A Writer's Life

This is one of the more kindly, cordial rejection e-mails I have received. If only they could all be worded in similar fashion. I've removed the name of the publication and the editor who wrote it. But at least three or four other publications are also looking at it.
_________

Dear Mr Camp,

Thank you for submitting.

This is an interesting essay, but it flits and skates over some salient points that I'd like to see explored some more.

Also, I'd like to see some deeper introspection in this piece--it's largely factual, which loans the work the prerequisite detachment, but it deserves some good old-fashioned navel-gazing, as well.

Finally, I'll say that, in a work like this, I believe the reader likes to go with the writer on a journey and arrive with the writer at a conclusion--this reads a lot like you're moving the reader towards a foregone conclusion, which risks alienating the reader at a time when you most want them on your side. And I'd re-think the title--you have important things to say, but the title says it before we even get a chance to go with you on the aforementioned journey.

But ours is a subjective industry, and what works for one editor may not work for another. I wish you all best with this piece. And thanks for supporting our work here.

Sincerely,

Nonfiction Submission Editor

Misunderstandings Only Make Matters Worse

We've made lots of progress as a people, but those of us with mental illness are still often feared or labeled as crazy. In the course of my life, I don't think I've asked too much of other people. Never wanting to be pitied or handled with kid gloves, I have asked one small concession of the world. I've wanted to be understood. If I can't be seen as a child of God, I'd rather be avoided rather than insulted or dismissed out of hand.

Understanding comes from compassion and empathy, which seem to be in short supply these days. Observe the comment section of any online discussion and one sees the worst, bitterest, most deliberately hurtful parts of humankind. We once believed that technological advances and innovations would advance the best in everyone, but the exact reverse is often the case. We can now communicate with each other in rapid time, have access to information and communication at a lightning-fast tempo, but it appears that, more often than not, we have remaining no real regard for others.  

A story from my own life: years ago, I saw the inequalities between the sexes and recognized the injustice present. I observed that men and women weren't yet equal and wanted to make changes. And believing that surely I could, provided enough training and elbow grease, might educate myself and spread the message, I began to read and then actively contribute my written words to the movement. In doing my research, I came across a young adult feminist website entitled Feministing. For the sake of greater personal growth, even though it was surely difficult from the very start, I put myself under the microscope immediately.

The pressure to be the best and most observant person I could be was frequently trying. Activist groups often fall into the trap of a Salvation by Works approach, valued as they sometimes are for methodical hoop-jumping and conformity. Taking the matter to heart and in the proper spirit is a challenge, which is why this frustrating paradox presents itself over and over again. It's easy to get hung up on rules and protocol.

A movement that is, at least on one level, careful not to box itself in by exacting orthodoxy or rules of conduct expected more of me than others. Even now, if I have ever wavered a millisecond from what passes hypocrisy, in some corners, I can be easily placed back in the stockades. But this is the risk I run, and I know it. I have worked hard, but I'm always fearful I will lose every ally and supporter I have won in a decade-long process of activism and self-discovery.

And this isn't just true within Feminism or any other organization and clustered movement of like-minded individuals. It is equally true for everyone who simultaneously takes on the identity and language of Christianity, especially in front of a liberal audience. Many of my readers can be generally skeptical of organized religion in any form, transforming me into the living incarnation of defense attorney, the ardent apologist for the cause. The labels we assign to ourselves aren't important to us, until, of course, they are.

In the course of this looking inward, I recognized with time why many women do not assign the label of feminist to themselves, and why even more men run away from the classification and button badge. I suppose the easiest path for me to follow would have been to back off, disavow myself from previous statements, and lessen the pressure to be perfect. I could have flip-flopped easily and choked the foul deed down. But I haven't done this and the bulls-eye on my back remains.

I'm committed to an ideal that would put women and men on equal standing with each other. Implicit in this understanding, however, is the knowledge is that every sentient being is imperfect and at times even hypocritical. Religion teaches us that we must forgive ourselves first. Only then can we begin to forgive others.

Among some of who might read my words, I recognize that my life story and my beliefs can push the envelope. The God talk, biblical citations, and religious language I use may be off-putting or even alienating. I take a risk. I am cautious not to favor one side over another. Sometimes I see myself in the same light as Jimmy Carter, a man who wore his religious convictions on his sleeve, even though he was aware that such a public display made many people very uncomfortable.

I was judged from the outset and didn't start off well, I really wasn't able to get off on the proper footing. Timing was part of the problem. I found myself in the middle of very intensive trauma therapy (badly needed, but extremely emotionally wrenching), which left me raw and frayed. I began reaching out to people I didn't know very well, clamoring for help and assistance. Since then, I have blocked out much of those times, both deliberately and unconsciously. In a healthier state, I would have kept many things to myself and tried the patience and tolerance of others much less.

What I expected is not what I received. Instead, I was treated to a variety of different responses and reactions from other people. Many of these, in hindsight, were counter-productive to my journey. A few were sympathetic and understanding, which is the ideal response anyone can receive in circumstances like these. Unfortunately, some could only see my vulnerability and extreme honesty in unfavorable, jarring terms. Negative adjectives were often thrown about regarding my behavior, which was eccentric in the best of times.

Since then, I've tried my best not to label others with mental illness more severe than mine as weird, strange, or creepy. That's only fair. If I really want to live my Quaker faith, I will strive to see that of God in everyone. But even before I had made the conscious decision to re-embrace Christianity, I rarely felt any need to cut people down to size who were guilty only of being chronically ill. Those of my own generation are often more accepting and understanding of mental illness, and I'm thankful for that. I trust anyone who reads this will see things on those terms.
 
As for myself, I'm grateful for the people who knew I was unwell, didn't judge me harshly, and guided me to health. At times, I remind myself of the founder of my faith, George Fox, who also suffered with periodic bouts of depression. At times he shut himself up in his room, too mentally and physically exhausted to do much else. Other times he pursued a haphazard course, bouncing from person to person, seeking a lasting cure for his maladies.

I imagine that others must have treated him much as I was and have been in my own life. Some gave him treatments to try, steps to follow, procedures to consider, and general guidance. Fox tried each of them; none were successful or satisfactory. That is, until the voyage of final discovery that made him, as it is often quoted, leap for joy.

I still want to be seen as a good male ally, a feminist crusader for justice. Challenging myself to see the Divine in others requires my participation, too. But even with the best of intentions, I cannot undo the damage that certain people, especially men, have caused in some. I can be understanding and stand in solidarity, but the hard work that needs to be done cannot be undertaken wholly by me. I would not hoist that banner skyward if I could. That work is not entirely mine.

I could be callous and ungenerous very easily. I could push victims aside in similar ways, labeling their behavior out of bounds. I could wash my hands and ignore their stories. But I choose not to, just as much as I try to remain under the microscope. This is hard work. Everyone has trigger points, boundaries, and sensitive parts to them. From time to time we stumble upon them, then do all we can manage, which is to apologize and make note of it in our minds.

It is a great tragedy that victims of abuse with ample reasons not to trust others are left holding the bag at the end. I've had my own share. I hope God will put the proper words of comfort and understanding into my mouth. Everyone recognizes that in seeking to help through our words, we may unintentionally offend or insult others who are struggling with their own inward journey towards health. I pray that my own ignorance will not cause harm to others, even if my intentions are noble and well-meaning. Hatred and anger is easy. Taking the high road is not.

Quote of the Week

"There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe."- Gerald Ford, 1976 Presidential Debate.

Saturday Video

Saw it written and I saw it say
Pink moon is on its way

None of you stand so tall
Pink Moon gonna get ye all
And it's a pink moon

Yes, a pink moon
Pink, pink, pink, pink, pink moon
Pink, pink, pink, pink, pink moon

I saw it written and I saw it say
Pink moon is on its way
None of you stand so tall

Pink moon gonna get ye all
And it's a pink moon

Yes, a pink moon

A Faith Group Adds Its Own Cracks to the Glass Ceiling

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.- Galatians 3:28

The Scriptural passage included above served, way back in the 17th Century, as justification for equality between the sexes. In the middle of civil war and a resulting power vacuum, a new faith emerged in England. Like so much with the massive text we call the Holy Bible, every faith selectively picks and chooses which verses and passages to emphasize when codifying its own theology and inner vocabulary. As many have noted before me, the text itself is broad enough that there is more than enough room for interpretation for a multitude of religious persuasions and personal persuasions. My own chose this particular verse to suit its own ends. It happens also to intersect neatly with my political and personal beliefs, which is a large reason I became a Quaker.

