anger

my anger grew up with me. it was as if it was always there. it was a strand within my dna or perhaps a lone chromosome and as i grew and matured, so did my anger.

at five, i walked onto the grounds at the terminal island woman’s state penitentiary a tabula rasa and three hours later i walked away from my mother with my anger draped over my shoulders like a poncho. no, she could not go home with me. no, i would not be able to see her in any environment other than this institutionalized setting with the set visiting hours and the rules dictating my accompaniment by a legal guardian. no, i did not have a dad, at least not one who would be involved in my life in any way whatsoever.

my anger giggled when my grandfather, (my guardian,) mentioned my biological father in absentia whose ass, he said, i should shove my foot up if ever the day came when i met him face to angry face. oh that would shock the big jerk when i clobbered him with my size four.

my anger flared up when i was removed from kindergarten for being early. it subsided when i spent days in the kitchen on the floor playing with hot wheels as lupe prepared albondigas.

it blossomed anew when my mom married a 5-foot, 5-inch hate machine when i was seven or eight. the two were like sleeping tigers when they were high on heroin. they were semi-normal when they took their methadone. it was when the drugs were unavailable or had been used up that things got crazy and the times when i was the one who got smacked planted embers of anger and rage deep inside me.

my anger, like my sadness, is unique to me and i own it. it colors my world view like a touch of black mixed evenly in with my white and all of my other colors. my anger facilitates my hate and i do hate.

i hate injustice. i hate bullies. i hate corporations. i hate lies. i hate deception from government officials. i hate when parents act as if their kids owe them something and not the other way around, or as if their children are accoutrement to their shabby little lives. i hate racism and bigotry and all manner of caveman-like action and thought that would stop our progress and take mankind backwards. i hate fundamentalism. i hate war. i hate fear and all manner of marketing based on it. i hate ignorance. i do not hate the ignorant-how could i? but i do hate ignorance more than anything.

anger is an energy and yes, anger is a gift. it hurts to be angry but there is no point in dwelling on history that cannot be changed. i choose instead to make it a positive. i choose to nurture my anger and let it hone me and shape me and sharpen me.

my anger chooses the books i read. my anger loves movies by lars von trier and music by rage against the machine and propaghandi. my anger is iconoclast.

it was my anger that pushed me in my early 20s from a cradle of comfort i had constructed from evangelical christianity, a firm belief in reaganomics, (formed on the basis of absolutely nothing,) and a trust in the establishment and family values and all things american, to a state of agitation and anger fueled by disillusionment, poverty, dissatisfaction and a sense of having absorbed wholesale lies.

• the usa is a better country than all of the other countries on the planet.


• the slim number of people in the world who believed as i did on the subject of god and religion and the after life would be joining god and jesus and the saints in heaven for eternity where we would enjoy streets paved of gold and mansions while all others, the nameless and faceless masses, would burn forever in hell, gnashing their teeth and pulling their hair out in a lake of fire and brimstone because they refused to believe this sliver of a doctrine about an imaginary being and a load of revisionist history.


• man is essentially bad, hence why he needs forgiveness and why he should be consumed by guilt.


• race and ethnicity divide people while class differences need not be a concern.


• capitalism in and of itself is good.


• if our elected leaders claim to be christian, they should not be questioned for their actions.


• the war in vietnam was righteous.

lies... as the fallacious nature of my education became increasingly evident my anger grew and became my chaperon escorting me from fallacy to misconception to out-and-out lie. in response to my sub par education i read the communist manifesto. i chose non-american authors, devouring the works of camus, kundera, celine, and garcia-marquez, delighting in salih, achebe and gibran, snacking on the tomes of hamsun, lorca and xingjian. when i read americans i chose henry miller, richard rodriguez and h.l. mencken. i found myself attracted to ghandi and che guevara and oscar wilde and g.b. shaw and james joyce and w.b. yeats.

it was my anger at the status quo that moved me. had i not been mad i may have chosen the works of robert frost. i may have come to enjoy blockbuster hollywood movies, short on insight into the nature of man but long on special effects. i may have been a celine dion fan. i may never have questioned anything. i may have been wealthier and happier, more financially savvy but less informed about the nature of things and how to truly be a dignified human being, and of a lighter spirit from day to day but less equipped to contribute positively to the struggle of man, which is to evolve and constantly improve on the conditions of man.

thanks to kieslowski, godard, bunuel, almodovar, and kar wai, with appreciation to bono, lennon, yorke, vedder, cohen and morrissey, yes it was the artists who reached me and helped me to turn anger into so much more than merely a positive.

some of my friends see me as angry and they cannot conceive of this facet of me as a good thing. it is distinctly me they think. maybe they applaud me for going with it instead of denying it or something like that. mostly however, they swing from being annoyed at my anger manifested as a need to verbally chastise the acts and words of george w. bush or criticize grass roots advertising as a means of enlisting the lowest hanging fruit into the corporate, status quo mentality, to feeling pity for me because of how off-putting i really can be, (even if it is to one who does not want to be confronted or challenged in their long-held beliefs.) i can't be bothered but i am human and i am bothered. this too, makes me angry and contributes to my world view and the constant rounding and polishing that is my experience.

i would no sooner return my anger or choose to have lived another, different life than i would renounce my self education and its many virtues, including the personal enlightenment that has allowed me to step forward confidently into the world of fatherhood.

i have planned for success as a father by understanding all that bothered me as a child. i have imagined my father as a 16-year-old boy having sex then being confronted with the pregnancy. i have imagined his parents response when he suggested that perhaps the girl got around a bit and maybe the child was not his, how they latched on to that idea and supported their boy again and encouraged him to challenge the notion that he was in fact my father and how he was buoyed by that support and ignored my mother at school and around town and said they were not together until she retreated into the heart of her rough home to have the child me. i have imagined my alcoholic grandfather berating my mother for being a floozy at 14. i have imagined how he took no responsibility whatsoever. meanwhile my grandmother loved her daughter and instructed her to pray to mother mary who also had a child despite little sexual experience.

being pushed and pulled and moving from family to family and town to town, from irish catholicism to a pentacostal fundamentalism, from being urged to read the bible and all things related but never being steered towards the classics or any form of dissent, from a mother who spent most of my childhood in prison and introduced physically abusive men into my life when she was on the outside, to an extreme response to such circumstances, my anger thrived on a variety of impetuses.

