Haiku Friday, May 15, 2020

Hey, she was right. This idea is a bit of a letdown...

Some years ago, I had an idea, which had lied dormant until recently sparking another idea in my mouldering brain wires.

Those Little Free Libraries were popping up in the neighborhood back then. There was something so moving about them and novel.  I had never seen such a beautiful public invitation: “ Please open this door and enjoy something to hold in your hands, something which may change your perspective on life, or, at the very least, entertain you. FOR FREE!”

Whether anyone ever really took them up on the offer didn’t matter to me. What did matter was that someone had built this little library, stocked it with books and waited to see what would happen. That they looked like little shrines didn’t hurt either. 

Right after these Little Free Libraries popped up, I had an idea to do something similar. What I wanted to do was to build an information board, one with a little roof like you see at state parks. On it would be works of art or poetry or whatever that people wanted to create and share with others. I would take a picture of everything that went up, catalog it and put it on the blog. Not long after, I started my weekly broadcasts of Haiku Friday. So, this idea was mothballed. 

OK here is my mundane proposal…

What if I put together a zine that came out once a month? It would feature all that month’s poems that were submitted to me for Haiku Friday. Also people could send in their artwork, musings, whatever and I would print those in this zine. I would put copies by our block wall. Maybe I could have a dropbox for those who wanted to leave their creations right there too. I could share the zine in a digital form on the blog. The physical dispenser of the zine may be a Little Free Zine single-wide? 

I wouldn’t  want it to make any money. None of my ideas do. The zine would be free. Maybe if people wanted a hard copy mailed to them they could pay for postage. So many pedestrians pass by our house, I think they would get distributed quickly. 

When I started this blog so long ago, my main focus was on visiting people in Spokane who I liked, and have them tell their stories either via audio, video or written copy. I got lazy and dropped the ball. Shifting the focus to creative works and giving neighbors a way to have something tangible to show them the wonderful spirits who live around them would be a worthwhile thing to do. 

I will probably be retiring sometime this year, or early next year. I would have the time to do this right. 

This book is what made me think about doing this:

Would this be a worthwhile thing? Are zines dead? Should I censor language or anything else that may be too PG-13? Let me know what you think, please! 

A proposal postponed...

So, it’s been really long time. Is anyone still reading this? Is anyone still reading blogs?

Life has gotten kind of weird for me. I am home from work. I am not sure for how long.

What have I been up to? You might be (but probably aren’t) asking yourself this question. 

I’ve been whipping out about a painting a month. I have a shared photo album here if you are interested in seeing any of them. I still do Haiku Friday every Friday (well almost every Friday) live on Facebook. The videos wind up on my YouTube channel. 

I have such a love/hate relationship with Facebook. I really don’t feel like I have much to say that adds to the conversation, anymore. I alternate between being angry at what is going on in our country, proud of what is going on in our state and sad to see many of my old friends succumb to a worldview so different than the one we once shared. I would ditch Facebook in a minute if it wasn’t for my needing it to do Haiku Friday live. HF has been a discipline of sorts and an actual lifeline for me. Through hard times at work and at home, a transition which was scary, sad and happy, and through sickness, I have plugged away at Haiku Friday. At first, I did it on Twitter with a live video function. When I started broadcasting it on Facebook, I saved the videos to YouTube and then put them up on my HaikuFriday site.

Like a lot of you these days, my day subsists of doing some art, going on long walks to nowhere, working in the garden, reading, playing some games, Zoom visiting with family and friends, installing bidets, weighing in on social media (sigh), watching TV, listening to podcasts, eating and drinking. Lately, we’ve been playing the game Morels and actually growing shiitakes and blue oyster mushrooms.

We’ve been watching What we do in the Shadows and Killing Eve. We’ve eaten takeout pizza from Benniditos and burgers with a cocktail kit from Nyne. I have to say, if anyone was cut out for quarantine, it’s me. I might come off as an extrovert, but that was something I learned how to do as a bullied kid. My natural inclination is toward solitary pursuits. 

