I'm on the Highway to Hell

Some of these roads - including the one with the cross shown at the link - are part of my regular territory

JUST LIKE FRANKENSTEIN

Hello everyone - this is the artist, formerly known as Zook - proceeding in a different direction here - this is going to be my first meeting of blog and short story. I got the above quote from Ramble On Rose, one of my favorite Grateful Dead songs, after considering many others for this post, and finally decided not only upon the line, but to make a little story out of it as well. Thanks again to my good friend Vi for showing me the link trick. Those of you who know me may think this "story" sounds a lot like MY real life - and maybe that is the case. Maybe so and maybe not. How could anyone write anything with conviction without having some knowledge of the subject matter at hand? Where the fiction starts and the non-fiction ends is kind of a thin line, but all I can tell you is this is very real to me in its own way. Yet - because it is a story, I issue the following disclaimer - any resemblance to any real life person is purely coincidental, and this is not designed to upset or offend anyone who believes that coincidence is directed at that person. That being said - let's get started with the story. I feel I never told you - the story of the ghost:

I am not proud of the story I am about to tell you, dear reader, but it is a story I must tell anyway. In this case, the storyteller makes no choice in telling the story, as the story has a way of telling itself and the storyteller can only watch it happening and try to capture it in the most accurate way possible. I must thank God that I am here to tell it, as the events I am about to describe could have easily brought this fragile life of mine to a tragic and early end. In fact it is a miracle that I am here to tell it, and proof in my mind that maybe someone really is watching over me. Those of you who read this from start to finish may find it necessary to judge me for what I have done, and if you must judge me - go right ahead - I deserve any label that you feel fit to impose upon me from the judge's chair. If that is my trade off that the powers that be have bestowed upon me, to be judged and be alive to receive that judgement, instead of the alternative - lying cold and lifeless in a stiff coffin 6 feet underground, than that is a trade off I will live with any day of the week. If there is one regret I do have, it is that anybody I am close to may have been hurt along the way. All the same - I know in my heart, that as horrible and hellish that the events below may seem to you, that they had to happen - were destined to happen, and I only hope that I can learn something from them, and perhaps others can along the way. In this day and age where addictions can claim many, from gambling, to substances, to God know's what - my addiction that almost claimed my life and spirit was a being that I will refer to from this point on - as Frankenstein. Not to say I did not have my battles with the other named demons as well, but that is another story.

Ironically, it was the novel by Mary Shelley of the same name that brought me in touch with my beautiful Arabian wife, Eliza, who I had the good fortune of meeting at a book convention about 20 years ago. We were walking along, both absorbed in our books, and we actually met up at the same place by accident, as with our present life courses, there was no real conceivable way we would have met up in our normal day to day lives. This book, along with Steppenwolf seemed to establish that we had some kind of common ground, not only in the literary world, but also in our own lives, which both had been somewhat difficult and troubled.

I had kind of lived the Harry Potter lifestyle, minus the magical powers unfortunately. I lived in the closet the same way Harry had, raised by people who would have rather not had to deal with me, as my own parents were killed in an unfortunate accident early on in my life - again, right out of the famous story we all know and love. It was a sad and lonely life. I was not wanted at home, had no real friends to speak of, and was picked on and beaten in school. Most of the time I would just take it, but there was a time when I finally got so enraged that I surprised a bully by fighting back. I would have to be driven into a corner to the point where I could not even take it any more before even considering something like that, as it would be my normal course of action to just pretend whatever was happening to me really wasn't happening at all, and I would often space out or freeze in the line of fire as my way of coping with it all.

So when I had met such a beautiful and charming woman, who wanted to be with me and also related to me to a certain degree, it changed my life forever. Even now, I still cannot believe that a woman of her beauty and charm would have anything to do with someone such as myself. This is a woman who had the opportunity to have spent a lifetime with handsome, wealthy and charming men, but had actually chosen me over and them. To this day some times I still cannot believe it and wonder what made her pick me, but I try to count my blessings in spite of that. It has been almost 20 years to the day now, and she continues to grow more beautiful with age. We eventually married and had two beautiful twin girls who we named Emma and Isabella. I don't want to point the fingers or blame anyone or anything, but my own limitations of being raised by often uncaring and disliking step-parents seemed to often limit my ability to be a father with my twin girls. I know we cannot blame our past for every present failure of ours, but even now, I still have to work at it and it does not come naturally to me whatsoever.

