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Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Ah, the Creative Life!

In the last two months, I have finished off almost a dozen short stories, started three novellas, wrote a ten page short video script for two friends, and ordered my comedy skits into reasonable expectations of one day getting up on stage with them and becoming a Comedy Star.

In the last two months, I have also gone without a lot of the Holiday Cheer that most others in our society expect to have during the Christmas and New Years season. I have also spent most of it on friends couches and floors, filling out another dozen works of fiction known as Employment Applications, which have large gaps in the history of, due to bouts of writing and acting which, unfortunately, I cannot acknowledge in this town because it is the kiss of death in finding employment.

As soon as those sidelines come out of me, it's time for the interview to have been over two minutes prior. Never mind that I've spent much of the last two years looking for work, or hopping back and forth from here to the East Coast in search of work, the admission of Things Other Than Gainful Work is enough to sink the prospect.

So yes, I can brag of my great creative strides, while at the same time severely lacking in the basic necessities.

Ah, The Creative Life! It chose me, not I it. It is who I am, regardless of any other aspect of my life. For Better or Worse.

Hey! Doesn't that sound like a marriage?

Step Right Up! Getcher Politician! Unlimited Time Offer!

This is sort of The Devils Bargain, part two, wherein Corporate America is Old Scratch getting Politicians to sell their souls (hey, wait! is that a contradiction?). Will Politicians in this new age of chicanery start acknowledging their Corporate Overlords with "brought to you by..." messages at the end of their ads? Or how about wearing proudly the logos of their Corporate Sponsors on their jackets, like the NASCAR's do?

Why not? As long as they're going to be bought and sold to the highest bidder, they might as well be proud of it. After all, NASCAR drivers are. Do they really think that the (left leaning) public interest groups (probably next on the Corporate Supreme Court  hit list no doubt) won't be able to find out?

And now it seems that the Conflict of Interest with "The Supremes" grows deeper. Justice Thomas'  wife has been a paid "consultant" to the Heritage Foundation and other Right Wing groups that are behind the Buying and Selling of America.

Now the Members of the Supreme Court are supposed to be above reproach. They are also supposed to recuse themselves when cases come before the Court in which they have a vested interest: such as Virginia Thomas receiving payment from, and helping to found another, organization (or two) with which the Court is in active litigation involving said organization.

The main backers of most of the Far Right and their actions (from the Tea Party to "Citizens United" are two oil baron brothers, the Kock (pronounce Cook) brothers, who BTW are funding a Billionaires Retreat on how to finish taking over the country this weekend in Palm Springs. Both Justices Scalia and Thomas have spoken at these retreats in the past  Considering that the Koch brothers created "Citizens United," that is so clearly a Conflict 0f Interest that the whole "Citizens United" case would be thrown out -- except in this case, the Supreme Court is the last place a case goes in this country. Oh, well, so much for democracy.

So, Fart Proudly*, I say! Step right up (or is that Step Right up?) and stand proud for who you represent. The American People? Hell, no. Only the disembodied Corporate ones (you know? the ones recognized by Law as living forever?) however. No need to acknowledge those "Little People" ever again. They don't count, anyway.

[* The title of an essay by Benjamin Franklin.  "Fart Proudly, because you're an American." (When once that name, American, actually meant something.]

The Scourge of The Scooter

You see the ads for The Scooter Store on TV when you're watching late night or some of the cable channels, where they say that "You may qualify for a Scooter at no cost to you!" (What they don't say is that the government picks up the hefty cost of $10,000 adding to the burden of health care

My, how far disability has come!  Curb cuts, disability access on busses and in most newer buildings... It's a far cry from the older days when  people with disabilities were kept hidden from view or only taken out to doctors appointments or to say in the back yard on a sunny day. We live in a society that is increasingly stratified not only by race and money, but also by the gap between the (in some cases) very abled, (mostly  among the obsessively gym-going among us [the more well to do in most cases]) and the disabled community (those recognized as disabled and needing to have wheelchairs as well as those who because of weight or other physical issues may need then soon).

So you might say that the Scooter — the motorized one-stick-does-all carts — are a good thing. And for certain populations of the disabled, they are. For individuals with MS (I know two) and the extreme Elderly, they are. It's a good time for the mobility of those individuals who are still active in their minds, even if their bodies do not function as well as they would like.

But then there are those who make the transition from walking to the Scooter because it's easier to do. For some of those, active exercise might be of better prescription than taking the (apparently often) step to full dependence on having a chair that they are bound to.

Studies are showing use of the scooter type device increases cardiovascular functioning (when the body is not moving for long periods of time)1 that, once someone has made that choice, the lack of activity is not only not helpful, but leads to a quick decline in physiological functioning leading to an earlier death than might have been.  In these cases, it might have been better for these individuals to remain actively mobile until their functioning declines to the point of no return. Giving up is a sure way to give in.

