Do you hear what I hear?

Since my last post I've had a number of conversations with friends about the brouhaha created by Michelle Shocked's statements at Yoshi's on 3/17 and the ensuing drama on twitter and national internet news.  I've been a bit taken aback because when I listened to the bootleg recording from the audience I heard something so different from everyone else.  They all heard her being intentionally hateful.  They all heard her being intentionally mean.  I already shared what I heard in my last post. The interesting thing is that a couple of these conversations were with friends who are professional journalists and they are as knee jerk as everyone else.

For me that's a sign of the times - journalism has evolved into expression of opinions rather than asking questions.

Granted Ms. Shocked is not making things easier for people to understand since she will only communicate, and cryptically at that, on twitter which gives you 140 characters. Not the best venue for coherent communication, but she's on her own journey with this experience.

What's been coming up for me on a macro level is how in this age of so many options for communication we seem to be mis-communicating more often than not.

In college my major was speech/communications and this was way before technology became such an overwhelming variable in the field.  I would imagine that it's astoundingly interesting to study how we communicate these days - the research is probably incredible.  Still the basics are foundational and what I remember as a most basic concept was that in any given dyad (2 people = smallest group), there are multiple points of view, or experiences.

When we talk to each other, there is what we intend to say, what we actually say and what the other person hears.  That's like six experiences in any given dyadic conversation. 

Myself, I get really knee jerky when I listen to the rhetoric on the political right.  I also get twitchy when I hear any kind of fundamentalist religious proselytizing.  I am dismissive and and punitive and rejecting.  To be honest I am rude and disrespectful, something I rationalize by my belief that "they don't know what they're talking about and they are stupid to believe what they believe."  I also rationalize it because in the case of Ann Coulter and Fred Phelps and their ilk, there is a level of hate speech, name calling and massive disrespect for anyone who isn't on their team - but what they do is what I just admitted to doing.

I don't ask any questions about why they believe what they believe.  They don't ask questions about the people who they are attacking.

Is this because we don't care?  Is it because we don't know how?  Why is it seemingly unimportant to understand where someone is coming from? and why they come from there?

Because they talk crazy? Well, yeah, in my opinion.  That and me getting all knee jerky and wanting to punch them in the neck.  Seriously, every time Ann Coulter gets something thrown at her I am doing a happy dance inside (self aware intentional meanness on my part).

But here's the other thing I am aware of - inside I am going to where I perceive them to be.  When Ann Coulter is calling people "retards" and Fred Phelps and his family are screaming hate speech on the news - emotionally I jump into anger and rage and helplessness and frustration, "NO YOU ARE".  They win.  I might not agree with a word they are saying, but I go right to where they are living their lives from in reaction to it.

Trust me when I tell you that this doesn't do me any good and it certainly doesn't provide any kind of counter balance energetically.  I think that there needs to be discussion about what comes up and why, I just can't find very many people who want to have that conversation.  My fundamentalist family members fall back on their script so I just move to "I love you but I don't agree with you," because that's true. My friends who are Republicans also stay on script. This is true for my friends on the left.

In so many ways it's like critical thinking doesn't enter into any of this at all.

Last week I listened to the funny and awesome Margaret Cho and Jim Short on their Monsters of Talk podcast - I love this show because it's like you are getting to eavesdrop on two really funny people talking honestly about stuff without an agenda.  Kind of like they're sitting on the couch having snacks and shooting the shit and you are a fly on the wall.  When they got to the part about Michelle Shocked there was discussion about how Margaret felt about Michelle's music and what it meant to her growing up queer.  Who she thought Michelle was and how that made her feel.  She shared about being chased and threatened for being a dyke and she explained that the statements that were made at Yoshi's were so hurtful because someone she had thought of as an ally, was now saying that God hates her.

Probably a lot of people had that experience last week and it's really sad.

I'm trying to stop reacting and ask more questions, but it's a challenge.  There's a reactive mean girl inside of me that would like to kick the Fred Phelps folks in the balls and she's co-existing with the more enlightened wise woman who tries to roll more like Jesus and see the love in all people and things no matter what they are saying and doing that is the opposite.

I truly do believe that in all things the power of love - cliche, I know, but true, so true - can overcome any obstacle.  It is profoundly powerful, but for some reason a tough place to live from all the time.  The Dalai Lama seems to have it down, but I think he spends a tremendous amount of time meditating and being in the moment. 

I aspire to be more like him but honestly it depends on the day.  The wise woman who knows what's true and can see love no matter what is having more days than not, which is good because the mean girl is unattractive and unpleasant.

And here I could write something really snarky about Ann Coulter's appearance, but the wise woman just put the mean girl on time out.

The Shocking thing I heard Michelle Shocked say

I woke up the other morning and checked my twitter feed to see a tweet from a good friend that said something about Michelle Shocked turning into a hateful homophobe.

Say what?

Some googling revealed numerous links to all kinds of posts, some written by journalists, that basically said that Michelle Shocked went on stage at Yoshi's in SAN FRANCISCO! and started channeling Fred Phelps, telling people to "go on twitter and say that Michelle Shocked says God hates Faggots."

The tweets about it all were even wilder because when you're limited to 140 characters and you are pissed off and affronted and trying to tweet with a lit torch in your hand there's not much room for more than name calling and belittling.

Over the course of the day on Tuesday her entire tour cancelled and there is a petition currently circulating encouraging promoters all over the world to cancel any future shows due to her "vile anti-gay tirade."

Because I can't help myself I just have to say - this all shocked the shit out me.

While I wouldn't profess to be on a friendship basis with Michelle, we have mutual friends, and I have had the pleasure of spending time with her and talking - in a real way - not in the LA "not really listening because we're scanning the room way."  In those conversations I have found her to be authentic in expressing how she feels about life and the living of it.  She joyously identifies as a Christian and like my family members who are aligned with the fundamentalist faction of that faith, she talks about it.

I myself have dipped in the Jesus pool which I've previously shared about here and here.  There were so many things that I loved about the experience, but the joy found in the singing and hugging could not balance the judgment and fear in the message expressed by and to those who claimed to be saved.
The singing and hugging and feeling of connection did not offset the rhetoric spewed in the literal interpretation of the bible by people who were using those words/stories to create a power platform to exert social controls in ways that, in my opinion, had nothing to do with God or Jesus.

I was 17 when I said, "enough" and discovered joy, singing and hugging with the Grateful Dead.

But, back to Michelle Shocked and her "rant" - an audio recording from an audience member showed up all over the place yesterday so I could hear for myself, not only WHAT she said, but HOW she said it and you can listen to it here. 

At this point people have already made their decisions about what she said, and what she meant, and what she thinks and believes - they have written her off as a hater and they are vociferously hating her right back.

What I heard was someone who is deeply connected to a community that is threatened to it's core by the idea of gay marriage - let's face it gay scares a lot of them.  When she started talking about the prayer meeting I got a visual of people holding hands and praying to God and Jesus to intervene with the Supreme Court as they review DOMA and Prop. 8 - both are bad legislation paid for by religious groups who have all kinds of faith in God, but still have to hedge their bets by crossing that line that separates church and state.  The tide of public opinion is turning (finally) in support of the rights of ALL people who love each other to enter into marriage.  Organized religion has always, in my opinion, been a means to control the masses through fear.  Losing control scares the crap out of most of us, but particularly those who band together in groups to decide what everyone else should believe (Taliban anyone?)

