It’s nearly 6 months since my last post. Apparently I did not become the prolific writer I envisioned at the beginning of quarantine. Let’s be honest, none of what any of us envisioned at the beginning of quarantine is relevant now. My last post was a view from a peak that was occupied painfully briefly. How different might things be now, had we been led to embrace rather that resent that whistle stop on what was to become our bullet train to hell?

Those first weeks of quarantine look quaint and naive in the rear view. Sure, there was panic at grocery stores and crazy hoarding. But there was also quiet. Empty streets. Neighbors taking care of those who couldn’t leave their homes. The birds filled the trees in a way I don’t recall since early childhood. There was a momentary sense of national hope, as one imagines might have existed during the WWII days. Or at least it exists in movies about the WWII days, and it felt like maybe we could find our national conscience, and maybe a bit of unity again. But it was March. March is cold and dreary and most people are happy to have an excuse not to deal with March. So those couple of weeks turned into a month without much resistance. Then April came. And the sun came out, and people wanted to go outside. The virus was mostly hitting the coasts – LA and NY were in far worse shape than most of the rest of the country, and given a complete lack of national leadership, states were pretty much doing whatever the loudest voices wanted. And we lurched toward summer.

Schools had finished the year remotely. Parents were totally over it. Kids were over it. Everyone was looking for a sense of normalcy. But the thing is, the virus didn’t care. It barreled through state after state, defying a clueless president to stop it. Even in areas that had been carefully trying to follow recommendations and be safe, people started insisting that things had to get back to normal. As Memorial Day and the beginning of summer loomed, political leaders buckled. Bars opened. Restaurants opened. Beaches and recreation areas opened. Politicians covered their asses with exhortations to stay 6 feet apart and wear masks. But there was no one to hear them; everyone was packed into a bar or on a boat or at a beach party.

And 2 weeks later cases exploded. But that became second page news, because a cop in Minneapolis murdered George Floyd. A country that was cooped up, unemployed, and led by the most racist president in decades erupted in justifiable rage. Protests took over the streets and everyone’s daily reality. For the first time, mainstream America couldn’t ignore the pain of 400 years of oppression. George Floyd was every mother’s son. And despite the virus and all the related suffering, the movement continues. There are areas of sustained protest still. It played a pivotal role in the lead up to the November presidential race.

I write this on the day after the close of the 2020 Democratic National Convention, an event indescribably different from what anyone would expect from a convention. Any virtual event is weird, and disconnected, and stilted. But that’s not why this one was so unique. There is such an overriding sense of desperation, of panic, of helplessness among the majority of Americans who hate trump. But even that majority can’t guarantee his defeat. It feels like we’re all trapped in the family home with a serial killer, watching the slaughter, hoping one of us is able to stop him before we’re all dead. And I wish I was being overly dramatic for effect.

The last 3 1/2 years have been so exhausting, so spiritually grueling, so mentally twisted that it feels impossible. I’ve been a political cynic all of my adult life. I’ve backed a loser in every presidential election. But they were the right people. They were the ones who said ‘we have to fix this’. They were the ones who said we could be better if we wanted to be. We could make the United States what it always claimed, but never was. They had big ideas and great vision, and most people laughed at those candidates. They lost handily. And I went on to vote for the candidate that had D next to his name, and hoped they would prove me wrong. It is cold comfort to be right when it has landed us all in such a completely fucked pile of shit. Joe Biden is just one more in a long line of people I not only wouldn’t vote for in a primary, but that I knew would be a placeholder in office. A person that kept everything intact for the next guy. No big changes, no real issues addressed, just enough nice legislation to keep the money rolling. But now, Biden has gotten the nomination at a time when that will be impossible. More Americas are dead from Covid than died in Vietnam and every following conflict combined. We’re approaching the number of dead from the atomic attack at Hiroshima plus Nagasaki. And there is no reason to believe it will be contained any time soon. Prominent Black voices are engaged at the highest levels. They will not be going away. The virus has pulled the curtain completely back on the crisis of for-profit healthcare. All of this will land on Biden’s head on inauguration day if he is elected. If trump prevails, it will bury us.

