a sea of destiny, a world of place
they walked to the edge of the pier
she gave him time, he gave her space
the earth's rotation felt more like spinning
surrounded by circumstance, they made their case
everyday is chosen
13 February 2012
09 February 2012
Wide Receiver
The thing about music or art or literature — whatever — is, bottom line, it's important to be able to express yourself and keep toxic emotions from accumulating. It can really affect your body if you aren't able to process that stuff and get it out. So that was a huge part, just being able to take something that's kind of horrific or hard to deal with emotionally, and make it into some kind of art. There's something really positive about that. That's why it's a shame that's the first thing to go in schools are arts programs, because it creates a healthier society.
- e.v.
- e.v.
23 January 2012
something i actually believe
We have reached a point in the United States of America that we must always be at war in order to exist.
The creation of the most destructive and lethal military force in human history does not have anything to do with democracy, the Constitution, or freedom; it has to do with rulers of kingdoms being rulers of kingdoms.
The United States of America is by far the most dangerous country on the planet, not just in theory, but in fact.
The creation of the most destructive and lethal military force in human history does not have anything to do with democracy, the Constitution, or freedom; it has to do with rulers of kingdoms being rulers of kingdoms.
The United States of America is by far the most dangerous country on the planet, not just in theory, but in fact.
18 January 2012
The Age of Chivalry
The Age of Chivalry ... [is] an appropriate label for the years between roughly 1100 and 1500. Even the Age of Chivalry, however, began in Rome.... In Roman eyes, "every war needed justification. The best reason for going to war was defence of the frontiers, and almost as good, pacification of the barbarians living beyond the frontiers. Outside these reasons one risked an unjust war, and emperors had to be careful." But within these limits, the conduct of war was essentially unrestrained. Prisoners could be enslaved or massacred; plunder was general; and no distinction was recognized between combatants and noncombatants. Classical Latin, indeed, lacked even a word for a civilian. The merciless savagery of Roman war in this sense carried on into the invasion period of the fifth and sixth centuries.... This was a style of warfare that was appropriate only against a non-Roman enemy, and in the Middle Ages this came to mean that Christians ought only employ it against pagans, like the Muslims in the Holy Land or, in the sixteenth century, the aboriginal peoples of the New World.... [This philosophy celebrated] war by God's people for God's own purposes.... [S]o long as it was fought for pious ends, such warfare knew no effective limits. The wars of conquest which Charlemagne waged against the pagan Saxons during the eighth century thus qualified perfectly as a Roman war. After thirty years of plunder, massacre, mass enslavement, and mass deportations the Saxons finally saw the reasonableness of Christianity and agreed to accept Baptism at the hands of the Franks....
Ecclesiastical efforts to restrain intra-Christian violence during the tenth and eleventh centuries did bear some fruit, however, and it is with them that we begin to see the modern outlines of the laws of war as these would emerge in the Age of Chivalry. Carolingian church councils issued a number of decrees which demanded that noble miscreants give up their belt of knighthood, their cingulum militaire, as part of the punishment for their crimes. We see in these measures our first evidence that the bearing of arms was seen as a noble dignity connected with a code of conduct, the violation of which might cost a man his status as a warrior....
[Changes in the society, politics, and the advent of the cavalry intensified warfare during the eleventh century.] With respect to the laws of war, two consequences followed from these developments. First, long-established but only dimly perceptible codes of noble conduct on the battlefield began to be applied to the knights as well. A greater number of fighters were now covered by these standards of honorable conduct. In 1066, for example, William the Conqueror expelled from his militia a knight who struck at the dead Harold's body on the battlefield with his sword....[K]nighthood had clearly emerged by 1100 as an indissoluble amalgam of military profession and social rank that prescribed specific standards of behavior to its adherents in peace and war. The laws of war would develop in the Age of Chivalry as a codification of these noble, knightly customs on the battlefield. Second, however, the sharp division which this knightly elite now drew between itself as an order of bellatores and the rest of society mad up on oratores or laboratores meant that laws of war themselves applied only to other nobles. In theory, peasants and townspeople ought not to fight at all.... If such common men did fight - and in practice they did, regularly - then no mercy was owed to them on the battlefield or off. In the ordinary circumstances of battle a knight ought not kill another knight if it was possible instead to capture him for ransom. Armed peasants and townsmen, however, could be massacred at will....
As an enforceable body of defined military custom, the laws of war as we are discussing them emerged [] out of the interplay of knightly custom with Roman law as this was studied and applied in court from the twelfth century on. By the fourteenth century this combination of knightly practice and legal theory had given rise to a formal system of military law, jus militaire, the law of the milites, the Latin word for knights. The enforceability of this law, at least in the context of the Hundred Years War, needs to be stressed. Charges brought under the laws of arms were assigned to special military or royal courts - the Court of Chivalry in England, the Parlement of Paris in France - where lawyers refined and clarified its precepts in formal pleadings. Knights and, of course, heralds, remained the experts in the laws of arms. Their testimony was sought both in defining the law and in applying it to specific cases, a reflection of the status of jus militaire as a body of international knightly custom. From the fourteenth century on several attempts were made to record these customs in writing, the most famous being Honoré Bouvet's Tree of Battles. Like all medieval lawbooks these were partial and tendentious with a bias toward kings. The real history of the laws of war in the Age of Chivalry is buried in the hundreds of court cases brought under it and in the scores of chroniclers accounts of the conduct of war ...
-Robert C. Stacey (from The Laws of War: Constraints on Warfare in the Western World)
Ecclesiastical efforts to restrain intra-Christian violence during the tenth and eleventh centuries did bear some fruit, however, and it is with them that we begin to see the modern outlines of the laws of war as these would emerge in the Age of Chivalry. Carolingian church councils issued a number of decrees which demanded that noble miscreants give up their belt of knighthood, their cingulum militaire, as part of the punishment for their crimes. We see in these measures our first evidence that the bearing of arms was seen as a noble dignity connected with a code of conduct, the violation of which might cost a man his status as a warrior....
[Changes in the society, politics, and the advent of the cavalry intensified warfare during the eleventh century.] With respect to the laws of war, two consequences followed from these developments. First, long-established but only dimly perceptible codes of noble conduct on the battlefield began to be applied to the knights as well. A greater number of fighters were now covered by these standards of honorable conduct. In 1066, for example, William the Conqueror expelled from his militia a knight who struck at the dead Harold's body on the battlefield with his sword....[K]nighthood had clearly emerged by 1100 as an indissoluble amalgam of military profession and social rank that prescribed specific standards of behavior to its adherents in peace and war. The laws of war would develop in the Age of Chivalry as a codification of these noble, knightly customs on the battlefield. Second, however, the sharp division which this knightly elite now drew between itself as an order of bellatores and the rest of society mad up on oratores or laboratores meant that laws of war themselves applied only to other nobles. In theory, peasants and townspeople ought not to fight at all.... If such common men did fight - and in practice they did, regularly - then no mercy was owed to them on the battlefield or off. In the ordinary circumstances of battle a knight ought not kill another knight if it was possible instead to capture him for ransom. Armed peasants and townsmen, however, could be massacred at will....
As an enforceable body of defined military custom, the laws of war as we are discussing them emerged [] out of the interplay of knightly custom with Roman law as this was studied and applied in court from the twelfth century on. By the fourteenth century this combination of knightly practice and legal theory had given rise to a formal system of military law, jus militaire, the law of the milites, the Latin word for knights. The enforceability of this law, at least in the context of the Hundred Years War, needs to be stressed. Charges brought under the laws of arms were assigned to special military or royal courts - the Court of Chivalry in England, the Parlement of Paris in France - where lawyers refined and clarified its precepts in formal pleadings. Knights and, of course, heralds, remained the experts in the laws of arms. Their testimony was sought both in defining the law and in applying it to specific cases, a reflection of the status of jus militaire as a body of international knightly custom. From the fourteenth century on several attempts were made to record these customs in writing, the most famous being Honoré Bouvet's Tree of Battles. Like all medieval lawbooks these were partial and tendentious with a bias toward kings. The real history of the laws of war in the Age of Chivalry is buried in the hundreds of court cases brought under it and in the scores of chroniclers accounts of the conduct of war ...
