Some Thoughts: Shine Your Light

I ain't no perfect man

I'm trying to do, the best that I can,

With what it is I have

I ain't no perfect man

I'm trying to do, the best that I can,

With what it is I have

Put my heart and soul into this song (yes yes)

I hope you feel me

From where I am, to wherever you are

I mean that sincerely

My Umi said shine your light on the world
Shine your light for the world to see

Sometimes I get discouraged
I look around and, things are so weak
People are so weak
Sometimes,
Sometimes I feel like crying
Sometimes my heart gets heavy
Sometimes I just want to leave and fly away
(fly fly fly, like a dove)
Sometimes I don't know what to do with myself
Passion takes over me
I feel like a man
Going insane
Losing my brain
Trying to maintain
Doing my thang

-"Umi Said" by Mos Def,

from Black on Both Sides

Well, you know what it's like

I don't gotta tell ya

Who puts up a fight,

Walking out of hell, yeah.

When you've fought piranhas

And you've fought the cold

There's nobody with you

You're so all alone!"

-"I Fought Piranhas", The White Stripes

Furthermore, we have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known. We have only to follow the thread of the hero path, and where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god. And where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves. Where we had thought to travel outward, we will come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we will be with all the world.

- Joseph Campbell, Pathways to Bliss

I live in a house with seven other people. Half of us are black, and half of us are white. I don’t like words like “African-American” and “Caucasian”. They’re not only misleading, but they’re sterile words that suck the life from their described humans. I have very white skin, so you might as well call me "white", and the word “black” is far more attractive to me than “brown”. I love the night, so I think black is a beautiful color. So is every other color. I’d say it’s all irrelevant if there weren’t the present realities of discrimination and racism caused by horrible realities of the past.

On Thursday I had to explain to my class of twenty international students the history of slavery in America. I had to tell them how America was a rich and prosperous nation because England and Spain stole human beings from Africa and forced them to work for no money, and treated them absolutely horribly. I had to tell them how Thomas Jefferson, one of my favorite presidents, was also the biggest hypocrite in the world, because he not only had children with one of his slaves (consent? Riiiight…), but in order to save his own name, he kept his children with her as slaves. I used to resent my dad forcing me to do manual labor and foolishly likened it to slavery at times, making him build up his house for his own pleasure, but I had no idea what I was talking about. Jefferson literally kept his black-and-white children as slaves and made them build his palace for him, after writing that everyone was created equal and had the right to the pursuit of life, LIBERTY, and happiness.

When I was in college I was on a football team that was all black except for me, and because I had a reddish ponytail my friend Joe told me that I looked like Thomas Jefferson, and then added with a laugh that I could be his ancestor. When we needed a team name, I suggested “Thomas Jefferson & Sons”, and everybody loved it. We lost the title to the Raging Jews even though we beat them in the regular season because our quarterback and leader, Joe, had to miss the game. I told that story to one of my current roommates, a guy who studies a lot of African history, and he didn’t laugh very much. He doesn’t have much money and never went to an Ivy League school like my friends on the football team, so I can see how it isn’t all a laugh at the past from his perspective. Even so, he's a pretty smiley guy, and we get along well. We share food and talk about books a lot.

                I’m in a great mood today because the last two nights I saw my favorite artist and favorite human who I don’t actually know personally: Hiromi Uehara. She put on two perfect shows at the San Francisco Jazz Center. I’ve seen her nine times. Tonight will be number ten. I don’t feel crazy, because I met two guys at the show who had flown down from Portland. One of them was seeing her for the first time, but the other had seen her thirteen times. He said she’s the greatest pianist in the past 100 years. I said she’s the greatest artist, period. I mean it.

                Most people I meet at her shows talk about how skilled she is technically and all of that, and I know that’s true, but I’m not a musician. That’s not my language. Her music and her movements on stage, whether it’s her smile or her whole body, move my heart and soul, and that’s why I always come back for more. It always makes me smile from ear to ear, no matter how I’ve been feeling.