I lost a dear friend in June. A gifted, hard working Black artist. We were acting partners, he made music with my husband, and he was dear friends with my kids and their partners as well. Covid’s isolation wore on his spirit. During video chats we could see that he was struggling to keep up his positivity. When George Floyd was murdered, a shadow fell over Garry. The shadow won the fight and we lost one of the best people I have ever known. I haven’t left my house for more than an hour or so of shopping (and done that only a few times) since March. I have no hope of that changing anytime soon. Do I desperately want out of here? For sure. But for the sake of all of us, and for the memory of all who have been lost, we have to do it right. We have to get it right. The world we closed our doors on in March is gone. We have to do better this time.

September 2019. The last time I posted here. My uber critical inner voice slapped me around for a minute when I saw that. I knew it had been too long but geez. And then I remembered what I’ve done between then and now. New Orleans. Paris. London. Oh, and a cruise to Mexico which now seems like a really bad idea. But the rest of the list were all solid choices.

How different the world looks, 6 months later.

As one who has always welcomed (or made up) any excuse to stay home, being a part of an externally necessitated lock down should be comfortable. Yet the unease and awareness of a not-quite-right world is inescapable. My mind keeps pondering whether this might be something besides a temporary quarantine. Most people seem to be approaching this as a couple (or a few) weeks of downtime, akin to a post-natural disaster period when everything is upside down but we are able to observe the progress back to normalcy.

But what if it’s something else? What if this is the planet’s pushback from our incessant assault? What if this virus dismantles our systems, our priorities, our expectations beyond the point of no return? Would that be a bad thing? I am not sure, but this question refuses to loosen its grip on my mind.

Maybe it’s because I have had a fundamental lack of faith in modern society for the entirety of my adult life. I entered adulthood believing that my generation would fix the fucked up world that Nixon had birthed. Of course I soon learned that he was but one actor in a far more complex political sham otherwise known as the USA. Imperialism, racism, sexism, the incredible inequality inherent in capitalism all became pieces of my disillusionment. But none of it was as crushing as the endless acceptance of the status quo when we were offered alternatives.

I have supported every true progressive that has ever run for office and I’ve gotten my heart broken more times than I even remember. I often feel completely alone in my commitment to those who have no voice, but I am not. I have allies that I know and many I will never meet, but we seem to never get quite enough energy to make it over the top. So we lick our wounds and wait for the next politician with actual values and hope that he or she will be the one.

Maybe the planet is tired of waiting. Maybe we’ve had enough warning and she is no longer interested in our moderate, centrist, we can’t afford it bullshit excuses. Maybe, just maybe, we have created a reality that is unsustainable and we are being forced to face it with no way out.

Maybe not. Perhaps this virus will be contained relatively efficiently and we will go right back to abusing the most vulnerable, including our Mother. But I hope not. I hope the systems that keep society sick, that keep the rich in power and everyone else in line, and that keep breaking my heart, will fall. I have no image of the world that follows, but I have to believe it will be an improvement over the one in which people empty store shelves so they can resell at a hefty mark up those things that keep their neighbors alive and functioning. The one in which our love of convenience and our personal fulfillment outweigh our concern for human survival. The one in which a leader is chosen by how well they fit our image of leadership, rather than their demonstration of it.

To quote that overrated song, you may say I’m a dreamer. But I have always believed that my perspective is completely practical. A world in which the majority is cared for and supported, a world in which we understand and respect the consequences of our actions, a world in which we consciously live a life of our choice rather than the one that the powerful design is not the stuff of dreams. The only unrealistic element is the necessity to level the power structure. And the unlikelihood of that is, perhaps, why the choice may no longer be ours.

September 6, 2019

I read a heartbreaking story this week about a man found dead on a West LA street. A 51-year old man died on the sidewalk. Blocks from where he died, some of the most powerful lawyers, financiers, real estate developers in the country go to work every day. The premier public institution of higher learning and research in the country is barely a mile away. And a man can die on the sidewalk, homeless and alone.

The reaction on social media was sadness, disturbed disbelief. But how many times do those who are shocked walked past a dirty, disheveled homeless person with nothing but disdain? Or claim that they can’t give money to someone who will probably use it for drugs or booze? We refer to the homeless as ‘them’. They are mentally ill. They don’t like authority. They resist help. I hear those excuses all the time. But the homelessness crisis is not limited to the mentally ill, or veterans, or those who choose the fringes of society. Too many simply can’t afford the required rent and have nowhere to go.