i savor my anger. it is my lover and i love it. i am profoundly thankful for my perspective. i have much to live for, much to learn still, but i am deeply contented by my journey thus far and confident that my life has meaning annd my children will be better for my anger, my unique but also common perspective.

the nba as wwf?

no. not because they create larger than life characters. because they seem similarly scripted. did you see the block of lebron's three-pointer by dwight howard that was called a foul? in the days to come we will learn that the nba has admitted it was a bad call. it is something that will be in the referee's evaluation...blah, blah, blah. and we're all supposed to forget that a referee saw a foul that never occurred.

it is my feeling that until fans revolt by boycotting all things nba, the farce that is nba officiating, the farce that is fuzzy rules like ilgauskas taking three steps in the key to the basket and not getting called for travelling or the phantom foul by howard, (his sixth of the game,) will go on making fools of that very fan base.


have you ever officiated a basketball game? it is not as hard as you think. you're in there watching the action, watching the ball, seeing the movements and then there it is. hand to arm contact or whatever it is. you see it and you blow the whistle. it's not that difficult.

nba hoops is farcical to a great degree. whatever exactly is going on with the rules and the officiating is debatable. what is not debatable is the fact that something is happening that is not above board.


maybe the wwf's scripting is more obvious and everyone is in on it. maybe in the nba only the league and the refs are in on it, and the networks tacitly endorse the program by glossing over the most obvious examples of mischief and coloring the rest as respectable.

the rules and how games are called in the nba needs to be overhauled.

• after this year's finals the league should announce the dismissal of david stern and a plan to redefine several of its key rules.
• specifically as it affects the charging and blocking calls, the defender must be set in his position but he is also entitled to space. when collisions occur fault should be assigned to the player who invades the space of the other player and/or is the initiator of any contact.
• the rules should be the rules without respect for person.

none of this will happen because nba fans prefer to go on like wwf fans, thinking it's all real or thinking they are somehow cool for enjoying the ruse. this emperor has been decked out in the latest fashions of self delusion.

kobe bryant - doin' work

kobe: doin' work, is probably the worst piece of work spike lee has ever been involved in. this is one of the great film makers of his generation. in addition to turning real life stories into great movies, spike lee is a documentary film maker extraordinairre. he turns documentaries into art. however, in this case lee's skills are for naught because the subject is simply not compelling.

kobe: doin' work, is technically sound. everything looks good. the lighting is right. it is a courtside seat for the lakers-spurs at staples center and the movie conveys that feeling to the viewer. music is interspersed throughout the production effectively. kobe and the other professional players are terrific basketball players capable of amazing athletic feats. still, kobe bryant is boring, unbelievable, and at once milquetoast in his predicatability and outrageous as he sets about managing his perception. the title could just as easily be 'kobe: doin' work trying to be perceived exactly as i want to be perceived.'

kobe bryant really is a wonderful basketball player. among the greatest of all time, bryant has a unique combination of skill and size. he is a scorer, to be sure, but it is his jump-shot that sets him apart. it is one of the best jump-shots of all time. bryant's ability to consistently make that shot under pressure, with the best defenders in the league as close to him as they can possibly be, is what is special about him.

it's not his drives to the basket. michael jordan was significantly better than bryant at that. jordan went with a certain power that made defenders reconsider getting in front of him as jordan would hold the ball away from the defender, throwing his body headlong towards the basket and into the air but leading with his shoulder and his left bicep. kobe can do that on occasion but mike did it with regularity. jordan's jump-shot was just as good as kobe's but kobe's longevity in the league will add to his legend some day whereas jordan's hiatus from basketball may cause his stats to pale by comparison.

it's not kobe's basketball i.q. bryant is solid in that area. he understands the game, moves well without the ball, defends effectively and by instinct. still, bird, abdul-jabbar, west, nash, and yes, jordan, also compare favorably to kobe in this area. kobe still makes a lot of thoughtless mistakes on the basketball court. as an example to begin game six of the western conference semifinals recently, kobe turned the ball over twice in the first three minutes of the game as the lakers went down 17-1. the elite players of their respective generations made mistakes but not like kobe. his mistakes belie his greatness.

kobe bryant has always wanted to be recognized for his prowess on the basketball court. this was never more clear than when shaquille o'neal departed los angeles. bryant was interested in being seen as the laker. he wanted the team to be identified as his team and this is a concept kobe has always struggled with. he never seemed to understand that leading by example would lead to the personal accolades he coveted. post shaq he whined like a child, demanded a trade at one point in time, threatened to test free agency. he has simply owned a blind spot of epic proportion.

in kobe: doin' work, all of bryant's words come across as designed to give a certain impression. kobe: doin' work is a work of kobe's marketing skills. some viewers may buy kobe's message, which would seem to be; "kobe bryant is an unreal basketball player because he is a hard-working, student of the game whose dedication is unsurpassed and who is also humble." (yes. seriously. kobe wants you to believe he is humble. you can hear it between the lines every time he deigns to compliment a tony parker or a d wade or a manu ginobili.)

in a way kobe is superior to michael jordan and all the rest. what he does on the court that is positively unstoppable is in how he explodes into the air like a rocket. he can be dribbling and running in any direction but he has the ability to pop, straight up into the air, at which point his shot is effortless because his legs have done all the work. the ball must feel like a feather to kobe.

what is puzzling is this reputation kobe has for hitting big, last second shots. as a laker fan i root for him to hit these shots and while he has hit some, i remember a deluge of missed shots as time expired. yes, it started in utah in his rookie season... he hits big shots. he does-no question. last week he hit a big shot with ron artest all over him from about 35 feet away from the rim. it was a momentum changer, but not a game winner. i was in attendance at staples center one night a couple of years ago when he caught fire late in the third quarter against the clippers. he was unconscious. cuttino mobley wanted to crawl in a hole as kobe fired threes while falling out of bounds and every other manner of shot, and everything found the bottom. it was unbelievable but it was not game-winning.

remember those big shots when the lakers were three-peating their way through the beginning of the century? remember ron harper's shot from the baseline? remember "bob's," shot? hell, robert horry had like three big, game-winning, season-saving, playoff-delivering shots. brian shaw had a big one. d-fish had .4 to extend a losing season. kobe? well, he has had some game winners to be sure, (one against the suns comes to mind two nights before i got married,) but over the last five years he has taken pretty much every last second shot the lakers have had. this reputation kobe has is more legend than truth. still, he does not crumble at game's end. just last night he dished to d-fish for a couple of big buckets. he draws a big crowd after all, when he has the ball at the end of games.