I worked as a clerk at the Burgermeister corporation, most of the time cramped away at a little beat up desk with a provided chair that always seemed to be falling apart, working in the dark, cold , musty basement, ordering supplies, keeping track of the company expenses, doing the dirty work of the company. It was a job of little respect that did not pay a lot, but it was a steady job. Although I loved Eliza greatly, I noticed over the years that a certain mutual coldness started settling in. Part of it was clearly the tension of my family. My step-parents still had considerable influence over me, and never did a moment go by that they did not in some way make it clear that they held the keys to a large, vast fortune that would allow me to never have to work another day in my life, once I obtained it. Out of fear, I seemed to believe that this had some importance, although I eventually weighed the costs of a divorce with Eliza and concluded that this would be far more devastating, both financially and emotionally. Even so, the years went by and their poor treatment of me was extended on to her, and as a complete and total coward, I lacked the ability to stand up to them and could not really be the knight in shining armor that she had wanted me to be. Well - I'm not the world's most masculine man and that has often been a problem with us.

So in the midst at a rather bleak point in our time as a family together, I often found myself prone to daydreaming, and not really being there - as was often pointed out by Eliza. Work was rather blah and routine, and I would often find myself in a cold and isolated supply closet, re-stocking the old equipment that no longer had any use and was collecting dust there. Although this was one of the coldest portions of the building, I was quite taken aback to one day find that there was a particularly warm spot in the corner that I was surprised to find out about, as there was no natural explanation for the heat source there. As it later turned out, there was a trap door there. When I first found out about it, I did not think much of it - until slowly but surely I realized it was a key to another world, as was in the case with the closet in the Chronicles of Narnia.

This was not another physical world, in the way that it is portrayed in that movie, but it was more a world of dreams where other beings interacted with each other and exchanged thoughts and ideas so that each was aware of the other's presence, without ever actually seeing, touching, and for the most part - hearing that the other one was there. It was a world that slowly but surely crept up on my psyche, and as the powerful field of imagination took over, I often found that it appeared to be a magical place where one could wish upon a star and seemingly have every wish really come true. It was land I would later think of as my own ticket to Transylvania, but more the one out of Bram Stoker's Dracula than the actual physical location. It was a world of pure imagination, where it always felt like the sun was setting over the clouds in an incredible breathtaking fashion, and if I wanted to at will I could soar like a rocket, fly like an eagle into the orange fading to darkness sky. This is the same type of world I would often know while under the affects of cannibis, and is the realm many drug addicts and addicts in general often escape to in place of their own perceived blah, depressing, and stressful world of reality.

From the beginning, it was clear that I was not alone here in this enchanting new realm. In fact, it became even more clear that the creation of the land was the combination of a series of minds collaborating, perhaps in an involuntary and unorganized fashion, where the dreams and hopes of everyone who entered had helped build the landscape to make it what it was. I had the sense that the others there were somewhat sad, frustrated, and lonely as I was and I started to believe I had a bond with some of them, even though as I said before, they were not there in the traditional sense - and most of my normal 5 senses could not see, here, smell, or touch them at all. But in the vast realms of my own imagination, which often has bordered on obsessive at times, that started to not matter to me. I started to consider some of them to be my friends, but more importantly, I started to distinctly hear the sirens call. My response was to cautiously flirt and toy with these sirens, but I felt a pull in their direction, and surely enough - I started to think more and more of them, and sink more and more into that other world, and away from the present one where I was needed. I shrugged off observations from Eliza that this world was starting to consume me, and could not contemplate the possibility of leaving it. I was more distracted and less available at the workplace, and had it not been for my long history with my employer, I could have easily let go or been fired. But - I was the functioning addict, and so I could get by and go through the motions, even though I was not at 100% of my attention.

I had fallen in love with - to a degree - or been infatuated with certain of the female forces there, but when Frankenstein (or the monster created by Dr. Fronkensteen to be exact) arrived on the scene, it seemed to descend into another level altogether. Note that the monster in Frankenstein is a male figure. Since I could not ever directly be in the presence of this being, I will really never know what sex s(he) really was. The few glimpses I obtained of this being - and again, I wouldn't know if they were really this being or not, would suggest a little bit of both. S(he) had kind of the face of a man, the presence of the monster seen here at this link, but also the long hair of a female, and either the voice of a deep female or a high pitched male, so to this day I will never know what gender s(he) really was. If this sounds confusing to you, imagine how I must have felt! I know this clarification has implications of what gender I prefer - and althought I would like to think I am a heterosexual, one really never knows the answer to that anyway.

