Breaking the String In My Back

 

Lately I’ve been sort of floundering and rudderless. My life is fairly busy and full with friends, sponsees, girlfriend, family, various adventures, 4th Dimension… but with my career in my rear view mirror for just about 2 years now I dont really feel too much like I have a point other than to maintain the shit that I can do blindfolded.
What keeps pushing its way through the mundane, auto-piloted, Charlie Brown’s teacher drivel (“Blah, blah Neil! Blah blah blahdiddyblah Neil!) that fills the hours in my head is this insistent thought that I need to write something. Not like AA inventory number 71. But something substantive. Two things keep popping up over and over. Either fleshing my blog style out to a series of essays ala The Prophet, because my writing style is designed for that, or a Guide through the 12 steps for Atheists.
I am of course drawn to the idea of the latter idea because it will by its nature cause controversy. Child of Chaos, guilty as charged.
But that’s not the point of why I’m writing this right now. The greater point is that for years now people have been telling me “OMG!!! You NEED to write a book!!!” (insert eye roll) to which I reflexively say, as if I was a Neil Action Figure and you’d just pulled a string in my back, “I used to draw all the time, hours a day when I was a kid. It was my emotional outlet and release. The day I started getting paid to do that, it stopped. Havent been able to draw just for funzies since. Writing is that outlet now and I dont dare fuck with that.” I’ve been saying that shit for years like a sad wistful Sam Jackson’s Jules in Pulp Fiction quoting Ezekiel 25:17 right before he shoots someone.
Except now it occurs to me that what if that isnt even true? Anymore? …or ever? What if that has been nothing but an eloquent weapon to swat people down with so they dont notice I’ve just been being loyal to my suffering and the only thing being shot dead after my soliloquy is Hope?
What then? What if I was to suddenly bitch slap one of my mostest sacredest of cows, step right into its personal space and call it out? What if I dared to step right through my comfort zone and do it different….?

So here’s the gauntlet thrown down. The double dog dare:
In the interest of psychic spring cleaning – what old paradigm, written in stone commandment are you willing to toss on it’s head because it’s no longer a lovely accessory, it’s just a fucking ball and chain.

Of Cherry Bombs & Blossoms

I woke up this morning to news that favorable winds, giving Japan it’s only real break in this continuing disaster, blowing radioactive air out to sea, had turned, and now are heading straight back into towns already decimated by a 9.0 earthquake and 30 foot tsunami. I thought about the core level terror that the idea of radiation sickness must inflict on the Japanese people. And that reminded me of Natsumi Michihira.

The family that raised me during the 60′s and 70′s here in the bay area were progressives. They never told me what their politics were, they only insisted that I vote. They were of opposite spiritual beliefs but left it entirely up to me to explore that realm or not. Their friendships showed me a cultural pluralism that ingrained so deeply in me that when I step foot other places where white is all they’re serving I feel uncomfortable. My father was the token round-eye in an Asian tennis club. Ma did theater and clowning. I knew plenty of gay people and met my first transsexual when I was probably 10. The families we spent most of our weekends with were a family of hippies raised by beatnik parents, a black & white couple from the east coast who did co-op farming, and a pair of Japanese immigrants, first generation, with two sweet daughters.
Toshi and Natsumi were soft spoken, polite and very nice people. Their daughters straddled the line between their parents traditions and the gratifications of California. They taught me about Japanese culture by exposing me to their fairly spartan lifestyle, festivals and especially their food! God do I love Japanese food, but then Natsumi was a great cook and first impressions are everything. Their english wasnt all that great but being influenced by them at such an early age it didnt occur to me that this was something to be mocked, that they were somehow retarded because they couldnt talk right. No, it caused me to pay closer attention, to notice the strained and embarrassed looks on their faces, to read other cues they gave – and most importantly to realize that they each knew at least two languages, and how ridiculous do I look thinking them inferior when I know but one. Megaduh.

In 1994 Natsumi fell gravely ill and died very quickly. The Big C. It was my first Buddhist funeral and I remember it as if it was last week. Each person walks up to an elaborate urn and sprinkles incense into it, then turns to the grieving family and silently bows. Looking Toshi in the eye as I did so was the most profound expression of grief, respect, love and compassion I’ve ever been a part of. Nothing in the dozens of western funerals I’ve attended touches that one act of caring. Crap, the memory of it makes me cry now. When I returned to my seat I read through bleary eyes the memorial card each of us received as we walked into the Temple.

Natsumi Michihira
Born 1940 Nagasaki, Japan
Died 1994 Sunnyvale, California

Natsumi died of Leukemia. The weight of it floored me. The enormity of all the ramifications of it. Of how this particular death could affect her husband. Of the choices they made to come here of all places, given that they’d been touched first hand by the bomb. In some respects I still cant wrap my head around being in their shoes. But it continues to speak volumes about their courage and character.

Now you probably think you already know what’s coming next; the Apology. And you’d be wrong. This blog isnt about rethinking my Grandparent’s decisions in the waning days of WWII. In fact, given the sheer brutal tenacity of the Japanese fighter, more so the closer we got to the Homeland, coupled with their belief in their Emperor as a near deity, dropping the bombs likely saved 2 million lives on both sides of a land invasion. No, what inspired my fingers to require abuse of this keyboard was a combination of thoughts and feelings.

I’ve heard several people prophesy the coming lawlessness and post-apocalyptic chaos that we all know our society would delve into a week after *we* had a Great Quake, followed by a 30 foot wash and rinse with no Daddy Guvmint to save us in any practical way would be replicated in the Land of the Rising Sun. It wont. Thinking so is simply myopic. Their national psyche is such that they’d rather sacrifice their own lives, moving in teams to their mortally wounded nuclear facility, asking older employees to go first because they’d be less likely to develop cancers before they passed of natural causes than younger workers. It’s shop owners *lowering* their prices in affected areas so that people can get what they need. It is the anti-selfish. It reminds me that courage and selfishness are mutually exclusive. It’s being afraid and doing the right thing anyway.

I think of Toshi and Natsumi and my Mom and Dad and I remember that the fruits of a tree are rarely seen by those that planted the seeds. I sure am grateful for the seeds they all planted in me. And I pray for the people of Japan. For what they’re showing the rest of the world. Churchill famously said that America always does the right thing – after it’s exhausted all other options. We are first and foremost a nation of Christian values – with a fat helping of ‘Hey! Look at Me! Arent I great?’ Often for no good reason. We usually arent bright enough to realize we should be embarrassed by our collective behavior. Today isnt one of those days. And I’m glad for the seeds planted so many years ago, to see the miracles amid the suffering thousands of miles away. It inspires me to be even quieter in how I go about being in service today.

You Cant Save Your Ass & Your Face At The Same Time

I got caught up in a discussion online recently regarding the failings and hypocrisies of Bill Wilson. It reminded me of something I observed over the years growing up in AA. I got sober when I was 18. Came to the rooms at 22. My home group was pretty big and had some pretty Big Personalities that set the tone of things around there. It didnt take long to discover that they were human; they had failed marriages, poor business ethics, tempers. But man could they pitch a sermon and could they ever roll up their sleeves and jump in with a wet one. Accepting that the two personas werent mutually exclusive was tough for me. I was alternately inspired and let down by my heroes in AA.
About 10 years ago I found myself sitting at a big table at dinner with several friends after the funeral of one of those Big Personalities. This particular crew I’d known most of my sobriety. We came up together and now all had close to 15 or 20 years yet most of us had yet to see the age of 40. We all had worn several hats to each other over the years; friend, lover, confidant, betrayer, enemy, wing man, all of it. We looked around that table and realized that we were the next wave. That like it or not (and most of us didnt) *WE* were the next Big Personalities bobbing to the surface in our little sober piece of the world. And just as importantly, that *we* were all we had! It was time to set aside the petty grudges and grievances, to learn to laugh at each other’s quirks and be there for one another.

