Category Archives: Ramblings, ravings

Who is Really Saving Us, or False Centering of Individuals

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Imagine a scenario where a careless driver hits a young man riding a bicycle, causing him life-threatening injuries. A nearby witness quickly calls 911, a pair of paramedics arrive to stabilize the man, then immediately rush him to a hospital, where a talented doctor expertly repairs the damage, and starts him on the road to recovery.

My question to you is, who saved the young man? Was it the witness who called 911, the paramedics who got him safely to the hospital, or was it the surgeon? All of these people might have a claim to being a hero, but did any of them individually save him?

I would claim that the one who saved the young man was not an individual, but the society in which he lived. After all it was the society that created the 911 call system (plus wireless telephony for the call to be made). This same society also trained and paid for paramedics, evolving their job over the years into a highly effective medical intervention. The society is also responsible for having trained doctors at the hospital (for which it paid) not to mention staffing that hospital with all kinds of workers and specialists, who collectively developed a complex series of medical procedures, all to create an environment in which a terribly injured young man might be quickly and effectively healed. 

This may be the most logical answer to the question of who saved the young man, but it is admittedly a very awkward one. Humans do not tell stories like this. We like to center individuals in our stories, even if that centering is entirely without logic or reason. We like to say things like, “the President is responsible for the economy,” which is absolutely untrue, because it makes for a quick and dirty logical argument. Even then, if centering an individual into a place that they absolutely do not belong is somehow too unrealistic (a very high bar) then we will happily substitute that individual with a group of people. But then will conveniently speak of that group as if they were working in lock-step, exactly like an individual, even though we know this to also be impossible (that darn Congress better act soon). Hell, I can’t hardly get two friends to pick a time and date to watch a movie, and yet someone thinks that every Congressman (or every Jew, or every Conservative, or every Black person, etc) will somehow all magically work perfectly together? Have you been around people before?

The worst part of all of this “false centering” of individuals—sticking a person into the middle of a story where they really do not belong—is that it allows us to completely ignore all the social underpinnings that witnesses, paramedics, or even talented doctors rely upon to function. That is, it covers the truth. After all, none of these people (witnesses, paramedics, doctors, cops, etc.) are going to do anything heroic if the power is out, or if they are at the point of starvation, or cannot get to work because the roads need repair. In a complex society like ours, we constantly rely upon others to do our work, regardless of how heroic it might seem. Crazy as it sounds, doctors cannot do their work without real estate developers and plumbers. None of us can.

So why do we do this? Why do we make heroes out of ordinary people? Why are some people given the assumption of being heroic, and others not? It’s pretty weird when you think about it. Why do we center individuals in this way?

And why do we so happily ignore all the trappings of the larger society that supports us?

In reality, the only individual in the above scenario whose direct actions actually “caused” the young man to be saved is the careless driver. They are the only ones who had both the agency, and effect, that didn’t require support from others. But centering the potential villain in the story as a hero is just plain silly. Of course the driver is not the cause of the young man’s healing, but this does a good job of illustrating our rather insane need to order the events in our lives into some kind of narrative. 

Our culture is full of weirdness.

Making mistakes with intent

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Another post of unsolicited advice on how to make it in the creative world, from someone who has been in the trenches for a while.

Last week I wrote a post about Failure. In it I talked about the importance of failure, and how you need to embrace your failures in order to become a professional. I made four key points about failure. They are:

You don’t need to aim for failure, it will come on its own.
Try not to make the same mistake twice.
Keep your mistakes to yourself, don’t dump them on others.
Own your mistakes when they happen.

I still stand by all of those, but this post is going to be a little different. It’s more about the nuts and bolts of doing art – the process of being creative – and less about the philosophy of art or about being an artist. You don’t have to be an artist to follow this advice. It pretty much works with every task.

In simple terms, when you do creative work you need to make mistakes.

Now I know this sounds counter to what I wrote last week, so let me explain some.

As I have posted before, in my day job I am a finisher. This means I am given a poster design called a comp (usually done in photoshop). My job is to upscale this comp to the proper resolution, repopulate all the photos with higher resolution images, and finally make all the photos blend well together. Depending on how well the comp has been built my job can be anything from mind-numbingly routine, to extremely difficult.

The difficult ones I always complain about, even though they provide the most creative freedom. There’s something deeply satisfying about turning a really soft, low resolution image into something sharp and high res, but the process is a lot of work, and causes a lot of stress. Sometimes you are literally painting a face into existence from a few stray pixels. The most difficult parts (the eyes and mouths, because they are the parts that the human eye looks at first) are very demanding. Even the most subtlest of changes can affect the entire piece.

Treatment for the movie Run Fat Boy Run done ~2008
Sometimes you are literally painting a face into existence from a few stray pixels

But it’s the easy parts that give me the most grief. The simpler the job (simple meaning less work for me) then the less vested I will be in the final art. Basically, I find it hard to care if I’m not fully engaged. And when I am less engaged I make more mistakes. In very simple terms you could say:

Boredom = Mistakes

At the end of my post on Failure I mentioned that the professionals I respect the most in my field go to great lengths to reduce the chances of making mistakes. This is why. Easy work leads to dumb mistakes.

This is true in every art form. Almost every author will tell you that when the story is really flowing that writing is a joy, but ask that same author what they think about facing copy edits for days on end and you will get a different reply. I know photographers who will jump at the chance to set up their lighting until everything is just right, but then struggle by the 100th shot at keeping the subject in focus.

This isn’t a problem with the creative process, it is a problem with the human brain. Our minds crave novelty, and seek out complexity. If your brain cannot have these things it will start to tune out. And no, it’s not an ADHD thing. It’s a flaw in how our brains are wired. Everyone’s brain does this, not just us skittish and sensitive creative types.

And this is why I say you need to make mistakes. Not to have yet another thing to clean up in your project, but to keep yourself just interested enough that you maintain your focus. You need to make little (and known) mistakes to keep from making large (and unknown) mistakes.

See? Simple. 😉

Here’s where it gets complicated. Only you can tell when your attention is starting to drift, so only you can tell when it’s time to start making mistakes. You have to sense your mood, and keep careful tabs on your mental state. This is by far the hardest part in the process. You have to know yourself well enough to know when things are going wrong. Once you can do that, the rest is easy.