Yet there is angry resistance to any kind of rent control. It’s unfair to the people who carry the financial responsibility. How can anyone make a profit if their hands are tied? No one will want to be a property owner. Renters are flaky. Renters don’t take care of their places. The excuses are endless.

I live in a city where once upon a time, a public school teacher could own a home on a single income. That same teacher can’t afford a 2-bedroom apartment now. But the market dictates so whose fault is it? Developers who want to make ever more money? Politicians who refuse to stand up to the developers? Stagnant wages?

It’s all of those and none of them. It’s far more fundamental and endemic in my mind.

I was watching Property Brothers. I hate Property Brothers. I resent everything it stands for. I hate the HGTVing of our living spaces. I hate the idea that every house has to be “updated” before it’s put on the market. I hate that they make every space look the same. But mostly I hate their contribution to spiraling housing costs. It’s bad enough in major cities, but people expect to pay a premium in cities. Driving up the prices in moderate communities is, to me, unconscionable. The Brothers and other HGTV shows have successfully transformed our national idea of what our homes should look like; they have given us a template by which we measure whether our homes are satisfactory.

That’s despicable.

Our homes should be a reflection of who we are. A home should be a place that we treasure for the people it houses and welcomes. It should shelter us and embrace us and it should evolve with us. In the episode I watched, the family whose current house was being “updated” to be able to list for max profit walked in to see the finished refresh and commented, “It looks like a luxury hotel!” As if that is a good thing. The obsession with perfectly current, on-trend houses is coming at a very high price.

We see our homes as bearing an innate financial reward. We buy houses with an eye on what we’ll be able to get when we sell. This is not normal. Historically, houses have been places to live, not a way to increase wealth. Thanks 1980s, just one more gift that keeps on giving. Every time we buy a house, hit refresh, resell at a profit, the market is driven up. Housing gets out of reach for more people. Additionally, property values on rentals goes up along with single family homes. I live in a rental house that’s under LA rent control. The property was purchased in 2007 by an investor. He paid more than the property was worth and struggled the whole time he owned it. He sold it in 2015. The new owners tried to evict us “because they wanted to charge more rent.” That was ridiculously illegal, when they realized they couldn’t do that, they re-listed. They sold it 6 months after buying it (and putting almost no money into it) for a $25,000 profit. That profit is insane.

We can claim compassion for the man that died on the street, but if we believe in capitalism and the inherent righteousness of the profit model, we contribute to his death. If we believe that making money on our own property is more important than ensuring that everyone has a roof over their heads, we are complicit. Our hunger for personal wealth allows us to vote down laws that would benefit those who can’t afford housing. Instead we side with the wealthy in the fantasy belief that we too can someday make a killing off that real estate. Don’t limit the profit opportunity, I may have a chance someday.

Capitalism is literally killing us and we ignore it as stubbornly as we ignore climate change in the face of rising seas, raging wild fires and monstrous hurricanes.

Money. Either we break up our obsessive affair with it, or we will continue to doom ourselves, one and all.

September 5, 2019

Why are men such pigs?

Anyone who knows me knows that I have the very best male partner anyone could ask for. So I know it’s not all men. But seriously, it’s way too many.

I started playing Words with Friends in order to play with a good friend whose Scrabble skills and competitive nature are akin to mine. We’ve been having a ton of fun, lots of good games. Soon I started to get game requests. Sure, I’ll play with anyone.

Then the messages started.

First it was an innocuous “Hi”, to which I naively responded in kind. That led to several personal questions which I declined to answer. Eventually the guy’s insistence became annoying and I quit that game. Then I got another request. Started that game. Same thing again. Ended up quitting that game too.

Today took the cake. I played a few rounds with a guy who then finally started the conversation. But didn’t just say hi. No, this guy gave me a full-blown, fern bar-worthy pick up. I didn’t reply. Just kept playing. Then he nudged the conversation again. I informed him that I was there to play, not flirt. His response? Not oh, I’m sorry, didn’t mean to offend. Or even a simple ok. No. He then tells me he wants to tell me something on Hangouts.

ARE ALL MEN THIS THICK? Is my husband the only man who has any respect for what a woman says?

