Innerspace

In this link, an eighty-six year old veteran explains why gay people should be allowed to marry: Because all men are created equal. And he fought and almost died in defense of that principle.

This man is awesome.

For added effect, listen to "The War Was in Color" right after.

Looking over photos taken by crewmates on the Lady Washington, I remember very keenly how I didn't fit in. Which is impressive, as the Lady and her companion ships are crewed by eccentrics, strangers, and people who don't fit in.  I managed to not fit in...and it was noted, quite a few times. Never in anger, but matter-of-fact...which it was. Partly, I don't fit in anywhere, and partly, I make it so. My inability to fit in has gotten to the point where I cause it and it causes me, a beautifully integrated tao of awkward. 

Most of the time, I'm okay with the fact that I never seem to fit in. Fitting in scares me, because it threatens my identity. I have to be the eccentric, the outsider, the special one. But other times...

...I wish I wasn't so creepy. I was looking forward to my time on the Lady for eight years, and I needed it for research and to clear my head. But, even though we worked together, I still managed to raise the bosun's ire and got a stern lecture about my behavior with female crewmembers when I was just trying to be friendly. (There's a certain irony there in that she was apparently only unnerved after I gave up any romantic notions) I didn't find anything aboard that I was good at, until my second-to-last day, when I taught the children about trade routes and history and why a two-century old sailing ship has anything to do with them at all.* I never learned all my knots, and my line work was slipshod, and the less said about my maintenance work, the better.

So, looking back on all that, I have a slightly queasy feeling about the whole experience. If you ask me about the boat, and I seem forgetful or evasive, that's probably why. My oddness, beyond 'reasonable' eccentricity, was in sharp relief, and it was clear that I never really gelled. I'd hesitate to go again, because I'm not sure it'll ever get any better.

I know it's all right to be eccentric, and I'm lovable for it, and so on. That's why I'm usually okay with it. But when I start prattling on about Asia, or why I'm so proud of reckoning a way to get x values out of a z-score that actually works, or even talk about my family...I get sympathy, but no empathy. "I feel bad for you," but not "I know where you're coming from." It started in China, really...the Chinese didn't really understand where I was coming from, and, nasty shock, when I got back, neither did Americans. And nobody gets my family situation who isn't shot-and-shell in the middle of it. That's alright for winning sob-story contests in the bar, but not for building a real connection with someone else.

I think, by now, I intentionally play for sympathy rather than empathy. I'm kind of frightened of others who've spent a lot of time in Asia...other Marco Polos in the room. As appreciative as I am that they know Hainan from Hunan, there is that shared experience there...and I don't quite know what to do with it. I feel like there's a gulf between me and everyone else, and even when that gulf should be bridged, it isn't...and I don't know why.

But I'm tired of being the creepy, eccentric weirdo. You know, that one, who never comes off quite right...sometimes impressive, sometimes offputting, sometimes just weird, but never one of us, right? 

I'm working in an antique shop now, and the first day or two, I was just another one of the guys. The new guy. Then the other two guys I work with started talking about their recruiters and one of them has to report for boot camp in six weeks, the other needs time off this weekend for his 'one weekend a month.' Straight outta high school, never really considered anything else, you know? And the counter girl doesn't know what the tango is, nor Wikipedia...and she's been getting curt and angry at me. I think she thinks I'm putting her on, or trying to make her look stupid. It all started to change when they heard me speak Chinese, and talk about going home to study statistics. I can't help being an intellectual, it just comes out. But ... I'm different. People are expressing amazement that I work there. That's never a good thing. I've been trying to work hard, keep finding ways to keep busy, things to do...the boss said at one point "this guy's the only one around here who's actually working!" Think of that! Laziest, most impudent sailor on the Lady. The man who had chronic problems getting out of bed on work days when he only taught teenagers for two hours a day. But I've been trying to work hard, demonstrate that I am willing to lift crates and ask people repeatedly if I can help them. I can't help feeling they don't believe it for a minute.

I don't fit in. Too smart for heavy lifting, too dumb to find any other work. The bar doesn't open for six weeks, and I have a lot to learn in the meantime. Including how to hold onto a job.

