Ongka's Big Moka

The gods must have been crazy to show a bunch of hard-partying, state school kids a movie about a tribe in Papua, New Guinea that selects a new "head honcho" to enrich so that everyone can have a chance to participate in the fun, but that's exactly what happened when a class in Cultural Anthropology tore its way through my crowd. After that, the stoners went wild with late night discussions about society's failings. Why couldn't Americans be, like, more hip? Yeah, right. Why? 

Most of the time, our talks took place in the off-campus living rooms of rich suburban hippies whose parents bought them cars and homes to go back to after school. We'd be eating their mama's carefully shipped food like starving charity cases, when I'd been cooking all my life. Pot makes the crazy kids even nuttier, so I sat on my growing unease with my hands tucked between my knees most of the time, in the freezing old houses we rented for cheap. It never seemed warm enough, no matter how many layers we put on.

But, the idea was interesting. If a group of people agreed to it, could you actually give away all of your stuff to someone else without being a total asshole about it? It seemed doubtful, the way hippie kids tried to outdo each other over things like mixed tapes of live Dead shows, while they argued about who had the best collection. The hippies at school were some of the worst kinds of kids, too: petty, deceitful, spiteful, arrogant, defensive, condescending, overly competitive, and cheap. They wouldn't give anyone a loose joint for free, let alone the whole dime bag. These kids were gonna grow up to save the world? It's 2017, and guess what? I'm still waiting on that.

Raging (Against The Machine)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting#

The American political system is one of the most complex in the world, because that's exactly the way it was designed to be, to prevent tampering and corruption. Given the heightened emotional climate surrounding our political process, it's no wonder that outside observers around the world feel it is a rigged game, like my Eastern European friends at the local barber shop who emigrated from countries with gross human rights violations and completely fixed elections.

Their former governments have trained them not to have a say in politics, because if they do, riots and bloody wars will break out, bringing years of crippling economic insecurity and societal unrest for what could be many decades. They've been tricked into apathy and indifference by believing that nothing they say or do matters, therefore why should they bother voting or speaking up to make a difference, if it only brings you and your family more pain? It absolves them from feeling responsible or guilty about their government, which is the exact opposite of freedom, like their casually superficial cynicism that goes nowhere and does nothing to solve our human problems.

For example (like I told my Russian-American hairdresser, Katy), most people around the world don't realize that our constitution reads "We, the people..." because there is no "us" or "them" in the United States. We are our system of representation. Over 1.5 million (MILLION) people work in Washington D.C., for all sorts of national departments and federal agencies within our government (not including state and local levels), with key positions avidly sought (and campaigned for) that often begin with the relatively simple process of collecting signatures door-to-door. That's right. You read that correctly.

We teach government from the earliest grades in our educational school systems. Katy and I also discussed that in the barbershop, because she attended design school in Russia and is fluent in English, which makes her atypical from many newly-arrived immigrants, like my great-grandparents from Italy who were poor farmers. She complained about the easy questions on the American citizenship test designed for your tired, hungry, and poor "masses yearning to be free" (as written on the Statue of Liberty) who are learning a new language; not just hip, well-educated designers with an active part in their destinies.

Peaceful, non-violent elections every four years are the foundations of our freedoms. That's shocking, isn't it? No coups, no fratricides, and there's no rioting in the streets. Were it the same for sporting events! Just the sweet hard work that is our freedom. It isn't perfect, problem-free, or dispassionate, but it is exactly what the rest of the struggling world wants. You just have to work at it every day, like we do. Throwing away your vote is one of the biggest symptoms that something is very wrong with you and your life, to care so little about your future and your fate. Or maybe you're just not American enough to participate? THEN, VOTE.

Banned!

It's probably no secret to you, my steadfast readers, that I face difficulties wherever I go, and that I consider it a frequent and unfortunate part of my life. I was "banned" from the local library recently for my astute and well-targeted observations about their deliberate misuse of the space and intentional misallocations of public funds (as well as our public trust), but more on that later.

Suffice to say, it is a matter requiring deeper investigating, and happily, my network is solid enough to overcome most of the societal obstacles we encounter, either as individuals or together as a group. Since I still consider myself rather new to the "Fame Game", I lacked the publicity-driven foresight to have a photo op with our visiting "men in blue", though I did express to them my relative delight about being in similar circumstances to another famous female New Yorker, albeit without the bleary-eyed mug shots, telltale orange jumpsuit, occasional acting career, and several raging brain disorders openly manifested. Maybe next time.

I have something far greater, so much so that it can be see as either extremely threatening or benevolently fortuitous, and it pays to know the difference betwen the two. I have real power, and I have all of you. That's the strength of my position, because with it, we can move mountains. Within a day, I bought a Wi-Fi enabled tablet with a keyboard for $65 at my grocery store, with my good neighbor's permission to piggyback off his Internet access, so I can now write to you from home. It speaks of my dedication to you, and that the opposition is afraid of us. Good! We can't lose, because....guess what? We've already won.

