’s supporters to say, “Hillary would make a good president” and watch the words get stuck in their judgmental throats, a look of panic and confusion passing through their deranged, maniacal eyes. Ask them to say, “I prefer Obama, but I still support Hillary Clinton.” Can they do it? So who is dividing the Democratic party? Hillary for having the resolve to actually suggest we finish the race, as we’ve finished every other throughout history, or the Obamaites, enraged and delighted at the prospect of burning the witch?

What is exhausting about this primary for me is not its length, nor it’s indeterminacy. It is the fact that week after week, month after month, I watch Hillary getting flayed from all sides – by Republicans and liberals, Obama supporters and the media so dearly biased towards him. I watch them burn her, I watch her burn, and the crowd goes wild (we pretend to be progressives but who doesn’t still relish watching a powerful woman burn? The sound of her screams, the sweet scent of charred flesh...) – I watch her, and God bless her heart – she just keeps going, in what is, I believe the greatest display of public courage and endurance I have ever witnessed. I have trouble imagining anything, short of outright nuclear detonation, that would test her mettle more than it is being tested now – with not only the opposition party, but her own base turning gleefully and sadistically against her. It isn’t pity that elicits my support, but abject admiration.

They say that Obama is a symbol for hope and change and healing. I don’t deny that he is. I resist only the not-so-hidden precept in that chorus that Hillary would not also be those things – and perhaps moreso. After 43 male Presidents, the “leader of the free world” would be a woman. Which, in the end, is the greater symbol to humanity? Racism is a blight that has surfaced among different cultures and at different times, oppressing different groups in each instance – the oppression of Women has been almost universal throughout history. When the fundamentalist Christians and neoconservatives go after Islam, they generally cite two facts, the first of which is hotly contested, that Islam encourages violence – the second, which is widely accepted, is that Muslim countries have a tendency to treat their woman abominably. In the scope of a wound as old as civilization, which is the greater symbol of healing? Which is the greater symbol of change?

And if you would tell me that our presidential elections need to be about more than just symbolism – I couldn’t agree more. That's the other reason I voted for Hillary Rodham-Clinton. She may not have his charisma and charm, his skill at oratory or his grace as a performer – but after watching her play the game for the past 16 years, and these last few months in particular, there is no doubt in my mind that this woman will get the job done; stanch the flow of blood from our country, begin to dress the wounds we have dealt our neighbors.

You have every right to disagree with me on that last point – that’s what democracy is all about. I suggest only this: be mindful who you trample on, and what you’re giving up, as America races once more to the stake, to set the damnable woman aflame.

In Support of Hillary Rodham Clinton

Let me begin by saying that Fiscal Conservatism makes a lot of sense – and if the platform of the Republican Party were actually Fiscal Conservatism, as it claims, I might be willing to reconsider my current unwavering loyalty to the Democratic Party.

As it stands, the Republican Party has, so far this century, demonstrated itself to be the party of Violence, Oppression, and irrational and enraged Religious Fervor. They claim to stand for freedom while taking away civil liberties, mandating social behavior, and legislating their own opinions. They claim to stand for small government and lower taxes while siphoning $12 Billion every month to fund a war effort that was based on lies, paranoia, arrogance, and a unilateral lack of respect for non-Christian and non-white cultures.

McCain may be a genuine Liberal Republican, but until the republicans cease to represent legitimized pathology, there’s really no question in my mind which ticket to vote for in November, regardless of whose name is on it. Anything to get us out of this quagmire of regression – this desperate and schizophrenic attempt to apply values and policies from the Nineteen-Fifties onto a 21^st century global community.

I consider myself among the most "progressive" people I know – I’m so progressive I find in general the Democratic Party woefully outdated in representing my values, and I find my own political thinking falls in varying degrees on a scale between the Green Party and the Libertarians – that’s right, I’m so progressive, I’m willing to reconsider certain conservative principles as being a form of progress. It is a stance so far removed from current Democratic Dogma, and so confusing to Republicans, that in general I manage to convince members of either party that we’re on the same side within about five minutes of straight talk – despite my belief that the Republican Party, as it stands, is a fountainhead of irrationality and hatred.

The highlight of the 2008 Democratic Primary Election, for me, has been those moments at the beginning and end of the debates, when Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama have publicly pledged their deep respect, friendship, and devotion to each other.

The low point, without a doubt, has been the slow and sickening realization that the “movement” that has grown up behind Barack Obama is every bit as irrational, self-righteous, and hateful as the conservative fervor that elected George W. Bush and rallied behind his war.