*hint: pull open the tongue on your shoes and tell me where they were made. If they weren't made in America, they were shipped. On ocean freighters, yet, all of whom are descended from that wooden sailor.

....I'M A BARTENDER!!!

Also, Marissa and I have been trading flirtatious emails across the Pacific Ocean. The combination of steady paycheck and Marissa is forming plans...

And now it's time for another Good Thing, Bad Thing:

Good Thing: I got my paycheck today!

Bad Thing: I also got a speeding ticket.

Good Thing: I got my coat back from my lawyer!

Bad Thing: On the way back, my truck broke down.

Good Thing: Theresa bought me a free dinner at Denny's!

Bad Thing: We covered cardiovascular disease in human biology class today.

Good Thing: I made it home.

Submitted for your approval:
Some people who feel that divorce is wrong, and YOU should obey them.
and
An actual Christian.

As the Doctor would say: Stupid, brilliant humans!

It's Only Greek to a Job-Hunting Geek
by Bill Morem
The Tribune, Thursday, August 27, 2009

Roscoe Mathieu at the Temple of Vhuga [Zhuge] Liang, Chengdu.

( A short history of the wild Roscoe, its habits and its proclivities. )

Found this article on That Other Social Media. Good summary, but it keeps me begging the question..."so, what exactly is the conservative alternative to public health care?" Serious answers only, plz.

It's a fair bet that most of you have never heard of Benjamin Franklin's Thirteen Virtues plan. The short version is: Old Ben made a list of the thirteen virtues he thought he could best use. He then took a small notebook, which he carried with him, and laid out a kind of primitive, paper-based Excel spreadsheet of the virtues and the days of the week. Every time he violated one of them, he made a mark in his notebook under that virtue. He planned out to take one virtue per week, and work on it. So, that first week, his major aim was to keep the Temperance row clear of all marks throughout the week, and the next week, the Silence row, etc., "leaving the others to chance." 

I thought this was a fine idea, myself. I might even track my progress on this Journal, to bring the whole idea up to the 21st century. Might even start a meme that way. But! As I am a different man from Old Ben, I have a different set of Virtues to work on. To wit:

1) Attentiveness - Being 'in the moment,' no daydreaming (except on the bus, etc.), aware of self, action, and society. Observant.
2) Fitness - Eat appropriately (50% starch, 30% vegetables/fruits/roughage, 20% protein/sweets) and regularly. Live "the strenuous life" and work out especially once a day. Sleep early and sleep deep.
3) Industry - Dishes clean, clothes laundered, etc. Make and do To-do lists. Resist games and Internet until day's work done.
4) Cleanliness - Shower, etc. every day. Keep room & computer neat and orderly. Clean up after kitchen right after dinner and keep from spreading out.
5) Right Speech - speak only when true, helpful, and necessary.
6) Integrity - Do as I say & say as I do. Do nothing to impugne my own honor.
7) Frugality/Simplicity - Live simply. Resist impulse buys and buy used. Expend the least possible while maintaining quality.
8) Timeliness - Especially with others, respond in good time. Don't dawdle or procrastinate, but do tasks quickly and immediately. Promptness.
9) Spirituality - Meditate once a day. Consult the Oracle [I Ching]. Read, contemplate, and apply the Taoist Canon*. Cultivate wonder and see the magic of the mundane.
10) Confidence - Walk tall, accept compliments. Do not devalue self in word or deed. See the possible and guard hope.
11) Modesty/Humility - Learn from mistakes, do not over-value self in word or deed. Balance development and contentment.
12) Forethought - Lay out clothes for morning. Make the way easier to follow. Plan ahead and meet needs in advance. Study and apply logistics.
13) Followthrough - Send 'thank you' notes. Make follow-up phone calls. Persevere and see things through to the end.
14) Compassion - Relate to others as they are, without roles or stories. Do not patronize or turn shoulder. Give. Trust (but verify!)
15) Wu Wei - Do not do what is not necessary. Go with the flow. Economy of motion and effort.