Some examples:
I am blessed because photoshop is such an incredibly flexible app. There are almost an infinite number of ways to fix something. With the exception of resolution and color spaces, almost any solution is a functional one. True, there are some techniques which are better than others, but for the most part you can be creative in the way you fix things. And this part is key. You can intentionally switch things up.

Do you color correct using Curves and Hue/Sat? Try using Levels and Color Balance. Do you draw hair from outside to in? Try going inside to out.

If you’re a musician, try playing a song in a different key or tempo. Play that hard rock song like the deepest of country tunes, and see what that does for you. Switch to a minor key, play it like a polka. Do what it takes to make it new.

If you’re a painter, try painting with a different technique or color. If you’re a writer, try writing in a different voice or style, or have your character do something they would NEVER do.

The point is not what technique you use, it’s what happens to your brain while you’re doing them. Using a normally unused technique will change how you think. I will automatically make your brain focus more, making you more engaged.

Just making the attempt is the important part. It doesn’t even have to be useful. I often try two or three different techniques until I find one that works. The ones that don’t work I throw out. The goal is not just a final technique, but an engaged brain. Don’t be afraid to try and fail two or three times or more. You’re mining engagement here, and sometimes you have to prime the pump to get your brain flowing again.

The trick is to keep your attempts small and constrained. Don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it. Just do it and see what it does. Every mistake should be easy to repair, though I think you’ll be surprised at how many you eventually keep. You don’t want to do something that can spike your project, just something that can nudge your brain into a more focused state.

Besides having less mistakes in your final work, this technique also helps by giving you a more flexible approach to your craft. It is very easy to get all caught up into doing the same process over and over. Sometimes only one procedure will do the job properly, it’s just not always the best thing for your brain.

Basically, you are already creative in your craft, so why not be creative about your techniques as well? Use your creativity to make things better for you, and cause less mistakes.

I think that’s it for this week. Next week I have a technique to make your creative projects more fun.

So you want to be an artist

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Unsolicited advice on how to make it in the creative world, from someone who has been in the trenches for a while.

Many years ago I had a job as a delivery driver for a rental company. This was back when I was around 19 or 20. By then I had completed exactly one year of college before dropping out to play in a Christian rock band. The Christian part was new, but the musician part was not. (spoiler alert: I’d eventually fail at both). 

Music was the first art form I’d tried that I could unselfconsciously immerse myself in. Oh, I’d been doodling since elementary school, but I could never draw uncritically. I was always finding fault with my work. It was never good enough. Besides, I never saw myself as an artist. My mom was an artist and taught art, so I had a pretty clear idea about that path, and I was sure it wasn’t for me (spoiler alert: I’ve been a professional artist for over 30 years now). The important part here being I could see myself as a rock musician. The music wasn’t that hard, and the rewards (money, fame, girls, and drugs) all were enticing. It was a future I could embrace. It was my shortcut to success and adulthood.

Besides, music was fun to play.

All I had to do was try hard, and eventually I would succeed. Someone would notice my drive, my earnestness, and pick me from the crowd. Then my life would be nothing but limousines and pretty girls, and no more cares about money.

And why not? This pattern had always worked for me before. I was quirky, which meant I had that perfect blend of creative and smart. Teachers for the most part liked me. I was exciting to have in a classroom. I was surprising (in a good way). I had potential. The way I figured, if I was always going to be somebody, I might as well be the somebody I wanted, and right then I wanted to be a rock star.

And I REALLY WANTED IT. I was an unknown kid from a shit little town, struggling (and failing) to remain middle class. I had all the desire you could want. I NEEDED it with a white hot WANT, and I wasn’t going to settle. I was going to have it all.

Somewhere along the way I also became a Christian, but this was not an impediment to my musical success. Quite the opposite. I’d been listening to Christian music, and realized there was a dearth of good rock songs about God. Most of it was pretty tame in comparison to the secular rock I’d loved so much.

So I went for it.

It was somewhere during that time that I worked for this rental place. The job, as I told everyone in ear shot, was only a stepping stone. Success, real success (meaning rock star fame and fortune) was just around the corner. Sure it was the Christian version of rock star, so less drugs and more earnestness, but I was good at being earnest. So it was no surprise that on a slow day I pulled out my guitar to practice in the back. 

The boss had recently hired a new guy named Steve. (I’m sad to say I forget his name, so I’ll call him Steve) Steve was a little older, and probably a lot wiser, but we got along okay. He worked up front with the customers (something I didn’t do well), and I drove delivery. Still, we were close enough that when he heard me practicing, he came walking to the room, past all the half assembled lawn mowers and dirty dishes, wearing an expression in his face like he was close to tears. Then as he approached he got down on his knees in front of me, clasped his hand together as if in prayer, proceeded to blubber. 

For those of you who grew up in the church, he was mimicking an altar call. For those who didn’t earn their merit badge in exuberant protestantism, he was faking the spiritual ecstasy of someone about to have a conversion experience. Mind you, I knew he was being funny, I even knew he was being funny at my expense, I just didn’t understand why. I laughed, because it was funny, but I didn’t get what he was doing. Why was he making fun of me in that way?

I know now it was because I was exuding desperation and earnestness like a bad cologne. Exuding it so hard it made everyone around me uncomfortable. I was practically screaming my want to the world.

And it wasn’t enough.

Many years later, I was living in another town (Los Angeles) and working in another industry (entertainment advertising). By then I was a professional, earning a professional wage. I even had my own office. I worked for a small division of a slightly larger company. I had also met Teri by then and was either engaged or about to be engaged. Basically I was in my mid 30s, and settling down. I was also having a kind of crisis. 

See, at the time I was a finisher, which is the last person to touch a piece of art (like a movie poster) before it is printed. My job was to take designs that had been put together with more speed than skill, and make them into a cohesive piece of art. Finishing is a job that is more technical than creative. The big design ideas have already been worked out. Your job is to make sure all the fiddly bits, all the small details, work together. 

My problem was, I didn’t find the work creative enough. 