I made this shirt. I have only wore it once in public and the results were satisfactory, in that people avoided me:

OK.

I really think the only way left to save our world is through art. When I say “art,” I mean music, storytelling, painting, singing, poetry, dancing, theater, cooking, baking, photography, humor, etc. Art is anything that we do as a gift for others (and ourselves) to bolster our humanity and the overall cause of not-feeling-dead-inside. We have seen where, on social media, arguing, presenting facts, pointing out hypocrisy, sounding the alarm bell at  for our friends’ sinking ship of credibility has resulted in nothing but hurt feelings. Throwing fact-rocks at someone who pictures himself as “one man against a world of socialism,” and rallying against those who fantasize about being armed combatants at war with the conspiracy of The Invisible Illuminati does nothing to change the way they see the world.

Would art?

I know I have been transformed by beautiful words on paper, actors on the stage who risk all to give all and with paint smeared in the most correct way. The right song at the right time can pull my heart into my stomach. A warm piece of crusty sourdough might reverse the process. Pondering the stars, a sunset, my first cup of coffee in the morning, my grandkids, my kids can make me, well, swoon. 

I fully realize, that in order to fully experience life, love and the beauty of all these things, I need to be open too. I need to realize that maybe I am wrong in the way I see the world. However, I am pretty sure that experiencing the intentional gift of someone else’s creativity will probably not push me into violence, into fascism, into totalitarianism, into xenophobia, suspicion or hatred. In fact, I would think that  encounters with art will push me further into the opposite direction -  but I am open to being wrong on this. 

I  was writing all of this in order to propose something to you, something rather mundane. I wanted to hear your opinion on my proposal, but I think I will let it sit for a while longer. Because, well, I need to shut up  now. Thanks for reading this….

A long post for a long walk...

I have really been enjoying walking to work. I used to alternate mostly between riding my bike or running, but lately walking has been so much fun. For my last shift, I stayed on Monroe Street for most of the commute. I usually try to avoid Monroe because it is so busy and so loud, but on the weekends, it slows down and the walk is pretty nice. 

It’s three miles from my house to my fire station on the corner of Ash and Indiana. It takes me a little less than an hour. I dress warm. In the winter, when the snow is deep, I always walk. I never worry about getting stuck in the snow, like I might if I were driving. When I used to ride my bike to work in the snow, I rode about as fast as I would have if I walked. Likewise, with the snow, my running is not much faster than walking. 

I listen to music, sometimes. When I do, I sing along. This helps me fit in with many of the people I encounter downtown (think Bill Murray in Zombieland). Although, the other morning, one guy was pretty mad at me for singing a song from Jesus Christ Superstar. He stopped pushing his hoarder cart to scream at me. Everyone is a critic. 

Quite a bit of the time I listen to podcasts. I have hearing aids and I can bluetooth the podcasts right into my ears. Often though, the road noise is too much, especially with hearing aids on. I have to shut things down until I get off the busy streets. I feel pretty luxurious when I walk. I have a great headlamp that I wear. I dress warmly, and if it’s icy, I wear cleats on my shoes. It is all pretty awesome. I am going to get a noise-canceling headset so I can cut out the road noise and have an even more peaceful, quiet walk. 

I always see cool things on the way to work, so I thought I might share some of those with you. 

Starting the trip, I found this. 

Now, if this were in the neighborhood I work in, it would not be much of a surprise. But, this was really close to home. I have to say, though, the presentation is pretty up-scale - nestled in some leaves and looking rather festive.  

I lived between Maple and Monroe while I was in college, with my friends Lance and Rich. I worked on Monroe Street part time when I was a kid too. My friend Lance’s dad owned S&S Engine Rebuilding and he, quite nicely, gave me some part-time work in high school. So, we were always up and down Monroe. For a while, Lance, Rich and I were into micro-armor war games. There was a place called “The Bunker” over by the courthouse, off of Monroe. It was a geekfest hangout and we would watch the pros wage battle playing ANGRIFF! It was one of those games where you would measure the distance between your opponents' and your little tiny tanks that were displayed in a nicely constructed diorama. You would then roll dice repeatedly to determine whether you were hit and then roll some more to ascertain the damage. If the actual war moved as fast as this game, we would just now, forty years later, be concluding the attack on Pearl Harbor. We played the same game at home but using Legos as set pieces. The real fun was painting our little leaden tanks to prepare for slow battle. We would buy the tiny tanks in the basement of the Bon Marche where there was a toy store. 