   At least four people I've met at the shows have told me that they knew about her because they saw her play with Stanley Clarke, a jazz bass legend, which I thought was ironic because I only knew who he was because Hiromi played with him. They have a great album called Jazz in the Garden. My two favorites are "Sakura, Sakura" and their cover of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Under the Bridge". I just discovered them in the past month, and I've been listening to "Under the Bridge" a lot lately when I'm feeling like I'm under the bridge, so to speak. It always makes me feel less lonely, even more so than the original. It's beautifully done. Music, sweet music...

I mention that I’m in a great mood today because I’ve actually been in a really bad mood for a very long time. Even though I’ve moved around on my own constantly for almost four years (a college education’s worth, almost), and felt perfectly comfortable and connected to the world whether I’m alone at night on a snowy mountain top or walking through the crowded chaotic streets of some crazy foreign city, I’m still a human being. I get sad, and lonely, and angry, and make mistakes, or think I’m more special than I really am, and forget about other people’s feelings sometimes, and indulge in unhealthy and unproductive habits. My saving grace is that I’m aware of these faults and try my best to improve upon them.

For example, after a childhood of eating the worst food pretty constantly, I just enjoyed a delicious self-cooked meal of tofu, broccoli, carrots, green bell peppers and mushrooms, washed down with some tomato juice. While I was cooking, one of my roommate’s boyfriends came out to cook his own lunch. The roommate I am referring to is a white middle-aged woman. Her boyfriend is a tall muscular black man who slightly resembles the rapper DMX. He is big, bald, has a small mustache and often wears big baggy jeans coats. Once he wasn’t around for a while, and when he got back, I asked where he’d been and he said, “Oh, I’ve been gone for 30 days.”

We’ve found each other cooking alone in the kitchen a dozen times, and make small talk a lot. He often compliments my healthy food choices, and sometimes gives me a better knife to use because he doesn’t want to see me cut my fingers off due to a dull knife. In fact, he did that again today. He calls me “Big Red”, which I hate, and I’ve told him that before, but I let it slide. People who don’t really know me have been calling me “red” my whole life, and I’ve always hated it. But this guy is nice enough to me, and he clearly hasn’t had the opportunities I’ve had in life.

It was really awkward talking with him today. I had to escort him out of the house ten days ago, March 26^th. I was on my way to work when I heard loud banging upstairs. At first I thought it might be furniture, but then I heard my roommate screaming, “Help! Help!” This isn’t the first time this has happened, although the other times I knew there were several people up there with her, and whoever she was angry at left quickly. This time the “Help!” screams continued, so I went upstairs to check it out. Three other men live upstairs, but none of them had appeared. So I knocked on the door as loud as I could and shouted, “What’s going on in there?”

“Help!”

“Nothing, man. She’s cool! Everything’s fine!” in an angry tone. More banging.

I knock again. “Come on, I know it’s not fine. What’s up in there?”

“It’s FINE!”

“Help!”

“Come on, man!” I yelled.

He opened the door two feet, without looking at me, and said, “She cool, man, she’s just fine!” and slammed the door in my face.

“Help!”

Finally my roommate peeked his head out down the hall. I looked at him for a suggestion. He said, “Do we have to call somebody?”

I pounded on the door with my fist as hard as I could. “Do we have to CALL SOMEBODY?”

The banging stopped, he swung open the door and stormed past me, down the stairs. I went into the room, and she was cowering in the corner of her bed, curled up in a ball. No visible marks or bruises, or anything really messy actually. I have no idea what the problem was. She has a lot of “friends”, and the first time I met her she gave a lecture about how humans aren’t biologically designed to be monogamous, so maybe it had something to do with jealousy. She told me with terrified eyes to make sure the “chicken had flown the coop”.

I went downstairs and opened the door. He was marching up the steep hill with purpose. I said, “You alright, man?”

“Yeah, I’m fine! I always be fine! I’ll be BACK!”

“Stay cool, man.”

I went back upstairs, and finally another male roommate appeared to see what was happening. Out of the 8 of us, only three of us are in our 20s, and the rest are at least 40 and older. It seemed strange that I was the one taking action. The woman said, “This has gotta stop!" as if she was powerless to do anything about it.

The other roommate said, “Yes, it does.”

Then I went to my class and actually had the best day teaching yet.

