Inquiry & Observation in 4 Parts

1) A couple weeks ago I had to go to the dentist to get my chipped front tooth finally addressed. I'd been putting it off and putting it off despite the cosmetic considerations, in part due to my laziness and in part due to my deep primal dentistry fears. There was a lag of a few weeks between making the appointment and the appointment itself so for reasons unremembered by me I scheduled it at 7 AM. God why? Probably thinking that I could pop in early and then head off to work. Exhausted and one-quarter awake I pulled into the parking lot, thinking of how I'd be the first or among the first appointments of the day and - as I am prone to do reflexively (maybe b/c I'm weird or maybe b/c I'm a writer and filmmaker or maybe due to some mixture) - started thinking about the people who worked there and the building turning on for the day and other operational considerations. What time did they have to arrive, 6:45 AM? What personal situations and emotions trailed them in at the crack of dawn before the dental apparatus began humming and demanded their focus? Did any of them regard their job negatively or at the same pitch and register as I regarded my day job? And so on. It was at this moment I noticed a young black woman at the back corner lot, yawning as she beeped her car key. Barely beating the receptionist in I thought.  Why so GD early? Across the lot another poor soul walked from his car to the front door. Inside, I overheard him at check-in: Wisdom tooth surgery. Fuck. Mine can't be that unpleasant, can it?

Moments later I was in the hallway being led to the back by the dental technician. She made small talk as she led me to her station, put me in the chair. I responded in a rudimentary way to her as I was seized by pools of panic, thinking about all the ways this could go wrong, all the problems with tooth and gum they'd find, all the steps and iterations required to fix a chipped tooth, what are they all? what if this is complex as fuck? what if this takes 3 visits? And so on. It was at this moment the young black woman I saw in the parking lot entered. "Ah" said the tech, "Here's the dentist"

A burn began to rise in my belly.

"What do we have on tap this morning" the dentist said
"Chipped front tooth" the tech responded
"Oh, those are fun" the dentist said. Then she looked at me and said "Why are you here so early?"
"Good question" I responded.

40 minutes later I was in the car headed home with a new tooth and a feeling I couldn't shake. Like I was outside myself, watching an innocent movie character suddenly realize his implication in something dire and malignant.

I pulled into the driveway at home.

2) This weekend at Washington Park playground with M and the kids. We'd just been on walk at Hoyt Arboretum and the playground was promised fun after they agreed to the non-fun of the walk. Set free, N began running around like an insane 4.5 year old and F headed straight to the swings, her natural preference. On the swing next to us was a small black boy being pushed by his white mother. My mind went instantly to the vagaries and details of adoption. I recalled the years of trouble M and I had conceiving, the moments we thought/knew it wouldn't happen and begin exploring the actual facts of adoption, the bureaucracy, the classes, the money, the plane flights. Was that this woman's journey? Was it joyous and free of entanglement, this path to her adoptive son? Or did it eat at her, did it consume her, was she still harboring resentment at the process not happening naturally? And so on. It was at this moment her black husband walked up to her, touched her shoulder and whispered something to her the easy, mundane way of a long-together couple.

A familiar burning feeling rose again in my belly, that sleeping man in the movie again, given sudden window to deep, multi-generational corrosion and his unwitting but malignant participation.

The young boy and F were both cute as hell, swinging side by side but out of rhythm. One forward, one back. Then reversed. Then reversed again.  I kept focus on their faces, their unconstrained joy, wondering how soon until they drifted into parallel movement.

3) Alton Sterling

4) Philando Castile

letter to occupant



dear Occupier -

okay, so i may be outing myself as out-of-touch or crustily approaching my midlife point or encountering the new viewpoints that can't help but come along with a baby, and further my opinon may be influenced by the fact that the building i work in for my day job is directly across from where the occupy gaggle at chapman and lownsdale parks sat tarp-covered for several weeks, where i was afforded a close-up view of all the day-to-day dealings, watching as admirable idealism was joined by gathering streams of wanderers, miscreants and drug-using hirsute bandana-faces and this further pains me since at core i've felt mostly liberal my whole life but recent events force me to this moment in time so I'll just be blunt and say it: the occupy movement has reached the height of ridiculousness.

the disconnect between ideals and impact is staggering. hundreds and thousands of City dollars spent to police and/or clean and/or monitor their movements as you rally your venom fists in the air to protest...what exactly? no rights are being violated. no peoples or races or creeds are being oppressed or at least they aren't being oppressed by the police or by the citizens of portland trying to cross the steel bridge on trimet or the max to get to work. the political-banking-one-percent stranglehold on everyday life is undeniable but you - occupier - are not doing anything to dilute or neutralize it. you are not being watched by banks or wall street or the political-industrial complex. you are not changing peoples minds for the positive. instead you've squandered a fair amount of justifiable rage and alienated a shit-ton of people who may have initially agreed with you. You are acting like petulant, entitled children. Disperse, re-gather, politicize. The only way to change the game is to play it.

over it

love

b

Introducing Taffy "Sunburst" McKittrick

I am reticent to get into the area of endorsement but I cannot deny the impact that a young singer/songwriter named Taffy McKittrick has had on me. At some point this year, maybe through this very blog, he tracked me down and announced his intention to become "internet BFF's" something I had no interest in. Thinking him a spammer or a phisher (or worse) I merely ignored him. But he sent repeated and multiple emails, urging me intensely to check out his blog. I finally broke down a few months ago and I duly admit to you - head hung low - that I read it from time to time. His songs and writings generally hover around a few topics (boring day job, thoughts of an artist, microwave burritos) but one cannot deny the sheer inadvertant ridiculousness they engender. What McKittrick lacks in talent he makes up for with eager full-throated ambition. I suppose that's a back-handed compliment. Taffy has urged me to make mention of him on this blog which I have resisted for quite some time. But, what can I say, he broke me:

If you have the stomach for it, you can experience Taffy McKittrick's blog writings here and his songcraft here (youtube) or here (vimeo).

I shall never mention him again. promise.

i am afraid of dumb people

yes, i'll admit it - i fear dumb people - and i don't believe you can be a birther, a tenther or a teabagger without being dumb. there are gradations of idiocy certainly- running the gamut from box-of-rocks dim to choosing-to-be-uninformed dumb to malevolent denial-of-the-truth-despite-the-facts stupid - and all of them apparently listen to some creature called glenn beck, who i had the extreme misfortune to stumble across on the radio the other day while waiting in the car while m was in the grocery. facts, reason, rationality, logic are all anathema to these people. it will require patience and stomach and bravery, evinced by the likes of this man: