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Saturday, December 22, 2012

Freaks and Geeks

It was just a Monday night- the start of the week. So much potential, so much promise. Monday is an irreverent "potential junky's" favorite day.  It had been a strange enough weekend filled with coincidences that might make me believe in "the universe" "The universe" is this bereft atheist's last attachment to spirituality.  An atheist's dilemma is their ongoing dearth of hope- or rather the inability to logically chose to hope, for anything, much less a beneficent spirit looking out for them.  But lady universe answered quite loudly.  I was thinking how long it had been since I travelled and how this must mean that there is something terribly wrong when the phone rang and Daniele was on the other side.  "hey B smoothie! Como Stai" He hadn't told me much - I hadn't heard much- just three words: "paid," "Genoa" and "edit."  "Sure!" I said, "make it happen." After all, it wouldn't be me if I didn't dive in head first. I was told to meet him in front of a restaurant for a party.

When I rolled up onto the corner of Stanton and Orchard all I saw was a small regular take out pizzeria with what I thought was possibly a delirious and/or mildly homeless senior citizen standing outside.   The name of the place was correct so I wondered in. My heart sank, this is so typical B, you should just permanently count on being crestfallen at every juncture of your life.  I shhhh'd my brain and tried to smile as I searched for Francesco.  Suddenly a gentle hand grabbed me from behind.  "ciao cara mia, Il mio suo."  "Oh" I let out as I turned to find the the elderly shlumpy gentlemen staring up at me.  Oh lord, what have you gotten us into???  He had the gentlest blue eyes I had ever seen in my life. He was shorter than I and had the scent of cologne and years lived long and hard.   I looked down at him from my meager 5.4 stance as Italian Golum ushered me away from Rosario's and over towards Allan.

I was floating,  In the usual place I dwell: a land of seedy and earnest behaviors executed by marginalized angels on the fringe.  It was clear immediately.  Italian-Golum and I entered the smallest Janky liquor store in the LES owned by a Russian, one day younger than God and even angrier.

Francesco chirped sharply that he wanted a bottle of red; no pricier than $9 dollars. What kind of an Italian is this?  The Russian grunted towards a section of un-imbibable stuff.  I grabbed a Corsican bottle and handed it to my tiny escort, but the Russian swiftly grabbed it from Francesco and slammed a new bottle down on the table.  "What, what's wrong, what did I do? Oh I see we grabbed the one with the price on it." He smiled so sweetly and apologetically to the Russian, my heart warmed. We chatted at the counter when the Russian barked, "Take your change!" I escorted Francesco out and yelled, "I'm not coming back Jerk!" We floated down Stanton into the next liquor store.  Our world flickered into another dimension as the beautiful oak shelves and brightly lit aisles cleansed us of our terrible peristroikan experience. The beautiful hipster sirens at the counter asked us what we needed. I decided to take control. No one was gonna mess with my weird homeless looking colleague if I could help it! (Even if I had just met him two minutes ago)  " I need a good cheap bottle of red, no Yellowtail or Coppola! Something earthy and real."  They gave us two $7 Cote du Rhones.  My mind was at ease. Francesco chatted up the ladies. He was charming.  They said they knew Rosario and ate there everyday.  He invited them to his going away party. They excepted. Now three of us were on our way to who knows what.

As we strolled back to Rosario's, Francesco explained that he sailed on a boat from Ancona to New York 35 yrs ago with Rosario. They were like brothers. There could be no other place to say farewell.  My hangups loosened. That old lesson clattered through my head: you got a good gut girl but stop making so many immediate false assumptions.  As we walked, he told me about his long career as a producer and director, dropping names like DePalma and Lumet.  And then the most fascinating word of the night was uttered: Pornologist.  In his long career - the seedy underbelly of life lured him in and he began to direct pornography. He met a woman named Candida Royalle. I had just begun to learn about this wave of feminist pornography when we rounded the corner and arrived at the beginning of our introduction. But I had gleaned that he had been a major director and producer for her feminine erotica.

When we got back to the restaurant, tables were set up. Francesco disappeared to the back where he helped himself to silverware and glasses. He returned and we began to drink. He had hoped that we could have our business talk before the party attendees arrived,  but as the minutes passed a carnival of sideshow lifers trotted through the door.  Each time Francesco's introduction of me became more graceful and intuitive. He demanded kindly that we be allowed to chat.  Francesco unearthed from me a lifetime of family history. He learned how my mother was a holocaust survivor from Bologna and how there was a famous film about her family called The Garden of the Finzi-Continis.   I told him my parent's love story and how their desire to leave their homes and forge their own history made me the wonderer I've painfully always been.  Rosario and Francesco kept speaking to me in Italian. Francesco's Italian was warm and smooth and slow and completely comprehensible.  Ages of non fluent frustration melted. We joked he could be my Zio.  And yet I felt it. I meant it.

Ironically, the first couple who entered the party were a nordica outlet wearing boating duo who lived up in Connecticut. The man, a friend who watched Francesco's boat on 79th street, and his new girlfriend post divorce: an innocuous math teacher and social worker whose face I would return to often in the evening as a mirror to the other side of the world.  They sat patiently chiming in and blending like troopers.  It became clear that what Franci wanted was a storyteller.  He shot 80 hours of footage of Genoa. He wanted to tell the story of his home town and the underworld that thrived beneath but as his shooting unravelled he became the center of this piece.  He wanted me to come to Genoa: paid, housed and fed to live there and help him edit this into a film.  He already had a big famous Italian editor but he felt I would be better. That guy showed up as well...

So we shelved our discussion of work and decided to enjoy the night and get to know each other. A motley cast of Felini-esque fringe dwellers rolled in.

When Vivian walked in, all I could see where her breasts. They consumed all of her 50 yr old body.  She had the wardrobe of an upper westside mom and was in fact late because she had to drop her daughter off at the airport to go back to Brown. She was an affable yet jittery lady who immediately dove into her time working for Penthouse Forum.  While Rosario and Francesco distracted me with talk of the history of Tortoloni (created in my mother's birth town), I eaves dropped on Vivian's genius discourse on the herstory of Porn and her film that she had produced: Freaks Uncensored!   Vivian described a world of dwarfsgiantstransgender peoplenudists, and circus freaks performing for parlor societies in the 20s to fullfil their hidden fetishes and the sideshows that became home to the mutant humans.  My mind wondered to images of Diane Arbus and her love for the unloved.  Vivian had been a major player on the talking circuit in the 90s for social reform for women and pornography.

The freak shows do not exist anymore. Modern science figured out how to cut apart limb connected twins. Reality television idealized dwarfism and non conformism is middle America's network television fodder while they eat their tv dinners. The new freaks are just humans: The Hilton sisters, Lindsey Lohan, Charlie Sheen. The freakiest thing in America is our collective loss of sanity and the need to show it out loud. 

I loved Vivian. She slurred her speech through her missing teeth and hinted at her own acting past. She drank water most of the night. Her film was written up in the times and played at Sundance. I guess we all want to learn more. 

A financier named Terry wearing Prada and Gucci pranced in. He was a post operative woman and the backer to Francesco's film. Her buddy Larry, a porn enthusiast with a mullet and a bald spot was her hanger on. Larry never leaves the LES.  Dario, the original editor sat next to me. He was handsome and had a sexuality that was so undetermined it aroused me and confused me all at once. Dario was writing a script about a single mom in the 20s in Italy who was promiscuous and therefore harangued by her town and eventually killed herself leaving an uptight teenage daughter to tell her tale. These were the stories I wanted to hear.  These were the people whose lives I wanted to know. My own book lingered in my head. So much of my book is about my sex, not just the act but the organ and the spiritual creature it inhabits. I felt so at home. No longer uncomfortable explaining its genesis.

Porn stars, photographers, transvestites, hopeful actors all streamed in. I was impervious to their marginalized status. I and the math teacher were the freaks. And as I glanced at gentle Debbie's face here and there I saw two things: a wonderment at it all and the hidden relief in her head that tonight she would go home to bed and return to a life filled with normalcy and structure in a microcosm where whenever the undercurrent of freakishness leered, it would be smoothed out like wrinkles on a silk table cloth by the unspoken moral authority that protected her little Connecticut town.  I could not share the latter thought.  My life would continue to be like a scifi movie wondering through one vortex deeper into the next getting further and further away from the cookie cutter life my parents had thought they had bred me to live.

I leave you with one last moment.  As we spoke of Arbus and "the Circus" Larry had begun an insightful historical speech about the history of this 42nd street haunt. He marveled how in the 50s it had been turned into a Time Square peep show. In the 70s it was a place where women stood behind glass walls with single holes cut in the glass and for a buck you could stick your hand in and touch them .  Larry's excitement about this place was uncontainable as he left us with one quote: "that damn Rudy shut it all down and it was so depressing. I just remember that if I hooked enough to make $20, well that just made my night- I coulda stayed there and touched those ladies forever!"  A unison retraction of chairs occurred at the table as even the misfits have morals.  Poor Debbie the math teacher had enough and they left. I tried to revive the moment by making fun of how Giuliani made Sensation the greatest show ever. What with his Catholic imperialism over the NY art scene, but it was unavoidable- somehow our philosophical connection over the perimeter of society and sex had now became once again a bedlam for nere-do-wellers and shame.  Where is the safe space?