One thing I remember about being 'born again' is that you are told that you need to proselytize or witness about the Word (that's capitalized because it's that big a deal to these people who are literal interpreters).  You want to save others as you've been saved.  You want to spread the gospels like Jesus did.

My feeling is that this is where things went wrong at Yoshi's.

I do not believe that the point she wanted to make is that "Once Prop. 8 is instated, and once preachers are held at gunpoint and forced to marry the ho-mo-sexuals that will be the signal for Jesus to come on back. “  Yes, she said those words, but where she started was at her bible meeting with all the frightened people - "You’ve got to understand how scared folks on that side of the equation are. From their vantage point -- I really shouldn’t say their, because it’s mine, too -- we are near the end of time."  Yes, she said those words and yes, she aligned herself with a group that represents in the media, and I'll be honest, in my mind, as a bunch of haters, BUT, the word that I heard was SCARED.

I feel deep compassion for how frightened fundamentalist Christians are as the world is changing.  From my perspective their locus of control is externalized in the form of a magical being in the heavens who offers them the reward of eternal life with angelic choirs vs. eternal life in the fiery pit of hell, or you just get left behind in the purgatory that is earth after armegeddon.  Michelle called him the "invisible man in the audience".  But to get to heaven you gotta follow a lot of rules while you're here and, in my experience, a lot of fundamentalists end up acting like hall monitors for God.  Which doesn't make sense because if you really believe that Jesus is coming back to get you then aren't the end times a good thing?  If you REALLY believe then why would you be scared of ANYTHING?

Anyway, when she began, I believe that she wanted to talk about compassion for those who are scared, but when she got some less than receptive reaction it sounded to me like she got reactive herself and went off the rails with this statement:  "If someone could be so gracious to tweet out, ‘Michelle Shocked just said from stage, God hates faggots,’ would you do it now?" 

I do not for one minute believe that she was seriously espousing that as her personal belief. I think she was frustrated and disconcerted and quite frankly I think she sucks at extemporaneous speech making and getting defensively sardonic about it is proof that she was not grounded in her message in the first place.

It has got to be incredibly difficult to reconcile progressive ideals (someone who gets arrested on Occupy LA is defnitely aligned with the left) with fundamentalist beliefs; though I've always thought of Jesus as the original radical progressive, but look how that turned out. I believe that while he doesn't agree with the words Sister Shocked uttered on that stage, he does have compassion for what she was trying to say and for where she finds herself today.  I believe he also has compassion for those who are mad at her.

I sent Michelle a tweet stating that I felt something was missing from the story because in my experience she is not someone I think of as a hater.  Having listened to the audio recording of that night I stand by that statement.  She retweeted my tweet and I got tweets from people who really wanted to change my mind.  Some were hate-full.  When I went and read their twitter feeds it's clear that they are operating in some fairly serious pain (those who name call with the word 'retard' should check themselves before they ever point a finger at anyone else).

Honestly, what makes me feel sad is the knee jerk reaction from so many people and not only their willingness, but their seeming enthusiasm, to see someone so negatively and then effectively crucify her.  I see this reflected daily in the larger picture of our world and how we treat each other.  Bullying is bullying - it's coming from both the left and right these days (mean is still mean people no matter what you're being mean in the name of) and technology allows us to hurt each other without having to actually witness the fallout from, or take responsibility for, the damage we do.  Hateful rhetoric like that expressed by Fred Phelps is deeply offensive and hard to hear, but if your response to it is to be pulled into the angry, frightened energy that it comes from then you're living there too and you are allowing something that is not real to hurt you.

The words are the same but I did not hear Michelle Shocked say those words with the energy or intent that Fred Phelps says them.

If you did it's because you want to.

Regardless, the only good way to respond to hate is with love.

Love is louder, stronger and more enduring than anything else in our lives.  Love is the only true thing and that's what I think Michelle believes and feels and lives - she just tripped over the fundamentalism while she was trying to get it out.  She's the same fallible human being as the rest of us - and I ain't mad at her.

Winning like crazy

I've been reading a lot about Lance Armstrong and his upcoming conversation with Oprah.  Also out there are interviews with his friends and co-workers who've taken a fall because they tried to tell the truth about what was going on.  And then there are the blog posts and tweets from people who so very angry at Lance for not being the white knight he was portrayed to be.

They feel betrayed.

They feel like they've been lied to.

I guess they were and they have, although in my opinion, and it's all just opinions, the person who has probably had the hardest time is Lance himself.

He's had to live this lie for YEARS!

Granted I'm running the scenario through my personal filter and lying is not something I do very well.  It makes me cry.  I once told a lie to my roommate to get out of a dinner party she was throwing and within 3 hours I was sitting in her room, in tears, confessing everything.  It made me sick.

So when I think about Lance living all these years with this HUGE lie I do not know how he was able to breathe, much less sleep.  When you add to that the people who cared about him that he threw under the bus, at best, and aggressively attacked and ruined at worst, I cannot imagine how he lived with himself.

And the cancer thing.  Since we now know that he's been doping for years, there is a probably a good possibility that the choice to do those drugs may have contributed to the testicular cancer. Now he was much younger when he was diagnosed and he won the battle, but you'd think that in hindsight it would gnaw at him - all those falsely won victories at the price of your balls and almost your life.

On the face of it, it looks as though:
He cheated to win - and if you're cheating you're not really winning, you're just cheating.
He gave himself cancer.
He lied over and over.
He screwed over his friends.
And he kept it all up for years and years.

Perhaps he rationalized it all with the creation of LIVESTRONG.  No one denies that this organization does amazing work and is a literal life saver for so many who are facing the toughest battle of their lives, but at the end of the day that's an organization run, not by Armstrong, but by others who believe in what they're doing and back their talk with their walk.

To my mind, there must be something wrong with someone who thinks that because you did a good thing you don't have to be responsible and culpable and APOLOGETIC for the things you've done that were not good.

For the intentionally bad things you have done.

A sane person might be driven crazy by having to keep all that going for 20+ years. 

Of course if a person was crazy....

Below is Dr. Robert Hare's psycopathy check list (Rev.), considered the "gold standard" for assessment of psychopathy.

Interpersonal Glibness/superficial charm Grandiose sense of self-worth Pathological lying Cunning/manipulative Facet 2 Affective Lack of remorse or guilt Emotionally shallow Callous/lack of empathy Failure to accept responsibility for own actions

Facet 3 Lifestyle Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom Parasitic lifestyle Lack of realistic, long-term goals Impulsiveness Irresponsibility Facet 4 Antisocial Poor behavioral controls Early behavioral problems Juvenile delinquency Revocation of conditional release Criminal versatility.

Parasitic lifestyle Many short-term marital relationships Promiscuous sexual behavior

What I would really love to know is where Lance falls on the scale.  According to Jon Ronson's book, "The Psychopath Test", many leaders in business and politics are high functioning psychopaths.  It would be so interesting to know if Lance is diagnosable.

In some ways, if it turned out he was crazy, that would make everything a bit more palatable for me.  I would have more empathy for him and his current situation, because, like the scorpion who kills the turtle that gives him a ride across the river, he is only doing that which is in his nature.



 

Checking in

It's a new year so I'm checking in with the intention of writing more regularly. 

Except that I've been really sad since the Newtown shooting.  It's like reliving the loss of Laura all over again.

