War Braids

A couple of weeks ago, two well-known American football players had an uncomfortable public exchange on social media about the (mis)appropriation of what one player considered the sole cultural property of his particular ethnic heritage. Crazy as it may seem, two exceptionally elite individuals performing at the highest level of their game had a tensely bitchy discussion about....world politics, gun control, healthcare, or was it famine? No, it was hair. That's right: a hairstyle. It brought me back to a scene from Chris Rock's movie "Good Hair" when he actually asked Maya Angelou what she thought about the issue, to which she famously replied "It's just hair!" Right! It grows on your head. Or not.

I get it, because I also have what's called "difficult hair" that I've written about before on this site (also known as "curly hair"), and for many years, the world didn't let me forget that my hair was a sign of poor genetics, or as my father calls it, "mongrel DNA". It's his defense mechanism for having what was once known as "the taint" of Indian blood in his familial line. You know that old squabble about all the "bad" stuff that comes from the other side of the family. For me, salvation was finally found in the pages of a book written by a similarly-afflicted Briton who also suffered from the genetic legacy of "poor hair" that was to be covered up for being too "wild", because it was seen as overtly sexual.

After that, my life changed. I bought products for my hair type, switched up my cleansing routine/styling techniques and....voila! Better hair. It seemed so simple that it almost felt criminally easy, until my heightened awareness made shopping for products in stores a lesson about the blatant racism that drives marketing stances used to sell products to whichever group can be victimized with their profitable shaming techniques. So, I guess it was progress to read men feeling the sting over appearances now aimed their way through corporate endorsements, as an inevitable outgrowth of civil rights with "hair shaming" for men.

But, I still didn't quite get it. I understood that an African-American man felt he could stand up for dreadlocks to be his hairstyle specifically, given the context of an American history that has brutally taken away too much from his ethnic group, except for this: all mixed martial artists wear "war braids" in the sport of fighting while in the arena, because we all want our hair off our faces during a fight. It's too messy and distracting, otherwise. And then there's this: my hair's also a fine voluminous blend of textured curls that can dread freakishly easily. Scarily so, as my friend noted at the Jersey Shore. She can quickly run a pick through her wet hair and be done with it, while the Medusa-like snakes on my head changed every minute or so from straight, wet hair to a snarled mess that needs a long list of products, tools, and accessories to be somewhat manageable. She admitted to me that it was like nothing she'd ever seen before.

So, I thought to myself: well, maybe the other guy wearing a helmet wants that same kind of ease with his hair, Asiatic as it is. I know a dude whose Cuban Chinese fro is so thick that he can also stand a pick up in it without any intervention. And then it occurred to me that maybe people just don't know about the range of human hair historically, or how other tribes and clans of the world can also feel the struggle deeply and personally, like I do. Just like one picture can cover a thousand words, here are two infamous warriors from the past wearing dreads from other cultures, as legitimate to them as any on the planet. Meet the Kouroi of ancient Greece and "The Dying Gaul" during his last, beautiful moments before death. Welcome to the world.

Apocalypto

Like media stereotypes about the "gentle hippie", Indians have to contend with a full set of deeply ingrained prejudices about every facet of their lives and appearance. Americans love Kevin Costner's white girl adopted by a tribe that bestows upon her sexy Injun magic, with her blow-dried 80s wings sprayed stiffly into place, as yet another annoying anachronism that's wildy out of place with history. But, it sure is pretty! And who doesn't like wolves? It gives you a special feeling!

Of course, media professionals have always been hip to the manipulation in Hollywood movies, which are designed to put you into a emotional space that sets you up (compulsive gambler, drinker, smoker, and/or hoarder) for a major Disney-esque shopping spree, like a supermarket that pumps out smells of fried chicken and chocolate chip cookies baking, fresh from the oven. They're extremely overworked scenarios designed to suck money from your weaknesses and vulnerabilities; an example of greed at its worst.

Enter into this toxic, European-dominated market the real and the true. I'm not a fan of Mel Gibson's public meltdowns, drinking sprees, and weird views about a made-up religion imposed upon him by his far-out, fascist, Aussie dad (notice Mel has Americanized his accent to put him at a distance from his Aussie "Mad Max" days, to sell a franchise of buddy-cop movies, like Madonna in England or anywhere in the world), but he has made some of the best movies I've ever seen in my life, including the entire "Road Warrior" series.

As someone who is very familiar with The Bible and scripture, his movie version about "The End of Days" is one of the best Apocalyptic movies I've seen, including his post-Apocalyptic work set in the aboriginal bush-land of native Australia, as the white folks revert to a bloody, animistic, murderously tribal version of themselves. In his "dog eat dog" worlds, it's every man (and woman) for themselves, and who hasn't had that said to their face by a competing employee (or so they think) while at work? The amount of overly-heightened emotionalism attached to the acquisition of resources makes the common junkie an accomplished liar, and the practiced accountant your white-collar criminal doing time in a minimum-security prison, tennis whites not included.

"Apocalypto" is THE BEST MOVIE I'VE EVER SEEN about the massive die-off of the Mayans, Incas, and Aztecs, that artfully deconstructs the passive Indian stereotype to reveal a band of blood-thirsty savages sacrificing heads to their burning demon in the sky, controlling their crops (as a stand-in for more European concepts about evil and Satan) and their destinies, in justification for murdering their own people, setting them up for the smallpox invasion of the conquering Spaniards who finished the job for them through cultural extinction.