The next day that other roommate, a white guy who doesn’t work, asked me if I’d reported the incident to the house manager, a wonderful old well-traveled black woman who is the landlord’s mother, and lives upstairs in the attic. I said no because I had to go to work, and then spent the rest of the day writing a letter that meant a lot to me. He made me feel like it was my responsibility to follow up on the whole situation because I’d been the only one to come to her aid, although I’m not so sure she even really needed help based on what I saw in the room.

This guy calling me out on not following up really pissed me off. I’d heard this line of bull before. In fact, it only seemed to make sense, because I was thinking about another incident three years ago while this new drama was unfolding, and at least it gave me confidence to help out. Right before I went to India I got punched in the head outside the only bar in my little safe country hometown, and I didn’t even want to go that night, because I don't care much for bars or alcohol these days. The reason I got punched in the head was because I tried to divert the maniac’s attention away from kicking the white-haired bouncer in his very bloodied face, and then had to jump kick someone for the first time in my life to keep him from hitting me in the head a second time. Then some guy behind me restrained me thinking that I was about really fight, when all I wanted was to protect my head. That’s why I led with my foot. When he saw I would stand my ground and went back to arguing with his shrieking girlfriend, my three friends who had been watching the entire scene told me that I should call 911. I wasn’t the only one with a cell phone. To be fair, two of them were women, so I didn’t expect them to help me fight, and I didn’t even expect to be fighting anyway. I’m not someone who gets into fights. The last time I had a real fight I got jumped on the playground in third grade by my friend. But I figured they could have at least dialed their cell phones. After all, the other guy was a social worker who kept berating the state of the world every chance he got, blaming everything on white people, even though he’s white. When he had a chance, he just stood and watched. I was still seeing stars and they told me to dial the phone. At least one of the friends was kind enough to drive me home, clearly concerned for my well-being.

So when I heard this whole, “Well, YOU stepped in to help someone, so now YOU have to do everything else” routine, I got pretty mad at the whole world, because that attitude seems to be there all the time.

Three days later I saw her boyfriend on the street corner. I asked how he was doing, and he said he was just waiting on the bus, and not to be “tripping over her and me, we always be cool”, and gave me a fist bump. I just said, “Okay,” and went on my way. Later that night I saw him in our house again. She had taken him back, and forgiven him, at least in the carnal sense.

A few days later, a week ago today, actually, I was getting some fresh air around one am because I love walking out under the stars. I saw him walking away from the house, clearly messed up on something. I asked how he was. “I’m going home after getting my F*** on! Yes sir, no telling who’s turn it is next with her! Maybe it’ll be you! Ha!” and then went on his way. I didn’t like that.

I had a one night stand at New Year's (I don't really do that; nothing against it, it's just not my style) because I'd been celibate while traveling the US, and I learned afterward that I'd unassumingly stolen her away from an amazing black artist I'd met at the party earlier that night. He was my neighbor, and had all of these great paintings about persevering in pursuit of your dreams. It kind of sucked to find out I'd ruined his New Year's because his "hook up pal" had decided she wanted to spend the night with me, without any real pursuit on my part. I was just the interesting new guy, that's all. Not to say it wasn't absolutely awesome to end my journey to my place to be with a woman in my arms. The next day I saw the artist and he didn't care, he waved to me very friendly. Good man. Even so, it felt weird.

Sex is complicated. It can be a beautiful sharing experience for expressing emotions from the deepest most passionate places of your innermost being, or it can simply be a passionate lusting f*** fest to release dark energies and satisfy the same types of primal urges that make you want to eat bacon or an ice cream cone. I can’t say that I’m purely one way or the other. I am neither Don Juan nor Jesus Christ, and I don’t want to be either. I don’t want to conquer women through sex, although I love sex with women and am open to spontaneity in any form. I don’t have to have a million strings attached, although, ultimately, I seek something more substantial from my romantic pursuits.

I don’t judge others either. Your sex life is your sex life. As Paulo Coehlo said in an interview at the end of my favorite journey book, The Alchemist, “Except for two things that I consider to be really sick--rape and pedophilia--you are free to be creative.”

