Life In The Aerie

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By Matthew Storey

When I was in first grade, at a school called 'Bentley' on East 71st Street that no longer exists (REALLY doesn't, all Google has is an obscure NY Magazine article from 1972), I was cast in Mrs. Sussman's class production of 'Peter Pan' - in the title role.

I'd been shuffled from Manhattan to Texas and back to Manhattan in my young life and was a gifted, troubled sort of kid - acting was a tremendous outlet for me, because I was fascinated by language and physicality and a born exhibitionist. A poor kid in a rich kid's school, shuffling on the bus from my 21st street home, while my classmates arrived in Chauffeur driven...Bentley's (!) from the West Side or walked over with staff from nearby Park Avenue luxury. My hair was shoulder length blonde and my clothes were often mismatched, as my Secretary mom was stretching every dollar to afford a 'doorman' building and a private school that made zero sense for our finances or my life prospects.

Despite the monetary situation, I was a sharp kid well ahead of my peers and the teacher connected well. Mrs. S saw that I took to the story and learned the lines and songs easily and the whole experience shines like a beacon from the dark memories of those days. Memories that included angry outbursts in 2nd Grade, expulsion from school, hospitalization on a child psych ward resulting in a Thorazine prescription (prevailing science for hyperactive kids from broken homes in 1971, but by 1977 it was called a 'chemical lobotomy' - great!), bill collectors calling the apartment day and night, alcohol at home and angry fights between Mom (who I lived with) and Dad (who I did not). Mom taught me to love learning and love myself. I never wanted for a warm bed, warm meal or knowledge of being loved. She did what single parents, who are kids themselves, do - the best they can.

But before our precarious situation unraveled and I flipped out - there was 'Peter Pan'.

I loved everything about it. Mom made me a green outfit and I pranced around, hammily singing and charming the adults and Mom soaked in the praise I got. It was a high water mark.

For sure.

I never really acted again, which was probably a mistake.

The story of 'Peter Pan' is iconic, of course. It was written by a Scottish Author named James M. Barrie, and has been performed, on stage or film in near continuous rotation since its 1904 debut. It is a story about a boy who lives in 'Neverland', a world of Fairies and Pirates, and was based on the author's brother who died at 13 and, like Peter Pan - 'never grew up'.

Living in NYC, of course, even whacked out on Psych drugs, sure as shit ain't 'Neverland'. Its R-E-A-L, and the best thing that ever happened to the actor who played Peter was getting tossed from the fantasy land of Bentley into the real world of PS 40 Grammar School. I was a healthy, active, intelligent kid who was going to grow up around all types of people from all types of circumstances - going to Public School introduced me to those kids and their lives.

Lives I could relate to.

It was down the block from my home, across the street from the playground ballpark which would be my own 'stage' for more than two decades.

At Bentley, everyone was white and wealthy.

At PS 40, everyone was not. Black kids, Puerto Rican kids, Dominican kids, Chinese kids, White kids from Stuyvesant Town who were almost suburban, White kids from the tenements who were as urban as urban gets.

Kids with two parents, who were happy families. Kids with two parents who fought, who drank, who didn't give a shit. Single parent homes. Only children (like me), kids with siblings in our school, or other schools. Poor kids, rich kids (yup, had them too), smart kids, dumb kids, violent kids, depressed kids...even kids with Gay Parents, although I didn't know what that meant nor would I have cared and didn't discover the truth of that until decades later.

To this day, whatever my problems are, and this confessional will only skim the surface, I don't have a prejudiced bone in my body and I believe that is due to Public School, which, like the Subway teaches you often and early that race, money and circumstance have nothing to do with quality. I was aggressive, and the kids at Bentley were passive around me. At PS 40, the kids didn't surrender the spotlight or stand aside for my insistence - I had to compete, and when you have to compete, you win some.

And you lose some.

Which is real life as well.

Life got easier for awhile. I excelled at school and had many friends from all walks of life, I loved reading books and playing baseball and became a Little League star and then a softball star at the park across the street.

And I made new friends, older friends, guys who I played ball with. I learned that you get respect for what you DO, not who you are or what you promise. I could play, it was obvious and I was smart too, that got respect.

But I was a kid, like Barrie's brother, and while my game could hang with the men - I was too young to make good choices about certain things.

Later in life, when I was trying to get sober (at 29), I learned in AA that emotional development freezes for alcoholics and addicts at the time when they start using. Which leads to an awful lot of adults who 'never grow up'. That isn't my story, exactly, I am in many ways a sophisticated person, intellectually, experientially and emotionally. But I was that when I was 13 as well. Sophistication and experience do not equate to mature action, lots of times the strength of making good decisions comes from being able to take direction from trusted adults and the instillation of good habits. I have some - I am a worker bee, I am a honest friend who puts others needs ahead of my own. But adult 'lifestyle' choices never really took hold with me - I like what I liked then, although generally able to manage things better...generally being a general sort of term.

I remember my first beer.

It was 1977, a late May afternoon, after the games had been played and I'd had a big day on the field. My protector and friend asked me to come hang out with the guys and we went across 20th street to the hangout area on 19th. I'd gone to school on the block for years and knew the park inside and out, but I'd never sat in with these older kids and it was thrilling to me, a man sized little boy with brains and ability but no real parenting or socializing. Guys were playing cards, teenaged girls drinking beer...my buddy from the games, Steve, offered me a 'Michelob' - he said 'if you can hit like that, you can drink one of these!'.

I had three.

I LOVED it, it made me feel something I had been looking for and I ran home with blood rushing in my head. Two weeks later, I'd go to the Feast of St. Anthony on Sullivan Street with Steve and some other older guys and drank red wine all night - returning home to my Mom with my first blackout drunk.

Two months later, I turned 14.

I'd grown up around beer. Mom would pop a Miller while doing her makeup before work, while we both listened to '70s AM radio on WMCA and WABC and then would listen to Howard Cosell 'Speaking of Sports'. She'd go off to do her thing and I'd do mine, school, dog walking, cat sitting. I took a job at the antique store later that same summer and was a kid who always had his own cash, which only helped the illusion of being older. I was the same height I am now, had cash and cred - I could, and did, buy my own.

Booze was different for me than mom, as it is for other drinkers. Everyone has their own way in life and with substances.

I had a mentor, who I looked up to then and look up to today, who was a fat 16 year old when we first met (I was 10), but had taken to being healthy and fit by the time I took to drinking. I'd learn from the guys I drank with about my friend, drinking, being a tough fighter...but what I saw was a guy always under control, who walked away from fights and taught me to do the same, who headed home when things got dicey, who could be counted on to come through and be his word. He'd take me to see his job at UPS when he started working and I could see that his co-workers had as much respect for him as the rest of us did at the ballpark.

But he wasn't a drinker anymore. So I hung out less with him and more with guys like me, who liked to drink.

I still got respect for my game, my smarts, my genuine friendly personality. But my behavior made me enemies as deep as friends, and I never really developed a keen awareness of that truth, in part because a lot of the negative stuff emanating from me happened when I was loaded, or showing off. Kid stuff.

Like I said, people respect what you DO.

And I was just getting started. I never liked to drink daily, usually because my hangovers are three day affairs and the insanity I can create often leaves me shattered for a time. But there were always flareups, and while my muscles and my knowledge continued to expand, in many ways, I was never as completely 'me' once I picked up that first drink. I'd go on to battle alcohol and its effects on my life till 29, when I was 'sick and tired' of being 'sick and tired' and checked myself into Rehab at St.Vincent's in Westchester. I was nervous having to tell my boss I needed the time and he jumped out of his chair and hugged me, telling me that was the best thing he had heard. My longtime girlfriend told me it was 'the best decision you ever made'.

I was there for three weeks, and then I was in AA for the next three years. Sober. Clean.

But not fixed.

My psychiatrist at the time was not terribly enthusiastic about my sobriety and I was perplexed, especially since my lady was a mental health professional who had recommended him (to this day she is furious with him over this).

I asked him why and he said, 'what I worry about is what you will do to yourself if you don't have the drinking', which you at least are used to dealing with. He told me that I was dealing with rage from years before booze, feelings that had never been confronted, and would likely find substitute ways to hurt myself and find 'Neverland' if I gave up hooch.

But I did give it up. First I got euphoric with my newfound health and clarity, then I made a pile of money in the Stock Market and then, five months after checking into rehab with 40K in debt, I put two carats on my lady's finger.