Most of the people I worked with were finishers like me. We’d come into the business from the technical side. None of us had gone to art school. None of us were deeply creative (or creative as I saw it then). So when we got a new boss for our division, one who was both an outstanding Illustrator and a photographer, I took him aside one day and asked him how one got to be a designer. 

His name was Michael Elins, and while his advice was a little mixed (he’s a much better visual artist than a writer), and full of exacerbation with me, (he must have thought my question was like asking a fish why they liked water) still, his words have stuck with me to this day. What he told me was that a designer didn’t just do designs. They got design magazines, they went to art shows, they made friends with other designers, they worked at design agencies. It wasn’t just a job, it was a whole experience.

The feeling I got from him was design was a kind of lifestyle. As if design was something one did, like being gay, or being a banker. It was a whole package.

This was a lot closer to the truth than Steve’s display at the rental place. But it took me a few more years to have both of them make sense.

Basically, what I think Michael was hinting at was that an artist first and foremost does art. That is, they do the work of being an artist. This is not unlike something that authors often say: A writer writes, or a painter paints. The main point being, it is not enough to want to be something like a designer or a rock star. You have to do the work. 

The key is not desire. You can have all the desire in the world and still not succeed. The key is in the work. It’s not enough to grow out your hair, or pierce your ear, or say all the right words. 

The thing is, much of the world doesn’t work this way. To be a Christian all you have to do is say you are. The same is true for most jobs that are considered unskilled. No one is going to check to see if you are really a dishwasher or a waiter. Sure there are limits to what you can say about yourself, but for much of the world, especially much of the middle class world, “fake it til you make it” is a tried and true recipe for success. 

It just doesn’t work in the creative world.

About a month ago, a very successful author posted something on FaceBook  about “being” an author. They were giving the tried and true advice I included above: A writer writes. Many of the replies showed that the other fans of this author were not “getting it”. They were under the impression that if you had a good enough idea, or sufficient raw talent, then that was enough. 

I don’t blame them, it took me decades to work this out, mostly by failing, over and over.  So allow me to save you that failure if I may.

The reality is this: If you want to make a living in a creative field you’re going to be facing a long uphill battle. I promise you, it will be a slog. There are three major reasons for this.

The first is about the numbers.
The truth is there’s a lot more people who want to do the work than there is money, and there’s not a lot of money. Sure there are success stories, but these people are vanishingly rare. For every Stephen King or Elton John there are tens of thousands of people who you will never know doing the exact same work for next to nothing.

Because of this, to succeed, even at a modest level, means you have to find a way to separate yourself from the pack. It very much is a competition. To be better you need to do more than just want to be successful. After all, everyone else also wants to be successful, and some of them surely want it more than you. Really wanting something is just the floor, not the ceiling. It’s the minimum standard.

Sure, there is a component of luck to this as well, but luck will only take you so far.

The second is about the process.
You don’t get good at any craft (be it writing, or painting, designing, or playing an instrument) by doing it once a week or once a month. You have to do it over and over, hour after hour, year after year. You have to practice it until your fingers bleed and your hopes turn sour. You have to practice until you reach the point that you are sure no one else in the world is going to care, and then you have to practice some more.

The value of art is in the doing, not the thinking. You can have a million dollar idea for a movie or a novel, but until you do the work of making that idea a reality – something you can hold in your hands or show to others – it’s not worth two cents. Art without action is nothing. Ideas, like desire, are just the floor, not the ceiling. You need something else.

The third is about standards.
It’s not enough to do the work, you have to do it well. You have to be demanding of your creative output. You have to hold it to the white hot fire of criticism, and burn off all the bad parts. You have to develop a critical eye. You have to be willing to be discontent. You have to suck, over and over until your work starts to suck less; until you reach the point where you stop making the obvious mistakes and start making the subtle yet challenging real mistakes, and then start all over again.

This is the point Michael Elins was trying to convey to me all those years ago. Good designers are always comparing their work to other designers, usually the very best, and then working hard to perform at that level. They talk to other professionals in their field, they notice all the work that is being done, and they are fucking critical about it. Most importantly, they are critical of their own work.

The thing is, this part is hard, perhaps the hardest. Just having the ego to think that you can create, that your ideas are important, that something living only in your head needs to be in the outside world, is super difficult. Especially, if no one else in the world gives a damn. Sure, you can surround yourself with others who care. I was in several bands when I was a musician, but even that wasn’t enough. The enemy is always the person you face in the mirror. If you shit too much on your own work, if you are too critical, you can shoot yourself down and keep yourself from creating. If you are not critical enough then you can go on for years being mediocre and never understanding why you’re not finding success. It’s a very fine balance, and it is always changing.

And even then, even if you do all three of the things I mentioned above, your success is not guaranteed. You can go your whole life and only those close to you will see your efforts. Look up Larry Todd, of Aline Kominsky-Crumb. There are famous painters like Van Gogh, Cézanne, Monet, and Gauguin, who died before they became popular. Even authors like Sylvia Plath, Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, John Keats, Edgar Allen Poe, even fucking Herman Melville, all gained notoriety after they passed this earthly veil.

You can have all the desire in the world, you can do the work, and you can do the work at a very high level, and still not find success. That is the size of the mountain you are facing. All of us creative types face this, and yes it is fucking daunting.

But also, who cares? So what if it is hard? Everything is hard, everything is difficult. Just getting out of bed some days is too much. Don’t let the size of the thing fool you. It’s mostly in your head anyway.

Knowing all that, if you still want to be an artist here’s my advice:
First of all, if you want to be something, then be it. Don’t wait for someone else to give you permission. If you want to be a novelist, then write a novel. If you want to be a musician, then play your heart out. If you want to be the best chef in all of America, then start cooking up your own recipes. 

Don’t wait on desire, do the work.

If you want to make money at your passion, if you want your passion to be more than just a side hustle, then you need to not only do the work but mix it up with the big boys. That means you need to be critical of your art, you need to refine it, edit it, make it better. You need to make it the best you can, and then you need to find a way to make it better. This is a journey, and it is NOT going to happen overnight. Developing a critical eye for your shit takes time. This is why there is no such thing as an overnight success, because becoming a professional takes hundreds or even thousands of hours of patience and dedication. They don’t pass that out at the corner. If they did then everyone you know would be a success. 