Find out what works best for you, and try to keep in mind that you’ll probably feel better more often if your goal is to make others feel better as opposed to just trying to take something from them that you want. I’ve seen people use sex in so many ways that seem crazy to me, but I don’t know them or their stories, and I understand that the world is varied and complex, so I’m not going to tell it how it should act, especially since I’m always learning myself and do not have a perfect sexual “report card” by any means (I'm not Christian, but "judge not, lest ye be judged"), not that there should ever be such a thing anyway. Some people use sex to escape loneliness, as opposed to “rallying for the heights” as Rilke says. Whatever works. If you connect with someone, connect with them however you both decide you want to connect.

Anyway, I don’t know why and how my roommate and her boyfriend keep relating to each other, but they’re starting to annoy the hell out of me.

Yesterday morning I was woken up at 5 am by the doorbell ringing. We’re not supposed to answer it if it’s not for us because of all the sketchy characters who were streaming in and out due to my upstairs roommate’s vast assortment of “friends”, and things were starting to disappear from the house. Even so, it had been ringing for five minutes, so I finally looked through the blinds, saw it was her and her boyfriend, and let them in and went back to bed without saying anything. They said, “Sorry, red, it won’t happen again.” I was too tired to care. I couldn’t go back to sleep. I already had a lot on my mind.

Last week I was under the weather all week, and was having difficulty breathing. That happens to me when I overexert myself. My parents told me I was putting too much pressure on myself to meet imaginary deadlines that I had created. This happens to me about once a year, when I’ve totally pushed myself to the limit, and I keep trying to push without relaxing and re-energizing first.

I couldn’t fall back asleep, and I’d only slept 4 hours, and I was so angry because I had been counting on a good night’s sleep on my day off (I’m lucky to get Friday’s off in my current schedule, but so far someone always wakes me up way too early in the morning). So I got up and made breakfast, and stared at all the headlights going by on the highway. We are right next to the 101 freeway, and I can always hear horns, ambulance sirens, and police pulling people over. It’s amazing I can write here. Sometimes this place really brings me down. I live here because I was unemployed and living off savings from my wine harvesting job when I got to San Francisco, and the month-to-month lease made it attractive. I suppose I could leave soon once I get the money together. Most of my roommates are actually really friendly and peaceful people, but the freeway and the drama bring me down. It doesn’t feel like home, and I haven’t seen my family in ten months. My previous record was eight months. For some people that’s nothing, but for me, that’s hard, because I love my family (and my friends, who are also my family).

I really missed them yesterday morning. I felt very lonely and confused. When you are hungry and sleep-deprived, that’s when the blues seizes hold of the opportunity to bring you down, and it got me with full force. Just about every negative experience from my four years of searching for my home started to storm the gates of my heart and mind, and it got harder and harder to fight it off. I thought of the ghetto apartment where I began the journey in Brooklyn, how the superintendent was a drug dealing family, and sometimes I'd hear fights and crashing and screaming, and my laptop got burglarized, and crazy dudes would give me weird stares when I walked alone through the ghetto. I started wondering why I choose this lifestyle. I could make a lot of money as a lawyer. I'd probably be more miserable, but at least my house would be nicer.

I usually fight off the blues with music, but sometimes it has the opposite effect. As I waited for breakfast to finish cooking, my favorite traveling song came on, “Train Tracks” by Jason Webley.

It’s not only my favorite traveling song (besides Hiromi's "Place to Be" and Bela Fleck's "Big Country"), but it’s perfect for when you’re tired, feeling down and questioning the whole journey.

Then I did something I am proud to admit. I started sobbing. Hard. I fought it hard, but it actually felt good in a way. Crying isn’t a habit of mine. I’m a pretty smiley positive person, and I’ve been through enough to honestly describe myself as tough. When I was a little boy my mom had to stop me from eating small rocks, and I was always running around, cutting myself and bleeding somehow, usually from the head, and then getting up and running around again. When I was a paralegal in Rockefeller Center, a lawyer I didn’t know told me they were happy to finally work with me because I was the “smiley guy” in the hallway, which surprised me because I was very miserable back in those days. I was probably just happy to be walking around and moving instead of sitting in my office. When I worked at a winery in Sonoma and was having a bad day, one of my co-workers asked me what was wrong, and he said that he could tell something was really bad if I wasn’t smiling, because I was the guy he depended on for smiles.

