Category Archives: Uncategorized

June 17, 2013

Barbara

The Beautiful Miss Barbara

The Beautiful Miss Barbara

My mother, Barbara, passed this weekend. She had struggled with Alzheimer’s and other illnesses for 10 years, and developed pneumonia last week. We decided to work with hospice and hope that she would pass easily and with as little pain as possible. She died on Saturday morning, loved, remembered, cared for, seen.

As a writer, I have words in me, but I can’t share all of them now. There is too much swirling around, lifting and sinking, hiding from me, demanding attention.

I will say that death, like birth, is never truly peaceful. It is a visceral awe-some act of struggle, control, and sublimation. It is power; sex and birth and life and death and each cycle circles in swirls and moebius strips turning marking each of those phases in blends and solitary moments. It is hard to watch and bear witness to, but it is what is in our core, being human. It is a terrible and beautiful honor to hold that space. We all need to see it, to hold each other through all of it, this sex and birth and life and death, for that makes us who we are. That, and all the moments in between.

For now I will say that Barbara was beautiful, intelligent, private, irreverent, and slightly cynical while remaining hopeful. She was detail oriented to a fault and had the neatest linen closets you would ever see.

She loved history, politics, music and art. She watched and observed our nation over WWII, Korea, Vietnam, MLK, Watergate, Oil Crises, Reagan (she refused to eat Jellybeans because of him) and too many Bushes. She saw 9/11 and it broke her heart. She knew what it meant about democracy. She loved cats and smoking cigarettes. She liked wine. She was a killer Scrabble player and adored crossword puzzles. She set a brilliant example for me in spirituality as she didn’t tolerate organized bullshit, and she knew that nothing, not religion or politics could stop people from loving each other, no matter their gender or race.

She loved her grandsons and her family.

She didn’t deserve the card she was dealt, this dementia and suffering, the indignities of a nursing home, but who does? She fought and stood stubborn, she settled in with mild resentment, she drifted off in to a peaceful acceptance. She was loved by the staff at RNC and that was a gift.

She was my mother and I loved her in all the complicated, complex, and difficult ways one can love. She loved me, too. Here we are holding hands last week, she loved that, even unto the end.

Love

Love

Take good care this week and love each other and yourselves.

2 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

June 12, 2013

Short Hiatus

I will be taking a short hiatus through the weekend to attend to some family issues.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Uncategorized

June 11, 2013

The Sin Of Disconnection

I am not a Christian. Not really. I was baptized in 1978 in Columbia, SC a few months after my father died, probably because I was a kid terrified of what the hell happens after death. I struggled a lot with friends who told me that because my father wasn’t Mormon/Catholic/Etc he couldn’t go to heaven, nor could the good Jewish doctor who lived next door.

I felt, at an early age, that something was totally bullshit about that. My mother encouraged me in that vein, though she wouldn’t have approved of the language I just used. At least not when I was 9.

In a world with such biological, geographical, and cultural diversity how, I thought, could there be “one” way to peace after death? It made no sense unless your version of god is a trickster who likes keeping some people out and some people in.

A god of disconnection, of separation, of class.

So I’ve had little to no part of that for most of my life, relying instead of the church of theater, the religion of social justice, the spirituality of community. And some old fashioned gazes at the moon through the trees for good measure. I did get involved with Jim Rigby’s church for a bit mostly because Jim is an outlaw, but I don’t do church well.

People are very good at keeping people in “in and out” circles. It’s probably some kind of primate thing so it’s no wonder we created a god in that image. I get it. But it seems remarkable in this day and age that we are still doing this to each other, and in the name of a force that is supposed to connect, to bring together, to heal, and to save.

Mary Ann Kaiser is a friend of mine. She is a minister in spirit and action. She feels called to serve the church and has gone through seminary training and has been in the ordination process. She is out as a lesbian. Recently, her ordination was blocked because of her sexuality.

You can read about the furor here.

Some of this business has to do with church laws and what it means to be ordained and if a person is “practicing” their homosexuality, a phrase so laughable as to be sad. I mean, I suppose it’s a practice, in that the more you practice love, patience, connection, commitment, and yes, sex, the better you get. In which case, dang I want a minister who is good at her relationships!