So how exactly did I come across him/her anyways? I can look at it like a trap. In some ways s(he) was lying in ambush waiting for me. Like the monster in Frankenstein, s(he) had been a dead being, who had been brought back to life, not by electricity, but a force even stronger than that - human attention. Although I may have looked proudly upon him/her as my creation, it had been brought to my attention that I was only one of many of her creators, as I had not been the first or last to give her the attention s(he) desperately craved. But I will say this for him/her - as she needed human attention - and unlimited quantities of it - to survive, she had mastered the art of obtaining it - through any possible ways she could think of to get it. So if in my own twisted sick sense of pride I had felt like her sole creator, she was relying on that from every single one of us to feel that, to maximize the attention that was directed at her. She just seemed to know what I needed to "hear" - although it was mostly without literal sound, and in a sense be my mirror. For example, if I told her of my troubled past, then s(he) would tell me of one just as troubling. If I expressed an interest in something, s(he) was too. If I needed to hear that I was loved, she was there to proclaim her love for me - which I believe was what made me such vulnerable prey to begin with. I cannot really blame him/her for what she did to me, it was as natural to her as a flea or mosquito drawing blood for its survival. And yet, in this case, it was a mosquito drawing more and more blood, not knowing how or when to stop. But I am convinced that to some degree that everything she said and did was a lie, in that it would have been a conflict for her to be open with me and get the attention she wanted from me. But in this kind of altered setting, the idea that s(he) really loved me, or that I loved him/her - would be a very mutilated twisted version of the word.

The notion of mutual love was almost as twisted as the notion that we were friends, althought this appeared to initially be the pretense for her communications. Yet she observed me slowly descend into a Shadow of a Man - and it did not phase him/her in the least, as long as I kept that attention coming, my own impending self-destruction was of no concern to him/her at all. So the notion that any type of friendship or care was ever involved here was the same type of twisted reality I had encountered all my life, kind of like one of my step-parents in a George Washington style proclamation stated that a lie had never been told in that person's life, when from my point of view, this person was lying every moment of the day. S(he) kept trying to pull me closer and closer to her, and like Icarus moving closer to the sun, the closer I got, the more self-destructive it became. I believe that if I had really gotten as close as s(he) was pushing me toward, it would have ended my present life as I know it. But - I am not here to express any type of condemnation for anyone here, even the monster that almost destroyed me. There was a little bit of everything here. S(he) was also a ghost since I could never really see her. She was a vampire in her ability to drain the life force from me. She was the devil in her continuing efforts to tempt me and lead me away from those that I loved.

Maybe I was too far gone to rescue myself. I could not even see that I had a problem. Although my interactions with him/her would give me an initial feeling of a high, it was often intermixed or intertwined with intense feelings of guilt, sickness, and nausea as I knew it was wrong on some level, and was taking away from my real life loved ones. And it ultimately was my loved ones who brought me back. It took me some time before I could even tell Eliza what was going on with me, but as I am open with everything with her, I finally was able to. It was no surprise that her interests were also veering elsewhere, so initially we saw it as a common ground. But as she saw the effect it was having on me, she slowly became more concerned and finally she let me know that if it was not going to stop, for once and for all, she could not be in my life any more. And I was so far gone in my addiction, that I had to really think about it - but I finally realized that I had to come back to this plane of reality, away from the vampiric force that this being and the land s(he) lived in had become for me.

So - I did it - I came back. The normal cliches here, one day at a time, I had some help - some counseling - some support from the family here - and some how - by some miracle, I returned to the land of the living, and I have stayed here. Naturally s(he) was not too happy about what I did, but s(he) probably just moved on to his/her next victims and left it at that. Any conclusions I can come to about this being are just my impressions and really do not even matter. This story is not about him/her, it is about me - and who can really say that it ever happened at all. No one was there to see it happen - not even me. But unfortunately, my family was there to see the affects and it is for them that I have regrets. If there is a moral to this story, as I am about to beat you over the head with it - it is too learn to live and love the beauty and magic of the realm what we walk in - the real life sun, mountains, air and world around us, and not too descend into an underwold of darkness to try to get what is naturally all around us. It has been said that nobody can love us unless we love ourselves, and we certainly cannot find love from another who hates his or her self. So that is my challenge task that I am now living with - to see the beauty in my family and the natural world around me. It is not easy, but I think I can do it.

Many thanks to the almighty Google for providing the quick access to the many links I used here in this story.

