My brother Brian and I just published our first podcast. We have other episodes in the hopper and our excuse to talk each other about a million things is that we talk about good stuff to see on the streaming services like Netflix.
http://www.podcasts.com/download/cut-the-intro-d98040d08/Episode-1-ac02
It's so much fun. He's in Idaho, I'm in Magalia. I'm just impressed that we got over that hump. This whole thing was more work than I thought it would be but we're stoked for our Binyon brother creative project.
Friday, September 16, 2016
Sunday, September 4, 2016
Nap
There are holes in my back where the hooks keep dragging me down
my hands smell like butter and dogs
my hair looks like I crawled out of a subterranean holding cell
where they keep terrorists
I don't know why so I'm tired lately
maybe allergies
maybe because summer is over
maybe I should eat more food and drink less coffee
maybe it's the rhythm of pearl snap buttons tumbling in the drier
I should eat more greens.
my hands smell like butter and dogs
my hair looks like I crawled out of a subterranean holding cell
where they keep terrorists
I don't know why so I'm tired lately
maybe allergies
maybe because summer is over
maybe I should eat more food and drink less coffee
maybe it's the rhythm of pearl snap buttons tumbling in the drier
I should eat more greens.
Tuesday, August 30, 2016
Anarchist Thoughts
I.
Leaving the country always feels good
this greatest empire that ever was
that can destroy the world ten times over with bombs
if it wants
but it won't
it'll destroy itself
it'll unravel like a loose knot
tied with slick rope by numb fingers on a freezing night
II.
This is an election year
the song and dance our masters give us
so we can believe we live in a democratic republic
At least the People's Republic of China
is honest with their one party rule
Oh and they have good education
and health care
and way less prisoners
III.
There are other nations I wouldn't want to be stuck in
without a doubt
I know it isn't all happy beaches and delicious street food out there
although there are a lot of beaches and street foods
but we are a nation that sells war to ourselves
with the delusion that our way is best for the world
and then we finance those wars and our 700 military outposts
with money borrowed from theocratic dictatorships and communist authoritarians
we don't have any money of our own anymore
we spend more than we make
take more than we give
and consume more than we create
IV.
The actual value of every paper currency in history is zero
No fiat currency survives the test of time
In 2008 the whole system was two hours away from collapse
and the ATMs would have stopped spitting cash
and all the banks would have closed
and all our deposits would have vanished
like a jealous thought whispered away by a lover's kiss
V.
The dollar itself is the biggest financial bubble in the history of civilization
And living among the madness and spoils of empire
has made me slothful and apathetic
or ravenously ambitious
although all that feels firmly in the past now
and the only way that feels firm and calm to me
the only balance I can find
is in anarchy, prayer, and getting things made
VI.
Nobody has real authority over anybody else
That's a thing we do to give away responsibility
but every time we do that little pieces of sovereignty go with it
like erosion on a logged hillside
it's as unnatural as a logged hillside
Leaving the country always feels good
this greatest empire that ever was
that can destroy the world ten times over with bombs
if it wants
but it won't
it'll destroy itself
it'll unravel like a loose knot
tied with slick rope by numb fingers on a freezing night
II.
This is an election year
the song and dance our masters give us
so we can believe we live in a democratic republic
At least the People's Republic of China
is honest with their one party rule
Oh and they have good education
and health care
and way less prisoners
III.
There are other nations I wouldn't want to be stuck in
without a doubt
I know it isn't all happy beaches and delicious street food out there
although there are a lot of beaches and street foods
but we are a nation that sells war to ourselves
with the delusion that our way is best for the world
and then we finance those wars and our 700 military outposts
with money borrowed from theocratic dictatorships and communist authoritarians
we don't have any money of our own anymore
we spend more than we make
take more than we give
and consume more than we create
IV.
The actual value of every paper currency in history is zero
No fiat currency survives the test of time
In 2008 the whole system was two hours away from collapse
and the ATMs would have stopped spitting cash
and all the banks would have closed
and all our deposits would have vanished
like a jealous thought whispered away by a lover's kiss
V.
The dollar itself is the biggest financial bubble in the history of civilization
And living among the madness and spoils of empire
has made me slothful and apathetic
or ravenously ambitious
although all that feels firmly in the past now
and the only way that feels firm and calm to me
the only balance I can find
is in anarchy, prayer, and getting things made
VI.
Nobody has real authority over anybody else
That's a thing we do to give away responsibility
but every time we do that little pieces of sovereignty go with it
like erosion on a logged hillside
it's as unnatural as a logged hillside
Friday, April 29, 2016
Vegan Creole Red Beans and Rice
I used to cook at a great French-Creole restaurant in Sacramento for this guy. This recipe is inspired by him and his style.
Patrick Celestin is full of culinary swagger, a gifted and passionate cook (he hated being called a chef) and the best all-around restaurateur I've ever met. He ran the cleanest kitchen, with a happy and professional staff, and held the highest standards in the ingredients. I never saw him cut a corner. Everyday he sent at least one expensive something back to his vendors because it wasn't quite right. Delivery drivers would just sweat when he checked in food orders. The meat salesman from the local meat company just took it upon himself to be present when the order was delivered. He'd send back a case of chicken thighs if they were butchered clumsily; he'd yell at us for anything that wasn't exactly how it should be. He could throw on an apron and come up with inventive and insanely delicious specials anytime he wanted to. He'd often come back all stoned after shopping at Cash & Carry with a little chocolate soy milk carton in his hand, the kind you'd put in your kid's lunch box. He had a thing for organic chocolate soy milk and he'd get cases of it for us to drink. All the food was from scratch, soul-filled, and a lot of the recipes were from his Haitian family in Queens. He was in the game for over 25 years until he retired, and I worked for him in his final years in business when he was at the top of his game and a legend in the Sacramento restaurant scene. He wasn't the richest or the owner of the most locations, but if you loved food, he was one of the best. He owned his building, he had never been busier, and the food was delicious. It was a real pleasure learning from him, and a pleasure cooking and eating his food.
So because of that time I miss Creole foods often: Gumbo, red beans and rice, jerk chicken, coconut lime scallops, tostones, calamari, corn fries, key lime pie, veggie curry, ti-malice sauce, grio. He even made an orange vinaigrette with some Tang in it, the secret ingredient, just like his Grandma did. His food carried so much soul.
Anyway I'm plant-based now and have never felt healthier so I'm sticking with that, and I eat a lot of beans. I was dying for some Creole red beans and rice so I did some adaptation and landed on a pot of beans that really hit the spot and would make Patrick proud. These are often made with chicken stock, and usually have tasso ham in it, or bacon fat, and sometimes sausage and things like that. We are leaving all that out and replacing those ingredients with plant-based sources of flavor, but that's no excuse to get flavor lazy or soulless in the soul food.
There are other Creole Vegan Red Bean recipes online, but they seem to mostly be prepared from a place of vegan culture. One lady put a strip of kombu in her beans (Japanese seaweed often used for Japanese broths) because she said it helps you digest them. That just does not belong.
These beans are Creole first, vegan second.
INGREDIENTS
Vegan Creole Red Beans and Rice
16 oz package dry Red Beans (I like the smaller red beans but kidneys will work. Cook time will be longer.) 1 1/2 onions diced
1 green bell pepper diced
2-3 stalks celery diced
2 cloves garlic minced
1 green onion thinly sliced
10 cups water
2 T salt
3 veggie bouillon cubes (Repunzel brand is great. Good flavor, good ingredients)
3 T vegan worcestershire sauce (Lea & Perrins has anchovies in the recipe)
3 dashes Crystal hot sauce
3 bay leaves
1T dried thyme
1/2 t black pepper
1/4 t cayenne pepper
1/4 c fresh parsley chopped
1 t liquid smoke
3 T cooking oil
METHOD
Soak your beans in cold water overnight. Or you can use the quick-soak method (which isn't quite as good, but it works). Put the beans in a pot of water, boil for one minute, remove from heat and cover. Soak that for one hour.
Drain your soaked beans and set aside.
In a large heavy-bottomed pan, saute the onions, green bell and celery in the oil. (These are the "Creole Three") Hit them with the salt. Cook them until soft for five minutes.
Add black pepper, cayenne, thyme, bay leaf and garlic. Stir and cook for one minute.
Add beans, water, and the rest of the ingredients (except the green onion, that's for the finish).
Bring to boil and reduce to medium low heat. Stir occasionally and cook uncovered the whole time. After 2 - 3 hours (depending on beans size and freshness, soak method, and other factors) the beans and veggies will have cooked down quite a bit.