When did participation in a public game become an invitation to be hit on? My profile pic is me with my husband, very obviously madly in love. Does that deter someone from making me a target? No.

Fuck this shit man. We don’t owe you our attention. We don’t owe you our politeness. If you’re fortunate enough to engage in any sort of exchange with any woman, consider yourself lucky. This is what we deal with on a daily basis.

September 4, 2019

I am in such a rut. In the last week I’ve started no fewer than a dozen posts, none of which have seen the light of day. Er, blog. Do you ever have those times when there is so much swirling in your brain that to finish a sentence is a triumph? That’s me now.

Politics is strangling me. Every fucking day there is so much to digest that it becomes impossible to even swallow. Concentration camps. A raving lunatic running the county. Climate urgency. I try to step back and take a teeny little bite off but even that gets to be too much. I tell myself it’s ok to be unfocused. To need time to process it all. But that feels like a cop out and ultimately, I just feel like a failure.

So this is me, addressing the struggle. After leaving my corporate job, I feel a responsibility to contribute and yet I can’t always accomplish anything that feels like a contribution. So I will exist. I will be a person. For the moment, that’s what I can do.

Maybe tomorrow will be better.

August 25, 2019

Alec and I placed a spoonful of Gato’s ashes in a velvet pouch, put it in a small box and wrapped it in one of the last photos of him before he died, printed on our low-end black and white printer. In the photo, he’s lying on top of Alec during one of our Sunday morning coffee rituals, his paw seemingly hugging his beloved master. Our dear friend James will be taking Gato to the temple at Burning Man. I ached to be the one to place this bit of our sweet boy in the place that has come to be my root, a place that symbolizes both the eternal and the amorphous, the universal permanence and evanescence that is this life. But he is in the best, most appropriate hands with James, who is more like family than friend, who loved Gato and was loved by him.

Gato came into my life when Emily convinced her cat-hating father that she desperately needed a cat. Emily is an animal-choosing savant, and Gato immediately proved his superiority to all beings, even as a 10-week old kitten. There was an awareness from the moment he arrived that we would all be at his mercy from then on (not unlike my feeling when Emily arrived), that this was a being of such unique and unexpected intelligence and elegance that he was clearly to be the owner of us. And so it was. He was spunky, bitchy, loving, indifferent. He leaped to the highest heights (often to his own consternation when unable to find a way down), burrowed under the lowest lows. When his 2-year old self became too aggressive and started drawing blood when chasing the ankles of his young co-habitants, and the girls’ father threatened to remove him from the family, I suggested getting another cat as a companion upon completion of the Google research necessary to counter the effort to exile the family’s new emperor. When the newest feline member of the household was introduced, Gato’s disapproval was palpable and characteristic. But once he accepted that Little Bit was neither leaving nor edible, a new side of Gato was born: the mother.

Little Bit was (and is) a special needs kitten. He was found with his siblings, separated for an unknown amount of time from his mother. His foster family was involved in the adoption process, as they were very concerned that his adoptive family understand and appreciate his quirks. They had named him Hoover for his need to suck on their hands, as if they were mama. It was heartbreaking and endearing and it is to this day. Gato seemed to instinctively understand Little Bit. Once he was over the hump of having to share his people, he became Little Bit’s primary nurturer. He allowed the kitten to suck on him as if he had teets. He groomed him. He curled around him when they slept. And over the years, he taught him to cat. Little Bit followed Gato’s lead in grooming (although not very well, he still looks confused by how his parts work), Gato encouraged him to explore the house when he was much more comfortable remaining under the bed, and he helped him, over a very long period of years, to trust strangers.

Gato was the household’s lord protector. Whenever someone came to the door, Gato ran to the arm of the sofa closest to the door and would mewl until the interloper took their assigned seat next to the arm, where Gato would put his front paws on the top of their head and proceed to sniff (and occasionally nibble) their hair in order to ascertain their suitability for visitation privileges. If you didn’t pass muster, woe betide thee. But if you were a return visitor, it would be a brief and more loving ritual, especially if you had wisely offered proper fealty to his highness. He knew when any of us was unhappy or unwell. He would curl up on the bed when either of the girls was sick and whine if he believed proper action was not being taken on their behalf. He comforted me oh so many times during the period leading up to my divorce.