Over the last decade those old timers who taught me how to work with others also taught me what not to do. As I got older in my sobriety and came into my own, so to speak, I was invited to have a ringside seat for their lives outside the meeting halls and rumors. What I saw were some gentle souls, trapped by their personas, unable to be seen as human. It scared the bjesus out of me because I knew just how damn human I was! I had also resigned myself to the idea that ‘the Joy of Living’ that the book talked about was going to happen if I quit thinking about me and just simply started giving this thing back – making Love & Service the theme of every aspect of my life.

My current sponsor likes to say that sobriety is living well with unresolved problems. To that end I think part of why I have never been happier (in the midst of losing a leg, and a career, and the girl I thought would be at my bedside when I died, and nearly doing so 3 times in the last 3 years) is because I learned from those Big Personalities to not shy away from my failings and flaws. Hell, I often lead with them. I am prideful and vain, lousy with money, fairly lazy, perverted, and when in fear I seduce like a motherfucker. And then I laugh. Because everybody that knows me knows these things about me. I claim progress and own failure just like I ask my sponsees to do. My frankness lends credibility instead of undermining it. It inspires those around me to live freely by doing the same – and laughing.
I keep counsel with every one of those friends from that dinner table a decade back, and very often do so in full view of the future next wave. I want them to see what I’ve figured out; that the 12th tradition that everyone likes to chant, that “…principles before personalities” isnt about that snickering tone most have when they’re parroting it (thinking of someone they tolerate in the group). It’s about the steps and the principles in them. It’s not about Bill or Bob or John C. or Jim B. …or Neil L. It’s about one drunken bum helping another. No more, no less.

The way to saving my ass and my face at the same time – expose them both. For free and for fun.

After Me, you Come First

Leaves From the Fool’s Handbook

1. How to Become Unhappy

Sit down quietly where you are not likely to be disturbed. Relax the body – and begin to think about yourself. It does not matter very much what you actually think, so long as it is about yourself. Think about yourself, and every time your thoughts wander to something higher, bring it back gently but relentlessly.

If possible think about the past. Think over all the mistakes you have ever made, going right back to childhood. Think of all the foolish things you have ever said or done. Think of all the opportunities you have missed and the time you have wasted. Especially think of all the occasions upon which you have been badly treated. Consider carefully the injustices of which you have been the victim and think how much better off you might be in various ways today if only other people had behaved properly in times gone by. Remind yourself vividly of the unkind things other people have done to you and rehearse the incidents in detail, feeling as angry or hurt as you possibly can at each recollection. Even if a particular person has not actually offended you realize that he might have done so if he had had the chance, and tell yourself that he has probably talked about you anyway.

Think about your body and wonder if your age or your job or the climate isnt beginning to tell. See if you cannot discover an ache or a pain somewhere; you probably can if you search long enough.

Think about business or finances as gloomily as possible and even if they are going well now, insist that this is probably too good to last.

In any case, think about yourself, that is the main point, and if you will keep this up faithfully for 15 or 20 minutes, there will be no doubt about the result. You will have attained your goal.

- Emmet Fox

Reading this last night made me chuckle at first because of how ridiculous it sounds at first blush. But really, isnt this an addict’s unconscious default? This is exactly the shit I say to myself in the back of my head in that Charlie Brown’s Teacher tone; “Blah, blah, blah Neil Blah, blah, Neil blah, blah…”. It happens all day long. So much so that I’m actually impressed with myself, jarred in a way, when my thinking turns towards someone else, their welfare, or (shock of shocks) the present moment. I feel better for a minute, become impressed with myself for thinking of others, slip into a little righteousness over how other people should think like this, and Voila! I’m right back to default sleep mode.

It’s no small wonder that those of us so inclined to that Anonymous Thing actually go to meetings and have epiphanies regarding higher thought and thinking of others. It isnt our default to do that.
I often joke that when I got sober I thought about Me 99% of the time. If I thought of you it generally had something to do with how you effected Me. 28 years later, on a good day I bet I think of Me 75 – 80% of the day. And Holy Shite, those are AMAZINGLY GOOD days!!! My hope is that by the time they’re standing at the urn of me, getting ready to spread Me over the shield at the 50 yard line of the Oakland Coliseum I will have lowered that ratio to a steadfast 60/40. Me first of course.

But you get the point – Me thinking about Me never ends well. For Me or you. It’s invariably a closed loop system with the gears greased by fear, pride, sloth, envy, greed, lust, anger, gluttony and so on. And it’s always focused on the past or the future. Never right now, this second, writing this blog (or in your case, reading). Love – brotherly or otherwise, integrity, courage, willingness, honesty, open mindedness, humility, service; they cant happen anywhere but now. And they are much more apt to happen when I’m looking you in the eye, wondering how I can help. How can I add to. How can I give back. Behold, that 40%. You first.

A sponsee texted me last week wondering how he was supposed to love himself. I responded ‘practice esteemable acts’. I have poked fun over the years at people who slap post-its on their mirror reminding themselves how great they are. I’ve always considered this to be sort of a punchline to that aforementioned closed loop thought process.
A few years back I hit a horrible bottom in sobriety. It leveled me, and in my little phoenix act I recommitted to the Steps. I especially recommitted to being in service to others. Helping others was a duty I’d performed over the years because it was what was expected of me. I frowned on the idiots around me who gleefully proclaimed that it was a selfish program and that the justification for that hypocrisy was that it was a save your own ass deal; that they stayed sober when they worked with others. That always left a bad taste in my mouth. It felt like a lie, a betrayal of everything I’d ever read in The Book. Like it was performing the act without it’s soul. All that duty and ‘what’s in it for me’ reminded me a bit of married sex.
But now it was different; I truly enjoyed being in service. It donned on me that as I was looking you in the eye, looking to add to you in some way that those principles I was sharing washed through me as I offered them to you. Three years into this experiment in altruism I was brushing my teeth one morning and it dawned on me – for the first time in my life that I wasnt bad looking and was a pretty good guy. Epiphany. No post-its. This change in consciousness happened while I was busy doing other things. Busy not thinking about me. Loving myself was a bi-product of thinking of others!
Now I know the alanons are going to pipe in with some drivel about how they’ve been thinking about others their whole lives and boundaries and yadda yadda. I call bullshit. Go back to that 1% I referred to at the beginning of this manifesto. Alanons in their throes (of which I have been from time to time) are among the most underhanded and manipulative humans I’ve ever known, all the while ‘thinking of others’. In service with the expectation that I’ll get mine. No better than sober drunks practicing that brand of ‘I’m doing this service for me’ except without the guts to admit it. Either way it’s soulless.

