What We Make

photographer: Alain Delorme

I was thinking about diamonds and the world's biggest necklace. 

Bob Dylan

I was thinking about how so much of our life consists of stories that we make up, word by word, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, page by page. Days and then years go by in the telling. At worst, we lie to ourselves through story, believing it. At best, we are wildly creative in our elaboration.

I was thinking about how so much of life itself is a house of cards -- at least the life of humans -- everything stacked precariously, both ill- and well-intentioned, with nothing, really, at the base. If I cast my mind back to the days when I worked for a retail brokerage firm in Nashville, Tennessee, I felt that house of cards tremble when the stock market crashed in 1987, the grim faces of my work colleagues, the quiet and stifled panic. I looked across the huge room where we all sat behind glass walls that ringed the perimeter, can see as if it were yesterday, the face of a young man whose name I've long since forgotten, his bowed head in his hands. Marriage is a house of cards whose base is sometimes nothing more than a piece of paper. Men who love men and women who love women have added their own cards, and every time a card is added, the whole pile seems about to collapse. Dissolution is another card. The fragility of it all makes me tremble.

I was thinking about the Ebola epidemic in Africa, how the crazies are already blaming Obama for letting it in. I'm not sure why some things induce such panic (Ebola) and other things are pushed aside, even denied (climate change). 

I was thinking of how we make up stories, card by card, and fuel our illusions.

I started the evening last night with the above photo --  I was lying on my bed with The Soph, and we had had a fine day. Soon afterward, Mirtha the Saint came to take care of Sophie, and I got dressed for a dinner out with friends. I drank a Manhattan at my friends' house, a delicious concoction of vermouth and whiskey and a maraschino cherry from Italy that was threaded onto a silver toothpick. I've never had a Manhattan, but I drank it to the very last drop. I sat outside in the cool, Los Angeles evening air, laughing and talking with old friends and new --  four men, actually -- two couples, one being two dads of kids my boys go to school with and the other two older men who have been together since 1975 and are now 77 and 80 years old. I tell you their ages because it was significant. We went to an Italian restaurant in West Hollywood to celebrate my friend's birthday, I ate burrata and tomatoes and then linguine with clams. We drank champagne first and then red wine. We talked for hours and laughed uproariously. One man nudged me, said, He's a good looking old man, isn't he? and nodded at his partner across the table. I was told that my eyes sparkle, and I'm sure they did. I felt completely enamored by these men's love for one another and for the life they live. In two days they are going to be married and then they will go on a cruise to Alaska. I asked whether I could go with them, and I am certain that they'd let me if I were so inclined. When dinner was over, we climbed back into one car, and I sat in the middle of the back seat, between my dear friend and the new friend. We talked and laughed some more. We went back inside my friends' house and drank a perfect glass of port. It tasted like berries warmed up and we talked and laughed some more. After a while one of the older man declared that he was fading, and I realized that I was too, so we said good-bye and walked to our cars. I called out Happy Wedding! as they drove away and nearly skipped to my car. How grand life is! I thought, How lucky we are to live in such a world where two men born in the 1930's can get married and go on a cruise to Alaska. I turned on the radio and felt another frisson of perfection as Mick Jagger sang you can't always get what you want, but you get what you need. I sang all the way home.

My children were up when I turned the key in the lock. Henry said, I hate this country. Zimmerman got off. He killed that boy with a gun, and those people thought it was all right. Henry is so tall, so narrow still, a man in shape only, unfinished, captive. Oliver stood behind him, a nervous smile on his face. I close my eyes, now, and see them both -- my boys -- inside the doorway, their faces blurred, one lined and angry, the other vaguer, uncertain, Mick Jagger's howl still ringing in my ears. I hate this country, he said again, it's stupid.

What does one say to that?

An Outstanding Article about Marriage, Gay Marriage and there's no cursing, like yesterday

American conservatives are frightened by this egalitarianism, or maybe just appalled by it. It’s not traditional. But they don’t want to talk about that tradition or their enthusiasm for it, though if you follow their assault on reproductive rights, women’s rights and, all last winter, renewing the Violence Against Women Act, it’s not hard to see where they stand. However, they dissembled on their real interest in stopping same-sex marriage.

Rebecca Solnit, from her article in Financial Times Magazine

The Santa Monica Pier, Costumes and Carnivals

I know it's freezing in much of the country, but here in southern California, it's decidedly spring, cloudy in the morning and clearing to a glorious blue in the afternoon. The boys are sleeping in every morning, their laundry is done with the only error being two ink pens found in the washer, thankfully not broken open, and the red-buds are blooming over the winter's roses. We went to the pier yesterday in Santa Monica, and I shot the above photo of Henry in front of the ferris wheel. Carnivals lend themselves to easy art, but I've already grown tired of conjecturing how the Men and Women in Robes will decide the gay marriage case, enervated by the spectacle of some of the Men in Robes equating marriage with procreation or as having the novelty of the cell phone or the internet. It's difficult to take seriously those who put on costumes to do their job, no matter their beliefs (I have the same trouble with the supposedly holy Cardinals in Robes in Rome) and while I've a fantasy of ordering a chauffeur's costume to finish out the job of mothering over the next decade or so, I prefer to be naked.

