FIRST THINGS FIRST
The owners of MAIN NEWS, a general store of sorts, on the ground floor of the Arcade Building on the downtown walking mall are having a contest to rename its business. You can submit your ideas at the store. The winner will receive a $25 gift certificate. The owners, Sandy and Jim Rojo, provide one of my weekly simple pleasures, the Sunday New York Times on the Sunday of publication (if the airline doesn’t send it somewhere else or something gets mixed up in Seattle where the papers begin their flight). I like living in a place where it is hard to get the Times but I also really like being able to savor its international, national, arts, books, interesting-people obituary, and unapologetic Queer news coverage (see same-sex married couples along side the not-same-sex ones in the wedding announcement section). So now I have both Helena and the NYT and I’m a very happy person. If you have ideas for their business name drop by their store or if you don’t live here, send it to me and I’ll submit it and if you win, I’ll get five Sunday papers in your honor…or you can visit and buy cigars, they have a wonderful selection.
HOUSE ARREST
Due to Visitor Season, I have been put under house arrest. I do have/get to check in at the Jailhouse Sandwich Shop & Rodney Street Laundry on account of my parole agreement but mostly I will be writing from home for now. There are many ways to name the seasons and I’m not the first or last to do so. Here’s my latest rendition: “Visitors Season: Helena & Montana are Heaven (Summer),” “Some Curious Visitors: When Does it Get Cold There (Fall),” “Locals Only: No Way am I Coming There to Freeze my Butt Off (Winter),” and “Tentative Plans: When does It Stop Snowing (Spring).” Mom was here for 10 days in June and sister-in-law Kelly was here for a week (also called Many Adventures Season). In between I was in an amazing training for a NIA Dance Technique White-Belt Intensive (more on that in next posting). That time was a different season altogether: Marilyn Voluntarily Pushed Out of Comfort Zone Season.
SEASONS TO SORTING LAUNDRY
There are different schools of thought on when one waits to do a load of whites: wait until there are enough for a full load (people that stand out in a dark alley); don’t have enough dirty for a load, mix with very light colors; or don’t own enough to make a load, mix with light colors and perpetuate the decreasing number of white whites. I have no set thought (surprise) on this and find it situational. For example, right now I have a hodge podge of brief stories/vignettes to mention. Do I wait for enough to constitute one post or just lump them together? Turn the water on cold, you get them all…remember BRIEF vignettes, you’re not committing yourself to long entries. The long stories are long enough for a full post. Those will come later, Part II and III or maybe just Part II. I really do combine more often than separate and wait, another surprise I’m sure.
LOST & FOUND
Emma has discovered road kill (if you are squeamish of animal behavior go to next paragraph). She trotted off the other day when I wasn’t looking, not an all out run that is her signature but a slowly sniffing down the street until out of sight. She’s been hanging around off leash very consistently but I know better than to not pay more attention. I went looking and found her in the middle of a busy street on the yellow line licking the asphalt. Cars slowed down and passed on either side of the oblivious dog. Mind you this same dog is afraid of telephone cords, sudden noises, and box fans but now road kill rocks. She all out ran last night to the same spot. She never ever forgets a food source. This time Magpie feathers were involved (told you, if you’re squeamish you shouldn’t have read this, she is a dog after all). Back to the front yard lead she goes. She’s still smiling.
I found another pure, simple pleasure a few weeks ago, a brand new Papermate Pink Pearl eraser. It makes me so happy. I know how to use it. It’s effective, fresh, without dark smears. It also doesn’t rely on new Microsoft Office 2007 that came on my new work computer that I installed a few weeks ago. I used my favorite obscenities for three weeks before I got it taken off. Call me set in my ways, go ahead, I don’t care, I hated it. I’ll just erase your words.
Found Object (see picture):
a) musket ball
b) ball bearing from old wagon wheel
c) kidney stone from T-rex
d) petrified rum ball
e) other
Please submit your answers.
Kelly found it at what will be my new house. My brother Curtis and his spouse/partner/wife Kelly, presently residing in Jakarta, Indonesia, have bought a house here that I will live in. It comes with a studio in back that our mom will visit 3-4 months out of the year (Helena & MT are Heaven Season). Even though I’d never bought a house before, it was easier than the blasted Microsoft Office 2007 (I will try to let this go).
Another Found Object
One construction worker’s discarded toilet is another man’s new throne. At the Queen City Newspaper’s 5th Anniversary Party I got to talking to a man that had lived in a house bursting with parties in the Rodney Street neighborhood when he was in college. Story goes they needed a new toilet. He was down by Big Dorothy’s (a brothel that last until sometime in the 1970’s when she decided to close it –my uncle has a wild story about helping her reach this state of upward mobility by showing her that selling shots of alcohol was more profitable than her other sales, do we believe him?) and came across workers cleaning out Big D’s building. He asked if he could take the toilet and now recalls what a sight he made carrying a toilet up the hill from Last Chance Gulch to Rodney Street (it is a huffer and puffer of a hill).
The man recalled another fantastic story about his brother who also lived in the RS neighborhood. The not-fantastic part was that his brother had been in a motorcycle accident that had left him disoriented in life. One night of 30-below temperatures the brother’s 4-plex caught on fire. Unfortunately he stood out in the street and didn’t realize that all the water and such used to put out the fire had frozen around his feet and he was stuck there. Neighbors called the storyteller-brother to tell him to come get his brother.
Okay, there are enough laundry piles for you for today. To be continued…
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Unchanging Change
So much for the pinkie swear of writing more often. However the intentions were very good as I see in my computer file that I have notes from being at the Rodney Street Laundry on April 29th. Seems like that was just last week that I was intent on writing and ready to go but, alas, that didn’t happen. On my behalf and for my behalf, we did have our biggest fundraiser of the year at the Myrna Loy Center a mere two weeks ago so there was the work ahead of time and the recuperation afterward –it was a wine tasting after all and very successful for the wines, tasters, auctioneer, and the MLC till and programs. Now I’m back at the computer and the Laundry and raring to go.
Meanwhile, since I last wrote, the Legislature came back for a special session, rallied, passed the budget, and the Republicans fired Rep. Lange as the top House Republican dude, more for having a clandestine meeting ahead of the special session than for his tirade. In addition, Spring peaked from around the clouds and then slid back in a game of hide and seek. In the 80’s, toasty with a clear blue sky one week, lots of rain in the city and snow in the mountains the next. The lilacs kept their enrapturing scent throughout, the apple blossoms on my tree came and then were swept away by a storm’s wind. Today though is a gorgeous one with plenty of sunshine and warm air.
I talk about the weather more here in Helena than any place I’ve lived, maybe because there is more variety, actual seasons for example. Or because my love life is dormant so instead I have more time to consider other drama like weather systems. But always Weather has been close to my mind. Starting with my great-grandmother Sally Geers Sandusky who thought all weathermen were liars. I dated a boy in college who was studying meteorology. When she met him and found out his major, she promptly said, “Why do you want to be a liar?” Her view was rather reasonable as she was born before the Weather Service came into being and I’d guess that they had a steep learning curve but unwavering confidence. The combination of which would lead to overly somber forecasts that weren’t realized or sunny ones that were rained out, all given with the certainty of an overly-zealous new field of experts. Mammaw, as we called our great-grandmother, used to watch tornados rip through her flat West Texas landscape and be the last into the storm cellar so she knew storms, skies, warnings and masquerades. She’d also spent a lifetime leaning into the everyday West Texas wind which makes Chicago’s classification as the Windy City seem like a dog’s mild panting (though really the Windy City isn’t named for actual wind but blowhard politicians). In order to stand upright, she’d had to plant her feet solidly on the ground with a little flex in the knees for the gusts. Weather was no lofty science.
Another thing about the talk of weather is that wherever I have lived, people say a similar verse, “If you don’t like the weather here in Ama-ril-ah (or College Station or Tulsa or Dallas or Chicago…) just wait a while and it will change.” The speaker would always localize the change but really, weather is universally changing. However, I don’t know if this saying is pronounced in Honolulu, St. Martens, or Mozambique.
I think that Mammaw died before the advent of the Weather Channel on television. Its presence would have been quite a stretch for her. I am however taken with watching it especially listening to the local forecasts. First, the announcer always says it like he’s here, “tonight we’ll have lows in the 30’s.” Then there are the descriptions, one day “very cold” dipping to “bitter cold.” Missing however as the temperature dives to sub-zero extremes is the classification “unfuckingbelievable cold.” Then there are predictions like, “chance of rain and a rumble of thunder.” I don’t know about you but I don’t remember a thunderstorm with just one rumble of thunder. But for all the wording, I do love seeing the map of the US of A and how my weather is moving east out to friends in Chicago and onto my brother in New York City, even if it does morph into something else by the time it gets there. And in the bitter-ass cold of winter, I can see that Dilia in Phoenix is having a nice time of it until summer when the blazing sun creates extreme weather down her way. But it’s a dry heat. The last thing about the Weather Channel that I’ll mention is my theory of how they audition reporters for hurricane season which, by the way, starts in June. They give the would-be reporter a script, microphone, and then train a firehose on them and see if they can stand up. Mammaw would have passed the test with her withstanding-the-force-of-wind experience but then she would have been a liar and she was nothing if not a straight shooter.