I have hoped for a Hillary Rodham Clinton Presidency since I first heard stirrings of it in the embryonic years of this century. After 232 years of unquestioned Patriarchy in a country supposedly founded on equality and freedom, we’d finally have a woman calling the shots. And as the Bush Administration continued it’s divine comedy of driving this nation into the ground (and dragging the rest of the planet down with it) here was a candidate who has shared not only the white-house, but also a life (and a bed), with a man who, for all his faults, walked through the fire of an American Presidency which by all accounts put the Bush Administration to shame. A woman who has been through the fire herself, unelected, as the Republican Hate Machine slandered her with everything it could muster.

I like to think of Republican policy toward the Environment, America and Abroad in terms of how one might treat a house and one’s neighbors. As Bush has bankrupted, trashed, and sowed the seeds of psychological and emotional anguish in his own house, while simultaneously physically attacking his neighbors with fanatical monomania – when I think of who would be best equipped to step in and take over his mess, my mind does not go to a silver-tongued visionary – it goes to a pragmatic cleaning lady – someone who has been in the house, and around the block, long enough to know exactly how to smooth out a disaster, and begin a much needed process of healing.

When I realized that Barack Obama had arrived on the scene as a legitimate contest to Hillary Clinton for the 2008-2016 presidency, I was a little disappointed, but as a rational, enlightened (in the 18^th century sense) and highly intelligent individual, I thought to myself – well alright; may the best person win. I understood that Barack really seemed to be inspiring young people, which was certainly a boon. But I was a little unnerved, as a hyper-progressive and a "young person", that for all his eloquence and charisma, he wasn’t particularly inspiring to me. Fine, Fine, I thought, I’ll continue to root for Hillary, but accept that another viable candidate has hit the scene – and I shan’t worry too much over which one is the next president of the United States. I’ll trust that after eight years of slander and oppression by the party of legitimized pathology, the Democratic Party will be savvy enough to make the right choice.

I knew all along that the Republican Hate Machine has been extensively programmed to slander my candidate of choice – like most republican victories in the last 20 years, the success of the Anti-Hillary program has been founded in irrationality and hatred, and in this case particularly grounded in hatred toward women. When a man tries to win at a game, he’s congratulated as a player – Hillary in the same situation is called cold and calculating. When a man fails at a task, he gets a pat on the back – learn from your mistakes – whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger – when Hillary Clinton failed to pass Universal Health Care in 1994 against tremendous opposition, it was taken as a Scarlet Letter on her character.

Most attacks that have been leveled at Hillary Clinton wouldn’t hold water for all of five seconds if she were a man – every mistake that she has been accused of, every compromise that she has made, have been the bread and butter of male politicians since Rome. God forbid if , when in Rome, she did as the Romans did. When Hillary’s opponents rally against her, the entire thrust of their arguments are made possible by one indisputable fact: Hillary Rodham Clinton is a woman.

I was raised by a feminist – The notion that there might be some kind of inequality between men and women has been blasphemy to me longer than I’ve been able to formulate sentences. After a lifetime of loyalty, the fact that the Feminist Left has come out against Hillary Clinton has finally begun to shake my faith in their movement. Here is a woman who went into the trenches for you, fought the man’s game, and fought it well – fought on until she was actually in position to finally topple the patriarchy and become our first female president – and on the eve of your victory, when she needs you the most, you pull your support. You pull your support because she compromised, because she played the game the only way she could - by playing it. Were you expecting a Pagan Lesbian? Were you expecting the Goddess herself to deign descent as a female Messiah and assume the role of Commander in Chief?

Do you want change, or do you want a Messiah? Obama may be a stellar individual, but his campaign, for all it’s talk of “change”, seems firmly rooted in the latter.

I remember, on Super Tuesday, which was, incidentally, my birthday, I felt an odd and overwhelming pressure to vote for Obama. You’re familiar with the arguments (if you can call them that): “Change you can believe in!” “Look to the future, not the Past!” “Yes We Can!” – I felt that morning as though I would be going against (gasp!) the popular opinion – that I would be daring to have my own voice in spite of the pressure to conform to the Liberal Media Machine (before you bristle, remember how much I hate the Republicans). But it was my birthday, and to quote my candidate of choice, when the time came, I found my voice. I remember the look of disappointment and confusion in my (liberal) family’s eyes – the desperate attempts of my Obama-supporting friends to sway my vote.

