Tales of a Former Football Player

Now that another college football season has concluded, I'd like to finally share my own story. It is by turns commonplace and unique, indebted as much to tradition as it is to the next big thing. Every year, this account becomes someone else's to try on like shoulder pads in the equipment room. Each player adds to the living legacy of those who have come before while seeking to make an indelible mark of his own regarding individual accomplishment.

I'd wanted to play football as soon as possible, which in the suburban community where I grew up meant third grade. Ever since my birth, I'd been a dyed-in-the-wool Alabama Crimson Tide fan. I attended my first game as an infant, taken along by my father. This took place on a regular basis as I grew older, able to talk and walk upright on my own. Mostly I attended the games played at venerable Legion Field, the old grey lady of Graymont Avenue, in my hometown of Birmingham.

It didn't take long before I became a voracious and learned fan, critiquing the on-field decisions with a kind of fascinated precision. I learned the strategy and correctly predicted each penalty before the referees methodically marked them off. I was especially entranced by the back and forth drama of the game, the way that wave after wave of momentum changed the dynamic and outcome of the action on the field.

Despite my zeal, my worried mother insisted I wait another year before signing up. By then, I was ten years old. As a means of keeping the game competitive, players could not take part if they exceeded a certain weight threshold, much as is the case with wrestlers and boxers. 90 pounds was the absolute maximum one can weight and still be eligible to play. Because I was one of the biggest kids, I almost always came within a pound or two of not being able to suit up and play. This was due more to a matter of genetics and biology than being overweight.

Fat bodies! I could hear the coach all the way across the field, especially the way his voice reverberated and carried well across the playing surface. Should I exceed the threshold upon weigh in, this was now my cue to start vigorously jogging around the perimeter of the gridiron. Thirty minutes later, having shed some excess water weight, I stepped on the scales again. This time, I passed muster.

The loose informality of Pop Warner football is nothing like the seriousness assigned to the game once middle school and high school arrive. I lived a block away from the practice field, within walking distance to where we practiced, the ground littered with the sickly sweet aroma of paw paw trees and their decaying fruit. With one hand, I learned to hold the face mask of my helmet. It stuck out through the center of my shoulder pads, where my head was meant to go. I took the same shortcut through the woods for every practice, emerging and then putting on the remaining pads and protection.

A few years later, I'd make the same reluctant journey with my fellow players, not in solitude as I once had before. To me it felt like descending into the bowels below. The practice field had once been a ravine, meaning that one had to walk down several steep flights of stairs to arrive. It seemed to me as though I was making my way downward to hell itself. I wonder if my teammates shared my feelings. I bet more than a few did. Anyone who tells you he enjoyed practice is lying. The same is true for basic training.

Returning to my youngest playing days, where I was little more than a boy, the head coach took an immediate shine to me. I don't remember why I was pegged to be an offensive lineman, having never taken a snap, nor played anything other than backyard full contact tackle football with the neighborhood boys. Even at a very young age, I suppose I had the natural physique needed. Though I couldn’t, the coaches could predict how I would look when I reached full physical maturation, only a few short years away, really.

Though painfully shy away from football, I was aggressive on the field and had almost perfect form. This came from observation and athletic ability. It could not be taught. Form and technique cannot easily be coached. Those with a natural athletic ability were already one up on the competition. After practice one day, the head coach ambled off the field, which for us was a converted baseball diamond. He sought out my father, who could always reliably be counted on to be present by the time practice had concluded for the day. They began to chat about me and my potential as a player.

You know he's the right color. My father nodded up and down in agreement.

I didn't think much of that remark then, but I knew what was meant by it. Until the early 1970's, the football teams of every major Southern school were all white. Steadily and with time, black players moved from the minority to the majority. This became the case within ten to fifteen years. At the beginning of integration, black players were usually running backs and wide receivers. About the same time they became defensive stalwarts, often at linebacker and free safety. Now, most defenses in elite schools in the South are comprised entirely of black players.

A few positions have, often by design, been designated for white players. One of them is quarterback. Another is place kicker. A third is punter. And the fourth is the entire offensive line: two guards, two tackles, a center, and a tight end. A black player might take on one of these positions from time to time, but these slots are the last bastion of Caucasian pride. At first, I was a offensive tackle, but I later became a guard. This was because I was deceptively fast for someone as large as myself, skilled at pulling across the line of scrimmage to attack linebackers or defensive ends.

The head coach had a horrible temper, one that used to scare the hell out of me, but he doted over me like a prized pupil. I made him look good and helped his teams win games. Though I didn't know it at the time, he was a long-time yellow dog Democrat, and had done political consulting for the party for a while. He told stories about Bill Clinton when the latter was still Arkansas governor and unknown to a national audience. As is the case with many states in the South, politics and football intersect. With me as his trump card, the coach could call in some old favors.

During practice one day a yellow jacket painfully stung me on my right hand. Using an old folk remedy, the head coach unrolled a cigarette, applied spit to it, and then firmly affixed it to the site of the sting. It didn’t really help, but I wasn’t about to let on otherwise. It was a harbinger of things to come.

Even with the intensity, there was a kind of laid back attitude attached to the brand of football played by earnest and often somewhat clumsy elementary school kids. The coaches gave their time voluntarily. We only practiced a couple of times a week before the games. No one else had the time for more than that. This was soon to change, though I didn't know it yet.

Once coaches began to be paid for their labors, the pressure was ratcheted up. Regardless of whatever history, driver's ed, health ed, or physical education class they taught to justify their existence to the school system, football was their primary occupation. And we knew it as much as they did.

I now began to despise practices, which were scheduled every day during the week, minus game day. For punishment following losses, we had to practice on Saturday mornings, as well. Training camp began during the sweltering early August heat and humidity. My freshman year of high school was one such example. The most intense heat wave in years descended and quickly overstayed its welcome. We started two-a-days in 105 degree heat with a 130 degree heat index.

I'm amazed we all survived. I mean this literally. Players have been known to succumb to heat stroke and I think it was the resilience of my youthful body that I did not keel over and collapse. I arose early in the morning to prepare myself for the first intense and punishing practice. At its conclusion, I slowly dragged myself off the field, was driven home in exhausted silence, drank two liters of Gatorade, took a two hour nap, then awoke to do the same thing all over again.

The process of recruiting starts earlier and earlier these days, especially as money continues to flood the college game. Recently, an eighth-grader was offered a scholarship before he'd even played a single snap in high school. But even twenty years ago, good players were wooed and courted with much fanfare, flagged as superlative by grown men twice their age, their progress tracked.

College football has its own pecking order and hierarchy. I may have been a ravenous Alabama fan, but I was simply too small to play for my favorite team. This is not an uncommon phenomenon. Though I was a fast offensive lineman and a tough one, I weighed a paltry 200 pounds. Offensive lineman in elite teams need to be upwards of 300 pounds. How could I gain that much weight in a short period of time, without resorting to performance-enhancing drugs or living in the weight room?

The second-tier SEC schools were a better fit and likely to ask me for a formal visit. Though it hurt my pride a little, I recognized that schools like Kentucky and Vanderbilt were my only real options. That these were perennial losers was certainly not lost on me. My little league coach became my most enthusiastic booster, believing the rate of return he'd eventually receive from my services on the field would be worth his effort.

My father was taken to Lexington, Kentucky, site of the state University. The trip was ostensibly for fun, but it came with a strong ulterior motive that became evident immediately. Several big wheels with the university were present, including the first female governor of the state, Martha Layne Collins. My booster was well connected with the state Democratic Party, and I suppose this big show was meant to impress and awe. If I were to commit to play for the Wildcats, I'd surely be considered for a job as a starter.

Alas, my heart was not in the game. But what really did me in was the onset of the first of many depressive episodes, which then became full-fledged bipolar disorder when I reached my early twenties. After I quit, midway through high school, some of my teammates decided to hang it up as well. This lack of talent led to three subpar seasons by the remaining players. During that sorry span, the team had losing records and missed the playoffs. Following the year of my graduation, an ineffective head coach was replaced by a dynamic, though arrogant firebrand.

This upstart, Rush Propst, would eventually become the most successful high school coach in the state of Alabama. The potential for greatness at my high school had always been there, but finally someone put the pieces together in the proper order. And yet, I have to say I never regretted not playing for him or anyone, really. I left the sport without any illusions. Some of my teammates questioned my decision to quit, assuming I'd desperately return after a year of guilt and longing, begging for a second chance. I never did.

Had I decided to keep playing, I saw myself in a three point stance, lined up at my familiar left guard. Across the neutral zone from me were players from the other team. They wore a striking shade of crimson, the very uniforms that are as striking today as they were in my childhood. As each player ran onto the field to start another game, I'd hear the same fight song that even now gets stuck in my head with every contest I watch today as a casual observer. If we played on the road, it would be even worse. I knew I'd have mixed feelings, but perhaps I could channel my envy and sharpen the chip on my shoulder.