The empty seat at the table, the hole in your life, that's forever even though life does go on.  My thoughts have been with all of the families who've lost someone to gun violence, but my imagination has been in the houses in Newtown as those people had to negotiate the holidays and, literally and figuratively, the longest nights.

I want to write about my thoughts and feelings, but not in a melodramatic wail which is where I went in those first days, and not from a dark place of helplessness, although that is a completely appropriate place to be when 20 children and six adults are gunned down while doing their day.

I'd like to have a conversation about how we make it different and about how we all deal with sadness and anger and fear.

But I'm still so sad it's hard to take a breath.

On the lighter side I'm writing about only good things over here:   yumyumgivemesome.blogspot.com

Wishing the whole world a new year filled with some of the best days ever.

 WHAT PEOPLE DO...

Guns don't kill people - people kill people.  We hear it all the time.

This is true, but when someone takes a gun and kills one of your people, it's difficult not to go to that place of being very angry about the easy availability of guns in this country.

It's also easy to take the anger and frustration secondary to fear and grief and get into an argument with a gun nut who responds to public massacres with great defensiveness and bombastic rhetoric about how far fewer innocents would have been killed or wounded had average citizens on site been armed and able to shoot back.

Because don't you know we're all crack shots when we're scared and under fire by a psychotic in body armor who's planned an  attack in the last place you would ever expect something like that to happen.  This sounds like the story my 8 year old neighbor told me on 9/12/2001 about how if he'd been in New York, and he'd had a fighter jet, he would have stopped the planes that crashed into the towers.

People walking around with loaded guns would only equal more gun deaths.  The armed neighborhood watch of George Zimmerman is a tragic illustration of my point. 

Yesterday morning I woke up to news of the massacre in the theater in Aurora Colorado and the coverage that has continued ever since. 

As a nation we have been through this so many times: The McDonalds Shooting in 1984, The Luby's massacre in 1991, Columbine in 1999, The Amish School Shooting in 2006, Virginia Tech 2007. 

Since 2005 we have been averaging 20 mass shootings a year.

Every time it happens the experience is the same - the news coverage, national or local, is constant and we watch it obsessively wanting to make sense of the senseless.  It's something that happens in another town to other people and you feel sad and maybe you cry, but then you need to go to work or take care of your kids, and life goes on.

It's tragic, but it seems remote because it's happening to someone else.

It IS remote until someone you know goes to a restaurant, goes to school, goes to work, goes to the mall or goes to a movie and doesn't come home because they've been shot and killed by another someone who decided they were going to use their guns to vent their frustration, anger, mental illness, etc.

On October 12, just days after her birthday, five months after her wedding, my friend Laura went to work at Salon Meritage in Seal Beach.   

That afternoon she stood begging for her life, before being shot and killed by a guy armed with three hand guns, wearing body armor, who'd come to the salon to kill his wife, one of Laura's co-workers.  By the time she came face to face with him he'd already shot her mother Hattie and 6 other people who were either working at the salon, or had come in to get their hair done.  He shot these people at close range, pulling the trigger for two minutes, reloading once and using at least 2 of the 3 guns he brought with him. As he left the building he shot and killed a man who had pulled into the parking lot with plans to go to lunch at a nearby restaurant.

I had a busy day that day.  I'd been so busy that I hadn't looked at the internet and hadn't had time to answer my phone, so at 10pm when I was listening to my voicemail I had a hard time understanding what my friend Natalie, one of my oldest friends, and Laura's sister, was saying on the message she'd left me at 3:00pm.

Her voice trembling, obviously trying to keep her shit together she said, "I'm on my way to Memorial Hospital.  Laura is one of the survivors of the salon shooting in Seal Beach.  Turn on the news.  Call me as soon as you get this message."

I turned on the news just as the 10 o'clock hour was beginning with a helicopter shot from earlier in the day of police activity n the parking lot, people holding each other in tears, news reporters standing with the chaos in the background, a picture of the perpetrator who had been apprehended and surrendered, then back to the anchors in the studio with the chilling news that two of the survivors taken to hospital have died.

When I reached Natalie she told me that their mother Hattie was the only one who survived, that Laura was dead and her body still at the scene.  She told me about getting to the hospital and being taken into the chapel where the police give them what little information there was.  This is where she finds out that her mother was in the salon and that Laura has been killed.

 In the days following there is shock and grieving.  Family and friends gather together and numbly cling to each other trying find a way to stay sane.  There is going to view Laura's body in the morgue.  There is Hattie coming home from the hospital.  There is taking care of Ron, Laura's husband.  There is going to court for the arraignment of the shooter. There is meeting with the District Attorney and getting more information. There is talking to psychologists to try to process what happened.  There is reconstructive surgery on Hattie's shattered arm.  At the end of June there is the paddle out of Laura's ashes.

This is happening to people I know - there is nothing remote about it.  It will never be remote again because now, every time this happens, you cannot help but relive the horror and shock of losing someone you know and love this way.

In Colorado there will be vigils and memorials and funerals and we will learn about the people who were killed yesterday.  We will hear from survivors and witnesses.  We will learn more about the shooter.  We will try to figure out why he did this although we all know he is one seriously messed up soul

And then life will go on until this happens again.

But it is not remote.  Although this is a deviation from what we think of as normal it is becoming part of a norm that we are in denial about. The fact that Jessica Ghawi, one of the victims yesterday, narrowly missed a shooting at a shopping mall in Toronto last month, is evidence that something is very, very wrong in this world and it is getting closer and closer to each one of us.

It doesn't make any sense.  It is insanity manifesting and expressing in the actions of an individual and affecting all of us.  The guns and ammunition used in Seal Beach and in Aurora were purchased legally.  Would gun laws have stopped Scott Dekraai who vented his rage on innocent people?  Would it have stopped James Holmes?  It's hard to say.  Guns will always be available to those who want them.  They might have to pay more for them on the black market but they will still get them if they want them bad enough. 

The shooters - the people who use the guns to kill the innocent people at the movies, or at the hair salon, or at the restaurant or the mall - these people are sick and deranged and up until the moment they snap they very often are living among us with no criminal record, no aberrant behavior.  After the fact people will say, "he was quiet", "he was a loner", "he seemed like a nice guy."  Rarely is this individual the career criminal that most gun rights people want to arm themselves against.

My thoughts and prayers are with all of the people impacted by the events in Aurora, and with all of us in this country that seems to be arming itself to the teeth,  because it is no longer a matter of if, but a matter of when gun violence will intimately touch our individual lives.

We live in a country where people buy guns and shoot people who are at work, or school, the mall, the hair salon or the movies.

That's what people do.  

And it's tragic.

DARK SHADOWS - at least the special effects are improved...

Back in 1968 I was a HUGE fan of Dark Shadows. I would come home from school and sneak over to the next door neighbor's house to watch it with Janice. She was a teenager and I was in second grade. 

I remember sitting in the armchair in the den and the second that eerie theme music started I would tuck my legs up under me and try to keep my shit together because Barnabas Collins, in all that fog, scared me to death and appeared in my frequent nightmares.

Years later when I watched reruns on some random cable station I laughed at the clumsy production and overwrought acting - even for a soap opera it was way over the top.

So last night when I attended a screening of Tim Burton's Dark Shadows, starring Johnny Depp, I was really looking forward to see what kind of fun would be had with such rich and cheesy material.

