Some new phrases for the dictionary:
Mitch McCuddle
Ted Cruzooka Senate Palooka
killibuster
vaccination vacation
viral spiral
penile enchantment
impeachment pie
insurrectionist motel
Proud Good Old Boys
Trumpanista terrorism
Crazies for Jesus
White Privilege Bar and Grill
Maskman Date
Vladimir Rasputin
A black or brown person. Lift up their skin. Then push aside the cultural baggage. It’s certain you will find a genuine human being there.
If fact, lift up your own skin, and push aside your cultural baggage. It’s certain you will find a genuine human being there too.
Not that this is so easy to do, but it’s surely worth a try.
If I’m on my knees praying, I can’t move very fast. I need to put on my best pair of running shoes to pray.
If I’m sitting at the window hoping for change, I’m not out spreading the seeds of hope around me.
If I’m waiting for a card that says someone loves me, I’m not busy showing others what active love can do.
I admit it. I’m thinking about sex.
I’m thinking about how humans turned evolution’s practical solution into something miraculous, perverse, pleasurable, painful, intimate, kinky, casual, tension relieving, dangerous, mindless, meaningful, inventive, social and more.
I’m thinking of sex, peaking in intensity long before the adolescent brain knows how to deal with it.
I’m thinking of sex as the engine of advertising and marketing.
I’m thinking about STD’s.
I’m thinking about sex and love.
I’m thinking about sex as the story driver of comedy, tragedy and romance.
I’m thinking of sexy attire from Jagger to Beyonce, from rock to rap, from Victoria’s Secret to Pure Romance, from stilettos to Tom of Finland.
I’m thinking of the sexual politics of gender: men who measure their worth by their genitals; women’s bodies given full frontal exposure while male genitals still remain too sacred or powerful to expose; the sexual fashion model body.
I’m thinking of the sex industry: it’s operators, its employees, its workers, its products, its ugly side, its social and human impact.
I’m thinking of sex and spirituality: from the Kama Sutra to the ecstasy of saints to creation myths to sex among the gods to celibacy.
I’m thinking about the sexuality of Jesus, especially in The Last Temptation of Christ.
I’m thinking of all the ways that civilization has tried to manage human sexuality—rules, taboos, laws, social pressures.
I’m thinking of sex among the chimpanzees and the bonobos.
I’m thinking of sex education that’s often missing the sex part.
I’m thinking about sex that won’t give in to aging.
I’m thinking about why I’m thinking about sex.
Here I am in the middle of my little world, surrounded by family, friends, colleagues and former students. I quickly zip past all the celebrity news and read the obituary page of the New York Times. I recall my readings about Jane Goodall, Rosalind Franklin, Shirley Chisolm, William Kentridge, ER doctors and nurses, the sanitation worker who served his neighborhood for 30 years, the UPS driver who personally connected to his clients, the SRO who was there for all of his community. The list is endless.
I am glad that I left the door to my mind relatively worth that society assigned to them. It was they fact that what they chose as their life work they did with passion, dedication, competence and a genuine desire to serve.
That’s what I tried to do in my teaching and my art. What about you?
We are born naked, and it is only reasonable that we die naked. We have to take off all the bling and fashion and costumes we wear. We have to strip ourselves of all arrogance and self-deception. We have to give up all the stuff we think defines us.
Then what’s left is us, the purest us, flesh and spirit. Us, stark naked before eternity.
If we truly believe in God, we must acknowledge all of the images of God that have been created by all religions and cultures through time. The complexity and mystery of God is such that each human effort to make s/him real to us can reveal a meaningful truth about God.
But what do we do? We pit one image of God against another image of God. We pretend that only some us know whom the true God is. We hate and deceive in the name of God. We persecute and kill in the name of God. We start wars in the name of God.
What we do in the name of God must be for the love of God.
We drive ourselves crazy when we expect life to be rational and orderly. Those are things we simply impose on life to give us a little comfort, comfort that really never fully manifests itself.
We do much better if we just accept the fact that life is random and absurd, and just laugh in its face. That in itself is a courageous act. Then any bit of the rational or the orderly that emerges a gift.
After all, is there anything more absurd, but more absolutely essential to us humans, than God?
The measure of art is in where it aims.
The enduring power of art is in the sureness of the hit.
If you are a disheartened Trump follower, take heart.
Donald Trump didn’t stay longer in the White House because Melania ran out of new outfits.
Donald Trump didn’t stay longer in the White House because chocolate cake was on the menu at Mar-a-Lago.
Donald Trump didn’t stay longer at the White House because he wanted to attend Rudy Guiliani’s Jeffrey Epstein theme party.
Donald Trump didn’t stay longer in the White House because he had a golfing date with all the cronies he pardoned.