The more active physically we stay, in other words, the longer our lives and the lesser our declines, leading to better quality of life. Some people manage to stay as active as they can until the day they die. In my church recently, a prime example of this was a "young" woman of 103, who got up and danced an an event. She was a shining example of what it means to grow old gracefully and live longer.

Before I go any further however, I should point out that I am not biased against the disabled in this case. I myself am physically disabled, owing to a work accident that I had in my early thirties. At that time, I was determined that, even with my doctors admonitions  that I was going to be crippled by arthritis in my knees by the time I am the age I am now aside, I was determined to be active and to recover as much as I could.

I wanted to be like that 103 year "old" woman and not be confined to a chair or scooter any sooner than I had to be. So far, I have been able to remain quite abled, doing things like dancing and hiking that I "shouldn't " be 'abled' to do by this time. I want to life my life to the fullest until that possibility is firmly retreating from my grasp.

And that is answer I would like to be giving to all that are able and active: to have the best possibility of quality of life is to remain active. "Do not go gentle into that good night..." but go actively. Don't fall prey to the idea that you don't have ability and mobility until your body tells you "no more." You don't have to be 'disabled' even at 100, unless your physical condition demands it.

Leave the Scooter and the Wheelchair until then.

1("Effect of Motorized Scooters on Quality of Life and Cardiovascular Risk"   www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20185015)

p.s. as I finish writing this, I've just found out that the fitness/nutrition guru Jack LaLanne has died. He is said to have exercised right up to his death yesterday... At the age of 96.


Friday, January 21, 2011

1st Anniversary of Supreme-ly Obscene Gesture to Democracy

Today is the first anniversary of the infamous Supreme Court decision of  the advocacy group called  "Citizens United," which isn't comprised of  "Citizens" in general, but a select few of the Supremely (and obscenely) Rich working to undercut anything but their agenda (which is to collect more obscene wealth and cut any and all regulations of their poisoning of America and the World).

By giving Corporations full "person" status, the Supreme Court had negated any and all of those of Us who don't have a spare few billion lying around to influence the process. It was a bold and very above ground taking down of democracy, and subverting the process of this Country through concerted Wealth and Power.

"We the People" is not Citizens United (the greed of the few), but should be citizens united (the will of the many). Please help to overturn this egregarious, obscene and corrupt abuse of our American Freedom and Process. It's no longer "We the People," but "We the Corporation." I'm not a corporation, and corporations are not people.

What's next? "You don't really need elections. We know what's in your best interest." The price of tyranny is slavery.

Friday, January 14, 2011

They Say...

In a recent set of editorials in the LA Times on the events in Tucson, one said that there was no connection between the Right Wing and the killer, Jared Loughner. The author also went on to say that there was no connection between the various Bird Deaths that have been taking place around the world and anything of apocalyptic content.

The other one said that just because Sarah Palin put various members of the Opposition Party in cross hairs, it had nothing really to do with the killings either. That if that were the case, then all the Media depicting killing, whether films or games, would have produced a rash of other killings. We wouldn't want to start censoring Hollywood, would we?

The idea of Connections, that certain events do not necessarily have any connection with actual events, is getting thinner. Just simply because One can't see connections, doesn't mean that they aren't there.

And connecting Sarah Palin with her propaganda of putting real humans in the cross hairs of rifle sites, and entertainment (however bloody), is not approriate. Yes, they have the same connotations, but one is real and the other imagination; they can both 'inspire' the mentally unbalanced to acts that have real world consequences, but the rhetoric of Palin and the Far Right is not falling on deaf ears, but eager ones.

The second editorialist would not want to go towards implicating FOX News and all of the other Far Right Pundits in his call for potential censorship, but he was obviously only going after That Other Side of Politics, claiming 'bigotry' and 'hypocracy' on the Left. "Fair and Balanced" my--

Sunday, January 9, 2011

New Years Evolutions

The New Years resolutions I've made are: No Judgements, No Expectations, and No Politics.

With the shootings yesterday... Oh, well. I'm loosing big time.

Time, and Time Again

Time is a funny thing. When you think you have plenty of it, you don't. When you're on the run, it moves so quickly. When you need to be somewhere now and the bus isn't coming, it can slow to a crawl.

I passed a billboard with a photo of the Beatles from circa 1970, from the period just about the time that Apple Records was crashing down around them and their breakup as a band was imminent. Their looks are serious, not at all the looks of a few years of time prior when during the Sgt. Peppers and Yellow Submarine periods they were usually seen in the playful, even ecstatic mode. Another aspect of time.

The photos we keep remind us of the passage of time. Seeing those of us who are now gone from this time also reminds us of the ultimate passage of time.

