Things On My Mind.

A random, somewhat disparate, collection of t'ings I been t'inkin' about.

In no particular order...

Zimbabwe: Wow. I've been listening to a lot of news stories about this (the scary side effect of streaming NPR all day at an office job). But, seriously, it's like "The Last King of Scotland" all over again only this time, lets substitute Mugabe for Idi Amin. You forget how precious it is to be able to vote without getting petrol fuel poured on you because you dare to support the opposition. Our democracy is fragile (and it's been beaten to shit over the past 8 years) but we face none of the terror (yes, terror) that these people are facing right now. Beware the strong man of Africa... the nasty, lingering effects of colonialsim? Maybe.

The Gun Ban-Ban or the 2nd Amendment ruling or Why our Supreme Court can kiss my M@#tha-f!#@$g ass: Any hardened Hillary Clinton supporter need only take one look at this decision and consider John McCain's statement that he wants a court full of Roberts and Scalias and Thomases. This decision is a nightmare. The idea that the framers wanted every American to have a Glock in their home is lunacy. We have a standing army and no one's trying to overthrow the King. The constitution's genius is that it's malleable and the notion that our laws should ahere more to the realities of 1776 than 2008 is, in a word, assinine.

Wanted: The new Angelina Jolie movie. God, it looks awful but I love James McAvoy so much (yet another "Last King of Scotland" reference). Word is that it's despicably violent which I find curious given Ms. Jolie's reputation as a global humanitarian....I guess I find it odd that someone so concerned about the plight of refugees (usually fleeing their country because someone is out to the kill them and their entire family) would then turn and make a film that gratituitiously gorges itself on violence. Not to get too Tipper Gore circa 1987 on your ass, I do believe there is a correleation between what we are seeing and what we are doing... Count me among the moral majority. Hmmm, is this just an uneasy combo of art and activism?

Gallery Hopping in Chelsea: I am. Tomorrow. Going gallery-hopping. Taking my New Yorker and doing the art walk. I will report on the state of contemporary art on Monday. I am mildly hopeful.

Adventure: I am dying for it. I am in-between shows and this is never a good thing because then I have time to think (hence Rodin's penseur) and the wanderlust really creeps in. Not creeps so much as slaps me against the face and, like a devil, takes over my body, exorcism-style. I long for bigger and better things, dramatic, novel-like adventures like being a war correspondant or working for "Doctors without Borders" or, closer to home, engaging in, for me, debauchorous, unhealthy, behavior... In short, I become petulant and teenage.

Pity the individual with a romantic sensibility (I do).

Staples makes me sad.

I couldn't tell you why but I have had this odd prediliction since I was a child. A strange sensitivity almost or maybe I am just trying to dress up my affection for being maudlin or my fondness for being blue.

Shopping in Staples makes me sad.

Sometimes shopping in a Duane Reade brings on a similiar melancholy (I sound like the Edgar Allan Poe of Strip Malls) but for some reason not as bad...maybe the make-up section still makes it seem....fun.

Staples though brings home alienation to me and 21st century class structures and makes them manifest. I am almost always shopping there because I've been sent on a duck-duck-goose run for labels for some temp job I'm at. Everyone in there is usually some kind of business person or, rather, the underling of a business person looking mildly annoyed as they search for the "sign here" labels or "toner cartridges" while "Steely Dan" plays overhead. The workers are all in uniform and are usually very nice to whatever asshole they are dealing with. In those moments searching aisle five for "poster-board spray adhesive" all the Nietchszean-style nihilistic thoughts, all the suspicion of modernity comes flooding in and it's like "this, this is progress"? Maybe, I should move to Oregon, get a bow and arrow, and eat with my hands.

But, instead I pick up whatever I've been sent for, get in line, and fully wallow in the utter sadness that is part of the contract you sign when you are brought into this world.

Now that wasn't easy.

TRANSFERENCE

Transference


I am thrilled that he won the nomination. Obama, of course.