For a period of time in 2008, I existed in a semi-colon. My marriage was over, we had made the decision to split up, but the school year was a few weeks from over and we didn’t want to cast a pall over Emily’s Middle School graduation. So for about 8 weeks, I spent every night on the couch of our den, some unwatched tv show softly on in the background, crying. And every single night, Gato snuggled in next to me, his constant purr a reminder that life would eventually again have something resembling joy for me. When the girls and I moved to our post-divorce Burbank apartment, Gato scoped it out and quickly made a pact with the resident spirits ensuring that they could play their requisite games with the mortals, but Gato would stand firmly in between us and any malevolence. There were many weird occurrences in that space, and a few areas that were always uncomfortable. But Gato was always vigilant, and often entertaining in his interaction with its eternal occupants.

When I met Alec, I knew immediately that he was a permanent part of our lives. He came over for dinner a little over a week later. The girls had already met him briefly, but he had yet to be reviewed by the house mother. Gato’s immediate reaction was the same as usual, but he settled into approval mode almost immediately. He too knew that Alec belonged with us, and they bonded hard and fast. Alec is tall, and Gato reveled in perching on his shoulders. He’d wrap himself around Alec’s head (none too comfortable for him, and yet he delighted in it) and would stay for seemingly impossible amounts of time as Alec tried to function with a nearly 20-pound creature attached to his neck. I loved how Gato loved him.

My first Burn was in 2010, before I met Alec. I was just over 2 years out of 17 years of marriage to a person who dis-assembled my self-confidence (what little I had), my identity, my independence. I had been told for so long why I should be afraid, how I was incapable, how I was worthless. When I went to work at Disney, I met 2 people who became central to the process of unlearning these deeply felt realities. One of them introduced me to the idea of being a Burner. I knew of Burning Man, knew others who had been several times, but I didn’t understand the community or the essence of being a Burner. The more I learned, the more I recognized my need to be there. To put my feet on the Playa and experience the 10 Principles: Radical Inclusion, Gifting, Radical Self Reliance, Decommodification, Radical Self Expression, Communal Effort, Civic Responsibility, Leaving No Trace, Participation, Immediacy. It sounded like a blue print for the world my internal utopian optimist always believed was possible. But going to Burning Man requires money, planning, and a lot of information. It became an “I’ll get there eventually”, until a friend at work was invited to go with friends who were going for the first time and had lost one of their travel mates. He walked up to my desk and told me that he could get me a spot in an RV if I could get a ticket and pull my necessities together. I looked at him like he was insane, it was 10 days before the day they were leaving for the Playa. But as my logical brain formed the words, my irrational and much wiser heart said oh hell yes. And 10 days later we were on our way.

Burning Man 2010 was a different animal than the high-tech money fest that has become its reputation in the years since. The Burning Man organization didn’t even have a decent website, much less a corporate structure. The “plug & play” camps, those that put up massive amounts of capital to offer an exclusive, glam experience to those who can pony up the money didn’t exist. The airport hadn’t been built. The business of selling Burner accessories hadn’t really taken off, since Pinterest and Etsy were still small and relatively uncommodified. The interim evolution has been controversial and is probably permanent, but I was fortunate to lose my Burner virginity in a still-naïve Black Rock City, where the only expectation I observed was don’t be an asshole. I found a community of radical individuality cloaked in deepest compassion, creativity and acceptance. This was a temporary city built of thousands of individual intentions and the excitement of sharing them. It was a playground of deepest love and support, an environment of encouragement to express every aspect of yourself every single moment without hesitation and without fear of judgment. But it was in the middle of the harshest, least forgiving physical environment, one which required constant vigilance to remain healthy. 100+ degree temperatures, <5% humidity and several thousand feet of elevation join forces to challenge your system to sustain hydration, energy, consciousness. Wind storms stir up out of nowhere to envelop the Playa in whiteout conditions that last seconds or, occasionally, hours. Disorientation, thirst, hunger can easily turn into a life-threatening event. I left Burbank for Burning Man with a driving need to prove to myself that I was a deserving member of a community that was made up of shared creativity, passion to express, and the rejection and pain that usually accompanies a desire to live outside the corporate norm. And I went with a more basic need to prove to myself that I could survive. I had my share of scares in that week. But I had far more revelations about myself, my place in this life, and my own capability. I survived. I thrived. I changed.