Heist

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash_machine

My ex-friend Dave (and a big "Fuck you!" to you today!) robbed the ATM of the bank he worked near his hometown in his own fucking car, under the camera he knew was installed, because his mom got him the job, and she also worked there as a manager. It was something so fucking stupid, I just had to laugh when he told me what he did, because it's such a Polish-Indian thing to do. Not familiar with that particular brand of local flavor? Okay, check this out: his parents took him to Polkas (http://www.huntermtn.com/summer/festivals/) and Powwows (http://www.crazycrow.com/New-York-Powwow.php) at Hunter Mountain. Uh, yeah....it could be that far apart in realities at times, which is fine if you're cool, open, smart, or even somewhat marginally curious intellectually-speaking, and Dave is none of those.

He's fun, and he used to be incredibly handsome, but on his worst days, he becomes a drunker, angrier version of Seinfeld's "Putty" character, only without the acting chops, strength, height, or athleticism. In other words, making fun of him only went so far at blocking out his insane static so we could all have a good time. It took an entire tribe of our homegrown Oneontans to make Dave feel whole, and in their absence, a vacuum formed inside of him that was almost bottomless in need. He was a dangerous mad dog off his meds, and he refused to go to a doctor to simply start the first step of admitting that he needed the white man's medicine, even after several convictions, but I already knew that.

What I didn't know how to do was cure my strange Indo-European friend because, back then, I didn't have the science at my elbow to give him that adequately explained the lack of a digestible enzyme for alcohol present in most Native Americans, not that he would have understood it anyway, because he's also seriously learning-impaired. When we lived together in Brooklyn, I had to hold his hand to go see a regular ole psycho-analyst, which is the neurotic New Yorker's version of taking a few baby aspirin, given the intensity of our lifestyles here. Lesser people go under very quickly.

But, when he plateaued health-wise, he could remain stable for a few years, and I knew that, too. Given the hysteria surrounding our parents' generation of mentally abusive marriages, the fact that I was actually marrying a good friend of mine from college (albeit a party friend, and not an actual classroom-attending one) gave me better odds of "making it" in a relationship than their disastrously disassociated version of reality. Doubt me? Watch any episode of "Mad Men", and you're right there in it with them. I felt a pit in my stomach after each show, which was confirmed by my mother as being authentic in tone and emotionalism for the time period of the series.

And so, as Dave spiraled downward in my native city, (he was so stressed out, he developed a painful rash of Shingles around his mid-section, a disease only older people typically get), that I knew I had to relocate him. His sister Shelley had enjoyed Colorado, and I loved New Mexico when my family and I went skiing in Angel Fire, so we zeroed in on that area of the country as ripe for the next construction boom he could immediately profit from, and it panned out exactly the way we planned it. He got a job right away as a construction grunt learning his chops in the business, while I answered ads placed for creatives. His people (and some of mine) hated my fallow time period of looking for full-time work (which is insanely hard to do), because back then, six months was considered a "long time" to be out of work, charming as that seems now to us as Americans.

They tried to pressure me into becoming a waitress like their drop-out kids (haha!), which was laughable, but I could take their peer pressure standing on my head. Next came their increasing insistence that I have a baby for them because his sister never wanted to have kids, also a joke to a fertile woman like me still in her 20s. Uh, why?! I can work for 20 more years, which is exactly what I did. When I finally got a "rock star" job as a freelance designer for The Denver Art Museum, with my illustrations lining the entrance of Denver's International Airport and hanging from the building's very facade, they backed right the fuck off. Average people are blown away or stunned by any kind of real success or celebrity, especially if there's an article in print, so it bought me the time I needed to establish myself in a totally new market, which also worked exactly as I planned it to be.

I knew book design work was scarce out west, even though I agreed to our adventure on the strength of securing an interview ahead of time in Boulder. I went there (after a brief bout of altitude sickness), but was extremely disheartened by what I saw. The job was a couple of hippie chicks printing some mags and the occasional book on brewing beer in your bathtub. Oh....uh, no. Hell, no. We also found the real estate market destroyed by the wealthy college students who artificially jacked-up the prices in the housing market for even a dilapidated shack, so we left Boulder for the more-inclusive town of Denver, and we were right to do so. It was a much better fit for us, as urbanites and New Yorkers, even mimicking the historical charm of Park Slope in some parts, with big historic Victorian homes with lots of personality.

We set up household to begin our lives there, but not before I made Dave tell everyone around us the entire truth. For real, though. I had most definitely not forced Dave to rob his mother's bank for me, for something as average as a spontaneous road trip to my college town in Rhode Island, because as a RISD-oid working three part-time jobs with a full studio schedule of classes to fill (I'd completed my Liberal Arts studies at Oneonta, and my dad was riding my hump about money like he always does), I barely had time to maintain my hard-fought for equilibrium as it was, let alone randomly urge "Mad Dog" Dave to use his own car to take out money from the ATM of his mom's bank. Know that I'm sayin'? Look at me and my work. 'Nuff said. I was kind of busy back then.

He used me as an excuse because he knew he fucked up so bad that it outed him as a retard with our old crew, so he thought he could put the rap on me partially (thanks for that, BTW) for a little while after he left town in a panic. In truth, Dave missed the college lifestyle and his group of friends, which I totally understood. Even my supposed "friends" at RISD wanted to knife me in the back to eat me whole while roasting me over an open fire on some days, and these were supposedly gentle-hippie vegetarians. This was before the word "vegan" was invented, but douche-y for me, not before "lacto-ovum" and "macrobiotic", which are anorexics masking their eating disorders behind feel-good "save the whales" movements = total shite.