Of course, they told me in rehab - concentrate on sobriety and humility, don't make major life choices in the first year. Getting engaged, quitting my job and opening my investment business were all pretty major.

Taking advice was never my strength. As I have mentioned.

There were battles with gambling, with money, with cocaine...all without a drop of hooch. There was an issue, but it wasn't necessarily found in a bottle - it was the man-boy holding it who needed to be better. And, as predicted, I proved you don't get fixed while you are still broken.

I broke up with the fiance, discovering at long last that while her depth of character and maturity were naturally attractive to a wild child like me - her lifestyle dreams of suburbs, kids and catholic church were never going to match up with my own. Drunk or sober. I met another woman, not serious, played a bit, worked a lot, had some success, did a good job in AA and on surviving the loss of the only relationship I'd known since 21.

Traveled a bit and hit my stride in some ways.

Then one day I was in a fight, sober, with a drug crazed guy who thought I was a rival for a woman, I was not and it didn't matter - he was on Meth, which, thankfully, was never part of my tale. He drew a gun. Then he dropped the gun in his delirium. I reached down and picked up a piece of wood laying at a construction sight and swung at his head the way I used to swing at baseballs.

That was it for him. Self-defense. But you don't forget something like that.

Mom and her man did continue drinking, they both had more of the jones for it than I and it amazed me to see the damage, even as much as I had seen in my own life and the lives of fellow drunks.

I stopped chasing a lifestyle I neither understood or had a clue about, letting myself be about being the husband and father I dreamed of being but was woefully incapable of being.

I started to drink again in 2001 and party in other ways as well. I've made accommodations to keep myself safer - I drink wine or champagne at HOME with my long time companion, New Hampshire Girl and try to do whatever bar drinking in the late afternoon, before the crowds, the young women, the temptation to be...a kid again.

I am no kid, that's for sure, it'll be 33 years since that first drink for me next month and 47 on the planet in August.

A few weeks back, I stopped in to a local place that I like with my best friend and we met an adorable creature behind the bar. She was born when I was 23, in 1987, and while I loved the sights and sound of her, it was HER not the allure of a young woman. She's a special girl, and I am a fella who likes being in bars, likes being around special girls. We had a BLAST that visit and went back to see her on Tuesday.

It was 5:30, so she should have been on shift. But Red Sox Steve remembered she'd been switched to nights and we spent the 2 1/2 hours prior talking about health care, baseball, NYC politics, his incredible lady, our colleague and devoted friend, Mary...drinking light Pabst Beers at a leisurely pace.

The adorable one showed up for her shift at 8:00, and we were all happy to renew acquaintances, a love-fest ensued that had all the old juices flowing.

But that wasn't the only thing that flowed...I started ordering shots of Bourbon, which has always kicked my ass, whether it was Jack, Jim, Grandpa...in this case the maker left a mark on me that includes 4 broken ribs from an incident I cannot recall, lost $400 glasses, humiliation in front of a respected and appreciated new friend and a devoted member of my core.

Again.

Bad choices. Bad results. Broken ribs are no joke - let me tell you the pain trying to sleep last night was a reminder about me, bars, bourbon and young, beautiful women all in combination.

I'm no saint. I hate the pain in my side and the knowledge it will already be Summertime before I can walk around without the ache. But I am who I am, I like a bowl of plant, a sniff of egg whites, a glass of wine...I may always be desirous of smart, together, experienced women in my world and my life, I'd be an idiot and a liar if anyone thought warm eyed young beauties would lose their sway over my thoughts, or other body types...

Another tale.

Not a morality tale, this be, just a chat, between a guy who played Peter Pan 40 years ago and sits here, at home, watching 'Jeopardy' with cracked ribs, the loss of a fun new friend and a lesson renewed.

The world is filled with real folks like me, Kirstie gets fat, gets thin, gets fat. Tiger and Bubba want strange young tail, get caught and try to play the 'I'm bad, card'. But that aint it. We are all who we are, the key is trying to survive the weak areas and stress the strong ones.

For the most part, I do that. I got lost for just a few hours and my demons bit my ass, if I head down the street now and start banging back Bourbon, there will be a girl, a fight and damage.

I aint up to it. And I won't be.

At least until my ribs heal.

Posted by Matthew at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

By Mary Hannington

Welcome to the first addition of Sick. You will find these comics peppered throughout VagabondGuru.com, where along with the reader we continually seek to understand what exactly makes a Vagabond Guru tick and what it is like for him to live life sick but still active in his cage.

Posted by M. Hannington at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

By Matthew Story

It's a beautiful noise
Goin' on everywhere...

Like the clickety-clack
Of a train on a track...

Its got a rhythm to spare

Its a beautiful noise
And its sound that I love
And its fit me as well
As a hand in a glove...

Neil Diamond

Walking the other night on Avenue B and 9th Street with my beloved Zela, I realized the street sign in front of Tompkins Square Park now reads 'Charlie Parker Place'.

Cool.

The place and the musician.

It fits.



I can remember being 10, playing little league a few blocks away and being scared of this neighborhood. I can remember being 17, partying on St. Mark's place at the Grassroots tavern or the Holiday Cafe...going to the movies at the Theatre 80 St. Marks with Jon or the Japan 2000 with Danny...playing softball with Phil, Paulie and the Scorpio boys on East 11th or in the Northeastern corner of the park...it was cool then, too...but it was scary also.

Tense.

That's gone.

It's a great thing. And the BEST thing?

It's the same neighborhood. Like The Mission in San Francisco, a place that has become mainstream but hasn't changed its tune.

Two things happened.

The World away from NYC got tense.

And NYC calmed down. Thanks, Mike.

Things we cherished and took for granted aren't all here anymore.

I buried younger friends. They aren't here either.

But they live on. Somehow all that hatred coming at us from without, made it better within.



I saw a Hawk today. He'd been run over in the middle of Lexington Avenue, right in front of Hunter College. I saw the huge wing flapping sadly from the street and realized this one never made it back to its home in the park, a few wing flaps away to the West. I couldn't help think of the family left behind on a ledge somewhere, waiting, waiting...so like those other NYC families, for a loved one never to return.

Life goes on...

...the guy on the #6 train says the ADA in the Bronx is dealing H from an East Tremont office and says we all have to take 'action'...disinterested Upper East Siders bop out at 86th Street, their only action - the tapping of ipod inspired Uggs, Choos, Converse...on East 66th Street, Contractors hire out day-laborers from the immigrants lined up on the corner...on East 65th Street, the sons and grandsons of immigrants stand with bullhorns in front of a giant inflated RAT and protest the non-union labor at a worksite...city ordinances that compelled refurbishing of exteriors on Manhattan buildings are finishing this month and giant scaffolds are being hauled away, perhaps to take the construction jobs with them...the Free-Agent Pitcher, a Lefty from Vallejo doesn't want to pitch in the Bronx...millions of us think 'if you don't WANT to be here, don't come, it'll never work' as memories of friends and neighbors who came and left flow through the thoughts...



Life goes on...

The President lived on East 94th Street and appoints a Stuyvesant High School graduate who went to the same class as the 'Beastie Boys' and the beautiful part is that the lawyer is a black guy from Queens and the Rap Stars are Jewish kids from Brooklyn.

And that was the class of '79! Back when Neil Diamond and Guru both had big hair! Guru was a Sophomore that year. The attorney general was a star hoopster at Stuyvesant and, later, at Columbia, where he met the President. He laughed when reporters asked him about Barack on the court and said;

'He is in no way ready for my New York game'.

Now THAT, is cool. Good luck Eric Holder, break a PegLeg!

The New York Times had a piece today about the two bars around the corner on 2nd Avenue, 'Elaine's' the legendary-meeting place for the literati, glitterati and wannabati and its neighbor, 'Pat O'Briens', the 'Red Sox' bar that I encourage Scout to moisten on our twice-daily walks - a place that calls itself 'The Area's biggest New England Bar!'...oddly, you can't get more New York then these two silly places. One creating a fantasy for those seeking to sup with the elite and the other creating a fantasy for those looking to mingle with folks JUSTLIKETHEM in the midst of all this diversity...the way they came together one night makes for a wonderful read....the gist being that longtime NYC DJ, Jim Kerr was standing on the sidewalk in front of Elaine's smoking a cigarette with Mickey Dolenz, the lead singer of '60s band/TV show 'The Monkees' when the bar filled with 25 year old New England kids burst into sing-a-long with 'I'm a Believer', Dolenz's signature hit...when a happy reveler spotted Dolenz, the whole bar emptied onto second avenue and cellphone cameras whizzed away.



Seems like every corner has a film crew, the usual plethora of Law and Order, movies, other TV shows, documentary...mostly what seems to happen though is FOOD, every day we hungry NYC types pass tables laden with all sorts of sumptous morsels. Don't these guys WATCH their own material?

Fugheddaboutit...I gots to get mine!

I love this place.

Does it show?

Posted by Matthew at 10:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

By Matthew Storey

I was born in August 1963. In Manhattan.

My Mom and Dad, both born in 1940, grew up in Texas.

Mom, the pianist and voracious reader, was a sensitive soul. She was the 3rd child of 4 born to John, a physician and Olivia. Papa's little girl lost her dad when she was 7, and my Mom lost her window to a world beyond Texas. The 3 kids and a pregnant Olivia, moved in with my Great-Grandmother, Alice, the widow of a prominent Dallas Baptist Pastor, who had a strained relationship with my Mom's Papa. Once the baby was weaned, Olivia went to work in the rough and tumble world of Corporate Energy and Alice, at 63, took over the care of 3 young kids and an infant. An educated woman who had been the wife of a brilliant man, Alice, was nonetheless a devout Southern Baptist who had little time for the curiosities of a pretty little girl who'd always favored her father and chafed at moving from the top to the bottom of the family pecking order.

Mom retreated into her books and the Piano and entered Woodrow Wilson High School in Dallas, it was the fall of 1954...

Dad was a Motorcycle racer and gifted Artist. The son of Lewis, a Home Builder and Nita, an artistic soul overwhelmed by the conventions of Texas life and the responsibilities of being a wife to her traditional husband and mother to her four boys. My Dad, the oldest by 7 years, gradually became the confidant of his Mom, as she slipped into Alcohol and Mental Illness and away from her life as Wife and Mother. She fired his soul with love of Art and Music and a passion for a life that was unattainable in 1950's Texas. Dad straddled the reality of his boyhood and the possibility of a world beyond, channeling the disconnect into his studies and his Artwork. He too was a student at Good Ole Woodrow...

These two kids, from difficult home environments, who loved Art, Literature, Music...and were horrified at the racism, violence and fundamentalism all around them...gravitated to one another and after High School, headed first to Baylor University in Waco and then to Los Angeles, where my Dad enrolled at Pasadena's Art Center College and Mom went to work. After LA, they made their way back to Texas, and then on to Manhattan where the Art Director's, Advertisers, Publishers and Galleries were and Dad began his illustration career. The whole world seemed to be opening up...Manhattan, 1963, Camelot and JFK...as far away from Dallas as it was possible to be and still be in America.

In August, their son was born (the large head on the VG logo), two weeks before Martin Luther King spoke on the steps of the Lincoln Monument...it was must have been intoxicating, the sense of promise and progress, a repudiation of what they'd grown up despising and a celebration of that which they'd only dreamed might be possible.

Then Dallas happened.

Again.

In November.

The Handsome, Urbane, Sophisticated JFK was gone. In his place, a man who could have been one of the attendee's at Grandpa Rogers (Alice's husband) services at Ross Avenue Baptist or a client of Lewis's. A good man, LBJ, but a Texan born and a man of that world - the world they'd left had returned, the city they'd fled had killed their hero, their broken hearts were only two of uncounted millions.

On Christmas Eve, 1963, my Dad's mom, Nita, drank garden poison and left her suicide note to my Dad, she'd disapproved of my Mother, who she felt was beneath his station and was horrified by my birth, which she saw as cementing the mistake. Lewis sent money so Dad could fly home to see Nita in the hospital, but she was gone. Mom and I remained in Manhattan and waited for my Dad to return.

Decades later, in a 1996 Interview with San Francisco Weekly, Dad would describe the events of 1963 as the formative experiences of his life and work. The death of JFK. The loss of his mother.

There was no mention of a son born that year, or the woman who'd been his wife.

In a very real sense, the man who'd been my Dad never did return from burying his mom and his President. My mother, who'd lost her first love when her Papa died, freaked out as she watched her husband retreat from their relationship and home, and, by 1967, Dad left Mom and I for a woman we knew who lived across the courtyard of our Kips Bay apartment complex.

I played with her kids. One day he was my dad, the next he was theirs.

I was three years old.

Mom took one page from her own Mother and got to work on taking care of us, and one from her Mother in Law by descending into pills and booze when the hurt got too deep. She was a bright, vibrant woman of 27, with a 3 year old, who'd lost the only two people she'd ever counted on. We detoured to Texas for a year, where my Mother's sister explained that she'd 'lost her husband' and became a pariah.

It was 1968.

The broken hearted progressives who'd lost their champion in JFK could never warm to LBJ, they lurched to RFK, and watched him gunned down, they flirted with McCarthy and insured Nixon, the same man that JFK had beaten back in 1960. Camelot was dead. Grandma was dead. Mom and I were miserable in Dallas and Dad was remarried back in Manhattan. The dreams we held were the deadest things of all.

Mom chose to leave Texas, chose to marry Dad, chosen 'that life' and failed...a year later, we returned to our real home and I grew up in Manhattan, with my single mom - two damaged kids trying to care for one another. Dad lived with his new family, had a son with his new wife and fought in court with my Mom over Child support for me. We'd meet for weekend visits and they'd tear into one another on the street outside our 21st Street apartment. We'd hang out at Dad's places, first in Brooklyn, than Connecticut and I'd be dying inside and my Dad would ask me things like 'why hasn't your Mom remarried?' - which, to someone who lived with the broken woman in my house, seemed like the cruelest of cruelties.

Dad and I were not close.

Life went on. I boarded a plane at 12 to visit my Dad for the summer in LA, excited to be a kid flying alone, but also dreading the experience of being with my Stepmother, who I was scared of. I'd grown into a dynamic kid, extremely well read and informed, a gifted athlete and a curious lover of books, comics, skateboards, music, animals...I was hopeful that my Dad would see how much I had going for me and would help me get that feeling I'd been missing, of having a DAD in my life.

I walked off the plane and my dad greeted me with his 2 stepkids, the son he'd had with her, a strange woman and a red headed kid I didn't know.

He said 'Matt, I'd like you to meet my new family'.

I'd long since learned to roll with changes that might seem bizarre to other kids. I met the 'new family' and was relieved to find the 3rd wife was a terrific person, who had a handle on what I'd been through and made time for me, where the 2nd wife (like my Grandmother) had always seen me through a prism of who my Mother was. Dad was busy, a thriving career and juggling two families on the West Coast, it was not going down the way I dreamed. But it was cool in its own way, I loved Skateboarding down the Hollywood Hills and into downtown, buying comics and checking out street scenes so different than the ones I was accustomed to.

Dad and his new family moved back to Kips Bay, which meant my neighborhood, and we had a period of relative normalcy in that we saw each other regularly and formed somewhat of a relationship. I was a teenager now, a smart, damaged kid who spent my after-school time playing ball and hanging out with my working-class buddies on the streets. I was the sort of ballplayer who was able to play with the men, and the men drank and drugged after games, I joined in and picked up habits that would alter the trajectory of my life. Habits that had similarly afflicted my Grandmother, my Dad's brother and my mom.

Dad broke up with his 3rd wife, after the birth of his 3rd son, and lived for a time in a studio on Mercer street in the Village. I'd breeze in from my escapades and find him working hard on his art, preparing lesson plans for his art students or meet new women in his life. He married again, and moved to San Francisco, and we didn't see each other for a decade. I got engaged in 1993 to a woman who I'd been dating since 1985, my Dad wondered how I would be dealing with her Catholicism, a question that I bitterly resented when he posed it but one that turned out to be prophetic when it came down to discussions of having children and where we might live. We never married.

In 1996, I was dealing with the fallout of several bad decisions I'd made in business and my mom suggested that I should go spend time with my Dad in San Francisco. I picked up and moved to SF to live with Dad five days after Christmas, 1996. Dad had a wonderful little apartment in the shadow of Coit Tower, with a little porch in the back for me to sleep in...I took it slow, worked on my business goals during the day and my fitness through the various 12 Step programs I required and the little Y in Chinatown. We did our best, as two adult men, to form a bond and succeeded to some degree. But after only a few months, his 4th Wife, who now was a trusted friend, began to appear more and more in the apartment and it became clear I was cramping dad's style. He was amiable and kind, it just wasn't the lifestyle he loved - having to be a care giving parent to a child of 32, who'd been aching for that care for almost three decades. The re-run rejection had a predictable impact, I met a woman and moved in with her, then got a place in The Mission and dad went back to the life he'd known.