Taste a bean. When the beans are nice and creamy, no longer mealy, smash a third of them or so against the pan and stir to introduce all their starchy goodness through the whole pot. Cook them down for another 20 minutes.
Add a little water if it reduces too much. I have to add a cup or so of water near the end every time.
Season to taste with additional salt if needed.
Cook as much cooked parboiled (converted) rice as you want. Follow the package instructions and cook that up with a bay leaf too.
Serve a bunch of beans on a bed of the finished rice. Top it off with the green onions and serve with a salad with lots of avocados and tomatoes and an apple cider vinaigrette.
Keep that Crystal hot sauce handy because it's awesome with these.
That's it! This one's for you Patrick. You old baller.
Patrick Celestin is full of culinary swagger, a gifted and passionate cook (he hated being called a chef) and the best all-around restaurateur I've ever met. He ran the cleanest kitchen, with a happy and professional staff, and held the highest standards in the ingredients. I never saw him cut a corner. Everyday he sent at least one expensive something back to his vendors because it wasn't quite right. Delivery drivers would just sweat when he checked in food orders. The meat salesman from the local meat company just took it upon himself to be present when the order was delivered. He'd send back a case of chicken thighs if they were butchered clumsily; he'd yell at us for anything that wasn't exactly how it should be. He could throw on an apron and come up with inventive and insanely delicious specials anytime he wanted to. He'd often come back all stoned after shopping at Cash & Carry with a little chocolate soy milk carton in his hand, the kind you'd put in your kid's lunch box. He had a thing for organic chocolate soy milk and he'd get cases of it for us to drink. All the food was from scratch, soul-filled, and a lot of the recipes were from his Haitian family in Queens. He was in the game for over 25 years until he retired, and I worked for him in his final years in business when he was at the top of his game and a legend in the Sacramento restaurant scene. He wasn't the richest or the owner of the most locations, but if you loved food, he was one of the best. He owned his building, he had never been busier, and the food was delicious. It was a real pleasure learning from him, and a pleasure cooking and eating his food.
So because of that time I miss Creole foods often: Gumbo, red beans and rice, jerk chicken, coconut lime scallops, tostones, calamari, corn fries, key lime pie, veggie curry, ti-malice sauce, grio. He even made an orange vinaigrette with some Tang in it, the secret ingredient, just like his Grandma did. His food carried so much soul.
Anyway I'm plant-based now and have never felt healthier so I'm sticking with that, and I eat a lot of beans. I was dying for some Creole red beans and rice so I did some adaptation and landed on a pot of beans that really hit the spot and would make Patrick proud. These are often made with chicken stock, and usually have tasso ham in it, or bacon fat, and sometimes sausage and things like that. We are leaving all that out and replacing those ingredients with plant-based sources of flavor, but that's no excuse to get flavor lazy or soulless in the soul food.
There are other Creole Vegan Red Bean recipes online, but they seem to mostly be prepared from a place of vegan culture. One lady put a strip of kombu in her beans (Japanese seaweed often used for Japanese broths) because she said it helps you digest them. That just does not belong.
These beans are Creole first, vegan second.
INGREDIENTS
Vegan Creole Red Beans and Rice
16 oz package dry Red Beans (I like the smaller red beans but kidneys will work. Cook time will be longer.) 1 1/2 onions diced
1 green bell pepper diced
2-3 stalks celery diced
2 cloves garlic minced
1 green onion thinly sliced
10 cups water
2 T salt
3 veggie bouillon cubes (Repunzel brand is great. Good flavor, good ingredients)
3 T vegan worcestershire sauce (Lea & Perrins has anchovies in the recipe)
3 dashes Crystal hot sauce
3 bay leaves
1T dried thyme
1/2 t black pepper
1/4 t cayenne pepper
1/4 c fresh parsley chopped
1 t liquid smoke
3 T cooking oil
METHOD
Soak your beans in cold water overnight. Or you can use the quick-soak method (which isn't quite as good, but it works). Put the beans in a pot of water, boil for one minute, remove from heat and cover. Soak that for one hour.
Drain your soaked beans and set aside.
In a large heavy-bottomed pan, saute the onions, green bell and celery in the oil. (These are the "Creole Three") Hit them with the salt. Cook them until soft for five minutes.
Add black pepper, cayenne, thyme, bay leaf and garlic. Stir and cook for one minute.
Add beans, water, and the rest of the ingredients (except the green onion, that's for the finish).
Bring to boil and reduce to medium low heat. Stir occasionally and cook uncovered the whole time. After 2 - 3 hours (depending on beans size and freshness, soak method, and other factors) the beans and veggies will have cooked down quite a bit.
Taste a bean. When the beans are nice and creamy, no longer mealy, smash a third of them or so against the pan and stir to introduce all their starchy goodness through the whole pot. Cook them down for another 20 minutes.
Add a little water if it reduces too much. I have to add a cup or so of water near the end every time.
Season to taste with additional salt if needed.
Cook as much cooked parboiled (converted) rice as you want. Follow the package instructions and cook that up with a bay leaf too.
Serve a bunch of beans on a bed of the finished rice. Top it off with the green onions and serve with a salad with lots of avocados and tomatoes and an apple cider vinaigrette.
Keep that Crystal hot sauce handy because it's awesome with these.
That's it! This one's for you Patrick. You old baller.
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
The Quiet
The night
The dark like a wet wool army blanket
a room within a room
The voice of Jake in the distance
he’s like the guys who bring guns to the campground
and talk loudly four campsites away
The network is down
it is no match for trees this tall
with all their falling branches and ravens
Tuesday, April 5, 2016
Magalia
The valley wind wanted to get away from itself
so it hurried up and out of the valley
and blew through the pines
three thousand feet up
bending the tree tops over
making that soft applause sound
like millions of tiny people in the sky clapping
The wind looked over its shoulder
to see if the valley noticed its absence
and relieved, the wind settled
it ducked down and filled the canyon
a branch cracked from the weight of the wind's wake
it fell and stabbed against the single pane window
the dog gazed out that window
motionless
for a solid minute
a full sixty seconds
It is warm tonight
there's no need to burn up the wood
or work in the garage any longer
so it hurried up and out of the valley
and blew through the pines
three thousand feet up
bending the tree tops over
making that soft applause sound
like millions of tiny people in the sky clapping
The wind looked over its shoulder
to see if the valley noticed its absence
and relieved, the wind settled
it ducked down and filled the canyon
a branch cracked from the weight of the wind's wake
it fell and stabbed against the single pane window
the dog gazed out that window
motionless
for a solid minute
a full sixty seconds
It is warm tonight
there's no need to burn up the wood
or work in the garage any longer
Sadie Rose's Contribution to Culinary Art
In my life in and out of food work, I've noticed that almost everybody who has cooked for a long time stumbles on some creation that has the potential to spread to kitchens everywhere. Most of those recipes end up trapped in families or small circles of people, but some of them travel. This one should travel.
Last May, after eating a Polish Dog at my son's birthday party, I felt disgusting and wanted to give up meat, something I had done a number of times. From the nutrition books I've read and from watching my lifelong vegetarian mother age with freakish strength and vitality, I'm convinced that we are healthiest when we eat no animals, or virtually no animals. After that birthday party, I knew I wanted to stop eating meat.
I told Sadie that I wasn't going to eat meat anymore, and then she told me she would make me a delicious vegetarian dinner that she came up with when she was broke in college, living with her vegan best friend, and eating tons of lentils.
Sadie is a woman who can walk into a kitchen, scan the ingredients and the environs, and make delicious food every time. It's a skill she's honed from single motherhood and it's very different than the skills you pick up as a professional cook. When you spend years cooking or baking professionally, you scan all of your ingredients that come in your kitchen and send back the ones that aren't perfect. You sharpen your knives to razors. You smell the scallops to make sure they aren't a single day old. You measure in grams. You get picky and precise. It's culinary art for sales and consistency, not culinary art for survival or personal pleasure. My first impression of Sadie's cooking was when she made fish tacos with little crushed tater tots in them, with some sauce and cabbage and I can't remember what else, but they were some of the best fish tacos I had ever had, made with what was in her freezer and small refrigerator. I mean they were killer, really good tacos. Sadie knows she can cook, but she is a way better cook than she thinks she is. She cooks gracefully and totally relaxed, with a big open mind to improvisation.