The rains have brought forth a huge harvest of the only crop that is in my yard…unless you count the wormy apples. Rhubarb. Without my help this green, leafy plant sprouts and spreads out of the ground and when cut back, still returns about three more times with the suspicious and mysterious red stalks that couple with strawberries to make a good pie (pronounced “pah”). The Joy of Cooking goes to great lengths to clarify that rhubarb is not a fruit even though its pie is in the fruit pie section of the cookbook. Not mineral or vegetable either. Though my earliest years were in the Dakotas and Montana where rhubarb is plentiful, other places we lived it was not so we were much more likely to have cherry or pumpkin or apple pie (Mrs. Smith does not make a frozen rhubarb pie) so rhubarb was a relatively unknown entity. But when I moved into my house here, my friends Annie and Barb identified for me the rhubarb plant. It looked more like what I remember the Summer Squash plant to look like when my brother Paul and I were sent out to hoe the vegetable garden in our side yard. Our dad spent his early years on a farm and I guess he thought we should be using that soil for something. Mostly it would offer up tons of cucumbers that made their way into sweet “bread & butter” pickles. The smell of vinegar on pickling day held a certain fondness as my father seemed to tackle the cucumber transformation as a feat of engineering: an efficient, orderly production line with a satisfying end-product. He had the added benefit of having the soured & sweetened harvest on ham sandwiches the rest of the year…there were that many cucumbers. I think I'll stick with my one rhubarb plant.
+ + +
As you may be able to tell, I don’t really know where these posts will go once I start writing. Today I was going to write about the DOC as you can see on the back of the t-shirt of Kim Drew, one of the new co-owners of the Jailhouse Sandwich Shop. This DOC stands for Delivery of Chow, a play on the DOC (Department of Corrections) across the street. But I’ll ponder that another day. The DOC t-shirt and chow scenes in the pictures were taken at the Rodney Street Laundry & Jailhouse Sandwich Shop & Soup Kitchen Open House on May 5th. The BBQ beef brisket sandwich was mighty fine and the signature potato salad delish. It was another bright sunny day!
+ + +
One final note, there are some new comments on the last two posts. I added them from excerpts of email people sent me. So please check those out. Also, if you can’t figure out how to add a comment, send it to me and I’ll add it under anonymous unless you want me to add your name. I won’t add your email comments unless you give me permission. It can be short, quick, off-the-cuff, irreverent, insightful, humorous or pointless. Doesn’t matter. Don’t be shy. Also, please share the blog site with others. The more readers, the more interesting the comments.
+++
For those that have asked:
604 days, 0 hours, 0 minutes, 0 seconds
Oh, now to 603 days…
Meanwhile, since I last wrote, the Legislature came back for a special session, rallied, passed the budget, and the Republicans fired Rep. Lange as the top House Republican dude, more for having a clandestine meeting ahead of the special session than for his tirade. In addition, Spring peaked from around the clouds and then slid back in a game of hide and seek. In the 80’s, toasty with a clear blue sky one week, lots of rain in the city and snow in the mountains the next. The lilacs kept their enrapturing scent throughout, the apple blossoms on my tree came and then were swept away by a storm’s wind. Today though is a gorgeous one with plenty of sunshine and warm air.
I talk about the weather more here in Helena than any place I’ve lived, maybe because there is more variety, actual seasons for example. Or because my love life is dormant so instead I have more time to consider other drama like weather systems. But always Weather has been close to my mind. Starting with my great-grandmother Sally Geers Sandusky who thought all weathermen were liars. I dated a boy in college who was studying meteorology. When she met him and found out his major, she promptly said, “Why do you want to be a liar?” Her view was rather reasonable as she was born before the Weather Service came into being and I’d guess that they had a steep learning curve but unwavering confidence. The combination of which would lead to overly somber forecasts that weren’t realized or sunny ones that were rained out, all given with the certainty of an overly-zealous new field of experts. Mammaw, as we called our great-grandmother, used to watch tornados rip through her flat West Texas landscape and be the last into the storm cellar so she knew storms, skies, warnings and masquerades. She’d also spent a lifetime leaning into the everyday West Texas wind which makes Chicago’s classification as the Windy City seem like a dog’s mild panting (though really the Windy City isn’t named for actual wind but blowhard politicians). In order to stand upright, she’d had to plant her feet solidly on the ground with a little flex in the knees for the gusts. Weather was no lofty science.
Another thing about the talk of weather is that wherever I have lived, people say a similar verse, “If you don’t like the weather here in Ama-ril-ah (or College Station or Tulsa or Dallas or Chicago…) just wait a while and it will change.” The speaker would always localize the change but really, weather is universally changing. However, I don’t know if this saying is pronounced in Honolulu, St. Martens, or Mozambique.
I think that Mammaw died before the advent of the Weather Channel on television. Its presence would have been quite a stretch for her. I am however taken with watching it especially listening to the local forecasts. First, the announcer always says it like he’s here, “tonight we’ll have lows in the 30’s.” Then there are the descriptions, one day “very cold” dipping to “bitter cold.” Missing however as the temperature dives to sub-zero extremes is the classification “unfuckingbelievable cold.” Then there are predictions like, “chance of rain and a rumble of thunder.” I don’t know about you but I don’t remember a thunderstorm with just one rumble of thunder. But for all the wording, I do love seeing the map of the US of A and how my weather is moving east out to friends in Chicago and onto my brother in New York City, even if it does morph into something else by the time it gets there. And in the bitter-ass cold of winter, I can see that Dilia in Phoenix is having a nice time of it until summer when the blazing sun creates extreme weather down her way. But it’s a dry heat. The last thing about the Weather Channel that I’ll mention is my theory of how they audition reporters for hurricane season which, by the way, starts in June. They give the would-be reporter a script, microphone, and then train a firehose on them and see if they can stand up. Mammaw would have passed the test with her withstanding-the-force-of-wind experience but then she would have been a liar and she was nothing if not a straight shooter.
The rains have brought forth a huge harvest of the only crop that is in my yard…unless you count the wormy apples. Rhubarb. Without my help this green, leafy plant sprouts and spreads out of the ground and when cut back, still returns about three more times with the suspicious and mysterious red stalks that couple with strawberries to make a good pie (pronounced “pah”). The Joy of Cooking goes to great lengths to clarify that rhubarb is not a fruit even though its pie is in the fruit pie section of the cookbook. Not mineral or vegetable either. Though my earliest years were in the Dakotas and Montana where rhubarb is plentiful, other places we lived it was not so we were much more likely to have cherry or pumpkin or apple pie (Mrs. Smith does not make a frozen rhubarb pie) so rhubarb was a relatively unknown entity. But when I moved into my house here, my friends Annie and Barb identified for me the rhubarb plant. It looked more like what I remember the Summer Squash plant to look like when my brother Paul and I were sent out to hoe the vegetable garden in our side yard. Our dad spent his early years on a farm and I guess he thought we should be using that soil for something. Mostly it would offer up tons of cucumbers that made their way into sweet “bread & butter” pickles. The smell of vinegar on pickling day held a certain fondness as my father seemed to tackle the cucumber transformation as a feat of engineering: an efficient, orderly production line with a satisfying end-product. He had the added benefit of having the soured & sweetened harvest on ham sandwiches the rest of the year…there were that many cucumbers. I think I'll stick with my one rhubarb plant.
+ + +
As you may be able to tell, I don’t really know where these posts will go once I start writing. Today I was going to write about the DOC as you can see on the back of the t-shirt of Kim Drew, one of the new co-owners of the Jailhouse Sandwich Shop. This DOC stands for Delivery of Chow, a play on the DOC (Department of Corrections) across the street. But I’ll ponder that another day. The DOC t-shirt and chow scenes in the pictures were taken at the Rodney Street Laundry & Jailhouse Sandwich Shop & Soup Kitchen Open House on May 5th. The BBQ beef brisket sandwich was mighty fine and the signature potato salad delish. It was another bright sunny day!
+ + +
One final note, there are some new comments on the last two posts. I added them from excerpts of email people sent me. So please check those out. Also, if you can’t figure out how to add a comment, send it to me and I’ll add it under anonymous unless you want me to add your name. I won’t add your email comments unless you give me permission. It can be short, quick, off-the-cuff, irreverent, insightful, humorous or pointless. Doesn’t matter. Don’t be shy. Also, please share the blog site with others. The more readers, the more interesting the comments.
+++
For those that have asked:
604 days, 0 hours, 0 minutes, 0 seconds
Oh, now to 603 days…
Monday, April 30, 2007
SHOUT
For as long as I can remember (and way before then), laundry product marketers have had a superb skill for naming and branding their merchandise. How about BOLD? Wasn’t that the one that had a free towel inside, for those of you alive in 1966? Not sure what TIDE conveys but CHEER seems happy and bright and there is that All-temper-Cheer that gave a gay-all-the-time feeling. Bounce is good, especially when drying linens. They could test beds with Bounced sheets to see if kids jump higher. But my favorite name right now is SHOUT, the stain remover. In fact I’ve had a bottle with me for several weeks now because one never knows when a SHOUT opportunity will come.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“Ah, so you put SHOUT on beforehand so the stains don’t stick?”