Perhaps most important, if you tried to do something creative but didn’t have the wherewithal to take it to the top, DO NOT LOWER YOUR HEAD. Keep your chin up. You braved more than most. Failure is not a failure unless you decide not to learn from it, so learn. Maybe you’ll learn (like I did with music) that it’s just not an art for you. Maybe you’ll learn you just needed a break to let things settle down, before you start again. Maybe you’ll learn that it sucks and the big boys cheat (they do), and the work is totally unfuckingfun (it is).

Being a creative means taking it on the chin. Always. There is no path forward that doesn’t come with pain. Easy street is for suckers, not for us. Sometimes the only way to tell that you’re on the right path is when the blows come hard and fast and you keep going anyway.

But also, there is no shame in bowing out either. This is your life, you get to create it anyway you like. In fact, your life is your best creation. If you step down a path that gets too weird or too dark, it’s totally okay to walk away. Only you can set your standards, and only you are responsible to them. No one else should have that power over your passion, so don’t give it to them.

Bottom Line:
If you want to live, (not succeed, but live);
if you want to be happy (not content, but happy);
then you have to find joy in the work.

Find joy in what you do. Find joy in what you create. Find joy in the creative process. It could very well be the only happiness you will get from your passion, so celebrate it. Make the most of it. In the end, this is the only thing you are guaranteed.

Culture, an Analogy

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“The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently…” – David Graeber 

Many years ago I had a sort of epiphany about what culture is, and how it works. At the time I chose to not write it down, in part due to my own laziness, and in part to see if it was a genuinely good idea. I often have ideas that fail to make it the full light of day before imploding. Such is the nature of creativity. The impulse is kind, but its offspring are not always lasting or well-thought. 

Over the years my little analogy grew to reflect changes in the outside world. I saw arguments in politics over the culture wars (which, far from being a recent phenomena, dates back to the beginnings of recorded history), I saw massive changes in the media that artists use (from vinyl to CDs, from DVDs to streaming, and from AOL to the targeted social media we have today), and I saw every day recommendations (over books or screen time, or the value of letting a child play outdoors), and they all struck me as somehow being connected.

The question remained: How? How are these seemingly disparate elements connected? My answer is the stone.

The evidence for my analogy comes mostly in the form of observation. I have no formal education into the nature of culture, and in fact have barely scratched the surface in terms of research. All of what you read comes from a simple yet central idea. What if all the things that humanity argues about were just variations on the same thing? What if this thing was something that grew over time, evolved as it were. Ideas battling it out with other ideas until eventually one was the victor. After all, we no longer argue over the divine right of kings, or assume that mental illness comes about from demon possession. Why is that? What made those changes happen? It was cultural, sure, but how? How does culture work? How does it evolve? 

It was in attempting to answer those questions that this analogy came into being.

…

The Stone

Imagine if you will, a massive wheel of stone that is hundreds of miles wide and perhaps equally as large in diameter. The stone travels slowly over a large flat plain, completing a single revolution once per year, so that the part which is currently at the very top will be on the top again in precisely 365 days. The weight of this stone is crushing, destroying everything in its path. Behind it is a transformed landscape marking its passage that goes back for millennia. The stone is almost inconceivably large, and is unstoppable in its rotation. 

Upon the face of this stone are people. We will call them sculptors, though they go by many different names: Artists, writers, painters, dancers, singers, songwriters, chefs, architects, musicians, scientists, etc. They are of all shape, sizes, color, nationality, and religion. Each day these sculptors work upon the surface of the stone, battering and hammering into the hard face with their tools. Their goal is to affect the stone in such a way that when it reaches soil below it will use its massive weight to stamp an impression into the dirt that will last year after year beyond its passage. Some sculptors work singularly, some work in large groups. The work is hot, heavy, and dangerous. The very top is the safest place to work, and that is where you’ll find most of the sculptors, but the stone remains underneath that area for only a short time. Those that wish to influence a particular section beyond that short moment, must invent ropes and pulleys and other contraptions to hold themselves to the ever rotating surface while they work. If you start too early you’ll discover that the stone, fresh from compacting the soil, is embedded in a thick layer of dirt. If you stay too late upon the other side you risk the very real chance of being crushed by your own work. Every year the stone in its undying rotation creates hundreds if not thousands of casualties. The price for inattention is high.

All of humanity is deeply interested in what the sculptors do, but the vast majority do not live upon the stone. Either they find the work disinteresting, too dangerous, or perhaps they have some other reason. Instead, most people live in the impressions left behind by the passage of the stone, for as the stone moves it leaves behind vast buildings made of compressed soil, some so large they become massive unending cities. Also left behind are sculptures, and trees, comfortably shaded benches to sit upon, toys for children and adults, pools, and roads, auditoriums, and churches, and cathedrals, cars and trains, musical instruments of every style, and vast platforms that twist and swirl for dancers to perform upon.  All that is needed is a little bit of scrubbing, and a little bit of digging, and the impressions from the stone can be made livable. Don’t like the house you’re in? Wait a year and try the next version. Hopefully, the architect up on the stone will listen to your requests. Of course, you can always pay them, for many of the sculptors are paid by the people below to create things for their use. Not all sculptors are paid. Some work for the joy, or desire. Some for the notoriety. It is said that one sculptor, by the name of Jesus, hit a crack in the face at just the right moment that it caused a massive avalanche of stone to fall. You can still see the impression of his work today. Some claim this Jesus was buried in the rubble of his own creation, and popped up, alive and healthy, three days later on the other side. His own work sheltering him from the weight of the stone. Alas, no one can travel back that far in the stone’s wake and check. 

This, then, is our culture. The stone. It is both something that concerns us all, and yet is something we can also contribute to. It is the most democratic of mediums, although some groups do in fact limit who among them can work its surface. Some people by hammering away find great success, but the vast majority of sculptors do not. Most know of the stone only by the impression it leaves behind. Some live so far from the stone that they have never seen its motion. By now, the entire surface of the stone has been marked by humanity, much of it for thousands of rotations. That doesn’t mean one cannot go in and try to reshape any area they desire, but the stone is hard, and the work is difficult, and there might be just as many sculptors wishing to carve the stone in the entirely opposite direction. The battle is the work, and the work is the battle, and all of us, all of humanity, are affected by the outcome. 