Franci and I kissed double cheeks and parted with affection and a promise. This spring - I'm off to Genoa to tell the story of the pornologist and his love of his town and life...and sex... and women. It wasn't just about the party, or the freaks.  He was my country man. There was a strange familiarity to him and a wisdom that perhaps I had been hungry for. You never know where you are going to find your teacher or what you need to learn.  But in this dire search for full time work and structure in my life I found a ticket out of dodge in more ways than one. I might just take it.
Oh And Dario?  We have a date next week.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Art and I- a repost

I don't remember the exact moment art and I broke up. It was sometime in my mid twenties but I walked around Brooklyn wearing his ring for years. I had this funny notion that if I just kept having an idea- well eventually art would consume me and elate me and tickle me. But it died in me and I never saw him again. Every year my conception of our relationship was extrapolated and diminished down to a newer less high maintenance relationship from last year's failed attempt. I thought the entire time that art was just not giving me what I needed or that he was acting like he really did not want to be in the relationship but the whole time it was just me withholding. Then one day - it occured to me: Art and I were never going to be together. Art was not mine to own. Others had surprisingly amazing open relationships with Art- but not me. I was just too conservative for Art, too much of a perfectionist. I wanted Art to take me over- but it was me who was trying to take over Art. While others relished in Art's beautiful and freeing presence, I cowered...I buckled. I got scared. Art did not care anymore for me than any other beautiful brained person. Art was a hippy, a polyamorous cad with a pention for making people feel self important when they were able to espouse Art's voice. But not Danielle. I do not know Art any more. I know Story. He's a good guy. He can be interesting. He is just there to help me get by. I miss the wild and crazy days when I thought Art and I were an item. It was intoxicating but I lost interest. Now, I just need story- that is until I get strong enough to be in Art's good graces- Until I get comfortable enough to be with Art with everyone else.

Monday, November 5, 2012

Sandy and I- True Love.

I'm going to talk about the part of a crisis that we never talk about: The upside.  I know. I know. Too soon. But it's not.
"For all it's really horrible effects, I feel like the storm has made real a lot of issues in the election that were hypothetical, that were thrown around as debate topics—global warming; and Is Obama enough of a leader to handle a natural disaster?; and Do we need FEMA? It’s really interesting, and in a way useful, to see a lot of these things become actual issues that are right at hand." Adrian Tomine
It is a week today that we all hunkered down where we needed to be and awaited the Hurricane.  After a few days of unintended but heartfelt partying, laundry, working from home, bleaching shower curtains, going through Facebook and Twitter friends to pick who you want to see in your newsfeed (true story- heard from multiple friends), writing, and more drinking, WE -the unharmed middle Brooklynites-  found ourselves with nothing to do and frankly, a heart full of pity.  I would have felt guilty that I was rushing to a 9 hour shelter shift out of boredom but I remembered something I read that the Dalai Lama wrote:
Today's world requires us to realize and develop a sense of universal responsibility and caring. It is obvious that the challenges and issues faced by the global community today require us to cultivate not only the rational mind but also the other faculties of the human spirit; the power of love,compassion and solidarity. 
Sandy yanked my head out of my ass. 

The days before the storm hit I was lying under an anvil of self pity. Its true - I admit it fully. It was a gross misrepresentation of the good things in my life. But for some reason my mental filtration system only saw things in blue.  So when my roommate left to be with his girlfriend in Harlem and the rest of the building seemed to have left town...well... the wind started howling inside my apartment way before it did outside. 


On monday the winds grew and not knowing what to expect I felt I had to make a break for it before 6 or else I was going to be stuck inside alone for days.  Pre-storm- this is where I was at:


I have a bit of Liz Lemmon's fear of dying alone in my Brooklyn apartment.  I fear I will be found dead and solitary- limbs broken after falling off a ladder or passed out from smoke inhalation because I forgot to snuff out my "calm thoughts" jasmine lavender candle.  The nightmare gets grosser but I'll spare you.


My feelings of dissatisfaction had spread way past the limits of my apartment.  Things felt unreal. I've been looking at everything I possessed and have achieved and have found it all lacking in substance or value.  I hate to say it but I might be the poster child for  "white people issues" or "first world issues." 


Seriously:  around Sunday night I took a Yoga class with a great friend. She hugged me with vigor and headed off to be with her boyfriend and parents.  I then proceeded to act like I was independently wealthy and dined on duck steak and wine with a friend/sister from my neighborhood.   My friends have become my family- my lifeline. In some ways I am so grateful that I can always haunt the streets of Brooklyn and come across a close friend in every neighborhood.  But my desperate need for them disarms me.  Its hard to feel grateful for things that you feel you don't deserve... but need.  I had already been out of work for a week and was dwindling my squirrel share of nuts. I hadn't written in a month.  I hadn't made any headway in combatting some very debilitating health issue and I was feeling no better about the future.  My life has felt like a series of placating events.  In many ways I bobble just above the waters of depression and albeit that sounds so sad I feel as if I have become comfortably uncomfortable with my mal-disposition.  Depression will always be a part of me.  I am good at managing it- a skill that should be on my resume. My veneer is always shiny and functioning. Its only the inside that's rusting. 


So at 6pm I made a run for it. and left the 80 dollars of supplies and all the rest of my life locked up. I headed for my friend Jimmy's place a block away. There, Jimmy, myself and two other friends had what we could only describe as 'family night."  We ate, got high, drank, watched movies, played games.  At around 8pm we joked that Sandy was a sissy and walked outside to see the storm. Really, I had coaxed them to take a walk to my place to double check if I had left the stove on- remember my paranoia about dying alone?- the stove is a key character in that drama. After raiding my fridge and checking everything, we left and as we got to Jimmy's door, a giant tree snapped in half across the street. Shit was getting real. 