Our hero is a gifted husband and father who is an expert hunter/warrior for their tribe, happily married to his beautiful wife who is expecting their second child, when their "Apocalypto" takes place, changing their lives forever. Just as an iceberg the size of London and Manhattan has broken off from the ice shelf to melt into water that will be the next "Great Flood" of our time, our heroic family fights to survive under the most vile, extreme circumstances humanity has to offer, finding each other before the next wave of corruption and death rolls in. After our hero finally escapes for good (surviving many life-or-death battles his young family does without him), they do what any sane, rational people facing the end of the world do: head for higher ground. 

My G-d Bless You And Keep You Safe, My Most Faithful Children Of The Word. Amen.

Esprit de Corps

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

The literal translation for "esprit de corps"* is the spirit as it is expressed through the body, though its older usage described morale in the military. In truth, it was the best description I had for a Pinterest board I made about movement that covered art, dance, athleticism, martial arts, motion, movement, and the joy of being alive as it relates to the use of our bodies. Certainly, anyone who's ever been in mortal danger has their muscle memories to thank for the continued use of their body as it relates to other activities in a more peaceful future.

Sometimes, when I talk to my mom about my dreams or her MS, she tells me she has recurring dreams about running through a field of grass when, in truth, she was never athletic or even inclined to be active, preferring instead to sit and talk on the phone for hours, or dunk cookies in her tea (annoyingly, when also on the phone), or watch t.v. as she flips through magazines. She'll say it's because of her illness or her allergies (that she also sometimes forgets she has) but, really, it's because her personality prefers sedentary creature comforts. How odd, then, that her brain conjures up vigorous movement to express freedom and joy; feelings she was much more apt to attribute to cars rather than herself when she was younger and slightly more mobile, as part of her innate preferences for machines and artificial experiences over the real and the human.

When I studied ballet, I loved flying through the air the same way I liked swinging through the trees in our backyard, or spinning in a tire swing. Children excel at movement, in part because of their lower centers of gravity, something my less physically gifted parents would often quote at us, as further excuses for their inertia, cleverly designed to hide their laziness through pseudo-scientific phrasing. In contrast, we were made to work all the time, and when we did feel sick or take breaks, our parents hated that, too. "Get up! Do something!" It felt like they used us as charms to stave off their diseases, when they actually nursed our afflictions to budding stages.

There was a ferocity to our play-fighting as kids that transcended the typical city dwellers experience. My mom described us as "savages" or "wild monkeys hopped up on sugar" to her friends and family who are also round and cynical about it.  What were we?! She described the differences between us "soooo strange", like we were bound to be discovered as an ancient pygmy tribe from the bush any day. Me and my brother could fight for hours, scaling the narrow walls of our house's hallway like contestants on the game show "American Ninja Warrior", and it totally freaked her out. She'd never seen stuff like that before, especially among her squat hobbit clan.

I saw a native boy compete on the show last season, without any targeted training or benefit of a special obstacle course built just for appearing on the show, because he rightly assumed that his competitive sport of mountain climbing would do the trick for him, and it did. He grabbed a rope, released it in midair while spinning around to backwards-grab a moving obstacle that he then leapt from, landing perfectly on a mat with both feet. "Whoa! WHAT WAS THAT?!!", one of the announcers yelled out to the roaring crowd. That was an Indian, bro. His bright black eyes flashed with the same gleeful intensity as his big beautiful smile, pressing the red button that signalled his succesful finish. Welcome to the fight. We've missed you.


* https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/esprit%20de%20corps

Pretty Boy

Out of all of the kids in our family, my middle brother Bernie perhaps suffered the most from bullying because of his sensitivity, his misunderstandings, and his innate emotional difficulties that he's struggled with since birth. We were always marked as "different" from our unique status as genuine ethnic minorities, whether or not we dressed the part, like some insane white lady from the Midwest looking to indulge her bipolar bisexual jungle fever by "passing" (lying) as another ethnic group, or an obvious jungle tribal reference overdone with faux primitive costumes and lots of weirdo makeup from some overly expensive gay Broadway musical. Reality is a much better, subtler artist than that.

We didn't fit in all the usual ways, and it wasn't something that the other children around us or their parents (or even our teachers), would be able to discern readily, because like the Dodo bird (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo), we are a very small tribe. We just didn't expect to meet anyone like us, ever, so it didn't really seem like that big a deal to us when we didn't meet them out in the world. So. <shrug> It was just like at home, with my mom's loud Italian/Irish family who'd dominate any gathering anyway with their hysterical shrieks, unless one of our native werewolves got drunk and smashed his car while re-parking it in our very own driveway, which naturally would take center stage as the primary household drama of the day.

But, for Bernard, it was different. He responded with an intensity that frightened us, like his nighttime roaming that'd find him downstairs rummaging through the closet in the spare bedroom, or opening the door to the garage, or, even weirder, just standing in a corner facing the wall, like some horror movie vision with ghosts and ghouls. His anger was scary-bad, and we had no idea where it came from, other than he was born to it, and that's just the way it was. My oldest brother played the all-knowing diplomat who'd work a room like a seasoned politician using his special blend of phony charm, my youngest brother played the spoiled brat for all it was worth, I simply stood up and fought back, while Bernie continued to struggle with a response to it, like the schoolwork that so often evaded him.