This political insight was from an assistant in the Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer’s office about the bottle of SHOUT that I was carrying around at the state capitol on Thursday. It was a good day for SHOUT, the morning after the morning when House Republican majority leader Michael Lange lost it in a meeting of House Republicans. He said that the governor could “shove it up his ass.” Really, he said that, and there was a lone, local television news reporter with a camera to get the scoop. It wasn’t long before the clip hit YouTube.com and other internet and national news sites. Who says that the antics of the Texas Leg have anything on Montana’s?
The irony or not was that his ranting came in the context of a tirade about dignity and honor. Oops. More, “So my message to the governor is to stick it up your ass! That’s my message to him. Stick it up your ass.” Now the Helena Independent Record did not run the expletives but replaced them with ** though pronounced sounds like assssss-terisks to me. Their April 26th headline read “Expletives deleted: House speaker’s tirade takes ugly session over the brink.” The editor did think it through as noted in a gold box, “Although the vulgar language referred to in this article is arguably the point of the story, the Independent Record decided to replace some of the more offensive words with as(ssss)terisks. Doing so is the IR’s policy for such language.” A local news station gave a warning about offensive language preceding the report on the evening news. Definitely not HBO.
More, Lange called Schweitzer the “…S.O.B. (already abbreviated so no ** needed) on the second floor that thinks he’s going to run this state like a dictator.” Some of his comments were met with applause from fellow Republicans in the room. On the video, the camera pans to people standing along the wall including several high school pages. Then there are men at the table looking at the floor, scratching an ear, or leaning in with hand over mouth not in surprise but in thought, like “oh, ****, he did not just say that.” But he did and more, “He (the governor) can take every bill and I don’t give a ****…I will not be offered a bribe to turn you lose to go screw the state of Montana …(pause)… on any bill.” Not good for the state tourist bureau no matter how you look at it. One representative chewing gum eyed the camera. Wonder what he was thinking?
Lange alleged that Schweitzer had offered him a bribe in an earlier morning meeting. Later, when asked about that by a reporter, Schweitzer replied that he didn’t even offer Lange a cup of coffee. Well then, what do you expect?
What the governor did offer was a tax-and-budget compromise, an offer to break the stalemate issue at its height on the 88th day of the 90-day session. The state projects a $1 billion surplus for the next two years and there is definitely a difference of O-pinion on funding for schools (for example) and tax rebates. From some observers at the meeting Lange seemed to be open to it but a few hours later it wasn’t working for him. Clearly.
Lange got uglier in his remarks to the House Republicans and enlarged his circle of targets, likening the Democrats to “radical socialists” like those in the “Soviet Union, North Korea and Red China.” He was steppin’ on toes then. Later Lange apologized to members of the House, to which Rep. Bill Wilson, Democrat from Great Falls, replied in a “point of personal privilege” that he’d never heard anything so “vile and insulting as I heard today. …this is a very low point in the history of this body.” And he’s been around for 14 years. He took deep offense at the communists and socialists remarks seeing as his father had landed on Normandy. On Friday, Republican Senator John Cobb would say that the House Republicans were being led by “a couple of thugs.”
Lange ended his tirade with “God bless each and every one of you” after saying he would “go over the cliff with you.” Personally if I was in Republican shoes I’d stay on flat land, tell him to go ahead, and then double back to the building.
To no one’s surprise, the House stalled on budget bills and now the Legislature has to go into a special session, estimated at $38,000 a day and about $1 million total. Though Lange said that he would gladly go without pay, “I don’t give a crap about pay when our way of lifestyle is under threat,” he was helping to send a million dollars of projected surplus down the drain. This because an impasse or debacle or snafu or BFD (no ** needed) speeches or plain belligerence in the House kept the main budget bills moving forward. (I suppose there is finger-pointing at the Senate and definitely back and forth across party lines but for the sake of argument let’s stay with blaming the House Republicans.) Bills that haven’t passed both chambers now go back to the beginning, scratch, do-over to the extreme. This wasn’t a surprise as the Queen City News, the weekly newspaper, had a picture on last week’s cover of a bus with a destination sign (where it often says “Have a nice day”) that read, “Nowhere” and the side stenciled with “Partisan Line.”
The fun part for me was happening into the Capitol the day after THE day with my esteemed and favorite state senator, Christine Kaufmann. It is a definite understatement to say that she is quite happy not to be on the House side anymore. I sat in on the opening of the Senate session that morning. It began with a visit by some of the cast for the Queen City Ballet’s production of Cinderella –maybe the first time drag visited the Senate chambers. It was a delight to see Senate President Mike Cooney get kissed on the cheek by one of the ugly step-“sisters.” He jokingly ruled it out of order. Sen. Kaufmann introduced them “off the record,” of course. Another senator then recognized an athletic director from somewhere I don’t remember because my thoughts were still absorbed with the drag sisters. Then Sen. Kaufmann sought permission to introduce an additional guest to which someone asked if it was another motley cast. She then looked up at me in the gallery and introduced me as one of her constituents (I swelled with pride) and the Writer-in-Residence at the Rodney Street Laundry and Jailhouse Sandwich Shop & Soup Kitchen. I got light applause and standing welcome from about ¾ of the senate, the Cinderella cast and athletic director had gotten the full body but by then it was like following a dog & pony show. Just another day in the life of Montana politics and laundry, I suppose. I only wished for more SHOUT gumption as I left the building and saw Representative Lange talking with a reporter. I would have loved to have had a picture of him holding SHOUT but I didn’t want to ask and have him tell me to stick my camera up my asssssterisks.
~ ~ ~ ~
Thanks to all y’all who came out to one of my book signings in Texas or just got together with me for fun. Special yee-haw (we really don’t talk like this) for Jodi and Jacki and that fine margarita just-add-Tequila machine. I got a few Texas pictures thrown in here to show that I was doing something book-related while I wasn’t writing on this here blog. I will be back on a regular basis, pinky promise, I swahr. I do appreciate your comments and emails even if I don’t write back.
AND FINALLY, the public is invited to an Open House on Saturday May 5th 12-4pm, at the Rodney Street Laundry. Sandy Shull and Jacquie Gibson will introduce the new co-owners of the Rodney Street Laundry & Jailhouse Sandwich Shop & Soup Kitchen, Kim and Joe Drew.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“Ah, so you put SHOUT on beforehand so the stains don’t stick?”
This political insight was from an assistant in the Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer’s office about the bottle of SHOUT that I was carrying around at the state capitol on Thursday. It was a good day for SHOUT, the morning after the morning when House Republican majority leader Michael Lange lost it in a meeting of House Republicans. He said that the governor could “shove it up his ass.” Really, he said that, and there was a lone, local television news reporter with a camera to get the scoop. It wasn’t long before the clip hit YouTube.com and other internet and national news sites. Who says that the antics of the Texas Leg have anything on Montana’s?
The irony or not was that his ranting came in the context of a tirade about dignity and honor. Oops. More, “So my message to the governor is to stick it up your ass! That’s my message to him. Stick it up your ass.” Now the Helena Independent Record did not run the expletives but replaced them with ** though pronounced sounds like assssss-terisks to me. Their April 26th headline read “Expletives deleted: House speaker’s tirade takes ugly session over the brink.” The editor did think it through as noted in a gold box, “Although the vulgar language referred to in this article is arguably the point of the story, the Independent Record decided to replace some of the more offensive words with as(ssss)terisks. Doing so is the IR’s policy for such language.” A local news station gave a warning about offensive language preceding the report on the evening news. Definitely not HBO.
More, Lange called Schweitzer the “…S.O.B. (already abbreviated so no ** needed) on the second floor that thinks he’s going to run this state like a dictator.” Some of his comments were met with applause from fellow Republicans in the room. On the video, the camera pans to people standing along the wall including several high school pages. Then there are men at the table looking at the floor, scratching an ear, or leaning in with hand over mouth not in surprise but in thought, like “oh, ****, he did not just say that.” But he did and more, “He (the governor) can take every bill and I don’t give a ****…I will not be offered a bribe to turn you lose to go screw the state of Montana …(pause)… on any bill.” Not good for the state tourist bureau no matter how you look at it. One representative chewing gum eyed the camera. Wonder what he was thinking?
Lange alleged that Schweitzer had offered him a bribe in an earlier morning meeting. Later, when asked about that by a reporter, Schweitzer replied that he didn’t even offer Lange a cup of coffee. Well then, what do you expect?
What the governor did offer was a tax-and-budget compromise, an offer to break the stalemate issue at its height on the 88th day of the 90-day session. The state projects a $1 billion surplus for the next two years and there is definitely a difference of O-pinion on funding for schools (for example) and tax rebates. From some observers at the meeting Lange seemed to be open to it but a few hours later it wasn’t working for him. Clearly.