The irony was, the harder they tried, the more I realized how deeply my support for Hillary Rodham Clinton ran. And I began to get my first taste of something much more insidious – the fervor with which the Obamaites would stop at nothing to win this election. While I was ready to respect their opinions, they were certainly unwilling to respect mine. It seemed to me that all that work the Republicans had done to build a case against Hillary, based primarily, as I have mentioned, on the fact that she is female - had somehow migrated across the party lines to fuel the Obamaite narrative - and how passionately they believe it! How many times, in the days since, have I received propaganda designed to tell me my instinct and intellect are fundamentally wrong? – when Hillary has a 6% lead over Obama on Super Tuesday, the CNN reporters say, “Obama is on his way!” – when Obama has a 3% lead a few weeks later, the same reporters say, “She can’t win!” – I wonder who those reporters are voting for?

I continue to wait for Barack Obama to show me what the hell “change you can believe in” actually means. I remain open to the fact that there is actually some substance behind it, but I have not yet seen it demonstrated. In absence of that demonstration, I have seen Hillary outline her positions with clarity, confidence and pragmatism. And while I have been observing these things, I have seen attack after ceaseless attack from the Obamaites against my support of Hillary as the first female president – irrational, self-righteous, unbalanced, unfair.

How have we reached the point where electing our first female president is "politics as usual" while electing a charismatic media star is somehow the true spirit of progress?

I do not question Obama’s character – I think he is a good man and in potential would make a good leader– but I question a movement which borders on worship, a movement which can’t seem to find a substantial argument beneath all the platitudes and speculations on electability.

The problem with wanting a Messiah is that in Christian cultures, Messiahs get crucified – it’s one of those things only a preacher’s child comes to notice – and I am very much a preacher’s son.

That said, as disappointed as I will be if Hillary does not win the nomination, I will be even more disappointed if, upon winning the nomination, she does not call Barack Obama and invite him to be her running mate and incumbent for the year 2016.

EIGHT BOOKS I'D LIKE TO SEE

1. JUST KIDDING I'M A LIBERAL! by Ann Coulter

2. JUST KIDDING I'M STILL ALIVE! (AGAIN) By Robert Anton Wilson

3. I APOLOGIZE by George W. Bush

4. HERMIONE GRANGER AND THE CASTLE OF CONSEQUENCE by J.K. Rowling

5. OBAMBILLARY! (How Obama, Bill, Hillary, and the National Democratic Party secretly planned to land all all three of them on the same ticket from the start.) by John Edwards

6. DEVIL WORSHIP: The True Aim of the Religious Right - (A Response to Ann Coulter's GODLESS: The Church of Liberalism) by Al Franken

7. THE AUDACITY OF PRAGMATISM by Hillary Clinton

8. DAGOBER - A Love Story for the 21st Century by Jonathan Whittle-Utter

A Hero For Our Time

Benazir Bhutto was the first woman to be elected leader of an Islamic State. She was Assassinated on December 27th, 2007.

May she be more powerful in death than they could possibly imagine.

[For those who would accuse me of "hero worship" - you must admit, heros are getting pretty hard to find these days. I don't know everything about this woman's policies and I'm sure she had opinions and took positions that I would object to. Welcome to politics. What I admire in Benazir Bhutto is that she become a leader in Pakistan despite the Islamic cultural bias against women - in that sense, she is an inspiration to us all, in the power of the individual to dissolve and refine oppressive systems. I also admire her for returning to Pakistan and resuming an unofficial position of leadership knowing full well that it might mean her death. Would you go forth to lead the people, knowing that you might be killed at any moment, in an age of horrific violence and suicide bombers? If that isn't courage, I don't know what is.]

The California Dreamtime Part II: Valley of the Shadow of Death

VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH
(The California Dreamtime Part II)

“And I’m not in the best shape that I’ve ever been in – but I know where I’m going and it ain’t where I’ve been.”
-Ani DiFranco

“Lo, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil.”
-Christian Prayer

San Diego had been burning for several days now, and a quarter million people had been evacuated. Chris and Cindy made it through okay, but Josh and Michelle lost their house. Burnt until it collapsed. A house they had designed and built themselves, together, as a home for their new family.

Penny drove down from San Jose immediately – she wasn’t sure what help she would be to her son in this time of crisis, only that she needed to go. Care for the grand-daughter while Josh and Michelle try to sort it all out, perhaps. Digging through the ashes and all that.