January 20, 2021
The words were thoughtful and profound
And unrelenting
They filled my pockets
And stuffed my backpack full
The seeped into to my socks
And collected in the brim of my hat
The words were thoughtful and profound
And relenting
So heavy I couldn’t move
I just couldn’t move
God
If we believe you are holy,
We must live holiness.
If we believe you are compassionate,
We must live compassion.
If we believe you are mercy and justice,
We must act in mercy and justice.
If we believe you love all your children,
We must love all your children.
What we believe you are,
We must be.
Until this becomes real in us,
You will not be real in us.
If I were asked to write the Inauguration Poem
To ask for perfection is to deny humanness
To demand virtue and justice makes us human
So right this needy moment
Hold up your heart to the fire
Until all is burned away
But compassion and
The dignity of the other
Make your deeds, even small ones,
Quiet stories told out of love
No country can be great
Without authentic character
Affirm this, act by act,
Until doubt is buried for good
The task now is for each person of integrity, honesty, decency and compassion to demonstrate, by his or her own work, that these are the values through which the nation can be healed.
Listen, white men
We must flood the airwaves with stories
Of the deeds of women and people of color
Stories as relentless and pounding as
Waves on the seawalls built of
White male privilege, abused
We need to know these stories
Because the courage, deprivation, loss
And horror they contain
Uncover the very weakness
That can make us new resolute
Every human being must be a part of us
“We must embrace, not use
We must love, not possess
We must give, not take”
Must be the code of all, not some
We can’t forget the Melania factor. When people want delusions to hold onto because they don’t want to think, Melania was a master of fashion imagery. She was fashion diplomacy when Donald’s international diplomacy went lame. She got to be Donald’s striking Trophy First Lady when other world leaders had ordinary looking wives. She was the dedicated wife who, with enough expensive clothing, could tolerate anything and still walk the runway walk when required.
More than that, she was the model for Ivanka and the Trump brothers’ significant others. Slap on the make-up, put on the clothes, stand there and smile.
We were to admire these people, envy these people and think of this as success. I personally chose not to BE BEST.
Don’t call it White Power. It’s White Shame driven by White Fear and unearned White Privilege. It’s fed by a soup of hate and anger, and it’s lost sight of our deep American values.
Covid has pulled the curtain on the America we have become. We were in pursuit of the happiness of freedom without responsibility, of consumerism, of empty spectacle, of celebrity worship, of material wealth. And we found mental health problems, depression, addiction and isolation. A mess.
We lost confidence in our institutions: churches, schools and government. We expected them to heal the crises in our own families.
But covid has also taught us that America is filled with countless, decent hard-working people, willing to sacrifice for the good of others. People for whom the pursuit of happiness is the good of others, and sharing, and seeking some spiritual fulfillment.
This America doesn’t get the same media attention as the violent haters, but this is where America will find its salvation.
Life throws things that are unfair at us. Life throws things that are fucking unfair at us. It’s how we deal with the fucking unfair things that is the measure of our character.
People who live in truth and love are full. What they give is returned to them so they are never empty.
People who live in hate are always empty. They constantly need more and more hate to fill the emptiness that will never go away.
Love is a balm. Hate is a poison.
The search for our authentic selves is not a search for perfection, but a search for forgiveness. To understand who we really are requires us to confront our flaws, the clearest signs of our humanness.
True forgiveness is not an easy thing or a flabby thing. It requires healing that commits us to our better selves. When we aspire to our best human selves, we live for the betterment of others.
Think of death this way. The path of your life is an arc whose direction becomes clear at death. Death simply propels you to complete that arc to land just where those life choices led you.
Think of death this way. For your life, you took from the universe. At death, the universe takes from you.
Think of death this way. Take comfort from what you believe happens after.
Think of death this way. Don’t think about it at all. Let it just come to you in the way it must.
Think about death this way. It’s an assault to be held off at all costs in a battle you’ll never win.
Hope is empty without directed action.
Love is empty without compassionate courage.
Truth is empty without vigilant voices.
These big words can easily become empty words
The mob that stormed the Capitol is not the tens of millions of Americans who voted for Trump. The mob is a fringe group--large and militant—whose mentality allows them to be incited by an unprincipled man like Donald Trump.
If we ask ourselves how this can happen in America, we can begin to understand the dimensions of the task of healing which is before us. We became lazy, self-centered and materialistic as a country. We allowed a government to develop that put partisanship above problem solving, that put loyalty to the party over loyalty to the Constitution, that let party excuse failures of leadership and integrity.
The idea of personal freedom became so distorted that responsibility and the freedom of others was obscured. In the wealthiest country on earth, problems with drugs, alcohol, mental illness, violence and sexual misdeeds were harming way too many people.
The efforts to ensure freedom and equality to all Americans were not seen as the right thing to do; but were seen by many as an assault on their values. For many, fear became the factor that determined the way they saw the country moving. Fear and ignorance trapped them in a vision of the world that could not accept or understand change.