The lentil dish she prepared was one of the best lentil dishes I have ever tasted, and it was totally created by her. I cooked in an Indian restaurant, have made many lentil dishes for pay and for myself, grew up with a vegetarian mom, am thoroughly familiar with the lentil's prominent standing in vegetarian culture, and this thing that Sadie makes is the best. It is number one. I love it, my kids love it, everybody loves it. And it's so simple. This dish is her contribution to culinary art, it is a creative masterpiece of flavor, balance, and nutrition, and I wonder what other inspired jewels hide in all single-mother's kitchens. Anyway, make this, it is a phenomenal vegetarian meal.
1C Red Lentils
2C Water
1T Olive Oil
1 Red Onion thinly sliced
1t Red Thai curry paste
3T Braggs liquid aminos
2T Maple syrup
Sourdough Bread (preferably Dave Miller's bread available at the Saturday morning Farmer's Market in Chico) Read about Dave Miller's masterful bread.
If you're gluten-free I'm sorry. Please reconsider unless you are truly, painfully allergic to gluten. Dave Miller is one of the best bakers in the United States and he's right here. And his loaf with some rye in it goes perfectly with this dish.
Rinse your red lentils and combine in a pot with the water. Bring to a boil and lower the heat to the lower end of medium.
Pull out a saute pan and heat the olive oil. Drop the sliced onions. Throw a couple pinches of salt on them and keep them moving in the hot pan until they start to soften and brown. Turn the heat down. You're going to cook these down until they are sweet, soft, and quite brown. Cook them until the lentils are ready.
In 10-15 minutes the red lentils will be done. They go from done to mush quickly. You want them to retain a little bit of themselves so don't over do it.
Season your lentils with the Red Curry, Braggs, and Maple Syrup. Sadie always does this to taste without measuring but I think the quantities above are about right. You can of course adjust how you like, taste as you season.
Serve in bowls topped with caramelized onions and thick slices of lightly toasted sourdough for dipping. If you're plant based like me, drizzle high quality olive oil on your toasted bread. If not, go with ghee.
Thanks for reading. Give this a shot. It's an easy, super healthful and affordable way to feed a lot of people. And it's so delicious you'll think about how good it was and crave it until you make it again.
Last May, after eating a Polish Dog at my son's birthday party, I felt disgusting and wanted to give up meat, something I had done a number of times. From the nutrition books I've read and from watching my lifelong vegetarian mother age with freakish strength and vitality, I'm convinced that we are healthiest when we eat no animals, or virtually no animals. After that birthday party, I knew I wanted to stop eating meat.
I told Sadie that I wasn't going to eat meat anymore, and then she told me she would make me a delicious vegetarian dinner that she came up with when she was broke in college, living with her vegan best friend, and eating tons of lentils.
Sadie is a woman who can walk into a kitchen, scan the ingredients and the environs, and make delicious food every time. It's a skill she's honed from single motherhood and it's very different than the skills you pick up as a professional cook. When you spend years cooking or baking professionally, you scan all of your ingredients that come in your kitchen and send back the ones that aren't perfect. You sharpen your knives to razors. You smell the scallops to make sure they aren't a single day old. You measure in grams. You get picky and precise. It's culinary art for sales and consistency, not culinary art for survival or personal pleasure. My first impression of Sadie's cooking was when she made fish tacos with little crushed tater tots in them, with some sauce and cabbage and I can't remember what else, but they were some of the best fish tacos I had ever had, made with what was in her freezer and small refrigerator. I mean they were killer, really good tacos. Sadie knows she can cook, but she is a way better cook than she thinks she is. She cooks gracefully and totally relaxed, with a big open mind to improvisation.
The lentil dish she prepared was one of the best lentil dishes I have ever tasted, and it was totally created by her. I cooked in an Indian restaurant, have made many lentil dishes for pay and for myself, grew up with a vegetarian mom, am thoroughly familiar with the lentil's prominent standing in vegetarian culture, and this thing that Sadie makes is the best. It is number one. I love it, my kids love it, everybody loves it. And it's so simple. This dish is her contribution to culinary art, it is a creative masterpiece of flavor, balance, and nutrition, and I wonder what other inspired jewels hide in all single-mother's kitchens. Anyway, make this, it is a phenomenal vegetarian meal.
1C Red Lentils
2C Water
1T Olive Oil
1 Red Onion thinly sliced
1t Red Thai curry paste
3T Braggs liquid aminos
2T Maple syrup
Sourdough Bread (preferably Dave Miller's bread available at the Saturday morning Farmer's Market in Chico) Read about Dave Miller's masterful bread.
If you're gluten-free I'm sorry. Please reconsider unless you are truly, painfully allergic to gluten. Dave Miller is one of the best bakers in the United States and he's right here. And his loaf with some rye in it goes perfectly with this dish.
Rinse your red lentils and combine in a pot with the water. Bring to a boil and lower the heat to the lower end of medium.
Pull out a saute pan and heat the olive oil. Drop the sliced onions. Throw a couple pinches of salt on them and keep them moving in the hot pan until they start to soften and brown. Turn the heat down. You're going to cook these down until they are sweet, soft, and quite brown. Cook them until the lentils are ready.
In 10-15 minutes the red lentils will be done. They go from done to mush quickly. You want them to retain a little bit of themselves so don't over do it.
Season your lentils with the Red Curry, Braggs, and Maple Syrup. Sadie always does this to taste without measuring but I think the quantities above are about right. You can of course adjust how you like, taste as you season.
Serve in bowls topped with caramelized onions and thick slices of lightly toasted sourdough for dipping. If you're plant based like me, drizzle high quality olive oil on your toasted bread. If not, go with ghee.
Thanks for reading. Give this a shot. It's an easy, super healthful and affordable way to feed a lot of people. And it's so delicious you'll think about how good it was and crave it until you make it again.
Sunday, April 3, 2016
So Fuguckin Good
This weekend
I received the final notice of my marriage dissolution
it is so ordered, it said with a judge's signature in blue ink
the finality of the document
was like walking outside after being stuck in the DMV for over a year
air is so good
and we raise our faces to the sun
to soak in the simple things
we always take for granted
when we aren't trapped in a place
Then I sold everything
or nearly everything
the things I really want to keep either
do things I need done
or are small and printed
or are stored in the data farms
or are worn full of holes and smell like my armpits
oh,
and my twenty-five best records
I kept those too
Thank God
I almost didn't and that would have been
a huge mistake
So everything happened this weekend
all the weight was shed
and now unfettered joy is possible again
I can feel it, the potential of really cracking up often
like the joy of a smiling dog
they are the masters of joy, when they feel it
their eyes say nothing else
like a boy who sees his father for the first time in a long time
I went to the creek with my beautiful woman
who understands all the things I say
and who will never trade her leisure for money
or her health for worry
so she has abundance in all ways
and I've been learning a lot from her
It was time for us to relax
so we went to the creek bank in the sun
and opened a Picante Chelada
by Budweiser
the King of Beers
The beer was cold
mixed with Clamato and lime
a little bit spicy
salty with a hint of sweetness
and the umami of industrial food science
it was the perfect way to end my day
the day I got to say a final goodbye
to everything that failed me
or that I failed
or both
Going to the creek I grew up next to
the creek that always moves with its ancient mind
no matter who loves it or who throws trash into it
walking barefoot in the frigid, swollen creek
was the perfect way for me to celebrate
The Chelada was so good
that after chugging some
I reclined on the dirty creek blanket
next to my beautiful woman who had some
small bark pieces
stuck to her powerful thighs
I became so relaxed
next to her, under the sun,
with the creek babbles and
wild ducks quacking in love on the opposite bank
I became so relaxed that my words
flopped around in my mouth
because what I really wanted to say
was unspeakable
Instead I said
This is so fuguckin good
 |
| Sadie Rose knows |
Monday, March 28, 2016
On the Question of How Christians Could Possibly Vote for Donald Trump
There was a serious question posed by a gentle and sincere man who I'm connected with on Facebook. He feels called to follow the teachings of Jesus, would identify as a Christian, and publicly asked how a Christian could support a man like Donald Trump to lead the country. He asked politely and perplexed. He really wanted to know how those two things can coexist in a person.
In our community, not just our geographical community but our cultural one, we are connected and have grown up with a large number of folks who generally recoil at the thought of believing in Jesus as a manifestation of God on Earth. This is Northern California, a place that was conquered violently by hordes of gold-seeking pirates and has attracted pirates ever since. I love being from here. It's a place of plentiful freedom: Pot farmers, self-proclaimed shamans, spiritualists, metal bands, artists, entrepreneurs, google, buddhists, liberals, anarchists, lifted trucks, lots of bicycles, burning man burners, poets, rednecks, secessionists, and a few traditional monotheists too (those who believe in one God who exists outside of creation).