Lange got uglier in his remarks to the House Republicans and enlarged his circle of targets, likening the Democrats to “radical socialists” like those in the “Soviet Union, North Korea and Red China.” He was steppin’ on toes then. Later Lange apologized to members of the House, to which Rep. Bill Wilson, Democrat from Great Falls, replied in a “point of personal privilege” that he’d never heard anything so “vile and insulting as I heard today. …this is a very low point in the history of this body.” And he’s been around for 14 years. He took deep offense at the communists and socialists remarks seeing as his father had landed on Normandy. On Friday, Republican Senator John Cobb would say that the House Republicans were being led by “a couple of thugs.”
Lange ended his tirade with “God bless each and every one of you” after saying he would “go over the cliff with you.” Personally if I was in Republican shoes I’d stay on flat land, tell him to go ahead, and then double back to the building.
To no one’s surprise, the House stalled on budget bills and now the Legislature has to go into a special session, estimated at $38,000 a day and about $1 million total. Though Lange said that he would gladly go without pay, “I don’t give a crap about pay when our way of lifestyle is under threat,” he was helping to send a million dollars of projected surplus down the drain. This because an impasse or debacle or snafu or BFD (no ** needed) speeches or plain belligerence in the House kept the main budget bills moving forward. (I suppose there is finger-pointing at the Senate and definitely back and forth across party lines but for the sake of argument let’s stay with blaming the House Republicans.) Bills that haven’t passed both chambers now go back to the beginning, scratch, do-over to the extreme. This wasn’t a surprise as the Queen City News, the weekly newspaper, had a picture on last week’s cover of a bus with a destination sign (where it often says “Have a nice day”) that read, “Nowhere” and the side stenciled with “Partisan Line.”
The fun part for me was happening into the Capitol the day after THE day with my esteemed and favorite state senator, Christine Kaufmann. It is a definite understatement to say that she is quite happy not to be on the House side anymore. I sat in on the opening of the Senate session that morning. It began with a visit by some of the cast for the Queen City Ballet’s production of Cinderella –maybe the first time drag visited the Senate chambers. It was a delight to see Senate President Mike Cooney get kissed on the cheek by one of the ugly step-“sisters.” He jokingly ruled it out of order. Sen. Kaufmann introduced them “off the record,” of course. Another senator then recognized an athletic director from somewhere I don’t remember because my thoughts were still absorbed with the drag sisters. Then Sen. Kaufmann sought permission to introduce an additional guest to which someone asked if it was another motley cast. She then looked up at me in the gallery and introduced me as one of her constituents (I swelled with pride) and the Writer-in-Residence at the Rodney Street Laundry and Jailhouse Sandwich Shop & Soup Kitchen. I got light applause and standing welcome from about ¾ of the senate, the Cinderella cast and athletic director had gotten the full body but by then it was like following a dog & pony show. Just another day in the life of Montana politics and laundry, I suppose. I only wished for more SHOUT gumption as I left the building and saw Representative Lange talking with a reporter. I would have loved to have had a picture of him holding SHOUT but I didn’t want to ask and have him tell me to stick my camera up my asssssterisks.
~ ~ ~ ~
Thanks to all y’all who came out to one of my book signings in Texas or just got together with me for fun. Special yee-haw (we really don’t talk like this) for Jodi and Jacki and that fine margarita just-add-Tequila machine. I got a few Texas pictures thrown in here to show that I was doing something book-related while I wasn’t writing on this here blog. I will be back on a regular basis, pinky promise, I swahr. I do appreciate your comments and emails even if I don’t write back.
AND FINALLY, the public is invited to an Open House on Saturday May 5th 12-4pm, at the Rodney Street Laundry. Sandy Shull and Jacquie Gibson will introduce the new co-owners of the Rodney Street Laundry & Jailhouse Sandwich Shop & Soup Kitchen, Kim and Joe Drew.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
The Secret According to Emma
I’m back. It’s been a month since I last wrote. I lost some numbers on the calendar –around 7 of them-- due to a pulled/strained/f-ed lower back or specifically the SI (sacro-ileac). Not something I’d recommend. After the excruciating pain subsided about four to five days in, I could at least settle down enough to read while I lay on ice then heat packs in between naturopath and acupuncture treatments (thank you, Doc Bergie). It’s bad when you have to call a friend over to get the landline phone out from under the futon where it had rolled impossibly out of reach. The worst though was when I had to muster up all my determination to sit and then stand up knowing the sharp pain that was going to immediately shoot through my body. It was about a six step process. Roll on side, curse; lift on elbow, call on the sharpest profanity; up to sitting, ow, ow, ow, ow; the final though requiring-the-most-intake-of-breath stand; don’t pass out because I’d have to start all over again; and then try to remember why I got up in the first place. This was not fun.
But here was the worst part. I had watched The Secret DVD a couple of days before I reached for the fateful water bottle in the backseat of my car, felt a snap then shooting pain and found that I could no longer stand erect. The Secret is a documentary that has gone from word of mouth and finally tipped over into wide media attention a la Oprah and thus become the latest embraced and mocked quantum physics, “you create your own reality” trend. Months ago a friend since grade school called me to insist that I get the DVD. I had every intention to look it up on the web but then forgot. Then I came across Bev at the Myrna picking up her loaner copy that had been dropped off there. She said that I could borrow it. Now, this is a very The Secret thing: set the intention (sure, Tricia, I’ll get it) and even though I forgot about it and didn’t do the next few steps of imagine and feel the result, the DVD fell into my lap. So I finally watched it. Once I got past the (to me) very hokey visuals and the idea that this principle had been lost and denied the masses until now, I had no argument with the basic point, the Law of Attraction. However I had a hard time believing that a starving child in Africa could accomplish what the little white, well-fed boy in the documentary did: cutting out a picture of a red bicycle from a catalogue, obsessing/imagining his ownership of it, and then finally getting it. Then again, it’s context, I suppose, that creates one’s greatest desire is (i.e. bicycle v. food, bicycle v. bringing your child back to life). The steps are straightforward: ask, believe, receive. What one puts out there is what one gets back. Put out negative, get negative.* Put out positive, get positive. Keep your mind and attitude in check and you will attract what you ask for. Fostering gratitude is crucial as well.
(* Insert: there is fundamental problem to imply that a parent "asked for" a child to be killed by a stray bullet or millions of people drew to them by negative thoughts devastating hunger or AIDS.)
I watched the DVD, thought positive thoughts, felt gratitude and what happened?! I ended up with a sprained back and laid up for a week. For one, on my best days, these kind of Secret deals including intercessory prayer and "you are what you think" philosophies really make me paranoid. I get obsessed with chasing the thoughts around my brain trying to catch up with the negative ones to beat them into submission and find and rally the positive because my life and all good things depend on it. (BTW, is there a difference between negativity and sophisticated sarcasm?) So when something like a thrown back comes flying out of left or right field, I rack my brain figuring out what I was thinking but knowing it’s too damn late, all the while saying, “I’m bloody grateful, okay? I am. I know I’m lucky and privileged and don’t take for granted that I can move, think, laugh, all righty roo? I am grateful already SO WHAT’S THE FUCKING PROBLEM?” This I yell to the universe.
My wise counselor/spiritual director, after ranting about my back and The Secret for about $40-worth of my session, told me, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” And since it was phallic Freud that described the cigar, it had to be true. Maybe bad-backs happen and I hadn’t somehow drawn it to myself. It took about five days to accept that, coinciding with the day my doc said that it very likely wasn’t a disc problem and just a hell of an outraged bundle of nerves out of whack. Let me throw in here that I have had times in my life that can be described as “a hell of an outraged bundle of nerves out of whack” but I’m not there anymore and haven’t been in a long while. I’ve got a great, relaxed, creative life here. So what gives?
I must put in here a couple of quick examples of paranoia-reinforcing experiences. Twenty-three years ago I fell asleep reading Something More, a book about claiming joy in life, and about three hours later I awoke to my apartment building on fire. I had to jump out of my second-story window to escape. I definitely got something more than I bargained for and don't believe it was joy. So either a cigar is just a cigar or I’ve got a dyslexic relationship to the Law of Attraction. I’ve also worked for two organizations that I ended up with an employment lawyer to broker mutual severance, organizations with lofty names including words like human understanding and reconciling. The shadow side lurks. In fact, key people who participated in the development of The Secret documentary are in conflict over who gets credit for the film and its origins. To one couple’s great credit, they are not suing because it takes “energy away from their own pursuit of the law of attraction.”
As my back got better, I was able to go out more. It was when I was sitting outside a bakery/cafe with Emma that I realized that Emma had mastered The Secret. I had spent about an hour of sipping my latte and reading the New York Times Book Review when out of the blue one of the young women from the bakery came out with a little doggie treat for Emma, “the very good dog.” I looked at Emma sitting so charmingly to receive her treat and realized she constantly draws treats to herself. (It helps that she is a golden retriever. If she was a wild boar, I don’t think she would be as successful.) I know Emma puts out a lot of treat energy and she does attract the biscuits back to her. “Treat, treat, treat,” she pants. When we go to the bank’s drive-up, she adds drool to the “believe and receive,” cocks her ear to the voice coming over the speaker, and leans forward when I get the treat-carrying capsule in the car to receive her beloved baked bones and my deposit slip. She is also pro-active in her search and retrieve of goodies (she does not retrieve balls by the way). At work, Ed does not give her treats when she begs, but later he comes in my office to give Emma what he calls “random reinforcement.” In actuality Emma may be still calling the shots with her power of attraction. For even when she sleeps, she imagines and believes, “treat, treat, treat, treat.”