-Robert C. Stacey (from The Laws of War: Constraints on Warfare in the Western World)
12 December 2011
08 July 2011
out on the sea ...
elemental lights, showering down
reminding of a light texture, numberless
nowhere, been here before
instead of middle ground, footless
riding sheets of gray, into oblivion
will the world be saved, soulless
reminding of a light texture, numberless
nowhere, been here before
instead of middle ground, footless
riding sheets of gray, into oblivion
will the world be saved, soulless
02 May 2011
01 05 11
meet me jesus, behind the door
the one that leads to the dusty floor
walk on in, dark as hell
used to flip flap-jacks right in that knell
but not tonight, it's up on the wall
shiny red metallic glistens in the moonlight
pull the trigger, blow that shit
spray it everywhere, everywhere, everywhere
wild faces, jumping around
screaming, yelping, just clowns on the town
out the window, jump on down
hit it hard, get right back up, run
main street is short, cut across the bridge
down near the creek bed stop and take a breath
american fields of play, it's got to be real
the dawn approaches and we think we see the son
the morning glory's failed us, too wise not to despair
the angels sing a chorus and we kill the fucking scum.
bye. bye.
it feels pretty good up here ...
the one that leads to the dusty floor
walk on in, dark as hell
used to flip flap-jacks right in that knell
but not tonight, it's up on the wall
shiny red metallic glistens in the moonlight
pull the trigger, blow that shit
spray it everywhere, everywhere, everywhere
wild faces, jumping around
screaming, yelping, just clowns on the town
out the window, jump on down
hit it hard, get right back up, run
main street is short, cut across the bridge
down near the creek bed stop and take a breath
american fields of play, it's got to be real
the dawn approaches and we think we see the son
the morning glory's failed us, too wise not to despair
the angels sing a chorus and we kill the fucking scum.
bye. bye.
it feels pretty good up here ...
11 February 2011
The Metaphysics of Thought ...
When will you understand?
Mark what I say:
Whatever you hold in your hand
Will be blown away.
Must you learn for yourself
Listen: take warning;
Whatever you put on the shelf
Will be gone by morning.
Soon you must play your part.
What are you learning?
Get it by heart! By heart!
I have seen books burning.
-Beatrice Warde (1941)
Mark what I say:
Whatever you hold in your hand
Will be blown away.
Must you learn for yourself
Listen: take warning;
Whatever you put on the shelf
Will be gone by morning.
Soon you must play your part.
What are you learning?
Get it by heart! By heart!
I have seen books burning.
-Beatrice Warde (1941)
01 December 2010
one glass of wine leads to a bottle, which leads to the beers in the fridge, which leads to up all night writing instead of sleeping ...
what is it that inspires us? is it a person? an idea? a concept? a feeling? a belief? can we be our own source for inspiration?
maybe, just maybe, are we our own inspiration?
i want to say no ...
the friends i have assure me that what it is that keeps me going some days is not a power that comes from within ... i think of the many faces i have known, the joyous moments created together and shared ... but then why the questioning?
is the questioning just a reaction, a response, a reflective analysis? is it something to be analyzed? when does something become so apparent that it warrants no further analysis? does anything escape the reasonableness of analysis?
again, i want to say no ...
god damn my farts are pungent tonight! i made a pasta dish that was soaked in garlic and my farts, only 4 hours later, are filled with the aroma of that magical herb ...
i've been craving garlic with every meal ... i put it in my sandwiches, in my breakfast eggs, in my thanksgiving mashed potatoes, in my mixed drinks ... why?
because the smell, the scent, reminds me of her ...
again, i want to say no ...
i want to say that there is something else that makes me do what i do ... i don't want to draw straight lines, reasons that seem too simple to comprehend ... i'm aiming for unconventional ... but not to simply be different from others ... just to try and find my own voice ... maybe it's not unique, but it's mine ... and i'm searching, harder than ever ...
law school feels like 4 walls of convention closing in on me, pushing in, getting closer and closer and leaving me gasping ... i feel that way before class, during class, after class ...
and it's not that law school is too hard, the material is fairly simple, it's a fear inside of me that whispers i am heading toward something that is not completely free ...
as i build-up my resume, and re-word it to make it look "stronger" so that someone might notice something and think about interviewing me, i look at that piece of paper and automatically recognize: THIS IS NOT ME!
i am more than my education and work experience ... i have a story to tell ... but of course this response is cliche, no? nevertheless, i fall into it ...
this is where i want to say, yes ...
i think i have a story to tell ... not necessarily my own life, perhaps tales of my life mixed in, but a story ... i want to be a story-teller ... and i look at the formality of law school and i know that there will be an opportunity to tell stories after law school, and i think that law school will provide me with more stories to tell, but RIGHT NOW, law school just feels so suffocating ... intellectually, emotionally, ethically, creatively ...
so i've taken some personal remedies to these feelings ... i've signed up for tutoring through the office of student life, and it is helping ... i'm not so concerned about grades, i'm more concerned with just finishing this damn first-year and getting a job for the summer ...
and i look at these written words, and i feel my own stress, and i know it really is nothing ... one learns from their own stories, and my own stories of conflict make law school look like pre-school ... yet when you are in it, no matter how objectively you explain it as not a big deal, you're current feelings rule, like a master ... to an extent ...
i suppose that writing and thinking and talking about the way i feel now is an outlet that helps me deal with the suffocating feelings ... hell, i've gone and talked to all my professors about my sincere thoughts about dropping out of law school ... they have all been very encouraging, telling me to just stick it out and that it gets better ...
and i want to say, yes ...
i want to do something great ... as foolish as it seems to me to read that statement ... i want to do something unconventional ... and i'm comfortable with being unconventional, but i've found that others are not so comfortable with conventions being disregarded ... but i think that there is something important to doing what you feel burning within you, to cast aside the norm, not to be obnoxious or funny (which is my lazy practice toward convention), but to do something that inspires people, to put time and effort into developing a craft that flows from you ... that is unexpected, that is fresh, that makes people's usual understanding of things get flipped on its head ... again, not for the sake of difference ... but for the sake of betterment, or perhaps even better, for the sake of beauty? are aesthetics reasonable at all at bottom? and if they're not reasonable (fuck kant), then doesn't that make aesthetics such an unconventional choice for pursuing difference?
convention does not inspire ... of this i am sure ... it pacifies, and helps people get by, helps them especially to succeed ... convention is a system that identifies what you should do, what one ought to do, without thinking about why that normative structure is in place ... when there are norms, the first thing one should do is ask, "WHY?" ... sometimes the norms could be good, but don't trust them ... don't trust them ...
and i keep saying yes ...
give me more ... more of this life ... of the love to experience ... of the friendships that bring me pure joy ... god damn, i feel so fortunate to have so many great people in my life ... their personalities inspire me, their attitudes astound me, their actions force me to raise my face skyward and laugh out loud uproariously! a note, a letter, a text message, even a facebook post from a friend can alter my view of the day ... and our families, our beloved families ... the proximate relation of blood ... i look into the night, windy and cold, and wish i could reach out and touch you all, my mother, my father, my sisters, my cousins, grandparents, here and beyond ... and that's part of our human condition ... these relationships ...
yes, yes, yes ...
walt whitman, one of my favorite poets, a yes-saying man to it all ... and i say yes to the feelings i have, to the thoughts of love that i think, that leave me feeling like a worthy receptacle for another person to share themselves with ... and i mean it when i say this, and i've said it before, and i'll probably say it again: love is the passionate possession of an abundance of uncertainty. it's my stab at a definition of love. it is not certain in itself. it circumvents certainty, through its active possession of uncertainty. when someone asks you why you love them, simply answer, with love the why is the what ...
and so more questions remain ...
how does one tell a story within the field of law as a professional within the field of law? the only position that comes to my mind, off the top of my head, is being a judge ... a judge listens to the cases at hand, writes the opinions that tell the story of the plaintiff and the defendant, leaves behind a record of the happenings of the particular case that is heard in a court of law ... so really, the only natural position i could, perhaps, see myself inhabiting within this field of law is that of a judge ... but being a judge ... what a heavy toll ... yes?