As usual, with a Tim Burton film, it was visually amazing.  The production design, art direction and special effects were spectacular. The casting combined with the costumes, hair and make up was spot on, especially Dr. Hoffman, the scheming psychiatrist and Roger, the disgruntled brother.

The issue was the story and the script. It wasn't that great. I'm sorry, it just wasn't. Don't get me wrong, there were great lines, and given what they were working with the performances were good, but I was ready to go home after 90 minutes and the movie went on for another 25 minutes.

I haven't read any reviews so maybe it's just me and my affection for the original that's disappointed, but I'm really glad I didn't fork over $15 to see the movie. That said it was nice to fondly remember all the gothic shmaltzy horror of my afternoons with Dark Shadows.

RIP Jonathan Frid.

MAD MAN

It's spring and that means it's time to get Pete, my big black pussycat, shaved for the summer.

He's a rescue and of indeterminate breed, but he's got a ton of hair and despite best attempts to groom him every day - oh the drama when he spies the Furminator - beginning each April there is a frosting of black hair all over my house.  That which doesn't shed off him stays behind to make lots of mats.

He's like a husky, feline Bob Marley with tiny dreadlocks and anxiety issues.

Yesterday he went in to The Best Little Cat House to get his annual Go-Go Lion Cut,and when he got home I noticed that they had given him a little Mad Men tie.

 Which is appropriate because he got really mad when I started laughing at him.

Moving On

The small business that I have been working for the last 6 years is closing and I will be moving on.

This is simultaneously producing feelings of anxiety and anticipatory excitement.

Anxcitement.

I'm terrified to be out there looking for work in an economy that is less than robust and where I am competing with people who are much younger.  There is an age bias in our culture and although I don't look old, I am older and I know it matters.

There's also excitement because I would love be in a position where I'm not stressing about cash flow and wondering how we're going to make payroll, or where the money is going to come from to pay the huge insurance bills.  The cost of doing business began to consume every bit of profit.

At some point you have to draw the line in the sand and say - "enough" - because it gets to a place where you're not only not making money, you're paying to not make a profit. 

So as I'm closing the business which is exhausting and trying and sad, I'm also beginning the search for new work.  I love beginnings of anything because you can bring all of your ideals and perfect visions and focus on the qualities that you really want to experience.

My issue is that at the same time I'm consumed with the fear that I will end up with a shopping cart like so many people I see every day down in Santa Monica.  People my age or a bit older who are not raving mad and talking to themselves, but who are clean and healthy and who probably were living indoors a year or two ago.

Friends have been out of work for more than 2 years.  When I listen to the news and they report jobs numbers it doesn't sound very encouraging.  When I look at what's available in the want ads it feels like I would be stepping right back into the kind of mind numbing work that contributed to the depression I have just slipped off.

Moving on is something I'm looking forward to - I enjoy change and I'm making a list of all of the things I'd love to get paid to do at work, like read, write, work with others on a project that we all contribute to and make fantastic and while we're at it the project will bring great value to the world.... or at least make people laugh.

Already I've learned to ask for help and to say out loud all those things that scare me about an unknown future.  I'm learning to embrace change, although sometimes it feels more like getting mugged by change. It's all happening and it's going to happen whether I want it or not.

Might as well focus on creating everything I want instead of fighting to keep everything that I've been complaining about for the last two years.

Moving on can be bitter sweet, but mostly it's a good thing.

PASSOVER...and over and over and over




This year I did not get to go to a Passover dinner, something I have done almost every year since I was a kid because all of my best friends were Jewish and then I seemed to have developed a penchant for Jewish men.

Passover is one of the big celebrations akin to Easter without the necromancy, ham and chocolate bunnies.

It's a celebration of the freeing of the Jews who were enslaved by the Egyptians.  God got really angry with the Egyptians and punished them with plagues.

Here are some fun things to do with your kids for Passover:

1. Nile waters turning to blood –put red food coloring in the water glasses at the dinner table, in the bathroom sinks, in the dog’s water bowl, and anywhere else you can think of.
2. The frogs–Use green construction paper to cut out roundish frogs with thin green legs. Bend the legs to make the frogs look as if they are jumping. Put them everywhere, in cereal boxes, in the shower, refrigerator, drawers, etc.
3. The lice–Use a hole punch to make many small white “dots” out of plain white paper. Scotch tape them on your body and leave them on for a few hours. The appearance and irritation will make you think of itching lice.
4. The flies– Use clear scotch tape to tape pepper or small “dots” of black construction paper in different areas of the house, the windows, the bathroom mirrors, etc.
5. Disease afflicting the Egyptian livestock--put stuffed animals in different areas of the house, upside down.
6. Boils–Use a hole punch to make many small red “dots” out of red construction paper (or cut out circles). Cover each other with boils by scotch taping them on your body and leave them on for a few hours. The appearance and irritation will make you think of the boils.
7. Hailstorm–Put ice cubes around the outside of your house, the porch areas and on the outside window sills.
8. Locusts– Use brown construction paper to cut out oval-looking locusts. Put them everywhere as you did the frogs (you’ll even think of some new places to surprise your family).
9. Darkness–Tape brown paper bags over all the windows, draw all draperies to keep it dark in the daytime, or don’t turn on any lights in the evening.
10. Death –Put red ribbon on the sides and top of door post of your house to avoid the death plague. When the neighbors ask what the ribbon is for you can witness to them!

It's a long night's celebration - as I write this my neighbors are going on three hours of singing - and although I missed being with my friends this year I'm kind of happy to just celebrate the beginning of spring.

Happy Passover!
Happy Easter!
Happy Spring!

Havin' a Do (over)...


Today is my birthday.
I've been here 52 years.
That's a long time.
Now I'm one of those people who waxes rhapsodic about how much better music was "back in the day" and the back in the day I'm referring to is the late 60s and early 70s.

The music I used to dance to like Molly Ringwald in the 80s is the "oldies" they play on K-RTH 101.

The last couple years have been rather challenging - the economy has created struggle for so many including myself.  It's been like running through molasses in January in that any forward motion has taken so much more effort.

Even more difficult has been the loss of so many friends.  They have been jumping off this mortal coil in mostly tragic ways.  Jacob, David, Jim, Dan, Caroline, Philippe, Abe, Laura...all but two of whom were my age or younger.

For a while it seemed like every time I answered the phone the news was shocking and bad.

It did a number on my psyche and I have found myself profoundly sad and depressed, as in crying all the time and thinking dark and exhausted thoughts.  I was not participating in the world very well.  Honestly I just wanted to lie down and not wake up because I was just so sad.

And all that sadness was completely appropriate to the circumstances.

I tend to be one of those people who believes that it's better to feel your feelings, even the icky ones, until you're done feeling them.  Usually I get bored with feeling sad, or in anyway bad, because, well, if you think about it those kinds of feelings take more energy.

But, something chemical happened inside of me and it was like I got caught in an undertow of sadness and I couldn't get back to feeling good.  I was getting pulled deeper and deeper into the Sea of Inertia and Numbness.

All of the loss combined with the menopause, which is like living in some bleak, soviet country where you have a personal Chernobyl every hour or two, you never sleep for more than three hours and your rear end migrates to your belly so you can't get your pants buttoned without shutting off aortic flow, has made celebrating anything feel like a chore.

About a month ago I started taking supplements that my mom recommended to help me sleep.  Nothing is worse than being horribly depressed and insomniac.  One of these supplements is called SAM-e and in limited research it's shown good benefit for depression.  I didn't really give that much thought because I wanted good benefit in REM.