Waste not want not - pick it up and eat it

(from Waste Not Want Not - by the Pretenders)

I have heard it said before that we are heading for a fall the way the Roman Empire came to a fall - and we may be a third world country some day. I don't know if that is true or not - whether or not it is going to happen - but I tell you one thing - some times our behavior as a whole - disgusts me. I don't know the exact statistics, - so I just checked out the "Worldwatch" website and read this "The 12 percent of the world's people living in North America and Western Europe account for 60 percent of this consumption, while the one-third living in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa account for only 3.2 percent." Thanks to Viola for getting me to finally figure out how to insert a link:

World Watch

Speaking of sites - "Jen" passed this one along a few posts down - seems to look pretty legit so here you go

The Hunger Site

I could talk about all sorts of resources here - oil, fuel, electricity - but let's just keep it simple and stick with food. Some of you may not be good with numbers - so let me translate the above statistic into a math equation - you have a room full of 100 people at your local McDonalds restaurant and there are 100 Big Macs available for all of them. A small handful of them - 12 of the privilged ones - get to have 5 Big Macs a piece, and then you get 33 poor homeless people who are hungry - and they each get 1/10th of a Big Mac a piece to get them by. I bet those 33 people are looking at us with just a little bit of anger as the 12 privileged ones gorge themsleves in front of them. I have heard it predicted that some of our next major world wars may be fought over food and resources - and with that type of equation - would you really be surprised if that was the case?

Assuming these numbers quoted are accurate - and I have seen them in more then one place - the numbers are pretty alarming to begin with. It means that because I want to be a pig and eat my 5 Big Macs, someone else in the world has to go hungry. And do I really need 5 Big Macs to begin with? That is the problem - and it starts with an observation I have when I sit in with my daughter for lunch at her 1st grade school cafeteria. I see a lot of food on each kid's plate - and just where does about 3/4 of this food end up? IN THE F**CKING TRASH!!! Forgive me for getting emotional about this - but it sickens me. You take one small school - like us - with the trash cans filled up with food. Maybe the worms are getting a nice meal, but aren't human beings more of a priority? One third of the world - however many billion that is - maybe a couple - is barely getting enough to survive, if anything at all - and we in turn have so much food - that we are placing it in the trash. And you take the one school - where I see it happening -and multiply it by all the schools all over the country - and there is an alarming amount of food - possibly enough to feed those 2 billion people - sitting there going to waste in our trash cans all over the country. It happens in schools, restaurants, homes - constantly. It is happening now. If you ever happen to have a meal with me - please - don't throw it out - give it to me if you don't want it.

It would be bad enough to just think - well we are so hungry that each one of us needs to eat those 5 Big Macs. I know obesity is a problem and I am not immune to it myself. All of us could learn from the healthy aspect of eating in moderation. I could drop 20 pounds myself according to my last physical. I don't like it when food gets lost in the back of the refrigerator and it is discovered with black mold growing on it - it always saddens me to throw it out - so I am guilty of it too. But what I see at my daughter's school - is happening every day, and nobody cares, and nobody does anything about it - and I know it is happening on a large scale level.

So I hate to be an in your face preacher - because on a deep level I believe everyone is free to believe whatever they want - but it is my opinion - that our wasteful trends are not only bad for the world as a whole, but they may be our downfall some day as well. We have gotten "fat" in more ways than one, and if someone pulled the plug on our electricity some day and we had to fend for ourselves, how well would we really do? Seems like we have gotten pretty spoiled and are riding pretty high right now, and without a little humility to balance it all out, we could be heading for "trouble ahead, trouble behind". Not trying to scare anyone here, but it seems like if everyone in this country could practice a little moderation, use what we need and not just what we want, and be mindful of others, maybe the world would be a better place. Is it possible? I would sure like to hope so. My thoughts of my Jewish ancestors, starving to death in a dark cattle train or concentration camp - continue to haunt me. Starvation is not limited to any one race or creed - it is a problem of humanity - and I hate to think that I am contributing to it.

I'm dumpin' my trash in your back yard

(We can run)

There is no statement of apathy, misery, just blatant "fuck everything" despair as someone dumping their shit on the side of the road. I walk around this breathtaking view of the Pine Nut Mountains every day with my dog, but it is hard to really take in the beauty of the mountain tops when you have broken glass from beer bottles, plastic bottles, trash of every kind defacing the land around you. I guess it is not enough that the powers that be think it is in our best interest to have their "factories belching filth into the sky" (Police - Synchronicity) and polluting our air, warming the globe for the ice caps to melt - no that is not enough, we have our own masses of people adding insult to injury. So for any of you reading this who happen to love to dump your trash into the great outdoors, I wrote this for you:

Dear polluter - "I will not condemn you" for your behavior, because you will just stick your middle finger even higher into the air in my direction than it already is. So instead I will try to RELATE to you. Gee - it must be really cool to stop at the nearest convenience store, pick up a few 24 ounce containers of your favorite poison, and get ripped in the great outdoors of rural suburbia. I imagine by the third one, you must be getting a real feeling of power - like you are "sitting on top of the world". And then - projecting your discarded bottle into the air while that alcohol has possessed what is left of your mind - that must really be a blast! But as someone who may be picking up your trash while you are going through your usual morning hangover, I have a big favor to ask of you: If you are going to get ripped - which is your right, and if you are going to pollute - which I can't stop you from doing - well - can you at least have the courtesy of buying and consuming from CANS instead of BOTTLES? I know if you are a real "connoisseur" (if I am even spelling that right, probably not) of your favorite American carbonated can of piss - you are going to tell me that with glass you don't have that stale metal after taste that you can get from a can. But come on now - by the second or third one when that alcohol is ripping through your blood stream and tearing up what is left of your liver, CAN YOU REALLY TASTE THE DAMN THING ANYWAY? My guess is - probably not. See if you dump your empty can on the ground, for one thing it is not as heavy as a glass bottle, and it is not likely to shatter into many pieces that can get stuck in some poor creature's paw - which I imagine is pretty painful. But from a purely financial perspective, out here in Nevada - we don't get a damn thing for recycling glass bottles, but we get a full 35 cents a pound for cans - after the dude at the recycling center humiliates us for about a half hour sorting through the cans making sure we are not planting extra rocks or sand in there to walk away with a few more pennies than we deserve - but the point being - I can actually load up two kitchen sized white trash bags full of trash cans and make a full TWO DOLLARS off your pollution if you just use cans instead of bottles.

I do appreciate your consideration.

There's a fear down here we can't forget, hasn't got a name just yet

From "Throwing Stones"

This is a political post, and not political in the traditional Republican vs. Democrat sense, but more of a political post on the statement of humanity as it pertains to my views of the Holocaust. I have been thinking a lot about it lately, and my exposure is limited to the media - movies like "The Pianist", "Schindler's List", "It's A Beautiful Life" (one of the lighter ones in the pack), and the one when I was growing up was the TV extended series "Holocaust" along with the book itself. I read a book by survivor Elie Wiesel, had a Jewish History class in college - but all of this is second hand and without being there, you cannot fully grasp the horrors of the situation, but you can certainly appreciate it.

My understanding in general is that it was a slow but painful extermination process. From being isolated with little access to food in places like the Warsaw Ghetto, they were in a weakened state taken into packed standing room only trains for days to weeks, often beaten on the way, and arrived in an exhausted, hungry and thirsty state (this is from "Auschwitz" book) only to be either sent to gas chambers that took up to 20 minutes to do the job, or exhausted through impossible work loads with little or no food to keep them going - so that exhaustion and starvation were other ways that death took hold. I am not clear if some were placed direcly into ovens to die - I thought I remember seeing an old movie showing this about to happen - but being burned to death in a small crammed space does not sound too pleasant either. I know Jews were not the only ones to go there, and I know in some form or another, a similiar process continues to occur today in places like Bosnia, North Korea, China and Africa.

I call myself a spiritual person who believes in some type of higher being - and once you know yourself to be that - the first question is - how - why can something like this happen? How can any type of God who has any type of compassion allow something so brutal and horrible to take place? And the answer is - I can't quite figure that out. I can't understand how torture and mass brutality has and continues to take place today - and yet I still believe in a spiritual presence in spite of that. The closest thing I can begin to come up with is - there is no being sitting up there in the sky on a king's chair looking down on us - because if there was, this being simply would not allow this to happen. My spiritual explanation of a higher power is that we really to a certain degree are here, on our own, by ourselves. There is an incredible life force that runs through us all, magical, beautiful, and sometimes classified as dark and evil, and when you take that sum total of that force together - that is what "God" is to me. We are here to either do good works, or screw up and turn against each other but as the title song I reference says "the future's here, we are it, we are on our own". We are all still here and we haven't completely done each other in yet, so maybe we are doing something right, but how and why people can be so brutal with their fellow human beings is really beyond me.

One thing that I come up with though - as being a Jew - non-practicing by choice, but with a definite blood tie - is that their pain is over - those in the Holocaust that died are in fact dead now - as much as we can re-live their pain and suffering, and we should never forget it - they are no longer experiencing it - wherever ever they are now - whether they live on in some form, or just in our hearts - it is over. Just as some Christians link Christ's deaths with their own lives, saying he died so I can live, I can do the same to some degree - these people through no choice of their own made a sacrifice to some degree, so that their surviving members (they weren't successful in killing every single one of us) could live on. If I think about what I have - my freedom, my family, a beautiful place to live, it really puts things in perspective. I may not be the most financially successful person in the world, maybe certain people in my family are disappointed that I could not make them proud of their own social status vicariously through me, but compared to those for whatever reason either have to or have had to suffer through starvation, oppression, torture - I am pretty damn lucky to have what I have.