We lived in the same city, but we never got together.

I moved back East in '98, first to Miami, then Westchester and back to Manhattan in 2003. Dad lives in San Francisco with his once and current wife, teaches Illustration at two different colleges and has a career in Illustration and another in music and performance art. His brilliance has been reflected in generations of devoted students who themselves have gone on to glittering careers in the Art world. Dad has combined his unmatched ability as a draftsmen with his searching, probing intellect to generate an incredible body of work.

We speak on the phone occasionally, typically when I've had too much wine and need a break from writing. Dad is kind and genuine, its good to talk to him and to share our views on matters that matter.

Last week, my roommate, Erin, told me I'd received an e-mail from my dad's companion, it was an invitation to a Lecture Dad was giving at the launching of his featured show this summer at The Society of Illustrators. The Society is located on 63rd Street, between Lexington and Park Avenues.

I know this because I am a Dogwalker, and I walk my beloved Chester right in front of the Society every single day of the year. My walk down the block is filled with conversations with doormen, hot dog vendors, embassy employees, event planners, other dog owners...it's my backyard.

Today, when I walked by, the front of the Society was flanked by two placards announcing my Dad's show, 'Life After Black: The Visual Journals of Barron Storey'.

I took a cellphone picture of the exterior signs, and I tried to go inside to get one of the announcement cards. The door was locked, labeled 'Private' and the two women inside acted as if I wasn't there, perhaps put off by my Yankees Backpack? My High-Top Converse Sneakers?

They knew right away, this was not a place I belonged.

Dad and I will get together, we'll have a meal or a chat. I think he realizes I won't be making the show.

I'm not the sort of fellow you'll find at an opening, for the same reasons it wouldn't make sense to bring my Dad to the Yankee game I enjoy, or to sit in the Grandstand at Belmont Park, or lay out on Long Beach...we're different men.

And there's the political tenor of his work as well. I respect EVERYONE's right to believe what they wish and to express that belief as they see fit. That right, however does not extend to doing so in my presence. Dad's the same way. He wishes me well here at VagabondGuru.com and understands that, for me, these columns and these rooms are my journals. But we disagree on much, and communicate to audiences in our own ways.

If you know me or have read my work, you know there are two rooms you never want to invite me to.

The first being the sort of rooms my Texas family favor, where the crowd is Anti-Immigrant and Pro-'Life', where homophobia, anti-semitism, anti-catholicism and feudalism are gospel and Progressive, secular, bisexual, stoners from New York City are the 'Bad Guys'.

You know. Guys like me.

Invite me to that sort of room, and fights will ensue.

The other room, which I suspect might develop for my Dad's opening, is a place where the group consciousness runs towards Anti-Capitalist and Pro-Palestinian. Here, the folks known as 'Them' are financial speculators who engage in global currency and equity deals for profit, people who fill their leisure time with spectator sports, moderate progressives who are Pro-Israel and hawkish on Islam.

You got him. That's me, right here.

In this sort of room, the disagreement is more cordial, no fighting. But the disconnect is heartbreaking, and the distance no less firm.

Every son wants to look up to his Father, and to feel that his Dad would do anything, pay any price, make any sacrifice, for him. I've watched Red Sox Steve's Dad these last few years and I've seen what that looks like.

Every Wife hopes her Husband will find joy in devotion to his family and sublimate himself to their care and her happiness.

Every Father wishes his son will grow to share his values and appreciate the choices he has made.

But most of us will never live those lives. The next time you hear someone say that we need to re-stigmatize single parenthood, I hope you will remember the story you just read. Single parents happen, and not just in the ghetto. For every black or hispanic family dealing with this situation, there are three white families dealing with the exact same circumstance. I've got a picture of Mom, Dad and I, circa 1965, and you could easily be looking at a snapshot of Marilyn Quayle's fantasy life (ewwwwwww!).

Doesn't matter. There is no such thing as 'looking the part', only 'living your ideals' and, when your ideals don't match the circumstance, its time to go. Regardless of the situation left behind.

My mom and dad married before they knew who they were.

Each other.

Themselves.

They saw and experienced things in LA and NYC that were beyond the expectations they had when they bonded back at Woodrow Wilson High. It happens. It always will. You cannot and SHOULD not legislate those relationships and you can never make a man stay and provide for a family that he no longer believes in. When you read this, you are reading the story of people who MADE it through, but two of them did so with scars so deep, their lives were never what they might have been.

Tough. That's life. We all had chances to move on and make our own way, and two of us were not able to make the transition. There is ZERO value in demonizing the person who makes a change. There is PLENTY of value in figuring out a system in extracting cash from the departing parent while it STILL MATTERS - the State of California finally came for my dad's income while I was living with him, in 1996, and on behalf of his then, 25 year old son, from his second marriage to a woman who had killed herself the year before. They collected half his pay, but the money went to the State - not the children or wives who went without decades before. What is the point of that?

The point that DOES matter is to make sure that the sorts of kids who can make it out of these family dramas intact do not have to be the sorts who are so gifted they will then make it all the way to the White House.

All kids deserve a real chance at life and as many helps and pushes along the way as it takes, let's put ourselves towards the answers.

Posted by Matthew at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

By Matthew Storey

We...know how cruel the truth often is, and we wonder whether delusion is not more consoling.

Henri Poincare (1854-1912)

We've had another Century to 'wonder' about this since Monsieur Poincare submitted his Prostate problem to Pre WW1 Medicine and received an embolism as a reward, costing the world one of the finest minds we've been blessed with, at 58.

And what have we learned?

On the one hand, there is nothing to wonder about. Delusion is CLEARLY more consoling to those of us who indulge in our private little rationalizations in order to hop out of bed (or stand up, if you're Guru...) and certainly the consoling nature of delusion has been the primary source of comfort for the 'Faith-based' throughout the Millennia.

If reality gets tough, delusion can provide the bridge to sanity.

But the problem, of course, is delusions aren't REAL. Learning that your carefully constructed crutch is made of paper mache can lead to buckling. Will you be able to remain standing?

And is Sanity possible, if the sane person believes in delusion?

If a crowd of hundreds of thousands believe their god is a living being, whose whims determine the daily lives of all humanity and further believe this deity has instructed them to wage war on some group of non-believers who do not ascribe to the rules, as delivered to their prophet...

Is that crazy? Maybe.

Are THEY crazy? Not necessarily. If generations stretching for centuries have purchased a stake in the delusion, certainly it can not be considered 'insane' for a person born to that climate to take the delusion as fact. Undoubtedly, the person who REJECTS the delusion is the one accused of Insanity, which has a dual meaning;

1.) Bonkers

2.) Different

So, perhaps, in our example, we've got a group of mostly sane people, who believe in the insane and condemn the different, who realize this.

Who's crazy now?

We all do this in our daily lives as well.

Then there is the benefit of living in the 'Real', taking life as it IS and working to cut a swath through your delusions, which form as automatically as toe-nails and require a similar pruning regimen.

Learning to live in the genuine is a gift we are endowed with, we start out taking the world in as it comes and find the magic in the 'what is'. Then we learn language, custom, faith, culture...delusion comes along to plug the gaps. When an adult lives in the real, it is likely to have come from a depth of experience and reflection, a lifetime of watching the vagaries of one's own extremes - endlessly nudges a being...

...towards the center, of ideas, of habits, of self...

and away from the center, of existence, of attention, of decision.

It is a liberating thing to NOT be the be all and not be the end all. But rather, to be.

But it takes practice, and it only goes so far. Human, after all, and all those tapes playing on your hard drive...

Posted by Matthew at 07:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

By Matthew Storey

Lately (the past forty five years or so...), I've been ruminating on the fault lines in the crust of American life. The ones that continue to shake our foundations before we can build them back up.

The ones that drove some on the Left to remove LBJ in 1968, and thus allow the transition from the champion of 'The Great Society' towards Richard Nixon. These same lines are with us today and can be seen from Howard Dean to Michelle Obama, both of whom, on some level, do not share their Presidents easy facility with the heirs to LBJ.

