i’ve always enjoyed writing. always. and i have a lot to say that i know can be of benefit to many. but perhaps blogging simply isn’t the form my writings should take.

in 2011 i endeavor to complete my first memoir (it’ll likely be done by summer, actually), which so far is filled with stories and insights that i have decided not to share here. i have too much contempt for the potential readers.

i may or may not return to this blog, but it’ll be a whole new ball game if i do return to it. i’ll say what i want to say, the way that i want to say it. nothing to lose. if i restrain & limit myself for the readers, i’m alone and frustrated. if i speak what i actually think & feel and no one really gets it, i’m alone and frustrated.

but at least that way, it’s out there.

more than likely, i’ll make one final go at this blog thing, starting fresh, and readers be damned. if you cannot follow, simply move along…

needless to say, this startled me a bit. it’s been a long time since anything like this happened to me (conversations on YouTube notwithstanding. LOL!). i wasn’t sure how to appropriately respond, so i just gave them the finger and continued on my way. they decided to pull the car over to the side of the road, not 50 yards in front of me, and the guys on the passenger side opened their doors, placing one foot on the concrete, threatening to climb out, while yelling “WHAT! Huh? WHAT! Fuckin’ nigger!”

it began to register with me that this might turn into a full-blown confrontation, and a potentially dangerous one. my heart rate increased, my adrenaline started running, and it made me smile a little bit. 15 years ago i lived for the rush that i was feeling in that moment. that moment of truth, of fight or flight. and it took me a lot of years to beat all of the ‘flight’ out of me so that i could stare down any situation, no matter how threatening, and just lose myself in the fury and passion of the occasion. but not on this day. on this day i found that i had a choice of how to respond.

i chose to simply continue walking toward the car, not changing my pace or my demeanor. it seemed appropriate to unbutton my shirt as a signal to them that they were in for a serious fight if they took this thing far enough. i stared at each one of them, and i scanned for a weapon. being that i’m a large guy, it’s just not likely for a group of guys to peg me as an easy target unless they’re equipped, and i was fairly confident that i could handle just about anything short of a gunfight. once i saw that no one had a weapon, i figured they were just playing a game of chicken and would speed off as soon as i got up to the car. and that’s exactly what they did, screaming the N-word as their tires screeched down the block. a couple of my neighbors watched in horror from across the street, so that made it a little embarrassing. but once it was over, it was over. i just went on about my evening.

here’s what’s crazy. for YEARS i had conditioned myself to just go APE-SHIT if the N-word or ANYTHING RACIST occurred in my presence. even when i was gang affiliated i fought far more white supremacists than i did crips. just 4 years ago i almost lost my department store job because a couple of skinheads came in with their girlfriends to shop. they were actually really polite guys, but i felt a tremendous moral obligation to challenge them and put them in their place. i was shaking with so much adrenaline that i had to call a manager to relieve me, and i paced in the back of the store for more than an hour, hating myself for letting them get by and saving my job. it may sound absurd to some people, but i felt ashamed of myself, like a sellout, for not brawling on-the-spot. and it took me two days to fully recover and be myself again.

but with this incident that just occurred, it didn’t trouble me. it was just a peculiar event, and i was ready to do whatever was necessary in the moment, but nothing more. and once it was over, it didn’t eat away at me.

i know that i owe that serenity to my meditation practice. just one of many blessings.

“Blessed indeed are we who live among those who hate, hating no one. Amidst those who hate, let us dwell without hatred.”

–The Dhamma Brothers

i’ve been asked numerous times for my thoughts on Obama winning the Nobel Prize, and i actually consider the whole matter a rather trivial affair, truth be told. but as always, i DO have an opinion. i will attempt to share it here, if for no other reason than to keep from having to repeat myself.

brass tacks: do i think Barack Obama deserved to win the Nobel Prize?  YES. and anyone who disagrees either doesn’t follow international politics, only reads/watches mainstream news headlines, is a moron, or is an evil minion of the political opposition. just kidding. well… sort of.

the opinion i’ve heard most often is that he won the prize merely for not being Bush. first, that’s simply not true, and i’ll try to explain at least a little bit why. but second, so what if that were the case? are we so fickle-minded that we’ve already forgotten how bad things were during the Bush years? he made it undeniably clear to the rest of the world that the US was the greatest violator or human rights and international law.  the words “alone in the world” were not just an abstract concept for our country during the Bush administration. the message sent by the other leaders at Bush’s last G-20 summit, when NO ONE WOULD SHAKE HIS HAND, was not without meaning. in fact, given the international dialog that was occurring underneath the radar of the mainstream outlets (or at least not on the front page), i would argue that it was perhaps the strongest statement of global contempt that could have been made without any nation having to take an aggressive posture against the US. Bush succeeded in what amounts to a 2nd cold war, and only time will tell (although i could guess) if Obama will dismantle what Bush created, but there is no question in my mind that the world is a safer place because of Obama. the US is a more secure nation because of Obama. Our former allies are allies once again because of Obama.