But whatever. At least with Dave, we could go to Club Babyhead (http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/deftones/1996/club-babyhead-providence-ri-73d866f5.html) and freak out to some ska or punk music. He was always down for that. We had a great time platonically, because I'd stopped dating by the time of his visit, even with Bart's insane "open door" policy of rotating characters. It was too much work, and those fucked-up rich white kids are sick weirdos, man. Dave was at least an Indo-European Catholic schoolboy from upstate New York, and that was a fuck lot more in common than anyone around me for many many miles, know what I mean? It's sort of like making it out of the 'hood as "baller" only to find weirder, more insane strippers at the top than those kinda nice kids from yo block who danced at the local club. Feel me?

Dave was like that for me. He understood some of the real shit I could never explain to an "Ivy Leaguer" on any given day, and at that point in my career, that's exactly what I needed: not his illnesses, or his disorders, nor his utter lack of a decent education that wasn't from a lack of trying. I just needed a real, down-home, New York boy without all the fuckin' crazy bullshit, 'cause I can bring the heat and flash on my own, just like I always been doin'. I needed someone who was "down" in our sense of the word, white man. Not yours. Never yours. Thanks, Indian! You're one crazy n*##a (especially on a full moon;) and I liked that about you, bro. You just ain't my husband tho', but we'll always be "tribe". It's time to bury the hatchet. Stay wild, man!


Click on the link, print out the info on the site, and take it to your doctor, Red:
 http://anthro.palomar.edu/adapt/adapt_5.htm

Neck

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Taboo_Tattoos

I met Jimmy at a bar down on Stone Street with the company receptionist from the small Jewish family business I worked for, during my last long-term office job. She was busy burning through the new people, places, and things that she could at this McDojo we signed with, which gave me the relative peace of having a training experience of my very own, without parenting her through it. She remains one of the most disturbed women I've ever met through other people's companies, following a typical pattern of hiring that's based on the myth that other mentally ill/disabled people make the odd family members stick out less, which never really works. Who builds businesses based on the backs of a bunch of sick people? Not really good ones, like the workflows I design as I was taught, through an impressive list of industry mentors.

So, chaining their rabid Israeli girl with the weird yellow hair to a front desk, watching her explode into deranged fireworks day after day, really didn't mean much to me. Who cares? I had the actual business of books to work on with my contacts and clients. I was an almost totally self-sufficient business within a business, which the best creative contractors can pull off in their sleep, under the false duress of other people's manias. I kept a strict schedule that would automatically cut out anyone who couldn't hack it, which meant most of their resident amateur weirdos ran out of the door in horror of our actual labors, and they were forced to hire real publishing executives with genuine credentials from big league New York publishing, like me.

Their fried dyed mess of a doggie was honing in on me gradually though, because she could feel me pull away as easily as if she was just another generically fucked-up Long Islander, and she was that. Most of her work friends were gone, like her supposed "best friend" who was fired and then group-texted a bunch of us while we were working that she might just off herself, which sent her high school buddy running back to see me. "Oh, Becky always does that." Huh...not in my world. What gives? I trained her not to interrupt my day with her trivial madness, seeing as we all drew a paycheck from my continued successful contact at Barnes & Noble, the largest book retailer in the country. No me + no work = no money. Even she could figure that out with her more corrupt cronies at the office who preferred email hacking over the small in-house network to actually working. Ew!

Spying on me occupied their free time, and even in that strange game, I had them hooked through my online comments on well-known media sites that caused a ruckus throughout the place. Haha! I LOVE corporate espionage! It's fun! After that, she had to step up her game at infiltrating my life with an ever more aggressive and open series of mind games that don't work on genius talents who create paychecks for them through their book sales. Sorryy....She awkwardly asked me to sign up for karate lessons at a cheap intro price one afternoon while I walked past the front desk, after I created another successful distance she could practically taste in her mouth, because she knew I quit smoking through their email readings and my Internet surfing; I was actively looking online for fitness programs, like fencing with an epee or foil (http://fencersclub.org/). Yuck!

Her brother was actively engaged in martial arts training, which cinched the deal for her as a coward. She couldn't walk down the block unless she was looped off secretive hits taken in the company bathroom from a big blue bottle of mouthwash. After an initial observation session with one of their instructors (I won that assessment, too, BTW. I know, I know...sigh...again), we signed up for the program and it was going great. She soon learned that I didn't need athletics to tame a raging case of violent bipolar addictive disorder with markedly psychotic features like she did, so she picked up on a lonely fat girl desperate for a friendly face in our aggressive fight training classes. She began sweeping into class at the last minute to avoid talking to me on the mat, and then developed a ridiculous crush on a kid who was 19 and a brown belt instructor at the time.

Once again, I had no problem backing away from her, which once again backfired on her evil machinations, because the good-looking Puerto Rican kid from Spanish Harlem promptly announced his crush on "women in their 30s" made loudly in front of the both of us that drove her mad with envy, though Lord knows why, except she also has OCD. She used me as a lure to attract him into conversation that failed miserably, because she had absolutely nothing to say. Frothing at the mouth in anger, she told me to stay away from him as she tried her hand at 21st Century "cougaring", a sport she was bested at by a better-looking Spanish girl with a design degree and a great job with a famous cosmetics manufacturer doing package design for major retailers. Ohhh...that must have hurt badly!