the point of the film is to study the man who is kobe bryant. spike lee is documenting the work ethic of the superstar basketball player. the viewer should be impressed with kobe's work ethic, his attention to detail as he explains how things develop on the basketball court and strategy, and how giving he is as a subject, opening his life to lee's camera and an adoring public. the problem is, there is almost nothing about his life.

the documentarian recorded a day in the life but since basketball is just basketball and not a mystery, since the pros are merely a slice above the d league and the euro leagues, which are just above the middle eastern and australian leagues and the college game, since so many americans have played some organized basketball, the mystery we might sense and thereby be amazed at the simple feats of kobe bryant's basketball wizardry are essentially debunked.

had kobe bryant waxed philosophical or expounded on his thoughts on barack obama, (a la james blake at the australian open,) had he weighed in on the issues of the day or even talked about what he learned from his banishment post rape allegations, had he been the first to mention that he really has not hit a bunch of huge, game winning shots, (thereby showing real humility instead of the faux version he foists upon the public regularly,) had he, instead of praising dwayne wade's crossover dribble move to the basket, admitted that wade would beat him nine times out of ten in a one on one game, had he explained how it was he came to make a "rap," record, had he said something, anything at all that was remotely interesting instead of the snide, self-promoting drivel he oozes unceasingly throughout the piece, (spike lee held up his end of the bargain after all,) this could have been a good documentary.

torture: a tried and true technique

"one of the reasons these techniques have survived for 500 years is because they work."
-senator lindsey graham



guess what else has worked for more than 500 years, senator. murder. that technique has been solving problems since the days of ehud.

what a moron. how embarrassing for the people of south carolina to be represented by this guy.

betrayal has worked well for thousands of years as well. gaius julius caesar and marcus junius brutus are testament to the efficacy of that one. perhaps senator graham would have us return to the days of the spanish inquisition. for those in power the techniques for torture and murder worked wonders in those days.

that this guy can say this in public and not lose his job, and not be laughed out of the senate immediately, exemplifies the old adage: "if you don't stand for something you may fall for anything."

you and whose army

Come on, come on You think you drive me crazy Come on, come on You and whose army? You and your cronies Come on, come on Holy roman empire Come on if you think Come on if you think You can take us all on You can take us all on You and whose army? You and your cronies You forget so easily You ought to know You ought to know Oh so sad Oh so sad Oh so sad You ought to know You ought to know I'm so sad I'm so sad I'm so sad..

tyson - the documentary

my interest was immediately piqued when i heard there was a mike tyson documentary coming out. as a confessed movie snob who thinks 98% of the people i know have poor taste in movies, (with their transformers and x-men and vin diesel and scary movies,) i was sold the second i found out tyson would be playing at laemmle’s playhouse in pasadena.

the movie is fantastic. its subject is one of the most enigmatic figures in recent pop culture history as well as one of the most prolific artisans of the sweet science ever. mike tyson has been a firebrand for some 20+ years, instantly and clearly dividing people into two camps, those who loathe him and those who are empathetic to his plight. the odd thing about the man however, is the fact that his perspective on some of his most notorious exploits has not been prominently available if accessible at all. that is what tyson the movie delivers; the man’s perspective on everything from his childhood right up to his current circumstances as a 40-year-old father and pariah.

the only voice you hear in tyson is that of mike tyson. he is answering unheard, (but understood,) questions and his answers effectually make him the narrator of the film. ultimately his perspective reveals an interestingly introspective individual who owns up to a multitude of flaws without ever making excuses, but for whom excuses, or at least cause and effect reasons, abound.

as expected tyson explains early on that he had a tough childhood. his mother was promiscuous and on drugs and tyson had very little guidance or support. he tells a story of getting beat up as young kid by older neighborhood kids and he suggests this incident colored many of his behaviors later in life. knowing and seeing tyson as a case study it is obvious he had this sort of childhood.

in this way tyson the film serves as insightful social commentary. there is a large segment of our society who seem to exist in a vacuum of empathy. they cannot imagine themselves walking in another’s shoes for a minute much less a mile and so, they judge. in mike tyson the judgment they levy just gets easier and easier because the vast majority of his actions have been outside the realm of their imagination.

no, they cannot imagine having a mother who let them wander the streets at night when they were 10. they can’t imagine not having a father or having a mother on drugs or in jail. they cannot imagine being a social outcast who reacts by getting tattoos from spite. they can’t imagine going from squalor to a level of wealth almost unfathomable without any coaching or guidance whatsoever on how to handle such things, much less being convicted of a crime they did not commit and being sent to jail for three years over it.

similarly many people are incapable of reconciling good and bad or black and white. so, they dismiss mike tyson as simply a bad person. when tyson chomped on holyfield’s ear they could see the savage but they could not identify with the guy who became enraged over his opponent’s unseemly strategy. (holyfield is one of the top five head-butters of all time and while this does not justify tyson’s cannibalistic behavior, it should be easy to understand why he lost his cool.) still, seeing the gray area or the dual nature of man as good and bad is outside of a boundary many are either unable, or prefer not, to negotiate.

for his part, mike tyson comes across as honest in his self-assessment. he is child-like in many ways. when he discusses cus d’amato and becomes emotional his inner child is on display in such a way it is easy to see that his emotional development was stunted and that cus did good by tyson in as much as he rescued him from a life of crime which would surely have ended behind bars but through no fault left him unequipped in so many other areas. cus developed tyson as a boxer but left him defenseless as a man-child.

when d’amato passed away, tyson the savage was brutalized by convention and good taste. his money was like honey for a swarm of bees who devoured him and his cash. it is plain to see tyson was and possibly is a child emotionally. mentally he was and is likely in the same range. physically he was and is way beyond the masses, and that comes out in the movie, too. he was a significant physical specimen to begin with but then he trained so that his body was a finely tuned machine.

his focus for fighting was at one time similarly refined. under d’amato tyson studied not only the greats but really the history of boxing and he defined the boxer he would become by his preferences which were likely d’amato’s preferences first. tyson said he preferred the smaller weight classes because of the speed and the skill employed to win. as he came to prominence his game plan consisted of being the quickest fighter especially on the inside, one who could employ styles of some of his favorite fighters as a situation demanded always to the detriment of his opponent.