Strange Dream

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Last night I dreamt I was meeting a friend that I had not seen in a while, and was trying to make a good impression, but was totally blowing it. It started with everyone at the gathering was wearing a costume, and I was just in regular clothes. And then later in an enclosed space i was talking to some woman at length and realized I wasn’t wearing a face mask and everyone else was. The look of horror on this woman’s face as I was speaking loud was amazing.

So I decided for some reason to show this woman a magic trick. Mind you, I don’t know any magic tricks, but that didn’t stop me. I knew I needed to make a good impression. So I took a book and started ripping pages out of it. At first I was pretending to rip the pages, but pretty soon I was taking out whole pages, and then clumps of pages, and then shaking the book upside-down and having confetti and small pieces of paper fall out.

The magic trick was I was going to make the book whole again, and it worked, the book was made whole, except…. Page 17 and 18 didn’t want to go to the right place. Page 15-16 was full of violent language, and page 19-20 was almost a war. The poor page just didn’t feel right being between those two, so it asked about and traded with page 57-58 who was bored of the staid and sedate place it was in, and was looking for more adventure.

And when I woke for the last time (for this dream was more like several dreams that worked together with me waking sometimes in-between) I thought to write a children’s book where one could rearrange the pages in different ways. So the story could be easily changed many time the child got bored. They could put all the exciting stuff right next to each other, or put all the stilly parts in the back, or whatever.

It should be an interesting project.

A Summer Morning

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A secret path

Looking far into the backyard.

We haven’t done anything with the backyard in a while, letting the weeds that have rooted grow as they will. The back was never really planted. When we bought the house there were two massive silver maples, sadly gone now and deeply missed, with the remainder of the yard mostly gravel over roofing material, or in some places instead of roofing material it was plastic. As the trees died some of the gravel we removed. We also planted a hedge of yew pines across the back to act as a screen from the ally and the apartments behind. 

Because the back is not planted it has a feel of wilderness to it. It’s very subtle.  At first glance it’s just a jumble of dried grasses. Then as you look patterns start to emerge. The grasses grow in waves, little pockets of order in the midst of the chaos. New plants are constantly emerging even though we haven’t watered or treated the soil. The neighbor’s hedge is slowly taking over our common block wall. Already the ugly spiked metal topper he put on is mostly covered, the vines clinging tightly to the wall taking advantage of the morning sun. 

A neighbor’s vines consuming the wall.

New green growing in the midst of dry plants.

Two large trees from the adjoining neighbors east of us shade the middle of our yard. Between them and the garage, the morning light is arrested by a deep shadow that does not give way until you are almost to the base of the yew pines. There the sun suddenly springs forth, a natural spotlight shining across the entire back. For the ground at that spot this is the only time of the year it will receive direct sunlight. The sun will soon swing south around behind the trees plunging their north facing bases into shade. In winter, indeed in every season except high summer, their bottoms never receive direct light. 

Between the trees and the garage the deep mid-yard shadow gives another dimension. It marks the shadowy line from the real world, through an underworld passage, to a far off sunny land on the other side. I think this is part of the allure, partly why the back feels so wild, because of that journey through the shadows.

The view back, though the land of shadows.

This same spot, the deep part of backyard, has an entirely different feel at mid day. When the sun is high, the house is parched, the heat baking. It is like standing in an oven with weeds, whereas in the cool of the morning is it a sun-dappled secret garden, a fantasy realm 50 feet from out back door. 

As I stood back there, first in the shade and then later in the sun, everything felt removed. Walls of foliage and surrounding tall fences give the space a sense of shelter. There are no flat distant lines marking the horizon, short of the one leading back to our house. Traffic on the nearby avenue is blessedly light in the morning, so the road noise doesn’t intrude upon my sense of wilderness. Private jets from a local airport pass overhead so high they sound like some strange species of bird. Over a neighbor’s yard two actual birds flay past, carrying on a very loud and ernest discussion. They weren’t close enough for me to recognize, but I’d never heard that kind of call before. Listening to them as they passed gave me that embarrassed feeling that you get when you find yourself suddenly next to a strange couple that is bitterly arguing in public. You don’t know whether to plug your ears or pick a side and loudly cheer. 

Then finally the morning sun had warmed me enough that it is time to return. Mug of coffee in hand, now almost gone, I walk past the weeds, plunging again into deep shadow, only to emerge on the other side, back again in the real world. But the rest of the morning that sense of the wildness persisted in my mind. If felt like any moment I could spin around and suddenly find myself back again encased by nature.

And this I think is the reason why we love the wild. Because once we’ve crossed their border and entered their realm, the wild never truly leaves us, but clings to us, following us back to the real world so that even when we are surrounded by cars and buses and city streets, the wild remains, just around the corner, waiting patiently to reclaim once again its land.

On the bodies of black boys

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I dreamed last night that our soon to be 19 year old son was back in elementary school. A bunch of us parents were standing around, kids milling all around us, so it must have been a party or the end of the school day. Kids at that age make a sea of noise and movement, and parents sort of carefully wade through it without trying to disturb the energy too much.

One parent was there without their child. He had gone missing a few days before. The mother and father were asking us questions. Had we seen anything? Did we know anything? When was the last time our child had seen their son?

Suddenly one of the parents, a father, started crying out. They couldn’t find their son either. It was broad daylight, with dozens of parents and teachers about and his boy had just disappeared.

I had one of those frozen moments of fear that you get when you’re a parent. The thought of loosing your child goes through your bones like a knife. A sense of panic rises up taking over your mind like a tsunami, and it cannot be quelled until your child is in your arms. I grabbed our son and hugged him, picking him up off the ground, and what was going though my mind at that moment was the worst kind of selfish relief. I could sense the panic of the father calling out to his lost son, but at least I knew our boy was safe.