Would I have been happy toiling away in the hot sun for a team that lost more games than it won? I know I would have had mixed emotions when trying to play my best against a larger, more talented defensive front. We might steal a game here and there. We might even pull an upset when a better team had a bad day. But even though the coaches might call us champions, or better yet, implore us to play like champions on the field, we'd still be losers.

I console myself sometimes by saying that at least I would have gotten a good education. Though I would like this to be the case, I am skeptical. I have a feeling that I wouldn't have had enough time to be the academic superstar I valued far more than any success in sports. In college, as a non-athlete, I genuinely enjoyed most of my classes. The athletes with whom I had classes in college had to travel regularly, leaving no choice but to painstakingly carve out time to complete classwork. I'm sure graduate assistants would have been glad to assist me, but I wonder if I'd really have the time to absorb everything. College is difficult, even for smart, motivated people.

Saturdays in the fall will always hold a fond place in my heart. With new technology, I can, from the comfort of my sofa, view twenty games at once when before one had to make do with only two or three. The experience of playing football was not a total loss. I learned what it is like to push one's body to the absolute breaking point and somehow manage to survive. I hope keeping myself in tip top shape will add a few years to my life.

People always talk about how the game builds teamwork, and that may be true for some, but never was the case for me. I never had to be reminded to do my job, hold my block, remember my assignment, and work in tandem with others. That's how I've chosen to live my life and how I was taught by my parents.

Nowadays, I can wax nostalgically if I wish and maybe tell a good story or two. But in fairness, that's about the extent of my enthusiasm for old times. Even though I think the concept of a scholar-athlete is a joke, regardless of sport, I do have a sympathy for the players on the field. It's hard work. Being the entertainment and self-esteem agent for a particular school, state, conference, and region is a real pressure-cooker. I probably should be more understanding when young men usually between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two fall short and make bad decisions, though they know what they are in for the moment they sign to a team.

What Do Women Want?

The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is 'What does a woman want?'

Sigmund Freud
_____________

My boyhood was mostly conventional. I learned almost immediately to separate women's ways from men's ways, to see myself as diametrically opposite in every conceivable aspect. Little boys start fires and play out in the woods. Little girls are prim and play with Barbie dolls. There were always a few tomboy rebels out there like my sister who annoyingly tagged along at my heels, but they were always easy enough to brush aside.

These gender roles of which I note were further reinforced in my own consciousness by older male role models. Once I came home from school in seventh grade, having made a girl my own age a friend. I noted in conversation with my father that there wasn't much difference between men and women.

My father swiftly and emphatically corrected me.

"Maybe at your age there isn't much difference. But when you get a little older, you'll see."

This was years before I learned to assign labels to myself like bisexual and genderqueer. I always perceived of myself as a different sort of male, but knew that I wasn't female, either. Since then, I've learned the hard way that socialization is crucial to self-esteem, and so are past experiences with love, desire, and sex. We either charge ahead fearlessly or place strict limits upon affection and to whom we grant it, insisting upon a set of hurdles to be jumped before full confidence is granted.

It wasn't until I began to read feminist discourse in my early twenties that the scales fell from my eyes. The gender essentialism I had always taken as truth was now called into question. In a world without assigned gender roles, what would we be? This philosophy I embraced with the vigor I devote to any cause that demands my interest. And even today, I wouldn't put so much work into self-improvement if I didn't think that a Utopian dream might one day be reached for everyone.

And yet, like Freud, I must confess that I often do not know what women want. They may not even know themselves, further complicating the problem. My greatest consternation in life has been a particularly feminine predilection to throw up walls and retreat when direct communication might be better served. Years ago, I recall chancing across a very flirtatious woman at a party. Her interest in me was clear and in times past, such conduct usually ended up with an exchange of phone numbers and a first date.

When I made tentative inquiries, she immediately pulled back, claiming her social life was full and had no room for me. This was curious, and no less infuriating. I don't lump all women in with her, but I've consistently seen the kinds of fears and learned neuroses women often possess around romance. Vulnerability must be part of our own social contract. One of the reasons I try to be an effective male ally is that I want to ensure that men and woman can communicate effectively without first needing to apply the brake, or having to play games.

One of the things as a man I cannot understand is the fear of pregnancy. I know I never will and have accepted that long ago. What simply does not exist for me is a very justified anxiety in the minds of many women. The closest nagging worry in my own life is a lingering paranoia of contracting venereal disease, or worse yet, HIV. There were times in past life where I was extremely incautious, but I am gratefully clean and not inclined to take those sorts of risks again.

I don't want to sound cavalier. This is a difficult topic to resolve, especially because we've been taught to segregate ourselves by gender. Many men who are perfectly content in their own masculinity and have few female friends do not possess the firsthand knowledge I do. I am a self-taught feminist. I took no women's studies or gender studies classes in college. Instead, I possess a kind of anecdotal evidence of the opposite sex that shows my own natural curiosity to know the other side. Every person who doesn't feel entirely of one gender or the other bases his or her own private studies based upon repeated inquiry.  

Men and women both are highly sensitive beings, and I wish we'd enshrine this notion in granite. We express our sensitivity in very different ways, but nothing stings as much as callous rejection or psychological harm. The more we experience either, the worse it becomes for everyone. It's easy to hold a grudge and it's equally easy to hold fast to the memory of past pain. Let's learn how to live and to love.

Watching the Wheels

People say I'm crazy, doing what I'm doing
Well, they give me all kinds of warnings
to save me from ruin

When I say that I'm okay,
well, they look at me kinda strange
"Surely, you're not happy now,
you no longer play the game"

People say I'm lazy, dreaming my life away
Well, they give me all kinds of advice
designed to enlighten me

When I tell them that I'm doing fine
watching shadows on the wall
"Don't you miss the big time, boy?
You're no longer on the ball"

I'm just sitting here watching
the wheels go round and round

I really love to watch them roll
No longer riding on the merry-go-round
I just had to let it go

Ahhh, people ask me questions,
lost in confusion

Well, I tell them there's no problem,
only solutions
Well, they shake their heads
and they look at me as if I've lost my mind

I tell them there's no hurry,
I'm just sitting here doing time

I'm just sitting here watching the wheels
go round and round
I really love to watch them roll
No longer riding on the merry-go-round

I just had to let it go
I just had to let it go
I just had to let it go

Quote of the Week

"The barbarous custom of having men beaten who are suspected of having important secrets to reveal must be abolished. It has always been recognized that this way of interrogating men, by putting them to torture, produces nothing worthwhile. The poor wretches say anything that comes into their mind and what they think the interrogator wishes to know."-Napoleon Bonaparte

Saturday Video

Dachau blues those poor jews
Dachau blues those poor jews
Down in Dachau blues, down in Dachau blues
Still cryin' 'bout the burnin' back in world war two's

One mad man six million lose
Down in Dachau blues down in Dachau blues
Dachau blues, Dachau blues those poor jews
The world can't forget that misery

'N the young ones now beggin' the old ones please
T'stop bein' madmen
'Fore they have t' tell their children
'Bout the burnin' back in World War Three's

War One was balls 'n powder 'n blood 'n snow
War Two rained death 'n showers 'n skeletons
Danced 'n screamin' 'n dyin' in the ovens
Cough 'n smoke 'n dyin' by the dozens

Down in Dachau blues
Down in Dachau blues
Three little children with doves on their shoulders
Their eyes rolled back in ecstasy cryin'

Please old man stop this misery
They're countin' out the devil
With two fingers on their hands
Beggin' the Lord don't let the third one land

On World War Three
On World War Three

Transparency and Quaker Worship

I was gently eldered (disciplined) earlier in the week for the content of some of my writings, here and in other venues. As I was told, many Friends see Meeting for Worship as a safe, confidential space. From time to time, I've incorporated the goings on and individual vocal ministry of Worship into writing material. Real life material has been invaluable in times past, but from now on, I have agreed to abstain. I am, I must admit, left with several questions, though I am more than willing to abide by stated guidelines.

How many unprogrammed Friends would object if their Meeting for Worship was recorded for a podcast or a YouTube video? Granted, many people unfamiliar with our traditions would find extended periods of silence boring, unless they knew what to expect first. I once attended Worship in a gathering of conservative Friends where the entire hour was streamed live over Skype. This was for the benefit of a member who was infirm and lived in a remote area. She was unable to make the drive from her residence to the Meetinghouse.

In programmed churches, sermons are routinely videotaped for live broadcast or on tape-delay. Sermons, especially, are often converted into free podcasts for anyone to listen. I listen to several on my iPod, often when out and about running errands. I sense it is the peculiar nature of unprogrammed Worship that makes some squeamish. But are our fears justified? Taken this way, unprogrammed Worship is treated somewhat like a session with a psychologist or a support group.

I personally would not object if my words during Worship were broadcast over the internet. Years ago, I made a decision that in an effort to reduce stigma, I would speak up vocally about the identities I hold. I know that's not everyone's cup of tea. But I do wonder what we're seeking to hide or protect.