Amazingly, about 2 weeks after I started taking it I began feeling like myself again.  The tired and sad began to ebb and the small pleasures in doing simple things began to flow.  I could totally feel the difference.

I still wasn't sleeping 8 straight, but I was able to go back to sleep when I woke up after 3 hours and since my glass was feeling half full I could see the blessing in that new ability.

Two years ago on my birthday I started my day with the news (on Yahoo!)  that my friend David had died the night before from a brain aneurism, and I spent the day traumatized and in tears.  Turning 50 and any feelings that I might have had about it wasn't even on my radar because Dave was 48 and he was never going to see his hemi-centennial.

A couple weeks ago my friend Heather said to me, "I'd like to be old, but when I die who will be left to speak at my funeral?", and I thought about how many funerals I've been to in the last two years and all of the love expressed for the person who died and I thought - why wait?

This morning the only news on Yahoo! is that Jerry Lee Lewis is getting married again at 76 for the 7th time - news that I find hopeful because how much of an optimist do you have to be to keep getting married when you're one slip and fall away from your last ball of fire.

Then I opened my e-mail and Justin Bieber sang happy birthday to me.

So far, so good.

Tonight I am having a do-over do for  my 50th birthday and I am going to tell everyone who comes how much I love and appreciate them.

...And there will be much celebrating because life is short and being joyful is way better than being sad.

NOT DOWN WITH THE CELEBRATION...

After 9/11 in the midst of processing the horror of the event, one of the most disturbing images, to me, were the video clips of people in the Middle East celebrating the attack on the towers and the deaths of more than 3,000 innocent Americans.  They were in the streets dancing around and handing out candy, waving flags and chanting and wailing.  It was terrifying to think that people could hate Americans so much that they would celebrate the crime perpetrated on the innocent.

Last night when I was watching the news to gain more details about the death of Osama Bin Laden I saw images of Americans in the street celebrating his death, and while I am happy to know that he is dead, I believe that he needed to die, I was never in favor of capturing him - much preferring a well aimed killshot - I found that it made me just as uncomfortable to watch people dancing in the street, chanting and waving flags to celebrate his death.

I want to believe that we are better than them.

I'm old enough to remember those John Wayne and Clint Eastwood movies where justice is delivered with a gunshot, after which the hero blows the smoke off the end of the pistol and rides off into the sunset.  That is the iconic American hero - someone who stoically gets the job done cuz it needs doin' - and then moves on to the next town and the next bad guy while the town people gather around the body and watch him go.  They don't dance in the street and have a party.

They do that not us. 

My fear is this:  that these radical extremists, watching images of us celebrating, just like they did, will start coming over here and blowing themselves up in our malls and on our freeways during rush hour traffic.  We will have to start living in a way that is not free.  We will be living lives that always contain the fear of a kind of violence that we have never known.  

When that happens the terrorists will have won.  And since I'm thinking about this in a place of "us" and "them" perhaps they already have.

THE SRING! IT'S SPRUNG!!

This past weekend I was lucky and blessed to spend time at an avocado ranch up near El Capitan State Beach.  We went to celebrate Leisa turning 50 and three others, including myself, had just birthdays as well so it was quite festive.  The property itself is amazing with vineyards and avocado groves and a stream and a zip line, but I was mostly into the hammock.

It was nice, cool and damp, misty giving over to rain a few times, which was great because at least 1/3 of the 12 women that were there were having hot flashes at any given time.  One of us who is fighting breast cancer had just had her last radiation treatment, so she was experiencing prickly heat that was so extreme, the material from her shirt was driving her nuts, not to mention the extreme pain from the burn.  She showed me the scars on her chest where her breasts had been and the charred black and red flesh over her left side, at the site of the radiation treatment.

While red and black are sort of her signature colors, the accompanying pain was bad and it was wearing her out, but she was a super trooper for making the trip.  Now that the treatment is over she can move on to the next thing - which will be marrying her best friend in August.  She is also a force of nature and a scrapper, so it seemed appropriate that as the earth is on the verge of bursting with verdant life, she is at the stage in this fight where she is kicking cancer's ass and looking forward to moving on to grand future, a full life, and a really fun wedding in this amazing place later this summer and it will be my honor to perform the ceremony.

I think that's why I love spring so much.  Beyond the fact that the days are longer, there is also literal budding of life which hints at the abundance of goodness and beauty to come with summer days.  When times are challenging there is nothing more important than this reminder of the inexorable forward motion of life and although it can feel bleak and challenging and exhausting, it will once again renew and there will be light on the path ahead.  It's more difficult to find these signs in the middle of a city, but they're still there.  In Southern California we don't have the obvious movement from snow to sun, but we have so many plants that show us that spring is here.  I love that we have hibiscus bushes.

They are floribundufull - not a word, I know, but it sounds like they look, and while this is from the ranch they live on almost every corner of the streets in my neighborhood. 

But back to the ranch, the frogs sang to us all night and the roosters woke us in the morning.  I tried to get a good picture of the little dudes but they were less than enthused about a photo shoot and did not cooperate.  Turns out it's hard to get a good shot when you're running towards bushes at full speed.

We took beautiful walks and ate the most delicious food and did art projects and read and napped and danced in the living room in front of the fireplace, and then ran outside to wait for the hot flashes to mellow out.  We sat on the porch swings and talks and talked and climbed up into the tree house and talked some more.  We walked the rows of the vines which are just starting to make little grapes...

And we look forward to one day drinking the wine that is promised in each little nugget and toasting Nancy and Byron this summer with the first vintage grown on the ranch which will be ready this summer.  Thanks to the Doty's for allowing us the great privilege of staying at their magical ranch.












 

SOMETHING SIMPLE

The events in Japan, aside from being incredibly tragic, are also very scary.  I have long believed that our technological developments and capacities have far outweighed our spiritual development and ability to manage the technology.

The situation with the nuclear reactor continues to place, not only Japan in great peril, but also the rest of the world.  Yesterday I read that radiation had showed up in milk in Washington state.  Of course, the article assured the readers that the levels were very low, so low as to be negligible and not to worry, but seriously?  That's not okay and imagine what the realities are for the food sources in Japan, a place so small that when I worked for a Japanese company a typical gift was a beautifully gift wrapped orange.

Here in Southern California, where we are close to the abundant food source that is the central growing region of this state, we don't really think about how dear food is for other places that do not have the capacity to grow so much.  I have been keeping Japan in my prayers ever since I heard about the earthquake and tsunami and the issues with the nuclear power plant.  I am a strong believer in prayer and intention.  For me it's my go to game plan when I feel helpless to do anything else to help a friend in need, or when I have no idea what else to do, like now.

The message below has been going out all over the internet and I have received it from several sources.  It's a simple request - to say a prayer - and I know that if everyone who has gotten this message over the last few days would stop and say this prayer, not only today at noon, but everyday, it will help.

Today is my birthday and that is my wish - that the whole world will say a prayer to the water for Japan and for the world.  One of my favorite writers, Anne LaMotte says that her two favorite prayers are help me, help me, help me and thank you, thank you, thank you.

I'm with her.  Simple is best. 

URGENT: A letter from Dr Masaru Emoto, author of Messages
in Water plus other related books.