All this talk of family and smiling and being sad makes me think of my favorite television show that I watched with my family growing up, The Simpsons.

The best fictional role model in the world is Lisa Simpson. She’s smart, kind, motivated, creative and clearly has rhythm. The first episode where they develop her as a character begins with her having a severe case of the blues. The world around her doesn’t make sense to her. There is so much suffering. She doesn’t fit in. She’s doesn’t understand her place. She doesn’t understand why she should bother being a good student or trying at anything at all anymore. She gets sent home for not playing dodge ball because she’s too sad.

When we moved to Cambridge, I had it easy making friends because I had a crew cut and played sports, but my sister, the best real life Lisa I know, had these enormous arm frames with pins sticking into gruesome wounds in her arms all the way to her bones so she could have longer limbs. They’d already stretched her out six inches when I was eight and she was ten, and now they were extending her arms four inches. Next she would have another surgery to be a full foot taller, as she was born with dwarfism and now she can reach things she couldn’t reach before. She also has some wicked awesome scars. On top of all of that, she had long hair, wore Beatles shirts, and was smarter and worldlier than just about everyone else, so it made it hard for her to fit in a small uniformly white football and farming town.

Even so, that was a long time ago, and sometimes we clash on our view of the world. I think everything’s magically connected. She knows how to love people and many people love her, but she’s more pessimistic sometimes. I can’t blame her. Her best friend died young, many of her friends have experienced horrible prejudice and treatment for being different, and she still experiences a lot of extreme physical pain relating to complications from her dwarfism and surgeries.

When Lisa Simpson is sad in the episode, her mom, Marge, gives her the same advice that her mother gave her. To paraphrase, she says that people will like you if you smile a lot, so you should take the pain, bury it deep down inside, so far that soon you’re walking on your troubles, and then you’ll smile more, and boys will like you, and you’ll be popular and get invited to parties. So Lisa does that when her mom drops her off at school, and the kids like her and say, “I used to think you were a brainiac, but now you’re okay,” because she’d changed herself to fit in, and kept faking her smile. Then her music teacher told her that he didn’t want any more repeat episodes of unbridled “creativity”, and Marge, watching from her car, got so mad that she raced by in the car and pulled Lisa back in. She told her to forget everything she just told her, and that if she felt sad she should just go right ahead being sad, she would do the smiling enough for the both of them, and they’d figure out a way to get through it eventually. Give that woman Mother of the Year award. Lisa started smiling, and Marge told her she didn’t have to anymore, but Lisa said she wanted to.

Earlier in that episode Lisa is walking around town alone at night, searching for something, a feeling I know all too well. She’s under a bridge when she hears this beautiful music coming from a saxophone from atop the bridge. She bravely explores the source and sees an old black man playing the blues on his sax. He introduces himself as “Bleeding Gums Murphy” ("You ever been to a dentist?" "Yes." "Well, not me. I got enough pain in my life as it is.") They get along immediately, and he becomes her mentor. Soon she’s happy again, because she found someone else who cares, and someone to play music with. He tells her that he can’t fix her problems, but he can jam with her, and at the end of the episode he plays one of her songs at the club. He also says, “You play pretty well for someone without any real problems.” Another feeling I know all too well.

Every episode begins with her playing this outrageous jazz solo and getting kicked out of the orchestra for being too different, and she just keeps blowing away her own way as she strolls out the door on her own path. Good for her.

Yesterday morning I was tired and hungry and even though I was home, I knew it wasn't home. I brought my breakfast down to my room, sat on the floor in front of my wall, and I just started crying. I won’t tell you about all of the things that made me cry, because I don’t want to bring you down, but I assure you, they were worth crying about, and few of them were even about me. Sure, I was lonely and tired and hungry and worried about the future, but it was mostly about the things I'd seen, and fears about what the world valued and the behavior it rewarded, and how the world treated people.

It only lasted a minute, and then I ate breakfast and started getting busy battling the blues. When the blues come, there are two appropriate options: you can just sit and hurt, and you can fight back. Sometimes it’s better to let the first happen and run its course before forcing the second.