By implication, these rules governing Worship could be used as cover for someone who wanted to provide ministry that was not Spirt-led, knowing that he or she would never be held accountable for it. If others knew they would never be disciplined beyond the auspices of a Meeting, it provides a lot of cover for someone with an agenda. This may not necessarily be the case, but it leaves a fairly massive loophole for some to exploit if they wish. Sometimes accountability can be external as well as internal.

It has always been my intention to share the particulars of the Religious Society of Friends. Though I am opposed to proselytizing, I do wish to reach those who are Quaker and don't know it yet. I know the importance of community in a society that increasingly isolates us from one another. Having a cause and a sense of purpose is extremely healthy, and you don't need a therapist to tell you that.

When confronted with people who I sense are lonely and in desperate need of social outlets or engagement with others, I often suggest Friends Meeting as an antidote. Most people say thanks, but no thanks, but others not automatically opposed to organized religion or faith in any form have taken me up on it. I would not be opposed to removing the veil of secrecy even further. Friends may not mean to seem mysterious and even a little foreboding, but we can often appear that way towards others who see our ways as eccentric or strange without adequate explanation first.

We have much to offer, and in the internet age, I think we must conform to the standards of our times. In particular, we must continue to reach younger Friends who are often minorities within their own home Meetings. Using technology for the benefit of growth is no sin. Though I respect the concerns of those insist that everything said in Meeting must stay in Meeting, I must say I do not agree.

No Show Tonight

A song written and recorded by the long-forgotten Phoebe Snow. The lyrics are clever, so they're enclosed below.
__________

There'll be no show tonight and no, no
The music won't sound right
The audience is being impolite
And I can't act tonight, don't make me
And I can't act tonight

I guess I missed my cue
When he said we were through
He walked up the stage with some ingenue
And all I can act is blue, I really mean it
No, no stand in will do

Take back your Oscar
Your horseshoe made of flowers
You'll find me down at the local pool hall
Tying up the phone for hours

Who could have guessed how
He'd rewrite the script for me
I might be Sarah Heartburn
But I can't cover up this jealousy
And I can't cover up this jealousy

Let me fly again soon
And give back my toy balloon
He's got me grounded in my dressing room
Well that man's got me grounded in my dressing room

There'll be no show tonight, no, no
The music won't sound right
The audience is being impolite
And I can't act tonight, don't make me yeah
I can't act tonight, and I can't act

I can't be Sarah Heartburn
I can't be Sarah Heartburn
No, no, no, oh

The Voyeur Manifesto, Excerpt

Enclosed is another short story excerpt. To put this story in its proper context, the main character is a man who films women in various stages of undress for pay, without their consent. My inspiration was a segment on a television show about a skeezy landlord who filmed his female boarders in the shower by use of a hidden camera. Eventually the man was caught and the women unfortunate enough to be his victims stepped forward to share how they felt violated.

______________

Every morning, even Saturday and Sunday, I received a fresh e-mail from my boss. They were usually curt and to the point, typed in all caps. TARGET DRESSING ROOMS IN HECKART, 10:30 AM-12:00 PM, COLLEGE STUDENT RUSH. One wouldn’t want to hang around for too long, as that would attract attention. In what has become a habit, I stick around for forty-five minutes at most, and then keep moving.

The times really have changed. Technology makes much possible that was once impossible, or at least consigned to the realm of speculative fantasy. Photographs are much easier to take, because they tale only a fraction of a second or two to produce, but the customers clamor for videos. Don’t worry about trying to find our website. It officially doesn’t exist and, should you sign up, still doesn’t exist.

You won’t come close unless you’re an expert in navigating parts of the web beyond the reach of Google or have a few hours to spend fruitlessly linking from site to site. Most of our business is spread by word of mouth, though at times a few persistent and lucky people have encountered our site on a whim and subscribed. Everyone knows the risk involved. As the saying goes, you pays your money, you takes your chances.

Every assignment has its own challenges and unknown variables. One day at a department store I spied only middle aged women, which is fine for some, but we tend to get more requests for the younger set. I’ll let our customers provide the color commentary. For me, this is just a job. My foremost responsibility is not getting caught. I’ll concede there is a degree of taboo fun present for me sporadically, but that’s mostly faded into the background. I’ve become a professional, a label that always eluded me beforehand in every other occupation I tried.

How I do it is a trade secret I would prefer to keep mostly hidden. Suffice it to say that it wasn’t learned overnight. In the beginning, I silently observed whomever entered a stall, feigning that I was trying on clothes myself. Having obtained access to the dressing room area, I then balanced uneasily on a chair or by whatever elevation was possible for me.

My focus was on an immediately adjacent room. Half-standing, half-crouching, peeping just over the partition, I recorded a few minutes or so before noiselessly ducking back down for protection. Before I perfected my technique, I almost got caught on more than one occasion.

My first few attempts were unusable because I couldn’t hold my hand steady. I was too nervous, too fearful of getting caught in the act. I don’t know the identities of anyone else who works this same basic job. This is a condition of employment. We can’t be seen at the same place too frequently or be somehow linked together even in guilt by association. Some men are assigned very different tasks from my own.

Those who are skilled with hidden cameras have a basic understanding of concealing their equipment in an inconspicuous way, inside walls, bricks, bathrooms, and showers. Some shoot from the floor, with their camera focused upwards, capturing legs and feet. I’m not smart enough or proficient enough for setups like those. 

Since none of us receives formal training, what we bring to the table are skills we’ve likely cultivated as a hobby, often to appease our own private peccadillos. Those jobs I’ve just mentioned pay more because there’s increased risk involved and arguably more work. I’m not sure how to remove mortar around bricks or to chisel a small opening for a camera lens, nor do I care to learn.

Happiness is a Warm Gun

She's not a girl who misses much
Do-do do-do do-do
Oh, yeah

She's well-acquainted
with the touch of the velvet hand
like a lizard on a window pane

The man in the crowd
with the multi-coloured mirrors
on his hobnail boots

Lying with his eyes
while his hands are busy working overtime
A soap impression of his wife which he ate
and donated to the National Trust

I need a fix, 'cause I'm going down
Down to the bits that I left uptown
I need a fix, 'cause I'm going down

Mother Superior jump the gun
Mother Superior jump the gun
Mother Superior jump the gun
Mother Superior jump the gun
Mother Superior jump the gun
Mother Superior jump the gun

Happiness is a warm gun
(bang bang, shoot shoot)
Happiness is a warm gun, mama
(bang bang, shoot shoot)

When I hold you in my arms
And I feel my finger on your trigger (oh, yeah)
I know nobody can do me no harm (oh, yeah)
Because is a warm gun, mama (bang bang, shoot shoot)
Happiness is a warm gun, yes, it is (bang bang, shoot shoot)

Happiness is a warm — yes it is — gun
(Bang bang, shoot shoot)
Well, don't you know that happiness
(happiness) is a warm gun (is a warm gun)

Good Christian People

In a gathering of Quakers, a man only a few years older than me discussed his dilemma. He was a college professor and professed Christian, but confided to the group that he deliberately used profanity during his lectures so that his students would not make incorrect assumptions. He desired a working relationship with his students, and found that a profession of faith separated him from the most important aspect of his work. Many of us have been viewed by others in similar terms should particular phrases and word choices be used.

I see nothing wrong with well-timed and well-placed cursing. Used for emphasis, it has an important function in language. Anything can be overdone, especially if the intent is only to shock. I sometimes speak to my doctors in clinical language, since the vernacular would be too embarrassingly crude otherwise. I keep swearing out of my writing because it appears unprofessional, much as I kept profanity out of my exams and term papers.

My friends are beginning to have children. Bad habits like drinking and smoking have been discarded, especially if children are in pending status. They no longer use profanity and have coined creative euphemisms in its place. Those in my social circle may see no need for organized religion themselves, but they do want to set a good example and a moral framework for their children's greater well-being. Pre-school is often offered by houses of worship. I went to Methodist pre-kindergarten myself because my mother had been raised that way.

My own parents tried to be a good example, especially when my sisters and I were very young. Dad kept his famous temper at bay somehow. Mom went into hyper-drive, instantly ashamed of her own rebellious past, and fearful of somehow being an unfit mother. She took it too far, but knew how impressionable children can be, seeking to use her own efforts at strict perfection as an example for us to follow.

Two neighbors and family friends of my parents were very religious Southern Baptists. Aside from belonging to the same denomination, they had something else in common. In each, a family member became a heroin addict. In the midst of her addiction, one of them became pregnant and could not say for sure precisely who was the biological father. The other moved in with a boyfriend on a whim and moved hundreds of miles away, continuing to use.