I have two questions for all of you out there in Internetland. First, do you think this list is sufficient? Have I forgotten anything, or should I do some culling before implementing it? Second, Old Ben goes into quite a bit of detail as to why he chose Temperance first, then Silence, etc. What do you think would make the most reasonable order to tackle these virtues? I more or less wrote them down as I thought of them.

--

*not the entire thing, obviously, as it's several hundred volumes, but the I Ching, the Daodejing, the Chuangzi, Guo Xiang's Commentaries, the Classic of the Harmony of the Seen & Unseen, the Purity and Tranquility Scripture, the Red Cave Text, the Liezi and Seng Cen's poem The Great Way. If compiled, they would only be about half the size of a pocket Bible.

Get my black belt in Uechi-ryu. Finish the 200 sit-up challenge, the 200 squat challenge, the 100 push-up challenge, and the Couch to 3k program. Get out to the pool. Get well-established in le parkour, learn tai chi, and play a game of rugby or fool around with boffin swords and armor now and again. Lose this motherfucking Buddha belly, regain the mesomorphic strength and reflexes I had at 17, and change my skin color to one that cannot be used as a reflective device if I take my shirt off.

In short, come to resemble Indiana Jones.

I have several blocks. To start with, my school schedule prevents me from going to karate class or rugby training. This is temporary. More problematic are the psychological issues. I've never been particularly active. I was reprimanded in third grade for sitting by the door and reading a computer magazine instead of getting up and running around with the other kids during recess. My father made me go to karate from 12 to 17, when I finally quit in a fit of teenage pique. I'd spent years before that finding different ways to get around going (i.e. working out) and I still use them against myself, long after they've outlived their usefulness, and even though I *want* to exercise.

I'm still not entirely sure how to get rid of them. I still feel logey around four in the afternoon, around the time I will work out, if I'm going to. I still try to distract myself with the Terrible Trivium rather than actually get up and DO it, although I think I might be able to exercise if I convinced myself that I'd have to clean my room otherwise... And I'm still ashamed to fail, quit, or miss a day, and come down hard on myself if it happens, for good reason or bad. Mostly because, once I miss a day for some good reason, I start missing it for bad reasons, too...and there's always a day come up when there's a good reason to skip it...

My pride rears up, too, in three ways: First, I look down my nose on team sports as encouraging groupthink and competition, whereas individual sport develops self-cultivation and inner discipline. (I except rugby because it is DELIGHTFULLY SO, and also close enough to a bar brawl to be fun as well) Second, I won't pay for a gym, I can still hear my forefathers grunting that I can always do pushups at home for free. Third, I have a very definite idea of what I want to look like...and it's not bulky, but rather whipcord. I don't want to bulk up, and so I doubt most exercise as being toward that end, instead of mine.

I've chosen my sports therefore. Running, calisthenics, swimming, le parkour and karate are all very much in the "man against himself" vein of sport, and the first four require no equipment and no fees. Moderating my diet and balancing the Challenges (which would tend to bulk up one's upper body) against running and karate (which lead to a slimmer physique) also helps me to work back into "thin, wiry motherfucker" instead of "big, brutish oaf."

Speaking of, I can't imagine my diet helps much. I am very fond of brie, Pepsi, and eating out at cheap ethnic places. However, given my newfound straitened finances, a change in diet is warrented...and with it can come health as well as wealth. I've always been a big believer in the Chinese diet (50% starches, 30% vegetables and other roughage, 20% proteins and everything else) as the simplest and surest way to healthful living. But I'm a realist, and I know that I will keep paying PepsiCo. more than they're worth.

And there's my old friend dilettantism. Humans are marathon runners, and the way to work our bodies is to hone them for the long haul...and that takes a dedication and a discipline that's rare to be found. Two hundred squats is a long way to go, the road to a black belt even longer. I've started the Couch-to-3k plan a few times now, once lasting all of three weeks. I quit all of the Challenges after only three days. And I have a nasty habit of making a half-baked go at going back to karate once every six or nine months...for two sessions. It's an established pattern, and disheartening.

HOWEVER, I now have a stable living, working, and educational situation. The Couch-to-3k and Challenges all died on the road, usually because I got up at 5 and got to bed at 11 on the day I was supposed to do the Challenges, with scarce ten minutes to myself in between, much less the forty or so the Challenges average per day. I believe that if I started the Couch-to-3k/Challenges alternation next week, I could probably carry them through.