As she went down in flames, her very last draw for a high-status female friendship were post-workout drinks with me, just like the after-work soirees she first invited me to without much success either, because crazy bitch games don't mean shit to me. And that's when I met Jimmy, a short good-looking Irish-American kid from Brooklyn working FDNY/limo driving. As soon as I bit into one of my first hot wings at the bar, I could sense him working a circuit around the joint, circling the place, looking for attractive pickings, and as soon as I looked up from my hot wing, he looked right at me. Ooops. Uh, this should go over badly. I quickly told her discreetly that he was coming over to hit on me, as a warning to her fragile ego. She immediately perked up during his harmless flirtations, doing a bunch of weird moves that baffled him, until he and I finally turned to each other for a real honest talk, the kind that only genuine New York city kids have with one another.

We knew the same Brooklyn neighborhoods, and sweet guy that he was, it was more than enough. He was like a lot of guys I grew up with, and he knew that. No harm, no foul. She made a quick plan to leave me alone with him as part of her punishment to me for turning away from her while she talked with his less-attractive friend, but as one co-worker had already observed in his email to me (hi Scooter!), my genetic attractions weren't my fault, nor his. She left me alone to whatever the fates had in store for me, which in this case meant hand-holding back to his parked SUV, and a nice drop-off at my Park Slope townhome with my little bag of drugstore products (like organic panti-liners) left in his truck by accident.

We made tentative plans for his returning them to me one evening after my work was done, ringing him on my cellphone from the Chelsea corner near my office, but it didn't work out. He was already out on a fare that wasn't near my subway stop in Manhattan. Oh, well. That was fine by me: the lad was far too young for me and besides, he'd never been to the real country of Ireland, just the commercial one he designed in his head that made for easy marketing in New York City, as part of the local color. Besides, as a master artist, taste means a lot to me and his quickly-rendered shamrock tat left much to be desired, as did it's placement in the middle of the back of his neck that he showed to me after shots. No thanks, mate. Sláinte to ya for the safe ride home, though. You were a sweet kid to me that night. Ta!

Leprechauns

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leprechaun:_Origins

Sometimes the line between reality and legend can become a bit blurry, especially if you live in a Celtic kind of town that can seem exactly like the Irish villages overseas from whence we came. Nua Nua*, indeed! Much like family anywhere, we share a lot of the same personality traits, too, which is fun and confusing. Did I meet you already? I'm sure of it. You look so familiar....do you have a "doppelgänger**"? Homelands are fun, as we reconnect through the ages, making new links and strengthening those old tribal bonds that cannot be broken, no matter how thick the mists off the moor, or the fog bank rolling in from the Hudson may be. It's where the heart is.

My family often talks over one another or finishes each other's sentences, to either comic or irritating effect, depending on the context. The new version of the old game show "Family Feud" tells a similar tale told in real time, as first one sibling and then the next answers questions during the lightning round at the end of the show, hence the repeat answers that are acknowledged with more time given for the second round. It's funny and nerve-wracking to watch.

The same is true with my friends, family, neighbors, and acquaintances here in town. We live oddly connected lives, whether it's through shared blood or associations of other kinds. I've made lots of new friends here, who always seem to be joined to me genetically, too, and it makes me feel the comforts of home all over again, so I thank you for that. As we enjoy re-connecting with one another here in real ways that feel right, we also share a symmetry that's aligned through the commonality of our thinking styles, habits, and tastes.

My neighbor is like that. He's Italian and Irish-American like my mom's side of the family, a link that can be easily seen and felt with the ease of our conversation, especially about food and family values, meaning he likes to eat a lot, and so do I. We've talked about diet, healthcare, fitness, nutrition, weight loss (or gain), and his part-time work as a coin collector for vending machines. He's got two jobs actually (the second is at the high school), because he has a college-age son to provide for, and another boy in the Navy. G-d Bless! We crossed paths at the local laundromat early in my new tenancy, owned by his friend who looks like he stepped right off a boat anchored in the harbor to come ashore in this century, lured by the promise of streets that are rumored to be paved with gold, which means he and Mikey are leprechauns.

Seriously. When my brothers were little, they loved the clinking of coins, the way babies like the tinkling of keys. They're the first toys kids play with, because most fathers carry one or the other in their pockets. They had those coin-collecting booklets from the post office, and all of us had piggy banks for our spare change, because in our households every penny counts, and you never know when just one penny will make a difference someday. It's good to be thrifty! Besides home economy, we learned to identity different types of coins by looking at their states and creation dates updated at the U.S. Mint.

My brothers went on to other serious nerd passions like stamps, comic books, baseball cards, and movie memorabilia, which my oldest brother presumed to be the very first fortune he would cash in, as the money he needed for his Ivy League school. Even though we didn't like his arrogance about his IQ level, he wasn't wrong. He really did go to a highly desired Ivy League school for his prestigious MBA. Way to represent New York! I was so proud at his graduation, staying in the old stone, ivy-covered dorms that give our best schools their nickname.

But, my oldest brother was depending on something else besides chance by investing in his skills (which naturally pays off for him), and bad luck was what got his precious collection. Faulty wiring or a rogue squirrel ignited a boiler fire near his basement room at my mother's house in New City, which then traveled upstairs to my middle brother's room, guaranteeing that their collectibles would definitely be lost to either smoke damage or the burning fire. They used to share a room when they were small, before the oldest got a room built downstairs for his teenage years that used to be part of our split ranch's two-car garage, so their joint collections were in both rooms that were hit. Luckily, no one was home at the time.