There is the notion in our neck of the woods, among our community, that Christians are always right wing evangelists. This is totally understandable, especially if you didn't grow up in a Christian family, and just had the media to go with. On TV, historically the most vocal Jesus people are generally waging some kind of culture war against abortion, or homosexuality, or voting for war mongering nationalists. If you've never seen your elders struggling to be a disciple of Jesus in their own quiet way, you'd only have this loud, media savvy, American Christianity to fill in your ideas of what a Christian is like. I sometimes feel slighted by this enormous misunderstanding from my non-Christian friends, as I am a baptized Christian who is generally leftist, thirsty-for-revolution-leftist even, and generally spend time with leftist types of people. But then I think about what my Muslim brothers and sisters are going through right now, the actual threats to their freedom and safety, and I'm cool with my atheistic friends assuming that I must not be as intellectual as they thought. Nobody will ever restrict my movement in this country for being a registered Episcopalian.
So on to the Jesus in politics question. I think when my friend on Facebook posted the question about Jesus and Donald Trump, there were probably those who read that and thought, "Well of course! Christians vote for republicans and are dumb," or some variation on that. Which, again, is understandable. But here's why our friend asked his question, here are some of the things Jesus said in the four Gospels. These teachings rarely, if ever, get talked about on TV or other corporate media who love making Christians look insane by focusing on the really mean ones:
Jesus said these things which makes right-wing Christians very confusing for some of us:
If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.
Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.
Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again.
Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you.
What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves?
Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.
No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.
Woe to you lawyers as well! For you weigh men down with burdens hard to bear, while you yourselves will not even touch the burdens with one of your fingers.
I reread this stuff for the umpteenth time and feel so much better about my socialist parts.
And this could just go on and on. There's so much more, right there in the Bible that some will use to persecute and divide. But most of the divisiveness in Right Wing Christian circles is informed by Mosaic Law, from the first 5 books of the Bible. There are a lot of rules in those ancient Jewish books: don't lay with another man, don't have sex with your sister, quarantine the menstruating women, don't eat oysters or pigs, stone adulterers to death, tons of rules from a time that the Israelites were in the wilderness, struggling to maintain order, and trying to maintain their identity as a tribe after being freed from slavery in Egypt. Rigidity ensured their survival as torch bearers of a certain revelation that God was one. But Jesus came and said he was the fulfillment of the law, and he left us with "Love God, and love your neighbor as yourselves." He turned a bunch of the old stuff on its head, that's one of the reasons the religious elite went along with his death. So there's no reason for a Christian to dig through these Old Testament Moses laws and grant them with rule-of-life status. So I can't speak for the Christians who feel really conservative and want to get rich and not systemically help the poor, I don't know why they think that way. I don't know how a studied Christian could justify voting for Donald Trump either, based on the above quotes from Jesus.
But after some time with this question: Who would Jesus want me to vote for? I think I have an answer that might bum you out.
Jesus wouldn't care.
So let me explain that. Jesus taught us to give away our coat, turn peacefully when we are stolen from or struck, that the children of God are peacemakers. Politics by their nature are divisive and stressful human endeavors. I know I can easily slip into allowing political thinking to turn into some kind of idol, like politics has the power to save the world from ourselves. I want to believe that we can save ourselves but I don't believe we can. So I think this is my answer to my polite facebook friend's question, in long form, if you care to read it.
Human nature got us here. We are born this way. When we collect into civilizations, our arrogance becomes magnified to the point of destroying the environment and ourselves, and we will sacrifice anything to attempt to be greater than our condition. We, and by extension our societies, are consumed by idols and the seven deadly sins: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth. We, as Christians, believe that this is our condition and that's why we believe we need a special bridge of connection to a higher power to be better than our natures. We can't do that ourselves. So we invoke Christ and become marked in baptism and our lives are supernaturally placed in brackets so that when we stumble around we are stripped and humbled and placed back into where we are supposed to be, so that ultimately, through love and a divine suffering and mercy we become exactly who we are meant to be. And over time the corruption and stains we were born with become dimmer and dimmer and if all goes well we fall in deeper love with all people and the world. And we become able to forgive anything and giveaway everything and we become gentle and don't want to eat the world as much. And then giving our coat away seems like an obvious thing to do, just like giving to everyone who begs from us. And then we age and die fearlessly.
That's how I see Christian discipleship. It is so much larger and simpler than politics. And although I would love to see Bernie Sanders as President, because I believe it would inch things towards justice and would help desperate people live with a little more dignity and less sickness, I have no delusions that any president will stop the destruction of the Earth, or heal our hearts so we stop hurting each other. The guns won't go anywhere and the world will continue to be dangerous and the extinction will continue. So since all of this was foretold by our holy book and our saints, I would say that Jesus doesn't care about our politics all that much. And maybe a Christian shouldn't either. Maybe we should keep our eyes on the prize, which is loving everybody we come in contact with, and extinguishing our judgement and condemnation as much as we can. Jesus's example is one of passive, yet firm, loving anarchism, with a little bit of exile. Isn't it?
The first Christians were tortured and martyred for their refusal to declare, "Caesar is Lord." Maybe our modern day Caesar is this whole political process we grind through and damage relationships with. Politics is an easy idol for me. I've always cared too much about who's going to get elected. Maybe I can just place my vote, realize that redemption still isn't coming through politics or technology or anything we create, and love the Donald Trump voter for being where they are, because their fallenness might be a different color than my fallenness, but we're definitely both fallen.
So let's just cast our ballot and pray more, and give away some food and coats.
In our community, not just our geographical community but our cultural one, we are connected and have grown up with a large number of folks who generally recoil at the thought of believing in Jesus as a manifestation of God on Earth. This is Northern California, a place that was conquered violently by hordes of gold-seeking pirates and has attracted pirates ever since. I love being from here. It's a place of plentiful freedom: Pot farmers, self-proclaimed shamans, spiritualists, metal bands, artists, entrepreneurs, google, buddhists, liberals, anarchists, lifted trucks, lots of bicycles, burning man burners, poets, rednecks, secessionists, and a few traditional monotheists too (those who believe in one God who exists outside of creation).
There is the notion in our neck of the woods, among our community, that Christians are always right wing evangelists. This is totally understandable, especially if you didn't grow up in a Christian family, and just had the media to go with. On TV, historically the most vocal Jesus people are generally waging some kind of culture war against abortion, or homosexuality, or voting for war mongering nationalists. If you've never seen your elders struggling to be a disciple of Jesus in their own quiet way, you'd only have this loud, media savvy, American Christianity to fill in your ideas of what a Christian is like. I sometimes feel slighted by this enormous misunderstanding from my non-Christian friends, as I am a baptized Christian who is generally leftist, thirsty-for-revolution-leftist even, and generally spend time with leftist types of people. But then I think about what my Muslim brothers and sisters are going through right now, the actual threats to their freedom and safety, and I'm cool with my atheistic friends assuming that I must not be as intellectual as they thought. Nobody will ever restrict my movement in this country for being a registered Episcopalian.
So on to the Jesus in politics question. I think when my friend on Facebook posted the question about Jesus and Donald Trump, there were probably those who read that and thought, "Well of course! Christians vote for republicans and are dumb," or some variation on that. Which, again, is understandable. But here's why our friend asked his question, here are some of the things Jesus said in the four Gospels. These teachings rarely, if ever, get talked about on TV or other corporate media who love making Christians look insane by focusing on the really mean ones:
Jesus said these things which makes right-wing Christians very confusing for some of us:
If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.
Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.
Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again.
Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you.
What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves?
Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.
No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.
Woe to you lawyers as well! For you weigh men down with burdens hard to bear, while you yourselves will not even touch the burdens with one of your fingers.
I reread this stuff for the umpteenth time and feel so much better about my socialist parts.
