The Planet is Bleeding

The planet is bleeding. The Gulf of Mexico, where oil is gushing out as if from a severed vein, is the site of a hideous wound. We wonder if the Gulf and even the planet itself can fully recover. The images of birds weighted down with brown syrupy oil, the aerial shots of the discolored, thickened water along Louisiana, Florida, and the rest--visions of a summer sci-fi movie, a blockbuster disaster flick. If only that's all it was. . . There is only one good that can come out of this. And that is an awareness so strong, a concerted effort so indelible that we finally focus our attention, our resources, and everything we've got on finding an alternative for our addiction to oil. Because it is an addiction--and it's something that with patience, resourcefulness, and resolution, we can overcome. But it must happen before it's too late, before the Gulf spill is our final epitaph. The plight of the animals is perhaps the most heartbreaking, because they are innocents trapped in it all. We have plundered their world, selfishly attacked their homeland as if we were at war. Perhaps we have been. The animals rely on us for a clean and safe habitat. They are not aware of this, although perhaps some of them are. Our planet is in jeopardy. We are bleeding. BP is trying to find the way to apply the tourniquet so that it will stop the bleeding--a condition the company caused through negligence and greed. But even now--a 'limb' is sacrificed. How many limbs before the entire body dies?

Harvey Milk

I wrote this piece in one sitting (in about 10 minutes) in response to a posting on craigslist from thequeertimes.com. The request was for personal stories about Harvey Milk. The piece was featured on the homepage of the 5/22/10 issue. Here's the story:

I lived in the Castro when Harvey Milk had his camera shop there. I wasn't gay, but just about all my friends were. I loved basking in the adoration of all those gorgeous men. We had fun and fabulous conversations. In many ways, I derived way more satisfaction from those relationships than with any of my straight friends. The Castro was a mecca for self-expression of all kinds. No one was too weird. It felt good living in an environment of total acceptance.

Street life was prevalent in those days. A sunny day meant spending time hanging out on the street--coffee and a sweet at the Bakery Cafe or maybe a mid-day cocktail at the Elephant Walk, followed by walking around, looking around, maybe heading over to Buena Vista Park and back. But outside was the place to be. There was always a lot of activity in front of and inside Harvey's camera store. Political meetings or just people talking. And whenever you got a glimpse of Harvey, chances were good he was smiling. It's how he viewed the world and the people in it--with a big Harvey Milk smile. You can't fake that kind of smile. It comes from the inside. You either have it or you don't.

It was a street fair of some sort. Maybe Gay Pride Day, not sure. But in any case, I remember Castro Street swarming with people--from Market to about 19th or 20th. Street vendors, musicians, people talking, dancing, checking one another out. One of the activities was some sort of game where dunking Harvey Milk was the prize. I don't remember if it was a fundraising activity or just some random amusement park kind of thing, the purpose being just silly fun. In any case, I happened to walk by just at the moment Harvey was being dunked. He emerged with that big smile, laughing, wiping the water from his face, and then immediately got dunked again. Always in on the fun, Harvey just lapped it up--enjoying himself like everyone else.

The night of the candlelight vigil, I was there with my best friend, a guy I had lived with for three years. Both of us were so sad, we could hardly speak, which was the general mood of the night. Silence. Earlier, when we had received the news, we were stunned like the rest of the city. Of all the people. . . and by the hand of an insane, homophobic man, a man Harvey had tried so desperately to befriend. Who could believe it? Why?

The Castro or San Francisco, for that matter, will never be the same. It was one big party in those days. Before AIDS, before the murder of Harvey Milk, who was not only the King of Castro Street; he was the sunshine.

oahu sunset

I drew this using pastels. The inspiration was a photo I took in Oahu. I began the drawing with a print of the photo taped to the easel. But eventually I put the photo away and began playing with colors and shapes--sometimes adding colors without thinking why. I found myself visualizing the piece when I was doing other things--riding my bike, writing, cooking, whatever else. I would think of something I wanted to do--change a color, a shape. So I was essentially drawing the way I write--adding, deleting, and changing things over a period of time.

And this is the photo that was the inspiration, although the real inspiration was what I saw--that evening in Oahu, from the balcony of my hotel room.

Instigating Art

Jim Woessner lives and works on a houseboat called Casa de Amor on Issaquah Dock in Sausalito, Californa. The entire top floor of the houseboat (where you would expect to see a living room/dining room) is devoted to his art studio, save the small kitchen area that faces the dock. He lives there with no evidence of the fact that once he worked as a nuclear engineer and showed up everyday 9-5 and then some for PG&E on Market St. in San Francisco. That was before one sunny afternoon when in frustration Woessner suddenly threw his briefcase across Beale Street and proceeded to watch in amazement as the briefcase hit a fountain, broke open and all his papers were swept up and carried aloft by a sudden gust of wind. Witnessing this surreal display, Woessner realized he had just ‘let go’ literally and figuratively. Very liberating, as he tells it.

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A Fair Maiden and a King

I just finished reading A Fair Maiden by Joyce Carol Oates, who continues to be one of my favorite authors. I'm convinced she is not of this earth. Her ghostly photograph haunts the book jacket with eyes that stare out from another century. And I wonder if she is a creature who sleeps. I don't know if there has ever existed an author so prolific or one so adept at being able to write from the inside of her characters--be it a girl of sixteen or a man in his late sixties who is obsessed by her.

This is not a book review. Although like most of her stories, A Fair Maiden captivated me by the middle of the first page. It's Joyce's magic--her ability to hypnotize us into surrendering to her stories. And it's a willing surrender. Her characters leap off the page. They smile and breathe and moan. We feel their sweat, their chills, their sexuality. We come to know them. They are real, so real in fact because we recognize their thoughts, their perceptions. They are our thoughts, our mothers' thoughts, the boys we were attracted to in high school's thoughts. It's as if each of Joyce's books is personalized to speak to something specific in each one of us. And yet it is the same book we hold in our hands that is read by millions of others. How does she do that?

All these people that speak through Joyce. As if she is a medium, a transmitter of lives that make themselves known through her stories. As if she is the purveyor of souls--from now and before.

In A Fair Maiden, what could so easily be construed as 'sick, perverted, unlawful' is instead something incredibly beautiful. It is a love story, in the mode of a fairytale, a story of old. Where a fair maiden and a beloved king interact in a storybook house to the backdrop of the sea and ocean birds. Where soul mates, art, and love intertwine in the rich fabric of something resembling a dream. And it all happens in New Jersey.

Buoyant Life

Much more on: Buoyant Life. Articles about living afloat around the world. Good for the soul. Check out the article on Cosmic Muffin, a floating home that was once flown by Howard Hughes: Just Another Plane Boat Muffin.

Such a tactile thing

Knitting is such a tactile thing--the feel of the yarn between your fingers, moving, gliding as the project evolves from a spool of yarn to a pattern that grows before your eyes into a dimensional shape. Weight, warmth, colors that please you, the feel of the knitting needles, the soft patter and clinking of them moving slowly or rapidly--it really doesn't matter. This is one of those many examples in life of something that is as enjoyable in the process as the completion. Perhaps even more enjoyable. Maybe it's the continuity, the comfort of this piece of craftsmanship that sits in your lap as it grows--like a soft, warm cat curled up in total contentment.