I've also managed to work in certain Pavlovian reactions. Listening to sea chanties puts me in the mind to get up and work out, the trio of "Ramblin' Rover," "Haul Away Joe," and "Bonnie Ship the Diamond" usually make me get up and walk into the sun. And I like running on grass in my barefeet, stripped to a pair of khaki shorts in the hot sun. Tapping our ancestors, who claimed their humanity by running free across the African veldt, mile on mile and step on stop. Or, at least, as close as you get in this modern world.

Runner's high is also a good motivator. You just don't get that getting your savage beatdown in Uechi-ryu. Any workout is also a victory over myself, which cheers me up when I'm feeling blue. "At least I ran today." And, in my abortive attempts at a running program, I've worked out a number of neat mental tricks, such as characterizing my inner critic as GLaDOS (since my first gut reaction to her is "shut up, bitch!") and invoking the three Muses.

You know, I'm going to try and make a go at Couch-to-3k/Challenges once I know what direction school's going in, in a week or two. I'll start from the beginning, on all of them.

And one day, soon, I hope to be ready for that most Taoic and deceptively simple elementary exercise of le parkour:

Start at Point A. Choose a Point B. Go there.

Saw this n00z article on Yahoo today.  I'd refute bits and pieces of it but I gave up claiming to understand women once I got home from China. So, I wanted to know what the ladies and married/otherwise occupied men in the audience had to say about it. Would you say it was accurate, inaccurate, depends on the woman, or what?

Haaa. I just spent the evening reviewing my own entry into vampire fiction, with...shall we say...an unusual take. In all honesty, probably Anne Rice's Marius, because he's the only vampire in fiction who is not only bad at angsting, he knows it. There's a bit somewhere in Queen of the Damned where Marius is trying real hard to be depressed, and then declares "that he was no good at it, and went back to his usual, cheery self."

Class act, him.

Either that or Bubba (you True Blood fans know *exactly* who I mean). If only because explaining that later would be hilarious for aeons.

"Oh yeah? I was sired by Elvis."

down the government
in iambic pentameter
joan of arc i got

 I just finished this article on Greg Mortensen’s Three Cups of Tea, and his continuing work in Afghanistan and throughout central Asia. I saw the book in Borders not too long ago, but couldn’t afford it. I’m going to have to pick up a copy, and soon.

Because this, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win a war. And, for some reason, nobody ever believes me when I say that wars are won with books, not bombs.

The Admiral’s choice of notebooks to pass out is particularly apt. Notebooks are blank, a future to be written and a future to be won. Doubtless some of the girls will fill theirs with comments on how good-looking the teacher is, little doodles with hearts in them, and other epherema. That’s good. The cheap availability of paper and the pencil are two unsung technologies that allowed the Renaissance to happen, because men like Leonardo could suddenly write down whatever they felt like. Da Vinci’s notebook pages are justifiably famous for all his ephemera, without which much that is beautiful and useful in the modern world would be unavailable.

And Americans are handing these little wonders to small girls who have never had that power, nor their mothers and grandmothers before them.

This is how you win a war!

In 1945, the Allies marched into Berlin. We liberated the concentration camps and brought the war criminals to trial. We brought down the Nazi Regime. That was good.

And then we, and by ‘we’ I mean just the Americans this time, did something we had never done before: we stuck around to clean up the mess. France was torn to shreds and Germany was little more than soil and blood. London lay in pieces on the ground. And let’s not forget what the USSR and its allies paid for victory with, or the three-fourths female demographic of survivors of that period. The Marshall Plan of 1947 gave Europe 13 billion dollars in U.S. aid, out of altruism, to any and all comers. How the money was to be spent was determined, not by Americans, but by a meeting of the European countries in question. Hell, we even offered help to the Soviets.

For America, that’s almost as big a moral victory as marching into Berlin. We came, we saw, we kicked its ass…and then we put stone on stone and helped everyone pick up after the party.