My sponsor back in the 90′s was a fiery old man named John. He always used to say that I had to do it for free and for fun. He’d pump his fists in the air when speaking and rage passionately about the 12th step being the Joy of Living. Yes, I thought he was a bit off his rocker, but there was no denying his sense of surety and conviction. He knew of what he spoke! I had faith that he knew something i didnt. Last week I found myself pitching at a meeting. I gave a good deal of what i just shared right now and by the end of it my fists were raising, I was roaring (just a little bit) and nothing else mattered but that maybe just one person out there heard it, got what I needed to give. It didnt matter if I pissed people off. Hell, sometimes that’s precisely when I know I’m on the right track! The Truth shall set ye free! But first it’ll piss you off. And i caught myself. I lowered my hands and apologized, laughing. Just like a wild-eyed old man who once met me where I was at. Thanks for planting those seeds, John Carney. Altruism aint such a bad deal.

Schleprock, the Patron Saint of Self Pity

The saddest thing regarding victimhood is that it is nearly always unconsciously self imposed. The book spells this out a dozen ways for me but it seems that the longer I am sober the more aware I become of just how cunning, baffling and powerful my disease is and in the subtle ways it whispers ridiculous lies to me about you, me, my place in this world and my relationship to God. Every day. All day.
“To thine own self be true” from Shakespeare’s Hamlet emblazoned on the backs of our recovery chips doesnt mean for me to protect myself and honor my truth (whatever the fuck that is), read in context it is telling me to be honest with myself – then I can lie to no man. ‘Victimhood’ is among the greatest of my self imposed prisons. If I am a victim I have no peace and no power. Its hell on earth.
Tragically, my disease works hard to keep up with my recovery. The phrases ‘what I did yesterday doesnt keep me sober today’ (aka resting on my laurels) and ‘my daily reprieve, contingent upon the maintenance of my spiritual condition’ take on huge ramifications as I get further into recovery. Much the way the 4th step covers my character flaws in raw, basic terms but by the 10th step we’re looking at the same things in minute shades of gray, my defects find new ways to spin themselves into the driver’s seat as i trudge this path of happy destiny.
Hence I’ve come up with a few spins on the step process for sponsees who’ve been around awhile. Its fairly easy to do some going through the motions with the steps once we have the discovery process down. Turning a few things on their heads specifically designed to jar me out of my autopiloted victim stance does wonders for fostering a psychic change even 20 years down the road:

• In step one I will often ask older sponsees to write down everything during their day that frustrates them or pisses them off. We all know the AA politically correct answer to the question “What do I have power over?” (in Stepford/cult/pod person voice) “I have power over my own thoughts and actions. I have no power over those around me.”
Good sponsee. pat. pat.
This all but ruins the entire rest of the step process because I’m building a house on the foundation of a lie. In principle, yes. The sponsee was telling the truth. But its the truth told from pulling the string in his back. The honestanswer is that everything in my day that pisses me off or frustrates me is something I think I have power over. And these are the things that I need to focus on in steps two and three!

• Step four has me write who I’m resentful at, what happened, the areas of my life affected and finally my part. HUGE set up for a victim stance. What dawned on me after having been here awhile is that I am the only common denominator in all these scenarios. So I have long timers read the list backwards: I am (selfish, dishonest, inconsiderate, self seeking & frightened) [column 4] because I dont trust God in these areas of my life (sex, security, social ambitions, emotional, financial security, self esteem, personal relationships) [column 3]. It causes these situations (the resentment) [column 2] with this person [column one].
The look of horror, rationalization, resignation and acceptance the first time the committee gets knocked off their lazily tilted board room chairs using this redirection is just fucking awesome! When the lightbulb goes on over their heads its truly having a ringside seat for a New Freedom and a New Happiness. There are of course exceptions. I dont read the childhood stuff, what I refer to as ‘original sin’ resentments backwards. I had no hand in being raped as a child, or abandoned, or otherwise abused. What i have them look at there is in how I’ve made countless, blameless people pay for the harms done me as a child.
As a whole, this redirect makes looking at my character defects in 6 & 7 a great deal more productive.

• Step 8 & 9. I do NOT put myself at the top of my amends list. This is a wildly unpopular move from most other’s perspective. I do this for a couple of reasons. If I’m looking at these steps from the view of Brotherly Love and Justice and I am following the directive in the book of being hard on myself and easy on the other fellow then putting myself at the top of the 8th step list taints everything else I do here. I had my best interest in mind during every shitty thing I am attempting to clean up here. Loving myself first before I can clean up my messes is a circular, empty exercise in selfishness and self centeredness. I gain self esteem by practicing esteemable acts, in this case making things right, not by thinking more about myself. We close most meetings with the Lord’s Prayer. In it there is the passage “[God] forgive us our trespasses AS we forgive those who trespass against us.” Reread that. The ramifications are huge. What it says there is that I am forgiven as i forgive you. It also says that I am impelling God to make this happen. I need only be willing and to practice brotherly love to make it so. I am purely a conduit for God’s love to work through me to make things right and as it flows through me, to you, I am forgiven or cleansed with that love as well. Boom. That simple. That cant happen by thinking about myself more. And I am by no means a christian. But the principle is Universal.

I hope these lil tidbits help. They’ve given me great freedom from the sneaky little traps my mind lays for me. In making me a victim it retains its control. Being a victim separates me from you and God. As the old saying goes “I identify my way in and compare my way out”. That includes the sneaky trick of lamenting others’ victimhood.

Telling You What I Need to Hear

A month ago I started sponsoring a fellow who I’d known around the rooms for many years. He approached me because he’d heard that once upon a time I’d trafficked meth in sobriety and he figured I’d understand his addiction to power and adrenaline. True enough. As we were standing there I asked him if he had any digits in his phone that he knew he could make quick cash with. He said yes. My response was to kill em. Out came his cell and God bless the willingness of the desperate - delete, delete, …SIGH… delete.
I was so proud of him for the courage that took.

Two days later a very rude and uninvited thought popped into my head. Neil? Yes. Do you have the very same balls to delete the names from your cell and social networking sites that you know you can call to get a quick fix of validation?

Fuck.

I stewed on that one for another two days. Not because i needed to have a debate in both houses followed by a 2/3 super majority passage to enact. Oh no. The bald face truth of that double dog dare meant it was all over but the shouting. I spent that two days grieving the loss of one of my oldest and dearest safety nets. The clarity of what I HAD to do was unshakable; I could not, would not, ever have happiness in my life in a love relationship unless I stopped touching base with my past. Holding onto it, even with just a finger tip, was the death of my last relationship and would forever be in the way of my ability to be present with anything new in my future. You cant unknow something like that. So I either trust God or I dont. Fuck.

Delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, …SIGH… delete.

And it was done. I’ll be damned if there wasnt a huge sense of relief that washed over me. And what’s this…? Hope? As with every other rock that I’ve grudgingly handed over to that Power I dont understand, i am amazed at how much lighter I feel after I surrender what wasnt truly mine in the first place. I feel right-sized again. Free. Buoyant. Better prepared for this next adventure. All because I told a guy what I needed to hear.

Apologies in advance to all of you that just said “Fuck.”

But Seriously Folks

An oldtimer named Bob, with 35 years chaired the meeting we have at my place last night and he reminded me of a pivotal moment in my life/recovery. A decade ago I found myself sitting at lunch with Bob and my sponsor. I was quietly tortured with the loss of a lover and in the midst of wrestling really hard with the idea that I was becoming an oldtimer myself. I didnt want it. I just wanted to be one of the fellas, though I knew that even among the crew I came up with, that I had the most time in the bunch and had somehow managed to stay in the middle more consistently than the rest of us. I had become the Shell Answer Man, the go-to guy. I hated it. I always had this vague sense that people were watching me, half for hope, half looking forward to having a good view when I fell. Ever so slowly (cunning, baffling, powerful even) I began to succumb to my own perceived relevance and laid a trap for myself from which I saw no way out; I couldnt have a bad day.