now, if the popular “because he’s not Bush” argument holds water, then it should follow that Hillary Clinton would have won the prize had she become president instead of Obama. and i don’t believe that for a second. she spent her campaign lambasting his position on diplomacy, even siding with John McCain to denounce Obama’s ideas as foolish. she would have mended ties with many of our former allies, but she would also have been a far more polarizing force in the Middle East and the 3rd world in general and far more bullish when dealing with leaders around the globe. when it comes to hegemonic masculinity, patriarchy might never have found a better voice than Hillary Clinton’s. she would never have even been nominated.

also, the “because he’s not Bush” argument implies that Obama hasn’t actually done anything substantively to even warrant a nod from the Nobel committee, much less be awarded the prize. this implication is probably the one that most infuriates me because i think it’s rooted in the notion that Obama gives nice speeches that don’t really amount to much of anything. as if eloquence is necessarily devoid of substance. as if words do not have profound consequences.

how much more brilliance does this man have to exhibit before concede that his eloquence is not a substitute, but rather an effective vehicle for substance? his powers of moral persuasion are unrivaled in the global arena, and because of his gift, many who hated us have come to believe in the promise of America again. it may not not be a formal policy initiative, but it has certainly made the world a more peaceful, more hopeful place.

his policy of aggressive diplomacy is based on the idea that words matter! and i think he’s proven his case.

clearly he has a long way to go as we are now only 9 months in to his presidency, but i continue to breathe a sigh of relief just knowing that Obama is loved and embraced around the world. that his vision has penetrated the globe. that in a VERY short time, Obama has transformed the image and attitude of the most powerful/dangerous nation on Earth.

THAT, in my opinion, is deserving.

for the first time in what seems like forever, i’m taking a class from someone else. she’s kind of awesome. she teaches yang style tai chi and sun style tai chi. i say tai chi rather than tai chi chuan because, like me, she is a healer and not really interested in the martial applications of the forms (although she also teaches sword and fan). it’s really nice to just be a student for a change. to follow someone else’s lead. and it doesn’t hurt that she really likes me as well. she ended class early today so she and i could work one-on-one for a while. i was stoked! i think she’s become so accustomed to working with the sick and with old people who are declining in health, that she was starving for a student who could demonstrate the internal structures of the forms.

she wants me to start teaching qigong immediately, only this time in a group setting. i’ve told her no every time i’ve met with her. now today, in addition to qigong, she wants me to learn and master sun style tai chi because at the moment she’s the only one around who teaches it, and apparently it’s a really good healing form for people with arthritis. i will begin learning that particular form on sunday.

women tend to be better, more energetically developed than men, when it comes to the internal arts. and this woman in particular has a certain way about that is missing from most teachers out there. i feel very fortunate to be able to apprentice under a female master.

one day when i grow up, if i EVER grow up,  i hope to be somewhere between her and KATIE. 

this has brought so much new joy into my life. i really, REALLY, enjoy being a student again.

Me: “Dawg, that was like SO three weeks ago! I’m over it.”

…or at least that seems to be the attitude of most folks. not so much terrible people, but terrible attention spans.

i don’t watch television, so the only news i get is the news i search for. that, or whatever a friend brings to my attention. to be fair, though, a number of my friends are former policy debaters and now are either lawyers or political players. but still,  i chose not to look into the Iran thing largely because of Iran’s political history. and my own.

i’ll start with me. (big surprise, right?)

Once upon a time i was a left-wing warrior critic of US foreign policy and clandestine operations throughout the world. and i still maintain that the reach of clandestine ops render democratic decision making in the US farcical. democracy CANNOT work without transparency, and we don’t know just how much we don’t know. some covert missions are fine and indeed necessary in foreign affairs, even domestic ones. it’s really the tremendous OVERUSE and OVERREACH of our nation’s shadow governments that i find unacceptable.

But alas, i retired my jersey as a revolutionary years ago. i found myself cultivating frustration and misery, unable to enjoy even the simplest things in life, and trying to convince myself that such a life was the only way to make any real difference. i was profoundly intolerant, insufferable, an unhappy. and though i did manage to do some good research and writing in those days, the deep passion for it all pretty much died when my girl died. and i have since found a different, healthier way to contribute to the world.

now, Iran.

are any of the political pundits talking about all of the ways in which we have been fucking with Iran’s government since the 50′s? i’ve still got a lot of that stuff committed to memory. in 1953 the US & Britain manufactured the “popular” overthrow of Mohamed Mosadegh after he nationalized Iran’s oil fields. in his place we installed the Shah, a reluctant client, to rule with an iron fist and allow the CIA to continue working behind the scenes for our proxy war with the Soviets while the US and Britain continued to exploit the country’s location, infrastructure, and natural resources. in 1979 when the Shah was finally taken down, the people of Iran were chanting in the streets, “Death to the Shah! Death to the American Satan!”