It’s about the sex though and how it scares people. How it can’t be an integrated part of people’s lives, how it seems like chaos to rigid dogmatists. Denying a person her calling is cruel. Denying her the opportunity to serve based on who she loves (and she loves! Thats a great thing! That’s a mirror of God’s love yes?) is mean, callous, short sighted as hell. Denying people full admission into the church at a time when people are falling away from organized religion is a really clumsy PR move at the very least.

While I could write at length about the ridiculousness of wanting in a club that doesn’t want you as a member, about agnosticism, starting your own church, and so forth, here’s the thing. Mary Ann is a Christian. She means it. She wants to serve. And this is a social justice issue, regardless of how I feel about religion.

So I will stand with her.

UMC has a slogan of Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors. What’s going on for Mary Ann is nothing but a series of closings. Doors shutting. Minds refusing to shift and change. Hearts hardening. It’s creating a separation, a disconnect and a system where some people are good enough for this god, and some are not, well maybe to sit in the seats, but not to be on a first name basis.

The problem and solution isn’t actually hard to get. Dr Seuss had it right on the mark with his story about Sneetches. Disconnection and separation, we are good at it. Why not learn to be better at it’s opposite? Why not break the pattern and start connecting instead?

Haves and havenots, Starbellied and otherwise, creating divisions that break hearts this is our sin, not who we love.

If you would like to support Mary Ann Kaiser, and all members of the LGBT community who seek equality in serving as ministers and healers in the church, please go here to this action call to stand with Mary Ann.

2 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , ,

June 7, 2013

In Texas, A Woman’s Life is Worth $150 | A Radical Centrist

A shocking story. A man hired an escort through Craig’s List and gave her $150. She left without having sex with him and he shot her trying to get his money back.

He was recently acquitted.

The Radical Centrist offers this take on the situation:

In Texas, A Woman’s Life is Worth $150 | A Radical Centrist.

Her conclusion is compelling:

“Something that Gilbert said has stuck with me: “I sincerely regret the loss of the life of Ms. Frago. I’ve been in a mental prison the past four years of my life. I have nightmares. If I see guns on TV where people are getting killed, I change the channel.” Some people have been reacting to this with disgust because it makes things even worse that Gilbert is trying to make himself into some kind of victim. In a lot of ways, I agree with that assessment. On the other hand, I also totally believe Gilbert when he says this.

The thing is, unless Gilbert is a total psychopath, shooting Frago over $150 is probably going to haunt him for the rest of his life. Gilbert was sold a bill of goods. He, like so many people, bought into the hard-line individualistic, capitalist notion that property is worth shooting someone over. He, like so many people, bought into the patriarchal notion that women’s bodies, especially a prostitute’s, are not their own. When Gilbert shot Frago, he was confronted with the lie of those two notions, and now he’s mentally and emotionally suffering because of it.

The problem, though, is that legally he’s been left off the hook. So that bill of goods Gilbert was sold is sold to the rest of us, yet again. We’re once again been told that property is worth more than a human being, and a prostitute’s body is property. A man killed a woman over $150 and a promise of sex, and we’ve all just been told that it’s excusable. It’s fine. It’s just the way it is.”

It shouldn’t be.

1 Comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , ,

June 6, 2013

Why We Fight About Comedy: Madeleine Davies

Why We Fight About Comedy.

In this piece Madeleine Davies says one of the most insightful things I think I’ve seen about the reaction to the Lindy West/comedy/rape joke situation(emphasis mine):

“I don’t think this whole “feminists vs. comedy” debate (which is totally meaningless, by the way, as plenty of comedians are feminists and lots of feminists love comedy) is entirely about sexism. (Not to say that it’s not about sexism at all — as Lindy has proven, comedy does indeed have a MAJOR woman problem.) Rather it’s about having the tools you use to cope being taken away from you. Those who feel attacked by the very reasonable request that a comedian considers their words before making a joke (note: I wrote “considers,” not “censors”) are worried that their coping mechanism is being taken away. Those making the request to begin with are angry because they’ve been denied that coping mechanism from the get-go.”