What are you up to today in your corner of the world?

Supremely Right

There's something a tiny bit annoying about posting an avatar for one's photo on social media, and it makes me feel terribly self-conscious to do so, but the fact that the Supreme Court of this country has to get involved to decide whether a ban on gay marriage is constitutional or not drove me to it. I hate this country, Henry said to me the other day in the car on the way home from school. They're studying civil rights in American history, and he was listening to a radio show about veterans from the Iraq war and their mental health needs, how they weren't even close to being met. I told him these were not grounds for hate, but I understood his frustration. Both of my boys have very good friends, several of them, that have gay parents. This is as normal to them as having a mother who goes on a laundry strike or a father that wears chef pants every day and an apron. I sure hope the Supreme Court of the land does the moral thing so I won't have to do any explaining -- or packing.

Le Silence

Le Silence, Odilon Redon

Le Silence is the title of the above painting by the French artist Odilon Redon. I won't ever forget the moment I saw it, nearly thirty years ago, somewhere along the coast of France in a museum with a retrospective of his paintings. I'd never heard of Redon and still don't know much about him, but that painting made me stop and stare and has always resonated with me.

Well, I'm not going to be silent about this -- this question I've had all morning -- this thought:

A man was executed last night in the state of Texas for murder. His clemency appeal had been denied by the Supreme Court of the United States. The man had an alleged IQ of 61. He was mentally retarded. The accuracy of the IQ number was evidently in question, and the man was perhaps not as significantly mentally retarded as originally determined.

In the state of Pennsylvania, a top Republican operative made a joke to a crowd of 200 people about Obama supporters being "mentally retarded." Evidently, not a single person objected. Here's the joke: I was very embarrassed. I was in this parking lot and there was a man looking for a space to park, and I found a space for him. And I felt badly — he looked like he was sort of in distress. And I said, ‘Sir, here’s a place.’ And he said, ‘That’s a handicapped space.’ I said, ‘Oh I’m so sorry, I saw that Obama sticker and I thought you were mentally retarded."  You can read that story here.

During the last week, I've been arguing, fruitlessly, in the comment section with a man who insists on calling me a libtard. You can read a bit of that here.

What kind of state is Texas that kills a man who is mentally retarded? What kind of country do we live in that allows the death penalty when every single other western, industrialized, so-called "civilized" country has banned it?

What kind of country is this where people support an openly bigoted corporation that sells processed fried chicken sandwiches behind the mantle of "freedom of speech," defends the right to carry semi-automatic guns in the name of liberty from tyranny and kills a mentally retarded man in the dead of night and calls it justice?

Why should we be proud of ourselves?

Why are we silent? How can those of us who agree that this action is obscene -- the state-sanctioned, institutional murder of a mentally retarded man --  change it? How can we turn aside or laugh, even uncomfortably when people continue to use the mentally retarded, people like my daughter Sophie, as the basis for their jokes and criticism?

I think we need to scream:

The Scream, Edvard Munch

Jim Roddey, Pennsylvania's Allegheny County GOP Chair

info@rcac.net  Telephone: 412-458-0068
(Mr. Roddey's phone: 412-512-6747)
The Republican Committee of Allegheny County
100 Fleet Street, Suite 205
Pittsburgh, PA 15220

And I realize that it's stupid to argue with others on a conservative blog. I don't want to say I'm like a fly to shit, because that would imply I think conservative views are shit. I really don't.

Four of these things belong together,

four of these things are kinda the same,

Can you tell which thing is not like the others?
Now it's time to play our game.
Time to play our game.

Boy Scouts and Chicken

Norman Rockwell, c. 1940

The other day I posted about the Boy Scouts' recent ruling affirming discrimination against homosexuality and received so many interesting comments. I was struck, in particular, by one that mentioned the BSA is perhaps more fearful of pedophilia than of homosexuality and have conflated the two. I learned that the primary funding for the organization comes from the Roman Catholic Church, the Southern Baptist Church and the Mormon Church which suggests that there would be a huge exodus from the scouts were they to do the right thing and demand inclusion. I also learned that the decision was made in secret -- I can't figure out why, though, as secrecy seems to be completely contrary to the Boy Scout ideals of character, bravery and courage.

The funniest comment came from Lisa, though, my dear southern friend and fellow writer. She declared that pretty soon, Chick-fil-A (whose CEO recently confirmed his company's mega donations to anti-gay causes and stated :We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that.) would be peopled with only elderly Scout Leaders. I told this to Oliver, and he finally laughed about the situation and shook his head. So dumb, Mom, he said. The whole thing is just so dumb.