But I digress. If current trends hold, the United States of America will soon elect its first female president. In the midst of the insults and craziness of this nasty election year, there simply hasn’t been enough attention given to the significance of what may well result on Election Day. The achievement would be more notable in a predictable, routine election cycle, but this has not been the case. Electing and then re-electing the first black President followed immediately by placing the first woman President in the office of the Chief Executive would be very significant for many reasons. Some of them are merely symbolic, some are real and tactile.

What may be confirmed the first week of November will satisfy my own thirst for equality in both a religious and a political sphere. More than a few members of the Religious Society of Friends, usually known as Quakers, will note three hundred and fifty years of steady progress finally fulfilled. Gender equality of any sort in 1640's England was a radical proposition, extreme enough to arouse great fear in government leaders and offensive enough to produce mocking insults from prominent commentators and essayists of the day. Some never took Friends seriously, others would sooner throw them in jail or even subject them to public execution. Only a half-mad group of religious zealots would dare propose such audacious ideas and have the crazed insistence to try to live by them.

Notable about the early Quakers was the amount of side by side work that men and women performed, in organizing and in preaching alike. As a matter of fact, without the assistance of a particularly influential woman as benefactor, the entire movement might never have gotten off the ground. Her deep pockets, inward convictions, and political clout made the movement much of what it was. I use this particular example as the benchmark of what I wish to see in my own life and in my own time. I have benefited from the progress made. I have had many fruitful collaborations with women co-workers and women who are of my same religious persuasion. I have appreciated their insight and skillful eye for the detail. They have been mentors as well, and I am grateful for their presence in my life.

Returning to the past, Margaret Fell, an early convert to the faith, was both wealthy and politically influential. Fell was also a member of the landed gentry, owning an estate named Swarthmoore Hall, which served as the hub of Quaker activity in the early days. In time, she would take George Fox, the founder of the faith, as her second husband. This union followed the death of her her first husband, who had been a barrister and member of Parliament. As a brief side-note, Swarthmore College, located in the state of Pennsylvania, is named after this estate. Swarthmore was once affiliated with the Religious Society of Friends, but now it is independent, though the college does retain some of its traditions.

Nothing in life is quite so simplistic, no cause purely fair or unfair. Even those committed to gender integration and egalitarian worship are not always the purest of believers. Friendly audiences will justly point out that business meetings at the outset were often segregated by gender. This was a decision not necessarily made to exclude. Many women felt as though they could speak more frankly and honestly if they weren’t surrounded by their husbands, brothers, and male relatives.

Idealism must sometimes be tempered with pragmatism. To this day, in the older Meetinghouses, one can often see the partitioned space that separated men from women. To show how far we’ve come, we have progressed enough as a society and a Religious Society that this real and visually prominent separation is no longer deemed necessary. Some would build partitions. Others would seek a day where we would question the wisdom of building walls of any shape or size or height. Robert Frost wrote that something there is that doesn't love a wall.

Speaking in broader terms, it may be instructive once more to take the long view. These are a few examples. In the beginning, the United States, by way of Thomas Jefferson, insisted that all men should be created equal, but it was implied that equality in this context meant only white men with some degree of social standing and wealth. After the Civil War, the victorious Union was divided amongst itself as to what suffrage really meant. Did this mean the extension of the vote to freedmen formerly in bondage? The country as a whole never managed to resolve an issue almost as contentious as the war that had immediately come before it, necessitating a second Reconstruction that we now collectively call The Civil Rights Movement.

Following the first Reconstruction, women demanded the right of suffrage, but were not granted the ability to cast a ballot until about a hundred years ago. To today’s audience, it seems incredible that women wouldn’t automatically have what we now consider the most basic right of citizenship. A hundred years ago is a blink of an eye in the vast expanse of time, but likely none of us currently living can remember an epoch where women weren't allowed to vote.

Not long ago, women were valued for their behind the scenes work, their domestic duties, while men were expected to be the public front of any marriage or relationship. Now, if Hillary Clinton is elected, I wonder if we are finally ready to cast aside old prejudices and embrace the future. I know that some people out there hold silent reservations, even today. I hear the same criticisms about women heads of state that are made about women police officers or women who hold occupations where the dual qualities of emotional strength and decisive decision-making are part of the job description. 

To even begin to answer that question, it is possible that we need to speak to the parts of us that we usually prefer to keep hidden. Some of us might think any female President lacks the toughness needed for, without hyperbole, the most stressful, most challenging, most intense job in the world. The great responsibilities required have utterly destroyed men, if we presume that men are somehow more innately geared for a task that Herculean, requiring the toughest hide imaginable. These are the assumptions that must be challenged, the subtle doubts many still entertain within themselves.

We would be debating issues like these if someone other than Donald Trump was running against Hillary Clinton. We would be circumspect and contemplative, not reactive and confused. Instead, the media has been chasing around the antics of a buffoon. We would be debating the evidence of the cracks in the glass ceiling, but instead we have been driven to distraction by a news media that can't resist obsessively documenting the behavior of a charlatan. Let’s not take the bait and instead try to make sense of where we are and where we want to be.

Quakers can view the likely election of Hillary Clinton as the culmination of its own hard work. As the Virginia Slims cigarette advertisement proclaimed, we’ve come a long way, baby. I am willing to celebrate, even if, like so many, if I am not enthralled the candidate. Friends can be justly proud of their accomplishments, assuming the election goes for Clinton, but I would caution against seeming too self-satisfied or smug. Men and women are not yet equal, in ways that go beyond rates of pay and long held fears. It would be best for us to discard the distractions of spectacle and courageously move forward to nobler pursuits.

Writing Difficulties

You'll get over it. This always passes. You've thought you've lost the knack before, but it came back. It always comes back. Don't worry. Be patient.

That's what everyone says to me. It's what I say to myself when I'm too depressed to write. Nothing hurts worse than to be out of touch with one's muse. There are columns to write and the remaining twenty percent of a short story to finish. It's a good one, which is why it hurts to set it aside from this long. Even putting down these few words is trying. It shouldn't be this hard to communicate with the world. When I'm healthy, words flow easily from my brain to my fingers, as if guided by unseen forces.

I have fifteen sessions remaining of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, or TMS, for short. The process only lasts for twenty minutes, but I have to go every day, Monday-Friday. Tomorrow I begin another week. Three more to go. And in the meantime, I'm beginning to learn the habits and the demographics of Uber drivers. I've learned the midday traffic patterns of southern Maryland. Sometimes I chat informally with the driver who takes me from office to transit rail and back. Sometimes I am too tired from the depression and the aftereffects of the treatment to want to talk to anyone.

This much is true. I have always hated hot weather and despised summertime. When I was younger, my unrequited hate was due to the fact that I find the temperature and humidity intolerable. Now, I hate it for a different reason. I am almost always depressed in the summer months. August is about to subside and I wish it good riddance. Now it's time to get my life back. But I'm not quite there yet.

Be patient with me. If it were my call to make, I wouldn't have had to take this respite from productivity. An underlying condition may be sapping my strength and compromising my energy in a different way. I see a doctor on Tuesday. I don't like being this dependent on medicine and doctors and never have.

Quote of the Week

“I think we showed a lot of heart. We came back from a goal down. I’m very proud of this team,” she said. “But I also think we played a bunch of cowards. The best team did not win today. I strongly believe that.”- Hope Solo

Saturday Video

Everybody plays a game,
We don't have to save a name,
Every day come sun array,
I say good's just playing for safe.