It makes so much sense given the complete and utter disconnect between the sides.

A brilliant take and given the passion on each side, it’s clear there is a lot being coped with through these jokes and reactions to these jokes.

So what do we do about that?

Leave a Comment

Filed under Uncategorized

June 6, 2013

Words Mean Things: Cascade Effects, Faberge Organics, and Lindy West

I have been watching and tweeting about a nearly year long ongoing twitter/social media conversation? Debate? Argument? about rape jokes, censorship, freedom, and more. Lindy West, a comic and writer, has been squarely in the middle of it from her posts on Jezebel about rape jokes and comedy, to her debate with Jim Norton, to the threats and online attacks she’s received (not just emails, someone created fake accounts in her name and has been posting as her).

Jim Norton recently posted a piece at XO Jane asking for those attacks to stop. Other comedians offered vulnerable posts about their own experiences with telling jokes that might not be so well advised, and there was even an article up about science, humor, bias and how jokes can subtly reinforce negative attitudes towards people.

I’ve got so many thoughts and feelings swirling around in my brain that I’m not sure what to say. Mostly, it seems simple to me and even Jim Norton said it in his post decrying the way people have treated Lindy:

“My suggestion to these people is to think about what you really want to say and make an effort to say it.”

That’s all Lindy (and the bajillion rest of us) has been saying. Not censorship. Not getting sent to jail or having your words taking from you. To think, as a culture and a people, about what we really want to say, what we really mean, what we really have to state and then say it clearly.

Which means taking a moment (instead of acting on impulse) to look at the joke/ad/facebook page etc and say to yourself, “Is this joke serving the purpose I intend for it? What is that purpose? Is it gonna hurt people? Do I want it to? Is it going to highlight a complicated power structure? Do I want it to? Could it help bring people together or rip them apart?” Words mean things. If they didn’t, we wouldn’t be arguing about them.

If those comics want to use their considerable skill as wordsmiths and artists to paint a picture of the crap that goes on, comment on it and pierce through the bullshit so we can find our way out? Awesome! I’m all for that. There are a lot of comics that do that and yes, they use racism, and sexism, and homophobia and difficult subject matter in their acts. They point out the toxicity and our complicity in it and they are brilliant. It’s uncomfortable but it makes change happen.

But if they don’t want their jokes to do more than keep the rapey, racist, individualistic, callous status quo going, fine. If they want to punch down, fine. If they think jokes about race, or sex, or orientation, or body size or anything that could be used to tease, mock, push around, or otherwise keep people in their relative places are AOK jokes, that’s certainly legal.

And it’s certainly legal to call those comics/ads/pages out on it.

That’s not censorship. That’s communication.

What we aren’t doing, and what we shouldn’t do, is threaten, harass, dox, imitate, hack, and otherwise act like bullies under a trollish veil of anonymity, which is what is happening to Lindy.

It’s wrong.

I do social justice work in writing and I also do it in real time with real people. I’ve seen how hard it is to facilitate meetings on race or interpersonal violence. I’ve watched as myself or others have, forgive the metaphor, offered seeds out to plant about consent, language, privilege, equality, peace and so forth only to be dismissed and treated badly. I’ve had to watch people truly struggle with being mocked.

That’s the thing about making cultural change. You don’t know what kind of impact you or your words will have, but rest assured they will have impact. I can recall things said decades ago that I finally had “aha” moments about, and realize perhaps too late how lucky I was to have heard them. The person who said them? They’ll never know they had an impact on me over time.

I’ll rarely know if what I write, or what I do, or the people I work with will feel good or bad or have moments of change, if those interventive moments (and especially the ones I’m not consciously thinking about) will help them also reach others, who will reach others, who will reach others like a cascade effect, like that awesome 80′s Faberge Organics Shampoo Ad with Heather Locklear to change the world. What I do know is, that I want my words, if they count at all, to cascade warmly, kindly, lovingly and with purpose.