Side note: I don’t want my 30 days of continuous blogging to turn into a watery regurgitation of what I’ve heard on NPR. But, in truth, politics is always on my mind to some degree or another. Or maybe it’s not politics but culture, the big picture, what’s happening locally, globally and how are my fellow, human-being-animals reacting to it? Chalk it up to A LOT of history classes in college. I don’t entirely understand people who proudly announce that they’ve got no interest in politics (again, for me, politcs = big picture). To me, this is like proudly announcing that you’ve got no interest in art?! Curiosity is currency and it should extend to all avenues of life, no? Wow. I am in danger of sounding like an Generation X Dear Abby.. But, really, really, isn’t it all so fascinating? All of it, life, culture, people, art, and that includes politics (again politics = BIG PICTURE).

We are, of course, in a verrrrry interesting political period here in these United States and the hope (yes, it’s a corny word but for lack of a better word, hope but I use it with a caveat: it’s DESPERATE hope), the desperate hope this primary season has produced is palatable. The desire for, yes, here’s that other word again: change. And, for better or worse, vast numbers of the American populace (and the world apparently judging from the headlines fom the rest of the globe) have rested their hopes firmly upon the sinewy shoulders of one Barack Obama. Who, I note, have noted, and will say again: I love. And yet, ahhh the inevitable “but”, I am mildly weary of the degree to which there seems to be some mass kind of transference happening between him and the people, as it were. The pinning of all of ones’ (here’s that word again) hopes on one person to me seems a little frightening, frankly. . To me, there seems to be a desire of so many of us to see this one person, a man (a human man, it should be noted) Obama to absolve us, the American people, of the sins of the past 8 years. As if his presidency would prove to us, once again, that we are indeed the country of tolerance and openness and reinvention and truth and justice and not the land of Guantanemo, and Katrina and foreclosures and Iraq and Abu-Gahrib and utter indifference to all of the aforementioned.

Maybe I should just relish in this moment and in the fact that for now, for this instance in my still relatively young lifetime, I feel that history is not static and that progress is tangible and not just read about in the Chapter on the Sixties in that high school textbook. Maybe I should let my eyes well up with tears every time Obama talks about the “fierce urgency of now” and forget about the pandering speech he just made to AIPAC (just one day after he got the nomination it should be noted) declaring Jerusalem off-limits to the Palestinians.

See? Human being in a very corrupt system. I still love him but, deep down, I know that anyone, and I mean anyone, who is about to touch that much power is bound to disappoint.

It’s part of a noble tradition.

30 (continuous) Days of Blogging

In an attempt to inject my life with discipline, rigor, and Victorian self-improvement I am committing myself to 30 days of blogging.

Who's keeping score? No one!

Like Van Gogh painting for an audience that never came (save Theo) the joy will be in the doing. Or not. (Insert tired anecdote here about Vinnie's ear getting cut off though, apparently, it is now in heated dispute whether or not Van Gogh cut off his own hearing device or if Gaugin did it while they were both in the throes of an alchoholic infused night out on the town).

I feverishly hope, of course, that someone will stay tuned from now until the middle of July as I record my wry, ever-so-slightly vulnerable observations on living in the surreal life of the 21st Century.

Oh dear, what the hell do I have to say that is not on Gawker or the Huffington Post?

Stay tuned...

OBSESSION (It's not just a perfume from the 80's)