So in 1946, we did it again! With a copy of Ruth Benedict’s handy little book, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, tucked under his arm, Douglas MacArthur marched into Tokyo to rebuild his erstwhile enemies into a prosperous ally. We fed a starving nation, kept the Emperor in place (as the anthropologist recommended), and funneled money and sweat into rebuilding the Japanese economy. Yes, there were Cold War pressures at work and yes, plenty of harm was done in the five years of official occupation. But Japan could easily have gotten much, much worse.

For instance, we could have just left them there.

In the 1960s, as we were entering the Vietnam war, the American intelligence community contacted the Hmong, a hill people of southeast Asia including parts of China, Laos, and Vietnam, to fight against the North Vietnamese and the Pathet Lao communists. They came to our side in a big way, somewhere around 60% of the Hmong men in Laos were actively fighting the communists. When we departed Vietnam and the Pathet Lao established control over Laos, the Hmong were systematically hunted down and killed for their involvement. We raised no finger to help. Thousands crossed the mighty Mekong into Thailand, and thousands more have emigrated to Western countries, where they’re usually separated and sent to far flung corners of alien lands, usually alone.

In the 1980s, Oliver North’s dumbass decisions aside, we publicly and covertly supported Our Man, Saddam Hussein in their war against Iran. We even shot down the plane that made the Ayatollah want to end the conflict. But once the ink was dry and the ceasefire settled, we went back to Kuwait, or back to America.

Also in the 1980s, of course, we helped the Afghanis to preserve their ancient culture and religious worship against the atheistic and oppressive Soviets. We’ve all seen Charlie Wilson’s War and know what happened after that. The scene where Charlie begs for a mere percentage of the money expended during the war to build schools for the children of Afghanistan (and the war left mostly children behind) is a powerful moment in cinema, and one we’ve desperately needed since 1950.

The Hmong diasporia, both Gulf Wars, and the Taliban’s structure and support of al-Qaeda, are all at least partly the fault of the United States deciding to go home when the shooting stopped. In contrast, the recovery of Japan and Western Europe is at least partly the result of American humanitarian efforts most of which came after the shooting stopped.

In 2006, as we were driving through the California night, my father asked me for my opinion on the War on Terror. He’s wont to ask me about historical and cultural affairs, such as how the hell Napoleon could come to power, or why the South lost the Civil War. I told him this: “The only way to win the wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq are to stop trying to bomb them back to the Stone Age and bomb them up to the Information Age. We need to know what we’re dealing with on the ground, and that means anthropologists. If the US government needed Ruth Benedict’s help in Japan to explain what the hell Japan is, we definitely need men and women like her on the ground to explain what the hell Iraq and Afghanistan are. We need to eliminate the poverty and tatters that terrorists and guerrillas spring from, without building an American-supplied welfare state like what’s sucked up the !Kung. We need to give the Iraqis and the Afghanis every last bit of rope they need to haul up an economy, a political structure, and a functional culture with, even if that means giving them enough rope to hang themselves. We need to stop telling them how they’re going to run things and let them run things for themselves. We need to stop killing half the guys who know how to run a government in the place, even if they were Baath or Taliban. I mean, hell, we didn’t even kill all the Nazis in Germany because too many of them were necessary for Germany to function. But most importantly, we need to build schools.”

Somebody seems to be listening. The Mongols had a saying: A country can be won, but not governed, on horseback. We, as Americans, need to step down from our high horses and walk with the paupers and find out what they need, and give them everything they need to put it together themselves.

That is how you win a war. And, who knows? In twenty years, my children may be studying abroad in the best schools of Baghdad the way kids my age study abroad in Tokyo. I may be working alongside some brilliant restorationist, now a little girl, to rebuild the Buddhas of Afghanistan.

The future’s a blank notebook. What do you want to write in it?

I think I've solved the Mystery of the Disappearing Governor. At least she's maintaining a GOP tradition.

Also, Barack the Barbarian is awesome and you should read it.