Penny stayed with us in Pasadena on her way down the coast, and we gathered around the patio table in the back yard, where at the end of the evening, as I stood to get Penny a clean towel and wash cloth, I lightly brushed the table, and a bottle of beer beside my macbook pro toppled over and spilled its sticky toxic contents all over the keyboard of my livelihood.

My first reaction was denial, I suppose (although it wouldn’t have been denial if things had turned out differently) – I whipped the shirt off of my back and mopped up the spill. Everything seemed to be fine. But an hour later, after the others had gone to bed, the computer shorted and couldn’t be raised.

(I had spent thousands of dollars on this thing – it was my editing deck for my film projects – and it still wasn’t paid for – I bought it on credit along with the rest of the budgets for the three films – I didn’t have any credit left, and now I didn’t have an essential tool I needed continue my work as a film-maker.)

So I sat alone in the dark for a while, and then I got up and began to pack my car. I drove a hundred miles to Barstow and the next morning entered Death Valley.

…

Death Valley is the hottest, driest, and lowest place in the Western Hemisphere. The Bad Water Basin runs against a tectonic fault, and keeps slipping deeper into the earth: now 282 feet below sea level, and still slipping. Circling the valley rugged mountains tower at heights of over 5000 feet. One has never felt so small, or that the earth is so alien.

Self Portrait at the "Devil's Golf Course"

The highest temperature ever recorded in the United States was 134 degrees Farenheit, taken in the valley during a sandstorm. On the hottest days of the year, birds “drop dead in mid-flight” or so the informational plaques tell us. Great salt deposits build up as centuries of minerals run down out of the mountains in flash floods, onto the basin. A salt-water creek runs teasingly along the valley shore, nourishing a few highly adapted plants and little else. The Badwater Basin itself is named for a small salt water pool, home to a unique and (obviously) endangered species of snail. It is, I imagine, the most inhospitable environment one will find in the Americas. And yet somehow, the Timbusha tribe (part of the Shoshone people) lived and prospered here for over a thousand years before the White Man came.

(Detail of salt crystal at the "Devil's Golf Course")

The visitors guide tells of only one tragic death – a newlywed couple on their honeymoon out on the sand dunes on a 120 degree day – She came back early, he continued on, and later that night, after they found him, he died in a Los Vegas hospital from heat stroke and severe dehydration. Horrific, I suppose, but a far cry from the hundreds upon hundreds of macabre tales of earthly demise told in Over the Edge: Death in the Grand Canyon (which I must admit, I have read the majority of). I didn’t think about it much – it was late October and I didn’t bother to carry water on the shorter hikes. The Sand Dunes were lovely, especially at sunset.

October 25^th was the full moon, and that was the night I actually spent in the valley. I stayed at a rustic little resort near the center of the valley floor, in a comfortable motel room. I actually believe it was the same place we stayed, back over New Years 1991, when I first learned that my mother had been abused by her father as a child. That night with my mother, almost 16 years past, was hauntingly present, and I could see clearly, now, the shadow it had cast over my entire life, right up until this moment. That night under the full moon, in the middle of the valley, was the best night’s sleep I’ve gotten since the night of February 18^th - when I slept in the back of my van in a motel parking lot in Carmel, the night of Robert Anton Wilson’s funeral.

You see, it gets even worse. The week before beer fried my livelihood, my PC crashed – the one I did all of my writing on. Some of it hadn’t been backed up since Berkeley – whole plays and screenplays gone, hundreds upon hundreds of journal entries, bits and scraps and ideas – everything, every record of my existence for these last three years out of the Ivory Tower – on a hard drive that died suddenly in the night. Three years of my life! So by the time the Mac shorted out a week later, the situation was officially graduating from the tragic to the absurd, and I decided I’d better get to Death Valley, quick!

(I mean honestly, look at the bright side – at least I wasn’t born into a poor family in Iraq! That would be much worse than this. Compare losing three years of my life to the War in Iraq, and I’d better just shut my upper-middle-class American trap.)

So, I was in Death Valley, more or less after everything in my life went wrong. It was a good trip; I was dubious, at first, being in despair and all, but sometimes you find magic just when you need it.