a judge holds the life of other people in his/her hands ... what a responsibility! but is it a justified responsibility? should a person, or a group of people, namely judges, be able to make decisions based on their expertise and their knowledge of law be able to make decisions that will effect the lives of people? to put them in prison? for life? to make them pay money in damages? (offhand i want to say that our system of justice pretty good, but i think we should be asking these fundamental questions in law school, where people might actually be judges someday ... i mean christ, let's give law students some good reasoning with which they can defend our legal system! maybe it happens later in law school, i don't know, i don't know much about law school, but i do know that our legal system does not exist without protest to its structure and practice ... shouldn't we be learning about the theoretical basis that the system that we will one day practice in is based upon?
or even a jury?
who says that a jury of our peers is a just way to deal with those who violate our norms? i know these questions have been asked before, and i assume they were asked while our system was created, before it was created ... our system was carefully crafted, or was it? how is it that our system, so carefully crafted, allows for injustice in its current state? murderers sometimes walk free, innocent people are put to death in the gas chamber ... is the story telling privilege that a judge has worth the weight of knowing that decisions that are made could even end a life?
is there another story-telling option within the field of law? the historian tells a story, but not the same way a judge does ... the judge tells the story in a contemporaneous form, thinking in the present, reflecting on the past, but looking into the future as considerations are made ... the historian, it is assumed, only looks to the past for evidence, for accuracy, and then reports ... the judge shapes the way in which things will happen in the future ... what a burden ... a burden i would never want to carry ...
the judge is a biblical phenomenon ... the jewish people came out of egypt, and it is not soon after that, that god institutes a system of justice ... judges are appointed to make decisions, to decide between conflicts ... do we really need judges? do we? is the biblical reliance on a system of justice justified in this day and age? can we come up with something better? are judeo-christian-muslim values fair to everyone? do they accurately investigate, nay, do they even attempt to investigate what justice is? don't they just tell us what justice is, and leave us as passive recipients of a concept that governs the way that we live from day to day?
sometimes when i read cases i see some of the obviously unfair results, where a regular person does something that is seemingly not wrong at all ... their lack of knowledge of the law leads them to make a "mistake" unknown to themselves ... and a group of judges (or a single judge), with their legal expertise, can look at and analyze that seemingly small and maybe innocent infraction against the minutiae of the law and bring back a verdict that disturbs us all ... and yet, take the homosexual movement ... the law, the constitutional law, seems clear, absolutely clear that prejudice against citizens of the unites states based on their sexual orientation is unconstitutional ... and courts are starting to recognize this discrimination, and based on a judge's knowledge of the minutiae of the law, they are able to identify and argue that gay people should be allowed to marry (and soon serve in the military) ... how do we balance this precarious use of specific knowledge of the law, so that "justice" truly prevails? it seems that it can cut both ways, the study of minutiae benefiting those regular folk who lack knowledge of the law, while at the same time seemingly punishing them for a lack of knowledge they never, or should never expect to have ...
i want to say yes again, but i can't ... exactly ...
"justice" is a fiction ... we rely upon justice as if it is real, as if it is there, as if the arguments that we make against the positions that we disagree with are grounded in some fundamental understanding of justice ... but this is just not true ... justice is malleable ... a concept ... that we have created to aid us ... and so the judge is left with an un-solid ground on which to stand, on which to judge from ... such a precarious position ... and so judges, like antonin scalia, create another fiction, a solid ground to stand on, a constitutional certainty that allows him to remain, perhaps internally consistent in his logic, but dreadfully inconsistent when compared with another rubric of thought concerning the issues of constitutionality ... so the field of law seems to say that consistency is something that is valued within opinion ... where does that leave truth? isn't truth tied up in justice, in figuring how to delve into what is just? in outlining what we consider to be liberty, freedom, human rights? how can the law straddle two competing views and maintain justice? can it? or is the bigger question that law is precisely that thing that allows us to straddle differing views and provide for a way of disagreeing that still instills order?
but is order in itself valuable if it does not value the truth? is order worth it? are conventions worth getting rid of truth, or relegating truth to the background? does our societal comfort take precedence over discovering what the truth of the matter is? unfortunately, after years of studying philosophy, i would say that our contemporary society on the whole is whole-heartedly willing to sacrifice truth for convenience ... but it's not just contemporary society, this is not a "today is worse than yesterday" stance ... it's always been that way ... that's my contention ... human beings seem to always be willing to sacrifice an investigation of truth for a more convenient explanation, or lifestyle ... that's because, i think, pursuing the truth is hard ... and i mean this in a non-religious, non-spiritual sense ... i am talking about seeking truth, wisdom, and love in the tradition of socrates and nietzsche ... the hardest part, i think, about pursuing the truth is that we will not discover what it is ... the truth, any truth, is always just out of our grasp, yet, i think it is still a worthwhile endeavor, in fact, perhaps the only worthwhile endeavor ...
and yes, i affirm yes, again and again ...
and so, do i have a story to tell? i think so ... i'm not sure why i feel this way, i can only tell you the what of the story ...
(the following is a continuing outline of a story i am telling ... this is the bare bones ... memories, brought back through writing, that will be expanded with a greater amount of flesh ... some are the truth ... some are made-up ... this is a story ... not a biography of my life, though for those who know me it may seem very similar ... i am not concerned with providing the truth of my life here ... i am interested in entering into that powerful structure of fictional narrative ... this is of my own selfishness, and perhaps benefit ... narrative, i think, is one of the most powerful literary tools we have at our disposal, and i suppose that in sharing bits of myself, with myself, but writing these bits into a story that is not necessarily about me will teach me something about me ... isn't that what a good narrative does? teach us? so i share out of purely selfish motives, just to be clear, with the intention, or if not the intention, the idea that writing my thoughts down will benefit me somehow ... this is not unique, this is a practice handed down for ages ... augustine set the bar high with confessions, and i think rousseau raised it even higher with his 'the confessions' ... i have been so concerned with truth, why cast it aside when i choose to share, or write about pieces of myself? i think it's because i already know the truth about myself, how could i not? i want to be learning something new about myself ... we are changing beings, always in a state of flux, and i think it takes effort, real intellectual endeavors to learn more, not just about the world around us (the information that we are bombarded with), but to pursue, passionately, and at times recklessly, more information about ourselves. i think, and i could be drastically wrong, that the narrative structure of our own lives, enlivened with tales of fantasy and self-grandeur, tell us something about ourselves that we might not otherwise know. to imagine ourselves a certain way, with money, with power, with good looks, with a loving family, with no friends, etc. ... by imagining ourselves in this way we are free to explore who we might be, who we could become, to see ourselves in the most positive, or the most negative light possible ... and to learn from these perceptions, to establish ourselves in this real world with lessons that are intimate, and meaningful, strong, and capable of providing us with what we need to survive as rational beings in this crazy fucking world ... yet we can't do it by ourselves, i don't think ... and that's that power of narrative too ... even if we write it for ourselves, like i'm doing here, it still communicates to OTHERS! in the end, i think, i can write and learn from myself, but whatever i write becomes banal to myself without the feedback, input, or enjoyment that others find in my writing and who i expose myself as ... one last question before the story: is life, a meaningful life, a reciprocal practice?
we arrived at my grandparent's house, greeted by open arms. the first memory i have of my new school as a first-grader is playing smear-the-queer on the grass field during recess. the game, smear-the-queer, simply consisted of one person holding a football and everyone else tried to tackle the ball carrier. i'm not sure where the name came from, but it's anti-gay title was lost on us at the age of 6. i remember being pretty good at smear-the-queer. i was hard to tackle and i tackled other people well. soon i had friends. i remember reading and writing assignments in class. not specifically what the assignments were, but i remember writing short stories about animals and reading them out loud to the class. i remember making paper ornaments for christmas, stuffed with newspaper. i remember that our classroom had a loft and that we were allowed to climb up the wooden ladder and read up there if we had been good that day. the loft only had room for about 7 or 8 kids, so it was a competition to get up there everyday. i got up there everyday. i remember that as a kid, even 6 years old, i was fascinated with the written word. it surprised me that the written word could communicate to me in way similar to living, breathing people. i think you could say i was hooked.