I’m not ashamed to admit that I cried that morning, because I have been raised well by excellent human beings. Four years ago I cried in front of my mother for the first time in forever because a woman I had truly loved and cared for had completely destroyed my heart and ego. Looking back, the blame for the fiasco should be balanced between us, but her reaction involved lies that hurt like hell. When my mom asked me what was up (mom's can tell, no matter what), I tried to explain that I was sad because I had failed and screwed up with someone I cared about ("I don't EVER want to feel like I did that day...). I just couldn't stop the tears from streaming, and she told me that the first time she knew she would always love my father was when she saw him cry the first time. Mother of the year.

My father is not a crybaby. I am not a crybaby either. If you’re a dude and want to take either of us to task on our manhood, you can meet either of us in the woods or out on the water, or me in a ghetto just about anywhere in the world, and we’ll see who gets the shakes first. I think a lot of men put on a tough front of machismo and braggadocio to cover up their insecurity at their smallness in the universe, and to hide past pains at not being loved enough. I have been loved a lot through my life, so I am lucky enough to be more comfortable being open about my weak points.

I am able to do so because my parents rock. I have a mother who is an excellent all-around human being. She is a social worker, intelligent, kind and compassionate, always listening to anyone with an attentive ear. My whole life her co-workers and clients have told me how lucky I am to have her, and even though I say I know it, I will never truly know it. My dad is an environmentalist who is an excellent all-around human. He is strong, articulate, creative, hard-working, fun-loving and caring. Sometimes he suffers from egotism, a human trait he inherited from other humans and one I inherited from him (who hasn't inherited it?), but usually it's confidence instead of egotism, and that's why his life and his family's life is so good. He’s literally Santa Claus, giving and jolly and fighting the good fight.

From Robert Pirsig's Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance:

Thus the hero of the Odyssey is a great fighter, a wily schemer, a ready speaker, a man of stout heart and broad wisdom who knows that he must endure without too much complaining what the gods send; and he can both build and sail a boat, drive a furrow as straight as anyone, beat a young braggart at throwing the discus, challenge the Pheacian youth at boxing, wrestling or running; flay, skin, cut up and cook an ox, and be moved to tears by a song. He is in fact an excellent all-rounder.

I think I would disqualify myself from being a hero if I described myself as one, since you and I are just living our lives and trying to get by like anyone, but I was moved to tears by a song this morning. Then I looked out the window and was reminded of my dad. I’m always reminded of my dad when I look out the window, because there is an Apple iPad poster. I don’t have an iPad, but the company Apple was created by Steve Jobs. My father’s name is Steve, and he’s always working on ten different jobs, whether or not he’s being paid for it. Sometimes I think it’s a problem and he needs to relax more. I get some of it from him, but I’m younger and a different person, so I manifest it in my own way toward things I care about. He’s all about wood-working, sailing, hunting, painting, duck decoy carving, and landscaping his dream farm that he afforded by working for decades as a humble civil servant protecting the environment. When I chose to move home from NYC before going to India, he already had a long list of manual labor jobs waiting for me because my sister was getting married in a year and he wanted his family's dream home to be in top shape for the party. Some of these projects were simple, like dragging dead trees and moving piles of bricks and rocks, or trimming bramble. Others didn’t really take my safety into account, such as tearing a roof off his wood shed while standing on rotten beams suspended ten feet above rusted metal, table saws, and large piles of boards with nails in them. Sometimes I resented him for making me work so hard, but then I remembered it was for my sister’s big day, so I did my best.

As I mentioned earlier, the last two nights I saw my favorite artist play a show at the San Francisco Jazz Center. Hiromi’s entire style and sound transcend jazz, but it’s clearly an influence. I don’t know her personally or if she has anything in common with Lisa Simpson (her hair is much better than Lisa’s, for starters, and she’s a real grown woman instead of a yellow seven year old cartoon character), but she truly embodies the spirit. Heck, she doesn’t just embody the spirit, she creates a whole new one! I hadn’t seen her in a year, and it really lifted my spirits after a long week of the usual, “How do I keep going, and does anyone even care if I do?” stuff that sneaks up on me from time to time. When I was at the show I was instantly happy. She smiles and moves and jumps with joy so much as she plays that it’s an experience beyond compare. You really have to see it yourself, and not just on video, but in person, if she ever comes your way. I saw an interview where she said that music is great because it filters all of the emotions to be positive, even if it’s a sad song.