The gift that Bob gave me that day as he pulled his hair and waved his arms in frustration over his life falling apart in front of us (and more importantly, in front of ME since I didnt know him all too well) was permission to be human. His ass was falling off and he didnt seem to care too much who was there when it was his turn in the barrel or who might be the one to help *him* when he needed it. This was a revelation to me and a major turning point in my life. In the years since I recommitted myself to being in service. Not as a dutiful obligation required of me to keep my seat in AA but as the theme of the 12th step promises; as the Joy of Living. Anyone who’s read my blog knows I pretty much lay it all out there. Sometimes I got it figured out, laying it on the heathens. Sometimes I’m winding my ass and scratching my watch. Hell, I’ve never been 45 years old before. What’s that supposed to look like? But I do it semi-publicly because it frees me from that Tower of Guru, it lets me bleed like everyone else. And because I figure it also does for others what Bob did for me that Saturday afternoon; it gives them permission to be just one more drunk in AA walking through life – together.

Being of service works both ways. I’m pretty damn good at being there for others and taking a certain amount of pride in that. Which ironically, quietly sets me apart from my fellows. But what kind of selfish prick am I when I deny friends, family, and fellow AA’s the very same gift of being able to give back! Bob planted the seed in me the answer to a question that had haunted me since the first time I read a statement in the 4th step in the 12 x 12 much earlier in my sobriety. “The primary fact that we fail to recognize is our total inability to form a true partnership with another human being.” That seed has grown into my own recreated definition of Humility; Humiliation is you laughing at me – Humility is me laughing right along with you.

Thanks Bob.

Think, Think, Think

The most perplexing of all the cliches in AA. I’ve heard it explained as Think the Thought Through and First Thought Wrong. I was reminded tonight of this while watching this vid for V.U.’s Heroin.

So sweet, warm and seductive.
An accidental Roman suicide.
Just a break, an escape.
Not a promissory note for this ride.
What I’m feeling, it’ll pass.
Not worth the death of choice.
Look how far I’ve really come
This world, she needs my voice.

The Absence of Time

Night of the Living Repeats

Today I was in the yard, throwing Jake The Ball. I was standing in the sun, zombie-like in automatonic motion as my head ate me alive (mmm brains!) with greatest hits like “Who’d want an unemployable *you* with half a leg anyway?” which is of course the remake of “Return of, Son of, Revenge of She’s The last Girl That’ll Ever Love Your Sorry Ass”. Starring Johnny Depp. I love that movie! Know it line for line. I wasnt a fan of the musical however. Anyway there i am and I’m losing the fight badly when a distant voice somewhere in the theater starts to distract me; “hi” …..”Hi” ……”HI” ……”HI!!!”. I’m suddenly jolted back into rightfuckingnow to see a five year old girl on her bike, very insistent that I know that she thinks I’m a-okay. I smiled a little, returned her greeting and she pedaled off, satisfied. Mission accomplished.

I was reminded of a time a decade back sitting in my menacing black car in my menacing black shades sporting my menacing bla… er, tattoos at a stop light with my head playing my Very Favorite Movie (the version where I’m only missing two toes) when this old Indian woman walks casually past me in the crosswalk. She looked right at me in this calm sort of way that struck me. Two seconds later her grand daughter comes skipping behind her, stops dead in front of my car and with a big ‘I just cashed in with the tooth fairy’ smile she starts waving all Gumpishly right at me.

I bawled. Which at the time wasnt too uncommon but this was the first time I’d cried tears of Hope.

There was no Hope today, but a reprieve. It made me wonder if God has this girl’s number on speed dial at Ethereal Central Casting or something. She made me chuckle. She broke the spell.

The tears came two hours later as I was manically cleaning and a random text came in from a number I didnt know. “Am very happy to have you in my life again. I did miss you my friend.” I bawled. Which at the time isnt too uncommon but this was the first time I’d cried tears of Hope.
Come to think of it, I hate this movie. How about we see Pirates of the Caribbean this time. I already have the leg and the costume.

God’s Country

I’ve long been perturbed when people refer gushingly to places of expansive physical beauty as ‘God’s Country’. I always reflexively wonder what kind of God would favor Yosemite over Uganda? Does God not hang out in Los Banos? …Okay, maybe that’s a poor reference… but still.

This weekend I finally crashed under the weight of all my circumstances over the last eight months; lost career, lost leg, lost girl. The environment that had evolved by making my home so open to everyone had turned into a prison of sorts where I had nowhere to seek sanctuary. So I beat feet, jumped in my car and drove till I ran out of sunlight with a change of clothes, a credit card, three spiritual books and a pad of paper. Left behind was my lap top and the ever mischievous and increasingly conspiratorial FaceBook. I shut off my phone after letting a couple of people know that I was going to disappear for awhile and that I’d be back when my pen ran dry. I pulled into a shitty motel with a shitty diner attached to it and holed up.

I stood on the balcony that first night and exhaled a long draw from my cigar with a sense of wistful comfort. This flea bag joint was on the same stretch of road where 25 years ago I’d done business in my former lifetime running meth. Where I’d had to come running one summer night to find my partner spun out of his head, bent over the toilet in his chonies with a half pound in his hand, swearing the cops were there. Only he was right – the poor bastard was being tortured hearing the radio of one of the town’s finest as a hooker worked out her bill in the next room.

Ah, good times.

Only now it was cold, the wind was blowing angrily and the rain was relentless. I sought refuge at the fine dining establishment next door and saddled up to the counter. I’m not sure who was a more firmly ensconced piece of the building, the server, his woman by the register, or the crusty old timers at their well worn thrones further up the table. There was an ease amongst all of them and they welcomed me to their laughter as they razzed a busboy in two languages as he repeatedly failed miserably at snatching a stuffed toy with a wretched crane claw through a garishly lit glass stand. Dessert was blended with an equally good natured back and forth between the denizens threatening to theatrically sermonize and arguing about which language the Bible should be in.

It thawed me and I remembered back 20 years to my last holiday with my father. On the road back from San Diego visiting my sister, we got stuck in a roadside joint by pea soup fog on Christmas night. We all came together laughing and singing. Ma, who was a professional clown, making balloon animals for everyone and a crown for a bald girl whose dad was bringing her back from chemo up north. Magic only happens when you arent expecting it. i was grateful these new kindred souls invited me in and just as grateful that I could still be happily surprised by the gregariousness of strangers.

The next three days were an ebb and flow of writing, praying to nothing, reading, random connections with others on their way somewhere or looking to not be found and pretty mediocre food. But what kept coming up over and over was the love and mutual respect, unspoken as it was, that people had for each other. That they readily accepted me as being a part of. No one was there by accident and I was enlisted to help people with their rooms, borrow a phone, engaged in all sort of small talk to yard nods to profound discussion as I stood in my doorway along with everyone else as it continued to rain. I was one among on my own terms.

During the afternoon in the lull before the place started its nightly buzz I stood again on the balcony and watched as a girl folded towels for tomorrow’s house cleaning duties. To my right was a working girl engaging her boss and making her way down the stairs, that bold, swaying strut clacking time with each step in her spikes like a supremely sexy metronome. I thought to myself that they were both working and who really paid the higher price? And as i finished my rhetorical question she swung into the laundry room and laughed with the maid. It was beautiful to behold.