The ones that drove some Religious fundamentalists to agitate FOR 'Separation of Church and State' when JFK was about to become President, for fear of his Catholicism...then towards prohibition of inter-racial relationships when Civil Rights made open racism less societally acceptable, then towards condemnation of the Gay and the Sexually Independent Single Woman and, finally...in the current climate, not only towards eradication of 'Separation of Church and State' but towards Taliban-style 'Biblical Law'!

The ones that drove working class Americans to vote for anti-working class Presidential candidates like Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and who rally to Sarah Palin.

Why is it that, 233 years after 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal', 144 years after Emancipation, 133 years after 'Bring us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free', 89 years after Women's Suffrage, 64 years after The Holocaust, 44 years after The Civil Rights Act, 40 years after Stonewall and 35 years after Roe V. Wade...

We are STILL grappling with Race, with Gender, with Anti-Semitism, with Sexuality, with Homophobia...?

Why are Americans, amongst the most privileged and successful peoples on Earth, moving AWAY from Education and towards Faith, in large numbers and why has 'Anti-Intellectualism' that was the hallmark of Reagan, become so ingrained in much of our National fiber?

One of the strangest dualities in American life happened during the 2004 Presidential campaign.

A man left Yale and headed directly to Vietnam, where he assumed a small command and saw his equally privileged best friend and fellow Yalie, killed. While in the Navy, this man was superficially wounded on three occasions during combat and received three Purple Hearts, he successfully led his command ('A Swift Boat', PCF94 and two other vessels) in a victorious engagement, which resulted in a Silver Star and received a Bronze Star for his actions that resulted in the rescue of an injured Green Beret.

When he left the service, he advocated for the end of the war he'd seen firsthand, and used his educational skill and depth of knowledge to bring the matter before the United States Senate. As he spoke to the Senators, one of the senior members of that body, Howard Baker of Tennesee, commented that he's someday expect to see the young man as a MEMBER of that institution.

At that point, he began his career in the law and politics, eventually leading to his election to the Senate. Upon his election, as a Liberal Democrat in the largest Conservative landslide in American History (1984), he stated that his service would"emphatically reject the politics of selfishness and the notion that women must be treated as second-class citizens."

In 2004, appalled by the Bush administration and seasoned for the effort, this man ran for President.

He was broadly condemned, by the right as having a trumped up military career, for being an 'Intellectual' and for supporting Union workers, minorities, women's rights, reproductive rights, progressive taxation and other causes that marked him as one of the Senate's most liberal members. He was broadly condemned, by the left, for being wealthy, for having served in the Military and for having been 'hawkish' in supporting military intervention in the Middle East after Americans were attacked and killed on domestic soil. His opponent in the Democratic primary, when vanquished, identified this man, the aforementioned champion of liberal policy and former Anti-War leader as being 'almost a Republican'.

His opponent was another man who'd gone to Yale, was born to privilege and spent time in the Military. This man had not been engaged in the Vietnam combat, but served his time in the Texas and Alabama Air National Guard units. He was a vigorous proponent of the Vietnam war and openly contemptuous of the Anti-War movement that existed at Yale. He tried his hand at business and ran, unsuccessfully for Congress. His father then was elected Vice President for two terms and President for one, when the Father was defeated in his re-election campaign, the son ran for Governor of Texas and his lead campaign adviser, a man named Karl Rove, alleged his opponent, the sitting Governor, Ann Richards, who had, famously said of the man's father 'he was born with a silver foot in his mouth' was a closeted Lesbian who had 'appointed activist homosexuals to State Jobs' (horrors!).

The man won that election and another in 1998, before running for and winning the Presidency in 2000, despite losing the overall vote by 500,000 votes. During his first term in office, the United States was attacked and 3,000 Americans died on home soil, while the Twin Towers fell and the Pentagon burned from the attack. The man responded by invading Iraq, a non-combatant in the attack, who were led by a man who'd insulted and threatened the man's father during the earlier Gulf War during HIS Presidency. He also dramatically lowered taxes for the wealthiest Americans, extended government surveillance of its citizens, blacklisted political opponents and created a 'no-fly' list that was entirely secret and in-actionable that denied American citizens the right to fly, advocated for fundamentalist religious causes and moved the United States away from the digitally-based economy of the 1990's towards a commodity based model that concentrated on Oil and Gas, extraction industries, homebuilding and a broad de-regulation of industry and finance. Upon his election, he embraced the Wealthiest 'Have-Mores' as being 'my base'.

He was broadly loved by the Right for being a man of 'faith', 'strong' on Defense, proud of America and its ideals and a champion of lower taxes for the Wealthiest. He was held in contempt by the Left, who recognized him as an enemy born, but could not embrace the opponent whose every activity defined him as a champion of the opposition.

The latter man won the election, not the least of which, because many felt that he was 'somebody you could have a beer with'. He did this despite a series of televised 'Debates', in which, his opponent demonstrated such an easy facility with the subject matter in comparison to his own that it beggared belief and left the electoral winner in a petulant, childish mode that got worse with each successive drubbing.

But, in America, that guy - WON.

His administration would go on to allow the City of New Orleans to be destroyed and abandoned, escalate the failing conflict in the Middle East while diverting Billions of Dollars to firms previously controlled by the Vice President, alienate most of the World, so much so that his travels abroad, to allies and enemies alike, featured rabid protests of thousands of people...at the conclusion of his two terms as President, the National Surplus had been spent and a deficit existed that was close to 1 Trillion Dollars, the US Dollar, worth more than the Euro when he was elected, was now worth 66 cents to the Euro and the Markets had plunged to their lowest levels in 15 years, the housing market has surged, then crashed, forcing the Government to inject billions of dollars of taxpayer funds into the banks and Millions of people lost their jobs.

The exceptional man, who lost the election, remained in the Senate.

The guy who folks wanted to have a beer with, went into retirement and began to focus his energies on raising hundreds of millions of dollars for his Presidential Library.

Why would a free people choose thusly? What does it say about us?

On April 6, 2009, the New York Yankees opened their season at Camden Yards, the Baltimore Orioles stadium, in Baltimore, Maryland. Baltimore is a small, Urban City (20th Largest in the US, about 650,000 people) that is surrounded by much larger suburban populations in an 8 Million Person Metroplex that also includes, Washington, DC. Baltimore is a city that has lost nearly half its population since World War II and it's population is 64% Black, 32% white and has a small Hispanic population (about 2.5%). The average citizen of Baltimore is Working Class ($30,000). More than 23% of Baltimore lives below the Poverty Line.

One of the new Yankee players was born nearby, in a place called Severna Park, Maryland, the small suburb has a population of about 30,000 people and is 92% White, with smatterings of Blacks (3.3%) and less than 2% Hispanics. The average citizen of Severna Park is Middle Class ($70,000). Less than 2% of Severna Park lives below the Poverty line.

During the previous Winter, as the player, an acknowledged 'Star', shopped his services, he chose not to go to play in Baltimore, near his hometown, but rather to accept a big-money, long-term contract to play for the New York Yankees, in The Bronx, a Borough of New York City. The Bronx is home to approximately 1.4 Million people, 51% of whom are Hispanic, 32% Black and 21% White. The average citizen of The Bronx is Working Class ($27,000). More than 31% of The Bronx lives below the Poverty Line.

When the player was introduced in Baltimore, fans from Severna Park held up signs that said;

'Severna Park HATES you!' and others held up signs with sentiments ranging from '$ellout' to 'Traitor'.

These examples illustrate fault lines in American society that defy easy understanding.

The President who proceeded Bush, Jr. and followed Bush, Sr., was a poor kid with a single mother who grew up on the fringes of society, but managed, through intellect and effort, to elevate himself in his own lifetime to the pinnacles of academic achievement, professional accomplishment, power and wealth. The President who SUCCEEDED Bush, Jr., was a poor biracial kid with a single mother who grew up on the fringes of society, but managed, through intellect and effort, to elevate himself in his own lifetime to the pinnacles of academic achievement, professional achievement, power and wealth.

Many who champion the first of these men, distrust the second.

And vice versa.

The differences in policy and the structure of basic beliefs between the vanquished candidate and the two who became President, are not substantial.

The reactions to them are dramatically different.