I don't have to say no more,
You've got more time waiting for,
Don't care if I break the law,
I want more and more and more.

Everybody plays a game,
Voice inscription play for safe,
You've got more time waiting for,
I want more and more and more and more

And more and more and more and more
And more and more and more and more
And more and more and more and more
And more and more and more and more
And.

Quote of the Week

"I therefore think that I was right in trying from the outset of the Olympic revival to rekindle a religious awareness."-Pierre de Frédy, Baron de Coubertin

Saturday Video

Do you not hear me anymore
I know it's not your thing to care
I know it's cool to be so bored
I sucks me in
When you're aloof

It sucks me in, it sucks it works
I guess it's cool to be alone

Will you never rest
Fighting the battle of who could care less
Everyday you wake up late
Sometimes I wish I was
That way

And you think Rockford Files is cool
But there are some things
That you would change
If it were up to you

So think about your masterpiece (yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah)
Watch the Rockford Files
And call to see if Paul can score some weed.

Do you never rest
Fighting the battle of who could care less
Unearned unhappiness
That's all right, I guess

I've got this great idea
Why don't we pitch it to the Franklin Fucking Mint
Fine pewter portraits of
General apathy and major boredom singing
Whatever and ever Amen

Oh well maybe not I'll try again
This should cheer you up for sure
See I've got your old I.D.
And you're all dressed up like the Cure

You never rest
Fighting the battle
Of who could care less
Unearned unhappiness

You're my hero I confess

Virginia Trip Pictures

Click the picture to access the full collection

Vacation

This upcoming vacation will be more like a Staycation, but I'll enjoy the time off. See you next week.

Quote of the Week

"I love people. Everybody. I love them, I think, as a stamp collector loves his collection. Every story, every incident, every bit of conversation is raw material for me. My love's not impersonal yet not wholly subjective either. I would like to be everyone, a cripple, a dying man, a whore, and then come back to write about my thoughts, my emotions, as that person. But I am not omniscient. I have to live my life, and it is the only one I'll ever have. And you cannot regard your own life with objective curiosity all the time."-Sylvia Plath

Saturday Video

Never was a cornflake girl
Thought that was a good solution
Hangin' with the raisin' girls
She's gone to the other side

Givin' us a yo heave ho
Things are getting kind of gross
And I go at sleepy time

This is not really happening
You bet your life it is
You bet your life it is
You bet your life it's

Peel out the watchword
Just peel out the watchword

She knows what's going on
Seems we got a cheaper feel now
All the sweeteaze are gone
Gone to the other side

With my encyclopedia
They musta paid her a nice price
She's puttin' on her string bean love

This is not really happening
You bet your life it is
You bet your life it is
You bet your life it's

Peel out the watchword
Just peel out the watchword

Never was a cornflake girl
Thought that was a good solution

Rabbit, where'd you put the keys, girl?
Rabbit, where'd you put the keys, girl?
Rabbit, where'd you put the keys?
Rabbit, where'd you put the keys?
Where'd you put the keys, girl?

And the Man With The Golden Gun
Thinks he knows so much
Thinks he knows so much, yeah
And the Man With The Golden Gun
Thinks he knows so much
Thinks he knows so much, yeah

Rabbit, where'd you put the keys, girl?
Rabbit, where'd you put the keys, girl?
Rabbit, where'd you put the keys?
Rabbit, where'd you put the keys, girl?

The Nanny State, One Driver at a Time

I’m not the sort of person who actively worries about the growing encroachment of government. Some of my friends and associates have Libertarian leanings, and I respect their views, though I don’t usually fret about such things the way they do. Most of the time I am far more fearful of unregulated capitalism, of corporate hegemony, of the inherent flaws and corruption in private enterprise and big business. Those are my regular bogeymen, but I must say that I now understand a little better why some are fearful of a mindset they fear is on the rise.

Today I renewed my driver’s license in the District of Columbia, where I reside. Seven years ago, the process was much easier and straightforward. I provided the clerk my active Alabama license, the state where I had lived before, which was promptly shredded right before my eyes. After providing basic personal information, like height, weight, eye color, and hair color, a new picture was taken and I was issued a temporary DC license. A couple of weeks later, the new one arrived in the mail. I’ve had it until very recently, until I recognized it was time to re-certify.

Going to the DMV is one of those adult responsibilities than everyone hates, but must endure. Little did I know how difficult the process would be. I had to provide no less than five separate forms of identification. My canary yellow-colored birth certificate came first, then my ancient Social Security card, a card that I had signed with pride in fourth grade and had partially bleached red when it ended up taking a swim in a washing machine. It is in dire need of replacement.

Following that, I had to share two additional pieces of information, both of them required in order to prove my residency. One of them was an recent bank statement dated within sixty days of that precise moment in time, that being today. The other was an active saving account statement that followed the same parameters. In truth, I could have chosen two of fifteen different options, but these were the easiest to find.

If I lacked any one of these five crucial documents, my application would not have been processed and I could not have received a new driver’s license.

The reason for these changes were said to be for security reasons. I have no doubt that the additional documentation made someone or some group of people less fearful and less afraid. The new requirements resembled a mini-background check for a government job, but it was also an opportunity to pacify skittish government officials and frightened citizens. It was many things rolled up in one. The process put in force a more efficient, structured system of documentation might conceivably help identify the next radicalized terrorist or crime network. Someone must have felt that demanding additional documentation like this might be worth the increased government vigilance and the added headache it caused every citizen.

But this is not all. Attention to detail like this restricts undocumented immigrants from lots of privileges: legally driving, registering to vote, voting in elections that require IDs to be provided before casting ballots, establishing formal residency in the District, and a variety of other basic rights granted to citizens. The logic of these new measures forces District residents to prove that they belong there: they work, pay taxes into the system, and are in the United States legally.

And there were a few other new and interesting wrinkles to the process. People with insulin-dependent diabetes and glaucoma were required to specify on their re-certification forms the nature and existence of their health condition. If any driver felt that he or she had limiting factors impeding his or her driving ability, these had to be noted on the form as well. The most novel new reform specifically targeted elderly drivers. Any driver aged seventy or older now must be checked out by a doctor and officially signed off on before he or she is allowed to get behind the wheel. Reforms like these have been debated for years. DC seems to have taken the plunge.

I left the DMV $47 lighter in the wallet, with an obligatory awful license picture, and full of unexpected reservations. Do any of these new restrictions really make us safer? For once, I’d like to have a political leader who would address immigration reform effectively, with some definitive, dignified answer. Instead, some leaders have decided to take a more punitive, more paternalistic approach.

Aside from that, I can only say, as I have said many times before, that we are living in an age of terrorism. Eventually terrorist tactics will prove ineffective and those who seek to harm and maim will pursue other strategies. I wish I felt more at ease with myself and the world around me, but I’ve always felt afraid of some unknown force out there.

That may be a very human affliction. The only thing that’s ever really changed is the word or term we’ve used for nerves and fears. Politicians and leaders prey upon our insecurities, as they are such an easy target. Yet somewhere the voice of sanity can be heard, and if we listen hard enough, we can be won over to a world not dominated by fear, not punctuated by constant anxiety and existential angst. This is our challenge.

Making Progress

Most of my writing this week will center on composing short stories. I've made progress on one of them and hope to complete a full draft by the end of the week. Fiction writers are much more marketable if they offer a collection of stories at one go, not just one at a time. I'm in the process of acquiring an editor to make the process easier. I'll post regular updates about my progress.

Until then...

The End of Snobbery

Six years ago.

I'm working at a PAC for a liberal wing of the Democratic Party. Our offices are located at Dupont Circle in Washington, DC. It's a part of town that started out nice, deteriorated over time, became a gay ghetto, and now has entirely re-gentrified. It's not far from my apartment. Depending on how I'm feeling, I've been known to walk it in one go.

Today I've been doing research on potential donors. When I'm done with that task, I'll begin the formal process of publicizing our slate of endorsed candidates this election cycle. Everything will go up live on our website. Once I'm done for the day, I walk five minutes towards downtown from the office. A feminist website has scheduled a happy hour for anyone who might want to attend.