when the movie walks the viewer through the cavalcade of beat-downs tyson administered, it is easy to recall the splendor that was his raw speed and power. this sequence begins with his first title bout with trevor berbick then goes back to his first pro fights and goes forward again to berbick and beyond. up to his ill-fated loss to “buster” douglas, tyson was a man among boys. no one challenged him in any meaningful way.

d’amato actually over-prepared his prodigy. tyson combined everything a boxer wants to bring to his matches: strength, dexterity, skill, style, raw power, endurance, class, focus, determination, will, cunning, execution and desire, and up to the point when his training regimen fell apart in tokyo and he was partying like a, well, like a heavyweight champ, he just destroyed his opponents.

in one fascinating moment of the film, tyson talks about his eye contact with his opponent upon entering the ring and how much it meant to him. in one particular fight, he explains, he got into the ring and established eye contact with his opponent, (bruce seldon, perhaps,) who then looked away at which point tyson already knew he would win. when they came to the center of the ring to touch gloves and hear the rules, tyson the narrator remarks on the tough look his opponent offers but declares it null and void because of the misstep earlier when his gaze fell away if only briefly.

the film cuts from the interviewee tyson to the fight where tyson steps forward at the opening bell and dismantles his opponent quickly and his story about how his opponent lost the fight when he glanced away from his gaze a few minutes before the fight is at once entirely believable.

one moment which exemplifies the sum total of the film’s appeal involves tyson’s commentary on one of the worst periods of his life. when tyson went to jail in indiana for a rape that seemed questionable at least, most americans came across hours of coverage of this event and thereby formed opinions. most of the people i knew figured tyson raped desiree washington and was getting his just dessert by incarceration. (i went the other way.)

in the movie we get to hear tyson’s word on the subject. we see tyson meeting washington as the two playfully flirt with one another after which we hear tyson in the present refer to washington as “that wretched swine of a woman.” it is at once honest, insightful and entertaining.

james toback has made an understated but solid film in tyson. celebrity serves the public in as much as it allows us the freedom of making judgments without consequences. tyson presents the man as an open book, counter-balancing all that we already know from so many other perspectives. the man comes across as warm, flawed, accessible and humble and the film feels like mike tyson’s respite from public scorn.

may day

yesterday a friend of mine, a brother-in-arms, really, lucio, (aka, the spifler,) reminded me it was may day. i had actually thought about it in the morning and wondered what may day was again. i knew it was something but i had forgotten. a quick google reminded me that it is among my favorite holidays, (and that we have forgotten about the haymarket affair but could be closer to the next similar event than that one some 123 years ago.)

may day is also known as international worker's day and while this post is a day late, i wanted to tip my hat to all you who are workers.

• if you work in a contact center toiling away in the holy name of customer service, cheers to you member of the proletariat, i salute you.
  
• if you if you are engaged daily in the work of building things, houses and stuff, plumbing and doing electrical work and roofing and all that, be proud. you are among the noble masses who work.


• if you are a teacher, stimulating the minds of our children to learn and grow, if you work in a school caring for the little ones among us, if you coach, counsel or nurture the succeeding generations, your daily tasks are important to the nth degree. thank you.


• if you ship and receive, if you climb wires or dodge traffic to take photographs of the landscape, if you operate heavy machinery, if you collect garbage or truck goods around this country, if you work in a factory, if you dig or excavate or jack-hammer or pour concrete, your honest day's work is a marvel and your commitment is to be admired.


• if you sell things, if you push paper and pencil all day, if you balance books or loan books, if you deal cards, if you do retail, if you tend bar, if you keep things secure, if you are hospitable, if you engineer, if you are a caregiver, you work and you should be proud.

there is nothing more noble than accepting the terms of life and getting up every day and meeting it head on and providing for yourself and your family and doing what you need to do. my hat is always off to you.

this may day, this may, this year, this lifetime, my wish is that you too will feel a sense of brotherhood and camaraderie with your fellow workers of the world. we're all in this together.

sadness

i am one of those people who walk among us all daily who owns a profound sense of sadness. i picked it up at an early age like a christmas shopper purchasing a piece of luggage. things began happening and my boyhood was interrupted and a darkness settled into my being and now it is simply how i travel. i carry this sadness with me, like a suitcase, everywhere i go.

it colors not only my life but everything i see. where some see bliss, i see ignorance. where some see pomp and circumstance, i see corruption. where some see god, i see the devil.

it is heavy, too, like a designer bag with a fancy ‘s,’ on it to indicate the authenticity of my sadness. as such it is a burden i am ever trying to relieve.

i read to overcome sadness, but it does not help at all. i take in art to overcome my feelings of despondency but the joy of humanity wraps itself in my sadness and becomes a jewel of depression, a lovely and sophisticated complexity and a sadness all the same.

i drink to overcome my sadness. i smoke. i have sex. i masturbate. i thrill seek. i connect with people. i place my trust in morality and act as if karma were as real and tangible as my luggage. i try to be direct. i speak to people openly and honestly and try hard to avoid subterfuge, adhering to the desiderata like a lost sailor on the high sea hugging an inadequate buoy. still, my sadness persists like a blood condition, coursing through me always, coloring my every thought, emotion, activity, and conveying itself out to the world through me not so much as a sadness but as another creation, the product of human and sadness.

it is not that i cannot see happiness or be happiness. it is not that i do not have moments of utter joy or pure ecstasy. it is just that those things exist in a prism called michael. and i am not particularly unique. there are many like me.

some of us do not know we are sad. some express sadness as anger. some of us cannot move. some of us turn the sadness into a great, open space or a maze or a gauzy area, and we get lost in it and we never, ever return.

i suppose the sad are like a fraternity. we move around like everyone else, dealing with what we can as we can. we love like everyone else and we need to be loved. we make mistakes sometimes and we hope for the best always.

armenian remembrance day

armenian remembrance day is dedicated to remembering the victims of the 20th century's first genocide. the campaign of mass murder was committed by the ottoman empire against the armenian people from 1915 to 1918 and longer.