And this could just go on and on. There's so much more, right there in the Bible that some will use to persecute and divide. But most of the divisiveness in Right Wing Christian circles is informed by Mosaic Law, from the first 5 books of the Bible. There are a lot of rules in those ancient Jewish books: don't lay with another man, don't have sex with your sister, quarantine the menstruating women, don't eat oysters or pigs, stone adulterers to death, tons of rules from a time that the Israelites were in the wilderness, struggling to maintain order, and trying to maintain their identity as a tribe after being freed from slavery in Egypt. Rigidity ensured their survival as torch bearers of a certain revelation that God was one. But Jesus came and said he was the fulfillment of the law, and he left us with "Love God, and love your neighbor as yourselves." He turned a bunch of the old stuff on its head, that's one of the reasons the religious elite went along with his death. So there's no reason for a Christian to dig through these Old Testament Moses laws and grant them with rule-of-life status. So I can't speak for the Christians who feel really conservative and want to get rich and not systemically help the poor, I don't know why they think that way. I don't know how a studied Christian could justify voting for Donald Trump either, based on the above quotes from Jesus.
But after some time with this question: Who would Jesus want me to vote for? I think I have an answer that might bum you out.
Jesus wouldn't care.
So let me explain that. Jesus taught us to give away our coat, turn peacefully when we are stolen from or struck, that the children of God are peacemakers. Politics by their nature are divisive and stressful human endeavors. I know I can easily slip into allowing political thinking to turn into some kind of idol, like politics has the power to save the world from ourselves. I want to believe that we can save ourselves but I don't believe we can. So I think this is my answer to my polite facebook friend's question, in long form, if you care to read it.
Human nature got us here. We are born this way. When we collect into civilizations, our arrogance becomes magnified to the point of destroying the environment and ourselves, and we will sacrifice anything to attempt to be greater than our condition. We, and by extension our societies, are consumed by idols and the seven deadly sins: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth. We, as Christians, believe that this is our condition and that's why we believe we need a special bridge of connection to a higher power to be better than our natures. We can't do that ourselves. So we invoke Christ and become marked in baptism and our lives are supernaturally placed in brackets so that when we stumble around we are stripped and humbled and placed back into where we are supposed to be, so that ultimately, through love and a divine suffering and mercy we become exactly who we are meant to be. And over time the corruption and stains we were born with become dimmer and dimmer and if all goes well we fall in deeper love with all people and the world. And we become able to forgive anything and giveaway everything and we become gentle and don't want to eat the world as much. And then giving our coat away seems like an obvious thing to do, just like giving to everyone who begs from us. And then we age and die fearlessly.
That's how I see Christian discipleship. It is so much larger and simpler than politics. And although I would love to see Bernie Sanders as President, because I believe it would inch things towards justice and would help desperate people live with a little more dignity and less sickness, I have no delusions that any president will stop the destruction of the Earth, or heal our hearts so we stop hurting each other. The guns won't go anywhere and the world will continue to be dangerous and the extinction will continue. So since all of this was foretold by our holy book and our saints, I would say that Jesus doesn't care about our politics all that much. And maybe a Christian shouldn't either. Maybe we should keep our eyes on the prize, which is loving everybody we come in contact with, and extinguishing our judgement and condemnation as much as we can. Jesus's example is one of passive, yet firm, loving anarchism, with a little bit of exile. Isn't it?
The first Christians were tortured and martyred for their refusal to declare, "Caesar is Lord." Maybe our modern day Caesar is this whole political process we grind through and damage relationships with. Politics is an easy idol for me. I've always cared too much about who's going to get elected. Maybe I can just place my vote, realize that redemption still isn't coming through politics or technology or anything we create, and love the Donald Trump voter for being where they are, because their fallenness might be a different color than my fallenness, but we're definitely both fallen.
So let's just cast our ballot and pray more, and give away some food and coats.
Sunday, March 20, 2016
Coffee and Mellow
Today I hiked six miles in the rain with Sadie Rose, her son Asher and my dog. We went all over Table Mountain, to places I had never been before, and we got dumped on nearly the entire time. It was a beautiful hike with wild flowers and so much water everywhere. Little channels of water rushed all around us and cut deep grooves in the mud. The greens were all magnified, it was a beautiful day. At home, I'm working on moving out, extracting myself from the mountain of stuff I don't want anymore, all these relics from a life that is long-closed and collecting dust now are making my allergies worse.
Coffee is an amazing elixir given to us by God to fuel connectivity, art, and revolutions. I have had years of adventure in coffee and I think coffee will be some part of my life and profession for maybe ever. I don't know, these things are hard to predict. I worked in coffee because I love coffee, and maybe even more than that, I love what coffee does to people: it opens our minds, literally in the circulatory systems sense, and figuratively in the rituals of togetherness it has always fueled.
I don't sell coffee and make money on it directly like I used to, and so we've started over in a way, me and coffee. Our relationship is back to basics. And now I'm older and wiser and more sensitive to both of our needs. This happens I think for any tradesperson who's given a lot to a trade. These periods of reset and reevaluation, to test your love of a thing. Well I still love coffee, with or without a coffee paycheck.
I have an admission that will turn the nose of any coffee geek roaster who insists on inserting 4 temperature probes in the twenty five thousand dollar roaster so they can track every nuance of the roast's movement. I have tracked roasts in an expensive roaster, and it is key to achieving the best results consistently. But I'm a cook, have been a cook since I was a teenager, and sometimes, most of the time, I just want to cook. To be a cook, you connect with the behavior of what you're cooking in a process that is based on the five senses, and a number of extra sensory perceptions. There's that space of just doing, letting go of control and letting the thing you're cooking tell you how to do it, rather than a recipe or a graph. So here's my admission: I've been drinking coffee that I've been roasting on an old cast iron pan.
That's it. I use a cast iron pan, a lid and a wisk. Like roasting almonds or sesame seeds, I keep it moving until the coffee is how I want it. I just roasted some Brazilian and Papau New Guinea coffees until about 20 seconds into second crack and then blended them into my last little TupperWear container. The coffee is just what I wanted, an educated yet mindless exercise of culinary art, like kneading bread until the gluten is just right, or cooking pinto beans until the skins still hold the bean together but the beans aren't mealy. Just now I wanted coffee that was a little darker with that thick buttery feel on the tongue, and the carmamel sweetness of a rainy day hike.
Coffee is so full of magical properties that it's easy to forget that, despite all its flavor complexities and nuance, it is still a seed, a culinary commodity like rice or wheat. And it is truly wonderful in the mouth, and I think even more wonderful in our minds, but it's just another thing to attempt to cook deliciously, if you care about doing simple things well and making your life better and more deliberate.
So get some green coffee and roast it in a pan how you want it. Play with it. Cook it. Keep it moving until it looks like how you like it and cool it off as quick as you can. Then take your overripe bananas and make some muffins with some walnuts in there, and enjoy your Sunday.
Sunday, March 13, 2016
The Handshake
In the cold morning wind
with the little rain drops slicing
like mist on the freeway
I brought the mug to my lips
the heavy green mug
a souvenir from a dream
I tried to build
and might try again later
I don't know yet
but it's heavy and glazed
and I'm proud of it because I tried hard
and a pilot can't blame himself
for getting hijacked by terrorists.
But I needed the coffee to pick up
from where we left off the night before.
We were talking about the arrangement
but passed out early watching a movie with my boys
and the coffee was so damn good this morning
roasted on my iron skillet with my son.
I just dropped it
not the coffee but how much money I wanted to make to write the book
It was agreed to with some timing modification
no back and forth
some monthly, some lump sum
percentage of sales agreements
Just all fair and agreed to.
It was so easy
we are men used to talking about money at this point
we've been around it enough to know
about its utter absurdity
little artistic engravings printed on paper
trying to look all powerful like it has a soul
we talk about fiat currency, how the dollar is doomed
and then turn on a shiny feather-light dime
to talk about sales strategy
without it seeming contradictory.
Doing business leaves a man
unable to shuffle back in to the herd.
You'd rather lick rocks for salt
or entertain yourself with the trees
or eat miner's lettuce for lunch.
We shook hands firmly
typed up an email to have it in writing
talked next steps
and he left.
I was what I always believed I could be
just like that.
After years of reading and striving
and rebellion and poverty
laziness and working way too hard
and dreaming and poetry
love and death and rebirth
and the proper seasoning that comes
from age and taking risks to live a life you won't forget
and losing everything
losing everything is like polishing a stone into a mirror
until the skin on your hands rubs off
and blood smears all over the mirror stone.
I know why there are terrorists.
I know why there aren't more writers.
Sunday, March 6, 2016
Reading at 1078 Gallery
I'm reading survival themed poems at 1078 tomorrow at 7 pm with other poets, all part of an exhibit curated by Amanda Riner. The topic was inspiring so I ended up writing enough for a chapbook, which I'll have 20 copies of available at the event. I just finished printing the covers with a woodblock I carved today.
Here's the Facebook event page. I hope to see you.