i was not, necessarily, a passionte reader at first; i had many distractions. i would rather go to my next door neighbor's house and play nintendo or play g.i. joe around the neighborhood, or play catch, or climb on the jungle gym, or look at and organize our baseball cards, or ride our bmx bikes and make trails through the fields, or go down to the corner store and eat hot dogs, and drink soda, and buy candy from hank. something happened, i believe, during a meeting between my first-grade teacher and my mom. i suppose i was underachieving, so they set-up a reading program with my grandfather. my grandfather would read with me every night, and every time i finished a book i would get a sticker up on a chart. when the chart was filled up we got to go bowling. i ate it up. i became a reading machine as a kid. i excelled. in the second grade i was invited to the gate program ... something reserved for the smart kids. i was allowed to stay for a short time before i was kicked out for misbehavior. so i joined the regular classroom, but was placed in an advanced reading and spelling group. i remember that i had a 7th grade study buddy, and we had read some of the same books: the hobbit, the fellowship of the ring series, among others. i loved j.r.r tolkien, but i can remember that my favorite trilogy series of books was by lloyd alexander, the westmark trilogy. a rich storyteller, with imperfect characters who demonstrated to me, even as a kid, the human condition.
my exuberance for acting out in class continued into the third grade. i can remember many instances of being reprimanded by my teacher, mr. holloway. i can also remember that i was acting with intent. i was not misbehaving because i did not know any better; i knew, i knew full well. i think that i reveled in misbehavior, at that time i only reveled in the obnoxious kind of misbehavior, when breaking rules is the only kind of misbehavior available to an 8 year old. when one gets older, one realizes that misbehavior is an asset, a way to counterbalance all of the mindless rule-following ... could it be, that even at that young age, all i wanted the other kids around me to do, and the adults too, was to think?
4th grade was a hard time. we moved out of my grandparent's home; just me, my mom and my two younger sisters. we moved in with a friend of my mom's who was getting a divorce from her husband and had two kids of her own. all the while, my mom and her friend were college students, raising kids as single mothers. whoa. i really have such respect for single mothers, especially, of course, my own mother. it's funny, anytime i meet someone who was also a child of a single parent, but especially a single mother, there is usually this instant connection between us. an appreciation, a treasuring of our mothers; and i treasure that connection. i realize that that connection extends to those who have never had parents, or grew up in a home with problems (problems not meant to be taken lightly ... i mean we all have problems, but i think you know what i'm getting at ... shared feelings from hard experiences is all).
i was alone in a new school at 9 years old. no friends. fights on the bus. fights at school. the bus driver not caring to notice that 3 older kids were punching me towards the back of the bus, me trying to bite, kick, or scratch anyone within reach. that after 2 months i stopped riding the bus. i walked to and from school. i left early from my house so i would get to school on time, and i would pretend to wait in line for the bus after classes got out at school until the teachers who were supposed to make sure we got on the bus got bored, then i would begin my trek home. it was my secret. it was my time to damn and curse everyone who was mean to me. who picked on me for no reason, because i was the new kid at school. an entire school year this went on, and i remember repeating to myself, never again will i be so weak. never again will i let these idiots dictate to me my own choice. i would ride the bus at the next school, and meet them with everything i had. even if that would be my fists, or my teeth, or my screams, or my blood. i swore i would never bow to that kind of pressure again. i was 9 years old.
god bless america. my mom picked us up and we moved back in with my grandparents, and i got to go back to my old school. i can still remember walking back into my 5th grade classroom, Mrs. Bishal was my 5th grade teacher (she had also been my 2nd grade teacher), and within two weeks myself and another kid had secured the prized desks in the classroom: we got to sit, just the 2 of us, with our desks facing each other. everyone else had to sit in groups of four. you see, we were advanced ... or something like that. i mean, we got the top scores on all the math tests, we got tops on the spelling tests, and we were pretty nice kids who didn't get in trouble. you see, i liked and respected Mrs. Bishal, and i knew that i did not want to do anything to disappoint or disrespect her. if i am recalling correctly, i got to sit in my special desk for a little over half the year. but it was too good to last.
i distinctly remember watching a history video on MLK in the 5th grade, and the civil rights movement. i think that this was my initial exposure to that piece of our country's history. i remember thinking how dumb it was that the white people in the videos did not let the black people into the same schools, or the same restaurants, or to drink from the same fountain. i just remember thinking that those people were dumb, they didn't know any better. and yet, after watching the video we went outside for recess and one of my friends was hawaiian, and during the football game i called him a dumb nigger, undoubtedly seeing a shade of skin different than my own and associating it with the african americans i had seen earlier that day in the video. that new word, nigger, was just waiting to leave my lips and i knew that it was bad, and when the slightest bit of anger occurred during a sports competition, i let it fly. his name was reef, and he was a good friend of mine. he let it slide a couple of times. then he started to realize that i was calling him a derogatory term. reef was much bigger than me, in fact the biggest, strongest kid in our class. the bell rang and we went in. then lunch recess. and i continued with the name calling. we got in a fist fight. i remember having to tell Mrs. Bishal what happened and breaking out in tears. she asked me if i understood what i was saying, and i really didn't ... i knew it was bad, and that it meant something bad, but i wasn't sure what it meant and why i had decided to use it exactly, but i did know it was powerful. Mrs. Bishal, bless her heart, told me what it meant, told me how and why it was hurtful to people, and that it was inappropriate to call people niggers. after that day i lost my special seat and sat with a group of 3 other people. a girl got my seat. a cute girl if i recall correctly. and i was pissed at myself for screwing something up needlessly. i had the best seat in the class, and all because something inside of me wanted to test something. and i paid for it. at that young of an age, honestly, i was devastated. i still did well in my school subjects and the grades of everyone in my group improved, as i helped them with their long division and fractions, and spelling assignments. but i had become angry. maybe i hadn't become angry, maybe was i just channeling an anger that hadn't yet surfaced. i think the latter is correct.
i remember the 6th grade for three significant things: our basketball team went undefeated and i got my first F and i got my first detention. our basketball team dominated. i was good at smear-the-queer, but my basketball skills were lacking. i was part of the second team; i got to play about a quarter a game, unless it was a blowout, i would get to play more. through basketball i was formally introduced to social status. i was suddenly cool. i liked girls, and for the first time they liked me back. during that time i just supposed that they liked me for me, but of course it is clear, being a member of an undefeated basketball team gets you girls. and so i reveled in it. i remember the first time i called a girl on the phone. it was strange. we talked about walking home from school, and what we would do that weekend, and what class was like the day before. all inane conversations. but it didn't matter. the newness, and strangeness of talking to a girl on the phone, and knowing that not many other people were doing that yet. you see, this kind of information in the 6th grade travels, and myself and my best friends kevin and kalin were amongst the first to bridge that divide (in reality others might have been doing it too, but we were unaware of them, just as they were unaware of us, making it feel like an original endeavor; not to mention that the class before us, and the class before them had done the same. yet we felt like columbus discovering the americas). the first time i asked a girl to "go out with me" ... my first kiss ... the first time i felt a pubescent breast ... the first time i saw a porno rag ... the first time i tried to masturbate, with no success ... the first time i drank a beer, smoked a cigarette ... 11 years old and feeling like i knew it all ... doing things i conceived to be wrong, yet standing up for things ...