I digress. 

On this morning’s walk, I walked and listened to the Desert Oracle podcast. A favorite. There was a writer on this episode who was hawking his book “HIGH WEIRDNESS.” It was about all the wacky things going on during the 1970s. It really resounded with me. I had recently read an article about hope vs. certainty and it seemed to really connect with what some of what the author was talking about. One of his quotes was that the world is a weird place and you can be horrified and live in fear of this weirdness or you can hold it at arm’s length and just observe it and be fascinated by it. When this book makes it to Aunties, I will buy it. I was listening to all of this and thinking how it connected to the article about hope when I saw this sign on Golden Rule Brake Service. 

I love this mural that Hoffman Music has been creating. I was talking the other day with my friends at Spokane Art Supply, right next to old Station 3 about this mural and it just keeps getting better and better. 

Sarah used to live by old Station 3 on Sharp and Monroe. When I was dating her, we would often walk by  the station. This was when I first had the idea of becoming a Spokane City Firefighter. Never in my wildest dreams, did I think that I would ever work at Station 3, the new Station 3, let alone be the captain of the ship. Crazy! Old Station 3 is now the KPBX Public Radio station. Last summer I walked by there and read the plaque on the outside of the building. It sounded familiar. I looked it up and saw that I had written this for them about five years ago. When I wrote it, I wasn’t sure what it was for, but there it  is, my mumbo jumbo on a plaque on the station which eventually led me to this wonderful job and this beautiful commute.

As I continued up Monroe, I had to make a left to head to my workplace and home away from home, the new (over 25-year-old) Station 3. I make my turn west at the new Kalico Kitchen Restaurant. This was the site of the former Monroe Street Grill and before that it was Shari’s. And way before that, it was the Monroe Block which burned down. Kalico Kitchen was packed. YAY! 

I used to worry about this corner. Now, I am just fascinated. 

Weird things happen here a lot, it seems. Twelve or so years ago, we went on a call for an injury from a fight there when it was Shari’s. Some preacher tried to kidnap a cook. He punched a customer in the face who stopped him from the abduction. Then the preacher drove his Corvette across the street to McDonald’s and tried the same thing there. The police boxed him in his car in the McDonald’s parking lot. They put a gun in his face and told him to get out of the car. He then repeatedly rammed the cop car with his Corvette until he made enough room to get away. He destroyed the cop car and wrecked his car pretty good too. The funny thing was that it really wasn’t his car, but one he was test driving! We watched the whole thing unfold. The police put out spike strips, stopped and then tasered him. When we arrived to pull out the taser darts, he had one cowboy boot on and one off sitting on the traffic median, right about Indiana and Washington. In the most booming preacher voice I ever heard, he ordered me to give him water and that if I didn’t I would be cursed to hell. Well, I didn’t. Mostly because I didn’t have any water. So, we will see how that goes. 

I have had weird arguments with family members in the Monroe Street Grill when it was later there. When I first came out, I had an old lady give me the evil eye in the lobby. I really hope Kalico Kitchen succeeds there. But, if they don’t, it’s not their fault. If I were the owner, I would hire an exorcist or a shaman right now. Then there was the guy who was shooting his shotgun off just to the west of Shari’s a while back, but that’s another story…

So, I cut from Monroe to Ash, south of Indiana, and then I finally have to cross Ash to get to the station, I cross where the Super C is. The Super C is a wondrous place next to the station. Yes, that is our friend Mary standing there in the picture. She will make it over to the station about an hour later to tell us about  her recent Sasquatch encounters, family disputes and her worries about nuclear warfare and President Trump. I invited her to join us on Thanksgiving at the station for dinner.

