Fifty Years On

I wrote this blog post four years ago today for the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. I am putting it up again here because 4 years on, the issues raised 54 years ago today, and again 4 years ago today, are even more important on this day.

August 28, 1963 - I was three days into my 10th year on the planet. Today I am three days into my 60th. Saturday I spent several hours watching the commemoration of the March on Washington, the high point of which was the brief speech made by my friend and hero, Dr. C.T. Viven.

CT, the man who was punched in the face by a redneck Alabama sheriff

CT, the man I met in New Orleans after Katrina, seeking to develop an organization to assist churches in the rubber meets the road work of rebuilding the Crescent City.

CT, who looked at me with a fatherly sense of pride when I told him the story of how my daughter had recently blessed me with the compliment that the most important thing I had taught her was that, "people are awesome!"

CT, who has a heart bigger than anybody I have ever known and a brain, a wit, and a style to match.

This is my direct connection to that day on the mall 50 years ago, something that I watched on Walter Cronkite on the big black and white TV in the living room of our little house in Lake Worth Florida. A South Florida Cracker town where the black kids and the white kids weren't allowed to swim in the same surf, or play on the same side of the beach, and where, when I rode with my dad to drop off the woman who sometimes cleaned out house and took care of me, we had to slide up a block away from the run down "colored" section of town and let her out of the car.

Something in that moment on the mall 50 years ago radicalized my little 9 year old spirit and has stayed with me, transforming my perspective, and my actions, on an almost daily basis for the fifty years since.

On Sunday, at Glide Church in San Francisco, we celebrated that 50 year legacy of the March, and the 107 year legacy of Mother Ruth Villa Jones. As we spoke and sang and remembered, I thought about how amazing her life must have been. She was already nearly my age now, no doubt assuming that her life was mostly behind her when that March on Washington took place and fundamentally changed the landscape of the country. When that watershed of justice that we always celebrate when we're thinking and talking, preaching and singing about the justice Amos called for actually peeked through the mystery and entered the believable possible.Mother Ruth's grandparents were slaves.

Slaves! Human beings owned by other human beings and subjected to abuse and cruelty that we still can't honestly imagine.

When I was in college, at a "Christian" school, in 1973, the black students held a chapel in which they spoke of their heritage and history as slaves and offered a moment of forgiveness and reconciliation to those of us whose heritage of slavery was radically different from theirs. I remember a student in my dorm speaking about the event later. He arrogantly, and angrily, proclaimed his innocence of any historical wounding and his annoyance at the assumption that he was in need of forgiveness. "I didn't have slaves. I never owned anyone. They have as many rights as I do, if not more.!"

This... just ten years after the march for freedom and justice that we commemorate today. I was, and am, completely incapable of understanding that willful arrogance and ignorance from someone who claims to be both intelligent and spiritual, then or now.  How is it possible to read history, to listen to people who have lived with the scars of a legacy of human slavery (and its ugly aftermath) - people who have known family that were enslaved - and still lack the understanding and empathy needed to place themselves in the shoes of a people whose history, and a very short history at that, was so skewed.

My grandmother died 22 years ago. She was 101, had moved here from Ireland and danced on Broadway for George M. Cohen. Nanny's life still radically colors who I am, and who I still, at 60, hope to be. She colors my daughter's sense of self and most likely will have a similar effect on my granddaughter (her great great grandchild). How can it be any different for the people that I know personally whose grandparents were kidnapped from their families and homes, loaded on ships like logs of wood and bales of hay and bought and sold like cattle in a land that was supposedly established on the highest principles of liberty and freedom.

Inconceivable!

It's been fifty years since I first heard that speech from Dr. King. Fifty years since I grew up in a big white Baptist church (both racially and architecturally) in South Florida where I heard men who considered themselves christian leaders spoke of King as a communist agitator and not a brother in Christ.

Fifty years since I went to a Lake Worth beach where white kids could swim on one side of the pier and black kids could only swim on the other.

Fifty years since I went to my Uncle's Georgia farm and saw the tiny shack (a shack that is burned in my memory as the slave quarters) where my aunt's maid lived with her family down a dirt road about 100 yards from the big beautiful farmhouse we were visiting in.

Fifty years since my dad told me the stories of his friend MC, the little black kid who my dad considered his closest friend, despite the fact that pictures from those days so clearly and unblinkingly reveal the disparity between their lives and culture. A disparity that I am sure my father as a boy, or a man, never stopped to consider.

Who are we today now that Barrack Obama is president? Fifty years after The March On Washington?

What they said on Sunday at Glide feels like about as good a declaration as anything.

"There is no finishing line... We must keep moving on."

Or in the words of the old spiritual, used so perfectly as a theme of the civil rights movement, "Ain't nobody gonna turn me round... Gonna keep on a walkin, keep on a talkin..."

La Mysteria

She stands, her back against the rich mustard wall, sunlight beaming on her from the right, casting a shadow to her left on the side of the wall. Between the woman and her shadow (one facing out and one seeming to walk away) stands a basket of deep red flowers.

The woman beckons me; she calls me to, and perhaps from, my soul. I want to see her face. I want her to look up from under the hat so I can see her dark raven hair and her bright green eyes.