And that's what my new friends here in town remind me of: sweet hometown boys who still like the cheerful sound of change clinking in machines that indicate there's a profit to be had by their labors. I find it charming, adorable, and sweet that they've made a successful business out of a laundromat and the machines that serve us, and that they get along really well, too, just like family, because real families always look out for one another. Always, my dears. Always.

http://lucky-charms.wikia.com/wiki/Cereals

*   https://www.bible.com/versions/884-oc1970-cuinn-tiomna-nua-1970 
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doppelg%C3%A4nger

Share the Project

http://www.arcofrockland.org/

Do you remember that homework assignment from your elementary school days called "Show and Tell"? You chose an object from home, brought it to class, and then you got up in front of the entire class and your teacher to deliver an impromptu speech about it. For most of us, it was our first real experience with speaking in front of a crowd, and a nerve-wracking one at that. What to choose? What to say?! You spent your free time thinking about it, and then on the day of your speech, you second-guessed yourself all the way to the front of the classroom by fretting over each minute that passed by on the classroom's big clock, while another classmate did the talking. It actually does a lot of important tasks for human brains, organs that operate at their peak efficiency through utilizing all the advanced arts that are necessary for human communication.

It was the same thing for me in college. I took "Public Speaking" because it was required for all S.U.N.Y. school attendees, and then I "graduated" on to much harder skill sets, like talking about the projects I made all by myself at the world's premier art and design school. Bullshitting people you don't really care about for a good grade is an easy trick for most of us to pull off, but to be emotionally invested from your labors enough that you actually care about what you've made, and you want it to be well-received unanimously, is par excellence. A lot of people with some technical abilities do enough that passes off as skills people pay for, but a lot of the time, it's work we don't want to do ourselves because it's boring or dirty.

That's where we pick it up: you at the end of your rope, because you fear getting your hands really dirty, or because you're afraid of the risk that comes with those of us who are brave enough to fail in public without even trying. It means you're strong enough to survive a loss(es), so much so, you can visibly pick yourself up from the floor in front of a huge crowd, dust yourself off, heal, learn from your experience, and then get pissed off enough to do it better than next time. Some of us even publish the results. My father always told me that failure is essential to success, because it's true. If you win every single time you try something, then you aren't trying hard enough. Really brave warriors go out on a limb that can break at any time because that's where the sweetest, rarest fruit always is. So what if you fall down? Who hasn't?!

People afraid to fail in front of others are easily controlled through their visible fears. They're those athletes who illegally dose to have a secret edge over their opponents because deep down (or not so deep), they know they aren't good enough to succeed without rigging the contest to their advantage. They're the type of scumbag managers in your daily business who use access to your computer over a secure network to block or track your every move every chance they get, because they know they aren't good enough to be in your position of importance at a company. They're cowards, and cowardly people lie, cheat, and steal all the fucking time because they know they'd suck without you, their high performing muthfucka, to pick up their slack, and there's a lot of that to be had in this world.

I don't trust people who haven't been banged up enough by life because they're too afraid to live it. If you don't have war stories about your epic adventures (with some cool scars to show for your hard work), then you haven't lived enough, because you're too busy sitting on your fat ass peeking out from between lace curtains, like a punk ass bitch in your lazy cushy suburban home, passing judgement on those of us who love life enough to take risks, by taking a fall or two on our asses out in public. Ain't nuthin' but a thang to me, yo. In fact, in my chosen sport of MMA, we don't have "perfect" records (none of us do, really. Not one single athlete), because it isn't a fixed game like some of the shadier sports. There's no such thing as a "perfect" win in our world, because Samurai's accept that they are, like life, imperfect.

It can be jarring for fans of other sports that play dirty through drug use openly ignored, and/or with the assistance of funding from illicit gansta money to front their operation. Whachoo mean he lost? Whaaa....?! They can't even comprehend, because they've learned through a twisted game to expect a fake impression of perfection that's not real because it's a cheat. Some sports are choreographed for a narrative outcome like pro wrestling is, with it's funny over-acting and hammy role-playing, but make no mistake about it: when Brock Lesnar fought in the MMA, he fought a real fucking sport with skill sets so profound, it blows the minds of people who try it. There are just too many mathematical outcomes to predict statistically, and so our sport reflects the genius mentality of people who understand concepts like "hard" and "difficult to achieve" really well, because it's the life they live everyday: a tough game with the odds stacked so much against you, you can't help but draw on a crowd of admiring supporters.

And so it is with my charitable endeavors and active daily service to y'all. I do it because I love it, and I trained for it because I'm the best at it. But there are tons of fuck-ups. I don't have the money to operate a closed system of my own, so I "copy and paste" shit on some old fuckin' computer at the library, because it sucks too much to interact with my better (and older) plug-and-play Mac technology. I call them "Work-Arounds" that are essential to any "real world" type of living: those life situations that reflect the poorer thinking of the people around you who are too blind or dumb (or both) to put real money where it actually belongs. And so you see broken links with dead video uploads and missing photos (stuff I could never do for you at your rich white man's company without aggressive public censure in meetings or firing), because I'm operating under war-like conditions that accurately reflect the angst that I write to you about almost daily, on absolutely no budget whatsoever, because that's what the sick people around me choose in their deluded fantasies: a deliberately purposeful impoverishment that's my accurate lifelong reality.