So we hunkered down and by 2am- it was over. Nothing had really happened in Prospect Heights.  If anything Sandy offered me a forced vacation and time to bond with others around me. I had reinforced my non-partner circle.  From the backyard of the building the storm felt mythical. It circled around the circumference of the yard but nare lifted a leaf in the circle of trust that was formed by the wind-block provided by the other buildings. 


Meanwhile, across the lower bay, my hometown Staten Island was suffering. Power went out. Giant 200 year old oaks were flying into people's houses. Coastal areas were submerged in water. My elderly parents huddled together in their room listening to these trees hit the house I was born in.  Their own power went out. My 72 yr old father went out the next AM to find the back of our house was wedded to an oak whose roots were 12 ft in diameter.  With little gas, he drove to the hospitals to help and then waited in line for a special doctor's depot of gas.  They were fine.  They lived - in a third world kinda way, for a week.  Others were worse off. No one had gas or power for days. The hospitals were  packed. People were mostly injured by flying debris but others were nearly drowned.  Other friends from the Island not only spoke of distress but they and all the other ex pats vocalized on Facebook et al their love for their forgotten boro and their desire to help.  I remained silent.  I volunteered in Park Slope. I rode my bike to Red Hook. I stayed true to "my boro."  While those that I loved the most suffered in a place I tried to forgot.  My insouciant  interest in Staten Island gave me an ill feeling in my stomach.  How dare I.  


Around me positive things were happening.  As Mr Tomine pointed out- issues that were at once intellectual and for debate were now real and perhaps would allow for the person I wanted in the white house to remain in his austere chair, hopefully with more vigor now that the fear of re-election could be omitted. Complacent  Gen Xers and Millennials were seeing the horizon above their boutique lattes.  Most people were discussing politics now with actual facts and knowledge.  Conversations were no longer misguided or irreverent to one side. People were helping each other out and certain points were becoming elucidated quickly:
Maybe we shouldn't be amazed at how people come together during disasters, but question how when "society" functions it keeps us apart.- Anonymous
Why can't we be this present and aware always? How do I lose my self involved filter?   Why did I hesitate to reach out to my Island.  I'll tell you why.  It was born out of a deep seeded embarrassment. A desire to somehow omit its incubation of me. A concern of sounding like a "Staten Island chick." It's bullshit.  I'm done with it.  I know. I know.  Other gains from Sandy? Writing.  I made major headway. And I need to - the window of opportunity for my book is small and lofty- that iron must be struck now.  But this is not the time to discuss personal projects.

So back to the Shelter: Demons were met. The shelter was not awful just intense  It was filled with mentally unstable senior citizens who were tired, un-showered and disoriented.  Remember my Liz Lemmon fears? Yeah those fears for fire crackling inside.  With every stinky octogenarian victim I hugged my demons roared.  I tried to stay busy. I coordinated the medical volunteers,  I flirted with the soldiers, I helped on the food service line. I mingled with all the Park Slope usuals: socially conscious lesbians, overly critical social working single women, metrosexual high maintenance men and Food CO-OPers. I love them all.  We are all a dime a dozen easily penned into a caricature and we all count.
Yet, It seemed everybody was not just helping out.  They too were seeing this storm through their own lens as well and using it to legitimize, optimize and explore their usual schticks.  Leaders were leaders, followers were followers, true do-gooders helped while the real workers who were forced to be there grumbled. Not all - mostly overworked nurses.  DMAT workers, MDs, soldiers, janitors, FEMA workers remained smiley and grateful.  They the far superior aiders deigned to thank us.  Residents were so grateful at the same time.  But the truth was not far from their consciousness- this storm had unearthed these victims from an already bleak existence. They had no family members, nor the were-withall and resource to take care of themselves.  There were so many who had no idea what happened to them.  There were so many singular poor souls walking around with wedding rings.  The thought of all their dearly departed made me weep.  How were they continuing on?  How do you survive a storm when your life was already ravaged of everything that makes it enjoyable??? I cry now just thinking about it.  My obscure and meaningless end seemed near to me.  I imagined myself in their place the whole night.  I needed to do more to distract myself. I needed to do more for others. Selfish intentions indeed but who cares?  Someone should benefit from my ongoing existential crisis and there is too much need in this city to live with one's self if you don't.