Time may heal all wounds, but it can also seal them and make scabs that can take years of more time to heal and fall away.

time and time again
we get reminded of when
time seemed to stretch for miles and miles
on an endless highway without signs
no mileage to remind us
of how little we will see this time

Time moves on. Unless you stop worrying about time. When you're in love, time stands still... Whisper to me of Eternity.

Responsibility and Peter Pan-ism

I have been told repeatedly, that one is not an adult unless one has fathered a child. And yet, on a bus recently, I was confronted by two loud "ghetto" (that's what they call it when they take over a bus or a corner and proceed to announce to the world... whatever)  twenty somethings that the children they created (one of them two by a woman/child that he didn't want to have anything to do with but for his 'kids'). As I was getting off the bus, the loudest (the two children) said, "Havin' kids just happens to the best of us" -- as if that justified it. Funny, I've never known having children to force anyone to grow up, and many still don't.

I have also been told that Women today are 'independent' and able to support themselves and a man if they want. But they still expect the Man to  make a lot of money. One couple I know of, the wife supports the husband and has for years, and he has apparently had a number of women supporting him in the past. I have also known several other men who, while the wife/girlfriend didn't support them completely, helped them out a great deal.

I've supported myself (some years better than others) most of my life. I've done my creative pursuits most of that life, paying for the doing of them by not exactly making a lot of money. I've been married twice, and each case the 'independent' woman I married soon expected me to support them. Not conducive to having creative time.

I've searched for someone to support me the way my first friend has been supported by a number of his girlfriends and then wife, but that creative thing and the money thing always seem to get in the way. The saying goes that "behind every great man stands a great woman."

I'm still looking for that "great woman" myself -- not out of a desire to not grow up, but because if I had that kind of support, who knows where I would be today? Life is enough of a struggle as it is. Add a rich Creative Impulse to that struggle, and it becomes a decision point (usually) of: responsibility/earning a living, or creative pursuit/not earning much of a living.

Now this is not to say that I haven't had the support of a number of loving friends over the years, because I have. I just haven't had that Partner along the way who had the steady job that might have provided for both of our welfare with my Creative Pursuit paving the way.

Soon my intention is that it won't matter any more. I am intending that this is the year of Breakthrough on many levels, the year of fulfillment of the promise of the years that I have put into the Creative Pursuit.

Reminisce

I smelled a familiar scent in the air one night about two weeks ago right before Christmas. It was one from my childhood and it was one of wonder and one I hadn't remembered smelling for a very long time. It reminded me of the season we were in, and took me back to much simpler times (in a way). It was a scent that felt like wood fires burning somewhere close, combined with that of snow on the chill winter air.

Now normally, it would strike me as a wonderful experience... It once upon a time meant that everything would be made new by a new blanket of chilled white covering all the imperfections of this world, even if only for a day and a night.

Once upon a time, it was magic.

And it would be still. If I were standing in Indianapolis, Indiana, that is, and I weren't really standing in Los Angeles, California. It's supposed to snow in Indianapolis this time of year. It isn't in LA (even though it did, however briefly in Mailbu a couple of years ago).

It's hard enough for me to be here sometimes, especially with the temperatures in the seventies and eighties, and especially during the season where you are hearing "songs of joy and peace" extolling the snow falling and how wonderful it is to see. A serious disconnect as I'm walking in Hollywood, even though I had been just the week before walking past a big Hollywood type of display of the Hollywood Hills covered in three feet of snow.

The clean scent of magic (however wonderful), in (at) an inappropriate time. Boding? As I have said before, the day snow starts falling for real in large quantities in El Lay, is the day that I go back to the Other Coast, where I can expect snow to be falling at that time of year.

Still, it was a wonderful reminisce...

Risk Is My Middle Name

I've been taking risks all my life.

The first risk I took was in not taking my parents fervent wishes seriously about taking my education past the two year degree that I received with the double major of Art and English to the next level. I did not really like formal education, not being very good at studying and preparing for work by deadlines (a still serious flaw of mine if you will). That did not stop me from studying till this very day, but I don't like to do anything formally, much less the gathering of knowledge.

I told them at the time (I was sure) that I could starve just as easily (being an artist) on a two year degree as much as a four or six-year set of degrees. My next youngest brother has three degrees — none of which he seems to be using in his current job (well, maybe parts of his MBA). I don't even remember what degree my sister got, and my youngest brother inherited even less of an aptitude for formalized education than I did.

The second risk that I took was baring more than my soul for art classes by being an art model. Yes, of the nude variety. It helped to pay the rent, and out of modeling for one class at a nearby community college not of my childhood county (which I would never have gone to for studying), I learned the Old Masters technique known as Egg Tempura Crosshatch. This method was from the Middle Ages, and involved mixing pigment with egg yolk.