I want her to hold me, to smile, to step out from the wall and beckon me to follow her down the alley and into a small, dimly lit, dusty beige adobe room. I want her to lie down on the small wooden bed and unfold the poncho she has wrapped around her.

 I want her to reach for me and say, "make love with me."

 --

 I lie down beside her as a cloud crosses the sun.

10 more years...

In 2007, three years after my 50th birthday I had a "50th Birthday Three Years Late" party and invited some old friends, and some new ones (one of whom thought I was CRAZY!) to celebrate with me.

Today, 10 years on, it's officially the Tenth Anniversary of my 50th birthday three years late and I've decided to relaunch this blog because of my first greeting on this 63rd birthday morning.

I'm visiting my parents in the sweltering Sonoran desert of Tucson Arizona, where I spent ten years of my life some other lifetime ago, and somewhere in the middle of the night I was awakened from a deep and rather disturbing dream by the yelping howl of a coyote a few yards outside my window.

It called me out of my nightmare and into a strange dream that has been going on all morning and that led me back here...

So, welcome back to Coyote Dreaming! Let's see where this dream goes.

Ghost of a Chance

She is lying up there on the wall Head tilted right Soft rose petal shoulders A slight glimpse of peach from her left breast Uncovered Her auburn hair cascading down her pillow Toward the frame Through all the years Sitting beside her I've noticed her nearly Not at all Now she's an enchanting intimation Of the real life beauty That she brings to mind
Along the edge of her bed You can catch reflections of other life too Still going on outside Oblivious to the magical woman In the light By the window On the wall Cars on Columbus And a tiny strip of sign From City Lights Books Where The Little Shoe People Will live forever Even after they are painted over Making way for someone new And I am there as well A pale reflection watching 
From inside and out
An impressionist representation 
Of how I feel now Fading into background 
At the edge of the story 

Out of the action of the play
A shadow of memory  Quickly disappearing Into The light A hopeful spectre Without a
Ghost of a chance

Mangina!

Last week at the local yacht club I got into a bit of an altercation with a local guy who fancies himself the self-appointed authority on the rights of men and defender of their honor and self-esteem. The culmination of this rather ridiculous non-event was his shouting at me as I walked away, "You're just a mangina!" My first reaction was to laugh and respond, "Thanks for the compliment!" 

Subsequently, I gave that term some thought over the weekend, looked it up - to some dismaying results - in The Urban Dictionary, and began thinking that the term was being defined rather terribly, but then I got a great quote from my friend Almond, regarding a re-definition of the term.

Mangina – an individual of the male species who embodies the spirit of equality and empowerment and assists in the effort to end violence against women and girls. Yeah Joe... I'm a Mangina and I'm proud to be among what seems to be fairly superior company. The next phase of this strange weekend occurred at the end of the week when Almond gave me this astonishing (and honestly quite undeserved) honor on the V-Day Petaluma Website. While I'm very happy to be the first ever honoree in this category for "Bobs" I've had a really hard time coming to terms with it, for I am much more in tune with my daughter's response to the article by the aforementioned "local authority" when she simply said, "hey buddy, this isn't about you." And there you have it... It isn't about me, or any of the other Manginas (or the anti-Manginas) out there. It's about the One Billion Women that this whole moment in time is about, the additional billions of all the women in the world (my daughter, my granddaughter, my sister, my nieces, my mother, my friends, my ex, my lovers, and the wonderful women whom I only know through their writings, art, actions, and presence, and the women that I will never know at all). I have always, as long as I can remember, been a feminist, because I have always been a humanist. Like other pieces of white male privilege, I tend even now, to lack the ability to fully register the difficulties, and the suffering of those who are deemed less. However, that being said, it's important for me to acknowledge that to my continued, and largely private, shame, I have added my voice to the screaming verbal violence that is easy to spew under ugly circumstances. I have seen a woman's (and even my daughter's) face look at me in fear and panic, and I am even guilty of physical violence that I wish to the Gods and Goddesses I could blot from my life and lift out of the records of the universe. I believe that I am past those experiences now, but I perpetually stand awake to the fact that the moments I am ashamed of to this day, were not moments I meant to happen in the first place. I can only hope that I have indeed exorcised those moments from my language and actions and that I can remain true to the hope that they never return. And I can do anything and everything that ever crosses my path to make things different now. I truly believe that, like Scrooge on Christmas morning, I am a better person, a better man, than I was before and I believe that all of us, both men and women, can continue to grow better with each other every day. I am dedicated to that and I pray for it constantly. And I wrote a poem... Mangina A "man with a vagina" A "soft and compliant" male Read that weak Read it cowardly Read it, say it Pussy And like that other term Pussies are supposedly Weak In my experience those pussies Those vaginas Are anything but weak Vaginas That push out new life and take in all that interconnecting energy Vaginas That to this day remain Abused Dismissed Ridiculed Unsupported Undervalued Destroyed Unloved If I can take on some of that If some of the world's hostility can be pointed toward me instead Bring it! To be a Mangina To accept the opportunity The responsibility The honor To hold that reality carefully in my hand my heart my head Yeah Call me that name I'm neither worthy of the honor Nor guilty of the accusation But I came into the world through that amazing pathway And I will honor it defend it pray for it pray to it and most of all Love it and the Women whose bodies hold that magical piece of spiritual anatomy in deep reverie and reverance for all of us Mangina Yes I am Mangina!