Speaking of my first example, bout after bout of rehab has produced a tentative recovery each time, but she is incapable of raising the child herself. Her very Christian parents have brought up the kid, now 12, as their very own. I imagine the circumstances of his birth were difficult, but the child's grandparents follow their religious teachings which include raising a Grandson as his mother and father. Their daughter has not been banished or disowned by either parent, who rightly see the struggles of their own child as a disease, not a failing of character, morality, or general weakness.

Very religious people have all the same problems non-religious people do. Our standards and teachings may be different, but we are still quite capable of making mistakes. Even the best of intentions backfire. I Worship with people who are still rejecting and processing the faith of their upbringing. We have our share of semi-recovered Catholics and Mormons.

We really ought to give each other the benefit of the doubt. It's tempting to look for broad-brush bogeymen in the form of religious extremists who picket abortion clinics, or brainwashed cult members. But these are not most people. Most people wish to live peacefully, and if organized religion is an effective tool to accomplish those ends, then so be it. For some, a holy text is sufficient, but does not take the place of positive interactions with others.

But let's not forget what each of these methods produce in their ideal state: making us better people. Rules and guidelines take many forms. That said, I don't know many people who would swear around a three-year-old. We can live our lives as if someone (or something) was watching us and mimicking what we do, or we do whatever we damn well want. But let's not forget that everyone's playing his or her own game in their own way for the entirety of one lifetime. That's what we're given and it's up to us to find the balance that appeals most to us.

Quote of the Week

Observation

If I didn't care for fun and such,
I'd probably amount to much.
But I shall stay the way I am,
Because I do not give a damn.-Dorothy Parker

Saturday Video

Your everlasting summer
You can see it fading fast
So you grab a piece of something
That you think is gonna last

You wouldn't know a diamond
If you held it in your hand
The things you think are precious
I can't understand

Are you reelin' in the years?
Stowin' away the time?

Are you gatherin' up the tears?
Have you had enough of mine?

You been tellin' me you're a genius
Since you were seventeen
In all the time I've known you
I still don't know what you mean

The weekend at the college
Didn't turn out like you planned
The things that pass for knowledge
I can't understand

I spend a lot of money
And I spent a lot of time
The trip we made in Hollywood
Is etched upon my mind

After all the things we've done and seen
You find another man
The things you think are useless
I can't understand

Flatscreen (An Excerpt)

Editor's Note: In an effort to try something different, I decided to write a story that was unabashedly sexual, but I tried to avoid being smutty or gratuitous. Posted here is a segment of a larger work. It was seriously considered by one publication and I'm currently awaiting the decision of a few others. Some who read my religious writings think that I'm a goody-two-shoes. Nothing could be further from the truth.
___________________

It is the mid-Nineties. The radio plays “Waterfalls” by TLC on a nearly-constant loop and everyone has seen the video, too. The twin force of radio play and MTV heavy rotation continue their juggernaut as though the two will never come to an end. Record companies spend millions of dollars for four minutes of visual excitement, sometimes more.

No one has yet heard of file sharing programs or iPods, social media, or the possibility for making a fool of oneself on it. In sports, Michigan quarterback Scotty Dreisbach has implausibly thrown the game winning touchdown on a crucial fourth down play against Virginia. A particular service provider offers a free clip of the winning catch for subscribers only. Over a phone line, a four minute video takes two full hours.

"Hey you," I typed, big yellow letters on a purple background.

"Hey", she replied, smaller white text on a black background.

"How was your day?"

"Boring as usual."

I asked another question next, one I had stated many times before. She never seemed annoyed by it, but was typically evasive.

"When are we finally going to meet each other in person?"

"Soon, but in the meantime, I'll send you something."

In the days before the proliferation of digital cameras, smartphones, selfies, and photobombs, she used the tools available to her. The task required creativity and some physical dexterity. The thick glass panel of a flat screen scanner was the surface she chose. She sat naked upon it, straddling sharp rectangular corners in hard plastic. I imagined the process must have been terribly uncomfortable, or at least require a kind of nimble flexibility. Had she laid it flat against the floor? That was the only way I could reckon she'd been able to pull it off.

The image produced, squished against the perfectly level surface, had stretched external genitalia to an extreme, making certain portions of the female reproductive system appear much larger than they were in reality. I wish I would have kept the file around for the sake of novelty, bizarre as it was, but it got lost while transferring from computer to computer. Just as well. It would have only reminded me of her.

In those days, taking nude pictures required creativity and courage. Since then, the ease of digital technology has produced another moral panic, a fear that children are being sexualized by online predators, too young to have the good sense to abstain. Every generation produces its share of parental angst around a particularly troublesome fear. Today's conniption fit, sexting, is a product of the proliferation of digital cameras. Back then, pictures had to be processed by a lab at a drug store, a very public method which kept sexual images to a minimum.

I knew I was not the only person to receive a copy of this particularly revealing picture, which she offered to interested parties like some obsessive networkers offer business cards, though I was one of her favorites. I was merely one of many. She'd said I was one of her favorites, so that meant something at least. We spoke over the phone and online on a nearly daily basis. She had even offered herself to me, someday.

"Are you serious?" I'd typed.

"Sure, when the time is right."

She never went into greater detail than that. The trip would have required a lengthy car trip my parents would not have agreed to, and even if they had, my only other option would be relying upon a ride from the airport that I knew might never arrive. Amanda was not very responsible when it came to the passage of time and I knew I might need to wait helplessly, stranded with bags in hand for hours before anyone showed.

"So, did you get it?" I'd opened my e-mail window to find the attachment.

I wasn't sure what to say, honestly. There was something cartoonish about it, out of proportion, maybe even slightly swollen. Of course I found it arousing, mainly to be given something rare and intimate. Part of the appeal of the naked image is how it is constantly longed for but rarely presented. Even today, in an arguably more sexual epoch, playing hide-and-seek retains its luster.

"Do you like my big clit?"

I indicated that I did, but wasn't quite sure how to process what I was viewing. She talked about sexual details the way that people speak about the weather. No boundaries. No restraint. I sensed she craved attention from men, and every one that entered her orbit was an ego boost.

Dedicated to My Father

It's gonna take a lotta love
To change the way things are.
It's gonna take a lotta love
Or we won't get too far.

So if you look in my direction
And we don't see eye to eye,
My heart needs protection
And so do I.

It's gonna take a lotta love
To get us thru the night.
It's gonna take a lotta love
To make things work out right.

So if you are out there waitin'
I hope you show up soon,
'Cause my head needs relatin'
Not solitude.

Gotta lotta love
Gotta lotta love.

It's gonna take a lotta love
To change the way things are.
It's gonna take a lotta love
Or we won't get too far.

A Prophet in His Hometown Reflects

Then they scoffed, "He's just the carpenter's son, and we know Mary, his mother, and his brothers--James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas. All his sisters live right here among us. Where did he learn all these things?"
__________

Each of us aspire to be important to someone. This can mean being the best father or mother to one's children, or the best librarian to care for patrons. For me, aspirations and goals are close to the same thing. I want to be a well-regarded writer of essays and short fiction. I want to be a male feminist who consistently challenges himself to learn more, to know more. I want to learn more about the guitar and become a better musician.

In my Quaker world, my aspirations have begun to flower. For one thing, there aren't very many of us out there. On the East Coast, where I live now, there are probably somewhere around 100,000 Friends. I will never meet all of them, regrettably, but paths have crossed, usually at conferences. I have shared space with many others who share my faith and my passions.

Young adults are a minority within the Religious Society of Friends. As you might imagine, it doesn't take long to make acquaintance with the same few hundred socially active young people. We are the most committed and most serious about our faith, the sort that stick out notably on First Days (Sundays) at our home Meetings. Speaking for myself, my reasonably young age has only accentuated my distinctions. Word of mouth speaks with greater influence than any column I write.

The East Coast corridor of liberal Friends stretches from roughly North Carolina to Philadelphia and up into New England. Ever since I left Alabama, I've jumped into the middle of the historic avenues of influence and, dare I say it, power. The past six years of hard work have given me a name and a reputation, one I didn't recognize fully until I came back home.

Everyone seems to think of me as the local boy done good. Three men had prominent man crushes on me, which is flattering and uncomfortable at the same time. The one closest to my age asked me for my opinion on a particular matter. I was glad to oblige him, though I don't consider myself the sole authority by any stretch of the means. A little hero worship isn't a bad thing and I'll allow myself to appreciate it.

Ever since I left, my writings, podcast interviews, blogging, and publication in Quaker periodicals have given me a following. Unlike Jesus, a return to my hometown showed how far I've come, not a summary rejection. I planted myself in the middle of a city where many aspire to great influence, in many avenues, and won a share of it myself. This did not come easily.

Some may know my name, but never know my face. I'm perfectly content with this. Part of being a Quaker is a strong discouragement of hierarchy. Individual accomplishments are to be downplayed, and to be sure, I never find myself drawn to false humility. Strict humility, however, means perpetual anonymity, and my own leadings are too strong for that. I'm a leader with ability. In a different age, I would have requested and been granted a formal designation of recorded minister, a belief that my vocal ministry and life's example were clear gifts from God.