Obama’s the first president to ever acknowledge US involvement with the overthrow of Iran’s democratically elected leader in 1953. and now we have the unrest of the present.

the thing for me is this: had pocket video cameras been available in the 50′s, it would have looked a lot like what we see today. it hits people differently when they are confronted with up-close footage of young college-aged men with their brain matter exposed, or beautiful young women with their chest cavities blown open. it’s more confronting. but it doesn’t bring more clarity to the situation. it’s easy to get swept up in the emotion of it all and lose sight of the fact that foreign affairs is a chess game, not checkers. our government may be every bit as responsible for that boy and that girl as they were 56 years ago, before the advent of the camera phone.

unlike mainstream liberals who, for all of their good intentions,  get most of  their information/subsequent opinions from the same corporate interests that are being furthered in the Middle East by US hegemony, i AM at least somewhat aware of just how much i don’t know, and how much i can’t see. i know enough to know (and predict) what questions aren’t being asked, or answered, or taken seriously.

i once believed myself to be an abrasive reminder to good people with bad memories. and even now i ask myself how disconnected must we be as a nation from the realities of the world for the images of a single woman to stoke such flames among the responsive and upright masses?

i cried when the footage of Neda was brought to my attention. but the pain i felt was not unique in the slightest. i spent years, YEARS, crying (literally) and fighting for the memory of the Nedas in Chile, Panama, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Chiapas, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, East Timor, Congo, Sudan, Rwanda, ***IRAQ,*** (the war i predicted a week after 911) and many, many more places. and in EVERY, SINGLE, CASE, the US government was involved.

it’s right to be outraged when confronted with the displays of such an unjust, violent apparatus of control like the Iranian government. the outrage is very understandable. what’s not understandable are the conclusions and assumptions drawn from such displays. emotional upheaval has a way of lending itself to unsophisticated reasoning, like ‘girl killed = Iran bad.’ we weep for the one fallen tree, and then we accept whatever notions are given to us about the rest of the forest. this is why propaganda is so effective.

so much of my pain is born of the selective morality of the outraged masses, whose heart strings are only pulled around by the cable news camera crews. if it doesn’t make the headlines, it doesn’t seem to matter. but i’ve also lost sisters who did make the headlines, and while that was equally selective, i was glad for them to receive attention at all.

i cry for the pain of such a tragic loss. i cry for the reality of such a cruel & brutal world that so many are born into. and i hope my tears never cease to flow. i understand that killings such as Neda’s are how so many terrorists are made. people so hurt and desperate to do something, anything, that they gladly trade their lives for the cause, hoping that history will one day make their actions understood, or that god will know their hearts and embrace them in the afterlife.

i will remember Neda Agha Soltan’s name. Along with Rachel Corrie’s. Along with Marla Ruzicka’s.

but more than anything, i will remember the nameless, the voiceless, for whom these women are but symbols.

any death of the innocent deminishes me.

EDIT:

oh, and let me make it clear since i didn’t exactly spell it out directly: by this time next year, US troops will be in Iran. pending popular support, of course.

youtube is a strange and mysterious thing. so i was watching a news clip about a young woman who passed away last year, which brought up a clip titled “crazy white woman kills family,” and i just couldn’t pass that up. i figured it would be a comical uplift from what i had just watched. the woman who posted the “crazy” video also posted a video about this woman Meghan Tonjes, an amazing artist. i really didn’t expect much when i clicked on her music, but within 40 seconds i was in love! what can you do?

i listened to a number her songs on youtube and then decided i’ve gotta buy this woman’s album. so that’s what i did.

wine party at my house when the album arrives. 

here’s the song that took me by surprise. the way it starts off made me think it was going to me just another weak sauce amateur music post, but the moment she began singing i was hooked. HOOKED, i tell you! LOL! check it out. and if you’re so inclined, give her some love!

it’s easy to forget how austere and unconventional my apartment is until i invite guests over, only to realize that i really didn’t have any place for them to sit or be comfortable. i grabbed the chairs from the garage below me, and i sat on the floor as i always do. the table i use to serve tea (which is also the ONLY table i have) is designed for sitting on the floor. but what can you do, you know?

so Lis, as i said earlier, is 81 years old. she grew up in West Sacramento in the 30′s & 40′s and was a teacher for the better part of her life. she’s really sharp, funny, and kindhearted. and she takes care of her people, which is something i deeply admire about her.

the Colonel is the grandfather of my dear friend and student, Tyson. he’s Lt. Colonel Ernest Skorheim, and he’s actually 91 years old. ridiculously active and agile for his age, loves to talk smack and laugh about everything, and has a BIG crush on Lis. LOL! she’s very gracious about it.

we took the tea party into my room so they could get a little closer. kidding. no, but i thought my futon might be a little more comfortable. we talked about everything under the sun, from the Arora Borealis to cinnamon applesauce to sleeping underneath bails of hay while hiding from the Germans. that’s what the Colonel did.

he was shot down in a B-17 during WWII and spent about 4 months hiding out behind enemy lines on the Island of Corfu, Greece. he was taken care of by the Greek resistance, which was just ordinary village folk who didn’t appreciate occupation. the book he’s thumbing through actually tells his story. well, it tells part of it, anyway.