---

And because I will never be able to write poetry as beautiful or poignant, and because there might not be any better expression of how a Mangina can also truly be a man, there's always Secret Garden ... from The Boss.

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Hope Allowed

The season of Lent is traditionally, for many people, a season of quitting; of giving up something as a way of finding something else. My problem with Lent is that If there is anything that I am bad at (and I am bad at many things) right at the top of the list is probably the process of quitting. I am simply not a quitter. I don't give up. In poker, I never fold; in relationship, I keep pushing on through the place where things are obviously over; in business, I can't let go despite the fact that I am going broke, nothing is working, and all hope was lost long ago. After Katrina, in New Orleans there was a sign on the wall of one of the businesses that was struggling to come back to life. I found a picture of that sign while I was living in exile away from New Orleans and I adopted it's theme as my personal clarion call.


My friend Zach is constantly reminding me of the John Cleese line from the movie Clockwise, when he exclaims, "It's not the despair, Lord, I can stand the despair... It's the hope!" This really does tend to be my problem. Even when I know I need to quit, when I know I should quit, when I know it's really important to get moving and get going. I am still paralyzed by the hope that something will happen, something will change, something good will come out of the current catastrophic situation.

Last night, on my way home from San Francisco, after a wonderful day of doing not much of anything in particular with my daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter, I listened to the Sondheim & Lapine show, Sunday In The Park With George for the first time in a very long time. At the heart of the musical stands the difficult problem of sticking with or leaving, hoping, or moving on; or perhaps, as it is explained in the penultimate number of the show, hoping and moving on at the same time.

I have always been plagued by George's frustration and struggle with coming up with a way of living and creating that is at the same time new and his own. One of the reasons this show so moved me 30 years ago, and continues to do so today, is that it reaches right down inside my soul and speaks directly to my biggest personal, life-long struggle, doing wonderful, original work, and living a life of heart and meaning and depth and soul.

I just don't know how to do both, but I want to so badly that there are times (like now) when I simply want to shriek in agony at the frustration of my ignorance and inability to figure out what to do and how to do it. Perhaps the best advice comes in Marie's comment at the beginning of this scene when she says, "You meant to tell me to be where I was, not some place in the past or the future. I worried too much about tomorrow. I thought the world could be perfect. I was wrong."

Right now, I am indeed seeking to be where I am, accepting the possibility of moving on despite an extreme lack of clarity, and hoping that in the process I can indeed discover what really is mine to be and do. I am also aware that this is really not enough. Life exists on a fulcrum between Be Here Now and Where Are You Going. Stay too long on one side or the other and all kinds of problems ensue. The true beauty of living can only be made manifest in that combination of elements that George recites at the beginning and end of the play, order, design, tension, balance, light... Harmony.

Somewhere between Never Give Up and Move On there's a place of Harmony and that is the place I'm hoping to find during this seasonal time of searching. It's a process of knowing when to stick and knowing when to quit. It's a place of living in the moment and dreaming of the future. It's a place of big dreams and daily realities.

As Bruce Cockburn sings... "It's hard to live."

For another take on all this, I've had Elton John and Leon Russel's song, Hey Ahab, on constant play in my head and on my iTunes for the past three months. Beyond the emotional connection that links both determination and wisdom with the real life struggles of Leon Russell in recent years, it really is just about the best rock and soul song to come down the pike in a very long time.



Deep in the belly of my own big fish these days, I keep looking for that sign that says "Hope Allowed!" I still want to hang onto that hope, but I also need to understand when it's time to "catch a ride outta here!" To move on to the next thing, while still honoring, and loving, and somehow being glad of what I have done and where I have been.

What do you think? Post a comment. Ask a question. Tell us something about you.

What does it mean to have MAIG?

This is a question that I have lived with personally, and nearly every day, for over thirty years. It was first posed to me in a counseling class in seminary, by a quiet scholarly professor with a big mind and an even bigger heart.

MAIG was the concept that Dr. J. Lyn Elder proposed to us at the heart of his personal “Elderology.” A set of concepts that he introduced in his Pastoral Care classes at Golden Gate Southern Baptist Seminary, but which had no resemblance to anything that looks or sounds like what people, at least today, understand Baptist theology to be about.

The initials stand for Maximum And Increasing Gratification and the question of what is MAIG in any given situation is the heart of a modified Utilitarianism that Dr. Elder proposed as the way to approach theology, counseling, ministry, and life.

After living with this material for thirty years, struggling to understand its fundamentals more deeply and seeking to apply the outward principles in my life, I decided that one of the best ways to explore the concepts personally, and to pass them on for the benefit (the Maximum and Increasing Gratification) of others was to struggle through the process of putting them down in print.

Seeking Pleasure Instead of Pain

Incalculable numbers of times, I have mentioned the central concept of this book to people only to receive a look of consternation and a shaking of the head. The inevitable reaction being one in which people cannot imagine setting a criteria for life development or personal improvement, or spirituality of any kind, with the central focus being personal, and collective, gratification.