As I said, I will allow myself a particular length of time to appreciate a few starry-eyed Quakers. I tend to impress others with a unique combination of vulnerability and thoughtful insight. There's no turning back now, and I wouldn't want that for myself. There are greater goals and aspirations for me now. Everything is set in motion. God pushes me to greater service for his sake and his plan, whatever it may be.

Teen Rebellion Revisited

For the past couple of days, I've been sleeping in the same bedroom I did as a teenager. Since then, it has sat largely vacant as child after child grew old enough to leave the nest, to move away forever. I remember its original configuration with omnipresent CD player and two large speakers, which were the center of my very existence back then. The adjacent bathroom featured some of my worst moments, the end products of my first few encounters with hard liquor. The wallpaper is the same as it was then, adamantly masculine with aggressive blue and white stripes.

Twenty (gulp) years ago, I was sneakily rebellious, the first kid to apologize to indignant parents incensed about the smell of marijuana in their homes. I was a good-natured charmer who knew all the right things to say, even if they weren't truly sincere. In the vicinity of a now-closed movie theater, I came across two members of my 11th grade biology class, both girls. I was smoking a cigarette, and though they were brave enough to ask me for one, one of the pair noted how surprised she was that I smoked.

I'm afraid it was far worse than that. I drove home from wild parties far too intoxicated to have any business behind the wheel. The police busted one of them because a neighbor had complained about the noise. The cops didn't intend to arrest anyone, just to tell the party-goers to turn down the music. Instead, the arrival of law enforcement caused mass panic. One guy tried to jump over a barbed wire fence and didn't quite make it, cutting a large hole in one jeans-covered pant leg and lacerating a thigh badly enough that it required stitches.

The feminist writer Jessica Valenti once described herself in a younger age as a party girl. If that is the case, then I most assuredly was a party boy. Friday and Saturday nights were packed full of rock concerts at an open-air amphitheater ten miles away. Parties followed next. I saw some of the best alternative rock groups of the 1990's in person and can wax nostalgic about those experiences if I wish. Some of the girls got a head start with drinking, conning and flirting shamelessly with older men to buy them beer, even resorting to bribery when necessary. Supplying minors with alcohol was against the law, but that only made them more determined.

One of my sisters exceeded me in her risk-taking behavior and usage of illegal substances. I never tried to top or better her because she was very unskilled in covering her tracks, meaning my father always found out everything eventually. She had older friends already in college who would pick her up late at night when my parents had gone to bed. Sneaking out through a bedroom window, she got away with it for a while, but her repeated absences at school became too numerous to go unnoticed.

I've never told her that I know about her decision to pose nude for a website. The act itself doesn't really surprise me, but this secret is going to die with me. She had good sense enough to use a pseudonym during the shoot but I would rather she cover every square inch of her body in ink than leave physical evidence like this that will never go away. I support her right to do what she did, certainly, and the rights of all who voluntarily contribute their naked selves for the gratification of others.

I know she must have gotten a few hundred bucks for the effort. All I can say is that I hope her intention was not a result of extreme financial need and that she doesn't regret the decision in the future. As I recall, she posed nude for art classes while in college, but that has a somewhat classier ring to it. What I will say, by way of conclusion, that it does make one pause when a close family member is involved in pornography.

Thus ends another autobiographical tale of debauchery and dashed dreams. Alas poor Yorick, I knew him well.

Christmas Quote of the Week

"Let us remember that the Christmas heart is a giving heart, a wide–open–heart that thinks of others first. The birth of the baby Jesus stands as the most significant event in all history, because it has meant the pouring into a sick world the healing medicine of love which has transformed all manner of hearts for almost two thousand years...Underneath all the bulging bundles is this beating Christmas heart."- George Matthew Adams

Marching on Washington Ain't the Answer

This particular speaker, the Harlem-based preacher James David Manning, has been known for his hateful invective and belief in conspiracy theories. Here, I think he has a particular point. I don't agree with it, but it is worthy of contemplation.

Saturday Christmas Video

God rest ye merry gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay.

Remember Christ our savior,
Was born on Christmas Day.

To save us all from Satan's power,
When we were gone astray.

Oh, tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy,
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.

God rest ye merry gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay.

Remember Christ our savior,
Was born on Christmas Day.

To save us all from Satan's power,
When we were gone astray.

Oh, tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy,
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.

Notice

I will be back home in Alabama starting early Monday morning until December 30. Posting will be sporadic at best, since I intend to spend a good bit of time with family.

But in the meantime, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy 2015.

Book Review: Nick Drake, Remembered for a While

The just-released don't-call-it-a-biography will please both the casual fan and obsessive completist of Nick Drake's music. For starts, it is in large part the work of Nick's sister, Gabrielle, who wanted to personally correct the misconceptions, myths, and legends that have been told about her brother since his tragic death in 1974. When facts and details are sparse, the human mind produces a convincing facsimile of truth.

Nick Drake: Remembered for a While is beautifully designed, particularly showcasing Drake's handwritten lyrics. But in the midst of beauty comes numerous anecdotes from those who knew him when he was alive. It seems that most people, aside from family, found him distant and secretive. He curiously had no documented love life, few (if any) partners, and gives the impression at times of almost being asexual. Though at times his lyrics entertain the idea of romance and love, he does not elaborate. Outside commentators have suggested Drake might have been gay and closeted. Though this is possible, it is impossible to prove convincingly.    
 
Some know of Nick Drake the depressive more than the folk musician, and, to be sure, that information is provided as well. The most harrowing passage comes transcribed directly from the journals that Nick's father kept to document his son's daily struggles. Some were better than others, but it is clear that for the last two unhappy years of his life he was a semi-recluse. During this last period, he produced a total of four new songs, but was in no condition to record upon arrival at the studio. He rarely left his childhood home and the company of his parents, passing away at only 26 due to what the family insists was an accidental, or at least incautious overdose of antidepressant medication.

During his lifetime, as has often been noted, Nick Drake's pathological shyness meant that he played few live shows. A list provided early in the book documents the handful of gigs he performed, which are more than one might initially think, but far fewer than needed for greater success. But he did play enough gigs to attract the attention of Joe Boyd, the American emigre and up-and-coming record producer.

Boyd had produced the first single and a live recording of a group then called The Pink Floyd. He now sought to commit Nick's music to tape. The British music press gave Drake's first album, Five Leaves Left, scant notice, as they would for the whole of the short time he was actively recording.

Past thinkers have tried to posthumously diagnose Drake from a psychiatric standpoint. The book never makes a formal medical judgment. We know that Nick Drake was a depressive personality who, at least part of the time, took medication to treat it. At the end of his life, he toyed with the idea of electroshock therapy but never committed to it. Psychiatry was not nearly as evolved forty years ago, but in fairness he never took medication long enough for it to reach its optimum effectiveness, a far-too-common complaint with those who suffer with mental illness.

As intended, this book is the authorized companion to the music of Nick Drake. Fans should dig out their copies of his albums to play along with their reading. The book somewhat cautiously reveals the most sensitive information, not willing to resort to sensationalizing. But what awaits us is the most intimate and complete rendering of yet another musician who died at too young an age.

Doctor My Eyes

Doctor, my eyes have seen the years
And the slow parade of fears without crying
Now I want to understand

I have done all that I could
To see the evil and the good without hiding
You must help me if you can

Doctor, my eyes, tell me what is wrong
Was I unwise to leave them open for so long?

'Cause I have wandered through this world
And as each moment has unfurled
I've been waiting to awaken from these dreams

People go just where they will
I never noticed them until I got this feeling
That it's later than it seems

Doctor, my eyes, tell me what you see
I hear their cries, just say if it's too late for me

Doctor, my eyes, cannot see the sky
Is this the price for having learned how not to cry?

Suffer Unto Us

But Jesus called them unto him, and said, "Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God."

The majesty and eloquence of the King James Bible does this passage well.

Laws and statutes, lawyers and judges, each of these have granted leniency for minors. This is thought to give childhood offenders the chance to redeem themselves before they reach adulthood. It is my opinion that we ought to consider extending the same fair consideration to those of legal age. While I believe in the rule of law and do not consider my own judgment necessarily superior to those of the professionals, I think that many harsh policies which sound good upon proposal often ultimately backfire. Such was the fate of three-strikes-and-you're-out.

In many states, paradoxically those who have declined additional federal funding, Medicaid requirements extend coverage to children, but not to childless adults. I'm sure it gives some politician or bureaucrat great pleasure to trim newly turned 18-year-olds from the rolls, saving money in the process.  By implication, rules and regulations value young lives more than older ones. Television commercials beg us to think of the children, showing poverty-stricken, fly-infested, and emaciated children from the Third World.