The Colonel never gets tired of talking about those days, although i’m still not clear on whether he was behind the line for 3 1/2 or 4 1/2 months. but whatever the case, it was undoubtedly one of most intense and profound events in his life. quite possibly the reason he values kindness and charity so much.

so yeah, these are my homies now. this is the crew i hang with. they teach me a great deal about the kind of person i want to be.

and i am grateful to know them.

so why the asterisk, right?

well, the problem is that i have this amazing neighbor next door who is 81 years old, and she loves nothing more than to invite me over for dinner and talk my ear off while i chow down on her home-cooked meal. she’s been inviting me over once or twice a week since i moved in, and i’ve never once complained about anything she has ever made (mostly because she’s a great cook), even when it’s stuff i’m not particularly fond of. i really enjoy hanging out with her, and i know that she really enjoys our conversations. PLUS, just as i was trying to think of a way to break the news to her that i would no longer be eating meat (literally as this was going through my head), she began to talk about how much it irks her when some people are so picky, and how much she enjoys making dinner for me and the Colonel (whom i’ll introduce later) because we always enjoy everything.

i truly think that my connection with her is important enough to be the one exception that i can live with. and i think it’s much better to acknowledge this honestly than to lean on what amounts to a loophole in the vows i took this weekend. of course, if i’m missing something here, i’m open to suggestions.

tomorrow she and the Colonel are coming over for tea in the evening. i’ll take a  few pictures and post them. 

on Saturday i took the Buddhist Pratimoksha (personal liberation) vows, the Refuge vows, and the Bodhisattva vows.

on Sunday i reaffirmed those vows and underwent the Medicine Buddha empowerment given by a truly beautiful master,

Venerable Choden Rinpoche

i was very fortunate to make the decision when i did. and i will do my best to uphold the vows unequivocally and and to live the practices.

a brief synopsis of the Rinpoche from the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition:

Born in 1933 in eastern Tibet, Choden Rinpoche was recognized at age three as the reincarnation of the previous Rinpoche, who himself had been one of the candidates for the twelfth Dalai Lama. At age eight he entered Rabten monastery, and at age fifteen he went to Sera Je monastery, where he studied the five main texts.

Although Rinpoche studied through the Lharam class and could have become a geshe, his teacher asked him not to take the exams yet. Choden Rinpoche decided to study the teachings on Vinaya – monastic discipline – and is regarded as one of the foremost experts on the subject. Choden Rinpoche was one of the two Sera Je lamas selected to debate with His Holiness the Dalai Lama during His Holiness’s geshe exams.

During the communist Chinese takeover of Tibet in 1959, Choden Rinpoche stayed in Tibet and went into solitary retreat for 19 years. He never left his tiny, dark room in Lhasa from 1965 to 1985, and was virtually unknown in his monastery for this reason. In 1985 he was allowed to leave Tibet for India, and has since taught for many years to thousands of students at Sera Je monastery in South India. At the request of Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Choden Rinpoche has now visited the west several times to give teachings and lead retreats.

*shrugs*

yeah, it’s probably my ugliest trait. and it’s one that i’ve never really cared to work on. it’s not the whole of my character, but it’s a trait that i have often used as a crutch over the years. it helped when i use to run the streets, and it was helpful when i did college policy debate.

but now,

nothing is more beautiful to me than simple joy, compassion, and humility. i find myself a little envious of those for whom it comes easy.

i want to be a better servant. i want to be more gentle and patient. i want to withhold more criticism than i offer, and i want to offer more encouragement and uplift than i withhold.

to aid in cleansing my being so that i might be of greater service to others, i now commit to daily prayer and prostrations. something i have never really done, except for a short time with i was a kid and a christian. it feels so cleansing.

i even have a small cushion for my knees.  i’m quite happy with my devotional practice; more than anything, i’m just happy to HAVE a devotional practice!

and prayer flags are beautiful.

oh, while i’m at it,

here’s a picture of the back yard from the balcony. i’m going to create an herb garden, maybe even a small vegetable garden. and the rest of the area will be covered in white clover. unless, of course, someone comes up with an amazing landscape design.

a zen garden comes to mind.