(Memes y’all. Trends. Biases. Beliefs. Myths into truths–that’s all cascading information and it makes culture and systems which is why are cultures are dynamic not static over time.)

I know there are people who don’t believe that culture is made through the millions of cascades that wave through us daily. I do. I believe words mean things and we assign and comprehend meaning to those words past their Webster’s Definition.

I think Lindy does as well, and I for one want to stand up with her as she does her work. I think we should all stand up, because what is happening to her (and others like her who visibly examine systems and push against places they think could use pushing) is that more and more, they are getting abused and harshly.

Lastly, I’ll leave you with this since it’s part of the core of this conversation:

What’s so threatening about being asked to think about what you say even if you still choose to say it? I’ve got some ideas of my own, but I’d like some others responses to that.

2 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

June 4, 2013

Everyone Is Creative

I have long worked in the arts, theater specifically, but I’ve had my time with music and dance as well. I swing between performance and producing (something my father did before me), and to me the are two sides of the same coin of creativity.

Whether you are the person on stage or the person creating the space for art to occur, the parent or the midwife, the muse or the mentor, all of us are creative individuals. I believe it’s because we are also problem solving creatures (a phrase my husband uses often to describe our evolution and the reason for such physical and cultural diversity we see around us). Problems require creativity to solve.

I wonder though, if people realize how beautifully creative they are, in a country that only pays and rewards a rare few actors, designers, performers. All of us perform and create every day and have the capacity to use our innate talents and love of play to make the world a better place. I want everyone to know that have that ability.

I was at my son’s elementary school talent show today. For two mornings, each of the classes and many of the students on their own performed dances, songs, piano pieces, and skits and each performance had very funny 5th grade emcees introducing each act with puns and jokes and a great deal of charm.

Now, these are little kids between the ages of 6 and 10 so you can imagine that the skill sets are varied. One could dismiss them as a cute little group of students doing cute things and so forth and so on.

Here’s the amazing things I saw though-

1) There were young children on stage in pairs, trios, groups, or alone, in front of about 200 other kids and parents, really committing to the risk, vulnerability, and sense of self it takes to perform. That’s amazing! It’s scary to be on stage if you’ve never done it. You are exposing (potentially) so much to people. And they were good! And playful! And the audience gave them so much love back. What a lesson is in that for them. Such inner confidence can be built, such assurance that risk and play are rewarded.

2) The teachers all supported them in such a powerful way from stage managing, to musical support, to tech-mics and music stands and lighting. They created a space for those young people to shine, and used their own considerable talent, skill, and knowledge to provide a playful and safe place to risk.

This is how we become increasingly human, how we build community, how we deeply support the creative in all of us, in my estimation.

Play, creation, risk-these are valuable things.

Being on stage, being witnessed-these are powerful things.

This brings us joy, compassion, empathy, and strength. It gives us skills to solve the problems of the world.

2 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , ,

June 3, 2013

This Is Activism: Maybe You Dance, The Belle Jar

Please read this amazing piece by Anne Theriault at The Belle Jar as she writes about the difference between dealing with mean online comments you can walk away from and nasty slurs in real time in real spaces (and all the fear and anger they bring), and activism as dance, as joy, as something we can all do.

What do you do, she asks:

Maybe You Dance | The Belle Jar.

“So what do you do? What exactly do you do if you’re in this bar, and you hear people yelling the word faggot, and you feel like saying something, anything will result in getting punched in the face? What do you do if that’s your friend, or at the very least the friend of your friend, on stage, playing his bespectacled, skinny jean-clad heart out? Seriously, what the fuck do you do?

If you’re me, apparently you sit there grimacing and whispering to the girl next to you, demanding to know where the fuck all these terrible drunk dudes came from. If you’re me, you hunker down in your seat, and hope they don’t come anywhere near you. If you’re me, you hope that if they do make their way over to you, they somehow manage to keep their hands to themselves.

If you’re me, you die a little inside when you think about how you’re totally not standing up for what you believe in, and you hate yourself for being a coward.”