I tell you this today, in this season of gratitude and thanks, because I don't ever want you to get it twisted with me, and because I care enough to commit my ideas and passion to you on this century's version of "paper" that is semi-permanent in this new digital age. This is my version of "Show and Tell" for you, because I care enough to humble myself by sharing broken work that is still better than any rich white muthfucka's gamed version that's aided and assisted by a thousand other people in support to just him and his goals (usually staffed with lots cheap women and other minority folk), who prop him up look like "Mr. Big Stuff", because he doesn't have the talent or the heart to fail publicly like I do. I want you to be clear about that moving forward, as we go forward on this enterprise that you support with your time and attention.

http://rocklandsample.org/

So, when you come across some joke of a "celebrity" who's puffed up with artificially padded social media accounts that are bought and paid for by advertisers and promoters (unlike yours, maybe), I don't want you to have any doubts about who they fuck they are, or how they got there. They're usually pumped up way beyond their actual skill sets, because most of them don't hold up to scrutiny up close and personal like I do, makeup-free on the daily and going on age 46, baby. That means no weirdo surgeries, no hidden cosmetic procedures behind closed doors, no airbrushing beyond all expectations tied to reality, no surreal overly moneyed shit to throw you off your game by bankrupting your pocketbook in service to someone else. I AM the real deal. Are you tho'? And why not, miss?

Because in my world, part of our "bragging rights" goes towards proud, prominently displayed post-fight photos that show you how we are never really injury-free from this life we battle through daily, smiling back at you through temporarily banged-up faces that show our hard-won war wounds, just like the bad-ass muthfuckas you know we are. I don't want you to be thrown by these supposed low numbers you think you see online, just like the too big ones represented by the false premise that some fat-ass porn star has got it all over you, because you care about teachin' yo kids right from wrong on the cheap, like my new friend Jeanne Newman does. Who the fuck are you compared to her, a woman who has devoted her entire life to public service through teaching and annual Thanksgiving dinners for her people? Just who the fuck are you, anyway? Because you ain't nuthin' to me.

You best be believin' that, because that's what time it is: only 350 followers on your page, or that many likes on your charitable site, or a paltry show of "thumbs-up" on your giving photo today? Oh hell, no. What the fuck is that, anyway?! Gone, baby. It's gone, gone, gone that-a-way. You are what's "it" to me. That's what's up. Same thing for my man Barnaby and his service to our beloved ARC friends, here in town (Hey, there Kevin! Mommy says "hi" and gives you big warm hugs all the time:), now takin' his act on the road to Massachusetts, armed with one of my lil' black stickers for prove positive of our unification. You know I do that, too! You think these people are unknown to me? Fuck y'all, then. You're a rock star to me in my world, baby. Don't think this false "divide-and-conquer" shit where you have to sweat it out alone on an isolated pocket is unknown to me as a strategy to keep you down. 

They're that afraid of us, my friends, because we are that strong and that good. Believe it. Believe in me. Believe. We've just grown out-of-bounds by one more person today, my friends. Yeah! That's it! We've grown by one, and now my wolf-pack is more full for it. Haha!

http://sharetheproject.org/20-2/

This one's for you today, Ms. Jeanne Newman! 

Thanks for all that you do daily. We see you!

https://www.facebook.com/sharetheproject/timeline

Columbine

Around the world and on my shelf: people in books and photographs.

I lived in Littleton, Colorado during the Columbine Massacres, and even worse than the media orgy that followed, was the timing of my very New York mothers' visit out west. Uh oh... she and I were eating at a local restaurant, when she noticed in horror that she was wearing a dark raincoat eerily similar to the teenage killers "Trenchcoat Mafia" look (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Harris_and_Dylan_Klebold). 

It was an unfortunate synergy to the events of the day, not least of which was the almost ecstatic release of pent-up psychological energy loosened upon the area, a public hysteria that stood out sharply to the mostly sullen reticence of the prairie people I met native to the land, and therein lies the problem: affluent white people are often really fucked up. Rich white kids terrified me in the Ivy Leagues and Ivory Towers of school and work, a feeling that did not abate with exposure to more of them existing in isolated pockets around America. Needless, my mom told me I should leave Colorado and move back home, which she reminded me about almost every time we talked on the phone, and we both agreed: "There's something wrong with the people out there." She was right. We saw it in the people around us.

 In Colorado, there are two types of humans: whites and Mexicans. Some adopted Asian orphans are thrown in for diversity''s sake, but when I lived there, being from New York was considered so exotic, my fellow New Yorkers traded in their actual personas for an easier "Seinfeld" version of themselves to show locals over their truer colors, because native Coloradans just didn't understand them. There wasn't enough inside of them for us talk to, which is horrible if you are indeed the parent of a fucked up white kid. Who talks? Exactly. No one does. 

As the story unfolded, supposed new "details" emerged, none of which were particularly new or interesting to me: the killers had schemed and plotted their violent psychotic episodes right underneath their parent's noses, because the mom and dad were too busy with their petty careers to learn more about them. Teenage years are the prime check-out time for the dysfunctional parents who spawned their little messes, because high school age adolescents need less time and care, which is exactly what they got from their parents: nothing. Sure, both boys had enough money from their parents to stockpile a lot of weapons (same as the fucked up rich kid in Cali, with a plush movie-producing dad to go along with his intimate knowledge of video and youtube), and they lived in houses so big, there were plenty of spots to hide anything they wanted to, which is exactly what they did. Expertly.