The ballplayer, from Lily White Severna Park, inspires rage...NOT from the inner-city folks who are struggling, but from comfortable suburbanites who feel a sense of entitlement. Something has shifted from 'Local boy makes good, to play with historic Yankees' as proud Baltimore felt towards that favorite son whose statue graces their beautiful city as well as the Yankees Monument Park and the Hall of Fame, a fellow named Babe Ruth...to the diatribes on those Severna Park signs.

There is something IN THERE, something like 'you OWE us', that makes what the player himself described as an easy decision 'anyone in my position would make' (playing for a franchise dedicated to the best of everything and relentlessly focused on winning, while paying millions of dollars more, rather than one who've experienced 11 straight losing seasons and seen their once proud brand tarnish in the process) seem like betrayal and be portrayed as somehow malicious.

And there's something more. Those Hispanic Bronx residents, who are making less than half of the income they are taking home in Severna Park, are NOT up in arms about the ballplayers salary and they do NOT feel like something is being taken from them. They feel like things are getting better and the future holds MORE opportunity, not less.

Disparate circumstances and diametrically opposed reactions, despite the reality of those circumstances.

Tough to Grok.

Guru grew up about as non-traditionally as either Bill Clinton or Barack Obama, which is to say, there ain't a lot of 'tradition' being talked about in relation to our common lifestyles, but there sure are a lot of us who've lived it that way. I was never taught that I was due anything because of my lily-white visage and it took me into my twenties before I realized that didn't matter, because people around me sometimes held me in esteem simply BECAUSE of my fair hair, pale skin and manner of expression.

Then, later in my career arc, I was in line for a position with a progressive advocacy group and the multi-racial, lesbian from the University of Chicago, who was 'The Decider' let me know, directly, that she felt it would send the wrong 'signal' to put me in the position, but she was anxious to have me donate my contributions to the organization in a pro-bono capacity. I wouldn't need pay, because that would be inappropriate somehow, to her.

Later I heard they hired someone for the position. A multi-racial, lesbian, who'd attended the University of Chicago with 'The Decider'. She was paid what the job warranted.

Us versus Them is the same game, regardless whose calling who by the titles. After a fashion, it is possible to see the latter circumstance as a healthy balance to the earlier ones, but in reality, BOTH are equally insidious and detrimental to this American experiment we've been trying to get going since the Enlightenment.

Ideas like MERIT, FREEDOM, EQUALITY...the sorts that drive this project and this Guru, are getting crossed up in the mix of racial, cultural, sexual identities that Americans hold closest to their hearts.

I've got a friend, a good friend, who despite his intellect and life experience (he's from an Orthodox Jewish family who lost many family and friends in Poland during the holocaust and he lives with a black woman from the Ghetto who has four kids and receives public assistance) is openly Homophobic and reacts with ANGER at the suggestion that Homosexuality can no longer be condemned in polite conversation and has been removed from the list of Psychiatric disorders (36 years ago!). He screeches to me that 'Homosexuality is a Pathology' (which was the Psychiatric excuse for homophobia until 1973) and claims its removal from the DSM (Diagnostic Manual) is a result of 'all the faggots who became shrinks!'. His girlfriend, who has dealt with racism her whole life, forcefully agreed with the blacks who voted FOR Obama and AGAINST Proposition 8 in California. Both of them feel, on some level, that full acceptance of the Gay is somehow a reduction in their OWN status.

To me, that's all just bullshit, an excuse for hatred.

The rationalizations are always artful and always phony.

There is something about RACE and CULTURE that drives sane people crazy, and I must say, I have no idea what they are thinking about. It is alien to me and, for all my efforts to understand the rage and sense of displacement that is so GLARINGLY obvious (take a look at the crowd at a Palin rally or go onto her Facebook page and read what you find...), I still can't really connect with what these folks are feeling.

I don't have any answers for any of this. I live as I always have, totally INSPIRED by these American 'ideals' and totally bewildered by the widespread disconnect between the ideals and the perceptions of so many Americans, on both sides of the Electoral Aisle.

What do YOU think? I'd love to know...

Posted by Matthew at 10:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

By M. Hannington

If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.

“You know this is just stupid!” I said to myself. Ms. 91 has been going off (as she does) for the past two days about what we are doing for Easter. Last week it was taxes, before that my lack of a broom closet and THANK GOD her obsession with the crevice tool and the vacuum seems to have ended. Unfortunately, with CNN constantly spurring it on, her mania for Michelle Obama may never end.

Anyways, I evoke God’s name all the time, it is a figure of speech that I’m actually trying to rid myself of. It shocked my childhood Alabama friends that I would take the Lord’s name in vain and so often! But all the kiddies in the Detroit suburb I had move to from the deep-south did so all the time. It was Oh God this and Oh God that, in every other sentence.

I’m not the kind of person that talks to God or prays, so it seems to me that using phrases like "Thank God!". “God damn it!” or “Jesus Christ!” (sometimes I use “Cheese and Rice!”) seem hypocritical or at least ironic.

I don’t really think Jesus perks up and says “Huh? What is the matter with Mary this time?”

“Cheese and Rice!” probably comes from a long-time relationship with a Jewish man whose mother preferred he didn’t go around evoking Jesus. There is really no one around me, except the Church Lady, who cares whether I say “Jesus Christ” all the time, so to use the phrase “Cheese and Rice” just seems silly.

I also don’t think God will damn the stupid knob on my stove that keeps falling off and after all it is unfair to ask her to because if I spent 5 minutes to glue the thing on it wouldn’t happen. In fact, I would stop writing and glue it on right now, but I can’t seem to find it!

I do yoga, I meditate, I read the philosophers, the Tao de Ching and even biblical passages, and I’m fascinated with the Kabbalah, so I’m not completely irreligious. I have a sense that there is a power in this world that can be tapped into and when I feel most connected to this force amazing things happen.

That Jesus rode around on dinosaurs and was the son of some bearded man named God that lives in the sky surrounded by beautiful haloed women with wings and who created the entire universe out of some clay is just too much of a fairy tale for me. That the Virgin Mary somehow manages to stamp her image on a piece of toast thereby causing a miracle is too tough for me to swallow (er, bite into).

I went to a Presbyterian Sunday school and church, attended Lutheran services with a childhood friend. I have been invited to temple, a born again service where several members held my hands, forming a circle and talked about Moody Blues songs and acid trips where they saw Jesus, Unitarian churches, Baptist churches, Methodist churches, Catholic churches and even some naturalistic service held in the woods.

By far the services I enjoyed the most were the Jewish ones because they just seemed so practical. Though the Unitarian’s music DID rock. In every other church service I attended the pastor, minister, bishop or the guy in the woods, all would stand up and say “This is what God meant…” and I would say to myself “How do you know?”

Maybe it’s just me, but I have a problem with people who tell me I ought to look at things their way and there is no need to look at any other ideas because THEY have got it right. Because most organized religions tend to do this (I won't get into the sometimes distasteful business aspects) I long ago left them behind.

I not anti-church per se, they do great things in my community. In fact, if it weren't for me, the Iroquois Christ Lutheran Church wouldn't have a new roof. Of course the movie I was working on and the scenes we filmed there involved group sex and a virgin losing her virginity, but no one will ever recognize the church in them. They ended up with a nice chunk of change in location fees and I'm going to finish up some of their plasterwork for them because they are such nice folks.

That said; don't even get me started on the dude that saw Jesus while on an acid trip. I know a woman that was too afraid to get off a piano bench because she thought the floor was made of lava and she's not hunting around for mysterious volcanoes these days. God created the entire universe and some guy under a tree talking about rocks knows exactly what God meant in a Bible written by men, albeit men inspired by God, thousands of years ago because he is inspired too? Can it really be that simple?

According to the Kabbalists, God is infinity and unknowable. Their complicated system of four worlds beginning with Azilut or Light of which the lower worlds Yitzirah, Beriyah, and Asiyah descended and these worlds with their ten sephirot Chochmah (Wisdom), Binah (Understanding), Chesed (Mercy), Gevurah (Justice), Tiferet (Harmony), Netzach (Victory), Hod (Glory), Yesod (Power) and Malchut (Kingdom) all emanations of God that reveal his will, are a least so complicated you can spend a lifetime studying the literature and learning Gematria, Notarikon and Temurah, which are methods for unlocking further secret meanings in the ancient texts.

So when I said to myself today "...this is just stupid!" it was because Ms. 91 who suddenly has an urge to celebrate Easter is the biggest heathen of us all.