15 years ago i was the editor-in-chief of a small college magazine called logos and i wrote a story about the armenian genocide. i had an armenian friend whose family had escaped the genocide to lebanon, eventually coming to america shortly after her birth in the 1970s. when my friend told me of these horrific events, it was the first i had heard of the armenian genocide.

it was a wake up call in many ways. i suppose i was late blooming, growing up and awaking to many truths in 1994, which had been formerly hidden to me.

for my article i approached this genocide as a fact-finding mission. i interviewed several armenian-americans including: larry zarian, (former mayor of glendale, california, a city with the 2nd largest concentration of armenian people in the world,) and dr. avedis k. sanjian, ucla professor of near eastern studies, who sadly died within a year of of my interview at the age of 74.

the people i interviewed for that story were remarkably generous. one person, a music teacher at usc, played the armenian oud for me, (a small guitar,) and treated me to the works of the great armenian poets as well as some of the foods of the culture.

another person i interviewed, a survivor of this holocaust who was then in her 90s, hayastan terzian, of pasadena, invited me into her home and told me chilling stories of seeing bodies on the banks of a river which seemed to be covered in a sort of grease and which smelled so distinctly horrible she said she could never forget that odor and in fact, any faint resemblance to that odor conjured memories of death and terror for her.

i did try to get the opposing view of the events by contacting the turkish consulate in los angeles. within two days i received three books, essentially propaganda downplaying the idea of any preconceived or planned genocide on the part of the ottoman empire. i was also contacted by a man named david erbas-white, who had married a turkish woman and become something of a spokesman for turkey on the subject of this genocide the turks continue to deny to this day.

the primary argument the turks, (and erbas-white,) presented was to suggest that one of the young turk leaders of the day, a pasha named talaat, had somehow been misquoted. he is reported to have said he had a solution to the armenian question, after which he sent boxcars filled with armenians into the desert to die, and invited the invading russians to kill the armenians who he used as a buffer between the russian and ottoman troops. could talaat pasha have been misquoted or misunderstood? perhaps but it always seemed like revisionist history to me.

the story i wrote was not well written. i did good research but i was a novice to say the least and my aim was to write something like what i might have seen in time magazine. i wanted it to be an authoritative expose on events 75-80 years bygone. instead the piece was meandering and my position was unclear. still, school is about learning and for a student writer to be able to choose such an expansive topic and to be able to get interviews with notable subjects and to have the freedom to explore and to collate and to write as i would, was of my greatest learning experiences ever.

recently this topic of the armenian genocide, specifically the united states' acknowledgement of these events as genocide, has received congressional consideration. in october of '07 the bill was essentially killed at the last minute as pressure from turkey was stepped up through the implication that turkey's cooperation with our military efforts in iraq could be jeopardized. a century after the fact, the descendants of the young turks who ruled the ottoman empire fiercely oppose being characterized as the descendants of the perpetrators of the murder of up to 1.5 million armenians.

by contrast, armenians and armenian-americans seem to covet the world's acknowledgement of their plight. serj tankian of the rock band 'system of a down,' has been one of the most vocal proponents of u.s. recognition of this genocide. (www.axisofjustice.com, an activist website founded by tankian and tom morello has also supported the cause of u.s. recognition.)

i remember hayastan terzian wiping tears from her eyes that were not there. she felt those tears and she reached up to blot them but at 95-years-old, it was as if her body could not cry anymore. i remember sitting in the office of a 40-year-old real estate agent who shared stories of how the subject of the genocide would come up at home when he was a kid and the entire house would go quiet, after which arguments would ensue over the most trivial matters then later he would hear his parents crying together in their bedroom over recollections of their lost parents and relatives. his tears made up for hayastan, (which happens to mean "armenia," in the armenian language,) terzian's lost tears as they rolled down his face and knocked his spectacles right off it.

at a famous cathedral in yerevan today armenians remember. here in southern california at a monument in a park in montebello, armenians remember. the armenians have a saying which is, "wherever two armenians or more gather, there is armenia." a saying like this makes perfect sense coming from a people who have survived a diaspora, a people who were swallowed whole by the soviet union, a people who lived isolated as the only christians in a muslim part of the world, not to mention the enclaves of armenians who lived in iran, iraq, lebanon, russia, france, canada or the united states.

i will never forget these things, these people, this story, but i seem to remember them all more clearly every year on april 24th; armenian remembrance day.

April 23rd

Happy Birthday, Michael Moore. Thanks for all you do.

how to think about things

i have considered the possibility of writing a business/self help book about my experience working. it's a passing fancy, really, but sometimes i really think it could be a compelling read. you see, i am one of the thinkers and doubters in the work place.

i have heard my personality described as being naturally negative. in a group setting it is supposed to be good to have me around because i am a natural troubleshooter who will find holes in plans. in fact, i have long had some serious authority issues. this is where all my doubting begins and it is also where my propensity for questioning the nature of business and my place in the work world is rooted.

in the 90s i began channeling my rage, my contempt and my dissatisfaction with society at large into my daily life. i started writing my frustration in poems nightly, in columns in the college newspaper biweekly, in an annual magazine, in journal entries sporadically and emails nearly hourly. at work i sought to analyze the machine from the inside out.

i was of the people and i tended to the people like a shepherd to his flock. i looked out for their best interests with a quiet dignity, all the while learning my own lessons as i went.

from my earliest days in any work place i had something of a superiority complex. i treated the work place as i treated the ball fields and courts i had grown up playing on. i strove for success by defining the objective for myself and devising a strategy to compete. this was not as fail-proof a plan as you might have guessed.

i saw the work place as somehow democratic. i thought the stated rules as one would find them in the constitution of the united states of america right on down to the company handbook of the average corporation, represented the only requirements. it sounded like i did not have to kiss ass, like i did not have to be friends with anyone if i chose not to, and like all that mattered was how well i did the job. in a call center answering phone calls all day long i excelled. i took more and more calls than anyone around me, employed the skills of empathy and sales artfully, and i navigated the computer system as if i had written the code. my early advancement was guaranteed.

it got trickier later, however. many lessons i had to learn the hard way. as i moved up some, the competitors became more fierce. now in addition to doing a job well, i was asked to discern the nature of people and act politically. that which i came to love about academic life, the ability to be my own man and to wear my heart and brain on my sleeve, was gone.

i spoke to people i believed to be friends about my honest opinions of others, (honest if unfavorable,) and found my trust had been betrayed. i had a friendly disagreement with a friend once over whether it was what you knew or who you knew that helped you advance in the work place. as i watched her climb right by me on the corporate ladder it occurred to me i did not even know how to do the who you know thing. i was handicapped.