At the end of the night she signed one of the only two existing hard copies of my first book (my friend Jack has the other one), which made me very happy. Four years ago she signed a yellow post-it-note with the introduction to what I then thought would be my first novel, because it was the only thing I had for her to sign at the time. She didn't know the significance of the paper, but it meant a lot to me, even though I'd just gotten into her and it was only my second show. Actually, I first asked her to sign one of her CD’s for my sister and her fiance because I’d just been surprised to learn that they’d gotten engaged that same day, and I gave it to them as an engagement present the night before I left for India. She gracefully signed my little piece of paper that was the first thing I found when I searched through my wallet for paper. I still have it, even though it got soaked in my wallet in a rainstorm at a Phish show. My words are hard to read (I remember them anyway), but her signature is still there. She must have used a very good marker.

Anyway, that show made me feel great, but then I had the long walk home back to my grungy apartment, and all I wanted to do was get a good night’s sleep. I checked my e-mail and saw a reply from my old favorite student/t-shirt creator/surrogate Japanese mother. She e-mailed me on 3/28 to ask if I was genki (enthusiastic, healthy, happy) and tell me that the cherry blossoms had bloomed. When I replied that I was genki, her next reply mentioned that her husband had died two months earlier, which completely shocked me and made me really sad. At least her son was back with her to take care of her.

This time (two nights ago, right after the Hiromi show) her e-mail revealed that her husband had been sick with a disease for two years, and she never told anyone at the English Club about it. I was shocked. She had always been so positive and cheerful and loving to all of us. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to keep that all inside. But she had her calligraphy shows and classes to teach, and I think that made her feel better. She said she wants to make me more t-shirts and visit some time. I told her she’s welcome to, but not to plan too far ahead because I never know where I’m going to go.

That was swirling around my head when I heard the doorbell this morning, because it was the last piece of news I got before going to bed. That’s one more reason I started sobbing in the kitchen. I felt a lot like Lisa. I’m a man, but I’m not afraid to identify with emotions traditionally associated with a woman. Anyone who pretends they have no fears, sadness or flaws is a flat out phony.

The best way to get over your own self-indulgence in pain is to make others feel better, so I started working on the project that had been staring me in the face since I moved into this room. It’s not a book.

I’m still going to write the next book, but books can go either way when it comes to lifting emotions. I barely read anymore because so many books are depressing.

My two favorite writers are Kurt Vonnegut and Tom Robbins. Vonnegut said that the artist's job is to make people enjoy life just a little more, and when asked if anyone had done that, he said, “I think The Beatles did.” Vonnegut saw and experienced horrible things throughout his life (the Dresden firebombing, his mother committing suicide, his sister dying of cancer and her husband dying in a train accident the same day in totally separate situations... he and his wife adopted her many children). Even though he cheered up a lot of people and was loved by many, I read over his personal letters when I moved into my empty room at the beginning of the year, and his life is not one I want to emulate at all. He did not believe in free will, and it shows. He was very depressed, and eventually divorced, and then re-married, only to be cheated on by his wife with a younger artist whom she was secretly housing in a part of the house far from him, right after she had convinced him to adopt a baby with her. He took her back when the younger artist didn’t make as much money as she had hoped, and although completely bitter about it, he did it for the sake of the child. I don’t know the whole story, so I can’t say it was all her fault. He also described arguing with her a lot, and admitted he was probably no fun to be around. I’d rather fail as a writer than live like that. Vonnegut said that if there was a God, "he sure must hate humans."

On the other hand, Tom Robbins, who succeeded Vonnegut as my writing hero, is all about CHOICE and joy. He says that’s what the mystery of the pyramids is all about. His philosophy is “Joy despite everything”, even though he is acutely aware of the problems of the world. That philosophy helps me take action to enjoy life more, and overall, I find it is the wiser approach to life. Why be sad all the time, especially if the world might not even be real? Well… what else is there? You can’t have the good without the bad. Sometimes you just need to frigging hurt and let it flow, you know? Sometimes life is bad, and you have to accept it, and move into the sunshine when it comes. Robbins blames bums for creating their own problems, and seems to be lacking in compassion quite often, although he seems spot on about just about everything else all the time. And he writes the sexiest books ever.