Sunday, February 21, 2016
Tuesday, February 9, 2016
Yukon Gold
I went ten years
with hardly ever having potatoes
in the pantry
there would sometimes be
fingerlings or little blue ones
or two idahos for a specific recipe
but the potato, the staple
fell off the list.
Then I went broke
and the potato became a prominent
food source again
because five pounds costs a couple bucks
and Yukon Golds
are as good as cream.
Tobacco and Walking
So I stopped smoking again, after smoking for about 14 months or so. I haven't been smoking a ton, maybe 3-6 roll your owns every day. But I'm just too old for it now. I've spent all of my youth-capital on this issue. It's all gone. I have this feeling that if I keep smoking, even just a little, that my body will really start to get torn down by it. 14 months ago, I had been training on my road bike a lot and not smoking at all. Or I'd have a cigarette when drinking or something, but mostly I was on my bike for 150 miles or so every week. And then my ex-wife decided she didn't want to be married anymore, she told me by sleeping with my business partner, and that sent me into a deep depression with a couple of months of hard drinking and smoking.
So the hard drinking stopped over a year ago but the tobacco smoking hung on. Partially because I just really enjoy smoking tobacco and nobody was telling me not to, which was nice. But beyond the addictive part of it, the ritual really appeals to me. But then recently I caught a little bronchial thing that was going around, and my body just told me that I need to stop smoking tobacco. It was a clear message I received, sent by the stabbing yet dull pain I'd get when I coughed. It was like a crowbar was shoved down my throat and then wrenched in a way, like a lever, to push my throat towards the outside of my chest. It was that sort of pain. A very clear message.
So I stopped smoking and some really great things happened. In about a week I wanted to walk all the time. Long walks, hikes, jogs, whatever. I think this happens to a lot of ex smokers. I have one ex-smoker friend who is so committed to his walking habit that when he finds great sticks on his walks he'll whittle them at home into what he calls walking sticks. He isn't eighty either, just a middle aged ex smoker. For me, the replacement is more about needing a time to do nothing but think, than it is about exercise. But I do walk fast on purpose, or jog and walk, and exercise does feel better of course when your lungs are clear all the way to the bottom. Smoking even a little doesn't help cardio fitness. But the big win in walking is all that day dreaming time. In the slowness, in the living in the moment, is where I can sort things out and be really intentional about what I want to do in a day, or a week, or a month. So the walks have become pretty special.
Also, I've gained five pounds in about ten minutes. That's been so great to put some more fat on my stomach. It probably had something to do with binge eating those ghetto fig bars they sell at Grocery Outlet for a dollar fifty. I'm guessing the combination of those, with the half party bag of potato chips, and a bunch of dips and bagel bites had something to do with it. I'm cooking that off though with the walking and the bike riding because I get disturbed by my own weight gain. So I'll be fine and will feel okay about myself soon, but for sure, when the smoking is gone, you just want to eat more. If you're going to stop smoking, stock the house with lots of fruits and veggies and no chips or ghetto fig bars that taste amazing. Those cheap ones taste so amazing. The doughy part of the cookie has a vanilla-marshmallow flavor quality to it, like marshmallow cream melting in plain (not chocolate) Ovaltine. It's amazing, I love them. I ate twenty in one day I think. I want the apple ones, and the blueberry ones too, and then make double-decker ghetto fruit filled cookies.
Apart from wanting to walk or jog and gaining weight, not a whole lot has changed. I've been having vivid dreams and I think that's connected somehow. But I don't read into dreams because I think they almost always mean nothing.
My Grandmother maintained her fitness by walking every day for decades. She was well into her eighties when she finally ratcheted it down from five miles every evening. After dinner she would just vanish for two hours. That seemed to really work for her. She'd harass me about being too skinny and I don't think she weighed over 90 pounds once in her entire life. It was as if she forgot we were related. We were a people built for hiking and yodeling, she actually came from the hiking and yodeling highlands of Germany.
So often, especially on warm and sunny days, I just want to walk for eight hours.
But I still plan on celebrating my eighties by pipe smoking tobacco in a corn cob, if I make it that far.
So the hard drinking stopped over a year ago but the tobacco smoking hung on. Partially because I just really enjoy smoking tobacco and nobody was telling me not to, which was nice. But beyond the addictive part of it, the ritual really appeals to me. But then recently I caught a little bronchial thing that was going around, and my body just told me that I need to stop smoking tobacco. It was a clear message I received, sent by the stabbing yet dull pain I'd get when I coughed. It was like a crowbar was shoved down my throat and then wrenched in a way, like a lever, to push my throat towards the outside of my chest. It was that sort of pain. A very clear message.
So I stopped smoking and some really great things happened. In about a week I wanted to walk all the time. Long walks, hikes, jogs, whatever. I think this happens to a lot of ex smokers. I have one ex-smoker friend who is so committed to his walking habit that when he finds great sticks on his walks he'll whittle them at home into what he calls walking sticks. He isn't eighty either, just a middle aged ex smoker. For me, the replacement is more about needing a time to do nothing but think, than it is about exercise. But I do walk fast on purpose, or jog and walk, and exercise does feel better of course when your lungs are clear all the way to the bottom. Smoking even a little doesn't help cardio fitness. But the big win in walking is all that day dreaming time. In the slowness, in the living in the moment, is where I can sort things out and be really intentional about what I want to do in a day, or a week, or a month. So the walks have become pretty special.
Also, I've gained five pounds in about ten minutes. That's been so great to put some more fat on my stomach. It probably had something to do with binge eating those ghetto fig bars they sell at Grocery Outlet for a dollar fifty. I'm guessing the combination of those, with the half party bag of potato chips, and a bunch of dips and bagel bites had something to do with it. I'm cooking that off though with the walking and the bike riding because I get disturbed by my own weight gain. So I'll be fine and will feel okay about myself soon, but for sure, when the smoking is gone, you just want to eat more. If you're going to stop smoking, stock the house with lots of fruits and veggies and no chips or ghetto fig bars that taste amazing. Those cheap ones taste so amazing. The doughy part of the cookie has a vanilla-marshmallow flavor quality to it, like marshmallow cream melting in plain (not chocolate) Ovaltine. It's amazing, I love them. I ate twenty in one day I think. I want the apple ones, and the blueberry ones too, and then make double-decker ghetto fruit filled cookies.
Apart from wanting to walk or jog and gaining weight, not a whole lot has changed. I've been having vivid dreams and I think that's connected somehow. But I don't read into dreams because I think they almost always mean nothing.
My Grandmother maintained her fitness by walking every day for decades. She was well into her eighties when she finally ratcheted it down from five miles every evening. After dinner she would just vanish for two hours. That seemed to really work for her. She'd harass me about being too skinny and I don't think she weighed over 90 pounds once in her entire life. It was as if she forgot we were related. We were a people built for hiking and yodeling, she actually came from the hiking and yodeling highlands of Germany.
So often, especially on warm and sunny days, I just want to walk for eight hours.
But I still plan on celebrating my eighties by pipe smoking tobacco in a corn cob, if I make it that far.
Monday, February 8, 2016
You Can Have It
I'll take the quiet walks
the chiming bells of birdsong
the glitter of sun
falling through the trees
landing on me like the prayers
of angelic guardians.
I'll take the deep breaths
the quiet pedals
the caress of the wind
the stroke of the brush
the bleeding of the pen
the holy moments
the blistering dreams.
You can have the race
the rats in the slaver's ships
the burning rancid night oils
the creeping heavy dark
like ammonia over manure
the dull and sudden pig kills
the wild, sinking, wrinkling eyes
the snap under the weight
of mortal decay.
You can have the race
I will take the quiet walks.
Thursday, February 4, 2016
Art Show
I was invited to hang art at Great Northern this month. It will be a first for me, which is really encouraging. I've always tinkered with visual art, have always loved making it and looking at art from others, but my lifestyle wasn't organized in a way that afforded me the time to invest in art making as much as I would have liked. Well that's changed now, and I learned a lot through this process and enjoyed making these images. I painted with watercolors, did some pyrography (wood burning) portraits, and drew with pens and charcoal. We'll have a closing reception at some point in February but I'm taking this mellow since it's my first time. 