The novelty of some foreign land on a different continent can't open checkbooks soon enough. The poverty of African-Americans across town, however, are not treated with the same way. We don't need interpreters or television commentators to explain to us what we see on the wrong side of the tracks, on the other side of town.  ­­­­­­

Why do we value the lives of children in ways that we do not adults? It is true that children are generally impressionable, vulnerable, and easy to deceive. Criminals are supposedly the most evil and corrupted among us, but many of them retain a soft spot for kids.

As I've noted a time or two before, the reason that Medicaid in the District of Columbia, where I call home, offers full dental coverage is due to the tragic death of a child whose severely abscessed tooth led to his death. His parents let the abscess progress to a fatal state because they lacked the money to pay for the procedure. If this had happened to an adult instead, I wonder if the status quo would still be in place.

The 1931 German movie M tells a story of a child serial killer. When the police prove clueless and ineffective, organized crime takes over. A serial killer who preys on children is simply bad for business. In one memorable scene, the actor, a young Peter Lorre, is tried before a jury of his peers, that being his fellow criminals. One hopes that our society does not degenerate enough that the police are ineffective and incompetent. Justice in America, not the Weimar Republic, is, in some ways, the very opposite. It is too aggressive and too punitive.

We ought to treat everyone as though they could quite possibly possess the trusting innocence and purity of a child. Jesus told us that we won't attain the Kingdom of God unless we enter his spiritual kingdom on those terms. His implication was not that we be childish, but that we instead be childlike, pushing our skepticism and doubting aside. A strictly logical and cynical person might find this concept threatening and not especially empowering, but letting go has its place.

Many Quakers have felt led to prison ministry, which is hard work. It is true that prisons hold remorseless sociopaths, but they also hold those who are victims of circumstance. Our national discourse has talked about the vast numbers of black men who are currently incarcerated. It's easy to throw up walls, literally and figuratively. If our very salvation depends upon trust and cooperation, we have sadly gone astray. I'm not inclined to froth at the mouth, nor to use forceful, coarse language to illustrate my points, instead to angle for truths even a child could understand.

The initial outrage is over. Everyone must now work together. Having now identified the problem, we must enter into solemn, sacred covenant with each other. The American people need to sign a peace treaty, a legally binding document that will allow us greater comprehension and communication with each other. It should not be a half-measure, a compromise, or a document written out of barely restrained resentment. It should be genuine and crafted with genuine thought and consideration.

Pity is a human emotion that has its place, but what needs changing has no need to tug at heartstrings. Melodrama, too, should consign itself to plays and films, not wholesale manipulation. We are saved by Grace. There is nothing we can do to win treasure in Heaven. It is instead a free gift, freely given by someone who sees us as his children.

Quote of the Week

"All those writers who write about their own childhood! Gentle God, if I wrote about mine you wouldn't sit in the same room with me."-Dorothy Parker

Saturday Video

The new Nick Drake "companion to the music" (don't call it a biography) is excellent. It is recommended highly even to casual fans of Drake's work. The beautifully compiled book is titled simply Nick Drake: Remembered for a While. Consider it for Christmas presents.

 

 

A city freeze get on your knees
Pray for warmth and green paper
A city drought, you’re down and out
See your trousers don’t taper

Saddle up kick your feet
Ride the range of a London street
Travel to a local plane
Turn around and come back again

And at the chime of a city clock
Put up your road block
Hang on to your crown

For a stone in a tin can
Is wealth to the city man
Who leaves his armour down

Stay indoors beneath the floors
Talk with neighbours only
The games you play make people say
You’re either weird or lonely

A city star won’t shine too far
On account of the way you are
And the beads around your face
Make you sure to fit back in place

And at the beat of a city drum
See how your friends come in twos,
Or threes or more
For the sound of a busy place
Is fine for a pretty face
Who knows what a face is for

The city clown will soon fall down
Without a face to hide in
And he will lose if he won’t choose
The one he may confide in

Sonny boy with smokes for sale
Went to ground with a face so pale
And never heard about the change
Showed his hand and fell out of range

In the light of a city square
Find out that face that’s fair
Keep it by your side
When the light of the city falls
You fly to the city walls
Take off with your bride

But at the chime of a city clock
Put up your road block
Hang on to your crown

For a stone in a tin can
Is wealth to the city man
Who leaves his armour
Down

More Shameless Self-Promotion

Here I am again, a caller on a sports radio show. Listen for me beginning at the 5:20 mark.

Sail Away

I could live inside a tepee
I could die
in Penthouse thirty-five

You could lose me on the freeway
But I would still
make it back alive.

As long as we can sail away
As long as we can sail away
There'll be wind in the canyon
Moon on the rise
As long as we can sail away.

See the losers in the best bars
Meet the winners in the dives
Where the people are the real stars
All the rest of their lives.

As long as we can sail away
As long as we can sail away
There'll be wind in the canyon
Moon on the rise
As long as we can sail away.

There's a road
stretched out between us
Like a ribbon on the high plain
Down from Phoenix through Salinas
'Round the bend and back again.

As long as we can sail away
As long as we can sail away
There'll be wind in the canyon
Moon on the rise

As long as we can sail away
As long as we can sail away.

The Mind of the South

Now that I have relocated nearly 750 miles northeast from the South, I have moved from a solidly Republican region to a solidly Democratic one. I'm happy where I live, but I am more refugee than immigrant. Immigrants assimilate with great purpose to a new culture, but refugees retain a strong identification with home. I lament the inability to find overcooked, oversalted vegetables seasoned with pork or the proper form of cornmeal by which to make cornbread.

When traveling home or waiting in airports, I automatically gravitate to others from my state of birth. I deliberately seek out those with Alabama t-shirts on, engaging in enthusiastic small talk, most often about football or sports. Part of this comes from growing up in a small state with a population of only 4.8 million people. The city I live in now has more inhabitants than the entire state of my birth.

One topic is noticeably absent: politics. A sharp and immediate difference separates me from most Alabamians, and for that matter, most Southerners. I'm a liberal Democrat. They're usually conservative Republicans. For this reason, I simply don't go there. The conventional wisdom is that our country is as ideologically divided as it ever has been. I'm not convinced.

Writing in the Daily Beast, Michael Tomsky writes, with no small derision, about a new solid South.

It’s lost. It’s gone. A different country. And maybe someday it really should be. I’ll save that for another column. Until that day comes, the Democratic Party shouldn’t bother trying. If they get no votes from the region, they will in turn owe it nothing, and in time the South, which is the biggest welfare moocher in the world in terms of the largess it gets from the more advanced and innovative states, will be on its own, which is what Southerners always say they want anyway.

Once part of the New Deal Coalition, the politics of the South have changed from solidly (albeit conservative) Democrat to solidly Republican. This trend is not new and has been underway for at least the last fifty years.Things really began to change in 1964 with the passage of the Civil Rights Act and Barry Goldwater, but the region's overwhelming support for George Wallace's independent campaign in 1968 was the true onus. The 1990's saw massive party switching from conservative Democrats in the Senate and House to the conservative Republicans they are today.

Earlier in this year we glanced across the pond at Scotland, a region of the UK that has long had an ambivalent relationship with the rest of Great Britain. By a relatively close margin, it declined to secede. Should Southern secession be put to a vote, rather than a bloody armed conflict, it would be curious to know the results. Southerners, including yours truly, bear a chip on their shoulders a mile wide, believing themselves to be the red headed stepchild, always fearful and suspicious that they are being negatively judged and dismissed by other Americans.

Tomsky is right that the South simultaneously mooches off of the rest of the country while claiming disingenuously that its own affairs and self-governance are not respected. But it is also true that the region contains some of the most deplorable poverty and lack of opportunity in the United States. I left, refugee or not, because it was my observation that the demands and petty superstitions of the rural south consistently dragged down its urban counterparts.

The main point is this: Trying to win Southern seats is not worth the ideological cost for Democrats. As Memphis Rep. Steve Cohen recently told my colleague Ben Jacobs, the Democratic Party cannot (and I’d say should not) try to calibrate its positions to placate Southern mores: “It’s come to pass, and really a lot of white Southerners vote on gays and guns and God, and we’re not going to ever be too good on gays and guns and God.”

Politics in the capital city of Montgomery show this fight between more progressive city dwellers and the attitudes of those in rural areas that I can only describe as backwards and resistant to improve conditions for all Alabamians. I waited years for my state, and the South in general, to change its nationwide reputation and make things better for its citizens. After a time, I threw up my hands and headed North, as many Southern liberals do.

I speak with sadness, not derision. Tomsky's column begins with the failed campaign of now-former Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu.

That is what Louisiana, and almost the entire South, has become. The victims of the particular form of euthanasia it enforces with such glee are tolerance, compassion, civic decency, trans-racial community, the crucial secular values on which this country was founded… I could keep this list going. But I think you get the idea. Practically the whole region has rejected nearly everything that’s good about this country and has become just one big nuclear waste site of choleric, and extremely racialized, resentment. A fact made even sadder because on the whole they’re such nice people! (I truly mean that.)