When I met Alec and told him about the Burner community, he admired the idea but didn’t think Burning Man would be for him. I accepted that, but quietly believed he was wrong. He finally decided in 2015 that he wanted to go, and we did. I knew it wouldn’t be the same as my 2010 Burn, too much had changed. But what remained at that time was the magic of the Playa, the heart of the community (if altered by the presence of the oh so pretty, immaculately and impossibly dust free moneyed class), the art. And the temple. There is a holiness about the temple that defies religion, that vibrates with the divine. Burners leave memorials to be sent to eternity with the flames of the temple burn on Sunday evening. Our visit to the temple that week was particularly moving and soon after, Alec declared that we absolutely had to return the next year. Another Burner was born. When we returned a year later, we brought a number of photos and momentos of those we’d lost, and wrote notes on the structure itself on behalf of friends who’d lost loved ones. It was one of the most profound parts of that week, and watching the temple burn at the end of it was very emotional for both of us.

When we lost Gato last year, we had his ashes delivered to us afterward. They’ve sat on our mantle since and we really hadn’t known what to do with them. Where do you sprinkle someone who lived their entire life indoors? I don’t remember which one of us realized that Gato belonged at the temple. When James asked if we’d like him to take anything to the temple for us, since we’re not going to the Playa this year, we knew he was the perfect conservator to deliver Gato to the care of the universe. We will watch the temple burn next Sunday, and will cry happy sad tears as we watch the bursts of spark dance around the rising heat and disperse into the vastness. Rest in the arms of the divine, my best boy.

August 24, 2019

Explosions rocked the small house where the young mother sat reading to her babies. She quickly moved her children away from the window, devastated that the brief few hours of peace were over. She turned back to the story, her son’s favorite, about the turtle and the iguana, just as the gunfire began to rattle the windows. She stiffened enough for her son to notice, and he put his hand on her arm as if to comfort her fears. But the sweet gesture was not enough to keep her mind from spinning on what she knew to be an inevitable decision. Her neighborhood would not be protected much longer. They would have to go.

She stroked her son’s head as a means to calm her own nerves and began to think through what she needed to do. And where to go? Her sister had left months ago, her parents were dead, her husband’s family all gone too. Tears stung the corners of her eyes as she stared, unfocused, at the robin’s egg blue walls. She remembered how embarrassed her husband was when he first brought her to this house just after they were married. He thought the color was undignified. But she laughed at his chagrin and delighted in the calm, gentle color. She envisioned sitting in the big chair over the years, nursing each of her three children and staring as the light danced on the wall, whether daylight or moonlight. She loved the shadows that played through the boughs of the tree outside the door, loved imagining the lives of the many creatures she concocted with the changing light. A tear made its way slowly to her chin as she realized she would never see this place again. Her son patted her arm again and she tried to smile.

She got up and sat her son down in the chair as she searched for a paper and pencil to begin making a list of what was to be done. Explosions rocked the house and adrenaline pulsed through her chest as the urgency pressed on her temples. How much can I get in 2 suitcases? Clothes. Diapers. Is there gas in the car? There had been so little money since her husband had died that she didn’t know how far she could get in the car. But she knew how fortunate she was to have one, and was grateful to get as far as she could in it. Bottles for the baby. Food. Oh how would they have enough food? She had no idea where or when they would reach someplace where she could buy anything. Water. She began to cry and sat down on a stool in the kitchen. Her head rested on her arm as she silently cried out to the heavens, wanting so much to be back in the safe, happy life she had built such a short time before. Before her third pregnancy was difficult and she had to spend precious, expensive weeks in the hospital. Before her husband had been fired for too much time off while he had to take care of the babies. Before he died, overcome by exhaustion and failure and despair. She saw his gentle face in her mind and wanted so badly for him to be there, with her, so together they could escape the chaos around them. She choked back the sobs, wiped her eyes and returned to the now-tear stained list and added to it.