I find this amusing on the one hand, and depressing on the other. We seem to have no problem basing religious belief on the idea of suffering and annihilation - suicide and/or mass homicide. We - almost universally - worship the war hero who can conceive of sacrificing his or her life for comrades, and violently fighting unknown, unspecified and often unproven enemies, but we have a much harder time honoring the peace warrior who seeks a common ground with “enemies” and opponents. The religious underpinings of personal sacrifice, self-mortification and guilt are well documented and widely accepted, but the idea that there could be a religious underpinning to support the pursuit of delight (both personal and collective) is a concept as foreign to most people as the possibility of breathing water.

In the wider culture as a whole, the idea of immediate gratification is not only accepted, but often widely and enthusiastically practiced. However asking the part of the question, what leads to truly increasing gratification - an actual life-affirming growth in pleasure and goodness - seems far from most people’s thoughts.

Religiously, we seem to be willing to accept sacrifice and pain (or the avoidance of pain) as perfectly reasonable motivators in the development of personal principles and behaviours, but to, instead, consider pleasure, delight, gratification, and ecstasy as equivalent or even superior motivators... that proposal often meets with deaf ears and stoney faces.

When it comes to how we feel about others the same issues apply. How many people are willing to judge others and condemn them to lives of meaningless frustration on earth and an eternity of suffering damnation in hell, rather than accept the fact that we - all of us creatures - are not only entitled to live healthy, happy, holy lives, but that all of us are better off the more of us are experiencing life’s delight? And that is the key to it all. As Republicans (and no doubt a few Democrats) are fond of saying,  “ a rising tide lifts all boats.” The underlying principle of all things MAIG is that each of us individually benefits when all of us are approaching a critical mass of happiness. At the same time, all of us as a collective (within a single group, community, nation, or world) do better when any one of us is reaching for their top potential.

And that is what MAIG is about. In every aspect of life, in all representations of connection; in every way that each of us lives, and moves and has our being, we are all the better for every way we build up our (and other’s) lives. We need to have the best we can get and we need to help that best get better.

That is my hope and prayer for this book, it’s insights and exercises. I believe that the five questions to be dealt with in the next few pages and 10,000 words will provide you with a basis for reflecting on a way of living that not only provides the opportunity for great meaning, but also great joy. Maximum and increasing gratification.

Good is not enough when you dream of being Great!


----

This is the introduction to a book I am working on (and a series I am developing). There's more to come as I approach the first release within the next couple of weeks. Your questions, comments, and critiques are very much welcome. Please post!

You can also find this post at my other blog, Bleeding Daylight

My Favorite Parts

I spent much of Monday watching all the pomp and circumstance of President Obama's second inauguration. I picked up CSPAN on my phone upon awakening at 6:30 am and watched the volunteers give directions to people as they arrived for the ceremony.

I followed this with pouring coffee and turning on the TV to watch closely along the parade line for Joe, my Coastie friend, who was standing in the street cordon. I strained and squinted at the appearance of every Coastie uniform to see if I recognized the face below the brim of the cap (this behavior was renewed later in the day during the parade time as well). As the President's limo reached the Capital and the news people all moved to the gathering dignitaries preparing to walk the hallway and stairwell to the Capital steps, I started to get all ferklempt (these things happen to me) as I often do when my innate, though often obscured, patriotism wells up in my chest.


I continued to check the television (and the CNN stream on my computer) throughout the day and by evening I was sitting and working at my computer with two streams from the Inauguration Ball and the Commander in Chief's Ball, waiting to catch a glimpse of the first couple doing their dancing thing.

Yes, I'm a sucker for this stuff.

Out of the whole day there were two stand out moments that grabbed me, held me, and hold me still. Moments that, for me, define the day, and not just the day, but the whole reality of what I find wonderful in this President and the way he moves through his office.


The first of these moments came at the end of the official inauguration ceremony. The President, his family, and the whole rest of the official crowd were walking back up the steps to the Capital and as he reached the top, Barack turned around to gaze out at the crowd to savor this moment and softly said, "I'll never see this again."

What was beautiful about this moment was the simple pause, and the look of what I take to be appreciation; appreciation of the moment, of the responsibility, of the opportunity, of the singular reality of an experience that will not return. It was, as Jon Stewart always closes his show, a "Moment of Zen."

There were other good moments throughout the day, particularly during the parade when it was possible to catch a glimpse of the whole Obama family as a family having fun. These were delightful moments of real humanness that it is rare to see in a president (or a candidate) without, at the same time, catching a glimpse through the bucolic scene and down into the artifice of the carefully crafted photo op.


The second moment came later in the night at the first ball appearance of POTUS and FLOTUS.

Dancing together to Jennifer Hudson's rendition of Al Green's "Let's Stay Together," the two of them (as they have done on similar occasions in the past) looked like they were having their personal private moment. Looking into each other's eyes with a softness and a presence that was the closely touching human moment that was the couple's equivalent of that pause on the steps that afternoon. It was a moment of connection in the midst of a structure and a system consistently, and somewhat intentionally, void of such personal moments. It was a silent statement of "family values" without having to demand that other people's values be trampled on to shore up our own.

I know what it feels like to look at another person with that softness, that presence, that tender hope for good, and that appreciation of the great chance to feel this way. It's a great feeling and it made me happy to see it in my President and his Partner.