So - now that I am one of the lucky ones who gets to experience what I have - what does that mean to me? Well - for one thing - it is something to shut me up when I start thinking about what everyone else has - what is lacking in my life financially and otherwise, because just having the basic freedom to eat, drink, sleep, and experience this "beautiful life" is the greatest blessing anyone can really wish for. Many others can only wish for such a blessing - and when things get frustrating emotionally, with my acquaintances, friends, and family - it again puts things in perspective and makes me step back and be grateful, thank God for what I do have, instead of whining and complaining about what I don't.

Now in addition to that, something else to consider - is what is my part in preventing something like this from happening again? I am just one out of 5 billion, I can't stop the death/labor camps in North Korea, the starvation in the world - I am not a powerful politician, what can one small human being do? Well - I can "preach" my own personal philosophy here that a small handful of people might read here, and probably won't agree with - but it comes down to a line from a Jimmy Cliff song "We all are one, we are the same person". People have a tendency to separate into groups of us and them, but from my point of view that is all an illusion - we are all human beings first and foremost, and it is the separation into groups based on skin color, religious preference, sexuality - that is what does us in. Whether you agree with me or not, we all get up, go to the bathroom, want to feel happiness and love in our lives - the similarities far outweigh the differences. Skin color is nothing but varying forms of skin pigmentation, and when you step back and think about it - to use it as a way of distinguishing one from another and judging another as a result - is simply ridiculous and just one of many signs showing how primitive us human beings really are. It reminds me of a Star Trek episode where one race is black on one side of the face and white on the other, while another looks identical, but has the black color on the opposite side of the face, and they passionately fight and hate each other for the trivial difference. Maybe some day we will look back at how stupid this is in the same way we look back at how primitive we were as cave men.

For all of the technological advances of humanity, the fact that mass exterminations based on illusions of difference can take place in some ways shows that we are still stuck in that cave, and in some ways are even more primitive and barbaric than ever. I am one of the few that still believes in evolution, and I don't think evolution and believing in God are mutually exclusive, and whether "God" created the earth in 7 days, or it took millions of years of actual evolving through various species - is kind of a stupid debate - because then you get into how long a "day" really is - and maybe it is meant to be more symbolic than literal. But stepping clear of that debate, that is the only way I can explain why mass exterminations take place. If somehow they can accomplish some sort of eventual evolution in human consciousness, than maybe some good can be seen from them. It seems like there are two directions to go from here, we can either stick with the us and them approach and slowly but surely kill ourselves completely, or we can take the unified approach and co-exist and get along. It seems to me the second makes a lot more sense, but for someone caught up in complete hatred/racism those primitive emotions are so strong.

It is no surprise to anyone who knows me that I am not married to a Jewish person - I am married to a beautiful woman, inside and out - of Hispanic heritage, with some Arabic and Chinese in the mix as well according to her family historians. Now that makes me an outsider in the Jewish community, because I am threatening the Jewish "race" and not allowing us to thrive through pure pro-creation. That may be how some see it, but obviously not how I do. When Victoria was pregnant with Sara, some in my family reacted the same way as if I had just told them - "hey guess what, I just came down with AIDS" - there was that complete awkward silence as if I had done something so horrible that there was nothing one could possibly say in response. One would think as Jews who have had something so horrible happen to us that we of all people would be understanding of persecuted minorities, unite in our differences. Instead, I tend to notice a lot of Jews are stuck in the us and them mentality, turning from victim to persecutor, remaining exclusive - and my own possibly twisted take is - that is not the lesson of the Holocaust. The Holocaust happened for that very reaon - a bunch of people who were suffering through various economic and political circumstances, decided to blame it all on one group of people - the Jews, and in their pursuit to destroy them, they ultimately destroyed themselves. The architect of this plan ended up taking cyanide in a bunker - so what was really accomplished there? In turn, in fighting it out with the Palestinians, what is really being accomplished in Israel - where it is the Jews who are now the ones in power? What have we learned here?