The baby got fussy and her attention returned to her children. The fear surged through her as she tried to imagine how they would get to where ever it was they needed to go. How do you plan a journey when you don’t know the destination? She picked up the baby and made a silent promise that she would keep them all safe. Her son stroked his baby sister’s head and told her that she shouldn’t cry, mama loves you. She kissed his head and told him that yes, she loves all of her babies and that they were going to be leaving soon on an adventure. His face lit up as he ran through a recitation of all the places they had ever visited, wanting to know which they were going to this time. She held his chin in her hand, kissed his forehead and told him.

We’re going to America. We’ll be safe there.

August 22, 2019

Money makes the world go ’round. Every day I’m hustlin. Money; that’s what I want.

Have you ever done a Google search for songs about money? It’s endless. You’d probably only find more titles about love.

We are taught about the need for money from birth. or pretty close to it. We’re taught to have a good work ethic. To earn what we want. To value according to cost and effort required to attain. We faithfully enter the workforce to contribute our effort to the collective economy and to be able to have and do what we want in our blossoming lives. But do we ever stop to think about just how completely fucked up that entire template really is? There may be a period of idealism for many when they’re teenagers or in the early twenties and are able to retain the dreaminess required to see past the exhaustion of existence, but fewer and fewer even get that luxury. We’re hustling in high school. Raising money for our underfunded schools; trying to pay for whatever fun we want to have since few parents have the extra income necessary to support their kids’ entertainment. Who has time to imagine a world where peoples’ lives are built around something besides economic survival?

So few are willing to question our feedback loop of workwork/rest, workwork/rest, our inexorably monetized world that they are shunned as Socialists and Commies and considered unworthy of serious attention. But the system is destroying, well, everything. It’s on the brink of destroying the goddamned planet. How much more obvious can it be that something doesn’t work than to witness its decimation of the *actual* planet? And yet the dollar and obsession with it continues to reign supreme. Are we collectively sedated by the few comforts our lives afford us? Is the ability to spend a couple hours with the kids at the end of a long workday with a beer in hand so seductive that we can’t see the 50 hours a week we spend with people we often don’t even like (much less respect), and for so little recompense that we can barely afford that beer? Do we not recognize how fucked up it is to sell this paradigm to our kids? Hey honey, I want you to be happy so work hard and maybe someday you too can be a wage slave. It’s psychotic.

So what do we do? That’s what I’m trying to figure out. A big element of my decision to leave my comfy, safe, Happiest Place on Earth job was my conscience. I vowed from the time I really understood Capitalism and its poisonous corporate universe that I would do as little as possible to contribute to its dominance, and I would certainly do my best to not benefit from it. But divorce and kids have a sobering effect on one’s idealism and I sucked it up and cashed those paychecks. But when my youngest graduated from college and left home, I realized that I was now staying by choice and not necessity. I had to go. So here I am, no longer suckling the Disney teet, but what else am I doing? What can I do in support of a sustainable economic system, one that allows all to succeed in their chosen way? Success defined by net worth is the only success we recognize. We wave our flags celebrating our freedom but there is no freedom without economic security, so are we not all actually enslaved? There are so many other ways to have a fulfilling life. Actually there are nothing BUT better ways to be fulfilled. We just don’t recognize or value them. How do I spend the remainder of my life fighting for that kind of society?

I don’t have an answer yet. But posing the question is necessary to find an answer. Stay tuned as I struggle toward it. What I know right now is that money is very much not the answer.

Solidarity.

August 21, 2019

Let’s get started.

I stare at this mass of open space and my brain caroms between urgent subject matter: do I write about trump? Immigration? Climate change? Racism? Economic inequity? The failure of capitalism? Art? Theatre? Love? Life? My cats?

Heavy sigh.

The answer is yes. I do. I will. If you know me well, you know my biggest problem in life is the inability to make a decision. Which often leads to the inability to take a first step. Welcome to my first step. If you’re reading this, I thank you for supporting me because that is the only logical reason for your eyes to be on this. I hope that eventually those who don’t know me personally will find some common ground here, some shared humanity, a place to feel less insane in this rabbit hole world we find ourselves occupying.

Here’s to getting started, to first steps, to failure, to success, to the effort.

Solidarity.

