unreasonable.org

With my workshop at the Well this Friday, May 16, I'll be launching a new venture: Warrior Poet Consulting. Under that brand I plan to provide workshops and other training and coaching to help people develop their creativity and cultivate personal excellence.

We'll see how it goes. Still trying to figure out step 2 of the business plan:

1. Relentless self-promotion.
2. ?
3. Profit!

Our good friend Brian Jefferson posted something on his MySpace Blog that meshed with some recent thoughts of mine. This is a slightly edited version of what I posted there in response, a few typos fixed.

I've been thinking about this a little bit, since the Obama speech a few weeks ago.

George Carlin said, about the end of slavery, "So we freed the slaves. But not so you'd really notice, just sort of on paper." A lot of people say that the end of slavery was a long time ago and we ought to put it behind us, but the problem was that it didn't just end. It changed into Jim Crow.

And that stayed with us long enough that it was only in 1967 that the Loving case overturned miscegenation laws - and they were still on the books in Alabama until 2000. And 40% of people voted to keep them!

In a speech to a meeting of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, Hillary Clinton compared herself to Rocky Balboa, the hero of the Rocky movies. "Let me tell you something, when it comes to finishing a fight, Rocky and I have a lot in common. I never quit. I never give up. And neither do the American people," said Clinton.

She seems to have forgotten that at the end of Rocky, Balboa lost the fight. (To the black guy, no less.)

Now, if Clinton needed to prove something to herself, the way Rocky Balboa did, that'd be fine - but it would be pretty sad if a U.S. Senator had such self-doubt, felt a need to prove herself by stepping into the ring with the champ. It would pretty much prove the point that she got where she is by riding Bill's coattails rather than on her own merits.

(BTW, as silly as some of the sequels got, the original Rocky is a damn fine movie.)

Today's Zelda's Inferno exercise was based "Twenty Little Poetry Projects" from our usual text, "The Practice of Poetry". Everyone put in a couple "projects", and we pulled them out of a pile randomly:

1. (something you did but could never do again) could never climb to the top of that tree again, the branches would never hold my weight like they did when I was eight.

2. (about, or in the voice of, an animal) the dog looked to the door like a desperate man looks to the icon of his god, like it was his savior, like its opening was the second coming of christ, the divine clear light

3. (compare someone to a summer's day) her presence was like a summer's day - a hot, skin-scorching drought-ridden day that sucked the moisture of life from you and left you a dessicated burnt husk

4. seeing out the window of my cubicle a double rainbow in the evening sky, running out of the office to stand in the parking lot to see it better - never lose that.

5. (how did Karla's hair get messy?) dating the era by hair products - Vaseline, Vitalis, gel, mousse

6 (something you wish you could do over) and if I had it to do over again, i would have gone to bed with her, oh yes, I would have taken her up on it

7. (remember the kitchen you grew up in) the avocado green refrigerator, the flowered wallpaper, the red hanging lamp over the small table where my mom would make sandwiches for us

8. (paint a picture from previous line; or, write a line with no nouns) thinking painting tasting illuminating red green flowering remembering mothering loving

9. (every word starts w/ same letter) running reflecting rainbows reward reserving respect rejecting redacted reality

10. (quote the owners manual for your soul) congratulations on your purchase of a human soul! we hope your soul will bring you years of use and enjoyment. please familiairize yourself with this manual before unpacking and installing your soul.

On the train up to New York - Kyoshi and Sensei Sandy taking their promotions tonight, I plan to be there in the morning, offer congratulations, help out with the kumite portion for lower dan tests.

Today was a balanced day - taught karate in the morning, shiatsu in the afternoon. Here's how to kill people; here's how to heal people.

Went to the open mic at Cacao Lane Wednesday, played a few songs - longest I've played since I crushed my finger, and didn't have any pain. Hooray!

Interesting episode afterwards:

the Buddha said, "do not drink alcohol"
I've never quite agreed with the Buddha on that one

and he's not
here, now
sitting at this bar
next to a young man who wants to buy us all shots
to toast the memory of his dead girlfriend

if I were the Buddha
maybe I could say something amazing about the
illusory nature of birth and death
that would help ease his pain

but I am not the Buddha

From Naha, Okinawa, Japan, comes an AP story about a dog at a Zen Buddhist temple who "prays", imitating his Zen master master. Kawaii desu yo!

Arthur C. Clarke was the author of such science fiction classics as 2001: A Space Odyssey and Childhood's End, and was the first to proposed the idea of placing communications satellites in geosynchronous orbits (where they always appear in the same point in the sky). He passed away today at the age of 90. An amazing man, he will be missed.

In his honor I think I'm going to re-read my copy of The Lion of Comarre & Against the Fall of Night. (I like the original Against the Fall of Night a bit more than the expanded and revised The City and the Stars, but both are good. Beyond the Fall of Night, however, is a great disappointment, contradicting the original not just in theme but in plot, and Gregory Benford should be ashamed of the hack job he did on his half.)

St Paddy's Day - or Irish Pride day, as I prefer to think of it... down to Leadbetters for a few in honor.

For a while I've had just a line or two from a potential song about me sainted Irish grandmother in the back of my head...

This is a song about Marion
A girl I never knew
An Irish lass from Baltimore town
With a heart so sweet and true

Now Marion could play the blues
In a dark and smoky bar
Or she could sing a hymn so sweet
T'would make your soul see stars

This is song about Marion
A girl I never knew
An Irish lass from Baltimore town
With a heart so sweet and true

From the "things I didn't know existed" file: Pink Pistols, whose motto is, "Armed Gays Don't Get Bashed". Outstanding.

They've submitted a brief in the Surpreme Court case of the D.C. gun ban, which states in part:

Laws that prevent the use of firearms for self-defense in one's own home disproportionately impact those individuals who are targets of hate violence due to their minority status, whether defined by race, religion, sexual orientation, or other characteristic. Even in their homes, LGBT individuals are at risk of murder, aggravated assault and other forms of hate violence because of their sexual orientation. In fact, the home is the most common site of anti-gay violence. Thus, for certain [lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered] individuals, the possession of firearms in the home is essential for a sense of personal security -- a fact generally lost in the majoritarian debate about restricting individual's access to, and use of, firearms. . . . [N]ot only do members of the LGBT community have a heightened need to possess firearms for self-protection in their homes, the Second Amendment clearly guarantees this most basic right. . . .