My last dinner at Chez Greasy Spoon was spent at a booth by myself and I observed all the goings on around me. There were at least four different dialects being spoken, lots of animation amongst the clutches of people as they ate. I was content to watch the show when a couple caught my eye. A young black father and his 3 year old daughter were in the booth next to me. he faced me directly though he never looked me in the eye. This didnt surprise me as we werent of the same clan so to speak. I was completely taken however at how he was with his little girl. He was very gentle, calm and soft spoken and always engaged her. And quite the little chatterbox she was. I marveled at his doting love for her, though not smothering. He was as a Daddy is supposed to be – a strong stable loving guide. When she spilled the maple syrup intended for her blueberry pancakes he only got up and grabbed a wet cloth to clean everything up with, then went back to sharing their meals with her, much to her protestations at the sanctity of HER flapjacks being violated. I was suddenly possessed of an urge to break the rules and hurriedly finished up my chicken fried roadkill and slipped up to the register. The same cashier was there from the previous night and he looked at me quizzically when I asked him if I could pay that gentleman’s bill along with mine. “Sure” he said and as he slid both tabs up to me he asked if I knew him. “Nope.” And he lit up as i finished by saying that it was a thanks for being such an amazing father.

I have no idea how that scene played out 10 minutes later but I’d forgotten how absolutely amazing it made me feel to practice random and (mostly) anonymous acts of kindness. I slept well that night. The din of wind and chatter outside as good a lullaby as I’ve ever heard.

The inventory is written and I’m back home. Ready to go for a long trip with a good friend across the southern U.S. An old sponsor of mine used to take a week every year and just disappear, usually to the desert. His home was very much like mine is now; a busy place full of love and recovery. Though with mine there is the added spice of debauchery. (You havent lived till you’ve stood in a circle reciting the Lord’s Prayer with a roommate’s fuck noises in the background.) Now I get why he needed to leave every now and then, headed to God’s Country to get filled up again. To meditate and contemplate who he had become since last time. Those three days of lousy weather in a crappy motel choring down barely edible food restored me. It was a long weekend in the middle of the week in God’s Country. Because God is wherever I bother to look around me and see.

Adrift

Well… I *almost* got loaded last night. My best friend and I split up after 3 years as a couple yesterday. I wept openly as I uncollared her and released her and we were both bawling as I held her afterward. Unclasping that collar is among the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. I spent the rest of the day swinging between numbness and tears, numbness and tears. Last night I found myself staring at that bottle of pain killers.

Pain Killers.

And I thought, quite calmly, Fuck I’m tired. I’ve lost my career, my leg and my girl in 6 months. I’m tired of being strong. Tired of being wise. I just. want. to rest.

I turned away and went to bed.
I dont have any answers, no paths to follow. I feel utterly lost without the comforting knowledge that I am her Daddy and that she has my back. I dont feel broken though, only rudderless, and I know from past experience that my God has the wind and the stars to guide me if only I look up. This weekend though, I rest.

That Sinking Feeling

Ya know, I’ve been stalling on writing this particular blog for awhile. It’s not every day that you have your right leg removed and I thought the occasion should warrant some extra *something*. But really, I got nothin’. It’s been a long two year fight getting the Powers That Be to come over to the winning side and agree that the rest of me was much better off without a certain unspeakable appendage. The last two weeks in the hospital, because I apparently needed to be ill enough from it to fight for my life, has been something I dont ever want to replicate. But it is done. Finally.

Lots of people are asking me if it’s sunk in yet. It sank in 10 years ago when my podiatrist told me that once a diabetic loses a toe the inevitable stop point was a BK (below knee) amputation. I’ve been preparing for it ever since. Hell, I’ve been lobbying for it over the last 18 months as the artist formerly known as my right foot became less and less functional; more a source for pain, clumsiness and ad nauseal doctor appointments than anything that served a purpose to me. The clincher was a month and a half ago when my orthopedic/prosthetic guy fitted me with a Gump-style brace that looked to the casual observer like an actual post-op prosthetic and forced me to walk straight again for the first time in years. It was a taste of bliss to be able to walk with confidence again, and I just knew that an actual, fully functioning foot and ankle were going to be my only future solution, whether I was born with it or not. A chance encounter with a guy looking for beer money because he was a gimp turned into a 15 minute long chat, complete with step by step visual aids on what I could expect over the next 6 months and how much easier everything is now.
By the time I leaned over to my buddy in my backyard, shivering with a 103˚ in sweat clothes during an 80˚ day and asked if he’d mind dropping me by E.R., it was all over but the nonstop fever followed by 4 straight days of hourly vomiting. I was done. Ready, willing and able to get on with it.

Tomorrow is my expected release date. Apparently a bevy of elves has been hard at work at my house, cleaning it from top to bottom, rearranging things and installing gimp stuff. I dont think I will ever be able to wrap my head around just how much I am loved or by how many. The leg, no problem. Comprehending the love people closest to me (with a radius of 50, it seems) express towards me – that’s too much.
Right this minute my idea of bliss involves a freshly lit cigar on my back deck, throwing Jake the Ball and my girl by my side, laughing our asses off. Come to think of it, not much has changed at all. Has it sunk in? Just fine, thanks.

Poker Face Gone Fishin’

This morning I was staring at the very top of my wish list. The October 3 House of Blues New Orleans tour date for my currently favorite band in the world, The Dead Weather.

The ‘Buy Tickets’ button mocked me.

I clicked it with the expectation that such a cool gig could not possibly be anything but sold out.
I was wrong.

I checked my calendar with the surety that Shannon would have the kids that weekend.
Wrong again.

I clicked on the Raiders schedule, positive that I should have $100 50yd line tickets frowning at the idea of being hocked.
They’re in Houston that day.

I called my friend at American Airlines, confident that asking for weekend tickets a month away would be the deal breaker.
$260 round trip.

Clearly these were all signs from God that I should see the greatest band on the planet in a very hip club in the sexiest city in America. Yes to those club tix!
Yes to airfare! And suddenly i was giddy like a schoolgirl with front row Jonas Bros back stage passes. It was a strange and liberating thing to be that goddamn happy about something so… cool!
The only thing that made it even better was the slowly raising curtain on my girl’s face as she stared at the ticket on my lap top, rolling through a cliff notes version of the same hope, suspicion, validation and elation I’d spent the last 3 hours Sherping ahead of her, automatically ten times better because I get to share my adventure with my best friend and partner in crime. Now our date with The Dead Weather only accounts for 3 hours of our Friday through Monday window of hedonistic possibilities, but I think we’ll figure something out.

Because God said so.

http://www.houseofblues.com/tickets/eventdetail.php?eventid=59074

*sigh*

Do You Believe in Miracles? (You Sexy Thang!)