The truth is- I waste a lot time.  The biggest thing this storm gave me was the wake up call. Life can have more grace- I am sure of it.  I shouldn't need a storm to send me out to the shelters. I shouldn't need a storm to have family night. And I shouldn't need a storm to lift the tornado of mixed emotions I have about my adolescence in order to see the necessity of having pride and loyalty for your hometown and its brethren. But I did need her.  And I think others did as well.  I'm not naive enough to think the sunny skies signify its end.  Things are going to get more caustic as my city has to logistically figure out how to curatively fix and prepare things instead of palliatively making things run.   Others outside of the blue northeast coast will still vote, in my opinion for the wrong person- as my mayer put it:


When I step into the voting booth, I think about the world I want to leave my two daughters, and the values that are required to guide us there. The two parties’ nominees for president offer different visions of where they want to lead America.One believes a woman’s right to choose should be protected for future generations; one does not. That difference, given the likelihood of Supreme Court vacancies, weighs heavily on my decision.One recognizes marriage equality as consistent with America’s march of freedom; one does not. I want our president to be on the right side of history.One sees climate change as an urgent problem that threatens our planet; one does not. I want our president to place scientific evidence and risk management above electoral politics.Of course, neither candidate has specified what hard decisions he will make to get our economy back on track while also balancing the budget. But in the end, what matters most isn’t the shape of any particular proposal; it’s the work that must be done to bring members of Congress together to achieve bipartisan solutions.Presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan both found success while their parties were out of power in Congress -- and President Obama can, too. If he listens to people on both sides of the aisle, and builds the trust of moderates, he can fulfill the hope he inspired four years ago and lead our country toward a better future for my children and yours. And that’s why I will be voting for him. -Michael R Bloomberg
Not everything went well- the haves still almost superseded the have-nots as the marathon almost took generators and police people from the more needy. But eventually - good won out.  Good should win out. Forgiveness should win out. Care should win over blame and the good of the many should pull the singular away from its own ego- I hope so.

As the leaves get cleaned, the fallen trees burned, the houses mend and the displaced eventually find their way I think we will all hold on to this crisis induced righteousness. If not for anything else but for the fact that the storms are going to keep coming sooner and more regularly.  For me and maybe a lot of  others the storm viscously wiped away the fog of solipsism I was taking residency in.

Thanks Sandy,
xoxo DB





Monday, October 29, 2012

Holocene


The Holocene is a geological epoch which began at the end of the Pleistocene[1] (around 12,000 14C years ago) and continues to the present. The Holocene is part of the Quaternary period. Its name comes from the Greek words á½…λος (holos, whole or entire) and ÎºÎ±Î¹Î½ÏŒÏ‚ (kainos, new), meaning "entirely recent". It has been identified with the current warm period, known as MIS 1 and based on that past evidence, can be considered aninterglacial in the current ice age.
The Holocene also encompasses within it the growth and impacts of the human species world-wide, including all its written history and overall significant transition toward urban living in the present. Given these, a new term Anthropocene, is specifically proposed and used informally for the latest part of this epoch since approximately synchronous lithospheric evidence, or more recently atmospheric evidence, of human impacts have been found on the Earth and its ecosystems; these impacts may be considered of global significance for future evolution of living species.




"Someway, baby, it's part of me, apart from me"
You're laying waste to Halloween
You fucked it friend, it's on it's head, it struck the street
You're in Milwaukee, off your feet

And at once I knew I was not magnificent
Strayed above the highway aisle
(Jagged vacance, thick with ice)
And I could see for miles, miles, miles

3rd and Lake it burnt away, the hallway
Was where we learned to celebrate
Automatic bought the years you'd talk for me
That night you played me 'Lip Parade'
Not the needle, nor the thread, the lost decree
Saying nothing, that's enough for me

And at once I knew I was not magnificent
Hulled far from the highway aisle (Jagged vacance, thick with ice)
And I could see for miles, miles, miles

Christmas night, it clutched the light, the hallow bright
Above my brother, I and tangled spines
We smoked the screen to make it what it was to be
Now to know it in my memory

And at once I knew I was not magnificent
High above the highway aisle (Jagged vacance, thick with ice)
But I could see for miles, miles, miles

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Facebook

Is the modern version of wrist cutting. It's toxic. And I'm a total addict. It's a myriad of places to reveal to yourself painful bits of information that not only make you feel like crap but force you to revise history because you're getting a view you normally didn't need to see. Even worse its a tool of self perpetuation that makes people act like they are the stars in their one human show. Life can't possibly be lived unless it is legitimized and recorded on this creepy platform. I think I'm going to have to log off for a really long time. It's time to create my own inner Facebook where I'm my only audience. I'm feeling overwhelmed by others lives and mostly my own heartbreak. Yeah- ya coulda guessed that one huh?

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Not just one...

"But one," said the dimpled waiter at the overpriced health food restaurant I stepped into from the cold for lunch. I hadn't expected anyone to make rationalizations for me so early on in the day. After all, I presumed solo lunches were standard fair in New York City - as I was writing and attending to various other chores. If I hadn't wanted to eat alone in public, I would have ordered to go and slipped away into the solo misfit life that I just play on TV.  No,  instead I endured my scarlet S while chomping on mild miso soup with OCD cut vegetables and texturized wheat protein. The day's moments had fit too well into some construct that I, unassuming, fell into. I worked all morning for Loretta. Loretta is a steel hearted viper of a producer so impervious to others' opinions that she just spellchecked this sentence. Loretta gave up on love in the 80' and consequently or fortunately, depending on your own past, fell madly in sync with her partner Cybele. A first for Loretta both in gender and in demeanor. No more fights, no more consternation over whether to procreate, no more glass ceiling envy. Instead, quiet nights watching movies, cooking and looting over west elm catalogues where the only disagreement was over olive vs aubergine. Ahhh sweet banal bliss. Both ladies had accomplished without doubt more than anyone I knew. But admittedly and openly their vanilla romance left me chilly.  But this entry is to be continued

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

This is really inspiring to me.