Saturday, January 30, 2016
Purpose
Tonight I felt a clear purpose
after I tucked my boys in bed
all three of us are looking forward to tomorrow
because we're going to hike
to the wild canyon
and go check out a cave
a deep Local fellow,
like Masonic ring-wearing deep
geo tagged for us
there are also mortars in the stone
and a waterfall
without a name
Tonight I was called to wood burn a portrait
of Dolly Parton
So I got started on that
While drinking sake out of a bottle
after getting hyped on Yuban
This is as real as it gets
I am in love
Not with Dolly Parton
but with the process
Saturday, January 23, 2016
Saturday
I decided
It was time to fire the gun
I drove up the mountain
with the dog and the old wooden rifle
in the winter rain
The flags at the ammo store
were hung high and pulled taught
hung square and kept clean
I brought my girlfriend's boy
because he had never fired a gun
and I was going to teach him
because we would bond
and he would never forget it
We left with 200 bullets
and a brochure about forming
the State of Jefferson, our state
the freest State in the union
Don't tell anyone
he was only supposed to sell me 100
but the policy is not for local boys
we get to buy 200 if we want
The boy and I drove up the mountain
up where all the towns end
we drove down a dirt road
full of pond size puddles
the kind of road that makes you love your truck
We parked next to a swollen creek
and hiked in with the gun and the dog
and followed a wide mud trail into the woods
the rain kept falling laced with the heavy
super drops that form on pine branches
The boy put some holes in his first target
and treated the gun properly
just like I taught him back at the house
the dog got so agitated at the gunfire
she jumped up and bit the barrel
after I squeezed off a round
I had the safety on, but just barely
When a boy fires a gun for the first time
his face lights up with the realization
of the initiation, the snap, the kick
the brutal power and the pin point violence
an old wooden rifle delivers
We high-fived
because firing a gun well
in the pouring rain
matters
like starting a fire
like loving a beautiful woman
and her young son
well
Sunday, January 17, 2016
Your Ultra-Conservative Dad is a Democratic Socialist
Bernie Sanders is going to be the Democratic nominee, and then he'll be the President, unless the powers that be can't accept a peaceful transfer of power and something horrible happens.
Remember when Barack Obama was elected to office mostly by the virtue of his rhetoric? Do you remember what that rhetoric was like? It was populist, revolutionary, he had a transparency plan where he would use web cams to broadcast all meetings with lobbyists to us the People. He was going to bring sweeping change to Washington, take it back. His campaign was an insurgency, it broke all records. It was a grassroots movement, and I think it was just the beginning of a pendulum swing.
Remember when Barack Obama broke all previous records by having over 1 million small donors? Well he also took tons of Wall Street and Super PAC money when that became a thing. Barack Obama is a barely left-of-center centrist in policy. Now, Bernie Sanders' campaign has locked in over 2 million small donors. He has already plowed through the Obama record. He has a double digit lead over Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, and has a growing lead in Iowa.
Bernie Sanders is an unapologetic Democratic Socialist. Socialism is a word that was used in the United States to describe authoritarian governments for a generation. The Soviets called themselves socialists, they never claimed to be democratic, but theirs was a State controlled authoritarian nightmare where the State took the place of a Czar. But Democratic Socialism is something that has been in the United States for a long time, and I'd like to point out how your Ultra-Conservative relatives are already Democratic Socialists.
Democratic means the people vote and collectively control their own destiny. That's the ideal anyway, and it has always been imperfect. Every American believes in voting, even if they don't vote. Voting for how the government behaves, or who represents us, is a primary ingredient for freedom, and the one thing that prevents us from sliding into fascism. Everybody believes in this part, unless you are a Republican operative working to disenfranchise voters. That is Treason, and should be treated as such.
Socialism is an economic concept. It is the idea that we should hold certain things in common, pool our money together, and use it to provide certain things we all need. Democratic Socialism also advocates for democracy in economic affairs. A worker-owned company is an example of Democratic Socialism. Winco is worker-owned. Farmer Coops are socialistic enterprises. So are member-owned grocery store coops. All of this is a necessary ingredient of freedom. If we had no roads, we would not be free to travel. If we had no military, we would not be free from conquest. If we had no labor laws, we would not be free from exploitation. If we had no space program, we wouldn't have had one of our people walk on the moon.
Guess what, your super conservative dad is a big fan of a number of publicly funded programs. The United States military is the biggest. All conservatives like that. They like it so much that often they won't even consider the idea that it should probably be audited for waste and fraud every once in a while. The US Military is big government at its biggest, but conservatives are generally totally fine with that.
On the local front, your local conservative elected official will almost always advocate for budget increases for police and fire departments. In many towns, the police and fire budgets account for the vast majority of the public spending. The higher ranking cops are making six figures and retiring to life long salaries and benefits. Police departments are, by definition, a socialist program.
The truth is, the American economy is only as stable as it is because of the delicate dance that happens between the private sector and government. Everybody knows that when you need the safest investment possible, you buy government bonds. The banking system only seems stable to the individual depositor because of the FDIC insurance that will give you your money if the bank fails. Remember in 2008 when the Ayn Rand-iest institutions in the land on Wall Street almost destroyed themselves? Even they, who claim to symbolize the virtues of capitalism and the free market, crawled sniveling to the People to bail them out.
The American economy is a mix of capitalism and socialism. Since the reforms after the Great Depression, this mix of public and private enterprise is what has kept the whole show stitched together. Typically, the economic battles of right and left have to do with how to distribute that public money, and which public programs have virtue.
A Democratic Socialist in America, believes that health care is a right. Why? Because we are all going to get sick. Just like we are all going to need potable water. Capitalism should have a limited role in the delivery of health care because we don't have a choice in getting sick. We should hold that in common because we already have the condition in common. This is why Medicare and Social Security are bipartisan favorites. We all get old and don't want to work anymore, and we all get sick.
Public higher education should be provided to everyone who wants it because the benefit to all of us is so huge. More smart, small businesses providing jobs, a more capable workforce, a more nimble populace, less people feeling stuck doing things they liked in their twenties but hate in their forties, we all benefit from it.
But the biggest bone of contention, the real source of populist rage and the rising up of working people, is the unimaginable wealth disparity in our country. We live in the wealth disparity of feudal England. There's the working class and the investment class. And the investment class has bought the government and given themselves all of the socialism they can. Corporations get tax breaks, kick backs, deregulation, they make billions colluding with government to rebuild the countries we've bombed, they are writing the bills that get passed in Congress. The government works for them in a very literal way.
The only rugged individualists left are the working poor or the working well-to-do who feel wealthy but only in relationship to the poor. They're being debt farmed and making the banks plenty of money just like the rest of us.
Socialism is alive and well in America, which is necessary for economic stability. The problem is that the public money is being used in ways that benefit the economic elite. I'm not talking about the local restaurateur who after 20 years of hard work managed to make himself worth a few million bucks, he's under the thumb too, through oppressive rules and taxation. He doesn't have his congressman on speed dial either.
The economic elite who are milking everybody are billionaires who live on their own islands, and whose lobbyists make our laws in the dark. America is a plutocracy in function, but not in spirit, and thank God we still have the vote. The pendulum that started with Barack Obama is only gaining momentum, and more and more working Americans don't want to vote against their own interests anymore.
The candidates on the right, who have never been more doomed in an election cycle, are trying to convince your ultra-conservative friends that America is under attack by liberals and immigrants and a host of other, Others.
The enemy is domestic. And I believe that if your Ultra-Conservative dad—who worked his ass off at his auto shop business for years—if he met the little Ivy League investment capitalists making billions off the backs of working people like him, he'd want to kick their asses too. He's just looking in the wrong direction.
We can all agree on this: All Power to the People.
Sunday, January 10, 2016
Listening to Ambient Music and Writing Quatrains
I like Quatrains
they're similar to haiku in that
they make use of bracketing and limits
it makes for an artful artifact on the page
There is hair all over the place
the hairs keep getting longer over here
it has something to do with the psyche
when the feelings really learn to reach out
they're similar to haiku in that
they make use of bracketing and limits
it makes for an artful artifact on the page
Preparing a perfectly cooked omelette
is a lot harder than it looks
to get that dandelion yellow lifted custard
takes years and burns and insults thrown like hot pans
There is hair all over the place
the hairs keep getting longer over here
it has something to do with the psyche
when the feelings really learn to reach out
I've long been fascinated by the use of technology to make art
how the computers make the making of most things possible
even for the little guy without a studio or a global economy
But then there are those years you just want a pencil
There's another universe out there
where the grand canyon is a just a tiny hole
and the Earth is just a tiny little bubble in a tiny marble
in a tiny school in a tiny town in a rural county of the greatest state
The Writing Life? Is This Happening?