To be honest, there are traditional Republican values that brought citizens to vote for Donald Trump the Republican, but not understand what he had done to the Republican Party. They felt they were not being heard, and Donald Trump heard them. In fact, he didn’t hear them. He used them
So, in my estimation, here we are. We can’t stay here, but we all have a part to play in where we go.
American values are really ideals that in truth can never be fully met. We will always fall short of complete freedom, justice for all and total equality. The true measure is whether we have the courage and commitment to move progressively toward these values.
I believe historically we have. That is why other nations have looked to America as a model. Certainly we still have much to do in dealing with racism, economic equality, corrupt practices and failure to meet the needs of all citizens. But we push. We try. We keep our eyes on what’s right.
Until the presidency of Donald Trump. This administration of incompetence, backward thinking, sycophancy and lies has eroded American values to the degree that recent events are shocking but not unexpected. But Joe Biden is the new president, and his voice is strong and full of character and determination.
Still, we must recognize that for too long as a nation, our voting record was nothing to be proud of. We were concerned with our own comfort. We didn’t work hard enough for justice or equality or respect for others. We believed that protecting American values was the job of someone else.
Now, at this awful moment, we know it’s not. How will we act?
We’re done with “Make America Great Again.” Now, after incompetence, bullying, sedition, racism, hate-mongering, despotic behavior and more, it’s to “Make America America Again.”
America is as naked as it has ever been. It seems to have given up its values, its moral compass and its commitment to democratic principles. Who could have expected this? Who could have believed that America was so weak and fragile that it could falter under the control of such a despicable, power hungry individual.
The world is shocked as well: some crying, some fearful, some laughing, some ready to pounce. The world falls apart as America falls apart. But democracy will endure because democracy affirms the values that give individuals the chance for fulfilled and productive lives.
For all that is happening in our capital now, there are countless Americans protecting and saving lives in our hospitals and our streets. Countless Americans are risking their own lives for others. Countless Americas are feeding and housing their neighbors. Countless Americans are making choices that keep their neighbors safe.
We speak of a nation of law and order. We must work for a nation of law that is just and order that gives security to all.
Once you recognize that you are indeed a membrane to the cosmos, things change.
You realize that you are not a solid entity shielded by skin and muscle. You are not the brain that provides you with your reality, fixed and reliable.
You are penetrable, breathing air and molecules and subatomic particles. Your immune system awaits the invaders from skin and mouth and nose. Your gut is inhabited by critters you will never know or see. The cells of self die, and new cells of you are born. You fall apart and rebuild and still maintain.
Ideas are like that too. They come as words and images, messages and poetry. They enter you, some to die, some to live, some to test the mind’s immune system. They poke at reality, open holes for the world to enter.
And love, with the transforming action of all its touches, hugs and kisses and coitus. And the planting of seed by which life grows inside life.
So there it is. A membrane to the cosmos. A message that you are not in the world. You are the world.
It’s simple. Cosmos is mysterious. We have unlocking languages to unpeel it. But in the end the answer is always that mystery is spirit.
That’s what my work is about anyway.
Each of us is born into a story, most often a soap opera. We grow up in this story and usually grow out of this story into our own story. Our stories are living stories that often get pushed aside from telling by the stories of the courageous, the powerful, the talented, the creative, the evil or the lucky.
Stories are how we construct the universe, and each of our stories is important. The universe is big enough to hold them all, and the universe is not rich enough or complete without them all.
Make your story strong and beautiful. Weave it into the stories of others. Tell your story proudly.
All love doesn’t begin in the same way. Some throw themselves at it. Some are cautious. Some eat the cake. Some find it a hard nut to crack. Some, it’s pure lust. Some are cool and methodical. Some dive in head first. Some only put in a toe. Some stumble into it. Some, it’s joyful free fall.
No matter how it starts, if it’s true love, it all ends the same. An enduring, generous and courageous state capable of meeting life obstacles head on with eyes always on the beloved.
There is no guarantee that loves that starts as love will end as love. But when it does, it is quietly glorious.
I don’t care if Jesus was a virgin or not. He came to be human, and that’s a big part of the human experience.
I don’t care if Jesus never walked on water. He certainly didn’t show anyone else how to do it.
I don’t care if Jesus didn’t multiply the loaves and fishes. The neighborhood folks would have all brought food to share to hear him preach.
I don’t need miracles. The real miracle is the way Jesus, in his words and actions, made love new and eternal for humanity.
My 5 biggest disappointments of 2020
1. Apple cider vinegar, baking soda, foot wraps, Roundup, leeches, nothing cured my toenail fungus.
2. Tom of Finland was out of my size of their deluxe men’s studded black leather party pants.
3. My gym closed so I could not continue training for my goal of People Magazine’s sexiest senior citizen of the year.
4. I did not get the expected letter from the Whitney Museum of American Art offering me a retrospective in 2022.
5. Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump are still on the planet.