These two brief encounters in a day filled with everything else give me hope for the next four years. They give me hope that the humanness can be present more and that the clear tenderness this man feels in parts of his life can be translated, past the Washington jadedness, hypocrisy, and expediency to bring out a more flowing, genuine, loving and appreciative connection in the world. I know it's a lot to expect, but I see a little crack of light there in those moments. You can keep all the broad statements and grand imaginings.

Those little looks and tiny moments... THAT'S HOPE!

Thanks Mr. President.

Like What I Think Matters...

For most of the last 9 years I've been wearing this yellow LIVESTRONG bracelet. I've taken it off from time to time, but it (or one of it's cousins) has been around my wrist since I bought my first one in the initial launch at the San Francisco Nike Store back somewhere around the Tour de France in 2004.

There were a couple of years where I wore a similar bracelet dedicated to the rebuilding of New Orleans, but I always return to the iconic yellow bracelet because it is filled with meaning for me, and most of that meaning has little to do with Lance Armstrong.

Instead, it has to do with the year I spent wishing, hoping, struggling with, injecting ugly substances into, cooking for, cleaning for, and praying for the recovery of my then partner from Stage 4 breast cancer (she's doing quite well by the way, 18 years on, but no longer is she doing well with me). Making it through cancer together never guaranteed that we'd make it through life together, and in fact, it's my feeling that the cancer, and the recovery, had as much to do with the end of our relationship as anything else. Even 7 years after that breakup, the bracelet reminds me of a time when I was strong, and good, and hopeful against very ugly experiences and very big odds. 

Wearing that bracelet has also had a lot to do with myself. The feeling that I had (and still have) when wearing that little piece of rubberized plastic is one that reminds me it is possible to do battle with the entropy of life in all its forms and come out somehow surviving it, and often doing better for it. I've worn the bracelet in 5K races and four and a half hour marathons, I've worn it in business meetings and presentations, and through long periods of hard writing that I thought was going to nail me before I nailed it.

It has inspired me both because of and in spite of the achievements, and failings, of the man whose life and work created it.

So what about Lance? 

As a long time believer and supporter (the only one I know these days), I've been asked by a lot of people to explain what I think. The problem is, I really haven't had a good idea about what I think. The simple fact is, I haven't really given Lance that much thought.

What I know is that what he did (failures and all) inspired me. I became a lover of cycling through watching him roll up those hills and speed through those time trials. The fact that I now know he was doing it juiced honestly doesn't take away the awe I felt, and feel, for those achievements. I still couldn't ride up Mont Ventoux no matter how many liters of my own blood I reprocessed, or how many vials of testosterone I absorbed. 

What I know is that those rides got my ass out on the road, and inspired me to make it through the most unpleasant struggle of running 26.2 miles of rugged road. It also inspired me to keep going through other hardships when what I most wanted to do was give up. I believe that inspired millions of cancer patients and survivors, for I have met some of them, and seen many pictures of others.

These effects don't justify what Lance Armstrong did to gain the reputation and status that allowed him to have that effect, but what he did in those races, practices, hotel rooms and clinics, doesn't diminish the positive results of what others received from those achievements. I was deeply inspired, over and over again, by Lance Armstrong, and that inspiration changed my life. Now that I know his reputation was built on an edifice of lies and some significantly despicable behavior, does it change the inspiration I received and that I used to better my life?

Absolutely not!

There are people in the world, and some of them are athletes, who are bigger than the reality of their own lives. Some of them, like Lance, know this and use it to pound other people into submission. Others are more humble and present and what they do, and how they do it, is more palatable to our more hopeful natures.

Many of our heroes and sheroes work hard and achieve great things despite their failings, or sometimes through their process of overcoming their failings. Some do beautiful things without revealing such boldfaced flaws. There really are as many ways of inspiring as there are people that inspire, and it is there where the real importance of accomplishment lives.

The fault, as Shakespeare wrote, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, and so is the goodness.  The real greatness of accomplishment comes through and with the people who are inspired by the great actions of others. The real effect of inspiration is in what such people and actions inspire us to accomplish. Those effects cannot be diminished because of the failings of the "hero."

The dishonesty, corruption and ugliness of the actions of Lance Armstrong, Marion Jones (another athlete who I found inspiring), Manny Ramirez,  Bill Clinton, or even Martin Luther King Jr. doesn't change the good things that came from the less than perfect lives they lived as less than perfect human beings. The real triumph of any life is found in the inspiration that life gives to others and that inspiration and its subsequent effect is not diminished by anything another person has done, or does. We are the keepers of our own inspiration and our lives become the legacy of the actions that inspire us.

Yeah, I am disappointed to find out that what I believed about Lance Armstrong (and his team members who I most admired, George Hincapie and Tyler Hamilton) turned out not to be true, but it ain't the first time I've had such disappointments and it certainly won't be the last. All of the commentators riffing on what a horrible disappointment it all is however, just don't do anything for me, because what I take away from it all has become mine. The reality of my life is different because of the inspiration of Lance, and many other very flawed people. I do not intend to allow that inspiration to be diminished because of the rabid obsession of the diminishment news cycle, because that doesn't hurt Lance, it hurts me.