Tig Notarro found out she had cancer and went on stage to give the most raw and honest performance of her life. This podcast is especially personal to me because recently I have begun to question the very trait that has defined me most of my life; I've often been described as raw and honest. The double edge sword of this trait is that it is something people are hungry for but never satisfied with after it's received.   This podcast is also near and dear to my heart because as I struggle with blood tests, MRIs, cancer scares, lesions, pain and chronic discomfort I wonder just what right I have to write about it. And how can this horror turn into something artistically and culturally relevant.  This disease has marginalized me in such a way that I have gone down dark paths. How macabre of me to try and find the humour in this- or perhaps simply just the humanity. I think Tig is really brave for what she did - and inspiring for me. Thank you Tig!

Listen here to Tig and enjoy! =)

Thursday, October 4, 2012

This is exactly the kind of content I want to make right now!






Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Atonement in Judaism is the process of causing a transgression to be forgiven or pardoned.  But why should I cause a transgression? 

Its Yom Kippor and I am totally an Atheist Jew. I'd link to think this Ted Talk really exclaims how I feel- wonderment at what we don't know and the wisdom to stay away from labeling it and defining it. 




ciao
me

I don't know what I knew before But now I know I wanna win the war

It's been such a long time since I've finished making something. Funny enough I feel as if I have doula'd so many other people's writing, whether it be through my screenwriting classes that I teach or coaching my friend on her blog to help promote her product. I successfully branded her and have helped many others in the same way. What does it mean when your identity revolves around helping others? Its the beta male of identities isn't it? Think about it: Producers vs Directors, Teachers vs artists, Doula's vs the Birther. In every scenario its the person who's DOING who comes out the rock star and its the helper who gets the phone calls, thanks and misty gratification. And that's no one's fault but our own. Don't get me wrong- there are innumerable levels of helper statii that garner serious respect: Nurses, social workers, campaign advisors, political speech writers, ghost writers, well heck- screenwriters...they never get any respect. But how do we optimize the aspect of personality that everyone loves about us to help ourselves. The other day I received a txt basically asking me to travel to my home town and spend the night to chat with a friend to help her organize her thoughts because her husband, mother, therapist and coworkers could not. WHY? Because I was willing to go to the distance. Because on some level i pride myself on my ability to be courageous with other other people's emotions, secrets and problems. I'm not afraid of ugly. I am afraid of mediocrity. And now of obsolescence. Soldier on kids.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Bears, wombs and watering holes

I must have slept for twelve hours in the spare room of Erman and Chris's. Their tattoo'd nuptial bliss echoed through the walls as I awoke to the sound of the baby cooing downstairs while lawnmowers whirred in the distance. The bookshelves here are lined with pushy gurus like Osha and Thoreau
demanding of me that I not snarkily palter love and nature. Love and Nature.  That's why they moved. Isn't that the natural stream of events that should happen in a human's life? They met, they fell in love, they broke a condom, they went to city hall, they threw a party and moved to the country. Anything else seems abnormal.

I moved 96 frames per second - conscious of everything and yet aware of nothing but the rattle in my own brain.  Maybe if I moved slow enough the deus ex machina would occur and the plot of my life finally would be resolved.

My feet felt strange as they palmed the unvarnished repurposed wood that constitutes their floors. I creaked down the stairs and suddenly began to feel like one large unfertilized egg in the coop. The one thats going to be cracked up and thrown away. Every step I made felt like a noisy invasion into little baby Jonas's kingdom.  And so in even slower motion I ambled to the coffee maker. I relished every tiny cottony moment. My sense of smell heightened and comforted me as if I was now appropriately armed in the wilderness that is someone else's life. My skin prickled when the air touched it.  Morning TV of the housewife variety resounded through the living room; and scratched my soul. My nerves started to burn.  I looked at the dog and made a run for the yard.

Oh me. I had these visions of what I would accomplish up here for the week. I would meditate and practice yoga EVERYDAY! I would lose five lbs from all the hiking and country produce. I would write 50 pages: 13.5 a day averaged out of some formula I had constructed.  I would come home feeling- not only refreshed but cleansed of guilt. But sloth and pleasure took over.   As soon as I arrived here we had a feast in a little red caboose. Deanna, a sultry whirling dervish of a Chef was experimenting opening up her own restaurant and so we gorged on stuffed pork rollatini in blueberry sauce and stuffed homemade manicotti. There were meatballs, bruschetta, crostini and wine- lots and lots of it. The next morning I dragged my poor post pregnancy friend on a hike- we made it one half up the hill before my conscience led us back down.  There would be no detox or writing retreat. I would have to let go and just breath in the smells of the trees and sigh in the silent night.  The night air that was filled with bears.  At night I would move quickly and overly alert as I am scared shitless of bears and am sure my finality will be at the hand of a vicious mauling.   At one point I ran into the house after hearing a twig snap and banged into a small ripped copy of Macbeth.


Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,



And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.



That morning we set out to the creek and found a large watering hole where one's courage could be tested upon at various levels depending on what cliff you decided to gorge jump. I kept wondering where all my moxie had gone?

At one time I had been typecast as the dangerous child. This by a doctor and a survivor.  Fear of death was the inception of my mother and the shake to my father's office shingle.  

Poor Hamlet - I hated him and yet I understood him.  It would be so much easier to let others lead you in your journey under the false hope of love.  I got his problem. Somewhere in his development he to went from a fearless child to the man standing at the edge of cliff too scared to jump in and too afraid of what the others might think if he stayed still.  Death is still.  I wanted to jump.  My heart raced a million miles an hour.  Hadn't I dived off giant cliffs in Ithaca?  My body round and bloated with self loathing and yet my desire to live fully reached further.  But now its different.  I no longer believed the odds were in my favor.

The rednecks piled high onto the far side of the watering hole.  Chris laid the baby on a blanket and asked me to watch as she jumped happily into the mountain drink.  Mike, a portly painter from Michigan, at first, tried to kindly coax me off the edge.  He proposed various logical exits swearing the underside of the cliff's edge couldn't physically come near my head and the water was way too deep to hurt my self.  When his safety surveillance of the scene didn't work he jumped off several times to prove his case. But he was 6.2 and about 280 lbs.  His plunge echoed through the canals and became endless foder for the hicks to praise and laugh at.  They were sunburned. They guzzled their 20 ounce bud cans in one long swig and then took running jumps off of the bridge across the hole. As they climbed passed me they would coax me. "come on- you'll hate your self if you don't." My self loathing kicked into high speed mode.  My knees shook. This cliff jump was every thing I had never done in my life; it was the script I never wrote for my graduate festival, the trip I never took to Thailand! It was every lover, friend, job and opportunity that I never rose to the occasion for or simply didn't try hard enough.  ENOUGH.  I'm almost 37, I thought, NOW GO AND JUMP OFF A CLIFF.  Mike said he was going to try a dive. I asked him sweetly to please to another gorge jump for me.  He said he would only forestal his olympic diving practice if I agreed to jump once. I shook on it.  Immediately I began to back off from my promise. I said I couldn't do it. Chris and Mike shook their wet mountain dirty heads disapprovingly   JUMP! Who am now, if I can't stand by my word.   Every local standing around the perimeter began to chant: " DO IT, DO IT.DO IT, DO IT, DO IT, DO IT, DO IT.

I closed my eyes. I jumped.  Nothing happened. I was alive.  The Budweiser guys cheered.  It wasn't even that far.  I jumped three more times and then packed up and marched behind Chris who stealthily mined the slippery rocks, with a baby strapped to her body and mind to do so much more.

We drank around the fire that night as we talked about local native American history and how to hold a shotgun if you in harm's way.  Turns out- you just shoot straight from the hip.

Thursday, August 23, 2012

BLOCKED

This morning I spent the day glossing over OPWS- other people's websites. This feels, to me,  more personal than looking at their significant others. At first it started out as a sadistic tool of torture as I perused the very well formed and successful sites of ex loves and friends whom I unconsciously compete with. But then, thankfully, my brain switched over to learning mode and I became way more interested in how people are able to successfully brand themselves.

I have a speech that I give to my students- it's very Debbie Allen at the beginning of FAME. Here it goes and forgive me for quoting myself, but I have this speech down to a science:

"what is it that you think makes a film maker successful? You and I are a dime a dozen. Everyone and their mother wants to be a famous artist in some form or another. Especially in NYC!!!!  And among these legions of starved artists,  hungry for their artistic endeavors to be legitimized, there are plenty of talented, intelligent, schmooze-savvy and ambitious film makers. And yet- even THEY don't make it. Who makes it? What leaches out the lucky from the unlucky?  Is it just luck? It's the person who has all of the latter and one more thing: their own unique, consistant and attainable voice. "

  I thought about this for a while before I started to say this to them.  It would be dishonest of me to spew out my own Darwinian philosophy of success without bravely facing my own feelings of failure.  Which is why I added the word "attainable" at the end. Frankly the whole speech stinks of Freudian psychology.  Words like legitimate and hungry pepper my pep talk with flavors of my own lofty past.  Hunger is something I have pondered often.  Physically as I battled with weight and existentially in the financial and romantic droughts of my life.  Legitimate is an even more intriguing word:

Main Entry:
legitimate [adj., n. li-jit-uh-mit; v.li-jit-uh-meyt]  Show IPA
Part of Speech:adjective
Definition:authentic, valid, legal
Synonyms:acceptedaccredited, acknowledgedadmissible,appropriateauthorized, canonical, certain,cogentconsistentcorrectcustomaryfair,genuineinnocentjustjustifiable, lawful, licit,logicalnaturalnormalofficialon the level, onthe up and up, orthodoxprobableproperreal,reasonablereceivedrecognizedregular,reliablerightful, sanctioned, sensiblesound,statutory, suretruetypicalusualverifiable,warrantedwell-founded
Antonyms:illegalillegitimateinvalidunlawful,unwarranted




My father uses this word very differently than most and I think it indicates a lot about his personality. He may have many flaws but he is the one person I know for sure does not have a mean or selfish bone in his body. My dad is painstakingly a giver and a morally upright person. He doesn't judge others to much and he tries his hardest to help those in need.  So when I tell him a story of someone doing something kind or helpful his response is often "they're legitimate people."  Which is to say that outright kindness and extra help is not extraordinary but actually what is only admissible.  The defines his moral code and my love for the expression defines my admiration for him.

Therefore I suppose my feelings are that not succeeding is not admissible. One is not legitimate unless they get what they say they are going to get....And one can not get what they say they are going to get if their voices are unattainable.  This is the didactic spiral that consumes my brain.

 
To be a teacher, presumes the notion that you have done all the things that you are teaching. I have not.  And as the time passes as my temporary rent payer becomes a full time mistake- I am forced to meet face to face my true misgivings of my past in order to move forward.  It is not shocking then that  I am unbelievably blocked right now on the book. As I start to write the chapter on love and aspirations I am tongue tied. I sit for hours at my desk wondering what it is I have to say- it seemed like I was frothing at the mouth just a little while ago and now? I am so incredibly stopped up. Not shocking, my disease that I am partially writing about is also is at an all time flair up. Is it that I am sick of thinking about myself? (pun intended)   Chronic physical pain can isolate you in a way that is incomparable to any other disenfranchisement I have ever experienced.  I have been 100 lbs overweight in the past.  I had cystic acne and unruly facial hair in college due to an ovary condition.  I've been the only person in the room without a film or a real career. The only single person.  The only Jew. The only white person. The only democrat. You name it, i've been the only person standing in the room feeling the way I do. I've been the monster in the room. But being sick is different. Having a vague, hard to describe disease that effects hard to talk about places and creates a surplus of hopelessness and despair is more of an emotional quarantine.  And writing is an even more isolating event.  But not writing is inadmissible.

Still, what is so unique about pain? Even if I weren't sick of stewing in my own thoughts. What is so unique about charting the timeline of your life for places were you were traumatized? Perhaps I am missing the point. Perhaps its not the content but the wording. And words are sacred to me. I'm letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. I know it.

But I started this entry about branding. Why? Because branding flipped over on its side is individuality and individuality laid down on her side is self awareness.   And there it hit me.  Loneliness is not alone. Being alone with yourself, sitting with your self and looking deep within in the dark cold murky places nobody can see is a skill that takes years of practice.  I have not been sitting with my self. I've been running from myself my whole life.

There is an expression. The teacher teaches what she needs to hear.  Perhaps I need more talent, intelligence, ambition,  and schmooze-savvy. But what I really need in my own writing is a singular voice that jumps out of the page at me, kisses me on the cheek and says "hello Danielle, here I am babe. Lets do this together. "

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

30 something.

I just had a moment where I could not remember how to spell soul
I kept writing "soal" and I looked at it and I knew it was wrong but I could not retrieve the right word out of my head. Thankfully I did not have to look it up- it came to me! This inability to retrieve that which I KNOW happens often and on so many levels. I sometimes find it hard to express empathy and kindness to family members even when I have a surplus of it for my friends. I can't even muster an iota of encouragement for myself but I can tough the shit out of you till you finally do what you need to do just to shut me up. I find it hard to retrieve good writing although I know what good writing is. I find it hard to pull from myself that which is the core of who I am. This is what I pondered today on my favorite day.

Sunday is my favorite day. It is a loathed one for many. Perhaps its because I have spent more time in my life not working than working. But I do remember when I worked that cursed 10-6 5 days a week where my very soul ( here is where I could not remember how to spell) Even so- I loved Sunday. I love endings. I love goodbye parties. I love endings because they often mean beginnings. I love endings because I am so ready for the moment to be better than the last. The only ending I do not like is the sun setting. I'm hard wired for depression and when night falls I crave the precious good mood neurotransmitters that the sun enables. Sundays are the quintessential ending. Its when the week ends- although really - its the beginning of the week according to harvests. Its the quiet day- the me day. 

Chasm


By Danielle Liza Beeber


Lost sense of incoming substance
While bees buzz nightly at the hub of my old existence
I check the battlements and doors
My watch is ticking and there is no time to be anywhere
I am lost
Where is my check?
Where is my ploy?
Where is that new?

Written for Poetry Magazine 2011