If you’re a parent, then you know exactly what I’m talking about. Its a feeling of equal parts  terror for the parents of the missing child, mixed with relief that your own child is safe.

Then in the way that dreams go, a very cinematic sequence occurred in my mind. I was looking at a sign, a name made of white lettering painted upon a black background. It was one of those many projects that kids do in elementary school, the paint and the writing were done by the children. The name on the sign I was looking at was that of the first boy that had gone missing. As I watched the name of the second boy joined the first, like someone was keeping score. All of this was superimposed upon the scene of children milling around an elementary school, and a father trying not to panic while calling out for his missing son.

I knew in that moment that his son was lost, and the father would never see him again.

Then I woke to my alarm, groggy and stiff.

The emotions from this dream were still echoing fresh in my mind as I headed for the kitchen to start my coffee. It took me a few seconds to process what I had been dreaming, trying to piece together the setting and the emotions, when suddenly I recognized the names of those missing boys. They weren’t some random children, they were Black boys that our son had gone to school with. We’d had them over to our home for birthday parties, we knew their parents by their first names. These were families we knew, and liked, and we enjoyed their brief connection with our son.

At this point I doubt that anyone reading this will be surprised. This dream came after a terrible week where a Black man, George Floyd, was essentially executed in broad daylight by the police, and the resulting protests and riots that followed. The week was like living through the 92 Rodney King riots again, only this time it was more diffuse with protests in hundreds of cities all across America and the world, and not just contained to a small part of LA. And there were far more white voices and bodies joining in the march. Oh, and let’s not forget the specter of Covid-19 looming everything like a horror movie scene in the back of everyone’s mind. So not just protestors, but masked protestors, facing ranks of masked and helmeted, police officers. The street of our believed nation filled with smoke and with fire, looking at times like a war zone from a third world country.

So yeah, there is plenty of fuel to build horrific dreams.

Since our son attended our local elementary school, two more black families have moved to our block. Successful families too, as the cost of owning a house in our once blue collar neighbor has doubled and then tripled. They are friendly, they have nice children, we talk to them fairly often, especially the neighbors across the street, and I can’t help but think they have the right to feel their children are safe too. That their children will not be taken away from them on the whim of a man with a badge and a bad attitude.

The other day Teri was talking with a checker at a grocery store, and the young lady asked Teri how the current unrest differed from the 92 riots. It’s a tricky question as were much younger then, and much more selfish. I hadn’t met Teri yet. At that time she had been dating Black men for years, so she was intimately familiar with the LAPD and how they treated men of color, especially with a white girl in their car. I was seeing someone from my apartment complex who had lived through the revolution in Iran, and was terrified it would come here. I probably wasn’t very good comfort, being both young, and dealign with my own insecurities as this was before I went through therapy. I also didn’t know anything about PTSD or how to help someone with it, things I am much better prepared for now.

So I guess my dreams answered the checker’s question for me. What’s the difference between the 92 riots and now? This time it is personal. It is not just Black boys in danger, it is Black boys we know and like. And we’re no longer interested in allowing their deaths to continue so white families can maintain their perfect bubble of ignorance.

Things are going to be uncomfortable for a while, especially for white families. We’re going to have to deal with topics that we usually do not talk about. We’re going to have to talk about race, and what that means, and what parts of our past we still carry unknowingly in our hearts like a poison that leaves wounds which cannot be healed. The unspeakable will be spoken, it must be if we are ever to find peace.

Because no parent should have to live through the horror of calling out their child’s name, never hearing a reply.

About Grace

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Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now I’m found.
Was blind, but now I see.

20 years ago, a man named Matthew Shepard died. His remains are being interred this week in the National Cathedral in Washington. Matt was not a very remarkable young man, had I passed him on the street I doubt I would have thought twice about him. The reason he is being interred, like the reason for his death, begins and ends with a single fact. Matt Shepard was gay.

At the time of his death, I was shocked, but didn’t think much about it. Already I understood that being gay could be a death sentence. It was a sad day, but not an unusual one. By that time I had already been on both sides of the gay “question”. I had gone from thinking homosexuality was the most terrible of sins to understanding that gay people were exactly like any other person, with the exception of who they fell in love with. It was circuitous journey for me, one full of events that I would really like to forget. I carry a very clear understanding that I wasn’t always on the side of the angels with this one, and some of my mistakes burn on my conscious.

Growing up, I lived in fear of being gay. It was a common slur, and one that I took to heart. A fag was the worst of creatures; a male who was not quite a man. Later, when I was a Christian, I continued in the fear of gayness; quoting scriptures, condemning to hell, the whole thing. The church is a great excuse for one’s actions, but let me be clear; the sins of my time then are mine, not theirs. I knew better, I just didn’t act that way. Mind you, I didn’t hit anyone, or look for ways to harm someone who was gay, outside of offering them condemnation instead of fellowship. But I was also never their friend. I was not, what Jesus would have been; kind and compassionate.

In 1988 when I moved to LA, I left behind most of my Christianity. It was here I met my first gay friend. Todd taught me many things; what it was like to be gay, how to like yourself regardless of what the world thinks of you, how to be happy in the middle of chaos, and how to be compassionate towards those less fortunate. This last part was ironic. We’d both come from the church–which was one of the things we hit upon from the start, and allowed us to grow closer–but it was only after leaving the church I learned to love those who were still afflicted with their own internal fears about manliness and what being a man meant. I had to leave the church to fully see its flaws.

Now that I’m a father, I am thankful that my son has not been raised with this particular fear. He will be many things in this life, and I look forward to seeing as many of his transformations as I can, but he will not be a homophobe. At least he will not learn that by me.

In the end, this is all I can leave the Matt Shepards of the world. I cannot repair the wrongs I have done in the past, but I can change what I do today and in the future. As his ashes are laid to rest, consecrating that already holy ground, I am reminded of that great hymn, Amazing Grace.

I once was lost, but now am found.
Was blind, but now I see.

May that we all find our grace.

A night at the theater, my Hamilton review.

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Last night we went to see the musical Hamilton here in Los Angeles. I posted some things on Facebook about it, but wanted to talk about the experience more in depth here.