A letter from Dr Masaru Emoto:

To All People Around the World,

Please send your prayers of love and gratitude to water at
the nuclear plants in Fukushima , Japan !   By the massive
earthquakes of Magnitude 9 and surreal massive tsunamis,
more than 10,000 people are still missing...even now... It has
been 16 days already since the disaster happened. What makes
it worse is that water at the reactors of Fukushima Nuclear
Plants started to leak, and it's contaminating the ocean, air
and water molecule of surrounding areas.

Human wisdom has not been able to do much to solve the
problem, but we are only trying to cool down the anger of
radioactive materials in the reactors by discharging water
to them.   Is there really nothing else to do?   I think there is.

During over twenty year research of dado measuring and
water crystal photographic technology, I have been witnessing
that water can turn positive when it receives pure vibration
of human prayer no matter how far away it is.   Energy
formula of Albert Einstein, E=MC2 really means that
Energy = number of people and the square of people's
consciousness.

Now is the time to understand the true meaning. Let us all
join the prayer ceremony as fellow citizens of the planet
earth. I would like to ask all people, not just in Japan , but
all around the world to please help us to find a way out the
crisis of this planet!!

The prayer procedure is as follows.

Day and Time:  March 31st, 2011 (Thursday)
12:00 noon in each time zone

Please say the following phrase:

"The water of Fukushima Nuclear Plant, we are sorry to
make you suffer. Please forgive us. We thank you, and
we love you."

Please say it aloud or in your mind. Repeat it three times
as you put your hands together in a prayer position.
Please offer your sincere prayer.   Thank you very much
from my Heart.

With love and gratitude,

Masaru Emoto Messenger of Water

LIKE A HEATWAVE
Lately the hot flashes have been upon me, like for the last 3 weeks. Lots of friends have gone through this experience and the term has always been bandied about in popular media, most recently in that Estroven commercial where a series of women hold up cards saying funny things like "I no longer take my clothes off at work" and "my husband's not afraid of me anymore". Things that are funny unless this shit is happening to you in which case Estroven seems like the Holy Grail.

To put it mildly I feel psychotic and I am wildly uncomfortable - not a good combo for me as I was born volatile. Not in a bi-polar way, but more like a melodramatic way. Not a personality that is enhanced by flop sweat and a wildly beating heart. I went to bed last night at 10:00pm in an attempt to get at least 4 consecutive hours of sleep. I was up at 1:15 because my heart was pounding out of my chest and again at 4:48 because I was hot which was okay because I had to pee, and at 5:50 I was wide awake with the pounding heart AND a body that was doing it's heat miser routine.

For me this experience is akin to what I imagine a red alert feels like at a nuclear power plant on the verge of meltdown. I'll just be sitting there, or lying there and all of a sudden we're at code red. My lip is beading, my scalp is wet, there is a waterfall flowing between my boobs and my whole body feels unbearably hot. This lasts for about 5-10 minutes during which time I remove my clothes, run to stand in front of the nearest open refrigerator or fan myself wildly with whatever I can find, then I get freezing cold, put my clothes back on and go on about my business until it starts up again in about 15 minutes.

Looking into Hormone Replacement Therapy is frightening. Yesterday I read this article which states that basically these symptoms can be alleviated by taking man made hormones except that there was this study that showed that HRT while alleviating the symptoms of menopause, might cause worse health problems, but if you only take estrogen without progesterone you get protected from the same problems, EXCEPT you get uterine cancer.

Say what?

There are natural things that one can do, for instance I eat flax seed everyday but that's not doing squat for my melt downs. I've cut out dairy, wheat, caffeine, sugar, alcohol and red meat and that doesn't seem to be helping either it just makes me sad as well as sweaty.

Thank God for my friends who've hiked this trail before me - I can call them for reassurance that this will not last forever. We can laugh about it and share our stories which helps a lot.

What doesn't help is when Adi says to me, "You know I think that you can control this with your mind. If you just concentrate you can make this stop, instead of celebrating it like you do."

He's so lucky we were sitting in a restaurant and I was sitting across from him so I couldn't reach to punch him in the throat.

WHAT IF?

This is one of my favorite questions, usually followed by an absurd query. For the last few days, maybe because the Westboro Baptist Church was in the news picketing Elizabeth Taylor's funeral, or maybe because I watched Real Housewives of Orange County last night and Alexis and Jim are living on Jesus Lane (Gretchen said it not me) - the question has been this:

What IF Jesus Christ really does come back, you know the second coming scenario where Jesus returns and takes all the "true believers" with him to heaven and anyone who hasn't accepted him as their personal savior is left behind? I've done a lot of religious exploration in my life and I was even "born again," but it didn't feel real. It felt like I was in a play with a lot of bad actors. This didn't have as much to do with the gospel as it had to do with the "saved". I've never been around so many judgmental and fearful people in my life, and while I liked the music and singing parts, and definitely felt myself lifted into a communal consciousness during that part of the experience, the minute the Pastor started sermonizing it was like God left the room, and now I was stuck with this guy who was recruiting as hard as a Forum newbie.

The whole idea of Revelation - or the second coming - has always been fascinating to me. It's like the plot of a Stephen King novel, except that there are like millions of people all over the world who believe it's really going to happen. They not only buy into the idea completely, they actively pray for it, and are betting their souls on it. Some of them even sell all their worldly goods and go wait on a mountain top at certain points in time like back at that circle around the sun referred to as Y2K.

Next year should bring a new level of hysteria with it since the Mayan Calendar predicts that it will be the end of the world - I know it's a Pagan calendar so if you're a true believe you shouldn't even be discussing it (Satan!), but anything that hints of an apocalyptic end to the planet is a hopeful sign that Jesus is coming.

Back when I was going to Calvary Chapel and learning about the End Times, the Pastor's version had Muammar Gaddafi starring as the anti-christ, and he was pitching the idea that we would for sure , be seeing Jesus in our lifetimes. Another thing that he said would be happening, because it was written, is that we were all going to be assigned an identification number which would be branded or tattooed on our arms, and that would be scanned at the grocery store when we went shopping!

I think about this every time I swipe my Ralph's card. It's not quite the same thing, but still, who knows what that's really about? I do want the discounts however, so just to be safe, when I filled out the form I used an alias and a fake address.

Maybe it's the combination of earthquake, tsunami, edge of nuclear disaster in Japan, combined with a week of new war in Libya and a plethora of reality TV that seriously scares the shit out of me when I consider that this represents man's creative output in the 21st century, but I've been thinking that if it's really going to happen we're probably getting pretty close to a visit from Jesus.

And here's my question - what if he comes back and basically tells everyone to piss off? That we have missed the point? What if he's just hugely disappointed in the interpretation (or adaptation in you're in the entertainment business) of his gospels by beings who were supposed to take those teachings as a jumping off point, and live their divinity here on this beautiful planet. What if he feels like that sacrifice he made hanging on that cross was just a waste because somehow people got the idea that you could be as much of a jerk as you wanted to be and all you had to do was ask for forgiveness? And then the next day everyone went back out and continued to act like jackholes...in Jesus' name!

I have this vision of him coming back and picking up the people who never claimed to believe in anything other than loving their family and friends and treating people well because they were their neighbors, or because they needed a helping hand. Those people who respected the earth and understood that they were a part of it - that all life was precious? Those people get to go. Them that actually behaved in accordance with the Godly part of themselves - they loved, they respected, they behaved with Grace when they found themselves in difficult, challenging and painful situations? They're in! Folks who lived each day grateful and worked at finding the blessing and seeing God in everything and everyone? Welcome!