Now two weeks after my bent-over pain, I realize that the week prior I had been tuned into people going on vacations or taking time off to hang out. Could my desire for time off attracted my back ailment? If so, I need to not only chase down the negativity but also clarify the positive desires. Vacation without pain. I’ve projected more monthly expenses over income before (many times) and wondered where the dough would come from only to have the above-mentioned fire or legal settlements bring in cash. Again, checks without lawyers or insurance companies. Cigars that are just cigars.
I don’t belittle The Secret. Being in tune with the universe, with one’s desires, and aligning oneself accordingly is a great way to live along with a fine dose of gratitude. But it is also good to recognize and allow anger, grief, frustration and indignation. These seemingly negative emotions are signals, process, storytellers, and essential warning signs. Other than that, what’s the harm with “pant/chant-ing, drooling, and receiving?” Gulp.
But here was the worst part. I had watched The Secret DVD a couple of days before I reached for the fateful water bottle in the backseat of my car, felt a snap then shooting pain and found that I could no longer stand erect. The Secret is a documentary that has gone from word of mouth and finally tipped over into wide media attention a la Oprah and thus become the latest embraced and mocked quantum physics, “you create your own reality” trend. Months ago a friend since grade school called me to insist that I get the DVD. I had every intention to look it up on the web but then forgot. Then I came across Bev at the Myrna picking up her loaner copy that had been dropped off there. She said that I could borrow it. Now, this is a very The Secret thing: set the intention (sure, Tricia, I’ll get it) and even though I forgot about it and didn’t do the next few steps of imagine and feel the result, the DVD fell into my lap. So I finally watched it. Once I got past the (to me) very hokey visuals and the idea that this principle had been lost and denied the masses until now, I had no argument with the basic point, the Law of Attraction. However I had a hard time believing that a starving child in Africa could accomplish what the little white, well-fed boy in the documentary did: cutting out a picture of a red bicycle from a catalogue, obsessing/imagining his ownership of it, and then finally getting it. Then again, it’s context, I suppose, that creates one’s greatest desire is (i.e. bicycle v. food, bicycle v. bringing your child back to life). The steps are straightforward: ask, believe, receive. What one puts out there is what one gets back. Put out negative, get negative.* Put out positive, get positive. Keep your mind and attitude in check and you will attract what you ask for. Fostering gratitude is crucial as well.
(* Insert: there is fundamental problem to imply that a parent "asked for" a child to be killed by a stray bullet or millions of people drew to them by negative thoughts devastating hunger or AIDS.)
I watched the DVD, thought positive thoughts, felt gratitude and what happened?! I ended up with a sprained back and laid up for a week. For one, on my best days, these kind of Secret deals including intercessory prayer and "you are what you think" philosophies really make me paranoid. I get obsessed with chasing the thoughts around my brain trying to catch up with the negative ones to beat them into submission and find and rally the positive because my life and all good things depend on it. (BTW, is there a difference between negativity and sophisticated sarcasm?) So when something like a thrown back comes flying out of left or right field, I rack my brain figuring out what I was thinking but knowing it’s too damn late, all the while saying, “I’m bloody grateful, okay? I am. I know I’m lucky and privileged and don’t take for granted that I can move, think, laugh, all righty roo? I am grateful already SO WHAT’S THE FUCKING PROBLEM?” This I yell to the universe.
My wise counselor/spiritual director, after ranting about my back and The Secret for about $40-worth of my session, told me, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” And since it was phallic Freud that described the cigar, it had to be true. Maybe bad-backs happen and I hadn’t somehow drawn it to myself. It took about five days to accept that, coinciding with the day my doc said that it very likely wasn’t a disc problem and just a hell of an outraged bundle of nerves out of whack. Let me throw in here that I have had times in my life that can be described as “a hell of an outraged bundle of nerves out of whack” but I’m not there anymore and haven’t been in a long while. I’ve got a great, relaxed, creative life here. So what gives?
I must put in here a couple of quick examples of paranoia-reinforcing experiences. Twenty-three years ago I fell asleep reading Something More, a book about claiming joy in life, and about three hours later I awoke to my apartment building on fire. I had to jump out of my second-story window to escape. I definitely got something more than I bargained for and don't believe it was joy. So either a cigar is just a cigar or I’ve got a dyslexic relationship to the Law of Attraction. I’ve also worked for two organizations that I ended up with an employment lawyer to broker mutual severance, organizations with lofty names including words like human understanding and reconciling. The shadow side lurks. In fact, key people who participated in the development of The Secret documentary are in conflict over who gets credit for the film and its origins. To one couple’s great credit, they are not suing because it takes “energy away from their own pursuit of the law of attraction.”
As my back got better, I was able to go out more. It was when I was sitting outside a bakery/cafe with Emma that I realized that Emma had mastered The Secret. I had spent about an hour of sipping my latte and reading the New York Times Book Review when out of the blue one of the young women from the bakery came out with a little doggie treat for Emma, “the very good dog.” I looked at Emma sitting so charmingly to receive her treat and realized she constantly draws treats to herself. (It helps that she is a golden retriever. If she was a wild boar, I don’t think she would be as successful.) I know Emma puts out a lot of treat energy and she does attract the biscuits back to her. “Treat, treat, treat,” she pants. When we go to the bank’s drive-up, she adds drool to the “believe and receive,” cocks her ear to the voice coming over the speaker, and leans forward when I get the treat-carrying capsule in the car to receive her beloved baked bones and my deposit slip. She is also pro-active in her search and retrieve of goodies (she does not retrieve balls by the way). At work, Ed does not give her treats when she begs, but later he comes in my office to give Emma what he calls “random reinforcement.” In actuality Emma may be still calling the shots with her power of attraction. For even when she sleeps, she imagines and believes, “treat, treat, treat, treat.”
Now two weeks after my bent-over pain, I realize that the week prior I had been tuned into people going on vacations or taking time off to hang out. Could my desire for time off attracted my back ailment? If so, I need to not only chase down the negativity but also clarify the positive desires. Vacation without pain. I’ve projected more monthly expenses over income before (many times) and wondered where the dough would come from only to have the above-mentioned fire or legal settlements bring in cash. Again, checks without lawyers or insurance companies. Cigars that are just cigars.
I don’t belittle The Secret. Being in tune with the universe, with one’s desires, and aligning oneself accordingly is a great way to live along with a fine dose of gratitude. But it is also good to recognize and allow anger, grief, frustration and indignation. These seemingly negative emotions are signals, process, storytellers, and essential warning signs. Other than that, what’s the harm with “pant/chant-ing, drooling, and receiving?” Gulp.
Monday, February 26, 2007
AND THE AGITATOR AWARD GOES TO
I’m agitated today and the Laundry is a good place to be for that. There are at least 16 agitators in here not counting the other people or the dog and even then they would only make 18 though every now and then it rises to 19 when the leather-jacket guy comes in to check on the dryer. But Emma is quiet and the woman sitting in my usual space is reading so they don’t seem agitated right now. It’s just me and the 15 inner workings of the washing machines. I’m irritated by the limited help that I’m getting from my San Antonio book publisher on promoting my book. There, that’s it. I have calmed down some though after filling a page with the f-word (my mother is reading this) in the many ways it can be used in a sentence. That helped me blow off steam and see that the biggest frustration is not having enough time to work my day job, write on two different manuscripts, and market a book that’s been out for ten months without much selling success in a city where 5 million visitors come every year and a state where Texas History is required for every child in public school. San Antonio is key to TX history. I’m not the only one that made a model of one of the five missions out of toothpicks. Besides, I was told that schools were a secondary market when my chapter on a juicy, online sex-solicitation blackmail story got cut. I forgot that there was a classroom audience. My bad. Besides, what’s the difference between a story about a whorehouse and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and the husband and wife tag-team solicitors presenting settlement agreements to entrapped paramours except that the incidents were over 100 years apart. I know. Online-sexual encounters and school children are a sore subject even if the children aren’t involved. However, it did seem like a teaching opportunity though not the kind the adolescent boys would take away. I agree on that point entirely. (FYI, my editor and friend, Patrick, has been very helpful so he’s good. This is a corporate agitation-causing shenanigan and the business of books.)
Okay, I feel better.
I will be in San Antonio hopefully doing some book signings (see above) April 11-13 and in Dallas April 14-17. For those of you in Dallas, I’ll be letting you know about the book signing open house on Sunday afternoon, April 15.
To more interesting agitators and topics: the jailhouse theme of the sandwich shop fits very well with peaceful, non-violent resistance types of agitators. I’ve only been arrested twice for civil disobedience and those were pretty staged, nothing like the kind with billy clubs, fire hoses, police dogs, tear gas, and bullets. Nothing like that at all. In D.C. the plastic handcuffs on my wrists in front of me kept coming off and I had the darnedest time keeping them on to maintain the image of resistance. My jail time experiences (or experience as one of the two I paid my fine only 20 steps from the police wagon that brought me in after which I walked about 20 steps to and out the front door of the police station) were not particularly world-shaking though they taught me a lot, especially because of the people who I was arrested with.