Not teach, not learn, not grow, not function, and ultimately, not live. Just die. It was the same "here we go again" feeling I had early this morning on a rare coffee run to the corner because I was out of milk. The t.v. was on in the convenient store, showcasing fat white lady after fat white lady, crying about the cycles of dementia and abuse they remain trapped in (redundant to me already at this age), because their bodies tell me everything I know to be true about them with one quick glance, without me ever having to hear it from someone like them again: they're sick, and so are their kids. Again. 

What's next? First: drop the gun, asshole. Speak up about that sick kid in your class, or at your job, or sitting next to you pretending to work at a public library's computer so he can stalk you while smelling badly, openly and without censure from people who see me daily, in my own community. Tell someone, tell anyone, and keep on telling the truth about that sick motherfucker sitting next to you every single day, until someone around you does something about it. Speak up!

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/10/mass-shootings-increasing-harvard-research

You're almost home, human. Join me: http://bit.ly/1j5tc6Y

Hecho en Mexico

Ever since the beginning of Donald Trump's campaign, the media has made much out of his Mexican immigration comments, like he exposed his genitals on live t.v., or something horrible like that. You may not like that he's blowing the lid off of your illegal $9/hour worker scam (because your basic business model sucks), but you have to see it from a native New Yorker's point of view. The nanny who raises your kid for you, so you can commute to some dull generic job, has no real stake in your child's future, because you can't even feel enough compassion to pay her health benefits, while she stuffs money in her bra on the sly to send to her poor extended family back home.

We have a wonderful recycling program in the city and state of New York, one that has created a false Banana Republic economy out of picking through our trash. The afflicted and addicted on my block are so bad about lifting bottle and can deposits from the county's recycling containers, that I have to use a separate indoor garbage can for just those types of returns, because I don't want some violent fucking drunk using the money from my garbage as an excuse to continue drinking. That's not what reusing our natural resources is about. 

Ditto with that tiny little lady pushing a shopping cart, stringing five kids along with her. Sure, she looks small and vulnerable, and you feel sorry for her, but do you really think "The American Dream" for her and her family should be taking our trash as a full-time job? Her children will never see us as equals, or treat us like friends, family, and neighbors. They see "white people" as money, which is laughable, since I see her as a desperate single mother of EUROPEAN descent that's Spanish-flavored, which definitely does not make her a minority. The numbers don't add up to her sense of self about stealing from our garbage.

The media is just as bad at holding up this phony sense of self, to make money off of us, because it's blatantly untrue that Hispanic Americans are some small poor underclass. One t.v channel did this whole piece on some music teacher in Paraguay who uses garbage to fashion instruments for his students because THE PEOPLE OF PARAGUAY decided that it's appropriate for their own people to live in filth. Did we do that to them?! And you know what they want, more than anything in this world? To leave their country ASAP for America. That's right, they want to come here instead of cleaning up the trash in their own community, because apparently they're too good to do what you and I do on any given day. So, I guess it's OK to come here illegally and riffle through our trash than pick up your own garbage? Does that make any sense to you?

The people in these shadowy underground networks adopt the same arrogant attitude as some stateside Chinese: they disdain learning English to favor their own language (something my grandparents didn't have the luxury to do, because they had to work in the city as minors to feed their families during The Great Depression), nor do they pay taxes, or take their children to our schools, just so they can feed off of our cast-off bits and pieces, without ever giving back to the very system that gives them life. They do not fund our hospitals, or vote in our elections, or work in our businesses, all because you want a cheeseburger for $5, a five dollars that will never be adjusted to current inflation rates, because you can't deal without your creature comforts.

Since I've been back in Rockland County and openly encamped in town, not once has that cute little Hispanic lady with five kids—the one who canvasses the block every week during recycling day with her shopping cart piled far above the rim with can returns—ever waved at me, or said "hello" to me, or acknowledged my existence in any way, shape, or form, because to her, I am nothing but a dollar sign. I am not human to her and her family. I am nothing but money to her.

The Mexican Wedding Dress: my mom bought it on a family trip to Cozumel many years ago and never wore it once, so she gave it to me. I love it!

Say Something

9/11 brought many changes to the New York lifestyle, chief among them being an awareness about security and our vulnerabilities. 
It seems laughable now that we had such open systems, but in the quest for freedom, we sometimes skew towards the lax instead of what is actually reasonable. The first popularization of what has become the country's motto began in the subways of our fair Gotham, with one very powerful slogan that deeply reflects our inherent honesty as a culture, with this sentiment: If you see something, say something. (https://www.dhs.gov/see-something-say-something)

I tried it out for myself one Sunday afternoon, traveling by train from Rockland County through Secaucus Junction in New Jersey, on my way back to Park Slope in Brooklyn, after visiting my mom over the weekend. An average, middle-aged white woman left behind a medium-sized bag on the rack above the seats; something that's typically expected from a city tourist, but not the commuting locals. 