We'd have impromptu boxing sessions in the backyard, so we'd develop the confidence to fight back if we were attacked, but given our father's background, his sparring sessions were dubious at best. He told us he "studied" at the famous Gleason's Gym in Brooklyn, a well-known boxing studio in the city (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleason%27s_Gym), but just like our most troubled brother, he could turn on you, too, by taking pleasure in besting us as children, that he defended while laughing. "Well, I might not be able to 'beat' you for much longer", which is an odd thing to say to a young girl and her smaller brothers, when he was fully grown at 6 ft. He liked to lord it over us by looming angrily above our heads and breathing heavily like a bull ready to charge. It was that bizarre.

If we dared to ask them how they problem-solved bad situations as children, they would give us showbiz answers like "Oh, I was so funny I just joked my way out of it", which, if you've ever met my mother, you'd immediately know is total bullshit. It was the same with my dad. He'd lie just like my mom: because it was raining, or sunny, or the sun came up. No good reason for it. Ever. And so, just like every other facet of our lives, we had to think our own way out of it, because if we had the audacity to speak up, we'd be punished for it by my dad, who made a scene at school with a teacher who was much smaller than him, with violent curses and threats. After he pulled that trick at elementary school with Bernard's teacher (who just happened to have a French-Canadian last name, and be several feet shorter), parents were forbidden from our lives, which is what they wanted anyway.

We were just as stressed out at school as my middle brother, but because my father favored him above us —he wanted to flatter himself into feeling like they were the same type of person, which my brother chafed at all the time, because he knows my dad, and any comparisons are not favorable to him—we were left to figure it out on our own successfully, which we did, with some of us better at it than others (ahem, that's me). Whereas their name-calling became our playground opportunity to throw a few good curse words around, Bernie would crumble under it. "Pretty boy! Pretty boy!" He was taunted by the less attractive boys for his blue eyes, long eyelashes, golden brown curls, and olive skin that tanned with just a hint of sun, making him a stand-out target for the uglier kids in his classes. 

I was a "nerd" who couldn't compete with the pampered Jewish girls and their expensive Gloria Vanderbilt jeans in the coveted dark wash that meant they were brand new from the mall and unworn by any other siblings in the house, while my mom might put out my brothers old Toughskin jeans from Sears and then shrug it off. "What?" She'd act offended. "You're 'lucky' to have any clothes at all! Jeans are jeans!" This, from a woman whose favorite color in the 70s was a "shit brown" made into long polyester skirts worn with clunky orthopedic shoes that made her resemble a nun, or a lesbian, or a lesbian nun. Take your pick. She'd blow it off as part of her "genius cred" that went with science, which meant she could be completely stupid about anything that wasn't under a microscope or in a Petri* dish.

Bernie, in comparison to us, always felt insecure. I could read, spell, write, speak, and draw brilliantly, while my oldest brother aced his grades and played sports. But Bernie just didn't fit into any niches at all. He had learning disabilities that made school torture for him, and the rather generic team sports at our American schools were lame. He'd try them and then abandon them all, like he was trying on clothes. After my father left home, we'd talk about applying to the colleges he was deathly afraid of, because he couldn't take the tests.  We talked about the Army, but during the height of Reagan's "Cold War" years, we were afraid he'd be drafted into some bullshit war with the Soviet Union, when, in truth, they starved behind their walls and killed each other off way quicker than we ever could, but that information came to us only after the Berlin Wall fell.

After a year in the freezing north of New York that can shake loose the heartiest of souls, he came home for good, to live at home with my mother while attending school, and that was the trick of it for him. He gave up on the skills he couldn't master to focus on the numbers that spoke to him in the only language he really understands, which allowed him to attend my father's Alma mater. Because of my father's identity/personality disorders, he's hell when you cross-over into whatever he feels is his area(s) of "expertise", though like any other life situation in our lives, I'm happy to report that my brother aced him with his experience, not that my father didn't try and best him by ruining it in comparison to his life experiences, which is always made to seem much harder than anyone around him, as part of the con job.

Not only did my brother graduate with a Bachelor's degree in Accounting, he received an MBA in the same four years, something my father couldn't top as an accomplishment. And just like so much in our lives, the style of fighting we felt in our blood as children became the sport that you watch today in the UFC. How's that for winning? He's the most belted martial artist in our family, the strongest male sibling, and he can also count like a muthafucka. The universe cares about us, man. Really. Like, way more than our biological parents, yo! But not more than this here Acadian Métis mama. No. Not more than me. I love you more. I love you more than all of them.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petri_dish
 

Cruisin'

Years back—at the height of the social media craze—I re-connected with a former classmate I met in junior high school on a "friends" site, like so many of us who work with computers do. He wasn't part of my circle of friends back in the day, but I remembered him as a nice, quiet, serious boy; not exceptionally bright or gifted, but nice. My impression of him was confirmed during our reacquaintance in a series of IM chats through the online site that tended to go on and on, because he wouldn't disconnect from me first. He went to a SUNY school in the city for toy design that I thought was really neat, except that it wasn't for him, because he wrote to me that his architect dad "pushed" him into the program, when he really wanted to be a car designer. Oh.

It didn't make sense to me. No one can (or could) "force" me to be an Illuminator, especially my non-artistic immediate family, so how did it happen? He still really didn't know. He worked at a company for ten years that he described to me as his "dream job", in direct contradiction to his other messages. But, like me, he moved back from out west to Rockland County after years away, so we had that in common, along with design and martial arts. He got his Judo black belt from a strip mall dojo with a self-appointed "guru" who sold them potions while they were still on the mats, so I didn't expect much from our playful sparring, and he never competed. He sat on me with his full weight, and then told me that was a "pin" in judo, which I guess means a "win" without any technique or effort on his part. It was weird. "What do you, just sit on people?" Well, yeah...that was his strategy. Okay.