And if you’re my friend Nathan, you get up and dance.

Her story, of the dancing that acted as a shield, a magic, a barrier dissuading the jerks of the world to back off, a sign of “Don’t Mess With Us” is powerful. What a simple way to change the tone of a room. What a easy, though brave, act to partake in.

One person changed the room. One person led by example and more joined and then the meanness slunk away in the face of solidarity and positive energy.

Activism doesn’t have to be angry words yelled at powers that be, though it can be. It doesn’t have to be letter to the editor filled with righteousness and rage. It doesn’t have get sprayed by pepper spray or be punched by the opposition to count as doing the work.

Sometimes it can be as simple as dancing in a space that seems to be getting taken over by meanness. Sometimes it can be telling a personal story of how you yourself did something less then politically correct. Sometimes it can be hugging someone without worrying about the outcome, or at least being willing to be seen.

Saturday night my family and I had the honor of again being part of Queerbomb, dancing and cheering in the streets with my family in the midst of the whole of the gender and sexual spectrum. There were young and old, people of all colors, genders orientations and abilities, costumed and non, and joy.

Joy.

Joy in the fierceness of freedom and of pride.

An older couple stopped us and told us how good they thought it was that we brought our children to the event. It broke my heart to think about all they’d gone through in their own lives just to be accepted, to have their loving relationship accepted and for a minute I thought, “It’s a sad commentary on the world at large if us bringing our kids is moving and meaningful” but yeah, I suspect it is. Us showing our children how wonderful the possibilities are, how all should be loved, how are are lovable, that respecting difference is a thing to strive for…that is an intervention. Our intervention, our activism was to simply be present and to witness in a loving way. To teach our children that love makes a family. It’s an intervention I will happily make, as an ally and member of the community for as long as is needed.

Hell, the kids know that already. It’s the adults that mess things up. And things are changing in the best direction, I feel sure of it.

Activism and interventions happen in so many different ways, and I myself often default to anger and pushing back instead of opening up. Its so hard, when faced with the anger and rage of another to meet it with kindness. Anne’s post is brilliant both in observation but in vulnerability. I love the intervention that she shares, dance. Not fighting, just dancing. Dancing (or just having a simple conversation) and being filled up with positive love and light and holding that good feeling up to cast away darkness, can make more difference than you will ever know.

Anne correctly points out that we are all capable of this, that we don’t have to freeze up with the expectation our activism is “big” but can be simple, natural, loving, joyful.

She writes:

“And, in the future, I really want to be able to remember that there are other ways of fighting intolerance besides my usual bag of tricks. Sometimes you can do it by standing there alone and, with great purpose and love, just fucking dancing like there’s no tomorrow.”

She’s absolutely right. Joy is powerful and it is a gift and tool of activism we should use every day.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

May 30, 2013

Sex, Art and Beautiful Garbage: An Interview With Author Jill Di Donato | The Feminist Wire

I’m thrilled to share my first piece with Feminist Wire. I had the opportunity to interview the very talented Jill Di Donato regarding her book, Beautiful Garbage. Please click the link below for more!

Sex, Art and Beautiful Garbage: An Interview With Author Jill Di Donato | The Feminist Wire.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , ,

May 29, 2013

A Response From Facebook

Facebook has issued a statement, linked here, of their commitment to change and investigating the issues brought to light from the campaigns against their content policies.

(61) Controversial, Harmful and Hateful Speech on Facebook.

This is huge, though it is just a start. Here’s a tweet from WAM:

“A WEEK! #fbrape was launched a week ago. In that time we’ve had 15 companies pull from FB, 106 sign the open letter, & over 57,000 tweets!”

And a post from WAM as well.

Let’s keep the pressure on. This is actually the most important time.

Thanks for all the RTs, links, and to the people of WAM, Everyday Sexism, and Soraya Chemaly for their leadership.

And thanks to all the people who saw that leadership and took action. There were thousands of people involved in this effort, thousands of emails to advertisers, thousands of tweets. It couldn’t have happened without individuals acting in concert to make real change. All of you are amazing people.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Uncategorized