At one time she took care of her mother and her mother, a long standing Catholic, became a Jehovah's Witness. That she did so because she wanted the attention she got from the constantly visiting congregation didn't matter, what did is her holding it over Ms. 91's head. "When I get to heaven I'm going to be 31 years old and have my beautiful long brown hair back and you won't!" she'd say to my mom.

So Ms. 91 became a religious scholar, she studied the religions of the world for a year and I too have read those books from her classes on Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and Judaism. And after a year of classes and study she decided that the human race was nuts.

Here is her rant:

"A heaven filled with beautiful virgins? Come on! There is no way Noah could have put two of every animal on a boat. Impossible. Walking on water, parting the Red Sea...Lazarus rising from the dead? He was probably in a coma! My friends down south all think that Daddy is in heaven waiting for me. It's ridiculous. When your dead, your dead and that's that!"

She remembers going to confession, but can't think of what a poor farm girl like her could possible have had to confess. She can remember eighty years ago when she took communion and felt so holy and she remembers the handsome Catholic priest named Father Splinter. She can't imagine ever feeling like that again...

Yet here she is on the phone with her sister going on about whether I will bake a ham, or maybe we will go out and how I'm so last minute and haven't made any Easter plans at all yet.

Ironic isn't it?

Posted by M. Hannington at 09:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

'There are two visions of America. One precedes our founding fathers and finds its roots in the harshness of our puritan past. It is very suspicious of freedom, uncomfortable with diversity, hostile to science, unfriendly to reason, contemptuous of personal autonomy. It sees America as a religious nation. It views patriotism as allegiance to God. It secretly adores coercion and conformity. Despite our constitution, despite the legacy of the Enlightenment, it appeals to millions of Americans and threatens our freedom.

The other vision finds its roots in the spirit of our founding revolution and in the leaders of this nation who embraced the age of reason. It loves freedom, encourages diversity, embraces science and affirms the dignity and rights of every individual. It sees America as a moral nation, neither completely religious nor completely secular. It defines patriotism as love of country and of the people who make it strong. It defends all citizens against unjust coercion and irrational conformity.

This second vision is our vision. It is the vision of a free society. We must be bold enough to proclaim it and strong enough to defend it against all its enemies.'

- Rabbi Sherwin Wine

Guru spent all night with the words from 'We're Not Gonna Take It' by Twisted Sister, banging in my brain...over and over again...that is how things come to me and columns write themselves.

Something bothers me or occurs to me and then I find in my noggin' the sentiment or quote that pertains to how I feel on the topic.

Boy, does Dee Snider, capture it!

'We're right, We're Free...We'll fight, you'll See!'

He wrote the song in the Middle of the Reagan years, a time when those of us who love Freedom were watching the disciples of that first group of Americans, listed above by Rabbi Wine, attempt wanton destruction upon the individual rights of their fellow Americans. Don Henley 'End of the Innocence', Gil Scot-Heron 'B Movie' and Tony Kushner 'Angels in America' capture that period beautifully with their art (if you weren't around - L-E-A-R-N and then you'll understand what the Rabbi is talking about).

And love of freedom is not IN ANY WAY, the sole province of the Left. It is just as easy to find repression and conformity on that side of the aisle. For every family member who will tell one of us what we can and cannot do with our mode of clothing, sexuality, reading material...comes the likelihood that this individual will fall on EITHER side of the political aisle. Guru's Aunts and Cousins are only too happy to share their belief in being 'Born Again', beholden to social engineering and religious indoctrination with racial, sexual, gender and cultural condemnations. Guru's Pop will convey an insistence that Americans jettison overt gender roles, spectator sports and finance, stand away from their businesses, their televisions, their pleasures and embrace the arts - as determined by?

You guessed it!

For the Fundamentalist, the 'bad guys' are those who insist on personal freedom.

For the Doctrinaire Leftist, the 'bad guys' are those who insist on personal freedom.

It makes no difference that they disagree on WHAT the 'bad guys' look like, or who they are (each other) the point is that others should adopt a external world view that makes one or the other most comfortable. THEIR hopes and dreams should be everyones.

That ain't Freedom.

The person who BELIEVES in Freedom, by definition, has no opinion on the private behavior of others, their sex lives, their belief systems, their clothes, books, songs...the only lifestyle that should concern an American is his or her OWN.

'The only part of the conduct for which he is amenable to society, is that, which concerns others. In the part, which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself. Over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign'

- John Stuart Mill

'Freedom is the last, best hope of Earth'

- Abraham Lincoln

'Freedom is the right to live as we wish'

- Epictetus

We Americans have been under assault from the Rabbi's first group since the beginning of our Republic and never more so than these past 30 years. Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, wrote with dripping contempt for these cretins and yet, some of that strength and resolve has been LOST.

Out national discourse seems to have become permanently entwined with the gossip and biases of SOME Americans who feel only TOO 'Free' to foist their absurd little fantasies upon the rest of us.

Where is the Courage?

Where is Integrity?

The Founders separated Church from State and defied the religious dogma that covered the world of their day. Have we become so docile that we no longer stand UP for our Freedom?

* 2005 - 'SpongeBob SquarePants' creator, Stephen Hillenburg, was lambasted by 'Focus on the Family' leader, James Dobson (again, see the Rabbi's classification to understand Dr. Dobson...) at a PARTY to celebrate the re-election of George W. Bush - a moment when the Christian Right that assails all we value was at its APEX of power and influence. Dobson claimed that SpongeBob, who Wikipedia notes

'...is a Sea Sponge, but in shape and color, his body more closely resembles a Kitchen Sponge'...

Was a covertly Sexual being whose message of diversity and tolerance was/is covert propaganda for the 'Homosexual Agenda'.

This causes the usual reaction - uproarious contempt on the left and furious screeching on the right, all of which was met by timid assurances from Hillenburg, to the effect that 'Bob was, after all, just a Sponge'.

* 2007 - Kyla Ebbert, a passenger on a SouthWest Airlines flight was asked to de-plane because her Mini-Skirt was too revealing! She eventually was allowed to fly and the airline had to scramble some serious damage control, but the point is SOMEONE ON THAT FLIGHT FELT EMPOWERED to deny her freedom due to their personal tastes.

That is NOT freedom.

* Alex Rodriguez, Yankee Baseball Player and owner of the largest contract in Baseball history has been asked to account for his Sunbathing in Central Park with his Shirt off!, his interests in women, his relationship dynamics, his interest in mysticism, his dissimilarity with his teammates, his disinterest in being 'like everyone else' and now, just in time for Spring Training - the annual 'Steroids Rumors' this time, based upon evidence that has 'emerged' after six years and has already been dismissed by a Judge in the Barry Bonds case as being hopelessly disconnected from the men.

Alex, like another Fatherless boy, Bill Clinton, exudes OTHERNESS to those who would have us all in the same family structure and bound by the same behavioral dictates. These people wage a NEVER-ENDING assault on the liberties of individuals, focusing on these men whose success and disregard for
their desires - literally, drives them C-R-A-Z-Y!

The story follows DIRECTLY a series of overheated columns relating to the 'explosive' revelations of former Yankee Skipper, Joe Torre, for ten days prior to the book actually being released - at which point, it became readily apparent and the author openly forthcoming, as to the fact the book contained NO SUCH MATERIAL or revelations.

That's how this game works. Throw slime on the wall, act out cultural rage (Pat Buchanan's disgusting 'villagers with pitchforks') and seek to condemn publicly, thereby forcing concession that there IS a
'there' there.

* Michael Phelps, he of the FOURTEEN Olympic Medals has been captured on video taking hits from a bong of Marijuana and been SUSPENDED by the governing body of USA Swimming, dropped by some endorsement contracts and forced to sheepishly admit his 'irresponsibility' and 'poor judgement' for doing something that is ROUTINE for hundreds of millions all over the world, including those on staff at every media organization, in every profession, in every community... One despicable South Carolina Sheriff, unable to resist (do South Carolinians EVER?) the right to opine on social matters AND promote himself to his Freedom-hating constituents went so far as to threaten Phelps with arrest!

'Freedom is not something that can be given. Freedom is something People TAKE, and people are as Free as they WANT TO BE'

- James Baldwin

'If you want to be free, there is but one way. It is to guarantee an equally full measure of Freedom to ALL your neighbors. There is no other.'