We diverged again artistically. I didn't remember him from any of my art classes at public school, and I'd taken them since childhood—even when they weren't offered on the curriculum—at my urging. He didn't strike me as an artist at all, nor do I remember any of his works. I'd simply never seen him in our studios at school. He was tepid about that, too. But, he did like to get the fuck out of his parents house while he re-established his career on the east coast, and that we very much had in common. My overbearing mom eases up immediately around strong men, because they telegraph "hetero" in a big loud voice that she doesn't like, so she skitters away vaguely. It gave me the head space I needed to endure dysfunctional family visits during their holidays—that they wrongly describe as "parties"—by having an excuse to leave, which was also noticed and attacked.

"You have to 'visit' with people when you come over!" my mom would say to me, only to either ignore me for the rest of the "visit", or abuse me into working "her" weirdo "party" filled with other headcases by serving and waiting on their lazy fat asses, only to have them insult me to my face. Fuck that! I can punch anyone of them in the face, hard enough to do serious damage. I don't have to sit in some overheated room to shove my face with bad food made for other addicts. We'd escape in his car for "joy rides" made through the twisting hills of rural Rockland County with the windows open to stave off motion sickness that sometimes didn't work, hiking our way through the trails we grew up walking. It gave us the counterbalance we needed in the mentally ill homes of our youth, as we adjusted to our adult roles of leadership in these families too sick to care for themselves in our absence.

He picked up visits to the acupuncturist his mother frequented in Nanuet, working out as a bodybuilder in New City and going to the local bars there. He established a suburban routine much quicker than I did, because I still worked as a designer in the city, and I had my own apartment in Park Slope that he immediately wanted to move into (not uncommon for me), by planting himself and his cat there for a length of time that was to be determined by me. He left on Monday morning. Besides his rather generic interests and habits, he also had a bland "white boy" sensibility about travel that was filled with dull cruises that he referred to as "cruising" online. I finally responded that to him that it's the go-to phrase for gay men on the make who are also fond of ships at sea. Oh...haha. Yeah. Did I like "cruising", though?

Oh, fuck no, "white boy". For a Filipino boy from New York, he had a lot less flavor than me, and he knew it. He told me he was always upset by people's reactions to his appearance, because he said he wasn't that exotic. "I'm kinda like a 'white boy' in L.A." Yeah. No shit, homeboy. You're kinda "white" here, too. It was doubly odd because the dude looked like a younger version of Jet Li or Donnie Yen; like, a good-looking martial arts movie star with an incredible physique. So, what gives with that? Why no "flair"? He didn't know the answer to that question, either. The last girl he dated was a homeless meth addict who slept on his couch (and with him) because he "felt sorry for her". 

He just liked to drive around aimlessly (he sent me the video links to his really dull driving videos that he made with a smartphone mounted on the dash of his car...yay), and his boring cruise ship pictures that could be anywhere with anyone. I immediately got tested after we broke up (negative for disease), and developed a much better attitude about men from my homeboy, so thanks for that. We had parted ways without any physical violence at all, which is quite uncommon for two martial arts "action heroes". No harm, no foul. It was a totally clean break from a kid who loved me from afar for many years, a schoolkid crush that he had made real for a short time, and that deserves some "kudos". But he doesn't deserve me, or a relationship with me that's a marriage with kids. That's for another superhero entirely. 

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

Contents Under Pressure

Unlike the addicts and "headcases" lurking around us, me and my working class friends always knew we smoked, drank, and experimented to escape the daily hell(s) we came from. We always knew that if/when we ran things, it would be better, and now it is. But, that didn't help us out much as kids, except in the same dully repetitive way, which was the point behind our terrible homes: we had to do what our insane parents wanted us to, or needed and/or forced us to do, or we'd become homeless children susceptible to crazy-ass hookers and the drugged-out zombies on crack serving them up as their pimps on the then-wild streets of 70s-80s New York City.

We'd see the bombed-out buildings and wandering packs of wild dogs lope through our old neighborhoods like hounds escaped from hell (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfen_(film), and wherever we went, there'd be art in our wake to tell our "peeps" about the bad news, too, though in a really fun and entertaining way. That's how you have to do it with the insane, or they could "snap out" on you, in a suddenly violent way. We'd been at the bad end of a father's fist or a mother's belt borrowed from him, and what they couldn't beat out of us, they starved us into doing, by withholding money and time and parenting.

My grandparents were "hip" to the whole scene; they'd also been forced onto our mean city streets before they were ready, by sick households that just gave up, to have family that then joined together to force them out of school (where they belonged) into rotten jobs that were humiliating and demeaning to the brilliant kids with potential that they were, and remained for the rest of their lives. Their mad families made their prowess—in comparison to their ineptitude(s)—their punishment for "out-living" them. I asked them about it, in between abusive bouts in our sick households, as I leaned in over summertime glasses of excellently-made iced tea or fresh lemonade, drinking in their good health like the succulent blend they had made it for; just for me and my ears alone.