Southerners know how to circle the wagons. They are well-practiced at that and at adapting a kind of siege mentality. Words like these are written for the outliers and outsiders looking in like me. The target of this column will build up walls at an even faster clip. This is why I don't think of the South as a lost cause for the Democratic Party. The failing of Tomsky's argument is that it sees the South as a single entity, with no significantly core distinctions and differences.

South Carolina-bred author and journalist W.J. Cash wrote a notable book about Southern culture and history called The Mind of the South. Writing in 1941, Cash's hypothesis was that Southern identity was uniform and dismissive of alternate points of view.

Proud, brave, honorable by its lights, courteous, personally generous, loyal, swift to act, often too swift, but signally effective, sometimes terrible, in its action -- such was the South at its best. And such at its best it remains today, despite the great falling away in some of its virtues.

Violence, intolerance, aversion and suspicion toward new ideas, an incapacity for analysis, an inclination to act from feeling rather than from thought, an exaggerated individualism and too narrow concept of social responsibility, attachment to fictions and false values, above all too great attachment to racial values and a tendency to justify cruelty and injustice in the name of those values, sentimentality and a lack of realism -- these have been its characteristic vices in the past. And, despite changes for the better, they remain its characteristic vices today.

It's been over seventy years since the book's initial publication, and one can say much the same thing today. Cash's words may be themselves an oversimplification in terms, but they retain enough truth to speak to us today. I don't pretend to know how to fix the problem, but current political realities may not always be daunting, not always leading liberals and progressives to throw in the towel. I'm glad it's not my fight, but it needs to be someone's.

Street Harassment as a Class Issue

A brand new grocery store has been recently built a block from my apartment. To clear my head in between work assignments, I visit several times a week. Unwittingly, I've attracted the attention of three or four women who work there. They are very flirtatious and loquacious in my presence. I'm not used to this treatment. It is flattering, yes, but a little embarrassing at the same time.

Recent feminist discussion has addressed, once more, the issue of unwanted catcalls and other invasive behavior that falls under the category of street harassment. What I've experienced myself is different, but has some similarities. It feels good to be complimented, but a little unnerving when it is so overt and not subtle. The analogy I am seeking to draw here isn't entirely congruent, I recognize, but the two of them share a few things in common.

As a man, I know that I probably don't have to fear pursuit or obsessive attention from a woman. What I have been experiencing is a kind of good-natured, somewhat ribald teasing. I could let it go to my head if I wanted, especially because I've never seen myself as especially good looking. They wait for me now, ready to pounce and to initiate conversation the moment I enter the self-checkout line. If I were less socially phobic, I might be able to even enjoy it, since this appears to be utterly harmless.

What I experience over the course of five minutes is experienced, at least partially, by many women every day. As a male ally, I've observed behavior like this at times when out in public, out in the streets, or on the bus. But street harassment is different. In those situations, I've felt completely impotent and powerless. Is it my role to intervene, perhaps risking a physical altercation in the process? I can't fight every battle and my religious beliefs discourage violence in any form, for any reason. The best I can do is let my life shine as an example of proper conduct and privately instruct other men who behave in inappropriate ways.

The rules and codes of conduct for male feminists are frequently, frustratingly absent. Feminists, either male or female, are often misunderstood, many times a projection of fears that reveal more about personal bias than actual doctrinal misunderstanding. But again, what can men do to eliminate cat calls, wolf whistles, and inappropriate remarks?

None of my male relatives engaged in such behavior. I take an outsider role from the outset. My father viewed it merely from a male perspective as a male-only matter, but was nevertheless critical of these acts. For him, such behavior was low-class and inexcusably coarse. Over the passage of time, men have formulated acceptable codes of conduct within themselves, and many men were brought up to believe as I was. Street harassment in any form is seen as inappropriate by many men, but our mistake is not moving from disgust to intervention.

One incident of street harassment is too many. I wonder sometimes if feminist thinkers and writers have looked deeply enough into Patriarchy, and viewed it on the merits of its complexity and nuances. At times, I feel like a self-designated expert on men behaving badly. If we talk about street harassment, we'll need to discuss the men who maintain the practice and where they learned the behavior.

I began with a story of receiving attention that, while not unwanted, certainly took me out of my comfort zone. Before I read the personal anecdotes of women, I assumed this sort of behavior was consigned only to construction workers. But on second thought, I do recall that a former girlfriend lived in a rough part of town. She enjoyed my company when taking a walk. That way, random men passing by in cars would leave her alone. She saw this as inevitable, not as a personal affront.

This issue is often tied closely to class and socio-economic status. I was taught that this was behavior performed by other men who were borderline criminal. Other men might think these thoughts but not verbalize them, or at least not verbalize them in this way. That was part of being a respectable citizen, not a deadbeat.

In the same way, shouted words and an energetic argument is one way of vocalizing conflict. The appearance of a handgun is another. And until we are really willing to dig deeply into class distinctions and cultures not our own, not to avert our eyes and mutter things under our breath, nothing will change.  

Quote of the Week

Ordinarily I would not post a quote by this speaker, but it was too good to leave out.

"It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first."- Ronald Reagan

Saturday Video

I ain't happy but, I'm feeling glad
I got sunshine, in a bag
I'm useless, but not for long
The future is coming on

I am happy, I'm feeling glad
I got sunshine, in a bag
I'm useless, but not for long
The future is coming on
Is coming on
Is coming on
Is coming on

Edited for brevity.

Big Empty

Driving faster in my car
Falling farther from just what we are
Smoke a cigarette and lie some more
These conversations kill
Falling faster in my car

Time to take her home,
Her dizzy head is conscious laden.
Time to take a ride it leaves today
No conversation

Time to take her home her dizzy head is
Conscious laden
Time to wait too long, to wait too long,
To wait too long.

Too much walking shoes worn thin
Too much trippin' and my soul's worn thin
Time to catch her ride it leaves today,
Her name is what it means

Too much walking shoes worn thin
Time to take her home,
Her dizzy head is conscious laden.
Time to take a ride it leaves today
No conversation

Time to take her home her dizzy head is
Conscious laden
Time to wait too long, to wait too long,
To wait too long.

Conversations kill
Conversations kill
Conversations kill

Time to take her home,
Her dizzy head is conscious laden.
Time to take a ride it leaves today
No conversation

Time to take her home her dizzy head is
Conscious laden
Time to wait too long, to wait too long,
To wait too long.

Conversations kill
Conversations kill
Conversations kill

Ferguson and the Legacy of Bombingham

The last year or so I have watched incidents of racially-based police brutality and violence and have not added my own voice and my own perspective. The reason for this is simple. I'm weary of conflicts predicated on black versus white. Ferguson and the others to come may be novel concepts to much of America, but to me, it's only the beginning of another round of hostilities.

I won't stand in the way of progress, nor will I criticize those who march and take active roles addressing senseless violence against black men. You might say I have no heart for the fighting, because the events of most of my life have been an exasperating series of Fergusons or Trayvon Martins. I've felt unduly persecuted by residents of the rest of the country, a chip on my shoulder, and have noted with a kind of previously secret righteousness that none of these offenses and abuses have occurred in the Deep South.

I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, a city that has greatly rehabilitated its image in fifty years, but only to an extent. The city's tragic history of race relations needs no further mention. Suffice it to say that the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, which we remember to the current day, was only one of fifty in a twenty-year stretch.

In the aftermath, politicians both black and white manipulated public sentiment in Pavlovian fashion, waving the bloody shirt in front of two distinct communities with pronounced biases and mistrust of the other. Resentment is what exists now, the sort of resentment that will only prevent subsequent healing and ensure that reforms proceed at a snail's pace.

The city, like so many others, re-segregated following Civil Rights. White wealth has enriched many communities while the city of Birmingham, now majority African-American, continues to decline. While there has been a mild Renaissance in recent years, revitalizing Birmingham will take time and money, both in copious quantity.

Whites are weary of the same refrain, the same grainy black and white videos queued up again. In my own life, I admit that I've heard a few offensive epithets thrown around, but I've mostly encountered people who have learned their lesson in the most painful way possible.

But achievement aside, learning a lesson does not imply that subsequent growth and active discourse is forthcoming. People sometimes freeze in their tracks, believing themselves to be persecuted and forever the focal point of the blame. I am sure this is a view held by many whites to this day. We will only invoke a racist past as much as absolutely necessary, burying as many painful truths as possible.

The Modern Sign Company was a sign shop owned by Merle Snow and located at the corner of 3rd Avenue North and 16th Street North in Birmingham. It is only a few blocks away from the 16th Street Baptist Church and was a haven of violent extremists, namely the Ku Klux Klan. One will find no plaque present there, nor busloads of tourists commemorating a historical event, though it is most assuredly a significant location to be preserved for posterity.