I still find it hard to believe: How the delicate strings that held my life together just snapped and everything changed. This blog space has been sitting here for three years untouched. I've been writing that whole time, but in journals or word docs, reading at poetry readings or submitting little bits and pieces to the local weekly or literary journals.
But, in November 2014, my life was turned upside down after it was engulfed in flames and thrown over a cliff. There was no escaping the fact that I would lose everything: two businesses, a house, an unbroken family. How that all went down is too deep of a tale to tell now, but my wife left me and it was a painful enough experience to reset all my thoughts and feelings on life, love, and success. I could liken it to shutting down a computer that's running too many apps at once, when everything starts to freeze so you just turn it off. And after fifteen seconds you turn it back on again, reset. They call it a hard reset right? My mind, psyche, and emotional body did that.
I had a year of living with virtually no income. Maybe $600 every month. That was the year I handed off my cafe and the income it provided to my ex wife. I stopped eating out, I stopped paying the mortgage, I cancelled stuff, turned out the lights, I routinely spent $50 for a week's groceries for my boys and I. My mother taught me how to do this by example in her hard years of selling her handwoven rugs at craft shows. She helped me a lot too. Mom would slip me some money here and there or bring me ten persimmons she gleaned. She doesn't need to but she still gleans, because free people like her glean. My maternal family's Hard Wintering Great Depression Mennonite FDR Democratic Socialist hardiness is in my DNA, thank God.
Winco, Grocery Outlet and Heartseed Farms saved my life last year. Winco is a worker-owned coop, and Grocery Outlet is a locally owned franchise. Heartseed Farms was an intentional community of organic farmers that traded me coffee for a weekly CSA box of the finest fruits and vegetables. With this team as my life support system I remembered that most people are in poverty and don't own two businesses. Turns out visiting poverty is no big deal for me. It was like seeing that great uncle who brings humble treats like dum-dum pops and hands them out to all the kids with his huge battered hand holding them all, the hand missing fingers from the harvest accident involving a combine. That's what poverty is to me, familiar, genetically familiar. Many people are scared of poverty because he's big and strong and scarred up, but he carries a lot of warmth, is always honest, always looks you in the eye, and has no tolerance for bull shit or phony smiles. In a lot of ways I missed poverty.
So the point of this post is that in my poverty, in the losing everything, I was given the opportunity to think freely about what I want to do now. This is an amazing opportunity. I also learned how little I need to be really happy and healthy. Since I was a wee boy I've wanted to make a writing life. I've wanted to sell books, books of poems, manuals, letters, scripts, ebooks, all of it. If I had executed half of the writing ideas I've had over the last ten years, well scratch that, I wasn't ready to do any of it then. Not well anyway. That's the truth. I was too busy playing too many roles, but it was good practice.
So then, a miraculous thing happened: I admitted to myself that I don't want to work hard not writing, I only want to work hard at writing. I like to work, love working even, anyone who knows me knows that I like work. Making food or coffee, or anything with my hands, is a necessary ingredient to my happiness. There is so much peace in using my trade, just not for 40 hours every week. That's too much time taken away from writing projects. The businesses I lost were my means to an end anyway. A wise man once told me, "Just go do the end you're looking for, skip the means."
So now I get it, and I'm doing that. I had to lose everything I was afraid of losing to have enough courage to do that, but now I'm doing that. Plus, being in love with Sadie Rose, a writer, has given me a valuable peek behind the curtain. I've been so inspired by how she makes it all work for herself, how she keeps herself writing for pay. Watching her has been a big eye opener and very inspiring.
And then freaky things happened, some writing jobs came: A manual, a business consult, a biography that needs to be written. It's stacking up, unfolding just like that. I see a pathway to where I need to go. I'm not trippin on money, because I have such a smaller use for money than I used to and I'll always work my trade when I need it. I'll never get paid writing poems of course, unless I make books and sell them myself out of a backpack. But that's really fun! So I'm good. I'll make books and sell them out of a backpack.
I'll write for whoever needs me to write.
I started up this blog again as a journal space primarily, and as a spot to try out a poem or two (I usually test run them at The Bookstore poetry readings), and as a place to rant and opine and advocate about things you may or may not care about. Really, this is all a big experiment to see how long I can make a living just being me and creating. Whatever happens, I'm pretty sure I won't get bored.
If you need a writer, for business or pleasure, get a hold of me. Otherwise, I'll let you know when I'm selling those books of poems out of my backpack.
But, in November 2014, my life was turned upside down after it was engulfed in flames and thrown over a cliff. There was no escaping the fact that I would lose everything: two businesses, a house, an unbroken family. How that all went down is too deep of a tale to tell now, but my wife left me and it was a painful enough experience to reset all my thoughts and feelings on life, love, and success. I could liken it to shutting down a computer that's running too many apps at once, when everything starts to freeze so you just turn it off. And after fifteen seconds you turn it back on again, reset. They call it a hard reset right? My mind, psyche, and emotional body did that.
I had a year of living with virtually no income. Maybe $600 every month. That was the year I handed off my cafe and the income it provided to my ex wife. I stopped eating out, I stopped paying the mortgage, I cancelled stuff, turned out the lights, I routinely spent $50 for a week's groceries for my boys and I. My mother taught me how to do this by example in her hard years of selling her handwoven rugs at craft shows. She helped me a lot too. Mom would slip me some money here and there or bring me ten persimmons she gleaned. She doesn't need to but she still gleans, because free people like her glean. My maternal family's Hard Wintering Great Depression Mennonite FDR Democratic Socialist hardiness is in my DNA, thank God.
Winco, Grocery Outlet and Heartseed Farms saved my life last year. Winco is a worker-owned coop, and Grocery Outlet is a locally owned franchise. Heartseed Farms was an intentional community of organic farmers that traded me coffee for a weekly CSA box of the finest fruits and vegetables. With this team as my life support system I remembered that most people are in poverty and don't own two businesses. Turns out visiting poverty is no big deal for me. It was like seeing that great uncle who brings humble treats like dum-dum pops and hands them out to all the kids with his huge battered hand holding them all, the hand missing fingers from the harvest accident involving a combine. That's what poverty is to me, familiar, genetically familiar. Many people are scared of poverty because he's big and strong and scarred up, but he carries a lot of warmth, is always honest, always looks you in the eye, and has no tolerance for bull shit or phony smiles. In a lot of ways I missed poverty.
So the point of this post is that in my poverty, in the losing everything, I was given the opportunity to think freely about what I want to do now. This is an amazing opportunity. I also learned how little I need to be really happy and healthy. Since I was a wee boy I've wanted to make a writing life. I've wanted to sell books, books of poems, manuals, letters, scripts, ebooks, all of it. If I had executed half of the writing ideas I've had over the last ten years, well scratch that, I wasn't ready to do any of it then. Not well anyway. That's the truth. I was too busy playing too many roles, but it was good practice.
So then, a miraculous thing happened: I admitted to myself that I don't want to work hard not writing, I only want to work hard at writing. I like to work, love working even, anyone who knows me knows that I like work. Making food or coffee, or anything with my hands, is a necessary ingredient to my happiness. There is so much peace in using my trade, just not for 40 hours every week. That's too much time taken away from writing projects. The businesses I lost were my means to an end anyway. A wise man once told me, "Just go do the end you're looking for, skip the means."
So now I get it, and I'm doing that. I had to lose everything I was afraid of losing to have enough courage to do that, but now I'm doing that. Plus, being in love with Sadie Rose, a writer, has given me a valuable peek behind the curtain. I've been so inspired by how she makes it all work for herself, how she keeps herself writing for pay. Watching her has been a big eye opener and very inspiring.
And then freaky things happened, some writing jobs came: A manual, a business consult, a biography that needs to be written. It's stacking up, unfolding just like that. I see a pathway to where I need to go. I'm not trippin on money, because I have such a smaller use for money than I used to and I'll always work my trade when I need it. I'll never get paid writing poems of course, unless I make books and sell them myself out of a backpack. But that's really fun! So I'm good. I'll make books and sell them out of a backpack.
I'll write for whoever needs me to write.
I started up this blog again as a journal space primarily, and as a spot to try out a poem or two (I usually test run them at The Bookstore poetry readings), and as a place to rant and opine and advocate about things you may or may not care about. Really, this is all a big experiment to see how long I can make a living just being me and creating. Whatever happens, I'm pretty sure I won't get bored.
If you need a writer, for business or pleasure, get a hold of me. Otherwise, I'll let you know when I'm selling those books of poems out of my backpack.
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