Lastly, unbeknownst to us, the owner of the Super C, hired someone to “trim” the station’s shrubs and the trees a couple of weeks ago. When we caught the “pruners” doing so (strangely enough not licensed or bonded), they said they hacked up our shrubs, cut down our tree and were in the process of cutting more trees down because they were “told to do so.” 

But, that’s another story. 

Stine Machine!

My buddy Stine has a video blog, a "vlog," or "vibeogl" that is mostly directed toward FTM transgender folks. Manly yes. But, I like it too. I especially like it this week BECAUSE HE INTERVIEWED ME!!! An honor. Thank you Stine!

Stine is also an artist and writer. When we get together, we don't talk very much trans stuff anymore. We mostly talk about projects we are working on. But, for this video, we do talk trans.

FOSS2

I wanted to say more about how firefighters are so much more likely to get cancer than the general population. Likewise, lately, suicide has taken so many of our brothers and sisters. Many have PTSD from the stuff they have to deal with. Having a great crew (and doing all you can to be a great crew member) can really make a difference.

The Return of Foss

If I have to transition then so does the Foss.

Running True Episode 18

Running True Episode 17

Here is a link to get tickets to the play I was talking about! 

Running True Episode 16

Running True Episode 15

Running True Episode 14

Running True Episode 13

Haiku Friday --- March 2nd, 2018

The site.

The words:

False eyelashes on 

before you get to the gym 

two sets of lash curls    Stine

First egg of the year

small, pointy, the softest green.

Thanks, Carol Channing. Stine

                 The great white returns

           Give winter marching orders

                 Let the Spring begin

                                                       Rikosan

Hooked bite of my heart

Chews the pale ghost of regret

Spitting blood and prose  Me

Running True Episode 12

I apologize and will try to do better...

I think I have done this once before, talked about my Facebook addiction problem. I have apologies to make but, I need to present some background first.

I entered the United States Air Force as a Ronald Reagan devotee. I was really, really conservative in my political beliefs. What happened?

What happened was conversation. When I was on alert at Fairchild, it was like being in a forced conversation pit. This was the late 1980s and early 1990s. There were no cell phones. The Internet was in its infancy. We all came from many different backgrounds.

365 days a year, 24 hours a day, six nuclear-weapon-laden B-52s were parked at Fairchild Air Force Base. They were ready to launch in seconds for the big nuclear armageddon scenario.

Staffing these bombers was a crew of six: An aircraft commander (the pilot), the co-pilot, the radar navigator (bombardier), the navigator, the electronic warfare officer and the gunner. So there were six of us for each aircraft with a total of 36 of us in one spot at one time. We worked a seven-day shift, 24 hours each day. There were also crew chiefs assigned to each plane but they were on a different schedule.

We shared some phones (landlines) in the alert facility where we lived. We were cut off from our families, our girlfriends and wives and booze! Our lives rotated around mealtimes at the alert facility chowhall, working out, watching TV and movies and conversation. In a lot of ways, it was one of the best times of my life.

I felt pretty secure in my conservative convictions. But, there were other guys, guys who were smarter than me, who were better educated than me who would challenge me on my beliefs. Debates would rage well into the wee hours. They sometimes would provide me with things to read, books and magazine articles. It took me a while but I slowly evolved on many of my political stances. My last couple years in the USAF, I had a QUESTION AUTHORITY bumper sticker on the back of my camper van. Quite a turn around from where I started.

I did see changes in the aircrew personnel toward the end of my time in the service. I saw guys reading Rush Limbaugh books. I saw their anger. These fresh out of college, privileged few were angry at so many hypotheticals. They were angry at people and problems they would never ever encounter. And sometimes they were unwittingly angry at systems they themselves were joyfully entrenched in. They railed against “socialism,” when in reality, I never saw a bunch enjoy the benefits of military service socialism more in my life. The hypocrisy made me gag.

And so it began.