I have nothing against Judaism even though I do not practice it. Any faith one has in whatever form is a beautiful thing - AS LONG AS - one can accept, embrace, and tolerate that another has a different point of view which is just as valid and important to them, as yours is to you. So in my marriage to someone outside of my immediate race and belief system, I not only had to overcome some of my own twisted us vs. them views, but face those in my family and in society. Yesterday at a restaurant, and older couple was giving us the evil eye for being in a mixed marriage. Victoria very politely told them good night as they were leaving, and said something like I hoped we were entertaining you - you were staring at us the entire time, and the woman made up some bullshit to the extent of - oh I look at everyone, I was looking at your beautiful daughter... Again - I am a member of the human race - and the fact that my wife has slightly darker skin than I do - should not mean anything to anyone. If it offends you - I am sorry that you are so limited and primitive, but don't expect me to apologize for YOUR limitations. In marrying into another group, I am not betraying a group of close minded Jewish people or caucasians - but I am living out my own personal beliefs that we are all one race, one person - united, and not divided.

I met a man with a German name and an English accent for my job the other day - I expected one thing after hearing him on the phone, but it turned out to be a very nice elderly black gentleman. I thought I had the wrong person at first. Not all black people sound like rappers from the inner city. The fact that we separate into groups where certain cultures and languages dominate, make it appear that a black person is supppose to sound this way, a Jewish person is supposed to be "cheap", an Italian is supposed to be full of anger - etc. But personally, I think all of the stereotypes - even if they seemingly appear to be true on some level, just reinforce the illusion that we are all separated - and that is something that is a perspective, but only a perspective - and a limited one at that. If you really want to believe out of your own insecruity that you as a white person are better than a person with darker skin color - go ahead and believe that, but all that will do is continue to keep humanity in a state of fear that continues to create all of the divisiveness in the world that exists today.

Veering into direct politics now - what is it with the "war on terrorism" anyways? I do not agree with the mass killings of 9-11 or any type of terrorism, but the war on terrorism seems to me reminiscent of the war on drugs - it is a war that cannot be won, and fighting it in terms of a war with arms, is more of that us vs. them perspective. To me it indicates that we still are living in a state of fear, and not the compassion that was suppose to be part of the government's platform. No - I am not saying we should feel compassion for Osama bin Laden, but for every dollar spent on a bomb, gun, or invading Iraq - how much of that money could be going to feeding the millions/billions starving in the world - living in the desperate conditions of poverty that are feeding grounds for people who have nothing to lose in becoming a suicide bomber to begin with. It seems like the first impulse in the "John Wayne" society we live in is to shoot first and ask questions later, but is that really doing anything? Are we really winning this war? Is it a war that can be won/one? Mabye so - but not in the way we are fighting it - in my view.

Well - about enough that I can think of here for now - my beautiful daughter has just walked into the room, so time to sign off now. After reading this, if it has sunk in on any level, try saying hi to the next person you see - regardless of their difference in skin color, religious belief, or sexual orientation. They are a human being just like you, and loving your neighbor is going to make the world a lot better place for all of us. Over and OUT.

I'm breathing hard... open the door!

This is 21 feet high - and a very light ladder - step by swaying step I climbed to the top today - all by my lonesome - just looking at it is making the palms of my hand sweaty all over again 

Teach your parents well

(from the CNY song)

No - if anyone thinks this post is about me trying to teach my parents anything, think again. The chances of me changing them at this point in life, are about as strong as them changing me - we may both want to change each other, but we are all as stubborn as mules in our family, so the best hope for us is to accept us all as we are.

So this is more about my daughter continuing to teach me every day. There was a famous question in the realm of the Jim Rome show where Rome asked a drug addict famous defensive back, Laurence Taylor - if he was a good father, and he shot back "Am I a good father, are you?" at the time Rome had no kids. LT was a crack addict, fighting his own mess, probably not at all present for his kid(s). So the question is - am I, the author of these posts, a good father? Well - depends on who you ask. My family can look at me and be pretty impressed. If you ask Phil, Vicki, Dan, Edie - they would probably say hell yeah you are a good father. But I have my critics as well. Ultimately nobody really knows the answer who isn't there. So my own grade of myself - right here and now - is I get a B. I am passing, but there is room for improvement.

I can't talk about the present, without a little delving into the past. I am still depression prone, so it does not come easy to me at times. My own father was orphaned early on, so he had no real role models at parenting, and no surprise that he often froze in the line of duty, hiding behind his work and designating the father events to my older brother Phil. I do give him credit for trying as hard as he could, and as I got older and came home from college due to the problems I was having, he kind of grew into the role more and was more available at that time and was very fervent in preaching that I should go back to school, and I must have listened - because I did ultimately do as he said I should. So I in turn, have a tendency to be like him, and freeze and hide in the line of duty. Now as far as my greatest critic goes, I play the role of father with her, as she plays mom with me, and since her own Dad was a violent alcoholic who really was not there for her at all, other than to beat the hell out of her, it is no surprise that the bad associations with him are often transferred onto me. Since I am unconsciously linked to that person, I often get a bad rap, but that perspective is tainted - so I try to sort out the information presented in the criticism from the hostility, since I know ultimately it is not directed at me - the same way I often freak out at the mother association with her. (By the way - thanks to anyone who took the time to read the mystery post, but I am fine - these things come over me and I just have to get through them).