The people who lived their lives like hall monitors for God? All those God fearing folks who were cruel to others in Jesus name? Sorry. People like Fred Phelps and his Westboro Church members? Well, in the scene in my head, Jesus looks at those guys and says, "you are a pack of douche bags and tools and since you have perpetrated acts of hatred in my name then you shall inherit this place you have created. I mean I forgive you because that's what I do, but I really don't want to hang out with you and I for sure don't want you bringing this mess into my house. So you just stay here and think about your choices - because everything you do and think is a choice. I'll come back by sometime and see if you're getting it - see ya."

And with that he boards his magical escalator and as it carries him up into the clouds the sky is filled with Lady Gaga's video for "Born this Way" from Youtube (complete with mandatory ad) and it begins to play on a loop..... for eternity.

HOISTED

So I watched the Golden Globes last night. Personally I thought Ricky Gervais was hilarious. Now this could be a reflection of my inner voice which is really snarky although I'm trying to stifle it, or at least attempt to filter, so I don't appear to be a cynical, bitter person to total strangers who don't know my natural twinkling personality.

But when it comes to a group of people congratulating each other for doing, let's face it, not much of anything all that important, while wearing clothes that cost more than the average monthly paycheck in many homes throughout the country.... well, snarky just kind of leaks out.

Yes, I enjoyed the Fighter and I enjoyed True Grit, but c'mon - it's entertainment and most of the time it's not all that entertaining. It's certainly not helping people to achieve a better quality of life.

Ricky was Ricky and I thought he was the best part of the show - well him and and who ever it was that said, "okay now point the camera at Angelina, she's putting on lip gloss."

Really?

My favorite parts of the Golden Globes other than Ricky Gervais shining the light on the entertainment business and the flawed and human personalities that take themselves and the work they do waaaaaay too seriously, was Temple Grandin who was the realest person in the room and Ian Brennan of Glee whose thank you speech was pretty much the truest words spoken last night: “I just want to say thank you to public schoolteachers. You don't get paid like it, but you're doing the most important work in America.”

DAVID MILLS - Writer, Producer, Friend, and one of the best people I will ever know...



Tonight the Emmys forgot to honor the memory of my friend David Mills so I thought I would share my thoughts about him here. He died on March 30th of a brain aneurysm and I have missed him every day since - for so many reasons.

He was an incredibly talented writer both in print journalism and for television. He won two Emmys and wrote for some of the best television series ever aired on the tube (NYPD Blue, ER, Homicide: Life on the Street, The Corner, Kingpin, The Wire, Treme). He was also a huge fan of television and it was so much fun to talk to him about shows that we grew up watching - he remembered Gigantor! He was an amazing repository of television history.

I met Dave at Spelling where he had a deal after he'd sold the pilot for Kingpin to NBC. The network wanted it to be a primetime Sopranos and it could have been except that they screwed the pooch when it came to airing it. I was working with Mark Frost at the time and David was a huge fan of his writing on Hill Street and asked me if I would set up a lunch. We became friends, connecting through our shared love of music, specifically all things P-Funk. I ended up working with him because one afternoon I was oversharing with his assistant about breast augmentation (mine), and he rounded the corner to find my boob in her hand. He turned bright red, but the next day asked me to help him out with a scene that took place in the plastic surgeon's (portrayed wonderfully by Brian Ben Ben) office in Kingpin.

He asked me to come with him to NBC to work on Kingpin as a researcher, and took me into the writer's room where he mined my life along with everyone else's - and those drug dealers I dated in the 80s, while still bad choices (but never boring), finally proved to be good for something other than trouble.

David loved writing from real life stories. He loved the way people talked and was an astute observer of the subtleties and nuances of how people communicate with each other, the words they choose and the way they put them together. After he died, when I was helping his family pack up his house here in Los Angeles, I found notebooks filled with scenes he'd overheard out in the world which he'd written down; a mother talking to her kids in the airport, a couple having a fight, etc. He was fascinated by people and the things they do and say. He appreciated the duality of light and dark, saint and sinner, the conventional and perverted aspects that co-exist in an individual life.

I went with David to Warner Bros. on his three year overall deal and while we were there I got to know this very private man very well. I learned his quirks and witnessed so many acts of kindness and generosity that no one really knows about. David was one of those rare individuals who would step up to help others, people whom he'd never met who would ask him to speak to a class of aspiring writers, or to read something they'd written, or for words of advice. In my experience this is not a business where those who've achieved the level of success that Dave did are accessible to people, much less willing to actually help them. Not only that, he was generous in his appreciation of the talents of others and made sure to tell them, to acknowledge them and to thank them. That said, he never pulled a punch or blew sunshine up your butt. If he didn't like what you did he wouldn't tell you otherwise, though he wouldn't talk trash about it behind your back. He was the kind of guy who'd say it to your face.

He was my biggest fan and read everything I ever wrote here. He encouraged me to write my first script. Then he read it... and made me do a page one re-write because he said it could be better. He was right. After we left Warner Bros. we continued to be good friends and he would trek out to points far and wide with me on food adventures. We continued to share music finds - he made me mixed CDs that I loved because he had excellent and eclectic taste in music and every one of them is like going on a journey or listening to a story. He tolerated my fussing at him about taking up smoking in his late 40s and not exercising enough and generally nagging him to take better care of himself. He pushed me and encouraged me constantly to write and to write and to write.

He was a great writer, but it was not always easy and effortless for him (is it easy for anyone?). It was so important to him that every scene move the story forward and that it be real. One of the things that I loved about his writing was that he would never settle for anything less than excellence. He was never lazy about his writing. He would go underground when he was writing, holing up, working through the night, walking and thinking, eating crap food and ultimately coming up with gold. When I watched Treme I could hear Dave's voice in certain scenes and in the episodes he wrote and it is so damn sad that I can't tell him how much I love it.

I miss being able to tell him about the bizarre things I see, the conversations I eavesdrop on, the great song I just heard - old or new. I miss being able to ask him what he thinks about everything relating to politics, culture, race. I would love to know what he thinks about Glenn Beck. I miss eating and drinking with him. I miss reading his blog - Undercover Blackman - which was almost as good as having a conversation with him. It made me think, it made me laugh, and sometimes it intimidated me because the back and forth in the comments got so heated. Dave would never back down from a duel of ideas and opinions.

After he died I read all the articles about him recounting his amazing career and talent. Some referred to him as shy or introverted or quiet which are not words that I associate with Dave. He was smart - the smartest guy I know. He was honest and operated with a level of integrity that is rare in this life and even rarer in this town. He was funny and had an awesomely sharp sense of humor. He was a lot of fun and loved to play - he had the whole Kingpin office playing Password and drinking Margaritas every Friday at the end of the day. Some of my best memories of Dave are of sitting on the floor(me, not him) in his office playing CDs and sharing our favorite music and telling the stories about where those songs landed in our lives. I know that this is the gift of our years of close proximity in that bungalow at WB, and the blessing of our connection, because he was a very private person when it came to his personal life.

To me the word that most accurately describes David is passionate. That passion made him great. I saw his passion in everything he did and for everyone and everything he loved. It wasn't overt and out loud, it was from a deep place inside him. He was a rare and unique soul.