The first time was in Cleveland, Ohio in May, 2000, outside the United Methodist Church (UMC) General Conference, the major big deal, every four years, lasts for two weeks, legislative branch of the denomination meeting. They conduct their business much like Capitol Hill with committees, sub-committees, bills/amendments/propositions, lobbyists and blowhards but without the sensitivity about prayer or the separation of Church and State. Not that C&S are separated, check out Institute for Religion and Democracy (i.e. Religion for the Unification of C&S) and their plan to take over the leadership in the UM, Presbyterian, and Epicopal Church denominations and the correlation of how that will infect Congress with a Christian Conservative agenda. I met the then executive director of IRD months before the General Conference. We were sitting at the same table for dinner. I’d lost my name tag, so he didn’t know who he was sitting and chatting with. Nor did I as I was new to the gig. We’d gotten pretty familiar before he asked what organization I was with and we realized that we were each talking with the enemy. We paused in silence for a moment and then went on with our conversation. Make of that what you will.
Back to agitators, the organizers of this arrest were Mel White and his group, Soulforce. Several historic figures of civil rights and civil disobedience were in their number, informing their spiritual foundations and direct actions. Some of these included Arun Ghandi, grandson of Mahatma Ghandi; Yolanda King, Martin King’s daughter; Jim Lawson, a leading strategist on peaceful non-violent resistance in the civil rights movement including the training of the students who staged the lunch counter sit-ins and the Freedom Rides; and Robert Graetz, who had his house bombed after he stood with King during the Montgomery bus boycott. In earlier arrest, these folks and their ancestors were not shackled in plastic, slip-off handcuffs.
I forgot to say that we were demonstrating against the UMC’s policy and practice of discriminating against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (“Queer” in political parlance) people. We were outside the Cleveland Convention Center where the conference was held. Everything was well planned. The mayor’s office and Cleveland police all knew ahead of time what we were doing, all 218 of us. After a walk around the center in silence, we lined up 20 at a time in the driveway so that we blocked traffic. It was a very moving experience if only for the company of people who I was arrested with. Their historic roads of heartache and persistence in the ugliness of violent discrimination gave credence to our cause. Still I knew that as I was in the holding cell, later finger-printed, frisked, and put in a regular cell that I was not suffering as those that had gone before me. Another civil rights mentor and dear friend who I was arrested with was Gil Caldwell, the co-author of one of the manuscripts I’m working on (and why agitators are on my mind). He has continued to teach me about the realities of racial discrimination even as he says I am teaching him about Queer civil rights.
The next day when Goliath-over-David arrests were made inside the convention center on the floor of the conference, we weren’t so organized but we got through. Picture 35 or so people disrupting Senate proceedings and you’ll have a bit of the picture. Okay, so the convention center auditorium is also used for basketball games but it was that somber –a line of us going down the center aisle between rows and rows of tables, seating 1,000 delegates, the room in utter silence and solemnity. Now that was a traumatic experience, several amps up from standing in a driveway blocking traffic. I could feel the anger and hatred rising like steam from those who despised us (voting tallies would say that there were about 650 of that sentiment, though some of those just found us distasteful). The scene got especially harrowing when a woman, not in our group, almost jumped off the balcony above us in an anguished and tearful lament. I’ve never seen 6 white men in dark suits scramble so fast to move the table below out of the way and somehow prepare to catch her –it would not have been pretty. Fortunately, upstairs other men caught her legs and body and pulled her down. What followed were several intense hours of negotiations, reports, and votes, ending with the group moving up onto the stage just behind the presiding bishop. Quickly the Cleveland police entered stage right and arrested the protestors including a couple of bishops who joined the group as they were taken away. I had left the floor earlier with another coalition leader during a break so that we could bail the group out of jail. They were released several hours later after an $11,000 credit card charge, biggest bill I ever signed. I did not leave a tip.
The arrest in D.C. was outside the Catholic Bishops Conference. The difference between Catholic and Protestant demonstrations was that the Catholic songs that we sang as we circled were in Latin instead of English. Other than that it was the same. I was getting terribly sick as we stood out in the cold and drizzle. By the time we got to the police station, all I could think about was getting back to the hotel and bed. But then I recognized a woman two people in front of me. She was one of the drag queens that threw the first spiked heels at the New York City policemen in what is now known as Stonewall, the riot that many mark as the beginning of the Queer rights movement. (Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots for more history.) I was in line paying my fee before I caught a car back to my sickbed and I realized that yet again I’d been arrested with someone that was there in one of those important beginnings with the real tear gas, barricades, and time of sacrifice. She was still fighting, resisting, and inspiring. And for those who are wondering, she was wearing tennis shoes.
My heart is with these agitators today and the machine kind too. This part of the wash cycle is essential to jarring the dirt out of the fabric (social or otherwise) –some loads need more than others. I’ve found it tricky to time pushing clothes I forgot to put in the machine down into the suds before the agitation starts. One, the sudden change makes me jump. Two, agitators aren’t called agitators for nothing; they can beat your hand up pretty badly (different from the non-violent kind). The rinse cycle eventually comes and then the spin, much like press conferences and damage control. Then the moment of truth arrives, did the wash come clean or is there still more dirty laundry?
Okay, I feel better.
I will be in San Antonio hopefully doing some book signings (see above) April 11-13 and in Dallas April 14-17. For those of you in Dallas, I’ll be letting you know about the book signing open house on Sunday afternoon, April 15.
To more interesting agitators and topics: the jailhouse theme of the sandwich shop fits very well with peaceful, non-violent resistance types of agitators. I’ve only been arrested twice for civil disobedience and those were pretty staged, nothing like the kind with billy clubs, fire hoses, police dogs, tear gas, and bullets. Nothing like that at all. In D.C. the plastic handcuffs on my wrists in front of me kept coming off and I had the darnedest time keeping them on to maintain the image of resistance. My jail time experiences (or experience as one of the two I paid my fine only 20 steps from the police wagon that brought me in after which I walked about 20 steps to and out the front door of the police station) were not particularly world-shaking though they taught me a lot, especially because of the people who I was arrested with.
The first time was in Cleveland, Ohio in May, 2000, outside the United Methodist Church (UMC) General Conference, the major big deal, every four years, lasts for two weeks, legislative branch of the denomination meeting. They conduct their business much like Capitol Hill with committees, sub-committees, bills/amendments/propositions, lobbyists and blowhards but without the sensitivity about prayer or the separation of Church and State. Not that C&S are separated, check out Institute for Religion and Democracy (i.e. Religion for the Unification of C&S) and their plan to take over the leadership in the UM, Presbyterian, and Epicopal Church denominations and the correlation of how that will infect Congress with a Christian Conservative agenda. I met the then executive director of IRD months before the General Conference. We were sitting at the same table for dinner. I’d lost my name tag, so he didn’t know who he was sitting and chatting with. Nor did I as I was new to the gig. We’d gotten pretty familiar before he asked what organization I was with and we realized that we were each talking with the enemy. We paused in silence for a moment and then went on with our conversation. Make of that what you will.
Back to agitators, the organizers of this arrest were Mel White and his group, Soulforce. Several historic figures of civil rights and civil disobedience were in their number, informing their spiritual foundations and direct actions. Some of these included Arun Ghandi, grandson of Mahatma Ghandi; Yolanda King, Martin King’s daughter; Jim Lawson, a leading strategist on peaceful non-violent resistance in the civil rights movement including the training of the students who staged the lunch counter sit-ins and the Freedom Rides; and Robert Graetz, who had his house bombed after he stood with King during the Montgomery bus boycott. In earlier arrest, these folks and their ancestors were not shackled in plastic, slip-off handcuffs.
I forgot to say that we were demonstrating against the UMC’s policy and practice of discriminating against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (“Queer” in political parlance) people. We were outside the Cleveland Convention Center where the conference was held. Everything was well planned. The mayor’s office and Cleveland police all knew ahead of time what we were doing, all 218 of us. After a walk around the center in silence, we lined up 20 at a time in the driveway so that we blocked traffic. It was a very moving experience if only for the company of people who I was arrested with. Their historic roads of heartache and persistence in the ugliness of violent discrimination gave credence to our cause. Still I knew that as I was in the holding cell, later finger-printed, frisked, and put in a regular cell that I was not suffering as those that had gone before me. Another civil rights mentor and dear friend who I was arrested with was Gil Caldwell, the co-author of one of the manuscripts I’m working on (and why agitators are on my mind). He has continued to teach me about the realities of racial discrimination even as he says I am teaching him about Queer civil rights.