Upon arrival at the bar, I realize I'm the only man in attendance. I'm not surprised. Part of being an male ally means that I anticipate being outnumbered from the moment I walk in the door. It would be nice to see more men in attendance, but that's a complicated issue that would take a separate post for me to even begin to explain. I'm also one of the oldest in attendance, which doesn't surprise me, either.

Several college-aged women's studies students have turned out for this event, too. They represent a cross-section of the city's many major universities. These young women are enthusiastic and full of energy in the ways only nineteen-year-olds on their own for the first time in a big city feel. Even though I stayed at home for undergrad, I haven't forgotten what it feels like to be free from parents and more or less in control of major life decisions.

What bothers me is the way the two feminist leaders, both regular written contributors to the website, respond to their adoring audience. They act as though they'd rather be anywhere but here. They do not engage with the other women they've expressly called together. Surprisingly, I have an unexpected degree of renown among the daily readership. I've gotten engaged in the cause and have been offering, for free, a wide variety of different essays and creative pieces to the Community section.

Once I introduce myself, I recognize I am not a stranger at all. Are you an editor? I'm asked this on more than one occasion by more than one student because I leave frequent comments and post on a regular basis. I can see how a person might form this conclusion, but I quickly deny it.

If offered the position of an editor, I'm not sure I'd accept. This is a website and a platform designed explicitly to raise women's voices. Men have had their say for a long time. But if achieving a fan base was my intention, I've surely succeeded there. I've been at the height of my creative powers. Movie reviews, book reviews, first person essays, biographical sketches. Everything works.

Like so many writers, I'm very shy in person. I confess that I'm nervous. It's suggested that, for that reason, I order a drink, but I don't partake. In addition to interacting badly with medications, I don't drink for religious reasons. And, there's a secret reason I rarely mention. Writers are often disproportionately inclined to be alcoholics. The work we do is insular and private. It requires enormous discipline and very little face-to-face time.

I engage one of the real editors in conversation. She doesn't smile. Instead she stands next to a second editor who doesn't appear to be an especially very warm individual, either. They both possess an abrasive hipper-than-thou attitude that the college students are too busy making merry to observe. I have no such illusions. If I was an editor, I'd take care to work the room, making my way through the crowd, shaking hands, and trying to make everyone feel at home. But this is not my event and I don't get to set the terms.

Gesticulating to the huge crowd of attenders crammed into a tiny room, one editor points out the obvious. They know you, one says. This is undeniably true. It is also true that she doesn't really want to speak to me. Both of the editors act as though this obligation is beneath them. Their attitude is snobbish and standoffish. They do not engage with the young students who are desperate to know them, to grab hold of them somehow and have that success rub off on them. That ends up being my job, a task I perform because I believe their dreams should be nurtured and not summarily cast aside or ignored.

What I am seeing is not feminism as I understand it. That is a belief system based on integrity, equality, and fairness. In the hands of those who want to feather their own nest and boost their own profile, I see smug hipsters and professional skeptics. If this is someday my fate, I vow to never forget where I came from, to answer every question from every awestruck undergraduate. Midway through my conversation with one jaded editor, she rudely pushes me aside to talk to someone else she'd much rather address than me.

In time, I will discover that these two feminist leaders were miserable living in the city. Within months, both will move elsewhere and find comfort elsewhere. I will remain, finding DC life mostly to my satisfaction. Life here is not for everyone, but I closely control the people with whom I must interact. Otherwise, the dynamics and leadership of the site change with time. A new generation has control. They are much kinder people. I'm thankful for the change.

Quote of the Week

"The basic discovery about any people is the discovery of the relationship between its men and its women."- Pearl Buck

Saturday Video

Is it getting better, or do you feel the same?
Will it make it easier on you, now you got someone to blame?
You say one love, one life, when it's one need in the night.
One love, we get to share it
Leaves you baby if you don't care for it.

Did I disappoint you or leave a bad taste in your mouth?
You act like you never had love and you want me to go without.
Well, it's too late tonight to drag the past out into the light.
We're one, but we're not the same.
We get to carry each other, carry each other... one

Have you come here for forgiveness?
Have you come to raise the dead?
Have you come here to play Jesus to the lepers in your head?
Did I ask too much, more than a lot
You gave me nothing, now it's all I got.
We're one, but we're not the same.
Well, we hurt each other, then we do it again.

You say love is a temple, love a higher law
Love is a temple, love the higher law.
You ask me to enter, but then you make me crawl
And I can't be holding on to what you got, when all you got is hurt.

One love, one blood, one life, you got to do what you should.
One life with each other: sisters, brothers.
One life, but we're not the same.
We get to carry each other, carry each other.
One, one.

The Tyranny of Structurlessness, An Excerpt

Readers,

This work was originally published by the second-wave, radical feminist Jo Freeman in the early 1970's. Though it address the subject through a feminist lens, it does show what happens when anarchy is embraced through movements and even small gatherings.

The full article is here, but I'll pick and choose some segments that may prove to be food for thought. You may be surprised if you find elements of yourself in this essay. I recognized many such traits in myself, and the effect was not always comforting. Still, we need to be aware of the patterns and fallacies we can fall into, in spite of our own best intentions. There is far too much here for one sitting, but perhaps these segments will be instructive for you.

Elitism in Structures

Correctly, an elite refers to a small group of people who have power over a larger group of which they are part, usually without direct responsibility to that larger group, and often without their knowledge or consent. A person becomes an elitist by being part of, or advocating the rule by, such a small group, whether or not that individual is well known or not known at all. 

Elites are not conspiracies. Very seldom does a small group of people get together and deliberately try to take over a larger group for its own ends. Elites are nothing more, and nothing less, than groups of friends who also happen to participate in the same political activities. They would probably maintain their friendship whether or not they were involved in political activities; they would probably be involved in political activities whether or not they maintained their friendships. It is the coincidence of these two phenomena which creates elites in any group and makes them so difficult to break.

 The Star System

This is one main source of the ire that is often felt toward the women who are labeled "stars." Because they were not selected by the women in the movement to represent the movement's views, they are resented when the press presumes that they speak for the movement. But as long as the movement does not select its own spokeswomen, such women will be placed in that role by the press and the public, regardless of their own desires.

This has several negative consequences for both the movement and the women labeled "stars." First, because the movement didn't put them in the role of spokesperson, the movement cannot remove them. The press put them there and only the press can choose not to listen. The press will continue to look to "stars" as spokeswomen as long as it has no official alternatives to go to for authoritative statements from the movement. The movement has no control in the selection of its representatives to the public as long as it believes that it should have no representatives at all. Second, women put in this position often find themselves viciously attacked by their sisters. This achieves nothing for the movement and is painfully destructive to the individuals involved.

While engaging in this trial-and-error process, there are some principles we can keep in mind that are essential to democratic structuring and are also politically effective:

Principles of Democratic Structuring

 1)  Delegation of specific authority to specific individuals for specific tasks by democratic procedures. Letting people assume jobs or tasks only by default means they are not dependably done. If people are selected to do a task, preferably after expressing an interest or willingness to do it, they have made a commitment which cannot so easily be ignored.

2)  Requiring all those to whom authority has been delegated to be responsible to those who selected them. This is how the group has control over people in positions of authority. Individuals may exercise power, but it is the group that has ultimate say over how the power is exercised.

3)  Distribution of authority among as many people as is reasonably possible. This prevents monopoly of power and requires those in positions of authority to consult with many others in the process of exercising it. It also gives many people the opportunity to have responsibility for specific tasks and thereby to learn different skills.

4)  Rotation of tasks among individuals. Responsibilities which are held too long by one person, formally or informally, come to be seen as that person's "property" and are not easily relinquished or controlled by the group. Conversely, if tasks are rotated too frequently the individual does not have time to learn her job well and acquire the sense of satisfaction of doing a good job.