my best friend was kevin brown in the 6th grade. i'd say we were pretty much inseparable. his dad ron had bought the corner store from hank (the store was right across from our school and functioned as a hangout). we scored free hot dogs, baseball cards, sodas, and doughnuts on the regular. we alternated weekends staying at each other's homes. one night we were having a nerf basketball dunk contest in my bedroom, complete with rules and a tournament style elimination. we could each choose three player to emulate, therefore we each had three characters to play as in the tournament. i only remember my first choice: larry bird. my friend ryan jones was over too. the three of us. playing in my bedroom after dinner. the adults in the front room. probably around 8pm. kevin tried all his dunks while he was pretending to be michael jordan. but he missed all three. ryan and i both told him his turn was over. he was upset. he started cursing. using foul language. the S word: shit. the F word: fuck. i could feel something twisting in my stomach as i told him he wasn't allowed to say those words in my grandparent's house, (my grandparents were church-going christians and they didn't allow that kind of language in their house. my own kind of hypocrisy never crossed my mind, as i said shit and fuck all the time, but i suddenly felt the urge to protect the rules of my grandparent's home). kevin stopped and concentrated as he stared me in the eye and said, "Fuck you! What the fuck are you gonna do about it?" in an instant i had cocked my right arm and punched him in the nose, while in the same movement, lunged at him and tackled him. i remember choking him and looking at ryan who was sitting on my bed wide-eyed as i told him to go get my mom. i felt something sticky on my arm and looked down. i had bloodied kevin's nose when i hit him and it was all over his face and t-shirt. i instantly felt, not just sorry, but horrible. yet i held him down on the ground, no small feat, as he was PISSED and a little bit bigger than me, but i kept my forearm against his throat tight, keeping him in place. my mom came in and i remember her shouting at me to get off of kevin. i did as i was told, and kevin started crying. he ran out of the room. i started crying too. hard. my mom followed kevin, consoled him. my grandmother came back to my room and told me it would be ok as she held me and stroked my forehead. my mom called kevin's dad. he came to pick him up. ron was a bit more savvy in dealing with fighting boys, as kevin had an older brother, craig, and they would mix it up pretty regularly. ron asked to see me. i was afraid of him, even though he was a very kind man. he asked me what happened. i told him. he asked kevin what happened. kevin denied saying shit and fuck. ron asked him why i hit him then, if he didn't say those words. kevin answered, in typical 11 year old fashion: that he didn't know. ron made us shake hands and then ron gave me a hug. ryan felt uncomfortable and i didn't feel like playing anymore. his mom came and got him too. the next day we had basketball practice. the whole incident was forgotten between us and we were friends again like it never happened. i wonder if that was because of our youthful age and natural inclination of forgiveness, or was it that the conversation was dominated by, even by 6th graders, the war in irag that had just started and was being aired on tv? i distinctly remember us laughing and joking that we wished we could be in iraq fighting saddam hussein instead of attending basketball practice. we were 11 years old.
back to my first F. starting in the 5th grade we had a woman come into class twice a week to teach us french. we also had some hippie dude come in with a guitar twice a week to lead us in songs (my friends and i teased him mercilessly and he eventually quit during our 5th grade year). so in the 6th grade i had really started to realize my potential in making other kids in the classroom laugh by saying or doing things. thus far it had not affected my grades, except my french grade. you see, i saved a special amount of obnoxiousness for our poor french teacher. mis-pronouncing words on purpose, getting out of my seat and walking around, doing whatever i wanted and ignoring her when she spoke to me ... the usual behavioral issues i suppose. my mom got my report card and i remember her being very upset. REALLY upset. you see, she was pretty good friends with my 6th grade teacher (and my mom was working on getting her teaching credential at that time in college. my mom asked me if i would treat her that way, and of course i said no, and felt terrible). and i remember that talk with my mom having a serious impact on me, such that i changed my behavior in the class and improved my grade in french class. WE ARE SO MALLEABLE AS CHILDREN! RIGHT? it seems we lose that as adults. when we hurt someone else, do something that is clearly disrespectful for no apparent reason, as adults we seem to lose that automatic apologetic response to a discussion about what might've been wrong with our actions (of course, as soon as i say an 'automatic apologetic response' i know i have misspoken. kids, adults, elderly, we all carry the weight of not apologizing when it is clearly necessary. maybe we don't lose anything at all as adults. maybe it's an individual choice, not based on age, maturity, or gender. maybe we are all socially reprehensible at times? i vote yes. and i'm not trying to suggest that social reprehensibility is necessarily a bad thing. maybe sometimes it's against the law, but other times it might serve as the way that we evolve as a species. that's all to say that the uncoerced apology seems like it could be something special). that's one thing i will take away from my mom when it comes to discipline: she usually sat me down and talked to me about why she was upset with me, and why what i did was not ok (for the most part my mom did that, but of course there were times when i drove her sooooo crazy that she reacted with that parental anger that so resembles a child's anger).
i also got my first detention. i had to sit with 7th and 8th graders after school in a classroom. this was because, prior to the talk my mom gave me, ms. cox (our 6th grade teacher), stuck her tongue out at me. i can't remember why she did that, i think it was because i got an answer wrong when i raised my hand. so when she stuck out her tongue i told her, "no thanks. i use toilet paper." you know, just an 11 year old telling his teacher to lick his asshole after taking a shit.
...
maybe, just maybe, are we our own inspiration?
i want to say no ...
the friends i have assure me that what it is that keeps me going some days is not a power that comes from within ... i think of the many faces i have known, the joyous moments created together and shared ... but then why the questioning?
is the questioning just a reaction, a response, a reflective analysis? is it something to be analyzed? when does something become so apparent that it warrants no further analysis? does anything escape the reasonableness of analysis?
again, i want to say no ...
god damn my farts are pungent tonight! i made a pasta dish that was soaked in garlic and my farts, only 4 hours later, are filled with the aroma of that magical herb ...
i've been craving garlic with every meal ... i put it in my sandwiches, in my breakfast eggs, in my thanksgiving mashed potatoes, in my mixed drinks ... why?
because the smell, the scent, reminds me of her ...
again, i want to say no ...
i want to say that there is something else that makes me do what i do ... i don't want to draw straight lines, reasons that seem too simple to comprehend ... i'm aiming for unconventional ... but not to simply be different from others ... just to try and find my own voice ... maybe it's not unique, but it's mine ... and i'm searching, harder than ever ...
law school feels like 4 walls of convention closing in on me, pushing in, getting closer and closer and leaving me gasping ... i feel that way before class, during class, after class ...
and it's not that law school is too hard, the material is fairly simple, it's a fear inside of me that whispers i am heading toward something that is not completely free ...
as i build-up my resume, and re-word it to make it look "stronger" so that someone might notice something and think about interviewing me, i look at that piece of paper and automatically recognize: THIS IS NOT ME!
i am more than my education and work experience ... i have a story to tell ... but of course this response is cliche, no? nevertheless, i fall into it ...
this is where i want to say, yes ...
i think i have a story to tell ... not necessarily my own life, perhaps tales of my life mixed in, but a story ... i want to be a story-teller ... and i look at the formality of law school and i know that there will be an opportunity to tell stories after law school, and i think that law school will provide me with more stories to tell, but RIGHT NOW, law school just feels so suffocating ... intellectually, emotionally, ethically, creatively ...
so i've taken some personal remedies to these feelings ... i've signed up for tutoring through the office of student life, and it is helping ... i'm not so concerned about grades, i'm more concerned with just finishing this damn first-year and getting a job for the summer ...
and i look at these written words, and i feel my own stress, and i know it really is nothing ... one learns from their own stories, and my own stories of conflict make law school look like pre-school ... yet when you are in it, no matter how objectively you explain it as not a big deal, you're current feelings rule, like a master ... to an extent ...
i suppose that writing and thinking and talking about the way i feel now is an outlet that helps me deal with the suffocating feelings ... hell, i've gone and talked to all my professors about my sincere thoughts about dropping out of law school ... they have all been very encouraging, telling me to just stick it out and that it gets better ...
and i want to say, yes ...
i want to do something great ... as foolish as it seems to me to read that statement ... i want to do something unconventional ... and i'm comfortable with being unconventional, but i've found that others are not so comfortable with conventions being disregarded ... but i think that there is something important to doing what you feel burning within you, to cast aside the norm, not to be obnoxious or funny (which is my lazy practice toward convention), but to do something that inspires people, to put time and effort into developing a craft that flows from you ... that is unexpected, that is fresh, that makes people's usual understanding of things get flipped on its head ... again, not for the sake of difference ... but for the sake of betterment, or perhaps even better, for the sake of beauty? are aesthetics reasonable at all at bottom? and if they're not reasonable (fuck kant), then doesn't that make aesthetics such an unconventional choice for pursuing difference?