The next day when Goliath-over-David arrests were made inside the convention center on the floor of the conference, we weren’t so organized but we got through. Picture 35 or so people disrupting Senate proceedings and you’ll have a bit of the picture. Okay, so the convention center auditorium is also used for basketball games but it was that somber –a line of us going down the center aisle between rows and rows of tables, seating 1,000 delegates, the room in utter silence and solemnity. Now that was a traumatic experience, several amps up from standing in a driveway blocking traffic. I could feel the anger and hatred rising like steam from those who despised us (voting tallies would say that there were about 650 of that sentiment, though some of those just found us distasteful). The scene got especially harrowing when a woman, not in our group, almost jumped off the balcony above us in an anguished and tearful lament. I’ve never seen 6 white men in dark suits scramble so fast to move the table below out of the way and somehow prepare to catch her –it would not have been pretty. Fortunately, upstairs other men caught her legs and body and pulled her down. What followed were several intense hours of negotiations, reports, and votes, ending with the group moving up onto the stage just behind the presiding bishop. Quickly the Cleveland police entered stage right and arrested the protestors including a couple of bishops who joined the group as they were taken away. I had left the floor earlier with another coalition leader during a break so that we could bail the group out of jail. They were released several hours later after an $11,000 credit card charge, biggest bill I ever signed. I did not leave a tip.
The arrest in D.C. was outside the Catholic Bishops Conference. The difference between Catholic and Protestant demonstrations was that the Catholic songs that we sang as we circled were in Latin instead of English. Other than that it was the same. I was getting terribly sick as we stood out in the cold and drizzle. By the time we got to the police station, all I could think about was getting back to the hotel and bed. But then I recognized a woman two people in front of me. She was one of the drag queens that threw the first spiked heels at the New York City policemen in what is now known as Stonewall, the riot that many mark as the beginning of the Queer rights movement. (Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots for more history.) I was in line paying my fee before I caught a car back to my sickbed and I realized that yet again I’d been arrested with someone that was there in one of those important beginnings with the real tear gas, barricades, and time of sacrifice. She was still fighting, resisting, and inspiring. And for those who are wondering, she was wearing tennis shoes.
My heart is with these agitators today and the machine kind too. This part of the wash cycle is essential to jarring the dirt out of the fabric (social or otherwise) –some loads need more than others. I’ve found it tricky to time pushing clothes I forgot to put in the machine down into the suds before the agitation starts. One, the sudden change makes me jump. Two, agitators aren’t called agitators for nothing; they can beat your hand up pretty badly (different from the non-violent kind). The rinse cycle eventually comes and then the spin, much like press conferences and damage control. Then the moment of truth arrives, did the wash come clean or is there still more dirty laundry?
Thursday, February 15, 2007
RED LIGHT
RED UNBALANCE LIGHT INDICATES WASHER HAS SHUT OFF. RAISE LID – DISTRIBUTE CLOTHES EVENLY – CLOSE LID – CYCLE WILL RESUME AUTOMATICALLY.
We could all use a “red unbalance light” if not for ourselves, at least for others to see, register, and avoid. Not that we’re not a bit unbalanced all the time, shifting weight, opinions, contradictions, priorities, but the red light indicates that the load is so off that the machine has come to a stop. Only a re-distribution will get things going again. Really what we need is the yellow light, the one that comes before the red one, the warning that the wet stuff better be shifted or it’s coming to a grinding halt. (I’ve always thought that an “Asshole Crossing” sign would also be a helpful forewarning.) This light would come on even before the machine started to shake and bounce around, prior to the loud knocking noises. However, if you come into the laundromat, start the load, check the clock, and plan to come back about the time it finishes, then it’s a real pain in the ass. You come back thinking stage one is done only to find that it’s the lean-over, pull-on-heavy-wet- towels, threatening-lower-back-spasms time. This is a very similar feeling when coming back to the dryer to see that the door wasn’t all the way shut so the dryer never turned on and the wet clothes look a bit bewildered laying on the floor of the botched circular ride. Hopefully, the timer only starts when the dryer goes and not when the quarter went in. Either way, the laundry process has been interrupted and efficiency lost because when it all comes down to it, no one really wants to sit in a laundry waiting on clothes. Except for me maybe.
That thought reminds me of a guy who told me that if you love what you’re doing, you’ll do it for free. He looked at me, then my writing pad, and back at me to make his point. We had been talking abut food stamps, disability, and anti-employment sentiment. I’d met Eddie several months before when he’d first come to town, pack and tent on his back. He was living up Grizzly Gulch near the old lime kilns (built in the late 1860's). In fact, some other guy came back with him one night and was so drunk he fell into one of the tall old brick structures. Not so good, bad in fact. Didn’t know what he’d look like when the sun rose. He was okay though.
Anyway, this conversation with Eddie was in winter and he was telling me that he was now living with his girlfriend in her place near the Laundry and describing the last time he went down to get food stamps –he was a regular. The food-stamp worker had said that he looked young and fit and employable and why didn’t he get work. He didn’t know why but he answered back that he didn’t want to pay taxes.
"Does it bother you that I work and pay taxes that go to paying for your food stamps.”
“No, not really.”
We talked on about getting money when disabled and that his girlfriend received social security benefits for psychiatric reasons. He was musing about ways he could make that work for himself. I gingerly asked what kind of work he’d want to do if he was working. He replied a bit too quickly that he’d had work, done this or that, but that he really didn’t want to put all his time into something he hated. I sure understood that. A couple of years ago, trying to find income here in Helena, I answered an ad for a marketing job in grocery stores. I got the packet in the mail with full instructions on how to market products from my little cardboard table cheerily decorated with little American flags (one example) to attract grocery shoppers to sample the new food or beverage. Relatively, effort expended to dollar received (except for having to schlep one's own table, cloth, said flag, microwave or crock pot), it was an okay job. What threw me though was the hairnet and apron that I was required to wear. The woman on the front of the instruction book looked very happy, eerily so. Fortunately, I had to go out of town and by the time I got back all the positions were filled. The name of the company was New Concepts in Marketing. Isn’t there a truth-in-advertising clause somewhere? I’ll never look at the food-sample people the same ever again. Flag or no flag, they are moving the economy along.
I then applied at Osco because I saw that they did not have to wear uniforms. However, as part of the application process, I had to sit at a computer and answer a 100-question (maybe it was 300) survey that they used to determine team spirit, level of happiness per hour of subservience, anger management, and patience. After being asked the same question the 25th different way, I was certain that I would flunk the test. They kept asking if I’d ever had problems with a supervisor, been angry enough to use profanity in public, and if I played well with others. By then, I was broken, cursing, hated team players, and knew I would not get a call. I didn’t.
I’ve gotten out of whack before. I shouldn’t have needed a yellow or red light, the machine was shaking and quaking and making a loud racket but I kept going. By the time things grounded to a halt, my engine was burned out. I know what employment disability is like and redistributing the heavy stuff afterward so it wasn’t hard at all to understand where Eddie was coming from. After he left, I pondered how the world could manage without work and pay, the money exchange. I’m no economist or cavewoman so I didn’t come up with any good ideas. There are people that like, even love, to work. There are people that don’t care to “pull their own weight.” There are people that can’t do either one. Green, yellow, red lights. I don’t know that this is a case where “it takes all kinds.” I do know that there are Like Kinds and the piles really shouldn’t be washed together but if so, on cold.
My present job (have I mentioned that I work as the development director at the Myrna Loy Center?) took me to the State Capitol this week to give a 3-minute testimony at the HB 9 Cultural and Aesthetic Grants Program Hearings of the Long-Range Planning Appropriations Subcommittee (I worked really hard to get all the words in the right order). The grants are funded by interest earned on the Montana Cultural Trust, its corpus established from coal money long ago (meaning I can’t find the exact dates or type of levy/tax information online) provides funding to at least a three-page, single-spaced, type-size 10, excel spreadsheet list of non-profit organizations. I got to listen to about 20 of them before I testified for the Myrna --as we affectionately call the center. The best and l o n g e s t testimony was from a senior citizen of the town of Conrad, population 2,500. She said that when she found out that their grant had been cut in half, she cried so much and was so sad that she had to go to the doctor to get Zoloft. She was a gem of a citizen and quite funny in her persuasive, older-woman-from-one’s-childhood-church way, sweetly reprimanding the committee about funding her town’s art council. In a nice touch, one senator leaned over to the chairperson and said, “Now, you know her son.” I bet they got a grant. Another testifier was told by the chairman, “Be sure and tell the Weisners hello.” Back to our million citizens in this giant land of Montana, I do like that neighborly way. The only drawback is that sometimes (not all the time) if you don’t have a mama from Montana or know the Weisners, you don’t get to play with the big kids.
The best part of going to the capitol though was taking pictures. My friend Barb works in the Governor's Office of Indian Affairs and she showed me around. My friend and fellow Myrna staff member, Krys, was also there that morning. Both were game for Kodak moments, as you can see.
Along the photograph lines…I went cross-country skiing on Saturday as the snow was bountiful and the day gorgeous. However, I have not put on a pair of those narrow sticks in about 25 years. There is a particular muscle on the inner thigh that hadn’t made itself known to me in about that long too. Friend DD tells me that there is a certain age that it is okay to take Advil before and after exercising. She also said that face-plants, full-body spread-eagle falls, are reminders of how much we loved tumbling in the snow when we were children. That was way more than 25 years ago so that memory will take longer. Still it was a beautiful day and the snow tasted really good.