Is Donald Trump the Antichrist? (No, Really)

Donald Trump is many things to many people, most of them rotten to the core. Thinking people rightly see him as a threat to Democracy and basic decency. But you don't have to go to college or be highly educated to see the threat present in his ascent. I see an electorate that is underwhelmed and even discouraged by the major party candidates, but when it comes time to cast ballots, each voter's true beliefs and real colors will win out in the end. I can only hope that the American people will follow good sense and vote as though the nature of our republic depended on it.

The Donald has, by now, most assuredly not left a neutral impression on anyone. He has been running a reckless, undisciplined campaign and yet somehow has always lived to fight another day. Our mistake may be in viewing Trump as, deep down, perfectly reasonable and a rational human being. Surely he must be having us on, we say to ourselves. The final joke may be on us.

A supremely disorganized and thin-skinned politician, there may not be any method to Trump’s madness. Could it be possible that he fits the diagnostic criteria for a personality disorder, at minimum? 

In a recent interview printed in the July 2016 issue of The Sun Magazine, psychiatrist Gary Greenberg discusses the possibility that Trump is mentally ill.

I'm not sure it's useful to think of Donald Trump as crazy. Many have said he has narcissistic personality disorder, but psychiatric disorders diagnoses can distract us from more troubling realities. The reality of Donald Trump is much more disquieting than a diagnosis of mental illness would suggest. He's a menace, an amoral clown, a mean, power-hungry bully--and apparently a perfect fit for these times. He doesn't even sound crazy to me. He sounds like a horrible human being.

Christians have long advanced the idea of the Antichrist, Satan incarnate. Usually this belief is framed in the context of the inevitable but impossible-to-predict Second Coming of Christ. As it is taught, the Antichrist will rise first. Then and only then will Jesus return in triumph to right the wrongs that came before. In reality, there have been Antichrists in every generation, individuals who epitomized pure evil. Antichrists have occurred in every generation and will continue to occur until a person of great rebellion arises.

It is dangerous, however, to label certain individuals Antichrists and try to predict Christ's coming based on those assumptions. Early church leaders mentioned the Antichrist openly, not necessarily to help us recognize him, but to urge us to ready ourselves for anything that might threaten our faith. If our faith is strong, we don't need to be afraid of what lies ahead. God is in control, and he will be victorious over the Antichrist. Yet, we need to take care to guard ourselves against the persuasive tactics undertaken by the Evil One. 

The New Testament book of 2 Thessalonians devotes some time to a discussion of the final stage of the End Times. The authorship of this book is shared between three First Century A.D. early Christian missionaries. Paul, Silas, and Timothy wrote the text. It is very much a collaborative effort, directed at the Thessalonian church, which is located in modern day Greece, not far from Turkey. 

Don't be so easily shaken or alarmed by those who say that the day of the Lord has already begun. Don't believe them, even if they claim to have had a spiritual vision, a revelation, or a letter supposedly from us. Don't be fooled by what they say. For that day will not come until there is a great rebellion against God and the man of lawlessness is revealed--the one who brings destruction. He will exalt himself and defy everything that people call god and every object of worship. 

He will even sit in the temple of God, claiming that he himself is God. The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie. He will use every kind of evil deception to fool those on their way to destruction, because they refuse to love and accept the truth that would save them. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie. Then they will be condemned for enjoying evil rather than believing the truth.

Civilization has at least a veneer of decency through law enforcement, education, science, and reason. Although we are horrified by criminal acts, we have yet to see the real horror of complete lawlessness. This will happen when the restraining forces are removed. The closest example that might apply here is the terrifying aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. One could also cite the beginning stages of a particularly destructive riot, before control has been reestablished by police. We have recently been asked to imagine a radically different reality that challenges the bonds of supposed decency that hold together our civilization and every civilization that has ever existed.

To return to the inquiry with which I began, I ask again whether or not Donald Trump is the Antichrist. I'm perfectly serious. He may not be THE Antichrist, but he might be our latest Antichrist, designed to put the fear of hell into even the most fervent non-believer. We are taught in Scripture that no man will know the day and the hour, and many believers have waited impatiently for Jesus' return for centuries. There was a time where I shared their frustration, believing that times were surely bad enough now that the Second Coming must be imminent. And yet, what we were wishing and praying for did not occur. We might well be waiting the whole of our lives, or perhaps not. 

Whether we are people of faith or not, we need to be wary of Trump. As mentioned above, he is an ungodly man not above using any single tactic to ensnare and fool those who will not accept the truth. I have been dismayed at the number of Christian conservatives who prefer the literal devil they know rather than Hillary Clinton. Numerous biblical passages, addressed in their proper context, reveal that these religious leaders should recognize Trump is, at minimum, a false prophet leading people astray.

I pray that the eyes of those who have cast their lot with Trump will have their eyes opened. God is neither a Republican or a Democrat. He challenges every single one of us to live the fullest and fairest life we can. Jesus made relatively few political statements, and seemed to focus mainly on matters of theology and right living. The closest he came to committing himself to anything resembling political policy was when he was asked whether it was acceptable to pay taxes to the Roman Empire. His reply was typically brilliant and skillful, but non-committal. It was executed with the deftness of an attorney, a professional well-versed and familiar with man's laws, not God's laws.

People of faith might serve a greater purpose if they followed Jesus' lead. Quakers, in particular, are often fixated with political causes and activism. Nothing is intrinsically wrong with this stance, but sometimes it impedes and obscures what should be our greatest priority. Maybe, just maybe, Jesus is returning soon. As we are taught, he will come like a thief in the night. And before he does, let's prepare ourselves for what is to follow.         

The Voyeur Mafioso, Part 9 (Final Installment)

Part 8 here.

I may have lost a bit of privacy, but they can’t get much from me. Should I arrive home to find my apartment ransacked, I’d find it a trifling annoyance, entirely wasted effort. I keep no records and I wipe clean where I’ve been the instant my work is done.

The FBI is far more dramatic in its dealings. The tend to ambush a person from four sides at once. No, this is not law enforcement, nor is it the auspices of the United States government. This is someone who knows a little more than he or she should. I’m going to need another phone, because this one has clearly been compromised. In fact, it’d be best if we adopted new phones for everyone.

My invisible superiors have no doubt formed these conclusions well before I have. My phone beeps, comfortingly.

RETURN TO SAFE HAVEN. ASSUME YOU ARE BEING FOLLOWED. TAKE A ROUTE YOU NORMALLY WOULD NOT.  

I’ve always been the sort to cut my losses. It seems we’ve been infiltrated by someone who has hacked into the personal information of everyone on payroll. They know our names now, but their motives are difficult to gauge. Some people do it only to prove that they can. I suspect simple revenge as a motive.

Nothing links me to the videos. Should we need to dissolve our business endeavor, it does make me sad that my best work will be destroyed. What was at first only a job became over time a labor of love. I recall the book Fahrenheit 451, whereby a totalitarian state burns books to control information. A secret society becomes the keeper of literature. Once a book has been memorized, it is burned to prevent incriminating its owner.

If only I could condition my brain in the same general way. Visuals are ephemeral, though I do remember a few details here and there. I mostly remember middle school study hall, the way girls only had to run their fingers through their hair to produce desire and longing. It seems silly in hindsight, but that’s the way it was for most of us.

I don’t dare return home for several hours. My main concern is whether or not someone’s trashed the place to find evidence. Like I’ve said, it would be a waste of time and effort. I’ve never made copies of any of my work and I’m too careful to resort to rookie mistakes. Being sentimental is a liability to too many. I officially do not exist beyond my nondescript title of pornographer, my physical address, and my pseudonym.

Today is a brand new ball game. Every last ounce of me is telling me to flee, to get the hell out of here before it gets nastier. I travel light and have few possessions. My work computer may already be in the hands of someone else. The only other tools I use regularly are the camera and my adjustable lens. I should probably smash both to bits.

I won’t be the one holding the bag at the end of this. Having disposed of all potential evidence, I’m going to the airport immediately. I’m going to get out of the country while I still can, and wait for all of this to die down. From now, I’m off the grid at an undisclosed location. It was fun while it lasted, but I have too much to lose. Now I feel a new terror that goes well beyond documenting a middle aged woman trying on lingerie. What do I do next?