Back to my bracelets... These days (and for the last year) I've been wearing a second bracelet next to my LIVESTRONG one. That bracelet, which I picked up last December at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. reads "WHAT YOU DO MATTERS." I bought it as I was leaving the museum because it spoke to me of the fact that even in the midst of the truly horrible events that can take place in the world, it is the actions of each individual person - great or humble, nearly perfect or desperately flawed - that make a difference in what happens to us all. 

My bracelet doesn't say WHAT LANCE DOES MATTERS... It's speaking to me, and it's reminding me several times every day that WHAT I DO MATTERS. Frankly, that's all I really care about. 

I'm STILL Walkin' Here!

Last night between my stop at Vesuvio's and my check in at Red Devil Lounge to see Junkyard Academy, I did something that I have done many times, but never in the rainy dark. I wandered my way through the rain to the top of Nob Hill and walked the Labyrinth in the courtyard of Grace Cathedral.

I've been walking these labyrinths for nearly 20 years and I've been on them inside and out, crowded with pilgrims and alone in the quiet. One of the first times I ever walked the labyrinth inside the cathedral was at noon on my 40th birthday. Due to some weird schedule changes in the morning I wound up on the path just before noon. The moment I stepped into the center, the clock struck 12 and all the bells in the cathedral started to chime! It was amazing and blessed and it set the tone for several days of personal reflection and celebration that I still look back on for insight when I'm trying to figure out where I'm headed next. The labyrinth (a symbol of which I also keep around my neck most of the time) has provided me with 20 years of centering and focus in a life that often has neither.

Last night was dark and drippy and I was alone on the path. As I walked the flowing circles, I could look up to the top of The Mark across the way, where I stayed exactly 11 months ago; 11 months, and a whole other world, ago. That morning, I stumbled bleary eyed through the hallway of the hotel, into the elevator and up the hill to walk the labyrinth in the chilly early morning. I was alone on the path that time as well. That morning, on December 22, just after the longest night of the year, celebrating the birthday of my sweetheart, I was gazing into a future that looked cheery and encouraging, rich and hopeful, both personally and professionally. In the ensuing 11 months most of those dreams and visions have fallen to the side of the road. Despite setback and lost hopes, I still remain encouraged by thoughts of whatever might happen next, but I'm definitely not as buoyant as I was back then.

Still, I do as I have done over and over since I first moved away from The City 23 years ago. I return to my original home, the place where I learned to love city life, the place where my daughter (and now granddaughter) was born, and where I always seem to find my soul again, buried and tattered, but somehow always there waiting for the next round. I stumble my way back up the hill, I look across the city skyline, I take a breath, and I step on the path once more.

Yeah...  I'm still walkin' here!  

Happy Thanksgiving!

Death to my Hometown

For several days I've been putting my brain around a blog post about the experience of Katrina 7 years ago today and the way my life has traveled since that day, but I'm still not finished with the attempt.

At the same time, I absolutely cannot let the day go by without a beginning stab at the way I feel about such things. Oddly enough The Boss has done a good job of putting my thoughts into words with a song off Wrecking Ball that is about our more recent great debacle. There are very few things that do as good a job describing BOTH these events like "Death To My Hometown.

However... when you're done watching this one, check out my Blues Routes show about Springsteen's more specific response to Katrina when he played that following spring at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival (and in so doing, won the accolades of New Orleans locals as well as his legion of fans).

And to my friends back home... Hang in there babies!!!

Follow Your Bliss

Chungliang Al Huang from pat solomon on Vimeo.

I am a big fan of Joseph Campbell and have been since the very first airing of Bill Moyers' earth shaking interviews with him in The Power of Myth nearly 30 years ago.

Watching the Moyers video again this morning, I caught the comment that Campbell makes about transformation of consciousness... "You're thinking in this way, but now you have to start thinking in that way. Right now is feeling like one of those transformational moments to me. As Al Huang comments in the clip above, it "may take some time for you to find it [your bliss], but that's what you need to do."

The confusion over the concept of "follow your bliss" has always been kind of amusing to me. On the one hand there are the people who take the phrase, not only literally, but sort of fundamentalistically. They advocate the idea that it's essentially the same as saying "Do What U Wanna" which is a GREAT tune for a second line (and oh how I miss the second lines!) but it's not really great as a philosophy of life.

It's also NOT what Joseph Campbell was saying.

The other reaction to this perspective tends to come from the opposite side, taking extreme exception to the idea that people just want to "follow their bliss..." doing any thing that feels good at the time. Or to quote an old saying from the 60s, "If it feels good do it."

That's also NOT what Joseph Campbell was saying.

What he WAS saying, is both obvious and profound.

Bill Moyers asks, "What's the journey I have to make?"

Campbell responds by saying, "Follow your bliss... find where it is and don't be afraid to follow it."

He expands from there, but the point is clearly that "follow your bliss" is the WAY to find what you are supposed to be about. It's like the "follow the money" line in All The President's Men. Watch closely the trail... see where it leads.... The path itself will tell you what's going on and what you need to do.

What do you really love? What excites you? What gets you out of bed in the morning? What is your answer when you look in the mirror, as Steve Jobs suggested, and ask yourself if what you're planning for the day is something that would be satisfying if it was your last day on earth.