realizations like this usually led to some sort of learning moment. if i took longer to get it, i usually only "got it," all the better. from my days training hundreds of people yearly to managing teams, i have been effective at conveying these things i have learned to others.

once upon a time i happened into a drawer of my boss's, (at his request,) and i stumbled on to the review of an under performing peer of mine. (under performing is truly an understatement,) but this peer had a longstanding relationship with my boss. hence, the sterling review i discovered. i had a mentor in the company at that time whose counsel i sought. he explained a lesson to me i have since shared with probably 10 different people who needed to learn it and who seemed to do just that.

in the work place, one cannot derive their happiness from some notion of comparatively fair wages. rather, one must decide if the wage they are making is fair independent of any knowledge of any other pay rates whatsoever. one must self inquire, "am i happy doing this at this wage?" that alone should be the criteria for one's contentment regarding wages.

having gained a certain sense of comfort and familiarity with the political aspects of the work place, i have been able to share certain truths with some who suffer from false notions and blind spots i once shared.

the overarching principle of mastering the political aspect of business or thriving in the work place is the simple idea that it is part of the job to manage the perceptions of others. this is to say, one must always be aware of the perceptions of others and seek to influence them positively, especially as it regards perceptions about that person.

it is a platitude to remark on the ever-present nature of change and yet, i have counseled employees not only on the idea that it will always be happening throughout their work lives, but also that their adaptability will mark their mental and emotional well being in their personal lives.

i know i still have much to learn. so much. at the same time, many of the lessons i have learned thus far have not been readily available to me. i have learned them many times only after erring first, (usually to my detriment.) while there are a host of business or self help or success/motivational books out there, most of them seem to be written in a language unfamiliar to the masses. if they don't sound like harvard mba's, they usually sound like some sort of dr. phil meets miss cleo character who has written a book "to pump you up."

the reality is, i will not write this book. on the other hand, i did write this blog and with pushing in a righteous and positive direction of my most basic values, i feel pretty good about that.

old news

i can believe the news today. newspapers as we know them, as pulp-grade paper with smudgy ink, bulky and cumbersome, are going the way of the dodo.

the world is infinitely smaller than it was in the heyday of newspapers. people are getting their news from the most democratic of all sources, the internet. on the internet a click gets you a story. rolling your mouse over the story lets you see the source if you want to know that before clicking. you can read the story on your screen in what amounts to a positive environmental trade-off. it makes all the sense in the world.

it is important not to confuse journalism, or even the press, (the fourth estate,) with newspapers. the watchdog role journalism plays in our society is of the utmost importance. i might even go so far as to say the fifth estate, the alternative media, is every bit as important as the mainstream media, which has proven too easy to sully.

as the slow death of newspapers continues we should seriously consider a state run newspaper. such an entity would need to have an unprecedented autonomy for its role and a charter that defines and guides its action, which would at its heart be nothing more than textbook journalism. beyond this one sponsored journalistic endeavor, undertaken by a wise old society who understands the importance of the role of watchdog, nothing else would be necessary. from there capitalism can take over. let better news outlets do their best to compete and let americans know that their one, tax funded and governed by the people news organization is accountable to them and exists simply to play the role of watchdog.

the state sponsored news organization can neglect sports and entertainment "news." those things are not newsworthy. as it was, many published newspapers were not being read anyway.

i am not bothered that newspapers are going away. what does bother me is corruption. i am hopeful the function of watchdog, so necessary in society, survives all this.

tears

my brother and i were chatting over a bare knuckles stout recently when he suggested i should write more about my childhood, about all the shit we went through when we were kids and i know why he asks this. i think the glimpses of my writing about those things he has seen have spoken to him. these are things he knows about and my perspective as the brother who was five years older is probably important to him.

what he doesn't know is that from the time i was 25 until i was 35 that shit was all i wrote about. i wrote about it. i cried about it. i read what i wrote and cried some more. i stayed up late talking to girlfriends about it in cars at night in parking lots of book stores and supermarkets. these things that happened, the events themselves, spilled out of me constantly like the pus of an infection. it was constantly, constantly oozing forth like a tide unstemmed.

prior to 25 i had no feelings whatsoever. nothing made me cry. i didn't even think i was capable of crying. when dog's died or relatives, i found myself greeting well wishers in lines at funerals with hundreds of guests offering up their support as i feigned tears, as i worked up an earnest tear or two. i felt abnormal in those days. i was damaged and i was worried i was deranged.

i used to ask myself how people cried so easily. i wondered if everyone was faking and it was just a device to connect with people or win support for this thing or that thing. i saw moviegoers emerging from films crying in those days and could not even imagine those tears were genuine. i thought they were the product of an overwrought, cry-baby emoting public trained like hounds to feel, to feel so deeply, to feel and to emote and to hurt and to be joyful all in extravagant ways and in public places and as if they owned these emotions. fuck, i hated these people, these emoters.

then it happened. i stopped writing poetry in iambic pentameter as i had been taught in some classroom or another and started writing some prose about my life and i started to believe i had some talent for writing. at the very least, i found i enjoyed reading what i had written, which was new by comparison to the crap-ass journal i had kept when i was in basic training for the air force or any other writing i did pre-25. that stuff was a joke and an embarrassment but suddenly when i began writing about my life and my mother and my brother and the things i went through as a child and how i felt about those things, about a crazy relationship between heroin-addicted parents trying to raise children practically on the streets of downtown los angeles, of late night car chases stretching from los angeles to san bernardino in the dark, still, 2am traffic less night on the 10, of cockroaches on the floor of the apartment, of sammy's small brown hand on my mom's white ass on the sofa in the middle of the night when i awoke from a nightmare, of dog's thrown from 2nd story windows, of strange friends who provided refuge to an 8-year-old kid when his stepdad was raging around an apartment like a maniac, well, i began crying.

i cried a fucking river. i cried for 10 years with only brief pauses of dryness. i washed my heart with my tears. i scrubbed it good, crying often when i wrote and experiencing a catharsis that must be a common experience among men. i conjured the events of my childhood, of visiting my mother in prisons all over the united states, of violence against myself or my brother or my mother by her codependent fuck of a loser-lover-husband, of moving in with my fundamentalist christian aunt and uncle before i was 11 and spending teen years in church with people speaking in tongues and anointing one another with olive oil and all other manner of hocus-pocus, mumbo-jumbo, bullshit feel-good beliefs and practices, in tomes nightly scrawled in low light on notepads purchased from drugstores or typed into an ms-dos computer sold to me by a girlfriend's dad for $100 in 1994, which i never paid him for.