I dont. But then I dont believe in a religious or deital God. My experience with prayer is that when I call something into my conscious mind I become suddenly aware of those things I’m seeking, which were likely all around me the entire time, though I was blind to them. I chuckle at meetings when people say ‘God’s testing me’. Really? You mean you werent already lustful and greedy? God’s flinging temptation upon you? …or was it that you were busy in a 6th step and asking for help with something and now aware in a way you hadnt ever been of just what a lustful, greedy pig you actually are!
Even my one true pearl of an example of a real miracle seems to bear this out for me much more so than the idea of an Omnipotent Father; I was sitting in my bath tub struggling to breathe from pneumonia with the shower running over my head. At the time I was a 2 pack a day guy and had been for 25 years. From my shower I could see the tv in my bedroom and on it was a particular ad campaign being run on endless loop about 8 years back. In it a guy says “I cant get outta bed without a smoke!” then it cuts to a guy laying in bed, covered in sweat, saying “I cant get out of bed”. Cut to some sassy girl, “I tried to quit once and I put on 10 lbs!” fading to another, very gaunt woman with a wrap around her head, “I’ve lost 25 lbs so far”. Now I’d seen that ad a hundred times. It didnt mean squat to me. But right then I felt the full weight of it to my toes. I raised my hands over my head, palms up, lowered my head and said, quietly “God take it.”
And it was gone.
No withdrawal, no craving, no mood swings. And not another cigarette since. I hang out with smokers and neither crave them nor am pious or born again about their smoking. I have sweet freedom. Others would call this a miracle. What I call it is one of two times in my life that I was ever perfectly humble. Now it only lasted a few minutes and I was lucky enough to have prayed during that brief window. What I received was the miracle of lack of ego; for that small stretch of time I had a clear awareness of who I was in relation to you, the rest of the world and the flow of the universe.
I recovered quickly from that precarious state to my regularly scheduled slightly-better-than-slightly-less-than you comfort zone. But I took with it an ability I hadnt had 15 minutes before.

I can not solve my problems with the same level of consciousness I had when i created them. -A. Einstein

Prayer and meditation is the only way i know to raise my consciousness. Knowledge raises my thinking or contemplation. Prayer raises my Energy.

But that’s just me. Your mileage may vary.

13th Stepping for Jesus

I’m Neil and I’m a seducer. (Hi Neil) Seduction though, for me doesnt have to have anything to do with sex. I seduce almost habitually and have rarely followed through with sleeping with any of my, um… victims. Does that make me a tease? No. It’s not my focus. Seduction is an incredibly subtle dance, one that I often have an advantage in because it’s usually a woman’s realm. They dont see it coming. My father was an absolute master at this. He always ended up with two scoops of ice cream on his pie. Women adored him. Because he made others around him feel good about themselves. There was often a gentle sexual aspect to his play, though it was barely perceptible and always deniable. Believe me, I took notes, though I doubt I will ever achieve his innate skill. He could just as easily drop a seemingly innocuous comment into the middle of a room then sit back and watch the fur fly an hour later with no one knowing who’d started the ruckus in the first place. All the while his horns cleverly disguised as a smirk on his face.
I cant fairly speak to pops’ motives for doing this. I can say that for myself seduction is often for control. If I can seduce you, I have security.  When I was young I stumbled on to it as a compliment to my first defense mechanism; quiet aloofness. I grew up enjoying the company of women. In fact I was perfectly comfortable in their presence – unless I was attracted to them. Then I was a mum fool.

I once had a friend, Monika, who sat me down one day and explained to me (after swearing me to silence because she’d be struck dead by the XX Godesses for betraying their secrets) how things really worked. I still thank her to this day. Oh did I have fun, the more I practiced and explored this certain charm. I also hurt quite a few people in my eager ignorance as well as having had it blow up in my face. (Hello, crazygirlrestrainingorders!) I started getting laid quite a bit, much to my astonishment, but it was much like climbing on a motorcycle with no training (or so I hear. *cough*). Slowly I began to realize that seduction when applied to other aspects of my life other than sex was quite comforting. It gave me a certain power over you that in my mind, made me safe from you. It also usually made me feel superior. If I could seduce you then I ever so slowly started to lose respect for you. It became a self serving and alternately self defeating weapon that kept me just as alone in my mind as I was when I was 15. Redoubling my efforts I came to a point of one’s too many and a thousand’s never enough. I couldnt achieve any sense of validation from it anymore.

The turning point for me came when I’d had a nervous breakdown as an extension of this same mindset. Because I had no real sense of Humility regarding this skill, nor a belief in the idea that I had value without seducing, when the girl of my dreams walked out on me my house of cards collapsed into a pile of rage, grovelling and depression. I decided that whatever happened I couldnt live like this one more day. I found a therapist, female of course, and promised myself that even if I seduced her, meaning bringing her over to the winning side, that I would continue to be completely honest with her and follow through on her direction. The first time I made her cry tears of empathy I knew I had a choice to make and I chose to stay. I never stay. Loyal to my suffering all those years, abandonment was a hell I knew and worked hard to achieve. The hell I know is better than the one I dont. Making a choice to stay – and respect this woman, became an incredible turning point in my life’s arc. She ended up helping me turn a defect into an asset by installing Humility into it. She helped me see that I am not separate from you, that we are all one in the same, no greater or less than. It was then that i finally saw the power in my father’s charm. He used seduction to connect with those around him, and from the smile that was usually on his face I realized that he allowed himself to be charmed right back, to be a part of it – not apart of it. My girl is forever amused by this. She was my best friend for 20 years before we added ‘lovers’ to our resume’. She’s had a ringside seat for the best and worst of me. There was no seducing her. There was no need. Love comes from an entirely different place than seduction. Though it can often be the match for the fuel.

The thing that’s changed as I’ve gotten older and more comfortable within myself is that I use that gift for the forces of good, offering up a psychic half hit of X and leaving you feeling open, comfortable, slightly vulnerable, intrigued and vaguely aroused, or not. It isnt the point anymore. What’s important is to be one among. Something I’ve always craved and dared not wish for.  I get that now simply by giving. Often now that includes a vaguely warm, safe feeling, though you just cant – quite – put your finger on what it is that makes you want to give me a second scoop.

Do Ya Wanna Party? (Its Party Time!)

…it was 1985 and I was sober but still running drugs from the Mexican border. The DEA was getting on main safe house in the Mojave Desert a little too frequently, so I decided to lay my hat up north and just make the runs when called.  An acquaintance of mine in San Jose had a two bedroom cottage,  in back of a larger place,  downtown that he needed to fill the extra slot in.  The rent was cheap, the neighborhood was crazy; lotsa big Mexican families laughing and yelling at all hours, sirens and the weekly sealing off of entire blocks while the city cops looked for gang crime suspects, and the occasional synchopatic ‘Bap, bap, bap,’ of semi automatic recoil in the distance made the whole vibe seem just about par.

The house was built around the turn of the century and had been in Ross’ Italian family since then.  It was small with modestly ornate trim inside and out, and a cool four-foot porch leading to the front door.  I took it.

Things were laid back there for a person of my ilk back then; Ross was a punkrock skinhead, who brought all kinds of colorful characters around, and the tunes were usually blaring along with the neighbors’.  We threw a  housewarming  party and one of the fliers made its way to the local college radio station where it received heavy rotation just before the party.  Three to four hundred people showed up and enjoyed the live sounds of a surf-punk band that set up in the living room.  At some point, shots were fired and everyone dropped to the ground-except the band, who didn’t miss a beat.  It was like a scene from ‘Dusk Till Dawn’, as my meth running partner jumped the guy with the gun, beat him and went off running down the street throwing knives at the shooters’ buddies, three paddy wagons pull up…and the band played on.  Two days later my Bro turns up again with my 1960 Cadillac like there’s nothing wrong with that.  It was the best of times.