Last of what seems to have been a dream cycle. I was driving home to Pismo along the Tank Farm Road way and right at the fields that remind me of Yangshuo [China] I noticed a mountain, and this mountain isn't just a mountain it's like The Mountain from an old cartoon, going up through two levels of cloud cover...and there's a castle on top, seems to be floating on the clouds. I'm feeling serendipitous so I take the next turn right into the fields and drive towards the Castle in the Air...and I drive into a kind of Chinatown (I got the feeling it was familiar, as if I've seen it in other dreams). I park in a disused gas station and wander down the street.

Very Chinese: doormen, touts, ostentatious hotels, 2am salons, etc.  Thinking back, I didn't notice any eateries [very eerie and unsettling to be in a Chinese neighborhood with no restaurants]. Anyway, I go down the way and I jaywalk across the little two-lane main street to the other side, where a couple of laowai lovers come running up and start reciting scripts "hello, are you a local? i like anime and star trek and... and..." one of them seems hesitant, a chubby little moonfaced girl. I take pity on her and throw my arm around her and say in Chinese "no no no, that's not how you do it. C'mon, lemme buy you a drink and we'll talk."

She says she speaks English, and we sit down at a streetside stall, the kind with the little tables on the sidewalk and prewrapped chopsticks and a blue tarp. It's a bar, of sorts, and we get a couple of beers. It's two tables together, that we sit at, so you can fit six people around it. At one end is complete white-trash woman, watching everything with rodent eyes. At the other end is a drunkard of the young, leathery, and seedy type, trying to make some poor Chinese girl that doesn't want any part of her. I sit opposite the poor Chinese girl, and the one I'm talking to sits next to the white trash woman. I start laying it out "Number one, you don't need a script. Just be yourself." and the white-trash couple start laughing obnoxiously. I mutter under my breath and then keep going with the explanation. I'm getting kind of long-winded, and the couple are getting more obnoxious, when the man says "aw, shut up, dumbass." and turns to the girl I was talking to and says "wouldn't you rather talk to me?" with the kind of voice that makes you never want to see the person again.

I turn back to her when he reaches over, slowly, and lays his greasy hand on hers. I'm facing away from him but I can perfectly imagine that leering grin, he'd been giving it to the girl across from me all evening (by this time it's light-bluish twilight). Without really thinking, I slap his hand with a little oomph, to make the point, and he withdraws it. I look directly into his sullen eyes and say "No!" very forcefully, the way you would a dog. The lady at the end of the table pulls a revolver out and points it in my direction and shouts "THAT'S ENOUGH OUT OF YOU" and I ask "hey, whoa, what's the gun for?"

"You slapped him!"

"Okay, jeez, we're going, we're going..." and I take the girl's hand and we stand up and are walking away when the doormen from the hotel (the one on this side of the street that the stall is, as it turns out, attached to) run into the stall with sedative guns and tranq the white trash couple and a Jerry Garcia looking fellow who's shouting "no wait, I had nothing to do with it, I'm a professor!" and then more little Chinese in spiffy doorman uniforms grab the bodies and wander off. I turn to the girl and I'm about to say "shuo bu ding" ("We'll see." as in the old Chinese story of the man who lost a horse) when she shoves her backpack at me and takes off running. Her pack is very heavy, and I have this sinking sensation I know what it is. I set it down gently, open it up, and inside is a little Chinese baby. I know right then and there I'm calling the kid Bungo Rye...and that's when I woke up.

#111

Watch "Claws for Alarm" at 2AM, in a dark house, occupied by mice and INSANE CATS CRASHING DOWNSTAIRS.

Lady MacBeth/Queen Margaret femslash. It'd be a scheming, sexy, Machiavellian, multiorgasmic sensation.

new meme, Things I'd Like to Do Every Day:

- meditate
- work out
- the Rosicrucian exercises
- the Kahne exercises
- memory exercises
- write
- sleep ~7 hours
- eat three healthy meals
- wear clean clothes
- shower
- drink a cup of wine
- drink eight cups of water
- have sex with someone I love
- have a good conversation

IT'S UP! IT'S UP! IT'S UP!

Drive.

Any one of you capable of throwing together a gallery page, a blurb-and-back-cover-photo page, a mainpage announcing our impending release, and an RSS-feed blog for the writer and artists?

Anyone meet the above criteria and owe me/want from me a favor?