During the 1950's and 60's the shop produced countless Confederate flags which were a popular symbol of resistance to Federal court rulings in favor of racial integration. Snow allowed members of the Ku Klux Klan and the National States' Rights Party to use the shop's equipment at cost to produce picket signs, bumper stickers and placards. The shop became a meeting place and was sometimes used to establish alibis for Klan operatives suspected of violent crimes. Investigators suspect that the bomb used in the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church two blocks away on September 15, 1963 was assembled at the shop.

In 1974, the black comedian Richard Pryor released a Grammy-winning comedy album entitled That Nigger's Crazy. Forty years later, we've been dealing with the same problem.

Cops put a hurtin’ on your ass, man. You know, they really degrade you. White folks don’t believe that shit, they don’t believe cops degrade. 'Ah, come on, those beatings, those people are resisting arrest. I'm tired of this harassment of police officers.’ That’s 'cause the police live in your neighborhood, see, and you be knowin' 'em as Officer Timpson.

’Hello, Officer Timpson, going bowling tonight? Yes, nice new Pinto you have.' Niggers don’t know them like that. See, white folks get a ticket, they pull over, 'Hey, Officer, yes, glad to be of help, cheerio!'

A nigger got to be talkin’ 'bout, ’I am reaching into my pocket for my license! ’Cause I don't wanna be no motherfucking accident!’ Police degrade. I don’t know, you know, it’s — often you wonder why a nigger don’t go completely mad. No, you do.

You get your shit together, you work all week, right? And then you get dressed and you make — maybe say you can’t make $125 a week, you get $80, if you’re lucky. Right? And you go out, get clean and be driving with this old lady going out to a club, and the police pull over.

'Get out of the car! There was a robbery! A nigger looked just like you! Put your hands up, take your pants down, spread your cheeks!' Now, what nigger feel like having fun after that? ’Let’s just go home, baby.’ You go home and beat your kids and shit. You goin’ take that shit out on somebody.

How we address this issue as a nation is absolutely crucial. Some would brush it under the rug, their own way of managing bad news. Others would proceed forward, but cautiously and without addressing the complete problem. Our fault as Americans was believing that past actions were sufficient and the problem had been solved. Hurricane Katrina revealed the persistence and prevalence of black poverty. Ferguson revealed the racism of the criminal justice system and officers of the supposed peace.

We cannot play duck and cover with the truth. I've looked at well-meaning protesters on television and in person and have felt a deep sadness that they are missing the full picture. We are not all Trayvon Martin, which is the entire point. White allies need to refocus. They are not playing with a full deck and until they are, there simply won't be any real resolution.

Radio Interview

My five minutes of fame on sports talk radio.

I am roughly 18 minutes into the broadcast. Follow the link.

For the Rest of the Week

For the rest of the week, posting may be sparse. I have three separate doctor's appointments scheduled this week, in addition to publication deadlines. I've written three brand new short stories in the past two or three months. The last time I was so prolific was undergrad writing workshop, and that was only because I had to crank out a new story every week or two.

Let Me Roll It To You

You gave me something, I understand,
You gave me loving in the palm of my hand
I can't tell you how I feel
My heart is like a wheel

Let me roll it
Let me roll it to you
Let me roll it
Let me toll it to you

I want to tell you
And now's the time
I want to tell you that
You're going to be mine

I can't tell you how I feel
My heart is like a wheel.

Let me roll it
Let me roll it to you
Let me roll it
Let me roll it to you

You Can't White Knuckle Relationship Success

In most of my writing, I make a point to leave partners and significant others out of them. This is partially an act of benevolence, but mostly a need to keep at least a few secrets to myself. Even an ambitious and driven person such as myself should remember to always leave an escape route. Showing rather than telling is the first maxim of creative writing, at least as I was taught.

Last week, I wrote about a young woman who sought a boyfriend. Her one judging criteria was that he self-identify as feminist. It won me some sharp criticism, in particular one memorable comment that accused me of seeking to put a twenty-one-year old in her place. I recall that at 21 I wanted to be taken seriously, so I merely extended the same courtesy to her.

Her primary litmus test for relationship suitability was a man who was a feminist, and by that she mostly meant that she wanted a man who respected women. While I respect her desires, and agree with them, I'm afraid the reality goes beyond any single movement and a set of legalistic beliefs. She was lamentably ensnared by a forgery, a man who claimed to be and sounded like what she wanted but who disregarded sexual consent behind closed doors. Her conclusion was that no man could truly be a feminist.

Egalitarian partnerships and marriages are prized and desired by many, myself included. I've heard from several women, at least the ones who partner with men, that they want a boyfriend to understand a little bit about women's rights without fearing emasculation or ridicule. It's a worthy request, but if a man isn't at least halfway down the path before her arrival, I fear she is wasting her time.

If a woman feels that she needs to constantly emphasize and reinforce proper behavior and basic human courtesy, the cause is likely lost from the very beginning. There will be no equality. Successful relationships are built not just on an equal distribution of power, but an equal distribution of love and genuine, lasting concern for the other. Selfishness has no place. In my own life, if I've felt a strong connection with a partner, I rarely needed to be reminded of the proper way of conducting myself. Though I would never be optimistic enough to think that love conquers all, but it does separate the suitable from the pretenders.

Each of us can exist on our own best behavior for a little while. Many relationships begin promisingly enough, but problems can develop and worsen with time. When we first meet someone, we often begin by trying to impress them. A friend of mine described successful relationships as tough mountain hikes that give way to beautiful vistas worthy of contemplation. Once primary goals are accomplished comes cohabitation, the ultimate test for lasting stability. Either we are easy to live with, or not.

How we are brought up is important to how we behave around others, at least to an extent. My parents' forty-year-long marriage has been egalitarian in some respects, and highly one-sided in others. Regardless of her strong identification with women's liberation in a younger self, when it came down to actual parenting, my mother only partially accomplished her goal of total self-sufficiency.

When it came time to mete out discipline, Mom and Dad were a unified unit. My two sisters and I were raised strictly and, I think, successfully. Mom had primary domain over the girls and my father took that role with me. But the manner in which the both of them shared overlapping parental responsibilities I can say now with adult insight was executed almost flawlessly.

However, when it came time for crisis management techniques, so to speak, my father was thrust into a very traditional role because he had no other choice. Mom threw her hands up in the air, begging my father to resolve the problem, often stuck in bed, too emotionally wrecked to participate. I could have resented her for dereliction of duty, but I saw my mother's frailties for what they were, a sign of illness. Those were her worries alone. I doubt any of us blamed my mother for her sometimes frayed nerves and bouts with depression, least not me.

As a child, I had no real concept, nor any understanding what my parents should have done in any given situation. I either accepted the decisions made or rejected them. My mother did the best she could and I have never judged her harshly. I maintain that my mother is a tremendously strong woman regardless of whichever definition one uses, regardless of the circumstances. She cannot be faulted for seeking to be the perfect mother, even though this self-assigned burden taxed her severely. Should she from time to time violate her own standard, even without intending it, no one took it harder than she did.

Strong women come in many forms. The women in my life have not been deferential and compliant to anyone's standard, nor a need to conform to whatever a woman is supposed to be. One of my sisters has recently dealt with a collection of traumatizing experiences that have left behind many scars that remain fresh to the current day. She was married for a time to a physically and emotionally abusive man. He hid his behavior well in the beginning, but soon she had to accept that the man she fell in love with was not the same person when the two of them were alone.

Jung theorized that a man seeking a heterosexual relationship was, in essence, capturing aspects of his mother in those to whom he was primarily attracted. If this is true, it would explain much about my own choices, and, if the genders and sexual orientations are properly assigned, everyone else's, too. Past girlfriends have been emotionally intense and artistic, but with a secret vulnerable side that always took me a while to discover for myself.

We return to the question by which I opened this post. What determines an egalitarian relationship? The more I think about it, I believe it's based on intent rather than follow through. Rest assured, I've made mistakes in bushels. Relationship partners have made mistakes. But forgiveness was a constant. There was enough affection and devotion between us that made up for anything that went wrong. For me, the moment the laughing, the playfulness, and the mutual silliness that falls under the category of affection went away, the end was nigh.      

Women often feel they need to closely regulate their life decisions down to the micrometer. In particular, this often shows up during pregnancy and, following that, being a mother. My mother ate protein-rich food during her pregnancy, wanting me to be as healthy as possible. Then when I turned out to have chronic health conditions, she blamed herself for what she had consumed, even though there is no scientific basis that tuna fish causes fetal damage.

The perfect woman, or those who aspire to be the perfect woman have to check many boxes, and my sympathies are with those who believe they must be everything to everyone.

It took my mother to reach her early sixties and retirement to finally live for herself. She looks relaxed and liberated now, a woman liberated at last, having reached or discarded the goals she set for herself decades earlier. Even though it makes no logical sense, I see women streaming past me every day on the bus and the rail with pursed lips and a countenance of extreme purpose. They are on their own crusade.