In the late 80s/early 90s David published a zine called UNCUT FUNK. In issue No. 3 he wrote the quote below in his Letter from the Publisher. When I read it I can feel his excitement and passion for what he was doing, and it's like he's still here talking to me, to all of us who got to know him, even to those who didn't. At this point in time you could insert the name of any project he worked on in place of UNCUT FUNK because this was the place he was coming from when he wrote:

"Thanks so much for getting your hands on this. And let me tell you, this is what I had in mind for UNCUT FUNK from the start, and I just know it's gonna knock y'all out! Forgive my immodesty, but at this moment I'm pumped to the limits of my soul, full of the glory of being able to transfer an idea from my head to yours. Let UNCUT FUNK seep into you, each word a sperm searching for something to fuse with so you can go forth and give birth to something positive. Then do me a favor back and put something on paper yourself and spread it around. It's definitely about that printed word!..."

I take solace in the fact that when he died he was in a very good place in his life. He was writing with one of his best friends - David Simon, living in New Orleans, a city that he loved like home, surrounded by great music, fabulous food and good people, doing something that he loved and when he went it was quick. He didn't suffer.

But I miss my friend so much. Every day.

SPREADING THE WORD

My friend Heidi needs a kidney and as it happens I'm fresh out of extras. When she and I talk about her situation my heart goes out to her because she has worked so hard to get herself into a tranplant program and to keep herself healthy but as she continues on dialysis it will get harder and harder to stay healthy and stay on the list.

I'm posting a letter that I wrote her recently because my hope is that someone might see it here and pass it along, or share her story, and somehow that person out there who feels moved to donate will find her.

It's not for everyone I know, but if you read this and it moves you to want to do something (but you're not up for living donation) - sign your donor card. It's such a small thing to do and it could literally save a life.



Dear Heidi,

I have been thinking a lot about you over the last week. My friend Jim Crumby was killed in a motorcycle crash on August 6th, he was 53 years old. It was shocking that someone so young would just be gone, leaving a son. Yesterday I went to his funeral and spent the day remembering him with his family and friends.

I'm thinking of you lately because your situation is similar. It may not be happening as quickly, but it's still happening.

Truly I don't want to be negative or dramatic, because you know I believe/know that you will get a kidney transplant, but I also wanted to acknowledge the struggle that you are experiencing and tell you that I feel a level of dread when I think about your future if you don't get a kidney. No one wants to watch someone die.

You do a great job of not dwelling in this reality and, in fact, you have been amazing in your tenacity with regard to getting yourself on the transplant list - going through open heart surgery could have killed you, but it didn't. Instead you are doing better and better. The setbacks you experienced earlier this year with the falls and broken bones might have discouraged, or even ended it for someone else in the same situation heath-wise, but you just kept going.

You truly are the unsinkable Heidi Nye.

I think that because Janet has offered to donate it might seem to others that you are out of the woods, but you and I both know the reality is that you need a kidney from a donor with O positive blood type. A paired donation is still available and possible, but it is not a foregone conclusion.

The facts are that you are one of 85,000 people waiting for a kidney in this country and because you have O positive blood your wait will be longer as that is the blood type that can give to anyone.

That puts you at the literal end of the line.

You have been on dialysis for 18 months already and although it may seem that one can live forever on dialysis that is not true, the reality is that dialysis doesn't do much more than clean toxins from the blood, it doesn't provide the hormones or electolyte balance that are necessary for true health.

The average survival time on dialysis is about 5 years. This means that you will continue to have health issues, which means that you may be removed from the list if you decline in any way.

Although this reality is grim you continue to live your life to the fullest, traveling to Paris and to your cabin in Nova Scotia. You persevere through the medical system, advocating for yourself in a way that amazes me. You do everything you can to keep yourself healthy and you hold on to hope that the kidney will come. You remain engaged in the world, writing, serving on the board of the Alliance for Organ Donor Incentives, being open to a loving relationship and, as always, you continue to be a great mother and friend to your son, Aaron.

I'm writing this to you because I want you to know that I understand just how dire your situation is. I hear you when you share with me how discouraging all of this is and how alone you feel and you have every reason to feel that way.

I want you to know that when I share with people about donating a kidney to a friend (or as I think of it - participating in a miracle) I also tell them about you. My hope is that you will share this e-mail with your friends and acquaintances so that they can share your story with their friends and acquaintances. My prayer is that there is someone out there who may feel moved to donate, as I was, and that they would donate to you and change your life.

I know this is possible because your neighbor Janet has already stepped up and although she was not a match and it didn't happen, it opened the door to possibility.

While living donation may not be something that most people would consider doing, they CAN sign their donor cards. No one likes to think about dying when they are young and healthy, but if it happens becoming a donor can create a blessing out of a tragedy.

I am always available to answer questions about living donation and my experience being a donor so please feel free to send anyone who might be interested my way.

Hang in there - love you,

SUM-SUM-SUMMERTIME

Now that school is out and the 4th of July has passed it feels like summertime. I know that's not really all one word, but this particular spelling reminds me of those days between one grade and the next when all I had to do was loll through my days and play with friends until the street lights came on.

Since I've been laid off that feeling has come over me again. Not because I am lolling around, but because the job market sucks and the economy sucks and it seems like a lot of people are kind of in this groove of staying home and spending time not spending money.

It's a good thing.

My childhood summer days were spent during a much simpler decade when there were no computers and very few channels to watch on TV. When I write things like that I cringe because it's so, "back in my day" old lady speak. Still the reality is we did spend our days a lot differently than kids do now for those very reasons.

In the pre-teen years the days were spent at the beach, or playing in the street - literally. We would put on plays and recitals that we forced our parents to attend. We made refreshments and donned chenille bedspreads and played Heat and Soul on the piano. We passed the time hanging out in the kitchen playing Kings in the Corner and drinking sweet iced tea with Kami's mom or hung out in the bowling alley on league day, or we went to the Plaza theater with snacks that were purchased at Plaza liquor next door, to see Disney films.

When we were not yet 16 but older than 12 hours passed while floating in the pool listening to Joni Mitchell and Jackson Browne and smoking cigarettes we snuck out of Laura's mom's purse. We'd hitch hike down PCH to the beach and spend the bus fair our mother's gave us on Abba Zabbas and Big Hunks. The same guys in an orange van with shag carpeting on the walls and ceiling picked us up and brought us home every day so it never felt dangerous, and we'd listen to Houses of Holy on the 8-track player as loud as the volume would go. The Ocean was my favorite song. At night we went to play raquet ball at this guy Rick's house - his dad had converted the garage into a regulation court. Or sometimes we'd pool our money so there was enough to buy three tickets into the drive in and squish three more into the trunk with the lawn chairs which we'd take out and set in a row between two speakers. On the nights that there were parties located only the coordinates of the streets - Monlaco and Studebaker - we would pimp beer outside of El Dorado Liquor. A six-pack of Bud Talls would get two people nicely buzzed and if there was a keg that was even better. When there were no parties we would usually hang out at Laura's house because her parents never bothered us and we would play records and read magazines and smoke and talk. The summer was my favorite time to read. I would go to the library and check out stacks of books and actually have time to read them.

The summer seemed to last forever and it's been a long time since I've felt that relaxed. I'm open to getting a great new job, but if it doesn't happen until school starts I'll be okay with that.

I'm going to the library to check out a stack of books and it will be bliss to have the time to read them.