(And I couldn't resist posting the fantastic Rockwell poster that I found on the internets. You can take it where you will --)

Oliver, Boy Scouts, Bullshit

My son Oliver was sad today to learn that the Boy Scouts of America have reaffirmed their discriminatory ban on gay members. He's sad enough that he isn't going to join the Eagle Scouts in the fall, something that he looked forward to doing after five successful years as a Cub Scout. I know some of you might think that it's because of my influence that he's chosen not to be a part of an organization that allows open discrimination toward a person because of his sexuality. After all, he's only eleven and what does an eleven year old need to know about sexuality anyway? I don't go around telling everyone that I prefer having sex with women, a scout leader told me once a few years ago as a response to my question about whether it bothered him that people are banned from serving as leaders if they're gay. I was feeling our troop out, trying to come up with an answer for Oliver who had come home from selling popcorn for his pack wondering why one of his friends had told him that his family didn't want to support an organization that thought his two mothers were immoral. I told him that our pack was a very tolerant, good one and not to worry about it, but I also told him the truth -- that it was an official rule to discriminate against people who loved people of the same sex --  so I guess I planted the seed of doubt in Oliver's mind. That seed took firmer hold when he badgered me with questions about the scout oath and why did they say you had to "be kind," but they didn't like gay people to guide them? 

He's a very sensitive and ultimately sensible kid who thought the whole rule was just stupid, bad and wrong.


So, I agreed with him at the time, shaking my head at the stupidity, and assuring him that people were working on overturning that rule.

I guess not, for now.

So, Oliver is giving up something he loves in protest, and that does make me proud. I told him that the Girl Scouts are much more inclusive, and he replied, And they sell good cookies!


I guess we'll be buying a whole lot of cookies next spring. But he definitely would not want to be a Girl Scout, he told me. That's not as stupid as the Boy Scouts rule, but they're giiiiiiiirls.

A break in the birthday blather blather

Bob Dylan at a civil rights gathering, Greenwood Mississippi, 1963

When the boys got in the car this afternoon after school, they told me that they'd discussed President Obama's decision to support gay marriage at school, with their teachers. That's why I love living in a large, tolerant (for the most part) city in a blue state. That's why I love that they go to a progressive school with many children who have same sex families. I'm glad that President Obama "evolved," however late in the game he decided to do so and for whatever personal or political reason.

It was, I told my children, the right thing to do. 


Evidently, George Clooney is having a fundraiser for the President tonight in the valley, and like all days that The Man comes to town, the traffic is even more insane than usual. While I'm not of the camp that derides Obama for messing up the city, I will say that the whole campaign hoopla nauseates me. Evidently, tonight's fundraiser will bring in tens of millions of dollars into the campaign and, frankly, that makes me sick. As sick as Mitt Romney's bazillions do, floating around in Swiss bank accounts or those two Cadillacs his wife drives.

It might be simplistic, but why the hell (WTH) is the Hollywood set capable of shelling out tens of millions of dollars to pay for television advertisements and those godforsaken postcards that come in the mail every single day but not for the five thousand teachers that have been given pink slips during the last year? WTH can't they raise money and hand it over, directly over, to community programs that help the mentally ill and homeless? Or perhaps they might pony up to save some of the respite programs for families of children with disabilities and the elderly? Why the hell not (WTHN)? Or perhaps they could fix the potholes that line Wilshire Blvd. and make one's commute akin to the dirt roads of Afghanistan -- admittedly, that's hyperbole, but it's akin to the truth of failing infrastructure and misplaced priorities.

WTHN?

So, while I applaud the POTUS for doing the right thing (at last), I wish he'd climb out of that caravan and into the arms of George Clooney and his mega-star friends and implore them to reach out to the city that embraces them and do the right thing.

(And the photo of Dylan isn't really apropos of anything but doing the right thing. It happens to be taken in the same city that my maternal grandmother hailed from --)

I was raised a Roman Catholic,

via flickrhivemind

but every year that goes by, every day perhaps, I grow further and further away from those roots. Today I read that the Pope of the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI, has declared to nearly 180 diplomats from various countries that pride of place goes to the family, based on the marriage of a man and a woman, and then this is not a simple social convention, but rather the fundamental cell of every society. Consequently, policies which undermine the family threaten human dignity and the future of  humanity itself. As you might guess, this was the Pope's statement against gay marriage.

Gay marriage is a threat to humanity itself, he said.

I want to type that again for all of us Catholics, perhaps in a bigger type.

Gay marriage is a threat to humanity itself.

Here's my question -- and this is directed at those of you who still call yourself Catholic -- how do you not struggle being a part of a Church whose leader makes statements like these, a Church whose official dogma condemns a significant number of people to a position other than human? I have heard all the explanations of reveling in the beautiful traditions of the Catholic faith, of the spirituality that lies at the core, of the profound communities that center around the faith. I recognize and respect those explanations but really, really wonder if that's enough. I don't think it is enough. Of course, if you truly believe that homosexuality sets a person apart from the rest of humanity and that the very existence of the homosexual is a threat to humanity itself, then I understand but don't necessarily respect your position as Catholic. You clearly don't need to answer my question. 

But if you struggle with this or have reached a place of peace and acceptance about this, please let me know.

I am no longer a Roman Catholic, and I struggle to understand how anyone who believes in the sanctity of humanity, in love, in the primacy of the divine in all of us would remain one.

On Gay Marriage, I'm with Clint

and he tells it in his inimitable way.

Here