It started me on a medium that, although I didn't keep up for too many years (it's a tedious application of painting, requiring the buildup of many hundreds or thousands of layers, stroke by laborious stroke) led me into the derivative style of drawing using the same technique but with colored pencils that I have used till this very day, (When I have the time to draw that is. I have long since tired of trying to earn a living at it, but hope to pick that business up again when my money is coming in. More later.)

If I hadn't taken that 'risk' (baring all), I wouldn't have been exposed to that technique and my art would have been the less focused for it.

The third risk that I undertook was when I was twenty-four (and this was the most major risk that I've taken in my life). I decided to try my hand at the then current mode of travel accessed by sticking my thumb out on the side of a highway and accepting the graciousness of random strangers. I learned many things at the risk of this, and thereafter called myself a roads scholar. I had many experiences that I would not have had otherwise.

Out of the experiences I had On The Road, I've written two screenplays, one of which is quickly becoming my second finished novel. I had experiences that both broadened my life, and in some cases felt like it was also going to be the end of it as well. But that obviously didn't happen.

I have also taken the risk of my life in driving cab for a living (much more lucrative on the East Coast than here), as well as having moved all the way to Los Angeles (for the second time) to try to make my mark in both acting and screenwriting.  Hope springs eternal; rent due arrives each month.

I have in the last two years also been living close to the edge, spending a lot of it couch surfing (sleeping on a variety of friends couches), and also having the most productive two years of my life at the risk of writing (large amounts of time in solitary confinement with just me and my computer). Unless you're writing solely short stories for your livelihood, writing scripts (I've finished six and written on portions of twenty-two others), or writing as a journalist, writing is not a short term solution to riches and happiness. If I could write a horror movie script that had all the elements I abhor in movies, I might have made those thousands of dollars.

Now I am taking the risk of converting those finished scripts into novel form. The longer form not only takes much more time than a script, but may be equally unsold at the end of it all.

Recently, I took another risk. I enrolled in, and attended, a weekend seminar in real estate investment. I spent (in monthly installments I am still paying off) what for me was a huge sum of money, with the hopes and dreams of making a living doing something that all of my friends and family wished me a very hesitant "good luck" in (to which my business partners and myself are still hoping to make our first sale in).

Life is full off risks. You can think that you're not taking risks, but every day you step outside the door to your dwelling, you never know where that day will take you. It might just be shopping, or then again it might be to the end of your life (as happened for five people yesterday in Arizona). You never know. "One never knows the hour or the day" that one is going to be called from this life. But everyone is always risking; some great risks, and others everyday risks. Simply by crossing the street these days you can be risking taking your life in somebody else's hands. 

With Great Risks, come Great Rewards. At least I'm hoping so.

Second Amendment Wrongs

Once again a sick act of monstrous proportions has happened by a member of the hard right wing of the "Republican" Party. Someone has taken his version of 'The Law' into his own hands, feeling fully justified from his mentally skewed  perspective that Might makes Right, and he was Right. Now a number of members of the other party and several innocent bystanders are dead.

He sited (apparently) the Ad from Sarah Palin's political action committee (called SARAHpac) that has a hit list of those of members of Congress they want to 'take out' with targets on the various states where these 'hits' are supposed to take place. They (the Right Wing) will say that Palin's illustration had nothing to do with the actions committed on Saturday.

But it's sickly ridiculous that the Far Right site their freedom of speech to say whatever they want (even to the point of incitement to murder), and then move to curtail anyone else's who doesn't believe as they do. This has now reached its peak in this outright incitement of its most "Incitement to Riot" is the political equivalent of shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater (the furthest extent of Freedom of Speech allowed in our society).

They who shout the loudest of their Second Amendment Right to Bear Arms, are usually the ones using those arms to exact the 'vengeance of the Lord' or just out to make their mark on society. Those who champion this 'right' are usually the first ones to use those "constitutionally protected" weapons on others.

No amount of apologies or condolences by Palin and her Ultra-Right Wing ilk over the next few days will bring back the lives of the 9 year-old and the others killed on Saturday. No amount of justification can be used, for this act and those surely to follow (copycats portraying themselves as "patriots"). And no amount of spinning this into left wing conspiracy theater on the TV and radio shows of the Neo-Con and just plain Con wing of the nuthouse party, will be able to erase the blood stain on the Republican Party (the God Offal Party). 

Sarah Palin and all the others (hear me, FOX?) who spout this crackpot form of 'free speech' should all be held as coconspirators to murder, as well as incitement to murder, both of which are 'assesory before the fact ' in Capital murder cases.  They can justify these acts as "righteous vengeance of the Lord" all they want. But murder is still murder, no matter what the cause.

"It's Time to Take a Stand," says the ad. I say that for Palin and her kind, it's time to take The Stand and answer for her crime.