My grandmother wanted to be a nurse or a teacher, and so in response to the brutal pushing of her parents, older brothers, and older sisters (who lived in their own fantasy worlds of delusional thinking and absenteeism), our Great Lord gave them, in His Infinite Wisdom, me to teach, and I drank it in like I was ready for it. I needed it, their succoring. Lord knows I was hungry for it, banished and isolated as I was in a home full of untreated sick people that they also knew all too well from their own lives and upbringings. Well, what did you do after your brother pretended he was "trying out" for the Yankees (cough<bullshit>cough), by wasting his time playing stick-ball in the streets? I asked her, and she told me the truth. Oh, she told me, I won the decision-making process in my household, by becoming a factory manager by the time I was 19 or 20-years old. 

Yeah! That cheered me up. And she did. Through her superior ability to earn, she ruled the roost, which pulled her out of an abusive relationship that was to be her arranged marriage with a boy back from "The Old Country" in the Abruzzi region of Bari, most likely a cousin too closely related for a good healthy match anyway. He put his hands on her, and she fought back by standing up to him, which earned her her father's approval and respect. In the meantime, she met and fell in love with my French Swiss/Irish-American grandfather while canoeing, because they both loved the beach and the outdoors. Ha! Of course, you do. Me, too! But, like, why did they do what they did to you?

"Oh, I don't know..." She'd trail off, in recollection. "After refrigeration put him out of the ice business, he just stopped working." Huh? I never heard of such a thing in my extremely strict household, where child labor was considered a natural right by my sick parents, just like theirs. Why? "I don't know!" she responded to me. "I think they were scared and tired of trying to 'make it' in America. They just refused to learn English." Ah...Yeah, I knew that one, too. Just give up and cave into it. "And my brothers were favored for being older by Italians, so they got away with doing nothing all day." Ha! Yeah! Right! I have that, too! She nodded, and then continued talking to me in private, where no one else could hear her but me, and maybe my silent grandfather.

"Yes, but you have to understand something, Marie..." My ears perked up like the puppy I was, in the presence of greatness, because even I knew from my earliest years that my grandmother ran shit like the strong-armed, Bronx-born female she was. "The work that they refused to do made me much stronger than them." Uh huh. Preach it. Better than school on a Sunday. "After I took the economic lead in my household, I had 'the say' then. Not my parents. Sure, my father loved me and stood up to the neighborhood after my fiancee 'put his hands' on me, but I also had to wait almost four years before I could marry your grandfather, because they were prejudiced against Irish people", and here she made the drink symbol with her hand to her mouth, like you're tippin' back all the way in one big swallow from yo' glass.

Yeah, word. I got that. It meant I'd have to wait for what might be a very long time, even after I succeeded from all my hard work, to get what I wanted, maybe much longer than necessary, because it would take that much time for my family to catch up to my reality in any time, either the past, present, and/or future. And after that, we'd pause in our short conversations that were blessedly free from the static of the mentally ill around us—either swirling about in tense motion, or sitting around us in fretful waiting—in these short exchanges that were like breathing in fresh air after working underground all day in the explosive sewers of the city, like my grandfather did for most of his life (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_Edison). 

They'd take a long steadying pull from their cool sodas or glasses of beer, as I followed along with my baby soda or lemonade. It became a ritual that me, my friends, and our classmates would re-enact at about the same time, wherever we were, that'd bring us together in an almost magical synergy we knew it was; a deeply spiritual destiny that we were fated to meet, like the aligning of the planets under a thick blanket of stars in the crisp clear air of upstate New York, protected as we were in our hard-to-reach mountain stronghold of Oneonta, re-creating sacred rituals of renewal and refreshment as young teenage "parents" who'd been made to run things way before our time(s): "It's 'smoke 'em if you got 'em' time!" 

And then we would. We'd pull out cigarettes to take long drags from, in a steadying way that meant the next fight was near, followed by a long drink from an ice-cold beer that'd been cooled from the snow we'd just reach outside our dorm rooms or old houses to grab for our coolers. It wasn't alcoholism, or addiction, or the "touchy-feely" language of some fake pseudo-science made just  for t.v., like the bad pop psychology that's become the business of rehabilitation, rather than the cure. We wanted more for them and for you; now, then, and always. We want(ed) a cure; not for us, but for you. All of you. You get me? Yeah, I bet you do. Now you do. From me, you do.

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

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

Thug Life 4E

Trifling 'hood rats ain't nuthin' new to me. Like I've explained to y'all  before, the first real criminals I met who tried to scam me were my very own family."Home" and "house" and "safe" were never really words that signified good places for me to live in, as my sickest family members told me every time they thought I "stepped out" of line of their controlling manipulations. Continually consistent and strongly applied coercion is the very first sign to working class kids that our parents or older siblings are gearing up for their next big push at us, in a series of highly coordinated acts that spoke of their persistent ability to attack me behind my back as a child, which solidified my "head of household" status to me over and over again, at a very young age, when I was just some po' girl chile with no one to help me out, and nowhere to go.

Except that I did. I always had my excellently faithful grandparents to back me up with their good health and superior strength, as a direct contradiction to the fearful paranoia that so deeply marks the sickest people around us. They illegally violated our privacy and sense of security every time they were caught abusing us, and that could happen at any time, with their violently frenzied periods of deep paranoia that define the day-to-day reality that is mental illness and psychoses. It became so bad, me and my brothers began threatening exposure to our school teachers and social services, with the achievement of a new family policy clearly stipulating that there would be no hits to the head, so as to prevent telling marks from clearly showing where anyone of authority could see them, not that we thought foster care was any better than what we had. We knew.