Three crazy people on the subway

First of all, I’m not going to explain the musical to you. If you don’t know much about it then you really do need to get out more often. Not only is it one of the most award winning musicals, its also a nice bit of history, a ground breaking blend of rap and broadway musical, and a well crafted commentary upon the value of immigrants and people of color to this country. Since it opened in New York the musical has constantly been sold out. When the touring company came to L.A. I figured it was the best chance I would get at seeing it. The show is massively popular here in L.A. too, so tickets were not cheap.

I’m going to start by saying I was probably a fan of Hamilton before you were. That’s not a brag, I have a degree in U.S. History, and Alexander Hamilton was one of my favorites from way back then. This was in the mid 80s, back when Hamilton was still a stuffy old white guy. The question then was, did the modern recasting of the man change him in any significant way?

I first came across the Hamilton from the music. Bits and pieces started filtering into my world, especially after it won so many Tonys. Out of curiosity I downloaded the Original Broadway Cast recording about a year and a half ago. I have loved it from the first listen. I can’t recommend it enough. The music is quite powerful, and does a good job of telling Hamilton’s story, warts and all. If the whole Hamilton phenomena could be reduced down to just this music, I think it would still be a worthy of the praise. It is history brought to life, with all the worry, drama, love, and subterfuge of the founding of our nation, but presented in a three act structure, with all the elements that make for good drama (or for that matter, good story-telling). Just from listening to it you get probably 90% of what goes on in the musical. In fact, there was only one small part of the show last night that strayed outside of the recording (the “Tomorrow There’ll Be More of Us” scene which I found out was intentionally kept off the recording to be a nice easter egg for those going to the show). My goal in wanting to go was to not just hear the music live (like one might for their favorite rock band), but to see if the staging of the music made the story that much better. The short answer is, indeed it did.

The Pantages

The setting:
Hamilton is being performed at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood. It is a lovely setting, an Art Deco treasure, chock full of fun and interesting details. I could spend a week there with a camera and an internet connection, trying to trace down and discover the meaning behind all of the wonderful statues, reliefs, and decorations. If you love art, then just going to this theater is a sight for sore eyes. To my mind the building is every bit as lovely as the Walt Disney Concert Hall, or the Parthenon. Mind you, it is lovely for different reasons then those other two architectural treasures, but I think you get the point.

The stage is simple, befitting a musical when the story is told mostly by lyric. There are some fancy parts, mostly the turn-table floor which rotates at times on parts of the stage, but this is pretty low-key compared to some plays and musicals, and never once overwhelmed. The orchestra was pretty reduced with most parts played on modern instrumentation. Much of the music was I believe pre-recorded. It sounded remarkably like the Original Broadway Cast recording, which is probably a very good idea as the music itself is perhaps the musical’s strongest selling point. The actors were individually mic’d so their voices did not have to carry to fill the room, which brings me to one of my big criticisms. From our vantage point, center and close to the stage, the sound was not very good. The actor performing the part of Hamilton was quieter than everyone else in the mix for most of the night, so he was at times difficult to hear. The overall sound quality was only fair. A lot like the sound quality of of your a cineplex build in the 90s. The music was at times distorted and mushy, the sound muffled, the highs clipped, and the midtones over blown. It sounded as if the volume of each singer was constantly changed to match the needs of the music. This is perhaps good stagecraft, but at a few points, especially at the big dramatic endings of songs, the actors sang loud enough that they became too loud and distorted. To be fair, the theater might not lend itself to good audio. All those wonderful art deco details might make for an echoic and mushy room, still when you pay top dollar for a musical I believe having a good sound system does not seem too much to ask.

Mind you, all of these are minor points. Most listeners will probably not notice such things. If you’re a recording engineer then you’ll probably find even more flaws than I did, but for most people the sound will be more than adequate. The music was clear, the lyrics understandable, and sound was loud without being anywhere near to rock-concert volume. My wife and son, both of whom have only heard bits and pieces of the soundtrack, found the music wonderful, and had no problems following the story, even when it was delivered at a blistering rate.

The staging of the music, especially seeing different characters sing the various parts, really made the music come to life. The Original Broadway Cast recording is great, as I mentioned above, but suffers in that you often cannot tell which character is singing what part. The voices of Lin-Manuel Miranda (Alexander Hamilton) and Leslie Odom Jr. (Arron Burr) are close enough to my ear that I cannot tell by listening that they often trade lines back and forth in a song. Seeing them do so on they stage brought much greater depth to the songs.

Perhaps my favorite example of this was the wonderfully subtile scene in the song One Last Time. The song begins with Washington asking Hamilton to write for him one last speech. Most of the song goes into the reasons for the speech and Washington’s retirement, but near the end we get to hear part of the actual speech itself. It starts with Hamilton speaking the words front stage, with Washington back stage about as far as you can go, directly behind him. The rest of the stage is largely bare. As the song progresses, Hamilton slowly moves back stage, and Washington comes to front stage. When they pass the song goes from spoken to sung, and the voicing seamlessly transitioning from that of Hamilton, the speech-writer, to Washington the speaker. All the while the song is building from just single voice and a cello, to multiple instruments. Near the end the ensemble has come onstage, dressed formally, arranged in couples as if listening to a speech at a park, with the men holding their hats high over their heads in respect. It is lovely, and powerful, and fairly simple. Never once does it get in the way of the performance. The movements and the costumes supported the song perfectly.

Another example is in the song The Room Where it Happens. This is the turning point for the antagonist (Aaron Burr), as the song captures the moment he goes from being passive to active, following, as he later tells him, Hamilton’s example. In terms of dramatic structure, this scene is key to the story. It ties up one theme (wait for it), and introduces another (room where it happens), adding complications along the way. In the cast recording the emotional impact of Burr singing “I want to be in the room where it happens” is not very strong. Seeing it staged you realize this is a life changing moment for the man (and later for Hamilton as well). The music alone does not do this song justice. Seeing it performed really brings it all home.