For me... in the passage of the last several years (and especially the last eight months) I've been digging deeper into the excitement and love I have for certain ways of being and certain things I think and feel and do. As Al says above, it's taken me a long time to catch the through line, to truly "follow my bliss." To watch the way things go... to see what makes me laugh and smile and fall in love with being in the world. And I - to my great disservice - give up the path easily and often. I don't trust the basic feelings at my core. I let the dragon slay me (to use Campbell's metaphor) rather than slaying the dragon.

I am once again at a place where I am seeking the courage and the strength to stay on the journey down... to figure out exactly what I... "need to do.

My life depends on it... According to Campbell, all our lives depend on it; the very fate of the earth depends on it.

Just... Be

A friend of mine from a few years back, Marc Lesser, has a great blog out this week that focuses on the topic of a new type of corporation that has just come into being in California (and many other states as well). The B Corporation (officially a Benefit Corporation in California legal parlance) is a relatively new development within the world of corporate structure, and for many in the business world it seems to come across like some kind of strange hybrid beast from a mythological land. For others, like myself, it's something that we've been waiting for, longing for, and trying to make happen for a very very long time.

The first discussion I ever had about the concepts behind Benefit Corporations occurred in my living room in San Francisco in 1982, the year my daughter was born, as a group of us were forming a record company that eventually became known as BrierPatch Music, Inc. Starting a business that we hoped would be about more than making money... that WAS about more than making money... led us into a struggle about whether to form our new little company as a non-profit or not. At the time, I was the lone voice of entrepreneurial capitalism in our bunch. I believed then - as I believe now - that businesses have not only an obligation, but also a great opportunity, to do wonderful things in the world AS BUSINESSES. I believed then, and still believe now, that the music we created and the products we produced were important in their own right and deserved the basic respect that standing up on their own in a market economy suggested of them. To me, developing our business as a non-profit (and I've spent 30 years of my life working with non-profits, so I am not about dismissing the importance and significance of non-profits) was a way of suggesting that the work didn't really stand on its own; it felt to me like asking for help from people, when what we were providing held intrinsic value (and deserved to be treated that way). The circumstances of our business were such that to do otherwise felt akin to beginning our project with a corporate self-image problem. Something akin to saying, "we're not really that good, but we want to be, so won't you support us anyway?"

I didn't believe that about what we were doing and I don't believe it now.

In the U.S. we exists in a corporate free market (mostly) economy. The rest of the world is rapidly moving in that same direction. Many see that as a bad thing. I am not one of those people. I believe the danger of capitalism is not inherent in the free market concept, but rather in the destruction of the free market concept through a distinct lack of concern for the basic factors of corporate responsibility and good citizenship. The greedy nature of so much corporate wrong is based directly in the idea that its not only possible, but indeed profitable, as well as conceptually important, to rig the system by fouling the planet, abusing employees, stealing from governments, and lying to customers. This is not only bad business... it's bad morals.

If corporations are effectively "people" then they have the same basic moral responsibilities of people. They have the responsibility to take care of their environment, to treat people fairly, to refuse to lie, cheat, steal, and murde, and to tell the truth about who they are and what they do. Corporations as "people" have the same responsibility as REAL PEOPLE. They have the responsibility - and the joyous privilege - to be good citizens.

Back in 1982, I won my argument and we formed BrierPatch Music, Inc. as a California C Corporation. I had some great heros and mentors (chiefly Ben & Jerry, Paul Hawkin, and Yvone Chouinard) to lead the way and provide exemplary guidance in the journey we set out upon.

What I was not aware of at the time was that basically my concept of socially responsible business was a great idea.. a good thing... a mitzvah, if you will, but it was not in any way supported by corporate law. Corporate law was (and largely still is) based on the idea that the only thing a corporation is to consider is the maximization of shareholder wealth... period. For a great little tutorial on that reality have a look a this TED talk from the B Corp Website.



As you can see from the talk above... that perspective, and the law that supports it, is changing. In California, on January 2, 2012, a new law introduced in the California legislature by Jared Huffman established California as one of only a handful of states where it is possible to establish your corporation as a "Benefit Corporation" with the right AND THE LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY to act for the benefit of, not a single, but a triple bottom line: People, Planet, Profits.

This is joyous news to me personally, because not only does it vindicate what I have believed for most of my adult life, but it also provides a new corporate form that allows my business partner and I to establish our new company , Barrier Free Adventures, Inc. as such a company. While we formed last October as a regular California C Corporation, we will be resubmitting our Articles of Incorporation in the next few weeks to take advantage of this new corporate designation.

What's that do for us? It allows us to move forward with the clear declaration that we are a company (like BrierPatch Music 30 years ago) that is intentional about doing good in the world while also seeking to do business and make a profit. Mainly it gives us the platform to declare what we already believed, that Barrier Free Adventures will not simply be about increasing the single bottom line of profit (which we expect to do very well at by the way) but also to state that we intend to also do good in the world, provide community service for our clients and communities, and to treat our people well. We are a "triple bottom line" company that cares about Planet - People - Profits. It also gives us the protection from people who might still feel like the only reason for a corporation to exists is maximization of profit.

I'm excited about this... I believe, as Jay Coen Gilbert of B Lab states it, that this is the beginning of a new way of doing business in the world. I believe that it is a world changing meme that I am happy to be a part of.