A Few Thoughts

Dear Readers,

The final installment of "The Voyeur Mafioso" will be posted tomorrow. I am currently working on a collection of short stories, so to whet your appetite, I posted my favorite to this blog in installments.

Writing this story has been a labor of love. With this particular work, I've gone through a minimum of twenty separate drafts, and almost constant fine tuning along the way. This is my first attempt to make my main character an unreliable narrator. He justifies and rationalizes his vocation immediately, but one gets the sense he may be lying to himself. I'll leave it up to you to determine how you will perceive of him.

The story is also an attempt at a feminist narrative. We live in a world where certain men routinely violate women's boundaries. The deliberately unnamed protagonist may not find the content he records especially arousing or sexually charged, but he carries water for those who do. His hard work and the risk involved give him a kind of clinical detachment. He's a cog in the machine and knows it, but also is resigned to his fate. He was a failure and an underachiever earlier in his life. Now his life has some purpose, though the audience may find it deplorable.

The fact that an organized crime syndicate is funding these sorts of acts is crucial. It confirms that a black market exists for the content they peddle, and that what is clandestinely sold is in fact illegal and immoral. But before we stake a claim to the high ground, we must consider the world in which we now live. With the rise of the Internet and related technology, real privacy is becoming sparse.

Many people take risks by recording graphic videos and pictures. I'll go a step forward and say that there is a chance some of mine are floating around out there, too. As so many do, I posed and primped for past relationship partners, sometimes at their request, sometimes because I enjoyed the ability to seduce someone who meant a lot to me.

I don't suppose this is a comfortable read for anyone, but it was never written as such. Every detail is presented through the perception of one person. We have to trust his judgment, which as we know is called into question. He may be lying to us, the readers, and the rest of the world. In a purely first person account like this, there are no other characters to balance out the rest of the plot. Either we accept his reality, or we reject it.

Are these the ramblings of a chronic liar and deplorable person? Or, do you pity him and feel sorry for his lot in life? There are no right or wrong answers.  

The Voyeur Mafioso, Part 8

Part 7 here.

REDFIELD MALL, UP TO YOUR DISCRETION, NO TIME FRAME REQUESTED

In a large mall, especially an indoor one, one can choose from any number of stores. Though the customers may not, I happen to grow bored with the same body types, the same bubbly, overly tanned cheerleaders and sorority girls. After winning the trust of my superiors, I can now be given the autonomy to be a bit more creative with locations as I see fit. Stores specifically designed for women are out. There’s no way I could obtain access there.

Young mothers with children are usually too preoccupied to know what I’m up to, but children can be either great helps or great hindrances. For one, they are unpredictable and can get in the way. I have better luck at nondescript chain retail outlets that appeal to modest wallets and pocketbooks.

The best video usually is produced by those skilled at concealing a camera, then having enough panache to sneak back in and retrieve the day’s rushes. It is rumored that one such person, our most popular, profitable, and proficient employee is a female store manager at Victoria’s Secret.

For those assigned to beach detail, five hour’s drive south, I’ve heard that a man at a swimwear shop, one frequented by women in their early twenties, is its store manager. Those are coveted positions, providing one almost a vacation, but I hate hot weather, hot sand, and the people attracted to it.

Someone like me would have no chance at success there, which is why my skills lie elsewhere. I don’t usually retrieve anyone else’s footage, but, like earlier, from time to time I do when needed. Truthfully, I’m not even sure why I’m here today.

It makes me nervous, more nervous than normal. For me, it pays to be paranoid. But why would anyone set me up? I’m popular with the viewers and I make decent bread. Maybe someone’s got a lens pointed my direction this very moment for a nice reversal of fortune. Maybe not, but I keep getting that same sixth sense that I’m under surveillance, with or without the benefit of technology.

STAY RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE. WE KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING HERE.

I’d respond, but I can’t. My only communication with the real world by company equipment is by e-mail, and only then when submitting the day’s work. Who could this be? Is this for real, or is someone trying to scare me? We always try to be careful with identities. Whoever this is must have some inside track to know how to find me. This phone is hooked up to an e-mail address and telephone number specifically reserved for work. Both change every three months.

WE CAN’T KILL OR HURT YOU, BUT YOUR EVERY MOVE WILL BE DOCUMENTED FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.

Quote of the Week

"The Savior who wants to turn men into angels is as much a hater of human nature as the totalitarian despot who wants to turn them into puppets."-Eric Hoffer

Saturday Video

Well, I'm down with my face on the floor
Yes, I got what I asked for and more
Well, the moment she stepped through that door
I was down with my face on the floor.

Now I'm standing with back to the wall
Waiting, praying the ceiling don't fall
Well, I once thought that I knew it all
Now I'm standing with back to the wall.

Well, now she's gone away
Just took time to say : 'I'll drop you a line'
Well, now she's gone away
Just took time to say : 'I'll see you some time'.

Well, now she's gone away
Just took time to say : 'I'll drop you a line'
Well, now she's gone away
Just took time to say : 'I'll see you some time'.

Well, I'm down with my face on the floor
Yes, I got what I asked for and more
Well, the moment she stepped through that door
I was down with my face on the floor.

Well, the moment she stepped through that door
I was down with my face on the floor.

The Voyeur Mafioso, Part 7

Part 6 here.

My phone beeps with a new e-mail.

REMOVE FILM FROM CEILING CAMERA, REPLACE AND EDIT CONTENT, OLD NAVY, BY END OF BUSINESS DAY

One of our workers was industrious enough to bore a hole in the ceiling of a dressing room at a fashionable clothing boutique. It was done inconspicuously enough that no one would ever detect it. Setups like this one record a series of visual images for hours, until all the memory is used up. I’m supposed to remove the memory card and replace it with a fresh one. The real effort is not in locating the camera, but in finding out how this guy installed it in the first place. Once I figure it out, it’s fifteen seconds of effort to make the swap.

Here, workers don’t have to constantly fear being detected, because what proceeds can be very tedious. Women file in and out. The camera is stationary, meaning that some visitors to the dressing room are more visible than others, depending on where they stand, bend over, or crouch. We try to use everything we can, within reason, but probably only get three or four usable video clips from hours of footage. I find I fast forward for whole minutes at a time, which is the key limitation of this sort of approach.

Three hours later, back at the apartment, I’ve managed to isolate a few clips, and send them along. This makes everyone happy. Rarely do I ever receive effusive praise, but scanning through the comment section is strangely uplifting this evening. I never really know what’s going to go over well. If I were a writer of books, I know I’d probably find that my favorite work differed considerably from the tastes of the buying public.

I wonder sometimes whether it’s worth my while doing dressing rooms, retrieving video footage, and editing. As I alluded to earlier, there are always other assignments. Some look up skirts, but to me that’s boring work, and even riskier. I have no desire to chase women around stores. That’s all Mickey Mouse stuff to me.

It takes more patience than I’ll ever have and those workers are usually the first to get caught. Strict photography, another option, is lots of effort for a minimum return. Capturing the faintest peek of underwear is the work of many, but those assignments are usually all-day and much one captures is not terribly compelling.

I’m a mercenary and I always will be. I’m a hired gun. One must admit that, for most of us men who go for women, there is something excessively arousing in the stark and barely clothed female form. Often, the most appealing thoughts and foremost fantasies involve desires and visuals which we would ordinarily never see. An older former friend of mine, a man I haven’t spoken to in years, always complained about the prevalence of nudity in film these days. Nudity used to mean something, he griped.

I see what he means. A tease can be more stimulating than full nakedness. Reality is sexier than any choreographed floor routine. Not only that, public displays like these in any context hold shock value, which can also be stimulating. This is what makes our wares appealing to the customer base. It’s one of the last, if not the last truly shocking genre left. It eviscerates any distinction between private and public.