It didn't stop my mom from beating up my oldest brother into a broken arm that he covered up for her expertly at Nyack Hospital's ER back in the day, with the conveniently well-practiced excuse of "falling down the stairs" at the ready by both parties that they carefully rehearsed during the car ride over. It was easy for him to do, too, because my brother had prior sports injuries that my mom could frame into a clear sense of his proven carelessness as a wild boy child. 

Our "savage" genetics were also an easy target for her to blame us for any of her abuse that she aimed at us. We were raked over the coals by the mad people around us, to the point of our collective perfection in comparison to their obviously bad behavior, which was then thrown into our faces, too. "What are you, like, 'perfect' or something?" We learned to avoid crazy people the way a cat burglar breaks into a city apartment during the summertime, through an open window by a conveniently placed fire escape.

My self-defense makes attempts at scamming me into this absurdly surreal game of "cat-and-mouse" that I can best with both hands, arms, and legs bound tightly, with a blindfold on. And it continued throughout my life at every public venue I ever "dared" to appear at, including the very public abuse that I suffer(ed) at this public library, because it doesn't matter where I go or what I do, who I am with, and what I look like. It doesn't actually have anything to do with me at all, because I don't do anything wrong, which is a huge problem for a violently acting-out criminal sitting next to me at a public computer, or on the bus to the city, or on the subway, or at work in some office.

It became a pattern that, no matter how cleverly and craftily done, I managed to fight back against —on little food, sleep, money, clothing, medicine, support, and/or shelter—sussed out in record time, to the horrified amazement of yet another delusional individual who felt protected enough to attack me in full clear view of several authority figures in charge who had every opportunity to clear up the situation with one word in my favor. But, that's part of the job, right?

Over time, I even developed a handy "cheat sheet" formula for businesses and other public venues that preferred to witness ongoing abuse that goes unchecked without protecting me, because, you know, I'm obviously society's number one scumbag. One: hire a bitchy thick blond to "man" your reception area with an even bigger desk to match her overblown ego. Two: allow her to gossip loudly and spread rumors within clear earshot of large groups of people who will then feign a planned indifference that you will pretend to control with Three: a series of intentionally inept "scolds" done purely for publicity's sake, before telling your mistress(es) behind closed doors to keep on doing exactly what she's been doing, because, again, I'm the beautiful, high-performing single woman on an extremely tight budget that you like to squeeze as part of some con game.

She, in turn, will blow on her troll dolls in an unchecked madness that you will laugh about in an obviously evil way, because you like seeing your lead bitch with fangs rave at a woman out of your league. So, on this very special Friday, let's go over your "Special Needs" list of rules that even a kindergartner understands, just in case you plead ignorance or impairment. Ready? Okay, here we go!

Children Ten Commandments

1. Have no other gods.
2. Have no idols.
3. Honor God's name.
4. Honor the Sabbath day.
5. Honor your parents.
6. Do not murder.
7. Do not commit adultery.
8. Do not steal.
9. Do not perjure yourself.
10. Do not covet.

Got it? Good! Now, let's go over every flaw you have, in clear language that even you can understand, with your list of serious impairment(s):

Vice		Virtues
Lust	Luxuria	Chastity	Castitas
Gluttony	Gula	Temperance	Temperantia
Greed	Avaritia	Charity (or, sometimes, Generosity)†	Caritas (Liberalitas)
Sloth	Tristitia/Acedia	Diligence	Industria
Wrath	Ira	Patience	Patientia
Envy	Invidia	Kindness	Humanitas
Pride	Superbia	Humility	Humilitas

^†This virtue is generally considered to be the greatest and the most important of all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins

Don't play this here New York mama for a "sucka", kids. That is all. See you next week. Be ready. It's "go" time!

Thousand Yard Stare

Being the sole sane member of the many social groups I've encountered throughout my life is fraught with difficulties, especially if any one person (or group of people) is used to gaming the system through secrecy, and I, unfortunately, know very quickly about their true state of mind, which is uncomfortable for both of us—as the authority figure assessing it correctly (yet again), and the liar perpetrating the fraud right in my face. Not the the "New Gen" has done much better with it, as an issue. Now, it's considered "hip" to have as many complex issues as possible (great for reality t.v.), especially with the single children of so many modernly unhealthy couples who're used to almost constant enabling, and who also bear the weight of their broken dreams, in addition to carrying around their poor genetics. 

Before we began a voluntary militia, anyone could be drafted into military service and made to fight a brutally violent war, with the size and scope of your collective psychosis allowing for heinous acts of violence—sometimes including child murder—that would almost certainly get you sentenced to death back home. The warrior mindset is traditionally for those who seek out that particular type of service because we know we can come back from it; not unscathed from battle without recovery time built in for healing from our war wounds, but enough to know that we will endure and survive it, because we've already done so through similar life conditions as civilians. Every social group full of mentally ill people is a potential battlefield, and conversation is typically marred by a defensive passive-aggressiveness that makes it really hard work for me.

Suffice to say, those who seek to "escape" the dreaded horrors of medication and healthcare, pretend to shrink from their falsely overblown fears about exposure and revelation like a mythical vampire shirks the light of day. Really? With fucking Oprah being a American gazillionaire?! She's famous for saying lines on television like "My 'va-jay-jay is a-painin'!", so how do you reconcile this sudden coyness with your reality? It's a complete fucking sham, as I am forced to endure yet another game of pretending that I don't know you suffer from insanity, you know, because people like me who work under the conditions I do, on the budget I have, consistently delivering at an extremely high level on almost nothing, cave in the face of your healthcare. Really? You really expect me to believe that?