This past June, I left Walt Disney Animation Studios after almost 11 years. Most of that time was pretty great, even (maybe more like especially) when we weren’t “succeeding”. I joined the company just before the release of Bolt, which was a huge disappointment theatrically. I’ll never forget the Monday after opening weekend, when it grossed ~$26mil, dwarfed by Twilight‘s $129mil. We gathered in the area known as the Caffeine Patch to hear John Lasseter tell us that we shouldn’t be disappointed, that the movie deserved much better than it got – better marketing, a better release date, a better reception. He assured us that we had made a great film, one that would one day be loved as its predecessors were. As hard as that message was to internalize when the world was telling us we made shit, everyone standing there knew he was right.

I think about that time a lot. I never wanted to work at a mega corporation, but Disney Animation (at the time) was a lot more like an underdog than the juggernaut is it now. The Studio hadn’t had a hit since long before Pixar had been acquired, and many people felt it was just a matter of time before it was quietly closed. But when a building is full of the kind of talent, creativity, dedication, and pure passion that was in that room that day, you can’t count it out. Despite pressure from parts of the Company that believed they were the true Disney, the Animation Studio withstood the pressure and went on to exceed all expectations creatively and financially, because at its heart it was the product of the people in that room.

In many ways I feel the same way about the country right now. Are we going to continue to be pushed further into economic inequality? Will we allow those who believe that we are no longer a nation of immigrants to define us? Or will we reinvent ourselves?

What do we want?

I have voted in nine presidential elections. In not a single one was my Primary choice on the ballot on election day. Not one. I was raised to believe that my responsibility as a citizen is not just to vote, but to fight for the person that I believe reflects my priorities, and those that I believe will best serve the future of the country (and by extension, the world). My father taught me politics and justice and commitment, a foundation upon which several PoliSci professors helped me build a passionate insistence upon truth, equality, and protection of the vulnerable. I have never and will never support a candidate whose commitment to those concepts is wishy washy.

and yet I had to vote for candidates that did not live up to my standards.

I have been the quintessential nose-holding voter. The single exception was Obama. I had not supported him in the Primary because I felt he was too inexperienced and likely to be controlled by the Centrist Dems. But I did believe in his passion and the fact that perhaps, finally, in the hands of a man of color, some racial justice could find a toehold. Unfortunately I was right about his relationship with the Blue Dog Dems as well as the Military/Industrial complex and the Corporate structure. But I digress, this isn’t an analysis of past presidents.

It’s a question.

What do we want?

I am NOT good at asking for what I want in my life. I’m more likely to just politely nod and smile and say “whatever you want” when someone asks if I want something, or need something. Except when it comes to politics and justice. In this one arena I am loud. And impatient. And I am exhausted by the willingness of Democratic voters to support people who offer absolutely none of what the voters claim to want. I bore painful witness to the rise of the Reagan Democrat and the castration of the Party. We haven’t recovered. We have only proven that we can find candidates that hide in the skirts of corporate donors and claim liberal victory by fighting for reproductive rights while voting in support of economic policies that devastate communities, environmental policies that keep the oil flowing and immigration policies that keep babies caged. And then we wonder why we are running downhill toward a Conservative Utopia.

It’s time to decide what we want, what we believe in.

Regardless of party. Regardless of past political opinion. We are on the verge of ‘it’s too late’. We can potentially find ourselves saying that we wanted racial justice, but we elected a white guy who thinks things are pretty ok because we had a black president. That we wanted real climate action, but we elected a guy whose relationship with the oil lobby made that impossible. That we wanted to make the world safe and equal for women but we elected a guy who felt entitled to touch, kiss, patronize them at will. That we wanted to end our world-wide wars but we elected a guy who had to take care of the profiteers. We wanted respect for all those with whom we share this country but we elected a guy who kept the lights on at the detention camps.

Defeating trump accomplishes exactly that and nothing more. We do not have 8 or even 4 more years to wait on the issues that are destroying lives, futures, the planet. The warning lights are all turning from orange to red and we are the only ones who can reverse it. It will not happen at the hands of anyone whose loyalty is to billionaires, the party structure, the church, or any lobby. The only path to real change will come from one of those candidates who is willing to acknowledge the failure of our systems. They have failed. If you don’t know that, you’re privileged enough to not have to know. But for those of us still living in the real world, our responsibility is immediate and daunting: we have to change. We have to insist upon it or we will have to join the revolution. For those are our only choices.

What do you want?