I’m never privy to the discussions farther up the food chain. I wonder what would happen if we were ever found out. An expose in the local news, relying upon the firsthand account of a victim, might become a total shitstorm if it took off nationally. Everyone we record is a complete unknown. Only idiots take on larger targets like celebrities. Most women are too ashamed to report us. Instead, the most seemingly banal and yet highly personal experience is our statement of purpose.

I’ve been told the effect is enough to freeze most of our so-called “non-professional” models dead in their tracks. Drying oneself with a towel after showering isn’t all that substantial on its face. Yet, to some men, nothing could be more charged. It’s an ordinary routine, but at the same time an amazingly powerful form of sensuousness.

Most of our records can be destroyed within minutes. The official party line is that, should we be detected, two men are to take the fall if it comes to that. Those names are selected at random every six months. Fortunately, I dodged a bullet this time, but the next draw may not hold such luck for me. This is not the end. We are remarkably proficient in knowing how to regenerate once the smoke clears.

Hyperbole aside, none of us wants to think about the end. The website would go dead immediately, servers would be purposely destroyed, and everyone’s computer equipment would immediately be headed onto the scrap heap or resting at the bottom of rivers. I don’t own this laptop, the software, or this camera. Like I said, I paid for it out of my first paycheck, but it’s all licensed and paid for by the front company, and these things would be the first to go.

Should we need to go slash and burn, we can be fairly certain that only a handful of pictures or videos, no doubt downloaded as evidence to make a case, even exist. It wouldn’t be good press to reveal our subscriber list. As noted above, we’d seek to pay off an offended party to prevent a lawsuit or to stop them from going to the media.

I, however, would have no soft place to land but would probably escape with my relative anonymity intact. I’ve been socking away a few dollars here and there to subsist on, should the end be nigh.

The Voyeur Mafioso, Part 6

Part 5 here.

There’s always work available. Like the taxi driver Travis Bickell, I have nothing resembling a life or a family, and I’m on the clock almost every day, though I am busier in the middle of the day. Customers leave frequent comments about which sets they enjoy the most and what they hope to see from us in the future. These are taken seriously, because we pride ourselves on good customer service. For security purposes, we only conduct a one-way exchange with those who’ve signed up. They make requests, but we can’t respond or provide feedback and apologize for it.

If someone were to ever ask me about the tricks of the trade, I’d remark that there really aren’t any. Intuition and practice are far more valuable. What is high-risk can be high-reward very quickly. The most daring among us show faces and identifying features with their camera work, which only courts disaster. But that’s my opinion. I often cover my ass by shooting my videos from the neck down. Customers complain, but they get 95% of what they want. I’m not going to risk a lawsuit or time in court. I have much more to lose than they.

At times I fancy myself something of an unconventional auteur. The only difference is that my actresses aren’t aware they’re on stage and haven’t read their lines beforehand. After a hard day’s work, lines of a different sort begin to blur, the ones between reality and fantasy. Sometimes I even think someone’s filming me. The one liability to this job is that it shatters specific distinctions and perceptions that are normally in place to preserve our sanity. I can relate, on one level, to the celebrities who get hassled by paparazzi, always in front of a camera, with tabloid hunters even rooting around in their garbage.

If this is punishment for my crimes, I’ll take it. I’m not amoral or uncaring. Most of my subjects will never know that their images are on film. Why would they think otherwise? They’re usually too engrossed in over-analyzing their perceived physical flaws and perhaps even more secretly delighting in their assets. This is what makes my job easier than it could be. I’ve never seriously thought about squealing to the cops or threatening to quit.

I’ve been at this long enough that I take certain precautions I never did before. If I enter a restaurant to take my meals, I insist up being seated facing the outside plate glass towards the street. It’s largely an irrational worry, but I know now how easy it is to be observed without knowing it. In five years, I’ve defied the odds. Though I’ve had some close calls, especially early on, I haven’t gotten caught yet.

I feel like a sniper, completely concealed from view, in control of my own destiny. I have my orders, but I know that orders alone are insufficient. Orders are tersely-worded directives, but the real work begins when I locate the target. I wouldn’t want my tasks to be too highly structured. That would be too much like conventional employment. I’ve made a name for myself through my efficiency and a willingness to take chances. Subscribers know me by a handle I’ve established for myself and they express their appreciation in the comment section on a consistent basis.

The Voyeur Mafioso, Part 5

Part 4 here.

There’s always work available. Like the taxi driver Travis Bickell, I have nothing resembling a life or a family, and I’m on the clock almost every day, though I am busier in the middle of the day. Customers leave frequent comments about which sets they enjoy the most and what they hope to see from us in the future. These are taken seriously, because we pride ourselves on good customer service. For security purposes, we only conduct a one-way exchange with those who’ve signed up. They make requests, but we can’t respond or provide feedback and apologize for it.

If someone were to ever ask me about the tricks of the trade, I’d remark that there really aren’t any. Intuition and practice are far more valuable. What is high-risk can be high-reward very quickly. The most daring among us show faces and identifying features with their camera work, which only courts disaster. But that’s my opinion. I often cover my ass by shooting my videos from the neck down. Customers complain, but they get 95% of what they want. I’m not going to risk a lawsuit or time in court. I have much more to lose than they.

At times I fancy myself something of an unconventional auteur. The only difference is that my actresses aren’t aware they’re on stage and haven’t read their lines beforehand. After a hard day’s work, lines of a different sort begin to blur, the ones between reality and fantasy. Sometimes I even think someone’s filming me. The one liability to this job is that it shatters specific distinctions and perceptions that are normally in place to preserve our sanity. I can relate, on one level, to the celebrities who get hassled by paparazzi, always in front of a camera, with tabloid hunters even rooting around in their garbage.

If this is punishment for my crimes, I’ll take it. I’m not amoral or uncaring. Most of my subjects will never know that their images are on film. Why would they think otherwise? They’re usually too engrossed in over-analyzing their perceived physical flaws and perhaps even more secretly delighting in their assets. This is what makes my job easier than it could be. I’ve never seriously thought about squealing to the cops or threatening to quit.

I’ve been at this long enough that I take certain precautions I never did before. If I enter a restaurant to take my meals, I insist up being seated facing the outside plate glass towards the street. It’s largely an irrational worry, but I know now how easy it is to be observed without knowing it. In five years, I’ve defied the odds. Though I’ve had some close calls, especially early on, I haven’t gotten caught yet.

I feel like a sniper, completely concealed from view, in control of my own destiny. I have my orders, but I know that orders alone are insufficient. Orders are tersely-worded directives, but the real work begins when I locate the target. I wouldn’t want my tasks to be too highly structured. That would be too much like conventional employment. I’ve made a name for myself through my efficiency and a willingness to take chances. Subscribers know me by a handle I’ve established for myself and they express their appreciation in the comment section on a consistent basis.

My phone beeps with a new e-mail.

REMOVE FILM FROM CEILING CAMERA, REPLACE AND EDIT CONTENT, OLD NAVY, BY END OF BUSINESS DAY

One of our workers was industrious enough to bore a hole in the ceiling of a dressing room at a fashionable clothing boutique. It was done inconspicuously enough that no one would ever detect it. Setups like this one record a series of visual images for hours, until all the memory is used up. I’m supposed to remove the memory card and replace it with a fresh one. The real effort is not in locating the camera, but in finding out how this guy installed it in the first place. Once I figure it out, it’s fifteen seconds of effort to make the swap.

Here, workers don’t have to constantly fear being detected, because what proceeds can be very tedious. Women file in and out. The camera is stationary, meaning that some visitors to the dressing room are more visible than others, depending on where they stand, bend over, or crouch. We try to use everything we can, within reason, but probably only get three or four usable video clips from hours of footage. I find I fast forward for whole minutes at a time, which is the key limitation of this sort of approach.

The Voyeur Mafioso, Part 4

Part 3 here.

If this wasn’t a job, I might find the finished product as attractive as our customers seem to feel. As it stands, I don’t really have the luxury. I never was the Peeping Tom sort, but I can at least intellectually understand why people are willing to pay the price for such veracity. If one finds oneself pleased by the sight of a woman clutching a handful of toilet paper, far be it for me to pass judgment. The spectacle never did much for me, but it does a great deal for many.