And it's everywhere I go, every single day; family, friends, co-workers, bosses, acquaintances—no one is immune from living life and the human condition. Of course, we know you're nuts, but that's rude to say over a company dinner that you're paying for, isn't it? But, that doesn't stop 'em from trying it with me anyway, because compulsive addictive disorders kinda come with some obvious behavioral markers that you can't exactly shave off like beard. Nice try, though, really. Yes, we know, and we have tons of tests to prove it anytime we want to, in a variety of ways, but if you're selfishly demanding a class in avoiding detection like you're Meryl Streep at the Oscars, then class is now in session, and here's your first clue: see the picture above. 

For the residents of my town: see that crazy old guy who hoards on his property that's right next to the Methodist church (Amen!) with a misbuttoned shirt on almost everyday, walking around "shell-shocked" like he just survived the bombing at D-Day, but he didn't. He doesn't actually do anything, besides walk around town like a zombie. It also includes: the closeted country lesbo at the local grocery store who licks her lips when she looks at you, just to be a complete fucking bitch to a gorgeous heterosexual woman (you hateful piece of shit), and when that doesn't work, pretends not to see you standing prominently in the middle of the aisle so she can "accidentally" bump into you like the psychotic stalker she really is. Or, the way someone lingers near you at the library, pretending to be absorbed by a book on the shelf for ten minutes like a fucking retard, or a hoarder in a bargain store lingering over plastic junk like she's fondling a ten year-old girl. It's obviously repulsive, and you can't hide it or control it.

And yes, to answer your question again: it is now mandatory to take a healthcare screening —that includes tests for psychological readiness—before leaving the hospital with your newborn, so you don't abuse your baby at home behind closed doors, where you feel safe to do so. Isn't technology great? Oh, that's right. You "hate" that, too. I must have forgot! My memory, you know....it isn't what it used to be. Sigh. Anyway, I don't get the Internet reliably like you do, with 24/7 access to answers at my fingertips whenever I want them, so I also have that excuse in my back pocket, with a dozen others that I've cleverly rehearsed ahead of time just to "stump" you, when, really, it isn't possible to do so, but don't ever say that to me in person or write in down. I might "know" it then, like the aliens can do without your tinfoil hat in hand. Yeah. That sounds good. That makes sense. 

 

http://www.postpartum.net/professionals/legislation/

 

I Got the Will (Drive Myself Sleepless)

Most common "gym rats" are notorious addicts looking to divert their angst-driven energies into something else besides cocaine and alcohol, and the endless sleepless nights that accompany serious bouts with manic depression. When I trained in martial arts, the sales pitches mirrored the mentality of their community comprised mainly of high school drop-outs, with the occasional two-year college program for a sports-related major thrown in for a better salary, which meant that they tried to sell me on their type of packaging. I didn't "train" to lose weight from the holidays or from over-eating, I wasn't there to get ready to go to the beach for the summer (I'm a native, yo! My routine is: wake up, brush teeth and hair, put on a suit with a cover-up, grab a towel, and LET'S FUCKING GO!!), or counteract my hypertension and/or hyperactive disorders. I was actually much weirder for them.

I was there because I'm a fighter, and I fight everyday to make the world a better place through my works. I know! It was like I was so fucking alien and strange to them, that the sports kids working the joint finally gave up talking to me (a great sign that they finally "got it" about me), or trying to use some tired sales pitch to "get me" to buy more classes. I either have the time, money, and inclination, or I don't. There simply isn't anything some junior can do or say to me that will "get me" to do anything, which makes Gen X the most hated marketing demographic the modern world has ever seen, giving me and my friends a great deal to be proud of, as it reflects our angry young punk view of the world. "Fuck you! Feed someone!" <middle finger> You know? Just get real with it, already. I don't need your tired ass tryin' to pick my pocket, muthafucka. I already ride the subway every day.

That's how I felt about it back then. If you're not adding value to my life, you're gone from it. I didn't have anything leftover to give. I was already making beautiful books for the public as fast as I could, at a cut rate price point that was way below market-value, giving the rest away to rent, food, medicine, clothing, and some fucking gym(s). They weren't putting money in my pocket, you know? It was all one way with them, so no need to be so fucking coy about it. Anyway, it was a "no harm, no foul" kind of situation for me. You don't go out of your way to mess with me, then I will show up, take your class(es), train, and then leave.  That's what I give: a perfect, static-free ride that puts money in your pocket with my attendance. What more do you need?

But, that's not what an addicts sells. They always want more. Way more. When I "leveled up" to my brother's harder martial arts school for the seriously wealthy wanna-be and those athletes who are supported by their deep-pocketed fandom, I knew it was risky just being there. My brother routinely lies about how much experience he has as a martial artist with a lot of disposable income, and artificially lowers his belt rankings whenever he feels like, so he can appear more like a beginner, and win against more gifted fighters with less experience in class and in competition. He's also a lot bigger than most dudes, which makes him less injury-prone in BJJ, and he likes to hurt people. Badly. He's a dude with some serious issues.