I immediately noticed it, and said something to the very next ticket agent I saw coming down the aisle. The woman in question happened to be an off-the-clock transit worker who left her belongings behind, but that didn't deter me at all from doing the right thing. You shouldn't be swayed by some slight (and temporary) discomfort, either: http://web.mta.info/mta/security/.

We built this society as free people, and it is up to us to maintain it properly. I submit to you as an example that of my upstate people, who relish this current opportunity to partner up with law enforcement, so that we may catch our criminals who escaped (with inside help, of course) from our state prison, as they head(ed) north to another country. It is not our way to leave problem-solving to our neighbors, because we patrol what we love. 

One more to go! Keep up the great work. Be safe, follow the law, respect our officers in times of crisis, and always defer to the trained authorities who work extremely hard to track our society's convicted murderers: http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/26/us/new-york-prison-break/. You're doing a phenomenal job.

 

1-888-NYC-SAFE

The Spider's Web

Small town life is different than the city. "Gotham" is all about money and the "go, go, go" energy of our sometimes misspent youth. It's easy to get caught up in the exciting merry-go-round of "new, NOW, Next!", but for every time there's a season and a reason. Circumstances led me back here, and I am not sorry for it. Rockland is easy for me to manage. I know it because I feel it, and the kids I grew up with now run stuff, too. 

We can get anywhere we need to be very quickly, to put out those fires and chase away "the baddies". This area has become the perfect microcosm for us to patrol, manage, problem-solve, and ultimately, rule over. If we do it right here (at this scale and this level), we can expand it into a growing sphere that enfolds the larger world, which is the exact type of change we talked about growing up. It's become an organic thing that ripples out whenever we want it to, because we grew it, nursed it, and brought it back to health. WE ARE ALIVE.

It's also a lot easier to catch flies in a spider's web than it is to fly around the world setting up snares, which is something me and my crew learned early on, in our individual lives that we talked about together, because we'd be bankrupt twenty times over if we followed along with everything that seriously dead-ended any kook coming before us. 

And so this visual metaphor about a team of spiders weaving perfectly overlapping triangles has become the mental landscape me and my friends created, using what we had at hand: a tightly interwoven network that is flexible, tensile, adaptable, extremely strong, and unbreakable. We will move forward, and you're all coming along for the ride. Strap yourself in!

Don't be fooled by an empty-looking country road in a valley that's filled with the swirling mists from one very dangerous river; it ain't what it seems to be. You can trust me on that, because your bank just went out of business forever. Today (and every other day) we take back the land, for it is ours. This is just the beginning. Join us. 

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10206227577064507&set=gm.1685789014982523&type=1&theater

Stop, Anellotech.

http://www.freshair.org/

Today as I sit at the local library on a public-access computer, the front doors are open to catch some of the cool afternoon breezes, to the sounds of schoolchildren having an outdoor playday with teacher-supervised games and sports, right across the street in the town park. 

I want to keep it that way, and I can't do that if we allow a highly-toxic petrochemical refining plant to take up residence on what was formerly Lederle's site, and then Pfizer's, pharmaceutical companies both: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Cyanamid and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfizer. 

They'd been having secret town meetings and court appearances in Rockland. We have a "Master Chemist" and a "Master Litigator" on the case, but I want more. Concerned moms are also appreciated.

I want it gone forever, and so I ask you to willingly join me in this. Afterwards, we can collectively heave a huge sigh of relief, breathing in the fresh clean air for a battle well-fought and hard won that is the refuge for the righteous and the just.

Freedom from corruption...that's what we want. Join us. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1595952577299501/

Update: http://www.lohud.com/story/news/local/rockland/orangetown/2016/01/14/anellotech-cancels-controversial-pearl-river-vent-pipe/78787388/

Mr. Squirrel

"Hi! I'm Mr. Squirrel!"  Hello to you, squirrel!

Last week I had an intense, cheerful, and also deeply meaningful experience with the small squirrel that lives in a spectacular tree on the front lawn of "National Frat Boy Headquarters", which is across the street from the big yellow Dutch farmhouse where I currently reside. 

As I watched him comfortably groom his cutely small body parts high above my head (where he's smartly safe and sound), I thought it a great sign that squirrels are living and thriving in direct community with a group that's well-known for hazing, poor drinking habits, and other life-hindering skills like independent thought, because at the end of any given day, my new friend "Mr. Squirrel" does way more for the planet than those shaky, flabby rich kids will ever do, with much less harmful results. Boo! at you: http://genius.com/De-la-soul-tread-water-lyrics* (* https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=allegory).

A big "thumbs up" goes out today to all the happily productive squirrels in the 'hood: http://mariedoucette.blogspot.com/2015/02/nut-job.html. 

I'm your "Number One Fan" for life (!), as well as:  

• wily woodchucks with cheeks full of young grass shoots 
   http://mariedoucette.blogspot.com/2015/04/woodchuck-lives.html, 

• young bear cubs wrestling unmolested on their Bear Mountain
   http://www.lohud.com/story/news/local/rockland/ramapo/2015/04/22/ramapo-police-bear-video/26176665/, 

• wild city coyotes on the move for game 
  http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/coyotes-deserve-warmer-wildlife-biologist-article-1.2199378, 

and all of the thriving, healthy bird life throughout the tri-state are also always happily included.

A highly alert and intelligent life form does his thing undisturbed. Yes!

It's all connected, peeps. 

Get with it, and get in step with the universe!