near the end of those 10 wet years my writing changed and i began to move away from my "autobiographical fiction," as i was prone to call it in flattery of an idol of mine named henry miller. in fact it was miller who spoke so glowingly of the writers who seemed to lack any sense of style but wrote rather like robots, distilling language out of the equation and conveying instead pure thoughts unadulterated by colloquialism or the flavor of region. (i may have missed something since miller was renowned as much for his brooklyn vernacular as anything else.)

still, i cried. i cried at movies, at the drop of a hat. everything touched me-i was like a sieve. the human experience was vast and i was a complex, sophisticated human being, who knew the poignancy of life, the sensitive and rough-gentle vulnerable side of humanity and who identified with every fucking character ever written for the big screen by an independent film maker or some obscure artist of a writer. i remember crying the night i read the bridges of madison county in under three hours. i soothed any cheap feelings i may have had by telling myself it was about me not the pop fiction that lay in front of me on the floor of a living room in an apartment in san dimas in a small puddle of salty tears. lost love was something i knew something about. i had loved my childhood and i had lost it as it spun out of control in a world filled with adults smitten by ignorance like so many victims of the plague in a camus novel awaiting certain death in a walled-in city.

i cried goblet-sized tears the afternoon i watched central station in an art house theatre in pasadena, identifying with young josue as if i was watching super 8 films of my own tortured childhood dreaming of reunification with a biological father i would never, ever know.

and just about then, as if a faucet was turned righty-tighty to the off position, i stopped crying again. and i stopped writing about my childhood excepting a rare occasion when i found a topic from that time that allowed me the distance i needed. (that or i wrote in such a way i brushed over topics as in this little essay, without delving to a level which might give rise to emotions i had set aside for a season.)

i chalked this change up to growth. i had needed the rainy season. it was representative of me dealing with things that had affected me. but in moving beyond them i felt a sense of maturity. i felt like the crying was over, like i understood the random nature of my existence and had quit choosing to be so unshakably injured. it felt good to stop crying and it felt better to not feel like i needed to write about these events that had heretofore defined me if only in my own mind.

so when tommy brings this subject up i find i am in no rush to revisit the scribblings of my mad self. and now that some time has passed i find no strong aversion either. this, to me, feels like balance, which is of my highest values.

the estate tax

rather than discussing the in and outs of the estate tax from a political perspective, i am truly only interested in the moral question it involves. is it wrong or right to levy an estate tax, (or, death tax?)

the argument on one side is based on a basic premise. that premise suggests that a person's earned money should be theirs to do with as they please.

the argument on the other side is a bit more nuanced. it involves several concepts and may be a bit difficult to grasp on the whole. first and foremost would be the idea that since everyone dies and cannot take any material with them when they pass, they should not have the ability to control funds after they leave.

piggy-backing on that idea would be the idea that every man should make his own way in the world without advantage. while members of the wealthy class may bristle at that idea, a substantial case can be built based on the evidence of the children of advantage. it seems the less people have to work in their lives, the less balanced people they make and the less real value they are to society. this idea will resonate with some people and it will not resonate with others. (i would defer to voltaire and born rich to make the point.)

also playing in this equation is the idea that individuals should be of some value to society. this is only true if there is a certain implicit agreement among countrymen. in the u.s. the laws would suggest this agreement does exist. doing business with others is encouraged. all forms of social interaction, too. a man can certainly go off and live a hermit's life but even then the laws check him l'est he show anti-social behaviors.

this issue, whether there should be an estate tax and/or how heavy a tax it should be, is essentially an example of class warfare.

in that way it can be boiled down to a few precise points.

• it takes money to make money.
• opposition to the estate tax is an attempt by those who have money to hold on to their money even through generations.
• upward mobility is at an all-time low in the u.s.
• americans have always agreed on the principle of majority rules, which essentially means that if the huge majority of people who are not wealthy agree in principle with the estate tax and the idea that transferring wealth across generations should be allowed on a limited basis.

as an alternative i would think capping the amount of money transferable down to the next generation at $3 million would be fair. that is a great start for one or more persons on their lives and any greater amount of wealth that would move into the tax base would be a boon to the country.

the estate tax is a complicated issue but it is worthy of any one's time to understand all that is involved and at stake. personally, i think support for the estate tax is simply the right thing to do.

spring comes undone

driving to work this morning i was thinking about spring and how it has definitely sprung, now. this week my tv has had baseball all over it. prior to last night’s angel’s and dodger’s games, i even watched some of the red sox-rays game and caught glimpses of the yankees-orioles and reds-mets while picking up a pizza.

david eckstein is a padre now. matt holliday is an a. manny’s hair is longer-he looks like a reggae sunsplash player more than a left fielder for the dodgers. all the old faces in new places, the new faces in old places; like jordan schafer who hit two dingers in the first few days of the season and emilio bonifacio who is hitting .600, has a homer, four rbi, four runs and three stolen bases already in this young season, the renewed outlooks even for perennial also-rans like the pirates who won on opening day and sat atop their division if only for a night, the fresh dirt on the uniforms, the sounds of bat on ball or the pop of the catcher’s and first baseman’s gloves, it is spring because it is baseball because it is spring, after all.

baseball is america’s pastime. i have grown up with this game and i love it in so many ways. i love vin scully’s voice and I used to love to hear mel allen on tv on saturday mornings talking about “the week in baseball.” the buzzing bees in the trees these days remind me of the pesky little hitters who wreak havoc on pitchers, guys like ichiro, ellsbury, figgins, kinsler and so on, or from the past guys like brett butler and rickey henderson, or freddie patek or bert campaneris. These are the infamous “swarm of gnats,” scully has referred to when a team gets beaten by a bunch of dinkers and dunkers.

i love baseball food, too. “peanuts!” “yeah, over here buddy but throw them from 12 rows down where you are right now. it feels more like baseball.” who can eat a hot dog any time of year without thinking of baseball? (that must be why we have dodger dogs and ball park franks, after all.)

my third wedding anniversary is in just a few weeks, the first week of may actually, and I am told a gift this year should involve leather. would it be wrong to get her a brand new rawlings glove with a full grain leather shell and deer tanned cowhide lining for that special, baseball feel? i mean, i know she won’t play with it but it would certainly be a gift of love.