- Carl Shurz

'He who does not enjoy solitude will not love Freedom'

- Arthur Schopenhauer

'They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty OR security

- Benjamin Franklin

This is the time, fellow Americans. This is the time to reclaim our Freedom to be EXACTLY who we are, beholden to nobody's vision of what is correct but our OWN. We have spent three decades with the slime on either side of the aisle jockeying to herd us into sameness and conformity, as if it would even be POSSIBLE. If we are not to join our European friends in DEMANDING tolerance, defending diversity and condemning Social condemnation now, then when?

When will a Hillenberg, Rodriguez or Phelps STAND UP and say 'E-N-O-U-G-H'. What I do is NOT your business, your values do NOT matter to me, your acceptance/approval has ZERO worth and I assert both my privacy and my FREEDOM to do, say write, be, fuck, think as I deem appropriate and extend the same rights to all others'.

For every fan they'd lose, they'd gain TEN, for every lost dollar, there are a HUNDRED.

Spine sells.

'The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously'

- Hubert Humphrey

One of the truths of Freedom is that those who oppose it will use its presence to steal the freedom of others. Al Quaeda does it, so does 'Focus on the Family' and, in a hundred thousand little ways, the fellow citizen acts as a coercive agent. Coercing conduct and undermining America. FOX news has built a Network and its owner, Rupert Murdoch, an Empire, by using freedom of speech to say the equivalent of 'Red is Blue', using the idea of freedom to remove objective truths in the name of subjective opinion.

If one network tells the 'truth, who is the law to prevent another from describing an OPPOSITE version.

The law contains no such ability, only the citizenship - through its disdain and the courage of its leaders, can insure such a thing. Do we have it IN us?

My colleague, Steve, recently posted to his 'Facebook' page a profile, which detailed EXACTLY who he is and what he likes in others.

His Sister called him to tell him that was the wrong thing to do.

There was never any question that he was being honest. The problem was, apparently, that by being honest, he was allowing others to see him as he IS and therefore JUDGE him (and perhaps his siblings?).

Nobody has the right to Judge you or your behavior, unless you GIVE them that right. Don't EVER do so.

I think he's a Hero.

Any others out there?

Posted by Matthew at 08:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Lion's

It's nice of everyone to continual send me condolences for the Lion's "perfect season". Please STOP! I (seriously) have not watched a Lion's game in over four years. Ford's wildly stupid idea of bringing in a former linebacker turned broadcaster with zero experience to manage what was an already faltering team brought my years of Lion's fandom to an abrupt halt. Millen's mistaken draft choices floundered, the team became more and more pathetic and simply was no longer worth my time. Watching the Lions is like watching "Sophie's Choice" over and over, it's depressing. Until the delusional (or moronic) Ford Sr. gives up the reins I'm done.

They are dead to me.

One of the condolencers, our friend Mo, recently sent me this link Seven Most Bitter Crowd Signs From the Lions Historic 16th Straight Loss... In the article author Hopper closes by saying Detroiters should celebrate "...run into the street, overturn some cars, and set some shit on fire."

Why is it that sportswriters are forever equating Detroiters with the events of 1984?

I was there when Detroit won the World Series, I LIVE in Detroit and I didn't light anything on fire or turn anything over. The culprits were drunken kids from the suburbs, who have been known to trash the city in the past. For years, kids from my generation ventured downtown, drank, smashed their bottles against buildings, broke windows, partied in the abandoned spaces and trashed those too. It was never something I understood. I loved coming downtown.

Detroit

There is an identity crisis here that's simply inane today and I believe it has to do with the guilt, fear, or hatred (pick one) that goes hand in hand with the white flight that took place after the riots FORTY years ago.

It was the parents of these rioting 1984 kids that taught them to hate the city and thereby feel privileged to set it alight. I heard it growing up, not from my parents who worked and played in the city, but from those kid's parents, who had a medical practice up the street or worked for one of the many suburban corporate offices that had sprung up everywhere in the 70's and 80's. These were parents that had never EVER been downtown, but who had probably fled the city with their own mothers and fathers.

To them the city was a place of murderers, thugs, drugs and what remained unspoken, black people. To me it was the Grande Ballroom in 1967 where Iggy Pop was singing "I Wanna Be Your Dog" and the MC5 was to "Kick Out the Jams (Motherfuckers)" where I would later hang out with diverse crowds of the young at St. Andrews to see punk bands like the Ramones and A Flock of Seagulls, or local ones like See Dick Run, Beer on the Penguin, The Mutants or Destroy All Monsters. Where I could hang with the zoot suit, mostly black crowd at 5:00pm or the mostly white Jazz enthusiasts come showtime at either Bo Mac's or Baker's.

Beer on the Penguin

It is where my Tigers play ball and where my Redwings play smash mouth hockey, where I can yell "Opa!" at a plate of flaming cheese, or have the perfect martini. It is a place where the younger city workers black and white meet to have dinner or drinks or to dance, but the older white ones still flee to their suburban homes.

We're not perfect, but most of us don't set "shit on fire".

When the film "Virgin" came to Detroit we had our first pre-pro meeting and a chance to get to know one another. One of the Los Angeles producers had been warned by a friend "who had lived there" about the Detroit tradition of burning buildings on Devil's Night. Two people stood up and shouted "Oh Shit!" one white and one black; we both live/lived in the city and I suspect the producer's friend had not, but instead had a cozy home in West Bloomfield. I can picture her pelting a hated neighbor's home with eggs on Devil's Night and only dreaming of having an abandoned building to torch in youthful anger. The truth is your chances of putting that bar of soap to a window in Detroit is next to nil. Tossing an egg?

Forget about it!

Devil's night in the city has for the last dozen years been dubbed Angel's night. It's a night that Detroiters turn on their porch lights; lock the doors and STAY home. It's impossible to go anywhere with 50,000 volunteers driving 10 miles an hour, orange flashing lights atop their cars, clogging the neighborhood streets and making it nearly impossible to move about.

Detroit is Motown's home, and Coppola, Eminem, Selleck, Gaye, Gordy, Malcolm X, Parks (who I met when she came to shop at our annual neighborhood garage sale) and where tons of others had their homes. We've hosted an All Star game and a Super Bowl in the recent past and the fans reported? What? They had FUN here. The only fires I saw were the ones burning in the center of tables set out so families could roast marshmallows at the Motown Winter Blast.

Get over it!

Vegging out?

Being a vegetarian can be a lonely, frustrating experience. I pop for a movie for Ms. 91 and Slouchy, 28 bucks. I also send Slouchy off with 40 bucks for a rib dinner. That's almost 70 dollars to sit crying my ass off for half the duration of a movie and once home face starvation. There is 3 pounds of ribs and three sides for two. Slouchy and 91 have split the green beans, which leaves me with a half a cup of garlic-mashed redskins and a half a cup of baked beans (which I can't eat because they have pork in them).

The movie was "Marley and Me". Ms. 91 had read my copy of the book and wanted to see it. Don't bother. John Grogan is a talented slice of life writer, who knows how to take the events of everyday life and make them wrenchingly sad or comically hysterical. The movie was neither.

In the book the dog was so afraid of thunderstorms that it ate through a wall, a wooden crate and managed to escape a metal crate even under sedation. Creating a situation that required one of the two working owners to be home whenever there was a storm. This dog was so bad and the owners so at their wits ends that they began to consider finding a full time owner. That is until Mrs. Grogan miscarries their first child and she becomes utterly distraught. Marley refuses to leave her side through miscarriages, difficult pregnancies and then post-partem depression. It's what Marley does that's good that breaks your heart.

It's these heartbreaking moments that give the book soul and which apparently, some studio executive in his glee to make money on a holiday film decided to gloss over. That makes for a diluted picture that took absolutely no advantage of the original writer's skills. The exception is a short narrative montage that was so obvious a device to skip to the next chapter it too failed. John Grogan made me laugh out loud. The film? Not so much. The casting of Owen Wilson was what made me want to see the film and he is the only bright spot in the entire piece. Jennifer Anniston was what Jennifer Aniston is, cute and bubbly and by the end of the film I wanted to strangle her. She managed with the help of the adaptors to make the one really heartbreaking scene seem sappy.

It was the recent loss of my own little troublemaker that made watching this torture, where the book honestly deserved my tears, the film did not.

If you want to see a good film, the biopic "Milk" is the one to see. If Sean Penn's portrayal of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay politician, doesn't win an Oscar, I'll start watching the Lions again.

Posted by M. Hannington at 12:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)