It is very quiet at the Laundry this afternoon except for meeting the Drew Family, two adults and three children. Kim and Joe are the new owners of the Jailhouse Sandwich Shop and Soup Kitchen. (I had The Smuggler today, roast beef with whisky garlic cream cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, onions and some other things on wheat with the potato salad.) They moved to Helena in the late 1990’s and their son grew up coming here. He knew Sambo as the “sandwich man.” Kim and Joe both seemed very happy to have their new business. Kim said that this neighborhood is the friendliest in town, “people wave at you when you go by it's a community within a community.” She’s certainly not the first or the last to make that comment. They have just added to the cheer.
Meanwhile, Emma is trying to figure out a sound, that of a crumpled dollar bill going in and out of the change machine. She’s cocking her doggie head and ears. Ah, finally the quarters. Back to nap for her. Not much of a fan base today, only a few brief, “you’re dog is so cute.” One admirer was a young woman that came in with her friend and happened to say “fuck” as she was sorting through her laundry. She quickly apologized to me. I said that I didn’t fucking care what she said. “That’s my girl,” she laughed. Emma twitched.
Until next time, remember:
FOR PERSONAL SAFETY: AFTER RAISING LID BE SURE TUB HAS COMPLETELY STOPPED BEFORE REACHING IN.
We could all use a “red unbalance light” if not for ourselves, at least for others to see, register, and avoid. Not that we’re not a bit unbalanced all the time, shifting weight, opinions, contradictions, priorities, but the red light indicates that the load is so off that the machine has come to a stop. Only a re-distribution will get things going again. Really what we need is the yellow light, the one that comes before the red one, the warning that the wet stuff better be shifted or it’s coming to a grinding halt. (I’ve always thought that an “Asshole Crossing” sign would also be a helpful forewarning.) This light would come on even before the machine started to shake and bounce around, prior to the loud knocking noises. However, if you come into the laundromat, start the load, check the clock, and plan to come back about the time it finishes, then it’s a real pain in the ass. You come back thinking stage one is done only to find that it’s the lean-over, pull-on-heavy-wet- towels, threatening-lower-back-spasms time. This is a very similar feeling when coming back to the dryer to see that the door wasn’t all the way shut so the dryer never turned on and the wet clothes look a bit bewildered laying on the floor of the botched circular ride. Hopefully, the timer only starts when the dryer goes and not when the quarter went in. Either way, the laundry process has been interrupted and efficiency lost because when it all comes down to it, no one really wants to sit in a laundry waiting on clothes. Except for me maybe.
That thought reminds me of a guy who told me that if you love what you’re doing, you’ll do it for free. He looked at me, then my writing pad, and back at me to make his point. We had been talking abut food stamps, disability, and anti-employment sentiment. I’d met Eddie several months before when he’d first come to town, pack and tent on his back. He was living up Grizzly Gulch near the old lime kilns (built in the late 1860's). In fact, some other guy came back with him one night and was so drunk he fell into one of the tall old brick structures. Not so good, bad in fact. Didn’t know what he’d look like when the sun rose. He was okay though.
Anyway, this conversation with Eddie was in winter and he was telling me that he was now living with his girlfriend in her place near the Laundry and describing the last time he went down to get food stamps –he was a regular. The food-stamp worker had said that he looked young and fit and employable and why didn’t he get work. He didn’t know why but he answered back that he didn’t want to pay taxes.
"Does it bother you that I work and pay taxes that go to paying for your food stamps.”
“No, not really.”
We talked on about getting money when disabled and that his girlfriend received social security benefits for psychiatric reasons. He was musing about ways he could make that work for himself. I gingerly asked what kind of work he’d want to do if he was working. He replied a bit too quickly that he’d had work, done this or that, but that he really didn’t want to put all his time into something he hated. I sure understood that. A couple of years ago, trying to find income here in Helena, I answered an ad for a marketing job in grocery stores. I got the packet in the mail with full instructions on how to market products from my little cardboard table cheerily decorated with little American flags (one example) to attract grocery shoppers to sample the new food or beverage. Relatively, effort expended to dollar received (except for having to schlep one's own table, cloth, said flag, microwave or crock pot), it was an okay job. What threw me though was the hairnet and apron that I was required to wear. The woman on the front of the instruction book looked very happy, eerily so. Fortunately, I had to go out of town and by the time I got back all the positions were filled. The name of the company was New Concepts in Marketing. Isn’t there a truth-in-advertising clause somewhere? I’ll never look at the food-sample people the same ever again. Flag or no flag, they are moving the economy along.
I then applied at Osco because I saw that they did not have to wear uniforms. However, as part of the application process, I had to sit at a computer and answer a 100-question (maybe it was 300) survey that they used to determine team spirit, level of happiness per hour of subservience, anger management, and patience. After being asked the same question the 25th different way, I was certain that I would flunk the test. They kept asking if I’d ever had problems with a supervisor, been angry enough to use profanity in public, and if I played well with others. By then, I was broken, cursing, hated team players, and knew I would not get a call. I didn’t.
I’ve gotten out of whack before. I shouldn’t have needed a yellow or red light, the machine was shaking and quaking and making a loud racket but I kept going. By the time things grounded to a halt, my engine was burned out. I know what employment disability is like and redistributing the heavy stuff afterward so it wasn’t hard at all to understand where Eddie was coming from. After he left, I pondered how the world could manage without work and pay, the money exchange. I’m no economist or cavewoman so I didn’t come up with any good ideas. There are people that like, even love, to work. There are people that don’t care to “pull their own weight.” There are people that can’t do either one. Green, yellow, red lights. I don’t know that this is a case where “it takes all kinds.” I do know that there are Like Kinds and the piles really shouldn’t be washed together but if so, on cold.
My present job (have I mentioned that I work as the development director at the Myrna Loy Center?) took me to the State Capitol this week to give a 3-minute testimony at the HB 9 Cultural and Aesthetic Grants Program Hearings of the Long-Range Planning Appropriations Subcommittee (I worked really hard to get all the words in the right order). The grants are funded by interest earned on the Montana Cultural Trust, its corpus established from coal money long ago (meaning I can’t find the exact dates or type of levy/tax information online) provides funding to at least a three-page, single-spaced, type-size 10, excel spreadsheet list of non-profit organizations. I got to listen to about 20 of them before I testified for the Myrna --as we affectionately call the center. The best and l o n g e s t testimony was from a senior citizen of the town of Conrad, population 2,500. She said that when she found out that their grant had been cut in half, she cried so much and was so sad that she had to go to the doctor to get Zoloft. She was a gem of a citizen and quite funny in her persuasive, older-woman-from-one’s-childhood-church way, sweetly reprimanding the committee about funding her town’s art council. In a nice touch, one senator leaned over to the chairperson and said, “Now, you know her son.” I bet they got a grant. Another testifier was told by the chairman, “Be sure and tell the Weisners hello.” Back to our million citizens in this giant land of Montana, I do like that neighborly way. The only drawback is that sometimes (not all the time) if you don’t have a mama from Montana or know the Weisners, you don’t get to play with the big kids.
The best part of going to the capitol though was taking pictures. My friend Barb works in the Governor's Office of Indian Affairs and she showed me around. My friend and fellow Myrna staff member, Krys, was also there that morning. Both were game for Kodak moments, as you can see.
Along the photograph lines…I went cross-country skiing on Saturday as the snow was bountiful and the day gorgeous. However, I have not put on a pair of those narrow sticks in about 25 years. There is a particular muscle on the inner thigh that hadn’t made itself known to me in about that long too. Friend DD tells me that there is a certain age that it is okay to take Advil before and after exercising. She also said that face-plants, full-body spread-eagle falls, are reminders of how much we loved tumbling in the snow when we were children. That was way more than 25 years ago so that memory will take longer. Still it was a beautiful day and the snow tasted really good.
It is very quiet at the Laundry this afternoon except for meeting the Drew Family, two adults and three children. Kim and Joe are the new owners of the Jailhouse Sandwich Shop and Soup Kitchen. (I had The Smuggler today, roast beef with whisky garlic cream cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, onions and some other things on wheat with the potato salad.) They moved to Helena in the late 1990’s and their son grew up coming here. He knew Sambo as the “sandwich man.” Kim and Joe both seemed very happy to have their new business. Kim said that this neighborhood is the friendliest in town, “people wave at you when you go by it's a community within a community.” She’s certainly not the first or the last to make that comment. They have just added to the cheer.
Meanwhile, Emma is trying to figure out a sound, that of a crumpled dollar bill going in and out of the change machine. She’s cocking her doggie head and ears. Ah, finally the quarters. Back to nap for her. Not much of a fan base today, only a few brief, “you’re dog is so cute.” One admirer was a young woman that came in with her friend and happened to say “fuck” as she was sorting through her laundry. She quickly apologized to me. I said that I didn’t fucking care what she said. “That’s my girl,” she laughed. Emma twitched.
Until next time, remember:
FOR PERSONAL SAFETY: AFTER RAISING LID BE SURE TUB HAS COMPLETELY STOPPED BEFORE REACHING IN.
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