convention does not inspire ... of this i am sure ... it pacifies, and helps people get by, helps them especially to succeed ... convention is a system that identifies what you should do, what one ought to do, without thinking about why that normative structure is in place ... when there are norms, the first thing one should do is ask, "WHY?" ... sometimes the norms could be good, but don't trust them ... don't trust them ...
and i keep saying yes ...
give me more ... more of this life ... of the love to experience ... of the friendships that bring me pure joy ... god damn, i feel so fortunate to have so many great people in my life ... their personalities inspire me, their attitudes astound me, their actions force me to raise my face skyward and laugh out loud uproariously! a note, a letter, a text message, even a facebook post from a friend can alter my view of the day ... and our families, our beloved families ... the proximate relation of blood ... i look into the night, windy and cold, and wish i could reach out and touch you all, my mother, my father, my sisters, my cousins, grandparents, here and beyond ... and that's part of our human condition ... these relationships ...
yes, yes, yes ...
walt whitman, one of my favorite poets, a yes-saying man to it all ... and i say yes to the feelings i have, to the thoughts of love that i think, that leave me feeling like a worthy receptacle for another person to share themselves with ... and i mean it when i say this, and i've said it before, and i'll probably say it again: love is the passionate possession of an abundance of uncertainty. it's my stab at a definition of love. it is not certain in itself. it circumvents certainty, through its active possession of uncertainty. when someone asks you why you love them, simply answer, with love the why is the what ...
and so more questions remain ...
how does one tell a story within the field of law as a professional within the field of law? the only position that comes to my mind, off the top of my head, is being a judge ... a judge listens to the cases at hand, writes the opinions that tell the story of the plaintiff and the defendant, leaves behind a record of the happenings of the particular case that is heard in a court of law ... so really, the only natural position i could, perhaps, see myself inhabiting within this field of law is that of a judge ... but being a judge ... what a heavy toll ... yes?
a judge holds the life of other people in his/her hands ... what a responsibility! but is it a justified responsibility? should a person, or a group of people, namely judges, be able to make decisions based on their expertise and their knowledge of law be able to make decisions that will effect the lives of people? to put them in prison? for life? to make them pay money in damages? (offhand i want to say that our system of justice pretty good, but i think we should be asking these fundamental questions in law school, where people might actually be judges someday ... i mean christ, let's give law students some good reasoning with which they can defend our legal system! maybe it happens later in law school, i don't know, i don't know much about law school, but i do know that our legal system does not exist without protest to its structure and practice ... shouldn't we be learning about the theoretical basis that the system that we will one day practice in is based upon?
or even a jury?
who says that a jury of our peers is a just way to deal with those who violate our norms? i know these questions have been asked before, and i assume they were asked while our system was created, before it was created ... our system was carefully crafted, or was it? how is it that our system, so carefully crafted, allows for injustice in its current state? murderers sometimes walk free, innocent people are put to death in the gas chamber ... is the story telling privilege that a judge has worth the weight of knowing that decisions that are made could even end a life?
is there another story-telling option within the field of law? the historian tells a story, but not the same way a judge does ... the judge tells the story in a contemporaneous form, thinking in the present, reflecting on the past, but looking into the future as considerations are made ... the historian, it is assumed, only looks to the past for evidence, for accuracy, and then reports ... the judge shapes the way in which things will happen in the future ... what a burden ... a burden i would never want to carry ...
the judge is a biblical phenomenon ... the jewish people came out of egypt, and it is not soon after that, that god institutes a system of justice ... judges are appointed to make decisions, to decide between conflicts ... do we really need judges? do we? is the biblical reliance on a system of justice justified in this day and age? can we come up with something better? are judeo-christian-muslim values fair to everyone? do they accurately investigate, nay, do they even attempt to investigate what justice is? don't they just tell us what justice is, and leave us as passive recipients of a concept that governs the way that we live from day to day?
sometimes when i read cases i see some of the obviously unfair results, where a regular person does something that is seemingly not wrong at all ... their lack of knowledge of the law leads them to make a "mistake" unknown to themselves ... and a group of judges (or a single judge), with their legal expertise, can look at and analyze that seemingly small and maybe innocent infraction against the minutiae of the law and bring back a verdict that disturbs us all ... and yet, take the homosexual movement ... the law, the constitutional law, seems clear, absolutely clear that prejudice against citizens of the unites states based on their sexual orientation is unconstitutional ... and courts are starting to recognize this discrimination, and based on a judge's knowledge of the minutiae of the law, they are able to identify and argue that gay people should be allowed to marry (and soon serve in the military) ... how do we balance this precarious use of specific knowledge of the law, so that "justice" truly prevails? it seems that it can cut both ways, the study of minutiae benefiting those regular folk who lack knowledge of the law, while at the same time seemingly punishing them for a lack of knowledge they never, or should never expect to have ...
i want to say yes again, but i can't ... exactly ...
"justice" is a fiction ... we rely upon justice as if it is real, as if it is there, as if the arguments that we make against the positions that we disagree with are grounded in some fundamental understanding of justice ... but this is just not true ... justice is malleable ... a concept ... that we have created to aid us ... and so the judge is left with an un-solid ground on which to stand, on which to judge from ... such a precarious position ... and so judges, like antonin scalia, create another fiction, a solid ground to stand on, a constitutional certainty that allows him to remain, perhaps internally consistent in his logic, but dreadfully inconsistent when compared with another rubric of thought concerning the issues of constitutionality ... so the field of law seems to say that consistency is something that is valued within opinion ... where does that leave truth? isn't truth tied up in justice, in figuring how to delve into what is just? in outlining what we consider to be liberty, freedom, human rights? how can the law straddle two competing views and maintain justice? can it? or is the bigger question that law is precisely that thing that allows us to straddle differing views and provide for a way of disagreeing that still instills order?
but is order in itself valuable if it does not value the truth? is order worth it? are conventions worth getting rid of truth, or relegating truth to the background? does our societal comfort take precedence over discovering what the truth of the matter is? unfortunately, after years of studying philosophy, i would say that our contemporary society on the whole is whole-heartedly willing to sacrifice truth for convenience ... but it's not just contemporary society, this is not a "today is worse than yesterday" stance ... it's always been that way ... that's my contention ... human beings seem to always be willing to sacrifice an investigation of truth for a more convenient explanation, or lifestyle ... that's because, i think, pursuing the truth is hard ... and i mean this in a non-religious, non-spiritual sense ... i am talking about seeking truth, wisdom, and love in the tradition of socrates and nietzsche ... the hardest part, i think, about pursuing the truth is that we will not discover what it is ... the truth, any truth, is always just out of our grasp, yet, i think it is still a worthwhile endeavor, in fact, perhaps the only worthwhile endeavor ...
and yes, i affirm yes, again and again ...
and so, do i have a story to tell? i think so ... i'm not sure why i feel this way, i can only tell you the what of the story ...