One night, about two weeks after I moved in, I was enjoying a little peace and quiet in the house when I heard the sounds of two people’s feet crunching gravel as they walked up the driveway.  I assumed it was Cholo and Elrod, the two skinheads that were staying with us.  Around dusk, everyone at the house would gather on the porch to watch as these two boxed (until  someone got knocked out, usually Elrod) over who got to sleep on the couch that night.  But then, the footsteps were quiet as I saw two silhouettes through my sheer curtains ascend the wooden steps, the screen door open and slam on the springed hinge, and curiously, the door never opening.  I opened the curtains to nothing.  No one was there. It was entirely weird ‘cuz I knew I wasn’t imagining that.

So, I asked Ross about it the next day, and he gave me a wry smile and said, “I see you’ve met the roommates.”  He told me that they were his Great-Grandparents, who originally built the house, and that apparently they liked me.

The next few months were filled with trippy, but benign things like bathroom doors opening while you were showering, dishes suddenly changing from one table to another and the radio occasionally changing stations.  It became completely normal and I actually welcomed their presence.  Once in a while, either Ross or I would bring a girl home that they didn’t approve of and they would rattle their cages.  Usually rolling the toilet paper while they were in the bathroom or catching a quick reflection in the mirror…always in the bathroom, for some reason…and the chick would freak and never come back!  It was pretty funny since we were in on the whole thing, but it was never scary shit.

Then Ross developed a new passion for ‘Death Rock’.  Misfits, 45 Grave and bands like that.  Ironically it was around October.  He started partying in graveyards and doing charcoal etchings of the older and more elaborate headstones of one of the cemeteries, which he proceeded to wallpaper his bedroom with.

Then came the dead roses off the fresh graves…and with them several uninvited guests.

Suddenly things are not chilled on 10th street.  On a daily basis doors start slamming, dishes are flying into walls.  There’s stomping going on in the attic, cold spots in the house.  I remember once, I was talking to some girl in the living room and through my doorway, I watched as the entire contents of the top shelf of my bookcase (about ten feet up) slowly slid forward off the shelf, hovered a foot away, then dropped to the floor.  The insanity was so pervasive  that I didn’t bat an eye.  I just turned a little while we talked so she wouldn’t see the show.

The final straw came late one night as I rolled the Caddy up the long dark gravel driveway and noticed that all the lights were on in the house.  Then as I came to a stop, I noticed the curtains fluttering out with the sills still closed.  Then, as I idled, I noticed all the furniture from the living room in a pile in front of the house, broken to pieces. As I sat assessing options and casually reaching for the .45 under the seat, out comes Ross onto the porch, with an end table over head which he throws out onto the pile, paces back an forth on the porch like a pissed off caged lion, grabs a pillar with both hands and proceeds to slam his head forcefully into it until the house lights illuminate rivulets of blood flying off his head like liquid silly string.  Once he was done showing the pillar who was boss, he staggered over to the corner of the porch and slumped into a ball.

After weighing my options for a minute, I killed the engine and walked up the steps.  As I crouched down and touched Ross’ shoulder, he looked up at me exactly like Pink did when Little Pink approached him in the psych ward in The Wall.  That same vacant and elated look of desperation.  I walked him into the house, brightly lit and completely destroyed, except for any item that belonged to me, which remained untouched.  I sat Ross down and picked up the shattered remains of a phone and tried to dial a number to no avail.  I finally convinced him to go with me to his parents.  When we got there, he picked his lumberjack of a father up off the ground, and yes, his feet were off the ground, and it wasn’t until I physically got between them that he dropped him.  Off to the psych ward we go, where he’s put on a 72, and in the interim, I phone up an old friend who is an old school, fresh-off-the-boat, polish psychic.  She came within ten feet of the house and refused to step foot inside.  The next day, Ross’ mom brought him home, walked around the house and said, “What have you done?  There are at least eight unwelcome spirits here besides your Great-Grandparents, and they’re very pissed off!”  Ross’ mom was a sensitive and practiced the occult versions of the Catholic Church.  She said that Ross had been possessed and we needed to perform a ‘White Mass’ on the house.  I let Ross spend the next couple of days putting the place back together, then we sat down in the living room to talk.  We discussed the ritual required and he filled me in on what had happened; that he had brought several souls home with him with his stealing of the flowers and that they were pretty pissed off and fighting with the grandparents.  He had to perform the ritual to clear the house.  When we both said yes, it’s gotta get done, everything on all four walls in his room came straight down and his closet imploded.  The front door slammed shut and we looked at each other with an “Oh shit!” look.  Then things got interesting.

We went down to the Santa Barbara Candle Shop and in a separate back room were all the actual powders, oils, spells and tokens needed for Catholic Occultism.  San Jose has a huge Mexican population and it never occurred to me how organized this aspect of their culture was.  We picked up peace powder, candles smudge sticks and palm shoots to make crosses to place on every window and door in the house, and headed back.  It was a grey afternoon which added to the ominous vibe of the whole thing.  We taped the crosses to all the openings, mixed some concoction in the bathtub and started washing down the house with it.  ( I made Ross do most of it since it was his mess!) and escorted him to the side yard where we burned all the etchings and flowers in a BBQ.  We went back to the house, which had shit flying all over the place, and got back to cleaning.   The air was just thick, I mean like heavy.  It was an odd feeling, almost like being under water, but not like an anxiety attack, it was much more nebulous.  Cabinets were opening and slamming, things rattling, and you had the constant feeling that people were brushing up against you.  Around dusk, I took a break and went out on the porch and the front door slammed shut and bolted behind me in unison with my pace out.  Then, as I sat out on the stoop smoking a cigarette, around the corner in the darkened yard came a growling noise and the sound of what I’d describe as someone hanging from the gutter and pulling themselves up and down dragging steel toed boots over the wood slats of the wall.  I was so unfazed by anything at this point, that I just casually looked over at the black entrance, took a drag off my cigarette, and grinned as I thought, ” No fucking way you could pay me to check that out.”

The washing and burnings and prayers went on for hours, and we called it a ball game around  1 am and although the crazy shit seemed to abate the later it got, we’d seen that before.  We each stayed elsewhere that night and came back the next day.  It was amazing.  You could breathe.  The entire house seemed lighter in a way you can’t touch, but you know is there.

Ross swore off death rock and confined his partying to the living room from then on, and we lived with the occasional dish rattle and frightened girl in relative harmony.

Sadly, this isnt fiction. It’s all true and annoyingly interferes with my surity that reincarnation and afterlives are all fear-based ego driven crap. Dammit!