I, am, clearly ambivalent about blogging or just lazy (I cop to both) since I have been seriously deliquent about keeping this updated. Chalk it up to watching too much of "The Wire" which I am, yes, frighteningly obsessed with. I don't care if this makes me the hundredth hipster (and ONLY by virtue of my zip-code) to spout off on how "ammmmaaazzinnnng" the show is. It is. Amazing, that is. Plus, I feel a certain loyalty to any show that centers around the underbelly of America especially if that underbelly is located squarely in the heart of Baltimore, Maryland. (A place I know well: I went to college there, came of age there, fell in love hard for the first time there, and, lastly, was mugged three times, twice by gunpoint, there). Watching it is just a welcome back to Balmore hon'. Baltimore has a lot of charm but the City has been, more or less, ravaged by the loss of its manufacturing centers and what rose up to replace it: a drug trade with customer loyalty and profits that any Captain of Industry would envy. The show is in essence a treatise on moral relativism in an era of decay. David Simon (who I have now read a lot about in truly obsessive/pyschofantic fashion) says he was inspired by the Greek dramatists notion of fate i.e. instead of the Gods failing man it's now institutions (government, school, press) who randomly abandon and thus, destroy it's constituients no matter how good, how promising, how worthy they may be).

It's odd to have "The Wire" looming large in the background of my thinking these days. Seriously, I'm obsessed and this has to do as much with the compelling themes, the fantastic writing and the terrific acting. Seeing genuine journeymen actors (none of whom looked botoxed or underfed) chew the dialogue and tear up the storylines with relish is thrilling. At any rate, it's a curious thing to be bouncing back and forth between watching "The Wire" while indulging in my other obsession: the Democratic Primary. There's been a lot of ink spilled about how historic, blah-de-blah, it's all been and it has and it is. And, I will readily admit that my love of Obama seemingly knows no bounds. As Hendrik Hertzberg wrote "he's got Bobby Kennedy's heat and Jack's cool" so what's not to love? All things being relative and knowing that no matter what platitudes these pols spout to get elected most of it will remain just that: a platitude. "Change" is as amorphous as "faith" but I don't care, I'll take false hope over no hope while I can.

Nonetheless, there is something jarring about watching "The Wire" with its vivid and stark view of the rotted and decaying American-Every- City and then hear the candidates wax on about America's greatness, our military prowess, our vast potential... For many of us who have lived or are living in these parts of urban America know that there are entire pockets of this country where the violence and poverty rival most third world nations. John Edwards hinted at this but Obama's promise of one America was ultimately more seductive than being reminded that there were two America's. I fell for it too. Maybe I fell for Obama's One America because it makes me feel better about abandoning that other America. I watch the other America on "The Wire" from my apartment in Brooklyn (David Simon calls New York City "a pile of money") - I watch it struggle and gasp from the safe distance of my couch. Then in the morning I turn on NPR in hopes that I might catch a snippet of Obama's speech at some rally to make me feel better about America ( One and Two).

Female Liberation?

2007 was a great year for me in many regards even if I made enough to put me solidly on the poverty line. I did eight shows (count 'em 8 shows) last year and got paid for... one of them! In the process, I met some amazing new people, people that I came to New York to met: actors, and playwrights, and directors, and just general artist/dilletante-types. I ended the year with a kind of faith that, hell yes, I am struggling and I might, like the grasshopper, have nothing for the eventual winter of my life so to speak but nevermind; I am here now and making work and doing it with wickedly talented, sincere, sharp, funny people who are all sacrificing to be creative.

2008 has started out with a slight bump and I am about to do something that, honestly, I rarely do on this blog - confess. Believe it or not, I seldom use this as a public journal. But here goes -- I recently had an experience with a guy, who shall heretoforth go unnamed, and it reminded me of why, sometimes, I really despise the prevailing dynamic between (straight) men and women that exists in this particular time and place, especially in this City. Simply put, there seems to be a kind of reversal of any gains that were made during the sexual revolution or during the women's movement. (The latter especially is in tatters. The Onion recently had an article with the headline "Man Put in Charge of Ailing Feminist Movement" and it was the funniest thing in the paper). My example of this is dating in New York which is, in my experience, more like something out of a Jane Austen novel than, say, an episode of "Sex in the City" (a show which to me has about as much to do with my life as a woman in New York as "Gossip Girl"). Maybe this has to do with a 5 to 1 female to male ratio? Plus, as far as I can tell, being single is seen as some sort of major personal failure. I almost dread being asked the question "are you dating anyone?" as much as "what do you do?" Both being pre-cursors of judgement i.e. " are you successful? are you desired? and depending on the answers to those: are you worth getting to know?"