And so, his "pro" school reflected this warped world at an insanely jacked-up rate, with a lot more intensity than the average McDojo at your local strip mall. Know what I'm sayin'? Our gi's were embroidered with the word "competition" emblazoned on them already, regardless of a student's level or skill, just to let newcomers know that they're all seen as "fresh meat". And the kooks were quick to come-out. My flushing mechanisms were well-honed by then, so I knew crazy bitches would try to hurt me. What can I say? I was already injured. I popped my own meniscus (already damaged) and my partial ACL tear to a full one at my own discretion, doing a class drill common for BJJ but killer on your knees. Most addicts immediately get surgery (and more than just one or two knee surgeries, these are hard-bitten junkies, after all), but I didn't have the time or money to do so.

Besides, ACL replacement surgery is this harmful roll of the dice where you can either 1) receive a cadaver graft (!!!) from a recently expired person, and hope it takes to your body post-surgery without rejection or 2) get a graft made from a ligament lifted from another part of your body, and then keep your leg almost completely immobile for an entire year, and that's before the grueling PT part of your rehabilitative process even begins. Oh, and then you re-tear and re-injure your knee soon after resuming MMA/BJJ training, anyway. It just buys you another year or two in the game.

Huh? Say wha', muthfucka? I ain't in this business gettin' rich! There was absolutely no reason for me to undergo some serious life-threatening procedure so some out-of-town muthafucka can nurse his growing bank account (including his posh pad in Rio), just so I can pretend to be some bad-ass bitch. I rehabbed my knee injury at the YMCA in Brooklyn, because I had to do a similar thing after my first knee surgery from my dog walking accident with Ted. And then, like my doctor said, I just changed sports. It was hard to do, but I did it. I did Tai Chi, an aerobic kickboxing class (for amateurs), swimming, weight lifting, yoga, Pilates, bag training, and running on the elliptical. Problem-solved.

I still have some knee instability, but I have a professional knee brace for more intensive sports (like, say, downhill skiing that I don't do), and a series of other types of commercially-made knee wraps to compensate for rough times, like spring, when the weather turns really wet and humid. Always bothers my knee. C'est la vie. Here I am still writing to you, and that's what really counts in my world. My life story is what I trained to be a sensei* in, not your broke-ass view of the world, rife with crime and drugs. Feel me? I'm not a gym toy or a work-out machine for a bunch of screw ups to use at their discretion, pro career or not. Seek yo' gym fodder elsewhere.

After my real agenda became known, the intensity of the "hard sell" upon the other gym clients became more intense. If they slept a decent 8-9 hours worth of sleep a night, then they were characterized as "shiftless and lazy" in some classes because (in the words of one famous athlete) "your competition is training while you sleep!" Uh, excuse me? That muthafucka in the UFC was out bangin' last night at some club with a bunch of ugly-ass hookers, and I know that because I saw the footage live on entertainment t.v., whacked out on coke and his own self-created case of OCD. Get the fuck out! 

But, the more susceptible people around me took such wildly-made and totally irresponsible claims to heart. For them, their newly adopted sport held the zeal of a recent religious convert, pouring their emotions about their lives into something that could be as banal as sweating it out on some funky blue mats on a Monday evening with an out-of-shape fat dude in a bright headband sporting a really bad attitude because he isn't a real athlete, or fighter, or warrior. The reality behind any kind of training is the regularity and repetition of it, though with the more advanced classes and sparring sessions of MMA, that boredom is alleviated by the harder challenges each fighter faces, whether they be emotional, financial, mental, psychological, or physical. 

At the end of my stints training in other people's places, I came out with the exact same sense of self that I had before (and after) my MMA training: if I work hard enough, I can do anything. Of course, age and injury visits us all at some point in life, but the awe the other martial arts students in class had for me—and my relative maturity, in comparison to theirs—in those highly stressful fight sessions (regardless of age), pointed out anew to me what every art and design studio I'd ever worked for already knew about me: that I was already a "black belt" in life, and that I'd been one for a very long time. It wasn't something you could buy, or earn at some gym. And dip-shit, get a good night's sleep. That's mandatory. See you out there!

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensei

for Cassius

Sleepless by Soul Coughing

I got the will to drive myself sleepless
I got the will to drive myself sleepless
I got the will to drive myself sleepless
I got the will to drive myself sleepless

So much time is cashed
So much smoke is wasted
Sudden disappearance
And the air is thick and cool

And I can't approach myself
Skidding over this perdition
And now I'm out on the veranda
When I should have gone to school

I got the will to drive myself sleepless
I got the will to drive myself sleepless
I got the will to drive myself sleepless
I got the will to drive myself sleepless

Well I call for sleep
But sleep it won't come to me
Shuffling in the hallway
I can hear him on the stairs

And I hear his lighter flicking
I hear the soft sigh of his inhale
And the whole width of my intentions
He exhales into the air, yea

I got the will to drive myself sleepless
I got the will to drive myself sleepless
I got the will to drive myself sleepless
I got the will to drive myself sleepless

I got the will to drive myself sleepless
I got the will to drive myself sleepless
I got the will to drive myself sleepless
I got the will to drive myself sleepless

I got the will to drive myself sleepless
I got the will to drive myself sleepless
I got the will to drive myself sleepless

Skeedunt, stunt the runt
Smoking Buddha blunt
Skeedunt, stunt the runt
Skeedunt, stunt the runt
Smoking Buddha blunt
Skeedunt, stunt the runt

I got the will to drive myself sleepless
I got the will to drive myself sleepless, sleepless, sleepless

I got the will to drive myself sleepless
I got the will to drive myself sleepless
Sleep, sleep, sleep
Sleep, sleep, sleep
Sleep, sleep, sleepless