White Trash Wedding Rings

Saturday was a fabulous dichotomy of lazy purpose and course corrections. Shannon and I started out with the expectation that since the foot had tanked we’d be pretty much doing nothing and liking whether we liked it or not. We decided to have brunch at Hobee’s outside and our good friend Mike joined us which turned into an extra hour of smoking fine cigars under shady trees and sipping iced tea.
The foot said we could probably manage checking out SNL’s picnic at Kelly park. Thank god the entire thing was enclosed in still more shade trees and we had the pleasure of reconnecting with a couple of folks we hadnt seen in quite a long time.
Next up, over the hill. I justified this to the foot by saying we’d just go, take it easy and enjoy my roommate’s Tower of Power-style band with full horn section on the Esplinade in Capitola – maybe have a nice dinner on the water, but I promised that I wouldnt inconvenience it in any way.
It was a good plan till, in a rare moment of poor impulse control, er, an epiphany, I was suddenly struck with a vision as we crested the summit. Tattoos. We *needed* tattoos! A cherub done old school with ‘Clarence & ‘Bama’ emplazoned in scrollwork. On our pelvises. Yes, yes, I know… but it was A Vision! Quick detour to Staircase. So what does our artiste’, Tim have playing on DVD in his studio? True Romance. No joke.
Two hours later we arrived in Capitola riding an endorphin high just in time to catch Steve’s last two songs. Afterwards we met when of his special education students, a kid of about 8 who has CF and was bundled up in his wheel chair. The unbridled, blissful exuberance in this boy as he relished in Steve’s performance reminded me immediately of how much I’ve forgotten about living in the moment. For all the serendipitous events of the day, this was by far the richest. The kid personified the Joy of Living.
The foot insisted we eat and so we strolled, leisurely along the Esplinade till we found a nice restaurant on the water where we snitched off each other’s potato encrusted halibut and steak with gorganzola pasta. Then up the stairs *slowly* to Mister Toots for a couple of lattes to soak in everything we’d done, saw and shared in that lazy, eventful, hysterically fluid day.
The foot dared me on however! We had tickets awaiting us at the Catalyst for BassNectar and I decided we needed to soak some of that hippy, deep house, dirty, grinding bass work into our tattoos. BassNectar is the perfect Shamanic salve for fresh pelvic ink as it turns out. From up on the 2nd tier much of the subwoofer creates a vibration that physically vibrates that..um, chakra. Who knew!
By 12:30 we were spent, wrecked and blissed out and ready for bed, only to get re-excited about the brand new bed and headboard that were headed our way the next morning. Christenings to follow. Film at 11.
I cant recall such a full, rich lazy day and I have poor impulse control to thank for it. Or is that just living in the moment. I have that silly redhead with the mad twinkle and a little boy seemingly confined by his circumstances to remind me once again amazing things cant happen if I dont just show up and take a chance.
Carpe diem, motherfucker!

God as I (dont) Understand Him

Over the last 26 years, trying on many spiritual hats I more come to believe that the quote aughta read as i dont understand Him.

I was raised by parents of opposite faiths, neither practicing, who’d decided that i should find my own path and so, didnt impress one opinion or another on me unless i asked.

I got sober in Santa Cruz, California in the early 80′s. The New Age capital of the free world. Rehab flooded me with a great deal of eastern and western religious and philosophical directions to explore. I found much of it interesting, though much more from a sociological perspective. And besides, I was watching how many of the practitioners of these esoteric schools of thought were conducting themselves. You could prop up all the crystals, meditations, robes and incense you wanted but too many were still trying to get status, laid and rich. Still, there was a certain… something that i couldnt quite define that kept me open to what might be.

AA meetings were a curious mix of western/christian-influenced buzz phrases and prayers but somehow it never really bothered me. I sorta looked at people who’d freak the fuck out on their presence, particularly the Our Father at the end of the meetings as having a giant chip on their shoulder since they were choosing to ignore the request preceding the prayer, “for those who wish to join us…”. To this day I usually just chime in after they start off the ‘Our Father, who art in heaven’ bit. It just doesnt suit me but I see no reason to shout what does suit me over everyone elses version.

What i did eventually key into was the writings of Emmet Fox. Initially his Sermon on the Mount, which served as the text for many AA groups before the Big Book was written and a very popular reading within the Oxford Movement. It’s basic spin was metaphysical christianity. Fox looked at the bible as a book of metaphors and psychology, not of history. This appealed to me greatly. It also took the principles I’d been studying in AA and took them to a much higher level. Fox dealt in absolutes. I knew that I’d never be able to live up to the ideals that Fox espoused but I treated it as if I had a ball in my hand and threw it across the yard. Sure I’d hit the fence, no big deal. But if I take that same ball and aim for the mountains in the horizon, it’ll never make it that far but just look at how far it DID go just by trying! This school of thought worked great for me for several years, culminating with a workshop done at my home by an elder statesman in AA. He was close to 80 at the time, with 50 years sober and actually studied under Fox in the 1940′s. It was an incredible time. That said, there were things about the teachings that just didnt sit well with me. Reincarnation for one. I just couldnt buy into the premise. To me it seemed (and still does) an outcropping of man’s incredible narcissism. But i wasnt willing to reject the whole teaching for my misgivings about one aspect of them.

Then I had a stroke.
It sucked all connection to God right out of me.
And it broke my heart. The book talks in We Agnostics about the tragedy of the man who had once had faith and lost it. That was me. There was nothing worse than knowing that I had once had a great connection to God and now the line was dead. Not even a busy signal. I spent the next few years sort of wandering aimlessly. Eventually I settled on a red head as my higher power. Oh, bad. She wasnt qualified for and didnt want the job. I had no idea how much I’d invested into her as the source of my peace, serenity and happiness until she walked away. In my wanderings of the latter half of the 1990s after dialing that dead phone so many times, I rejected the God concept altogether, eventually worshipping science because at least there was a tangibility there, and besides wasnt it systematically shedding light on one biblical story after another? But when she left science was cold comfort. I had nothing. And I was broken in a manner that I had never experienced in all my life.

I came to meetings, using a cane because I’d lost some 40 lbs (I weighed 150 to begin with) and sat in the front row. I listened to everyone; newcomers and old, young people and seniors, friends and adversaries, stable and insane because they all had something that I’d lost. Hope. Desperation, the essential ingredient of step one led me to to a recommitment to the steps, to the principles that guided them, that had been omnipresent in every spiritual path I’d ever explored over the years. By 2002 I’d embraced service and the 12th step as my duty, gift and blessing. No longer was it a job I was contractually obligated to. I found it to be the key turned, unlocking the Promises. Gone is my chair from the table of the debating society. I no longer care.

Through my whole sobriety there has been a passage that has always nagged at me. From the solution to fears in the fourth step in How it Works:

“we trust infinite God rather than our finite selves.”

Infinite. Meditate on ‘Infinite’. I cant do it. It makes the inside of my skull itch. Its just too fucking big. So how can my finite mind conceive of a God I can understand. It is by definition, sold short. So i quit trying. ‘My own understanding’ is that the principles are universal, throughout all religions, philosophies and premises. They are the road signs to that God that I am ill equipped to understand. What I do understand is that at any given time when I am in the moment, present, practicing Honesty, Openmindedness, Humility, Brotherly Love, Intregrity, Willingness, Courage, Justice, Empathy and so many others I sense a clarity, an almost humming in my chest, barely perceptible but undeniable. It connects me to you and all things. It is never there when I am in ego or fear but always when I am present in a principle. I need no other proof or understanding. God is in the practicing of these road signs right this minute.

(Mar. 19, 2009

Our Boy, Jake

This weekend Shannon and I took our first shared plunge together in domestic commitment and chose a new member of the family. After much interviewing back and forth for months we set our sights on a sweet 4yo Lab-Pittie mix named Jake. After extended interviews with his adoptive family who were having to move from big acreage in Santa Cruz to an apartment and couldnt bear to keep him cooped up we decided to meet Jake yesterday. He and his family came over and everyone sniffed butts with really positive results. He’s absolutely gorgeous with a brown brindle undercoating his Labbie black. My roommate has a 10yo Lab/Ridgeback mix named Brenda and she and Jake immediately started frolicking like old friends. Jake is sure he’s a 70lb lap dog and worships The Ball. He was neglected and abandoned by his first owner and so he has some separation anxiety but no problemo. We’re all very excited to have him as a member of the Gangster Boyscout – Shanwafair brood!