I guess I’m a bit more pragmatic. I’m attracted to the girl-next-door, the sort that might be interested in a guy like me. Beautiful women intimidate me. I see them on the street or through my viewfinder and question whether they’d ever be attracted to me. Our audience wants the girls who look like runway models, and that’s quite a tall order. I have no control over who enters the next dressing room. I wish I could tell them that beauty comes in many forms.

For the first time in my life, I’ve become skillful in something besides good intentions. As an adolescent, I was always attracted to films about hit men, the glamor of living a lone-wolf existence, the craft involved, and the insistent need for secrecy. I might not have approved of the tactics or the brutality of it, but I sensed it gave a man like me a purpose. I always shyly kept to myself, letting few people into the particulars of my life. I know it limited me socially, but I struggled to find a job where I’d have only sporadic contact with others.

Now, I fit someone’s profile. I never had to brave the indignity of demeaning vocational tests and overly polite job counselors. No one cared about my references or my flimsy resume. The two most important questions asked were whether I was willing to do it and would I keep the nature of my vocation a complete secret. I assented eagerly to both. If asked, I was to say that I edited raw film for a pornography website. No one ever asked any further questions.  

To this day, I don’t even know who my immediate boss is. The interview prior to my hire was conducted completely online through chat. I saw no faces and they did not see mine. Specifically they asked about my computer skills with a particular editing software program and stressed that, should I be hired,  I was to follow closely the demands and requests of our customer base. A week later I was scanning my inbox and found a job offer waiting for me. I accepted by way of calling an unlisted cell phone number with an out-of-town area code. The digits were included in the text of the e-mail.  I was told I would start in a week and to delete the message immediately.

We do have the law on our side, or at least in our back pocket. We have the impotence of the current statues on the books. What we do and how we do it is tough to prosecute. Most states have laws on the books defending women and girls who have been videotaped or photographed without their consent, but they are mostly used to protect children. If the parties involved are legal adults, it’s a different matter. We’ve insisted upon strict secrecy to make sure that those on film or in a photograph never come across their own image for any reason. If there’s ever any doubt, we pixilate faces or distinguishing marks.

Thus far, we’ve been lucky, though established protocols are in place should a woman make an accusation. We’ve made enough money by now to offer generous cash settlements that, in other endeavors, have ensured upon silence in a flash. Bad publicity is anathema of what we want. We bill ourselves, in long-established parlance, as a gentleman’s club. Once one person steps forward, the press starts digging into our content and three more women follow suit. We can pay off three people, but not thirty or three hundred.

Trying to skirt the issue is needlessly suspicious. My papers are legit and my employment is too. We even go to the trouble to hire a handful of women willing to strip and pose in conventional fashion, but that’s for deception’s sake. Anyone who signs up knows what he or she is really getting. We even have a handful of female members. Subterfuge is remarkably easy in the internet age.

If you listen to the politicians speak and take their rhetoric seriously, you might concur that I worked for one of those All-American startup small businesses boosting the economy with ingenuity and effort. It was certainly established with both in mind, but I doubt anyone would want to equate economic stimulus with a small online fetish pornography company. I know we’ve provided the basic needs of many, enough to keep us afloat from quarter to quarter.

I don’t rationalize what I do, but neither do I feel guilty. It’s interesting work and beats anything else I did beforehand. I take pleasure in my handiwork, especially in the editing room that doubles as one corner of the living room in my small apartment. In post-production, I do my best to make every word spoken come out as clear as a bell, removing extraneous noise. Customers have e-mailed us to say that the best videos make them feel like they’re actually in the room themselves, observing every moment and every sound. The fly in the wall effect is our goal every time out.

In accordance with our policy, the raw files successfully uploaded to the server and central control are then promptly destroyed. No need to leave a paper trail or an electronic one. Like a criminal wiping clean the fingerprints, I wipe over the hard drive three times before starting a new assignment. I never said this wasn’t a little sketchy or chancy, but perhaps this sort of business appeals to my rebellious side.

Keeping the Faith When Dialogue Is Difficult

Some years back, the committee of which I was clerk decided to Elder a Friend for sharing vocal ministry too frequently. As long-term readers may recall, I aimed to deal as fairly with him as I could, but he took immediate offense and never returned to Meeting again. I wanted to open a free-flowing dialogue based on mutual respect, but he was content to take his ball and go home. Before parting ways, he accused me of acting as the Meeting police (which I was not) and gave me at best three minutes of his time.

Punishment in any form was not my intention, but he saw the steps we took as malevolent and offensive. Those of us who must enforce the rules may need to be reminded again that one can't plan for everything. We often expect that rational discourse alone is sufficient. Surely we can communicate on a higher plane, we think. If that were truly the case, if you will pardon a brief political aside, Barack Obama would be the most effective American president ever. I wish that reason and logic, not feelings and emotional impressions were more powerful.

Hand-wringing attitudes are adopted by too many Quaker Meetings and Churches, and often they only create inertia. Rarely do they ever produce positive outcomes, reinforce proper conduct, and encourage right thinking. But rather than dwell on what doesn't work, I'd rather embrace a more optimistic attitude with an eye towards the future. I've since moved on to a different Meeting. It's a warm, caring, stable place and I'm happy to spend First Day in its company. I appreciate that people don't fight over the smallest stakes possible only to be needlessly contentious and in control of something, no matter how minuscule.

It would be too easy to make a big deal about what is to follow, to wax indignant, if you will. I'll provide only as much background as is necessary, then quickly move on. The Friend I noted above showed up at Meeting for Worship yesterday, still nursing a grudge, very much still licking his wounds. I was in the middle of speaking to someone else when he arrived on the scene during post-Worship refreshments and fellowship. He took great pains to pull said Friend away from me, to monopolize her time and attention by way of power play. It was a little like having someone forcibly remove a dancing partner by rudely cutting in, mid-song.

I didn't take offense to it because I had a hard time taking his approach seriously. It was rendered weakly, for one. He wanted to make me upset, but the immaturity of the approach made me smile instead. A few seconds before, I'd tried once again to initiate conversation with him, this time to explain the approach we'd taken. He avoided eye contact completely, acting in a manner I can best describe as nasty nice. I wanted the opportunity to talk and reach a resolution, but he was not of a similar mindset.

In the future, if I see him, I'll make another attempt at confrontation. I'm not mad at him. Truthfully, I never was. As I told him then, he would have been in full compliance with our wishes if he agreed to space out his vocal ministry from week to week. Surely that wasn't asking too much.

I was trying to spare him of the grief I experienced when I committed the same faux paus. It's an easy mistake to make, particularly when members and attenders hold unwritten rules that are never spelled out, especially for newcomers. I became convinced in a small Meeting where I was given the wonderful opportunity to give frequent vocal ministry. I never dreamed that such conduct could be verboten elsewhere. If I could have spoken freely with him, I know we would have reached an understanding.

I'm fond of a particular quotation. It says that there isn't a single person one can't love if one hears his or her story. And I agree, but it's contingent upon the other party to share that story with another. Otherwise, both parties are flying blind, totally unaware, potentially at odds.

Unprogrammed Worship is meant to be a collective exercise. When it becomes too focused on individual expression, everyone loses out. For me, personally, one of the most difficult lessons to learn was that people who were considerably older than me in years were capable of acting many years younger. I was a precocious child who wanted to be older and felt more comfortable around adults. It seemed incomprehensible that adulthood might be a state of being that is avoided as often as it is embraced.

Now I know better. But situations like these routinely crop up in ways that aren't strictly religious. It might be popular to be mindful of the foods I take into my body and the products I buy. This are no doubt important, but we are also in control of the conscious decisions we make in the way we treat others. Old fashioned virtues like kindness, compassion, and honesty are equally important parts of our Testimonies. I'll leave hair-splitting to others who feel the need to regiment and calibrate their life choices to the micrometer. Those are worldly games, and my focus goes well beyond the cares of this life.