That night in the valley, the moon was full, and at the desert resort in which I camped, there were a pair of great green trees, and in the trees, under the stars, a large coven of big black birds made their presence known. I wanted to believe they were Ravens and not Crows. Every New Years Eve, beginning some ten years ago, each member of my family draws an animal medicine card, in the Native American (well, New Age Native American) tradition. My father had once drawn Crow and I had once drawn Raven. As that new age ritual espoused (I find it advantageous to go along with these things every now and again) Crow represents Law and Raven represented the Void - the messenger from beyond and the bringer of magic. So, moving my consciousness back into that paradigm, I hoped they were Ravens and not Crows, but either way I was glad to see them. I think they were ravens. At the Badwater Basin, one of them became very performative when I trained the camera on him:

(This is probably a crow. Both species are known to visit the valley...)

After a day spent “seeing the sights” in DeathValley, I decided I would move on – but rather than returning by the Eastern route, I made up my mind to cross the valley and exit to the West. I hadn’t been to the Bristlecone Pine Forest since 2004. I bet the 5000 year old trees hadn’t even noticed I had left yet.

…

That night, I drove through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. The winding road west out of the valley became a treacherous trek through high hills and steep ravines by moonlight. Most of the other cars on the road, fortunately, were friendly. On the car stereo, Ani Difranco crooned, and I’m not in the best shape that I’ve ever been in, but I know where I’m going, and it ain’t where I’ve been. I finally stopped, long after the sun had gone his way, on the high plateau of Crowley Point, and got out of the car. The-night-after Full Moon hung plump in the East, casting an orange glare onto the brown and purple valley. I imagined strange forces at foot, old consciousness from the basin that ran below sea level, cracked open and accessing our modern era from forgotten depths of the earth. It didn’t seem so strange, in that place, to think of werewolves prowling the hills (humans have been wrong about so much else, haven't they?); I wondered if somehow, unicorns were real. And then the valley was behind me; I was driving North towards the White Mountains.

(High in the White Mountains of California)

October 27^th, 1993 – the day the fire raged across the Kinneloa Mesa (where our house is built) – we saw it coming down the mountain, an eerie red and gold luminance gathering in the Western sky before Dawn. By the early afternoon we were evacuated, and as we drove away my father looked back to see the flames licking up the canyon walls towards our house.

On October 27^th, 2007 – exactly 14 years later - I am perched on a desert mountaintop in the Bristelcone Pine Forest. This is higher and deeper into the White Mountains than I have ever been, and I shiver beneath my Cambria Fleece and Berkeley Sweatshirt. The fire synchronicity (that fire brought Penny down the coast, and so consequently brought me to the Bristlecone Pines on the 14th anniversary of the Kinneloa Fire) – was lost on me at the time – I wouldn’t look up the dates for another week. I was, at that moment, reveling in the sensation of being alone at the top of the world, among a gathering of the most ancient and enduring beings on the planet.

It was a sight to see, surely – our house is built along a canyon wall and everything in the Canyon had been burnt to cinder and ash. The flames crept into our backyard, reached out to touch my mother’s office – and there they stopped, but a few feet away from destroying everything we knew.

(This beautiful old Bristlecone is no longer with us...)

The Bristlecones grow in wild, twisting bursts, but in very slow motion. Some of the trees were saplings when the Pyramids of Egypt were being built. As dramatic as that sounds, I’ve been to the forest about a dozen times and the initial novelty has begun to wear off. Ok, I get it, you are a hundred times older than me, get over yourselves. When I was a kid, I used to imagine what it would be like to have a conversation with a millennium year old being. You could come back in five years, and they would be like, “oh, did you forget something?” And I now imagined my reply, “No. I was just kidding, I'm not really leaving!”

“Sweet are the uses of adversity” a plaque at the visitor center quotes Shakespeare, going on to explain that these trees evolved to live 5000 years precisely because conditions at this elevation in the White Mountains are so harsh. It was through adapting to conditions on these barren, arid vistas, that the Bristlecone Pines live on beyond the lifetimes of nations and even civilizations.

(Believe it or not, this Bristlecone, felled by a storm, is still alive!)

In the end, I had a choice between shelling out cash (well, credit) for the beer-fried Mac, on which I forged my films, or for the crashed hard drive, on which three years of my life and work was recorded. I chose the Mac. Crossing my fingers that I will be able to retrieve the data from the hard drive at some future point in time, I decided the ability to keep working was more important than preserving past work.

Life sucked, but I had gotten a road trip out of it – that was enough. Life on the mesa has been a little weird ever since; it has been one of the driest years in California history, and the land cries out, monotonous and desperate, for respite. But I do believe it is going to rain before long. If the Irises are any indication, it might even rain this weekend…

(This little Bristlecone may be younger than you, but it has a fair chance of living past the year 2107 (not to mention 7007), human insanity notwithstanding...)