Despite Vonnegut’s marital problems, he must have done something right as a father. In the book, A Man Without a Country, on page 66, he writes:

“What is life all about?” I have seven kids, three of them orphaned nephews.

I put my big question about life to my son the pediatrician. Dr. Vonnegut said this to his doddering old dad: “Father, we are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is.”

On the same page, he writes:

No matter how corrupt, greedy, and heartless our government, our corporations, our media, and our religious and charitable institutions may become, the music will still be wonderful.

If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED

FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

WAS MUSIC

I think he was right.

He also said that the only true American art form was jazz. Jazz was created in New Orleans, by human beings with darker colored skin in a French-influenced area of the south, which had once rebelled against the north over its right to enslave the same human beings who would give birth to all great American music. Miles Davis' Kind of Blue and John Coltrane's Blue Train always remind me of walking around New York back in the day, and still work anywhere when I'm kind of down but at least moving forward somehow. When I have the vinyl handy, I also love Ornette Coleman's The Shape of Jazz to Come.

Last night at the Hiromi show I met two other guys who were huge fans, as I mentioned earlier. I asked one of them his name, and he said, "Cap'n" (captain).

I said, "No way! I grew up hearing my dad call all of his friends 'Cap'n' because he sailed a lot."

"I sail too. My name is Steve."

"Cap'n Steve?"

"Yeah."

"You're my dad!"

"Ha! You wanna hit this joint?" I said no, because I was already naturally high from the Hiromi show. I guess the name was a coincidence. My dad has never done any drugs, and maybe had champagne at a wedding forty years ago or something. I'm not exactly my dad, which is fine by me. I admit that I have experimented with drugs and alcohol, and I am fond of "magic beans" a few times a year when the atmosphere is right, and I've hurt my lungs with pot smoke during certain stretches, but generally my goal is to be happy and healthy naturally and not need anything too artificial to push me in that direction. Who needs drugs when you're watching Hiromi? Besides, I'd seen her perform while I was under the influence (magic beans once, magic herbs twice) three of the nine times I've seen her, and although delightful, they weren't as good as the last two nights when I couldn't stop myself smiling as wide as possible. She's that good.

One of the books that helped me start the journey was Paulo Coehlo’s The Alchemist. It says to "beware of the place where you are brought to tears. It is there that you will find your treasure."

Yesterday morning I cleared the tears from my eyes, and I looked up and decided that Steve was right: getting to work and doing a "Steve job" would make me happy again. It was time to act like a captain and start steering the wheel. So I spent several hours refining and building up my heart art, and then climbed the nearby hill to write the first draft of this story.

"Angel" by DMX:

DMX: "I'm callin out to you [dad],
because I need your help
See once again I'm havin difficulty
savin myself
behavin myself, you told me what to do,
and I do it
But every and now and then,
gets a little harder to go through it
Losin friends, day by day
I'm in so much pain when I'm here [dad],
please take me away!

[Dad]: I put you here to do a job,
and your work ain't done
To live is to suffer, but you're still my son
And there will be a time
when you shine as bright as the stars
But there won't be a, his or hers, just ours
Then you'll see what I've been tryin to show you,
all these years
Do the right thing;
cause after the tears, come the cheers

DMX: I want you to know [dad],
that for what you've given me I'm thankful
Sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, I'm grateful
You gave [me] power in our words,
so I think before I speak
And that way when I speak,
they know I'm here to teach
Can't tell em nothin wrong,
cause I love em too much
I reach a lot of people, and [dad], I'm lovin the touch
But deep inside, I've got somethin that's workin against
everything I know is right, what I know makes sense

[Dad]: That's when you must fight harder,
than you've ever fought before
cause what you've got goin on inside you is a war
between good and evil,
be careful of those who wanna be you
They smile, but are not really happy when they see you
Be careful of the ones that always wanna get you high
Cause when the time comes, that one'll let you die
Listen to me! I'm here, but I can only help you
if you want me to help, what do you want for yourself?

DMX: My [dad], my saviour, don't judge my behaviour
but instead, take what's in my heart and put it in my head
See I guess I really never knew, how proud I made you...