So long story short - I try to do the best I can - REALLY - I do - but I clearly have some limitations of my own. Maybe my daughter will grow up and decide she hates me, but whatever happens - I have tried, and I still try. I freeze at times. I am not usually the first person to arrive to an ouchy or a boo boo during a crying fit. My wife is the dominant parent. Of course I could get out my long list of criticisms of her as well if I chose to, but what goood does that do. I try to be supportive of her as I know it is not easy for either of us. Like my own father, I am somewhat of a work-aholic and I am constantly under pressure, so over times I have had to learn to push away the work to be with my daughter, but it is not something that is easy for me to do.

Sara - the whole idea of her - came to life when Victoria after a very romantic moment early on in our relationship - in the beat up shack I used to live in - looked up at the ceiling with a very lost and dreamy look on her face and said "I want a little girl". Maybe a lot of people would have run at that point, but I knew she was the one for me - so it was a sobering moment for certain, but I at that point on some level knew she was going to be the mother of my child. Once I became aware that Victoria had magically aged 3 years in one day, I knew that moment would have to be sooner than later, so I got to work - and then one day - there she was - the child that Victoria asked for - the "little girl" to be specific.

I am going to fast forward over the begining - the first year was horrible, but rather than dwelling on that, I am going to talk about what Sara means to me now. I love her more than anything. I was just hugging her in the middle of writing this, and there is nothing like hugging your 7 year old daughter the first thing in the morning. She is an amazing child. Like all of us, she has her hang ups and issues, but I think she is a brilliant shining light. Some of the things she says almost seem like they are right out of a Woody Allen movie at times, and I often find myself laughing. She sounds like a little adult on the phone when I call her from my long distance overnight stays. She is very smart, very perceptive, and just a brilliant, beautiful little girl. I know life may not be easy for her at times, but I am very optimistic about who she is and who she is going to be, and whatever she decides to do, she will always have my suppport, our support as parents.

Not long ago I almost pursued a course that would have completely destroyed me - it was an addictive temptation that would have ruined my life in every way, shape, and form - but ultimately Sara was the light that steered me away from that. I knew that if I acted on it, I would be betraying her - and I could not bring myself to do that. When life seems like too much for me at times, and I feel like running away, I know I can't because I know she is counting on me. So thanks to her, I continue to strive to be the best that I can be, and not fall into the traps, addictions, and temptations that have ruined so many lives.

Part of my interaction with her is through music. I sing songs to her that she likes (I'm a believer, the monkey song from Jungle Book) and watch her dance in a frenzied passion that reminds me of how I used to rock out to music as a kid. When we play games, sometimes she shows me certain moves that I never even thought of - like the word scramble game the day. I take her to ballet class and often watch and film her doing her little ballet moves. Like her old man, she can tend toward stumbling at times, but she is still very graceful in her awkwardness. I play baseball with her when the weather is nicer, and she can take it very personally if she does not win - somehow or another she does (I have to balance letting her win some times with not making it look like I am not trying at all). I have gone up and down the slides with her at the park many times. I filmed her singing songs from Freaky Friday the other day, and she looked adorable. I have never heard someone singing out of key sound so good - it makes me cut myself some slack when my own singing voice tends off key at times.

Along with my wife, Sara has given my life meaning and inspiration. The happiest years of my life have been with them, and I am very proud of them both - and feel very fortunate that these two shining spirits are a part of my life. I have much to learn from both of them, and maybe it seems like I am not listening at times, but I really am. At the same time, I cannot beat myself up when I screw up - as I often do - because encouragement works a lot better than beration. I can't always be there, but I try to be. I do have to work, do what I can to keep myself from falling into depression (through my music) and so at times to be there for others, we have to first be there for ourselves. But I must be doing something right - the other day Sara actually for the first time told me she was glad I was picking her up from school (she usually always complains that Mamma is not doing it). So - maybe there is some hope for me after all. There is always something to learn, something to be gained from being a parent, and she is there to teach me just as much as I am hopefully there to be a guide to her as well.

I am like - so above this 

No that isn't Charles Manson next to me