My latest experience hooking up and then attempting to have (a) date has not been great and I have sought out and received so much conflicting advice from friends it's made my head spin. The advice, usually, comes in two forms, the most prevelant is: don't make the first move - ever. You have to be pursued, there is a biological, evolutionary, model at work - woe to you if you mess with the hunter-gatherer paradigm of male/female relationships. You must be the Diana of this urban-myth so run and he will chase; if he doesn't chase then, yes, he's "just not that into you" (this turns out to, generally, be my experience). The other advice is, of course, the direct opposite and goes something like: "be aggressive, take control, it's sexy."

Armed with this information, the dance begins and is usually a tiresome series of emails that reveal, once again, that all relationships boil down to a power-play. I hate this. I find it annoying and incredibly, yes, tiresome. I loathe the inherent inequality - the game of figuring who holds the cards. I don't know why I would expect anything else though since we are just taking the model of what we've grown up with and feeding it into our own lives. Equality especially in personal relationships takes a lot of communication and a lot of honesty and, sadly, I find most guys especially most American guys just do not have enough genuine curiousity about another person for this to happen. I am shocked at how conversations usually develop between men and women - the woman asks questions all night, listens and then comments appreciatevely at the answers she hears from the man. As far as I can tell the "healthiest" most functional relationships I see are very often same-sex. I wonder if this is because by already subverting the expected cultural-norm/model it frees two people up to engage on a more level playing field as equals from the get-go? Am I generalizing? Probably. Is some of what I've just written bullshit? Absolutely. Is some of it true? Without a doubt.

I don't know where I am going with this and I am fearful that this is quickly turning into one quasi-academic, half-bakked theory on relationships or, in my case, the lack therof.

Pakistan on my Mind.

I found out that Benazir Bhutto had been assisinated in, of all places, the elevator. The news flashed on one of those "captivision" televisions that are de-riguer in most high-end office buildings. I mean, god forbid, we just be in an elevator sans stimuli. I gasped and I am still gasping at the news and the photographs of (even more) turmoil that have been unleashed in that part of the world. I read about it all day yesterday, her life as the offspring of a powerful and aristocratic Kennedy-esque (by way of Pakistan) family. The streak of tragedy and corruption that ran through her life. She sounded supremely flawed, like all leaders, and, of course, terrifyingly brave almost like a character out of a novel. I read that her minders didn't want her to go into the crowd and expose herself but she was apparently unfazed and bullheaded about addressing her supporters in the flesh, so to speak. It never ceases to amaze me how almost all human beings are capable of such extreme acts of courage and cowardice.

Of course, the U.S. news is focused on how all of this will affect the "Global War on Terror". I really wish that phrase would stop being printed and repeated. It's so laughably Orwellian and utterly meaningless; an advertising slogan not a policy and printing it gives it credibility. At any rate, I did remind me how, by comparison, life here seems so, well, placid. The past (nearly) eight years of governance have been so awful and the response, by and large, has been so utterly tepid, defeated almost. I am not, by any means, suggesting that turmoil is a sign of a healthy civic life but our culture seems like it's at the almost opposite end of the extreme. I sometimes look around at my peers, my friends, and, well, myself and am reminded of that frog in boiling water metaphor/analogy i.e. put the frogs in cold water and they won't jump out, slowly boil the water and the frogs won't realize that anything is wrong until they are floating on top i.e there will be no trouble closing the lid.

Well, that's dark...maybe too dark and it is an election year afterall. And, perhaps, the extreme cultural/political amnesia we've experienced these past eight years will begin to wear off and the great American mass will realize that if they don't act now, events like the ones happenning in Pakistan - corruption, military rule, quasi-dictatorship, phony elections, politics for keeps - will become a daily reality here too.