I could say the same for easily 3/4ths of the songs. The staging really takes them to another level. On some songs, like the complicated relationship between A Winter’s Ball, which runs into Helpless, and finally Satisfied, the staging really helps to understand the story. The songs captures the moment when Angelica Schuyler first meets Hamilton in A Winter’s Ball, and then later rewinds so that she can relive that same moment at her sister’s wedding to Hamilton in the song Satisfied. This is pretty complex for stage craft. Movies often go back and forth in time, but it’s a hard thing to do on a stage, let alone in a song. The staging does both scenes perfectly, changing only a few small parts, which add all the wonderful emotional undercurrent to the story.

Finally, I’d like to mention the actors. On the night we saw it the part of Hamilton was played by Ryan Alavarado, who is listed in the playbill as a standby. Either he was having a bad night, or his performance was not particularly polished. Either way his was perhaps the single “average” performance. This is not a complaint. When you go to the theater you get what the director gives you. Unlike a movie which can be shot with multiple takes, you only get one take on the stage. It either nails it or it doesn’t. Alvarado was a good performer but his voice was quieter (as I mentioned before) and his acting was a bit stiff. Perhaps his was a great performance, but only look worse when compared to those he was staged with, because the rest of the cast really pulled out the stops. Stand outs from such a wonderful cast are hard to find, but Joshua Henry, singing the part of Aaron Burr, really nailed it, and Isaiah Johnson singing the part of George Washington was incredible. His ending of One Last Time was soaring, a great example of how much better theater is at performing a song then any rock band. (Take note. If you’re in a band and really want to take things to the next level, this is what it looks like.) Rory O’Malley reprised his role of King George, since he was part of the original broadway cast. His performance takes a comic part and milks it for all it’s worth, to great effect. He was a show stopper. Finally, of note was Raven Thomas’ performance of Angelica Schuyler. She is listed in the program as part of the Ensemble, not a lead part. How she got the part of Angelica I don’t know. What I do know is she sang and acted as if this was her “shot”, and let me tell you, girlfriend knows how to aim. I expect to see more of her.

So in closing, was seeing the play worth the cost? Yes. The staging makes the play so much better than the music. It adds more drama, more comedy, more sadness, more of everything. In spite of a few quibbles I would go again. Already my wife has said she’d like to. I don’t know that we’ll sit in the same seats, but I have a feeling we’ll be back.

 

 

A chance meeting with a passing soul

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His name was Christopher, and he was sitting on the sidewalk outside of Trader Joes. I was doing a grocery run because Teri was busy with something, and I got off work early. One of the first things I learned about Christopher was he was going to the hospital. He had a hurt wrist, so he said, had a few possible broken ribs, and sclerosis of the liver. The second thing I learn about Christopher, before I even learned his name, was he was going to die.

“They told me I have 61 days,” he said to me, “I’ve been counting. I still have 40 left.”

When I came back out of the store, both arms loaded with groceries, I stopped to give him some cash. We talked about riding the bus and a few other things. His companion, very much not a homeless man, was named Pedro. Pedro was the kind of guy who ended every sentence with Praise God, or Praise Jesus. I knew the type, hell, I’d been the type. He seems to care, and was apparently going to take Christopher to the hospital, so I didn’t complain, although why they hadn’t gone in the time I was shopping I don’t understand.

Christopher was 51, and looked pretty good. His beard was long, but clean and well trimmed. His eyes were that color of electric blue that are startlingly pure. They were arresting eyes. His hair was turning from blonde to grey, but he had less grey in it than I do. Had his clothes been slightly cleaner he could have passed for an eccentric, and not a homeless man. His wore bright blue tennis shoes on his feet. One lay on its side on the sidewalk, the leg coming up at a strange angle from the foot, like he was woking on turning his ankle further so bottom of his foot could bend in more. The pose was both comfortable and awkward. He didn’t smell much of urine.

We talked about God and such. Christopher didn’t realize the meaning of his name, and when I told him, then Pedro wanted to know right away if I was a Christian or not. Somehow I seem to always do this with born-agains, I pepper the conversation with enough knowledge to make them ask, and then get to tell them I’m no longer a believer. It’s a stupid compulsion on my part. It stems in part from my need to be smarter than everyone else, and also possibly as a way to signal to them that their firm belief is not all that firm. A few times I’ve able to simply ignore Christians, or mouth the “christianese” enough to not draw attention, but today I didn’t.

Pedro wanted to know why I walked away from the faith. They always do. There’s no good answer to that, as least one a christian will understand. Knowing all about the faith, but not being of it doesn’t compute. It’s not a thought that fits within the christian meme. He asked if I was turned off by the church, but the truth is it wasn’t just the church. It was the whole thing. The whole memeplex is a mess. Too self-referential, and offering almost zero room for ideas outside of a very narrow set of beliefs. To me its like trying to build a giant apartment complex in a tiny sandbox with carefully guarded borders. There’s no room. It just doesn’t fit.

In any case I wasn’t there to discuss religion, and I wasn’t the main event. Sooner or later the conversations going to come back to Christopher, he was a drunk, this is how it goes. So I kicked the conversation back to him, and let it run its course.

We talked about a few more things, but I had frozen groceries in my bag, so I wasn’t exactly prepared for a long conversation. I wished Christopher well, and that he’d find sobriety. Then I give a mini lecture on the sacredness of work, explained how Jesus thought work important enough to even quote the OT on the topic (one of the few times he did), and wished him the desire to work hard on his life. For Pedro I wished him nothing, but left him with a pleasant greeting. Like me, Pedro is one of the lucky ones. Finally I wished Christopher luck. He’s going to need it if he wants to live past Christmas.

Then I drove home and put away my groceries.

Here’s the thing. We all have the knowledge that death can come at any moment. This week we had this concept strongly reaffirmed by the horrible shooting in Las Vegas. But the human mind naturally elides thoughts of death. If you try to force someone to pay attention to their future date with the grim reaper it will just piss them off. But occasionally one can approach the idea of their looming demise from an oblique angle, and not have a negative reaction. Christopher is a reminder that we all will die soon. I don’t mention this so you’ll be ready to meet your maker, since I don’t believe in one, but to point out the value of death is life. Death is a reminder to be what you want, to be who you are. If you were given 61 days would you spend it so drunk that you could trip on the sidewalk and break some ribs, or would you do something that made your life count?

Now here’s the real question, why wait?