And now I find myself here with a problem. I long for the days of sitting with someone over long hours and debating our political positions. It is an impossibility. Not only is there no venue for that, I think people have changed. It is a rare thing today for someone to evolve on a position, to take in new facts, evaluate them and discard previously held core beliefs. A lot of this has to do with the silo-ing of oneself with like-minded people and insulating oneself with “facts” that do not challenge a position or a mindset but instead create comfort.

As you probably have ascertained by now, I am not so much into comfort.

When I came out as trans, I was ready for a fight. Why? Because, I like to fight. I don’t mind being the “turd in the punchbowl.” And as one friend put it, “You were always like Old Yeller. They loved you but in the end they had to shoot you.” Brilliant. Sad but brilliant. And when I did come out, instead of a fight, I found acceptance. In fact, many of my more conservative friends seemed to take the news easier and were more supportive than my liberal friends. How about that?

The only outlet for discussion, these days, it seems is Facebook. But, it is a poor substitute for real discussion, for real change. In fact, it is probably counter-productive to both. Facebook is an emotional morass which I love to play in, in which I love to fight.

People post things that I disagree with. And I can’t help myself. I want to fight. Lately, the last (as I type this) school shooting has brought forth, to me, some very disturbing ideas: The arming of school teachers, the arming of schoolyard-patrolling disabled vets, the idea that more guns will solve the problem, the premise that laws don’t matter because no one obeys laws they don’t want to obey, the concept that our law enforcement cannot be depended upon, etc. I responded to these positions, from (what I believed was) a practical, pragmatic and moral perspective. But, I should have kept my thoughts to myself.

I realize now that people post these kind of memes to elicit support from their friends, to create a community of like-minded believers. And there I plopped, the turd in their punchbowl.

I knew I was not going to change anyone’s mind, but I felt morally-compelled to not let some things stand. In reality, there is no way what I am saying has an effect on the person who posted this stuff. All I was doing was ruining their party, making them angry. It will never have an effect. But, it made me feel better to challenge, to fight.

For this I am very sorry. I am sorry to you the person who posted their beliefs. I caused you discomfort and distress in a venue where you sought the opposite. I am sorry that I also wasted my time. Time is something which is a precious commodity for me now. I was unwise, even stupid, for doing what I did. Again, I am very sorry.

I have friends who think that the answer to all of our problems lies in the middle someplace. They stress the viewpoint that if we all gave a little we would find common ground and we would move forward. I disagree. I think that there are facts, there is proof, there are policies that will improve our lives and bring us up to the life standards that the rest of the industrialized world enjoys. I believe that we should have debates around this, and that the better ideas should win, no compromises, no “slippery slope” arguments, no “action-movie” mindsets, etc. There are very pressing problems we have and there are solutions. Facebook will never ever be the place where any of this will happen. It’s not built for that.

I don’t believe in apologizing for something without an attempt to improve my behavior. So, here is what I am going to do. I will continue to use Facebook for my Haiku Friday and Running True posts, or some other posts (like this one) from my Spokanarama blog. For now, I will continue to post on my page what I believe, ON MY PAGE.  I will not comment on my friend’s posts that I disagree with. This may require me to quit following you, or to block your posts. I value your friendship and I would rather not see what you have to say than to hurt you or your community of like-minded believers with my arguments. If I can’t live within these bounds than I will probably have to leave Facebook all together. I value your friendship and I value my time.

Again, I am very sorry.

Thanks and I wish you all the best. Thanks for being my friend.

Maeve

Running True Episode 11

Facing my Facebook Addiction...



 Major Tom Video here!

And, of course, the original German version.

This is what I ran in today. Which was a good reflection of how my mind looked, as well.

Here is that Spokesman-Review Article from earlier this month. 

Running True Episode 10...

RUNNING TRUE - Episode Niner!

I think I went a little off the rails here... Here's a link to Spokane's Vagina Monologues 2018.

Running True Episode 8

DO NOT TAKE A SHOT EVERY TIME I SAY "UHM." If you do, you might empty your liquor cabinet.