(the following is a continuing outline of a story i am telling ... this is the bare bones ... memories, brought back through writing, that will be expanded with a greater amount of flesh ... some are the truth ... some are made-up ... this is a story ... not a biography of my life, though for those who know me it may seem very similar ... i am not concerned with providing the truth of my life here ... i am interested in entering into that powerful structure of fictional narrative ... this is of my own selfishness, and perhaps benefit ... narrative, i think, is one of the most powerful literary tools we have at our disposal, and i suppose that in sharing bits of myself, with myself, but writing these bits into a story that is not necessarily about me will teach me something about me ... isn't that what a good narrative does? teach us? so i share out of purely selfish motives, just to be clear, with the intention, or if not the intention, the idea that writing my thoughts down will benefit me somehow ... this is not unique, this is a practice handed down for ages ... augustine set the bar high with confessions, and i think rousseau raised it even higher with his 'the confessions' ... i have been so concerned with truth, why cast it aside when i choose to share, or write about pieces of myself? i think it's because i already know the truth about myself, how could i not? i want to be learning something new about myself ... we are changing beings, always in a state of flux, and i think it takes effort, real intellectual endeavors to learn more, not just about the world around us (the information that we are bombarded with), but to pursue, passionately, and at times recklessly, more information about ourselves. i think, and i could be drastically wrong, that the narrative structure of our own lives, enlivened with tales of fantasy and self-grandeur, tell us something about ourselves that we might not otherwise know. to imagine ourselves a certain way, with money, with power, with good looks, with a loving family, with no friends, etc. ... by imagining ourselves in this way we are free to explore who we might be, who we could become, to see ourselves in the most positive, or the most negative light possible ... and to learn from these perceptions, to establish ourselves in this real world with lessons that are intimate, and meaningful, strong, and capable of providing us with what we need to survive as rational beings in this crazy fucking world ... yet we can't do it by ourselves, i don't think ... and that's that power of narrative too ... even if we write it for ourselves, like i'm doing here, it still communicates to OTHERS! in the end, i think, i can write and learn from myself, but whatever i write becomes banal to myself without the feedback, input, or enjoyment that others find in my writing and who i expose myself as ... one last question before the story: is life, a meaningful life, a reciprocal practice?
we arrived at my grandparent's house, greeted by open arms. the first memory i have of my new school as a first-grader is playing smear-the-queer on the grass field during recess. the game, smear-the-queer, simply consisted of one person holding a football and everyone else tried to tackle the ball carrier. i'm not sure where the name came from, but it's anti-gay title was lost on us at the age of 6. i remember being pretty good at smear-the-queer. i was hard to tackle and i tackled other people well. soon i had friends. i remember reading and writing assignments in class. not specifically what the assignments were, but i remember writing short stories about animals and reading them out loud to the class. i remember making paper ornaments for christmas, stuffed with newspaper. i remember that our classroom had a loft and that we were allowed to climb up the wooden ladder and read up there if we had been good that day. the loft only had room for about 7 or 8 kids, so it was a competition to get up there everyday. i got up there everyday. i remember that as a kid, even 6 years old, i was fascinated with the written word. it surprised me that the written word could communicate to me in way similar to living, breathing people. i think you could say i was hooked.
i was not, necessarily, a passionte reader at first; i had many distractions. i would rather go to my next door neighbor's house and play nintendo or play g.i. joe around the neighborhood, or play catch, or climb on the jungle gym, or look at and organize our baseball cards, or ride our bmx bikes and make trails through the fields, or go down to the corner store and eat hot dogs, and drink soda, and buy candy from hank. something happened, i believe, during a meeting between my first-grade teacher and my mom. i suppose i was underachieving, so they set-up a reading program with my grandfather. my grandfather would read with me every night, and every time i finished a book i would get a sticker up on a chart. when the chart was filled up we got to go bowling. i ate it up. i became a reading machine as a kid. i excelled. in the second grade i was invited to the gate program ... something reserved for the smart kids. i was allowed to stay for a short time before i was kicked out for misbehavior. so i joined the regular classroom, but was placed in an advanced reading and spelling group. i remember that i had a 7th grade study buddy, and we had read some of the same books: the hobbit, the fellowship of the ring series, among others. i loved j.r.r tolkien, but i can remember that my favorite trilogy series of books was by lloyd alexander, the westmark trilogy. a rich storyteller, with imperfect characters who demonstrated to me, even as a kid, the human condition.
my exuberance for acting out in class continued into the third grade. i can remember many instances of being reprimanded by my teacher, mr. holloway. i can also remember that i was acting with intent. i was not misbehaving because i did not know any better; i knew, i knew full well. i think that i reveled in misbehavior, at that time i only reveled in the obnoxious kind of misbehavior, when breaking rules is the only kind of misbehavior available to an 8 year old. when one gets older, one realizes that misbehavior is an asset, a way to counterbalance all of the mindless rule-following ... could it be, that even at that young age, all i wanted the other kids around me to do, and the adults too, was to think?
4th grade was a hard time. we moved out of my grandparent's home; just me, my mom and my two younger sisters. we moved in with a friend of my mom's who was getting a divorce from her husband and had two kids of her own. all the while, my mom and her friend were college students, raising kids as single mothers. whoa. i really have such respect for single mothers, especially, of course, my own mother. it's funny, anytime i meet someone who was also a child of a single parent, but especially a single mother, there is usually this instant connection between us. an appreciation, a treasuring of our mothers; and i treasure that connection. i realize that that connection extends to those who have never had parents, or grew up in a home with problems (problems not meant to be taken lightly ... i mean we all have problems, but i think you know what i'm getting at ... shared feelings from hard experiences is all).
i was alone in a new school at 9 years old. no friends. fights on the bus. fights at school. the bus driver not caring to notice that 3 older kids were punching me towards the back of the bus, me trying to bite, kick, or scratch anyone within reach. that after 2 months i stopped riding the bus. i walked to and from school. i left early from my house so i would get to school on time, and i would pretend to wait in line for the bus after classes got out at school until the teachers who were supposed to make sure we got on the bus got bored, then i would begin my trek home. it was my secret. it was my time to damn and curse everyone who was mean to me. who picked on me for no reason, because i was the new kid at school. an entire school year this went on, and i remember repeating to myself, never again will i be so weak. never again will i let these idiots dictate to me my own choice. i would ride the bus at the next school, and meet them with everything i had. even if that would be my fists, or my teeth, or my screams, or my blood. i swore i would never bow to that kind of pressure again. i was 9 years old.
god bless america. my mom picked us up and we moved back in with my grandparents, and i got to go back to my old school. i can still remember walking back into my 5th grade classroom, Mrs. Bishal was my 5th grade teacher (she had also been my 2nd grade teacher), and within two weeks myself and another kid had secured the prized desks in the classroom: we got to sit, just the 2 of us, with our desks facing each other. everyone else had to sit in groups of four. you see, we were advanced ... or something like that. i mean, we got the top scores on all the math tests, we got tops on the spelling tests, and we were pretty nice kids who didn't get in trouble. you see, i liked and respected Mrs. Bishal, and i knew that i did not want to do anything to disappoint or disrespect her. if i am recalling correctly, i got to sit in my special desk for a little over half the year. but it was too good to last.
i distinctly remember watching a history video on MLK in the 5th grade, and the civil rights movement. i think that this was my initial exposure to that piece of our country's history. i remember thinking how dumb it was that the white people in the videos did not let the black people into the same schools, or the same restaurants, or to drink from the same fountain. i just remember thinking that those people were dumb, they didn't know any better. and yet, after watching the video we went outside for recess and one of my friends was hawaiian, and during the football game i called him a dumb nigger, undoubtedly seeing a shade of skin different than my own and associating it with the african americans i had seen earlier that day in the video. that new word, nigger, was just waiting to leave my lips and i knew that it was bad, and when the slightest bit of anger occurred during a sports competition, i let it fly. his name was reef, and he was a good friend of mine. he let it slide a couple of times. then he started to realize that i was calling him a derogatory term. reef was much bigger than me, in fact the biggest, strongest kid in our class. the bell rang and we went in. then lunch recess. and i continued with the name calling. we got in a fist fight. i remember having to tell Mrs. Bishal what happened and breaking out in tears. she asked me if i understood what i was saying, and i really didn't ... i knew it was bad, and that it meant something bad, but i wasn't sure what it meant and why i had decided to use it exactly, but i did know it was powerful. Mrs. Bishal, bless her heart, told me what it meant, told me how and why it was hurtful to people, and that it was inappropriate to call people niggers. after that day i lost my special seat and sat with a group of 3 other people. a girl got my seat. a cute girl if i recall correctly. and i was pissed at myself for screwing something up needlessly. i had the best seat in the class, and all because something inside of me wanted to test something. and i paid for it. at that young of an age, honestly, i was devastated. i still did well in my school subjects and the grades of everyone in my group improved, as i helped them with their long division and fractions, and spelling assignments. but i had become angry. maybe i hadn't become angry, maybe was i just channeling an anger that hadn't yet surfaced. i think the latter is correct.