If you'd like to know more about how things move forward with us at Barrier Free Adventures, leave a comment here, check out the website at http://barrierfreeadventures.com (with news on a whole new suite of services coming within a couple weeks) or drop me a line at thom@barrierfreeadventures.com

The Story's Still The Same

Tonight I am working at Petaluma's Aqus Cafe with an actor friend - Roger Marquis - on a set of readings from two different wars that have, to a certain extent bookended my life to this point. The show will be presented on Monday and Tuesday evening at the cafe and if you're in Petaluma this week, I hope you will drop in (Aqus Cafe - 7:30pm Monday and Tuesday admission FREE).

As a whole - along with my rather personal involvement with issues that surrounded the Central American wars of the Reagan years - this is a theme that has occupied my life from the time I was fourteen up to this moment as I type this on my computer. I even produced a song (now 25 years old) by Ken Medema that I will be playing as part of the show, and which could not be a better lead in to what we have conceived for this performance, The Story's Still The Same!

It would be nice (and rather a bit fanciful) if I could imagine that these wars really are bookends in my life and that we might be moving to some other place in world reality, but that seems unlikely. We seem, instead, to be moving to a time, similar to that which Orwell imagined, of endless war for the purpose of commerce and distraction.

In the shadow of Armistice Day and in the presence of a Petaluma Historical Museum exhibit that glorifies the VietNam War and refuses to give appropriate attention to the questionable (and immoral) circumstances that took us into, and kept us in, that war, while so many people (both U.S. and Vietnamese) died and suffered, I find this one of the most important things I have ever worked on.

Act One of "Winter Soldiers" is a dramatic reading of the direct testimony of veterans at the first Winter Soldier hearings in 1971, Act Two comes from the testimony of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, given as testimony at a second set of hearings in 2008. As I work with this material, dig through photos, videos, writings, and testimony, I find my emotions torn apart.

I have been actively working against war for 42 years!

One of the most important conversations I have ever had in my life occurred in Los Angeles about the time I produced the song I mentioned above. My friend (who will likely be reading this) made the suggestion that out of Justice, Truth and Beauty, he had been inundated with Justice and Truth and was ready for a little Beauty. The statement stopped me in my tracks, and I conitnue to reflect on it - regularly - today.

Has anything that I did, am doing, or will do made a damn bit of difference in all of this? I don't think so.

The wars still go on... the excuses still fly... the military/industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about continues to make bank on the spoils of war.

The Story's Still The Same... but I keep wondering if there is some way to change it.

Is it possible to BE THE CHANGE that Gandhi referred to?

My life has been turned upside down once more by the process of working on this show. Even in this embryonic form that we will present in Petaluma on the next two nights, the testimonies, the questions, and the declarations of courage and hope have given me a determination to seek and hope for justice, truth and beauty once again.

Semper Fi is what the Marines say... These principles, hopes, dreams and desires for Justice, Truth, and Beauty are the things to which I can similarly dedicate MY life.

Howling At The Moon

In the production notes at the beginning of the play True West, playwright Sam Shepard discusses the expected sound design for Coyote howling that he writes into the play.

"The Coyote of Southern California has a distinct yapping, dog like bark, similar to a Hyena. This yapping grows more intense and maniacal as the pack grows in numbers, which is usually the case when they lure pets from suburban yards... In any case, these Coyotes never make the long mournful, solitary howl of the Hollywood stereotype."

I'm not sure why this particular bit of information grabbed me yesterday afternoon. Like when you think about buying a red car and then all of a sudden you start seeing all kinds of red cars, it was one of those synchronistic moments when after focusing on something (in this case the return to my old play with Coyote images) you suddenly start discovering a multitude of references to the particular target of interest. Like most of these situations, there is a fairly obvious underlying reason here. I have always seen a connection between Sam and Coyotes, and I have always seen Sam as an icon/role model/silent mentor for my own writing. It wasn't terribly unusual to go from launching a new mental game with coyotes to a quote from Sam staring me in the face just a few minutes later.

What IS interesting - at least to me - is the underlying message in the biological lesson about coyotes. They are generally seen as solitary animals, but as I understand it, more often than not, they are pack animals who generally live and hunt together, though generally in smaller numbers than wolf packs.

Lately I've been struggling a lot with what I want to do and where I want to go next. The last year has been filled with more changes than usual for me (and that's saying something) and one of those changes has been the opportunity to spend a lot of time in theater productions of various types. I also spend a lot of my time either writing or editing (video and audio mostly) alone, in my little monk's cell of an apartment. There is something to be said for both forms of work and it seems like I am in need of large amounts of alone time while also being a desperately gregarious individual. There is absolutely no question in my mind that I do my best work (most interesting, most creative, most satisfying and most productive) in collaboration and I am really desirous of developing new (and old) connections and partnerships.

The point I think I'm getting at (there really IS a point that I'm getting at) is that even when we think we are alone, or solitary, or flying solo, or way deep down in the loneliness of our personal cave... pretty much every one of us needs the company of others. We need people to give us new ideas, or to provide support in the midst of a lonely struggle, or to react and respond to the things we think and feel. Even the most solitary artist, at some point, needs an audience... at least, and friends are pretty nice too.

Like Robert DeNiro says to Jonathan Price in Brazil... "We're all in it together kid."



P.S. For more info on the Coyote sculpture above check it out at Jim Callahan's Website