yesterday vin scully commented on the padres’ camouflage uniforms in honor of their “military night,” at the stadium, and mentioned how the town was abuzz with discussion of some of the military downsizing taking place these days and a certain airplane that has apparently lost its funding. he highlighted the fact that politicians are making these decisions and that people have strong feelings about whether those decisions are right or wrong, then he casually left it at that and i wondered what vin’s opinion is. i thought of emerson’s quote about not speaking speaking volumes but then thought vin is simply too classy to share his opinion publicly. in private he is probably an open and forthright person happy to share opinions and discuss things from a fairly informed perspective. who knows? what we can know is that he has not lost much as it relates to his status as the greatest baseball broadcaster of all time.

and today as my baseball infatuation is in full bloom i woke to the news of the death of nick adenhart, who died in an intersection five blocks down the street from my office. i was saddened because 12 hours earlier i admired adenhart as he escaped a bases loaded jam in the 6th to complete an outing of six scoreless. adenhart was 22 and had an especially bright future ahead of him in baseball. tragedy has struck baseball before. lyman bostock comes to mind. i heard adenhart's agent on the radio today and his voice cracked and the angels called off tonight's game and flowers assembled out front of angel stadium and the joy of spring cracked too, like a scratch on a record, and tomorrow the games will resume with all the requisite great plays and fantastic finishes.

i don't know though... when i started writing this little ode to baseball yesterday spring had sprung and all was glorious. right now, in the middle of the crack it feels like spring is broke. i can't hear the chirping birds or the buzzing bees. there is only a silence emanating from the mound at angel stadium where today nick adenhart's dad spent a moment beneath a sky full of clouds with his hand over his eyes.

bests and faves and lists

christy hardin smith has a fun post over at firedoglake this morning. (it is linked in the header.) as of now, 1.5 hours after she posted it there are nearly 200 comments. the fire puppies are having fun with this thread/stroll down memory lane. i thought i'd answer the questions right here. (christy's questions are in red. my answers in blue. would love to see some comments on this post if anyone happens to read it.)

Best concert you ever saw? Where, when, and who?

radiohead at the hollywood bowl in support of amnesiac, (i think?) this is a tough one because of course i want to say it was radiohead at the santa barbara bowl. i want to mention the night i saw tool, porno for pyros, fishbone, and alice in chains at the palladium. u2 at the san diego sports arena the night i shook bono's hand during the show was pretty awesome. (11th row?) pearl jam from the 3rd row at the fargo dome. i saw de la soul, the sugarcubes, pil and new order once at aztec stadium and it was perhaps the most sun-drenched, youthful day of my existence. u2 in denver with my brother was the bomb. i think we grooved more to the opening act, rage against the machine, than u2 that night on the pop mart tour. rage against the machine at the palladium, the democratic national convention or coachella was pretty awesome. tom morello at the el rey this past autumn was memorable. frank black at the glass house in pomona. the pixies at the universal amphitheatre when frank black went all psychedelic and had his guitar decked out in black lights and on a bungee cord so he could bounce it reverberating off the ground. the scorpions with bon jovi was a great show and a night that ended around 8am. the night chaka khan kissed me on the cheek was cool. in the 6th row in wisconsin for the tibetan freedom concert i got to see eddie vedder that day, along with run dmc, the beastie boys, rage, tracy chapman, blondie, the cult, the roots and others. i saw a cool benefit concert one night at the wiltern which featured mike ness, (solo,) eddie vedder, (all by himself,) and beck, who brought thom yorke out for a song.) u2 at the long beach civic auditorium from about the 30th row, standing on fold-up chairs the entire show to see over the heads of everyone in front of us in 1983, with bono waving that white flag around... ahh but alas, it is radiohead. it would be radiohead if i got to see them again tomorrow.

Best album EVAR?

i am going to go with u2's achtung baby.

If I could see any live performance past, present or future -- who would it be and why?

jeff buckley at the sin e coffe house in nyc. that one was easy. why? because i never saw him live and yet, because i have listened to every second of every live thing he recorded countless times. because i lived with jeff buckley for seasons metaphorically, times when life was hard and depression sunk in like a stone in water. jeff buckley's grace was with me in those times, perhaps feeding my feelings of despair but comforting me at the same time. there were weekend when i came home from work on friday and never came out of my house until i had to go to work on monday morning. in between i listened to jeff during all waking hours, wallowing in self-pity, desperate and alone. it's weird how you can miss a time like that all while hoping you never, ever end up in such a place again. jeff was an unbelievable talent and the fact he left the world early only increases that sense of wishing i had seen him perform live. and whether it would have been at sin e or the bataclan in paris, any of those early shows when he was working out who he would become as an artist, when he had the hat in front of him and played requests for cash to pay his rent, wow-i wish i had been there.

Song you've found yourself humming along to lately that you are embarrassed to admit you like?
hmm. if i like it i am usually not embarrased by it. there is this song...i don't know who sings it but the chorus she keeps singing is, 'i'm in trouble..." (just googled it. it's pink.)

Song that always gets stuck in your brain, no matter how much you loathe it?

haven't had one of these in a long time. i remember once upon a time when it was the nookie by limp bizkit.

Recording artist you'd most like to see struck with laryngitis?

kid rock.

Cover song you'd most like to see attempted?

i would love to hear radiohead slow down men at work's it's a mistake and radiohead it up a bit.

If you could put together your dream band, who would be in it?

eddie vedder crooning. jeff buckley on lead guitar. thom yorke on keyboards. dave grohl on drums. my friend dave lenci on bass.

Best vocals EVAR?

i guess i would say buckley on a live version of lover, you should've come over. still, thom yorke on you and whose army or bono on the live version of bad from wide awake in america is pretty hard to dismiss. that from the mars volta just wails, too.

Best guitar playing EVAR?

i'll go old school on this and say jimmy page on the song remains the same. there are moments when the photography of that day could not keep up with his fingers. i think page's guitar playing just killed about a decade of guitarists who simply quit because they knew they could never reach his plateau.

Best song in the history of music is _______?

black, by pj? nooooo... one, by u2? i am the walrus? what i got? rainy day woman? song 2? true love waits? blue monday? some girls? hey? come undone? haile sellase up your ass? no, i am going to go with famoous blue raincoat by leonard cohen. ahh, now that is sublime.