i remember the 6th grade for three significant things: our basketball team went undefeated and i got my first F and i got my first detention. our basketball team dominated. i was good at smear-the-queer, but my basketball skills were lacking. i was part of the second team; i got to play about a quarter a game, unless it was a blowout, i would get to play more. through basketball i was formally introduced to social status. i was suddenly cool. i liked girls, and for the first time they liked me back. during that time i just supposed that they liked me for me, but of course it is clear, being a member of an undefeated basketball team gets you girls. and so i reveled in it. i remember the first time i called a girl on the phone. it was strange. we talked about walking home from school, and what we would do that weekend, and what class was like the day before. all inane conversations. but it didn't matter. the newness, and strangeness of talking to a girl on the phone, and knowing that not many other people were doing that yet. you see, this kind of information in the 6th grade travels, and myself and my best friends kevin and kalin were amongst the first to bridge that divide (in reality others might have been doing it too, but we were unaware of them, just as they were unaware of us, making it feel like an original endeavor; not to mention that the class before us, and the class before them had done the same. yet we felt like columbus discovering the americas). the first time i asked a girl to "go out with me" ... my first kiss ... the first time i felt a pubescent breast ... the first time i saw a porno rag ... the first time i tried to masturbate, with no success ... the first time i drank a beer, smoked a cigarette ... 11 years old and feeling like i knew it all ... doing things i conceived to be wrong, yet standing up for things ...
my best friend was kevin brown in the 6th grade. i'd say we were pretty much inseparable. his dad ron had bought the corner store from hank (the store was right across from our school and functioned as a hangout). we scored free hot dogs, baseball cards, sodas, and doughnuts on the regular. we alternated weekends staying at each other's homes. one night we were having a nerf basketball dunk contest in my bedroom, complete with rules and a tournament style elimination. we could each choose three player to emulate, therefore we each had three characters to play as in the tournament. i only remember my first choice: larry bird. my friend ryan jones was over too. the three of us. playing in my bedroom after dinner. the adults in the front room. probably around 8pm. kevin tried all his dunks while he was pretending to be michael jordan. but he missed all three. ryan and i both told him his turn was over. he was upset. he started cursing. using foul language. the S word: shit. the F word: fuck. i could feel something twisting in my stomach as i told him he wasn't allowed to say those words in my grandparent's house, (my grandparents were church-going christians and they didn't allow that kind of language in their house. my own kind of hypocrisy never crossed my mind, as i said shit and fuck all the time, but i suddenly felt the urge to protect the rules of my grandparent's home). kevin stopped and concentrated as he stared me in the eye and said, "Fuck you! What the fuck are you gonna do about it?" in an instant i had cocked my right arm and punched him in the nose, while in the same movement, lunged at him and tackled him. i remember choking him and looking at ryan who was sitting on my bed wide-eyed as i told him to go get my mom. i felt something sticky on my arm and looked down. i had bloodied kevin's nose when i hit him and it was all over his face and t-shirt. i instantly felt, not just sorry, but horrible. yet i held him down on the ground, no small feat, as he was PISSED and a little bit bigger than me, but i kept my forearm against his throat tight, keeping him in place. my mom came in and i remember her shouting at me to get off of kevin. i did as i was told, and kevin started crying. he ran out of the room. i started crying too. hard. my mom followed kevin, consoled him. my grandmother came back to my room and told me it would be ok as she held me and stroked my forehead. my mom called kevin's dad. he came to pick him up. ron was a bit more savvy in dealing with fighting boys, as kevin had an older brother, craig, and they would mix it up pretty regularly. ron asked to see me. i was afraid of him, even though he was a very kind man. he asked me what happened. i told him. he asked kevin what happened. kevin denied saying shit and fuck. ron asked him why i hit him then, if he didn't say those words. kevin answered, in typical 11 year old fashion: that he didn't know. ron made us shake hands and then ron gave me a hug. ryan felt uncomfortable and i didn't feel like playing anymore. his mom came and got him too. the next day we had basketball practice. the whole incident was forgotten between us and we were friends again like it never happened. i wonder if that was because of our youthful age and natural inclination of forgiveness, or was it that the conversation was dominated by, even by 6th graders, the war in irag that had just started and was being aired on tv? i distinctly remember us laughing and joking that we wished we could be in iraq fighting saddam hussein instead of attending basketball practice. we were 11 years old.
back to my first F. starting in the 5th grade we had a woman come into class twice a week to teach us french. we also had some hippie dude come in with a guitar twice a week to lead us in songs (my friends and i teased him mercilessly and he eventually quit during our 5th grade year). so in the 6th grade i had really started to realize my potential in making other kids in the classroom laugh by saying or doing things. thus far it had not affected my grades, except my french grade. you see, i saved a special amount of obnoxiousness for our poor french teacher. mis-pronouncing words on purpose, getting out of my seat and walking around, doing whatever i wanted and ignoring her when she spoke to me ... the usual behavioral issues i suppose. my mom got my report card and i remember her being very upset. REALLY upset. you see, she was pretty good friends with my 6th grade teacher (and my mom was working on getting her teaching credential at that time in college. my mom asked me if i would treat her that way, and of course i said no, and felt terrible). and i remember that talk with my mom having a serious impact on me, such that i changed my behavior in the class and improved my grade in french class. WE ARE SO MALLEABLE AS CHILDREN! RIGHT? it seems we lose that as adults. when we hurt someone else, do something that is clearly disrespectful for no apparent reason, as adults we seem to lose that automatic apologetic response to a discussion about what might've been wrong with our actions (of course, as soon as i say an 'automatic apologetic response' i know i have misspoken. kids, adults, elderly, we all carry the weight of not apologizing when it is clearly necessary. maybe we don't lose anything at all as adults. maybe it's an individual choice, not based on age, maturity, or gender. maybe we are all socially reprehensible at times? i vote yes. and i'm not trying to suggest that social reprehensibility is necessarily a bad thing. maybe sometimes it's against the law, but other times it might serve as the way that we evolve as a species. that's all to say that the uncoerced apology seems like it could be something special). that's one thing i will take away from my mom when it comes to discipline: she usually sat me down and talked to me about why she was upset with me, and why what i did was not ok (for the most part my mom did that, but of course there were times when i drove her sooooo crazy that she reacted with that parental anger that so resembles a child's anger).
i also got my first detention. i had to sit with 7th and 8th graders after school in a classroom. this was because, prior to the talk my mom gave me, ms. cox (our 6th grade teacher), stuck her tongue out at me. i can't remember why she did that, i think it was because i got an answer wrong when i raised my hand. so when she stuck out her tongue i told her, "no thanks. i use toilet paper." you know, just an 11 year old telling his teacher to lick his asshole after taking a shit.
...
12 November 2010
to have, and to hold ...
it's not that i have principles that i won't ever stray from ...
it's that i just care ...
i am willing to to put myself out there, to put my ass on the line when there is a threat to justice ... to what i perceive as justice ...
there is a phrase, a cliche ... i'm not big on cliches, but you know, building character ...
when one goes through a sacrificial act for what they perceive are the right reasons, maybe good reasons, maybe just reasons ... the person comes out the other side ... a bit different ...
to hold onto something when it hurts ...
to hold onto something when the holding on is causing pain ...
to hold onto something when the holding on is hurting others ...
to hold onto something when it kills your career ... wrecks your marriage ... flunks you out of school ...
to hold onto something because whenever that thing that was trying to get you to let go is gone, you still have a hold on something ... and then you can let it go ... but it will never leave you ... it stays with you forever ... and the different you, is you.
it's that i just care ...
i am willing to to put myself out there, to put my ass on the line when there is a threat to justice ... to what i perceive as justice ...
there is a phrase, a cliche ... i'm not big on cliches, but you know, building character ...
when one goes through a sacrificial act for what they perceive are the right reasons, maybe good reasons, maybe just reasons ... the person comes out the other side ... a bit different ...
to hold onto something when it hurts ...
to hold onto something when the holding on is causing pain ...
to hold onto something when the holding on is hurting others ...
to hold onto something when it kills your career ... wrecks your marriage ... flunks you out of school ...
to hold onto something because whenever that thing that was trying to get you to let go is gone, you still have a hold on something ... and then you can let it go ... but it will never leave you ... it stays with you forever ... and the different you, is you.
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